Bah, Paypal

Last Friday I tried to buy something on ebay. It was a 2nd hand American 60GB PS3 in really good condition, £234 including shipping. So, "Buy It Now!" -> "this seller needs immediate payment" -> Paypal. I put in a message to the seller, clicked the confirm button, and... eventually... it came back with an error. It apologised and told me to refresh the page. So I did. It came back with an error again. So I tried it again. It came back with a slightly different error so I went all the way back to ebay and clicked "Buy It Now!" again, and attempted the payment process again. Rinse and repeat.

Eventually it started telling me that my card was being refused by my card provider.

So, by next Tuesday I gave up trying to resolve things myself, and called up my card provider's customer service. They put me through to their fraud unit, and I had to answer lots of security questions, and then they told me that on Friday, a total of six (!) authorisations for £234 were attempted, of which four went through, and then the card was locked for the suspicious looking identical transactions. Apparently they had tried calling me on the Saturday but I was away that day. They unlocked my card now they knew that it had not been stolen.

So I was "OMG! AH! MUST CALL PAYPAL!!" at that point, and so I thanked the fraud unit and put the phone down.

I found the contact details on the Paypal website - when you are logged in, there's a special code they give you on the website to key in on the phone so they know who you are, which is kind of neat. So I rang them, and there was this automated system talking at me. I entered the code and was expecting to be transferred to a real person at that point, but no. The automated voice on the phone went on, and insisted on using buggy voice recognition software throughout the process. It was extremely annoying. He was saying "Main menu, please say one of the following options blah blah blah blah" and you had to repeat exactly what he said, but it wasn't clear where options began or ended so I was saying something it couldn't understand, and kept having to redo things. By the time I got to talk to a real person I was just really really angry! >:(

I started to suspect; maybe it's dragging out the process because this is a premium rate phone number? It was 077 something, there was also another phone number on the site which it said was international and charged at international rates. So, I don't know how much this phone call will cost me or make them money. :(

I expect a lot of other people must be similarly infuriated by the automatic phone system, so that poor lady in the call centre, and the others alongside her, must have to deal with so many angry frustrated people!

When I told her what had happened she told me, in a manner which seemed as though she had given the speech a dozen, no, a hundred, no, a million times, maybe every day for years... that the authorisation just means that the bank/lender has put aside the money to pay, but they haven't taken it, so it's ok and will "drop off the system" in 3 to 5 days. And she was going to press a button to make it go faster. So I told her it's really bad that this error message was really generic and told me to refresh the page! She said in a way that she'd also said this a million times, that it's because the system was being overloaded and I should wait maybe an hour next time I see something like this happen.

So, worried about the phone bill and relieved but still infuriated, I hung up.

I knew that people have a lot of problems with Paypal, but I thought they were better than this. A huge hassle for me, and my credit card provider, because they have a stupid uninformative error message that tells you to do exactly they thing they don't want you to do, and there's a link in the page encouraging you to click it. Refresh! And they know about this, it's like a really routine occurance, and they're probably making money out of my stressed phonecalls! >:(

My MadCatz Street Fighter IV Chun-Li FightPad

My Street Fighter IV Fightpad arrived in the post!

Sorry the pictures are so dark; it's dismal outside this morning and I can't use flash because the plastic just reflects the light back so you can't see anything at all.

I bought it because apparently it's an Xbox 360 pad with a decent 8-way d-pad, and it looks like a Sega Saturn pad. I haven't opened it yet... it's quite wide like a 360 pad, so about twice as wide as a Saturn pad.

I noticed that the day it was despatched (from Amazon UK) it was sold out there and on every other mainstream online shop I looked at. There were a few on sale at ebay though, for £59.99. I only paid £25.99.

I also read some reports saying that the build quality on these pads isn't too good, and they break pretty easily (which is normal for MadCatz goods).

So I could just sell it... hmmm.... [undecided]

Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection - first impressions

My copy of the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection arrived yesterday, and I played with it for a few hours in the evening. My initial reaction:

:D

==
I'm loving the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection for Xbox 360.

