Ced

Got my copy today. First thing I did was unlock Thunderhorse. The learning curve is insane going from bland normal to crazy hard to strumming from hell expert. Thank god hammer-ons and pull-offs are much easier to pull off now otherwise some of the sections would be complete terrors.

The aura that's going to surround the taping of the final Bob Barker hosted TPIR is going to be absolutely insane.

Carnival jumps into contention with Red Auerbach's passing.

C'mon you have to love the cheesy reason for JCVD hulking up during the final fight in Lionheart. "The whole bet is on Attila!" "...WRONG BET!"

JCVD vs Carlton Banks would make an epic dance fight.

DMann2003 stole my 2 cents. I'll just say Rabbit of Seville is number two on my list.

Regarding the Disgaea anime, yes, it's a pretty subpar anime all-around. When it does see domestication, I'd only pick it up as a economic boxset at best simply because it's Disgaea. And on the second viewing of the second episode of Negima!?, I just noticed the awesomeness of the multi-panel segment that shows up during the Negi-Asuna and Negi-Takamichi dialogues. That, the vectored-looking effect they do for the Eva's flashback and the production value as a whole are really impressing me. The whole spoken word deal during the opening song caught me off guard too, but if it stays throughout the series, so be it. Looking at the dialogue, I thought it helped set the more serious tone of the series. Plus, it's one heck of a way to separate itself from other anime openings. Anyway we'll see if it's a permanent deal once the next fansub is released.

What the heck? 3 button chords? I was following along and the thing that was giving me the most difficulty were the triplets where you have to hold a chord, pull-off real fast, and then hold the chord again.

It's hard to tell when he's always surrounded by much larger wrestlers, but Daivari's one cut mofo.

The fansub for the second episode of Negima!? is up for those who are interested. Hey, more Baka Rangers! The second episode of Buso Renkin is also up and fansubbed. Admittedly the storyline is interesting me so far as we're two episodes in and there's already the threat of impending doom. For those wondering, the only real similarity between FMA and Buso Renkin are the uses of the words alchemy and homunculus and that the homunculi are apparently evil. That's really about it from what I've seen.

Played 2K7 and watched two guys play Live 07 at my school's rec room. The one big thing I caught on to was the choppiness of the dunk animations in Live 07: so awkward and distracting. The overall presentation seems so much better on 2K7. Actually having to use ball rotation against the CPU to get open shots is something I can appreciate.

Finished up the first episode of Negima?! It's quite the change-up from the original, but still looks to be interesting. I found the character design changes to be interesting, especially for Takamichi and Asuna. The extra clip at the end is a fun surprise.

Some quick comments all relating to Haruhi... OK, I guess I missed that the Mikuru Beam actually went off legit the first time I saw it. Naturally, I found the answer to to be the most fulfilling. You can kind of see it coming once you hit episode 9, but it's a sweet way to wrap up the series. Agreed that there will probably never be another season of Haruhi, but the way the story is told, I felt content with the end result and didn't have a need for anything extra. It'd be nice, don't get me wrong, but as you said, the expectation bar is way too high to even attempt another run. <---Consider this my sign of conversion.

For those that go to Best Buy, the one I went to had a sampler disc from Funimation with full episodes of Desert Punk, Basilisk, Trinity Blood and Speedgrapher, with both sub and dub tracks. I saw them while browsing so I picked one up, though I've yet to actually watch it. And atomsk

So I finished Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu just now. My god, am I ever impressed. It's an amazing blend of sci-fi, comedy, drama and romance. For something told so anachronistically, practically everything makes sense by the end. Except why the hell the cat starts talking during episode 1 then vanishes for the rest of the series. Annoyed the hell out of me that I never got my explanation...anyway... It's a "Must download now/Buy upon domestication" anime in my book. Flik, damn you for suggesting it, because now I've been drawn in to the SOS-Dan and I can't escape it.

PS2 exclusive like the original unless plans have changed. YYZ is pretty nuts on Hard. I haven't played for awhile so the hammer-on and pull-off sections are giving me trouble. And the new animation they added whenever you blow a combo, where the whole playing surface quickly turns black and shakes, throws me off alot.

Anybody here seen Yakitate!! Japan in manga or anime form? For a show based on baking bread, I got quite a few people today suggesting that I pick up the manga.

With my penchant for purchasing off-the-wall games, I plunked down $20 for Cooking Mama for the DS. Fairly sterilized and straight-forward variation of Wario Ware really; Simply follow the given instructions and complete the task within the allotted time limit. I feel a bit underwhelmed but not completely ripped off since it's already at bargain bin prices. Still, I can't help thinking that they should've ramped the frantic pace back up to Wario Ware levels and either thrown in an Iron Chef tie-in, or completely ripped off the format. Now that would've totally been worth the $20 right there.

Looking at the manga, the storylines start to really diverge around volume 8 . Also worthy of note is . Given the source material available at the time (I've read that FMA had only been created up to volume 3 at the time of the production of the anime), the anime does the manga alot of justice. It could very well surpass its own source material storywise depending on where the manga decides to go.

Seeing wrestling moves in anime is always great. Girls Bravo sees Kirie throw out a Shining Wizard, Burning Hammer, Russian Legsweep, and a picture perfect Rolling Elbow for comedic effect throughout the series. I finally sat through the first two episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and I'm already liking what I'm seeing.

The most inept people bringing a full shopping cart to the self-service checkout lane. The "God Hates Gay People" type of sign holders than come onto my college's campus every so often. The people foolish enough to get into shouting matches with said people. Picketers, protesters and attention whores in general.

I'm going to have to hold out on opinions until some in-game footage is finally developed and unveiled. In the meantime, I'll add the obligatory "Revive the AKI Engine" post. ... Revive the AKI Engine!

Loading up on ammunition, then hunting by spinning around and seeing what animals would die in the blaze of pixelated pellet fire. Good times. Was Odell Lake the one where you decided if you wanted to either eat whatever was in front of you or run like hell from it? I remember always trying to eat the otter no matter how suicidal it was.

So I found out that a DDR SuperNova machine exists about 3 miles from my house at a bowling alley that just opened last Friday. Anybody else seen one?