Well, I've supposedly found an arcade that has Blazblue: Calamity Trigger and is closer then the one my friend suggested to me. Puente Hill Mall apparently. But as a last ditch thing, I trolled a bunch of my local arcades to see what's new in town.
Imagine my surprise when I see SFIV arcade machines in my local mall, the Asian Garden Mall. I used to think that being run by Vietnamese people, it wouldn't be on the cutting edge of gaming, but there it was, freshly imported with Taito card readers and everything. Not only impressive for just being there, but also impressive because I've read it's technically illegal to import these particular machines.
My local movie theater at Bella Terra also has the latest in shooters, Time Crisis 4 and House of the Dead 4, hard to find in many places, along with a little known Mario x Namco Kart Racing game (yup, play as Pac-Man, racing in a go-kart).
So if you've been surprised by recent additions to your arcade, drop me a line. Let's all keep the arcade zombie up as long as we can!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Air Guitars and Air Juggles
I never got into Guilty Gear because I thought it's learning curve was too high (scratch that. It's learning wall). But now Blazblue is succeeding it in terms of design and most of all, music.
I'm constantly blasting the Blazblue ost in my iPod. Give it try if you have a bittorrent client (remember kids! I endorse uTorrent!)
Go Google it morons!
I'm constantly blasting the Blazblue ost in my iPod. Give it try if you have a bittorrent client (remember kids! I endorse uTorrent!)
Go Google it morons!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wii Updates to 4.0: Answers Our Prayers
For years now, Nintendo has bragged of their intimacy with it's consumers. They think they know us and know what we want. For some reason, they think we don't want storage. Nintendo is just deluding itself now.
The memory on the Wii gets cramped fast. If you like the Shop Channel, get ready to redownload all your stuff, cause the main Wii menu will fill up fast, and an SD card for storage means copying the data back and forth for use.
Now 4.0 is out and it answers our prayers in terms of storage. Now we can launch games from the SD card, so with a simple 1GB card, you can store much more and play them straight from it.
N64 games are the biggest problem, taking up hundreds of blocks at a time. Now you can store them on the SD card with plenty of room and play them too with no memory juggling.
The memory on the Wii gets cramped fast. If you like the Shop Channel, get ready to redownload all your stuff, cause the main Wii menu will fill up fast, and an SD card for storage means copying the data back and forth for use.
Now 4.0 is out and it answers our prayers in terms of storage. Now we can launch games from the SD card, so with a simple 1GB card, you can store much more and play them straight from it.
N64 games are the biggest problem, taking up hundreds of blocks at a time. Now you can store them on the SD card with plenty of room and play them too with no memory juggling.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A New Stage In My Xbox 360's Life
UPDATE: I've included links to the as of yet to be released games to places where I think the videos on display are a good indicator of the game'ss quality.
Back in 2007 to 2008, I was partially ashamed of having mostly shooter games. I had Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty: World at War.
Shooters are fun and all, but they quite honestly leave a bad taste in my mouth. Skill in my opinion in these kinds of games are kind of arbitrary. In Halo, competitive games meant know the spawn points for all the best weapons on the map. The range of motions for skills like aiming, shooting, throwing nades, and just moving was a big task. And worst of all, shooters don't have the best reputation for having a community of pleasant folks to play with. It seems like every shooter has it's fair share of rascist, homophobe, asshole gamers who think everyone wants to hear them sing, blast their music, or otherwise don't know how to turn off their mic when their personal life comes bursting through the door.
I believe fighters on the other hand, are simply the purist form of competition. Know your character and his moves. Know your enemy and what moves he might use. Space yourselves and kick the shit out of each others' avatars. And fight games have old roots in the old arcade scene. Dedicated roots with history and skill. And now my 360 is going to be home of some wild figthers. 2D fighters (Let's not talk about Soul Calibur 4 and stuff).
Goddamn! Let go of my life!
Street Fighter IV, as you know, is my current obsession. Simple on the surface, deep on the inside. It's an established franchise that's a new entry, but veterans liken it to a second coming of Street Fighter 2, to give you an example of it's familiarity.
Return of the King
But that's not all! King of Fighters XII is coming this year! SNK's classic fighting game who has always been at odds with Capcom's succcess with Street Fighter. It's had it's own following, with it's own deep gameplay with a flurry of characters and features and I've always thought of it as much more high class then Street Fighter (while Street Fighter embraced simpler double quarter circle motions, KOF had much bolder, complicated motions like half circle forward + quarter circle back from that position) and as if that weren't enough, XII is going to be crazy with nearly everything hand drawn and animated. Seriously, every frame was lovingly drawn and animated into perfect sequence.
It's got an awesome sense of style. Google it yourself man!
And finally is one that's perhaps most hardcore. A spiritual successor to Guilty Gear, the crazy hardcore game that practically brought 2D fighting games back into the limelight of the 21st century. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, takes the crazy homage to the crazy character designs of GG, envisions an entirely new cast of insane characters, brings back the rocking music we all pegged GG for, and polished up everything to a mirror sheen that would produce fires in drybush. That's BlazBlue to me. Everything's in: showstopping finishers, awesome supers, airdashing, air blocking, cancels, and maybe a kitchen sink to smack them with.
Ok, not really, but still...
Back in 2007 to 2008, I was partially ashamed of having mostly shooter games. I had Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty: World at War.
Shooters are fun and all, but they quite honestly leave a bad taste in my mouth. Skill in my opinion in these kinds of games are kind of arbitrary. In Halo, competitive games meant know the spawn points for all the best weapons on the map. The range of motions for skills like aiming, shooting, throwing nades, and just moving was a big task. And worst of all, shooters don't have the best reputation for having a community of pleasant folks to play with. It seems like every shooter has it's fair share of rascist, homophobe, asshole gamers who think everyone wants to hear them sing, blast their music, or otherwise don't know how to turn off their mic when their personal life comes bursting through the door.
