With a heart full of napalm

Last month (or last year if you want to be dramatic), I rambled on about the sorry state of Nintendo’s digital distribution channel, the Wii Shop. In that short and hastily-typed tirade, I mentioned that though WiiWare’s lineup was lacking, I thought that Space Invaders Get Even looked like it had some chops. I was totally right.

I had bought some Wii Points a couple days ago so that I could download the newly-released Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (beautiful, beautiful game), and had 1500 points to spare. I figured that I wanted to give Space Invaders Get Even a shot, but World of Goo was calling my name. I believe it came down to the fact that for 500 points, if I didn’t like SIGE, it wouldn’t be a huge loss, whilst World of Goo would run me my whole 1500. So the Space Invaders got their chance to shine.

Space Invaders Get Even is a very simple game. A glorified shoot ’em up, even. The object is to fly your ship around the map and blow shit up. You would not believe that this alone is enough fun to warrant the 5 dollars it cost you to buy the game. Hell, this is more than enough fun to warrant a $20 purchase. I would totally not be disappointed if this were a disc release game and I’d bought it out of the $20 bargain bin at Superstore. But yeah, fly around and blow up some particular buildings and that’s all. The game is drenched in wonderful sci-fi cheese, and as far as the atmosphere of the game goes, makes me think back to War of the Monsters (anyone have a spare copy?) and Destroy All Humans.

But there is a little more to it than that! It’s a Space Invaders game after all, and the whole point of any title bearing that name would be achieving high scores. So while leveling the playing field (literally) is a great hook, you’ll get totally addicted to trying to top out your scores. Online leaderboards do nothing to help stop that addiction either. I’ve never been crazy about leaderboards (because I’m only mediocre at games), but for once I’ve been checking how I stack up to everyone else quite obsessively, and am proud to say I’m ranked 99th on overall game score. That’s pretty good!

There is one catch, however. The game you buy from the Wii Shop Channel only contains two levels and a boss. While these are more than good enough for a while, the itch to blow up some new scenery will rear its ugly head, and new scenery is available, thoughat a cost. There are three mission packs available for 500 points apiece. And while that sounds outrageous, there is an upside: each mission pack contains four stages and two bosses, thereby giving you twice as much game as your initial investment for the same price. Not as bad as it could be, but still a bit on the sketchy side. You really can’t expect much more from Square-Enix though. Also, the intial game eats up 300+ blocks of memory, and each expansion pack takes around 120, so it’s a friggin’ massive game to have on your Wii’s tiny internal memory. Until now I’ve barely cared about a Wii hard drive, but between SIGE and the Strong Bad games, I’m starting to get a little irritated by its lack of existence.

To conclude, I’d say that Space Invaders Get Even is a no-brainer. At least the intinal download is. Nickel-and-diming us for the rest of the levels is kind of a dick move, but it only comes out to $20 in the end, and like I said before, I would gladly pay that price for the game. I just really want to play War of the Monsters now. I never should have mentioned it… *sigh*

Live fast, ’cause it won’t last

Ah, a new year. We’re already a few days in, but let’s talk about it anyway. I know I’m usually more of the cynical type, but I’ve got a good feeling about 2009. Not that 2008 wasn’t a good year. Oh no, quite opposite in fact!

2008 was a pretty great year in and of itself. There was that one rough patch in March-ish, and the last week of the year was a little touch-and-go for a while, but overall I’d say 2008 was a rousing success. The belated release of Super Smash Bros Brawl was more than enough in itself to make me happy with last year, but let’s not forget some of the other great things that came to us like No More Heroes and Fable II. Oh, and Tales of Vesperia too, which I am still spending a solid chunk of my free time playing (damned achievements!).

I also got a promotion earlier in the year, and though I enjoy the little bit of power I’ve been granted, it’s still not nearly enough to make me like my job. But that’s okay, because recently a really huge opportunity has shown its face and I’m really hoping it works out. I won’t go into any more detail because the more I talk about it, the less fate will think I deserve it, but I will say this: it would be my dream job.

