Still wondering how long it’s going to take me to beat Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. I just bought my copy a few days ago, and I’m already on Mission 12.  I haven’t yet hit that difficulty ramp where everything starts getting harder all of a sudden, but I’m sure it’s coming up, as I haven’t yet tapped into my CO Powers.

No damn way I’ll be able to get all 270 medals. I’m still stuck on 101 in Dual Strike, and it’s gonna take lots of insane tasks to get all 300. Pfeh to that, I say.  I’ll just worry about completing that game’s Hard campaign and leveling everybody up to the point on unstoppability.

Do you have your copy yet?

Category: Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: advance wars, days of ruin, dual strike, nintendo ds, rewards, strategy

I wonder what it is that attracts me to music games? Or maybe, music games are attracted to me?  I think it started with PaRappa the Rapper back in the PlayStation era, and since then, I’ve made it part of my duty to become “just that good” at a bunch of rhythm-based games. DDR, Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero (ye gods, Guitar Hero), Elite Beat Agents…my hands (and feet) have touched them all. Ontamarama, cute as it is, is kicking my butt on the Hard difficulty level. Having to draw circles around the little Ontama thingies and then pressing the corresponding directional arrows is hard to do when they’re coming so fast…but damn it, I vow that I will finish this game, too. After that, I’ll worry about getting A-ranks in every song. Fun, fun, fun.

Not fun? Not having a device that takes screenshots on the little buggers.

Category: Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: amplitude, dance dance revolution, elite beat agents, frequency, guitar hero, nintendo ds, ontamarama, parappa the rapper, rhythm

Damn. Can’t believe I missed this series last year. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a DVD player to call my own, or enough free time and disposable income to purchase DVDs (and yet my video game collection keeps expanding – Fridge Logic much?). In hindsight, I guess I missed a lot of anime/cartoon DVD sets since I focused so much on video games last year, so in 2008, I figured I’d try something new.

Why Mai-HiME (My-HiME), of all things? Let’s just say it’s the TV Tropes Wiki’s fault. Through that website, I was introduced to a handful of shows I probably would have missed otherwise (including but not limited to Death Note, Excel Saga, and Read or Die). So, my goal is to watch all 26 episodes of this here show and share my observations, and maybe find something for you to add to your DVD collection. Your mileage may vary.

As all good things do, I’ll start with Episode 1: “A Girl’s Most Important Event” (dead link removed). I’ll post a link to the recap itself, since I don’t want to unnecessarily bloat this blog post with images or the dreaded OMGWALLOFTEXT. Long story short – Nice animation and voice work, and a good way to set the tone for the rest of the show. I give Episode 1 a 4…out of 5. As I get more experienced with doing this, I’ll add a bit more detail to my observations. Gotta start small, right?

EDIT: The original version of this post linked to an HTML page that no longer exists on the server.

Category: Anime/Manga
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: 4-star episodes, death note, excel saga, mai-hime, premieres, recaps

“They shoulda never gave you niggas money!” – Dave Chappelle as Rick James

Man, I don’t know what the heck Hollywood is thinking. First, they let guys like Uwe Boll make a mockery of video games by turning them into things like this and this. Then they have guys like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (a.k.a. “two of the six writers of Scary Movie“), and let them make a mockery of parody films by turning them into things like this and this. Now, I haven’t seen Date Movie, Epic Movie, or even Meet the Spartans for that matter (because my DVD player would try to intentionally crash itself if I tried putting that in), but the way their scattershot so-called “parodies” come off, it makes me think that these two guys are bitter at the films they’re mocking for being better than them (not to mention funnier).

I’m now starting to wonder if all that success with the original Scary Movie was all the Wayans brothers’ doing.

Category: Movies
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: aaron seltzer, film, hollywood, jason friedberg, parody, people that suck, scary movie, things that suck, uwe boll

I added two new sections to the ol’ blog here. One’s going to be for works of fiction that I’ve written, and another will be reserved for recaps of whatever it is I’m watching at the time. I have my stories posted on FanFiction.net and my old LiveJournal, but I figured I’d put everything here, as well, in the unlikely event that one of those sites should be made unavailable for any reason.

The first of the stories I added here is Little Black Book, a Death Note-themed story I wrote for LiveJournal’s “31 days” community. It’s a short piece, and like the series itself, it’s kinda dark (but not excessively so). It’s not the only one I’ve worked on, though. I’ll probably post more on the weekend.

EDIT: The original post linked to an HTML page that no longer exists on the server. The link has been changed to a place in the “Fiction” section of the blog.

Category: Anime/Manga, Literature
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: 31_days, death note, fanfiction, fanfiction.net, livejournal, new sections