| Looking back on old entries |
[Jul. 27th, 2006|10:46 pm]
tfd_wing_zero
|
Damm... Looking back on the last few entries, a LOT has changed...
The plan was for me to switch rooms in my house with my Sisters room in order to have more room for my stuff.. and it did work.... but not anymore, my room is packed with stuff! thing is though, what's taking up the space is kitbash projects and gundam model construction. And yet.. it still doesn't stop me from getting more.. strange.
The Nova is gone.. When it's MOT test came around. It failed miserably.. It would have cost more to repair everything than it would have buying a new car, thus i did. I'm now rolling around in a Honda Civic GL 1.4 (Yes, You can yell now that i'm a civic ricer faggot) but like i care, it's my car and i can do what the hell i want to it. Already i've added a rear wing to it, And i'm quite pleased with it. what's more is that i saved a lot of money on it, picked it up in a garage sale for only £2. when i get around to it, i'll probably post pictures.
I mentioned that i did a marathon of the Xenosaga Anime series. Well i went ahead and got the game. problem being that it wasn't released in the US, i had to get an import copy from the USA. Now, how do i play it.. i could either buy a US PS2, or mod my existing UK PS2. i went with the mod option as it would be cheaper... but i wish i went ahead and just got a US PS2. I wanted a mod to my PS2 that required no soldering. My PS2 has soldiered on without fault for over 2-3 years (compared to some people's PS2 that died after a few months work), there was no way i was going to kill it with a soldering iron and a wire in the wrong place. This meant that i'd have to use a Swap disc. So i went ahead and purchased swap magic 3, a well known swapdisc package. I also opted to use a fip top case mod, rather than using the slide tool methid. cause with slide tools, you have to remove the front panel of the Cd drive, and i don't facy doing that and lettign dust in. a flip lid is also cool for taking out CD's while the machine is off.
Anyway, modded the PS2, got a copy of Xenosaga. tried it and.... Didn't work. i was livid (though i also imported from the US the Gundam RPG game 'MS Saga, which did work) upon further researching, i discovered that Xenosaga was on DVD-9 media (a Dual layered DVD for the laymen's terminology) and thus swap discs wouldn't work. So i had to think of a way to play my game i spent so much money on.. And to the rescue comes.... HD Advance! This is what i should have done in the first place. HD Advance actually uses a Hard drive to run games from. All you need is a PS2 with the large expansion bay in the back, and a Network adapter. luckily i had both of these. So, digging around, i came across a 40GB hard drive which is a good size for this. used my PC to make a ISO image of the Xenosaga game, then copy that to the 40GB hard drive, install that in the PS2, run the HD Advance software and ensure it was plugged into a NTSC TV and BINGO! i played Xenosaga 1. Good thing about running games on the hard drive is that it works faster than a CD drive, thus loading time is reduced a lot. And also.. the undocumented benefit of using a hard drive.. You can download the game ISO files fromt he internet and play them. And remember i said i wanted 'Another Century's Episode' Well... now i have it, downloaded from the inta-web, installed and now can play. i just now need to work out in japanese what all the friggin' menu's are for.
And after 43 hours of play, i did complete Xenosaga. It was a good storyline and overall a good game to play, only downside would be the cutscenes/FMV... My god, some of them ran on forever. you could start a cutscene off, leave the room, go downstairs, make a sandwich, go to the bathroom, take a dump, come out and read a book, return to your PS2 and the damm cutscene would still be playing!
But at least they were good cutscenes.. voice acting wasn't that bad, Kos-mos's voicework was pretty good considering that she's supposed to be a machine. Plus it had Richard Epcar as Ziggurat 8 (Ziggy), yes, frigging Batou from GITS:SAC.
Since i completed XS1, i went and got Xenosaga 2. And my god, i know why people hate it.. The battle system now is so annoying at times, and the Voice acting is dire in places.. not to mention that someone else is voicing Kos-mos and she just lacks the cold authority that XS1 Kos-mos had. But, from the looks of things, The VA fro XS1 Kos-Mos will be back for Xenosaga 3. I just hope to god that Xenosaga 3 will be released in the UK. since 1 flaw about HD Advance is that it can't handle multi-disc games (Where the game asks you to swap discs mid-game) so there'd be no way i could play a import copy of XS3.
And i do want to play it, because the new Kos-mos model is so good looking it makes me want to pitch a tent... IN MY PANTS
Bringing things up to date, or near about.. Peter Cullen as Prime in the new movie... I can't hold back my inner fanboy.. thank god. I mean, if you haven't seen the video in this link, you should. http://www.blackfilm.com/20060721/features/transformers_cc.shtml is a video from the movie pannel from SDCC where a tape recorder was held up to a microphone, and Peter cullen had recorded a special message to the fans. It sent chills down my spine hearing (you could say) the greatest leader ever 'rallying the troops' for the movie.. just... wow.
My Alt Nemesis Prime from Ebay has now shipped, soon it shall be mine... i hope. and now i can have the Dodge ram alternator without having it assoiated with Optimus Prime. That's what my MP Convoy is for, my Optimus Prime for Alternators.
 |
|
|
