Just as pricey: Idolm@ster SP DLC

(tags game, Idolm@ster, PlayStation Portable, DLC)

One more day until Idolm@ster hits the PSP scene. I'm only excited for the store-based telephone card extras. Yeah, that's crazy.

I did not exclude the possibility of DLC, but to finally see an official page full of "horse armor" was shocking. (Thanks Gaijin Gamers) WTF, I didn't call it "horse armor" when I bought the similar things before. Anyways, 1000 yen for one dress, which is similar to the prices on the Xbox DLC. I haven't accepted the DRM on the PSP, so I doubt that I will use this DLC any time soon.

Will I see PSP toting McDonalds refugees playing Idolm@ster? I doubt it.

Flowery

(tags game, PlayStation 3)

Would I buy a PlayStation 3 for a 800 yen game? No. Still I really want to check out Flower (called Flowery in Japan). The review from Gaijin Gamers lingers away from spoilers, but I at least understand that this isn't a traditional game, and it's more than interactive art. I even asked a PS3 owning friend to try it out, but I haven't received a response back.

Oh and the introduction page at us.playstation.com has some developer interviews. Pink hair on that woman. Whoa. If you're a business owner you can write your own ... dress code?

Rubik's Touch Cube

(tags Rubik's Cube, game)

I first learned of the fabulous Rubik's Touch Cube from Rubik's Cube Nikki. But after seeing the Engadget initial report, I am not so thrilled. Basically you can only move one side at a time, which makes it not very applicable to speedy Cubing. Those who are into the Cube will see this as a trophy piece to show off to friends, but probably not much more. Plus the price tag of USD 150.00 relegates this toy to the executive room.

There's also the Rubik's 360 thing which is more action oriented. Huh, wut.

I'm starting to think that the Rubik's Cube is a timeless game/toy that won't be surpassed in my lifetime.

Pikachu nods off

(tags Pikachu)

I visited the Pokemon Center a weeken or two ago to checkout "Sleeping Pikachu" (「おねむりピカチュまつり」). It's just a common theme for a bunch of new merchandise. The first thing I checked out was a PVC figure of sleeping Pikachu. Nice, but already 3500 yen. Whoa.

(thanks to Kotaku)

You almost me had me there, Hello Kitty Online

(tags game, MMORPG, Hello Kitty, Windows)

Just two days ago I bought some Hello Kitty postcards at the post office. On the same day I learned that Hello Kitty Online was opening up their system for free, in time for Valentine's Day. (Thanks Kotaku) It's for stress testing the servers. 

I was going to give it a try for some reason. I don't know, my safety overrides were disabled or something. But I luckily balked at the client install size. 1.3 GB. If that's all graphics, nice, but there's no free space on my netbook anymore arrgh! ;-) Actually the shock had me thinking that I wouldn't play this game for long... It's like The Sims, and I don't actively play a game like that, now or in this lifetime.

Whew, I was almost snared. Let me not forget the plans I have coming up.

Let's do this: Street Fighter IV

(tags game, Street Fighter, nostalgia)

You know how in Japanese, people say "Let's ___" to start an activity? Sometimes it's comedy gold, other times it's startlingly appropriate (Let's Tap). I don't know, I was hoping for some funnies, but this poster for the Street Fighter IV launch event in Los Angeles is more inspirational:

Really though, what does "Let's Do This!" add to the announcement? Probably the abstract feeling of motivation. I mean, "Do" and "This" are pretty vague. And as far as I know, it isn't part of the SF lexicon like "Sheng Long". I bet other phrases like "Let's get it started" was dismissed as too long.

Just in case I'm not clear, I like that phrase "Let's Do This!". I'm just playing with English, that is all.

As for me, I'm not Doing This. Today I saw the game and the accompanying PS3 and Xbox 360 joysticks for sale, but passed on the purchase. I guess the magic of SF died for me. I wonder why. Back in the day, I demanded a Super Nintendo just to play SF2. (Cringe, selfish memories surfacing) I played Soul Calibur IV recently, why can't I motivate myself to play this? Recently I've been thinking of buying a PlayStation 3 just to play Flower. A USD 10.00 game, but one that I expect to feel new and fresh (OMG I've fallen for hype again). Having not played SF4, perhaps I'm not giving it a fair chance.

(edit: spell check)

Starting Prince of Persia

(tags game, Prince of Persia, Xbox 360)

One hour into Prince of Persia and I am now committed to reaching the conclusion. This is so wonderful, no fear of death, just exploration into colorful lands. It feels like a Jak game. And I like the dialogue. I'm glad this is in English.

I can't wait to get back into it.

I forgot about 2-19: many game pre-orders

(tags game, pre-order, Idolm@ster, Shining Wind, Dodonpachi, Shooting Love, Star Ocean, Halo, Prince of Persia)

I forgot about February 19th, which is a Thursday. I mean, the Thursday when a bunch of swell gaming stuff comes out, stuff I thought was so killer I needed to pre-order it. Um, that's why I forgot that date. So this is what is waiting for me at Sofmap Kobe.

• Idolm@ster for PSP all 3 versions
• Shining Wind Fan Festa PC disc
• DoDonPachi for the Xbox 360
• Shooting Love for the Xbox 360

I am so SOL on the PSP front. Gotta buy me a PSP-2000 somehow, because I still refuse to update my legal firmware PSPs.

