Home sweet home for a bit of oral surgery - and my Dreamcast was there waiting for me. A little scrubing and I managed to get Episode I Racer and Sonic Adventure working again. It's strange going back to Sonic Adventure, it looks dated, and while the main Sonic stages are somewhat fun, you really start to notice how frustrating navigating the directionless city portions can be. The game was built to be completed with the FAQ at the ready - not a good quality for a game.



It's not a terrible game - I remember enjoying it seven ~ eight years ago, it's simply amazing how far we've come. The biggest irony of the Dreamcast was the best title - Ikaruga - I played on my Gamecube. I enjoyed Power Stone... Grandia II was alright. Episode I Racer - the load time are ridiculous, but it has held up well, it's fun given the alternative of playing the painfully unweildly verisons of The Sims 2  my sister has in her Gamecube.

I am sad that I never had Caution: Seaman, it was a really wonky title, and I should have picked it up when I had the chance.

Sega... how far you've fallen. Going back, a few years past my love for them, I hate to say it, but the Dreamcast really wasn't so great when viewed in the context of history. At the time I had it, I was excited, I bought it dirt cheap, got it with a VMU, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Shuffle - for a boy of thirteen ~ fourteen, it was somehow right - Sonic said good-bye to me in a meaningful way.

Ironically, in Sonic Adventure, I see the new Sonic the Hedgehog game, all of the faults are there - poor texturing, directionless city portions, poor secondary characters, awkward human / animal interaction, and a frustrating camera. Watching my little sister play was an interesting experience - she was unaware of the paths that were ingrained in my memory - and exposed for me how deceptive the level layouts were, even then.

I've played the demos of the new Sonic the Hedgehog game - and going back to this, I'm frustrated by how similar they are. It is sad that Sega-Sammy (the new devil that has replaced them) is so tainted as to be able to pollute past games.

Or maybe it's the pain of childhood memories facing harsh realities? Don't go back and play your favorite games, they aren't the same as your remember them... 

 

This little white box is my gaming future. Somehow, Microsoft has picked up the soul that Sega once possessed - but it would be a lie to say they've made the same mistakes. There's no 32x or Sega CD here - no Saturn... and the 360 is no Dreamcast. For the first time I think, I view that as a blessing.

The Dreamcast wasn't hardcore because it died. No more apologies for Sega - they had their time and it was a beautiful thing - and that time an era is over. Seven years and I've accepted they're gone.


They were gone the moment the Playstation came into my home, and everyone else's ... I'm just sorry my little buddy had to go down with them. I like to think he died with the Dreamcast that day, on top, with at least some shard of dignity remaining in his little blue body.

I am temporarily in possesion of a corvid named Cornelius. He was attacked by my friend's dogs, and I'm taking care of him until the Audubon gives us a call back about what rescue center we should take him to. He's taking water from an eye dropper, but he doesn't seem interested in corn or baby cereal in the least. I'm going to try bananas, millet seed, and maybe some hamburger in the morning and see what comes of it.

It's actually a pretty smart bird - it let me swab antibiotic onto its wounds, and it decided it likes the bathroom, so I put it in a towel-lined plastic crate in the bathtub. It's tried talking to me a bit - it made it very clear when it got home that it did not like my bedroom, and decided to claim the bathroom for itself (I have no idea why).

In any case, it's breathing fine, it's not bleeding anymore, and it doesn't seem to have broken anything. It looks like he'll most likely be spending a month or two in a bird refuge growing back his feathers and he'll be fine.

My Spherex 5.1 sound system came yesterday, got it set up, started watching Serenity, and the GF and I wound up rewatching the entire movie, it makes that much of a difference. 27" isn't a huge HDTV, but it is a much larger image than the old 20" CRT showed (it was *tiny* when showing scope movies) and the surround sound made the movie feel huge. I can't go back to normal speakers. Even watching normal TV today, I was blown away by the sound improvements over the built-in speakers.

