Nizbel's Blog of Interest

Killer Plants!

2009-10-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

Boo! Bwahahaha! Grr! Rawr! Gary Busey! ARGH!

Now that's I've got the scares out, you're ready to endure a onslaught of scary movie monsters! I'm here to count down a bunch of movie monsters by category. First category is Killer Plants! I don't know till what I'll count down to; I think till I run out of monsters, memory, categories and my mortal life. I think I''ll keep it running till after halloween to strecht out the fun times, since everyone has been doing for the last week. Now lets get this started!

Pod People

Yes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers! I always loved those silly pod people taking over bodies only to drone about endlessly taking over the world. I wanted something more plant like but I couldn't think of anything else really, and nobody likes lists of 4, that's simply unnatural. Best defense against these weeds? Well hard to say exactly, Jeff Goldblum wasn't a full life saving capacity in the 70's and early 80's, he wasn't able to stop a plant invasion nor a fly mutation. So its nearly impossible to say the best defense he didn't learn how to defend against dinosaurs or create a virus for an alien mothership yet. If he would to have a rematch today he would of promplty kicked their ass in a screaching battle; 2 hours of Jeff Goldblum and a pod person screaching contest? best movie ever or best ever ever? Let Jeff Goldblum decide.

Biollante

Descendant (kinda) of the badass himself, Godzilla. True man might be the true monster from messing with god and creating this abomination, but the creation is still the giant city destroying monster here. With the constant tampering of Godzillas radioactive DNA (I miss the days where radiation could do whatever the hell you wanted) scientists crated this mosnter from studying the supernatural properties of a rose. Best Defense against this rose? Fucking Godzilla.

Killer Tomatoes

I fucking hate tomatoes. I don't like tomatoes on anything I eat really, sure maybe paste or something because then it can jump on you. My dad grows tomatoes in our garden, which I keep telling him to destroy them all. He always responds "You simply haven't eaten a good tomato yet" and I keep responding "You simply haven't had a tomato kill you...yet...". Best defense against this vegetable somehow parading as fruit? Angsty teen love music! I think? Whatever catch one and put your Ipod in shuffle and see what'll kill it.

Triffids

Now these are the bad boys here, from Day of the Triffids. They frikin wait or appear at the same time something appear to blind more than 99% of the world. When that happens they wobble endlessly shooting poison at people, and no they don't eat them immediatly they wait till they frikin decompose, ya know because of the lack of mouth and everything. Its juste a giant waiting game for these guys. Best defense? Walking away and anything thicker than a bed sheet to stop the spitting poison.

Audry II

Now here's the king of all the plant monsters, from Little Shops of Horrors! He doesn't muck around with one talent, he uses every horror aspect, he's a killer plant who messes with your head to get you to kill people, oh and he's a mean green mother from outerspace bent on world domination. Not to mention his amazing singing voice. Best defense? hard to say I haven't see the original version, but I have seen the movie musical version and he is destroyed. But the irky detail is that in the original version of the musical he multiplies and takes over the world and seems nearly invincible. So if you can't beat em' join em'

Mega Monday : Captain N

2009-10-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

There was this short lived show that came in a little bit before my time, but I still caught of bunch of random clips and stuff from the internet. From those clips which include most of time the internet mocking every single aspect of it, I came to the conclusion that it really really does suck. So thats the story of Captain N the Gamemaster forever remembered for butchering almost every all while whoring them out. The premise is simply taking all the most popular video game characters from the time and shove them into one show (like I said, all the while raping each of their respective personalities)

There's Simon Belton from Castlevania which was butchered the most out of all but Megaman was a prominent figure of the shows running and he wasn't exactly treated justly either. Surprisingly Dr.Wily is the most accurate depictions of any characters in the show, an evil Einstein which is bent on world domination.

I can understand that you can't get much personality out of the games because Megaman never does say much or even determining the look of him can be hard, the box arts proved us that many times. Now this is simply ridiculous they didn't even get his color right, I mean his nickname is the Blue Bomber and yet you don't even make him blue. FAIL.
They kinda got his size from the 8-bit version, but the green and the visors, whats that? Now I don't really want to get into the personality because there was nothing to base it upon, but they could of done something better. He has this coarse annoying voice and he's a little angsty about being a robot as opposed to a man. Really nothing really meshes with the awesomeness he's supposed to be. But there is one part which is even more confusing; so MegaGirl comes bursting into the scene and she's all over Megaman but he turns her down with the good ol' "I'm not a man" (aka: u ugly).

Yeah thats right Megaman, you got 99 robot masters and a bitch ain't one.

...

Mega Mondays : Megaman 5

2009-10-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've missed what? Two Mega Mondays in a row? Meh, I guess I'm not fully committed to it yet, I probably could of cranked something out but got some priorities straight for a change. Not only speaking Mega Mondays but in the last weeks I've not been home much and in result not posting anything, mostly staying in town late to save some gas money, double trips are highly frowned upon. So in a way, I've not been that much busy but since I stayed in town it never let me post things from home, not helping that my Sundays and especially Mondays have been really busy, which is usually when I write my Mega Mondays. Whatever, it won't get any better in the next month.

Now Megaman 5! I fired up the game, and realized that after the fourth Megaman Original I don't have that much experience with the rest of the series. After 3 I would say that the population kinda forgets about the rest, don't exactly know why but they just do, even regarding them a inferior iterations of the series. Having less experience of the game made me realize that games can still physically and mentally kick my ass, not sure if by aging you lose some of your skills or that I just had more patience when I was young but the game continually kicked my ass. I will admit that some are harder but this one caught me on a bad day or something.
This game I found that it is highly underrated! They cranked out again an amazing looking game, constant changing backgrounds depending on the levels, and the boss sprites especially look to have more depth to them, they don't look as flat as they did in the older games, especially Star and Wave Man. As for Megaman he hasn't changed, apart from a fancier charge up shot he's still small and blue. I'm also really glad that they found decent powers for the Robot Masters, sure there GyroMan in this one but he's the only relatively lame one in the game, and his battle is actually fun.Where the game really shines is in, the perfect execution of Megaman's sliding ability. The level is perfectly designed so you have to use this to progress, not only this but it speeds up the game quite considerably. I'm all for speedier gameplay by choice (why I was majorly disappointed at Brawl!), and the slide technique does exactly this. Enemies seem to shoot and attack in way that you are able to dodge them easier by sliding, same effect from some obstacles, sure some can be dodge without it but its a little harder. I really digged the boss battles in this one, they really come all out towards you, so you need speed to get away and counterattack.
One little thing that bugs me is the story, which started the whole Protoman is evil gig. So this time it isn't Dr. Wily and his Robot Masters, its Protoman and his robot masters. Once again, no it isn't Dr.Wily made a Protoman clone and attacked, you kinda get some hints during the game that it isn't him but whatever nobody gives a damn. The funny thing is about video game stories is that, if you do have a good one, you will be praised, but if you don't you will get "video games don't need stories".Overall, it was really refreshing stepping into this one, didn't expect much from it, my memories seemed to have deceived me. Really it deserve more praise than it gets, although I know for a fact that it will soon all go downhill.

Alternative Metal Media

2009-09-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

I really love that the metal appeal is continually growing and making it into more and more media, the more recent one would be Tim Schafer's newest masterpiece Brutal Legend, which pleases me more and more each time I see it. Combining Metal and Video games to create this epic world featuring voices from Metal Gods like Lemmy and Ozzy and some equally amazing people like Jack Black and Tim Curry. I'm super exited for this game to come out, and theres just about less than a month now until release. Even more impressive is the set list, they really got some big names into there. I'm especially exited that 3 Inches of Blood is featured in there, they deserve that extra exposure, and the fact that I'll be seeing them live around the same time the games come out is badass. Plus one of personal favorite bands is also going to be in the set list, which is Iced Earth, I was pumped when I heard one of their songs in one of Jack Black's teasers for the game. Sadly I haven't seen much Power Metal love in the style of the game, but granted I do admit that 50% of it ripped out of Tolkien. Still the style the team worked up is still very similar to some of the stuff the Heavy Metal magazine has been doing for quite some time, also disappointing is the weird ambiguous description of Death Metal, but I'm nitpicking seems more than enough original.

Actually Metal hasn't been very present in video games much. The first recollection was maybe the Twisted Metal soundtracks, which had some Rob Zombie and Gamma Ray, but even there it was very limited (and Rob Zombie was on every frikin soundtrack in the 90's anyways). First game that really impressed me with some Metal and showed massive effort was Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

It featured some gothic style already implanted from the first games of course, so it was natural to add a Metal edge to it all. One of my favorite games of all time (well it is one of those you need to play if you consider yourself a gamer). One reason for it was the soundtrack, further proving that a games soundtrack is essential for success. A unique blend of this very Symphonic Metal, with elements of gothic rock, some neo-classical stuff and little bit of electronic elements. Of course it would depend on which area you were traversing and it would change to more classical sound or jazzy, still the Metal as clearly dominant. Another example would be the more recent Sacred 2, which featured an awesome new track from Blind Guardian. The game itself is quite average, but still very enjoyable, and overly cheesy. Still having a new track (first in like 4 years!) from the forefathers of Power Metal is amazing.

There's also been a very very small burst of Metal Comics coming our way, which is leading to rumors and talks of future prospects soon heading to the drawing boards. In a way I think that Guitar Hero has placed music, especially rock and metal, in the mainstreams eyes. Now people are interested in the Metal universe a bit more, even so much that Activision sued Brutal Legend over the fear that it would be too much competition against their rhythm game. Now the first thing close to Metal Comics that I know of is again the magazine Heavy Metal, but that's not exactly a comic is it.Above is Iced Earth's album The Dark Saga, which features some very cool artwork from Todd McFarland. Iced Earth is all about concept albums, you find them releasing random songs with no correlation to each other. This concept is in fact a retelling of Spawn, so they borrow elements from Spawn and make this incredible album out of it. I didn't even realize it was about Spawn until a friend who is a huge Spawn fan pointed it out to me. After that Iced Earth got more and more interested into making a comic on their music, more specifically a story about their Mascot Dos Abomine which was created for their album "Something Wicked this Way Comes". Never really happened but they did increase more and more to their Something Wicked storyline, they did part II and there are talks of making it into a trilogy. Iced Earth is a little more Thrash than Power so they're slaying priest as opposed to slaying dragons, but that's still cool.Exodus jumped the gun first tho with their recent announcement of their new comic. The story line and premise sounds totally cheesy and idiotic, also features some weird talents, someone from Debbie Does Dallas if I understand correctly? Wtf. Still Exodus is a big thrash name and is understandable they got a deal. There is also Dimmu Borgir which got a comic adaptation as well, another style completely and I`m even less interested in it. Seems like its only the band members stroking their egos in comic form, saving the world from violence with even more violence. We will all have to see how it`ll all turn out, because we barely have any information out right now.

Reminds me of Metalocalypse, a show that takes satirical look on Metal. It is clearly made for metal fans, but I can see non-fans enjoy this is as well, the humor is still there. I simply love this show way too much, I urge anyone to watch it or at least try it out. I haven`t seen it all yet so I won`t talk about it much.

Fun fact, while all being exited a while back about Brutal Legend and their album cover inspired world, I was looking at Iron Maiden`s Somewhere in Time and spotted a TARDIS! Neat! Also finally going to able to watch more Dr.Who. Sadly the streams and torrent weren`t reliable as I thought.

Mega Mondays : Mega Metal

2009-09-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Since on a metal roll, might as well bring in the Mega Monday into it. Megaman has always been defined in way of music, his japanese name is Rockman his dog might be paying tribute to the band Rush, later characters like Bass and Tremble bring in some more clear musical references. But the original series does kind of bring out more of a rock pop vibe simply because they were quite limited with all the bleeps and the bloops; they surprisingly did something incredible with those limitations. But for people with a metal tuned ear you do spot a few nods here and there, for example Flash Man`s stage music has this deep resemblance to Metallica’s Seek and Destroy and even more have some references to Guns and Roses.

As the series evolved, especially during the X series shift, the music evolved with it. They had a better sound chips that came with the Super Nintendo, even there you can tell it wasn`t enough for what they wanted. Inside these great tunes, there are moments that you can feel that it`s itching to lose those synthetic sounds and break out into a real Guitar Solo. I continually hear some Speed Metal influence in that music, which is perfectly natural because ath the time while America was into Thrash and Heavy Metal, Japan was into Speed and Power Metal.

Another part proving my personal theory was in fact the 2.5D remake of Megaman X on the PSP. With the power of the PSP they could do virtually anything they wanted music wise, and it shows! They remixed all the tracks into this more rock and metal sound, featuring blazing guitars, badass drums and of course a few synthesizers. Sadly the new series didn`t pick up speed as hoped and the fate of future remakes are still hanging in the developers hands.

The music and the realization of the metal influences of Megaman still resonates on the internet. There are basically millions of Megaman Metal covers on Youtube. Me and my friend continually send each some praise worthy clips which join my bookmarks from time to time. There is also this surpassingly amazing Mega Man Metal on myspace(reminding me of the Metroid Metal which came out some time ago); only about 4 songs but it is made of concentrated badassry and awesome. Sadly it isn`t at even 500 views yet, we are trying to give a little more exposure in any way we can.

I still can`t figure out if Megaman would still been as successful if it didn`t feature some of the coolest video game music out there.

http://www.myspace.com/megamanmetalrocks ----Check it out!

Metal!

2009-09-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

You cannot kill the metal, even if you manage to injure the metal it will simply bleed into something more. Me being a metal head and I'm super exited for having in my hand a ticket for Slayer, Megadeth and Machine Head, also hopefully getting my ticket for 3 Inches of Blood soon, and I've been thinking about solely metal in the last few days.

So I'm doing a themed week to give me some motivation for posting more and because I decided to give another go, my last themed week didn't go quite as planned but it panned out quite good. Since I know my habits and don't quite know my schedule, I'll just be saying that It'll be mostly metal posts for the next week or so. First off I'll talk about my metal concert experiences, although scarce they're still present. There never used to be any big concerts that came my way the closest was still pretty far away, usually involving quite an expensive trip. Like I said for the lack of Metal acts coming my way the closest Metal capitol was Québec. Now in recent years seems that has changed more and more are coming my way and I'm really happy for that, although one of my fellow metallers is kinda disappointed now that he's moved away (his loss!).

I followed a few local shows here and there, nothing actually good mostly some garage band making noise and not music. A lot of failed death growls mostly; yes there is a technique it isn't just screaming very loud! Always was little awkward at first because I don't fit in the metal type, I don't play or look the part really most of my fellow metallers told me "No, you just look like a regular guy who listens to regular music), but hey you can't choose what you like do you. After having a bitter taste of those small gigs and mosh pits kinda got lame quick when most of people were solely there for small pits.

Still, after that I wanted something better, something more professional and more specifically I wanted something in my preferred genre; Power Metal. So after quite sometime actually, I randomly noticed that both Helloween and Gamma Ray (Two of my personal favorites) were coming to Montreal. The catch was it was in 2 days, so I jokingly said to my friends "haha we should take a bus and go". Next morning we were on the bus to Montreal. My friend called up a cousin who lived there so we would have a place to stay, ordered tickets online, felt all like a blur really and before we knew it, we were there. Iced Earth was also coming to the same venue (coincidentally an improv league played there too, but I was the only one who was intrested) two days after the first show, we though of staying but we had uni/college and such to attend. Still Iced Earth is one show I need to see before I die.

So we hung out around town for quite sometime because we arrive in town like 5 AM and the show was at 9 or something. We decided to go to the venue early (7 hours early) which was a good idea because we were ones first in line. It was awesome, both the tour buses were on the side of building so we went to check and some of the band members came out and meet some of the fans, I shook a few hands and admired from up close (even God himself!). Didn't have anything for them to sign but that's quite alright I'm not big into memorabilia, mental image is more than enough. Perk of being ahead in line was being able to be in front row against the barricade during the show.

Show started and the crowed was anxious because it started a little late, but when Kai Hansen (aka God) came to the stage and spoke in French, you would not believe how much that pumped up the crowd, especially that he spoke it flawlessly. Show got started few feet away form the band, music a blasting and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Playlist continually surprised me and it was amazing. Both bands were great, although Gamma Ray was little better I would say. But in the end they played and encore together of their signature song for both bands "I Want Out", such a deep history between those two Power Metal giants that only a fan would understand and appreciate. An experience that I'll never forget, still another 6 bands I need to see, and of course Wacken Open Air.

Youtubes of the show if anyone want to see, I think I can see my first left side from time to time ,hard to tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzuQAi0aB5w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOMajvC-2-g

Mega Mondays : Tuesday Edition!

2009-09-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

One of my fans regrettably said that I ruined his Monday. For him it extended his enjoyment so much that he felt like it was an extra weekend day, and as an consequence made his Tuesdays (which he used to enjoy) that much less enjoyable. Now since I'm an ok guy, I decided to cater to this one person and the rest of the similar demographic with a Tuesday edition of Mega Mondays, so those people can ease themselves into thinking that mondays are fun. It's going to be hard but this is for you guys! So without further interruptions Megaman 4!
This is sadly where the Megaman series peaks in a way. Most would say that the original series peaked at two and the rest are good as well, but Megaman 4 is the last truly good original megaman until quite sometime after that. The rest are ok and some really do suck but that's all fine we still have the first 4.I fell like I'm repeating myself but they truly do keep upgrading the graphics per game. Again they upgrade a lot, especially the backgrounds and scenery, because with the power of the NES is was one of the only things you could update. As for Megaman himself he still looks exactly the same, but his enemies are more and more fun, look at the purple hippo on a pedestal above! Graphics and animations won't change much until Megaman 7 and the X series, so I'll stop with that.
One thing that I did truly enjoy was the level design, they really put some effort so you can't exploit it negatively as much as the other series. But with this comes some cuts; the Rush upgrades are now less powerful so you can't exploit certain areas anymore, which is kinda annoying (Rush Jet simply goes forward now). With this gives some new challenges, there is one part in the final castle where you NEED the Rush Jet to get trough and it is quite challenging since it can only go straight. Another aspect which is really fun is the moving floors the added, Toad Man's stage has these water flows with constantly push you off and Pharaoh Man has quick sand so you need to continually jump, and this one cool point where you jump on a enemy grasshopper so you can traverse the one hit kill ridden floor. Sure these are gaping video game cliché, but still fun nonetheless. One thing this new level design brings is the difficult amped up a bit, replaying the games recently I realize how this game is harder than 3 and 2.

