Mini Ninjas

I got Mini Ninjas for 360 for Christmas. I then put down every game I had been playing (L4D2, MW2, Tekken 6) and played this straight to the end. It's such a great game. As my wife says "they must have taken time to study 'cute' in order to make this game." There is nothing ground breaking about the game play, except maybe that it's fun, which is sadly not a common theme in video games these days. It plays and feels a lot like Zelda or Okami. You play a band of ninjas pursuing an evil warlord to shut down his world domination plan, as always. There are items you collect along the way, and plenty of samurai to beat the tar out of. It has stealth kills, super attacks, special moves, magic spells, ninja equipment, herbalism, fishing, etc, as you might expect. Except they are all cute versions of said features.

It's tough to explain why the game is so fun without actually playing it. The atmosphere is definitely a big part of the charm. The audio, the stage design, character animation, everything adds to the charm. I plan on playing it again to find all of the collectibles. I played the game on "hard" the first time through because I suspected it would be an easier game (aren't all games nowadays?) and it actually challenged me a bit. I really had to whip out some spells and use my abilities to take out the warlord's armies. It was far from actually being hard, but more than I expected. I felt it was a good balance.

So I looked up the developers to see what else they had done. It's IO Interactive, and they had done the Hitman series and Kane & Lynch. How disappointing! Such garbage games when there is obviously a lot of talent in the studio.

District 9

I know I am way late on this one. It just came to DVD. I meant to see it in the theater, but never made it there. I finally saw it this last weekend. Best sci-fi movie in years, next to Star Trek. But Star Trek is Star Trek, so it doesn't count. Not going to bother talking about this one, since I am probably the last person on Earth to finally see it. Suffice it to say, the buzz is deserved, it's good.

Sherlock Holmes

Avatar seems to be dominating movie talk this past month. Everyone is raving about the amazing graphics and the terrible plot. Well to be honest, the movie just does not look interesting to me. "But the graphics!" you say. Sorry, the art direction looks boring and uninspired. Sure, the CG is really well done and highly detailed. But you can't polish a turd.

So instead I saw Sherlock Holmes. I know, I know. I was horrified at the trailer. I thought, "they've ruined Sherlock Holmes; fuck you hollywood!" But a trusted movie-goer recommended it to me (believe it or not, my Mother-in-law) and so we went. And I liked it.

First of all, Robert Downey Jr. is an awesome character actor, and if Iron Man and Tropic Thunder didn't prove that to you, then this movie is one more piece of evidence. Jude Law is also a strong actor and works well with RDJ. But the best character of all is turn-of-the-century London. Seeing 1890's London recreated with such grimy detail was way more fascinating than some florescent alien jungle with electric blue cat people.

So did it ruin Sherlock Holmes? No, it didn't. The stories are still there for you to read, unadulterated. But this is a new, almost comic book hero approach to Sherlock Holmes. And it's fun. I also very much like how they interpreted Holmes' character as being almost autistic. In a scene where he is waiting for Watson in a busy restaurant, we see Holmes nervously taking in all the details and conversations around him, overloading him in fact. I think this is a brilliant explanation for Holmes' almost anti-social behaviors, drug use, and middle-of-the-night fiddle playing. If you've read the stories, then I think you would agree, it fits.

So, while not an Oscar winning tear jerker or blockbuster CG masterpiece, Sherlock Holmes is a good, fun movie. And I can't ask for anything more.

Turtle Beach Earforce X31

I've owned two Earforce X1's in the past (the first one the cord went bad, either from the cats or from me stepping on it) and I really think it is a great headset for the 360. It only had two problems, 1) the cord, 2) I tend to yell into it because I can't hear myself talk. #2 is particularly troublesome because it defeats the purpose of wearing headphones, which is to be quiet.

