It Is A Title

Music Debut

2009-08-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

So I listen to horrorcore rap. Yeah I know, it's stupid and crappy, but I still enjoy it. I've been listening to this crap for about four years now and I randomly got the idea in my head to try it out, and so I decided to find a mic and rap a song I wrote. Then I uploaded it. Now I'm trying to figure out how to make a background beat so it's not just my voice. There's vulgarities galore and I do wanna keep working on this. I'm writing a second song currently and it's shapely nicely. I wanna write at least ten songs so then I can say that I made an actual album. Then I'll burn a bunch of copies make a fancy CD cover and what have you and print it off for my friends and sell online if anyone really like it. Anyway, here's the link to the myspace profile, the only place it's currently hosted at, with my first attempts at rapping.

Adam the Rapper's Music Profile
Bank Robbery Attempt has a lot of mistakes in it, I know, I don't care. The only reason I even recorded it was to be able to post it online and see if people enjoyed my voice, because without good vocals there's really no point to rap. So ignore all the mess ups and the lack of a background beat, I'm learning how to make beats currently.

Psycho verse 3 is the third verse from the song Psycho Psycho Psycho by Prozak. It's one of my favorite lyrics and I sang it a lot and I believe I'm pretty good at it. I didn't write it, unlike Bank Robbery, and I only uploaded it because it sounds a lot more polished, though that's only because I've been practicing that a lot more.

Enjoy, I hope. Leave feedback, or message me on there or do whatever, just tell me what you think please?
-Adam

Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse

2009-07-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this game is easy or hard. It's incredibly easy to die, or I just really suck, but death doesn't really mean much. You have three lives, and each time you die you start the level over. Though once you hit the game over screen you have two options, continue, or don't. If you hit continue its as if all you did was just lose a life. The only hitch is that you lose your accumulated score, but since when has anyway one really cared about that in a non-competitive setting? Since never.

The game itself is pretty fun. Switching suits is actually kinda nifty. You start with regular Mickey who can just grab shit. Then you get a Magician's suit which allows you to fire a magic shot, which you can also charge, as well as swim under water for nigh infinity. Next you get a Fireman suit which is helpful on the Fire Grotto world in which you receive it. I dunno if it becomes helpful again, but its pretty cool using it in that level alone. Lastly you get a Climbers suit which adds a bit of Bionic Commando to the game which I thought was neat. It was this world that I finally stopped playing, though I'm also incredibly tired.

I'll play it through to the end, I mean its hard not to. The bosses can kill you pretty damn easily, but as soon as you get the pattern down for killing them they're cake. They all follow the same basic structure thus far, which is a little disappointing, but they all throw in enough curve balls which ramps up the difficulty a bit. They all take a surprising amount of hits too. I'm used to Mario's three hit kill rule, but it doesn't apply here. It takes no less than ten hits to kill the first mini-boss. Again, at first he's kind of irritating, but after a retry or two he's really easy to dispose of.

Speaking of Mario, in this game you cannot run. In fact the button you press to run in Mario, which in almost every platformer I play I'm now programmed to hold that down, are used to activate the various functions of the suit. Suits rely on a bar for power too, so if you're not careful you can run out of magic or water. That happened to me once and resulted in a quick death. Though that's not the game's fault, it was my own irresponsibility.

One last note, the SNES controller I was using was a bit... iffy. I'm not blaming it for my failure to beat the game automatically, however I'm thinking about investing in a new controller. I thought I might have to do that for my original Gamecube controller, which had a broken C-Stick for I can't even remember how long, but I tore it apart and managed to fix it. All I did was open it up and move it around. It took a while to put back together though cause I messed up the placement of the Z button. That was pretty fun though.

I don't have much else to say about this game aside from the fact that it's surprisingly addictive, though its nowhere near as nice as other platformers, even on the SNES itself. I probably won't go back to it for a while. I mean the last time I played this game was when I was like seven or something. Ah, good times. I should write about Video Update sometime, it was a pretty bomb store.

-Adam

Twilight Zone Episode 17 - The Fever

2009-07-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

"Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights, all expenses paid, at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs' knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. or Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there's a prize in their package neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce, a most inoperative, deadly, life-shattering affliction known as 'The Fever'."

This episode is a perfect representation of the two extremes of The Twilight Show. The realm of complete ridiculum, and a genuine problem.

A quick synopsis. An extremely uptight and elitist man (from what I picked up at least) takes his wife on a vacation of her choosing. She chooses to go to some casino, he says its a bad idea and just bitches for a while as his wife gambles lightly and has a good time. Suddenly a slightly drunk man comes up behind the main character and tries to get him to gamble. Franklin (the main character) attempts to tell him its evil and a waste of money, etc. But the man gives him a dollar of his own so that Franklin can just try it. He hesitantly agrees to try it and uses a slot machine. It pays out and gives him like ten bucks for his dollar. He takes his wife to his room proclaiming he's responsible and not about to waste of his money on these rigged machines like the rest of the fools here. As he attempts to sleep he hears the coins on his dresser call out his name. He eventually falls for it and grabs them to go gamble some more.His wife awakens and asks what he's doing. He pulls a Grinch and says the money is tainted and that he is going to go plug it back into the machine to be rid of it. The next shot is several hours later, he has yet to win and has been writing checks nonstop. His wife tries to get him to stop which causes him to explode at her telling her he's about to win, that this devilish machine has to let him win soon.

He ends up wasting all of his money, and doesn't win again. On his last dollar the machine malfunctions and doesn't give him his dollar back or allow him to pull the lever. He freaks out and attacks the machine. Back in his room he attempts to sleep, but hasn't been able to for twenty four hours. His wife is worried and suddenly he hears his name being called again. He opens his door and the machine is walking towards it. He slams it shuts and turns around and looks in the mirror. The machine opens up the door and he panics. His wife asks what's wrong and he turns around and the machine isn't there. He continues to see this machine and loses touch with reality more and more before he finally falls out of a window (which is actually a fairly common death in this series thus far) and plummets to his death. Police are at the scene and proclaim him dead. Everyone leaves the scene and they leave the body there. The machine walks up to him and spits out his last dollar and it stops right outside the reach of his hand. End narration begins.

Gambling addiction is a real problem, and in the episode various side characters bring up that they've seen people get addicted, but not like him. He explodes at his wife, sweats profusely and goes so far as to claim the machine isn't even a machine, its an entity in and of itself. The episode exaggerates his addiction so fucking far. I know that it's the Twilight Zone and fucked up shit happens all the time, but really a slot machine following you around? I got the whole hearing his name and being beckoned to gamble more, and even seeing the machine following him because of his addiction, but the end hints at the fact that the machine is really there due to the fact that the dollar is by him at the end of the episode.

The episode sums up everything I love about this show. It tackles a serious issue in a darkly humorous way. Just seeing how far a man who's so set in his "correct" ways can fall is interesting and while the end shot is pretty bullshit ridiculous I think its important to get the overall message across. I like this show overall, no episode has been too horrible, but only a handful have really wowed me. This was one them strangely enough. If you can find this episode you should give it a watch, it is only like twenty eight minutes long.

"Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally, his life, to an inanimate metal machine variously described as a one-armed bandit, a slot machine, or in Mr. Franklin Gibbs' words, 'a monster with a will all its own'. For our purposes, we'll stick with the latter definition, because we're in the Twilight Zone."

