geek out!

Going to the slam!

2012-03-09T19:11:00.002+01:00

Just a tiny update via my Vita - I'm amazed how well blogspot works on it, uploading images doesn't seem to work tho - going to my monthly poetry slam thingy today and I'm somewhat excited to see David Friedrich again, who I've only seen in a team slam together with Bjoern Dunne (I think that's his name ^^;) before. Dunne was at last month's slam by himself tho, presenting both a German and an English text, which was pretty neat. Anyway, gotta hurry now and get back home to meet with my bestie and some other friends, yay! <3

Stuff that's intriguing me!

2012-03-07T14:46:00.001+01:00

Cave's newly announced Tokyo Therion which is gonna be released on iOS systems, is supposed to be a MORPG, so since it's not massive, I hope there's gonna be some sort of storyline (maybe revolving around the three characters from the teaser image) that can be played via co-op. I'd really rather love that, as I'm not too much of an MMO fan, since those are mostly lacking in the story department... so I hope this game doesn't. I also really like the character design of Tokyo Therion, so I'm definitely looking forward to more news on that - I hope they'll port it to another system (*coughs*Vita*coughcough*), since I own no Apple decives and never will.. ;>

Here's the official website: http://www.tokyot.jp/

The other game that has picked my interested is Sol Trigger, a newly announced PSP RPG by imageepoch, which I'm very curious about since the character design looks awesome (it's by Shuji Sogabe who also designed the characters in the Senko no Ronde games, not my cup of tea genre-wise, but the art is adorable) - by now scans of the three protagonists are floating around the web, so I hought I'd share:

Farrel, Emma & Walter

I'm not too sure how great the story will be as it sounds pretty generic: Some sort of freedom fighters, with access to some sort of power source called "Sol", which seems to be some sort of enhanced mana, it's used for skills and special attacks and if you die, but got enough Sol, you won't die, but your Sol gets depleted instead. Farrel is somehow special, being the only one having a gold Sol and he's a candidate to become the next Sol Trigger. Emma is his gun wielding childhood friend and Walter's best friend was killed by the church, so he is seeking revenge.

The scenario will be written by Kazushige Nojima, who also wrote the scenarios for FF8, 10, 10-2, 13, 13-2 and Kingdom Hearts 2 among other stuff. I have to admit, the only game where I really liked the storytelling of those is KH2, so I'm not too sure what to expect.

It sounds a lot like another imageepoch game, Arc Rise Fantasia, right now.. fighting for freedom, the church killing people... I really loved Arc Rise Fantasia (the undub!!) but I hope it will be different.... I hope the church won't have such an important role, I just don't like the church as the bad guys, way too overused.

I'm not too sure what to expect from all of those involved.. the art is superb, definitely, but imageepoch has never done anything more than mediocre to quite good but flawed games imo and Nojima never really got to me either. I still hope this turns out good and will be localised. ^^;

Also: Does anyone else think that Walter looks like a girl if you cut off his head? That clothes design is somewhat creepy... ^^;;

Speaking of imageepoch... as I've mentioned, I'm currently taking a break from Corpse Party and I borrowed my DS to one of my besties, as she has no money for consoles and handhelds, so I gave her my DS and a couple of games (Pokemon White, Ghost Trick, Layton, GTA, ...and I forgot what else XD) so she can enjoy a little gaming. That means I'm taking a break from Devil Survivor 2 right now as well.

So I bought Fate/Extra and Dissiddia 012 [duodecim] (since it's 50% off for Plus users) from the US PSN store and have been playing those two.

Fate/Extra is very.... hm, I like the design and the gameplay is interesting, but it's also very lacking. The characters are beautiful, especially the 3D models look really awesome (and that from the girl who usually can't stand 3D) but everything else is just so bland and boring. The dungeons are even worse than that Thanatos tower in Persona 3. The battle system is interesting for the first ten minutes and then it just gets annoyingly boring.. you either predict everything right and win after a minute of watching your servant (in my case Archer <333) smack the enemy or you get everything wrong and almost die yourself... and I'm playing on easy mode.

In fact, everything annoyed me so much, that I downloaded a clear save file and started my game over after I reached the 3rd day of the 1st week. Now at least I know all enemy patterns. The game is still very annoying, it's just one hell of a huge grindfest and usually I do not mind a little grinding here and there, I enjoyed it a lot in Persona 3 & 4, but battles in those two where at least a little rewarding, since you could get Personae and items and stuff, but the lack of any kind of equipment for your servant and the minimal experience gain from each battle, they really demotivate me.

So, as a result, I asked someone to add the 999SP cheat to my save file, so I can avoid grinding and just add a few points to my skills each day.. orz

I'm on the 6th day of the 1st week now and I hope I'll enjoy the game more now, as I really love the Fate universe.. :)

But I forgive the game's flaws. Since there is Archer. And who could resist this smug smile, huh? ;>

And even tho I'm pretty sure it won't happen (I've avoided all kinds of spoilers so far!) I really wish for an ending like this:

Anyway.. while Fate/Extra has an extra lot of flaws, I still kinda enjoy it.. ^^

Dissidia 012 [duodecim] is quite lovely in every sense on the other hand so far. I'm not huge on fighting games unless I play against someone else (sitting next to me, playing on the same console, not via online play - I'm a big fan of Guilty Gear and Melty Blood <3) so I'm playing on easy and with the RPG mode and while I do barely understand all of the gameplay yet (50 minutes into the game) it does seem to be fun and it's definitely a good buy for $14,69! <3

I'm also done with Fringe, I'm up to the latest episode and OMG THIS SERIES IS UTTER MINDFUCK!!! Totally love it, but I think they should stop adding new timelines, alternate realities and everything.. it gets a little confusing by now. ;> And Olivia and Peter... it's just graaghwjwgjfkrfhjrk!!!!1eleven

I swear, I'll kill the people behind this series if those two do not end up happily ever after at some point! ;> Since I was so obsessed with Fringe I have to catch up with Lost Girl, New Girl, Being Human, Grimm and all those anime series I'm currently watching as well.. but oh well, I'll concentrate on Fate/Extra for now! :)

[Let's Play] Devil Survivor 2

2012-02-27T14:06:00.000+01:00

Since I started playing the game yesterday, I'd like to write down my first impressions on it. I'm still not sure wether I like the game's characters and story tho.

I'm pretty sure I can't stand Daichi by now. He's a wuss and if there's one thing about Japanese video games and anime series that I can't stand it's their wussy main characters. One Shinji was enough for my whole life time. Well, Daichi is not that awful, but he's just not the cool best buddy you'd wish for in a video game. He's utterly useless, pretty dumb and has no special talents at all (mind you, I'm still at the first day, things could totally change but I don't expect it) - I'd totally prefer Atsuro any day over this wuss. Io on the other hand is quite more likable than Yuzu, at least for me. Besides her weird large breasts (seriously, what's up with the breasts in this game!?) she is pretty cute and very calm and smart.

