We don't go there anymore, except for achievements: Half-Life 2

(tags game, Half-Life 2, Xbox 360)
(originally written 2008-06-24 22:41)

Dread is what I feel whenever I go to "Ravenholm", Half-Life 2's night-time level. I don't like the dark tunnels.

Oh did I mention I finally finished Half-Life 2? Geez, what a disappointing ending. Then again, I didn't finish Half-Life, so this is "fool me once".

So I started HL2: Episode 1. And already I dread the early stage. "Shine your light on that thing." Aaah! WTF is my trusty, unlimited ammo crobar?! Well I'm not exactly piss-my-pants scared, but I rather play something else. Perhaps I need to change my perspective and force myself to think that it's interesting. Discover a range of emotions.

Still I'm in it to complete the achievements. I think.

Shiren Adventuring and other fantasies

(tags game, Dual Screen, PlayStation Portable, Shiren)
(originally written: 2008-06-24 22:24)

I commented on Sub's Shiren's Mysterious Dungeon win. SMD is an Rogue-alike that puts forces you to consider gambling, as in gambling your life. Anyways his post made me want to get the English version of this DS game. Okay, the Japanese version is 2500 yen now bargain binned, but I rather play these inventory-heavy games in English. Play Asia sells the one I want for 3500 yen. Hm, no buy. I checked A-Too in Nipponbashi, and there was nothing. They are surprisingly strong with import console games, but not portable games. So anyways, I got the PC Japanese "Internet-enabled" version from 2003, just to get a feel. It was only 500 yen unopened. But I don't really like gaming on my PC anymore. Watch me track down the DS english version again.

Which reminds me, on Saturday I picked up Monster Hunter 2nd and Jeanne D'Arc for 880 yen and 1280 yen respectively. I gave the first MH a shot months ago but the first hour didn't hook me. The recent news about MH2G uplifting PSP hardware sales made me give the series a second chance. So I started evaluating MH2 but it feels so slow. "Now Loading". Everything is slow in this game. I'm sure PSP Lite won't fix all the loading screens. I feel my concentration ebbing, my brain becoming lethargic.

My Rubik's Cube hobby has poisoned my expectations by giving me feeling of completion, every minute.

7 layers of cube and others

(tags Rubik's Cube)

Rubik Cube Diary reports from the Omocha Show 2008 about new Rubik's Cube related toys coming down the pike.

There will be a 6 set (2 cubes per set) celebration for the Weekly Shonen Sunday Magazine's 50th anniversary, coming 2008-07, 2008-09, and 2008-11. Each set is 5250 yen. It makes me wonder what kind of design it is. No thanks.

On Baseball Day, which is 2008-08-09 , there will be 4 baseball themed cubes. Big woop. It says though that two of the set's plastic will be white. Hm. No thanks.

Also there seems to be a new Rubik's puzzle called Rubik's Mirror Blocks. 2008-10. Okay, maybe.

Finally, a company called Verdes Innovations has has 5, 6, and 7 layered cubes for sale under the brand name "V-Cube". This is the first time I've seen 6 and 7 layered cubes, other than virtual ones. It must be an engineering feat. 6 layer will cost 39 Euro, while 7 is 48 Euro. Expensive, but seemly rare. Want.

Levelling up shin-sangoku musou 5

(tags game, Xbox 360)

I am totally surprised at how much I want to keep playing this Shin Sangoku Musou 5 for the Xbox 360. (I believe this is called Dynasty Warriors). I've been watching for this game to come down in price, and in a fluke sale pricing bin I got a copy for 2280 yen. I played it till 2 am last night, and I couldn't stop thinking about playing it during work. Uh. So before I lose myself to this game tonight, uh yeah, here's a blog post.

Count my Firefox 3

(tags browser, Firefox)

Today is Mozilla Firefox 3 Download Day 2008. They want to get a million downloads before the day is over, but the last time I checked, they had over 7 million downloads already. I helped contribute about 5 downloads by reinstalling Firefox on every Windows machine I had. So I gave myself a certificate:

I was running Firefox 3 betas for a long time and RC2 for the last week. I haven't had the need to use FF 2.x, so I decided to just get rid of everything and reinstall FF3 everywhere. What I mean by FF3 is actually two installs, the official one and the Portable Apps version.

By the last count, it seems as though I am dependent on about 50 extensions, which is a rough estimate since some of them are not yet working with FF3. Still, FF3 has some acceptable UI speed even after all that weight.

