• 12Oct 09

  HELL YES! About time.

  Today I finally overcame my massive losses in Blazblue. When I started playing I got owned left and right and built up a huge number of losses but today I finally overcame it. At 192 wins and 192 losses I tied it and I just beat an Arakune. I now won more than 50% of the time. Hurray. Lets hope it stays that way lol.

  • Posted Oct 12, 2009 8:40 am PT
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• 1Sep 09

  Top 5 Anime Chicks.

  Well I suppose its time to cement my rank amongst the ranks of the biggest Japanophiles of the weeaboo tribe by posting my top 5 favorite chicks from anime/manga of all time. So here we go...

  #5: Nami (One Piece)

  

  Nami is in here almost as a token representative of One Piece. One Piece just happens to be my favorite manga of all time so I figured a character from the series really ought to be on the list and who better than Nami, one of the earliest characters to be introduced. She acts as the voice of reason amongst the ranks of her completely moronic crew even though her words of wisdom often go completely ignored.

  So sure she comes off a bit naggy and she isn't all that great at combat but like I said, One Piece needs to be on this list somewhere so boom, Nami.

  #4 Enma Ai (Jigoku Shoujo, Hell Girl)

  

  She is Karma incarnate into a cold uncaring minion of Hell. Make someone hate you enough and they can access the Hotline to Hell website where upon entering your name and hitting submit Enma Ai will appear before them handing them a doll with a string around its neck. Untie the string and you've earned yourself a nice psychological torture with a trip to Hell following immediately after. Of course the person who cursed you pays a price. They go to Hell as well upon their deaths having cursed another.

  Its not an easy job. Sure sometimes the person deserved it but that's not always the case. Sometimes a nice hardworking kind caring loveable person who never wronged anyone in their life gets sent to Hell over petty things like jealousy but Enma Ai must carry out her duty regardless of personal feelings.

  She comes off as cold and apathetic at first but slowly you can begin to see how much her job hurts her as well as the citizens of the world.

  #3 Mikuru Asahina (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi)

  

  Me and a friend came across a famous dance that all the hardcore cosplay weeaboos know and love and it turns out to be from the end credits of this series. We looked it up on animeseason.com and the description was outrageous. So outrageous in fact that I decided to watch the first episode expecting to be laugh at a horrendously bad series.

  Well I laughed but not because it was bad. Far from it actually. This series blew my mind. Not only was it hilarious but it also had some awesome Matrix-reminiscent mind exploding plot that just might make you question reality. And then on top of that it had some fighting. And it was good. It was great. I dropped my jaw because I had set the bar below sealevel and it soared above it and went beyond the stars.

  And of course Asahina is a major source of the hilarity as she is literally kidnapped and forced to join Haruhi's club. As if that weren't bad enough she essentially gets enslaved and is subject to the will of Haruhi no matter how questionable it may be. All the while being very cute and sympathetic and you just kinda sit there going "aww poor Asahina "

  #2 Lucy/Nyu (Elfen Lied)

  

  Ever since watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and practically oozing hapiness from every oraface every time its mentioned I've picked up this somewhat questionable fascination for stories in which everything goes as absolutely horrible disgusting and depressing as (in)humanly possible and boy oh boy does that describe Lucy.

  Having had a rather miserable past due to her horns and powers she grows up to be a psycho ***** to put it nicely. The opening scene of the show/manga is her breaking out of her containment and casually strolling out of the lab slaughtering everyone who had the poor judgement to be within eyesight. But a poorly placed bullet to the head causes her to lose her memories and develop a second personality, one that is essentially a baby having no idea how the world works or how to speak.

  Well the drama created between her past that becomes reveled over time, and when and where she will switch personalities creates a fascinating and heartwrenching story as well as hugely interesting characters and interactions between them. This is one of my all time favorite series. It was so good I watched the whole series then immediately went and read it as well.

  #1 Yomi (Ga-rei Zero/Ga-Rei)

  

  Yomi isn't my favorite anime girl of all time. Yomi isn't my favorite anime character of all time. Yomi just might be my single favorite fictional character from any medium, ever, period.

  Never in all my days have I become as attatched to any fictional character as I became to Yomi. And the surprising part is Ga-Rei Zero, my introduction to her character, isn't even that long a series as compared to others.

  Ga-Rei Zero acts as a prequel to Ga-Rei. My introduction to the series was the prequel and I think that's the way to do it as the manga almost seems to expect you to understand their backstory. And what a backstory it is.

  Over the course of Ga-Rei Zero Yomi and Kagura as well become incredibly well characterized. Its almost like Tarantino in rather than focusing on the girls in action all the time you see lots of the characters just spending time with eachother in their daily lives and as a result of all their conversation and interaction, acted and portrayed flawlessly, they grew on me. They grew on me a lot. Not just Yomi but Kagura as well but Yomi gets to be on the list as I like her more and her character is more dynamic.

