100% completion

I bought the final issue of Nintendo Power this week, and began flipping through it an hour ago. You know how they say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? Well, I had a feeling that I can only describe like that: going through the pages, looking at the features on the history of Nintendo Power, scanning the included poster that features the cover of every issue, it was like looking back through a summary of my entire life. It was beautiful and chilling at the same time.

Is it sad that I can trace my life through a series of 285 magazines? I haven’t even read them all, but you could pick almost any point in my life and I could tell you what I was reading about in Nintendo Power at that time, within roughly two months. I haven’t been a subscriber for a few years now, but I always made a point to pick up an issue every few months for the sake of tradition, if nothing else. the worst part of it all is that a couple years ago I actually offloaded my entire NP collection, and now that the nostalgia bug is biting, it’s killing me that I don’t have them to go back to and reminisce with. I’d kill for a complete set, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it would be the same if it wasn’t my collection. Sure, pretty much every issue I had before volume 92 (Yes, I know that specifically. It’s the Shadows of the Empire issue. I got the Dash Rendar cover.) was in tatters, but I guess that’s part of what made them so special to me, weird as it may be. All the articles would be the same, but it just wouldn’t be the same. You know what I mean?

And now that I’m thinking about it, I actually have Amazon open in another tab, seeing how much people are charging for their old issues. As long as you’re not looking for mint copies, the average asking price seems to be around $3, which would cost me roughly… $855. Before Shipping. Yeah, I need to get away from Amazon. Now. Not to mention the time it would take to order each one individually… Also issue #1 doesn’t go for any less than $200. Drat. I certainly don’t have that kind of cash.

Anyway, reading this magazine has simultaneously made me sad and filled me with warm fuzzies. I kind of hate nostalgia because it affects me so strongly. I’m going to be mopey about the loss of Nintendo Power for weeks now. The worst part is that recent Nintendo Power hasn’t really been the Nintendo Power that I grew up with. It’s a completely different magazine than it was even midway through its run, but I still loved it dearly. Checking the mail every single day when a new month rolled around. Absorbing each and every word printed between the covers -twice- the day it finally arrived. Reading that three-part Secret of Mana feature over and over and over again. Poring over the maps and strategies so that I knew games inside and out before even playing them. There are a handful of games to this day that I’ve never played but vividly remember because I soaked in so much information about them via the pages of Nintendo Power. It was a huge part of my childhood life, but I suppose all good things have to come to an end eventually.

I’m just glad that they did up one final Nester comic for the last issue. It’s the best sendoff the magazine could have hoped for.

I mooch like a pro

You may have noticed that this here web-log has got a new banner. Maybe you didn’t? I don’t know, it’s not a big deal. But it does.

I’m mentioning this because I did not make this banner. In fact, I outsourced it! Sort of. See, there’s this person, goes by the name Guild on Talking Time, who’d made a thread offering free logo designs for businesses. Likely in hopes of drumming up real business. I happened to see said thread, and decided to bite, because why not? It’d save me the trouble of making a less MS Paint-lookin’ banner on my own. And let’s be honest, I probably wasn’t going to do that anytime soon.

Apparently it’s not done done yet, but I think it looks pretty done. There’s some more less noticable stuff still in the pipeline, like playing with transparencies and the gradient, but my project is understandably not at the top of the priority list. And that’s fine, because I’m pretty happy with what I’ve already got.

That’s pretty much the whole of what I’ve got to post today. Just givin’ credit where credit is due. I do that about once a decade.

I’ve got a friend, her name is Boxcar

Guys, Wii U. Oh man, Wii U.

For a thing I wasn’t entirely sold on before launch, it has very handily dominated the last week-plus of my life. And I’m okay with that, because man is it ever fun. I’m not even talking about the games there! The system is just fun to play with. It’s a little on the slow side; everything takes a good five to ten seconds to load, but I don’t find it nearly as annoying as some. Just sitting on the main menu, with all the Miis milling about, it’s kinda hypnotizing. And then the Miiverse posts start popping up.

