http://gamingvisionnetwork.blogspot.com/

I've written a number of reviews for the site in the past month or so. Go read them, check out the rest of the site, and let us know what you think!

Sonic CD

Max Payne

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Warhammer 40K Space Marine

Sonic 4 Episode 2

Max Payne 3

Maybe one of these days I'll get off my ass and blog more regularly on here again. Until next time...

--JT

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A) I'm a lazy bastard
B) I'm busy helping run local fighting game tournaments
C) I have been working on a site
D) Did I say I'm a lazy bastard?

So yea, I haven't really been on here much. I still lurk the forums, but that's about it. Anyways, I'm back for today to basically pimp some of my crap out. As pointed out above, I've been working on a site; more specifically, I've been working with a few friends on a little gaming blog/site. Please check it out:

http://gamingvisionnetwork.blogspot.com/

We've been doing podcasts since the beginning of the year, and now we're starting to publish some of our own game reviews. Check out my reviews of Ninja Gaiden 3 and Journey. Just check out the site in general, comment, let us know what you think, yada yada yada. Let us know if there's anything you want to see or get a review of.

Also, I've also do live gameplay streams here and there. More often than not if I'm streaming it, I'll probably also doing a review on it too sometime. Come follow me on twitch.tv and watch:

http://www.twitch.tv/jt4mtb/

Anyways, that's about it for now. Hope you guys are doing well. Catch ya around.

--JT

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Akihiko Sanada

First up, here we have the always serious Akihiko Sanada. He's a 1/10th scale figure that stands at approximately 7 inches tall. By default, his pose features him holding his evoker ready for battle. The face on this figure really captures the serious look of his character.

Akihiko also comes with swapable arms for an alternate pose of him putting on his gloves (which you almost never see him without throughout the entirety of Persona 3).

Persona 3's Main Character

Also picked up from a friend of mine is this 1/10th scale figure of the main character of Persona 3. He also stands at about 7 inches tall and features him readying his evoker for battle.

I really like the little details on this figure. Particularly, how he's wearing his headphones and mp3 player around his neck.

Like Akihiko, the MC also has an alternate arm/pose; this time replacing his evoker with a tarot card.

Did anyone happen to notice the oddly shaped bases that both Akihiko and MC were standing on? These two happen to be designed to stand side-by-side with the complete base. Time for the badass tag team!

I need to thank my friend once again for selling these two figures to me. Both of them are nicely made figures, and are hard to come across nowadays (especially the MC). Now my Mitsuru figure won't be as lonely.

Protoman Model Kit

If you remember the Mega Man figure I picked up last month, it was a model kit which requires assembly. It was quite a cool figure to put together; cool enough for me to pick up the model kit of Mega Man's brother Protoman. His parts are similar to what came with Mega Man, so let's move to the completed figure.

As you can see, he comes with his trademark shield and scarf. The shield attaches to his back like shown, but he can also hold it in his hand ready to protect himself.

@#$% yea! Much like Mega Man before, I'm fairly pleased with how Protoman turned out. He resembles his character well, and he can be posed quite easily too. Now Mega Man's got someone to play with...

... As well as someone who can cover his back.

--JT

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The Blue Bomber is back once again! This time in print form within the pages of the Mega Man Tribute. Just as they did previously with the Street Fighter Tribute, Udon has put together this 300-page compilation of fan art for Mega Man. It's simply wonderful seeing the variety of art s-tyles and interpretations of this beloved franchise.

The majority of the book is art for the c-lassic series Mega Man and characters/robot masters. However, there's also some love for the other MM sub-series: X, Zero, and Legends (yay!). Enough with the talking, and let's have the pictures to show how awesome this book is.

This book is simply worthwhile for any Mega Man fan. Until next time...

--JT

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Mega Man Model Kit

This here is a model kit of c-lassic Mega Man made by Kotobukiya. This thing differs from the usual figures I get in that I actually have to build it myself. The contents of the box are all of the individual parts and instructions:

Essentially, it's cut pieces out of the mold, and snap them together. Fairly simple stuff. When put together, you get a nifty little figure like this:

Neat thing about this Mega Man figure is that 1) it's fairly posable, and 2) it comes with a few accessories. His hands come in closed and open varieties, and there's two different attachments for his mega buster. He's also got a couple of different faces that can easily be swapped around. There's also an energy tank that he can hold in his hand, but I haven't gotten around to painting it (since it was just molded in the same blue as his body) or applying the "E" decal.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this figure. It captures the look of the original blue bomber incredibly well, and the posability of it allows some fun to be had in how it's displayed. Most certainly, I'm going to have to consider picking up the model kit for Mega Man's brother Protoman sometime in the future.

Disgaea 4 Premium Figure Edition

As I mentioned last blog, I got in early the Premium Figure Edition of Disgaea 4. This set is exclusive to the Nippon Ichi Software America online store. The set includes the Disgaea 4 Premium Edition, the box w/ the nine trading figures, and a soundtrack disc. The soundtrack disc is actually pretty nice since it has 24 tracks; in comparison the OST that was packed in the Japanese LE was two discs with a total of 31 tracks. So we're not missing out on too many tracks.

