This is my Gamespot journal.

• 25Sep 09

  Is this progress?

  I collect games as most of you know, and I'm also a horror and sci-fi movie buff who buys movies and seasons of TV series on disc at times. I was a fairly early adopter of the HD-DVD drive for the 360 and after the hi-def format war was over, I was really happy to find a combination Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player so that I could keep my existing hi-def library and build on it. I also own a PS3, which means that I have two devices for each format (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) in my house. I didn't mind terribly the long start-up and load times, even though DVD had none, since the picture was spectacular. I was perturbed at the four firmware upgrades on the combo player of which DVD had none. I don't view a video playback device as more firmware-needy than a toaster. It may be naive, but I think that once the codec is set, that's it. It would be like requiring a software upgrade to toast wheat bread and bagels in addition to the white bread and English muffins that the toaster could handle out of the box. I was even starting to replace some things I own on DVD with hi-def versions.

  Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and my combo player and PS3 have both stopped reading anything above a DVD. I'm more than perturbed now and the format upgrading is over. I'm in the process of getting both devices repaired, but my confidence in Blu-Ray as the disc format of the future is substantially reduced.

  Tonight I bought Season Two of Terminator on DVD, even though I own Season One on Blu-Ray. I'll miss the higher video quality, but at least I'll be able to watch the damn show.

  • Posted Sep 25, 2009 8:31 pm PT
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• 7Sep 09

  Automatic Blue Dragonator

  

  Above is shown the custom tool that I have made to facilitate the remaining class grinding that I'll need to finish off all achievements in Blue Dragon. I like Blue Dragon, but the designers made that game a huge time suck to get all achievements, unless you set up a character with two skills: Regenerate MP and Field Barrier 3 and walk around hostile areas ad nauseum unattended. Regenerate MP builds up MP as you walk, whereas Field Barrier 3 incinerates enemies that you've previously killed at the cost of MP. You can go on almost forever if the encounter rate is balanced with your refill rate. In order to live my life, go to work, etc. I devised the handy thing shown in the above picture. I've already copyrighted the name Automatic Blue Dragonator, but I suppose that there are other games in which this kind of "keep characters walking in a circle" tool might be indispensible.

  • Posted Sep 7, 2009 4:45 pm PT
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• 13Jun 09

  Hey, Free T-Shirt, Now with Pic!

  Today, I participated in one of the many Soul Calibur IV tournaments taking place at Hastings Entertainment stores around the country. I wanted to win the first prize, which was a copy of Soul Calibur IV Collector's Edition on 360 and a faceplate. Unfortunately, I had to settle for a lesser prize, which was a Soul Calibur IV T-shirt. The fella who won my store's tournament was a wicked Ivy player. I managed to beat him in one fall, but that was it. The second place player and I both played chiefly as Cervantes, and the other guy who placed was a Kilik player. It was a lot of fun, actually. I had picked up a copy of SC4 a few weeks ago and when I heard about the tournament, decided to play the game a little bit and see if I liked my chances. I practiced a few hours Thursday and a few hours last night. It paid off, since playing as Cervantes came back to me enough to not disgrace myself in public.

  I really would like to continue honing my skills at games that get tournaments locally, since I seem to be reasonably good at most things I pick up. Now if I could just bring myself to play Halo or Madden...

  EDIT: By popular demand I'm adding a picture of the tournament flyer and the XL shirt I won, still in its shrinkwrap.

  

  • Posted Jun 13, 2009 8:14 pm PT
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