One thing that everyone notices in this game is the lameness of the Bosses, they're hyper lame. Toad Man, Bright Man, Ring Man, Dust Man, Dive Man but Skull Man and Pharaoh Man saves this a little bit. With lame robot masters comes lame power up, most of them a replicas from former games anyways, like Skull Man is a replica of Wood Man, and as for Pharaoh Man's weapons it does look cool (one of my personal favorites in coolness factor) but it doesn't do anything too special. Still with the introduction of the Mega Buster which lets you charge you're shot so it equals three single bullets, it's more than compensation for the lame power ups.
Oh almost forgot that kinda almost placed a plot and new villain in this one. So Dr.Cossack after having a year of peace, decides that Megaman and Dr. Light are overshadowing the genius of his own creations (lol Dust Man), so he decides to attack the city! Ok so same exact plot as the first three games, but wait! It wasn't Dr. Cossack at all! He was being forced because Dr.Wily kidnapped the Doctors daughter Kalinka! Wait that still means Dr.Wily wanted credit for the likes of Dust Man, Ring Man and crew... OH DEAR GOD, PULITZER AWARD NOW, It involves so much sociological aspects of Dr.Wily!

Mega Mondays : Megaman 3

2009-09-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

The third installment of the series comes rolling in from the huge hype of the Megaman 2, and it sure doesn't disappoint. It's one of my personal favorites of the series. Again story isn't explained at all; Dr.Wily is evil, giant robot gamma and you need to collect crystals or something. You do have a scene where Megaman converses with Dr.Light but even there it isn't much.
They do add a few new characters to the series, first off being Rush, your robotic dog! He serves as adding more personality to your platforms upgrade they added in the Sequel, which is kind of fun having your dog transform in a jet, boat or spring. The problem with this mechanic again is that it makes the game that much easier, which is a curse and blessing depending on the player. Sure those looking for a challenge could simply not use the Jet Adapter and actually do the jumping puzzle, but it's also a good feeling cheating the level designers. Still fun to use and experiment with but it does feel like a huge handicap. Also to add, Rush is obviously named after the band Rush; the Megaman developers are extremely proud of their rock references by the way.
Another recurring character that they introduce is Protoman. A fan favorite for some reason I never understood it really. Basically Protoman is the well, prototype of Megaman, one of the first versions Dr. Light has built. Now he's back for revenge for being neglected or he might be connected with Dr. Wily somehow. They never explain anything inside the game, all of it is in the instruction booklet, but I don't have the booklet so I'm inventing as I go along. Anyways, he doesn't do much in this game, he appears in key points as his flute theme whistles in and he hops around like an idiot trying to shoot you. He can be taken down with ease after he simply teleports away.
One thing they do continue doing is revamping the visuals, everything is more detailed than the previous title, again this is mostly in the background stuff, which really looks nice. As for the animation, Megaman doesn't change much because, he is pretty limited, but most of the enemies have some pretty good animations and ways of attacking. They could of simply used busters and blasters for enemies attacks but they really put some effort into some original attacking methods, like pole volting robot or the weight trowing one and other Olympic events. They also added some bigger enemies since it was such a awesome feature of the second game, like we see here; Robot Cat shooting plasma yarn!
The last feature which will be a staple for every single iteration is of course; the slide. By simply pressing down and the jump button you preform a slide giving you forward momentum. It adds a new layer of movement, dodging nasties, finding paths and a few other things. Still the first time experimenting and it doesn't apply as well as the next games but still fun to have at your disposal.
This is one of my personal favorite of the Original series. The music isn't as memorable as the second game but the intro theme is still kickass. They're still at the point of original ideas for robot masters and the new weapons still feel fresh and fun to use, but you can feel something declining soon.

Full Metal Alchemist : Brotherhood

2009-09-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you've heard, I probably mentioned it before on my blog, but I'm a huge Full Metal Alchemist fan. The first series kinda rekindled my anime interest at the time, the characters where interesting the story was suspenseful and the world it created was simply awesome. It was kind of a bitter sweet feeling when the series ended, even after they release the movie to wrap up the series even more I still wanted a little more. I found that kind of weird because usually I believe that everything should end milking it never brings anything good to a franchise. Lately there has been the trend of remaking series but more faithful to the manga versions, since well that's where it started. Never completely understood the need for that because I would prefer having two different adaptations as opposed to a single one but in different medias. But I do enjoy that trend at the moment because I don't read any manga.

So one that I'm naturally keeping a close eye on the weekly releases is Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the new adaptation closer to the anime than the first series; from what I hear anyways. Everything is quicker the animation is better and it flows much better without any filler. I find it hard to figure out if it's a huge fan service from the constant online bickering of the community, either way I don't care I get my FMA fix. Although with the first episode, which is like action packed by the way, they kinda throw you into the world in the first second of it, for a first timer I could believe that whole situation could be somewhat confusing. They removed the whole start of the first series instead going for the flashback effect from time to time to be able to piece it all together. But again from someone who has seen the first series of the manga should be able to follow with ease, as for the new comer it could be hard. Still anyone familiar with anime can piece it all together just fine.

The pacing is a double edge sword from what I hear from other people, my group of friends as do I really like it. Things that took the original series 17 episodes to get too, took the new one only 7 episodes. It also keeps surprising me, character development which seems so scarce at first, creeps up and surprise me in later episodes, completely redeeming themselves. Best example would be Barry the Chopper, he was one twisted cross dressing killer in the first series and provided one of my favorite scenes. Then in Brotherhood he seemed like a total comic relief at first but he totally kicked me in the balls afterwards for thinking that. Each characters also seems to peak then overpeak themselves, having multiple Crowning Moments of Awesome. There is one particular, where I come into work and both me and my friend look at each with this dumb grin and simply say, with knowning exactly what we are talking about, "That was the most badass thing I ever saw"

I can't predict where it's either, it's already at episode 21 and I can't see it finish at the regular 26 episodes. The series is building up for something huge, I can see it coming, but I can't predict it. All I know is that there is something huge coming soon, the keep adding more and more new elements to the grand equation of it all and I simply don't see them fit together. Characters haven't been explained their roles yet they're just as important as the rest. It's usually up on sundays so I'm still eagerly waiting this moment refreshing the page every hour or so, can't wait to see what happens next.

Mega Mondays : Cameo Marvel Vs Capcom 2

2009-08-31T03:53:00.000-07:00

I missed the whole Marvel Vs Capcom 2 craze at first, sure I played the heck out of Marvel Vs Capcom 1, but the second installation I completely missed. Kinda ironic because Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is one of those games where the 2 is a part of title for the fanbase and not for the fact that it is the sequel, simply because it is superior than its predecessor. So it's out now to download from the Xbox Live Arcade and from what I hear they haven't changed a thing, which could be good and bad for both ways, somethings have aged badly like the music for example, it doesn't fit anymore.

There a a total of 4 Megaman characters than you can play with, first off is Megaman himself of course, second is his friend (girlfriend?) Roll, third is Tron Bonne from the Legend series and finally a generic Serverbot (they are the Mets of the Legend universe). I find Roll especially dull to play because she is technically only human, but the rest are fantastic. Tron Bonne use one of famous mecha machines to fight in the arena and is by far my favorite fighter to use, and Megaman well simply kicks ass like he always does. As for the Serverbot, he's the smallest character in the game making kinda a joke character like Dan in Street Fighter. The fun thing about being small is that he can dodge most of the moves by simply standing still! Awesome! So if you catch a Megaman only team online in the near future it might be me.

Mega Mondays : Megaman 2

2009-08-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not but the first Megaman game wasn't praised and it didn't get very good sales either. Thankfully Capcom believed that it had potential and gave the team permission to do a sequel, as long as it doesn't interrupt their other currently developing titles (if only game development was still like that today). Supposedly they didn't have that much work to do, they already had a bunch of leftover from the last title since the NES cartridges had serious space limitation, but they still polished everything from the ground up. The first thing I noticed was the backgrounds, they are more varied and greatly animated, same effect with the enemies. Now its thing that most people won't notice but back then that it was pretty amazing to look at, one in particular is border line epileptic seizure fodder.

The game also features one of the most badass intro ever created! The story told below, sky view shot, camera slow panning upwards, tense slow beautiful music, suddenly we reach the top, CRACK! Music gets intense, we find Megaman hair aloof in the wind as the title slams in your face "MEGAMAN 2" accompanied by some of the most memorable and epic music ever. Games today lack that, music that marks itself and attaches itself to the game, now-a-days they seek epic orchestras, but they never seem to be memorable. Another epic value that they added was the start of epic big boss battles, fighting against enemies four times your size! Later becoming a staple for EVERYTHING CAPCOM.
They also added new weapons more varied in the form of attack, making them even more fun to play around with. In the first Megaman, personally I simply kept my Buster Canon equipped because there was no advantage with the other weapons. Now in MM2, they gave each weapon its unique attack pattern and in return gave you a gameplay advantage for some situation. They also added these platforms, which you could use to get to higher up places to obtain items or simply make the game much easier; there are a total of 3 different platforms, a floating one, flying one and a climbing one. They also added another component to the game which was the Energy Tanks, what they did was when picked up you could later use them to refill your health bar. Now all of these new components have been a staple to the series so far, so they really got it right the second time around.
I also need to gush about the Metal Blade. The Metal Blade is the most epic power up ever created. You get from defeating MetalMan, which is a real easy by the way, and then you get this awesome powerup. Complained about not being able to shoot up? Then get the frikin Metal Blade! It shoots in eight directions! It even somehow breaks the whole robot master weakness circle, simply because it so versatile and powerful! I love the Metal Blade, bow to its awesome power!
Only negative output I have about the new features is that, the game isn't designed to have all of these, it still have level designs from the games draft and it doesn't exactly draws the full potential of the new features. In correlation it only makes the game easier, even with the supposed "difficult mode" MM2 is one of the easiest of the series. But because it is the easiest I suppose it would be the good one to for a newbie to start with, it still lacks some features from the future games but it holds up incredibly, most say this is the best Megaman game ever, sales do to, MM2 was the highest selling Megaman game ever and it still stands today.

Hurricane Stay In

2009-08-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

The last month has been kinda weird actually for no particular reason, feels like the weird transition from summer to going back to school, but the weird thing is that I'm not even at that moment yet. I'm actually looking forward to being in a schedule again, random happenings are always fun, but a person can only take some much random in their lives. But I know I'll be kicking myself for saying that soon, a single booted hit to myself carried on by another single hit from the school schedule kicking in as well. I did have quite a relaxing day but I did prepare for this day because of the upcoming hurricane warnings, but the hurricane Bill ended up being pretty lame, I looked at the sea and I could of gone swimming, so right there its symbol of its lack of power. Well, the preparations was simply not going anywhere and getting my hand on few movies for the day, and I had enough reading material in case of lack of electricity, but the hurricane was laughable. Also, don't get me wrong I'm glad the hurricane had small effect around here.

Anyways, my summer reading seems to have been crippled, I've barely scratched the surface of my random find, which ended up being a recommendation, even my Dr. Who'ing was crippled but that's torrent issues. I've also realized how close the new release of the new installment of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is. I still remember hearing about and completely putting it aside even resiting it, but it quickly gained my heart out of a gritty hope of some new witty H2G2 fiction. Still a little weary about it but I'll still be picking it up, I'm sure I can ease myself into it, kinda like I did with the movie. Speaking about the movie I can't believe I used to not like it after my first watch, now I really do like it a lot. How can I not like it I asked myself today, it was personally backed up from new material from Adam himself, most fans rejected it because it wasn't faithful to the books, but something as media varied as H2G2 shouldn't be bashed for different adaptations. Personally I'm still waiting for The Restaurant at the End of Universe movie (damn you low film grossing!). And last but not least, maybe the single most amazing internet find I've ever found in ever. Click and enjoy now, by the power of all this is awesome. Seriously this is what I did with most of my day, play this game, its amazingly sublime, I've been spreading it around for most of the day.

Apart from thinking about H2G2 most of the day I've watched a few movies. Had myself a mini marathon of the Hellboy live action movies. I simply love these films, the action is amazing (no shaky camera!). The CGI never seems forces and it never relies on it unless it absolutely needs to, I believe that it should be used like dialogue, you don't add useless dialogue that doesn't add anything to the narrative right? Well do the same with CGI! I kinda have this love/hate relationship with full blown CGI, using to smooth out effects is fine, but making entire scenes out of it makes it look fake. Now movie techniques aside, there is something that bothers me is that, I've seen the live actions films, all of the animated as well, even read a prose book about Hellboy, yet I haven't even look at the original material being the comics. Really should because I love almost everything about the Hellboy universe, the only thing stopping me is the same reason why I haven't picked up Atomic Robo Volume 2; comics are expensive, more than I expected actually. That also a reason why I haven't gotten a video game in quite some time.

Another film I've seen today was Trainspotting, only heard about it last week, with the simple explanation of "It's hard to explain". So with that lucrative incentive, I found myself a copy (only to ironically find it playing numerous times on IFC today). Quite surprised about it actually, always fun going into a movie without knowing a basic plot, setting, premise or anything for that matter. Didn't get the morale, if there was one of course. Some interesting directing and cool camera angles, don't know what to say actually really is hard to explain. Another thing, maybe its because I've been introducing myself into the Beatles lately and I'm seeing things, but this film had at least 3 different nods to The Beatles, not in music but in character placement mirroring album covers and such. Re-reading what I wrote I realize how I've said absolutely nothing about the film; maybe that's the right way to explain it.

Anyways tomorrow Mega Monday again, I haven't been posting anything besides that lately, no reason actually, just didn't feel like it.

Mega Mondays: Dr. Light

2009-08-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

Dr. Light is the creator of Megaman, like I mentioned last Monday. But there's still a small misunderstanding about him, he is a pacifist. In a few games they point the fact a few times, going as far as giving him the Nobel Peace Prize. As a matter of fact he's the most violent Nobel prize, knowing that some situation are needed for peace. So the dear doctor tasked himself with building various destructive upgrades for Megaman. Actually he does kinda parallels Alfred Nobel in a way; Nobel created Dynamite which is one of the most violent objects out there, so Dr.Light winning the prize is a worthy choice. Even more awesome is the fact that he is the best tactician to ever live. The Doc made a plethora of upgrades for Megaman and installed capsules holograms modules of himself for Megaman and his variation centuries later, presumably the Doc did this all while being dead. Although after so many centuries he still hasn't managed to give Megaman the upward firing capability. (Ok that was my last obvious/overused Megaman joke).

So we salute you Dr. Light for being awesome.

Mega Mondays : Megaman

2009-08-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

Very surprising how a small game in which the concept was formed trough Rock, Paper, Scissors came to be one of the most successfully series in the video game industry. Came out way back in 1987, when you think about it is a frikin long time ago, for me at least I wasn't even going to be born for a few more years back then. One thing I'm glad about is that it survived trough the americanization butchering quite well compared to some other titles. First off they scratched the name Rockman and went the manlier Megaman, but the weird thing is that the boss Yellow Devil was ironically renamed Rock Monster, huh. Nothing much to add about that, they mixed up Dr.Lights name a few times and added some backstory which was fine by the times standards. Oh and they fucked up the cover up bad, sure everyone on the internet has made fun of it by now, it made like a bunch of top ten worst cover art lists like on IGN, Topless Robot and others. Anyways, aw at its ridiculousness.
Anyways on to the game! The evil Dr.Wily has unleashed 8 robot masters to destroy the world, simply because nobody appreciated his science. Apart from being the worst motivation for world domination, Dr.Wily is apparently able to do so without much resistance. But! Dr. Light the old compatriot of Wily's has his secret weapon of his own, which if you haven't guessed by now you should leave (It's Megaman btw). So armed with your single arm canon, you set off to save the world against under an appreciated scientist. Story is standard and would never pull trough today's standards but nobody cared back then and they shouldn't now either.
Still, playing trough it I noticed how it has aged, not by much but it has (funny seeing a score meter for a stage based game). Another silly bit is how the modern market has made me soft, I remember being able to plow trough these games, sure it was difficult but I could still do it, now replaying it seems like I'm not in my prime anymore. Small confession tho, I do pay a lot of video games by I ain't that much good at them, makes trash talking at Halos that much more ironically satisfying in a comedic sense. I'm drifting off now, back on topic! There are simply some sections that seem impossible to pass trough without at least getting hit once, there is the small invincible blinking after you do get hit that you can take advantage of, and I think that in some areas you need it to pass trough Firewalls like in Fireman's stage. It is difficult but there isn't any curve in it either, since you pick which stage you want at first they can't exactly made a difficulty curve. There are some more difficult stages and bosses but that subjective in a way.But for the difficulty, yes it is hard but its more of the fact that I've aged so I'm not used to it anymore or something, but as for the gameplay itself, it does seem dated because of itself and not the actual design. You only have you standard three shot blaster with no charge shot which every Megaman fan has become a costumed to after the sequels, and the lack of the Mega Slide is troublesome at times, pressing the combination with no avail can be frustrating. Another thing is that they haven't quite mastered the jump/fall mechanics yet, but I'm nitpicking now, there no real problem with it, still 100% playable and enjoyable. Still fun to see the start of all and the recurring annoying level designs (disappearing blocks!) and enemies, one of which still today survived each incarnation and even spawned fantastic fan game and a few cameos here and there. So here's to our little mini mascot the helmet wearing Met for the first time. Below, fear him, love him or kiiillll hiiiim.
One thing Megaman bought to the table which was truly original was with the boss battles. For once it felt like both robots of equal match, each had his advantages and disadvantages, mono-e-mono, a showdown. I found that they did that brilliantly and Capcom has held the title of best boss battles every since then. Annnnd lets not forget the truly unique ability to get the defeated robot masters weapon! So in total you can have 8 extra weapons, each with their unique attributes, and it's here where the whole rock, paper, scissors concept come into play. With each power up you gain from a robot master, another Robot Master is Weak against it or it could be utterly useless as well. Sure you can switch on the fly but it's still a small gamble.
This game for me was simply a taste of what the series could be at the time, it is one of the most memorable but not the best by far. Each game is upgrade to the next, then in some cases it falls into the curse of the series which is the always disappointing fall from grace, but as always new reincarnation appears to save it all! The good ol' classic Megaman you shall be cherished. Oh and one last pic of my favorite battles; Fireman!
Also doing the alternative text thing now, because I think I'm funny at times.

