Space, the Final Frontier...

Friday night was filled with all kinds of awesome, anyone who follows me on Twitter would of course know that I found the new Star Trek movie to be all kinds of awesome, especially Karl Urban's portrayal of McCoy which I felt was spot on.

Plans are in the works to see it again on Monday.

What bothers me, however, is that there are reports that the film hasn't beat out Wolverine for the highest weekend opening, I'd like to call, in the immortal words of James T. Kirk, bullshit because today is Sunday and, as far as I am concerned, the weekend is not over and I don't care what anyone says. Until the Sunday numbers are included you can't say that Star Trek didn't kick Wolverine's ass.

Anime! Ah-aaaaaaah!

Yeah, decided to make this an anime post considering the fact that we are already five weeks into the Spring 2009 season, woo!

Of note of the Winter 2009 season is the fact that I have finished watching Rideback and was just a tad disappointed with how they ended the series, it's not that I don't like how it ended I just feel that it could have been done slightly better. Overall, I found the series to be great.

Anyway, on to the Spring 2009 shows I'm watching!

- K-ON! -

At last! KyoAni gets to do their High School girls band anime! And I'm kinda liking it. It's a slice of life anime, much like other KyoAni series Luck Star and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, that focuses on the Light Music club, it's members, Akiyama Mio, Hirasawa Yui, Kotobuki Tsumugi, and Tainaka Ritsu, and their adventures in trying to be a band. I was pretty much hooked by the first episode and plan on watching the series until its conclusion. Moe, moe! Kyun!

- Higashi no Eden -

Eden of the East I just kinda stumbled on, I blade Sankaku Complex for my interest in it. They had an article about how one of the main characters, Takizawa Akia, made his initial appearance amnesiatic, a pistol in hand, and completely naked with a white scribble as the censoring. Now, context is everything for me and I was wondering what the hell the context was so I sought out the first episode. So far I find it to be quite intriguing and at three episodes in I'm going to keep watching.

- Queen's Blade -

Now, I'm not going to lie about my reasons for watching this. No, Hirano Aya isn't one of them. Honestly, I'm very much here for the oppai, glorious oppai. Yeah, shallow I know but it's pretty much the truth. However, there is some semblance of a plot, somwhere under all the scantily clad women, so there may be more of a reason to stick around. However, I might not be able to because It would seem that Media Factory feels the need to be a bunch of pricks and do IP trolling in torrents, which is honestly of dubious legality right now, and happened to nail me for downloading. A C&D letter to my ISP and my internet was out for a day and I now have a DMCA violation strike against me, two more anre my internet goes bye-bye. I want to continue watching, only managed to get to episode two, but it seems that the power that be don't want me to. Bastards.

Gah, been over two weeks since I posted anything. Bad me, bad, bad. No, not dead just a little distracted.

Looking forward to X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Thursday night, woo late show, which will involve some Wolverine geeking-out before the show with the old X-Men cartoons woo!

"It's..." "Susan" "...Suuuuuusan! Oh, I think I scared myself a little"

Went to Monsters Vs. Aliens with my girlfriend and enjoyed it greatly. It was funny in a way Dreamworks animated films haven't been for a little while for me. I thought that the characterization was pretty great with everyone, no voice really seemed out of place. My favorite character was Dr. Cockroach, and not just because he was voiced by the great Hugh Laurie, and I was most surprised that I didn't figure out Keifer Sutherland was General W. R. Monger.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and would suggest it to others. Just not the 3D version... I'm not going to recommend any 3D movies simply because they give me headaches, but if you like it then more power to you.

A Bit of Weakness...

So, I've been bad. Got a bit of money today that I was expecting, helps make things go when you're hunting employment, and it was of decent size, enough that I was willing to let myself spend a little on myself since I haven't been doing much of that lately.

Yeah, 2000 ms points... I get "Don't Stop Believing" for Rock Band, since I'm a sucker for Journey, and then I use the rest for Operation Anchorage and The Pitt for Fallout 3. Should have just gotten 500 for "Don't Stop Believing" and called it good... used what little was left for another Beautiful Katamari stage (getting them slowly so I can get 1250/1250 eventually.)

I'll probably voice my opinions on Operation Anchorage and The Pitt soon.

So, it seems to be all the rage lately to show off TrueAcheivement stats and such, I think I'll hop on the bandwagon.