Obviously, and most importantly, 2008 is the year that I started dating my girlfriend. It’s been fantastic, and while there are a few very minor drawbacks (I sometimes miss having copious amounts of free time), I finally understand just why people always seem so desperate to be with someone. We’ve been on several vacations together already, and have a designated movie night. Working at the same place has its perks too, of course.

So yeah, 2008 was good. Maybe not perfect, but that’s what 2009 is for, I guess. Hopefully this year I’ll make a little more time for my website(s) and write up more than five articles. I mean, that’s less than one every two months. Unacceptable! Perhaps I’ll finish refurbishing the “Spare!” comics. Who knows. Though I’m fairly sure I’ve mentioned that at least a million times in the last few months and nothing’s come of it.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Here’s to the new year and even better times!

Promise not to stop when I say “when”

Well, it’s now the 24th of December, and I have successfully made one news post every day. Guess maybe I did have it in me after all. I know a couple were a bit crappy, but sometiimes that’s just how she goes.

Today, I was intending to talk about the best DLC for Rock Band, but I’d rather just make a bit of a spiel about how I hate working on computers that aren’t mine. See, I’m making this post from my girlfriend’s laptop, as I will not be home at all today, and I had to make the last post, right? But anyway, I’m finding this very uncomfortable. The whole compressed keyboard thing is a pain to adjust to, and making my typing way slower. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a vey nice laptop, and I wouldn’t mind owning one myself, but I just can’t stand adjusting to a new keyboard.

Much more of an issue is the fact that it’s running Windows Vista. Oh my God I hate Vista. It took me nearly half an hour to figure out how to access my FTP site or whatever through the network connections, and it really shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t think I could even do it again. And why doesn’t the “choose program” under “open with” have a bunch of default programs? I had to dig through the whole Windows directory to find the stupid Notepad. Notepad! And yes, I do all my HTMLing in Notepad. I’m sure it would be a lot easier with a program that would pick out wrong and useles code, but whatever. I’ve been doing it this way for six years, why change now? I hate change.

On a lighter note, we watched A Christmas Tale from that 6-movie set last night. It was actually a lot funnier than it was scary. The plot was about a bunch of kids who found a dangerous criminal who had fallen into a pit. She had robbed a bank, and the kids were trying to get her to give them the money before they’d help her out of the hole. Then there was voodoo and zombies and a slightly ambiguous ending. It was okay, nothing special. I think my favourite part was that there were four boys, and when they were coming up with nicknames to use while talking to the criminal, they named themselves after the A-Team. That was funny.

So yep. That concludes the 24 Days of Materialism. Hoped you enjoyed it as much as I hated finding a way to make a blog post every day for 24 days staight.

I play for keeps

As sort of a follow up to my short “review” of the Uzumaki manga, I decided that I would watch the movie. And watch I did. Last night. And much to my dismay, it really wasn’t very good. So even though it’s Tuesday and I’m supposed to be reviewing a video game, I’mma go ahead and tell you about this flop.

The main issue here is that they had to cram a story that spanned three books into two hours, and I suppose they did an okay job with that, but it could have been so much better. There were a lot of chapters in the books that were simply side-stories that really had no place in the movie. Particularly that of Kirie’s stalker and the girl with the spiraly hair. Hell, they weren’t even complete here. At the end of the movie, they show some stills of people affected by the uzumaki, and one is of the chick with the hair, her curls wrapped around a telephone pole, and her body completely emaciated. If you hadn’t read the manga prior to this, you would have no idea what was going on. Would you have guessed that the ever-growing hair spirals were draining her of her life? Probably not, as it wasn’t even remotely touched on.

The main story was even cut in half and slightly butchered in the process. Everything was going fine in the beginning; Shuichi’s father obsessed with the uzumaki, the spiral smoke from the crematorium chimney, his mother going insane. It was all good until the end when (and I’ll spoil the movie here because the book is way better) Shuichi was caught by the spiral and turned into a monster. Manga Shuichi would never have given into the spiral, much much less attack Kirie. Or does that give away too much? Well, in any case, I undersand that they had to take a few liberties to turn it into a movie, but it just hurts so much. The quote on the cover calls Uzumaki “deliriously unsettling”, which is true, but the creepiness is about the only thing left intact from the source material.

