Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What's on my bookcase?


First things first, try to ignore the glare. :)
The only reason I took these pictures is because I feel like what's on my bookcase gives a clearer idea of what I like than anything else would. These are the movies and books I enjoy most. All the other DVDs and books that wouldn't fit in there are stored somewhere else (or are on my desk, as is the case with my makeup book and the Dinosauria.)
And, I DO own the first season of Supernatural, but my father has been "borrowing" it for the past two years. Which means it's collecting dust in his house somewhere.
Also, the book whose title you cannot see (but whose pages are clearly visible on top of my games) is the Dinosaur Comics book. The book next to An Abundance of Katherines is The Picture of Dorian Gray. The playbill for Phantom of the Opera is stuck between Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Always Looking Up. Mana Khemia 2 is hidden behind The Hunger Games series because it came in a huge box and can't fit anywhere else. 13 Ghosts, House of Wax and House On Haunted Hill are the original movies, not the remakes. Except, technically, the Vincent Price version of House of Wax is a remake, but that DVD contains that one as well as the original.
SMT Devil Survivor 2, The Outsiders, The Buddy Holly Story, Nosferatu, The Holiday, Fear Itself
Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay, The Picture of Dorian Gray, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Looking For Alaska, Will Grayson, Will grayson, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Little Caesar, 27 Dresses, 13 Ghosts, 1408, 28 Days Later, 30 Days of Night, Best of Abbott and Costello Volume 1/2/4,  Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams/Jack and the Beanstalk, Abbott and Costello in Hollywood/Lost in a Harem, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Adventureland, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Back to the Future, Back to the Future 1/2/3, Battle Royale, The Beatles Anthology Part 1
Teenate Mutant Ninja Turtles 1/2/3/TMNT, The Beatles Help!, The Beatles Anthology Part 2/3/4/5, The Big Heat, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection, Casablanca, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Death Note, Death Note 2, Death Note: L Change the World, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Gilda, The Beatles A Hard Day's Night, Hot Fuzz, House of Wax/Mystery of the Wax Museum, House On Haunted Hill, Horror Hotel, In the Mouth of Madness, It's a Wonderful Life
Zombieland, Jurassic Park 1/2/3, Life is Beautiful, The Little Mermaid, The Loves of Carmen, Mister Roberts, The Monster Squad, Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City, The Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pretty Poison, Psycho, Psycho 2/3/4, The Public Enemy, Kairo, The Roaring Twenties, Shaun of the Dead, The Shawshank Redemption, Silver Bullet, Singin' in the Rain, Suspiria
The Tingler, Toy Story, White Heat, Yankee Doodle Dandy, You Can't Take It With You, You Were Never Lovelier, You'll Never Get rich, Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1/2/3/4, Family Ties Season 1/2/3/4/5, Harper's Island, Nightmares and Dreamscapes
A Walk to Remember, Supernatural Season 2/3/4/5, Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers Volume 1, Daria Complete Series, Tiny Toon Adventures Season 1/Volume 1, Descendants of Darkness, Disgaea, Fullmetal Alchemist Season 1/2
That Thing You Do!, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Volume 1/2, Ouran High School Host Club, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Borderlands, Calling, Clock Tower 3, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Cross Edge, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Dead Space, Demon's Souls, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea Infinite, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days, Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Disgaea DS
Dinosaur Comics, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Eternal Poison, Fatal Frame, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented, Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir, Guitar Hero 3, Haunting Ground, Heavy Rain, Kuon, Lights Out, Makai Kingdom, Mana Kehmia: Alchemist of Al-Revis, Mana Khemia: Student Alliance, Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Mojo, Motorstorm, Namco Museum 50th Anniversary
New Super Mario Bros. Wii, SMT Nocturne, Oblivion, Obscure: The Aftermath, Okami, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, SMT Persona, SMT Persona 3,  SMT Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4, SMT Strange Journey, Phantom Brave: We Meet Again, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Dead Rising 2, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 2 (PC), Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4: The Room, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Silent Hill: Origins, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Siren, Siren: New Translation, Super Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, The Urbz, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Valkyria Chronicles, Wii Sports
Sleepers, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Giver, Disgaea 2 Volume 1/2, Disgaea, Smack, A Wrinkle In Times, Party Monster, No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, The Outsiders, A Safe Place, Phantom of the Opera
Gentleman's Agreement, The Thin Man, The Big Knockover, World War Z, Lovecraft - Tales, The Zombie Survival Guide, Battle Royale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Disgaea Strategy Guide, Disgaea 2 Strategy Guide, Disgaea 3 Strategy Guide, Descendants of Darkness Volume 11, Kana Flashcards, Demon's Souls Art Book, Kana Flashcards Audio Companion
Cagney, The World of Disgaea 2, SMT Persona 4 Art Book, Necronomicon, 501 Must See Movies, Japanese For Busy People, Japanese From Zero, The Abbott and Costello Story, Genki 1, Genki 1 Workbook, Vintage L.A., It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography, There Are Survivors: The Michael Cuccione Story
It's February and I'm editing this because I've changed things around a bit...It's still not organized. I separate everything by movies, TV shows and games (and books, but there are no new additions that are able to fit on the shelves), but I've yet to integrate these ones.
Beauty and the Beast, Center Stage, The Cure, Death to Smoochy, Little Monsters, Radio Flyer, Sleepers, Toy Story 3, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1/2/3, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Volume 3, Tales From the Cryptkeeper Season 1/2, Dead Space 2, Prinny 2

