No Major Post

And no guesses for why not, either. Running jobs and running from the cops in Liberty City.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games

GTA In The GTA

This is how dumb I am. It was only a couple of days ago, that I noticed this huge freakin' thing was hanging off one of the buildings in the neighborhood. As you might expect, there are a lot of jokes flying around about Grand Theft Auto appearing in the Greater Toronto Area which translate to the title above.

I figured it was appropriate to include since I had to walk past the damn thing on the way to the store to collect my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. I have now been plugged into the PS3 pretty much non-stop since I came back with it, and the verdict is... There is virtually no chance that any other title is going to win Game of the Year awards. It's freakin' GTA, but it's also huge, detailed, and endlessly, ENDLESSLY funny. I'm spending more time surfing the in-game internet and watching the TV than I am actually playing the game proper. I totally freakin' LOVE this game, and even though I normally err on the side of caution when talking about picking up consoles purely for one title... this one might be justified.

Labels: Games

Tomorrow

I could have gone to a midnight launch of one of the local big retailers to pick up the game (as many around the continent are doubtless doing) but since I'm a big fan of the little vintage game store I have discovered, and since waiting a few more hours won't kill me, I decided to support my local small business and just wait it out. They'll be getting the game tomorrow, like everyone else, and I feel much better about giving them money rather than handing it over to some disinterested teenager who knows squat about the gaming industry.

But man. Finally. Grand Theft Auto IV. Feels like Christmas Eve. I almost can't believe it's been four freakin' years since the last one.

Also, we watched Alien vs Predator: Requiem. It rocked, in that good/bad way. Plenty of R-rated death! Whee!

Labels: Games, Movies

Less Than 48 Hours

I'm all in "Christmas mode" now as the release of Grand Theft Auto IV is now getting painfully close. I really love this series, having been stupid enough to get 100% completion on all three previous games on the PS2. I have no intention of breaking that tradition with GTAIV. It's not often in the life of a console that a game this huge comes out. I'm savoring the anticipation. And, in true Rockstar fashion, leave you with yet another taste of the cosmopolitan wonder that is advertising in Liberty City:

Labels: Games

Calgary Joins The Jack Thompson Brigade

I was greatly amused--and somewhat annoyed--to hear about Calgary actually getting a mention in the gaming press today. Looks like they've jumped on the Jack Thompson "murder simulator" bandwagon, and are warning parents of the dangers that upcoming Chaos Engine Grand Theft Auto IV can pose to innocent "youtz" as Jay of Jay n' Silent Bob fame would call them. In the news story they ran in the Sun, the police have this juicy quote:

"From the Calgary Police Service perspective, we see these types of video games as a grave concern," he said. "Because of the lack of consequences and even reward -- (youth) don't understand the impact violence can have."

He said parents have to be aware of what children watch or games they play.

"In some cases, those very games may be training grounds for people to commit criminal activity," Brookwell said.

Man, if it isn't comics, it's Dungeons & Dragons, and if isn't Dungeons & Dragons, it's videogames. But then (he said, showing his Edmonton roots) I guess you gotta' expect that from any city that names their hockey team "the Flames."

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry

Relaxed Friday

The Wife got invited to a student art show from the seniors at the Sheridan art program. We tottered over to Queen Street West to check it out, then went home and finished up watching the last few episodes of the Blue Planet: Seas of Life documentary. I'm now nursing some minor guilt over eating sushi after watching their "LOOK AT WHAT WE'RE DOING TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT! HUMANS ARE BAD! BADBADBAD!" episode, but I'm sure this will pass. If Neil-O can eat sushi, it CAN'T be wrong, right?

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Mean Streets Of Toronto

Horror Drought About To End

On the Japanese Playstation Store, Sony put up a demo for a game hitting Japan in July, which is doubtless bound for an English translation. It's called Siren: New Translation and is actually a PS3 remake of a horror game released on the PS2 back in 2003. Like a lot of horror games, there's a zombie thing of sorts going on here, except that one of the key differences is the characters are gifted with a psychic "zombie vision" where they temporarily jump into the viewpoint of the zombies. This seems to jump up the scare factor once you realize that the silhouette in the dark the zombie suddenly started madly running towards is YOU. I tried the out the demo, which was mercifully brief and came out of it screaming at least twice. This game is going to traumatize children for YEARS if they get their hands on it. Up until now the PS3 hasn't had any really decent horror games, but with Silent Hill 5 coming in September and now this, it looks things are shaping up for a pretty decent Halloween this year.

