New Final Fantasy XIII Trailer

FFXIII may not make it onto US store shelves by the end of the year but that doesn't mean all hope is lost. 2009 Is sure to be a year that is full of new details on the highly anticipated title. If you visited the new FFXIII official website within the last week, you may have noticed a giant countdown clock. Well the countdown is over and Square-Enix has given us another new FFXIII trailer for us to feast out eyes on. We also finally get to see some gameplay in action and I must say that the game looks to be shaping up rather nicely. I'm sure it will be another great entry in what has become one of the greatest video game franchises in history. To see the new trailer, follow the link below:

Final Fantasy XIII Official Website

-Nick

A Fresh Look On Zelda?

I saw this posted on Kotaku the other day about Indie developer Joakim Sandberg's one level Zelda Tribute called Legend of Princess. It's a 2-d side scrolling "Zelda" and I was excited because I think Indie games are the way to go these days. I think they're the most fresh and aren't held down my conventional game development needs. They're free to do anything.

I watched the gameplay on youtube, although there were technical problems and the gameplay looked too loose, I could appreciate the style and the fact that it still hadn't gone through the layers of polish. "Link" has this double jump where he pulls out a Cuccoo and it's quite beautiful to see.

I was really interested in playing the level until I saw this clip.



Apparently there is no escape from the Zelda formula, even in Indie games. I'm not going to go into anymore details about why this was a poor choice for a boss battle. I think the game looks nice and with some polish could be fantastic, should he pursue it further.

Because of researching into The Legend of Princess has turned me on to another of his games.

NOITU LOVE 2: DEVOLUTION


Has anyone played this? Is it worth the 10 bucks?

Thanks,
David

Oops. Little Big Planet Contest Winner is...

Doh, don't kill me. Take the holidays, the end of the year podcasts, and mix them with my rush to finish 2008 games, and we get a major fuck up on the account of me. So I totally played all the levels from the LBP contest, and I totally forgot to pick the winner. There were a lot of great levels, but only one winner. It was very close... but here we are:

Runners Up:
1. BRYN4444 - Experiments Under the Sand (beautiful and tricky)

2. Pan1c42 - 1 or 2 awesome (some really clever stuff as usual from Panic)

3. navy_flip - MGSLBPROFL1 (awesome but very hard, needed more checkpoints)



The Winner:
Tchuwib - You'RRrr a pirate



I will have Tchuwib send me a message from the PSN account he gave me to make sure it was indeed his level. I have the 20 dollar PSN card in my possession and will email you the code as soon as you confirm this. Thank you to everyone who entered the contest as there were some really awesome levels. And again, sorry this announcement was so delayed.


Brad

Max Payne: The Movie

For Chinese New Year, my brother got me to sit down and watch a movie with him. I'm not a big movie watcher, especially in the theaters. Unless it's something particularly relevant, I have a hard time spending a couple hours essentially just watching TV. But being something video game related and that I could talk about on the blog, I agreed.

When we went to go rent the movie, I asked him why he was interested in it. He explained that he was interested in Max Payne's battle against the demons. I thought, yeah, I guess that's true Max Payne had a lot of personal demons and if they had really developed that part of the plot, it could be really good. Then I looked at the back of the box, there were actual demons with like claws and wings flying around.

I was a little confused watching the movie. There was all sorts of drug use so I assumed it was causing people to hallucinate and see demons. But then all these people were going around dying being torn to pieces by the beasts and being pulled out of windows. So I never really figured out why there were demons in the movie. Despite them, I was enjoying the movie about 80% the way through. But then it got to a point where I had to call Travis and ask him about the accuracy of the Max Payne movie versus Max Payne the game. Around that point is when the movie went downhill and really never had a chance to pull itself back out.

I wasn't upset that the movie didn't follow the game. We all know that's what movie adaptations are known for and what fans always whine about. I've never played Max Payne so that's not the case for me. But when I called Travis, it was at a point in the movie where things just got totally ridiculous. It felt like they were just throwing things on the wall trying to see what stuck. I called Travis to see if maybe that's how the game went in order to understand the reasoning behind the madness. If the choices had been modeled after the game, I think I would have been more understanding.

In the end, actually there really was no end. No summation. No happy ending. No sad ending. Max Payne shoots someone for revenge. The guys dies. Payne falls to his knees. Then the police show up. And the credits roll. They had plenty to build on. A romance with Mila Kunis. The performance of Christopher Bridges (Look him up). The three years he searched for his wife's killer. They ended up going with Max Payne taking the drug himself and then becoming some possessed being shooting up everything in sight.

I really don't even know how to end this post so I'll take a cue from the movie.

