I have to begin this post with a shameful fact: I forgot about this blog's birthday. OMFG, what a terrible blogger I am! It's like forgetting the birthday of your children, or something! Well, on the other hand, maybe I just had such a good time here that I never thought, even for a second, that one full year might have already passed, so it came as quite a shock when I saw that my first post was written on the 30th of August, 2007.
(unrelated, just something that made me lol)
One year, it's quite a long time on the internets, isn't it? In a world where new sites and blogs appear everyday just to disappear the next day, I feel kind of proud to have created a placed that endured almost 13 months now and shows no sign of stopping. And I won't stop, as long as I have things to say and people to read them.
Which leads me to the awesome readers I have here. I know this may sound lame, but without you this place wouldn't exist, and I'm serious, because I had another blog, a few years ago, that I stopped working on because I barely had any readers. Fortunately that is not the case with NebachadnezzaR's Place of Awesomeness, thanks to my "blog buddies" Father Krishna, Gnome, Deitrix, Junlee, Funnyman and Blondjon; my friends from PTGamers who ocasionally come by, TGenial, Blackhole69, German and Simbyotic; my heavy metal mate dxvolt and the only visitor who's also a friend in real life, my main man Fredy.
Thanks, guys :)
Now, let's fucking party! The beer's on the house, and so are the cigars and the champagne, so feel free to consume whatever makes you happy :P
Sorry for the lack of activity on this blog. Like Father K, gnome and other "blogging friends" of mine, and of ours since we have this sort of blogging community going on here, I've been in a sort of blogging hiatus as of late. It was mostly due to lack of time, now with me entering college and all that, but I have to admit I've been a bit lazy as well. Well, anyway, just some days ago I played and beat Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and I fucking loved it.
Now, I have to admit, I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. In fact I hardly have any interest in it, and although I've played a lot of SW games it was always for the gameplay alone, because I couldn't care less for the story. Not that there's anything wrong with it, sci-fi just isn't my style, and all that moral bullshit between dark and light sides surely didn't help me like it more. But I digress.
Despite not being a SW geek, pardon me, SW fan, I still had a blast with this game, because it fucking rocks! The story, surprinsingly, is appealing to pretty much everyone since it narrates a sort of self-contained chapter in the SW canon. Of course it has connections to previous and future events in the movies (it's set between episodes III and IV), but it's pretty damn enjoyable just by itself. This is due to a damn great main character. Starkiller is just a fucking cool protagonist and really felt like I could relate to him. The other supporting characters are also interesting, specially Starkiller's droid, Proxy, who's programmed to routinely try to kill him.
Gameplay wise, the game is called force unleashed for a reason. You've never had so much control over that misterious energy. Force lighting is...shocking (lol), force push lets you push enemy soldiers out of your way (into oblivion, if you happen to be on a bridge) and force grip is just...wow. You can pick up almost everything that's on the levels (Tie Fighters included) and trow it into the air or, of course, at enemy soldiers. You can also pick those up and just play around with them, which is pretty entertaining in a sadistic kind of way.
Talking about force grip, I have to mention the technical "holy trinity" of this game: Havok for the physics, Euphoria for the character's animations and finally Digital Molecular Matter for the physical properties of the objects. When you combine the three of them, the result is something to be seen. The soldiers you pick up try to grab on to something (and they get much harder to handle if they succeed), the objects you throw react to the enviromnent and everything you break, breaks in a realistic way, calculated in real-time. Just see some videos to get the full picture, because I could never translate it into words.
Unfortunately I have two major gripes with the techincal aspect of the game. The first is the fact that the debris of the things you destroy disappear after just a few seconds, right in front of your eyes. WTF... Yeah, I know it would demand a hell of a lot of processing power if they stayed there forever, but couldn't they wait til you leave the room to vanish? The second is the bugs. This game feels so unfinished... Why couldn't they push back the release date for one or two months? As it is, sometimes objects react in an erratic way, there's clipping issues and worse, sometimes even your character gets stuck. Once I actually had to restart the game because Starkiller got completely stuck while trying to jump down a hole. Oh, and there's also the loading screens. Ca you believe there is loading screens even when you're just navigating through the menus? How fucked up is that...
