GHOST DIVE

Devil May Cry 4

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:03:52 +0800

Between the last entry and this one, I bought a Playstation 3 and have been spending whatever leisure time I have on gaming. I finished Devil May Cry 4, a game which I've been looking very much forward to for a long time. I've been a fan of this series of games due to the rip-roaring demon-smashing combat and its trash-talking main characters.

DevilMayCry4Boxart

Obviously, DMC4 is very pretty. Also obvious is the fact that Dante is replaced by Nero for most parts of the game. Nero is slower than Dante and doesn't have all the fancy weapons or style-changes, but makes up for it with his demonic arm. It took me a while to get used to the different dynamics, but it works well once I did. Grabbing enemies and slamming them to the ground or tossing them around "like a cheap toy" is highly gratifying. It's also extremely useful during boss fights where you can grapple onto the cheap suckers who love to float in mid-air and fire bombing attacks at you.

We have a female primary love interest — Kyrie — whose breasts don't jiggle (Trish and Lady obviously do not know sports bras exists) and dresses very modestly. Shocking!

I didn't care so much for Gilgamesh, Lucifer is not bad, but Pandora? That baby ROCKS. Thank you. The new Proud Souls currency for skill upgrades is extremely welcome, as is the option to refund orbs and re-purchase skills. In previous games, having to choose between skills or items limited one’s options; I usually had to give up buying items to level up skills. And there was no way to cancel and reconfigure skills obtained. I often had to re-load games when I bought a skill upgrade only to find that it sucked and wasn't worth the orbs.

The sucky bits: like other DMC games, the usual pattern is that there will be an Important Confrontation somewhere near the mid-point of the story, and then you have to navigate through the same damn environments, albeit altered and in reverse order. Pretty much, if you've gone up to stage 10, you've seen the whole world. It's a serviceable idea, but boring and lazy on the game designers' part, tsk tsk. Given the new technology, one would think they'd do something different and cram new environments in for a change.

Then there are the jumping puzzles. I don't mind a jumping puzzle or two sometimes, though my primary motivation of playing DMC is to live vicariously through Dante and beat everybody up violently while insulting them. DMC4 likes to stick jumping puzzles up the wazoo. Disappearing platforms! Rotating blades! Laser beams! Grim grip grappling! Dante and Nero can jump quite high, but they can't leap very much forwards — which sucks when you miss that irritating platform by just one minuscule inch and have to try everything all over again AFTER fighting enemies that re-spawn. Tedious trial-and-error button pushing is not the same as a serious challenge.

Dante gets three new weapons and Yamato (Dark Slayer style) in the game, but you get these items so late in the game that there's little chance to maximize their use. You can re-play stages to use these weapons, but it still doesn’t take away the disappointment when you receive Dark Slayer only to find that it's already a major boss fight in which you spend most of the time leaping around like a flea on crack and using guns.

Despite the niggling issues, the game is enjoyable. Out of the whole DMC franchise, I wouldn't say it's the best in terms of game play experience — DMC3 is my pick for that — but it’s fun and attractive enough for me to re-play it.

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Vesak

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:21:50 +0800

lotus

"Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:

A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;

A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,

A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."

[from the Diamond Sutra]

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Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:34:27 +0800

I didn’t blog for a long time as I was very busy and was a bundle of general gloominess. We now return to our regular programming. *crickets*

For the past week, I have been playing Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII on a PSP that I borrowed from a friend. I didn't used to understand the appeal of FF7, but I was very impressed with its story and character development after I played the original game. FF7 was a truly excellent game that pushed the boundaries of RPGs.

Crisis Core gives me mixed feelings. I do like the shiny, pretty graphics (whee!) and the background of Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth's friendship. I'm not sure if the addition of the new characters — the Project G story — works well.

In the original FF7, the character development was so well rounded because the story was so long that it allowed many side-quests and stories to be woven into the main story. With Crisis Core, which is a much, much shorter game, we simply don't have that much game-time to get to know the newer characters. Furthermore, they have much more complex backgrounds. Although the addition of the email messages in the game helps a little, I found the whole Project G plot rather rushed, and the new characters a little one-dimensional compared to the other established ones.

Despite these flaws, it’s an enjoyable game, and I like the new combat system. I’m almost done with the game but I’m reluctant to complete it because I know Zack is going to die, which will result in me being all ‘ARGH!!!’ and sad. >_<

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GOD BLESS YOU ~One Night Dejavu~

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:33:58 +0800

LUNA SEA GOD BLESS YOU~One Night Dejavu~2007.12.24 TOKYO DOME

Being extremely fond of LUNA SEA as I am, it will be no surprise that I am heaping praise upon this DVD. Indeed, being so fond of LUNA SEA, I have watched almost all of their live performances on video with the exception of the Manatsu and Mafuyu releases. I would say that in comparison to their previous live videos, this DVD is probably one of their best ever.

