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Join sisters NinJaSistah and Pandalicious and the rest of the ESH Crew each day as they discuss video games, tech gadgets, anime, manga... pretty much everything within the geek chic lifestyle.

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    Santa Packs Are Coming

    posted @ 11/30/2009 08:05:00 AM by Ninjasistah
    Shoppamas is upon is folks, as in-escapable as new podcast episode Monday here in the land of ESH.

    In this episode of the podcast NinjaSistah and Pandalicious are joined by Xenocore to share with you some of our best of picks of what to gift the Geek/Gamer/Anime Fan in your life. Pandalicious kicks off the hour talking both games and gadgets including Skullcandy headphones and earbuds for both audiophiles and gamers on the go. Then Panda shares her pick for family fun sharing-time goodness, Lego RockBand, and for the competitive gamer Demon Souls on the PS3 and Modern Warfare 2 which is multiplatform. Her section of the show ends with Activisions' DJ Hero

    Then NinJaSistah springs into action championing the Sony PS3 Slim, Ion DrumRocker Drum Kit, The Beatles: RockBand, 1 Year XBox Live Gold Membership, EA's The Saboteur, Uncharted 2 and inFAMOUS on the PS3, Rhythm Heaven and Scribblenauts on the Nintendo DS. Should you have a friend or loved one with a PSP, she even has a few gift suggestions for them including Little Big Planet, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Tetris.

    Xenocore bats clean-up topping off the hour with Assassin's Creed 2, Retro Game Challenge, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Symphonia of the Night, and any title by BioWare. [Mass Effect y'all] And then, for the anime lover [or emerging one] Full Metal Panic and Cowboy Bebop.

    It's a damn dense hour, and we will be brining you more shopping advice, purchasing deals, and more as the month goes on. It's a great hour, so grab a frosty beverage and enjoy ElectricSistaHood podcast episode 174: Christmas — It's Like Crack for Kids

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    Nintendo Bulks Up the DSi

    posted @ 11/04/2009 11:11:00 AM by Pandalicious

    Bigger doesn't always mean better...

    We have all experienced the mundane phenomenon of fads and trends. One day something is the talk of the town, the next week it isn’t. Apply this to any facet of industry and you have an equation to predict the rise and fall of profit. Take the proverbial trend of thin VS fat.

    At the beginning of time, big or fat things were at the top of society, having a larger woman was a sign of wealth. Needless to say nowadays that isn’t the common practice. Electronics were looked at in the very same way. Back before flat screens and slim DVD players, hardware was big and space taking. Having them present in a room brought attention to them. Those who didn’t have it wanted it, and those who had it wanted it bigger. After a while someone, most likely a “have not” created the exact same appliance/electronic made it smaller and its fashion sense caught on. Thus the trend was born.

    So why bring this up now in the age of slimmer faster products that are essentially Gods in their own right? Nintendo seems to be at it again testing the market to see what they can entice us into buying this holiday season. With that said though who isn’t?

    Nintendo has announced the Nintendo DSi was getting a makeover. Apparently the word makeover essentially means: bigger casing and the addition of more letters to its name. Nintendo soon released a photo depicting said difference…and this said difference is size and two letters. Lets take a look shall we? Go ahead take a look; I’ll give you a moment.

    So now the question is…how big is it? Well the rumor mill churned the idea of the screens being at an estimated 4.2’’inches. Apparently this hand held isn’t exactly targeted to the younger members of the fan base. That’s right guys; this is being marketed to the older crowd. Isn’t it obvious that they are implying that older people need bigger screens because they don’t see so well? Whats an insult Nintendo, apologize right now.

    All kidding aside though, the screens and the casing aren’t the only things being beefed up: so is the stylus. I mean look at the size of that thing. But like all things Nintendo, when you get one thing you most likely are losing something useful.

    If you have been a Nintendo hand held fan you are aware of how easy transferring data from one DS to another DS is…well was. When the shift went from DS to DSi, it rendered Game boy Advance libraries useless. So what can Nintendo take away from us now if we opt for this newer DSi LL? The answer is your previously downloaded content. All those “awesome” (Note the parentheses) Wii Ware titles you’ve bought that are stored on your DSi cannot be transferred to the new one. Well thank you Nintendo for adding more stress to our lives.

    At least for the time being this is only being made available over in Japan. However who is to say it won’t make its away around the world? No one.

    There is a plus side though; the new DSi LL does offer 3 hours of battery life before having to be rushed to an outlet for a charge. This battery life seems to be parallel to that of the DS Lite. Regardless I don’t know how beneficial that will be to a fan base that Nintendo perceives are half blind.

