If you make them, stop it. Stop it right now. If I wanted to watch my animes with death metal in the background, I would watch the anime- while playing death metal in the background. Funny idea, huh? I mean, come on. I just watched a video on google of FFX with rap in the background. Yeah, it was really necessary to replace Uematsu with Jay-Z. /sarcasm Dead Rising is fun, if a bit annoying at times. I'll be writing up a review as soon as I make it through the main story, which should be very soon. The watchful eye may have noticed that Shenmue 2 is now at the top of my Now Playing list. I am delving back into that wonderful, masterful game. I probably should have mentioned in my list of the 20 Greatest Games Ever (or something like that) that Shenmue 2 has a permanent hold on the top spot, but to actually put it there would be mean to the games that could take its place until Shenmue 3 comes out. I heard that Shenmue Online has been restarted, which is cool, but I really don't care about that as much as I would Shenmue 3. The story will not be as easily told with people writing "OMG HAXORZ" and "PLZ PLAY LUCKY HIT I NEED MONEY" in the background. Though apparently, a recent video reveals some plot twists. I declined to watch long enough to see the twists- it may not be Shenmue 3, but I'll be damned if I'm going to lose some entertainment from the critical aspect of the series. Oh, yeah, this was meant to be about AMVs. ... Whatever. Hey, has anyone ever heard a Beach Boys song that doesn't begin with the word "well"? That's a joke/riddle my friend, John Byrne, told me at a party last night. If you don't know who John Byrne is, go look him up on Wikipedia.

I'm resigning from all of my unions, except for the Headcrab Union, because Sentinel is my hero. Most of you should know why by now.

I'm even resigning from Locked and Loaded, which took a lot of strength to do. That was a fun board. Anyways.

See, I just don't have an unbelievable amount of time on my hands anymore... I have a job now, and school's gonna start up again in a month. I'm barely on GS at all, much less often enough that I can make a decent contribution to the various unions I've joined.

So, adios, unions. I would ask that people not send me requests to join their unions (sorry, Game Design Union, and good luck), as I'll delete them very quickly. When I am posting, it'll probably be on the General Games Discussion board... but not much.

There, I've checked in, after so long. I live! On a side note, I finally got a copy of Deus Ex for the PC (I've had it on the PS2 for a while, but the PC version's much better). It rocks. To think, I was settling for Invisible War when this game was around...

Go here.

Just look around for a bit. I dare you not to get addicted.

Dead Man's Chest has been in theaters three days, now. I have seen it twice. Top freaking that. Joking (and obscure references to said movie) aside, it's good. It's very good. The first movie's a bit more fun, and it kind of seems like the writers ran out of time and ended up messing up some sequences (the scene leading up to Norrington, Will and Jack fighting left a bad taste in my mouth). But anything involving the words "undead monkey" works for me. For those of you who've seen it, I can answer many questions left from the movie. And I know the entire premise (and how the final battle is set up) of the third movie. Just ask me for the info, and I'll PM you a response. Sources maybe included. Now, you may be thinking: why did he see it twice? Well, that's a far more complicated story, but I'll leave it at "it involves a girl". Makes things confusing enough already. Other news... other news... My mom went from being a waitress at a restaurant to being the manager of another. I went there tonight, and was blown away. It's really... extravagant. The food rocks. I don't normally care that much about food, but this was an exception. Man. Went to the gym today, don't ask me why. I'm still having difficulty lifting my arms. Damn you, exercise machines... one day, you shall be conquered. Seriously, though, it wasn't remarkably difficult or anything, but the after-effects are not nice. Hey, interesting thing. I was staying up really late, 'cause, you know, it's summer, and discovered that Adult Swim is running an anime called "Scryed". I thought, what the hell, let's watch it. Chicks with blue hair and miniskirts? Check. Mysterious rivalry between two badasses? Check. (note to reader: do not do a Google Image search for "Scryed"... it's producing some, er, interesting results. And yes, I realize that this makes you too curious to ignore. I'm an evil bastard.) Annoying theme song? Strangely enough, no. The music hath entranced me. It probably is annoying to everyone else, but I like it. I am now addicted. Of course, once the addiction had really settled in, I discover that it's only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so I'm trying to get the whole season off of eBay. If you take my bid, you die. I'm sorry. It's nothing personal. Man, I have to go watch that again. As usual, comments are greatly appreciated and I will respond to everyone, so long as you don't insult me too much.

Yes, I listen to Billy Joel. Anyways.

I'm still not revealing the Prey thing, if only for the sake of the fact that I don't feel like being banned right now. But that's not important! Because tomorrow is a national holiday, it's-

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN DAY

Alright, here's the thing. Johnny Depp is my hero. A guitarist (like me!), who acts (like me!), and is arguably the most talented actor in Hollywood right now (like- oh, wait, damn), plays a permanently-drunk pirate in a Disney movie, based on a ride at Disneyland, the same ride that the Monkey Island games were based off of.

How excited do you think I am? Especially after the first one was so good.

I'm not gonna be able to fall asleep tonight. I'm just going to stay up watching Pulp Fiction over and over again, I guess.

I'm so excited.

So, I got Prey a little while ago, and it's okay. I mean, it just feels like more of the same from the demo- not enough innovation after the first hour or so of gameplay.

Anyways. I'll be checking in throughout the day, so if you guys have any questions, let me know.

Have you ever fallen off a roof before?

It hurts like hell.

I fell off a roof. Don't ask why I was up there. Luckily I fell onto grass and not pavement, but I can promise you that's not what I was thinking at the time. What I was thinking more closely resembled this:

"......aaaaaAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh..."

Yes, a pained groan if I've ever heard (or made) one.

I'm okay, though, nothing feels broken or sprained... though I'm not a doctor, so my opinion's not very trustworthy.

In (much) better news, I headed to the local CompUSA yesterday (pre-roof experience) and grabbed the Half-Life 1 Anthology, so I can experience Dr. Freeman's adventures from where they began, and Tron 2.0, because, well, it looks pretty. You can probably guess which game I'm more impressed with.

...

If you're having trouble with this, there are other issues at hand.

Anyways, some people requested Userbars, but all of my attempts to sit up straight have been in vain. Yes, I'm writing this in a horizontal position. It may be another few days before I'm artistically capable again.

Now, to figure out how to play Opposing Force with one hand...

Yeah, I'm getting better at this.

Well, this was the first day in a while that I've had all to myself, so I went out and picked up both Max Payne games, 'cause I was meaning to get around to playing them.

Knocked out the first one in a few hours. What was that about it being 10-20 hours long? Hardly.

Despite its length, however, MP was a terrific game. I love film noir, so playing one- complete with Bogart references abound- was quite an experience. I know there are plenty of people who simply enjoy shooting at stuff in slo-mo, but if that's all you get from the game, you're seriously missing out. Max suffers from what I call "Macbeth syndrome", meaning that the character is very skilled in a specific art form (in this case, shooting) that doesn't require much intelligence, yet is truly a tortured poet. 

"The sun went down with practiced bravado."

How could someone without real creativity think that?

Anyways, the story's quite nice, and the shooting only started to get old towards the end of the game, so I highly recommend playing it. I'll see if I can tackle the second game tomorrow.

Anyone here like Perfect Dark?

My own creation.