So, I've been looking forward to Bioshock for some time now (about the time I started working at GameStop). I'm a fan of first person shooters and have been since Golden Eye so a game that totes that it is far different than any other FPS out there warrants some attention. I'm sure some of you have noticed by now that the playable demo was made available on the marketplace last night. I've only had about 10 minutes of playtime on the demo but what I've seen so far makes me all hot and steamy. Rapture is one of the beautiful and simultaneously terrifying environments I've ever seen. You can really see the attention to detail they put into the world of Rapture. You walk into the lighthouse and staring down at you is a colossal bronze statue of Raptures founder, welcoming you to providence. As you walk down the spiraling stairs that run along the walls through the darkness, light begin to show you the way. At the bottom of the stairs is a small submersible and as you look up, you can see an opening through the levels, putting you face to face with this world's creator looking down as though to urge you on.

As the submersible jerks forward you can see the world of Rapture, lit up like a 1950's Chicago. It really is amazing. After a short video introducing you to the world and ideals of Rapture, your first real introduction to this under water paradise is that of a shrieking woman with hooks for hands viciously tearing a man to pieces. I really can't wait to play this game through.

Probably the most exciting part about this is that my parental units are taking a vacation this coming wee, leaving me with the house, the TV, the xbox, and an abundance of time with Mr. Bubbles. Though I may have to take a break every now and then to feed and take out their dog, it is a small price to pay for the use of a 53" wide screen TV with 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound. My only hope is that I can get to the bottom of the cause of chaos in Rapture before they commandeer the living room.

If it weren't for the lack of multiplayer, I would probably be looking forward to this more than Halo 3.

SO, when it rains it poor, feast or famin. Tried for a while to get a job or two that makes taxable income with no success. Just when I thought I was going to be working under the table for the rest of the summer, BAM. Two jobs. One job I didn't even apply for, they just called me with an offer. This is a sales job. Not much of a fan of sales but hey, it's good money (really good if I'm not too lazy) and I get to make my own scheduel. The second job is fantastic. After sitting on my application for about a month or so, GameStop finally called me. The pay absolutely sucks (minimum wage) but atleast I get to talk about games all day long. The bonus (besides the obvious discount) that I didn't know about going in was that i can demo any game I want. That being said, I'm now going to be playing RE4 for the wii for the next few days. Never played a RE game so I'm pretty pumped. Let you know how it comes out.

To give you an idea how the two jobs stack up against eachother: I could make more in a day with the sales job than I could in a month at GameStop (on a really good day) but if I had to quit one, I would totally quit the sales job.

Vent time.

I just loaded the PC demo of the GRAW 2 multiplayer. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I don't know if it my connection or if Ubisoft just hates me (I hope not, I own a sh*t tone of their games), but I can't perform worth squat in this game. I move around for what seems like an eternity to find an enemy but find none. Then when I do, I unload a whole clip in their chest and come up with nothing and then die from a single shot. It doesn't matter what cla.ss I use or anything, I just suck at this game aparently. That really ticks me off. How can I suck so bad at this game and yet dominate in most everything else I play ("dominate" may be an exageration, but I am good at FPS multi)? Maybe it's just cause it's a beta and i happened to download all of the bugs, or maybe my connection sucks. OR MAYBE THIS GAME JUST SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! *angry*

I'm going back to Rainbow Six Vegas. F@*$ GRAW 2!!!

So I just beat Twilight Princess.  It only took me a total of 49 hours.  Don't know if that's good or bad but I'm pretty sure that that is the second longest amount of time I've spent on a Zelda game (windwaker was a b*tch till I figured out about the cyclones). I would have to say that I am satisfied with the game.  The story was decent and the game play was different due to the Wii.  I really did like swinging the controller around to fight. 

So now that it is over... what do I do?  That is the question I end every Zelda game with. Now what?  I play for hours and hour just hoping to get to the end and when I get there, I wish there was more.  The nature of the beast I suppose.  Zelda has a large enough franchise that you could continueally play Zelda for months on end so I could just start up a classic.  I do own them all (except Windwaker). 

...... I think I'll just play Super Paper Mario, I did pay for it.

 

PS

I would totally do Midna (even in imp form) 

I just finished watching the newly released Halo 3 video from Bungie. It stirs fourth powerful emotions of excitement and anticipation. The video previews some of the things to come with the Halo 3 multiplayer, all of which look fantastic. I've been a fan of Halo since the inception of the Xbox but the thing about Halo I've always loved the most is the multiplayer.

I look at the story mode as a form of advanced training for my oncoming campaign of multiplayer carnage. With most games I play, I try to savor the story mode like you would a good book or an expensive glass of scotch. With Halo, I commit as much time as possible to the story mode to finish it as quickly as possible so I know I'm prepared for some serious slayer action. Nothing against the story mode, I would hate to imply the story mode a peripheral. The story is compelling, entertaining, exciting and well written. But the real challenge, or test of skill, awaits in the multiplayer arena.

The true prey, the most worthy adversary for any hunter is his fellow man. Not only armed with advanced weaponry, but also armed with thought, reason, inelegance and instincts. A computer has none of these. A computer is cold and callus, but it is also predictable. Man is creative, sneaky, and is capably of unthinkable feats of heroism.

There are few things more pleasurable in this world than sitting in a room with a handful or so of your friends, outfitted with swords and battle rifles and shotguns and rocket launchers, ready to tear each other apart. The thrill of fending off four opposing Spartans with only one clip left in your SMG, vying for cover or ammunition or backup. O, and the smack talk that ensues. Those are moment you reminisce about.

