Hey All, my real name is Dave, and I originally joined theO as a wallpaper maker, but now I've been more focused on fan art and improving my work. I've been a member for about 10 years now, including various name changes lol.
As for my anime tastes, I'm a huge fan of sci-fi, action/shounen, and mecha. My first ever complete manga series was Love Hina, which I still rank as my favorite, and its also what pushed me to draw more. Akamatsu-sensei's Negima is also highly ranked on my list and also acts as a source of inspiration (although I prefer his style from Volumes 13 & 14 of Love Hina a little more lol).
Currently, I'm reading Bleach and UQ Holder!. I haven't been following much anime that's been airing lately since most of it is seemingly loli fanservice-type shows. I try and follow any Gundam series that I can, and I was actually impressed with the Build Fighters series; it focuses more on camaraderies and rivalries that are surprisingly well written. It's pretty childish, but I get a kick out of all the easter eggs hidden within it. I also own a variety of Miyazaki's movies due to their charm and underlying messages about our world and the environment.
I also game a little bit when I'm not drawing or at work/school; I mainly play RPGs and fighters, but I have dabbled into 3rd person shooters (Vanquish, Crysis series), some action adventure games, and racing (Gran Turismo 5). I also enjoy RTSs, but I pretty much only play Starcraft II on and off.
As for school/employment, I am currently employed with the electronics retailer The Source up in Canada, and I'm attending college to become a Medical Lab Technician. I'll be done around October 2015, then I can work in any diagnostic lab/hospital to help diagnose diseases!
lol, so I haven't really posted much, have I? I guess that's because of work business, not being any interesting news in the anime domain (that interests me anyway), and Phantasy Star kinda eats up some time too. I still try to submit at least one thing a week, and comment every once in awhile. Almost done my second work term sadly, went by so fast probably because of being in the field fishing for about a month. Now things are slowing down at work, and its bascially just cleaning and Christmas lunches I'm off starting next Friday, and I don't know if I'll have a many chances to come on the site during the break due to food, family, and friends visiting. Should be able to get the odd submission up though.
Anyway, reguarding the article, its actually one about Nintendo's recent activities. I'm not really in the video game loop anymore, and get most of my info from random findings. Anyway, I'm not really a HUGE fan of any of the consoles really, since all of them have their pirks, and PS3 and XBox have alot of the same games now anyway, save for the odd exclusive. By the way, my brother owns a PS3, and has all of 4 games for it, lol. It really is just a way to pass the time if we're extremely bored, and doubles as the house Blu-Ray player for our parents.
Anyway, I'll state right now that for any who read this and are loyal to Nintendo, you will immediately hate this post and the article, and possibly me too, lol. The article talks about how Nintendo seems to be cutting corners as of late with game development and whatnot, especially in the area of presentation, which I whole-heartedly agree on. Now, again, I haven't had much info from video games flowing in, by my brotehr did own a Wii for a little over a year, and I had 4 months to really use it, and rooming with Kastom for 8 months also allowed me some time with it. It was fun at first, but eventually we found ourselves not really getting any games for it, and all we'd play was Super Smash Brothers Brawl. This was due to our prior experience with other games simply being a waggle fest of controllers, or simply not supporting motion control at all. So hence the switch to Sony, who had more games up my brother's ally, that being shooters (Modern Warfare 2 and Medal Gear Solid 4), Soul Caliber as an old favorite, and my game Blazblue. It's also backwards compatible with PS1 as well, so FF's VII-IX (7 to 9 for those would can't read roman numerals) also get played.
