Infernal Images: Skooma . . . BUT I NEED IT!

Youtube and I: Reverse Rickroll

Fuck you, Paltir! I still think it's funny.

Burnout 3: Takedown Review

Platform: PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 (Review based on PS2 version)

There are racing games like Gran Turismo and there are demolition derbies like Twisted Metal. What happens when you combine those two? You get Burnout. This game is all about speed and what you use that speed to annihilate. Hell, it’s even more about speed than Need for Speed, which is actually somewhat slow. Regardless, perhaps I should get onto the plot. Oh, wait. There is no plot. This is a fucking racing game. Here’s your plot: vroom vroom, start your bloody engine. It may seem like I’m ragging on Burnout for this, but I’m not. There are fewer things I hate more in games than an inappropriately-placed story. I’ve never cared for all the “racing for street cred” or “racing to pay off your mafia debt” plotlines that seem to be all the rage lately, and I doubt I ever will. Luckily, you don’t have to deal with any of that in this game.

Burnout 3’s gameplay comes down to two important modes: racing and crashing. The racing mode, for the most part, also involves crashing. I know what you’re thinking. “Wow, that’s a lot of smashing. I guess racing must not be that important”. In most cases, you’d be right. A lot of the stage goals revolve around demolishing a certain number of opponents or avoiding being smashed, but one particular mode actually requires you to pass the finish line first. This is where Burnout’s worst flaws appear. I find it quite ironic that a racing game’s worst characteristic is its racing. The tracks appear to be designed for maximizing the carnage that occurs during races, but they aren’t exactly conducive to the racing itself.

Before I go on, I should mention that Burnout places a lot of emphasis on boosting. You have a boost gauge that charges whenever you drive towards oncoming traffic, drift, or do anything else that would normally get you hunted-down, dragged out of your car, and tased by the cops. Unfortunately, whenever you boost, the edges of your screen become rather blurry and fuck up your line of sight. In the crash modes, this isn’t much of a problem. However, when your goal is to cross the god damn finish line, you’re in for a world of hurt. “Alright, so just win the old fashioned way, right?” Wrong. You may start spazzing out when the action gets hard to see, but the computer won’t. Either you’ll get left behind to enjoy the scenery, the rubber band AI will finish you off, or a tiny pixel of your car will clip a passing bus and send you flying for an eternity in slow motion while your opponents fly by.

Alright, so fuck the racing, how about the crash mode? Now this is where the fun is. The basic idea here is to get your car to top speed before flying into the middle of a crowded intersection and creating pandemonium. Things get even better once your car explodes. If this concept stopped here and remained a test of chaining as many crashes together as possible, it would have been perfect. However, they throw in all sorts of multipliers that could easily make up for neglecting the carnage at hand. In fact, some stages can’t be cleared without the help of these bonuses. This defeats the purpose of the damn mode! The goal should be annihilation, not collecting trinkets. This is all still fun, mind you, but what the hell?

Burnout 3 is certainly worth a shot, but it lacks a strong foundation. A racing game that’s inept at racing can only accomplish so much. It definitely has style considering its dynamic soundtrack and slow-mo crashes, but the numerous holes found in its substance detract heavily from the experience.

Rating: 3/5

Malachi: Dark Knight Review

I have seen a lot of movies this year. Dark Knight is the best one yet. It is as dark as Batman should be, it tells a great, full story. Returning actors Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman bring a comfortable feel for those who have seen the first movie. While new members to the cast Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart bring something to the movie that completes it and makes it whole. Sadly Katie Holmes did not sign on for a second movie (probably because she is to busy worshiping Xenu)and was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who did not do as good of a job as I would have hoped.

The story is good, it tells a batman story the way the mid-late batman comics were. Dark, sad, and much more political. The movie is in no way an action movie. Yes there is some action but that is not the focus, the story and character development is the main focus. It takes place around the time when Batman is deciding what kind of hero he wants to be.

Now let me get to the point. Heath Ledger. He is amazing. The best joker there has been, or ever will be. It is literally worth seeing this movie just to watch such an amazing performance. He captures the heart and insanity of the joker perfectly, kicks Jack Nicholson's ass, and makes you even sympathize with the villain, even though he has nothing to sympathize about.

I have not written a review in a while so this one is not very good. But i would like to suggest that you all see this movie. If not for your love of Batman, bit at least to see some of the greatest acting done in a long time. 6/5 for Heath Ledger. 4/5 for Dark Knight.

Also check out my podcast.


MALACHI OUT!

MTRL: Real life

A bit of 'learn from real life situations here', this time for the ladies.

So I've called/text this girl I've been seeing about 3 times today. She was supposed to be out at seven, and she ain't got back to me. I know talking too much can be annoying, but I ask things like how was work and call me so we can talk. I'm not being paranoid here, asking where she is every ten minutes. She's out with her friends on a 'girls night' so I'm told, and I haven't sent her a message in a while.

Lesson to be learned from all this. Please get back to us. We don't want to turn into the crazy control freak, but we do when you disappear, especially when we have important things to talk about. Give us a hi now and again, we appreciate it.

Paltir: Fuck you 1800flowers!

Ok, I know it's a bit different from my normal postings, but I have a bone to pick, and wish to share with you all the fucking hell I'm about to go through, all for under 100 bucks.

So back in may, I was thinking of mothers day, like most of us. I wanted to order flowers, since I couldn't make it home for the day, cause I was too far away, and had work. Seen commercials for 1800Flowers, seemed like a decent site. Now flowers were a bit expensive, but with mothers day and shit, I figured it's ok, flowers are always overpriced. Specific arrangement and such ain't important, came to about 60 bucks with shipping. Due to a misunderstanding with someone putting my name on a gift, I got a thank you, and didn't realize the flowers never came, so now I'm working on that. That's not all.