I believe fighters on the other hand, are simply the purist form of competition. Know your character and his moves. Know your enemy and what moves he might use. Space yourselves and kick the shit out of each others' avatars. And fight games have old roots in the old arcade scene. Dedicated roots with history and skill. And now my 360 is going to be home of some wild figthers. 2D fighters (Let's not talk about Soul Calibur 4 and stuff).
Goddamn! Let go of my life!Street Fighter IV, as you know, is my current obsession. Simple on the surface, deep on the inside. It's an established franchise that's a new entry, but veterans liken it to a second coming of Street Fighter 2, to give you an example of it's familiarity.
Return of the KingBut that's not all! King of Fighters XII is coming this year! SNK's classic fighting game who has always been at odds with Capcom's succcess with Street Fighter. It's had it's own following, with it's own deep gameplay with a flurry of characters and features and I've always thought of it as much more high class then Street Fighter (while Street Fighter embraced simpler double quarter circle motions, KOF had much bolder, complicated motions like half circle forward + quarter circle back from that position) and as if that weren't enough, XII is going to be crazy with nearly everything hand drawn and animated. Seriously, every frame was lovingly drawn and animated into perfect sequence.
It's got an awesome sense of style. Google it yourself man!And finally is one that's perhaps most hardcore. A spiritual successor to Guilty Gear, the crazy hardcore game that practically brought 2D fighting games back into the limelight of the 21st century. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, takes the crazy homage to the crazy character designs of GG, envisions an entirely new cast of insane characters, brings back the rocking music we all pegged GG for, and polished up everything to a mirror sheen that would produce fires in drybush. That's BlazBlue to me. Everything's in: showstopping finishers, awesome supers, airdashing, air blocking, cancels, and maybe a kitchen sink to smack them with.
Ok, not really, but still...Selling Me On the DSi
Sunday was a little different for me then usual. Usually I spend time at home, in my room, lamp on to focus on my homework which I regulate to Sundays. After all, the weekend only comes so often in the week, so any work is taken care of only when necessary.
Weeks before hand though, my membership in the Nintendo Club finally pay off. As a Platinum member (someone who's bought a certain Nintendo games and registered them on his online profile) I've finally received a perk for spending so much money on ill fated Nintendo games. I was invited to a special preview session of the DSi, Nintendo's upcoming third iteration of the Nintendo DS.
It's important to note though I'm a fairly skeptical consumer. When I first heard of the DSi a while ago, I immedeitely though, "Why should I get a new DS when mine works just fine?"
Well, after attending the preview, it's changed my mind, if only because of the special gift card they handed out that makes my current DS Lite worth $100 credit (it's normally worth $70).
The DSi's new features are certainly head turning in some aspects. It's built in cameras aren't anything to scoff at. These babies take fine pictures. Not high quality mind you, but nice enough that if something weird or interesting is on the scene and you always have your DS on hand, having a DSi ready means having a picture. Best part though? Since it uses an SD card, transferring pics is a simple task with no wires. Just slip it into the laptop and cut/paste.
The music player isn't something I'm terribly interested in, but if you don't have an iPod, it's definitely worth something. It's like having a nice MP3 player, but with one drawback: it only plays ACC format sound files. No MP3 filetypes, so I guess it's not really a freaking MP3 player in the first place. Still, it has nice visualizer effects, and it can cut down on the stuff you wanna carry around.
The DSi also hints at a DS Store, much like the Wii's Shop Channel. The Internet has already speculated on what could possibly go up for sale there, including classic SNES games and the like. We'll have to wait and see.
Really though, the biggest sell on me was the DS Lite $100 trade back value card, which will only work at the Gamestop I went to for the preview, but hey, my DS Lite's L button is kind of sketchy in function. It'll definitely pass the inspection process mind you, but getting a new DS with a better L button and a camera thrown in isn't all bad at $50, right?
Weeks before hand though, my membership in the Nintendo Club finally pay off. As a Platinum member (someone who's bought a certain Nintendo games and registered them on his online profile) I've finally received a perk for spending so much money on ill fated Nintendo games. I was invited to a special preview session of the DSi, Nintendo's upcoming third iteration of the Nintendo DS.
It's important to note though I'm a fairly skeptical consumer. When I first heard of the DSi a while ago, I immedeitely though, "Why should I get a new DS when mine works just fine?"
Well, after attending the preview, it's changed my mind, if only because of the special gift card they handed out that makes my current DS Lite worth $100 credit (it's normally worth $70).
The DSi's new features are certainly head turning in some aspects. It's built in cameras aren't anything to scoff at. These babies take fine pictures. Not high quality mind you, but nice enough that if something weird or interesting is on the scene and you always have your DS on hand, having a DSi ready means having a picture. Best part though? Since it uses an SD card, transferring pics is a simple task with no wires. Just slip it into the laptop and cut/paste.
The music player isn't something I'm terribly interested in, but if you don't have an iPod, it's definitely worth something. It's like having a nice MP3 player, but with one drawback: it only plays ACC format sound files. No MP3 filetypes, so I guess it's not really a freaking MP3 player in the first place. Still, it has nice visualizer effects, and it can cut down on the stuff you wanna carry around.
The DSi also hints at a DS Store, much like the Wii's Shop Channel. The Internet has already speculated on what could possibly go up for sale there, including classic SNES games and the like. We'll have to wait and see.
Really though, the biggest sell on me was the DS Lite $100 trade back value card, which will only work at the Gamestop I went to for the preview, but hey, my DS Lite's L button is kind of sketchy in function. It'll definitely pass the inspection process mind you, but getting a new DS with a better L button and a camera thrown in isn't all bad at $50, right?
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