Favorite Games of 2010

    Rarely will you find a top 10 list that you fully agree with. Why? Because every top 10 list for movies, games, and anything in the entertainment industry is based on opinion. Rather than saying something like "Call of Duty: Black Ops is the greatest video-game to ever grace the face of the earth," I'm going to list my favorite 11 games of the year - and COD:BO isn't one of them. Before I get started, I have to add that several action-adventure games made the list, and I've never really been a fan of the genre. I guess there were just a boatload of great action titles this year. Also, I haven't yet played Red Dead Redemption, so it won't be appearing on this list. Anyway, let's start with number 11.

11      Red Steel 2 (Wii) – The first Red Steel sucked, so how could its sequel be any good? Well, by ignoring pretty much everything about the first game. Red Steel 2 is a strange yet brilliant combination of the Wild West, Samurai Japan, and sci-fi. It’s an open world game in the same basic style that Borderlands is, although more simplified. I never really finished it, but it’s the perfect game to play every now and then if you feel like slicing up ninjas before shooting them in the face with a classic revolver. Oh yeah, the game makes good use of the Wii Motion Plus too. I strongly recommend you try it out for your Wii if you haven't yet, but skip out on the first.

10      No More Heroes 2 (Wii) – First of all, do not show this game to young children, please. It’s over the top gory, it’s full of colorful language, it has completely pointless partial nudity from both sexes (always covered up with rolls of toilet paper or similar things,) and it’s quite violent. Of course that’s what makes this game so awesome. You play as Travis Touchdown, an assassin whose trying to become the number 1 assassin…again. Don’t ask, the story cannot be taken seriously, but that’s the whole point. Loaded with self-referencing jokes, parodies, and bizarrely entertaining mini-games, No More Heroes 2 has it all. The further you get into the game, the more insanely awesome everything gets. It also makes good use of the Wiimote’s motion control in a subtle way. In other words, this game is full of win. Again, I never finished it, but that's because I enjoy it the same way I enjoy Red Steel 2 - a little bit at a time.

Movie Review - Santa Clause Conquers the Martians

    What better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to watch a sci-fi movie about Santa Clause killing aliens? Well, this movie has nothing to do with that. Santa Clause Conquers the Martians was released in 1964 making it the second oldest movie I've reviewed on this blog (the oldest being Plan 9 from Outer Space.) It's about Santa being kidnapped by Martians to bring joy to their joyless children.

(If I had to wear an outfit like that, I'd be joyless too)

    The movie's pretty silly, but if you're in the right mood it can be entertaining. It's both intentionally and unintentionally funny, which is a first for this blog. There are several unintentionally disturbing scenes, but they aren't that bad and pass by quickly. For me it was a nice break from some of the painful movies I've been watching lately, but it's hard to recommend. Still, it could be worth checking out for general audiences since it still contains the charm that many Christmas classics share. With that, lets get started.

Why Santa Clause is Evil

The truth must be known, the people must be warned; Santa Clause wants to take over the world. Don't be fooled by all those nice stories about him, don't let all those nice songs about him convince you otherwise. Santa Clause is evil. I have witnessed his despicable ways with my own eyes and barely escaped his elf hit-squads. To prove this shocking truth, I will list a number of reasons why he is evil - like I did with trees and Super Mario.

10. Santa Clause is a pedophile. He spies on children from his high-tech base hidden deep under the ice at the north pole. He has the largest satellite network known to man and he uses them to watch everyone, including you. How else does he know when you're sleeping and when you're awake? Heck, he probably even has the technology to see you in your nightmares. The next point only adds to this.

9. Santa Clause tries to lure children into his worldwide cult with presents and cute movies. It's true, he gives all these presents out in order so that people will believe in him and his magic. His hope is to lure the children in so that they grow up believing in him, and thus creating the largest religion on earth. This is part of his plan to take over the world.

8. He enslaves people and calls them elves. The story generally goes that he has workshops filled with elves happily building toys for kids. However, the truth is one of the most horrifying examples of forced slavery in all of history. He enslaves children and little people, forcing them to make toys nonstop with barely enough food to survive. This also keeps them small. In order to convince investigators that these are elves, they are forced to undergo ear alteration surgery and sing songs constantly. This causes them to lose their minds, and that is why they appear to be happy; they're all completely insane due to the constant trauma. Many of these little people are newcomers to his worldwide cult.

Donkey Kong Country Returns video review

Click to Play

I made this review for my Broadcast Technology class, although this is a slightly longer version than the one I handed in.

Movie Review - The Core

     This review will be a bit different than usual. Why? Because the movie I'm watching is just OK. It's not a good or a bad film. So why am I reviewing "The Core", a mediocre film from 2003 on a blog where I usually make fun of terrible ones? Because the science is hilariously stupid. No seriously, this movie is more scientifically inaccurate than Plan 9 From Outer Space's atmospheric conditions in space. But before I get into that, let's talk about the plot.

    Basically the core of the earth has stopped spinning and a team of scientists are trying to jump start the core with nuclear bombs by drilling into the core before it's too late. Yup, that's the plot. Sounds implausible? That's because it is. As a movie though, it's really just a big disaster movie. There's nothing special about it, no hilariously bad acting, cliche characters and scenes, and no real dramatic weight. The soundtrack tries to sound epic, but it only serves to distract from what's going on and remind you that this is just one big dumb action movie.