So let's first take a look at What's included in normal Premium Edition that you can order elsewhere?

There's a small 36-page artbook, a trading figure of one of the main characters Fuka Kazamatsuri, the game itself, and a slightly oversized box to hold it all. The Fuka figure we'll see in a bit. As for the little artbook, it's pretty much standard fare for pack-ins on Limited Edition versions of games. There's a couple small sketches/drawings of Disgaea 4's main cast, some drawings of the various character c-lasses in the game, background images from the game, and a couple promotional images.

Not too bad considering the Premium Edition is priced at $60, while the bare game by itself would be $50. But who cares about that? We're here to check out the exclusive figure set that defines the Premium FIGURE Edition. First up:

Four of the main characters of the game. From left to right: Fuka Kazamatusuri, Vulcanus, Valvatorez, and Fenrich. Fuka is the one figure you get in the normal Premium Edition. Each figure stands a just under three inches tall with their base. Despite their small size, these figures are pretty nice and detailed well. These four in particular are probably my favorites in this set. Volcanus has a cutely coy look to her, while Valvatorez looks like a badass that he is.

From left to right: Desco, Axel, and Fallen Angel Flonne. Desco is an interesting character in-game (which I won't spoil here), while Axel is... well, Axel. I personally hate his character. Anyways... Fallen Angel Flonne is a fanservice gift to Disgaea fans, and she's still as adorable as ever.

Finally, here's Archangel Flonne, Emizel, and a prinny. Archangel Flonne is just as she appears in Disgaea 4; just as any other figure of her, still adorable regardless of incarnation. Emizel, the Netherworld President's son, and captured nicely here. Then there's the series staple mascot, the Prinny. While adorable, you don't want to be trying to hug one of them as they'll stab you in the back. That and they've got a tendency to explode when thrown...

Time for a group shot!

In general, I'm pretty happy with this Premium Figure Editionset. Sure,this full set isn't cheap; butgiven everything included here, I thought it was worth it.Now I just need to figure out where amidst my figure collection to display them. Thank you NIS America for shipping my order mad early so I could play Disgaea 4 almost a week earlier than most people! BTW, so far Disgaea 4 is pretty fun. If you're a fan of the series, go play it! I'm certainly going to go back to playing it now. Until next time...

--JT

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I'll be back at some point with the contents... must play... NOW!

--JT

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http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jt4mtb

If anyone wants to catch one live, I've been running these things on the third Friday of each month; the next gathering is actually this coming Friday night (8/19). The stream usually goes up around 9-10pm EST (GMT -5) depending on when people arrive; so come check us out.

Also before moving on, it's time for one more shameless plug. Last weekend of August, there's going to be a tournament here in Philadelphia called Summer Jam. I'm planning on running a side tournament in Garou during the event. Hopefully if all goes well, that side tournament will also be streamed.

Anyways, not consistently blogging once again leads to me playing catch up on here with showing what I've picked up in the past few months. Once again, it's a ton of games. First off real quick, my copy of this finally arrived:

The Valkyria Chronicles Design Archive. This is the english localized book of the japanese VC Development Artworks that I got over a year and a half ago. It's pretty much exactly like the 400-page JP book, but no longer in moon runes! If you want to see what's inside, just check out my previous blog on the JP book: http://www.gamespot.com/users/jt4mtb/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25785701

Now to actual 'new' old games. Collecting and playing games is not a cheap hobby...

Sega Genesis:
Jungle Strike
Shadow Dancer - The Secret of Shinobi (JP)
Strider (JP)

Super Nintendo:
Act Raiser
Arcana (box and instructions in awesome condition)

Nintendo:
Astyanax
Jackal
Ninja Gaiden (w/ instructions)

If you're wondering about why I've got the japanese Mega Drive copies of Shadow Dancer and Strider, I pretty much got them for their awesome box art. Seriously, go look up the US box art for these games... they're absolutely terrible.Thankfully, I can still play these gameson my US Sega Genesis. Most Mega Drive games are not region locked, so you just need a passthrough device of some sort (like a Game Genie) since the shape of the cart differs.

Xbox:
Beyond Good and Evil
Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge
Gunvalkyrie
Panzer Dragoon Orta

Nintendo DS:
Radiant Historia (w/ bonus piano arrangement cd)
Meteos

One quick thing to comment on here is if you have a DS and like JRPGs, go find yourself a copy of Radiant Historia NOW! It's a fantastic RPG with an intriguing plot and great music; Radiant Historia was one of the few RPGs I've played in recent memory that had me hooked on playing constantly until I finished it.

PS1:
Elemental Gearbolt
Fear Effect
Metal Slug X
Time Crisis Project Titan
Namco GunCon 1

A couple more PS1 games to the list, including two light gun games. Naturally since I was picking up some light gun games, I needed a Guncon to play them as they were intended.

