Basurake

So, sorry that took so long. That page has been done for a while, but I’ve been so busy working on Heckbringers that I hadn’t the time to post it. Shrimpy’s in for it now, seeing as Molly doesn’t seem like the type to take a little boy’s crap lightly. We’ll see what nastiness is in store for Shrimpson soon enough…

Sooooo…. VIDEO GAME TALK TIME! First off, Volume 3 of Life Meter is apparently on sale now at www.lifemetercomics.com, which is cool I guess. I don’t have a copy, but a friend of mine ordered one, and although it took its sweet time getting to him, he said it is quite nice! I’m not trying to shove this down anybody’s throats, but if you like the whole whimsical video game comic thing, or just like indie comics in general, check it out. Secondly, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is pretty awesome. So is Red Steel 2, as a matter of fact. I don’t remember if I talked about it at all when it came out, but I highly recommend it. I’m not gonna go all “this is the best game ever” or “its the second coming of Christ in video game form” or any of that nonsense, but I will say that it is a very rewarding action game that I personally had a blast playing.

OTHER STUFF! Dragon Ball Kai is on Nicktoons now, mysteriously renamed Dragon Ball Z Kai. I think alot of stupid people are probably lamenting this fact, but honestly I think its great. Funimation has really give DBZ a great localization, the one it deserved all along. The OST appears to be intact, the dub is pretty accurate from what I can tell, and the opening and ending, although a little hammy, sound pretty cool translated. There seems to be some minor censoring going on, probably due to Nicktoons, but its no worse than the original run of the show. I’m mostly excited at the prospect of a new generation coming to love what is really a classic series, as it makes me downright giddy to see my nephew watching Gohan kick Nappa into a mountain and loving it. Cartoon Network really dropped the ball by not picking this series up, I think.

As I said earlier, I’m hard at work on Heckbringers. The free comic book day promotional issue turned out pretty good, so I’m in full blast mode working on the full issue one. Hopefully that will be done before the end of June, but I guess we’ll wait and see.

THAT’S IT! Hopefully a new page next week!

Well that word doesn’t really look like its spelled right, but whatever. I don’t have too much to show off for having been at this for a whole year, but for the sake of commemorating the event, I thought I’d post some neat bonus material over the next week or so until the next chapter is ready. These bits will hopefully remind everyone of what happened over the past year and get them up to speed wit the story. And if not, maybe it’ll motivate people to look back at the old pages and read again!

Anyway, not a whole lot else to say today. I got Cave Story for the Wii, which is pretty freaking awesome. I know its more or less the same as the freeware game that came out four years ago, but playing it on the big screen with a decent controller feels great, and considering this is one of the most fun games I’ve ever played, I don’t mind dropping twelve dollars. Here’s hoping more people give this wonderful game a chance!

Well Johnny’s engaged the dragon god in a dialogue, now perhaps they can begin moving towards a peaceful resolution of their issues. See kids? Violence doesn’t ALWAYS solve problems!

Lot to talk about today! First off, with this chapter nearing its close, I’ve been thinking heartily about the next chapter. You’ll all be glad to know that I’m well into writing its fourth page! Isn’t that exciting!? In addition to writing the next episode, I’ve also been thinking of some neat bonus pages I could to to keep things spicy. I may begin posting end of episode summation pages, which sounds dumb on paper but in practice will be neat if I pull it off correctly. I can’t lie, I’m borrowing this idea from Kia Asamiya’s Steam Detectives, but flattery is the most sincere form of theft, right?

Okay, next up is some Castlevania goodness! The lost gem of the series, the Japan only PC-Engine title Dracula X: Chi no Rondo is out on the Wii’s Virtual Console! For anyone that didn’t feel like buying a PSP and slogging through Konami’s recent remake to get to the original version, this is great news! This game is considered to be among the best old school Castlevania games, and it really is just dripping with charm and detail. This one kinda slipped onto VC without much fanfare, possibly because the PSP release has made the original seem old hat, but the chance to play this previously unavailable game for nine dollars, on an actual TV screen is still exciting to me!

