8 posts tagged “qotd”
What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006?
Submitted by eliz. s.
2) Dead To Me, Cuban Ballerina
3) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones
4) Heavens, Patent Pending
5) Beck, The Information
What are you thankful for?
The people that I work with for being so encouraging and always having my back. No one really had to give me a chance but they did.
All my friends for their support, even if I never update my Livejournal.
Bungie for creating my Thanksgiving day distraction. Rare, for the other.
M&M's for melting in my mouth, not in my hands.
For being born in the Bay Area of California. Sure, taxes suck and our governor is a giant douche, but I couldn't be doing what I do anywhere else.
And the internets for making it worth getting out of bed in the morning. lulz.
What's your favorite heartbreak song?
Submitted by esta86.
What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.
Ah, a generic video games QotD! I'm going to be anal and split this up between my current top five and my all-time top five. Both of which are in no particular order.
Current Top Five Video Games
- Viva Pinata - Rare, XBOX 360
- Elite Beat Agents - iNIS, Nintendo DS
- Marathon 2: Durandal - Bungie, Mac
- Gears of War - Epic, XBOX 360
- Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime - Square-Enix, Nintendo DS
- Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Capcom, Arcade
- Super Mario Bros - Nintendo, NES
- Halo 2, Bungie, XBOX
- Sam & Max: Hit The Road, Lucasarts, PC
- Mars Matrix, Capcom, Dreamcast
Halo 2 in there is obvious. I believe I've blogged about the impact that Sam & Max made on me as a kid growing up so we don't need to go into that. And while I'm nowhere near being some insane Dreamcast fan that won't let go, Mars Matrix struck the perfect balance between being a ridiculously hardcore shooter while not being overly pretentious.
Thanks, Mileena.
What was the last game you played?
That would be Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS, with my girlfriend. Well, technically it was a SmackDown! vs Raw 2007 preview build for the PSP, but I try and not lump what I'm playing for work related purposes in with what I'm playing. When I get my hands on the Playstation 2 version tomorrow, however, that will most certainly change.
It was actually Shelby who got me back into Animal Crossing after successfully neglecting it since it's launch back in December of last year. A large part of this neglect stemmed from what always happens with non-games of this sort (See: Nintendogs, Brain Age) that see interest fall off in a matter of weeks. The release of the DS Lite also curbed my enthusiasm over the DS Fatty until I got one of my own. Shelby never actually stopped playing so a month or so back I returned to the town of Gay Bar and got to work. Now I have the final shop, a sweet arcade as a home and neighbors that I actually like for once.
As for all those other games I've been playing, I think that now is a good time for one of those obnoxious lists of articles I've had go up this week. It's not a full reflection of what I've been up to, but at least one of them is bound to give some closure to my blogging this week.
Dance Factory, Review - As the be-all-end-all authority on music games within Ziff, I'm always asked to do these games. This was an interesting review to write as the original review that appeared in EGM was done months ago. Right before it went to print, Codemasters delayed Dance Factory for a few months and so was the review. Well, it's back and the shelf time did absolutely nothing for it.
Phantasy Star Universe, Preview - There are two things that bothered me about this preview. Firstly, it was offline only which is not an accurate representation for those who actually care about this game. Secondly, the XBOX 360 version I played was terrible. There were a lot of issues that I hope to see fixed before October and some that are simply just a part of the design. I'm still completely torn on this.
God Hand, Preview - This was fun to write because the material allowed for multiple references to the male genitalia, as well as a history lesson in bad art in Japanese animation. Considering that I write all my notes in a Tenorikuma notebook, it goes without saying that games journalism is serious, serious business.
MotoGP, Preview - Another fun preview to right, if not only because it let me slip in a not terribly subtle jab at Sony and their smoke and mirrors show. After the preview went online, Chris linked me to an article by UKR that touched on the very subject I did; the urban legend of Gran Turismo for PSP. I assure you, we'll see another article just like that about Killzone 2 come next year.
As a final note, I heard that Sony did something crazy this morning, right? Am I right?
What movie would you really recommend renting or seeing this weekend?
The 1989 classic infomercial-come-Fred-Savage-masterpiece, The Wizard. Seeing as how you either already saw or missed out on Snakes' opening weekend, you're really left with no other recent piece of quality entertainment. The highly anticipated (And severely lacking) DVD release was this past Tuesday and it merely serves as yet another reason to cheer on little Jimmy, as well as the sexual misadventures of Corey and Haley.
My parents absolutely detest this movie. When The Wizard was finally made available on VHS I watched it practically every day. At first, they were just glad that my long running obsession with the Tom Cruise classic, Top Gun was finally over. But now, they were forced to watch the Wizard, over and over and over again. We had gone from Jerry Lee Lewis karaoke to Christian Slater playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's up to you as to whether or not this was an upgrade or a downgrade.
There are plenty of oddities concerning the plot, as well as the actual involvement from the various brands that are predominantly featured that boggle me to this day. While it never truly needed any explanation, the reason as to why Jimmy is just so freaking good at video games is actually due to autism. This is revealed late in the movie when we find out just why he was carrying around that lunch box. This boy needed help! Not to be locked up in a Hostess truck and made to play Double Dragon!
It's also quite interesting to know that the actual word "Nintendo" only comes up twice, despite being the cornerstone of the film. The Wizard is always labeled as a cheap informercial for the Power Glove and Super Mario Bros. 3, but in truth the Power Glove is a creation of Mattel and didn't do any favors for Nintendo, other than falsely market Rad Racer. Universal -- the production studio behind the movie -- are perhaps the most shameless when it came to cheap tie-ins as a large portion of the finale literally is a commercial for Universal Studios Hollywood.
Of course, brash commercialism in the 80s is looked upon now as part of the comedy. Whats most important here is how we all got to see our favorite video games on the big screen, that kid from the Wonder Years and Jenny Lewis. Ah, Jenny Lewis. Sure, her film career is essentially this and Troop Beverly Hills (Which is awesome, thanks) but she still rocks. Not only did she have the best line in the movie, but she also supplied the movie with a much needed dose of cuteness. Thankfully, she went on to do something better with her life -- music. That and she turned out to be really hot.
Even with a $12 dollar, garbage release on DVD, The Wizard still can't be beat when it comes to pure video game camp. If for some reason you never saw it before and play video games, first of all I'm curious as to which barn you lived in all your life and secondly, it's required viewing. For everyone else, Video Armegeddon awaits!
Do you have any tattoos? If not, if you were going to get inked, what would you get?
Yes. Yes I do. It hurt like a bitch and nobody believed I'd actually go through with it, but I did. Behold. The entire character select for Marvel VS Capcom 2.
Next, I plan on getting the character portraits of Magneto, Storm and Psylocke on my back. I'm not sure if I can do that without puking or not. We'll find out.
