Thursday, April 29, 2010

Apologies in advance

If you don't see a lot of content on here, it's probably because I'm not in the mood. You see, my great grand mother recently got a heart attack. And though she's fine, I'm sort of out of the weather at the moment when it comes to creativity. So, sorry.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Nostalgia Critic vs Angry Video Game Nerd

Nostalgia Critic vs Angry Video Game Nerd

Once upon a time, there was a man named Doug Walker. And another one named James Rolfe. Both would become great assets to the videogame community on the World Wide Web, giving us entertainment of the top shelf whilst they give us even more greatness on their respective sites.
The Angry Video Game Nerd was a character whose origins could be found under a different name. As James Rolfe, creator of The Cinemassacre, had created the Angry Nintendo Nerd as something to show his friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY

When eventually the series was put on Youtube, the ANN exploded in to stardom, eventually making his way on to Screwattack.com and as an extension the big videogame site known as Gametrailers. 
Then there was the Nostalgia Critic. Once again we find an origin in the great video wasteland known as Youtube. Here it was the purpose to do satirical reviews of nostalgic movies of the past and present.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/52-transformers-the-movie-review

Since then, the Nostalgia Critic has evolved in to a brand new character whilst the persona seen in that video turned in to a bum. No, seriously.  Doug Walker himself left Youtube because of various copyright claims from the major film companies whilst they really had no claim, what with the law protecting mister Walker and all with the fair use thing.
At the dawn of these two characters, nobody would ever have suspected the greatness that would soon follow.

You could say that the feud started in a simple review. Though there is no sign of the feud here, it’ll become a vital part of the feud in the end. Here we see the great Nostalgia Critic as we have known him for over a hundred videos so far.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/160-cloverfield-review

It was funny, informative and brilliant at the same time. This man was promising to become one of the greatest of the internet, suited to be a part of the hall of fame. In the meantime, James Rolfe continued to torture himself with shitty games and entertain us with us own movies and movie reviews.

However, neither of them counted on their fans stirring up the heat beneath them. As AVGN fans came to the NC’s videos and commented things that only ended up antagonizing the Critic in to creating the following video:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/161-angry-video-game-nerd-rant

And so it begins.

Soon after, the AVGN responded in his own forum at Screwattack.com saying: "I've seen some of his videos. His Cloverfield review was hilarious, and if I'm not mistaken, I think he also did the "5 second movies" also. Those put me to tears. So yes, call me a fan of his." This caused the Nostalgia Critic to rant once more against the AVGN:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/162-angry-video-game-nerd-rant-part-2

A little while later, the AVGN put up a video of the nostalgic movie: The Wizard two weeks before the Nostalgia Critic was scheduled to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TWQz8TMsc0

This did not go over lightly. Once the Nostalgia Critic learned of this act, he immediately went in to a psychopathic rage and created another rant aimed towards the greatest nerd of all time. Because it seemed that the Critic had announced this review way before the AVGN put up his review.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/207-avgn-wizard-rant

Where after he posted his own review of the movie on That Guy With The Glasses.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/215-the-wizard

The tension was building up greatly. It was almost so tangeable that could cut it with a knife if you wanted to. You could feel the rage of the Critic burn through the screen. And then it finally happened. The moment that we’ve all been waiting for. That one video that would set the entire internet on fire, causing a ripple of enthusiasm and fan boy glee through every viewer. James Rolfe, the AVGN, responded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHWunsTLYa0



This, of course, did not go unnoticed.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/386-avgn-response-response

The game was on, the glove had slapped the cheek and the challenge had been made. What was going to happen next? So far, fans of both Doug Walker as James Rolfe have been following this feud with great interest. As this was an event of so badass proportions, their heads were going to explode. Yet, this was not enough. Two days had passed and still there was no response. The Critic was furious. And so he traveled forth in to the great beyond to challenge the AVGN in person. As also seen in the video that followed was Captain S.

