Monday 28 December 2009

Overcompensating

Today I finally gave in and bought the biggest flat screen T.V. I could possibly fit in my living room.

That's 37 inches of totally unneccessary yet awesome screen space. Seriously, this thing is FUCKING HUGE. It's like having the view screen of the Enterprise in front of your sofa.

Then, just to top things off I went and bought the a shotgun for the Wii.

That's right. A SHOTGUN.

I officially no longer have a penis.

What I do have however is possibly the ultimate setup for playing House Of The Dead: Overkill. Strangely enough it seemed slightly more difficult playing it on the monstrosity for the first time, I guess because everythings further apart, or maybe I was still getting used to the new gun. Either way it's irrelevant since harder or not it is even more FUN to play than it already was. Seriously, you have to appreciate that the shotgun has a pump action mechanism for the A button, which you can use to reload. This is the nearest your ever going to get to the full arcade experience.

Whilst I am now obviously rather skint I have to say I'm also rather pleased. All the games I've tried so far look great on this thing. I simply can't wait to watch Great Decisive Battle! The Superior 8 Ultra Brothers.

Sadly I'll have to wait till tomorrow for that particular pleasure, as I got a little distracted playing Dead Rising. Which is only fair. After spending the afternoon wading through mall zombies it is nice to come home and actually start shooting them in the head.

Sunday 27 December 2009

The Silent Art Of Waiting

the icy fingers scratch and claw
thence form fists to beat the door
clamour within and dread without
though locks yet shake the door is stout
and not one grim, forsaken face
shall be seen in light outside that place
the secrets of this snow bound tomb
are kept forever in the gloom

Saturday 19 December 2009

The Year In Review - Awesome Stuff Awards 2009

It's the end of the year. Just in case you hadn't noticed. So I figured I'd have a look back over my records and see what I'd been doing all this time, and pick out a few highlights. Obviously this is just based on thing I personally have experienced this year, and not all enteries are neccessarily new releases or anything. Just things that, for me, have stood out as being rather good.

So, without further ado, let's get on with it.

Music

This is a rather tough one for me, as music is one thing I seem to get a lot of. This is based on CD's I've bought, and doesn't include any of this new fangled downloading all the kids are talking about these days. I would also like to point out that these are not in any particular order either. It was hard enough picking just 10 (and even then I had to cheat). Actually putting them in order would probably break my mind.



Marlee - Virtual Sex
One that I do seem to keep coming back to. Sexy Gothic Industrial Rock of a Japanese flavour. Great Stuff.




Suicide Ali - Daiyon No Waltz
Finally, A full album release from this band. Great arrangements of some old songs, and great new tracks as well. Bonus points for actually being available, since a lot of their stuff has been limited edition singles up to this point.



Custom Mummy - Q Type
A CD-R retrospective of this incredibly interesting industrial outfit. A fantastic diversity of content really shows off the breadthe of style they put out.



GPKISM - Barathrum / Iucidium
Yeah, I know it's technically 2 releases, but they are conceptually linked, so screw you. Both feature great A & B sides, and also feature a large amount of good remixes. A good remix is hard to find, so the fact that in both cases they remain interesting to hear throughout is really notable.



An Cafe - Harajuku Dance Rock
Happy and bouncy J-Rock, but with a suprising feeling of being a little more... grown up than their previous efforts.


Seileen - Kinjareta Asobi
A suprising fusion of industrial music and operatic vocal from Japan. Works fantastically well.



Code - Resplendant Grotesque
Rich and gothic black metal with a curious air of victorian sensibility, at least to my ear. A long awaited return by one of the few genuinely interesting bands left.



Crushing doom/noise/industrial fusion. Heavy guitars and analogue electronica collide in spectacular fashion. The Doctor Who reference doesn't hurt either.



T3chn0phob1a - Grave New World
A slightly dancefloor style mash-up of black metal and industrial styles. Despite covering U2 they produce an impressive album.


Not so much music as a bizzare audio drama stream of conciousness nightmarish soniscape. About as far from commercial as you ccan get, heavy, densely layered and oppresively atmospheric. Put in your headphones and turn it up.


Film & TV

A tricky selection to make. There is so very little released in cinemas or on TV that interests me these days. Almost everything I watch is on DVD. But I suppose you could consider this year fairly succesful since I went to the cinema 4 or 5 times. However, when you consider how many films are actually released each year, that really doesn't say much does it?

