Transcending History and the World...

Soul Calibur IV is finally here! Well, for me at least. Everyone else started their quest for the legendary blade on the 29th of last month, while I have had to wait until this last Sunday the 24th of August. It's been the typical growing pains of learning Cassandra's new move set, which hasn't changed much. However, almost all her useful combos were taken away, and she has lost numerous other moves but gained few. Despite that though, I have persevered in relearning her as well as incorporating the new mechanics of IV into my not dominate, but decent player status.

As everyone knows, what makes a fighting game a fun and rewarding experience is beating down other players in versus head-to-head combat. I haven't had the opportunity to play against others since Soul Calibur II, playing III exclusively against the CPU. Now with IV and Xbox Live, my Cassandra is free to slash through hordes of noobs whilst spewing victory chants over voice chat all with no lag. Fighting games have traditionally struggled with online play. Since every frame counts, even the tiniest bit of lag shows and is detrimental to having good fights. No game has exemplified this plague on fighters more than Super Smash Brother Brawl, where button lag is your best friend. No more with Soul Calibur IV. With a quick and easy way of telling if your potential opponent has a good connection, players can pick and choose without hassle the path to zero-lag country.

Needless to say, I'm addicted. The Character Creation (Create-A-Soul) is so deep, you can create ANYONE you can think of. From video game characters to celebrities, you're never sure just who or what you'll run into, whether it be online or creating yourself.

Now that my declaration of jubilation over this game is over, here are my impressions of the characters thus far.

Overall, balancing seems like it won't be as big of an issue as it was in the third installment. That being said, comparatively to the atrocity that resulted in pure brokenness in the last game, even the slightest improvement would seem like a huge step forward. What do I mean by this? Characters like Cervantes and Taki have combos that easy to do and can rack up tons of damage. Both also have good speed moves that are easily spammable. Mitsurugi has both speed and tremendous power, but his moves are not as cheap as the other two. These three characters are the ones I fear the most, and are quite popular online.

I haven't seen one single Cassandra...very curious. Sure, she was nerfed, but she was an excellent character in III. I still can dominate with her unique mix of speed and power. Also, she is fairly easy to learn, so I don't really understand why I haven't seen her EVER.

This game coinciding with school starting is not a good combination.

For someone with nothing to do... I sure am busy

It's true that I've made an art form out of procrastinating, lollygaging, and doing nothing. Since I've moved into my new apartment a week ago, I have had to innovate in my maverick field of laziness. I spent a good portion of each day sleeping, whether it be at night or napping, supplemented with computer time and the playing of video games. A tough way to live, but I pulled through it.

Now, instead of feeling infinitely lonely and bored, I've given myself things to do. All these tasks have and will take up significant chunks of my time leading up and into my junior year at Iowa. They range from actual meaningful work to hobbies. Now I find that my day is rather full, and if the time of writing this is any indication (3:32 AM), I can't find enough sunlit hours to do them all. What are they you say? I'm glad you asked.

They include: Playing through Metroid Fusion, writing an email of insights on my time spent playing Metroid Fusion, watching the entire Neon Genesis Evangelion box set (I'm on episode 14 of 26), managing my youtube page, editing video, planning my next videos, hanging out with friends, buying books for class, paying bills, writing a very long and in-depth preview of the iowa hawkeye football season, writing this blog.

I'm going to bed now.

Pokémon Opening Mystery Solved!!!

I think this has turned out to be one of my better videos.