Nanostray is pretty cool. It’s solid, it’s pretty, it’s fluid, blah blah etc. Every reviewer ever will say that. Every reviewer will also say this: it’s too short.

I disagree. For one thing, it’s not too short. It’s just about right. You can beat it to death in an hour on Normal. You can also sharpen your skills and play through on Advanced, or try to survive in Expert. Doing either will take you a few hours more. Still, it’s satisfying, like a well-written two minute song.

The real problem though is that, while the game is great, it’s the other features of the game that suck. Yeah, they suck. Nanostray never promised to be anything but a shooter, and it delivers. I’ve never been great at shooters, so the upper difficulties are lost on me. (3 continues? pfft. i die.) The place where the game could have really shone is in the extra features.

Arcade Mode. This is okay, but in an arcade, do you really just play through one level of a game and stop? It’s handy to be able to choose your level (once you’ve unlocked it), but this part of the game feels lacking. Arcade isn’t the right word for it, but I dunno what the right word would be. “Try a level”? XD

The Challenges. Hey, these aren’t really that bad, and I shouldn’t complain. Some extra constraints on the normal levels to spice it up. And you unlock some extra superfluous stuff for beating them. They’re friggin hard though. I haven’t completed one successfully yet (in the 24 hours I’ve had the game XD). They’re more for hardcore shooter people, I think, but I’m getting close to doing the first one.

Multiplayer. Bluh. Here’s where the blandness kinda sets in. The multiplayer just isn’t all that interesting. It’s just scoring higher than your opponent, or staying alive longer. I’m sure those that have tried out this made for longer than I have (that is, 30 minutes) can argue, and I might even learn to get some good competition in after a while, but right now, it just feels abysmally tacked-on. What I wanted was a two-cart co-op mode that let you play through the whole game. Not that complicated. All the great old-school shooters have co-op.

Okay, so after owning it only 24 hours, I’ve just taken Nanostray’s weaknesses and blown them out of proportion and made it seem like a horrible game. It’s not true. Nanostray is worth playing. It is fun, it’s challenging, and it’s so delightfully shooteriffic. I haven’t played a shooter in forever, and I forgot how much I missed the genre.

Gah, after too much Nanostray the world sorta looks like it’s going to scroll past in front of me. A lot of games do this to me.

Meteos made me see blocks everywhere.

And Mario 3 made me fly.

I find it interesting that, once I get into a game, I adopt it’s ruleset and atmosphere and superimpose it upon reality.

I can’t stand the thought of my broken DS, sitting on my desk, constantly lonely and broken. The paint job, the reason I broke it, has started to look more and more mediocre as I notice the flaws in it. I can do better, I say. So, I decided to dismantle the whole job again. With the parts in a drawer and not in plain sight, I feel a little less sad about it. This is only phase I of the plan though.

Phase II is touching up the paint job with less corner-cutting and more experience.

Phase III is a used DS.

And finally, phase IV is the act of taking the dried, finished, beautiful green casing and placing the used DS’s guts inside. And hoping it works.

The epilogue is selling my electric blue DS back to the shop, and my green DS and I living happily ever after and after. Also, getting weird looks from people only familiar with two colors of DS.

Phase II shall start when I feel like it.

I say ‘awesome’ a lot. In speaking, in text, in my head. I dunno why, because it strikes me as a thouroughly lame thing to say. Someone asks my opinion, and I become 13 years old, and say AWESOME with my thumb in the air and a gap in my teeth.

Maybe that’s why I say it. XD

I managed to dump a cup of water on my DS today. I nailed it good too, a deluge of icy water washing over my closed blue DS like an inundation of H2O meteos from an enemy planet. My first thought: kuso! i’ve ruined another DS! You might remember that other one I bricked. Anyway, this was in the passenger seat of my car, in the UTA parking lot just before my Native American anthro test. Second thought: okay, get it out of the puddle of water. DONT TURN IT ON, ITS GONNA FRY OMG OMG. I opened it up and wiped the water out of the interior with my shirt. Doing so, I inadvertently hit the power button.

It powered on. It displayed the good ol’ startup screen, A-OK. There was still water running out of the bottom edge of the DS. I turned it off, and tried to think of something that I could get the battery panel off with. There was nothing in the car of use though. So I removed the games, and sat it up in the dry back seat with the GBA port facing down, so water could run out of it. What I wanted to do was run back home and take the bottom off and dry it out. I had to go for the test though, so this would have to do.

After the test, it was mostly dry. A little cold, and water was still visible on the volume slider. I turned it on for kicks, with the volume up. It didn’t make the startup dong dadong, but it gave a little scratchy noise. The menu screen made the clock-ticking noise and stuff though. I went into Pictochat to make sure the touchscreen was still working, and it was. Turned it off, then on, and it went dong dadong nicely.

It hasn’t given me the slightest hint of trouble today, and I’ve been playing Ninja Five-O and Meteos like crazy. All signs of water are gone.

DSes are awesome.

I’ve been messing with the CSS and crap for this page and noticed that I suck at it. Then I stumbled on this theme, and it seems to suit pretty well. I’ll get a new picture though, I hate using other people’s photography. Especially when I don’t know them.

Ninja Five-O! It’s awesome. Among it’s assets are: Ninja, stupid enemies, a grappling hook (definition of fun!), and it’s short. It’s beatable in a couple hours, and the extra difficulty and time attack modes make it replayable. Everything about it says 16-bit, but with a much more enlightened attitude. I give it a seal of approval.

I picked it up at a GameStop for $15. It is a little rare (I’ve been told it’s “Suikoden 2″ rare, though I haven’t been trying to find that one, so I have no idea XD), but not expensive like, say, Panzer Dragoon Saga.

I also gave Façade a spin. It’s a really intruiging idea. You’re invited to a couple’s apartment, and end up watching their marriage’s problems work their way out into the open. You can try to intervene, or do whatever you want to. It uses text entry as the player’s input, and you can also grab certain things around the apartment. I haven’t had any luck at all in the game. I type too slowly, and my wording (north texas accent REPRASENT) dosen’t make them respond well. I know that others have been able to affect a little interaction, so the system must not be broke. Obviously, it’s me. XD It’s a good idea though, since it’s almost breaking into a new genre (Interactive Drama?), and it’s like a performance more than a game.

I have enough problems interacting in the real world anyway, so I don’t need a game to further exploit that weakness. I might give it another spin sometime, when it’s quiet and I can really concentrate.

Tomorrow, I’m going to pick up Nanostray if Fry’s has a discount on it. I might also just pick it up if they don’t. A sale though, that would seal the deal. I get all excited by saving $8-$10. =P

Yeah, there isn’t, I just deleted the default HELLO WORLD post. So I’ll fill it with some stuff to make me feel a little more at home.

So, this is what I’m doing:

I just finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It’s an awesome book and everyone should read it. Not only is it about high functioning autism (ostensibly, because neither that phrase or “Asperger’s Syndrome” are mentioned in the book), but it’s a good story told in a completely unique way.

I’ve been playing Meteos, the best puzzle game of the current generation. And also Riviera, which is awesome in its own way.

I’m listening to the TMBG Clock Radio, though what I’d really like to be listening to is the Katamari Damacy soundtrack.

I registered for this place because I’ve wanted a blog for some time, and this place has a nice name. It has a nice layout and purty fonts, and noone had taken my username yet.

I’m considering buying a Vespa. Just to get to school and back and stuff. I hate cars. Plus, they have really cool helmets.