I've always been fascinated by art not necessarily intended as high-brow art. What I mean, is stuff like the street vendor doing a bunch of tricks to wow the passers by into buying his wares, or re-purposing children's toys or garbage into really neat things.
That's all the introduction I'm gonna give. Without further ado:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/retinence/6787051822/in/photostream
Guy made a Gyrados (a type of Pokémon, for those less nerdly inclined) out of LEGO blocks. Pretty damned incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukyDrkwvJXQ
Dude makes candy art. Street vendor in China (I think). In this, he makes a caramel lolipop Dragon thingy. It's so cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Noble_and_Sue_Webster
These people don't just turn trash into statues: they use them to still look like garbage heaps but the images projected onto a surface behind? That is art. This is such an Inception-type way of doing things. Pretty freakin' amazing.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
I am disgusted with South Dakota.
Did you know children are kidnapped in a federally funded foster care program in South Dakota?
And did you know the vast majority of these children are native american?
A good friend of mine linked me to this article today. It's an NPR article written by Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters about perhaps the most fucked up thing I've heard about in years.
I don't even want to sit and comment on the article. Go read it right now, and you will be disgusted. And the worst part is, I'm even more disgusted at the rest of the country for the things they get offended by now. An ESPN article on the New York Knicks is under attack by the Asian population in this country for the headline "Chink in the Armor," feeling it was a derogatory comment toward Jeremy Lin as it was the first loss the team has had under his miraculous unexpected bursting on to the scene.
I mean grow up, people. Oh noes, they used the word chink and this star happens to be of oriental heritage! Clearly this is racial insensitivity and not someone using an extremely common figure of speech referring to weaknesses not visible to the naked eye!
Man this makes me upset. I'm going to go bash my head into my keyboard as I play Dota 2 the rest of the day now.
And did you know the vast majority of these children are native american?
A good friend of mine linked me to this article today. It's an NPR article written by Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters about perhaps the most fucked up thing I've heard about in years.
I don't even want to sit and comment on the article. Go read it right now, and you will be disgusted. And the worst part is, I'm even more disgusted at the rest of the country for the things they get offended by now. An ESPN article on the New York Knicks is under attack by the Asian population in this country for the headline "Chink in the Armor," feeling it was a derogatory comment toward Jeremy Lin as it was the first loss the team has had under his miraculous unexpected bursting on to the scene.
I mean grow up, people. Oh noes, they used the word chink and this star happens to be of oriental heritage! Clearly this is racial insensitivity and not someone using an extremely common figure of speech referring to weaknesses not visible to the naked eye!
Man this makes me upset. I'm going to go bash my head into my keyboard as I play Dota 2 the rest of the day now.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
I made a font.
This was an assignment for class, but it was fun. Decided to make a font with a sci-fi feel to it. This is what I'd use on the cover of the novel I've been kicking around in my head the last decade or so.
I apologize for the crappy quality of the picture (took it with my phone) and am planning on digitally cleaning it up. I'll add that in here once that gets finished.
Trying to classify this font is difficult, as it's not entirely traditional. It's not the type of thing you'd use for an extended lengthy writing of any kind because it'd be very difficult to read. That said, I'd claim it to be a sans-seriff font. There are lots of bells and whistles and detail throughout each letter/number, but they are not "stroke" details. They are like added bonuses rather than something which looks like it originated in cursive. The letters are asymmetrical, but I attempted to keep lines and extra bits in an orderly fashion to match up with how they'd look on any other given letter (the lines on "b" and "d" for example). If it belongs to any style of font, it'd be modern, due to the contrast between thick and thin parts of the lettering.
As I mentioned, the goal was to make something sci-fi. I wanted to incorporate an alien feel into it, so I made they as crop circle-adjacent as possible while still remaining legible. There's also a uniformity in the lack of uniformity. It just looks spacey, don't you think?
addendum:
Here's the "new" version in which I just used the paint tool in GIMP to go through and help define the letters/numbers a little better.
I apologize for the crappy quality of the picture (took it with my phone) and am planning on digitally cleaning it up. I'll add that in here once that gets finished.
