Youtube Will Not Die! IWBTG and Mega Man 2

(tags video, game)

I spent the morning accepting comments on my year-old video about Bangai-O Spirits, "Homing don't play that: Bangai-o Spirits (video)" and "Calmin' Napalmin': Bangai-o Spirits (video)". Sorry I didn't know people commented on them. One of the commenters pointed out there are blue clouds blocking the missles, so the air wall block is not a bug but a feature. Yeah right.

I then started looking at the regular things on Youtube, "Man walks on water", "Ikaruga 1 person 2 player", yeah regular things. Which lead me to I Wanna Be That Guy, which is a masocistic side scrolling platform game that pilfers music and graphics from games from the 80s and 90s. And even Ikaruga. Oh. I'm not even going to download it, though. But there was one level which had excellent music which brought me me to...

Mega Man 2. OMG, I don't even remember if I played it before, but it looked familiar. But the music is so great! "Dr. Wily Stage 1 & 2", "Air Man", "Wood Man". It makes me want to break out the emulator, because if I did own it 20 years ago, it's long gone now. I suppose I could go try to buy the sound track, but I bet it's really expensive. Perhaps doujin remix CDs are still available. OMG remixes: "Mega Man 2 Dr. Wily´s Castle Theme on the guitar." which led to "Air Man Will Not Die"... which lead to "Eroge ga owaranai"... Better quit now before my weekend ends.

Youtube Will Not Die! :-)

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.

Should I be watching anime?

(tags anime, video, failure)

According to my records, I haven't watched any anime for like 6 weeks. Previously I used to watch 1 to 2 hours a week. I think my gaming and computer putzing has taken the forefront right now. Or perhaps I am tired of downloading stuff, even though I finally automated it through RSS and some custom RSS filtering.

If the game was as good as the trailer: Prince of Persia (2008)

(tags game, Xbox 360, video)

I downloaded some sample videos from the Tokyo Game Show 2008 via the Xbox Live Dashboard. By far the best one that I keep playing over and over again is Prince of Persia. A search for "prince of persia tgs 2008 video" turns up downloadable versions. This game will come out 2008-12-18 for the Japan region. There's not much about the gameplay, but I love the scrolling backgrounds and cinematic camera. Plus the song "Breathe me" which probably has nothing to do with the soundtrack, just sets a great atmosphere.

Perhaps this is like Ace Combat 6's trailer vs gameplay.

Serve up my Xbox video: TVersity

(tags video, Xbox 360, Windows, anime)

I've already tried out the Windows Media Player 11 method for streaming media from my Windows XP to my Xbox 360. It works, however I didn't like having WMP11 running in the background. So intrigued by the recent Lifehacker roundup post about doing more with the Xbox, I tried out TVersity.

Actually TVersity works somewhat like WMP11, where you have to add your media to TVersity's database and start the server. But TVersity works better for me because its easier to start and stop the server. Plus its more open in its functionality, however I have not tried stuff like the Internet Media and Media RSS feeds. I still do the old fashion method of auto-BitTorrenting off of RSS feeds, so all my media is on my HDD. At least I have a custom-made client-side filter proxy, made with FeedTools, for the RSS feeds so I don't download "Naruto".

One niggling thing though is that browsing on the Xbox 360 by "Folders" does not all show all the media. I think it's an Xbox 360 problem. The workaround is to tag the videos as they are added by folder import. It's kinda lame but it works. I need to figure out how to meta-tag the videos themselves. I know all about tagging MP3s but videos stupify me.

So I've been watching stuff through my Xbox 360. I almost finished Amatsuki (あまつき), some almost Boy's Life 18th century Japan anime that has seiyuu Romi Park (朴璐美) and Jun Fukuyama (福山潤). These are the same two seiyuu I was falling over back in Princess Princess. This time though, Park actually plays a woman, great. Fukuyama is at it again with his silky voice.

