Retroactive Review: Watchmen

Alright, it might seem bad that along with the fact that this blog is dead, we never post on it and now that I am writing something its ANOTHER review of ANOTHER comic book movie. Fair criticism.

I will start this out by saying I did really like Watchmen, it was well paced (really long but there are no real slow points that I would have cut), had great action, a great tone and moral.

This is that point where I think I should stop and say SPOILERS! I don't know that there will be spoilers but in the interest of good measure I might write some along the way so if you don't want this ruined for you...well we already got our google analytic from you.

So Watchmen is about a group of superheros who has to go into hiding (Kinda like the Incredibles now that I think about it) after legislation from 5 time elected President Richard Nixon makes being a superhero all but impossible. Blah Blah Blah I don't need to do a plot synopsis.

Point is this movie is quite decent, it makes its point and gets out in a hefty two and a half hours. The characters are well crafted, the plot is a fun divergence from modern history, and the violence and sex work well into the plot and don't just feel like tacked on gimmicks to get you into the theater.

I love Rorschach.

Remember people to never talk to robots.

That is all.

BTW, other Matt is a non-posting prick.

Smile...You're Under Arrest

I don't know how wide spread the "Fox Reality Channel" is but the geniuses over there have created a great goose of gigantic gold egg laying prowess. The show is called Smile...You're Under Arrest, and it stars the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office more specifically Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The premise of the show is that they take people who have failed to show up for court on the charges brought up against them and have warrants out for their arrest get called in for different bit parts for either a movie, a costume clothing store, and a holistic wellness place just to name a few. So the people with warrants out for their arrest respond to a mailer and get picked up and go to these random locations to take part in what they believe would be a odd day out, and the fake company they have chosen to pick these outlaws up with is called J.L. Thyme...yes.

I don't have anything clever to say here, this is one of those few and brilliant situations where the set up will be better then the punchline ever could hope to be.

If you want to check it out they still have them on www.Hulu.com just search smile and you should get them as the first three results.

Here's the first episode for shits and grins.

The Challenge

Here at the Apple and the Earworm (seriously that title is such ass and I need to change it) we have a healthy competitive spirit. Afterall, having two editors with the same name, it is only natural that we clash in an eternal struggle to find out who among us is superior. That said, we're having a race. Both other-matt and I particularly enjoy videogames. Portal is a videogame. We like Portal. So we're going to race at it. This may seem particularly uninteresting as Portal is borderline-borderline ancient (yes I meant to say borderline twice) but its simple, we're both familiar with it, and we both own it. So thats that. I'll have more information up when we schedule the race and when it does actually happen, we might try to do something interesting with it. So check back in.

Picked up MadWorld: First Thoughts.

Just went and grabbed MadWorld from a local video game seller place and gave the first level (which is essentially a tutorial) a whirl.

• The presentation is great and the black white and red really stand out stylistically.

• Controls take some getting used to but they definitively do the job they are sent out to do. There is not too much waggle and when there is wii-waggle it is quite literally waggle; as in the game just tells you to wobble the controller around until something happens. The feeling is incredibly visceral and delicious.
  

• The game is so ridiculously vulgar I almost feel a little ashamed playing it, and its not even in game vulgarity, the announcers are all fucking this and shitface that at a certain point it doesn't even make sense. BUT: the announcing is amazing in between when they are swearing nonsensically and insulting each other they do an outstanding play by play that is so good I don't even understand how it works. (I'll have to look it up but im pretty sure one of the voices is the guy who does Bender on Futurama (and if he isn't maybe he should be))
  

• I have only finished the first level and the game play already started to get boring, but that may have been only because it was just a first level (once i get into the really killing and maiming it might get to be more fun).

Edit: It is John Di Maggio (the voice of bender) as one of the announcers...AWESOME!

Edit Edit: Greg Proops is the other announcer, this game just got some really hard nerd cred for choice in voice talent.

So what I guess I'm trying to say is that MadWorld is looking to be a good game, but from where it's at right now seems to be that its off to a slow start.

I really am trying to stray away from video game talk but being unemployed during the summer after graduating college makes it really hard to do much else...anyone have job offers for a well trained graduate of radio...

New idea.

I know I've already made a point to say I was gonna try and start audio podcasting onto this blag, but I wanted to pass this by the readers we don't have(prove me wrong damn it!) for my new concept. "Matt Rants" will be audio podcasts that should be fully produced up to standard (whatever that means) of myself or Matt ranting about something (sometimes one thing maybe a couple of little things) anything that happens to be swirling around my warped little head. I've got a couple in the works but I would love opinions from any and everyone. Comment back make us seem like someone reads this. WE LOVE ATTENTION!!!!!

Hit up the comment box!

POPULATION ANNIHILATION!

This man is just so happy to be killing mice that I needed to share this video.

Also because I am out of idea's I plan on working on smaller posts more often because I don't have the mental capacity to churn out big long stupid non-sequiturs weekly or bi-weekly or monthly even. ALSO! To let you in the planning stuff, I want to start putting up really short audio podcasts that may or may not be replacements for blag posts. So...tell your friends.

