Varnishing America

Good evening, Oceania!

Yeah, I’m back from Japan now. I keep meaning to write some more about the trip, but I’ve been caught up in some rush work that’s kept me from the task (and sleep), and now my memories have all faded. Heartbreaking, isn’t it? That’s what senility will do for you, kids.

Unfortunately, I guess any potential sympathy is negated by the fact that my emergency was being handed a reviewable of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin on the flight back to the States. Which is good! But I was given only two days to finish the game — two very jetlagged days in which I also had to catch up with the week’s worth of work I’d missed due to TGS. Which is bad! Nothing enhances the joy of playing a sexy hot new game like the panicked HURRYHURRYOMG rush of trying to blow through it on a tight deadline while balancing the rest of your existence in the other hand.

I know, poor me. Someone commented in an earlier post that if you begin a blog entry with the phrase “I spent all day walking around Akihabara,” you’re not allowed to complain about anything for two weeks. So I guess I’m a jerk. Feel free to tell me how much I suck.


Better yet, express your contempt with violence. I bought my first XBLA game today, namely Doom. And I need to write a review of it. So if you’d like an easy multiplayer win please look me up on Live. I will be the jackass with a zero kill count.

It’ll be especially easy since I’m still not entirely de-Japan-ified; I’m pretty much in a constant jetlagged stupor. And I keep wanting to wake up about two hours later than usual and drifting to the left side of the sidewalk or stairs. Also, I keep expecting people to be polite. Boy, was getting back onto the Internet a rude awakening zany adventure!

22 thoughts on “Varnishing America

  1. That PoR shot reminds me of the first level of Super Star Wars. Except with stormtroopers or what have you replaced by ghoul types.

  2. Isn’t the correct term “maker hooks” though? I’d think calling the Shai-hulud “worms” would be a major faux pas in any sietch.

  3. Man, who cares what the Fremen think. They drink their own damn pee.
    .
    I can’t really say anything about PoR — confidentiality and all that. Although that hasn’t stopped a few people from pretty much spoiling the entire game under anonymous handles.

  4. Yeah, if you haven’t been spoiled yet, be warned that PoR hasn’t been a safe subject on message boards for the last week or so. The worst part is that most of the fans willingly egged on the insider(s) to completely spill their guts on everything from plot details to boss fights. No willpower whatsoever.

  5. … Geez. What happened to waiting for the game to come out and not knowing everything there is to know? I like discovering things for myself when I play, not to have a game fully explained prior.

  6. Wait wait. Those incredibly fakey and lame sounding spoilers, including the incredibly fake and lame looking bonus modes, were REAL?

    I’m not looking forward to this game nearly as much now. Damnit.

  7. Man, if you’re tired or in even a remotely vulnerable state, don’t get online. They can smell you from miles away. Or, I guess, ten sites over. Something like that.

    Anyway, it’d be fun to play Doom on Live, but I’ve got like ten copies of the game already in various formats. If I paid even fifty cents for another one, it’d probably mean I have some kind of weird issues that I have to deal with, and I’m not really up for that.

  8. Oh, and by the way, don’t knock pee drinking. Gandhi drank his own pee (possibly. That might not be true. I’m not going to look it up. You start googling things like “Gandhi drank pee” and it’s time to start re-evaluating your life).

    It’s Gandhi-licious!

  9. That would actually have been Prime Minister Morarji Desai, as we know from reading Midnight’s Children. And he lived to the age of ninety-nine, so maybe he had a point.

  10. “Gandhi-licious? Pee-drink? I think you have yourself a potential franchise! Or an American beer. I’m not quite sure which.”

    Ah, I dunno. I offended enough people with my last beverage idea: He-Brew, the Chosen One.

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