I'm actually feeling pretty good - as of 10:40am today I am no longer a librarian! I'll be fine financially as long as I scrimp a little, and this gives me some time to finally focus on myself, my girlfriend, and school for a little while. It feels really weird, I'm not used to just sitting around doing *nothing* - y'know? I guess you never realize how tired of a job you are until you're not there anymore.

I think I'll be starting a new job hunt later next week. I'd like to find some summer work that pays decent money - making $6.40/hour at the library - even tax free - was pretty much crap when temp agencies can get you $10/hour, call centers start around $11/hour, and internships pay close to $14/hour. I'm going to see what I can work out.

I think I'd really enjoy working for a bank, office, or just some more legitimate business. I like the idea of putting on a shirt and tie, making real money, and coming home at the end of the day knowing that while my boss might be a prick - at least they've earned the right to be.

Next fall and spring I'm giving some consideration to just not working - having worked since sophomore year I can honestly say, it has really hurt my academics. You can't get a real job when you're in class 9am to 6pm, and you don't have time to study - I'm not majoring in something easy, so a lack of free time is a real problem. If I focus hard on academics, I can get out of college pretty quickly, and then get a real job.

My third Xbox 360 game just got ordered from Buy.com (hooray Google Checkout free $10) - I'm getting PGR3 for only $22.40 new - score. I love it.

I also ordered some speaker stands off the interweb for my surround sound system. The surround system looks like it will get here on Friday, while the stands will be here sometime between Monday and Thursday next week. I don't have an ETA for PGR3 yet, but I'm not too worried.

After reading some of the "my 360 broke" threads with the manufacture dates, I'm going to wait it out for Elite to come out. The extra money is more than worth having some peace of mind that my gaming system will last out the generation.

It also turns out that the speaker bar on my HDTV is not meant to come off, despite easy to remove screws and quick release plugs. If I remove it the front IR panel and lights remain quite exposed. I'm dissapointed, as the speaker bar is just needless bulk with the surround system coming. I opened up the speaker bar today and found the expected speaker-pairs for each side, along with what looked like a tweeter on each side. Why they bothered I can't fathom, the sound quality is subpar - I'm going to route everthing through my new system I think. 

Chazz Michael Michaels says "this is video gaming. boom!"

I've got my finger hovering over the button to place my order for my future Xbox 360's surround sound system. I'm pretty excited, just making sure I do the usual "read twenty reviews" thing before I order. I'm looking at the Spherex Xbox 5.1 system. Honestly, you really can't get a better system for under $300. I've seen a lot of Sony DDW-700 and other cheapy surround systems, but they aren't good for gaming - no base and indistinct surrounds.

Everyone who's had one of these has said it kicks arse. Distinct directional sound - natural sounds thanks to the omnidirectional speakers - plenty of base. That's exactly what I want in a sound system. The only downside to the thing is that the speakers *must* face upwward - not a big deal though, I'll just set them on a table behind me, it should work fine for gaming.

I'm excited - my future Xbox 360 is going to come home to 5.1 surround and a 720p HDTV - it's going to beat the pants off the S-Video and Stereo Setup days of the Sega CD.

I was reading up on George Jung... interesting guy, just amazing the influence he had - I suppose that's more Vice City though. The trailer released today is amazing - you need to see it, that's all their is to it.

GTA IV... right click, view image, trust me on this, it's quite spectatcular. I can't think of a better choice on who I'd want to be. This game is going to be controversial - Hiliary Clinton and Jack Thompson are going to do what they can to deny our freedom to play it... but egads, it looks amazing.

As of midnight tommorow I won't have any reason not to open Gears of War - I'll be passed my 90 day holiday return, and I'll essentially be "stuck" with the game. Not that I'm complaining. Since I won't get my 360 until April 29, I can at least look at the instruction booklet and bask in the glory of this awesome game.