Trying to classify this font is difficult, as it's not entirely traditional. It's not the type of thing you'd use for an extended lengthy writing of any kind because it'd be very difficult to read. That said, I'd claim it to be a sans-seriff font. There are lots of bells and whistles and detail throughout each letter/number, but they are not "stroke" details. They are like added bonuses rather than something which looks like it originated in cursive. The letters are asymmetrical, but I attempted to keep lines and extra bits in an orderly fashion to match up with how they'd look on any other given letter (the lines on "b" and "d" for example). If it belongs to any style of font, it'd be modern, due to the contrast between thick and thin parts of the lettering.
As I mentioned, the goal was to make something sci-fi. I wanted to incorporate an alien feel into it, so I made they as crop circle-adjacent as possible while still remaining legible. There's also a uniformity in the lack of uniformity. It just looks spacey, don't you think?
addendum:
Here's the "new" version in which I just used the paint tool in GIMP to go through and help define the letters/numbers a little better.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
This is why we can't have nice things.
I feel like my patience as a gamer is completely gone. I have none at all any more when it comes to certain types of games. First person shooters, especially, are not the type of thing I will display any sort of patience toward. The reason being the genre is extremely limited, and if it fails on some basic things it really doesn't matter how "inventive" the act of running and shooting other enemies are.
I bought "Gotham City Imposters" last week, and was really happy with it because of the art aesthetic and general silliness of the presentation. Then I tried playing it. Rage immediately set in.
Fun thing about playing games through steam: I can tell how long I've had a title open for. In this case, two hours. I can also tell you in that two hours, I've maybe played three total matches and only one of them was completely full while the others were both lopsided with 4 on one team and 2 on the other. The rest of the time was spent searching for a match.
That's right. The matchmaking process takes significantly longer than the actual play time.
This is criminal. I want to go to that dev team and slap every single last person who worked on this game in the face. They failed the single most basic need of every successful video game: playability. If you can't utilize the verb signifying the act of using the product, you failed. You cannot sit and play, because most of the time is spent sitting and waiting. Doesn't matter how much "fun" the actual gameplay is if the player can never really access it in a reliable way. In fact, knowing there are some fun, inventive things in the gameplay makes me hate this game even more.
So this review, I am not going to tell you about the graphics, the sound, the neat features and any of that. In fact, I feel I would lack journalistic integrity if I commented on the contents of this game. It is a waste of your time to read about features you can only ever dream about playing, right?
Gotham City Imposters gets a Not Playable out of 10. The devs have already released a statement saying they plan on a lot of "cool features" in the upcoming "free DLC" next month, which include (get this!) improved matchmaking, joining into matches already in progress, and the ability to mute players.
That is not DLC. Those are basic gameplay features required to create an enjoyable experience. You've already lost me, Monolith. Trying to tell me your game update to gameplay problems is "free DLC" rather than a bug fixing patch AND it's going to take an entire month from the date of launch, problems any good video game developer would have encountered and fixed with any sort of playtesting whatsoever, makes me think you're a team of incompetent developers.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Mass game reviews: Heavy rage incoming!
I am an avid Steam fan. Steam is the digital video game distributor of choice for me and last I checked, the vast majority of PC gamers. Among the many, many features of the app is a "recommend" button, which allows you to use something like 500 characters to write a short blurb that all your friends can see if they ever view a game's store page.
I figured I'd just go copy/paste all the ones I've written so far down here, and I'll even go a step further and lump them into good, mixed bag and just plain bad categories.
Let's start with the good stuff.
These games are good!
Everyday Genius: Squarelogic--
Ever do a KenKen puzzle in a paper? This is basically KenKen on steroids, because there's all sorts of extra modes that aren't available in print formats. If you like logic puzzles, and are capable of basic math, you'll be enetertained til the end of time. I wish I was joking. There are more puzzles than I could ever possibly finish in it, if you REALLY want to finish them all.
Mass Effect 2--
Mass Effect 2 is easily in my top 5 games of all time. It took all the boring, re-hashed, pointless RPG elements out of an already stellar title, streamlined the combat, and still has all the FUN parts of RPG games (that is being the most badass space captain of all time), making it seriously one of the most well-developed, fun, replayable games ever made.
Delve Deeper! --
WE MUST DELVE DERPER.
In all seriousness, it's a pretty fun game. It seems like a board-game concept that simply would have been too hard to set up in person. If the online support worked better, I'd make everyone I know get it. As is, it's a little slow but still quite enjoyable.
