Watched four movies this weekend and one anime series. I should have brought more anime.

The wife picked Trouble With The Curve and I thought with the man himself Clint Eastwood, the nice chick from the office, and a story about baseball it should be alright. Well, it sucked. Clint was still a badass but baseball was just an excuse to have the characters all together. The office chick needed to show some skin besides the one butt shot and baseball takes a seat on the bench until the last few minutes. Boring.

Now I thought Ali G Indahouse was a great movie, sadly I picked The Dictator to watch instead. It had a few good laughs but the whole 'USA is bad blah blah' is done poorly and we already know others don't like us. Well screw them and this movie.

The wife's dad picked Rise of the Guardians as he thought it had some owls in it or something. I wish it had something in it because this is a hardcore 8yr and under movie. I like animated films but this was just aimed at a age group way too low to be any good. Besides, I always thought Jack Frost was an old guy.

To try to save the weekend, we thought Skyfall would be the action packed full speed shot we needed. Well, this wasn't the Bond I was looking for. It just seemed that there was talking in a office, talking in a house, talk talk talk. There was what the intro, the 2 minutes of action at the casino, and then the five minutes of action at the island? The whole super villain escapes blah blah is just so predictable and cheesy. I was very sad to see a Bond movie turn out like another fluff piece.

So that was it for hollywood and gawd did it suck ass. I had a couple more movies but I just couldn't stand any more. I wonder if End of Watch and Lawless would of been any better.

It was by sheer luck that I brought along a anime series. I had planned on starting a long series but went with the 13 episode Level E. The descriptions I have read on it were not exactly clear and I though one said there was a bit of man on man loving. Now I'm not keen on watching any of that but it seemed like it was only meant that a man or men acted really girly. Anyway, I gave it a go and was just a little scared at first but was quickly won over. The visuals and colors are sharp and the dub was great. I didn't exactly care that sometimes if someone shouted, it was a lot louder then normal. Was just a tad annoying with ear buds. Anyway, I was happy with my luck and it saved me quite a bit.

I'm still hitting up the anime and did watch the first episode of Zegapain. It seemed to have enough to keep me interested to watch the next episode. I don't think it'll be awesome but it don't have to be. It has 26 episodes so thats quite a chunk of viewing time.

I also been keeping an eye out for good movies and happened to watch two this past weekend. The first one was The Sky Crawlers which had awesome aerial combat but its a real shame that the movie didn't focus on that. If you are able to pay attention thru some long scenes that can be uneventful, there is some nice plot twists that finally show up near the end of the movie. The movie never really explains a lot of the background but the whole point is just the main character. I personally found the Basset Hound to be the best character because it was funny, sad, happy, ect. So yeah, I wonder if this director has made a movie based on the aerial combat.  The other movie was Roujin Z which came out in 1991. The animation has aged pretty well and I like that old style. I expected it to have a bit more fan service but overall it was an alright movie. I got a bunch of movies still to watch so I might save those for weekends and do a series during the week. Nice to have options. Switching over to video games.  I've said this before and I will say it again that I won't be getting the next Xbox for at least two years after it comes out. I have too much invested in hardware and my backlog of games continues to stay around the 50 mark. In the past I've gone thru the catalog and picked up some older/lesser known games but I'm staying away from the generally thought of as 'just good enough to play'. After I get thru all those games, I'll be ready for the next Xbox.  In regards to the rumors of the next Xbox requiring internet access to do anything seems a bit much to me. Maybe if Sony was doing it then I could see them doing it as well. I know publishers would love it because buying used is the same as piracy to them. Oh blah blah you sheep. Its the same thing. Piracy is the act of getting a game and not paying the dev/pub which is the same as buy a used game. There is no argument around it. Fact is where does your money go when you buy new, it goes to the dev/pub and some other places. Buying used goes to the store that sold it and thats it.  I played NCAA Football 12 this past weekend and wow that game is bad. EA can't even get the basics right anymore like lining up the QB behind the Center. 9/10 times the QB is too far over to the left. I powered thru a season and just hate all the time it takes to do that side crap like stories or such. You should be able to turn that off. I then did two of the Heisman things which weren't bad. I think the last time that a football game from EA was any good was 2008. They have lost focus on the actual game play so badly.