Game Review - Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

    What is this? Another WW2 shooter? Haven't we had enough of this already? I've talked about this before with Hour of Victory, so why would I even want to touch another WW2 game? Well, this one's actually different. The premise is a unique twist that came way too late for it's own good considering how tired we are of WW2 games. Today I'm reviewing Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, released for the Xbox 360 and the PC by Codemasters back in 2006. It's probably worth noting that this game also has a limited steelback edition with a bonus disk - ohh fancy, except countless games do that these days. We're being overflooded with pointless limited editions almost as much as we are music games and Tony Hawk titles.

    Turning Point's plot is simple - We lost the war in Europe and now the Nazis are invading the United States. Alternate reality games have been done before, and sometimes they're really good like Just Cause 2. The game has virtually no story, but who cares when New York's being invaded by war zeppelins and paratroopers. As long as the graphics, sound design and gameplay are good, it's fine right?

    Ah yes the graphics. These pics show the breathtaking artwork behind this game.

    These are trailer pics, but it's not like anyone's falsely stated that their game will look as good as the trailers right? Oh, and while we're at that. Anyway, Turning point doesn't look that good, in fact it's nowhere close. Turning Point looks like a cheap PS2 game that happens to have high definition - no joke.

The bat and the dog

Remember the bat in the hat?
The scat loving Matt and his rat?
Well after a break Matt is now back,
And his friend the dog from the bog.

There once was a dog from a bog,
He lived in a log, that poor dog.
What kind of a dog lives in bogs?
The name of that dog was just...dog.

The dog from the bog had a hog,
The hog disliked Matt, that drat bat.
Matt the bat's drat cat and his rat
wanted to eat dog's little hog.

As a result, Matt in the hat
sent his stupid cat to his mat.
He then fed his rat to the cat,
And said "Good news Dog, I saved hog!"

Matt the bat ate scat from his vat.
Dog the dog ate frogs from his bog.
Dog often gave Matt a nice pat.
Then Matt and the dog would play pogs.

One day the bat Matt felt so fat,
So dog made the bat a new hat.
The next day, the bog had some smog,
So Matt gave the dog a new log.

Since then, they've been Matt and friend dog
One lives in a bog that has smog
Matt doesn't care though, Matt is a bat.
this poem is stupid, I'm going to work on my next review now.

Movie Review - Plan 9 from Outer Space

    This is the greatest movie ever made - by far. It's absolutely perfect in its execution, its plot, it's well developed characters, its...its...it's just perfect. Plan 9 from Outer Space may even be the greatest movie title ever. Why? Because the of reasons! I reviewed this movie a long time ago on Facebook, but I never re-posted it here. Rather than just copy-pasting it though, I'm going to re-write the whole thing. Let's get started.

    Plan 9 originally released in 1958 in black and white. It was directed by critically acclaimed director Ed Wood Jr. It's been colourized, turned into a Canadian stage production, turned into a musical, and there's even a official Plan 9 From Outer Space video-game for DOS.

(colorized version)

    It's also being remade as "Plan 9", which will feature a number of internet celebrities including James Rolfe of AVGN fame. The movie was originally going to be called "Grave Robbers from Outer Space" but the production company, a church, wasn't too keen on such a sin being named in the title. Wait, this was produced by a church? That's not always a bad sign though, since a church also produced Fireproof and Facing the Giants. In any case, a movie produced by a church must be good to gain this kind of fame, right?

Movie Review - Troll 2 (Blu-Ray)

    Yup, you read that right. I'm reviewing the Troll 2 Blu-ray. Back when I first reviewed this work of pure genius, I was new to reviewing movies. In fact, while it wasn't the first review I posted on this blog, it was the first movie review I ever wrote. As such, I'd like to re-visit this masterpiece one more time, and acquiring the blu-ray is the perfect opportunity to do that. So let's re-review Troll 2!

Donkey Kong Country Returns, finally

    Yup, Donkey Kong Country Returns released today. I've been waiting for this game since 1996 (no exaggeration.) It's been far too long since Donkey Kong has had a proper game (not since Donkey Kong 64, and while that was good it wasn't quite as good as the DKC trilogy.) This game is so good that it almost feels worth the wait. Seriously, if you have any interest in Nintendo's big ape, get this game as soon as you can!

Defamation Skit

Click To Play

    I made this video for a Journalism Law and Ethics presentation in one of my classes. Since I haven't had the time to watch a bad movie this week, I'm posting this video instead. Enjoy.

New Xbox/ Kinect impressions

    Yup, finally replaced my broken Xbox last night. Decided to go with the Kinect combo pack because with my brother's discount, it was like getting Kinect for $20.

    So what do I think of Kinect? Well...it's kind of cool. As of now it lags about half a second, but you get used to it quickly. It has plenty of potential, but I don't see it ever replacing the classic controller like some people at Microsoft hope it will; it's more of a compliment to the controller than anything else. I'll give Microsoft credit for trying something new rather than making a high-end Wii knockoff like Playstation Move seems to be.

    The Kinect camera itself seems to be well built - it has two regular cameras for the 3D vision and an infrared camera as well. The image is clear - much clearer than the Live Vision Camera (complete waste of money in my opinion.) The Kinect camera also works very well in low-light conditions - it's infrared camera probably has something to do with it. The camera also has a built in motor so it can turn, tilt, and generally follow you when you move around. I haven't set up facial recognition yet simply because I don't have the time, so I have no comment on that.

    Kinect comes with "Kinect Adventures", and while I haven't had time to play it much, it's pretty much Kinect's version of Wii Sports; fun at first, but gets boring after a while. It's free with every Kinect though, so I won't complain about it. I also don't yet have the free time to make any more Kinect game purchases worth it at this time, so no comment on those either.

    Overall, I feel that Kinect was worth $20, maybe even $100, but I personally wouldn't pay $150 for it when I can get perfectly fine motion controls on the Wii. Am I satisfied? Sure, for now at least.

