Stuff and some junk...and some trailers...

So it has been overall.. a pretty crappy week. have not been in a real good mood of late and haven't been in a blogging mood. Sunday I went down to Philly with my pal Mike to visit our friends Jason and Josh. Stayed most of the day... went out to eat some Indian food, played a couple fun games of Warmachine/Hordes (won one and lost one) and when we went to leave we found that Mike's car had been broken into... window smashed, his GPS unit stolen.. it sucked. A crappy end to a good day. And the rest of this week has just been.. blah. I am still planning on writing up my reviews on the Clone Wars episodes.. I will end up being a week behind, since I have to wait for episodes to appear online from now on. (the show is good, I will say that much right now.. it also had the biggest ratings for any Cartoon Network show ever, so its target audience -kids - also really liked it).. anyways... the Tokyo Game Show is currently underway.. and lots of info is spilling forth on lots of upcoming games.. these two trailers made very very happy... the Street Fighter one is just a really cool trailer.. not really any new footage.. and the second.. well its a a new foray into a universe I love to play videogames in... Hurrah for Video Games! They make real life bearable! I am going to be putting together my character for our upcoming D&D game tonight/tomorrow.. so expect a post on that soon as well.

Street Fighter 4 'TGS 2008' trailer HD

Halo 3: Recon 'Debut' trailer HD

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Premieres Tonight!  9 PM  Cartoon Network!

TWO episodes tonight to start things off! ("Ambush" and "Rising Malevolence")  Normally there will only be one new episode per week, but this week they start it off with two.  You can also watch it streaming online starting next week (at starwars.com or , though the streaming episodes will be one week behind the others.  Or you can buy the Season Pass at iTunes and get the new episodes automatically downloaded to your computer the day after they air on TV (that's what I plan on doing)  Anyway, tonight I am heading over to my friend Mike's to watch the premiere on his 108" screen (he built a home theatre).  I will have my review of the first two episodes later on tomorrow if I have time, but I plan on reviewing each episode of the series as they are aired. These reviews will be full of spoilers, so if you didn't see the episode, you may not want to read the reviews.  :)  That's all for now, and may the Force be with you!

Legend of the Seeker

So.. there is a very successful series of books called "The Sword of Truth" by an author named Terry Goodkind.  I read the first book in the series, Wizard's First Rule, and really enjoyed.  It was a great story and was set in a world that had a very interesting mythos/magic system.  The second book was also good, but less so than the first, and I would say the same when comparing the thrid book to the second.  Anyways.. I didn't read the fourth.  Though, I believe there are now like.. 10 books in the series?  I would like to one day go back and read them... for as I said, the world is pretty cool.  The first book in the series is certainly worth ready, for it is quite good.  But, you don't like reading?  Is that what I hear you saying?  Well you are in luck my friend!  For the infamous Sam Raimi (the director of Spiderman) is turning the series of books into an hour long fantasy/drama on your television.  Much in the same vein as Xena:Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, The Beastmaster, and to a lesser extent Cleopatra 2525 (for those wishing a sci-fi comparison)... this show will more than likely be aired at weird times, on less than big networks.  But I am oddly excited to see it.  I guess its more along the lines of me wanting a fantasy TV series to actually work, and actually be good.

Anyway.. here are some trailers for the show, which airs November 1st (Check your local listings!)

Perhaps the most interesting character in the series is the female lead, Kahlan.  Digging deep into my memory banks here (so some details may be fuzzy)... but she was

 known as a "Confessor."  All the confessor's were women, and they had this unique power.  They needed to touch their "victims" and then they would release their power and those affected would be completely controlled/enthralled/enraptured/in-love/dedicated to/by/with the Confessor, forever, no questions asked, forever.  So they were called confessors, because their power would be unleashed on a potential criminal at court, and since he was then completely dedicated to the confessor, there is no way he would lie to her... thus his confession 

was always truthful.. of course, then he didn't really have much of a life if he was innocent, since he was now pretty much a slave to the confessor.  The confessor had complete power over the people they controlled, they could command them to do anything, and their victims would not waver.. they were completely consumed by the magically induced love for the Confessor that touched them.  Its an interesting power... and I am curious as to how they depict it in the TV show...  I should try to read that book again before the show starts, but my reading list is already too long (soon to be discussed in an upcoming blog post).. perhaps I can snag the audio book off of Audible.com...

And of course, as you can see in the still frame above, the women have to ride around showing lots of cleavage... or else it can't be classified as "fantasy"... 

And a fun fact for you here... if you look at the poster image above.. and look closely at the guy with the bow and arrow.. you will none other than JayLag'aia known by geeks everywhere for his role as Jango Fett (and all subsequent clones of him in Episodes II and III)

You can view additional trailers/media/information/etc at the official website.

