Apologies

Between kids going back to school, the wrapup of summer doings, and various medical or health-related shenanigans I have not been making time to update this blog.

On the video game front I haven't progressed much owing to the above-listed time killers but also because I'm just bogged down in Okami. Almost bored with it you might say. It isn't that it is a bad game, it is just so long. I'm having similar problems to my play-through of Odin Sphere awhile back. What little time I do manage on my consoles is mostly dicking around with the digital pinball games from Kaze. About as far from Okami as you can get. The only thing video game wise that really has me excited is all the shit Cave has announced at their August Matsuri festival. Just about every old STG they've ever designed seems scheduled over the next year.

If anything my pastime-time is taken up with getting back into GW stuff. I've been reading a lot of Black Library novels set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K universes to get hepped up, and I've made some progresss in buying and starting an Eldar army for 40K. I don't get anything like the great deals on this stuff that I used to so I have to be a lot more strategic with my purchases of figures. Most of my old paints aren't good either so I have to rebuild that setup. My son has gotten inspired and is beavering away on a Tau force. I've got an infantry model done to completion so I could figure out my army's color scheme and three more troopers following on from that. I'll post pics soon. I like my ideas, but my son hates it! Ha.

He'll double hate it when my force rolls over his.

I'm actually more of a Warhammer (fantasy) player. I will be firing up a force of High Elves before long and dividing my painting time between the two. I'm working 40K earlier because that, of course, is what the boy is into. Even my daughter is getting in on the act. She knocked out a decent Space Marine, but really wants to paint some Wood Elves.

Nerdy nerdy family.

Wow.

No, not WoW as in World of Warcraft. 'Wow' as in the exclamation.

I haven't been doing much new gaming that's worth writing (ploughing through the very long Okami) so there hasn't been much in the way of updates. I could post articles about other nerdly things, but apart from reacquainting myself with GW products I'm not doing much new there either. I probably will talk Warhammer, etc at some point but I ain't there yet.

I got this awesome new 'wave lounger' that is a semi-portable chair/pad that is just perfect for plonking right in front of a plasma screen and having a joystick set in your lap. I gave Ketsui a go with this setup and it is the cat's ass.

The MAIN reason I'm posting though is this link:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html

I haven't played this game and have no intention, but this is one of the greatest game-related articles I've read all year and maybe ever. I think the concept of 'game journalism' is a crock... BUT. If there was ever a piece written that was not about the business/financial aspect of videogames that could be called actual journalism, this might be it. I have some exposure to the Yakuza through film... particularly those of Takeshi Kitano so a lot of what is talked about in the article really dovetailed with my continued fascination with Japanese culture.

Thanks to Sketcz at HG101 for pointing this article out.

Doing a Double

At the time of this writing I've finished (re)reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five from 1969 and just (re)watched the film made three years later by George Roy Hill.

Both are good, in my opinion, with the book holding an edge in terms of just how good. The story is an idea or concept driven piece with a huge moral (but cynical) undertone. If you are looking for something character or even plot-driven really you'd need to look elsewhere.

But the book was short, so even if you found the jumpy non-linear aspect to be annoying it doesn't go on for very long. The film is pretty true to the book including a lot of lines lifted straight. About the only 'era' the movie doesn't track is the time/impressions for Billy after he dies.

Given all the jumpy time-frame stories that have come after Slaughterhouse-Five, both literary and cinematic, it might not seem so unique or even interesting, but put in perspective it can be seen to be hugely influential.

I'm writing this mostly because I haven't posted for awhile and want everyone to know I'm still alive, but also it is not all that common for me to read a book and watch the film at the same exact time. Thought maybe that moment should be marked somehow.

Two For Tuesd-- uh, Wednesday

I've gotten behind on my music buying, but have taken steps lately to remedy that. Looking through the various artists that are staple bands for me, there aren't that many releases I seem to have missed over the last several months... most have albums that just came out or are still future. Still my want list for music is still quite a bit bigger than it has been for a while. With the death of ALL specialist music stores in my area, I'm pretty much limited to itunes, but that service has gotten a lot better for the wacky music I consume.

Two of the albums I purchased recently are rather genre-bending so that makes them, to me, interesting enough to note briefly.

The first one is Architect of Lies by Mercenary. This is a metal band from Denmark that have have a lot of talent and are all over the map musically. They seem to mostly get labeled melodic death metal, the genre that includes In Flames, Soilwork, and Dark Tranquillity. If one were to go off this most recent record that would probably be sort of accurate. Architect of Lies mines the attributes of melo-death more than any other style and it is more prevalent here than on Mercenary's previous two albums, The Hours That Remain and 11 Dreams. Maybe that's why this album seemed to be less well received, from what reviews I've read, than the previous outings.

