Games - Punch Out!

Again at the forefront of the latest and hottest games, I played the Wii version of Punch Out!. I was hunting for videos about game design again and I found one that talked about that Wii Punch Out game and touted its virtues, and it got me interested enough to go and find it. I had a $25 giftcard to Gamestop, and thankfully they had a copy which was only about $27. I was able to play it last night and the wife was playing Dragon Age: Origins on the TV, so I played it on the WiiU Gamepad. Since its a Wii game I had to use a Wiimote to actually play it. I thought I would be fine because the game uses the wiimote like a NES controller, but it needed you to point for the menus. Thankfully I discovered that if you point it at the Gamepad, it registers, which is super nifty, I can't believe Nintendo thought of that. So the game is actually really sharp, animation looks fantastic, gameplay is tight and quick and totally the same as original NES Punch Out. In this case that is a good thing, since there hasn't been a game like that in a while. All the characters are so expressive, and other than the characters all being a bit *racially insensitive" which I can look past. Its a simple game, that looks super sharp, that to be honest it feels like a really great downloadable game. I just don't feel a Punch Out style game has enough content to warrant a full price tag in this day and age. Obviously its not that day and age anymore, I didn't pay full price and was happy to get it. I mean if you are really good at Punch Out from the get go you could probably finish the while game in maybe 2 hours. For better or for worse, I am not good at Punch Out NES or Wii so this game will last me a while. Despite my reservations about this having been a full price game when it came out, I think this game is really cool it captures the NES gameplay and characters perfectly, and soo much character in each of the fighters. Once my new years project is done I may come back to it.

Comics - Axis!(Spoilers?)

So Axis finished up right before Christmas, so it is now all in the books. I praise them for keeping the bi-weekly schedule and having no late issues. The Art for 6 of the 9 issues was great Dodson's 2 issues in particular were great, but I was not a fan of Adam Kubert's art, maybe its just me. I will say with the last 2 issues I finally saw the promise of Axis, they were actually quite good. We got to see the Good Guys being super bad, and we finally got to see more of the Bad Guys being super Good. The last issue particularly was excellent, seeing Sabertooth and Mystique having a really heartfelt conversation, and the realization and sacrifice of the Bad Guys not wanting to be terrible people again, but knowing its the only way, its all or nothing. I wish these 8 issues were way more about the villains being good, than the good guys being bad, I feel that direction is great for shock value but gets old because they are acting soo irrationally. Whereas the focus on the Bad Guys being good had a lot of rich pathos that could have been explored deeper. I mean seeing Steve Rogers and Red Skull helping each other was fascinating, the silly heroic Carnage was great as well. I thought the idea of the Hulk's Hulk Kluh was dumb and makes no sense. That last issue was very very good, also helped immensely by Jim Cheung's art, that guy can draw, and like with Terry Dodson, I feel like I don't see him often enough. Would love to see another Mini-Series entirely drawn by Jim Cheung, he just needs so much lead time for his work, so Marvel saves him for first or last issues of events or for Free Comic Book Day stuff.

Now we are left with some results, some expected, one that is not. The 2 expected results are the fact that Tony Stark is staying a total jerk because Superior Iron Man is still going forward, also that Sabertooth has also stayed good and seems to be taking up the Wolverine mantle. If Saber-rine(Wolver-tooth)? is written like he was in Axis I think he's gonna be a super interesting character. The surprise was that Havok has stayed evil, and seems to have sided with his brother now, so I imagine he'll be showing up in Uncanny X-Men. But just the idea that Havok is kind of evil, and he's with Cyclops who while a little extreme or misguided is not actually evil, also the fact that Havok is disfigured now and of course is evil. Wondering if one of the new X-Men in Cyclops's crew Triage will be able to fix Havok's face, or maybe it will be like Xavier's legs and despite all these healers and technology in the Marvel U his legs can only get fixed by cloning and magic(look it up people).

Yule!!

So other than feeling horribly sick for much of 6th Day of Yule(Christmas), my wife, parents, in-laws, and I all exchanged gifts. Surprise surprise, I got some games/toku/and comics out of it. It seems everyone scoured the depths of my amazon wishlist, to get some stuff I forgot about.

Games-
My parents got me Sunset Overdrive for the XBOne, and I can't wait to get a chance to play that this weekend. The day was so busy and had family to visit so I didn't get a chance to open it yet. Also indirectly games my wife gave me $25 to Gamestop, so that may turn into part of Captain Toad, the more I hear about that game, the more I can't wait to play it, may add that to my level a day regime once the new year hits. Other game related thing I got this year was a book called Console Wars which is about the battle in the late-80s/early-90s between Nintendo and SEGA, the book is HUGE I had no idea it was so big, it seems like its going to be really in depth and that sounds awesome.

Toku-
My wife surprised me, I had a good feeling she got me some Toku toys, but it seemed like she was looking outside of my wishlist. I thought for sure it would be something from Tokkyuger, but I was really surprised when it was the latest Kamen Rider Henshin Belt, the Drive Driver. Sadly all the loose batteries in the house were dead, so I wasn't able to mess with it yet. Also indirectly I recieved $50 to Amazon, which I may turn into getting Deisel-Oh from Tokkyuger. The next thing wasn't something I got for Yule, but something I did this morning that I wanted to wait till after Christmas to pre-order and just kept hoping it wouldn't run out. I'm speaking if the Complete Selection Modification Kamen Rider Decade DecaDriver. While I do have the original DecaDriver, this one is prop level quality, adult sized belt, and all the cards the character used in the show, all having appropriate sounds, which they didn't before. I have been very excited since they announced it, and have pre-ordered it through It Came From Japan! They are my prefered distributor, they are from Canada, They have decent prices for most stuff. Prices aren't as jacked up as they are from some retailers you may find.

Comics-
Hoo boy, lots of stuff to read. -Jim Henson's Tale of Sand by Ramon Perez -X-Men: No More Humans by Mike Carey & Salvador Larrocca -Scott Pilgrim Color Edition Vol 5 by Bryan Lee O'Malley -Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Thats all for now, standard posts to resume as I have time to start reading and playing all this stuff.

