Arcade Project 07: Sit Down and Fight and July 30th, 2014

Sit Down and Fight

(longer original post at my gaming blog)

If you look at the choice I've made for gaming in my Arcade Project, you might have asked yourself a few questions if you knew me personally.  First, with the choice of X-Arcade controls in my MAME machine, I said it was not a big deal that they did not use Japanese parts.  Next when I announced the cabinets I would purchase if this project was real, I did not choose any fighting game specific cabinets.  When it comes to Arcade games, I am not a retro fan, I don't care for Pacman and Digdug.  I like my fighting games, so these choices may have seemed weird.  But I have an explanation.

  That is the sit down, flat top, flat panel mount arcade cabinet from Recroommasters, and its only $325.  In my earlier accessories post I talked about some ottoman seats that would be good for extra seating, well this is what they're for.  The control area of this cabinet is flat topped because many fighting game players have their own controllers or fight sticks that they have modded to be particularly suited to their own taste.  The TV mount that comes with it can be attached to a wall, which is what I plan to do.  I also plan to add locking wheels to the base so that when not in use, the cabinet can be pushed against the wall, under the TV.   That TV will be whatever the best deal I can find for the $500 budget I allocate for the TV.

Powering this will be a PS3.  I know that you can build a PC capable of playing lots of fighting games for about $550, but six months after I list the parts, this post will be obsolete.  So, $270 gets you a PS3 that can play Street Fighter 4, Blaz Blue, King of Fighters 13, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3, Tekken, Soul Calibre, Mortal Kombat and tons of older fighting games through the PS Network.  I will also be getting 2 of the X-arcade fight stick set ups to serve as the "base" controller set up.  They are just $78 each and will do good enough for non-enthusiasts.  Also, this means I can take the Dual Stick from the MAME, drop it on the flat top, and then have 2 people to the side, each with a stick, and get some 4 player Ninja Turtles going on the big screen.

With controllers, speakers, TV, cabinet, and PS3, this all ends up about $1300 for the final arcade cabinet in the room.

July 30th, 2014

I've been on the last parts of Final Fantasy 6 for a while,   If you don't have experience with the end of Final Fantasy 6, then you might not know that this game does require some "end game prep".  Most Final Fantasy games I rush through to get the story the first time, meaning i'm ill prepared for the final boss, and that's exactly how I want it.  I want the last fight to be a struggle.  With the exception of 8 and 12, I've had a hell of a struggle with the last bosses the first time I made it to them. I don't use guides, but I do try to finish any sidequests I am aware of, especially ones for story.  Generally this means I don't get the "over powered" skills like Ultima or Omnislash.  Anyway, out of all that I have played through(1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13), 6 is the only one where 4-5 hours of prep before the first trip to the final dungeon means you're going to have a hard fight on your hands still.  I have to pick 6 for the best ending boss fight out of all of them. This is around the 10th time through 6, and I've done the "get everyone everything" twice before, so now I"m just here for a hard boss fight and an ending.

Cappuccino would not be one of the potato chip flavors I would have envisioned, but there's some sitting on my table right now.  Cinnamon is also not a flavor I would have expected in something that is Cappuccino flavored.  I"m not a big fan of cinnamon.  I have to say that I really enjoyed the Lays Cappuccino chips very much, and was very surprised that it was probably the cinnamon taste that saved them.  There is an old cinnamon bun type cereal that it tastes almost exactly like, but they also remind me of cinnamon twists from Taco bell.  They have some kind of malt flavoring added to them, and they don't go through the "chip enflavoring" bath that almost all chips go through to enhance the taste, they are mellow on the potato flavor.  When I eat them I feel like I'm at the carousel in my local mega mall consortium, because it is placed between Auntie's cinnamon pretzels and Starbucks.

 When I was a kid, I could always expect weird and unexpected things from my Grandpa Charles when he visited.  Sometimes I would get football and basketball cards, and sometimes I'd get an entire box of Generation 1 Transformers Dinobots.  I once got a bucket of random Lego.  There was something in these Lego that always confused me.  I had awareness of knockoffs and bootleg when I was a kid.  There was alot of blocks in this bucket that were hollow in the bottom.  They had none of the things that made the Lego connect together, they would just fall off of the other Lego.  I always thought that they were just cheap knockoffs and I always wondered what was their point, if someone copied them but they did not work.  Well, I watched "Inside Lego" on Netflix, and now I know that they were NOT knockoffs, they were pre-1960's Lego.  I was actually playing with very vintage Lego pieces.  A neat little memory.  Grandpa Charles has been gone for a long while now, and he's still giving me gifts and making my days happy.

Badasses own Dogs and July 29th, 2014

I am a Dog Person and I like Dog People(not a furry)

(original post at my media blog )

The first Mad Max movie I ever saw was "The Road Warrior".  The character was cool by itself, but the fact that he had a bad ass dog companion made him even more cool.  The way the dog knew to be an out of sight "trap" for anyone trying to get into the car was really cool, and how he was trained to do exactly what Max told him was great too.  But, it wasn't all one sided.  The world had gone to shit, and you literally had to kill for a mouthful of food, and its very telling that Max took the effort to feed and care well for his dog.

"He'll slit his own mother's throat for a nickle" was how you were introduced to Shadow.  "Don't touch the dog, he eats people" was how you were introduced to Interceptor, his faithful dog.  Both introductions proved to be pretty accurate, but also a mask..  You have to dig hard to find this dog-loving assassin's true intentions, but he'll match Max for being the badass that cares.  Interceptor's name is homage to Mad Max, as Max's patrol car was the "Last of the V8 Interceptors"

Lonestar is a bafoon.  He's not good with his money and he's pretty lousy with the ladies too.  He also drives the most uncool spaceship in movies.  So what makes him a worthy hero at all?  Barf.  As in the Man-Dog Mog.  He's his own best friend, but after that he's best friends with Lonestar.  Also, when he's not being a kickass best friend, he's John Candy, and who doesn't like John Candy?  Terrorists, that's who.


An American ninja dressed in blue, a level where you get to cut up barrels of apples, what more could you want for kickass fighting game character?  He's got a dog. Galford from Samurai Shodown had a dog named Poppy.  Poppy was not just a kickass attack dog that would eat the opponent or turn into a ball of flame to make attacks, Poppy is also a responsible mommy.  Yep, in Samurai Shodown 2, when you win, there will be a row of puppies that come in and celebrate the victory with mommy and ninja-step-dad.

Early in Fallout 3 I found the junkyard.  I found the double barrel shotgun, the biker armor and the dog companion named Dogmeat.  It was obvious by the character dead near it that this was an homage to Mad Max.  I took Dogmeat as the companion and only switched out when forced to for story reasons, I always came back and got my dog though.  His practically "infinite" taunt made him the best companion for me, everything instantly targeted it, and let me get headshots real easy.

