A brief warning. Since I will be writing about endings, spoilers ensue although I doubt I will be reveling something that is not general knowledge by far. And yes, since I'm not a native speaker, I might make some screwups, even though I try very hard not to ;)
Ah, Fallout 3. Apparently, a great game (although I'd beg to differ, but that is a totally different subject), surgically done with all the "typical" things that according to game designers should make an award winning game. Including a fucked up ending. This small venting of frustration has been inspired by just that, lets stroll down memory lane.
I've just gotten to the final quest, while prompted to "get ready as soon as possible" by Lyons, I just left the Brotherhood fort to roam (as I suspect many did). Its kind of hilarious in its own way that they wait patiently for me to get back, even though I was gone for over a month, but I'm ready to shut my eyes on that one. Anyway, as the dungeons that you can visit outside of the quests sucked, I decided to postpone my exploring and mop up the main storyline. I did my homework and knew that the game does not allow you to free-roam after the ending, so I saved up (I feel sorry for the people that didn't see it coming, it would be good if the game pointed that out, don't you think?). I wont go into how retarded the last quest is, how totally un-imposing the final boss was (no matter who you think it is - the Colonel or the President), we get screwed in the ass by the ending... No, wait that is not an ending. That is a big fuck you send by the designers instead of delivering any sort of closure. I mention this, since the 3-step F3 outro is a good structure to analyze the tremendous fuckups that have been delivered in games, especially recently. And that is what I want to do in this not-so-short rant.
I never really got the popularity of this argument, it never seemed a fair comparison to me. First of all, unless I am miles off, the plural of Ninja is Ninja. No fucking 's' required, you juvenile quasi-historians. Second of all, let's run through an analysis the two specimens up for comparison here and see if we can't figure some things out, hmm?
First of, Pirates. I pinpoint the resurgence of these guys being 'cool' with the 'Pirates of the Carribean' trilogy. Why? Two reasons. First of, the power of cinema makes almost anything that is shot well seem attractive and awesome to its viewers, and it acts still as a main determinant of everything 'cool' in our cultural lexicon. Can you think of anything that gained widespread popularity in this day and age without some help (in some form) from the cinema? .... Webcam cunts don't count, jerkwads. The main point I'm making here is that to attain some level of fandom, you usually have to have at least a slight footing in the movies. Taking away the 'Pirates of the Carribean' trilogy, at what point do you remember Pirate films selling well, or indeed being made en masse? In terms of what I can remember, before 'Pirates,' there was a nearly half century of a gap in the cinematic idolization of pirates. The last true, epic, and entertaining film retellings of swashbuckling adventures was with the Errol Flynn films earlier last century. That is a huge fucking gap here people! What happened in the meantime? Pirating devolved into parody, common cartoon villains and reference points. They didn't make movies of them anymore because they weren't cool anymore! Cowboys really took off between Errol Flynn and 'Pirates' and many other genres overshadowed the once great privateers of the sea. With the manliness of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and the plenitude of sexy male and female Film Noir leads, Pirates were fruity afterthoughts, in the immortal words of many Halo players, 'we don't care about that anymore, that's gay.'
Another huge factor in making Pirates cool again was Johnny Depp. Now, now, don't bullshit me into thinking you went to those horrid sequels for the effects or Stellan Skarsgard's performance, it was the Peppy the Pew and Keith Richards combination of Jack fucking Sparrow that took those flicks from average blockbusters to one of the highest grossing franchises in fucking history, don't deny it. But is this the first time Depp has solely lead to the genesis of a culture surrounding a trend? No sir. I ask you to remember this, what do you think started the wardrobe fads of the goth culture (and its posers), actual angst and stress building up to the point of depression? Or seeing Depp all made-up and emo as Edward Scissorhands in the early nineties? The art design for that movie alone inspired Hot Topic's first mega-selling fashion line. And with Johnny making them cool again, their presence in the Pirates vs. Ninjas argument went from a joke to an actual viability.
Now, onto the Ninja. Anyone with a brain can easily determine the cultural origins and significance of the stealthy assassins, so I won't bother to retell them here. ... ... ... Ok, yes I will. Legends of Ninjas stretch back far beyond anything the Pirates lore can lay claim too, practically as long as there has been a stable culture in the Far East, rumors of ninjas abounded in one form or another. History is now telling us they may have never existed, but we know better. Although tales of this tight-wearing fuckers have gone back many generations, the true cultural penetration of the ways and awesome-ness of the Ninja came about in the Western world around the same time as the Samurai (to my cultural awareness.) Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece 'Seven Samurai' made the more aggressive Asian death machines popular, but even then the seeds of the Ninja were planted in the minds of film-goers, granted they had to find the very sparse releases of films covering the Ninja around that time, but it was possible! Give it two decades, and we see the spirit of the Ninja entering Popular Culture with the barrage of Hong Kong, Korean, and Chinese action films the 1970's cheap-o theaters saw. The 80s had a VHS collector's culture that is still unmatched in terms of dedication and collection size, and the same chop-socky action flicks from the East had at least a single shelf of space in most tape collections. I mean, if these fuckers have Napster, Corporate America would have sued the internet down to porn sites and product registration hubs. In contrast to Pirates, Ninja haven't really gone too much out of style, it just took them a long ass time to get here in the first place, and to build up 'cool' steam. Needless to say that the thousands of books detailing the exploits of both Pirates and Ninja have prodded the fire of interest and acted as the bedrock to the now-pervasive argument.