Mega Mondays : Small Intro

2009-08-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Been busy this last week, with some odd stuff and actually trying to make a banner for my blog, but I can't seem to please myself with anything my artistic talent is very limited. Anyways I'm regretting not being able to update for the last week, now for my new feature which is Mega Mondays!

A weekly look on the Megaman universe as whole. I'm going to try to look at everything and I mean everything that Megaman has touched, so hopefully it'll last for quite some time. The series has 7 sub series going on right now, the original, X, Zero, Legends, Battle Network, ZX, Star Force and a bunch of TV series, anime and everything in between. Which adds to a shit load of games, and that's not including all of the cameo appearances and the awkward yet highly enjoyable RPG. Oddly enough I always found that for the credit it gets, it still doesn't get enough, Compared to Mario who seems to overshadow a lot. Megaman has found a formula that works and sticks to it but at the same time still innovating more and more, not to mention that music in Megaman is some of the most memorable and catchy. Would video games be the same without Megaman? I highly doubt that, he basically invented the awesome power ups and giant boss battles! His games have barely aged at all, every single game are still playable today, if you need proof simply look at Megaman 9 which came out last year in glorious 8-bit and it competes to the new HD games out there.

For the moment be patient, because next week I'm going off with the original that started it all, Megaman. I'll be going through it all by series from the oldest to the newest, might not go trough all of the new stuff for lack of hardware but I'll do my best to get my hands on it. Also trying to make a sprite banner for Mega Mondays but my spriting is rusty and sincerely, I never was any good to begin with.

Summer Readings

2009-07-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Each summer I put up a list of books I want to read for the summer. I never do seem to go trough the whole list, it seems to disintegrate before I have time to finish it. Not because I haven't got the time or anything, I simply never can seem to follow my proper list. So I'm there starting reading the first few that I could get my hands on and then suddenly it diverges into some whole new direction.

One little promise I do make every summer is to pick up at least one book that I've never heard of before. I simply ignore the pile of well determined recommendations from friends all while they're gushing about how great it is or what-not, and ask for something as simple as a title and nothing else, but often I end getting something random by my likeness of the title or cover. I known you don't judge a book by its cover, but it simply is something that attracts you at first, cover art is more essential for music I suppose because books you never can tell. Like last summer I got the Black Order by James Rollins, knew nothing about it or the writer in question, still don't know anymore. Anyways, It wasn't a particularly good book nor a bad one either, there was lacking something memorable I suppose. But on the complete flip side of things, that's how I found Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which was one of my life changing finds, I changed my humor, look at life, a lot of things actually. This summer I haven't found anything worthy of my special random book but I'm still looking around.

This summer I started heavily on prose; I bought this giant prose book for a class at university and we barely used it to its full extent, so I decided to read the whole thing. I never realized I had an appreciation for prose, something great in small story that tell a lot, also seeing familiar author names is always fun. Another prose I got trough is a little more geeky; Hellboy Oddest Jobs. I consider myself a Hellboy fan now that I think about it, I loved the films both live action and the animated ones as well, and I enjoyed Oddest jobs as well. They created such an awesome world with the Hellboy mythos. Something that bugged me was how Mike Mignolia sounded so condescending in the opening statement, maybe I don't know him enough or maybe he wanted it that way. Either way it was creative, each story had his unique differences, some with no action at all, yet still as satisfying than the next one.

Moving along trough my prose book I noticed a story from W.E.B. Du Bois, he wrote book of which I also got for a class, which at that point realized that I had used that book but in quite a rush for the project do, so I decided to read it for a second time. The book was The Souls of Black Folk, really is amazing a must read for anyone interested in the subject of African-American history. Kinda weird how he is overshadowed now by other African-American activists like Martin Luther King.

Another small re-read was Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. I simply needed to get some Douglas Adam in my summer, I might not been as well known as the H2G2 series but I don't think it discredits it at all. I very much like the humor and it is on par with H2G2, although I do admit it doesn't have the same appeal. I haven't been able to find The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul yet, still looking around from time to time, I ain't that rushed because I heard it wasn't as good as the first, still I'd like to read it someday. Another related note I found some of the radio show recordings online, I'll eventually listen to that.

Moving away from Adams, I did finish John Steinbeck's East of Eden yesterday. Don't know what happened I should of finished off at least a month ago. Firstly I got to chapter 11 or so, then for a few reasons mostly being busy but I was putting it off for quite some time, then finally re-started from page 1 and finished it in two weeks. As the saying goes, I couldn't put it down. I have unique appreciation for Steinbeck; Of Mice and Men is one of the first books that didn't involve fantasy nor science fiction that I really deeply enjoyed. East of Eden is no exception, it starts slow and it dives in at the same pace I would say, he keeps bombarding you with new characters, but it doesn't feel tiresome, at the same time it doesn't feel completely necessary but for some reason you want to keep hearing about these people. Plus his descriptions really are something to admire; he explains it all from something personal by a small analogy that in a way you completely see that person at full capacity, I even started seeing myself in certain characters. That one amazing thing about reading, seeing something you hold unique to you, yet here it is written by a complete stranger in a book.

Rest for the summer my list as gone awry already, but I'd like to read maybe a classic I missed like Animal Farm or something of like that. Also maybe get into a Zombie story, either Pride Prejudice and Zombies or World War Z. Definitely something by Douglas Coupland not sure what yet but one of my friends has been increasingly interesting me into it. Ah! Another series which I just though of now that's increasingly interests me is A Series of Unfortunates Event, something about it seems so fun. Right now I might go onto a Biography of Robert Gravel, I would like to say an idol of mine, but I only know that he invented improv is that enough? Anyways, there are a bunch of little illustrations inside the book by Gravel himself which is pretty neat, but something that bugs me is that the writer really places Gravel on pedestal, maybe I'm too used to a neutral look at things.

Hellsing Ultimate

2009-07-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

In one word I can describe Hellsing Ultimate and that word my friends is badass. There's been a recent thread in retaking old anime series and re-doing them in a more respective take with the manga and the original writers of that said manga. Before hand I thought that changing the story line a bit so a series it could personify itself apart from the manga was great. In that way you could please the original fanbase with a new adaptation all while pleasing another anime only fanbase, all in the same time interesting minds into the franchise, then theoretically can make more money this way with both sides wanting too see what differs and eventually bitch about it on the internet. Now, doing the only sane thing with the insensible bitching from the fans, original writers, companies not being able to milk the series anymore, a lot of series started getting revamp holding more light towards the manga. Now, I for one tottaly accept this, only when they make things of incredible quality like Hellsing Ultimate and there are a few others I could name. So in the wake of the crazy vampire craze going on and wanting to wash out the voices that told me that some vampires sparkle when in sunlight, I decided to start two new animes featuring vampires, first one Trinity Blood a mix of Trigun and the original Hellsing. And of course I started watching Hellsing Ultimate; one of the most visually interesting animated feature I ever saw.

First off, the first Hellsing anime iteration was good for what it wanted to be, an anime featuring a badass anti-hero taking blood and kicking ass. It's about the Hellsing organization; an organization that focuses on paranormal investig--well more or so extermination, complete extermination for the matter of fact. They have one ultimate weapon which is the vampire hunter Alucard, which he himself is a Vampire, which I would say is one of the most iconic anime characters ever. Another character is Seras Victoria, after an incident she is turned into a vampire from Alucard and she faces some human complications, blah blah blah, nobody cares, its like a vampire having teenaged angst. It didn't feature much of an interesting story really, each time they seemed to catch on something plot worthy the new character seemed to die or simply not important after the next twist (bend really). But what it did feature is pure concentrated badassery from Alucard, if anything everyone watched it simply to see if Alucard could beat his own awesomeness. They also created their own world and mythos behind vampires which is always irresistible for me.

Now they decided to revamp Hellsing, well because quite frankly the original series sucked ,besides Alucard, and maybe wanting to milk it out some more, also the original writer never liked the directions the production took on the anime, which is completely understandable. Furthermore, I'm always weary of people utilizing words like "ultimate", "epic", "super" without merit, kind of my pet peeves people blurting out epic at everything. Acting as my own Ultimate worthy deciderman (inventing words is fun), I pronounce Hellsing Ultimate to be worthy of wearing the title of Ultimate, extended episodes each 50 minutes long and totally new animations.

I'm currently watching the dubbed editions, and for one I prefer dubs, yes shocking, please don't hurt me you bunch of subtitle tyrants! I like anime just as much as you do and don't believe that I need to watch it in the original language that I don't understand! Anyways back on topic, for once they did a brilliant job at the dubbing, since it is set in Europe, mostly england, there's something very interesting in seeing all the different accents of the characters. The first protagonist we meet is Father Anderson a priest, and man that Irish accent for me personally added so much more to the character! I watched the original series in japanese so right there I couldn't tell or even know if there's such a thing of a Irish accent in Japanese. As for Alucard first encounter with Father Anderson, it started out with what I though would be a maniacal grin battle but it escalated into something so much more, all while retaining those awesome maniacal grins on their faces. Seriously now those accents give them all some more personality, even the guy who uses the phrase "First we'll kill you, then skull fuck you!" Sadly an accent isn't enough to save Seras Victoria from lamedom, she even manages to ruin the mood of the anime for some small bits, even her oversized boobs are enough to save her in my eyes, kinda tragic when I think about it.

My favorite part of Hellsing Ultimate is definitely the visuals, I've seriously never seen anything this cool anywhere else. If the series and characters and story don't interesting simply watch it for it pure style of it all. Stylized is a word I'll use to describe this show, because sincerly I don't know how to describe it, everything is hyper stylized and every characters seems to hold on to their respective camera angles, closeups and beyond. One particular scene really stood out for me, with was simple but oh-so-cool. Simple drop of blood fell and splatered and you quickly saw it rise upwards outside the screen view, I would gladly tell you the after effect, but revealing this simple visual effect feels like a complete spoiler for future audience. Incredible how I started describing this little visual treat and immediately thinking that it would spoil the experience for anyone wanting to watch it in the future. I'm telling anyone reading this, you must watch this series if not for story but for the sake of the visual and style of the series, some things in there I could only wish hollywood would at least attempt of recreating.

I'm only at two episodes and already it diverges form the original series with a great pacing, also hints of a nazi appearance? SOLD! (even if I was sold after the first few minutes). I'm not even finished and I'm highly recommending it to anyone out there!

ATOMIC ROBO ROCKS!

2009-07-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Happy belated birthday Nicola Tesla, if I would of known earlier that your birthday was last week I would've of dedicated a post about you. See Tesla is the type of scientist that you simply don't learn anything from at school, for irrational reasons, maybe for the fact that he might of created a death ray of some kind, and why shouldn't we learn about a suppose inventor of many doomsday devices is beyond my understanding. I simply think he was overshadowed by Thomas Edison, who in my general opinion was an idiotic genius, he patented a thousands things randomly placing currents until something shined brightly. Tesla on the other hand calculated everything and masterfully invented. Thomas Edison himself even kinda confessed on how Tesla was a better inventor, so remember people quality over quantity. Although because Tesla is so awesome he's featured in almost everything, even the much anticipated (for me at least) Dark Void, where is a whole universe inspired by some crazy Tesla invention or something, they've been scarce with the information, but no, my new favorite fictional toy of Tesla is Atomic Robo!

First picked up Atomic Robo on free comic book day and it was just a teaser and it was the only thing that I actually enjoyed, I did enjoy Jesus and Abraham slaying zombies but that's not even worth comparing to anything. The little preview I got was simply with Atomic Robo having some witty dialogue with Dr. Dinosaur, which alone doesn't sound that amazing but that simple scene made me buy volume one. Firstly I noticed the names of the creators one stood out, which was Brian Clevinger, didn't really remember from where I heard the name, I thought that it must of been from another blog or some random place on the internet, so I started reading. Seriously Atomic Robo is amazing, I love the art style but it kinda made me think of Penny Arcade strip they did a little while back, don't know if it's just me but they took some inspiration from Atomic Robo.

Anyways there was simply something about it, there was simply something all too familiar, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Simple witty answers, followed by another as witty response. Anti-climactic endings that are just as satisfying as any other way. So I remembered about the writer thanking Mike Magnolia, which made complete sense, I think it draws a huge part of inspiration from Hellboy, with the whole paranormal investigations and even Robo shares some attributes with Hellboy himself, more or so being able to get pummeled and still being able to bring witty rethorics into the action. Sure enough for awhile I thought it was it with the little nagging voice behind my head, but it still loomed about. So reading on I reached a point of one of the scientist soldiers being able to finish Megaman 2 without getting hit, seriously anyone that is able to do that should be automatically assigned as a Fighting Scientist. And that's where it hit me the simple connection of a 8-bit character, Brian Clevinger is the frikin writer for 8-bit theater! (Seriously tho I thought of Bob and George first but remember that there's was no possible way they could of written that, still love you guys tho!)

Sprite comics were all the rage (did I really use the term "all the rage"?) back in the early 00's. But there was two primary comics which stood out the crowd of badly gif'd sites, one was Bob and George a megaman sprite comic and 8-bit theater a final fantasy sprite comic. Sprite comic was gateway for those writers who couldn't draw for shit. Bob and George updated daily for 7 years, only missing 29 days in total, that's mother freaking amazing. As for 8-bit theater it was a little more popular because the strip was actually good, although Bob and George had a huge community with the forum and the massive spriter army, which I was kinda apart. Now 8-bit theater wasn't must to look at because of the sprites usage, although after awhile he did get a hold on photoshop and lens flared like there no tomorrow.

You could really follow his evolution of a writer with 8-Bit theater, started off the most two dimensional video game characters ever and gave them some decent personalities, you could seem them expand as the comic went along. He gave of some of the great internet comic lines like "Swordchucks" which obviously inspired the rat morning star and "In the arena of logic I fight unarmed". Going farther into the comic you could really see that his style continued to evolve. And I swear to god the Black Mage is a prototype of sorts for Atomic Robo, albeit the mage being evil and all, his witty responses oozes out with the robo replies, and Robo being a robot with no mouth using only his eyes for physical response was probably easier with the years of experience he had with the Black Mage and the fact that he also only had two eyes to interact with.

Anyways back on Atomic Robo, to say it quick, it's about Atomic Robo a self aware Robot invented but Tesla himself, and with the help of his Fighting Scientist he fights nazis and other supernatural baddies. So moving on, Brian has always been direct with his stories, lines like "I just used my violence on them" are simply brilliant. He's also always been the kind of guy that likes the adventure more than the destination, passing by big battle for something a little simpler and logical. But one of my favorite moments is when one of the team calls Robo and says "Robo? There's a Pyramid in egypt!" and then robo responds with "..." I laughed waaayyy more than I should of.

I don't known what else to say, there are just too many memorable moments to start telling them all would be redundant, like Edison trying to twart Telsa with the Ghost of Rasputin?! Or Robo's massive mockery of Stephen Hawkins! Erm...ok I'll contain myself, and let the whole think sink in my mind, I did just read it like a moment ago. All in all, Atomic Robo, is smart, witty, exiting, awesome and for me, nostalgic all while being completely fresh. That quite sums up my feelings for Atomic Robo, one of the best reads I've had in awhile. ATOMIC ROBO ROCKS!

It can update?!

2009-07-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, I really have no mountable excuse for the lack of effort. Part laziness part thinking I would have time for a post in the week-end. I did do a lot during my last week-end mostly some stuff that gave me some ideas for some posts, and mostly some old nostalgic stuff. I also had a few request to do another post relating or in the same nature of My Awesome Anthropomorphic 90's cartoons post, so as for tiny request I will be doing another one, hopefully for this week if I can find a common subject to chat about.

On a complete side note, I finally decided, after more than year of failed confused attempts, to watch Dr.Who. I learned to stop using my brain and simply watch the series(I'm turning it on again when I'm actually watching it just ot make clear). I asked around forums where I should start and got more than what I wanted, which is everything but where to start from. So after hundreds of different opinion of casual and hardcore fans alike, a simple answer from a co-worker with a Dalek figurine which was "Just do like when I was a kid, start watching and don't stop if you like it, then when you're my age you can start complaining about how your doctor was better than mine". So I decided to start with Tennant, because he is the current and with some little catching-up I'll be at the new releases. Now I'm done with this maze of my hidden form of procrastination against Dr. Who.

