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| “9er” Hey Heath!
So, with the big news lately being DQ IX, what’s your opinion on it? DS bad, or DS good? All for the lack of menus, or wish it was still in the turn-based combat mode? |
| Heath I think Dragon Quest IX on the DS is a grantastic idea. It looks like an excellent game, and I’m not a snooty overtraditionalist that gets all bent about a numbered installment of the series being handheld. Straight up, the DS and PSP are steadily making handheld gaming comparable to TV-based console gaming all the time. There are more games I want for those 2 systems than non-handhelds, easily. |
| Also, what’s your favorite anime of all time, AND what’s your favorite new anime of 06?
-Joey |
| Heath If we’re talking DVD releases, Howl’s Moving Castle came out in March (though its theatre run was ’05, iirc) and is not just good, but “Ghibli good.” The American version of Naruto and its terrible English voices also debuted on DVD in 06 (I’m pretty sure anyway. 2006 feels like a long time ago), and that’s a pretty good show for the first 120-something episodes before it gets into fillermania. And thankfully, those times are apaprently over, as Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles starts Thursday. It’s about time.
My favorite anime ever, sorry to repeat a common answer, is Neon Genesis Evangelion. I just love Hideaki’s crazy directing style so much. The story gets pretty out of control, but really, that’s the fun of it. |
| “We must kung-fu fight!” Who would win in a fight: Bruce Lee, or a velociraptor riding a polar bear? |
| Heath It’s a little known fact that this fight already happened. Before he could finish filming Game of Death, which I believe was in 65,000,000 B.C., the Bruce was challenged by a velociraptor riding a polar bear. Clearly outmatched, velociraptor resorted to its usual hunt-in-groups technique and summoned every other dinosaur on the planet to the fight. Bruce, seeing his being outnumbered by several million reptiles and one polar bear (which were like 12 times as big, back then), decided this fight could only end in a draw. So he summoned Meteor and wiped out the dinosaurs, though he ended his own life in the process, hence his not being able to finish Game of Death. Tell you what though, reptiles everywhere think twice before attacking blackbelts because of that story. |
| “Bitchity bitch” i cant believe after all that waiting…and that horrible christmas…you guys do this to me… i mean come on….i just forgot! i remember i kept reading it over and over again and when i wrote the email…i just forgot…now my broken xbox 360 dreams are gone…. you guys couldve at least maybe wrote…like you know this is a good story and you may win..but you forgot your address…i know you wrote it in the letter but i just forgot…. omg : ( |
| Heath I understand your dismay, but understand our position that we have a lot of entrants and not a lot of prizes, and in order to keep it real, our priorities need to lie upon the people who followed the rules rather than make exceptions and rob someone else–someone who followed the instructions–of a prize they seem to have earned in every respect, rather than “every respect except one.” We do remember repeat participants though, so perhaps you’ll have better luck in the next contest, whenever that may be. Again I’m sorry for your unfortunate circumstance, but that’s the way these things go. Here’s to hoping this year treats you better than Christmas did. |
| “Off and On Kind of Issue” RPGland, is the PSP getting any better? I’m thinking about getting one but $200 is a lot to pay for something with so few games. I also already have and love a DS so you don’t need to recommend that instead. I’m just curious about the other big handheld out right now. |
| Heath Like a lot of things, it’s going to depend on your tastes–there are as many pure PSP haters as there are people who’ve purchased the machine and not regretted a thing. My take is that it is indeed getting better. Some good games have been released lately, like Gurumin, WTF, and Metal Gear: Portable ops; and there’s surprisingly good stuff to find in bargain bins. (I saw Gradius Collection for $10 at Toys R Us the other day.) There are also new homebrew applications coming out all the time, including the notorious PS emulator everyone’s raving about. True story: I just converted/loaded episodes of Band of Brothers, Yakitate Japan, and Arrested Development on my PSP and have been watching them while pretending to work at my real job. It’s a great little machine, if you ask me. I think in terms of overall games, the DS is probably the better of the two so far, but the PSP’s other capabilities even things out. |
| I’m also aware that the system has a lot of ports on it, which I think is funny I have to admit. I feel like a hypocrite for laughing though because I’d actually kind of like some older games playing handheld… mostly super NES stuff that didn’t get ported to the advance. John |
| Heath Yeah, there’s no denying it’s portacular, despite Sony’s kicking and screaming attempts to prevent that from being its image. Still, there’s some pretty good original stuff (most of it isn’t in the form of RPGs though), and like I said, the ability to do other things with emulation, pictures, videos, wireless internet, and music make it a pretty neat little gadget. Whether it’s worth $200 is up to how much you dig that package though. |
Final Grumble
Man, I should get a check from Sony after that letter. Sorry about the delay, but y’all know me, I got 50 other things ’round here to keep in check. Keep writing in, though. I really do want to keep these updates more frequent.
– Heath Hindman wonders what ever happened to Pauline
Send letters to: rpgletters@gmail.com