Next up Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. Although I really enjoy the game, I have to say that I dislike the direction fighting games are taking. The emphasis on spamming cheap, unblockable super combos and the general necessity of absolutely lame tactics to play the game with any sort of proficiency is disheartening. He online component unfortunately only seems to serve as a window into how sad and pathetic the hardcore fighting game community has become. Shame. That said, the game is still a blast to play with friends when the focus is fun, not victory.

Well, that’s about it! With how much I talk about games here I might as well be running a different site altogether! Maybe next time we’ll discuss literature!

Dragon God totally owns the faces of everyone. Not really a surprise, I hope. WHAT WILL JOHNNY DOOOOOO!?

So I’m pretty sure I talked about MegaMan 10 a little bit last time, but I’ve played more of it since so I’m going to talk a bit more. I love SheepMan. He’s freaking adorable. NitroMan is also very cool, though I didn’t feel that way until I actually fought him and saw his moves. He’s basically SUPER MetalMan, which is pretty awesome. ProtoMan mode is stupidly hard, but I knew that would be so. Looking forward to Bass mode!

Still didn’t pick up Shiren the Wanderer 3, but I’m gonna try to do so soon. DOesn’t realy matter though, since I’m sure I’ll never beat it anyway.

Some people just don’t know how to adapt their speech to suit the situation. Like, have you ever heard a young guy address a cop or something as “Dude” or “Man”? That’s not getting you out of breathalyzer!

MEGAMAN 10 IS OUT! AND I HAVE IT! AND IT IS COOL! I wouldn’t mind a 16-bit look for one of these new games, as I really really liked MegaMan 7, but I think I’m in the minority on that one.

Speaking of MegaMan, the much anticipated (by me) release of Hitoshi Ariga’s Rockman Megamix in good old English has come and gone, and I can’t seem to find the damn thing in a store anywhere. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been able to find a manga that I actually wanted in a retail store in years! I understand having trouble finding books from smaller publishers, but sometimes there are Viz books that stores don’t stock simply because they are not Bleach or Naruto.

Can’t seem to find a copy of Shiren the Wanderer 3 either… very annoying, but I guess that’s what the internet is for!

Okay, I’ve been pretty lazy lately, I guess the holidays kept me sorta busy. No worries though, I’m back! This chapter is finally gearing up to climax pretty soon, probably within the next 10 pages or so. I guess we’ll see. Seeya!

Oh yeah, Castlevania Rebirth came out. I like it alot. I think they should have called it Castlevania Wiibirth. Bye again!

Johnny slogs his way into the Pool of Violence as a direct consequence of impaired judgment. I guess people have made worse mistakes drunk, right?

Sorry this took so long, I guess I’ve been a bit scattered lately. I’ve been really giving my Wii a good workout lately, which is good, since I bought it and all. I finally got around to playing The Conduit, which from what I can tell has received rather mixed reviews. The first person shooter has never been my game of choice, but I like to do some shooting now and then, and decided to give the game a try, since I found it for 15 dollars at Target. Although it was certainly underwhelming in terms of its scale, overall I’d say it was a solid game that I had a blast playing. I don’t care much for multiplayer, so I probably won’t be playing it again any time soon, but I enjoyed what was there. If nothing else, it gives me hope that The Grinder, High Voltage’s next Wii shooter will be something to look forward to.

The other game I’m playing is the 10 dollar game Spyborgs, which got absolutely terrible reviews that I don’t think it deserves. If I had to sum it up, I’d say it is next gen Battletoads, but without some of the more annoying bullshit that made Battletoads so inaccessible. It’s still damn hard on the normal setting, but it certainly isn’t cheap or unfair, and the co-op is fun, if a little confusing. There are even a few nice touches that I think other games of this genre really could have thought of. For example, if both players are in need of health, but one player accidentally grabs both available health powerups, the game automatically distributes the unused health increase to the other player, which doesn’t sound like much but really is nice. Other than the difficulty, I don’t have a single issue with the game, though I guess we’ll see if that changes as I progress.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say for now! The next page is technically done, so there isn’t any reason why it won’t be up this week. Until then, SEEYA.