Ryu and Ken's Master in Action!

Street Fighter 4 'Gouken' gameplay

The Force Leashed... then Unleashed again...

So... as you know, I have been playing and enjoying The Force Unleashed...  but a couple days ago I logged out of the game to take a break from it.  Later that same day I popped the disc into the 360 to play some more... and something weird happened. The game started up, I could hear the disc drive whirring away... but the screen was solid black.  No sound, no video, no nothing.  I could not even return the 360 Dashboard, the system just locked up.  Try as I might, I couldn't get it to work.. I had to power off my 360 just to get back to the Dashboard... I could play other games, I could play XBLA games, I could play DVDs... I just couldn't play Force Unleashed.  So... I went to Yoda's Helpdesk at the LucasArts website to ask for help.  And I must say... I wasn't expecting much.. I filled out the contact by email form on friday, and it said I would get a response in 48 hours.  So, I resigned myself to a weekend without slaughtering Stormtroopers (though it allowed me to make some more porgress through Lost Odyssey).  But much to my surprise.. I did hear from them, rather quickly, and on a weekend.  I was very impressed.. surely I though I'd have to wait till after the weekend was over... but no.  Those LucasArts employees are dedicated!  They sent me a solution and it wokred perfectly the first time.  The only problem... I had to erase all my save data for the game... so I am starting over. (I was about 90% of the way through the game)  I decided since I have some experience with the game now, I'd play through on the harder difficulty and earn a few extra achievements while I'm at it.  So kudos to you LucasArts!  If anyone else has this problem.. hear is the solution I got.. to save anyone else the trouble of having to contact them:

Make sure you don't have the game disk in the console and you do everything in the right order.
1. First, go to the Dashboard and access the "system" blade and select memory.
2. Next, go to the hard drive tab and open it.
If you have downloaded a copy of the TFU Demo delete it.
Then, delete any previous saves from TFU
3. Restart the Xbox.
4. Go back to the system tab and select memory again, but do not 'open' the hard drive.
5. Hit "Y", it should open another options window for the HD.
6. On the controller hit X X LB RB X X and select ok.
7. You should get a message about maintenance to the 360.
8. Restart the console again and insert the disk and enjoy.

Blog changes forthcoming...

So... I have been having troubles getting things to "fit" in my blog, and I may be changing the template I am using.  So, don't be surprised when you pop in here soon and it looks completely different.  :)  Variety is the spice of life afterall...

Update:  Gonna try this for a while...  maybe adjust the colors some..  thoughts?

Yay! The 1-Up Show!

So glad the 1-Up Show is back on the air.  I have been watching this for a couple years now, and it has become one of my favorite shows.  These are the same guys from 1up.com and Electronic Gaming Monthly [EGM] magazine (which I have been reading for 10+ years) so I feel like I know a lot of these guys after reading so many of their articles, listening to so many of their podcasts, and watching this show for so long... (though a lot of the original guys have departed the company). Game journalism has become somewhat of a hobby of mine, so I read a lot of different websites/magazines and such.  I definitely feel 1up is the "cream of the crop" when it comes to video game journalism.   This is the second episode of Season 10... they do some great coverage of Mirror's Edge (game looks awesome) and Mega Man 9!   :)  

The 1UP Show: Episode 09/26/08

Street Fighter 4 footage!

So, the word on the street (by street, I mean, Internet) is that is you want to be a real street fighter... ya gotta go the Korea.  And more specifically, you go to an arcade called the Jungin Arcade.  The have Street Fighter 4 running there all the time, and they even stream the battles live on the Internet.  These Koreans are crazy about their video games... just don't get them started on StarCraft...  Anyways.. this piece below is  from one of those streams.. and it gives you a cool view of the game in action... it looks awesome.  You can scope a cool video of game play footage at Capcom's official Street Fighter web page as well.  Also... Akuma is in the game.  So that brings the current character count up to 14.  The 8 original World Warriors (including the 4 original bosses), the 4 new characters (Abel, Rufus, Crimson Viper, and El Fuerte) and now Akuma and Sheng Long.  All we need now are the 4 characters from Super Street Fighter II: The New Challenger/Champion Edition (T. Hawk, DeeJay, Fei-Long, and Cammy) and we'll be set!  (still no word on those last four...)  Personally there are some other characters I wouldn't mind seeing included from the Alpha games...  maybe Sakura? Gen?  and Dan was always fun... There's also Street Fighter 3, which had interesting characters, like Ingrid, Ibuki, and Necro... there is a definite shortage of female characters (Crimson Viper is kinda lame)... so it seems like that would influence their decision some... but who knows what those Japanese are thinking.

In other non-4 related news... there is still no release date for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

it has been in development for ages...though Capcom has stated it will release in 2008. Lets hope that's true.