Vehicular Ownage

Back in the late 90s there was a couple of games I loved and played to death. S.C.A.R.S. and Vigilante 8. Both violent vehicular games. S.C.A.R.S. was a racing game with power ups that allowed you to assault and destroy other racers. The idea was a lot like Mario Kart only more gritty and fast. The tracks were well laid out and the balance between destroying other racers and actually racing was well done. Each car was represented by an animal and each car had its own stats as far as speed, handling, weapon damage, and hit points. The main goal was to reach 1st place in the race, at any cost.

Vigilante 8 was not a racing game. Although the idea was the same. Various vehicles from small cars to school buses to pick up trucks each with their own stats as far as speed, handling, weapons, and hit points. But unlike S.C.A.R.S. where your end goal was to reach the end of a race track, V8 was about driving around in an open ended arena and getting as many vehicle kills as you could. The arenas were well laid out and varied giving you a lot of locales to play in. If I recall you had an option between having a certain amount of respawns or playing on a time limit where most kills wins. The game was insanely fun and the retro 70s theme of the characters, vehicles, and music was an amusing twist to the game. The game at the time was popular enough to get its own sequel which was even more awesome than the original. Sadly this was not the case for S.C.A.R.S.

If I had to pick a favorite of the two...I couldn't. They were pretty different games overall and played differently. Although I will admit S.C.A.R.S. was more intense due to the fact that you were racing AND blowing shit up.

There has been several vehicular mayhem games since those 2 but few have been even close to really being in the same league. Auto Assault (which i didn't play) was an MMO based around V8s concept only in a much larger world with RPG aspects. But sadly that game died and was shut down so I never got see if it was any good. Crashers which is an indie game just came out which looked similar to V8 as well but the control in that game was horrendous. I tried to demo and the demo was crap. One thing I did find which made me quite happy was a remake of V8 (the first one sadly) on Xbox LIVE arcade. My friend and I messed around on it and had quite a bit of fun just dueling.

Even with the discovery of the V8 remake I still longed for a real current/next gen type of game in that category. They're just so much fun and I can't understand why there hasn't been more of them made.

....and then my waiting paid off. Sort of. I saw on steam about a week ago PAM: Post Apocalyptic Mayhem. After looking at the trailer I was amazed. It looked like S.C.A.R.S. and V8 had a love child. It had the kind of racing and tracks S.C.A.R.S. had but with V8's kind of cars and weapons. On top of that the graphics and gameplay looked amazing and the fucking price was $7.99. I jumped alllll over that shit. Sure enough the game is insanely fun. The only draw backs I see is its scale. There is only 3 tracks to play on and 5 vehicles. Also there's only 2 modes, and both are the same thing. First mode is single race, second mode is a back to back to back race on all three tracks. The other thing that sort of bugs me is unlike S.C.A.R.S. where you only destroyed other cars as a means to get ahead or stay ahead, in PAM you HAVE to destroy other cars because it keeps track of your kill count. Races are timed and at the end of the timer the one with the most laps AND kills wins meaning being ahead really doesn't mean crap if you aren't killing anyone. So the drawbacks are saddening but the game does seem to support downloadable content. So I'm hoping the game is popular enough to convince the developers to put out more tracks, cars, and game modes through DLC.

S.C.A.R.S. gameplay

Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense gamplay

Post Apocalyptic Mayhem gamplay

Smells like BURNING

Id post a picture of FAIL here but I didn't get one. I grabbed a hot frozen food tray by the plastic film (note it wasn't ventilated and was in there a whole fucking 10 minutes on max) and it peeled right up by accident effectively steam cooking my fingers. It kinda fucking hurt. A LOT. I had to wrap them all in aqua cool pad gel thingamabobs and gauze them. Typing was a joke so I didn't try lol. They finally healed today (at least i don't feel BURNING anymore) so w00t.