Dragon Age: Origins--
Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, one of the greatest game series ever in my humble opinion. It starts off pretty slow, but once you get out of the starting city, it's hard to set it down. Get the Ultimate Edition that has all the DLC because it's not worth the price to get the DLC seperately. There's a reason I've beat the game at least 6 times start to finish.
Torchlight--
This game really needs multiplayer because it's a streamlined Diablo clone. It does itemization right. It does graphics right. It does endless dungeoning right. Fantastic buy.
Jamestown--
Remember when games were awesome? Yeah this is like those old-school times.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2--
BC2 is great for the same reasons that all the battlefield titles are great: teamwork matters. It's got a lot of balance issues, though. For starters, there is no cover. Everything is destructable, so engineers can spam rockets all day long and you suddenly never have anywhere to hide except behind the massive amounts of dust covering everything. It's a step backwards from BF2142, easily the best title in the franchise in terms of balance and gameplay.
Peggle--
It's amazing a game seemingly so totally random is so amazingly fun. Yet again, proof simple is best. I've spent more time with this Popcap game than any of their other titles.
Killing Floor--
Killing Floor is a pretty simple game: kill zombies, get money, defeat each wave, buy bigger guns, kill more zombies. It's a blast to play with friends, and the difficulty is just right. Not too hard you get frustrated, harder difficulties mean you have to try but you can still ravage if you know what you're doing.
King's Bounty: Armored Princess--
King's Bounty: The Legend is good. Armored Princess is great. It streamlines a few of the minor hickups with The Legend, has better combat, tons of units so there's nearly endless versatility to your army choices, and is more of the Heroes of Might and Magic battle goodness you love.
King's Bounty: Crossworlds--
King's Bounty: Crossworlds contains a reworked King's Bounty: Armored Princess and is worth picking up for that alone. The extra modes are fun and challenging, although not terribly long. The gameplay depth is there (seems like hundreds of different types of units), and I for one love the undless customization. If you remember old-school Might and Magic titles, it's a must get.
Dawn of War II: Retribution--
Do you like Starcraft?
Well you're wrong. This game offers more depth, and an inherent deeper level of coolness. Space Marines are hulking monsters with chainsaw swords rather than some weird future version of the Confederate States of America. Orks are inherently cooler than your typical fantasy orcs, because they spell it with a K. And leave it to the Warhammer universe to make elves cool rather than emo forest faggots. And there's still 3 whole totally different unique races left (Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Tyranids for the record.) And it's all fairly balanced!
Plus, Last Stand mode is a whole awesome experience in and of it's own rights. It's like Tower Defense except fuck towers. They are for pussies. Real men fight off endless waves of unkillable ultimate threats to the universe with their own bare hands.
Trackmania Forever--
This game is ridiculously fun. And it's free? Seriously? Awesome. Download it. Now.
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale--
Without a doubt, this game totally captivated me. At first, I was sucked into the Rouge-Like style dungeon crawling, and then I was totally enraptured in the business selling part of it, and then I loved the combination of doing both. Only qualms is the controls on Keyboard are not so great; I recommend getting a controller.
Bloodline Champions--
This is seriously the most fun with a F2P game I've ever had, and I am a sucker for anything I don't necessarily have to spend a dime on. Take your typical MOBA game (think Dota or LoL or HoN) and then remove everything but champion on champion combat. It is like Diablo 2 PVP if there weren't items or levels or other monsters to kill. I'm seriously hooked, hardcore, and the best part is unlike other MOBA games, it's a lot easier to get into due to it's straightforwardness of combat.
Cave Story+ --
Like one of the major publications that reviewed this game, I agree if this was released back on the NES, it'd be considered one of the classics of all time. It's that good. It ranks up there with Metroid and Zelda and Mario, except it's not buggy like all those games were. Fantastic story, fun gameplay, and a memorable experience.
Batman: Arkham City--
I am re-writing my recommendation for this game. It is seriously awesome. I still love it despite having lost maybe 10 hours of my life re-doing stuff I'd done previously on a save file that just up and vanishes. So I will give you this warning first: MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SAVE GAME FILE EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU EXIT THE GAME WITH YOUR SAVE INTACT.
Despite that one major glaring technical flaw, the game itself is already in my top 5 of all time list (Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, BF2142 and now this.) It is every single possible thing you could ever want in an action adventure game. There's mental puzzle solving, twitch reflex combat, a great plot, fun challenge modes, and a significant amount of gameplay time. And you get to be Batman, in a very visceral way. You honestly /feel/ like you're Batman, because you do the sleuthing and the kicking of ass and the sexual tension toward all the women in your life.
