I went running twice yesterday... only maybe 14 miles total, but I was done by the end of the second. The first was on my own, the second with my friend Matt. I need to start playing some kind of sport that allows me to demolish people with my running ability.
So the iPhone comes out today. Woop-de-whoop! For a while, I was thinking about getting one, but then I realized that you pay $60/month minimum for service, on top of a $500 phone. Plus I'd have to cancel my contract with T-Mobile, which they would rob me for. When I think of other irresponsible things I could do with that money, a few other options spring to mind:
I'm sure that a good chunk of people have seen movies based on Alexandre Dumas' novels. I hesitate to make the assumption that anyone has actually read them... even for pseudo-intellectual book-lovers like myself, a 500-page novel is not something you just casually read; you have to dedicate yourself to finishing it. In an introduction to one of Dumas' most famous novels, The Count of Monte Cristo, I learned that Dumas was incredibly prolific... putting out something like 1,200 published pieces during his lifetime. How did he do this? With the help of a lot of ghostwriters. In effect, Dumas himself might make contributions to a piece of writing, but good portions of the work was done by others. Then the whole thing was slapped with the famous author's name, and sold (presumably) like something that people really want to buy. Like Hideo Kojima games.
Whenever I see the "Kojima Studios" logo emblazoned on a game, I think of Alexandre Dumas. I mean, I like Metal Gear Solid; the sequels and spin-offs are decent enough, as well. Decent enough for me to think, if I see Kojima's name attached to something, that it's probably worth playing. After Lunar Knights, though, I'm going to think twice about anything bearing Kojima's name... it definitely seems like Konami is trying to cash in on his name.
For the record, I liked the idea of Boktai, one of the precursors to Lunar Knights. Charging up your solar gun with the help of an UV sensor seemed like a cool idea to add to an action/adventure game. In practice, though, I never actually played the game. It's impossible to progress without UV light, and whenever I wanted to play, it was cloudy out. Plus, on the off chance that the sun was shining, the worthlessness of the original GBA screen made it impossible to see anything. Oh, the irony.
Unlike Boktai, Lunar Knights doesn't even have an interesting gimmick; it's straight, unimaginative crap. The game sucks the fun right out of you just like the vampires your characters are supposed to be killing. Laundry-listing all the poor design decisions would probably require just as much determination as reading The Three Musketeers. The gist of the problem is poor flow: the game's levels mostly involve getting from point A to point B, interrupted constantly by enemies your character has to stop and fight. The combat is so clunky and slow that I found myself simply running through each area. Some Boktai mechanics are here, minus the UV sensor. Your characters still have to stop, stand in beams of light, and slowly recharge the energy they need to fight enemies. If the combat didn't feel disjointed before, it sure does now.
Your characters can level up, but when the combat's no fun, who cares? Lucian, the sword-wielding vampire hunter, is at least slightly more fun to play than Aaron, the solar gunslinger, but not by much. Selecting which character attributes to increase involves navigating the horribly designed subscreen, which, instead of the stylus, uses the shoulder buttons to switch between various options. I kept mashing the D-pad and wondering why I couldn't access recovery items.
Lunar Knights really had no reason to be developed for the DS. The top screen shows extraneous data that really doesn't have much bearing on the game; it would have been better to allow the top screen to show, oh, I don't know, a map or something. Anything, really. The touch-sensitive capabilities of the bottom screen are hardly used, and when they are, it's more like an afterthought. To finally finish off a vampire, your character has to fly through a pseudo-3D shooting stage. You move your ship with the stylus; if you see any enemies, touch them to shoot. I was literally outraged at the banality and length of this horrible "mini-game."
It seems that Alexandre Dumas at least kept some semblance of quality control over his work. He may have had help from others, but his popularity never suffered because of it: he kept rolling in hookers and blow (or the 19th century French equivalent) until his death. I didn't really care enough to try to research Kojima's level of involvement in Lunar Knights, but the existence of such a game is worrisome for two reasons. Either Kojima didn't have enough input into the game, or else he did... and it still sucked. Both don't exactly bode well for the gamer, or for Kojima himself for that matter.
Yollah to the people who still check this page!
I busted out the old WordPress database, upgraded it, and here we are! The previous posts are vintage, aged about two years, from back when I was wallowing in Japan. It makes light, interesting reading, and is especially nostalgic for me. Like a dog to its' vomit, I keep coming back for more blog action. If we can learn anything from history, a prediction that I will get tired and delete everything here wouldn't be too far off the mark. However, until that time, you can read sporadic ramblings that emanate from my ridiculous head.
I'm mostly going to be writing about videogames, running, and perhaps Christianity, since those are the biggest things in my life right now (aside from the girlfriend, but she's not a topic for the intar-nets). If you want to hear me opine on something, drop me a line and I'll write up an essay.
