Not just another NPC - (ds-x2 ver.)

Listening to one of Fabrice Lig’s newer songs “X-Slaves who changed the world” when I decided to drop by his MySpace page. Then I stumbled upon this really interesting video.

Looks(and sounds!) good!

At first I thought maybe it was something new, I couldn’t find any posts about it at DS-X2… or even via google! In fact, I only found that fab himself re-posted the video at MySpace-video, and this random French GBA forum. So I shot him some questions thinking: Maybe he was developing it himself?

Me:
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Hey Fabrice Lig, I was wondering what happened to your Nintendo DS game “Cross Control”. The URL you list brings an “error” and I can’t find any other info on the web about this game.

Who’s the developer? Has the game been canceled? Were you involved in other aspects of game development other than the music? If you can answer, thanks.
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Fab:
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Hi Nick,
Actually, I have no news about the game, the developpers had some contact with different companies to developp the game, but I think it didn’t happen ? I dunno? Its a bit sad as I tryed some parts of the game, and it was really cool…
Fabrice
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Canned I guess. Seems Lig saved the video though! Very cool.

On a completely unrelated note I’ve been challenged to a fight. A Garou: Mark of the Wolves fight, that is. On Halloween my friend and I will go at it, and get this, my friend has been playing it all month long with a keyboard because he’s too lazy to hook up his computer joystick/CP. That’s hardcore LAME. So he’s become so cocky(he’s always cocky actually) to the point were he’s letting me use my awesome Logitech rumble pad against his crappy keyboard. This is either going to be really easy or really hard. Gotta practice either way! Oh and he got Bust-A-move for his MVS, if all else fails, I know he can’t beat me at that.

I’m a really bad student… This week I finished one project and was handed three more. Not pretty. Sometimes I’m not really sure what distracts me, but I’m usually pretty good about not playing video games with homework to do. My friends say I’m lazy and I don’t put forth enough effort. I guess the consequence of failure doesn’t motivate me…

I delayed this post on purpose however, because I knew I was going on a hike today(something different I could blog about). I hiked the Sutter Buttes, the world’s smallest mountain range.

Unlike the other places I have been in the past(usually national parks) this is actually privately owned by a couple of rancher families. Twice a year it is opened to a small group of people led by a non-profit organization. Once in the spring, and once in the fall.

Info note: The “mountain” on the far right with the antenna on it is(click for high res) the tallest at 2,117FT - and is the one that qualifies the Sutter Buttes as a mountain range.

The hike wasn’t too bad, but our guide was a bit… lost at times? Slow at times too, people would often go ahead of her only to find themselves going in the wrong direction. haha

The hiiiills~ are aliiive~, with the soooound~ of- no.

I took a crap load of photos for some reason. Probably because I look at these hills from the higher points of where I live occasionally but have never been able to visit.

Also, I find it fascinating how these hills stand out of the valley floor. Truly a geological anomaly.
…
Really nice weather helps too.

I was just waiting for a WRX to come screaming by while walking on some of the back roads.

That’s it for today I guess. Did we learn something today? Great! Now do your homework!

I’m one to talk…

I missed blog action day on Monday, because I like to keep updates weekly(sorta). I got a friend to post about it though. That gets me off the hook, right? Well I put all my required high school community service into cleaning creeks, planting trees, and labeling storm drains - so don’t think I don’t like to help the environment, I really do.

My save clover valley armband, next to my classy rotary phone

Picture transition! Oh yes, just linked two subjects with a picture. I believe my rotary phone is a 70s era Western electric(AT&T), with carbon mic, a hold button, and four line switches. Ooh yea! Unfortunately an analog phone has it’s disadvantages in this modern digital era… no pound key. Whoops. “If you are using a rotary phone please hang up” is what I got on Thursday as I tried to use it in a conference call. Now I know better… yea… dial with the cordless, and then switch back to the rotary.

I guess I never mentioned it before, but I played most of the Trouble Witches demo a few months back and loved it. It’s a bit on the Otaku side, but a solid, well produced, shoot’em up. Now Studio Siesta(the dev) has announced it will be making an English version called TOMBOYISH ☆ WITCHES(their caps and star, not mine) for us gaijin. Great! But… I liked the old name better. Oh well, I’m so buying it. Speaking of Shoot’em-ups, what’s up with everyday shooter? A lot of the 1UP crew has been talking about it ever since… what, GDC? I know one friend with a PS3 and he doesn’t touch the thing(don’t ask)… so he probably didn’t buy everyday shooter off of PSN. If there was a PC demo I would like test it out because I’m really curious about the appeal. To me it just looks like another geometry wars mixed with elements of REZ and every extend. But apparently it’s more than that. Well, I usually prefer my shoot’em-ups scrolling and vertical anyways(with some exceptions of course).

