Planet Arcane

4-UP: Castlevania

2012-01-27T03:54:00.002-05:00

Witness the race of epic proportions of Ozzie, Test Zero, Johnny Chase, and Isaac232 through the lands of Castlevania.

Ozzie's Top 50 Villain Countdown

2011-12-14T00:30:00.000-05:00

For about the past month I've been doing a countdown of my favorite villains on Reviewers Unknown, however rather then repost it I decided I'll just link to it when it's complete. So that's what I'm doing now.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Two Nerds: Gamestop

2011-12-06T13:07:00.002-05:00

Ozzie and Chris take a moment to talk about recent games and Gamestop.

Reviewers Unknown 1 Year Anniversary

2011-11-03T14:44:00.002-04:00

Ozzie shares how he got started and why as a part of the 1 year anniversary of Reviewers Unknown this month.

Two Nerds: Multiplayer Misteps and Movie Mayhem

2011-11-01T20:58:00.002-04:00

In this episode of the Two Nerds Podcast, Ozzie and Chris talk about games that rely too heavily on multiplayer then talk about the state of video game based movies.

Guardian Heroes Review

2011-11-01T19:58:00.002-04:00

Note: Reposted from Reviewers Unknown earlier last month.

Some people probably know I usually do reviews in video format, however due to capture card issues I figure we’ll give this text thing a whirl. This past week a timeless classic made a return to the world of gaming on X-Box Live. For those who don’t know Guardian Heroes was a side scrolling beat em up for the Sega Saturn. Now, there weren’t really that many people who had a Sega Saturn so it comes as no surprise when someone hasn’t heard of this game. However those who did have a Sega Saturn knew that this game was one of only a handful of games that really made the system worth having. Why it so popular among those who were actually fortunate enough to play it? Well let’s discuss that…

The Story
The game featured a much more in depth story then a lot of beat em ups. Beat em ups often resort to the standard save the princess/girlfriend plot or something similar. While there is a princess to be saved here, that’s not the main focus and it’s also an element you may not even see depending on what path you take through the game. Guardian Heroes like many old school beat em ups can be beaten in a little over an hour or two, however there are multiple points through out the game where you are given a choice to make. These choices can lead to different stages, fighting different enemies, and up to 5 different endings. With each ending there is also a different final boss and even seeing each ending won’t mean that you’ve seen all the stages so there is a lot more reason to replay the game outside of achievements and gallery unlockables like some other beat em ups recently ported to X-Box Live (Like say Final Fight).

As for what actually happens in the story, well I’ll try not to spoil to much. But the game starts out letting you choose between 4 characters (With a 5th after you beat the game). Han the fighter, Ginjuro the ninja, Randy the wizard, and Nicole the cleric (Do not use her solo!). This group of adventurers are celebrating their recent acquisition of a magical sword while relaxing at a tavern. However there R&R is cut short as a swordswoman named Serena bursts in warning them that the royal guard is coming for them. Naturally the party doesn’t understand why the guard would be after them but to make a long story short the guards are after the sword they just found and soon after when they arrive in a graveyard they understand why when the sword awakens an undead juggernaut to assist them in their quest.

From there they essentially end up as reluctant members of a rebellion on the run in an adventure that will have them fighting soldiers, bandits, monsters, robots, and even a few godlike beings. Choices through out the game determine things such as where you go next as well as who are your allies and who are you enemies.

The Gameplay
The gameplay shouldn’t be too foreign to anyone who has ever played a beat em up before. However it has elements of fighting games and RPGs mixed in to spice things up. Characters have levels. With levels comes more HP and points to spend on your stats as you see fit. Most of the stats are self explanatory but if you want a few tips don’t waste points on Han’s INT stat since he has next to no magic, the guy is meant to be used up front and hacking everything in sight with his sword. If you want your character to move faster make sure to put some points into their AGI and if you want to get more exp faster put some points into Luck.

Characters also all have their own range of moves that can be performed by doing a motion fighting game style and following it with a specific button. Spells can be done with a motion as well or you can push the magic button and bring up a quick little menu. However the menu is inadvisable since it’s really not reliable or quick enough to use in the heat of battle. And even as a magic user don’t underestimate the effectiveness of your physical attacks both to deal quick additional damage as well as refueling your mp by performing multiple hit combos.

Now some people may be disappointed by the fact that co op is only 2 players. But you have to keep in mind that the game was originally released during the PS1 era, so when it was originally made they wouldn’t have expected many instances of that many players at the same time due to lack of online. Increasing the number of players now would require rebalancing the entire game since 4 players would curb stomp most of the enemy encounters in the game. But for those who really want to play more then 2 players…

The original game featured a 6 player versus mode where 6 players or bots could duke it out using almost any of the characters in the game. Yeah not just the story characters, but nearly every enemy you defeat in Story Mode can be unlocked. But Treasure really outdid themselves here, not content to just give the game a visual update, they really upped the ante with versus mode by doubling the original number of characters allowed in a single match. Up to 4 players local and 12 online, you can even have 4 people on the same system while playing online.

Now for those who have never played Guardian Heroes, while the story mode is fun and you’ll spend plenty of time on that. A big chunk of the replay value comes from the versus mode. You can do all sorts of things with it. You can have a free for all, team matches, handicap matches, all sorts of things if you’re creative enough with the options. A personal favorite for me and my friends was to put the characters and levels on random to see who would get the luck of the draw. Sometimes you’d be the underdog, sometimes you’d be a wimp, or even stranger still sometimes you’d be both because you’d be really high level but be a crappy character like the regular soldiers.

With all that said, versus mode is a blast… literally. With most people using some of the heavy hitters all in the same match there will be times when the screen is filled with a variety of fireballs, laser beams, tornadoes, and force fields. It almost feels like Dungeons and Dragons meets Dragon Ball Z at times with how much can be happening all at once.

One final thing to mention is that not only did they add to the versus mode, there is also a completely new mode in the HD version which is Arcade. I haven’t done much with it yet but it’s basically a straight forward kill everything mode where you play as a character of your choice. Not exactly much special but new modes are always welcome and it gives us a chance to use some of the non story characters in a different mode just for fun rather then a competitive mode.

Final Thoughts
It’s great to play this game again and know that should my Saturn ever stop working I’ll have one less reason to replace it. This game in my mind is still the greatest beat em up ever made and it’s unlikely that it’ll ever be surpassed with the shortage of them these days. The only thing I can think of that really comes close is Castle Crashers but that’s more comical while this is more serious.

Final Score: 10/10
Keep in mind this score is based off of comparisons to other beat em ups rather then something like Call of Duty or Final Fantasy and that graphics play no part in my overall enjoyment of a game (Not that the HD sprites aren’t beautiful). I also don’t really based a rating off the soundtrack but this game still has one of the most memorable that I can think of.

Have a 360 and haven't bought the game yet? Do you wanna make the Undead Hero angry?!

Two Nerds: Ezios! Ezios Everywhere!

2011-10-24T23:19:00.002-04:00

In this episode of the two nerds Podcast, Ozzie and Chris take a moment to talk about upcoming games before going on to talk about Assassin's Creed and all things Ezio.

Ozzie Plays Bad Dudes

2011-10-23T16:04:00.002-04:00

Ozzie proves that he's not a bad enough dude to save the president and also this game's sound effects are too loud cause they drown him out a few times.

Two Nerds: Pet Peeves

2011-10-18T02:26:00.002-04:00

In this episode of the Two Nerds Podcast, Ozzie and Chris talk about things in gaming that just kinda gets on their nerves.

Note: Ozzie accidentally mentions one of his friends (Lord Xuma) with no explanation about who it is.

Two Nerds: PS2 Classics & DBZ Ultimate Tenkaichi

2011-10-10T01:54:00.002-04:00

Ozzie Arcane and Chris the Nerd return with another podcast. This time to talk about some recent developments in the gaming industry. Namely the announcement of PS2 classics and certain issues regarding Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi.

Backlogged Gaming: Watchmen The End is Nigh 1 & 2

2011-10-07T17:53:00.000-04:00

Late to the party as always, Ozzie decides to share his thoughts on the Watchmen Games available on X-Box Live, PSN, and Steam in addition to the retail release the includes both games on one disc.

Backlogged Gaming: Top 15 Badass Video Game Babes

2011-09-29T17:52:00.001-04:00

Ozzie takes a moment to share a list of his top 15 favorite video game ladies who he finds attractive that could also beat him to a bloody pulp...

Let's Play Borderlands - Part 2 "Level 1 Midgets"

2011-09-26T03:25:00.000-04:00

Ozzie Arcane joins RU in their Let's Play as they finish some more missions in Skag Gully and Fyrestone.

Backlogged Gaming: Dragon Age Origins

2011-09-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

Ozzie takes a look at one of the highest praised fantasy RPGs of the current console/PC generation.

My thoughts on the Final Fantasy X HD Remake

2011-09-15T15:56:00.002-04:00

So much anger surrounding this and I was about to play the PS2 game for the first time so... why not?

Top 5 Sexy Fictional Guys

2011-09-15T12:12:00.002-04:00

Some of you may be saying, why is Ozzie doing a list like this? I didn’t know he was gay! Well… I’m not really. Well mostly not. However there are two reasons that I’m doing this list. The first reason being that frankly, as long as as a person looks the right way then I wouldn’t care if they’re a guy or a girl. Course, I haven’t seen any guys in real life that I can say that about.

The second reason I’m doing this list is that I was originally doing it for Arthur’s Rainbow Reviewer Project, which was to show support for troubled gay teens who were being bullied. Many of whom were committing suicide. I’ve kinda long since missed the deadline for that but I figured I’d address said issue before starting my list.

While it’s debatable that people are born straight or gay. I don’t particularly believe that line of thought because I think too much goes into making us how we are to say we were born that way. However, one thing I do know is that it’s wrong to try and change someone into something that they are not. Additionally it’s wrong to hate someone for who they are unless it’s because of their personality (IE they’re an asshole or annoying).

