Google: Do Evil... to your computer

(tags Google, failure, bug)

Google finally switched on the Evil Bit.

Internationally.

If this isn't Daily WTF material, then what is?

(Okay, Google already fixed what ever was wrong.)

Edit: And I was right to wait on the Google Operating System blog for a report.

Goo Goo Dolls

(tags music)

I'm still tripping out on the '90s, at least the music. I picked up the Goo Goo Dolls's 2002 release, after listening to their two mainstream '90s CDs for forever. It's more of the same, which is good. I feel like I'm going deaf with all that electric guitar, though.

And yes, Round Here. We always stand up straight.

Delays are welcome: Mirror's Edge DLC in February

(tags game, Xbox 360, DLC, Mirror's Edge, Final Fantasy)

Too many game blogs to read, and I keep on reading the same content over and over.

Anyway, Mirror's Edge DLC for the Xbox 360 is delayed to February. Yea. I did not clear many of the speed trial maps yet, despite my "OMG GOTY" exclaimation.

And Idolm@ster for the PSP is delayed till February, though I already knew about that.

Oh and yeah I saw the Final Fantasy XIII trailer. Animation looks great but the voice actresses sound a bit off. The guy's voice was pretty good. Gameplay? Menus again? Please. Is this coming in 2010 or 2009? Actually watching this video makes me want to play FF XII again.

It's not a Rubik's Cube, it's more awesomer: stop animation V-cube 7

(tags Rubik's Cube, video)

I was catching up on Rubik's Cube Diary (ルービックキューブ日記) and there was this amazing stop-motion animated video on the V-Cube 7.

Wow. She says, I know, it's only in my head.

Encore miss and makeup

(tags DVD region 2, anime, Ichigo Masimaro, failure)

I missed Sofmap's pre-order bonus for the Ichigo Masimaro second OVA "Encore" (苺ましまろ). I only learned about it through my usual Auction checks. The bonus? A replica illustration by original author Barasui: 

Not for sale, really. I tried bidding on one of the auctions but lost... I was kinda bummed out for a couple of days.

Since I was already  in the "acceptance" stage of shock, I decided to swallow the retail price at Animate. (Sofmap usually discounts new DVDs at 10%). My local Animate had the "tokuten" sticker on the DVD set, so I expected some kind of multi-purchase campaign trap. Instead I got the same illustration as above. Geez, what the hey.

I have yet to watch the DVD, but I'm kinda feeling stupid elated. Haha.

One thing's for certain, Sofmap rulez as far as tokuten goods stuff (the elusive Kudotan telephone card for one, and this exclusive set towering over other stores for the 2009-01 adult PC game Shukufuku no Kanpanera (祝福のカンパネラ) edit: OMG NSFW surprise surprise). I thought I could ignore Sofmap because their goods get lots of resell action on the Auctions (safety in numbers), but I mustn't let my guard down.

Oh crud, 2 hours playing blog level up, not watching the 6120 yen purchase. See ya next weekend.

Last week's World Hobby Fair and Comic Treasure

(tags event, Osaka, Comic Treasure, World Hobby Fair, Maison Ikkoku, Yuiko Tokumi)

Last Sunday (2009-01-18), I headed out to Osaka (from Kobe, a 30 minute excursion) to attend some game and hobby events.

The first one was Comic Treasure 13 at the site I now associate with otaku-ism, Intex Osaka. It was in a huge room new to me. Once I paid my entrance fee of 700 yen and walked in with the catalog on my head, I felt like I stepped into Comic Market. Masses of people everywhere, tables running up and down the whole space. Except that this was only one day, at one-third the size, and in Osaka. Still, running up and down the booths and trying to avoid people's expectant stares (buy my goods I slaved over for days), bumping into criss-crossing otaks with their bags filled with paper goodies, it was just a waste of time. Yes a waste of time! Because I didn't buy anything and there was nothing I really wanted. I could go for the doujinshi that rips off my favorite animes or characters in very naughty ways but yeah, no. I wanted to see if there was doujin games to buy but I didn't find anything I wanted. Sure there was a shmup or two, but just opening the wallet to start the ball rolling was just not happening. 

