Street Fighter 4, Jeopardy!, and then some

Last week during class I couldn't stop thinking about Street Fighter 4.

On the back of my notes I sketched the guest speaker we had for the class and gave him his very own copy!

"This right here. This is the shit."

Quick review of the game: I like it a lot. Lots of unlockables (although unlocking characters is kind of weak), nice challenge mode, and good online play make it a pretty well-rounded package. The online lobby is kind of lacking, though, allowing only two people per instance (a step back from SSF2THDR's online features), but it's nothing a later patch can't fix, so I will let it slide for now. While it's not exactly 2D, it stays true to the old gameplay mechanics of its 2D predecessors, resulting in the best translation to 3D a 2D fighter has done so far, much better than the older Street Fighter EX games, and for that I, as well as many others, give this game aces.

Good job, Capcom.

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Some Quick Ones
(Sorry, Kat, I know you said to reduce the anime posts, but you know... I don't really do anything interesting and I need fodder for my blogger.)

• Jeopardy! is pretty fun. I played it with some friends and Karen last week, starting at around midnight and ending way past dawn. One of my friends, John Paul, actually showed up at my house at around 3am and decided to jump in, too. He beat my high score of $18,000+ with his $27,000 or so total at the end of the night, so he's not welcome in the house anymore. Karen ended up not winning at all the entire night. Who would've thought spitting out "useless trivia" could be so much fun?

Characters from One Outs (top) and Major.
Notice the drastic difference in art styles.

• I've been watching a ton of anime recently, notably these two baseball shows, oddly enough. One of them is called One Outs, which is about this baseball player who gambles for his salary, and the other is Major, which follows the life of Goro Shigeno from kindergarten all the way to professional baseball. I personally didn't like baseball that much prior to watching these, but let me just say that I watched 107 episodes of Major in the span of about 1 week... I think I want to go to the batting cages for a little bit. Between the two, I would say Major is better story- and art-wise, but that's just me.

The two main characters of Toradora!
That dropkick has near-perfect form, perhaps a 5.9 out of 6.0.

• I've also been watching Toradora!, which is an anime that's probably aimed at women more than men (if I had to categorize the show, I would say it's a romantic comedy), but I like it a lot. It's quirky fun and the characters are cool. The voice acting is really good, too; even though I don't know too much Japanese, I feel like the voices just "fit" and really add another dimension to the characters' personalities. I started watching it on a whim one day and didn't expect it to stay on my radar, but it has. A pleasant surprise. The show is currently up to episode 20; only 5 more until the exciting conclusion!

• School is very hard right now. I don't know if I'll do as well as last semester, but I will do my best!