EA Sports Active: Day 10 (The Discouraged)

Quick update on Day 10, I haven't lost any more weight. Started at 248.5, got down to 243.5 after the first 5 days and that's where I stay today. It's pretty disheartening because we've been working hard on my diet. I say we because my wife makes my lunch while I'm working and then I can swing by and eat, and she's been weighing food and counting calories for everything.

It was decided a few days ago that I should probably be eating more as a length of time in between lunch and dinner combined with an hour long walk led to me passing out. So we bumped it up to 2500 calories. Once again, why doesn't the game help you decide things like this? We based that decision on a site that recommended it from my height and weight, something the game could easily have done as well.

I realize that they are probably gearing this game toward people who already work out regularly to fitness videos and such but if its billing itself as a personal trainer then it should endeavor to provide all the things a personal trainer would provide. Simple help with your diet and exercise routine wouldn't be that hard to include especially since the balance board can take BMI readings.

Maybe a new Wii Fit that isn't completely boring will show up at E3 and I'll switch to that. I thought about getting Personal Trainer Walking for DS so I could become the Jared of video games. I don't really feel like continuing this, but I'll persevere. Peaks and valleys are to be expected, its just frustrating. I changed out the nunchuk I was using and some of the control annoyances got better so maybe my launch-era nunchuks are going bad. I also still haven't ventured into customer support world to see if I can get a replacement leg strap before mine finishes ripping apart, but I'll save that for next time.

Follow my Saga:
The Intent
Day 1
Day 5

May Music Wrap-Up

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. The songs are for sampling purposes only and will be removed the next month. Artists or labels notify me with any complaints and I will remove the song as soon as possible. Please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

Well look at that, and I thought there wasn't anything coming out this month. After I said that a month ago I was surprised several times with new releases that I hadn't been keeping track of. Some of my favorite bands put out CDs in May but June and July are looking just as promising. The summer release schedule isn't just for movies folks, so get ready.

The Paper Chase

I'm Going to Heaven With or Without You (The Forest Fire)



The Common Cold (The Epidemic)



I love paper chase more and more with every listen. To be fair, they are slightly inaccessible. I've never listened to one of their cds and loved it on the first listen, it's always around the third or fourth listen that I become enamored. I bought this release from Amazon so I haven't gotten much into the lyrics to figure out the story but I think it's all about a vengeful, pissed off God creating a swarm of natural disasters on Earth. These are the second and third songs on the cd so you can't hear the opening track which is a sort of haunting summary of the coming demise of the human race. Just imagine where Vol. 2 is going to go.

Jeremy Enigk - Same Side Imaginary



Sunny Day Real Estate's "Diary" is another one of those albums I would take from my brothers room to listen to, so when I saw the former singer put out a new solo record I had to check it out.

Franz Nicolay - This World is an Open Door



Yeah, this came out in January, but if you haven't noticed I've kind of set a precedent for stretching the rules. You've got to love Franz. He's in 2 of my favorite bands, The Hold Steady and The World/Inferno Friendship Society. Lots of drunk people yell stupid stuff like "Mariooo!" at him during concerts because of his well groomed mustache but the man deserves our utmost respect. Are you in 2 amazing bands? No? Then leave the man alone!

Green Day

21st Century Breakdown



Restless Heart Syndrome



I've already defended my fondness for Green Day. This is a good cd, give it a chance. At least listen past the first 2 minutes, 15 seconds on "21st Century Breakdown" because that's when it gets really good.

Grizzly Bear

Southern Point



While You Wait for the Others



If this video didn't clue you in, Grizzly Bear is a weird band. I really like their new cd though, its a mellow sort of background music.

mewithoutYou

The Fox, The Crow, and The Cookie



Bullet to Binary Pt. 2



The patented yell singing is virtually gone on this cd, replaced with a weird sort of nasally singing that I don't like a whole lot, but it's still a good release. We get another remake of a song from their first album in "Bullet to Binary Pt. 2", which is the only song to keep his old yelling a little bit, some of the lyrics are bordering on generic christian rock though. I really hope they don't fully cross that line.

Trailer Park: June

Trailer Park is a monthly post where we feature trailers for the upcoming months movie releases.

Coming into the second month of the summer blockbuster season, we dive head first into the comedies. There may be some really great movies hidden here, or they may turn out to be crap, either way there seems to be less heavy hitters this month then last. It's a toss up on who'll take the top box office on most of these, we'll have to wait and see.

The 5th

The Hangover

I'm not sure about this one. I do love Zach Galifiniakis though.