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    Butter Churns Make Ladies Smile

    posted @ 9/07/2009 12:39:00 AM by evermore
    Whether you're going back to school, back to work or back to the unemployment line, you're going to get something good out of this episode of the ElectricSistahood podcast.

    Pandalicious kicks it all off with a rant about lousy Swiss Gear bags and delivers advice on three much better choices: Scuba Design, booqbags.com and bbpbags.com. Then she and NinjaSistah discuss the good and bad points of the various portable gaming options available out there.

    The Ninja carries on the discussion, talking about computer applications to help you get things done: OmniFocus, Hit List and Remember the Milk. She also highlights a company -- mimoco.com -- that says not all thumb drives have to be dull and boring. She concludes with advice on how to get a big screen TV on the cheap, and how to get great computer applications absolutely free.

    It's an episode filled with double entendres, as you can see from the list of rejected titles:

    For All Freshmen Who Can't Spell "Book"

    It's a Book Bag That'll Get You a Date on Friday Night

    It Would Be Dangerous to Bring ESHmom to Psychology Class

    This Bag Solves the Housing Problem on Campus

    Amish Girls Gone Wild? They Are Experienced With Butter Churns

    What If Your TA Has Really Good T&A?

    If You Find a Girl Who Can Fill Out Your Porn Collection, Marry Her

    It's full of laughs and, unlike your first week back at school, you're going to learn a little along the way. Enjoy Episode 162: Google Cocks Is Coming (That's So Wrong).

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    DSi Discussion: The World Ends With You

    posted @ 8/19/2009 02:37:00 PM by Pandalicious

    All the world needs is me...




    The world of the interwebs is well aware of my intimate love/lust relationship with Square Enix,so it should be of no surprise that I would be interested in a game by the name of The World Ends With You. We experience a different approach to the RPG category. In this game, we are not transported to a different time in history or into a realm of fantasy. For once the setting is modern time. It is modern day Tokyo, which is the epicenter of fashion trends, culture and the end...of the world?

    This doesn't seem to make sense during the opening sequence of this game. The world isn't fashioned after every apocalypse or post apocalypse game. It allows us to see that the end of world as we know it doesn't necessarily involve explosions, natural disasters or political schemes gone crazy.

    In The World Ends with You, you play Neku. In my opinion he is every EMO character we have encountered in all of the Square Enix RPG's to date. However you have to make him at the age that in Japan where it is alright to let him out into the real world. [Which we all know is 10 and above] For my sake I will say that he is about about 14 or 15 years old. He is overflowing with boyish angst and attitude which if you didn't have a younger brother or were ever male can lead you to find him EXTREMELY ANNOYING!

    As always, he has no idea who he is (besides his name)where he is(which is Tokyo), and why there are frogs with tribal markings all over them, beating the ever-loving crap outta him! This game wastes no time throwing the basic mechanics at you. Keep in mind that the game uses both screens of the Nintendo DS. While one character is in one zone the other character is in a completely different one. They both share the same amount of HP so you have to be aware what is going on at all times! Controlling Neku isn't very hard at all; his abilities are simple movements of your stylus across the touch screen. Shiki is a little more difficult as her abilities are linked to the directional pad [or the letter buttons for lefties!][Note: If you new to the Nintendo DS world then be warned that the combat system may appear unfamiliar to you. Frustration and anger are common emotions to encounter...especially with new games.]

    Pairings are very common in RPG land, so no sooner do you learn how to move do you meet your first party member, Shiki. Now, she is very ditsy in the beginning. She pretty much brow beats you to make a pact with her [No she isn't Satan.....as far as I know] and once you've signed your name in blood *cough* I mean agree to the pact, you are forever partners. She throws a lot information at you, which as Neku you dismiss because you have the hugest chip on your shoulder. [What else is new?!]

    The premise of the game's story is as follows: Neku, Shiki and several others are called Players. Each of them have pins that grant them special powers *IF* they are wearing them [Note: Make sure to Equip pins from the start...unlike me who did not] Once players have been selected they are notified that they have to survive this "game" for seven days. As a price for being a player the most important thing of value to you is taken away. If you win, you get it restored to you, if you don't... well don't get it back and your right to exist is taken too. That's right! You don't just die...but your existence gets completely wiped out...but no pressure...its only a game.