Another feature I will be bringing is a weekly post about Megaman. I have a kind of history with the blue bomber and I have more than enough to talk about and keep going more than long enough. The catch is I would like to play through all the games I can get my hand on and go chronologically trough each one. The hard part will be trying to finish, or most of the game, inside a week, some I won't even try because I perfectly known what time it should take me to get complete the specific games, and if I known I can't do a post in time I promise a filler about megaman at least. I'll be calling it something uber cheesy like Mega Monday or something. But I'll be writing them probably Sunday, simply because Monday is the day where most of the Anime is fan subbed and dumped into the internet, and Tuesdays I'm only at home for sleep, and if I didn't watch them all on Monday it would severely cut that sweet sleep.

I known this mediocre post doesn't substitute anything, but hey I can do what I want on my blog!

Old Shows but New for Me.

2009-06-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of television lately, no true reason why, I've since lost interest in most shows mostly because of reality TV and the excess of drama that's on these days. But I heard they the Comedy Network has just signed on another season of Futurama, so right there my hope has gone a little up and I though maybe there might be some other sparks of genius hidden. If the new shows follow the regular scenario of every great television series is that it will be canceled quickly and a legion of lurking fans will complain about it on the internet and that will catch my interest (See Arrested Development), so in a twist I decided to go see if anything is actually good and my single participation might make it stay an extra season.

Although looking for something I stumbled upon something old, re-runs for the first time I presume. Geeks and Freaks, I didn't have anything to go on, but I was really surprised by the cast; they were all familiar faces and I mean really familiar. And all of those faces were younger, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Samm Levine (only know his name because he'll be in Inglorious Bastards), Linda Cardelinni and a few more. Since I knew absolutely nothing about the show, I did like everyone does now-a-days when they are curious, I googled it of course. So it was out in 1999, reason why the cast seems young. I was also very surprised about how much praise it got, it even got on a few "best TV shows" list in some big magazines, yet I never even heard of it. Even further proving my point earlier made is that the show itself only lasted a full season and people complained so the company milked an extra few shows out of it, and now is considered a cult classic.

The basic premise of the show is High School in the early eighties, yes I know you must of all cringed I know I did. It follows two siblings and their "adventure" in high school, the youngest a boy who is a geek and how he tries to fit in with his friends, and his older sister who is getting away from the high grades stereotype and going into the little more rebellious "freaks" stereotype. At first I thought that it was going to be completely cringe worthy, and as a matter of fact it totally is. I found myself lifting the remote at really awkward moments readying myself to simply change the channel each time it happened I couldn't seem to change the damned channel! There's simply something appealing about the show and I can't put my finger on. Maybe it is supposed to make me cringe, maybe that's the whole point of the show. There are some simple scenes that manage to make it look completely genuine, even if it seems like I've seen it before. As for my multiple cringes there are a lot of moments that simply bring a smile or a laugh. Also I was surprise how well they handle the whole "in the 80's" thing, kinda like That 70's Show, sure its set in those times but apart from that it's the characters that are important not the time setting not bombarded by culture references. (Looking at you That 80's Show) I can really understand why this show has a huge appeal and following, definitely finishing this one; it is only one season.

The other show I recently watched is Torchwood, simply because I keep hearing good things about it and I really want to get in at least one of these types of shows. I know nothing about it really, tried getting into Dr. Who a few times but I'm always confused and I can't seem to find a decent milestone to start on. Same effect with Torchwood started out and I'm frikin confused. So there was the vampire guy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer also he was Piccolo from the Dragonball movie, and he was wearing this very stylish marching band jacket, but instead of facing the fact that he is wearing a marching band jacket, he was evil and tied up this other guy to chains. So they had this dialogue about how devious the vampire (He probably isn't a vampire now but whatever) was and the guy in chains was like "We're going to stop you!" and the vampire guy was like "Ok do it", then the chain guy was like "OK, Ngguughhht" and failed horribly in his attempt to escape and then the vampire pushed a button that proceeded to shock the chain guy and then he was like "NNNGGGHHUUGHTTT". So after that he pushed some machine even tho the chain guy said quite understandingly not to, but the former vampire guy is too badass to listen so he pushes the button anyways, all while showing his marching band jacket. I so want that jacket.

So after a bathroom break I get back and missed a little bit, so there are these monsters coming out of these holes and the proceed to place their heads near random (I suppose) victims and shake their head near the neck area of the victims, effectively killing or tickling them, I couldn't really tell from the angle. Strangely enough the vampire guy is now on the good side and helping them reconfigure the machine that transmits the signal of doom to the monsters and then when he does they all go back into their cages. Now there's this guy in a computer room and this other chick and she's bleeding. So the computer room door starts to seal itself and horrifically he can't make out it time, even while in slow motion! Then this dramatic scene comes by and I change the channel. I changed it not because I didn't like what I saw, but I didn't want to see any characters die, albeit not even knowing if they are major, but if I do decided to watch the series I don't want to know that someone later dies.

So that's my two new shows, while there is one I'm not 100% sure to continue.

Keep in Rockin' in the Living Room

2009-06-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

Finally buckled up and bought myself my very own axe; yeah I call it an axe that's how badass I really am, albeit it being of the plastic variety. Never was much of a fan of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, mainly because I was so terrible and that's one reason of my disinterest of the genre as a whole. Sure I did like watching people play, there's nothing more entertaining than watching your friends wailing at a plastic guitar, with tongues a blazing for something unattainable simply because their hands and minds are too busy following color coded orders, and when the battle is done they gloat at how much they artificially rocked! I never owned a game for myself really only played from house to house more and more, about the time RockBand came out, and although I never had any practice besides a bunch of casual plays I reached Hard Mode nonetheless, yet seems like barrier that caught and from all my single multiplays I wouldn't be able to go farther.

Whether the feeling is artificial or not its still a great feeling of accomplishment finishing those songs, saving your friends failed attempt at being cool, its a unique collective of accomplishments. Some will like simply finishing the song a certain mode, some would like to five star everything, some simply like acting out as they are truly Rock Stars. (I like the latter)

Now let get this straight, I've seen those battles of which is better Guitar Hero or Rock Band, as for one I don't give a damn they're the exact same thing. The only deciding factor for my is the song listings, and for me personally Rock Band wins hands down simply for it downloadable tracks and the fact that they don't perpetually rip you off like Activision's Guitar Hero (Face it GH is a massive cash cow now). And for someone like me, a metal head, having more metal is always better, while they don't cover at all my preferred genre of metal, they still provide some good alternatives. Plus Yngwie Malmsteen is probably the closest thing I'll get to Power Metal. Still with the amount over the top awesome of the multiple 80's Hard Rock, there's simply nothing that beats those songs. On their own they are great songs with awesome riffs, groovy basslines, badass drums and powerfull vocal. All of that rolled up into one with a chorus of 4 people singing along, the clanking and clicking sounds of the plastic instruments goes totally silent.

Now at first I was intensively mocked because I had a hard time playing at hard mode, so in sakes of wanting to get better and at least reach the regular level of most of the people I play with, and beat some in their own game of course, I got Rock Band 2 and a lone guitar. Haven't decided if I'll get the drum set cause I mostly play Rock Band alone to raise up my skill for those true multiplayer Rock Band sessions. I did talk with a friend who would maybe play with me when he gets back from summer and he's a real live drummer so the step in the plastic wasn't anything particularly difficult for him.

Anyways, I was really exited for creating my own avatar for the game at first because I heard that it was really good, but for me it wasn't enough. I wasn't even able to make anything close to looking like my Guitar Idol (and God) Kai Hansen, as a matter of fact I wasn't even able to make any Metal style look cool, everything was so over the top it was ridiculous, I guess that's part of the games aesthetic.

Now the name of my Band, albeit it being a Solo project for the moment, I couldn't simply call it Marty or even my internet name tag Nizbel. I did start out with something among the lines of The Martys or "Enigmatic Entity Superficial Mystery" something cheesy like that. Then I moved on to something more Power Metal sounding, like Divine Guardian, Demon's Heart, Transcendence or Ring of Heresy. After that more or so around my hobby which is where ImproVision came up, but suddenly a hint of genius struck me.

And now my bands name is simply; Vogon Poetry. It reflects my skills as a player and when I do get good it'll be kinda ironic, brilliant if I do say so myself.

Meek Wech: Didn't make the cut/Should of made the cut

2009-06-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here are the mechs that I though about some for awhile and some I though of mockingly.

1.Voltron- Didn't make it

YOU WERE NEVER COOL.

2.Gundam- Should of made it

Gundam is made up of about 500 different series where everyone has these giants mech and bash each other to death, all while monologing on how horrible violence and war is. Quite a talent, sometimes the pilots some need to be special be able to monologue ,whine about war, question their actions and ultimately killing themselves for the greater good and sometime they don't. Cash cow connected in a suspended life. Gundam 00 is amazing though and Gundam Wing Endless duel is the best SNES fighter out there (take that SF2!). Tip : You can tell the series apart from the size of their hair.

3. Ridley's Exoskeloton from Aliens- Didn't make it.

Someone mentioned it, but didn't realize that it was an exoskeloton. Noob. Same thing with you APU's from the Matrix.

4.Mecha Sonic/ Dr.Robotnik's mechs- Should of made it.

Mecha Sonic was the first exposure to the machine counterparts for most people of my generation, and he was badass. I would say the Dr.Robotnik's machines hold the same title for most gamers. But Sega has a weird habit of thinking their audience are all idiots that can't figure out a simple wordplay (well new generation Sonic fans are that but that's besides the point). Changing Mecha Sonic to Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik to Dr.Eggman is pure concentrate insult to our intelligence. So for making me feel that I have an inferior intellect; you don't get on my blog! Take that sega!

5. AT-ST -Didn't make it

Haha, go away. If ewoks can bring you down, you don't deserve anything

6.Mecha Godzilla- Should of made it.

Building a giant mechanized version of the thing that's destroying you is brilliant idea, if I had the technology I'd have a giant mechanical mosquito flying around. Fuck Mecha Sonic, Mecha Godzilla is the first Mechanized counterpart that I know of.

7. Volt-~Zords - Didn't make it

GO AWAY. I DON"T CARE ABOUT YOUR RIPOFFS EITHER.

8. Zoids- Should of made it

Now the show was awful but for what it wanted to be it was ok, and I've never seen a world where all the mechs are animal shaped which is kinda cool. BUT way back when, one of your construction kits was missing 2 pieces, you still owe me those two pieces!

9. Armored Core/ MechWarriors- Didn't make it

While you are both decently acclaimed games, I haven't played you guys ever. Sorry.

10. Steel Battalion - Should of made it

I don't care about the gameplay I won't even show you a picture of the gameplay. Just look at the damn controller it's huge! I want it. Click to see all of its marvels up close.

Mech Week : Escaflowne

2009-06-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Well it is kinda mech week, I know I'm not up to schedule my life doesn't let me post as much as I should I suppose went on a good stride but fell off it the closer the weekend loomed in. Anyways, decided to cut the list one post short and fuse it into well my next post that I'll do to officially wrap up the mech theme. It is a little shorter because I realized I was pulling of story bits from wikipedia...

On with this post! Escalflowne is maybe the first anime I ever watched, not exactly sure about that I can't seem to remember my exact first, sometimes I remember it as Dragonball Z and sometimes it's Escaflowne. All I know that Escaflowne was the first animated show that I realized that it was "different" from other animated shows, so in that respect I sense that it was the first to realize that it was an anime of sorts. Even so, the version of Escaflowne I watched as a kid was edited by fox. I think it was their first attempt at bringing anime to north america, and sincerely they haven`t changed their methods since. They horribly butchered it into tiny little incomprehensible pieces of garbage, intensively remind us of current events with flashbacks of five minutes ago, stripped down dialog, removal of any graphic violence at all and a whole collective of the removal of everything appealing. Now for the time I loved the show, because I didn`t know any better, I haven`t even watched the original series yet I simply watched the movie which is based on the series and I really enjoyed it. It shook my mind a bit seeing all that violence, but it was so awesome. Back then you really had to dig if you wanted to find anything of value on the internet, youtube wasn`t around to solve those missing videos problems. The cool thing is that back then I was into to the high fantasy stuff and this was simply amazing to look at, I still prefer the late 90's anime styling there's something about it that so appealing.

Now I won`t be talking about the story or the characters in general because I only have vague memories of the series that aired on YTV back in 2000 (I was like 10, oh my), even with those it was pretty much butchered by the american censorship and parents who didn't want to discipline their own children. So I'm rescaling it all from the movie which is still way far back but I do remember how much the mechs are badass.

This is the first time I ever saw a mech in a fantasy environment, and from my knowledge it is the only one, but I'm sure there must be at least a few more lying around the anime compendium. So this mech is created from an ancient technology (unknown techno and as always; a wizard did it), and it has one of the most awesome power sources ever created; a dragon heart. So that's where the series starts out with the protagonist fighting a dragon for its hearth so he can power his mech named Escaflowne. First of the user needs to drip his own blood into the dragonhearth so it can fuse together and power the mech so it knows which user to fuse with, it wasn't exactly explained from what I remember but from deduction it seems like that. Sincerely this is the most brutal way to drive mech ever, if you think a direct link to your mind in Neon Genesis was bad, think again. In Escaflowne no physic links, this weird gooey material wraps your arms and legs connecting to the motor function and then these liquid metal rods are shoved into your neck and colar bone area for the mind I suppose. Really brutal and really messy, the first time he hooks and starts moving, some of the most disgusting sounds come out of the whole thing. Forces it too much and blood will come spewing out, because you know those spike are directly shoved into your neck area.

Since it is placed in a fantasy world there aren't any giant lazorz to interrupt the fight scenes. Instead of giant war battles, which they do have a bit, it concentrates more on one on one battles, sword battles to be more specific. Again, there simply something so cool, seeing two towering mech having a sword battle, you can feel the giant impact the blades take on. The main mech Escaflowne has one main sword weapon and another small blade, but it also has the capability to transform into a dragon shaped mech and fly. While the main mech is cool and all I really like the others too, they have this liquid metal that can be shaped into almost any weapon and even shoot out like tentacles and stuff, even some of them are equipped with flametrowers for some cool dragonbreath attacks.

As for the mechs themselves they're really fun to look at, they have this have mechanized and half living feature to them. They don't really look like advanced technology like other mechs but more or so simply a giant armor and the crystals add a very nice touch to it all. Oh and most of them wear capes, so it's an automatically win on my list. Imagine what size of frikin capes you would need to fit that on a giant mech! Picture below gets you a good look at it all. Click on it too see the rest there's another one on the right side.

Mech Week : Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

2009-05-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Zone of the Enders is made of so much concentrated awesome, it's barely describable. For Metal Warriors I chose the game play more or so than the mechs themselves, sure they are cool but not menacingly cool like Evas or like the ones I'm going to be talking about here. There are other games of the Zone of the Enders series, which is logically the first game and a hand held which I haven't played. The first game is good but it simply isn't a refined as the second, for obvious reasons being the second and all. There is an anime based on the game, kinda of a prequel, but sadly I haven't been able to track it down. Anyways, it's simply incredible gaming experience, all from the mind of Kojima of course (pre-head inflated phyco). A must play on the PS2

The game oddly starts with you piloting this hunk of junk called a LEV that wobbles along in a blizzard storm, so you are hunting down a perfect place to mine ice or something. Really lame I wanted to stop playing after the first 15 seconds, wobbling around barely able to jump was a pain. But, suddenly you get a signal on your radar, find something strange (Of course!). It's an Orbital Frame, which essential kick ass compared the LEVs (LEVs later become red shirts in a way), they're way more powerful with flying capabilities and much more. After the little training with your new Orbital Frame, your are taken aboard what was attacking you a giant BAHRAM ship (Big evil military corporation). So you meet old friends from you old military days, and well unexpectedly get shot multiple times in the torso. Whats amazing about being shot in the torso? That it's all in anime, yes amazing anime cutscenes! So after being shot in the torso, multiple times, you are revived and placed inside the Orbital Frame know as Jehuty. But you can't get out because it powers your life supports, so something about this girls father (I stopped caring at this point I wanted to drive the damn thing), so she's forcing you to do her dirty work. Since you can't get out the Frame, why not? Anyways I made brief mention of the story, but really it is fantastic. Made from when Kojima still had some mojo left in him, and instead of making no sense at all, it made kinda of sense.

On to the gameplay! Now imagine this; Dragonball Z but with Mechs...and you have Zone of the Enders! At a glance theres a simple beat-em up, but at the core there's something way more thrilling and enjoyable. You are equipped with a bunch of default weapons, firstly the energy shield which can block most light-medium attacks. You can also shoot small energy bullets to pick off smaller enemies, or you can lock onto a numerous number and unleash a massive homing attack, really impressive to watch. You can also charge a massive energy orb with your hand and launch it for a devastating attack, even cooler to watch! The really impressive part is the blade attached to its arm, you can slice and dice enemies with lighting speed! Once again impressive to watch. OH! Almost forgot one feature of this mech! The hands! So you can basically pick up a bunch of stuff, even enemies and use them as a weapon, shield or projectile. The projectile is especially fun to watch, you tap on the assigned button to start spinning so it essentially protects you from small attacks and hits everything in radius and finally you can trow it with great vigor at anything you want. You do also have sub weapons, only a few are useful but one is really beyond awesome, its this giant canon that can destroy anything really. The whole game is just fun to watch really.