Labels: Games

More Old Friends

Met up with another old friend from university today who was visiting from Edmonton, henceforth referred to as the Free Spirit for her oh so bohemian ways and lifestyle. Haven't not laid eyes on the girl since like... oh... 1998, it was bizarre to see that when I met her and she met me we were both thinking, "Yup. You're still the same." Except for the part about me no longer being psychotically bitter about being doomed to die single. And the part about her finally settling down into a less chaotic lifestyle. But other than that, it was like no time passed, which is always freaky when that happens. Then she mentioned that one of the other people she was visiting in Toronto was another veteran of the university days who had also taken up residence here and shall henceforth be known as the Head Doctor, since... well, that's what he does.

We met up for lunch and I took her back to the apartment because she had apparently read this very blog with interest about the Miracle That Is Rock Band but had not had a chance to actually try it out. We rectified that. She surprised me in two ways; first, she felt a lot more enthusiastic about the drums than the guitar, and second, when she took the microphone to try singing, she did not in any way, shape or form, hold back. That little frame of hers just belted it out and freaked me out for a couple of seconds because I'm not used to seeing her holler like that, but holler she did. Then she ratcheted it up to hard and scored something like 98% on her first try. So, okay... the girl can sing.

After that we went down to--where else--Bloor and met up with the Head Doctor and a few other people I may or may not have seen during my university days, but never interacted with, although there was a general air of "You look reeeeeal familiar" on both sides, though admittedly that could also have been simply because we've seen each other around Bloor before.

All in all it was a pleasant day. Always fun to meet up with old friends, especially when they're just as insane as you remember them being.

Labels: Friends, Mean Streets Of Toronto

Unpleasantness At Restaurants

A fairly routine day tweaking and sending off an article ended on a weird downer when we went down to Bloor to dine at a Sushi restaurant we'd visited twice before. The food is decent though not spectacular, and on this particular day, between the noise, the rushed service and the fact that the Wife found a hair in her food, by the end of it we decided to just leave and not tip. We actually got stopped by the waiter as we left and he explained that he'd have to answer to his manager if he didn't get a tip, and wanted to know why we weren't leaving one. We tried being diplomatic and explained that it was nothing personal, but he kept bringing up stuff like how he poured out tea and gave complimentary soup so just to shut him we threw a few dollars his way with the intention of never eating in the restaurant again. It would just be waaaay too paranoia inducing to go in there again with the knowledge that we could potentially get harassed and not allowed to leave until we'd treated the staff with the gratuity they felt they deserved, and it makes the whole experience not as pleasant as it should be.

Oh well, there's still like a million, buzillion other sushi restaurants on that stretch of Bloor alone, so it's no great loss...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Mean Streets Of Toronto

Overdue Observation

I meant to mention this last week after picking it up on Rock Band and somehow forgot. This injustice is now about to be addressed.

Blondie's Call Me + Rock Band = Pure Awesome.

Labels: Games, Rock Band

Sunday In Downtown

The Wife needed to meet someone in downtown to discuss some work related things so we meandered over to the fairly large Indigo's bookstore branch to do the deed and promptly got suckered into spending waaaay too much time looking at nice books.

Bookstores are evil.

Also, wrote a bit more of the next High Def Digest article and made a little progress in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.

Of course, in just over a week, everything grinds to a halt for the majesty of gaming that is Grand Theft Auto IV. My God, to think it's almost here now... feels like I've been waiting for freakin' ever for this game to release...

Labels: Games, Journalism, Mean Streets Of Toronto, Writing

Weekend Of Work

Started on the next High-Def Digest article, did some tax-related stuff plonking receipts and their amounts into an Excel sheet, wrote a bit of comic, a bit of novel and raced a bit in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. I have bought and raced my first Ferrari.

Okay, so NOW I understand what the big deal is with those cars, good God, those things are BEASTS on the road...

Labels: Creating Comics, Games, Journalism, Novel Writing, Writing

Quiet Celebrating

It was the Wife's birthday today, which was barely acknowledged at her request. Laundry was done, burgers at the local favorite diner were consumed, and a little bit of comic writing and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was played. I'm quickly becoming a fan of Audi cars because of this game. Too bad they're hideously expensive, but they really hug the road.