But regardless of whether it be because of your race, religion, sexuality, or just because you’re a nerd. It is complete and utter bullshit when someone targets a person because of who they are. Anyone who doesn’t like you for being you isn’t worth your time. Regardless of what certain people may wanna preach, I’m pretty positive that if there is a hell and anyone is going there, it will be them for being a horrible human being. Not because the people who happen to be gay or whatever else some idiot wants to preach.

Anyhow, enough seriousness. On with the list!

#5 Bridget (Guilty Gear)

I have to admit, this pick is a little bit of a joke. Aside from the fact that it’s a massive internet gag that everyone is gay for Bridget, I really was having trouble getting this list to 5 instead of 4 without using Zarbon from Dragon Ball Z and I really didn’t wanna put him on my list.

However Bridget is extremely girly looking to the point where I can imagine it leaving men confused thinking something along the lines of “Does liking him make me gay or does it make me gay to not like something that girly looking?”. I do find his backstory rather silly. The idea that twins of the same gender is considered bad luck so his parents raised him as a girl, as though whatever entity that grants luck is as gullible as a human to a person’s gender.

#4 Nuriko (Fushigi Yugi)

Nuriko is another character that is a cross dresser… at first. He’s in love with the king when he’s introduced and was disguised as a woman to try to win his love. Later on in the series he stops dressing as a woman however and still looks pretty darn… well… pretty. It’s a rare occasion that I can claim to have liked seeing a guy with his shirt off and Nuriko was one of those instances.

#3 Kurama (Yu Yu Hakusho)

I have an interesting experience concerning Kurama. When I originally saw the character it was in some “bonus” footage that was on the end of a DBZ VHS, for what ever reason the fansubber had included footage from Yu Yu Hakusho that was in raw japanese. Kurama was in it and had a female Voice Actor. So, given his appearance and the girly sounding voice coming out of his mouth, I assumed he was a girl. Naturally I was wrong.

The lack of breasts should have thrown me off but I’ll talk about that more with my next pick. Kurama however didn’t really grow on me till I actually started watching the series in English and actually got to understand the character. Not only was he gorgeous to look at, but he was extremely loyal to his friends and had some of the more interesting ways of fighting out of any anime characters I can think of.

#2 Zoisite (Sailor Moon)

Ah Zoisite, you are the source of such utter confusion for many a teenage male who watched Sailor Moon. Now like with Kurama the lack of breasts should be a give away, however… For those who don’t know when Sailor Moon was originally localized in the US they decided to make Zoisite , who is male, into a female. The reason being that Zoisite has a romance with another male villain and TV censors were still deathly afraid of homosexuality in the 90s. So to avoid the subject they decided to make the less masculine of the two villains into a woman for the US release of the show.

Not only was I oblivious to this when the show aired, but one of my friends actually liked Zoisite more then any of the girls on the show (Not that he’d admit it now). Oddly, I think in a way I find Zoisite more attractive knowing the truth now. I mean I have to give huge props to a guy who not only had looks that fooled the audience, but there was an episode where Zoisite disguised as Sailor Moon actually fooled Tuxedo Mask. Yeah not only did he confuse someone in regards to his gender but he successfully pretended to be a specific girl.

#1 Ranmaru Mori (Samurai Warriors)

People may argue that I’m cheating with this one since Ranmaru is actually a person who existed historically. However I have no idea what the real Ranmaru looked like and I don’t care. I’m talking about the Samurai Warriors incarnation and for a historical game that has so many historical inaccuracies I could care less about that.

However Ranmaru in addition to his looks also probably actually has my favorite moveset in the game and actually was one of the most overpowered characters in Warriors Orochi. So to be blunt… He’s fun to play as, extremely loyal, and it’s heavily rumored that was involved with Nobunaga Oda. As someone who once portrayed himself as a villain I just gotta say, if he’s good enough for the Demon King then he’s good enough for me.

Well everyone that’s my list. I hope you enjoyed this little diversion. Agree with my choices? Disagree? Feel free to tell me about it in the comments.

The End of Hack and Slash Warfare in the West?

2011-09-08T15:29:00.000-04:00

These are just a few games not being released outside Japan

For those who don’t know what Hack and Slash Warfare is, it’s a term that I’ve been using to refer to games such as Dynasty/Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara. Due to the fact that they really should have their own genre from regular hack and slash games. However things are starting to look grim on this front for fans of these style of games. Cancellations, poor marketing, and lack of support where the game’s main fans are has plagued these games over the past year or so. Wonder what I’m talking about? Let’s begin the discussion shall we?

Samurai Warriors 3 released on the Wii in the US close to a year after it’s original release in Japan. But apparently it sold so poorly that Koei decided to not only choose not to release Xtreme Legends here in the west but they also chose not to release the PS3 version of Samurai Warriors 3 that has Xtreme Legends built in. Naturally since then they have also decided to not release Samurai Warriors 3 Empires here either. I’m not sure who to blame here but at least part of this was a very stupid decision on Koei’s part. The Wii market in the west was completely untested for their games. They released a game in the west on a system that most of their fans did not have and that’s why it sold poorly. Heck as mad as this makes me, I actually own a Wii but my friends who are bigger Warriors fans then me do not.

There are generally two types of Wii owners. Those “gamers” who just bought it for Wii sports because they saw all the commercials showing the elderly playing it. Secondly are mostly Nintendo fans who pretty much only buy first party Nintendo games for the system. Me personally the only Wii games I buy are ones that let me use a regular controller. So aside from a select few titles I just use it for Gamecube games and the Virtual Console.

But all that aside, I actually almost feel jipped with Samurai Warriors 3 since at least a small portion of the Xtreme Legends content is stuff I feel should have been in the main game. There are multiple characters in the main game who basically were left with no story mode in what felt like a sad attempt at giving people a reason to buy Xtreme Legends. Especially since a few of those characters were in enough stages as enemies to form their own series of 5 missions for a story mode. Maybe it’s just my obsession with Ranmaru speaking but Xtreme Legends itself only adds 3 characters that weren’t in the main game and a few modes that are arguably completely unnecessary if you take away the 8 story modes it added for existing characters. Still I would have liked the PS3 version for true HD and a better frame rate. And it almost seems stupid seeing as most the translation work is already done due to Samurai Warriors 3 already being released here.

Sure would be nice to see the graphics this smooth in the west, but nope we only get the Wii version

At around the same time we learned that Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce 2 won’t be getting a western release. This doesn’t bother me much but for the fans of that spin off I feel you. But it doesn’t stop there, now Koei has decided that while they will be releasing Dynasty Warriors 7 Xtreme Legends in the west. They won’t be releasing it for the X-Box 360, so if that isn’t a middle finger towards anyone who bought the X-Box 360 version of Dynasty Warriors 7 I don’t know what is. The sad thing is, from my understanding the 360 version of the game sold roughly around the same amount of copies as the PS3 version of the game. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I seriously get the feeling this is the last FU Koei is giving western gamers on their way out. I’m really getting the feeling Dynasty Warriors 7 will be the last we see of them outside of Japan.

Lastly to sink things to an almost dismal level, we won’t be getting any future releases of Sengoku Basara in the west. This is truly irritating because I among many others actually enjoyed Sengoku Basara more then the Koei Warrior games. Sure I may disagree with the Basara fans who say the Warriors games suck, but I still find it better. Comparing the two is a kin to comparing Grand Theft Auto to Saints Row, similar idea with their own spin on it.

For those unfamiliar with Sengoku Basara it is Capcom’s take on the Sengoku or “Warring State” period in Japan. The same setting that Samurai Warriors takes place in. Capcom has done a rather poor job trying to get the game out in the west. They released the first game in the series here under the name Devil Kings, completely renamed all the characters, and removed any historical references among other things. The game was poorly received by both critics and fans (especially those who knew it was a bastardization of it’s Japanese counterpart). They didn’t give it another try until Sengoku Basara 3 rolled around which they released here as Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes.

Want those new characters? Too bad!

There was one major problem with the American release of the game however. No one knew it existed. There was zero marketing for this game, to the point where a lot of retailers didn’t even know it existed to order it. As a result, most of us that bought it (myself included) ended up buying it for about $20 new months after it came out because we stumbled upon it’s existence by sheer accident. Personally I discovered the game while searching for Samurai Warriors 3 stuff on Youtube. Apparently Capcom expected the game to sell 6-8 times as many copies as it did, even though that would push it over the number of sales in Japan for a game they have now deemed “Only appeals to Japanese gamers”. Hey Capcom if you wanted so many sales, maybe you should have let us know it exists. This game got no advertisement at all, meanwhile they currently keep paying to advertise Dragon’s Dogma over half a year before it’s release. That sure is some great marketing strategy there, advertising a game to me I can’t even buy yet.

Those factors combined with the fact that it should have been ported to the 360 for it’s American release kind of sealed the game’s fate. I know some PS3 fanboys might be ready to claim “We don’t want the 360 watering down our games graphics” but they can shut up because the Wii already did that more then the 360 would have. And the thing is Capcom already knows games need to be multiplatform in order to make them good money as is seen with their Triple A titles, so this decision just baffles me.

As a result of all that however we’re not getting Sengoku Basara 3 Utage which is an expansion adding what sounds like more then 10 new characters in addition to new modes. It actually sounds much more impressive then Koei’s Xtreme Legends offerings tend to be, but once again… we’re not getting it due to poor sales and bad business decisions. Both companies seem to be taking the stand of “You can import them” which is true since the PS3 is region free as far as most their games are concerned. However this does next to no good for most of us unless they’re going to put in an English text option, which they have no reason to do for a section of fans they deemed not worth their time.

So, as things stand things aren’t looking very bright for those of us who are fans of these style games. Its’ rather sad but I suppose years of magazines bashing them for being repetitive while they singed the praises of Call of Duty has caught up. Cause ya know, Military Shooters aren’t repetitive at all right? With the way things are heading though, it looks like our only options are to just buy the most recent version of our favorite games from the genre and cherish them because they may be the last we get. For the curious, I’ll leave you with a taste of what we’re not getting and links to groups to try and change the minds of the developers.