Games - CastleVania / Steam Sale a Go Go

Goddamn I love Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, that is a pretty great game as I said in my last post. I am mostly on the other side of it now, I finished it mostly having done the standard ending, but then we have the "true" ending. I am working on that, and for some reason still farming for enemy souls, even in the final moments of that game you see a few more new enemies and I MUST HAVE THEIR SOULS!!! It actually doesn't seem fruitful and will take too long, so I will wrap up this addendum to that game. Needless to say I played a LOT of it this week, I should have moved the WiiU upstairs so I could play in bed, cause when my wife went to bed, I planned to play for a few minutes and that became an hour...2 times this week. I really like that game. If you like Castlevania, and have not yet played this 11 year old game, run don't walk, and play it on any platform you can, WiiU being the cheapest "legal" way to play it I imagine. That having been said I have been talking a lot about Castlevania, and I will stop that. I don't know what else I can say about those games. Steam Sale has started and so far so good. I picked up Hack & Slash, a game I've been super interested in and been meaning to buy, and with the sale having it for $, it was a done deal. I almost purchased Metal Gear Rising: Revengence on steam, but before that I ended up finding that I bought it for PS3 during a black friday sale at walmart, and totally forgot about it. So I dodged that bullet, thank goodness. Lastly this morning I bought Mount Your Friends for $3, its a game I've seen played a lot on Giant Bomb, and looked hella fun and silly, so I'm hoping to enjoy some sillyness during the holidays.

Games - Castlevanias / God of War: Ascension

So I completed Circle of the Moon, and I decided to play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as that was another game I played long ago so I don't remember any of the specifics. But it became a delema as to what system to play it on, use my PS1 disk and play it in my PS2 or PS3, play the version I have on XBox360, or download the PS Classics version on PS3. Just for kicks I booted up the version on my Xbox, played that for 30mins or so. It just felt so different than Circle of the Moon, character seemed to move a lot slower, it almost kind of looked only a little better than a GBA game blown up for TV. Its a game sorely in need of a little remastering, uprezzing or redrawing those sprites. Also just a lot of random visual effects.

Then the other night I purchased Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. I played a few hours of that game, and MAN does that game want to be Symphony of the Night. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't just played it the day before. The look of the main character, the save rooms, and it has that slower character speed, and the effects they do for character movement are all VERY similar to Symphony. But in the end I gave it a chance, and I just wasn't feeling it. So I bit the bullet and just moved onto Aria of Sorrow, and man that is a good game. After getting through the dialogue heavy start, I've really enjoyed it and spent about 5 hours with it over the weekend. It has the slower move speed that i'm not a huge fan of, but the magic system is great, as opposed to getting cards from certain unspecified enemies in Circle of the Moon, this game all enemies have the potential to drop a "soul" which is this games collectable. Each soul can give you a subweapon, a stat boost, or a special modifier, and you can have one of each type equiped at a time, to make for a bunch of ability combinations. They use a lot of the same enemies as before but they are different, and they add some cool new ones as well. I like the Skeleton Butler and they have an enemy who attacks you from mirrors, just some cool new ideas from a game that usually doesn't have new enemy types, and some fun ones at that. I actually found myself uncertain where to go at one point, and found a boss fight that I was grossly underpowered for. Found out where I was supposed to go, and from there I am leveled so high that I have had little trouble since. Plus I'm actually using a lot of my items in this game. I had to actually stock up on potions for a boss battle when I normally only ever just use Antidotes when poisoned. Also started playing more Symphony of the Night, slowly leveling through that game. Found myself abusing the Stop Time subweapon to farm experience for a bit. Enjoying these games quite a bit, but will probably take a break after these 2. Also finally started God of War: Ascension for PS3, first impression was good, standard GOW action, crazy scale to the bosses and levels you don't see anywhere else. My only problem was it took 1 HOUR to download all the updates needed to run. It had 9 updates, most over 600MB. Used much of my time to play waiting for download, so I only got about 30mins into the game. Will play more of that depending where I am in the house and what the wife is doing.

Toku - Super Mega Force / Gokaiger?

Not a lot of Toku stuff happening lately, shows are plugging along. Still having fun watching Tokkyuger, which is getting closer and closer to the end and I'm slightly bummed. My wife does not *watch* Sentai with me but she glances and tolerates Tokkyuger end enjoys the silliness of it somehow, I don't know if she'll deal with the transition to a new show. I still haven't fallen in love with Kamen Rider Drive. In other news, Super MegaForce came to its conclusion, and it was alright. They combined the footage form the end of Gokaiger and the 199 Great Hero Battle Movie, into something just over 30mins with lots of original american actor footage, which seems nuts. They did bring back a bunch of Legendary Rangers, like Tommy, a couple chars from Turbo/In Space, and a couple from Lightspeed Rescue, and some others. Most didn't get speaking lines, which was a bummer. But it was cool to see them all, there's actually a whole part of the episode where previous rangers in human form are going around saving people during the invasion. Basically it really made me want to go back and watch Gokaiger again....that show is so fun. But in HOT toy getting news, I came into a few dollars, decided to bite the bullet on the Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger - Gokai Cellular. This is the Henshin Device/Changer/Morpher for the Gokaiger's 6th Ranger Gokai Silver/Gai Ikari. It is going to come with the device itself, as well as the Gokai Silver Ranger Key. Which when I run the numbers, brings me to 106 Rangers Keys, 53% of total Keys and 43.75% of 6th Ranger Keys. I've been wanting to get back to a point where I can focus on Ranger Keys again, after I was focusing on Fourze Switches, and other Kamen Rider stuff for a while. I also found that I waited too long on some stuff. I had been looking at It Came From Japan who had a bunch of loose keys I had planned to buy a bunch of, they had a bunch of keys I could use to make full team sets to add, but I went to their site today, and so many of them sold out. I missed my chance at getting a full set of Bioman, Carranger, and some others....I feel a fool. Now I will probably have to pay....a LOT more than I am comfortable with to get those. I don't necessarilly want to get ALL the keys, but I did want to try and get all the primary ranger keys, and then maybe all the 6th Ranger Keys, the Extra Hero Keys I don't have as much interest in. I also purchased the Power Rangers: Dino Charge Morpher. The american version of the Gabu Revolver, its both a step foreward and step back in terms of things that annoy me. A Step forward in that it doesn't have a mode that doesn't actually look like anything, but its a gun so that would be much harder to screw up. Like the Super Mega Blaster they put out last year it has some shooting sound effects that are just too long. Step Forward in that the voice of the gun is MUCH better than the voice in last years, Gosei's voice is long gone now. Step Backward in that they use a ton of Character VO in the morpher/weapon, so it has some annoying person yelling catch phrases during different activations like "Unleash the Power", "Energize", or when you morph "Tyrannosaurus Rex, Power Ranger Red", I find it excruciating. Also you only have one battery slot in this toy, unlike the Gabu Revolver which has 2, I try not to hold that against it though. Just in general it feels like they are taking the soul out of Kyouryuger, getting rid of its latin flavor. Ok well I'm starting to ramble and run into more tangets, so I'm calling this post done!

