TGWTG User Blogs

Ok, I know I said I was going to review Producers first, but I do not have the DVD in my possession at the moment. A friend is going to let me borrow his copy and I am still planning on reviewing it, but for now I am doing my first review on Little Shop of Horrors. I am currently working on the video and it should be up hopefully by the end of the week.

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10.11.08

Yo,

Sorry about the fluffy title. Don't worry, there is no deep philosophical explorations of the human psyche here. What populates this entry is just a detailed recollection of the two events that made yesterday one of the oddest days of my life.

But first, some news.

- I got a gig writing for my campus newspaper, the New University! Check out my first article here.

- I also have forgotten, several times, to post a link to my most recent article on Game Partisan. Stand agape at its wonder here. Its a brief piece on why/how the Playstation 2 has remained so powerful in the market.



- Had a bit of a scare recently. My laptop had severe slowdown issues, websites taking minutes to load and the entire computer freezing up when having more than one thing open at a time. I cut out some of my internal processes from going in order to free up some CPU power, but it was still slow as hell. I fearfully dropped it off at a computer repair store and left it overnight for the technician, fearing the worst as I didn't sleep and thought of a school year without typing (my hands hurt after writing manually for too long). I get a call the next morning and I'm told that my PC Illin spyware software's newest update was a buggy piece of shit, and the entire application is pretty much useless with my other spyware programs. He uninstalls it for me and I'm on my merry way. Jeesh....worries.


Here's the good part of the day yesterday. I only have an hour long discussion on Fridays, and with nothing planned to do on campus that day I arrived back at the bus stop near my home rather early. I decided that it had been too long since I last ate a meal at a restaurant (being that a student budget kept my diet to cheap grocery stores and on-campus fast food). That, and it was about 5 pm and I hadn't eaten yet. I had seen the restaurant chain called Spires around many towns I've lived in, and passed it off as another in the Coco's, Carrow's, and Applebee's line of family-friendly, middle-of-the-road prices diners. Today, however, was a day to spoil myself more rotten than I already do, and I got myself a table for one.



The first thing I noticed was the amount of elderly people dining around the restaurant (I had a booth in the middle section of the building and had a decent view of everyone). This is usual for the late Friday afternoons; its the end of the week and early enough for the elders sleep habits to not mess with their digestion, so nothing particularly out of the ordinary. I ordered myself a Coke (more diners need to have Pepsi, damnit!) and an order of Mozzerella Sticks. This is very important, a restaurant can be defined by either the Mozzerella Sticks or their Buffalo Wings. These two food stuffs are both easy to make and difficult to master, so gauging the taste and quality of these dishes can give you a good idea of the care and talent in the kitchen. Since there was no Buffalo Wings on the menu, I went with the Sticks.

At this point I felt I established my presence enough in the restaurant to leave my table empty to use the restroom, without worrying that a waiter will mistake my table as empty (and my laptop bag as lost) and take action. Luckily all was more than well, as I came back to my table with my Mozzerella Sticks already waiting. This wasn't a long trip to the can in any degree, so the speed of the service was definitely noticeable. This may mean the Sticks were previously frozen, but restaurants usually know better than to indicate that by bringing them out during the suspicious period of time, the minute or so it takes to nuke the Sticks, as patrons would be perturbed by the obvious method of cooking.



Another thing to note is that before I used the restroom, a few of the restaurant staff were closing the blinds in anticipation of some costumers sitting beneath the window pane. At first I thought this was a slightly offensive knee-jerk reaction to the age of most costumers walking in, as the thought is that elders don't like the sun and would melt if they sat in it too long. But, regardless of the thoughts behind the action, it was a boon to me, as I am practically vampiric in my distaste for sunlight, and the closed binds gave a nice, warm red filter to the light of the restaurant.

Anyhow, I have returned to a table with a Coke and a plate of Sticks and immediately sample one of them. They are quite good, so I polish off the plate. In the future, however, I probably won't order them again, not for the quality, but for the price. For 5 bucks, despite their being 6 sticks, their size was rather puny. I had ordered the special they had for Fridays, a Top Sirloin platter, with a dinner salad (Caesar dressing of course), mashed potatoes, and a dinner roll expectedly coming with it. Unexpectedly, the meal arrived before I even had time to finish my appetizer. Granted, there wasn't a lot of patrons in the diner, but the speed and courtesy of the service was noticeably superior to anything I've had in a long time.



A brief warning to the veggies and the vegans out their, this next brief passage is an ode to meat. Yes, meat. Glorious, glorious meat. I adore meats, especially those of the red variety. Every bit is a satisfying, hearty explosion of flavor and texture. With so many methods and cuts of meat to cook and sample, life can be said to be a series of meat-related experiences. I like it fried, grilled, charbroiled, roasted, sauteed, breaded, deep-fried, and baked. I am a meat purist, my chili is flavored meat in a sauce, and steak sauce is an insult. The taste of meat reserves a special place in the pleasure center of the brain, an unrivaled beauty to my tastebuds. Meat, oh how I love you.

I started on the steak and potatoes, layering each piece of steak with a bit of mash. It was a damn good steak, and at 9oz. for a bit over 8 bucks, a fantastic deal when all was taken into account. I was already feeling pretty full with the completion of the steak and mash, so I was unable to fully polish off the dinner salad, although I gave it a good run for its money. The dinner roll was the low point of the meal, coming across a bit flaky and hard. But that's a nitpick compared to some of the horrible experiences I've had at dinner time. I was already getting the brick-in-the-gut feeling that comes with being full, so when my waiter came back and asked what was for dessert, I was ready to pass. But he informed me that the Sirloin platter came with a dessert included in the price. To clarify: that's a three course meal: salad, steak with sides, and desert, all of great quality, for 8 bucks. Definitely a surprising high point.



After the scoop of vanilla ice cream I selected for my dessert, I was in a slight food coma, one of the lovely warm sensations that comes with a damn fine meal. With the soda and the Sticks and the tax, the check came out to 16 bucks, so I rounded it out to twenty with the tip. And here's another aspect of my personality that you should know, I don't tip. I'm like Mr. Pink that way. Yes, there are special occasions were I bestow an extra chunk to the check of my own volition, but it is earned, like respect. See the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs for a full description.