    Not yet sure if I'll be able to post another review this week, but I'll post something for your entertainment if I can't.

Bloodrayne 3 Trailer (warning, language)

    A while back I reviewed Bloodrayne and Bloodrayne 2, both movies by Uwe Bowl. Now the official trailer for the third one has released. I have serious doubts about this movie, seeing how bad the first two were, but I'll most likely end up watching it for this blog anyway.

Awesome Halo: Reach pics

School's been really busy lately, so I probably won't have a review up this week. Instead, enjoy all these Halo: Reach pics I found on www.bungie.net from various players. I'll credit the original posters by name (well, the people who posted the pics I found anyway.) Let's start off with the plain awesome pics.

SKELATOR!
WAWA H2O

Rocket Propelled Pylon, or RPP for short.

Ts White Dragon

Movie Review - Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2

    It's been a long time since I had this much trouble sitting through a movie. As torturous as Turkish Star Wars was, at least it was fascinatingly bad. Baby Geniuses 2 makes you want to look as far away as possible. I’m not kidding, it took me five hours to sit through this 80 minute catastrophe.

    The worst part about this 2004 movie is probably how so many famous people were involved with it. Firstly, it was directed by Bob Clark, known for such famous movies as “A Christmas Story” and kick-starting the slasher genre with “Black Christmas.” Baby Geniuses 2 also happens to be Bob Clark’s last movie before he was killed in a car accident, I’m not yet sure whether this movie or the accident was worse. The movie also stars Jon Voight as the main antagonist, Scott Baio of Happy Days fame, and Peter Wingfield of “24”. Then again, what can you expect from a movie written by Gregory Poppen, who also wrote a TV movie called “The Karate Dog.” Enough delay though, let’s get started with this molded piece of bird crap.

Game review - Jurassic: The Hunted

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed an entertainingly bad movie, so here’s an entertainingly bad game instead. So what do we have here today? Jurassic: The Hunted? What the foxtrot?

Jurassic: The Hunted has a simple premise – three people, Armando, Sabrina and Craig (playable character) are searching for Sabrina’s father, James, in the Bermuda triangle. They are sucked into some temporal vortex and into the past and have to get out. On the way, you hear quotes like “What the foxtrot,” and "Hey Spike! Come here you big overgrown...uh." Sounds like a B-movie, right? Well yeah, this is what you could call a B-game, or budget title.

My Xbox 360's Impending Doom

Well, my Xbox 360 may be on it's way out. I was trying to play Alan Wake a couple days back and it froze within one minute - five times in a row. Going to try some troubleshooting just to make sure first since it may just be a live update problem, but if there is something physically wrong I'm upgrading to the slim. I have one of the pre-HDMI units and it's served me well since the summer of 2006.

Other than that, I don't have too much to say right now. Hopefully I can get another review up this coming week, but it's been pretty busy lately and I can't make any promises yet. Until my next post, enjoy.

Alan Wake is a great game BTW, it's too bad I can't play it now.

Movie Review - Disaster Movie

    Before I begin the actual review, let's talk about comedy for a minute. I'm going to compare comedy to a typical 8-year-old boy. Let's say your favorite comedy (mine’s either “Monty Python’s Holy Grail” or “Zoolander” - not completely sure,) is like giving the boy cake or ice cream, he loves it. An OK comedy is like giving him chicken - it's ok, but it's nothing special. A regular failed comedy, like say “Kangaroo Jack”, is like feeding the kid brussel sprouts. Disaster Movie is like setting the kid on fire; it's as if the makers of this movie want to brutally murder comedy.

     I've reviewed many different kinds of bad movies on this blog. Bad kids movies, failed horror movies, a rip-off, several video game movies, shameful sequels, bad superhero movies, and even a hilariously bad rapper movie. However, this is the first time I've delved into failed comedy. Disaster Movie may very well have one of the most appropriate titles in history. Not because the movie is about disasters, not because it spoofs disaster movies (it doesn’t even do that right,) but because the movie itself is the disaster. It was written by two of the six writers of “Scary Movie?” – yup, the same two idiots behind such anti-classics such as “Epic Movie”, “Date Movie”, “Meet the Spartans”, and the recent released “Vampires Suck”. With that, let’s begin.

No, Thank You - My Uncle's Blog

    My uncle started a blog a while back about failures in the English language.

"I'm a retired ad writer who now devotes a great deal of time to making photographic pictures and worrying about the English language and what we're doing with it."

    It's actually quite entertaining for those who try to write with good grammar or just like to read about professional journalists failing at life. Hm, I should be careful after I become a journalist or I might be his next target. Either way, you should check it out here.

    Also, I have tomorrow off school, so I will finally have the time to watch another movie to review. I haven't quite decided what to watch yet, but it will most likely be a failed comedy - a genre I haven't really touched on yet.

    Also, if you have an Xbox, PS3, or PC that's connected to the internet and haven't tried the new Tomb Raider game, download the demo now - it's actually a really good game. Just finished it last night and I'm 100% satisfied with my purchase.

Metroid: Other M semi-review

    When I last posted on Metroid: Other M I said it was fairly good. Since then, my opinion has changed for the worse - drastically. There have been plenty of complaints on the internet about Samus's portrayal and there have been many defenses against those complaints. Well, I agree with both.The game certainly has it's problems, but their not completely indefensible. I don't hate the game, but I hate several things about it. Let me explain.

    First of all, cut-scenes can't ever be skipped, paused, or re-watched. What happens if you get an important phone call? What happens if you have to go to the bathroom? What about people who don't care about a game's story and just want to play? In this day and age unskippable, unpausable cutscenes are inexcusable - especially when they're over 20 minutes long. I had to go to youtube several times to catch bits of story that I missed because I had to shift my attention elsewhere. I don't want to single this one out as I've been seeing lots of this problem lately, but it's still inexcusable.
 