Best Games:	TA		GS
Universe at War	1,779		550
The Simpsons™ Game	1,604		870
Fallout 3	1,559		1000
Spidey: Web of Shadows	1,557		1000
Condemned	1,462		970
Call of Duty 2	1,449		1000
Halo 3	1,429		1130
The Force Unleashed	1,409		980
BioShock	1,381		(1000)
Mercenaries 2	1,301		(845)

Highest TA Ratios:	Ratio:
The Sacred Cow	5.69
Opposites Attract	4.28
My Wish is your Command	4.12
Dark Matter FTW	4.07
Forged Alliance	4.03
Masari Global Influence	3.98
Under Novus Control	3.98
Technological Terror	3.94
Mutation Madness	3.94
Blinded by the Light	3.94

It's no wonder that most of my high ratio achievements come from Universe At War, the game really isn't played all that much and TA has few tracked gamers for any of the achievements. I ended up getting some of the achievements with help from some good folks from x360a. Even after the release of the 360 version of the game, I got the PC version cheap, the online was pretty much dead. A couple of weeks ago I rented the 360 version so I could boost the online achievements just to get them done with. I had planned on doing My Virtual Life but Live kept dropping one of them whenever I'd leave the systems alone. Ah well, that one's for another day. Anyway, I think I may do this once a month to every couple of weeks or so. Any major shake ups in the top ten and I'll post on that too.

Gaming.

I was a little bad and spent some money I shouldn't have. I downloaded Scrabble for Hasbro Family Game Night, intending to stop there, then snagged Peggle, it's addicting, and then snagged Dig Dug for the awesome price of 200 ms points. Wish there were some more games at that price.

Anyway, I love Scrabble. I was playing the demo like crazy despite the fact it timed out. I can just pick it up, play, and score a few hundred points a game easily. What's nice is that I now have 120/200 for just Scrabble and 120/1400 for Hasbro Family Game Night, a little under 10% for that one.

Peggle, honestly, is just addictive. I'm on the second to last master in the adventure mode and enjoying it. The strategy in it is great despite the randomness. I'm working on being able to clear each board completely, only have two or three mastered right now. I've got 50/200 in Peggle right now, definately not as hard to get points in as some of the other Pop Cap titles.

As for Dig Dug, just like with Anime I know my roots when it comes to gaming and appreciate many of the older games. Pac-Man took many a quarter from me when I was younger and Dig Dug got a few of them too. It's fun working through the levels and getting the various pickup achievements, simple but fun, and I even got the 2 Enemies achievement without trying. Dig, where I have to dig through the entire level, is going to be much harder. Currently standing at 70/200.

Knowing Your Roots... Anime Style

Lately I've been watching a number of newer anime series. Ride Back, in particular, is the most recent one that I picked up and I'm enjoying it quite a bit and await the 11th episode. My girlfriend and I have been watching To Love-Ru together along with Rosario + Vampire Capu2 as the episodes are released. It's the absurbity of the series, and the fact that they're the new evolution of the harem-style, we're liking.

While some people might toss them off as crap I like to think of them as charming in their own way. Yes, Rosario went even more into a fanservice anime with Capu2, and the censorship overlays went crazy, but there's still a charm to it. To Love-Ru is along the same lines, the absurdity of teh situation is what makes it great though. While they're about at the same level I find that Rosario gets a bit of a better rating because it has Mizuki Nana.

I've also been watching Tesuwan Birdy: DECODE and Kamen no Maid Guy.

As for knowing my roots, I know the roots of my being an anime fan very well. The first series I watched, and knew was Anime, was the Battle Angel OAV. Akira and Neon Genesis Evangelion furthered my brainwashing into a north american otaku along with a healthy does of Gundam, 0080 and 0083. It was in the late 90s, as evident by NGE being one of my first big exposeures that I found anime for what it was and learned how to adore it. The first tape I bought, and consequently the only, was of the subtitled version of Second Devil Hunter Yohko OAV, I think I still have it somewhere. When Yohko came to DVD I bought the whole series. I've also watched Evangelion: Death and Rebirth as a shitty chinese sub and the laserdisc version of the first part of End of Evangelion, Air.

So, I do know a fair amount of my roots. However, there is much more out there that I would like to see and I keep going back into the history of anime to watch things that are new to me. As I type this, I go into Gainax's past and watch Top O Nerae! Gunbuster. I have plans to watch more of the original Macross, actually finish watching Z Gundam as a series, I stopped at episode 22 then saw all three movies, and then maybe I'll watch Southern Cross or Mospeda to see how bad of a bastardization Robotech really is.

For now I've got Gunbuster to watch and enjoy.

Giant Bugs, Oh Noes!

Finally got around to finishing Earth Defense Force 2017 on Normal, I've had it beaten on Easy for a while now. Since I finished Fallout 3 I'm going to go through the games I have and start playing thought them more. I don't really have the funds to get anything new right now, being between jobs kinda sucks, so I figure my back catalog is the best.