Samurai Warriors 3 Xtreme Legends

There is a petition which can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/SW3ZXLE/petition.html
The hope of this petition is to get Samurai Warriors 3 XL, Samurai Warriors 3Z, and Samurai Warriors 3 Empires released in the west. I’ve heard that Koei said they would release them if the petition could get up to 20,000 signatures. However I haven’t found anything to comfirm that claim, but then it’s not like it hurts to try right?

Sengoku Basara 3 Utage

It’s unlikely to do anything unlike possibly the petition for Samurai Warriors 3, but for anyone interested there is a facebook group to support a US release of Utage.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bring-Sengoku-Basara-3-Utage-to-the-West/195664903825797

The Fantasy vs Reality Rant

2011-08-29T00:51:00.002-04:00

I swear this is relevant to what I'll be talking about...

I'm gonna talk about something that has been getting on my nerves a bit lately. That is people that can't distinguish fantasy from reality. You'd think I'm talking about overprotective parents or something like that but I'm not. I'm talking about fellow gamers and nerds that make really stupid comments. When it comes to violence they have no problem but I hear some really stupid shit when it involves sexuality...

What am I talking about. Well to start off, let's talk about Lollipop Chainsaw for a moment. On the official trailer over on youtube I saw someone left a particularly stupid comment saying "Oh great a game for perverts and pedophiles". This goes a bit away from the main topic, but this really pisses me off because I have seen the word pedophile been thrown around way too much lately. For starters people who say stuff like this don't even know what a pedophile is. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children, not teenagers. You can argue the morality of either one of them. But they are clearly not the same thing and really should never be lumped together.

For starters, as much as we Americans like to believe otherwise. We are not always the global standard for what is right or wrong. Many countries have age of consent laws lower then 18, so calling people who happen to find a teenager attractive a pedophile is retarded. The real fun thing is that doing so also ignores that not even every state in the US has an age of consent of 18. In fact the state I live in has an age of consent of 16. Just in case anyone was wondering, not that it matters to me since girls my own age don't even give me a time of day let alone someone that young.

But to finish this point off and I'll use fictional characters as an example to tie it back into my main topic. Is it really logical to equate someone who likes the cheerleader from Lollipop Chainsaw with someone who likes Gwen Tennyson from Ben 10?

Do I really need to point out why this is different?

Now that we got that out of the way. I think most people tend to agree that exploiting a teenager for sex appeal is wrong and while I think the response to most of the mess with Miley Cyrus was people overreacting, I generally agree. When it's a real person.

You might be wondering, why am I bringing this up? Well two fairly well known reviewers on the internet are part of it. They certainly aren't the only ones guilty of this but they're the easiest people for me to reference. Who am I talking about? Linkara and Spoony. Spoony because of his bizarre obsession with pointing out that Rikku from Final Fantasy X and X-2 is a teenager, which ignores both that Japan has a lower age of consent then us and that she's not real.

Linkara I mention because of his complaints concerning comic characters, a particular example being when he complained about an up skirt shot of Miss Martian on account of the fact that she was a teenager. Yeah, she might be a teenager. But you know what else? She's green, not human, and not real!

Now don't think I'm doing this to rag on either of them, because I respect both of them. Heck Linkara is probably one of my bigger inspirations. But crap like this just irritates me to no end. Who cares that a fictional character is under the age of 18? Can we please get back to worrying about protecting the real kids and teenagers of the world? You know, the ones who can actually be hurt. I think that's probably more important.

And before anyone even thinks of saying something stupid. Let me put this real simple, trying to claim someone who fantasizes about an underage fictional character is going to try to get the real thing is as stupid of an argument as the Jack Thompsons of the world trying to say video games cause people to become violent. It's a load of bull and anyone with any common sense knows it.

When it comes down to it, there is really one major problem with trying to even say it's the same. Ya know, aside from cartoon and video game characters looking next to nothing like real people. The fact is, the age of a character is determined by one thing. Whatever the writer said it is. If the writer had decided to say the characters were 18, there would be no ground to stand on for the complainers. Plus such complaints just become infinitely stupid when you factor in the idea of humanoid characters that either don't age or don't age in the same way that a human does. Things such as Androids, Demons, and Aliens would be very unlikely to have the same rate of development as humans. Age of consent exists with the knowledge that we are the only sentient beings on the planet.

For those wondering about why I'm bringing this up. You'll probably realize why when I get around to doing my top 15 video game babes video, because of one or two of my choices on there. But to wrap things up, I'll leave you with an image that I think best explains why worrying about the age of a fictional character is stupid.

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 10 (Fast Food)

2011-08-25T17:21:00.001-04:00

This time around Ozzie, Arthur Knowledge, Chris the Nerd, Test Zero, and Detroit discuss Fast Food!

Vlog 8-20-2011: Nerdy Stuff

2011-08-21T00:42:00.000-04:00

Just for shits and giggles, Ozzie decided to show off some of the nerdy stuff he has in his room.

Two Nerds and a Game: The Fable Series

2011-08-20T02:38:00.002-04:00

This time around Ozzie and Chris talk about the game series founded on broken promises... Fable.

Backlogged Gaming: Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes

2011-08-18T22:55:00.003-04:00

Ozzie reviews the game with the most Japanese name ever. Another game from the Hack and Slash Warfare genre.

V-Log 8-7-2011

2011-08-07T16:58:00.000-04:00

Ozzie takes the time to talk a little about the futures of his reviews as well as some quick thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

Two Nerds and a Game: Mortal Kombat (2011)

2011-07-24T21:53:00.003-04:00

In our first attempt at this little podcast spin off from our regular game reviews. Ozzie Arcane and Chris the Nerd discuss Mortal Kombat.

Excuuuse me, Princess!

2011-07-16T02:12:00.002-04:00

I don't really intend to make a habit of this, but it's an extreme rarity that someone directly contacts me. So, when someone I actually find entertaining asks me directly to share something, how can I say no?

The following video is from a man known as "The Black Nerd"

Feel free to check out his site Black Nerd Comedy

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 9

2011-07-11T13:19:00.002-04:00

This time around Ozzie, Detroit, Arthur, Test Zero, and Chris the Nerd talk about Piracy.

I am amused...

2011-07-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

Someone showed me this, apparently someone posted it over on Busy Street originally... I'm kinda surprised to see myself on there. I thought I was completely off the radar.

The Legend of Zelda Cartoon

2011-07-03T11:24:00.001-04:00

So, awhile back I signed up for a Legend of Zelda collaboration. I'm gonna try not to make this a personal rant about the state of collabs on the TGWTG forums but in short they're oversaturated, never get finished, and sometimes the guy running them vanishes without a word. This collab falls into the last category. I don't know if he's having personal problems, decided reviewing wasn't worth his time, or if he's even dead for all I know because he didn't tell us anything and hasn't been heard from since December on the forums.

And so, while I have decided I'm not going to do a video review. I figured I'd still do a little something to share my thoughts on this cartoon since it gets oh so much hate on the internet.

Even though it may not be saying much, I'd like to start out by saying in actuality this was probably the most well done video game cartoon in the 80s. In spite of it's flaws, the music and sound effects always made it feel like Zelda. The character designs may not have been perfect but they were definitely more spot on then Captain N was and it had a more sensible plot drawn from the game then most the other video game cartoons of the time did.

Before I get onto the characters however I need to address one of the major complaints about the series. The lack of the Triforce of Courage. People constantly point out it's a "Tri"Force, where is Courage. It can't be Tri with only two parts. This complaint ignores that the show is mainly based on the first game and that courage was not properly introduced until the second game. There are a few references to the second game as well as a few monsters from it. But we know this show can't take place during the second game because Ganon is not dead and Zelda is not under a sleep spell.

With that said...

Link

So many people complain about how the cartoon incarnation of Link completely ruins the character. The problem is that's implying that there is a character to ruin. Link, more then any other Nintendo character, has always been just the stand in for the players themselves.

There is a reason that the games have always had you name Link and didn't even give you Link as a suggested name for him. In fact this is why I find it so stupid when people make that joke that it should be Legend of Link instead of Legend of Zelda. The reason it isn't is because Legend of Blank Slate sounds fucking stupid.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying cartoon Link was a good character. Link in this is a fucking douche bag. I'm saying there just wasn't any character to really ruin. No matter how he was written, he would have been an insult to at least somebodies vision of what Link is supposed to be. Because as a silent protagonist, everybody has a different opinion of what Link's character is.

However in my opinion Link is still the worst thing about the show. They tried to hard to make kids like him by making him relate able. They did this by making it so that whenever he wasn't saving the day, he was a lazy good for nothing doofus who just wants to lay about and goof off. A perfect example of how stupid his character is, is in the first episode when he's complaining about missing being an adventurer. He complains about being able to sleep in a bed instead of being forced to sleep on the ground, that is such a retarded statement that is only sounds like something dumb a kid would come up with. They basically said let's take the personality of a generic child, make him a hero, and remove his belief in cooties so that he actually likes girls.

Speaking of girls, that brings me to the next character.

Zelda

I've made no effort in the past to hide my feelings about this version of Zelda. I to this day think she is one of the most beautiful women in the history of animation. Personally I've always found the standard game version of Zelda to have a rather creepy inhuman look to her. I know they're basically elves but there is just something about the game version I can't quite describe that throws me off.

Not only is this Zelda gifted with beauty and intelligence but she also is capable of handling herself in a fight. Which is something we can't say about the games very often. Sure there are a couple times she gets captured in the cartoon but you know what? One of the 13 episodes had her having to save Link so I think it evens out.

The biggest complaint about her, which I think is just proof people are grasping at straws to complain, is the complaint that she blue balls Link. Complaining that she's a cock tease and never giving Link his deserved reward. Which is a load of horseshit. Keep in mind these same complaints are coming from the same people who complain about how crappy a character Link is, keeping in mind what I also said about Link. Do you really think the girl should be choosing the asshole? Yeah, he has saved her a number of times but that's like saying women should sleep with every police officer who does his job. Personally I see enough women choosing complete jerks in real life, so I say let Link's desires go forever unfulfilled.

