Still haven't gotten a chance to give DDPDOJ a go at the arcade, but I've still been practicing. my stick has been complete modded with an LS-56-01 Seimitsu Stick and PS-14-K-N Seimitsu buttons ---- The first trailer for Mushihime-sama HD has been released, and it looks fantastic. I ended up preordering the Limited Edition for $130 the day it went on sale at NCSX. ohhhhhhhhhhh dat soundtrack... ---- I've been playing a decent amount of xenoblade, I'm pretty far through a mass effect 3 playthrough, and I picked up "stacking" and "Heavy Rain Chronicles: Episode One - The Taxidermist" on PSN, and "Psychonauts" on XBL. Also received the disc based version of "Siren: Blood Curse New Translation" in the mail last week. I'm excited to try all of the above. ---- So far this year has been looking good, at least regarding games I'm anticipating. The following is my top 10 most anticipated upcoming releases in order: 1. Mushihime-sama HD 2. Dragon's Crown 3. Double Fine Adventures 4. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch 5. Lollipop Chainsaw 6. Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs 7. Spy Party 8. (hopefully) The Last Guardian 9. Natural Selection 2 10. tie between Silent Hill: HD Collection and Pandora's Tower

I just found out that the arcade that I visit - the 2nd largest arcade in the US - on a monthly basis now carries dodonpachi daioujou!!!!!! Lately I've been taking a break from the bullet hell shmup genre after I 1 credit cleared akai katana shin. I've been sticking to point and click adventure and have even beaten maniac mansion: day of the tentacle, full throttle, and I am now on year 2 of Grim Fandango, however, Grim Fandango is going to have to wait at least until this weekend. For the rest of the week I hope to practice my 1 credit clear attempts in DDPDOJ so that this weekend I can go and set a high score at the arcade. for those of you haven't played dodonpachi daioujou - it is by far the hardest dodonpachi installment available - and most definitely the most difficult 2-loop Cave game on the market. here's a 2-4 superplay

It's been awhile since I've put up a blog post, so I figured I'd do an update with my gaming:

Lately I've been buying a whole bunch of crap that I don't need, but I've been having fun with it!
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bought:

I bought myself a HRAP VX-SA Arcade Stick

Seimitsu LS-56-01 Stick that I'm going to put into it with the Seimitsu MS mounting plate


I bought a Sega Saturn with a Action Replay 4M Auto Plus so that I can play this game that I bought

I've play a bit of it on MAME, but I want to play a legitimate version. It's said to be the best shmup of all time, programmed by Yagawa formerly of 8ing/raizing and now Cave Co., Ltd, and one of the first bullet hell shmups released on consoles.

I bought Tetris: The Grand Master Ace for 360 as I've been looking to try out the TGM series, even though this title (the only console installment) removes a lot of what makes the TGM series so awesome.

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Playing/Beat:
I took a month or two break away from gaming, and now I've come back just as strong.
I've been sinking a lot of time into Akai Katana Shin, Quake Live, and TFC again.

I beat Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (as part of the MGS Collection) and I was surprised as how much I liked this game. It was much easier than previous installments and it was my first PSP title that I've played, but the story was surprisingly good.

I beat Catherine (PS3) and found this much more enjoyable than the demo. The social scenes I found kind of *meh*-worthy, but the puzzle aspect racked my brain and was a lot of fun.

I beat Ikenie No Yoru (Night of the Sacrifice) and this was another game that surprised the hell out of me. I would personally throw it in my top 3 survival horror games this generation (along with amnesia: the dark descent and condemned: criminal origins). It scared the **** out of me! The only downside is that I can't read japanese so I had to look up online what the jist of the story was.

I am now playing Xenoblade Chronicles and I'm having a blast with that as well. It's been quite a bit since I've played any RPGs, but this was a good title to pickup. It's somewhat easy for an RPG, but there are also parts that are somewhat difficult. I'm still very early into the game, but so far it's been promising.