Game - Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, my beefs with it

Circle of the Moon is still a cool ass game. I've been playing it on the WiiU gamepad over the last week or so while I'm *watching* TV with my wife. She got to watch Housewives, Biggest Loser, and Forever, while I was grinding levels in Castlevania to beat the latest boss. So I've been going through the game, and one thing I have to say is that it is fairly obtuse about some of its deeper mechanics. So we have the DSS(Dual Set-Up) system, certain enemies have a chance of dropping specific "cards". We have 2 kinds of cards, Action Cards and Attribute Card, you need at least one of each in order to activate the system, each 2 card combo has its own effect from having a fire whip, to getting a defense bonus based off the % of the map you've uncovered. There are 10 of each card soo....(math happening)...there are 100 different DSS effects you can use if you have all the cards. The small thing that I like about it, as you get new cards and are able to do more combinations, it doesn't tell you upfront what each combination does till you do it. You get a good feeling of discovery, the game is kind of telling you, "even we don't know what this does", then you activate it and try it out, from then on in the menu it lists the effect.

The thing I've found I don't like is that it in no way lets you know what enemies can drop cards, I've gone through 75-80% of the game and I had 7 out of the 20. and could make 12 combos. I feel I'm leveled pretty well for that game, but it scales crazy hard, and I've heard some of the magic effects you can get are devastating, equivalent to summons that obliterate the map...at best I got an electric whip. So I'm at a boss character that is supposed to be kind of like an evil version of me, and he starts out pretty simple, jumping, attacking, using the usual Castlevania weapons (axes, crosses etc) then eventually he starts using these big magic attacks. Even though I could get away from him and heal myself, which I did 2 times, once he started using the high level attacks I had no chance. It just left me feeling like I wasn't playing the game correctly. So I used a wiki on the cards and started going card by card, finding exactly what enemies drop them, and killing them over and over till I got it. I was also using all my equipment that increased my Luck Stat so I had a better chance at getting the drop, but that makes not nearly as powerful as you need to be just to kill enemies as fast as is necessary. So if you didn't know what enemies dropped cards, you wouldn't know to increase your luck stat in order to get the card. And its not like there are 40 enemies and 20 of them drop cards. There are 121 different enemies, each of them only appear in certain places, some that drop cards are common enemies but most are not. Now previously I mentioned how I liked that it didn't tell you upfront what each combo did, and for 90% of them that works great. But had one Action Card, and could use the combo to figure out what it did, I found that you have to use a special button combination to use the ability after you turn the DSS system On, but unless you know the combination you might never see it or use it, its a combo you would never normally use in the game! This kind of drove me insane.

I still like the game a lot and its very deep and very rewarding when you make progress, just a couple issues I found that annoyed me a bit. I'm interested in Game Design and playing this game I can kind of see small ways that those issues could be addressed. There is a button on the controller that is only used once you get a specific item, and only works in when your character is jumping or in the air. They could have that button combination removed and use the extra button on the controller when you are on the ground. As far as indicating what enemies have the chance of dropping a card. Maybe make all the ones that can drop look like they have a status effect or slight shimmer to them, and once you get the card from that enemy type, they just look normal. Just some thoughts on how to make a good 13yo game, better. Like I said I still really like the game, and I'm gonna finish it out, but those things bothered me. Actually while writing about them it made me slightly angrier about them the more I thought about it.

Games - Metroid Madness

So I don't know why but I've been obsessed with Metroid.

I don't remember what kicked it off, but I started looking for video Retrospectives on Metroid Prime, and how they ended up translating Metroid from 2D to 3D, I'm fascinated with that process and the challenges they had to figure out. From there, I had a hankering to play one of the Prime games. The WiiU can play Wii games, so I ended up playing the beginning of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I have owned the game since it came out, but had never played passed one of the early boss encounters(Ridley) because I kept failing because I was having a hard time with the Wii Controls. This time around I got to that point again, and on the 3rd try I got passed it, and finished what is essentially the prologue or intro to that game. I don't know if I will play more of it, The Wiimote controls are still annoying to me.

From there I ended up downloading the Gamecube Emulator Dophin. In my Metroid video search I had come accross some comparisons from the SD 480 Gamecube video, to playing on the Dolphin, which can upscale it to HD 1080.

The Dolphin emulator also does some graphical tricks the Gamecube couldn't and does them by default. So just about all the games look a lot better. Metroid Prime still looks pretty darn good when up-scaled, would love to see a version native to the WiiU that will let me use the control pad. So I've messed around with that a lot trying to get a good control scheme. Even as tough as it was to go back and use the Wiimote and Nunchuck to play Corruption, it was even super hard to go back to the Gamecube control scheme. I thought I could give it modern shooter controls if I used the Wii version of the original Metroid Prime which uses the Corruption control scheme to do free aiming, by pointing the Wiimote. I was wrong, while I was able to map it to the analog stick, it always moves the target reticle back to center. So I may just give up and use the standard Gamecube controls and play it that way(because I have so much free time)*

Then the very next day I was told about how Metroid II: Return of Samus was available for free on 3DS if you have enough Nintendo Club points. So I did that and downloaded it. Then one of the "Black Friday" deals on the Nintendo eShop was for Metroid Fusion....so I downloaded that for the WiiU. Then I thought about playing through all the Metroid games in order, so then I busted out Metroid: Zero Mission for my GBA Emulator(I lost the cartridge), and started playing a bit of that...which is another game I wish was on the WiiU eShop, I mean if Fusion is on there why not Zero Mission. Then I just got stuck in the idea that someone should remake Metroid II, like they did for Zero Mission.

To finish it off, I ended up playing like an hour of Super Metroid on the WiiU which I already had. Also thinking about booting up Other M, and finally seeing what the fuss us about. Regardless of the story, I hear the gameplay is good in that game, and that is all I really care about.

*Side Note about Emulation: I own every Metroid game I mentioned in this post either physical copy or digitally. Metroid: Zero Mission only one I can't produce because I lost the cart long ago.

