Capsules, that is. Which is the subject of this post, so let's get right to it. For maybe the past 7 to 10 days I've been listening nonstop to a duo that I recently discovered not too long before that. The name is capsule(all lowercase) and the music that they make is something of a fusion of a bunch of styles, including bossa nova, jazz, electronic, techno, pop, and lounge house music. It may seem like a lot but it comes out really well. So well in fact that, as I've said and as well as the reason they're on this blog, I've become addicted to them. Out of the 12 albums they have put out (2 of them being a remix and a best-of album) I own 10, and listen to them on my mp3 player constantly. I don't believe that will change over the course of about a month either. As usual with my music posts here's a small sample of their music in case you wondered what they sounded like, and I'd also like to link to this blog that I found that has all of their albums, as well as a whole host of other asian music that you might be interested in, or that you may find difficult to locate: Japanese Music Dream.

Level of Addiction: 10/10

"My headphones have been glued to my head since I discovered this(capsule)."

Okay, so I know I promised an in depth look at Goal Line Blitz... forever ago. But that will have to wait! As something great has come into my life and its what I've been occupying myself with for the longest time now. A new RPG has entered my video gaming life, that's role playing game(No, not like D&D), and I love it. Were it legal I would marry the game. Awkward? Yes. Stretch of the Truth? No. But anyway, let's get to the game.

Obviously the game is called Tales of Vesperia (see directly above). It's about this guy named Yuri who starts out just trying to help out his friends in the poor section of his city where he lives, and ends up getting dragged into things that get a little out of control, and a little too big for him to handle on his own.


 The most interesting storyline in the game (to me anyway) is his relationship with his former best friend, Flynn. They grew up together in poverty and they both vowed to change the way the empire treated its people.(Brief sidetrack: Why are all evil entities in video games empires?) Flynn became a knight so he could one day change things, while Yuri decides to go his own way. This tends to put them at odds about how things should be done, and sometimes may even pit them against each other depending on the situation.

Now, in terms of the actual game itself, its great. The fighting system is a familiar one, to me at least, so I was pretty comfortable with it from the get-go. I touched on it a bit in a previous post about Star Ocean: Second Story. Its a free movement type of battle system, where you control what your character does. You can link combo attacks together and also tag on special skill attacks onto those for big damage. It has a pretty good plot, as most Tales of... games tend to, and it can easily draw you in if you let it. The length of it is great as well. It's been a while since I've played a game that lasted 50+ hours, and its something I needed to remind me that games like Halo and Call of Duty(both good games in their own right) aren't taking over.

My absolute favorite thing about the game though, as it has to be with most games I play, is the interaction between the characters. It's amazing in this game, overall there are 7 members that can join your group, and each of them have individual relationships with each other, which makes for hours of fun watching them go back and forth, and its a delight to see how they grow with each other through story plots and also little side-skits that occur within the game frequently. My favorite has to be Raven. The girls of the group find him creepy, underhanded, shifty, and just plain old. But without him there wouldn't be half as much fun!

As you know, lately I've been deprived of my PS3(still no fix in sight) so I've begun looking to other places for my sports game fixes. Nearly a week ago a friend and I were looking around for an online hockey MMORPG that would allow us to create players, train them, manage them, etc. I happened to stumble onto one and we joined it, and it turned out to be a pretty good move. CyberPuck was just what we were looking for. Player creation and management, and also Team management, should one gather enough Cyber Points to buy a team.

The game goes much deeper than just making a character, giving him a position and then sending him out into the rough world of ice hockey. You can customize nearly everything about him. You can choose his initial stats, you can train him, buy equipment that also alters stats, as well as even tweaking the tactics he uses during a game, to change how he plays. My favorite part of the entire experience is the stat sheet after a game. You're able to see detailed stats and percentages of what your character did, didn't do, or needs to do better. I'm proud to say My goalie has blocked 44 out of 47 shots in his two game career. *swelled head* No, really though, its very fun, especially for people who feel like they could manage a player or a team better than a real life coach or GM. If you're into Hockey or just sim games in general, I'd recommend giving it a try. You might be surprised at how much you can get into something like this.

It's been a while! I was afraid that I was running out of addictions, but a new wave of them pretty much just washed over me like a tidal wave over a baby penguin! But let's dive right back into things with, what else, video games.

For about a year now I've been severely depressed with one of my MMO(Massively Multiplayer Online) portals, Nexon. They took down my absolute favorite driving game, Kart Racers. They have more than made up for it though. The subject of this post, while not a driving game and not nearly as quirky and speedy, is still awesomely fun and action packed. I'm talking about their new game, Dungeon Fighter Online, or DFO.

This game is pretty epic, I must say. Its like those old school side scrolling beat em up games, only its MMO, so there's thousands of people you can team up with (up to a party of 4) and take on these dungeons with. There's some good variety with the characters, starting with a base set of 5. Gunner(variety of guns), Slayer(sword), Fighter(fists), Priest(a giant cross(how bad-ass is that?)), and a Magician(magic obviously). From there each one of them can evolve to one of two classes, and after that, they get a choice of another two classes. It makes for a pretty fun play through to see all of them. There's dozens of dungeons and enemies to fight so it'll be quite a long time before you get bored with exploring them all. Overall I think its one of my favorite MMO action games that I've played. I'm glad I stumbled onto it.