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There's quite a few upcoming games that I'm extremely excited about. Below you'll find the ones that interest me the most:

Neverdead
Binary Domain
Dragon's Crown
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Lollipop Chainsaw
Yakuza: Dead Souls
Aliens: Colonial Marines
The Last Story
Rhythm Heaven Fever
The Last Guardian
Mass Effect 3
Hawken
Alan Wake: American Nightmare

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Probably will be another couple months before my next update, but if you read any of this.. Thanks!

Some-Mist

Thanks to Yangire I just received a copy of a japanese Wii game that was recommended to me - ikenie no yoru .. along with the european release of xenoblade which I've been wanting to pick up. I'm very excited to finally be able to play both. I beat dark souls recently and have done a some-what horrible written writeup about it. find my impressions in the spoiler below: [spoiler] Let me start by saying that if you haven't had a hands on with demon's souls, dark souls will take awhile to adjust to via controls, gameplay style (patience), and customization. Dark Souls doesn't play like many games out on the market, and I noticed this when my buddy bought it. He played it without having had any experience in demon's souls and after some minor explanations he was able to pick it up fairly fast, but had he not had my help it probably would have taken him an additional hour or two to adjust. If you do have experience with demon's souls, dark souls could end up being a walk in the park but at the same time it could prove to be a somewhat difficult task. -------------- DIFFERENCES -------------- there are quite a few differences between demon's souls and dark souls - some positive some negative. The first thing you will notice is that the game functions off of a bonfire system as opposed to the nexus hub. The interesting concept behind this is that the bonfire works as a nexus that constantly moves. With each bonfire that you're at, there's multiple pathways that you can take to different surrounding areas depending on what pathways are available. Some pathways may need to be opened via shortcut after defeating a boss, and the short cuts are essential to traversing across the world of dark souls. another thing you will notice is that the game now functions off of a hollow/unhollow and humanity system as opposed to the physical/soul form and world/character tendencies of demon's souls. Humanity can be gained randomly from mobs, corpses on the ground, winning pvp battles, beating another players boss via co-op, and so fourth. The items aren't rare, but they take a little bit of effort to obtain. -------------- BASICS -------------- CONTROLS -Just like in demon's souls the two left and two right triggers control your attacks. On a PS3 controller, r1 controls your right arm light swing, r2 controls your right arm heavy swing, L1 controls your left arm light swing, and L2 controls your left arm heavy swing. -Hold circle to run, tap circle while running to jump (this is new), tap circle while jogging to roll, tap circle while standing still to jump backwards. If you're standing still and hit circle to jump back and then hit an attack button you jump back and then do a running attack. If you hold down circle to run and hit an attack you do a running attack. -Square is "use" for your consumables. -Triangle switches from single to dual wielding. -left analog + r1 (at the same time) to kick. left analog + r2 (at the same time) to commit a jumping attack. -if you hit R3 you target a mob, if you click it again you untarget that mob -If you're falling and you hit attack right before you drop onto an enemy below you, you do an insanely damaging falling attack (this is new). -If you have a shield equipped into one of the left hand slots you hold L1 to block. You can hit L2 (timing has to be insanely precise) to parry and then r1 directly after to riposte. -you can perform a backstab but there is one miniscule sweet spot in order to perform it in the exact center of the back MECHANICS/CONCEPTS similar to demon's souls fire is a completely different type of magic than magic itself (which consists of lightning, poison, holy etc..), but fire plays an even bigger role in dark souls since you must wield an item known as a pyromancy flame - as opposed to just using a catalyst like miracles/magic. Just like in demon's souls fire damage is pretty overpowered, but there are some monsters that are 90% resistant to it - so it's a double edged sword. souls are your main item in the game. They can be used as a source of currency to buy items/weapons, upgrade, and to invest in stat points. The stat layout is pretty similar to demon's souls with some stats renamed. Once you die you drop a bloodstain. This bloodstain contains all of the souls you have obtained at that point (which means when you respawn that you have 0). If you can make it back to that bloodstain you will obtain all the souls (or