And Joe.. oh sexy Joe, I had high hopes in you. But you seem to disappoint.. sexy Joe, or Yuzuru Akie as his real name is, is a totally carefree dude who doesn't seem to take anything seriously (so far) - he als has pretty low vit, which makes him quite easy to lose in a battle. :( So far I'm not impressed by him... pity, since he's so hot in his striped suit.

But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

So, the game starts off with the me (as in me identifying myself with the MC of the game) at school just having finished my exams and Daichi arrives just in time so the both of us leave school together. Daichi tells me about Nicaea, a weird website where you can see a video clip of your friends dying. Of course Daichi believes it's just fake, but I sign up anyways and get to name the MC... I've decided on Jun Owari for his name.

Of course I chose the male Tico when prompted to make a decision, because who could resist his sexyness, huh?

It doesn't really make much of a difference tho and if you prefer scantily clad big breasted bunny girls you should definitely choose the female Tico. ;> She's rather cute as well so IF I should do a second playthrough I'll most likely choose her as well.. :>

Anyways, at the train station the we meet Io and suddenly all our phones ring and we see one of the infamous Nicea death clips... sadly it shows all three of us dying so yeaaah, not cool!

Things happen quickly, train crashes, we survive but suddenly demons appear and attack us. So we have our first battle!

Daichi is all "Oh my god, what should we do? This is crazy, we need to get away!" while I'm trying to tell him to man up and fight, but he's like totally not listening and for a minute I was wondering if I could maybe attack and kill him so he won't annoy me all game long. I can see him doing lots of shit stuff that will get us into trouble for some reason...

Io on the other hand, while scared, is much calmer and I take an instant liking to her. We finish the battle, everyone gets their first contract with a demon and we leave the destroyed train station in a hurry, only to see that the train station has not been the only place that had taken damage.

We meet a blue haired woman who asks us to show her our cell phones and I would have liked to (there was a dialogue choice) but Daichi goes all "OMG THIS WOMAN IS SCARY LET'S RUN!" so the three of us run off... damn you Daichi, I wanted to get this hot chick's number!! We also get to see Joe for a brief moment, should we chose to, but he doesn't introduce himself to us yet.

Soooo... at this point I was a little confused at Daichi panicking at almost everything but not at the fact that parts of the city were completely destroyed, no trains or buses were operating and many roads blocked by rubble and also all shelters seemingly being full of people. Well, it's not rare for earthquakes to happen in Japan and at this point they all think this was caused by an earthquake, but still... it's a little unbelievable to me that neither he nor Io aren't more freaked out by the disaster.

Well, they decide to go to Io's house which is quite a bit away and on their way there they run into a weird thing that fell from the sky and starts exploding around killing anyone near.

Their demon summon app informs them that it's called "Budhe" and they run off to escape from it. Successfully so, but they get split up and when I find Io again our cellphones ring and we receive another mail with a death clip. This time Daichi is doomed (and oh how I wish I could have just let him die.) and we need to save him. So we hurry off to the shrine where he's at and the mysterious blue haired hot chick joins us in a battle against a stronger demon.

Afterwards she takes us to the JP's HQ to nurse Io who sprained her ankle. She finally introduces herself to us as Makoto Sako and we learn that JP's is pronounced "Jips" and some sort of special unit for the Government. We also get to meet her boss, who's also one hell of a sexy dude, called Yamato Hotsuin, he doesn't really seem that friendly tho.

After Io's ankle is fixed up Daichi needs to pee badly, so I accompany him on his search for a bathroom. We hear Makoto and Yamato talking about us and they seem to wanna throw us in prison cells, since we don't really like that idea we run back to Io and get the hell out of JP's HQ. Which is a pity, since it's an awesome secret underground HQ with lots of space and stylish furniture. I bet their prison cells would have been cool as well. :>

Well, we flee successfully and continue to make our way to Io's place and we meet Joe again. He's being followed by demons who came out of his cellphone and since he's too useless to fight them, we do it for him he afterwards thanks us and is all chipper about now being able to summon demons. He also tells us that we can't continue the way we intended to as there's lots of demons roaming around in that direction.

The dialogue failed a little here, while we explained the functions of the summoning app to Joe, at this point of the story neither the MC nor any of the other characters should know about demons being freed if the owner of the summoning app dies - it wasn't mentioned at all but still, after we explained the app to Joe he said something along the lines of: "So these demons I've seen must have killed their owners to free themselves, according to your explanation" Well, while I know that's true since I played the first game, the others should not be aware of this fact. There's lots of more illogical stuff in the dialogue that I came across...

For example, Io and the MC talk a little after they ran away from the rainbow bubblegum alien thinger and there's a dialogue choice for the MC, I chose to ask Io "What's the problem?" as she seemed to be pondering about something. Her reply was: "Ahaha.. haha, you're a funny guy. Thank you." what the? There where other dialogue choices where Io's or Daichi's answers to my choice made very little sense as well... huge, huge minus Atlus.

Gameplay wise the game is pretty much like the first one, just a tad more difficult imo. At least at first, I'm sure as soon as you unlock the special skills via the friendship system and other stuff (I haven't even unlocked demon fusion yet, tho that should be unlocking soon.) the game should become a little more fair. But be prepared for a handful of grinding if you intend to play the game. And lots of dying. It's easy to die there. ;_;

Well, I hope the story telling gets a little better, since I really dig the story line a lot, badass aliens invading earth, a bunch of young adults fighting them off with the help of demon summoning and a super awesome secret HQ with stylish interior. This better turn into something badass. And hopefully this time around there will be real endings, with real conclusions and satisfying enough make me want see the other endings as well!

But to find out about all that I'd need to continue playing and I shall do so now. :>

Corpse Party will be on hold for a few days now, since I'm craving for some good old turn-based strategy love right now. :>

PS Vita Background Images

2012-02-26T16:53:00.003+01:00

I made some PS Vita background / lockscreen images, which everyone can freely use. <3

I haven't tested any of them yet, but they should work just fine. ;>

Images after the break.

On other news: Devil Survivor 2 has been leaked and the impatient me (okay, actually I'm just desperate for some other games besides Corpse Party, right now I'm not very much in a running away mood... XD) decided to not wait for my import copy to arrive... It's probably one of those games I'll never release from the shrink wrap as I'm already done with it by the time my copy of the game arrives. :>

I might post a little about it later. For now I can say, that Daichi is an annoying bestie. And a wuss. What's with all the wusses in Japanese media all the time? That dude from Mirai Nikki (I already blocked his name from my memory) is by far the worst I've seen in anime lately... I dropped the series after 5 episodes.. can't bear to watch that idiot whine. Which is a pity since the series has such a nice concept.. :(

Oh well, now on to the bckground images:

SOEJIMA SHIGENORI ARTWORKS

(Persona 3 / Persona 4 / Other Works)

SKY DOLL

OZMAFIA!!-オズマフィア-

OTHERS

[Let's Play] Corpse Party is killing me... (Part 01)

2012-02-24T13:21:00.001+01:00

... literally.