Still, in the end this game was just fucking awesome. Essential to every SW fan and definitely recommend for action fans, whether they like George Lucas' work or not. The gameplay is fun and addictive, the story is superb, the music is good (and the voice acting is ace! better than a lot of movies I've seen, actually) and overall it's just a pretty entertaining, if short, game.
So, less than a week ago I decided to play every Contra game released to date (not every port of every game, although I did play more than 1 version of some games) and today I can proudly say that I successfully accomplished this. Yeay! So, if you're curious about this series but don't have the time/patience/interest to do the same yourself, here's a summary of what I think about every game for your information (note that after each title I only indicate the version(s) I played, not every single version made):
Contra (NES)
The original game, this is what most people remember when they think of Contra. I bet it was a great game back in the day, but unfortunately I never played it back then and nowadays I can honestly say it sucks! Yes, I said it! Hit me, Contra fanboys! Ok, seriously now, that's indeed my opinion about it. The graphics suck, the gameplay is competent but not that great, the "3D" areas suck, the game is hard as hell and after you lose there's not many reasons to come back.
Super C (NES)
The follow up to the original game, it's even more difficult and although there's a couple innovations, for the most time it feels just like Contra all over again but, for some reason, slightly worse.
Contra Force (NES)
Well, if the previous games sucked, this one sucks 100x more! Why? Because it wasn't even supposed to be a fucking Contra game! Like Silent Hill 4 or Pirates of the Caribbean, CF was going to be an original game, but instead they decided to give it the name of a famous license. The result? A game that barely has anything to do with the other games in the series. It's slow, the gameplay is not that much fun and overall it just plain sucks.
(note that the slowdown is not from the video or the emulator, the game is really that slow)
Operation C (Gameboy)
Now, this is a good game for a change! The graphics are what you can expect from a gameboy, with that unique design in black and white. Unlike the previous games, the controls seem fluid and natural, and for a portable game, this one kicked ass.
Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES, Gameboy Advance)
Some people consider this the best Contra game ever. I wouldn't got that far, but it's definitely in my top 4 (what? I couldn't just pick 3 games...). The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is refined and addictive, the weapons are awesome and overall it's just an awesome game. One thing I didn't like though, and that was the over-head stages, where you have to manually rotate the camera around the character, because not only are those sections slow-paced and boring, that camera thing makes me dizzy.
The GBA port is pretty much the same with 2 big diferences: the graphics were toned down (although still pretty good for a GBA) and the over-head stages were replaced with levels from Contra: Hard Corps, which is good in my opinion, but many people didn't like that.
Contra: Hard Corps (Mega Drive)
For me this one is even better than C3. The graphics pushed the limits of the system and the gameplay was pretty evolved compared to the previous games. For the first time you had 4 characters to choose from, each with their own set of weapons, you could carry 4 weapons at the same time and there were multiple paths you could take, leading to different levels and diferent endings. There were 6 endings, and the game was so addicitve that I ended up watching them all, and they were worth it.
The only bad thing about this game is the difficulty, or so I hear. It's regarded as the hardest Contra ever, but I can't really say. Why? Because I'm a fucking cheater, that's why! Yeah, I know this isn't something pretty to say, but even the easiest C games are too damn hard for me, so, in order to prevent me from going insane, I played every game using life or invincibility cheats. Shamefull, I know, but it was the only way for me to have fun with the games, and that's what matters for me.
Contra: Legacy of War (Saturn, PSX)
If you're really interested you can read my full review over at the Saturn Junkyard. On the other hand , if you're just looking for a quick summary, here it is. This game sucks! Hard! By attempting to bring the game to 3D they decided to make everything in a overhead view and they sucked at it. This game is just not fun.
C: The Contra Adventure (PSX)
The title is right because, after the flop fo the previous game, they decided to take a new approach. A return to the origins? No, although it seems like it at first, with the first level being a side-scrolling one just like in the old games. Unfortunately eventually the "adventure" levels come, in a 3rd person Tomb Raider-like style. Yeah, I know, back in the days everyone was looking for that kind of games to show off the PSX's capabilities, but as expected, in the end the game sucked. Not so much as the previous one, but still.