Labels: Creating Comics, Games, Icky Couple Stuff

A Dull Day

In which groceries were bought, some Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was played and we finally got around to creating a new singer for Rock Band to assess the damage. Man, it's tough starting over...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games

The Drive Of Your Life

Went down to the game store this afternoon and came back with the game on the left. I haven't actually owned and seriously played a copy of Gran Turismo since the first one came out on the original Playstation. My God, how far graphics have come in ten years...

The physics and visuals of this game are unreal. You jump in any of the 76 cars available in this "teaser" (the full version of GT5 won't come out 'till next year, this is essentially a $40 demo) and you immediately feel the difference in power, speed and handling. The graphics are, of course, phenomenal. You put this game in an audio/video store and passersby can't be blamed for initially mistaking it to be race footage. Now THIS is exactly the kind of game most people are referring to when they talk about "next generation" gaming. It's just a technical marvel and blows all other competition out of the water. I'm absolutely blown away by how beautiful this game looks and plays.

Labels: Games

Over The Hump

Finally got past the half-way mark on Devil May Cry 4 today in "Dante Must Die" mode. Did I mention this game is SUPER FREAKIN' HARD?!

Labels: Games

Monday Of Writing

Aside from churning out another GameAxis article, the rest of the day consisted of a) getting my ass kicked in Baroque and b) slogging through another ass kicking in Devil May Cry 4. Man these games are HARD...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Writing

Quiet Sunday

Finished up an article for GameAxis (it's that time of the month again, after all) and finally got around to eating in a restaurant we'd walked by a million, buzillion times. Called The Indian Rice Factory, we only just found out it's rated as one of the best Indian restaurants in the city. It certainly compared favorably with my Singapore experiences, but then I never ate Indian food at a really decent restaurant in Singapore, all my sampling was always done in hawker centers and food courts.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Mean Streets Of Toronto

Little Things

Wrote more comic, played some Baroque, that's about it.

Labels: Creating Comics, Games

Quiet Friday

Little bit of writing the comic and novel, a little bit of shopping and gallery visiting on Bloor, and I finally watched Sunshine on Blu-Ray. A little weird towards the end, but pretty enjoyable. Felt like real literary science fiction as opposed to the normal fare for movies.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Lost In Loveless, Movies, Novel Writing, Writing

Baroque Thursday

Picked this up from the game store today. I'm going to review it for GameAxis as well, so this does triple duty as a) another surprising PS2 purchase to use on the 60GB PS3, b) a way to satisfy the Wife's insatiable hunger for anything made by Atlus and c) a game to add to the ol' review portfolio.

It's a decidedly counter-intuitive game so far. It's a randomly generated dungeon crawler, similar to Persona 3, but it also tells you NOTHING. The game and the game's mechanics are all a mystery at the start and you play through in almost total ignorance, learning the mechanics through cryptic hints, trial and error and dying over and over again, except that here, dying is crucial to the advancement of the game. It's shaping to be a quirky, very different game that I can see appealing to the jaded gamer that's seen it all and doesn't mind an obscure mind fuck that's designed to run counter to all the expectations experienced gamers have grown accustomed to. It's NOT for everyone. I'd even say it's really just for connoisseurs, though I'm having fun with it so far.

Labels: Games

Wednesday Is Manageable

Wrote some comic and some novel, shopped around Bloor and, just for kicks, messed around with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for a bit. I think I'm getting impatient for GTAIV, but it was nice to hop in that crazy VTOL jet and scream around San Andreas, parachuting into streets and stealing cars. GTA is still a good game for popping in and messing around even after you've played the hell out of it...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Games, Lost In Loveless, Mean Streets Of Toronto, Novel Writing, Writing

Just Another Tuesday

A bit of shopping, a bit of writing the comic, the children's novel, and getting approval for the next High Def Digest article. Oh and playing more Dirge of Cerberus.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Games, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, Novel Writing, Writing

Slow Monday

Wrote some of the comic, played a lot of Dirge of Cerberus. I'd probably enjoy this game a lot more if it were an RPG, but oh well... at least the cutscenes are good. The story is also actually pretty enjoyable as well, it's too bad you have to slog through some tedious gameplay to get to the good stuff. So far my favorite part of the game has been an interlude between gunfights where the character could only walk around an airship talking to other people, and for those few minutes, the game felt EXACTLY like a very good Squenix RPG and I was really enjoying it. Then the damn regular gameplay had to come back, and it went back to sucking...

