Drinking with the grain of the liquor

Last night was my office Xmas party. Normally I hate these functions, as I have a long history at being awful at mingling. So I spent the entire week dreading the evening, as I do every year.

It wasn’t so bad though. Actually, I had a really good time. I ended up talking to a lot of people, and even sat at a table separate from the rest of my department. So somehow I managed to survive and even have a good time despite being miles away from my comfort zone. Who would have thought?

Of course, by “somehow” I mean “thanks to the liquor.”

I haven’t had a drink in over 5 years for reasons that I will not get into, but last night I decided that it was time to let go of that particular anxiety and have a few liquor drinks. I wouldn’t say that I was full-on drunk, but I’m pretty sure that there was a noticeable shift in my demeanor. I most certainly cracked a number of jokes that I would not have had the nerve to get out if I’d been sober.

Despite the fact that things turned out well, I can’t help but feel like I’ve taken the first step down a long, dark, downward spiral…

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Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – November 2015

I don’t know. I don’t have a lot to say about November. There weren’t many game releases this month (that I could afford, because PS4s are expensive), so I just got to start picking at all the stuff I bought in October.

~ Game Over ~

Yoshi’s Woolly World (WiiU) – An absolutely terrific game in every way. It’s beautiful, it has a soundtrack to die for, and it’s just a really great Yoshi game. Easily rivals the original in terms of quality. Please note that even though it’s the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen, it can be downright brutal. Especially the bonus stages. *shudder* I look forward to continuing to play it to see all the extra goodies it has to offer.

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Undertale (PC) – I finally picked it up again and made it past the tutorial. OH. Now I understand why people love this game so much. It is absolutely brimming with charm, and really that’s all you need to get my seal of approval. I also like the “battle” system, despite there being hardly any actual battling in my pacifist run.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – November 2015

Forgotten Film Round-up #1

I’ve decided that my current “thing” is going to be browsing through my movie collection and watching any that I haven’t watched before. You may scoff at the idea that I might buy a product and then never use it, but I’m both very materialistic and busy. Well, “busy.” The idea here is that I’m going to write a thing after every so many movies and then fire off a couple paragraphs about each.

Anyway, I’m sure this won’t last for long. We all know that I have a habit of abandoning projects really quickly. But at least I’ll get one or two articles out of it.

This batch comes from a Midnight Horror collection, the likes of which you will find in the $5 garbage DVD bin at Wal-Mart. It contains a whopping eight films, and as you may have already guessed, they’re pretty much trash as far as cinema goes. Let’s take a closer look at a handful of them, shall we?

#1 – Decadent Evil

Firstly, let’s assume that I didn’t choose this one to start with because it’s pretty close to Resident Evil. (It’s also known as Decadent Evil Dead in the UK, which is just.. ugh.) Also, assume that I wasn’t growling “Decadent Eee-vil” and then giggling to myself constantly between the time when I chose to watch the movie and when I actually sat down to watch it.

Decadent Evil is 67 minutes long. That includes the intro and ending credits. I’d wager that the actual film portion is roughly 50 minutes. This is good for me, as my attention span dwindles by the day.

This film is about vampires. Specifically, a trio of lady vampires that live in a gaudy LA mansion and work as strippers. They also have a little pet lizard-man, Marvin, which they refer to as a homunculus and keep in a birdcage. The head vampire is nearing the milestone of having sucked the blood of 10,000 humans, which will apparently make her an invincible Vampire Queen. Sure, why not? At least she doesn’t get magical sparkle powers.

But then a vampire hunter shows up and, with the “help” of the youngest vampire and her boyfriend, locates and defeats the boss vampire. He dies during the process, but ends up turning her into a homunculus. The final scene is of Marvin porking her in the cage while she makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow  Ow.”

While not egregiously terrible, Decadent Evil is not a good movie. Even the nudity is shoddy.

#2 – Meridian

This seemed to be the most boob-filled flick of the bunch, based on the description on the back of the case, so it got second billing. In that regard, I was not disappointed. There was ample boobage on display indeed.

Please note that this film has the subtitle “Kiss of the Beast” on occasion. This was not one of those occasions.

The movie’s protagonist is Catherine, who moves into a castle in Italy because reasons. Her friend comes to visit and invites a bunch of carnies over and then the carnies drug and rape the both of ’em. Whoops. Also the one that has his way with Catherine is a were-sasquatch. Double whoops!

I don’t know how it turns out because I fell asleep shortly after that point. I do know that there was a ghost of a dead girl, the were-sasquatch was cursed and also knew about a secret passage in the castle that led to Hell apparently, and… Yeah, that’s all I got from the few moments that I drifted back into consciousness.

Meridian, at least what I saw of it, is a much better movie than Decadent Evil. I guess it must have had some people who knew anything about making movies on staff. Sherilyn Fenn is the main character, and she’s a… known actress. It’s still not one I would recommend, because the plot was super dumb, but I could see someone defending it as a decent movie.

Confession: I did go back and watch the rest… It turns out that were-sasquatch was also a ghost. With an evil twin. And the trick to breaking were-sasquatch’s sasquatch-ghost curse was to have him murder said evil twin. If it weren’t so slow and romantic, this could have really been an awesomely stupid movie. As it is, it’s just stupid.

