This blog has moved (sort of)

Just realized that it's been ages since I've posted on here. Anyways, this blog has been dormant for a long time, and for a while I had not thought of replacing it with anything. In any case, I've recently, within the past several months, started writing articles and reviews for Vigigames.com, a blog about them damn vidya games. So come check it out if you're interested!

New Post!

Yah I know, been a long time- blah blah blah. So, where were we? Here's the long and short of it:

-Sold my Wii. Turns out, the Wii is for G-ma's and 8 year olds only. Why hath you forsaken me Nintendo?!

-Bought a new Xbox 360 (again).

-Entirely replaced my Wii library with Xbox games (and then replaced those Xbox games with some more Xbox games!).

-Started to become interested in the 4th Ed. of D&D. Currently reading the Players Handbook to learn the ropes, hoping to start and/or join a game here in Regina soon.

And

-Moved in with my girlfriend. Probably the most important thing on this list but not related to my nerdy habits at all.

From now on I've decided this blog is to become a journal for all my nerdy obsessions. Records, games, comics, etc. The change will be slow at first, but I'm trying to axe all the personal discussion from this blog and focus on reviews and other such things.

More posts to come!

Games I'm currently playing:

-'Splosion Man (XBLA)

-Psychonauts (Xbox)

-Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition (Xbox 360)

-The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (XBLA)

Long Overdue Apology

Wow. Okay well, I thought it had only been a week or so since I last updated this page but it seems like I haven't written anything since Dec. 21st! My apologies. Recently, I just went through the process of moving into a new apartment and so besides moving, my girlfriend returning from Hawaii, and the life-draining power of the Nintendo Wii, I haven't spent much time writing. None, in fact. Part of the problem is that I have no internet in my apartment yet, and everyone in my building secures their connections, so I can't leech off my neighbours. Well, I'm thinking of getting highspeed wireless internet through Sasktel later on this week, so things should seem more regular (say: once a week versus once a month) starting this week. I've been meaning to do a review of No More Heroes since I beat it a couple of weeks ago, and maybe a few other games that have grabbed my attention lately (see: World of Goo).

Part of my New Years Resolution has been to really get blogging regularly again. So with that said, keep coming back for new and improved content in the coming year! I'll try to have something substantial written by the time the weekend arrives.

Merry Something!

It seems everytime I move my writing tends to take a backseat to life as it happens. Well I finally found a new apartment last week and I'll be moving in by the first of January, so hopefully things will settle down a bit and my posting on this blog will become a little more regular. As for today, I just wanted to jot down a few quick notes before grabbing some breakfast at Shitty's. 

1. Kate leaves for Maui tomorrow, and while making her a mix cd it occurred to me that I need to start finding more new music. There are cobwebs forming on the shelves and in the corners of my dreary Ipod Library.

2. Super Mario Galaxy is the best 3-D platform game I have every played in my entire life. Every adventure Mario has ever had seems to have been building towards this epic flight through the cosmos. Kate and I play it together every chance we get. It makes me feel like a kid on my NES again. Pure joy. 

3. Sin & Punishment: Successor to the Earth for the Wii's Virtual Console is a must-buy. I was an N64 gamer and remembered eyeing strange import games like this in magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamepro, crushed that I'd never have access to them. Thank you so much to Treasure for re-releasing this lost classic. Sin and Punishment is the swan-song to the N64, and even seven years old, it still has a lot to offer purely from a gameplay and story perspective. Fans of Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, and Ikaruga take note: Sin & Punishment is your new favorite game. I can't wait until the sequel comes out for the Wii in 2009! Check out the trailer below:

4. Bill Willingham's Vertigo series Fables is much better than I initially gave it credit for. I still have my reservations about the art, but Willingham's scripts are perfect, and have managed to completely drawn me into the fantastic struggle between the residents of Fabletown and the forces of the Adversary. I'm currently halfway through Volume 3: Storybook Love, and have taken the next four volumes out from the public library to read over the holidays. We'll see how it takes for me to start reading the spin-off series: Jack of the Tales.

5. Atlantis Coffee, the coffee shop where I work in downtown Regina, has finally fixed whatever was wrong with the stereo system. Translation: we can now play our own music at work again. Fuck yes!

