Author: BreakmanX

You give Star Wars a bad name. We’ve known an animated movie was in the works, and now we get our first taste: http://www.starwars.com/video/ My feelings in one word: Silly. Yeah, I said it. I think it’s cool that Lucas wants to take Star Wars in a new direction…just not this direction. I can’t place what exactly it is about this art style that doesn’t sit with me. It’s strange, since I enjoyed the animated series (2D), but don’t care for this style (3D). I’ll have you keep in mind, though, that from this movie will come a TV show,…

So, Metal Gear launches this week and everyone is crawling around their house in excitement. Only a game of this prestige could make people sneaking around their houses in boxes seem normal. I have a pretty long-term history with the series as I’ve been playing them since the NES days. Despite that, I have had a pretty rocky relationship with the Solid series only because of reality biting my experience. I loved Metal Gear Solid 1. Absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, this was the first game I ever bought used and the game was scratched just right as to not allow…

A-Kon. It’s the longest-running anime convention in the US. This year was #19, and it was… glorious. Even if you’re not an anime fan, the sheer amount of nerdocity in such a place is enough to make virtually any geek feel at home. At least, on Saturday. Friday is like a goddamn freakshow. This was my fifth year attending A-Kon, with my primary reason for attending being the fact that I write music for it. Yeah yeah, you heard me. I write music for it. Every year they have a banquet-brunch on Sunday and a string quartet at the banquet…

A lifetime in retrospect…

And now, allow me to introduce you to the most adorable ball of fur you’ve ever seen. We call her Leloo Dallas Richardson. Yeah, from The Fifth Element, ’cause it’s a badass movie and a cool name. Alison pulled a surpise act on me last night, and I instantly fell in love. She’s already litter box trained, responds to her new name, and is absolutely fascinated by toilet paper rolls, laser pointers, TV…

Above you see my darling Video Game Collection.  Tonight we packed up all my PlayStation and earlier games and systems for our trek to the city of Angels.  Looking at all my old cartridges of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, Mega Man 2, Legend of Zelda, and others brought tears to my eyes.  These are the physical objects that I touched and built such a bond with that left such an emotional impression on me. It made me think of something people used to tell me all the time. ”Someday you’ll regret spending so much time playing Video Games.” The…

Gather your ammunition and hide the children (if you have any)! Hell’s thermostat is broken and RurouniQ is actually following through on a promised article series by doing a second volume. Yes, that’s right, it’s time for another edition of Free Play [on]. Because while the best things in life may be free, sometimes the just-pretty-good stuff is, too. Kongregate – free flash game collection www.kongregate.com My love for achievements is probably well-known to anyone who has listened to the show. Even though this addiction has slowly been waning over the past months, there is one site which…

I never beat Wind Waker. I’m going to have to admit that. I had some stuff go down just as I was on the cusp of beating it, I was just about to fight Ganon, that made it really hard for me to get through it. I really liked the game back then, and I have an even higher opinion now. Zelda has always been a game about a young boy that goes from being a weak person to finding himself on an amazing quest and acquiring all sorts of new abilities and weapons. Miyamoto has always said that was…

There seem to be three major categories for video game articles: the past, the present, and the future. Articles that explore the past look back at forgotten releases of yore, often with a healthy dose of nostalgia, and longing for simpler times; or at least, seek a good chuckle at the famous missteps of our favorite publishers. Articles based in the present explore game reviews, the current generation of the console wars, and give forum to contradicting complaints of “ Industry is too sequel heavy!” and “ Why doesn’t this game have a sequel?” We’ve been swept away by the…

Ok, stick with me here, folks, today’s post is not about video games. Hey hey hey, where you going? It’s still about games, dammit, get your ass back here. Those of you who know me know that I’m into gaming of all kinds, not just the video variety. Those of you who are subject to the kind of tunnel vision that video gaming’s bright lights, wild spectacle and immediate gratification generate may not even be aware of the existence of other types of games outside of Monopoly and Poker. I assure you, there is an entire world of gaming…

You can find the entire archive of pictures here , but Alison and I wanted to bring you the highlights. Enjoy. The broadcast table, with Weezer rambling on about something…It’s interesting to Alison, anyway.

