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 Jake's Clever Banter OK, that was supposed to be a play on Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance... Yeah, it sucks. Sue me. The plan's still "Tim on vacation 'til Monday", but I figgered I'd give everyone something new to look at in the meantime. And I'm sorry THIS took so long, but my job's kicked into gear, I've been working on a few projects, and trying to spend time with the tons of new games and movies coming out. Speaking of new games, Super Mario Sunshine. Soooooo... Huhm. Welp, when Super Mario Bros. came out, it blew people away. When Super Mario 3 came out, it blew people away. When Super Mario World came out, it blew people away. When Super Mario 64 came out, it blew people away. Super Mario Sunshine... just blows. Okay, okay, so it's not that bad. But I'll tell you this- it has none of the magic that the usual Mario game seems to have, and in many ways... most ways, in fact, Mario 64 is a better game. Mario 64 had a better camera, a better sense of exploration, better soundtrack (Yeah, even with the N64's crappy MIDI), was more balanced, and better designed. For it's time, Mario 64 had stunning graphics. Aside from some cool water effects, Super Mario Sunshine fails to impress at all. Anyone expecting "The next big Mario game" will be sorely dissapointed when they get "Just another Mario game". However, it IS a Mario game, and that puts it above and beyond the majority of the competition. Also, I learned a painful lesson- nomatter how harmless I think it may be, or how curious I am, I must never read another IGN review EVER AGAIN. You see, they're the only ones to have reviewed Lilo and Stitch for the GBA. Weeks... months after it first came out, and still IGN's review is the only one I can find. They LOVED it. So, I say, "Okay, sure, why not?" and buy it. And... I do not like it, Sam-I-Am. Repetitive and unforgivingly difficult, it's what Contra would be if you took out all the weapon upgrades and squished everything into a box so small you were forced to run into every enemy that walks your way. Blah. Anyways, I'm goin' to bed. 8/29/02 - Another short note- We're still not dead. Apparently, Tim felt his "vacation" deserved another week, and I'm still busy working on other projects. Again, I say we'll probably resume updating this NEXT Monday. *Grumbles*. 8/22/02 - A short note- We're not dead. I should have posted on this earlier. Sorry. Tim's on vacation and I'm busy working on another project we're doing. We'll probably resume updating next Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience. 8/14/02 - Blah I suddenly realize that it's getting to be That Time Of The Year again. The time where the number of good games and movies available for purchase outweighs the amount of money I have. I might actually have to discriminate between great stuff and fantastic stuff. This scares me. Especially because games that have been dubbed "Good" (Threads of Fate, Rival Schools series) I've found to be fantastic, and games deemed by the world at large to be "Fantastic" (Tekken, Shenmue), I've found to be utter trash. There are still a few sure bets, though. I prolly shouldn't name them, as I've been gushing over them ever since E3. Watching the Resident Evil movie again on the small screen doesn't have the same effect as in the theater. On the one hand, as my brother keeps reminding me, the DVD format allows for you to freeze-frame miss Jovovich's more revealing moments. On the other, already knowing what's gonna' happen makes it a great deal less scary. I mean, like the games, Silent Hill's atmosphere is so freaky that absolutely nothing could be happening and it'd still scare the crap out of you, but in Res Evil, if you know where the pop-scares are, they lose their effect. You knew who the shark was gonna' eat after seeing Jaws, but it was still kinda' scary. You knew who the alien was gonna' kill in Alien after seeing it once, but it was still kinda' scary. Res Evil focuses so much less on the atmosphere and so much more on "Boo", that once you've seen the "Boo", there's nothing left. On a bright note, I finally got around to beating Zelda: Oracle of the Seasons for the GBC. Yeah, General Onox is a bitch, but I was finally able to punk him good. Now I need to start Oracle of the Ages. I'm only, what? A year late? Two? In the end, though, I'm VERY glad I got 'em- this is gaming goodness at it's best. And I know it didn't make my top 10 list last year, but that's because there was a LOT of gaming goodness at it's best last year. This year's turning out to be OK, too. Just seems like even more of it's being crammed in at the last moment. Ack! It's 2AM and I have work tomorrow! Better get this show on the road! 8/9/02 - Summer. Mario. It feels so good. This will better explain my header. Funny, that, because the