Undead and loving it

31 October 06 | 00:01

Hey! It's Halloween. Which means it's traditional for nerdlings the Web over to write about Castlevania. Granted, around here that's also true for the other 364 days of the year BUT WHATEVER

At the moment, my non-FFXII, non-Zelda, non-freaking-out-over-console-launch time is being spent replaying Portrait of Ruin for review (since the copy I blasted through last month wasn't actually reviewable despite reassurances to the contrary. Tch). The differences between the two versions are minor, but still feel pretty significant. I don't think I've ever really appreciated the fine-tuning that games go through before their final release before, but now that I've had a front-row seat to the process I'm surprised by what a difference little things make in the final product. You know -- rebalanced difficult, repositioned enemies, not crashing randomly at the most frustrating moments. That sort of thing.

Anyway, the usual embargoes probably apply, but I should think there would be no harm in mentioning that the tweaks are entirely for the better and that several of the grievances Shane and I aired during our recent 1UP Show chat have in fact been resolved. Like the fact that Charlotte isn't completely useless as the point character anymore, for instance.

The most important thing, of course, is that the series' meticulous attention to completely pointless and trivial details is still in effect. That's been one of Castlevania's high points since the start -- things like the surprisingly consistent and logical architecture in the original game show the extra touches of love that make the best games so good. I keep learning new things about Symphony of the Night, even after nine years and a dozen playthroughs; last week Sharkey told me that certain rare food items can only be obtained with Meal Tickets, and that you can use the Meal Ticket/Duplicator combo to spam the bad guys with food. Who knew? Now Persephone wields the skull-shaped vacuum cleaner, which is brilliant, and there are inscrutible secrets connected to a hidden (but functional) cash register.

Well, time to catch up on my rest so I'm all fresh-faced when I hang with the Regginator. I need to formulate some insightful questions before our interview, and I don't think things like "If Nintendo is all about the Blue Ocean, why is the Wii white?" are going to cut it. Suggestions happily fielded!

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 25 comments | §

National Geographic presents: Our Informative Internet

30 October 06 | 00:00

The Internet tells me that I gave Zelda: Twilight Princess a 9.5 in the upcoming issue of EGM. That's excellent news -- I don't hand out scores that high frivolously, so Zelda must be great. Now I'm really looking forward to finally playing it, which'll happen in... oh, tomorrow.



To clarify, the point of this post is not to incite jealousy (which would be silly -- although nothing in this world is more fun than exploring a massive game world in two terse, business-like sessions packed with sweaty game journalists and lorded over by NOA reps!) but to have a good chuckle at the Internet's expense. Oh ho ho, silly Internet.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 38 comments | §

Nos morituri te salutamus

26 October 06 | 20:45

I went home last night after work and totally made out with my girlfriend. Then I totally played the hell out of the copy of Final Fantasy XII that had just arrived in the mail.

In short, it was a desperate last grasp at joy before everything goes pear-shaped for the holiday rush (the madness of which is intensely compounded by the near-simultaneous launch of two major consoles. Thanks, Sony and Nintendo!). The long-standing tradition of an evening of hedonism and debauchery the night before marching into battle. Of course I'm just a sedate geek, so in my case the hedonism and debauchery amounts to snuggles and a few hours of videogames, but the goal is the same: to remind myself that life is pretty dang good before I'm force-fed a month's evidence to the contrary.

See you guys after Launchageddon.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 27 comments | §

PS3 gets it right?

26 October 06 | 17:11

Suddenly I'm having a little more faith in the PS3 download service. It's not just for demos and repurposed free Flash games, apparently, but will also be serving up quality PSOne games. And -- this is the important part -- not just first-party software. (Because really, there's not that much good first-party Sony stuff out there for PSOne. OH BOY LEGEND OF DRAGOON!) Now I just need to figure out a way to get the Japanese titles on a U.S. systems and I'm golden.

I think the most interesting development here is that they'll apparently be offering the two Konami MSX Antique collections as single downloads. This is pretty surprising, since each of those has something like 20 games apiece, some of which are pretty solid -- Gradius II, Salamander, that kind of thing. These aren't the arcade versions, of course, but some of the better MSX games were on par with the NES ports. And I'm pretty sure you'll be paying for the NES equivalents individually on Wii's Virtual Console. Admittedly there's the small matter of the $350 price difference between the two consoles BUT WHATEVER GUYS

Honestly, I'd rather the PS3 simply upscale my PS1/PS2 games to 480p rather than having to buy them anew, but I guess this is better than nothing. Oh, wait, it's actually not. Since you can't actually play the downloaded PS1 games on PS3 due to Sony not having cobbled together a functional firmware... thingy. Yet.

