Sweet, so I am totally going to go buy a 360 this weekend. This was seriously the last game I was waiting for on the PS3. Hideo Kojima announced that unfortunetely it wont be available at the same time but I'd rather have it late than never. Check out the announcement! It mostly one of the previous trailers recut with Hideo Kojima's announcement at the end. I'm psyched.

This is my short and sweet response to an article written by Kevin McCullough, which, to be honest was indeed brought to my attention by Penny Arcade. He is grossly misinformed and has been ranted upon the entire page by commenters, but I still thought a reasonable banter was warrented.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about McCullough? Have you ever played a video game? Do you have brain poison?

Game's with mature content aren't marketed to young audiences. It is irresponsible parent's who don't monitor their children's purchases that are responsible for the content therein reaching an unintended audience. If you are still looking to place blame, retailers often neglect to check buyers identification, thus allowing underage children to possess what is obviously mature content.

I'm no supporter of games which objectify violence and sex needlessly. But oftentimes, preachy columnists such as yourself fail to even play through an entire game, much less experience anything but the worst in a game. You know nothing of the content, the depth, or complexity of the game of Mass effect.

Quit blaming games for bad parenting. There is a rating system, and if adults/retailers would follow the rating scale at a reasonable level games which are obviously intended for a mature audience (if only for a brief seen containing barely explicit nudity presented tastefully and well in context and character development) wouldn't end up in the hands of children.

Your concern is misguided, belligerent, and uninformed Mr. McCullough.

This video isn't new, per say... but rather an older video I never got around to fixing. There are a few bits that I don't like and wanted to change and I've finally admitted to myself I have no motivation to change it now. Instead I will upload it for your viewing pleasure. It's another FFX video and I worked on it shortly after my last video... (Mid summer)

I think the pairing of the song/video is great, but my editing isn't top notch on the video... I wanted to avoid the confusion that might occur if people thought I was calling Yuna a harlot... I wish there were video of Yunalesca, because I really wanted the song to pertain to Yunalesca and Sin/Seymour. My favorite bit is near the end with the key change. I'm not sure if this is my last FFX video or not... I have plenty of clips to choose from. I'd appreciate some critique, though I know this isn't a finished project. Thank you! Enjoy!

I promised I'd stop doing this, but oh well. I just reached level 21 and 3000 posts. Two landmarks, as Level 20 is exceptionally difficult to pass. (Level 21 is quicker) Yay for me.

Also, Mass Effect looks so amazing? Why haven't I been following this game for longer?

I'm really looking at a 360 very seriously now. Mass Effect is coming out, and I can get in on Orange Box, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, and a menagerie of other excellent games. While the PS3 is still very alluring the content just isn't enough to attract me. Certainly Metal Gear Solid 4 looks absolutely mind bogglingly fun, but it really has turned into the only real game attracting me to the PS3.

The downside to this plan, is that I don't really like the 360... I'm not at all familiar with the controller, and I'm not a big Microsoft fanboy. I actually really like the PS3 as a console, but Sony is making it too difficult to warrent a purchase. I don't know if I buy a PS3 it might be obsolete in a few days, or they might just make the features I bought for too much money outdated and useless a few months down the road by making a new model with new features and focusing on that as 'standard' and leaving everyone else to catch up.

I've been saying this for over a year now, and I think might just be crazy. I'm fairly 'frugal' with money, or at least I like to think I am. I'm also planning on buying a new TV soon, and although I would love to get that first, I know some good deals will come up closer to Christmas.

Until then?

I can't possibly describe how absolutely amazing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is. Even L33t speak can't convey the pure level of awesome that I am experiencing. I really don't even have time to write this since I am pretty much doing nothing but play Metroid Prime 3. You can definitely expect a review. Right now, unless I run into something dissapointing, it is an absolutely amazing game, possibly very very close to a perfect 10 so far.

Metroid... Prime... 3... Rocks...