July 29th, 2014

Yesterday I talked about the "New Deadball Era", which is probably a term only I use.  This weird thing happened in the 1980's era of baseball.  Some of the greats retired, and suddenly baseball had no great hitters.  Well, that's kind of weird too, because we lost some pitchers, and gone to were the pitching.  Somehow in the 80's we had bad hitter and bad pitchers, and its reflected in the Hall of Fame now.  When these players came up for election, we had "best in history" numbers playing on TV.  This belittled their accomplishments.  The Hall of Fame has always taken into account the era a player was in when he was playing, and compared him to his peers as well as to history.  Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, and Dale Murphy are some of the best players of their era.  All multiple time All-stars, and in some cases the best of their generation in stats.  Many claim Morris would be a sore spot because he would have by far the highest ERA of anyone in the Hall, or that Mattingly just didn't pull in the numbers.  I say judge him against his peers.  This is also the Hall of Fame.  Mattingly is one of the most famous players of his time.  He had appearences and references all over popular culture, from the Simpsons to Seinfeld.  Dale Murphy was voted most popular player and head of the players association for a very long time.  These people deserve their place in the Hall.

For a long time I would catch Galaxy Express 999(pronounced Three-nine) on Sci-fi channel, but only half way through or near the end.  Because of this I never watched it all the way through.  When it comes to anime in the 90's, Galaxy Express 999 was one of the ambassadors of the medium to a wider audience.  Fist of the North Star and Ninja Scroll were overly violent.  Akira was disturbing and complicated.  Anime distributors focused on the over-the-top action to get a movie brought over here in the US.  Galaxy Express 999 was the closest we had to "family" friendly stuff due to Disney blocking all the Miyazaki movies they could.  There are some stuff in this movie that would make you raise an eyebrow... but what anime doesn't have at least something "off" with it.  Overall I liked it.  It is pretty much a "fairy tale" as improbable coincidences shape the future of the main character, the right people are in the right place at the right times, etc etc.  It is pretty nice, and heartwarming, if a little cheesy, and you can't help but think there's more to the story because of those that surround the main cast all have history.  Worth watching if you like sentimental scifi with interesting characters.

Titans of gaming lose out all the time.  Sometimes for reasons beyond anyone's control, and sometimes for very good reasons.  The big name in miniature wargaming is Games Workshop.  This is one of the companies that refused to modernize, refuse to work with retailers, and have said to their fans "we've got you by the balls and we're going to squeeze and squeeze".  Instead of working with fans or finding new solutions, they've only tightened their grip, raised prices and told everyone to "suck it" for a few decades now.  You can't sell their stuff online brand new, you can't mention prices.  The majority of non-store purchases is still mail order.  MAIL ORDER.  You want to stick by your guns and work like a cave man, that's fine, but you CAN NOT treat your fans and customers like shit for twenty years and then beg them to help because your resistance to modernization is killing you.  Someone finally challenges Games Workshop, and like Paizo did to Wizards of the Coast, they're making the game and making policies that fans have begged to have for many years now.  They're getting your market share, Privateer Press, and they remember when they were just customers.  When they have Games Workshop by the balls, I bet they'll remember what GW did.

Arcade Project 06: 3 Machines, July 28th, 2014

Arcade Project 06 The 3 Machines 

(each game has its own post link)

With the room being as small as it is, I will not be filling it full of machines.  I chose 3 machines that I would want to have in my arcade that would satisfy gaming that the MAME did not accurately do, or experiences that the MAME just can not touch.  These are different for everyone, and I do not think for a second its a "one size fits all" sort of thing.  First off, most people trying to make an "arcade" would choose classics like Pacman and Centipede.  Those games mean practically nothing to me.  I grew up in the late 80's and early 90's and my choices will reflect that.

Pole Position ($600(upright) 1200+(sit down) )
(Original Post Here)

There is one reason why I played Pole Position so much as a kid... per quarter it gave you the longest gaming time.  In the south, racing is big, and its extremely big around my neck of the woods.  This mean that every gas station, every restaurant, and probably some churches, had a Pole Position arcade inside them.  I can remember being too small to see the screen without the steering wheel being in the way, I remember being too light to make the gas pedal work very easily.  No MAME machine or new-fangled racing wheel can replicate the gear shifter and feel of Pole Position.  Plus its relatively cheap, especially here in the south.  I never played much of the cockpit version because at our local theater, it was basically THE private make-out booth for all the teenagers, so it was always occupied.

Neo Geo MVS($800 2/slot, $1200 4/slot)
(Original Post Here)

The Neo Geo cabinets you saw everywhere were basically the console version of arcade machines.  Inside them were slots that looked like SNES slots, and you would plug in whatever cartridge you had.  This is why it was so easy to make a home version.  The arcade versions were made is much larger numbers, so instead of paying $300 for the home version of Samurai Shodown, you can get it for $20 for the MVS(arcade version).  For Arcade budget purposes, I chose to get the 2 slot MVS and $100 for ebay games.  At the time of this I walked way with Samurai Shodown 1+2, Metal Slug 5, and Puzzle Bobble.

Gauntlet Legends($1400-2000)
(Original Post Here)

When it comes to replay value, it is hard to beat Gaunlet Legends.  This 4 player cabinet has beautiful artwork, and several characters to choose from.  It had a save system where you would type in a code to get back your character and continue leveling them up.  It is like the Diablo of arcade games and lets you play and play to get more loot and level up more.  Another great thing about Gauntlet Legends is that for about $50 you can get the upgrade hard drive for Gauntlet Dark Legacy.  So after everyone in the home has leveled up and gotten sick of one, you can go through the next relatively easily.  Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy got a lot of home versions, but none of them really touched the arcade in quality, and MAME really sucks for 3D graphics, so this is a good choice for people that want a lot of replay.




July 28th, 2014

Lately, even with new games I've enjoyed immensely(like God of War 2), I have had to force myself to commit to playing them.  There's just so much going on these days that by the time I have everything settled down and ready to go, its either too goddamn fucking hot for me to sit in one place for so long, or something else comes up and demands my attention.  I end up trying to rush through games so I have all the story fresh in my mind as I come across new pieces.  Playing FF6, I caught myself intentionally slowing myself down as I went through.  I guess its not really about me then, I guess its just I need to find games that still capture my attention so much that I worry about beating them too quickly.  I've played through FF6 so many times I will need a 3rd hand to count with, but even then I find myself wanting to make it last weeks instead of days.

A grand day for my childhood, as some of the people that made me love baseball got into the Hall of Fame today.  Bobby Cox, the manager of the 90's Atlanta Braves, and 2 parts of the pitching trio Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine all went in.  John Smoltz is the 3rd part of that trio and he'll be eligible next year, but he's got a lot of competition, he may not be a first ballot.  Anyways, all that, and that's not the point of this paragraph.  Frank Thomas got in.  Sammy Sosa, Mark Mcquire, Barry Bonds are the big steroid era players that have been shunned from the Hall of Fame.  Frank Thomas was one of the driving forces of a "clean" baseball, and was outspoken against performance enhancers.  Letting him in on first ballot was a message just as strong as denying Barry Bonds his Hall of Fame entry.  These are the super heroes of my childhood, when I was watching Wolverine and Gambit, I was also collecting baseball cards and watching World Series games.  The Hall of Fame ballots are kind of the "closing" on the legacy of "my" baseball era, and I'm proud they are trying to stand for something.  Now if only people would've lightened up and let some of the "new deadball era" greats in.

Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend, we have tried the first in the new batches of "Lays Give us a Flavor" campaign.  We're not big chip eaters, but we do like our novelty flavor dusts on occasion.  This year we started out with the Bacon Mac and Cheese.  This chip is a more mellow flavored cheese based chip.  In a day where everything is MORE EXTREME, MORE MORE DUST MORE SALT, its nice to have a chip that kind of dials it back a little bit, and lets you taste the potato.  There is one over ruling thing you will think when you eat these... where's the bacon?  Its not even subtle, there seems to be practically no bacon flavoring in these.  Still, if it was between a "loaded baked potato" chip that's on the market now, and these, I would choose the Bacon Mac and Cheese.  

Weekend of July 5th, 2014

Weekend of July 5th, 2014

I do not like Vampires and Vampire stuff.  Never have.  Its probably the primary reason I never played any World of Darkness table top.  Like all things, there are exceptions though.  I think Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest games of all time.  I think the movie "Interview with a Vampire" was really good.  My other exception happens to be one of the early anime that I found that I actually liked: Vampire Hunter D.  Its a lesser violent anime for its era, though its still brutal and has a couple of grow out head pop moments.  Getting Anime brought here in the 80's, you had to have that kind of stuff for some reason.  Anyway, we watched it Friday and it is still pretty damn good, even today.  A little cheesey, some bad voice acting here and there, but in general it is still quality stuff.  My girlfriend liked it a lot too, more than Ninja Scroll I'd wager.  Yoshitaka Amano did the character artwork for that movie before he did the artwork for Final Fantasy 1-6.  His artwork with this series had huge influence on the 80's and 90's Goth scene, inspiring work and collaborations with Neil Gamon, Tim Burton, and James O'Barr.  My girlfriend was also saying that it had obviously influenced Robin McKinley for his book "Sunshine".  Good anime was hard to come by in the 80's over here, and so a great one arriving in the mid-80's changed popular culture.

Some more reveals on the full version of Dungeons and Dragons 5th, and I'm happy to say that the customizable fighter got past the test packets and into the game.  In interviews, the Dev team talks about how with 4th people complained all the classes worked the same, just had different descriptions, something I've seen to be true.  So with this one, the entire set up of classes works more like the Sorcerer and Wizard dynamic did.  Both the Sorcerer and Wizard are magic users in 3.X D&D, but the Sorcerer gets less spells, but can cast them without preperation, where was a Wizard has to keep books, work up intelligence, and prepare spells before casting them.  Now, with the example of Fighter and Barbarian, they approach their stuff just as differently.  Barbarians can use totems to grant them abilities, different spirits grant different attributes.  Fighters work up "expertise" dice, that they can add to their various rolls.  Like you can work up 3 "expertise" dice, and choose to use them to deal damage, or use them to add to a saving throw.  Cool stuff.  In 4th everyone and everything worked the same, the only difference between a fighter and a mage was the type of damage done.

I know... more D&D stuff, sorry, but its the weekend, 3 days of stuff, and it comes throughout the weekend.  Mike Mearles is the newest "almost killed Dungeons and Dragons" person.  There have been many.  He said in an interview that the whole development team was blindsided by the amount of feedback from the community that wanted less tactical and intricate combat, more role playing, and less rules.  BLINDSIDED.  He said that in the past 15 years the team has been working with the assumption that all players wanted more and more and more rules, combat, and less "fluff" and then 4th Edition is much clearer to me now.  Mearles and crew have been living in this insane little bubble, their own home groups of players, and thought everyone thinks like they do.  The Chris Perkins Penny Arcade games, the game store Encounters sets, the erasure of role playing tips from 4th Ed books, ALL these makes sense now, and it all rests firmly on Mike's head.  He thinks everyone plays like he does.  We'll see if the changes to 5th stay, or if they were just the best ideas of the guys that left WOTC last year after all the real work was done.  Dungeons and Dragons in the hands of people that don't understand the fanbase is nothing new.  In over 30 years, its been in the hands of good players maybe 6 of them..  If he runs it more into the ground, I really hope Hasbro will just sell it to Paizo so we can have a grand reunification.

There are only a few franchises that I enjoy as much as the Mad Max franchise.  When I played Fallout 3, i disappeared for a month... not playing Fallout 3, I was playing a Mad Max simulator, the closest I've had come to experiencing that world.  It was one of the greatest gaming experiences I have ever had.  When it comes to non-fantasy RPG playing, my favorite worlds are Mad Max style worlds, and one of the reasons I love Savage Worlds so much is because it does post-apocalyptic car chase combat so damn well.  I am extremely excited for the new Mad Max: Fury Road, and I've already watched the trailer several times each day.  I think the last movie that I was this excited about without reservation was The Dark Knight.  There have been other good movies since, and movies I've been excited to see, but none gave me the feeling like Mad Max now does.  Its a feeling I haven't had since I worked at a movie theater.

BBQ spaghetti is wonderful.  I have like spaghetti in the past, but its not generally something I go out of my way for.  In fact, spaghetti is on my list of things I never want to pay for in a restaurant.  Home spaghetti is better, cheaper, and more plentiful.  Anyway, BBQ spaghetti is great, and you should try some if you like the flavors.  I take the easy way out and get a batch of "Lloyd's BBQ" at the store and use that.  Just make your spaghetti noodles, and add your BBQ, mix up and enjoy.  The BBQ sticks to the spaghetti much better and actually makes it less of a mess to eat.

Gaming Memory Friday, and July 24th, 2014

Gaming Memories 03: Nintendo Cereal

(same post at my Gaming Blog)

When I was a kid, my mother would go to where my dad worked and pick up his check so that she could go to the grocery store.  I had relatives that lived right near where my father worked, so we would always stop by there and pay them a visit.  They always had some form of the "mascot" cereals and we'd always be there around breakfast time.  It was there that I found Boo-berry and Count Chocula, Fruit Bruit and Yummy Mummy cereals.  But it was also there that I first saw this:

Some say that rampant and reckless consumerism hit its peak in the 1980's... and I say those are people that grew up in the 70's.  Everyone thinks their childhood era is the "correct" one, and I happen to have fond memories of all the marketing directed at me in the 80's.  Everything from McDonalds to super sugary cereals, it was all magical and fun and since it was MY childhood, I think its better than the garbage they have now(waves his cane stick around).

Stale old boxes of this still show up on Ebay from time to time.  I'm not much of a collector myself, so I'd be happy with a reproduction box full of Styrofoam, just so I can take it out and remember when I wanted it more than anything else in the world lol.  You have to hand it to the people that made this stuff though, they look like they were actual fans of the series.  Even the music in the commercial is some Super Mario Brothers music put to some of the greatest lyrics of all time.