I like the melodeath style. For some fans it is a bit tired... very mid 90s. That was when everyone and their little cousin Edith was forming a melodic death band or changing their sound to fit the subgenre. Y'know, back before metalcore did the same thing at the turn of century. Apart from the aforementioned core melodic death bands I didn't really just buy and buy and buy it til I could puke.

Mercenary have a huge sound, epic really. Melodic death bands tend to alternate between harsh and clean vocals, but this band is kind of in a whole different league. Their clean vocals can match almost any other rock band and at times absolutely dominate the songs. The guy can get way up there. They also feature frequent intensity and tempo changes (though no odd time signatures) to the point I'd probably lump them in with progressive bands actually. This most recent album is not as varied... it is more of a one-trick melodic death pony, but I don't think that's bad. Sometimes bands, even crazy eclectic ones, need to focus. Sometimes they benefit and the fans like 'em and sometimes they don't. Architect is NOT a lot like other melodic death albums. It is still pretty progressive in places, and the vocals rock out with their cock out like one would expect if you have any experience with them. Shout out to their drummer too. Their drums seemed to be miked up a little to much at times, but the guy is a rhythm god.

So I liked Architect of Lies. No, it isn't 'just super' like The Hours That Remain, but I think anyone hating on this album was just put off that they weren't all over the map quite as much as usual. If you want heavy music, like heavier than anything on the radio, but you want variety in the music and vocal styles EARLY Mercenary is a surer ticket, but even the latest is money well spent. I'd actually like to see these guys live. Soilwork shows are incredibly energetic... almost dare I say 'danceable' for a metal concert. I wouldn't go so far as to say Mercenary would have the same effect, but I'd bet you'd come out of one feeling pretty jazzed.

Second up is a total left turn with Rotersand's Random Is Resistance. Described as electro, EBM or Futurepop by reviewers and fans, if you listen to VNV Nation or Covenant you are somewhere in the ballpark. Dark, usually danceable electronic music that's frequently in the rotation lists at goth/industrial clubs.

But here's where Germany's Rotersand is different: they like Pink Floyd. A lot.
I mean Ronan Harris of VNV Nation might like Pink Floyd, but you don't really know it from his music. Rotersand is like Ronan and David Gilmour having a love child. I know that's gross, but the listener benefits.

Not all the songs are Floydian. Rotersand's strength is in the variety. They have expansive quiet Floydian numbers, they have more typical EBM dancefloor anthems, and they have songs that would almost be straight up radio pop if it weren't for the squalling electronic underpinnings. I really like these guys because even when they do a 'typical' electro song they pull from a much bigger library for their instrumentation and melodies. Acoustic guitar in an industrial club? Rotersand'll do it. And make it work really well more often than not.

It's a little like Juno Reactor's mixing in all kind of world music, chants and percussion and still being 'cool'. Apart from being pretty sure you are going to hear something like Pink Floyd on the record, anything could be in the mix in the next song thought the band doesn't stray so far out of the EBM/Futurepop box that they are unrecognisable. They could've just done whatever crazy shit they wanted and just thrown in one or two 'clubby' songs to make sure the EBM fans keep buying them, but they aren't that nutty.

They just do the Futurepop thing really well because they aren't afraid to pull stuff from outside and make it work. Any album of theirs is highly recommended, though the first one, Truth Is Fanatic, has less variety as they were still working out their strengths.

Warning: on Random Is Resistance the song War On Error crushes all!

Holding It Correctly

Wanna know something that drives me nuts? All the American comics and movies and stuff that I see where 'samurai swords' are being used, but the user holds 'em like a baseball bat.

You'd think if all the creative people involved were such fans of the jidaigeki or chambara genres they'd have noticed this glaring detail. Ever since I started watching Kurosawa films or reading manga (and I was a kid at that point) I've noticed this error and it is just embarrassing. Like the oafish American who upon meeting someone from the UK has to blather on about 'saving your ass in WWII'. I'm embarrassed that the loud cocksucker can't be bothered to get the facts straight before shooting off his mouth. Same thing.

I've just gotten done re-watching The Hidden Fortress and am partway through a rewatch of Yojimbo. Toshiro Mifune pictured above is not the greatest swordsman technique-wise in samurai films... he was an actor foremost. He gets the job done through attitude and dedication to the role more than anything else. But as you can see in the pic above, he is NOT holding the weapon like a bat. Practicing iaido as I do, the correct grip on the sword is second nature to me, but this has NEVER appeared as a subtle detail even when I was a kid jumping around with plastic blades in the back yard. I always held my 'ninja sword' with a palm-width distance (approximately) between my hands (unless holding it one-handed).