Just this morning I check my account, like I do almost daily, and notice It's over drawn. Odd, cause I ain't bought anything for at least 4 days. I check, and there's a 11.99 charge from TRG*Livwel, and I only had ten bucks. That's weird, since I've never heard of them, or seen anything like that before. I check, and noticed I received a charge from them last month. Mind you this was during the time when I was moving, so I had way to many purchases to notice some 12 dollar charge. Do some digging, and come to find out, I'm in the same position as a lot of people! Apparently 1800Flowers likes to sign people up with this Live well company that offerers discounts and rewards to their members, without letting people know! I check for an email, of course I got one, the only issue is that it looks like every other spam email I get so I must have disregarded it. I ring them up, get put on hold for a while, and I decide to fuck that! I'm not waiting on hold with some shitty company that stole my money! I get pissed, and fire off some emails asking for my god damn money back, and to cancel my membership.

Now I call up my bank and explain this shit to them. For 20 minutes we work on this. End up canceling my debit card, and now I don't have one for the next... 5-7 days, and won't have a pin for a few more after that. Now I have to fill out a fraud package, get it fucking notarized, and then fax it back to them. Means I gotta find a printer, find a notary, and finally find a way to fax it back. So then I have to call the police, since the bank requires me to report it. Call up, and they take my info, and now I'm waiting for some rookie (I would make the rookie do this crap), to call me back so I can spend another twenty minutes working on a police/fraud report.

I will update in a few days when I get it all worked out. Needless to say, fuck this shit. I'm so reporting 1800Flowers to the Department of commerce of whatever for being giant douche bags and doing this shit. I'd like to hear your stories of this kinda crap in the comments. Fuck shady internet businesses like that!

Youtube and I: What the hell, UBS?

Whoa, whoa, whoa! You and Us = UBS? That's the laziest acronym I've ever seen. Hell, these guys aren't even trying to fool you by taking multiple letters from the same word.

MTRL: Advice

Ok, short and possibly well known advice. Second law of sexual dynamics, as told by Jeff Jacques through Martin Reed, "If you think a girl likes you, you are wrong."

Taking this into account you have two options. To always play it safe and wait in blueball hell, waiting for a girl to give you a very clear clue. Or, which is the option I'm advising you to take, you be a man. Never trust what you see and ignore all signals. Always try and get her number, regardless if she is in a coffee shop, a bar, or even the grocery store. Till you get a 'no', you haven't lost mate. Also, the rejection get's easier, and I guarantee you will get more numbers than you'd think this way.

MTRL: Stories

So how goes it sportsfans? Doin pretty good with this thing don't ya think? Not that anyone reads it..... Anyway, that's not the point.

So I cannot begin to count how many times plans got canceled with this girl for whatever reasons. It's like, annoying as hell. I'm really starting to question this whole 'relationship' and if it's worth it. Now, I understand, and have even told my roommate there's such a thing as spending too much time together. But I've seen her for about ohhhhh, half hour in over a week. That counts as waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy, to little time. Now the reason I'm questioning this is because of the advice I'm going to give you.

You must be sure you can spend time together in a relationship. Sure it'll happen when you can't, but you need to see each other every few days at the least or it won't work. I've seen long distance bullshit too much, and It has never worked well. They may have stayed together, but it was full of arguments and paranoia. A happy relationships REQUIRES you to see and be with the person, otherwise what is the point, you might as well be friends right?

Review Index

-Expect frequent updates.
-If you would like to dispute an existing review or request a review on any game, feel free to do so here.

Articles like "the", "an", and "and" are ignored for the purposes of alphabetizing.

Reviewed:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burnout 3: Takedown (3)
Crackdown (3)
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (4)
La Pucelle: Tactics (2)
Phantom Brave (1)
Shenmue II (2)
Super Robot Wars: Original Generation (1)
Too Human (2)
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht (1)


Completed and Rated: (Ratings are not final. Games with a "5?" are definite 4's that are candidates for a perfect score. And yes, Superman 64's rating isn't a typo. More on that later.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advance Wars (4)
Age of Empires 3 (1)
Animal Crossing (3)
Ape Escape: On the Loose (1)
Ape Escape: Pumped and Primed (1)
AquaAqua (2)
Arcana Heart (1)
Armored Core 2: Another Age (1)
Armored Core 3 (1)
Armored Core: Last Raven (1)
Assassin's Creed (3)
Beautiful Katamari (1)
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (3)
Bomberman Generation (2)
Bouncer, The (1)
Call of Duty 2 (3)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (4)
Chaos Legion (1)
Crazy Taxi (1)
Custom Robo (2)
Dark Cloud (3)
Dark Cloud 2 (3)
Destroy All Humans! (2)
Digimon Digital Card Battle (1) <--- Don't ask.
Digimon Rumble Arena (1)
Digimon World 3 (1)
Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (3)
.hack// Infection (1)
.hack// Mutation (1)
.hack// Outbreak (1)
.hack// Quarantine (1)
Dynasty Tactics 2 (1)
Dynasty Warriors (PSP) (1)
Dynasty Warriors 3 (2)
Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends (1)
Dynasty Warriors 4 (1)
Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires (1)
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (1)
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (3)
Evolution Worlds (1)
EyeToy: AntiGrav (1) <--- Once again, don't ask.
Fable (3)
Final Fantasy X (2)
Final Fantasy X-2 (2)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (2)
Fire Emblem (4)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (2)
Gauntlet Dark Legacy (1)
Genji: Days of the Blade (1)
Grandia II (2)
Guilty Gear Isuka (1)
Halo: Combat Evolved (3)
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee (2)
Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask (1)
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (4)
Jak 2 (3)
Jak 3 (3)
Kameo: Elements of Power (1)
Katamari Damacy (3)
Kingdom Hearts (3)
Kingdom Hearts II (3)
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures,The (3)
Legend of Zelds: Ocarina of Time, The (5?)
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The (3)
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, The (3)
Lost Kingdoms (2)
Makai Kingdom (2)
Mall Tycoon (1)
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (3)
Mario Party 4 (2)
Mass Effect (5?)
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (1)
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon (1)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo (1)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front (1)
Monsters, INC. (1) <--- Long story.
N3: Ninety-Nine Nights (1)
Need for Speed: Underground Rivals (1)
One Piece: Grand Battle (1)
Peter Jackson's King Kong (2)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3)
Pikmin (4)
Ratchet and Clank (4)
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (3)
Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (5?)
Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (2)
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (3)
Ratchet: Deadlocked (2)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (2)
Robotech: Invasion (1)
Romancing SaGa (1)
RPG Maker II (1) <--- I can dream, can't I?
Samurai Legend Musashi (1)
Samurai Warriors (2)
Shaman King: Power of Spirit (1) <--- That's not a typo. Apparently, there's only one spirit in the universe.
Shining Tears (1)
Silent Line: Armored Core (2)
Sims, The (PS2) (1) <--- What was I thinking?
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (2)
Sonic Heroes (1)
Soul Calibur 3 (2)
Soul Nomad & The World Eaters (3)
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (3) <--- Seriously.
Starcraft (3)
Starcraft: Brood War (3)
Star Fox: Assault (1)
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (4)
Star Wars: Battlefront (3)
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (1)
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2)
Star Wars: Empire at War (2)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (3)
Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing (1) <-- It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity (1)
Summoner (1)
Summoner 2 (1)
Super Bust-A-Move 2 (1)
Superman 64 (0?)
Super Mario Sunshine (3)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (5?)
Tales of Legendia (1)
Tales of Symphonia (5?)
Tarzan (1)
Tekken Tag Tournament (1)
Tsugunai: Atonement (1)
Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure (1) <--- Ask, and i'll kill myself.
Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (1)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (3)
Warriors Orochi (1)
We Love Katamari (3)
World Destruction League: Thunder Tanks (1)
Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (1)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Duelists of the Roses (1) <--- Once upon a time, I was a total idiot . . .
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Falsebound Kingdom (2)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forbidden Memories (1) <--- The only thing that should be forbidden is this game.
Zoids: Battle Legends (2)