Dungeons of Dredmor--
This is a delightful Roguelike. It's just the right amount of challenging. Remember, the goal isn't to win. The goal is just to do better than you did the time before. In terms of the aesthetics, it's very reminiscent of old Monkey Island games (and references them a ton). I laugh constantly at all the little nerdy references in it, like random creatures taunting me with "you n'wah" or how starting with Archaeologist gives you a Fedora and every skill in the tree is an Indiana Jones reference.
Sonic Generations--
Probably the best Sonic game to come out in the post-Genesis era. They realized what the strong point of the franchise was. It's not the super fast thing which keeps people coming back, but replayability through good stage design. My only beef is the game isn't optimized terribly well. I can run the classic stages just fine but the "new" style Sonic maps eat my processor.
Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Flame--
Fun and cute little side scrolling RPG. It's got some flaws (the controls aren't as tight as they should be, the pacing is kind of bad) but the combat is fun and some of the gameplay concepts explored are well done.
Pineapple Smash Crew--
This game has the best music ever. It's also quite fun. I am amazed at the high quality of games designed by a single guy, while games with huge ginormous dev teams end up being crap so often. It's mind-boggling.
These games are okay!
Team Fortress 2--
I really hope you like MMO mechanics at work in your first person shooter. I miss when TF2 was about playing as a team to overcome objectives and beat the other guys. Now it's about logging in the longest and getting a bigger hat than the other guys, all while playing horrible unbalanced maps that favor cheesy tactics.
Atom Zombie Smasher--
The game is fun, but it's rather confusing. It took me more or less completely failing 6 times to get the hang of how to play, but I still got smoked all the time. I was playing on a simple difficulty too so it's either I don't get it, or it's inherently too difficult to play.
Alpha Protocol--
Fantastic game with one major flaw: the gameplay. If I could do all the espionage stuff without having to deal with the horribly buggy AI, unfair enemies, really poorly concieved bossfights, I'd be enjoying this immensely. Obsidian pisses me off. Some of the best dialogue and roleplaying in their games, but just trashy programming. It's a damn shame.
I figured I'd just go copy/paste all the ones I've written so far down here, and I'll even go a step further and lump them into good, mixed bag and just plain bad categories.
Let's start with the good stuff.
These games are good!
Everyday Genius: Squarelogic--
Ever do a KenKen puzzle in a paper? This is basically KenKen on steroids, because there's all sorts of extra modes that aren't available in print formats. If you like logic puzzles, and are capable of basic math, you'll be enetertained til the end of time. I wish I was joking. There are more puzzles than I could ever possibly finish in it, if you REALLY want to finish them all.
Mass Effect 2--
Mass Effect 2 is easily in my top 5 games of all time. It took all the boring, re-hashed, pointless RPG elements out of an already stellar title, streamlined the combat, and still has all the FUN parts of RPG games (that is being the most badass space captain of all time), making it seriously one of the most well-developed, fun, replayable games ever made.
Delve Deeper! --
WE MUST DELVE DERPER.
In all seriousness, it's a pretty fun game. It seems like a board-game concept that simply would have been too hard to set up in person. If the online support worked better, I'd make everyone I know get it. As is, it's a little slow but still quite enjoyable.
Dragon Age: Origins--
Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, one of the greatest game series ever in my humble opinion. It starts off pretty slow, but once you get out of the starting city, it's hard to set it down. Get the Ultimate Edition that has all the DLC because it's not worth the price to get the DLC seperately. There's a reason I've beat the game at least 6 times start to finish.
Torchlight--
This game really needs multiplayer because it's a streamlined Diablo clone. It does itemization right. It does graphics right. It does endless dungeoning right. Fantastic buy.
Jamestown--
Remember when games were awesome? Yeah this is like those old-school times.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2--
BC2 is great for the same reasons that all the battlefield titles are great: teamwork matters. It's got a lot of balance issues, though. For starters, there is no cover. Everything is destructable, so engineers can spam rockets all day long and you suddenly never have anywhere to hide except behind the massive amounts of dust covering everything. It's a step backwards from BF2142, easily the best title in the franchise in terms of balance and gameplay.