The energy of the live was fantastic. None of the underlying anger/frustration/sadness of 2000's Final Act nor the sometimes nervous trepidation of their younger days. Everyone is happy to be back, having mellowed and matured in the past 7 years, they are in top form and ready to kick ass live.
The sound quality is excellent. Unlike the crappy clips that surfaced on YT, this one is tweaked very nicely to perfection. Quote from friend, "I didn't know their songs could sound so good"
Excellent editing that gives an overall great representation of the live. Plus those great little close-up touches, which fans will love and undoubtedly pause and rewind again to catch just that bit of OMG INORAN MAKING A CUTE FACE! and other fun moments.

I encountered the advertising truck outside Harajuku station (with END OF SORROW playing at full volume) just as I was contemplating between charging 1000 or 2000 yen to my Suica card. This lead to a loud exclamation of "OMG!!!", therefore drawing attention to the many ordinary folk around me that I am indeed a silly loud-mouthed foreigner. As much as I would like to be not easily persuaded by such advertising tactics, it still made my day.

LUNA SEA truck

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Thank you.

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:31:48 +0800

will call booth at tokyo dome

To all my colleagues, all the staff involved who worked so tirelessly, many times forgoing sleep, food and even water;

To all X Japan fans who trusted us & lent us their understanding and support despite some initial difficulties;

To all those who believed in us, who have assisted us one way or another throughout this project;

overseas will call

We did it.

All of us — together — made this a possibility, and a success.

THANK YOU!

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Zombiefied

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:45:25 +0800

Finally, JRR 2.0 is out. It's in Beta, and there's a lot more work to be done, but at the very least, it's released — and that's a small load off my shoulders.

I have not slept very much recently, when I do it's in small snatches of 2-hour naps. About once a week, I crash out and sleep for 10 hours at a shot, ignoring all alarms, sounds, phone calls even.

It's funny, when I was younger in high school I used to think pulling all nighters were crazy and a Big Deal. Now, I find myself doing it so often out of necessity, it doesn't seem unusual at all. 2am isn't really late, it's when I start to feel more lucid and ideas hit me. I've always liked working at night as it's quiet and the weather is cooler.

X Japan's concerts are next week. I can't wait!

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It makes me nervous...

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:29:36 +0800

...when I complete things ahead of schedule and am left with extra free time. However, lesson learnt: never post about having actual free time. Because not long after I wrote that last post I was swamped with new tasks and important urgent stuff to tend to. I'm currently working on so many different projects at the same time I lost count. It's as if the Powers That Be saw me feeling oh-so-slightly smug about it and zapped 37492450725 things to happen to me, pronto.

Orlando: A Biography

I was dying for a novel to read; haven't had the chance to really dig into a good hefty book in a long time. Don Quixote is languishing very sadly on my bookshelf.

I bought this book last week (only paid $5! cheap books are great) but I have not been able to get past the first few pages because I usually zonk out before I get around to reading it before bed. It's rather different from what I've read of Woolf previously; her tone is so much lighter and playful and humorous.

In other news, it makes me heartened to read this:

KAMIJO: I think that lately, there are unfortunately many bands who care only about the look. But there’s also still many bands who care about both the music and the look. I think the latter is how it ideally should be. Versailles is a band like that. But I'd like every band in the visual scene to give their best. We're really not in a position to give advice to others (lit: to look down on others). I want everybody in Japan's visual scene to work together, so we won't be made fun of.

(italics mine) ; source

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Huh.

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:50:24 +0800

I feel weird when I am not immediately swamped with work from the moment I open my eyes till I pass out.

What do I do with my spare time?! Maybe I should work to keep myself occupied...?

asldkl;a;kdsa;lkaf

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Final Fantasy VIII

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:01:31 +0800

Squallandlaguna

Back in 1999, I came across this poster in a comic books & game shop. I didn't know about Final Fantasy then, having little chance to play computer games when I was younger. This was my first contact with the Final Fantasy games.

3D computer games with characters in realistic proportions was a very new thing back then. FF8 was all the rage, both guys and girls, gamers and non-gamers played FF8.

I was really interested in the game, being quite impressed by the graphics. (Fine, the effeminate men had something to do with it too... *cough*) Sadly, my cheap computer was too outdated to support it. I bought the game anyway, but my computer ran it so slowly I gave up on playing it.

Recently, I suddenly recalled having the game discs with me, and installed in on my current computer, which is way over-qualified in the hardware department for this.

It's funny how low-res it looks compared to other games today, but I still find some of the art very attractive, for example, how they combine art nouveau and fantasy styles with more technological aspects of the FF world. A good nine years after the game was released, I've finally completed it. What it triggered was more than nostalgia, but a desire to play catch-up with the games and toys I never got to play with when I was younger.

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Everything is happening all at once

nobody@vox.com(huiwei) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:53:25 +0800

Yesterday I had only 2 hours of sleep and it was scary how dangerous this can be. I was crossing a traffic junction when an SUV beat the red light and I didn't notice it coming towards me. Luckily, there was a kind man who warned me in time. Stayed up all throughout the night yesterday to work on projects. Surprisingly I was still able to hold myself together today, somehow -- was extra careful when crossing roads today.

I took a 2 hour nap when I came home. Now I'm back at the computer again to work.

I think I've gotten used to being busy that I feel uncomfortable when I don't have anything to do.

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