The big pile of PS2 additions:
Beyond Good and Evil
Neo Geo Battle Colliseum
Phantom Brave (w/ bonus soundtrack cd)
Rogue Galaxy
Silent Hill 3
Time Crisis 3 (w/ two Guncon 2 guns!)
Vampire Night
Zone of the Enders
Zone of the Enders The 2nd Runner

Yes, that is another copy of Beyond Good and Evil you see there. The game is good enough to warrant buying multiple copies off! Other than that, the big catch was finding Time Crisis 3 with both guns; oh light gun games... why are you so much fun to play? Also, I'm taking another stab at the Zone of the Enders games. I remember picking up the second one years ago, but not liking it for some reason I don't remember. However, after now playing through the first game and somewhat enjoying it, I'll be giving 2nd Runner another shot. We'll see how this goes.

Finally, the most notable addition to my collection: I got my hands on a Sega CDX. For anyone not familiar with this thing, the CDX is essentially a Genesis and a Sega CD combined into one and shrunk down in size. No need for more than one power supply. Of course now that I've got this, I can now play Sega CD games. What better way to start into the Sega CD than with:

Android Assault: The Revenge of Bari-Arm
Silpheed
Sonic CD

Sonic CD by itself is a c-lassic, while Android Assault is a fun horizontal shoot-em-up. I also have a copy of Flashback: The Quest for Identity on the way here too.

Well, that about sums up the last few months in gaming. I really haven't been playing too much current generation games lately; there's very few new games that catch my attention anymore. Well, that's the case for now until Disgaea 4 drops next month... Until next time...

--JT

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Fresh out of the shipping box is this Mega Man X figure from Bandai's D-Arts series. This future Blue Bomber stands at about 5.5 inches tall. He's an action figure, thus his body contains a number of moveable joints. This means you can arrange him into a number of stances and the set includes a a handful of alternate parts (hands, arm buster, buster shots) to complement that.

Normally, I'm not too into action figures as most of the ones I've touched are either incredibly stiff and not very poseable, have joints that stick out/ugly, and/or the figure doesn't really look that great. X here really doesn't fall into any of those traps. He's pretty poseable, his joints blend into his looks well (partially helped by the fact that he's a robot), and the look of the figure is pretty faithful to the character.

X also happens to have two alternate faces. Unfortunately, I don't show them here; that's mostly because his helmet is a pain to get off in order to swap faces. Oh well. At least I can now have the ultimate battle here...

C-lassic vs X... who's more awesome? Real answer: The Metool chilling there is more awesome than both combined.

--JT

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Just arrived today (well, more like yesterday) is the latest material collection for the BlazBlue series. Very much like the previous material collection, this 144-page book contain an assortment of images related to the latest version of the game BlazBlue Continuum Shift. There's a number of promotional images featured along with alternate art by some of Arc System Works' artistic staff.

Just like before, there's also a collection of all the unlockable images within the game too.

Then there's of course the character art for the new and old characters. All five of the new characters (Tsubaki, Hazama, Valkenhayn, Mu-12, and Platinum) get four pages each for showing off their portrait art, story/arcade mode images, concepts, and sketches. As for the rest of the returning cast, they each get 2 pages to show off their updated portrait and story/arcade images.

The remainder of the book is rounded out with sketches of secondary characters in the BB universe along with a few relationship charts.

Also, there happens to be a lot of love for Noel and Rachel in this book. Just a quick teaser:

Until next time.

--JT

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None other than Mega Man's older brother Protoman! Why is such a simple character design as he is such a badass? It must be the scarf...

On to the other bit for today, I just got in the mail a shirt I ordered last week:

This shirt features the chibi versions of BlazBlue characters Ragna, Noel, and Tsubaki holding hands around the word "Hope". Aside from being another piece of BB merchandise, there's another cool thing about getting this shirt. All proceeds from these $20 shirts go to Japan to help with the earthquake relief effort. Not only that, but Aksys Games (NA publisher of Arc System Works' games) will match every dollar; so essentially for every shirt sold, $40 will go to Japan! So for you BlazBlue fans in the US, pick up one of these shirts from the Aksys Games store!

http://www.aksysgames.com/store/#hope_shirt

Note 1: Aksys is only shipping w/in the USA. Sorry Canada, Mexico, and anyone overseas.
Note 2: As of this post, all size Medium shirts are sold out.

--JT

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On the figure front, I just picked up three new little figures from a blind box set. WTF is a blind box? A blind box is a box that contains one figure out of a set, but you don't know what figure it is until after you open it. The box shows all of the available figures in the set, and each case comes with at least one of each figure and X number of randoms to round out the case. This particular set I picked out from consisted of Mega Man figures: two c-lassic Mega Man in different poses, Protoman, Roll, two Bass figures, Mega Man X, Zero (X series), Zero (Zero series), Air Man, and Cut Man. So which three did I get?

One of the c-lassic blue bomber, one of the Bass figures, and Air Man. I was kind of hoping for a X series Zero in place of Air Man, but regardless Air Man will do nicely.