Now that we got some background going on both of these bad-asses, let's take a look at their abilities. Here is where the argument trips me up. If accounted for strictly ability, Ninja are the clear victors. Hell, take into account which each sect must have been like personality-wise gives the Ninja a clear victory in that regard as well. What are pirates? Gaudy bearded men fearing the presence of any female on their ship, spending months to years away from civilization amongst at least 20 other sweaty, hairy men, decorating themselves in pimped out jewelry that they took without permission, and keeping themselves drunk and dying from lack of proper dietary produce through most of the daylight hours. Sure, if this is to be a recipe for the greatest Gay Cruise in recorded history, we have a fucking winner! But in terms of giving these guys any amount of street cred, it does not. Sure, the ideas of lawlessness and shifty morality is incredibly appealing, but as my friend has said, Cowboys embody many similar aspects of Pirate coolness without the flamboyant hazards. Most people in the Pirate line of thinking say that it is the swashbucklers mastery of the singular element, water, and they absolute domination of combat on ships as marking their superiority. But even this isn't true if you think about. Ninja are trained to personally withstand as much pain as possible - I should now, my friend went through Ninjitsu as I grimaced and whimpered at his stories of it - certainly some part of the curriculum had to be 'do not drown?' And in terms of ship-bound combat, well, all Ninjas really need is stable footing to gain momentum, and unless the Crown Marie is in the eye of a fucking hurricane, ships run pretty smoothly.
Now, Ninja aren't all good, and Pirates aren't all bad. There are a lot of aspects that the Ninja requires to be efficient, and Pirates can most likely exploit that to their advantage. For example, usually a bit of darkness/shadow is needed for Ninja to make the kill, on a boat in most hours of the day, they are at a disadvantage. Ninjas need speed, Pirates have speed-interrupting power... .... unless they are busy fucking cabin boy. A lot of the Ninja creed is particularly unattractive too. Discipline, Honor, Servitude, CHASTITY?!?! Hmm....are they anthropomorphic turtles? No? Then FUCK THAT! The one-hit kills, accuracy, and stealth are a sexy counterpoint, and make up for some of the flack, but not all.
A main irritant in this argument for me is the underlying value comparisons here. In terms of dichotomous relationships, you always want an opposite pair to compare and contrast against, right? White versus Black? Tall versus Short? Anal versus Blumpie? The problem with the Pirates versus Ninja argument is that, though they have a lot of opposing aspects to differ on, they are the same on at least one level. They have the speed versus power, quasi dark versus quasi light, stealth versus blunt, quiet versus vocal (seriously, how many fucking Pirating songs are there?), they got a ton of antagonistic values to but heads with. But on one level, gender, they are too similar. I'm going to have to explain, aren't I? Ok, think of it this way, I am comparing with age-old (and very sexist) associations, but this is what we have to work with here.
Women? Sleek, stylish, not as strong, so we can associate a lot of the feminine way of homicide with the Ninja. Men? Built stronger, more aggressive, and emotionless. You'd think that Pirates fit this creed perfectly, but take a look again. Yay, the rampant materialism and accessorizing really doesn't bode too well for their masculinity, does it? Don't try to pull any metrosexual bullshit on this, yeah, they can make themselves look pretty, but they still can't clean themselves worth shit. If the inventors of this argument wanted a truly masculine counterpart to the Ninja feminine, my instincts would have lead me to Vikings. No gaudy-ness on the person, but in the hold for bargaining and hording. And they still have the rough and tumble attitude, the macho bods, and the lawlessness and shifty morality. Another thing that's different, no piddling the oar master. These fuckers waited until either shore leave or pillage, and they made a point of raping and capturing as many women as they could carry. And they weren't pussies, women stayed on the fucking boat sir! Hell, if it was Ninja versus Vikings I'd be hard pressed to come up with an answer, wouldn't you?
You just got a new article from me for the first time in a few weeks due to the Crashing issue, and yet I haven't amassed more than that since my article before that. Why? Read on.
Update on the Fro
The Fro is cold, mostly because he no longer has a fro; explanation slowly to follow. Since my last upload, I had encountered a severe blog crash issue on another of my hosting sites that rather left a bad taste in my mouth for the effort of it all. You don’t realize how much effort you put into your articles until you can’t upload them for an internal server error. I used my friend connection with the administrators to get into a somewhat one-on-one discussion with personnel on how to fix this, and unfortunately it wouldn’t be for another 9 days or so.
But that is not my excuse for not updating regularly despite the errors against me. On the 13th I made my yearly trek two states up to visit my parents for the holidays. They live in Redmond, Washington, a suburb of Seattle and the hometown of the Microsoft offices. I had gotten a ride to the airport via a roommate and made it in plenty of time to be delayed until two hours later. According to the speaker announcements made in 15 minute increments inside our gate, engineers couldn’t tell if the plane was suffering from a severe oil leak or an engine problem. Seems like a simple distinction to my layman ass, but apparently this discrepancy caused the flight to be canceled and us to be called up to be re-booked based on our seating arrangements (Alaska Airlines assigns seat numbers, making me feel like a Highschooler again.) Being in coach I feared I would not be able to leave the OC that day, but I was offered a choice to wait at John Wayne Airport (not a joke, that’s its actual name) with a food voucher or try to get taxied to LAX half an hour away for a sooner flight. Needless to say the action movie hero part of my brain took over and I chose the time-crunching taxi ride.
