What Capcom games are you most looking forward to in 2009? Resident Evil? Street Fighter IV? Bionic Commando? Dark Void? Monster Hunter? Spike TV is letting you have your voice heard! Head over to their official website to cast your write-in vote for Most Anticipated Game of 2009. Might I suggest that you write in either Resident Evil 5 or Street Fighter IV? That would be very nice of you! In fact, ask your friends to also vote. You might even consider simply voting for your friends. The Chicago Mob helped Kennedy get elected in similar fashion, and look how well that turned out. If our games are nominated, I promise to attend the award show in LA and do something ridiculous, such as wear our giant bionic arm.
Over in Japan, Capcom is whipping Mega-fans into a froth of anticipation for Shooting Star Rockman 3 (aka "Mega Man Starforce 3") for the DS. The folks involved on the Starforce team have built an extensive online home for the title, with the sort of detail and information that is, frankly, embarssingly missing from most of our game sites. Chances are you're not going to be able to make heads nor tails from their wacky Kanji antics -- since you are most likely a lazy American good-for-nothing like myself and have not bothered to learn another language 'cause all foreigners should learns themselfs propa Englush -- but you do speak the international language of Cool Visuals. There are plenty of sights to be seen on their secret satellite, but make sure not to miss the amazing and frequently updated desktop wallpapers from the game.
Japanese website IT Media has posted up a gallery tracing Ryu's handsome mug throughout the years. It's a fairly comprehensive gallery of his looks, from original wild-haired crazy man in Street Fighter to his anime look in Alpha and on through to his latest intimidating glower in Street Fighter IV. I don't want to ruin the effect of seeing all the artwork at once, so I've only included a teaser. Go here for the full magilla, laid out in glorious Web 1.0 design work. Honestly, do these Japanese websites do all their design in Dreamweaver or something?
RE:D is out on BluRay and DVD in North America on Dec. 31, which means that you now know what you'll be showing at your New Year's Eve party. It's the perfect appetizer to go with Zombie **** Clark's Rockin' Brain Suckin' New Year's Arockalypse.
While over in Japan in early October for Tokyo Game Show, I managed to sneak off to legendary gamer/otaku sanctuary Akihabara. While down there, I saw a huge display for what turned out to be Monster Hunter-themed ramen. This is not the 90% styrofoam that you undoubtedly live/lived on during/after your collegial years; this is a full on Campbell's Chunky-style meal in a can, complete with dancing Felyne on the can and a cute tote bag that came free with a purchase of two cans. I bought two cans in Akihabara, grabbed the free tote and headed back home, only to have crazy Japanese airport security seize the soup on my way through the gate, forcing me to either throw the soup away or go all the way back to United check in and... I dunno what I was supposed to do, wasn't like United was going to pull my bags out just for me to tuck in two cans of soup. So to summarize: the Japanese version of TSA owes me two goddamned cans of Monster Hunter ramen, stat.
Actually, that was before I had read this description of the ramen on import site NCSX:
If you boil pork bones and whatever's still attached to those bones for about 10-15 hours, you'll end up with a milky liquid known as tonkotsu soup. Add a heaping of stringy arum root noodles, soy sauce, a few slivers of shimeji mushroom, and assorted spices to create Umai's canned Monster Hunter Tonkotsu Ramen. The company is selling the ramen in two types of cans but the contents are the same.
Bleargh! Look, I'm no hippie vegtarian like weird-o beard-o s-kill, but the knowledge of the contents of the can has now pretty much turned me off of ever again randomly purchasing packaged goods in Japan. I'm sticking to a strict Crunky and CC Lemon diet next time I'm in Japan.