Update

2009-06-08T00:10:00.001-07:00

Who reads this barren wasteland of a blog anyway? No one? That's more than I expected. Har har.

Anyway, so over the course of this year I've been rolling a lot of ideas around in my head, including possible ideas that I could use to better this blog to make it stand out even just a little bit. For some godforsaken reason I really like the name of this blog and will not just let it die the honorable death it probably should have endured a while ago. If you notice my posting schedule is erratic and the quality of the various posts are often pretty bad.

So I'm going to reorganize, this probably won't be happening until the end of the summer, at least until it is fully reorganized in the way I'm currently envisioning it. This isn't really time critical seeing as there's no audience, but maybe this might change that a little. No? Figured, but that's beside the point. I plan on turning this into a heavily media-focused blog. I mean it already sort of was, but I really want to structure it better. Of course having no real computer talents to speak of beyond my ability to quickly search the internet for various quick fixes I'll be using mostly archaic and probably fairly ridiculous means to achieve this goal. However, I've never let all that extra work stop me before, except when it really mattered.

My other main idea I had for improving this blog and possibly making it more unique is to add a... mascot of sorts I suppose would be the proper term. It Is A Title will probably just be a cesspool for my various ideas that I think are cute or look nifty, such as a doodle I drew in class one day and decided I wanted to have him star in a series of educational cartoons. While I really need to work on my basic art skills before I tackle the task of creating any sort of animated material, I'd like to still have him around, and using him as a mascot here would be as good an excuse as any to draw him whenever I feel it. So far I've drawn concepts for a new header image, and a title. I'm thinking about drawing unique illustrations for each and every blog post, not that many of those occur. I am hoping to revitalize this blog with new life and even if the readership continues to stay within the bounds of mostly negative numbers I will strive to post more things here.

I consume a lot of random media, a lot of which I have lots of thoughts about, usually enough thoughts to form some sort of a cohesive write up. This could manifest itself in the form of a review, a synopsis or merely how it affected me or how it affected the world in general. There's an infinite list of possibilities for me to write about, and a list just as long concerning how to tackle all the various subjects. I've started reading comics again and I'm fairly certain I'm going to have some things to say about the different series I've been reading as of late, I'm also just finishing up the last of Star Trek: The Original Series. Originally I was going to power through the entire Trek mythos over the course of the summer, however after viewing a few episodes of The Next Generation I'm not really digging it as much as the Original. Maybe I just need to wait a while for the greatness of the Original Series to wear off, so until then I'll delve into something else.

I'm rambling now about things that will probably never come to be, although most of these posts about plans for this blog, or anything in general, are typically just that. Thoughts in my head that would be pretty nifty, or at least I believe them to be so, that will never see the light of day, being forced to dwell in the corners of my mind to surely be forgotten and trampled by new ideas that sound cool but I'm much to lazy to actually do anything with them.

Now I'm just insulting myself... I think? Well, until next kiddies, whenever that may be.
-Adam

Platinum Notes

2009-03-31T23:29:00.001-07:00

Depending on who you are this game is either the best 35 bucks you'll spend, or a total waste. I fall into the former camp, and I'm hella glad for that.

The changes from Diamond have been subtle, but pretty fantastic. Every area has had at least a bit of a graphical overhaul, which was nice and really made the game prettier. The Elite 4, and Battle Island or whatever the devil it's called look particularly splendid in comparison to Diamond. Back sprite animations are pretty nifty albeit completely unnecessary, I still nutted myself.

The two largest additions to Platinum has been the added in story depth, and the distortion world. The distortion world was a bit of a let down, it was nifty, but the fact that besides INCREDIBLY rudimentary puzzles (actually I think there was only one...) and containing JUST Giratina sort of ruined it. You can travel back after you beat the game, but it's just to obtain an orb that allows Giratina to stay in his badass Origin forme outside of this realm. The look of it was most definitely sexy, and I think that if Nintendo found a way to build on this idea it could work. Like if it was where Unown's originated or something. It just lacked depth.

The additional story bits were iffy to good. Having Cyrus appear earlier and getting hints as to what he was plotting throughout the whole game was very beneficial to the story as a whole. The detective they added in was more pointless than Eusine from Crystal. The professor was sort of nifty, though I think he should have been assimilated into the story more directly and a lot earlier. The climax of Galactic at Spear Tower was pretty epic, but the final encounter at Mt. Stark was pretty disappointing. It most definitely helped refine the tale of Team Galactic, but it needs a LOT more retooling to be any where near as good as Rocket's or even Aqua/Magma's stories.

The difficulty was slightly ramped up too, Pokemon trainers with more than three Pokemon are actually pretty common now, and near the end of the game they have some power houses, especially on Victory Road. The AI is still pretty weak, and possibly worse, than it has been previously which is a bit sad. I'm really glad for all the new battle opportunities such as in Pokemon Centers, the Clefairy Maid Challenge thing, the Trainer House in the Survival area, and how the Elite 4 levels up their Pokemon after you acquire the National Dex and your rival levels up his Pokemon (all the way up to fucking 85) if you beat the Elite 4 enough. I'm so fucking glad that high level Pokemon training is now actually a possibility.

My team as of right now is:
Torterra
Scizor
Magmortar
Crobat
Vaporeon
Rotom

Besides Torterra and Crobat I've never really used any of these guys, so it's been pretty interesting and the team actually has a pretty good dynamic. I really suggest against Rotom though. He's not bad, just painfully average, and his hidden formes aren't really that impressive either.

Magmortar's a total fucking badass though, as is Vaporeon surprisingly. They were both late additions to the party, but they have been the main two pillars of power since adding them. Torterra was nerfed in the beginning because I gave him two HMs as I refused to use an HM Slave this go round, once I get rid of those two HMs though I think he'll be a fairly competent addition. Scizor's almost as good as Magmortar and Vaporeon, but I threw Defog on him, which obviously lowered his worth. And finally Crobat's just a G, not really fantastic, but he hasn't dragged the party down like Torterra has from time to time.

I'm still relishing in this game right now, so a more complete and organized blog will probably come later. Or not, knowing how lazy I am. I still need to write about the wonderfulness that is Four Swords...

The Adventures of Sardam

2009-03-09T03:04:00.000-07:00

So I have a friend, named Sara, and Sara kind of ends up going to Juvie a lot. On her latest journey there I told her that instead of writing her letters, I was just going to draw her a comic. I meant just a page or two originally, and the first few pages reflect this, however as I thought about it, the idea blossomed and became it's own creature. Now I sit at the finale of the first issue, of what I hope will eventually be more. It's not perfect by any means, and the art is iffy at best (though better than most of my previous work).

Anyway, I know pretty much no one reads this blog, though if anyone just happens to stumble upon this place I IMPLORE/BEG you to go and visit the comic's blog. It's a relatively good read, and I want some feedback. Thank you so much in advance.

The Adventures of Sardam Blog

-Adam

Heroes: Season 3

2008-12-02T02:25:00.000-08:00

Heroes season 1 was pretty much amazing. Season 2 was slightly weaker, but I didn't look down upon it as harshly as others have. Season 3 has by far been the most bumpy road I've seen so far in this show.

