Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Dragon’s Curse: Indeed

Published on June 27, 2008 in video games. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

I admit defeat. This game kicked my ass. In my experience, many, not all, but many retro gaming encounters begin with a warm sense of nostalgia, and end in a frustrated bruised and bloody aging gamer crumpled in a heap in front of the television. I’ll definitely be writing about ones that don’t end this way, but I can’t say I’m surprised at this end result.

Back in “the day”, I owned a Sega Master System, and on that system I played Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. It was probably the most memorable game I played on the Sega Master System. It was memorable not just for the Sega Master System, but even for the NES, and to stick in my mind with everything that was going on with the NES was definitely telling about the game. I always thought back on that game and remembered it fondly.

Now, thanks to the power of the Virtual Console, I’m able to play it again. When it was initially released for the Virtual Console, I didn’t recognize it at all, due to the fact that it wasn’t technically Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap for the Sega Master System. The Virtual Console game was simply entitled Dragon’s Curse, and was a graphically enhanced version of the game I knew from the Master System, but released for the TurboGrafx-16 . I did play a few games on the TurboGrafx-16, but never came to this enhanced version.

The gameplay and mechanics were all the same as I remembered. The colors, and the art are great, very imaginative. The unique element in this game was the “Dragon’s Trap” or “Dragon’s Curse”, which transforms you periodically throughout the game into a Dragon-Man (breaths fire), a Mouse-Man (cute and tiny with a small sword, and can climb walls), a Piranha-Man (can swim), a Tiger-Man (can swing his sword in a large vertical swipe), and a Hawk-Man (can fly). These variously cursed animal warriors have their own abilities which allow them to access different parts of the game world. Unfortunately that is not the only element you have to factor in, which I found out the hard way.

When I was young I distinctly remember progressing to the Hawk-Man, but not beating the game. I guess I don’t know what made me think that I was going to beat it this time given the greater challenges: having other games to play, and not being breathless as to what the next screen may hold. This time through I played without much consideration to my stats. You collect and upgrade arms, shields, and armor. These affect your defense points, your attack points, and most crucially your charisma points. I was able to successfully play through the Dragon-Man, Mouse-Man, and Piranha-Man before hitting the stone wall of charisma points. I entered a vicious cycle of not having strong enough stats to beat the next dungeon, but not having enough charisma points to buy implements that would increase my stats. That forced me to grind backwards through the game to collect pieces that I just didn’t need at that previous time. It was a little frustrating, but I still had fun doing it. It was at this time I absolutely had to begin consulting gamefaqs.com. I certainly use it occasionally on last resort, or much frustration,and I’ve read a few of the ascii text walkthroughs there. I have to commend John Yamine a.k.a. Jornibo for writing that thing, because it is invaluable. He also seemed to write it with a good sense of humor. Even after getting all my gear up to speed, and making it as Tiger-Man to the house with the ninjas and samurais, it bested me. That game is tough-as-nails.

Some of those retro games have the logic and difficulty of a dream. Try playing one of your nighttime dreams sometime…and see how far you get.

Girl Talk: More Slammin’

Published on June 27, 2008 in music. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

I think the cool thing about Girl Talk’s micromix exxxtravaganzas is that they are not only genre-hopping, but generation-hopping.

Its been mentioned many times by others in my generation (high school graduating classes in the mid-90′s) that our high school soundtracks are now creeping into “oldies station” territory. It seems more or less that this is the central chronology that the generations in Girl Talk’s albums are sandwiched around. The “oldies” when we were in high school are featured here on the oldest end, followed by our high school soundtrack, and then the confusing hollars of what I guess are today’s many different subtle variations on crunk/party rap music. Stuff like Crank That by Soulja Boy, a track I had almost memorized months before I actually heard a recording of it, due to an excitable elementary school boy I drove last school year. I guess a brief way of putting it, is calling it an audio collage of the history of memorable pop music.

Of course, I would really only use those words to describe his most recent three albums: Feed the Animals, Night Ripper, and Unstoppable. I first heard about him when reading Wired magazine, here is a link to that article. So I went straight to emusic.com and looked him up. I went there looking for Night Ripper, but only found 2002′s Secret Diary. The reviews there on emusic for that sounded interesting: “Sounds broken” and “Artistic wankery”. I’m always down for artistic wankery, so I listened to it and I really liked it. It definitely wasn’t a celebration of pop music like I would describe his recent albums. It seemed more like some kind of commentary or critique on pop music, not a celebration. It was glitchy and experimental, but I still really like it. I wouldn’t mind him exploring more of that at some point, or maybe his starting off with 2 Unlimited on that album biased me, being the 2 Unlimited fanboy that I am.