Labels: Creating Comics, Games, Writing

Gallery Stuff

The Wife attended a couple of talks being held at the local gallery where her bear is being shown. I went down with her, and it was an interesting couple of talks on a) the publishing of art books because it's fun and b) designer toys and how the market is slowly growing. After that it was back home to start cranking out this month's GameAxis articles, and mess around with Obscure: Aftermath and Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus some more.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Mean Streets Of Toronto, Writing

So Bad They're Good

In the same way that some movies possess enough cheese to elevate them from being merely unpleasant to weirdly enjoyable experiences in ways the production team never intended, so too can the same be said for games, albeit more rarely. A trip through Queen Street and a visit to a new EB Games that opened up there recently netted a couple of bargains that have now been added to the PS2 collection.

This got picked up for one reason and one reason alone; gorgeous cutscenes. The Wife saw it sitting in the used shelf just a day or two after I said I'd consider picking this game up if I ever found it for less than $20. This was Squenix's attempt to do a Devil May Cry style 3rd person action shooter with a bit of the item and level management that Squenix RPGs are normally better known for. The end result falls totally flat on its face as a clumsy, slow-paced, not very fun shooter. However, the same team that did Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children also did the cutscenes for this game. Surprisingly, the version I found was a "Greatest Hits" title. But then again, slap anything with the words Final Fantasy VII on it and the devoted will buy AT LEAST 1 million copies, so it'll sell respectable numbers regardless of how poor the game is. I'm not enjoying the actual mechanics of the game, but the story is compelling enough, since I do still harbor a fondness for the FFVII universe. It sure helps that the graphics engine pushes the PS2 just about as far as it'll go so graphically, it's nearly comparable to a terrible looking PS3 game.


This other title is pure, cheesy goodness. It's actually a pretty recent game, only just released towards the end of March, but it's already priced at bargain levels, at $20. It's the sequel to the 2005 game Obscure which was essentially a highschool slasher flick. The first game involved a bunch of generic teenagers trying to survive a horrible adventure through their highschool-gone-wrong, and, just like a horror movie, they could die in horrible ways, with not all the characters necessarily needing to be alive by the end of the game to finish it. This sequel brings the kids back, now in college, and once again, more creepy stuff starts happening. It's pretty much like any 80's horror movie you've seen where the interchangeable characters aren't there for you to identify with, so much as provide gleeful, horrible deaths as you progress. If you're the sort that loves to provide a running commentary on bad movie in order to make the experience more fun, this is a more interactive version of that. Break it out when friends are around and let the sarcasm commence...

Labels: Games, Mean Streets Of Toronto

Friday Is All Over The Place

Kind of doddled with a bunch of different things today, including continuing my masochistic march through Devil May Cry 4's "Dante Must Die" mode (it hates gamers. It really, really hates them...) and in a fit of gamer nostalgia, firing up the old PS1 game Vagrant Story by Squenix, back when they were still Squaresoft. Man, what a difference 8 years makes... I look at these PS1 year 2000 graphics--remember how blown away I was at the time--and all I can do is shake my head. Also continued to crank out some pages of the comic for the Wife, and gave some thought to the next High Def Digest article. I think I have it nailed down and will get in touch with the editor about it soon.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Games, Journalism, Writing

More Writing

Sent off the High-Def Digest article and it was accepted with very minor tweaks. Other than that, wrote more of the comic, wrote some of the children's novel and once again got annihilated by Green Grass & High Tides on Rock Band...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Games, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, Rock Band, Writing

Typical Wednesday

Finished off the High-Def Digest article, though I'll sit on it and give it the once over tomorrow before sending it off. Also started on a script for a comic the Wife's been meaning to do for a while now. This is always fun. We make a good team. In other Wife-ly news the picture below that I once featured:

Has been selected to appear in a Street Fighter Tribute art book by Udon Entertainment.

And I should really get around to checking out Sunshine now that I've got that Blu-Ray disc sitting around...

Labels: Artwork, Creating Comics, Journalism, Writing

Working Day

Started cranking out the next article for High-Def Digest. Other than that, got back into some Rock Band and have garnered a new appreciation for Coheed & Cambria. I dunno why, but their DLC song Tenspeed has suddenly catapulted itself into my "Oh my God, this song kicks ass!" category...

Labels: Games, Journalism, Rock Band