Comics - Last Weeks Stuff (11/19/14)

Last week a hell of a week for comics, so many of the "important" books, but also the ones I enjoy the most came out. Next issue of Amazing Spider-Man, the 2nd Part of Spider-Verse, came out and it was another beautiful book, some mysteries answered, new ones added, and this is clearly where the books springs off into all the companion titles, and tie-ins. For some reason I like it in stories when they assign special "destiny" titles to characters. So in this book there are 3 to look out for, 2 have been identified. We have "The Bride", "The Other", and "The Scion". The new character Silk is The Bride, Kane is The Other, and we don't know who The Scion is yet. Those ones haven't been a mystery, and the enemies apparently need those 3 people for something. We don't know exactly why they are more important than all the other Spider-characters, but I can't wait to find out. And I didn't realize that the Spider-Men who showed up last ish, were unrelated to the crew Superior Spider-Man was assembling. Those groups meetup and sparks fly. Both Avengers and New Avengers came out as well. Really enjoying those books and can't wait to see how it all plays out. Currently we have the Illuminati on the run, the Shield-Vengers after them, Sunspot, Canonball and most of the new additions to the team that started in Hickman's Avengers trying to actually solve stuff, and then the Cabal destroying worlds. The multiverse is collapsing and no one has a solution yet. Its super complicated but great and I love it, seeing the Illuminati characters brought so low due to their own actions not due to some misunderstanding is facinating to watch. You see Tony Stark clearly at his worst, in his most self-absorbed, self-important madness. Not used to them going so far with these characters. Invincible came out after a long hiatus, enjoyable as ever. This issue was a side story, but still fun to read....very gorey as Invincible has been for a while now. They also announced they were switching to a new type of schedule similar to what Saga has been doing. They will only come out with batches of issues when they are completed, then the Trade will come out, and then when the next set of issues are ready it will be monthly again till that group is done. I'm glad they are spelling it out cause i always look for a new issue, and it get exacerbated by Marvel who puts out like 2 or 3 issues of something a month, so it feels like 6 months have come out since the last Invincible issue. New Axis issue, nothing off the top of my head jumps out so I'm gonna say not much happened. Also in the meat of the story in Godhead so i don't wanna be a big spoiler. But that story has now escalated, and I'm still interested. I hope to be a bit quicker about commenting about the weeks comics, as I am literally going out to by this weeks issues as I finish this post.

Games - Castlevania: Circle of the Moon / Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

So in my ongoing quest to play all the newest and hottest games, I downloaded Castlevania: Circle of the Moon from the WiiU eShop. Using the most advanced home console system Nintendo has ever produced to play a 13yo Game Boy Advance launch game. Its a game I originally purchased launch day with my GBA when it came out.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*Flashback Start!-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

I took the City Bus downtown because I didn't have my license yet. Went to the bank where I "snuck" money out of my savings account that I wasn't supposed to have access to. Then took the bus to the Mall and went store to store trying to find a GBA. Ended up finding it at Target, and got Castlevania and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Now keep in mind this was the original GBA, so Circle of the Moon was a dark game, and that system had no backlighting. So while I liked that game it was super hard to play. But I played the crap out of it, but never finished it. Eventually I got an GBA SP, which is one of my favorite designs ever, which had a backlight and made playing those games SOOO much better. But by that point I had lost Castlevania, and since I never finished that first one I never wanted to continue with the other ones.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*Flashback Over!-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Well I spent a few good hours getting back into that game after so many years. Wife was watching YouTube on the XBox One with the TV, while I played my game on the WiiU Gamepad. I made a lot of progress, beat the first couple bosses. Have tried opening up as much as the Map as possible, beating the bosses, getting a new ability, and using it to get to new parts of the Castle. Game's graphics are simple but get the job done. Its a straight up Metroid-Vania, which at the time we hadn't seen since Symphony of the Night. It has a simple Item system and card system, all obtained from random drops when killing enemies. The Items you by can get different armor/clothes and accessories for Body, Left Arm, and Right Arm. The Card system is used for different Magic abilities, there are 2 kind of cards Ability and Effect. I currently only have 1 Ability card which is for my whip, and I have 2 Effect cards, one which gives me a flame whip, the other a thorn whip. I'm having a lot of fun with it right now, been a long time since I played a good game of this type, glad I finally have another chance to finish this game.

Other Game I played a bit of has been sitting in my Steam Library for almost a year now, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Oddly enough its actually another Metroid-Vania type game, but your a little UFO ship exploring a hostile environment, reminds me a bit of PixelJunk Shooter. Exploring and finding new abilities to help to explore more areas and new abilities. The art style is mostly black and white but it is 3D rendered and has a lot of depth. The Art style is fabulous, I kind of just had time to fiddle with it, but its very cool and I hope to spend more time with it.

Also played a little more TIE Fighter. I went from Flight Training before to Mission Training. So I got to fly about and scan some ships for contraband, then I stepped up to combat simulations and did pretty well there. I'm slowly working my way up the ranks, next time I'll actually try to jump into the Campaign.

Comics - Axis/Godhead

Okay 5 Issues in we finally get to the promise of Axis, and this issue was good, but we're kind of where I imagined we'd be by #2. A bunch of heroes have been turned evil, and some villains are out doing good now. Things go real bad, real fast, and we see how bad these heros have fallen and how far they are prepared to go. Fal-Cap's behavior inparticular being the most terrifying to me. They havn't shown too much of the villains being good guys in the main book, other than a bit about Carnage last issue, seems to be mostly in the Tie-Ins. I'm glad Adam Kubert is no longer drawing the book, I'm just not a big fan of his work. I'm much happiuer with Lenil Yu on the last issue, and this issue was with Terry Dodson.

Onto DC and their Green Lantern Event Godhead. Now I was a big fan of Green Lantern books during the Johns run. Got lots of great GL stories and then he wrapped it up with a bow when he left, and felt like a good time to jump off. But the covers for Godhead drew me in, it was eyecatching, and i liked the quotes they were using on the covers. Act 1 of Godhead ran through a One-Shot and then GL, GL: Corps, GL: New Guardians, Sinestro, and Red Lanterns. Red Lanterns was the only book that seemed like a tie-in as opposed to part of the main story. Basically the New Gods have learned of the colored lanterns, and stole a ring from each Corps. They thought by combining their power they would have the Life Equation, which would be the ultimate weapon to finally defeat Darksied. Turns out its not, they now think the Lantern Corps are an abomonation to the power of the spectrum, and want to wipe them all out. While Kyle Rayner the White Lantern who everybody else thought was dead since he crossed the source wall, seems to have the Life Equation inside him.

So far I'm enjoying the actual story, but it feels a little drawn out by the fact it has to be in all these books. What I am liking in that its pretty friendly to lapsed readers. They are doing a good job getting me up to speed on whats been going on with Hal, John, Guy, and Kyle. Though I will say nothing prepared me for Carol Ferris being with Kyle, was very surprised by that. Just started reading Act 2, its continuing to be good. In the latest issue of GL(#36) Hal and Sinestro have a discusion that kind of describes my entire issue with Hal since he became leader of the Green Lanterns after John's left the book. So if the quality keeps up, I may continue with the book after the crossover. But to be honest all the books still feel too interconnected, the fact they keep involving every single book and do these crossovers, makes me not want to continue, feel like I'm missing something if I don't read them all, and I just can't read/keep up with them all forever..

