Extra Lives Pending

Honey, I’m Home

insane2100 — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:40:22 +0000

So, here I am, back at the old blog, ready to continue posting those posts. Today, I think I’ll start off with just a “Hi, this blog is back to life! ” message. So, hi this blog is back to life ! I’m back with a bunch of new ideas and a bit more free time. So, hopefully I’ll be able to make these ideas into a reality.

I’d also like to welcome back any previous members of the blog, as I really enjoyed reading my fellow members posts, and having other people on this blog. So here’s to hoping at least one of you come back and join us!

Here’s what I’m going to be posting about:

- Now Playing
- Game Reviews
- Nostalgia Reviews
More to come!

Also..

Hail to the king, baby!

Well, this is depressing.

Jelly Soup — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:37:44 +0000

It seems that I am the last remaining person on the blog. I’m not sure what to think about that. Interestingly enough, the whole blog thing started from a comment I made in a chat with Destrono, Insane and Koolguy…I guess it was a year ago. At the time, I had been putting thought into making it happen, but I wasn’t sure if I actually had the time to back the idea up (let alone the technology). Shortly after this, Ring Relapse was created. I was there, but I had just started at a new school + job. Mixed with my PC being a piece of junk, there wasn’t interest in me to participate.

I’m not sure of the details behind the final demise of Ring Relapse (I’m given to understand it was Backloggery drama, a drama to pure that it, at times, can rival the drama of even the mighty GameFAQs), but a few of the founders started this one up. Around February of this year, shiny new laptop in tow, I felt like I could at least try and throw up an article or two here or there in my spare time (which turned out to be less often than I had initially hoped).

Ah, well, thems the breaks I guess.

A Small Announcement

Jelly Soup — Wed, 12 May 2010 01:34:25 +0000

As much as I’d like to keep doing it, I just can’t anymore. I have no ideas, no motivation, no clue as to what to do, so here it is. And sorry that it’s on such short notice, but I’ve been mulling it around in my head for a while, and I’ve made my decision.

I’m leaving the blog.

It’s been fun, but since I have no idea what to write, I’m pretty sure that the quality and quantity of posts will decrease sharply. As such, I think it’s best that I quit while I’m ahead and spare everyone that at least.

Does anyone care? Probably not, but I figured I’d let everyone know so two months from now you’re not wondering what happened.

I’ll pass over the admin to des, which I finally figured out how to do, what you do with it is up to you. If you want to transfer it to someone else, all you have to do is go to the “My Dashboards” submenu in the top menu, click “Manage Blogs”. Then highlight the blog and look for “Transfer Blog”, under the address.

I guess that’s it, really.

Strange & Obscure #1

Jelly Soup — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:30:47 +0000

Better two and a half months late than never, right? I’ve been having some school and family related troubles, so I appologies for taking so long with my first post everyone.

What I wanted to do, I can’t do because I can’t find relevant images on-line, so I’m going to have to scan the damn thing myself. In the mean time, I’ll do this!

((As an aside, due to a lack of decent images, this post is going to be a little light on images. Also, I’m still getting used to how WordPress deals with images.))

This review series if for strange and/or obscure games that I have played that you should play too. Not all of them are amazing, exciting or in anyway attractive, but there is still something about them that gives them a special charm. Let’s get started:

Legend of the River King

Actually the thrid game in an established series (this games official title in Japan is Kawa no Nushi Tsuri 3), it’s the USA’s first real chance to mess with this strange little RPG adventure. For the interested, Kawa no Nushi Tsuri (all freshwater fishing RPGs) is actually the main series aside from it’s sister series, Umi no Nushi Tsuri (saltwater fishing RPGs). I’m actually unsure as to how popular the game is in Japan, but there are a number of them before and after the version I’m reviewing here, so I’d assume it’s either of moderate popularity or has achieved cult status.

Story wise, this is your standard ‘I need this thing so same some person because I said so’ kind of thing. Your character’s sister is dieing of some illness and only the meat of a special fish, called the River King, can cure her. And it just so happens that your character is a fisherman. In a small river side fishing village no less! How lucky can a guy get!

So, you set off on an adventure to locate and capture the legendary River King. Along the way, you’ll be expected to…catch fish. Now, as you might expect, this is simple in principle. Very much like Animal Crossing, the player just needs to find a spot where there are fish visible in the water, drop line and wait for a bite. Very much unlike Animal Crossing, once a fish is hooked, the perspective shifts to an underwater tug-o-war battle between our adventerus angler and the damn fish.

This part is actually very fun and looks great. Topped off with being simple as pie to do (pressing A when the fish stops, letting go when it starts to run), one could get very addept at this rather quickly. Now, to add an element of challenge, there are various rods, hooks, lures and baits for the player to choose from. As one might expect, these have to be bought, using money that’s gained from selling guess what.