Created by PBC Productions,  The new adventures of Captain S followed Chad Belmont through 10 episodes of awesomeness  where he picks up the mantle of video land defender and fight against a powerful nemesis.

http://www.pbc-productions.com/CaptainS/Episodes.html

As both James Rolfe and PBC productions were partnered with Screwattack, a crossover happened soon enough. Because the Nerd and the Hero teamed up to save Christmas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNAF0GGssbM

And so the Nostalgia Critic and the AVGN meet, with Captain S … visiting.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/529-the-battle-of-epic-proportions

It truly was a battle of Epic Proportions. Yet, it would definitely not be the last. Still, we’re a long way from that point. The AVGN has accepted the challenge and he will review a shitty movie. However, he in return has demanded that the Critic reviewed a shitty game. The shit was going to hit the fan, literally and figuratively. First came the Angry Video Game Nerd with his review of a movie with personal nostalgic value. This was of course Ricky 1, a spoof of the great movie Rocky with Sylvester Stallone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpMxy_ydnMM

After that the Critic put on some new threads, dusted off his SNES and plopped in a real fucker of a game: Bebe’s Kids.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/994-video-game-review

The sheer suckiness of both these subjects almost tore a hole through the Space Suck continuum, but we all managed to hold on to your buts and not say bye bye to Kansas.
Then came the video we’ve all been waiting for. Almost anyways.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/1810-nc-vs-avgn-last-showdown

Yes, folks. The Nostalgia Critic was on his merry way to kick some nerd ASS. The internet started living and breathing this one fight. We lived and planned towards this one event. It was going to be HUGE. And then, there it was. In all it’s glory, basking us in awesomeness.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/2023-avgn-vs-nc-final-battle

We came.

After that, it all seemed over. It ended on a nice note of possibly more to come. Yet we never really got news that suggested another battle would come. It was kind of like a cliffhanger in a horror movie. I for one really didn’t expect something new to come out of this.

And so Cinemassacre went its own way and kept on growing in to an even greater site. James Rolfe became a source of inspiration and information for all with his vast knowledge of not only movies but also about movie making. Monster Madness, retrospectives and reviews followed one after another as the character known as the AVGN kept on as well.
That Guy With the Glasses kept on growing as well, adding more and more members to its roster like Linkara and Angry Joe. It even start building up to this super secret one year anniversary video. Sure, we were all pretty exited about it. From what little information we were given, it promised to be a good video. Truth be told, I didn’t really expect anything of it. And as I started watching it, I almost turned it off at the beginning because I wasn’t in the mood. And then … Just watch.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/6719-1-year-anniversary-video

OH MY GOD. This has to be greatest video ever created for the internet. The sheer epicness that it holds would make even Chuck Norris shed a single tear. It’s so beautiful to watch and unfold, seeing all those people you’ve been watching together in a single room. Bringing forth memes and staples of their respective series, these people have brought us a brawl that would be remembered for years to come. Yet, it does not end here. In the final moments of this epic brawl, Ask ThatGuy joins the party by exclaiming that it’s best to work together, because us viewers eat crossovers up. So, following this video a while later was a review of the shitfest known as: The Making of Coming out of their shells tour.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/8124-cntmnt

And with that, the feud came to an end. For months we followed this feud go on, evolve in to something great. It was an enjoyment to watch and a damned shame to see it end. However, we’ve all learnt many things and we’ve discovered some great new people. We will remember it with fondness. We also hope that perhaps in the future, something would still come out of it.

Doug Walker: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/
James Rolfe: http://www.cinemassacre.com/
PBC Productions: http://www.pbc-productions.com/
Screwattack: http://www.screwattack.com
Gametrailers: http://www.gametrailers.com

And don’t forget to check out the websites of some of the contributors at That guy with the Glasses like Spoony, The Game Heroes and Linkara!