6. In case I don't get the opportunity to say this before the day arrives: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Wii Cosplay

In late 2006, a cute little game from Japan stole my heart and had my thumbs red and throbbing from too many PS2 analog stick workouts. That game was Katamari Damacy, and it blew my mind. Less than a year later, that game's sequel, We Heart Katamari, arrived in North America to massive acclaim and became an overnight sensation. And with good reason: We Heart Katamari was every bit as fun and addictive as its predecessor, only with widely expanded environments, new challenges, rewards, and an even more ridiculous premise. With the exceptions of Killer 7 , Okami, and Shadow of the Colossus, We Heart Katamari was my favorite game of 2007. And for some inexplicable reason, I couldn't help but want to find out if any enterprising otaku had gone out of their way to dress up for some Katamari Cosplay fun. 

Now would probably be the best time to mention that I'm not a cosplayer. I didn't even dress up for Halloween this year. Sure, I admire well done recreations of my favorite video game and anime characters as much as the next fanboy. At the same time, I also find that the whole cosplay phenomenon ranges from utterly ridiculous at best, and vomit inducing at its worst. Mostly,  I think my problem with cosplay lies with the legions of aesthetically challenged nerds and the disgusting amount of awful mainstream fan-favorite franchise cosplay. How much Final Fantasy 7 or Street Fighter cosplay do we really need to see?  This is the kind of cosplay that makes my stomach retch and bursts my eyes in their molten sockets.

Yesterday the thought had occurred to me whether or not any Nintendo fans had started cosplaying as characters from Wii titles. What about dressing up as Wiis themselves? Wii remotes? Well, I did some looking around with Google and this is what I managed to find. 

The Wii-Motes 

Apparently, dressing up like the Wii remote is becoming a huge phenomenon at the cosplay conventions. Sadly, the Nunchuck attachment is sorely underrepresented. You'd think more couples would make the Nunchuck to Wii-mote connection. Ugh, bad controller pun.

"Dude, where is the A Button on that Wii remote costume?" 

"Duuuuude, MY FACE IS THE A BUTTON!" 

This girl gains points for actually having a Nunchuck attached to her giant pill-shaped Wii-mote, but is disqualified because her Nunchuck looks like a vibrator.  

The Super Nintendo gets all the love by being front and center in this photo, but then, the SNES IS LOVE, so it's only appropriate to be in the foreground. Also, I love that cosplaying as an SNES controller is a two-person job; brings a whole new-meaning to co-op gameplay. 

This Wii remote would be so much more badass if it weren't wearing tennis shoes. 

Miis

Sure, the whole point of Nintendo's cute avatar creator is to allow you and all your friends to see cartoon versions of yourselves on the Wii. What can't be denied however, is that the Miis have an instantly recongizable aesthetic that is uniquely all their own, and we can thank the good people at Nintendo for that.

Blue Mii: "Ahhhh. I took too much man! I took too much! I'm FREAKING OUT here bro and my head feels like a giant balloon!"

Green Mii: "Relax Blue, it's just the acid."

No More Heroes

Suda 51's latest oddball opus is a an instant cult classic. The game seamlessly blends the punk cinematic sensibilities of Takashi Miike, endless streams of blood, too-cool dialogue, ridiculous mini-games, and a lovable sicko named Travis Touchdown for a hero. Proving that the Wii is not just a console for kids or the casual gamer, No More Heroes takes most of what made Killer 7  (Suda 51's previous game) an unforgettable experience, and then gears it towards a more mainstream, though no less adult, audience. Here are some examples I found of great No More Heroes cosplay. 

Samus "Shoot Your Dick Off with My Arm Cannon and then Step on the Squishy Remains of Your Tiny Cock With My Chozo Suit Boots" Aran

Seriously. Let this be an example to you aspiring cosplayers: this is a fan-created costume done right. 

Fuck yeah..

General Life Updates

I've had several false starts on getting another post updated here over the past few days. So, rather than dwell on anything in particular, I decided to just touch on a few of the things that have been on my mind lately.

Kate leaves with her family for their Christmas vacation in Maui on the 22nd. I'm going to miss her like crazy, but thankfully, I've got several shiny distractions to surround myself with while she's gone to keep the loneliness at bay. My newly-purchased Nintendo Wii, for one. Actually, that might just enhance my feelings of loneliness. Heh. Oh well. She'll only be gone for 2 1/2 weeks, and in that time, I've got Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and No More Heroes to keep my company. Oh yeah, and my sister is coming home too. So, I guess I've got family to spend time with too. Maybe.

I'm keeping my fingers tightly crossed that everything will turn out fine and that I'll be able to move into my new apartment on Jan. 1st. Everything seems to be in order, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, in case anything unforeseen should happen to fuck it all up. There seems to be a lot of vacancies in the building I'm moving into, as the rent is due on a month-to-month basis, but I'm completely enthralled with the apartment I'm about to rent and would have to hate to take something else instead.