I decided to write a detailed, very spoilery review along to me playing the game... that way my memory will still be fresh and I'll be less angsty about playing on... XD

Sorry for the varying quality of the images - as it's not possible to make screenshots of PSP games (at least not this one) with the Vita I have to make do with screenshots from youtube videos and whatever I can find via google. ;>

I finally started playing it yesterday and I can tell you, running from ghosts is no fun! I'm not really good with running away from things or reacting quickly. You should see me playing rhythm games or platformers. I suck at them. Very badly. I still wonder how I was able to finish both Tetris AND Super Mario on the Gameboy back then... My theory is, that I had no other choice but mastering them since I simply had no other games. I don't think I'd be able to pull that off nowadays. I don't want to anyways. I'll stick to my relaxing turn-based games, be it RPGs or development-sims like Civilization. Or adventure games. Or visual novels. Or brainy puzzle games like Layton, yup. That's the stuff I'm comfortable with.

Corpse Party falls into that category half of the time. The other half is running from ghosts that will kill you if they touch you.

Characters

Satoshi Mochida

17 y/o, average but popular. Both kind and cowardly but a natural leader due to being open and sensitive towards others. Naomi is kind of his rival.

Naomi Nakashima

16 y/o, Satoshi's classmate since junior high, has lost her father a few years ago but she has still remained optimistic and cheerful, she wants to become a nurse. She's got a secret crush on Satoshi.

Seiko Shinohara

16 y/o, Naomi's best friend, has a good nature but often says weird stuff, her mother disappeared 3 years ago and she takes care of her three younger siblings while her father is working.

Ayumi Shinozaki

17 y/o, The Class Rep for class 2-9, she always carries her ghost story props around, in case an opportunity presents itself to use them. While it seems she likes ghost stories, she is actually just trying to hide her fear of the unknown.

Yoshiki Kishinuma

17 y/o, often regarded as sarcastic and cynical tho he just thinks of himself as honest. He rarely get himself involved with the others, tho he tends to tag along when his friends Ayuma and Satoshi are there as well. He lives by himself due to intense drama at his home.

Mayu Suzumoto

16 y/o, has a big heart and bright personality, since she treats everyone the same she is pretty popular among her fellow students, unfortunately it's her last day at Kisaragi High since she has to move due to familial circumstances.

Sakutarou Morishige

16 y/o, he's been in the theater club with Mayu since middle school and very close to her but rather indifferent to everyone else du to his antisocial nature.

Yuka Mochida

14 y/o, Satoshi's cute little sister, she looks and acts much younger than her age, she's a bit of a spiled child but yearns to grow up so she often attempts to act older and braver than she is, which sometimes gets her into trouble.

Yui Shishido

23 y/o, Class 2-9's English teacher, she's not a perfect but very enthusiastic teacher and well liked by her students.

Chapter 01 - Prologue

The game starts off in Kisaragi High's classroom 2-9, the classroom of our heroes (except for Yuka of course). Ayumi is telling a ghost story to everyone (but Yuka & Yui) and suddenly there is a black out. The ghost story seems to turn into reality, but it's actually just Ayumi and Yui playing a prank on everyone which succeeds very much and ends up with a scared Satoshi grabbing Naomi's breasts... she doesn't seem to mind too much tho. ;>

Yuka enters the classroom and joins everyone.

We find out that it's Mayu's last day at Kisaragi High and Ayumi suggests a ritual called "Sachiko Ever Afer" she'd found on the internet. It involves everyone standing in a circle and repeating the phrase "Sachiko, we beg of you." nine times. XSeed have posted the blog entry Ayumi found online on the official CP page as well: http://www.corpsepartypsp.com/secret.html

After everyone has ripped off their piece of the doll and put it away something goes wrong. What seems to be an earthquake at first turns out to be something far worth...

Chapter 01

You start off with Naomi and Seiko first. Naomi wakes up in the classroom and sees the unconscious Seiko at the other end of the room. Naomi makes her way to the other side of the room (which isn't that easy, as half of the floor has been torn down) and sprains her ankle. After she successfully woke up Seiko, they decide to explore the weird school they ended up in.

They make some gruesome discoveries pretty fast. Corpses are placed everywhere, some of them with creepy notes left besides them and there's also notes and newspaper articles all around the school about some kidnapping / murder cases of multiple students of Heavenly Host Elementary School - a school that had been torn down in 1973, after the murders. A teacher of that school had been found with multiple cruelly tortured dead bodies of the missing students, in his hands a pair of scissors dripping with blood. It seems that this very school is the place they ended up in.

There's also ghosts roaming around. Quite a few of them. Most of them being simple flames, either blue (good) or red (bad) ones. Blue ghosts with real bodies aren't good tho, as I've learned.

Both Naomi and Seiko try to stay cheerful even tho they realise quickly that there seems to be no way out of this place. One of the good ghosts explains to them that even tho their friends appear to be there as well, that they are in different closed spaces and that there is probably no way to reach the other spaces. And there's no exit to this ghost school as well. The sad ghost tells them that they should be lucky to be able to die together.

They make their way to the infirmary where Seiko puts a bandange on Naomi's sprained ankle and they relax a little on the beds in there. Seiko also makes some comment about how cute Naomi's butt is. She seems to be very fond of Naomi's butt in general. And while she is all weird and pervy, she does totally hit the nail when she tells Naomi that Naomi probably is hoping that Satoshi didn't end up in this scary place as well.

Seiko tells Naomi to rest a little while she goes off exploring some more (yeaaaah, splitting up is always SUCH A GREAT IDEA in horror stories...... orz) but after a while Naomi decides to go look for Seiko. But for some weird reason the infirmary door won't budge. And after walking around the room a little this suddenly happens to the door:

And as if that wasn't creepy enough already a female voice suddenly can be heard: "Sacchan... have you come to find me?" an then the shadowy ghost appears, going after poor Naomi. But with some alcohol and matches, both found in the infirmary, the creepy hair is no longer a problem and Naomi can escape!

Outside we meet seiko again, who is all chipper and trying to cheer Naomi up. But Naomi is suddenly being a total bitch to Seiko suggesting they should split up and telling her that they won't get out anyway while thinking how stupid she is for saying such stuff to her best friend..

Then you can chose to tell her to leave you alone or apologise to her, it doesn't matter what you chose tho, as they will split up anyways (Why the hell add the choice at all then? God I hate it when games give you pseudo choices that do not make any difference at all.... pfff....). Naomi is filled with regret and starts searching for Seiko. But when she finally finds her, it's too late already:

Seiko appears to have hung herself in the toilet stall that was previously locked and while Naomi is all freaked out and sad by her friend's death she at least also notices how weird it is that she was able to enter the locked toilet stall. And that's the good end of chapter one. Yeah, seriously. One of the bad endings has you get suffocated by the shadowy ghost in the infirmary instead:

I haven't seen the other bad end yet, I'll probably skip as many bad endings as I can and make an extra post for just them after finishing the game... XD

Chapter 2

There's a prologue that can be skipped again, which continues with Naomi in the toilet, remembering a cute scene with Seiko from the past (which shows Seiko's obsession with Naomi's ass again) and afterwards we hear her cry and scream again.

