Dec

A dog and a bust of Napoleon discuss Street Fighter II in this Portuguese TV show.

via GameTrailers.com

Nov

It’s the end of the week so I thought I’d do a MEGA POST starting with a trailer for a live action Mega Man fan movie made by Eddie Lebron.

Check out the Proto Man cameo at 2:29. The guy playing Dr. Wiley is spot on.  I’m sure the actress playing Roll could be cute without the wig, but it unfortunately makes her look like a dude. This movie looks like a very ambitious project and I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished. Check http://www.megamanfilm.com/ for more details.

To continue this post, here is a really creative fan ad for Mega Man’s most recent appearance in the video game world, Mega Man 9.  Mega Man 9 took the series back to its roots and reintroduced the NES-style graphics and gameplay similar to Mega Man 2.  It is available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii as a downloadable game.  The music for this ad is Concrete Man’s theme.


Mega Man (in his Mega Man Legends helmetless form) will also be appearing in the upcoming Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation Heroes, which is a spiritual successor to the the Marvel vs. Capcom series. It will be released on December 11th for Nintendo Wii but be ready to import it because it looks like the game will not be leaving Japanese shores due to the licensing nightmare that would ensue due to Tatsunoko’s distribution rights being owned by various companies in the US.


I’d like to end it all with an oldie but a goodie.  Okkusenman is a song about our childhood memories, which may include Mega Man or Ultraman and it is done to the theme music to Dr. Wiley’s Castle from Mega Man 2. The song became hugely popular a year or two ago and has spawned many covers and even flash animated music videos.

Oct

Japanese owners of the Nintendo DS have been using it for all sorts of uses outside of games, like learning how to cook with Shaberu! Dīesu Oryōri Nabi or using it as a sweet synthesizer with the Korg DS-10.  It looks like this trend is finally coming to the U.S. as people begin to discover how versatile the hardware can be for education.

A recent example of this is the new game called My Chinese Coach, published by Ubisoft.  This game falls under a whole series of titles that teach language with the Nintendo DS.  Previous titles include My French Coach, My Spanish Coach, My Word Coach, and My Japanese Coach is expected to be released in October.

I am ethnically Chinese but I have grown up speaking a dialect of Chinese known as Fukienese or Fujianese, which is so different from Mandarin that it is almost like learning a completely new language.  So I went in without much prior knowledge other than the basic fortune-cookie Chinese of Ni hao (Hello) and Xie Xie (Thank you).

I was expecting My Chinese Coach to be a rather shallow program but boy was I wrong.  The first lesson introduced me to Pinyin, which is the romanized version of Chinese.  It does this by playing a sample of each sound through the speakers and then allows you to record your own voice with the DS’s built-in microphone.  You can then play it back and view the waveforms of the recording and compare and retry until you have the correct pronunciation.

The next lesson introduced the 5 different tones and how to read them in Pinyin.  A word like ma can be said differently with rising or lowering intonation to mean different things.  For example, ma said with a low tone to a higher tone like a question can mean “hemp,” while ma with a high to low tone means “scold.”

These lessons were followed by mini games where you rack up points and “level up” each word.  The first minigame is a multiple choice quiz where you have to match the Pinyin or Chinese characters with the English word and vice versa.  The next game is a whack-a-mole style game where you are told to only whack the mole that pops up with a specific Chinese character.  I found that this greatly forced me to recognize a Chinese character in a short period of time.  Another game makes you write the Chinese character with the correct stroke order on top of an example in the background.   Each time you write it, the character that you are tracing begins to disappear faster until you are forced to write the character without any guidance.  As someone who has had to write Japanese characters over and over in the past, this is an excellent way of learning how to write properly.

As you “level up” each word with each one you get right, you eventually master the word after you get enough right.  After you master all the words, it will unlock the new lesson.  There is a addictively rewarding satisfaction in unlocking new lessons similar to leveling up your character in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy.  This is also good because it really does require you to master everything and prevents you from skipping through all the lessons. One thing I was worried about was that the game would not be robust enough for people who were experienced with the language.  So I asked my Mom, who’s fluent in Chinese, to try it out.  She was able to skip through the really basic lessons by taking a proficiency test at the beginning.  She really liked how it taught her the proper tones and pronunciation and she told me that she had actually learned a lot of things wrong when she learned it in the Philippines.  I was shocked to find that it teaches you over 12,000 words!