And as far as Aoi Nishimata was concerned, I saw some fans with her goods leaving the area just as I arrived at 12:00. Obviously she's gone, and her goods were gone as well.

So I left with nothing new in hand. I ripped the catalog to take a picture of the cover, then I disposed of the catalog at the site. Never again. Well, never again unless I do my homework.

I moved on to World Hobby Fair at the Osaka Kyocera Dome. It was just a couple of stations away, but the atmosphere was totally different. Instead of individuals to dodge, I had to thread whole family units. At least, the average height of the attendees was lower, so I could see farther, ha.

Again, most of the items on display were not in my sights. Of course there was the Pokemon area, and I picked up some things (which were the same as last time, so...) Mainly it was the card games, toy gimmicks such as some spinning top thing with robots, etc. Nintendo was there of course with their white booths and conservatively dressed campaign girls. That Wii Cheer game which is finally getting the Japanese domestic release had a presence with girls in cheerleader outfits. I was interested in the game for the new gaming experience (hey I'm the one who actually bought Para Para Paradise for the PS2), but I couldn't compete with the literal kiddies waiting to play. Gotta keep up appearances while attending a World Hobby Fair.

I then spotted the Cospa booth. I wasn't attracted to the new new stuff which was Hayate no Gotoku, etc, stuff from this decade. The stuff that grabbed me was the Rumiko Takahashi related goods. Like this Maison Ikkoku shirt:

The booth sign said half off on the goods, but I got charged full price for this S size shirt. 2980 yen. :-/ This is Osaka, man, assert the haggle spirit and at least ask about the half-off sign. Sorry, I was timid.

Also I noticed that the sizes were SS, S, and M. Usually the shirt sizes from Cospa are M, L, XL. Makes me wonder if this was aimed for the parents who wanted to use their kids as billboards for their favorite memories. hyuk hyuk, guffaw.

Lastly, the thing that made me glad to brave the Osaka Winter and masses of cannon fodder, is pictured above. The parent company of Sunday (the comic?) announced a Hayate no Gotoku trading card game, and one of the promotions was the card above. I'm not interested in the card game or even Hayate no Gotoku (though I did throughly enjoy the 52-episode anime). But check it, it's a Yuiko Tokumi illustration!!! They weren't merely handing it out, I had to play a simple matching card game (like Memory) to win it. Well the odds to win were probably 100% percent (uncover 4 cards, two at a time, and if the two cards have the same character (in my case, Hinagiku), win the card), if one has any sort of short-term memory skill. The rules for the game were not written anywhere, so I was my timid, unsure self and I didn't bother getting in the 20-minute wait line, up until the last minute (I was literally second-to-last in line when they closed) when I found some courage in the question "what could go wrong anyway?" Geez.

So yeah, Yuiko Tokumi stuff. Like the weekend before when I got her calendar, twice. It's a given. This was totally random and I was not totally expecting it, so I was pretty happy.

The rest of the day was a blur, but I distinctly remember wanting to buy Prince of Persia 2008 for the Xbox 360, because the late reviews were giving this game some good feel. But I didn't buy because of price and lack of scheduled free time. Maybe next time.

Can you beat my score? Oh you did: Geometry Wars 2

(tags game, Xbox 360, shmup, Geometry Wars)

Continuing the Geometry Wars 2 boom (whoa it's been like 4 months), I kept on trying out "Waves". And lookie I get a decent score, yea me. I really like this mode, no sissy bombs, no lives, just constant dying.

(extracted 2009-01-25T09:16Z)

Live version again:

The conservation of bullets is the golden rule here. And the wall is your friend. I want to get 10 million, but things move too fast at even 3 million.

