Transformers Animated: Return of the Headmaster

Ahh, another great episode of Transformers Animated. Today's episode was the Return of the Headmaster. As you can tell from the title, the criminal Headmaster returns, but now works for Sumdac Corporation. He's up to his old tricks of stealing Transformers bodies, but this time someone who deserves it. It works out, of course and helps Optimus Prime earn Sentinel Prime's respect. Good ending. I love this show. No Decepticons this time around though.

Transformers Animated: The Elite Guard

Today's episode, The Elite Guard, is very different and interesting. The Cybertron Elite Guard has come to Earth to take back the All Spark and deal with Optimus and his crew . It's very odd to watch Optimus get disrespect from his superiors, but again this series is showing us a version of what it would of been like if Prime was brand new. What was nice is that we got to finally see what Cybertron looks like real quick and it actually looks like the G1 version of the planet. The episode gets good as it goes. Our autobot friends get to prove themselves.

Excellent episode, and great for Optimus Prime fans.

Transformers Animated: Megatron Rising - Part 2

This is the best Transformers Animated episode ever so far, "Megatron Rising - Part 2". This is what everyone has been waiting for. A true legendary battle between the new autobots and decepticons. Megatron is simply awesome and all powerful. He has his arm cannon, but also has a sword to fight with. During this episode, Prime and Megatron finally got to fight off in a way reflective of their legendary battle in the movie along with their hand weapons. However, of course Prime didn't get serevely deathly damaged though. Megatron did beat his ass real good and they got to battle it out alone. We also get to see the autobot starship again in better detail and it is very similar to the Ark from G1.

As the episode goes on it only gets better as Optimus Prime and Megatron face off yet again, but this time with the All Spark reflective of the live action movie. Good thing it wasn't a human that put the final punch to Megatron. It's not over, of course, but now Megatron looks like his damaged self from the G1 movie. I don't think he's turning into Galvatron any time soon though. So, I must leave you with this. If you never watched Transformers Animated, this is the time. Megatron Rising Part 1 and 2 are legendary episodes to kick off a new generation of Great Wars to be remembered.

Xbox 360 Game Demos: Viva Piñata & Turning Point

Clive Barker's Jericho (Demo)
I decided to replay the Jericho demo since i gave it a bad review at first. This time around, my experience was much better. Maybe I wasn't playing it correctly. I don't know, but it was a lot better this time. However, the game is a bit average and not something really special. If you got stuck with this guy, you would surely play through it once and that's about it. I don't really see a lot of replay in this game. Overall, it could be greatly improved, but if you picked it up for like 15 bucks, it be alright. One time through it would be fun, it's just average and limited.

Viva Piñata: Party Animals (Demo)
I almost accidently bought this game thinking it was a newer version of the Viva Piñata sim game. Luckily I realized it wasn't and now playing the demo, glad I didn't buy it. Viva Piñata: Party Animals is a collection of mini-games based off of many other Mario Party rip offs. The demo offers a number of mini-games to play one after another. I found that most of these games were uninteresting and boring. They also reuse gameplay options in different ways for a number of these things. The only mini-games I found really interested from the demo were the racing games. Some people may think they're underdeveloped, but they were fun. They did let you collect items to shoot at other players like in Mario Kart. Otherwise, this party game is best avoided. The reviews don't like it, and I don't see a lot of fun for a group of people. If you really like the Viva Piñata characters and world, you may want it then. Otherwise, I say avoid it big time. [ IGN Entry, GameSpot Entry ]

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (Demo)
This FPS is very unique, at least the beginning of the game. Turning Point has you start out on top of a huge skyscraper as New York City is attacked by the Nazi's in an alternative timeline of American history. You have to work your way down this building as all hell has broken loose around you. It's pretty amazing and unique. The game uses the Unreal III engine, which i'm not a big fan of. The main thing I dislike is that the controls are pretty tight and strict in their movements. I guess this is to make the feeling more realistic, but i prefer typical FPS controls that are more loose. Oh wow, this game actually got terrible reviews. Seemingly, this game suffers from a lot of bugs, framerate issues, and a bare plot. Well then, I wasn't planning on getting this title anyhow. However, I do recommend trying out the demo. It's unique for sure! [ IGN Entry, GameSpot Entry ]

