Glory be to the Japanese gods that we lowly westerns can now enjoy the great world of barely interactive menu selection games. I guess you do walk around in this one like in Persona only none of the characters are nearly as good as in Persona.
But they are making a comedy club. So it should be funny? Which means I guess that the player character likes Sentai? And is high school anime slice of life crazy? So wacky.
Yep. I sure was waiting for something interesting to happen in my picking menus.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Macgruber (Jorma Taccone) Redemption (Steven Knight) John Carter again
So I really liked John Carter when I saw it in theaters last year. Enough to put it on my small shelf of Blurays. I've now watch it again. I still like how it changes genre like 5 times in the first half hour. The two hour run time is still long. I went and checked my websites about an hour in and left it running. The plot is not as strong as I remember it being. I may be looking through it through the new eyes of seeing Star Wars A New Hope recently and being floored by it. Despite being a long term Star Wars fan. Every single line in that movie is peppy. Still John Carter (of Mars) is a better movie than that Madonna movie about Nazi Sympathizers or a movie featuring Adam Sandler.
It is also better than Macgruber. I thought SNL movies were supposed to have jokes? There is like one joke in Macgruber. I guess he's supposed to come off as arrogant and incompetent, but it's done with such weak punchlines. Hopefully it is the worst film I've seen this year!
In Redemption The Stath is a homeless war veteran that stumbles into a rich apartment who's owner is on vacation. So then he starts looking like the Stath and gains Stath-fu. Then the Stath has to make some moral choices at...Redemption??? The original name of the film was Hummingbird and there certainly Hummingbirds in that film. Which makes that title better than having The Stath say it in voiceover over the closing moment of the film.
It is also better than Macgruber. I thought SNL movies were supposed to have jokes? There is like one joke in Macgruber. I guess he's supposed to come off as arrogant and incompetent, but it's done with such weak punchlines. Hopefully it is the worst film I've seen this year!
In Redemption The Stath is a homeless war veteran that stumbles into a rich apartment who's owner is on vacation. So then he starts looking like the Stath and gains Stath-fu. Then the Stath has to make some moral choices at...Redemption??? The original name of the film was Hummingbird and there certainly Hummingbirds in that film. Which makes that title better than having The Stath say it in voiceover over the closing moment of the film.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Gunhound EX (PSP) Impressions
I finally opened Gunhound EX which I got back around Valentine's.
It is a doujin PC game ported to PSP by GRev. It is a love letter to
the Assault Suit Valken games. The first level is pretty dang awesome.
The second level is almost impossibly hard unless I am missing a big
thing. See it is an escort mission with forced scrolling. This snake
thing is coming up from behind and I can' go meet it so it just ends up
in my escorting thing and wrecks it before I can murder it. I'm not
even sure I can murder it. It is hard. Game is conflicting.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Linda Cubed Again (PS1), Tomba (PS1)
After having it on my PS3 for a couple of months I finally launched Linda Cubed Again. A JRPG the west never got again with a great cover and probably like a totally mind-blowing plot man.
I almost immediately regretted not getting an action game in its stead. Playing a JRPG in another language I only 60% understand means I'm basically making it very very difficult to read a book in another language I only 60% understand. Unless the the battle mechanics are really enjoyable (they weren't) It isn't worth it.
I'm also going to be an asshole and say that the plot is probably amazing in the never read a book sort of way. And if it isn't I put up a lot of effort (trying to comprehend the plot/what I need to do) and time (playing a JRPG UIH) for not a lot of reward. It is 2013 and I am an adult and I can figure out where to most effectively spend my time. It is probably playing Freecell games while listening to music and not playing Linda Cubed Again.
I played it for about 90 minutes. I got the basic gist of the plot. I was about to do a lot of dragon quest style JRPGing to see that plot.
-----
Tomba eventually gave me the same reaction even though I was playing it in English and was more charmed by it. That game sure does give you lots of things to do. It doesn't have super sharp jumping and bumping which is getting more and more a stickler for me. The pseudo 3D metrovania aspects were also starting to get overwhelming. I played that for 3 hours and enjoyed my time, but I'm not sure I'm going back.
I almost immediately regretted not getting an action game in its stead. Playing a JRPG in another language I only 60% understand means I'm basically making it very very difficult to read a book in another language I only 60% understand. Unless the the battle mechanics are really enjoyable (they weren't) It isn't worth it.
