I’ve never done it in real life, because I like not being in jail/dead. But, in a video game, I can’t get enough. I discovered this hidden love while playing Midnight Club 3. I had stayed away from racing games in the past, as the ultra-realistic Gran Turismo never interested me. But tearing up the city street in my customized car? Count me in!!

I’m branching out now, trying Need For Speed and Burnout. The latter isn’t all I wish it was. It’s fun to crash cars, but I quickly get bored. All the same, I’m thinking bout getting Burnout Paradise for Xbox360. I’ve heard good things about the Need For Speed series, often from people I would never expect to love a racing game. It’s taken me until Carbon to get around to playing it. It was one of my first games for Wii, but I was never comfortable with the controls. Now that I have it for Xbox, I’m enjoying the game much more.

One thing I dislike about Need For Speed is their forced narrative. I don’t remember any narrative for Burnout. What narrative is needed? Drive. Crash. Repeat. I’m sold. There was a small storyline in Midnight Club, but you could skip it if you want and it just helped to transition between different racing events, cities, and explain unlocked content. NFS wants you to be a part of the story. You’ve got a history with this girl, you left town quick, etc. I understand that they are trying to integrate this racing into a greater narrative. However, your driving doesn’t seem to affect or enrich the narrative. Though it should make the story more interesting or engaging, the mid-scene driving is tedious.

I don’t blame them for this interruption method of starting their story. The same technique in used elsewhere, know as “in media res.” At it’s best, it promotes engagement and interest. At it’s worse, it’s confusing, generic and uninformative. Need for Speed hovers somewhere in between. My many hours with Midnight Club make the races easy, so the plot advances quickly. To someone new to the genre, it would be frustrating to fail these mini races and be unable to advance the unnecessary plot.

This distraction doesn’t keep me from loving the game. I initially hated the crew member feature, which forces you to team up during races. Then, my teammate won after I was demolished by other cars, and it saved me from restarting the race. I like the blocker because it fits with my established style of racing. The scout seems to always stop in front of me and slow me down.

The gameplay is easier than Midnight Club. It’s easier to stay on course, and the wide streets are an advantage as well. However, the multiple types of races (Sprint, Speed Trap, Drift, etc.) offer more variety than MC3. You also aren’t forced to complete every race in order to advance (something that MC has adapted for their upcoming Los Angeles).

One downside to NFS is the styling. I hate the mercury glow of everything (including the people) in the videos. And there’s something else about the sheen of the races that bothers me. Maybe my issue with Need for Speed is “it’s not Midnight Club,” which is unreasonable. But I digress.

This post rambled a little, so in summary: I love racing and I don’t need a story line.

This project was an escape from senior year college stress. I actually painted it twice due to unintentionally spraying gloss on top of gloss (very bad idea). I used acrylic craft paint, a silver sharpie, and triple thick clear coat glaze. I sketched many different designs before deciding on this one. I’ve been a kotakuite for a couple years now and was surprised this hadn’t been done yet. I tried to imitate site header, using silver for the buttons and accents. The buttons were a little sticky, but now that the glaze has completely set, its not noticable. Here are a couple close up pictures:

I intend to paint my other ps2 guitar in the future. I’m not sure what design I want to use, but there are certainly things I will do different:

1. Less layers
I used a few layers of white to make the coats look smooth, despite my use of a foam brush. But, in the end, the gloss made the paint beneath look smooth.

2. Different glaze
The triple thick was nice and gave a super glossy finish, but it was a pain to spray and took forever to set (due to spraying multiple layers in the effort to achieve uniformity)

3. More patience
I tried to rush through reassembling the guitar, which damaged the clear coat. It would have been ideal to let the paint set completely before putting it back together.

4. Avoid painting the frets
They were a pain to sand and I think the color beneath dissolved with the clear coat… there are unexplained blotches of faint color on the neck.

So, that’s it. For those interested in your own craft-taku, the paint colors were Craft Smart “Bright Magenta” and “Citron” and the background was Delta Creative Ceramcoat “Light Ivory. The silver was a Metallic Silver Sharpie and the glaze was Krylon Triple-Thick Crystal Clear Glaze

Any suggestions for the next guitar’s theme?

Truthfully, I still don’t know the answer. My PSP is still pretty new (though already undermined) and I’m trying to build up a library. One of the few games I remembered playing was the original Lumines on a friend’s PSP. I obviously didn’t remember how bad I suck at it (really really sucked, for the record). I rarely return or sell games once I buy them, and I was determined to keep from making an exception.

The basic concept of the game is to get a single colored block of four squares grouped together. Many squares together are worth more points. The blocks are dissolved by a vertical time line, which moves incessantly (just like time!) across the screen, from left to right. The blocks eventually start falling faster and faster, and you must scramble to get the screen cleared. It’s a tetris-style “how long can you last?” type of thing.

I kept playing with only fluke-like moments of success before utter failure. Frustrated, I went to the tutorial. I didn’t want to need the tutorial, because it’s a damn puzzle game. If it just said “get a block of the same color to win! More blocks equal more points! Good Luck!” I’d be even more pissed.

And that’s mostly what it said, with some helpful animations. This tutorial showed me that it could be done, but I just didn’t understand how to replicate the process. Searching the menus for more options, I found a mission mode that acted as an action tutorial. I was asked to dissolve blocks in a certain number of moves (often one or two). By solving the puzzles, I learned the strategy of the game that I had been lacking. (On a separate note, I still don’t understand the puzzle mode.)

So, I know how to suck less at Lumines: Try the mission mode and practice a lot. I got 15th today on the scoreboard, my highest finish so far. Still, I fear being truly skilled at Lumines may forever elude me.

Hello, and thank you for visiting my blog. My posts will mostly focus on gaming, with a few other diversions. They’ll be lots of updates today to get things started, and after that I’ll post as much as time allows.

I personally have an Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation 3 and a PSP. I’ll post about game reviews for these systems from time to time as well as commentary on gaming news at at large. Right now I’m playing Lumines II, Beautiful Katamari, Zoo Keeper and Need for Speed: Carbon.

I’ll also post movie and television opinions, and pictures of different crafts.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll return soon.

–100tacks