Which brings me to what I did like about the film version. for one, like I said, it was still really creepy. I’m almost afraid to turn around in fear that some kind of horrible spirally fate is waiting just behind me. A good part of the gore and shocking visuals remain off-camera (or come on for only a split-second), but the screams and the sounds of bones cracking and bodies contorting in ways they were never meant to are more then enough to get the message of terror across. Also, for the very brief few seconds that we get to see the giant man-snails, they look really cool. Besides the fact that they’re irrelevant to the main plot, I kinda wish they’d gotten more screen time. Oh well.

In conclusion, I really haven’t changed my mind between now and four paragraphs ago. It’s not a great movie, and I’m pretty sure that anyone who has not read through at least the first book will be utterly confused by what exactly is going on. It’s frightening and will most likely give you the jibblies, but I think that in the end, the common man would come away from it more confused than scared. Not a big recommendation on this one unless you’re absolutely crazy about the manga and must have everything asociated with it. In which case, I might warn you against obsessions like that… unless you want to end up coiled in a laundry machine.

Wished ever after would be like this

Okay, Monday is whatever I want it to be, right? Well today I choose to do a sort of Part 2 to yesterday’s post. And by that, I mean I have posted a new article; the 2008 Virtual Console Wishlist. It’s all about Super Nintendo games! And it actually falls closer to the intent of this “24 Days of Materialism” feature than yesterday’s rant, because it’s a loving tribute to things I would like to pay money for, whereas usually I talk about things I’ve already paid for.

So go read that maybe. It’s pretty one-sided, but I’m sure you’ll agree with me on at least the last game. If you don’t you’re a heartless monster and you shouldn’t be allowed to play video games.

Virtual Console Wishlist 2008 – The Super NES Edition

Here we are again, at the end of another year. Only this time it’s 2008. And since it’s a different year, I guess I get the luxury of running the same article I did last December without the guilt of using the same idea twice in a year. So like I did back then, I’m going to make a short list of games that I would personally love to see on the Wii’s Virtual Console service. It’ll be a little bit harder this year, because I used my most wanted in 2007, but coming up with seven more wasn’t too hard. And I even have a gimmick this time!

For 2008’s VC Wishlist, I’ve decided that I’m only going to pick games that appeared on the Super Nintendo (or Super Famicom, in some cases). Why? I dunno. I was just picking games and once I had it down to a relatively short list I realized that the ones I wanted the most were on the SNES. Sure, there are some NES games that I would love to play again, but none more than G.I. Joe or Nightshade. The only thing I’ve craved on the N64 lately has inexplicably been Pokémon Stadium, but that’s not super important. And like last year, I really couldn’t give a crap what happens with the Sega and Hudson machines. Or even the Neo Geo. I can’t even think of all the systems they’ve got on there now. All I had as a kid were the Nintendo machines, so we’re gonna stick to those.


#1 – Soul Blazer

Chances are you’ve never played Soul Blazer before. It’s only slightly less likely that you’ve never even heard of the game before now. Or maybe it was huge and I just missed it because I was afraid of RPGs back in my SNESing days. Imagine my surprise when I opened the ROM file a couple years ago and learned that it wasn’t really that much of an RPG at all!

No, Soul Blazer has more in common with the Zelda series that it would with any Final Fantasy. It’s one of those top-down action RPGs that I love so much. Wish I had known that back in the day! Yes, that would have been good, because I really don’t think Soul Blazer has held up all that well over time. The graphics aren’t horrible, but do reek of bland. It looks almost like a dressed-up Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Or at least that’s what I can best liken it to. Not to mention that the gameplay could use a little sprucing up. I’ll give in to the fact that it’s an earlier SNES game, but it could still work a little better. The point is, at the tie I would have thought the games was great. At present, it’s a little outdated. Or a lot.

