Tag: video games

The strongest brand in fiction

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Part of what I do for a living involves a lot of brand management. Ensuring the consistency of the brand’s usage, making sure all future projects and endeavors incorporate and also ensure the integrity of the identity, and so forth. Needless to say, I think I know a little something about branding.

So despite the fact that it’s a fictional universe, Capcom has gone through some pretty impressive lengths to ensure that the brand of the Umbrella Corporation is impressively strong. Dare I say it, but I’d venture a statement that Umbrella is the strongest brand in fiction.

Continue reading “The strongest brand in fiction” →

Holy shit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw this, before I filled up my tank (for the first time since Wednesday). $140.00 to fill up someone’s car? Jesus Christ. And the thing is, I think that the vehicle being filled still wasn’t at full capacity, because of the unlikely event that the car was able to hit approximately $140.00 even on the pump. But no matter, $140.00 is ridiculous. I balked at the notion that filling my new car still encroached into the $40.00 territory, solely based on the asinine price of gas in the first place, but to stamp a Benjamin on top of that, I might as well just kill myself if that were my fate, because there’s no way I’d be able to sustain such fuel costs with how much I’m required to drive in the first place.

To put it in perspective, I’m going to assume that the vehicle is obviously in the class of a Ford Excursion, or super-crew Chevy Silverado, or something along those lines, based on the 35+ gallon fuel capacity. On a good day, these guys are averaging anywhere from 15-17 mpgs, so they’re getting anywhere from 540-600 miles on a tank of gas. Based on where I was filling up from, and the notion that most people work out in the city of Atlanta, or at least from where I was, not there, so I’m going to guess that if these people were like me, they’re putting anywhere around 300-400 miles on their vehicle during a five-day work week. Factor in recreational/weekend driving, and we’re looking at possibly the necessity to fill up once a week. At $140.00 a fill up.

In 1993, my parents bought me a Sega Genesis at a Price Club, for roughly $140.00. Think about that for a second – basically, whatever guzzler this person is driving could have literally bought an entire video game console, with a second controller and Ecco the Dolphin, every single week, for what they’re paying for in gasoline. Fuckin’ crazy.

What really happens to children during a zombie apocalypse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What, you thought they were all safe and comfy at Disneyland while Chris, Jill, Francis, Coach, Ellis and Zoey eradicated the zombies for the sake of humanity?

It’s kind of a no-brainer that kids were never really shown in any danger in zombie games, because of the perceived sensitive nature of such imagery, but take such factors out of play, and it’s assumed that since they’re dumb and frail, they’re simply the first to get wiped out.

Major props to the trailer for Dead Island, which unforgivingly puts together this fine trailer of horror, sadness, and raw defeated emotion, which has more or less sold me on the game, without me really knowing what it’s truly about, the mechanics, or anything else.  And based on what little I have read about it, Dead Island sounds like the perfect one-player game for me to play when not indulging in zbs.

HAPPY KWANZAA.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My arms feel like Rich Harden, and my legs feel like Chipper Jones.  But all with good reason.  What started with a new television snowballed into an effort to renovate my personal quarters, with me now paying dividends for my work, proving that things are easier when the house is new and unfurnished, and that I am indeed, getting old as fuck.

I haven’t worked all week, and haven’t gotten yet paid for the week of work previously.  Work is coming back as of Tuesday, and some interesting opportunities may arise (hopefully) in coming time.

The year is steadily approaching its finale.  Without much trepidation I say it can’t come soon enough.  But more on a lot of the aforementioned topics at a later date.  It’s Christmas, and I intend to spend today doing jack squat, eating food I like, and playing video games all day.

Merry Christmas, world.