And I almost gave them some credit for doing something good for once. Although I posted in this blog on the 8th, the day of the price drop in the US, Gamespot decided it felt like deleting everything instead of posting it, so I'll sum up quickly my opinions of the price drop.

Well, it's difficult for me to say it now, considering my opinion has changed drastically sense then, but I did think that the $100 price drop, although only a sixth of the initial price, would be a great improvement for Sony. They have a bit of a "suck it up" kind of attitude when it comes to their user base. (Note I say 'user base' not 'fan base' because I'm pretty sure everyone hates Sony right now) Sony had been fairly adamant that the $600 price tag was perfectly fine, and they didn't plan on changing it 'in the foreseeable future'. This wording 'in the foreseeable future' is kind of interesting particularly when the price drop occured less than 24 hours after this statement was made. The news was taken quite well, and my mood definitely brightened at the thought of a cheaper PS3. Sony was doing something right! They were lowering the price of their console, just when some of their heavy hitter games were getting ready to make it into the market. (Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, ect.)

This excitement was very short lived when Sony made their next announcement at E3. Sony came out to say that the 60gb PS3, the one with the price drop, was going to be phased out and eventually replaced with a new version of the PS3 at the original price.

*Cue crowd jaw dropping (not because of Sony's 'brilliance' let me assure you)*

Chaos ensued, panic... disorder... There was an outrage. Sony spent a good part of the day trying to convince everyone that the 60gb PS3 wouldn't dissapear from store shelves anytime soon, which is kind of ironic considering Sony announced they had already discontinued production and expected the current stock to run out before the end of July, which means Sony was what doing what big time business corporations like to call "consumer reassurance" and what I like to call "lieing through their frickin teeth"

The 'price drop' revealed itself to be nothing of the sort. Instead Sony is now releasing a new version of the PS3 at the original $600 price.

Before someone tries to explain how the $60 Motorcross game and larger hard drive included in the new PS3 model more than make up for the monetary difference, let me explain why it doesn't matter. Even with the extra value included in the new PS3 package you have to realize one simple thing: I DO NOT WANT THESE THINGS! I don't want a bigger hard drive. If the 80gb hard drive were ever going to be a neccessity for the PS3 then Sony woudn't have ever sold a model with only 20gb. (Then again, they might because Sony hates everyone) Also, although the Motorcross demo was pretty thrilling, it didn't get the greatest rating in all of game-land and I wouldn't buy it anyway...

This all comes second only to the fact that now Sony is using emulation to work their backwards compatibility which is known to be inneffiecient (see Xbox 360 backward compatability issues) and be a generally less desirable way to work backwards compatible games.

Sony is selling a $600 dollar sack of urine, with useless appendages, and inefficient backward compatibility.

Sony... you have lost a customer. It really wouldn't be such a big deal if I didn't actually like the PS3 itself... I might just be one consumer, but sooner or later everyone else is going to realize how you have been pushing around this sort of **** this entire generation of games... I'm buying a 360...

I'm buying a 360 and I might just miss out on Metal Gear Solid 4... but at least I'll get to play Dead Rising, Gears of War, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Resident Evil 5, Assassins Creed, Final Fantasy XIII, Armored Core 4, Blacksite: Area 51, Oblivion, F.E.A.R., Guitar Hero 3, Ninja Gaiden 2, and every other Xbox game I missed out on while I was waiting for you to get things right.

Wow, did I find a hidden treasure or what? Just the other day I found an archive of every High Res FFX cutscene in the game. (http://bluelaguna.net/movies/ffx/fmvs.php) The perfect find for what I was planning on making. I have seen a couple Final Fantasy X movies that feature Everytime We Touch by Cascada, but none that I have seen really blow me away. I wanted to attempt it myself, to see what kind of results I could get.

I think my successes for this video are in speeding up and slowing down different sections to fit the movement of the song. I did a lot of this, and it seems to work. I also am pleased with the 'story' the movie tells. A lot of GMV's kind of feature random clips in no particular order, but I thought this video seemed to pull it together in a vaugely coherent mass. I really like the way this turned out, probably a 'medium' on the editing difficulty. Be sure to leave me a comment or two either here, or on the actual video page. Thanks for watching!

