July 2013 Movies

Les Miserables
I certainly remember less than I thought about a 1500 page book I read in middle school.  Holy fuck I read a 1500 page in middle school and now I don't have a job.  It was pointed out to me that I have the same eyes as Anna Hatheway. Well thanks. 

This movie has no time for pauses.  It does have moments where it slows down, and you will become very very bored.  Then it picks up again and you just want them to hold on something for a minute.  It's wrecking your brain because you can't figure out  what exactly you want from it, but it is certainly not giving it to you.

Only God Forgives

That is certainly the best part of the movie.  The world is apparently complaining it is not like Drive.  I admit that I saw it because I loved Drive.  Huh.  I never wrote about Drive.  I saw Drive in theaters 3 times.  I bought multiple copies and handed it out to friends.  I love Drive a lot.

This movie is not Drive.  I am okay with that.  It is silence and violence.  You know those long nothing shots in Drive? (OH you haven't seen Drive?  Well go watch it.)  This whole movie is that, and then violence.  The violence almost continues the silence.  I wondered if this was almost some absurd long joke at "the masses" for like Drive.  It kind of seems like it.

Man I wish I had seen the movie that poster inspires in my mind.  I will probably see every Refn film that comes out.  I'm still debating seeing his back-catalog.




The Score
This movie is on every streaming service for free and it was talked about by an internet-celebrity with a brand new game out.  I don't need to tell you more about it, other than I wouldn't have recommended it to you.  What is important is this movie staring Deniro, Edward Norton, and Marlon Brando led me to a rabbithole discovery.  There's a film, directed by Johnny Depp, that also has Marlon Brando.  In the film J.  Depp is a native american who is going to be paid to be the "star" of a snuff film.  I don't want to see that film.  It sounds like a rough time whether it's a "good" or "bad" film.  It sounds like an awful way to spend the limited pleasure time on Earth.  Why would I want to suffer in my leisure?  But yes The Score.

Crank
This Blockbuster previous rental has been sitting on my shelf since the Blockbuster nearest me died.   I finally popped it in and watched it.  Heck yeah to any movie that opens with Refused.   It's an 87 skate video.  A lot of it's punch was probably lost because I saw Shoot'em Up first.  Also Jason Stathem certainly is not a good guy in this movie!  I'm a crazy person that seeks justice in my fantasy.  Man I bet Crank 2 is even better.
 

Blockbuster Rentals in 2013

Since I'm leaving the states (semi) soon and it is illegal to rent games I went on down to Blockbuster and rented some games.  Unlike the rest of America there are still 3 blockbusters within 15 minutes of my house.  They all have the creepying smell of death about them though.

Halo 4
Sure was Halo-y.  I still do not like the action figure feel of Halo.  I don't know why I keep trying this series.  I know the multiplayer is actually where it is at, but I hate the action figure feel.  It is a very deliberate feel that (For bungie at least) is exactly how they wanted it to feel.  I could barely feel whatever changes 343 brought to the whole thing as a non-superfan.  It had some pretty visuals and watching all the spartan-ops cutscenes on youtube made me go "I'll watch that Halo TV series!"

DmC Devil May Cry 
 was a pretty cool looking game that the misogyny and terrible fucking writing and the stupdity just wore at me.  Holy shit does this game not like women.  Once again Ninja Theory has that "strong" female character that has serious issues and just needs a strong man to make everything right/rescue them.  Also they say the dumbest fucking lines in history.

Two characters say "I know this place like the back of my hand."  I think it is in subsequent levels.  How bad do you have to be at writing/editting a script not to catch that.  There's lots of detail lavished on the world look and dante's move list (not so much on enemy design.)

It would be offensive if it wasn't such trash.

Hitman:Absolution 
I did plan to buy this game at some point to support IO Interactive.  Then that stuff happened with them and it didn't matter.  I know people are up in arms about it not being hitman-y enough but I got to the 3rd mission and quit because it was just like hitman to me and I couldn't give a crap about anything.

