Resident Evil: The Darkside Chonicles

So I just beat this game yesturday with my friend and had some good times with it. I'll try not to ruin anything but it's hard in a review. Anyways I'm going to split this up into several sections; now onto the review:

Story 8/10

Now the story, for all I have to say is corny as hell. The voice acting is cheesy and the scenarios are just nigh implausible, with zombies popping up out of nowhere and monsters just attacking you for no reason. Now if you know zombies and monsters you know that they are pretty much uncontrollable unless you're so badass motherfucker who can ruin everybody's shit (i.e. me). Here however it appears as if these monsters are controlled by the main protagonist of the scenario. They will throw tyrants and giant snakes at you whenever they feel like. Zombies come out of nowhere and attack you but never anybody else. You will see civilians, people that are unarmed and have no fighting skill whatever, just run past these guys like it was nothing. Also 1 of them is a 12 year old kid named Sherry and she's just ridiculous.

Not afraid of anything

Also at times she would just run away from you for no reason. Yes, let's run away from the nice normal humans and run towards the head eating licker shall we? The reason I give this an 8 is because the corniness and unbelievability of the whole situation your in just adds to the amusement. It would try to take itself seriously but fall flat on it's face the next moment. It's so bad it's good , is one way to put it.

Gameplay 8/10

The game itself is an on-rails shooter similar to games like House of the Dead or Time Crisis in the arcade. The difference is this isn't a light gun game and instead relies on the Wii motes pointer in order for you to aim. So you will always see a scope on the screen for where you are going to shoot. I personally like these types of games so I might be a little bit biased but I'd say it was done very well. You start with a handgun with infinite ammo and to reload you just shake your remote, relatively easy to do but can cause some strain to your arm/wrist. You get new guns as you progress by finding them around the areas you visit and you can customize every gun you get. Each gun except for the handgun comes with limited amount of ammo, but again you can find more as you progress through the areas. Every upgrade becomes more and more expensive as you progress but you also get more money as you went on.

It adds some variety and sometimes having enough ammo for the gun you need can make or break you. The main enemies are zombies but there is some variety such as lickers, hunters, giant spiders, etc. At the end of the stage you are scored based on how fast you completed the stage, head shots, score and how many enemies you killed. This can be frustrating sometimes because sometimes you will see a bunch of enemies, prepare to dish out a bunch of head shots, but instead you move on and skip them. You have no control over this so when you have this happen to you the first few times it can be disorienting. Eventually you learn that you just have to use explosives to quickly take out the amount of enemies you take instead of preparing for a battle with 5-6 zombies.

Graphics 8/10

What can I say? It can be a little bit grainy but other than that the graphics fit the game and aren't too bad. Not everything is destructible but that's probably hard to do. This game is usually nice enough to indicate which objects you can destroy and which you can't but it can be a little bit hard at times. Nothing to really complain at other than that.

Miscellaneous

Here I will talk about small things I liked/disliked and improvements they could have added to the game to make this a lot better.

First of all the pacing. Sometimes you will go through a section really slowly. Almost unbearably slow. They will take their time climbing up and down ladders, navigating corridors and peeking around corners that nobody cares about. To spice up the action I would have liked it if there were more saturation of enemies so I don't become bored.

I liked the co-op feature they put in. Nothing is worse when you want to play a game with your friend at your house and you find out that A. the game doesn't suppose multiplayer or B. in order to get play together at all you would need 2 consoles, 2 games and be online. I. FUCKING. HATE. THAT. Several games that would shine in offline on the couch multiplayer are only given online multiplayer or none at all. It really pisses me off when this happens so kudos to Capcom for including this feature.

Give more money during the campaign. I don't really mind grinding but with the slow pacing sometimes and the little amounts of money I only had enough money to max 1 gun at the end of the game. It wasn't even the high end gun either it was the hand gun so there definitely wasn't enough cash being handed out

Knife is almost useless, either make it more useful or get rid of it.

More monster variety and gun variety would have been nice.

Overall 8/10

Good game through-out but the flaws don't let me give it a higher score. If you're looking for a good on-rail co-op shooter than pick this up or rent it. The campaign is relatively short but there's many unlockables and several difficulties so the re-playability isn't bad.

Ever feel like just not going to sleep?