That has been Puddle Jumper with a Nostalgia Critic vs. Angry Video Game Nerd retrospective. See you later!

tHop - The Last Airbender

tHop
The Last Airbender


http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/thelastairbender/

With a very questionable director helming this movie, fans all over the world are holding their breath when it comes to the live action adaptation of one of the best cartoons of day.
The trailer is promising that the movie will show exactly what many of the fans wanted. Action. Everything in the movie seems to be catering to this as well as many aspects of the cartoons have been altered and actors were horribly miss cast. Most if not all of the quirky humor seems to have been stripped right out of the movie and the personalities of many characters seemed to have been changed to fit this. The actor playing Aang is not exactly the best match for the job either, as he has this serious vibe to him all the way from his looks to his voice. Plus, besides having no hair on his nogget, the kid doesn’t look anything like Aang.
Despite all of the flaws noticed in the latest trailer, the movie appears to be doing the action right. Everyone seems like they have been fighting for a long time and the special effects don’t look like they jumped straight of the ninetees. Like DRAGONthismovieisBALLS EVOLUTION. Not only that, but the sets and the CG sets all look beautiful. So do the effects that are littered all over the trailer.

Still, it all lies in the hands in one of the most questionable directors in the entire fucking world. This man has never made a good movie before in his life. Fuck The sixth sense. That movie was good up until the pay off. It didn’t make a lick of sense as throughout the entire movie they do their best to make sure that last part is complete and utter bullshit. Signs was the most acceptable movie out of the bunch and even that is stretching the limits. Unbreakable was garbage, the Village was shite on a film reel and The Happening … well, it ain’t happening. There’s more movies, sure, but they suck as well.
Uwe Boll has a better rap sheet than this guy. I mean, at least Uwe Boll has made movies that are entertaining to watch. Sure, you’d might be entertained for all the wrong reasons, but at least you’re being entertained.
Buuuuut, M. Night Shyamalan seems to be doing a pretty good job on The Last Airbender so far. If he can deliver the movie that this trailer is promising, this might still work out. Maybe he has the best adaptation on his hands. Well, maybe that explains it. He didn’t write the source material.

Friday, April 23, 2010

tHop - Twilight Saga: Eclipse

THop:
Twilight Saga: Eclipse


http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=65441

The trailer promises a significant upgrade when it comes to the Twilight Saga. For once, there is going to be note worthy action and added action that wasn’t seen in the book. In other words, the brutal killings of the new vampires in Seattle. If the Twilight Saga should ever be given a chance then it has to be with this part of the quadrilogy.  To me, this is as good as the series is ever going to get. And I’ve read all books. This IS the best that this series is going to get. Just because it caters to as many audiences as possible. And, in this installment, the author’s greenhorn writing isn’t as utterly apparent as before. And, as far as I can tell from this trailer, it’s going to be done remarkably well. Well, it’s a trailer after all. These kind of things are made to make the biggest shitnugget in the world look like Hitchcock quality material.

As with the previous two installments in the saga, I’m not expecting them to actually try acting. I mean, the actor playing Jasper seemed like he was physically hurting from trying to act. Not to mention the other “actors” in this flick. In my opinion, the only ones that are able to act halfway decently are the Blacks and Charlie’s actors.
I’m just hoping that the final half of the movie is going to be about fighting and preparing to fight these new vampires because the script isn’t going to be of much importance here. Seeing as the next movie is going to make as much sense as half the porn on the internet.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

tHop before: Bad Boys 3

THop before: Bad Boys 3

Right, so, there haven’t been many trailers for me to hop over lately so I decided to talk about news instead. Before you read on then, I’d like for you to read this little article over at comingsoon.net.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=65370


Monday, April 19, 2010

Announcements 04/19/2010

Hi everyone.

Frequent visitors, thank you very kindly and newcomers: Welcome to the entertainment!

So yeah, there haven't been any good trailers lately and frankly, I think I might have to go back a few weeks in the trailer databases for the the next tHop. I'm going to wait and see for a few more days for that one. As for Reviews; I got two reviews lined up. One is The Saboteur and the other one is Dragon Age: Origins. These might take awhile though as I'm planning something for these two that require a bit more thought than usual. Here we'll see a return of a character I created a while back. Lastly, I got some artwork lined up to be released. So keep an eye out for those :)

Don't forget to check out tehpwnshop.wordpress.com and I'll see you later!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Line in the Sand 1.5

Now, I'm not the only one who is tackling these topics. There are several other individuals that are willing to address these issues, and many others like it. That is why I'm currently writing this add-on to the main Line in the Sand article, to promote the following individuals for their commendable job in trying to inform the masses.