Metal Gear Rising Revengence
The official thread for this is filled with the MG nerds MGnerding it up (s'up guys).  It was fun to read that stuff, even if they were all ultimately overcompensating for the nonsense plot.  I played this after DmC so basically anything looked like fucking literature.  I loved quiton flynn after the change over.  I've been using that voice all week. It is a voice everyone can do.  It was weird playing a stylish action game without a dodge or a block button.  By virtue of not pissing me off after I die (Bayonetta) I'd call it Platinum's best game.

I wanted to box more in this game.  I was dissappointed when I stood in front of sexy girl poster and no one on the codec noticed.  I didn't feel a need to play it any more after beating it.

What I'm saying is I'm insane and would rather play Ninja Gaiden 3 over and over again.  I think that game does a better job with "you enjoy all the killing."  I haven't played another game of the stylish action genre where it feels better to press buttons.  It feels SO GOOD to press buttons in that game.  It is on my short list of games to buy again once I am settled.  Man now I'm going to go download Ninja Gaiden 3 demo again just to play level one a couple of times.  I will have a better time with that than any of these games that I do not regret renting.

I'm also debating renting Skyward Sward.

Rudie's Favorite games circa 2000

Hey y'all.  My life is currently in a huge stage of flux and change.  Part of this is cleaning out my house, starting with my room.  Digging up memories, and throw away everything.  I flipped open an old notebook and on the front page is a list of my favorite games, probably from 1997, or at least before Ocarina of Time came out.

Let's have a look.

1. Goldeneye
2. Super Mario 64
3. Zelda All of Them
4. Tetris
5. Star Fox 64
6. Mario 3
7. Shadows of the Empire
8. Sonic CD
9. Street Fighter II Turbo
10. Mario Kart 64

There are two weird parts of that (outside of #3 being all the Zeldas).  I have never owned a SegaCD so had only played it very briefly on a friend's.  I know later in life I got hold of the glitchy PC version and played it to death.  I also didn't frequent arcades and didn't even know anyone that had a SNES so Street Fighter II Turbo baffles me.  I did play a whole lot Super Street Fighter II on the Genesis.

A couple of pages later, it is years later.  Here's another top list:

1. Shenmue
2. Shenmue 2
3. GTA Vice City
4. Ocarina of Time
5. Gunstar Heroes
6. Skies of Arcadia
7. Metal Gear Solid
8. Soul Calibur
9. Jet Grind Radio
10. Starcraft
11. Half-Life
12. Super Mario 64
13. Perfect dark
14. Goldeneye
15. Curse of Monkey Island
16. Super Mario Bros. 3
17. Phantasy Star Online
18. Tetris
19. Grim Fandango
20. Sonic the hedgehog 2
21. Ice Hockey

I like this more.  Obviously Vice City made a hell of an impression on me.  I still remember there was a boat mission that was on rails where you are shooting the dudes, and it was mindblowingly cool.  I would probably still enjoy driving around listening to AFI's Sing the Sorrow.  DON'T JUDGE ME.

Also hey, thanks Bleemcast for letting me play MGS.  It wouldn't be until I was a Junior in HS that I would actually own a PS2 and get to play the full PSX catalog.  Also it is worth noting that my top 2 choices are the same 10+ years later.

The next page has a wonderfully GameFAQs review of Final Fantasy V.  Thanks me.  I enjoyed reading this review and will shred it to prevent anyone else.  But yeah, I still love the sounds the dragons make.  I spent like 20 hours in the game powerleveling my jobs.

PC Gamin' (PC Gaming)

Since I found myself having blown through most of the games  I had gotten in Japan and now had a laptop that could actually play games, I decided to hit my steam backlog that was over 150 games.  You know how Steam works.  I'd say 30 of those were played before Steam kept keeping track of those things. Then again I have an old enough steam account that pro-Counter-strike players were begging to trade my account for ????

Loom

The one Lucasarts Adventure title I hadn't played (not counting the others I hadn't played).  I've known of it for 20 years.  I asked about Loom.  Everyone I talked to that had played it responded with "It's alright I guess."  And...that's my opinion.  The puzzle system is different than usual, being based around playing magical notes forwards and backwards.  I felt like the manual would really help you out here.  After the first part of the game I wasn't invested in some robe dude's quest to do something.

