lately I’ve been playing my ps2 in the living room since my old HS friend has been staying over.  He’s been playing COD Modern Warfare like a madman in my room leveling up my character so I’m out playing on the old SD TV playing Yakuza.  Yakuza is a 5 year old game, so the graphics are hard to look at.  I’ve been spoiled with current gen graphics but the story is pretty solid and game play is good.  So far 6 hours into it. I will probably have to start hunting for Yakuza 2 soon. 

What’s nice about playing on the PS2 is I don’t have to worry about finding every stupid little item, or talking to every character, or killing 10 bad guys in 1 minute for the achievement points like in Xbox.  Those achievements are addicting I admit, and I’m guilty for looking up guides on how to get the achievements in games.  Achievement points I feel it detracts from the whole sit back and relax factor of gaming in general.  Achievements in fact make me not even bother turning on the xbox sometimes because I’m feeling too lazy to play super carefully to get those achievements.  Oh well PS3 has those trophies, but it doesn’t seem like people talk about them as much.  We’ll see.

Now do I buy that PS3 soon? So far I want to play Valkyria Chronicles, Yakuza 3 and Final Fantasy 13.  What else ? I need more games to justify a 300 dollar purchase.  I heard summer might bring the ps3 price down a bit again.  We’ll see.

Blah too lazy to check for grammatical errors.  Drinking a bottle of wine does that I guess. hehe.

Comes out today.  I hope I can enjoy it as much as the first one.  Though what made the first one so fun was my ex would watch and help point out targets for me.  It was more enjoyable that way.  Hopefully my friends will all be into it and I can find joy in it.  If not then it’ll sit on my shelf like the rest.

Can’t wait for this game! I’ve had it pre-ordered for months now.

I have a huge backlog of games I need to get through on my xbox and PC.  I bought games that I thought I would play on my own when my ex was busy with law school, then I bought games that we would enjoy playing together.

Now I have all these games I started with her and now it pains me to think of playing them on my own.    I dunno if I’ll ever beat Fallout 3 and the 4 DLcs I purchased for it, Batman, or Gears of War 2.  Deadspace will probably sit in the shrink wrap because I’m a wimp for horror stuff and she loved that genre.   She said she loved watching me play xbox, but now I guess the xbox was what helped contribute to her perception that our relationship was boring at the end? Though I don’t think I turned in on much during the last few weeks.   Maybe the fact that she said she liked xbox made me way too comfy in our relationship.  Always gotta be on your toes I suppose.  Sigh never ever will I turn that xbox again if/when I date again.  So yeah fellow nerds never ever ever play video games in front of them.  No matter how much they claim to like it.  They might be entertained briefly, but they’ll get bored of it quick.

I turned on the xbox last night after 2 weeks since this turbulent event started in my life.  I tried to play to keep my mind occupied, but I couldn’t keep focus.  It was easier to lose myself into a TV show and then just pass out.  At least I’m not turning to the bottle this week like I did all of last week.

Blah I’m depressing.

Recently picked up this art book from amazon. As you all know I’ve been obsessed with playing street fighter lately.  My GF has started grad school so I’m left with a lot of free time after work lately.  I can’t compete with the darn kids on xbox a lot of the time, but I still find the game enjoyable.   My GF doesn’t like to watch me play since when I lose I tend to uh get grumpy. haha.

So anyways yeah I wanted to get this art book when I saw it at anime expo.  It was made by Udon and they pretty much create all of Capcom’s  comic books. Now I need to borrow my friend’s scanner and maybe use some images to apply to one of my fight sticks. hehe.

I used this opportunity to even record a video and actually setup a youtube account to upload video.  It was pretty easy I must say.  I can see why there are so many people uploading videos now.

My camera is about 4 years old now, but it is pretty good for a old point and shoot.  Might have to upgrade someday though.

Anyways here is me flipping through the art book for a preview.  I pre-ordered the next one coming out in October.  Can’t wait.

Well finally got my fight stick.  With the special promotion I managed to get from Amazon for 50 percent off video game accessory and with the ECA 10 percent discount I got the fight stick for 52 dollars and some change.  So from the original MSRP price of 150 dollars I think I did a pretty good job.  To think these things used to go for 400 dollars on ebay when they first came out.  My gf called at least a 100 or so stores trying to find this for me for my birthday too.  She got me the hori instead which I also love.  I plan to add custom art work to both of them soon.  Just can’t decide on the art work.  I think one will be a One Piece theme.  The other I’ll keep it Street fighter design. 