humanities which is explained in a bit) that you lost, but if you die before retrieving it you drop a new blood stain with however many souls you have obtained to that point. i.e. you have 20,000 souls and die. you now have 0 souls and make it halfway to the 20,000 soul bloodstain you dropped. you die not even halfway there. At that point you only acquired 100 souls.. the only bloodstain now available (at the halfway point) contains 100 souls. You lost the 20,000 permanently. -------------- HUMANITY -------------- with humanity you can do multiple things: 1. you can go to a bonfire and make yourself unhollow. being unhollow opens up your world for attack (pvp/invasion), but it also allows you to see soul signs that potential co-opers will drop for you to summon them. In unhollow form I believe you deal more damage as well. 2. If you're unhollow you can kindle a fire, but lets take a step back. In the introduction of the game you come across an item known as an estus flask. These are your hp replenishment items in the game, and each standard bonfire (excluding the first one you come across after the tutorial in firelink shrine) replenishes those 5 estus flasks. When you're battling enemies and you use all 5 estus flasks, you cannot use the flasks again until you refill at a bonfire. kindling a fire increases the amount of estus flasks you receive - if you have 5 and kindle the fire, you permanently get 10 estus flasks from that specific bonfire. Later in the game you can kindle the fire a 2nd time and receive 15 estus flasks per that specific bonfire. keep in mind that it only affects that bonfire, so once you make it to the next bonfire further into the game you will only receive 5 estus flasks from that new fire. Estus flask are a crucial item since consumable hp replenishment items are hard to come by, miracles are again somewhat underpowered, and hp leech weapons only award you a sliver of hp per kill. 3. You can also consume the humanity and not use it. This displays next to your hp bar (as a number) and it stays active a la souls. The more humanity you consume without using it (on something such as unhollowing or kindling) the higher your drop rate % is. the catch is that once you die your humanity is taken from you like souls and can only be reobtained if you reach the bloodstain that you left in the spot you died. If you lose that bloodstain you lose that humanity permanently. 4. You can trade it to a covenant (explained later) in order to raise your level with them. -------------- COVENANT -------------- There's a new concept in dark souls known as covenants. Covenants are basically NPC/PvP groups that you can join and obtain benefits (or issues) after joining. Many covenants will give you an item as soon as you join - such as a crazy unique weapon, a ring, or something of that nature. Some will not give you items until you contribute to the covenant. The items you have to contribute to covenants tend to be very rare items that can be invested in multiple other areas, so DO NOT invest into a covenant until you know the benefits from doing so. Covenants also have a function in PvP. The higher you are with that covenant, the more damage you will do in that area (in pvp). You can obtain PvP lists for people in opposing covenants and invade them according to how 'wanted' they are. When you invade someone's world, if you kill an NPC from their covenant you move up higher on the 'wanted' list for your covenant. This means that your more susceptible to other players' invasions. -------------- IMPRESSION - bosses -------------- my overall impression of the game is somewhat positive. the bosses in this game may seem like a walk in the park if you've played demon's souls. They are WAY easier with the exception of maybe one boss. The boss fights are for the most part pretty unique, but didn't provide the controller-crushing difficulty that made boss kills in demon's souls feel so rewarding. As you may have seen in the trailer, there's bosses with weird teeth, a wolf that carries a huge sword in it's mouth, hydras, and powerful humanoids. There are MANY more bosses in dark souls than demon's souls which is a welcome addition. The more bosses in a game the better - in my opinion at least. There are an insane amount of mini-bosses that you will see periodically throughout the game. Many mini bosses will be different from the last encounter, and some that you will see multiple times (sometimes multiple at the same time :P). -------------- IMPRESSION - enemies -------------- The enemies are among the most unique that I've seen in any dark fantasy type game. Weird octopus slugs, crystal behemoths, trees (lol), and so fourth. Keep in mind that I've said the most unique that I'VE seen in any dark fantasy type game. I'm sure you guys have come across and can list games with more unique monsters. -------------- IMPRESSION - weapons -------------- The weapons are twice as plentiful in dark souls, but the **** part is that all those additions are pretty much useless. For