New rot-poast

I made this post to the blag with my Nintender DS. Homebrew software is freaking awesome, but making this post still sucked.

Killzone 2: Demo impressions

Took 4 hours to download, and ten minutes to play.

Conclusion: Worth it. Except I have some issues with the aiming sensitivity, but thats it.

Next-Gen Redundancy

The only "Next Gen" platform I own is the Wii (I don't even have a PC with DX10 capabilities), and I can hold out all day long on people who claim it does not push the boundaries of graphics and beauty like the other two behemoths, because I am held fast by the fact that next gen gaming (for the most part) isn't all that spectacular to look at. I'll say it right now: Hyper realism is gaming is a crutch, A crutch for designers who are too lazy to come up with fantastical worlds of nowhere. Also, whilst wandering the wide world of interwebz I came across something fantastical, someone else who can write better than me getting my point across better than I could have hoped

"With the current tech we can make stuff that looks photo realistic. Games like Gran Turismo are perfect examples. That's fine but I've always felt like games need an impressionist movement. We need designers to say "yeah, we could make it look real, but we're gonna make it look cool."
Thank you Mike Krahulik.

Oh hell, I'll even conceit the fact that there is a place for Hyper realistic games, and that some of them might even be a hoot to play, but as it stands right now there is just way too much crap coming out that is "MIND BLOWING GRAPHIX!!!!111one" and absolutely no story or interesting game mechanic or anything unique to set it apart from other games not even within the same genre, but just within the same console.

This is the point where if we had any readers they would comment back with "OMG UR A WII FANBOY AND U THINK EVRY THIG IZ STUPID LOLOLOL". Like I've said I own a Wii and if I had the money to throw at it I would buy a 360 but I can't see paying for online play that I am getting for free right now (Thank you Valve).

And this is the part where I try my damnedest to make a coherent point: Other than polygon count game textures do not look any better than when Serious Sam 2 came out. Seriously go back and look at the world textures for Serious Sam 2, and now look at say oh I don't know lets go with Mirrors Edge. Polygon counts are down, but all and all it is a solid FPS with a lightning quick play style and visuals to match. To make a point for this review I downloaded a demo of Serious Sam 2 and have seen some action in Mirrors Edge, and guess what the difference was: Color.

I don't understand what developers are missing in that games can over arch reality, and there is not one thing that needs to make a god damn lick of sense in them. What are the games that are really remembered? I can tell you its not the ones that make you think "Hmmm that game sure does make the most of the Playstation 3's cell processor." No, the games that you remember are the ones that make you think about artistry, no i take that back you shouldn't even be thinking about it as amazing artistry should just happen and you won't even know what hit you, amazing game play where you don't even notice after a while that you are handing a controller because everything feel so smooth and succinct.

Okami, Katamari Damacy, World of Goo, Animal Crossing, No More Heros, Braid, and MEGAMAN 9 for christ sake are all spectacular games in their own right and none of them went out of their way to look amazingly authentic but do look stupendous each with their own flavor. Seems I'm at that point where everything I say is just beating a dead horse, but I guess thats the point. If this generation's consoles are going to be known for their hyper realism then color me bored because while I'm sure that the big game budgets are being thrown into great textures and all that funky goodness, but its a waste. Would Halo be as popular if it had cell shading? No, but thats mostly because Halo fans are pricks.(and I know a cell shaded Halo would be a terrible idea (we all played XIII(no we didn't) (terrible idea Ubisoft))) Again I am at the precipice of a terrible ending and need a way to tie this gigantic mess together. Just because the Wii is making printing money is not the reason next gen graphics are redundent. Next gen graphics are redundent because there is no artistry in them its all horsepower and no soul. Car analogy! You do not get a great car automatically because of superior horsepower numbers and handleing statistics, you get a great car because it makes the driver feel good to use it, and video games should be no different. Finally! I play video games to visit another world (escapism) I want to see things that are not possible and see worlds that look nothing like mine, and if i wanted video games to look like real life I would run around the city with my fingers pointed out screaming "PEW PEW PEW PEW" and imagine that everyone was dieing from my finger-bullets.


Then get arrested for terrorism.

Top Ten of Two Thousand and Eight...ALLITERATION

So writing a personal top ten for pretty much anything is both presumptuous and pretentious, but this is the internet and those kinds of things don't exist here, so I'm going to go ahead and throw out my top ten Game releases for the year in no particular order:

Valkyria Chronicles
Little Big Planet
Fallout 3
Gears of War 2
Lost Odyssey
Grand Theft Auto IV
Metal Gear Solid IV
Dead Space
Fable II
Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Wow, a ton of surprises right? If you were to take out Lost Odyssey and insert Call of Duty: World at War, this list would be nearly identical to every other top ten list out there (Except for those kids who just compile a list of every JRPG released this year, you know who you are). The only real underdog to get any significant recognition this year was Valkyria Chronicles, which is good, but there weren't more gems floating around? Yeah there were a ton of killer XBL PSN and NVC games, Braid, Mega Man 9, World of Goo, etc., but otherwise I think this was a year full of disappointments. Tons of games looked like they had promise but failed to deliver i.e. Army of Two, Infinite Undiscovery, Animal Crossing City Folk (I'm totally going to get shit from -other Matt - for that). Did Nintendo even have any holiday releases besides Animal Crossing? Did they need them? Financially? No. By reason of proving that they actually give a damn about their consumer base? Yes.

