A need to return to the dojo

For every month that passes, I get another update from the team working on Shenmue 3 explaining what they are currently doing while in development for Yu Suzuki's long awaited third game for the series.  For me, I'm getting these update because I contributed to the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign back in 2015.  At that time, I had both games, but I never played them.  Last year I finally got around to playing the first game and I loved it.

Everything from the graphics, the story, the music, and just the sheer amount of things you can do and explore in the game made it a worthy title to play.  Now I need to finish catching up by getting to and completing the second game which looks just as interesting as the first.  I have the Xbox version, so I should have no problems playing since it was translated into English, but it makes me wonder if Yu Suzuki and team or if Sega have plans to remaster the first two games to build anticipation for the third game.  That would be pretty cool if they did, allowing people to experience the full trilogy.

T

For years I was a heavy tea drinker.  Back then I wanna say I was consuming about three or four cups a day.  And to me that's a lot since I would get the good stuff and boil the water and then steep it myself, so it took time and care to get a cup ready.  I knew the health benefits were there because back when I was drinking that much tea, I was able to perform a lot of physical attributes for long durations, demonstrating that…I dunno, the antioxidants were doing their work of transferring oxygen via blood cells, or whatever the heck antioxidants do.

But then I cut back and drank fewer cups because I hated the preparation and cleaning of the steeper whenever I wanted tea.  So I got lazy, stopped buying the good stuff, and decided to go with cold brew tea bags.  That way I wouldn't have to deal with boiling water and the steeping process.  But then I got lazy again because I didn't want to wait for the tea bags to mix with the water, so I got cold brew instant tea which only requires stirring powdered tea with cold water.  Done!  But due to a health scare regarding my kidneys/liver and fearing consuming all of that powdered tea may have been responsible for it, I decided to drop tea all together for about a year.

So wanting to be more healthier in 2017 than I was in 2016 I decided to go back in full swing and get the gourmet teas I steep myself.  But the problem was the chore of steeping the tea and then cleaning the infuser.  Well my problems were solved with my tea supplier making a thermos that not only acts as a nifty transfer container for hot tea, but it also serves as the infuser so the tea can be steeped with its tiny tea leaf cage.  On top of that it has a great leak proof seal and keeps the tea nice and warm for the longest time.  Seriously, this thing will keep the tea extremely hot even during my lunch break which normally starts six hours after I made the tea.  This is why the thermos is called toasTEA.  Get it?

Of course I needed tea, so I bought some along with some free samples I got with my order.  This is great because I can switch things up pretty often.  My go to is an herbal tea called Wild Strawberry that includes dehydrated fruits like strawberries (duh), raspberry leaves, hibiscus flowers, rose hips, and apple pieces.  It's a very sweet, but all natural and tastes so good.  It's one you can have at any time and it'll taste delicious.  The other one called Mango Mate is the only one that has caffeine in it and I planned to use it as my morning pick me up rather than relying on soda.  It has a grassy taste with a shallow taste of mango to give it flavor, but unfortunately it doesn't have that extra fruity taste I was hoping to get.  But it's still good none the less.

Pina Colada is alright, but it has a very strong taste to it, so I only drink this one occasionally.  And finally I have a small tin box sample of one that is based on my zodiac sign: Cancer.  This one has an interesting after taste that is a mixture of a few teas.  This is a perfect tea to have after eating a big dinner and you want something to soothe out your palette.

As you see in the picture at the top of this post, all of my tea needs (both teas and tea ware) are provided by a company called Adagio Teas.  They are my sole source when it comes to purchasing teas and accessories.  They just have great quality and they also have a points program that helps with savings.  I totally forgot I had unused points from years back and they were still good, so I basically got a free bag of tea in the process!

It's nice to go back to drinking tea again on a regular basis.  I actually feel healthier than I did drinking soda, which should be the obvious benefit, but at the same time it keeps my breath fresher and acts as a stimulant for the brain when it comes to focusing on a task.  Sure, soda performed better at that, but it was short lived and then I had to deal with the crash after the effects wore off.  With tea, it may not be as strong, but it has a longer lasting effect, so I can focus on something at work all day if needed.  Who'd of though stepping leaves would be so beneficial?