Briefly carrying on this Mega Man theme into newly added games are the following two games:

I finally got my hands on a copy of MM7 and MMX3, and they didn't hit me too bad on a cost. MM7 I nabbed for $35 (a lot better than the typical $55+ on eBay), and X3 ran me for $50 (only a little better than the $60+ norm online). With these two games in hand, I now own all 10 of the c-lassic series games, and 1-6 of the X series games. At this point, I'm content with my Mega Man collection; I didn't enjoy X7 and X8 enough to refind them just to have. Hurrah.

Moving on, I found myself expanding my console family with some new members. First up, the big black monster of last gen: the original Xbox.

This xbox w/ one controller I grabbed for just $15; while the other extra controllers I bought from someone else for just $2.50 each. So why did I get an original xbox for when I still have a 360? I didn't feel like dealing with the software emulation of the 360, and also my 360's drive has seemingly been slowly dying. Well, that and I really had an itch to play Ninja Gaiden Black and Jet Set Radio. Now to decide on any other games I want to play on it...

... Except for the fact that thanks to Gamestop running a buy 2 get 1 free used sale last month and a buy 2 get 2 sale last week, I am already up to my neck in games to play. In order to take a load off of my Wii, I found myself picking up Gamecube along with a large handful of games:

Dear god, so many games, such little time... curse (and at the same time bless) that buy 2 get 2 last week. One thing to mention before moving on: Eternal Darkness is @#$%ing awesome. If you get a chance to, go play it. It's got an enthralling story, atmosphere, and the sanity effects are something else. To say anything more would spoil what makes the game great; so go play it... NOW!

I'm not quite done yet. Those sales were too good to pass up expanding other parts of my collection. Moving to the last batch, we've got the Playstation goodies.

Holy @#$, that's a lot of games. Almost all of them were only bought in the past week. Thankfully, I don't need to replay either of those Ratchet & clank games as I just grabbed them to round out the PS2 trilogy; I had traded those two in a few years ago back when I needed some money. Also, Half-Life I got as a backup in case something happens to my PC copy.

So with all this stuff purchased, where does that leave my (now huge) backlog?

Current Backlog:
Jet Set Radio Future
Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Atelier Iris 3
Mega Man X Collection
We Love Katamari
Resonance of Fate

Completed:
Ninja Gaiden Black
Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem
StarFox Assault
Atelier Iris 2
Enslaved
Portal 2

No need to play for now:
Crazy Taxi
Metroid Prime
Half-Life
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary
Ratchet & Clank
Ratchet & Clank Going Commando

Yes, I actually got some of these games completed already as far as finishing single-player campaigns once go. Despite completing them, I still want to play some of them again! Looking to maybe spend another 100+ hours on Ninja Gaiden as I did on Ninja Gaiden Sigma, replaying Eternal Darkness to check out the hidden ending and other sanity effects, and Portal 2's co-op. Regardless, I'd like to whittle down the backlog a bit before going back to replay them. So many games, such little time... until next time.

--JT

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First off, a few weeks ago I was visiting my local Gamestop to BS with a few friends who work there. When I got there, the store was somewhat busy, so I just looked around waiting for business to slow a bit so I could cut to BS'ing. Of course, I came across a couple decent finds (Atelier Iris 2 and 3 for $10 each). What happened to catch my eye on one of the shelves was this:

This happens to be a Hori Tekken 5 Anniversary Edition arcade stick that was originally bundled with a collector's edition of Tekken 5. It's not often you come across one of these suckers at GS, let alone for the lowly price of $8. Yes, that's right. Eight dollars. For me, closer to $7 after my discount card. Even though this particular stick uses mediocre quality joysticks and buttons, there's no way in hell I'm passing up a steal like this.Considering how much commercial arcade sticks go for, I can use the money I didn't spend on this to buy good parts and mod this thing to something nice.

Aside from the cheap stick, I was perusing another local game store when I found this mixed in the pile of old guides:

Note, this is not a guide. This is The Art of Soul Calibur II artbook that was packaged with the strategy guide as a sort of 'limited edition' thing. This books is about 96 pages that's full of mostly high res character art that's also unlockable in the game's gallery, images of all the unlockable weapons from SC2's Weapon Master mode, and nice screen captures of the various stages in the game. All this for the wonderful price of $1. Yes, this book was mixed in the pile of one dollar guides. SCORE! A couple of sample pics from the book:

Moving on, just two weekends ago happened to be Winter Brawl 5. This was a major fighting game tournament that was held here in Philadelphia, and it happened to be the first major to hold Marvel vs Capcom 3 as one of the headline games. Not that I entered the MvC3 tourney as I'm not a big fan of the game, but a few of my buddies entered the 3v3 tournament and did fairly well (one finished tied for 13th, and the other tied 33rd). My plan for the weekend was to enter in BlazBlue, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Arcana Heart 3. My BlazBlue performance wasn't too hot as I haven't been keeping up with my game.

