Too many other hobbies...

I've managed to finish Chapters 4 and 5 of Yakuza 3. My goal is to finish it this weekend, if I can avoid getting sucked into any more substories and side quests.

I really want to start Just Cause 2 so I can go exploring on the LOST island.

Though there is a slight problem. I have become distraced...

Damn you Steig Larsson and your "Millennium Trilogy" You're eating into my video game playing time.

Thank goodness these books are great reads and I don't feel too bad about skipping out on punching random Yakuza in the face.

Currently Playing...

Currently Playing: Yakuza 3

Developed by: SEGA

Yakuza 3 tells the story of one Kazuma Kiryu, the Fourth Chairman of the Dojima Family of the Togo Clan. He's currently running the Sunshine Orphange outside of Okinawa. And, he's a snappy dresser.

I've never played either Yakuza 1 or 2, though I was familiar with the franchise. Thankfully, Yakuza 3 offers the player a choice to watch scenes from Yakuza 1 and 2 to get a feel for the world and characters. This takes about 25 minutes of your time.

I picked this up because I love gangster flicks and cool clothes. This game has both. Plus, plenty of street fighting, billiards playing, and fishing (along with about a billion other distractions) to keep you good n' busy.

Kazuma is a pretty dangerous cat, one bad mother... shut yo' mouth (just talkin' 'bout Kaz). He's trying to leave the life as a Yakuza behind him by running an orphanage on the beach. He himself being an orphan adds a poetic nature to his new found occupation. However, like any one else who has tried to forget their past, it always seems to come back and smack them in the face. Before you can knock back a warm sake and scream "Kempai!" Kazuma is dragged back into the shady, yet well-clothed, underbelly of Japan. It seems his once thought dead father is still very much alive and running through the ranks of some fellow gangsters. Probably because they buried him alive. I'm guessing this will probably not be the case for his revenge though.

Yakuza is a large game, offering you a chance to become immersed in Japanese culture. Want to go sing karaoke with that hot little number you just picked up at the burger joint? Knock yourself out, just be warned that like a real life woman, you'll eventually have to get your hands dirty to completely win her favor. Like to shoot some pool? Dust off your high school geometry and head to the Aqua Sky Lounge. Streetfighting your thing? Just run around and get into random street fights with Street Punks, Gang Members, and my personal favorite: Shady Man!

For those with you with OCD, there are also 100 locker key to find and collect. Take them back to the storage lockers and earn some nifty prizes... like a blood soaked bandage?! Never question Japan's weirdness. Just don't do it.

Needless to say, there's plenty of side quests to keep you from doing the main storyline, if it pleases you. And, so far, it does.

I am currently on the Fourth Chapter of this game and have about 15 hours of time put in. I think my completion rate is around 13%, which isn't much for the amount of time I've placed on running around downtown Ryukyu or trying to catch a damn tuna so I can get the trophy for catching the tuna. I keep catching 13cm coral.

All-in-all, I'm enjoying Yakuza 3. It's a nice break from the few action games I've played before it because you don't have to commit a ton of time each play session. Sometimes 30 minutes is all you need to get your fix in.

Though I think I'll need more time to catch that damn tuna. At least I'll look cool doing it.

Want to know more? http://www.sega.com/yakuza3/

Welcome to the Shelf of Shame

Welcome sports fans!

I love video games. It’s a pretty simple statement to make; not much thought has to go into it at all. If I have enough free time I’m more likely to plop down in front of the ol’ boob tube and fire up one of the three systems next to it than pick up a book or go for a walk. Not knocking reading or walk; I love reading as much as any other ex-English major not putting their degree to use and walking has its benefits, or so I’m told, however, neither compare to the loving embrace of video gaming.

A little background about moi. I’m 34 years old. I can barely remember video games not being around in my house. My dad is only twenty years older than me so I can remember when he brought home his Atari 2600. Yes, that’s correct, his Atari 2600, not our Atari 2600. Sure he’d let us play, which lead to the beginning of me understanding how to hook up electrics, but only if he wasn’t in the mood to play it himself. And, of course, I remember Dad getting the hairy eyeball from my Mom for staying up to 3 or 4 a.m. playing Space Invaders. Yes, Space Invaders; that game where you shoot five or six rows of UFOs moving back and forth across the screen, all while dodging their laser beams. Groundbreaking stuff back in 1980.