Comics - Spider-Verse

I think it was inevitable but I guess I will be talking about comics here as well.

So Spider-Verse officially kicked off last Wed, now they have been building to it for a few months now with extra issues they put out of Superior Spider-Man, the Edge of Spider-Verse mini, and backups in Amazing Spider-Man. Now I'm a huge Dan Slott supporter, and I wasn't necesarily sure about this one. The idea of using every version/costume of Spider-Man there has ever been is kind of crazy. Plus they have also been introducing new Spider-People from other dimensions and some of them are pretty cool, but the villains hadn't really clicked with me yet. The villains go from Dimension to dimension, killing Spider/Animal totems for sustenance. They just seemed to have no trouble taking out these various versions of Spider-Man to the point of how could our Spider-Man getting involved possibly make a difference. And some of them were downright annoying to read. So like i said I wasn't going into it very confident.

But then Amazing Spider-Man #9 came out, and it all made sense, it all worked for me. First I was just surprised that Olivier Coipel was drawing it, didn't realize he was doing this event, so honestly I don't know whether I liked it so much because Coipel is just such a good artist, or its actually a good story, also don't care. I loved this book so much and I can't wait for the next issue. First they bring all the Marvel Universe Spider-People together, then the multiverse gets involved. It was a serious story and also fun to read. Slott is teetering on the edge of lighthearted and humorous and also going to some really dark places, which is where I think he likes to be. Plus the group of villains they have been showing, this issue focused on Morlun, who was introduced and was a main character in Straczynski's run(where I started reading Spider-Man). But now Slott has gone a bit bigger with it, introducing his whole family, but bringing him back into focus was really interesting to me. Since while this family goes about the Multiverse killing Spiders, our Spider-Man is the only one who ever defeated one of them and he did it twice.

I picked up Spider-Verse Team-Up and Spider-Verse(anthology) books, was originally going to skip them like i did with Spider-Island, but gonna give them a chance. In other Spider-News, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, has been a great read the last few months and I feel its not getting any attention. But in a week where Axis also came out, the one I was most excited about was Ultimate Spider-Man. They are doing crazy stuff in that book and I like it.

Toku - Tokkyuger

So my Tokkyu-Oh! arrived today, he is the first and primary fighting Mecha of Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger(Train Force ToQger). They are this years incarnation of Super Sentai, which is the show Power Rangers is made from. Obviously they are Train themed, and that follows to the Mecha. The show is very kid friendly, and very goofy. And at first I wasn't sure I liked the design of this Mech, but it has grown on me as the show has. Unlike a lot of other ones, I think the more upgrades and additional combinations they get, the better it looks. Right now I just have Tokkyu-Oh, but eventually I plan to get Diesel-Oh and Build-Dai-Oh. On his own he's a little simplistic, but snaps together super easily, satisfying way.

Other than Gokaiger I havn't gotten too much into the Mecha of the various teams, usually I'm just interested in the Changers and some of their gimmick items. Whats cool about Tokkyu-Oh, is that the gimmick they sell this years are little trains, and thats what the Tokkyugers use to transform. So all of the parts of Tokkyu-Oh can also be used in the Tokkyu-Changer to activate different sounds. So in addition to having the mecha I also have the gimmicks for all the main Tokkyuger transformations.

This is also my last buy of the year. I gotta stop and save up for Christmas gifts. Plenty of updates still I'm sure once the show pics up again.

Games - Super Mario 3D Land

So I attacked Super Mario 3D Land on Saturday, determined to finish the last couple worlds. I did worlds 6-8 and defeated Bowser, it went by pretty quickly. Some of the levels have been pretty fun, pretty easy to get through. I finished the main game with over 90 lives left, not because I'm super good, but that the game is very forgiving and especially with the Super Tanooki Suit that appears whenever you die a few times in a level.

So you die a few times and gives you an ability to have tanooki powers to help jumping and also makes you invincible, but its an option it doesn't force it on you. I'm not afraid to say I used it a couple times. Also just how much fun the final battle with Bowser was, it had a lot of variety. If that's what I can expect out of the Special World levels, I'm pretty excited. Also this is the only game where I've felt I wasn't doing well because I didn't have the 3D, since I just have a 2DS, but I still had no significant trouble.

So now that I've finished the "main" game and defeated Bowser and saved the Princess, I now have access to the Special Worlds. Which appears to be another set of 8 worlds, and more or less another entire new set of levels. I've heard from others that this is where the game gets really challenging and rewarding. Now I had fun with it already, but if this is more fun then I can't wait. If these levels are significantly harder it makes sense, cause it makes the first 8 worlds training, and gives you a large stock of lives, because I may need all those to survive in the Special Worlds.

I also think I'm gonna try and get back to TIE Fighter this week, also thinking about my 2D Platformer Catch Up - A World a Day. I may do this starting Christmas break or after New Year. Where I play at least 1 level of Super Mario 3D World, Rayman Legends, Doney Kong Country Returns, and maybe one or 2 more depending. I'll make it a thing.

Toku - Tokkyuger

So after waiting and wondering where that Paypal money went after I tried to transfer it to my account, it got bounced back to Paypal. So I had to straighten out my Paypal/Bank connection. But long story short, I ordered Tokkyu-Oh and the Gokaiger Ressha!!!...but I forgot to use my giftcard, which did make me a little mad, but its not that big of a deal. But I also decided since I was gonna get home on Friday afternoon and we might have things going on Saturday, so I opted to get the 1-Day Shipping, instead of free Prime shipping. So I get home on Friday, not there yet but eventually I get a doorbell ring from the FedEx guy. It was only the Gokaiger Ressha.

Aparently the big guy(Tokkyu-Oh) was coming through UPS. They never came, which sent me into a tizzy of looking online to see what happened. Then I thought no biggie it will just get here tomorrow. Next day still nothing then I was just mad cause if I had just done Prime shipping they both would have got here Saturday. UPS is closed even for onsite pickup on Saturday, so I was a bit grumbled that morning. I'm supposed to get it Monday now, and I am damn well getting at least my shipping refunded for this kerfuffle!
(sorry for the strong language)

Games - Pokemon Y / Super Mario 3D Land

So I was traveling again this week, so I was pretty much just playing 2DS this week. I kind of felt I had let my Pokemon to squander since Smash Bros came out. So I decided to get back into that, and after working out where the hell I was going, I finally got to the next main area in the game. Now so far I only had 2 badges, the first 2 Pokemon Gyms are extremely far apart. But I got to the town with the 3rd Gym, and I learned the secret of Mega-Evolution, the "gimmick" of this version. So if you have specific pokemon, and a specific stone that pokemon. They become a Mega-Version. In my case my Wartortle "Duke" had just evolved into a Blastoise, and I have had a item called Blastoisenite. So now that I've unlocked this ability, I can temporarilly change Duke into MegaBlastoise during battle. He looks pretty fierce with his 3 Water Cannons.