Beanie Babies 2.0

Beanie Babies, one of the major fads of the late 1990s...I used to be a part of that fad for a couple of months as a kid. Somehow I ended up giving up the ones I owned. I don't really remember what actually happened to them. About a year or two ago, my mom decided to get into beanie babies after she started to help my girlfriend buy some one day. So, we went down the dark path of collecting many of them for my mom. Luckily, most of them were pretty cheap because the fad has been dead so long. A lot of people want to get rid of their beanie baby collection, which makes it pretty cheap. You can buy a lot of them for a dollar a piece at flea markets.

This review below is based on the web site before the April 3rd update
The original beanie baby line came to an end at the end of December 2007. Ty, the producers and creators of beanie babies, decided to relaunch their legendary toy line. To compete against Webkinz, Ty created Beanie Babies 2.0. This new line of beanie babies offer similar, but higher quality beanie babies along with a secret code for an online flash game world web site. This site offers a 2D cartoony virtual world with games and chat rooms. The competition, Webkinz has had many years to develop and create their own hot selling brand with their own web site. From my quick research, Webkinz pretty much ripped off the Neopets game system. Unfortunately, Beanie Babies 2.0 virtual world doesn't even compare at all that Webkinz and Neopets offer in gameplay, features, and content. It's still extremely early, but it's very worrisome.

So far, the 2.0 system is very bare. There are many different flash games you can play, items that you receive from playing those games, and chat rooms, but that's about it. They hint towards some type of adventure game, but it's no where to be found at the moment. You can also max out your current stats of beanies, friends, hunger, and games played to unlock some type of item with no known purpose. So, to sum up the Beanie Babies 2.0 virtual world is simply that its an interface to play and unlock a collection of short flash games, a collection of limited graphical chat rooms, and a small collecting element. Each beanie unlocks their own personal room, however these rooms are featureless except holding your mouse over a couple of items that contains different animations. One could hope that since the site was recently launched in January 08, that Ty will push for the game system to be greatly improved and added to. I know they have fixed many bugs, but the engine still has glitches and slows down. Either way, if Ty expects to compete, the game engine has to be serevely upgraded with a lot more features than what they have right now.

I just completed an overview of the whole system. I realize now more than ever that the system is really still in beta. It's ultimately incomplete and still broken. There are locked chat rooms and games that can only be opened with a key. They give you this key, but you have to use it every single time to open any of them. However, based on what they say, there are meant to be unique keys to open selected areas. This concept doesn't work yet. You can also bypass some of those locks through a shortcut menu. I also maxed out my stats and was given a watering can. I have no idea what to use it for. The stats are still maxed out too. So, I'm basically at dead end for now. This looks pretty bad for Ty. That's for sure. However, I believe that the system holds a lot of promise if they keep developing it. I do really like the graphics and feel of the whole thing. If they could just upgrade it with a lot more, it'll be something special.

Transformers Animated: Megatron Rising - Part 1

The rise of the Decepticons is near as the episode "Megatron Rising - Part 1" begins. This is the first episode to seriously focus on the Decepticons and include all the characters we have met so far for their side. Finally seeing Starscream again since his first appearance, it's amazing how much he sounds like G1 Starscream. They did a great job at finding an actor who sounds like him. I also notice that his colors have been upgraded to red to match his G1 counterpart.