By the time the NES (a.k.a the Nintendo) came out in ‘85 by Mom was on to my obsessive personality and made the decree that no video games would be allowed in the house. She had some type of soothsayer abilities and predicted childhood obesity in yours truly twenty years before it was the pandemic it is today. “Get out and play,” was the deal of the day.
You read that right, I missed the Nintendo boom times. Sure, I played Nintendo. I had “friends” that I would visit to solely get a hold of Mario, Samus, and the Ninja Turtles. I spent the months leading up to my birthdays trying scheme ways of getting a Nintendo out of Grandma Lil, who was usually gung-ho for disrespecting my Mom’s wishes. Plans for a Nintendo for Christmas always seemed to fall like dirt through a sieve. And the only thing left inside were dashed hopes instead of that shiny gold Legend of Zelda cartridge.

This total video game hosing continued through the Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis days. Every once in a while we’d get lucky and our overlords would allow us to rent a system for a weekend. This was in the days before you had to sign over a second mortgage on your house to get a system out the door at the video store. But, that only happened a few times a year and we were grateful. Though by this time I was getting close to my teens and girls were becoming a little more interesting than games. Hell, I remember getting my first kiss (no tongue) for getting through the first level of “Ghost & Goblins.” It’s nowhere near as dorky as getting to Third Base at the first TMNT movie or losing the big “V” while Doctor Who was playing in the background but that’s probably all a little TMI for ya.

Back from my digression…

We finally received a Sega Genesis for Christmas in 1994. Let me repeat that year for those of you a little slow on the uptake: 1994. The Sony Playstation was less than a year away and we were just now getting a Genesis. I was five months away from graduating high school so time really wasn’t plentiful like it has been and my video game playing suffered until that summer. I soon wound up with a Sega CD to go along with the Genesis and my love affair with the LUNAR series started there. You may hear about LUNAR along the way.

The good ol’ Genesis got me through my first two years of college, where I was still living with my folks and goofing off with friends. I was saving money to run off to university and with a little of that dosh I picked up a Sega Saturn, as I was trying to stay loyal to the brand that finally had settled into my home.

I think I had the Saturn for four months. It was so I could get the LUNAR: Silver Star remake that was coming out. It kept getting delayed and I kept getting annoyed.

Then I left home with about $2,000 in my checking account and with no real understanding of saving money. All Hell broke loose.

It didn’t help that I saw the Final Fantasy VII Playstation magazine cover drawn by Art Adams either. A tiny seed was planted in my brain. By early October of 1997, I found myself in Software, Etc. and dropping about $400 on a Playstation, Final Fantasy VII, a memory card, and an extra controller. To let you know how naïve I was about what was about to happen to me, I actually wrote “Final Fantasy VII” in big red letters on the memory card label, like I was cementing that it was the only game I would be buying. Remember when I said my love for video games was a simple statement?

I lied.

Oh, it started innocently enough. I played some FFVII but didn’t really have the time to invest in a large RPG like that between classes and my new girlfriend. I can’t even remember what the second game I bought was, or the third. I think one of them may have been the first Tomb Raider, because I had played that on my Saturn and enjoyed it.

The real trouble all started when one of the guys in the dorm loaned me the first Resident Evil. Now, if you know anything about the original Resident Evil it’s probably that the voice acting was extremely horrible and that the characters moved like tanks thanks to the back asswards controls. However, all of that was made up for by atmosphere and what I thought was a pretty nifty story. I still nearly crap myself whenever that damn zombie dog breaks through the window. I devoured this like the Papa John’s pizzas I was eating a few times a week. Soon my obsession with Resident Evil was only matched by the expansion of my waistline.

Then Resident Evil 2 came out and it was truly game over. I honestly do not know how I graduated from university with honors after this game was released. The amount of classes I skipped and hours of sleep I missed are lost to the ether of time. Needless to say, I’m lucky I graduated at all because of this damn game. I still love it to this day, more so than Resident Evil 4, which was also spectacular and another time sink. Five stars on all Mercenary levels, baby!
So, I graduated, got a job, got an apartment, got married, and kept playing my Playstation. Then came the PS2. You knows I hadda have it!

