360 Red Ringed

Just as I got Vanquish, the game I wanted to play on it the most this fall. Sigh. 
I guess it's time to just send it in then. 


Donnie Darko is just Final Fantasy!

I was sitting around the other day, thinking about the plot of the original Final Fantasy, as I sometimes do because it's bananas, when all of a sudden something happened... I had a revelation. Now, I'm sure you surmised, possibly, what it was, but let me remind you... 

Donnie Darko's plot is just like Final Fantasy

 It's a metaphor for discovering a pederast
Well, not just like it. Obviously, DD could use more elemental fiends, and FF could use more rabbit suits but hold on a second holy shit they both abbreviate down to one letter repeated twice. IS THIS A COINCIDENCE?!?! 
As for the plot... 
An alternate universe is stuck in a time loop. A hero (or heroes) enters in and must fulfill their destiny and kill the person who caused the time loop in order for everything to go back to normal. Sound familiar? CUZ IT'S BOTH OF THEM. 


I know. I know. But let's just get down to the actual specifics here. Final Fantasy deals with a knight who finds a loophole in time and creates a time loop with it. In this loop, he can live forever, with the help of the elemental fiends, who must be defeated by the 4 Warriors of Light, from another dimension, who can disrupt the balance as an unexpected variable. So they go and ghost the knight's ass during the time when the loop started. 
 Donnie, seen here about to enter a random battle
Donnie Darko, meanwhile, is about a time loop that starts when a jet engine hits the Darko's house and no one dies-but Donnie was supposed to die. An alternate universe splits off that just repeats as a time loop because of this. Donnie, with the help of a dude in a rabbit suit, defeats fiends in some way or another (Swayze's house with all its child porn), but then rabbit dude leads him to his destiny of destroying the person who caused the time loop- HIMSELF. In this case, it can be argued that the rabbit guy is a Warrior of Light stand in, as he is a variable introduced during a later part of the time stream to right the wrongs. 

Yeah, you read that right

It's almost like playing mad libs, only all of the answers are the same. So nothing like playing mad libs. 
Forget I said that BUT THIS CANNOT BE UNSEEN. Clearly, one of them plagiarized from the other! However, since both involve time travel and alternate universes and time traveling in alternate universes, the true culprit cannot be truly discovered. One of them is guilty, though... and I'm tempted to say Final Fantasy because all it's doing is laying fantasy metaphors for everything from DD. Suspicion much? No wonder pretentious college students love Final Fantasy so much- it's based on their favourite movie. 

Hey! You got your game x in my game y!

Like some kind of extraordinary rash, video games have spread from being the basement hobby of a few nerds to being a past time trumpeted by celebrities (some more laughable than others, but that's beside the point). As a result of these more widespread gaming populations, the industry has grown from a billion dollar industry to a MORE billion dollar industry, and it seems like everyone wants a piece of the pie. As a result, a lot more games seem to be coming out, and a lot of the, seem to be getting higher and higher profiles from the publishers and marketing teams. Games are everywhere (I just found one in my shoe, I had to tell it to go away, poor thing). And every now and then, something amazing happens. 

Some games fucking rock

Games come out and they innovate. They change the way we looked at something in a new and refreshing way, and that's always great. If they don't do that, sometimes they just do a previous idea so well it sets a standard for the way it should be done in the future. Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64 didn't invent the first person shooter, but  it was the first console shooter to not really be garbage (at least on the 64), for example. A lot of games try interesting new mechanics, and gamers often reward those games with high praise. But there is a problem... 