Ganon

While the game's graphics didn't exactly give them much to work with. I guess we can all agree that Ganon doesn't exactly look right. But I don't care, I still love this incarnation of the villain. He's like Skeletor on crack and steroids.

Seriously, they took what at the time was kind of just an unknown generic evil entity and made him into a fairly amusing Saturday Morning style villain. He may came across as downright insane but at the same time, a lot of his plans were far more interesting then a lot of the other villains of the cartoon era. He definitely had more sense then the cartoon versions of King Koopa or Mother Brain (I still love when he bitch slapped her in the crossover) and his evil jar was an interesting way to explain in the cartoon why he never runs out of minions.

The only real complaint I see people raise about him is how he gets a little teleport crazy. But come on, if you had an abundance of magical power, can you really say you wouldn't abuse it as well.

There are a couple other characters I could address like Sprite who is annoyingly cute or The King who I think ended up being the archetype for the Sultan from Disney's Aladdin. But they really don't have enough of a presence to really talk about much.

I guess I'll wrap this up by saying, I still really don't understand why so many people hate this show. Sure it's cheesy at times, but so was almost anything from the 80s. Too many people are judging this show while thinking about all the games that came after it and you can't do that, it can't draw on things that didn't exist yet.

Until next time everybody...

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 8

2011-06-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

This time around we're joined by Chris the Nerd instead of Arthur Knowledge as we attempt to talk about the Console Wars. Though there were tangents... so many tangents.

Backlogged Gaming: Magna Carta 2

2011-06-16T22:14:00.002-04:00

This time around Ozzie takes a look at the JRPG known as Magna Carta 2 for the X-Box 360.

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 7

2011-06-09T15:03:00.001-04:00

This time around we are joined by SlyFox, creator of Idiots of Youtube, to talk about Trolls.

Resident Evil (Remake)

2011-06-07T20:21:00.000-04:00

This time around Ozzie teams up with Jonny Reload to talk about the terrible T-Virus Outbreak.

Wire Taps 1

2011-06-07T13:15:00.002-04:00

I join TZ, Chris the Nerd, and Jonny Reload to do a little riffing on some videos.

Gamers Without Borders - "E3 Speculation"

2011-06-06T00:24:00.000-04:00

I joined Test Zero on his podcast along with Chris the Nerd to talk about the upcoming E3.

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 6

2011-06-02T15:00:00.001-04:00

This time around we beat a dead horse. The horse's name? Star Wars!

Backlogged Gaming: Kick-Ass the Game

2011-05-23T16:08:00.000-04:00

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 5

2011-05-19T20:46:00.001-04:00

This time around we talk about video games. Jonny Reload couldn't make it this week, instead taking his place is first time guest Spazzmaster.

Backlogged Gaming: Samurai Warriors 2

2011-05-14T01:04:00.001-04:00

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 4

2011-05-13T21:31:00.001-04:00

Test Zero joins us for a second time and this time we discuss... Zombies! Enjoy the Zombiecast!

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 3

2011-05-05T19:15:00.001-04:00

This time we are joined by Film Renegado as we discuss bad movie adaptations of various source materials.

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 2

2011-04-21T17:23:00.001-04:00

In our newest episode we are joined by Chis the Nerd as we discuss cartoons we enjoyed growing up and what has befallen cartoons in general since then. And yes, Detroit accidentally introduced Arthur by his real name.

Backlogged Gaming: Marvel vs Capcom 3

2011-04-14T16:48:00.001-04:00

Ozzie and RU play Titan Quest!

2011-04-13T23:21:00.001-04:00

A few of us here got together to play a game that was released a few years ago that was a Diablo'esque dungeon crawler title called Titan Quest. Watch as we find new ways to entertain ourselves while being utterly bored to death by this generic game :)

Save it for the Podcast! Episode 1

2011-04-07T15:02:00.000-04:00

The first attempt by the Reviewers Unknown crew at a general podcast. In this episode we discuss tabletop RPGs, Super Hero movies, and attempt to talk about sequels and reboots in video games before going off on a tangent.

Note: There is a small part of the conversation that was chopped out cause we had recording issues. It was less then a minute but that's why the conversation kinda jumps from Star Wars to Square Enix.

Backlogged Gaming: Final Fantasy XIII

2011-03-27T18:10:00.001-04:00

The Horror of Club Mario

2011-03-24T19:38:00.001-04:00

This time around Ozzie takes a look at the worst thing to befall video game related television.

Gamers without Borders - 3/20/11

2011-03-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

I joined TestZero and Oy for an episode of their gaming podcast. It can be found at either of the links below.

http://testzerosblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/gamers-without-borders-episode-5-mar-20.html

http://www.reviewersunknown.com/537/gamers-without-borders-episode-5-mar-20-2011/

Backlogged Gaming #2: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

2011-03-06T18:49:00.001-05:00

Top 20 Animated Babes

2011-02-27T16:24:00.000-05:00

Originally I had intended to do this as a video. But for various reasons including overall quality reasons, I'm not. But since I already had the list figured out, I still wanted to share it, so here it is in text form. Keep in mind this list only includes girls from animation. Not games, not comics. I'll probably do shorter lists for those at some other point.

#20 Minerva Mink

Now I may get some hate for this one. But honestly I don't care. If I'm not going to be honest with my opinions then they're not worth expressing.

It is however hard to actually explain my reasons for this one. I'm sure part of it is that I saw Animaniacs at just the right age where the fact that she was obviously intended to be hot and had a lot of jokes revolving around it shoved in your face, kinda just made it impossible for me to ignore. After all, when I saw Animaniacs I was a horny teenager.

Some people may still think that's messed up but you know what? They obviously intended for her to be this way, in the comic books they even had countless humans drooling over her. So, I don't think it should be any surprise if Minerva Mink is responsible for a large number of the furries out there.

#19 Harley Quinn

Another one that I'm probably gonna get some hate for. Not because she's on the list but because she's so low on the list. But I did still include her if for no other reason to avoid being lynched by her fans.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like Harley. I do, I like Harley quite a lot. What isn't there to like about her? With her cheerful but psychotic personality, she doesn't come off as downright evil as a lot of the other Batman villains do. Yes, she's done a lot of bad things, but there's just something about her personality that makes her harder to hate for it. Then there is her loyalty to the Joker, granted many of us can't understand why she would be so loyal to him in particular. But I'm sure that kind of loyalty is something a lot of guys would want in a girlfriend... just most of us would reward it better then the Joker does.

But why doesn't she score higher on the list? Well... the thing is as much as I love her, she just doesn't look too special without her face paint. Without it I actually find her appearance kind of downright boring. When she has it on I think she's hot as heck but without it... eh just kind of a generic looking blond. I like blonds but something about her design just isn't that appealing once the paint comes off.

#18 Android 18

No, this placement on the list was not done for irony. Though it is rather ironic considering I didn't even notice I had done this till I started typing this thing out.

Why Android 18? Well it doesn't hurt that she's a blond, but for the most part. It's her power, I love strong women in fiction and she is one of the only woman in Dragon Ball Z who can hold her own. Sure there is the added bonus of the fact that as an android she will never age and always be young. But really, there's just something to be said about a woman who could snap someone in half effortlessly.

#17 Pizzazz

Now, I don't actually remember much about Jem. I mainly only watched it because where I live there weren't any other cartoons on at the same time and for whatever reason my parents let me watch even though I couldn't watch She-Ra out of fear of it making me gay...

But the thing I do remember about Jem is the Misfits and there songs are better. Their leader is Pizzazz who has Universal Appeal. And... I should stop making cheesy references to the lyrics. Pizzazz is likable because she is just more upfront about things then Jem and it probably does help that I really do think the Misfits sounded better as far as made up cartoon bands go. Don't get me wrong, Jem isn't ugly or anything but Pizzazz just has the right attitude as the show's "villain" to draw my attention. Oh yeah and considering how often she turns into a giant in the middle of a music video, I wouldn't be surprised if she was responsible for some of the giantess fetishes out there.

#16 Pirotess

For those of you who don't know who this is, she's Pirotess. A dark elf from the anime Record of Lodoss Wars. She actually has something similar to Harley Quinn going on where she's insanely loyal to a villain character. The villain being Ashram, a human knight who is always clad in dark armor. This is actually kind of interesting because in the scene where she's introduced it seems implied that the dark elves think very lowly of humans, so for her to respect him that much is interesting in itself.

I can't think of much else to say about her that wouldn't spoil the story for anyone who hasn't already seen it. But suffice to say, she's a beauty and I have always liked dark elves.

#15 Clover

This is another one that's hard to explain my reasoning. Mainly because... I don't really watch Totally Spies. Which should be no surprise since honestly it's more girl oriented then most girls cartoons from the 80s or 90s could have ever hoped to be.

But what it comes down to is of the few episodes I've seen, I liked Clover a fair amount. Haven't seen much about her personality, but she definitely looks good. I can't really think of any other way to explain this so let's move on...

#14 The Jewel Princess

Probably both the most obscure and creepy choice on this list. She was actually in only a single episode of "The New Cutey Honey" OVA before she was killed off. But... she's a lesbian and that's not the problem with her. The problem is she is psychotic, rather then try to win a girl over, she basically captures every girl in sight that she considers beautiful and then turns them into crystal statues. Not just any crystal statues, naked crystal statues that we're kind of led to believe she molests.

Now you might be asking then, why do I like her. However if you're asking that you probably also didn't look at the picture above. She might be a creepy terrible person but she's also beautiful and the only thing she wears are jewels. She almost looks like Urd from Oh My Goddess if her clothes were replaced with crystals, except I don't think Urd looks this good.

#13 Eden

Most of you are probably thinking... who? Well she's a female genie from the Aladdin TV series. I know a lot of people liked Jasmin, I personally thought her nose looked a little too big. So I honestly felt the Genie ended up getting a better girlfriend then Aladdin did.

Honestly who wouldn't want a girlfriend who could do literally anything? Oh and she's green, that's always a plus in my book. I don't know why but for some reason, humanly impossible skin colors on fictional characters are sexy to me.

