Mannakun: this is how my experience with the AWESOME heavy rain demo went
Mannakun: Cop pulls up in a car
Mannakun: the game tells me to open the door slowly so I can see how it affects the animation speed
Mannakun: and refuses to let me open the door quickly anyway
Mannakun: then I guide a fat man down an alleyway and a couple QTE events (that occur in rather leisurely time)
Mannakun: then it tells me to hold L1 to hear his thoughts
Mannakun: the word ASTHMA appears over his head, then I quit
F that.
There was a Calvin&Hobbes strip once where Calvin was going to write a book called “A Million Things That Bug Me.” I could probably write that much about the month of February. Man, I hate February. Mostly for reasons relating to work, as I have to take and organize photos all month long of Black History Month events and guests, Valentine’s Day displays, and of course, the month being just short enough I get one less week to save rent. I haven’t exactly been in love with all the snowfall, either, even though snow doesn’t usually bother me. I spent the better part of a week stuck in my apartment and the surrounding block or so since the lot and sidewalks didn’t get shoveled off, which kind of helped my drawing and picking at projects out, in a way. A sanity depleting way.
I swear I’m working on something good, by the way. This is an “I’m not dead” post.
I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire…
Or… do I?
Last day of vacation here, it’s been a pretty good ‘catch-up’ break for me so hopefully that means the end of the site’s dry spell. I’ve finished chapter 24 of Revolver and updated the first timers’ summary page if anybody’d like to give the comic a shot but don’t have time to read the whole archive right away. There’s also been a few tweaks to the character page, mainly removing incidents of the word ‘mysterious’ for characters whose motivations and natures were revealed months and months ago. Chapter 25 starts Friday. And with a totally different set of characters.
The scene change goes nicely with me being sick of drawing Kenji in his little Sol Badguy headgear thing. (Technically it’s a ‘modern’ Surrenian Army visor, but who paid that much attention to Z’s flashback chapter anyway?)
(Once I ‘fix’ the RK hub page, the comic related blurbs will probably stay there for the most part since I know there’s a subset out there who think the comic promotions are kind of annoying and just want to see more gaming stuff.)
On that note, and since I’ve saving my vinegar for full length pieces, I’ve been enjoying the daylights out of Macross Ultimate Frontier for the PSP, something of a delayed Christmas gift from Jake (longtime readers might be getting the impression I’ve pretty much only got one friend in real life, and that’s a blatant mistake- I have three!) The ‘giant robot’ genre of action gaming is bizarrely empty of quality titles, especially if the stuck-in-the-cockpit perspective of Mechwarrior isn’t your cup of tea. MUF does a pretty admirable job of recreating Macross dogfighting, with missiles twisting everywhere in wild patterns and familiar series background tunes. While the designs in the sequel and prequel series are awesome, the most fun I had was blasting through the classic Macross series since I was a Robotech addict when I was younger. About the only gripe I have for the game is that it looks amazing in action, but when you see the stills on loading screens or when a model moves just the right way, they look really cheesy. Since when you take the poly count down on a Zentraedi battleship, it’s basically a giant death pickle.
Maybe that’s what my next stupid doodle will be. Death pickle. Yeeeeeah.
And So On, And So On
My vacation is drawing to a close, and it’s been a pretty productive one. Well, ‘cept here. I meant to do a game review at some point over the week so I guess tonight or tomorrow.
I could deliver a bit of short form love for now though! I played the free demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, because it was well, free. MGS 1 and 2 were alright, but I got sidetracked from starting into 3 (I snagged that Essentials collection that came out in the pre-MGS4 hype.) I know that the heavy handed symbolism of the series is pretty easy to make fun of, but the characters in the first five-ten minutes of the demo had me doing some Tactical Espionage Facepalming. For one, there’s the “Soldiers Without Borders” program Snake’s apparently started, which sounds a hell of a lot like a special ed program for mercenaries- except they’re not mere hired guns! They just fight for fighting’s sake and occasionally take money for their services. So one day, a college professor shows up to hire him, with his prize student Paz Ortega. “Her name means peace, in Spanish,” he says.
wha-
“Yes, and I would do anything to protect my namesake,” says Paz Ortega.
Snake’s buddy Kazuhara speaks up, “What a coincidence- my name also means ‘peace,’ but in Japanese. But you can call me… Kaz.”
Paz and Kaz. Peace and Peace, in a game called Peace Walker, in a series whose underlying theme is WAR IS BAD.
Ha, ha, ha.
Oh yeah.
I added a Paypal button to the About page in follow-up to that post before last.