On the other hand, I play Garou almost religiously and that tournament went extremely well for me. I ended uptaking 3rd place, losing only to my buddy and sparring partner Danny (who took 2nd), and Steve H (a really strongcompetitor who also won the Guilty Gear XXAC tournament that weekend) who won it all. I still feel pretty good about how well I played during this, and already evaluating what I can do to improve for next time.

As for Arcana Heart 3, I ended up not entering it. Why not? It was being run on Sunday, and I ended up not going to bed until 6am Saturday night/Sunday morning due to the massive number of games being played in our hotel room. Still had an awesomely fun time, chilling with people, playing casual matches in a number of games for who knows how long. I think I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep I didn't get the whole weekend.

So what else is coming up in the near future? I'll be heading to PAX East again this year, which happens to be less than a week away now. There's also going to be another Too Many Games expo happening in the beginning of May, so I'll be on the hunt for more cheap c-lassic games. Outside of that, it's most likely more fighting games until my sticks break down, at which point I'll just replace parts and keep on going. It's only March, and there's a whole lot of buttons to be pressed this year.

--JT

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--JT

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The LittleBigPlanet 2 Collector's Edition. This (not so) little box comes packaged with the following:

-The game itself
-A 7" plush of Sackboy
-One set of LBP2 bookends
-A PSN voucher for a dozen DLC costumes for the game

I can't comment on the game yet as I haven't put it in my system yet, and same regarding costumes. The bookends certainly carry the visual theme of the game, but unfortunately they feel like cardboard. There isn't much weight to either half. I've found they do a fine job holding up a stack of games and some small books, but I'm not trusting them to hold up anything with a bit of weight to them like my artbooks. As for the plush, it's exactly as I expected it to be. It looks and feels like I'd imagine a little sackboy would feel like. At least now my Raiho has a new companion to play with...

Other than that, I've been picking up a small handful of old games here and there, mostly NES carts. Probably the most notable thing I've gotten was Mega Man 4 and 5. Why is this notable? Well that's because:

With them, I now have original copies of nearly the entire Mega Man c-lassic series games; 1 through 6 on NES, 8 on PS1, and 9 & 10 on PSN. The only one I'm missing at the moment is Mega Man 7 on the SNES. I'm not sure how likely I'm going to be able to add that one to finish the set since it's the rarest one of the set and typically sells for $60+ online. Still, it's @#$%ing awesome seeing the other nine games in my collection along with a PS2 copy of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. Just say hell yes to the blue bomber.

In addition to buying a few games, I've been replaying a few games over the past two months. For one, I replayed Muramasa The Demon Blade on the Wii again; only this time I played through Shigurui difficulty. It was a fresh reminder of just why I loved playing through it. For those of you who aren't familiar with what Shigurui mode is, it's the highest difficulty where your HP is capped at 1 (yes, ONE) regardless of level. Take a hit from an enemy = death. Getting your guard/sword broken = death. Normally, I wouldn't be for completing something that sounds this ridiculous, but with Muramasa I found it wasn't too bad. It made me really dive into the depth of the game's combat, balance proper blade management,and learn thelittle nuances that make it more than just button mashing. It's a sublime feeling taking apart the game's huge bosses piece by piece while essentially dancing around their attacks. I've already completed Momohime's story on Shigurui, and I'll probably go back some other time and finish Kisuke's.

Other than that, I've been mostly playing lots... and lots... and lots... and lots of fighting games. It's mostly been Garou Mark of the Wolves and BlazBlue; probably more Garou than anything. I've been playing with a handful of players around Philly here and also a few from Jersey; just doing what I can to help the community around here grow anyway I can. Also, I've figured out how to use my video capture device I got last year and use it to stream live footage online; so I'm possibly looking to start doing that in the near future.

Anyways, it's getting late and I'd like to get some LBP in before sleeping. So until next time...

--JT

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This 1/8 scale figure of this lovely pirate stands at approximately 6.5 inches tall. One thing to mention is that this is an old figure; this figure of her was originally manufactured back in 2001 I believe. So for a figure that's nearly a decade old, there's a small number of differences in the quality of the figure in comparison to some of my more modern ones. For one, the first thing I noticed upon removing her from her box: the base is pretty thick and weighty. It's nearly 5/8 inch thick! At least I don't have to worry about her being knocked over by anything easily.

The figure's pose is a bit different than most of my figures, sporting a playful lean on top of a treasure chest (which is fitting with Jenet being a pirate and all). The fluttering look of her dress and hair suggest she's enjoying a nice breeze. Some of the detailing around the figure varies between nice touches and some not quite as nice.

Sections of the dress are nicely done to add to the breezy look. Then you get to the section of the dress between her legs and the treasure chest... you know, that unflattering giant blob of plastic. Though I will say the treasure chest itself is very nicely detailed. The wooden sections of it actually look and somewhat feel like they're wood despite the fact that they are not.

A closer look at the other parts of the figure bring about some mixed reactions. There's some nice detail in both her hair and the tatoo that's on her arm, but the look and shape of her head/face seems a bit off for some reason. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Painting around the figure isn't exactly clean at a few spots, though I can't really fault it for that considering when it was made.