     Another bad thing is the storytelling. It's not really a bad story and it had a couple touching moments, but it felt like Team Ninja (the game's developers) was trying to make a Metal Gear Solid game. The delivery is far too melodramatic for a franchise that's had a simple, straight forward story until now. It's mostly told through Samus's monologues. Not only that, but these monologues are far too wordy and delivered in the most monotone way possible. Most of these monologues could easily be replaced with real conversations and using facial expressions to convey emotion rather than explaining it through empty words. With few exceptions, these cut-scenes are boring. To make a long story short, Samus has gone straight from almost never speaking to never shutting up about "the baby" (the baby metroid from "Metroid 2" and "Super Metroid.")

Movie Review - Turkish Star Wars

    Back in the 80's, Turkey loved to rip-off Hollywood movies that they couldn't watch in their own country. This is one of them. Now Turkish Star Wars isn't the movie's real title, as the real title translates to "The Man Who Saves the World." In addition to that, the plot has very little to do with George Lucas's cinematic classic. So why is this movie called Turkish Star Wars? The answer is simple really, it directly uses Star Wars footage. If this were done in North America, there would be lawsuits galore. Some of these rip-offs weren't all that bad, but most of them, like Turkish Star Trek for example, are an absolute chore to watch. Turkish Star Wars happens to be one of the bad ones.

But the real question is, how bad is it? Read on to find out.

Wow, just wow!

    OK, so I have now seen a movie that's both worse than The Room (quality-wise) and about as entertaining as Garbage Pail Kids (physically painfully bad) at the same time. Yup, that movie is most widely known as Turkish Star Wars. I'm working on the written review right now, but my college program comes first. I also plan on re-visiting my thoughts on Metroid: Other M as the further I get into it, the more it's problems are building up. Yeah, I should be finished the game by now, but when Other M is as much of a betrayal to the Metroid series as it is. It's just so much easier to play better games like, oh I don't know - Eternal Darkness and Halo Reach! Just so you know, Halo Reach is the best Halo game yet. While I've never really been a fan of the series, I've enjoyed the games thoroughly. It combines everything that made all the previous Halo games good, and makes some significant graphical and artificial intelligence upgrades. Sure, the graphics still aren't top notch and there's still much better AI out there, but these changes are surely welcome. If you don't like Halo then this one won't change your mind, but if you do then be sure to check it out if you haven't already.

    I might as well talk about my college program here too. As some of you are aware, I'm taking a journalism program. So far, the program's actually pretty awesome. I get to play with power macs, expensive video cameras, and all sorts of cool stuff. I'm taking this mostly to improve my skills, and hopefully that will reflect in any future posts on this blog. I'm taking the program because I'm interested in becoming a movie or game critic down the road, but it'll be fun to explore other forms of journalism as well.

    Anyway, until I finish my Turkish Star Wars review, enjoy.

Game review - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

    Holy Crap! How did I miss this gem last generation? No joking, this is a really, really good game and I just played through it for the first time. For those who haven’t heard of this masterpiece, Eternal Darkness is a survival horror game exclusive to the Nintendo Gamecube. It also happens to be one of the, if not the best survival horror video game in history. Let me give you a number of reasons why.

Just Started College

Well, I just started my College program in Journalism. I'll still be posting here hopefully several times a week, but I won't have the time to write a review every week. From now on, movie and game reviews will be posted whenever they're finished, and I'll most likely have more movie reviews than game reviews. That's really all I have to say for now.

Crackdown 2 DLC problem

    If you've watched this, then you know I didn't like Crackdown 2. The game's first DLC released recently...it can apparently make the game stop working. Even more reason not to buy the new Crackdown for $60 when you can get a better Crackdown experience in the exact same city with the exact same bad guys for $15.

    Ruffian games (the developer) suggests that you delete your cache, the DLC, and your Profile in order to fix this problem. Seriously, WHAT THE FRICK?  OK, so you can recover your profile and the DLC afterward, but this is really pathetic. This problem really shouldn't happen for DLC that you have to pay for . Before you ask, yes I am aware that there is a free version of the DLC with less content....but is it really worth paying 560 Microsoft points for 8 new armor colors and a couple new weapons and vehicles? Just further proof that Crackdown 2 is a rush-job that adds nothing new to the franchise.

    According to Ruffian, the reported problem with the DLC "May be an issue with the packaging process Microsoft applies to all DLC before they put it online". Yeah, blame it on Microsoft even though they've done this thousands of times before. I officially hate Ruffian Games now, and you should too.

Metroid: Other M impressions/ Inception thoughts

    This post is more of my thoughts on Metroid: Other M and the movie Inception than anything else. I finally just saw Inception (took me long enough,) and thought it was brilliant. But before I get into that, let me talk about Metroid: Other M first.

Game Review - Napoleon Dynamite: The Game

    Yup, you read the title right. They made a PSP game based on one of the stupidest movies ever made. I liked the movie enough that when I found this game in a bargain bin for $5, I felt like giving it a try (I only had 3 PSP games at the time.) "Gosh" you might ask, "whoever made that game is an idiot." Well, let's find out.

    A while ago (before this blog) I made a review for this game on Facebook. I made the mistake of calling it a good game when in reality, it isn't. Back then, I wasn't really thinking about the game too hard and enjoyed it's simplicity. So what is this game's problem? The answer is simple and obvious...HOW DO YOU MAKE A GAME BASED OFF A MOVIE THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ANY SENSE? Seriously, as much as I like the movie, there really is no way to make a game out of it. It's just as stupid as making a movie about "Dirty Dancing"...wait, they did that one too (warning, strong language in the Spoony review I linked to.)

