I can’t believe they put that in there. Bad lines die hard, I suppose.
I hadn’t seen it or heard much about it, so I gave Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem a watch just minutes ago.
AVPR was just not a great movie for a couple reasons. More than a couple. First, why do they insist on putting these idiotic people and people-related plots in these movies? A strictly Aliens and Predator movie might be off-putting to the non-hardcore crowd, but good god. The first half hour felt like a teen coming-of-age drama superimposed over a scifi horror movie.
And are they ever going to make a likeable human hero like Schwarzaneggar’s character from the first Predator? I hated every character in AVPR except for that hot-ass Kelly. I wanted them all to die. Frankly, in a movie depicting a battle between three races, you’d typically want to root for yours, not against them.
And another thing while I’m here. They make this big stink about the Predalien loose, and the aliens running rampant, even going as far as making a hospital into a hive, and then what happens at the end? A fucking nuke erases it all. What the fuck? I spent the whole movie rooting for the lone Predator that was dropshipped in to fix this mess, and he dies fighting the blasphemous hybrid spawn of his race and his mortal enemy’s. He should have lived and gotten Kelly to take that shirt off. She did look awful uncomfortable in it.
The movie did nothing to add to the storyline of either the Aliens or the Predator franchises. Besides the introduction of the Predalien, who gets his shit stomped anyway, there’s nothing in that ending that really got me excited for a third movie in this slightly weak series. The gun thing was interesting, but I didn’t really understand who the girl was at the end, anyway.
Okay, so I’ve left Angsterton and now live in Dontgiveafucksville. But it’s sunny and happy out, and I have many fun toys coming in the mail, so blogging is kind of old hat.
If I feel like it, I’ll write a little something something, but let’s face it: I’ve had the same Stinterlude floating around my head for the past two weeks and I haven’t even sat down to write that; how the hell am I gonna waste my time writing in a blog that one or two people read?
Mr. Valentine is on hiatus/sabbatical/quest for vengeance and will most likely not be back until he gets what he’s been waiting months for. No calls, please.
When I reacquired an original Xbox to play all my favorites which happened to not be 360-compatible, I was overjoyed about reliving memories of Timesplitters: Future Perfect, Tiger Woods 2004, Need for Speed Underground 2, and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, among countless others.
By the way, thanks, Microsoft, for making me re-purchase an outdated system just because you’re too lazy to make all of your games on the 360 backwards-compatible.
As soon as I got the Xbox, I ran it home and set it up, practically shaking with the thought of playing some of my favorite games in the world.
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect went first, and I proceeded to spend five or six hours straight playing. To my relief, not only was the game exactly like I’d remembered it, but the parts I’d forgotten about were great fun to experience again.
Tiger Woods 2004 soon followed the next day, and while it’s not the most user-friendly TW ever made, it’s still a wonderful golf game.
So just a week ago, I got Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks in the mail, since I’d somehow managed to lose it and several other games recently. I was so excited. The thought of kicking everyone’s ass as Scorpion was the equivalent of an orgasm. So I fired it up, determined to play it the honest way, unlocking Scorpion after I’d beaten it.
Boy, was I in for a surprise. MK: SM has not aged gracefully. The voice acting and plot are so poorly written that I’m embarassed to have other people over to watch it. I mean, it’s bad, and not humorously so. It’s as if someone’s grandma wrote it using her idea of what kids nowadays say. The characters don’t use any contractions, and they talk about things that make absolutely no sense in the context of the scene or in the story altogether.
The graphics were good for the time, but there are glaring flaws in the design, making me wonder if this game was beta tested for more than 30 seconds into the first level. Clipping issues, missing sound bits, it’s kind of a multimedia mess.
Anyway, back to my story. I did NOT beat it the honest way, because I soon realized that while MK: SM is a decent single player game, it’s meant to be co-op, and the characters available at the start (Liu Kang and Kung Lao) have qualities to compliment each other, making it sometimes extremely difficult to play through alone. In fact, the last boss battle, which consists of three bosses in a row, is nearly impossible to beat alone. I don’t know how much time was spent play-testing the game singe-player, but it’s obvious that not much thought was put into it.
