Horror Video Games

It’s been nearly a month since my last post. Ha, this is a habit I need not get into. Well let me get back into the swing of things with a short post.

Horror movies have never been my choice of flicks to watch, much less horror video games. You can thank Resident Evil 2 for that. I recall playing RE2 when I was a kid and walking into a dark room (for some reason I saw it fit to have the volume on full blast), when all of a sudden I heard a large mutated dog jump through and shatter the glass and attack me. Perhaps the scare was largely due in part to the volume being so loud, but ever since I haven’t touched a “horror” video game, until now.

Utilizing the power of the PSP to take me back in time, I gave the original PS1 Silent Hill a go. I am merely about 2 hours in, but I can already tell this is a wonderfully crafted game. Maneuvering Harry Mason, the lead character, can get a little tricky at times but it doesn’t take away from the experience.

Is the game scary? It may be a little too early to tell, but it does sure do a good job of keeping the player in suspense. The foggy areas are a little easier to get through, but the darker, grittier areas are chalk full of intensity.

All in all, as far as I can tell it is a great game that plays through more like a horror movie, than a game.

During my blast to the past, I also revisited an old favorite. WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role for the Playstation. This game had all the greats, before the eventual brand split, and before the WWF became WWE and before it became almost unbearable to watch.

A Modded PSP Is A Game God

A few months ago I made a couple blogs while deciding whether to get a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS. At first I leaned towards the DS, but eventually I decided on purchasing a PSP. Once I received the package I immediately fell in love J. The many things the PSP is capable of is amazing, and I only have the phat model, which is of the original 1000s that were released 4 or 5 years ago. I can only imagine how much more advanced the later models, 2000, 3000 and now the PSPGo are. The excitement died down and eventually disappeared months later after the UMD drive became unable to read discs. I thought my days of gaming on the PSP were over, that is, until I discovered I could mod it (hack into it) without the need for purchasing a Pandora Battery and a Magic Memory Stick. I employed the ChickHEN R2 method. At first it would not work, or so it seemed, so I stopped and used the PSP merely as an mp3 player for the next couple of months. Then, about a week ago I decided to give it another go. I read a more detailed guide and by some miracle of God (sarcasm), I got the ChickHEN method to work. Now, my PSP was not yet modded. All ChickHEN does is enable you to install custom firmware. Then I attempted to install a certain cfw (short for custom firmware) using Hellcat’s Recovery Flasher, needless to say, it didn’t work. After the failed installation I looked into other methods and came across X-Gen’s 5.50 Gen-D with the D2 patch, the latest custom firmware to be released. I tried it out, and by what I consider to be luck, it worked, and I successfully modded my PSP 1000.

What can a modded PSP do that an unhacked PSP can’t?

Well, everything… and a modded PSP can do some things even better. For starters, with a hacked PSP, you will never again have to pay for a game. Yes it’s illegal, so I don’t recommend doing that…. BUT there are other advantages to having a modded PSP other than simply stealing however many games you please. You can install LightMp3, a music player far more useful than the one originally installed by the manufacturers. Do you want to read books and comics on the go? You can do that using  Bookr, a PDF reader application. Need a universal remote control for your television? Well if you own a PSP 1000, you can modify it into one. Other features made possible are emulators. Yes, just like on a PC, you can play all your old favorite video games from Super Mario Bro’s 3 to Pokemon: Yellow version using their respective emulators. For instance, to play Super Mario Bro’s 3, a Super Nintendo game, you would use Snes9X Euphoria, which is currently the best SNES emulator for PSP. To play Pokemon Yellow version, a Game Boy Color game, you would use Homer’s Rin. However you acquire your roms (games) is your choice.

There are Dreamcast, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 64 emulators for PSP in existence, but as of now, all are non-functional.

Although I’ve modded my PSP, I don’t plan on going the illegal route. That’s not because of some sort of higher “moral borameter” or a lack of trying. I just can’t. ISOs, the files found in UMDs are enormous and can sometimes be near or over a gigabyte. I’m on dial up so you can only imagine how long downloading a gig of information would take.

Still though, I’m content with playing what were my favorites as a youth using emulators, for the time being at least. Eventually though, I plan on somehow repairing my UMD drive, whether myself or by sending it into a repair shop, and then extracting the ISO files from my UMD discs. That way, I can play my legally purchased PSP games from my memory stick without ever again worrying about damaging the disc drive.

AlexG’s Early Anime Drawings & Later Life-like Portraits

For the past year writing has taken the center stage in my life. It has occupied so much of my time that I’ve neglected to actively pursue my other passion, drawing. I will dedicate this post to the many drawings I have done, from my childhood of attempting to emulate expert manga artists, to my more recent lifelike portraits.

To begin, here is a decade old picture that I drew of Gohan from Dragon Ball Z in a mid-transformed state. As I’m sure past posts I’ve already indicated, ever since I was young I’ve been fascinated with the world of Dragon Ball, and I am still a huge fan.

Young Gohan in a mid-transformed state

If I remember correctly, I copied this picture from a panel in one of the many Dragon Ball manga issues.

Pokemon: Gotta Catch’em All – Yes, I to went through a brief, but very strong Pokemon phase. During those 2-3 years I collected the famous trading cards, RPG gameboy games, posters, religiously watched the television series, and I even recall attending the movie premiere of Pokemon 2000 with my cousins.

Small Pokemon Poster I Drew Years Ago

This is a picture I drew comprised of the many different Pokemon characters. I don’t remember exactly where I originally copied it from, though it may have been from a Pokemon comic book that  I used to collect. 