    I guess the first thing that must be said is that this game is a compilation of mini-games. You have a game where Napoleon "was just practicing some dance moves", and another where he does "whatever I feel like I wanna do, GOSH!" (as in, dragging a toy behind the bus and slamming it into obstacles to try to destroy it.) You also get some really crappy "space shooters" that really scrape the bottom of the barrel. In one of them (based on a poster on Napoleon's bedroom door) Napoleon pretends to be some mythical hero and shoots flying penguins, cows, and boss dolphins with frickin rocket launchers attached to their heads. Sorry Dr. Evil, no laser beams this time. The game advertises 30 wacky mini games, but when there really copies of the same 5 games I don't think it's worthy of that claim.

Too Many Enemies - A Healed Rant

(Resistance: Fall of Man)

    There's something that's been bothering me with modern shooters lately, which is this basic need to make every game as epic as possible. I mean throwing as many enemies as possible at the player to make things feel intense, or throwing too many epic set pieces like fighting within a falling building or in the middle of a giant battle. It's as if epic set-pieces and fights are the only thing developers can do to make a game feel intense these days, and if you use them too much, they lose their effect. I recently posted a bit of a rant on regenerating health, but to me that's very minor compared to this.

    Flooding the player with tons of enemies isn't inherently bad, but that's all I've seen in shooting games lately. Half of the time, you see this happen when it really doesn't make any sense. For example, in Quantum of Solace your often flooded with squads of seven or eight baddies at the same time. This happens in the scene where you chase the bomb-maker from "Casino Royale", even though he was alone in the movie. Why would a bomb-maker want to take 200 armed guards everywhere he goes, especially when he doesn't want to be found? Why not just have a chase sequence instead with maybe a few of his friends shooting at you. I guess that would be too easy with regenerating health, right?

Game Review - Superman 64

    Holy Crap! Those are the first words that come to my mouth after playing this…thing. Superman for the N64 is an abomination to the gaming world in every sense if the word. The rest of this will be more of an angry rant than a review, but that’s cause there really is no other way to review this.

    OK, maybe I’m getting a-little ahead of myself; I haven’t even talked about the game yet. For those of you who are fans of the Angry Videogame Nerd you've probably seen his video review already (warning - language) - don’t worry, I’ll be covering plenty of new ground here. For those who aren’t familiar, let me explain this game. It’s often referred to as Superman 64 even though it’s just called Superman, probably because the Nintendo 64 has a reputation of putting “64” at the end of its titles, just like the Super Nintendo had the reputation of putting Super at the start of its titles. The game doesn’t use the John William’s theme, as the developers Titus (what kind of stupid developer name is that anyway?) would rather use some generic, unmemorable background music.

    The game’s story is that Lex Luthor has brought Superman’s friends into some virtual world. How? Why? Also, if he made this virtual world, why not make it so that Superman loses his abilities when he enters it, because nothing else in this world is consistent with the laws of physics. This game mostly comprises of flying through rings. Yup, for some reason Superman has to fly through rings to get where he needs to go.  If he misses too many rings, he fails and has to try again. Why is it so important that Superman flies through these rings? Also, if Lex can make Superman fly through these rings, then again - why doesn’t he just disable Superman’s powers? Everything about the game’s premise makes absolutely no sense.

Beer is Like Coffee

Beer is like coffee, and wine is like tea in the same way. Before you think I’m crazy, let me explain. Both coffee and beer are brewed. They also both contain a potentially addictive substance; coffee has caffeine to keep you awake while beer has alcohol, which, um…is more likely to put you to sleep. However, I’m focusing more on the social aspect of the two. They both have a reputation of being a social drink. Have a coffee with someone in the morning in a coffee shop, or relax and watch sports with a bottle of beer. They are both the basic kind of drink…of their kind. I don’t know much about the history of either, but unless I’m mistaking, they’ve both been around for a long time. Therefore; beer is like coffee.

Just like beer is like coffee, wine is like tea. Like the previous two, these two drinks are generally a social thing. However, both wine and tea are generally considered more sophisticated than beer and coffee, at least in some parts of the world. It is also true that red wine and green tea have some very real health benefits. Therefore; wine is like tea.

Beer, Wine, Coffee, and Tea all have another thing in common. You can get them without the substance they are known to contain. You can easily get decaffeinated coffee or tea, just as you can easily get de-alcoholised beer and wine.

So, now I’ve shown how beer and wine are like coffee and tea respectively, but what about other alcoholic/caffeinated drinks? Well…pop is like mixed drinks. They are both considered as party drinks for one thing. They are generally aimed toward having a sweeter taste than any of the previous four drink types mentioned. You can also easily get these drinks without their alcohol/caffeine. In fact, pop and premixed drinks are so alike, that they are sometimes even the same drink. Again, I don’t know the history, but I’m pretty sure that pop and the liquor put into mixed drinks are much more recent than the previous four mentioned. Therefore; pop is like mixed drinks.

So you may ask, if beer is like coffee, wine is like tea, and mixed drinks are like pop, then what is like the energy drink? Straight liquor just happens to be my answer. Both are somewhat known as a party drink as well, however they are simply HARDCORE! Nothing will give you the effect of the substance quicker and crash you down harder after then a bunch of straight shots of liquor and some energy drinks. Again, I don’t know the exact history, but I’m pretty sure that energy drinks are the most recent. Therefore, straight liquor is like energy drinks.