Oh, and I recently allowed an invite into my friends list and this newcomer bested one of my GW2 scores after the invite. It was the King mode, a mode I never play. Don't worry, once my hand gets its feeling back I'll be on top of King... at least on my friends list. :-/

It's not Final Fight, and it's not deep: Tokyo Beat Down

(tags game, Dual Screen, side scroll, beat-em-up)

Just because there was some coverage about the localization for Tokyo Beat Down (originally 野獣刑事) for the DS (and plus I was in the mood for fighting because of Final Fight One and Double Dragon Advance), I purchased the game and gave it a whirl. This was about two weeks ago.

Its a "my first" Final Fight. I am disappointed.

The first 30 minutes did not draw me in, since the fighting combos are so weak. There is a promise of longer combos if you progress in the game. The best thing is hitting the X button (punch) for 8 times, and you can interrupt that with the Y button (kick) and vice versa. There are three characters, but it's hard to discern the difference between them, when talking about combos.

The whole atmosphere is juvenile. The story is not compelling and the actual action is just not fun. I'm on the second day now, and it has taken me 1.5 hours of interrupted playing just to get there. Today is probably the last time I'll play it. Hopefully I'll get a power up to extend my combo and finally get something that feels new.

Why play Geometry Wars 2 for four hours?

(tags game, Xbox 360, Geometry Wars)

Why indeed, especially when those four hours are from 23:30 to 03:30... (>_<;)

I'm feeling the resurgence of Geometry Wars 2. This is what they call a "my boom" in Japanese. During the last week I bested my own score on Deadline, but still it is less than 26 million. I saved the GamerNetCard score card, but I'll post it later.

Then I found some new fun in the old game type Waves. Still my score is a meager 4 million. I cannot even get the song to loop at all, brr.

Since I'm re-feeling the GW2 love, I wondered if it was a port of this game to a different console, hopefully Windows. No such luck. :-/

Small time haul from CM 75, and retry Osaka

(tags doujinshi, Comic Market 75, 薄荷屋, Osaka, character goods)

Some goods from Comic Market 75: Hakkaya / Yuiko Tokumi (薄荷屋 or 篤見唯子) calendar (2), Doki Doki Tama-tan, Hello World, a free booklet for GA Bunko Publishing with a nice illustration of Polyphonica Corti. This was last weekend's haul.

In Osaka, Books Lashinbang had one CM 75 Hakkaya / Yuiko Tokumi Calendar for 1500 yen, which I thought was great, until I found Hobby Vanilla selling multiples for 600 yen each. Ouch. So I bought the second one to average the cost out. :-/

I only bought the Polyphonica leaflet because of the illustration on the cover. Inside was merely a catalog of new light novels coming out. 200 yen via rental space case (委託販売), really not worth it.

And Tama-tan (たまタン) related goods, which was a CD to be eventually be sold at Tora no Ana. I got this one at K-Books just because I felt the haul was small and the Tama-tan goods need to be collected.

I can't say that I am looking for more CM 75 stuff to buy. I probably missed most of the good stuff going in on 2008-01-11 Sunday anyway. I did pick up some other goods from previous CMs that I missed. The picture shows in the background the bag from Hakkaya CM73 goods. Also I picked up some drama CDs and other おまけ/特典 (exclusive goods) not related to CM. 

Still today I plan on going out to Nipponbashi to swim through the goods again. Also, today is World Hobby Fair (for the Pikachu in me) at Osaka Dome. Also a new event for me is Comic Treasure, a doujinshi fan event sponsored by AoBoo, but it's a non-free event. It appears to be held at Intex Osaka, the same place as Dream Party I attended last November. I learned about this through Aoi Nishimata's blog (大阪にむけて出発です). Is she visiting?

Let's see what's there. Osaka Osaka, nande nande ya nen.