I am, however, thinking about treating myself to Scrabble as soon as I can. I've been playing the trial version for a while now and, despite the time limit, have enjoyed it quite a bit. Ironicly, Board games as video games are a ton of fun. I have a buddy who has both Scene It! games, Box Office Smash is the one we play, and recently got Trivial Pursuit, which is a hell of a lot of fun especially in Facts and Friends mode. No set up or clean up for the games, and the fact you can't lose any pieces, makes the video games versions great.

While going through my collection I got to thinking about picking up DOAX2 again. I got the game cheap with the intent of doing what few people have, I want to legitimately get 1000/1000 in the game. I already have an okay start, I have collections for Kasumi, Lisa, and Lei Fang with Kasumi having a larger number of Lisa and Lei Fang's suits. I'm thinking I should get back into it and at least get the collections for each individual girl, that would make for more than 60/1000 for this title and bring my ratio up at least.

And that's another thing I'm looking to get done, I want to get my ratio to at least 50%, already have a good start at 43% but I think 50% would be much better. I could also go crazy and try for 75% but I think that the number of XBLA games I have on my card, and the fact some of them are the more difficult ones to get achivements in, will keep me from getting that for a bit. As I found out tonight, I kinda suck at Astropop and Zuma. I still like the games I'm just a bit bad at them, makes getting 200/200 on those games a bit harder. Just gotta work harder and get better, I guess.

Four Arcade Games 100%

Completed The Maw yesterday with "Six Meals a Day" for 20 gs.

That's four XBLA games at 100% now.

- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Portal: Still Alive
- Dash of Destruction
- The Maw

Now to just figure out what I want to play today.

5 Retail Completes, woo.

Of note is the fact that with one more achievement in Fallout 3, Doesn't Play Well With Others fo 20 GS, I will have 5 retail completes.

- Bioshock
- Call of Duty 2
- Spiderman: Web of Shadows
- Condemned: Criminal Origins
- Fallout 3

I'm going on an in-game murder spree in Fallout 3 to get the last 25 human kills I need for the achievement sometime tomorrow, after some sleep.

I should really get off my ass, borrow Bioshock from my bro again, and get Brass Balls to DLC complete that game.

Fun and Profit in a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

So, I borrowed Fallout 3 from a friend and have been spending the, oh, last nine days wandering through it. I must say that my venture through the Capital Wasteland has been rather fun and enjoyable. Only got stuck in places a couple of times, but fast travel helped fix that, had a single freeze up, and then had that stupid stuck button bug kill my right stick, which made things really interesting.

All-in-all, I found the game to be a well-done example of a western-style RPG and I want more. The DLC will be very welcome. I'll probably end up buying the DLC for this like I did for Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey despite not having the game.

Likes:
V.A.T.S. - It's a pretty cool system that I find to be particularly nice, especially when I get close-up head shots with the shotgun, head go boom! Definately a nice system that would be cool to see something similar in other games.

The Wasteland - It's massive, the sheer amount of places I could go were really, really awesome. Over 100 locations that can be discovered made the game really, really great. And, despite the fact a lot of places looked pretty similar, they were all just a little bit different in the way they had decayed or had been changed by those who survived.

Voices - What can I say, I'm a fan of Malcom McDowel and Liam Nieson and I happened to love the parts they had. In general, all the voice work was done very well and there weren't any voices that I really hated. About the only one that started to annoy me was Moira. Much like Mass Effect this game is a game that should be used as an example of how cast your voice actors.

Liberty Prime - Yeah, it's kind of a silly mention but the robot was freakin' hilarious for his entire part of that missiomission.

Dislikes:
What's Emotion? - While I loved the general story it just seemed kinda, well, flat. I can't really put my thumb on it but the thing was just kinda... emotionless in some parts. Things mattered but everyone pretty much reacted to everything in a fairly even way. Even at the end, I picked the sacrifice, the emotion there was muted and it was kinda, well, annoying.

Limited Inventory - Yeah, I know that the limited inventory makes for a more strategic selection of what you take with you but, to be completely honest, it became a real hassle, especially considering that your armor, especially the power armor, fits into that equation. I liked how the Ammo didn't matter unless it was grenades or mines but if I equip a set of armor I don't want it to count against me for inventory space, especially the freakin' power armor because that stuff should, logically, be able to carry itself when you're wearing it.


At the beginning of the game, I was very much a Fallout virgin. I had heard about the games in the past but wasn't all that interested in them at the time, I was also quite a bit younger when they were released too. Fallout 3 captured my attention in a way a few games have, Mass Effect being one of them, and I'm quite happy to have played it. While there are nitpicky things about the game that did bother me a bit I'm quite pleased with the game overall and feel that it is well worth a play. I'll definately get Operation Anchorage and The Pitt when I can and am happily anticipationg Broken Steel whenever it is released.