Then the scene switches to Miss Yui, Yoshiki and Ayumi. Ayumi is totally stressed out and scared by everything that's happening and hyperventilating. Yui tries to calm her down and then decides to find out where Naomi is, since she's sure to have heard her.

But before that she picks up a crytal that's lying around in the classroom and gives it to Yoshiki (and it's very important to give it to them, as otherwise the good ending won't be available)

She then continues onwards and ends up in a class room where a blue ghost is. She talks to him and tells him she wants to save her students and is looking for one of them. He tells her basically the same stuff that Seiko and Naomi heard from the other ghost already, that there's no way to get to the other closed spaces.

She tells the ghost to let her through anyway and pushes it away to move on. When she tries to exit the room she gets pushed back by a force and the ghost tells her she's just like all teachers, thinking about herself and only for that reason wanting to help her students, but not wanting to get involved with them too much. She denies it but the ghost as all raging and bad (turning red and all) and he pushed a heavy shelf onto her, seemingly crushing her to death:

The scene switches back to the classroom with Yoshiki and Ayumi in it and another earthquake occurs.. there was one in the first chapter with Naomi and Seiko as well and afterwards the layout of the school had changes, so of course this time the same thing happened and the door to the classroom where Yui was in has vanished.

So Yoshiki and Ayumi look around everywhere else and discover 4 corpses and get freaked out just like the others. They also find this strange room with a ghost boy inside.

Well yeah, looking into his eyes results in your crystal shattering. And then dying. WHO SAID BLUE GHOSTS ARE GOOD!? .__. Anyways, at the back of the room you find a nail puller and take it with you to the classroom you first found yourself in. But ghost boy is suddenly following you and you absolutely can't run into him or otherwise Yoshiki gets apparently buried alive. A death I'd rather not like to experience.... D:

After arriving safely in the classroom you use the nail puller on a door behind a shelf, that's tightly locked with nails. You enter a small room with some sort of device with a lever, pulling it results in the floor of ghost boy's room shifting and another lever becoming accessible. So back to ghost boy's room it is! But he is still following you around so it's not that easy to get there and especially to get out of his room as it's pretty tiny and hard to avoid running into him in there... I was somehow able to pull it off tho and the new lever opens up a new way to the east.

Whatever awaits me there, I don't think I'm ready to find out yet... so I'll continue playing and reviewing tomorrow! <3

Useful PS Vita Links

2012-02-23T09:47:00.002+01:00

Just a quick list of links that might be useful to PS Vita owners or those that intend to buy one in the future. :>

http://www.buttoncombo.com/?p=7184
Short descriptions of some useful functions of the Vita like taking screenshots (Note that this doesn't work with (all?) PSP games as they can't be watermarked) and changing settings for PSP games etc.

http://gbatemp.net/forum/214-sony-ps-vita-discussions/
The PS Vita section of GBAtemp, my favourite forum. Since members there are usually helpful and lots of questions have already been asked and answered there, I think this might be helpful to get some more info and it's a nice community in general. :)

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/psvita/cm/installcma.html
The official manual page for the Content Manager, which also has the link for the DL - when I manually entered it the page wouldn't load, so I had to go to this page first to start the DL.

http://www.psvitavlog.com/ps-vita-remote-play-tutorial/
Short simple tutorial for Remote Play.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/02/13/grading-the-playstation-vita.aspx
Good review about the Vita with lots of information. :)

Hope these will prove useful to anyone. ;>

PS Vita - First Impressions

2012-02-22T19:19:00.003+01:00

Since there's not really anything besides a total waste of paper and the charger / usb cable inside the Vita's box I won't take any unboxing pictures... this was seriously the most disappointing unboxing I ever did. The Vita itself tho, is not disappointing at all.. <3

The Samsung OLED screen is bright and sharp and the colours look awesome. Browsing through the menus on the Vita is very intuitive and fun. It's relatively simple to figure out how to do stuff. For example, pressing on the front screen for a bit enters the menu editing mode where you can change the backgrounds or sort your apps and games. Sorting you do with pressing on the icon for a bit and then sliding them around, if you tap on them it opens the options (delete and/or information in most cases).

Navigating through the Vita's PSN store is rather annoying tho... there's no option to sort by genre (yet, I hope.) and browsing through all PSP games is a little annoying. There's also no option to sort stuff by price or list stuff that's on sale. I really hope the store will get a little more organised... :/ (I have no idea how the store looked on PSP, I can only compare it to the PS3 store, which is way cooler.)

Something else that's bothering me is that some PSP games aren't yet available for the Vita on the EU stores. Like Corpse Party. Which was one of the games announced as compatible for the Vita in the US at launch. Is there a difference between the US and EU version of the game? I'd really like to use my 20 Euro PSN code to get it, but first I'd like to find out if the EU version can be played on the Vita at all.. if anybody owns that and a Vita, would love to get some input on that. ;>

Uh yeah well, I didn't do much with the Vita yet.. tried the demo of Little Deviants, totally not my kind of thing. I also downloaded the Dungeon Hunter: Alliance demo, but didn't get much further than selecting a Mage and then realising that I have to restart the Vita for the rear touchpad to work..

But all in all, it's shiny and awesome and I am pretty sure that there's gonna be a bunch of gamese that will rock in the next few years. <3

Right now I am very much looking forward to Persona 4 The Golden and Extreme Escape Adventure: Good People Die, if that's gonna be released for the Vita as well, as the leaky news of it getting localised by Aksys only go for the 3DS version.

And now I'll go back to fiddling around with the Vita some more and watch some Fringe, I finally started watching it yesterday and I love it. It's like X-Files, just with less aliens and more mad doctors instead. XD

PS Vita, get!

2012-02-22T11:20:00.000+01:00

Just went to get my pre-ordered PS Vita - I might do a little review on it later today. If I'm not totally busy playing Corpse Party or Hakuouki (I have no PSP, so I haven't played those yet... and there's not much out for the Vita that I'm interested in yet, LBP and Katamari being the only games of interest to me so far.. Can't wait for P4 Golden tho... *__*)

Anyways, got some unboxing to do now! <3

[Spoilers] Being Human UK Season 01 & 02

2012-02-21T17:59:00.000+01:00

Sooo... I recently heard about Being Human and decided to give it a go, since I dig that supernatural stuff so much. I tried to not expect too much, since vampires/werewolves tend to be not so very cool lately, but Being Human does them justice.

Season one focuses mainly on the personal problems of each of the three roommates. Annie, a ghost who can't be seen, heard or touched by normal humans, George, a werewolf who is trying to manage his monthly werewolf transformation so he won't harm others and Mitchell, the 100 something vampire who tries to deal with his blood addiction (quite unsuccessfully).

First season's main antagonist is Herrick, vampire overlord, Mitchell's creator and.. well, just a psycho.

