...once you get over the opening nerves and realise that everyone attending is on your side. Man, I was bricking it for the first couple of sentences, though. It was my girlfriend's brother's wedding, so my partner's parents and all of the (vast) family were there. But as the day went on, I really relaxed and got into it; by the end of the night, my performance was hammier than a troupe of talented pigs on a trapeze. Having people indulge in a steady stream of free booze obviously aided my charms. All up, I think I'd do it all over again, armed with some knowledge gleaned from my debut effort.
Vanquish is still aces in the relentless action department.
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT Now that I've finished Fable III, I've really started to focus on Vanquish. I'd only dipped my toe into the splashy, sweary world of Vanquish before, but after finishing a couple of Acts last night I'm oh-so-keen to get back into it. I'll have to get as much of it in as possible over the next couple of days, because as of Wednesday morning I'm off to Thailand and Malaysia for a couple of weeks.
HOLY SNOT THAT TRAIN LEVEL IN VANQUISH IS THE BUSINESS.
Driver has aged a LOT.
Yep, I'm talking about the original Playstation game. For reasons that will become apparent in another forthcoming blog, I (re)purchased the game to play it all over again, but this time I'm gonna actually finish it.
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Also, seeing as I didn't provide an entry for last week, here's the most important lesson I learned during that weekend...
DJ Hero Renegade Edition is an inconvenient item to walk/tram home.
Seriously, that box is hefty as fuck - its weight and size make it goddamn difficult to carry down the street as you walk a few blocks to catch a tram. And then catching the tram with it presents a whole new batch of interesting challenges. But what could I do? It was cheap and I'd heard everyone say to get the deluxe version that came with the tabletop rig.
DJ Hero is also pretty entertaining.
This guy is such a big influence on my listening/ creative habits that this teensy widdle caption is completely the wrongest place ever to try and tell you all about it. Despite actually having the ability to competently mix records for realsies (I love making mini mixes and mash-ups) I'd never actually played DJ Hero before last weekend. My verdict? It's fun enough, although I don't think it's as direct and natural a correlation to the activity it mimics as Guitar Hero and Rock Band are with theirs. This mainly comes from the fact that you have to press different buttons on the turntable which (obviously) you don't do when you're actually mucking around with real vinyl. But I certainly get the feeling I'll enjoy the whole experience more once I've mastered the way you read the highway and what different tracks expect of me.
Some of the mixes are very much on the ball, too, which is good. Plus there are a couple of instances where cussing has been excised through clever use of the cross fader, which brought a smile to my face. There are a couple of tracks, though, where the chopping gets a bit much, and it kind of muddies the core tune and makes it a bit of a mess. Also, as a fan of both Justice and DJ Shadow, I'm quite happily catered for, so the game wins some big points there.
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Yes, I missed out on writing last week's entry. But I'm pretty sure I learned things then, just as a I did over the last couple of days. Stuff like...
I officially prefer Carlsberg over Beck's these days.
After mowing my front and back lawns on a warm Australian spring afternoon, I felt like I should have a beer or two as I fired up the Xbox. I had a couple of choices in Beck's and Carlsberg, and figured I'd have one of each. I used to be a real Beck's boy, only occasionally having a Carlsberg if it was offered (and more often than not having Peroni instead of either). I actually have no idea why the Carlsberg was in my fridge, but I'm glad it was. Just a really nice, refreshing and drinkable beer.
Vanquish Challenge Mode is breathtakingly badass.
Eat hot pew pew death, you Russian robot menace, you! I put my Fable III play on hold for a couple of hours to get all mecha-shooty with Vanquish. It hasn't escaped my attention that Platinum's sci-fi actioner is getting some good press recently, and the more I read the more I wanted to truncate my Fable III experience to get medieval on some robots. After playing the first Act, I decided to give the freshly unlocked Challenge Mode a go. Holy snap, does that get the adrenaline flowing! It's a pretty full-tilt assault, with relentless waves of mechanical enemies all very keen to end you. I was sitting fairly close to the screen so I felt right in it, and when I finally died I exhaled heavily and rocked back on the ottoman, mind and senses all skittish but sated from the experience. I'm hung over today, so tonight will probably see Fable III back in the disc tray, but I'm still keen to return to the frantic thrills that make Vanquish already seem like great value for money.