And now I'm running Kurenai (紅). This one is interesting because of Miyuki Sawashiro (沢城みゆき) "manning" the lead character, and Minami Kuribayashi (栗林みな実) singing the OP. There's also the whole loli aspect which I can't deny. The lead character, Kurenai, lives in the fifth room of some apartment, while his neighbor in the 6th room is pretty hot and worldly, while his other neighbor in the 4th room is very mysterious. This kinda setup reminds me of Maison Ikkoku (めぞん一刻), but only in reference. Also Ryoko Shintani (新谷良子), who I was crapping on for her dire Soul Calibur 4's "Xianghua" voice, is singing the ending theme (and also voices a character). I was surprised that I like her singing voice. Did she get better somehow? Because the last time I saw some of her old CDs in the bargain bins, meh factor 6.

Calmin' Napalmin': Bangai-o Spirits (video)

(tags video, game, Dual Screen, Bangai-O, replay-data, failure)

I didn't want to go out with a "Game Over", so here I am clearing the same stage with two 100 x 4 Reflect Missile bonuses: "Calmin' Napalmin'"

This time I used EX Weapon Bounce + Napalm. Dumb rockets get the job done. winner. :-p

I also wanted to share not the just the video, but the replay data for "Homing don't play that" and "Calmin' Napalmin'". Bangai-O DS's unique feature for sharing Edit Stage data and Replay Data is a great concept. However the execution is poor. Out of probably over a hundred tries, I was only able to reload my replay data ONCE. And that was when it was RAW. I am not yet able to load stuff when I convert it to MP3. The official page has a couple of new stages recorded in MP3, so it should work, right? I tried both my "phat" DS and "slim" DS. I also tried getting away from my noisy computer, but with no success. FAIL.

Homing don't play that: Bangai-o Spirits (video)

(tags video, game, Dual Screen, Bangai-o)

This is my video of Bangai-o Spirits. I call it: "Homing don't play that"

Sweet sweet slowdown. I love the big numbers.

This is game standard stage 95 called "フレ！フレ！フレ！" (lit. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!), you know like cheerleader pom-poms. The EX weapon is Mix Homing + Bounce. I am trying to get a really high Reflect Missile score. The missile size (also the multiplier) depends on how dense and deep you are in the missile spray.

Do not try to pass this level with the homing weapon. :-p

One interesting bug shown in this video is that enemy missiles sometimes are blocked. Don't worry, though, it does not affect the regular game. :-p

Bus pop

(tags Rubik's Cube, failure, video)

Well it finally happened. I POP'd my Rubik's Cube on the bus. One of the edge pieces fell out of sight, at least for a short while. It's kinda hard to hear myself laugh with my headphones on. Anyways, I found the edge piece after no help from the other passengers. Now my Cube feels really loose. I wonder if I need to tighten it.

Speaking of loose, what are these clamps for? Why does pushing the center facelet away from the center make it loose?

Speaking of Rubik's Cube, rubiccubist linked to a recent Honda UK commercial video involving Rubik's Cubes on a grand scale. Nice.

Wonder Momo dress DLC

(tags Idolmaster, cosplay, video, seiyuu, game)

I was discussing Idolm@ster DLC prices on #insertcredit and "Cortana" mentioned the "Wonder Momo" costume was worth my while. Intrigued because this person bought the Ace Combat 6 DLC Idolm@ster "Miki" plane, I looked it up. It's in the fourth catalog as the third "Extend" costume, for 1000 points.

I had no idea why this was included, but then a video url showed up. Halko Momoi (桃井はるこ) does a rendition of "Wonder Momo-i".

I couldn't stomach the audio in this video, but it was interesting and cute nontheless.

Still I was clueless, but as always the Wikipedia (en, ja) was useful in telling me that Namco released an arcade game (1987) and the corresponding PC-Engine port (1989) called Wonder Momo. Hm, a beat-em-up where she kicks high and she has to watch out for fan-service camera kozou (カメラ小僧). And your boss in Idolm@ster claims to have managed Wonder Momo in a previous life. It's a tenuous connection strictly for the old-school Namco fans, but at least they aren't forgetting their heritage.

Component to VGA upcan converter: Made for PSP lite?