Beer is like coffee, wine is like tea, mixed drinks are like pop, and liquor is like energy drinks. What scares me is that there is still one more alcohol category that has no caffeinated equal (that I know of)…grain alcohol (usually 70 – 95% alcoholic content, compared to liquor usually being around 40%) Here comes the pure caffeine bar!

Movie Review - Bloodrayne 2

    And we're back to Bowl again, this time with Bloodrayne's sequel, Bloodrayne 2 - this is going to be a long one folks. Unlike several Bowl sequels, Bowl also directed this one, and oh boy does it show. Natassia Malthe is replacing Kristanna Loken (who had "scheduling conflicts") for the title role . This movie also takes place in the wild west and has absolutely nothing to do with the first movie or either games. Just like the first Bloodrayne movie comes with the Bloodrayne 2 game for the PC, this DVD comes with the first Bloodrayne for the PC. Also worth noting is that the majority of the movie's scenes are too dark to see anything because Bowl still has no idea how to use lighting.

    Before I get onto the movie itself, there’s one thing I really should mention. This DVD won’t let you fast forward or rewind…ever. This is especially frustrating while trying to review since if I miss part of a hilariously bad line, I have to start the whole scene over to get it. This is only worsened by the fact that the scene selection is very poorly set up, and it always skips to the middle of a scene rather than the start of it. Even so, it’s annoying enough when you can’t fast forward through the stupid FBI warning messages, but when you can’t skip to a specific scene that you want to watch or show somebody – SOMETHING IS WRONG. It's also worth noting here that the DVD's default setting shows the closed captioning for the hearing impaired, but that’s not really a problem.

    Anyway, this movie starts with a bunch of pictures set to lame music just like the first one. The pictures have absolutely nothing to do with the movie, except that both the movie and the pictures are in the Wild West.

    We then have some guy walk into the shot and stop.
    "Deliverance, this is it," he says. Apparently Deliverance is a town, so my first question is why would someone call their town Deliverance? I could believe it though, considering how strange town names can get. Looks like the town's missing though.

(didn't think there was snow in the wild west)

Bloodrayne games

    Not too long ago I reviewed the movie Bloodrayne, so now it’s time to review its sequel. Bloodrayne is actually a series of video games, and the movies are “based” on them. Also since I watched and reviewed the cinematic turd known as the first Bloodrayne movie, I played through both games, so I might as well talk about them briefly. Also, tomorrow I'm reviewing the second Bloodrayne movie - and holy crap is it a doozy.

Health Regeneration - a Healed rant

    One of the biggest differences between older shooting games and modern shooting games is regenerating health. Personally, I'm starting to get a little tired of this. Now I'm not saying regenerating health is inherently bad, in fact it works very well for multi-player games, but nobody's showing any imagination here. My problem with regenerating health is not the regenerating itself, but that nearly every modern shooting game uses the exact same system.

(Star Wars: Dark Forces)

    Back when I started playing games, there was no such thing as regenerating health. These games would either have you find health packs, get healed by medics, or sometimes you'd only recover health between missions. Nearly all of the shooting games coming out these days have automatically regenerating health. I'm not saying that regenerating health is inherently bad, and I'm not going to argue whether games should be realistic or not, but I wouldn't mind a bit more variety.

Back from internet problems/ retro-bit controller warning

I've been having some internet problems lately, which is why I haven't updated in a while. In the mean time though, I've still been working on material which will be posted over the next week or so.

Also, I recently bought an N64 controller made by Retro-Bit - brand new by the way. Long story short, it doesn't work right. Holding left, right, and up on the joystick works fine, but if you hold it down all the way, the system thinks you're holding it up. No joke, down on the joystick goes up. I have no idea how they messed that up, but I had the exact same problem when I returned it for a replacement controller.

So as a personal recommendation, do not buy Retro-Bit controllers.

Donkey Kong Country Returns poem

Yeah, I know it's mediocre, but I felt like posting it here anyway.

Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong,
when will you return?
Your last real game was DK64,
And even then, I felt a burn.

How awesome were your classics?
Donkey Kong Country and the arcade
You need to return to your basics,
Like Rare last had you made.

Video Review - Crackdown 2

A short review of Crackdown 2. I very much enjoyed the first, so how does this one fare?

Movie Review - Bloodrayne

Today I’m reviewing Bloodrayne, one of Uwe Bowl’s many masterpieces of cinematic art. Uwe bowl is special – he creates movies based on videogames and actually does a good job. I had the pleasure of seeing Bloodrayne lately, and it may even be his best movie ever. Without any further introduction, let’s get started.

Bloodrayne takes place in medieval times, and starts off with three people walking up to someone’s stall. They are Vladimir, Sebastian, and Katarin (played by Michelle Rodriguez… I’ll just call her Michelle cause’ that’s easier for me.) They are apparently looking for something, or someone, but the movie doesn’t tell us quite yet, keeping up the suspense.  Another random dude walks up to the same stall and asks for some Absinthe, and right away Vladimir stabs him in the chest. The random dude falls to the ground and morphs into something ugly as he dies. I have no idea what just happened, but it was frickin hardcore. The best part here is how nobody seems to react to this at all. The owner of the stall then tells them of some “amazing girl” being shown off at a carnival.

The movie then warps to the carnival where we meet Rayne (played by Kristanna Loken from Terminator 3,) our main character. She’s held captive by the carnival’s owner and is brought into a show tent. They force her arm into a barrel of water and it burns. They then feed her blood and it heals. Ok, so I guess Rayne is a vampire then, so why not just tell your audience this? According to the movie vampires are all over, so I’m sure most of these people would have at least heard of vampires. Oh well, it’s awesome anyway. Afterward, they lock Rayne into a cage.