What's odd in this episode for the autobots is how Optimus Prime is trying to be really serious and hard on his troops with the upcoming threat. I guess the realization is that this generation of autobots are beginners at their claim to fame. I think this is a first to have an Optimus character that's only beginning to learn to be a leader and hero. Some people were against the idea that these autobots were not warriors, but held a maintenance job repairing space bridges. However, this is a way to show true character development of how characters with similar names to G1 began to become legendary. Afterall, G1 Optimus Prime didn't start off as a warrior either in his past. It was because of Megatron's attack that Orion Pax had to be upgraded into this leader warrior that we all know. Of course, the G1 series didn't focus on that, but wrote it as his backstory. Transformers Animated is the first to show how autobots go from average workers to legendary warriors.

Ah, the end of the episode was just getting good. All Hail Megatron.

Transformers Animated: Nature Calls

The series continues with "Nature Calls" which was a pretty good episode today. It was interesting that they nodded towards G1 again by having some construction vehicle robots that were similar in color and appearance to some of the constructicons. There was a supervisor guy that looked similar to Sparkplug and wore the same outfit. It's also cute that now the Transformers, well Bumblebee, plays video games and watch television. The main plot today focuses on space barnacles that are some dangerous alien life form from space that like to cling onto spaceships and machines. These barnacles made me thing of the Cosmic Dust organism from Geneation One but actually are completely unrelated. Cosmic Dust causes Transformers to rust away, while Barnacles engulf machines and take form into an alien zombie. Still, it's cool that they brought back the concept of alien viruses and organisms of deep space. The end was nice anyhow, heh heh. The next two episodes are going to be awesome.

Japanese TV: Bara no nai Hanaya

I started to watch a Japanese Drama called "Bara no nai Hanaya" which translates to "The Flower Shop Without Roses" or something similar. This drama starts off extremely sad as the viewer is given a summary of scenes that explains the main character's past that makes him who he is today. Shiomi Eiji suffers a terrible lost as his future wife dies while giving birth to their daughter, Shizuku. The summary of scenes continues to show a progression of his life with his daughter until she is aged to be in the second grade. Eiji is somewhat consumed by his girlfriend's love for flowers that he ends up opening a Flower Shop which he gets to meet a lovely woman who is blind. This is where the actual present story starts off along with his daughter and how she has began to hide her face since it reminds Eiji of his true love. What's somewhat odd is that there seems to be some form of man who is out to get our innocent main character. These cruel characters are only shown extremely briefly and mysteriously. This story is such a good hearted tale that it's going to hurt to watch cruel characters try to take advantage of Eiji. Overall, this show is a very human story and sad. It's just the first episode too. The preview shows that the plot is going to really start advancing with this devilish plot against our sad florist. Either way, I recommend people taking a look at it. The series is only in Japan, but has been fansubbed on the internet.

Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bara_no_nai_Hanaya
Official Web Site: http://wwwz.fujitv.co.jp/rose/index.html

Transformers Animated: Headmaster

Transformers Animated episode "Headmaster" is pretty interesting. What stands out at first is that it's an episode about Bulkhead and focuses on his character. The second thing is how they're trying to use the old Headmaster concept from the last season (season four) of Generation 1 by creating a head that a human can pilot. The difference is G1 headmasters merged human with Transformer life. I must say this episode has the most humor in it so far. It really cheers me up from how I been feeling lately. There's a lot of FPS talk in it though from this crazy human villian nerd. He keeps saying "noob," "ownage," and other internet terms. It wasn't a bad episode at all. Better than last week, but it still didn't have any decepticons.

Transformers Animated: Survival of the Fittest

This weeks of Transformers Animated wasn't as exciting. A human villain returns from the episode of "Total Meltdown" which many of us didn't see since it wasn't aired like it should have. Today's episode called "Survival of the Fittest" brings back the character who calls himself "Meltdown" and includes the Dinobots. This character has been transformed into some humanoid acidic form and wants to continue his experiments to create transforming humans. Meltdown has decided to kidnap Sari as he believes she'll be the best shape shifter since she's still growing up. The best part of the episode was to finally see the Dinobots transform into their robotic forms. Swoop's and Snarl's designs look pretty weird and strange in robot mode though. I guess I may have liked the episode more if I saw "Total Meltdown". I guess I was really expecting to see more of the Decepticon story. I understood the series started slow and focused more on the human city and characters, but now that the Decepticons are on Earth....it's about time we see more action with them.