I'm also going to be an asshole and say that the plot is probably amazing in the never read a book sort of way. And if it isn't I put up a lot of effort (trying to comprehend the plot/what I need to do) and time (playing a JRPG UIH) for not a lot of reward. It is 2013 and I am an adult and I can figure out where to most effectively spend my time. It is probably playing Freecell games while listening to music and not playing Linda Cubed Again.
I played it for about 90 minutes. I got the basic gist of the plot. I was about to do a lot of dragon quest style JRPGing to see that plot.
-----
Tomba eventually gave me the same reaction even though I was playing it in English and was more charmed by it. That game sure does give you lots of things to do. It doesn't have super sharp jumping and bumping which is getting more and more a stickler for me. The pseudo 3D metrovania aspects were also starting to get overwhelming. I played that for 3 hours and enjoyed my time, but I'm not sure I'm going back.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Legend of Zelda:Skyward Sword (Wii)
https://twitter.com/Tokyo_Rude/status/387389620368863232
https://twitter.com/Tokyo_Rude/status/387407758791700480
https://twitter.com/Tokyo_Rude/status/387389827445833728
I will maybe arrange my thoughts more clearly later and on HP. I have just entered the first dungeon of Skyward Sword. My thought on turning of the system was "When I will play this next, I should do something else."
As I mentioned a few posts back, Wii controls don't fit with me. Link holds the sword exactly (MOTION PLUS) as you are holding it. So he always looks...as awkward as you do. I named Link Geocity which I thought was a fun joke to take my mind off the mind-numbing dialog. If I had someone like Chris with me on this journey maybe it would be enjoyable just tearing the game apart.
There are many cutscenes and required dialog in the first 3 hours. They are universally pointless and unentertaining.
Wait. Wait Wait. Here's what made me start writing. Your big Guardian Bird that is the focus of the first 2 hours doesn't even have a name. It is just YOUR BIRD. You've had it since you were little. They mention it's breed (Crimson somethingsomething). Other things and places have names. In the meetings about the game they decided "Let's make everyone refer to it as "your bird." Really do a wonder on the marketing. What do you place on the stuff toy tag? The bird is the best part of the game.
Then you're holding A to go slightly faster and seeing a green circle disappear and you wonder who thought this fun. I don't think the makers ever played their game.
And you have to shake the nunchuk to roll.
YOUR BIRD is pretty cute.
https://twitter.com/Tokyo_Rude/status/387407758791700480
https://twitter.com/Tokyo_Rude/status/387389827445833728
I will maybe arrange my thoughts more clearly later and on HP. I have just entered the first dungeon of Skyward Sword. My thought on turning of the system was "When I will play this next, I should do something else."
As I mentioned a few posts back, Wii controls don't fit with me. Link holds the sword exactly (MOTION PLUS) as you are holding it. So he always looks...as awkward as you do. I named Link Geocity which I thought was a fun joke to take my mind off the mind-numbing dialog. If I had someone like Chris with me on this journey maybe it would be enjoyable just tearing the game apart.
There are many cutscenes and required dialog in the first 3 hours. They are universally pointless and unentertaining.
Wait. Wait Wait. Here's what made me start writing. Your big Guardian Bird that is the focus of the first 2 hours doesn't even have a name. It is just YOUR BIRD. You've had it since you were little. They mention it's breed (Crimson somethingsomething). Other things and places have names. In the meetings about the game they decided "Let's make everyone refer to it as "your bird." Really do a wonder on the marketing. What do you place on the stuff toy tag? The bird is the best part of the game.
Then you're holding A to go slightly faster and seeing a green circle disappear and you wonder who thought this fun. I don't think the makers ever played their game.
And you have to shake the nunchuk to roll.
YOUR BIRD is pretty cute.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
This Week in Blockbuster
JCVD was a great look into Jean-Claude. He has actual acting chops behind his kicks. It's powerful and I'd love to see him in a role where he wasn't playing himself. He does a great job and I loved the camera work. I think I may just hate the way that French dialog is delivered? Like it ticked me a wrong way and this movie has to be lightyears away from Goddard, whose 3 movies I hated the way the dialog was constructed too. Who knows?
After being ambivalent about The Godfather (the strongest thing I took from it was Pacino not playing Pacino), Goodfellas was definitely a better experience. I liked when it became a completely different film in the last 20 minutes that sort of set up how The Departed was paced. I liked The Departed more though. That one had actually likable characters. The Godfather sets it up so that you never see the criminal side of things. You merely see the family destroyed by outside forces and the rules of the mob. The big trick is it shows them as "good""family-oriented" people, regardless of the families they probably destroy.