Incomplete:
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Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Beyond Good & Evil
Bomberman Jetters
Boom Blox
Dynasty Warriors 6
Elder Scrolls IV: Shimmering Isles
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Grandia 3
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest, The
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Pokemon Colosseum
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Secret Agent Clank
Super Mario Strikers
Viking: Battle for Asgard

Youtube and I: Some Stop-Motion Videos

This guy does a lot of stuff with Gundam models and various action figures. It's really neat.

MTRL: Pandemic 2

Pandemic 2 is an awesome game, and fucking addictive. Go Google it and play it, like right after you finish reading my post. Now a word of advice though. Do not, unless she is a sadistic twisted bitch, play it in front of her, or brag to her how fast you killed the worlds population. That is if you want to keep your female, or ya know, have sex anytime in the near future.

OS Edit: Paltir means this Pandemic 2. If you Google it, the first item that comes up is the shitty, watered-down version.

MTRL: Advice

OS dear, you are killing me. I type something new and original every day and you can't even put up a photo everyday. I'm even restricting myself to dating.

On to me. New format... kinda. I'm thinking since it'll get old by Volume 4, and Volume 56 will just look stupid, I'll split them up. Titles are self explanatory though, so figgure it out!

I once 'dated' (good story for another time) this girl for a few months. She played video games more than I did/do. She's a programmer now, not the point. She decided to pull out DDR for a bit and play one time. Now I have zero coordination in that respect, and so I failed miserably. I was thinking about all those DDR people. Some advice for you guys out there. NEVER BE ABLE TO BEAT THE GIRL WHO OWNS DDR, if you don't also own it. If you spent enough money at the machine to fucking beat Max 300xxxx or whatever the fuck, you have failed at life. You could have taken that money and time and done things like take girls out to eat, gotten girls drunk, and have had lots and lots of sex with them. Let me tell you, sex is a better workout than DDR is or ever will be. Also, you are not gay. I've heard the argument about dancing, and it makes you better, more coordinated or whatnot. Wanna get more coordinated and get in good shape? Go find some reciever football drills online and do them. As for dancing, yeah, about that. If you are not black, you will not look good dancing regardless, and you don't need to hardly move if you had taken my advice and gotten the chick drunk!

TL:DR for ya. Don't spend your money and time on stupid shit like DDR. Things like that transmit 'teh gay'.

Infernal Images: . . . Wait, what?!

My Terrible Romantic Life Volume 2

So for the second post on my little series it's time to introduce the advice portion. Since I'll try and post daily, most of these will be short, paragraph at most, style hints. Today's advice, alcohol.

Alcohol is a man's best friend, fuck dogs. Sure they are cute and loyal, but they don't make me funnier, more handsome, and god damn more confident. It ain't named liquid courage for nothing! When you have a lady in your sights, and you think she's above your league, or your just shy, take another shot. Still not enough? Take another. Rinse and repeat to taste. What's the worst that could happen? You eventually work up the nerve and talk to her, or you wake up in some Mexican hellhole. The girls down there sure ain't outta your league, and you leave with a souvenir! Hell gonorrhea ain't that bad, got drugs that'll clear it right up!

Happy Hunting!
Paltir!



UPDATE: 7/22/08 Link to the PA comic which was partial inspiration for this. One of my most favorite ever, but why do their archives have to suck balls? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/8/19/

Phantom Brave Review

Platform: PS2

Once upon a time, the creators of Disgaea decided to fuck their proven grid-based formula in favor of something completely different for their next game. While Nippon Ichi gets points for trying something new, Phantom Brave is a bloody mess. Before I get too far ahead of myself, some background is necessary.