Check out that top right corner.  Its healthy!  They still do that today.  Load up 3x as much sugar as a can of soda, and sprinkle some vitamin dust into the batter, and we got ourselves some health food!  Still, ever since the 1930's, trashy kids cereal has been a part of "American" childhood.  I see no reason to force shredded wheat down a kid's throat.(weird aside, I've always preferred boring grown up creals, to this day my favorite is Product 19).

I guess in 30 years we'll be having people remembering Angry Birds chewy fruit snacks.

July 24th, 2014

Weird Al is saying this may be his last "traditional" kind of album, and I totally understand why he would want to stop that.  These days, everyone is in on the parody bandwagon, and you just can't wait 2-4 years before releasing your material.  Its pop music after all, its designed to interest you till you pay for the album, then get out of the way so their next artist can sell you something, its not meant to last.  I was reading that he had some up with a song making fun of "Let It Go" when he saw Frozen in the theater, it was "Make it So" a song about Star Trek the Next Gen, and Picard's catch phrase.  By the time he got in the studio, someone else had done the exact thing and released it on Youtube.  So as you can see, he wants to release material much quicker so that he can keep relevant and so that other people don't beat him to the punch on things.  I think the "8 Songs in 8 Days" video thing was him testing how hard it would be to make a quality video for a song he's doing.  Still... I bet his "Make it So" song would've been awesome.  Maybe he'll B-side it some time.

I like Duncan Jones.  He's the son of David Bowie, and has real practical talent as a movie maker... at least from the first few movies he's done.  Anyways, I like that he actively got them to agree to call his next movie "Warcraft" and to focus on the story of the past games.  Almost everyone before was ready to slap "World of Warcraft" on some mediocre fantasy garbage(SNAAAAAAIIIILLLLSSS!!!) and print some money, but Blizzard ain't no fool and Blizz don't give a fuck if there is never a movie.  They waited, and I really hope that deciding to let Duncan do his thing on the Warcraft movie will be a positive thing.  He's already gotten me from "no giving one care" to "anticipating".  Check out Duncan Jones' homage to 60's scifi with "Moon" and see his work with practical effects.  Disregarding Joss Whedon, Duncan Jones was my pick for the new Star Wars movie because of how good Moon was.

90% of DNA does "nothing" scientists find.  Look, I'm not a doctor, I don't science for a living, but this kind of stinks of another thing you'll be reading on tons of sites I'm sure: Lucy has unlocked more than 10% of her brain!  Yes, another movie about the "scientific fact" that we do not use 100% of our brain.  Evolutionary adaptation doesn't typically work like that.  Sure, there is an appendix, but the difference between an appendix and the most advanced anything ever found yet anywhere is vastly huge.  Really the only reason this movie is getting any business is because Morgan Freeman is basically narrating the trailers as if its an episode of "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman".

Three Defining Features: D&D 5th, July 23rd, 2014

3 Defining Features: Dungeons and Dragons 5th (Basic)

(Same Post at my Table Gaming Blog)

3 Defining Features is how I give the quick summary of what a gaming system is about.  Its designed for people that know a little bit about table top RPG's, but perhaps are not GM's.  It presents what I deem are the 3 defining features of a game for quick assessment by the reader, without getting into the rules, math or details.

Defining Feature #1: D20 Base

This is Dungeons and Dragons that feels like Dungeons and Dragons.  This is accomplished by being rooted in 3.X's D20 system.  Grid combat and 4th Edition ability systems are thrown out and we go back to the evolution of 1st(through Unearthed Arcana), 2nd(through revised) and 3rd's game systems.  You have your 6 Abilities, you have saving throws(though now based on your 6 abilities), you have DC checks.  Your characters level, and have a class.  Combat is a round consisting of turns taking in initiative order.  You roll D20 to make your attacks, to make your saving throws, and to determine outcomes of various types.  You characters have hitpoints and fight with monsters to reduce one side's hit points to zero before the other.  You have armor classes and dexterity bonuses for avoiding damage.  If you've played Dungeons and Dragons, you pretty much know how it goes.

Defining Feature #2: Advantage and Disadvantage

When I read people's reactions to Advantage and Disadvantage at first, they think its just a simple re-roll gimmick.  They assume its a Savage Worlds "Benny" mechanic or some sort of Fate thing.  They are right to an extent, but what you're not prepared for is how pervasive the Advantage and Disadvantage system permeates the game.  Basically you roll 2D20.  If you have Advantage, you take the higher number.  If you have Disadvantage you must take the lower number.  You think this is mainly for combat, and you'd be wrong.  If you help someone with a skill, you give them Advantage.  If you get distracted, you get Disadvantage.  See in the dark?  Advantage.  Dwarf inspecting Dwarf ruins?  Advantage.  If another player inspires you, you get to use Advantage.  So much math and sub-system equations are eliminated by the use of Advantage and Disadvantage.  The best part?  It scales PERFECTLY.  In former games, if you get a +2 for helping, eventually you out-level that, and a system has to be placed in so that at higher levels you get more.  At low levels a -2 to hit on a creature is a huge deal, but later you basically ignore it.  With Advantage and Disadvantage, they stay the same from level 1 to level 30.  Having disadvantage sucks just as much at high levels as low levels, without the need for modifiers.  Having Advantage is awesome no matter when you get it.

Defining Feature #3: Backgrounds

The new character creation system was invented to satisfy the old fans and the new when it comes to role-playing.  A full new genre of games is very popular, and there's an argument that "story telling" games are a rejection of the miniature wargame style rules of D&D 4th.  Role Playing gets put back into the game with 5th.  When you make a character, you choose a Background.  These Backgrounds supply an origin story, a personality, an ideal to live by, and a flaw that hinders you.  Maybe you are a folk hero, a peasant that saved a town through your brave action.  Maybe you are a criminal, a forger of documents that guilds turn to for their services.  Maybe you were raised in a demon church and now reject their teachings.  Backgrounds are great and they affect your choices for skill and equipment use, and guide you in making your decisions while playing.  I can see companies making entire books of backgrounds with the random tables that help you create your character as presented in the Basic PDF.  I would buy it, and I know many others that would as well.   As presented, Backgrounds are more guidance than hard rule, but with a few tweaks you will have your Role Playing tied to your Roll Playing very easily.

July 23rd, 2014

So for some reason, Japan is going absolutely bonkers for french fries.  I do not mean that they are suddenly really popular, or that they are taking french fries to new heights of culinary bliss... they have an obsession with large amounts of french fries.  Teenagers and 20somethings have started a trend of getting a huge tray and making a mountain of french fries that everyone at the table eats.  Now, I know what you're saying "aren't you the one that says foreign "weird" stories are exaggerated and sensationlist" but... I mean, McDonalds has gotten on the bandwagon, selling french fries at huge discount so that fans of this trend can achieve their vast fields of fries.  Now I am reading that entire restaurants of "all-you-can-eat" french fries are starting to open up where this trend is popular.  The trend is gaining enough traction to support whole businesses.  On a side note; Japanese all-you-can-eat restaurants are known as Viking Lunch in many places.  The Japanese man that popularized the buffets thought that Smorgasbord was too hard for people to say, so he named it Viking since that's where the vikings come from the area.