Monday, October 25, 2010

What's the easiest way to take all the fun out of a game?


Add trophies to it.
And as if trophies in general don't suck all the fun right out of a game, add one in that requires you to kill 72,000 zombies in one playthrough, in a limited amount of time.
You may be thinking, "If they make you that miserable, just don't bother with the trophies." Sure, that makes sense. But my obsessive compulsive tendencies will not allow me to simply ignore them.
So when Capcom asks me to kill 72,000 zombies, rescue 50 survivors, consume all food items, enter every store and use/create all weapons...Of course I'm going to force myself to do it. And in doing so, I will kill ANY desire I had to play the game in the first place.
For the record, I'm on Day 2 and I've only killed 17,000+ zombies, so I think any hope Ihad of killing 72,000 zombies is officially dead. "Oh, I have an SUV, this is going to be SO easy!" Yeah. Right.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Capcom finally brought Crimson Heads back...Just not to Resident Evil.


Edit: Disregard this post. After spending more time on Dead Rising 2, I've decided I hate it. Quite a bit. So much, in fact, that I can't even be bothered typing a new post about my feelings towards it.
If I'm so sick, how can I post about Dead Rising 2 and not make that horror movies post for my 31 Days of Halloween folder? Well...Because I actually want to discuss this game. And because I attempted to discuss it in a video I recorded today, but I was having difficulty speaking, on top of having a thousand cutscenes play that I couldn't speak during, so I wasn't able to talk about it.
Dead Rising 2 is a major improvement over Dead Rising (at least the Wii version). The controls are so much better on the PS3 than they are on the Wii. Unless you're playing some sort of mini-games game on the Wii, motion controls just don't work. They are terrible for games that involve fighting off a horde of zombies or throwing some warped version of your daughter off your shoulders as you're running around a forest maze. I was very pleased with the controls for this game.
However. I was not happy with the changes they made to the now non-existent inventory screen. In the first game, you could pick up food and it would go directly into your inventory, while you would just hold on to any special weapons you picked up. They were separate. In Dead Rising 2, everything goes into your inventory. So if you have a handgun, a fire axe and orange juice, it's all in the top right corner of your screen. On the one hand, it's easier to cycle through your items that way. On the other hand, it means less inventory space.
The other issue is, if you have a weapon equipped and you pick up a food item, or catch a Queen Bee, that becomes equipped instead. I cannot stress just how many times I've wasted healing items and Queens because of this. If you have a weapon equipped, that should be the default, even when you pick up another item. There's no good reason for it to automatically be switched out with whatever you found lying around.
Co-op is a double edged sword. If you are killed, your partner can revive you. That should make it easier to progress through the game without having to repeatedly redo difficult sections, right? Well...Not really. Almost any time you're about to exit through a door, there's a large group of zombies (probably at least sixty, if not more) waiting to tear you apart. If your partner is not near you, you're stuck in the middle of those zombies until they get close enough that you're able to leave through the doors. It's not that bad early on in the game, but it's a huge problem once you're on Case 6. (No spoilers, even though the title hints at it.) I actually feel like I would have enjoyed Dead Rising 2 more if I had played it alone.
Any progress you make in the story while helping someone else co-op their game isn't saved on your game. That's surprising to me, considering how well Capcom did with the co-op for Resident Evil 5. As much as I don't particularly care for the direction that series has gone in, I love the co-op for it. I don't think it was implemented very well for Dead Rising 2. (Although, I have to admit, I was VERY annoyed with the person I played DR2 with, so that could have something to do with why I'm not fond of it.)
All of that aside, I really do like the game a lot. It's not perfect, but it exceeded my expectations.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

As I type this...


I am in an enormous amount of pain from Wii-related injuries.
(Toy Story Mania is serious business.)
My wrist feels like it's going to fall off. Luckily, I don't think that's possible. But since it hurts to type, I quit.