Luckily, I found a cheat code and was able to play as Scorpion. Thankfully, he is more than capable by himself. I was able to beat every boss except for Shao Khan, and I pretty much beat the shit out of everything else I could find. The game is very enjoyable as a pick-up-and-play, and that is its saving grace. Well, that and Scorpion is THE MAN.
So, while I can’t report on the co-op, since it’s been so long and no one will play with me, the game definitely has a few bruises on it. Midway said they’d continue making side-story MK games every year, but it’s been more than three since this one, and all I see are rehashes of the arcade-style versions of the game.
Oh well. Fuck it anyway.
EDIT: After watching the complete Finishing Moves set for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, I can safely say that it has renewed my faith in Shaolin Monks. MK vs. DC is the fucking lamest, gayest, stupidest and most pathetic attempt at a game I’ve ever seen PERIOD. I don’t know whose bright idea it was to pit lame superheroes like Superman and whoever the fuck else against well-known hardasses like Sub Zero and Baraka, but it should have died on the drawing room floor long ago. It’s that sort of thing that makes me glad I don’t own a 360 anymore. Nobody actually gets decapitated or disemboweled. The only “deaths” result in skeletons, which is seriously lame. Even the only DC villian with an actual “kill” kill, the Joker, had to be censored! Kano used to pop heads and Baraka used to chop them off! What the hell happened?! Seriously, watch this shit:
(taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/telemachia/2811630259/in/set-72157600081100247/)
It's turtles all the way down.
If this isn’t an inspiring picture, then I don’t know what is. These three were found floating in a pool filter, clinging to each other so nobody would drown. Apparently, they were not quick to seperate once rescued.
That’s kind of neat, in a really strange sort of way.
It’s like everday, I find something new that pisses me the fuck off. First it was fucking “Unique Whips”, the fucking lamest excuse for a reality-garage series, and now it’s these two assholes:
Assholes.
Their show is called “Human Wrecking Balls.” These two guys, the Pumphrey Brothers (whose first names I don’t know or care to look up) break shit. Planes, houses, rooms, vending machines, that sort of thing. And they claim to use “SCIENCE!” to do it. To these guys, “science” somehow equates to what things are harder to destroy than others: the corners of a brick building, the framework of a copier, etc. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see anything scientific about what these two fucks do. They use zero equations, zero formulas, and I learn absolutely nothing watching them throw their dumb asses at things.
As if to make things worse, the two constantly bicker at each other about who has to break what. They make these fucking stupid challenges, where they both get an object to destroy, and whoever takes longer ends up jumping through a window or breaking a table or something equally fucking lame. And whoever loses whines and complains and throws himself through the window. Like I need to watch two dumbfuck sissies breaking a bunch of shit for a half-hour. I’d learn more watching scat porn.
And of course, like trained seals, my co-workers gasp and applaud with awe at these two pieces of shit, like the show is something extraordinary. Of course, these are the same people who thought Bangkok Dangerously was an excellent movie, and described War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise as “intense”. It’s my curse to work alongside these well-meaning but totally inept examples of humanity.
2008’s finally over. Good riddance. What a lousy, stinking, pile of fucking shit year that was. I’ve made more mistakes that year that I have in my entire life.
2009’s not looking too good yet. Today already sucked pretty bad. My arms and legs hurt like I’ve been beaten severely, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it comes from months of sleeping on a couch, or maybe work’s been harder than usual. No matter the cause, it drained me thoroughly.
I slept until noon with countless fits of waking and restlessness. Then I managed to piddle around the house, cleaning this and that, until I ended up at my dad’s for some television and whatnot. I figured I should see him as much as possible, seeing as how he’ll be gone in a few days for the rest of the month.
He found a photo album that I had been asking about for some time now, and we went through every page, often with some pretty fucked-up stories going along with them. It made me yearn for those years, despite the fact that I hadn’t even been born during most (or all) of them, and at the same time sent me to the same realization: time cannot be changed. What’s in the past is forever there.
I miss the eighties, the nineties, even the early aughts, but nowadays it seems like everything is made to be taken for granted. Technology, entertainment, even human interaction seems throwaway to me. Hard work doesn’t pay off like it did, trust is apparently useless, and any hope for a “brighter future” is totally a wasted thought.