None of the episodes so far have been absolutely stellar, with only little bits of each episode shining through and keeps me coming back. Scenes such as when Peter goes into the future and watches as Knox kills Sylar's son and Sylar goes nuclear and blows up most of California. That was such an intense scene. I loved watching it. Other scenes, such as most with Peter before his father strips him of his power, are just horrible.

There are most certainly a few characters holding the show back, as well as several plot holes and just... bad writing quite frankly. Claire needs to die, badly. She's always the damsel in distress, but she's important as shit for some reason. Save the cheerleader, save the girl and such. Hiro being a ten year old is pointless and exists only to make the actor act like an asshole ten year old annoyance. Matt Parkman, who is still one of my favorite characters is one of the dumbest bastards I've ever heard of. Anyone who sees someone in leg braces and asks flat out "What are those things?" is a fucking moron.

I think that's my biggest problem. Dialogue is horrible for the most part in Heroes. Intelligence is also typically left behind in favor of idiotic decisions or the inability to work together successfully. In season 1 Noah and Claire don't talk to each other, when if even one of them slipped up the other would have known how to handle the situation perfectly, however they, and the viewer, are led to believe that they can't, under any circumstances, let the other know what they do. This created tension and a yearning for them to work together. Now, in season 3, people don't talk or make plans together, and they sure as hell aren't listening to reason. Out of no where Nathan leaves Peter and the Haitian down in Haiti while he goes to help his father do the one thing Peter saw and warned everyone against? Why the hell is Nathan basically betraying his brother. Peter even talks to him right before he leaves, but he's too idiotic to even be able to stop Nathan from making his dumb, and obviously wrong opinion.

Sylar has kind of outlived his welcome as well. He keeps switching back and forth between evil crazed killer guy, and Mr. Nice. It's interesting watching him as his mental state is pulled back and forth and the divide in his brain known simply as insanity grows wider and deeper. However, I have absolutely no faith that the shows creators will properly use this as a story element.

Which leads me to the biggest disappointment by far, even more so than the inability to have two characters converse in a coherent and natural manner. Tim Kring doesn't know when to stop dropping the ball. I don't know if its his choice, or some other sinister force responsible for creating possible story elements that are either ignored, or used in an incredibly inefficient way. Its so depressing seeing all of these possible stories pop up and know deep down that the creator and the writers will just ignore them. Unless of course they're doing it intentionally so they can pick them all up later and connect it all together.

Which in itself is a whole other problem. Everyone is fucking connected in this world. Seriously, everyone is related to this guy who had sex with this girl who's brother is this guys son who gave powers to this guy who worked with this person while they were in Africa studying the source of the power that gave this other guy his power specifically and he turned out to be the first girl who got fucked's daddy. I know that having all of the characters be this close makes sense on a genetic level, that everyone with power could be traced to other powered up individuals, but it is just way too much. Knowing that Claire is actually the illegitimate daughter of Nathan and Meredith is interesting, but once again, they manage to drop the ball. Instead of actually utilizing this fact, they simply use it to connect more characters to her and make her an even less likable person.

One last point that's sort of related to the previous two comments, is that ideas keep just getting tagged on, or so it seems. The writers keep writing and coming up with reasons for things to happen, and instead of explaining why, or even really hinting at why things happen like that they just use it, and move on to the next abstract idea that they will soon forget and paint over with a new coat of useless plot progressing devices.

Sadly this show has devolved into a train wreck. I will definately buy the first season 1 still, but I'm not so sure about the other two seasons. I'll keep watching this show, as besides the 45ish minute time sink it presents, its no real skin off of my bones. If not for the hopeful saving of this show, then at least for those few and far between glimmering moments when the acting, dialogue and story are actually engaging, interesting and make sense logically.

-Adam

Super Mario Bros

2007-12-03T05:18:00.001-08:00

Mario is probably the most iconic video game hero ever conceived, I don't have statistics so I can't say 100%. Of course whenever a Mario game comes out the world rejoices.

No wait, it doesn't really do that anymore does it?

Mario's initial non-platformer games were pretty low-key. Most people didn't really know about them, or just didn't really care. I mean some were probably pissed if they accidently bought Mario is Missing or whatever, but most people were only exposed to the core series. After the N64 was released Mario flooded the market.

Tennis, Party and Golf, the first three major Mario side games. All with at least two sequels , and the Party series just refuses to die. At least it's finally worth a look again now with waggle control thanks to the Wii and apparently the DS version is pretty fun with friends. But this is besides the point.

When Super Mario Bros was released everyone believed that video gaming at home was alive again, it single handedly resurrected a nearly dead practice. Well, not single handedly really, but it was possibly the biggest influence for people to buy an NES before they learned of other awesome games like Zelda and Metroid. The sequel was released and everyone bought that up as quickly as possible. The fan base was split, some liked this new game, others didn't so much. Years later when a thing called the internet came into being people found out that this was really Doki Doki Panic and completely different game and Shigeru Miyamoto decided to turn into a Mario game (He seems to have a fetish with revamping games... at least Doki Doki Panic was released in Japan, Dinosaur Planet never had a chance). When 3 was announced people weren't sure what to expect. Of course when it was released it became the best selling Mario game of all time and is just plain fucking amazing. It added so much to the Mario formula, it reinvented platforming games (Actually the Mario series has done that quite a fucking lot). If you don't know how popular/amazing this game is, you're an idiot. Go play it and you'll understand.

This was quite possibly the "golden age" for the Mario series as 3 and it's successor, World, are in an eternal war between which is the best Mario game. World came out for the SNES and was incredibly well received, being up there with 3 as most popular and amazing Mario game. It also reinvented platforming to a degree. It took was 3 offered and perfected it. The next core Mario game was Super Mario Bros. 64. Now I personally don't like it that much, but without this game 3D would suck, or would have for a long while. Thanks to this game 3D became a conceivable reality (Want proof? Go play Bubsy 3D). Again it reinvented platforming and invented successful 3D platforming.

Sadly 3D had to ditch the old fashion linear level progression or map. They had to add a hub world (Peach's Castle) which linked (via paintings) to other worlds (the meat of the game) where you could gain stars (the things you're looking for). You enter the world and leave once you got the star you were after. Pretty much every 3D platformer has used this system or a similar system to this.

This style of gaming is not really preferable to me. I don't like having to enter and exit over and over again, it just makes it seem like I'm constantly reentering the same world and it makes it really boring. I really liked how Banjo-Kazooie handled it. Basically it's exactly the same, but when you got a Jiggy (the things you were looking for in BK served the same purpose as stars in SM64) you were able to continue searching for the other 9 Jiggy's and you could leave whenever you felt like it. Of course, probably just to spite me, Nintendo has continued to use this same "1-star at a time" system. It's not really a major flaw, but it makes the worlds incredibly boring to me, and I'm sure (read: hoping) I'm not the only one who thinks this.

The next game is the most looked down upon Mario game released in the core set. Super Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo Gamecube. The Gamecube was Nintendo's chance to release whatever the fuck they wanted to pretty much. Sunshine was a major risk, that most people don't like, Wind Waker was a major risk, that most people hated at first but eventually allowed it, Metroid Prime was a major risk, which was very successful, and so on and so forth. This era was basically reestablishing all of Nintendo's franchise's. Sunshine along with all of Mario's side excursions are the main reason's Mario games are not such a joyous moment. Of course games like Galaxy come out and make us feel bad that we were almost not excited for new Mario games.

