Monday, August 27, 2007

I'd Kick Your Ass But Your Armor From God is Preventing Me

For some reason, off the top of my head, I can't recall what games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre are called (probably have a "tactics" in it). It's sort of a weird time to be a gamer. While I do have the expendable income because of my job (and not paying rent might helps), I find that I like to spend my money on other things like clothing and DVDs. The clothing comes from the fact that I have to look decent for work (respect?) and also as the season changes it might be a good idea to change a little. The DVDs come from the fact that I have recently become a NetFlix member and with all the TV shows that I'm watching it helps to get the box sets when they come out (Ugly Betty and Heroes ahem).

Anyway, I'm not very good with my money (I need to grow up), so I have to wisely chose what games to buy. Tuesday marks the arrival of Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii, and I'm definitely getting it I just don't know when. But I'll post a half-assed review once I get it and play around with it.

In the meanwhile, my busted up PSP currently has the RPG Jeanne D'arc. Now I really enjoy Strategy RPGs. These are RPGs that have your characters line up on a gridded battlefield and you take turns moving your characters against the opponent. The really good SRPGs have you think alot before you even begin a battle and allow you to micromanage skills and weapons. I'm probably, at most, 8 hours into this game, and so far it's adequate.

The story is horrible mainly because it takes liberties with the real history of Joan of Arc. What bothers me is that I cannot feel for the main character: she starts off as a nice girl and then all of a sudden gets bloodlust after her whole village is destroyed. She doesn't even respectfully seek justice, she's just gungho about wanting to kill the enemy. She's so lucky she has special armor from God or else her ass would be wasted. Also, so far, there's not much in terms of micromanaging. All the ingredients are there: weapons, skills, and magic. But so far, only one character is getting juiced up and that's Jeanne, the main character. My other 10 characters are just variations of people with swords, lances, and axes. I mean, c'mon, I only have one person who can even be remotely considered as a magician/mage and she can only cast a healing spell and fireball. In fact she's the second most powerful right now since she's been getting so much experience from healing my party.

Maybe I'm not far enough into the game? Well, at least it kills time. The enjoyable aspect is that certain characters have armlets that let them transform into "super" forms that have better stats and abilities. These super form can only be achieved by some characters. The great thing is that these forms are really powerful. For example, if you kill an enemy while in this form, you get something called "godspeed" and are able to move that character again. If you time them correctly, you can kill many characters in one turn.

So I'll be playing this game here and there, but I'm definitely waiting for more advance SRPGs like the remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP or even its sequel for the Nintendo DS.

Friday, August 24, 2007

It Tastes Like Pie and It's Good

First off let me start off by saying that many of the shows I'm into get canceled. I don't know what it is, but I just have that magic touch. And it's not because they're bad shows-- they're usually critical darlings but are never given the chance to develop an audience (except for The Black Donnellys which I don't think anyone thought was a good show except for me. It must've been the whole scenario of brothers sticking together that got me. Plus it's the Irish!)

Well I just finished watching the pre-air pilot for Pushing Daisies (ABC, Wednesdays). I acquired the pilot through the interweb, and it was well worth it. I heard good things about the pilot so I just had to see for myself (I tend to follow fads and I heard there was an underground support for this upcoming show-- well maybe not so underground).

Premise: A guy can bring things back to life with one touch and kill them with another. Do I need to say more? Well it's a comedy/drama or a dramedy, and the scenario just lends itself to great situations. It's also shot in fairy tale style with voice overs narrating the story playfully. Imagine an old grandpa character reading you a bedtime story when you're 9 years old. Very sweet and comfy! The show looks like a Tim Burton movie like Edward Scissor-hands or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Combine Story-book telling storytelling with the aesthetics of a Tim Burton movie and you've got the second best reason to watch ABC this fall (Lost is on for midseason, and Ugly Betty gets a close third/second?). I couldn't stop watching and I really like the characters. I even laughed out loud from a show that's not solely a comedy.

Another reason I like this show so far is the lead character. The protagonist has a fear of opening up to other people (understandbly because of his touching power) and he has pined and dreamed of his childhood crush all his life. I think I can relate. Just watch the pilot to see what happens.

If anything else, you owe it to yourself to check out the first episode this October 3rd and decide for yourself. It's sweet (I literally can taste it and it tastes like strawberry-bananas and it's guuud.

Bittorent!

Quick Thought

In an effort to put more content or ANY content on this blog, I'm going to start putting quick posts once in a while to capture the moment. I have to come up with a name for these quick posts, but "Quick Thought" will suffice for now (I'll accept any recommendations).

For my first QT, it's going to be really quick and irrelevant, but for some reason, my punctuation does not show up on my posts. Sure I have horrible punctuation in general, but not double spacing after periods is not one of them. It just does not show up!

Also, I really should add some widgets to this blog. I think the best thing about this blog, besides the posts (hehe) is the title. I'm so proud that I came up with this title. I'm going to have to ask Sutiben to hook this motha' up. Plus if I get a mac or whatnot, I want to go all the way and make things look purty as he says.

End Thought.

Note-To-Self: Talk about my Wii in the next real post.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Column A and Column B

*cough* *cough*

That's me coughing because of all the dust that this blog has accumulated. Time to dust it off. (Oh, yeah, by the way, I hate using those asterisks to pretend I'm coughing-- it's my first time so I hope no one gets used to it)

Time to stay focused for this post.

Anyway, I'm in the market for a new laptop. I have two options in mind: the macbook (drool...) or your omnipresent windows notebooks. I'm having a tough time figuring out what to pick. On the one hand macbooks (drool...) is oh so sexy, but then you have the familiar notebooks which you feel "safe" with because you've been with forever.

What do I need a lappy for? Nothing really, I just want to have something to kill time with and surf the web and possibly do multimedia work if I'm ever motivated. I could possibly make videos and join this youtube craze. I heard peeps get discovered on the interweb so I might try my hand at being the next Spielberg (I'm not cool enough to know any other directors off the top of my-- Scorcese, meh).

I'm also a gamer, but more of a console gamer since I'm not too good with computers and PCs are expensive. Since I'm not so good with computers maybe a mac will be best since I heard it' more reliable and does not need much tweeking out of the box. Less maintenance too. But it's also uber expensive. While I am a balla/baller I'm having second thought on spending it on a macbook.

But I'm also a little swayed by aesthetics and the fact that Veronica Mars used a powerbook is a plus (Don't know VMars? Tsk tsk. Typical human hehe).

Anyway, if I do get a macbook, I may have to wait for October when OSX Lepoard comes out. If I'm impatient and want more bang for my buck I may settle for the familiar notebook which I'll just tweak like hell and ask Ol' Sutiben for help (hehe shoutout to S- dog).

Laters.