I think some people seem to forget that the original Transformers Generation One had its own human villains. Typically these villains were taken advantaged of by Megatron, but not always. There's one guy who comes to mind that had nothing to do with the Decepticons at all. Lord Chumley, the big-game hunter. He collected the most exotic creatures that he could find. Of course, that means he wants the head of Optimus Prime. Anyone remember that episode? So, yeah, G1 was just as mixed up between the Decepticons, humans, and then aliens.

Roboquad

Roboquad by WowWee Robotics
Retail Price: $89.99
Ages: 8+

I bought the Roboquad about two months ago or so. I was in the mood to get some kind of neat robotic device. Something that would be fun and actually work. I got him on clearance for about 50 bucks. If you don't know, the WowWee's robots have always been advertised as the main entertainment robots for average households costing under 200 bucks. I used to want the original Robosapien, but convinced myself to forget about it years ago. At that time it was a hundred dollars. They still sell him for only 50 bucks at Target nowadays though. Anyhow, looking through the selection of machines on WowWee's web site, I decided for the Roboquad. He's a four-legged crab-like robot with a cool head. I liked the novelty of his appearance. Roboquad didn't turn out to be very popular, but WowWee's machines seem to go that way. They end up getting discontinued. Robosapien is their most popular and last longing robot. I believe most of the other ones are built as mere companions to interact with him and have a limited shelf life. I think Roboquad ends up being that way too. He holds a lot more promise of what he should be able to do as an awesome robot pet, but come up short and limited.

WowWee's robots are a cross between remote control toys and automatic machines that can roam and pretend to figure out their environments. Sadly, Roboquad is more the first. He does have automatic settings to let him that roam around and explore. He does do a good job at trying to figure out his environment and avoid obvious road blocks if he can see them (like big boxes and walls). However, all he can really do is walk around, change directions, and avoid stuff. He works fine on the carpet surprisingly, but make sure he has fresh batteries. However, of course the commercials make him look far more self-aware and automatic than he truly is. The biggest problem is that his automatic mode is limited and short. He may only explore for a couple of minutes before stopping and he gives up if he gets stuck for too long.

Roboquad has 72 pre-programmed functions such as different movements, speeds, and automatic settings. Like most of WowWee's machines, he's programmable up to 40 different moves. Roboquad has different personalities which are reflected in his automatic mode. He acts differently at night and in dim light. He is a novelty toy really, but I still like him. You can spend a good 10 minutes enjoying his charm. Roboquad holds a lot of promise, but is limited. I look forward to seeing a Roboquad II that improves on his Artificial Intelligence and make him a more full feature pet. There's no announcements for a new one at this moment sadly. I would like to have a bot that would roam around the house, learn his environments, and have some games to him. A real 24/7 machine would be awesome. Sony's old AIBO dog was meant to be like that, but he costed 2,000 bucks back when. The future of home robots are still in an extreme early stage between serious robotic computers and cheap toys.

Roboquad is a cool novelty to own, but could be far more promising than he ends up being. I'm still happy I own him and it's still enjoyable to spend time with him every so often. I continue to enjoy his appearance even in sleep mode. It's enjoyable to watch him roam around or command him for a bit. I don't own any robots like him, so his charm continues to be special. I wouldn't recommend him to anyone unless he was pretty cheap and if you don't mind novelty items that don't provide a lot of entertainment value.