Alaska paid for the taxi ride (thankfully, as the final tab was 107 bucks) and I arrived in plenty of time to go through my second security checkpoint of the day and wait for my flight. Luckily LAX engineers can tell the difference in major Boeing 737 Airliner issues, because I didn’t encounter any issue until I arrived at Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma) Airport and had to figure out whether my bags arrived on the flight I took from LAX or my original OC flight.
Since my annoying air-mishap days have been easy-going and family-centric, taking up most of the daytime this past week or so. The reason I am shaven is to appease my mother, who just loathes the idea of me in curly hair. They gave me food, clothes, presents, and shelter for two weeks, so I guess shaving off the beloved Fro (only for it to grow back two months later) is a small consolation. We catch each other up: me, my Step-father, my Mother, and my little brother, and just hang out whenever we run out of things to say. My brother is still an impetus ball of energy at his most positive, a whiny little snot at his worst, but whenever I spend enough time in a room with him, I somehow devolve back to my 14 year old and it’s difficult to tell the most immature one apart. Both my little brother and my step-father are gamers, sadly mostly of the World of Warcraft type, but it helps to have at least a semblance of conversation centered around my hobbies for once.
The weather up north has been incredible, especially paired against the ever-constant Sunny crap that festers in Southern California. It snowed my first day up here (the earliest in a while for the area) and has kept a coat of white on the ground ever since (the most in a while for the area.) Last night was a bit of an anxious one, as the wind rose up to around 40 MPH at our elevation (approx. 600 ft.) and was predicted to cause power outages in the area. So close to Christmas, that would just plain suck. Luckily we awoke to beeping lights and hums, so we are once again content.
My days are occupied with family, so why hasn’t the night been a time for me to write. The simple answer is my first constant access to an Xbox 360 and a copy of Mass Effect. I just recently ran through a solid playthrough (99% of the game’s side missions complete) after a week or so of dedicated playing, and have fallen in love with the universe Bioware has created. The 30 hours or so I spent in their Galaxy was quite intoxicating, with tons of detail into the alien species you encounter and the various worlds you explore.
Short to say I won’t bother with a personal review, as a look around the net over the past year would have given you all I could have said. Perhaps, if I gauge enough interest from you folks, I can give an impressions article later on. It was looking like I was going to spring for the 400 Microsoft points for the expansion pack, but the more I look at its details, I’m not sure I want to spend 5 bucks for what amounts to 90 minutes more content.
The near-future plan was to rent Fable II tomorrow in time for the expansion pack (definitely worth it, knowing Lionhead’s resume) but with it being delayed to mid-January I won’t have access to the 360 anymore. I will still give it a go, but its disappointing not to have the largest possible experience available. Oh well, I am confident the inevitable PC release will contain the expansion when it comes out – I predict – in early/mid Q2. As it seems I will have plenty to do over the last week or so of my break (I return on the 2nd), as a copy of Assassin’s Creed is available if boredom strikes hard enough.
That’s pretty much all I have to report at this point in time, rest assured I will return you to the lull of my third-person narration text of my usual articles soon. In terms of expectations of my future, I’ll have one last ‘Fro Recommends out before year’s end, possibly that impressions article, and a personal take on Game of the Year Awards come early ’09 (because I actually like to wait before the year in question ends before saying anything.)
If I don’t read ya till then, have a happy Yule Holiday and a wonderful New Year’s!
Till Next Time, ‘Hawke
News
- My Birthday is Tomorrow!! ^_^ I am turning the hardcore number 21 this year. The achievement is somewhat dampened by the fact that I have been partaking of all the legal benefits of a 21-year old for some time now, but I won’t let little fact keep me from celebrating.
- I’m attempting to be accepted for the Sony Playstation Visa Card, which will allot me a $150 dollar discount on a PS3 purchased online. My idea is to net me a 160GB beast as soon as I get acceptance confirmation, as most of my Christmas wishlist is software for the system
- I have successfully infiltrated the ranks of the Staff Writers at my University Newspaper! Thanks to all that offered textual support, I am quite proud of myself, and hope to really challenge myself creatively through my work with them.
- My quarter was completed on the 12th, and my grades were released a couple of days ago. My GPA for this quarter was a damn fine 3.575; an A in my Film and Media Studies class on the Western (expected), an A in my English class on Love and Magic in Renaissance Literature (expected), a B in my Film and Media Studies course on the basics of Film Study (had to retake due to differing campus requirements, a bit lower than expected), and a B in my Philosophy of Psychology class (much higher than expected.)
Plugs
- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Strayer's, pad on GT, or be checking out his funny stuff on Youtube or at his contributing position here, as ‘The Sage’
- Wanna see how hardcore my most anticipated game of 2009 is? Look here
I totally forgot this site had these, so I figured that in honor of what this site provides, I'd post an old video of me ranting about the shit series that is called Inuyasha.
This video was made when the manga came to an end several months ago and it was done way before I knew about the Nostalgia Critic. Hence why I have the ending spot, mainly because I didn't know how to just rant and leave it at that (it was mainly done so people wouldn't shitstorm me with flame e-mails).
Funerals. I might sound morbid when I say this, but I will say it damn it. When someone dies it's like Christmas. You get all sorts of junk you never knew even existed and you will only like one thing. The rest of the crap will just linger around you for the rest of your life. Ten years from now when you are moving, again, you'll suddenly run into some god ugly little porcelain bird you had almost managed to forget over the years. But there it is. And it will stay there till you move again and it will travel with you till the end of time. What if it gets broken? Doesn't matter. You are too lazy to get up and throw it away. It's impossible to get rid of that junk. And when you die it's someone else's problem. A vicious circle. But you will be appy about that new TV you inherited...looted...or what ever. It's big, smells like cgarettes and you love it.