Something that really stands out for me is the boss battles. I do love Capcoms approach of bigger the better but in Zone of the Enders with the type of game that it is that wouln't of work as well. Most boss battles are against other Orbital Frames, so it is really an equal match and the best man win. They pulled it off amazingly, one battle stands out, you're fighting in complete darkness and the only light is from the sparks of your swords clashing together. Truly an amazing battle you really feel like you are battle in the dark for your life. Some fights need pure skill and reflex while other require more of a tactical approach. All and all, the game shined in the boss battles. As for the multiplayer, one on one, you'd think it would work but there simply something wrong with it and I can't put my finger on it exactly.

Now for the actual design of the mechs, they bring a new meaning to the word "cockpit", seriously the cockpit is directly located in the crotch area. They're so sleek, with the added energy lines and how to ripple trough is pure eye candy. By far this is my favorite design for a mech ever. Not only that but the animations are incredible and for the first time they make you feel like you are in full control of a mech and not a bumbling machine, the sense of speed is way better demonstrated then even some racers out there. There isn't only you're mech Jehuty that's cool looking, there are a bunch of others that are as equally cool in their own respect. The mix of speed, boss battles and the cool sleekness of the mechs is what made the list.

Side note : Might not post tomorrow.

Mech Week : Neon Genesis Evangelion

2009-05-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

I just had to place Neon Genesis somewhere, it is one of the perfect series. A now classic, a must watch, even non anime fans that I know have seen Evangelion. I was a little hesitant of putting it on my list, simply because seemed too obvious of a choice an all, and the fact that at a first look it's seems like an deep psychological anime featuring mechs on the side. But no it's much more than that, without the mechs it just wouldn't of been so awesome, it set the standard for not only for mech anime but for every mature anime. I think it even spawned a verb of some sorts among forums and such, Evangelion like. It also feature one of the best opening themes to date, not even Trigun's air guitar can beat that! (But the new Brotherhood theme is pretty rockin')

In the beginning, after I watched the first few episodes, I was utterly disappointed. For me it seemed so generic, although generic is a word I trow around a lot, I'm always glad to be said the contrary. I did learn the true nature of the anime after watching more but at first it did nothing to distinguish itself apart from other mech animes like Escaflowne or Gundam. It had every single cliché; young boy with low self estime discovers his true power? Check. Father problems? Check. Sexy counterpart? Check. Jealous partner? Check. Balancing school and saving the world? Check. Post apocalyptic environment? Check. Large religious undertones? Check.

BUT! There is one difference with Evangelion and it's infinite cliché and some of it's other anime mech counterparts. For the first time ever a series did the cliches, in lack for a fitting word; Good, amazing even. There are simple and subtle instances that make it seem like you know what a character is thinking because of the predefined ascetics or whatnot, but then they completly surprise you. They don't even surprise you because of good will or a turn for the good they surprise you for being real people, really fucked up real people. For example Shinji's situation with his father, at first I found it cheesy that he had father issues and the series made it seem like his father knew exactly how to encourage Shinji for the better, but no, Shinji's father knew exactly how to manipulate Shinji and not encourage him at all. Personally I would as far as saying that Shinji doesn't have any father problems because of the lack of even having a father.
They even dealed with high school drama perfectly. I can't stand high school drama or any kind of school place related feelings, it simply makes me cringe, even when I was in high school I didn't follow gossip, if it could make me cringe back then no way I'm going to enjoy it in my pass times. Again they surprised me incredibly, they made an awkward situation, I wouldn't say fun to watch because I found myself feeling shame for those characters and facepalming myself a few times, yet that's why it works so amazingly. For me it doesn't have to be overly touching to get a reaction, it simply needs to be good.

Just a quick breakout of the setting so for some of the people who didn't watch it yet (shame) won't feel completely lost. After the Second Impact, which killed off half of the human population and made massive global climate change the world is in turmoil. The second impact was caused by an entity named the Angels, an unknown being with incredible power. So Shinji is mysteriously summoned by his father to pilot Eva a giant Mech, with the power to destroy the Angels. The catch is that the Evas can only be piloted by 14 year old teenagers born at the same moment of the Second Impact. And that was a very brief description of the setting.

Continuing on why I like this series so much. There is another thing that took me by surprise, like I already mentioned before, the characters. Usually an anime fandom can be completely fueled by a single character, Hellsing for example, it is an anime about Alucard kicking ass for 13 episodes and people love it! Naruto is another anime fueled by character fandom. Yet in Neon Genesis, I never heard anyone say that Rei or Shinji was so awesome or how they loved them for just for being themselves. Because no character in the series is really that appealing, they're all horribly flawed in their own way and its what makes them so real and that's what makes some scenes hold a bigger impact. Yet in all their flaws they seem to be likable in a way, making you relate a little more compared to the super brave heroes in other media. They really did achieve something amazing with the character development. One scene sticks out in my mind and probably will go into my “greatest anime moments ever”. It's when Shinji helplessly wails at the Eva controls, right when the Eva was taken control by his father, the Eva viciously slam and destroys its target without any control from Shinji still inside and when it's finally revealed who resides inside, couple with Shinji's reaction...awesome....

The story is also one of those things, that you can't quite explain. Even you do go see on the internet for hardcore fan speculations, that's what they exactly are, speculations. How to explain it? Seen Donnie Darko? Well its like that, everyone thinks they get the film but nobody actually does. They even made an extra film to explain (or erase) the first ending, even then it raises more questions than answers. Still fantastically fun to think about the show and its entire effect. Porcupine effect hit me hard because it applies so well. Even the explanation of the AT field is purely made of cool, the AT field is simply another way of explaining the artificial barriers we create to protect ourselves, and without those would the world be better? They beautifully demonstrated the power of the AT field in the first battle in film with Asuka monologing along. Purely made of awesome. Anyways, I could go on forever about every single instance of the series.

“Wait isn't this mech week” This is the phrase I got in my head while writing this post, so lets talk about the actual mech on the show. I really do like the design of the Evas, they're sleek and cool. They also don't look like a conventional mech, they're too humanoid, which gives them even more appeal. Sure they are super powered mechs but they are also very limited. Because of their huge need of power they constantly need to be hooked up to a power cord so they can operate and if severed they only have five minutes until total shutdown. They really went far into making this mech be humanoid as much as possible, instead of having transforming components comment out of every orifice they made it have almost no weapons build at all. They simply have a small (well for their size) sonic knife, which is quite effective against angels because they need to counter each other protective shields in close combats, but also the Evas can wield giant assault rifles and other neat weapons. They never made it seem like mechs, they never really concentrated on showing how huge it was compared to everything else, the motion seems so fluid yet still hugely stiff like a mech, especially a scene where Eva Model 02 jumps from boat to boat.

The Angels themselves could be identified as mechs, but they change form after each defeat in order to evolve and destroy the Eva. Really an interesting enemy because we don't know that much about them. They adapt after each fighting learning more and more. THE LAST ANGEL was a total kick in the brain and heart, you totally saw it coming but when you really think about it; total mind fuck on their part.

So that's Neon Genesis, it'll probably end up on my blog another time for a further look. My post was accidentally deleted from my computer by one of family members because I write it on Openoffice before I put it on my blog, serves me right for simple calling it “txt”. So I had to re-write it pretty quick anyways my rest of the week is mostly ready so tune in.

EDIT: Also having trouble with images, I think it's just the html code freaking out apparently.
EDIT2: Now if I click on the button to place images nothing happens...?

Mech Week : Metal Warriors

2009-05-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

So here I am for my first week theme, which is if you have been following my single mention is Mech Week. For this I will be looking at all my favorite Mechs from different media outputs. There is a single factor I noticed from when I started scraping any mech memories from my mind, it is that most of the mech related media is japanese most of the time, and quintessentially my list is mostly all anime and video games. Sure there were a few other exceptions but they aren't that awesome or cool enough to fit into my personified list, but as an added bonus I'll be counting at the end of the week what didn't make the cut and a little conundrum of what should of made the cut. First item of the list something completely obscure, because everyone knows the more obscure it is the cooler it is and in retrospect the cooler you are! (Statement isn't a fact)

Metal Warriors, an obscure game on the SNES, at least it was obscure for me at the time, even now nobody knows that much about it, even me. The production is a little iffy for me also, seems that there is a bunch of other mech games similar to this one named Valken, but from the word I hear around Metal Warriors is a complete rip off of those games but made better. Ironically is was produced by LucasArts, stunning I know they can make good games besides their two cash cows, no no I'm being to harsh they made a few good game besides those two Lucas fueled franchises. It was also, never released outside America, so it is considered a spritual successor to the Valken games somehow.

Despite being purely american it sports a lot of the anime styling with the small opening cutscenes, which are still very nice to look at even for today's standards. Sadly, the story is still purely american, you are the somewhat valiant american fighters against the organization named the Dark Axis. The game doesn't say much more than that really, a few tidbits here and there but nothing really important. Still like I said the cutscenes are really cool even they are only about 15 seconds of it. See it below. One aspect that didn't hit me at first but that I found really cool is that there isn't any on screen interface, no health gauge, weapons meter, time and useless information like that. When you get hit your Mech slowly loses its color and after awhile it will start to deteriorate, all in glorious 16-bit. That aspect of no screen hub is why I found that the praise of Dead Space for using no interface so hilarious because Metal Warriors did it 14 years earlier way before Dead Space!
Another beyond awesome aspect was that yes you had one main mech, but you aren't tied to that mech at all. It doesn't feature this special power that only it can defeat the evil forces, it's simply a war machines and it can be easily destroyed. That might sound like a pain, because in most video games you're almost invincible, but if you're mech does get destroyed or if it is reduced to a walking piece of metal you can simply walk out of it with your jeckpack wearing tiny pilot. The problem is that when in pilot mode you are completely vulnerable and you twitch along flinging your tiny bullets at other huge mechanized monsters. Fear not if you spot an inactive mech around you can simply climb in and continue kicking ass! Great feature, need a different model for a different situation? Grab another mech! Need to fix your mech but don't have any health packs around? Grab another fully healed mech! It adds this layer of panic because you are so vulnerable while in pilot mode, also adds a tactical element because you can't simply go in charging with guns a blazing for every situation, because you will surely be destroyed and most of the time with no empty mech in sight. You really need to take advantage to each of the mechs specialized abilities and defensive and offensive.
I think that's what made the game awesome enough to make my list, being able to switch mechs. And there are a bunch of different models to choose, one is basically a walking canon with no flight abilities, another is a quick spherical with high defense and speed, another is a spider model with the ability to cling to wall and trap others and a few more with each their own special weapons and flying capabilities. Too bad they dropped the ball with the multiplayer. Yes it is fun fighting a friend one on one with each his own favorite model, but the level design made the experience feel way too claustrophobic, with the huge array of weapons, the small maze of hallways ruined the fun factor for the multiplayer. Not that its completely horrible, you just won't be coming back for more after you've played enough.

It simply made my list for being awesome and before its time all without any recognition! Of course 6 different mechs all playable in one game? So cool.

Workplace Annotations

2009-05-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

Don't really know why but I feel like venting from my work on my blog, not exactly a negative vent but a vent nonetheless. I already worked at the same place last summer, it's a government building doing governmental stuff. The first time was in a different context than it is now, before I was a student working among other students. The older workers kinda quarantined us in a confined office area, they were scared of catching our bright outlook on life and our futures. Anyways, I got back in for a second year and this time I would be working directly with some of adults and a few students also.

Let me first tell you that I always had trouble with first impressions, not that I always have bad first impression, more of the fact that I don't make first impressions. People don't seem to remember me the first time we meet, I share that common trait with them so the universe all balances out in the end. Now this wasn't exactly a problem, the fact is, that living in a small town you never do need any first impression, the second party simply needs to know your parents names and therefor they can prejudge you as they please. Quite an effective social mechanism.

So here I am first day standing around on familiar ground and at the same time standing in a unfamiliar environment. Getting a few disdained looks here and there, I got the feeling of regret that maybe I shouldn't of worn my power metal shirt with a figure shooting beams out of its eyes, but that feeling quickly dissipated because I don't give a damn. Furthermore they paired me up with a complete counterpart, the guy was ripped, he was like the alpha male, played in my university's hockey team, the whole jock package. Still he's a nice guy and all, showed me what I would be doing for the rest of the summer and thought me to “Stop thinking, you're thinking too much, just do it”, which in context really was useful, thinking isn't really useful if you're working for the government. When I finished my training I switched with another co-worker, he was much older and a father so he was already familiar with adolescent incompetence, so a simple chuckle from him made my mistakes go away.

There is also a place they send me when my main work is done; the crib. The crib consists of the sliding mechanical rows that move with a press of button. They jar to the side with this bitter metallic sound as if they're exhausted from all the years of sliding. Inside the rows are millions of files, each to his own name and highly confidential. The light eerily flicker from time to time which gives the crib an even less than awkward invitation. I even spilled blood inside the crib from the numerous paper cuts and stabbings from the sharp metallic paper holders. Quite devious place to spent your working hours, I did work a few night shift completely inside the crib. It channels some kinda of morale sucking energy to whom they probably use to power the numerous coffee machines looming around. Not only does it suck your morale it also nullifies any intelligent thoughts and transforms them into mindless color coded numbering system, strangely enough it made me feel even more stoic.

I do drive a van, a big van. Something strange is each time I cross another van of similar size or any vehicular of a similar size, I get a nod from the other driver. Even more odd I willingly nod back, it feels pretty badass, but this isn't a friendly nod, it is a nod of utmost respect like they're saying “Keep at soldier, soon we _________”. I think your imaginations can fill out the rest, I keep thinking there's going to be an uprising soon, I mean they do have all the big vehicles, what would the world do without big vehicles?

Also, cake. Yes cake, for awhile cake has been subjected into my mind that any promise of cake involving a corporation is a lie. No deal here, there is often cake and it is definitely not a lie. There's cake from every frikin occasion, Sally is retiring so we have cake, George is going on vacation so we have cake, Sally is pregnant so we have cake, Henrietta made a cake last night so we have cake. So much cake, makes it seem like they're are hiding something. Nobody is allowed to have this much cake at work, there should be a law about it. Mostly I think having cake is an excuse to have a break without using up your fifteen minutes.

All and all, I like my job there are a few odd people but aside from that enjoyable. On a side note watch out next we for Mech Week where I will be counting down some of my favorite mech related media! Not in list form I can't count down best to worst...It'll just be a down?

Last Week Ramblings

2009-05-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

Last week was a weird week for me, I expected a slow easy going week with so I could stay home and just stay up till morning and wake up in the afternoon. Strangely the conditions and the timing of things ruin that moment, not that I regret it but I'm slightly more tired than expected. The strange timing of school finishing and the last week before everyone starts working at their respected summer job, boosted the hang-out factor tenfold. I did plan on posting more but I keeped being dragged out of my house from my own free will!

So we organized a few werewolf games since we would be surely lacking during the summer. If you don't know, Werewolf is a game were there is a village and there are a few Werewolves hidden within the villagers. So your job is to figure out who is a Werewolf and prosecute them and eventually kill them. The trick is there are more villagers than werewolves so you really need to know who to trust and find a tell. I find it's like a roleplaying poker, expect you kill people. Speaking of which I tried to bring some roleplaying into the game by taking on another persona, but I was promptly killed for acting weird and the multiple comments of "This isn't your improv!". Also speaking of role playing, started playing in a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign, after six hours of playing we gained one level...I haven't much to say really, we fought spiders and such...yeah...

Re-finished watching Gungrave for the third time, I do love that anime. It is currently my all time favorite anime, so It'll most likely pop-up on this blog at least once. Other anime I've been viewing in the reboot of Dragonball Z, seamlessly named Dragonball Kai. Wasn't really impressed by Dragonball Kai hasn't changed anything at all, it's still airing so it still has a chance in my eyes. Another anime that gained a reboot or retelling is Fullmetla Alchemist, and I do love the Fullmetal. More based around the manga and less filler than the first anime rendition. As far it seems really superior than the first series, a definite continue watching for me, if only the subbers would be quicker! You can check out http://myanimelist.net/profile/Nizbel , to see what anime I've watched and such. To be more exact it's what I watched since last summer, there a still a few things I haven't added into my list because I plan on re-watching them. Another series that has been taking my time is Spaced (Not an anime) which is frikin hilarious, I'm not that far into it yet.

I also officially own my own comic books, since free comic book day was saterday I picked up a bunch of them. I was really disappointed actually every comic was a huge publicity for their comics, most of them had like three different comic prologues in one comic which didn't add much quantity. The ones that I did like was the first ever issue of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was really awesome to read and Atomic Robot which I found oddly enjoyable and funny. The rest really confused me because I didn't know what was going on, especially Avengers. I did also pick up a Prose book of Hellboy, just another book to add to my summer reading I suppose.

My tactic of promising myself to post twice a day in order to post at least once a day failed, I heard it was good tactic against procrastination but my procrastination seems to have became self aware of the situation.

Grave of the Fireflies

2009-04-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you have realized by reading my blog but I'm a animation fanatic, anything animated I'll watch, even if is targeted for kids. I am also always looking for a more mature animation, often looking into anime because at their end, animation is a equal media as movies, at least that's what I perceive. I exactly found that with Grave of the Fireflies a mature look on World War II, more specifically a social history look all done in animation?! The animation and history geek inside me are both dancing!

Context of the film is that it's in the middle of the War, and two young kids are escaping to the shelter when a firebombing is about to arrive. Firebombing isn't exactly a devastating war technique but at those regions of japan, with most wood house it can be, in essence they're simple tin can filled with oil. Their mother is quickly injured in this first firebombing of their hometown and they are forced to fend on their own since their father is in the Navy. Two kids, one fourteen year old boy and a four year old girl, living in a context of war. After their cruel aunt keeps hassling them they decide to permanently live in the shelter alone.

