I’ve never really been let down by Pixar. There is a reason why their movies do so well: Quality. Every Pixar movie I’ve seen I have enjoyed. Last year I watched Wall-E, though I didn’t have time to write about it. Had I, I would have given it a solid 10/10 because there was nothing Wall-E did less than amazing.
UP sits right under Wall-E on the awesome scale. It’s not as epically beautiful, nor is it quite as artistically stunning, but it’s pretty damned close.
This post is coming to you at least two three months late, but hey, for at least one of those months I was rather busy with school. I don’t really have an excuse for the latter, but that’s just how it is.
Anyways, back in March, I was given a fantastic opportunity to visit Japan via a friend of mine. Given that it was a trip to frikkin’ Japan, I couldn’t possibly have said no. Had I known how long the flight was actually going to feel, I might have reconsidered. Going there took somewhere around 18 hours and coming back took almost 24. There’s nothing quite like an 8 hour layover to make you consider killing yourself and/or those around you.
Thankfully the Detroit International Airport has a fantastic massage parlor. Best 30 dollars I have ever spent.
I will also apologize in advance for the load of this page. I’ve got a bunch of photos in this one, so if it takes a while to load… well you’ll have to wait i guess! I’m going to note the numbers of the photos from my flickr just so you can sort of follow along.
In case you are too lazy to visit my flickr set, you can jump to the end of the post, where I have a lovely flash dohickey that will rotate through all of my photos.
It’s been a while since I’ve played an honest to God platform game. It’s not my usual bag, as it requires a skill set that is lacking in me. These games generally consist of accurate timing, good aim, and good reflexes. These are all things I lack, and so platformers tend to annoy me to the point of non-playing.
I used to stay as far away from platformers as I could, given that my ability in them scored somewhere in the negatives. Every time I would try one, I’d get about 4 levels in, and then start to hate myself. It’s really not a pretty sight. Give me turn-based games and experiences points, that’s what I say!
Of course to every rule there is an exception, and Super Princess Peach is, shockingly, one of those exceptions.
You may, or may not have noticed some changes around here. That is, if anyone actually reads my blog any more. I’m still working out some of the kinks in my websites design, but all in all it’s coming along quite well. I’ve simplified some things; removing search; displaying one item on the front page; moved the resume and portfolio into the blog (the resume was its own WordPress install, and the portfolio just… didn’t exist); added a real, honest to God contact page. Things are looking up!
I’m still having a couple issues of course, that I’m trying to figure out (mystery htaccess file issues, CSS tweaks, ) but I’m sure I can get these figured out in the next little while. Anyways, on to things that are important to people other than me.
Oh Front Mission. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with your series. How can one franchise give so much joy, while sapping someones will to live so readily at the same time? I played my first Front Mission game back on the original PlayStation. It was actually the third in the series, but that mattered little to me. Within that game was a breadth of customization and unit control that up to that point I couldn’t have dared dream of.
Don’t even get me started on the side-quest goldmine that it was. It had it’s own “Internet” that came with spam, conspiracy theories, and hackable government systems. It had a solid story line, an excellent battle system, and some decent (for the time) graphics.
Front Mission DS (which apparently is a re-release of the original) has none of these things. Well okay, not none per say, but far less than my first experience. It did manage to be just as frustrating though, so that’s something.
Anyone who has talked to me about DS games will inevitably find out that I am a complete fanboy when it comes to what I call “The Lawyer Games.” This catchall title is used when talking about any of the Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice games. I’ve talked about previous installments of the series, and so now that I find myself with a little time (shockingly) I thought that I should probably get off my ass and get to writing! Self-deprecating aside, I’ve always enjoyed the Ace Attorney series, but I honestly found this one to be a little lost. Well, a little lost until the end when the grand machinations of the writers come to fruition.
Self-deprecating, machinations, and fruition, all in two sentences. I think my brain is having some kind of vocabulistic everything-must-go sale. Of course then I go ahead and say something like vocabulistic, and all of my grammar street cred get’s shot to hell.
Anyways! Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney! Review! Commence!
Yeah so I sort of didn’t post at all for like, 5 weeks. Amazing how time passes when you’re busy as hell during the end of days. I’ve been doing assignments and working and flying across the world and playing some games and learning Japanese and probably some other stuff. Yeah, I guess you could say that I’ve been a touch on the busy side.
Such is the life of a student.
So the recently passed weekend offered to me an adventure: troubleshooting the Internet connection at Theresa’s place. Now some of you may be wondering how troubleshooting someones Internet connection could be an adventure, and I completely understand your confusion and/or skepticism. Believe me that I wasn’t expecting an adventure for something that was, at the time, very straight-forward.
You see on Sunday afternoon, the Internet connection at Theresa’s house was dreadfully slow, and would randomly disconnect for a couple seconds at a time. Just enough time to cancel any sort of operation you were hoping to do while browsing the Interwebs. I, being the only tech-savvy person about, was given the … opportunity to correct the situation.
This is not what I wanted to do with my weekend, but sadly when your girlfriend is Internet dependent and gets frustrated when things don’t work (don’t we all though?) it makes fixing said Internet.
Oh how I wish this review was going to go well. A lot of people like The Midway State. Hell, I’m sure a lot of people really love this album. I want to like it, but I keep getting hung up on things. I know two things will happen with this review. First, anyone who is a massive fan of The Midway State is going to nail me to the wall and then stone me to death. Second, I’ll have to actually listen to the whole album through two more times to actually find songs that I like.
Wait, those could be out of order. It doesn’t matter, they’ll both happen one way or the other.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve played any real arcade-style games. Last time I picked up a controller to play any sort of side-scrolling, button-bashing, streets-of-fury style game I was a much younger person. With SNES controller in hand, my friend and I playing the likes of TNMT: Turtles in Time, Contra III or Battletoads & Double Dragon.
See the problems with my playing these sorts of games are:
Well I now have a console, so I have no excuse as to whether I could try to play them or not. Turns out I still suck at them, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. The forearm muscle is a slow process, and I’ve already given myself muscle strain resulting in a fantastic carpel tunnel attack. You just don’t feel like a man until you’ve got to ice your forearm because of extreme button mashing.
Or is it “You just can’t feel like a man when you have to ice your forearm because of extreme button mashing”?
Either way, it hasn’t stopped me from playing Castle Crashers with extreme vigor.