I didn’t get my PS2 on launch day. Heck, I didn’t get my PS3 on launch day. The only system I’ve ever gotten on launch day is our current home to dust, the Nintendo Wii. Though when I did finally get my PS2, it was still a hassle like it was launch day. I remember lining up in Best Buy and then being ushered to the pallet the systems were on. The first game I picked up was “Star Wars: Starfighter” thinking I was about ready to take home another gem like “Star Wars: Rogue Squadron,” which had gotten me through my last semester of university. Boy, was I wrong about that one. I traded the game for another game, I think it was called Shadows of Time, but don’t quote me on that because it was ass too. I don’t think I had a good PS2 game until the first Devil May Cry.

Life continued to be ruled by Sony until Capcom announced Resident Evil games going to be on the Nintendo Game Cube. Well, I couldn’t allow myself to miss out on Resident Evil games, no how, no way. I was about to own two systems at once! You can tell I picked up the Game Cube for Resident Evil because the amount of other games for that system that don’t have “Resident Evil” in the title in my collection are pretty slim.

Having two systems was working pretty well. I was able to ignore Microsoft’s foray into the video game market with the X-Box. I just didn’t care. To me, the X-Box just seemed like a system for frat boys and douche nozzles and since I don’t have gigantism I didn’t think the controller would even fit in my hands.

I continued to ignore Microsoft and it’s systems until 2006 when Capcom (why is it always Capcom!?) released “Dead Rising.” Killing zombies?! Love it! Killing zombies in a mall with whatever I can carry?! Love it even more!!! I was sold.

Between November 2006 and December 31st, 2006, I went from owning a PS2, Game Cube, and Game Boy to owning a PS2, Game Cube, Game Boy, X-Box 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3. Thus, the backlog, and point of this blog, truly started. Somehow, some way a Nintendo DS and a Sony PSP wound up in the mix.

The games started to pile up. And pile up. And, then, why yes, pile up some more. By this time, I wasn’t just playing counsel games; I had been introduced to City of Heroes on my PC. That a MMO for those in the know. Pretty much a game without an ending. A level cap, yes. But, a true ending? Not a chance in hell because the developers like that green. I soon started ignoring my other games like my wife and I had spawned a brood of Gingers. The obsession also carried over to my best friend and my wife. My counsels were crying for affection and the backlog continued to spread like the Blob.

Thankfully, a lifestyle change (No, not that. Or that.) put a kibosh on the monthly CoH subscription fee. This now freed up time to tackle the backlog. And, if you know me well, tackling something, physically or metaphysically, isn’t my cup of Earl Grey. So, I began. And, one day, in a video game daze, I decided to start this blog and chronicle my adventures through the backlog, or as I started calling it: The Shelf of Shame (echo… echo… echo…).

This blog will detail my travels through The Shelf of Shame. Every game I finish. Every game I pick up, keeping me from my goal. Eventually, I will catch up and everything I own will be played and hopefully finished and I will only be on to the next new game. I wonder, what will happen first? Will I finish the shelf or will my wife and I actually decide to breed and introduce our spawn to this madness? Or, will I just finally grow up, sell off all my systems, and take up watching sports and playing golf in order to fit into Society’s expectations of me and what it means to be “a Man” with a capital “M.”

Finally, I present to you the walls of Jericho which I much break down. The list of games that have become the Sword of Damocles in my life: ever constant, ever reminding. Pray for my sanity.

The Shelf of Shame:

PS3 & PSN

• Brutal Legend
• Red Dead Redemption

X-Box 360

• Castle Crashers
• Gears of War 3

Wii

• Madworld
• Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
• Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
• The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess

PS2

• Fatal Frame 2
• Fatal Frame 3
• Half Life
• Haunting Ground
• Obscure
• Psychonauts
• Resident Evil 4
• Rise of Kasai

X-Box

• Darkwatch

Game Cube

• Killer 7
• Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
• X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse

PS1

• Dino Crisis
• Dino Crisis 2
• Parasite Eve 2

Sweet Baby Zeus, that’s a ton of games! That’s not counting what I am currently playing! I have never bothered to count them all but it’s quite frightening when you put a number to it.

I will persevere. I can do it! Change you can believe in, folks.

Next Level: What I’m currently playing. Don’t miss it!

Later gators!
Adam