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2009: A Review

It has been a weird year, but they all are.

Video Games

In retrospect, 2009 wasn't a huge year for games for me, but I did play a lot of stuff that was a lot of fun.

Fighting Games

 This has been the biggest year for fighting games in a very long time. SF4 came out (if you don't count arcade releases, which I don't because there hasn't been a worthwhile arcade anywhere near here in a very long time. King of Fighters XII and Street Fighter 4 were both a long time coming.

BlazBlue

Also known as BRAAAABRUUUUU, this is a game that I was unsure about until I actually played it. I had soured on Guilty Gear many iterations ago, so I did not have high hopes for this game. The game is complicated and fast and insane. Before the big early year fighting game clusterfuck of releases I would never have thought that by the end of the year this would be my favorite new 2D fighter. If it weren't for my RRoD I would say this would have been the year of the Tager.

Street Fighter 4

I spent a considerable amount of time playing Street Fighter 4, but I never really got into it. I hate the Street Fighter 2 cast, and so by extension I hate the SF4 cast. Sure they added some alpha characters, but whatever. If I can't find a character I like to play, then I'm never going to really get into a fighter. I tried to play able, and I tried to like him, but he is no Alex.

King of Fighters XII

With all the fighting games this year, I am most regretful that I haven't played much King of Fighters XII. I've come to realize that I can't really enjoy a fighting game unless I can actually play it with some people, and nobody I know plays KoF. I don't really play online in any fighter (with the exception of some KoF 98 on GGPO), so I can't say whether or not the lag in KoF was as bad as the internet says, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. I just don't like to play against random jackoffs until I have had a chance to learn the game playing against real people I know.

King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match

Seeing as it is a KoF, it has the same problems for me personally as XII. More so, the game is an updated version of the same game I have in my cabinet, so I had a hard time wanting to put the effort into the game, when I could just flip the switch on my cabinet instead. Also it is on PS2, and I don't have a good PS2 arcade stick since my custom one stopped working.

Older Games

As usual, I spent a lot of time playing games that were not new releases. I am a whore for nostalgia.

Alundra

Thanks to the joys of PS1 games on PSP, I was able to go back and retry Alundra. It is still a solid adventure game, and it is nice to play a game where they don't hold your hand and point you in the exact direction you have to go at all times. The game is kind of a pain in the ass though. Puzzles are weird, platforming isn't too bad most of the time but every once in a while you are jumping from one unknown area to another, and some enemies take forever to kill. The last one could be in part because of the ability to skip nonessential dungeons that could power you up more. Overall I like it, but I did stop playing it for some reason. Probably died in some place far away from a save point.

Final Fantasy 7

Final Fantasy 7 was a game that I really enjoyed 10+ years ago, and it is a game that holds up in some aspects and not others. I originally went back and played through Midgar, and then with the prospect of going through Kalm ahead of me, I put off continuing for months. In retrospect it wasn't that bad. No worse than some of the other long expositions in the game. I grinded the fuck out of this game this time around. I was overpowered for the entire length of the game except when I went to Wutai at the first possible moment. Of course, after going through the difficult Wutai, I ran around outside the city for 10 to 15 hours (not all in one sitting) killing stuff until I could murder the fuck out of most of the rest of the game. As it stands now I am on the 3^rd disk hunting that weapon back and forth, but I can't seem to find him. The prospect of doing all the 3^rd disk stuff (raising chocobos) has really put a dampening on my drive to play the game.

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike

A fighting game I have always like, and my preferred Street Fighter. I have spent a lot of time this year playing it with James and Rick. It may not be my favorite fighting game (though it is up there), but I love it mostly because it is a fighting game I can get people to play.

Karnov's Revenge

A retarded and yet generally fun fighting game. A game that I have been able to actually get people to play. Best moment was playing Marstorius vs. Marstorius fights until sunup with Jon at Joe's, all the while James crying because Jon repeatedly saying DOUBLE FUCK ME IN THE ASS GERMAN every time he got double germaned, which was often.

Super DodgeBall (NeoGeo)

A fun game that extends upon the great NES game (and runs at a much less nauseating framerate). A highlight of the summer was some major Kenji battles with James. Also that time my glasses broke and I whooped him in both this and 3S. I may have been almost blind, but I was able to parry and take out some guttertrash.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I started playing San Andreas on PC because I was bored, and somehow ended up playing through the entire story of the game for the first time, making this the 2^nd GTA I have ever finished. At this point I am at about 90% completion, with only some races way point missions to do. I don't know if I'll bother.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Played the coop with James because both of us hadn't played it in a while and it sounded like fun. James would knock everybody out, but I wanted to make sure everyone was dead, so anyone that he knocked out, I had to kill as they were lying unconscious. The highlight of this was a part where we both were racing to attack a guy siting on a bench who would sometimes yell “Holy crap!” as he was attacked. I got this game for free with a flash drive I bought, so I played it for quite a while. I was playing a mission a day for a while. I took my time and was thorough in knocking out every person there was. I stopped playing because I was interrupted in the middle of a mission and never felt like playing it after that.

