Man, it’s not been a good night in these here parts. First, the trains out of the city were shut down because some guy killed himself on the BART line. Then a rather large earthquake hit San Jose. (I was standing on the ground floor when it struck, which was a strange new experience for me — my knees buckled and the ground felt like it had suddenly become lumpy.) Between the rail suicide and the temblor, San Francisco seems determined to be Tokyo tonight. Once Godzilla strides out of the ocean, we’ll be set.
Oh, yeah. Also, due to a studio scheduling conflict we weren’t able to record Retronauts tonight after all. Not for lack of interest, I might add.
Anyway, now that I’ve almost certainly offended someone somewhere by saying something that could be misconstrued as me callously mocking tragedy, let’s talk about my Leopard install. It was also a tragedy! Not a “significant earthquake” type tragedy, mind you. Just an “Oops, I guess I didn’t scrub my system well enough to avoid that known installation conflict after all” kind of thing. (Turns out Leopards hate APEs.) Buuuut after a clean reinstall, my computer is back to running just lovely, thanks. Better than before, in fact, aside from some of the weird new OS quirks that I’ll have to adjust to. And to commemorate my clean new system, I’ve installed a clean new piece of desktop art, which also has the side effect of making me hope Bionic Commando hurries up on its way to Virtual Console. Dang it.
Also! I’ve reviewed Mega Man ZX Advent. I only mention this out of sympathy — the world’s general lack of interest in the game (while perfectly understandable) really seems sort of sad given that this is the series’ 20th anniversary. It’s a busy autumn and Advent might actually be the most irrelevant-to-the-zeitgeist entry in the series ever. It’s actually pretty good, though! Assuming you can still stomach the thought of Mega Man.
I can’t remember seeing a single review for Star Force. Not that I was looking very hard. Is there was never a Mega Man game ever again, I wonder how long it would take people to notice? You just kind of assume they are still coming out, but I only buy one about every other year.
Total bummer about the suicide / Retronauts cancellation. Could they be related?!
See, all you had to do is wait for the Internet to callously mock tragedy.
Here’s hoping you can reschedule recording without agonizing difficulty. Bloody marvelous wallpaper, too.
I never finished the last Mega Man ZX, though I thought it seemed cool. It’s just that map. Apparently Inticreates things the alphabet goes: FCABDE or something. Ugh.
Thinks even, but you knew that. By the way, did you ever check out the Shinchan game they did for DS? It’s pretty damn good! There’s a level with the Jack and the Beanstalk giant drinking beer.
Reading your review, it seems that the next logical step for the series (if they ever actually make a single step) is for it to become a Megaroidvania game.
Both ZX games are very much in the Metroidvania spirit, actually. Especially Advent, which impedes progress in a few points with obstacles that can only be surmounted by earning the proper weapon.
I demand proper linkage to that background.
http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/BionicCommando/BC-Areas.html
Or not. Never mind me, I’m completely useless!
That actually works, mr_bungle. You just have to expand the blue background to make it desktop-sized.
And add the sprites, I guess. But easy stuff it looks like.
I’ve been enjoying ZX Advent so far, its a huge improvement over the previous one if only because of the new map. The voiceovers are kind of annoying, though; why did anyone complain when they took them out of the original?
Truly, a canceled Retronauts is the scariest thing I could wake up to on Halloween.
(Turns out Leopards hate APEs.)
I see what you did there.
You don’t have to erase and install. Archive and install will do the trick. Yes, you can preserve, too.
Yeah, I did the Archive and Install thing. So it was clean, but not antiseptic.
Sorry to hear your troubles. I have a suggestion for retronauts, though. If possible, Dire Dire Docks would be awesome for one of your musical interludes, when you find time to do the Mario podcast (one of my personal favourite tunes).
I finally built up enough courage to install iLife ’08 yesterday. At this rate, I should have Leopard installed by, oh, Easter.
Yeah Parish, that earthquake was nothing. But my neighbors all ran out of their houses like the world was ending. Um, hello?! This is California. My fiance was freaking out too since Cingular network was all screwed up too.
Man, I soo need to upgrade to OS X 10.5, I’m still kickin it with OS X 10.3.9
Shame about Retronauts though. Let me guess, those greedy 1up Yours folks are hogging the studio, aren’t they?!
As a Mega Man fan for years, I tried to play ZX (it was one of the reasons I caved in and bought a DS) but couldn’t stand the whole talking to people, opening doors type gameplay. It felt like it was trying to add some depth to the well-worn Mega Man experience, but not quite enough for it to feel truly fresh and not frustrating. Maybe I should give it another shot, because I remember digging what I played of the Zero series, even if it was blindingly difficult.
I work nights paginating at a newspaper in S.F., and that stupid quake immediately put us all into stress mode, because suddenly all of us had to change our layouts to play up the incredible news that the ground shook in California.
I don’t know what is sadder, the tone of which you said “some guy killed himself on the BART line” or the entire way the linked article trivalizes the death of a person by putting it merely in the time table of getting the line up and running with “only twenty minute delay systemwide”. Sad state of affairs, I guess that is why we disappear into distractions until they consume us…
In japan, where people off themselves all the time with trains, the only message you get is a little note in the video screen saying there was a human-caused problem. Nobody even blinks twice at it, and everyone patiently waits for the mess to be cleared and the trains to start again.
And I thought that was a Bionic Commando level editor. Oh man.
Well, I guess it figures that Mega Man would get little fare for one of his big 20th Anniversary releases. He’s right in the middle of the video game character popularity bell curve. All too well known to core players, but damn near anonymous to the casual/mainstream.
I’m really not sure what the proper response to a suicide should be, to be honest. It’s terrible, certainly, but it’s something that person chose. Someone being pushed in front of a train would elicit a much different reaction.
I view the act as a personally intimate thing.
By which I mean, if you’re going to indulge in something as weak and pathetic as suicide, keep it to yourself. There is absolutely no reason to involve anybody else,
except as one last bit of wretched attention-whoring.
/rant
Sorry… some crackhead threw himself in front of a truck last week.
Caused a lot of traffic, and really messed up one of my drivers for a few days.
He could have accomplished the same end without doing all that. Apparently he
was too cowardly to take care of business himself.
/rant (for real this time)
“tremblor”?
I know tremor, and I know temblor, but I have never heard of tremblors before.
Without going into details as to why in an effort to avoid internet controversy, I think this sort of response to a suicide is the most appropriate.
Tremblor is a real word! I think it might be archaic or something, but I’m old so it works out.
Oh, apparently it is not a real word, just an extremely common incorrect word. The Internet has lied to me again :(
Too bad about Retronauts. I haven’t dug a Megaman game for some time now BECAUSE they have become so Metroidvania. The last Megaman game I enjoyed was Megaman X3 (I didn’t like the PSX X games, although I think I’m the minority here). If I had a PSP I would definitely get Powered Up and the X remake, but I don’t have one, so here I am, stuck with Megaman Zero and ZX which are hardly Megaman at all in my mind.
According to google definitions, the word you were looking for is “temblor.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, tremblor is an alternate spelling of “temblor” influenced by the word “trembler” (presumably it’s rare since Firefox spelling corrector doesn’t recognize it, but I go with OED over Firefox). It was first attested in 1913 (probably as an error, but has been used since). It doesn’t matter though because all those words eventually come from Latin’s “tremulus” which has an “r” anyway.
I felt the quake in Palo Alto! My first in California. There was some shaking that quickly transitioned into a sensation of riding a wave, like we were suddenly asea.
What’s up with that Fury ad?
FURY:
There is a girl.
And she has no pants.