These past few days have been absolute hell, thanks to a healthy combo of being neck high in numerous major projects, working overtime at work to compensate for one less staffer, and it being “that time of the year.” Writing these entries may seem more of a waste of time than ever given the crazy amount of “better things to do”, but now they’re only real means for me to remember what the fuck I was doing just a few days ago. Speaking off…
- Besides work, I have been able to blow off some steam, here and there. By the end of the week, last week, I really need to blow off some steam, so like the weekend before, MK & I indulged in some find cinema, this time at Joe’s place, with Jay joining us. Joe had been dying to show us all Six String Samurai, a movie I recall seeing the ads to years ago in various gaming mags. He had only seen it for the first time a few days prior and couldn’t stop gushing about it. MK & my-self’s initial plans for the evening were to simply chill at my place, but when I mentioned Joe’s invite and need to share his new discovery, she was turned on by the promise of swordplay. Plus I mentioned that Joe had mentioned midgets, and that sealed the deal for her.
The movie was good, and Joe summed it up best: Buddy Holly meets Road Warrior, with a bit of Wizard of Oz throughout. Slash made a good bad guy. Sadly, there wasn’t enough of the chico-centric midget. Next was a selection from MK’s Troma contacts. It’s called The Stabilizer and it was fucking awesome. Seriously, it reached Black Belt Jones level of brilliance, it was that good. I’m not even going to bother describing it to you; instead I’ll just say this: it features Indonesian Mr. T. Nuff said.
Plus seeing it with Joe and company was a blast. I know everyone likes to do the whole MST3K thing with their buddies, but most people plain suck at it. But, and I hope this doesn’t seem like bragging, but not us; Joe in particular was in rare form that night. Also, Little Ceasars didn’t take three hours to deliver that night. Be disgusted, I don’t care, we just love shitty chain pizzas. And at least there was no Animal Planet that night. Though I did finally show some Trailer Park Boys to Joe, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Both Joe and Jay enjoyed them I think. No one, including MK could believe that I couldn’t notice the “horrible Canadian accents.” Sorry, but I’ve lived so long near them that it’s virtually indistinguishable for me.
- The next day MK & I went to Chinatown, which I hadn’t been to in ages. I went for my favorite Chinese restaurant on the whole city, a dingy place called the CoLuck, deeps in the depths of Elizabeth Street. No one but the locals know it even exists, so needless to say, I’m practically the only white (okay, half-white) guy who eats there. Unfortunately MK order a pretty gross looking dish, which can happen there fairly easily. But my ham & egg & peas & mysterious sauce (don’t know, and maybe it’s better that way) on rice was damn good.
I also showed MK around the underground mall and assorted other stores that had plenty of assorted cute and bizarre stuff. The great thing was, most people I show around immediately gets bored within five minutes, but not MK. She couldn’t get enough of it all, and ended up doing quite a bit of holiday shopping. She also got herself a rad Charlie Brown watch. On the strap was a dog that had the same general color scheme as Snoopy (black & white) but looks nothing like him. On the face of the watch was Charlie and Snoopy, but curiously enough, Charlie was wearing an all grey uniform (like what the local denizens on the crowded streets of Beijing would be wearing) and holding a rifle I think.
We went into one store which I had never thought too much about (I wanted to leave almost immediately since they had no cool Transformer or Digimon crap) but ended up staying due to their amazing selection; there was bizarre Engrish and cutesy characters on virtually everything, making even a shower bag exciting. It’s a tough call, but this was perhaps the greatest…
… MK’s friends are gonna be super lucky this holiday.
- Later in the evening was a reading by some authors who contributed to a new book called Gamers, which collects essays from various folks who pontificate on the subject. And it was exactly what I expected. You can read a fully detailed (and rather pissy) account here, but long story shot, it was just a bunch of arty-farty types who have never played a game most of their lives (mostly because they thought it was “dumb”), but after playing just one game, all of a sudden become experts on them. But hell, I knew this going in (the fact that it was held at the Bowery Poetry Club… and I fucking hate poetry btw… was already a bad sign), plus the bottom line is that despite the immense popularity of video games, it is still not taken seriously, hence why any idiot who has played Ms Pac Man is given the chance to pontificate on the subject (and in print!) despite not having a fucking clue, since insulting the medium of video games is still, “no big deal”. Meanwhile, if I had listened to only one Beatles album and then went around claiming to know everything there is to know about the band, I would be lynched in public (and justifiably so). Guess video games will have to wait another 70 years to be considered “legit.”