I think I should be going. Anyway, sorry about the whole NOT UPDATING FOR LIKE A FREAKING MONTH thing. I’m a lazy jerk, what can I say? Anyway, my tick bite didn’t kill me, which is cool.

I got an assload of old games for my birthday, and the delightfully wonky fighting game Castlevania Judgment. I’m a pretty big Castlevania fan, and have been for some time, so admittedly the idea of taking one of my favorite action franchises and making it into a fighting game didn’t really sit well with me. Nor did the redesigned characters by Deathnote’s Takeshi Obata. Still, now that I’m playing it, I can’t say I’m not enjoying it. It actually is alot of fun, and is actually sorta deep, for what it is. It’s certainly no Virtua Fighter, but it’s still a good deal more complex than say Power Stone, which is probably the closest analogue for it in terms of gameplay. Imagine somewhere between Power Stone and Soul Calibur, and Castlevania Judgment is what you get. Nobody’s gonna be playing this game at the tournament level any time soon (or ever), but quite frankly I think that’s a good thing. If you have a Wii and you want a solid multiplayer game, you could definitely do worse. Or, if you simply like fighting games made by Eighting. Who DIDN’T like Bloody Roar 3?

On the topic of Castlevania, WHEN THE CRAP IS REBIRTH GONNA COME OUT!? The game came out over a month ago in Japan, and it has literally 4 sentences of dialogue. HOW CAN LOCALIZATION TAKE MORE THAN A WEEK!? Lame.

Johnny’s got his assignment! Can he do it!? Who cares…

ANYWAY! From what I understand, Life Meter Volume 3 went on sale THIS WEEKEND at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, which infuriates me, because I was IN MARYLAND this weekend and DIDN’T GO. Missed opportunity I guess… Still, at some point the second run will go on sale at Life Meter’s website, so there is still some hope for me. Oh well.

So man, I am psyched about Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. I know its just going to be a “best of Castlevania” mishmash, and not really a new game, but quite frankly I’ve been itchin’ for a classic Castlevania game for quite some time, as I’m a little tired of the Metroidvania structure. Also, its selling for 10 dollars, which is pretty much exactly the price at which I can’t complain about a game, even if it totally blows. Excellent strategy, Konami… here’s hoping that next up is The Goonies: Rebirth!

Whooo, that was kinda a long headline. Oh well. Senseless violence continues! WHAT FUN! Just like episode 2, I promise this is going somewhere. I just like to take my time…

ANYWAY, I beat Castlevania II today. Beat the first Castlevania last weekend. Anybody who wants to send me a copy of Castlevania III before next weekend is welcome to! HERE’S HOPING CASTLEVANIA REBIRTH FOR THE WII IS AWESOME!

Seeya.

Sibling rivalry comes to a climax? Things aren’t looking good for poor Receptina. This chapter is wrapping up pretty darn soon, so I hope everyone has enjoyed it so far.

I’ve been told that I don’t really say enough in these updates, so today I guess I’ll talk about my recent poor luck with video games. My brother was kind enough to purchase me a copy of Metroid Prime 3 for our newly acquired Wii a few weeks ago, and I’ve been having a pretty good time with the thing. I liked the previous Metroid Prime games, so I was pretty excited to finally play the new one. Unfortunately, about 30% into the game (according to my little progress meter thing), I started experiencing some major difficulty with the disk! Opening doors, scanning objects, even killing enemies causes the game to crash, and although taking the disk out and putting it back in tends to get the game going again, I’ve probably done that about 80 times without much progress being made. I can’t exactly be mad at the store for selling the damaged game, because how could they know the game would break 8 hours in?

Maybe I’ll get a new game to keep me busy…