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The Ill Communication

The boys of summer

July 18, 2016 | 20:29 | Written by: snake911

My most recent binge-watch fest was sitting down and checking out Big Windup!, a 25 episode show centered around high school baseball.  I’ve been planning to watch this for a while and finally decided to pull the trigger when I had some free time.  In short I loved it, even though I’m not the biggest of sports fans.

What I liked about it (and what anime does in general) is how they take the minutia of a subject and spread it across over two dozen episodes of a show, to pull you into that world and give you a sense of what it’s like to be in the character’s shoes.  For Big Windup! It’s being a player on a baseball team.  Now for me, the most experience I have in playing baseball was when I played in a tee-ball league for just one season.  At that point in time, you’re playing mostly by yourself along with 8 other players that wear the same uniform as you do, so the experience of teamwork was MIA.

Big Windup! gave me a new appreciation for the sport as there is so much strategy that is occurring under the surface of baseball that you’re unaware of when you’re just a spectator.  Sure I know of the call signs the catcher gives to the pitcher, how coaches from the dugout give commands via hand gestures, and paying attention to the first and third base coaches, but when you tie them all together by showing them all occurring during a single game is when you can tell what a team effort it takes to win a game, and how the strategy has to spread to every player across the diamond.

It’s very in line with Initial D, another show I love a lot.  They are the same in regards to all of the inner monologue that occurs in an episode; and for Big Windup!, most of it takes place between the catcher and pitcher.  Because of this, you get to hear the mind processing a strategy that considers all that is occurring on the field (like who’s on base), in addition to knowing the opponent’s batting stats, the batting roster, the current inning, balls, strikes, and outs on the board.  Man, there’s so much to keep track of!

It’s all a fictional story, so they can set it up to be a game with a lot of drama, but I was surprised at how I reacted to the games that they played.  There were some highly intense moments for me and it felt weird that I even cheered when the team’s strategy worked, and flinched when the opposing team hit a win.  The games were of fiction, so why did I even act that way?!  I guess that shows just how good the writer is at setting up how a game would playout for the reader -- or in my case since I didn’t read the manga -- the viewer.

I also liked all of the scenes that occur off of the field, where we see the kids as students at high school or what they do at home.  I also liked how they began bringing in the parents, more specifically the mothers, by having them sit and cheer for their team.  It was kind of fun trying to pick out which kid belonged to which mom only based on facial features alone.  Then finding out which of the kids have the same classes together and knowing who grew up with who and figuring out that someone on the team knows someone on the team they are playing.  All of this just expands on the universe of the story and gives it life, as opposed to just focusing solely on the sport.

So yeah, Big Windup! is a really cool show.  I watched it on Hulu, and they have both the subbed and dubbed versions, so you can watch it whatever way you prefer.  I only watched the first season as that’s the only one they have.  In fact, I don’t believe the second season has been dubbed yet.  Someone needs to get going on that as I needs more Big Windup!!

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Wild in the streets

July 14, 2016 | 20:14 | Written by: snake911

Streets of Rage

This was originally planned to be an article for Streets of Rage 2, as that was the game from the series I had a more fonder memory of playing as a kid, but after recently going back and playing both the original and the sequel, I was surprised to find out that the original was waaaaaay better than 2, so I decided to do the article on Streets of Rage instead.  But definitely not Streets of Rage 3.  That’s a cheap, heap of trash, quick cash in of a game that had no reason to come out.

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Charting the course

July 12, 2016 | 22:34 | Written by: snake911

Watched the episode of Pre-Flight where Gill and Jason were hosting the Toonami panel at Anime Expo 2016, and holy crap was it jammed packed with information!  For starters, right off the bat they announced the latest show they acquired and are planning to begin airing very shortly: One-Punch Man.  I’ve heard of the name, but I never delved in to get more intel on it, but apparently it’s really popular.  Glad they picked it up so I can at least check it out to see how it is.  Looks cool, though, so I’m looking forward to it.

Next they announced they are doing Intruder 3!  This was a shocker for me as there was a 15 year gap between 1 and 2, but only a year between 2 and 3?!  But it makes sense there would be a third one based on the events of the second one, so I’m definitely looking forward to this.  They said it would be November-ish when it would air.

This one I remember them talking about a few months back, but this time they actually were able to talk about it a little.  It’s the return of Samurai Jack!  And they actually had a long, like 10 minute produced video to talk about the deet.  Genndy wants to finish Jack’s story, so he’s begun production for the latest season of Jack.  I really liked the video and it shows how the whole team is behind it, and with it on Adult Swim as opposed to Cartoon Network, there’s sure to be more rad violence than before.