TV commercial is something super-kiddy as to mock kiddy things. "Diiiiiiiiiirty is baaa-aaad and clean is neeee-eeeat..." Heh. In other news, Nintendo's not only pimpin' it with Mario- they're also pimpin' it with RPG companies. Well, by now you must have heard- Square's finally announced their upcoming titles on Nintendo's systems. What have we heeeere...? A Chocobo game? Bah. Plut. A Final Fantasy Tactics remake? We already knew about that, but cool anyways. A Final Fantasy game where you can play on either the GBA or GC and transfer your character from one to the other and back? Coooooool. And finally, we have a new Mana (Seiken Densetsu) game Square's having developed by Brownie Brown- the Splinter group comprised of team members who worked on the original Mana games! Coolness! Add to that the fact that the new splinter group split off from Enix, Genius Sonority, is getting a very warm reception from Nintendo- In addition to a very nice 100 million yen (Which probably equates to about twenty bucks), they've also lent the group team members from the team that worked on the Mother series (Earthbound in the States). If that isn't a big message saying "Make us RPGs!", Idunno what is. Meantime, I'm leaving for the weekend. Yeah, again. See you all on Monday! 8/5/02 - Yeah, we missed Friday. Whoops. Sorry. But I say missing one day is better than missing one month like we used to. So lighten up! Apparently, import reviews are coming in for Gungrave, and they're saying the exact same thing that I said of the E3 demo months ago- the game LOOKS great, and very cool (Following in the philosophy of Mr. Dante of Devil May Cry, which was an AWESOME game, by the way). Problem is, Grave (The guy you play as) is essentially invulnerable, and prettymuch does everything for you, so the challenge drops to zero, and this becomes a cool looking game that's extremely shallow and not very fun to play. And as cool only lasts so long when you have little control over it and you see the same stuff over and over again, Gungrave loses even THAT aspect of it's appeal very quickly. Hopefully they'll remedy this aggreivance when making the Trigun game. Also, I have to take back something I said earlier. When speaking highly about Crazy Taxi, I forgot that, though very fun, the game has very little depth, and becomes very tiring when playing it for long lengths of time. Though I still don't think it deserves such a low score, it's not everything I remembered Crazy Taxi being, either. If it seems I'm being a bit harsh on Sega, let me say that I also revisited their Virtua Tennis, and good god, I never remembered it being so goddamn addictive. I sat down to play it with a friend for fifteen minutes. An hour and a half later, we hesitantly set our controllers down. For anyone uninterested because it's, well, tennis, let me assure you that this is one of those games that's so well-crafted and outright fun, you can't help but appreciate it. I mention this now because the newest sequel, Sega Sports Tennis on the PS2, is just about to be released (If it hasn't been already), and anyone that wants to play one of the most accessible, fun, nearly perfect party games really needs to check it out. Oh, and the next time I leave on a trip to go gambling, remind me that I need to actually try to have the patience to do it RIGHT. I have this betting method that truly does work a good portion of the time, but I often was just too damn impatient to stick to it, and I ended up losing a great amount of money because of it. I'm gonna' have to install that casino software I bought a while ago, too... |
 Tim's Clever Banter Whatever that means. I suppose a more appropriate header would've been "Movie Studios: What the Shit Are You Up To Now?" You see, I've been catching up on Harry Knowles' infamous movie news site, Ain't It Cool News, and I've come across some very, very unfortunate and disturbing pieces of... news. I'm sure you know by now, that Wolfgang Petersen is setting out to direct Batman vs. Superman, a supposedly "dark film set in Metropolis and Gotham after 9/11" (or some dopey quote like that) that will hopefully revive the DC Comics movie franchises so Darren Aranofsky could finally fucking film Batman Year One. And Jude Law and Colin Farrel are set to star as Superman and Batman respectively. Not my first choices for such beloved icons but okay, very cool. But recently, there are rumblings that Jude Law has pulled out due to the awful possibility of sequels. And being the talented thespian of integrity that he is he said NAY! to Warner Brothers and vanished without a trace. Which is a big damn shame. I just saw Jude Law in the very good Road to Perdition, and all I kept thinking about when he was onscreen was Superman, Superman, Superman... that, and how deranged his photo-killer character was. It's a big damn shame he won't be the