Not every game can reinvent (or improve) the wheel

There's an old adage that states "don't reinvent the wheel". Sometimes, when something isn't broken, it doesn't need to be fixed. A lot of games have pulled sticky-cover from Gears of War (which used a model put in place by Kill.Switch) but there haven't really been big changes to it. You hit a button. You enter cover. Fanfare? Probably not, because you're just doing the same thing you did in that other game you did it in. Nothing really too new about that, right? There may be different systems in play, like the ability to quickly dodge between covers, but it's still the same. Another example is aiming down the sights. When whatever game invented it (I'll throw out Call of Duty), it was kind of ignored. But when the games started to blow up, all of a sudden, iron sights  is a great idea, and no modern shooter can exist without it. I've even gone so far as to sayit's hurting FPS games, but that's neither here nor there. What's important is that when gamers like an idea, they enjoy seeing it in other games. They love to champion originality, these gamers, but if something works for them, they never want it changed. Imitation is, as they say, the most sincere form of flattery, and it also serves as a good way to ease someone into a game without them floundering for a half hour with radically re-invented controls. What if you went from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to some weird game where you used the analog stick to flick out your tricks? Weird, right? Bet that would take a while and a lengthy tutorial to explain.  
Games copy each other at times because it just makes sense. Why radically change a control scheme when you know it's the standard? Why change a formula that's worked well for someone else in the past, but with your own story and setting and characters? It makes sense, doesn't it? I take Gears, rip out what makes the characters and story and world, but keep the game mechanics. Then I add a dude in a white suit that has rockets all over it and he can fly around all crazy fast and also it's in space. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 

So why do gamers choose some games to hate for being similar to others?

The most recent example of a game that cribs from other games is Medal of Honor, but this one makes a lot more sense than others. Medal of Honor is essentially EAs take on Modern Warfare, in terms of it being a first person shooter that takes place in the modern day and tries to put in contemporary conflict. Hell, it's not even hard to call Medal of Honor a rip-off of Call of Duty. It's got everything it needs right there, and doesn't seem to try to go too much further.  
But Dead Space? Survival horror has been around a pretty long time, but as soon as a third-person, over-the-shoulder survival horror game is announced, a lot of people start complaining that it's just Resident Evil in space. The game proved pretty quickly that it was much more than that, and it was a critical and commercial success. But one question remains- remember liking Resident Evil 4? Remember it being game of the year, and that every 3rd person shooter after it had the same camera view? So why did this become the one that everyone immediately harped on, just because the genre matched?  Why not cite Forza as just ripping off Gran Turismo? 
Gears of War took it's whole shtick from another game- I've already mentioned cover in Kill.Switch. Epic's got a good run of similar-to-earlier-games coming out, such us the all-multiplayer first person fragfest Unreal Tournament coming out after the all-multiplayer first person fragfest Quake II. Even Jazz Jackrabbit it just a ploy to catch up to the radittude animal mascot of the post-Sonic era, but this is not one of the most powerful companies in the business. 
Recharging health was taken from Halo and put into, oh, EVERYTHING. I can probably recover my health in real life about now... Now no one says anything because it's so far-reaching, of course, but back then, no one still complained. They loved it. Everyone loved it, and they were stoked it was in more games. So why is this no longer true today?
You notice I'm asking a lot of questions, but there's a simple reason for that- I have absolutely no idea why gamers rally against "sameness" in certain games, but not in others. No one cared at all that Bayonetta was Devil May Cry only batshit insane. Same for Uncharted using a similar traversal system as Tomb Raider. Oh, it was mentioned in passing, but no one would dare complain about it. And it wasn't until AFTER the game came out that people started to mention that Bioshock was very similar in a lot of ways to System Shock 2, a game made by the SAME COMPANY, meaning they basically copied themselves. Outcries were unheard throughout the land. 
And this isn't even mentioning the greatest cribber of them all. Darksiders. The game WAS Legend of Zelda, only more mature. You got a hookshot, even. The combat was more like God of War. There's even a portal gun, for goodness sake. And this game sold over a million copies! No one seemed to cry foul, though. They celebrated it for understanding that games don't have to be Resident Evil 4 or Half Life to be good, and for knowing how to take great game ideas and make them work in a different way. 
The same people then complained about how Dante's Inferno was too similar to God of War, even to the control scheme. Does this matter? No. They saw something that worked, tried to do it for their game, their story, their setting, their EVERYTHING, but all anyone could say was "Oh, so when I hit x, i do a heavy? GOD OF WAR!"  I then hear them complain when clicking the left stick in a game doesn't make them run, like it does in Call of Duty.  
And speaking of God of War, why does it get a pass for not changing? Almost every game does more with a sequel than just up the graphics and provide more story. They streamline and improve and there's something different. However, the game stayed the same for some 5 games or so now. In fact, not only does it get a pass, but people even get angry when it's mentioned that it hasn't changed a single bit since it came out in reviews on sites like this one. Meanwhile, Dante's Inferno gets marked down for being too similar? Shouldn't God of War be marked way down from being too much like itself?