They also just give you a Lucario, and he comes with some Lucarionite. This game really likes to just give out fantastic pokemon, you get your starter, you can get one of the starters from red/blue, and now they give me a Lucario. Also I just realized I've only finished the 3rd Gym, and my 2 starters have fully evolved already. I started making my way to the next area but the game was making me a little sleepy on the plane.

So I decided to switch it up, and busted out Super Mario 3D Land. I got it last year when I first got my 2DS and played it a bunch at first, but I quickly got sucked into Zelda. From listening to the Giant Bombcast, I know the game starts out simple, but after the 1st 8 worlds the game really becomes interesting and challanging. So I started to make my way towards that goal, and I actually cleared about from world 3 to world 6. Thats game is cool, I already love Mario games, and while its not hard the game is fun. I'm already enjoying it a lot, so I can't wait to get to the 2nd half.

I kinda realized that I have a bunch of great 2D platformers I have to finish. Rayman Legends, Super Mario 3D Land and World, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. I may try to make an active effort to play 1 level in each game every day for a while. I'll see when I can start that.....man I'm never gonna get back to Shadow of Mordor at this rate.

Games - Costume Quest / Transistor

Well I did a little more game playing this weekend. I ended up going back into Costume Quest for the Expansion "Grubbins on Ice". Which I got through in mostly one sitting, its probably 2 or so hours long. In the main game there are 3 main areas, the expansion is like adding one more area, but its a pretty big area. You bring all the costumes and their abilities from the regular game and they add 3 more costumes, which brings the total to about 14.

The setting is different, but still acts the same as previous ones. Its more Costume Quest, and I enjoyed that. That being said, I will wait a while before I go for the sequel.

I also finally purchased Transistor, a game I intended to get when it first came out, but had no time for it or any other game at the time.

Gave it a quick go, I'm not sure but I think I accidentally skipped something. I got no explanation and it just dumped me into the game, like I had missed the opening cutscene. Battle system was unique, think I need to spend some time with it to figure it out. This game is by the same people who made Bastion, which was one of my favorites, so I want to give it a fair shake. But damn it looks pretty and sounds great so far.

Toku - Kamen Rider Fourze / Tokkyuger / Power Rangers

Alright so my long journey is almost over with Kamen Rider Fourze Astroswitches. I ordered Burgermeal(Hamburger Transformer) for about $20 with shipping off Ebay on Thurs, and he comes with the last main switch I need #6 - Camera.

I will then have all 40 main switches. After that I'm just gonna wait till I see S1 - Super Rocket for a reasonable price, and then be totally done. This will be the first collection of toku toys I will "finish", and I'll be happy about it. I started with Ranger Keys, and I will continue though I know its a fools errand. There was no real hunt with OOOs and the Medals, for about $100 I got the Superbest Henshin Belt OOOs Driver and the OOOs Medal Set SP, which gave me all the main medals. With Fourze I actually had to look, and took a good amount of time, but not too long and got all these switches. It was fun and expensive, now I need to find a cool way to display them. I think it arrives today!

So with some additional funds from trying to kill myself to win a DietBet I was in, and a nice Halloween gift card to Amazon, I should be purchasing Tokkyu-Oh this week. Amazon has had him slightly less that $70 for a while now, doesn't seem like its gonna get a lot lower anytime soon. Now that I'm caught up on Tokkyuger, I'm more and more interested in getting him, as well as Diesel-Oh, and Build-Oh?.

I just like the way they all look when they form together. Plus having those will give me more stuff to use in the TokkyuChanger. The show has been fun as well, really enjoyed catching up. I know its very silly and "kiddy" but its just been fun to watch and they have had some funny monsters lately.

Also when I got back from my work trip, I put the last $20 on my Legacy Dragon Dagger.

It is super pretty, hefty, and just looks awesome. Its so big, I kind of don't have a good place to put it, it hides the Legacy Morpher, but I'll think of something. Since I put money down of that, I saw ToysRUs had one Import Shinken-Oh left for $10 cheaper. So I put that on layaway and will slowly pick away at that now.

Games - Costume Quest / TIE Fighter

So after a couple days in Cleveland for work, I came home and saw the Steam Halloween sale has started, they have Costume Quest 2 for $7. Which reminded me, I need to finish Costume Quest 1! I think I had about 2 hours left but I did finish it, I got all the candy cards, found all the kids, got all the battle stamps, but I still missed 1 costume part for the Vampire costume. I ended up looking up where to find the last part of the Unicorn costume. I liked this game, it was fun, and especially at the end had some good laugh out loud moments, and slightly heartwarming as well, it might be 4 or 5 hours at best, but its a good one. Don’t know if I’m ready to jump into the sequel just yet. But I do have an expansion for CQ1, which I may dabble a bit to see what it is.

Other game stuff was a big one for me, the return of X-Wing and TIE Fighter to PC, I saw the news that they would be available through gog.com, and when I got home, immediately bought it. Only played for maybe 30mins or so, think I need to find a good way to remap controls or configure the sensitivity. It actually mapped to my X360 controller pretty well by default, but when not touching the control stick it was jittery. Same game I remember, just ran 3 different ships through flight training, aced them of course and got my training patches. Went from Flt. Cadet to Flt. Officer in like 20mins. Some serious nostalgia kicked in. Can’t wait to play a little bit more, see if my skills are better now then when I was a kid.

Toku - Kamen Rider Gaim / Tokkyuger

So I got my Kamen Rider Gaim DX Golden & Silver Ringo Set in last night, very pretty, happy I got them.

Also started to catch up on Tokkyuger as I have fallen behind almost 10 episodes. Watched 4 of them while the wife and I were folding all the clothes. Watched 23-27 and really enjoyed the hilarious Bathhouse episode, Akira has quickly become my favorite character. I’m still warming up to Drive, gotta watch last weeks ep, but gonna try to watch a bunch more Tokkyuger as well and get caught up.

