Sucker Punch Review

Steampunk Nazi Zombies.

Important Announcement from NASA

NASA makes another important announcement regarding the search for extraterrestrial life

NASA: Good news, everyone! We've just discovered a rare species of rhesus monkey that can live off of arsenic!

...

And this starfish that can eat at Jack in the Box!

Everyone: Yes, that's great. Can you please go back to finding aliens?

NASA: Ohh, but scanning the night sky is boring.

Power Rangers Totally Ripped-Off Spider-Man

As we gain more details about a subject, often a larger picture emerges. Sometimes it can be inspiring, at other times terrifying, and ocassionally you discover that that one weird series from your childhood is a total ripoff of that other totally unrelated weird series from your childhood... kind of.

It all starts in 1978 when the Japanese company Toei signs an agreement with Marvel to license each others' characters over a three-year period, during which time a Japanese Spider-Man series was produced. The results were interesting.



...

That's right, Spider-Man has a giant robot, which I guess is why in the show he introduces himself as the messenger from hell. 'Nuff said.

Toei took this idea of the mecha-accessory and ran with it, introducing it into their long-running Super Sentai franchises. These were a genre of shows about a small team of color coordinated fighters (the term 'Sentai' was applied to squads in WWII) who would battle a variety of alien and/or magical threats using special powers and lots of kung-fu. Dozens of these shows were produced, and a few continue to this day.

After the webslinger introduced the giant robot concept (given to him by the alien Garia), other Sentai shows began toying with the idea, including one called Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. In 1993, U.S. studio Saban Entertainment shot new scenes with American actors, edited it together with licensed and redubbed action footage from Zyuranger, and brought the show to American audiences as Power Rangers.

So the next time you see the Megazord defeat one of Rita Repulsa's gargantuan goons, give a salute to the wall-crawler who does whatever a spider can, including summon a giant robot.

Back to Back to the Future: a Critical Restrospective

Somehow I had managed to avoid the Back to the Future films until very recently. Eventually I grew tired of the constant teasing and the threats of physical violence and decided to sit down and watch the trilogy over the past couple of years. I'd like to give my take on them as someone who has no nostalgic stake in them.

The first film is relatively straightforward by time-travel-story standards. Marty McFly simply has to 'fix' the the timeline he has inadvertantly screwed with, and manage to get back to future, or present (though Back to the Present doesn't sound as good). Overall, I feel that this film is the strongest of the trilogy as everything holds together well and I have no particular criticisms. The scene with the clock tower is thrilling, and the final few seconds of the film are fantastic (and I'm not sure how I avoided having them spoilt for me).

The second film is probably the most rewatchable as it has the most labyrinthine plot and some really smashing visuals, particularly in the 'future' segment. However I also feel that it is ultimately the weakest of the three as greater emphasis is given to the series' antagonist, Biff Tannen. Through no fault of Thomas F. Wilson, Biff is a pretty weak villain. He's completely one dimensional and, worst of all, not all that threatening. Perhaps due to this, there weren't any scenes that felt particularly suspenseful to me. In the first film, Biff's the stereotypical Hollywood jock, but by the second, his evil jock persona has ballooned out of all proportion. For me, Biff is not a strong enough villain to build an entire film around, though a valiant effort was made.

The third film has some great elements, but is held back by some noticeable flaws. Introducing a more distant historical setting is a nice change of pace, and the old west is realized in a way that is both tongue-and-cheek and believable. I love that Marty's historical equivalent is also played by Michael J. Fox. The Biff equivalent is still weak, but downplayed from the second. The big problem is that while he was never mentally intimidating, here he no longer seems physically intimidating either. And while the fairly straightforward plot holds together pretty well, there's not much of a sense of urgency about anything since there's no particular hurry to get back to 1985, and no apparent threat of messing with the timeline. In essense, Biff's role as a source of tension has been dialed back with nothing dialed in to replace it, though in my opinion this still makes for a stronger film, and a good amount of excitement is generated in the climax. The movie does have one extremely bothersome plothole though. Early on, they save Clara from plummeting off a cliff, but are mildly concerned that this may have disrupted the timeline after discovering that she was indeed supposed to die. After she and Doc Brown fall in love, Marty suggests bringing her back to 1985, but the Doc dismisses this idea as he is afraid it will disrupt the timeline. No!!! Leaving her in 1885 is what will disrupt the timeline! Hello? Hello?! What's worse is that this is never pointed out, and the entire 'disrupting the timeline' idea is dropped like horse pucky. Come on, you're smarter than that, Doc. Think, Brown, think!