Anyways I had extended an invitation to another blogger a little bit ago to go to my old community site. I wasn't going to post the link for that anywhere until my new site for it's done but fuck it. www.outlawlegends.net. I know one or two of my members blogged but I have no idea if they posted our site or not. At any rate, don't be thrown off by the deathly inactivity of it all, we are VERY daily active. Were just so comfortable hanging out on ventrilo and IM devices that we don't find time to go to the forums often. I wanted to wait till my new site was done and advertise the shit out of it for traffic and members but I don't know how long my new sites going to take. I haven't actively gotten new community members in about 2 years. (been running it for 7) I blame the site template being too hard to manage and lacking things we need. (is why I'm making a new site). Anyone new that posts I check them out and welcome them. If people start posting on the forums I bet activity there will skyrocket.

Anyways just wanted people to know if they were interested. Its a really laid back community your activity is entirely up to you and we've got pretty much everything for anyone. Hang out and bullshit. Play casually. Play competitively. People at night, day, morning, weekdays, weekends. Online projects, actual IRL projects, you name it. The community is mostly consisted of people in their early to late 20s but we have some old guys/girls and one or two younger people. Age and sex range is pretty varied its all about a casual community of great like-minded people. Looking forward to seeing more people!

Just another day

Pretty bland last couple days. I did finally get out today (aside from work) which I haven't in a good while. So that was good. Although the people I hung out with were FROM work and I had to pick one up from there lol. Didn't do anything special though just got some fast food and one of them wanted to go to the game store and get Homefront. Mainly hung out here after that and played some Marvel vs Capcom 3 for several hours which was amusing. The guys I had over weren't half bad for not having played the game before. I didn't have to baby them like usual lol.

Aside from that I have been trying to work on the site but uuughh working on a php script based site completely custom is a nightmare without technical knowledge. I'm TRYING to figure it out as I go like i usually do but this is really becoming difficult. I am one of those people that are insistent on doing everything myself and by hand. I COULD have it commissioned but that wouldn't be my work and I would have issues with it no matter how awesome simply because it isn't really mine. That is how my current site is. It was a design I had gotten from freelancer on their site. It was awesome at the the time and still is but it doesn't fulfill my needs. So...yeah its annoying but I'm hoping I figure something out. It isn't just for me, my entire community needs this as activity has been somewhat scattered lately. I need to reunite the group more and hopefully pull in new people.

Net Fail

I'm going to have to call verizon if this shit persists my nets been borked for a couple nights now. I was getting annoyed because I couldn't access any websites yet I could still connect to other services like my ventrilo and raptr client.

Anyways enough about that. I just want to extend my deepest prayers to Japan for they're current tragedy. I'm so oblivious to the news I didn't even know anything happened until one of my friends told me. I couldn't believe it when I saw the footage.

I was on Brotaku blog a few minutes ago and saw the picture posted there. I didn't understand it until I look closer and saw the comments. Could not believe what I was seeing. People claiming Japan got "what was coming to them" for Pearl Harbor. I am in shock and mind blown. I feel an intense hate for the world now at the same time it's that kind of thing that causes people to be that foolish. I don't know. I'm so upset thinking about it I can't even continue talking about it.

My best wishes to Japan and everyone involved. And I hope people get their shit together and stop hating others. For all they know a family member could've traveled there and been involved.

AX RE Pictures

Well I had forgotten that while we got a lot of pictures taken of us, we actually didn't take many ourselves or very good ones at least. Will definately have to change that this year and next. Anyways heres what I have at the moment and ill post more as/if I find them.

 

HUNK to the left with Chris (me) behind him. Generic zombie and bella sister to the right

Same thing

Seriously if we managed to get the red eye thing going it would've been the best HUNK cosplay like...ever. We even found and ordered a real gas mask filter for that gas mask and that gas mask is the same British military gas mask HUNK uses.

Bella sister. The chainsaw is real. I actually gutted it and repainted it adding damage and rustic details. I also found a toy chainsaw (crappy one) and removed the saw part and fitted it into the chainsaw so...it would have a blade that would'nt get us thrown out.

Was definitely fun cosplay. Will have to definitely do it again this year and take more pictures. Only sad thing is my British friend can't make it this year (he lives in the UK) and that means no epic HUNK. So I might take up the mantle this year instead of Chris.

Master of Disguise?

Woo saw my schedule today and I'm finally getting a slight break from work. I'll finally be able to work on my site and those RPGs some more. I have been sleeping way too much lately. This is probably the earliest/latest I've posted due to such lol. Doesn't help now that my new TV service has an anime channel I've been getting distracted by that and falling asleep again. Ah lazyness...perfect balance to being overworked.