Java kills my (portable?) firefox and sniping ops

(tags browser, failure)

Um, the little Java applet at my Rubik's Cube revival blog post that doesn't really load is killing my Firefox 3.0 RC2 every time I try to close that window. Ugh? I almost missed an auction sniping maneuver because of this. I didn't even try to enter that auction, by the way. What fool would step in between two dueling giants, up-bidding by units of 10000 yens? Sheesh. I'm just bitter that's another telephone card I missed.

Perhaps its because Java is not properly installed in this Portable Apps version. I am going to try I tried text file surgery on sessionstore.js, which I think has the data of all the active tabs (I had 40+ tabs open). It's an ugly, line-break-less text file that is probably Javascript. And now my browser works again. Hip hop hurray. Just in time to lose another auction, ugh.

Need for Achieve: NFS Most Wanted, Portal

(tags Xbox 360, Portal, FPS, driving)

Alright, I am totally addicted to the little Xbox 360 Achievement Points. I can break 5000, all I need to do is buy more games... ;-)

I said I started Need for Speed: Most Wanted which I am kinda digging and kinda not. Mostly I hate the graphics because it feels so autumn dingy. I like Autumn the season. I love Autumn in Japan, it's so pretty. But this game feels like a half-assed port from a PS2 game, ugh. At least it looks smooth. Maybe it's 60 FPS instead of 30.

I then popped in The Orange Box last night and finished Portal, for the first time on console. Yes I have the PC version, but I haven't bother trying the user generated maps. I still can't find all the cameras, and I did a "game FAQ" lookup but luckily I came to my senses and averted my eyes. I can find the last four, I can do it. Make these Achievement Points stand for something solid. (Does that sense of integrity explain the 30,000 foot drop Achievement?)

Tama-tan: Pink wins over Black

(tags figure, Koge-Donbo, illustrator, kawaii)

I'd like to get this figure by illustrator Koge-Donbo and figure creator Takeshi Miyakawa (T's System), called "Tama-tan" (T's system「コゲどんぼ×宮川武コラボレーションフィギュア　たまタン」 ). It's a 1/6 scale, pre-built PVC figure. The pink one was released at Wonder Festival Winter 2008 earlier this year, and I saw one for sale at Sofmap Zaurus Treasure Box for about 12000 yen. I'm kinda kicking myself for not getting it then.

You can now pre-order the black one from Tora no Ana online for 7500 yen, but only until 6/14. Black doesn't suit my fancy (white is more like it, aww yeah), so I am staying away. I only noticed the latter because I subscribed to Koge-Donbo's blog and steal her pics, at least the one announcing this figure. There is a nice photo-heavy blog post capturing the pink "Tama-tan" at the Tenra Blog (天羅Blog: T's system「コゲどんぼ×宮川武コラボレーションフィギュア　たまタン」 ) and at Yotsuba to Figure (よつばとフィギュア：コゲどんぼ×宮川武コラボレーションフィギュア 1/6たまタン ワンダーフェスティバル2008Winter)

My Burnout Paradise

(tags game, Xbox 360, racing, Burnout)

This has been the best video gaming I've had in a while. 51 hours of pure driving mayhem. According to the stats, I averaged 76 MPH.

I got 100% at the 45 hour mark, but the offline Xbox 360 Achievements were left. 100% Power Parking wasn't so hard. I finally cleared the Million Dollar Stunt Run and the 20x Boost Chain, w00t. Both took a number of tries.

Stunt run is fun, well, at least when you land the jumps and the points are awarded. But the latter achievement was aggravating. Except that on the run that I got the award, I hit the zone and set the 37 Burnouts. I tried a number of things like the Oncoming on I-88 and taking my foot off the accelerator and tapping the brake but I finally settled on boosting starting from the Naval Port going towards Lone Stallion Ranch. It helped that I had the worst boosting car as well. putt putt puttering through Paradise City.

Other things of note: I can't remember where I got my 457 yards of drift, but perhaps it was at the basketball courts spinning my wheels. I want to know where I got my longest non-cheating drift, but that record is long past.

I don't really feel like playing multi-player online.

So after I was done I was checking the forums and Gamefaqs to see if I could some more cars through inputting sponsor codes. I have the Asia version and there wasn't anything published, so no new cars for me. I read upon on other peoples stunts and I was surprised by the 60+ stunt multipliers, the tens of millions Showtimes, 6x barrel rolls. Amazing.

