Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

Can you escape from Robotnik’s island of traps?

Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 11:44 am Comments (2)

Here’s a pile of stuff – so much stuff I’m going to bust out some bulletpoints! It’s probably unnecessary, but what the heck!

• The Legend of Zelda playthrough is finally finished! Well, I completed the game last year and only wrote a conclusion this week. I’m bad at being punctual.

• Some Games I Played In 2015 is a thing. It’s still unfinished, but I figured there’s enough waffling in there to put it up early.

• I dug up some unused graphics from SegaSonic Arcade. I also have no idea where you find this page. It’s buried in General Writings somewhere, right?

• Metal Slug: Missing in Action has some odds and sods, mostly for the first game.

• And the Totally Bombastic Bomberman Shrine Place pretends it has an update because it’d feel sad if it were left out.

I feel like I’ve said this multiple times by now (I last said it only six months ago!), but ONM Remembered will be wrapping up in a few months, probably around March. Only when it’s nearing the end do I realise there was stuff I wanted to highlight or topics I wanted an excuse to talk about! Ah well. It’s not like I have a blog where I can waffle about anything whenever I want.
I admit the schedule system is a double-edged sword – it’s rewarding to know I’ve got some form of content lined up for months ahead, but the unrelenting nature of its output is probably tough for folks to keep up with; I know if I weren’t writing it I’d find it hard to keep up. I haven’t checked on GameWTFs in ages because it’s like, crap, I missed a month! That’s gonna be a lot to catch up on! So rather than just popping in now and then or working my way backwards or something, I put it off until I have time to binge-read my way from where I left off to now… which only gets more monumental with each missed update. Someday, I swear!
The thought of doing more scheduled blog content in future sounds nifty, probably just a bi-weekly ramble on some topic or another. But that also sounds like hard work so I wouldn’t count on it.

That’s another thing – I meant to take a break from the site this year! I though it’d do me good to just focus on new projects and not worry about deadlines or pleasing an invisible audience… but then working on new projects was just too weird and stressful when farting about with Bomberman research is so much easier. I have bizarre comfort zones.
I always have stuff I’d like to be working on for the site: there’s plenty of Bomberman stuff I want to cover, which would also give me fodder for Random Action Hour. There’s some games I’d love to gush about; I’d like a hub for my game playthrough videos; I’m itching to give the place another makeover… but I’d also like to make time for other crap I wanna do.
I’m pretty sure I said the exact same thing last year and nothing came of that, but I like the illusion of giving myself options.

Until the next update!

All I know is my own existence.

Saturday, July 16, 2016 at 10:48 pm Comments Off on All I know is my own existence.

There’s a few small pokey updates for the Bomberman Shrine and Metal Slug: Missing in Action. Don’t mind me, I’m just chucking up updates when I feel I’ve noodled long enough on something. I’m still otherwise farting about like I usually do!

Please consume my wares.

Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 9:30 pm Comments Off on Please consume my wares.

Chucking up some game reviews because it’s been a while since I’ve used the blog for bloggin’! That and I forgot how bare some of the ONM Remembered entries were. I finally began to highlight images without commentary to spare myself the trouble and hope it’d give the image some time to be appreciated… but it just looks like lazy content. Welp! The next couple of weeks are a bit wordier, talking about topics that are probably only interesting to me and nobody else. That’s what you come here for, right?
… anyway, here’s a rambly review.

A few years ago my brother was raving about Treasure Adventure Game, a freeware indie 2D platform game that just ticked all his boxes: it had a huge world to explore, all sorts of little details and activities to appreciate, a day-night system that dictated each NPC’s daily routine, and the simple thrill of just riding around in a boat. It was darn-near his favourite game! I didn’t get into it at the time (because jeez, unskippable intros, what a bore!), but I picked it up earlier this year to give it a look-see.
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“Well he’s had his ups, he’s had his downs, he’s had his smiles, he’s had his frowns…”

Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:23 am Comments Off on “Well he’s had his ups, he’s had his downs, he’s had his smiles, he’s had his frowns…”

ONM Remembered’s up and running and will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Updates will come when I’ve got something to update with! I usually post something about potentially upcoming whatnots on Twitter, which is currently more Bomberman guff, animated Bomberman guff, old anime flicks and usually a botched joke I’ll delete in ten minutes because that stuff’s easier to live with when it’s on a website nobody looks at.

… in the meantime, who wants to read a dozen paragraphs about Limbo?
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Indy Bomber and the Ring of Wishes

Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 8:29 pm Comments Off on Indy Bomber and the Ring of Wishes

Splurge! Metal Slug: Missing in Action’s got some relics from the first game’s development, plus some unfinished areas from Metal Slug 7. The Bomberman shrine has coverage for GB 2 and the DS game. As for Random Hoo Haas, there’s the penultimate chapter of the Zelda playthrough, and some waffling about the rest of the guff I watched in 2014.

