Games I love which can be frustrating: Part 1: Pokemon Platinum and Metal Gear Solid

There are computer games which we can love but even so some of these games can really frustrate us. Some of these frustrations can come from the difficulty of the game, but there are other factors such as some items being nearly impossible to attain, not having much health for the task, timed challenges and limits, a really annoying level or two, trouble finding the last few tokens and so on.

This blog entry is about computer games I love still or have cherished memories of but which have some frustrating parts. Here are games I loved or still love but have annoyed me in parts:

1. Pokemon Platinum (Nintendo DS)

When I last played a Pokemon game before I bought Platinum when I was in my final year of university, I was about 12 or 13 back in the days when Britain only had Pokemon Red and Blue and there were only 150 Pokemon to catch. Since then the total up to Platinum is around the 500 mark. This would be fair enough if you could "catch em' all" as they say, in the one game, but as far as I'm concerned Japan with the new Pokemon games has taken obsessive compulsive disorder to a new level, 2 levels in fact.


The first level of annoyance: You need to catch Pokemon in more than one game. Although this can be fun if you are bored, the frustration comes from the hours of levelling up in order to stand a chance of being able to get some of the more difficult monsters. For example it took me 40 hours of gaming to be able to reach and catch Mewtwo on Pokemon Fire Red for my Platinum team. Overall this level isn't too bad because Pokemon are available if you fork out the cash for Nintendo's "Pokemon Corporation" subsidiary, i.e. buy the other games.


The second and supreme level of annoyance: the so called "event Pokemon". Nintendo actually made it impossible to catch all the current Pokemon unless you fulfil the following conditions: A. you cheat somehow or B. go to one of the limited edition and expensive to get to events. I don't consider event Pokemon as part of the completion list.

2. Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)

My first annoyance for this game would be the damn stairs where you can't be stealthy, there weren't any health packs and the enemies shooting at you on the way up seemed nearly endless. I could never do this bit without the invincibility cheat in my disc.



The next annoyance was the battle with the sniper, where you had to lie on the ground to be able to aim properly, and you had to take some sort of drug, diazepam I think it was to keep yourself from shaking and aim your sniper rifle properly. If you were standing you would be shot from above but if you were lying down you still had a high chance of getting shot. Either way aiming was more difficult it usually was.





Now over to Mr. Osborn for his words of approval.

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: catching them all and hiding in boxes.

Prometheus Bound

For the PaperJam Comics Collective "Art and that" anthology my contribution to the comic was based on Gustave Moreau's "Prometheus Bound" painting. I had to replace the poem that I was going to use as my script because it was too long.

Here is the painting:

Here is the poem as I intended it to be originally:

The Grecian Gods can be childish,
smiting and smashing on a whim,
jealous furies amongst the worst,
but some become heavenly stars.

Prometheus made the humans,
but could not deliver the fire,
igniting spark of human life
but not warming deathly cold flesh.

He stole from Apollo’s carriage,
stole the heavenly fire of life,
his sacrifice for the humans
caused that God great personal strife.

The other Gods weren’t merciful
to their fellow Prometheus,
they bound him to sturdy cold chains,
releasing the eagle of Zeus.

So, bound with daily liver loss
Prometheus suffered for man,
a symbol for humanity,
hence Moreau's "Prometheus Bound". *

*My official poem ends with "the Greek God of fire and humans" but that wouldn't have went as well in the context of the anthology, even though I didn't get to use the entire poem only fragments where I could adapt them.

The odds are there will be at least 1 PaperJam Comics Collective member reading this, so I have this to say. What I have seen so far of the other Art and That pieces looks great. I'm really looking forward to seeing the other pieces in their entirety.

Now to my regular guest Norman Osborn.

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Gods who have the balls to stand up to other Gods.

Goodbye Fullmetal Alchemist!

It's been a while since my last post but I'm back! According to my diary, the final chapter of the manga Fullmetal Alchemist was scanlated (scanned and translated) in English on the 10th of this June. Therefore I read the final chapter on that date.

Anyway this post will be solely dedicated to the masterpiece manga called FMA. The series ended as well as it began, and indeed as brilliantly as the journey in the middle.

What makes the series so good? This is a question you may ask me. My answer? Well it's a combination of factors really. First of all we have the story, which at it's core is deeply philosophical for shonen manga.

It deals with such themes as "don't play God" (trying to bring your mother back from death), the consequences and evil of war and genocide, the nature and purpose of human beings, the notion of truth and the soul amongst other aspects.

It does what shonen manga does best, conquers difficulties while keeping it's sprit up. There are challenges the many heroes face, but they always do it with absolute determination .

Shonen manga are typically created by males, FMA isn't and I'm convinced this helps make the series that bit different and therefore better than the average shonen title. Shonen typically sticks to well defined conventions. FMA plays the rules of the game, but Hiromu Arakawa adds brilliant feminine touches in her manga as shown here:

That montage wasn't in FMA but the picture of the big muscular sparkly guy there (Alex Lois Armstrong) certainly was. Arakawa tends to add little bits here in there that seem closer to shojo manga than shonen, but this enhances the manga overall as far as I'm concerned.