Anyway....



An awesome film, I was suprisingly enraptured. Well put together, although part of a series it holds up on it's own perfectly well. Which since the showing of part 2 seemed to get cancelled is just as well. Better wait for the boxset I suppose.



I've only watched a few new anime series this year, and this one narrowly nudges out Strike Witches purely because I can watch it without getting arrested. A hilarious parody, with some pretty good music thrown in as well. The movie version is high up my watch list.



Doctor Who Series 4 Boxset
Possibly the strongest series of nu-who since it returned, with consistantly good stories throughout. I mean, yeah, there's more than a touch of fanwank at the end, but who's counting? A solid block of entertainment all laid out on DVD for your repeated enjoyment.



Oh god it's hard to pick a single Ultraman release, considering how exponentially my collection has increased this year. But this film has to win out for it's sheer unabashed celebration of the entire franchise. Getting that many characters together in a coherent story is surely no mean feat, and this film accomplishes it brilliantly.

Reading


I do love a good book, though strangely I never seem to spend as much time actually reading them as I'd like to. But I do manage at least a bit, and it's not ALL manga.

Just mostly.



Yes, I'm a massive poser who bought the graphic novel after seeing the hype for the film. Sue me, I can't read everything when it comes out. Since this is so classic there's not really anything I need to say about it. You either already know or you SHOULD already know.



A brilliant cyberpunk/noir crime/detective/crime story with hints of a massive space opera sci-fi background. I'm just gonna call it cyberpunk though. Thouroughly grounded in it's depiction of a future where people can be saved to disk, it's an interesting piece on identity and the effects of technology, but also a gripping read with a good story and interesting characters.



A little unusual in that I had to download it and print it out, nevertheless this is a wonderful piece of writing. Evoking steampunk Lovecraftian fantasy without really being any of those thing. It's tricky to describe without giving to much away, but if you like any of those 3 genres you really ought to check it out.



I love this manga. It's like an antidote the ongoing trend of wet, mopey vampire bullshit. This book has balls. Full on, and replete with interesting ideas. Brilliant stuff.



The odd but rather enchanting story of a group of otaku and the sort of stuff they get up to. Which as I read it back is pretty shit summary of this series, but there you go. A story about otaku, written by otaku, for otaku. With all the charm,heart and humor that degree of concentrated nerdiness produces.



This is a great book, but perhaps not one that many people will get to read, which I think is a shame. 4-koma style it tells it's tale with great style and effect, and is certainly one of the more unique books I've encountered. The only thing is that there only seems to be 2 volumes of it.

Gaming

This year hasn't been the greatest for games I admit. I mean, 4th ed D&D? Seriously. Hecatomb and Dreamblade are dead, and there really hasn't been much to fill to the void. However in terms of video gaming it hasn't been all bad. I bought a wii. Not exactly hardcore some might scoff, but then I wanted some games that were just FUN to play. And it hasn't dissapointed so far. Though I've bought a few games one does stand above the rest in terms of entertainment, replayability and not having to flail around like a complete spacko....



Put simply, this game is pure entertainment to play. There is literally no time when blasting zombies is not fun. There's a wide variety of stuff to unlock, a whole bunch of guns to buy and a profanity laden "plot" riffing on the tropes of cheap grindhouse cinema. Pure joy.

Friday 18 December 2009

We Can Name Him Beowulf

Oh my god you guys, it totally snowed last night!!

Now, I normally hate snow with seething distaste, but this morning I have been jumping around in it like a 5 year old whilst on my way to work, whilst quietly singing the snowman song from cannibal the musical.

What is the cause of this inexplicable joie de vivre?

Could it be the childish glee of glomping through 6 inch drifts of untouched snow, the first living creature to profane it's cold tranquility?

Or maybe it's more to do with the fact that in all likelyhood no one else will be in today so I'll get to go home early?

I have the strange urge to go out with my Ultraman toys and take pictures of them in the snow, but there are two minor drawbacks to this plan. Firstly to actually get at any snow worth photographing you've basically gotta destroy it first, and secondly I haven't got a Glozam figure.

Yet.

Still, the garden looks awesome as it's basically completely buried.