That’s it for this week I guess, really brief. I now await someone to point out my excessive usage of the word “but” in that last paragraph.

The past few months I’ve been puzzled as to why I was unable to load DS games(or really anything) on my supercard. I tried a number of things and after a few weeks I discovered that the way I transfer files to my miniSD card over the network just won’t cut it. It’s bizarre but even thought the file(s) will exist/transfer and show up on the card it apparently just doesn’t write correctly. So instead of writing them that way(with a network printer) I tried using the SD card slot in my mom’s laptop, and sure enough it made all the difference.

My DSLite with some games, a classic DS strap, and a Radirgy sticker. Not pictured: Supercard, for obvious reasons.

With that out of the way I’ve been playing Race Driver: Create and Race, and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Phantom hourglass kicks ass so far and just about everyone I talk to agrees with me. Funny story, there’s this girl in broadcasting who I recall playing Nintendogs one day, and then just recently I saw her playing Zelda. Talk about effectiveness, it seems Nintendo really is converting non-gamers… hell girl non-gamers - that’s a difficult thing to pull off IMO. Back to Phantom hourglass: it’s good but I start to loose interest after awhile. I really don’t care about difficulty but currently I feel like the dungeons are kind of busy-work getting in the way of my story. Maybe I’ve been playing too many action games like Metal slug lately. Which also reminds me, my friend with the MVS finally got Metal slug X! Currently we have this wonky temporary CP set-up since we had taken out the whole CP(control panel) for an over-haul, and we just couldn’t wait. Basically I don’t think I’ll do a review on PH because I’ll probably take my sweet time and I know there are other people at DS-X2 who are probably much much further than me. As for Race Driver: create and race, I’m trying to like it but just can’t. It might suffer from small-screen-itis where the game could be much better… with a bigger screen. I say this because the cars start off feeling really slow and then jump to being really fast. It’s weird but I think if I had a bigger screen I could have a much better sense of speed. Either that or the game’s just broken. Now that I think about it, if they had just made the car models much smaller it would give the game bigger screen space(Think: Mario kart), and higher frame rate. Are you listening Codemasters? Really the game is very well polished(love the menus) but from what I’ve experienced of the gameplay it’s not worth the 30(?) bucks. Yea I think I might do a review on this one, I just need to bring myself to play it more. Though ironically this weekend I’ll be trying to allocate some time towards studying for my permit test(zomg Monday). You know… so I can drive real cars.

One last note, it seems my little drama story (which I decided to only post at my main blog) has got me twice the feedburner subscribers! Woo! 8!… um yea, I know. I think it’s a big improvement though. Also, don’t expect me to blog like that again. Well maybe a bonus blog - yea ok - but I still try to avoid personal posts.

Some days I don’t know where I am. Figuratively of course. This weeks post was highly delayed because I planned on posting my broadcasting project, only to find it fairly difficult to export. Or actually I played back the exported/compressed file in windows[VLC,zoom]: Nothing. Played it back on a mac[quicktime]: Bingo! Screw imovie and it’s compression techniques(codecs..), my next project(which will be actual reporting - sorry) will have to be done in final cut. imovie is too… weak.

Continuing on my last post a bit, I opened up my last Nintendo Power(or as we know it). Sure there were obvious hints that the NP staff was being booted out the door(editor’s note) but I question how far in advance. I say this because there were at least 2 or 3 places in the magazine where they still encourage you to visit the Nintendo forums - which have been inaccessible for about 3(?) weeks now. I have a feeling we knew almost before they did! Quite sad.

Now let us celebrate Sin and Punishment finally coming to America! Yay! Ok, I still don’t have a wii. But if you have a wii I highly recommend you purchase/download it. Just remember: Change it to normal, and don’t bother with easy. The game leaves out some of the insane stuff if you put it on easy. Sin and Punishment is an easy game on it’s own - compared to most other Treasure games. If you’re not into Treasure games already this game(well, and Gunstar) will change that. I heard they even improved the graphics a bit. *insert “tighten up the graphics” joke here*

Ok, last on my list here for today is the fact I finally joined myspace. “ZOMG Nick joined MySpace!?” is what you’re thinking, right? Because I swore to never ever join MySpace, but I caved recently… I have my reasons. Blog will totally still be here, MySpace is a terribly designed website and is nothing compared to my little template-tweaked blogspot page. So anyways, here’s my page if you know me you can send a friend request or something. But if you’re some random internet-troll guy looking for more friends on MySpace don’t even bother. I’m very strict about approval of friends… and in case you’re wondering I sent a request to Ken Ishii - he’s a DJ and I like his music, so yea. If you have no intentions of ever joining MySpace, don’t have an account, ect. ect. - then I encourage you to click the link anyways for some awesome dZihan & kamien music.
Sliiiding~