What the hell happened to my Wii? Better yet, what the hell happened to Nintendo?! I’m beginning to believe that Nintendo is recovering from that severe head-up-the-ass injury that took place between 1996 and 2005. First they release Zelda, Twilight Princess… and the people rejoice at its beauty and depth. Then comes Super Paper Mario… and the people rejoice that the 2-D platformer is genuine, and has a lot of creative heart. After that comes Super Mario Galaxy… and the people rejoiced as Nintendo breathed life into a STALE genre, and single-handedly saved the platformer from certain doom… Then came…

The showdown has begun. Mario Kart Wii vs. Grand Theft Auto 4. Personally, I’m thinking GTA4 will edge out the Kart, but with the sheer number of Wii systems that have been sold, Mario Kart has the potential to outdo the competition just from playing the potential numbers. My mom has already mentioned buying it for my youngest cousin, so I know the word has certainly spread amongst the Wii’s significant casual player base. While only time will tell who will win in terms of sales, what I can tell you is the ups and downs of Mario…

Growing up, I’ve always had the desire to do something creative.  It started out with various things.  I’d always try to find new and different ways of doing things, whether it be in Video Games, school, or anything else in my life.  As I grew older I knew that I had to have some sort of job that utilized this or I would simply lose my mind.  I never really thought of it much as choice, more of a calling. The more I thought about this, the more it came down to film.  There is nothing else that combines everything…

Some of you may recognize the title of this post. For those of you who are not Trekkies, you’ll still probably know it as the first half of a well-known proverb, but so you know, it’s the title of the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which probably had the highest popularity-while-airing of any of the many Treks. Don’t worry, the title is not alluding to anything you’re probably not already aware of as a listener of the show, but I felt it necessary to talk about it here. This weekend is the big BreakmanX LAN Party,…

***I fixed it*** Thank God. No, this is not my original post. My original post was lost in the sea of NOT FOUND errors that you have seen strewn all over the site. It is weird to go to bed seeing a pretty site and wake up to the horrors you see before you. We’re still not sure exactly what happened, but only sure that it wasn’t us that did it. With all the moving around of our current host, I think it is some sort of corrupted file issue. At any case, they are working to resolve it and…

No, this is not my original post. My original post was lost in the sea of NOT FOUND errors that you seen strewn all over the site. It is weird to go to bed seeing a pretty site and wake up to the horrors you see before you. We’re still not sure exactly what happened, but only sure that it wasn’t us that did it. With all the moving around of our current host, I think it is some sort of corrupted file issue. At any case, they are working to resolve it and said they would have it resolved…

In addition to the many slowdowns the site has experienced lately, we are also getting odd not found errors all over our site. I apologize for this inconvenience, and all the inconveniences, and hope that our service provider rectifies this quickly.

His name was Jump-man, and he was a construction worker. One day while at work he’s witness to a giant ape (recently escaped from the zoo) that grabs a woman passing by. This ape proceeds to climb up several flights of scaffolding, woman thrown over his shoulder, and at the top mocks the construction worker. The construction worker, pissed off at his horrible early 80’s union dues, decides to take his anger out on the ape and maybe even save this damsel in distress, hoping to get a date. As he approaches the first girder, the ape proceeds to jump up and down, the sheer…

So PlayStation 3 is predicted to outsell the Xbox 360 – again – in the month of March, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. Didn’t catch that? I lost. Failed, really, when the 14th of April rolled around and I was still PS3-less. Hindsight is 20/20, but Helen Keller could’ve told me that this was a stupid fucking bet, yet another product of my overactive medulla badidea. Break tried to tell me as much on the Show – good advice apparently passes through me like Casper the Friendly Ghost – while I still had time to back…

I’ve long been a fan of the Fantasy genre, with its swords and magic, strange creatures attacking scantily clad damsels, and thinly veiled erotic allusions hosted by aged wizards in pointy hats. Video games, especially RPGs, have long been home to the newest and most stunning incarnations of this imaginative realm of fiction. One might even say that there’s an over-abundance of fantasy games in existence. I would never complain, there’s precious little I love more than picking up a sword, hacking down an evil Necromancer and saving the day (except maybe BEING an evil Necromancer). Despite that, my first…

OK, so the show is over, but the LAN party is rockin! If you’d like to watch it go here. Show will be up soon.

