One Hundred Views! Celebratory round-up

Yes, this humble blog has swelled to the once unimaginable milestone of one-hundred views. Are you reading this, mum? You said I would never amount to anything, but look at me now, twenty years old, and I already have an erotic anime figurine and a blockbusting free-hosted web page! Now who’s laughing?!?!!!11oneone.

Eternal Daughter

Of course, I have no choice but to celebrate by doing something out of the ordinary. So for once, I am going to like, write about geeky stuff. First on the list is a little present for all of you, the readers. (I know you are there, because I only cheated the visitor count by pounding the refresh button sixty times, at most) Eternal Daughter is a freeware game in the vein of those naïve old SNES rpgs. It is mainly remarkable because it is a labour of love from a two man design/programming team who spent two years developing it purely because of the conviction that there is always room for another game like this in the world. It is highly regarded, and is argued to be one of the best garage games ever. One of the most enchanting features of the game is the utterly classic artwork and animation. However, there are little points that do you remind you the game was not a professional production. For instance, when hit, enemies do not have a ‘taking damage’ animation, giving combat a weird ghostly feeling. However, you can taste the love that has gone into this, and therefore anyone who likes the taste of love should check it out.

Next is another little present for our copious readers. Wait a minute; this whole blog is a gift to mankind! Everything here is a present. Be grateful. Densha Otoko is a heart warming drama, taking from what is apparently a true story found on an internet message board. It is all about a well-meaning but disastrously sad geek, and his search for love. Actually, reading that, it sounds shit; but I promise it is pretty good fun. Anyone who has ever had a little heart of dorkness dilemma (come on, Lara Croft Vs. real girlfriend, anyone?) should definitely give this series a watch.

For the members of the Earls court Street Fighter Dojo (they know who they are) and anyone in the global Street Fighter community, there is an amusing article at Hardcore Gaming 101 about the influential fighting games that arrived before Street Fighter II. The piece was intended to refute the idea that fighting games started with Street Fighter II, but reading about the quality of what went before, you will probably wish they did. A lot of the games are a little before my time, but it is amusing to read about them and think smugly ‘I’m glad I never had to play that’ or ‘How tragic. I suppose this is how people amused themselves before Street Fighter II. Why, they were little better than Apes. Apes, I say!’ So, um, yes. You can laugh at some very knowledgeable older gamers here, although it won’t make that recuring dream of falling into darkness, only to realise the gaping cavity is the snarling mouth of one of your disdainful parents, and the accompanying sense of worthlessness stop. Perhaps nothing ever will.

In other news, Shake Before Reading.com have an amusing (and possibly privacy-law breaching) article up about who visits their site, and how they got there. Here's the article The weird leeps of logic that search engines can make reminded me of how people put hundreds of unrelated but popular tags on their videos on youtube in order to generate traffic. I would like to take the opportunity to express my opinion on this practice: NAKED CHUN-LI SEX PICTURES.
Some friends and I all got the new Pokemon on import a while a go, and I had asked one of them (who has played it considerably more than me) to write something about it before it came out. You know, like a real life review or something. That has not happened. So I give you Pokemon in a nutshell: Yes, it is very well carried out. With the number of Pokemon available, and the insane amount of side activities, there is a lot to be done. The game is, of course, technically perfect. And, just like everyone really already knew, Game Freak have naturally (and probably wisely) refused to move an inch away from a formula that has worked with almost scarily clinical accuracy until now. You can not really fault Pokemon for being too Pokemon, but the game was quickly knocked out of my DS by an entirely new experience and an altogether better game…

Those who have not played or heard about the sequel to 押忍！戦え！応援団 should wait, because I am going to squeeze a whole post out of this game. (What am I talking about? You could get a whole novel out of this game!) But for those of you who know and love Ouendan, one more treat; the soundtrack.

Bara out.