Miiverse is… What’s the best way to describe it? I finally get how people can get addicted to Twitter. It’s like Nintentwitter: made up of tens of thousands of Nintendo Power envelope artist wannabes and infinitely easier to parse than actual Twitter. It’s plenty of fun to sift through Miiverse posts to look at the funny screenshots and beautiful drawings that people have posted to it, and it’s very fulfilling to help people out who have posted about how they’re stuck somewhere in a game. Currently only Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U are completely integrated, but once more developers make their games with it in mind, I think that Miiverse is going to be a real game-changer. I’ve been on Facebook for years now, but have never enjoyed the experience as much as I have with the last week with Miiverse.

Also of note is that the Wii U internet browser is excellent. Nothing beats an actual computer for surfing the webs, but as far as game console/handhelds go, the Wii U’s internets browser is leaps and bounds beyond the rest. The YouTube app that comes installed on the system is nowhere near as good as simply using the browser for your YouTubing. This comes as a great relief to me, as my TV’s YouTube app is garbage, and only really usable when linked up with my iPhone. Now I just boot up the Wii U and I’ve got a perfect YouTube experience on my gigantic television. There are fewer things that could make me happier.

Where the games are concerned… Mario U is pretty damn great. People have been referring to it as New Super Mario World, but it’s not quite that good. If you’re in it for the single-player experience, Super Mario World or even Super Talking Time Bros 2 will leave you more fulfilled. Fortunately, Mario U features a multiplayer experience that is almost completely unique and an absolute blast. Yes, it’s essentially the same as New Super Mario Bros Wii, but it’s bigger, better, and in glorious HD.

I haven’t given Darksiders 2 a spin yet, because I intend to complete ZombiU first. ZombiU is an intricate game that deserves a whole post to itself, so that’s what I’m going to do somewhere down the line.

Nintendo Land may be is the best pack-in game ever. In a completely unexpected twist, it’s the game I’ve spent the most time with by far. It’s not at all the tired mini-game collection I assumed it would be. It’s an essential party game for Nintendo fans, and has an impressively robust single-player experience tucked away in there to boot. It’s already provided two weekends of riotous three-player fun, and I look forward to spending much more time in Nintendo Land, the new Funnest Place on Earth. Full review to follow on this one, because there’s so much there!

I only got to play a little bit of Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, but my brother stands firm that it’s better than Mario Kart. Not as strong a statement as it might have been years ago, because Mario Kart is starting to get a little long in the tooth, but a pretty clear indication of quality no less. I liked what I saw, and the inclusion of Wreck-It Ralph as a playable character is simultaneously pleasing and perplexing. Ralph is the only element of his movie in the game, despite the fact that he never really drove in the movie. Oh well. It seems like a solid game, and an excellent candidate for an Xmas gift.

For some reason that I cannot explain, Little Inferno has wiggled its way into my head and won’t get out. I don’t think it’d be something I would get a lot of use out of, and the $15 price tag is awfully steep for a creepy fireplace simulator. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually. As soon as a more enticing eShop game comes along, I think. Hopefully there’s some new software available this Thursday. It was nice that Wii U launched with a shop at all, but it’s nowhere as great as the bounty of Virtual Console games that OG Wii had available on launch day.

I guess that’s all for today. I really think I’d get more enjoyment from actually playing with my new toy than writing about it, so I’mma go do that now. Ciao.

Morphinology

My YouTube channel hit 10,000 video views last weekend, and while that may seem pretty paltry when compared to single videos that have millions of views apiece, it’s approximately 9,999 more than I ever expected to have when I created my channel. As a show of appreciation, I uploaded a complete Let’s Play series throughout the week: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for the SNES. Watch the whole thing below.

The whole set clocks in at just over an hour, and even less if you skip video 5 (It ends in a Game Over, and episode 6 is the same level done successfully). There are plenty of worse ways to waste an hour. Why not buff up my view counter a little more? Come on, help a brother out. And throw around some upwards-thumbs while you’re at it. Pweease?