No PSP 2000 in sight (newbie's first response)

(tags PlayStation Portable, hardware, auction)

I can't be bothered to figure out how to install custom firmware on my two PSP 1000s, and yet I want to play the latest games with better hardware (more internal memory?), so I'm trying to find a PSP 2000. Sofmap only has a trickle of used PSP 2000s, and they are gone every time I recheck. Plus it doesn't help that I am finicky about the case color. I want the lavender purple, though Sofmap only seems to get the black ones. I could also go for the Monster Hunter Bronze or Value Pack Bronze (to match my Gold and Silver).

So just today I turned my auction sniping searching prowess onto this area. Whoa boy, this is a different sort of auction. The basics of auction buying, that is to say, bid, win, send money, receive, are pretty much the same. However the sheer volume of action from sellers and bidders makes me think I'm drowning in a ocean. Also, sellers add all sorts of for-pay options, which makes selecting an auction to bid a hassle.

It looks like the keywords for me are CFW (custom firmware), PSP 2000, 新品 (new not used), and LP or ラベンダー パープル (lavender purple).

Geometry Wars music

(tags free, music, game, Xbox 360, shmup, Geometry Wars)

Yes I saw on Xbox 360 Fanboy that there was a Geometry Wars related free download, so I grabbed the Geometry Wars 2 music remix, called "46860 Choices". It starts off slow, and the remix doesn't really sound too different.

Oh yeah, I recently played some GeoWars2, but unfortunately I can't beat my own Deadline score. I did get close at 22 million, so the fight is still in me.

Big Kudo fan(s)

(tags game, goods, Little Busters, Windows, Kudo-tan)

Today was my first day of 2009 to visit Nipponbashi Den Den Town. It was pretty crowded with the people walking around holding tree branches with gold coins hanging from them. According to my fruitful web searches, the local Imamiya Ebisu Jinjya holds the "Tokaebisu" (festival?) from January 9 through 11.

But anyway, I checked up on lots of Comic Market goods, just like I did last year. Except this time I'm not so enthusiastic (crazy) with opening the wallet. Yeah, right, this blog post is proof of the weak will. I will save CM related stuff for another post.

So, yeah, Noumi Kudryavka from Little Busters (リテルバスタース！). I enthusiastically grabbed the Sofmap exclusive telephone card months back. Since then I've been slowly accumulating goods. Just recently I found the Gee Store in Nipponbashi/Den Den Town. Funny that a branch of this store used to be at Gamers Sannomiya (Kobe) but it closed probably because Kobe isn't so profitable. They have a lot of nice goods. Nice:

These are regular Japanese style fans with (our?) my favorite mascot, Kudo-tan. It no longer seems to be available at Amazon, so it must be selling well. Except at the Gee-Store, where there are tons. As shown, I have already pinned to my kitchen wall. 

Kudo-tan saying "Wahoo" just gives me enough pep to keep on practicing cooking. Actually these two fans take the place of my years-old De Ji Charat fan.

But that's not all. Gee-Store has a bunch of other stuff not available at my regular proving grounds such as Gamers and Tora no Ana. That's probably because they make the goods themselves, and don't bother to send it to other stores.

Okay, I wasn't planning on buying the sports towel (shown on the right). But after spending more than 5000 yen on a bunch of (Little Busters) stuff, I received this free A4 sized clear holder (shown in the middle). I did want to get the cheaper shirt design but all they have left was XL size. I'm an M, really.

Truly though, this is a losing battle. The same couple of illustrations are posted onto mug cups, sports towels, shirts, hug pillows, trading cards, mouse pads, hankerchiefs, bath posters, frisbees (!), etc etc. I am sure to be bored. Then again, I haven't swapped out my 2003 Salvador Dali calendar. Perhaps newness is not important to me?

So yes, I actually bought the Little Busters! game (the EX version) but I am not making much progress in this voice-over fighter. I fear that hearing Kudo-tan's seiyuu voice will destroy the infatuation. And there is some infatuation left, see my other Kudo-tan posts (one more coming up).

Kumatan drama with complete sentences

(tags game, Dual Screen, Kumatanchi, Comic Market 75)

One of the first auctions I won this year was for the Kumatanchi (くまたんち) goods set sold at Comic Market 75.

