Addiction

I picked-up Bust-A-Move for PSP... Should've known better. It's just so hard to put down.

Anyway, so I've compiled a bit of a shopping list:

• Odin Sphere
• Red Star
• Metal Slug Anthology
• God Of War II
  
• Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando
• Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal
  
• Sly Cooper
• Sly 2: Band Of Thieves
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

No particular order, or rush to pick them up. Coincidentally, they're all for PS2.

Oh, and that Linux future hard drive business I was babbling about earlier? Yeah, it was referring to my Windows drive and is no longer forcing checks... So... Whatever :)

Explosion de Baies

As one might glean from my XBOX Live gamer card thingie over to the right of this page, I've recently picked-up Viva Pinata and Rockstar's Table Tennis; both solid games that I got new for about $20 each. Viva Pinata promises to be a lot of fun, especially considering the wonderful graphics. I realize that it's pretty much The Sims, but I find it far less annoying. Table Tennis is friggin' hard, but I suspect that I may just suck.

On the PSP front, I've been spending the majority of my time with it playing Daxter, LocoRoco, Puzzle Quest, and Virtua Tennis 3. Daxter's just plain gorgeous and plays a lot like the Jak And Daxter PS2 games, so I'm happy there. LocoRoco is easily one of the most stylish, original, and endearing games I've played in a long while, plus there're plenty of reasons to play levels over again. Puzzle Quest is basically a turn-based RPG with an expanded Bejeweled game for a battle system, and it works well. Finally, Virtua Tennis 3 is more Virtua Tennis, and as any good Dreamcast fan knows, that's a good thing.

Oh! Debian keeps telling me my hard drive was last mounted in the future and forcing a check at start-up... But all the clocks are checking-out fine. Any ideas?

Sooo excited!!!

New Clive Barker's Jericho media!!!

Oh, and here's a useful little utility: AoA Media's free audio extractor.

And finally, video game dorks everywhere, prepare to climax!

Strike while the iron's hot!

Just a heads-up; now is definitely the time to build...

• AMD Athlon 5200+ (89W Socket AM2) - $219.99
• ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition - $236.99
• 2x 1024MB PC6400 (800MHz) DDR2 - $171.99
• 256MB DDR3 PCIe BFG GeForce 8600GTS OC - $280.99

On a mostly unrelated note, I found Burnout Revenge for XBOX 360 for under $30; despite its new "Platinum Hit" status, nobody seems to be carrying it anymore. Given that Burnout Dominator is supposedly a completely different kind of experience (who wants to focus on dangerous driving instead of mindless destruction!? ;) ), it made sense to grab the best possible version of a fun game. I guess I'll trade-in my XBOX version, or give it to a friend.

Just because I have nothing better to do at the moment...

Fall 2007!? I could've sworn they were aiming for spring/summer... I can't wait that long :\

Also, how did I miss the PS2 release of the Metal Slug anthology!? It was released on March 26th, and apparently fixes the control issues of the Wii version and noticeably shortens the load-times of the PSP version. Sweeet... I finally get to play Metal Slug 6 :)

Oh, and expect some PSP mini-reviews on here in the near future.

Genius!

Exciting!

Java Runtime Environment 6.0 Update 1 crashes Iceweasel 2.0.0.3 on my Debian 4.0 "testing" machine... That is all.

Gah! They got me!

20 new games makes Brent a happy PSP owner :)
So far, I have:

• Bomberman
• Daxter
• Every Extend Extra
• Exit
• Killzone Liberation
• LocoRoco
• Lumines
• Lumines II
• Me And My Katamari
• Metal Gear Ac!d
• Metal Gear Ac!d 2
• Mind Quiz
  
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2007
• Puzzle Quest
• Ridge Racer
• Sonic Rivals
• Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
• Virtua Tennis
• Virtua Tennis 3
• Wipeout Pure

...And they're all pretty awesome. Some are definitely better than others (Every Extend Extra, Killzone Liberation, and Sonic Rivals aren't without their flaws, while Daxter, Exit, LocoRoco, Puzzle Quest, and Ridge Racer have really shone so far), but for the most part, as a late-adopter of the platform, I couldn't be happier! Prices are low, the library is now pretty solid, and the extra features (audio, video, web, camera sync) make for a great value.

Well I'll be...