Overall, yet another colorful figure for my collection. Of course it doesn't come close to being as awesome as my Momohime figure; however despite it's age, it's still got a nice look to it. Thankfully, I was able to pick this one up for just $40 (including shipping), which is a hell of a lot better than the $75+ that most eBay sellers are asking for it.

On a different note, I've been thinking about something lately. I've been making blogs here on GS for over two and a half years now. Throughout most of that time, I've tried to keep to a semi-consistent schedule of posting something every other week or so; sometimes more frequently depending on what's going on. I've tried to keep the content varied a bit. Sometimes showing off things I've picked up, detailed thoughts and opinions on the latest games, galleries of various events I go to, projects I've created, etc.

However, I think it's starting to burn me out a bit. Looking through my past blogs, I haven't done any intricate writing in ages. I'm just lacking in motivation to write much of anything at all. Between that feeling, trying to keep up with new games, assisting with organizing sessions to play with the local fighting game community, and training/preparing for the upcoming Northeast Championships, I'm left with a confused feeling. A constant feeling of needing to make a blog because I'm trying to adhere to some semblance of a schedule, but frequently come across either 1) I don't have time to, 2) don't have something to blog about, or 3) unmotivated to write anything. It sometimes teeters close to the point of being unenjoyable.

So I've decided that for now, I'm going to forego trying to blog at any sort of regular rate. If I try to keep it up, I'm just going to frustrate myself even more. So basically, I may or may not be on here as often. Most of you know how to get a hold of me via other means (PSN, Steam, Raptr, AIM, etc.), but if not, feel free to shoot me a PM if you want to BS about something or other. Otherwise, for the few of you who've stuck around for this long,I'll see you whenever I'm around.

--JT

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Yea. This is (mostly) what I came home to today. On my doorstep was a box... I bring in the box, and open it up only to find... another box (see above). At this point in time, I was just like "WTF?"; but then I finally remembered what it was I was expecting for a few months now. It was something that I originally placed an order for about 3-4 months ago, but completely forgot about. What's in the box?

This group figure of Mario and Co. is this year's award/gift for Club Nintendo members who reached platinum status. It's actually somewhat nice for a freebie; as it stands about 4 inches tall and the base is 4.5 inches in diameter. Not only is it nice touch having the bulk of the Mario cast in a figure rather than just Mario, but there's a few nice little touches that lend more of the Mario Bros. flavor to it like Bowser standing on a bunch of brick blocks from the game and the goomba standing in/on the pipe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've still got a number of games to work through (see the previous blog for details).

Poor Bowser. Maybe one of these days he won't get stomped on by Mario... maybe...

--JT

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Anyways, first off I grabbed a new LCD monitor a little while ago. This very nice Asus 24 inch monitor was purchased basically on a whim when I saw it's price.

It was an open box sale price of $130 that came basically still new. With an HDMI port (fully HDCP comaptible), 1920x1080 resolution, and built in speakers, I just had to grab it at that price point; especially considering it's MSRP is normally ~$230. Works just wonderfully with the PS3. I've been playing some games on it rather than on my bigger TV for the hell of it (and being able to have some recent sports games on the tv at the same time to track scores).

That aside, onto actual games. Despite picking up a large handful of games last month at Too Many Games last month, I've bought even more (old games and new) since then. First the older stuff:

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers (NES) - A c-lassic from my childhood, Resucue Rangers was probably one of my favorite cartoons on TV, and I remember loving the game back then. Thankfully, the game is still as fun today as it was years ago. Though since I'm now older and a more seasoned gamer, I found the game far easier than I remember it being. Fat Cat's plan has been foiled once again!

Kirby's Adventure (NES) - Despite being a fan favorite game, I never did get a chance to play Kirby's second game (the first one being Kirby's Dream Land on the Gameboy) until now. It has some nice music for an NES game, though the controls can occassionally be a bit loose. First you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes, Add a great big smile... and presto! It's Kirby!

Mega Man (NES) - Yes, the Blue Bomber's debut game! Still a bastard of a platformer, the original Mega Man is still an enjoyable game. I grabbed a copy of this game on a whim from a member on the Neo-Geo.com forums for just $15 shipped. With this in my collection now, I'm only missing MM4, MM5, and MM7 as far as the c-lassic series is concerned. I'm not really sure if I'm going to try finding the last three considering 1) they're the weakest entries in the series, and 2) 5 & 7 are sort of rare and don't sell for cheap.

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PS1) - This is an RPG that I've been meaning to get my hands on for some time, but just never find for a decent price until recently. Online, Persona 2 typically sell for $70+; but I happened to find a copy of it locally for just $55. The disc isn't in the greatest shape, but it still plays which is all that matters. I'm only about halfway through the game, but it's certainly been an entertaining ride of a game thus far. Persona 2 has one of the more mature plots than usually seen in most JRPGs, and how it's intertwined into the gameplay a bit is intriguing. More about it another time once I jump back on it.