#12 Jessie

Prepare for trouble! Make it... sorry. I just always loved Team Rocket. They were my heroes! So it should be no surprise that Jessie is on my list. Honestly, I'm actually kinda surprised Brock never tried to hit on her in spite of her being a villain since he went after everything else in sight.

Aside from my feelings on Team Rocket, I think a main reason Jessie caught my attention was because she was the only recurring woman on Pokemon who wasn't a kid(Misty) or a generic cop or nurse. She also definitely has a wonderful sense of style to the way she looks.

#11 Wuya

I hated Xiaolin Showdown at first, but I'm glad I gave it more of a chance. Otherwise I wouldn't have found out about this beauty.

Now aside from her looks that I admit some people might find weird there are a few things I really like about her. If you don't know she's a villain, but not only that she's a villain who does the whole bring the hero over to the evil side thing. However unlike you're typical villain she didn't turn on the hero immediately afterwards. In fact she gave him everything he wanted. I honestly think she even tried to seduce him during a particular scene but due to his age it flew over his head. So yeah... a villain that rewards those who help her. That's actually a big rarity and Raimundo actually had to decide on his own that what he was doing was wrong to turn on her, rather then because she betrayed him.

#10 Raven

Raven from Teen Titans. And I just wanna say, I hate people who keep calling her emo. Not only does she have very legitimate reasons for being the way she is emotionally, her character has existed far longer then the show and she was Goth before Goth or Emo were even considered styles.

A fellow member of Reviewers Unknown, known as the Cartoon Hero recently did a much less sexist girls list recently and Raven was on his list. She's actually the only character on both our lists, however unlike him, she didn't grow on me over time. I knew before I even watched the show, when I saw Raven, that she would be my favorite character. At first I did have kind of an odd thing for liking her more when her hood was flipped up, but I've come to appreciate her beauty more since then. And as a guy who likes legs more then breasts, I can't help but love her outfit.

#9 Jessica Rabbit

Probably the most expected and obvious choice on my list is Jessica Rabbit. Though oddly enough even though I never went through that whole girls have cooties phase like most kids and found myself ogling a lot of cartoon girls as a kid, she didn't really grab my attention as a kid. It wasn't until more recently that I really paid much attention to her. Maybe even as a kid who thought girls were pretty, she was just a tad too sexual so it just flew over my head. Regardless there isn't really anything I can say about this one that someone else hasn't already said or thought so let's move on...

#8 Live Wire

Not many things make me glad I watched Superman TAS then Live Wire. I never really see anyone else talk about her much but apparently she was popular enough to be transitioned to the comics, though I feel she's been underutilized in both the cartoon and the comics.

She has the adorable voice of Lori Petty (Did the Nostalgia Critic know about this when he said Lori sounded like Harley Quinn's retarded sister?) and she just all around has such a lovable playful attitude to her villainous behavior you can't help but wanna root for her. She's just too cutesy to want to hate. I also find myself remembering the episode where during an escape she kissed a guard, electrifying him in the process, probably knocking him unconscious for hours. But I gotta say... it would be worth it.

#7 Zangya

Another obscure choice, especially if you aren't a fan of Dragon Ball Z. She appeared in Movie 9 as one of Bojack's minions. Just like Android 18 part of why I like her is because girls who can fight in Dragon Ball Z are so rare, but she does also seem to have a fairly large fanbase for such a minor character. So much so that she was in a fighting game on the Super Famicom. Now you might think that's weird but she was in the game when Bojack, the main villain from the movie she appeared in, was not in the game. She got top billing over the guy she henchs for. In fact she was the only movie villain in the game aside from Broly. She has also been in at least 2 of the Dragon Ball Z games that were released stateside.

Nice to see this green goddess get better treatment then she did in the movie she originated from. Seriously Bojack is a douche for killing her. What else can I say aside from quoting Krillin from their encounter? "Woah... alien chicks are hot!"

#6 Mihoshi

While the merits of her character are up for debate, Mihoshi does something kinda interesting I don't see too often. She manages to be both cute and hot at the same time. Now she does have some mind numbingly stupid moments, but she also has some moments where her stupidity just comes off in such a cute fashion. This happens a little more often in the Magical Girl Pretty Sammy stuff more then the regular Tenchi series.

And she manages to be cute like that at times while also having a body that would probably make a super model jealous.

#5 Poison Ivy

Now I'm talking about from the earlier episodes of Batman TAS, because after the later redesign she just looked rather bland and generic. The earlier episodes though well... I could honestly say she kinda bears a resemblance to Jessica Rabbit but her proportions aren't as over the top. Her character is also rather interesting since while we can sort of understand vegetarians even if we don't agree with them, it's almost enigmatic trying to wrap your head around the idea of someone who values plants over people to the point of being willing to kill people in the name of their cause.

While in addition to blonds I do kind of have a thing for red heads, I think the thing that always grabbed my attention for some reason were her lips. Particularly from the episode where the introduced her and they focused on them a lot because of her using poison lipstick on Harvey. There is just something that's kind of sexy while also scary about someone who can kill a person with a kiss.

#4 Demona

Similar to Minerva Mink, I think some people might be weirded out by this one. But in all honesty I don't get that, because even though she's a Gargoyle, her most important features from a looks perspective still look very human. She may have pointy ears but she has a rather normal looking face. She has breasts and sometimes the animators even draw a belly button on her even though Gargoyles are born from eggs. I'm just gonna come out and say it, anyone who calls someone a furry for liking Demona is an idiot. Gargoyles aren't animals and aside from the London clan which she isn't part of, none of them are designed to look like animals.

With that said, she's the pick on my list that has the highest possibility of killing you rather then well... anything else. She despises humanity to the point where she wants to destroy it. So unless you could somehow convince her that you're better then the rest of the humans and willing to help her exterminate all the others, not a chance. Even then she probably wouldn't believe you. But you know what they say about the most desirable things being the ones you can never have.

#3 Lina Inverse

This might leave some people dumbfounded due to how she's the target of a running gag about having a flat chest in Slayers but... a couple things. Aside from the fact that breast size honestly means nothing to me for the most part, her breasts are really only small by anime standards. And actually in the TV show there were a couple times when the "camera angle" made them looks huge. But honestly the most important thing as far as looks are concerned and this goes for all the pics on my list, is the face. I've never understood guys who like a girl with massive tits who looks like crap otherwise.

Putting all that aside though there is also the fact that Lina is a strong interesting character, probably one of the best female anime protagonists that I can think of. Oh and if I didn't put her on the list there was a high probability she would leap out of my TV and hit me with the Dragon Slave.

#2 Princess Zelda

Yes, from the Zelda cartoon that played on the Super Mario Bros Super Show. This one was probably my biggest crush growing up and even now I still like her more then any other incarnation of Princess Zelda. I was fantasizing about this one before I even understood what sex was...

It's also probably very likely that she's responsible for me having a thing for blonds and elves in general. All that aside it's also nice to see a princess who is capable of taking care of her self rather then always relying on a hero to rescue her... shame that never caught on in the games much.

#1 Ranma Chan

I started with a controversial choice, why not end with one too right? For those who don't know, Ranma is actually a boy who has a curse that turns him into a beautiful red haired girl whenever he is hit with cold water. One could say this is another case of wanting what you can't have, cause even if Ranma were real, Ranma has the mind of a heterosexual man, so "she" would never even consider being with a guy.

At the same time... Ranma does at times seem to enjoy being a girl a little too much. Often using her looks to get people to give her stuff and will openly flaunt her body. Sometimes even teasing people like Ryoga who know she's really a guy.

It also doesn't hurt that she is also one of the best looking girls in the series either...

Backlogged Gaming #1: DB Raging Blast 1 & 2

2011-02-25T17:31:00.000-05:00

Audio Log 2-10-11

2011-02-10T18:00:00.001-05:00

Announcements involving the future of my videos.

DC Universe Online: Scarecrow Boss Fight

2011-02-08T22:06:00.001-05:00

Now for something random...

2011-02-07T23:31:00.001-05:00

Here's an video my friend Boba Vhett made back in high school. Ya know... just for shits and giggles.

Shogun Gameplay (Commodore 64)

2011-02-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

Figured I'd just share a little footage for a game I plan on reviewing in the near future.

I also have an older video of this game that people might find amusing in which I died in less time then it took me to choose a character.

Ozzie Plays Warhammer Online Parts 3-5

2011-02-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

I bring this little experiment to a close...

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 (PvP)

DC Universe Online Review

2011-01-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

DCUO Gameplay Footage: Area 51

2011-01-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

Just a small video I recorded while playing through the instance with some friends. No commentary though.

Ranma 1/2: Miss Hinako

2011-01-20T22:57:00.000-05:00

Ozzie takes a look at an OVA episode of the anime Ranma 1/2.

Ozzie's Top Movies of 2010

2011-01-12T23:38:00.000-05:00

Everyone else did it, why not?

Ozzie Plays Warhammer Online Part 1

2011-01-08T00:40:00.001-05:00

Part 1

Part 1.5

Top 10 Favorite Anime Openings

2011-01-03T00:46:00.001-05:00

Ozzie shares his top 10 favorite anime openings.

Ozzie Plays Warhammer Online Part 0

2010-12-28T01:56:00.000-05:00

The prequel to my Let's Play of Warhammer Online. If you wanna give me some input on which of the two characters you think I should use, leave a comment below.

Lord of the Rings Third Age Commentary

2010-12-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

Godzilla vs Megalon Review

2010-12-22T22:14:00.000-05:00

Ozzie's contribution to Red Ribbon Reviewers and Hewylewis' Godzilla Collaboration.

Check out Red Ribbon Reviewers at http://redribbonreviewers.wordpress.com/

Ozzie Cameos in TGR: HIghlander 2 Special Edition

2010-12-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

I make small appearances in the last 3 parts.

Part1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 The Conclusion

Megamind Review Double Feature!

2010-12-20T22:47:00.000-05:00

So in the past two months I have both seen the Megamind movie and dominated the video game for the X-Box 360. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well my friends read on to find out...