Here’s a little vid of the placement test:

My Chinese Coach may not be a complete substitute for a college level language course, but for people who can’t afford classes or don’t have time for them, it’s a great way to get your feet wet and familiarize yourself with a language so you will be primed and ready if you do decide to take some classes.  I liken it to having a portable Rosetta Stone with you when you’re waiting in line or taking the bus or train.  These games are also great for people who have learned a language in the past and need a refresher.  My Chinese Coach is $29.99 and available wherever Nintendo DS games are sold.

As someone who is also studying Japanese, I also can’t wait for My Japanese Coach, which uses the same format to teach Japanese and arrives later this month on October 15.  I will be sure to post my impressions.

Sep

Here’s an excellent cover of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” It’s done by Randy George via Reddit.

He’s using a Nintendo DS with Jam Sessions (known as Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 originally in Japan), a Moog theremin (I had no idea that Moog even made theremins!), and vocoder and keyboard powered by Ableton Live.

Randy George Cover:

Original “Something About Us” Music Video:

Jul

So I was cooking juicy steaks today and enjoying my day off by remembering what Independence Day is all about: to commemorate the day that Will Smith saved the world from aliens back in ‘96.  Remember when he punched one in the head?  That was outstanding.  He even saved us again from zombie/vampire things in December last year, which I think is probably the reason why people celebrate Christmas.

Well I offer a 4th of Julyish tip that may improve your life as it has exponentially changed mine forever and even made me want to post about it.

My tip is how to get those coals on fire in your grill without lighter fluid.  If you are a manly man, you know that the only way to start a fire is by polishing the bottom of a Coke can with a chocolate bar to reflect the sun into highly focused beam of light to ignite your coals (this method is actually doable as shown in episode 45 of the Mythbusters). But I’m really lazy and want to light things as fast as possible.  Usually I just pile the coals into a pyramid and then give them a healthy Homer Simpson dousing of lighter fluid and toss a match at it and hope my eyebrows don’t get burned off.  This usually takes a couple tries to get it going, doesn’t light all the coals evenly, and makes my food taste sorta funny.  So the secret tip of the day is to use a Charcoal Chimney instead.

I picked one up at Target for about 7 bucks today and filled the bottom of it with about 4 sheets of wrinkled newspaper.  Then I filled the rest of it to the top with charcoal, lit the newspaper from the bottom, walked away and played some Katamari Damacy (which was on sale last week on Amazon for $9.99).  When I came back 15 minutes later, the coals were bright red and I was just amazed how quick and simple it was.  I owe this tip to my bro-in-law after seeing him miraculously make a fire in mere minutes using a charcoal chimney to start a fire to cook delicious Korean galbi.

I apologize if I might be the last person on Earth to know about using charcoal chimneys so bear with me if you already know this and pretend you just read something new and interesting and act surprised.

As a personal note, I know I haven’t updated this site in over 2 months.  So I think I owe all of you an explanation.  I’m sorry but it’s sorta a long story but my life recently got flipped upside down.  So if you have a minute, just sit right there and I’ll tell you how I became the Prince of Bel Air.  In West Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days.  Chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’, all cool.  And all shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school.  When a couple of guys, who were up to no good.  Started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood.  I got in one little fight and my mom got scared.  And said, “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”

Mar

The Meat Bun blog has just opened its online store to the public. These video game influenced t-shirts will run you around $29.99 each. I just can’t get enough of these designs like the one with the 4 Nintendo Gods Presidents, a Polo parody shirt that turns out to be Wander and Agro from Shadow of the Colossus, the 4th generation of gaming systems (Super Nintendo, Neo Geo, Mega Drive, and TurboGrafx-16), and a Street Fighter II fight poster shirt.

These designs and more are available at the Meat Bun website now!

If you like these shirts, I also recommend taking a look at The King of Games store. They have some fucking amazing Nintendo shirt designs but are a bit pricey since they’re all imported from Japan.

Damn, why didn’t I think of this? Hmm… perhaps we’ll see some Gorgonzola Cheese t-shirts in the future?