So, after Christmas comes the funeral. What is up with the funeral crowd? At every funeral I've been to there are people who snap pictures of the whole ceremony, down to the point where people are actually throwing the coffin into the hole in the ground and shoveling to cover it. Why? Why would you want to take pictures of a funeral? It's such a lovely moment that you want to remember it? Then they take group pictures next to the covered up grave! Seriously, what the hell is this? Then you can go: " In this box there's the aunt of my second cousin's uncle and here is the coffin of my great uncle's. Here we are all smiling at his grave together like a happy family!" when you are old and remembering the 'good times'.
Of course after the touristy sight-seeing tours you will feel a bit piggish. So after the funeral there will be a memorial service, a.k.a. 'standing buffet for vultures'. I swear it's like something out of a Discovery channel document. First the lions (in this case: the closest family members of the deceased) get to feast on the carcass of some cake, soup and what ever bread there is on the table. Then come the hyenas and vultures. The lion made the kill and paid good money just to feed dozens of scavengers. What did they do to deserve such a humongous feast? Nothing really. They just came there. Never mind the deceased, we want food and take pictures so we can complain about it to other people and gather pity and attention. It's also fun to fill in those gaps in your family album. Oh please. Some people go to funerals just to get free food. Never mind if you really knew the dead one.Yey you can eat food someone else paid for completely and on the side you get extra couple of hours to gain attention, gather pity, and more time to complain and loudly express how much you did for the deceased and brag how you are such a good Samaritan. Oh and never forget the long speeches the priest gets to make and all the hymns you can sing.
Honestly. Two most pointless things: picture taking at a funeral and the standing buffet. There is just no excuse for picture taking. I do not understand those people and I despise the habit. And, as for the buffet: It shouldn't be the family's responsibility to provide you food. They are the ones truly mourning! Why won't you vultures do your share of the work for change and bring the lions some crub for once? Or even better, if you cannot stand being without food for a few hours: bring a snack. Maybe a chocolate bar or two. Let's stop the reckless money spending on unnecessary buffets! It's like over hunting fish! It's not good!
And you know what. When I organize funerals, don't come knocking. Because if I suspect you do not know the deceased well enough, I will get rid of you. And I will have a shotgun. This lioness has all her teeth and claws sharpened just for you.
For all my complaints about the quality of music these days, and the state of the industry as a whole, I may come off as just one big whiner, always talking about problems and never solutions. I may not have answers for you, but I do have something that’s almost as good: Suggestions.
Specifically: Stop doing the following. Since as far as I can remember, many irritating patterns have emerged as new albums have been released, and new bands start up, and though they may serve as temporary profit wells, they ultimately serve to cheapen our culture, and taint the popular music landscape.
This two-part article highlights 10 of the more annoying musical trends that have emerged in recent times. I would hope that some executive from Universal or BMI is reading this as I speak, but I’m not holding my breath, obviously.
In writing an issue such as this though, I have found that I don’t have nearly enough rage to direct towards this topic…which is why I’ve brought on fellow TGWTG blogger TheDramaticMonarch onboard to give her two cents about the issues. So sit tight, as we slog through:
Apologies for not having a rant last week...well, for the people who missed it anyway, which is probably no one…HA, covered that quite well. I did have a rant ready but in saving it, the web site crashed and as I hadn’t saved the copy I lost all my work and couldn’t get up the anger to write another one, as it would have been me pretending to have a rant as opposed to me actually being angry. I believe in method anger which is a good thing now but will probably be bad a in a few years when I can’t unfold my arms. This week I’m going to talk about something that has really been in effect for a number of weeks, be it in talks or on TV shows, but since I had a conversation with friends about this last night (over a beer of course) I found myself getting pretty angry about it.
There are so many things being said today about youth. That they are born to children themselves, that there are so many things around to turn them and be a bad influence on them. The same thing happened when I was a child and has happened since the dawn of TV. Hell, parents thought the Warner Bros cartoons were bad for children. Basically society likes to blame anything but the family unit for things going wrong with children. They figure, you wrap the kids in cotton wool and they’ll be fine. The problem is kids will rebel against this system because it’s a normal thing for children and even young adults to do. If you tell them not to do something, odds are they will. Another thing about today is that children are protected. They can do anything but no one can do anything back. With this little introduction, this brings me to today's rant of the week.
WTF - Rant of the week
An example could be this. You have a teacher, he’s been in his profession for 15 years, has a perfect record, no complaints is loved by teachers, pupils and parents. All it takes is for one child to say “he touched me” and that mans career is over. He may be totally innocent but after something like that, he would never get a job again. It happens in this country and no school will ever take that man on. Truth or lie, the man loses his job and his means of supporting his family. What happens to the child? Nothing. They go on with their life. This is an extreme example of how children are so protected. My rant, however, is on how the powers that be are taking that extreme to the highest.
Forgive the delay, fair reader, for the seas of third-year university midterms were misjudged on my part, and it took a bit more of time than I had predicted to properly wade through the study process. On the melodramatic side of my affairs, it seems I have lately been stricken with a bit of gloom and glum as of late, making it difficult for the motivation to do anything besides stream old episodes of The Drew Carey Show rather insurmountable.
Thankfully, this is where my ‘favorites’ column on Youtube comes in handy, and where the meat of today’s humorous little revelation begins.
