Games – Page 92 – Robot Claw

Good-Looking Men About Town

December 30, 2010

The above photo shows a graffiti mural not five minutes from Adam’s apartment. It shows a mural of images from Bollywood films, including one particularly disturbing blue-skinned evil naga zombie girl.

I have it on good authority that the local cats love it.

The weather today was tremendous (as it has been since I arrived). Not a cloud in the sky and 28 C, it was a day to walk and sweat and revel in being a man. And that we did, as we headed into the city for a bit of chinatown exploration.

Our first stop was the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibit at the Australian Museum. It was as impressive as ever, with many remarkable photographs on display. And yet it left us both contemplative and a little saddened by the reality of the effect mankind is having on the planet. It was as if the judges had a mandate to choose images that illustrated the negative effect of man’s actions on the animal kingdom. Many photos were simultaneously superb and disturbing, and with no obvious way to stem the wave of extinction, it is depressing to think that sooner that we hope many of the wonderful animals on display today will exist only in photographs.

At the risk of being glib, all the animal photos made us hungry, which brings me to a photo dedicated to my brother:

What this photo doesn’t spell out is that it was the second time I had eaten Oporto. Yes, good people, it was dinner and then lunch the next day. As it is quite literally the best chicken burger that is not only being made today, but has ever been made or will ever be made, I can assure you I shall happily eat much more.

And then we walked and we shopped. Asian bootleg DVD shops. Cute good shops. Game shops. Arcades. Comic stores.

I bought quite a bit of stuff, and will likely return before I leave Oz to buy more. I did not, however, buy the Japanese Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (which I did see). But I may have bought the hint guide…

Here are the two best signs-in-the-windows I saw today:

Which is your favourite?

And here is an item seen in the window of a store in the Randwick shopping street:

They are each apparently fashioned of old car parts. They are very cool, if a bit pricey.

But then everything here is a bit pricey. Or, to be honest, ‘makes me cry’ expensive 🙂

Tomorrow we’re off to the zoo. Will we both be dead by 6 pm, or will we venture out before midnight to see fireworks? Time shall tell…

Enough With The Monster Hunter Posts!

December 20, 2010

This is a Tigrex, one of the many beasts in Monster Hunter:

And here’s a snapshot of a fellow with the true soul of a man:

The 200 Club

December 15, 2010

I made a strange Tweet last night, that no doubt confused some of you.

I was jubilant (and for once, I am not being hyperbolic there) when I finally killed this guy in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite:

It’s name is Yamatsukami, it’s bigger than a house and it’s the monster you have to kill to get to the highest level in the game, HR9. He took me four tries, during which I had to learn and get used to his one-hit-kill attack. Once I knew what to look for, he’s not so hard to survive. He’s got massive HP though, so I beat him with less than a minute left. I look forward to going back and killing him some more with better weapons.

So now I am at the highest and most difficult rank of the game (G***) with the hardest-to-beat quests that give the best rewards. How long has it taken me exactly to get this far? I wondered, and I checked. These next three images are the save files of the three PSP Monster Hunter games:

The times are not cumulative, because when the old save file is imported it resets the clock. Turns out I played MH Freedom and MH Freedom 2 much less than I thought I did, and this is partly because they are very, very solo-unfriendly (guild quests are multiplayer only). As you can see, things changed with MH Freedom Unite.

So the total time played in this series is about 404 hours. Impressive!

And I still have much more to accomplish in the game, including (finally) some multiplayer with SFL 🙂

Monster Hunter isn’t the only series I have played like a mad-man this year. Here is a shot of the save-file from Dragon Quest IX on the DS:

And here’s a shot (grin) of the save file from Monster Hunter Tri (the Wii version):

I’m too scared to do the math myself, but I urge you all to get out your calculators and verify that in the past ~36 months I have spent almost a month just playing Monster Hunter games.

What’s scarier: that I did this, or that I am proud of it?