#3 – Backwoods Bloodbath – Curse of the Black Hodag

Where the heck do I even start with this one? Let’s start with the fact that this film is amateur-hour in every way. The story follows the same plot beats as every other slasher, the actors are mediocre at best, and the camerawork is all over the place. I suppose the gore is okay.

One might assume that the director had a glut of red corn syrup, and said to his friends “Welp, I guess we’d better make a slasher movie.”

As the story so often goes, a group of teens goes into the woods for a weekend getaway. Despite a token warning from a local hillbilly, they press on and are subsequently picked off one-by-one by a forest monster. The twist is that in addition to the monster, one of the teens is also a psychopathic killer. So I guess that’s unique. It’s normally only one of the two.

The monster is a big let down. Called a Hodag, the “beast” is really just a dude dressed all in black with predator dreadlocks. It’s given a little backstory about how it has evolved over the years into the shape of its prey (which is people), but that’s still just a lame handwaving for not being able to come up with some decent creature effects. It’s especially disappointing when you find out what a Hodag is actually supposed to look like.

At least the Hodag’s story is kind of neat. The locals are used to a couple people going missing every year, as the Hodag will kill a few folks and store their bodies away for the winter (like the nagging grasshopper). But it just so happens that now, it’s killing at an alarming frequency because it’s got a baby on the way. It’s eating for two now! How sweet! Better than just killing because it’s a mindless monster, at any rate.

Just so that we can tie this one into the common thread of “how’s the nudity?”, I feel obligated to mention that during one of the sex scenes, there is a still, close-up shot of a single breast for about five seconds. The editing in this film is baffling. Also the Hodag keeps one of the girls tied up and alive in his lair, but by the time she is found, it has chopped off her breasts. That’s… not a thing I’ve ever seen before. Backwoods Bloodbath goes to some really strange places.

I can’t in good faith recommend this to anyone. It’s not even amusingly terrible. It’s just terrible. The one saving grace for me is that I was playing Chibi-Robo! Zip-Lash throughout, so it didn’t really feel like I’d wasted those 90 minutes.

#4 – Zombie Dearest

The last one on today’s lineup, as absolutely the best. By a long shot. A really, really long shot.

I have no idea why this was billed as a horror film, or why anybody suggests that it is scary in the least. Because it is not. The last three minutes of the film might be construed as somewhat frightening, but even then, that’s being pretty generous.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’ve become so desensitized to zombies that I cannot fathom how anyone could see them as something frightening.

Anyway, this movie is totally a comedy. Like, it’s not hilarious or anything, but it made me laugh out loud a few times. And, of course, I was laughing with this movie. If I chuckled while watching the other three, I definitely would have been laughing at them.

Zombie Dearest tells the story of a couple, Gus and Deborah, who are going through some severe marital difficulties. They end up moving out to an old family home in the country, and Gus digs up a dead body while trying to replace his septic tank. By some manner of Zombie Wang Magic (yes, it’s a thing), the body comes to life and starts following Gus’s orders.

The zombie, Quinto, puts even more strain on Gus and Deborah’s relationship at first, but eventually they patch things up and grow closer than ever when they decide that they need to re-kill Quinto.

Things do take a turn for the worse near the end, but unlike every other zombie comedy ever, it doesn’t dip into bleak, depressing territory in the third act and forget that it’s supposed to be funny. No, it hangs onto its somewhat humorous tone until it absolutely must push the plot to its climax. But it quickly invokes Zombie Wang Magic a second time to undo the damage and give the characters their (presumably) happy ending.

I am fully willing to put myself out there and suggest that Zombie Dearest is actually a good movie. It’s not a life-altering film, but I was entertained and impressed but it. It may be due to the fact that I was expecting another 90 minutes of garbage, but there’s also a chance that it really is decent. Even if you’re fully burned-out on zombies, I’d heartily recommend watching it. (Fair warning: it’s got only a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.)

A Critical Look at Yoshi’s Woolly World

I have spent hours and hours (days, even!) researching and pondering it, and I believe that I have finally discovered all three things that are wrong with Yoshi’s Woolly World.

1. Too Many Costumes

Yarn Yoshi is damn near the cutest thing ever conceived (the crown goes to Yarn Poochy), so you already get that joy of watching cuddly little Yoshi waddle around as you play. But then, there are the costumes. Dozens and dozens of patterns to dress up Yoshi in, each more adorable than the last. Having to choose one to play as at any given time is an impossible task, and trying to select a costume has siphoned away hours of my life.

Granted, you have to earn them all, so if you aren’t collecting those smiling yarn skeins obsessively, you’ll only ever have to choose from the standard green and red Yoshis (which is still a struggle). The amiibo costumes can only be unlocked by scanning the corresponding amiibo, so that’s another saving grace, I guess. Buying them all is a massive hurdle in itself, and the monotony of scanning each one individually could kill a man.

Still, how am I supposed to get any levels played when I have to actively make a choice between Citrus Yoshi and Duck Hunt Yoshi? The game should really have included a random pattern spinner at the beginning of each stage.