In other news I've been looking into cosplay for Anime Expo as it isn't too far off now. I'm really undecided at the moment. Mainly because I generally like to cosplay with a group and I'm uncertain which members of my group are making it this year. Couple years back we all collectively did Resident Evil which was fun. I cosplayed Chris Redfield (RE5 version) my British friend did HUNK and I had a few others do various zombies including the Bella sisters. The cosplay for Chris and HUNK was expensive though lol. We went completely authentic from head to toe. I pretty much gathered as many pictures as I could of them and figured out what the real world equivalent of their costume was and tracked down and got them. I had gotten items from army surplus stores, ebay, various online stores, you name it. The cosplay was badass. Once I find my pictures ill be sure to post them here.

RE we might do again this year simply because we have the costumes and they're too badass (and pricey) to not do again. I'm also considering cosplaying Akihiko from Persona 3 FES. I did that cosplay one year and the ladies seemed to like it so that's reason enough for me to give it another go. The only other cosplay I am considering right now is BlazBlue but I'm somewhat worried its being way too heavily done right now. I don't know. I'll probably post updates on it shortly as its...something to talk about lol.

Downtime

Man it's been one hell of a week.  Aside from work being hell I got my TV service replaced and my Internet upgraded. Unfortunately all was not smooth as both services have had their share of issues. Partially resulting in my lack of activity here. On the plus side everything should be good now at least as far as my internet goes so things should be back to normal. Had no idea how many things I really use the net for until its down for a long period of time lol. 

I also spent today hooking up a PS3 my father decided to get for the family room.  He has been wanting a device that is compatible with Netflix as well as a Bluray player. I guess he figured getting a PS3 was best way of getting both things. It is somewhat annoying though as because its theirs its out in that room and it's not even being used for gaming. So its taunting me lol. My craving to play Disgaea 3 will probably result in me getting it and playing it in there anyways just because I can and I can't afford my own console.

In my net downtime I have been doing redesign work on my website. My group has a website that I design and one of my members hosts. It's a lot of work and I am not very familiar with PHP programming, so exactly how far I get with the site is discouraging but we'll see what happens. If I get the site running to my satisfaction I'll probably link it here for those interested. It is a gaming/otaku/clan community site so there's a lot I have work on lol.

We'll that's about it. Wish I had more interesting shit to post but not a whole lot of awesome shit happens around here. I need to catch up on you guys now as I'm sure it's a much different case for you guys.

Waaagh

Last day off of the week for me and I was supposed to hang out with someone but they were sick. Was supposed to hang out with someone else but they were MIA. Sooo I ended up catching up on sleep which I slept way too much and felt like shit for the rest of the day lol. On a good note my Dawn of War II: Retribution Collectors Edition came today finally. Two days late mind you and I paid for overnight too. But alas it came and it isn't the most impressive CE I've seen but its pretty nice.

I would've taken some pictures myself but the only camera I have is on my phone and its laughable at best.

Anyways after I wasted the day sleeping I decided to waste the rest of it playing through the Ork campaign of the game. (I have 2 friends picking it up who love Space Marines and Chaos so I saved those campaigns for co-op) And I was surprised at the quality of the campaign. The levels while much much smaller in number (about 12 per race) are A LOT larger and at least have more purpose than simply "kill everything to the other side of map and kill a boss". I began playing the game around 5 pm and I must have beaten the Ork campaign at around 3 am lol (taking breaks, dinner and crap into consideration). So I'd say about 8 hours per campaign and 6 campaigns aren't too shabby at all. Unfortunately I've heard that all the races basically have very similar missions just different story. Which is disappointing but I haven't been able to look into that myself yet. All in all Its hard to say if I enjoyed this campaign more than the first games. I will say that I enjoyed the story much more and while Orks aren't my favorite race I enjoyed playing them which impresses me. I would say if you are a fan of Warhammer 40K or enjoyed at least the first game to look into this.

RPG hell

Not going to be a long post. Work has been ridiculous as I have made slight mention to a few times already so I haven't been 100% lately. I'm pretty much going to post a list of RPGs that I need to get through so that maybe if I mention them I'll have some motivation to start trying to get through them lol.


