Nintendo has dominated the portable gaming market for 20 years and for good reason. Dated yet quality hardware, a slew of excellent games, and of course, the Nintendo name itself. Many contenders such as the Game Gear and Lynx popped up over the years to try and capture a piece of that market by offering bigger and better features. However, 10 years ago, one system actually followed the Game Boy's blueprint but sadly didn't last very long. That was the Neo Geo Pocket.
( MOAR 2 REED )

Ever come across a puzzle that really burrows into your head? You want to try and figure it out, but there are other things that need to be done. Whenever I try to push it out of my brain, I wonder if there's some kind of piece that I'm missing. It slowly gnaws at me. Probably something I shouldn't think about but still. Uhh... I'm not really sure where I'm going with this metaphor, but that is the state of my mind at the moment. Yeah.

Epik High and Far East Movement came to town last Friday, so I had to see them. Awesome show.
( vids! )

I decided to take the plunge and drop some bones to get a Nintendo DSi. I have a Nintendo DS Phat (the old DS) but no Lite, so I thought I'd make the leap from one iteration to the next. I've been pretty impressed with it so far.

( BUNCHA STUFF )

:(

Latest experiment: using shampoo only every other day. Reaction has been mixed thus far but shows some promise. More as the situation develops later.

Games currently playing:
Chrono Trigger DS
Street Fighter IV
Left 4 Dead
Fable II

Games to be played:
Final Fantasy III
Disgaea DS
Halo 3
Final Fantasy X (just got a PS2)
Final Fantasy X-2
Kingdom Hearts
Fallout
Fallout 2

*sigh* I probably shouldn't buy any more new games for a while.

formless like water by ~n8dawg on deviantART

I went to Wondercon today and unlike last year, I spent the majority of my time sitting for the main panels learning about upcoming movies. There were some smaller panels and workshops I wanted to attend, but I think it was worth it to stick around to check out the previews. Even though I saw several, I'm just going to highlight a few. I missed the Watchmen panel though, which sucks because they showed the first 22 minutes of the movie!

Star Trek - JJ Abrams himself came out to talk about the movie, along with a few cast members. They showed the trailer that will air before Watchmen. I'm more of a Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan, but what I've seen of the movie so far is very impressive. Looks like it'll be a blast.

9 - I never heard of this movie before Wondercon, but after seeing the preview, it looks promising. It's an animated flick starring Elijah Wood, who is a ragdoll named 9 living in a post-apocalyptic world. Yeah... it sounds weird, but it's pretty cool. I'm keeping my eye on it.

Terminator: Salvation - McG, the director, came out first to introduce the movie and the trailer that will be shown before Watchmen. Later the cast came out, and Common got the biggest reception by far. The director tried to get Christian Bale via phone, but his voicemail came up. The footage we saw was unfinished, so some of the effects weren't in yet or certain shots weren't cleaned up. It was still pretty easy to tell what was going on though. The action is pretty intense, and the movie looks to be pretty entertaining.

Up - This is the next Pixar movie and was hands-down my favorite of the previews, which probably comes of no surprise to anyone. Jonas Rivera, a producer on the film, and Pete Docter, the director, presented several clips and gave some insight on the movie. We saw about 18 minutes worth of material. I don't want to spoil any of the scenes for anyone, so I'll just say that there are a lot of surprises in the movie. It's freakin' hilarious, and the characters are immediately endearing. I was looking forward to the movie before, but now I can't wait for it to come out.

Now for random photos. Joy!
( photos away! )

Get your copy of the extremely rare Pokemon Chaos Black here! So rare that I've never even heard of it before on any major gaming sites! Wait... why is Chaos from the Sonic Adventure series on the cover? Oh...

I'm a pretty big fan of the Halo series. I played the heck out of the first two games in single and multiplayer. Since I didn't have an Xbox 360 until recently, I missed out on the initial Halo 3 hype. Newegg had the "limited" Legendary edition on sale last week, so I snatched it up. I came home yesterday and was greeted by this behemoth:
( pix below )

Last week I had a dream that I was showing old home movies for my friends. When I woke up, I felt like I needed to find the actual video containing footage of my younger self and covert it to DVD for better preservation. I brought it to Kino4U, this cool little Russian video rental store that also does video conversion. I picked up the DVD last night and watched some of it. I was promptly hit with a wave of feelings. I felt nostalgic for those innocent days of youth. Seeing all the old clothing and hairstyles everyone wore was hilarious. Seeing my parents interact with baby me made me want to have kids of my own. It's totally wild. Maybe I'll upload some of the footage some day. In the meantime, check out this screengrab of me chillin' in my old hood in Daly City.

I started playing Chrono Trigger DS, and in Guardia Castle, one of the knights eating in the dining hall says, "Nom nom nom." Awesome.

The Lunar New Year is upon us. One of the traditions is to wear new clothes from head to toe. However, I only had one new article of clothing on me around this time:

What I really wanted to get was a Fighters jersey though.

Last week, one of my assignments was to create a group of ninja. This was the base photo upon which I worked:


Blech. I guess Ross is the place to go for all your ninja attire needs. I was told to put them in an "Eastern" city with "paper lanterns and curved roofs". Yeah...that wasn't going to happen. It's fortunate that the one artist on the team is Asian. (That's me)

This is the final result.


Not perfect, but considering what I had to work with, I think it turned out ok. The designs are a mixture of Hayabusa Ryu from Ninja Gaiden and Hotsuma from Shinobi. That leather jacket was a major annoyance. There wasn't much I could do with it that wouldn't take forever. Good times.

o_O

For the past month or so, two games have been taking up the bulk of my free time. Coincidentally, both are zombie themed: Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead. For whatever reason, I find myself drawn to zombie related media, even tough I have little interest in the horror genre. Alas, that's a whole other can of worms for another day. Despite the common thread between the games, they offer completely different but equally satisfying experiences. Time to break it down.
( Braaaaaaaaaaan )

Today my favorite video game magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, was shut down. I've been reading the mag since my grade school days, so this news hit me like a brick wall. I suppose it was inevitable though. In this day and age where information can be had in an instant online, relying on a monthly printed medium for news and updates isn't as attractive. Such information is even more in demand in the video game industry. However, even though I visit many video game websites and blogs, I always turned to EGM as my main source for reviews and commentary. The writing was smart and funny, and the reviews were almost always fair and accurate. They weren't afraid to tell it like it is either.There's something to be said for holding a magazine in your hands, flipping through the pages, ripping out those darned subscription cards. It just feels right.

I'm hoping those who have lost their jobs are able to find work soon elsewhere. There were many talented individuals working for EGM and its companion website, 1up.com. I never got the chance to get through all the podcasts, but I'm definitely going to go through them now. Best wishes to them.

Wanna see the stuff I do with for work? Add "Heroes and Villains" by Zynga for Facebook and/or Myspace. Here's a list of stuff I've done for the app.

- On Myspace: The H&V boxes on the Home and Profile pages
- Under the Missions tab -> Lackey tab (as a hero): "Eva Tempest" Mentor tab (hero): "James Fulton" plus a couple other bosses on the villains side (winged superhero and hero team)
- Under the Council/Evil Jester tab, the Wings (along with some forthcoming special items)
- If you see any Flash banner ads, for Pirates, H&V, Space Wars, or Football, I animated those.

Also on another note