Blow the Dust Off: Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies

Ace Combat 4
Last week, I got the flu and I stayed home from school.  I didn't feel like sleeping some more so I was wondering what I should do that wouldn't be too involving yet still entertaining.  I got Ace Combat 4 out of my PS2 collection and threw it in.  I played through the campaign on the hardest difficulty in one sitting (if you don't count the times that I got up to blow my nose and cough my lungs out).  It took about 7 hours to play through it.

Compared to today's standards, most people would critique a story mode for being so short.  But for its time, seven hours was about right.  And actually, the game is designed to be played through multiple times.  Upon beating the game, you are given the option to start a new story and carry over all of the planes, weapons, and money you obtained during the previous play through.

Needless to say, I've played through this game so many times that not only do I have all of the planes and weapons purchased, but I have enough money to buy all of the planes and weapons over again about three times.  Clearly, I like this game a lot.

What do I like about this game?  Well, back when I got my first PS2 for Christmas, my parents had also bought this game for me.  All I could remember was how impressed I was at how great the game looked that first moment I put it in (12-ish years ago).  Ace Combat 4 was one of the first Playstation 2 games to come out but you could tell that it was a next gen game.  The aircraft models look phenomenal, the environments are more detailed (ie, way more 3D buildings than PS1 counterparts), the audio quality of the game is really good as well.

The gameplay is really fun.  Every level is a different kind of scenario which serves as good variety.  If you're looking for a flight simulator, this isn't it.  All of the aircraft are unrealistically mobile and have unrealistically high payloads (the best plane in the game can carry 82 missiles!).  I always loved the high payloads and how you could literally be a one man army flying around.  The in-game radio transmissions I also thought were a nice touch to an already proven video game franchise.  The in-game radio transmissions really make the battle come full-circle in that you see the impact of your bombing runs and how you are changing the war on the ground.  It really makes it different than just shooting generic tanks and howitzers.

One of the best aspects of this game is how good the story is.  It's the first game I had ever played and may even be the first game ever made that approached the idea of war from various angles.  I talk about the story a bit in my Top 10 Favorite Video Game Characters List  because Yellow 13 has to be about my favorite video game antagonist of all time.  The plot to Ace Combat 4 is actually pretty three dimensional.  It would be hard to call the story with Yellow 13 a side plot nor to call the story of Mobius 1 a side plot.  This game literally has two main stories going on in parallel.  I won't go into too many details about it here but it's a very heartfelt story that you will remember many years after playing the game.

One more thing I wanted to mention about the story is how it is portrayed.  It's actually portrayed in not only an incredibly effective way, but also a surprisingly effective way.  The story cutscenes involving the Yellow 13 story line are told in what's basically a colorized storyboard.

Now, hear me out.

In most cases, this would not only be viewed as lazy but also unfinished; like there was no budget to make actual cutscenes.  Here though, the impact of the Yellow 13 storyline is told so well in these hand-drawn stills that it wouldn't make sense to do otherwise.  Every emotion, every action, every facial expression is held onto in one still picture.  In Ace Combat X for the PSP, they did a similar approach to cutscenes.  Though the story in Ace Combat X was not quite as good as Ace Combat 4, the delivery was still excellent.

One thing that I noticed during this last play through of Ace Combat 4 is that in the Yellow 13 cutscenes, there is no background music.  I thought about it and I think that if there was music in these cutscenes, it would completely ruin the mood.  Why?  Well, Yellow 13 has a very quiet demeanor.  He doesn't boast about his kill record or his skill.  He has this kind of inner-peace that can only be portrayed in silence.  I think this part of his character also connects well with flying in the vast and open skies in silence.  I suppose, now that I think about it, the depth of the Yellow 13 character in such few lines of dialogue is quite impressive.



Anyways, there is only one critique that I have about this game.  This game has no checkpoints.  If you are to beat a mission, you have to do the whole thing without dying.  This can be frustrating.  Especially in the second to last level when the boss at the end is Yellow 13 in his five-wing formation.  The rest of the level up to that point is relatively easy.  But trying to fight five ace pilots at once on the Ace difficulty?  Not so easy.  So when you get shot down trying to defeat the Yellows, you have to play the twelve minutes of shooting ground targets all over again.  I say twelve minutes because despite your performance, you always have to wait for the timer to run out.  This is also boring because I'm good enough at the game where, even on the Ace difficulty, I can take out all of the ground targets and fly around just shooting down the randomly spawning aircraft for about two minutes until that timer runs out.

