Sorry for making this a short one, guys, but I tried posting a long thank you with a sonette last Tuesday and the Dtoid post editor ate it up. I think it happened because the title disappeared and I clicked post without a title. I don’t know, I just know that I was pissed as fuck.

Anyway, last month I won a random drawing on the WePC contest. I had my choice of Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, or Ninja Town DS. Seeing as how Mirror’s Edge was “secretly” bought as a Christmas gift to me (I found out because the cousin my mom took to pick out a game for me didn’t know it was a gift and asked me how it was. I know, he’s retarded) and I totally DIDN’T get Ninja Town for my R4 (not so impressed but quirky little game), I chose Fallout 3, even though I’m not too into western RPGs. The reason? Like the “RetroForce Go!” guys, I too think they’re too fucking complex. I prefer JRPGs ‘cause I’m a story-bound kinda guy and they’re not incredibly confusing.

After a shitty morning in which I was sure I bombed two semestral tests, I got home and lo and behold, a package was waiting for me.


“OMG! DESTRUCTOID”, this little man screamed. I teared the package* open and found this:


*cum*

Having heard of the awesomeness that is a Dtoid package, I searched inside for Hamza/Niero armhair and found something even better:


Front

ORAAAANGE

Of course, I don’t exactly trust it but I’ll be sure to use it. Sadly, at my age true sex is scarce and so it shall remain in my drawer for a while (unless Santa brings me a girlie for xmas :)

This was the part where I talked about my Fallout 3 impressions in my original post, which the Destructoid gods deleted. This shall never happen again because I’ve wised up and will write posts on MS Word from now on, but if anyone’s wondering: I liked it. I really, really like it as in I put off studying for the test that I most cared about (Biology = my career) just to play it a few more hours. About 13 hours in one of the busiest weeks in the year might sound like a small feat, but it sure wasn’t.

So, thank you Niero, and thank you Destructoid. If you ever do a Dtoid Cancun again I’ll try to be there just to use the condom on you all.

* Niero, let me know if there was anything else inside. The package was ripped open in customs and the mailman wrote a note saying it looked pretty mauled.

So I was checking out a fail blog a few cblogs under this one and I clicked on the Chrono Trigger DS japanese site again for no reason at all. Lo an behold, a timer has been added.

Doing some Jr. Matlocking, a.k.a. basic math, I discovered the timer is set to expire in 3.4 days. That gives me just enough time to fap furiously and then wash my sheets 10 times. I am happy.

Having never finished the original SNES one because my NOT emulator decided to forget 9 hours worth of leveling up, I'm really excited for the remake. I know the timer won't be something huge, but man, am I giddy as a schoolgirl.

Here's to a release date and/or videos/screens.

UPDATE: It seems like at the time I saw it, it looked like seconds. However, some people saw it change from 00 to 60, so it's hours. The time left is 31 hours. Sorry, but the lack of colons between the numbers made it confusing.

Gay post is gay, but true

Today, I must confess my love to Ron Workman and Destructoid.

It all started with a simple contest. EternalDeathSlayer was having a contest in which the prize was a 1600 MS Points card. I participated as best as I could at the time but didn't really expect to win. I didn't, but the meng who takes ur yobz commented on my blog promising points. I e-mailed him about it to see if he was serious and he was, though he couldn't give me any at the time.

Months passed and on Sunday, I checked my mail to find this:


Code's been used so don't even think about it.

Seriously, I can't believe how awesome the people here are. Even though he didn't know me, he saw my suffering and decided to help. The most astounding part is that it has been almost 3 months since he promised to give me the points. I just can't express how grateful I am.

I also see that this is not just a staff-to-community thing to keep us happy. A lot of users have contests just to help people game. A lot of users send stuff to each other like true friends do. It's amazing how close Destructoid brings us.

In case you were wondering, those 1600 points are gone. Got around 13 songs with it and I love all of them so far. It really has made me enjoy the game even more with my friends because they know a lot of the songs I bought.

And it's all thanks to you...thank you Ron [/Princess Peach at the end of SM64]


Dtoiders hugging.

Before being a regular (albeit kinda unknown) at Destructoid, I used to be a very big community member in a site called DS-Play. After a bit, I got promoted to editor and later on, moderator. The site spread into a network and because of this, its traffic decreased and died. Needless to say, it hurt me how a place I put so much effort into became dead because people couldn't be bothered to write a different URL.