So yeah, while Annie is trying to figure out why she's still on earth and George is too busy whining about being a werewolf once a month, Mitchell is by far the one with the worst shit to deal with. Herrick is trying to make a vampire army so the vampires can come out of hiding and rule the world, so Mitchell tries to stop him, but instead of TALKING TO HIS FRIENDS he goes all emo and tries to deal with all shit by himself, which totally has fail written on it in bright red, big letters.

Anyways. AND NOW IT GETS All SPOILERY, just so you're warned:

While George meets another werewolf called Tully and at first befriends him but then notices he's an asshole (and the one who scratched him, and hence turned him into a werewolf), Annie meets another ghost and together they find out she got killed by her oh so awesome fiance Owen, but since she is somehow able to be seen by other humans now, she decides to haunt him and teach him a lesson, but since he's a psychopath he's not very impressed by her horror show and she gets all depressed (I would have just stalked him everywhere and annoyed the hell out of him, but nooo, miss ghost just gets all whiny). Mitchell meanwhile has to deal with Lauren, a co-worker of him and George at the hospital, who he accidentally sucked dry and turned into a vampire when they where on a date. Lauren tries to get him back to sucking blood, but he refuses and she goes back to Herrick, but she sends him a DVD showing a human guy having sex with a vampire (or air, as vampire's do not show up on videos) and getting sucked dry afterwards, the roommates watch it together and are all shocked. (At that point I already decided that I'd be shipping Annie x Mitchell, so I was very anti-Lauren at first, but I started liking her a lot later on) Annie who failed to warn Owen's new girlfriend about his murder tendencies gets her revenge in the end since she tells him about vampires and werewolves and all the shit that's out there and he runs off to the police and ends up in the mental ward. Then Mitchell befriends a young boy who lives across the street and they hang out and are all cool, but his mom notices he's got reflection in her hand mirror and when he sends Bernie up to his room to get himself one of his Laurel & Hardy DVDs the boy ends up with the vampire sex DVD. His mother sees him watching it and that's the start of the great witch hunt... all neighbours think Mitchell is a pedo now and stuff gets really awkward for him and George. Bernie gets hit by a car in the end, because all adults are idiots, but Mitchell turns him into a vampire before he dies and his mother explains to everyone that she made a mistake when she accused him of being a pedo. The whole mess made Mitchell go all meh about humans and he goes back to being a bad vampire and joins Herrick and his gang again and helps recruiting vampire's. But he then meets an old ex gf of his at the hospital, she's quite old now and dying of cancer. He convinces Herrick to make her a vampire as well, but she declines the offer, as she finds it unnatural and doesn't want to become a monster. Mitchell realises that he's being dumb, but it's too late to jump off now - so Annie and George save the day and storm into the vampire lair, kick some serious ass and with Lauren's help they save Mitchell... Lauren asks him to stake her, since she can't live like he does but doesn't want to continue killing either, so that's the end of her. ;_; Oh yeah, and George starts dating a nurse called Nina. Anyways, Mitchell gets almost staked when Annie is trying to pass over, she decides to not go through her door and stays in the hospital until Mitchell gets better. Which he gets after drinking some blood offered by his dying ex gf.

Mitchell decides to have a final battle with Herrick, but George has other plans and wants to deal with Herrick himself, so he tells him that Mitchell wants to meet him somewhere else and he locks himself in with Herrick, since it's a full moon and all. Annie, Mitchell and Nina arrive just in time to witness everything and Nina gets scratched by George. End of season one.

Second season starts off with George getting beaten up by vampires all the time, since he killed their leader.. Mitchell is trying to run things for the vampires, since everything is fallen apart and he can't risk going all vampires on a rampage and nobody cleaning up their messes. George and Mitchell meet Ivan and Daisy, a vampire couple that has a past with Mitchell. George is getting all asshole'ish and starts cheating on Nina with Daisy, while Nina is keeping it a secret from him that she got scratched by him and they end up fighting and being total idiots... season two is all about things that nobody tells anyone because everyone just sucks so much. .__. It's pretty annoying how you know right away that everything will end in disaster as soon as one of the three (mostly Mitchell tho) is not telling the other's what's happening.

Well, Mitchell meets Lucy at the hospital, she's a doctor, he falls for her, but she's actually working for some grumpy old priest, who got his wife and daughter killed by vampires, so now he's all "gotta kill 'em all!" and totally deceives Lucy into the whole thing, by making her think he wants to help ghosts and werewolves. Nina breaks it off with George, since he is being all sucky and old grumpy priest aka Kemps (aka Owen's psychiatrist) approaches her and she takes part in his tests to stop the werewolf transformation (but she doesn't know that these tests already killed a couple of werewolves). Annie meanwhile starts working, since she can be seen by humans again and meets a seemingly nice and handsome dude called Saul, but he's actually a rapist psychpath and tries to rape her but she rent'a'ghosts on him and vanishes from his flat. His television then tells him to get drunk and drive his car, which ends up with him in critical condition at the hospital. Annie goes there but when Saul dies the radio turns on and a voice commands Saul to drag Annie with him through the door, but he can't pull it off and goes through alone in the end - but Annie becomes invisible to humans again. Mitchell has shitloads to deal with the vampires and becomes their king, while George gets a new job and a girlfriend with a child. He becomes all weird and decides to move together with them as a family, but at a parent-teacher night his transformation kicks in, because he forgot to set his watch to summertime and as he runs out of the school, he comes across his girlfriend's daughter who sees him half transformed and it scares the shit out of her so the next time she sees him in their flat she starts screaming like crazy and George leaves them again. Annie does some ghost babysitting and Mitchell ends up killing a corrupt police dude... smeared with blood he runs off to Lucy's place and she tells him she knows about vampires, after he confessed what he is to her. He's not AT ALL suspicious about it and stays with her while she tries to stake him in his sleep, as Kemp has ordered her to do, but she can't bring herself to it. Instead she makes Mitchell promise to cut all ties with the vampires and he schedules a meeting, of course he tells Lucy when and where they're gonna meet and Kemp sets up a bomb which kills most of the vampires (Daisy survives, but Ivan gets killed protecting Mitchell). Mitchell goes all hatey again and kills 20 people on a train together with Daisy. Annie is meanwhile helping a psychic show artist to get in touch with ghosts again and gets a chance to talk to her mum. Nina visits George and tries to convince him to go to Kemp's lab with her, he agrees in the end and Annie goes with them, to make Kemp help her move on, since she no longer wants to stay a ghost. George realises what's going on in the lab, since Tully left a dying message there, Kemp gets all insane and kills this ghost hearing dude who was working for him and his ghost and Annie get thrown into the door. Mitchell almost kills Lucy, but doesn't in the end and Nina, George and Mitchell flee into a cottage somewhere out of town. Lucy gets there and wants to apologise, but suddenly Kemp appears there as well and kills her, before he gets a chance to kill the others, Annie grabs him from a door and takes him with her. She then appears on a TV, trying to get the other's to notice her, as it's not awesome at all where she is. Season two ends with Daisy and Cara, a chick that worked at the hospital and got turned into a vamp by Herrick, performing a ritual to revive Herrick, which they succeed in.