- Disgaea 1 (played an ungodly ammount of 2 but didnt get far in 1)

- Record of Agarest War (I didn't even know what this was, I saw a collector edition with ecchi all over it for 30$ so I didn't question it. It's good but its slow and very tactical)

- Persona 3 FES (I even COSPLAYED this and didn't finish it. Doesn't help every third persons blog has talked about playing it. This one probably takes priority.)

- Wild Arms 5 (Loved 3 to death and 4 was pretty good but I only got through the first parts of 5...for some reason)

- Star Ocean till the end of time (Got stuck on a part where I kept getting my ass kicked. Was very discouraging but I need to try again at some point as the game is amazing)

- Metal Saga (Not the best game in the world but pretty fun and also pretty low priority)

- MS Saga (I don't even know why I have this. Is it even opened?)

- Grandia 3 (Owned but not played, and not going to until I clear my queue up LOL)

- Final Fantasy 7 (Yes...I know...)

Ugh I think that's about it. Most annoying part is I think my PS2 is dying and MOST of these are PS2 games. I think Record of Agarest War is the only non PS2 RPG in the list. I'll probably start on P3 FES and go from there when I have the time and stamina.

Stop drop and GTFO

I'm just going to start by saying who the F*** has fire drills at 9:00 pm at night? Isn't that shit usually done in the mornings? I'm stuck at work closing down my dept alone backed up like hell and I have to go dashing out the emergency exit like a jackass because they decide its important for the 12 some-odd people left in the store (also all backed up or they'd be home) to have a drill. I guess if anything I learned where the evac point is. If the Loss Prevention manager didn't run with me to where I was supposed to be going I would've been wandering out the wrong side of the building like an idiot.Trying to find where everyone is gathering.

That was my weekend in a nutshell, stupid bullshit lol. On a more calm point my friend, who has just been raiding the Xbox LIVE store since he got it hooked up, has talked me into getting the remake of the original Perfect Dark. Its one hell of a nostalgia bomb thats for sure. I played the hell out of the original on the Nintendo 64. I think it was also one of the first shooters to have botmatch AI in a deathmatch type mode. Games like Goldeneye had no AI apart from story mode. Game also looks really nice in its remake. Don't get me wrong, it looks like crap, just polished crap. All of the textures were redone in HD which looks really nice. Some of the models were redone to look much more detailed although still low poly which lessens the strain on the eyes. All in all we played it for about 3 hours straight trying to get through co-op mode and it was pretty fun. My control on it was godawful though. I couldn't hit shit even WITH aim assist on till about the third or fourth stage. I have no idea how I played games like this in the past on controllers.

Hand me downs

Weekend at work has been pretty rough so far not a lot of time to do much. I did however get my phone replaced which is good I suppose. I was using an LG Rumor old ass thing but served me well for what I used it for which was the occasional call and the occasional text. I was never a big epic app-touchy-high-end-phone-user kind of person. I use phones for phones as needed. Since my Rumor was dying (it was pulling crazy shit like displaying time backwards and inverting colors for no reason it would also do the completely opposite of shit id tell it to, as if to f*** with me on purpose) I got it replaced with a hand me down from my mother since she got her phone upgraded. So now I'm using an old ass Samsung Instinct s30 lol. So I decided hey I have a phone that can actually...do shit other than text and call. Well...I was half right. After 2 hours of screwing with the damn thing I've figured out how to do exactly what I could do before, and how to BARELY do anything else. But hey at least I can surf the web faster on a slightly larger screen.

To be honest I'm just glad when I go to check the time on it I'm not looking at a blank white screen or a flipped upside-down jarbled mess anymore so works for me I guess. And hey as long as no one comes over and checks my phone out I can at least pretend I have a badass phone like they do. Assuming they care anymore than I do which is unlikely.

On a random note I got my friend to hook up his Xbox 360 finally, after 2 months of harassing him about it. We decided to grab Hard Corps: Uprising which has been advertised on LIVE arcade for a few weeks now. Holy shit if you have played Contra, well, its Contra. Game looks really nice it was made by Arc System Works which did Guilty Gear and Blazblue. Also by KONAMI (affiliated with the original contra). The second we both saw the menu and saw it was by KONAMI we knew it was probably going to be like Contra, we just didn't know how much.. The game is pretty damn challenging it took us about an hour to get past the first stage. Which is actually embarrassingly pathetic considering we aren't amateur gamers lol. But yeah we enjoyed the game quite a bit and it is definitely worth a look if you are a fan of Contra or Metal Slug or any of those other challenging side scrolling co-op shooters.

