Week of 7/1/2007

6/30 Play-by-Play

0:30 - Paula Abdul gained fame through cheerleading, shitty music, and American Idol; three things that I despise. You can find the website for the reality show based on that talentless, pill-popping psycho here. My favorite quote from one of the forums posts there is this:

It would have been a lot less painful - for all of us - if Paula had chosen to go straight to rehab rather than humiliate herself to this level on TV.

5:23 - Moe truly does think we are his personal assistants.

7:00 - Sorry guys, but we've been having to cut out quite a few letters lately. We're getting some novels and some just plain bad letters that we can't read on the air. We'll do our best to put some of the others in and catch up over the next couple weeks.

9:45 - Now that's the type of letter we like.

14:25 - Winger could be the worst 80s hair metal band of all time. Don't believe me? Exhibit A.



16:50 - I actually worked at Sam's Club for three years in college. It was long, painful, and a sobering introduction to retail.

17:36 - I was written up as well. But that was for having a "relationship" with one of my cashiers.

19:15 - That could be the best Hilden laugh I've ever heard in my life. We should have checked his chair for piss.

21:10 - Since Moe's all flustered, find out all you need to know about troubadours here.

26:09 - Since some people seem to be confused, this first audio email came to us from Torgo from the PlayStation Nation Podcast. This is why we gave out their email address at the end of the email. Do you get it now? Do you?

26:27 - I don't even have a comment for this.

28:16 - Jesus...is he still talking?

30:20 - Mad-Gear.com.

31:10 - Fremont Friday.

31:45 - Seriously, those two almost had to be separated at one point. I just sat there wondering what the hell was going on.

33:00 - I've already traded in The Darkness. I just couldn't work up enough interest to finish the game.

36:17 - They do indeed rip flesh.

37:20 - For those who just think I'm a random pervert, that was actually a Clerks reference.

39:30 - Check out Mike Patton's record label Ipecac. I highly recommend picking up "Director's Cut" by Fantomas.

44:40 - Go buy To Kill a Mockingbird. Great movie.

48:00 - I really am surprised by how much I like Super Stardust HD. But it's fucking brilliant.

1:01:30 - Hilden did indeed call you an ignorant asshole. I heard him say it. Seriously.

1:02:15 - Why does he always try to get me to hold his hand? It creeps me out.

1:04:00 - Ok, to clarify: we threw around the word "banned" quite a bit in this segment. Mind Quiz, however, has not technically been "banned". Ubisoft "voluntarily" pulled the game from shelves after the woman notified the BBC.

1:08:50 - Moe and Hilden have some sort of unnatural love for Perkins' strawberry pie.

1:09:19 - Since the recording, Hilden has decided to buy Ninja Gaiden Sigma. In your face, Menace! We'll be talking more about it on the next show. Is it worth $60? Tune in and find out.

1:10:10 - Raid Over the River is currently listed as a 2008 release for both the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii. The official site is here, but that has a 2006 release date listed.

1:11:00 - Here are the links for this segment: Turbo Zone Direct, Magic Engine. Buy a Turbo-CD or Super-CD game and play it on your PC or Mac using Magic Engine. It's fantastic.

1:17:10 - Find your USB adapters for classic consoles here.

1:21:04 - Here is the side-by-side comparison of the Sega CD and Turbo Duo versions of Lords of Thunder.

John



Mirror Mirror

There's been an issue on my mind for the past several weeks and I have finally come to a conclusion: John needs to lay off the booze.

Now as a guy who willingly refers to himself as one of the "Drunken Gamers", I understand how this could create a conflict of interest. However, when I say that I need to "lay off the booze", keep in mind that I don't consider beer and wine to be in the "booze" category.

It's good to have a loophole.

So before you think, "Oh shit, I wonder what he did", keep in mind that this decision wasn't made by one instance in particular, rather by a series of factors, all of which I perceive as negative. Let's list them, shall we?

1) I hate how booze makes me act. When I drink beer and, to a certain extent, wine, I have what I like to call a "happy buzz". Beer especially seems to make me jolly, though coming down from a beer drunk can be brutal. Nevertheless, it's a walk in the park compared to the booze drunk. I find myself wanting to punch myself in the mouth when I'm in the middle of a healthy booze drunk. It's as though my spirit leaves my body, stares back down upon it and says to itself, "What a fucking jackass. I'm outta here." I can only imagine what other people think.

2) I hate the day after. The day after I get loaded up on Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry, or whatever, is inevitably a wasted day. I get up around noon and am sloth-like for the rest of the day, barely having the energy to get to the toilet and take one of the seven deadly shits that I'll have that day. Much of the next twenty-four hours is spent lying on my couch watching some inane "Best of" marathon on VH1. I must have wasted months of my life recovering from hangovers.