The movie itself I saw last month when it came out. It actually kind of took me by surprise. They managed to keep the main plot of the movie away from the trailers. Because oddly enough and this is little spoiler since how early it happens. Megamind actually WINS within the first maybe 10 minutes of the movie. Nobody saw that coming with how much they hyped Metroman in the commercials.

So instead we get a little more of an interesting story and asks a question that is rarely asked. Would the villain truly be happy if they beat their nemesis? Naturally this idea wouldn't matter much with villains who have simple desires like money and what not. But for some of the grand schemers, who fail time and time again. Would they even know what to do when they finally succeeded? This movie takes a look at that concept and does so in a very enjoyable fashion. I definitely recommend it to animation lovers whether you're a fan of villains or not.

Also I really suggest against considering this movie a Will Ferrel movie. I know he voices the main character but he's not really in it, only his voice is and just about any actor will tell you that voice acting is a vastly different thing from regular acting.

Now... as for the game. The game is mind numbingly easy. Story wise it's kind of disappointing because there is potential for a good story there but they didn't really do anything with it other then use it as an excuse for what's happening. I won't say much because the game takes place after the movie and really explaining it would kind of ruin the movie. But the story basically is the type of thing you'd expect from a sequel movie and they fail to even reach that bar.

But is it a horrible game? Not really but not even worth the $40 it costs. The game will take you roughly 5 hours to complete and that includes getting ALL the achievements. And unlike most games that are that short, there is no online multi player features to make up for it. Yes you can unlock some mini games but if you wanted to play mini games you would have went out and bought a party game instead.

Still it's not bad for a rental and definitely more fun then Star Wars: Clone Wars Republic Heroes was which I had the displeasure of getting 100% in.

Final Scores
Megamind the Movie: 8/10
Megamind the Game: 5/10

Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2 in 5 Seconds!

2010-12-13T03:01:00.001-05:00

Ozzie's first attempt ever at a 5 second video... Don't plan on seeing these on a regular basis. It just popped into my head.

My Livestream

2010-12-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

ozziearcane on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Most frequent sessions will be during 9pm-12am EST

Note: This will mostly only be in use while I'm playing games and I can't always guarantee that I'll be making commentary. But either way, if you wanna watch... here it is.

Forgotten Classics: Filmation's Ghostbusters

2010-11-29T20:46:00.000-05:00

Ozzie takes a look at an often overlooked show, Filmation's Ghostbusters.

Retro Duo/Retro Entertainment System Review

2010-11-22T18:36:00.000-05:00

In this video, Ozzie takes a look at a couple of Famiclones.

Iron Man 2 in a Nutshell!

2010-11-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

Just an experimental idea. Kinda like 5 second movies... but not.

Promo video for Reviewers Unknown

2010-11-07T19:35:00.001-05:00

City of Heroes/Villains is awesome!

2010-11-01T20:25:00.000-04:00

So how awesome is it you might be wondering. Well... to be blunt it's the only MMO where I got a character to max level. But I didn't do just that! I got a Hero and a Villain to max level! It's easily one of my favorites if not my favorite so far. The game has been going for more then 5 years now with 2 retail expansions as well as a ton of free additions over time. What makes it so great? Well let me explain...

Let's start with the obvious shall we? Character creation. Nobody wants there character to look exactly like someone else and in most MMOs where your looks are determined by your equipment this is a hard thing to avoid when everyone is trying to keep the best equipment possible. The game doesn't completely lack anything resembling loot but it doesn't effect your appearance. What your character looks like is completely up to you as you modify them in the character creator. The only thing I think it is fair to compare the creation process to is the character creators they tend to have in wrestling games. And to further customize your characters you gain access to capes, auras, and additional costume slots(A total of 5 possible) as you level up.

No whether you're a villain or a hero you have 5 Archetypes(Classes) to choose from. Heroes get Tankers, Scrappers, Blaster, Defenders, and Controllers while Villains get Brutes, Stalkers, Corrupters, Dominators, and Masterminds. Each Archetype has to pick a primary and a secondary power set. What this essentially means is that each Archetype has many different ways that it can play with an insane number of possible power combinations. One Scrapper may be a Wolverine wannabe with Claws and Regeneration while another has Martial Arts and a Shield. One Defender may have heals and psychic blasts while another has Force Fields and Archery. I could go on and on explaining all the possibilities but this review would go on forever if I did that.

See these guys? They're with me!

Another thing that's really fun about the options in this can also be the pets. A lot of MMOs have pet classes, but with all the power options in this CoH gets to have a lot more then most do. Various Power sets from Controllers, Dominators, Defenders, Corrupters, and Blasters can get a pet or two. Examples include a Plant Controller getting a man eating plant creature and a Dark Miasma Defender getting a being made of pure negative energy. But then we get the Masterminds they're main potential lies in their pets.They basically get a mini army in the form of 3 minions, 2 lieutenants, and 1 boss. They can have Ninjas, Demons, and Robots for the more interesting ones.

But enough about all the character options. You wanna know how it plays. Well CoH did combat a little interestingly. They took out the reliance on auto attack while still sticking to a formula similar to other MMOs. Most MMOs have an auto attack that you activate and just use your special attacks when you think you need to. In CoH all your attacks are special attacks. Meaning all your attacks even your weakest ones have a recharge timer. This isn't to say you go long periods of time without being able to attack(unless you get hit with a slow status effect) but what it does is keep you more involved with the action and what's going on around you.

CoH is also one of the few games that can legitimately claim you can solo all the way to max level... to an extent. There are a few certain Archetypes that may have trouble since they have a lot of powers that lean towards a group setting but for the most part everyone can solo all the way to level 50. That's not to say that you should though, because there are benefits to playing in a group. Aside from the fact that it's more fun, you'll also level up faster.

See unlike most MMOs that has quests of go here and kill that many enemies. Most of the missions in CoH are instanced specifically for your team. They all take place on a map that can only be accessed by your team and the number of enemies is determined by the size of your team which by the way can go all the way up to 8 members as opposed to the usual 6 in a lot of other MMOs.

In all honesty this game does a perfect job of actually making you feel like a Super Hero and it's pretty casual friendly, you don't need to always put in a lot of hours to feel like you accomplished something. With that said that does not however mean that I think it's perfect.

They sure give plenty of room to write your bio...

Some issues people may have with the game include...

Crafting does exist but for the most part... it's pretty unfulfilling. That's not to say that you'll have no desire to do it, you'll probably do it to get your hands on certain enhancements for your powers. But there is no crafting skill to level up. The only thing you can really do is "memorize" certain recipes after enough uses so you don't need to keep getting another copy of the recipe.

PvP is bad and it always will be. This is something I don't think the developers can honestly fix, it's hard to make player vs player combat manageable in a game where people can fly and super jump all over the place. If there were an arena that could disable travel powers and force you to stick to ground combat I could see it working but I don't see that happening.

While you can solo the game, it is the most fun when played with other people. Suffice to say, if you want to keep playing after level 50 you may very well get bored if you don't make friends in the game.

People obsessed with loot might have trouble getting into this game because while there are items called enhancements that make your powers stronger. There is no real equipment in the game. You only have a sword, bow, or guns if you chose that as your attack power. But I see this is more of a pro then a con because you have direct control over what you look like. But I can see how others may view this as a negative.

But there are so many things that I just can't fit into this single review to talk about. The game has had so many improvements and additions over the years. One of the biggest being the Mission Architect which allows you to make your own missions that other players can play through and there were all kinds of new additions with the newest expansion Going Rogue that I'll have to cover another time.

With all that said however, there are few MMOs I would recommend as highly as this one. So until next time everyone...

I would post some combat screens but stills don't do it justice

The Tragedy That is Star Wars Galaxies

2010-11-01T16:11:00.000-04:00

You know, there are a lot of people who like to talk about how NGE (New Game Enhancements) ruined Star Wars Galaxis. But SWG was never a successful game. It had a very niche market and when you consider how popular Star Wars is, that is not a sign of a successful game. So let's take a look at what was wrong with SWG past and present shall we?

When the game originally launched there were a lot of problems with it. Infact some people had so much trouble even getting it to install, that Comp USA had to put up signs in their store saying that they would come to your house and install the game for you free of charge. Aside from that there were multiple things that would kind of drive away a lot of potential fans, one of which being that you couldn't choose to be a Jedi (I know it makes no sense in the Galactic Civil War era to have a Jedi, more on that later). Yeah Han Solo and Boba Fett have their share of fans. But a large number of Star Wars fans are going to want a game where they can use a light saber. There were ways to become a Jedi later in the game but they were so covered in riddles most people didn't want to sit through the trouble it would take to get to what they assumed would be the fun part of the game.

Another thing that turned many people off from the game originally was that it didn't have a regular class system. Everything was tied up in skills based off of using certain weapons or doing certain things to improve your skills. I'm sure it left a lot of people scratching there head in confusion and choosing just to not bother with the game.

Needless to say the game wasn't performing up to what you would expect out of Star Wars and after World of Warcraft claimed it's seat on the top, it was only a matter of time before someone higher up in the workings decided something needed to change. I'm not entirely sure if it was Lucas himself or someone else. But somebody came to a conclusion and one that is entirely understandable for a business man to thinking. Why is a series as popular as Star Wars being beaten so heavily by a virtual no name? If you really think about it Warcraft has nowhere near the name recognition Star Wars does and even aside from that World of Warcraft had plenty of players that had never even played a previous Blizzard game so it wasn't just Blizzard's fanbase powering the game. If I was someone running Star Wars Galaxies, I probably would have been furious too.

However they made some bad mistakes here. They tried to change too much and it's not that what they were aiming for was bad. The main problem was they were trying to push an entirely new game into the shell of one that already exists and it just doesn't work. There are too many remnants of how the game was before that either are flat out broke now or simply serve no purpose. They also tried to change it from a turn based game to one with a more action feel but failed miserably because blaster fire was a mess. Not only did you need to actually hit your enemy with the blast, but there was a chance based off stats that you'd still miss when you did hit.