The details of the tip were as follows, multiple refills done, most of the them without me even asking. They saw my glass being emptied and put two and two together. Plus. The speed of which food was delivered, warm and placed on the plate in an attractive manner. Big Plus. And a general pleasant atmosphere and demeanor of all staff. Big Plus. If they could have offered me a small transit bus to help me avoid waddling the mile and a half home, I would have given them my PS2.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why the hell did this stupid little dinner resonate with me so much? Why did one trip to a nondescript diner make so much of an impact? Low answer: I think it's because I have a family history were food and meals were a respected place that connected the family and brought a lot of fond memories. Meals were not only cooked, but made with emotion. Recipes are cherished family items, and remembering helping Mom and both my Grandmothers in the kitchen are some of the fondest I have of my family. Hell, the greatest memory I have of the fucker who gave me his male chromosomes was in the kitchen making Manicotti (I'll make a dish of it sometime and post pictures of it up around here, SINNER style.) So a good, well prepared meal, even if I have to pay for it, is something to be happy about. Short answer: I have no fucking idea.


Here's where the fun really begins. A few weeks ago, out of the blue, my friend John tells me someone was looking for me. We'll call him Craig, because it sounds close enough to his name to appease me as I rant about him, and because it's not his real name, to avoid....whatever. I knew Craig as an acquaintance throughout the first few years of high school, not even registering on my radar enough for me to wave and say hi even time I saw him. One night, he was included in a sleepover that John had, a regular event for me and my high school crew. This one included me, John, Craig, and Bennett, who you all know and love from my constant plugs of him.



During this event we had a conversation of little value that I can remember, and the rest of the night was pretty much a blur, although I remember something happening. Anyway, I had not thought of this guy for years, so I was happy to get back in touch with him. John preempted my first conversation with him with the fact that he recently came out as gay. Okay, I think, this is no big deal. Yeah for him. I send him an email with my contact info, and he responds casually. Nothing to report. Then his second email comes.

John had also prefaced this conversation of ours letting me know that Craig was a bit of a romantic. Telling me this fucker was Shakespeare would not have prepared me for the shit he pulled. From that one night together he supposedly connected with me more deeply than anyone else on the planet, and know viewed me as the ultimate romantic icon of his life, him desperately wanting to be with me. I immediately had no fucking idea what to do. I was a bit freaked out by this sudden sexual disciple I had supposedly acquired effortlessly three years ago.



I go to Ben with this, and he pads it down saying that coming out for him was an overtly emotional experience, probably leading him to dramatize his general feelings. I'm placated, but still a bit wary of conversing with this guy as he asks me to. I befriend him on Yahoo Instant Messenger, and despite his icon saying he's online, he never talks to me. I sigh and think the situation's passed without anything awkward. Here's where the term [dichotomy] comes in.

I had come back from my glorious meal at the Spires restaurant a few hours earlier and was surfing the net as per usual (in addition to watching [Hoodwinked] on my laptop) when he IMs me. I take in a deep breath and begin to chat. It begins relatively normal, in that awkward, ask only very general questions kind of way. Inevitably though, the topic of his emails comes up, and he apologizes for their melodrama. I'm growing more and more comfortable until he brings up the subject of his sexual revelation. I congratulate him for figuring this out and attempt to move on, but he continues to find a way to weasel it into any other subject.



His description of the event was beyond anything I had ever heard before, and I spent almost every Wednesday in high school at the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA.) Supposedly his realization of his sexuality gave him a new lease on life. Ok, a normal reaction. He feels that he can feel more than he ever has. Still normal. Then he ties it in with me. Within this one night of conversation we had back in high school I had supposedly oozed confidence and charisma in who I was, bestowing upon him divine inspiration after he came out, and becoming his role model in living life. We now descend into creepiness.

I push those thoughts aside, talking to him about how I couldn't possibly bestow such feelings in him, he's reaching and reading far too much into a blase event that happened long ago; nostalgia changes memories. But he insists that I am the sole guider in this revelation and new lot in life he has, and he praises all my good qualities that he remembers from 3 years ago or somehow got out of a 3 minute text IM conversation. I boot up a window with Ben (privately of course) and tell him I'm getting freaked out, and I'm going to push him away. He asks me to be gentle, so I simply say tell Craig I am not his emotional messiah and I cannot help him with whatever he wants me for. I click for him to see me as [permanently offline]. He texts back as I exit apologizing and asking me to wait. For some reason I leave his window opening, staring at those words, either reveling in my bad assness or something else. Then I make the mistake of letting my soft side take hold and I return to the conversation.

Craig then begins to talk about how he can repay me for the help I have given him (?). I continue to push him away, getting a bit more forceful now. Any hopes he had of remaining friends to any degree are dead now. He continues to press on, and I go back to Ben's window and apologize to him, because I'm getting rid of Craig in the bluntest, harshest way I can now. Unfortunately, I fail for the first time in my life at doing so. I begin to become caustic in my responses, saying that he's letting an emotional high cloud his judgments. Then, he lets me know that he, in his Satanist beliefs, has no faith in divine powers or spiritual revelations, but he has faith in people. He has faith in me.



I am fully freaked now and I outright blast this guy with everything I have. I tell him he's absolutely following some stupid emotional feeling that isn't even close to what he thinks it is. Then he shifts from being the worshiper to the friend, the guy that went through AA and is looking at his buddy still trapped by the confines of alcohol. He says, very simply, that I have a lot to learn. The condescending tone reeks from those words.

Sorry to keep bringing this up, but one last thing about me: never claim superiority over me that you can't back up. You beat me in a test or a class or anything, you have my respect. I respect doctors and lawyers and anyone that spent 20 years in college when I can't wait to get out of my 4. You beat me in an argument, I will always concede it. But never claim, when you are less than a year older than me, that you, from a superior and lofty position above me, know me sufficiently to gauge my understanding of the world and prescribe my level of knowledge of it as inferior to yours, especially in the smug, content tone that most religious people have when I pass by.