I decided that I will do a week of anime movies instead of starting a new series. No real big reason why but it don't hurt to mix it up a bit. I have gotten together what I think is a nice selection and while I couldn't tell you what genres they all fit in, I just made sure they were highly rated by people or won an award. I have no order in which to watch them and yes I will watch them in English dub. Sorry, I'm already reading a book and don't want to read a damn movie. I will be keeping tabs on my thoughts about each movie and when I've watched them all, I will post a new blog.

Anyway, the plan is to watch one movie a night but I think some are pretty short so if I do pick a short one and its still not too late I might start up another shorty. Any that are left will be watched this weekend. I will be starting with Summer Wars as it turned out to be the most difficult to get and I not sure why I kept going after it so lets hope it was worth it!

Here is the list in no order:

5 Centimeters Per Second

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Howl's Moving Castle

Porco Rosso

Redline

Spirited Away

Summer Wars

Sword of the Stranger

Some might not be aware but there was a retail release of Angry Birds on the Xbox 360. It includes the classic or what I think as the first release, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Seasons up to Mooncake Festivial. I'm not sure of the total amount of levels offered including the bonus and those golden egg levels as well. I've been playing it off and on since December and have Classic and Seasons done. If I recall, thats about 550 levels. While I do find the game fun, I think its the achievements that keep me coming back. For each episode you complete you get 15 points which isn't much but its enough for me. Some of the episodes were pretty short at 15-18 levels but then some were very long at 45. I'm pretty sure that I seen that the Rio episodes are at 30 levels each. There are other achievements that pop up randomly but I feel like its an accomplishment to beat every level and get some points to add to my cake. Haha

I'm currently playing Risen 2 on the Xbox 360 and yes its ugly and runs poorly. Yes there are annoying issues with the game play and sound. But, I'm having more fun then I did with The Witcher 2. The story is good and the dialog is funny and interesting. The roaming around is enjoyable and even more so when you can pick locks. I really enjoy the ability to fast travel and go back to locations later on. I'm doing a lot of side quests so I'll be playing the game for at least another 4-7 days I think. The achievements are pretty standard and not overall easy or too hard.

I seen some info about a lot of great games coming out by April. This might be the last time we see so many high quality titles come out for the Xbox 360 as I think nearly everyone predicts the next Xbox will come out this fall. It be great if dev's do a new and old Xbox version for a year so I can pad my backlog a bit more before having to start allowing lesser quality games from years ago. My back log currently stands around 50 and there are some high quality games on that list. Quite excited about that.

Been watching the anime Death Note the past couple weeks. The pacing is pretty good and the story is interesting. I like the characters as well. I can't exaclty recall what episode I'm on but I think I'm around 12ish. I was watching a couple episodes a night but then got caught up playing Xbox. I plan on watching a few this weekend but don't have a great need to rush thru it.

Quick thoughts:

1) Nothing like coming home to a couple pounds of perfectly cooked beef roast sitting in the slow cooker.

2) Still no snow shower above an inch. Snow blower is very sad.

3) Going to be tough to do that one Wii game a month for January.

4) I have about 5% interest in the Super Bowl and probably will watch the Puppy Bowl more.

A quick background on my anime experience. It was probably 10 years ago that I was real heavy into anime. I would watch it every day for hours. I would read about it when I couldn't be watching it. I kept track of anime that was coming to dvd. I talked anime on forums. You could say I was really into it and knew my stuff. However I was in a minority because I liked dub. If it wasn't dub then it wasn't going to be watched. And for those who only know 'dub' as a type of music, it means that it has English instead of Japanese audio. I just can't stand reading subtitles for shows.

Anyway, I now in the process of trying to make a list of shows and movies that I had watched and kinda annoyed at myself for not doing that back in the day. I did find a old file that lists shows that I had at least watched one episode because back then I would jump around a bit. I've learned since then to just stick with one or two shows at most. I bring this all up as last weekend I just happened to see a anime movie on a site and I got to reading and found that it has a series and before I know it, I was watching the series. The show is called Fafner and it was a pretty lame chance encounter to start up my anime watching again.

I'm not going to do a review on the show nor each episode which I find really stupid that sites do that. As I do with games, I will just share some thoughts. And please note that I might not be aware that there is ova/oav/specials/ect so I will just state what I know. The show has one full season of 26 episodes. In simple terms, the plot is that aliens have attacked and pretty much kicked humanity's butt and the show takes place on a special island with special people and such. Yea its not really original but whatever. One issue that I had is that barely any back story is given on these aliens. How did they first appear, attack, method, how did humanity react, anything. There is one or two quick flash backs that really just confuse you because they do it so they can explain something in the current episode.