Peggle--
It's amazing a game seemingly so totally random is so amazingly fun. Yet again, proof simple is best. I've spent more time with this Popcap game than any of their other titles.
Killing Floor--
Killing Floor is a pretty simple game: kill zombies, get money, defeat each wave, buy bigger guns, kill more zombies. It's a blast to play with friends, and the difficulty is just right. Not too hard you get frustrated, harder difficulties mean you have to try but you can still ravage if you know what you're doing.
King's Bounty: Armored Princess--
King's Bounty: The Legend is good. Armored Princess is great. It streamlines a few of the minor hickups with The Legend, has better combat, tons of units so there's nearly endless versatility to your army choices, and is more of the Heroes of Might and Magic battle goodness you love.
King's Bounty: Crossworlds--
King's Bounty: Crossworlds contains a reworked King's Bounty: Armored Princess and is worth picking up for that alone. The extra modes are fun and challenging, although not terribly long. The gameplay depth is there (seems like hundreds of different types of units), and I for one love the undless customization. If you remember old-school Might and Magic titles, it's a must get.
Dawn of War II: Retribution--
Do you like Starcraft?
Well you're wrong. This game offers more depth, and an inherent deeper level of coolness. Space Marines are hulking monsters with chainsaw swords rather than some weird future version of the Confederate States of America. Orks are inherently cooler than your typical fantasy orcs, because they spell it with a K. And leave it to the Warhammer universe to make elves cool rather than emo forest faggots. And there's still 3 whole totally different unique races left (Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Tyranids for the record.) And it's all fairly balanced!
Plus, Last Stand mode is a whole awesome experience in and of it's own rights. It's like Tower Defense except fuck towers. They are for pussies. Real men fight off endless waves of unkillable ultimate threats to the universe with their own bare hands.
Trackmania Forever--
This game is ridiculously fun. And it's free? Seriously? Awesome. Download it. Now.
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale--
Without a doubt, this game totally captivated me. At first, I was sucked into the Rouge-Like style dungeon crawling, and then I was totally enraptured in the business selling part of it, and then I loved the combination of doing both. Only qualms is the controls on Keyboard are not so great; I recommend getting a controller.
Bloodline Champions--
This is seriously the most fun with a F2P game I've ever had, and I am a sucker for anything I don't necessarily have to spend a dime on. Take your typical MOBA game (think Dota or LoL or HoN) and then remove everything but champion on champion combat. It is like Diablo 2 PVP if there weren't items or levels or other monsters to kill. I'm seriously hooked, hardcore, and the best part is unlike other MOBA games, it's a lot easier to get into due to it's straightforwardness of combat.
Cave Story+ --
Like one of the major publications that reviewed this game, I agree if this was released back on the NES, it'd be considered one of the classics of all time. It's that good. It ranks up there with Metroid and Zelda and Mario, except it's not buggy like all those games were. Fantastic story, fun gameplay, and a memorable experience.
Batman: Arkham City--
I am re-writing my recommendation for this game. It is seriously awesome. I still love it despite having lost maybe 10 hours of my life re-doing stuff I'd done previously on a save file that just up and vanishes. So I will give you this warning first: MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SAVE GAME FILE EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU EXIT THE GAME WITH YOUR SAVE INTACT.
Despite that one major glaring technical flaw, the game itself is already in my top 5 of all time list (Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, BF2142 and now this.) It is every single possible thing you could ever want in an action adventure game. There's mental puzzle solving, twitch reflex combat, a great plot, fun challenge modes, and a significant amount of gameplay time. And you get to be Batman, in a very visceral way. You honestly /feel/ like you're Batman, because you do the sleuthing and the kicking of ass and the sexual tension toward all the women in your life.
Dungeons of Dredmor--
This is a delightful Roguelike. It's just the right amount of challenging. Remember, the goal isn't to win. The goal is just to do better than you did the time before. In terms of the aesthetics, it's very reminiscent of old Monkey Island games (and references them a ton). I laugh constantly at all the little nerdy references in it, like random creatures taunting me with "you n'wah" or how starting with Archaeologist gives you a Fedora and every skill in the tree is an Indiana Jones reference.
Sonic Generations--
Probably the best Sonic game to come out in the post-Genesis era. They realized what the strong point of the franchise was. It's not the super fast thing which keeps people coming back, but replayability through good stage design. My only beef is the game isn't optimized terribly well. I can run the classic stages just fine but the "new" style Sonic maps eat my processor.
Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Flame--
Fun and cute little side scrolling RPG. It's got some flaws (the controls aren't as tight as they should be, the pacing is kind of bad) but the combat is fun and some of the gameplay concepts explored are well done.
Pineapple Smash Crew--
This game has the best music ever. It's also quite fun. I am amazed at the high quality of games designed by a single guy, while games with huge ginormous dev teams end up being crap so often. It's mind-boggling.
These games are okay!
Team Fortress 2--
I really hope you like MMO mechanics at work in your first person shooter. I miss when TF2 was about playing as a team to overcome objectives and beat the other guys. Now it's about logging in the longest and getting a bigger hat than the other guys, all while playing horrible unbalanced maps that favor cheesy tactics.
Atom Zombie Smasher--
The game is fun, but it's rather confusing. It took me more or less completely failing 6 times to get the hang of how to play, but I still got smoked all the time. I was playing on a simple difficulty too so it's either I don't get it, or it's inherently too difficult to play.
Alpha Protocol--
Fantastic game with one major flaw: the gameplay. If I could do all the espionage stuff without having to deal with the horribly buggy AI, unfair enemies, really poorly concieved bossfights, I'd be enjoying this immensely. Obsidian pisses me off. Some of the best dialogue and roleplaying in their games, but just trashy programming. It's a damn shame.
These games are bad!
Magic: The Gathering - Tactics--
Yet another one of my non-recommendations: This game is fatally flawed. I have encountered two bugs in three matches which forced me to quit the game because the match locked up. Considering this has actually been out a year, these kinds of fatal flaws are inexcusable.
Defense Grid: The Awakening--
Why did I pay money for something I can do for free on nearly every imaginable flash games website known to man? There is nothing new, unique, or exciting enough about this title to differentiate it from every other tower defense game.
Terraria--
To be honest, I don't get the appeal. I thought I'd like it at first, but after a half hour of having no aim and drive to accomplish anything, I haven't booted it back up since. Not to mention the fact it relies on the archaic direct IP address connection method, meaning good luck doing the multiplayer if you're as network illeterate as I am.
I am fairly certain it's an autism simulator, appealing to people who want to see how many colorful shaped blocks they can line up in a row.
I am fairly certain it's an autism simulator, appealing to people who want to see how many colorful shaped blocks they can line up in a row.
DC Universe Online--
I don't really care how it plays, or what the end-game content is: This game was ruined for me by the time I finished the starter quest. Why? I spent an awful lot of time and thought into creating my character, just to find out each piece of gear alters the look of your guy. So my dweeby-looking guy without a shirt, wearing just a cape and skinny pants? Already didn't match how I wanted him to look maybe 30 minutes into the game.
Counter-Strike: Source--
There is nothing redeeming about Counter-Strike. What a horrible franchise. You can't tell when your bullets connect with the enemies. There's a nonsensical buy menu for guns, meaning the better team stays on top the entire match because the other guys will be stuck with Glocks as the others charge around with M-16s and AK-47s. But you all know this because it's been around since 1998.
Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition--
This game makes no sense. The tutorial doesn't even explain the basics to you, and ever after reading how you're "supposed" to play it on tutorials online, I lose every single round by 5 points or more. It fails the basic test of being understandable to those without a PH D or an entire rulebook in front of them. I want to like it but I cannot.
Gotham City Imposters--
AVOID AT ALL COSTS. The matchmaking is player to player only, which means with a total player base of less than a thousand people (the peak is 895 over Steam, for christ sake), you will never actually get to play it. Worst $15 bucks I ever spent.
Serious Thoughts, with Serious Face.
I thought I'd start writing down some of the more random things I think about and hope you all get a laugh out of them. Enjoy.
--------------
Why don't we consider coins to be real money? I see a soda machine and think, "Damn, a dollar. That's a little too much for me. But wait, I have 4 quarters! Time for mountain dew."
How come women don't like Narwhals more? They love dolphins, and they love unicorns. Narwhals are basically the unicorns of the sea. Someone needs to get on this trend before it blows up.