Soul Reaver 2 (PS2) - I've been meaning to pick up and play this game for a long time, but just never got around to it. Unfortunately, I still haven't started it up thanks to all the other games recently. At least now it's in my hands so I can get around to playing it.

Kirby's Canvas Curse (DS) - Yet another Kirby game I've been wanting to play. I haven't actually seen a copy of this game in years, yet one day while at Gamestop I noticed it sitting there... YOINK. Instant buy. For one of the earliest games for the DS, it uses the stylus controls very well; guiding Kirby with hand drawn lines and drawing walls to protect him from cannons and such.

As for more current titles:

Dead Space Ignition - I got this downloadable game as a free bonus for preordering Dead Space 2 (which by the way is coming with a really bad ass collector's edition that includes a replica Plasma Cutter). Thank god I got Ignition for free as it is just terrible. Simply put, it's just three different minigames repeated ad nauseam intermixed with some semi-animated cutscenes. Just being minigames isn't necessarily bad so long as they're actually entertaining. Unfortunately, they're bland and boring. The plot is almost non-existent, and the animation in the scenes is just atrocious. Stay far away if possible.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 - After years of mediocre 3D console titles, Sonic finally returns to 2D. Was it for the best? For the most part, the answer is yes. We finally have a great playing Sonic game. Most of the levels are actually quite fun to replay for score attack scores and times. Actually as of this writing, I'm in the top 10 scores for one of the levels:

Number 8 to be precise. I will say that while Sonic 4 has been quite fun, it still doesn't quite trump any of the c-lassic Genesis games. Right now, I'd say it's about even with the first Sonic game, which ironicly enough is what Sega tried to replicate with this game.

Kirby's Epic Yarn - More about this in a future blog, but in a quick impression of the game in a sentence: if you own a Wii, BUY KIRBY'S EPIC YARN.

Vanquish - I don't think I've had as many "are you @#$%ing kidding me?" moments playing a game as I have in Vanquish in some time. I'm not even talking about the scripted stuff that occurs in cut scenes; the things you can do yourself in a firefight is absurd. Hop out of cover in slo-mo, pop two robot's heads, rocket boost over to the third robot and somersault kick it in the face, and then engage slo-mo once more in midair post kick to lay waste to anyone else nearby. It's a fast paced adrenaline rush of a shooter that begs for more playtime. I'm definitely replaying this again very soon.

That about does it for games I've picked up recently... oh wait, there's one more thing:

I picked up this arcade board a couple weeks ago. Any guess on what game this board is for?

It's Captain Commando! A great old school beat-em-upfor my collection that I can play thanks to the arcade supergun I built earlier this year.

Aside from the above games, I've been playing a metric @#$%load of fighting games lately. Primarily Garou: Mark of the Wolves and BlazBlue Continuum Shift. Though the thing to note is that I haven't been playing either online at all. I've finally found the local fighting game scene here, and have had plenty of offline competition to play for the past two months. No longer do I need to deal with the random BS that is (lol)netplay. I don't think there's been a single weekend in the past two months that I wasn't playing one of the above games with/against some people; and I'm finding my game improving a lot. If only I could keep up with this and all of the other games I'm currently/want to play yet.

Well, that about wraps up what's happening here as of late. Until next time I get off my lazy ass and write more...

--JT

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I'm a bit overdue for a blog, but I've been busy playing a load of games. Give me a few days, and I'll try to have an update/impressions blog for some stuff. In the meantime, take a look at something that finally came in: SNK Character 2 All About Illustrations. This 128-page artbook is filled with official SNK character art for a bulk of their big name franchises, and a few other lesser known games. A bulk of the book is comprised of Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters images, but there's some others like Fatal Fury, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The Last Blade 1 & 2, and some Metal Slug. For now, enjoy the images and I'll try to be back in a few days.

--JT

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Back up to blogging speed again, today brings us a batch of four smaller figures inspired from one of my favorite RPGs of all time. From Square Enix are these Chrono Trigger figures. Each one stands about 3-3.5 inches tall, but surprisingly for such small figures they pack a lot of details.

The figure on the left features CT's main character Crono battling with the villain of the middle ages Magus. On the right is the trio of Crono, Robo, and Ayla. What's neat about this one is not only the amount of detailing on their bodies, but also their faces. Ayla has a nice look of bewilderment as she wonders WTF is going on, while Crono is just trying not to get his head knocked off by Robo's swining fist.

These two are probably my favorites of this set. To the left is Crono and Frog as they traverse a watery cavern. Great use of tranlucent plastic to represent a small pool of water that they're wading through; that and the look on Frog's face as he encounters a giant rat (I forget what they're actually called in-game). On the right is Lucca as she's trying to repair Robo. Again, the amount of detail you can see with Robo himself is pretty neat given the size of this figure.

Here's a alternate close-up shot of the Crono/Frog figure. Take a good look at the texturing of not only Crono's outfit, but also the rock face he's leaning against.

