WHY ISN'T THE EARTH AFLAME?

2:55pm: I am going to E3 soon! Here is what I want to see mostest:

http://www.omgrpg.com/article/93113/7-rpgs-i-want-to-see-at-e3/
http://www.omgnintendo.com/article/93093/7-wii-ds-games-i-want-to-see-at-e3/

Pimping over, more Chocobo's Dungeon to play.

12:26pm: Re: New SRWZ scans
JESUS FUCK

Hand-drawn Aquarion may be the single ugliest mecha design I've ever seen.

This does not bode well for Zegapain.

7:44pm: Final Crisis #2
Quite an improvement. Let's hope quality stays this high.

And, to Morrison's credit, Big Science Action were clever and plausible Japanese superheroes.

(To his demerit, Super Young Team are thus far incredibly uninteresting.)

8:35pm: a comic book thought
So Secret Invasion #2 massively outsold Final Crisis #1, and comics blogs and writers are buzzing as they try to discuss why. A lot of fans are citing event fatigue, but that really makes no sense-- Marvel's run just as many events and they're still selling just fine (and Secret Invasion is actually a decent read).

I'd like to suggest an alternative theory: when people say "event fatigue", they mean "fatigue regarding a certain type of event". If you look at Marvel's past events, they've all been different story archetypes writ large. Civil War was "superheroes as political allegory", a vein Marvel tapped several times in the 80's and earlier with varying degrees of success. World War Hulk was essentially an "Avengers fight the Hulk" storytype, with a few intriguing complications specific to the story's set-up that didn't diminish the basic archetype's appeal. This year's big book, "Secret Invasion", is basically the archetypal body snatchers type plot the Skrulls were created for, just funneled through a modern sensibility after at least a good decade of that type of plot being largely in cold storage. You could read all three events in detail each year and feel like you had read three stories with beginnings, middles and ends (such as they are).

The problem with Final Crisis is that the general "type" of story it is-- one where the DC Universe is threatened by a cosmic shift in the nature of reality, which forces the heroes to battle against cosmic odds to try and prevent planetary or universal or multiversal destruction-- is pretty much the only event plot that DC has attempted since the basic whodunnit of "Identity Crisis" gave way to Infinite Crisis. 52 ended up being roughly the same story, ending with the triumphant rebirth of the multiverse; Countdown destroyed part of that multiverse (at the hands of Infinite Crisis's villain) and showed the annihilation of the New Gods as we knew them; Final Crisis opens with the death and rebirth of the New Gods, rumblings about cosmic restructuring, and the highly metafictional idea that since evil can win now, it means something cosmic about the DCU has changed. While the details of all these stories are vastly different, they're still going to feel like roughly the same "type" of story to the average reader who isn't overly fixated on matters like creator branding or continuity moving forward/backwards/sideways/etc.

Now, what would you rather read: three different stories, or the same story told in slightly different ways and at varying levels of quality four times in a row? Even if the fourth guy is telling it really well, you're going to be in the mood for something else by then. What's killing DC is a lack of variety; while Marvel plays with all the possibilities of their universe, DC is hitting a single note, over and over again, at varying levels of volume.

10:29am: Toki Tori is a good game, and if you have a Wii, you should play it.

1:12pm: So I'm going to be writing columns on a weekly-ish basis for omgNintendo sister site omgRPGs. Here's the first one.

5:06am: JAM Project International Tour setlist
A kind sould of 4chan put up a tracklist from the first stop on JAM Project's international tour. This is going to be considerably more interesting than I expected. It seems possible that Rica Matsumoto may not be on the tour, possibly giving Masami Okui sole female vocalist duties. Obviously, this may be altered for Otakon, but I doubt it would be changed too terribly much.

( Setlist & Notes )

9:38am: werewolves fighting vampires
I'm trying to make a rough timeline of, basically, noteworthy pop culture instances where a story required a werewolf or werewolves to fight a vampire (or vampires). I've hit all of the easy targets now, so don't tell me about World of Darkness or whatever, but I'm curious what you, the internet, might know about flicks, comics, books, and etc. where it was necessary for werewolves and vampires to beat the hell out of each other.

3:16am: An odd, odd thing
I've taken to listening to the Weird Al discography in sequence while writing lately. (The reasons why involve a particular conversation and immense nostalgia.)

Anyway, when searching for a particular song, I ran across the follow two film clips on YouTube. They are one of the oddest things I've seen in... at least the last 48-hour period, and bear in mind that looking at odd things is more or less my favorite hobby.

Clip The First: It's 1992, and Weird Al Wants to Sing Gospel Music
Clip the Second: Black Gospel Teaches an Odd Jew the True Meaning of Christmas

If you know of any possible context or explanation for why these clips exist, I would love to hear about it.

3:42pm: mads and jakeexperience are musing about how all of us once-spry young geeks are considerably less young now. There are some feelings of melancholy, and also the feeling of detachment from the never-ending flow of new media.