Land of the Lost

My Will Ferrell fatigue set in years ago and was only slightly tempered by the wonderful Stranger Than Fiction. This type of movie is up in the air, as with Snakes on a Plane its very easy to step over that fine line between funny schlock and stupid schlock.

Away We Go

Indie darling or lame attempt at trying to be? With Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) behind the helm it can't be all bad right?

Other Releases:
My Life in Ruins
The Art of Being Straight
Downloading Nancy

The 12th

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Ah remakes, Hollywood loves 'em. This will probably frustrate fans of the original, but be a perfectly serviceable popcorn action flick. As long as Travolta doesn't ham it up.

Moon

This is the movie I'm most looking forward to this month. With this and District 9 in August its sure to be a good year for some groundbreaking sci-fi.

Other Releases:
Imagine That
Food, Inc.
Sex Positive
Street Dreams

The 19th

Year One

This doesn't seem like my type of comedy. It does have 2 of the cast members of Arrested Development in it though.

Other Releases:
The Proposal
$9.99
Cheri
Dead Snow (haha, nazi zombies. Ridiculous.)
Whatever Works (Woody Allen, Larry David)

The 24th-26th

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Here's the big one for June. Probably won't be very good but as a mindless action flick, why not. Luckily I never watched Transformers as a kid so I won't fly into a nerd rage over inconsistencies.

Other Releases:
The Hurt Locker
My Sister's Keeper
Life is Hot in Cracktown
Quiet Chaos
The Stoning of Soraya M.
Surveillance

Batman Was Silly Part 12: Caveman Batman

Well ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the week again. Apologies for it being a day late. But this weeks brings us back in time to when Batman and Robin lived amongst Neanderthals and helped fight whatever crime there was back then. Not only did Batman and Robin evolve much faster than us normal Homosapiens, but they were also able create handy gadgets and costumes for themselves. Batman was never a fan of the loin cloth. However, Robin was apprehensive about making his cover more of his groin region and wearing a shirt. He eventually got used to it. Also they seemed to be fighting alongside a possible missing link. Could anthropologists around the world be wrong in thinking that we evolved from apes?! Batman and Robin are seen here with the missing link between tigers and humans! I knew it wasn't weird that I only clean myself by licking myself.

(Click image for full size)

"Quick Robin and Tigerman, we must use our tree catapult and leave this monstrous beast behind!"

EA Sports Active: Day 5 (The Overwhelmed)

Today is my fifth day doing the 30 day challenge with EA Sports Active. Apparently they encourage you to have a rest day every third day. Much like the 15 minute break warning on all Wii games, I did it anyway on Sunday. Yesterday being memorial day and all, I had that be my break. Then I ate a bunch of crap at a bonfire. Either way, I've lost 5 pounds since starting.

I decided I should probably watch what I eat when doing this so that it's not pointless. Calorie counting is overwhelming. For the first day or 2 I was wary to eat anything because I'd look at the calories and realize it took me 20 minutes to work that off in the game. So I asked my dad about it when we were visiting as he's an athletic guy. He told me to stay below 2000 calories a day if I want to lose weight. I wish they would give more advice like that within the actual game, that and some more balance board functionality. I got it to read my board after a battery change but for some reason it doesn't give you an option for weighing yourself with it or anything.

The game's been working I guess though. The controls can be really frustrating sometimes. I pointed it out on my Day 1 post but the inline skating controls are terrible. After about 2 or 3 times of it not reading my jump I've begun to just toss down the remote and wait for it to end. Frustration aside, the trudge continues. My leg strap has started to rip apart at the buckle so maybe I'll have a customer support line story to tell you at the next update.

Follow my saga:

The Intent
Day 1

What I've Been Playing: Loco Roco 2

I had to have something more casual after the grind fest that was Final Fantasy 3, so I popped in Loco Roco 2. I really enjoyed the first game. It was fun, quirky, and very entertaining. If you aren't familiar with the basic concept, you control the screen by tilting it left or right with the L and R shoulder buttons, hitting both together to flick the screen and make your guy jump. You roll your little blob around the world, looking for orange plants to eat and become bigger. At any time you can hit the circle button to break up into individual blobs. Try to find all 20 of the plants in each level, and progress through the levels to the end of the game, that's about it.

Both games stick to that formula, but there's more thrown in throughout levels to spice it up. So far I've experienced many objects that I can crawl into and then roll around in. You can also hold the circle button in the water to sink down and explore the depths. I'm glad that the game added new abilities like this to help break up the game play, but the implementation annoys me.