Season 3 is by far my favourite but I also hate it a lot. I might write about it tomorrow, if I find the time. I might also add a few screencaps next time. Maybe. XD

Still alive!

2012-02-12T05:35:00.001+01:00

I know I haven't posted much lately, but that's because I'm busy editing images for Lair Land and working on developing my own game. I hope I can soon write some more about that.

In the meantime I made I cute little banner which anyone is free to use to link to my blog!

You can use the following code to implement it on your website, blog, whatever... :D

<a href="http://geekouts.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w6rAskVvamY/Tzc3pikWZTI/AAAAAAAAANM/Okh3hbpXDtQ/s1600/banner.png" style="border: 1px solid black;" /></a>

If anyone is reading this blog at all. :>

[Spoilers] Grimm S01 E08 & E09

2012-01-26T21:13:00.001+01:00

01x08 - Game Ogre

Definitely the weakest episode so far. Hank was an annoying bitch. But gosh, how awesome is this episode's title??? XD

Well anyways, so there is the ogre on the loose who broke out of prison, trying to get revenge on the people who got him in there. So first he kills the judge, by ramming his hammer into his throat. This other woman that was working together with Hank (Mary or something) also got killed and her tounge cut out. And while the ogre is definitely rather fucked up, he's still nice enough to help and old lady cross the street. That's your neighbourhood ogre for you.

Oh well, Hank is being all bitchy about how he's the only one who can stop him while being totally ignoring the fact that that guy has inhuman strength and will just kill him. And while Hank is grounded to the police station by Renard, Nick is looking for clues. They find the ogre's car, which Mr. Ogre set up to explode and we see the ogre watching the place. Nick decides to go to the trailer to find out what the ogre could be and everything. When he gets back home, he gets beaten up by the ogre who followed him and Juliette saves the day by throwing boiling water into Mr. Ogre's face. Yay for Juliette!

So Nick is in the hospital and talks to Monroe (who is still the best character in this series!) about the ogre, who is in fact a Siegbarst.. a what? Can't they us some real German that makes sense again? ... anyways, Monroe tells Nick about the Siegbarst poison, which Nick conveniently found when he was earlier in the trailer... along with a nice shotgun and bullets to poison. Meanwhile Hank gets even more annoying, so Cpt. Renard and Wu decide to set up a trap and this is where the episode gets really crappy.... like seriously, who did write that script!?

First Hank stops at the hospital, talks to Nick, tells him that he and that Mary-or-whatever woman lost an evidence tape on purpose that might have proven the ogre's innocence. I have no idea what that scene is supposed to tell us, tbh. Hank says the ogre obviously paid some similar looking dude to be at that place, but honestly? It sounds so made up, I dunno. I'm not really thinking the ogre is a nice guy or didn't kill anyone, he's obviously a fucked up Grimm creature, but all of this was so very, very random. Anyways, Nick sent Monroe to get the shotgun and he arrives back at the hospital just when Hank is about to leave. Nick tells him to follow him and while Hank gets beaten up by the ogre and no one from the police is there at all (I mean, they suggested the trap thing and they new he was going there.... WHY DID THEY NOT SET UP A TRAP?????) Monroe totally kicks the ogre's ass and all is well again.

Besides Renard wondering who the shotgun that killed their criminal belongs to.... dundundun....

01x09 - Of Mouse And Men

Now this was a much better episode again. And a lot is happening in this one. I was starting to wonder when they'll finally add a deeper plot again, since the last couple of episodes didn't mention more of Renard and that Hexenbiest and everything... we don't get to know more about that in this episode either. But there's other fun stuff going to happen soon... :>

First of all, asshole dude gets killed in the parking lot of the apartment complex and his body is stuffed into a dumpster. Our suspects? First we got the girlfriend, Natalie, she left the night before after a huge fight and well, she's not really much of a murderer.. then there's Mason, another asshole tenant and actually also a nasty Lausenschlange (Lausenschlange? Are you serious!? That doesn't even make sense in German.......sigh) and thirdly, meet Martin, you're typical grey mouse. Literally, as he's a Mauseherz. Who lives with his father, who broke is back and can't take care of himself, so poor Marty has to do the job. The case isn't really that much better than usual, as it's pretty clear that Marty's the murder, after the second asshole dude gets killed. Marty's obsession over Natalie (and his father) isn't much interesting either.

What is interesting, is the couple in the orange truck in front of Nick and Juliette's house... while the dude is watching the house through binoculars the woman is taking pictures. Juliette notices them and walks out to them, but they drive off. Smart Juliette memorised the plate number tho and Nick finds out where they live but tells Juliette he'll have someone take care of it.

While Nick and Hank still try to figure out who killed Natalie's boyfriend and the in the meantime also murdered boss of the car repair shop, Juliette tries stalking the stalker couple. The woman is outside playing with two children and as soon as she notices Juliette she gets scared and quickly grabs her children and gets them inside. Obviously that confuses Juliette a lot but Nick keeps silent about the Grimm legacy when she tells him about it. She also says something along the lines: "At least I know who you are..." ...dundundun.

I actually don't want them to break up or let Juliette get killed. I rather like the idea of a main character that already has found the girl he loves and keeps her safe. And I'm also starting to like her. Rock on, you boiling water throwing chick!

ANYWAYS, lets get to the good part. While everyone is busy with useless shit Monroe is excited for the gig he's supposed to play. But as soon as he arrives at the meeting place he gets attacked by two bulky guys while a butt ugly freak faced woman is watching him from above the staircase. They also leave a message for Monroe, or rather for Nick. But he's still busy figuring out that Marty is actually rather messed up mentally and also that his father is actually dead already. Nick and Hank find the corpse in Marty's flat and they finally realise that Marty must be behind all the killing. Marty meanwhile continues his killing spree and kills the Lausenschlange, who deserved it, but Marty is getting all creepy. He invites Natalie out for dinner and suddenly EVERYONE looks like his dad and he goes all OMG and Natalie drags him out of the restaurant. Soon they are being followed by police and he hides in an empty warehouse or something and then I skipped the next 5 minutes of Marty running from Nick until Nick finally catched him and Marty yells at him that nobody really knows him. Oh well.

So then, after Nick has talked to Juliette he finally goes to Monroe's and sees him all beaten up, Monroe tells him about what happened and shows him the message: A reaper's scythe. Nick tells him he won't have Monroe do stuff for him anymore, so something like that won't happen again, but Monroe is all kick ass and tells him that they just have to prepared next time...... <3

Hopefully there'll be some nice action next week. :>

[Translation] Lair Land updates

2012-01-26T19:12:00.001+01:00

There isn't much to update tho.. ;>

Found a few people who are willing to translate, which I am very happy and grateful about, so translation is progressing smoothly.

