Archive for September, 2004
SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.) announced their follow up to the innovative PS2 game ICO. The new game is titled Wanda and the Colossus (Wanda to Kyozou). ICO is one of my favorite games of all time. The gameplay is awesome and interesting. I also really admire the graphic style and animation; it’s just something really fresh and unique. Sort of a mix between classic adventure games, Myst, Prince of Persia and Miyazaki films (and maybe a little bit of The Neverending Story), the game is just a beauty to look at and has a great plot/game device.
Wal-Mart.com put up a pre-order for Nintendo DS on their site for a price of $199.82 and a ship date for November 30th. EBgames had their DS for pre-order at $199.99 and ship date for November 29th, though when something like Wal-Mart has it on their site its a pretty big deal and supposedly closer to the truth. Now if you know me, you know I’m pretty much a Sony bitch. I’m looking forward to the PSP definitely (dude, portable viewing of Spider-Man 2, yea-hah!), but the DS has become the new portable that I’m most excited about. Nintendo knows portable gaming down cold, ever since the awesome Game and Watch games of yore. I’m really curious on the whole dual-screen aspect than the touch-screen part of it and I’m also looking forward to wireless gaming (the wireless adapter for GBA has been released, but I’ll wait for the DS). It’s definitely going to be a hella crazy Christmas season this year. All the big games (Halo 2, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear, etc.) and the DS are coming out in November. Wait and see, wait and see.
In other news, Square Enix has announced a new RPG game which is a spinoff of Final Fantasy VII. Following the whole Compilation of Final Fantasy VII thing Square Enix is doing (including the new CGI film and crazy popular cellphone game in Japan) this game takes place a year after the events of Advent Children. The game is called Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. You play as the Vincent Valentine (remember him? Vampire-like, badass looking ex-Turk). Vincent takes on a mysterious group who have attacked a peaceful city. Not much is known yet about the gameplay or specific details, but from the looks of it, the game takes a more gothic and atmospheric approach similar to Devil May Cry or Castlevania. I’m hoping Square Enix does something different for the spinoff, like maybe a real-time battle system and more action. Square Enix has a lot on their platter, with all the Final Fantasy stuff building up to FF XII and Dragon Quest VIII just around the corner. Dragon Quest.. ahh the fond memories of battling Slime after Slime.
09. 21. 04 :: UPDATE
Official release date and price has been set: November 21, 2004 for a price of $149.99. PictoChat will be an included in the DS which allows nearby units to chat and send messages. The DS will also come out of “sleep mode” when it senses other DS units so you can have spontaneously chats. Sweet Jiminy Cricket! That’s just cooly cool!
Hiyooo, today’s strip features a robot dude named Noodlebot. This guy is actually the first robot character I drew. Oddly inspired by Cup Noodles (maybe it was the big cup in Times Square and it became some kinda beacon.. erf?) I was doodling and drew a bowl with noodles sliding off the rim. Then I pretty much turned it into a robot - eating noodles - using the bowl as the jaw or mouth. And that’s that. Cup-O-Robots was born! With Noodlebot, he’s just a simple individual - he likes to eat all kinds of noodles. Maybe he needs ‘em for energy (carbs!), who knows, hehe. 
So, Star Wars has nothing to do with the strip (yet?) but I was just wondering if any y’all checked out the documentary, Star Wars: Empire of Dreams, which premiered on A&E last night (I ended up seeing it twice, with the second viewing at around 2:00AM, derrrrr.) It was pretty good I thought. Produced and directed by Kevin Burns of Biography fame. Bunch of it has been covered by lots of other “making of” specials (anyone remember the 1985 special From Star Wars to Jedi? Good stuff.) and the Lucasarts CD-ROMs from the 90s, but Empire of Dreams has some great interviews and more insight, without being too much of a biography on Lucas. Plus, you can’t beat the fun of seeing Kurt Russell’s auditions for Han Solo, or Carrie Fisher commenting how the studio thought she was fat in A New Hope. The documentary will be part of the extras in the upcoming DVD release (8 more days!) and is supposedly longer and/or showing different footage. This documentary is a lot like another Prometheus documentary The Alien Saga, in which both focus more on the first two movies of each series. Hopefully there’s more in the DVD release coming next week. I’ll end with this. There have been a lot of controversies and issues with Star Wars. One that was really interesting was that Fox was concerned that Chewbacca was basically naked. They sent a memo complaining that “the wookie has no pants.” Haha.. Those crazy wookies.
Supsup? Not much to say ‘cept that this is the next to last strip for Chirp, but also I did some more changes, haha! Still messing around, I played more with the trees, this time their more stylized and curvy. I think this strip looks a lot better than the previous one. Yay! I’m getting better (I think?!?). Well whatever, hehe.
Anyways thanks for coming by the site again and reading the strip; it’s nice to get more and more readers to keep me in check and get my comics out 
P.S. The song the birds sing is from a famous anime intro (yes, I’m that dorky). Can ya guess? “No-prize” to anyone who does! Muahahaha 
Trailer for the new film from Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) is online. Categorized as a “comedy/adventure/fantasy,” The Life Aquatic tells the story of an oceanographer named Steve Zissou, played by the great Bill Murray. This time around, Owen Wilson didn’t work on the script, and Anderson partnered up with Noah Baumback. Like Anderson’s other films, he has a cast with returning actors like, like Murray, Wilson, and Anjelica Huston. I’m really interested on how Jeff Goldblum and Williem Dafoe’s roles will play into the film. Anderson and his films sort of have this love/hate relationship with people. If you loved his other films, you’ll probably dig this (I’m really looking forward to seeing it), though I know people who just don’t like the quirkiness or understand the humor of them. Oh well, everyone has their own tastes. This movie does have some different aspects to Anderson’s other films. It has a wider scope in that it’s somewhat of an adventure film and not set in one set location or city. It also has some SFX in it with all the underwater scenes. Wonder how all this will shape out. We’ll see this Christmas. And geewillickers, does that Wes Anderson like that Futura-like typeface or what!