Top Ten Things I Don't Care About

(10) Sports teams you like and how well they're doing
(9) The personal lives of celebrities/Michael Jackson's death
(8) How well you think you did on a test you took
(7) Why you have a rash
(6) Intimate details of your sex life
(5) What you think would be a better use of my time
(4) People that lived in the 1800s
(3) Your political views
(2) How busy/horrible your life is
(1) How awesome you think you are

Let me clarify for number two. Everyone needs to vent once in a while, but it's when it becomes extremely excessive that it's a pain in the ass.

Everyone has difficult days and it's good to get your feelings off your chest by talking to someone else. This does not mean that every time I see you I want to hear about how difficult your day was. This is by far the most annoying when your decisions are what caused the bad things to happen in the first place. You cheated on your boy/girlfriend and then they found out? I don't care. The job you applied for is really difficult? If it's worth talking about every day, maybe you should quit.

I like listening to what other people's problems are and helping them out, but remember undefined you - you need to do something in order to make your situation better.

These Fungi Will Kill Everything You Love

Female leads: Noir

I decided that I wanted to watch a new anime, the problem is that I hate a lot of it. I've been digging through the usual onslaught of shallow "save the princess with your awesome powers" types, the boring mecha fights, etc...

One of my problems with anime is that they continuously portray side characters, especially women, as being completely useless.

Let's take a look at two of the most popular bishounen anime in Japan - Naruto and Bleach. The female leads, Sakura and Orihime respectively, both have their moments in the sun, but are often the "useless one" in the fights. In addition, their powers are relegated to being "support" skills. Sakura has insane super-strength, but in battles she stays away from the opponents in case she needs to heal her allies. Orihime has a twist on the same power. Yawn.

Now compare this to cartoons in the United States, where female characters get important roles more often - Avatar:The Last Airbender has one of my favorite new heroines, Kitara. She's a fun-to-watch little feminist who decides she doesn't want to focus her water-bending abilities on healing. She wants to kick some ass. And she does.

In terms of anime, I've settled on Noir. It seems like it could be fun - a relatively simple girls with guns type of show, based on two assassins uncovering the past. I'm only a few episodes in, but it seems like it could go either way. I hope they can keep the main two characters, including the titular Noir, more than just a girl in a dress with a submachine gun.

Scribblenauts is going to be the best writing-based game ever

Not to mention the only one I'll probably ever play. This game just seems so ripe for epic video game stories. In fact, I've already heard a great story about someone who used a time machine to go back in time, ride a dinosaur into the future, and commanded it to kill ROBOT ZOMBIES. In my book that sounds pretty epic. I've heard rumors that the objects available in-game may be in upwards of 10,000, which is just thoroughly insane by any standards. Look forward to scribbling your way into history Fall 09.

Of Cedar Point and Roller Coasters

I'm going to Cedar Point next Tuesday, and it's going to be awesome. For those that don't know, Cedar Point is the best amusement/roller coaster park ever. If memory serves me right, it has more roller coasters than any other place on Earth. It has the fastest roller coaster, The Dragster, and a few years ago had the tallest roller coaster, the Millenium Force. I think the MF was surpassed a few years ago at some other park. I was lucky enough to grow up with roller coasters, having multiple amusement parks in close proximity. God I love roller coasters - the best feeling is right at the top, as soon as the majority of the weight is on the downward part of the hill, and you feel gravity pulling you down, MAN that's good stuff.

Greetings and Opening Links

Hey there, and thanks for coming to visit my blog, All I Need to Know I Learned from Games! Or, in acronym form AINTKILFG. I'm working on that. The name itself I got from those kindergarten posters that posit "Everything I ever need to know I learned in kindergarten" - which, as I'm learning in my summer classes right now, is apparently not true. But enough about me for now, onto the good stuff.

For those of you who haven't heard of BlazBlue yet, it's a fighting game created as a spiritual successor to the Guilty Gear series. The game has some amazing and crazy character designs - in the following video you'll see Noel, who uses guns to attack almost exclusively in close range, and Ragna (who I think has the worst character design - He's viciously generic).



If you managed to preorder it before it was released on June 30th, you would've snagged a very nice soundtrack and DVD with tips to get started. In addition, Gamestop was giving out a nice art book if ordered online. All of theses for the regular retail price of $60. I should be getting my copy in a few days, and I'll keep ya updated. Available on both XBOX 360 and PS3.

(scores from wikipedia)

Playstation: The Official Magazine awarded the console version a 4.5/5 stars[5]

Game Informer awarded the console version a 7.75/10.[6]

OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) awarded the console version an 8.0/10.

Hardcore Gamer Magazine awarded the console version a 5/5. [7]

IGN awarded the console version a 9.4/10.