(tags PlayStation Portable, hardware, video)

PSP Gadgetz pointed out the "PSP-2000 VGA BOX 2198P", which is a Component to VGA video converter. The output is 1600 by 1200 (SXGA) D-Sub connector and the input is Component. Sounds great, since I'm still in the "analog" video world (VGA connector, 4:3 based monitors).

Intellectually stimulating: Open-Source Convention

(tags programming, conference, presentation, video)

Two people on my blog reading list pointed out the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2007 free presentation videos. Just go to that page and start click on the videos to be amazed.

John Lam of IronRuby fame pointed out Microsoft Research and Haskell primary architect Simon Peyton-Jones's talk "Transactional Memory for Concurrent Programming". This talk is pretty much about designing programming languages to give you more abstraction with regards to the upcoming multiprocessing push. Haskell already has this idea, but it sounds similar to an Erlang concept.

Also I watched Ben Fry's "The Processing Development Environment" but making programming easier for non-programmers is not one of my primary interests.

I also stayed for a video by the Intel guys explaining their new open-sourced C++ compiler toolkit in "Outfitting for Multi-core Parallelism". I loved how they had a suit guy and jeans guy. James Reinders as the suit guy adjusts his vocabulary to be receptive to the open-source advocates, despite being head of Marketing of Open-Source Products (or is it just an act?).

But I didn't watch all the videos, and I almost missed a great one if it wasn't for Bryan Murdock's linkage to it "Yegge on Branding (Marketing, eww)". Steve Yegge of the Amazon, Emacs, and lately Rails on Javascript fame, gave a open-ended talk called "How to Ignore Marketing and Become Irrelevant in Two Easy Steps"about creating a successful brand. The biggest problem he claims is that the term "open-source" definition is so loose that it is not an effective brand. As a presenter, Yegge makes me motion sick because he moves around a lot, but nevertheless he is very articulate and spontaneously funny.

In making this post watched them all again, thus making me late to go out. I'm going to have to watch the rest of the videos later.

A short waste of smile: Sugao no Hohoemi

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, video, UMD, gal-game)

I finished Sugao no Hohoemi. This UMD video is in a word, disappointing. For about 3500 yen, I expected more than 5 hours of content. Yes I bought the game for the visuals and drawing style, and yes it was good for that. But I expected an interesting story. And this one wasn't.

Those who are used to playing those visual novels are used to plots changing on a player's choice of action, but due to the limitations of UMD video, story branches reconverge at the same points. For example, there is a choice between drinking juice or eating ice cream, but the outcome is essentially the same. This also meant that as soon as I got to the last branching menu, I could replay from there and get all of the endings. There were no "flags" as far as I know.

First, some technical gripes: This all-region UMD disc contains 180 minutes of content. Since it is a UMD video, if you press X at any point, the UMD disc stops and you are dumped out the game. It doesn't resume! Next, it's not possible to fast-forward or rewind at all. Most visual novels I'm used let you skip. Finally, I wasn't able to pause or slow the dialogue. I still don't read and listen as fast I should.

But I was surprised there was a password-resume system. The game lets you input a 3 character password t to resume at one of the branching points. And once you clear all of the heroine's stories, you get a completed password which is a picture gallery.

Also the word display was not static, but much more improved than a typical visual novel/gal-game. The graphics enhancing the static display were pretty intense.

I suppose I'm just disappointed the stories ends on a sad note. "That's the good end?" I shook my head.

I think this is just a test release for Jin. There haven't been many DVD-PG like games for the UMD, and perhaps Jin is advertising its visual novel software to other game makers. Perhaps this will start another niche market?

SPOILERS

If you have a terminal condition, wouldn't you want to be a bit selfish and let out your feelings? I suppose not, though, which is one of the parts of this story that makes sense.

If your friend had a terminal condition and she told you to keep it a secret from the mutual guy friend/love interest, would you feel guilty for doing what she said? Okay, yeah. But don't tell me that kissing in the hospital right after the mutual friend died isn't tacky. Granted, its a kiss to keep the two together despite the fact that they haven't been honest to each other.

If a girl carries another girl like a lifeguard carrying a downed (not drowned) swimmer, would you call her an amazon? Heh. Well, that's one warning sign. The other warning signs are that she wears all black and that she doesn't say where she lives.

