confidentialmisanthropy

I might be becoming a mild alcoholic. If there is such a thing. Work is stressing me the fuck out. Seems like going to visit my pal Jack is my only solace right now. I've only been in Japan off-and-on since Spetember, an yet I've been wasted more times in Japan than any other country.

Last time I was at Fuck Yeah's I was rambling on to Ski, my drinking buddy, about how I'd get better at Street Fighter III the more drunk I got. This apparently doesn't apply to Lumines however. It's not 'til the hangover / recuperation stage that I hit my stride in that game. I woke up this morning and dropped two versus games in a row to Magma, then beat him four-straight. It really is a brilliant game because there really is more to it than the "Tetris" mentality of clearing the screen as soon as possible. There's much more to it than that. You have to stack shit high so you have ammo to work with, and it takes a while for that concept to sink in.

It takes alot for me to get into a puzzle game. Or a little Mizuguchi. And I can't wait for Meteos.

While I'm on the subject of videogames and alcohol; I've been informed that 1111 Walnut St. APT B1 has closed doors for good. It was the epicenter of all West Coast videogame operations for a good 6 months. To all those involved, thanks for the good times and memories. 'Cept you Frosty. You and your fuckin' snoring. (j/k)

Ridge Racers is good.

Scary good.

Out of all the PSP launch games it's easily the most visually impressive. And it sounds as good as it looks. Much to my suprise though, it's merits far extend beyond the cosmetics. Simply put: It's the best Ridge Namco's ever done.

Lee and I tried Wireless battle on the Chuo-line last weekend and drew quite a crowd. I really didn't expect that aspect to even make the final cut, much less be handled that well. I'm 0-2 against Lee as of right now, and I'm none too happy about it.

I know it sounds cliché, but a system's worth can't be measured in extraneous features, but the quality of it's games. Rarely does anyone make portable games with this much reverence. I haven't been this into a racing game in quite a while.

Ridge Racers is the fucking truth.

So. I load up my blog the other day and I check the stat counter down on the sidebar and I'm like WTF?

Seems Tim Rogers linked me. On his front page. Which means I have some traffic from people other than the usual suspects. And I'm seriously obligated to keep this fucker updated now. But at least now I know my blog isn't complete drivel. Either that or he linked me 'cause I've mentioned him so many times... or FFIV. Maybe a combination of the two.

Anyhow. I'll have something postworthy in the morning, at which time this'll likely be edited. But it's like midnight right now. And I'm tired.

Feliz Navidad Cabrones.

My PSP hunt ended Sunday. Dramatically.

The longer you read this blog, and the deeper you go back, you'll likely notice I play alot of Final Fantasy. My PSP hunt, on the whole, reminds me alot of playing Final Fantasy XI. NM hunting specifically.

Some people call it camping. I call it hunting.

To-may-to. To-mah-to.

Like my PSP bid, my Leaping Lizzy obsession was well publicized. Everytime I'd log in, the first thing people 'd ask me:

"Did you get the boots yet?"

You see, Lizzy, is easily mistaken for your run of the mil South Gustaberg rock lizard. But she's anything but. Some players go their entire Vana'diel lives without even seeing her, 'cause her life expectancy, whenever she spawns, is around 60 sec. Give or take. If you do happen to engage her, there's a chance she'll drop a pair of "Leaping Boots" upon her death (Wraydar used to call 'em the Vana'diel Jordans, which is pretty accurate). No self-respecting thief walks around without a pair of these things. Me, being the self respecting thief I was, made it my mission to acquire a pair of my own, the old fashioned way.

I'd perch on a hill, where my vantage point had a blanket view of South Gustaberg. And wait. Mind you, I'm not a patient person, but I'm a bit stubborn. I'd widescan repeatedly and as soon as she showed up, I slam the "Flee" macro and be all over her like white on rice. Sometimes I'd kill her before anyone even knew she'd spawned. I was good. Killed Lizzy 8 times and got zilch. Meanwhile, I'd hear stories about n00bs just stumbling upon her and killing her and getting the drop on the first try. This was infinitely disheartening. But my day came. But how it all went down was rather comical.

I'm perched in my usual spot when Leaping Lizzy shows up on my radar. I track her and "Flee" to her position to find some level 7 Samurai in mortal combat with 'er. This was quite a dilemma, 'cause Lizzy's a level 12 mob, and everyone knows lizards don't fight fair. This guy had no chance. The conundrum was that if he called for help, it would nullify anyone's chances of getting any boots this round, which could equal up to 3 more hours of waiting. Well, this guy didn't call for help. He fought Lizzy 'til his dying breath, at which point, I hit the "Steal" macro and claimed what was rightfully mine. And wouldn't you know it? She dropped the boots.

I kinda felt bad for the Samurai, but sometimes you just gotta know your role.

Last week, I tried everything I could to get a PSP, to no avail. But I copped one in Ikebukuro Sunday. All is right with the world.

I have another coming to me within the week, but that one's spoken for.

Strange twist of fate this weekend.

Had my plans to grab a PSP and I got swapped to another duty section which (you guessed it!) completely took me out of the hunt. I guess I should be thankful though, 'cause it was a major clusterfuck out there. Not to mention, picking up the extra couple for certain stateside peeps would have been next to impossible. Satan himself showed up in Shibuya. I'm kinda pissed that I missed it. I wanted to throw shit at him. Maybe even a DS.

So I have to wait another week...

Unless...