You know, I've finished much of the Arcade Project in my other blog already.  In it I tried to convince myself that Gauntlet Legends is the way to go for the big multiplayer game.  I mean, I've got the set up figured out to have my favorite beat'em up on a larger screen, and with all the players.  Gauntlet Legends has replay value like Diablo has replay value, plus another cool thing about it I'll leave for when I post it up top.  But the thing is... little got me as excited about video games as the original Ninja Turtles arcade game.  So, I think I have to concede that in my own personal arcade, I would totally have to shell out the ridiculous price for a 4 player Ninja turtle arcade.  Its just that when I see Gauntlet Legends I'm going to think of my teenage job at a movie theater.  When I see Ninja Turtles, I'm 10 years old at Walmart and have more quarters that I could ever imagine.

Wow.  So did you know that experts of the subject are convinced that they have ashes, remains and posessions of Buddha are real?  I just watched a documentary on Netflix about it.  Now, believe me, I've watched enough documentaries to know they are colored in the favor of whatever the film maker wants you to believe, but apparently outside of the documentary, many are convinced that relics found at Piprahwa have a high chance of being the remains thanks to things like period correct carved heiroglyphics, and period correct records of the time, and everything matching up.  Like, there are relics of Christianity that are believed to be real by millions, but almost no evidence exists to make many of them even remotely accurately placed or verified.  There are enough "true nails" of the Crucifixion to build a house.  Peter the Apostle apparently needs 5 arms to supply the amount of finger bones claimed to be his.  There's like 5 Spears of Destiny and somehow they all traveled time so that First Century Romans somehow got weapon technology a thousand years advanced from themselves.  Real, credible scientists and scholars claim that the relics, the writing, the materials date to the correct time, only stopping short of saying the ashes and bones are real since we can not DNA test them against anything.  Only that if everything else is authentic, we're as close as we will ever be able to get to verifying.

Arcade Project 05: MAME Upright and July 22nd, 2014

Arcade Project 05: MAME Upright

(Original Post at my Gaming Blog)

MAME is practically a must have for any home arcade.  MAME itself is 100% legal and there are legal avenues you can take to get a ton of licensed games.  What MAME does is it emulates old arcade hardware on your computer.  The team originally set up MAME so that arcades of the past could be catalogued and not lost to time.  Every effort is made to get the sound, graphics, and everything documented and set up.  MAME machines come many ways and cost $2500-3000 for a completely pre-made, working out of the box, all in one solution.  If you are willing to put in some elbow grease and you know the right vendors, you can get an amazing one built for about $1000.  Here's how.

RecRoomMasters is a website I have had bookmarked for many a year, because I do one day want to use their products for my own personal machine.  They sell cabinet shells with nothing in them, and they do it at a moderate price with what I've read is high quality designs.  You have options here.  You can get uprights with shelves so you can just sit a TV on top.  They make mini-systems that are made to fit on counter tops.  I want the classic design with enclosed screen, and those run only $300.  They also do this really nice thing where they cut the control board to accept "drop in" solutions to arcade controllers.  Some people scoff at X-Arcade for not using Japanese buttons and switches, but this MAME machine will not be the fighting game machine, it'll be the all around "catch all" arcade experience.  You can get the dual-tank stick for 2 players for $99 from X-Arcade, and there's no weird wiring requirements, or self assembly.  You can even just lift it out of the machine and use it on your coffee table, its versatile.

The insides are rounded out with a budget of $150 for a screen.  You have to have a 22 inch screen with this cabinet, and I would prefer IPS with 5ms timing.  Monitor prices change all the time, but as of now I can get that for under budget.  Just remember you need the back connectors to connect flush to fit this arcade cabinet.  For $50 you can get a decent set of speakers with a subwoofer.  Finally, MAME for the most part doesn't require alot of processing.  Anything done in 3D will not use a video card, so spending a ton for one is not practical, also MAME does not do multi-processors well.  I am good at electronic, I can even computer, but listing parts would be no help as it would be obsolete in 6 months.  A refurb from Newegg generally comes with keyboard and mouse and a good warranty.  I say give yourself $300 and try and get in Intel with as big a hard drive as you can find.  I was lucky in that there are some great sub-200 buck deals right now.

Lastly, RecRoomMasters is great again, they have custom graphics printing options... and they even do the removable, reusable vinyl materials!  This is important for me, as I'll get the itch and want to change how the arcade looks after a while.  For the remaining $200 you can get custom bezels, control, and full side art done from them.  If you don't care so much about custom art, use that money to upgrade your X-arcade to have a 4 way stick added, and a trackball.  $1000 for an arcade like this is not that bad when you look at the inflated prices people are charging for arcades at specialty "vintage" websites.  Its also less stressful than hitting up the Craigslist slot machine of crazy.  85% of the experience you're after can be found using MAME.  The classics are cheaply bundled, you will have no problem finding Pacman, Frogger, Dig Dug and the like.



July 22nd, 2014

Sword Art Online kind of took a weird turn about half way through the series.   I think they were perhaps not super popular in Japan and so they "mainstreamed" it up or something.  It was as if the show started out with great ideas, and once the ratings came in they said "we need to add boobs... a weird WEIRD love triangle story, and something with tentacles".  I still stand by saying that MMORPG fans would get a kick out of the first big story arc, so if you're squeamish about popular trends from Japan, just watch till Episode 14 and say "ok, Disney ending".

With Sword Art Online, and we're about to start Records of Lodoss War(which I"ve seen, but my girl hasn't, and I want it to be her "first" good fantasy anime so she can use it to compare to others), I am knee deep in wanting to play some Dungeons and Dragons.  I came up with calling this D5D instead of D&D 5th, I'm sure I"m not the first.  Like I said, I was going to do a big post on it, but I guess talking a little bit here isn't so bad.  Apparently 4th Edition did have some good things about it, and one of them was the Proficiency rule, and this carries over into 5th.  See, in D&D 3rd, one of the biggest streamlining things was to make all +'s good and all -'s bad.  That's intuitive and there are many people that do not realize this was not the case before.  Well in 3rd, almost everything was a base of -2 or -4 if you tried to do it without training.  The thing is, a character will have more untrained than trained skills, so basically everything they try starts with the added math of doing that negative number.  With 4th and 5th, everyone starts at a base of no modifiers.  Instead you have a Proficiency score that gets added to things you do that are trained.  Instead of applying negative 2 to 90% of actions, you just add the bonus to the 10% you're trained to do.  Its actually really nice.

I'm at the calm before the first storm in FF6.  The banquet scene has come and gone.  Wow, this game is just one iconic scene after another.  I think stuff like this was probably eclipsed by ChronoTrigger's court room scene, but the banquet of FF6 was still really cool for its time.  Basically you have a series of things you can do, and a multitude of questions to answer that can affect how the game plays later.  This was big in JRPG's, and rare in a world before Bioware.  Your choices at this Banquet affected the freedom of several towns, and had a bearing on the tone of the game for a while.  You could answer questions by how you felt or you could try and be diplomatic, it was up to you, and it felt good to have choice.  I always bring Cyan as the representative of Doma, it just feels "right".  After the events that unfold, you have a "sandbox" type section and the freedom to go anywhere to prepare for the next big confrontation.  That's where I am right now.

