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31/January/2007

Adventures in hacking!

Just like Galvatron and I have semi-daily discussions of what's new, what's wacky, and who was a total moron in our last game of Halo; it seems Someguy and I are having semi-daily discussions of video games, hacking and other such topics that remain loosely tied with those subjects.

Last night, I found a level modifier in Super Princess Peach. Not the lame ass level select modifier, but a value that will take you anywhere in the game. Including test stages!

With pipes that had labels on them, and that one with the boat took me to a maze with so many Sad Goombas that the graphics disappeared!

 

Areas with lots of blocks and floating goody bags!

 

And unused blocks!

 

But after the initial surprise of omg test stage it became a bit mundane.

 

Until I found a "you saved a toad/lots of money from a boss" screen that, for whatever reason, had Iggy Koopa just standing there, doing nothing except corrupting the graphics that collided with him!

Except that raised the bar of my expectations by a million notches, and I found no more of the Koopalings. On the bright side, I finally found a way of entering World 8-6, so I can finally rip Bowser's second form and Mario. Maybe if I have enough patience for seeing repeats of World 1-1 I can start a list of area values.


 

27/January/2007

Steamboy is a pretty good movie. The storyline and environment were a lot more appealing than Akira, as I'm a sucker for old-timey technology (thus why hearing the speculations of futuristic stuff in science fiction bores the balls off me), and it was a surprisingly refreshing change for it to be set in Victorian Britain, especially with Captain Picard voicing the grandfather who looked like one of those hostages from Metal Slug.

However, for being cited as the most expensive anime production ever, the 2D animation seems to be rather crap at times, comparing it to Akira. It picks up during action, naturally, and it's still better than the typical animation you see in anime, but I have to nag about these minor things, see.

Speaking of nagging about minor things, LOOK AT THIS

LOOK AT THIS

This bowl has a flat bottom. There's no natural curve, it just starts off flat and then becomes unreasonably steep and up to the rim. This makes it impossible to lick the remaining Rice Krispies out without getting milk in my goatee.

AND ALSO THIS

Unnecessarily vertical. There is no reason that platform to be there. They could easily have taken the ring that's always at the bottom of bowls and shifted it up a number of centimetres, which would not only give it more of a bowl-you-eat-out-of look than a toilet bowl look, and also take up less hand space so you could carry a Curly Whirly as well between the fingers.

And as a public service announcement, this is what happens after you mistake the washing machine for the dog's food bowl one too many times: You review bowls.

Don't let it happen to you.


 

24/January/2007

After like three years of running that stupid site, I finally received fan mail for Metal Slug: Missing in Action that didn't point out the bleeding obvious ("ITS A JPG ARTEFACT") and was merely telling me what they thought of it, as well as a comment that made me laugh.

"Great site. Truly, the best unused data stuffz site i've ever seen.

Although now I want to fight Sean Connery and his floating pillar of dewm."

Thanks for making me forget that I regret making that site, Matt Kingswood. :]


 

22/January/2007

Today's observation: The condoms were next to the batteries in Lidl today.

Also I thought of a totally awesome joke regarding the condoms and the Vitamin C and the sprucing up of different kinds of bones.

 

Yeah.

 

I'm sorry. :(


 

20/January/2007

I mistook the cupboard for the microwave today.

Getting increasingly more insane.


 

17/January/2007

Every once in a while I may actually talk about my website!

Random Action Hour may actually be updated again soonish, as I bought Galvatron the box set of the American Darkstalkers and got myself the Super Mario World cartoons. Have a teaser!

Super Princess Peach is still being ripped, although I'm in serious need of a completed save file so I can rip Mario, the remaining bosses and make ripping the enemies an easier task (HINT HINT). There's still more Bomberman Party Edition and Chocobo Racing sprites to rip, but quite simply, they're a pain in the ass to rip and nowhere near as rewarding as SPP's awesome graphics, plus seriously, who would use them? Screw them for the mean time.

I actually tried getting a reason to update Metal Slug: Missing in Action by using Cheat Engine (what I use to access later levels in SPP) to see if I could finally find any real remnants of the aquatic level. No dice. Then again, I presume finding it would require a lot more than just dicking about with values on the level select screen.