Like I said, I knew it was going to be bad going in, so I knew what to expect, but that didn’t stop my insides from filling with rage inside as I had to hear one trend-fuck after another talk about how “crazy video games are these days!” But the real reason I didn’t throw a chair at the first person who read their shit was I knew at least one of the authors on-hand, K. Thor Jensen, and was confident that his piece would be worth the hell. And indeed he was. Opting not to read his own work onstage since it was basically, in his words, “masturbating” (that got a few laughs, but some were uncomfortably silent) he opted to read from the instruction manual from an old NES game, Dudes With Attitudes. As anyone who’s familiar with the herbage found in them, it pretty fucking funny. Plus the guy after him was really enjoyable as well; he talked about how he was obsessed with an old 2600 game starring the 80′s power ballad band Journey, and how he eventually started chatting with some weirdo who claimed to play the game for over 80 hours straight. I sorta have a thing for people who set video game records, since they’re all a little “interesting”, and this guy seemed no different. I especially love it when they move away from the subject of games and onto more relevant things, like women and the meaning of life. As it’s been proven time and time again, if you can set a high score to an old 8-bit title, you can pretty much screw any chick you want. So in the end, the book has at least two people who’s words are worth reading.
- As for the rest of the weekend, not too much to report other than how, right after MK & I left Jigsaw, where I got a Bumperboy comic and some fortune cookies that Ben Jones was aching to get rid of, I spotted Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, along with some other guy that’s not in Strangers With Candy, at least I think, but whom I’ve seen many times before on other comedies and the such, as they passed us on the street. I normally don’t gush about seeing celebs on the street, but it was awesome! Most interesting was how Dinello looked like a bad guy from West Side Story, with a plain white shirt, leather jacket, and hair like the Fonz.
- Also this past weekend, I came across a video that, I have to say with all sincerity, is perhaps the most insane thing I have ever seen. And I really mean it.
- On Monday it was another 13 hour work day. Normally, I work 8 hours, and most of it is pretty non-eventful. I get to surf the web, work on some personal projects, and update this journal. But all Monday, and Tuesday as well, it’s been non-stop busy, with all the students busy finishing up their end of semester projects, or in some cases, facing the end of the year as the deadline for their senior thesis projects. So I really haven’t had much time to keep up with the current events in regards to gaming.
Though actually, it’s been rather slow on the news side. As mentioned before, most of the major holiday releases have already shipped (save one glaring omission: Gran Turismo 4). DS has also been released both here and abroad; the system did particularly well in Japan at launch (500,000 units were sold over just four days, meaning the worldwide install base is already over a million, according to figures I’ve come across) despite some doubt leading up to it; on launch day, IGN ran pics of some rather meager looking lines of folks waiting for the system, and it was feeding frenzy for the Sony faithful.
Real quick, here’s a video for Daigasso Band Brothers, which really take advantage of the multiplayer aspects of the system. Nice to see music games actually become musical.
- But back to the competition, the only real big news is the anticipation for the PSP’s debut in Japan just four days from now. Demand for it was insanely high to begin with, but now there’s reports that Sony is only shipping 200,000 units at launch (which I believe is well below the number of people who pre-ordered the system). If you go on eBay, you’ll find plenty of auctions for the system that’s well in the $400-$500 range, and these are just for the promise of one since there’s no guarantee these sellers will get one. I know at least one person who’s paying over $500 just for the chance to play Ridge Racers and Lunmines before anyone else. I’ve been asked to keep him anonymous, and I will respect his request since it means I’ll get a chance to play those games myself very soon!
Also, a select few journalists and retailers have gotten their hands on the system, so some concrete info is finally starting to flow in, adding further fuel to the Nintendo vs Sony war of words. Online retailer Lik-Sang posted < ahref="http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=3545">some really good impression of the unit.
One major point they bring up, which has been the source of intense debate all across gaming message boards everywhere, is the load time for the games. As documented by Lik-Sang, it’s pretty long, and something most portable gamers aren’t really used to (and something that folks on the DS bandwagon are more than happy to exploit). But considering it’s a disc based system, this comes as no surprise at all. Back to my friend who’s buying the PSP at launch, regardless of the high price, he’s still crazy. Why? Cuz it’s a Sony, and the first batches of PSPs is guaranteed to have a large number or lemons. And what’s he going to do when his starts acting up, The old PSOne/PS2 method of holding the thing at a 35 degree angle may not work so hot in this instance.