    This leads me to believe that Neku valued his life more than anything, which is why he doesn't remember a gosh darn thing! Shiki's most valued thing is her best friend Eri [Hmmm now I know what you are thinking, and I thought the exact same thing too but no, they are really friends...The type of friends who loved each other and did everything together, maybe even made out once or twice..OK I'm sorry...back to the game =(]

    So we have our protagonist and his band of prepubescent followers and as for the antagonists we have Reapers. They are people who also have special abilities. They can erase players and Noises [Which are the beast like monsters you fight to save the world.] It is the Reapers job to set up missions for the players along with a time limit in which to complete the given task. If players do not do this in time the reapers get to erase them. However they are only allowed to give one mission a day, and if they do not erase a certain amount of players they themselves get erased. It is truly a dog eat dog world in this RPG.

    Now, if you are a fan of games like Kingdom Hearts then the animation style will be very appealing to you. Neku resembles Sora only, taller, thinner and A LOT more EMO. Shiki kind of looks like a very slutty version of Kairi...and I haven't seen a Riku look-a-like yet but that doesn't mean he doesn't exist! [He better exist dammit!]

    Another positive in this game, would be it's soundtrack. It is very Tokyo urban which is very catchy to the ear. I plan to get all the songs for this soundtrack, I swear the game and music industry have a great thing going on here! I can hardly wait to get fully immersed into this game. I aim for this to be the first DS game that I play completely through. Wish me all luck, or else the world will end....with me....

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    DSi Disscussion: Hotel Dusk Room 215

    posted @ 8/12/2009 07:22:00 AM by Pandalicious



    an ex cop with a dark past...
    an unexplained mystery....
    an internal/external epic battle of wit between two foes...
    Sounds like a novel...and it is....

    As a little girl, I always thought I would be a writer. I didn't want to write love stories or gore infested horror tales. I, with an old soul, always wanted to write suspense-filled, witty, old-fashion detective novels. There is something alluring about a private eye in a low down office, sipping on whiskey waiting for the next case so he can pay his bills and get on with his life. He is always waiting for the next dame... [Maybe it's romantic just to me.] Regardless, I fantasized about detectives and the cases they solved. I miss those kinds of characters in games today... They were a class all their own...until Hotel Dusk:Room 215.


    Who doesn't love a good story? Flipping through the pages of a captivating book is far more pleasurable then tediously reading the same line over and over again in a book that holds no value. The same can be said about video games. A gamer will invest a great deal more time in a game with a great story, than one that lacks in creativity and development. So with that logic stamped into our brains, why not bring a novel into the gaming world?

    In this DSi interactive novel game, you play as Kyle Hyde, a former member of the NYPD. After a case goes horribly wrong he goes M.I.A., which means he runs away. He runs as far as he could and that takes him to California. [Why do they always end up in California?! If I were going to run away from it all I'd go to Hawaii or New Zealand.]
    While living in good old Cali, he works as a door-to-door salesmen, however his job has some kinks in it. He doesn't just sell brushes and combs;he also does detective work on the side. Hyde is still haunted by his past and he is following a scent that he thought ended back in the Hudson River in New York. However, there are holes in the story that he wants filled, and it is our job to help him sort it all out.

    I refuse to spoil this one for you guys simply because, this is the kind of game that, requires you to think for yourself and to use your imagination. However I will warn you, that because this is a novel, there isn't a lot of action going on physically. So if you were hoping to smash hordes of henchmen away with your mighty fists or a magnum revolver than this isn't a game for you. It is heavily text-intensive due to well written dialogue. [which shouldn't surprise you, it's a novel based game!]

    The most interesting thing about Hotel Dusk is the animation of the characters. The technique is called rotoscoping, which is a technique where animators trace over live action. For an advanced look at this look to the movie "A Scanner Darkly" [which subsequently is an intriguing movie! IMO] Granted the process takes a lot of time, but artistically it is worth it!

    Hotel Dusk: Room 215 isn't new by any stretch of imagination...like most games, its initial release was in Japan. It was announced in 2005, however it did not make its official appearance until E3 in 2006. It wasn't released for play until January of 2007. Then in 2008, it was republished as part of the Touch! Generation series. [Just in case you didn't infer this, you have to hold your DSi like a book, and you use your stylus to interact with the people, and objects in the game....just be weary that there will be times where you'll want to just go to your room, and all you will do is knock on your bloody door! *personal experience*]

    I have enjoyed playing the game thus far. I haven't beaten it yet, and I hope that I do not just zip through it either. Hotel Dusk:Room 215 is my vacation away from my achievement gathering on my other consoles [cough cough 360 cough cough] So if you have a DSi then I strongly recommend renting this title and just trying out for yourself. Renting it won't hurt, and in the end if you like it that much it won't hurt your wallet too much. It is priced as 20.99 but we all know you can buy used games for much cheaper at places like amazon.com. So...Check it out and don't you dare say I didn't tell you first! [Unless I obviously didn't]


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