Sleep is such a wonderful thing isn't it? I mean you go to your bed for a measly 8 or so hours(10 for me) and you're up refreshed(not me) feeling like rainbows and sunshine. Too bad it's god damn 5 AM right now and I just don't feel like sleeping. I could actually easily fall asleep but my bed is too far! Aaahh... help me someone because I'm too lazy to go upstairs but too lazy to do anything else. I'm just browsing and decided to up and write on this blog. Procrastination at it's finest, when I should be doing homework I'm doing everything but.

 Life's a bitch though, stupid responsibilities as an adult; too bad that if you compare yourself to any poor nation with poor people your life seems grand and wondrous. With food to eat, water to drink and shelter over your head you're way better off physically. I have friends and family that are safe at home protected from well being and away from harms way instead of near death, famine or war. However happiness is all in perspective. It's how you make of it and sometimes, even though you are making a ton more than people from poor nations, in comparison to your neighbors and how your society views you, this might be chump change. Pennies compared to what they're making. Anyways I don't like the hippy talk but at times you just think about these sorts of things and it just gets on your mind.

It gnaws at you, racking your brain with annoying philandering BS that makes you want to kick babies.

Hopefully there will be new updates soon on more interesting things than useless thoughts. Maybe for the 1 or 2 readers that read this(probably more like 0 but who cares).... Let's see if I can find a picture of what I'm feeling right now.

Yah, kind of like that

What does a bboy practice feel like?

Well than, let me try to answer that question for you. If you are just starting and want to head out and learn some more from bboys there's a few ways you can do it. Of course the obvious way is to make friends with either bboys or people who know bboys and asking them. Most bboys are friendly and will allow you to go to their practice sessions no problem. There have been a few issues though with some people abusing their privileges and just ruining it for everyone.

One of the places where I practiced, of course I don't know that girl at all I just found the picture on google

Another way is to go online in the forums and search for a thread pertaining to your city. Usually there is already a thread about where you can practice in your area and even if it's a few years old the practice spots still remain the same. There might be a few new ones that pop up every now and than but usually bboys stick to the same areas. Of course bboying has the freedom to practice almost anywhere, whether it be actual dance studios or concrete. I once danced in the parking lot at night time under the street lights but that floor was too rough to do anything serious. Still managed to do it though and that's the key point. But yah, you can message bboys and try to find their practice areas and just do your thing, no one will judge.

As with any forum USE THE SEARCH BUTTON FIRST!

Especially when starting it can be very intimidating, you're very self-conscious about how you look at what you do. However if you're not a cocky ass bitch and actual try your hardest there ain't nothing nobody can say about you. Most people will actually praise your for your efforts because at one point in time they were in a very similar position you were in. Eventually you'll talk with someone and you'll click and you can learn from each other to become better bboys.

BBoy Poe One telling it from his experience 

One of the main reason you want to go to these practice sessions, and why many do, is because you actually get better faster. There's someone there who's better than you there and you can watch what they do and learn what you're doing wrong. So even without talking or anything and just being there you can learn a lot of things. Of course if you get to talking you'll learn even more and you'll have a more rich and more powerful experience.

Another area where I've practiced. Inside of course, at the edges near the bleachers 
My personal experience with this was pretty good but I know of a few that didn't really like it. Sometimes you just have to give it some time before you become accustomed to it. Think about it, instead of having to practice in you're garage or basement, which is probably shitty, you can practice in a well lit studio or nice concrete with plenty of open space and people to show you tips on how to improve. And the best thing about it too is IT'S FUCKING FREE! You don't have to pay a goddamn penny to anybody. Probably the easiest way to get good fast is through these practice sessions.

Riding on a board

It's a great pass time, it is, wind flowing past your face, the excitement coursing through your veins, the exhilaration of the scenery passing by you in a blur of emotional joy and the occasional frost bite on your face, but hey, who says it was perfect? Anyways what I'm talking about is snowboarding(or skiing but I've since switched to snowboarding) and man is it a great sport to do. It's just so fun to go down a mountain while taking in the beautiful scenery and just having complete control of where you are going. Bringing along friends with you is a must since it makes the trip that much better, especially if you live far away from the mountains.

Only true troopers can brave the cold to go outside and ride down at 40-60km/h past trees with no protection!

The drive there can be deadly boring and I don't know who could do it alone unless they loved the sport that much. If friends weren't there to go with me I don't think I could stand to go snowboarding, never mind the drive there. Those lucky bastards that live very close to the mountains are pretty lucky since you can just go whenever you feel like it. For the likes of me however it requires quite the drive, minimum 3 hours to get there. Oh but it's definitely worth it; I recall the first time I went there and it was one of the most magical moments I'll remember for the rest of my life. Great weather, great friends and just a great day in general.