Overall, the series is pretty solid. All three films range from decent to great, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are both endearing and enduring in their roles, and the only big problem is that the sole antagonist is not intimidating, although this isn't really a problem in the first film. I think it would have been interesting if, for the second or third film, they'd introduced a rival scientist, or maybe a cruel version of Marty from an alternate timeline. Ultimately though, Back to the Future is the rare film that is both enjoyable for adults and appropriate for children, and it is no small feat that they were able to duplicate this achievement two more times.

I'm interested to try the new adventure game that has come out. It's nice that Christopher Lloyd is reprising his role, and the guy doing a Michael J. Fox impression is outstanding.

I close with the immortal words of Sam Neill: "Where we're going, we won't need eyes!"

John Hughes' Legend of Zelda

Hands down one of the best videogame parodies I've ever seen.



Their indie God of War is pretty great too.

Words of Wisdom

If Uwe Boll actually hates gamers, it's only because he's been making movies for them. If he started making movies for florists and spelling-bee contestants, he'd quickly learn to hate them too.

Aquaria Review: Life is Much Better Down Where it's Wetter

Water levels have gotten a bad name in videogames, somewhere just above "Sewer Level" and a bit below "Ice Level." This is justified, as the control schemes for said levels tend to be atrocious. However, there is a game that proves conclusively that swimming controls can not only be tight, but also fun and engaging...

Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega Genesis!

And it's various sequels!

...but also Aquaria!

In this impressive debut from ambitious indy-developer Bit Blot, you swim around exploring a massive aquatic environment as a mermaid-type creature named Naija, and the controls for doing so are rather impressive; the entire game can be played comfortably with just a dual-button mouse, leaving your other hand free to hold a tasty beverage or pastry. To swim, you hold down the left button (no rapidly tapping A here), and the distance at which you position your cursor relative to your avatar determines Naija's speed and direction. It's not only intuitive, but it allows a high degree of control once you master it, allowing you to effortlessly dart between obstacles and enemies, push off from surface to surface, and stop on a dime (or sand dollar) to avoid danger.

And you will be thankful, because danger you will find. This game may be about a singing mermaid, but it's not for sissies. It's by no means the hardest game I've played, but it will challenge your gaming skills, particularly if you go after some of the optional side-bosses. For example, there is a crab boss who hangs from the ceiling and is immune to all your attacks. When I finally realized what the game intended me to do, I believe I said "are you mad?" out loud. Perhaps I failed to try some easier maneuver that would have worked, but frankly I wish I had this reaction to games more often.

I must admit, when I first started playing Aquaria, I wasn't hooked. It seemed reasonably well made, with excellent production values, but I'm not a huge fan of exploration games, and I found myself getting lost and a little bored. I had gotten the game as part of the Humble Indie Bundle (possibly the best $25 I ever spent, even when I could have paid a penny, or saved that penny by pirating it, like 25,000 people apparently did), and I had no particular expectations about Aquaria. After having some trouble getting Penumbra to run properly, I decided to give it a fair shot. Here are my three basic Aquaria tips for anyone playing for the first time.
1: Use your map. The world of Aquaria is larger than you think. Much larger. Even when you are confined to a smaller section of it, getting your bearings is crucial to avoid just swimming around aimlessly.
2: Save often. This game doesn't mess around. There's no auto-saving here, and save points are not all that abundant. If you pass by a save crystal and don't bother to use it, you will likely regret your decision.
3: Mark locations on the map. This isn't critical, but as this game is in the style of a Metroidvania, you will find yourself wanting to go back to some particular feature you saw, and not being able to remember where the heck it was.