I don't get it.

...Ok, I get really obvious ones like Medal of Honor. But what about other games that crib things? Downright STEAL things? Why are those given a pass, but then Castlevania: Lords of Shadow gets called too God of War by the gameplaying populace? I didn't even see anyone calling controversial budget game  Deadly Premonition a rip off of Resident Evil's gameplay, and adding Street Fighter style things to the new MK is getting it praise.  
So what's wrong with a game taking cues from another game? Nothing. Nothing at all. Sure, you may get a lot more games that don't revolutionize the industry, but so what? Look at movies, which so many people want games to be. Do all movies revolutionize cinema? No. Do Oscar winners even do that? Not really, (especially not Crash...). The innovaters will innovate. You just have to give them the time to do it. Meanwhile, why don't you sit down and play some Reach? Doesn't really change to genre, but I can ell you that you won't care.

Wi-Fi Trading is Fucking Broken

But you already knew that, DIDN'T YOU?! Now, I'm not saying that it's your fault, but that lump of guilt you feel forming in your guts says everything you need to hear. I remember when I learned about the first Pokemon for DS having Wi-Fi trading and battling. "That's perfect!" I thought. It's an actual evolution for the franchise, getting into the online world, and it's almost a dream come true. As I crawled my way through a wonderful new continent, marveling in the new Pokemon that gamboled about, I finally reached the Wi-Fi building and dove my ass right in, only to discover that


Not just regular broken. Not KIND OF broken. This is 'fucking' with a capital FU. I was on for 2 hours last night looking for a Spinarak. Let me list what is currently up for trade if you want to trade for this almost ridiculously common Pokemon.
  • Male Meditite, Lv. 90
  • Togepi, Level 100
  • Slowking
  • Darkrai, Lv. 100
  • Male Lucario, Lv. 100
  • Blaziken, Lv. 50 (it's a Lv. 1 Spinarak)
  • ANOTHER Darkrai, Lv. 100
Let's keep this going, though. What does someone desire for the rarest of the rare, the dreaded Rattata?
  • Male Graveler, Lv 100
  • Staryu, any level (...makes SOME sense)
  • Mesprit
  • Qwilfish
  • Lv. 50 Male Steelix
  • Lv. 50 Jirachi
  • <Lv. 10 Chikorita
 Are you kidding me? Really? I'd only do that if I had an extra Mesprit lounging around and was thinking to myself "I wish I could do something really stupid with this! How about a level 2 Rattata?" But since I'm not constantly downing Dumbass pills (I ignore my prescription), I don't see that happening anytime in the future.

And why can I only see 7 trades at a time?

It's adorable and all to see all the trainers sitting at the bottom of the screen and I can click them and giggle at all the Ace Trainers there are (ego), but the problem with this is that I only can see 7 people. I'm sure there's someone out there who wasn't hit over the head when they were looking to make a trade, and it would be nice to be able to flip through the,. Even if there's millions of people who are trying to trade away their Shuckle (NO ONE WILL TAKE IT), I should have some way to look through it, maybe in a list form. Here's an idea I just came up with that would be a lot more helpful: A list of desired trades for that Pokemon, in ascending order based on level of the Pokemon they're desiring. Then, on the top screen, there's the info for the Pokemon they're putting up to trade, and their trainer info. Then, I can further sort based on where they're from, what level I'm looking for, and what gender, like the game already has.

But let me keep blowing your mind with my awesome ideas

WHAT IF THE GAME ONLY SHOWED TRADES THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO MAKE. I don't HAVE a Darkrai, so I don't care who wants one. Hell, I want one too. The game has the ability to read into the Pokemon you have already, since when you click 'make trade' the Pokemon in question is highlighted. So why not base the entire trading screen on that? It should know what I do and don't have. I know it's been said that Japan doesn't get the internet, but some of this stuff isn't rocket science, you know. Why can't I sort based on multiple countries, either? What if I really want a mix of trades from Mexico and Japan? Outta luck, it's all or one. It's especially weird since I can look at trades from, say Beirut. Who's playing Pokemon, Wi-Fi, in Beirut? Exactly (well, if your answer is "no one", that is). It's just bogging down the menus to have so many options for such an archaic system. 