Mickey Mouse is a Satanist
Despite my friends sharing a similar mindset to mine own, I am often alone in the gleeful titillation I receive from watching documentaries made by the nuttier cases of the great Christian peanut butter. I always seem to find videos of Christians making odd social links to things we all know and love, and Satan. It usually begins with the general assessment that all publicized media (save for God’s chosen station, Fox News) is under the talon of Beelzebub, and from there, progresses on to more in-depth condemnations.
I’d like to first point out that my Disney discovery began, in fact, with the most over-analyzed movie ever made, The Matrix. In the video, discussions of the film’s Gnostic elements, including the revelation of Thomas Anderson’s unreal Matrix world, and his later becoming a messiah-like figure as Neo, were the main cause for concern for the spiritually dedicated narrator. Like most subscribing to the righteous dichotomy of literal Christianity, there are only two ways to live: with God and Heaven, or without him and Hell. Thus Gnosticism falls into the same category as Satanism, and our ever-pleasant narrator mourned what he saw as spiritually lethal non-Christian worldviews replacing his own and teaching their foul ways to the ignorant masses. Hilarious in and off itself, this man took a simple misreading of a single film, and created a mass media conspiracy that took him 15 other videos to explain, what he and his church (Fight the Good Fight ministries) called Hollywood’s War on God.
For those that want to grit their teeth through it, enjoy:
Mac Fanboys are evil, evil enough to earn caps on both words. They are so full of themselves it's unbelievable. I have decided never to try conversation with them above the level of grunts and hisses.
Fanboy: "Check out my most AHMAZING iPhone"
My reply: "Ugh, graoooor. Kraaaaaah!" then I hit him on the head with my Nokia.
The release date for Sonic Unleashed, the latest adventure of video game's only blue, spiny, hyper-kinetic mammal is but a few days away, and Sonic fans have their hopes high that this could be the return-to-form that Sega had been hyping over and over. Let me address those Sonic fans directly for one moment:
Stop it.
Speaking as someone who hasn't enjoyed a Sonic game since he left the 2nd dimension, let me say that while I'm intrigued by the return to 2D gameplay, mark my words, this ISN'T the return to form that you've been waiting for. There's a very good chance that this game will be just as bad as Sonic 2006.
Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but still...There's not much cause to get your hopes up as high as you're getting them.
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HERE'S HOW I KNOW:
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1. The Humans Are Still There
I can't begin to fathom why there'd be humans in a Sonic the Hedgehog game. Sure Dr. Robotnik sort of resembles a human, (And it IS Dr. Robotnik if you're American. If you call him Dr. Eggman you are a whipped, Japanophile pansy, and I invite you to go stick some pocky up your ass.) but I thought that it ended there.
Surely I wasn't the only one getting a "Nature vs Humanity" vibe from the first few games, as though the anthromorphic creatures were defending the habitat of their slightly less evolved bretheren. If they had any sort of sense, shouldn't the rest of humanity be seen as some sort of antagonist?
But no, instead we've got humans associating with giant bi-pedal animals as if there's nothing wrong. Ridiculousness aside, the inclusion of humans and human cities has added NOTHING to the gameplay. (It's taken plenty away however, in the form of moronic side-quests in Sonic The Hedgehog 2006.)
2. The Music Still Sucks
This is more a personal hatred than anything else, but I can't stand how just about every level in the 3D Sonic games are filled with chunky guitars and shrill-voiced pop-punk vocalists. I think it takes away from the game when the background music barely fits the stage scenario, and sounds extremely annoying.
While not a lot of info has been leaked in regards to the music, after hearing what HAS been available on YouTube, and the godawful theme music, which features of all people, the guy from Bowling For Soup. (Never a good sign.) I can honestly say they're doing it all over again.
I've never liked the soundtracks of any of the 3D Sonic games. They're just completely unpleasant to me. The last Sonic-related song I genuinely liked was when Green Hill Zone was remade for Super Smash Brothers Brawl. That was pretty cool, because anyone who's a Sonic fan pretty much considers Green Hill Zone to be THE signature Sonic song. (Okay, there's the intro to the original, but that's barely more than 7 seconds long.) Lately though it seems as though Sega's been trying to distance itself from its old and BETTER soundtracks from it's Genesis/CD heydays. And that's a really bad idea.
3. Sonic Gets Turned Into A Were-Kratos
I'm sure much of the video game community, Sonic fan or not, all raised a collective eyebrow of confusion upon the discovery that Sonic Unleashed would include a strange new feature in which Sonic can transform into a were....thing...that was stronger, slower, and had impossibly elasticine arms.
I watched many videos of gameplay footage of that, never sure what to think until Yahtzee Croshaw summed it up best during an episode of the Australian Gamers Podcast, when he compared the new gameplay style to God of War. (Prior to that, I thought it looked more like Wario World.)
Whatever the case, it's not a good omen. Everytime Sega has had to introduce new elements of gameplay to Sonic games as means of "mixing things up", it generally means one thing: You don't get to play a genuine Sonic game.
What is a genuine Sonic game? Really really inhumanly fast platforming. It's not a God of War-style brawler. When you drive a wedge in the game to block off what people EXPECT from the game, I have found that the hypothetical player enjoying the game now hates you for it.
4. More New Useless Characters
Think back long and hard. When was the last time that you truly embraced the introduction of a new character in the Sonic franchise? Sonic 3, right? When Knuckles was introduced. After that it was just one long trip towards expanded universe Hades.
