I bought in the past few days like new condition Ico and Metroid Prime 2 from GameStop.

Ico was just a lucky find, and Metroid Prime 2 I had been searching for a good while now.

And I bought Odin Sphere new for $20 on sale.

Yay!

Well, a few days ago I opened up my PSP for the upteenth time. This time, it was in preparation for the Crisis Core madness that would presumably take over my life for a week or so.


Warning: Crisis Core is a visually pleasing game that may take over your life for a few days, or weeks.

While cleaning out the crap from underneath my screen, I decided to do the D-Pad mod. I mean, what the hell, right? The D-Pad was even looser than usual due to a slight wiggle room caused by my custom faceplate. It's not a hard mod, really.

D-Pad Mod

I used that up there. Though I did have slight printing issues, because my printer has no idea what the hell "print as" means and had it at 110% zoom. Otherwise, the mod worked beautifully. I used a pushcard, the kind you get from political-minded students and has that nice smooth feel to it. Perfect material to use in terms of thickness and stiffness. Just used some regular white glue and tada! It's done and by Dawkins the difference is phenomenal. Who knew that a thin piece of cardboard woud make such a significant change?

The D-Pad is amazing now. It's like the PS2 D-Pad, only on a PSP. Basically, you need to do this.

I also applied the D-Pad mod principle to my square and X buttons. They're amazing now as well.

The man who came up with this deserves a big

Huh, well, I haven't been around GameSpot much since the Jeff Gerstmann controversy.

The forums had been in decline for a long time, and the thing just killed the camel.

Maybe I'll be back because goodness knows I need a decent virtual hangout. I think I'll lurk for a while.

Not really.

But I HAVE been playing an insane amount of Jeanne D'Arc.

Fun indeed.

What the heck is Shin Angyo Onshi you wonder? Well, I thought the same when I first happened upon it, though I didn't so much happen upon it as I hit a gold mine.

But that is of no matter, what matters is this amazing title which I've had the joy of discovering, and now, want to share with others.



Shin Angyo Onshi is the story of Munsu, an angyo onshi: a government agent of the country of Jushin who traveled in secret and rooted out corrupt officials and warlords to restore the peace and bring justice to the people. However, at the onset of this story, Jushin has fallen, and Munsu wanders the ruined country cleaning up the shattered remains of the once glorious country.

This work is the brainchild of writer In-Wan Youn and artist Kyung-Il Yang, serialized in Sunday GX which is published by Shogakukan. Both In-Wan Youn and Kyung-Il Yang grew up reading and enjoying manga despite not knowing much about Japanese culture. In the same way, they believed that Japanese readers would enjoy reading a work drawn from a Korean cultural background as long as it was interesting. In this fashion, they have seamlessly integrated an eclectic array of Korean culture and folklore into an amazingly woven tale.



They work close together with their editor, referred to as N-san, and streamline the plot into an easily absorbable and appreciated form. They also provide very informative and interesting author's notes at the end of the volumes/chapters at times.

This isn't simply a retelling of cla.ssical folktales, far from it. The story is dark and twisting and a unique product of its own. From the onset of the very first chapter we have a plot twist and the ugly face of the remnants of a ruined country. Moral dilemmas and plenty of action is all abound. The story is seemingly episodic at first, but soon enough ties together into a much larger plot.



The characters who drive the plot are also wonderfully developed. Munsu is an anti-hero as much as an anti-hero gets. His stout stance in his principles and seeming lack of morality and kindness at times--much to the dismay of the "helpless"--hide a darker past. Sando, his "bodyguard" is a complete 180 from him: innocent, naive, and sweet, she is often taken aback at Munsu's seemingly incoherent acts.

What I love about this series is that while it contains elements of fantasy, it still remains very believable. Munsu is not a man who can whip out an energy blast. Instead he fights with his head and his guns.

The art is also fantastic, it's as if I'm reading a series with the artwork of Takeshi Obata but even more detailed, refined, yet rough at times. One could get into series for the art alone.



The plot never seems to slow down, much like Claymore once it got to the Teresa Arc. Just full steam ahead and no fillers, indeed, no chapter is wasted on filler, only more development. In fact, this is a series often compared to Claymore and Berserk.

It's finished its run at 17 volumes this year, and I eagerly await the day when a competent publisher licenses this series and does it justice. I can't wait for an anime adaptation either, provided there ever will be one.

You can find the scans online here at Anime-Source.

I've barely scratched the surface of the series here, so please check out this wonderful title, and tell people about it.

Well, this is a little gem that I happened upon a while ago, and I actually like it a lot! It's a Romance/Comedy manhwa that actually doesn't get old or overly predictable. Nice art and plenty of fun, check it out.

A really short plot summary:

A young man finds and returns a lost wallet and cell phone to a beautiful young lady, thus begins the destined relationship between two strangers. Sound typical? Well then, how about making the young lady the young man's future homeroom teacher, and give them both a twisted sense of right and wrong. And just for kicks, let's have the young man help himself to a self proclaimed reward from the lost wallet before returning it...but of course, this scenario wouldn't be complete unless the young lady was very unforgiving when it came to teaching one of her students a lesson on morals.

A picture for you guys, eh?



From volume 2, chapter 13.

You can read the manhwa online here.

'Nuff said.

For now. :P

New weapon confirmed for RE5: "Fried Chicken"

Details on Capcom's upcoming game Resident Evil 5 are sparse, but a new weapon has been confirmed. Fried Chicken comes in either cases of 3 or buckets of 10 which are scattered throughout the game, or sometimes dropped by defeated enemies. A piece of Fried Chicken can be thrown like a grenade or dropped. Any enemies in the vicinity (who can see or smell it) will immediately be attracted to it, and converge upon its location, dropping whatever they are doing at the moment.
If there are multiple enemies in the area, they will viciously attack each other.

-Post #64 on the RE5 post of Black Looks

Really, with GS being html retarded and "teh forbidden" words classic and style.

What gives? And why does pressing enter make a double line skip?

Anybody even here?

Kaname Okimura, a student of Prefectoral Umineko Shougyou High ("Umisho" for short), joined the school's swimming club in order to learn how to swim, but the club is filled with weirdos, let alone teach him swimming. Then, a sunny, happy-go-lucky girl named Amuro Ninagawa who was transferred from Okinawa joined the club. Her extraordinary underwater speed and unorthodox swimming su-ta-i-ru (plus her personal habit of nude swimming -- a powerful magnet to teenage boys) surprised every club member, especially Okimura, because she reminds him a mermaid-like creature he saw only once in his early childhood.

Umisho wins because green-hair wins. I got this on a whim and I have to say it's quite fun. The fanservice is interestingly, well, "clean." You'll understand what I mean.

By the way, the main male lead seriously looks like Kyon.