Phantom Brave takes place in the world of Ivoire across a large series of islands and is about a little, green-haired girl named Marona. Don’t expect Yotsubato, though; this is anything but a feel-good, slice-of-life story. With this game, it’s all about death, tragedy, and people being assholes to you. When she was a wee lass, Marona’s parents were something along the lines of ghostbusters and had a bodyguard named Ash. Unfortunately for them, Ash was a shit guard and they all died. In a desperate bid to not go out like a punk, the dad tried to revive Ash but failed, turning Ash into a phantom. Cut to a few years later where Marona essentially works as a mercenary to pay the rent on her island. Having the ability to communicate with and confine ghosts to inanimate objects makes her decent at this, but people aren’t exactly charmed by how she’s basically a necromancer. Thus, the first half of the game has you doing odd jobs for really nice people . . . well, they’re nice until they find out that you’re a freak at which point they don’t give you your due reward and kick your off their property. Watching this is painful and is an interesting attempt to make you genuinely sympathetic toward Marona, but only served to infuriate me. I hate nice guys, and her infinite tolerance for abuse made me foam at the mouth on more than one occasion.

You might think I’m exaggerating when I say everyone in this game is an absolute douche to you. (Un?)fortunately for you, I’m not exaggerating in the least. Clients will refuse to pay you, people will throw rocks at you and chase you out of town . . . hell, one guy even bothers to follow you around and steal credit for jobs you do. I actually thought this could have been pretty interesting, seeing the cruel and merciless world turn this little girl into a heartless killer. Unfortunately, the exact opposite thing happens: through the power of being able to take it like a champ and appealing to everyone’s inner pedophile, Marona eventually turns the populace of Ivoire into kind, civil beings. Aww, how sickeningly trite. A strong plot could have salvaged this game’s score, but Phantom Brave just decides to throw that all away.

Could strong enough gameplay mechanics save this sinking ship of a title from my fury? It certainly could, but it doesn’t. Where Phantom Brave stumbles with its characters and plot, it bites the dust when you actually try playing it. First of all, you yourself can’t fight for shit. Unless you’re particularly fond of bitch-slapping enemies for zero damage, don’t even bother trying. Instead, what you have to do is confine your phantoms to the local landscape at which point they absorb the item’s characteristics and are ready to rumble. Apparently, I’m the only one who thinks that possessing the enemies and having them jump off a cliff would be a good idea. Regardless, I can work with this. What I can’t work with is the strict time limit placed on your summoned characters. After a certain amount of turns, your characters disappear and stay that way for the rest of the battle. This doesn’t come off as an attempt to add depth to the game by forcing you to manage your troops and turns well so much as it appears to be fucking annoying. Alright then, let’s say you haven’t had enough punishment and have created an army of high-level troops to last through the time limits. Realizing your defiance, the game then proceeds to kick your ass. Remember the throwing feature from Disgaea? Well, it’s back, except now your enemies can use it too, and boy do they use it. There are no stage boundaries in Phantom Brave, which means that characters can be thrown off-screen and killed. If this happens to your enemies, the surviving enemies (up to the last one, which can’t be thrown away) gain the monster’s levels. If this happens to one of your guys, you get jack shit. When the enemies aren’t screwing you, though, you have other problems to deal with. For one, the physics in Phantom Brave is completely irrational. Sure, everything is dandy when you’re walking, but God help you if you so much as dare to pick something up. Either gravity’s out of style or steroids are all the rage because when you throw someone, you don’t just throw them. No, you fucking catapult them across the screen and usually out of bounds. See that little indicator that tells you where the object will land? Don’t bother with it. It might tell you where the point of impact is, but you’ll just keep going, and going, and going, and going . . . Alright then, since flying is out of the question, how about walking? No dice. Get too close to a corner and your character will begin to clip and act like it’s having an epileptic fit until either the game decides it’s had enough and ends your turn automatically or you drop off the stage and out of bounds. Lovely, just lovely.

Phantom Brave isn’t a game so much as it is an experience in undeserved frustration. Lacking both an incentive for the player (the plot) and the means to accomplish it with (the gameplay), it’s almost entirely worthless. I say almost because the post-game extras are actually somewhat nice with characters like Laharl, Etna, Flonne, Mid-Boss, Baal, and Pringer X making appearances. Aside from that, though, you have an unpolished, buggy-ass game that seems insistent on torturing you. Don’t bother with this one, folks.

Rating: 1/5

MTRL: My terrible Romantic Life Volume 1

As I'm attempting to contribute to this blog once again, for I have freee time, and sometimes things to write about. As recent events have made me rather bitter and pissed off, at least for the moment, a new segment is born, my Romantic life. I'm seriously pretty bad at this shit apparently, so out come stories, anecdotes, and advice from my time as a dating male in the 21st century. Today will be a long one, as it has a few parts.

So, There is this girl whom I am currently, interested in shall we say. Let us call her T. She currently has a roommate, and best friend since she was in 6th grade, grew up together, so they are like sisters close. We call her L. T and L are both 20 cause I'm sure someone will ask, they always do. These two and me are the players in this tale. On to the beginning.

I meet T, and we decide to hang out some time, because we like each other. I meet T for some coffee, and we decide to go back to her place to go watch a movie. Her roommate is there as well. We order Chinese and end up watching "I am legend". I am my normal MST3K funny ass self during the movie, as a tend to be. After I go home, I find out that L likes me, and thinks I'm funny/cool. Whatever, the point is, she approves of me, which is important. Guys, ALWAYS make sure the best friend likes you, or it won't end well. Flash forward to round 2. We end up watching shitty TV with L once again. Much shorter this time, as she has work in the morning. Here's when things begin to go badly. On round 3.

They pick me up, and we go to the liquor store. I get a box, I swear the kid put it in a box, of booze, to get heavily smashed on. We drink and watch 'Starship Troopers'. Stay up till 3am talking, cause L just won't go to bed, for whatever reason, and leave us alone. Now take into account that up to this point, we haven't been alone except for car trips and such at all. I've tried to get her to come over to my place, but L is a bit of a loser and has nowhere to go, and T feels bad, so we always end up at her place. L finally goes to bed, and T wants to as well, so I ask if I should crash on the couch. T says no. JACK POT! or so I think. Nothing happens but me uh... digitering her to completion. There's really no nice way of saying that is there? She passes out after, and I go to sleep alone of course. Bummer, but she's cool, oh well.