Arcade Project 04: Ball Decisions and July 21st, 2014

Arcade Project 04: Ball Decisions

(Larger Post at my Gaming Blog)

 What you see there is the new "standard" of these kinds of things.  Its easy to stash a lot of those in a truck, there's not a lot of maintenance, and they're cheaper all around.  They also did not exist much in my childhood, and on top of that they are not very versatile.   If one of those were to break(which happens), then the other two are sitting by an ugly unused one with an "out of order" sign on it.  I much prefer the classic, and to be honest you only spend another hundred or so, and then you can do things like mix and match colors and designs.

Looking at manufacturers, I think I want to get a mix of 2 styles, but in the same decor.  I want two of the "1 inch" dispenser types that let you use gumballs and bulk candy like runts.  In fact, that's probably the two I will have.  Everywhere I went had the "Runts" candies inside, and for good reason; they last forever.  They are also very hard and will not tend to break into pieces as much as sweet tarts and the like.  Some people like super sour gumballs, but not me, I want the regular looking ones, though I may get tropical flavors.  Face it, this is going to be free, I don't want the candy to be "too" good.  Besides, I love hearing "omg, I broke my tooth on a banana"

That leaves me 2 machines that I will order to use the 2 inch "shells" for toys.  I loved collecting a couple of things in my childhood.  I remember the little plastic men you could get in the machines that you would put in water and they'd expand and get bigger.  I remember the sticky hands that you could slap and sling against walls, and the ones filled with goop and slime.  For some reason, despite me not ever liking Football all that much, I collected the football helmets.  I am not sure what I'd have(I know some of you are screamin' HOMIES!), but for sure two of the machines would be for the shell toys.

Not going Ebay with these.  Its just too nice to be able to get custom features(like token use instead of quarters, custom colors, or free spin so you don't need quarters at all).  It looks like for 4 custom made machines and a steel "no tilt" frame to lock them in to is around $300, and these things will outlast my life time, so I think that's pretty damn nice.

July 21st, 2014

Again with the Anime side of things.  I watched the first episode of Sword Art Online.  The show is a bit ridiculous on the premise, and its definitely not the first to tread its territory, but it doesn't matter, I still couldn't help but like what I saw.  The people doing the English version are MMORPG fans, as whenever there's crowds you can hear them shout things that only MMO players would get a kick out of(someone yelled "is this an event?" when a GM appeared).  I guess that's not all that special after World of Warcraft opened the floodgates and now 10's of millions of people play MMO's, but still its nice to see people that like their stuff working on bringing us neat stuff too.  Anyways, the first episode does what all of us that played MMO's have done, get taught how to play by someone that knows more than us.  I remember when Daveron taught me the basics of Everquest, and gave me a magic tagged sword so I could kill things that gave other people trouble(Will o wisps were nothing big, but they could only be damaged by magic weapons).  Anyway, its really cool that it opens like that, and will surely give any MMO fan some memory flashbacks.

I pretty much hate anything to do with "free to play" games.  I would rather have 2 or 3 complete and done games that I can play to its fullest than have 10,000 free to play games that nibble at you here and there.  So the fact that Google will stop saying games with in-app purchases are "free to play" in Europe I think is a good step in the correct direction.  Free to play, especially in the MMORPG world, has been nothing but a disaster on the communities it gets involved with.  LOTRO is limping along reusing assets and set pieces, tacking on new areas because they can't guarantee a future to any developers working on the thing.  I'm sure they got a good injection of cash at the start of the free-to-play era, but it can't be as strong as Moria was.  Almost all the expansions I see to games that have gone "free to play" are limp rehashes of other areas rearranged in other configurations.  Now if we could just get retailers to start labeling EA's bullshit like Simcity and the new Sims4 as something other than "full retail purchase" we might see some consumer rights work done.

I'm reading through the Dungeons and Dragons "Basic" PDF, that you can get HERE legit and 100% legal.  The Basic set is a small introduction and instruction booklet for D&D that will get you going.  It is limited compared to the full game, but will let you get to level 20 with the included material.  The base 4 classes are represented; Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Rogue along with the races of Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling.  There's plenty here for you to make your own sub-classes if you wished, btw.  I'm into character creation right now, and I have to say that bringing in story telling help with character creation is great, and that it ties into answering a lot of questions for players makes it even better.  Your skills, your starting equipment and even your motivation is tied to answering these Background questions, and it reminds me a lot of "Kits" from 2nd Edition D&D.  I'll have a huge write up about Basic later on when my que clears.

Weekend of July 18th, 2014

Weekend of July 18th, 2014


Finished the 2nd season of Orange is the New Black this weekend.  I have to say that I like the direction the show went this season and I hope they keep it up.  With a couple of characters backtracking to be more like themselves before their season 1 "awakening" episode, I was worried I would not like this season.  The main addition to the cast is Vee, and I have to say that the actress they picked does her job well, you'll hate this character.  It does not matter who you liked in the cast, this woman will screw them up or screw with them, and you'll not like it.  While the end does leave several things cliffhanging, it is pretty satisfying.  The show is really bad about not letting "good" things happen very often, but they let us have a couple of "good" things by the end, just enough to keep us interested in a 3rd season without saying "fuck this show" like a few other shows I won't mention just take and take and take.  If you liked Season one, you'll love season 2... unless you actually watched the show for Piper, because they tone down her spotlight quite a bit, and IMO it was smart to do so.

Garm Journaleests strike again with 8 JRPG's better than Final Fantasy 7 .  Final Fantasy 7 goes into cycles, and I guess we're on a "its overrated" cycle among the blogger "journalist" crowd at the moment.  Give it 6 months.  Anyway, the list is: Skies of Arcade, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Cross, Front Mission 3, Persona 4, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy 6.  Now, I have to agree that Xenogears, ChronoTrigger, and Final Fantasy 6 are probably better than 7, but it is extremely debatable that they're all tied... with Xenogears being the one truely flawed one(despite being my favorite RPG of all time).  Mario RPG... while great... has all the emotional impact of a Mario game.  Did any of you cry during Mario 3?  Were you actually worried about the Princess in any Mario?  Didn't think so.  Persona 4 gets on a lot of lists of greatest RPG since the 90's, and while its not my cup of tea, I have to agree it has had a huge impact and was a torch barer for RPG's through the later PS2 era.  What doesn't need to be on here is that turd of a game called Chronocross.  If Chronocross made the list suspect, the lack of Suikoden 2 makes the whole thing invalid.  8 RPG's on the list, 7 great games that JRPG fans should play, and 1 that should be stricken off the record forever.  None of them "clearly" better than FF7.

