How belated!

I mentioned in this entry from like, two months ago that I had some godawful pictures. Now that I've finally gotten them off my phone, I can share the atrocities with you!

When I chewed out Clone Wars all the way back in August last year, I expected videogames, I expected Lego and I expected piñatas. However, I did not expect these.

Plush toys. This is Ahsoka.

It's taken me three months to realise that the darker strip across her chest is in fact, her top. And here I just thought she was a slut.

And Anakin...

And Obi.

As you can imagine, I could not stop laughing, crying and raging for, oh, a few days. I swear to God I am not being biased her, but the Clone Trooper is easily the best of the lot.

Related to totally awful products that made me angry, I saw this the other day with J in Borders. Keep in mind that we were in the self-help section when we saw this.

A poem.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is not rad. I am sad. I had high hopes for it but it is kind of bad. Back to Puzzle Quest because that made me glad. Unlike Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, which is not rad.

YOU SEE, THE SYSTEM...

I wonder if Metal Gear Solid 4 won any Oscars? Oh, apparently not.

Incoming customer complaints, oh baby!

Noby Noby Boy, that one game that no-one had any clue about for like, forever, finally finished downloading this morning. I rather liked what I played of it (half an hour, before I had to go for my Chinese tuition). And after playing it, I'm left with... still left with the little I knew about it before it was released. The press release said things like, "we don't offer refunds for this game", "we will not listen to customer complaints", "we cannot tell you about the nature of the game" and "depending on your mood, you may become addicted". Ominous.

You play as BOY, who kind of looks like the mascot from Taiko no Tatsujin, except he doesn't look too happy. But BOY looks content enough to be stretched to potentially endless lengths by the player, which is done with the left and right analog sticks. There's no real set goal, but by stretching BOY, the omnipresent entity, GIRL, grows. GIRL grows with every player's (everyone in the world playing the game, that is) effort. It's multiplayer, but it's not. According to the in-game manual, the larger GIRL gets, the more planets she can visit, and the more reunited the universe becomes. It's lovely and happy and fluffy. It's Noby Noby Boy.

It's got the same style as Katamari in terms of graphics and, well, identity as a whole. Like, you know, the 'very charming, very quirky, very odd' identity. At the beginning of the game, it told me to guess the controls in the form of a quiz. And then I got a Trophy for it! Hooray. And like Katamari, it's some kind of breeding ground for sadists. Getting rolled up by a Katamari would probably be the worst death ever. You'd be maimed and crushed. In the end, you would either be disintegrated by eye-lasers or turned into a lovely planet. Eventually, you get to ruin whole cities and continents with a giant rolling ball. In Noby Noby Boy, you can eat cats. I totally ruined a small town by knocking the roof off someone's house and pushing the house over the edge. I fucked up a robot. I ate all the flowers. Surely this is criminal. But it's the kind of game you want to come home from work to sit down to and just relax with for an hour or so.

Do you have seven dollars? Do you have a PS3? Surely if you have a PS3, you have seven dollars. GREAT! Now go and buy Noby Noby Boy. I enjoy it very much.

[8/10]

Retail loopholes, oh baby!

Street Fighter IV technically came out today (and I managed to stop myself from buying the Collector's Edition). EB and JB, the only retailers which actually mattered, kinda, both broke street date a few days ago. There may or may not be a pun there. Hahaha.

So after tossing up whether to buy it now or wait until later, I ended up getting linked to an article over at Ecogamer about how much retailers were charging for it, as well as a slew of comments about how much people were paying for it. So Jordaan and I decided to head out today and see what kind of deal we could get.

For reference (Standard Edition):
EB: $119.95
JB: $99

Hmm... not too pretty. JB chopping $30 off EB's price was pretty good, but could we get it for cheaper?

See, JB also had a little 'TRADE IN THREE GAMES AND GET SFIV FREE!' deal, which is what J and I were relying on to help us get a great price. This of course meant that we had to find three reasonably cheap PS3 games, which was probably not going to be easy, given the list of limitations on JB's website. So after checking EB and Target (with potential candidates being $30, and one at $25), we headed over to JB to see if they had any cheap preowned games.

They did. Several. But we ended up finding three copies of a single game, one that I don't think anyone gave a damn about, because they were only $24 each!

J suggested that we exploit this to the point that we should bring the three copies up to the counter as well as a SFIV display box. Eventually I had to persuade him to do all the talking because I was laughing too hard. After confirming the 'purchase' of the games, the clerk sent us back to the games department so that they could complete the trade-in. While we were up there, another guy was attempting to do the same thing and was turned away for having duplicate copies, which made me panic. However, the dude we got was a nice guy and was totally ok with us having three of the same game, which we had just bought. So hooray! SFIV for $72, $18 off the normal JB price and almost $50 off EB's. So, like, to recap, because I am actually really proud of what we managed to do:

Do the math.

Noby Noby Boy also arrived early on the 20th, which was silly of them since it was clearly supposed to be a 19th Feb worldwide simultaneous release. Indeed, I spent the whole of the 19th running outside and checking the Playstation Store. Dicks. So that's here and I'm excited, but I'm currently STILL downloading it because my internet capped. Which means that SFIV doesn't want to download its required system update. Which means I probably won't get to play either game until 12AM. Naptime now then, I suppose.

Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest has been fucking my shit up since I started playing it on Sunday. Last night I couldn't get to sleep until 1AM because whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Puzzle Quest. "Oh look, you can get four skulls in a row there! That will show that Giant Rat!"

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix comes out in a couple of weeks.

DON'T BE A PUSSY

Found this on BTDO's Livejournal because I haven't visited it since Christmas and I had to go check it because goddamn we need a good translation of Diamond is Unbreakable.

Pick from any of my fandoms and ask me to answer the following:

Favorite character:
Least Favorite Character:
Character with the best hair:
Character with the best eyes:
Character I'd most want to kiss:
Character I'd most likely screw:
Character I'd make lunch:
Character I'd go singing in the rain with:
Character I'd go shopping with:
Character I'd go dancing with:
Character I'd take over the world with:
Character I'd most want to cosplay as:
Favorite Pairing:
Favorite Yaoi pairing:
Favorite Yuri pairing:

ALSO BTDO I'M LINKING YOU NOW BECAUSE I WAS TOO LAZY TO DO IT BEFORE. SORRY BRO.

Dear Sega

Dear Sega,

If you localise Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan and Ryu ga Gotoku 3, I will dump Capcom and take you to the prom instead. I will even buy you a corsage.

Healthy 15 year-olds don't weigh 45 kilograms

Haha, oh god. Finally decided to start watching Bob's Gundam Wing DVDs, which were originally mine, until I sold them to her. WHY DID I EVER PART WITH YOU, GUNDAM WING

Gundam Wing was like, that one anime that got me into anime. I don't even remember how I first stumbled upon it. BUT CUTE BOYS PILOTING GIANT ROBOTS? Fuck yeah, count me in.

But oh man, how much did I miss this series? The last time I sat down and watched it properly must have been in 2004. But now, while I'm waiting for Obama's inauguration to actually begin instead of watching all the political waffle Channel 9 has on, I'll watch a few episodes.

I always regarded Wing as having a totally excellent dub. Like, right up there with Cowboy Bebop! Viewing this now makes me think that I was quite wrong. Typing this reminds me of a theory I see posted on a certain imageboard I frequent, which states that all cartoons are essentially equal in quality, but our positive childhood memories constantly tell us that cartoons from back in the day were better than the tripe we are being fed now. That is, if I had completely ignored Wing when I was a kid and watched it now, I would probably think it is complete and utter shit. Well I mean, that's what we have Seed for, right? But back to the point. Zechs sounds pretty terrible, as does pretty much everyone else, except for maybe Duo, Dr J (I know you're laughing over there, Jordaan, or at least feeling somewhat smug), Dr G, Wufei, Lady Une and Quatre. The Maganac go on my whitelist too, because they were total badasses.

I still really like the opening, despite a still of Treize and Zechs randomly popping up for 'dramatic' effect. I don't know why. The music is still pretty awesome as well.

You know, I really should be mature enough by now, but fuck Relena. Seriously, fuck her. Five years have gone by and she is still the stupid, whiny, shallow bitch. I mean why are those students bowing to her? Are they her harem or something? Just because her father is the ambassador? WELL IT'S A JOLLY GOOD THING HE DIES! Episode one also contains the classic scene where after Relena finds out that Heero has enrolled at her school, she offers her friendship in the form of an invitation to her birthday party. Being the suave gentleman he is, Heero rips it up. FUCK YEAH, AWESOME! Relena begins to cry a little and says "But why?" Heero wipes her tear away and she smiles, thinking that maybe he's not such a bad chap after all, but he then whispers "I'll kill you." Heero is probably my least favourite Gundam pilot alongside Trowa, but that has always warranted applause. He is my least favourite favourite douchebag.

On the opposite end of the scale, there's Duo Maxwell. People who went to school with me remember that I was in love with Duo Maxwell. He is still a terrific character because he is pretty much the only guy in Wing who can actually smile and crack a joke properly. The guy made braids awesome, plus was voiced by Scott McNeil. Also his Gundam was badass. Tell me that a scythe as a weapon is not badass. It also had the best speed which really, was all Duo needed, because he is excellent like that. He still makes me cheer. What a cool dude.

This series actually seems to have aged quite well, considering it's been almost 15 years since it first came out. Bitchface character, emo clowns, unrealistic body measurements and fairly laughable dialogue at some points (almost every Gundam series can be summed up with the line "IT'S A GUNDAM!"), I really do love this series. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and continue wishing for Episode Zero to be turned into an animated series.

AWARDS

TRAVIS TOUCHDOWN, IS IT NOT?