It’s interesting to see the path a night of well-intentioned writing work takes. Once the Pringles “pop” (and consequently “don’t stop”), the clock strikes an hour that makes the eyes heavy, lowering slowly to ‘changy chong’ slits fit only for retinal Pringle insertion like a bound and gagged obese man’s very own flesh vending machine.

Solution: Energy drinks; but not too little or just right– too much. Can’t concentrate on writing anymore, it’s too low on visual stimuli. Pop in some crusty movies. Watch Lamberto Bava’s Demons (which is pretty fucking wild) and follow it up with a 1am showing of the half-directed by Lucio Fulci semi-pile Zombi 3.

I shit you not, dreams yielded a zombified Michael Winslow getting blood on our script as he thumbed through and drooled teeth all over it.

Don’t really have too much to add today. Work is a bit sucky — one of these days, I’ll feel brave enough to talk about what’s going on, but let’s just say my sales drive isn’t what it used to be. Anyways, I’ve been working on an updated Street Fighter Zero 3 collage (search through my previous post for the original). This time, I’ve endeavored to feature characters that were absent from the previous version. I may work on it a bit more tonight or just take a break and mess with the 360. Speaking of which, I sort of made an embarassing post on TNL, acting under the belief that Capcom had FINALLY released the highly anticipated Hyper Street Fighter II on Xbox Live Arcade. Turns out that it was just a stupid theme pack, nothing more. But… perhaps that means that its impending release could come later this month? One can only hope as Capcom has been pretty more cryptic than an Egyptian puzzle… it’s annoying.

In other news, I thought I’d share a video — which many of you probably have seen already. It’s a Japanese commercial for Mario Kart DS, purportedly entitled “Hot Marios”. Don’t ask me why it’s called that way - you’ll just have to watch the clip. I was really intrigued to find the actual commercial after discovering clips from the commercial that were used in her avatar on TNL.

Anyways, you can check it out here:
Click here to view “Hot Mario”

Edit: That collage ended up not turning out as I hope — I tore it out my sketch book. *sighs* Perhaps I’ll try something OTHER than Street Fighter characters — I’ve done them to death anyways. Hm.. Ulala, perhaps I’ll draw her up again. She’s always fun to draw.

For me, thankfully. Part of the perks of the university schedule is that I only teach Monday - Thursday, even in summer. That means that I only have a four day week, unless there are meetings or other faculty obligations. Since everyone’s gone in summer, I have my Fridays to myself, which means more time for gaming!

I received my copy of Beggar Prince this week, and I am amazed at the quality of the release. A brand-spanking new cartridge, box and manual are testament to the amount of effort that went into this. Even the battery back-up is designed for easy replacement (i.e. no soldering or electric tape required). The game itself is just as great, with an excellent translation and some sweet RPG goodness. I can’t believe I’m playing a new RPG on my Genesis! I’ll have a full review of the game over on Sega-16 sometime in the next two weeks, as I really want to play this one through. If Super Fighter Team can continue to release games of this quality, I will be a dedicated customer. There’s a bunch of Taiwanese RPGs that deserve new life and I’m sure that SFT can play a major part in bringing them stateside.

Amazing, isn’t it? Here I am enjoying a new Sega Genesis game more than the last PS2 game that I played, which was the decidely mediocre Over the Hedge. In almost twenty years time, the licensed platformer has yet to overcome the basic cookie cutter, tie-in mentality that people consistently complain about. Why is it so hard to make a decent licensed game? It’s not impossible, as demonstrated by the superb Chronicles of Riddick on the Xbox. The genre has been less than impressive, and it’s simply inexcusable at this point.

