Well, it's been a while since I posted anything in this blog. The reason? I simply keep forgetting.
To follow up on my last entry, though, I HAVE played Sonic 4: Episode II, and I was actually surprised it turned out better than expected. The game fixes a number of gripes I have with Episode I, but I wouldn't go so far to call it fantastic. It's fun and playable, but I'm just dissatisfied that it still simply wants to remake stages from previous games. You can read more in this review I wrote. As for playing Rayman on Sega Saturn: I have not. I dunno why, but I'm just very hesitant to jump into it, even though the allure of playing a 2D platformer sounds fun. I guess I'm concerned that it might be too much of a collect-a-thon, the type of action game that turns me off the most. I could easily play the game to find out or just do some fact-checking on the Internet, but I'm just REALLY that lazy.
Now for current nerd activities!
For the last two months, I've been going out of my way to collect every US-released Lupin the Third DVD available, sans re-releases. A few years back, I actually attempted to do this, as well, purchasing the Pioneer/Geneon second series DVD releases, but I gave up after the 6th volume. How come? Because I also was collecting the Funimation releases of the annual TV specials and theatrical movies. And the ones I picked... really sucked. That was pretty much the reason I went on a hiatus with the purchases. The only reason I resumed buying the DVDs is thanks in part to the release of a new DVD collection containing all the episodes of the first TV series, which has never seen a US release of any kind until now! This reignited the flame to complete my DVD collection, and continued collecting the Pioneer/Geneon and Funimation releases. Nothing's changed, the former is still good and the latter still sucks. It boggles my mind how they have an entire year, every year, to come up with ONE story, and 90% of the time, it turns out to be crap. Then again, the blame probably falls more on the directors, each year normally containing a new one, for the lack of "oomp!" I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there in the medium that has a lot of plots you see coming a mile away, but some still manage to be entertaining as all heck thanks to fun direction, pacing, and character development. I seem to be more of a fan of the pre-90s Lupin stuff thanks to this, I think, because the stories and pacing still feel energetic, like the people making still believed they can make awesome and off-the-wall material. This feeling is mostly gone from the "newer" stuff.
I'd write more, but I'm tired of typing this entry. Hope it doesn't take another four months to make another blog entry.