Free to Pay

Just want to take a moment to thank my few readers for participating in this...whatever this is. I am actually enjoying posting here and reading yours as well. Thanks!

There was a game that came out not too too long ago called APB: All Points Bulletin. It was basically an MMO version of Grand Theft Auto. The game focused around Enforcement vs Criminals. I really enjoyed the game and it had the most amazing character creator EVER in an MMO game. You could scale every tiny piece of a persons body and it even had a mini photoshop program built in so that you could create custom visual content to use as decals, designs, or even tattoos. The gameplay was fun with the exception of the games balance issues. The game had a really bad habit of pitting new players with veterans which ended in really one sided sometimes even outnumbered matches. In the end the game lasted about a month before the company (Real Time Worlds) went under. The company died and the game with it.

A company called Gamers First has bought the game and is now putting it back out. Which would be awesome news except for the fact that it's a F2P company (Free to Play). Their history with such other games such as WarRock has an online store RENTING weapons for use in game. This adds up FAST and ends up having content costing more than a full fledged MMO subscription. I have no idea if I even want to try the new release of the game now for fear of getting sucked into it. I've played F2P games before they know what they're doing...

EDIT: I also (after posting this and passing out for 4 hours) manged to update the look of this thing. I'm not sure if its hard on the eyes or not...I guess ill keep it this way for now. Feedback would be great I don't want to strain anyone haha.

Cry MOAR

Why do I always get sucked into flame wars? lol. I was trying to dig up info on the next RE game coming out and it wasn't long before I ended up on Capcom's forum under the MvC3 section (just out of curiosity) and saw a huge 113 page complaint thread. After reading 5 page or so of crap of people just nerd raging I ended up posting a huge counter rant about people crying over every little thing. I have a history if posting huge novel length rants when I'm against a large amount of people against things. I however managed to stop myself this time and shorten it drastically which I'm proud of actually. But seriously people really do cry over anything anymore. Most of the games I play that people complain about they're always complaining that is isn't like (past game here) and it pisses me off because it encourages lazy development and discourages original ideas and risk taking. The game industry NEEDS new ideas and new kinds of games, not 12 HALOs and 15 Call of Duty 's. MvC3 took a huge risk dramatically altering its roster from MvC2 given MvC2 had a huge fan base and I respect that. Was it the greatest thing? No but at least they're adding downloadable content for more characters.

Eh I don't know. I haven't had a serious complaint about a game since Command & Conquer 4 but that's just because the game was atrocious and ruined one of my favorite franchises. Which was risk yes but the way they did it was just downright idiotic. If a game isn't perfect it isn't perfect but I wont raid forums all day crying over it.

Needs more zombie

Wow this week sucks I almost don't even have time to get on the computer at all which is unusual. Also nothing to really post about except complaining which id rather not make a habit of doing. I did however come across an interesting game that's coming out called Dead Island. I noticed the game on steam randomly checking out the 'coming soon' section and decided to give it a look and...well if you havn't seen the trailer its...uh graphic. I mean I'm not really phased by it but even I was surprised. (WARNING NOT FOR FEINT OF HEART) << It might just be because I only go to obscure things on youtube but to me that's one hell of a lot of dislikes. The game itself looks awesome so I'm guessing its the whole thing with the young girl and zombies. Personally I believe the trailer was put together to make the game seem more like a serious old school style zombie movie. Given the recent trend with zombie games being on the more comedic side such as Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead I'm guessing they wanted to stand out. But holy f*** what a controversial way to do so lol. So yeah what does everyone else think?

keep your bacon hot

Blah I'm so not used to working this much lol not going to complain as I'm lucky to have work. Anyways I decided to check out Monday Night Combat. Saw the game on steam and was curious after a post made by Penny Arcade regarding the game. Turns outs its pretty fun. At first I was concerned it was a Team Fortress 2 ripoff but it is actually quite different from TF2. First of all its a third person game rather than first which is different. The game also has a turret defense system built in for one of its survival modes which is actually pretty addictive. The only thing about the game is it really is more enjoyable with at least 1 other friend. I only find myself playing it with a friend of mine as I don't get too into it alone. But for the price its definitely worth a look if you're looking for a different type of game.