2. The Appeal of the Woolly World

All I can think about when I stop playing Yoshi’s Woollly World is how much the real world sucks. I want to live in a world where everything is made out of craft materials, where any type of terrain is soft and plushy, and even the fiercest creatures are cute and huggable.

I have often said that I would love to live in a house made of pillows, and here Nintendo has realized that to some degree. Stages are built from knitted grasslands with yarn ball trees and bushes, mountains made of stacked cushions with scarves and doilies laid on top of them, and literal pillow forts. Sequins line the waters to make them sparkle. On the world map, there is a volcano that is a propped-up toque with a red and orange striped scarf draped over it as an approximation of a lava flow.

After visiting Yoshi’s Woolly World, reality just looks that much more awful.

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3. The Start-up Screen

Every Wii U game has a little splash screen that shows up when you launch it. It sits there for a bit, and some of them are more complex than others. Some are a static screen, some have little animations, and some segue very smoothly into the actual title screen of the game.

The start-up screen for Yoshi’s Woolly world is actually three screens. First, an adorable image of Yoshi and Poochy. Second, a page with the logo and the three yarn Yoshi amiibos. Lastly, a chart of all the controllers that are compatible with this game. The actual images are not the issue.

No, the problem is the music. There’s a jolly little tune that plays on the loading screen, albeit very strangely. When the first picture changes to the second, the tune fades out and then restarts, which is a little jarring. And then when it’s showing the control options, the music just stops. That image tends to be the one that stays on-screen the longest, so you’re sitting there in silence for a good five-to-eight seconds. It’s really weird.

Oh, wait, that was almost an actual knock at the game in this post that was supposed to be humorously suggesting that Yoshi’s Woolly World actually has no faults. Opps!

Within This Place Resides an Evil

So I played The Evil Within last month. It’s been sitting on my shelf unplayed since, like, January, when I got it at some kind of crazy dirt-cheap price. Seriously, if you go out (on onto your console’s online store) and look for it now, it’s still way more than I paid for it back then.

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But honestly, I would have been just fine with paying full price for this bad boy. I loved pretty much every minute of it, aside from one or two mildly frustrating bits. It’s the most recent game by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and if you have any sort of appreciation for the RE series, it’s made very clear where this games roots lie.

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Yoshi and Collectibles

Yoshi’s Island is a perennial favourite around these parts, and what I believe to be one of the most well-crafted television games ever made. My big secret? I’ve never ever 100%ed it.

“But Ryan! You always 100% games!”

Silly rabbit, not always. But yes, usually I will go out of my way to collect all the doodads or complete all the challenges in a game that I really like. Sometimes even in a game I don’t really like, just to prove my dominance over it. Kind of like hate sex.

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Anyway, the point is that I’ve never really felt like getting all the collectibles in Yoshi’s Island (or its sequels) was really worth the effort. For one, it’s incredibly difficult; some of those kajiggers are really well-hidden. Secondly, you have to collect everything and clear the stage with full health in a single run, which is just bonkers after world one. Also, it doesn’t really do much for you, outside of a little fanfare. I mean, sure, you unlock a bonus level if you 100% every stage in a world, but those bonus levels are concentrated evil. Kind of like the game is hate sexing you.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a little bit different. The collectibles can still be an absolute pain to gather, but this game takes it easy on you. Each collectible can be completed independently, you don’t have to get everything in one run, which takes off a ton of the pressure. That means that on harder stages, you can focus on just getting through with full life and not have to search for all the secrets at the same time. Or you can just go back and grab that one thing you missed, and not have to pick up the other hundred things you all ready got for full marks.

More importantly, every collectible does something for you. Well, completing a stage with full life is still just for bragging rights, but the rest hand out goodies on a semi-regular basis.

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The flowers, of which there are five in every stage, are the only key to unlocking the bonus stages this time around. You still have to find every flower in the world, but it’s only the flowers that count toward the bonus stage.

The yarn skeins come in sets of five as well, and they will reassemble a new Yoshi for you to play as. These prizes are handed out more liberally, with one unlockable Yoshi in each stage. It’s kind of a fun game to guess what kind of pattern you’re going to get as you collect skeins, as they’re coloured to match the Yoshi that is unlocked in each stage.

Stamp patches are the hardest to get because there are a whopping twenty in each stage, and they’re collected from normal-looking beads that are randomly mixed in with all the other beads (just like the red coins in previous games). For every so many (80, I think?) stamp patches you find, you’re given a new set of five Miiverse stamps. These are perhaps the least desirable prizes, but they’re still something.

Also, there’s a badge that you get later on that highlights all the secrets in a stage. It makes invisible clouds visible, makes false walls glow, and puts a radar pulse on beads that contain stamp patches. It’s a little pricy, but if you save all your beads until the end of the game, you’ll probably be in good shape to buy it for a replay of every stage that you didn’t clear out on the first go.

I still haven’t even finished the game, and I’m not completely certain that I will go back for 100%, but Yoshi’s Woolly World surely makes the strongest case for convincing me to do so. It also helps that the game is a joy to play, and an absolute delight for the ears and eyes as well.

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