That being said, ALL of his shit is slammin’, including his new one.

I guess I spend too much time online checking for firmware updates to my iAUDIO 7 mp3 player, because the way I found out that Feed the Animals was even available was via an article in today’s Wall Street Journal. I don’t frequent many music sites. They had a funny quote from Mike Patton in it though, “It is an honor to collaborate with Busta Rhymes.”. So I went straight to emusic.com and it wasn’t there. I’ve purchased some stuff from amazon.com’s mp3 store, so I went there. No luck.

I found out he went all “In Rainbows” with the distribution! Except unlike the bizarre moving rainbow confusion I confronted through Radiohead’s site, Girl Talk’s was super simple. From the site: “any price grants the download of the entire album as high-quality 320kbps mp3s.$5 or more adds the options of FLAC files, plus a one-file seamless mix of the album. $10 or more includes all of the above + a packaged CD (when it becomes available)”
Sweet! FLAC! And a seamless single track to boot! The “any price” option actually instructs you to “name your price”. I paid 5 bucks and downloaded the individual FLACs and also the seamless FLAC. Thing is, you are given the download links and the ability to download before you’ve actually entered ANY information whatsoever. I think five bucks is fair for the options offered, so I paid.

Highlights for me on the album:
Rich Boy Throw Some D’s/Aphex Twin Girl/Boy Song mashup
The Cranberries Dreams/M.I.A. Boys mashup
Deee-Lite Groove is in the Heart/Salt n’ Pepa Push It/Nirvana Lithium mashup

Duck Creek on Friday the 13th

Published on June 13, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

It stormed ALL last night, with constant lightning and hours-long strings of thunder. The chihuahua kept trembling all through the night.The rain kept up as well, and even though we don’t live near the Mississippi, or Rock River, the Duck Creek was causing closures of main arterial streets and Highway 61 (Brady Street). It flooded homes and submerged cars overnight in our neighborhood. A few blocks North and South of us had raging creek water. I guess the least of everyone’s worries is the flooded disc golf course.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSB2H-4csS4&hl=en]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SahENMC3gZ0&hl=en]

Portal (Xbox 360)

Published on June 9, 2008 in video games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Portal introduced a simple concept that affected gameplay so deeply, that it seems like they had to deliver it in as straightforward a manner as possible. You begin in Floor 1, and once done, enter elevator to advance to next floor. Repeat to Floor 19. Even so, it didn’t feel repetitive. Some of the puzzle elements seemed repetitive, but that would definitely fit in with the fictional facility your character is in.

What I especially liked about it, was it seemed like a progression of dungeons from a Zelda game, minus the spectacle of the final boss (they’ve been getting insultingly easier with every new Zelda game anyway). There were no fetch quests, no overworld traversing, just dungeon after dungeon. I was surprised at how entertaining it was just using the portal-opening gun. There were no traditional weapons for the main character to use and almost no enemies, and the enemies that were there, were dispatched with yet another puzzle element instead of running and gunning.

The little room there was in the gameplay-dense experience to advance a story, was well utilized. The story certainly wasn’t too deep, but it had a Twilight Zone twist to it. It reminded me of the feeling I got from watching the 1997 Vincenzo Natali movie Cube, and also the 1969 movie from Jim Henson called The Cube. The game presents itself with realistic sci-fi graphics and setting, similar to the Half-Life 2 game also on the Orange Box disc. I like the clinical, white, and cube structured rooms. I appreciated the functional use of the dark shiny segments of walls, floors, and ceilings to represent surfaces that cannot accommodate a portal. It was similar to how the blocks are used in Mario games to indicate breakable vs. unbreakable blocks. The whole game felt like a real evolutionary step in gameplay, while still trying to use conventional gameplay cues and settings to ease you into it.

It was short, especially in comparison to the Half-Life 2 game on the disc with it, but it also never felt like a compulsory trudge.

My recommendation: Buy It.

“No I don’t watch T.V.”

Published on June 1, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I’ve noticed that the answer “I don’t watch T.V.” is never in response to any kind of a question along the lines of  “Do you watch T.V.?”. For instance, “Hey have you seen 30 Rock!”, response:”No, I don’t watch T.V..”. Didn’t ask if you watched television asshole, asked if you watched 30 Rock.

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