Recently ordered a new seimitsu LS-32 stick to replace the older model sanwa in my fight stick.  It wasn’t registering the right side up diagonals 100 percent of the time.  I was frustrated losing some matches because of that issue.  In the same order I decided to order a different color ball top, and  a few different colored sanwa buttons. 

It took me an hour to strip the old wires and crimp on the quick disconnects to attach to the new stick.  It was a sloppy job, but hey it works.  My next upgrade will be ordering an acrylic faceplate for my stick and adding some custom artwork to the top of it.  I just haven’t had any luck finding some high resolution One Piece images yet. 

The new stick is stiffer than the old one.  I’m having to learn how to do the same moves I did before with this one.  Can’t execute my normal combos 100 percent of the time yet after a few hours of playing.  Oh well I’m sure I’ll pick it up eventually. 

Random blurb I can’t believe I’m still addicted to Street Fighter IV 6 months after the game came out.  Even though I get worked the majority of the time online I still enjoy it.  I’m even considering ordering the Mad Katz Tournament Fight Stick on Amazon soon.  It is on sale and I have a 50 percent off coupon towards a video game accessory.  Plus the 10 percent ECA discount for a price of around 52 bucks.  That is pretty darn tempting. (Though I’m still hesitant about mad katz stuff though.) Or I could order the special edition hori with my coupon here. Though it essentially is exactly like my current fight stick, but with different colors.  So I might try getting the TE stick just for variety. 

Before

After

http://beastdaigo.jp/movie_sf4.shtml 

Wow this guy is a beast. He mainly plays Ryu.  After watching his videos today I feel the urge to start playing with him too. Like 90 percent of the other people on xbox live. lol.

Oh found another video of Justin Wong using Chun Li in the SF 4 Finals here in the US.  Another top player.

Here is a funny one.

Oh man I am bored.

Since my XBOX is shipped away to Texas getting repaired for it’s infamous red ring of death I am constantly thinking about playing video games.  With the GF out of town for 2 weeks I’m lacking things to do.  As big of an anime fan I am, I can’t keep watching hours and hours every day.  I started reading a novel A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin and that has broken up the day a bit.  I would detail my car, but it’s still pretty shiny still from the last detail 2 months ago.  I can’t  really get into any PC games right now.  Tried playing Warhammer but stopped after like 5 minutes.  Also WOW has no appeal to me since all my friends are not playing it either.   So yeah, I am going nuts.  What’s funny is if I had the Xbox here I probably wouldn’t even play it that much.  Just longing for something you don’t have I guess is normal for people.  

I’ve been tempted to just buy a xbox and return it after I get my fixed one back.  Do you guys think that is unethical?  I mean Microsoft should give out loaners since this is their mess.  2-3 weeks without an xbox is pretty ridiculous.  I think by returning the xbox Microsoft takes the loss not the actual store.  Then again I am pretty lazy. I don’t know if I want to have to go back to the store and come up with some BS excuse on why I don’t want the xbox anymore.  Also I should be reimbursed for my XBOX Live time. 

Just downloaded the free Microsoft Windows Live Writer software for easier blog writing.  Seems pretty nice.

Here is my modified Hori EX Pro for my Street Fighter 4 addiction.  To test out the image editing abilities of this application.

I added Sanwa buttons and a new sanwa balltop.  My GF thinks I should have picked nicer colors, but I suck at picking colors.  Eventually I want to add a custom image over the stick like the people at http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=115479&page=151

Here are some examples.

I should find a friend that’s good with photoshop to make me a cool one.

I also just received the Madcatz Street Fighter 4 Tournament Edition stick in the mail today from buy.com  I preordered it a while ago and forgot to cancel it.  Now that I have it I’m tempted to keep it too.  I can sell it for over 200 dollars though.  Seems like a waste since I have the Hori EX Pro my GF gave me for my birthday.  Both sticks have all the same parts.  Though the tournament stick is really nice though.  Should I just keep both? haha.