But let's talk mathiness now

Pokemon's got math equations going behind the scenes all the time. Why not add another one? This one's for stupidness of the trade. See, what they can run is the commonness of the Pokemon that is being offered divided by the commonness of the Pokemon they want times the level of offered divided by level of wanted and something like that, and maybe something about the current popularity of the Pokemon offered. If it's within a certain range, they let you set up the trade, but if it's outside of that range, then it will send an error message, or at least a warning message, that the trade isn't fair or likely and may not get picked up. I ain't no mathologist, but I know that they'd be able to come up with something. That way, REAL trades would pop up, with a few weird outliers (Level 1 Bulbasaur for a Level 20 Raichu or something, I dunno), so that after several hours of searching, I won't have just 3 trades at the GTS over 2 games. 

On the other hand...

Being able to download battle videos and trade with friends over the Wi-Fi is pretty good. In fact, if I had friends, it would be the best system since sliced bread. But I'm not here to praise. Who compliments on the internet? I'm just hoping that they manage to make SOMETHING better for Black and White. Really, what could be worse?

Bungie/Activision: Overreact much?

So obviously, the news came out recently that Bungie has partnered up with Activision for 10 years. The outrage was immediate, Bobby Kotick was called as many terrible things as a community of gamers could come up with, and I'm sure more than one voodoo doll was made. 
But, come on, aren't we overreacting a bit?
I mean, maybe we should actually look at the details of this partnership. It's a 10-year publishing contract, meaning that Activision's going to be supplying the money and printing out copies of the game. For the people crying out that Activision is going to start exploiting them for everything they have...probably not. In fact, DEFINITELY not. Activision doesn't OWN Bungie. Activision just has exclusive publishing rights for a still independent developer. From what I understand, it's pretty similar to what they were doing with Halo already, and it sounds a lot like the EA Partners Program. Plus, they get to keep their IP rights. Even Microsoft, who's been publishing them for oh so many years, has kept Halo, which is why so many people like Bungie in the first place. That's why you get Halo Wars, and the less said about that, the better! Finally, they're going to be able to go multiplatform. Multi! That means all the people who are sad because their console of choice doesn't get one of the most critically acclaimed shooters and great online setup that comes with it have a chance of it coming to them now!
I can barely see a downside to this. Is it really so bad that it's coming out of Activision? It's just getting to be blind hate for a company simply because they're big, or maybe you can't forgive them for the Infinity Ward kerfuffle. That shouldn't stop you from finding a game interesting. This is something good, you know? It's a critically acclaimed developer working with a large publisher, and it's likely nothing but gold will come from it.
And no, I don't really think this was an act of revenge against Infinity Ward. It may not be obviously apparent, but contract deals and legal work take quite a lot of time and talks to iron out. Surely, there have been conversations going on about this for MONTHS behind the scenes. The announcement now, though, makes it feel that way (though it is possible the announcement was rushed to try and get a little positive press for a change).
So yeah. Anything POSITIVE to add to this? I don't want to hear baseless speculation about how Bobby Kotick will eat their souls and then find a way too keep their new property. I'd like an actual DISCUSSION as to what you think of this, not just that Activision sucks. It kinda doesn't, it just seems no one will ever be happy with anything they do.


Maybe we should stop caring about what others think

Recently (today), there's been an outbreak in the old debate of whether or not games are art. Why? A famous person with an opinion we value on something else said they can't be. Sound the alarms, someone disagrees with something that a lot of gamers think? How dare he! How could he see something like this