Overall, this Chrono Trigger set is pretty nice despite their size and price ($30). At least now my little Noel Nendodroid has someone more her size to play with...

On a quick side note, I finally found myself a copy of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for a non-wallet gouging price of $55; copies of this game usually go for something like $70+ online.Also, I've been playing the hell out of Dead Rising 2 the past two days, and having as much of a blast as I did playing the first game. Who knew combining a leaf rake with a car battery could be such a shocking good time?

--JT

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To begin, the main exhibition hall where the majority of the event takes place:

The main hall is filled with tables, mostly of local/semi-local vendors selling/trading games old and new. Anything from old Atari 2600 and NES to PS2/GC/Xbox games, consoles, and accessories is available. There was one vendor with import Famicom, Super Famicom, and Dreamcast games. Any particular old game you're looking for? There's a very good chance that someone here has it. After today, I'm swimming in a handful of newly added games to my collection, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Too Many Games isn't just about buying/selling/trading games. Oh no, it's also about playing games too. As with the rest of the show, it's all about games old and new.

There were a handful of c-lassic arcade games in their original cabinets brought in. As you can see here, there was Centipede, Gorf, Donkey Kong II available among other things. All the machines were on freeplay too, so anyone could jump on and enjoy these c-lassics. BTW, I realized today that I'm now pretty terrible at Donkey Kong.

There's also a series of tables setup with a handful of more recent games. Halo Reach, Soul Calibur IV, Virtua Fighter 5, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Street Fighter IV were among the games I remember seeing on hand for everyone to jump on. This area was also where a number of tournaments were held throughout the day. I tried my hand in the Viruta Fighter 5 tourney for @#$% and giggles since it didn't have an entry fee. Won first round, but then lost in the second. Oh well.

Back in the main hall, there was a small series of tables being run by a couple of neo-geo.com forum members with a wide assortment of games, known and obscure. For example:

My goodness, it's the old Commodore 64. How many of you actually know what this is? How many have actually seen one in person before?

The rest of this section was composed of lots of stuff. To the far left is a Neo Geo setup on which we were playing Garou Mark of the Wolves, Blazing Star, and SVC Chaos throughout the day. I was crushing just about everyone in Garou except for one neo-geo.com member; we were pretty even with each other with repeated nail-biting fights.

Moving to the right, there's another supergun setup running a few different arcade boards during the event. On the screen in this pic was Sunset Riders. Earlier in the show, there was The Simpsons Arcade game on there, followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game (familiar to many as TMNT2 on the NES).

Then there's the import Japanese PS2. Now this had some sweet games running on it throughout the day. Off the top of my head, there was King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no Ken (the fighting game by Arc System Works), and King of Fighters XI (shown here) being swapped in/out.

Finally, on the far right was a Super Nintendo and a PSOne (the mini version w/ a portable LCD screen) running a couple games. I don't quite remember what was on the PS1, but the SNES was running some Demon's Crest and Super Punch-Out.

Aside from actual games, consoles, and accessories, there was also a handful of gaming related merchandise available at a few tables. Various T-shirts, homemade pins, posters, etc. were on sale as you would expect. However, I wanted to bring to note this one table which had a bunch of video game inspired canvas paintings that were just awesome.

I really wanted the Mega Man one, but I really can't just shell out $300 for one of these especially after all my spending on games today.

In addition to the above activities, there was also a section where the local otaku group held a viewing of a bunch of anime. I don't have a pic for this as flash photography in a dark room w/ a projector isn't quite polite. As for what was up on the screen, honestly I don't remember much outside of Fruit Basket toward the end of the day.

Finally, we get to the juicy part of this blog: everything I picked up today. I went to the show mainly looking for Neo Geo MVS carts, but I ended up leaving with anything but:

From left to right, top to bottom:

-Flashback The Quest for Identity (Genesis): box and instructions - $10
-The Lion King (Genesis): Box and instructions - $5
-Sonic Spinball (Genesis): box and instructions - $2
-Splatterhouse 3 (Genesis): box and instructions - $15
-Taz in Escape From Mars (Genesis): box and instructions - $5
-Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo): box, dust jacket, instructions, and even the promotional stuff - $25
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II (Nintendo): cart only - $5
-DuckTales (Nintendo): cart only - $5
-Castlevania II Simon's Quest (Nintendo): cart only - free as a deal with Wild Arms 2
-Darkwing Duck (Nintendo): cart only - $6
-Wild Arms 2 (PS1): case and instructions, and discs are in amazing shape - $15
-Super Nintendo Entertainment System with two controllers, power adapter, and RCA cable - $25

For the record, I bought the SNES because 1) my current one seems to be dying as it only outputs a black & white picture nowadays, and 2) this was a hell of a deal. The console itself is pretty clean and has no yellowing at all.

Well, that's about it for today. After spending $100+ on games, and playing the hell out of a bunch of other games (though I mostly played Garou), I'm beat. Also, I've got work in about 5 hours... @#$%

--JT

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