Games - Costume Quest

So I haven't played much more of Mordor, been busy or not in the mood. But this weekend with the pumpkin stuff, I thought I would get in the Holiday mood and finally sit down and play Costume Quest. I started by playing the first version of it created for Amnesia Fortnight, which was cool, but it kept crashing on me(which I will forgive since it was made in about 14days), so I didn’t get very far. So I started playing the full version of CQ, story setup is slightly different, you have a sibling in this one and you can choose the boy or girl to be your main character. It reminds me a lot of the Penny Arcade Adventures from Hothead Games that I played last year, but a less involved Battle system, but still lots of different timing based random button presses, etc. Enjoying it right now though, I just like the art style, and the simplified RPG stuff (no items/potions needed). I know its not too long but I’m trying to do everything, got to the second main area so I think I’m about halfway through. I should finish it up over the next couple days, and then I’ll get back to Mordor

Life

Preparing for Pumpkinfest, spent a good chunk of the night carving our Punkins. I went for a Spider-Man pumpkin, which I thought looked cool but was doable for me. The wife did a scary face, cause that what she wants to do. My cousins take this very seriously, so I’m sure they will have a bunch of crazy ones.

Toku - Kamen Rider Gaim/Decade

So I broke down and finally bought the Kamen Rider Gaim DX Golden & Silver Ringo Set. Its been getting cheaper and cheaper on Amazon, first down to $37, then $36, now $35, plus its available through Prime. So I shall have them both by Saturday, now the set comes with Sengoku Driver faceplates for Kamen Rider Mars(Gold) and Kamuro(Silver), but sadly they play only trigger the Baron and Gaim Music in the Driver respectively. If one of them played any of the other two music triggers I would have picked them up sooner.

Other big thing I saw was they announced more info on the Complete Modification Selection DecaDriver. Now this is the Prop level release of the driver from Kamen Rider Decade. They announced that it will come with a crazy bunch of cards that the original driver didn’t come with, or that didn’t exist before now. They also are releasing a separate set of cards to go with the CSM Decadriver, that will cover every card seen in the series and movies. They even recorded new audio that wasn’t in the driver before, so that every card will have its own unique audio. It has me pretty excited to get, as its one of my favorite Henshin Belts, just gotta pre-order it for about $200. One more thing about it that I think is super cool is has a button on the bottom that will make the driver play one of two pieces of music from the series, one of them being Decade’s Henshin Theme, so you can practically act out his entire henshin sequence music included, which I think is badass. Gotta save up my rupees for this one, it’ll be the most expensive Toku think I’ve purchased yet.

Toku - Kamen Rider Fourze

My Kamen Rider Fourze DX NS Magphone(the phone splits and becomes Switches #30 - N Magnet and #31 - S Magnet) finally arrived while I was playing games today. I recorded an impromptu unboxing and demonstration video, which I will post to my YouTube channel very soon. It’s nice, I enjoyed fiddling with it, but it doesn’t fit in my current display concept of putting all the switches in number order. Also it can’t stand on its own in any position, so I have it folded in Phone mode and leaning against the Cosmic Switch(which can also barely stand on its own).

Games - Shadow of Mordor

Ok, so everything went as planned. I got Shadow of Mordor, then got a nice breakfast, then went home to play, did so for a solid 4-5hrs. I like it but its hard, maybe I’m just out of rhythm for the Batman combat, just gotta get back in the flow. I’m liking it very much, I just don’t feel competent yet. Just done the first 2 or 3 story missions so far, but just gone around trying to kill any Orc Captains I come across. Which is resulting in me dying and Captains getting stronger. But I’m still managing to kill a good number of them. Hope to play a bunch more this weekend.

I also went to Dave & Busters with a buddy of mine, played games there. Nothing worth noting really, other than I can still do well in DDR, even with a few beers in me. But from the price area I did get a large strap on handlebar mustache, grabby arm popsicle, Adventure Time keychain, Captain America wallet, and 2 sticky hands (Blue for me, Pink for the wife obs). It was a good time, which may precede more good times in the future, my buddy hadn’t been there before and he liked it quite a bit. I mean you can get a meal and a $20 game credit for $24, which is a steal, your food is basically $4.

Toku - Kamen Rider Fourze/Gaim

Been spending a lot of time staring at my Wish List on Amazon and my Watch List on Ebay. I’m stupid close to getting all 40 of the main Fourze Astro Switches. I bought #35 - Giant Foot on Ebay the other day. So that just leaves #6 - Camera and #19 - Gattling. Can’t find #6 by itself, but it comes with the Burgermeal(Hamburger Transformer) and with shipping I can get him for $23 which is pretty good. Similar with #19, can only find in a box set that includes #18, which I already have, but with shipping its only about $13. Which should be a no brainer! Just get them and be done with it, after that its just Super Rocket and Fusion which I can get at my leisure. But I keep looking at the Gold and Silver Apple Lockseeds…they are so pretty, and reasonably priced, and I have it in my head that they won’t be available forever, or at least will not be $37 forever. Plus they are Prime, which is insanely satisfying. Just been very up in my head about it…

Games - The Floor is Jelly / Shadow of Mordor

So I finished The Floor is Jelly last night, and the Fez comparison got even more severe. The ending and leadup to it, got very intentionally glichy. There was a sequence where they kept changing how the jelly floors worked, which got hard to a point of being frustrating, because there was almost no normal way to do it, you basically had to hope the glitching would get you to the door, so you could continue. But got through it, and overall I liked that game, had lots of cool ideas, really made you think about the gravity, and used its simple mechanics very smartly for 95% of the game. I just wish the ending bits were shorter and/or like the rest of the game, dependant on skill rather than random chance. I think its priced to move on steam or humble, a solid recommendation. 

 I keep thinking about Shadow of Mordor, and how I want to play the crap out of it. I worked over a weekend and did some hellish hours the other week, so the boss is letting me take a free day off. So I’m gonna have Thursday off to myself and I’m gonna go get Shadow of Mordor, and hope to play that most of the day.

Toku - Kamen Rider Fourze/Wizard / Kyoryuger

One nice thing to come home to was a bunch of packages full of goodies. The lot of Fourze Switches I ordered on 10/1/14 came in and added them to my display, and added the extras to my goodie box for future giveaways/prizes. Also while I was away I ordered AstroSwitch #37 - Gyro. So with that and the Mag Phone I’m waiting for, that brings me to 92.5% of my Fourze collection.

The real surprise was my wife, knowing that I had a poopy week, thought to make me feel better, so she raided my wish list for a few things. She got Me the Kamen Rider Wizard DX Wizard Ring Set 03 and 04, which adds some much needed variety to my Wizard Ring collection. She also got the Kamen Rider Fourze AstroSwitch EX Drill Super 3, which is super cool! It also means I now have to be on the lookout for AstroSwitch EX Rocket Super 1.