  I won't give away any spoilers but I grew very attatched to Yomi and it was all the more depressing when her fate takes a turn for the absolute worst. I would even go so far as to say she recieves as fate infinitely worse than death and I was genuinely upset over it. To this day when I read the manga every time she's mentioned I go "omg noooo Yomi "

  She's just so well characterized. She's got all the craziness most anime characters have with quasi super powers but she isn't infallible and she acts like a real human which is probably why I'm so endeared to her. She's realistic and loveable and the events that lead to the end of the series really made me truly empathize with her and feel for her character, not something easily done.

  She's a great character and I highly recommend the series to anyone and everyone who hasn't seen it.

  
  And thats the list. I can't believe I actually did this blog. Damn I'm a nerd.

  • Posted Sep 1, 2009 8:33 pm PT
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• 29Jul 09

  OMG that was HARD!!!!

  Ok so I decided to make my first playthrough of Killzone 2 on the hardest available difficulty from the onset, Veteran. Well I beat the game but god DAMN did they make me work for it. I mean I had a lot of clumsy deaths from the get go because I was figuring out the controls and the cover system, etc. but once I got the hang of it I was able to get through the first 3 or 4 missions with relative ease and maybe 2-3 deaths per mission.

  Then the difficulty curve got schizophrenia and decided to jump so high a pole vaulter would lower their head in shame. I mean there were a few rooms along the way that just mercilessly beat the living crap out of me. Then immediately after they would provide me with a piss easy boss fight (the arc trooper) and then they let me use his gun which is easily the most over powered gun I've been allowed to use in a game. Not only does it have infinite ammo, it also does eighty gajillion damage. Oh and it connects to nearby enemies too. Then it was an ass whooping in an air turret because apparently you win by running out of missiles and I was using my damned machine gun the whole time. Then another nice easy stoll down mech suit pwnge lane.

  Oh yeah I forgot there was that canyon filled with snipers. Btw getting shot ANYWHERE with a sniper rifle in this game is a 1 hit kill. Not just the head. Sprinting through that, bad idea.

  Ok so while some sections in the later game brutally kicked my ass and others were a nice relaxing slaughter there were 2 sections that are especially worthy of note.

  1. The train. I'm on top of a train. Get to the other end of it and take control of it. Alright fair enough. Advance up the train. Kill some enemies. Blah blah blah. Then we get to a turret section. Easy enough use turret on enemies preferably in the face. THEN. THEN!!!! Keep in mind its just me and 1 AI buddy right now. I come around a tanker to a few pieces of cover, a rocket launcher, a tank, and enough enemies to make the Horde officially change their name to the "meagerly sized squad". I ran out of ammo on so many guns that I had to lure half of the enemy waves back to the turret to even have a chance of taking them out.

  Needless to say this part kicked my ass for a good while but FINALLY I was able to kill all the waves of enemies, get the rockets, and blow up the tank. "PHEW" I let out as I advanced expecting there to surely be a checkpoint after all that. No checkpoint. Just another wave of enemies. One of them had a rocket launcher. I died. I went "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" darth vader style. I did it again after another bazillion tries and I had to take out that last extra wave by running back really far and revolver sniping them because it has infinite ammo.

  2. This is without question the king of "OMGHARD!!!!!!!" moments in the game. The final mission. Fitting I suppose. It begins with an assault on the leader's palace which is unsurprisingly very well defended. This wasn't even that bad. It took a long time to push all the way to the palace doors but I did it with incredibly low deaths for the situation. Maybe 1 or 2 for this whole stretch. Then the hard part. The inside of Vasari's palace. This has potential to be my greatest achievement as a gamer. I'll have to ponder that before making it official but, by god it was hard. Radec sends wave after wave after wave at you in a room with VERY minimal cover. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I was trying to snipe Radec up top while fighting off the troops. Then they start coming around from the second floor and dropping down behind you. Then they have flame throwers. Then they have rocket launchers.

  I actually got to the checkpoint once only to die before actually getting the checkpoint. That was annoying. Then I FINALLY get the checkpoint and move upstairs. Killing all the guys upstairs is easy as there are only 3 but then Radec will again just send more and more waves. I picked up an actual sniper and tried that for a while and found that it wasn't too effective until of course, the rocket launcher guys got spawned. Then THANK YOU JESUS ANOTHER CHECKPOINT! Oh wait. More waves of enemies. Except now the rocket launcher guys move around limiting my cover to one corner. I'm no scoping guys and meleeing others frantically trying to survive until another checkpoint.

  Then I finally get the assignment to kill Radec. He teleports behind you then whips out his knife and kills you in two hits. I came up with a system to not die but let me put it this way, not counting the times I died, the fight lasted 24 minutes and 43 seconds. I didn't get the quickly beaten boss trophy

  All in all for the entire final mission I had 49 deaths. The whole thing took me about 4 hours. Yup. 4 whole hours. Checkpoints were few and far between and I would hold out for insane amounts of time before getting killed by some ass who jumped down from behind my and blew my face off before I even knew he was there.

  Oh and that whole time I had to babysit Rico because he doesn't understand that bullets = bad.

  That being said, really fun game. Just wish it didn't beat me up and take my lunch money. (I suppose I asked for it by picking veteran though and really it was just 3 or 4 sections that REALLY kicked the crap out of me).

  • Posted Jul 29, 2009 10:49 pm PT
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