In order to get most of these new abilities, you have to reach a certain level where you are greeted by a guy who shows you how to do them. Doing it this way quickly makes it into a Zelda type scenario where you can see areas the first time through the level that you can't reach and you know you'll have to come back later with some new ability in order to get there. I'm one of those people that play games obsessively, meaning with the first Loco Roco I would often play through a level over and over until I got all 20 plants, and then move on, so creating this artificial barrier to me completing the level 100% is frustrating.

The game as a whole can be super annoying. You will inevitably hit some spike or something right before the end of the level, and have to do the whole thing over again in order to complete it with all 20. Even so, it always compels me to keep turning on the game and try levels again.

The game can quite easily jump the line between quirky and kiddy though. It's not really fun to collect stamps in the levels and then put them onto stamp cards to get new items, it just seems like a kids game in moments like that. Then there's oddly adult themes. I'm not the only one who notice the boy roco and the girl roco's little... uh, appendages would seem to fit together perfectly am I? I'll leave you with some pictures so you can decide for yourself.

If the yellow and pink ones go together, who takes the others?

Is this phallic?

These have got to be phallic, right?

Green Day Nostalgia

When I was a kid, the only music I knew about was what was on the radio, or what I could steal out of my brothers room. Dookie was one of the albums that I found in his room and listened to endlessly, as was Nimrod. By the time I was seriously getting into music and listening to more then just what was available in a closet down the hall, Warning was coming out. So I added it to my Christmas list among several other cds. It was on the list I gave to my sister, who decided the the song titles "Jackass" and "Blood, Sex, and Booze" meant it wasn't appropriate for a 15 year old.

Luckily my brother knew she wasn't going to buy it for me and so he got it instead. I listened to that cd just as much as I had Dookie or Nimrod before. Still, there was something wrong. I was still at a young enough age that I was oblivious to bands I liked not being anything but amazing, but I still knew it wasn't as good.

In the coming years, as my love for music grew, I came to realize that it just wasn't the Green Day cd that I had wanted. It made me jaded to all things Green Day, and I didn't care at all when that singles cd came out, or when American Idiot was announced. Late summer 2004 I went to Warped Tour though, and was handed a demo cd for it. I was impressed. I was just beginning to learn of my absolute love for concept albums, and upon hearing that this would be one I decided to check it out. It was definitely the cd I had wanted Warning to be, a big leap in Green Day's sound.

It was tough to get back into the water after having been out for so long though. I never obsessed over American Idiot like I had past albums. Now, after the release of a new cd that I hadn't even heard about until I was inundated with the single everywhere I turned, I'm still wary. My initial reaction to the first listen is very favorable though.

It seems as though it is another loose concept album, meaning the story isn't as complex as that of bands like Coheed & Cambria or Mars Volta, but it follows the storys of two characters throughout. There are some epic sounding songs on here, none as epic as "Jesus of Suburbia" or "Homecoming" from Idiot but epic sounding none the less. My only problem is that it sort of drags toward the end and some of the songs don't seem to be up to the standards or the ones that open the cd. I don't know if those songs fit into the narrative but I would have just axed them, or thrown them on a bonus disc or something.

With a band like Green Day, who are big enough that a new album once every 4 or 5 years is enough, the albums need to stand up to extreme amounts of listening. I'm not entirely sure if this one does, but there is certainly enough material available for it to if the songs don't get tiresome too quickly. I'm not sure if they've won my heart back completely, but I feel a sense of nostalgia again when I listen to them. They are one of the bands that helped start my love of music but I fell away from later in life. With this release, and Idiot before it, they've taken two big steps back into relevancy though. Hopefully they'll keep growing and reinventing their sound in creative ways and one day I will be head over heels again.

Batman Was Silly Part 11: Infinite Batman and Robin

Back after an extremely long unwanted hiatus, I have returned and I bring more silliness. This week's show's how the idea's for their covers is made.

"Gee Willikers Batman! I'm tripping the fuck out!"

EA Sports Active: Day 1 (The Optimistic)

I picked up the game yesterday, and just finished my first workout this morning. I'll spare you the before pictures but I weigh 248 pounds. I was originally planning on trying to get below 200 but that definitely won't happen on this 30 day challenge and I don't know if the game will keep me interested long enough after that to do it. So I just won't set a goal as I'm not quite sure whats feasible for the game.

One thing I didn't enjoy was that the first thing the game asked me was for my age, height and weight. I've got a Wii Balance Board sitting right in front of me, why don't you take my weight yourself so I don't have to go into the bathroom and pull out the scale. I also don't like this Bob Greene guy. I don't really care about you being on Oprah, why are you even in the game?