With fond memories of 16-player death matches in the dorms with Halo and massive online slaughter fests in my friend's apartment with Halo 2, I can't wait for Halo 3. Who knows where I will be or whom I will be with. All I know is, as long as I have a 360, a copy of H3, a couple controllers and a few good friends (perhaps a case of beer or two as well), I'll have memories to cherish and stories to tell.

I've been hearing some rumors lately that Microsoft is releasing a black 360 called the "Elite."  It sounded very exciting since I've always liked black better than white (it's a very sliming color).  The problem was that some people were making it out to sound like the gospel truth while others were saying it was a big fat lie.  In a world where do one sites their source (the internet), who do you trust.  Well, I went to Gamestop tonight to get some goodies and thought I'd ask.  Aparently it is gospel (halleluiah).  My friend there told me that they just got an email this morning from their corporate office conferming its existence and that they would soon be getting more information about when they can take pre-orders and whatnot.  After a little sweet talking (and a promiss to cuddle after), I was able to get the manager to give me a call when they are taking pre-orders so I don't miss it (like I did with the Wii, for which people will pay dearly).  So now, provided everything goes as planned, I may actually have a console that isn't atleast 10 years old and I can stop running to my dad's house everytime I wanna play Halo.

So I've been here for quite some time now and I just learned how to make friends.  I know it sounds kinda stupid that I could be here for almost a year and just know learn how to make friends but hey that's why they call it a learning curve, different people, different paces.  So, on that note, I'm gonna ad some people to my friend list and hope that you all like me "you really like me" (I would like to thank the academy).  SO if you think I'm cool (or atleast bearable) and wanna be my friend, please say yes.  If I don't add you and the afformentioned statement aplies to you, feel free to add me (I can be terrebly sociable if I want to).

 Domo

So I just got some imports in the mail yesterday andI'm ver happy. I ordered Eyshield 21 and Bleach 2nd off of Play-Asia. They came fast too. Monday it was in Hong Kong and by lunch on Tuesday it was on my porch. Bleach is F-ing awsome. It is very fast paced, the graphics a pretty sweet, PLUS IT HAS WIFI. As much as I love Bleach, though, I seem to be finding myself play Eyeshield more than Bleach. Not with the same furver as Bleach but with a strange sence of dependancy. It is a very addicting game. The biggest thing about both of these games, though, is the added difficulty of being in a foregn language. I have thus decided that you cannot consider yourself a true gamer unless you master an import. Technically, my copy of Minish Cap is an import but it's the euro version so the only real difference is that if I wanted to, instead of English, I could play in Italian, German, French, Spanish, and I think Dutch. That doesn't really count. Because of this obvious language barier, the hardest modes of these games for me are the story modes. It was because of this that I picked these games (besides the wonderful things I heard about them), I don't have to play story mode if I don't want to.

 

Now, not getting too far off topic, for those of you who happen to stumble upon this post, has anyone else seen Naruto imports at Best Buy or is it just me? The "local" Best Buy (I say "local" cause it's an hour away) actually has a dumpload of them, specifically Naruto: Saikyou Ninja Daikesshuu 4. I would love to get this game, I'm just worried I'm not going to be able to play it on account of the afore mentioned language barrier. If you have this game or have played it, leave a comment and let me know how it was.

 

Here are my beauties:

So, now that it's been about a week or so since I got my DS, I seem pretty happy about the decision. Not so much that I love the games I have but that I'm very excited about games that will soon be coming out. I have Yoshi's Island, Starfox, Elite Beat, Trace Memory, and Hotel Dusk. They all seem to have their pluses (except for HD, I haven't opened it yet so..... we'll see) but I still feel as though there is something missing. I'm reasonably pumped for Spectrobes for its uses of the DS features, put one on reserve today, but I don't know if that will cut it. The thing I look for the most in a videogame is a compelling story. I really hope Phantom Hourglass lives up to the Zelda name cause that would make me really happy. Unfotunately I'll have to wait a while to get my zelda fix (or go back to playing the Minish Cap). Hotel Dusk is supposed to have a great story, along with Trace Memory. The only problem with those two games (and it might not even be a problem, only I minor obsticle easily overcome) is that they are adventure games and I haven't touched that genre in a VERY long time (like Hugo's House of Horrors long time ago, if you remember that game then I'm sorry) so I'm not sure how much I'm going to enjoy myself.

I suppose the best thing to do is to spend more that three minutes on a game and see what happens. Remember that there are more games out there if you don't like these ones and gamestop accepts trade-ins. Gaming disomforts and inadequecies aside, the DS is a very cool device and I don't believe I've even scratched the surface of how much fun it can be (I got to make a salsbery steak while I was in Gamestop today and that was fun, maybe I should get that game).

PS
This seems kinda creepy and all but the chick from Trace Memory.... I know she's 14 (almost) and digital but I kinda wanna do her. Maybe it's the white hair. I dig chicks with white hair (provided they don't come with too many wrinkles.

So this may not be new news for some but I just found out (or atleast just realized) that Mushishi has been licenced.  I am a huge fan of Mushishi, it is an absolute masterpiece and if you haven't seen it than hold with much anticipation for this summer cause Funimation is releasing it on DVD.  To celibrate this wonderous occation, I've made a new banner.  Though, on that note, I learned that my name is wrong.  The japanese word for red is pronounced "akai" not "akama" so now I feel really stupid.  It's like getting a tattoo of someone's name on your arm and then finding out that  it was the wrong name.  But it is far to late for me to do anything about it now, and most of you wouldn't even notice if I hadn't pointed it out (it's a good thing no one reads my blog).  The important thing  is that the kanji says what I want........ I think.