Super Mario Sunshine was supposed to reinvent platforming again. The bigwigs at Nintendo apparently thought that the FLUDD water mechanic would breath new life into platformers, however it really didn't. They were able to pull off an entire game with the water gimmick, but most people viewed as just that, a pointless gimmick. Many people don't really feel like it's a Mario game, and every fucking world is based on a beach. It gets incredibly old incredibly quickly that way. Even the cliche world progression (forest, ice, lava, swamp, jungle, airship, water, dark, whatever worlds) doesn't get as boring and almost tedious as Sunshine's levels do. Personally I enjoy Sunshine more that 64, but I'm almost alone in this regard.

The latest game to be released in the core series of Mario platformers is Galaxy. This game is fucking amazing, a current gen 3 or World. The gravity mechanic and wondrous worlds they shoved into the game is really awesome and beautiful, almost serene. Really it's a game that demands to be played by all. The only detractor for me is the same sort of "1-star per world" design. I understand that by doing this they can specially tailor the world so that it fits the mission you're currently on, but it just makes me feel like I'm being forced to revisit the same world I just beat. It again drains the wonder out of the worlds I encounter, but when the first couple of times I visit I'm in awe.

But wait! There's more!

I didn't cover the sports games (Tennis, Baseball, Soccer, Basketball, Golf, Kart and Party) nor the RPG's (the excellent Legend of the Seven Stars and the brilliant Paper Mario series which sadly lost a bit of luster with each installment and the clever Mario and Luigi game with the most boring sequel ever) nor the educational games, I even skipped over some of the platformers (Yoshi's Island and it's sequels, Super Mario Land 1-3 and the Wario Land series which spawned from that) but I just wanted to take a look at the core series.

I don't really know the point of this, it's just basic, general, not deep at all video gaming knowledge. If you know anything about games you probably know at least half of the information I put in this. I just wanted to write and I just got done playing Sunshine. Oddly enough, I like Sunshine a lot, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and shine gathering seems to take forever compared to Galaxy's and 64's relatively quick pace. I might add on to this later, or write another little... erm... article(?) about the Mario series... I left a lot out. The difficulty of the series overall, the games I didn't talk about, the general effect of Mario outside of video games, and the movie which I personally love. I feel I've written enough, so if you read all of this, thanks and I hope you enjoyed your time.

I'm Making a Website

2007-11-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

Sadly it won't be hosted anywhere, but it'll host various things I deem important such as my art, writing and some other little tidbits about me. If I ever make it into something remotely interesting and find a host to host it I shall link to it and I'll abandon this blog entirely. Which I kind of already did.

Oh well, this is for my Web Publishing class by the way.

-Adam

Blogging Morrowind

2007-07-31T03:04:00.000-07:00

Considering how horribly I am able to start and then complete a project I'm amazed I made it as far as I did with Blogging Morrowind. Really, for me it was a respectable effort, though I think the game is a bit too large for a project such as Blogging it in it's entirety. I had some pretty good ideas for it too. Such as MOD blogs talking about my adventures using fan-made MODs of all sorts, job specific blogs which focus on a character who isn't a barbarian but a thief or a mage which would have been a challenge for me as Morrowind is incredibly easy for fighter classes. Other classes aren't impossible, Morrowind just isn't as quick and easy for them. Without the side adventures the blog would still have ended up being massive.

I had two main problems with this project. First was me forgetting to take pictures. It's really annoying to remember to snap pictures of things, especially if it's a weird new enemy, usually I'd kill so I'd have to take a picture of it's dead body. Other times I had to just go back, which is an annoyance. Secondly was me playing waaaay too far ahead. Initially I went town by town. This idea is nice but can't be executed in the game very well, typically quests in towns require you to visit other towns, as a result you'd have to break that into a separate entry or just go to your destination and run back. For anyone who's ever played Morrowind I'm sure they'd agree that it's damn impossible to not go off wandering in new towns. Especially when you know where all the good shit is. You could easily just go steal this awesome ass armor at level 1 or 2 and just reign chaos on your enemies. I blogged about ~35% of what I played.

At this point I'll probably just write the list of things I did and post that. It's the cheap way out, I know, but really I already lost my drive to play Morrowind. So for the moment it's on a long-term hiatus. Knowing me, it'll be permanent, but there's always that flicker of hope.

Also, Blogging the game ended up ruining the experience for me a bit. Usually I could just relax and go about my business completing quests. With the responsibilities of blogging it I had to take pictures and record everything in enough detail to remember exactly how each quest went. Most weren't interesting to talk about, so I just gave the quest and the rewards I received upon completion. Of course this ends up becoming just a giant list of "I did this, got this, then did this for that and then he asked me to go do this when I was done I got nothing but I raised a rank, then he told me to go do his last quest and I got a nice little whatever for completing it!" In short: That's rather boring.

So if anyone read Blogging Morrowind. Sweet. If not, well I wasn't really expecting it. I wanted to complete the main quest and the three main guilds before asking if Blogging DQ, Ultima, Zelda or Final Fantasy would "sponsor" me and put me on their side bar.

So, in conclusion. I was able to work at it for a bit longer than expected, though I ended up let it slide and kind of ignored it. Of course the lack of comments kinda of discouraged me from continuing it, but I blame myself for refusing to tell anyone about it besides a quick little bulletin on myspace whenever I posted a new post. Anyway, it was kinda fun and I hope I can come up with similar projects, or just some sort of writing project. Thus far all I can remember is a failed attempt at an ongoing zombie tale and of course the project this post is based on Blogging Morrowind. Anyway, I DO hope some day I'll be able to start something and actually FINISH it. Novel concept, I know.

-Adam

Freeware Adventure Review: La Croix Pan

2007-07-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

La Croix Pan
By: The JBurger
This is an adventure game, usually I'd say to stay away if you're expecting a lot of action, but not only does this one feature a little bit of FPS gaming, it's also veeeery short. Short buy good, if not fantastic. It's WWII (oh noez! Another world war game!) and you're the only solider left from your group and you have to secure the small town of La Croix Pan. As long as you don't fuck up along the way you do just that. Seeing as most of the people who read this probably won't take the chance and download this from the above link, I'll just tell you everything that happens. Of course if you DO want to play it then stop reading and download it now! It's very beautiful and pretty good.

Anyway, so the game starts with you walking into town from the outskirts. The main character heads towards a tower in the middle of town where he'll make his stand. So you have to figure out how to get inside. After kicking the door twice to loosen it, the chain that keeps the door locked is revealed, shoot it with your gun and the door opens. First puzzle is out of the way. Go inside the tower and climb up it, at the top you find a ladder that goes up into a closed hatch. Hit the hatch with the butt of your gun and it'll open. Climb up and you're inside a new room.

It's a small square room with three windows. The first order of business is to shut the hatch and place a sandbag on top of it. You know, just to be safe. After securing yourself in the room use your gun on the window that's pointing south towards Main Street. You'll enter first-person mode and look around, nothing. Use your gun on the window again and you'll see a tank and a procession of German soldiers that start to head down Main Street, the tank doesn't luckily. Kill all of the German soldiers, which is relatively easy, and then use the gun on the window one last time. You'll see two American soldiers and you're character'll make a comment about needing to go meet up with them.

