Digibro’s Media Journal (March 2013)

Yet another month has gone in which media consumption was slowed by MLP and video making, though at least now it’s pretty close to resembling a full-time job, so it’s mostly a good thing. I spent the first two weeks of March deeply entrenched in making my Q&A videos, and then kinda retaliated by spending much of the last two weeks playing video games. (In my defense, some fairly successful livestreams came out of it.)

I feel like I should also link to the tons of youtube channels I learned of and subbed to this month, but I’m too lazy. I do have intentions of doing some kind of youtube mega-posts in the future, though. Also, I think I’m going to separate MLP fanworks into their own thing.

+++ Media

Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City

I got hooked on Kendrick Lamar after a friend posted Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe on facebook, and I spent the better part of Week 3 listening to and singing songs from this album constantly. I’m reaching the point of throwing “dense” around like a buzzword, but I can’t help what I like, and this album is uber-dense with cool ideas flying left and right. There’s so much detail and nuance to the production that it makes almost every moment exciting, and the album is altogether incredibly varied. Top tracks: Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe, Swimming Pools (Drank), Backseat Freestyle.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Working on a full analysis, but for now there’s the above. I started playing the 3DS version like 4+ months ago, kept trying to pick it back up and failing. Thanks to the help of doing a livestream, I played through on the N64 and ended up really enamored with the game. I definitely found that “Zelda magic” again that I’d found in The Minish Cap, and I love that livestreaming the game gave me the excuse to take as long as I needed to on each part. (Like, oh, taking 3 hours apiece on the water and shadow temples). This game will go on my favorites list for sure, on the basis that I still want to get that last heart piece, find those other Skulltulas, and get that Biggoron sword on future playthroughs.

Persona 4 Arena

This could possibly be my favorite fighting game, and I’m saying as much after only three days of playing. I’m a big fan of Arc System Works games, especially Guilty Gear X2, and P4A has all the best parts of their games and more. It’s fast, furious, fun, and gorgeous. But the best part is that every character is fun to play.

In a lot of fighting games, I get hooked on one, maybe two characters, and then I never want to play the others. I’ve already found my mains in P4A (Yukiko and Naoto), but I still enjoy playing other characters. You could say that this is because the characters are altogether pretty similar to one-another, and that would be a fair criticism (along with how easy it is to combo the fuck out of someone near effortlessly), but I don’t care. This game could push out GGX2 and Skullgirls as my favorite fighter.

++ Media

Trailer Park Boys (12 eps)

I know Chrontos has been waiting for this one. At his request, Dang-san, Victor, and Brando all started watching it, and I caught episodes here and there by hanging out in Victor’s room. It’s an excellent, hilarious show, with truly memorable lines and characters. Victor can’t help but talk like Ricky all the time now, and we keep blaming our problems on Corey and Trevor. (This has especially been a running gag in our livestreams. Come to think of it, Chrontos should watch our livestreams…)

Anyways this whole show is on Netflix, so everyone should give it a go. And for fans, have a Jim Lahey shit board.

Cave Derpy

I first played through Cave Story towards the end of 2011, and I enjoyed it a lot, and it got me back into video games. Later, Victor bought the 3DS version of the game, and I found it really awful. I wasn’t sure how much was me misermembering the game, and how much was just the 3DS version being less good, but after playing through about half of Cave Derpy, I can safely say that the problems entirely rest on the 3DS remake sucking. The 3D graphics not only don’t look as good as the original, but make the game more confusing and awkward to play.

Cave Derpy is a reskin of Cave Story, but virtually the only thing different is that the player avatar is Derpy. There are some lines of dialog changed, and at one part there are nurse ponies, but other than that, everything is the same. Even Curly is still a robot, which I thought was strange.

+ Media

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Really, I’d like to replay this, because I didn’t even start getting decent at the game until the very last level, and then I was nonetheless decimated by the final boss. I was somehow so blind to even the core concepts and mechanics of this game that I died constantly throughout, and spent nearly an hour on certain boss fights. I streamed the entire game in one sitting, and was railed by Victor and Dang-san for being so bad at it the entire time. When we got to the final boss, after I lost 20 times, and Victor lost 10 times, we handed it over to Brando, who’d never played the fight before, and he beat it on his first go. I definitely don’t think I can say much about this game until I’ve played it more properly.

Arrested Development (6 eps)

I’ve seen a bunch of this on Comedy Central before, and I ended up watching 6 eps while Victor was marathoning the show recently. The uber-fast pace makes it really addicting, and the bizarre nature of it is a lot of fun, though I never really established a connection with it in any way. Not really inspired to watch the whole thing, and Victor says season 3 kinda sucked, but I’m sure we’ll both end up checking out season 4.

Soul Calibur 5

We played this for a few hours, as I’ve done a few times, and never have felt I wanted to do more. Victor is a big fan of the Soul Calibur series, but we both find SC5 pretty damn disappointing. Some of the best characters were replaced with mediocre stand-ins. Personally, I didn’t have any character that really connected with my playstyle, until I made one myself. I used Leixia’s fighting style with a tall body to give her more reach, in the form of Andrew WK. Now mind you, dominating in this game as Andrew WK feels FUCKING AWESOME, but it’s only good for so many matches before the generally stale nature of the game starts to turn me off.

Not Yet Qualified: These are all the media that I’ve consumed to some degree and am not yet done with. They might fall into any of the lists above on my next journal post. Any media from last month’s post which aren’t in any above category still apply to this list.

Bioshock Infinite (just started)
How I Learned – MSI (just found out about)
mbv – My Bloody Valentine (I like it but only listened twice)
Anything in Return – Toro y Moi (same as above)