This was a Thursday night, and she was gone all weekend. Round 4 was supposed to be on Sunday after she gets back, but she gets back at 11, so we scratched it. New round 4 on Monday night. Guess what, L has some 'boy issues' that T needs to be a good friend for. That's cool, I understand. Tuesday night rolls around, L's mom went to the hospital, so she needs support, ok, fine, I got it, happens. Got wicked drunk and then find out I'm coming over, cause L's going out with this guy from work. We'll call him R. To be honest, R looks like your typical, skinny 19year old nerd type. He had his hair combed over, slacks and a really dressy shirt on. I almost laughed cause I was drunk. Anyway, An hour after I come over, not even, L comes home crying and needs to go see her mom an hour and a half away. I accept it, happens. Yesterday, Wednesday, T was too tired from work and had early school next day, so no dice.

As I write this It is Thursday the 17th, for reference. Find out a few hours ago, that L is going out with R again. So I'm hopeful to hang out with T. She says she just needs to verify R and L are going out and we can hang cause she don't work or have school Friday morning. Well, she gets home from work and L surprises her with Dark Knight tickets. I'm jealous, but sweet, they've been looking forward to this for months. I'm happy for them, cause ya know, that's awesome to go at midnight, wish I could go. I pretty much have to ask, since I've been told after half a date and 3 days, L and R are a 'couple', if he's going. Apparently he is, and T becomes the third wheel. Now that's rude to do to her best friend for SEVERAL reasons. First of all, being a third wheel, even to a movie premiere sucks. Hell, been there done that multiple times. Secondly, and MOST importantly, this was avoided so easily I could be pissed off and rage, which I kinda am.... Drop R, I mean, it is your best friend vs a dude you barely know. Hell, I would understand if I was R. It's no big. Oh, and here's the even easier way! ASK ME! L knows full well T likes me a good deal. It's not like I'd not pay for the ticket or whatever. And there was plenty of time to inform me and get me. How was this not insanely rude? So here I am. Out of booze, pissed, and not tired at all. If anyone has any suggestions for me, my current being I'm totally talking to T about this bullshit, please feel free to leave them in the comments, or just email me at paltir@gmail.com.

Happy Hunting!

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Paltir: Lack of... 'realism' in anime

First off, I apologize for the abomination I wrote last night. To be honest I don't even remember doing it. I was blacked out. I can type like a mofo huh? On to the topic at hand.

So I was mulling a few things a minute ago and realized a major issue with the current anime industry at home an abroad (US/Japan). What's wrong with plausible anime? Why does 'slice of life' and 'harem' shows have to be so damn out there. I cannot begin to believe that Japanese high schoolers are anything like their 'slice of life' counterparts. I'm not against situations that stretch the realistic lines, but seriously, come on guys. If you can show me a god damn single school that is like anything portrayed in about 99% of anime, you win the game, and I'll pay you 1000bucks, no joke.

Now, I wish to examine 3 different shows, all in my top 10, maybe five even, and show you why they could be the basis for a whole new 'realistic' genre, that could be wildly popular.

Ichigo Mashimaro: This is about as realistic of a slice of life show you can get. Now, alot of you know me, and many of you have seen/heard about this show, and cannot begin to understand why I enjoy this show. Quite a few reasons actually. Firstly, the characters are well done. Each is distinct in personality and well written, but without being 2d cookie cutter characters. Miu is my favorite, following quickly by Nobue, as expected. Secondly, for a show about the days/afternoons of 4 5/6th graders, it's surprisingly entertaining. Nothing outlandish happens in any of the episodes. Sure Miu is overzelous and has serious hyperactivity issues, but who hasn't known someone her age like that. I sure as hell did. The basis of this show is firmly grounded in reality. Sure it's not the cup of tea for most people, and may seem boring, but it founds the groundwork for what i'm thinking. From this we get a real, firm 'slice of life' show, that is grounded in reality.

Suzuka: This at first glance seems like your typical slice of life/highschool harem type. And to be sure, it has more than enough in there. This shy, mild mannered, 15 year old boy moves to a city and lives in an apartment owned by his aunt, by himself, to go to school. On the same floor as him are both the love interest and the giant tittied slut/drunk. He is friends with the pimp, and there's a quiet shy girl there somewhere. Now what makes this show entertaining above most harems is the distinct way in which the characters act. They act like real people many times. They shy kid does something outlandish, and even though this will ruin it, rejects the love interest when she confesses to him. OH FUCK! I hear you say. Well he had a lot to be pissed at her about to be honest. The pimp will strike out and do something 'uncool' on occasion. All of the characters are somewhat dynamic. They change and react like real people. They dont' remain the same set of traits all the time. This is the first floor of my house if you will.

Beck, Mongolian chop squad: This is the decoration and roof which makes all this come together. What do we have so far? Realism in situations, realism in characters, what's missing? Realism in setting of course. Beck, minus a small piece explained later, has all of these pieces. The characters are grounded in reality, and aside from some background characters are developed more than 2d cookie cutters. This is a show about a kid picking up guitar and forming a band, trying to get signed, in short. Nothing truly outlandish ever happens, and the characters all react accordingly. The high school that they attend, and the work they do after dropping out, as the case may be, all seems real. There aren't 14 year olds with 44DDDDDDD boobs, and not every guy is either a shy nerd, or a pimp douchebag. Their teachers aren't 12, they are mostly old men who don't tolerate shit. Kids get in trouble when they do things wrong. Nobody gets saved by someone's badass super fighting skills, it's fairly gritty. Oh, did I mention that the parents, who in this case I consider part of the setting, don't tolerate shit. One kid had to run away to continue with the band.

So, let's recap here. We have characters that are realistic and act like real people regardless of the situations, situations that are grounded in realism and could possibly happen, and slice of life that deal with... slice of life things. Now transfer this to a high school, or university, and who wouldn't wanna see this shit? Now I know your thinking it'll compete with things like american teen drama's and J-drama's, but fuck naw. Didn't you listen to the things I've said? The animated part is just a medium, but the key here is people grounded in realism with a semblance of a god damn plot. Anyone with me on this?

Paltir: OMFG!