But it’s not all fun and games. Along the way, out hero will be assulted by an assortment of preditors, which he’ll have to fight off or else chance loosing his catch of the day. But don’t get too excited, these battles are more a pain than anything else. Mostly, you walk around and get attacked by a bear, some bees or some other stupid thing. Then ya punch’em. Alot.

As the adventure continues, the player will find other characters that will be willing to exchange fish and other items for help or are in need of some fish related intervention. For you collectors out there, the game supplies a Fishing Note that lists all the fish that have been caught and will show how many more are needed to complete the list, also listing largest fish of a particular kind that has been caught.

Additionally, the game includes a Tamagotchi-like mode in which the player is granted a pet fish to raise. While this is all well and good….it’s a twitchy little shit. Fish grow at erratic rates, ‘evolving’ or some such into other kinds of fish depending on how well they are raised (that is to say, a guppy could suddenly grow up to be an eel given the right conditions). It’s….confusing, but adorable at the same time.

As an aside, this game has one of the prettiest Super Gameboy boarders of any game in the Gameboy line. Not that that’s a buying point, but if you’ve got a Super Gameboy, give it a shot. I always felt like the game lagged a bit playing it that way, but that might have just been me.

All and all, this is a good game, if not a strange one. If you’re an RPG fanatic, a fishing fan, a Gameboy lover or just have a taste for the odd, this is definatly worth a look or two. Being that it wasn’t a terribly popular game, given it’s distribution, the thrifty gamer should be able to pick it up for a few bucks.

Levels of Life: Coolector

insane2100 — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:43:21 +0000

This week’s “Levels Of Life” will be about the “Coolector” program.

Coolector is a program for movie lovers designed by movie lovers. I came across it while searching for a “Backloggery-esque” thing for movies. I believe the exact words were “movie tracker”. I luckily came across the Coolector website.

Coolector is the perfect movie tracking program, whether you simply want to track what you’ve watched, or track movies you own, loan, wish for and have seen. It has an easy to read display. At the moment it has about 70,000 movies/series in it’s database. I added all my movies to watch, and movies I had already watched. I was able to rate them, see what the “Internet Movie Database”’s popularity for it was, and the rating given to it by them. The only problem I’ve ever had with this program, was that one of my movies wasn’t in there. All I did was registered at the official Coolector forum, requested that my movie was added, and within not too long, it was.

There’s also a bunch of other features you can do with Coolector, such as track the movies you’ve loaned off to people, your wishlist, your owned movies, and the ones you’ve simply watched. So, if you don’t really own any movies, you simply rate them, and that signifies you’ve seen it. Or if you own it but you haven’t seen the movie, you can just simple put it as owned and not rate it.

You can also search any actor, director, or even script writer. You can also use Coolector for television series, but it doesn’t go through individual seasons, just the complete series. So, I’m not really so in to that one. But, Coolector has so many filters, you can see the best black and white movies ever, the best movies ever, best movies of XXXX year, or the worst movies ever. When you’re marking that you own a movie, you can mark exactly which edition you own: such as, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, any edition of the DVD that exists, and if you have it, and it’s not marked, you can always request it, and the Coolector team will make certain that it’s added as soon as possible.

This program is basically Backloggery for movies, it’s pretty awesome, almost every movie has it’s own picture, actor information, and best of all it’s a program, so it can be used offline, and it saves your data in it’s own type of save file [ > 1mb ]. It’s a pretty sick program, and best of all it’s completly free. Of course, you could make a donation, but if you don’t, you’re not losing any features.

http://www.coollector.com/index.html

Controller Chronicles X: Progressive

Jelly Soup — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:20:48 +0000

Wow, no posts from anyone else since the 4th? Shocking. Anyway, I’ve got some fresh gaming updates to talk about.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (VC)

While the original DKC was a very good game, the sequel was even better. The challenge was satisfying. The whole pirates theme was neat. The music was great and the levels were creative. Only issue I had with the game was paying to save. Overall, good entry in the series.

I’ll tackle #3 in the future, but for now, I’ve had my fill of barrel blasting.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)

I finally got 100% completion on LCS early Sunday morning, now marking all the GTAs I own on PS2 complete. I now have 4 GTAs left to complete in my collection. Go me.

Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 (Xbox)

I beat the remaining unfinished games in this compilation (Magic Sword, Black Tiger, Block Block, SF Turbo, Varth: Operation Thunderstorm, Avengers, 1941: Counter Attack) the previous day. Avengers was the only game in the collection I didn’t have fun playing. Everything else, varying degrees of enjoyment.