pve you can obtain a drake sword that will last you up until 50% of the game... which at that point you will find the lightning spear that could last you the remaining 50%. In PvP you will see the majority of the people using a +5 lightning uchigatana since it's one of the most overpowered weapons in the game. It deals 499 damage once upgraded, and the stats to use it are very minor (I believe strength and dexterity under somewhere around 15 is the requirement). Many players are upgrading that weapon, and sinking ALL of their points into vitality and endurance. For example, a player that uses one of the best stat scaling weapons in the game, can only achieve around 400 damage with 50 points in dex or str. That's a lot of points wasted to do less damage than a player who sank 15 into dex and strength and is using an easy-to-obtain lightning uchigatana. -------------- IMPRESSION - armor -------------- the armor in the game is just as plentiful as the weapons - about twice as much than in demon's souls, but again, armor plays a very minor role in the game since everything can 2 or 3 shot you anyways. there are some overpowered rings in PvP too. In PvP everyone has been using the 'fog ring'. What this does is it makes you untargetable, meaning that you have to melee or cast spells without targeting - and it's bloody difficult/borderline impossible against good players. If you're playing dark souls, or have played demon's souls, you know how difficult it can be to kill enemies without targeting them. -------------- IMPRESSION - areas -------------- The areas are more unique than in demon's souls. This is one of the best parts of the game. You have luscious forests, crystal caves, gigantic trees (actually a full level of climbing down a tree), a beautiful ash/reflective lake and so fourth. There are some typical areas such as the medieval castle, but it still fits the game's atmosphere perfectly. The game being somewhat open-world makes the game much more enjoyable than the linear world of demon's souls since you can explore to a certain degree - but not as much as a truly open world game. The only complaint I have about the dark souls areas is that there's a few places - such as the painted world of ariamis and blighttown - that chug. the areas provide a constant FPS of 10 throughout the entire thing... -------------- IMPRESSION - pvp/co-op/online mechanics -------------- the online portion of the game is among the worst aspects of the game - especially when compared to demon's souls which had a pretty innovative/incredible online system. There's no bosses that you get to play as, the servers are P2P (unlike demon's souls dedicated servers), and there's multiple servers per region (as opposed to the one server per region in demon's souls)...meaning that if you try and co-op with a friend more than likely you both will be on opposite servers 90% of the time. Near end game you see a lot more souls signs and a lot more players invade, but again when you're pvping you're just dreading the players that are going to be using a vitality/endurance +5 lightning uchigatana fog ring build. I could just use the exact same setup as well, but then the game isn't as fun and intense as it should be. -------------- IMPRESSION - problems -------------- There's a lot of bugs in the game too. 3 bosses that kill themselves on accident - I experienced two...one boss that bugs out on a bridge that you need to get past to advance in the game, and the only way to unbug it is to do a jumping attack (nothing else works..). I had to search the solution online to figure out what the problem was. Some of the bugs are painfully obvious, happen every playthrough, and should have been fixed by from software before releasing the game. I'm pretty sure these issues will eventually be patched. -------------- FINAL THOUGHTS -------------- for the amount of complaints I have, I still really enjoyed the game. As you see I didn't comment on story because the story is basically something you piece together by talking to NPCs. It's not the traditional story-telling that you will find in other similar games. The voice acting is superb - just like in demon's souls - and every NPC seems to be tired, depressed, out of breath, and barely hanging on. It further pushes the desolate, depressing, and deadly atmosphere of dark souls. I had a really enjoyable experience playing dark souls, and in the end I would rate it a 9.5/10. (sorry for comparing it to demon's souls constantly, but I rated demon's souls a 10/10). [/spoiler] now I'm back to completing the witcher 2 for my first playthrough. Been slowly but surely making my way through it. I also have gears of war 3, nhl 12, and catherine shipping to my place thanks to the toys-r-us buy 2 get 1 free (still available through the 22nd if anyone is interested. I'll be playing gears and nhl 12 once they come, and eventually hit up the Wii games I've been dying to play. I just need to make sure I have nothing in my mind/in my backlog when I play both titles.