EDIT:

Looks like I'm assed out 'til the 22nd after all.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have a major gadget fetish.

This is what the DS is.

A gadget.

And until someone makes a game for it that warrants it's existence that's what I'll consider it. Strangely enough, I expected Nintendo themselves to step up to the plate and be the ones to do it. In all fairness Sawaru does do this to some extent. But the marquee title they decided to push the DS and be it's "killer app", so to speak, is an 8 year old game. One considered by many to be the greatest of all time: Super Mario 64.

I mowed lawns the entire summer of '96 to afford an N64 to play the damn game.

$320.
$260 for the console.
$60 for the cart.

It was the only game I had for the N64 for months but I never really noticed, 'cause truthfully, it was all I needed. I recall saying to myself, "It doesn't get any better than this..." several times over the course of those months. And it really never did, at least in the 3D platformer genre. Eight years later it has yet to be topped. The genre's pretty much dead, now that I think about it, 'cause Insomniac and Naughty Dog have taken it somewhere else completely; and no one outside of perhaps Sucker Punch knows how to do one without ending up with something closer to GTA.

But anyway. Playing the DS iteration reminds me of being a freshman in High school. Being awkward and confused. And all around lost. '96 just wasn't a good year for me. I mean... there were a couple highlights, but you couldn't pay me to live through it again. SM64DS and my 1996 self have alot in common.

Both awkward. Both confused. Both better left in 1996.

Don't get me wrong, SM64DS is a hell of a game. It's just out of place. It wasn't meant to be played with a d-pad. And, sure as hell, not with a stylus.

I was skimming through the Gaming-Age Forums the other day and some one said something like, "Shame on Nintendo for preaching innovation and launching it with an 8 year old game..." or something to that effect. This is more or less how I feel.

The widely accepted notion is Nintendo's market is children. And when they remake these games it's so a new "generation" of children can enjoy these older titles. I really don't know what's keeping them from that $1.49 copy from the bargain bin, but whatever.

My biggest fear is that Nintendo's gonna turn the DS into an N64 port fest... Much like the GBA was for old SNES material. This would be much worse than anything on the GBA though, because if SM64DS proves anything, it's that the DS is not built to be a port machine. And Super Mario 64 is a game that was tailor made for the N64.

I've got a theory, that this stuff has been sitting around Nintendo for a while. Remember those screenshots of SM64 2? Had Luigi in them and shit. This is the result of that. Something they kinda haphazardly threw together before the DS launch to show what it was capable of.

It's capable of alot. Of this I'm sure.

Something more than hand-me-downs.

What is the mic', and the stylus bullshit all about, if you're going to use it so inadequately anyway? As if it wasn't gimmick enough already...

I have a feeling though, this could actually be what I'm looking for.

I have a bad habit of not thinking very far ahead. I've known the DS launch date for quite a while but it didn't dawn on me 'til Monday that I had duty on the 2nd. So I scored a DS yesterday, for fear of going out Friday and being up shit creek.

There's a wanpaku just spit shy of the base. I've bought some GBA stuff from them before. I went up to the counter there and saw stacks of DS boxes in the back. The guy behind the counter wasn't game for breaking the street date however. This kinda ticked me off. But I had other options. The place I picked up Mawaru! from in October isn't a chain like wanpaku and it's run by a really old couple and I figured they'd be more receptive of my ¥15,000.

And I was right.

I got Mr. Driller and SM64DS. Both of which I find a bit undewhelming for different reasons. I'll write about it on @ GL. It'll be a good read. I promise.

After I got my DS I figured I'd walk around Yokosuka a bit. Usually I just grab the train and take it to Tokyo or just stay on base but I had time to kill and didn't feel like riding the train. I went by a newsstand and held a Famitsu for the first time ever. They're pretty thick. I don't know if they're that thick all the time but it seems pretty stacked for a weekly magazine. They had an interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, both of which left Squenix recently. Tim Rogers said:

It seems they're making a "new franchise" for Sakaguchi's new company. Uematsu will handle the music, Sakaguchi the direction. It is rumored that Yoshitaka Amano will be the character designer.

A whole lot of revelations in that interview. I mean, back when Tetsuya Nomura became the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, the explanation they fed everyone was "Amano's art wouldn't work in a 3D setting." Naw, that warn't the truth -- it was really "We think some frat boys in America might be put off by Amano's limp-wristed girly men." I mean, really they could have given him a chance -- had Amano's art ever even worked in a 2D setting? You couldn't tell what monster sprites were half the time. We used to have arguments about what was a leg and what was a knife or whatever.

It was great stuff.

Final Fantasy has outgrown the visions of its creators and become a "hot property." Almost no one on the original teams is involved, and the artistic vision is finally getting back on the track that Amano had it barreling down toward the end of Final Fantasy VI. Yet now there is this little company Sakaguchi's starting.

It looks like Sakaguchi, now with millions of dollars of experience and a historically collosal failure at directing a movie, is back to square one. He's back to where he was when he made the original Final Fantasy. So I think -- maybe something good is going to happen now. Maybe he'll make a good game. Maybe a great one.

Maybe.

I finally stumbled upon the Yokosuka Yoshinoya. I still don't know how to pronounce what I order there, although it's always the same thing. I just kinda point at what I want and say, "kore... okii... arrigato gozaimas". Last time the old guy next to me looked at me and said, "Japanese... well." And nodded.

I think he was just trying to be nice. Most people just stare at me.