If this doesn't appeal to you, you have no soul!

For some reason I also like to ride up the mountain. It's a great meditative thing where you can sit and chat with your peers and look at the great scenery outside. It feels like you're going somewhere epic and large, a land of magic and wonder. However my vision was skewed by that perfect day because the proceeding time I went it wasn't as crazy. It was still a good time but not as perfect. The weather conditions were basically a blizzard causing an apocalypse of suck to your vision. I had to buy a new pair of goggles since I was dumb and thought I didn't need one, since last time I went on a clear sunny day. Word of advice, don't buy goggles at the snow resort, they'll rape you up the ass just for a flimsy pair of plastic. Makes me kind of angry thinking back to it actually. The gondola ride up wasn't crazy either because there were people with us which disrupted our bonding moment within the cabin and not to mention the windows were foggy as fuck.

Example of a gondola, theirs wasn't fogged up to the point of anger however

I'm going to go this weekend again and hopefully the weather will be better than last time. It seems to be warming up so hopefully it won't be to bad. Too bad snowboarding is one of the only things to look forward to in winter because otherwise this season is horrible.

Starcraft 2

God damn Starcraft 2. I don't personally like RTS games too much since I don't like multitasking. Once you fuck up one thing it's like a big ball of fuck ups that eventually get you killed. Dieing sucks and there's so many good players it's annoying. Well the challenge is good and the graphics were definitely an improvement over the previous game. Makes it much easier on the eyes because when I played the first Starcraft I realized I was playing a game that was like 15 years old. Jesus it was hard to play considering I never got into it when I was young,

Anyways basic RTS stuff but with 3 distinct races with their each unique abilities. They're decently balanced but you can never know until you play it long enough. Usually in the beginning even if you pick a shitty race you can win with enough skill against a person with the better race. I personally play Terran because that's what you play in the campaign and I got used to using it. Not bad, I like them since tanks are awesome. Too bad I suck ballz. ARRGHH I hate multitasking!

Fuck supply depots...Seriously...

You can't win unless you get the right strategies and insert the right units and be fast enough with good timing. It also feels like a waste of time learning this but I'm going to kick my friends ass till he gives up this game first. He's winning for now... but wait till I train and kick him in the nuts.

OH YAH!! JUST LIKE THAT!!

You Stylin?

When I got into BBoying one of the first things I learned was footwork and freezes as noted in more earlier post. Footwork and freezes are basically one of the main contributors to how you look and the basic foundation for many BBoys out there. I remember trying it out and it was kind of hard to do anything! Eventually though, you start picking it up and one thing you learn will lead to another and they will synergize to make other moves easier to learn. It's like the more you learn the easier it is to learn but the more you know the less you know.

BBoy Abstrak: as his name implies his moves are very complicated and stylin

That's the problem, there's too many damn things that can happen at once, you have to really practice to get moves down and concise. Just as with power moves there's categories you can be ranked on which affect the overall look of what you do. I'm not going to list them but some of the catagories such as cleanness, speed, and execution also apply. I definitely need to work at lot more to execute my moves the way I want to.

If you've never been in a battle it's probably one of the most exhilarating things you'll experience. Especially your first battle because you're pitting the skills you learned against others and you will know once you've been in one how hard it is to do any of the moves you want. If you want to hit your moves and time it with the music you have to practice it. Trying to listen to the music, while thinking of the next move, moving all your limbs and counter the opponent is a hard skill but if you beat them it's a great moment. You can finally show that you accomplished something worth while.

I forgot where I was going with this so I'm going to end it pretty soon. But anyways style will definitely give you many props, and the harder and more complicated your moves are and you do them with proper technique while hitting the music the better at dancing you'll be.

I'll end this off with a video with one of the most famous BBoys with a lot of style: BBoy Born

It feels like you're flying

That's probably how I'd describe power moves in bboying. This will be my second post on bboying and I'll concentrate on power moves for now. I've only gotten a few power moves and only have a feel for a few more so my experience isn't OMG expert, but I know enough from doing it and watching it that I can talk about it.

Bboy Bruce Lee flying. I can only speculate but I think he's defying gravity.