I might actually wait to open it though, there's something special about the first time you crack open a new game. It's like opening a booster pack of Pokemon cards when you were thirteen - just amazing feeling.

I'm excited for the Xbox 360 Elite. It took talking with some friends, some soul searching, and a fight with my girlfriend to make me realize how much I've been missing gaming. My main hobbies when I was younger were videogames, magic: the gathering, warhammer 40k, and mountain biking - but I haven't done any of those in a long time. I'm playing Halo CE on my PC for crying out loud, and I really can't stand playing GCN / PS2 graphics anymore.

I've been watching videos of Trusty Bell, Bioshock, Ace Combat 6, and Lost Odyssey and I'm pretty sold. GRAW and GeoW look amazing, there's simply no going back for me. I've been calling EBGames waiting for the preorders to open up. I'm going to say "forget it" to the $10 in Reward Zone I would get from Best Buy and simply preorder to make sure that I get an Elite. I've been wanting a 360 for a long time, I know I'm going to want Halo 3, this is the perfect time for me to jump in!

These are the games that are out right now that I'm particularly interested in:

1. Gears of War
2. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
3. Project Gotham Racing 3

But there are a ton of upcoming games that I'm really interested in:

1. Mass Effect (June 5, 2007)
2. Bioshock (August 21, 2007)
3. Blue Dragon (August 2007)
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (October 16, 2007)
5. Lost Odyssey
6. Halo 3
7. Ace Combat 6
8. Trusty Bell
9. Halo Wars

And I'm sure there will be more titles that I'm interested in later. I'm going to pick up Castlevania and Geometry Wars on the LIVE arcade, I'm a huge Castlevania fan, so it's kind of a sin for me to have missed out on the best game in the series. I'm also not entirely sold on Trusty Bell, the FMVs look great, but the in-game play looks rather bland by comparison to Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Well, what do you expect? The creator of Final Fantasy is going to dish it out better than anyone else can.

I'm also kind of excited to see PS3 titles showing up on the 360. Devil May Cry 4 might be fun (it's going to hurt sales of Too Human, that's for sure) but I'd really like to see Final Fantasy XIII come over. I don't want to be left with that one game that makes me go "aww... but... no, it's on the PS3". When I had a PS1 back in the day, the one game on the N64 for me was Ocarina of Time. Missing that game just made me sad, I mean, FF7 was a better experience, but there's some fleeting and tempting about what you can't have.

Anyway... the new Xbox conviently comes out *after* college is over for the semester - good thing, eh?

Well here it is:

I picked up GRAW today at Best Buy for $20. I went over to circuit City to get it, but there was really no one there. I played Geometry Wars on their 360, a PC guy came over to comment on my abilities at the game, told me about how his buddies 360s died, but he knew nothing about their sale. Every 360 game was not only cased, but locked behind a glass case. After the PC guy dissappeared on me, I went over to Best Buy, grabbed the game, took it to customer service, and within three minutes it was price matched and sold to me.

I was lucky actually, they had a few with the original box art, rather than the Platnium Hits version. I like having the nicer looking version.

In any case, I don't have a 360 yet, but I've got some pretty good deals on games so far - $60 and I've got two games, not bad at all. I might be getting a unit from Dell come April, assuming the Elite keeps getting pushed back. When they price drop there really aren't going to be sales, so it comes out about the same getting a unit for $318 from the store in a few months vs. getting one for $400 (no tax, free shipping) now that comes with a free second controller or a year of Xbox Live. I think those cards actually come with thirteen months... plus you get the one free with the system... fourteen months of LIVE for free, not bad. I might get the extra controller though... we'll see, just need to see if Elite is worth spending a lot more money for... frankly I don't think it is.

My stuffed animal cat has started video taping himself, mostly because he's insane. His opinions are somewhat crass and childish, but hey, that's how he rolls.

Face, it's what's for dinner.

It's amazing what photos you can find on your girlfriend's phone, or how a loss of depth can make a picture look different than you intended.