Thank god. For a minute there I was worried that there was something like competence on display here.

In even worse news, Phil Collins is in Vice City Stories. That would actually be grrrrrreat news except that Rockstar has categorically denied that they'll be porting GTA:VCS to PlayStation 2, and there's no way I'm going to play it on PSP. It's neat that you managed to get a PS2-quality game on the handheld, but what's the point when it's compromised to fit the hardware's interface to the point that every minute spent with it is searing agony? Honestly.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 26 comments | §

Out of country, out of mind

24 October 06 | 10:56

Hey nerds, Scurge Hive really does exist, even beyond developer ROM carts. I know this for a fact because my copy has shipped from NCS, and NCS has never lied to me in the decade-ish we've been doing business. It's a relationship built on trust, yo. To commemorate the occasion, here is a small nugget of linkiness: my 1UP Scurge Hive review, which in retrospect is overlong and ramblesome. Ah, whoops. Old habits.

Between this and Contact, your guilt-induced obscure-but-deserving gaming purchase quotient for the month should be full up. (I'd like to add Touch Detective to that list, but I just can't.) That should leave just enough for you to buy FFXII next week, because seriously, who would want to ignore the best game in the series since (IV/V/VI -- insert your favorite 16-bit entry here)?

Incidentally, I've taken to doing practically all of my non-import game shopping at NCS as well. It's about as pricey as EB Games, sure, but it's 100% less evil and horrible. I'm a big fan of supporting the little guy. Although they probably won't need the help now that Lik-Sang has shuttered its windows while screaming curses about Sony's mom into the night. Admittedly, I never once did business with Lik-Sang due to its high sketchiness factor, and I certainly don't want to jump on the bandwagon of ill-informed nitwits mobilizing to defend/decry Sony, but the precedent set by a court outlawing imports is not at all reassuring. Without import gaming, this stupid hobby would be considerably less entertaining. Hopefully this will be a console exclusive for Lik-Sang and the British high courts alone.

And be sure to pour a 40 in the memory of your UK gaming brethren. Their already meagre games selection just became even worse. You wouldn't think such a thing would be possible, really.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 25 comments | §

Tasty chunks of zine raining like meat from the sky

23 October 06 | 09:24

Mmmm, meat rain.

The middle portion of poor, doomed Issue Six is available for general perusal and abuse. I hope you like footnotes! Actually, I don't. I hope you hate them and that this article reduces you to a quivering, weeping mass. You know, for giggles.

I posted a paean to Medusa yesterday that seems to have received far more interest than it really deserves. Too bad Joystiq's staff is too fumble-fingered to spell my name right -- come on, guys, "Jeremy Pariah" is so GAFtard.

Anyway, please take note! Scurge Hive is out this week for DS and GBA. Really, it is. Sadly, it's not at all the totally awesome game that I had hoped -- my score in the most recent EGM is a good-but-not-amazing 7.0 -- and I know I said I'd take it personally if it that was the case. But I'm feeling clement this week and would like to encourage each and every one of you to at least consider picking up a copy. If nothing else, it's probably going to be produced in teensy quantities and will become one of those stupidly-rare portable games like Ninja 5-0, the IGAvanias and (occasionally) Phoenix Wright. Plus it's actually pretty fun, if a bit repetitive.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 36 comments | §

Castlevania: Madrigal of Overdose

20 October 06 | 13:58

Man, I love me some Castlevania, but this week may have blown even my threshold.

I put in some time on the 1UP Show playing the cynical spoiler to Shane's gushing fanboy. The poor kid is so typecast; he always has to be the defender of the faith as someone else rains on his happy little parade. My opinions for reals can more accurately be summed up with our big honkin' preview, although I'm not entirely sure a preview that goes on for, like, a thousand words can really be considered a summation. But it's almost certainly the first professional article about Castlevania to use the term "hootenanny" (and in fact, Portrait could most accurately be described as a "gol-durn hootenanny") so it's worth reading for that reason alone.

But that's not all! Yesterday Kurt Kalata (master of the Castlevania Dungeon) was in town, so we pulled him aside and filmed a Rondo of Blood/Symphony of the Night episode of Video Retronauts for use at some point in the indeterminate future. By the end of next week I should have footage for four episodes complete, which means that I can get working on the task of producing them regularly. Just as soon as we get past the horror of the next month. Between a billion or so reviews and the agony of two console launches, we're looking at four weeks of serious HRUNGH.