Finally, I read a comment where another game with free roam like Burnout Paradise was Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I bought that game for 1000 yen new, so I tried out that game today and it feels like a PS2 port. So slow. What is this, 30 fps? Is it fair I'm comparing a 2005 game to a 2008 game? The drama scenes are laughable. I keep wanting to change the language to English, because lip-sync or lack thereof makes it so laughable. I should play this after playing something slow and different.

Oh well, I wish it wasn't over. I even free roamed the city just taking in the sights again. I am definately going to try out BP again when they update it for motorcycles.

So much for life goals: Ikaruga on XBLA

(tags game, shmup, Xbox 360, Ikaruga, failure)

Ikaruga on XBLA. Life is still the same as it was before, that is to say I still suck and I still don't play it. What am I aiming at? My Xbox Dashboard is still Ikaruga-themed, though. And I still scope the Ikaruga goods. I got a Ikaruga poster in the last couple of months which is the black on grey design that is the cover of the Gamecube US release. Too bad its just the Dreamcast version and not the Arcade (Naomi!) version. One online auction of the latter recently closed at around 8000 yen, whoa.

I've been sitting on these browser tabs for long enough:

Kotaku reported back in 2008-04-16 that "Top Rated Ikaruga Player [claims] 'XBLA Version is Horrible'". Well horrible for those experts with discerning senses but for dillantantes like me, I would never know the difference. The details are at Kingoro58k's blog, but the highlights are the list of changes, the EASY-C4-BOSS2 differences between DC and XBLA, the C3part1 homing bomb differences, and a clarification on "this is Ikaruga LOL".

And finally related to this shmuppin' on Xbox 360 is the news that Hori is coming out with a Real Arcade Pro . EX (joystick) for the Xbox 360. I don't use my DoA one for anything, so I won't buy this one. One Xbox friend will though, so I can at least scope it out. Perhaps he'll use it on his Windows machines, using these unofficial Xbox 360 controller drivers by Morii.

i can haz boost?

(tags game, Burnout, Xbox 360, failure)

I completed the Burnout Paradise at 100%, after finishing the boring Showtime, but its still not over yet. I know that there is one more thing that will give me the completely complete 101%. So I've been knocking on the known Achivements. One of them is to get a 20x boost run. 20x FSCKIN boost run. I can barely get 6x. I'm sorely tempted to look for the cheatin' knowledge but there are a couple of things I can try and some roads to master before I hit a Internet Search Engine.

Frozen uma dance in melon maid gear

(tags telephone card, illustrator)

I just reviewed (took pictures of) the telephone cards I bought over the last month. Geez there's a lot, even though I thought I was cutting back. Actually today, I got a printed receipt of my bonus stipend, which will come next Wednesday. June is Japanese salary bonus time. I am rolling in dough that I haven't even baked yet.

So I was feeling a little bit more frivolous today so I bought this telephone card for 2000 yen. This is Ef: The First Tale's main heroine "Miyako", but in the trademark Melonbooks "Melon-chan" green-white maid clothing. This is the omake telephone card when one purchases the 2006 adult PC game at Melonbooks, or at least I think so. This is different from Melonbooks' usual point exchange telephone cards which are also "Melon-chan" themed but full of ero loli fan-service. FTW. But no, I don't get those.

Anyway, I haven't even watch or played Ef at all, but I have at least one other telephone card of this busty "Miyako". I think its all original illustrator Naru Nanao's fault (七尾奈留). She makes her heroines so pretty. In the background is a cover sheet flyer of D.C. Da Capo II PS (PlayStation 2)'s "Yume". For me, Nanao defined the blockbuster D.C. Da Capo, but according to Wikipedia, she did not have a hand in this sequel. I didn't know that before writing this post. Personally I think D.C. II character design looks better.

Other than that, lackluster zettai ryouiki. Pretty means pretty thin. But hey look it's an Uma Uma pose. Rawr. I feel like playing the Speedycake remix again.

Anibro Gamers (re-)opens in Nanba

(tags store, ecsite, Osaka, telephone card)

The Broccoli Gamers store in Nanba was reborn as Anibro Gamers Nanba (アニブロゲーマーズなんば店) on 2008-05-31. The first two days of the reopening was a madhouse. The line for the register snaked all around the inside of the store. I planned to get the job done on Saturday, but I was T+15 minutes arrival which meant I couldn't get this 200 set limited edition exclusive telephone card. So I checked the merchandise and debated coming in on Sunday. It only costs 1000 yen to travel to Nanba (round-trip). Aw yeah.