Upon skipping Bob Greene's intro video, I was asked to choose a trainer. I chose the guy since I assumed the woman would be annoying to listen to throughout my 30 days. The trainers primarily introduced all the activities with little videos, but they'd also incessantly give you encouragement during the exercise. That is except when my character was slowing down and speeding up at his own will during the running no matter how even a pace I kept. The running was put at the beginning and end of my routine and by the end I was able to keep an even pace.

Maybe I got better at it or maybe I just learned the limitations of the Wii controls. In the same sense was the inline skating, which was basically just squatting and jumping. It would fail to read my jumps half of the time, so I eventually just took the nunchuk out of the leg strap and would jerk it up as I jumped.

Overall, I think this game has a lot more of a chance to make me lose weight then Wii Fit did. Wii Fit would kick you back out to the menu after every activity and let you choose what to do next. Not only would that make me feel less inclined to do the more strenuous activities, it would break up the momentum of the exercise routine as a whole. With Active, it just throws another activity at you right when you finish the last, so your heart rate never slows and you are told what you should be doing rather then just doing another Ski Jump or Tight Rope Walk like in Fit. We'll see whether that works for me as the challenge continues. Look for another update on Day 5.

Amazing Patrick Watson Video

This is why I love NPR so much. They are constantly putting out amazing podcasts. Exposing me to great music with All Songs Considered or Second Stage (which might not be a podcast anymore), or putting up whole recorded concerts of bands I love.

More recently they've started doing videos of bands playing "tiny desk concerts" at their offices. With Patrick Watson, I think they decided that that just wouldn't work. So they put him up in a studio to record a few songs for them and the result is amazing. The sound is so great on these songs, and its nice to be able to see his percussionist banging on over turned pots and such. Enjoy the video, and check out all of the NPR music podcasts as they are worth your time.

Finally Some Footage from the New Team ICO Game

Finally! Team ICO has made two of my favorite games of all time, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Previously all we have seen from them to hint at the next game was that picture above. Now we have some real footage.

I'm excited that the ancient ruins from this video look exactly like those of their last two games because it means that maybe we'll learn a little bit more about that world. I am kind of confused about this creature that the boy has. Is that a baby griffin or something? Still, Team ICO managed to tug at your heart strings with giant colossi that could easily crush you, and tried, so I'm eager to see what they can pull off with this cute cuddly thing.

Maybe we'll hear more at E3? Most of the gaming press thinks that this game will be saved for the next Tokyo Game Show but it's peculiar that this footage just came out, only a few weeks from E3. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Final Thoughts on Final Fantasy 3

I finally finished Final Fantasy 3, and thought I'd give more of my thoughts. I know, I realized later that there were fountains in most towns that revived fallen party members, and that later you get a revive spell anyway. That's sort of the problem though, that type of stuff should be something they tell you.


While most of the game wasn't as difficult as I initially thought it would be, toward the end it gets ridiculous. I swear I spent at least 10 hours at the final dungeon just leveling up to try to beat the last boss, or trying and failing and then having to trek all the way back to try again. In a game where the storyline is completely cookie cutter from most NES RPG's, there is little motivation to beat that sort of insanity.


My real motivation became the job system. While it was really frustrating at the end, it gave me a chance to try out new jobs for my characters, and I found that kind of fun. It made the whole situation more tolerable because it wasn't just that I had to make it to a higher level to beat the boss, it was the tweaking of my characters jobs to find the best team to fight her.


Ultimately I'd have rather been enjoying the job system in a game with a story I actually cared about. You have to give the game credit for nailing a fun system like that way back in the NES days though. I just wonder why SquareEnix didn't make this DS remake a tad easier, maybe by adding save points in the dungeons or something. It certainly would have taken away some frustration. Either way, I'm glad I finally beat it. I can add one more notch to my Final Fantasy belt and have a bit more of that strange sense of commitment to the series.

A Third Chance for Anti-Flag

If it wasn't for me always looking for new releases to feature in the Music Wrap-Up every month then I would have probably just ignored Anti-Flag's new cd The People or the Gun. I had already been burned twice before with For Blood and Empire and then The Bright Lights of America. They weren't terrible, I just couldn't get into them like I did previous releases.

The faults with The People or the Gun are exactly the same. I'm not the type of person that cries foul when a band changes up their sound or matures their lyrics, I encourage it. That's sort of been what my biggest problem has been with Anti-Flag in the past few records, they seem to think that in order to keep fans happy, they need to keep their formula simple. I've heard these guys speak very intelligently about politics in interviews, but when it comes to some of their lyrics... well, let me provide you with some examples from the new cd.

We’re so f*cked and we don’t give a f*ck, no.
We’re so f*cked, but no we just don’t care, no.
We’re so f*cked, this world is sh*t out of luck and we don’t give a f*ck.