(That's shorthand for "I used to like videogames so why do they make me want to kill myself?")

But wait, there's more!


I've also been working on that copy of Dracula X I bought almost two months ago, finally. Now that I've been able to play more than a couple of levels, I finally understand the general froth -- it's exceptional. It's pretty much just another Castlevania, if you play it straight through. But if you start poking around and breaking things, you start to understand how it evolved into Symphony of the Night. There are useless little secrets everywhere, as well as incredibly useful ones as well. Like fully half the stages, that sort of thing.


It is a little disappointing to learn that a bunch of the features and monsters I thought were unique to Portrait of Ruin are actually recycled from Dracula X. Besides the bosses, I think just about every single sprite from the game has now been reused at one point or another. Think of Dracula X as the majestic bison, and Koji Igarashi as the wise Native America who lets no scrap go to waste. I'm pretty sure that if he could figure out how to turn the skeleton sprite into a bone needle he'd do it.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 28 comments | §

WOW

18 October 06 | 10:06

No, not World of Warcraft. The only thing that burns more than the new Crusade is my continuing apathy for all things MMO. If I'm gonna grind, I want it to be in a game where it means something. (Note: click that link for delectable import... importiness.) No, when I say "WOW" I mean Wheelie McTurtle, here. He's like something out of my stalled Bestiary project. Except real. So awesome.

Less awesome: this week's episode of Retronauts. I even went and planned out a structure for this episode, but it was completely thrown out the window in the first five minutes when everyone rushed ahead and briefly touched on everything without regard for the sequence I had drafted. D'oh!

The Skype element of Retronauts hasn't worked out so well, unfortunately. I think a single phone-in participant is pretty much our max. I still want to focus heavily on community involvement, though, so write me emails or 1UP messaging-service missives about the new podcast, next week's topic, or just whatever. We're going to test a segment in which we read and respond to listener comments, so please facilitate this effort. DO IT. DO IT. DO IT NOW.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | thirteen comments | §

The antithesis of wit

17 October 06 | 15:57

Hey, look! My really poorly written Contact review is now online. Now you can see me reiterate the same points as in yesterday's post, but in a far more verbose fashion. That's professionalism, folks.

I'm two levels from the end of Yoshi's Island DS and completely, insanely stuck. And EGM is breathing down my neck for the final score since their pages ship, like, tonight. I'm still vacillating between a (x).0 and a (x+1).0; the game ____ some things __________ ____ (especially _______ the ____ ___ ____ of ___ _______), but there are other parts that _____ ____ and seem ______ and _________ __________. I'm sure you can appreciate my quandary, yes?

Sorry. I can talk freely about Final Fantasy V Advance, though, since I've been playing the import version rather than an embargoed reviewable. I had really forgotten how good FFV is. Lots of skills, a breakneck pace and delicious music equals a tough combination to top. Plot? Who needs plot? I have a ninja to train, suckers.

I wonder, though. Is it bad that I always turn Lena into my physical powerhouse character simply because she has the best monk and berserker outfits?

P.S.: Even though most Yoshi's Island DS information is under embargo, I am allowed to note that it has the most offensive acronym -- YIDS -- I've seen since the days when I did my grocery shopping at H*E*B.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 30 comments | §

Noble intentions

16 October 06 | 09:59

Finally, a cause I can stand behind: Ban Comic Sans. Yes, I know, there are Comic Sans-laden remnants of my youthful folly enshrined on this very website, but I preserve these mementos to remind the world that, all indications to the contrary, I'm not actually infallible.

ANYWAY. Contact is out this week, and you should buy it for more than just Sony E3 mockery. It is a pretty good game! Maybe a bit of an acquired taste, but it's easily the least bizarre thing ever to come from Grasshopper Manufacture. Consider this a gateway drug. Just don't be mislead by all the rampant misinformation about the game:

1. It is not connected to Earthbound, and in fact the only similiarity it really has to Earthbound is in the little professor dude on the upper screen. It's really much more like StarTropics in that you control a little dude traveling from island to island, but the combat system is more along the lines of Diablo (point, click and wait for everyone to duke it out) with a SaGa-style leveling system. So.
2. It was not created by the director of Killer 7, although it is from the same developer. Suda51 doesn't personally create everything Grasshopper produces, kind of like how Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't actually design every Nintendo game ever.
3. It doesn't suck, seriously. I don't even know what some of the negative reviews are talking about.