Contra: Shattered Soldier (PS2)
Now this is a 3D Contra game! Probably my favourite (and the one who gave me more problems to get it running, like every old PS2 mine doesn't like CD's that much so any CD-based game gives me a headache), it's basically what one can expect from it. A side-scrolling Contra game with fast paced action, great graphics and huge (and fucking ugly) bosses. Probably the hardest game after Hard Corps, it was still beatable after some serious level memorization. Anyway, it was a blast to play.
Neo Contra (PS2)
Why? After getting it right with Shattered Soldier, why did they have to fuck things up again? Although not as bad as the 32 bit games, Neo Contra is still a bit on the sucky side of things. With an overhead instead of sidecrolling perspective, this could've worked, if only it had a control system like Geometry Wars, to give a recent example, where you control the character with one stick and shoot with the other. As it is, it's just too damn hard to hit enemies, and that takes some of the fun of the game. At least it's somewhat easy when compared to the other games.
Contra 4 (Nintendo DS)
Actually the last game of the series was the first one I played to the end, sometime ago when it was first released. Great game, in a 2D style similar to the first ones, and making use of the 2 screens to bring back the experience of the first game's Arcade version, which featured a vertical screen. There's also a lot to this game other than the main adventure. There's a series of challenges that seriously challenge you and if you're skilled enough you can unlock full versions of Contra and Super C for the NES, among other neat extras. Definitely a mandatory purchase for fans of the series.
So, in the end, what were my favourites? Definitely Shattered Soldier, Hard Corps, C3 and 4, and if you're thinking about getting into Contra I recommend you play those ones first. The worse were the original NES ones, which, nostalgia aside, didn't stood up to the test of time, and the 32 bits games, which were already bad when they first came out, but in the end I have to admit there's a "clone" of this series than I enjoy even more than any Contra game
Metal Slug! Now that's a good series with hardly any bad game (although MS X, 4 and 5 did suck a little), that elevated the gameplay first introduced by Contra to whole new levels. Contra may be the original but for me Metal Slug is the pinnacle of the run 'n gun style of action games, so I recommend everyone, and I mean everyone, to check those games out.
Do you know Random J's corner of JPop? Well, this is Nebacha's corner of JMetal! Ok, not quite, but I thought that sentence sounded cool (actually the "J" in the title of J's blog is referring to himself, it's J's blog of Pop, not of JPop). Anyway, the fact is, although I'm quite a fan of Japanese culture (not a Japanophile, though. I'm interested in their culture, not obsessed with it, or better, with the romanticized version of it portrayed by most games and anime series), I have to admit, their metal sucks! Although they're pretty big fans of the genre, they usually suck at it, having few and somewhat mediocre bands. Still, thanks to Death Note I've just found a fucking awesome JMetal (if we can call it that) band: Maximum the Hormone!
Here, watch this:
Freaking awesome, isn't it? Ok, maybe not at first time, but after a while it starts to grow on you, and the images fit right in with the sound (love the way they put images of Misa in provocative costumes right when the song gets heavier). But this one is even better, in my opinion:
Those are just short verions used in the anime, you can check out the full songs on youtube if you're interested. Preety cool, uh? It definitely caught me by surprise, with an interesting mix between clear elements of heavier sounds, like Death/Black Metal or Grindcore, and softer sections, like the beginning of the second song. The full album, Buiikikaesu, reflects this even more, it's not as heavy as one might think just from listening to this. It's actually more rock than metal for the most part, but, regardless of what it is, what matter is that it's awesome, and reminds us that there's more to Japanese music than just J-Pop.
Damn, I haven't blogged in ages... Although I have the whole days to do what the fuck I want, I always come up with shit to fill that free time up to the very bottom. Most of the time is spent between my book, which is finally on tracks (for you to get the picture, it took me 2 years to write the first 80 pages, but after a month and a half of intensive writing I'm already at 180, and I want to reach 250 till September 15th), and playing games that have been on my list for what seems like ages. I'm specially concentrated on RPGs since they're the most time-consuming, and after beating Lunar 1 and 2 I'm currently busy with Final Fantasy VII (yup, I'm just playing it now...).
