Post of the Day: 5.28.2009

I'd very much like to decorate my fridge with these retro gaming magnets. It would add some class to our kitchen.

Post of the Day: 5.27.2009

Square-Enix got the party started (E3) last week by draping huge advertisements for Final Fantasy XIII down a few buildings in L.A. Also note the 2010 North American release time frame for the game. In a year we could be playing it. *crosses fingers*

Post of the Day: 5.23.2009

What haven't they made soap out of? Here's some Tetris soap.

Post of the Day: 4.25.2009

Build your own glow-in-the-dark Space Invaders lamp! Sounds like fun...

Post of the Day: 4.18.2009

Final Fantasy VIII: Advent Children Complete box art is hot.

Post of the Day: 3.23.2009

As if we haven't seen enough of these lately, here's a periodic table of Final Fantasy characters. I couldn't resist posting that one.

Post of the Day: 3.20.2009

Blizzard Erects 12-Foot-Tall World of Warcraft Statue at HQ.

Post of the Day: 3.12.2009

Periodic Table of Video Game Characters. Cool!

Post of the Day: 2.22.2009

Donkey Kong Junior Bathroom Art!

Flower Impresses

Everyone has been talking about the PSN game that isn't a game (or is it?) recently. That game, of course, is Flower - a very artistic, zen-like experience that you will either love or hate. I finally got around to downloading it over the weekend, except I didn't play it. I'm still trying (and usually failing horribly) to get my wife into some game - any game. (Useless trivia: I got her to play a one-on-one match in Halo 3 with me…and she vowed never to play the game again.)

So, I downloaded Flower and, instead of playing it myself, I handed the controller to her and let her play it. She covered the first couple levels the other night and just finished it up this morning. What does she think of the whole experience? I'm not sure, I haven't talked to her much. However, I'm attempting to get her to write a column for this blog explaining her experience with various games - with a non-gamer wife point of view (more to come on this in the future). If or when that time arrives, we will see what she thought of Flower in a post on this blog. What I know now is that she enjoyed it and was rather impressed with it - and that's saying a lot.

Post of the Day: 2.13.2009

Is video game music less interesting than it used to be?

Post of the Day: 2.9.2009

Feast your eyes on this - HD video game remake art.

New Star Ocean Changes Graphics for North American Release

Not that there's anything wrong with this, per se, I'm just curious why these changes were made. Check out the various screen shots from the game over in this post at Siliconera. Its fairly easy to spot the differences, even without reading the post itself.

1) The character portraits during battle are different. In the Japanese version, they're anime-inspired, in the North American version they're CG models. I can perhaps understand why the went this route, trying to appeal to the U.S. Xbox Live kiddies who may not really be into Japanese games, RPGs, anime or manga at all. Perhaps its even to give the game a more uniform appearance for release based on this region's culture. Do I like this change? Its not bad. The CG models are insanely well done, so I don't see a problem with it. Although, it may feel less like a Tri-Ace game without the anime portraits. Still, its no big deal.

2) The menu screens are different. Again, there's a colorful character silhouette backdrop to the menu screen on the Japanese copy, but on the North American version its a full-body CG graphic of the character and not a whole lot of color. The Japanese version gives me a very Persona-esque vibe, with the bold, contrasting colors. Again, the North American menu screen does give that portion of the game a more uniform appearance with the rest, copying the "CG model" look of it all. As Siliconera mentions, it also makes it look more distinctively sci-fi instead of anime-inspired. Do I like this change? I'm not sure, I really like the bold colors of the Japanese version, it gives that portion of the game a bit of character, but this is probably because I still have Persona 4 on the brain.

3) Character portraits next to their respective dialog segments were removed in the North American version. Why didn't they just change the anime portraits to CG renderings like on the battle screen? Curious...

This definitely isn't the first game to see changes between two different regions, but these are far from subtle - they're segments of the game that will spend a lot of time on your screen. I'm still curious as to the reasons they were made. Both versions aren't bad, they're just different, perhaps focusing on different audiences.

Post of the Day: 2.6.2009

How to make a portal gun replica. Hot girl not included.

Post of the Day: 1.14.2009

I love you more than Xbox.

Make Your Own Potions

In case you're one of those people who have always wondered how to make your own potions (you know, alchemist types), here's a how-to post for you. The people behind The Bronze Kettle recently wrote up a piece for WoW Insider on how to make your own WoW potions.

I think this is pretty darn nifty, especially for extreme cosplayers or those of us who like the retro look of lava lamps. They look even better with light cubes added, as is mentioned in the article.

"Rain"

I absolutely love the song "Rain" by Angela Aki. I just saw the a video of her playing it on a piano and singing and it made me like the song even more. I don't understand a word of Japanese, but you don't really need to understand the language to appreciate the song.

Some might also recognize her song "Kiss Me Goodbye" (live Japanese piano version and in-game English version) from the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack; also a very emotionally gripping song.

I really, really love the solo piano in these live performances, it almost makes me want to start playing again.

Header Graphic Update

Yeah, so I went ahead and updated the header graphic of my site again. There really should be an easy way to create multiple "skins" for Blogger sites and have users select the one they want...that would be kind of nifty. Anyway, this graphic is from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

In the meantime, I might just throw in a script that loads a random header image. We'll see if I'm smart enough to come up with one. ;)

Changing Things Up

If you haven't already noticed, I'm changing things up on my blog a bit - most notably a lighter background and a title image. This title image is from Love Hina. I had quite a bit of fun messing around with Photoshop again, since I usually leave all of that stuff to my brother.

Anyway, since I had fun making that image, you might see other title images pop up on a regular basis, and once I get a decent collection of ones I like, I'll probably continue to rotate them.

Anyway, some more changes might be coming, we'll see. ;)

Not Much of an Art Person...

I've never been good at art. Sure, I wished I was talented in that area - mostly digital art and photography - but I've never been good at it. (Although I have tried some in the past.)

A couple months back, a friend of mine at work put me on to some stuff he liked over at DeviantArt (possibly NSFW, depending where you go from there). Since then, I've found a few really cool artists (one photographer and a couple digital artists) that I really like (and, frankly, wish I could do myself...haha). So, I thought I'd share the three that I find most interesting.

• Eireen
  
• Princess of Shadows
• Kedralynn