As a fun aside, despite the fact that Rockstar's Bully (also out this week) has been the target of countless shrill declamations by opportunistic ambulance-chasers, Contact allows for much more anti-social behavior than the surprisingly saintly Bully. Not only can you beat up innocent people, you can also abuse defenseless rabbits and sheep. Shocking! Anyway, that's all. Go get it, kids.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 19 comments | §

A second page approaches! Command?

15 October 06 | 09:59

The second page of non-Issue Six is online now. This is probably the best-written part of the entire venture, honestly. By this point I'd warmed up to the task but hadn't quite burned out. So if you find this interminably dull and irredeemably obtuse, hang on to your hats. It gets worse.

Particularly egregious are the illustrations, which are badly-crafted Photoshop composites of the images I had intended to draw by hand and which are inexplicable meshings of half-considered jokes loosely derived from the text.

Am I doing a good job of selling you on this yet? Great.

I'm pretty sure I've concocted a good make-up plan for people who were shorted their promised issues six through eight (and zero), but I need to think on it for a few days before committing myself. Because there's no sense in making this all worse.

To make up for the lameness of these links, here is a valid if perhaps ill-advised attempt to prove that Toejam & Earl is a roguelike. And here is a gigantic chunk of Japanese countryside marching several hundred feet toward the sea. Thank you, Internet, for being brilliant where I fail.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | eight comments | §

Assorted Wii punnery

13 October 06 | 13:17

I received an envelope from Atlus in the mail today. That's not terribly unusual in my line of work; missives and software from publishers are an occupational hazard. But this particular envelope contained nothing save a page of Nintendo Power featuring that aerial view of PAX 2006 with my tiny balding head in the lower right-hand corner. In the words of Sam & Max, "Weird. Creepy."

Or maybe I'm just too tired to properly process this turn of events, having dragged myself out of bed at 6:30 to go line up for a Wii preorder. I missed out on PS3 due to illness (OH WELL) but wasn't about to let that happen twice. I am jonesing to see what's on tap for the Virtual Console, and I guess Zelda and Trauma Center might be pretty okay too. I ended up being number 18 in line despite not arriving until a little after 8 a.m.; that is because I know the secret of San Francisco's forgotten EB Games. SF residents, I share this information with you free of charge: the Fisherman's Wharf location is a desolate wasteland.

The Union Square and Mission locations are inevitably overcrowded due to being smack in the middle of things -- apparently the Union Square store played host to a mighty throng of fifty-plus this morning -- and Stonestown is inside a snooty mall. But the Fisherman's Wharf EB is inconveniently located at the north end of the city in an area shunned by locals due to its unrepentant tourist-i-ness, and you have to take the equally touristy (and slow) F line to get there. I'm not the only one who has caught on, unfortunately, as a couple of Sega folks and freelancers were first in line, trying to entice me to give up my spot so I could stand and gawk at the PSP version of Sega Genesis Collection. Nice try, Lao Tse! I'll forgive their indiscretion, seeing as they were on-site there before I was even awake. Clearly, madness at work.

This console launch insanity almost makes me miss living in Backass Abilene, Texas, since my PS2 preorder process consisted of me walking into the local Babbage's one afternoon, asking if I could put some money down, and walking out with a guaranteed reservation. Ah, what halcyon days of non-monopolism and backwater hicks. ('Course, everything else about living there sucked.)

And despite my facetious attempt to rouse some rabble by suggesting Wii has enough hidden expenses to put it on par with Xbox 360's pricetag, I walked away with presells for a system, two extra controllers and four games for less than $500. In Microsoft points, that translates to a 360 and a wireless adapter. Well played, Nintendo.

Anyway, I added a sidebar to yesterday's content. And for the record, once again, nothing on this site is password-protected. If you come to a page asking for a password, that means it doesn't exist yet. The magic of wiki technology!

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 23 comments | §

The way we roll

12 October 06 | 11:07

I have many links for you today. It would be far too much trouble to be pithy about them, so instead I shall simply present them to you at face value:

TF Zine Issue Six: The hub page for the abortive RPG issue. There's nothing much to read just yet except for...

Part One: The issue was to be a continuous narrative, so basically the division into parts is utterly and completely arbitrary. So if that turns out to be too annoying, you could for the more straightforward...