been gaming quite a bit lately. Beat El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron a few days after its release. I'd rank it among my favorite games this year.

the dream machine has a new trailer out showcasing some of the chapter 3 levels. my anticipation for the 3rd chapter is through the roof!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxphHrZKNDQ


just built myself a new desktop last weekend, some of the specs are: 6 core 3.2 ghz processor, radeon 6850 1GB 256-bit card, 8 GB ripsaw ram, and so fourth. have deus ex: human revolution, starcraft 2, the witcher 2, doom 3/RoE, stalker: shadow of chernobyl, amnesia: the dark descent. deus ex, planescape: torment: system shock 2, TFC, CS 1.6, CS:S, the ship, TF2, amnesia: the dark descent installed. Most of them I've played before, but I wanna play all of those either again or for the first time.

been playing deus ex: human revolution for the most part.
so far it's been hit or miss for me. I was actually insanely hooked after the game started to open up. The different ways to tackle each situation is the best. It's by far my favorite part of the game. It's how I wished games like ME were. It gives the appearance that there's more freedom even though the cities are a bit small.
I just arrived at Montreal and got myself into a sticky situation there before I logged off for the night. The one boss fight I did was fun. The side/fetchquests although interesting - aren't really that fun for me. I'm starting to get bored with the game despite unlocking new abilities like falling from any distance, typhoon, stealth, and so-fourth. The story seems to be getting weaker the further I get.

the combat mechanics are nothing to write home about. I know it's a more mainstream game, but I wish you had to input commands such as the CQC abilities in MGS. You hit or hold one button in Deus ex: HR and the CGI takes over. After seeing most of the stealth/cqc attacks a couple of times, it gets pretty meh-worthy. I'd like to have to have like a 3 button input with a joystick maneuver - not necessarily a quick-time, but something in real-time to execute these stealth abilities. I feel like I don't even get to execute these..
the shooting mechanics are kind of bland. I wish it had the snap/smoothness/tightness of ME2. who knows, we'll see how I feel by the time I finish the game. I'd imagine I'm 50% the way through it by now.

from what I played, I'd personally rate it somewhere between 7.0-8.0.

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been looking to snag both xenoblade and ikenie no yoru for the Wii. been also looking to snag metroid prime 3: corruption.

Shadows of the Damned was incredible fun. I should just leave it at that but I have quite a bit to say about the game. It plays like resident evil 4, which similar sanity mechanics that are used in eternal darkness/amnesia. The humor is reminiscent of Goichi Suda's No More Heroes games. SotD is corny, yet it knows it's corny and it prresents itself with a serious spin. Characters such as Garcia and Johnson have the most outrageous comments but say it in such a serious tone that you can't help but laugh.

some examples of the humor used:
the three difficulty levels are labeled
legion hunter
demon hunter
lemon hunter

there's a creature which is basically an eye with wings that flies into the air and takes a dump to mark your progress
it's called a "one eyed william".

garcia: how did you know you have to shoot a goat to illuminate the area?
johnson: how did you not know? some demon hunter you are...
garcia: well, just let me know if I have to f*** a horse to open a door

when I shed some light on a new area we saw zombies eating other zombies, johnson says: themselves, it's whats for dinner

the game isn't scary perse, but you shouldn't expect it to be. On the other hand, it is consistently intense/suspenseful. Theres a variety of enemies throughout the game, but typically after a new mob is introduced, you will see it among the other ones through out the rest of the game.