Once I had put an hour or two into the game, I started to realize that there was a lot more to it than my initial impressions had led me to believe. Yes, the game's main focus is exploration, but along the way you face many challenges, and the game slowly unveils a plethora of interesting abilities to deal with them. Rather than revealing its hand from the get-go, there is enough interesting content to discover that the experience continually gets better as you play, which for me is an extremely rare quality. I'm glad this is the case, because the game took me about 20 hours to complete, which I wasn't expecting from an indie title.

The world itself is huge. When you start out, you have no idea how flippin' massive Aquaria's game world is. With no hub world, and the ability to "teleport" only gained late in the game, traveling from one place to another can be quite a daunting task. However the game's inherent challenge and its variety of locales and enemies generally keep traveling from becoming tiring. I tend to dislike exploration and travel in games, but the slow pace works, and is I think necessary here, to create a world that feels truly epic and immersive. Also the game never feels like it's sending you to and fro arbitrarily in order to pad its length. On the contrary you often get very little indication of where to go, and are free to explore the world pretty much however you wish, but you ought to pack a lunch.

Which brings me to one of the coolest features in Aquaria: the recipe/cooking system. Okay, no, hear me out. Remember what I said earlier about this game not being for sissies? You're just going to have to trust me when I say that the recipe system in Aquaria is one of the most interesting and well designed and fleshed-out systems I've ever seen in a videogame. The idea is that slain enemies and plants will drop a wide variety of ingredients (and logical ones; no squirrels and amorphous blobs dropping coins and broadswords here). You are then able to combine these ingredients in your inventory to create food items that provide various benefits when ingested, like healing or stat boosts. As the game progresses, you will encounter new ingredients and recipes for more and more powerful dishes, and like Eternal Darkness' brilliant spell system, you are free to experiment with combinations of ingredients to try and discover recipes yourself. Instead of grinding through combat for experience points, you'll find yourself hunting down particular enemies just because you really want to make some turtle soup. And dropped ingredients don't blink out of existence, they simply float down into the depths, requiring you to delve down after them. The whole system is extremely well balanced - ingredients are plentiful, yet you never have enough of what you need and will be forced to make legitimately difficult choices as to how to allocate them.

The other thing that really stood out to me was the music. For weeks I've been unable to get the main theme out of my head, and for once I'm glad. Many of the songs in the game riff off of this melody in interesting ways, and a huge factor of my enjoyment came from the way the music set a strong tone throughout. Music also plays an important role in gameplay, similarly to the way it's used in Ocarina of Time, except that you often have to sing a little tune in the heat of combat in real time. I actually wish that the tunes were a little more difficult to play and to remember, since these are some of the most intense moments of the game. The story is nothing revolutionary, but it gets the job done, and the excellent and abundant narration, combined with the music, really makes the experience.

On the negative side, the admirably simple controls don't always work the way you want them to when trying to perform certain abilities. And the lock-on system for projectile attacks is fine most of the time, but on a couple of boss fights I had to switch the auto-aim off to actually hit anything. The whole thing feels pretty darn polished though, and not just for being an indie title. The biggest disappointment is that the secret ending teases at a sequel that will probably never be.

On the surface, what might initially appear like a lame concept (seriously it's about a singing mermaid baking cakes) or a Zelda ripoff belies one of the most unique and engaging games I've ever played. It also goes to some surprisingly dark places (figuratively and literally), and in the end Naija probably racks up a body count comparable to that of Kratos, including deities.

To the prospective consumer: if you like exploration adventure games, this is a must-play. If you don't, give Aquaria a shot anyway. It just might surprise you.

And to the developers, Alec Holowka and Derek Yu: thank you for crafting this unforgettable experience. Aquaria is the kind of game that makes me proud to be involved with the hobby. Also I beat your stupid hanging crab boss.