Now usually when people start power moves they want to get the move because it looks cool and it'd probably feel cool too. However the effort required is unfair sometimes, not only because your body isn't naturally inclined to do this but you have a serious chance of getting injured. The fear and adrenaline rushing through you when you go around once is quite an experience but before you even get to the big moves you have to start with the basics. For example you think you can just start learning windmill because you watched it on a video once? Nope your wrist isn't ready, nor is your capability to handle the fear. I remember I first tried doing it without any knowledge, all I ended up with was a bruised body. And I do mean that literally because my entire body was black since I probably hit every part of it. "How the hell can this move be so god damn hard to learn?" Was one of the first thing I spoke when I started it. It took me a solid 3 months just to go around several times and even than my speed wasn't up to par and it wasn't clean.

Power moves are ranked according to several categories, and the more you do them the better you'll get at it. I'd say the categories go as follows:

Execution - Basically how you get into the move and start it
Cleanness - Whether your legs are sloppy or flexed
Speed - Self-explanatory
Difficulty - How hard what you're doing is
Flow - How you connect your power moves
Creativity - What you added to the power move to make it yours

The more you have of those categories the better you will be(I might of missed a few but I think I got most of them).

Bboy Wing known for his solid and speedy execution of his 2000s. Contrary to what it looks like it's actually done on 1 hand.

I used to hate power moves since I started with style. I learned freezes, footwork and toprock first before I even touched power moves. To me they are probably one of the most hardest things in this dance because I'm just not crazy athletic and I'm pretty heavy to boot. Progress is really slow and sometimes you want to quit because of it, god it's depressing sometimes. When you think you're getting the move the next day it feels like you're going backwards! That's complete BS. There's all these subtle nuances that can make your power move learning experience that much faster but sometimes your body won't listen.

I really look up to those bboys that can perform and execute these moves with the finesse and expertise they do. I know just how hard it is and quite often I'll see improvement in many bboys power moves, going beyond what I thought was even possible. People will grab their leg while spinning, go up into an air flare, land onto their 1 hand into a jackhammer and than pop onto their head into a complicated position. You know they practiced hard and deserved props for that.

A variation of munch mill where he grabs one of his legs with his hand

I honestly think that bboying shows how far you can push the human body sometimes. They do these moves at such a fast and incredible rate that it boggles the mind sometimes.

Disgaea Series

The disgaea series, a fun little series that's part SRPG and part paraody. It's a fun little game and I've played a decent amount of them. I've played 1-3 on the consoles and 1-2 on the psp. I definitely logged more time on the portable ones however since it's much faster with ow you powerlevel and it adds a few other things which make it a little bit easier. For example in the second psp port of the game they added a new bill which lets you max enemy levels(and thus the exp you gain) in one bill instead of 10 or so saving you quite a bit of time. They also added a few characters and several changes to the mechanics.

Disgaea 1 picture showing just a fraction of how much damage you can do

The story is amusing, personally I don't find it crazy funny but it's entertaining. Sometimes I want a more light hearted type of RPG instead of the more serious and dramatic Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. It definitely plays with tropes and provides so good chuckles. It does however get a little bit more serious towards the end usually having something to do with gaining love and friendship the hard way.

The main characters of Disgaea 2!

One feature that's unique to this series is the ability to power level to obscene levels with the max cap at 9999. It doesn't end there though because you can reincarnate, which makes you a little bit stronger each time and you can store levels till you hit a cap which is around 127000 I think. Of course it's not as tedious as is sounds because you can gain exp and levels at a phenomenal rate; some stages are designed around this. Still the grind is there and the Random number god will mess around with you sometimes.

Blurry picture of Disgaea 3 showing a new feature called: Geo Blocks

Most of your luck will come into play when finding items and leveling them. You see you can go into your item and level them and depending on the rarity of the items there is varying amounts of floors. 100 floors for legendary, 60 for rare and 30 for normal items. Sometimes you'll spend a few hours just trying to find a legendary version of the item you want but sometimes it's not the rarity you want. You see even if you find the legendary version of it if it doesn't match a certain rarity number you'll have to go inside that one and find the perfect rarity. You can equip 1 weapon and 3 items and if all the rarities match you can boost your stats even more.

Of course there's many more factors that require some luck such as lovers, pirates, innocents, mystery rooms and many more that is beyond the scope of this blog. Regardless though it is fun to tweak your character and I do find it fun since while sometimes tedious you actually do see the results which makes it fun. Even today people are finding new ways to do even more damage because so many variables can effect you, and that's just in the first game. The 3rd one added even more and just recently a 4th one came out. Too bad it's in Japan though we'll probably have to wait a little while to get it. Oh well it lets me finish the 3rd one till I'm bored with it.

Overall I Really like these games so I give my slightly biased 20/10... oops I mean 9/10.