So I won’t miss you

Edwin had informed me that in the previous post I had made a typo and dated it the 32nd of February. He then joked that the shortest month had suddenly become the longest. It’s funny though, that February has been abolutely crawling by for me. Don’t know why, but rather than obsessively checking the time to make sure I wasn’t wasting any, I’ve been pressed to find ways to while away my free time. I don’t know if March will put time back in its normal paces, but here’s hoping.

In other news, I watched The Omega Man whilst unable to sleep a couple mornings ago, and despite many, many parallels, it’s very different from the most recent revisioning of the story, I Am Legend. For most of the first half of the movie, you’ll notice all sorts of similarities between the two, having Neville blazing through town in a red car in the opening scene being the most obvious. Even scenes that are completely different, like where he’s reciting lines along with a movie (Woodstock and Shrek, respectively), had me thinking “Hey this is just like in the other one!”.

I think that despite the fact that the movies branch out in very different ways in the middle, I Am Legend is probably the better film overall, but The Omega Man has that wonderful 70’s vibe that I cannot help but love. The one part where I think The Omega Man excels over its newer counterpart would be the scenes where Neville has his shirt off. Charlton Heston’s physique isn’t going to make the common man look inadequate in front of his female peers, unlike Will Smith’s, who they will seriously not shut up about. I mean, come on girls, it’s Hollywood. You can’t possibly expect that kind of rippedness from Average Joe! So stop gushing about the scene where Will Smith is not wearing a shirt, please. If you have to, you can at least have the courtesy to do it while I’m not around. Jeez.

So yeah. I got a semi-review and two complaints out in one blog post. I think that’s pretty good. I guess it’s back to killing time for me then. I’m sure there’s probably something productive I could be doing.

Whatcha gonna do?

You may have heard something recently about the next Guitar Hero game. If you haven’t, I have some news that may disturb or excite you: It’s all Aerosmith. Yeah. Harsh. I mean, it’s just an “expansion” like the 80’s edition, but still. There are a lot of other bands I’d much rather have entire Guitar Hero games based on. Off the top of my head, let’s see…

  • Tesla
  • Helix
  • The Ataris
  • Rush
  • Sons of Butcher

And the list goes on, really. I mean, I like Aerosmith, but a whole game worth of them is a lot to take. I really don’t see myself buying into this one. Which is sad, because I’m pretty much ready to drop money on new Guitar Hero games at the drop of the hat. But Aerosmith… Man, I really wish it was Tesla instead. I fuckin’ love Tesla.

This damn girl’s spun my head right around

Last week was without a doubt the most eventful seven days of my life to this point, and nothing really even happened between Monday and Wednesday. I am completely worn out right now, and should be catching up on sleep instead of blogging it up. Alas, old habits die hard.

In between all the things that keep me out of the house, I’ve been enjoying No More Heroes like it’s nobody’s business. It’s the biggest third-party Wii title for a reason. I know there are those out there who may not completely agree, but I think it’s totally living up to the hype I had built up around it, and that’s saying something because I’ve been watching it intently ever since the first trailer was leaked.

The most obvious victory for No More Heroes is the characters. Travis Touchdown is one of the baddest asses I’ve ever seen, and might even be more awesome than Dan Smith from Killer7. He’s an ex-pro-wrestler otaku who’s current job just happens to be killing. He’s blunt, crude, and quite possibly insane. And that’s before you factor in all the other UAA assassins, who are all reasonably interesting in their own rights. It’s just too bad that the main objective of the game is to make them all dead, because I wouldn’t mind seeing a few of those characters fleshed-out in a sequel/spin-off. Ah well, win some lose some I guess. Various other support characters linger about in the few main attractions of Santa Destroy, but none of them have nearly enough screen time. I say this because the few lines/actions/etc they are given are usually either straight-up hilarious or absurd to the point of hilarity.

Shinobu, the samurai schoolgirl, WILL murder you. Many times.

I suppose I should mention somewhere that the game is fun, too. The meat, which would be fighting the other assassins, is incredible. Like their personalities, each battle is completely different and provides many new and exciting ways to be killed. Hacking your way through legions of same-dressed goons on your way to each assassin showdown will provide plenty of fun too. Tons of games have had you battle through masses of enemies, but only No More Heroes makes it worth it by pure style alone. The animations and sound effects bring you right into the action, and within seconds you’ll lose yourself to the fight. Mashing the A button swings the beam katana, but every time you finish an enemy, you’ll swing the Wiimote to finish them off. Grabbing stunned enemies invokes a motion-activated wresting move, and no matter how you choose to dispose of the hordes of peons, each and every kill will be absolutely thrilling.