and not think it's art!? What an ass.
Oh, wait...
I suppose I should get my opinions on the article in question out of the way. I think it's an article written by a man who doesn't know the medium he's talking about. How simply he scoffs off Flower because there is no points system. How easily he laughs at Braid because he can't rewind time, making it thus impossible to relate. The way he throws jabs about how she mentions games are measured in profit and market success on the back end. His view is narrow. Yes, he's had a lifetime of experience, but it's a lifetime of experience criticizing film- a medium which can easily fall prey to the same criticism he throws at games (like that profit thing I mentioned). His view is dated. Points? Winners? He's still thinking I'm going out to the local videocade on my rad new roller-blades to play some of that gnarly Ms. Pac-Man (dude)! Games aren't so easily measured in such ways anymore. There was a time when someone, feigning interest, actually had a legitimate question when they asked 'are you winning?', but not anymore. They'll come in while Lucas Kane is cleaning up the blood from the guy he murdered in the bathroom and you'll just stare: there isn't an answer. His view is, finally, unclear. What does he feel art is? He never defines it. He never once says 'this is what I feel art is'. He concedes art can be made by many people (like a game) but that's about as clear as he seems to get. While he can throw up any violent or sexist game and smugly ask someone to say why THAT'S art, it's easy to do the same thing to him. 
  Above: Mommy, I saw this today with my art class!
But that's not the point (though I have digressed). 
See, gaming has come a long way in 25 years (the NES launch). Where once gaming was seen as a loner, nerd hobby or something that weird kids who later shoot up a school do, it's come out of that closet and into the limelight as a massive global market, a socially acceptable hobby, and relevant enough to be featured on Jeopardy and get movies made about them that have pretty decent grosses (the circle is complete, Ebert!). There's a cable channel dedicated to gamers (...or was. G4 has since changed a lot as well). In other words, gaming has proven itself as a thing that is here to stay. So maybe we shouldn't care.
Not to say the recent Rapelay scandal should go excused-that's negligent journalism (for not checking all the facts about this game-like that it's not commercially available outside of Japan, or that it's 3 years old) and sensationalism (tits and 'hurting the children') more than anything. People do need to know that not every game is like that. A bad article or news story that actively effects what some people will think of the industry needs to be exposed as an outlier and, likely, incorrect. But we don't have a reason to go out and start annoying everyone within earshot about the artistic merits of Bioshock or the deeper implications found in No Russian. Maybe we should take a note from The Dude. The Dude abides.
We need to mellow out a bit. Gaming isn't going to be set back, attacked further, or seen as a social pariah because a man who's forte is gilm doesn't think they can be art. It's his opinion. His opinion on a medium foreign to him. So what? No damage has been done, unless your feelings are easily hurt. Let people have their opinion, but don't go out of the way to find it and attack them for it. Maybe we should just abide more. We need to steer the public's opinion of games to more loving in a less loud way, or we'll hurt ourselves by being seen as loud, abrasive individuals who can't deal with being accepted.
And that really seems to be the biggest question I have: Why do gamers seem to feel the urge to be validated so highly? I never once stopped and asked for someone to come praise my medium as art and pat me on the back for doing a good job for playing it. What's the point? People will come around to accept it. There's a likely reason they haven't yet: age difference. The people in charge now, in the newsrooms and the politics, they were probably about 20 when games came out. They saw them as silly little trinkets weak-minded simpletons and smelly people lost fortunes to because they knew games as Pong and Pac-Man. Rock had a similar problem- the older generation hated it, younger loved it. See what I said there?
Older generation.
Sure, Grandma Hardcore loves games, but she's not a state senator running for games to be taxed and more heavily censored. But the older generation will move on and get replaced by us. As time has proven again and again. And then things will be the way you want them. The validation I don't understand the need for will be found, and there will be much rejoicing.
Besides, we just wind up looking like fools otherwise. We seem so desperate to gain approval and turn people towards what we think that it's almost akin to the religious zealot we turn away from our doorsteps for being annoying. Gamers get that annoying. Shoving Mario Galaxy down someone's throat and yelling "ZOMG ITZ ART!!!11!/1" isn't going to win any favours, and it's going to make you look like an idiot, make people who play games seem desperate, and lose you that girlfriend who didn't care in the first place.
So relax, duders. Unless it hurts the hobby, it's no concern of ours. Through patience and steady, thought out efforts will we be able to finally have National Dragon Warrior Day (like Japan already has). Until then, don't let Ebert get you down. You've got friends. Go blow the head off some poor sap in Halo and shed a tear as the beauty spills out onto your canvas of choice.
...Dear God, I'm long winded.