First up is Daniel Floyd, a man who once made a video as a class project that talked about an important issue in gaming. Since then he had made several more videos concerning different issues in the gaming world. Very informative videos, to say the least. Definitely worth a watch -

http://screwattack.com/user/Daniel-Floyd

Next up is a man more commonly known as Moviebob, though many know him as The Game OverThinker. Again, an admirable individual who had made over 30 videos that contain plenty of information that should benefit those with little knowledge. Many accuse him of only giving information that us gamers already know, but that's actually a good thing in my opinion. As this is a very good step in to the gaming world that isn't filled with wrong information and intent to spread lies as propaganda.

http://screwattack.com/shows/The-Game-OverThinker

These two individuals alone should have given you enough thought. Check out their videos, think and spread the word. Gamers have been sitting on their asses long enough.

To be continued in Line in the Sand 2: Judgement Day, no more.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Line in the Sand

Okay guys, this is an old blog that can still be considered up to date, even today. Although, generally speaking, the event that inspired this blog is old. Still, don't just skip over this as this is an important topic in the gaming world. Have a good read, and I hope it makes you think. 

Jumper's Art Gallery - Never Caught in Spain

Points to whoever gets the title.

Anyhoo, Ladies and gentlemen, this is JAG:



Monday, April 12, 2010

Respawn Entertainment

And we have an ending for the second act, ladies and gentlemen.


It all started around early March. Promising to be just another month of the year, we had but little hope that anything of excitement would occur besides the usual Pre E3 buzz. The sky was blue and the grass was green. All was good with the world. Then it happened.
Nicknamed: Infinittwardämmerung by the Escapist, the event was something unseen or unheard for quite a lot of years.  Getting ahead of the situation though. So let’s start at the beginning, to make sure that everyone here is on the same page. This article wouldn’t be interesting if you were sitting there going: “durrrrrrrrrrrrr, whut’s he tolkin’ aboot?”


Sunday, April 11, 2010

tHop - The Human Centipede

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thehumancentipede/

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?


Saturday, April 10, 2010

Splinter Cell: Conviction review

Aaaah, Splinter Cell. Ever since it was announced, I’ve been a major fan. You wouldn’t believe how hard I jizzed when I heard it was coming to the Playstation 2. The series have only vastly improved since that first game, offering us hours upon hours of entertainment. Slitting some poor saps throat as he’s pissing against the wall or shooting someone in the family jewels from the darkness, keeping all those fucks in the dark of where I am. They’re then out looking for me as their friend is lying on the ground, calling for his mommy. Or to hear Michael Ironside’s sexy voice portraying Sam Fisher, undoubtedly one of the best videogame characters ever made.
Then came Conviction.


Friday, April 9, 2010

tHop - The other guys

I don’t wanna do this episode really. I’ll let the other guys do it.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=64937

On second thought … Ladies and gentlemen, let’s do some Trailer Hopping!


Tuesday, April 6, 2010

tHop - Resident Evil: Afterlife

Trailer Hopping the Resident Evil: Afterlife trailer is a more difficult task than you would believe at first. I mean, the entertainment is greatly divided when it comes to this series. Ever since the first installment, the live action series turned out to be more action-horror than survival-horror. And when Apocalypse came along, it was more than obvious that the game only borrows names and looks to the movie franchise. As the movies tend to give diddly squat about the already established storyline. Or even the feeling of the games. So, that is why it is so difficult to announce this movie. But, let’s start at the beginning, ladies and gentlemen: The trailer -

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/wonderconnews.php?id=64784


Sunday, April 4, 2010

Final Fantasy XIII review

Ladies and gentlemen, Final Fantasy XIII - the review:

The reason why I’m not giving this review a full fledged intro is because this isn’t really one of my typical reviews where I discuss the game according to different things like sound, graphics and so on. This was what I had in mind for this game, but right now, all I want to do is just talk about it. No flashy intro, no well thought of jokes, no in depth description of anything. Just me, talking about it. Well, writing about it. But you get the point. So, the only way I find myself able to talk about this game is to go for it the old fashioned way. By dividing it in good, bad and ugly.