I wish I was Spiderman. Not for the typical reasons people wish they were a super hero, though. I want to be Spiderman so I can take a decent shower for once in my life. Spider sense, tingling! The water spout is about to turn liquid lava hot for no reason whatsoever. *jumps and sticks to ceiling*
Every time I think about really dedicating myself to music, I realize people like Lady Gaga make millions rehashing the same four chords and pathetically simple beat in every song. I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged by this.
-----------
I am sure more will come later.
--------------
Why don't we consider coins to be real money? I see a soda machine and think, "Damn, a dollar. That's a little too much for me. But wait, I have 4 quarters! Time for mountain dew."
How come women don't like Narwhals more? They love dolphins, and they love unicorns. Narwhals are basically the unicorns of the sea. Someone needs to get on this trend before it blows up.
I wish I was Spiderman. Not for the typical reasons people wish they were a super hero, though. I want to be Spiderman so I can take a decent shower for once in my life. Spider sense, tingling! The water spout is about to turn liquid lava hot for no reason whatsoever. *jumps and sticks to ceiling*
Every time I think about really dedicating myself to music, I realize people like Lady Gaga make millions rehashing the same four chords and pathetically simple beat in every song. I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged by this.
-----------
I am sure more will come later.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Movie Review: Man on a Ledge
This is a prime example of why I don't go see movies alone. When you are stuck in a bad one, at least it's tolerable with a friend who shares your twisted sense of humor.
I went to go see this the weekend before last with my friend Ryan. For those who don't know, Ryan is where I stole a lot of my fake bravado from and he clearly does that whole act better than I do.
First thing I need to criticize is the title, or rather myself for going to see a movie like this. You can tell the plot for the writers went as far in pre-production as the title of the movie and that's it. That was their entire inspiration for the entire film. I bet the pitch meeting went something like, "Hey we should put that dude from Avatar who is actually a pretty decent actor in yet another really terrible role where he's a guy standing on a ledge of a huge building!"
They don't get around to explaining any single solitary major plot detail til roughly 40 minutes in. I understand you want to create suspense, writers, but leaving the audience in the dark on what should be outlined from the get-go is not the way to do it. The audience shouldn't be wondering why this guy is out on the ledge if he's the protagonist. I'm going to ahead and spoil it for you: He was imprisoned for 2 years for a crime he didn't commit.
Yes, something that simple is not explained to you until 40 minutes into the movie. What the hell, right? The details of the crime are actually kind of a neat premise (the bad guy pinned this other guy for stealing his $30 million dollar diamond which he still actually has so he could sell it himself and still maintain face in the public eye) but by the time it's revealed, they already lost the audience.
The guy is out on the ledge to begin with just as a distraction while his brother and brother's girlfriend go to steal the diamond for reals in order to prove this guy's innocence. Okay, whatever. It's dramatic and is therefore very Hollywood so I'll give that a pass. However, the brother and girlfriend are going to steal a $30 million dollar diamond that has like... the single sorriest excuse for a security system ever. Air vents big enough for a person to crawl through, check. Easily beatable cameras, check. They beat a heat sensor by spraying it with a fire extinguisher. I've never seen a fire extinguisher shoot liquid nitrogen before, but I guess that's what the writers for this movie think is inside.
And then they have these crazy gadgets and explosive to break into the vault itself. This is the kind of shit the Impossible Mission Force wishes they had, and a guy recently escaped from prison, his poor as hell brother and his girlfriend somehow have the hook-ups to get their hands on this kind of technology? The dude before getting arrested was just a cop, too. It's not like the police have this kind of stuff handy.
I feel bad for the actors. It was fairly well acted, truth be told. Except for one character, who does all this crazy, backhanded mysterious stuff then has a random act of selflessness at the end that gets him killed.
The part that just totally killed the experience for me was the whole extinguisher beating a heat detector, as I previously mentioned. That was probably 50 minutes into the movie, which is a really poor time to start dropping ridiculous things into it. Up until that point, nothing had happened that required the audience to suspend disbelief. It isn't long after this segment we're basically asked to expect a huge corrupt corporation has terrible security and some people who don't have a dime to their name have Batman gadgets. Oh, and at one point he leaps off the building to no harm at all on one of those giant mattress thingies they use, and no one thinks to apprehend the guy. He just kind of rolls off and charges toward the reason he jumps down.
You think by now I'd learn not to go see movies where the entire premise of the film is outlined in the title. At least "Snakes on a Plane" was intentionally bad. This one is just sorry.
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