Video game music is beautiful

I'm sometimes known as the guy who doesn't like music. I usually tell people that when they inquire about my musical tastes. But it's not actually true. It's just that it's very hard for me to find music that I like. I tend to like very melodic music, which is hard to find on the radio or in modern popular music.

I do like classical music, but the really melodic pieces seem to be the famous ones that we've all heard a million times. I've tried listening to some not-so-famous classical music but still have a hard time finding those catchy melodies that I like so much.

You know what is really melodic and catchy? Classic 8 and 16 bit video game music! So I end up listening to Kohiha Radio most of the time which is more or less awesome!

It's been a secret fantasy of mine to be able to play an instrument really well... so I can play all my favorite video game music. Silly, I know... but if you're a gamer, how cool would that be??

I recently found on YouTube tons of videos of people performing live versions of video game music. I'm massively jealous. Here are a few choice picks. The first one is especially incredible. Bonus if you can name the game and song.

Ninja Gaiden II

I just beat it on Path of the Warrior. My save game time was 15 hours and total playing time 24 hours over a span of 3 days. Just for comparison sake, it took me 24 hours over two days to beat Ninja Gaiden Black.

First, let's address the difficulty. You know how Tomonobu Itagaki was saying that Ninja Gaiden II will be more accessible (read "easier") than its predecessors? It's a joke. It must be an inside joke for Team Ninja. I don't remember being beat down this badly in Ninja Gaiden Black and I didn't even know how to play properly back then (instant charge ultimate technique, what's that??), I'm supposed to be a seasoned veteran now!

So, what do I think of the game? It's the most frustrating and most satisfying game I have ever played.

Well, "frustrating" might be the wrong word. There are a lot of mechanisms in place to make it less frustrating than it's predecessors. Here's a nifty list.

• You regen health after you kill all the enemies in your immediate vicinity.
• There are many more save points.
• Save points fully regen your health.
• If you die on a boss, you start right on that boss instead of the last save point.
• If you die at the beginning of a new level, you start on the new level instead of the last save point.

So maybe I just mean "brutally difficult" instead of "frustrating", although the game does take quite a few cheap shots at you so there is some level of frustration baked in still. I suspect they use all the health regening as an excuse to make the fights more difficult.

The game is massively satisfying on multiple levels. First off, because it's so difficult, it's satisfying just to move forward and make progress. You really feel like you've accomplished something.

Second, the combat is truly amazing. The depth and the precision of the fighting system is unrivaled in this genre. There is no room for button mashing in this game. All the aspects of a dedicated fighting game are present:

• light and heavy attacks
• combos (including air combos)
• throws
• blocking
• dodging
• counters (like in Dead or Alive)
• super moves (called ultimate techniques)

They even added a little something extra that they call "obliteration techniques" which are stylish (cool camera zooming and angles) finishing moves on wounded enemies.

Third, the animation is spectacular. The moves are so crazy over the top (without being cheesy) that you never get bored with them. It also helps that there are so many of them. Each weapon has tons of moves, combos, ultimate techniques and obliteration techniques. What's even cooler is that the obliteration techniques differ according to what limb the enemy is missing, your orientation to them, and even the environment sometimes.

Lastly, it's disgustingly violent. Remember playing games back in the day and wondering, "I'm hitting this guy with a massive sword, why aren't his limbs coming off?" Problem solved. Any combination of the following can happen:

• left arm sliced off
• right arm sliced off
• left leg chopped off
• right leg chopped off
• head decapitated
• head smashed into goo
• body cleaved in half
• upper torso smashed into guts

Sometimes after a good combo, your enemy will just be arms, legs, half a body, and a rolling head on the ground. It's awesome.

So what's bad about the game?

• Really bad framerate issues sometimes.
• Camera can be frustrating at times.
• Story feels like an unnecessary vehicle to get to the action.
• Prerendered CG cutscenes feel dated.
• Graphics are not ahead of their time (like its predecessors' were)

But who really cares about that? It's all about the fighting and stylish violence!

Final thoughts... the rational side of me wants to give it 3 out of 4 stars because of the technical issues and absurd difficulty, but it's just too damn fun and entertaining. 4 out of 4 stars!

