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Had a sort of interesting birthday day i guess, had an awesome dream (So much party and fun that MVC3 was on in the lounge but the xbox had gone into standby mode because there was so much fun to be had elsewhere)
Woke up at 2, did abit of work, watched some anime, then went to the girls house for ‘Oscar night’ which was basically just watching the oscars and realising that I havent seen hardly any of the nominees or know any of the actors.
I also realised one of my friends has tits which more or less come out of her stomach

The only presents ive gotten so far are from the girls (because its tradition in our house to give birthday presents late i guess) , they got me a pendulum T-Shirt and the book ‘1001 video games you must play before you die’ which is pretty interesting. Ive already started ticking off the stuff ive already played in the contents page.
The only absence ive noticed so far is ‘Ristar’ on the megadrive, I feel thats a game which should be in a list of games to play before you die, certainly more than… uhh…. *flipflipflip* ‘Maximo’ on the PS2 (the spiritual successor to Ghosts and Goblins)

In the book though I found out about the game im about to link below, ‘Cursor*10’ , and after a little play, its short but definitely something which should be experienced. its very unique :)

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html

If i find any other internet based web games mentioned in the book, I may forward the links to y’all if i deem them worthy.

So tonight, keeping with the feeling instilled in me from my London adventure, I decided to – on a whim – go with my friend to the Warwick Arts Centre to see a show called ‘Best Before’.
Most definitely not your average theatre performance, the majority of the show revolved around a screen populated by maybe around a hundred small blob avatars, everyone in the audience is given a proper 4 button and Dpad control pad to control themselves with, and then the game sort of plays itself out, the audience has to make decisions and these decisions impact how the show flows:

soldier? profession? take drugs? have sex at 15? take heroin? Vote to imprison those who took heroin? Find a partner? Have a child? Spend your money on a house or car? Invest in the stock market? Take part in a gun rampage?… Those are just some of the choices presented during the show, all things of course have results and side effects, such as if you become a candidate for presidential election – will the audience frown upon your anti-immigration and pro-firearms views? (they sure did to me :< ) The show is apparently international, but only do a limited amount of shows, as such I imagine very few people will ever get to see the show, which is a huge shame because it was very entertaining and very unique. Tonight, I was Dan, a male who had sex at 15, took cannabis but turned down heroin, married once but then got a divorce because my wife tried to force me into having a sex change, tried getting a job as a games tester but became unemployed due to recession, was a candidate for presidential election but came last in the polls (with 8%), was hospitalized once for contracting a disease, joined the army and was sent off for duty, took part in a gun rampage but managed to evade police/prison and survived to about 103 years old. The below video will probably help give a better idea of what the show is like, it was good fun.

So after my long weekend at home, I decide its time to head back to my university house…
However the train station had other ideas, apparently ‘super offpeak’ (the ticket I had) is only valid before 3:30pm, or after 8pm (or on a weekend), I had arrived at…. 4pm. Well shit.

I did the expected, and went straight to piccadily circus trocedero funland, arguably the largest arcade in the country. They have quite a few new machines there that i’ve never seen, ‘lets go island’ (the sequel to lets go jungle), Some game involving a golden gun, a few driving games, a 4 player ‘casual’ family shooting game (which actually looked really fun) and Elevator Action death parade – which was FUCKING BROKEN >:( , so mad, i really wanted to play it too, the cab was actually fully working aside from the coin mech, tempting me by closing its door and running its startup animation and shit.

I Ended up spending about £4 on DJmax Technika (im pretty sure ive already taken a picture of this at some point, a google search will probably find you all the info you need to know), I also spent a pound on………

ATATATATATATATATATAATATATATA-em-up, Fist of the North star game. Shit is so fun, If you havent played it before you’re missing out. (basically the pads come out and light up and you have to punch them at the right time, and then you do special techniques and there are weird gimmicks and shit that happen (eg. only hit the lit pad, and 2 come out , or time all your hits perfectly). I really wish i had watched Fist of the north star, if only so I could understand the references to the special techniques and stuff better, the only one i know is the ‘hundred crack fist of the north star’ used in episode 1 (which is in the game)

After wasting an immense amount of time in the arcade, I went out and checked out tokyotoys, full of anime merch, The trocedero is actually a hub for anime nerds after their… fanfiction writing contests or whatever the fuck it is they do, on a regular basis you’ll see small groups of teens in cosplay outfits – Tokyotoys actually sells these outfits, although im pretty sure they’re ridiculously priced (they have a hatsune miku costume ^^). In the short time i was in the trocedero, I saw a haruhi, a naruto, some other ninja, a bleach captain… and some other guy clearly in costume but i didnt recognise it.

I passed by the HMV gamerbase and was really tempted to just go in and rent out a console/PC for an hour or so, they actually had MVC3 to play but I dont think they had any arcade sticks so I would have been playing like a scrub (saw some MW2, COD4, MGS:O and some weird asian CS ripoff being played)

Out onto the street then, where I witnessed a beatboxer doing a street performance, going from RnB tracks (drop it like its hot and some other stuff) to fucking… dubstep and drum and bass. I actually took a video and may upload it to youtube or something at some point (but its 150mb so I cant really upload it here without some good compressioning)

Had some lunch, abused McDonalds free toilets, wasted some time walking around, and then it was time to head back to the station, so I decided to go through Trocedero again and go to the basement (where there is a link to the station), and apparently the tunnel is where the local dancing/breakdancing community like to get their practice in, the whole tunnel was lined with people in dancing clothes, boomboxes every 2 meters and people doing flips and spins and the robot and all sorts of crazy shit. It was pretty awesome to watch