We've already established that sometimes titles of things from Japan go through a mangled translation and come out seeming silly.  Bubblegum Crisis is one of those.  I had always thought this show was a part of a very large group of shows that would be too large for me to get into, but come to find out that its actually very manageable.  The made exclusively for TV series "Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 is actually a good "stand alone" series.  Meaning, you can watch it, like it, and not need to watch anything else to be satisfied.  So I found this out and watched the first episode, and really really enjoyed it.  Bubblegum Crisis is actually a very strong Cyberpunk series.  Its right up there with Cyberpunk 2020, Neuromancer and Bladerunner.  This series, done in 1996, has a lot of callbacks to the previously mentioned stuff, but the manga was being drawn right alongside the others as they were created as well.  It "gets' cyberpunk being about style and moral choices and all that.  It is far from the "power rangers meets sailor moon" show I thought it might be.  Its real cyberpunk.  If you liked Appleseed, this too will be something you want to check out.  I'll be finishing the series when I get in my next Cyberpunk mood, right now i'm knee deep in fantasy thanks to D&D 5th(more on that later this week perhaps).

Earlier I have talked about using cauliflower for a rice replacement in dishes.  Its not not a substitution, its an alternative to make some wonderful new dishes you've never tried before.  Well this Saturday we had turkey sweedish meatballs with cauliflower and gravy.  Canned gravy is a hell of a lot less calories than home made(I was taught mostly in French styles... so yea, probably 1/100th the calories of the way I make gravy), and you throw in a can of mushrooms and you're golden.  The cauliflower mixed with the gravy is AMAZINGLY good.  I did not miss the rice, and felt the cauliflower actually added some flavor to the dish compared to the average non-Jasimine rice or egg noodles that would normally go with something like that.  There's a lot more "comfort food" this means that will work since cauliflower goes so well with gravy, I'll keep you updated as me and my girlfriend come up with new ways of using it.

Gaming Memories: Adventures of Link and July 17th, 2014

Gaming Memories 02: Adventures of Link?

(original post HERE at my gaming blog)

VIP Video was the kind of small business rental place that I hear so many people talk about when giving game memories.  It was the local "we're cheaper than Blockbuster" store and was the first place I was ever able to rent a game from.  When we were handed the membership card, the first thing I did was make a line to the video game section and look at what they had.  In the early days, I was restricted to what I got on Christmas, and what my cousins owned.  So getting to see the "new" games on the wall was really exciting.  The first to catch my eye was:

When I got home... holy crap what was this?  The game was like a map without monsters... wait, so you go into the thing and suddenly we're... Mario style?  No, more like NES Rambo style.  Well maybe it is still good.  I was hopeful for my first rental, so I tried.  Wow.  Wow.  This game was bad.  This game was so bad, I started inspecting things like the cartridge.  Sure it was gold, but I think it was an off color gold, not exactly like Zelda was, right?  Since when did Link have a magic meter?  And where the hell are the heart containers for the health?  Why was the art style suddenly trying to be realistically proportioned?

I came to the conclusion that the game was a bootleg.  Not a true sequel by the people that made the original  I know it is hard today to understand how I could think that, but back in the late 80's and early 90's, we could still get the shady junk from the far east.  You can now go and download roms of things like Sonic the Hedgehog, hacked into another game and sold as a real Sonic game for the NES.  They come on real cartridges.  There was also the Tengen games that were not licensed to be sold on the NES and were real sketchy games as well.  So that's what I concluded, must be a bootleg.  I know its almost silly now to think that something with a huge name like Zelda could have a bootleg, it would be like someone making a Halo 2 without Microsoft's permission, but that kind of stuff happened in Japanese imports with Manga, Anime, and video games all the time back then.


July 17th, 2014

So in Final Fantasy 6 there were 3 gods that descended to the world to have a war among themselves.  Mortals were recruited by the gods and given special powers to perform duties that the gods dictated.  They became unwilling, yet powerful, servants to these gods.  That is how "magic" and "espers" were born.  That sounds a little familiar to me... oh, yea, it sounds a lot like the relationship of the Fal'Cie and I'Cie in Final Fantasy 13.  I did not realize this while playing through 13, but its pretty cool that they give a call back to one of the earlier pre-7 games.  It is said that the gods grew weary and released the Espers from their bonds and gave them free will again, and then they turned themselves into stone.  Its only a small jump to see that as crystal instead of stone.  Its a neat little connection.

Legend of the Legendary Heroes.  Go ahead, giggle, its the real title of the anime I watched.  Still looking for good stuff, and you know... you could do worse than Legend of the Legendary Heroes.  The show is a bit goofy, situated somewhere in the same neighborhood of silly as Trigun.  It is a fantasy Anime with wizards, knights, priests, etc, and the Legendary Heroes are a set of proto-gods that brought order to the chaos at the start of time.  The show is, so far, about a couple of royal guards that are searching for relics of these Legendary Heroes.  One is a womanizing pretty boy mage, and the other is a smart ass sword wielding samurai-like warrior.  The animation is good quality, I would compare it to Full Metal Alchemist in quality, and the effects they use for magic is really cool too.  I'm definitely putting it on my list of "could watch".

Microsoft dropped their Xbox Originals media division yesterday after only 3 months of existence.  A lot of the stuff in development is cancelled, and for the most part I do not think we lost anything of value.  They seemed pre-occupied with reality TV.  The guy that ruined GAME_JAM and made headlines is also the guy behind all the Mountain Dew placement and programming in Xbox "bro-gamer" culture for the past decade, so the fact that the high ups at Xbox love the shit out of reality TV ideas doesn't surprise me.  The one bad thing coming out of this news is that probably the "Deadlands" show development was cancelled too.  Deadlands is a steampunk/weird west sort of setting about the supernatural taking over the world in the late 1800's.  It had potential, and it would have given more exposure to Savage Worlds as a game platform.  A lot of "almosts" when it comes to Savage Worlds these days, as I think Wil Wheaton has backtracked on using Savage Worlds for his RPG side project with TableTop.  Still, Shane and company might have dodged a bullet instead of lost an opportunity.

D&D Art Eras and July 16th, 2014

Dungeons and Dragons Art Eras

(Expanded post at my tabletop blog)

1970's

This is pre-history for me.  I see some of the left overs of this artwork in some of the stuff I own, but this was never the "great" old days for me.  In fact, I very much dislike it.  Though, I do understand it.  This was the era of "Indie" Dungeons and Dragons, when friends and family did the artwork for Gygax.  With success came art budget.

1980's

The majority of my RPG books I inherited came from the 1980's.  The Basic set gave me a standard of excellence that a lot of the earlier stuff could not live up to(both in writing and artwork).  This was the era of the Dragonlance artists doing work for the entire line of Dungeons and Dragons.  High quality oil paintings that belong in museums.  Armor that was at least partially rooted in reality.  Metal had "weight", leather had texture, and the dragons looks real.  This is the D&D in my mind, even when playing in other eras.

2000's

The revised 2nd Edition of D&D became encyclopedic and returned to a more basic style.  The artwork for novels continued to be the stellar 80's style, but there was a discourse between them.  With 3rd Edition's release, we got a new style that some call "comic book".  I call it a combination of Anime and Super Hero.  The armors' only concern is that it looks cool.  There are buckles, bags, clasps, and belts all over everyone.  The weapons are generally exaggerated.  The colors, while abundant, many times lack definition.  I loved it, and it felt "new", and that's what was needed.  We've now had this look for 15 years.  With 4th Edition, Wizards saw no reason to change things, it probably would cost money.  With Pathfinder, Paizo wanted to inform everyone that 3rd fans should flock to Pathfinder.  Though, to give them their due, the Pathfinder art crew has taken the style to new and amazing heights, and rivals the master painters from the 80's.  What it lacks in "texture", the Pathfinder artists make up for in "motion". 