1) You’re ugly

2) In the end, there are plenty of good things that this game brings to the Final Fantasy franchise. For one thing, there’s the battle system. Without a doubt, XIII has one of the best battle systems that I have ever seen in an RPG. For one thing, it creates this cinematic feeling during a battle by having your character do not one attack per turn, but multiple. You see, the ATB bar fills up as usual, only this time it’s divided in to smaller bars. Each bar is one attack. Albeit some attacks require multiple bars. This way, if you have like 5 attacks stacked up, your character can move in and take three slices, jump back and pull the trigger on her gun and then launch a Ruin magic sphere at your opponent for the killing blow. Although they tried to make it a tad too cinematic by adding a auto-battle function. Which basically is something to get through the mob battles faster. All you need to do is press X from the moment the fight starts, change the channel and have a few laughs at some stand up comedian before you change back a minute later.
I was talking good things, wasn’t I? Good, good, good. Euh. Oh yeah, back to the combat. So, another good thing is the stagger bar. For me it was a huge aid for getting through a lot of the boss battles. Usually they have a shitload of health and that usually means that the battles will take forever. BUT, filling up the bar has the illusion of being faster at times but most of the time I end up killing the enemy before that bar is filled.
The Paradigm system is also quite awesome. And I do mean awesome. So, you are given control of only one character during battle. But, the good news is that this character is the party leader. And as a good party leader, you are able to give commands. These are the paradigms. Not exactly the most specific of commands but they do the trick. Because, a paradigm is basically a macro. Let’s say you have two paradigms. All you need to do is hit L1 in combat and you get a pop up screen with the different ones you have. Select the one you want and the battle immediately goes in to that paradigm, no matter what is happening on screen at the time. Now, what exactly does it change? The classes of your characters. So you can have a medic paradigm, a stat paradigm, a battle paradigm, a stagger paradigm and a few more combinations. The enemies themselves are tuned to this system as well so many times you’ll have to switch up and use your head for a change.
Besides the battle system, I also liked a few of the characters and all of the settings. I mean, the setting are just drop dead gorgeous. Most of the time I just need to stop and soak it in. The music is quite alright as well. But I’ll be damned if I’ll ever like the chocobo song with lyrics.
Now, what I really like about the characters is the fact that the lip synching has been completely redone to fit the English script. And I do mean completely, as the in game scenes and the CG scenes are all almost perfectly synched. It’s just so beautiful to behold. Someone with brains doing the synching! AND IT FITS. I never thought I’d see it, truth be told. In an RPG at least. To be frank, I also think that this game has some of the best voice acting in the franchise, ever.
Oh, I absolutely love Lightning. She slaps around most of the characters like it was nothing and totally gives them the cold shoulder for like 15 hours. Besides her, the only likeable characters are Fang and Sazh. Especially Sazh. Stereotype to the bone, but one hell of a story behind him.
Lastly: Shiva sisters <3