That said, I have no idea what I’m going to do for the next threshold. Or even what that’ll be. I was thinking 20K at first, but 25,000 seems like more of a milestone. Not that I should be thinking that far ahead; that many views is a long, long way off unless I hit another goldmine like Super Talking Time Bros 2.

NaNoFailMo

So there’s a very slim chance that you’ve noticed that I haven’t blogged at all in the month of November. 90% of that is because I have nothing to blog about. Most days I go home from work, have dinner with my wife, and then play Skyrim or Pokémon White 2 until sleeping time. It’s a simple existence, and one that I wouldn’t give up, but it doesn’t lend itself too well to writing.

The other thing that’s keeping me from blogging is NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month, if you need it spelled out. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s a “contest” that challenges everyone who signs up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I signed up on a whim this year, and currently… well, here’s a printscreen of my statistics page.

Yup, we’re just about halfway through the month and I’ve barely even started. I only even have any words at all because yesterday I decided to slap some words down on a page so that at least I could say I tried.

The truth of it all is that I don’t have anything to write about. I had a story idea before I started, but the more I think about it, the stupider it seems and the more I hate it. Anything else I even try to get off the ground ends up being derivative and boring. I don’t really want to write a novel, I just liked toying with the idea that I could.

So how does this tie into blogging? Mostly because every time I open WordPress I feel the guilty pangs, reminding me that if I’m writing, it should be my novel. Then I decide I don’t want to do that and navigate far, far away from WordPress.

That said, maybe things will pick up in December.

Ryan talks about Rayman

Video game characters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big, some are small. Some are fun, slightly overweight plumbers, and others are cold, angsty teenage warriors. Many of them have not only their own series of games, but spinoffs and huge merchandise lines too. Of course, for every successful character, there are at least a handful that don’t have the chops to make it. Sitting almost squarely in the middle of that range is a plucky little hero who has no arms or legs, but a ton of heart.

No, not Plok. Why would I write an article about Plok?

I’m talking about Rayman, of course. That little guy created by Ubisoft way way back in 1995. It’s kinda sad that I can call 1995 “way, way back” without meaning it as a joke. The point here, is that I didn’t play Rayman for years. Hey, can you blame me? I didn’t have a Playstation yet, and I wasn’t big on PC gaming outside SimCity 2000 and Duke Nukem 3D. Given the chance, I probably would have played the game too, since it was an action platformer and I was still pretty hesitant to leave that genre’s warm embrace.

I think the real thing that kept me from Rayman was that none of my friends were interested in his game. Since he wasn’t on a Nintendo platform for four years, Nintendo Power, still my number one video game news source at that point, understandably didn’t have any coverage of the game. The internet was still pretty new in my household around that time too, also it was dial-up. I mostly used it to find breeding charts for Dragon Quest Monsters and to engage in some Yahoo chat. So really, I’m not entirely sure if Rayman was popular at all in his first few years. All I can tell you is that I’d certainly never heard of ‘im.

Continue reading Ryan talks about Rayman

A post full of thoughts in no logical order

Wow, its been a while since my last post. Not a record by far, but almost two weeks is a long time in the current TE era. I’ve been pretty good about slapping something up every few days for some time now, even if it’s just a dumb photo that I found entertaining for a few fleeting moments.

In an effort to start getting though my gigantic backlog of books – Wait what? Books? Yes books. I have a lot of them, but I haven’t read most of them. Anyway, I’ve decided I want to read more, so this week I’ve been making an honest effort to always have a book with me on the bus. Whether I’ll keep going once I’ve finished my current book, I don’t know, but here’s hoping!

