Ikaruga or: The Hardest Goddamn Game Ever Made

I beat GTA IV and it was good. It was good for 30+ hours, which is a real accomplishment. With only two little hiccups in the story, I dug it the whole time. The end was very good, and the ending cutscene was better. It's a shame it can't sink in.

It can't sink in because I bought Ikaruga on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I have long claimed that the hardest game I have ever played was Contra: Hard Corps for the Sega Genesis. For a good two or three years it sat on top, it was the game that made you a man or made you its girlfriend. While Contra is still very, very hard, it can't really touch Ikaruga.

It's been out for years, in the arcade, on the Dreamcast and Gamecube, but outside of Japan it was pretty tough to find I guess, so I've never played it before. I remember reading Maddox's review back when I still liked to read Maddox and I kind of blew it off. But looking back, he's pretty much right on the money (on both Ikaruga and the lameness that is Tekken).

The game is a ton of fun though, even though I haven't gotten past level three yet (in my defense, I've been playing the new CoD4 maps and trying GTA IV online, which is meh). If you have ten bucks (roughly) and an Xbox Live subscription, I suggest getting it. Getting raped over and over has never been so fun.

edit:  here's a youtube video of some guy pwning the 4th level .  I'm putting it up here so you can see what I'm talking about.

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A Bum, GTA, and a Hobbit

My time spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV has been steadly rising since I've been home, and on one level, I feel like a complete bum, but on another level, there's not a whole lot else for me to do.

I haven't started work yet, although they did call me this morning at 9 to see if I wanted to come in, but I was asleep and didn't get the message until it was too late. I'll go in tomorrow to talk to them.

Also, I've been trying to get into the Hobbit, but can't. It starts off pretty slow, plus I'm not too big on how it's written, at least I wasn't at first, but I'm slowly warming up to it. It's a kid's book, so it takes some getting used to. I'm sure me not getting into it is a combination of GTA and not picking the book up until 3:30am, when I just read a paragraph and go to sleep.

I still haven't posted the story about John's last night out in Geneseo, but I will do that soon. Probably. Maybe. I haven't even unpacked my car yet.

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Summer Starts and the Whole World is Stealing Cars

So classes are over until mid-August and I, like most of the world, am spending most of my time playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I will reserve final judgment until I finish the single player game, but so far it's pretty spectacular. I was never huge into the other GTA games, but this one has a good story, and that makes all the difference in the world. Plus it's really fun.

It was a little sad leaving school for the summer and driving back home with a car full of stuff, but I'm more than ready for a break. We had a good last hurrah, I think, and I'm sure I'll write about it later. Probably tomorrow.

I read Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth today and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little disappointed. The art was fantastic. Far and away the best thing about the book. My only complaint about the art is the Joker's dialogue. It was written in red (which I liked) but it was written like a crazy person, so it was tough to read in parts. The story itself was where I had trouble. I'm just not a big enough comic book nerd to appreciate it. I only recognized three of the bad guys, but they were done very well, so I assume that the other characters were pulled off equally well.  I wanted it to be longer, more characterization.  The whole thing just felt rushed.  I guess I just wanted everything to be fleshed out a little more.

Also, it's worth noting that there is a big difference between gorillamask.net and gorillamask.com. Especially when you're in public.

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Of Hobbits, Spenser, and Quarters

I need to pack, and I need to learn the entire Spanish language by Wednesday evening, but I'm here instead.

I'm doing a load of laundry that consists of three pairs of underwear and two t-shirts because I'm going home for the summer in three days and I want to preserve those quarters, which I'm pretty sure is the definition of "college".

I had a final today, which was less of a final and more of a five minute presentation and handing in the worst paper of my life.  I wasn't worried about the presentation.  Five minutes on Edmund Spenser, easy-peasy, I figured. Throw in some background information, the man was actually kind of a tyrant (based on the page and a half I hastily plowed through while scrawling notes on index cards). Combine that with some basic stuff on Epithalamion and I'm in the clear. I had my five minutes all planned out and practiced and ready to go. When it was time to rock, I blew threw it in about three and a half minutes. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but it went a lot quicker when it was game time.

I brought The Hobbit with me to read, since I had to sit through thirty other people giving their five minute presentations, and I have never read it (which is a little embrassing to admit), but Drake (the professor) would scan the crowd every couple of minutes to make sure that people were at least pretending to pay attention, so no Bilbo for me. Instead I drew a picture of an epic stick figure battle, that eventually turned into increasingly detailed monsters with stick figures around them. I don't remember anybody's presentation except for the girl at the end who I think was drunk (slurred speech) and the girl who mentioned an erection.

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