But yeah, it's a pretty minor complaint amongst all of the great things that this game has to offer.  If you have a PS2 and like flight shooters, this game is the best.  Although the dog-fighting is much more intense in Ace Combat Zero and the Dog-Fight mode in Ace Combat:  Assault Horizon is pretty cool, no Ace Combat game, or any flight shooter for that matter, has quite captured the spirit of the story or the ingenuity of the level design that Ace Combat 4 brought to the table.

This game is a must play.

Bet The Levels - Don't Punch the Driver

Don't Punch the Driver
Bet the Levels released their first album Don't Punch the Driver two Saturdays ago.  Leading up to the release Dan Cane Skretteburg, co-lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist, had led me to believe that the album was going to be titled Little Miss Perfect.  I wonder what happened to that?

The title Don't Punch the Driver comes from the name of an older incarnation of the band (long story short):  a version of the band without the drummer Sam Donner.  If you're interested in the story behind that name, it's better told in the 'about' section on the Bet the Levels Facebook page.

Once you get your free download of Don't Punch the Driver and queue it in your favorite media player's now playing list, you will find the excessively used Nostalgia Critic reference contained in the six second intro of the album.  The audio clip is taken from a Bet the Levels live performance and, you guessed right, the Mason that Dan is referring to is none other than me.  Of course, in response, my sister and I are shouting at the top of our lungs, "FUCK YEAH!  SPARKLE! SPARKLE! SPARKLE!!!"




Moving on, the album as a whole is about what you would expect it to be.  It sounds similar to their live performances except now the vocals aren't drowned out.  Hi-fi guitars, basic punk drum beats, and lyrics that range from not knowing what to do with your life, to hating the town you live in, to coming-to-terms with your placement in an alternative high school.

If you like 90s punk, you owe it to yourself to at least check out "GE Days," "Going Insane," or "What Really Matters." as I found myself liking these recordings the most (well, my favorite is "I am Error" but I seem to stand alone with that choice).  Some songs that really sound great live don't quite come to life on the album such as "So Sad" or "Pledge of Allegiance."  However, I think that I'll always think of Bet the Levels as a live band in the first place.

For a self-produced album (I think), Don't Punch the Driver sounds particularly good.  I think this is a great album to demo to people as the audio quality is relatively good and the mixing is pretty solid.  The only critique I have on the mixing is that the bass guitar is too soft.  Then again, the bass guitar is also pretty quiet when they play live so perhaps a bass-reduced sound is the kind of sound the band is going for in the first place.

Overall, this album is really worth checking out for yourself.  It's free so you have no reason not to.  I've been really enjoying this debut release of Bet the Levels quite a lot.  In all seriousness, I have lost count of the number of times that I have listened to this album already.  The running time of the album is only about 30 minutes long so it's kind of easy to listen to the whole album twice in a row without really realizing it.

Check it out!  You won't regret it!

Download it on Mediafire

Seasonal Music Taste

Over the years, I've found that atmosphere can change how effective a song can be.  For instance, playing emo music at a birthday party just doesn't make any sense (unless if the birthday person wants to be depressed on their birthday, it's a free country).

However, it isn't always this obvious when and where a song, album, or band should be played.  The situations that songs can be played may also depend on the user.  Whether it's moods that they prefer over others, sounds that they prefer over others, or what kinds of things were going on in their life when they started listening to a particular band or style of music, many internal and external factors can effect a listener's experience of music.  For instance, some people can listen to reggae 24/7, 365 days a year.  Though for me, reggae really only makes sense to me if I listen to it during the summer.  Looking at the snow on the ground and listening to reggae is just contradictory to me.

Also, there is no reason to mention music that is written for certain times of year (ie; Jingle Bells or The Monster Mash).  Those kind of go without saying.

So, today, I would like to share with you some of the seasonal/situational tastes that I have in music.  Here are just a few of them


Parachutes - Mild Fall Day
Coldplay's album Parachutes has always felt more suited during the fall for me.  Particularly, it feels most suited when you're sitting outside and admiring the changing colors of the leaves.  Something about the combination of the fall and this album played softly in the background is soothing to me.  Just as a gentle breeze comes and tumbles the brown leaves on the ground, that's when the picture is perfect.

The All-American Rejects - Summer Nights/Spring
This one is particularly important as this is probably one of the first bands that I realized suited a certain atmosphere to be listened to properly.  This band I've always found suited late summer nights when you are alone in your bedroom.  On top of that, I also found that I prefer listening to their debut album in the springtime.  I'm not even sure why this is because I can also listen to this particular album in the summer and fall as well.  I find that when I listen to their debut album in different seasons, it has different connotations for me.