The lack of blogging around these parts can be attributed mostly entirely to Pokémon White 2. Obviously. I blame Game Freak for working in a rather extensive achievement system. For every objective you clear, you’re presented with a medal, and when you get so many medals, you get a rank up. It’s not actually deeper than Xbox achievements or PS3 trophies, but the fact that the game makes such a big deal out of the medals makes them that much more appealing to collect. Too bad some of the requirements are completely ludicrous. Check out the list here.

I’ve been working on a big new post over the last little while. I think it’s going to end up being this month’s article, if just to fill the hole. Unfortunately, it is about video games. But it’s a little different in that it’s something of a history lesson with a little review packaged in for those interested. I don’t know. It’s not something I care about enough to link to on my Facebook page or anything, but it’ll have to do.

I’ve been reading Monster Planet this week, the last of a trilogy whose first two parts I’ve already talked about at length. I said that I thought Island and Nation would make great movies, because both of them are pretty briskly-paced and feature a fairly original take on the zombie genre. However, Planet takes it up to eleven and goes into full-blown crazypants video game territory. Now, instead of the occasional smart zombie who can control the mindless masses of undead, there is a whole cadre of liches, each with a unique magic power. It’s gotten kinda ridiculous, but I’m already two-and-a-third books deep, might as well git ‘r done. Full write-up coming soon!

Speaking of spooky things and video games, I’ve begun playing Silent Hill 2 again to half-assedly get into the spirit of Halloween. I thought I was going to do it right this time, playing alone in the dark, but I messed that up. Since I’m playing the HD Collection edition, my experience is being totally controlled by achievements, and as such my current playthrough has been paired with some extensive map-making and step-by-step instructions on how to get through the game as quickly as possible. At the very least, by the time I’m done with it, I’ll have become a master of the game.

I borrowed my brother’s copy of Cubivore to round out my October gaming palette. While the camera is awful and the overall experience is a little shallower than I’d hoped, I think it’s good enough to slake my thirst for Tokyo Jungle. For now.

Have you watched the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon yet? It’s fairly good! Not quite as good as the new TMNT comic series, but it’s definitely worth watching. I will admit that I’m a little disappointed that its demographic skews considerably younger than the 2003 TMNT series. I blame Nickelodeon. Though I suppose the best way to revive a franchise is to make sure it’s what all the li’l kids want for Christmas. A world where Turtles are plastered on every damn thing again would be a world I’d love to live in.

Xbox Minecraft got a big update recently, which is enticing. The price didn’t get cut though, so I’m still not buyin’ it.

I’m bad at getting into the Halloween spirit. I haven’t watched a single cheesy 80’s slasher flick yet. I feel like I’m failing pretty hardcore as a nerd. The Wife is forcing me to take her to Paranormal Activity 4 this weekend though, so I guess that’s at least one “scary” movie for the season. I just have trouble committing myself to 90-120 minutes of uninterrupted watching.

I don’t have nearly as much trouble watching TV or Let’s Play videos. Over the last two weeks I have watched both seasons of Better Off Ted, most of Arrested Development‘s second season, and Brickroad’s Metal Gear LP. Ted is… well, it’s okay. I enjoyed it as much as I did because it co-stars Portia de Rossi and Andrea Anders, both of whom I find very funny. The list of actresses (or even actors, it’s not a sexist thing) I really like is pretty short, but those two are definitely on it. It should be obvious that I much prefer comediennes to “serious” actresses. I also love the way de Rossi pronounces the word “anything.”

I don’t think there’s anything else relevant I can say so that I can add another tag to this post.

Oh, wait! New Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate trailer? Oh Hells yes!

I caught them all, again

I did it, I finally did it. I hunted down and leveled up all 154 Pokémon of the Unova region, so now I can finally check the task off my list and put Pokémon White Version behind me. Right in the nick of time too, because Pokémon White 2 (and Black 2, I guess) is released tomorrowday, and there’s no scenario in which I don’t pick up the new Pokémon title on day one.