P.S. I just looked around towards where my legs are positioned close to the heaters, and there are copious amounts of steam coming from them. Maybe sitting a little too close?

Wednesday 16 December 2009

Omni directional cross temporal disphase collision protocols have been activated

By which I simply mean to say I've started importing posts from the old blog over here.

If by "importing" you in fact mean "tediously copying and pasting each and every goddamn entry", but I digress.

Partly it is of course a cheap way of bumping the post count and thus making me look more interesting. Mainly it's so I've got everything in one place, but also it's interesting to see the sort of thing I've been writing, and possibly revist some old stuff.

Quite how far back I go is only limited by my patience really, so I have no idea if I'll bother going beyond the start of this year or not. But it's not like I was exactly prolific before, so who knows?

I have noticed a definate habit of saying time will tell at the end of these posts. Annoying perhaps, but now maybe I'll get around to finding out.

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Testing, now with pictures

So let's see how this works with a picture, shall we?


An old picture of my own devising. Took a while as I recall, and I think I was fairly pleased with the result. Looks okay anyway.

And you can't deny that this would rule on an unprecedented scale.

Testing

Well then, we have signed up for this shiny new grown up blog type thing have we?

Better write something to try it out, hadn't you?

So, why are we here? Simple. I used to post the occasional musing on my myspazz blog, which was okay I guess. But I really wanted to try doing something more. Something regular. Partly of course to see if I could, partly to help express and organize my thoughts and improve my writing, display pictures and just generally do my own thing.

I am under no illusions that anyone will ever read this of course, but I did get some encouragement from S-san to do this, and she seems to enjoy the sort of crap I write, so we'll just see how it goes shall we?

So then, a selection of reviews, musings, art and comics of my own construction. So all fairly sub standard and of limited appeal, but what can you do? It's not like anyones forcing you to read this shit is it?

Honestly, get over yourself.

To start with I may pull a few gems out of the archive whilst I'm getting the hang of this. The added advantage of not having to create anything new in order to fill out the content is not to be underestimated.

But I'm gonna shoot for at least one post a week. See how long that lasts eh?

I can practically hear you taking bets.

Sunday 13 December 2009

[old blog import] Long Time Gone

So, according to the wii I managed to spend over 10 hours playing games yesterday.

TEN HOURS.

It's been a while since I've done that.

(This does make me think it would be nice to have access to some sort of detailed summary information. Total time played, longest session, most frequently played, that sort of thing.)

Whilst I'm still playing Darklord (nearly finished though) Yesterday was dedicated (in it's entirety apparently) to 2 new games. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Secret Files: Tunguska.

(I've just noticed that there appear to be an alarming number of colons in my games all of a sudden. I wouldn't mind, but it's not like I'm playing THAT sort of game. Which would be AWESOME on the wii.)

So anyway, some thoughts.

Fire Emlbem is a tactical RPG, though it does seem to be a bit more tactical than RPG. Not really anything in the way of exploration, no random encounters or anything like that. The plot advances from scenario to scenario in a rather linear fashion. I suppose there's not really anything wrong with this per se, but it does make think how much MORE fun it would be if you had multiple objectives to choose from, or could deploy the various characters you accumulate over a world map. Something a little more interactive feeling.

I don't really want to come of as overly negative, because the gameplay is actually fun, assuming you like a bit of strategy. Which I do. There is a bit of depth to the gameplay, so you do get some objectives other than "Wipe them out. ALL of them" ... All though a lot of the time thats what your gonna be doing. Because it's fun.

My only real concern so far has been the balance between individual characters, as some seem to be terminally useless compared to others. However this may well be more to do with how I'm using them, so further testing is in order. Which will be tricky as I've completed part 1, and the game has pulled some weird trick and I'm now controlling a different set of characters in a different country. Which is interesting, and possibly awesome, but I don't really know yet.

The plot does make it plain that this is a sequel, which I'm sure is great for those who played the preceding game and know who all these people are supposed to be, but isn't exactly involving for those of us who didn't. It's not a barrier neccesarily, but it does get a little annoying.

Overall I'm looking forward to playing more.

Next up: Tunguska!

Here we have a game in the old school point and click mode, something that the wii can achieve very well. This also means the application of old school point and click logic, which can be obtuse and confusing to say the least. But then that is kind of the point. Wouldn't be much of a puzzle game if it was easy.