I never felt like humanity was at the razor's edge of dying off because you got this neo-un (neo really?) that appears to have huge underground bases, advance tech, ect ect. Instead of filling in these huge holes they have character interaction and I guess 'growing' up junk that just seems like filler to me. There was a few good moments and episodes that was just enough to keep me going. I can't recommend this show at all as it does nothing good in any aspect. So there is the movie that takes place a couple years after the season. I'm slightly interested but it will have to wait awhile.

So with all the filler in the show, I took that time to do some research to see whats popular or what people have said are the favorite and worst anime. Animes that I seen repeated in the favorite section got a look and I've decided to go with Death Note. It be nice to watch a show where everyone isn't scared to hurt anyone.

***Honestly its pretty shitty that I simply can't paste text from notepad or MS Word without this forum's shitty code fucking it up so badly.**
IGN came out with a list of 2012's most underrated games. I do enjoy going over these types of lists at the end of a year so I will be going over a few that I have found from various sites. Unless noted, everything is Xbox 360. For sites that aren't able to produce a overall list, I will randomly picked one of their people's lists. I'm sure I've made comments on some of these games before but eh, lets get started.
IGN's most underrated games of 2012:
5) Asura's Wrath
I generally stay away from games made in Japan but after doing a bit of research and really understanding the type of game this was, I really enjoyed playing it. Yeah I would say it was almost like playing a interactive anime show. I don't recall the fighting system to be all that great at times and I do remember some frustrating bits but the overall experience was good. The achievements were decent as well. I'd recommend the game to anyone who likes anime, story telling, or just needs a quality 'something different'.
4) Binary Domain
Japan has attempted a few times to make a Gears of War clone and pretty much failed in various degrees. However, BD is the rare exception. The story was interesting and told well. The gameplay was great and being able to blow off various parts of robots was real cool. The relationship system was crap and the achievements were kinda rough. I was hoping they'd quickly make a second game with some minor improvements and get some hype. Highly recommened.
3) Syndicate
I recall this game was alright but had some really bad plot holes and events. I don't really recall this game very much so that tells me it was just a generic experience. The achievements were crap and honestly I think I mentioned this game in a previous blog but I just can't remember much about it at this time.
2) Resident Evil 6
I have this game on the backlog after hearing that its more action based instead of the awful move, stop, fire, move, stop, fire. I only did the last RE because I did it coop. I'm sure I will get to this in 2013 but not really excited about it.
1) Silent Hill Downpour
I don't like horror games and even thou I barely looked at this game, the name Silent Hill is all about horror. I won't play this.
IGN's GOTY awards: (skipped sound, MP)
Best action game: Dishonored
On the backlog and I should've played it when it came out. I am quite interested in it as well.
Best fighting game: Dead or Alive 5
I just made a blog on this game so won't repeat myself.
Best racing game: Trials Evolution
Besides the point that I think their selection isn't a racing game, I like these types of games and I got the first Trials but probably won't bother with this one unless its on sale.
Best RPG: The Witcher 2 AoK (Enhanced Ed.)
This is one of my big letdowns of 2012 as I found the gameplay just boring and restrictive. I found the game dull and couldn't wait to finish it.
Best shooter game: Halo 4
On the backlog which is sad because I usually play Halo games right away. I will get to this very soon.
Best platform game: Fez
Heard of it but thats about it.
Best sports game: NBA 2k13
Like last year, it still has some bugs and very annoying My Player issues that really kill the fun for me.
Best graphics: Halo 4
I thought Far Cry 3 had some great visuals and I will compare when I play Halo 4.
Best story: The Walking Dead
I will be playing this series within a few weeks for sure.
Best arcade game: The Walking Dead
See above.
Best overall game: Halo 4
See above.
Gamespot GOTY awards:
Fighting: Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Ugh... already ripped this game a couple weeks ago.
Action/Adventure: Dishonored
See above.
RPG: Guild Wars 2
Besides the point that I don't think this game should be allowed under 'RPG' I've not played this and don't plan to. I'm very very done with fantasy MMOs.
Shooter: Halo 4
See above.
Strategy: XCOM Enemy Unknown
While I was very happy a turned based game like this came out, I was annoyed with some of the game design choices. Achievements were alright.
Racing: Forza Horizon
Game was really fun, looked great, and the cars handled like they should. I would make minor changes to things but overall it was a very good game. Achievements for a Forza game was pretty dang nice.
Sports: Football Manager 2013
I've done a few manager games before and I just don't get hooked on them.
Platform: Spelunky
Never heard of it.
Arcade: Spelunky
See above
GOTY: Dishonored
See above.
Kotaku's top 11 (Kirk): (in no order and I will only mention games on the 360)
Max Payne 3: It was ok but I don't recall much about it and I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in a blog. Achievements sucked for sure.
The Walking Dead: See above.
XCOM Enemy Unknown: See above.
Far Cry 3: Awesome game.
Sleeping Dogs: Good in some areas, rough in others. Got kinda dull and boring at the end. Achievements were ok.
Joystiq's top 10: (in no order and I will only mention games on the 360)
XCOM Enemy Unknown: See above.
The Walking Dead: See above.
Fez: See above.
Dishonored: See above.
Halo 4: See above.
Mass Effect 3: While not as great as the second game, it was still quite fun. The limitations due to no Xbox Gold account was total crap for some parts of the game. I thought the ending was alright. Achievements were decent.
Seeing that a lot of games are repeating and most sites don't have the basic layout of best games ect ect, I'm not going to bother with any other sites.