The Real Cancun uses Comic Sans for its end credits.
I came home drunk from a mate's birthday thing yesterday, and passed out on the couch. When I woke up this morning at around 2 in the AM I made myself some noodles, a large cup of weak lemon cordial and switched the telly on. After flicking around a bit, I saw the last couple of minutes of The Real Cancun before the credits rolled. I've never seen the actual film, but if its essence is represented by the font used in the end credits, I'm glad I was unconscious. I don't know if it's an ironic we-all-laugh-at- Comic-Sans decision or not, but either way it's a wince-inducing decision.
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It was a long, 3-day weekend full of friends with very sad news, cousins having weddings and a generally strange vibe to everything. For example...
I may have carpal tunnel syndrome.
On Saturday morning, I woke up and three of my fingers were numb. Actually, it's my pointy finger, my middle finger and my thumb. I assumed I'd slept on it funny (what happens if a clown alleges he or she "slept funny?") and waited for the dull, pins-and-needles sensation to subside.
It totally didn't. It lasted all day Saturday and Sunday, and checking the symptoms with the greatest free doctor in the world (the internet, dummy) I suspect my deadened fingers may be due to the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome. Obviously I'll get a second opinion from someone who actually knows, but until I do that I have to put up with this annoyance. I probably shouldn't be working/typing this blog, right? It couldn't have come at a worse time, though, with my boss being away for another 5 weeks; I can't really afford to take any time off if I have to.
Luckily, it's in my left, non-dominant hand, so it's not slowing me down too much, although I think I can feel my left index finger stiffening with every keystroke of this blog entry.
In what is probably related news...
Bully seems a nifty title (for what little I played of it).
Picked it up on the cheap and played it for a couple of hours or so. Really enjoying it, so now I'm torn about the possibility of having to force myself not to play games. Y'know, because of the other thing I just mentioned. Gah, so annoying!
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Gardening was postponed this weekend due to alcohol-related tomfoolery. That doesn't mean I didn't learn a thing or two, though!
There's this game called Noctropolis...
I still can't get over how brilliantly clunky the name of this game is. In Australia, there's a couple of dudes called Hamish and Andy who do an afternoon drive time show on the radio. A guy rang their show (I can't remember the topic) to say he's been trying to finish the game Noctropolis since it was released in 1994. Apparently, this guy has a mad old PC still set up specifically to play this game. He's found it totally vexing and difficult to finish, but is determined to see it through without looking the solution up, even though he's only up to the second boss (apparently out of six). The great bit came where other people rang into the show to say that Noctropolis is actually a piece of piss to complete, and they all finished it pretty quickly back when the game was still a current title.
I'd never heard of it before, but this dude's crapness has led to me checking out some video of the game. Man, it's FMV-tastic. It looks totally creaky by today's standards, but I reckon 17-year-old me would have thought it was brilliant. I'll never play this game (especially since I've now watched a walkthrough) but it's interesting to know it exists. It'll be filed in my brain right alongside The 7th Guest and Psychic Detective.
Mike Post is awesome.
Boxed set coming soon from Carbon Neutral TV. While nursing a hangover on Sunday, the afternoon's television viewing included Magnum, P.I. and The Rockford Files. While watching the credits for the latter, I noticed that Mike Post wrote the theme songs for both shows. Turns out that the dude has a pretty impressive list of shows he's penned the music for. Check out this impressive list of musical magic: The A-Team, CHiPs, Doogie Howser MD, The Greatest American Hero, Hill Street Blues, Hunter, Law & Order, MacGyver, NewsRadio, Quantum Leap.
That's right, it's all the old shows that none of you kids have any bloody interest in! Cool, huh? On a side-note, it was only the second time I'd ever watched an episode of The Rockford Files but I really love how snappy the writing can be. Definitely interested in watching it again on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Oh, and even though I've seen the footage and photos it's still always really hard to imagine Tom Selleck without his legendary moustache. Go on, try to picture a mo-less Selleck with your mind's eye. Hard, isn't it? Certainly harder than finishing Noctropolis, that's for sure.
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Yup, more stuff managed to permeate the lump of granite I call a brain. Will it ever end?
Breaking Bad is amazing.