NGE brought in actual classes which cause all kinds of stupid problems. For starts now anyone could start as a Jedi so they were all over the place. Sadly it was also hard to always enjoy being a Jedi, especially if you chose to be a Dark Jedi because you had no decent looking robes to pick from. You had the standard Jedi robe and the outfit Anakin wore in Episode 3. Why wouldn't they have some Sith style outfits? You can be a Dark Jedi and even choose to work for the Empire, so why give us such poor outfit choices? And if you wanted to craft, that (along with dancers) actually counted as it's own class and if you chose to be one you could never get stronger, meaning you couldn't fight. Crafting was what you did.

Another problem that came with NGE was a major content gap. They had added in what was known as "The Epic Quest Chain" which basicly was one quest after another leading you along, leveling you at a fairly decent rate, but it just ended abruptly around level 50. That may not sound too bad but max level in the game is 90. If you wanted to level past that, you had a hard road of grinding grauls for exp or doing team quests. And team quests wasn't really an option, because the player base was so pissed about NGE that pretty much everyone just sat in the Tatooine cantina complaining about how much the game sucked instead of actually playing it.

As far as I could tell most the people still subscribed were only still playing it because it allowed them to live in the Star Wars world, they would move on to another MMO but they didn't want another MMO. They wanted Star Wars. And this was a major misstep by the devs. You can not sacrifice the player base you already have in favor of a new one that you can't guarantee you'll get.

The ideas for NGE were good but implemented poorly. They clearly needed to be made into a separate game instead of added to an already existing one. Had they done that and put it in the Clone Wars setting then having Jedi available at the start would have even made sense. But instead they just made a move that pissed off the users they had and failed to impress the new users they wanted. I have next to no reason this game won't die a swift death the minute Old Republic releases.

In short, this is probably the only MMO currently running that I consider worse then Final Fantasy XI.

My thoughts on Final Fantasy XI

2010-11-01T14:48:00.000-04:00

Yes, you read that right I said Final Fantasy XI, not XIV. Why talk about this now? Well with everyone talking about how bad Final Fantasy XIV is and acting like this completely blindsided them, I figure I midaswell take a trip down memory lane and remind you... XI was never good either!

You may be thinking "What on earth are you talking about? I loved Final Fantasy XI!" and if you are it's also a very strong possibility that you never played an MMO prior to Final Fantasy XI or another one since then. Final Fantasy XI did not garner the success that it did by being a good MMO, the MMO playerbase was actually relatively small when XI launched. Back then Everquest was still the big dog and World of Warcraft was just a work in progress. Final Fantasy XI was successful not by bringing in MMO gamers, but by bringing in Final Fantasy fans who had never played an MMO before and who could not see all the things they were doing wrong. To be blunt, if you played Final Fantasy XI after having played another MMO and you still like Final Fantasy XI you were a rarity.

When it really boils down to it Final Fantasy XI basically took Everquest, magnified it's flaws and surgically removed it's strengths. To start off with let's look at character creation and server selection. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to not let you choose your server? You're assigned one at random based off of which servers are crowded and if the one your friends were on was too popular, one of your friends had to spend their hard earned gil to get you a password that would let you select their server. On top of that you had to pay an additional $1 for each character you wanted to make after your first, even though pretty much every other game out there allows you to have 5-8 characters per server. Not per account, per server! Sure you can have one character switch to any class you want, so they can technically feel like multiple characters but your race is stuck in place which may limit your effectiveness at certain class choices.

Oh and this game has one of the worst appearance customization selections I've seen. You get a few face options and two hair color choices (hair style is linked directly to the face you choose). Everquest when it launched had pregenerated face/hair combos for you to choose, but since then they had a graphical upgrade that made it have better customization options better then the ones found in Final Fantasy XI years before Final Fantasy XI was made. And to top it off, EQ also had different armor designs for the same type of armor based off of which race was equipping it. (A design choice EQII threw away but that's a story for another day).

But enough about making your character on to how the game actually plays. Well for starters Square decided to make a game for a genre that is largely geared towards PCs and knowing full well one version of it would be on PCs, yet they decided not to make use of the mouse. Yes you can go into the settings to add the ability to use the mouse, but the way it handles it makes you feel the whole time like you're doing something that you're not supposed to. Instead everything you do pretty much needs to be done through the use of hotkeys and macros.

Once you got the hang of how awkward the controls were compared to literally anything else you've ever played on the PC, you'll do what you did in most MMOs that were out at the time this one was. You'll head out into the field and start killing weak critters to gain exp to get a few levels under you belt. This seems find and standard at first, until you start to take a look around at what else there is to do. You'll realize very quickly that the quests in this are horrible. For starters unlike basicly every other MMO I can name, Quests don't give you experience. To make matters worse... the quest rewards almost all suck. In most cases what you get from the quest will be obsolete by the time you get it or it will be soon after. And since npc vendors don't pay squat for items you sell them, you can't really even make money off the stuff cause no one is going to pay a good amount for it on the auction house. At least in Everquest you could vendor the items from the quests to make money and in that the quests were even usually repeatable. But guess what? You still need to do these quests even though they aren't worth your time because it's the only way to raise your fame level which is needed for things later.

So what else can they screw up? How about grouping with other players? To do basically anything past level 10 you are required to have a party and while it's true that you usually needed to have a party to do things when you started getting to the higher levels in Everquest. At least in Everquest you didn't always need to have a very specific party set up. Granted I'm not talking about end game raid content, there were plenty of times that I was in a group that didn't even have an actual healer and we could still kill things at reasonable enough rate to still keep getting experience. In Final Fantasy XI you have to have not only a full party at all times, but you needed to have both a white mage and a warrior (or a tanking class with warrior as their subjob). If you didn't have both of those you were screwed.

To make the grouping situation even worse, the class balance was all out of whack. There were so many classes that were often deemed not worth having in your party or not worth having more then one of. So unless you were a white mage or a tank, you also never knew if you'd even be able to find a group to be in.

Then there was the fact that the community decided what each class was supposed to do rather then what the classes descriptions said. I know I should really blame the community for this and not the devs. But let's face it, the devs programmed the game this way and if you hate a MMO's community you're gonna hate the MMO. Just a few examples include the fact that Red Mages while dubbed Melee Casters, if you did melee attacks on an enemy your party would boot you. Also Summoners inspite of being one of the hardest classes to unlock and get the summons for aren't allowed to actually operate as a pet class. Keeping your pet out to attack is considered a waste of mp and you would be booted from the party if you did it. How do you make a pet class that isn't allowed to function as a pet class?

The last thing I'm gonna touch on before I wrap this up is the death penalty. Now yes in Everquest you also lost experience when you died, but the big problem in Final Fantasy XI is that every last piece of equipment in the game had level requirements on it. So it was very possible that you could hit level 11, get a bunch of new equipment and since you had very limited storage space sell the old stuff. Go back out and start adventuring, die a couple times and then you delevel. Then all your equipment falls off cause you're not high enough level to equip it and you're screwed. Sure you didn't have to do corpse runs like in Everquest but considering everything else that's wrong with Final Fantasy XI, I'd rather take corpse runs anyday!

Now I didn't even touch upon the horrible crafting system and a few other things, but honestly how horrible everything else is should keep you from even getting far enough to care about those things. To this day, in just about any MMO I play, when I talk to my fellow players they will say FFXI was the worst they've played if they've played it. The only thing this game really had going for it was the Final Fantasy name, the decent auction house set up, and shiny graphics. But as any gamer from any genre will tell you, graphics do not make the game!

V-Log 10/30/10 - Reviewers Unknown, Youtube, and Marvel

2010-10-31T02:06:00.000-04:00

Just some site related info for anyone interested.

Indian Jones and the Last Crusade Review

2010-10-25T22:30:00.000-04:00

This time around Ozzie takes a look at a classic as his contribution to the Steven Spielberg Collaberation project.

The Worst of Dragon Ball GT

2010-10-12T11:28:00.001-04:00

In this edition of Planet Arcane, Ozzie takes a look at the absolute worst that Dragon Ball GT has to offer.

Is there an Afterlife? (Resident Evil)

2010-09-26T19:42:00.000-04:00

Not much of an actual review but what the hell...

Transformers: War for Cybertron Review

2010-09-17T21:09:00.000-04:00

Transformers is a show I have loved ever since I was a kid in the 80s. So imagine my joy when this year not only did we get a new Transformers game that wasn't Bayformers, but it was also very largely based on the Generation 1 show. Sure the designs are altered to look fancier for the new age but the feel is there and that's what's important. So strap yourselves in while I tell you about it.

Backlogged Gaming: Assassin's Creed

2010-08-24T15:11:00.000-04:00

I supposed a slight explanation is in order as to what this is. Over the past probably ten years, I've really fallen behind on my games... and DVDs but that's another story. Anyhow I was really addicted to MMOs, I basicly always had to be playing one and I felt that if I wasn't constantly playing them, then the monthly fee was a waste. During that time, I still bought a lot of things (games included) that I was interested in. Even though I didn't really have the time to play them. Well now I'm working my way through a mountain of games that I've piled up and since not all of them are going to be worth doing a video review for, I still want to do something to share my opinion on them.

That brings us to the first game I'm going to cover in Backlogged Gaming which is Assassin's Creed. I remember this game being heavily hyped prior to it's released but I didn't really pay attention to what anyone thought after it was released and I'm realizing... maybe I should have.

The game is horribly repetitive. With the exception of the beginning and the very end. Every town you're going to be running around and climbing view points so you can see the map. That alone would not be bad but you also basicly have to go around saving citizens over and over if you want to max out your health bar. And when gathering information on assassination targets, there is very little diversity. You go around and either pick pocket, eavesdrop, or beat answers out of people. There are also Informants who will give you timed challenges to complete for info but that aren't required or even needed (Not even for achievements). When you realize there are only 9 targets and you have to do that for each one, you realize that running around doing meaningless bullcrap consists of the majority of the game.