Also was able to watch the first episode of Kamen Rider Drive. Not sure how i feel about it yet. It seemed very rushed, and a lot of things talking really fast, was hard to keep up with the subs. I think the driver is cool, will most likely get that. It just didn’t feel as fresh(pardon the pun) as Gaim. A lot of characters introduced, the new Rider, his whole police team, then the detectives who don’t like him, the bad guys, and the whole shift cars thing. I was surprised they used a lot of Shift Cars in this episode, didn’t think he’d use so many of them so soon. I’m sad the tires don’t seem to change his overall look very much. I’m assuming he’ll get some new forms as the show goes on.But definitely getting some Double, Kiva, OOOs vibes. In the main character’s past he was not able to save someone at a crucial moment like Eiji from OOOs, a talking Driver like Kiva, Police vibe gives it the W similarity, and the driver sounds like Decade’s when it calls out form changes. Other thing I thought was odd was the use of the Shift Cars driving on their own generated roads like Den-O/Tokkyuger does with train rails. Hoping the next couple eps will grab me.

Game - Super Smash Bros. for 3DS

So while I was away, at about 1am on the morning of October 3rd I went to Walmart and purchased Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS. It kept me sane for the small stints I was able to play it. I’ve never owned a Super Smash Bros. Game before, and certainly not good at it. At work lately they have taken to playing Smash Bros on breaks, so competition has been lively. I’m hoping to get competent, and have chosen new addition Pac-Man as my character of choice. So mostly playing as him and then other characters as needed to complete challenges.

Life

I was in a giant hole labeled work for the last 9 days, and recovering the last 2. Working 12-16 hours a day while away in Marion, IL. But still managed to get/play some game games and came home to some nice Toku Packages which will be detailed shortly

Toku - Kamen Rider Fourze / Kyoryuger

Okay so over the weekend I received my Kamen Rider Fourze DX Hee Hack Gun. My only reason for getting it was for AstroSwitch #20 - Fire. I purchased it for less than $30, since I was not seeing anyone selling 20-Fire by itself, and considering I got the whole gun, not too bad a price. Also did some eBay purchasing the other day, I bought Astro Switch #27 - Screw which looks like it has a propeller on it. Later in the day I saw someone posted a couple more lots of Switches, so I picked up 10-Elec, 11-Scissors, 13-Chain Array, 15-Spike, and 16-Winch. This means I don't have to buy Billy the Rod(Fourze's Sword), Foodroid 02(French Fry Transformer), the Kaban(Switch Holder), or Astro Switch Set 02(Since I already have one of them). Getting those all for less than I was about to pay for just the 10-Elec Switch. Also that brings me to 90% on my switch counter, 36 out of 40. Still unsure if I want to get Meteor or Meteor Storm, not to mention Super Rocket, Super Drill, or Fusion Switches. While I like the Meteor Driver the most of the Secondary Rider Belts, I don't know if I like it enough to get it unless its really cheap.

The same guy selling the Switch Lot also had a few Zyudenchis from Kyoryuger, and I picked up 6-Pteragordon(my favorite one) for $9, which is a pretty good deal for me.

Games - The Floor is Jelly

More The Floor is Jelly, the Game actually got kind of hard for a bit. There is an area where the level has an outline of all the platforms on the screen, and they are not solid until you touch them or untill you touch a border. Also if you get inside the outline and touch the border then the outside becomes solid creating an inverse of the level. It got very mind boggling for a bit. The more I play of the game it reminds me of Fez just in tone, this game has no map, no names of any levels, and generally very bright and cheerful. I also found out the soundtrack is by Disasterpiece who also did the Fez soundtrack. The game continues to be interesting, every area in the world has its own gimmick. Easiest way to describe this game is like a cross between Super Meat Boy and Fez. Like Meatboy the only thing you can do is jump, and if you die it restarts instantly and can be challenging. The game has a similar tone to Fez, lots of earthy tones, relaxing music(by the same guy no less), lack of maps/names making it hard to talk about the game. It doesn't seem as deep as either of those games in terms of no cutscenes, no bosses, no big hidden secret, no puzzles that need me to keep a notebook, but its charming and I'm still really liking it. I will be traveling a bit soon, so if game has cloud saves then I might be able to continue my progress while I'm away.

Toku - Kamen Rider Gaim

I finally got my Pre-Order for the Yomotsuheguri(Yomi) Lock Seed & Faceplate Set from It Came From Japan. Since I can't get the Budou Lock Seed & Faceplate Set for a reasonable price, the Yomi Lock Seed Set will be good enough for me. Gets me a DX version similar to Budou, and a faceplate that unlocks Kamen Rider Ryugen's Henshin Music in the Sengoku Driver.

Games - Fibbage / Ms. Splosion Man / The Floor is Jelly

So I've purchased and tried a few games lately. I recently found out about the new game from the Developers who made You Don't Know Jack which is one of my favorite game series. Its called Fibbage. Its another trivia game, and you have to have it on a XBOXone or PS4, but you don't use a controller. You use your Smartphone as your buzzer/input device, the game with present a fill in the blank, and you are asked to come up with a fake answer, after which you have to guess from everyone's fake answers and the real one. I think its a cool cool concept, plus their host extraordinaire Cookie Masteron has returned to add some mirth to the proceedings, its 2-8 players, more players more fun. Its simple, fun and cheap at only about $7 on either system. I hope for a PC version so I can play against some long distance friends online. My only gripe became that the website you login to to play the game on your phone kept kicking me out, but hoping it was just a fluke, my wife had no issue with it. But I can't wait to play the game with a large group of friends.

Humble Bundle had a Leading Ladies sale the other week. Which had a few things that looked interesting such as Lilly Looking Through, but the main thing I got it for was Ms. Splosion Man. I was a fan of the original Splosion Man and always meant to get back around to play that one as well. I finally have that chance on the PC now, and so far just as charming and challenging as the first. No jump button here, only a 'splode-button, you can splode up to 3 times without touching the ground. Simple formula making for lots of 2-D 'splosion heavy platforming action. I haven't played too much of it yet but already I can see where the game is going to become challenging. I hope to play a couple levels of that every few days, because doing a lot of those for long periods of time can be a little repetitive. One game I've owned for a while now but just got the chance to play is The Floor is Jelly. This seemed like a small charming little platforming game, with a cool art style and crazy jump physics. But it seems much deeper than that as I progress. The jumping staying the same, but making the world this big puzzle. Each world reacting in totally different but surprisingly innovative ways. I was hoping for some simple fun, and I found that and much more. I can't wait to spend more time with it, I'm only sad it doesn't appear to have controller support.