Since Silent Hill HD Collection has been pushed back until March, I decided to change the header to something with a bit more of a winter theme. Fortunately, I have some SSX screenshots here, so there you go, Kaori flying over the content below. I’ll need to post the rest of those screens and some more videos soon, as the game is coming out next month (and is turning out to be really good, folks)…
OK, I’m only up to June 2010 in terms of reformatting the entire blog (boo!), so please be patient, folks. I’ll be jumping back in feet first this weekend with some more fixes on those older posts while also working on a review or two I need to complete. I’ll also get around to posting my current PlayStation 3 library, as I finally got around to taking a few photos last night. That is all – you may resume you regularly scheduled programming…
Aha… some US Dreamcast games got omake files after all. Here’s a two-page comic and two gorgeous posters from Elemental Gimmick Gear (E.G.G.), Hudson Soft’s interesting Action/RPG which originally started life as a Sega Saturn game before being moved over to the DC. The US cover art was pretty terrible and it’s surprising to me that neither of the two posters were used instead. Ah well – the game is actually really well done, featuring hand drawn art, polygon boss battles (added to beef the game up a bit to Dreamcast quality visuals) and a nice mix of puzzles and combat reminiscent of a Legend of Zelda game. The intentionally odd localization is a bit off-putting if you’re a grammar purist, but I like the way language is used throughout the game as it adds to the feeling of being on another world.
Want more? OK, below the four E.G.G. illustrations are four CG images from The Lost Golem, Caramelpot’s super-cute and quirky puzzle game (also never released outside of Japan). This one’s a bit rare, but can be found for not too much money these days (well, the last time I checked it was pretty inexpensive compared to the more in-demand DC imports out there)…
Well, alright. I just noticed that I’d fixed the final 2009 post a few posts ago and am already into early 2010. Nice. The early part of 2010 will be pretty easy going, as I was a bit ill for a good chunk of the first half of the year and didn’t post much. A bit of game therapy and other actual medical assistance later, i was back in action, as you’ll see by the increased post count. The late 2010 to 2011 posts will be the hardest to restore, as most of them will need to be retrieved and reformatted from the older blog as opposed to some of the simpler editing I had to do with some of the older posts. Oh well. Onward and upward!
If things go well, folks – I’ll be done with reformatting all the 2009 posts this weekend. I’ll update you as soon as that’s done, pop the cork on a bottle of something (probably Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider) and then get to work on the 2010 posts. Eek.
Well, all this necessary insanity is for a good reason, that’s for sure… I just wish it weren’t so tedious…
Well, I still have a few more (well, a lot more) pics to take of the collection, but here’s a quick peek at some of what’s coming once I find the time to get everything down and photographed. Yes, I COULD have done the US Sega Saturn and Sega CD stuff when I did the Jaguar/Lynx games a while back, but I got busy right afterward tackling another project and haven’t been able to get to that other stuff since. It’ll get done, don’t worry…
OK, 2009 is winding down, so that’s a start. I’m in October as I type this and tweaking posts as fast as I can. But I’ll probably take a day or two off from updating just to write something more substantial like a review or feature. I’m also cleaning up a few dopey errors I noticed in some old articles (oops), so if you do go back and read them, you should see no typos (I hope). Anyway, let me get back to that grind and update again when I’m in 2010. Man, time travel is REALLY boring after all, folks…
Whee. I’ve figured out that if I can re-edit/tweak/fix about five pages of old posts per day (Eek!), I can have the entire blog updated before January is over. So far it’s going smoothly, save for some gallery and video linking issues here and there. I’m expecting not to have too much trouble other than keeping up with all the news that’s popping up. Then again, I only read game news from all over and post what I find I need to comment on. So yes, I ignore junk and gossip “news” I have no interest in.
It’s pretty safe to say that if I wasn’t writing so much about video games, I’d probably be writing about film. These days, there are so many great cinema scribes out there that do that a lot better than I do in terms of covering the medium, so I reserve my talents to the interactive as I believe that a great game can have the same impact as a great film, book or other slice of entertainment that touches a few emotions. Growing up in front of the TV or at the movies for a good chunk of time exposed me to quite a lot of great actors, directors, writers and other talents in the film industry and as the years pass, some of these people fade away into history leaving only their work on screen as a legacy. Each year, Turner Classic Movies runs a nice tribute video on stars of stage and screen who have passed away and 2011 was pretty sad for film fans across the globe. I actually didn’t know some of these people had died, but I’m glad to have seen them at their best in some truly memorable films…
Yeah, I hate resolutions because they’re more pressure than they’re worth in some cases and too much stress is NOT good for productivity (at least mine, that is). That said, I do indeed plan to complete the long and annoying process of fixing the older articles so they can actually be read past the first paragraphs as well as reworking the galleries (which will take longer in a few cases). It’s all a matter of finding the time to do this while also getting in daily posts. So far, progress has been slow, but I’m setting aside weekends in January to concentrate on getting as many old articles and reviews back to their original states.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 