Max Payne 1

I bought 1 and 2 on a steam sale like 4 years ago.  My own experience with the series was playing a lot of the Half-Life Mod The Specialists.  I played through Max Payne 3 semi-recently so it was time.  It is not nearly as amazing to play as I'm sure it was 10 years ago.  It was alright though.  I sort of miss those digitized faces.  The mind-blowing dream sequences now show their seams a bit too much.

Max Payne 2

Double the melo-drama.  Double the metaphors.  Half the game.  Run through the same 3 environments 3 times each.  Which is actually kind of neat conceptionally if not just a limitation in execution.  One of those environments is even from the first game.  I will say I liked how both games tried to treat the levels with real world layouts. 

English Country Tune

Holy fuck why did I buy a puzzle game I hate these things.

MDK

This was great.  I loved how it was software rendered so it could run on almost any old computer at the time.  There is even a 486 mode!  It also has miles of more art direction than other video games.  It just looks fantastic and weird.  Strange that it was a "budget" game and the sequel betrayed that entirely.  This game is also world's easier than the sequel, which 10 years later I still have shivers about THE TOWER.  I also have MDK2 on here, but I doubt I'll touch it.

I liked everything about this game and you will too.

Black Mesa

I guess if you are going to play Half-Life 1 in 2013 this is the way to do it.  After the beginning the differences from the original really drift off.  I can't recall anything being really different, but it's possible they streamlined the game a bit.   I'm curious what the new Xen is going to be like.  How are they going to "fix" Xen?  Why are they supposedly making it even longer?  I also only saw the G-Man once, which went with my normal HL1 experience of always looking in the wrong direction (mostly for items.) Also I had completely forgotten they had a god damn teleportation puzzle at the end.

Japan Trip Jan 2013 and Hinge Problems

Hey y'all.  Maybe you'd like to see some pictures from this most recent Japan Trip?

You can listen to Chris and me discuss Red Dead Redemption during it.  The next episode which will be in the a week or so, will be about this Japan trip!  Look out for it!  Also rate our dumb podcast!  We will keep doing it until we don't feel like doing it!

EDIT: To go along with this post, the Japan episode is now available. You can get it here.

Keio Yugekitai Katsugekihan (Saturn)

What a nice little game this.  I took an interest in it after trying the Sega CD prequel, which if I had I payed money for it, holy flapjacks.  I found the Sega CD shooter much more charming than any of the Parodius games.  They're both anachronistic Japanese scrolling shooters.  In place of Parodius's penguin's is Keio's tanuki.  I can't tell you what exactly made Keio charming to me and Parodius not.  Either way, I tracked down the Saturn sequel when I was in Japan in August and just now played it.

There's opening Saturn-compressed anime scenes setting up that there are some not-dragon balls that need collecting, and the young girl you play transforms into a bunny costume to get them.  You die in one hit, but if you have a weapon, you just lose your weapon and have two seconds of invincibility to rush around the stage and try to pick up your weapon. 

The stages are bright and colorful if not by themselves memorable.  There's a bizarre stage where you are in side  volcano riding a miniature train driven by rats.  The first shooter stage is a call back to Sega CD game, and the

I felt torn throughout the game, you have limited continues which drop you off at your last checkpoint, but if you run out you can just continue from the beginning of the stage.  Even if the game isn't particularly difficult, one hit kills give it a lot of tension and stress.  Running around to grab your weapon has a perfect sense of panic.  Most of the bosses have a way you can just game them as opposed to actually engaging them.  I tried to avoid this, but being easily able to kill the boss safely is a pretty tempting option in the face of try number twenty-one.

An extremely pleasant game that I'm glad I own though. 

Check out my tweetpics: 1 2 3 4

My few readers, you know I'm podcasting and putting more profess reviews on Hinge Problems right?  I'll have more actual words up there soon!  We'll have a podcast about Red Dead Redemption and my most recent Japan trip soon! 

Also don't play Dragon Fantasy on the iOS.  It is very boring.

Game Boy XYZ

Xin Tiao Hui Yi

I special extra long final entry!  Today is a doozy.  We have the most girls of any post.  We have glitches.  We have technical marvels.  We have pretty cutscenes.  We have pokemon-clones you wish you were interested in.  Couldn't have a finer finish.  Check back tomorrow or soon for a statistics entry.  Thank You all for reading.