Pimp my netbook: The quest for the appropriate gelaskin

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So here’s life in a nutshell – I make tentative plans to go up to Virginia this weekend; see my sister, nephew and brother-in-law, and then go up to NOVA to see my family, and some friends. Elapsed timeframe, would have been three full, maybe four full days, since I wasn’t technically slated to be working anywhere at the time. Apparently, somewhere along the line I forgot that when I make travel plans, work opportunities spring up out of the blue like mummies popping out of sarcophagi, and now my travel plans have been slightly derailed, slightly modified, to mostly omit the whole Richmond part entirely. There will be other opportunities. All this being said, it’s back to WCW for a few more days, and a potential, slightly lengthier opportunity starting next week, if I’m lucky. I’d post the Bret Hart image again, but I didn’t like the overall load time of the animated GIF on my brog.

Since Thanksgiving, I haven’t played Left 4 Dead, or even rogged into my XBOX account. I literally have been playing Final Fantasy Tactics on a regular basis since, and have since gotten my core group of characters to level 99, and am slowly gradually making my way through the storyline, all while completing as many side-quests and missions as possible and growing frustrated with the now-unnecessary random encounters that take no less than 5-15 minutes a piece.

While I’m waiting for my laundry to dry, since if I go downstairs, the Piss1 will inevitably be fired up, and my ass will be planted playing more FFT, I’ve opted to stay up here and actually write; I had some sparks of inspiration over the weekend, stemming from the surprising actual victory of Virginia Tech over Florida State for the ACC championship, but that fizzled out quickly, and I might be a tad burnt out on writing about sports for the interim. So, the topic of the day is that I want to get a gelaskin for my netbook, so that everyone who sees me on it can get an idea of how to prematurely judge me based on my choice of hardware artwork. That being said, it’s been a little more difficult of a selection process than I had imagined; I had almost considered going with one of the pre-made skins, but leave it to me to not be contented by what’s readily available, and desire my own. Although there was a pretty snazzy skin of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night that I’m quite keen on, but that sets me up to be an “artsy” type of person that would likely run into a person who knows way more art history than I ever cared to have paid attention to in school.

Continue reading “Pimp my netbook: The quest for the appropriate gelaskin” →

A Holiday Tradition

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Two years ago saw the weekend of Thanksgiving completely rendered lazy and nerdy, as Jen and I spent the entire weekend doing absolutely nothing but play Left 4 Dead.  Last year saw the weekend of Thanksgiving completely useless and lazy as just about all the time was spent playing Left 4 Dead 2.  Needless to say, it’s kind of been tradition to more or less do absolutely nothing but sit around and play video games during the weekend after Thanksgiving, in our house.

Seeing as how there was no Left 4 Dead 3, this year Jen and I were forced to go our separate ways.  Since we don’t really have any good co-op games, and I just didn’t really feel much like playing a shooter or anything that required that much thought, Jen opted to finish out the original BioShock, and I decided to seek, find, and blow the dust off of an old copy of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, and go down memory lane with that one.  The fact that there’s only one television in the living room was irrelevant, because the old 27″ tube and Piss1 fit fine in the other corner of the room.  And I didn’t feel like I was getting short-changed by not getting the 50″ plasma, because quite frankly, playing FFT on anything but a 3:4 tube television, and getting frustrated at enemy Chocobos, just doesn’t seem fitting.

Bad Movie Review: King of the Fighters: The Legend of Mai Shiranui (2010)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I tend to fall behind movie releases very easily, so when I get really bored, I literally comb through individual weeks, and see what’s been released, so I can procure new material to watch when I’m bored, which is a lot. During my last perusing of movies that I likely missed, one particular title caught my attention: King of the Fighters.

Admittedly, in the video game world, I prefer Street Fighter over KOF like people prefer a filet mignon over a Big Mac, but for what it’s worth, I’ve been admittedly entertained by SNK’s bastard retarded attempt at a fighting game franchise before. Long story short, upon learning that it was directed by Gordon Chan (Typical HK director) I knew what I was getting myself into, but I decided to watch it anyway.

Fucking Hong Kong directors – they pretty much always find a way to ruin any existing properties, and it should come as no surprise to anyone, that King of the Fighters was a piece of garbage. However, the bigger question is, how does it fare to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li?

Continue reading “Bad Movie Review: King of the Fighters: The Legend of Mai Shiranui (2010)” →