If there's one thing that Sega likes to do more than shoot its own hardware in the foot, and release its entire Genesis library on Greatest Hits packs, it's add more completely superficial characters to the Sonic franchise, and Unleashed at least holds back a little bit, with only two new characters; an extremely annoying sidekick thing, (Because Tails apparently wasn't enough.) and a new villain, which is unacceptable considering how long it's been since Dr. Robotnik hasn't been a complete joke.
I wouldn't mind the introduction of all these new faces so much, (Heck, the Super Mario RPGs do it all the time.) but Sega is always carrying these characters over into the main canon, and it gets to the point where they have as many characters as The Simpsons. WHO THE FUCK IS G.U.N., and more importantly WHY SHOULD WE CARE?!
Which is another point I ought to bring up: Sega just keeps adding and adding and adding to their already expansive castlist inconsequential character after another. I defy you to name one person who is a fan of "Marine The Raccoon." You can't name any, can you? Am I right? I'm right, aren't I. 9_9
5. 3-D
While I'm ever so slightly optimistic about the "seamless 3D-to-2D" system of camera switching that Sega has been hyping so much, and I'm genuinely pleased that they're making something of return to Sonic's 2-D roots, I shudder thinking about the 3-D portions.
Why? A while ago I played Sonic Adventure 2 which I had lying around, just because I hadn't played it in a long time, and as I played it the game was made far harder than it should have been because their camera system is one of the WORST ONES I'VE EVER SEEN IN A VIDEO GAME.
Regularly I found the camera getting stuck behind walls, (Leaving my character completely obscured from view.) switching to dramatic angles at the least opportune moment, (Which is another thing I dislike. the pretention that the game was some sort of dramatic epic.) and the sudden perspective switch, where I suddenly find my character turning around in the opposite direction, into the oncoming truck I was supposed to run away from.
This god-awful camera system carried into Sonic 2006, which was one of the worse games of the year, and if Sonic Team didn't learn from their blithering mistake then I shudder to think.
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These are just MY perceptions of what I've seen so far. Who knows? Once Unleashed DOES come out, the game might be a glimmering gem of good game design, they might have fixed up the camera angles, and they might have gotten a better writing staff and voice actors that don't always sound like they're reading their lines out of context. It could be good, but heed my words, and take caution.
While staring at a vending machine one day, the following thoughts circulated in my brain...
- If you think about it Dark Chocolate and Swiss Chocolate are really the classiest chocolates there are. Milk Chocolate comes second, with Semi-Sweet chocolate following.
White Chocolate is the kind of chocolate living on welfare who has his car up on cinderblocks.
After my tirade against the religious oppression of gays inherent in their propositional efforts on Tuesday, I decided to flesh out my political exploits by including a score-sheet of what I voted for or against this year. Amidst raving, rabid political rants, of course.
A Blue November
President/Vice President of the United States: My Vote:Barack Obama/Joe Biden Outcome:Barack Obama/Joe Biden (with 53% of popular vote)
Everyone with a pulse knows of Obama’s victory, and the hope and joy that it caused in multiple communities. Anyone watching on television would call the victory a landslide, with Obama coming away with 364 electoral votes, McCain scrounging to pick up his 162. But, like many people, I find the electoral college to be an outdated model of polling in this country, as it was first designed when the country slightly more than a dozen states. Ah, who am I kidding? I want popular vote to supersede any other polling data because if that was the case in 2000, Al Gore would have been president by a solid margin. Speaking of margins, a lot of people believe that the 53/47% break between Obama and McCain on the popular vote is not a huge difference, and mathematically speaking, they’re right. But Obama came away with the highest margin in the popular vote since Bush Sr. in 1988, and the highest of a democrat since Johnson since 1964, according to The Wall Street Journal. I am extremely happy with the outcome of this election, even though it wasn’t the most difficult one to predict. Between Obama and McCain, I side with the democrats on more than 70% of the issues this time around (McCain’s stance on nuclear power is the major thing I stand by with him,) and therefore gave my first legal vote in a presidential race away to the guy that I knew was going to win anyway. The selection of vice presidents only made the decision easier, with political veteran Biden against retarded housewife Palin being one of the simplest decisions I’ve ever made, up there with the time I had to decide between a fish hook shoved down my urethra or a nice slice of chocolate cake. Will Obama change the world as much as he says, not in one term, and most likely not even in a second. But electing him definitely put us on the right track to re-establishing alliances overseas, and the man can definitely put forth the beginnings of changes that those after him can continue. Among my expectations for his term in office is a possible rise in the minimum wage, pressure on businesses to adapt cheaper alternative energy products, practical discussions into alternative energy power, with funding possibility going into development of solar and wind energy plants, a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the beginnings of a new, affordable healthcare system. The one thing Barack Obama can do while in office, to guarantee continued support from both liberal and conservative constituencies, is right before his inauguration speech, directly after taking the Oath of Office, he turns to the microphone, and with his newly established presidential powers, calls for the citizen’s arrest of John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, David Wolfenstein, and Dick Cheney, with accessory charges against George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. If we can get pictures of PC police and secret service apprehending the inner Bush Cabinet and placing them under arrest, Obama can rely on solid support from at least half of the 76% of America that hates that administration. The dude’s got a lot ahead of him, especially with assigning “change” as his word of choice. Let’s hope he patch up the failures of the last 8 years.
