The GRIND...

So back about year or so ago I got suckered into World of Warcraft. It was delightfully addictive and I soon picked up a few more MMORPG's. Warhammer and Lineage II. Originally I started with a different race of character to begin my adventure but one weekend I started up a dwarf to help my brother get started in the game. I named him -----------. I immediately liked him more than my other character and started his counterparts in all the other games I had picked up.

...then...I just stopped playing.

Well, this past weekend I picked up all of them again to give it an honest go to see where it would take me. (Mostly because a buddy of mine has been all braggy about his progress in World of Warcraft so I got the itch to play again).

Well, without further ado,I present to you for the first time my Life+ avatars.

World of Warcraft: Dwarf Warrior Lvl. 32
Job: Engineer/ Miner


Warhammer: Dwarf Engineer Lvl. 7


Lineage II: Dwarf Fighter Class Lvl. 10

I hit 32 tonight in World of Warcraft which is the first time I leveled up since I began playing. I did a little happy dance then got to take a sweet ride in this dudes awesome chopper!!

Blue Box Blues...

OMG! I ate SO MUCH macaroni and cheese tonight...what possessed me?! I think there towards the end the macaroni was like "Hey buddy...it's okay. You can stop now. It's alright."

BUT NO!! I just kept on like a trooper...

Top 5 things I learned from watching Death Race...

1). I have no idea how to drive a car.
I thought I was doing fine. Sure, parallel parking can be challenging but according to Death Race I should be able to take turns at about 90 mph in a truck. I should be able to dodge bullets and missiles. I should be able to do a 180 while driving at about 100 mph and then drive backwards without loosing any momentum for about 20 miles or so while killing some guy with a machine then spin my car around 180 again with ease. It might help if I had an English accent.

2). It is okay if the bad guy wins as long as they are played by someone famous.
So in Death Race, Tyrese Gibson plays the evil, murderous, hateful, jealous and all around bad guy, Machine Gun Joe. Regardless of the fact that he constantly kills and threatens to kill just about everyone in the movie and who’s only purpose in the plot seems to be trying to kill Jason Statham, he escapes prison with Jason and goes free while Jason Statham’s honest, hard working pit crew and his mentor “Coach” get left behind. Too bad Jason Statham’s pit crew, you should have been played by someone more famous.

3). I will never pick a fight with Jason Statham.
He kills a guy with a car. He kills a guy with a pipe. He kills a guy with his bare hands and he even beats three dudes to death with a tin foil lunch tray. The only way I would fight Jason Statham would be if we were in some weird void with nothing around him and he were completely naked so he couldn’t kill me with his shirt or something. I would probably make him close his eyes too because he probably has some sort of “death stare”.

4). Guns are harmless.
Every single gun ever made shows up for the party in Death Race and they all seem to be reasonable useless. I thought bullets, rockets and fire were bad but in Death Race they seem to be more of a friendly gesture, like a casual “beep’ of the horn. For example you’re out taking a stroll down the street and you see Bob Jenkins. You want to say hi so you unload a few thousand rounds into Bob Jenkins chest with your semi automatic sub machine gun. “Hi Bob” you say as Bob fires a missile at your face. “Hey Steve” he says. All is harmless and free in the pleasant world of Death Race.

5). B*tchy blonde white women with too much power who think they are the boss of everyone should be exploded.
Kind of knew that before seeing Death Race, just sort of confirmed it for me.

XBLA Review: Maw...

My first reaction to the game was that it was a very slow, simple platformer with very boring character design. After I had completed the game though, which took about eight-ish hours, I found it a quick and fun experience with just enough variety to keep things entertaining through to the end.

Maw is an adventuring staring Frank, a short, bipedal, blue alien and Maw, a gelatinous purple blob with an insatiable appetite. The story begins with the two as captors to an alien race of beings. That’s about all you get to know as after a crash landing Frank joins forces with Maw and they traverse a small planet inhabited by strange creatures eating their way to freedom.

The play mechanic is simple enough. Frank drags Maw around like a dog on a leash, leading him to his next meal. As Maw eats he gets bigger and becomes a more fearsome adversary. Maw can also eat specific creatures to gain “special powers”. Such as fire breath, flight, and my favorite, a multi-eyed laser blasting killing machine.

Overall the games controls were tight, the story was quick and simple (and complete) and the puzzles and challenges were just the right difficulty for the content. It was fairly easy to complete the game 100% and gather all the achievement points. My only complaint about the game was in the area of visuals. Frank and Maw are probably the two simplest designed characters in the game. This is fine for Maw as he takes on multiple forms throughout the game, all of which easily blend with his simple blob design. Frank however is just kind of ugly… The creatures in the game are all very well designed, which is a little strange as the environments in the game are about as simple as they can be. Green grass, blue sky and brown dirt. I guess that’s being pretty picky as the game is just an XBLA game after all. So I guess some inconsistencies are allowed.

One Piece...best comic ever...

So I used to be really into comics "back in the day". Then I pretty much lost interest. Due to the art? Due to the stories? Due to growing up a little? Who knows, I just lost interest. About four years ago a good friend of mine tried turning me on to manga. I kind of avoided the stuff. Just wasn't into it. Well he kept encouraging me until I read a few chapters of this particular book. Man was I hooked. One Piece by Eiichiro Oda is absolutely amazing and pretty much the only "comic" I read anymore. I love the characters, the story is absolutely fantastic and the art really grew on me after a while. The book is currently around chapter 520 and is still amazing. I don't know how long Oda-san continues to write but I hope it's for many more years.

If anybody wants to give it a chance you can read all the issues here or you could wait for Shonen Jump to release it all in English. The unfortunate to the latter is that Shonen Jump edits the art and absolutely butchers the translation. And you'll have to wait about thirty more years for them to get caught up to the book in Japan.

Persona-l issues...

I've had Persona 3 and P3Fes from the Shin Megami Tensei series sitting around collecting dust way too long. I've only scratched the surface for Persona 3, haven't even touched Fes and now Atlus is releasing Persona 4!! Guess I know what I'm doing over Christmas vacation.

-adam H

Late Night DS Action...

Gettin' late...time to go play some Rocket Slime.

Later.
-adam H