Now there are some issues I've had with the game as well. Some audio issues such as in chapter 4's big boner act. In the third phase, very loud static began and last for the remainder of that specific phase.

some times the ammunition would bug and be unable to pick up even though my weapon capacity wasn't anywhere near full.

in act 4-5 I was floating above the gorge near the intro. I wanted to see how far I could go, but I fell off the map indefinitely:

when I was playing through this portion (the ammo bug occured) and no enemies spawned. after I quit the game and reloaded it (after falling off the map) a whole bunch of enemies spawned that weren't present during my bugged session and now I could pickup the ammo.

regardless of those very minor issues, the game was incredible and is definitely among my top 3 of this year.

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time to finally beat killer 7 (I'm on disc 2 on target 5) and then I will either beat legend of zelda twilight princess, or start project number 03 (p.n. 03).

back log is still huge, with many games waiting to be played - eternal darkness: sanity's requiem, viewtiful joe, jade empire, metal gear solid: twin snakes, legend of zelda collectors edition (for majoras mask and ocarina of time), and so on.

Games:

been looking to snag even more games once I get the money to, but for the time being I snagged eternal darkness: sanity's requiem, p.n.03, and jade empire.

I'm hoping to find all 3 quite enjoyable.

I still plan on picking up the metroid prime trilogy, killer 7, grim grimoire, no more heroes 2, and the legend of zelda: collectors edition.

my backlog will be getting big once again. At the moment I'm playing through L.A. Noire, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Indigo Prophecy. All 3 experiences thus far have been quite enjoyable. Also have been competing for a top 50 spot in Akai Katana (arcade mode) for the past few weeks. game is incredible.

In other news, e3 has me interested in a few new games -dragon's crown (PS3) - being one of them. I'm a HUGE vanillaware fan and this new game announcement was excellent news. It was announced a little before e3 that el shaddai's release date is July 26, 2011. I'm also excited to replay both ZOE games in HD.


----

Movies:

I've been trying to get into Studio Ghibli work as of late, and watched Ponyo. I was a bit weirded out but it was enjoyable and a great first movie to watch. Now I've got a backlog of their movies to watch.


I watched before the devil knows you're dead and found myself quite surprised by the movie. I'm a big philip seymour hoffman fan so the movie was a must-watch. I couldn't help but think about the movie "fargo" while watching before the devil knows you're dead, but it did enough on it's own to warrant 2 thumbs up from myself.

Also saw the "tree of life" downtown and have to say that I haven't seen anything like it. 3/4 of the movie is about Bradd Pitt and his fictional wife raising Sean Penn. Sean Penn's character quickly losing his innocence, but once he's old enough, he looks back on the instilled morals and life lessons that his dad (Bradd Pitt) taught him. The other 1/4 of the movie was a weird documentary-esque portion covering everything from prehistoric times to the present, from a molecular to a galactic level. It was mostly sounds and music mixed with crazy cinemetography of volcanoes, galaxies, ocean life, and even dinosaurs (lol). It went along with the film perfectly and gave the film quite a unique thought-provoking feeling of wonder.


In other news, Win Win can be found if you know where to look. It was easily my favorite movie of the year (thus far) starring Paul Giamatti and Jeffery Tambor among many other actors. It's quite a funny yet sad movie and currently has a 96% on rotten tomatoes.

The Book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" (an excellent 500 page children's book which is worth the read) is being adapted into a film by Scorcese and Von Trier with actors such as Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Sasha Baron Cohen. It's basically about an orphan boy who finds an automaton which he thinks his father programmed to leave him a message.

The book "Devil in the White City" is also being remade into a movie (another excellent book) starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the hotel owner. It's based on true events at the time of the World's Fair in Chicago, about a hotel owner that killed his guests.