The XX - Highway Night
I think I remember someone else mentioning to me that they really liked listening to The XX while driving down the highway at night.  I can see exactly what they're talking about.  When driving down the highway in the dead of night, everything feels very vast and unending.  The XX really complements this feeling well as it's rather relaxing; they like putting a slight bit of reverb on just about everything.  If you haven't listened to The XX while driving down the highway at night, it's almost like you've never truly listened to The XX at all.

She Wants Revenge - Halloween
This one is more obvious than others.  She Wants Revenge has always had a spooky sound to them.  Although their music is never about Halloween in particular, their sound always reminds me of Halloween.  She Wants Revenge has a unique spin on the party atmosphere as most of their songs, in general, are about breakups or avoiding relationships.  So, sometimes, I imagine these events happening at a Halloween party.  Though, a lot of times, I imagine a very dark dance floor instead.  Either way, a great band for listening to in October.

Radiohead - Rain
I can't particularly place a reasoning on why I listen to Radiohead more often when it's raining than not.  The best I can come up with is because their songs are usually about depressing topics and rain can be depressing to look at.  All I know is that I definitely listen to Radiohead while it's raining.  That's just how it is.

Dark Side of the Moon - Night
I always loved listening to this album at night.  Something about the calm of night that amplifies this album's laid back mood.  Sit back, relax, and let the lunatic go in your head.

Hey Monday - Summer
Although I'm really only familiar with their album Hold Me Tight, their sound in general just screams summer to me.  They're from Florida:  and it shows.  I feel like this is the kind of music you would listen to on a sunny Florida day when you need to hear some bright power chords.

Clarity - Winter
Jimmy Eat World's album Clarity has always felt like a Winter album to me.  This is particularly interesting because Jimmy Eat World are from Mesa, Arizona so I doubt they were trying to set the mood of a snow-filled winter in their music.  I think there's something about the calmness of the dead of winter that I feel when I listen to this album.  One of those sunny days when there's a blanket of snow on the ground.  Even at night during the winter this album fits.  In my mind, this album is definitely a winter album.



And then on Valentine's Day I like to listen to Slayer or My Chemical Romance depending on how pissed off or sad I feel
...
Happy (or sad) Valentine's Day!!!

The Month of No Hope

Just give up
Even looking back now, I can't say that my Pre-Calc teacher in high school ever taught us anything.  He always used worksheets to do it.  In fact, in a parent/teacher conference, he told my friend's parents that it was, "not his job to teach them," implying that honor students were supposed to have a more hands-off approach to learning.

Well, isn't that just stupid?  And for these reasons, he had to have been the worst math teacher I ever had.

But there was one thing he taught me.  There was one thing that he said that has stuck with me.  And I'll tell you what, it is the horrifying truth.  It's a truth that no matter how hard I try to refute it, I find myself sitting in the corner exclaiming, "OH GOD, IT'S TRUE!"

February is the month of no hope.

Think about that statement for a second.  It's not just the worst month of them all.  Nope, it far surpasses that.  There is no hope in the month of February.  None at all.  Zip, zero, zilch, nil.

Valentine's Day 

What good is there about February?  Oh don't you go pulling Valentine's Day out of your arse!  I talked about Valentine's Day last year and I will bring up the same points again.  Your experience on Valentine's Day can be broken down into four categories:  male and single, male in relationship, female and single, female in relationship.  Being male or female and single on Valentine's Day sucks for obvious reasons.  It's a day to be reminded of the gaping hole in your unfulfilled social life.  Another year of having no one.  One more year of getting older and being less attractive than you were the year before.  One less year to get married and start a family (well, most people want to do this).  Anyways, you catch my drift.

Being a male with relationship status also sucks for obvious reasons.  You are expected to take time out of your day to buy cards, flowers, chocolate, presents, and whatever else she would expect.  But also, think of the extra time you have to spend with your sweetheart on Valentine's Day.  What if Valentine's Day happens to fall on bro night?  It is important to think of the costs that Valentine's Day truly summons.  It's been ruining bromances since the dawn of time!  I bet that Adam had a bro he hung out with until Eve came along and messed up everything!  And well... supposedly started the human race (besides the point).

Now, the less obvious one is being the female in a relationship on Valentine's Day.  It seems pretty great right?  Unlike being on the male end of the relationship, you aren't expected to buy any gifts, waste time, or interfere with a girl's night out (you would be surprised).  However, girls in relationships have a tendency to be disappointed anyways.  Bring her flowers?  Too unimaginative.  Surprise her at work?  Too embarrassing.  Dinner at a nice restaurant?  YOU'RE MAKING ME FAT!!! :'(

Well, maybe the only girlfriend I ever had didn't give a shit about me so maybe that's why my outlook is so bleak but regardless, most Valentine's Days the female in the relationship is going to be less than impressed no matter what you do.