Son of Krypton. That really would've been something interesting. So now Warner Brothers, in all its wisdom, is negotiating with Josh Hartnett to take the role of Clark Kent. If you're screaming in pain and agony now, then, congratulations! That is the correct response! If not, then you don't know that Josh Hartnett isn't so much an actor as he is a pretty boy with one helluva publicist. He's shown no evidence of any real talent, which Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down recently demonstrated. He does not have the LOOK of Superman. Maybe Superboy, but no way could he be the MAN of STEEL. And just thinking of him in blue tights and red underwear is... well, disturbing. But what I'm REALLY more upset about is that Warner Brothers didn't do whatever Jude Law wanted them to do. Shit, if I was a studio exec I wouldn't let an acting machine like JUDE FRICKIN' LAW slip through my fingers (unless, of course, he was the A.I Jude Law... *shudders*). Of course I could be totally wrong. This could be Josh Hartnett's true breakout hit, the way the original Superman movie was for Christopher Reeves. But in these post-Spider-Man days, when every movie studio wants some angsty young shmuck to star in a hastily announced superhero flick, I doubt it. Hell, Batman's gonna steal the show anyway, right? If you've seen Minority Report, you know what wonders Colin Farrel can do. And Wolfgang Petersen of Das Boot and Air Force One fame IS directing after all... and Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker did write the script. Hell, this movie has all the makings of a classic already. Here's hopin'. In slightly less interesting news, but horrifying nonetheless, Chris Tucker (of the dumb, if mildly amusing Rush Hour series) is set to star in a Pink Panther remake. ... *takes colt python out of his drawer*
*shoots himself in the face* Unfortunately, since I just got it I don't really have a clue how to reap its bounteous excellence. But with time, I'm sure I will learn. If not, well, Jake will kill me and I won't be able to play.... KINGDOM HEARTS!! Which is coming out September 17th, much sooner than I had expected!! And from English movies of the gameplay and cutscenes, I can safely say it looks awesome. The voice acting seems to be spot-on and the gameplay looks to be an improvement over Square's past action-RPGs, Brave Fencer Musashi and Dewprism (I REFUSE to call it Threads of Fate!). Still gotta beat the Resident Evil remake though. Man, what an awesome game. It's even better when it's played at night during a THUNDER storm of EVIL. Whew. It seems long too, which is unexpected... I could beat Resident Evil 2 in two hours and I've already clocked like... 10 or 13 hours on this thing... Hmm. Well, CODE: Veronica took me 20 hours... I dunno, maybe I'm just losing my survival horror edge. Speaking of which... I've yet to get Eternal Darkness, but from what I hear it's quite the gaming experience. Perhaps when I go pick up Mario Sunshine and Onimusha 2 on the 28th I'll get that as well... ack, also gotta see how Universal Interactive's The Thing turns out. The trailer at least makes the dialogue and cutscenes looks cool but I think I oughtta wait for some reviews to come in anyway. And my gal pal recently acquired DDR... man. So many games... still playing Way of the Samurai... and I oughtta get back into Golden Sun, Pikmin, and Conker's Bad Fur Day... MAN, I forgot all about those!!! And I ALSO gotta at least rent the Lord of the Rings DVD... and the new Pulp Fiction DVD is coming out too... not to mention the second volume of Excel Saga... AWWW GEEEZ!!! And the domestic DVD release of Evangelion: Death & Rebirth is out!! ...I oughtta rewatch the series before I get it though.
Yeesh. It's tough to constantly stay on top of the
geek scene. MAN!! What a good movie! And one of the few that actually succeeded in frightening me (the others being the first Alien, and The Blair Witch Project... well, the last 10 or so minutes of it anyway)! I've got to give it a lot of credit for that! But aside from the spooks and chills, it was extremely well acted. Mel Gibson actually succeeds in not killing any British people to avenge the brutal death of a loved one. No, in fact he plays the part of a faithless minister very well. WOW!! Joaquin Pheonix is the MAN as Mel's younger brother, who may be more of a father to Mel's children than Mel himself! And the kids... man, Shyamalan knows how to direct child actors because Rory Culkin...and that... other girl... are really good! Better than Unbreakable? Hmmm...I'm still not sure, but definitely as good, if not better, than 6th Sense! This is a wonderfully intelligent movie that YOU MUST SEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..... Well, at least I'm more credible than Harry Knowles. |
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