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Monday, September 04, 2006 |
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R.I.P. Steve Irwin
For those of you who didn't hear, Stephen Robert Irwin "The Crocodile Hunter" died yesterday at the age of 44. While filming a documentary television program (Ocean's Deadliest) off the Great Barrier Reef, Steve was stung in the chest by a stingray. The poisonous barb from the stingray's tail apparently put a hole through his heart, killing Irwin immediately. This sad situation was seen as by some to be foregone conclusion, but that doesn't take away from the severity of the death. Leaving behind his wife Terri, daughter Bindi Sue, and son Bob - our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of this great man. Thanks for everything Steve, the world will truly miss you.
Rest in Peace Steve
For those interested: A You Tube Tribute to Steve Irwin
Could Snakes on a Plane be the next Rocky Horror?
Because I love a good B-movie, I attended the late night release of Snakes on a Plane. Not knowing exactly what to expect I went in cautious, but relatively certain that the movie was going to suck the life out of me. But to my surprise it was a GREAT B-movie! With a shiny A-movie gloss, a plot that sort of makes some sense, and most importantly Samuel L. Jackson, the movie pulled through.
I would have to attribute a large portion of my enjoyment of the film however to the audience. Generally high school to college age, the fans were waiting wearing S.O.A.P. t-shirts and carrying tons of plastic snakes. It almost seemed like we were walking into a slacker version of Rocky Horror Picture Show. From the moment we entered the theater it was a large party dedicated to Samuel L. and Snakes (on Planes). Because of two girls who represented a S.O.A.P. website, we were treated to trivia, games and other fun festivities to waste the hour before the film would start. And just before it began we were given scripts, with commands of what to say at certain points in the movie. For instance every time Sam would shout at somebody the crowd would yell "BITCH" at the end of his comment. Also there were things to shout for hot women/sex, the use of the flight number, and other random incidents. Now because of the age of the audience the first half of the movie was really rowdy and kind-of a waste, but once everybody took their Ritalin the fun began. The whole audience was enthralled in this totally crappy movie, in no small part to the audience participation. There is nothing like a whole audience cheering every time Samuel L. would shout a profanity. It was crazy, and I hope that all the other theaters that were showing it last night had the same reaction ours did to the movie - I don't think the movie was made for a silent crowd.
So the fun factor of the film is through the roof, and if you haven't seen the movie, see it soon - you are going to want to watch it with an audience that understands what it is: pure dumb fun.
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Thursday, August 17, 2006 |
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Seriously what is wrong with my football team!
For those of you who don't know, I am from Minnesota - land of snow, mosquitoes, and embarrassing off-field run-ins with the law. I am referring to my favorite football team, The Vikings.
In the past ten years there have been countless amounts of problems with my team. Most of them leading to national exposure. Most people remember the walking embarrassment known as Randy Moss. Randy was a special kind of stupid. He had no problem hitting meter maids, carrying unlicensed fire-arms, housing copious amounts of weed in his glove compartment, and all out embarrassing the team on the field. But Moss isn't the only embarrassing failure to attach themselves to the sinking ship known as the Minnesota Vikings. No, we had "The Original Whizzinator" Onterrio Smith who couldn't stay away from his beloved Mary Jane - eventually leading to his complete expulsion from the team after many chances. Oh, and who could forget my very favorite mess: The Love Boat. It is never good when a third of your team gets busted having sex in plain view on a giant boat. Save that for a buddy's home, or a hotel... really.
But the never-ending list of douche-bags continues to grow, as we get to add Koren Robinson. Once our most promising Wide Receiver, now that idiot that got in a high speed car chase with the cops - reportedly the speedometer couldn't read his speed, but the cops chasing him were going 125mph. But in lighter news he did not try to resist when he was at gunpoint - but he was extremely drunk (hooray for DUI's). Thank you Mr. Robinson for placing your dumbass above the rest of the team.
GO VIKINGS GO!
Oh, and I am calling it now: Summer 2009 - a crack/whorehouse burns down in Minneapolis, effectively leaving 30% of the roster for the upcoming season. Anybody want to take that bet?
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Saturday, August 12, 2006 |
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Will I have to eat my own words?
The past two weekends I have been getting back into the habit of watching films at the theater. After an abysmal start to the summer season I vowed that I would wait till award season to see another film in the movie theater. But after getting dragged to see Talladega Nights, I might need to recant my first stance. So instead of being one of the worst summers for movies in recent memory - it instead was just a mildly disappointing summer (that is a compliment). This was brought about by the absolute insanity that was Will Farrell in a race-car. I hate NASCAR and I don't understand racing - but that didn't hold me back from laughing the whole way through. Dear 8lb. 6oz. Jesus, thank you for making such a dumb, but hilarious movie.
So after Talladega I decided to give another couple movies a chance: The Decent and Miami Vice. And to my surprise I enjoyed both of them. Miami Vice wasn't all that the old TV show was, but it played more like a better Bad Boys 2, and had you all pumped with adrenaline by the end. It was a true guy’s movie. As for The Decent... my hate for NASCAR can only be eclipsed by horror films. I like all of four horror films (The Thing, Nightmare on Elms Street, Scream and Halloween) and I think that I may have enjoyed this one as much as a couple of those on the list. It may have helped that I didn't know what it was about, and so as the story unfolded I was genuinely surprised by the events in the movie. I will admit that some of the characters were a bit one-dimensional, but hey it is a horror movie, and one-dimensional characters ready for the slaughter have always been a staple of the genre. Oh, and for anybody that has seen the film and disliked the ending, here is the UK ending - SPOILER - http://youtube.com/watch?v=5isw3lH-erI .