Also decided to start watching Desert Punk again. It was an anime I started to watch about a year or so ago but got sidetracked and never got around to finishing. Isn't the best anime in the world but its pretty amusing and I enjoy the rediculous humor.

Man I really hope I don't start being taken advantage of. Where I work we have 2 departments that work side by side and about a week ago they were integrated with the same team of workers myself included. When the departments split so did the team and I changed over to the new department. I told my old team if they needed my help at night to let me know. That was yesterday and tonight they asked me to stay over an hour helping them do a bunch of crap that wasn't either of our jobs to begin with. So I hope I didn't screw myself trying to be nice.

And f*** this whole being sick shit... nearly every damn person I know is sick and finally when I'd normally have a lot of time to rest I get sick and am working a bunch of crazy hours which isn't helping. I can't take time either because the store I'm at thought it would be a brilliant idea to give our department 3 f***ing people to cover a week.

Eh sorry for the rant just got back and am tired as shit. Probably going to play some MvC3 and pass out. Also sorry for lack of substance in the blog its serving no purpose other than to express randomness right now lol.

Late night randomness

Faaaantastic so this is going to be a short post as its 3 in the morning and the only thing I did today (now yesterday technically) was work and man was THAT exciting...*sarcasm* Anyways I did get Scott Pilgrim vs the World in the mail from netflix today so that should be fun. I've already seen it like 3 times but its totally worth it. Sure as hell not watching that now though given the time.

Sorry for there not being much here to look at, ill give you something I've been laughing at for 20 minutes though.

Special Note: Don't have your sound too loud. Ears exploding may follow.

Nothing like a good marathon...

Well today was my last day off so I decided to waste it as much as possible which was probably a bad idea as I had shit to do... Oh well. Aside from the obvious (playing MvC3 for hours) I randomly decided to check out the anime adaptation of Witchblade which I pretty much watched the entire series... Unfortunately I haven't read the comic to compare but I enjoyed it. I strangely enough liked the character relationship between the mother and daughter throughout the series which I don't want to spoil too much. It was a nice change of a somewhat serious story despite the usual ridiculous action anime with half naked girls everywhere. Generally you get one or the other but the series had a nice balance between the two. Oh yeah decided to speed run Resident Evil 5 with my British friend earlier too. It was somewhat amusing as we have played the game so many times but the one time we try to speed run it he kept getting f***ing lost. Good times...

Capcom FTW

So yeah as I predicted I ended up playing Marvel vs Capcom 3 as much I could today between all the other shit I had to do. And yeah its awesome. After reading about all the characters left out from 2 I was somewhat worried about the character roster but the ones they added in are amusing as hell. Deadpool, Chris, and Wesker sell it alone. At least they kept Morrigan who I pretty much use in every game shes in which is...almost all of them. I am however annoyed that I didn't pre-order the collectors edition. I'm usually good about pre-ordering games I know I'll be getting, especially if they have special editions, but I for some reason I completely forgot to this time. The CE was removed from all the websites and sold out everywhere by then. Ah well time to play it some more. I might enter a contest at AX this year if they have one for it (they'd be stupid not to).

(oh as a side note my post header refers to my team consisting of pure Capcom characters, w00t.)

zomg blog

Awesome that didn't take me like 45 minutes to come up with the lamest blog name ever. Oh well. Hello world or whatever very very small population of it. This is my first generic blog so I have no idea what I'm doing! I don't have a particular theme going, nor do I plan on having one. I am a typical otaku/gamer so you'll find plenty of either rants or regurgitated information from the intarwebs on here more than likely. I also can't guarantee I'll keep this updated often  for obvious reasons...Anyways here's to hoping success!

Oh crap yeah and its Marvel vs. Capcom 3 day w00t yeah once I pick up this game in a few hours I promise nothing LOL. Tell you what though any other MvC3 fans that end up getting the 360 version and want to play it on LIVE let me know, should be fun.