Of course, one could say that my task is not yet truly complete. There are actually 156 Pokémon unique to the fifth generation of games, but two are still (legitimately) inaccessible to North American players. Nintendo has announced that Genesect will be given away via wi-fi starting tomorrow to commemorate the release of Black/White2, but Meloetta remains entirely uncatchable. While it’s been part of the franchise since the start, including Pokémon that cannot be obtained until Nintendo says it’s okay is totally stupid. The worst part, of course, being that if you want to play the game from the beginning again and you don’t have two DS systems and another Pokémon game of the same or a greater generation, there’s no way to back up these incredibly rare monsters. So if you reset your game, or your save file corrupts, you’re 100% boned.

I’m still waiting for the day where Game Freak decides they want to cram each and every critter onto a single cartridge. That will be nice.

Of course, if I were certifiably insane (or 14 years younger) I could try to fill up the National Pokédex. But really, there are 649 total species of Pokémon, and I’d have to trade from at least three other game cartridges to get them all. And that’s not including those stupid ones that Nintendo only hands out once in a lifetime. I don’t have any cheat devices for the last several generation of Nintendo handhelds, so I can’t even hack my way to completion. The only solution would be to cheat on a ROM and then trade from that to my legit game, but currently my DS emulator refuses to let its wi-fi support actually work.

tl;dr, I caught them all, I’m not going to catch them all.

Another one in the can

 

I thought had posted a link to this when I started it, but I guess not? I barely looked. I just did a blog search for “kirby” and nothing came up. Anyway, here’s an embedded thingy for you to watch Let’s Play Kirby’s Adventure. The series is complete, and I embedded the playlist, so you can just press play and watch beginning to end.

The whole series is about two and a half hours long. So a little less than the current average Hollywood blockbuster? It’s probably best to watch them all at once too, because I did it in two recording sessions, then just split them up between worlds. You’ll notice that I did not consider that plan as I was recording, and usually talked over the transition from boss to world intro, where the videos are cut.

This also marks the first series in which I intentionally cut out footage. There’s a section in episode seven that got me really riled up, and I ended up having to remove some of the video because I was getting embarrassingly frustrated and let slip more than a few naughty words. I like the idea of keeping all the video for a more complete experience, but sometimes you have to make an edit for the betterment of everyone. It’s not like you miss anything good either. It’s just ten minutes of me swearing and failing.

More like “Retardedbution”

The Wife and I went to see Resident Evil: Retribution last weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever said “What the F?” so many times during a single film.

Yeah, it was pretty much as retarded as can be. And not retarded in an awesome way like Lollipop Chainsaw, but retarded in a “how did anyone think this was a good idea?” kind of way. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who liked the four previous Resident Evil movies, and went into the theater pretty excited for the next chapter.

The movie opens right where the last one left off, with Alice and a bunch of no-names on a huge boat and Umbrella…jets? I don’t know how do describe those things. Umbrella flying vehicles surrounding them. Only, it starts at the end of the scene, and the opening credits are set over the “battle” on the ship being played in reverse slow-mo. This is not a bad way to do your opening credits. Kind of artistic, but nothing super-original. The only problem I have with this is that Chris and Claire are on-screen for about three seconds and then vanish forever. They are nowhere else in the movie. It’s right after this scene that things go to Hell.

The opening credits are immediately followed up by Milla Jovovich spending ten minutes or so giving a rather thorough summary of the first movie, and then bits and pieces of the three sequels that preceded this one. Kind of odd that they spend so much time talking about the first one instead of the fourth film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, but it turns out to be foreshadowing, so I guess it’s okay. What’s not okay is that they just spent ten minutes of our movie summarizing the entire series up to this point! I know it’s Hollywood and they have to assume that all moviegoers are idiots, but geez. Once you’re in the fifth installment of a so-so action-horror franchise that’s (very) loosely based on a video game, you’re pretty much only attracting the people who’ve seen the other movies and need closure.

Then, then they have the gall to show us the boat battle. Again. In normal speed and not backwards. Again, you’re just doing this for the morons who didn’t understand the slo-mo-rewind version that they just saw ten minutes ago. There’s no need to show this scene a second time! We got it!