I lose my cool worse than Gary Busey lost his mind, I start fucking ranting at him in the worst way I can think of. In the middle of it he claims he's wasting my time and he logs off. In my fury I type a final note to him that will appear at his next log in, and I take a shower to calm down. There are many reasons that I was pissed at that point: his supposed [Satanist] people of having faith in people is what I often prescribe to, although still within the boundaries of believing in spiritual forces; he got under my skin, which I haven't let anyone in years; and many many other complex weird shit that went through my head.

I draw this up against my experiences earlier that day, under the moniker of the Dichotomy of the Spirit, because these two events, when paired in one day, really represented two completely different levels of emotion and feeling, two plateaus of my mentality. The Long Conclusion: these two events brought me to the extent of my humanity, points of happiness and general contentment and of extreme mental discomfort and irritated-ness. It is between these two points that I, in all my personality, exist, the extent of who I am as a person. The Short Conclusion, the one I actually believe: I have no fucking idea, these are just two anecdotes I can tell when I'm bored.

- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Bennett the Sage at his new contributing position at thatguywiththeglasses.com or alongside myself on Gamepartisan

- Ben also helped me this week with his discovery of a random-ass humor site, You're the Man Now Dog [abbreviated YTMND], which has a lot of short, weird ass, but hilarious videos. The best of the best are included here. They take a while to load, but they're worth it! Ravin Raptors, Cabbage DeNiro, Giraffe Pwns Algebra, Sixty Mins., Sixty Mins. 2, We Didn't Start this Website, Vader Loves Christmas, Patience King, Lecter visits the Chocolate Factory, Bill Nye Pwns Religion, Trinty, NES of a Down, Dr. Dre feat. Bill Cosby, and my personal favorite Corn on the Kabob

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By several requests, I have decided on my first musical film review. I will review Mel Brooks' The Producers. The review should be up within the next 2 weeks. To see the video, check out my youtube account. www.youtube.com/Modyman. Keep sending in other musicals you would like me to review and I will eventually get to them. Thank you again, and I look forward to all your feed back when I release my first review.

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As I write this, it is 2:11 in the morning of October 8th. Which means that voting for the October Reader's Choice columns are CLOSED. I got quite a few votes, and while I haven't tallied them ALL yet, let's just say that a one of the columns that got leading votes is no surprise, while 1 caught me completely off guard (especially since it was one I'd already written the column for!) and we've got one that, while it got great reviews, probably hasn't been played by a good many people! The list will be kept secret until the posting of the columns, which will begin next week, after Clive Barker's Undying.

 

Right, now that that's done, I just want to take a moment, and post something for myself, and address a rather....striking message I received not long after I posted the Tomb Raider column. The following piece was originally posted in the forums, so as not to overshadow the Tomb Raider piece, but I think enough time has passed that its no longer a worry.

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9.27.08

Yo,



Fresh and de-stressed from the move, it is time to add another to the collection of games you need to have on your shelf. It takes a lot for a war game to make this list, moreso if its a shooter. There's something special about this IP.




Title: Brother's in Arms: Hell's Highway

Genre: Squad-Based Tactical Shooter

Developer: Gearbox Software

Publisher: Ubisoft

Rating: M for Mature

Release Date: September 23rd, 2008 (PS3, 360) September 30th, 2008 (PC)

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC



Plot:



You play as Matt Baker, Staff Sergeant of the 101st Airborne Division (502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment) of the American Armed Forces during the later part of World War II. Dropped into the Netherlands as a part of Operation Market Garden, you and your unit are charged with securing multiple bridges behind the enemy lines. Players will follow Baker and his unit from the initial drop into the Netherlands through the securing and defense of land at Eindhoven.

Realism:



Gearbox Software employed retired Colonial John Antal of the United States Army as a historian for the game, making sure everything from the weapons to the dialogue were accurate to the time. Military tactics also went through a rigorous examination process, to insure that all field strategies in the game were capable to have been issued in the actual conflict. All characters ranked Lieutenant or higher are based on actual historical figures, where all beneath Sergeant have a foundation of a real person with dramatic license taken.

Gameplay



With improved AI on both the Allies and German side of the battle, players will issue military commands to their unit, positioning them in the best possible location to later attack from and ordering various assault tactics taken from cover. Great care has been given to the destructible environments, and to death and movement animations. When a character on either side is shot for final damage, the camera automatically slows down and zooms into the kill, where blood splatters and torn limbs add to a gruesome cinematic frag. Players have the option on how much of combat Baker himself takes part in, whether he leaves the majority of it to his squad and shoots from afar, or heads directly into the fray himself, guns blazing.

Emotion



A highly touted feature of Hell's Highway is the effort that went into the darker-than-most storyline. Unlike most war-themed shooters, the allied side the player controls ultimately loses the mission, forcing those members that remained alive to question everything from the frivolity of their duty to the measure of their spirit. Player-controlled Baker is a soldier still not comfortable with his rank, and still distrusting of those within his squad, and throughout the events of the game will slowly descend into a post-traumatic-stress condition due to the unprepared responsibility. The conflict between Baker and those under him is a main drawing point to the narrative.

Arsenal



Players will have a range of militant equipment to toy with, from the usual shotguns to semi- and full automatic weaponry, to a tank with multiple play options later in the game. As part of the humor entrenched in the storyline, players will have the option of bringing out a rocket launcher, lovingly dubbed Sheila, to finish off opponents on some missions. Each member of Baker's squad has a specialty and a weapon of choice, making their placement a key tactic in any battle.


Game Wikipedia Page

Official Site


- The final cinematic of the game implies that the sequel to the franchise will take place during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

- The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game went gold on September 15, 2008 on preorders alone. The PC version went gold as well on the 17th of the same month.




This section will be updated with GT's review and other prevalent information. Make sure you go out and pick this baby up, supporting the more story-driven war games means we don't have to deal with as many American-iz-Numburr-1!!!! schlock titles!