So If I’m being so hard on the game, why do I want it on the Virtual Console soooo bad? for one, because if you look past its age, it’s not a terrible game. A little clunky and rough around the edges, but entirely playable. I do like it, but there’s not use pretending it’s better than it. The main reason I want to see it is because I’ve never played all the way through. I’ve only spent about two hours at most with the game, just more than enough to form an opinion of a SNES title. And I want to play it because I’ve been itching to go through Illusion of Gaia again, but my misguided sense of fairness is forcing me to play this one again. And if it lived on my Wii, that would make it that much more appealing to actually load up and play.

I can’t truly rate Soul Blazer at this point, because I’ve only barely gotten into it, but then again, I’ve only finished two of the games on this list, so it’s really more of a “I want to truly experience these for the first time list”. Mostly, anyway. If I did have to place a final judgement on it right now though, I could tell you that I’ve easily downloaded games of lower quality than this. The TG-16’s Neutopia, for example. And that’s essentially the first Legend of Zelda game with a facelift. So yeah, I would buy this one as soon as it showed up in the Wii Shop. Might not play it right away, but it would give me peace of mind to at least know that it’s there waiting for me.

#2 – Illusion of Gaia

Illusion of Gaia is the sequel to Soul Blazer, and the second game in the trilogy. It’s also the only one I’ve finished. Of all three games, I think this one would be the most likely Virtual Console candidate, if only because Soul Blazer (as far as I know) was never hugely publicized and the sequel never made it to North America.

Illusion of Gaia is a huge step up from its predecessor. It’s still a top-down Zelda wannabe, but it’s much more polished and the story is actually really interesting. Or, at least, it was many years ago when I played it through. I think it would probably still hold up pretty well these days.

The plot of the game follows a young boy named Will on a quest to save the world from a doomsday comet. It’s pretty standard stuff, but the part that I love about it, and indeed what drew me to the game in the first place, is that most of the game locations take place in real-world locations like the Nazca lines and the Great Wall of China. It’s officially a fantasy world, but there are so many analogues to real human history and mysteries, and I think that adds an incredibly interesting facet to the game. I know it sounds horrible, but I kind of wish the game gave even more real information about these things. It would be the first truly entertaining edutainment title.

Plot and locations aside, I still think Illusion of Gaia is a solid title. It’s still sort of a lo-fi Zelda, but it has its own charm that I find very few other games possess. Maybe I’m just looking at it through rosy nostalgia glasses, but I’ve been itching to play through it again. The only reason I haven’t is that I have so many other games in progress that I couldn’t possibly start playing a game I’ve already seen through to completion. Also, I want to play and beat Soul Blazer first, if just for that minor sense of completion. Of all the games featured here, I think this is the one that I have the strongest craving to play.

#3 – Terranigma

The last in the series, Terranigma is also the finest. Well, probably. I’ve only been through roughly a tenth of the game, but that was much more recently than the other two, and I remember thinking that it was really quite awesome. My friends even agreed with me when I showed it to them. Though to be fair, it was still early in our career of playing ROMs, and it was mind-blowing to play pretty much any SNES game on our computers for free.

Terranigma, as far as I remember, is more of a “preserve the world and nature” themed game than simply saving the world. Or at least, that’s the impression I got from the first couple hours of it. A quick check on Wikipedia confirms that it’s a wee bit more complex than that. The game takes place in a world where the Earth is hollow and the overworld is dominated by good, and the underworld interior by evil. There’s more to it than it seems though, because the hero of the game… is from the underworld!

I honestly can’t remember a lot about this game other than the fact that it plays pretty closely to Illusion of Gaia and that it was a ton of fun. Not sure why I never finished this one, because whenever I think about it, I can only remember it being pure bliss. I’m sure it wasn’t that good, but I’m willing to stake my reputation (not that that’s a huge gamble) on the fact that it is a top tier SNES game. In fact, while it was only released in Japan and Europe, the main (only?) reason we never saw it is because Enix’s North American branch closed down before they could get it out. the only thing I’m not into about this game is that because of my misguided sense of obligation, I have to finish the other two games before I’ll let myself start this one! Aargh! Well, if by some impossible stroke of luck we see this on the Virtual Console first, I suppose I’ll have a loophole.