It’s time to make a move,
Change the times or they’ll change you.
False promises of more.
Check that sh*t at the door.

While that stuff might be good for making the 13 year olds scream and shout it, I could care less about it. How old is Anti-Flag at this point? According to Wikipedia Chris #2 is 29 and Justin Sane is 36. That hardly seems like the lyrics match their age.

The real evolution in the bands sound occurred with The Terror State, a cd with which I am prepared to defend to anyone who dislikes it. Around the time of it's release, a lot of bands were disappointing me with more of the same stuff. I was looking for my favorite punk bands to mature and grow with me as I started listening to deeper music. In The Terror State I saw a big step in the right direction. The music was much more complex and layered then that of Underground Network. Sure there were a few duds at the beginning of the cd, namely "Rank-N-File" and "Power to the Peaceful", but overall it more then delivered what I was looking for. Unfortunately that was never to happen again.

Every release since then has failed to expand or change their sound. I've begun to think of them as more of a band for teenagers. Any deep and insightful political insight that I might want will have to be found in bands like Propagandhi. For all the 13 year olds that want to yell "F*ck the system!" they'll have a band in Anti-Flag. My tastes have matured past that.

EA Sports Active (The Intention)

I hunted down a copy of Wii Fit in the first few weeks of release, mostly because my wife wanted it and I never say no to permission to buy a video game, but also because I was curious. I'm not exactly "in shape", so if it works for losing weight then all the better. Of course, like everyone else who bought Wii Fit, it ended up in the closet a few weeks later. Well, my wife made it a few weeks and I actually made it over a month.

I still didn't see any weight loss though, and thats probably because a good amount of my daily time on the game was used to just randomely pick activities. I'm not a trainer, so I don't know when I should do aerobic or yoga or whatever else, and there was no direction given. From what I've heard about EA Sports Active though it is much better about giving you an idea of what you should be doing and for how long.

They have some sort of 30 day challenge thing going on, and while I'm not officially partaking in that or anything, I figured I would give the game 30 days of my own and see where I end up. I'm plenty happy with my gut, but in the interest of not hearing the wife nag me about losing weight, its worth a shot.

The game comes out on Tuesday I believe. When I find it and pick it up, I'll do a Day 1 post. After that I'll keep everyone up to date every 5 days with my weight and such to see if it's working. After 30 days, we'll see how much weight I lost.

Has Abrams Blown the Door Open for Sci-Fi?

Not long ago, Hollywood was obsessed with the fantasy epic. No matter what came before it, Lord of the Rings was the real cause of this obsession. Soon they were adapting what ever fantasy series they could get their hands on for the big screen, from Narnia to Golden Compass, the seams were surely to burst. So now that Hollywood has tried its hand at making another mountain of money like that of the LotR franchise, and mostly failed, what's next?

JJ Abrams may have just provided that answer for us. The Sci-Fi genre was sort of dead. I mean sure, there were outliers like the Star Wars prequels, but mostly studios didn't seem willing to fork out the dough required to make blockbuster Sci-Fi movies. Now along comes Star Trek, which so far has made 79 million in its first week. Granted it's no Dark Knight but thats certainly nothing to scoff at. So does this mean we've found the new obsession for Hollywood?

This does seem to be the summer of sci-fi what with Star Trek, Terminator, Moon, and District 9. It remains to be seen whether the latter two will make a splash with their smaller budgets and lack of a known property. Still, we've heard rumors of adaptations for Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Arthur C. Clarke's Rendevous With Rama which could also be made into a series if they adapt the other 3 books.

It definitely seems inevitable, especially if Terminator does as well as everyone seems to expect. I know that I'm glad we may see more original material like Moon and District 9 come out of this but I'm not quite sure how I feel about some of the adaptations we're going to get. I don't really know if Rendevous With Rama will make for a good movie, and if it's successful are they going to go back and bastardize Kubricks classic 2001 by redoing it? Is this a trend you are going to enjoy, or would you prefer they leave this material alone?

I'll leave you with the trailer for District 9 as it looks amazing and we've yet to post it.

New Beyond Good & Evil 2 Footage?

Beyond Good & Evil was one of my favorite games of the last generation. Unfortunately it wasn't very successful at all. That's why it blew me away when they showed the amazing looking teaser trailer announcing a sequel. Obviously Michel Ancel forked in enough money for Ubisoft with his Rayman Raving Rabbids games that they let him return to projects he's much more passionate about. Well, gearing up for E3, we now have a new video that seems to be for BG&E2. Sure, there's no official word about it, but the character sure looks a lot like Jade, and it's hit online almost exactly a year from the announcement trailer. I hope we hear more about this next month at E3. Here's the new video, and in case you missed it the original teaser trailer below it.