The upside is that my PS2 is literally on fire lately. Aside from Over the Hedge, Chris has been awesome enough to let me review X-Men: The Official Game and Cars. I know that my little daughter is going to love the latter game, given what a big Pixar fan she is. There’s something about talking automobiles that she just can’t seem to get enough of. If I can get her to let me play something else, I should have a lot of free time sucked away with GTA: Liberty City Stories, which I just picked up this week. Nothing like a great budget release to keep things fresh. I’ll be needing it too, since my wife has already confiscated Mario Pinball Land (she’s a Mario freak). It’s not the best example of the genre on the SP (Pinball of the Dead is much better), but it’s still a decent little way to spend some time. It was also cheap at GameStop. :^)

In other news, Sega-16 finally has its staff! Several dedicated individuals stepped forward and expressed their desire to write about Sega’s greatest console. There were a lot of quality submissions, but these guys just stood out:

- Nick Gibson: Associate Editor
- Vince Thornburg: Associate Editor
- Benjamin Galway: Associate Editor
- Dan Riley: Associate Editor

Both Nick and Vince are longtime Sega-16 contributors, and we’re happy as can be to have them aboard full-time. Look for their stuff regularly (Nick has an article tomorrow, actually). Additionally, Steven Kenyon, the man responsible for the site’s awesome new design, has come aboard as web master and our forum’s styles administrator, while Josh Tompkins continues his great work as network administrator. He’s the man who makes Sega-16 possible, keeps it running, and fixes all my noobie boo-boos, and I thank him dearly for it.

Kamen Rider Kabuto better be awesome, because I’m spending a hell of a long time downloading it. Boukenger is still rad as hell. I’ve watched the first 11 episodes and the only bad one was the fifth. The latest story arch involved two monsters destroying and stealing the Daibouken, after which Boukenger brought in more armaments to make Super Daibouken and completely maul them (sounds like some garbage I would write, so I love it). Lots of action and CG is only used when necessary.

Despite Patrick’s early warning, I’m almost done downloading the Kamen Rider The First movie. I expect something terrible, but I couldn’t resist.

In other news, my enchantment with the Simple 2000 PS2 series is waning. I love Chikyuu Boeigun 2 and Zombie Vs. Ambulance is fun to pick up for a few minutes when I’m bored, but Onechanbara 2 just sucks all kinds of Zimbabwe elephant ass. The premise is almost indestructable: you run around the city as a hot biker broad slicing up zombies and crows with your katana or blasting them with a shotgun. There’s even this cool feature on the side; a sword meter that builds up the more you kill. I’m not sure what effect it has, but as you cut through the masses your sword drips more and more, and you can clean it off by air-swiping it Lone Wolf & Cub style.

Too bad the game controls like your enemies shamble. It’s hard to accurately run around and slice, you have to be standing still to shoot, and there’s not much incentive not to stand back from a horde and just target them all with your shotgun. A game like this should have some sense of urgency and move at a fast clip. Still, I guess that’s what you get with budget titles; rubber fucking biscuit.

Fuck. Shit. Bleep. Bleep-bleep.

Sorry, but after so much stupidity on the front of my computer and it’s lame anti-virus system, I’m sitting at someone else’s house ( Tasha ) on someone else’s ( Gonzo ) computer. I’m so against using other people’s computers unless it’s a dire emergency. I consider a dire emergency being when I can’t get on my computer to check business and personal emails and letting everyone know that I’m alive, to be a dire situation.

However, here I am and I’m on a computer that is not of my own. I hate the fact that it must be done, but situations aren’t as they always seem to be. .. what? Anyways, it won’t be too long before I’m re-installing Windows XP onto my computer once my great friend Tasha prints out the CD.

So, to keep everyone up to date on the subject of my gaming habits — I’ve been making fierce attempts to finish up the Da Vinci Code so I can get that review out to you guys. I’m also getting ready to do those patches for Oblivion so maybe I can actually PLAY THE EFFING game, already.

Other than that, I bet everyone’s ecstatic over their DS Lite and I’m hoping I’ll get one one of these days. Right now, I’m just trying to keep my head above water because I’m notorious for drowning.

Eh, that’s what “Item>Phoenix Down” is for.
Talk to you guys soon!