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9.19.08

Yo,

Had enough time to round up a few more thoughts on game's both newly released and on the pipeline. This edition of Game Impressions is the only games available on the Wii that I would want to play. If a license ain't on here, I have decided to let it go sodomize itself, or I haven't heard enough about it for an opinion. But, for the Wii, it doesn't take long to see how bad the majority of the games will be. Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart are not on this list because, let's face it, we all play both of them with the gamecube controls anyway...they could have released full retail versions for the Gamecube and it may have even sold better. Let's take a glance at what's on/coming to shelves, k?

If I was ever suffered sufficient brain damage needed for me to buy a Wii




Despite having the perfect control scheme for shooters (and a ridiculous control scheme for everything else), practically no third-party developers have been able to wrap their heads around what essentially was MADE for their IPs. The futuristic shtick of the Conduit is cliche at this point, but the weapon design is refreshing from what we've seen so far in the released videos. I guess I'm just desperate to see a quality game tailor-made to the controls that doesn't feel like a cheap cash-in. The level design seems a bit middle-of-the-road, but we haven't seen a lot of this title, so it still holds a lot of opportunity to surprise.




The first trailer of the game made it look like a cheesy one-on-one combat license. But after watching the developer diary, where actual in-depth gameplay was presented, the game actually seems like a solid buy. It has a charming humans-are-the-true-bosses feel made famous by Disney films, and the scorpion and spider models look realistic, far beyond what has become common expectations of Wii capabilities. The notion of fully 360-degree levels with crawlable ceilings and walls also adds a bit of intrigue to the promise, even though I'm still unsure exactly HOW one will use the Wii-mote for this. If they carve out a decent narrative, or at least a reason why we are controlling tiny little creatures, this may be one of the few games that you can feel comfortable cashing in for.




I'm going to pretend that this is a must-buy for all Wii owners, but you all know I already have this baby for my PC, and I have no intention of anything else. Another genre that sucks the least with the Wii controls, the point-and-click adventure, makes its way to the Power Glove's less retarded son with one of the internet's random humor treasures, the cast of Homestarr Runner. I've been a fan of the web series since introduced to Strong Bad's emails by my friend John, specifically the [Anime] one being my first view. The gameplay looks like a pitiful excuse to break up the little cutscenes, and that's fine by me, because we aren't here for rehashed 90s click-a-thons. If you don't own a PC (most any specs will run this series) I suppose you could do worse than picking this up for your Wii.




Copy and paste the above paragraph. replacing [Strong Bad] and [Homestarr Runner] with [Sam and Max] and [Freelance Police], and you pretty much got the idea.




DAMN YOU TECMO!!!! DAAAAMMMMNNNN YOUUUUU! You took a franchise I have been loyal to since going through its first installment (on my still faithful PS2). The camera combat horror gem is just the latest in a line of games formerly either Playstation exclusive or Cross-Console going Wii-happy or just ditching a version for Sony. There's very little I need to transcribe to get you to get a copy (or petition for a release on a better console), claustrophobic atmosphere, lush visuals (I'm sure those will be taken down a notch for the Wii's ancient tech), and engrossing story makes this series one of the best in Survival Horror (view my own Top Ten Survival Horror Games list for further details). Oh...right....and DAMN YOU TECMO!!!!




I LOVE how this game's maturity sparked a ton of controversy. It goes right to the heart of the matter: how Nintendo's desperate efforts to maintain a squeaky, vomit-inducing family-friendly demeanor has lead them to be left out of some of the industry's greatest franchises. This is why a Grand Theft Auto Wii game seems impossible. Now, back to black-and-white goodness. The game's art style is reminiscent of the recent Sin City film, and the blood and gore is a beautiful red set against the monochrome background. However, now matter how fun it is to ram hordes of NPCs into dumpsters and cut them in half with its lid is, if that is all the game has to offer, it may fall flat on its stylish ass. From what we've seen so far that does seem to be their intention, but knowing basic economics its not a leap of faith to expect them to add a bit more meat to the drenched bones. Its just a manner of how much, and how good. That is, if this game can even be released on the playground console.




One of, if not the only, the first-gen Wii third-party titles worth a damn, the art style and humor of the game was more than enough to draw me in. The disappointing lack of a true sandbox world and the repetitive side-tasks didn't seem to bother me too much, but the combat did seem a bit difficult to get used to from the little I played at a friend's house. Still, like Devil May Cry and God of War, at times its fun to just watch an expert play through a few boss fights, as the visuals and animations of combat are thick with panache and smug self-satisfaction. If I had an alternate control scheme for this game, it would be perfect.




The idea of every single possible natural disaster happening to one guy's surroundings has always been a concept I would like to see executed in either a game or animated movie (since history has taught us that live action disaster flicks are the stuff of bargain bins and Christian books), and the execution coming through from Monolith Software's cutscenes has caused my ears to perk more than any other Wii game I've seen. For the children's toy system, the graphics/textures are smooth and the gameplay is strong, even though that's not saying much. If the story holds as much as I can gain from my limited knowledge of Japanese, this could be my contender for Wii Game of the Year....but that's kinda like crowning a Queen of the Auto Show.....

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9.17.08

Yo,

Taking some time out from my not-so-busy schedule to talk about a few things today: to tell you the tale of the Biscuit Girls and to let you know why I may not be updating as frequently once school begins.


- I'm going to be talking to my school's administrators to see when the rest of my financial aid money will be deposited into my account (direct deposit) so I can use that for moving expenses. If worse comes to worse, I may just have to delay the moving a few more days, which would mean that I wouldn't have as much time before school starts to get used to the area. But, oh well, I find myself to be rather adaptive in these situations, so I'm not too worried.

- My Grams got out of surgery a few weeks ago, and has been recovering ever since. She is fine, and the overall procedure went off without a hitch, so that's another load off my mind.

On this Episode: The Biscuit Girls



For a brief moment my friend Ben (GT User Strayer) and I were toying around with the notion of becoming stand-up comedy performers, the kind that tour local Improv theaters and such. It was a strong idea, as both of us were known to weave a humorous tale or two, and this little anecdote would be one of our highlight bits.