Thanks to the Beyond Good & Evil 2 fan group on Facebook for bringing this to my attention and Kotaku for posting the story.

Superhero Movie Fatigue

If Spider Man and X-Men didn't do it, then The Dark Knight sure did, studios have definitely been convinced that superhero movies are big business. Spider Man set record numbers at the box office that hadn't had competition since Titanic and then only a few years later another superhero movie, The Dark Knight, came along to crush those numbers. Can this trend hold out? As studios start to green light more and more obscure heroes, will the public keep caring? Here's a brief list of the movies slated for the upcoming years.

Nick Fury (2010)
Ant-Man (2010)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Green Lantern (2010)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2 (2011)
X-Men Origins: Magneto (2011)
Deadpool (2011)
Spider Man 4 (2011)
Thor (2011)
Deathlok (2011)
Luke Cage (2011)
The First Avenger: Captain America (2011)
Doctor Strange (2012)
Silver Surfer (2012)
The Avengers (2012)

I probably missed some, Marvel is much more adamant about announcing movies then DC is, but that's quite a list for the next 3 years. That's not including all the unannounced movies that are no doubt coming like a third Batman and another Superman. So, what say you? Can the mainstream public who have no idea who Ant Man and Luke Cage are support these movies, or will the shear amount of movies crush this tower of money?

Trailer Park: The Summer Movie Rush

I've been toying with making a regular post that features new movie trailers as they come out. What better time to start it then now, as the flood of summer movies begins. This post will be focused solely on the movies coming out in May to attempt to keep it less cluttered, but hopefully in the future I can find a better way to post these things without so many videos.

The 8th

Star Trek



I've never seen an episode of Star Trek, or any of the movies, and I've never been interested to. JJ Abrams has managed to change that. This is a summer blockbuster if there ever was one.


The 15th

Angels & Demons




The Brothers Bloom



I don't know very much about this film, I'm just going off the buzz for it as well as director Rian Johnson. You probably won't be able to actually see it on the 15th unless you live in New York or LA but it expands on the 29th. There sure are a lot of explosions in this trailer.


The 21st/22nd

Terminator: Salvation



I haven't seen any of the Terminator movies, but I think I might go back and watch them all to get the full experience from this movie. Is it just me or does the Terminator skull at the beginning look like the Donnie Darko bunny guy?

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian



Being the first kids movie of the summer, this might beat Terminator at the box office. It really doesn't interest me, but I've heard people say the first was good. It does have Ricky Gervais in it, but that's probably not enough to get me to go see it.


The 29th

Up



Plenty of people are obsessed with Pixar, I'm not. Then again I think the only movies of theirs I saw have been Cars and Toy Story, I know I sound like a broken record with the whole I've never seen stuff. Still, Pixar certainly puts out quality kids movies that I'll be glad to let my kid watch when she's older.

Drag Me to Hell



The return of Sam Raimi to the horror genre is sure to excite fans of the EvilDead movies, but will the general movie going audience understand his weird blend of comedy, gore, and horror? Probably not. It's sure to be a cult classic though.

E3 Predictions

When I saw this news story on my RSS feed I decided I should get around to posting my E3 Predictions post that I've been thinking about for a little while, and quickly. We are now less then a month from the biggest event in the gaming industry, and things are beginning to leak like a sieve. So before every surprise is blown, let's get on with my foolish predictions that will end up being wrong.


Sony

What I'm sure will be a big part of their press conference has already been leaked, the PSP Go!. It might prove to have been just a rumor, but it seems pretty concrete, and with the attention that Sony has suddenely put on their handheld it certainly seems likely. The new PSP and the bevvy of new games for it is sure to be a big part of their focus, but what of the PS3? We can only hope that that fabled price cut will happen, and that it will be $100 one and not a measly $50 one. Other then that most of the attention will be on the upcoming holiday and spring 2010 games, and possibly some new announcements of games even further out. I doubt that the next Team Ico game will finally be announced here in America, as that's usually saved for Tokyo Game Show, though I would love for it to be. Heavy Rain will probably be hands on this year as it was shown behind closed doors to select journalists at last years E3. I'm going to take this time to call something now, I don't know if it'll be said at E3, but that M.A.G. game that the Socom team is working on has to be somehow branded with the Socom name. They wouldn't really put it out the door with the name Massive Action Game would they? My guess is it'll have the Socom name attached to it at some point soon.