One of the greatest things about FMA if we move away from stylistic features or the story itself is the characters. The narrative itself is great, in that it is epic, funny and deep but it's made even better by a colourful cast of characters.

Unlike many shonen (say Naruto or Bleach) characters are strong irrespective of gender, the female characters are just as badass as the males.

Well that's a nice note to finish my part of this blog on, an image featuring my 2 favourite characters of the series, Olivia Armstrong and Izumi Curtis. Now, It's time for Osborn's approval, hit it Norms!

My thanks Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Techniques passed down the Armstrong line for generations!

Dr Who meets Vincent Van Gogh

Beware do not read this until you have seen the 10th episode of the Matt Smith Dr. Who series.

Warning aside, I may now proceed. This has got to be my favourite episode of the series so far. As little as I know about art movements and artists outside of American and Japanese comics, I do like Van Gogh. His art was beautiful, but more than that he expressed his soul through his art, turning his own depression into a work of beauty.

This episode to some extent conveys that. The episode itself was quite touching in various parts, I really felt for Gogh when the had to kill that invisible alien beast. I really enjoyed watching this episode.

I thought this scene was particularly beautiful in the episode:

Now for my regular guest: Norman Osborn

My thanks Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of Sunflowers.

Bishonen clowns oh my!

I'm not going to bother writing about Dr Who tonight because tonight is the conclusion of a two parter, and the last one I thought was merely ok so not worth writing about.

I have finished all of the comedy TV show Black Books and it was excellent. Not much more to say that that other than it being hilarious, I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of either/or both Bill Bailey and Dylan Moran.

My main focus today is the anime Yakitate Japan which for those who don't know, is an anime about bread. That might sound bland but it is not, it is one of the most entertaining anime I have ever seen, mainly because of the reaction shots of the characters as they eat superb quality bread.

The recent episodes I have watched (30-35) have been particularly interesting partly because it is the start of a tournament arc and partly because of this guy: Pierrot Bolneze.

He had a good backstory and is a fantastic character, mischevious yet fair. Filled with jest and energy he is fun to watch.

Now over to you Mr. Osborn!

I thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Bishonen clowns such as Pierrot Bolgneze from the anime Yakitate Japan, Hisoka from the anime and manga Hunter X Hunter and Maximilian Galactica from the legendary Phoenix Wright series of DS games.

PS: This is Max:

Here's Hisoka:

Fanart but still captures his essence!

Dr Who and vampires (The vampires of Venice)

Warning: don't read this entry until you have seen the 6th episode of the Matt Smith Dr Who episodes

This episode has a nice real start, a romantic start. "Have I burst out of the wrong cake again?" Lol @ the goofy Doctor!

Venice may have been romantic in its time but it probably stank with those goats and stuff hanging around!

Owing Casanova a chicken is just the kind of thing I expect the Doctor to do heh.

The veiled women were suspicious from the start, even before 1 of them showed her vampire fangs. My Gods their voice unity is creepy. Vampires didn't strike me as conformist like.

This is excellent, Amy and the Doctor are actually getting excited at the prospect of the vampiric challenge.

Vampires surround the Doctor! So they weren't vampires after all. This is Dr Who there had to be something else about them! Their Queen had some sort of imagine inducer like Nightcrawler from the X-men, as seen here:

Impending doom and the Doctor climbs the tower, he saves the day! Woo!

"Tell me Doctor, can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race?" Powerful stuff, especially considering I had read the Dark Phoenix saga a few hours ago. Read Frank Miller's Wolverine also, just as brilliant!

With that I hand you to our regular guest. Hit it Normie!

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Non-sparkly vampires

Captain batman eternal fable reborn

Well apologies to those who read my blog for my delay since the last one, I have had my shitty dissertation to write and I've just finished the Satan essay! One more essay to go then I'm finished uni, which is becoming a rather scary thought.

Where do I start? Batman is probably a good place. I have been finding some splendid gems from the City library and other local libraries. Batman: Ego by Darwyn Cooke is the first of these gems I'm going to talk about today. It had a very noir feel to it but at the same time it felt like the old Batman cartoons so I really enjoyed that.

Next we have Batman: Arkham asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave Mc.Kean. I loved this one and it was as great as people said it was. The lightning guy was pretty cool, Joker was quite amusing and I enjoyed the appearance of Two Face, but Two face is probably my favourite Batman villain aside from the Joker.

Frank Miller's Daredevil Reborn was very enjoyable, I really felt sorry for Daredevil throughout and developed a strong hatred for the Kingpin. I just just disliked him before this, the ending was satifactory.

Jeff Loeb's The death of Captain America was a very good read, I'm trying to read as much as I can of the Marvel universe.

Gaiman and John Romita Jr's Eternals was very good. I loved how Gaiman was able to add his own things to Kirby's space Gods. Here's an image from the graphic novel:

A light using Goddess against a hoarde of demons? Always will attract my attention.

Finally I read Fables volume 7: Arabian Nights. It was absolutely brilliant but expected, Bill Willingham has a masterpiece creation on his hands! This volume deals with the Arabian Fables, Aladdin, Ali Baba, Djin etc.

Now I pass you on to out regular guest and his regular approvals.

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Urahara using kido (shinigami magic).