Goodfellas doesn't put up that illusion. Most of them are idiots and trash whether directly stated or shown by their actions. They get a lot of money by robbing and have no class on how to spend it. Eventually the business changes (the film covers a good 30 years), and they get caught for doing precisely what they were told not too.
My eternal love of WKW influenced me liking the voiceover narration. It is used wonderfully when it switches characters. Here the female characters have depth (I guess???) At least compared to The Godfather where they are almost scenery. It took reading review of The Godfather to realize that a phone call that followed in someone's death was a setup. That was probably the shining point of the film. In Goodfellas they talk business on the phone enough for the viewer to take note.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest it turns out the only cure needed for mental illness is life experience and Jack Nicholoson. If this film wasn't remembered it wouldn't be remembered I don't think. Danny Devito never registered as Devito. It is indulgent in the story it wants to tell and not the setup and following resolution. Maybe it retains that because it is stopping expectations. Or because it won oscars because it had mental illness without confronting mental illness.
Moonrise Kingdom sure was Wes Anderson. I don't know anything really about Wes. I have maybe seen a few of his films. This was full on that style. I had to stop it every few minutes because it became too much. Upper-class white people with non-problems and lots of twee-chiche. Just twee-ing all over the place. There's some great shots in it though.
After being ambivalent about The Godfather (the strongest thing I took from it was Pacino not playing Pacino), Goodfellas was definitely a better experience. I liked when it became a completely different film in the last 20 minutes that sort of set up how The Departed was paced. I liked The Departed more though. That one had actually likable characters. The Godfather sets it up so that you never see the criminal side of things. You merely see the family destroyed by outside forces and the rules of the mob. The big trick is it shows them as "good""family-oriented" people, regardless of the families they probably destroy.
Goodfellas doesn't put up that illusion. Most of them are idiots and trash whether directly stated or shown by their actions. They get a lot of money by robbing and have no class on how to spend it. Eventually the business changes (the film covers a good 30 years), and they get caught for doing precisely what they were told not too.
My eternal love of WKW influenced me liking the voiceover narration. It is used wonderfully when it switches characters. Here the female characters have depth (I guess???) At least compared to The Godfather where they are almost scenery. It took reading review of The Godfather to realize that a phone call that followed in someone's death was a setup. That was probably the shining point of the film. In Goodfellas they talk business on the phone enough for the viewer to take note.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest it turns out the only cure needed for mental illness is life experience and Jack Nicholoson. If this film wasn't remembered it wouldn't be remembered I don't think. Danny Devito never registered as Devito. It is indulgent in the story it wants to tell and not the setup and following resolution. Maybe it retains that because it is stopping expectations. Or because it won oscars because it had mental illness without confronting mental illness.
Moonrise Kingdom sure was Wes Anderson. I don't know anything really about Wes. I have maybe seen a few of his films. This was full on that style. I had to stop it every few minutes because it became too much. Upper-class white people with non-problems and lots of twee-chiche. Just twee-ing all over the place. There's some great shots in it though.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Metroid Prime 3 and Pandora's Tower (Wii)
So I've had this Wii for a few months now. It is my second time with a Wii after borrowing a friends for several months and gameflying. The first time I got the amazing Crystal Bearers. Which is still my top Wii experience because I will probably never play Xenoblade Chronicles. The 100 hour game length is pretty damn intimidating. The vistas sure do like nice. The Crystal Bearers vistas are also pretty great!
So Blockbuster had Metroid Prime 3. I have very good feelings about Metroid Prime. I have very bad feelings about Metroid Prime 2. 2 frustrated me with it's dual worlds mechanic, how not interesting the environments were, and that the controls made me scream. The controls in MP were perfect for the game MP1 was. MP2 made me scream for typical FPS controls which was a complaint thrown at MP1.
Metroid Prime 3 starts with trying to have a story and Halo-story-elements and Samus's shitty friends. Eventually you'll fight all of her shitty friends. The first one is the only memorable one and he's way cooler than Samus even if he's visually boring. The first 3 areas are also visually boring. That sort of matches up with MP2 which had one fantastic area. It's called Sanctuary Fortress. I can't find a non-talky let's play in 30 seconds.
