Yeargh. Gharbl. Grrr. One would think there are people able to actually fill in a table. A very simple grid saying “name”, “e-mail address” in the first line of the first two pillars. One might even think you could find them at a university. Where all the smark peepul hang out.
Yeah, it may have been too complicated telling them to fill in their names and e-mail address in said grid, without explicitly telling them which column to use. Or to use them at all. Might have been too confusing to tell them to put down their desired time into the column titled with a date or just make a fricken cross for the whole time.
Yet, I am sick of always having to be ready to deal with everyone’s stupidity all the time, ever! Well, guess that’s what I’ll have to do now. Decypher what’s left of the table. Yay.

Apart from little issues with humanity, what’s mainly fuelling my rage is that my iPod’s broken after two and a half years of devoted service. Well, basically it’s not really broken, the audio jack just seems to be a bit shaky, so that the sound on my right speaker goes haywire. Feels like a bullet to the head every time. I sent it off to repair, which means I can’t make the world around me shut up at my command anymore.

On that note, I played through a lovely Square-Enix RPG called The World Ends With You. With the hero being an antisocial kid who’s got headphones on all the time to shut up the world around him… how could I resist? What I can say about it without spoiling too much of the nicely twisted (and sometimes a bit too cheesy) storyline is that this game finally manages to use the Nintendo DS input system to the max. Where you would usually just concentrate on one screen, this game puts combat action onto both screens. The upper screen is controlled via the D-Pad, while the lower one makes you fight with a multitude of touch commands to activate “pins” (your spells). Keeps you quite busy for a while with lots of ways to upgrade your characters and about a gadzillion of pins to collect. Another thing I came to love is the slightly stylized Japanese artwork, which really adds to the game’s atmosphere of 21st century urban design.
So, if you’ve got a DS you might wanna look into this one. Quite the best game for the system in a long time.

Now, back to ogre-mode. Gwarghl. Raaaagh.

Picked up a copy of Trauma Center: Second Opinion, which they finally released over here (a good nine months after the US release, damn them), and have to say: Surprisingly even a non-Capcom Game can be as frustrating as it is fun. Well, if you’re a notorious perfectionist aiming for an all S-Rank score, at least. I am.
While the controls were a bit less shaky in the prequel, as is to be expected when playing with a stylus on the DS screen, this shakyness is actually what makes the whole thing so challenging; especially when using the forceps or scalpel. Well, if you’re a klutz mainly relying on gross motor skills, at least. I am.

While the first operations seem like mindless mini-games, the difficulty level quickly rises as you have to multi-task through different tools, pick out tumors, stitch up numerous lacerations and fight the enigmatic GUILT disease, without mistakes, lest you lose your “no mistakes” bonus and end up with a mere C-rating. As a last resort you can always use your Healing Touch ability, which slows down time in a very medical bullet-time-esque way or stabilises the patient’s vitals. Well, if you’re good at drawing a star on the screen with the remote, at least. I’m not.
So, if you’ve got a Wii, you may want to pick up a copy, or at least rent it. I hear they’ll soon be releasing a sequel with added multiplayer… “Lookit that, you stitched him up all wrong! Let me handle that!” Oddness. But promising.

Now back to the drudgery of project documentations… Wheee!

Edit: I have just been informed that there are XS-Ranks as well… there goes my wrist tendon…

The black rabite’s elusiveness is matched only by its immense power, and a player would have to go far out of their way to find one. First appearing in Seiken Densetsu 3, the black rabite is an optional boss character that wields powerful magic and has a staggering amount of health. The origin of this beast is unknown, but it has somehow come into possession of powerful mana that allows it to cast nearly every spell in the game, as well as summon equal-level monsters to its aid.

Right. This brings us back to the original question… why get a ridiculous domain like that. If a reference to the almighty and most powerful rodent in the history of video gaming ain’t enough of a reason for you, just note that we were playing a lot of Seiken Densetsu 3 at the time we thought about a name for our site.

If you don’t know what Seiken Densetsu, or “Secret of Mana”, is… tsk, tsk.