Here’s to the eventual release of Platinum Crew, the release of more games, and to the newly-updated Technika guide for this final build!

While chatting with Rome yesterday, he mentioned something about our blogs having not updated in a while. Not much has been going on in my life, other than the usual tedium of waking up, going to school, and going home, and perhaps hanging out with friends (sometimes referred to by my friend Tsubasa as “sociable nothing”) on the weekend. There are a handful of things that I can think of – none of which I can expand quite nicely upon.

This will be a post not unlike that of the Raymond Mar bullet-point variety: a collection of small (yet somewhat notable) things in my recent life.

• At Sunnyvale Golfland, beatmaniaIIDX 16 EMPRESS and GuitarFreaks&DrumMania V5 Rock to Infinity have been fully unlocked. On the IIDX front, Himiko (injoke aside) is, uh, a 12 on Hyper. Yes, I know that the song’s rated 11, but that’s called Konami Lying To Us. Also, Rock to Infinity (the song) is giving me a run for my money on Basic (88). And while I’m playing copious amounts of both, my time with pop’n music has suffered.
• Speaking of pop’n music, pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE officially released on March 4 after a small delay. The staff mention that the number of unlockables is to make up for the number of songs that were cut. Can I finally say hello to Water Stand songs on AC? Please?
• I recently got into Puerto Rico. It’s a pretty fun game. In fact, I’m considering whether or not I like it more than Die Siedler von Catan*.
• I started actually searching for and browsing stuff on pixiv, which is sorta like the Japanese equivalent of deviantART – the difference being that since I enjoy music game fanart and character fandom (it’s half the charm of pop’n music!), I get a lot more out of pixiv than I do out of deviantART. As an aside, I enjoy having 40 pages (registration required) of smooooch・∀・ parodies to look at, and I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.
• I’m still waiting for the full US release of DJ Max Technika. This week’s unveiling of the update at the Amusement Showcase International exposition in Las Vegas both kills me (I want to plaaaaaay~) and gives me hope for a prompt release of both the game and its online features (the update is scheduled to hit East Coast arcade hotspot 8 on the Break shortly after the show). In the meantime, I’ve found out that I can’t play a DJ Max Portable game anymore without thinking of Technika and how much more fun it would be tapping a screen as opposed to, essentially, DualShocking beatmania.
• I’ve started two JRPGs: one because one of its sequels is the hot thing of the moment, and one because I’ve been hearing hype about it and I’ve been meaning to try it out. Both are pretty fun.
• I watched one episode of White Album, which was interesting. I then rewatched half of Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! (I need to grab the other half from the aforementioned Tsubasa) and watched its OVA about three times. And, finally, an obligatory Clannad After Story update: I didn’t expect that, why’d they have to go there again?

* I like saying Die Siedler von Catan, as opposed to The Settlers of Catan…if only for my opinion that it sounds cooler.

To some of you, this DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Special Edition might look familiar:

“What’s so Fever about this?”, you might ask. It’s the fact that where the supposed DJMAX PORTABLE 2 UMD TITLE (as described on the cover and protective slip, caps and all) is supposed to be, Fever has taken its place.

Everything else is, to my knowledge, exactly the same as what the lucky few people who were able to purchase the game got when they purchased their Orpheuses.

The best part is that it’s the Metallic Silver version, or what I like to call Ladymade Star-in-a-box. This particular selection somewhat redeems the fact that Michael Yum kept on referring to this as a Limited Edition of Fever to the end, making it sound as though there’d be something exclusive or unique to recipients of the LE.

I’m quite content, but next time, I’d prefer it if Michael Yum were a bit more honest, even if it went down on record that “the plan for the limited edition release of Fever is to closely resemble (or possibly be equivalent to) the release of the DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Package”.

What does a man do when DJ Max Technika gets removed from Sunnyvale Golfland?

He watches videos of Technika in Korea and he plays DJ Max Portable in anticipation of its return.

As soon as the Windows 7 beta publically released (or, rather, properly released), I nabbed it, mostly to see what the hype was all about. It’s a pretty decent OS thus far. I haven’t had much experience with Vista, so I can’t say how much of an improvement this is over that (although I’m sure you can find it somewhere else). However, it’s quite speedy and zips along just as fast as XP did, except with a dash of Aero polish. I didn’t need to install any drivers, either; everything worked right out of the box, except for the fingerprint scanner my laptop came with, which Windows 7 instantaneously and gleefully provided a link to.

Coincidentally, Pentavision released the ‘full version’ of the DJ Max Portable Black Square website and had some downloadable goodies on hand, too. I nabbed a pair, and now they’re in a rotation with three other images in Windows 7′s built-in desktop picture shuffler thing. Nifty-nifty stuff.

Now, the only gripe I have is that I can’t watch softsubbed anime on Windows 7. Supposedly, there are ‘working’ tweaks, but for some odd reason or another, those tweaks aren’t working their magic on my computer.

I guess whenever I’m in the mood for Shugo Chara!, I’ll be restarting my computer, but other than that, I’m quite content with Windows 7 thus far.

Addendum: While talking with Rome, I did a pair of benchmarks: it takes about less than a minute (50 sec.) to get to ‘fully working’ e.g. you can open up an application and not have it choke; and RAM usage upon startup is approximately 17% of 4GB (.68GB). This figure jumps to about 24.x% when I actually start doing stuff (for the record, this is on “maximum-shiny” Windows Aero – boatloads of blending effects and whatnot ahoy!

Also, I was able to do the above picture in Paint. Whenever I get back to XP, I’ll give it that good dose of drop shadow. Still – proper PNG support in Paint is great, even though it’s probably been there since Vista.

Speaking of things that were in Vista but are not present in 7, Inkball is gone. The best default Windows game came and went. Microsoft needs to correct this, and preferably with the next beta build of Win7.

DJ Max Technika, the arcade iteration of the successful Korean music game franchise, after successful location tests of the US version at two arcades in Southern California, has come up to Northern California as part of their second round, at Sunnyvale Golfland.

And damn is it fun.

The machine arrived on Monday, December 22, 2008, through the negotiation magic of Corey Prasek (Ver2), who arranged the location test with both Pentavision/PM Studios and SVGL. I arrived at SVGL at 1. Rushing into the arcade with Rome in tow, I found myself immediately stopped by Corey – “Not yet.” I resigned myself to several games of BlazBlue and beatmaniaIIDX.

Corey had some people help him tug the hefty machine into the arcade. It was more beautiful in person. After setting it up, I called my friend Mark to relay the message to the masses at Bemanistyle – it’s finally here!

By the end of the night, over 30 people had come to line up to play (or spectate) the game. The queue ranged anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on whether or not newcomers to the game underestimated the game’s difficulty (and failed on their first or second stage as a result). I had a chance to play about four games, not counting the attempt I made at the Customizer course (the hardest expert course in the game; I ‘passed’ Y as my first song, but failed the meet the quota – see below).

I originally planned for this post to be an introduction to Technika, but the post grew so big I sectioned it off into its own page! Take a look at the page here, and expect constant updates as I collect more info about the game.

If and when I can find the time, there’s going to be one helluva update waxing poetic on my trip down to Southern California these past few days – four days, in which three were spent at Arcade Infinity. Also, cosplay pictures from Anime Los Angeles!

Oh, also: many revelations about DJ Max Technika, how developers for the game further propagate the stereotype that everyone in Korea plays StarCraft, and how Michael Yum is a man among men.

But only if and when I can find the time. Which should be relatively soon – I’m not going to go on super-extended hiatus just yet.