Justin Leeper
@justinleeper.bsky.social
430 followers 140 following 600 posts
The audacity to try has allowed me to wrestle, review, tour, perform, write & create for a living. Mostly game, lift, and hang w/partner & cat in free time. 日本語でも
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Amped 3 was great fun!
Perfect Dark was…um. Erm. Ugh.
I remember that! Got it for under $15, which didn’t happen much back then.
And blocked. They’re now blocked. Cuz anyone who’ll open the door for vampires and Nazis, I want to keep out of my neighborhood.
As much as I went on to become a champion of hidden gems like King’s Bounty, Amplitude, and Space Griffon; I kinda stuck with the mainstream NES stuff.
Didn’t realize the link went to the whole issue. Which had dual cover stories, including Spider-Man 2. Which I also wrote.
Was a busy month for me, that one. Then, only 2 yrs later, I’d be living just a few miles from the Activision offices.
People who’ve never been without it don’t realize how novel “online” was to us when it was first becoming a thing. The wealth of information and communication was attractive to almost everyone.
More than Cena, with his square jaw and leading-man experience?
Plus, yellow trench > jorts.
Funny when I pop up in random posts. This is when Neversoft used their early face-scan tech to put me in Tony Hawk’s Underground as a skater for the Game Informer cover story I wrote.
tony hawk's underground, magazine screenshots, ps2 (2003) archive.org/details/ops-...
The amount of bands I saw first on B&B and went on to love is shocking:
GWAR
Rollins Band
Butthole Surfers
Pizzicato Five

I’m sure there are many more, but like, that’s a big list for me.
I was blown away by KISS as a kid. Had their posters, would pantomime guitar with a bat to their albums.
Ace was the true “ace” of the band & their sound. Love how well his solo album sold despite being shoved aside by “leading” members.
Didn’t follow him much post-KISS, but his legacy is legendary.
Yes! I played a ton of each of those!
Forgot how much I liked the fish one, which reminded me of Fish Dude on Game Boy.
Reminds me of how I figured out a while ago that the Phoenix Suns logo is the same upside down.
And they even let Sony catch up after PS3’s huge launch stumbles - thanks to strong first-party games/exclusives like Uncharted 2, TLOU, R&C, MGS4…
Shout out to @kohler.bsky.social, who wrote that and got me a bunch of work at Wired during my 4 yrs as a freelancer.
I just now remembered the US box art for DOA2 Hardcore, which featured none of the hot women on it who were that series’ calling card - or anything, really.
Itagaki-san was a one-of-a-kind creative, especially in Japan.
Taken way too soon.
I got to cover Itagaki-san & his games as a journalist, and I was at THQ whilst they were funding Devil’s Third (I got to see a prototype).
Many of his former team also worked on Wanted: Dead, which I did mocap on.
One OK Rock put on One Awesome Rock show!
Please, guys: Get someone who speaks Japanese to translate these. Machine translation of Japanese to English is abysmal.
My Japanese is good; my wife is literally Japanese and would help easily.
I can’t really control help how old I am… how many hairs are on my head or wrinkles on my face.
I’m grateful I can sit here and lift heavy things then put them down, and my body responds.
If only I were so dedicated in other aspects or my life. But sometimes, just lifting weights is enough.
8 arms to hold you near my heart

(Song from deleted Goonies scene)
Ugh. Region locking blu-Ray has to purely be a greed thing. PAL/NTSC are not a thing anymore.
Guessing it’s another XX chipset Anbernic device, which means 3DS is a no-go.
Still cool and maybe they’ll make a later one with a better chipset - at least using the T820 they include in many of their Android devices.
Only drag is that UK PS5 only plays UK region. If I want to watch my pre-UK discs, I gotta bust out the PS4.
I only beat IV in recent years. It was…good. Without save states? No chance.
Symphony is a top-10 all time to me.
Dawn of Sorrow is higher on my least now after replaying via Dominus Collection.
Coming full circle:

-Quit Disney Plus
-Bought several Simpsons box sets (still have lots in US)
-Ordered peak South Park seasons
-Bought the whole Futurama series on Apple TV for $20

Remember how promising streaming was at first? What a downfall…