The Age of Plastic

Truly, this is not the age of plastic.
 At least, plastic instruments.
 For, in this age, those who take a trip down to their local Megamart or Electronics Supercenter may fancy a stroll down the fabled Aisle of Musical Bundles, an aisle that actually didn't used to exist for a great many years. It's only popped up recently and is a very interesting development. For those of you unable to make it, it looks a little like this:

 Not pictured: People caring
Sure, a few other things sneak in there, but that is literally a wall made of music game bundle packs, leading to a wall made of music game bundle packs. Yes, take photos, children! Don't run too fast, lest it collapse on you! Look closely, you can see it's already buckling under its own weight!
I think you're seeing what I'm saying. This is getting pathetic. Not only are these stacks of unpurchased rhythm game packs all over the place, they're just getting bigger and bigger almost daily. We've had 5 games from the main publishers ALONE, and they're never content to keep the instruments like they were. They always gotta introduce something new with their instruments or up the quality or make a new model. Really.. why? If someone's going to keep iterating upon their stupid games each year as a new one comes out, then these people already have the bloody instruments. Or just sell the bundles online. I don't even know why the stores allow these eyesores to take up space they could devote to something else. Seriously, it's the only reason they're still doing this. If retailers made a 'game only' rule, then they'd be down to doing it just online or not doing it at all. And then this, Mount Music, would finally disappear.
It's all part of the fact that music games are dying anyways. It really was just a matter of time- yearly iterations do eat people up. Plus the fact that most people why buy them rape copious amounts of play out of them in the first few months they have them anyways. They're social games for a reason: whenever you have people over that would be bonded with better over fake instruments than talking, you break it out. Whenever you have a party, you break it out. Why buy more if I already have this one? Then you keep playing it and keep playing it and keep playing it and it loses all its magic for you. It's not even fun to play anymore, you just do it because your friends like it (and it might be the only reason you HAVE friends). Then you realize that it's all just the same shit over and over, no variation (or you realize you hate your friends), and you just can't do it anymore. Games like Call of Duty can support a yearly game because they change things- locals, play styles, eras, but music games have NOT changed. Why buy another when they're all exactly the same?
And for actual people who actually play actual games, it was probably only a matter of time before they realized that the game was just an extended quicktime event. You know, those things where the game tell you what buttons to press in a specific order so you can win? Where you can't do anything to stop it or you lose, unlike things like Zelda or Assassin's Creed? QTEs are like that, too. These barely even counted as games in the first place, anyways, since it really was just color matching and a strum. Looks like people are finally losing their interest.
Music games are not-so-slowly dying, it seems. Good riddance. 

Blog Watch: GI Joe: The Movie!