Mind the gap

Apologies for the radio silence, but there have been some IRL things on my mind.  But starting with this post which is acting as a warm up, content should be streaming back to normal output, so I'd say check later in the week for another new post that'll have, you know, something actually worth talking about, unlike this post about that's really about nothing.

I like all my posts to have an image, but the message above has no associated image I can think of.  So instead, here's one that has absolutely nothing to do with the above paragraph.  Good night!

A room full of mystery and suspense

Over the weekend I took the day off from playing games and actually participating in one in real life.

I went with a group on Saturday in Anaheim to a place called Mission Escape Games, a business with a unique service of entertainment I've never experienced before.  Here are the details: you and your group are placed into a room and have 60 minutes to escape.  No items are given to you and you must empty your personal belongings into a box for safe keeping (or to be used to cheat the game with).  So to get out, you're solely dependent on what you find in the room in order to find your escape.

The theme of the game we played is called Escape The Hydeout, and as you probably guessed, it's related to the story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Here's a blurb of the theme from the official website: "The Hydeout is a Victorian-era mission inspired by the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Be prepared to go into the good doctor's home but beware of his dark side. Dr. Jekyll has been acting strange and gone missing. It's up to you to find out what has happened to Dr. Jekyll before Mr. Hyde shows up..."  Spooky stuff.

The room is chock-full of items and it's up to you and your crew to scavenge for any clues that may be able to help aid in your escape.  A total of six can participate in the game, but we rolled with four.  Let me stress the fact that teamwork is essential for getting out of there.  No one person can be the hero.  In the end, we were able to escape and beat the game with only two-and-a-half minutes left to spare!  All of us contributed in solving the puzzles, so it was a team effort that got us out.

While exiting there were flyers for other similar escape games like this one all around Orange County.  One's in Tustin while two others were in Irvine, I believe, and a few others in neighboring cities, too.  All seem to have different themes, so you'll have a different experience at each location.  One had a haunted carnival circus vibe to it.  I'm sure that one will creep a lot of people out if clowns are involved.

This is definitely one experience I will never forget.  It was challenging, unique, clever, and just plain fun!  If there's one of these escape games around you, I'd recommend trying it at least once and hopefully get the same satisfaction that I got when we beat the game.  Resident Evil's got nothing on this!

Smiling to the beat

One game that has eluded me and acted as a blank spot for my PS1 knowledge has been playing PaRappa the Rapper in its entirety.  Now I tried to rectify this by trying to get it a few years back, but was surprised to see how much it goes for on eBay, so it was something I never went forward with adding to my collection.  Instead, I got UmJammer Lammy, the not-so-true official sequel to PaRappa the Rapper last year for my birthday.  Surprisingly you can still get a new copy of the game on Amazon for about $24.00.  Who knew?!

Although, this doesn't mean I'm completely oblivious to PaRappa as I played the heck out of the demo back when a friend let me borrow his demo disc that came packed in with his PS1.  But now here we are in the year of our Lord: two thousand and seventeen, during the 20th anniversary of the original game, Sony went and made a remastered version for the PS4 to redeem myself.  And I gotta say, it's pretty cool.

Visually it's just beautiful.  I normally keep games in their original aspect ratio, but I'm making an exception here as the simple yet vibrant color scheme and big character models make this something you can actually take advantage of your 16:9 widescreen HDTV.  In fact, I believe they mentioned it was also scaled up to 4K.  Nice.

As a bonus, there's even an interview with Masaya Matsuura, the creature of PaRappa the Rapper on PlayStation's official blog.  I loved how he said, "I Wanted to Make a Game that Puts a Smile on Everyone's Face."  Yup, mission accomplished as I'm grinning from ear to ear when I'm playing to the beat of this game.  This release is getting me excited to play the upcoming Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy that groups the first three games in a remastered collection for the PS4.

