Friday, June 25, 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Gamer's Delight

Since graduating, my days have been spent between job hunting, reading, and playing video games, and roughly in that order. Toss in some minor projects here and there that I've put off since moving to focus on school, and you've got what I do in my free time. OKOK, I've also caught up on True Blood, but I digress.

During my video gaming fun times, I've noticed one thing that makes me truly happy: complete customization over characters and their attributes. I LOVE seeing "SNOWDEN #70" when I play Gretzky 2005, seeing SNOWDEN be the third ranked scorer behind Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic, and love it even more when I establish myself in the ranking of penalty minutes. SNOWDEN is 2nd line right wing and kicks absolute butt; Private Nichols of Call of Duty 3 is currently laying dead in a ditch somewhere the French countryside. Why? Because he's not Mike Snowden. Nuff' said.
Unless the game is based holistically around the central character and it's personality, complete customization allows for a much more intense experience. Take Kratos from "God of War", for example. After obliterating a room of centaurs, sirens, skeleton warriors, creepy flying things, massive one eyed fatties AND a giant, yelling "KRAAAAAAAATOS, motha effa!" is minimally appropriate; yelling "Mike!", however, is quite a turn off. In fact, I believe that if Kratos could hear me yelling "Mike Snowden, bitches!", he would take a page from A-Ha and take me on, God of War style.

Don't get me wrong, there are a good amount of games that shouldn't allow too much customization, for instance, Halo and it's sequels, because the story continues around Master Chief, not some arbitrarily named character like "Joseph Steven", but there are a good amount of games that might be more marketable with full customization. I think that Call of Duty is one such game because when I play a game, I get extremely attached to the character (hint hint: my middle name is not Kratos, if you know me on Facebook) and in Call of Duty, if I could make my character, I would be a helluva lot less careless with how I run in to a barn to clear it of Nazis.

Just saying.


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Expendables

Honestly, this is looking to be everyone from my age group's "mantasy"; explosions, guns, (hopefully) a bunch of 'bond' girls, and let's not forget the essence of the movie- the best of the best of the 80's, 90's, and 00's action stars. I, for one, will be in line to check out this modern day work of art; however, I have a few restraints on the film:

The Non-Movie Action Stars
I have nothing against Randy Couture or Steve Austin- if they're wrestling; Terry Crews is freaking AWESOME- when he's hitting pingpong balls with Christopher Walken. And let's not forget Mr. 16 hour Old Spice, for that would be sheer comedic ignorance. Couture and Austin, as Shakespearean as wrestling has gotten over the last couple of decades, they will eventually belong in the same ranks as the other cast members as TRUE action heroes, and even though in the long run, the film will be worth my ticket, I will always look at them as the kids that showed up who weren't invited.

Willis as a (assumed) Bad Guy
Ok, never mind. Willis as a bad guy should be prettty good. I just needed another bulletpoint. If you doubt this, I dare you, DARE you to check out The Siege, Hart's War, and Assassination of a High School President (The Siege is the best of the three, serving as a fine product of Hollywood). SO, with that said, onto my next bitching point.

Where the hell is Mel Gibson?!
Alright, so he went on a tirade and hated him some Jews, but think of everyone else who did it and has gotten away with it! Multiple comedians (Adam Sandler HIMSELF used to do it annually, and let's not let the fact that he is Jewish get him a get out of jail free card, for this discussion), the writers of The Pianist, and Mel Brooks. Honestly, he was drunk, it's in the past-it's over. You know what isn't over? Mel Gibson being one of the greatest actors/directors to rock the silver screen. And you know why he is still on top? Because he hasn't copped out to doing any ridiculous kid's movies (I'm look at YOU Dwayne Johnson); Chicken Run and Pocahontas, both legit movies for children. All I am saying, is that beginning with Mad Max (1979, but I like to round up), he's been on the up and up with action, considerably so with the Lethal Weapon series, Payback and Ransom [GOD who could forget those?!], and Braveheart. BRAVEHEART (1995) will live on forever and should have earned Mel Gibson an offer, at least.

Plotline = done.
I can't really make an argument for this, except I hope that since it has been done before (I come to you, oh, great deathmaker to do something no one else can) that Sly at least adds something unique to the twist. Or else I will wait until Hulu puts it out to watch it again. This is also coming from the guy who enjoyed Ferngully 2: The Nav'i Fight Off the Whities, hup, I mean, Avatar enough to see if more than a few times-in theatres.

All in all, I really hopes my minor fears don't manifest itself in Stallone's latest shot at awesome. Because really, this is something everyone, and I mean EVERYONE who has seen these action stars at their worst (Over the Top, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The One, Jingle All the Way) and still remain solid and true to the Action Heroes of our time, needs and wants to kick ass.

I give Sly and a pre-release rating of 3.5thumbs up, for bringing about, quite possibly, every young adult male in their 20's the movie they've been waiting since birth for.

Monday, June 14, 2010

New Beginnings

Just graduated college. I'll update more soon, but it's freaking great. I may be jobless and currently have nothing in sight further than the next two days, but it's honestly a really great feeling. PLUS, my girlfriend, who lives in California, came up for my graduation week. That included two department graduations and a lot of catch up work to get ready for the next person to fill my shoes. she's great and I wouldn't want to be spending this week with anyone other than her.

Anyway, I have to drive 'cross the state tomorrow and it's three in the morning. Night.