So unblock the hatch and go down. Uh oh, a German soldier start yelling at you in German. Quickly place your gun on the floor and wait for him to go to grab it. Once he kneels down kick him in the face, then grab your gun and kill him. If you hadn't of blocked that door, after shooting the Germans he would have climbed up and killed you. Anyway, head all the way downstairs and exit. Those two American soldiers are down there. They ask what happened, and after you say that you killed all the Germans here they're in a state of awe.

Them: "Well, we've got to head out"
You: "Wait, you mean just leave the town like this?"
Them: "Yeah. Someone'll clean it up. Collins let's move out."

That's just the gist of the conversation.

Anyway, it was a great game, regardless of the length and I'm really looking forward to The JBurger's next game, or hopefully a longer sequel to this as I enjoyed it just that damn much!

Please Support Velvet Acid Christ

2007-07-13T13:17:00.001-07:00

Download Toxic Coma Free and Make Donation if you like =

My Life As A Teenage Zombie

2007-07-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

Note: This is unedited for the most part. I was assigned to write something for a creative writing unit in English last year and this is what I came up with. I'll eventually getting around to rewriting it and thus expanding on it. Enjoy!

My Life as a Teenage Zombie

Shoot me! The words echoed through Em's head. His hand hovered above the trigger, shaking. A tear cut through the dirt and the blood splattered upon his face. His mind told him not to kill him, but through the tortured moans and screams of pain he heard him.

"I DON'T WANT TO TURN!" Wiping the tear from his eye, he brought his weapon up and aimed at his friend's forehead. "DON'T MAKE ME WAIT!" His gun shook ferociously, like an untamed beast, though it was probably the tamest thing within a five mile radius.

As he finger pulled the trigger back he heard a bullet explode behind him, then a skull shattering and something fell on him. He pulled the trigger all the way back as he began to fall. He missed. Blew one of the freaks in half, he saw his friend's leg fly off due to the blast, and heard swearing before he blacked out. Half from the rancid smell of rotten flesh, half from the rock now lodged in his head he was lucky enough to land on.

He opened his eyes. Before him a serene plain of grass, to his side the most gorgeous woman ever. He turned to see her smile. He smiled back awkwardly and leaned in for a kiss. His eyes slowly closed, then reopened in what is commonly referred to as a blink. What had been a perfectly normal, if not superior human form has been replaced with a rotting corpse. It screamed at him. He screamed in return. The world began to shake and fade into darkness. Always darkness, there was no hope left.

He sprang up from his makeshift bed of garbage and limbs, eyes wide open staring at the blood red sky. A fellow survivor looked over at him and threw him a box of crackers. "We dunno how good they be, but we figures they betta' than nutin' right?" the man laughed at him as a woman walked towards him.

The scraggly man in the bed reached for food. Consumables, he could eat for the first time in weeks. The woman approached him quickly and stepped on the box with a hard crunch. He stared down at them, as thoughts of screaming ran threw his head, thoughts of killing her, ripping her limb from limb. He knew he couldn't. He had to rise above the stress, the freaks.

She grabbed him and lifted him from his bed with ease. "Do you think blasting off your friends blasted leg is going to help him? When he asks to be shot, kill him. We don't need more of those brainless meat bags scuffling along filling us with fear." She slammed her fist into his eye, "Do you really think this is beneficial to us? Making your friend suffer more? He already knew he was about to become a freak, a nothing, a rotting corpse. What did you do? You shot his bloody leg off!"

The man tried to search for words. He lay limply in her hands for a short while before his mind finally grabbed hold of a jumbled mess of words. "S-something… hit me…"

"What do you mean, 'something hit you' Em?"

He searched again. He found nothing. "S-something… hit me…"

"We already established your lack of worth…" She continued to talk, but Em heard nothing. Every so often he could her claws rip part of his neck, or her fist slam into his face. He was used to it. Their "leader" had a lot of problems. She watched as all of her friends and family were devoured by them. Ripped to shreds before her, torn and eaten. We're fodder to her. We're nothing. "ARE YOU LISTENING?" She slammed him against the wall as the others started to move away from the whole situation, afraid.

Em suddenly remembered. "S-something fell on me… a bullet exploded, then a-a skull… I pulled the trigger… and off went his leg and I went down."

She slammed him against the wall again; he could feel his few belongings jostle within the confines of his deep pockets. A knife and a nine millimeter, that's all a freak hunter needs. "So you're saying you would have preferred to end up as your friend? I save your ass and all you can say is that it's MY fault you made him suffer more? Why did we even bother saving scum like you?" She slammed him against the wall again. His pocket exploded.

The weapons he carried slid out of his pants as the woman holding him lost her strength and fell. Blood covered their legs as a bullet had cut through his jeans and into her knee, her bad knee. Blood trickled down the side of her mouth. "How did… your gun… discharge?"

He sat up and looked at her. He reached for his dropped goods while glaring at her. "I keep it on, in case we're attacked." Her eyes glazed over, "Oh for the love of, it was a small wound." He smiled slightly, finally his chance had come. This woman brought depression upon him, pain… unforgivable pain; time to make her suffer.

He raised the gun, "At least I didn't any vitals, like…" He trailed off as he shot her in the side, "Or maybe here…" as another round cut through her chest, "or maybe ever a littler higher…" He aimed for her eye. She had beautiful eyes, he couldn't deny it. That's quite possibly the only reason he followed these guys. They reminded him of his past love. She's dead though, she won't come back, nothing will ever come back. The end is here, god came and destroyed mankind's kingdom. "… Like your eyes." Two rounds and all that was left were two black smoky holes with waterfalls of suffering pouring from them. His smile widened. Finally, he put her to rest. He stopped thinking long enough to hear it though; the tortured screams, her tortured screams.

His eye twitched, and a vein on his neck protruded from his neck. "Shut up… Shut up… SHUT UP!" He kicked her throat. He stomped on it. When the sound stopped he didn't stop. Every single time she had struck him, every wound, he was finally closing them.

Some time passed until Em emerged from the depths of his alley way home. His fellow hunters waited for him. They were polishing their guns and knifes, or chewing on their fingers or lips for nourishment.

"So we heard ya' killed boss lady? That make you boss man now?" One of them asked with hope. They were all tired of her bull, they wanted a change, but what could they do?

Em continued to walk ignoring the man. Another asked, he looked the other way, every one of the lost souls he passed asked. He made it to the border of them. Almost free, he could do anything. One of them grabbed him; his hand bolted to the intruder's hand and broke his fingers. Another scream, another victim, more torture; when would it end? Would it ever end? His mind screamed at him, Make it stop! He turned back towards the man who had just grabbed him. He looked like a sick and injured puppy, confused and in pain. He looked back up at the others.

"Kind sir and followers of Em, I have reason to believe this man has been bitten, he lied to us all, played us for fools. He works for the freaks. Destroy him. When I return we shall feast in honor of another victory for the endangered human, and we shall continue our fight!" The men cheered as they rose to their feet. Just like the freaks they had set out to kill. Em turned back and broke into a run. He couldn't stand them any longer.

His run brought him to an unknown sector of the city. He once knew it so well, but when the virus hit, and the freaks began to appear. Wait, he heard scraping, and moaning. Crap, there was one approaching. He grabbed his knife and circled until he came face to face with the remains of a human after the virus takes hold. Half skull, half pale maggot infested skin, its face was disgusting and vile.

Em didn't hesitate, he tightened his grip upon his knife and jabbed it into the zombie's forehead. He backed away, the zombie continued to approach. He cringed and grabbed the shotgun attached to his back, I'm sorry for having to use a shotgun, he thought, but the knife was just too dull to finish the job.

In a flash of light and heat a shell flew forward and true, straight into the blade, shattering it and the freak's brain. Bone and metal rushed by him, infected flesh sprayed forth. It fell; he smirked and kicked it a few times. All by himself, he felled one of these demons.

He clapped, and jumped and sang. He didn't hear the others, he didn't think about why he only ran into one. When he stopped cold dead hands grabbed him like tree branches, they dragged him to the ground. They ripped him open, bit him, chewed on his skin. He watched in horror, though a strange sensation of humor crossed his mind. Good, they'll eat me completely; I'll die before I turn. They continued to feed, his organs fell into their greedy undead hands, his skin opened for them like doors.

After a few more minutes of being devoured he starts to sweat and ponder. Why haven't I died? I should be dead. The blood loss… where's all the blood? Why aren't they… covered? Or at least… some… on the… floor… ugh… blackness is coming back… I want to… be… dead…what's… happening? I feel… strange… hungry… they ate that though… st-stomach? Yeah yeah, that… I can't think… humans… food… ugh… my head hurts…tasty. I need to… get up… and… get away… to… the humans… food… hungry… I have to feed… to…so hungry… need… flesh…

-End-

This was written sometime in February of the year 2007.

New Project

2007-07-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have any loyal readers if I have readers at all... Anyway, whoever sees this should go check out my other blog Blogging Morrowind. The more support i have the happier I will be *nod*

Reviews

2007-06-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Here's some old reviews I wrote at the ever decaying NSider forums.

Banjo-Tooie
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time
Four DiSgraces

-Adam

New Mission Objectives...

2007-06-09T13:32:00.001-07:00

I've decided what I'm going to become once I hatch from this egg we like to call High School... or just school, whatever. I'm going to become a part-time writer, possibly writing for a newspaper, or magazine (actually, I'll probably just send in articles and see if they don't show them even if I don't work there part-time) but what I want as my main career is to be *drum roll* a teacher.

Haha, most of you will be saying "Holy shit... Adam? A teacher? Mr. Simrell?" and then start laughing because you all know the kids I'd teach would come out of the class sick and twisted. However, I think I'd be a pretty cool teacher. Also, if you think about it seems like a good profession, I'm able to adapt well, I learn quickly, I'm able to explain pretty clearly unless I'm explaining that isn't true, or is like the "pope-chipper" or some bullshit.

So yeah, as of now I'm probably going to aim for an English teacher as I love writing, and I plan on being an author of some sort anyway, so the English classes would be beneficial to both of those careers anyway.

My previous career goal was to work with computers, but then I realized that I'm not really THAT into computers, I already spend all of my time on them anyway, and with a computer and a lot more programming knowledge I highly doubt I'd be able to concentrate on working. I'd probably just hack through the servers and make my boss look at horse porn or something because I'm that much of a dick.

I plan on working with Flash a lot this summer, as well as writing, reading, singing and drawing a lot. I'm pretty good with basic flash and my love of technology, especially computers, isn't going to die. My writing skill is also rather high, however, that'll never stop improving, and I want to write more short stories based on an idea I've had for a while now. Reading, I need to fucking read more! I used to read all the time, but I've been slacking recently, so I hope to change that this summer. Also I've got like eight R.A. Salvatore books and I REALLY love his writing. I'm a pretty good singer, except I can't alter it at all, and I would actually really enjoy starting a crappy little garage band with friends if they'd be willing to so I want to work on that... though I sing all the time when listening to music. Lastly, my ability to draw is pretty mediocre, I'm able to draw somethings, but I fail for the most part, so I just want to broaden my horizons, but I don't expect anything to come of my ability to draw.

All in all, I think my life is going to improve a lot after this summer. I don't know why, my future just seems really good for once. My relationship with friends have never been stronger. I believe me and Blakeo are basically brothers now and after some shit this year we've grown really close, and not in a gay way. Also, even though me and Jericho don't hang out in person all the time I think we've grown closer too. We're like almost exactly the same, and I hope he knows I'm there for him if he ever needs me. I'm trying to strengthen friendships with others as well by trying to hang out with Corey, Scott and Hannah more. Finally, I've got this really great girlfriend right now, she can be a little too paranoid at time, but we always recover from any stupid fights quickly and I just love her a whole fucking lot. I plan on seeing her a lot this summer. I love you Heather.

So yeah, this is one of my biggest (content wise) blogs that's written intellectually. Although we all know that everything must come to an end at some point, and I think that point just stabbed me.

OUCH! STOP POKING ME POINT!
-Adam

Death of a Beast

2007-05-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

I drew this in Chemistry class, however I don't have access to a scanner, so I drew it up in MS Paint. It sucks even more than it did originally but so does your mum so deal with it.

Grindhouse (Spoilers Ahoy)

2007-04-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

In order to fully enjoy this double feature you need to be in the right mood and mind set. First of all you need to be willing through two average length movies. This is strangely the most commonly heard complaint. It’s too long. I have to disagree. Not only are both movies worth seeing as long as you are a fan of Tarantino, but you’re paying for one movie. Who cares if it isn’t normality, I think of it as a good deal.

The movies really take the 70’s motif seriously and use them to their advantage. The picture quality is a little blotchy as if it were recorded with old fashion tapes, though this doesn’t take away anything from the movie, it adds a nice setting outside of the movie. It’s a unique experience to say the least. In both films there is a part where the movie claims that a reel is missing. This is rather humorous, both times, and the aftermath of the misplaced reel is rather interesting. It allows time to pass, so a lot has happened and the viewer has to take a second to figure out what all has changed. In “Planet Terror”, the first movie, the missing reel scene appears right before what the viewer is led to assume would be a slightly hardcore sex scene, after the quick notification that the reel is in fact gone it goes back to the movie. The building they were in is now on fire, more characters are inside the building, and some of the characters have new injuries. It’s interesting and used to the movies advantage.

The plots in both movies are rather off the wall, but this is a very good thing. In “Planet Terror” a virus has been released upon their fair town and is turning most of the inhabitants into freakish zombie like abominations. Most of the characters are rather strange and surprisingly have quite a lot of depth to them. In the end only a select few live, and they leave their destroyed city behind to begin anew in an ancient Mayan temple in Mexico. Its plot moved along at a fair pace and there was plenty of action and comedy to keep the viewer entertained throughout. “Planet Terror” also had a lot of over exaggerated violence which is to be expected and fits the movie.