NO GOOGLE MY EMAIL DOES EXIST DICK HOLE, IT'S MY PASSWORD THAT'S WRONG. Took me a good five minutes to log in cause of that bullshit. I was trying to figure it out. Why I used a different password I'll never know.

What was I gonna say? FUCK I FORGOT FUCK YOU GOOGLE! Oh right, no wait, I forgot again.

God I would kill a bitch for some salty snacks right now. Oh yeah. Fuck women.

So here's the deal. Why do women have some alternate train of thought that nobody can figure out. So your roommate comes home with a member of the opposite sex, hypothetically, and now you knew this was gonna happen for a few days. First of all, you don't make yourself spare? Seriously? No? Why not? Second, don't be a fat, loud obnoxious bitch that stays up till goddam 3 in the morning talking to basically yourself.... and not letting the others alone.

Another thing. How many problems can one person have? Fuck. This bitch has not only not left me and this girl alone for ten minutes at her place, she also decided to ruin date after date. Seriously I'm ready to bag it cause of this bitch. I understand you have issues, but goddamn?! How many issues can one person have? Shit! Seriously it ain't worth the bullshit. I can deal with this girl being tired and passing out all the time soon after starting to hang out, like within a half hour basically, but then theres' the roommate too? Fuck this. I SHOULD have made a pass after this guys sister after she wanted an introduction to my awesome fucking self. But no, I didn't do nothing like a giant bitch. Fuck that. I'm pursuing everything from now on, regardless of my situation. Shit what it gonna hurt. And since all I hear from chicks is how some guy or another dumped them for a hotter girl, why the FUCK shouldn't I?

Women please explain that shit? When you complain about that to a guy, and never offer any like 'and the guy got siphilis' or 'and she dumped him' kinda rebuttal's, what's a guy got to lose? If you get dumped all the time for hotter girls, and apparently you offer no reason to stay, why should we? Srsly!

Point is... go for the sluts, easier to manage and they don't mind if ya dump 'em for a hotter slut, or not as much at least. Dont' work hard for nothing, you will lose out in the end.

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Super Robot Wars: Original Generation Review

Platform: Game Boy Advance

Super Robot Wars is a long-standing series in which all the mechs from your favorite anime come together for one massive battle royal. Sounds like fun, right? Well, what would happen if you took out all the well-known mecha and people and replaced them with an original cast? It becomes shit, that’s what. Honestly, when I first saw a video of SRW: OG, it reminded me ever so slightly of Fire Emblem, except with robots. While I always had an inkling of interest for the series, I had never been able to acquire any of the games, international copyright being the bitch that it is. When I first got OG, I ignored the “original” bit and just shoved it into my Game Boy Advance SP. First, I was greeted with that stupid Banpresto logo. Despising pre-game logos, I pressed “a” in hopes of skipping it. No? Alright, then. What about “b”? Start? Select? R? L? It turns out that the damn thing is unskippable. Quite unfortunate, really, considering how I’d be seeing a lot more of it over the next few days.

Jumping right into the game, I was offered a choice between two protagonists: a generic stern-looking hunk of a man and a goofy-looking kid whose face just screams “asshole”. Not being in the mood to play a school comedy/story about an average guy who needs to awaken his inner Amuro Ray and save the world (aka Gundam ZZ), I picked the former. At this point, I would normally explain the plot in graphic detail, but this time, two words will suffice: shit happens. What plot? I don’t see a plot. The game spends an ungodly long time before and after each mission throwing random terms and what barely constitutes character development at you. This game’s dialogue is the text equivalent of Xenosaga’s endless, torturous cutscenes. Thus, I did what any good reviewer would do and pressed “b” really fucking fast in hopes of getting to the next battle before I died of boredom.

The first few battles progressed swimmingly. Every time you attack someone, there’s a percentage of how likely you are to hit them and how likely they are to hit back. Up until my first real boss enemy, that percentage stayed at a healthy 80% vs 30%. Once I tried to fight the bastard, however, it was 0% vs 100%. From that moment on, fighting a boss meant using special abilities that gave me 100% accuracy and 100% dodge over and over and over and over and over . . . I guess that’s sort of like how things are in Super Robot shows, but it doesn’t make for a very fun game. As you play through the game, you gain more and more useless allies and fugly mechs. I know what you’re thinking. “They can’t be that bad, right?” No. They really are. Fortunately, there is one exception to this: the beauty I put up at the start of the review. Regardless, the game consists of running around with your 2-3 strongest guys (the ones you actually bother to put money into) while the rest of your useless team gets raped by enemy grunts, which are horribly overpowered, by the way. Take whatever stats your allies have and add a zero to the end of that and you have your enemies. It should be noted that you usually have a defensive target in the form of your battleship, which has massive amounts of health and weaponry. Unfortunately, your ship can’t hit jack shit. You’ll have a nice 0% accuracy to look at whenever you try.

While I would have liked to wail on this turd a bit longer, I’ve run out of things to say. Yes, that’s all there is to Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. Normally, this would be understandable since the main appeal of the series was getting to see Mazinger Z fire a rocket punch up a Gundam’s exit hole, but you don’t get that here. Instead, you just get a sub-generic plot, a generic cast, generic music, and an overall generic game. This title is a piece of shit and I wouldn’t bother with it. Go get a rom of one of the real SRW games instead, not this emasculated excuse of one.

Rating: 1/5

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You can find the rest here.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Review

No, your weapon isn't an electric guitar. I just thought this picture looked cool.

Platform: PS2 (also available on the PSP as Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness and later this year on the DS as Disgaea DS)

The Quick Version:

The Good:

- The story is anything but typical.

- Almost every character is dynamic and interesting, even unnamed enemies.

- The wide variety of available human and monster classes allows for epic party customization.

- There are talking penguins.

- The penguins have swords, bombs, and skulls that shoot laser beams.

- They also explode when you throw them.

- The game’s demented lifting physics allows for endless tactical possibilities, especially when combined with exploding penguins.