3) Now here’s where I really get in to gear. First of all, this game is NOT an RPG in the terms of: Role Playing Game. It’s more like a Rail Playing Game. For 25 hours straight, all you do is follow a preset path laid down by corridors. Why the game even bothers with a minimap, I don’t know, but it’s there. The fact that you’re being guided by your arm like you’re a retard is even more apparent when you know that you trigger cut scenes just by going forward. In other FF games you had to backtrack or find the place first. But here you’re being guided to it from the get go. There’s no vague directions, no clue, no text. It’s just a fucking dot on the map and the mini map where you need to get to in order to reach the next cutscene. You know that time in an RPG where you’re being guided through an event? Like after you went through a dungeon and there’s just a few more hallways of bad guys or a hallway with an expeditionary cutscene. That is the entire game in a nutshell. Those twenty or less minutes stretched out over hours on end, only given one time to really stretch your legs and explore. Unfortunately this is pretty hard if you don’t have the right tactic. (There’s like the one Behemoth King close to where you first save in the basin. All you need to do is surprise buttsechs him so that you can pre-emptive strike him close to his stagger point and then launch him in the air where you triple commando his ass to death.)
Once your team gets back together, you find yourself unable to give a rats ass to switch up your characters from time to time. Because, if you do, you’ll just waste resources and time. Just pick a team and stick with it, to hell with the rest. For me, I’m sticking to Fang as leader and Lightning and Hope. This is the best team in the game in my opinion, once you get their crystariums up. And this royally sucks for me. I kind of liked having to keep your head in the game because paradigms, skills and people changed every chapter or so.
Oh and the crystarium is the biggest fucking bullshit in this entire game. I mean, come on people. This is a magician blowing smoke up your ass. All it does is that it gives you the illusion that you’re actually contributing to the character’s skill evolution. Let’s start at the beginning. At the end of every battle you’re not awarded EXP but CP, or Crystarium Points. These CP are to be spent at the as such designated menu. Inside this menu you get the selection of characters and within these characters a selection of classes. And you can level these classes as you see fit. The problem is, every character is already given a set of standard crystariums. After you open up all classes for each character, you’ll be damned if you start changing it up then. Sure, you can make it for that little something extra, but basically all character’s paths are preset. Unless you want to make a specific paradigm. I leveled Hope in Commando until he was a level 1 COM. Then I just stopped there. This way I had 3 commandos for when the enemy was staggered. Luckily I did that or else I would have been more pissed that I had been forced to give Hope strength nodes. On that subject, let’s take a closer look at Commando. It’s basically a set of circles connected by one line that goes all the way from the top to the bottom. You can light up the bar to show progress and also the nodes on that line to get the bonuses or abilities they contain. Some times the line branches off but there’s only like one or two nodes on that line. Sometimes that line splits up in to two as well but that only goes so far as well. It’s quite terrible. It’s a waste of time and effort really. Give me back my leveling system, please.
The other thing you need to level up is your gear. Sometimes you get loot. That loot can some times be used to upgrade your weapons. Which is a total crock. You barely get Gil to spend on extra upgrade items because you’re spending it on accessories and items when you can. So the few upgrade items that you do get only get you so far. So after like 10 hours, you realize that switching weapons is impossible by now because you’ve already leveled your weapons to the point where they’ll be better than what you pick up. Restart leveling these weapons? Fuck that noise.
And you’d think you at least had some place to rest up, talk to characters and buy your things. You know, catch a break from all that combat and stuff and just submerge yourself in to the world for just a few minutes. But noooooooooooooooo, there’s no towns. Everything is done via save points. (of which there’s like a fuckton, I tell ya. Once I was near the of a “screen” and I had to pass to another. Before I did, there was a save point. I passed the screen and VOILA another save point just behind it. There wasn’t even a long assed cutscene to warrant that save point.)
Let’s dig in to the story now. Because that one’s a real doozy. From the get go, you have no fucking clue as to what’s going on. The only reason you know who to cheer for is because that bitch is right on the box art. Everyone standing next to her has to be a good guy, right? Then comes text. They say a lot of things but most of the time you’re sitting there with your eyes wide open and your brain doing overtime, trying to think what the hell you just missed. Because you’ll often hear terms, names and whatnots of which you’ve never heard before. And the game assumes you understand every words that’s being said. After that cutscene, they have the BALLS to give you a datalog in which you can find explanations for every term, name, event and whatnot that you just saw. It’s a joke, I tell ya. A crappy one to boot.
What really tickles my balls in this story are these Fal’Cie. Big assed fucking deities that basically watch over humans, as said by the humans. Buuuuut, some of these Fal’Cie need something done. They’re extremely powerful beings and they … well, they go to humans to help them. The thing they do is simple, they enlist humans by unwillingly branding them with this tattoo. This tattoo develops over time and if it completes, it turns that person in to either a Ceith (a zombie basically) or it turns you to crystal for eternal life. During the branding, the human is given a focus. Which is their job that they must complete. That focus however is nothing more than a vague dream and most of the time these humans (called L’Cie once they are branded) have no fucking clue what to do. All they can do is shove their thumbs up their asses and call it a day. If they fail, they become zombies. If they win, they turn crystal. Wooptie fucking dooda. Let’s recap that, shall we. A great deity forces a human to help him by giving him a dream which gives the human only the vaguest clue on what to do otherwise they’re totally boned instead of just regularly boned. Yah, good plan, jackass. And this is like a major plot point in the game. Seriously, all these guys bitch and moan about is their focus. One guy thinks that, one guy thinks so. Snow thinks they’re supposed to save the planet Cocoon. Lightning slaps Snow around (<3)>
Oh, now they we’re at the characters. What the flying fuckballs on a pogo stick is up with Vanille? How on … Cocoon … is that girl even alive? I mean, she’s barely capable of being serious, she’s borderline insanely happy, she’s childish and most of the time she acts like there’s not a care in the world. And most of the noises that she makes. Djeez wiz Louise. Someone needs to choke a bitch, I tell ya.
In the first ten hours or so of the game, Hope is quite annoying as well. It’s like Tidus, Vaan and Squall all rolled in to one brat. Luckily, he grows in to a good character but still, come on, for crying out loud. Nobody liked Tidus and Vaan. And everyone basically loathed Squall with a fiery passion.
One more problem with this game’s characters is that Snow looks like a 30 year old man whilst his FIANCEE looks like a 16 year old girl. Stinking creepy.
I honestly can’t get over the fact that there’s no deviating off the set path. It’s like a million corridors all stitched together.
Lastly: Eidolons are worthless. Yeah, they look pretty and whatnot. But in the end you’re better off if you just use your paradigms on the boss. It’s not like they do major damage or anything. They’re basically a cheat code. Get a few inches of health of your enemy and reset your health to full and remove status ailments. Yeah, but … I don’t know. It’s just a waste to summon them in my opinion because all they do is remove like a minute of battle time, tops. And acquiring these monsters isn’t exactly well handled either. I mean, at first the writers tend to build up to this. But after it’s known WHY these guys show up, the writers are like: Eh, fuck it. And they just randomly toss them in there for me to fight against. Reason why to fight them as well. One moment there’s nothing going on and the next the character … well, you know what happens if you’ve already played the game.