In Metroid Prime 1 you're constantly traveling back over the same ground just a little bit stronger with just a bit more you can do. The world changes sometimes and you notice those changes. In Metroid Prime 3 you have a series of corridors to go down and then get on your ship to go to the next corridor. The first big world is orange. The second big world is...also orange.
Shortly after getting to the creatively named "Skytown" in Metroid Prime 3 I started getting disc read errors. I was just going through the motions playing it so that felt like a happy stopping point. I was expecting Skytown to look nice but it was just as orange as the first planet. The Railriding made me want to play Riven. Everything else just made me think, this is better than Metroid Prime 2; This is worse than Metroid Prime 1. Wii FPS controls do not click with me. I got frustrated enough to quit within an hour of RE4 (I love all other versions y'all.) I was making more mistake than I would have liked in MP3. The remote is not satisfying to shoot especially in comparison to the glorious Gamecube A Button.
Might be time to have an 2013 opinion of Metroid Prime 1 since I still have the ability to play it right now.
Pandora's Tower is something else. It is a stunningly weird game. It's like SNES developers were given a Wii toolkit. It makes mistakes and has things that haven't been issues in 3D games in 15 years. It is like this was their first 3D game and they hadn't play any 3D games before. It also has highly sexual monster flesh eating.
You gotta save your new girlfriend who is becoming a grotesque monster. A strange woman with her own agenda (shock!) says that if you slay 12 beasts and feed your GF their hearts she'll be saved. Now there are 12 towers of awkward combat and awkward platforming and sighing non-puzzles. There are also at least 4 really great boss battles. I want to remove everything else and just have these perfect little boss battles. The rest of the game proved not worth seeing the next boss battle.
It is definitely a better game with a friend on your couch to switch off to. Then you're just commenting to yourself how stupid and weird everything in it is.
So Blockbuster had Metroid Prime 3. I have very good feelings about Metroid Prime. I have very bad feelings about Metroid Prime 2. 2 frustrated me with it's dual worlds mechanic, how not interesting the environments were, and that the controls made me scream. The controls in MP were perfect for the game MP1 was. MP2 made me scream for typical FPS controls which was a complaint thrown at MP1.
Metroid Prime 3 starts with trying to have a story and Halo-story-elements and Samus's shitty friends. Eventually you'll fight all of her shitty friends. The first one is the only memorable one and he's way cooler than Samus even if he's visually boring. The first 3 areas are also visually boring. That sort of matches up with MP2 which had one fantastic area. It's called Sanctuary Fortress. I can't find a non-talky let's play in 30 seconds.
In Metroid Prime 1 you're constantly traveling back over the same ground just a little bit stronger with just a bit more you can do. The world changes sometimes and you notice those changes. In Metroid Prime 3 you have a series of corridors to go down and then get on your ship to go to the next corridor. The first big world is orange. The second big world is...also orange.
Shortly after getting to the creatively named "Skytown" in Metroid Prime 3 I started getting disc read errors. I was just going through the motions playing it so that felt like a happy stopping point. I was expecting Skytown to look nice but it was just as orange as the first planet. The Railriding made me want to play Riven. Everything else just made me think, this is better than Metroid Prime 2; This is worse than Metroid Prime 1. Wii FPS controls do not click with me. I got frustrated enough to quit within an hour of RE4 (I love all other versions y'all.) I was making more mistake than I would have liked in MP3. The remote is not satisfying to shoot especially in comparison to the glorious Gamecube A Button.
Might be time to have an 2013 opinion of Metroid Prime 1 since I still have the ability to play it right now.
Pandora's Tower is something else. It is a stunningly weird game. It's like SNES developers were given a Wii toolkit. It makes mistakes and has things that haven't been issues in 3D games in 15 years. It is like this was their first 3D game and they hadn't play any 3D games before. It also has highly sexual monster flesh eating.
You gotta save your new girlfriend who is becoming a grotesque monster. A strange woman with her own agenda (shock!) says that if you slay 12 beasts and feed your GF their hearts she'll be saved. Now there are 12 towers of awkward combat and awkward platforming and sighing non-puzzles. There are also at least 4 really great boss battles. I want to remove everything else and just have these perfect little boss battles. The rest of the game proved not worth seeing the next boss battle.
It is definitely a better game with a friend on your couch to switch off to. Then you're just commenting to yourself how stupid and weird everything in it is.
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