Resident Evil 2

Another reason to love the PSP's PS1 game playing ability. It was interesting to go back through the game after so long. It is funny the things you remember and the things you don't. The old Resident Evil games seem easy to me now. I hardly used the stronger weapons of the game.

Resident Evil DS

Just to prove that James is terrible at Resident Evil, I played through Chris's game on Rebirth mode in one sitting. I didn't really get a hang of the knifing mode until the end of the game.

Newer Games

While it has not been a huge year for new releases for me (and some of the bigger ones just came out and I haven't had the chance to play them) I have spend a good deal of time playing newer games.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is probably my favorite new release of the year. I say this because I have put 70 hours into the game as of this writing, which is an exorbitant amount of time for an action game like this. The game really does reinforce the need for a reliable partner in gaming. This is a game that I will always link to James, who was always there to be too distracted by other things to save me from death. The mercenaries mode is addicting and intense, but after Vs. mode came out it seems almost relaxing. Vs. mode is far from perfect, but it can be fun.

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost & Damned

This expansion to GTA4 is alright, but overall it has been more annoying and difficult than anything. It seems most of the missions are just a bunch of big gunfights. Maybe the game would be easier if I used the auto aim option, but fuck that. This is the game I was playing when my 360 RRoD'd, and I haven't really played it since, which is partly why I haven't completed it yet.

Fallout 3

I started playing this late into the game because I wasn't really in the mood for Oblivion with guns, but Tim talked me into it. The game was pretty much what I expected, but the mod that allows you to kill kids makes it pretty entertaining.

Phantasy Star Universe

Not necessarily a new game, but I started playing it again for the 3^rd time. The game felt much more complete with the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion. It was pretty fun actually playing with other people for once, but Tim and Dave drifted away from it (I blame WoW) and the game died for me again.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Another game I played with Tim and Dave (and Lucas). We actually got together and played through it at my house and it was pretty fun. THOOOR!

Red Ring of Death

My 360 finally got the ol' RRoD earlier in the year, and I was able to keep playing a 360 thanks to the graciousness of Tim. I went quite some time without my 360, and a decent amount of time without one at all. Right about when I was ready to give up and buy a new one Ryan decided to “go for broke” on my console and got it working again. It is something that put a big pause on my time with the new fighting games.

School

15 Credits

The Winter 09 semester wasn't bad, but Fall 09 I have taken 15 credits, and it has been a stressful time even without a job. There is just a lot of work due at all days of the week.

2 Capstones

Taking CS 401 and CS 421 at the same time seemed like a terribly retarded thing to do at the beginning of the semester, but it ended up evening out. And CS 316 ended up being more stressful than 401.

1 Hallouche

Hallouche has been particularly . . . interesting this semester. He assigned reading like normal, but homework and Capstone projects were not assigned until about halfway through the semester. The second exam was just questions from the book (and another book we don't have) and was an open book test. I'm pretty sure he came up with the exam 5 minutes before class (which was actually 10 minutes before he showed up to class).

Good Times

Steamers

Steamers Pub is a pretty terribly boring little bar, but I have had some good times hanging out there with friends this past year. I like the atmosphere because it reminds me of the bar from Homicide, minus the cops. Sadly there are a lot of d-bags and trolls that go there, but that is the case for any bar as far as I can tell.

Fighting Games

Summer trips to Ann Arbor and playing fighting games (namely Karnov's) all the way down and all the way back was a hell of a lot of fun. Drawing confused looks because of Karnov's in digi slops was fun. Gaming at Joe's was fun around the time SF4 came out, but lately it has been all about playing a lot of Third Strike at Rick's house.

Music

I have been listening to a lot of new types of music this last year.

Trip Hop

I started listening to trip hop with Inoran's first album, which led me to DJ Krush, which led me to a lot interesting stuff on pandora. Trip hop and instrumental hip hop are really nice to just relax to.

Hip Hop

Inoran and DJ Krush led me to listening to The Roots. While San Andreas gave me a respect for gangsta rap, I am aware it is quite corny, and so I listen to other things. The Roots are great because they generally have music based around a live band, and it makes for really interesting music.

Melodic stuff

I've always had a preference for melodic rock, and in the past year I have tried to broaden my horizons and find new stuff. I've listened to Porcupine Tree for a while now, and while that is prog, I have really fallen for Blackfield.