I went to High School in Sonoma County, Northern California's wine stop. Specifically, I lived outside the town of Santa Rosa, and went to the High School that shared the city's name. For the most part it was the expected dichotomy of blatant bureaucracy and a painfully cliche popularity ladder. Of course, with both me and my friend's non-anorexic figures and propensity for the more unpopular activities of gaming, and politic debates, our position on the heavenly chain was firmly beneath the bottom rung of the ladder, where anybody with social ambitions were free to use us as a footstool. This worked out fine for us; as it provided both an excuse to not put the effort into most of the gratuitous social practices one would see on teen drama shows, and it allowed us the greatest means of observation of the vain classes above us. We weren't the majority: we didn't spend our nights crying into our pillow, pining for the love of a jock or the acceptance of the well-liked, we loved our invisibility.



One of our favorite species to document was what Ben later termed: the Biscuit Girl...more on the origin of that name later. First of all, let's lay out how one finds a specimen of this genus. You are looking for an overweight, usually Hispanic, loud female, predictably found in groups that stage their conversations in the middle of the fucking hallway between periods......periods meaning classes.....mostly....



Once you believe you have found a member of the Biscuit clan, zero in and look for the finer details. Does your subject have horrendously fake nails that extend about 2 inches longer than evolution would allow? Does she come equipped with a spray bottle of cheap, caustic hairspray, one that smells almost as bad as the outside of the can looks? Does she spray enough of it on her person to illict an allergic reaction from three tri-country areas away....accounting for more than 32% of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions? You may have found yourself a Biscuit Girl, but there are a few more questions you need to answer before we can be sure...



Does the female speak with a pseudo-Latin American accent that sets back all people of Hispanic descent a couple of centuries? Can you indentify at least three points in a conversation when she refers to another of her tribe as chica? Or any other Taco Bell Spanish, Spanish used so far out of its original context that Pancho Villa is attempting a posthumous second rebellion from his grave? Congratulations, fellow explorer, you have come into contact with the sadly un-rare specimen, the Biscuit Girl. Now, in order to minimize further exposure to this horrible clan, you must identify the alpha females of the tribe, because so far, you have only been subject to the weaker members of the clan. It is here that you will learn the origin of their name.



Our alpha female, in short, is fat. Not necessarily obese, but that could definitely factor into the equation here. The leader definitely needs to have a couple of extra rolls to the sides here, folks. But, what distinguishes the true Biscuit Girl from the followers is the apparent ignorance she has of her own weight. For you she, though she weighs a not so subtle 250, she'll have the wardrobe of a 170 pounder, and not one of conservative class either. Her costuming will feature a prominent extension of thong underwear, reaching beyond the pant line to be visible from a distance. This makes her middle section look like a roast wrapped in twine as it bakes in the oven.



She will also proudly wear both pants and shirts a couple dozen sizes too small, making passersby wary, and prepared for, the inevitable explosion of thigh and gut flesh from its confines, and the spray of button-fire that comes with it. Accessories are always ostentatious, gaudy, cheap jewelry, and overpriced purses. The sacks of blubber, normally not present in the foot region. will be crammed into strapped, open toed shoes of horrendous color, and will have the appearance of swollen spleens.



We named this waste of birth pains the Biscuit Girls for one reason: if you examine the middle section, carefully framing it in one hand from far away (like a child does we he sees an airplane in the sky), and in the other hand procure a tin of Pillsbury Doughboy biscuit batter, slashing it in the middle, the bubble over of batter should create a look so similar, that it is indistinguishable from the mid-section of your chica.

Now that you have been briefed on this horrid sub-class, attempt constant vigilance in your efforts to never come in contact with them. Hallways will be blocked with their bloated, noxious frames, and it will be impossible to maneuver around them. Our solution: just turn and walk away, find another route. For confronting a Biscuit Girl is a deadly mistake. You will be subject to head bops and looks of disdain so drenched in stereotypes it will make the black girls from early 90s television seem like extras on the Brady Bunch. Just. Walk. Away. Leave sacrifices of hair products and overly fried food if you must.




I'm proud as hell to be a college student. I came out of a class whose majority went next down to the junior college. Sure, it's among the greatest JCs in the nation (Santa Rosa Junior College), but with that amount of people I hated in high school filling the courses I would take in higher education, I was happy to be able to get out to a 4-year university. Especially when I got into the University of California (UC) system, one of the best overall levels of college in the country, and thus, the world. Sure, it was only UCR (Univ. of Cali. Riverside), but it was getting me out into my own life. Sure, my parents moving up north a few months before graduation did that too, sorta, it was nonetheless a bonus.



I wasn't too pissed on only getting into the lowest performing UC, as the first two years of a college experience are largely regarded as the GE years, where most classes are taken in order to get the majority of your graduation requirements out of the way, so you can focus on your major in your last years. That, and I had already planned to transfer at the usual Junior-level after I was rejected from all the other 7 schools I applied to.



Luckily for me, my work in FPS Productions and my decent grades were enough to get me into UCI (Univ. of Cali. Irvine). Again, it was the only school to accept my transfer out of the 4 I applied to, but it was a slight step up in my major department (Film and Media Studies) and a noticeable step up in the national rankings (according to Newsweek's latest issue of Top Colleges: UCR = #89/100 in the country, UCI = #44/100 in the country.)



I am now an Anteater (I have no idea, nor do I want to know, how colleges pick their mascots), the printed version of which always seems to say ZOT! on everything (Hence the section title.) The campus is great (has a Quizno's and a Wendy's....in the same building!) from what I saw during my visit for a so-called transfer advising session, and I'm definitely feeling good about the move up. Here be my class schedule:

Monday:
Introduction to Film and Media Studies
Introduction to Film and Media Studies Screening
Film and Media Studies - The Western

Tuesday:
The Philosophy of Psychology
English Literature

Wednesday:
Introduction to Film and Media Studies

Thursday:
The Philosophy of Psychology
Introduction to Film and Media Studies Discussion
English Literature

Pretty lax, really, so that should help in me finding a job and such.


- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Bennett the Sage's, here at his new contributing position at thatguywiththeglasses.com or alongside myself on Gamepartisan

- Here's another couple of funny commercials, all about contraception! WEEEEE!!!! Find them here and here.

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Note: This was done over 2 weeks ago however since it was not published as a featured area I thought to share it with you to cap the whole experience.

Hello everyone this is Coldguy and it has been a while hasn't it? Well the Bond a thon is over, and reading all of your messages telling my why I reviewed the same movie over and over again and thought I couldn't do it. With all this flack at times I thought I really shouldn't do it, because it appears that no one would read the works and thus be a waste of time.

However I pulled myself through and got every single movie done, as an accomplishment to not only myself, but to the people who did read the various reviews and commenting on them. Now why do I bring this up? Simple, many of the Nostalgia Chick entries is getting the same flack.

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9.12.08

Yo,

Coming back today with the second installment of my Gaming Impressions series; because from reading the comments and watching the thumb/view count, seems like you people love it when I talk about what I think about shit!


- In case you already didn't guess, doing a bit of a format change, just to see how it works. From now on, the main post in each blog will be the last featured tab, complaint/compliment if it does anything for ya!

- I am having to postpone moving by a day or two. Not really a problem, just going to have to convince my current/soon-to-be-former landlord to let me remain in the house for that time. And if my new landlord doesn't think I'm flaky already.....oh well, she got her rent/deposit....hopefully that'll keep her from killing me. The situation is: it has become impossible to rangle up a car big enough to cart my stuff the 40 miles west, and I cannot rent a car/truck/U-Haul because I am not 25 (stupid rule if you ask me). Bugger.

- Other than the car situation, I seem pretty set for the move. I don't have that much stuff, and have been living out of boxes pretty much for the last few months, so its not presenting a big issue. The medium size bed I have is the only real problem, as it takes up a lot of car space.

- As you know, usually every blog I post asks you to check out the work of my friend, Bennett the Sage (Strayer here on GT.) Well, know the dude has a video up offering to use half of his revver dividends as donations to the Child's Play Charity. This just means that you need to get your and your friend's asses to watch his movies, to get his dividends up so he can donate more and more to help out the hospitalized children. Please, there are few good causes that are worth it as it is....

- Turns out the cunt daughter of my roommate (nothing against the mother, just want to rip her daughter's vocal chords out through her asshole) deleted my Comic Con pictures, so those will never see the light of online-publishing....such a shame....loved my Samurai Vader pic.



New section time! This is going to be my political ranting zone, where I set up an issue and dish out what I think about it: uncensored and biased as all hell. If you capable of being offended at ALL, I suggest you skip over this section when it appears, because I'll most likely hit one of your buttons sooner than later. Its called this because a soapbox, being the traditional image, is too weak to hold any weight over 170 lbs. (I believe), and thus, not me. So, in the tradition of ranting emo kids on youtube, I will associate my politics with the ever-useful tool of the bloggers, but since I don't have one, and this is in text, I added the unplugged part.

Coconutjones has great news stories he places up on his blog from time to time. This usually runs the gambit from a guy in Korea getting his penis caught in the holes of a park bench to...well...the link above. Make sure to read it before continuing, cause my next point is going to spoil it for all those that won't.



There is one thing that you don't do. One bloody thing that will forever caught you off from receiving any human empathy/emotion from me. And that is messing with kids. For the sake of this argument, I define a child from birth (meaning being popped out in the hospital, none of this at conception crap) to the preteen years of 11 . Screwing with anyone that doesn't deserve it will piss me off, but kids is a ballpark all its own, do to their lack of ability to usually defend themselves against an adult, and innate trust. In the above case, this father of an infant bashed in his INFANT daughter's skull as he was raping her. I'll repeat that, he physically inserted his disgusting manhood into a child less than a year old, and raped her, caving part of her skull in during the process.



Now that we got the gruesome details out of the way, let's discuss how to kill this fucker. Yes, kill. There is a point in this life when you, in all terms of legality and morality, bypass the point where living in any degree is a suitable punishment. I am absolutely for the death penalty, but not in the way the government has set it up. I'm not idyllic enough to believe in any government efficiency, especially in this subject. We must eliminate the possibility of ever falsely accusing a person before sending them to death. Until that happens, you put the bastards into prison, feed them the cheapest way possible, and regularly beat/harass/allow inmates to rape them until they wish they were dead.



But, just for an instant, let's say the wonderful day comes when the American law system can 100% determine the guilt of an accused party (a pipedream to be sure,) how do we off the asshole? Short answer: WE don't. I agree with the concept of an eye for an eye, but in the barest sense. Here's how you tax-payer fund the death of a convicted offender. You need only a few things: an empty room of any size, a chair, binds to connect someone to said chair, and a roundtrip plane ticket.



You send this round trip plane ticket to the party offended by this person. If they were killed, it goes to the next in line. You give them a week to organize themselves, allowing them to bring any props they wish. The offender spends that week in prison. Once the offended party arrives, you chain the accused up, allow the offended to enter the room, lock the door, and wait for 15 minutes. Within this 15 minutes, the offended can do ANYTHING to this person with or w/o their props, free of prosecution. After 15 minutes, you open the door and allow the offended to leave, do any necessary clean up, and set the room back up. The business of killing is never a pretty one, but removing all but the offended and the accused to duke it out however they wish (remember, they are not required to even hurt the fucker) brings it down to the absolute basics. Prep all involved before hand and offer any therapy after, but that's the only way I can see publicly-financed death working.



OR: The Games That Once (or Still Do) make it hard for me to Choose between a 360 and PS3




This is what I talk about when I say that games can be art. You've heard it from hundreds of people and critics, but for once, a major game release was worth the praise it was getting. I was able to play the game for a painfully short 20 minutes before my ancient PC had a coronary. This had been a standing example of a game that could make me buy a 360 now or in the future. Now that it is coming to the PS3, that tips the scales a bit. Am I expecting it to be better than the 360 version? No. Aside from the obvious graphical updates that could be made on Sony's cell processor, not much has been announced in lieu of dramatic IP changes. The Witcher, this ain't. All that being said, this game doesn't really need that much of a change, as long as it retains a lot of what made it good in the first place: atmosphere, mood, eerie soundtrack, wonderful voice acting, great action, and an interesting combat mechanic. I never thought that the kill or let live morality with the little girls ever presented that much of a real interest, but its a small enough component not to make or break a purchase on my part. I'm not going to endorse it on either platform, do what you love. Unless they announce more content/better shit on the PS3.




This is another of the once-on-360, now on PS3 releases that stemmed from developers finally releasing that Sony was closing in on knowing what they were doing. The cell-shaded character models are among the better I've seen, and the lush environments is some delicious icing. The overall plot, of entering into a dying Mozart's oxygen-losing-brain is a good enough hook to merit at least a rental. Never been a fan of the type of Star Ocean-based combat Sonata seems to employ, but given the amount of time a play through usually takes, I should be able to get used to it. Again, I'm unsure of the EXACT updates coming to this title, aside from the inclusion of two playable characters (NPCs in the 360 version) and the ability to change your character's wardrobe (wee...), but the details going into the game's presentation, including a pretty melodic and enveloping soundtrack, should perk me up enough to purchase it.....maybe used.....




In the vein of Devil May Cry, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden, Dead Rising is a game you can pop in to blow off some good steam. Playing it in game stores about town was a real treat, the controls were nice and accessible from the get go, and the satisfying catharsis of mowing (sometimes literally) through zombie hordes never got old. With the announcement of a Wii port, I cannot help but laugh (as I usually do when the topic of the Wii comes up.) The textures are horrible and all that fanboy complaint shite, but my main problem is, the amazingly decreased amount of zombies on screen. For a game that made its name in mass hordes of brain-craving baddies, what I've seen on the Wii is just (predictably) pathetic. The question on why it went to the Wii w/o any heads up on a PS3 release boggles the mind. Perhaps the sequel will be cross-platform, as rumors dictate. I hope so, my friend is really getting tired of me crashing at his place after day-long forays into undead homicide.




At the announcement of Hironobo Sakaguchi-san's company producing the RPG solely for Microsoft (as Mistwalker's current business plan dictates) it was a blow to my Final Fantasy Fan-boy heart. The overall story didn't look too revolutionary, but it was the flashbacks of the immortal characters that intrigued. And with reviews coming out validating that theory, it hurt even more that no PS3 drive could ever play it. The ring system seems like a bit of a tack-on to the traditional turn-base system, like a 13 year old suburbanite white kid putting on goth makeup and saying I'm so depressed.....can I hang out with you cool kids? But the visuals were inticing, and the soundtrack being the next of Uematsu-san's resume (the most dependable name in the industry, I swear), it was more than enough to get the drool building. Sadly, it looks like this will not be a miracle cross-over, and it remains one of the still relevant games to the making of me plopping down dough for Microsoft.




The second one is cross-platform, but PALES in comparison to the original. As mentioned in my good friend Bennett the Sage's review of the newest in the franchise, there was a game store called Pandora were he and I grew up. For a couple of bucks the owner, a stalwart gamer himself, would sit your ass down in front of 50-inch LCD with the game of your choice (on 360, PS3, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Wii, or any other console) and let you play. The main game he and I played was the original Condemned, and we were scared, even in the broad daylight of Northern California afternoons. The melee combat was bit broken, but satisfying enough, the visuals great for its time, the enemy AI fantastic for its time. But what hooked me in was the sound design, which is still my favorite in ALL games. When you smashed that wrench into that crazed hobos face, gadgumnit, your ears felt it. The story was meh, and the forensics were boring, but the game as a whole made for a fantastic experience, and is still 360-exclusive...damnit. And with the only means into the world of Condemned the sci-fied up sequel, its dissapointing. The game is great mind you, with improved combat and a surprisingly deep multiplayer. It just lacked the seemingly effortless scares, even with the improved forensics. Sigh, guess I'll have to return to killing real homeless people at night....


- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Bennett the Sage's, pad here on his new contributing position at thatguywiththeglasses.com or alongside myself on Gamepartisan

- Anyone else love funny ass commericals? Let's go back in time together, with the great old Got Milk? ads that somehow never made us buy any more milk. Check out the best here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and my personal favorite here.

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9.06.08

Yo,

SEX



Now that I have your attention, I want to talk about sex. In Video Games. For just a bit.

While continuing my research for one of my BIG articles I've saving for when Game Partisan goes to print a few years from now (yes, years, that's how insane I am about these projects of mine), I often come across really good, unknown crap surrounding the gamer community that I just have to plug. Usually you'll find this stuff in the plugs section of my larger blogs that I have become famous for (a lot of the comments I'm getting on other sites are surrounding that topic). But sometimes these little nuggets of beauty I stumble upon are so brilliant that they beg to have their own blog strictly to themselves, to emphasize their awesomeness. Readers can also use this to take a break from the headache-inducing length of my regular posts to read these small little bits without the strain.



To get to specifics: this little treasure came across my path as I was doing some e-field research for my in-depth editorial called The Savior of Sex: How Getting Gamers Laid will Future-proof the Industry. I must point out at this point, as ridiculous as it sounds, all titles and objects deemed part of my writing projects are under the strict copyright of myself and, when published, Game Partisan and its affiliates. It sounds like I'm being anal, but I'm been screwed before, and this is how serious I take my funny little anecdotes and opinion articles. So anyway, sex. As I was going around the world wide webiverse, this article on the e-magazine The Escapist, caught my attention. Pressing the Right Buttons it was called, and its focus was on how games can involve sexual activities as more than just funny little mini-games in God of War, right up my alley as it were. In between talking about how sex could be brought down to a convincing control scheme, the author name-dropped a couple of games that showcased a certain sexual maturity that modern games could emulate, the strongest of which was the Legend of the Red Dragon.



After some initial investigation, I was extraordinarily amazed at what I saw, or...read. Its a handmade text-based adventure game, giving you an idea about the budget and specs of the project; but when something is shrunk down to a single element, in this case, it's story, it takes a lot to stand out in the waves of content, not just user-generated content, in this industry. To all fairness, L.O.R.D. is not the strongest of adventure-driven storylines, even when compared to some of the better MUD vehicles littering the web, but the real good stuff happens when you come back to the town after a goblin slaying, and successfully role a high charisma check if you catch my drift. Well, ok, I can't delay the subject in such a praise, time to drown in the drift. The fucking in this game is incredible. The making love component of this IP is stupendous. The juice-swapping in this title is magnificent. The...um....copulation in this adventure is notably and interesting. No, not in the way that leaves my keyboard keys stuck together or my pants moist, the sheer amount of time that went into this game's depiction of all sex-related aspects should be noted and commended. The entertainment medium, especially in America, has always had a hypocritical rating system that rewards violence but condemns sexuality. For something to come out with such realism in this subject almost TEN YEARS AGO is truly phenomenal, moreso when you take into account the almost childish immaturity most of the games industry has towards body-bumping.



Lemme give you the skinny: basic D&D crawler motif in a text-based format. You kill, loot, and cash in experience as normal. You get home, and you participate in sex, as wanton adventurers free from the intervention of crazed Christian abstinence-fuckers and homo-haters are wan to do. Your physical attractiveness (down to the level of how much gore is still left on you, your stench, and even how revealing your traveling gear is) plays into how much/good the laying about you can do, and you reward yourself for the most-orc-beheading of that day with the most natural thing in the world next to eating and shitting. Your strength and dexterity stats cum (get it?) into play during the act of passion, and your actions afterward (cuddling, slapping, whatever) affect the relationship you have with your conquest after the stains fade. If you were stupid, you have a chance of being stat-impeding diseased. If your dice roll correctly (or incorrectly, however you think of it), you could get a kid from this union, his growth and development may be placed solely on you, forcing you to make some tough decisions about future adventures. I didn't say this was a romanticized version of sex, did I?



I like sex. Very simple. I'm pretty sure most humans do. It is a part big enough of any life for anyone looking at a story-driven game like an RPG to crave at least a mention of coitus. I think the proper portrayal of sexual relationships could strengthen the ability for the medium to tell stories as a whole, and I will be examining this point in great detail in my aforementioned article. My self-assigned job at this point, however, is to point out cool shit for you to look at, and attempt to make at least a small point in the process. Check out Legend of the Red Dragon if you want, I recommend it. I did play a past version, so I cannot say you'll get the exact experience I did with the updates involved, but I can say that it will definitely take you places other games haven't. Happy mating, all.


- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Bennett the Sage's, pad on Youtube at his new contributing position at thatguywiththeglasses.com or alongside myself on Gamepartisan

- Have no bloody idea who to vote for? Think that the media coverage is complete bullocks, with not enough focus on the actual issues rather than who wears the most flag pins on their lapels? Congratulations, you have a brain. I found a site that boils candidates down to their stances on the issues, based on previous speeches and the like. Go here and be enlightened, my political brothers and sisters!

- All kids that grew up with 1990s Nickelodeon rejoice! The big bastards at the Viacom headed children's network are finally releasing DVDs of some of their greatest shows, including Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, and Hey Arnold! Check them out here, here, and here.

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 This entry is dedicated to random shit that just chaps my ass. Stuff that Frost my balls. Things that make you want to tie your nuts to the tail of a bull during a rodeo. So what's on my mind? Well, today I am pissed about the Nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty. So this freakin egg sits on top of a wall and decides to be a fuckin dick and fall his drunk ass off. So all the man power of the kings horsemen and kingsmen spend apparently a long fuckin time tryin to repair this bastard but to no avail. All this freakin man power for one egg. The freakin kingdom could have been invaded and taken over while all this went down. So what makes this guy so special that he endangers an entire kingdom??? Plus...speaking of Humpty Dumpty...where the hell does it say he is an egg? Sure we all assume he was an egg because of the cartoon drawings and what not...but the rhyme states nothing of the sort. For all we know he could have been a fucking porcellian doll. Or the wall was so big that when he fell he actually did shatter to a million pieces. If they used a human figure in the cartoon story book there would be a lot more morbid emo kids running around. And if it did turn out to be a human this tale would be more frightening than the time I woke up with that deceased prostitute soaking her blood in my newly bought sheets of egyptian cotton. I mean it took weeks to bleach those fuckers. I'm Devo and you guys have just been ass-chapped by the best! hmm...maybe that shouldn't be my catchphrase.....

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9.04.08

Yo,

Stopping in for a bit to keep the creative juices from clogging with a few initial feelings towards the more anticipated titles coming out in the near future. Thanks goes to user pt1493 for the inspiration to do this type of thing, as he is already an expert at doing so. Check out his blog and see for yourself, while your there comment/rate/befriend and all that jazz. The dude got a hard hit a few days ago when Gametrailers.com shat on him by taking down all of his previous user movies, so the guy needs some love.




If there is an IP of the near future to get me interested in the shooter genre, it would be this one. The story is definitely an intriguing one, disregarding the space marine/WWII dichotomy for a newer spin: you opened Pandora's box under contract, and now are attempting to rectify the mistake while being chased by multiple factions with varied interest in the Box and yourself. Although I am not a graphics whore, the game does hit a little on the underwhelming side with blocky textures and unrealistic monster design. The level design palette and monster AI seem to make up for it though, and the quasi-magical ability you inherit (zaps energy from fallen foes, turns it to health) adds a bit more intrigue to the package. From the gameplay videos I have seen, the levels do seem designed to box you in, though, and with the agressive enemy AI I'm unsure if that is a good idea. Definitely worth a look though.




I am a Tekken man, have been since the PSX originals and will be even after the franchise dies out. But with the recent arcade expansion to the sixth title dragging an American-side release till next year, I look to the latest with Chun Li and Ryu for expectations. From what I've seen, it looks like the best of both worlds: the old Street Fighter aesthetic of half comedy half seriousness plus a newer sense of balance and design. I have to say I like the female models of older games in comparison, but I understand the look they were going for, and for all extensive purposes it holds up. From what I could play at Comic Con (one match, got my ass handed to me), it feels just like an arcade version of 2, which should keep the old and faithfuls happy. All in all the title looks solid, if not the grandoise of replayability that the Mishima clan have put their name on (Tekken reference), I'll be renting at the very least.