I'd heard a lot about this series – it's collected six Emmies, so it's hard to dodge – and my lass and I settled in to start watching it over the weekend. We've watched seven episodes so far, and my gob is well and truly smacked. It's possibly the most entertaining show I've watched from the recent clutch ( True Blood and Deadwood included) although it's certainly not relaxing viewing. There were times where I was so on-edge that I could barely stand to be in the room, but of course it's all so well acted and interestingly plotted that there was no way I was budging my gaze, let alone my arse. I can't wait to watch more of this insanely breakneck piece of compulsive telly.
I'm in an abusive relationship with Operation Logic Bomb.
This game even manages to flummox my SNES Action Replay cartridge, so I can't even cheat my way through it. *pout* I love this game, and have pimped it many times on this site, but I've never managed to finish it. It's a very cool but rough-around-the-edges SNES title that does some nifty stuff. There's a definite moment when it reminds you of the age it comes from, though, and not in a good way. That moment is when you run out of credits and see the ultimate Game Over message.
Operation Logic Bomb is a strange hybrid of arcade run 'n' gun and action adventure. It's mostly twitchy shooting of stuff, with multiple enemies haranguing you in the most persistent manner. That's fine, but all the blasting is stretched across a bigger quest, which sees you collecting different kinds of weapon upgrades along the way, Zelda-style. As you progress through the levels, you'll have to use newly acquired equipment to help get you through to the next area.
It can get bastard tough in some spots, and I'll admit that every time I play it I usually only get a little bit further because I've learned how to tackle these bits. The only problem is that once you've died a few times and run out of continues, that's your whole game done. Kaput. No passwords, just begin again. And you'll have to battle through this entire adventure just to get up to the point where you died, probably so you can die just a little bit slower this time around because you kinda figured what you were supposed to do. Ugh. I still love the game, but I feel like I've been punched in the guts every time I run out of credits. Needless to say, I only ever play the game once per sitting before I leave it alone for a few months, hoping to forget the sting.
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Another weekend, another update to my brain's vast catalogue of probably-not-going-to-save-my-life knowledge!
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard has some genuinely funny moments in it.
I bought Eat Lead on the cheap last Friday, for two reasons. Firstly, after finishing Halo: Reach a couple of times, I just wanted some inexpensive shootery action before diving back into Oblivion. Secondly, my boss is away in America for 8 weeks and I really want to go some way to bridging the gap between our GamerScores (he's about 22,000 ahead of me). While most of the attempts at humour are pretty weak – Will Arnett's doing the best with what he's got – there have been a few spots where it dragged the chuckles out of me.
The first was when you come up against the Final Fantasy parody character, Altos Tratus. Because he's a spoof of JRPG characters, his dialogue pops up in text boxes which Hazard has to manually skip through himself. During your battle with Tratus another box will appear, showing his health and magic points, and the list of spells he can select from. Shooting Tratus will also cause a red number to float above his head, indicating the amount of health you've chipped away. Chuck in a dig about the overabundance of ellipses into the mix and it's a pretty solid encounter, both in the battle and the laff quotient.
Other amusing bits are a crack about long elevator rides (although they use this gag twice) and a section that emulates the look of Wolfenstein 3D (there are flat enemies to match, but it was the bright blue bricks that made me smile).
As for the action, I'm actually enjoying it despite myself. I know it's a pretty clunky game overall but there are some cover mechanics I think are pretty nifty improvements in the stop 'n' pop sub-genre. I'm certainly not in love with the game but for what I wanted going in and the price I grabbed it for, it has been the perfect thing to switch my brain off with.
There's a difference between Kaffir limes and Tahitian limes
Aussie summer + alcohol + lime = YO (Yes, Sweep, more gardening!) I guess this one's obvious, since they have different names. I guess what I really learned is what makes the two stand apart from each other. Kaffir limes don't grow any reasonably useful fruit - as the dude at the nursery said, they look like "little withered brains." The Kaffir lime is only really used for its zest and its leaves when you need them for cooking.
If you want to grow lime fruit that's edible – y'know, like the one you'd fish out of your vodka, lemon, lime and bitters – you need to go with the Tahitian lime. And this is exactly what my lass and I have done, with a darling little dwarf Tahitian lime tree sitting in a large pot just outside our back door. This has been more my girlfriend's initiative, and I asked why she wanted one so. She replied that it'll be perfect for making our own mojitos at home. Always thinking, she is. What a gal.