Check out the videos here: http://roboquadonline.com/watch.html

Xbox 360 Game Demos: Burnout & Jericho

One thing I love about the Xbox 360 (and likely the PS3 if I had one) is that they post up a bunch of game demos online every week or so. I used to subscribe to the official Playstation magazine just to get the demo discs back in the day. I'm glad the demos are now easily downloadable for this current generation. However, I have noticed that the 360 isn't getting as many demos as it used to. The more popular brand games aren't getting any demos at all now like Call of Duty or even Naruto. I'm disappointed about that personally. I think demos really help make your decision to buy games that you may of not bought otherwise. I guess thats why theres a lot more demos of lesser quality games up on the 360 now, haha. Well, I have fallen behind on playing these Xbox 360 demos, so you'll hear me talk about game demos that have been out for a few months. I wonder if most 360 owners with an internet connection actually attempts to play all the demos Xbox Live releases. I sure do, and I notice they take down some older demos as time goes too.

(Warning: Any impressions and opinions below are solely based on game demos and not the full version)

Burnout Paradise (Demo)
A sure easy bet that's going to be on my buying list. Burnout Paradise has actually moved onto an open-world structure similar to the old Need for Speed Underground and Most Wanted games or Test Drive Unlimited. Wow, how nice is it to have a high quality racing game in an open world to explore and play in high definition. A full city catered to the destruction nature that Burnout promises. As I said, a simple decision to put on the list of must owns if you like the Burnout games. Racing and destruction at their greatness. [ IGN Entry, GameStop Entry ]

Clive Barker's Jericho (Demo)
I was hoping for something good since it had Clive Barker's name on it, but I guess that's just like any other licensed game. Jericho is a horror-based team squad FPS video game. You get stuck with a team of members that you can control individually and command as a team throughout the game. Apparently you don't get to keep all of them as some will die unnatural deaths throughout the story. The demo begins in the middle of the game. Each squad member has their own unique magical abilities and guns. I was pretty disappointed overall. I really didn't like using the team members and I felt the enemies were hard to really fight. The gameplay and controls were decent, but battling the enemies felt disappointing. Other players felt the same way based on the main reviews I found. I must say that the graphical designs and world would have been interesting as it could been something out of Barker's mind, but the game itself is just not enjoyable. It's generic and gimmicky. It's not a complete waste, but could be a lot better. I think if you only played as a single character and the enemies were easier and more enjoyable to fight, the game could of been saved. I'm going to play the demo again another night, but I don't think I'll change my mind. If it just didn't have the squad... [ IGN Entry, GameSpot Entry ]

"Clive Barker's Jericho is an inconsistent first-person shooter, alternating between moments of pure, atmospheric greatness and irritating design paradoxes that suck the fun out of the gameplay. Jericho is both a triumph and a disaster, and not a lot of games manage to be both of these at once. Frustrating, exciting, inconsistent, linear--these words and many more describe the various elements of Clive Barker's Jericho. If you've got a high tolerance for gameplay annoyances and like the feeling of imposing dread and claustrophobia this corridor crawl provides, by all means, give it a shot. If you like tight shooting mechanics and smart level design, you'll want to steer clear." - GameSpot

Transformers Animated: Lugnut & Blitzwing

Wow, another great episode of the Transformers. For all of you who haven't been watching, Transformers Animated is the first true American-based production for the Transformers since Beast Wars/Machines (even that was in Canada). This series truly honors the original G1 series and go far beyond that by finally offering a show that has high quality storytelling and animation. Some people may be shocked or freaked out by the animation style, but it will soon grow on you quickly. The series really has depth in character development, action, and plot. It's also a bit serialized which is great to anime fans alike. I want people to remember that I only seen the episodes once, and so I may not remember specific details clearly. I'm sure some hardcore fans will watch the episode twice, both on Saturday and Sunday. The show airs on Cartoon Network between 10:30 (saturday) and 11AM (sunday) EST. Watch the Transformers Animated Opening Intro!