These pictures really don't do it justice. You need to see it on a high def tv at full 60 frames per second. It actually looks nothing like these pictures (where are the weapon tracers??)

Equifax fraudulently altered my credit report.

I subscribe to a credit score monitoring service (MyFico) that sends me email alerts whenever my score changes. It also allows me view full credit reports with analysis.

I check my email today and notice that my credit score has dropped 56 points! So naturally I log into MyFico to see what's up and it tells me that my score may have decreased for a few new reasons, one of which is a new collection.

New collection? Wtf, I've paid my bills on time for the past 7 or 8 years. So I tell MyFico run the full report. And I bring up the info on the collection. Hmm, something doesn't seem right. I pull up an old archived report that I ran May 2007 and compare the collection reported then to the collection reported now. See the title picture of this post.

Notice anything? It's the same collection from 7 years ago, but all of a sudden the "date active" and "date reported" have changed!

Is this country's economy in so much trouble that creditors are changing historical records in order to fuck us on interest rates? What's next, completely fabricated marks on people's credit scores?

I'm just so flabbergasted that records of a collection that was closed 7 years ago, water under the bridge, can come back and magically be altered with fraudulent information to drastically effect my credit score. I am so enraged about this that all I can think of is the ending to Fight Club.

So what do I do about this? Who do I call? I feel like a tiny ant being crushed by the gears of corporate America. I mean, what if I wasn't monitoring my credit score like so many other Americans don't? This little blip would probably slip under the radar and cost me tens of thousands of dollars in the long run (say, if I got a mortgage under the lower score). I want to hire a lawyer and sue Equifax.

For those wondering, my score now is 710 which does cause me to get worse interest rates compared to when it was 766.

Driving on the Edge, Episode 4

It was Corvette country out there this time.

I did my 4th HPDE this past weekend. It was awesome as usual. We did the 3.1 mile, 16 turn course at Motorsport Ranch.

No yellow for you!

I wasn't put in the yellow group this time, despite my last report card recommending so. It's ok though, I don't really want to be in yellow group until I have more capable tires.

No tires for you!

Ouch. I spent so much time and money getting r-compound tires and I didn't even get to use them! I bought track wheels literally months before the event, and I bought the tires about two weeks before the event, but what I didn't do was see if they fit on my car.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday before the event trying to get them to fit, but to no avail. They wouldn't clear the front calipers, so I ground the calipers down till they fit (long, painful and ugly). Once they cleared the calipers, I found they hit the A-arm at full wheel lock. Ugh! Luckily, Discount Tire took the tires back. I'm going to have to sell the wheels on the internet.

First day frustration.

I didn't really have an instructor the first day, which at first I thought would be cool, but something didn't feel right. Instead of blowing by everyone like last time, I felt like I was struggling to keep up. Nothing felt smooth, I was sliding all over the place, and I was just using my cars capabilities, instead of driving skill, to keep afloat.

For the last session of the day, they put an instructor in with me. He was admittedly not an advanced instructor and said I was doing fine.

Second day epiphany.

The next day I got paired up with an incredible instructor (Tony, I think his name is?). Within a few laps, he cleared up most of my mistakes, which were related to over aggression, going into corners too hot and thusly understeering the whole way through them, which reduces how quickly I could get back on the throttle for corner exit. I was also late and early apexing on a handful of corners.

Once Tony cleared up those issues and we were flying again, he then showed me some bad ass racing lines, and that's when the beat down ensued... ;) I had to start braking mid-corner to avoid t-boning and rearing ending the cars in front of me. My exit speed on one corner increased so much (15+ mph) that I went off the track at the next corner because I wasn't used to having to brake so much earlier and harder.

Feeling the fade.

For this event, I had some Hawk HP+ brake pad that I bought used off the internet. They are Hawk's most aggressive street pad. They weren't enough. I've gotten to the point to where I am aware of brake fade... and these faded noticeably. Tony suggested getting some Hawk HT 10 pads, which are considered racing pads, and just change them out right there at the track. Changing brake pads on a C6 is really easy, so I think I'm going to do that for next time.

Competitive?