Now, here's something I've noticed: the older I've gotten, the more I've enjoyed. Not just of a particular, narrow kind of fix, but basically of everything. I enjoy games, movies, anime, manga, comics, music, tv, and all sorts of hobby activities I once would've found brain-breakingly dull. Now I don't really get angry at bad media or whatever; I have the ability to realize when something is Not For Me and just put it down. Even better, it's easier to notice poor production values or general half-assedness early, and so mark things off my internal calendar of things to do before I get too deeply involved.

I still have a few irrational preferences: I take immediate interest in anime with giant robots in them and my favorite video game genre is still the humble RPG. But, for the most part, I'm at a phase in my life where I'm willing to try anything and capable of gettingever-wiser</i>.

... now if only gravity would leave my boobs alone. :(

5:20pm: So, read through Final Crisis.

Reaction: total apathy.

Not really what you want out of a first issue, DC.

11:47am: It has come to my attention that the latest 2D Capcom fighting game has been announced...

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

Gatchaman! Casshan! Hurricane Polymar! Tekkaman! Time Bokan! All confirmed. I have seen the art for Ken from Gatchaman and Casshan & Friender and it is hot.

This could have the shittiest gameplay since Capcom Fighting Jam and I would still be completely down with it.

9:27am: In the past, the fact that I view the homegrown pocket-format comics generally called OEL manga that TokyoPop puts out with scatching contempt into question. "Aren't you just being a jerk?" these fictional people say. "Why can't you let these manga-loving artists pursue their dreams through TokyoPop?"

"Well, their dream appears to be copying shit out of imported art books and calling it a day," I reply.

Want to see some evidence of this in action? Check out this post with art samples from the upcoming OEL X-Men and Wolverine manga from Del Rey. Now, I have no problems with the Wolverine/Sabretooth/Tamara designs. They're not bad at all, kind of more Capcom-y than manga-y, but whatever, this is good cartooning by whatever reasonable standard you care to apply.

No, look hard at the designs for Kitty Pryde, the Beast, Iceman, and Nightcrawler. Don't they look kind of painfully horribly familiar? Don't they look kind of probably copied from cover art and screenshot stills? Aren't they absofuckinglutely everything wrong with the attempts of anime and manga-inspired "fans" to go create their own work? I mean, Jesus Christ, this artist isn't even bothering to develop a unified style. It's like a style composed entirely of spare parts from this month's issue of Shoujo Beat.

Stuff like this doesn't need to be published, and it's frankly embarrassing to everyone involved when it is. There are precious few OEL "manga" where this isn't the case. In fact, it seems to apply 90% of the time to comics made by English-speaking comics creators who call their work manga in a desperate attempt to associate themselves with a stylistic and cultural art crucible they do not understand and have no legitimate participation in.

12:27am: Gamespot Japan has a small but very high-quality gallery of SRWZ screenshots up.

Oh, Aquarion, your design is looking hell of stupid in 2D.

6:34am: Sometimes you run across things relevant to your interests. Other times, you run across things that couldn't possibly be relevant to anyone else's interests, and you're not sure how or why these things came to be.

7:53am: Full SRWZ roster
To hell with Famitsu, the full list got posted the series list on the main site. http://suparobo.jp/srw_lineup/srw_z/index.html

Overman King Gainer
The Big O
The Big O Season 2
Zambot 3
Daitarn 3
Xabungle
Zeta Gundam (movies)
Char's Counterattack
After War Gundam X
Turn-A Gundam
Gundam SEED Destiny
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger
Getter Robo G
Grendizer
God Sigma
Aquarion
Eureka Seven
Orguss
Baldios
Gravion
Gravion Zwei

Rambling: Okay, now this is, overall, actually a decent series list. I strongly suspect the plot is going to be very reliant on Orguss to glue everything together without descending into stupid but I can envision this turning into a good game and a good crossover story. I'm freaking ecstatic that Xabungle is coming in to add setting glue to a lot of lousier shows, and amused that it's bringing a lot of the alpha Gaiden oddball Gundams back with it. Shame this means Gundam X is going to be in another game with voice acting, since man every seiyuu in that series is basically terrible. I'm presumg Big O will be included in this block of series, and I'm exceptionally happy to see it get a shot at a SRW inclusion that isn't by default terrible and haflassed. Zambot 3 desperately deserves new animations and I hear the Daitarn 3 inclusion is going to start from scratch and give Banjou Haran a new seiyuu. I'm extremely disappointed to see Char's Counterattack return, as even at best it means Sazabi/Nightengale and nu/Hi-nu upstaging Zeta units, which I feel is really inappropriate for Zeta's movie debut. Grendizer is a classic I always like to see, and it seems our "nostalgic" show fit under the 300-to-1 longshot. God Sigma is IIRC actually an off-kilter early 80's super, but the principle is the same. Too bad it wasn't Laserion, as rumored.

So, neat-looking game, I'll probably order it but god knows if I'll have time to play it.

4:37am: "very nostalgic series"
We'll find out for sure in a week, but just for fun, here's my guess for what Terada could've meant by "very nostalgic series" and "new to SRW" and the Vegas odds I foresee on each. Click behind the cut to see the list, which is long-ish and I'd rather not spam-up disinterested friends pages with it.