The final numbers for my Wii gaming:

Finished: 4

Done: 0

I'm not happy that I only got four games finished in two months. I didn't expect to get on such a hot Xbox 360 streak at the end of the year. I got a bunch of games on the backlog and a nice selected of genres at that.

Broken down by genre and yes I might not label something what others would:

FPS: 1

Racing: 1

Side Scroller: 1

Sports: 1

Well, at least I shared the love.

Broken down by month: (note that I got the Wii at the end of October)

November: 3

December: 1

No surprises here.

Summary and thoughts for 2013 for Wii:

I still have a lot of games to play so 2013 should be filled with a lot of fun. I'm confident that I will cruise thru 2013 without any issues and I hope to get at least one game finished per month.

The final numbers for my Xbox 360 gaming:

Finished: 67

Done: 0

This is a increase of 15 over 2011's number for the finished and I 'improved' the done section by not playing any shitty games.

Broken down by genre and yes I might not label something what others would:

3rd PS: 4

Action: 9

Adventure: 2

Fighting: 7

Flight: 2

FPS: 19

Racing: 6

RPG: 4

Side Scroller: 2

Sports: 9

Strategy: 3

While I'm not surprised that FPS is the most and by double the second genre, I am surprised that 3rd PS's are only four. I mean thats less then fighting and I generally do fighting only to 'cleanse' my mind. I believe that I did a nice job of mixing it up so no complaints there.

Broken down by month:

January: 2

February: 4

March: 2

April: 11

May: 9

June: 7

July: 3

August: 10

September: 3

October: 7

November: 2

December: 7

I generally get off to a slow start at the beginning of the year but am a little surprised that March only had two. I have a blog about April and it did end up being my best month. That momentum kept up in May and then slowed down in June and died in July. I think I ended the year real strong and never really took a long break. I know I had just blogged a week or two ago that I might be taking a break but after looking around at my options, I decided to dive into some arcade games on XBL.

Summary and thoughts for 2013 for Xbox 360:

I don't recall at any point in 2012 that I felt really burnt out on the 360. I slowed down and mixed it up by playing some longer games but never really got that ugh feeling. I got a lot of great games still waiting to play and I am excited about that. I know its sad to say but I never did get around to playing Halo 4 or Hitman Absolution or Black Ops 2 or NFS Most Wanted.

I feel good about my investment with the 360 going into 2013. Its 99% given that the next Xbox will come out late in 2013 so this will most likely be the last year of great and many releases. From what I've seen, the first 4-5 months of 2013 should have a lot of great games to add to my backlog. Thats great as I will be rocking the Xbox 360 well into 2014 and 2015. My backlog is currently at 49 plus some arcade games I've yet to add to it. There is also the kinect to add to my collection if the price drops down a bit.