The drama CD has a new story called "Kumatan no Sagashimono" (くまたんの探し物). It's cliched and a little dirty (will the monkey's panty fetish ever end?) but I like the voices all the same. Ryoki Ryuou (留桜良姫) voices the cute Kumatan, the lively Neko-kun, and the Kansai-accent Tora no Oneesan, all at the same time. They all sound different, which is good. The DS game doesn't have any voiced dialogue other than simple words, so I was surprised at hearing full sentences. Of course, if it was just "kuma, kuma, kuma" for dialogue I would be pissed. (However it worked for Yumeria.)

Also the CD comes with the exclusive drama I missed from the CM74 goods set. I had the pleasure of hearing more dialogue from the zoo shop idoru, Sumomo. Except again the story was totally forgetable. Except that zookeeper's laugh. Haha ha.

Finally, the CD had a data track which included all the wallpapers that were exclusively timed downloads. I missed most of these wallpapers and I was kicking myself for that. Finally I got them in my hot little wallpaper rotation. As an aside, I was not able to read the data track on my computer which had some DVD ripping software like DVD43. On another pristine Windows computer, I had no trouble.

As for the book, it is a revision of the book that was originally released with the game. It has some nice glossy illustrations of concept art and some tips on how to reveal all the events. Having not read the original version (to keep from spoiling the game), I can't say if its improved, but I like the quality of the paper and the colorful layout. It's a keeper.

Final Fantasy XIII promo web site

(tags game, Final Fantasy)

Now that the official Final Fantasy XIII promotional website is open, I can grab multiple pictures of Vanille, without any watermarks. Ha ha. Nice soothing music.

I read somewhere that the game system is not Gambit system, but the tired old menu fighting. Ugh. Instantly I am not interested.

Diadra Empty music

(tags game, Windows, shmup, Diadra Empty)

The Diadra Empty music is pretty wicked sick. And no, it's not like RayStorm, but more like Psyvariar. Sweet sweet.

I beat the game on normal. The Credits roll show who did the music.

It turns out that the stage music comes from Baby You Can Tell On Me and sentive.net. The latter had some free music to give out. The former has the music in MIDI form. Uh, right.

The others are http://pianodauge.org , http://iconoclasm.info , and something fermate but I'm kinda sleepy now.

Diadra Empty... what is going on?

(tags game, Windows, doujin, shmup)

Just today at Tora no Ana I bought this doujin shmup game called Diadra Empty (ディアドラエンプティ). It's made by a circle called frozenorb (ふろーずんおーぶ) and released back in 2008-06 in time for Comic Market 74. The package had some nice colorful graphics like this cover art. (this is not in game)

The back also showed some really cool danmaku bullets. Check out the sample game play video. There's an easy to read web page at doujinshop.com. For 1800 yen I gave it a spin. 

My old Sega Saturn style USB pad was ready from the get go. First off, this game plays like a modern style Defender, complete with a radar sub view and push button to lock shooting direction. Except there seems to be millions of bullets on the field. I don't understand what will kill my avatar though, because I seem to be able to bump through the whole danmaku barrage without a scratch. This has very lenient shields, which even regenerate automatically.

The background gradients are very pretty, but the foreground sprites don't make much sense. The enemy bullets are really colorful though. Lock on slow lasers chasing you around the screen, millions of dumb bullets flying around. The background scrolls independent from your avatar's movement, so I get confused easily. Frames per second isn't rock solid, at first with 60 FPS, but when the storm comes in, I barely get 15 FPS.

There is an RPG element to it, where you have to power up. Sadly the actually power up only occurs between stages. You have to collect coins, which means getting in close to the enemies to suck up their death release. I was able to collect 4 Gradius chase style Options.

I got up to level 8 which seems to be the last level because it was crazy long with crazy bosses. I couldn't beat the "emerald orb" which shot out some screen covering homing lasers. Crazy.