(photos via Meat Bun blog)

Mar

What ever happened to good old fashioned riddles? As a gamer, I see an occasional puzzle or riddle here and there in between killing zombies or saving princesses in my green tunic. What about a game that was so full of riddles, you couldn’t walk anywhere or progress at all unless you solved each one? And how about throwing in some of the best animation ever seen on the Nintendo DS? And a Detective Conan-esque subplot? Mix that all up and stir it around and you’ve got yourself Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Professor Layton is a new game for Nintendo DS, created by Level-5, that requires you to solve puzzles and riddles along the way to unveil bits and pieces to help you solve a greater mystery going on. It was one of the best selling games in Japan last year especially due to the older casual gamers and just recently got translated for folks in the US.

You follow Professor Layton and his assistant around St. Mystere talking to the townfolk, which all have riddles or puzzles that need to be solved. It is all done in an adventure game style (a la 90s Lucas Arts games) and utilizes the touch screen perfectly to navigate and search for secrets like coins. These coins are hidden in random locations like barrels or paintings and can be used to give you hints in case you stumble upon a riddle that is just impossible to solve.

EXAMPLE: One riddle gives you 8 weights. They all look identical except 1 weight is lighter than the rest while the rest weigh the same. There is an old fashioned balance scale nearby that you may only use twice. How can you determine which one is the lighter one? I’ll let you guys answer in the comments section.

No matter how much you play the Brain Age games, the most they’ll do is train you to excel at the same activities through repetition. If you really want to wrack your brains with logical and analytical skills, I definitely recommend giving Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village a try. You can ever try an online demo of the game here (click on Game Demo on the top right).

Mar

Last Saturday, I attended the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy concert in Chicago. I was impressed by the turnout since the crowd was made up of all kinds of people young and old. I saw a couple dressed as a Red Mage/White Mage combo, an Advent Children Cloud cosplayer, as well as a young woman dressed up as Edea from Final Fantasy VIII. Besides that, I saw mostly normal people who looked like they were dressed up to go see the opera. And boy did we did get to see opera that night.

As we all sat at our seats waiting for the show to begin, a man surrounded by a Japanese entourage walked into the room to sit about 20 seats away in the same row as us. The entire room stood up in respect and started applauding furiously. This man was none other than Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for all the music from the Final Fantasy series.

It started off with some music from Final Fantasy VIII. 3 large projector screens were hung above the symphony displaying FMV and in-game footage from the games. They proceeded to play music from every Final Fantasy game from the series, even FFXI. One of my favorites was a jazzy swing interpretation of the Chocobo theme called “Swing de Chocobo.” Here’s YouTube footage of it from another Final Fantasy concert:

For another song, “Maria and Draco,” they brought out 3 opera singers to do the opera scene from Final Fantasy VI.

The opera song from FFVI was supposed to be the last song for the night, but they came out for an encore, which happened to be my favorite song from all the Final Fantasy games, “Terra’s Theme” from Final Fantasy VI.

The crowd went nuts and yelled for another encore. That’s when the conductor came back out and played everyone’s favorite, “One Winged Angel,” from Final Fantasy VII with Advent Children scenes playing in the background and a full choir singing along.

It was an excellent show and definitely worth watching, especially since Uematsu-san was the special guest of the night. I have never seen young people get so excited to go see a symphony. During “One-Winged Angel,” one attendee stood up and started pumping his fist in the air to the music like it was punk concert. For those that are interested, you can check out the CD of Distant Worlds when they performed in Stokholm, Sweden here. If it ever comes back to Chicago, I’ll definitely go see it again and next time I’m putting on my robe and wizard hat.

Feb

The Apple store was down this morning and came back up with new doubled capacity iPhones and iPods Touch (passersby? tacos surpreme? Why not iPods Touch) at 16 gigs and 32 gigs respectively (via Apple). This is what most people wanting an iPod Touch were waiting for since 16 gigs just is not enough when you’re carrying your music collection and DVD rips. This comes at a cost though… of $499.99 each for both the 16 gig iPhone and 32 gig iPod Touch. Ouch.

Maybe once they perfect the PSX and GBA emulators for it with faster frame rates than this:

UPDATE 2/7/2008
Yes to be fair to the author, Zoddtd’s GBA emulator is quite up to speed with a playable frame rate. Here’s a video of it in action: