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As some of you may know, I'm a big gaming fan. I have been since I was a kid. LIke a lot of people, there were a lot of games I played that I never beat. Some of them are games I did beat eventually. Some of them haunt me to this day.

1.      Zombies Ate My Neighbors(SNES/Genesis) – This is low on the list because it’s a strange beast. It’s one that I played sparingly as a kid, but really got into as an adult (so obviously, it didn’t bother me as much as a kid). I played the Genesis version a few times in my after-school day care group. I don’t remember anyone making it very far. Then again, I kind of wonder how anyone even played this game with the three-button controller. I bought the SNES version years later and discovered just how hard this game is. Not to mention it’s LOOONG – 48 levelswith no continues. And if you use a password, you start out with the bare minimum of items. Then again, this is an arcade-type game, and how many arcade games have you actually beaten. Even though I’ll probably never see the ending,this is still a journey I recommend.

2.      The Gex games/The Crash Bandicoot games (Playstation) – These are low on the list because they have the same basic story – played these games, loved them, but for some reason lost interest before I beat them. I really only have myself toblame, but I’d feel remiss if I said I didn’t regret not beating them. Though there is a funny story about Crash Bandicoot 2. I got that game for Christmas when I was a kid… even though I didn’t yet have amemory card. Yeah, just imagine how annoying that was.

3.      Resident Evil 2– Claire’s Scenario (Playstation) – This one’s very low on the list because as a kid, I actually beat Leon’s story. However, I was never motivated to beat Claire’s story. Being a very young boy (but still playing a tremendously violent game like this), I thought playing as Claire was “too girly.” (I only played the first Resident Evil once – In hindsight, I wonder how much trouble that mentality would have gotten me into.) Not to mention I was too impatient to play through the game a second time. Last year, I obtained a Nintendo 64. I picked RE2 up for two reasons: I figured it would be a good addition to mycollection. And I figured it was time to finally beat Claire’s scenario. Admittedly, I played Leon’s first just because I was more familiar with that. And I also got annoyed as hell because of the tank controls. I constantly wondered how I used those as kid – aside from the fact that I probably playedon easy. A friend told me the N64 lets you switch between tank and normal. After I did that, this game became SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Suffice to say, I beat Claire’s scenario – the other reason this one’s on the list. And I feel better for it – namely because the story isn’t actually complete until you do both. (Also, if MBA is reading this, see? I did it!)

4.      Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Dreamcast)/Mortal Kombat (SNES) – Again, I’m lumping these games together because I have pretty similar stories about them. Like a lot of kids from my generation, I was really into Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II. I don’t know if I’m alone in this one, but I never beat this game. (I did however beat Street Fighter II.) I could always get up to Gorro and I couldn’t beat him. I had to envy my brother who could in fact beat Gorro. Years later, when the Dreamcast came out, I was obsessed with Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I probably played it more than any other game on the system. Despite that. I never beat the final boss. I really don’t know if it had anything to with my team. (I can’t remembermy exact choices, but Cyclops, Spider-man, Ryu and Tronne Bonne were among my usual suspects.) While I skipped Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I did buy Mortal Kombat last year. And yes… I finally beat Gorro. In fact, I’ve beaten arcade mode multiple times (as Scorpion, Striker and Sheng Tsung).

{"video":"http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-8-magic-dance-6137815","width":"400","height":"300"}

In case the above link doesn't work:

http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-8-magic-dance-6137815

As I’m sure you all know, The Avengers is coming out tomorrow. What you may not know – despite me mentioning it a zillion times – is that I’m actually an extra in it. Unfortunately, I can’t say for sure how much of me will be on the screen so I’m giving all of my friends who see it a few instructions:

-          Don’t blink

-          Don’t sneeze

-          Don’t go to the bathroom

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In case, the above link doesn't work: http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-7-the-shadow-knows-6067345

This was a fun episode to make. I actually have a few questions in my reserve so episode 8 may be here faster than usual.

For many people, I have a feeling this will be moreimportant than the actual gameplay. The story is a mixed bag. There are some contrived moments, some eye-rolling moments and some serious cop-outs (wait till you find out why the DeLorean is still there despite being destroyed). But considering it’s an original story for a video game written by people who didn’t write the movie (Bob Gale only served as an advisor) I think they did agood job. They certainly did better than Backto the Future: The Animated Series. There are funny moments, emotional moments and a few clever twists. However, since thestory is divided into episodes, I think it’s best to review it episodically.