- The geo panel system adds an entire layer of depth to combat,

- The game’s Congress can be bribed (or threatened) to act in your favor.

- The story is divided into chapters, each one of which ends with an anime-style preview where the narrator just makes things up.

- Disgaea starts the trend in many Nippon Icchi titles where characters from previous games make cameos and are possibly integrated into the storyline. Most notably, Prier from La Pucelle Tactics is a hidden playable character here.

The Bad:

- The game throws a lot of concepts at you at once, which can be very overwhelming even with the tutorials.

- Later battles take forever.

- Flonne will piss the ever living hell out of you with her personality.

- Mid-Boss will piss the ever living hell out of you with his voice.

- You get more main characters than you could ever use, so it’s easy to sweep custom characters aside. In addition, they have slower growth than the mains, so they won’t be useful until you’re on your second playthrough or are pursuing endgame content.

- Geo panels make the maps look fugly.

- The Dark Congress seems needlessly antagonistic at times.

- There are multiple endings, but there are very few differences between the important ones. Which ending you get also depends on a questionable criterion: how many allies you kill (among other things).

- The game’s audio is inconsistent later in the game, so dialogue cuts in and out with no pattern.

- Disgaea continues La Pucelle’s unfortunate use of randomly-generated optional dungeons (story-related maps are fixed). Since you are in the Netherworld (aka Dark World) to begin with, you go to the so-called Item World, where you can go through a hundred stages of messy terrain and scattered geo panels that make it look like a giant clown threw up on the map.

The Ugly:

- There’s an item called the “Horse Weiner.” Take that as you will.

- Remember the level 2000 enemy from La Pucelle Tactics? Well, he’s back, but now he gained 2000 more levels and a whole lot of muscle. Even the main character says, “You’ve gotta be kidding me! Level 4000?!” The best part is that once you kill him, he comes back to life as an unexplodable penguin with roughly double his normal stats.

Rating: 4/5 (If aren't familiar with the scale, click here)
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The Long Version:

Background:
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is yet another turn-based tactical RPG by Nippon Ichi Software and is its flagship title. I’m willing to bet that many of you have seen the ad for Disgaea in certain gaming magazines in which it was described as a laxative. I don’t know who the hell came up with that, but it was certainly entertaining.

Plot Synopsis:
Laharl is a demon prince and the son of the Netherworld’s previous Overlord, King Krichevskoy. After deciding to take a quick nap, he is wakened by his vassal, Etna. It turns out that two years had passed since he fell asleep and in that time, his dad had died after choking on a pretzel. The first thing you see after getting out of Laharl’s coffin/bed are maces, machine guns, and explosives littered around the room, which immediately brings up the question of whether Etna was trying to wake him up or kill him. Regardless, the Netherworld had gone to shit in the last two years with demon lords fighting for supremacy, so it’s up to Laharl to kick all their asses and claim his rightful position as Overlord. This won’t be easy, though, as he has to deal with treacherous vassals, worthless servants, and raising funds through pillage among other things.

I won’t say anything else, but the story only gets more and more bizarre. It doesn’t really stand out, though, as Disgaea is more character-driven than it is plot driven.

Characters of Note:
Laharl - Childish, selfish, heartless, and gluttonous, Laharl is the very picture of a jackass. However, he’s a very fun jackass to play as. Having quite a Napoleon complex, he constantly tries to prove his strength. Unlike other characters of this nature, though, he can actually back up his talk through his humongous sword and his special attacks, which include bombarding an area with dozens of fireballs and summoning a meteor, jumping on top of it, and crashing it into the enemy while laughing maniacally. His weaknesses include sexy bodies and optimistic sayings. He literally takes damage when someone says, “World peace.”

Etna – Laharl may be the strongest demon in his Netherworld, but Etna is the cruelest and most cunning. She is the only one of Laharl’s original vassals who bothers to enter combat for him, but she always has an agenda of her own to the point where her true loyalties are never clear. She has a team of hired muscle in the form of a squad of Prinnies, the aforementioned talking penguins. While they’re lazy and disobedient, her threats of violence are often enough to get them motivated. Etna also writes in a journal under the guise of going to the bathroom and narrates the preview for each chapter in which she makes herself the main character, twisting the story around that assertion to the dismay of other characters.

Flonne – Every angel has to start somewhere, and that’s exactly where Flonne is. Despite being a trainee who can’t even fly, Flonne is charged with the task of assassinating King Krichevskoy. There’s just one problem: she’s two years too late. To top it off, she’s the worst fucking assassin ever. When she first meets Laharl, she spills the beans . . . all of them. Not to fear, though. Seeing how much of an ass Laharl is, she decides to stick around to give him an attitude adjustment . . . or try to, anyway. While tolerable by RPG standards, Flonne is still the most annoying character in the entire game. Before and after battle, she treats you to a speech on the power of love and why you shouldn’t randomly murder things for fun. While this eventually plays into Laharl’s development, I’d have really liked to hear less of her.

Mid-Boss – In the rat race for the Netherworld throne, the demon lord Vyers was in the lead until Laharl returned. After that, though, he became Laharl’s first target and after their meeting, is branded “Mid-Boss” in memory of his fruitiness. He becomes a recurring enemy and lives up to his name, taking a beating every now and then to let you know he’s still alive. The only beef I have with him is his horrendous English voice acting, which sounds like someone has a terrible cold. What amazes me the most is that his VA manages to stick around for future appearances.

The Prinnies – They are the talking, exploding penguins I was talking about. While they usually have little to do with the plot, they’re among the most entertaining characters in Disgaea. Unorganized and lazy, Prinnies do everything from menial labor to hand to hand combat for minimum wage. One of their more notable attacks has them confusing enemies by dancing around them like an idiot.

There are other characters, but I can’t afford to dedicate more space to them. There’s more to a review than just listing characters, after all.