Remember that iMac I posted about, like two posts down? Sure you do :) Well, that little bugger tore a hole in my home network's MAC filter! My brother was over yesterday and tried to connect wirelessly with his Archos video player, and got in just fine... What the hell!? I went to check the router settings to see if I'd messed anything up as I had been updating the list of accepted MAC addresses for my PSP. Nope, all was well. I'm not sure of exactly what happened, but it turns-out that the iMac was never released from the MAC filter (even though I had deleted it) or the DHCP pool (I leave two IP addresses available with half-hour lease times for visitors that have been added to the MAC filter), and the Archos device was able to access the network without a hitch. I had to perform a soft-reset on the router to fix the issue. I don't know if this was because of the iMac, Mac OS 9, the SMC router, or the Archos device, but still... Interesting.

So the PSP is pretty sweet. Memory Stick Duos are expensive (the cheapest 4GB I've found is like $118 CDN), Mind Quiz, Loco Roco, Puzzle Quest, Lumines, and both Virtua Tennis games are all pretty great, the web browser and cell-phone-like text entry aren't that bad, and video playback is nice... But man, looking back at old prices, firmware, and software selection, I would've been pissed as an early adopter.

"My name..." "Starts with a D!" "...Is Razputin!"

Earlier today, I took advantage of a one-day sale at Zellers: Buy any Ubisoft or selected PSP game and get a PSP core system for $149.99. I picked Mind Quiz for $19.99, which I may just try to return for something else :) Oh, and I guess the PSP system I grabbed had been sitting on the shelf for some time, as the firmware revision was 2.60. Yeah, so now I can run *ahem* "homebrew" software on my PSP using the 1GB Memory Stick Duo my little brother had left over from when Rogers sent him a free 4GB Memory Stick Duo with his new cell phone ;) It's kinda funny seeing the PSP next to the Nomad on my desk...

Oh! While I was out, I stopped by an EBGames that was in the same mall, and they had a used copy of Psychonauts for XBOX!!! I couldn't resist, and playing it on my 360 is a joy. If anyone's curious, Game Shack at Yonge and Dundas still had a few new copies for Windows in stock the last time I was there, and the Sunrise Records in Erin Mills Town Centre had a few new copies for Windows for $4.97!

Fucking hell...

So I thought I'd be clever and make this post from the iMac I just finished working on... I was able to type the post and everything before the web browser decided to eat everything I'd written :\ Anyway, my friend was given an old iMac (Rev. A 233MHz G3, 96MB of RAM) and didn't even know if it worked, so I offered to have a look at it. A clean installation of Mac OS 9.2.2 later, and the thing was actually running alright! Unfortunately, the latest compatible version of a Mozilla-based web browser is 1.2.1 (from 2002), and the only OS 9 web browser that's still maintained is iCab. Neither is particularly awesome in conjunction with the new Blogger interface, it seems. Anyway, all said and done, the iMac is an almost-competent web browser, desktop publisher, and CD burning machine... With a dim display. It was a fun little learning experience (my first pre-OS X Apple installation) that kept me occupied this morning.

In other, much more exciting news, I bought a SEGA Nomad!!! Finally! I'd wanted one since they first came out, and I just happened to see one in a shop yesterday. It was a little over-priced and had a few minor scratches on it, but I didn't care; I had to have it. This acquisition inspired me to go and pick-up the over-priced SEGA CDX I saw at another shop a few weeks earlier, but when I got there it'd been sold... Prolly for the best ;) They did, however, have a whole new selection of Saturn accessories and games! I bought an analog controller (new, but not sealed, in box), Fighting Vipers, a mis-priced Virtua Cop 2 ($6.99 CDN!), Dark Savior (sequel to the Genesis sleeper hit Landstalker), and... EARTHWORM JIM 2!!! My love for the first two EWJ games runs deep, but I've always held-off on getting them in hopes of finding the best versions of each... Which would be EWJ Special Edition on SEGA CD and EWJ2 on Saturn. Well, that's one down.

Finally, I was just playing Texas Hold 'em on XBOX Live, and I was down a little over $100 when the table started to clear-out... Which was strange because one guy had just gone all-in with almost $1500. I'm confused... Were they being nice to me? Did I get disconnected? Regardless, my system saw me as the last player still at the table, so I got the pot :)