Anyway, back to the presentation of things. What struck me as odd was that the Wii doesn't support Surround Sound; with more and more people buying home theatre systems, ya'd think that would standard by now, and the fact that PS2 and Xbox (I think) both had it ages ago. Something else that bothers me, which I will recieve the most heat for, is Nintendo's choice of graphics. I know, its ain't all about visuals, but with HD technology pretty much figured out now and ALMOST common place (hell, most laptops come in 720p, standard HD cable format), but would it kill them to use a little more developed character models for later Mii based games, like the Sports Resort or Wii Music? The gamecube could do it, so why can't a newer, stronger system do it? And don't give me development time issues, the graphic designers should be pros at at-least upkeeping gamecube (not limb-less Miis) quality visuals. Also, the Wii's best resolution is 480p, which means 480 pixels vertically and 720 horinzontally shown in a progressive (smooth, no flickering pictures) manner...The PSP, a handheld, and OLDER than the Wii, runs in the same resolution! I know Sony focuses almost exclusively on visuals, but its almost four years after Wii's release, with no apparent improvement in presentation is kinda sad. Another hardware issue I have is the fact that Wii only has 512MB for storage space; I know because of not beastly visuals it don't need the space, but if they suddenly decide to beef up visuals, that memory will be chewed up quite quickly. And I don't think you can even give away a 512 USB disk, with 8GB ones now selling for less than 30$. Yes, there's the SD card slot, but those don't come cheap, and aren't included with the system.
And one final note is the DS; sure, stylus based gameplay sounds good on paper, but the only game that I've heard of/played that actually uses it properly is "The World Ends with You", by Square Enix (makers of graphics intense Final Fantasy, funny how they went zero on graphics and all on gameplay for this one). ALL commands of your main character are done with iPhone-like stylus gestures, and your partner is controlled with buttons, so it uses BOTH control schemes. Every other game I own for my DS uses zero stylus commands, and may only have optional moving through menues, nothing noteworthy. I hear alot of teh games just use the stylus for movement, such as the new Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which seems kinda unoriginal with the DS's current age and previous titles in the series on the same system. Also, instead of trying to make a completely NEW handheld, they simply keep slightly remodeling the DS, with releases such as the DS Lite, DSi (only adding a camera and minor software add ins), and the DSiLL (sporting only a slightly bigger screen and monstrous stylus). With this, I must also note that Sony is guilty of the same thing with the PSP 1000, 2000, and 3000; the PSP Go seems like a failure cuz it only has digital games, and a big name, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, will not be available for it digitally, and it can't play UMD.
In any case, as shown in the article (linked below), it just seems that they like to cut corners with presentation, release a ton of similar, slightly modified games, and rake in the cash. I daresay they are using "quantity over quality", which is kinda a no-no especially when the customer expectes something fresh and new. And with visual technology developing the way it is, it'd be easy to simply give the Wii a visual-facelift and not use excuses like "we didn't inlcude Princess Peach in the new Mario Bros. because Toad's model is more similar to Mario's" [and easier to recycle] to save on development time. That and Super Mario Galaxy looked beautiful, so why can't all their other games have the same quality to them?
lol, I guess this kinda turned into my own schpeal about the company too. But anyway, the article can be found here, and feedback or thoughts would be kinda cool. Enjoy! (Or hate, depending on your interpretation :P)
Well, about 4 years ago now, Kastom introduced me to the wonderful game that is Phantasy Star Online; the first time I played it, I hated it, then loved it every time after that. Turns out that's how EVERY person who plays this game feels the first time around lol. Its once you get sucked into (and addicted) to the level grinding and rare item collecting that you want to play this more and more lol. But alas, I no longer have a Wii to even buy the game, SEGA closed its servers, and Phatasy Star Universe for the PS2 didn't seem to have an offline multiplayer (and my PS2 broke anyway).
However, when my brother (Ushiro) and I went to buy a PSP, I noticed a "Phantasy Star Portable" available it. I didn't buy it right away because I heard PSU (Phatasy Star Universe) had its share of problems, and so I did not want to make an uninformed purchased. When I looked it up, I found it the story was crap (big surprise:P), but it was still the addictive level-grinding-item-collecting game I liked, just not the "legendary" original. I also happened upon a DS Phantasy Star titled "Phatasy Star Zero", which looks like PS for 12 year olds sadly.