Game Mechanics:
Execute/End Turn – This works almost exactly as it did in La Pucelle Tactics except they finally fixed the special attacks so they also delay until you “execute” or “end turn” as opposed to being uncancelable and instantaneous. In case you aren’t inclined to read my last review, Disgaea has a system where you move your characters and set their actions in advance much like other turn-based tactical RPG’s. The difference is that you can either “execute” to activate all your current actions and continue with your turn or you can “end turn” to both execute and finish your round. Like I said before, it’s a pretty handy system and opens up a lot of tactical possibilities.

The Castle – Laharl’s castle acts as a hub throughout the game. You go through a portal to access all the other stages and every shop is here along with the portal to the Dark Assembly. At least there’s no stupid backtracking.

The Dark Assembly – Everyone loves Democracy, even demons. If you want to raise funds, get better items in the store, make stronger enemies, or unlock new character classes, you have to go through the Dark Assembly. Each time you propose a bill, a randomly-selected group of senators votes to decide whether they’ll accept or boot your ass back into the castle. Worried about falling victim to sectional conflict? Not to worry. You can either bribe senators ahead of time to make them more favorable towards you or simply stick your boot up their asses to force the bill through. Don’t do the latter too often, though. That gets you a bad ending.

Character Creation – In addition to the story characters you have, you can create custom-class characters ranging from warriors to thieves to demonic abominations. Don’t bother using it in depth too early, though. The cost of making a good character is prohibitive and doesn’t pay off until you can power-level.

Reincarnation – Reincarnation brings a character back to level 1, but retains allows them to retain a significant portion of their abilities and stats. I would recommend using this on Laharl at least once after he hits level 1000. Don’t bother with this until you can power-level.

Base Panel – In every stage, this is your starting square from which you unleash your hellspawn. Barring the ten unit limit, any character can come out at any time and act immediately. They can also retreat into your base panel if they haven’t acted on that turn, where enemies can’t reach them.

Lifting and Throwing – That’s right. There is an entire set of commands dedicated to grabbing things and chucking them. Their basic effects are self-explanatory, but their applications are numerous. When you lift something, it becomes immobilized (ally or enemy) and can’t act. However, if an enemy’s turn comes up while you’re holding them, you lose HP proportional to their level. Thus, you usually want to ditch them one way or another. Unfortunately, you can’t throw enemies off a stage. However, you can either throw them to an isolated area, at another ally or enemy, or in your base panel. Isolated areas normally only occur in the Item World and are platforms that can only be reached by throwing units. With the exception of a few attack abilities used in the correct situation, there is no way to enter or leave these platforms without lifting and throwing. When you throw someone at an ally with whose hands are free, they catch it and can continue throwing, thus transporting enemies to remote areas, moving injured allies back into safe territory, or moving assault units immense distances in a single turn. When you throw an enemy at another enemy, they fuse and combine their levels. Yeah . . . don’t do that. The base panel is the most interesting place to throw an enemy. If the target is a monster, your allies inside the panel fight it and if they win, capture it. If they lose or the enemy is a human, however, the base panel explodes and spits out the pissed-off enemy, thus leaving you with no way to retreat or get reinforcements.

There are two special applications of lifting and throwing that I would like to note. First comes tower lifting. You can place numerous characters in a row and have them all lift each other (defying the laws of physics in the process) in order to make a huge tower of up to ten characters. Utilizing this, you can traverse vast expanses in a single turn and usually send at least one character to the other side of the map. Unfortunately, you can’t use your allies as weapons, a problem that Phantom Brave and Disgaea 2 deal with later-on. The second special application involves Prinnies. Yes, those lovable penguins. Don’t you just want to pick up one of those cute buggers and throw ‘em? If you do, expect a surprise in the form of them fucking exploding. It doesn’t matter if they’re allies, enemies, or whether someone is at the landing zone to catch them. They go boom the second they hit something. The best part is that if there are any other Prinnies nearby, they also explode and create a massive chain reaction.

Geo Symbols – Occasionally, you will see colored squares in a given map. When placed on a colored square, these bestow effects on every other square of that color. Effects can range from “heal 20%” to “no entry” to “invincibility”. While this spices things up a bit, you might not want to deal with a map that has "100% Damage" on every square. Luckily for you, all geo symbols (aside from the invincibility one) can be destroyed or lifted (ignoring the “no lifting” one, of course).

On an unrelated note, the colored squares (aka Geo Panels) make maps look like a unicorn took a dookie on your screen. It’s not a pretty sight.

Item World – While I consider this to be a hellish place that I would rather not enter, the Item World isn’t a single location so much as it is you entering an item of your choosing and battling it out on randomly-generated stages. Each stage has an exit portal that you can enter if you want to avoid fighting and just move to the next stage. Every ten stages, you can fight an item boss to increase the item’s stats and you are given the option to leave the item. The latter can also be done with a specific item. While I suppose the item world extends replayability, I found the random stages difficult to navigate and rather tedious.

Cameos:
Prier from La Pucelle Tactics and Marjoly from Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure are both available as hidden characters. You’re mistaken if you think you’ll be purifying demons like in La Pucelle, though. Drawing from one of that game’s secret endings, Prier appears as the Overlord of an alternate Netherworld and is a demon through and through.

I suppose you can count Baal, the level 2000 enemy from La Pucelle Tactics, as a cameo character.

Rating:
If nothing else, Disgaea is a tactically deep game. However, it can be too deep for its own good. Without a guide of some sort, it’s impossible to properly use the character creation or reincarnation options and only hours of grueling battles can accustom someone to the Item World. Also, the wealth of tactical possibilities extends to your enemies, leading to turns that can take upwards of five consecutive minutes given the sheer number of foes you have to deal with later-on.

While this would normally earn the game a 3/5, the sheer personality that the title has and the strength of its main characters push it above the threshold into the 4/5 range. All Disgaea would have had to do was streamline its mechanics and make the Item World friendlier to use and it would have earned a much more solid 4. While Disgaea 2 does this to an extent, it does so at the expense of its characters. No Nippon Icchi game would be able to provide such as dynamic a cast as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness until Soul Nomad & the World Eaters.

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Damn, yet another delay on my Disgaea review. Hope you don't mind the fillers too much.