Doomy stuff

Through the constant pestering of James I decided to look into the genre in general. I'm still not sure on what exactly constitutes doom metal, but I have found stuff that I like that is described as doom on wikipedia, so I guess there is that.

New releases

Buck Tick – memento mori

A solid rock album from the band that has been around since the mid 80s.

Kuroyume – The End

The recording of the reunion concert from Kuroyume. I am sad that I have not been able to find the actual video of it, but the concert sounds amazing and it is sad that the band is finally done (10 years after they were actually done).

Kiyoharu – Medley

Kiyoharu covering all the big singles from his days in Kuroyume. A strange album, but quite interesting to see how he has changed.

Kiyoharu – madrigal of decadence

The album proper of Kiyoharu this year. It is a nice mix of the different styles that Kiyoharu has done in the past.

Andrew WK – Gundam Rock

I am not an Andrew WK fan, but as a Gundam fan this album is pretty ridiculous.

Vamps – Vamps

The album was pretty much what you would expect from the group. It is a lot like the last couple of Hyde albums, which is obviously because KAZ was so much involved in those as well. This isn't a huge new thing, as much as a natural evolution of where Hyde's solo stuff was going.

Mos Def – The Ecstatic

A really interesting album from a guy who always does something weird with music. The samples used leads to a really strange sound you don't get many other places.

The BlazBlue Soundtrack

The Jin vs. Noel theme is amazing.

Katatonia – Night is the New Day

James would kill me for not mentioning it. It is a solid Katatonia album, but I don't know if I would say it is their best.

Concerts

I went to see Fair To Midland twice this year. They were great both times, but the opening bands for the first were downright terrible. I went with James and Mockal the first time, and nobody the second (though mini-Mason was there). It should be known that Kurt bitched out both times, and I should know never to make plans with him.

The Internet

Social Networking

At the beginning of the year I joined Facebook and MySpace. Facebook is generally pretty useful and fast. MySpace is fucking terrible, but it is the only way to aggregate what all sorts of different bands are up to. I missed Fair to Midland once because I didn't know they were coming to Flint, but I made it to the next two thanks to MySpace, so I can't just not use it. When I got my new phone, I started using Twitter. I like twitter, but mainly because it is a smaller more personable Facebook sort of thing. I also have a blog on blogger, but I neglect it most of the time.

Pre

I payed out the ass to get a Palm Pre. I love the phone, but I am unsure whether it was a good use of my money to not wait until what would have been a much cheaper upgrade later in the year.

Cracked

Cracked has apparently been around forever, but I've just started reading the website this past year. The videos by Swaim and the Agents of Cracked series have been very funny.

Podcasts

I've went back to making a point of listening to podcasts regularly. I always listen to TWIT and 1UpYours/ListenUp/4Guys1Up. The former is always entertaining, and the latter has gone through a lot of changes but is interesting.

Comics

X-Factor

I don't remember why I started reading this, but it had been really interesting for the first few issues, but has been derailed by various crossovers and other bullshit. It is quite different than it was, but it is interesting enough to keep me reading, even if it isn't what I liked to begin with.

X-Force

I have went back to read the comic series that I loved as a kid. In retrospect it was pretty damn retarded, and it doesn't really have a high point, but the series didn't have any good stories until after I had stopped reading originally back in the 90s.

The Crow

The other night the movie was on and got me thinking about the series. So I went out and got the original graphic novel. I liked it quite a bit. A simple revenge/love story. It is pretty damn bleak in its portrayal of society.

Television

This has been a pretty good year for TV in general.

Damages

I started watching this (from the beginning) around the time the second season ended. I love the show. I don't have much to say about it other than the fact it is really good.

Sons of Anarchy

I caught the opening episode of the series by complete random channel surfing and got hooked. It wasn't long after I finished the first season that the second was starting. It is an entertaining show that is very intense.

Southland

One of my favorite new shows that has been thoroughly mistreated by NBC. It is sort of like a new age Homicide with a wider scope. It is nice to see a show that actually handles subtlety and realism.

Monk

It was a funny show that was at times sweet. It had a satisfactory series end.

Things I Rewatched

Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire, because they are that amazing.

Things I Still Need To Watch

The last season of Californication, which apparently just wrapped up.

Books

I haven't read as much as I'd like this year.

A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin

It took me forever to finish this not because of the tremendous length, but because I apparently have a hard time reading when I'm not at work. Great series. Lots of shit hitting the fan in this one.

More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman

Hilarious. I enjoyed it. I also recommend the audio book, which is very funny.

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Street by David Simon

As a fan of the television series, it only makes sense that I would love this book, which I did. Of course the book is nonfiction, so it is interesting to see the reality behind it all.

Conclusion

Overall this year was pretty generic. The controls weren't tight, the graphics were muddy, and the framerate wasn't consistent. It was a pretty boring year.

63/100