I've been wanting to write another walkthrough, but choosing what game is difficult, and I'd like to branch out from Bomberman games. But they're the only walkthroughs I write good. :{

And in other news, Star Fox Assault is seriously one of those games that at the most is semi-decent, but it really could've done with a co-operative mode to make the tedious on-foot and Landmaster segments, well, less tedious. Spending a quarter of an hour trying to find those fricking hatchers on Sauria, only to fall off a waterfall and spend another quarter of an hour finding them again sure is fun!


 

16/January/2007

I just realised that RageMario of the Mario Fan Games Galaxy made a thread welcoming me back to the forums.

Over a month ago. Now I feel like a jerk for not noticing. :{

(and also yes I search my own name on forums. Saves me from having to keep up with conversation, y'see)


 

11/January/2007

Now, almost putting dog food in the dish washer is partly understandable, as in my morning routine feeding the dog comes straight after filling up the dish washer.

But I'm failing to understand today's mishap, where I almost put milk on my toast.

THERE'S NO CONNECTION


 

07/January/2007

My family and I were watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night, as well as the just-bought-the-day-before Batman Begins. I'd have to say that Last Crusade is my favourite of the trilogy; not because the action sequences trump the others or anything, but simply because Sean Connery does an excellent job as a bumbling old man who destroys a German bomber with the power of SEAGULLS. Plus, Alexei Sayle makes an appearance. That's wild.

Batman Begins, however, disappointed me; it was a semi-enjoyable watch, but it was another case of way too much hype over something I felt paled in comparison to the older movies. And honestly, is it just me, or did the movie have no consistent flow for the most part? The first hour I felt could've been shortened significantly, the only times the pace slowed down was when it wasn't necessary, and all the fight scenes were both ridiculously short and impossible to comprehend. Maybe watching Indiana Jones immediately before had spoilt me, but I'd gotten used to fight scenes being excellently choreographed, comprehensible and enjoyable to watch. They may as well have just recorded two characters flinching for a minute and capture it at different angles, splicing it together so you never see each angle for more than a second and they'd have a crappy fight scene to throw in and end seconds later.

It also didn't help that all the male characters were either trim, built or plumpish, so I kept mistaking people for different ones. A good example was after Batman appeared in the subway to Rachael, it then cuts to morning where Rachael is talking about Batman with someone who I thought was Bruce Wayne. Then a few minutes later at the rich boy club she bumps into Bruce for reals and says they hadn't seen each other in ages and I was all "haha what you silly goose you were just talking to him what I think was this morning but you never know because this movie abuses cuts like a mothertrucker." And then I realised that the man who she talked to about Batman was someone different, and you could only tell because his face was ever so slightly thinner than Brucie's.

Other complaints include ...

On the bright side, the film featured the best incarnation of Alfred I've ever seen, Morgan Freeman was awesome, and the scenes in the Batmobile were easily the highlights of the whole movie.


 

01/January/2007

Oh man today and the days leading up to it have been AWESOME. I got CT Special Forces a few days back, the first one, for the PlayStation, and despite the fact it's hideously short, the sniper sections are unnecessary and it's an incredibly unbalanced game, I got it for ultra cheap and it was pretty good even if there's round about no replay value so whoo.

And then I also got some Mario figurines, but these ones are SUPER because THERE'S AN ADORABLE KOOPA AMONG THEM. I've a girly girlish soft spot for Koopas. :{

And last night, just because we were all there, my family and I watched the first two Indiana Jones movies until 1 in the morning, and I honestly had forgotten how brilliant they were. Those action sequences are practically live action cartoons! I would probably go as far as to say they're the best trilogy of movies ever. In my view.

And today, my brother and I took our dog for a walk along the beach, and to continue using the same words and phrase over and over, I honestly couldn't believe what scenery I was missing out on. I'm not talking post card quality scenery, no no no; I'm talking about MOTORBIKE MAN POTENTIAL SCENERY. All kinds of things that would make great mountains, death pits, hidden bases, rivers, flooded caverns and golf courses. When I get some free time and manage to make Motorbike Man funny again I'm so hitting that beach like a guillotine of RADICAL.