So with these three films, the summer wasn't totally a bust. But still give it a couple months and we will get to see some great movies like 300, Casino Royale, The Fountain, Stranger Than Fiction and Borat (which a couple IGN editors got to see already - they say its awkwardly hysterical). Till then...
So this is the next generation...
Has anybody else played the demo for Saints Row yet? After spending the last half hour seeing exactly all that the game has to offer, all I can say is damn. I may be a television editor for IGN, but I know gaming - and this game which everybody seems so eager to promote is a large steaming pile, that epitomizes everything that is wrong with the current batch of ‘next generation’ games.
What’s wrong with this game you ask. Well for starters the game is impossible to play. The controls for the game are in no way intuitive, and are in fact very difficult to get used to. Just the fact that you need to hold in the right bumper to sprint, instead of, let’s say, the B button, or better yet with the pressure sensitive analog stick, is a pain. Also, speaking of the B button... in a game like this, the B button may be one of the stupidest places to put the menu. At least in other games that rely heavily on the menu (RPG's) they have the menu close but, not in the place where your finger naturally rests (which is why other basic functions like sprinting or attacking are normally placed there). Why not put it at the Y button like most everybody else does - if it’s not broke don’t fix it. Another gripe is the fighting itself. There are three attack buttons all located in the other trigger and bumper areas. But as when you are unarmed, the two trigger buttons are punches and the bumper is a kick - yet when your opponent is on the ground you only kick them... why even give you the choice if there is only one action is some situations. Just give us a basic attack - if it works for GTA (which your game is based off of) then it should work for you. Or better yet if you are going to have multiple attack buttons, have combos like True Crimes did. As for the driving control, well its better than GTA, but the game glitches kill the experience (and yet it is still the most fun part of the game).
So is the control the only problem? No it is less of a problem than the random glitches. As an example, when you reach (certain) fences, all you have to do is jump at them to leap over them - while when you try to walk over a basic 6 inch curb to get into a building, the computer forces you to jump up to get on top of it. While this simple curb is like Everest to your main character, some fences in the game will randomly glitch you through them. After getting into a car accident at one point, I simply ran at (and through) a fence and ended up on the grass on the other side. But speaking of that car accident - when I ran head on into another car (which is kind of fun as the drivers will occasionally fly out the windshield), the body that flew out the window took off like Superman... I wasn't even able to find out where the body landed. Oh, and when you are driving, you can't even run over bodies - not that it's not possible - but when you dive over the unfortunate deceased, the car flies over them like they were part of road - where's the sickening thump!?! But going back to the accident - the crash was enough to make my car explode, which I dodged, but my "homie" wasn't so fortunate. No, my friend got engulfed in fire, screaming and writhing in pain - until he was okay again seconds later. It appears in this world people don't stay on fire for more then a few seconds. But all this is common place. These glitches weren’t random they would happen many times over the course of my time playing the demo. Other glitches that I found were: you can stand on moving cars; the cops don't bother with you until you have killed TONS of people; certain objects like car doors will start one animation (falling off the car) then appear back where they started; drawn-in distance can wait to load objects in till you are right in front of the objects; certain animations have a two or three second delay (like bodies falling - or flying - out of a car); plus a countless amount of glitches and errors attributed to the random civilians (who walk away from the scene after their car has been stolen – fight back!).
But what really annoys me about the game is that it is supposed to be a big 'next gen' title. What? Because it has customization on your character, and the cars are glossy. Please. That character customization is done better in Oblivion, and the glossy cars are done better in any of the current 360 racing titles (try PGR or Ridge Racer). Plus the game feels like a large step back from any of the GTA games (after GTA 3). Where as there was good music, large areas to roam, lots of cars, satisfying fighting, good storylines, mini-missions, and plenty of other random goodies in GTA - Saints Row only contains the shell of the game, with nothing else on the inside. With no big soundtrack, no vehicle exclusive mini-missions, and nothing else really that has that special feeling - this demo seemed to give off the feeling of an incomplete game, which would have even been poor for the PS2 or Xbox. It seems a lot like of the 360 games have this problem (notably Madden and NCAA Football) - where it looks pretty, but everything that made the title special on the previous generation console is gone. If a graphical overhaul and the reduction of gameplay is all that the next generation of games has to hold, then I can only hope that Xbox Arcade and the Virtual Console stay strong, because the future of games looks bleak.
But even more-so than the gameplay and the glitches the biggest problem I have with this game is the “urban theme.” Recently games like 187 Ride or Die, 50 Cent’s game, True Crime, 25 to Life, and others have taken the hood and made that the main selling point of their games. Not only are all these games extremely poor, but they promote violence and vulgarity. I'm not saying that I'm a saint (no pun intended), but when did we decide that we should promote the morally corrupt? Once again – not a saint – most of my favorite games are M rated (favorite recent game is God of War). But, seriously, these "urban themed" games are such B.S., as they are all made by a team of middle-aged white males who have no idea about the culture. So they make a game that they think most closely resembles what they hear in rap music and see on television and movies, and then glorify the culture in hopes of expanding the user-base for the game. Why not make a game about an undercover cop in one of these gangs, with like a trust meter as a gameplay element. I know that may sound lame on paper, but think about films like Donnie Brasco or Infernal Affair, those were pretty cool movies – make games off of these type of storylines… instead of the ‘they kill us, so we kill them, and screw whoever is caught in-between’ plots that we have to suffer through. With this in mind: everybody who made this game should feel bad. Not only did you make a crappy game that is dang near impossible to play, but you also made a boring, overdone, and downright stupid story for us to suffer through as well. Hopefully next time around you will decide to actually the time needed to make a game worth playing for more than a demo.
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