So for Christmas, I was given a Turtle Beach Earforce X31. I had tried the previous generation, the X3, but it was terrible. The voice chat had a constant high pitch whine to it and the wireless was IR so it was all static and very sensitive to line of sight from the transmitter. Turn your head and gone. This X31 is RF, so no line of sight needed. The talk-back chat is great, no more yelling into the mic. It still has some of the high pitched whine with the chat, but that's livable given all the advantages it provides. One last thing is this thing chews through batteries. It takes two AAAs. If the batteries are brand new, they last 6 hours or so, which isn't too bad. But you can imagine how many batteries this thing will drain over the years. I tried my rechargables, but they last 10 minutes, not even enough time for a single round of MW2. Bah!

Overall, they are nice and a huge improvement over the IR versions. I recommend them.

Mushi-shi

Mushi-shi looked like something that was going to be really great. Mushi as used here refers to basic, almost ghost-like lifeforms that are closest to the Earth energies. If you remember the Lifestream from Final Fantasy VII, then you have a basis of understanding. Mushi are made of that lifestream. Ginko, the main character, is a Mushi-shi, or Mushi Master. He travels the land in search of mushi to study them, and often save people from them. Mushi are not evil or good, they are just animals, and sometimes their lives come into conflict with humans.

The animation is top notch. In fact the entire production is wonderful. The only thing lacking is story. Each episode is independent. There is no common thread other than Ginko, but even he has no story. In a way, it is refreshing to have a character who just is, and isn't some complicated, conflicted emo whiner or some other stereotype. But also it means there is no motivation to watch the next show. Nothing to keep you going. No hook. The mushi are completely out of left field and so each episode is free to do and be whatever it wishes. Sounds great, but I think in this case it hurts the show.

In short, the show has a lot of production quality, but weak on story. The result is a 7 disc series in which I have watched the first two discs and am not real motivated to continue watching. So I am switching to a new show.

The Supernatural

I know it's a bit late for Halloween, but I just finished watching ゴーストハント (Ghost Hunt).　I really enjoy supernatural shows, and this anime was a good one.　It had a good mix of Western ghost lore applied to Eastern mythology and religion.　Unfortunately, it was a short run, just one season.　Other good supernatural themed shows I've enjoyed include:

• X-Files - Of course.
  
• Supernatural - Currently running season 5 on CW.
  
• xxxHolic - Waiting for season 2 to come to the US.
  
• Vampire Princess Miyu - The original OAV, not the TV series!

Next up in my anime queue is Mushi-shi; looks to be a good one, at least visually.

日本語で 話しましょ！

This fall semester I am back to studying Japanese. Now I am in the credited classes, JPN101, instead of the continuing education class I was taking before. It's a much quicker pace, 5 credits, homework, quizzes, etc. I am studying more, practicing more, and loving it. I really remember more from my previous classes than I thought I did.

Here's a set of study aids I use:
1. Denshi Jisho - Online dictionary, w/ Kanji lookup.
2. About.com Verb Conjugation - A quick reference for conjugating common verbs.
3. Japanese Verb Conjugator - A search engine for conjugating any verb.
4. Minna no nihongo renshuu - A nice practice site with great activities for reviewing your knowledge. Covers 101 and 102.
5. Talk Now! Japanese - A cheap software package, good for vocabulary practice. I have an older version I found on a discount rack for $15.
6. Learn in your car - An audio CD set for practicing vocab and phrases in your car or iPod.
7. Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary - A great dictionary for beginner's, includes notes on honorifics, conjugation, tense, etc. All in hiragana/katakana, but also gives the Kanji.
8. エリンが　ちょうせん　にほんご　できます - A Japanese TV show to help non-native speakers learn Japanese. Two things I really like about it is the immersion, and the kanji. It's 100% in Japanese, even though it is targeted at the beginner. And it shows kanji with furigana for everything, which I really wish they would do for all Japanese learning material. So when you finally start to learn kanji you have a foundation of familiar kanji because you've seen them again and again in the show.

Finally, if I can give any advice whatsoever, it would be to learn hiragana and katakana before you even start learning the language. Memorize them, it's not hard, and take all your notes with them and just skip right over romaji. Romaji is terrible, particularly some versions of it. The sooner you are in kana only, the sooner you will be reading/writing smoothly and quickly, and you will avoid some spelling pitfalls introduced by the jump from romaji to kana.