Pop-culture

The second Sigma stage isn't nearly as difficult as the first, and is actually fairly boring. We've got two more Maverick rematches and a bizarre boss with Rangda Bangda, but other than that there's very little of note. I do go quiet for long stretches of this video as a result, so I apologize for that. Enjoy!

With all the Mavericks down, it's time to venture into the last trials of the game. The first Sigma stage is fairly tough, especially since you have to deal with Bospider at the end. We also witness the first gaming event that ever made me cry. Yes, Zero's death gets overused to the point where it never matters (and honestly the story in these games is nothing to brag about to begin with) but when I first played this game it had a definite impact. Enjoy!

Really, who didn't see this coming? Ubisoft has a richly-deserved reputation for hating on the PC, and From Dust's DRM and terrible port can hardly be a surprise in light of the company's past actions. Ubisoft's upcoming Driver: San Francisco will probably also have this asinine DRM—Ubisoft claims it will not, but a similar claim was made for From Dust.

For the final three Mavericks, we come across two bosses that are not nearly as difficult as their reputation suggests, and my favorite song in the game. Don't fret though, you'll get to see all the Mavericks one more time in the Sigma stages. After that, no more Mavericks. At least until Mega Man X2.

Enjoy!

I must begin with a disclaimer that I didn't like Shadows of the Damned very much, and I'm not sure if I'll bother finishing it (this coming from a man who didn't even give up on Flower, Sun, and Rain). The gameplay is standard, if unusually finicky, third-person shooting that borrows a stun mechanic from Alan Wake, the art direction is not particularly interesting, and the humor is something I'm about 20 years too old to appreciate.

After over four years of service, I had to retire my silver slim PlayStation 2 unit this week. It wasn't broken, really, but a few discs were having trouble being read by the console and DVD movies no longer played on it. I'm now the owner of a brand new black PlayStation 2, in its final hardware iteration.

After spending the balance of the last three years in storage, I finally set up my Samsung GxTV this past weekend. It's here in my office, just to the right of my workstation. Despite literally thousands of hours of use, the GxTV still works. The picture isn't quite as sharp as it once was, but it's good enough to make my PlayStation 2 (PS2) games look great again.

The next three videos take us into the wild worlds of Flame Mammoth, Sting Chameleon, and Spark Mandrill. Sting Chameleon gave me quite a bit of trouble, but Spark Mandrill was actually a lot easier than I remembered him. In fact, as a whole Mega Man X isn't all that difficult aside from a few painful spots. Enjoy!

I have been comfortably Agnostic for years, but my departure from Christianity hasn't erased the experience of having practiced it. I couldn't deny the influence my time within the church has had on me, and wouldn't; to do so would be to deny a fundamental piece of myself. From this perspective, I can't help but wonder if Western developers are doing themselves, gamers, and culture as a whole a disservice by continually minimizing and ignoring the role of religion in Western society.

The recent cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 has gotten me thinking about all the wonderful gaming memories I've had with the blue bomber. As opposed to a long-winded blog post, I decided to share some of these experiences with the general Internet population. Thus, I present for the enjoyment of the masses, a let's play of Mega Man X, starring yours truly.