#4 – Robotrek

While not a sequel to any of the aforementioned games, Robotrek comes to us from the same development studio as the Soul Blazer trilogy, Quintet. Over the years, I have come to really respect their work, and the fact that most (if not all) of their SNES titles were published by Enix made them must-plays for me. See, I’m willing to give anything with the Enix name a shot because they had so much wonderful product in the 16-bit era, and Robotrek is no exception.

I have actually tried playing Robotrek twice, neither time making it very far into the game. This saddens me, because it’s exactly the type of game I want to play. For one, it’s an Enix RPG, and much more of a standard RPG than the last three games I just talked about. For two, it has a large collection/synthesis/customization aspect to it, and that I absolutely adore.

The game is about robots, obviously, and I have no idea what the plot was about, but you play as a young boy who uses robots to battle. It’s essentially Pokémon a year before Pokémon existed. Not only can you build new robots, but you can customize them to your liking, adding new parts and weapons, and even make your own new parts by combining old ones. Like I said, it’s exactly the kind of game I want to play. It’s almost like if Custom Robo were a standard JRPG.

So yeah, I think I’ve made it clear exactly why I want to be playing this on my Wii as soon as possible. I think the reason I put it down in the past is maybe because the completionist in me became too obsessed and I was too interested in beefing up my robots than actually playing through the story. That sounds about right. I do, after all, usually have Butterfree and Wartortle before even reaching Brock.

#5 – Umihara Kawase

Nintendo very rarely uses their infinite power to infuse the Virtual Console’s lineup with games that were never released in whatever particular region you may be in. Sin and Punishment would be the big one for us here in North America, but there are tons of lesser known games that never made it over here that I would love to see make it over in digital form. Umihara Kawase would be somewhere around the top of that list.

The thing that makes Umihara Kawase a good candidate is that Nintendo could put it up with very little extra effort going into it. The game is a platform puzzler, and one of the best. You play as a small girl tasked with reaching a door on the other side of the stage, and your only ability is to use a fishing line as a grappling hook. The trick is that the hook responds to all sorts of physics, and the game can get very complicated, but once you get good (good luck ever mastering it!), it’s insanely entertaining. And that’s why it’s easy. The game needs no instructions. The only thing you have to learn is how your hook is going to respond to how you use it. Any story sequences I may have forgotten about are irrelevant, and the game is simple enough that you don’t need the tutorial.

So if Nintendo could put it up so easily and it’s so great, why isn’t it available yet? Sadly, it’s likely because the franchise then moved to the Playstation and recently somebody decided it would be a good idea to make another sequel on the PSP. I hear it’s a pretty sad interpretation of the SNES game, and that’s why I’d love to see the original swing into our lives via Wii. Will it happen? I don’t think it’s too likely. In fact, I’d wager that the Playstation game ends up on PSN before the SNES edition hits Virtual Console. Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten on Nintendo’s digital distribution system.

#6 – Mario’s Super Picross

Of all games never released on American shores, I would think that Mario’s Super Picross is one of those with the best chance to end up as a Virtual Console candidate. Why? Because it’s already been released in Japan and the PAL territories, and also because Nintendo loves Picross. They’ve made a few puzzles from this game available as free DLC for Picross DS, so why not let us have the entire game for a few bucks?

I think I’ve made my love of picross obvious over the lifespan of this website, but if you hadn’t heard, I heart picross. It’s a fairly simple puzzle game wherein you’re given a grid and a set of numbers for each row and column. You have to deduce from that set of numbers which spaces on the grid in that row or column need to be filled in. It sounds unbearably easy, and for someone who’s spent a few hours solving picross puzzles, it usually is. The main mode in Mario’s Super Picross gives you a time limit in which to solve each puzzle, and you’re deducted time for each mistake you make, so it’s very much a thinking game. Fortunately, like sudoku, event though it involves numbers and heavy thought, there is no math involved. If there were, I wouldn’t love it.