I finally figured out my phones bluetooth connection! My new cellphone now has the Metal Gear Solid Codec as a ringtone. When people call, it makes the codec noise, and my wallpaper looks just like the codec screen from MGS. (Made by me on photoshop) It's definitely cool!

(Felt the need to share this)

Well, I graduated today! Hoorah for class of 2007. (Congrats to all you other grads out there too!) It was pretty cool. I had a Graduation reception and got mula presents from my family, which was very awesome. Perhaps now I wont be the poor starving college student I was shaping up to be. (Although I have the hopeless scruffy hobo beard thing going on right now so we'll see) For those of you who don't know I will be attending Fort Hays State University to major in Graphic Design (or something like that). I'm looking forward to it.

Another great thing is I've got the projector home for the summer. I'm setting up a semi-semi-permanent-ish location for it... so it will take some thinking... I've also got permission to take it to my friends house for some late night Wii-madness (pizza and cream soda included) and of course...illegal firecrackers in the morning. (Whats not to love?) It's finally summer time, meaning I can actually be a little more active on the boards. It's crackalackin! (Craig Ferguson reference) I'm not sure when I'll be starting up work, but I'm thinking I might wait until June, rather than right away. I need some time to unwind, but I may not have a choice. Ah well. We'll see.

Also, something I neglected earlier is the amazing news that Starcraft II is in developement! Nerds all over the world rejoice! I, personally, thought I was going to explode out of joy. The trailer certainly is a cinematic way to get the fan's attention. Hell, it really is about time.

Oh and... I am in no way affiliated with this Senior prank in any way shape or form directly or indirectly...

This is a stop sign right by my school. Nice eh?

Spoilers!

Alright, I need to say it... Spider-man 3 was a bit of a dissapointment. Certainly it was a good movie, and parts were just downright amazing. But the movie shouldn't be called Spider-man 3 as much as it should be Peter Parker 3. (Spider-man is barely in the movie) A majority of the time you are forced to look at Toby Mcguires horrible butt-chin while he says vaguely nerdy things in line with Spider-man. Just when you think they couldn't have possibly made Peter Parkers personality any more dry he gets the symbiote suit which causes him to be a jerk AND have an emo-haircut.

Now not only is Peter Parker devoid of his general wit and personality, but he walks through the city dancing and feeling up ladies. He gives himself an emo haircut. (Pictured below) and spends his time at home posting bad poetry on his live journal account, and listening to Linkin Park. ("Craaaaaaawling iiiiin my skin. These woooooounds they wiiiiiill not heeeeeaaaaal.")

Watching emo Spider-man is about as fun as eating broken glass.

Now the good parts in the movie were astounding. Sandman looks awesome, Harry isn't as stupid as I thought he might be, and Eddie Brock is (thankfully) not in the movie long enough to become obnoxious. But unfortunetely, maybe the movie would have been a little better with a little less Peter Parker, and a little more Spider-man.

EDIT: Also, in one of the last scenes Mary Jane sings a song called "I'm through with love." This is your key to start paying attention because in a minute she is going to put her hand on Peter's shoulder and with the lighting just right, you are going to see Kirsten Dunst's freakishly hairy arms. They are like gorilla arms. Man they are freakishly hairy!

Everything seems to be going slightly wrong. Not horribly wrong mind you, just slightly wrong. First off, I fixed the God of War II disk that broke. I borrowed my friends disk cleaner, and it seems to have fixed the problem. But not on my PS2... and not on the PS2 I borrowed from my friend either... Only on 1 out of 4 PS2's I have tried it on does it work. In any other PS2 it just makes a horrible noise thats sounds like someone is trying to start an old Chevy inside the PS2. It's horrible.