Maybe I'm just sad because the heroines that I was interested in didn't have a positive ending.

END SPOILERS

Read a book, read a book, read a m######f####g book

(tags video, rap, music, education)

Whenever I listen to American rap (which very rare), I lose control of my mouth and I start to say "n###g#r" and other very vulgar phrases because it just sounds so cool. So it was with trepidation that I watched this video: Read A Book by BET (Black Entertainment Television channel). It is too funny, because I can't tell if it's trying to be educational, entertainment, edutainment or parody. The message in simple terms:

• Read a book, not a sports page or a magazine
• Buy land, not fancy toys.
• Drink water when thirsty.
• Raise your kids.
• Brush your teeth.
• Wear deoderant.

But the presentation is typical foul-mouthed rap. And the animation is truly funny, with gyrating hips, guns with books for bullets, spinning (car) rims.

So if we're supposed to read books, what should we read? There was another video that used the same song that showed all kinds of books called "Read A Book - Get Crunk about Reading". The list of the books:

• Up From Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington
• Breaking The Chains of Psychological Slavery by Na'im AkBar Ph.D
• The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson
• The Spook Who Sat by The Door by Sam Greenlee
• The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales told by Virginia Hamilton
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• A Day Late and a Dollar Short by Terry McMillan
• The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Breaking The Curse of Willie Lynch: The Science of Slave Psychology by Alvin Morrow
• Countering the Conspiracy To Destroy Black Boys Vol III by Jawanza Kunjufu
• World's Great Men of Color Volume II by J.A. Rogers
• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haley
• Sun Zi's The Art of War translated by Dr. Han Hiong Tan
• Nervous by Zane
• Addicted by Zane
• Afterburn by Zane
• Know Thy Self by Na'im Akbar
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• The African Origin of Christianity
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
• Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• The African Origin of Civilization by Cheikh Anta Diop
• Back To Our Roots: Food For The Gods by Chef Dawui R. Ujamaa C.W.C.
• The African Origins: African Origins of African Civilization, Religion, Yoga Mysticism and Ethics Philosophy by Dr. Muata Ashby

I don't understand why The DaVinci Code is in there, but maybe its the stick it to the man theme.

Pure Smile: Sugao no Hohoemi

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, video, UMD, gal-game)

I was disappointed because the Lumines is gone. So I got something else at one of the shops I visited: Sugao no Hohoemi (素顔の微笑み), a UMD video love-sim for the PSP.

Notice the rating: 15. It looks like an old CERO rating, but since this is a video, its an age rating. And why 15 and older? One word: porori (ぽろり), which I figured out means topless nudity.

(photo thanks: Senakablog)

Um. I swear I bought it because the drawing style was attractive. I didn't know about the nudity beforehand, really. Hahaa.

The only place that had a telephone card omake was Messe Sanoh, shown above. I missed out, then again, this was just a purchase on a whim.

According to the blog announcements by Senaka Blog and Akiba Blog, it had some store area. And it was sold out at Messe Sanoh only after two days, heh.

This is the entertainment that made me pause on the Harry Potter book. Well, it's 180 minutes of video, according to the cover, so I should be done by next weekend.

Also I still need to finish the Time Traveller's Wife. Actually, I paused reading the book because of HP, but I started reading it again today. I was actually cry-sniffing on the train, it is so moving.

I am dying from cute: Pika Pika Yukai

(tags anime, dance, video, parody, kawaii)

I got my Pikachu quota for this month already.

"Pika Pika Yukai" (thanks Kotaku).

Dream fight

(tags video, fan-made, doujin, game, Nintendo, Microsoft, CG)

I can't use the videos on PSP Fanboy Theatre on my PSP, but I couldn't ignore this picture:

because it reminds me of that Metroid Mission Zero GBA commercial. Rawr.

The video where this picture is from is way better: Haloid by Monty Oum, Monty Oum, Monty Oum... There's CG, impossible fighting movements that will leave you wondering which video games it came from (do I detect Soul Calibur-chanelling?), crazy weapons, Matrix-reused slow-mo and music, and of course, nice player models. Rawr.