California Senate/House of Representatives: My Vote:N/A/Steve Young Outcome:N/A/John Campbell (with 55.8% of popular vote)
California didn’t have anyone under senate election this year for office, but my congressional district did have two guys up for the House; the greater county, thankfully, gave both establishments Democratic majority. Although the Senate didn’t get the 60-seat majority (they gained 6 seats that the Republicans lost, giving them 57) that would allow them to bust up filibusters, their slight majority will give them the edge for the surely liberal policies that will be coming from the Obama White House. Democratic control of Congress, the Senate, and the White House; this is going to be fun! The House, on the other hand, elected against my vote for Democrat Steve Young, instead re-electing Republican John Campbell. Although he is a fiscal conservative (the only kind I like), his views on Immigration are a bit off in my taste, except for making English the national language. Despite his social conservatism, his financial stances seem solid enough, so I’m not too sad over the loss. As for the lack of Senator to vote on, I’m extremely happy with Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, both share strong Democratic values and fought hard when against a Republican majority in the past. Go Women!
Proposition 1a - Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act My Vote:Yes Outcome:Yes (with 52.2% of popular vote)
This proposition was a measure to use 30 billion of the State budget, taken out over ten years, to construct a high-speed mass-transit rail system that goes from Los Angeles/San Diego to San Francisco, effectively connecting the two major cities and halves of the state together. Even though I won’t, most likely, be able to use it to see my friends in Nor Cal (as completion dates for the earliest sections of the rail is 2011, the latest 2030), it’s a safe, reliable travel option to leave for those that can make the trek. It cuts down on congestion, interstate travel cost, and carbon emissions for the State. The upfront costs aren’t as steep as you think (estimated costs to fix the Santa Ana Highway alone rank up to 25 billion), and it’s a good way to connect the State and add a high-tech way of travel, with possible expansions to the rail being laid open for the future (entire West-Coast/Canada/Mexico connections……sweet). Awesome sauce in a can.
Proposition 2 - Standards for Confining Farm Animals My Vote:No Outcome:Yes (with 63.2% of popular vote)
The proposition sounds good, and makes farming business owners out to absolute villains. The measure would require farm owners to place creatures into pens that allow them the mobility to turn around completely. Sounds terrible, right? Must have been what everyone else thought, to. Philosophically, at least for the meat producing animals, I think it’s just polishing the deck of the Titanic; requiring an animal birthed and primed for the specific purpose of slaughter to be given living conditions seems a bit counter-productive to my ears. On a financial level, it’s going to cost California tax payers 9.5 million dollars a year to assure legal practices and government interventions are able to take action if a farmer doesn’t comply with the new regulations (giving him a fine or jail time.) Doesn’t sound like much next to the bond measure, but every little bit helps. On another financial level, every time with update farming regulation, it costs farmers money, to produce and maintain new cages and what not. Not that I am a stalwart ass-monkey for big business, but for California, agriculture and farming are huge, if not the biggest, exports we give to the rest of the country and world, and I just don’t really want to get in the way of that, in any way I can. We supply the majority of fruits and vegetables to the States, after all.
Proposition 3 – Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program My Vote:Yes Outcome:Yes (with 54.8% of popular vote)
As much as I don’t want to trust any federal employee that tells me that this money cannot be re-regulated to something other than what this bond act states, there was no way I was going to vote no on this one. Our hospitals are pathetic in this country, except when you can afford and need the cooler surgeries, and Children’s Hospitals are especially bad. This proposition will authorize $980 Million in Bonds be spent on the rebuilding or renovating of Children’s Hospitals across the State. Yeah, special interests will obviously get in their and muck things up, but this is California: if industries and corporate greed aren’t involved in all of our dealings, its not true Western spirit.
Proposition 4 - Parent Notification Before Terminating Minor's Pregnancy My Vote:No Outcome:No (with 52.2% of popular vote)
[img]http://www.ppshastadiablo...ion 5[/url] - Nonviolent Drug Offense. Sentencing, Parole, Rehab My Vote:No Outcome:No (with 60% of popular vote)
Sounds nice, especially in our pot-loving Golden State; it increases the State’s required oversight of rehabilitation of convicted drug users and reduces consequences of non-violent offenders. But, in reality, the money we save on prisons (since the druggies aren’t cluttering them up), we are spending on drug rehabilitation processes that have no guarantee of actually working (think “AA”.) On top of that, criminals can lessen their sentence on other crimes by claiming they were under the influence of drugs (making everyone an unhinged celebrity, apparently.) Unfortunately, marijuana is still being lumped legally in the heavy drug category, comparable to heroin and meth. And as much as this proposition claims to help reduce their sentence or not even be sentenced at all, the benefits of the proposition are far outweighed by its detriments.
Proposition 6 - Police, Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Laws My Vote:No Outcome:No (with 69.4% of popular vote)
Not a single county in the state had a “yes” vote on this proposition. It would essentially place additional penalties on drug and gang crimes, adding over 30 new laws in the process. Big problems with this little ditty is that the money used to pay for additional law enforcement and legal fees would be re-allocated out of the money used to pay for Schooling, Health Services, Transportation, Housing, and Environmental Protection, leaving us safe, but stupid, sick, and homeless. It would eliminate bail for illegal aliens convicted of the aforementioned crimes (meh), and would charge 14 year olds as adults for the same crimes. With only 30 some-odd percent of the vote, it didn’t qualify to be adopted and/or amended, thankfully.