I decided to reach way back into the backlog and pull out Rainbow Six: Vegas. Its old but I don't judge too harshly as some games age well. Well, this one really does show its age. Its just so basic and the character models... well we've come a long way since this game came out. I'm sure the game is a lot more fun with coop and for sure the terrorist hunt mode is designed for coop. Achievements sucked as well.

Generally at this time of year I'm taking a break from the Xbox 360 and that hasn't happened as of yet. However, I do feel it will happen this week or it might just be starting now. I'll wait another week or two before doing my annual end of year stats but I did improve from last year. I'm going to go on a PC game blitz here to see if I had missed any exclusives worth a go. I did get that THQ humblebundle but I'm really disappointed that it only has a couple PC exclusives and they be old as well.

As in the past, I usually like to wait till I have at least two fighting games before I play them. This weekend I played Dead or Alive 5 and Tekken Tag 2. I started with DoA5 and was surprised how long the story mode was. The cutscenes were too long and it was really jumping around to different points in time and some other crazy shit you expect from Japan. I really wanted to skip them but an achievement to watch them made me watch tv while the cutscenes rolled. I liked the feel of the combat but no jump? WTF is that shit? I felt the motion and action was pretty slick and accurate to my button pushing. The AI did have those spike in difficulties like any fighting game or hell any Japan game really. Thankfully it was pretty rare and didn't ruin the experience. The boobs... my god the boobs. They would jiggle then keep on doing it. It was bad. I wish they would spend more time on thinking up new modes for a dying genre then making sure a pair of boobs is anyone ever talks about for their game.

Tekken Tag 2 had no issues with boobs, the characters in this game were so much better. I really like how they look but sure didn't like how badly they moved. If I push forward, I expect my fighter to move... not barely inch forward. It was the opposite of DoA5, just frustration as I kept wanting my fighter to move like how I was inputting on the controller. Add the fact the AI cheats a lot, especially tagging when they aren't supposed to be allowed to do it. Massive difficulty spikes really made the game a chore. No story mode but a different take on training was alright and thankfully short.

The achievements for both games were actually a bit refreshing. There wasn't 40 online and 10 offline which is usually the case. For DoA5, I got 27 for 380 points. For the amount of time the story took, I was a bit annoyed there wasn't more points for it. For TT2, I got 29 for 505 points. For all the frustration that game is, the amount of points and how quickly you can get them makes the experience almost worth it. If I had a Gold membership, I could possible get another 50-100 points per game but thats how the cookie crumbles.

Quick hits:

1) Still no snow. A possible chance of it on Thursday but I give it a slight chance of putting anything more then a dusting on the ground.

2) Watched movies for the first time on the new HDtv. Slight improvement from the old tv but the laptop likes it a lot better.

3) I seen news about a gas powered RC thats 1/8 scale. I'm really hoping its true and it has all the advantages gas has over nitro.

4) Got second place in fantasy football. Really surprised I made it that far as I had WR issues every week.

5) Tried a new cheese dip in the slow cooker and its great and improved a casserole so now its god-like.

6) Reading the last Star Wars novel set before Episode 2 which I will then watch and take a break from Star Wars.

That Far Cry 3 looks pretty dang good and next on the list to play. I really enjoyed Far Cry but had to quit Far Cry 2 as at that time it wasn't what I was wanting. I will probably go back to that eventually but Far Cry 3 is a must play next. I'm on the last sequence in Assassin's Creed 3 and its a good game. The world is really huge and you could lose yourself in the forest for days. The naval missions are great and the game play for it is the best I've seen for ship combat. If they was smart, they would make a whole game based on that. Be awesome to be able to play as a first rate ship. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the story bit of the ending and hope its not a let down.

The Wii over Turkey weekend did what I expected and entertained the family. I had planned on playing Monster Hunter Tri after AC3 but after seeing that Far Cry 3 stuff it will have to wait. I've not been looking for any games to add to the back log and with all the Wii U crap being merged with the Wii stuff, its kinda of a pain to casually look thru the stuff.

So I did end up getting a new HDtv but not a low quality black friday one. I got a great deal on a LG 47" LED 120hz 1080p from Best Buy who price matched Wal-mart so I got a lot of reward zone points. So with the new tv replacing the old HDtv, that got moved up to the office and the old heavy sob crt that was in there is now sitting in our storage bedroom. Its really nice to have a 42" about five feet away from me and I do think it does make Wii games a tad better on the eyes. I can at least read the damn text now on some games.