It’s 9/9/2009 in the time zone that this is posted and the Sega Dreamcast was released in North America 9/9/1999. The Dreamcast was ahead of other consoles with online play, Internet browser, Internet service provider, modem, powerful hardware, and unique controller. Games ranged from all sorts of genres, inbetweens, and a ton of arcade action. Only failures were Sega’s past and lack of a DVD drive.

Hardware for the Dreamcast is built strong and the machine itself isn’t suppose to be a huge multimedia center with glitches and rings of deaths. The controller fit perfectly into your hand and the analog triggers is great for driving games. You can connect with SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket and games if you had both. Later on Sega allowed online players to play with PC players.

Jet Set Radio – Graffiti roll blading action game which couldn’t be compared to Tony Hawk at the time…since it’s action and not trick based. This game has style and amazing music Guitar Vader, Jurassic 5, and more. Graphics were bright blazing cel shaded which so few game used. The analog stick when in grafficti mode was used to paint on walls, so you had to be fast. Jet Set Radio Future cut that feature for more speedy gameplay. Clearly Air Gear had some inspiration…

Test Drive V-Rally – Another arcade like rally game, but with a map maker and pretty good soundtrack. Of course I took advantage of that and made a map as high and low as possible. Watching the insane pop in is quite amusing.

Skies of Arcadia – At the time this game was meant to be a traditional old school RPG, but given modern treatment. There was a VMU mini-game where you fly your ship, special memorable attacks given at the end, and a large beautiful world where you wouldn’t mind getting lost in. Skies of Arcadia has a very Last Exile feel.

Grandia II – Character story is abundant and so many characters are not as you think they are. Areas are detailed, the game included the sountrack CD, and attacks are outer space massive. Battle system has a real time turn based gameplay with a bar listing next attackers. I stayed up late at night and skipped sleep couple times just to play this game.

Bangai-O – 2D mecha side scroller shooter by Treasure, but you aren’t limited to what direction you want to go in. You have a special attack that send out more bang if there’s more enemy projectiles. The screen can be filled with wonderful circular patterns of what you fired. There’s a newer Nintendo DS version which includes a level creator.

Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise from the Ashes, Red Dog, Evolution, Mars Matrix, and Berserk are great plays. Options are larger if you import games like Ikaruga, Rez, Hundred Swords, Shenmue II, Segagaga, and even an Eva typing game called Neon Genesis Evangelion: Typing Hokan Keikaku. There’s still a few games I wish to play like the first person sword fighting Persona looking Maken X and the supposedly weird arcade shooter Charge ‘N Blast. Project Gotham fans would like Metropolis Street Racer since it’s basically the same game series from the same developers. Kudos system included.

There are still new games coming out every once and a while from indie developers. Most of them are shooters like DUX and Last Hope: Pink Bullets with no region protection. Most games can still be found pretty inexpensive on Ebay and Play-Asia.

Nothing but fond memories of Dreamcast. Happy 10th birthday Dreamcast.

No, this isn't the reason I'm broke. Though I wish it was.

Oh geez, I never thought it would happen to me, but it’s finally happened. I’m broke. My mother needed a large sum of money to pay off her debt and ensure that my two older sisters survive the next month without dying of starvation or alcohol poisoning. So I, being the generous son, gave her the entirety of my savings account. And as if preordained by the cosmos, my car chose this morning to decide to stop running as I made plans to go to the nearest Walmart and stock up on instant ramen for the next six months. So now it’s sitting in the parking lot as a $7,000USD paper weight and I’m stuck without a car for at least a good solid month until my next paycheck. What really bothers me though, is that I was planning on buying a WA-6SE for my meager headphone collection before all this went down. The stark reality that faces me now destroys all hope and optimism that I once held for this world.

As most of you already know, nearly 50% of my paycheck goes towards purchasing anime or manga; but now I will not be able to support the industry from the shadows like I have been doing. No more Kira Kira, no more imported manga, still no game consoles and all I come away with is a broken heart. And thus is the life of a messiah, I presume. Call me paranoid, but I believe this is karma for all the badmouthing I’ve done of Kyo-Ani.

For those of you who have not kept up with the fighting genre, you would be forgiven for having no clue what Blazblue is. It was created by Arc System of the famed Guilty Gear series and released last month for PS3 and 360. It has gotten nearly all positive reviews and I have yet to come across a bad one and after playing it about a week I can see why. So this is my overview/review of it.

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What the heck is this crap?

So my friend laharl was kind enough to send a message my way that he’s discovered a software developer in Japan called minori, that has banned foreign ISPs from stealing the dirty images off their site. If you didn’t know, the Japanese version of Congress –something called diet pepsi– is going over or has already passed some new legislations that ban adult games from having any of the following: loli, schoolgirls, orgies, tentacles, guro, rape, beastiality, incest and everything else you’ve masturbated to for the past ten years. If you’re one of the few people that can still access that page without the use of proxies, then by all means feel free to go ahead and browse through their lineup of… well they don’t really have anything do they?

Let’s be honest here, who are they trying to fool? If you ask me, I think it’s a publicity stunt. Their games, as far as I remember, are below mediocre and spend quite a bit of time around an area called boring as shit. I see no other reason for them to block foreigners from seeing the terribly offensive school girl outfits and other generic gimmicks that make up the majority of their shitty titles. So of course, are they really in a position to be attempting this? Yes. If there is an ulterior motive behind it, something I like to consider jumping on the political bandwagon. I notice search queries for minori games on certain p2p’s are going up, and if internet averages are a microcosm of the world then this whole stunt may be proving beneficial for these guys.

Anyways, it seems minori isn’t the only one to try this… But why does it seem like only people that have developed really boring games like Wind ~a breath of heart~ are the ones who have the audacity to say, “go away foreigners”? I mean as far as I know, most of the software developers whose games I actually enjoy still have their traffic open for raping by foreign devils; and as far as I give a shit, this suits me just fine.

In more important news, Ed McMahone, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett all died today. It is also coincidently my sister’s birthday. So without further ado, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!

I recently got banned from a forum I was trolling. I won’t name which one, but if you were reading scanlation back in 2001, then you’ve probably heard of them. This was the goal from the start, of course, but I nearly ran 300+ posts on the forum before they got around to doing so. And now seeing the message that I’ve been punted to the winds fills me with this deep emptiness unlike any broken vinyl or Bob Marley album. more…

I’ve heard about this game before while browsing certain crevices on the internet and never really understood or took the time to learn about this game. Yes this is another Visual Novel write up much like my old Clannad one. However unlike clannad, the whole story is pretty devoid of any humor and fun to make way of a pretty dark theme along with a few adult scenes. If you are disturbed eaisly then this isn’t the review or even game for you as there are some images within that may be creepy to younger viewers. I’ll give you a moment to see if you really want to read on or not…

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