The Superbowl

Moving onto other things.  "There's the Superbowl!" you might say.  The only thing is, the Superbowl has become a more than ordinary game with lame events and commercials suffocating it.  By the way, all of you that watch the game for the commercials, I will never understand.  Even though they are all new, most of them suck.  The ones that don't suck, you will probably see again at some point if you watch enough TV.  Oh and by the way, thanks Illinois for wasting tax money on a stupid-ass commercial that won't get any more people to dump money into our economy.  Thanks.

For those of you that watch the Superbowl for the halftime show, you make even less sense to me.  The Superbowl Halftime Show is always lip-synced, every time.  You might as well watch some concert footage on YouTube because (depending on the artist) that footage would have at least been live at the time it was recorded.  Not to mention that they never have an artist that suits the sport of football.  I think the last time they had a Superbowl Halftime Show that I liked was when they had Tom Petty (The Rolling Stones were good too but I can't remember who performed first).  Now that made sense because Tom Petty is about as American as they come (like the sport of football).  The Who had potential to be good but that medley thing that they did was really terrible.  And other than that, every other Superbowl Halftime Show I can think of in recent memory was some pop artist that neither I, nor football fans, care about.  Ever since the Angry Video Game Nerd mentioned it, in an ideal world, I've agreed that a metal or heavy metal band would suit the Superbowl Halftime Show the best.  There's this *I'm gonna kick the shit out of you* attitude that suits the sport well.  Not some wimpy pop artist like Madonna or Beyonce.  Give me a break.

Oh also, the NFL finally decides to play at an outdoor stadium in the north for the Superbowl but they choose The Meadowlands?  If you're going to choose a stadium for this circumstance, it has to be Lambeau Field.  It's one of the oldest, if not the oldest, NFL stadium.  Not to mention that the trophy for the Super Bowl is named "The Vince Lombardi" trophy.  Maybe there were some politics behind it but the Superbowl this past Sunday should have been in Green Bay.  Also, keep in mind that I am a Chicago Bears fan!  What is happening to the NFL?

The Weather

If you live somewhere void of blizzards, then go ahead and rub it in.  At this point, most of us on the northern hemisphere are wintered out after two and a half months of crummy weather.  The thing about February is that it is still crummy for a whole 'nother month.  Did I mention that everyone has gotten sick of the frustrating snow and demoralizing cold?  Well, guess what?  February means that there is no end of it for the forseeable future.  If you would like spring, please fill out another application in March.  Then maybe we can process your request.

President's Day

Another opportunity for your banker and government employee friends to brag about their day off for a holiday that has lost just about all of its meaning.

MLB Spring Training

First off, hardly in the month of February.  Secondly, the games don't count so the only thing good about going to see them is an excuse to escape the bad weather (and escape the month of February).

NASCAR Season Begins

This one is a mixed bag because either you love NASCAR or you hate it (this is probably dependent on where you grow up).  I'm in a very narrow audience of people that watches three or four races throughout the season and hardly keeps track of the cup standings.  But even if you think that NASCAR is fantastic, the first race of the season, The Daytona 500, is, ironically, one of the most boring races that you can watch.  Everyone just drives around in a tight pack; due to the restrictor plates that are supposed to keep everyone at "safe" speeds (because 185MPH is so much safer than 210MPH).  This also makes passing damn near impossible which really just causes a giant snooze fest.  The only thing "good" about it is that there is usually a giant crash caused by someone being too aggressive towards the end of the race.  But the rest of the race is generally uninteresting; really adding to the misery of February.

The Winter Olympics

Wait a second!  Did I find something that was not a complete disappointment in February?  Holy crap.  There's just one thing bad about The Winter Olympics:  it only comes around once every four years.  To me, this makes the other three Februaries even more miserable.  No wonder they had to make February the shortest month of the year!

Go USA!









No Hope picture is mine


Dissidia Duodecim Mods

SkybladeCloud's Zack skin
A few weeks ago I got custom firmware on my PSP.  Why?  Well, because the VC3 translation project finished and I wanted to play an English version of the game.

By the way, it's pretty sweet.  It can be a little glitchy at times but overall, it's very well translated and programmed.  I added an update to my Valkyria Chronicles III Revisited Review if you want to read more about the English translation there.

I hate to talk about the PSP even more than I have but I figured that this was something well worth the post, especially since this game is probably my favorite game on the PSP.

