Exams are over and look, the internet's here with some music!

Phew, after a few weeks of burning the candle at both ends I am pleased to announce that me fucking exams are finally over, and what bitches they were! And so with the first year of Uni gone I decided now would be a good enough time to post on the blog once again!




Well, as Chris has planned to do, I hope to post on a regular basis starting with a new feature here at Ccjad. Every so often I hope to upload a song at the end of my post that I have been listening to recently or have enjoyed quite a bit and would like to share with all you readers out there. Keep checking back as you may find a song you like or never heard before.

Recently, it's been kinda hectic with not much time to spare between study and work. However whilst browsing my on the interwebs I rediscovered some good video's I think many will appreciate.

First off is the Internet Party


Then there's Internet Party 2: An Intervention for Myspace.


Admittedly both are very well written with the 4chan jokes especially tickling my funny bone. If you liked these videos you can check out some more of the creators stuff : "Those Aren't Muskets" at, funnily enough, www.thosearentmuskets.com.

For the debut week of Calum's songs (we'll make up a name for it later), I selected a song from the album "Music for an Accelerated Culture" by the band Hadouken called "Declaration of war. For some reason or another (awesome band name?), this song has been stuck in my head for the whole week and with the catchy tune going on, I hope it gets stuck in yours too. It's not really our style at Ccjad, but the retro-chique sound caught me by surprise with the synth feel really mixing things all together very well. To it check out, just press the play button at the end of the post and make sure you have the newest version of Flash as it always helps.

Well with Chris' reviews, Ally's quirky updates and my music uploads, hopefully Ccjad will be able to spread it wings a little more and get it's feet off the ground.

Catch y'all later
-Calum.




P.S. If you did like the song guys and dolls, check out their album at a store near you or their Website.

Chris Enjoys The Vidya, 1: Boktai

So, time to start something. I'm hoping to do this every week for at least a few weeks (note to other ccjad members: prod me to do this). Just gonna pick a random game that stands out as great in my mind and talk about it for a bit. Today's episode: Boktai.

Okay, it's a bit of an obscure start, but hey. This was a fun little game with one hell of a gimmick: it came in an XBOX HUEG cart that stuck out the top (or bottom for SP users) of the GBA, which was where the little black panel that made all the magic happen was. This little panel was a Solar Sensor, and this is where it gets a bit different.

But before I get into the gameplay mechanics, I'll quickly explain the story. You play as Solar Boy Django, a vampire hunter in a world inhabited almost entirely by vampires, and armies of ghouls, bats, golems, and elemental versions of all of these. After your pappy got owned by the big bad vampires, you inherited from him a kickass scarf and the Gun Del Sol, which as the name suggests is powered by the sun. This is where the solar sensor comes in: Whenever the pack comes under sunlight, your sun meter in the game is powered, and if you're outside or under a skylight in game you can charge the Gun Del Sol. When you run out of charge, you can't fight, and have to stealth your way through the levels.

Oh, and speaking of stealth, did I mention this is designed and made by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame? It shows. The stealth, while basic, is fun. You knock on walls, the ghouls get little exclamation marks above their heads, you run away while they wander round to see what's going on. In theory, you can go through the dungeons up to actually fighting the Vampires this way, although towards the end of the game it becomes pretty unfeasible unless you're a stealth game god. All the Vamps need killed with ye olde Gun Del Laserbeams, which throws them in a coffin, and you into the final stage of the levels...

Now comes the hard part. You have to drag that little coffin alllllll the way back through the dungeon, and then smack it with a giant laser - and the giant laser NEEDS sunlight. At all times. So if you get to this part at night, you're screwed. This was the main flaw in the game: while the sunlight was a fun gimmick, an element you can't control (the weather) affecting the outcome of a game is not fun when it doesn't go with you, and living in Scotland, I basically had to play through all this in a day.

But hey, it's fun, the story is good, and the gameplay is entertaining and original. Think Castlevania meets Metal Gear, is the short version. Wow, this is actually a pretty long post. That's it for this week then, more obscure games you've never played next week!

OBJECTION!

Behold, the miracle of my art.



But wait, it gets better.



Some kind dear actually coloured it for me! Thank you!