It seemed good enough when there were just 40 games in the collection, but it turned out that there are 9 more games to unlock! (Some arcade games, Fantasy Zone, and the first Phantasy Star game...)

The achievements have done their job in getting me to try and play games I hadn't played before, which is nice. Comix Zone for one looks really good and plays really well too, and I'd never heard of it before. I think I'll get a lot out of that one. Some games though..... must be included because they hold nostalgia value for other gamers but don't appeal to a newcomer like me. I'm thinking that the opposite will apply too, since I love Flicky but I don't know about everyone else!

Two slightly negative things:
* The box art in this UK version is all of US copies of the games. That's just weird! There are no notes / info pages on the bonus games either.

* I don't know whether it's the emulation or the clarity of my stereo system compared with my old equipment, but some of the sound doesn't sound right. I'm just saying because I played Fatal Labyrinth on a real Mega Drive a few months ago and the opening wasn't all uncomfortable noise. Some other moments in other games gave me that feeling too....

Nintendo DSi coming to UK

I got an email from GAME yesterday telling me that they'll be selling the Nintendo DSi from the 3rd of April 2009, with a picture... then a short while later they sent me another email apologising for their mistake of saying it has two touch screens. -_-;;

It plays DS games, has an SD slot to play downloadable games, it's got 2 cameras (not sure why you need 2 on such a small thing), and a built in web browser.

You know the 2nd of the 4 new Evangelion films is called "Evangelion 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance"? Well, it is. I think they should have called this little machine the "Nintendo DS Lite 2.0 - You Can [Not] Advance". There's no slot for playing GBA games, in the name of progress. :( They intend to re-sell you all your GBA games as downloadable content. :(

I hope they don't stop selling Nintendo DS Lites here, since if my one ever breaks [touches wood] I'd rather one of those. I like buying cartridges more than I like buying downloadable content, and I don't like the idea of being asked to re-buy everything I own...

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - doujin game translation - Onikakushi complete

Okay, I'm nearly a fortnight late on this but updates had become few and far between. The fan translation of the "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" (When They Cry) visual novel has come so far that they have completed the whole of the first story in the game! :D

Their website: http://sonozakifutagotachi.blogspot.com/

Hooray for Sonozaki Futago-tachi! ^_^

Now I can happily read this and make myself go O_o aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!! >_<
[tenshi_a hides under a duvet or something]

(well, I will do if they've done it right!)

Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

I just noticed that a game compilation called the "Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection" is coming out for Xbox 360 and PS3. It's out on the 20th of February 2009 and the preorder price is £24.99. Here is a list of the games on it:

# Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle
# Alien Storm
# Altered Beast
# Beyond Oasis
# Bonanza Bros.
# Columns
# Comix Zone
# Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
# Dr. Robotnik's MBM
# Dynamite Headdy
# Ecco The Dolphin
# Ecco II: The Tides Of Time
# E-Swat
# Fatal Labyrinth
# Flicky
# Gain Ground
# Golden Axe I
# Golden Axe II
# Golden Axe III
# Kid Chameleon
# Phantasy Star II
# Phantasy Star III: Generations Of Doom
# Phantasy Star IV: The End Of The Millennium
# Ristar
# Shining In The Darkness
# Shining Force
# Shining Force 2
# Shinobi III: Return Of The Ninja Master
# Sonic 3D Blast
# Sonic And Knuckles
# Sonic Spinball
# Sonic The Hedgehog
# Sonic The Hedgehog 2
# Sonic The Hedgehog 3
# Streets Of Rage
# Streets Of Rage 2
# Streets Of Rage 3
# Super Thunder Blade
# Vectorman
# Vectorman 2

Overall, it's a very good selection of games. I don't mind playing Fatal Labyrinth to completion so soon after the last time I beat it, but I can't see myself playing Altered Beast; that wasn't even fun the first time round, let alone now in 2009! >_<

Just the inclusion of Shining Force 1 and 2 make this compilation worth the price of admission; you will not find a 2nd hand copy of Shining Force 2 for so little money, on ebay. Even if I wasn't interested in that game, at under a pound a game, this is really good value for money. I preordered this morning and am looking forward to my copy!