(Warning: Mild spoilers.)

Episode 1: “It’s about Time” – Having been gone afew years, and his stuff is being sold to sell his outstanding debts. However,Marty gets a message from the past because Doc has been framed and arrested fora crime in 1931. The only person who can save him is Doc’s younger self. Thisis a really good start. The writers really captured the pain Marty feels about Doc’s absence. Once Marty travels to 1931, the game really immerses itself in the time period. Like I said before, the puzzles are pretty easy, but considering it’s the first part, that’s to be expected. One positive is that the plot really lends itself to the puzzle format as Marty has to figure out what time Doc ended up in. And as the story progresses, there are some clever puzzles. Overall, Part 1 starts the game on the right foot.

Episode 2: “Get Tannen” – Because of their interference in the timeline, Doc and Marty accidentally set up a chain of events where Kid Tannen – Biff’s father - is going to murder Marty’sgrandfather, Artie. And I think we all know what that means. Not to mention, without Marty’s grandfather, Artie, to testify against Kid Tannen, the Tannens have become a powerful mafia. So Doc and Marty cook up a plan to get Kid Tannen behind bars.The 1930’s atmosphere is just as fun as it was in the last episode, and I think this part has some of the more interesting puzzles. Without giving anything away, I really liked how you convince Tannen’s girl to turn against him.Overall, this was my favorite episode.

Episode 3: “Citizen Brown” And we follow my favoritepart of the game with my least favorite. In the past, young Doc struck up arelationship with Edna Strickland, and – stop me if you’ve heard this next part before - this somehow caused Hill Valley to become a dystopian city (despite the rest of the US being okay). In this version of Hill Valley loud  music is banned, dogs are banned, alcohol is banned, and PDA is banned (okay, that last one is no big loss, but I digress). I disliked this part because that’s such a cliché – the dystopian world where“cool” stuff is banned. Before anyone rags on me for knocking this when I like BTTF Part II  so much, I want to point two things out: 1.) That wasn’t a dystopian world. 2.) I just found it a little more plausiblethat Biff Tannen could use knowledge of the future to make himself rich andpowerful than Doc marrying someone very conservative creates a dystopian world. Maybe if it were a spoof, I would have accepted it, but it's played pretty straight. (Then again, this kind of dystopia is a spoof of 1984.)

As some of you may know (at least you will now), Back to the Future is my favorite movie. I’ve probably watched it more times than any other movie, and it’s up there with Ghostbusters, Batman, and The Big Lebowski for movies I’ve quoted the most. So I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I heard there was a Back to the Future game… a better Back to the Future game. No, I don’t have the tortured memories that a lot of people have about those horrendous NES games. However, much like Batman Forever, I rented both games as a kid, and I distinctly remember getting stuck on both of them. (And although I was able to find it, no I haven’t played the Japanese Famicom game.)

It was sort of like history repeating itself in a good way. It was only a few years ago, Atari released its excellent Ghostbusters game (and before you ask, no I did not play that lousy NES game, but I did have Ghostbusters 2, and I’ve recently played the decent Genesis game). That game was awesome, and now my other favorite movie was getting a decent game. Unfortunately, it was a genre I’m not normally wild about. Assuming you didn’t know, this was a point-and-click puzzle game, and I haven’t played one of those since The Neverhood on PC (a game I got into because I was a fan of Skullmonekys as a kid). How long ago was that? Let’s put it this way – DVD’s were the new strange technology at the time.

However, I had my birthday recently, and I figured since the game was in a reasonable price range (only $20 new) and because I heard so many positive reviews, it was fair to ask for it for my b-day. And… I liked it. But what worked, and what did not? Good question, but to be honest, there a lot of things that go into a game like this, so let’s talk about them separately.

Today's my one year anniversary at TGWTG. I actually started coming here some time around 2009, but for the most part, I was just a lurker. But after a while, I decided to break the silence. After all, I have things to say, this site gave me the chance to say them. As anyone who's read my articles knows, I have a lot of interests - movies, TV, video games, the list goes on. But for my one year anniversary, I thought, why not write about myself?

I’ve always had sort of a love-hate relationship with my name. First of all, just to let you know, my name is just Alex. It’s not short for Alexander because my parents thought Alexander deCourville was just too long of a name. And yes, growing up, I heard “Alexander” and “Alexis” on occasion. I didn’t like either. I thought Alexander sounded a little too dainty while Alexis… well, that’s a girl’s name. I also heard Alec from time to time, but as I got older, more people wrapped their around the fact that someone’s name might be Alex.

