Game review - Rogue Warrior

    This is one of the biggest rip-offs in recent gaming history. Not in the sense that it rips off another game, but that it rips off the consumer.

    I’ve been playing a lot of crappy videogames lately. Sure, I’ve been playing good ones too, like Dragon Age: Origins and Medal of Honor (I liked it at least,) but I’ve also played crap like Kane and Lynch 2 and this…thing. Of all the bad games to release lately, Rogue Warrior is probably the biggest rip-off of them all. To sum it up, it’s less than two hours long and it released at $60 US. What the crap? Oh yeah, it’s a sucky two hours as well, and this coming from the publishers behind the 300+ hour long Oblivion is what really confuses me. Well, let's get this over with.

Movie Review - Superman, the 1975 Musical

    Remember Superman 4? It holds nothing to the 1975 Superman musical in terms of pure, concentrated suckitude.

    “It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman” was a broadway musical first produced in 1966. The show was generally well received but failed to catch on to audiences. Heck, it received several Tony Award nominations. It’s had several revivals since – most recently last year in Dallas. Easily the most notorious was this piece of crap, which seriously cut the piece down in length and removed much of the energy from the original production. But is it really that bad? Does it deserve all those scathing reviews it received over the years?

Movie Review - Star Wars Episode 4 Adywan cut

    Let me introduce you to the world of fan edits. Just like there's a culture for bad movies, there's also a culture for fan edits of movies.

    There are fan edits of the Superman movies, like one that combines Superman 1 and 2, an edit of Star Trek Generations that removes all the Caption Kirk scenes, fan edits that split the Lord of the Rings movies into six books like in the original novels, and of course the subject of this review, a very well done fan edit of the original Star Wars. I only know the creator of this version as Adywan, but he spent two years working on this version of the film.

    Adywan's cut is basically a combination of the original theatrical release and the special edition. Many of the controvertial scenes in the special edition and DVD edition were removed; for example, Han shoots first and the Jabba scene was removed. Despite all these removals, many of the technical improvements still remain. In addition, he fixed colouring issues that the DVD version ignored, he improved the destruction of Alderan, and he did this to the Death Star battle.



    Yeah, he went there! Not only does the climactic battle now feel like a battle, but he even added the planet Yavin in the background - something I never even noticed was missing from the original. Adywan made over 150 changes, both big and small. It just goes to show how dedicated the fan-base is for this franchise.

    In my honest opinion, this is the best version of the original Star Wars, and I recommend it to any Star Wars fans out there. For someone whose seen this movie at least 57 times, this version somehow feels fresh and new. Next week, a bad Superman movie most of you have probably never heard of.

Four Word Review - The Real Special Edition

School re-boot

    Well, my second semester just started, so once again I will try to post something big every week, but I can't guarantee anything. Movie and game reviews will be posted whenever they're finished, and I'll just have to post filler like poems I wrote for my creative writing courses a few years back, or maybe one of the first stories I wrote which is almost hilariously bad itself.

    By the way, I hate Mondays this semester. Having to wake up in the grueling hours of the morning just so I can make my first class at 2pm is torture and inhumane. What's even worse is that I don't have any tests or exams in that class or that I only have to buy 1 textbook this semester. OK in all seriousness, I'm looking forward to this semester. I have courses like broadcast performance and broadcast writing (hopefully they will help me make better video reviews, and help motivate me to make more.) I also have a photography course which I am definitely looking forward to, and a few others that won't be too bad either.

Until my next post, enjoy

Game Review - M&M's Kart Racing

    I have one simple question - why does this game exist?

    M&M's Kart racing is one of many Mario Kart ripoffs for the Wii, along with Myth Makers Super Kart GP which I will review after I find it. M&M's racing is pretty unremarkable, save for the fact that gameplay footage leaked before it's release despite not even having an official trailer. Looks like fun, doesn't it. I could end my review right there, but that would be boring. Besides, it can't be that bad, can it? Of course not, it's worse! It's had a number of scathing reviews from various critics, the highest of which I can find is 3/10. Heck, Gamespot awarded it the flat-out worst game of 2008. So it's time for another scathing review of this game.

Movie review - Manos: the Hands of Fate

    If Plan 9 from Outer Space was the best bad movie from the 50s and 60s, than Manos the Hands of Fate was quite possibly the worst. In fact, this movie was such a pain that I struggled to finish this review and missed the New Years mark. First off, the word “Manos” is Spanish for “hand”, and before you think about how redundant that title is, just remember that the title is the best part about this movie. Yeah…wrap your head around that one. Also, the filming of this movie was the result of a bet, and the first script draft was written on a napkin. That’s always a good sign, right?

    The camera used for filming the movie had to be hand-wound and would tamper out at the 30 second mark. The camera was rented because the filmmaker didn’t have enough money to buy one, so he had to rush every shot of the movie the same way Ed Wood always did by choice. The camera also didn’t record audio, so they had to dub in all the talking afterwards – fairly common these days. The entire cast was made up of local models and actors, and instead of being paid up-front, they were promised a profit share. Convinced that it must be a good movie yet?

    Most of the movie was filmed at night. Back then, a common method was to shoot during the day and darken the footage to make it look like night. The filmmakers instead decided to film at night, and moths were attracted to the camera lights. Sometimes you can see the moths in the movie, other times the moths reduced the lighting so much that the actors couldn’t see where they were going. Enough about the production though; let’s get into the movie itself and discover how dreadful this really is.

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.