Man, this year is shaping up to be a great one for PS1 classics.

Babies -- 1, cyborgs -- 0

I got to complete my Ghost in the Shell quest this weekend by seeing the live-action movie, and I gotta say it was pretty rad even despite the dismal amount of money the movie brought in during this weekend's box-office.

Could you believe The Boss Baby made over half as much than what GitS brought in?!  I was surprised at how low the numbers actually were because the movie theater I was at was pretty full.  Welp, I guess Paramount will never do an adaptation of an anime property ever again.

And that's a real shame because it look as if the studio really put all they had into making this successful.  I guess the biggest stink coming from fans of the series was the movie whitewashing of some of the main characters, but for me that wasn't really the concern I had going in.  I just wanted the story to be in line with what one would be for something with the GitS name on it, and I'd say they did a pretty good job.  Not great, but enough for me to recommend it.

Like the Scott Pilgrim movie from 2010 where they needed to truncate and modify parts of the story in order to turn it into a stand-alone live-action movie, they did the same for GitS and I was totally ok with that, even though I prefer how the way things were in the books and movies.  They even went with the similar tactic of borrowing certain iconic scenes from the manga and apply it to the other properties, so it was like this latest movie was just like all the other properties in the franchise.

Although I do wish they did more with the other characters in Section 9 like Togusa, Ishikawa, and Saito because each basically had just one line in movie and that was it!  Mainly it followed the Major and Batou; although, I did like the amount of time Aramaki had in the film.

And finally, with this being the finish line for all of this Ghost in the Shell related topics, posts, and write-ups, let's put a bow tie on this topic and move on to other things, shall we?

Follow your ghost. Read this feature!

This is it!  Here are the last articles for the Ghost in the Shell Post Factum feature.  And just in the nick of time too as the premiere for the live-action movie is tomorrow!  Just like before, click on the image or the title's name to read the articles.  Alternatively you can get to the feature's index page by clicking the image link for the feature on the right-hand side of this page, or any page for that matter.  Or right here!

I'll wrap things up by giving the index page a facelift now that I've barley managed to finish the writing in time, so expect to see more than just a list of hyperlinks and that rushed header image.

One last thing...

Oh, right!  I forgot to mention in the previous post about the PlayStation Underground CD Magazine was during the first year and a half they included information about the Net Yaroze along with game demos that were developed with the platform.

In case you're wondering what the heck is a Net Yaroze, it was a special PlayStation that allowed hobbyist leveled users build games for the PS1.  It was totally awesome that Sony allowed the opportunity for gamers to put their skills to the test and allow them to make games for the then powerhouse that was PlayStation.

To market the Net Yaroze, they included a number of games with the CD mag and they were such a fascinating thing to look at and actually play.  The small videos they included about the development and contests gave context to what you can do with this special black version of Sony's console.  Sounds dumb, but if I had the cash, I'd try to get a Net Yaroze because it was such a neat product and service for promoting programing and games development.

A 32-bit periodical

About a year and a half ago after I knew my roommate (my brother) and I were splitting up to do our own things and living separately, I went on a bit of a spending spree.  You see, I was planning to continue living in our 2 bed, 2 bath apartment unit solo because I was lazy and didn't want to move.  So knowing in about two months I was going to be broke as heck by forking out the cash for rent without any other income to split it with, I knew my budget was going to be tighter than ever, so like the irresponsible adult that I am, I decided to blow the loose money I had on impractical things like video games.  Hooray!

Although to be specific, I didn't actually buy any games.  Rather, I bought volumes of CD magazines.

Back during the PS1 era I was subscribed to the PlayStation Underground CD Magazine.  I wanna say I learned about it from one of the many documents inside the PlayStation's box that the console came in.  It was a flyer advertising the annual subscription for the CD mag.  Back then magazines were a primary source for getting news about the gaming industry along with reviews for new games, so it was common to regularly buy magazines from a grocery store or get a subscription.  Most of my friends had magazines for me to borrow and read, but with the ushering in of the 32-bit consoles and PlayStation leading the pack in terms of mainstream popularity, it was a big leap forward for games, and Sony made a similar big change in how you stay up to date on their console.  Rather than a passive form by reading words on pages, their own self-published magazine was in a multimedia format, allowing for an interactive experience for consuming information, something definitely new and refreshing at the time.