Most of the mods that I downloaded are just character mods (additional skins).  Here are the ones I've played so far:

skybladecloud's Mods:

There are quite a few character skins on his page.  These are the ones I played.

  • Rikku - Final Fantasy X skin I believe (opposed to X-2) for Prishe
  • Zack - Crisis Core:  Final Fantasy VII (with the hair-do from the second half of the game) for Cloud
  • Aeris - Crisis Core:  Final Fantasy VII (wearing the clothes from the end of the game) for Terra
  • Valkyrie Lightning - Final Fantasy XIII-2 (never played that game, btw). for Lightning of course
  • Serge - Chrono Cross (I thought this was a pretty cool idea.  Character model looks good too) for Bartz


He also had some background music mods.  He included a few tracks from:

  • Chrono Cross
  • Crisis Core:  Final Fantasy VII
  • Final Fantasy X-2
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2

He had a couple of other characters but I didn't know who they were.  They all work well and you basically place them in the folder the other DLC are in.  You can also play these without an .ISO (I played these using my physical UMD) so that's a plus considering that my memory stick is only 4 gig.


Balthier Character Skin:

This one's an alt skin for Squall.  I figured I would give this one a download since Balthier was my favorite character in Final Fantasy XII.  It's pretty funny though because instead of a sword, Balthier is clubbing people with a rifle.  That made me laugh a bit at first.






These are probably the ones that I found the most interesting so far.  Really, the sheer quantity of character mods that this guy has made for this game and the rate that he makes them at (with good quality) is phenomenal.  He has a ton of videos on his YouTube channel showcasing them and provides download links in the description.  His are also some of the first stage mods that I've seen yet and those look good too (though some of them are kind of cheesy).  He also has some themed mods, including a Christmas one which I haven't played yet.  I literally laughed out loud though when I saw that Squall's gunblade was striped like a candy cane.

The one I did get a chance to play was his Halloween themed one.  When I mention this, I'm talking about his first Halloween pack (he has a second one made already).  This includes a couple of stage mods, and edited character skins.  These include a werewolf Lightning, witch Tifa, skeleton Tidus, mummy Yuna, and a ghost Vaan.  The stages include a haunted Lunar Subterrane and a horror dungeon Pandaemonium.  The Pandaemonium stage edit is my favorite.  It looks really cool (with its cheese and all).

The drawback of this mod pack (and deraj's other mods) is that they take a bit of effort to use.  First, you have to rip your UMD of the game, then you have to download and install the Dissidia Mod Suite.  From there, you basically have to export all of the GMO files and then insert the modded GMO files into the ISO you ripped.  If you're looking for instructions, there are videos on the internet that do a better job of explaining how to do it than I ever could.  Just do a search on YouTube and I'm sure you will find quality instructions.  Or, you can click here.  This was the video that I used when making my modded ISO.

The good thing about having an ISO version is that I will always have my Halloween version of the game that I can keep separate from all the other mods.  The bad thing is that I can't use the UMD to play these mods.  I have to put the whole game on my memory stick.  This is bad because, like I said, I only have a 4 gig memory stick.  I am, inevitably, going to have to swap this mod on and off my PSP all the time.  This one is pretty cool though and will probably be on my PSP for awhile.





That's kind of my rundown of my mod experience on the PSP so far.  I may talk about it some more in the future as I discover more and more of these mods.  Until then, keep kickin'.



Zack Fair Image:  http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/QaFqNTrqOvc/hqdefault.jpg

Muse - Live at Rome Olympic Stadium Blu-Ray

Muse - Live at Rome Olympic Stadium
I'll keep this brief:

There really isn't a whole lot to say except for that it's the awesomeness of Muse in crystal clear quality.  It's the most visually stunning concert DVD that I've ever seen.  I'm not sure how you make HD more HD but they pulled it off.

The concert itself is about what you would expect from Muse at this point.  They play through their hits with a heavy weight on the number of songs from the latest album (in this case, The 2nd Law).  They have some bizarre stage props and videos.  In this particular concert, however, they also have actors doing bizarre things.  For instance, during their cover of "Feeling Good," there was an actress up on the stage, dressed in a pinstripe suit, drowning herself in gasoline from a retro gas pump.

If you're a Muse fan, this is a must-watch.  You'll enjoy it like all of the other concert DVDs they have.  It comes with the Blu-Ray (or DVD depending on which version you get) of the Rome concert, a few US concert videos, and a documentary (I think, haven't watched that part yet).  It also comes with a CD with some of the songs from the Rome concert.


Cover Image:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Muse_-_Rome_Olympic_Stadium.jpg