First impressions are the most important

Well, finally got back round to posting something, so I guess I better make it half decent. Since I seem to be just playing/reading/listening to short bursts of things recently, I'm gonna give some of them mini-reviews based on my first impressions (hence the title, cause i r smrt) on them! Fun for all :P

Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin on Nintendo DS

Played a whole... ten minutes of this round at Calum's a few days ago, and instantly realised I need to get it. I liked the old AW games, despite never having managed to actually complete one (always get stuck at sky battles, just can't do them for some reason), but this one is fantastic looking just for the update in graphical style. If you don't already know, the basic premise is the world has been hit by some kind of disaster, meteors or some such thing - I'm guessing it'll turn out to have been a SUPER SECRET PLOT of some kind - and the bad guys are all having a massive looting murder party. The game opens with your character, a recruit with a name I can't remember, crawling out of some wreckage and getting saved from said bad guys by The Good Guys. The first thing that hit me was how realistic things were looking now, with them ditching orange jumpsuits for army fatigues suitably covered in apocalypse dust. The battle system seems more in depth too, and all reviews have been positive. So, all in all, instantly hooked on this one. Thumbs up get!


Lost Odyssey on XBox 360

Well, I'm about an hour into this one, and so far all I can say is 'What the hell?'. Here's some MSN quotes I've came out with whilst playing:

(19:28) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Ohh yeah, I rock. Died in the tutorial battle.
(19:30) Jingleboy: In Bleach?
(19:30) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Nah, Lost Odyssey

(19:42) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Lost Odyssey has save points
(19:42) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Why do people still make games with save points
(19:43) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Just let us use the menu, damnit

(21:49) [ShadowDragon/Ch: I have no idea what I'm meant to be doing in lost odyssey... already
(21:50) Jingleboy: :P
(21:51) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Oh! I was meant to sleep at the inn
(21:51) [ShadowDragon/Ch: That makes sense I guess
(22:09) [ShadowDragon/Ch: So... I've slept at the inn. Now what the hell am I meant to do? And yes, the inn cutscene really was that long.

(22:53) [ShadowDragon/Ch: Alright, taking a break from Lost Odyssey because the first boss completely destroyed me in two turns

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I think I need to restart and play whilst paying attention rather than just running through it though. Despite these complaints, the storyline so far is really good, and has made me want to keep playing it, especially the 'recovering lost memories' aspect of it because they are genuinely interesting. Jury is still out on this one.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Manga

Well, this first impression is of the first volume of the manga, which is good for it. Had I been reading it online, I would've stopped after the first couple of chapters. It suffers from trying to give us a lot of the japan-only backstory in a short amount of time, and dumping us into a slow-moving intro right after that. I was bored, and only reading on because I'd paid for it and I'll be damned if I wasn't finishing it no matter how bored I was. After the start, I was glad I did. Things heat up very quickly, and the fights are intelligent enough to keep you looking closely rather than skipping through to the next story part. The story follows Jotaro Kujo, the third or fourth JoJo in the proper story as he believes he is being haunted by a demon. He soon finds out that it is actually a mysterious psychic being called a Stand, which has appeared because of his will to fight after the families age old enemy Dio is brought back to the world. Soon, more Stands appear - both good and evil, and those in between - and the race is on to destroy Dio before he becomes too powerful. I've yet to buy more of this, but it'll certainly keep me interested if it keeps up the pace it sets towards the end of the first volume. Another thumbs up for this one!

I do have a couple of other mini-reviews to make, but this post is getting rather long so I'll keep them for another time. In the meantime, I'm going back to being excited about Auchinawa and working on my games programming.

Bai for now,
Chris

Remodification and tweaks - Updatin'!

This week at CCJAD some of the members decided it would be a good idea to finally move onwards to a new skin, a new look for the blog. If any of this sounds vaguely familiar to something you've heard before then, well, yeah you would be right to think that. It's been said.

Although in the past there have been posts claiming to update the layout and whatnot, our claims have never really made it to prime time...well it's mostly been me creating empty promises if not anything else. But this time we're Serious. As recently posted we are hoping to get a few more posts up here and there, maybe a few reviews (got a cracking one for 'Bleach: Shattered Blade' for the Wii coming up if we ever get the time to do it), more videos obviously (my forte) and of course other little tid-bits we get up to individually and collectively.

For now though I'll leave you and perhaps throughout the following week you'll see a difference in the page.

Ciao for now.

-Calum

Ps. Here's a little pic that had CCA laughing for quite a bit. Not at the picture, but the sheer brilliance that this kid must exuberate at all times. My power is maximum too by the way.