Killer Plants!

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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!