Now on to “Side dishes” & “Main Courses” in my game playing rotation..

Capcom Classics Collection Vol.1 (Xbox) (Side Games)

Continuing with the Capcom love, I’m going to beat the last 16 games in this collection. These games include 3 more versions of Street Fighter 2 (yeah, yeah), 2 entries in the 19XX series, and Gn’G games (I’ll probably save those for last, haha).

Since my Xbox collection has the most unfinished games (most of them being compilations), I’ll probably exclusively beat games on this system for the time being.

Hitman: Blood Money (Xbox) (Main Game #1)

Replaying on the Expert difficulty. Previously beaten on Rookie and Normal.

Devil May Cry 2 (PS2) (Main Course #2)

I’m doing a Lucia playthrough this time around.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2) (Main Game #3)

Going to do another main game playthrough of this. I did a Very Easy playthrough the first time. I’ll either do a Normal or Easy run next.

With the NBA Playoffs in full swing, my gaming will take a backseat, but I’ll play these games when I can. In the meantime, I’ll be coming up with some material based on what I’m playing, and yes, Future editions of System Failures are coming in May.

Controller Chronicles IX: Early April Update

Jelly Soup — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:13:04 +0000

The month of April is finally here. NBA & NHL Playoffs coming up, MLB season starting, NCAA National Championship games, the PGA tour, and another edition of the Chronicles! This one will be on the short side.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing was officially completed 3-19-10. I did all 64 missions, and occasionally still play it online. I still want to get all the remaining challenges done (including Triple-A ranking all missions), but they’ll be done at a later date.

2 days later I beat Donkey Kong Country (on Virtual Console) for the first time. Pretty good game.

On the 25th of March I beat Jet Set Radio Future. I never played the original JGR on Dreamcast, but I liked what I played with the sequel.

Shortly after that, I beat Metal Slug 7 on the DS. Nothing too amazing with the 7th entry in the series but still a good game worthy of playing. Did 2 Beginner playthroughs as Fio and Eri. Next time I replay will be on the Normal difficulty setting as Tarma and Marco.

Finally, last week, I completed Sonic Advance & Sonic Rush Adventure. Both games took a few days & nights to complete, but well worth it in the end.

What’s next for me to play: Metal Slug (replaying) Donkey Kong Country 2 (beating for the first time), GTA: Lost and Damned (to complete), GTA: Liberty City Stories (to complete)

I also plan to watch Public Enemies & Ninja Assassin on DVD this week.

Another edition of System Failures is coming next month. Hint: Unholy Triforce.

That is all.

Levels Of Life: Scarface [1983]

insane2100 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:58:11 +0000

He was Tony Montana. The world will remember him by another name.. SCARFACE.

Scarface is still one of the most known gangster movies 27 years after release. We all know the story, but if you don’t [SPOILERS AHEAD] Antonio (Tony) Montana, who, with his friend Manny Ray, starts in with Miami’s cocaine trade. He survives an attack by chainsaw after a deal goes bad, and several other attempts by other dealers to eliminate him. Eventually the grandiose Montana becomes head of a cocaine cartel. But his enemies start coming after him, and his paranoia threatens to drive Montana’s empire into the ground. He ends up killing his best friend Manny, watching his sister die, and dying himself.

Tony Montana is portrayed as one pissed off guy. The entire movie he’s throwing tantrums, or killing people for the simplest things. The movie has been criticized for it’s over the top, exaggerated, scenes. I was confused at one point, early in the movie, the theme music plays, and then the camera zooms in on Tony’s eyes. He then does nothing. He just runs away, no killing, no anger, no nothing. I was disappointed.

The most powerful scenes would be: The chainsaw scene, which was so many amounts of awesome it was referenced in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Another powerful scene would be Tony’s return to his mother’s house. The way the family acts together, just shows their history so well. Then there’s obviously Tony’s final stand. Huge shootout in which some twenty guys get murdered, and then, Sosa, comes in from the back and “BOOM” adds two more bullets to the already at least full clip’s worth of bullets inside Montana’s body. He falls in the pool, and it’s over. The Rise and Fall of Tony Montana.

I leave you with this, as I am to retarded to insert videos into the post.

http://tinyurl.com/yhnr73p

Rose Tinted Glasses

Jelly Soup — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:28:23 +0000

I think it’s about time for me to do something so cruel, so unimaginably sadistic, that everyone in the whole universe will hate me.

Yes.

Today I’m going to talk about nostalgia.

Every gamer experiences it. The first game you ever played (if you remember that far back) probably evokes up some good feelings for you, even if it’s a terrible game. Nothing is safe, from the highest rated games in the universe to your average run-of-the-mill game that started a revolution. Nothing.