So, now that I introduced Transformers Animated to my blog, I can express my impressions from this week's episode: Lost and Found. Actually, I'm going to speak about two characters that were formally introduced. I'm a big Decepticon fan and so that's likely what you'll hear about anyhow. I was very impressed by Lugnut and Blitzwing whom finally made their way to Earth to recover Lord Megatron. Blitzwing first appeared in the movie pilot, but really in the background. Anyhow, Lugnut reminds me a lot of Shockwave from Transformers Generation 1. He has one eye, he's bulky, and very loyal. Shockwave was similar. I think the major difference is that Shockwave was pretty intelligent compare to Lugnut's somewhat dull brain. Then there's Blitzwing, a name borrowed from Generation 1. They actually honored the name by making this guy another triple changer (he has three modes including his bot mode). Hmm, they actually kept both of his forms from G1, a tank and plane. I don't think Blitzwing got enough airtime in G1 and sometimes its hard to remember him compare to Astrotrain who got a lot more attention. Either way, this Transformers Animated (TA for now on) character has multiple personalities. I think he does remind me a bit of Blitzwing, but he's mostly a completely new character.

To end, I must say I'm very happy with these new Decepticons. I actually thought from their first impression from the TA pilot movie, that they actually may be very very stupid and worthless as the Decepticons suffered from the 3D CG Transformers shows from a few years ago like Armada and Energon. Instead, they are respectible and honorable Decepticons that will make any fan happy for some time to come. I was surprised to see both the Decepticon and Autobot spaceships in this episode as well. It was somewhat out of the blue since they were almost forgotten after the first episode. The end of the episode was a bit of a shock and a little weird too. It looks like our Decepticon buddies are where the Dinobots were put to rest except it's full of water now. Plus the bastard traitor has somehow survived and going to be trying to take power. Lugnut should prove very interesting in this new situation which will create a great plot of his attempts to follow Megatron while pretending to follow Starscream as he goes.

Welcome to my Personal Blog

Welcome to my Personal Blog about my Hobbies and Interests in life. I want to make this very clear that my blog is created for myself to share my interests with the rest of the world. This blog is not about being serious or overly accurate nor using the best form of grammar. It's a fun and enjoyable blog to share my opinions, views, and comments about the things I love in life. It's about discussing and detailing what I think about whatever catches my attention. My main hope for this blog other than doing it for myself is to find other individuals who share the same likes and hobbies.

Now that I pointed out that people shouldn't get on my back about what I type; let's get to what we're talking about here. What are my hobbies and interests that you may want to be a part of or read and see?

Video Games of all kinds (Consoles, Handhelds, PC, Online and MMO)
Transformers and Star Wars
Computers, the Internet, and Technology
Toys and Games (Mostly what's above, like Star Wars action figures and Transformers toys. Some random and misc stuff)
Digital (Virtual) Pets (one of my newer hobbies)
Anime and Japan (I used to really be into these subjects years ago, but not fanboy anymore. I have a better healthy interest in them now, haha)
Movies, TV, Music (This is more rare as I don't spend a lot of time on these subjects as they can be done at any point in my life. Better game yourself out now before you can't use your hands anymore. You can always sit in front of a television though)
Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Cyberpunk (Don't spend much time in this area either as I should)
Retro and vintage electronics, computers, games, technologies and media (I have a thing for old technology and their history. One hobby I still haven't devoted enough time to is retro microcomputers from the 1980s (non-DOS non-Windows).

That covers a lot of what I might speak about. As you can see that I'm pretty much a geek. I'm not a nerd, just a geek, a guy who loves merchandise, games, and hobbies. I will also be posting some weird out of the blue stuff on here too. I'm very open minded and I hope you can respect that my interests may not always meet yours. Just stick around and keep up with what does interest you and provide your own feedback and comments. Maybe I'll spark some curiousity on your part.

I'll point out that my entries will be mostly my impressions about specific items and shows, not reviews. It's really what's on my mind at the moment. I enjoy discussing these hobbies and their details, so feel free to ask questions as well.

This blog requires that user's have an account with Blogger to be able to submit comments. Please be respectful and share your own opinions and ideas. You don't have to agree with me, but I won't tolerate flaming and attacks on my blog. Remember, this is relax and fun. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. Thank You.