The music is really good though. It kinda reminds me of RayStorm.

Unfortunately it's really buggy. The game freezes without saving my progress. I am irate, because part of the game's powerups are unlocked as I proceed, supposedly. I checked out the web page and it seems I have to apply a patch. It's not very clear. Plus the patch adds two more EXE files, also unclear. The patch was password protected, wut.

I'll give it another try, because the patch finally allows me to go to the config screen without crashing (!). Perhaps it will unlock some more of the game's powerups. Heck I want to lend it to a friend so that I can compare experiences.

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel freeware game

(tags bishoujo, game, freeware)

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, a gambling slot-machine created back in 2006 by the Trivy Corporation and Sammy Corporation, now makes it onto the Windows PC. Sammy ran with this bishojo concept and besides having currently serialized manga, enlisted major seiyuu like Yukari Tamura (田村ゆかり), Mamiko Noto (能登麻美子) and Masumi Asano (浅野真澄) for the 2008 OVA.

Now they enlisted Kogado Studios Koneko-san Team of bishojo all-ages game fame for this free 2009 New Year's present: Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel: Illusion Girl (快盗天使ツインエンジェル 幻の少女). (Thanks to Zepy for the tip).

Free. I can't believe this is free. \(>_<)/ 1.33 GigaByte download. 3 scenario writers. FREE.

This freeware game plays like an extended Flash game, but with unheard of 1280 pixel wide visuals. And though they call it a Visual Novel, almost every line is voiced. It's more like an anime with subtitles.

I want to figure out who did the character design for this particular work, because it's really kawaii. But it's either the OVA animator Makoto Koga (古賀誠) or it's someone that calls themselves "Sakana" (魚). A hard to find psuedonym? Oh wait, there is an illustrator called Sakana and the illustrator's web page confirms the connection.

Is this nagomi-inducing moe? At least the visuals are, yes. I captured these screens in Windowed mode using the Print Screen key, and the water-marking logo on the left hand side automatically imprints.

Sadly the story is maho-shojo cliche to the point of irritation. Normal teenage girls (15/F/Japan) transform into super powered heroines (CERO 12 transformation scene) to battle the evil-bent but mostly incompetent Black Auction Corporation. Their senpai backs them up without revealing his identity, using an eye mask (is this a Sailor Moon motif?). Other maho-shojo cliches abound, though thankfully there is no upskirt fan-service.

I am annoyed with the ditzy character Yukarin voices. Noto has the humble know-it-all role. Masumin voices the overly competative rival. I applaud her energy but the dialogue is so predictable.

The first battle plays out with fighting game life bars, but the actual game mechanic is a my-first slot machine with easy to hit targets. I suspect that the rest of the battles to be the same. The story progresses with a choose your own adventure style branching, with episodes like playing vollyball or cooking food in class.

Free. On one hand I can see this kind of work selling for 7000 yen or more (typical PC game prices). It doesn't have the advertisement atmosphere, so it makes me wonder if this was intended to be a retail package. However this is a sugar-coated, heavenly-sounding, girly eyed junk. I "play" this game by putting it on auto and waiting for the next battle or reading my web browser. I haven't finished the game, but I bet there's at least 4 hours worth of stuff in here. Hm. Continue.

Send in the 2009

(tags blog)

Greetz and howdy. Happy New Year to all y'all. \(>_<)/

The post counter at blogger.com says I'm at 850+ posts since inception, despite my whimsical throwaway title, "we get signal". I don't see myself changing the address or machinery any time soon, but I hope I can improve the tone and manner. Seiyuu and novelist Masumi Asano (浅野真澄) wrote her heartful New Year's Resolution, which reminds me to be positive in words as well as actions and reactions.

2008 was pretty much collect instead of play, solo instead of online, DLC instead of packages. Not much of a review, I know.

2009 will stick to the same formula, if I don't run out of closet space first, ha.

It's all sweets, all the time.