The thing with The Thing

So I got around to watching John Carpenter's 1982 remake The Thing. I'd never watched it before, and for the record, I thought it was good. A couple of things struck me about it though.

Firstly, in my opinion, the film would be exceedingly middling without the fantastic practical effects on display. That is, if the alien were CGI, I feel the whole thing would be exceedingly meh. The plot and characters are decent, but not exceptional. The film does succeed admirably in creating mood and tension, but I feel this is as much due to the creature effects as anything. This isn't to knock Carpenter's directing or the soundtrack, both of which are excellent, but if The Thing were released today with the standard computer effects, I doubt it would attain the cult status that it has. Perhaps the 2011 re-remake will test my theory, assuming it doesn't suck altogether.

This isn't a knock against The Thing. There are a great number of excellent movies that would be hugely diminished if their practical effects were removed: 2001: A Space Odyssey; King Kong (1933); Team America: World Police. At the time though, The Thing received critical flak for having too much style over substance, and I feel that our opinion on the film (currently 80% on rotten tomatoes) has morphed partly due to ennui over CGI and a collective nostalgia for physical objects.

Overall, I think that CGI has improved the medium of film by making it possible to show almost anything at an acceptable cost. This in turn affords screenwriters more creativity, and consequently more films with fantasy elements are being released today than ever before[citation needed]. The problems come when directors and studios come to see CGI as a panacea, forgoing all other types of effects. Plenty of films, even horror films like Drag Me to Hell, use CGI heavily and are better for it. Then you have Peter Jackson's King Kong, which features excellent locations done in miniature, and dinosaurs that look worse than Jurassic Park, a film that came out twelve years earlier. I think the rule of thumb should be this: if it's magic or something ephemeral, use CGI, if it's something physical, strongly consider some sort of practical effect.

But getting back on topic, while the pacing and atmosphere in The Thing work well, the plot has a few issues, and I want to bring up the most major problem I had, and please keep in mind that no normal, well adjusted person would be as bothered by this as I.

A certain ways into the movie, the characters collectively realize that the alien is taking human form. To ascertain whether one of them has been taken over, the doctor proposes the idea of a blood test. They'll each donate a sample of their blood, and each in turn will be mixed with a sample of regular emergency blood that they know to be untainted. Based on previous observation of the interaction between alien cells and normal cells, if a reaction occurs, then that donor is infected. This plan is scrapped when it is discovered that blood bags in storage have been tampered with (e.g. they have tentacles growing out of them).

The issue I have is that with the established fact that alien cells react with normal cells when the two are mixed, the previously described experiment could easily be performed without the uninfected blood bags. What the characters need to do is mix blood samples between every combination of two people. If there is a reaction, then one of those two people is an alien. After running through every combination, based on who reacted with who, you could divide everyone into two groups, Group A and Group B. Everyone's blood would react with all members of the opposing group, and with no members of their own group. As is stated at one point in the film, the infected must not outnumber the uninfected, or else they would simply reveal themselves and overpower them (ala Werewolf/Mafia). Thus the smaller group are the ones infected, and they may be promptly disposed of by the larger group.

Also there are no shape-shifting aliens in Antarctica, so there's that too.

stay out, we also have topless fur-protesters

To solve the Amero-Mexican boarder crisis, PeTA has provided this helpful sign in order to deter illegal immigrants.

















translation: "If the boarder patrol doesn't get you, the chicken and burgers will. Go vegan."

...no, that's really what it says.

Because a hungry Mexican attempting to sneak across the border will verily be deterred by a delightful carnival showcasing America's wondrous bounty, overlooked by a jealous sun, and contrasted with Mexico's apparent paucity and relative dourness.

Or maybe the ambulance is meant to warn them of medical premiums.

you totally deserved it

Today, I tried to resurrect my mother using alchemy but ended up exploding my brother instead, so I had to bind his soul to a suit of armor. Also, I blew my own arm off. FMA