Status report: situation snoozy

Saturday, October 7, 2023 at 12:17 pm Comments (2)

Hello! I’m still here.

I finally covered that Metal Slug Advance prototype that got leaked three years ago, and forced myself to give Metal Slug 7‘s early footage a proper write-up.
I overhauled the sprites section and added somewhere over 200 sheets to it, and also rewrote the sprite-ripping tutorial, now with less jaded snark and more insight into tools and alternate methods, like RAM editing.
I’m still editing my “games I played” reviews from last year, but there’s a couple dozen entries you can read already if you fancy. I also never blogged about the games I played in 2021 article from two years ago, so I’m blogging about it now.

I’m very tired. How about yourself?

This update is mostly just tackling stuff I’ve been neglecting to address for a while now. I tweeted about how I would’ve jumped at the chance to document a Metal Slug Advance prototype in the site’s prime — that game’s been an inexplicable nemesis of mine for close to two decades! — and yet when one finally leaked, I was quite content to completely ignore it until only a couple of months ago. Don’t expect another Missing In Action update any time soon, sorry!
Likewise, the old sprites pages were seriously old, janky, and needlessly vitriolic and opinionated for whatever reason. That and the PHP pages had given up the ghost, apparently; I’m very grateful to Dazz for coding those up for me back in the day, but I think I’m in my comfort zone sticking with plain ol’ HTML.

Speaking of stuff breaking, there’s a lotta funked-up WordPress entries! Em-dashes, foreign characters and other symbols across the board have been turned into junk, and I dread the process of repairing it all. It’s almost tempting to just convert them all into static HTML so they can’t fall apart when I’m not looking, but, well, we’ll see what happens.

Random Hoo Haas will turn 18 years old in three weeks, which is terrifying to think about. If you expect me to commemorate the event in any way, be aware I have an unfinished draft announcing its 15th year of operation, if you want an idea of my work ethic.
The last few blog posts have all expressed how wrecked I am after a demanding year, so you shouldn’t be surprised that remains unchanged! My health is not superb and the faintest whiff of warm weather is enough to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis the heck out of me. I’m doin’ what I can to keep myself busy and make myself happy, but when that may manifest into online content is another story.

One of those days I’ll remember to write these blog entries before the update, and not after when I’m zonked and want nothing more than to hibernate for five years. Sorry for sounding like a sadsack in these blogs! Glad you’re sticking around, hope my guff entertains or informs or whatever it is folks get out of it.

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#goodcrocs & #goodkraids

Sunday, October 31, 2021 at 5:46 pm Comments Off on #goodcrocs & #goodkraids

We’ve got two new General Writings at once! It’s almost like I’ve been delirious with flu for the past month and been spending my time inappropriately! Enjoy my attempt at sussing out what Croc 2 tried to do and why its attempts fell short, and endure my overly wordy manic episode about why Kraid’s neat and I like him.

Smaller updates include adding the last chapter of CoroCoro’s Spyro manga to Scans & Bits, and a couple of translated interviews I had sitting around for the Bomberman shrine. Both sections have to-do lists that have grown to intimidating lengths, and whittling them down is still on the agenda… just whenever I feel up to it, y’know?

One of the frustrating things about doing stuff is… you’re typically expected to do more stuff. I’ll churn out an update so I don’t have to think about that section for a while — and instead it makes people think about it and expect more from it? That’s not how it’s meant to work! That’s gotta be cheating somehow, right?!

So do forgive me if you really want to see the Metal Slug section get new content, or the myriad of Bomberman findings get documented, or even for Dinosaur Hunter Diaries to resume. I’m still keen on all those projects! But this past couple of years have been tough (never mind this past couple of months), and I am grabbing any bit of relief I can get. If said relief involves writing about fat dragons, or ignoring the site and all online responsibilities for months at a time, then I’ll take it. Look after yourselves, everyone.

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And So The Blathering Begins

Monday, August 23, 2021 at 9:22 pm Comments Off on And So The Blathering Begins

I wrote nearly 13,000 words about Croc. I threatened to do it back in 2016, and because nobody stopped me, here we are now. Look, the internet needs its overwrought defence of Croc, and like heck it’s gonna be a video essay. I wanna hear someone sell me on the merits of Ape Escape but without having to actually listen to them!

The summer heatwave totally drained me, which wasn’t much fun because I like to do things during my waking hours besides sweating and vegetating. There’s a lot of things I wanna be getting on with, it’s unearthing myself from beneath my mountain of responsibilities and procrastination that’s the tricky part. Thanks to folks writing in, apologies for not replying, all that good stuff.

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Some (belated) games I played in 2020

Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:11 pm Comments (1)

A phrase that’s been on my mind this past year is “use your words”. Whether it’s interpersonal communication or trying to get a point across, it’s a good mantra to remember. They might not be good words, but so long as there’s an understanding and a back-and-forth to bang those words into shape, then we can learn more from them than just saying nothing at all.

It’s on my mind a lot because so much of my website work lately is dry documentation: researching publication dates and stuff that’s cool to know and hopefully helpful to others, but a bit of a bore to write. That (and other petty reasons) have been why the Bomberman and Metal Slug sites have been lying dormant — there’s plenty there I’m eager to do, but just documenting guff is deadly. I wanna talk long-form, go on bizarre tirades about nonsense, or whatever — I wanna use my words!


My first step towards acting on that is fawning over Bowser’s various 3D models, so maybe that wasn’t a good idea. I’ll let you be the judge.

It’s months old by now, but I also finally cranked out all eighty-something-thousand words of thoughts about the media I absorbed last year. If ever there was a time to get needlessly verbose about Mario Party Advance, or try to understand the decisions behind the Mortal Kombat cartoon, it was last year, apparently. That sounded more pithy in my head.

Dinosaur Hunter Diaries has a little crappy hub page now, and I also updated old Kirby fangames post to include a couple of games that I was previously unaware had been archived — and also the fact the site is now operational again, rendering the whole post a bit moot. Oh well!
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #136: Runaway

Friday, May 14, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments (2)

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #47


Andy chooses who his family is.
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #135: Visitantes Del Espacio

Monday, May 10, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments Off on Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #135: Visitantes Del Espacio

Turok: El Guerrero De Piedra #7


Mexican Turok has his first of many close encounters of the third kind.
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #134: Blood of the Son

Friday, May 7, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments Off on Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #134: Blood of the Son

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #46


A war between tribes becomes a clash of family values.
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #133: The Painted Mystery

Monday, May 3, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments Off on Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #133: The Painted Mystery

Turok: Son of Stone #69


The buffalo never wanted this to be its legacy.
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #132: Bred Up In Darkness

Friday, April 30, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments Off on Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #132: Bred Up In Darkness

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #45


Meeting old friends and new threats, not all of whom are mutually exclusive.
(CONTINUED)

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Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #131: The Hunted

Monday, April 26, 2021 at 8:00 am Comments Off on Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #131: The Hunted

Turok: Son of Stone #68


Andar’s ego nearly kills them all.
(CONTINUED)

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