Retronauts Blog 16: wherein I try to say nice things about the N64. If watching me pretend to be nice harshes your mellow, though, there's always...

The Retronauts podcast: Wherein we totally ream the N64. I tried to make 'em stop, but they were having none of it. Alas.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 26 comments | §

The towel, thrown

11 October 06 | 12:04

I have been wrestling with a quandary these past few days. And with allergies as well. You'd think after living without a problem for two decades in West Texas, the allergen capital of America, I'd have built up quite a resistance to particulate-induced sniffles, but it is not so. Something about San Francisco has broken through my defenses and reduced me to a runny-nosed heap of headaches. I blame the Blue Angels, whose low-flying antics coincided precisely with the onset of my bleariness. Perhaps noise is not the only pollution they have inflicted upon our fair city, is all I'm saying.

The other, and much bigger, crisis which has been pinning me to the mat of existence is that of the dreaded, long-overdue ToastyFrog 'Zine Issue 6. Should I just admit defeat, I've wondered for the past few months? Every weekend I sit down and try to work on the layout and art, and every weekend I come away with nothing. Today, I've made my final decision, as you might have gathered from the title of this post.

I can rattle off a list of reasons for the stupid thing's failure to launch, but none of it really matters. What does matter is that I'm not a fan of ripping people off, so I'll be putting together a plan to make sure things get all even-steven for everyone. So please do hold off on mailing me about refunds for the moment -- I'd prefer to keep all that info together.

In the meantime, I'll be posting the content of the issue on the site for the remainder of the month. I finished the text for Issue Six half a year ago, and while I don't think it's good enough to justify being sold it seems OK being offered for free. And I might as well make it available while it's still slightly relevant.

My apologies to all involved. Of all the failed ventures to have sprung like a malformed Athena from the brow of this website, this is definitely the most demoralizing.

posted by: | category: worst ending | forums | 20 comments | §

Metroidvania Chronicies VI: GRUNT

09 October 06 | 00:01

Uh oh, non-Americans, look out: Metroidvania just got jingoistic. You'd better learn to love mom, apple pie and wrapping yourself in the flag to justify your exploitation and abuses of the rest of the world before you experience the shocking true story of how John Rambo saved the world for capitalism, one non-linearly-connected area at a time.

The forces of democracy have voted for me to place an awesome inline image link here.



If you do not read this article, you hate freedom and the terrorists have already won, etc.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 19 comments | §

Parallels I

08 October 06 | 15:12

Parallels I: Final Fantasy IV & Lord of the Flies

Kill the fat one first.

posted by: | category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

Break Post like the wind

07 October 06 | 17:11

I need to learn to find some balance in my life; my tendency appears to go all-or-nothing these days. Say, for instance, the way in which I went more than two months without a single Retronauts posting; now, within the past week, I've published the first Retronauts podcast (including its terrible-but-highly-requested unexpurgated form) and not one but three similarly-branded blog posts as well. Namely, Final Fantasy III, Zelda II and Dark Forces. See? Weird.

So anyway, I'll probably keep up the streak for a week or two and then fall back into a circadian lull unti after Christmas. No guarantees or anything, mind you. I'm just basing this on observed behavior.

Speaking of more concrete future details, I think we'll be doing several PC-themed Retronauts podcasts in a row, if for no other reason than it will give me a defensible excuse to flog my own personal interests for a while afterwards. I can always point back to the Doom (10/18) and Sam & Max (10/25) episodes and say, "But look! I'm not just about Nintendo nostalgia!"

Man, that sounds really lame now that I explain it.

In much less lame news, go check out Nich's blog and cheer him on as he attempts 24-Hour Comics Day today. I'd have done one myself, but... well, read that last entry again. Yup. So here's hoping for a vicarious success through my friends.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | twelve comments | §

Wherein I complain and you take umbrage

05 October 06 | 19:06

Did I mention that I posted a new Retronauts blog to go with yesterday's podcast? I don't believe I did, at least not here. But somehow I suspect you sorted it out all on your own anyway. Because you're just so very smart, aren't you?

Review Season 2006 has well and truly descended upon us, and I've already lost count of how many games I have on my desk, especially since I'm dealing with both print and online publications. It's like living in a tiny time warp, where every week I realize I have to write another thousand words (for 1UP) about something I thought I had finished up with a month prior (for EGM). It's like Groundhog Day, except that instead of getting a second chance to win Andie MacDowell's heart, I just get a second chance to anger frothing fantards with no sense of perspective in life to the point of homicide by putting numbers next to a few paragraphs of text. Needless to say, it's a fulfilling lifestyle.