Though like I said before, I want him to get it so I can play Luminies. A new commercial just came out, and just like the really bizarre (and okay, even I have to admit, very gay) Rez commercial, the Lunmines one is just the same. Just compare the sexy and stylish Ridge Racers commercial to the Lumines one (though the clip right after the Ridge Racers clip, for the puzzle game Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan Daijiten, rules over both).
- Other than DS vs PSP, there’s really major to report. Though I have had some fun digging around this site, which has plenty of pics from games before they were finished (and some which never were). I absolutely love seeing scans from old Japanese mags:
And here’s a pic of the Biederman Game Boy to NES adapter which I’m certain 99% of the world doesn’t know about (I heard about it for ages, but never seen an actual pic).
And make sure to check out the comics on the Omake page. I love the strip with the Game Boy and Lynx.
- Back to the real world, last night was the launch party for Robyn Chapman‘s new glasses-centric zine Hey, 4 Eyes! Instead of describing it, I’ll just show some pics I took at the affair:
First off, it’s a super hot zine and that every member of human race who wears glasses should not be without. It’s an ode in the form of comics, photos, interviews, and much more, to the wondrous thing that not only makes it possible for the poor of sight to see, but can also make certain folks (in particular girls) look ultra cute. I’ve said it a million times: I really enjoy wearing glasses. I’ll never get contacts cuz glasses is a part of my identity (i.e. I think I look stupid without them).
Here I am surprising the hell out of Robyn, the brains (and glasses… hooray for stupid puns!) behind the zine. She was pretty busy the whole night entertaining the large group of flolks, most of whom braved the shitty weather to show their support, and wearing their finest eye-wear. But I still got the chance to talk to her about her other project, True Porn, which is what she’s most famous for. It was suggested by MK that I make a comic out of my nipple story and submit it for the book, which if I have the time, might not be such a bad idea.
Speaking of MK, here she is manning the table.
I finally got the chance to meet John Pham (who’s work I’ve been a fan of for a while now). When Raina introduced me to him, she said “Here’s Matt, he’s a gamer”, which I found both funny and embarrassing. I found out that John’s a big fan of vector based games, like Tempest, so I told him about the time I was able to test drive Tempest 3000, and he was actually quite intrigued! Later me mention how he just got a a Vectrex from eBay, and then I shared how I almost got a special NES controller designed specifically for paraplegics that Nintendo produced for hospitals in the late 80s (movement is done by a special chin joystick, and a straw for button inputs… you suck for the A button and blow for the B), also on eBay. I would have paid around $500 for it, but got sniped at the last minute.
Here’s Robyn with Robin. He managed to totally blow my mind when he mentioned that he just got his hands on an extremely obscure Disney film from the late eighties that I’ve been absolutely dying to see. I’m not joking here folks, if there’s been one film that has completely eluded me, mainly because I could never get the wording right for the titel. Well, it’s called the Wizard of Speed and Time, and Robin was kind enough to say he’ll make me a copy. So I’ll be giving him a copy of Black Belt Jones and assorted PSOne games.
Here’s Raina and I striking out best gaming poses. She was the second person that day alone to ask for a copy of Vib Ribbon (Robin being the first, and I think there’s a third but I can’t recall who). I think it’s worth mentioning that any copy of Vib Ribbon that originates from NYC is more than likely from my original master. I also forgot to mention that earlier this weekend, when MK & I were in Chinatown, I stopped by J&L Games (which I’ve avoided like the plague after they fucked up my PS2 with a botched-up mod job) and saw they had Vib Ripple for $75 fucking dollars! What a damn rip! But sadly, I will be going back soon since they have a new copy of the last N64 game that I’ve been meaning to get (I’m afraid to mention the title since it’s rather rare and I don’t want it to be taken).
I also got the chance to talk with a few other cartoonists, such as Karen Sneider, who’s artwork I happened to be wearing (I bought a shirt with one her monsters riding a shark at SPX… it’s easily one of my faves). Real cool person. Also a part time anime voice actress. Plus she plays games. The instant Karen discovered I did as well, she immediately went into how amazing Katamari Damacy was. Awesome.
I took some other pics but they didn’t turn out so hot. I wanted to take some pics of some of the acts on hand, but I was way in the back, and belly dancer that performed was like super short so I couldn’t say anything the whole time. Plus, there is one pic that did turn out, of MK & I, but it’s not exactly the best in the world (as MK put it, we both look like we came off the special bus). So here’s a much cuter, and flattering pic, of us.
There’s actually more to tell, like a story of a bunch of crazy Japanese kids that killed themselves en mass when a game got delayed, and which only the French media is covering, but I really should go back to work, so maybe next time.
