ZeroAnd09

It's no secret that I have a great love for the tiny machine that is the PSP.  Since the fall of my site, I took down quite a bit of content.  Some of that being some wallpapers I made just for that wonderful machine.  So as my new year gift to you, here's some PSP wallpapers.

I'll admit, when I saw the first Twilight film, I wasn't going to give it a fair shake. I was surprised that it wasn't awful, it at least at decent cinematography.  I sat through mediocrity, much as I do with a majority of movies.  It wasn't anything special.  I went into New Moon the same way, I wasn't disappointed. This was a horrible movie. The plot was inane drivel with souless acting all around. The only character I felt for was Jacob, as he was being friend zoned from the start. Bella is a selfish bitch who will do anything and use anyone to get back with her equally selfish "vampire" boyfriend. Jacob bends over backwards for this incredibly bland girl with nothing to offer and time after time is reminded that he won't be getting anything from her. When he leaves, she is distraught, but not because she truly loves him. No, it's because she doesn't have a bitch to take her mind off of Eddy. I would have given anything to have seen her d...

It would seem that the feelings of a given person rely soley on the individual.  Factors such as upbringing, experience, and environment do not apply beyond determing the character of a person.  That is even to a lesser extent.  A person takes these things in a shapes them as they see fit.  It is with this understanding that the only person that could, or I dare say, should be blamed for any misgiving is the original transgressor. It would seem that we as a collective fall into a lesser hive mind.  We react to stimuli like a herd of sheep.  A person is smart, people are slow, panicky, and disastrously stupid.  Oddly, through the actions and ideas of one, others may expand upon said original idea or action.  The evolution of technology is due only to individuals who realized that they could only rely on themselves.  Surely, a team followed, but it was a sole being that started the process. It is surreal that we fall into this hive mind, th...

My fish died, happy birthday to me. RIP Griever

Happy birthday to me.

I buy my Xbox 360 games in two ways. The first is that I buy them for myself. Examples would be Fable 2, Armored Core: FA, and Dead Rising. Others I buy with the thought that I'm going to be playing them with the in laws on Sundays. Left 4 Dead is an example of the latter. I read the reviews, looked at the videos, and finally decided to invest in the Game of the Year Edition. When I buy a game with the in laws in mind, I look for a few things. One is local four player. The other is simplicity. Left 4 Dead does half of this. To get the bad out of the way, I was greatly disappointed that L4D does not support local four player. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why. There are only four characters to play as, and even when played local co op, the computer controls the other two characters. It would only make sense that it would lighten the load on the processing if you had a four man team of human players. So what good reason is there for not including local four player? Sim...

http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction A great read.

I wouldn't consider myself a huge Halo fan. I wouldn't even consider myself a fan of first person shooters. From Goldeneye to Call of Duty, the genre holds very little appeal to me. Despite that, for reasons unknown to me, I enjoy the Halo game franchise. I had only played multiplayer in the first two as I never owned a Xbox. When I finally purchased my 360, I made sure to pick up the third entry. I originally bought Halo 3 for the multiplayer. I didn't give a damn about invading aliens and the end of the world. It was a played out story we all knew. What I wanted was competition. This was my first time playing against other players over Live. I had my ass handed to me, repeatedly. After a few days of abuse, I decided it was time to learn the fundamentals in story mode. Having never played story mode in the first two, I was surprised how easy it was to pick up. The simplicity of it was astounding, considering the amount of product that has come as a result of it. From th...

I play a lot of games.  Some would say that I play too many.  I say, "Who the hell are you to judge me?"  No, not really, I take it as an attack on my being and sulk for a few days, never saying what I want to.  I could say its a lack of confidence on my part, hardwired into my being early on, but that would be the easy way out.  No, I should really man up and say my bit, but what if that offends someone?  I can put up a great front of not caring, but every criticism hits home.  Its like I'm starved for attention, craving the smallest positive review.  I like to write, but I never do any actual writing.  I was told that I would be a writer when I grew up, I never believed it.  Truth be told, now that I have a passion for it, I still have my doubts.  My grammar is horrible at best and spelling has been on a steep decline over the past few years.  The most I had ever immersed myself was in college.  Those years were either...