On Sunday, I played it safe and arrived an hour and a half before the store opened, which meant the loitering started at 0900. Actually no one lined up at that time, so I roamed the bright morning Nipponbashi. When I got back after the 15 minute stroll, there was an unorganized scattering of young 'uns, most of them with PSPs and the occasional DSer. Jumping into the informal line that blocked the Family Mart entrance, I was able to get some DJ Max Portable 2 gaming in. Through the Gamers entrance I scoped the latest concert DVD by Yui Horie (堀江由衣) which looks very good except that she doesn't move from one spot. I always think she's weak of constitution and this doesn't change my mind.

When the store opened at 10:30, I scrambled to nab the items I selected, which included another copy of the Pop Wonderland Alice figure. Unfortunately it was gone, however I picked up some CDs that I've been back-burning. I cleared the 5000 yen minimum limit to get the telephone card pictured above. Also they gave out a free omiyage box of sweets. Never trust take candy from strangers, especially Gamers. I tried one and it was waxed chocolate. Ugh. I took a picture of the wrapping and threw out the crud.

Some gaming: Burnout Paradise and DJ Max Portable 2

(tags game, Xbox 360, Burnout, Playstation Portable, music, Dual Screen)

This is a summary of the last week or two of my gaming hobbies.

I felt like I finished up with Stranglehold, since I mopped up most of the easy and intermediate difficulty Xbox Achievement Points. "Hard" and "Hard-boiled" difficulty remain untouchable, as well as the 50 point killing spree Achievement. So I will toss the game back on the rack for now. Still I wish that other FPS games had the cover and time-slow system that Stranglehold uses.

I went back to Burnout Paradise. I finally completed all the events yesterday, earning my "Elite License". Of course I only seem to be in it now for the easy Achievement points. Now I all I have to do is get 100% completion, which means setting record scores on all the roads in both Showtime and Time Trial modes. Showtime was fun but now its just tedious work. I surpassed 10 million (dollars worth of damage) on one run, just to see how far I could go. Usually you need about 700,000. I wish though I finished Showtime first. And I wished that I drove around the city in Time Trial mode instead of plain mode. That would have made my clear faster ... maybe.

Today I went to the grand re-opening of the Gamers Nanba, now called Ani-Bro Gamers. It was only recent news to me that Animate (or the parent company of Animate) and Broccoli (owner of Gamers) became the same company. I will write more about today, later, if ever. Anyway, my bud asked me if there were any interesting PSP games recently and I named Echochrome. I also dug through my stash and DJ Max Portable 2 came up. I intend to lend it to him if he's interested, but I played it for a day waiting for the opening of Ani-Bro Gamers. I got a max combo (no miss) on my favorite stage Seoleim again. That felt good. Then I remembered that I am playing it on 4p ("easy mode" four buttons) with easy difficulty. Increasing the buttons is just insane, so I tried normal difficulty. I get cut off with "You need more practice!" a heck of a lot more. Stop interrupting the song I am attempting!!?!? How am I supposed to practice! Normal has some interesting new songs (to me). I wish the developers of this game made a casual mode for the music neophyte.

Finally, since I was in Nipponbashi, I checked out some stuff. On the gaming front, I was going to buy the PlayStation Simple 2000 Series The Taxi 2 since it was only 840 yen used, but I thought about Vice City and how I need to Taxi that one. Also I was going to get some DS games, like Super Mario 64 DS, since the price dropped at one store to 2480 yen and I figure I like easy collection-ing type games. However, thoughts of the imminent completion of Burnout Paradise and the Bioshock I haven't opened, stopped me again.

You'd think my willpower is strengthening, but I bought Valve's The Orange Box for Xbox 360 (Asia version) at A-Too. It was only 2480 yen. I suppose I was seeing easy Achievement points again. Portal! I do have Half-Life 2 on my PC (link to me playing with the physics engine back in 2005), but I got it free with my video card, so no problems there. Plus this soft has HL2: Episode 1 and 2, which I doubt my Project Sugar PC can handle. Well it couldn't handle HL2 or Portal deftly, either. I really like how my Xbox 360 is making me ignore PC games and the PC gaming upgrade treadmill. Thank you Xbox.