Speaking of fucking things up: never ever live with "old friends." If you had a falling out in the past, there was probably a reason why. Recently, I've had to learn this the hard way. After moving back to Regina last January, I reconnected with such an "old friend" and we started hanging out again. Around August of this year, my friend and his girlfriend had split up, and he needed a roommate to help split the cost of the rent. I was looking for a place to live, and decided to help him out by moving in. A mutually beneficial arrangement, I figured. Move in with an old pal of mine who needed help out of a bind: what could go wrong?

Well, that roommate quickly turned from friend to passive-aggressive piece of shit who bought a dog without ever seriously sitting down to discuss it with me. A fact made even more irritating because I am not a dog person, nor am I the kind of person who is willing to take care of someone else's neglected animal while they go out and leave the poor thing locked up in it's cage all day. Anyways, all that is mostly water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned, because I moved out at the end of November and couldn't be happier. The only thing remaining from that whole debacle, is the return of my damage deposit.

I recently emailed my ex-roommate in regards to the status of that lingering deposit return. To which he replied that apparently some things of his "went missing" when I moved out, which is just totally fucking ridiculous! Not that you anonymous readers in Internet Land care, but of the many things I am, I am not a thief. Personally, I think this is a ploy and the piece of shit is just stalling because he's lacking in funds or something, but holy shit, NEVER AGAIN will I move in with an "old friend" I've previously broken off ties with.

Anyways, that's enough life stuff for now. More soon!

One Last Goodbye to Bags and Boards

Well, it's been two months now since I said fuck you to my LCS and decided to stop buying single issue comics every week. And how does it feel? It feels fucking great! Do I miss getting regular issues of The Boys, The Sword, Savage Dragon, Glamourpuss, or RASL (when it decides to hit the shelves every three months or so)? Of course I do. Did I feel left out when the masses discovered that Dr. Simon Hurt was actually The Devil, proving once and for all that Grant Morrison's Batman run really is just a steaming pile of overhyped bat-shit-crazyness? Well, my sarcasm gives the answer to that one away (unless you're immune to sarcasm, in which case I am so sorry for you).

By my very nature, I am a collector. And the thought of having each and every issue of a new series like The Sword that I can collect right from the beginning is very appealing to the completist in me. The truth is though, that I'd rather have a complete, numbered set of trade paperbacks (ie: graphic novels, yo!) than have to hunt for missing issues due to late shipments, unreliable salespersons, or any other way that I might manage to miss a single issue, thereby leaving a gaping hole in my quaint collection. I'm not alone: the annual sales records of trade paperbacks versus those of single issue comics speak for themselves.

So where does that leave the comics industry? When you can go to any major bookseller or local comic shop and purchase an imported Manga volume, with a length of roughly 150 pages, for around $10-15, why should anyone other than the hopelessly devoted buy a 22-page comic for 3.99? Manga sales have seemed to plateau lately, as opposed to their meteoric rise a few years ago, but they're still more popular with kids and adults alike than the comics being made by Marvel or DC/Vertigo, and smaller indie publishers such as Image, Devil's Due, IDW, Radical, and Dynamite. Vertigo, Image, and to a lesser extent IDW, have all managed to distinguish themselves from The Big Two in various ways. This, I believe, is what will keep these publishers from going bankrupt, if and when the superhero genre is either laid to rest, or turned into something more similar to stereotypical Manga. And with both Batman and the X-Men being made already making their appearances in officially-licensed Manga, I think it's safe to say that this transition of formats from traditional North American superhero comics into Manga-styled comics is already happening.

Independent publishers such as Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics Books have showcased, with popular and unique anthology collections like Mome!, America's Best Comics, or The Acme Novelty Library, that people looking for more overtly intellectual, artistic, or alternative comics will pay a premium for what they perceive as a higher quality product. Personally, I have a harder time paying money for these Anthologies, if only because I'm not likely to reread them as often as I feel like I should if I'm paying a high price for them. Which is why, for a budget conscious consumer like myself, trade paperbacks and Manga are great! When I can buy every volume of The Walking Dead or Invincible for roughly $10.00 each, why would I ever want to go back to paying 3.99 or 2.99 per issue? Financially, there is just no good reason to buy single issue comics.

I've probably already touched on more topics in this post than I intended to, making this a lot less coherent in the process, but I'd like to take the time to say thank you to Comic Readers, my former local comic shop, for setting me free from the tyranny of buying single issues. I'm much happier with my library-loaned trade paperback volumes of Y: The Last Man and Fables, than I ever could be with an incomplete set of issues.

Que sera, sera.