Thanks to nekoyasha extracting and inserting is working just like it should. Text doesn't need any formatting besides taking care of where to put breaks... which I didn't, as you can see in the screenshots. The text is also very unedited and not final at all.

Inserting edited images is no problem either, so the translation is progressing.... slowly but steady. ;>

I won't update much more until every image is translated and a menu patch can be made, so unless I run ino some trouble and need to seek for help again, I probably won't mention much more about the translation here or elsewhere. From my experience, that's always the best way to go about such a project. :>

But since I finally saw the new Lost Girl episode yesterday I might do a rant about that later. Yeah, I know, that's just what everyone was hoping for. ;)

[Translation] Lair Land

2012-01-17T15:40:00.000+01:00

I AM IN NEED OF A CHINESE TRANSLATOR!

While I am very eager to kick off a translation on this wonderful game (more info on it on my previous post), there's this one problem: I don't know any Chinese and I don't know anyone who speaks Chinese either. Now if this game was in Japanese, there wouldn' be much of a problem, as everyone and their mother is learning Japanese nowadays, but the only thing that is Japanese in this game is the voices and those cover only 1/5 of the game. Or even less.

Anyways. Hacking on the game is simple enough (at least for Mr. super awesome programming dude NekoYasha [And since i'm talking about him, let me also tell you about his awesome translation of Period, which you can find here.]) and all images and text files that need a translation are already extracted and just waiting to get into the hands of an awesome translator.

And that means you, you Chinese speaking super nice person, who's reading this right now. :>

To get an overview about what needs to be done, let me explain a little:

There would be two goals for this translation, first of all would be an interface & system text translation so the game becomes playable to anyone. Here are a few examples of images that need translation (click to enlarge):

Next would be the complete translation, with every single bit of dialogue translated. There's a total of 526 text files, with varying lines of dialogue (but in general, the scenes are rather short), here's an example of a few of them:

;------------------------------------------------------------

;Event 1001(Main Story)

;------------------------------------------------------------

(２個月前，我抱著昏倒的她回到了城裡，推開了教堂的大門時，把所見到的事情都告訴了神父。)[n]

(神父摸著她的額頭，深深地喘了一口氣。)[n]

(他告訴我，這個孩子並不是普通的人，她的身體被授予了神聖的力量，這是大地女神賜予她的神聖禮物。)[n]

(我無法預知這孩子擁有如此強大的力量對世人是福還是禍，但她的出現，也許是女神給予世人的考驗。)[n]

(以後，需要有人引導她，教育她我們的文化，用心去讓她感受到世上的善良。)[n]

(只要這個孩子願意為受苦難的人們祈求和平與希望，災難將從此終結…)[n]

(聽了神父的說話，如果是為了世上正在受苦的人，也為了這個女孩，我願意負起教導她的責任！)[n]

(就在那一天，我做了一件出生以來，從來沒做過的事情。)[n]

(那件事…就是…)[n]

(在女神的面前，許下誓言…)[n]

(我，男爵希洛，將擔當起這個女孩的監護人。)[n]

(並在偉大的女神面前起誓，今後將不惜一切代價去保護她，直到…)[n]

(直到...她，有能力決定自己的未來為止。)[n]

(…然而，兩個月過去了，我發現她似乎甚麼都不懂，不管是人類的常識、還是文化、禮儀、思想…)[n]

(她，就像初生的嬰兒般，對任何事情都抱有好奇心和熱情…)[n]

(但是，我得替她起一個名字。)[n]

(忽然，我想起了第一次遇到她的時候，在她祈求「光之雨」的瞬間，曾經呼喊過這麼一句話。)[n]

(對了，就叫她奇莉婭吧！)[n]

【神父】[r]

希洛，奇莉婭對我們的文化和生活模式並不熟悉，她需要的是學習。[n]

【神父】[r]

如果沒有人教導她，她就很難在這裡獨立生存。[n]

【神父】[r]

至於課程方面，行程內有詳細列明。還是早點決定怎樣培育她吧。[n]

【神父】[r]

如果有適當的教導，以這孩子的潛質，將來一定會有所成就，也許會把這城市帶到光輝的未來。[n]

【神父】[r]

如果遇上了甚麼困難，就帶這孩子來教堂，仁慈的女神會幫助她度過難關的。[n]

【神父】[r]

嗯，看來她已經習慣跟你相處了。[n]

【神父】[r]

希洛，時候不早了，我該回教堂了。再見。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

希洛，是我，格奈娜。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

自從戰爭結束後，城內到處都受到了嚴重的破壞，這些地方都需要大量的人力及資源…[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

在維修方面，當然是多一個人多一份力量。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

所以，行程內設定了不少地點的貢獻項目，主要是針對各項建築物的維修工作。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

身為男爵，請為王城的事，多多少少盡一點責任吧。[n]

【菲】[r]

希洛，有很多無家可歸的人都擠在教堂裡面…[n]

【菲】[r]

越來越多人開始「信仰」大地之女神，但這並不是因為她的福音徹底遍及人們…他們只不過是希望藉此佔據教堂的一張長椅而已。[n]

【菲】[r]

不過，目前城內的重建才是當務之急，我和格奈娜都會參與。[n]

【菲】[r]

最近王城的治安變差了…一些人民因戰亂而流離失所；而現在聚集在廣場和街道的那些人群都是在找工作的……[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

目前火車站已經維修完了，嗯…不過仍需要進行人潮管制，一刻也不能鬆懈，我也該離開了。[n]

【菲】[r]

再見，格奈娜。[n]

【菲】[r]

啊！突然想起有一份工作比較適合奇莉婭，因為教堂最近變得特別繁忙，需要有人接待及打掃，也許可以讓她去試試看。[n]

【菲】[r]

只是報酬並不多，但能為神與人民服務，也算是另一種形式的學習。[n]

【菲】[r]

目前來說工作是很難得到的，工作資訊都在行程中列明了。有時候平衡家族開支，不能光靠宮廷單薄的薪俸。[n]

【菲】[r]

能說的都說了，今後的生活或許很艱辛，不過在女神祂看來，這正是洗滌過去的塵埃、重新開始的時候。[n]

【奇莉婭】[r]

謝謝希洛和大家這麼關心我…[n]

【奇莉婭】[r]

未來的日子，我會努力的。[n]

;------------------------------------------------------------

;Event 1012(Main Story)(ADD)

;------------------------------------------------------------

【王城士兵】[r]

男爵閣下，不好意思，打擾您了。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

據進城的木匠們說，在城郊的樹林出現了奇異的蝴蝶，那個好像是會發光的…[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

成群發光的蝴蝶飛來飛去，確實罕見啊。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

為了確保安全，宮廷將會派人進行調查，目前頒佈了暫令，禁止任何人單獨前往樹林。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

所以，我來通知您和奇莉婭小姐。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

失陪了，男爵閣下，我還要趕去通知其他人。[n]

;------------------------------------------------------------

;Event 4001(Grana Story)

;------------------------------------------------------------

【格奈娜】[r]

