Top Five: Worst pieces of Dynasty Warriors voice-acting

1. “This victory shall belong to Wuuuuuuuuuuu!” – Zhou Yu (DW3)
Whoever did this voiceover was probably drunk, tired and on a mission to mock himself.

2. “Feel the power of my mmmaaaagggggiiiiccccc….” – Zhang Bao (DW3)
It’s not just that. He does a hand jive, too. It’s magic.

3. “Moo.” – Xu Huang (DW3)
I’m sure he says something like this whenever he’s hit in battle. Not “ouch”, but “moo”.

4. “Our enemies are sassy little brats aren’t they?” – Liu Yong (DW3)
Xiao Qiao is pretty sassy though.

5. “The end is near!” – Generic officer (DW5)
Quite possibly the most passionless cheer you’ll ever hear. It’s like something a Knicks dancer would say.

Random videogame cards

Three cards included with the Yugi-oh: Duelists of the Roses game.

Card included with a DBZ controller, out of a set of four I believe.

Five Viewtiful Joe trading cards from a Capcom gift package. They’re possibly the only five cards in the set – I recieved ten packs with these exact same five cards in each of them.

Thousand Arms trading cards – for seven or so years, I’ve been trying to build the complete collection. Why? Because I haven’t anything better to do. Here’s five out of the nine cards needed to complete a picture. Here’s the thing – I have exactly two copies of each of those five cards, but none of the other four needed.

The backs of the previous cards, which depicts the monsters you can summon in the game. Spoiler ahead. Even the hardcore Thousand Arms fans (all four of you) might not recognize the last one. That’s Sodina.

Thousand Arms trading cards depicting the anime cutscenes in the game.

Random Thousand Arms cards.

Soul Calibur 2’s fourth costumes

…which never actually made it into the game, but was included in it’s artbooks. Scroll for some poorly taken shots.

A bunch of variations for Nightmare’s armor.

And a bunch for Sophitia’s.

Cassandra’s 4th costume.

Ivy’s 4th. Would’ve been her coolest costume.

Talim’s 4th. Flipping hot.

Gaming orangutans

Admittedly, I tap into AP’s strange news wire when I’m bored, and their latest headline is Orangutans Play Video Games at Ga. Zoo. If you were expecting monkeys playing with their Wiis, prepare to be disappointed.

Zoo Atlanta has installed a touch screen in their orangutan enclosure, which allows the apes to play simple computer games. In one game, orangutans choose identical photographs or match orangutan sounds with photos of the animals – correct answers are rewarded with food pellets. Kinda like what they did with Sawyer on Lost a few months back. Or not really? And another game lets them paint with their hands. All this took IBM 500 hours to develop by the way.

Phoenix Revolution

The Phoenix Revolution controller is advertised on it’s unique feature that allows you to customize your modular setup. While it’s a nice feature, I doubt anyone would switch any of the modules out of their regular positions, with the possible exception of the D-pad and left analog.

The Revolution also has two other features unique to it. One of them is a switch that, when turned on, inverts the up and down directions on the right analog. This feature probably has it’s uses in some FPS or flight simulator games, though one would assume most of these games have an in-game invert option anyways.

The last (and most useful) of the Revolution’s features is the ability to adjust the analog sticks’ resistance with just a simple twist of the sticks. A fighting game would call for a loose analog for better motion control, while a tighter analog would be better for RPGs. With some games (I’m thinking just shooters, actually), you might even want to change the stiffness in mid-game while switching weapons.

The Revolution’s current going price is about $15, lower than the majority of PS2 controllers.

In The Hunt

System: Sony PlayStation
Developer: Xing Entertainment
Release Date: September 1996

In The Hunt is your basic scrolling shooter, but unlike most shooters which puts you in control of a plane, this one places you in a submarine underwater. There isn’t much depth here – the game consists of only six fairly short stages, and there’s only two weapons (a horizontal attack and a vertical attack) with two upgrades available for each. The most unique part of the game is that some stages take place in shallow water, and you’ll have to battle aerial enemies as well as the ones that are also present underwater. The vertical attack also changes when used above water – usually from a missile to a machine gun. Stages also have obstacles reminiscent of the earlier scrolling adventure games like Mega Man, which is a nice feature since it gives you something to handle besides crowds of enemies.

There’s actually two modes of play – “Arcade” and “PlayStation”, but the only difference is that the latter has an extra power-up, which is basically a shield that will take one hit in place of your ship.

I know some gamers who found this game charming, but unless you’re a real old-school gamer, In The Hunt is too short and lacking to be worth playing.

Doom II strategy guide

Some time ago, I was in Atlantic City and took refuge from some violent rain in a 99 cents store. Among the shelves of generic toothpaste and likely expired food was a stack of 100+ strategy guides for Doom II. It’s easily one of the most poorly written strategy guides I’ve seen, but for a buck, it’s no loss. Random relevant/irrelevant quotes from the book:

The Marine Corps believe that your personal hygiene and overall health is critical to battlefield performance.

Be there … aloha.

For enhanced speed and better play value overall, a 486 or Pentium system with at least 8 megabytes of RAM is recommended.

Can I get an UUURAH, Drill Sergeant?
Uurah, Drill Sergeant.

Turn back toward the room with the toxic waste.

Next you will see four more Nazis coming out of the hallway to the south.

John Romero: You are not going to believe Quake. Quake is going to be an industry when it comes out.
Ed Dille: [Grunt of disbelief.]

Aftergenesis

The end of every journey is just the beginning of another. Now what happens?