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I've accumulated a fair amount of junk in my many game-obsessed years. Problem is, outside of my girlfriend there's not too many people who see it. I figured I'd change that by starting what may be a regular thing on my blog, Hoard Mode. This is where I'll display some bollocks thing or another that there's no way I needed to purchase, but it still ended up in my collection before I had the chance to think about why I so utterly didn't need it.
All of the twitchy thrills of Zaxxon are contained in this cardboard box. Sort of. Not really. This time around, in keeping with the recent Zaxxon flavour of my blog, I present the Zaxxon board game. I had this when I was a kid, but over the years I lost bits of it and eventually it became an unused prisoner of the games cupboard. I've no idea what became of it – I assume my mother piffed it when I moved out of home – but every now and then the thought of it would pop into my adult brain with a tingle of nostalgia (the same goes for my Donkey Kong and Pac-Man board games which I keep meaning to track down).
A few years back, I bumped into the opportunity to buy the Zaxxon board game again (not the exact one I used to own, obviously). Before the part of my brain that makes good decisions could stop the part of my brain in charge of my mouse-clicking finger, Milton Bradley's Zaxxon was mine. I haven't once played with it since the purchase, and fully expect that I never will, but for me it's a nice convergence of childhood memory and silly-but-cool collectible.
After last week's mowing fiesta it was a (relatively) more relaxed weekend for me this time. That didn't stop me from gettin' busy with the learning, though!
Playing Reach on Legendary is not all that bad... so far.
HEY GUESS WHAT GUYS HALO REACH HALO REACH HALO REACH I played through Halo: Reach on Heroic the first time through, and there were definitely some points where I had to swear my way through dozens of deaths before progressing. I'm now playing it on Legendary (just started the Exodus mission) and I'm finding it easier going than my first play through. There have been some points where I've been educated through multiple deaths, but for the most part it's been pretty fun. The sniper mission especially was a breeze second time through, with the turrets barely even seeing me, let alone hitting me. Of course, everyone's now going to tell me that the last mission is a ball-mashing bitch on Legendary and I should kiss my sanity goodbye.
The other thing I learned is that Brad nailed what I like about Halo: if things aren't working with one plan, the game has the flexibility for you to get creative and figure out a new method of attack.
The Human Centipede is a ho-hum affair.
I've watched a lot of horror films in my time. I saw the first Nightmare on Elm Street at a very young age (like, 9 or something) when I was staying at a school friend's house and crept out to watch the video by myself at 3am while everyone was asleep. Last Saturday, I went to an 11pm screening of Tom Six's The Human Centipede (The First Sequence). I'd seen the trailer and thought it was a nicely effed up concept for a spot of grotty horror. Sadly, for me the film proper never got out of the blocks any further than what you see in the preview; in the end, it was all rather ponderous and pointless. It's got fleeting moments of well-pitched dark humour, but they weren't enough to make The Human Centipede any more than "a film I have seen."
The wasabi peas I ate while watching it really hit the spot, though.
Pruning a fig tree is hard work.
When my girlfriend and I purchased our house, it came with a fig tree in the back yard. I've been putting off pruning it for a whole year, and yesterday I finally bit the bullet and got medieval on those branches. By day's end I had scratches all over my arms and sawdust in my beard, but I'm glad it all got done. Not only is pruning a fig tree hard work, it's also very satisfying work.
Here's one I've been meaning to do for a while. There was some event or another (probably more than one) where Jeff was wearing a Zaxxon tee. I've loved the Zaxxon logo ever since I was a kid, and I figured it was about time I blended Giant Bomb and Sega's isometric shooter into some sort of t-shirt homage.
I'd started it a while ago and abandoned it because it wasn't working the way I wanted it to. But today, for whatever reason, I got it into my noggin that I should probably finish it off. A bit of nipping, tucking, primping and poking later and it's done! Obviously it's not exactly the same as the Zaxxon logo, but more inspired by it and other games of my childhood. Actually, I've only just noticed how similar the Zaxxon and Xevious logos are now that I'm thinking about it.
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