The biggest complaint point I’ve heard so far is the overworld. I’ll give those complainers a small degree of merit, because truthfully, it is pretty janky. Hitboxes on cars and people are enormous when compared to the actual models (which are blocky and poorly textured), and more often than not, when you’ve flown off your bike because you’ve rammed into a car at full speed, you won’t have been anywhere near that car. On the other hand, buried treasures and Lovikov Balls (essentially GTA “Hidden Packages”) are marked on the map. I cannot even imagine how to explain how much I like this. Yes, it takes the challenge out of finding them all, but I have never enjoyed hunting for unmarked baubles. Besides, you still have to manually search the entire city to find all the dumpsters, many which contain new T-shirts. So if you need that hunt-and-find element, it’s still there. In any case, fooling around in Santa Destroy isn’t nearly as bad as some make it out to be, but the city could certainly have benefited from a little more time in production.

I honestly could not mention everything I love about this game and keep this blog-post length, but at the same time, I don’t really want to spoil all the fantastic surprises, jokes and nuances that make the game so irresistible. So I’ll end on this note: No More Heroes is something to be experienced. If you have a Wii, you should definitely at least rent it as many times as it takes you to finish the game. If you don’t own a Wii, go steal one from a smarter family member or friend (but not me) and then play it. It’s not something to be missed.

Satisfaction guarantees

It’s kind of sad that despite how much I enjoy Guitar Hero 3, I’ve almost completely neglected it ever since Rock Band came into my home. I feel bad for this, but aside from maybe like “F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.” and “Knights of Cydonia”, the song list is at least 27 times better in Rock Band. It may have something to do with the infinitely superior DLC support; I suppose you just can’t compete with new material every week. I’m still waiting on a Def Leppard pack though.

As much weight as the track list may carry, the other big difference is the drum kit. I mainly play alone (or online, which isn’t much different), so the multiplayer aspect isn’t a huge draw, but those drums are like a little bit of Heaven. They’re extremely hard to learn, but I’ve got it down to the point where I can at least manage to scrape through most songs on hard, so I’m doing okay as far as game progress goes. But just playing for fun, the normal difficulty is more than enough. It provides a challenge, but doens’t have quite enough tricks to really throw you off. Learning to play the drum kit has given me a much bigger satisfaction payoff than playing the plastic guitar ever did. It feels absolutely amazing just to pound away to the beat, and accomplishing hard sections without missing a note is total bliss. I could recommend Rock Band based on the drum section alone.

Did I mention that drumming is the greatest way to relieve tension ever? No? Well it is. Seriously, I can boot up the game and be all stressed or whatever other negative emotions might plague the human soul, and by the time I’m two songs in I feel like I’m on top of the world. It’s like a magic cure for the blues.

As much as I would love to continue jabbering on about drums and Rock Band, or Hell, actually playing the game, I have homework to do. Yeah. Homework. From work. Trying to get ahead is a pain.

Getting “the talk”

My mother turned the most mudane conversation into a completely uncomforatable experience today.

You see, we were simply talking about shoes. I’m not a big shoe-type guy, so at one point I mentioned that I felt that shoes were little more than foot protection. And then she noted that I was going to be needing a lot of foot protection soon. Only “foot” was a euphamism.

There’s a story about why exactly I’d be needing such a thing, but we’ll save that for a more appropriate time.

Photo fun

You know what I really love? Facebook. For one, it’s actually rekindled my sense of friendship. It’s not like MySpace was, where all I’d ever do was change my profile song. I’m actually posting on people’s walls and pictures, and even playing Oregon Trail online! Oregon friggin’ Trail! I’ve been kind of down on people for the last however long, but as of late, I’ve found that I’ve become much more comfortable around people on the whole, and I credit this development entirely to Facebook, for giving me an easy way to dip my toes into the waters of socialization.

But even better than that, it’s a place where I can post the most inane photos of myself and people can’t help but see them! Yeah, I can put up all the pictures I want here, but like three people will ever see any. Facebook pretty much forces them on others. Take the moustache picture I posted a while back, for example:

Totally hilarious, and people actually brought it up in not-internet conversation. It’s hard to come up with gold like that, but I’m thinking that my Facebook page will now play host to a gallery of humorous pictures of myself, along with the ones that are there simply to please my vanity. Now it’s just going to be a challenge figuring out things that will be just as or more funny than that picture up there.