I just read this over at Kotaku.  Its well worth the time. Link:  The non white gamer's experience

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the greatest entry in video game history.  It changed my life as it cemented gaming in the core of my being.  It was Final Fantasy VIII. I first saw the trailer for FFVIII in a theater.  Never before then had I seen a video game advertised on the big screen.  It was breathtaking.  From the amazing graphics to the euphoric soundtrack, this was the best ad for a game I had ever seen.  I knew I had to get this game.  I began to collect everything I could regarding this gift from the heavens.  There was only one problem, I didn't own a Playstation.  That didn't stop me though, I was a 14 yr old boy with a dream.  When release day rolled around, I was at the store picking up my copy.  It was my very first PS game, I had the game before I had the console.  That required me brokering a deal with Grandma that involved me losing presents for both my birthday and Christmas.  To...

So I've finally returned from a week long stay in the land of sun.  Not the rising sun, the one with the fruits and nuts.  I have mixed feelings coming home.  Granted its comforting being back in familiar settings, but there's nothing unexpected like out there.  I'll miss spending the day at the beach, taking naps to the soothing sound of the ocean.  I'll miss the family we keep out there most of all.  The only consolation is that fall is fast approaching, as hailed by my having to put on a sweatshirt.  Halloween is just around the corner and you can't celebrate the greatest holiday in sunny 85 degree weather. There was good and bad, ties strengthened and others broken, but I choose to walk away with the positive.  There was much of it, starting with seeing old faces at the airport.  It had been far too long and I'll make sure it won't be as long this time. We took in the sights starting at the zoo.  It was 100 degrees and by the end...

Many of you may be wondering why the site is down.  Its simple business.  I wasn't making enough profit from the site to justify keeping it up.  While it was a joy to work on Zero for these past four years, its time to realize when enough is enough.  I'm done with the web comic or anything resembling that.  Blogspot will be my new home for my ramblings, reviews, and rambling reviews.  While I'll greatly miss spending time tinkering with the site, I look forward to another doing the majority of work, leaving me to write in peace.  Here's looking to brighter skies.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was published by Activision on November 16, 2004. The game runs on Valve's Source Engine, notable for running Half-Life 2. The game begins with you creating a vampire by either answering a questionnaire or directly picking you vampire's clan and stats. The clans are diverse in their abilities, ranging from pet summoning to invisibility. You start the game as a freshly turned vampire, when you and your sire are attacked and brought before a gathering of vampires. Apparently there are certain rules that all vampires must abide by to keep up the masquerade, and creating more vamps without permission of the presiding Prince of the Camarilla (see: Guy Le Douche) is a big no no. So your sire is executed and you're in short order as well, until the leader of the opposing order, the Anarchs, calls out “Bullshit!” quite literally and you're saved. You then become a pawn of the political war between both parties as your try to make your way...

Ah, Parasite Eve, what can I say? Overall, an amazing series thus far, and my second favorite Square entry besides the Final Fantasy Series. I picked up the game years ago and played it over a weekend, not getting very far before I abandoned it for Resident Evil: Code Veronica. When I came back to play it last week, I found that I was only in the first 20 minutes of the game and decided I should make this another notch on my belt. I absolutely loved the first Parasite Eve and getting the second was only a matter of time. And time it took, I had absolutely forgotten about the game until I saw it in a local video store on sale for $2.50. I'm not about to pass up a deal like that, so I made my purchase and it sat on my shelf for 4 years now. My first impression was that this was Square's attempt at a Resident Evil. It succeeds a great deal in this with the controls being near identical but some of the game play from the first PE was transported poorly to this game. You have t...

Pokémon is one of Nintendo's money makers. It’s as though they found a Pikachu and then discovered that beyond it being a mouse that shoots electricity, it can also shit money. Piles and piles of money. The series began in 1996 with the release of Red and Blue. 12 years later, it continues as strongly as ever with Diamond and Pearl. I had bought Pearl for Kim earlier in 08, picking up Diamond for myself a few months later. What began was an addiction most refer to as Pokefever. This was the first Pokémon game that either of us had ever played. We didn't expect it to be anywhere as good as it was. Simply put, this series has the RPG down. From the turn based battles to the interactions with people and towns to further the plot, it's all gold. What adds to that is the fact that you need access to both games to complete the Pokedex in your copy. It was an interesting mechanic that made sure Kim and I played together, catching extra Pokémon for one another. We could then use...