The story doesn't help because once again aside from the beginning and the end, there isn't much of one. The only real plot point you find out from the assassinations that isn't also explained at the end is that... gasp... your targets are all Templars! The worst thing about this whole thing is that the plot actually starts to get really interesting at the very end and then the game basicly goes "What's that? You're enjoying it now? YOU'RE DONE!".

The game has a few things going for it. The combat is kind of enjoyable, once you get used to it. The game is also very easy to learn. Because it gives you new abilities slowly as you begin to need them and always takes the time to explain how to do them. The way it's paced is very good because by the time you get to the next ability, you've all but mastered the previous ones. The game is also pretty easy to get all but the last 150 achievement points out of. Because with the exception of the flags and templars, most the achievements you'll get naturally just from playing through the game. However flags and templars are annoying as heck to track down even with a map so if you're like me, you'll probably end up with a score of about 835 in the game.

Now trying to decide whether to recommend this game or not is actually kind of hard. I'd like to say you're better off just skipping to the sequel because having started it already, Assassin's Creed II is a much better game and has an opening sequence that basicly tells you everything that happened in the first game. However the game also basicly assumes you played the first game and doesn't explain the combat as well, so you'd still benefit from playing the first game first.

Final Score: 6/10 - Not a horrible game, but not that great either. I'd suggest jumping straight to the sequel if you're willing to deal with a harder learning curve on the game mechanics.

Blog 8-19-10: Scott Pilgrim vs The Expendables!

2010-08-19T20:35:00.000-04:00

So this past weekend I took the opportunity to see both these movies and while I'm not going to do a video about it, I figured I midaswell at least share my opinion on them.

I'll start with The Expendables since I saw it first. I honestly felt somewhat dissapointed by this movie. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it was a bad movie. I just feel I went in expecting too much out of it and even with what they did, I honestly felt they could have done it a little better. The movie is basicly a tribute to the crazy action movies we had in the 80s. Now that's fine. But the plotline also tried to make itself feel deep so we're kind of in a spot where the plot isn't as good as it could have been and at the same time unnecessary plot elements feel like they were interfering in what the movie should have been. Just straight up crazy action.

My first real complaint were the villains. I'll be the first to tell you just about any good action movie needs a good villain and these guys just weren't cutting it. They midaswell have been replaced by a few more anonymous soldiers to be gunned down because they weren't interesting, because they didn't have time to be. Steve Austin had some good fight scenes but chances are you didn't care about his character.

Certain actors felt like a complete waste. Mickey Rourke does absolutely no fighting in this and it almost feels like false advertisement that they flashed his name across the trailer with all the other stars like they did. I can't complain about Bruce Willis or Arnold because they didn't really put their names out there like they were the stars. But Terry Crews and Randy Couture did next to nothing aside from be there for the big fight scenes. Granted whenever Crews did something, he did have the most badass gun out of the whole group (An AA12) but what little of him we got just made it that more frustrating that he didn't get to do more. This movie was about Stallone, Jet Li, and Jason Stathom first and everyone else third.

However the action was enjoyable and the line Stallone said as Arnold was leaving was unforgettable. So once again, I don't hate the movie. I just wish it had been better.

On to Scott Pilgrim. This movie was amazing! They managed to take characters and a storyline that if you really sat there and looked at them on paper. You might think, well that would make a terrible movie and somehow make it incredibly enjoyable.

If you're trying to figure out what I mean, I'll start with Scott Pilgrim himself played by Michael Cera. Which first off this movie made me realize maybe I don't really hate Michael Cera, maybe I just didn't like the movies he's previously been in, but that's another story. Scott Pilgrim is honestly an asshole in the beginning. You find out that Scott has broke a bunch of girls hearts only to have his broken by a girl and the fact that it got turned around on him for a change makes him such a joker who is afraid of being hurt that he ends up going out with the highschool girl. That in itself may make you think poorly of the character but you end up finding out he has like everything in common with this girl so you kinda start to go "Ok this could work for him" and then he dumps her for no reason so he can go after another girl... What? Now I think you might understand why I say on paper that could look like an uninteresting unlikeable character, but somehow they managed to pull it off.

Aside from that all the crazy fights and video game references make this incredibly enjoyable. And I know this isn't as in depth as what I said about the Expendables but I'm gonna stop here because I really can't think of what else to say about the movie without possibly spoiling it for people.

Final Scores
Expendables: 7/10 - Good movie but nothing really all that special. But hey you get to see Dolph Lundgren vs Jet Li!

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: 9/10 - Very enjoyable movie, especially if you're a nerd.

Deleted Scenes and a Let's Play attempt.

2010-08-09T14:28:00.000-04:00

So I made my first attempt at making a Let's Play... well not exactly, I more just messed around to see how it would come out.

I also have some scenes that I didn't use for my first two reviews. One is a clip with Chris Brown (Owner of Comics & More, not the guy who beat Rihanna). The other is with my buddy Boba Vhett. The clip with Chris... frankly would have made the joke a bit too long and Boba I was gonna use as a Henchman but I don't know how often I can rely on him to be available so I scrapped that idea (No offense man).

Blog 8-6-10: Recent Movies

2010-08-06T14:18:00.000-04:00

So in the past month or so I've seen about 4 movies. So I figured even though I'm never going to do a full video style review of any of them I midaswell share my thoughts on them.

First up is Toy Story 3. Which I have a funny story to go along with it. I actually watched Toy Story 1 and 2 for the first time in the same week that I saw Toy Story 3. I went out and rented them, because when Toy Story 1 originally came out I was in my whole "American Cartoons suck! Only anime is good!" phase.

Now maybe it would have helped if I was younger when I saw them but I didn't really see anything all that special about Toy Story 1 and 2 that had everyone praising the series so much. Aside from a cringe moment where Woody was almost run over by a truck, not much really got my attention with the first movie and the only thing that particular made me feel like the 2nd one was 100% worth the time I was spending watching them was that Zurg is freaking awesome! He's such a cliche villain character but yet at the same time so awesome and it just irritates me to no end that he's only playable in the PS3 version of the Toy Story 3 game.

But Toy Story 3 on the other hand, that was well worth the price of admission. I can't quite put my finger on what it was (Maybe the existance of an actual villain) but that movie had my full attention the entire time. I guess it might be because they were faced with a very real threat this time, rather then just making wild guesses about what might happen to them. I have no real intention of adding 1 or 2 to my DVD collection, but when 3 comes out I may very well get the DVD.

A few weeks later I saw a nice little gem that a lot of people seemed to be underestimating called Despicable Me. Anyone who knows me, probably knows deep down that I love villains. My entire childhood I was the weird kid who always rooted for the bad guys in cartoons. So knowing they were making a movie where the main character is a super villain? If I were still a kid I would have felt this movie was tailor made for me and even as an adult this movie did not let me down.

The thing that was really great about Despicable Me is that nothing feels unnaturally put together. They manage to make a story about a villain adopting a group of kids not come off as completely stupid or unrealistic. And the best thing, the very best thing about this movie, though I won't go into specifics since that would ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Is the fact that even though the story makes you think he would, Gru does not cop out and become a good guy because of the kids. A lot of people were like "Oh it's gonna be this cliche story where the girls make him realize he has a heart of gold and become a hero." and no, that's not what happens.

The third movie I saw recently was Predators. I had intended to see it anyhow but I ended up going to see it when I did because... we lost power and it was late so there was nothing much else to do aside from sit in the dark. But I was definately glad that I did. Angry Joe already said that it wasn't as good as the original but it was better then the second movie... and I think I can agree with that. It definately was miles better then those crappy Alien vs Predator movies we got in recent years.

While Predators did take some ideas from the first movie, being in a jungle and all. I think it's main strengths were in it's differences, rather then a band of army guys who all know each other. We get a band of misfits from various places and walks of life, though all of them are deadly "warriors". In a way it kinda reminds me of the groups you would see in a Zombie movie... if all of them knew how to defend themselves. It kinda sucks that my favorite character was the first to die though. All in all I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Predator franchise or even horror movies (Though this is more action) to help wash out the taste of some of the truly horrible remakes we've gotten lately.

Last movie I saw oh so recently was Sorcerer's Apprentice and I wanna start out by saying. I really don't get all the Nicholas Cage hate. Granted I don't watch a lot of Nicholas Cage movies but the only movie I've seen him in that was really bad was Ghost Rider and I'm starting to think maybe it's not because he's a terrible actor but maybe he just gets miscast a lot. He did very well as Big Daddy in Kickass and as Balthazar in this, but as Johnny Blaze he just sucked. I don't know if it's maybe he's good at doing less emotion displaying characters or if the director for Ghost Rider just sucked. I mean plenty of people love Natalie Portman even though they think she sucked in Star Wars but they completely blame that on George Lucas. Or perhaps they're just thinking with the wrong head when it comes to her.

Anyhow, so the Sorcerer's Apprentice is actually a rather cliche story in which the young nerdy guy becomes the hero and gets the girl. I really wish things were that simple for all us nerds, though replace hero with villain. But inspite of how cliche the story is I really enjoyed it. I think this is largely due to one major factor, it's a movie largely centered around magic that isn't about a little boy (I hate Harry Potter). It also doesn't hurt that their are some nice references to things like Fantasia and Star Wars. But all in all, I'd say it was a great movie, just don't expect anything ground breaking from it and you probably will too.

So those are my thoughts on some of the more recent movies. Suffice to say I liked all 4 and that's largely because I am very picky about what I see in theaters. That's why you don't see me ranting about how much I hated Last Airbender or something like that because I avoided it like the plague. Maybe I should change that though, I might lose some nerd creds for not raging enough.

Until next time everyone...

Captain N Retrospective / The Worst of Captain N

2010-08-05T23:09:00.000-04:00

This time around Ozzie takes a look at Captain N and the worst episode in the series titled "Germ Wars".

Edit: Since I forgot to mention it in the credits, it is only fair to give credit here that the title cards were by Zikar, the creator of Death Knell.

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

2010-06-15T00:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how happy I am with this first video, but whether it's good or not will be for the viewers to decide. I have however learned from mistakes while making this and won't repeat them with the next video.

Note: Yes I know that I accidently left Elegost out when I was ranting off about the characters.