Nothing will ever be the same. But, maybe it’s for the best. I’m certain that if one were to go back to those beloved time periods, they’d see that while a lot of things were indeed for the better, not everything was so great. The clockwork that ran the world wasn’t as efficient, and people may not have had the thought-out ideals that many of us do now. Sure, most people are indeed stupider than they were, as if ignorance was a fuel to power the world with, and with information now at the touch of a key, anyone can be a self-proclaimed expert in virtually anything, but maybe that’s for the best, too.
It’s hard to say, really, which is better: a fledgling society, making mistakes and slowly growing from them for a better future, or a very advanced society, fraught with laziness and apathy. I guess I don’t have a choice, either way.
Well. It’s finally here. After more than two months of lying face down on the cement in the dark, cold, moldy cellar in the deepest depths of depression, I’ve come outside and am now sitting in the sunny fields of apathy, ignoring everything.
Most people come out of depression and try to go back to their normal lives. I know this isn’t possible for me. So, instead, I’ve accepted the cold, uncaring embrace of apathy. Not caring is the best possible thing for me to do right now. I can’t afford to be vulnerable, forgiving, or sympathetic, because I’ve been doing that quite enough along with my aforementioned despondance.
Now is the time for me to say “Fuck it,” much like this blog’s current namesake. So I am. I decided upon this sometime this week, when it was decided that work was sucking too much and I was having way too good of a time doing things with my friends and my dad to give a care about the things I have no control over. I do very much still intend on being a hardcore hermit, but that comes with how I’ve always been.
Well, I could write more, but going along with my theme, I don’t care to. So I’m going to watch some more Kappa Mikey, then some Pucca, and then fall asleep to the dulcid tones of Jungle Fury, as per my usual habits.
So, was it worth it to pay $14 for Sunset Riders for the SNES, and then two days later pay another $14 for Sunset Riders for the Genesis?
Flying Spaghetti Western Monster?
I believe so. Anyone who disagrees with my purchases can go fuck themselves with a railroad spike. These two games are so totally different, it’s like one is the sequel of the other. It’s so awesome to see how crude and violent the Genesis one can be (though it’s barely more than PG rated), and how censored and beautiful the SNES version is…and how much more difficult it is. I can’t beat that game for shit, but the Genesis one is a breeze.
At least the Genesis featured drunken whores and Native American slaughter, the two things we loved best back then.
Though the music itself is the same in the two games, it’s composed differently, at least to a ear like mine. I have an ear for all things loser anyway.
SNES version: Scorpion and Sub Zero before they joined the Lin Quei.
Character select screens, bounty division screens, bonus stages…fuck, EVERY stage is different. It’s like the arcade version had sex with some alien, and one baby came out with the top half human and the bottom alien, and the other baby came out the opposite.
Ultimately, though, fuck it. They’re both good. They’re both great. Seeing Japan’s idea of a Western is hilarious and yet so serious. They don’t fuck around. So awesome.
Anyway, I’m done talking about nothing. Instead, I’m going to watch like 4 hours of Kappa Mikey! BOOYAH!
Rather than complain about how fucked up things are currently, which I assure you they very much are, I’m going to talk about something I love, something I hold very dearly to my heart.
Trixie?
No.
Trevor?
No.
No, I’m talking about something far more important. Something that doesn’t shit on my new flooring. Something that isn’t currently ruining my life.
The pinnacle of all racing games.
Yes folks, I’m talking about F Zero. F Motherfucking Zero. Touting its revolutionary Mode 7 graphics, insanely high speeds, wonderful music, and difficulty that seperates babies from not-babies, this game is one of the best things that has ever happened to the world. Better than Jesus, better than raisin toast, even better than chocolate milkshakes (or strawberry milkshakes if your name is Josh.)
Maybe…maybe even better than life itself. One cannot deny that everything a racing game should be, this one is, tenfold. The only complaint I can think of is that the game is strictly single-player, but fuck it, that’s why passing the controller was invented.
Truly, this game shines as a beacon of hope when everything else sucks.
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