I think I’m going to wrap this up now or I’ll be here for a whole while longer. Now, what am I going to rate this game? It has its ups and downs. Once you have reached the grinding basin, you can basically max out your crystarium in a few days and then you’re on easy street for a long while. (I beat up this one boss that everyone found very hard like he was Rihanna.) This way it’ll be over faster. The overall story isn’t all that great and all that keeps you going is that you want to know how it all ends for your favorite characters. It’s … I don’t know … a solid:

6/10

Don’t get me wrong, a six isn’t bad. It means that I find this game to be above average and borderline good. It has the potential of being so much more. And I’m hoping that all of these flaws will be fixed when we get to Versus XIII, whenever that is. This was a really tough call for me to make because I really wanted to like this game. But most of the time I’m just pressing X to JASON … euh, wrong game. I’m just spamming the X button, that’s what I meant. It might look like there’s a lot going on on screen, but it’s just so boring in the end. Although it’s quite gratifying to finish off this boss you’ve been drilling for about 12 minutes. Slowly chipping away at his health and whatnot.
I’m definitely not recommending that you rent this game first. This game takes a long, long time to get in to and unless you have a free schedule for an entire weekend to get to the 15 - 25 hour markers …

This has been Puddle Jumper with a review of the Square-Enix videogame: Final Fantasy XIII. See you later, alligators. … I promise I’ll never say that again.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

tHop - The Expendables

Let’s go Trailer Hopping, folks!

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=64708

It sucks to be expendable. Unless, of course, you're one of these loons. This is the trailer for the already awesome movie that is The Expendables, a Sylvester Stallone creation featuring a cast unlike you've ever seen before. It follows the story of Barney Ross, the leading man of a group of mercanaries living on the edge. He and his men are hired by this man called Church to go and overthrow a murderous dictator on a small island. However, as the mission goes on, they soon discover that the routine mission has more depth and mystery to it then they could see with the naked eye. Betrayal and intrigue follows.


MST3K - part 2


http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/091/b/2/MST3K_signature_by_Greyarch.png

This is a signature for the more than awesome TV shown known as Mystery Science Theater 3000. In the foreground we have Tom Servo, Mike and Crow T. Robot whilst in the background we have a self made title screen of Teh Pwn Shop creditting yours truly, using the banner logo made by Mel Rains.