This is at best old news, but I just played through Mirror's Edge. I'm more pleased than displeased with the experience, although there were some obvious shortcomings that would have made me frustrated had I payed the price it was originally sold for.
Gran Turismo Academy was recently released to the Playstation Store, and is part of a contest to be the best virtual driver in your country, as well as a demo for the upcoming (this summer!) Gran Turismo 5.
don't be a baby, drift, driving, fun, game, gran turismo 5, gt5, hard as hell, no damage, realistic, simulator, wheel in Games
Updated on 11:47 PM by
Double-Joint
I've never posted anything about gunpla on here before, but if you're reading this, I'm assuming you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, but for some odd reason you want to understand, you could do some googling. Anyway, the Perfect Grade 00 Raiser came out yesterday. I've wanted to build a PG kit for a while, and I like the 00 Raiser's design (00 by itself is a little off to me, but with an airplane stuck to its back it's pretty interesting imo), so I got it. This isn't really a full unboxing I guess, mostly because I didn't feel like uploading that many pics. If anyone who reads this (assuming someone does) actually has a desire for more info, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.
00 raiser, gundam, gunpla, perfect grade This could potentially be a full "feature" article where I go into mad detail about loot across different games, but it's not.
I imagine loot to be one of the elementary components of a good game. When buying a game, I am essentially trading money for nothing, its nice to have a false sense of gain as I play. That's not to say that playing has no rewards generally; there is a great sense of accomplishment that can come in a wide variety of flavors from games. Unleashing omnislash on Sephiroth's punk-ass; finally chaining a stage (almost) perfectly in Ikaruga; at last stumbling upon a hidden path in Super Mario; earning your handful of cash from a hard day's work moving boxes with a forklift...
All those things are great rewards for playing a game, but I've recently been enjoying a much more base type of reward: loot. In-game items. Actual virtual objects that you can accumulate. As stupid as it sounds to anyone who hasn't felt satisfaction from this, satisfying it is.
For me, the key aspect that makes one game's loot stand above others is the quality of the icons. This is one of the few times that I really care about the graphics in a game; well drawn icons or well modeled objects takes loot to a whole new level. It's somewhat hard to characterize because the quality of the graphics doesn't have to be objectively good (high-res or high polygon count), but there is just a certain something that particular games really nail.
A good example of this would be DQ VIII. While the different weapons you get are for the most part only minor improvements upon previous weapons (+18 damage vs. +15), they all have distinct icons specific to that weapon. On top of this, weapons are visible on your character as you walk around, and that simple change in appearance gives a strong sense of change and progress, even if the numerical difference is small. This esthetic payoff changes what could be a frustratingly slow progression through weapons into something that is rewarding enough such that the rate doesn't seem like a drag.
My recent loot fixes have been Treasure World on DS (pure loot), and PsyPets (Tamagotchi + Progress Quest + loot). I hope to write more about those games at some point. Though, I suppose they only marginally fall under the category of 'games'; the term "software toy" would probably be more appropriate, and should totally be brought back.
-Steinkamp
In this movie Jim Carrey can't say no to any opportunity presented to him because its all for lols. Well, in terms of the story of the film it's because he goes to some self-help seminar where's he's told to do so. At the beginning of the film his life is dull, uneventful, and just generally sucks because he doesn't do anything. Then he starts to say yes to all sorts of things (like giving a homeless man a ride to some location and entering into a bar fight), and he ends up dating Zooey Deschanel.
Jim Carrey, Yes Man, Zooey Deschanel in Movies 
Predator 2 sees the predator returning to the jungle to hunt humans. (Though its not the same individual predator that was in the first movie, as that one suicided via an atomic blast). Only this time its the urban jungle - L.A. The predator in this movie doesn't really seem to be looking for a challenge, he mostly seems to stay invisible and cheap shot dudes.
Behind the times as usual, I just watched Alien. I hadn't realized that this movie was quite that old (1979, jeez), but surprisingly it didn't show its age too terribly.
As would be expected for such a well-known movie, the majority of the shock value relating to alien itself had been worn completely away by its status as a cultural icon. Of course the alien comes out of the dude's chest; that's what aliens do. And of course the baby has to become huge really quick, because I've never seen a medium-sized version. That said, I was reasonably satisfied with my viewing experience, and was quite impressed with some parts of the film.
At the beginning of Benjamin Button, the title character is born as a old man baby. He's the same size as a newborn and has the same proportions, he cries and can't speak. Basically a regular baby except he's really wrinkled and supposedly has arthritis and bad hearing and other old age related ailments. Luckily as time goes by he ages backwards, continuing to look physically younger as he should be getting older. Kinda. As a baby he mostly just looks disgusting, then he morphs into an old looking guy who's as big as a kid.
Here's the important thing though, as he's supposedly aging backwards, Benjamin is still growing taller. He has the same size as he should at his age, just has the physical condition of an old dude. So following the logic of his aging process, at the end of his life he should become a giant man-sized embryo.
benjamin button, zygote in Movies 
The megaman franchise has been one that I've had a love-hate relationship with for some time. I own both the X and regular collections for console, and consider the series to be an outstanding example of straightforward, challenging gaming, but the fact of the matter is that I've rarely gotten very far in the great majority of these games. I often would start a game, attempt every stage at least once, and when I couldn't beat a single stage without significant suffering and retrying, I would give up and move on to something else. I suppose that is one bad aspect of owning a collection where all the games are available to you.
When I first got a PSP, I was having quite a hard time finding good games to play on it, but one that I thought should be a great value was Megaman Powered Up, a remake of the first Megaman game with updated graphics and a cutesy style. The main draw the game had for me was the stage editor, which seemed like it could be thoroughly awesome.
As is almost always the case, my enthusiasm was much greater than my actual satisfaction.
Maverick Hunter X, Megaman, Megaman Powered Up, PSP in Games 
I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, plain and simple. I'm definitely no expert on the genre, but I've had enough Neal Stephenson and William Gibson mixed into my blood recently to know that I have a thirst for average writing slathered in technical jargon and futurism.
Accelerando is the latest book I've read on the topic of futuristic madness, and madness it indeed was. I don't intend to do any official review type business here, but I just want to share some of my thoughts on the central issues put forth in the book. If you plan to read it, I wouldn't recommend reading on, but if you're just interested in the ideas, feel free. Note that the author, Charles Stross, has been kind enough to make the entire book free to the public and available on his site. Of course, if you can't stand reading on a screen, that's too bad, but it's one of the coolest gestures I've seen an author make.