It gets harder in the second set of puzzles, hosted by Wario, in which you have unlimited time, but the game won’t tell you if you make a mistake. It can take much longer to figure these ones out, but I’ve never taken much more than half an hour to get any of them done. It’s also much more satisfying to solve one of these puzzles, like when you beat a game of mahjong without any hints.

I stand firmly in my belief that Mario’s Super Picross will eventually be available to me as a Virtual Console title, because the Japanese and Europeans already have it, so it has to show up here sooner or later. Only now since Chris Kohler has become disillusioned with the VC, we don’t have anyone to badger Nintendo for equality anymore.

#7 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

Alright, Nintendo. Honestly, where is this? We have all the other Mario platformers, and even Yoshi’s Story. I think we’ve waited more than long enough for this one. We deserve Yoshi’s Island.

Yeah, I totally saved the best for last. As much as I like any of the other games on this list, none of them could even hold a candle to the majesty Yoshi’s Island. It is platforming perfection, a mecca that may never be reached again. How Nintendo could have slapped Yoshi’s Story on the VC list without Yoshi’s Island to reinforce Yoshi’s reputation is a mystery that may never be solved.

I honestly don’t think I should have to describe this game or why I love it. I mean, I don’t know why you would even be on this website if you’re the kind of person who would have skipped over this gem. Unless you’re my girlfriend, but that’s really the only acceptable case. So really, if you haven’t experienced the wonder that is Yoshi’s Island, I highly recommend you stop reading this right now and go find yourself the ROM and an emulator. Or at the very least, the GBA port. Just play it. And that recommendation goes double if you’re my girlfriend, as there may be hope for you liking video games that don’t require plastic guitars after all if you try this out.


So yes. That’s my list. It’s taken a lot of beer and Danish butter cookies to struggle through, but I’ve done it. Unlike last year, wherein I posted this in early November, I’m just making this one up on the second-to-last Monday of the year. Hence, this time we won’t think of these of games that I want to see before 2008 is up, but rather a list that I would like to see show up sometime in the year 2009. And don’t fret; unless some giant change in my life takes place that makes me unable to webmaster anymore, there will totally be a 2009 edition. It’s just too easy.

Give all ya got, and give it to me

I had two plans for today’s entry. the first, and best, was to write a new Virtual Console wishlist. That went to shit when I took an extra shift this morning, slept the afternoon away, and then played Tales of Vesperia all evening. The next plan was to write about something exciting and new on either the VC or WiiWare. That one didn’t work out because nothing even remotely interesting has been released on either service since Mega Man 3. And that was waaay back in the begining of November. Nevermind that there hasn’t been anything I would buy since Secret of Mana came out in October.

So Virtual Console has been kind of a dumping ground for mediocre to crappy games for the last couple months. It’s really sad because there’s still so many wonderful titles that are absent from the list. We’ve got the essentials like Super Metroid, Mega Man 2, and the aforementioned Secret of Mana, but where are the sleepers like Dragon Warrior or even Yoshi’s Island, one of the most wonderful platform games ever made? I understand that we’ll never see Crono Trigger or the SNES Final Fantasy titles because they’re all being remade or ported to the DS, but there are still tons of great projects under the Square-Enix name alone that will never be seen again (Wonder Project J, Lufia 2, etc) that would be perfect for the service. We won’t even start on what Capcom, Konami, and all those other developers. At the very least, I want the Soulblazer trilogy. Illusion of Gaia alone would even sate me. I want to play that game again so badly.

WiiWare hasn’t been faring much better. Actually, it’s been a lot worse. Aside from Stong Bad’s games, the only thing I’ve even considered downloading in the last God-knows-how-long is Space Invaders Get Even (pictured right), but the whole buy-it-in-pieces setup has turned me off completely. I would much rather buy the whole thing for 2000 points at once than make a bunch of smaller installments. It’s nice if you just want to try the game out but don’t feel like shelling out a whole $20 for it, but that’s exctly why Nintendo should provide demos! Have they not learned anything from the wonderful Xbox Live Arcade setup? But anyway, the service is otherwise polluted by games that look so bad I’d be amazed if even one person dowloaded them, and a flood of dumb colour-matching puzzle games. It’s ridiculous, and has made Nintendo the laughing stock of the digital distribution world. And to be considered worse than Sony in that category is a real testament to just how bad things are. Yes, they’re providing a lot of content, but quality control should at least be present, if even just to keep out the complete garbage like Hockey Allstar Shootout and Target Toss Pro: Bags.