The art style still holds up for today, nothing to complicated simply what they needed to push trough their message. Sometimes it can be downright gruesome, a few scenes really depict the burn victim eerily. Even sometimes the subtle changes in the kids physique when starvation takes toll on their bodies. Coupled with some great animation, really makes the film incredible. A simple scene were they are taking bath and a simple air bubble with a towel and its eventual pop, made it permanently stick in my mind and gave me a dumb grin on my face for no reason.

There are so many simple nuance that I love about the film. For instance it doesn't focus on the glorious battles of a country, in fact Japan loses the war. There isn't one single "action" scene if you know what I mean, no gunshot or battles, just the simple struggle of two individuals. Maybe I'm being brainwashed by one of my university professor and his constant preaching on the important of social history as opposed to event-driven history, but this really was an amazing look on other aspects of the effects of war. Lastly, there are these simple pauses, when I say simple pauses I mean it. These extra two second look on a particular action makes you really realize what going on and makes you think about it that much more.

I could talk about a lot of other things but I'm scared of spoiling anything for the people who haven't watched. There just something about it that's hard to explain, this unexplainable fear of the safety of those kids each time the sirens run. It isn't for everyone, I know people who would just shrug it off and say its too depressing. Still in my opinion a must see.

Godzilla!

2009-04-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

Something that keeps reminiscing into my childhood oddly enough is Godzilla, I think I might one of the only people of my age who actually watched a lot of old Godzilla movies as a kid. I think it all began with the American release of the simply titled Godzilla, back then my simple mind loved the film. I even shed a simple tear when they got Godzilla got killed, I still do today but for a whole different reason mostly being such a horrible film and all. The huge success of the film (financially anyways...) gave the producers enough reason to milk it even more I suppose, so Godzilla the Animated series was born! I don't remember much from it apart that it was pretty horrible, it had all the super cliché characters you could imagine in the 90's animated series. For some reason Godzilla was adopted by a human because Godzilla considered him his father or something ludicrous like that...

Still I thank those American counter parts for at least making me interested in other Godzilla related stuff. So I searched around for anything Godzilla related I was still extremely limited because of my age at the time, which was like 10-12 or something like that. I started buying all the toys (action figure for the sensitive ones, I still think they're toys), I still have few I might be able to find if I would go in the attic looking. If I remember correctly I have a Mecha-Ghidorah, Godzilla 2000 and a Megalon with the broken horn, most of them found in yard sales and other weird places. I can't seem to find them I though that at least one of them would of been in my closet but no. If I do ever find them I'll be sure to post them, but sadly they might of been lost when I moved. I did manage to find a baby Godzilla from the American movie but that's not cool in any way.

Not only that but I needed to watch some of the films and I did, mostly found on late night television, they were announcing it days before which only hyped my experience. I found myself really lucky to find an actual Godzilla movie on cable TV, heck I only had 12 channels at the time! Still remember how I snuck out of bed just to watch a Godzilla movie at 2 in the morning. So my first Godzilla movie outside the American version was Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. Still today I consider it my favorite and the best, don't know if I'm being bias or not, but the cheesy dialogue mixed with weird time traveling and equally cheesy action scenes really did it for me. Since then I watched a bunch more, anything I could get my eyes on, I know that there are a bunch more movies that I haven't seen but maybe that's a good thing.

My small Godzilla obsession faded through time, but still today I'll catch some films from time to time. I also got interested in monster movies in general. I think without Godzilla I wouldn't of watched great movies like the old 50's movies like Tarantula and It Came From Beneath The Sea or the 80's movies like the Blob, Tremors, The Fly and even might not of seen Alien. Sure they weren't massive destructoids like Godzilla nonetheless no doubt there was a influence behind me wanting to watch those films.

After that seemed dry for awhile there just wasn't any monsters for a long time, people got bored and started making nature kill everything, like volcanoes and tornadoes; you might remember the whole resurgence of the disaster movies. Then there was Cloverfield that I was super hyped for, ever since there was the cryptic preview. First watch, I completely hated the film the camera work annoyed the hell of me the plot was simply dull and uninteresting. My second watch I learned to appreciate it, I was looking for a long awaited monster movie and that just wasn't it. If anything it was ok, nothing special nor is it anything bad. I especially like the subway scene. I still think the monster looks like an anorexic zombie clown, haven't decided if that bad or not yet.

I did found an extremely surprising monster film from South Korea named The Host. I was blown away by this film I loved everything about it, one of my favorite monster films. It is a must see for any monster film fan, I highly recommend it to anyone. Sad news is that they are making a sequel, now I'm not very fond of sequels, often seems like they are trying to milk it in some way. Even more devastating news, they making an American remake...Dear god no. I know I`ll be the first guy to see it in theaters but still...haven`t you learned anything for Godzilla already!?

Change Already.

2009-04-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

I consider myself more of an old school gamer, I don't exactly like the term but that's what I am. I haven't jumped into the newer consoles that much yet I own a single Xbox 360 game which is the mindless destructive fun of Mercenaries 2, an impulsive yet enjoyable buy. A large factor that keeps me into older games is that there are still a huge amount of games from the old generation that I haven't played yet, it would be a shame to skip out on some of the greats from the last generation. Also it is useful to add that, it's not that I don't like the new games that continually come out, there are some brilliant and innovative games out that explore more than a simple rehash and sequels, heck some of the sequels seem really to place some incredible effort into making their experience worthwhile even if they have a safe fanbase already established with their series. I also don't believe the whole bullcrap that people are spewing that developers are taking too much effort into graphics over gameplay. Some games have amazing graphics as well as amazing gameplay.

There's just one game genre that keeps confusing me they don't seem to want to change, not only the company but the fans either don't want to change. Both sides seem to be in a full nostalgic mode, unwilling to accept the fact they the gameplay is dated. Even me, I've been avoiding it because it doesn't change or innovated in something new, yet I still hypocritically enjoy the older titles even sometimes I go and pay some of the games just because of that nostalgic feel in a new game. I'm specifically talking about RPGs, from Final Fantasy, Tales of ______ or to the newer Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata.

Turn based action seems horribly dated to me, we've been using since forever and even today it's a major game mechanic for almost every RPG. Seems also that every time I mention that I find turn based RPGs dated, there always the same response “Alright go play you Western RPGs then!”. What!? No way, most of western RPG are horrible by themselves and can't even substitute for anything. Adding a few RPG elements into a mediocre action/adventure game isn't fun or innovative, you simply added two mediocre experiences together and got an even more mediocre gaming experience. Even worst is when and japanese company tries to makes and american RPG (see Super Paper Mario). Also, this whole region deciding the type of game needs to change, same thing with animation, come on people Teen Titans and Avatar are anime even if they were made in america get over it, now back on topic. Nobody seems to have been able to find a perfect mix of both, apart from Oblivion and Fallout 3, yet the eastern audience still doesn't appreciate it. The huge problem is that I don't even know what I want seems I'm looking for a sublime RPG experience mixed with a more modern gaming feel, but what is that exactly? I have no fucking clue.

I Might be sounding a little harsh while at the same thing don't know what I want but when Final Fantasy the flagship of RPGs innovated their gameplay and aren't even using the turn based gameplay, there's something deeply wrong. It's FINAL FANTASY they could simply market the same bland game with the same story over and over dumping them out each year like they used to, but now they are making some genuine effort (yet they are still milking FF7). A whole new position and command non-turnbased was supremely refreshing to see in final fantasy, its fast paced and really forces you to make the right decision quickly. You know what was pretty awesome too? No random encounters either, there no more excuse for random encounters, we have the technology. Yet Dragon Quest 8 was surprisingly refreshing, it was nothing innovative, turnbased, random encounters it had it all. It had all of the old school mechanic and this huge nostalgic feel to it, sure it had a few new mechanics like alchemy and monster battles but all of that is borrowed from other games.

There are a few games that amazed me and some I haven't played but from what I'm seeing and reading they're are innovating. First example is Valkyria Chronicles, a tactical RPG with live action positioning. I absolutely have to mention Tales of Symphonia, which I found amazing. The story is really horrible but it's the gameplay that shines, outside combat even. You have a ring that can do various things so you need to unlock puzzles and other stuff to progress, ala Breath of Fire. Plus the combat isn't turn based you have control of your character, you equip the spells and weapons before match each is unique and you see the difference. The one major factor I love is that it is multiplayer, yes a multiplayer RPG, it is only in battle sequences but for me it did the game.

I love to hate on Final Fantasy 7, the reaction is always priceless. I personally think it is a great game I didn't finish it back when because even then I found it boring turnbased game, but last month I finished it completely and it was good. Not amazing, I don't know if everyone knows this but FF7 is said to be the best Final Fantasy made. I completely disagree, it is only fueled but pure nostalgia and timing. The people who didn't played it when it came out won't enjoy it as much. There nothing really innovative, simple turnbased combat but cut down to 3 characters instead of 4 and a clunky materia system (materia is the poor man's esper). Even the story line disappointed, most of the time it was “because I said so” elements kinda like anything from Kojima from the Metal Gear fame. Again pure nostalgia exactly like this right here : http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/2376/storyip4.gif

The simple fact is that games made 12 years ago were innovated in the most simple way, Chrono Trigger is a perfect example, you have positioning to think about, combining moves, which character would be better for the situation, semi-turned based, aesthetic changes in weapons and no random encounters. That was 12 years ago! Even now modern games still hold on the old RPG crutch. I always feel hypocritical when talking about this, I always supported simple fun games, you don't always need to innovated, but for RPGs I feel like they need to do something fast.

SIDE NOTE: Now that my school is done for the summer an my weekend decompression is over I have a full week until work so I'll try to post twice a day this week to compensate for lack of effort. I don't promise anything, I'm not good with commitments. Actually I'll be busy tonight so one post for today...

SOS

2009-01-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

SOS, a very simple game for the Super Nintendo. I would like to say that it has an cult following, but that isn't the case. A game so obscure I only remembered it a few days ago. Never really liked it as a kid, I guess I never got the point of it at first. Now that I'm older I decided to get a go at it once again. Surprisingly it defied my simple childhood memory, it was a delightful experience. Now with the gaming industry filled with multiple sandbox/open ended games that seems to take more time than fun, this game was short but sweet. Reminded me of Portal in the way that you could just pick up and play.

At first I though it was just using the Titanic exposure to boost the sales, but Titanic came out in 1997 while SOS came out in 1994. So looking at other popular boat disasters obviously it was influence by ship disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. It has the main catch of it, which is the cruise ship going belly side up. With the fact of the ship being belly side you face awkward scenario of water and fire. So that's the whole premise of the game, going along a trip and suddenly the ship flips over. Contrary to video game fashion there aren't any evil forces causing this disaster. Simple people dealing with a complicated problem. So you play as Capris Wisher, one of the survivors from the flip. Wake up with more dead corpse than living ones and your off. You just lost you sick sister from the flip so the first objective is to find her and any other survivor you find along the way. The whole point of the game is to find you way out and also rescue the most people you can. Once you save the maximum amount of people you switch from another characters perspective and so on. Doesn't change anything gameplay wise but simply story wise.

There a bunch of things that make this game quite an unique experience. First off with it being made on the Super Nintendo they took full advantage and used Mode 7 for the entire gameplay. Amazing considering that Mode 7 was mostly used for showing of maps and some mini levels back then. The way they use Mode 7 is, because the ship is flipped upside down it has a tendency to swerve from side to side once in awhile. So you might be walking completely straight then in real time the ship will shift and you might be walking in a 40 degree angle or even a 90 degree angle. Amazing stuff for the time. So to face this you can climb walls, ceilings and floors depending on how the ship is angled. I don't think that there's any pattern to the shifts, they seem all random.

Another thing that makes the game unique is that there is a timer. I don't usually like timers in video games, but in this one it works. Immersion can either make or break a game and the fact that you can't physically see the timer really helps with the immersion of the experience. The timer adds a new layer of panic because you don't want it to run out before you can get out or before you can save the most people. An incredibly short timer, only clocking at one hour. A simple hour with no save function whatsoever. This game is meant to be played for that single hour. Each time you do play it you get a different experience. Simply because of the multiple survivors with each their own ending depending on how much people you do save. Speculation say that there are about 100 ending but I think there must be only 50.

You also can't take any damage because that would kinda take away from the immersion of not having any hub you can see for your health and such. So to fix this, if you take a rather large fall or get hit by fire you lose time because you fainted. Sometimes it is impossible to avoid a fall because of the shifting ship, so you will lose time no matter what. In all I would say a normal game where you try to save the most you would last about 45 minutes. Or if you're selfish you can finish it in about 6 minutes or so. Isn't so simple either rescuing people, some wont follow you unless you find their kids or vice versa. There are a bunch of favors to do before you can make to make the said person follow you. Even you manage to get one to follow you need to reach the boiler room. There a few annoying elements like the stupid AI but I'll excuse that for the hardware its on. The fact that you can't run seems odd, you'd think he would be in a hurry to get out?
All and all, its an innovative pick up and play experience meant to last you no more than an hour. Really an amazing concept, a hidden gem that deserves at least some small respect. A game that you ask yourself "How could that work?" yet it totally does. There's supposedly a sequel on the playstation but I know nothing about it.

Heavy Metal

2008-11-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

My computer got busted last week because of high winds that shut down the electricity abruptly and shorted something inside, well there goes about 100$ repair out of my wallet. I do have an old computer that serves as an replacement but it has 191 MB of RAM which is highly confusing because they don’t even make that much. So since it can barely run Firefox and I felt bad about not updating for what might be a week or more, I decide to write a post at my university. Really is awkward writing a blog post at university especially while looking up for some pictures because the subject isn’t exactly SFW. Hey, they don’t know me and I don’t know them, the feeling is mutual. So it’ll be short for today cause of limited time but don’t worry, I’ll do a sequel to the post to look into things that I don’t have time with right now.

No, I’m not talking about the music genre. Yes, I am talking about the animated film made in 1981. It supposedly obtained cult status now, but seems like I’m the only one in my area that knows about the film. Very rare to find for some legal reasons they never released it on video tape or anything, not exactly sure if that’s resolved yet. It was directed by the same director of the popular magazine of the same name of the movie: Heavy Metal. The magazine featured dark science fiction and fantasy set often with a little erotica and of course a touch of heavy metal music. The movie was probably made because of the rise and arguably the peak of popularity of Heavy Metal music and the magazine.

Imagine if you took a 14 year old heavy metal fanatic with raging hormones, you gave him an infinite supply of redbull and several animation houses at his disposal. You would get only one thing, the animated film known as Heavy Metal. Its pure adolescent fantasy filled with sex, violence and drugs. Too bad Power Metal wasn’t invented yet, because some of the fantasy albums would have fit perfectly in there.

I have a hard time grouping the film with others because it’s so unique. I would like to call it science fictions, but the movie tagline is ``A Step Beyond Science Fiction``. But surely it has science fiction attributes mixed with high fantasy and some touches of cyberpunk. Another problem with deciding the genre is that the film is split in different segments with each their different style and context.

The film starts out with the introduction, where you see an astronaut riding a futuristic silver 1960 corvette. Reality check before continuing because I’m not kidding. The guy brought to his daughter a green orb. Wasn’t really a good gift because the green orb is in-fact Loc-Nar the sum of all evil. Then the orb proceeds to melt the girls father in an instant, then forces the little girl watch events in which Loc-Nar influences trough the universes. That’s the setting the whole film is basically a series of events that Loc-Nar shows the little girl. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not really sure if that orb is really evil. Showing all that stuff to a little girl seems a little kinkier than evil, if you ask me.

Some would say the film is almost only popular because of the music. I don’t think it had everything to do with it but I bet it did have an huge influence at time. Because I wasn’t even born yet I can’t see the impact of it all. In fact it does have a kickass soundtrack some of the best metal of the time, I don’t especially like early 80`s heavy metal but I’m just nitpicking it right now. The soundtrack is also the main reason why it isn’t released into the home movies yet, legal reasons for releasing the tracks. Anyways the film features great artists like Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Sammy Hagar, Journey, Black Sabbath and much more. All these songs fit perfectly the film, maybe I’m being bias I can’t really tell sometimes.

That’s all the time I have for today, pay attention for an update not only for the blog but on Heavy Metal I have a lot more to say.

Comix Zone

2008-11-08T09:54:00.001-08:00

Comix Zone is an interesting game that I think sold on the pure graphic style and concept. Came out in 1995 on the Sega Genesis, since then it came out on the Gameboy Advance and more recently the Virtual Console on the Wii. Back then it was an amazing concept nothing like it ever seen before. Even today its been copied a few times but not in the same extent of comix zone. Still nothing really amazing gameplay wise pretty stock from the 90's but there just something about it that screams unique. Set inside a comic book you swing from panel panel fighting enemies drawn by the villain who is outside the comic book.

You play a freelance cartoonist/rock musician, ironically named Sketch Turner. While working on his new comic book named Comix Zone, a thunder storm comes by and somehow while not physically touching the comic, brings to life the main villain of his own comic! Mortus the main villain sucks you into the comic, because for some odd reason he can't defeat you in the real world. You meet Allissa Cyan who doesn't do anything really important apart from pointing the obvious, like yelling out "Watch out!" or "Go over there!". Mortus the lame villain he is gives you a second chance when you die in the first level, he goes and says "Oh, come on -- that was just too easy!". I don't think that's good for your supervillain rep there Mortus, giving a second chance to the hero? So you need to get at the end of the comic so you can be set free. See what happens when you mix some bad video game story lines with some bad comic storyline, you get no story line. One thing I do love about the story is that there aren't any real cut scenes the speech bubbles appear and you read the cheesy lines to find out whats going on.
The gameplay isn't amazing either, its a beat-em-up in essence. You run around beating up everything on screen while pulling switches and pushing boxes to continue. You do find your pet rat Roadkill who also got sucked into the comic, he helps you get into new areas and finding secret items and areas. The items you get are knifes, bombs, powerfists and health bottles all things you can use for battle. While fighting enemies you get the standard punch and combo to hard punch so you can connect to your final hard hit. Nothing amazing there either, seems like I'm making this look like a bad game but that's not where the game shines!