In between I've been enjoying some movies and anime series. I took a trip to the past by watching some old Disney movies again and I just discovered the HUGE impact Tarzan had on me. I loved all the Disney movies I saw when I was a kid, but Tarzan is the only one I have in both VHS and DVD, have the PC and PSX version of the game and the movie's soundtrack, which is freaking awesome! Believe it or not, I always get the shivers when I listen to this:
On anime, just started watching Death Note after hearing the best things about it and, wow, what can I say, it's just as good as everyone says! Unlike most anime, the story is always developing, there's no filler, every minute something awesome happens and when you know it 20 minutes have passed and the episode already ended, but you still need to see more of it, and so you end up like me watching 10 whole episodes in a single day! Story-wise it's about a kid who finds a notebook called a Death Note where you can write the name of someone and that person will die. It's obviously more complicated than that, so I'll leave it for you to find the rest, but trust me, everyone should check this out, anime fan or not. Give it a shot:
Now, on to other things, I feel a little guilty for not having posted this sooner, but, as we say in Portugal, better late than never (don't know if you have that saying or a similar one in English-speaking countries). In case you haven't noticed, DETRIX, the man-god who's responsible for both Gnome's and Father Krishna's artistic depictions, just made this! Oh. My. Effing. Gawd! I would recommend everyone to check out his most awesome of blogs, but since I think that everyone does that already, meh, I'll say it anyway. Go here. Now!
About game related things, last week I received a Dreamcast VGA box from Racketboy and let me tell you, that shit be tight! I have half a post already written about it for the Dreamcast Junkyard, so I'll tell you more about it later.
About music, which is, I think, the last thing I talk about on my blog, I've been listening to In Flame's last cd, A Sense of Purpose, and it's pretty good, although at first it didn't have the same impact as the previous album, Come Clarity, which started right off with the amazing song Take This Life (no, it's not emo). That one is in Guitar Hero 3, by the way. Anyway, A Sense of Purpose, although not having much of an initial impact, only shows its true worth when we reach track number 8 and find In Flame's longest track to date, an 8-minute epic that goes by the name of The Chosen Pessimist. Do yourself a favour and check this out (it's not too heavy, I promise):
Yup, it's just like the Xbox Live Spring and Fall updates xD Now, seriously, I've been sort of neglecting this blog for some time now, with only sporadic posts, but now I'm back with, hopefully, good stuff to talk about. It actually feels good to be here, I really need a place to write now that I've sort of given up on another site. Anyway, I realized that I've kept you in the dark for a long time regarding the last games I played, so here's what kept me entertained in the last few weeks (no i'm not going to talk about MGS4 because you all already know how awesome it is):
Halo 3
The only reason why this hype-beyond-all-reason game was not a total disappointment was because I already knew what to expect, and yes, my opinion stays the same, it's just an average FPS. The graphics, although not bad by any means, are just average when compared to other FPS of its time and gameplay-wise its just the same thing all over again. Not that I was expecting a revolution, or something, but, damn, why do I have to feel like I'm playing Halo 1 and 2 again instead of the sequel they promised me? Another thing is the repetition of events. You shoot aliens, you shoot flood, from time to time you arrive in an open space where you fight with vehicles, it' been the same for years now! Oh, and scenarios? Guess what. You have forests, alien bases and snow like in Halo 1 and desert like in Halo 2. OMFG, it's original beyond measure! Couldn't they throw at least a new theme for a change? The jungle theme doesn't count, it ends too quickly... And guess how the game ends? With a fucking Warthog getaway, just like in Halo 1. Yeah, I'm also thinking what the fuck was Bungie doing all this time to just recycle the previous games instead of making a true sequel. At least it's not boring (for the most time)...
Assassin's Creed
Another pretty hyped game, specially because of producer Jade Raymond (don't look, funnyman, or you might need a cold shower), but this one actually delivered, although both the press and gamers, who apparently were expecting a perfect game, were turned off by just a couple of flaws. Ok, maybe I just like it because I'm interested in the theme of the Middle Ages and its detailed, living an breathing cities are a perfect research source for a book I'm writing, but still, one can't deny the pretty original gameplay and the just superb graphics. Everything is both huge and detailed, and it's stunning to see the game in motion. Recommended for anyone who likes the theme.