Microsoft

This press conference is going to go one of two ways. 1. It'll be the same old boring thing. They'll say how great their sales are, give hands ons for all the fall releases, and that'll be about it. Or 2. They will show something off that we won't be expecting. Up until today, I didn't know what that could be, but now I'm suspecting that it will be some sort of motion controller or sensor bar. The 360 Arcade unit is already $50 cheaper then a Wii, if Microsoft could pull motion control off as well and support it then they might be able to grab onto the Nintendo train thats quickly racing away from it's competitors. They've already got Rare in their pockets to make perfect Wii type games for a new motion controller. As for games, I have no clue, maybe a new Crackdown?? Microsoft doesn't like to show things off until they are coming out that year, so there might not be very many surprises gaming wise. Perhaps we will finally see more Alan Wake though.


Nintendo

This press conference will go one of one ways. Nintendo has nothing up their sleeves that will be at all exciting. DSi just came out, Wii Motion Plus is on its way, and the Wii itself is selling gangbusters. We won't be seeing any price cuts, new gadgets, or new hardware guaranteed. The only thing they will be doing is talking up the Wii Motion Plus and DSi. They might have a few games to unveil, my guess is Red Steel 2 will be announced and shown off with the motion plus controls. Possibly they'll pull out a big gun and announce a new Wii Zelda game or something else like a Donkey Kong, Star Fox or that fabled Kid Icarus reboot. I'm doubting that though, it'd be nice but probably won't happen. If anything, we'll see some DSi Ware games that are actually good to try to convince people that theres a reason to buy a shiny new DSi.


Well, that's all I've got. I'm not going to get into third party companies and games that they might announce. Yeah, I kind of played it safe, it's less a list of predictions and more just general thoughts on what will probably happen. Sure I didn't get all crazy and start calling out things that will be announced, but I prefer to not get my hopes up for that kind of stuff anyway. Either way, I'm really excited for this years E3. Even if nothing else is exciting, all the PSP love will be enough for me. It'll be nice to be playing it much more over the next year or so. Anybody else have any thoughts on what'll happen at E3 this year?

What I've Been Playing: Final Fantasy 3

I've been thinking about how to make a post out of my thoughts for what I'm currently playing, but couldn't come up with anything that seemed like it would be a topic worthy of a blog post. So instead I decided that from now on, in lieu of having a podcast or something to discuss my feelings on something, I'm going to make posts on my general feelings or thoughts on things I have played/watched/read/listened to/ate/whatever. The first of these posts is on the game that I am currently about 15 hours into, Final Fantasy 3.

When I first started playing, I had a rant forming in my head. After coming out of the cave in which you start the game, I quickly found that anywhere that I went that wasn't exactly where I should be going, there were monsters there that could slaughter me. So before I could ever head into the next part of the game, I had to grind out some levels. Now, I've had to grind in RPG's before, but having to that early lead me to think that the rest of the game would be ridiculous. Usually games gradually ramp up that kind of stuff throughout the game.

Eventually though I got into a groove with the game though, and stopping before any dungeons to gain a level or 2 usually prevented my immediate death. This game is still extremely unfriendly to anyone who hasn't played a million RPG's before. It's tiny little things that keep adding up. For instance, if one of your party members dies, there is absolutely no way to bring them back without using an item. This may not be an issue if you could buy those items, but you can't, and they aren't found very often. Also, there is no place to save anywhere in the game except for on the world map. This means that you can save before entering a dungeon, but there will be no other place to save until you have completed that dungeon, so if you die fighting the boss, tough shit, you have to start over again.

Things like this are most likely why this game was never released in America until now. Back in the NES days, Japanese people thought Americans couldn't handle difficult games. Thats why we got another game completely as Mario Bros. 2 instead of the real one which had killer mushrooms and other such insanity. My issue with this thought process is that if FF3 had come out back then, I wouldn't have even thought about the difficulty. NES games are notoriously unforgiving. These days I've grown out of that. It's especially annoying on a handheld when I don't want to start a dungeon because I don't know how long it'll take and I might have to stop playing before I can beat it.

Either way, I've been pushing my way through the game partly because I want a handheld game to be playing and partly because I feel some sort of strange sense of commitment to the Final Fantasy series. The storyline is completely throw away though and its not making me want to continue when I have the PSP God of War to still get through. The crystals have called the four warriors of light to save the world from the darkness, yeah yeah, I could be ripping off medusa heads. For the time being it is still drawing me back to it for some strange reason, but I soon might fall away to the siren songs of GoW, Loco Roco 2, or Patapon 2.