The game shines in the concept and visuals. You aren't in the comic book world you are in the comic itself. The whole game is full of color like in comic book. So you swing from panel to panel to get to the next page, which makes for a really cool experience. In total there are 3 world with 2 levels each, which makes 6 pages in all. Most of the enemies are drawn in real times, so you see the hand and pencil drawing the enemies. Even while fighting when you hit you see the classic "POW!!"
Like I mentioned earlier, the whole story is flowing with the game with the use of speech bubbles. There also those yellow text box at the corner of the panel, which I don't even know if there a name for those or not? Anyone care to inform me? Anyways, all the lines seem to be taken from some old cliché comic book dialog. You never say anything profound, mostly grunts and cheesy lines. Still it all blends flawlessly with the game, even the enemies have their say in the game. There is one little minor feature I like a lot, when you pause the game Sketch says in his speech bubble the time you have been playing. There's also at the last page in the corner you can clearly see that the comic is not quite finished, another little feature I love.
That's all the comic book like features in the game, there might be some more references in there but my knowing didn't spot them. They not only exploit the fact that you are inside a comic book but also the fact the comic is an object, a paper object in fact. You can use your rat to sniff ou secret areas and items, well the way he does that is by ripping a piece of the page and that reveals the area. Mortus also use this fact to defeat you, like burning the page. Even at some places if you make a hard flying hit the enemies will go flying trough the panel, in consequence ripping them. Take a close look at the pictures below the first you see the ripped panel and the second you Sketch using his ultimate move making the whole page rip to destroy enemies.There bummer with the game is that its short and hard. It seems like the style in the 90's, if the game is short make it hard so it'll last longer. They reason that its hard is that there are barely any health jars to pick up and the enemies sometimes don't have any flinch so they hit you trough your barrage of attacks. You only have one life I guess to keep up with the story and realism of the game world. Not unbearably hard but still very frustrating at times.

The game is a true gem that is surprisingly unknown. Both of the comic elements mix flawlessly and makes for a really great experience. Video game fans and comic books fans alike can't afford to miss out on this. I got this picture I find funny, I was trying to get a shot at his Superhero transformation, but I got something extra with this ridiculous caption.

Ghouls 'n Ghosts

2008-10-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

The keep with the Halloween I decided to make a Halloween relate post. First I though of talking about my favorite band Helloween but that would of been too cheesy even for my standards. Now I will talk about the most horrifying game made. So scary and disgusting that most people won't even bother finishing the game, heck most people can't even reach the second level. Frozen in fear most of the game this game plays games with.... your fucking patience! Ghouls 'n Ghosts is such a hard game sometimes it feels almost unplayable. No Konami code to help you out here its just you trying to keep you underpants clean. I'll be looking at Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts because it is arguably the best one in the series.

Very short look on the history, that I don't know much of. Like most games from the 80-90's they started out in arcades. First there was Ghosts 'n Goblins then came Ghouls 'n Ghosts. From my knowledge Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is a port to the Super Nintendo with a lot of little features added here and there. Also when it got here in the states they censored once again. Changing the Crosses to Ankhs and changing the Satan's name.

The story is very straightforward even for video game standards. The story starts out with Arthur going to see his presumed girlfriend Princess Guinevere, but all of a sudden the devil himself comes in and kidnaps the Princess. Since Arthur is such a good guy and like any boyfriend/knight of the kingdom would do, he sets off too save her. Why not? He already went to hell and back twice before one more time won't hurt.
So there's Arthur right there, a pretty straightforward guy, girlfriend kidnapped must save. You start out with your regular armor as shown above. First object that makes the game hard is while that armor may seem sturdy one hit and its gone. Not only that but if you lose your armor you are stuck in your underwear and like in real life you don't want to be stuck in your underwear going into hell. You can have some extra magic armor, like the green magic armor with enhances your attack power and give you a shield. After the green armor is the golden armor with lets you charge your attacks for a massive one (a la Capcom). He also has his trusty spear the default weapon. He can also pick up other various items like knifes, torches, hand axes and a few other.
All of those extra items might make the game seems a little more easier but really it only makes a small difference. See you can pick up different and new weapons but most of them aren't as par with your default spear. Even sometimes you think you would need this weapon to make those pesky ghouls easier to defeat but you soon realize that after them your trusty old spear is just better. Some of the weapons are more powerful but are slower or some of them a faster but weaker. Those mechanics are completely useless in the context of the game. The only time I would recommend different weapons is if you have the golden armor then some of the charged shots are actually useful. Once again the spear is the better charge shot for any situation.

Another feature that makes the game exceptionally hard is the gameplay mechanics. First off, your jumps. When you jump you have no directional influence. You might say that doesn't sound that bad but when you are used to having a lot of control in the air like in every Super Mario this becomes problematic. You do have a second jump that you can use to go each direction but still this hardly makes up for no directional influence. This makes that you have to plan each jump, you only have one chance no backing out. If you jump in an area and something dangerous comes out of the ground, your screwed. Second problem with the gameplay mechanics, the enemies respawn. They just keep on coming and coming, never ending so you are always on your toes ready to fight. Sometimes its just better to run past them, but watch out you don't want to get stuck between two hordes of monsters. Lastly the treasure chest are a blessing and sometimes there evil. They are completely random so you could have armor full armor in seconds and sometimes you could get royally screwed by bear traps and Wizards Jesters. A perfect example of the situation, look at the full video. Also little obvious things, you only have 2 hits and no save points.

I myself am proud that I reached the first final boss. Yes the first final boss. If you do manage to make it to Satan's castle and defeat him, it was all for nothing. The whole game you just spent your tears on ripping out your hair in frustration was only an illusion from Satan. Are you fucking kidding me a illusion from Satan!? That's were I stopped playing. Apparently you need a magic bracelet to actually fight Satan... That's just a way to artificially lengthen the game, they don't give a new world, they only slap you to the start of the game so you have to finish it once more. Since Arthur is such a nice guy and someone out there has the patience of a god he saves the princess and you learn it was all a conspiracies against god somehow... Argh I'm losing patience only talking about the game.

A great game if you like ripping out your hair. Today's gamers would cry if they played this game. The game companies are way too sweet and gamers today. You can pick it up on the virtual console for the Wii if you want some self punishment.

Megaman update: I'm at Megaman X6 can't wait to finish it, one of the lesser titles of the series...

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out my image loss, uploaded my own, not grat quality but will look into fixing that.

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

2008-10-28T18:55:00.002-07:00

Time to revitalize this blog! Been awhile since I posted in here for obvious personal reasons, which are my exams. Which are gladly over last week only one more left which is situated in two weeks for some odd teacherish reason. This is week is an study/break week for me, no school at all so that leaves at lot of free time on my hands. So why didn't I post earlier after my exams? Well you know when you realize how much you miss something until it's gone? For those who know me I needed to play improv so, there was an 24 hour improv tournament this weekend and I was itching to play and it took me a day to recover. Now I'm back so I can start updating for my legion of fans (2-3 that I know of). Lots of catching up to do, especially in my gaming, see for me my online gaming isn't just about having fun its a way to stay connected with my friends who moved away. Since I wasn't able to play for the last week or two they've been or I've been dragging them to some gaming). Think I would make an epic informative interesting post with my comeback!? HA! Prepare for some small ranting and other quick stuff...

Battlefield 2142: Potatoes can't make me better at this game

I really do like this game a lot, nothing better than organizing a group on teamspeak and doing some kick ass futuristic first person ownage. The game is fully multiplayer, there isn't even an one player campaign mode so don't even plan on buying this one if you want a interesting story. Now things I hate. The learning curve, you start out not knowing what the hell you're doing and two seconds later brutally killed by an unknown opponent. I don't know if it was just me but at first I would die constantly fumbling with my weapons and equipment. Further worsening the situation they added this RPG like system to the game, and I do hate it when Americans try to make an RPG system. You start off with no equipments at all so you progressively unlock them with each rank up. At first you quickly rank up but then the requirements get higher and higher and the time span between rank up and unlocks become bigger and bigger. See how irritating that can get? Still not as bad as I make it seem, it is gratifying finally unlocking a special item.

You can't fix/destroy the vehicles with potatoes either. The vehicles are great, at least some of them are great. The walkers are like these giant robots with legs that are super strong with an high armor. The problem is that it has way to much armor and almost no weakness. Seems like the one in the walker most often will have the most kills in a match. They are also impossible to kill no machine gun will do them damage even a rocket launcher does minimal damage, often airstikes are used to finally bring the fucking tripod wannabe down. When the game loads there are "tips" shown at the bottom, one of those tips are "Walkers have vents in their undersides that are weak to any firearm.". Yes that might be true but it is near damn impossible to get under it for various reasons. 1. the driver will shoot and kill you 2. the co-pilot manning the turret on top of the walker will shoot you. 3. Other ground units will shoot you 4.incoming grenades and fire from your teammates that want to take down the walker will hit you 5. You can't run as fast as the walker can walk. Even if you do manage to get under it you soon realize it was a huge waste because shooting the vents does damage but barely anything to destroy it and it will notice you and take a step forward and insert 20 pounds of led into your ass. There also the flying vehicles, there two vehicles the carrier and the fighter. The fighter is fine but the carrier is a piece of crap. I nicknamed it the moose, know why? Have you ever tried to fly a moose? Well it's the equivalent experience.

Still a great game, but now for a little less ranting.

Batman vs Dracula

I watched this yesterday kinda confused on how I missed it because it was made in 2005. At first looking at the info I though it was the old Batman series from the 90's but soon realized that it was the new Batman series cleverly named "The Batman" .Because nowadays we don't need "The animated series" attached to a product to know what it is. Seriously did they think we wouldn't know that it was animated without it being labeled? Back on topic, I found the concept of Batman fighting Dracula very hilarious, surely this isn't the first time Batman fights Dracula in his history? I was very surprised at the quality and the movie as a whole.

The movie takes on this cinematic look especially in the actions scenes, you see things thing normally seen in movie now used in an animated. For example slowing down a hard hit for a second then speeding it up right when he hits them and in one scene the vampires see Batman and for a second you see inside Batman with his veins and heart. All very little details but those are the small things that make the movie. I'm sure that there are a lot of other little instances like that, but that would require I second watch methinks.

The whole events are very improbable, the premise is that Dracula was though to be killed years ago but they shipped the body to America so it could be buried in a safe place and that safe place is now Gotham cemetery. After the Penguin escapes he revives Dracula by mistake. Now the penguin doesn't play a huge role he really only plays comic relief. The other Bat villain to come into play is the Joker of course and he is awesome in this movie. Never did like the joker from "The Batman" but in this one he is pretty twisted. People are going to hate me for this, but I like better the Mark Hamilton Joker than the Heath Ledger Joker. That statement has nothing do with this film but I just had to get that out.

The movie is way darker than the series itself. Shows a lot more blood than expected, it is Dracula after all. Still they did censor it quite a bit, when Batman gets cut he doesn't bleed or anything, just a scratch. One scene in the blood bank is pretty twisted and creepy, but yet again they censored blood the American way by changing the color. In this scene there a lot of blood it even rains blood at a point. The problem is that because of the lighting the blood is dark and not red almost black. They pulled the same thing with Castlevania for the Genesis, turning the blood green, because green isn't blood its ooze and that a-ok for parents!There a numerous times were they change the blood color so it makes it Ok and I'm sick of it. Still might be just me over thinking it again, the dark colors fit the scene and ambience of it really well. This is the darkest animated film, yes even darker than the uncut version of The Return of The Joker.

In the end it was still predictable, but the actions scenes and the dark feel of an animated Batman makes it worth the watch. It even has small camp value with cheesy lines for the penguin like "Breakfast in bed freshly squeezed" right when Dracula eats someone in his coffin. Well at least there weren't any Bat Credit Cards (For those who don't know or remember, consider yourself lucky). Oh also there's Dracula renaming himself Alucard while in human form! How clever we never saw that in modern media before!

Last note: I will be attempting to complete the whole Megaman X franchise during my week off, already at X3 . So watch out for a Megaman related post! Just to clear things up I won't be searching for 100% just the final boss battle.

Religulous

2008-10-13T17:34:00.001-07:00

I just came back from seeing Religulous (Might I add that I have a hell of hard time saying it). If you didn't hear about it lately, it's basically Bill Maher running around highly religious people and discussing/mocking them in their beliefs. So it's a documentary, but in contrary to getting any facts it's more about taking a look at religion and people in it. There are a lot of funny parts in the movie, reminds me a lot of Erasme's The Praise of Folly.

The movie starts off with Maher explaining the inevitable Armageddon and how many people believe that it is going to happen. That leads in the brief look at how people are using the inevitable Armageddon as an excuse to pollute and destroy. I really would of liked that he would looked into that a lot more than he did. There are only the opening statement and the ending statement that actually advances in the movie in anything, right after the starting statement the movie starts with the interviews.

This is where the movie wins and falls. In the interviews you never actually learn anything useful about these highly religious people and their opinion. Maher just goes on bashing an mocking these religious folk, is it an intelligent debate? No, but sure is funny. Most of the time Maher tries to get his witty/insulting comment by and most of the comes with an hilarious effect. Not only does the movie comedy rely on Maher's comments (because I don't think it could) it goes on in showing small clever clips in a comedic way, often old religious movies. They are all beautifully timed an executed. Now the comedy saves the movie but in the end it never actually accomplishes anything and certainly won't start debate among the religious community like The Praise of Folly or The 95 Theses of Martin Luther did in the fifteen hundreds.

There is one interview with the guy named Jesus, he brings up really good points in religions if you remove the really high religious stuff into it, he even had Maher stumped a few times you could tell. There is also an interview with a funny old priest that really says what religion should be, even Maher seems to agree with him. Not even a handful of informative interviews, but maybe and most probably Maher's method is the only way to get past those thick skulls.

The movie ends with a really good written ending statement worth taking a listen. Too bad the movie doesn't advance and certainly won't cause for much debate, because most people could say he only bashes the people he interviews, which is true in a way. I really liked the film in all, so I would recommend it for anyone looking for a new perspective on religion or just to find a laugh.

My Superpowers?

2008-10-11T18:18:00.001-07:00

I starting writing a extensive post about Guild Wars but then half way I realized the images I wanted to show people was going to take some sniping, cutting and resizing, so I stopped. It would take me too much work too get all the things ready for tonight and I really didn't feel like it, one of those days you know? So I decided to just make a fun post which wouldn't really need that much thinking, again one of those days... So I opted with something fun, simple and short, which super power would I like to have?!

Sure you must of all dreamed it more than once in your life, having superpowers. Even if it was something as simple as being able to fly or shoot laser beams out of your mouth. Even you might of had a discussion with your friends sometime of what super power would you like best? Since having only one super power is pretty lame compared to some super heroes, I'll be choosing trough different super hero archetypes. Do keep in mind that my super hero knowledge is very limited to animated series and other ramblings from people and friends, since I barely looked into comics, I think because it was never popular in my area.

At first glance I think the most logical choice would be Superman. That guy has virtually everything! Super strength, speed, hearing, cold breath, invulnerable and a handful of cool things with his eyes. Superman is like the poster child for superheroes he has almost everything and his only weakness is kryptonite and magic. Most of the other superheroes has one of his powers while Superman like a plethora of things work with. I'll just go ahead and say it, he's so fucking cheap! He has everything! Almost god like! If I was him I would mock almost everyone with less than four powers! So because he's so cheap, would turn me into a jackass and is the obvious choice, I choose not Superman.

There are some others I though about but quickly changed my mind. First off Wonder Woman has a bunch of useful superpowers, but then I would have to change into a amazonian female and that isn't really a good trade off for me. Another one is SpiderMan, sure he's an awesome superhero but for me, location wise, it would be pretty difficult, living in New-Brunswick doesn't give you much buildings to swing and climb off. Ferro Lad I do like, the idea of being nearly invincible is cool, but don't like the idea of being a martyr isn't cool. Aquaman is cool in his own way he can talk to fish and stuff but being limited to water could be quite depressing, a fish companion can only go so far.

A pretty cool superhero is the Green Lantern, he has a magical ring that can like shoot energy bolts, create energy objects, fly and a bunch of other cool things. He isn't overly cheap like Superman as I aforementioned. The odd thing is that the ring doesn't affect yellow objects for some reason? Now that's just plain inconvenient, why such a discrimination against yellow objects!? The fact is that if I do have a ring, this means I'm in this kind of Space Police fighting for justice. Now I though that was cool but it also means I have to follow the rules all the time and I'm forced to fight crime. I think that would be a real disadvantage with all the people trying to steal my ring and having to follow orders? Ugh.

Not exactly a superhero but a power I do appreciate is Magneto's magnetic powers. I find that so awesome having complete control over metal objects. I don't exactly know the true extent to his powers but they seems pretty god like, he did move a whole bridge in the movie. Even in the animated series he has his own metal castle where he can manipulate everything in it, even turning the metal in liquid like form, which was pretty wicked.