I wanted to get Star Ocean 4 for the Xbox 360 (which comes out on the same day as well) for some reason. Perhaps it's because the director said he wanted to make ecchi games (but of course was refused). I downloaded the demo movies so I can be frightened.

Plus I figured that I might wanna get Halo Wars, luckily that will come out only one week after. Gotta pre-order that, in Japanese, huh. And yet I still haven't played the demo. Do it.

Oh yeah, I picked up Prince of Persia today at A-Too Nipponbashi. It was 3500 yen used, and it seems to be the English version even though the region NTSC-JP. Hopefully this will make me feel good about non-difficult gaming. Except I was supposed to start playing this now but I got caught up on bragging on my blog and ripping the CDs I bought today. And tomorrow I'm still going out, since it's another telephone card day at Gamers. Wee.

While I'm on the subject of A-Too... I still check the price of Halo 3. It's slowly dropping, now at 4980 yen. Yes I have the Japanese version. Yes I wanna hear the Chief's clipped dialogue in English. Also I saw the English version of DJ Max Portable, want want (but! have have). Gears of War 2 is still 4000 yen+, not a must buy just yet. Top Spin 3 is also.

Um, I have 65 games for my Xbox 360 (including Arcade ones). I really gotta do something about the unopened ones. (Like Naruto: Rise of a Ninja) Aaarrrrgggh!!!

She's in my sights: Shoko-tan

(tags music, anime, 石田耀子, 中川翔子)

Today I just felt like ripping a hole in my wallet. :-) I went to Osaka Nipponbashi, as is my habit when I want to create the most damage. At one of the southern Sofmaps in the area, I saw an anime display with a familiar tune playing. It reminded me of Yoko Ishida's rendition of "Sora-iro Days" (「空色デイズ」 on Hyper Yocomix 3), which was pretty good, so I was curious as to the original singer. It was none other than Shoko-tan (Shoko Nakagawa 中川翔子), huh. Oh yeah, this is the opening song for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (天元突破グレンラガン), a 2007-04 anime that I did not watch but I think was pretty popular.

I was surprised, because I seem to like her voice as well (having not hearing her voice long enough to remember it). Except Yoko Ishida has much better higher range and cuter voice. Oh well, I bought the full album Big☆Bang, for cheep (? 1200 yen), so I can check the rest of her. Too bad there's no DVD (but I don't need that because this is the Youtube generation).

I don't know why, but she's becoming more and more attractive to me. It's her face, I think, the eyes and princess hair looks pretty good. The rest of her body is like above average, enough to get into the sexy swimsuit magazine Sabra, which is a plus. She did recently get a photo-opin the gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu (which was more elegant), and it revealed some down-to-earth tidbits, like how she was going to cut up her copy of Famitsu to save the clippings. She definately seems to have anime-dork and game-geek cred, while at the same time appearing as the face for some Pokemon related activities, and mainstream commercials. She even appears as the "image character" for a leading Windows anti-virus software. I guess I like her nice and wholesome image.

I've been obsessed with getting her first single with DVD. It has the famous cat-head-eating music video (Cat Life). But why bother, I can always see it (again) on the Internet...(searching) woops, maybe not. Um, there is this cosplay/gravure video. Whoa... NOCARRIER

One expensive CD single: Mirror's Edge PC

(tags Mirror's Edge, game, Windows, music)

I failed to get the "Still Alive - Remixes" CD back in November. As for the PC version, since I was hyping it up to my PhysEngine-hugging pal, he actually broke down and purchased it (after throwing the controller when playing the Xbox 360 demo version). I think he's just starved to get some game that works with his fairly new graphics/physics card. Ha ha.

I also took a look at it in the shop, and was taken away by the words "特典 ミュージックCD" (Bonus Music CD). Of course.

The CD single must be the same thing that I wanted, and is now being sold for 4000 yen domestically or cheaper overseas. Aah. I'm still alive.

Considering desktop programming: Qt

(tags failure, programming)

I got back into using C++ at work, and it's pretty fun now. So now I'm looking at doing some desktop programming for fun. Good timing too, because the cross platform open-source GUI toolkit called Qt is going LGPL. Some Qt programs that I use enthusiastically are Google Earth and VLC (0.9 series). Let me not forget KDE, which I use whenever I go for a graphical Linux (which is rare but still). Basically Nokia swallowed the relatively little fish called Trolltech and now wants to spread this GUI all over the place.

This opens up options for using it at work, or at least for my hobby programming. I was dreading to learn the MFC, and ATL/WTL would be great but I would have to buy a recent Microsoft compiler to get the good stuff. With that kinda money I could be buying a new PC. :-/

The license change won't happen till March. This doesn't really affect me, since I don't intend to use it for work yet. There is that license clause which states you can't use the open-source version to jump start your commercial development. Nokia can't really check you're playing by the rules through technology, but it would look real suspicious releasing a full featured 1.0 product only days after buying a commercial Qt license.

Oh and I'm still considering Java Virtual Machine targeted programming. But not Java. Hell no. I'm thinking of dabbling with JRuby or Clojure. The latter has me high on hype fumes with its Software Transactional Memory this and Lisp-but-even-better that. Since Qt has bindings with Java, that means I can used it from these JVM hosted languages as well.

I need to practice more programming. This will probably impact my game playing. No more long RPGs for me. Haha, famous last words.