(I preordered from play.com because my copy of Chrono Trigger I preordered from GAME only arrived this morning - though the game game out last Friday! It came with a bonus 2 track audio CD though, so it could be worse... but... I'm rambling off topic...)

Star Ocean 4 regional differences

This news has apparently been floating around for a few days, but I just heard about it last night; the Western and Asian versions of this game are going to look really different.

The anime portraits in the Western version will be replaced by CG portraits, and the menus aren't going to be all clear and bright coloured, but all dark blue with more CG images. :/

Take a look:

Siliconera article

I find it a bit disappointing.

I suppose they must think the anime look will not appeal outside of Japan... but from what I have observed from the fan base of Star Ocean games is that they are often also anime fans who appreciate the stories and art style. I have also noticed that most other J-RPG fans are anime fans, and that people who are not generally interested in J-RPGs but may be swayed by a game not having an anime style are unlikely to start playing a long-established series on the 4th game.

It's like "well replacing cute anime characters with hard-edged CG characters worked out so well for Bomberman Act Zero that we had to get in on the act!".

(Bomberman Act Zero was a terrible game which received fittingly bad reviews, and the departure of the art style from "cute and cartoony" to "industrial cyberpunk armoured cyborg" was criticised as much as the game flaws)

Durham fire drill simulation in source engine

I just read an article / watched a video of a fire drill. Not terribly interesting, but it was a rendering of the University of Durham's computer science department using Valve's source engine so it made the news. It's a good application of the existing technology.

Articles / videos:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/04/videogame_fire_drill/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7867861.stm

Back in the days when I was at Durham, the mainstream / press social acceptance surrounding videogames was very different; people who decided to render their university buildings in FPS videogame engines usually ended up arrested for it.

The computer science department is much bigger now; I visited (fairly) recently (ish) when my brother graduated. I have a vague recognition of the place from the simulation. Also, back when I was at Durham, the main office of the computer science department was at the top of the building, so that tiny winding staircase you see in the video? I remember climbing up 5 floors to get to the computer science department fairly regularly. The main part of the department was usually out of access to undergraduate students, and the rest of the building was in use by the engineering department so I never really ventured into it. If I was there during a fire, I would not have known what to do with the main staircase gone, and I'd probably be dead by now. Hooray for fire simulations!

A bit of Toriyama video game character design <3

Yay! Chrono Trigger finally came out in the UK! After all these years! It was a Super Nintendo game, then was ported to Playstation (though I hear the loading times were bad), and never came out here in all that time. Now it's out on DS, it only took a few months before it came out here. It was released yesterday and I saw it on shelves, ah it was a humbling experience!

The prices ranged from £27.99 to £29.99 though, which is pretty expensive these days for a SNES game. I hope it doesn't put people off or give them unreasonably high expectations. I bought my copy from the online version of the high-street videogame retailer GAME (for the loyalty card points) for £24.99 and they shipped it on Wednesday but it still hasn't arrived! :( I blame the weather.

Anyway, that's a game with character designs by Akira Toriyama. :D It's definitely not the only reason to like it; it's got one of the best battle systems I've ever used, multiple paths/endings, a good story and a great soundtrack. That's why I'm so enthusiastic about the game coming out in the UK.

Oh well. It doesn't really matter since I'm currently playing through another RPG with Toriyama designs on the DS, and that game is... no, not Dragonball Origins, it's "Dragon Quest: Chapters Of The Chosen". Which is actually "Dragon Quest 4" but for some reason they've decided not to give the games numbers now they're releasing them in Europe.