( Guesses, good and bad )

2:23am: New SRW to show in next Famitsu...
Good news: It's on the PS2!

Bad news: Holy shit this is the worst series selection I have ever seen!

Good news: It appears to be a constricted series selection and roughly half the entries are new, which means plenty of good new animations.

Bad news: jesus christ why is this series selection so bad

Roster:

Orguss
Gravion
Gravion Zwei
Aquarion
Gundam SEED Destiny
Eureka Seven
Overman King Gainer
Baldios
Zeta Gundam movies
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger

Kvetching:

Mazinger and Great are I guess the old-school representation. Zeta Gundam movies I've wanted for awhile, and Orguss is a worthy and long-overdue addition. Baldios is... uh, not noteworthy in any way besides the old Heika meme, but I guess they're running out of retro Supers to use. Gundam SEED Destiny would be interesting if put in a different roster. Gravion, Gravion Zwei, Aquarion, Eureka Seven, and King Gainer in the same game?! It's like a festival of off-kilter mecha shows, with varying degrees of inherent shittiness, that would need proximity to better properties to come off well. Instead they're being thrown into the same game, so they can cohere together into a massive spherical turd. I really hope the early reports were just partial translations from bad scans, and somehow there's actually more series included in the game...

EDIT: It seems that having more series in mind is indeed the case. Next week's Famitsu is going to announce the rest of the roster, including one new-to-SRW series that is a "very nostalgic series". Time to start placing Vegas odds on that...

9:21pm: Re: Extended Universe
GYAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SUFFER! SUFFER!

10:17pm: One of the features Atlus is promoting for Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 for DS is an "easy-play" mode.

This makes me very sad.

8:53pm: If you don't drop by the GamePro blog frequently, be sure to stop by this week. While I'm behind on new posts thanks to other deadlines and a busy weekend, right now Capcom's partnered with us to help promote Okami on the Wii, and that means OMG Nintendo looks freaking awesome. The Okami theme lasts until sometime on the 11th.

I try not to use my position as a games writer to be evangelical about games, because a) it strikes me as something of a conflict of interest, b) very few games are objectively good enough to deserve it and c) it tends to justly annoy the shit out of people. I haven't played Okami on the Wii yet, but if it's even slightly less good than the PS2 version it's still one of the most awesome things you will ever play, and one of the few game experiences that I am willing to call legitimately life-enriching and recommended for everyone.

If you enjoy beautiful things and awesome gameplay and you have a Wii, for the love of God, please buy Okami this time. It deserves your love. It's only $40.

5:12am: I have yet to come across a negative review of The Wallflower anime, which upon detailed watch is one of the most execrable things I've seen recently.

Does Watanabe's name make people stupid, or do people who write anime reviews simply have no taste?

2:30am: Shiren friend codes
I beat the damn Tainted Insect! I'll blog about it for reals when my magazine work is all done. (I beat the Insect when I had a case of writer's block...)

My Shiren friend code is 1891-0898-1025. Respond with yours so I can get you guys in my travel log and start doling out more of the rescues.

5:37pm: fashion advice

So Threadless is having a $5 dollar t-shirt sale for April Fool's, and I absolutely MUST buy. There's a few designs I know I want and a few I'm iffy on.

Spoilt: I enjoy the cleverness and love the design, but I can't decide if wearing this in public would be awesome or kind of assholish.

Damn Scientists: The basic concept of this is extremely appealing to me, but the last line of text on the shirt... I don'tknow. Does it make the whole thing seem too whiny/emo/angsty?

Incidentally, the two I am ABSOLUTELY getting:

The War Against Work

Lost a Wheel

1:20am: Hey! Are you a cool internet guy who's going to post videos of yourself playing and commenting on a game for all the world to see? Here's some pointers you can follow to make the crankier parts of your audience happy!

1. Before you start working on your game, record yourself speaking and play it back. Is your voice pleasant? Can you clearly understand what you're saying? Do you lisp, or stutter? If you don't like listening to yourself or can't understand what you're saying, then there's no reason to assume people who aren't you will handle it any better. Perhaps you should consider improving your speaking voice before moving on.

2. Are you recording yourself playing sections of the game "cold"? Please don't. Do a run-through of the sections you're going to cover before you do a run for recording. This way the audience can watch you fail in funny ways (jumping into enemies, struggling with hard puzzles) and then skip over unfunny forms of failure like "what does this button do?" and "fuck, where am I supposed to go now?"

3. Are you playing an RPG with lots of NPC text? If so, do you plan on reading it aloud in funny voices? Please repeat step 1 for all of your funny voices. Are your voices actually funny, or just horrible? If they are horrible, perhaps you should reconsider this addition to your video. Please, for the love of god, reconsider.

4. Before you record yourself doing live, ad-lib commentary over your gameplay, stop and think: roughly what am I going to say? Do I have interesting things to say about the upcoming levels, or funny jokes to tell? Or do I plan on babbling and screaming a lot? If you do a run of a game before recording yourself playing, that's a great time to also think ahead and roughly plan out your commentary. Remember, cursing humorously is not an accident, but a deliberate art.