You’ve probably heard it said that the best things in life are free. Any gamer, however, will tell you that’s a load of Pokéshit. We have to pay for our jollies; Smash Bros and Final Fantasy don’t come cheap. Or do we? Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not sanctioning piracy of any kind. There are just plenty of other ways to have fun, all of them legal and free. Sometimes, though, the trick is finding the good stuff, sorting the wheat from the chaff. There’s an awful lot of junk out there, but it’s worth it to…

When you label someone as a "gamer", in the back of your head somewhere you know that some game or series got them hooked on gaming. For guys, this could be anything from a 3-D FPS on their first PC to an RPG on the old NES, to even (the new "gamers") GTA, Smash Bros., or BioShock… Guys, for once in their lives, are more complicated than the female of the species. For girls (95% of the time) the game that gets them hooked is: 1- Dr. Mario 2- Tetris 3- Harvest Moon And usually in that order. Harvest Moon for…

Now, I know this is not game related, but it is related to the site so you’re just going to have to bear with me on this one… I’m sure that some of you have gathered that there is a sort of connection with The University of Kansas and BreakmanX.com. Q, Maul, and I all have degrees from the institution while Richie has attended classes there. In fact, besides Richie and VDG I’ve met every other host on the show through KU. Besides current members of the staff, I also met Weezerjedi, Jack Burt0n, and Afrotect on campus as well. …

Welcome, friends, to the first of what should come to be many interviews with stars from all corners of the media world; interrogating them on their video game histories and habits. Our first guest is one of my personal favorites, Emily Perkins, best known for her leading role in the Ginger Snaps werewolf trilogy, and recently seen in cameos as (fellow KU Alumnus) Mandy Patinkin’s final collected soul in the series Dead Like Me, and in Juno as the girl who’s boyfriend’s junk smells like pie. Our Canadian readers will also recognize her as a recurring character from the hit…

Welcome, friends, to the first of what should come to be many interviews with stars from all corners of the media world; interrogating them on their video game histories and habits. Our first guest is one of my personal favorites, Emily Perkins, best known for her leading role in the Ginger Snaps werewolf trilogy, and recently seen in cameos as (fellow KU Alumnus) Mandy Patinkin’s final collected soul in the series Dead Like Me, and in Juno as the girl who’s boyfriend’s junk smells like pie. Our Canadian readers will also recognize her as a recurring character from the hit…

Ok, you guys got me. Here’s the real post. It starts with an initial investment, $60. That gets me a new release title that I’ll play for about two weeks, based on fun and replay value. Then I take the game to a local game reseller, get store credit – usually around $30 – and buy the next game I want. This is my method for buying games, started months ago, and I’ve got my reasons. Buying new releases almost guarantees they’ll be in stock and in good condition (I’m impatient). Rolling the value of one game into the…

*Side note: After reading part 2 of 3 a friend of mine e-mailed me and said that I left out a Zelda game that should have been mentioned, The Minish Cap. While it IS a game in the Zelda series, I chose to keep it off of the list for the reason that I don’t think it makes a good starter game for getting into the series. Even though when you look at the story line, Minish Cap PROBABLY happened before all of the other game, I will argue that its "Start-off stance" is not so great because the game is…

There probably isn’t a person alive (at least, anyone that would read this site) that isn’t fully aware of the ongoing struggle and perpetual asshattery of the RIAA. For the purpose of this article, I sum up for you: The RIAA is an organization that represents the major music labels, and they’re really pissed at the internet. The internet lets people download music for free, so of course, they don’t like this, because they’re losing money over it. You can make all the rationalizations you want, you can say that downloading exposes music to people who wouldn’t have gotten…