So I suppose this post kind of volates the spirit of my “24 Days of Materialism” feature, being that it mostly tells you not to buy anything, and is more of a rant than a review. However, I did name a few games that are worth at least convincing a friend to buy. Like Space Invaders Get Even. You should totally get it and then invite me over to play. It’ll be awesome I promise.

Title goes here

Did you ever notice just how thoughtful Amazon can be sometimes? I was just going to use one cover for this one, but they had a pre-made image woth all threee in it. Whoo!

But don’t let that little ‘whoo” there fool you. I’m actually in a trerrible mood right now and really want nothing to do with anything but sleep. But I’ve got a responsibility to myself to at least write a couple lines here.

So today I’m telling you to buy Arrested Development. It’s one of the best shows that’s ever been on TV and it’s a damn shame that Fox cancelled it. But that’s what Fox does. It cancels everything good. Buy these DVDs. This post is five years too late!

Let’s have a good time

Last time I was down in Grand Forks, I didn’t really have a shopping list, but rather I was just picking up anything that piqued my interest and was of reasonable enough price. I went home with a lot of new movies. One of the more interesting purchases the the 3-disc set you see below this paragraph, 6 Films to Keep You Awake.

I looked it over, somewhat intrigued by the descriptions of the movies contained within, and showed it to the woman. Her eyes got wide and agreed with me that it looked worthy of purchase. We got back to our hotel, and while it wasn’t supplied with any DVD playing devices, I had enough foresight while packing to bring mine along with me. Only I forgot the remote! So while we couldn’t navigate the menus to watch Arrested Development, each movie on this set was on a different side of each disc, so we were able to pop whichever we saw fit in and mash the play button for success! Lesson: never forget the remote.

The first film we watched was A Real Friend. To our surprise, the film was in Spanish with English subtitles, but it was of little consequence, as there was no way to decipher exactly what had gone on in the movie no matter what language it was in. There was a little girl who was friends with Leatherface and a guy who she called a vampire. A couple people died, Leatherface and the vampire fought, and then the conclusion showed the girl’s happy family (with the vampire as her father) watching a TV that was playing the intro to this movie. It was confusing and didn’t really explain anything. I didn’t like it, and it put a bad taste in my mouth.

To Let was much more enjoyable. We watched this one the next night, and it was actually really good! Also it was Spanish too. I figured it was safe to assume at this point that all six would be. So anyway, the plot was about this young couple who were looking for an apartment. They drove out to this creepy place in a bad part of town, and once inside, they discovered that the landlady had been stalking them. They try to escape, but the deranged landlady beats the husband with a bucket, and the wife escapes to another part of the apartment building and finds another woman tied up in a bathroom. Since I like this movie, I won’t spoil it, but there’s a man-beast, much bloodshed, and a truly frightening old lady. It’s great.

Last night, we finally picked the set up again and watched the Baby’s Room. It wasn’t as good as To Let, but I did enjoy it. Yet again another new family moving into a new house, only this one is haunted! Sort of. The husband starts seeing a man in the baby monitor, but can never find this apparent burglar. Eventually, he almost slices his wife’s face off, thinking she was the burglar, and she takes the baby and moves out, leaving him to deal with the creepy phenomenon by his lonesome. It goes into some spooky parallel dimension shit, and the conclusion is exactly what you’ll guess it to be, but I was entertained, and that’s all I really ask, so it gets a pass.

We haven’t watched the other three movies yet, but plan to watch A Christmas Tale sometime over the weekend. Maybe I’ll tell you how it turns out. Judging from the other three, they could be awesome or terrible. I really don’t expect any to top To Let, but here’s hoping! Based on that movie alone, I highy recommend picking up this set. It’s only like $20, and for six movies (albeit of varying quality) that’s not too bad at all.