Sitting down to this, I'm sure it's going to be pretty bad. Or at least ridiculous. I just thought I'd post my thoughts as I went through.
Opening scene: What the hell kind of accent is that? I think it's Scottish, I guess... I thought the section of "do you have anything else to say before we pass down punishment?" "yes i do!" was kind of funny though. Wearing metal masks of red hot pain on your face is unexpectedly badass though.
-Ah, the 'not too distant future'. A way to keep anything relevant by excluding dates. So even when the future actually looks like Mad Max, it's still the future from THAT, so it's still not there yet! Also see, the year 200x.
-Pointless slowdown count: 1
-Energy weapons are cool. They look pointlessly awesome, especially considering the ship they're being fired from doesn't.
-Those soldiers looks like they have tinfoil for armor. Don't know what kind of cloth that is, but it sparks well!
-Those are probably the best screams possible. It's like falling off a high cliff while being pelted with rocks an given an indian burn.
-SNAKE EYES FROM NOWHERE! GI Joe decided to pop in apparently. Way to be on the ball, assholes, you could have showed up earlier and prevented this movie (why oh why didn't you show up earlier?!)
-Wow, that arrow that just killed that person came from nowhere. Nice it exploded ON HIS FACE!
-Pointless slowdown count #2.
-Way to not kill the enemy, blackgijoeguy (this is where my lack of Joe knowledge is obvious). I'm going to just threaten about killing you because i'm such a NICE GUY.
-Damn, over act as much as possible, eh, Quaid?  Why do they need to state name and rank if he already knows all about them?
-Life like hair and kung fu grip joke. BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-I'm sure no one's discovered a big metal door in the middles of a desert. No idea how there's no sand inside it when there's lots of it everywhere.
-SO MANY ACCENTS! I thought this was an American movie! I'm scared of other people's culture!
-Knowing is half the battle joke. BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-In the future, everything's so advanced that even suitcases have holograms.
-Damn it, what IS that accent?! French?! Scottish!? Smarmy rich asshole?!
-GI Joe is a terrible name for any kind of military operation, really. Marines? Navy? Air Force? ...GI Joe. Sexist, too.
-Storm Shadow has the best accent. It's terribly stereotypical. When's he say 'flied lice'? Oh wait, it gets better, never mind. He just looks like he enjoys homosexuality.
-Wow, injected nanomachines magically form the Cobra symbol! So much knowledge that I never knew...
-Knowing is STILL half the battle! BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-What is with this soundtrack? Aside from suckingness, that is...
-So if it's 4 years later, but in the not too distant future, is it still the future? Not too distant is like a few years so does that set it in the past? Is...is this movie now, then? Or is it more than not too distant and more in the middle-far future? This movie's deep!
-Real American Hero reference! BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-Real life HUDs are very distracting. I wouldn't be able to do anything with them popping all over like 'hey i'm a giant holo-number!'
-What the hell is Brendan Fraser doing here!? Maybe HE should have been Duke!
-Smart talk from Scarlet! Feelings don't exist because they're not scientific! I get the feeling someone was so proud of that line of dialogue they started masturbating on the spot. Everyone was too scared to tell him it was crap.
-Holograms are annoying. If this teaches me nothing else...it's that.
-Why the hell does no one kill women!? Just make an all-women squad and you're UNSTOPPABLE.
-Wow, Ripcord realized extremely fast that his gun was sliced in half. Almost like he as an actor and he knew it was going to happen...
-Ooh everyone get's matched up with the person who's their equal. Two chicks, two ninjas, and the most pointless use of a suit that causes invisiblity ever.
-So nice Storm Shadow can just magically learn to do that jetpack. Maybe it uses a Mac OS?
-Oh, Mr. President, your ability to read the minds of terrorists is beyond even that of those you pay to do exactly that!
-Damn it, TWENTY years earlier?! That's 16 earlier than 4! And that was already maybe in the past of the future, which would be the present, or maybe the past of the past, or past of the present? The not too distant already happened by now? I didn't want to watch a historical set piece!
-It's nice of the stereotypical Japanese man to force his children to speak English. that way America doesn't have to read (as no one really knows how to read these days).
-When did Ripcord suddenly decide he knew everything? Talk about a random leap of logic that...has apparently gone nowhere so far. And how do they randomly realize that they're going to France? These people truly ARE super geniuses! Oh no, they were wearing Nikes? They must be based under the ocean!
-Standing a mere 2 inches from the building that just exploded is a good way to merely get your face scratched, not severe burns and death. Nice for the war to stop so they could have an emotional moment.
-Oooh! I wanna use lasers, lightning and centrifugal force to make a missile start to whistle and flash happily! 
-"I told you I'd kill him if he touched you!" "I heard you the first time" *look of shock, as though she just expounded equations of compound physics*.
-Yo Scarlet, hit that big ass ramp! *touches curb and flies 15 feet into the air*...even better?
-"Guys, you have to stop them!"..what were they trying to do before that? Running through the streets in accelerator suits to ask for a cup of sugar?
-Wow, that's 2 actual decapitations!
-Pointless slowdown #3!
-Wow, those bullets sparked on the tires! Metal tires?! 
-Pointless slowdown #4.
-Remember, kids, when someone explodes the back of your car, make snarky remarks at the now-dead driver!
-Okay, if you had an energy weapon with apparently unlimited shots, would you use a regular, boring old machine gun? Or would you just shoot that thing and get it over with?
-Pointless slowdown #5
-It's wonderful that Duke jumps into the enemy's wingless helicopter, smacks the killswitch, and then sits back with a smug look on his face so that they can smack his stupid, stupid face.
-Truthfully, I've never seen people fight with nunchucks like they were just swords or something.
-So...looking at a shadow suddenly makes it possible for people to figure out exactly where someone else was when all they know was the person's height and a bit of trigonometry when they don't know the time that this shadow was seen?
-It suddenly occurs to me that the movie states that some events happen 4 years ago. Not 4 years earlier, but ago, which means that it's 4 years before today, so we've finally figured it out! Existential quandary solved!
-REmember when the president was like 'they haven't made any demands! that means they'er going to use the missiles'? Now he's like "they launched the missiles! but they haven't made any demands! what's going on!?" I tink it means he's a dynamic character...
-So there was a floor that was pressure plated...anything larger than a quarter makes it go boom. So somehow Snake Eyes can walk on his hands and that doesn't do anything. Furthermore, there's things on the outside of the chamber that he could have walked on instead... odd...
-WHY THE FUCK WOULD SOMEONE MAKE THEIR SHIP ONLY UNDERSTAND CELTIC?! I'll just make sure that no one knows how to fire this missile now, wahaha!
-Why are super weapons so easy to destroy? One man gets disintegrated in the pulse laser engine and it all goes to hell.
-"when our master died you took a vow of silence. Now you will die without a word" So that's what vows of silence mean!
-I fail to see how this is the RISE of Cobra if 1 member is dead, 1 has gone all star-crossed lover for her ex lover, and bad guys never truly win when it's a summer popcorn movie.
-Also, that was a badass transition (a jet was flying and hit a certain position, and the movie immediately cut to the weird submarine in the exact same position. Blink and you miss it). Too bad it didn't cut to anything that would make the movie better...
-Detonate the ice pack!? But i'm using it to cool off my poor aching back...
-Pointless slowdown #6
-Snake Eyes is probably very sweaty. I hope he never takes that suit off...it would be like when you open a grave and the smell of something rotten comes out that you hadn't noticed before.
-Did you know that ice floats? It does this because its density is less than the density of water. To increase the density, though, one must merely explode it! The density raises and suddenly...sinking city.
-Destro looks like a street performer in San Francisco or something who stands around on a box making robot noises and dancing.
-"You and what army?!" is always the very worst thing you can say in any movie simply because...what are you, 6?
-Pointless slowdown #7
-So how is this the rise of cobra if only one is free!? He's only president, I doubt he can really help the other cobra...
-Oh, wow, black eyed peas over the end credits. ick.
And i think that sums it up. Better than Transformers 2 at any rate, this one could actually be construed as enjoyable.
I guess...
this is just an edit to remind myself that I should do other blogs, including an argument against embargoes and the idea that Sonic isn't as reliant on speed as everyone says it is.