Still, I had to duct tape my phone to a cat. That's really not the sort of thing you see everyday.

It's all fun however. I haven't played anything like this in years, and just being able to take your time and work things out has a certain satisfaction. Thus far I haven't had to resort to any hints, so as frustrating as some puzzles can be at least I get a sense of achievement for working them out.

Plot wise... Well theres a MYSTERY!! I'm just not far enough in to know what it is yet. Daddy's dissapeared so I'm infiltrating the russian military through the sewers. Or something. The last section was disturbingly scatalogical in content.

It's worth noting the voice acting, which in the long and distinguished history of video games is pretty awful. I think the game is originally german, but the english language dub gives the heroine a rather jarring valley girl type accent. This has the rather disconcerting effect of making her various exhortations to herself to think less the inner monologue of a capable and intelligent female protoganist and more maths is hard barbie.

But again, A fun game to play, and one I'm looking forward to playing more of. I do get the feeling that the replay value for this one isn't going to be massively high, since the plot and characters haven't exactly gripped me. It's doing the puzzles where the fun comes in, and once you know how to do them there's not much point, is there?

Anyway, we'll see how things go I guess.

Friday 11 December 2009

[old blog import] This is your brain... wait, no it isn't.

As an example of just what I have to put up with with my so called mind, I'd like to describe to you what I can remember of my dream last night.

They hollowed out my head. Top of, brain out, the full works. This did not however seem to have any negative effect on me in any particular way.

Then, a Cat/Wampa sat in it.

That is a cat, who was somehow part Hoth Wampa. I think it had horns or something.

And it curled up in my empty skull and did cute cat like things. I remember getting into some difficulty when it was lazily flopping over the side, as it made it hard to get up without it falling out.

So, what exactly is that supposed to mean sigmund?

Tuesday 8 December 2009

[old blog import] Fear Only One

You know, you have to feel sorry for the Daleks really. Whilst the new series has done much to restore to them a sense of threat and menance, it has also saddled them with one of the worst cases of the Inverse Ninja Principle ever seen.

Having just completed rewatching series 4 I feel for some reason compelled to comment on this. So here I go:

Series 1 - Dalek. The episode that is. Here is possibly the greatest Dalek episode ever. This story, more than any other establishes the Daleks as full on unstoppable killing machines. Literally NOTHING can stop the Dalek and the only reason it is defeated in the nend is because it commits suicide rather than mutate into the Dalek version of Rose Tyler, a sentiment that I think we can all agree on.

When next we see the Daleks in the series finale howewver there's a whole fleet of them, which are then dispatched in fairly short order by a slightly dodgy deus ex machina. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the Doctor had built a superweapon to destroy them all in about twenty minutes. Whilst they do give a pretty good account of themselves in the assault, ultimately they are doomed to ignominious defeat.

Then we move on to Series 2. The Cult Of Skaro turn up and do pretty well for themselves, shrugging off assaults by Torchwood and Cybermen alike without a scratch. Then they open the ark and suddenly there's millions of them. Which are promptly flushed down the metaphorical plughole with depressing ease. It was all going so well until the army showed up.

Not learning from this mistake we then arrive at the slightly iffy Evolution Of The Daleks, where again it all goes fine till the army shows up, whereupon they wiped out in about 5 minutes. Seriously, 3 quarters of the ENTIRE DALEK RACE bite it just like that.

Also, just for the record, DNA DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!

Then we move on again to the series 4 finale. Things are going well again, but sadly theres just to many of them to survive. That many Daleks simply have no chance against a single named character. It's worth noting that one lone Dalek on patrol nearly kills the Doctor outright, but put him in a room full of Daleks and it's like the thought never even crosses their mind.

So here we have a fully fleged Dalek Empire, at the hight of it's power, typed to death by Donna's l33t haxorz sk1lzz. Just like that, bam, threats over, time to go home.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this, except that I can only hope their won't be many Daleks in the next series. One Dalek, on it's own is a threat, Capable of slaughtering millions. A thousand Daleks are a minor inconvenience, solved with the press of a button.

Whilst the spectacle is all very nice, in order for the antagonists to be presented as a credible threat they have to be presented on a managable scale.

Show, don't tell.