The CD mag itself was really cool because every 3 months I would get a package in the mail with two CDs inside: one for the magazine with videos on upcoming games, interviews, and other related content, while the second CD was packet with game demos.  And if you were a fan of PlayStation, this was the inside scoop for all things Sony.  Something on par with Nintendo's magazine, Nintendo Power.

I loved it and was a subscriber for two years starting with Volume 1 Issue 4 all the way through Vol. 3 Issue 3 (Dec ‘97 – Sept ‘99).  The only reason why I stopped my subscription was because I was trying to save up all of my money to get a PS2 at launch, so one of the sacrifices I made for getting that next gen console on launch was to unsubscribe to the Underground CD mag.

A while ago around 2010/2011 I attempted to get the issues missing from my own personal Underground collection so I can have the full set from eBay, but at that time people thought those CDs were gold and sold them for high prices.  So high that I didn't even bother to buy or bid on any of the listed magazine issues and decided to just pass on the idea of collecting them.  But would ya believe that a few years later the sellers would have some sense knocked into them that these were fool's gold and dropped the price for these CDs considerably?  So for a solid month before my roommate left, I was searching and snatching up all of the issues I could find.  I believe I got the majority of these from three sellers across the US.

My timing couldn't have been any more perfect as when I was finishing collecting all the issues I could get, Giant Bomb's Demo Derby started showcasing the Underground CD mag.  Shortly after is when I saw the eBay market for the CD mag shrink a bit with other curious viewers of the Demo Derby snatching up copies for themselves.  At least that's my best guess.

I missed out on some good volumes, so I'm glad I got the ones I missed.  For example, Vol. 1 Issue 2 (June ‘97) includes the Square exclusive demo disc that packs in it nothing but Squaresoft games, and a unique JRPG styled interface to boot.  The list includes Final Fantasy VII, Bushido Blade, SaGa Frontier, Bushido Blade, and Final Fantasy Tactics.  I'm also digging all of the Tech Q&A and R&D interviews.  The most interesting issue I took a glance at is Vol. 4 Issue 4 (Dec. 2000) where disc 1 is a disc for PS1 while disc 2 is for the PS2.  This one was, obviously, to celebrate the US launch of the PS2, so this issue needed to deal with the now split user base.

I still have to go through all of the issues in detail in Vol. 4 (year 2000), and yes, I still need to get a copy of the elusive Volume 5 Issue 1 (March '01) PS2 exclusive version to have all the issues in my collection for it to be complete.  If I can get that last one, then I'll die a happy man as I'm a stickler for complete sets.

Jack's back

No, not that Jack.  This Jack:

This past Saturday was the premiere for the latest season of Samurai Jack, and wow was it great!  Bonkers to believe it's been over a decade since the last episode aired back in 2004.

The obvious big change is how he looks so incredibly different from the original series (not art style, I mean his appearance).  Here he has a beard, wears heavy armor, rides around on a dirty, noisy motorcycle, and uses a small arsenal of firearms rather than a sword; making a striking contrast to what he used to look like.

Since this was the first episode it had a lot of ground to cover for setting up all that's to come in this latest season, and because of that, this 30 minute episode felt more like 60 minutes.  But that's a good thing because every minute of it was extremely entertaining.  We get a lot of time with Jack to get an idea of what he's like now, which is a confused, lost, and tired individual.  It'll be interesting to see how he develops as a character with this new season.

I also like the idea of this small pack of ladies that've been trained all their lives to seek and kill Jack.  In fact, all of the antagonists that were shown in this episode were really cool.  So if every episode is going to be like this one, then I'm excited to see it all the way through.