You know what? Now that I'm on that subject...

The only excuse I can possibly find for them having such a weak showing in the winter season is that they've got something HUGE on the horizon. Something that, with the incredible revenue they're raking in, they could afford to push back and perfect for another year. Something to the effect of a new Legend of Zelda or Super Mario. My guess is that it may be Star Fox, trying to redeem itself from its weak efforts on the Gamecube. While it would be less likely, perhaps Nintendo wants to take some extra time fine tuning its online services in order to drop an on-line compatible F-Zero title. Wishful thinking, anyway. A more likely scenario is that Nintendo is above all else a corporate entity that values cashflow above fan service. No matter how fickle the casual audience is (seriously, these are the same people who would start fist fights in Wal-Mart over the last Furby) Nintendo knows that that is where the money is at and is going to give them what they want (which is apparently shitty party games) every single time until the hype is gone and they come crawling back to their core.

Dave and Buster's: REVIEW'D

So the other day I and a few friends made a trip to this place called Dave n' Buster's. Its a restraunt. Maybe you've seen a commercial for it. Maybe you don't watch television. Maybe, you're a jerk and are just like every one of those other lying bastards who tell everyone they don't watch television. I imagine most people who are into games would know a thing or two about it, as it is essentially Chuckie Cheese for adults, only, it doesn't have a famous American video game pioneer as it's former CEO.

Anyway, I went there with a few preconceived notions about what exactly this place would be like. Essentially I imagined a really crappy restraunt with an ultra fancy state of the art arcade attached. What it ACTUALLY turned out to be was nearly the polar opposite. You walk in to the place and the arcade portion of it is near completely obscured from view. If you were to stop by, not knowing what it was, you'd probably assume its a halfway decent restraunt, which, strangely, it is. The food was good and came within a reasonable amount of time, and (though I prefer not to drink) there was a huge selection of various beers and liquors. I imagine the sound proofing detail on the place must be massive as barely any sound from the arcade leaked through into the dining area.

Where this place stumbled, and I'm actually pretty sad for it, was it's gaming room. It is difficult to say who is to fault on this, the gaming industry, or the restraunt chain, but the arcade was lacking to a pretty huge degree. I haven't been to any other arcades lately so maybe I'm a little too optimistic in my expectations, but the entire experience seemed to be just a huge flashback to my youth. Not because I was having a load of childish fun, but because all of the same arcade games that I have already played a thousand times were there, with only a few more modern titles to check out. I couldn't help but feel like I was getting ripped off most of the time. Well...nevermind, I was fully aware that I was consistently getting ripped off from the second I walked in the room. Why should I pay the DnB chip equivalent to about a dollar to play Star Wars: Starfighter for three minutes when I can easily walk into a used game shop and pay three dollars to own the game outright. Sure, as an added bonus I get to sit inside of a nausea inducing hydraulic driven bubble, but I can't quite decide how much that experience is really worth.

Another complaint that I have about the experience is that the restraunt/arcade seems to be in constant conflict between its target and actual demographic. The arcade is packed with children. I suppose that thats predictable, but I would hope a restaurant marketed as such would offer an escape in some way from the chaos that comes along with the presence of youngsters. I'm sure that the corporate execs of DnB would want to claim not to be as such, but it seems that whole place really is just a Chuck-E-Cheese that serves less pizza and more alcohol.

Ultimately I'm not angry at my experience, but I'm disappointed. I like the idea of enjoying games in a more social environment, but I'd rather do so in the presence of people my own age.

People who are mature and don't spend forty minutes pretending to play Time Crisis 4 when, clearly, they are watching the in-game demo.

I hate children.

On Scales in reviews.

Hence forth I am hitherto going to add more numerics to my reviews of this that and the other. Not because it adds value or purpose, or to make a stand or a point or a preposition, but because it is confusing and some might say humorous. This here placard of numerals shall stand for all time as something scribed whilst I was deliriously ill and had nothing good to scribble on about! ALSO! Through the rest of this writing everything should be read as if it were being yelled at you!! With the more exclamation points conjuring up more yelling within your head. Harken! Let it be known! NOW! That all numeral values placed within a review shall be taken with the largest and bitterest grains of salt, AND! That I have mostly gone through with this much effort in typographilizing nothing because Matt made it so clear that he would not be numerating his reviews, and to make up for this short fall in integers I have decided to take up the slack.

SO!

Hear Ye Hear Ye! 9/10-( "Hear Ye" lost points for lack of creativity.)

I will place nonsensical numerical values in reviews that make no difference and have no pertinence to said review.