城內的情況不穩定，身為士兵是責無旁貸的。凡是有人破壞、搗亂的，統統捉起來。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

是的，請隊長放心。[n]

【王城士兵】[r]

目前各城門和街道都很平靜，我們會加派多幾名士兵巡邏的。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

希洛，如你所見，我肩負起維護治安和重建城邦的重任後，實在沒有閒暇招呼樂悠悠的貴族。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

你們這群貴族常常無事可為的樣子，發生混亂的時候就捨棄了職責，對人民的哀鳴充耳不聞。[n]

沒那麼嚴重吧？總會有例外殷勤的人吧？[r]

沒那麼嚴重吧？真的發生了事情，自然會有挺身而出的人。[r]

【格奈娜】[r]

哼，有例外的人存在嗎？[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

戰爭早已把最殷勤的人們帶走了，剩下的不過是空有其表的人。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

平時就應該做好所有防備，確保風氣制度良好。不然等到事態嚴重時才處理，已經太遲了。[n]

【格奈娜】[r]

被動和主動是不同的，不要把我和你相提並論。[n]

So, if anyone feels up to it and would like to help out, even if just for certain parts... I'd really appreciate the help. :)

Please reply here or on the forums from which you got here and tell me how to contact you so we can do further talking. <3

[Spoilers] Sherlock S02 E03

2012-01-17T01:17:00.000+01:00

The awesome thing about Sherlock is, that each episode surpasses the previous one. I started thinking after the second episode of the first season that it couldn't get better anymore. But then I saw the third one and it left me speechless. (I regained my words quickly again and started cursing at my TV, desperate to know how it continues after that massive cliffhanger.)

I don't know how true to the original books each story is, as I've only seen a few of the animated Sherlock Holmes movies and the hollywood one with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, I've yet to see the second one with them. But what I do know, is that Steve Moffat and Mark Gattis did an awesome job adapting the characters into modern times. The series is exciting and fun and at times so very, very sad.

"The Reichenbach Fall" was no exception. Moriarty is back again and more scheming than ever. He was actually really cool in this episode, I didn't take him much serious at first, he was just so silly and such a bitch. He was so over the top that it annoyed me. But this time he is so, so very evil. And Holmes, oh Holmes... he and Watson had such cute moments in this episode. And I loved to see Molly get some of Holmes attention... I really wonder what she did for him.

And gosh, was it sad. And how I loved Moffat & Gattis for pulling the fake death just like with Irine again. (As I didn't know they had already announced a third season I really thought he was dead. orz) It somehow reminds me of the Doctor Who fake deaths of Rory tho... hopefully they won't overuse that element this time. ;>

I also wonder how Mycroft will make his big fail up to Holmes. And boy, I didn't know Mycroft was played by Gatiss. But he does a fabulous job at it!

All in all the third season was quite the rollercoaster ride and I can't wait to get on another one. Sadly everyone is busy with filming other stuff so it will take another year again for the next season to come out. Sigh.

But oh well, there is lots of other series I'm currently watching (Switched at Birth, Grimm, New Girl) and soon the new season of Lost Girl will start, I'm still not sure if I like the series, but Kenzi is the most awesome character ever! <3 She's just as quirky as Abbs from NCIS. Can't wait for more of that either... and after the summer, my beloved Doctor will return as well. And as soon as the PS Vita is released, I'll be plenty of distracted anyways. :>

Lair Land

2012-01-15T23:01:00.000+01:00

Lair Land

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2007/07/06

Circle Ent.

Official Page

Windows

In Lair Land, a Chinese Princess Maker clone, you take on the role of Hirol who is taking care of the mysterious Chilia. She was found unconscious during a fight against some dragonlike creatures, with no memory of who she is. The priest is convinced she was sent by the goddess and asks Hirol to take care of her, as he thinks how Chilia grows up will affect the fate of mankind.

The game was first released for PC in 2007, with Chinese text and Japanese voice overs (for a few scenes), later on it got ported to PSP by Arc System Works for the Japanese market. A new character and a few new extras where added. But the PSP port lacks the skip function of the PC game.

The game starts of with a pretty anime cutscene explaining how they met:

After Hirol and Chilia have settled down in their home the simulation part of the game kicks in. The game spans a time of 4 years, each month spans 30 days and you can choose what you want Chilia to do twice a month. Three actions can be choosen from 4 different categories. You have a couple of options and as time passes more get unlocked. You can go to classes, take on jobs, repair the war struck kingdom or let Chilia relax. It's important to balance out raising Chilia's stats, earning money and letting Chilia's stress level go down again with a nice bath or an holiday trip. Repairing the city is absolutely optional, but has various effects on the game. It triggers events, gives you discounts in shops and makes more items to buy available. It's probably also a requirement for the best ending.

And there is a lot of endings. Job related endings, romance endings and different story endings. Depending on what skills you level, what classes and jobs you master, how much of the kingdom you rebuilt and what events you trigger (and what choices you make in these!) you will end up with different endings. So far I only got one ending, from my first playthrough and Chilia ended up being this mad alchemist and tied Hirol on a chair to make him drink her weird potions. I liked that as my first ending. :>

The game has a good portion of humor. I especially cracked up at the mushroom picking holiday scene:

Besides all the stat raising and getting to know the kingdom's people, there's also the option to invest in your house and upgrade it, get furniture for your home, dress Chilia up and you can even ask the tailor to make custom coloured clothes, if you have the right items and enough money. At the hair stylist's you can get her a new haircut and on your second playthrough even new hair colours. After you finish the game, you get bonus points, which you can spend in the Bonus Shop via the main menu. There you can buy new clothes and new hairstyles and colours. The CG Gallery is also unlocked after getting your first ending.

I've hardly scratched the surface of the game on my first playthrough, but thanks to the skip function I'll surely go back to game soon. I really want to find out who that masked dude in the forest was who hypnotised Chilia. And I also want to see the marriage endings. A really nice thing about the those is, that you can get Hirol and Chilia married individually. Of course the two can also end up together, but there's also other partners for each of them to meet and romance. Sadly you never really know for whom you will trigger an event when walking through the town, sometimes it's an event for Chilia, sometimes for Hirol. (Or both of them.)

One thing that bothered me was that pretty blue haired harp playing guy Chilia meets at the plaza and then meets again when taking the violinist job. Why the hell is that hottie not dateable!? :>

I definitely recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of stat raising sims, it's pretty catering to both genders, which is quite rare in this genre. Even without any knowledge of Chinese, the game is rather playable, once you figured out, what each button means. I surely haven't found out what all of them meant and still got me a pleasing ending. :)

Finally.

2012-01-15T20:08:00.000+01:00

While everything is still rather unpolished, I finally got around to set my blog up.

The header image is still not finished and my first try at pixel art, so tolerate it. :>

This blog will be about me randomly ranting or reviewing things I like, this includes:
- tv series
- video games
- anime
- books
- everything else

I hope at least some will enjoy reading what I've got to say and I'm happy about any feedback
(or designing help ;>) I can get, so feel free to comment. :)

~Milki