While the plot in “Planet Terror” was engaging through out, the second film “Death Proof” has an incredibly lengthy and rather boring introduction. The first third of the movie involves introducing the first group of girls that a crazed stunt man kills in a car accident. Half an hour wasted on watching four girls get wasted and shit faced. The second third showed him kill the first group, and introducing the second group. The first death scene was actually rather interesting, but then it went back into an introduction of new girls. Luckily this scene didn’t last nearly as long. The last, and best, third of the movie has the stunt man attemping to kill off the second group of girls. However, they’re crazier and kill him, I think overkill him is actually more proper.

Overall “Planet Terror” was by far the better movie. “Death Proof” had it’s moments but you had to wade through all the seemingly pointless introductions to get to the good, juicy, death filled ending.

One of the most unique features in this movie has to be the fake trailers. Tarantino and Rodriguez hired a few other horror writers to make some trailers for fake trailers. Most all of these were funny and I would gladly pay to see some of them, mainly “Thanksgiving” and “Machete”. (All trailers are provided below)

So, is this movie worth seeing in theatres? Well that depends. Are you a Explotation movie fan? A Tarantino/Rodriguez fan? A horror film fan? If the answer to any of those was yes, get off your ass and go see this movie.

Just a little something...

2007-03-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I know I haven't updated this in a while, but no one reads it so it's no major loss. Once I become a famous writer you'll come here to masterbate... daily.

Anyway, so yeah. I've started doing actual work in school! I can't believe it. It's taken me this long to get out of my recent slump. It's rather depressing it's taken this long to realize "School still matters, even if it's at Bay and not Fort." Sad.

Anyanyway (that's a new word.. which will become just as famous as I shall be I'm sure), I've been reading lots of comics so expect a review of some soon (the new Eternals mini, and Batman Knightfall: Broken Bat) I also am going to start reading books again soon (currently I'm reading two for school (Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird) after that I plan on reading the Robert Jordan series, if not RJ then RA Salvatore or maybe the second Perfect Dark book. I don't know what yet).

I've been keeping up with playing games, I've been downloading some games from BitTorrent too. Right now I'm focusing on Neverwinter Nights. Soon though I'll move on to other games on the PC (Black and White, Age of Wonders 2, F.E.A.R., WarCraft III, Oblivion, Morrowing (I still need to beat it!) , Dungeon Keeper). On my DS I just recently obtained Trauma Center and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, for GBA games I'm playing Fire Emblem and Pokemon Crystal. As far as Console games go I'm getting Super Paper Mario soon after it's release, for my PS2 I'm borrowing ICO from my friend and I'm getting three Genesis games soon (Comix Zone, Gunstar Heroes and Toejam and Earl 2). That's a lot haha.

Among all this other stuff I'm starting to draw more thanks to my art class teaching me how to draw people! I drew a page of Scarecrow recently, and I hope to upload that soon cause I'm happy with it.

One last thing I've been doing is watching TV shows (also downloaded) and movies. Such as Batman Beyond, Justice League/Unlimited, Batman The Animated Series, Lost, and some anime, movie wise I've got Children of Men and Pursuit of Happyness to review as I liked them both a lot.

I just typed a big list of crap that I own! Whoo!

Venom vs. Carnage

2007-03-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

This is a rather important mini series in the Spiderman mythology because it’s the birth site of the newest (and apparently 1000th) symbiote Toxin. Symbiotes reproduce A-Sexually, and it’s Carnage’s time to birth his son. Of course, due to the hostile nature of symbiotes Carnage fears for his life if he lets his son live as he may come back and kill him later. So he plans to find and kill Toxin; though Venom has different ideas.

Since Toxin is the 1000th symbiote, he’s prone to go insane and become unstable. At least as far as his brethren are concerned. Thanks to symbiotes lust for killing and pain a “crazy symbiote” would actually be a calm and collected person. Venom doesn’t want this, he wants his grandchild to help him destroy both Spiderman and Carnage. This fails, however, and he eventually turns on both of them.

Luckily Toxin turns out to be able to control his symbiote and fights the good fight. Venom realizes this and teams up with Carnage to destroy him. Though Toxin is too powerful for them and they run off like scared little dogs. The good guys have triumphed and Spiderman has a new buddy to help him out.

The art in this comic is great. There are a couple of awkward panels, but it’s great overall and it looks almost real. The story is equally impressive and delivered really well. The fact that one of the symbiotes is sane and helps Spiderman is cool as well.

Personally, I’m not that big of a fan of how Toxin looks, with his Venom like hands, lower torso and mouth, with Carnage’s head and upper body, though he is supposed to be the best of two worlds I suppose.

Anyway, this is one of the better Spiderman mini’s that I’ve read.

In the near future...

2007-03-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping to have some reviews and thoughts about a lot of older cartoons. Some of them rather childish (Digimon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mighty Max) while others more dark and for more of the mature crowd (Gargoyles, the original Batman cartoon, some Anime). Right now I'm wading through all of them as I downloaded a lot of my childhood memories thanks to a little godsend called torrents.

Also, I've got some comics and video games that I want to share some thoughts about, complete lists of shows, comics and games lie below.

Anyway, here's a complete list of the shows that I'll be talking about eventually...

*At one time... a list existed here. That list is no more.*

Please note not all of these are going to be covered, I have access to all of this though, so I might, and hopefully shall cover it in the future.

Ghost Rider (Movie)

2007-02-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

And I had such high hopes for it. After the start of a good new monthly series (which is now dwindling already) and after buying the Road to Damnation mini for myself to enjoy I had high hopes for this movie. Of course it’s nigh impossible for a comic to become a movie without it failing. Boy did this one fail.

Obviously this movie wasn’t the worst thing ever; however, I’ll start with some highlights. Ghost Rider looks pretty damn good, especially after getting his real jacket in the jail scene; he reminds me of Spawn, which I’m overly fond of currently. The plot had an interesting basis. Besides the normal “You sold your soul” cliché, it adds a new demon trying to rise to power, along with his three elemental buddies; they search an item of great dark magic. Of course, the movie ends up making both of these areas suck as well.

First some clarification; Ghost Rider looks good when he doesn’t move. Once he starts his awkward gait, or talking in that god awful voice it ruins the character for me. He moves like a guy shoved into a C3PO costume. I know its leather, but it forms to you, and he never takes it off, he’d be used to it by halfway through the movie. For some reason they threw away Nicholas Cage’s voice for Ghost Rider, it’s some strange noise that reminds me of gargling babies on fire. What the hell happened? Cage’s voice would have been fine if they deepened it slightly, or if they distorted it slightly. In the form that it was presented in you can’t even tell if it is Cage’s voice they use as the basis for it.

Aside from the disappointment of the main attraction, Ghost Rider himself there lays an even bigger dilemma, the fights scenes. Just as a forewarning, I’ll be revealing a lot of the meat of the film in the next paragraph of so, though it may be better to just read about it anyway. The fighting in this movie sucked balls. There’s no nice way to put it. It had a lot of potential to have some cool brawler scenes. Does it do so? No, of course not; as I said earlier, the plot is about a young demon trying to rise to power with the help of his three elemental buddies. There’s Earth, Wind and Water. Ghost Rider fights and kills them in this order.