I finally played Dirge of Cerberus and was very disappointed to beat it the very next day. This to me was the little game that could, but was riddled with minor things that surmounted to making it only mediocre. As I've stated, I love most anything Final Fantasy, the only major exceptions being Tidus and most of the X story line. But as much as I wanted it to be, this just did not feel like a Final Fantasy. The game play was like a bastard child of Devil May Cry and Star Wars: Battlefront. The controls were almost a direct rip from SWB except they weren't the tight and precise controls I was used to. Even after adjusting the camera speeds to something of my liking, it still felt very sloppy, taking me a few hours to adjust to. Even after the adjustment though, I would still have a difficult time taking multiple enemies. Some elements that were added to the US release, such as a double jump and pulled back camera, felt like Devil May Cry, but you can easily tell they were jus...

I like to consider myself a strong willed person. I'm very skeptical when it comes to movies, not wanting to find myself wishing that I had the last two hours of my life back after watching a particularly awful movie. But there are certain franchises that I'm a slave too, Resident Evil being one of them. By no means am I a fanatic, I don't collect every action figure (though I tried...) and I resisted the venomous hooks of the shooters and ports. But when I saw that a CG film was in the works, a film that should by all rights make up for the atrocious live action films, I nearly wet my pants with excitement. I still don't know how I blocked out all the flaws of the CG cutscenes in the games. RE: D is a cash in, short and simple. Capcom looked past the innovation of the brilliant RE4 to pull the rotting horse carcass out of the closet to bludgeon it some more. The trailer was misleading, it gave an exciting look at a new scenario, an airport. This is a classic horror m...

Before this game came out, the last time I had heard of Ghostbusters was 15 years ago. Still, I felt an odd tinge of excitement as one of my childhood joys was coming back. Kim came home with this gem, and that night I was reintroduced to Egon, Venkmen, Stantz, and Winston. When I started playing, I hadn't seen the movies in roughly 10 years, so there was plenty I was missing. The game is full of nods and winks to fans of the movies, from the dialogue to the various artifacts you find sprinkled throughout the game. This didn't stop me from enjoying the game immensely though. From the story to the game play and voice acting, everything is top notch and polished to a level rarely seen. Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd took up the pen once more to finish their masterpiece trilogy. The entire original cast has reprised their roles to make the voice acting top notch. The story starts off simply, much like the movies. You play as the new ghostbuster whose job is testing the experime...

I've been putting this one off for a long time now. I picked this little gem of a game the day it came out, March 25th. This review is long overdue and has plagued me since I finished the game months ago. Starting off, CC is an amazing game, hands down. There are so many elements that drew me in and very little that kept me at bay. For those of you that don't know the story, you play as Zack Fair, the legendary SOLDIER that inspired Cloud to live his life the way he did during Final Fantasy VII. Zack is a 2nd class member of SOLDIER eager to move his way up to 1st with the likes of his heroes Angeal and Sephiroth. Along the way, they find that another member of SOLDIER, Genesis (Guy Le Douche) has gone renegade and taken a small army of SOLDIER operatives with him. It's up to Zack to uncover why and try to bring said army back to Shinra. CC is a prequel to the events of FF VII and fills in all the gaps, leaving no questions unanswered. I wasn't a huge fan of FF VII m...

Every game reviewer has a gimmick, something that they're known for. The only one that I have is that I try not to buy shitty games. Well, you can't win them all. Long before I had the 360, there was a game that I wanted. The art design had sucked me in, and even though I had no idea what it was about, I had to buy it. Books and their covers... The game was Bullet Witch and I finally bought it for $14. It's worth about $2, and that's only for the DVD it was burned on. The setting is as bland as it could get. Demons have been unleashed on the world, decimating the human population to the point of near extinction. There are pockets of resistance fighters who live underground and generally get their asses kicked. You play as Alicia, a witch with great power and amnesia. The story is incredibly forced, the voice acting kept at a monotone level, and the game full of dull gray/brown rubble. You start in a stereotypical suburb that is under siege by said demons. After plo...

Well, now that the NDA has been lifted, I can bring you an in depth look at my new crack pony. She’s something else, yet strangely familiar. Depending on what nerdy circles you stay in, you’ve either been tracking this game for years (like myself), or you’ve heard nothing about it. For those not in the loop, Aion is the “new” (it’s been out in Korea for a year) MMO from NC Soft. Finally given a release date of September 22, this game is banking heavily on its graphics, but will that be enough to dethrone reigning king WoW? Like I’ve said before, Aion touts about their supreme graphics all the time. They have reason to; it’s a gorgeous game. From the incredibly detailed character models to the lush and vibrant world, this is the most visually stunning MMO out there. There’s a catch 22 to that though, the more visually stunning a game is, the better a computer you’ll need to run. The big draw to WoW is that any goon can play it with an off the shelf computer. With Aion, Kim and I had ...