Now question is, should I get Portable, Zero, or BOTH? Portable plays more like PSU, and Zero seems to play more like the original. BUT Portable seems to have ALOT more items and selection in weapons, whereas Zero seems simplified and has less of an item roster. Sadly Zero comes out the day before my holiday, and IF I'm to get it I'd want it for the long train ride, but Portable is already out, but the PSP is at home with my brother. Decisions decisions...Depending what I hear on Zero I'll probably wind up buying it, and I may wind up getting Portable as well, but I dunno yet:P
Oh, and I happened upon a happy little site, SCHTHACK Phantasy Star Online which lets you download the PC version of Phantasy Star Online, titled "Blue Burst." This title includes Phantasy Online Episodes I & II, and random more stuff and updates to the game. Currently downloading it now and I'll let you guys know if it works.
EDIT: ZOMG! It actually works! People can play Phantasy Star Online ONLINE again, lol. No offline play however, one can only hack the game so far it seems.
Well, after seeing an anime titled "Nyan Koi!" being blogged on a site called Random Curiosity, I decided to look it up since it looked like it was animated well, and had some interesting character designs. The story follows Kousaka Junpei, a high school student of undisclosed age (I'd say 16-17) who one day walks home from school, and tries to kick a can into a garbage using a computer targetting system that is his brain. Turns out he misses, breaks the head off a cat statue, and is cursed into being able to understand what cats are saying and being able to talk back to them.
Anyway, the reason why I gave this feature the title that I did is because this show revolves ENTIRELY around cats, and many of 'em at that. I'd also consider this a harem anime, since there is only ONE male antagonist, and the rest are female...or cats Anyway, the one episode that I watched pretty much got me hooked, and it was quite comedic; funny thing is, no ecchi-ness has been employed YET (kinda early for me to say) even though most of the cast is female. However, there is an entire season left to trample that fact.
Anyhoo, here is the intro from youtube (I seem to be doing this every post now, lol), and enjoy the cat/neko-ness!
P.S. LOLZ, watching the intro again, I just noticed there is a tomboy-ish kendo girl to be introduced later...Motoko Aoyama (Love Hina) anyone? Oh, and I saw Princess Mononoke at Future Shop for 18.99$...still too expensive for a movie as old as I am, but I added it to my collection anyway:P
Well, the people in Japan finally decided to let us view FULL moving pics of the new Gundams with the Blu-Ray release of Gundam 00's special edition (part I), filled with Ribbons on Alejandro action and more apparently. *SIGH* Anyway, yaoi-ish content aside, looks like the last pic of Zabanya I posted was indeed fake, as shown by the trailer below:
Anyway, the machines are beginning to grow on me, even though they look kinda wierd at first glance (as with all the other suits the first time around I found), but I feel some of them are a little lacking in the weapons/accessory department. Raphael had BETTER have more then the friggin' beam claw thingies (which I can't see going very far in a fight), and I hope that funky backpack Zabanya has serves some purpose, cuz twin dually-pistols isn't much of an armament. Harute actually looks the most complete, but I'm a little dissapointed in the design cuz it looks far too much like the GN-Archer (I was kinda hoping for a bad-ass jet mode instead of a box :P). The Qan[T] or Quanta looks alright, I like the direction they took with the helmet, but the rest of the frame looks pretty bear; I just hope he gets some more stuff later, but it seems doubtful as someone pointed out to me that the Quanta has six funnel/fang things and one bigass sword, so I guess there's the Seven Sword system right there. Stay posted for a 00 Quanta wall, since I just got my hands on some HD pics of it
P.S. Man, that was kinda a negative feature, lol...My bad, I'm sure they won't let us down.
Well, the field season is more or less over, so I have made my way back to my temporary lodgings in Burlington again, so I'll have time to do stuff on the site again. The trip went well, caught more or less all the samples we needed for now, and those that we didn't catch aren't season dependent, so the guys will pick them up next spring, lucky for us:P
I'm off starting next Friday, and I don't know if I'll have a many chances to come on the site during the break due to food, family, and friends visiting. Should be able to get the odd submission up though.
Anyway, the one episode that I watched pretty much got me hooked, and it was quite comedic; funny thing is, no ecchi-ness has been employed YET (kinda early for me to say) even though most of the cast is female. However, there is an entire season left to trample that fact.