After that, there’s a “dream sequence” that does serve as more foreshadowing, sort of, but is still not entirely necessary. If you’re keeping track, after the opening credits are done, roughly the next half hour of movie is a big waste of time. Why could this time not have been spent fleshing out the plot a little better? Maybe instead of telling us stuff we (should) already know and showing duplicate scenes and a stupid dream sequence, maybe explain a little bit about the damn viruses! That’s actually really important and not something that has been discussed at all since the second movie!

I’ll take a little rage break to educate those of you who haven’t followed the games, and don’t know the Resident Evil virus lineage. The first movie starts with the T-Virus. This is accurate, and discussed at length in the first two films. It reanimates the dead, and has a mutation effect on most species, which gives us things like lickers and Nemesis. This is uncomplicated and without being nitpicky, it can reasonably carry us all the way to the end of third movie, Resident Evil: Extinction. But then in Afterlife, suddenly the zombies start sprouting Plaga tentacles and we encounter an Executioner. What’s that? What’s a Plaga, you ask? The Las Plagas parasite is introduced in Resident Evil 4, and genetically improved in Resident Evil 5, which is where the creepy mouth-tentacles come from. It’s also the reason why the “zombies” are now able to retain their intelligence and move at increased speeds: they’re not zombies, they’re giant bugs puppeteering the corpses of their human hosts. This is never explained in the movies, and you could have hand-waved it as a T-virus evolution until Retribution.

There are two points in this movie where the Las Plagas are mentioned by name. One is quick and subtle enough that you’ll miss it if you don’t know what it means, but the second is made a very big deal at the climax of the film. Never, ever, does anyone explain what the Las Plagas are, or where they came from. More infuriating still is that none of the Plaga hosts transform at any time. They just remain super-powered humans, though all but one look like vampires from Buffy. It’s not that this isn’t plausible, but it’s a huge waste of an opportunity! In a movie that’s about special effects and gruesome creatures, why wouldn’t you have the cool bug-monsters sprout out of their host bodies? (Big spoilers follow, highlight to read) More annoying still is that the main character who is injected with a Plaga ends up being eaten by the “Plaga Undead,” as the movie calls them. This is completely retarded, and makes absolutely zero sense. Plagas are supposed to have a hive-mind thing going on. They know damn well not to eat one of their own. Aargh! I understand that the movie series is taking some creative liberties with the franchise, but not explaining important plot elements is bad. It flies in the face of proper world-building and is just sloppy movie-making. I’m sure the rest of the entries in the series have their own problems like this, but none were nearly as noticeable to me.

While a lot of Retribution was pretty hard to watch, there were some good elements! They were named Ada Wong, Leon Kennedy, and Barry Burton. Three very awesome fan-favourite game characters that have only finally made their debut in the movie franchise. I have to especially hand it to the casting director, because Bingbing Li is a dead ringer for Ada, though maybe ten years younger. The costume designer is clearly a fan of the games too, because Leon and Barry’s outfits were spot-on to their game incarnations. At least to someone who doesn’t pay a huge amount of attention to costumes. Barry had his trademark red vest, and Leon had his super-swank jacket and shoulder-knife. Perfect.

All was not good surrounding these three though. The dude who played Leon very obviously had some issues with the awful dialogue, and his delivery on a handful of them were almost as bad as the writing itself. Then there’s Barry’s big part in the escape scene… you’ll know it when you see it, and you will either groan the biggest groan ever or actually hurt yourself because  you facepalmed so hard. I did the latter.

In conclusion, Resident Evil: Retribution has a few more issues than any of the other movies in the series. And I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for crap like this. It’s got some ups, a lot more downs, and an elephant-sized licker for some reason. The only reason you should see this movie is, like I said earlier, if you’ve seen the other four and need a little closure. Oh, but you won’t get that anyway because they all but said “stay tuned for the sixth one!” at the end. Yeesh.