Proposition 7 - Renewable Energy Generation My Vote:Yes Outcome:No (with 65% of popular vote)
This measure didn’t pass mostly, by my opinion, because it would require Californians to pay a higher electric cost. This proposition would require California utilities to produce 50% of their power through reusable means by 2025, meeting the challenge in increments (20% by 2010, 40% by 2020, and 50% by 2025.) Those against it claimed that it was poorly written (conceited) and that it forced wind and solar power out of the market. Admittedly, I did misinterpret the proposition, probably due to its poor literary quality, but I do think a similar measure needs to be adopted in the country, if only by replaced “reusable” with “alternative.” Forcing utilities to adopt alternative energy solutions by the same date could lead to huge investments in things like biogas, solar, and wind power, leading to advanced development of emission-reducing products and services. Let’s hope next time, the Energy peeps will know how to write.
Proposition 8 – Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry My Vote:No Outcome:Yes (with 52% of popular vote)
Here’s the big one. There is now an initiative being sent to the State which will change the California Constitution to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. It’s absolutely terrible, and it was so close for the longest time. The archaic values of the world’s largest cult now become the word of law, and gays are forbidden to hold marriage documentation in any legality. There is no way to describe it other than discrimination. Marriage is not a religious institution; the causal definition of the term has just been monopolized. I already did a diatribe on this issue in my Last Blog, so make sure to check that out.
Proposition 9 - Criminal Justice System, Victims' Rights, Parole My Vote:No Outcome:Yes (with 53.5% of popular vote)
This one greatly extends the rights and notifications of the victims of violent crimes during the incarceration process. Sounds like something everyone can agree on, right? Well, Californians seem to have forgotten that they already passed most of the measures of this proposition twenty years ago! This means that this proposition is completely toothless, only now it will cost us more money with the cost of this year adding onto the passed measure from 2 decades ago. Yeah yeah, the rights of victims are important, but enough to get bloated, useless policies passed around them twice?
The rest of the propositions were more or less throw-aways, with a veteran’s bond measure that easily passed, another alternative energy initiative that didn’t have a prayer, and a confusing revamping of re-districting (the act of shifting county and city lines based on population and other elements every decade or so) which also passed. All in all, the election paned out well, although I gladly would have exchanged a high-speed train or the rights of food for gay marriage. But alas, I am not yet master of universal opinion, and must deal with the decisions of the people.
here's another little article I wrote for the campus paper at UCI...that 650 word limit is KILLING me!
Denizens of Orange County couldn’t escape the barrage of yellow lawn signs that littered the landscape these past weeks, demanding a Yes vote on Proposition 8 in the upcoming election. Beneath the picture of a happy stick-figure family was the simple tagline, “protect marriage.” It’s as if the “Yes on 8” camp wanted voters to envision themselves galloping to the rescue of Maiden Marriage, imprisoned in the castle of the godless sodomites, creatures of no morals, content to ravish the modern family in between bouts of drug abuse and deviant sex. An overzealous description, perhaps, but the “Yes on 8” movement succeeded largely due to illustrative rhetoric that glazed over the holes in their logic. “Traditional Marriage” and “Sacred Institution” are the most potent mudslingers in their vocabulary, not directly insulting homosexuals by giving heterosexuals way too much credit, “where not against gay people, we’re just FOR traditional marriage.”
There is no such thing as a “traditional marriage,” like there is no such thing as a “traditional family.” The blanket term given the right way to marry could, and does, include: a beaten wife staying with her husband out of fear, a couple who won their marriage as a prize on a reality show, and a drunken mistake in Las Vegas; as long as the two people are of opposite gender. The outdated-ness of the term is astounding; not only was it used verbatim when interracial marriage was attempting to “destroy the foundation of society,” but “traditional marriage” comes from the nonexistent roots of the nuclear family of 1950s America. The idea of “traditional marriage” back then meant a housewife and a factory-drone husband. If Mom went to work while Dad raised the kids, it was sacrilege. True Marriage, as with everything else involving humans, evolves with time, changing and reflecting shifts in societal advances and ideals. But Traditional Marriage never has to grow out of its archaic values, but it has the two magic words.
“Sacred Institution.” That’s the kneejerk response you’re given when those against gay marriage realize they don’t have any logic to debate with. You can’t argue with the phrase, because it hides behind its haughty religious ties, like a child sticking out its tongue behind its mother’s arms. Never mind that those able to marry don’t treat it sacred; a 60% divorce rating and the ability to get an annulment faster than a pizza doesn’t make a dent in their argument. Want to know why it’s sacred? They’ll tell you. “Every study since the beginning of time...” – because cavemen were equipped with polling data – “…shows that a heterosexual couple is essential to the upbringing of sensible, moral children.” Somehow a penis and vagina are so important after the birth, that they MUST be equally present in every strong household. There is no way to justify this argument without assigning each gender their individual roles and emotions within the household. One parent has to be comforting and sensitive, the other tough but fair. Despite both genders being able to interact with children on either side of the equation, the Traditional Marriage argument dictates that there is something engrained into the DNA of men and women that make them inseparable in child-rearing. What it is, they have no answer. Science kinda requires proof, rather than hot air.
People fell for it. Despite pompous overtones and ridiculous claims, people bought it. Do they hate gays? Do they really care that much about the issue, or their religion for that matter? Of course not, it’s all spin, the easiest trick in the book. The “Yes on 8” camp used their scripts to make something simple into the first step on the path to anarchy. They stroked the egos on heterosexuals and their marriages in order to maintain religious dominance in a world that could give a crap. Love just isn’t a factor in marriage anymore.
Rant