April Music Wrap-Up

Once again, I didn't have a lot of stuff to feature from April. This recurring dilemma is probably due to the fact that most of my listening time is spent on podcasts, and if I don't hear a band on a podcast or already know of that band I don't really take the time to check out their cd. Maybe I should unsubscribe to some stuff. For the time being though, I cut some corners. One of these cd's came out at the end of March and 3 of them come out early May. This might be shooting myself in the foot when the May Music Wrap-Up comes around but one of my favorite bands of all time, The Paper Chase, is putting out a cd then and if I can't find anything else to feature then I'm going to dedicate the whole thing to their music. As always, this music is for sampling purposes only and my hope is not for piracy but to turn people on to music I enjoy, so please don't sue me. Anything can be removed upon request from the artists or record labels. Now, let's get into it.

Strung Out - Don't Look Back



This is a collection of b-sides and rarities, which probably means you should be a big fan of Strung Out before you pick it up. I'm not a huge fan of them, though I do enjoy their music from time to time. There's some good stuff on here, but it's most likely more appreciated by fans.


NOFX

My Orphan Year



Creeping Out Sara



I was kind of disappointed by the new NOFX cd. I like their mature stuff more then their goofy stuff. Still, it's grown on me the more I listen. The second song here, Creeping Out Sara, is an especially funny one. It helps if you know who Tegan and Sara are, but long story short, they are a band fronted by 2 lesbian sisters with somewhat mulletesque haircuts. There ya go, now you'll mostly get it.


The Hold Steady - The Swish (Live)



The Hold Steady are so good. There's just something about their brand of bar band rock and roll. If you haven't heard of them then go buy all 4 of their cds, and pick up this new live cd/dvd while you're at it. They are one of the few bands that are equally praised among the critics and masses of common people.


Patrick Watson - Beijing



I feel like I'm deceiving you by putting up this song, as the rest of the cd is much more mellow and moody, but it's amazing. Drums are the be all end all of whether or not I'll like a song and this song has certainly got them. Aside from the pounding bass drum, they are banging on anything and everything around the house. Theres even the sound of bike pedals turning in there, it's definitely an experience for the ears.


Akron/Family - Everyone is Guilty



I don't have a lot to say about this band as I don't know a lot about them at all. I heard this song on All Songs Considered and enjoyed it quite a bit, so here ya go.


El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

Half Kleptos



Warren Oates



I think it was back in 2006 that Omar isolated himself somewhere in the Netherlands and did nothing but write and record music. We are still getting releases from that time. The man is definitely prolific, he's released at least 10 solo records, there might be more that I missed. My favorites, however, are the ones with a band. Previously there was his self-named release that featured a backing band known as the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet. This cd is essentially the same band, most of which are also in The Mars Volta, Cedric being the most obvious. At some point doesn't this just become a TMV cd and not a solo Omar cd? Either way its very good and we can be guaranteed to hear at least another 10 cds to come out of that Netherlands recording trip.

Top 5 Cliche RPG Dungeons

5. Trains

Alright, so this one isn't very cliche, I can only think of Final Fantasy 6 that had it, but it amuses me. What guy came up with this? When thinking of different dungeons to use in a game, usually you'd like to have one that can have many different branching paths and different routes to take. Walking in a straight line from car to car is fun too though. I will give credit to this dungeon though for the sole reason that you get to fight it at the end. What other RPG dungeons end boss is the dungeon itself? It's some sort of genius at work.

4. Towers

This one is kind of along the same lines, only going up instead of to the left. Sometimes the tower design will be so lazy as to simply include a ridiculously huge amount of staircases for you to climb ala Final Fantasy 7. I don't know about you, but I love staircases so much in real life that I'm glad people have put them into video games as well. After all, the only thing that could make staircases better, is random battles.

3. Prisons

It seems like no one understands you. You are the hero, your saving the world! Yet somehow, inevitably, someone throws you in jail. Maybe its the bad guy, maybe its some super paranoid townsfolk who simply assume you are the bad guy when you stroll into their town, or maybe you are actually breaking into a prison to rescue one of your team members who was captured by either the bad guy or some super paranoid townsfolk who assumed they were the bad guy when they strolled into their town. Either way, you're pretty much guaranteed a prison dungeon in every RPG you play.

2. Forest Mazes

The problem with these dungeons is that no one seems to want to design an actual maze. The maze is always just an endless repeating loop of 2 or 3 screens that you can only get through after you've obtained some special item or character to help guide you. After that its just a normal old dungeon that's not maze-like at all.

1. Ghost Ships

What's scarier then a ghost house? A ghost ship obviously. You might think that this is kind of an obscure thing to have be the number 1 spot, but that's why its the number 1 spot. No matter how weird and ridiculous it sounds to have a ghost ship in your game, scores of developers have thrown it in. Play any RPG and theres about a 50/50 chance that theres a ghost ship in there somewhere.