After that they noted they are doing a miniseries led by Mamoru Oshii from Production I.G.  They told him to do whatever he wants.  That’s bold.  To give someone permission to create whatever they want could lead to some awesome stuff!  They showed a teaser for an Adult Swim ID he made, and it was wwaacckkkyy.  They said the show he’s making will debut in 2017.  I’m excited for this to see what kind of output can come from someone with total creative freedom.

And then they talked about them making a new season for FLCL.  I know they mentioned this before, but I have mixed feelings regarding it.  On one hand it’s not necessary to have a second season for FLCL.  But on the other, it would be interesting to see what other stuff they can pull out from that universe.  This one is a tall order to fill, so they need to be on the nose when it comes to creating more content for it.  For this, I’m cautiously optimistic about it.  I still need to watch the FLCL panel discussion about the show at AX16.  They should have more details about it there.

So yeah, looks like a lot of rad stuff is coming down the pike for Toonami fans. Woooooooooo!

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Tales from the trenches

July 8, 2016 | 20:52 | Written by: snake911

Probably old news to everyone else, but I just came across Andy Gavin’s personal blog where he wrote in detail what happened during the development of Crash Bandicoot.  It was a really fascinating read from the beginning when they took a road trip across country to begin development on their next game following Way of the Warrior, to when they were Sony’s leading game at their booth at E3 1996 (and quickly hoisted to become PlayStation’s mascot during the PS1 era), to finally releasing the game.

In addition, I loved how he appended his partner’s opinions, Jason Rubin, to what he wrote about from the first few postings.  It’s great to hear from two different perspectives on the same topic he was discussing. Then he went further by getting others to speak their mind during the development process, from both inside and outside of Naughty Dog.

Both Andy, Jason, and the team did so much for the game, including Andy creating a programing language that was light on resources so they can take full advantage of the PlayStation’s hardware and capabilities!  So inspiring, so cool!

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Back to business

June 27, 2016 | 19:47 | Written by: snake911

That month long gap since the last blog post was due to me working on the backend of the website.  The CMS I used recently released a huge update that needed a bit more involvement on my part than the typical upgrade.  And due to the fact that I’m just a schlub hack of a web engineer, it took me longer than expected to go forward with it compared to someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

First was understanding the requirements which basically were at the threshold which my web provider could support.  For it, I needed to make some adjustments to make sure all of the minimum requirements were cleared for the upgrade.  Next was making all of the backups and massaging the upgrade package to conform to my webserver’s settings.  Then came the upgrade which didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted it to.

But after my third attempt it looks like it finally worked out and now I’m done with the backend and can go back to posting more stuff about celebrating the shallow.  But don’t think I was resting on my laurels when it comes to content.  In fact, I have some cool stuff I hope to roll out during the next few months.  Those, plus I still have a few more entries to post for the games journal.  So if you like what you see on this site, come back in the coming months for new stuff to check out.

But as always, I’d like to thank the CMS dev team for doing such a great job of making a super flexible management system that novice like me or experts can work with all for the super low cost of free.

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Soldiers Without Boarders

May 25, 2016 | 20:12 | Written by: snake911

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

After mix-felt opinions of what Metal Gear Solid 4 delivered as its conclusion for the multi-decades long series, some faithful fans of the franchise were disappointed by it; mostly with its story, the gameplay, or both. So when Konami began showing off the latest installment, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP, you bet there was nerd hate skepticism towards it. But when the naysayers actually played it, their feelings of resentment evaporated for this post MGS4 title as it’s probably the most technical MGS game there is, with a great story to boot. You might call it a peace offering to all the fans.

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Musica! Musica! Musica!

May 21, 2016 | 09:24 | Written by: snake911

Man, a lot of good songs have been coming out within the last few weeks, but not from new artists --I’m increasingly not caring about new bands as I’m old and stuck to what I liked when I was in my teens and early twenties. All these bands I’m about to discuss are all rock, all roll, all soul.

First there was the new Blink 182 track that I mentioned a few posts back, but around the same time Garbage debut the first single from their new album slated to come out in June. "Empty" is a great song that includes some of that familiar guitar and synths I know the band for from their hits and the meaning behind the lyrics stay in line of someone with insecurities with themselves. If this one track is a representation for the rest of the album, we’re in for a treat in June when it’s released.

Then there’s RHCP with the album The Getaway that’s also scheduled to come out in June. The first single for it is a song titled “Dark Necessities.” It begins with a great intro with a heavy bass and guitar, slowly building momentum as they play together. A piano enter and creeps into the foreground and then smack, it’s just the bass with an awesome funk sound to it that leads us into the vocals of the song. I could go on about “Dark Necessities” but this take my word that all 5 minutes of it is good from start to finish.

It’s really shaping up to be a great summer of music for 2016, and it’s all in early summer! Come on, August. Don’t let us down.

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