Roderick

I'm going to see Shaun of the Dead this very week. Last week I saw Dawn of the Dead, and it rocked (or. version).

Only now do I see how correct you are! I shall throw this piece of flawed machinery directly into the waste disposal unit!

I just made a load of pictures of my room, with all of the action figures, manga, games and whatnot in it. Mostly collectibe merchandise. And I thought I'd post a link here: http://student-kmt.hku.nl/~roderick/vitrine/ To give you a sampler, here's something I bought only yesterday, and it is The Cutest Thing Ever: Pinky-cos: WAAIII!

They rock, don't they? Stupid thing is I didn't even intend it to stay mint in box; I just never really got around to unpacking it. Which is weird. But it's been there for half a year now, and I haven't even played with it! Idiocy I tell you!

I'm really going into the personal taste-area here and say that I don't like the PS[2] controller at all. For some reason it strains my hands, the edges in the side burrow into my flesh and it doesn't feel very good. Also, there's an overkill on similarly shaped and thus confusing buttons. What the fuck is up with FOUR shoulderpads? I think it only encourages developers to come up with overly complex control schemes. Anyway, the thing just doesn't rest comfortably in my hands and handling it is like a struggle for me. You may flame me now

Wow, that's a good question! I'm doing my best now to think of something... I guess whenever I get fed up with Morrowind after hours of faithful roleplaying, I usually go out and kill everyone I encounter, including all the people I worked so hard for to please and be friends with. Even though I don't save those little frenzied sessions of course, I always do feel a bit bad about it, like I'm betraying them. Even though they will have 'forgotten' everything when I load up a savegame...

You can have such fun on that site. And it's once more a testimony that there should be more wacky commercials in the west. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I find great hilarity in watching Sylvester Stallone eating and praising ham at a restaurant table.

A friend of mine ordered them online and sent a few to me as a gift :') They're gachapon, Japanese toys in plastic balls from vending machines, which you'll find everywhere there.

Hey that's interesting. I'll check out Edge next month. Furthermore I'd like to say that I think the Gamecube controller is one of the most intuitive I've ever had the pleasure to hold. Not only are all of the buttons shaped differently so that they are discernible by touch alone, the thing also just slips into my hands so comfortably... I think I'm in love.

Should I be worried about that I've already watched the Katamari intro five times? It has this... effect on me. I get... blissful...

I've googled it and I know now. I still think it's cool they used this kind of thing as a cinematic. It fits the game and they did it with so much sveltiness

I've read about Okami. It's being made by Clover, a seperatist faction of Capcom, and they strive to make [visually] unique games. Of course, due to the high Japanese cultural influence on this title, it's doubtful if it will arrive in the west.

Very interesting. And so now it's being used as actual cinematics. Cool.

Alright, I just finished the wonderful Beyond Good & Evil, and a few things pop to mind. [EXTRA SPOILER WARNING] The final battle seemed disproportionally hard. Nothing I couldn't handle, but the increase in difficulty seemed inappropriate. The whole game is rather easy, focusing on progressing the story rather than posing the player with challenges to do over again and again. Then suddenly, the elaborate endboss appears and it's a whole different ballgame: Not only does it play distinctly different (reminiscent of Baal in Diablo II: spawning enemies instead of fighting himself at first), it's also very challenging. It took me a truckload of K-Bups, especially when I had to face the DomZ foe in a complex face-off where Jade musn't get hit or it's back to square one. When this challenging game repeats itself, this time with the controls reversed and visuals down, even I couldn't help but yelp. The ending makes up a lot for it in terms of charm and poignant atmosphere. Although the whole end-sequence saddles the player with maybe a bit too forced revelatory plottwists and wouldn't-you-know-it style surprises which it then, at the end, refuses to clarify, I can't help to like the ending where Jade goes Messiah-like and just smiles. But then why, OH WHY did they HAVE to do it? After a charming roll of the credits, showing off for the last time the insane artistical beauty of the games visuals, we see Pey'j, sighing depressedly. He flips open his hand, and up pops a little DomZ mutation. AAAAAAAARGGGH! Gone is the beauty of the closed book, hurray for the open door, make way for th sequel! Fudge, after all the things they did, you'd think they'd be able to resist the inanely tedious practice of leaving an opening for a spin-off or sequel or somesuch. It really boggles my mind. Beyond Good & Evil functioned so well as a one-shot story. Now it's just the first in a line of a series that may never exist or never live up to the first one. Where it could have been a classic game, it falls back into wanting to be a run-of-the-mill series. The game showed such audacity, but then turned chicken at the very last. This could all be extremely overly dramatic, but I'm just annoyed, because I think it really affects the whole freaking game.

Ironic, isn't it? Yesterday we were celebrating the infamous operation Market Garden with truckloads of old veterans who had come to the Netherlands. And later that evening, we saw on the news how the elections in east Germany had been won by the neo-nazi party. I hope it's not just a little bit of history repeating. The whole thing made me cringe though. In the aftermath where all the party leaders were gathered at the ZDF studios, the victorious right extremist spoke of 'a glorious day for all Germans who want to remain German', after which all the other leaders left the studio and the female host asked him angrily when he would admit to the viewers he was a neo-nazi. Utterly terrible.

You'd be surprised how little I actually spend on this. A lot of it is discount, and I only buy the things I really REALLY want. I know a lot of people who have far, far bigger collections. But I like mine too =^__^=

What's an animutation? Whatever it is, it's groovy! And if this is actually the intro we're getting, it's worth the buy alone.

Ah joh, people sometimes just get caught up in a moment. It happens to all of us and there's nothing wrong with it. It would take a fool to go and accuse people of doing that. It's not fanboyism, it's just getting aroused by this or that and venting it. So let's just not take everyone's words so incredibly literally.

Maybe this will persuade you to make the Right Choice: Now imagine half the table being occupied by a box that's large (and bulletproof) enough to register a planecrash and survive it! Just kidding here; just wanted to take this opportunity to show the picture

Hi Michael! Another familiar face

That's retarded. They should simply hire people who actually care. [edit]: dammit! *switches on SarcasmPlus Detector DeLuxe. O-Tron.*

It's a safe assumption that people buy the Gamecube to play Nintendo games. 3rd Party titles have little influence on the machine. So it really depends on how you look at Nintendo, their consoles and games being very rich with a special feeling that has grown over the decades. It's an acquired taste. If this sort of thing isn't your schtick, you'll probably have more fun with the X-box, seeing as it sports more games that you'll likely see on the PC (which you know you like).

Yes I can! With my awesome powers of divine intervention, I can do anything!!! *raises hands triumphantly and tightens his muscles*

Well the trailer became a stuttering slideshow for me so I really couldn't get into the atmosphere. I did notice the horrific flaw in the editing though. But those pics look magnificent, and I also taste how this could be a fantastic game; storming all those colossi, each one playing out as a different puzzle (or at least, that's what I understand it's going to be like).

Hum, but I don't want a sequel*, I want the game to have ended properly. *of course I'd like a sequel, but my point is not the absence of it, but rather the cheap way they ended the game.