Pre Tony in the car with me, there were some fast people/cars out on the track! I really have to be on top of my game to keep up with Jason and his modded Z06. A lady in a Porsche Cayman put the smack down on both of us though (she had r-compound tires and got bumped to the yellow group on the second day). There was a kid in a modded S2K that I caught up to, but couldn't claim an outright pass on. Then there was a spec Miata that passed both me and Jason!

The second day, I did much better. I passed both the S2k and Miata, but still had problems with Jason (duh). Didn't have a chance to try the lady in the Porsche again cuz she got moved to yellow.

Everyone else was a cakewalk. Here are some notable passes: two NSX's (these cars are massively overrated, imo), Cadillac CTS-V, Lingenfelter C6 (ooohh that felt good), normal C6, C6Z06 (ooohh, felt good too), lots of Lotus Elises, and a couple of Porsches.

I know it's not a competition, but it's fun to see how many people I can pass, and see if I can catch the people that pass me.

Pictures

Trailing Jason.

Now me in front!

He spends more time in front though... :P

Choo choo! Stuck in a train.

Train conductor? Na, that was a warmup or cooldown lap... ;)

That kid in the S2K was fast!

Catching up to a Z06 is a great feeling.

Passing a Porsche feels even better!

Call of Duty 4

Get it?

I finally broke down and got COD4 (through GameFly, whoot). I had been resisting it for a long time because I'm very contrarian and was tired of hearing people go on and on about how perfect it is. It's just a first person shooter, people, how deep can it get? It's basically a glorified mouse accuracy program!

This is going to be a short review (cuz I want to go play it now). Here are my thoughts...

It has the highest production value of any game I have seen to date. Spectacular graphics, great voice acting, good level design, interesting missions, the list goes on... there is just so much polish.

The single player campaign is short, but maybe that's a good thing -- it ends right before getting boring and repetitive. Unlike most mediocre FPS games, COD4's missions are interesting and fun: there is a sniping mission, protect a tank mission, survive a sinking ship mission, air support mission (this one's pretty fun), then the normal "kill everyone" missions.

The "Death from Above" (air support) mission

My one complaint about COD4 is the same as all the other COD games. They all do a great job of giving the sense of chaotic battle - bullets whizzing by, people dying left and right, explosions, enemies here, there, everywhere! - but they implement this by having an infinite number of enemies (and allies) respawn until you push up to a certain point on the map. My complaint is that this mechanic doesn't occur all the time and I get confused when I'm suppose to "push up" or hang back and eliminate all enemies.

3 out of 4 if you're not into FPS games. You should definitely try this game -- it might be the one that does get you into FPS games.

4 out of 4 if you are into FPS games.

Oh, P.S... The multiplayer is pretty good... :P

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Count it!

Dodge Challenger SRT8

"It's just an all around POS. I'd almost call it an egregious mistake by Dodge, except for the fact that nostalgic baby boomers will actually shell out the cash to relive their youth. I just hope they are prepared for disappointed and massive buyer's remorse when it sinks in that for $5k more, they could have bought a car with more hp, 1000 lbs less weight, and handling that will put a 911 to shame."

Is this a joke? No really, is it?

So, let's see what $40,000 (yes, that's forty thousand dollars) buys you from Dodge...

The Good

Hey, it's American, I like American (V8) cars. It's got some guts in the form of a 425 hp Hemi (that means absolutely nothing, btw) engine. It's got some nice big Brembo brakes, and also IRS.

The Bad

I personally think it looks ugly as hell. I describe it as looking like it's been carved out of a bar of soap. It's so soft and Tonka toy looking.

This thing weighs more than Kirstie Alley after she threw in the towel. Actually, that's not accurate. She isn't nearly as morbidly obese as this gussied up Dodge Charger.

It only comes with 20" wheels, which further degrades performance, but what really hurts is the absolutely pathetic tire size that comes on them: 245s all the way around.

Ok, so it's got IRS, but seriously... is anyone going to take this f-ing obese pig (4200 lbs) to a road course? I thought not, so why not go with a solid rear axle to save some money and actually help out at the drag strip (what this car was theoretically designed for)?

It only comes with a 5 speed automatic... cue hysterical laughter now.

The Ugly

How embarrassing is it going to be when you can't shrug off a bone stock Mustang GT which costs nearly half as much and has 125 less horsepower?