When he fights earth he wraps his chains around him, and the earth guy explodes. Yeah, that’s it. He just goes “poof” and it replaced with a small pile of gravel. A side note, Ghost Rider takes the chains from a factory in the movie instead of just having them thanks to his newly acquired ability courtesy of hell. Next up, the wind guy; oh no, he’s made of air, how can chains hurt him? Oh yeah, make a tornado by twirling them about really quickly until he just explodes for no good reason. That makes plenty of bloody sense. All that’s left is Mr. Wet. So he traverses through a swamp to his last battleground, he could’ve gone around, but no. He’s dumb and goes through the last elemental guy. So he’s pulled under. They just circle around until; Ghost Rider bursts into his flaming skull self and burns the water guy. Yep. He burns water. I’m still not entirely sure what the hell happened there. After all that he confronts the main baddie of the film, so the evil guy succeeds in his nefarious plot to devour one hundred souls. So now he’s super powerful, what is Ghost Rider to do? Oh yeah, he has this gay little stare thing. He stares into his eyes and kills him by making him feel the pain and sorrow of all of those souls. It would suck to die that way.

So basically the Ghost Rider movie was a bundle of great potential that Marvel just didn’t give enough funds to do anything extraordinary with. I wasn’t asking for that even. Hell, I would have liked an animated version of Road to Damnation more than this pile of disappointment. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but it might just be the worst super hero movie I’ve seen.

P.S. I think very lowly of this movie…

Majora's Mask

2007-02-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

This is in my personal opinion the peak of Zelda games. Most people prefer to drool over Ocarina of Time, while it's a good game it's unpolished in my opinion. It is the last Zelda game (until Twilight Princess) to feature the "Normal Zelda Dungeon Progress System". Three starter dungeons, epic plot twist, seven more dungeons, and finally the climax. Majora's Mask was the turning point in the serious and the second Black Sheep. Many prefer to shun the teachings of Majora's Mask, while others except that it exists and only play it because it has the word Zelda in the title. Why?

Majora's Mask introduced a mature story, for a Zelda story at least. It's the end of the world in less than three days. If you don't do anything everything in Termina will die. This isn't Ganon pussy footing around claiming to take over by sitting on his arse all day at the top of his tower waiting for the Hero of Time to come and finish him off. This was the moon coming crashing down because of a poor kid possessed by a demonic mask. That's fucking wicked.

Masks. The game focused on masks, and some people complained about it. It was too confusing, or they didn't have many uses. That's true sadly, some of the masks had limited uses, but they almost always had at least two uses, and depending on who you talk to you can get a different emotion to shine through. That kind of works into my other point that most hate.

The "time limit". First of all, it's not a time limit. If it was limited you couldn't go back in time. The three day rule just adds another layer to the characters in the realm of Termina. Thanks to the faux-timeline they people of the land appear to actually have lives, and do things. Sure, they do they same things, but they don't stand in the same spot for all eternity waiting for you to talk to them and then say nothing like in Ocarina of Time. They'd actually respond to how you looked and when you spoke to them.

Without the time limit the game would have suffered, it would have become Ocarina of Time with no sense of life. Is that what Zelda Purist's want? Constant rehashes of Ocarina of Time? Why Ocarina of Time anyway?

It's a milestone as in it's finally broken into the 3rd dimension, the music can finally evolve into full orchestrated pieces, and Link had the ability to sleep for seven years and make women want to fuck his brains out.

What else does it do?

The story is basically the same as it's always been. Hell, it's exactly the same as A Link to the Past. Replace "Dark World" with "Future" and BAM! Same damn thing.

I really wish people didn't think of Majora's Mask so lowly, it deserves more. I can understand how many can't imagine it being the best in the series, but why can't they accept that it's a good quality game that's at least on par with Ocarina?

Contact (spoilers Contained Within)

2007-01-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

Otherwise known as the biggest "almost". I got this game a while ago, and beat it soon after. I still play it from time to time, but only in short bursts as the game just doesn't live up to what it was supposed to be. Early in it's development many people, myself included, were led to believe this was a second coming of Earthbound. Since I missed the first coming I was hoping to jump on the chance to play one of the world's most quirky games. This game is rather quirky, but not in the good way.

Like I said earlier, this is one of gaming biggest examples of "almost". You can tell the developer's put a lot of energy and love into this game. The manual alone shows this. It's set up as an online blog that the professor keeps. It's pretty cool, and informs you of everything you really need to know about the game. Anyway, the story of the game is pretty much non-existent. It starts off with the Professor finally being able to contact someone, the player. Soon after this meeting he's attacked by a mysterious alien force. The ships energy source is dislocated and lands on a planet. The main character Terry is nearby and as the Professor retrieves it he kidnaps him pretty much.

So they race off, but the ship he has isn't built for evasive maneuvers and you're shot down again. This time the energy source is spilt up into five or six pieces. Of course you have to get them back to leave. The story never really goes anywhere though. The developers could have really created something special and expansive with this. Instead they make the planet you crashed on consist of about seven islands that are all relatively small in size and, while beautiful for the most part, boring.

The other greatest let down, at least in my opinion is the battle system. It's somewhat similar to most MMO's and other PC RPG's. You hit the B button to activate battle mode, then target an enemy and Terry attacks him as long as the enemy is in range. No control over basic weapon swings/strikes, but you can cast a multitude of spells depending on the clothes you're wearing. Leveling up is pretty cool actually, get hit more your defense goes up, attack more your strength increases. Of course the same goes for the spells, but you can only cast these a limited amount before you have to go back to regular attacks. The points used for spells regenerates, but only after, seemingly, random hits you land on the enemy.

The games difficulty is also ramped way up. Most bosses are only beatable if you level grind, for a long time. The final boss took a vast amount of potions to beat, which was rather annoying. Stand next to the boss until he flies into the background then run away and heal. Rinse and repeat. It gets boring really quickly, sadly the battle lasts for a while thanks to the boss' elongated health bar.

Anyway, after beating the final boss you're hoping that some sort of strange twist occurs that redeems the story, or you have to travel to more islands/planets or just something. Instead you're treated to (Ending spoiler here, though I think most people would prefer to just read it than wade through this game) your main character yelling at you for controlling him then you have to tap him on the bottom screen to death. Yeah. Once he passes out the leader of the bad guys takes him home, no real closure. In fact the ending makes you wonder what the hell is actually going on. Who's side was she on? Why did Terry wait until the end of the game to say something? What the fuck? (Spoiler is over)

To say the game is a disappointment is an understatement. The game was over before the story got off the ground. Nothing really redeemed it either. No funny enemies, no great graphics, the story wasn't a force to be reckoned with, nothing. Sadly, the one DS game I was anticipating a lot was the one I should have ignored.

The game isn't really worth a buy, but it's also not the worst DS game out there. If you don't mind the confusing and empty story or are just looking to waste about 15 hours then the game is worth picking up. I'd suggest finding it for a reduced price though.

Haha, this probably seems really unorganized
-Adam

Update Schedule

2007-01-13T03:07:00.000-08:00

Since I have no other to force myself to update frequently, I've come up with a system that I like for the most part.

I come up with a theme that I use for the next 5 or so updates. Such as Black Metal music, Spawn Comics, Freeware Games, whatever. Then I have to update AT LEAST once a week. I'd make it more concreate and more often than that, but currently my life's in a bit of chaos, and it is mainly my own fault.

So yeah, my next post well actually hold meat from which you can cut apart and cook and devour! Isn't it marvelous?

-Adam