tegan

Kotaku has seven minutes of gameplay footage.

The music is being redone by Jake Kaufman, who's got plenty of experience with chiptunes. I'm not worried I never thought I'd get to play Ducktales legally, since it's a licensed game older than I am, so I'm pretty excited! On the other hand, I really hope that's not the final look of the game..

I really hope it's not as ugly as the Retron 3; which is the main reason why it never interested me, as shallow as that sounds. HDMI-out sounds fantastic, though.

The only issue right now: It's payday and I only worked enough to make $140. I have no savings. I think I have a bonus coming in in two weeks, and Blue Cross is paying my wages for this month I have off, but otherwise I'm basically broke.

So I've been playing this again. Never change, Fi. Never change.

Forgot to mention: on my way to Dirge, I did something that I've always had trouble pulling off: I shot a white lizard's tail with an arrow and pinned it to the ground. It's great, because the tail stays behind as a consumable, but the lizard gets away and can come back with another white tail (which it did! I ended up killing that one though).

Every time you guys talk about LOMAs, my brain just goes "this must be what it's like to not play Pokémon." I love it.

Tanukitsune: I hated the start of the second season, but you seriously need to keep going. It starts being more like its old self fairly quickly, after... It's a long-running thing made for anime conventions, usually released simultaneously with a version that's deliberately offensive. They're really fun! There's actually more than six, though I recommend sticking with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and maybe the Minis.

Clearly the Energizer people felt that they couldn't let the opportunity slip them by again after Pikmin 2 went with Duracell. Anyone remember Darkened Skye, that super serious Gamecube fantasy game with a magic system based around collecting Skittles?

Oh man, I just found out AMV Hell is back again after dying for the third or fourth time a while back. I wasted so much time on 1-4 in college. It looks like the final cut of AMV Hell 6 is supposed to be released sometime in the next few weeks, but the original draft i up on Vimeo in its entirety since a lot of it is supposed to be cut out.

Personally, I'm actually a big fan of using real world brands. Most of the time it's done as a lazy, Transformers-style product placement; but it's very possible to use a real item to ground a story in reality or say something about its characters via implication. For a perfect example, check out an anime movie from a few years ago called Summer Wars. There's extensive product placement, but it's only used as a way to reinforce who a character is. The only person to wear branded clothing is a very intense, athletic kid who wears Adidas stuff; the elitist jerkass uncle whose take great pains to distance himself from Japan and his family uses an iPhone while everyone else uses a generic flip phone; etc.

Punch-Out!! went up on Virtual Console today! And just as a reminder, Lego City Undercover and Monster Hunter are both out this week, plus Virtual Console proper goes up sometime next month, probably the same day that Kirby's Adventure goes up. I feel like I'm going to finally be able to play some games on this thing besides Nintendo Land and Runner 2.

I'm really excited for this, but I'm so unaccustomed to the type of gameplay that I'm seeing that I keep expecting every trailer to end with the player turning around and a monster jumping out at them. Alternatively: Shenmue.

The hospital approved me for a month off of work and prescribed me some meds! Yaaaaaaay! The only thing is, I feel like I really should have brought up my personal issues to try to see a psych. I'm sure I'll get another chance.

From what I can tell, no local family doctors are accepting new people at this time. I've called around and it looks like I'll have to actually go to the hospital. I'm trying to see if I can get my Medicare card renewed ASAP so that I won't have to pay, since I'm down to my last few dollars. The issue is that these forms need to be approved by an actual doctor, and everyone that I've actually managed to get to speak with is a counselor or a social worker or whatever. I fit all the symptoms of severe depression, but unless I get a doctor to actually say that I do and approve me for stress leave by the end of the week I'm getting fired. Also, I really didn't want to have to walk to the hospital. I somehow tore a big chunk of my heel out when I walked to the clinic on Monday and I've been limping a little since then.

Jump while crouching. It's essential for the later parts of the game, but they only make you do it once in the little tutorial segment.

Apparently they've said that it's going to be "more strategic" this time around, and notice that the protagonist never uses any melee attacks in that trailer .Everything seems to be either ranged shots or based on some kind of area of effect.

Tenth Colossus (Dirge) thoughts: Nest time: no I take it back actually this one is the worst colossus!

Ninth Colossus (Basaran) thoughts: Next time (by which I mean in about twenty minutes because I'm doing this in one sitting to catch up): Best Wander/Agro team effort collosus!

So I spoke with my supervisor just now. Technically I should be fired at this point, but she's pulling some strings for me. She's sending me some things I need filled out by a doctor in order to qualify for short-term disability. It's just a matter of getting someone to sign them.

I don't have a doctor; I only moved here recently. And this is the only psych in the area that specializes in the specific types of personal problems I'm trying to deal with. I called the hospital today and they told me to contact my work and ask about employee assistance programs. Everyone just keeps referring me to someone else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hf7JNzo6DZY

Updates on SimCityGate 2013: A brief rundown on exactly what it is that the servers do for regional settings complaining. Also, deliberately making themselves impossible to contact I'm kind of glad that I decided to wait on this game, both due to the myriad problems it seems to be having and because nothing could possibly be as entertaining as this unmitigated trainwreck.

I walked an hour and a half or more to get to a clinic today, and they refused to even talk to me because I guess they don't treat depression or anxiety there. I even explained that I only want to see them because I want to speak with a psychiatrist who won't see me without first being recommended by a family doctor or a walk-in clinic. I don't have a family doctor and I'm having so much trouble with these walk-in clinics. I also contacted a psychologist directly who said I should see the same psychiatrist, but wasn't able to give me a recommendation and instead referred me to the clinic I just went to. And now my foot's all bloodied up from walking, too.

There's a personal reason that I'd rather not discuss as to why I want to see one particular psych, but I can't get in without a doctor's recommendation. I'm going to a walk-in clinic today to see if they can help, and also to see if I can get a doctor's note excusing my absence from work, as well as maybe some kind of information about getting short-term disability leave.