Now, I’m going to take a look at some games held in high regard.

And totally kill them.

Disclaimer: If you are easily butthurt by someone bashing your favourite game, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

You will be sorry.

Turn back now.

Last warning.

Really.

First up:

Final Fantasy 7

Ohhh yeah, I said it. And if you think this is a surprise, well then, stop reading here. Because it’ll get worse.

Now, it’s not a bad game, but fuck, it is definitely not the best game evar. I mean, seriously. The music is decent, but I’ve heard better stuff coming out of the SNES, from the same series no less.

The graphics… well… I’ll let you decide.

Oh my god, are those… LEGO people?!

Well shit.

Now, I understand it was Square’s first attempt at 3D, but my fuck does it show.

I mean, I’m not a person to say that graphics are a major part of a game, I much value story and gameplay over them, but god damn, I can barely tell what they’re trying to represent here. Guh.

Though that’s not to say that the graphics are entirely bad, it does have some nice pre-rendered backgrounds. Which can be a pain in the ass to navigate. ):<

The gameplay is tried and true Final Fantasy, using the same boring system from FF4 with only a couple of differences here and there. So if you like it, well great. I don’t though. Just sayin’.

Other than that, it’s story might have even been good, but beacause of a horribly botched translation, it sucked. Even 4′s was better, spoony bard and all.

Anyway, that’s all I hate to say about that.

Next up:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Yes, yes I did go there.

Now, it’s not a bad game, but fuck, it is definitely not the best game evar. I mean, seriously.

Graphics? Hmm… Well… I personally much prefer Link to the Past’s graphics to these. But I guess they’re not bad.

Take a look:

Would you rather walk on that ugly ass piece of rock in the top picture, or the cool dirt path in the bottom?

Now, the story is basic Zelda. You know, Ganon steals the triforce, go rescue Zelda kind of thing. Whatever.

Gameplay is where Zelda games usually shine, and OoT doesn’t really do all that well. Everything would be fine if not for the horribly wonky camera contols, which aren’t helped by the horribly wonky fucking controller. Anyway, since it’s more an issue with the system itself than the game, I’ll excuse it for now. Until it drops me into a pit that I had no way of humanly avoiding. Gee thanks fucking N64 controller (I am not a fan of the N64 controller, could you tell?).

It works… barely. And as a first attempt at 3D it’s fine. But still… Why it’s still regarded as one of the best games ever is a mystery to me. Oh wait, no it’s not. Nostalgia.

Anyway, next up:

Pokemon Red/Blue

As much as I hate myself (already? gee, and we’re only three games down) for doing this. I have to admit it’s faults.

For one, the battle system is broken. Like as in, Alakazam is fucking godly. Like, he can’t be killed despite his low defences godly. And that’s not even to mention fucking Mewtwo. Or Hypno. Or even fucking Kadabra.

Now this isn’t much of a hindrance in regular play since you can just grind the hell out of anything and make it easy cakes. But if you tried to beat your friends in battle, you could expect to see lots and lots of Mewtwos, and god knows how many Mewtwos they had. (I myself had an entire party once, let’s just say I never lost a battle) And I mean, we were kids, so organized battling (you know, with rules) wasn’t really an option here.

Now the music is fucking awesome. I can’t deny that. Someone else might, but they’re the kind of people who randomly punch kittens just for being kittens. As in not very nice people. The sound effects on the other hand…

I’d post a link, but fuck that, I’m too lazy to look for one. The closest likeness I can think of to compare them is to the sound of a dial up modem trying to connect to the internet. You know, EEERRERERRREAREAEREREA. That kind of sound.

Also, most of the pokemon looked like SHIT.

This is a Venusaur from behind.

Now, you might be asking youself. What the fuck is that?!

Well, if you thought it looked anything like these:

On the left there is Venusaur from the Japanese Blue version, which was also in the non Japanese Red/Blue. And on the right is the Venusaur from the Japanese Red/Green, which thankfully never left there.

(If none of that made any sense then get out from under that rock and go fucking play a pokemon game)

Anyway, I’ve talked for longer than I meant to, but I still have a lot to say, so perhaps I will continue this some other time. Or not. I dunno.

VGM Spotlight: “Aisle 10″ & “Funky Dealer” – Jet Set Radio Future

Jelly Soup — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:44:09 +0000

Two last VGM Spotlights for JSRF. I did say I’d keep highlighting tracks until the game was beaten, and tonight it was. But I’m not done as far as 100% completion goes. So in the distant future, when I finally decide to complete the game, I’ll highlight more of the game’s awesome soundtrack.