Despite my amazing luck in finding a job that requires excessive overtime for a well-below-the-SF-average salary lets me play videogames on the clock sometimes, I'm not always enthusiastic about the reviews process. We can chalk that up to a single culprit:


Meet the DS reviewable ROM cart. The bane of reviewers everywhere, except PC- or console-only publications, the DS reviewable ROM cart is carefully crafted to be incredibly annoying. Each cart contains somewhere between 512k and 1Gb of EEPROM, giving it a cost of about $100 per unit. And publishers have to ship one of these to every outlet that will be covering the game. Or three in the case of EGM. That makes this a very expensive proposition once you take into account all the websites and magazines that have to be addressed, so publishers tend to be very miserly in handing these out. In many cases, publishers will ship out a previewable cart and, once the previews are written, inform everyone that it was secretly the reviewable version of the game (thus halving their mailings). You can't always count on this, though -- I played through the Yoshi's Island 2 previewable earlier this week hoping to get a jump on the review, only to discover that the boss of World 3-4 exists in a curiously glitchy world of instant death.

Which, of course, ties into the second glorious issue with DS reviewables: save files. Since saves are cart-based rather than system- or memory card-based, any progress you make in a DS review ROM is sadly lost once you mail it back. Farewell, amazing level 90 Monk in FFIII. Adieu, glorious Portrait of Ruin secret mode playthroughs. It was wonderful while it lasted, precious A-rank Elite Beat Agents file. And of course since you're mailing these games back to the publisher, you can't simply cheat and not actually play the games all the way through, because the save files are right there, just waiting to cause a terrible scandal once they learn you only made it three hours into that RPG you totally slammed.

By the way, this may be slightly pushing the rules, but here is an important warning for Portrait of Ruin players: do not sell the Long Sword, Thick Glasses or anything with the word "nun" in it. You'll cry if you do. Like I did.


Also, these ROM cards tend to stick out rather grotesquely from a DS. And thanks to the system's helpful spring-loaded card port, the slightest bump will send it shooting out of your system, which in turn shuts down the system and annihilates an in-progress game -- a particularly handy feature when you have the system asleep while you're in transit!

Still, these ROMs are certainly a step above the first wave of DS reviewables, which were sent out as incredibly fragile bare circuitboards. To say nothing of Nintendo's control-freak policy of encasing their games in security lockboxes, which are dilapidated DS Phats with two pounds of steel bolted to their backs and rather resemble some sort of weapon. I flew to Seattle with one of those things (before I was aware that Nintendo freaks out if they so much as leave a publisher's office), and let me tell you -- that was a crazy fun airport security check.

Not that DS reviews are alone in being a pain in the butt. Twilight Princess has me dreading November since Nintendo has a tendency to provide us with reviewables at the last possible moment, and we'll probably have to share a single Wii lockbox between three of us. And TP, I'm told, is the most ginormously hugetastic-est Zelda game ever. That means more fun for you the reader -- you can read my review and find mirth and jollity in counting my inevitable sleep deprivation-induced typos.

Yeah, anyway, now is when you tell me that I'm a stupid jerk for having the audacity to find frustration and distress in the best job in the universe or whatever ivory tower you've concocted for us hapless tools of PR-by-proxy.

(Pay me no heed; this is just my annual Fall Gripe Session post. I have to get it all out before I'm too beaten down to complain. And I tried to name drop as much as possible to maximize its general offensiveness.)

posted by: | category: games | forums | 21 comments | §

Important neologisms

04 October 06 | 00:29

I seem to be suffering a case of blogjam. It's like a logjam, but with... yeah. In other words, when your e/n site becomes more n than e. Ah, e/n -- what a quaint term. Why, it seems like only five years ago that it was all the rage.

In tribute to e/n and other dead, meaningless terms of recent years (like "democracy"), here is my pick for the top three neologisms of our times:

• Smarmageddon: The coming Internet apocalypse, when the blogosphere finally collapses under the weight of its own irony.
  
• Cuddlevania: A free-roaming videogame which rewards players with hugs rather than violence.
  
• Hokuto No Finn: A secret fighting technique in which you punch someone so hard they land in Mark Twain's era.

Sadly, I was forced to invent two of those on the spot. So I guess this post was a lie like all the others.

Edit: Hello Final Fantasy III Retronauts + amateurish podcast.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 24 comments | §