One superhero I do especially like is Thor, he isn't god like, he is a god! He has a bunch of Power much like superman but doesn't get that over cheap feeling to him. The Mjolnir as his mighty weapon lets him manipulate the weather and fly! How epic is that? using a frikin hammer to defeat your opponents! No worries about it getting it stolen, because only you can lift it with your godly powers (The Hulk did lift it once but I'm going to let that go). Another plus side about being Thor is that everything you say will be said in a poetic and/or epic way. So Thor is my choice if were to fight crime.

You heard it right "if I were to fight crime", what does that mean? Well Thor is pretty kickass and embodies the Power Metal persona but isn't really practical in my everyday life and the lack of some real supervillians is problematic. The superhero I would choose for my daily life would be The Flash. The guy might only have one superpower attribute which is superspeed but that's more than enough. I don't know how many times I realized I was late or I just wanted to get somewhere fast. If I had The Flash's superpowers it would make things way easier, I would save gas money, heck even get rid of my license, and I would never be late for anything! Just imagine, need to set up a room for an occasion of some kind? No problem done in 15 seconds flat. I also heard he could read books in super speed, not really sure if that's true, but that would be epic. Again just imagine the incredible possibilities!

Small recap
-For fighting crime: Thor
-For normal everyday life: The Flash

Downfall of American Cartoons...!

2008-10-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Cartoons nowadays are regarded as child's play it is a whole media specifically centered around the exploit of kids! Sure I could accept that if only it had a wholehearted true alternative towards adult cartoons. Now don't get mixed up now by adult cartoons, I don't mean some kind of kinky alternative. Firstly there are some adult cartoons out there like Futurama, Simpsons and Family Guy. The problem with those, good on their own value, they don't stand in the plethora of kids cartoons that fly in the media of today. One of the negative things that happened to cartoons is Walt Disney. Sure he did amazing things for the cartoon era with his art style and drive but still he ruined it's reputation and place an ugly stereotype of cartoons are childish.

First I have to start with a little history. Cartoons at first were specifically designed to a much wider audience I could even go say it was only aimed for adults. Most of its first exposure was set into movies, not into full movies but in trailers! Not the same trailers that we know now that show the upcoming movies, back then when the theater was relatively new, trailers played a more important part into the movie experience. See back then the word trailer meant what in meant in the sense that it trailed after the movie hence the word trail-er(get it?). Compared to now that are in front of the movie forcing you to watch it. Trailers were often animated shorts of 7-15 minutes. The most probable factor of the fall of cartoons is, with the rise of the television they stopped making trailers and left the cartoons in the dust and all the misconceptions started shortly after that.

Walt Disney now built and empire out of childish cartoons in consequences added further to the misconception of the toons. It was really a way of censoring and "protecting" the children from corruption. You might be hesitant to believe the moronic transformation of cartoons but just take a look at Japanese animation (anime) they didn't transform their animation to a childish perspective mainly because they didn't have Walt Disney to corrupt them(Tho, Astro Boy is heavily taken from the Disney art style). Even more proof everything that passes trough american cartoonist are horribly censored like the removal of all semi foul language and any blood. (See 4kids's One Piece or Dragonball(Z))

With the huge success of Walt Disney, everyone wanted in the cashcow that was exploiting children through animation. Which place the cartoon rep even lower. I would like cartoons get back to at least the Tex Avery era, I really do feel like we could appreciate the cleverness of the scenarios of that era and not the more moronic censored cartoons we have today. We can have a genuine and interesting story and scenario without dumming it down for kids, at least I would think/hope so. Maybe I'm just dreaming of something better or always looking for something a genuine and clever like Red Hot Riding Hood, which I think is Tex's best animation and my personal favorite of all time. It doesn't have any gratuitous adult material and puts even a hard statement from the start, that is "we're tired of this! It's already been done before!"

Taken from that statement, I do still look into the new cartoons from something worthy like its a personal quest or something. A perfect example of that is Total Drama Island , a cartoon of a reality tv show, see they take something so abused in the media but add an original twist to it, like Tex Avery back then. Other finds are are the shorts of Doodlez, reminiscing of Duck Amuck (where Daffy argues and has clever situation with the artist in real time). The show is simple the kid (Dood) is often put in scenarios by choice of the artist, clever and funny. Here's one of the shorts, simply look into related videos if you want more.

Here's hoping for a cartoon revolt. No! A cartoon revolution! (Hehe I just had to plug that somewhere, sometime)

Power Metal + Geek Metal

2008-10-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

I'm an avid metal fan I like anything metal. I do specialize in Power Metal it is what I live from I don't think I could pass the day without listening to at least one song. My library is made up of over 150 hours of only power metal. Maybe you haven't heard of Power Metal before? That's Normal because it is mostly more popular in Europe, South America and Québec. Power Metal is a mix of traditional Heavy Metal, Speed Metal and the energy of Trash Metal often with symphonic elements. When I first started to listen to it I heard a lot of times that it was metal for geeks, I often denied for some unknown reason, now that I think about it, really it could be metal for geeks.

Power Metal often utilize over dubbing the vocalist voice to make this epic feel to the song this also includes choirs, in some bands they even have have an opera vocalist. Heavy use of keyboards and often symphonic instruments even sometimes using a full symphony like Fairyland, Dark Moor and Rhapsody.

First observation, a lot of the power metal band utilize Dungeons and Dragons like themes for their lyrics, artwork, style. The most obvious case of this is Rhapsody Of Fire, they are truly inspired by dungeons and dragons even getting the artist of D&D to make the cover art of their albums. My personal favorite is their new album Triumph or Agony shown below. Power Metal is often about concepts and Rhapsody concept is the Emerald Sword saga, which is and epic story which spans withing five CDs. Some continue the story while some might go in deeper into a character either the protagonist or the atagonist. They do end the Emerald Sword saga with the album called "Power of the Dragonflame" but they quickly start up a new story named "The Dark Secrets". Before I didn't see how it was all so cheesy but it is and I love it so.
Another band guilty of this style is Blind Guardian one the pionners of Power Metal, they don't venture into the D&D realm but they do go pretty damn close into the J.J.R Tolkien realm. They don;t only go into J.J.R they also go into Frank Herbert, Peter Straub, Stephen King, Michael Moorcock and more. Still their biggest influence is J.J.R Tolkien you can see that since their first album. They really blew things out of proportions with something never really been done before. In 1998 they released Nightfall On Middle Earth and it was and still is epic, acclaimed by critics and fans, it features 22 tracks not only songs but narrations between to tell the story.Blind Guardian and Rhapsody utilize other media to influence them but some band create their own world and story. Like for example Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys, Dragonland's Dragonland (Hyper cheesy) and one of my personal favorites Iced Earth's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Now I know what you are saying but Something Wicked isn't from Ray Bradbury or Shakespear it is and original story. Other groups how utlize the still medievil stylings of valour, honour, comradeship and hope like Hammerfall and Flaconer each song cheesier than the next. Still the cheesiest lyrical theme I ever heard is Alestrom's Captain Morgan's Revenge. A mix of folk pirate music and metal with some of the cheesiest lyrics known to man.

Another geeky thing I realize is Iced Earth's "The Dark Saga". This is yet another concept album based or entirely taken from the comic book series Spawn even Todd McFarlane (the creator of Spawn) did the artwork for the album cover. Symphony X also comes to mind with their album "The Odyssey" a musical transition for the epic poem featuring a 25 minute long song.

Often Power Metal is stereotyped be being about wizards and elves while that might be true it sometimes goes beyond that like for instance Gamma Ray has their album "Somewhere out in Space" which is a futuristic outer space story, dealing with frequent Gamma Ray theme of freedom. There's also Primal Fear and their album Black Sun another album about an outer space adventure. Still cheesy but a different way of cheese.

In all I wouln't call it geek metal, I would call it cheese metal. I mean it is so cheesy yet I love so much I don't know why. I could get you into even more cheesy material like those Viking bands or those pure metal symphonic bands with 5 vocalists with a total of 12 members, but for now I'll restrain myself.

Procrastination

2008-09-25T18:56:00.001-07:00

Yes I'm doing it again I'm procrastinating. I do it a lot actually. I do have plans to start a weekly subject something of the kind so it would make sure that I at least have one update per week and the rest will be when I feel like it. Then when I really get into the routine of things and get my Mercenaries 2 addiction under control (52% done) I will start more and more and reach a higher number of updates per week; hopefully.

First idea is to get something like Treasure Thursday I like Thursday because I usually don't do anything Thursday .So Treasure Thursday will be a weekly feature looking at a media being game/book/movie ect... that's good but never managed to get a blimp on the radar screen or people just don't know anything about it. Basically a hidden gem or something shiny and important and non noticeable. Not a review because I really don't like giving reviews and slapping a score on something. Apart from that I really don't know what to do, seems like a good idea.

Now for some rambling to add something so this post won't be utterly useless. The reason I don't like giving a score is because sometimes people give a title a 10 the perfect number. Now this really bothers me because I believe nothing is perfect. I do this test with every game I play now, I run against a wall and see if my character will just continue running into the wall aimlessly. Since I saw Conker in Conker's Bad Fur Day run in a wall and pushing it because there is an actual factual wall, it opened my eyes a little wider. Such a small thing but now if a game just has their character continue running against a wall like it is some kind of infinite treadmill, it loses something for me, point is that for me it can't be a perfect game.

Now that my post isn't utterly useless more updates more frequently coming soon.

Awesome Anthropomorphic 90's Cartoons

2008-09-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

The 90's is an era of awesomeness in radical proportions. Back then kids knew what they wanted and what they wanted was the most extreme thing that they could get their hands on. I was one of those kids wearing bright florescent T-shirts and equally bright shorts topping it off with my backwards ball cap and sunglasses. For some reason seems that all we wanted at the time was heroes fighting crime in the most radical way possible. I would of said in the most humanly possible but they aren't human because humans are lame (see the dilemma there?), but anthropomorphic animals are oh so tubular. As for every fad there is a source, I have yet to found the source for all the muscle bound heroes of the 80's but I am sure it has something to do with the rise of heavy metal. Now back onto the radical 90's, sure you must all know it all started out with The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were just a simple parody of every comic that was popular at the time (around 1984). The freak child of Frank Miller's Ronin , Daredevil and New Mutants (supposedly also Cerebus but I have no idea what is Cerebus). Ninja comes from Ronin the Mutant comes from X-Men : New Mutants and all I know they took from Daredevil is a parody of their masters Daredevil's master is called Stick while the Turtles Master is called Splinter. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spawned everything from comics toys accessories ranging from bed spreads to shoes. Every kid probably saw them for the first time in their animated series where they would fight Krang and the Shredder using their teenaged ninja skills with the help of April O'Neil reporter/yellow jumpsuit fanatic. The Turtles also set the bar on the 90's stereotypes with the one serious leader, radical comic relief, badass that is too awesome to follow the rules and the smart guy that builds the machines . Now with fame comes imitators and parodies, ironically anything parodying the turtles is parodying a parody. Then the wave of anthropomorphic animal heroes come in different times in the 90's each more awesome then the next.

The first offender is Battletoad a video made by R are back in 1992. All awkwardly named after a skin conditions Pimple, Zit, and Rash kicked ass all over the galaxy. These toads didn't have any ninja action but they could morph their bodies for a moment to kick ass, like hammer for hands, giant boot to kick even rams out of head to headbutt. Of course with the success of TMNT (Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles) someone wanted in on the cash cow, so DIC Entertainement tried their hand on making an animated series of Battletoad. Sadly the world was not ready for that kind of awesomeness so only the pilot was made, even more awesome it was written by Rare's musical composer David Wise. Here's the Battletoads Animated Series pilot courtesy of Youtube. I still can't believe it didn't catch on I mean a lines like "You won this battle toads!" or "Phycotronic!" and "Cosmorific".
Of course BIC wasn't going to stop at one failed attempt it wanted in the cash cow of TMNT. So they started the Street Sharks, I group of 4 kids turned into sharks Jab, Streex, Slammu and Ripster fought crime with their Shark power which includes being able to swim/rip trough pavevement. Don't remember much from this one apart how awesome it was. It did spawn a spinoff show from some other characters in it, called Extreme Dinosaurs. Now these guys are even more extreme than anything before even their fighting line is extreme "Lets Fossilize Them!". Once again I don't remember much from that series none of them even came close to being as popular or good as TMNT seems like they over shadowed everything at the time.

Even Hanna-Barbera jumped on the bandwagon, creating SWAT-Kats : The Radical Squadron. These guys are so awesome they don't need a group of four or even a trio, two is enough for these radical kats, heck they don't even follow rules of simple grammar by naming themselves "kats" with a "K". Seems tho that kids didn't find them radical enough, so they recharged them in little proportions firstly making them quit the squad and making them mercenaries, freelance agents of the sort, which is way more radical because these kats don't follow any rules. Something I noticed about most 90's cartoons they don't really have any story more of different fight for each episode.The last of the bunch (that I can remember) is Biker Mice from Mars, these guys at the time seemed like they could actually rival the TMNT popularity , the show consist of 3 mice from Mars injured in a war on their home planet, in consequence gives them awesome robotic limbs and cool shades. They escape to planet earth and fighting crime and evil-doers. How did they fight crime? Sure they had mouse power but their bike driving skills were way more useful and radical. These guys were big at the time for me around here you were either a Mice or Turtles fan. A war not as big as Mario vs Sonic, but memorable either way. Even with the revival of the new TMNT the Bikers got their own revival pretty much at the same time, but I think they flopped this time, because I haven't heard anything big about them apart from the single revival.

I could talk about Samurai Pizza Cats but nobody likes them.

My first RPG experience.

2008-09-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Now from RPG I don't mean video games like Final Fantasy or Earthbound , I mean those real roleplaying games like the titan of them all Dungeons and Dragons! Which is the single Roleplaying game I played. So Dungeons and Dragons is my first roleplaying game I played and the only roleplaying game I played and I only played it once. As you can see I'm experienced in RPGs.

My first RPG wasn't a bad experience it wasn't an amazing experience either. I was just expecting way more from it. First I created my character a Dwarf of course, because Dwarfs are awesome, now for the class I picked Monk because monks also kick ass. The combination of a Dwarf not using any weapons is what intrigued always wanted to see a hammer less dwarf.. I'll explain my deeper liking for Dwarfs and Monks another time. Everyone seemed to of picked the stereotypes like a strong dumb character, a smart weak but magically endowed Witch and a valiant Paladin with high defense and healing. All seemed so cliché and cheesy, but I do love cheese.

The adventure I found pretty bland, maybe because I missed the first half hour because I needed to be somewhere at the time, but for my late arrival it did provide for this comical opening which was fun initiation to the game. Even so they briefed me on it nothing really amazing we had this book and we needed the collection for something magical and someones dad died, sister disappeared ect.... Seemed just thrown together. All fine tho, I never fuss about story line in a game as long as the gameplay is good. Once again I was expecting something a little more amazing, like you enter a bar have a great time drinking and singing songs of old elvish wars which are now part of kids storybooks then all of a sudden an undead army attacks! The few braves left join up with some other heroes on the quest to find the book of necronos, which leads them to a cave where the dark order of hundred years was formed and also the alter of the book of necronos... Once taken from the alter, arises an unknown horror. No time to think of black geometry the heroes leap into the abyss because anything would be better than facing the horrors that await them. All narrated by Christopher Lee, you know that kind of adventure.

One thing that bugged me was I didn't know if I was supposed to be full on character or just me doing what would be best or a mix of both. There were times where one of friend was always like "I know the answer but my character doesn't so I can't answer...!" I found it broke away from the mood of roleplaying. There was also another that Metagamed which is essentially playing like a pro using everything you know personally to win like for example not looking directly at a cockatrice (creature if looked at will turn you to stone.) It really was all fun and games nothing serious, we even had an intermission snowball fight outside which was random.

I would really like to play again someday, not necessarily Dungeons and Dragons but anything Roleplaying. All and all it was a fun day, not what I expected but fun nonetheless.

Reasoning

2008-09-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Now this is my first blog ever, I think that goes without saying, I don't think people around the internet has some kind of test blog before going into their "real" blog. I have another blog connected to this one it's for my university class, that's what pushed my to the ledge of making this one, surely someone from my class will find it and I will suffer from a little humiliations but go geek-hood I suppose. I was never really interested in blogs before, I did read Kotaku but I always found it to be a sort of newscast on gaming more than anything else. A blog I recently started following and looking into older post was Siskoid's Blog of Geekery, don't really know why I like it I don't even follow comics or Star Trek but still he makes it so accessible to anyone you feel like you know what he's talking about, even ending up knowing what he's talking about.

Now for the name of the blog I just wanted something simple so I took the idea from Futurama's Tales of Interest and slapped interest at the end. I might change it because it is pretty lame if I do get an idea I'll change it, or if you have any suggestions comment. Speaking of Futurama, if anyone has noticed but the tube system they use to transport people is called "You Tube" it think it is labeled somewhere on the first episode so if anyone has the DVD's a little tid-bit to check out. From my knowledge Futurama was made before the now popular Youtube. Now that's for interest, the name Nizbel if you recognized is from Chrono Trigger, I used this internet persona first in Runescape a MMORPG, then it followed me to everything that needed a user name. Nizbel from Chrono Trigger right there.

Now for a random fact on myself because you can always tell a lot by a single random fact. I dislike wearing jeans, yes I know everyone time I mention it people look at me like I'm a female dwarf, it's the first time they ever saw one and they didn't even think they existed. I realized this one day in 12th grade walking in the hall that EVERYONE had jeans apart from me. I never thought about what pants I wore at least it was comfortable. I do have a pair of jeans from conformity or something, I don't really wear them unless all my other pants are dirty.

The real stuff worth reading will be here soon.