I always have some kind of jidaigeki film in my rotation. Hideo Gosha's Bandits Vs. Samurai Squadron is up soon. But for some reason watching these two Kurosawa films recently, made me think back to some Marvel graphic novel of recent vintage. Now I love me some Avengers of course, but this was a story set partly in Japan and full of ninjas. Lone Wolf and Cub has been published over here in the USA for years now, along with a good deal of other samurai period manga. And LW&C is not obscure. It is a major influence and inspiration for comic writers and artists today. So there was no excuse for the Avengers book to be full of katanas being held like baseball bats.

I'm sure my attitude is aggravated by the fact that I have personal involvement in this archaic weapon art, but its a real wince-inducer. Even the barely-past-teen girls in Japanese movies like Princess Blade or Azumi get this grip correct-ish, so it seems almost like blinkered American superiority at times that we keep choking up on the tsuka, the sword's handle.

Okay. I'll be quiet now and go back to watching my little movies and stroking my weapon.

(pic taken from FilmWeb)

Redundant Moi

I got my copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly last week and was planning on doing an issue number two comparison between EGM and the Gamefan I'd gotten not too long before. Both mags have legendary status in video game history and have seen recent relaunches. I compared their first issues in a previous entry.

I said I was PLANNING to, but prolific member Sketcz already beat me to it, posting a side-by-side for both issues that details very similar points I was going to make. I would've written almost the exact same article apart from quite a few less pictures and probably a few more f-bombs.

http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2010/07/gamefan-2-vs-egm-2.html

Its some sort of virtual mental plaigarism I tell you!

At any rate. Good stuff. I guess that saves me some effort!

Shameful Pegging

Yahoo! News today had a headline about Bejeweled's 10th anniversary being 'celebrated' as of this writing... and the ONE guy who has managed to beat the game.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/five-things-you-didn-t-know-about-bejeweled-/1405499

Now if you've read any of this blog you know I have a love/hate relationship with Bejeweled 2 for the Xbox 360. I find it as compelling as the bazillion other people that play it do... there's a copy sold every 4.3 seconds... but there's something that misfires between my brain and the strategy needed to do well at the game.

I shouldn't care. This game is the casual game of casual games. Grannies and babies play this game. The hardcore gamer card in my wallet heats up and starts to smell like diarrhea every time I start Bejeweled 2 up. At least that's what I'd  tell anyone in the same room with me. Squeezing some off under stress? Not me! Nooooooooo.

Anyway. Sucking at Bejeweled has me under an ongoing questioning about my abilities at strategy or puzzle games in general. I've never been a big puzzle game gay-- I mean guy-- in the first place (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I like to RELAX with a not-too-taxing easy matching game or somesuch just like a lot of people. Except that Bejeweled is not fucking relaxing. NOT TO ME!

So I finally managed to give the damn thing a rest for a while. I think the monotony of the music and the announcer eventually helped me kick it where my frustration at massive suckage was unable to.

Maybe two months ago on Waxing Erratic I gave ECM some crap about liking casual games (a joke... even though he does like casual games. Maybe likes 'em too much) and he then reeled off a litany of other games for which he probably has to hide out from the hardcore police. One of them was Peggle.

Now if you are a Peggle player you know this game is at least as addicting as Bejeweled if not more so. But it is from THE SAME COMPANY. I'd heard a few people say it was their favorite 'puzzler'... but a lot of people say Bejeweled is their favorite and like, FUCK those people! So when I downloaded the demo for Peggle and the PopCap logo came out I fweeped a smelly... I mean my hardcore card began to heat up again... and I almost deleted it on the spot.

As it turns out, ECM has pretty good taste in secret shames. This game requires skill of a different order than Bejeweled, and for some reason I can get my head around it. It is more action-oriented in that you shoot a little ball to hit and clear glowing pegs. So the game combines some eye-hand ability along with strategy in how and when to use special powers or go for bonus points. I had pretty good luck playing World of Goo because the puzzles were grounded in consistent virtual physics. Peggle is the same. It doesn't hurt that the game has a fair amount in common with pachinko, for which I own two real machines. A lot of people probably wouldn't even call Peggle a puzzle game, I suppose.

I like this game enough to wear I'm really dividing time between this and Okami. I haven't put it up as currently played in the sidebar or my Backloggery because, y'know, I have my rep to maintain. But in reality I've almost beaten every challenge in every mode of Peggle and I even have a decent win/loss record starting up with online versus games. As I have lots of other games to get to and have only a few challenges left to complete I will probably wind down my time on this game.

That is if I can summon up the supreme act of will and NOT buy that Peggle Nights expansion pack. Either way, Peggle has been sublime considering it comes from the same company that packages rough prison sex as a sweet little pastime about matching colored jewels.