Now, the site's admin is trying a sort of comeback. I need to know if older people like the destructoid community like these layouts. The sites can be found here:

DS-Play
Wii-Play
360-Play
PS-Play
Retro-Play
Gr00pz

Gr00pz is a site where you can create your own mini-site with a blog, forums, chat, etc.(mainly for clans and guilds).

Anyway, opinions on the layout?

p.s. Before flaming, please note I didn't ask anyone to sign up.

Crappy pics provided by 2megapixel cellphone cam.

In before "power-glove missed this":

So I was about to start a singing carreer (shut up, I got stuck on expert drums and guitar) and the first thing I noticed when I signed in was this:


Wtf is a Rock band ad doing in MY Xbox. WHEN DID MY ACCOUNT GET ADS?

This called for investigation.



I booted up the Rock Band dvd and for the first time ever, it did not greet me with some bullshit "parental settings don't allow you to see the Music Store" warning. Just proceeding to the store was a beautiful experience.


You can kinda see it... my gamertag is there in the top left corner. Also, Disturbed is scary

Finally, EA saw there's money to be made outside the states and launched DLC in Mexico. Finally, I can stop importing point cards that cost me almost twice as much. And most importantly, I can finally download MOAR tracks with ease, which means more fun, which means more money for EA. Everybody wins.


My best Chad "Amazing" Concelmo face

If you excuse me, I must now fap and then proceed to find my fucking money and get paid by a few friends that owe me money. Rock Band is getting a second air for me (not that it was ever extremely dull, but you understand).

Rock out!

____________________________________________________________________________

Yes, I know I made a blog out of nothing but it's my blog.

Recently, I got my hands on Ninja Gaiden II. As anyone who played the original Xbox's version of Ninja Gaiden, I was pretty excited to find out how the game had changed with the leap of generations.



After checking out the newest Rock Band tracks (holy shit I have so many songs on my to-download list), I booted Ninja Gaiden II. The first thing I noticed was a 5 sec loading even before the title screen. No biggie, I guess. Grand Theft Auto has been doing this since III with even longer loads.

I start up a new game and watch the opening cinematic. It makes me sad to inform everyone that the new Ninj Gaiden girl isn't as hot as Rachel. Those looking for big boobs will of course find them since this is a Team Ninja game. Anyway, the opening scene isn't that exciting and it certainly lacks the whole "next-gen" feel. Anyone ever noticed the difference between watching a TV show and watching a video on a video-cam? Well, the cutscenes felt like that.

Enough about that, though. It is the gameplay that matters, right? The gameplay is just filled with blood and flying limbs. That new feature where limbless enemies become kamikazes if you don't finish them off is truly a pain in the ass sometimes, but man, does it make the game feel even better. All your standard moves are here and after a bit of practice I managed to even pull off that move were Ryu grabs his enemy in the air and slams him headfirst into the ground. It's so empowering.



As usual, I'm quite bored with the weapon upgrades. The staff is just horrible, and the bear-like claws are useless against bosses and should be only used when surrounded by low-level ninjas.

Speaking of bosses, holy crap. They are so awesome and so punishing. Minor spoilers follow. The first boss (which is reused on the second chapter) is a huge spider-like creature the likes of which are born in hell. Now, maybe I don't know eneough about the series, but it'd sure be nice to know where the fuck it came from and how it was carried all the way up to the airship thingy you fight on. He's not that hard but if you're hit by his attacks, man, you're fucked.

STILL MINOR SPOILERS. The second boss is the leader of the Black Spider clan and even though he's also not impossibly difficult (this is, of course, just the second chapter), you'll likely reach him without any health revitalizers left. This made this battle awesome and incredibly rewarding to me, and if you're in the same position as I was, you'll probably love it, too.

END SPOILERS



The worst thing I found about Ninja Gaiden II is that it is completely last-gen. The graphics may look a bit nicer, but all of the environments are closed off, invisible walls abound, and loading times can occur in the most inopurtune times (I've had some 5 sec loads whenever I perform a Flying Swallow attack that goes out of the "area").

Anyway, I'm sure you've already made up your mind about getting this or not, but I thought the community would like a regular gamer's point of view on this. It's not that I don't think you should trust Nick's opinion (which, strangely enough, is very much like mine), but I know reviewers can feel jaded after playing so many games, having being one myself.

p.s. Amazing glitch time: in the second chapter, I was surrounded by enemies in a low-ceiling building. I perform the air-grabbing headfirst landing move and the games glitched out. I was out of the building in a black hole of emptiness for about 10 secs until the game resetted and put me back in the building. The enemy I had attacked disappeared into oblivion, though.