The newest Atelier game, which was supposed to hit American shores on the 22^nd, is now due to be shipped on the 29^th.  In the press release it is interesting to see the phrasing, “shipped to retailers” because that pretty much means that it will be in stores on the 30^th of this month.  Most of the people who read the site probably aren’t too phased by this, but this is just another week for me to try and find the cash to buy the game, because those games are just crazy amazing good.

Meruru is the third of a trilogy of games set in the kingdom of Arland.  The series follows a series of teacher/pupil relationships, as the alchemy student from the previous game is the teacher of the new student for the next game in the series.  Interestingly enough the Atelier titles proper seem to go through phases of either being directly tied to another game in the series or having almost nothing to do with them, and are closely related to other games from the same publisher that even those could almost oddly be considered to be in the series.  I am sure that this is probably only interesting to like two other people out there, both of which designed these games.

Diablo III is out, and to be honest with everyone I am jealous that I do not have it due to brokenness.  That said I might just be happy that I missed out on this one as it seems that many people are simply having issues playing the game.  Blizzard’s new security basically requires that players connect to the internet whenever they are playing the game, so even if they are in an offline-single player game they must have a connection to keep playing.  This might seem like a huge issue to most people, but for a game that is mostly a single player game with some co-op thrown in it seems odd to be getting sever connection issues.

At this point any game that requires people to connect to the internet to play always seems to have issues on day one of release, although it seems that more and more of them are starting to punish the players on their failure of an anti-piracy system instead of just trying to find a way for people to enjoy the game on possibly the most interesting and active days of its existence.  There is a certain rush of not being able to go to GameFaqs and look up information and relying more on message board guesses that is being stripped away from people who are taking days off of work to have.

Source: Evil Avatar

Clean Energy; it is the kind of thing that Al Gore dreams will run the world one day.  Oddly enough that day may be today, as science has found a way to produce power simply by touching a device.  The downside, of course, is that it is powered by viruses that will probably one day mutate and kill us all directly after they have been installed into ever facet of our lives.  Even though that is something that will probably happen to our children, and not us, I think that this tech should be whole heartedly embraced.

As impressive as this sounds, a device that generates power simply by touching it, it turns out that things similar to this have been around for a couple of years now—as similar things are in use in dance clubs and train station floors.  The idea of capturing all of the energy that is produced by human movement and reused in some way is probably something that will be so integrated into our lives in the future that we won’t even think about our chair charging our iPhone as we sit in it, but it is an interesting question how far this is.  Until recently it required more power to make a solar panel than that panel would ever produce and those things have been around forever.  Maybe those killer viruses will just have to go after my grandchildren.

Source: TalkingPointsMemo

PSP owners in some areas may have to find their games elsewhere.  GameStop has announced they will no longer carry PSP games in 25% of its smaller stores.  GameStop claims the reasons behind this are to “maximize retail space,” and to “provide a greater assortment in stores that continue to carry the category.”

Some say this may be a sign that the PSP is quickly becoming a thing of the past, especially since the release of the Vita.  PSP gamers can still buy the games online at GameStop’s website.  Or better yet, they could simply just buy PSP games at any other decent retailer.

Source: Kotaku.com

Accel World:  Episode 6

As Kuroyukihime recovers in the hospital, Haru and Taku have taken up tag team matches to grind levels.  Haru’s excitement for leveling up puts him into a dangerous situation, leaving him dangerously low on Burst Points.  This forces Haru to seek out the services of a “bodyguard” that provides protection to low level fighters.  Once again, Accel World delivers another episode that made me wish I could fast forward to next week and see what’s going to happen.

AKB0048:  Episode 2

Two episodes in, this show has already stirred up quite a buzz from of the internet; an article about it has even popped up on the gamer website, Kotaku.  While some have labeled this show as shameless otaku pandering, it’s hard to deny that this show is pretty damn entertaining.  This seemingly slow paced episode heats up towards the end with even more idol vs. space marine action.  Don’t let the haters fool you—if you are on the fence about watching this, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Haiyore! Nyaruko-San:  Episode 5

It would seem that poor Mahiro is just irresistible to Eldrich abominations, as even Hastur has fallen for him.  Just as Kuuko tries to take advantage of this situation, Mahiro’s mother is kidnapped whisked away in a… flying Delorean.  Naturally, this leads to an underwater adventure in Nyaruko’s car/submarine.  Was anyone really expecting this kidnapping to be taken seriously?