Awesome Ideas #1: Mega Man Movie Advertisements

Just a little intro to this idea. Sometimes, I get great ideas for trailers or...ideas, and I figure that when I get an especially good one, I might as well share it. I got a few ideas already, I'll start with what I feel is the best one.
The teaser starts out as the Mega Man 2 opening. Really, this is just in terms of visuals and musical stylings. The text at the bottom just says "In the year 200x..." (i suppose they could insert the year of the movie's release here) and then the camera starts slowly panning up, then faster, and as it goes, the image changes from adorable 8-bit to a high-definition skyscraper facade, the city in the background engulfed in flames, and the music from an NES sound to a more contemporary Anamanaguchi sound (mix of chiptunes and real instruments). The fire creates a shadow that casts itself over Mega Man so that all we can see is his legs (so as to leave a bit of mystery for the final design to later ads), but we still see a silhouette. The head-part turns toward the camera, it cuts out, and the audience is left wondering if it was all just a fever dream or not.
The follow up trailer would show Dr. Light building Mega Man. Just quick flashes of him lugging things around, turning bolts, inserting things into other things, and then it ends with him at his control panel, flipping a switch and looking up. The camera pans over and zooms in so that all we can see are Mega Man's closed eyes. Dr. Light's voice carries in "Do you read me, Mega Man?" and at the words "Mega Man", the  eyes open and it fades out to a title screen.
When the movie would come out though, none of that would be in it. These are all the background of Mega Man you need-he was built by Dr. Light and is a robot. The idea of Wily and the robots should be introduced in the movie though-those are too important to risk an unseen trailer.
Uh...I'm not at all sure how this'll go (all my other blogs crash and burn and one got me expelled from a school), but how do you think it sounds? Anything else you'd like me to make awesome in some way? I got a few ideas already, but I could always go for more (and responses might also open my door to making new and smarter blogses! What could hurt?!)
PS: Enjoy if you haven't already.