The Orange Box
Or better, Hal-Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2, since those are the ones I'm actually playing. Portal, as great as it is, once you beat it there's not much left, and I already beat it on my PC, and Team Fortress 2 lacks bots for off-line play, for all of us poor bastards without Xbox Live Gold. I actually just got this game because of Episode 2, but I decided to play the original game and Episode 1 again to better follow the story, and what can I tell? HL 2, despite being more than 3 years old now, is still great and even graphic-wise is not the worst looking game, or FPS, I've seen on the 360 (that title goes to Far Cry, great game with a suck ass presentation). When it comes to gameplay this game is the exact opposite of Halo 3, you never spend more than 5 minutes doing the same thing and just when you start to get tired of a certain section, some twist comes in and you find yourself doing something completely different. Of course it always involves shooting and a little puzzle-solving here and there, but this game really pushes the limits of how many different things and situations you can have in a single game, and the Episodes, that are sort of expansions, do this even better. Also, the interaction between our character and our allies is like nothing I've seen before (only surpassed by the All ghillied up mission in CoD 4), and story-wise, the end of Episode 2 is the most emotional virtual moment I experienced since MGS4. Yes, it's that good. Recommended for anyone looking for a good FPS that's more than just running and gunning.
Oh. My. Fucking. God... 09/07/2008, I was there...
..to see the best fucking band on the planet! It was so fucking awesome that I needed almost a week to put myself together, process everything that happened, and write this post about it. Here's what happened...
Before the show my day wasn't going too well. I had just missed the train and the next one would only arrive 2 hours later. Damn... That meant that I would miss the previous shows. Not much of a problem since I'm not a fan of Avenged Sevenfold and my favourite Slayer song wasn't included on the set-list (it's Eyes of the Insane, btw), but any further delays could prevent me from arriving on time. After embarking on the train shit continued to happen. The train ahead of us had a mechanical problem and we were stuck for half an hour before it was solved. Fuck dammit...
When I finally arrived in Lisbon I quickly took a cab and arrived at the place one hour before the start of the show. That was a close call... After grabbing a beer I enjoyed the rest of Slayer's performance (pretty cool) and when it was over I finally tried to locate the only two people I knew who where there (I later discovered that Profeth was also there, but he forgot his fucking phone, so I had no way to contact him...). Ok, I only knew them from chatting with them on the web, it was the first time I met with them personally, but you can't go wrong with fans of both metal and games.
Mochito and dxvolt, you guys are the best. Too bad we were together for such a short time (damn trains!), but, anyway, such a show is always best enjoyed in good company, so thank you both for providing that. Eventually we started to hear "doctor doctor", the UFO song (they're cited as being a big influence of Steve Harris), so we knew the show was about to start. We were already getting somewhat impatient (although the band arrived only 10 minutes late, nothing compared to other bands who make us wait one hour. Yeah, it happened to me once...), but then we begin to hear Churchill's speech (yeah, the WWII one), and then comes Aces High. OMFG...
What followed was just so fucking incredible... The musicians' performances were just superb, the pyrotecnics were on par with what Rammstein use on their gigs (which is saying alot!), the stage was perfectly decorated, with nice details like sarcophagi with bright red eyes glowing in the dark and great backgrounds (I think the background of Rime of the Ancient Mariner had actual pieces of cloth acting as sails instead of just a picture) and Bruce's costumes were as good as ever. Oh, and Eddie also made an appearance, twice! First as a big ass mummy and then as an android. Really, we couldn't have asked better. I've seen a lot of Iron Maiden concerts on DVD and this was without doubt one of their best, not just because it was the first I attended, but because they really gave it all to make it a memorable night.
When it ended the only way we could express our sheer joy was through a group hug between me, dxvolt, mochito and...fabio, I think? Sorry, didn't catch your name :/ What a great show, what an awesome experience, it was one of those things that only happen once in a life-time...and I was there! Fuck yeah! :D
PS - Dxvolt, thanks for everything, man, really. For the food, the drink and the ride home. I really appreciated it, remember me to buy you a beer when we meet again ;)
Welcome friends! Welcome to my personal blog, where you may find articles about the most various things. Videogames should be a constant presence here, but expect to see the occasional movie or music album review, for I'm a fan of all forms of entertainment. Also expect to see everything that comes to my mind, since this is my own blog I feel free to post all the shit that I want.
Now, have a seat, grab a beer and read what goes in my mind...