Time for more video games! I'll be quick and to the point with this one. About 3 or 4 days ago I got bored out of my skull and decided to go retro with my gaming. So I picked up Star Ocean: Second Story for the PS1.

Finally! Finally we make contact with the third main category of addictions that I suffer from. Anime! The feature of this post is without a doubt my absolute favorite anime in the history of EVER! *echo, echo*
Hajime no Ippo is about a high school student, Ippo Makunouchi, who's been bullied a lot pretty much is entire life. One day when he's getting beaten up, a boxer happens to come along and save him, and since then he's been infatuated with boxing and what it means to become a strong person.

The reason that I love this anime is that its a mix of all things that make anime great. It has constant comedy, a lot of action, and just the right touch of intimate story lines thrown in. No character is wasted, as Ippo either becomes either a dear friend or a heated rival to anyone that he comes across, causing for great moments when they are reunited either way.

The series ended quite a few years ago, but fortunately it was picked up again in the spring of this year, as Hajime no Ippo: A New Challenger. It wasn't re-introduced during the fall anime line-up, and I sincerely hope that the project wasn't dropped once again, and that it will make its triumphant return during the spring of 2010!

By now you've probably noticed that to the right of your screen, *points* ----->
there's a picture link with a cute little anime girl on it. Don't worry its not an ad, and I don't make money every time you click it. It's just a link to my all-time favorite japanese radio station EVER. Its called Kawaii Radio, and their theme is... you guessed it, cute(kawaii)-ness! They play a great number of anime opening and ending songs, so their database is great if you want to find out a name to your favorite anime's theme songs. It also has a spiffy (yes, spiffy) automated request feature, that allows you to browse their songs, request one that you want to hear, and it inserts it into the queue, and voila, after some other songs have been played, there's your little gem, sitting right in the 'Next To Be Played' slot. The only downside I see is that there are no live hosted radio programs with a DJ, but they make up for it with a wide selection and 24 hour broadcast. Registration is free, and it only takes 10 seconds, for a lifetime of fun asian radio goodness. In fact, this radio is the source of 72% of the music on my mp3 player currently. Thanks Kawaii Radio! *thumbs up* And here's another link, just for the sake of cute-ness.

Another post concerning music! Which makes sense considering how much I listen to it. Though this post is more about a single song, as opposed to an entire group, like 2NE1, in a recent post. I do enjoy the latest album from the featured group of this post, 4minute. They made a lot of good songs, and it has a good feel to it, kinda R&B-ish (of course with a little korean rap thrown in). I'm especially fond of For Muzik, Muzik, and Anjullae(Won't Give You), the last of which is the subject of this post.

Technically this falls outside of the realm of my three main addictions (music, anime, video games) but there are exceptions to everything. This is one of a few of those exceptions. This show is without a doubt one of my top 3 television programs that I've ever watched. I like it so much so, in fact, that I even watch the reruns several times over, which I would normally never do. I suppose there's something kinda bad about it though, the show is about robbing people's houses. Honestly, It Takes A Thief makes crime almost cool. 

This post will inform you of the 2nd of 3 of my vices. Following video games very closely, its music. And not just any music mind you. For quite a few months now I've been listening almost exclusively to Asian music, specifically Japanese and Korean music. It started off as just listening to a song here and there that a certain friend introduced me to. But once she got me started I really couldn't stop. She's introduced me to quite a few, and I'll touch on them all in good time, but this post is to identify my current favorite, a group called 2NE1.

Just released earlier this year, they've blown up to superstar status. Two smash hits of theirs have pretty much been dominating Korean airwaves since their respective releases, Fire and I Don't Care.

They have a good sound, I think, different from most of the other Korean girl groups out there (and trust me, there are a lot).

To kick off the insanely long list of my addictions, should be the category which takes up the most space in aformentioned list. Which would be video games. I play video games a lot. A LOT. I'm usually more of a console gamer, but ever since an unfortunate incident involving my PS3, a faulty blu-ray drive, some duct tape, and a wild platypus (kidding about the last 2) I haven't had much chance to play any console games, aside from my trusty PS2. As such, I've been taken with playing emulators as of late. Mostly the best GameBoy Advance emulator ever, the Visual Boy Advance(http://tinyurl.com/vbal121).

The current game I'm addicted to is Mario Tennis: Power Tour. I didn't really like the first Mario Tennis for the N64, but this one has, in my opinion, much better gameplay, coupled with a lot of new features, like power shots, various training mini games, and a plethora (yes, a plethora) of characters to play against and choose from. The in-game graphics aren't amazing, but that shouldn't be dissuasive considering its a GBA game, right? Right. They're decent enough to not be a sore to look at, and that's good enough for me. The music is... well, its Mario-ish. It's upbeat and it makes for pretty good background music for a tennis match.
The gameplay itself more than makes up for lacking in any other department though. Power Tour utilizes a decently in depth level up system so that you directly choose how your character and also your doubles partner develop as a player, and there's dozens of power shots to learn so they never get too old or boring. Unfortunately for me I just recently beat this game, both through singles and doubles, and even more unfortunately, there's no beginning of another tournament after you play with the Mario characters in their special tournaments. Still, its a good game that I like to come back to frequently because its easy to pick up and play, regardless of skill level.