Video Review - Spy Games: Elevator Mission

                                                                                                   

                                       
                    Click To Play                   

                                       
    Well, I finally finished my first video review. It's very amateurish, but half of the development was figuring out the program and fixing technical problems. I hope you like it, and if you have any suggestions for any future videos, please let me know.

Video review

Right now, I'm working on a video review. I've run into a number of hurdles along the way, so it probably won't be ready on Tuesday when I normally post my reviews. Nevertheless, it will be released whenever I'm done. I might as well say that I'm reviewing Spy Game: Elevator Mission. I know I reviewed it here two months back, but I figured it's an easy target and I've never seen any video reviews of it before. All the writing and video capturing is done, I just need to do the voice recording, video recording, and final editing.

Why Super Mario is Evil

A while back, I posted here about how the Easter Bunny is a scientific experiment from an evil mastermind. Last month, I also explained how trees are evil. Now it's time to reveal the biggest shocker yet, Mario is evil. Yup, Nintendo's "family friendly" mascot is not the kind plumber we all thought he was.

    Super Mario Bros is undeniably one of the most famous games in existence. If it weren't for the Famicon/NES and Super Mario, we wouldn't be playing games today. That's right...Nintendo brought us out of the second game market crash. If you haven't played this game, even for a minute or so...you are not a true gamer. These days, it's hard to go to any store that sells games and not see at least one game about Mario or a picture (unless it's the Sony store or the newly opened Microsoft store.) Well, this note is not about how awesome the series is...it's fun, but it's also pure evil.

     Let's start with the original game. What's one of Mario's most famous gameplay elements? Jumping on goombas and turtles (called Koopas in the Mario universe.) This means that Mario is a serial animal killer and should be shot for his unmeasurable animal cruelty. Here he is stealing shells from turtles and throwing them at every living thing in sight. No wonder there are so many ghosts in later mario games; they're all ghosts of the millions of goombas and turtles he's massacred over the years. Sure, one may argue that it would suck being a goomba, being nothing but a head and feet. One may argue that he's doing them a favor by putting them down...but by crushing them under his feet? That's madness.

Movie review - Metal Gear Solid 4

     After four straight weeks of Land Before Time, I just needed a break from bad movies and games. So today I'm reviewing one of the best movies I've seen in a while, Metal Gear Solid 4!

    MGS4 is an epic, action packed CGI movie. For some weird reason, this movie is only compatible with the PlayStation 3, but if you have that you shouldn't miss it. It's loaded with deep, memorable characters, plot twists, and well choreographed action sequences. The movie includes themes of age and death, a changing world, and machines controlling too much. The story can get a little too complicated at times, and it helps if you've seen the previous movies, but MGS4 does a good job at explaining itself.

     The movie starts with a monologue by the main character, a war-torn old man named Solid Snake, who talks about how war has changed. War is now more controlled than ever before, and a computer program has pretty much taken over. While he is monologing, he is riding a jeep with a bunch of rebel soldiers resisting this movement. They are soon ambushed by a bunch of giant leg creatures with guns mounted on their heads...I don't know, they're just awesome. They take out a bunch of the other rebels and...wait, you gain control of Solid Snake? I thought this was a movie! Oh, so this is why it only works on the PS3, it's actually a game for the PS3.

Movie Review - Toy Story 3

Awesome! Definitely worthy of the Toy Story title. The third entry to the Toy Story franchise ties the trilogy together very well and may even be the best of the three. Pixar has done a very good job at staying true to the first two and continuing Woody and Buzz's adventures.

Two word review - Perfect sequel

E3 This Year

    Wow, just wow. I have to say that E3 really surprised me this year. Usually it's either Microsoft or Sony who owns E3, but this year they both sucked. Sony was just plain boring, and Microsoft was as embarrassing as Sony in 2006 and Nintendo in 2008. Instead of talking too much about what anyone here has either already read plenty about or doesn't really care, I'll just list some of the games I'm looking forward to.

    Donkey Kong Country Returns - Holy crap! The Donkey Kong Country games were among my favorite games growing up, and the fact that DKCR is a throwback to those games is just awesome. It doesn't hurt that it's being developed by Retro, the company behind the Metroid Prime trilogy. Day 1 purchase for me.

    Gears of War 3 - Until I played Mass Effect 1 and 2, Gears of War was my favorite series this generation. Gears 3 adds 4-player co-op, Beast mode (like horde, but you play as various Locust monsters,) and a bunch of new weapons. Beyond that, a famous Star Wars novel author, Karen Traviss is writing this game's story (she's also written several successful Gears of War novels.) Definitely going to the midnight launch for this one.

    Metroid: Other M - Not too much to say here. It looked neat before, it still looks neat now. It's a very interesting combination of 2D side-scrolling and FPS, and it looks like it functions well. Getting this game for sure.

    Legend of Zelda: Skylight Sword - Still haven't played Twilight Princess yet, but I've enjoyed what I've played so far. From what I've seen, this one looks great. The fact that Skylight Sword uses the Wii Motion plus certainly doesn't hurt.

    The biggest surprise for me is how good the 3DS is. I don't have a DS and had very little interest in the 3DS until now. A 3D screen that doesn't require glasses? No idea how they managed that, but it sounds amazing. Not only that, but they revealed a number of good games for it. There are also tons of DS games I would enjoy playing, and the 3DS is backward compatible. A new Kid Icarus game seals the deal for me.