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?  OF THE DEAD:  Episode 6
(Is This a Zombie?  2^nd season)

Get ready for more magiclad girl antics, because Mystletainn is back!  With the school’s culture festival coming up, Ayumu finally can use Mystletainn to erase the memories of those who saw his public transformation and get his life back to normal.  Of course, a “normal” day for Ayumu involves more cross dressing, encountering a man that vomits blood constantly, revealing a strange hidden power in Tomonori, and fighting the megalo.  By the end of this episode it would seem that things are going to get serious very soon, or at least as serious as this show ever gets…

Natsuiro Kiseki:  Episode 6
(A Summer-Colored Miracle)

The wishing stone cooks up yet another wacky situation for this week’s episode of Naturio.  As Natsumi finds herself swamped with homework, chores, and tennis practice, the other girls decide to help out with another visit to the wishing rock.  This results in Natsumi living alongside a clone of herself, and trying to keep her clone hidden from her brother.  After last week’s “wish free” episode, I was happy to see the show getting back into its usual swing.

Sankarea:  Episode 6

This week Rea discovers the importance of eating hydrangea leaves to keep her new body in shape, but Chihiro’s grandfather points out more will have to be done to preserve her resurrected body.  Chihiro gets lucky when his father allows Rea to stay at the temple, but things may get crazy very shortly due to the fact that Rea’s father is still watching.  It would also seem that Wanko has become jealous of Chihiro’s undead roommate…

Upotte!!:  Episode 6

The tournament draws to a conclusion as L85 and M16 face off against Galil and Sako.  Once the tournament ends, the next half of the show returns to the usual schoolyard antics.  The short barrel (short hair) version of AUG gets screen time as she develops an unusual crush on FNC, and she tries talking with FNC’s friends to become closer to her.  Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, this show is pretty damn crazy.

Our fifth episode of the Yakuza games.  We keep trucking as long as you guys keep watching.

The first, and most striking, aspect of the game is the art style.  Everything is cell-shaded to look like the characters from the comic book and looks simply amazing, which is interesting because this is built on the aging Telltale engine that has been kicking for almost a decade at this point. Even without that consideration made this game looks fantastic, and from start to finish it remained impressive looking.

The Walking Dead also manages to escape all of the common adventure game trappings of needing to find random objects and combine them to proceed.  Most of the environments in the game are small and don’t require most puzzle solving, and when they do most of the time the characters in the game either know exactly how to proceed and inform the play as such or the solution is as simple as glancing over the world for interaction points.

Even though the world is populated by the living dead most of the action in the game comes from the dialog choices presented to the player, as they are all timed.  This might not seem like much as most games have done this in the past, but the results are what really define the game.  Most of the time when a choice is given in a speech tree it directly impacts how the NPCs of the world interact with the avatar, so instead of taking time and reading each choice carefully there is a real sense of having to think on the fly.  The way that the game only allows auto saves means that while the game can be reset to a previous state there is going to be some content that has to be played between choices, so most decisions have to be lived with.

The voice acting is on par with almost all of the other games from Telltale as well; which is to say amazing.  The content of the game could very easily be construed to be that of a B movie and largely hammed up, but it is good to see that while the TV series might not really understand character development this game does.

This game falls into line with the old purchasing structure of the old Telltale model, the episodes have to be purchased as they come out monthly.  The first episode (of five) goes for five dollars, which is pretty reasonable.  This will probably mean that the total series will end up costing about 25 dollars, and since the first game ran me just over two hours long the series will probably end up between 10 and 12 hours.  That said I think I played this game in one sitting, which might not sound like much but I thought that I had only been playing for a quarter of that time.  This might be the best game that Telltale has put out yet.

First featured on Mygamer.com

A Penn State student found a way to show off his appreciation for the Portal games while completing the final project for the “advanced mechatronics” class.  The turret has a basic skeleton at this time, but the builder claims he will complete a more authentic shell in the future.  The turret tracks targets using image recognition, and is programmed with MATLAB software.

Fortunately this turret is only armed with nerf bullets, so its attacks are non-lethal.  How long will it be until we cower in fear every time we hear “I see you!”? Only time will tell.  In the meantime, watch the video below to see this awesome project in action!

My computer is finally working again, and thus the Lazy Marathon can continue.  This week watch as I try to defend a dog’s honor and spend entirely to much time trying to find it food.  If that doesn’t sound interesting to you, don’t worry– Stark and I are drinking pretty heavily at this point in the episodes.