PSA

So, I finally got around to actually buying a domain name and hosting plan. Here’s the deal: this blog is moving. Where to? http://blog.kidkonia.com/ (not up as of writing). Still will be running WordPress, and I’ll import all of the posts so nothing will be lost. But there’ll be one major change: ads. Yes, I will be running Google AdSense on kidkonia.com. Why? Well, I’d like to take some of the burden of payment off of my shoulders. That’s it. I don’t really expect to make money from it or anything, but they’ll be there.

Tokens and Tickets: A Critical Analysis

TOKENS AND TICKETS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMICS OF THE ARCADE
An Essay by Chris “kidko” Sz.

The local arcade is often a gathering place for even the poorest receiver of an allowance. But is it economically feasible to go there again and again, or even at all?

The first thing one must consider is the token. The tokens can be purchased for 25¢ each (in 4-, 20-, or 40-token sets for $1, $5, or $10 respectively) or in bulk, at 100 tokens for $20. The avverage price of a token is thus actually 15¢, after averaging those two prices (5¢ for bulk, 25¢ each). Machines require 1 to 3 tokens to operate, and return 0 to 300 tickets (able to be traded for prizes). On average, however, 1 token will return about 3 tickets, give or take.

Rock Band: What GH3 Should Have Been

My brother finally scraped together enough cash to buy the $160 PS2 version of Rock Band. It’s not overpriced by a long shot, since the only package available comes with the drum set, a microphone, one Stratocaster guitar, a USB expander, and the game. It’s worth it if you can afford it.

First off, the game overall. Everything is USB-powered, although you can use Guitar Hero guitars with it on PS2 (and every other one except for the PS2 GH3 guitar). Before I go further, let me explain the Guitar Hero story.

Once upon a time, there was Harmonix. It made games. It quietly released Guitar Hero for the PS2, and within a few months, found it was suddenly a known company. Guitar Hero 2 following, with new songs and characters, and was generally a hit. Then the franchise was sold to Activision, the company that was known for only the Tony Hawk games (yes, all 10 of them). It went downhill: while the next Guitar Hero game was still fun, it was noticably harder and lacked the “charm” of the first two games. Some (including me) say it just sucked.

Transformers

In case you didn’t hear, some genius took a picture of every single page the new Harry Potter book and made some torrents (two parts: up to page 495 and up to the end… the second one taken down :’( ). Other people who downloaded the two RARs ( < 100mb of images) posted several spoilers, one of which I unfortunately read, and can’t get that one line out of my head! Big leak… JK’s having all of the trucks shipping them outfitted with GPS trackers so this doesn’t happen again. But my main attraction today…. TRANSFORMERS! Yeah, so I just saw it yesterday… good movie. Review follows.

Great, great movie. When it first started running ads, and the first bits of news started popping up, I was just like everybody else… screaming “why?!” at the sky as loud as we could. So, first, they revive a series of toys going on a downward spiral… and then they create a movie for this new image… hiring Steven Speilburg and Michael Bay along the way! Hasbro had officially gone crazy. Except… then, the trailers started rolling in. And, well, they looked good. The critics began to filter into their pre-release screenings, and (impossible as it may sound) they liked it. Could Hasbro have pulled it off?

I’m here to tell you something. They pulled it off. And then some. (Not spoiling anything major) At one point in the movie, a shady goverment organization demonstrates the All Spark’s powers. They put a cell phone inside of a reinforced, bulletproof plexiglass box. All around the walls, there are claw marks and holes (solid sheet metal, by the way…). Zap the phone with the Spark’s radiation, and it comes alive. Unfolds, and starts shooting these cute (never thought I’d ever use this word in this context) missiles and chainguns, all shrunk down. Insta-transformer! But then it almost breaks the cube, and they zap it to death with… uh, who knows.

Great movie. They really did so well on the Autobot/Decepticon models… they move so incredibly fluidly, like they’re actually alive. Jumping up and half-transforming into a helicopter to take down a bunch of real ones, or going straight from plane to bot and swinging around part of the Hoover Dam… wow. And it’s almost believable, too… Unlike the original series and animated movie, they look like they’re real. Optimus’s trailer doesn’t just pop in and out. They are made of plates, instead of bending, growing, stretching metal… like they are organic, but can’t defy physics (too much).

Decepticons. You all know about how the original ones looked, right? Basically remodeled Autobots with a new paint job. Oh boy. Not here. These things are not the kind of thing you want to bump into in the middle of a well-lit field! I mean, everything about them was sharp, and screamed “kill kill kill” at you. check it out for yourself. And in the movie… wow. Take their original attitudes, stick ‘em in a psycho ward or federal prison for a few lifetimes, and then you get Michael Bay’s idea of one. These things are worth fighting, just so you don’t have to meet one again. Ever.

But to wrap it up… great movie. Up there with Die Hard 4.0.

4.5 out of 5
(Still no half star…)

On an alternate note, Transformers 2 was confirmed to be in the works, target release date being sometime 2009.