    Other games that interested me were Halo Reach, Kirby Epic Yarn, The Force Unleashed 2, the new Twisted Metal, Portal 2, and the Goldeneye remake. Halo Reach now has space combat and an updated firefight, which both look awesome. Epic Yarn might sound stupid, but it actually looks very creative. Considering Goldeneye will be a near-total remake, I'm reserving judgment for obvious reasons, that and I don't support Activision for a number of reasons including this.

Movie Review - The Land Before Time series part 4 (TV series)

    At last, the final review for the entire “Land Before Time” series (part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here.)  So in the last month I've reviewed every single Land Before Time movie made to date, but now I dig deep into how bad this series really gets. So far I've been pleasantly surprised - some of the sequels are actually pretty good. When I think about it though, how could it have lasted for 13 movies if there weren't any good sequels? They also created 26 half-hour TV episodes over a single season, which is what I’m reviewing today. Obviously I can't talk about every single episode separately, so I'll just sum up the whole show…HOLY CRAP IT SUCKS!

Movie Review - The Land Before Time series part 3 (movies 7-13)

    This is my third LBT review in my series (part 1 here, part 2 here.) This is a long one, and I've already done plenty of introductions in the previous two reviews, so let's just dig right into it. Here's my review of all the Land Before Time movies I didn't see as a kid.

Movie Review - The Land Before Time series part 2 (movies 2-6)

    A couple weeks ago I reviewed the first Land Before Time movie, and said I'd review the rest of the series (part 3 here.) Well, here's my second LBT review. Today I'm reviewing LBT two through six. Yup, I'm reviewing five LBT sequels in one week.

    Let's first take a break and talk about this series further though. Despite this being a kid's franchise, it actually has a fairly strong fan following. There are tons of fan-fiction writings, ranging from further sequels, stories of various romances involving the gang, crossovers, and even PG-13 versions of official material. The Land Before Time Wiki is actually one of the more impressive independent Wiki's on the internet, and the quality level almost rivals that of Halopedia. There are also several active fan forums despite that the most recent movie released in 2007. Considering how there are tons of closet fans of the franchise and it somehow lasted for 13 movies, Universal must have done something right at some point. Without any further introduction, let's kick this pig.

The Last Game Store - Halifax

    So I just got back from a little vacation in Nova Scotia to visit my dad's family. While I was there, I went into an independent game store called "The Last Game Store" in Halifax. Why am I writing this? Because it's quite possibly the best game store I've ever stepped into.

    The first thing you see when you step into this little used game shop is a bunch of arcade machines. When I was there, these included Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Spider-Man, and several other classics. Venture in a bit more and you'll find all their used game consoles in a glass display case. It didn't take long for me to realize that they had full sections for used games from every major game console ever released...yup!

Movie Review - The Land Before Time series part 1 (intro/first movie)

    Over the next month or so, I will be reviewing the entire Land Before Time series. Just so you know, that means thirteen movies and a 26-episode TV show. Like I said a while back, the original Land Before Time movie was important to my childhood, and I still enjoy it today. I watched the first six movies as a kid, and back then I enjoyed them. Now, well...HELP ME! (part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here)

    The movie was directed by Don Bluth, whose a bit of a legend when it comes to animated films - The Land Before Time is considered one of his better films. It's loaded with themes of life and death, as well as strong anti-racist themes. It's actually pretty sad for a family film, but as a result it has one of the happiest endings I remember as a child. Of course like many of their owned franchises, Universal likes to whore them out as much as possible, hence the 12 sequels and TV show.

Movie Review - Home Alone 4

    Alright, today I'm reviewing Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House. I'm not in the mood to joke about how good this one is, so let's just cut right into this crap. For this review, I'll be assuming that you've seen the original. If you haven't, I recommend that you do - it's funny, it's cute, and I still enjoy it. Also, I apologize for the lack of pictures in this review, but I'm having trouble with my computer today. I will add more pictures whenever I get the chance.

    First problem with Home Alone 4, it doesn't have the Home Alone musical theme, or even anything close. Home Alone 3 didn't have it much, but at least it hinted the theme with the movie's intro. Second problem is that it's Kevin Mccalister again. Yup, from the first movie. Why is this a problem? Well, Kevin only has two siblings instead of four: Buzz and Megan, and his parents are getting divorced. That's the way to stomp all over many people's childhoods. Also, it's supposed to be a sequel to the first two, yet everyone in the family looks younger. Also, while Buzz was a jerk to Kevin in the first two movies, he's just way over the top in this one and doesn't even hide it from their mother. They turn Megan into the same kind of jerk too. The worst part of this sequel is that Kevin's parents are getting divorced. Oh yeah, you learn all of this in the first five minutes - perfectly setting the mood for the rest of this abomination.

Why trees are evil

    In the past, I've how the Easter Bunny is an experiment from an evil mastermind whose trying to take over the world. Now I have a further warning. Trees are evil and are trying to enslave the human race. I mean think about it. Surely there are already more trees than human beings on this planet. They're also taller, they live much longer, and their roots get tangled up around underground pipes all over. But rather than simply talking about their evilness, I should probably prove it. Here are seven reasons why Trees are evil and trying to enslave us all.

1. They're brainwashing us into planting more trees - Seriously, don't you think they outnumber us enough already? Not content with outnumbering us in the country, they want to outnumber us in the city too. You see it in schools, you see it in parks, and you even see it in gardens. Surely you must see the influence these trees have on our minds. All this global warming stuff we keep hearing about, and all the pollution...all lies told to us by the trees just so that we plant more of them.

2. They keep stealing our frisbees - I have lost count of the number of sports equipment that I've seen lost in trees over the years. Worse yet, it's always the pine trees that steal the sports equipment - the ones that poke you with thousands of pointy objects when you try to climb them. They only do this for one single puropse...to make us suffer.