Also, my Wacom tablet came in the mail. Wohoo! Thats awesome right? Well, unfortunetely which I didn't notice before, the stupid thing doesn't come with a bluetooth adaptor. FEINDS! Now I have to buy a bluetooth adapter and shell out another 30-40 bucks... It's ridiculous. So for now I have a copy of God of War II sitting here that I can't play, and a Wacom tablet that wont work. I'm having 50% fun right now. So my weekend (which I was hoping would be exciting) is kind of glum as I have yet to play GoW II, yet to use my new Wacom tablet I ordered several weeks ago, and yet to see Spider-man 3 because my friend (who is hopefully driving) wants to make sure his girlfriend sees the first two Spider-mans first and she has to come and he can't go unless she has seen both of them in their entirety and had enough time to reflect upon the implications of the actions in the movie and how they may affect the outcome of the third. So! In advent of the thought that he may fail me, I may go to the small movie theater and see it... by myself... paying for the gas my self... and not actually going anywhere where I could buy a usb to bluetooth adaptor... and not with my friend who's PS2 I have so I could exchange him for the other...

CURSES!

 Ah well... It will all turn out in the end... I hope... because everything is going far to wrong for it to get worse... Right?

 I finished a new video during my time without internet, using the materials I had available. It's not quite like my other two, as there was significantly less editing in general, more of just pairing a few things together and receiving some pretty neat results. I used clips I edited slightly from a MGS4: Guns of the Patriots trailer, and music from Metal Gear Solid 3, specifically "The Treading Behemoth" from a portion of the Shagohod. (Feel free to tell me how awesome the music fits, and how you can hardly tell that it wasent there to begin with and that I must definitely be a pretty amazing guy)

Also, a few other awesome bits of news, and a few not so awesome bits.

Awesome:

I bought Killer 7, and the Final Fantasy XII guide. Very awesome, very cool. Killer 7 is very strange.

Not so Awesome:

I borrowed my friends copy of God of War II. (The first level was so amazing!) But then my PS2 spazzed out and started smashing the disc to pieces. It is horribly scratched and may never play again leaving me with not only a broken GoWII disk, but a PS2 that is malfunctioning a well, and I'm down $50 when I eventually have to replace the disk which kind of well... sucks a lot.

Back to the Awesome:

Also, the High School Prom is tonight which is kind of cool I guess. It's kind of strange because I'm taking my ex-girlfriend to Promenade, and my girlfriend to actual Prom. Ah well, it should be entertaining.

Prom season means... graduation is just around the corner. I'm sure someday I will look back on my High School years fondly wishing they would have lasted longer, but for right now I'm just excited for summer break, which also means I will be active again on the boards. Ho ha!

Finally my video uploads... First my internet was going crazy, then GameSpot was going crazy, then my file uploader was going crazy. Bah humbug. This video was very fun to make and I am very happy with the results. The uploaded video makes me slightly sad, because the quality is dramatically reduced, but I am trying to find a way to improve it. I really worked on getting some smooth transitions and syncing changes in the music with changes in the video and I think I accomplished this. Feel free to leave me some advanced critique if you would like, and if you have any suggestions for improving video quality upon uploading I'd be glad to here it. (It's crystal clear on my PC, even in full screen, but when I upload it the compression kills...)

I've also found there are some ups and downs to spring break. I was looking for some great relaxation which I'm getting, but unfortunetely everyone else has left... Most of my friends are in Colorado for skiing or off on exotic islands somewhere, and my girlfriend is spending the week in NYC. Luckily, one of my friends who went to Boston was kind enough to leave me his copy of Excite Truck to entertain me for the breakso I've spent the past couple days checking it out. I have to say, it is a blast. I wouldn't buy it at full price just yet, as the modes are a bit limited, I don't have two Wii-motes for multiplayer, and you can beat the main game in a couple of hours. But damn, it is incredibly fast, very forgiving and just plain fun.

I've been trying to get the projector home to play on a large screen, so I might do that later this afternoon... We shall see.