ONM Remembered will also resume by the end of the month, updating Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, so I’ll probably use that as an opportunity to take a hike. I’m pretty sure this run will be the final leg for ONM, but I might unearth more stuff that just needs colour commentary, who the heck knows! I hope it remains enjoyable to read and not a horrible stopgap measure between updates!

Give a squid a home

Monday, March 7, 2016 at 11:06 pm Comments (7)

No cash prize to hand out, I’m afraid – I went and found the unused Metal Slug Advance areas myself. There’s still a debug menu and a Slug Mariner to find, though, so if anyone in the audience has the hacking chops to find them, what are you waiting for?!

The past couple of weeks have been rough, full of work, stress and regrets. Still, it’s good to find the time to bust open MS Paint and make some fresh garbage. Thanks for sticking around, folks.

Super Marco Brothers

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 12:37 pm Comments (1)

Metal Slug: Missing in Action finally saw an update after five years! Don’t get your hopes up, though – although a debug menu in MS6 was discovered, it’s not hiding anything wild or exciting. I’m still holding out for a debug menu in Metal Slug Advance to be unearthed, and I am seriously tempted to offer a cash prize for it. I mean, check out the newly rewritten debug menu page – there’s at least six unused areas waiting to be discovered!

Anyway, thanks to all the Metal Slug fans who’ve somehow held out with this outdated site for so long. This update wouldn’t have been possible without reader submissions – I’m struggling to emphasise the “your input means so much!” part, and not in a “I’m counting on you to do all the work for me” manner. When all the easy discoveries are done and the rest relies on hacking, I’m kinda out of my depth!

I spent ten minutes trying to think of a post title (and all I got was this lousy update)

Friday, December 25, 2015 at 9:25 pm Comments (1)

Logged a couple of more chapters into the Legend of Zelda playthrough. I’ve finished the game already, so the final chapters are just awaiting a write-up. Expect to see them… sometime!

So, Random Hoo Haas turned ten years old a couple of months ago. I’m still not sure what to think about that! To be frank, I’m not even sure what my ambition with the website is these days. Am I trying to be funny? A reviewer? Informative? I’m no wiser than you are, pal. Leave a comment and clue me in!

I admit I enjoy just using it as a way to keep myself busy. An outlet for noodling away at whatever dumb project strikes my fancy. It’s not glamorous and it sure as heck ain’t consistent – who bets we’ll see more than three updates next year? – but I enjoy it when I treat it as a light-hearted distraction.
I, er, do apologise to everyone who’s bored stiff of Bomberman minutiae and my foggy recollections of games I play each year. Let me know what you want out of Random Hoo Haas, and I might take it into account when I’m not making foolish purchases!

I have zero plans for next year, and I might take an extended break or two, but there’s probably some dumb thing nobody asked for that I’ll just have to upload. Lookin’ forward to it!

“It is face astringent juice with two people”

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 5:23 pm Comments (1)

An update, huh? It’s been a while since we had one of those!

Because one person said they wanted to see more of them, I finished translating four more Otimusya pages (F-Zero, Wolfenstein 3D, Final Fight* and Hokuto no Ken) and two more chapters of the Zelda playthrough. And because nobody asked for them, there’s some Bomberman coverage and reviews of stuff I played in 2013 and 2014.
* just a head’s up that this one has some rape and transphobic jokes if you’d rather avoid those

Tomorrow happens to mark the tenth anniversary of Random Hoo Haas.
I’ll be frank, the fact I’ve been maintaining this place for a decade now is a little bit terrifying. I wouldn’t call it a surprise I’ve stuck with it this long – I’m a terrible man for bad habits! – but knowing it’s entertained and informed a few folks over the years does make it feel like all those evenings and afternoons weren’t for naught. Thanks for the chuckles!

History trembles with unbearable anger

Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 12:47 pm Comments Off on History trembles with unbearable anger

So, how about that F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu, huh? Its coverage finished on Random Action Hour way back in April, if you missed it! It got a hastily-made characters page and everything!
I got around six emails during that period about what people want to see on Random Action Hour, which was actually pretty nifty! It’s neat to see folks still expressing interest in the site, and I appreciate the interest, though covering F-Zero was exhausting enough; I forgot how time-consuming that stuff can be! There’s a couple of shows I’d like to cover on it sometime in the future, but I can’t imagine it’d be any time soon. I need a break.

And having essentially watched the series two and a half times by now, I need to get it off my chest: my big dumb opinions on F-Zero: The Legend of Falcon can be found beneath the cut!
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