3) I hate retracing my steps. While I sit there watching "I Love the 70s Part 15" all day, my mind is frantically trying to recall if I said anything offensive the night before or did anything that may have upset someone. You see, while I'm famous for destroying furniture in my drunken escapades, I'm also famous for being incredibly mouthy. Countless times have I been "that guy" who has no problem standing on a chair and commencing with the airing of grievances. And it's never pretty.

4) I hate not having any control. This one really sinks in more the closer I come to fatherhood. Obviously I'm not going to get all pissed up when I'm alone with the kid. But that being a given, the thought of not being able to compose myself should some emergency come up doesn't sit well with me. But aside from that, as I mentioned in point one, I see myself doing things as I do them and wonder, "What the fuck is my problem? Why did I just do that?" Which then leads me back to point three.

So the obvious question would be, why do I have to drink to such excess? The answer to that is precisely the point: I have a hard time stopping once I get on a roll. Furthermore, I drink and eat fast in every situation. I'm a fucking pig. I'm always the first one done with dinner, I'm always the guy who's four drinks ahead of everyone else. I'm not sure why that is, but it's always been the case. Sure, it's helped build up a healthy tolerance, but it's also increased the likelihood that I'm going to spend the next day or two feeling like a pile of shit. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be an issue with beer. While I could pound a gallon of Captain and Coke with no effort whatsoever, beer tends to fill me up rather quickly, causing me to pace myself...relatively speaking, of course.

I suppose the next question would be, why don't I just give up drinking altogether? The answer to that is obvious: What? Are you fucking nuts? But seriously, I think that's a valid question and why it brings me back to beer and wine. I'm a big beer snob and my wife and I have really developed an interest in wine over the last several years. I drink beer and wine to appreciate them. I drink booze to get drunk. Period. And hey, don't get me wrong, that's cool and all. It's just beginning to teeter on that edge of "fun" and "unhealthy". And when I see that, I need to take a step back for a bit.

So we'll see how this goes. Two years ago, I gave up drinking altogether for about six months because of some medication I was taking. In light of that, I don't think this is going to be very difficult. However, it's going to suck not tasting the sweet, sweet nectar of Sailor Jerry.

But we'll meet again. Just not for a while.

John

Me No Speaky

Never try to understand my reasoning. I beg of you. Because if you attempt to understand the decisions I make and the "logic" that drives them, chances are your brain will explode. And I wouldn't want that. With that disclaimer out of the way, I shall proceed.

Today I purchased copies of Tengai Makyou: Ziria and Tengai Makyou: Fuun Kabukiden for the PC Engine CD. Also known as "Far East of Eden" in the United States, these games are the first and third respectively in a long-running series of Japanese RPGs, a genre for which I have often proclaimed my hatred. Furthermore, both of these games are in Japanese, a language that I do not understand in the least.

I told you.

What follows is my reasoning and a rare peak inside my jumbled brain. Back in 1992, EGM ran a feature on upcoming games for the Turbo Duo. One of these games was Far East of Eden 2, which was known as Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru in Japan. Based on one simple screenshot and a brief description of the game, my excitement level skyrocketed and I eagerly awaited news of the game's release. But no news ever came. And though the Turbo Duo was soon banished to mail-order status, I held out hope that this game would be released. As you probably guessed, that day never arrived and over the years I forgot about it.

Years later, as I was going through my old copies of EGM, I found that exact article and was immediately inspired to do a bit of research on the game. I soon found out that not only was it the most popular in a series of well-loved RPGs, but that Hudson was making a remake of one of these games for the Xbox 360 with plans to bring it to the United States. Fucking word!

After making some inquiries at PCEngineFX.com I was directed to a walkthrough. So here was my chance. I ordered the game from Japan Game Stock and a week later popped the disc in my Duo, translation in hand. I lasted two hours.

"So John", you ask, "why the fuck would you buy the other two games?" Good question.

1) I'm an idiot.

2) I'm a collector and somehow that means having all three games in the PC Engine CD series is the right thing to do. Again, don't ask.

3) They were $1 each and I'll buy just about anything for a dollar.

So I'll have those two games to bookend the first one that I bought while I wait patiently - once again - for Hudson to release the remake in the United States. Unfortunately, it looks as though I may once again be waiting in vain as today I found this quote from one of their representatives on their forums:

Yeah, we're still evaluating the likelihood it would make it here. It is taking a lot longer than we anticipated. There are signs of hope, you'll have to hold tight for a bit longer!

As though fifteen years isn't long enough. So with that, here are a couple Tengai Makyou videos for you. First up are parts one and two from the promo anime that was released for the first game.





And here's some footage of the game that was supposed to be released in the States:



And finally, here's footage of the 360 remake:



If you care to learn more about the series, Classic Gaming has an excellent feature that can be found here.

John