5 Edition

The theme of 5th Edition is blending old with new, and damn them if they did not get the art pretty much right.  The character design is still more that of the 3rd Edition stylings, but the artwork itself has the "solid" feel of the 80's super realistic stuff.  The stone here looks "rough", the metal looks "solid", and the creatures look "slick".  I have seen scans on some websites of the insides of these books, and the artwork matches the covers in being textured, but fantastic.

July 16th, 2014

Once upon a time The Magitech Factory of FF6 had my favorite music.  It is closest to being some sort of rock/industrial sound, and was pretty modern as far as video game music for 1994.  Also it reminded me of the song at the end of The Maxx, which was popular at the time.  I think the Opera, specifically Celes' theme, or maybe even Dancing Mad(in Orchestral form with a choir) has eclipsed it.  Cyan's theme is in there too, of course.  I think if the 16 bit tech of the time did any disservice to FF6, it is during the Magitech Factory.  I'm not talking about with graphics, the factory itself is really awesome.  The disservice is with the story bits of the Espers inside.  So much more emotion could have been taken from the scenes in the factory, it has got to be one of the saddest parts of a game that doesn't seem to have much put into it for that affect.  Also, I would have loved to have seen more flashbacks to those that would become Magitek Knights before the experiments.  Specifically the generals that I'm trying not to name here, but if you've played, you know who I mean.

Continuing my quest for a new anime to watch, I started up Chrome Shelled Regios.  The cover art for it looks really good, and I like the name of the series too.  At first it started out with some sort of DBZ/Naruto thing where everyone had a radically different designs, and every move of their finger had a super long name like "rising knee of shining justice slice!" and such.  I have to say... that was not a very promising start for me.  The animation though, wow.  The animation is some of the best for a high action series, there was no stuttering in the CGI assisted scenes, and the movements were smooth.  Then... it went into a highschool/academy kind of thing, and for good measure threw in some awkward teenage romance... the nail in the coffin though was the main character.  He was the "mysterious guy that doesn't care despite being obviously the best" guy and I can't stand that.  I later read that they resolved no story arcs by the end of the first season.. and no more seasons were made, so... it looked pretty but that was about it.  Next.

Weird Al is someone I can take in doses.  I appreciate what he does, and his music holds a great place in my life, but there is a huge flaw in it that I have come to realize.  I do not listen to popular music.  In my life there are various reasons why I knew some popular music back in the day.  I knew of Michael Jackson because of The Chipmunks.  MTV played some rock videos once upon a time, and to get to them you had to wait till the pop music ended.  That's probably the main way I knew of non-rock music.  Weird Al makes a living making fun of popular music, and honestly the newest pop music I would understand him spoofing would be "Wrecking Ball", but seeing as how I only know Wrecking Ball because of how many people doing other parodies, he probably thought "its been done".  Despite all of this, I did enjoy his "Foil" video and song.  Sometimes funny stuff is funny even if you don't know what it is a parody of.

Arcade: Dark vs Light and July 15, 2014

Arcade Project 03: Dark vs Light

(based on my post at my  gaming blog)

This is the "classic" game room from the 90's.

This is one of the more bright of the "Dark" room style.  I can totally understand people wanting to have this.  THIS is visually what they remember as younger people.  If I was planning on having a detached garage room, or a full basement conversion, THIS is what I'd aim for as well.  The idea for the concept I'm doing now though is turning an extra room into an arcade room.  The room can't be too outlandish, like you're stepping back into the 80's or 90's, it has to be a room that "belongs" with the home.  I looked at some home theater rooms that did not look "dark" to me.  I came across gold and red rooms that looked like old theaters, and I realized why people like that.  They look great when they're lit up.   So I found myself an easily paintshopped room, and did a series of concepts:

The first one is the room done in dark, and dammit if I don't like it.  Still, like I said, too dark, too otherworldly.  I want to cover those walls in galaxy artwork, I want that ceiling to have a LED star field.  The second one I liked better.   Gold is a bit gaudy for me, and red hurts my eyes in abundance, so I toned both down to wood color and maroon.  Ignore the carpet, its just there for color reasons, I have other carpets I want to try that are not suited for painting into something like this.  Anyway, the 3rd one is my favorite concept and may end up being much more what the room will look like.  I put the accessories down there so I could get a mental image of how they'd look, and it led to me wanting more white in the room.

I have one last room concept I want to try, but it will take a lot of time to do and probably look horrible, but I found a "dark" movie room that I'm obsessed with how nice it looks for how "simple" it actually is.  I want to try and get the concept done in the lighter red/wood/white color scheme.  You may see it.. if it doesn't look like complete garbage.

July 15, 2014

Final Fnatasy 6 has a famous opera scene.  While the game has only a couple of scenes of it, the opera was finished in its entirety by Uematsu(the sound guy), and is thus the first full opera ever written for an interactive medium such as video games.  I remember thinking it was very neat when I first played through the game, but as the years went by, I got "used" to it.  I remember over half a decade back when I played through the game last that I was not very impressed and kind of let down that time hadn't been kind to it.  This time though... this time, when she starts walking up the tower, I lost it.  I saw for the first time what the Opera scene was foreshadowing, and I realized how it was telling me how Maria was NOT Celes, and how their stories contrasted.  I can't go further into it because someone that reads these has not played through FF6 yet.  Its just sad that it may take a 2nd time playing it for anyone to realize how touching and emotional the scene really is.

The EVO Street Fighter 4 champion won with a PS1 controller.  Two of the finalists were controller based players, which is the most ever to get into the top 8.  This year was interesting.  Before EVO, there was a new version of Street Fighter out.  There was a huge fuss over the Japanese players(the primary tournament winners all over the world) calling a lot of characters low tier while Euro and American players were ranking them high.  There was a lot of "Japanese know what they're talking about" stuff going on... and then the Japanese players got knocked out very early... like Daigo, the greatest ever, got 48th.  So the Japanese players got put out by people playing characters they never play against in Japan(literal Japanese Syndrome), and then controller based players make a huge set of gains for their "art".  Unfortunately this means all the news out EVO was not about amazing fights.

I figured I'd take advantage of Netflix having a handful of anime series and so while writing or cleaning, I've had some first episodes playing in the background.  I am not an anime die hard, I'm picky.  Netflix bought "Knights of Sidonia" to be a Netflix "original" to go with its other original programming.  I was disappointed in this show from the start.  The animation is terrible, and the overused CGI is stuttery.  The story is your run of the mill alien invasion story with a boy protagonist who is the only hope to save humanity blah.  The show is very inanimate with no motion a lot of times, or stiff motion, and it just ends up not being very exciting.