Mewtwo: When I was young, Mewtwo was my absolute favorite Pokemon character.

 

Mewtwo

 

Toward the end of my middle school years was when my drawings began to evolve. Instead of simply drawing anime and other cartoon characters, I became interested in making lifelike portraits.

 

The following is a portrait of the late-great Notorious BIG, a Brooklyn New York rapper who was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, 1997. I drew this as a project in my 8^th grade art class. I subsequently won a certificate and a nice little medallion. J

The Notorious BIG

  

Around that time I also drew this portrait of Tupac Shakur, a rapper who died days after being shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting 6 months prior to the Notorious BIG murder. In hindsight, it looks very poorly done but I think it was decent, especially for the age I was when I drew it.

 

Tupac Shakur

 

The 3 following portraits are probably my best so far, and they’re also my most recent. All three were part of the same class project during my last year of attending high school.

 

Jim Carey: I am sure you’re all well aware by now, but Jim Carey is a well known comedian and actor who starred in the classics Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb & Dumber.

 

Jim Carey

 

Tom Hanks: Is an introduction really necessary? Tom Hanks, who doesn’t like Tom Hanks? Tom Hanks has starred is some of my favorite movies including The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, Forest Gump and Cast Away.

 

Tom Hanks

 

El Hajj Malik Shabazz aka Malcolm X: Though his early views were radical, one cannot understate the impact this man had in his time. I copied this from a small photo in the paperback edition of The Autobiography Of Malcolm X (As Told To Alex Haley).

 

El Hajj Malik Shabazz aka Malcolm X

 

I never completely abandoned cartoon drawings though, every now and then I might still find the time to do a few. Here are some recent anime pictures.

 

Gohan – Super Saiyan 2: Gohan is definitely my favorite Dragon Ball Z character, simply off the strength of his level 2 Super Saiyan mode. One moment he is a docile little boy, but once he transforms, he’s a ruthless killer. It may not seem original, but this character trait was executed flawlessly in the Gohan character.

 

Gohan (Super Saiyan 2)

 

After realizing I had not drawn a single complete picture in over a year, I decided to finally sit down and get to work. The result was this, a decent drawing of Kratos, the most badass video game character of all time, from the Playstation exclusive God Of War series.

 

Kratos The Ghost Of Sparta

 

Itachi Uchiha: Aside from Gohan, Itachi Uchiha is another of my favorites. He is the older brother of Sasuke Uchiha, one of the main characters in the Naruto manga/anime. Itachi is so badass, that he murdered his own family and his entire clan, leaving his little brother to be the lone survivor who takes it upon himself to seek out Itachi, and murder him. Sure, killing his entire family may seem like a brutal thing to do, but if you read the manga and find out why he did it, you may not feel the same way. In later parts of the manga the two finally duke it out and Itachi wins, even though he is the one who dies. It’s complicated… so I won’t go into too much detail here.

 

Itachi Uchiha

 

Itachi Uchiha emits an aura of coolness so few other characters can match. Plus, his masterful use of the Sharingan eye techniques is fucking awesome. Sorry, It’s just that I’m a uber nerd for Naruto and Dragon Ball Z. J

 

Next is a Cougar: I drew this in pencil from a Special Edition National Geographic Magazine from 2003 titled the “100 Best Wildlife Pictures”. Once I completed the pencil drawing phase, I began to color it in as best as I could using chalk.

 

Cougar

 

Next is my most recent picture. It is of a lioness and her cub, taken from the same Special Edition National Geographic magazine as the Cougar photo.

 

A Lioness & Her Cub

Graduated High School, Launched New Website

It’s been over a month since my last update, and since then there have been a few developments. Number, and most importantly… I finally graduated high school. J It took me 6 excruciating years to do so, but it is an obstacle I’ve now overcome. You may be wondering why it took me so long, well here’s the explanation. Math, my arch nemesis, saw it fit to keep me in school for a couple of extra years. Yes, that is pretty much the only reason. But I won’t dwell on it any longer, I’ve graduated, so it is now of no concern.

Number 2: I’ve launched a Dragon Ball Z related website. It is currently being hosted for free, but once I’ve collected enough money I plan to purchase a domain name and increase the likelihood of success. I figure that I’m going to be updating it frequently, and after every update I’ll visit numerous other websites and link back to it. Plus, by incorporating other small tactics I’ve learned along the way, I’m sure I’ll make “some” money.

Here it is, never-mind the dull header, I don’t have the photoshop skills necessary to create a decent one, neither did I feel like paying someone to do it for me so get used to it….

www.allaboutdbz.wordpress.com

An Atheist Longing For Life After Death

It is easy to see how the prospect of an afterlife may be comforting to some. The thought of our consciousness ending once we have past is almost incomprehensible, implausible. Life is cruel in that way. Once our physical bodies’ lifetimes are up, our consciousness will likely cease to be. How can it go on, when all of our thoughts, memories etc. originate from our brains? Life after death is desirable even for some atheists (though I cannot speak on behalf of all non-believers) such as myself. Though my inclination toward living beyond my physical existence is not born of a desire to live eternally in a heaven-like firmament. I long to witness humanity’s technological advancement, the discovery of extraterrestrial life, microbial or intelligent but preferably the latter. I long to visit our second nearest planetary neighbor, Mars personally, but alas, such is not in the realm of possibility.

This was originally meant to be a longer piece, but nothing more came to me…