It's a good game, I like it a lot. It's the most traditional style JRPG; meet some people, go out and fight monsters in random encounters, level up, fight more monsters in random encounters, buy some better weapons / armour, fight some more monsters in random encounters, fight a boss monster, rinse and repeat. If that doesn't sound good to you, you won't like this game. I got my copy 2nd hand and the previous owner had given up after 3 hours so I guess that was the case. For me, I really like it. The translations were annoying at first, because in the first few town you meet a lot of characters with bad accents in written form. I have heard many many Scottish people talking in my time, from all parts of Scotland, and none of them talk the way they do in the "Ragnar" chapter of the game. Honestly, it makes "Scotty" from Star Trek seem really good. The next chapter is maybe Czech or Slovak or somewhere Eastern European, as one of them greets you "Dobry den", but I'm not sure... it also seemed like a mockery of people as it was mostly expressed as poor grammar rather than an accent. I thought "why have I paid good money for a translation that's as good as a Chinese bootleg DVD? Why did I pay for something so insulting?". I found the various regional stereotypes irked me somewhat, as the translators seemed to just be "putting on" various accents, and didn't reflect how people really use the language. I honestly thought about giving up the game near the start simply because of the dialogue, but I persevered.

I'm quite glad I did because this game turned out to be a lot of fun. You begin by playing through 4 chapters where you get to play as different characters, each on their own little adventure, and then they meet up and form a larger party later on. I really like it, because the most interesting part of a lot of these old RPGs is the beginning, when you're struggling through each battle, low level. Well, not so much when there's no strategy and it's all luck, but this game seemed pretty fun, starting at level 1 for my characters. I get a good feeling for them too, whereas in a lot of RPGs you just meet characters along the way who join you and you don't know much about them or feel anything for them. I'm well into the 5th chapter right now and everyone's met up and formed a big party, and we're adventuring together happily. I think there's probably not too much further to go before the end, and I'm almost 30 hours into the game. The next game in the series ("Dragon Quest: The Hand Of The Heavenly Bride", which is much harder to remember than "Dragon Quest 5") is coming out soon, though. Plus, my copy of Chrono Trigger should be arriving soon. :)

The translations got better throughout the game, either that or my tolerance got higher. Haha! There's some really funny stuff in there too when you get Torneko back into your party and make him fight. He does some random funny stuff. The music (Koichi Sugiyama) is standard Dragon Quest music, which I like a lot, and the character designs are really cheerful looking and I just generally feel happy playing this game. ^__^

I guess if I'm done with DQ4 this weekend and Chrono Trigger isn't here, there is one other Toriyama-character-designed RPG I could be getting on with, and that's Blue Dragon, for Xbox 360. I started it a looooong while ago, and wow it looks good. And wow it sounds good (Nobuo Uematsu), but wow I don't care about the story or the characters! XD It's one of the few long RPG games of current times that I'd wholly recommend as suitable for children, but I'm not feeling much attachment to the game.

I just met Toriyama in the game! Here's a screenshot:



it's just how he draws himself in the old Dr Slump (and maybe Dragon Ball?) manga I own. ^__^ That's as far as I've gone so far in this game, and I'm only on the first disk. I have bought the soundtrack and have listened to it quite a bit. I'm not too keen on the tracks with vocals but the rest is good, Uematsu's best in a good few years, I would say. I don't think it's helped my enjoyment of the game, though, as it's not breathtakingly amazing music in the game anymore; my breath was already taken with the album...

EDIT: I just found out through wikipedia that Koichi Sugiyama is a very bad person. :( The DQ music is good to listen to, but now I feel bad about helping pay his wages by buying his soundtracks and games... though they're a lot of fun... come to think of it, I did buy most of my DQ games and Ideon LP second hand... so he's barely made any money out of me!

New Chii's Sweet Home series! Yay!

A 2nd series of Chii's Sweet Home is going to be broadcast in Japan in April. Yay! ^_^

Read the original article on ANN

This series is the cuuuuutest thing ever. It's about a little lost kitten who gets found by a family, and they take take of it. Each episode is only 3 minutes long, and it's very much a series for small children / families, but it's sooooooo cute!