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Books

Been reading "The Plague" by Albert Camus which is a fictional story based on a town that gets hit with something similar to that of the bubonic plague. In the story is roughly 26 characters and an unknown narrator that is revealed near the end of the book when nearly every person but 6 die.


My next book will be "Sanctuary" By William Faulkner as I'm a huge William Faulker fan (I just recently finished the sound and the fury before I started the plague).

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for personal news..I just got myself an interview for an HR position next Thursday, and my men's league hockey team tied the 2nd to last game, and won the last game. Next game is on tuesday!

wednesday I will be seeing bill burr, dave attell, jim breuer, and jim norton at the chicago theater!

I'm going to have a full week next week.

hells yeah!

GAMING
new information regarding radiant silvergun has been posted in a recent siliconera post:

Treasure and Microsoft are bringing one of the rarest Sega Saturn games to Xbox 360. Treasure added anime cutscenes and a storyline to Radiant Silvergun for consoles. The original arcade game didn't have dialogue.

The Xbox 360 release will include both versions – arcade and Sega Saturn. Earlier, the ESRB leaked the news that the Sega Saturn cutscenes would be included in Radiant Silvergun on Xbox 360.

Famitsu also notes Radiant Silvergun will cost 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15), but the magazine does not specify a release date, just a vague 2011.siliconera

source: Siliconera

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The latest news from Cave Co, Ltd. has been that a new PCB will be available for their first Mushihime-sama game - Mushihime-sama Matsuri Ver. 1.5. Hopefully a home console port announcement will soon follow this which I would hope would be bundled with the original mushihime-sama.

The recently released promo trailer for Mushihime-sama Matsuri Ver. 1.5 can be seen here

source: Cave-STG

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Otomedius Excellent gets a North American Collectors Edition priced at $50 (according to gamestop) but none of the collectors edition details have been revealed (as in what is included besides the game). The release date on their site is posted at July 19th, 2011.

source: Gamestop

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PERSONAL

I recently had the urge to play killzone 3 again since I got within the last 30 minutes or so from the ending my first playthrough when my PS3 80GB decided to YLOD. My first step in playing through it on my new PS3 Slim was opening up the PS3, and disassembling the entire Blu-Ray drive in order to get the disc out. The process took me roughly an hour to take apart and put back together. Now I have the disc and have been playing through it again (single player from the beginning) and it's mediocre just like I remembered it. However, I do want to beat the game and put the trophies back on my PSN account.

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Been messing around with my Scan-Line Generator 3000 to produce some pretty awesome results on my CRT Arcade setup, and have been considering modding a SPST (on/off) switch on the two screw terminals, but I figure that can be a later project given that I'm pretty busy at the moment. These are the results I've gotten so far:

as you can see, I have the DIP settings set for thick scan-lines, but they aren't as visible as they are in these off screen grabs which were taken centimeters away from my CRT monitor.

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Lastly, now that I've graduated with a bachelor's degree, I've been spending most of my time applying, reading, playing pickup game (rat hockey) ice hockey, and playing videogames. For the past 3 weeks I've been conditioning with my old hockey equipment, and I was actually just asked today to play for a men's league hockey team. My first game is sunday so I'm excited seeing as I've taken a 4 year break since I last played travel hockey. Wish me luck fellas!

Some-Mist

the El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron demo is everything I hoped it would be. Beautiful, difficult but not cheap, great combat, clean no-hud interface, killer platforming and an overall awesome package. It's the game I've been hyping since e3 2010 and I think I'm going to get exactly what I wanted. The sloppy offscreen grabs I took aren't nearly as impressive as seeing the game in motion:

I just wrote up a review for Cave Co, Ltd.'s Nin2 Jump which could be found for 400 MSP on XBLA as of 4.27.2011. Check out the review if you want an indepth explanation behind the mechanics.

(score attack mode)

Thanks,

Some-Mist