I’m ready to go off

Time for a very quick Band of the Month post. Why quick? Because I really can’t come up with a band that I want to yap about but haven’t covered in the past. Maybe I’ll have to start renaming bands? Nah. I’ll just have to go outside my favourites, I guess.

Anyway, this month is a total cop-out. I’ve selected the Matthew Good Band as BotM for February, but I already did pretty good coverage of them back in October of oh-five when I gave Matthew Good the title. It’s understandable then that there isn’t much else to elaborate on.

I guess if there’s anything to say that I haven’t said on that page or in the (poorly-kept) CD archive, it’s that the MGB was the first band I really got into. Van Halen was the first rock band that I ever listened to by choice, but MGB completely enraptured me. Good’s solo career continues to keep me interested, and I’ve listened to his latest release, Hospital Music, no less than 30 times since I bought it. What can I say? He’s a frickin’ genius.

That’s really all I’ve got to say today. And hey, it’s 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Give me a break. I should have been asleep like forever ago.

matthewgood.org

Wikipedia entry on Matthew Good Band

Buy Beautiful Midnight

Buy The Audio of Being

Smashing good times

So now that January is over, I can really claim 2008 to be far superior to 2007. January sucked total balls last year, and really set a bad precedent for the months to follow. January ’08, however, has been filled with nothing but awesome. Okay, maybe there have been a few downers here and there, but they’ve been entirely my fault and not the world trying to stick it to me. In conclusion, I think I’m going to be happy this year. Don’t let my sullen disposition and Facebook page fool you; I’m quite content on the inside.

Things are only going to get better though, and I can tell you this with no reservation, because today somebody posted a video on YouTube that features every character’s final smash in Brawl. And I mean every character, so you should know there are spoilers ahead, and if you care, don’t watch this video.

I was kind of excited about final smashes when they were first announced, because I thought it would be neat for every character to have a one-shot, incredibly overpowered, absolutely fantastic finishing move. And while some are more broken than others, for the most part, they deliver. Seeing screens on the Dojo was kinda meh, but watching them in action is pure bliss. PK Starstorm!! Ha. I love it. Did I mention that I love the background music? At this point I’m anticipating the soundtrack almost as much as the game proper.

On bottle rockets

So if you care in the least, you probably know that all the Smash Bros Brawl info has been leaked over the last 30-ish hours. I really didn’t want to know it all, but I figured it would be better to spoil myself on purpose than have someone else accidentally spoil it for me. So what’s my favourite part of it all? Jeff is an Assist Trophy!

Now, we all know that Jeff is in a two-way tie with Paula for lamest Earthbound character, so why am I so happy to see him? In honest truth, I really just love Earthbound. Any and all Mother-related junk I see in Brawl will make me squeal like a fangirl. I hate using Ness, but I was devastated by the idea that he might not return. In any case, it’s mostly just another way to tide me over until the day Earthbound hits the Virtual Console. Don’t get me wrong, I rented it at least thrice and played through it via emulation a couple times too, but I really want a VC version of Earthbound.

My reasons for such a desire are twofold. Firstly, and most importantly, I want to be able to say I own the game, digital rehash or not. Ever since the day I read the preview article about it in Nintendo Power, I’ve always felt that my biggest SNES-era loss was Earthbound. And considering the poor sales numbers, I guess it may be some other people’s as well. Secondly, and maybe the truly more important one, is that if waves and waves of people buy the VC Earthbound, Nintendo of America might finally be swayed to give us the prequel (Earthbound Zero) and sequel (Mother 3). You may be aware, but a fully localized copy of Earthbound Zero is floating around out there somewhere; it was just never released. And as for Mother 3, NoA are just being dicks about that one. They know there’s a fanbase. How in God’s name are all the casual Wii owners supposed to know who Lucas is? Or why exactly New Pork City is awesome? Come the fuck on.

Anyway, that’s about it for my spiel. I don’t really care if we’ve seen the entire roster yet or anything. It’s good the way it is. I’d like more playable villains, but other than that, I’m perfectly satisifed with what we’re getting. …As long as Pokémon Trainer has a female version as a costume swap.

Oh, right. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the Brawl intro video. Epic win.