Speaking of my parents, there’s a little dispute between them over the origins of my name. My dad claims I was named after Alex Trebek. My mom claims I was – sort of – named after Alex Keaton from Family Ties. I say “sort of” because she says she just liked the name but Family Ties sort of pushed it over the edge. She also figured it would be a good a name if I was either a boy or a girl – but more on that later.  If that is true, I suppose it became fitting I’d grow up to not only be a fan of Family Ties, but an absolute Michael J. Fox-fanboy. In fact, I named this article after one of the most famous episodes of the show. (If you haven’t seen it, you’re really missing out – it’s on Netflix instant.)

{"video":"http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-6-move-it-like-bernie-6008329","width":"400","height":"300"}

And in case that doesn't work: http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-6-move-it-like-bernie-6008329

Also, if it seems like some of the clips don't match what I'm talking about, it's because I sort of have to settle for whatever clips I can find.

Also, this may be the last episode for a while. As many of you may know I am an actor, and I may be getting some work soon. But on the bright side, that will just give me more time to cook up some questions.

As some of you may or may not know, The Simpsons is one of my favorite shows. Okay, I stopped watching some time around 2009, but because of the DVDs, there’s no doubt that I’ve clocked in more hours watching The Simpsons than any other show. And it’s hard not to. Think about the sheer number of shows that began and ended while The Simpsons was on the air – Seinfeld, The X-Files, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Batman: The Animated Series. So with The Simpsons celebrating 500 episodes (a milestone I only became aware of AFTER I started writing this), I thought it would be a good time to go over some of my favorite episodes. Narrowing down my favorites isn’t exactly going to be easy. So why not just about the ones I can talk about?

-          Dog of Death: While many fans believe that the 4^th season is when the show started getting good. While the fourth season was REALLY good, there were plenty of classic episodes before that. Yeah, the third season was kind of in that weird phase where the voice actors didn’t sound totally comfortable in their roles, and there were some awkward jokes. But I really liked a lot of episodes from season 2 and 3 (season 1 not so much). This is one of my favorites from that era. The two jokes that make me nearly die laughing every time I see this episode are the family’s pictures of Santa’s Little Helper (namely, they’re all violent photos with Homer) and Mr. Burns using Clockwork Orange-style conditioning to brainwash Sanata’s Little Helper – specifically because of how insane the footage Burns uses is. From a storytelling perspective, I like the idea that the family makes so many sacrifices for the family pet. So many TV shows would have ended after the dog’s revival, but The Simpsons actually chose to go a step further and show the aftermath where the family grows to resent their dog.

-          Marge vs. the Monorail: This is a pretty common entry on most people’s favorite episodes list – and for good reason. While he was a one-shot character, Lyle Lanely really was one of Phil Hartman’s more memorable performances on the show – and the monorail song is pretty catchy. The third act on the monorail is pretty memorable with inept Homer trying to control the renegade monorail has both good action and it has some pretty funny bits – my favorite being the “Batman” routine. Also, in a day and age where The Simpsons seems to revel in having as many esoteric, novelty cameos from celebrities as possible, I do enjoy the cleverly written jokes with Leonard Nimoy (“May the force be with you.” “Do you even know who I am?” “Weren’t you one of the Little Rascalls?”)

-          Cape Feare: Obviously, I had to pick at least one Sideshow Bob episode. This episode has a lot going for it. First of all, it is a pretty clever spoof of the movie Cape Fear. I gotta love the assassin who begs Sideshow Bob into leaving town instead of beating him up like in the movie. I’m sure most of us remember the rake scene, but I have to pick a different scene for my favorite – Bob singing the HMS Pinafore. Sideshow Bob gets so into it – putting on costumes, Bart joining in – and it’s one of the few truly surreal moments of The Simpsons – Bart somehow obtains a program, the Union Jack at the end. Oh, and Kelsey Grammer actually sings it well.

Regular link, in case that doesn't work:

http://blip.tv/alexthed/movie-questions-answered-episode-5-the-um-sort-of-indiana-jones-special-5959451

I really planned a full-fledged Indiana Jones special because I had a few on file. However, I really wanted this in by a certain time. So I had to settle for what I had. Also, I wanted to use my title card for a thumbnail, but Blip told me it was too big. Either way, I hope you enjoy.