Written By David Liao.

Also, why is Mark Wahlberg always making the same face? He just scrunches up his face and eyebrows and acts mad. He looked very one dimensional in this movie. I blame the movie cause I know he's been better.

NUMBA ONE!!

So first of all, I would like to thank all.... 391 people that destroyed my Hotmail address by bookmarking the FYS Channel. Seriously.... I have to delete all that now.
Speaking of which, tonight around 8-9 central, I will be receiving internet. Around this same time... there will be a meeting in my channel involving those that... well, are involved with the channel.
Important things will be discussed.

Anyways, back to Anime.

My number one,





Now if memory serves me correctly, this Anime is not really on anyone's radar whatsoever. So let me educate you all on why this anime is such a perfect design to me.
There are flaws, so MANY flaws in the human race, and honestly, primarily in man himself. This should be common knowledge to all, no big surprise, especially to you man hating woman out there who think you can have a baby without us. This anime does not pretend we are perfect, as so many animes do. This anime strives on showing you the innermost concious of the male mind and how, or why, it is as it is. Fucked up. The best scene in this anime, which takes place near the end, is completely void of happy thoughts. This scene only involves tears and yelling, confusion and anger, self realization and understanding, hate and pity. That scene made this anime a masterpiece for me. To make qualities come out of a man that many surpress in our society on a normal basis is a quality in an anime I would like to see much more often.
Along with these aspects of emotion, there of course, is love. Love is a silly thing, which all like to believe they have experienced at one point. And why not? It is something we all wish we could have one day, or at least give correctly. What this anime points out is how we can not accept someones happiness if their love differs from ours, to an extent. One of the femal characters in this anime, at one point, tells the lead that he is about to begin a unhappy life. He responds, "Who are you to decide?"
In the words of Suzuka, "Love is not a spectator sport."
While the actions that take place in this anime are obviously offensive to some, the point still stands out. Who are we to judge the actions people take on (Mutual) attraction? Whether it be because of age, proffesion, relation, or because of vows. If happiness is seen in someone elses eyes, it is our job to look back in them. Otherwise, what exactly are we looking for?

This anime is easy to laugh at, so I do not suggest it to anyone. If you think of yourself as a mature individual, then watch it. But if you go into this anime expecting silly things to happen, they will, because that is how you perceive it. As lame as that sounds, you have to go into this with an open mind rather than a preset. If you are going to watch this at all, you might as well enjoy it rather than go into 13 episodes of disgust or immature laughter.
Anyways,

Koi Kaze
This anime is about a twenty six year old man falling in love with a fifteen year old girl.
Who happens to be his sister.


-Travis

P.S. Code Geass is equal to Death Note. I think they are pretty much tied.

P.S.S. Suzuka should be on there... it's not. So lets say it is on the top ten list at 5.5

New footage of Kiryu Kazama singing his heart out.

Brad

Ok, So Stick With Me Here....

So before you all flip out and go crazy, understand that this was taken completely in a "I'm fascinated with cute things" so I have to do research on the subject.

Even though I've tried to make that clear, I know I'll still get a lot of shit about this one. But man do I love Japan. They've got cuteness down like nobody's business. I think they're the best in the world. Hell, they're so good at it...well just watch.







So yeah, say what you will, I can't really explain why I'm looking at these videos. I must say though, to clarify once more, I like cute things. I'm not attracted to guys, but I am fascinated how well they can pull this off. The mannerisms I think are the biggest selling point.


So finally, I've arranged a test for all of you. The music will play and show two "girls." It will then show the Kanji for Otoko (Male) over the one which actually is a male. See how many you can get right. I've posted my results in the comments section. Good luck!

Happy Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Years Eve. Tomorrow will start the year of the Ox. I'm home for the next couple days doing the Asian thing. I'll keep you informed through the blog.

Just some random stuff to start off the new year.

This is a band I recently discovered. I wish I could get you guys the full translations. Please excuse the weird intro in the beginning. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be there or what, but I love the song afterwards.

Supercar - Lucky


Thanks for everyone who sent in all the videos as response to one of my posts last week. I'm loving the suggestions for music and anime. Here's a video that invader_random sent me.


And of course the reason why this all started, Danketsu, the idolmaster song that was on Beautiful Katamari. This is from the Live For You! DVD


Again, Happy New Year
David

Podcast 98 Uploaded

I forgot to mention yesterday that I uploaded the new show.

098 - Fable II, Fear 2 Demo, Metal Slug 7 [download]

Also, I heard iTunes was having problems, anyone know?

Thanks,
David

Send this link to 5 of your friends or you will die in 7 days. Nothing supernatural. Just me... killing you.

Brad