Musings – Page 202

Congrats to Obama

Congratulations to Barack Obama for winning what many considered to be the most important election in American history. In a couple months (and I must stress a couple months), he’ll be inaugurated and be the first African-American to be president since… ever. Now why can’t people say that? People blindly and stupidly refer to the guy as the first black president, when in fact he’s only half-black.

Don’t believe for a second that Obama’s win will bring about immediate change. Any plan that comes to fruition takes time to have any affect and even so, you still have two more months of Dubya to endure.

In any case, I feel bad for John McCain. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t agree on some of his ideas, I do believe that McCain would continue Bush’s wars and even start off some of his own just for kicks, and I cringe at the thought of the most clueless woman being one step away from the most powerful seat in the US, but even so, had he been running against, say, Hilary, he might have had a sporting chance and some of his ideas might actually be different from Bush’s. But against a heavy favorite like Obama, he virtually had no chance.

That… and the endorsement from Dubya pretty much killed off his chances.

So, congrats to Obama. Better luck next time to McCain. Go back to Alaska, Sarah Palin.

So I guess Tina Fey needs something else to do right about now…

Sizzler07

Anyone who browses YouTube on a regular basis knows the name. The supposed account belonging to a kid was home to two “infamous” reviews in which the kid bashed Contra and the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat. In trying to be another AVGN knockoff, he ended up opening a can of worms and gotten many other posters to post parodies and really vile comments.

Goes to show you can’t have opinions on the Internet, because just anybody who disagrees with you can and will bash you because your tastes don’t match up with theirs. It’s a damn shame…

Turns out the kid featured on those videos are NOT that of Sizzler07, but a guy by the name of VIB(x)00. The story so far is that the Sizzler07 took videos the guy made years ago and posted them without permission. VIB had recently made a video addressing this, saying that he regrets making the vids and that he’s putting out a warning to anyone who uses the Sizzler stuff for their own warped purposes.

Now let me be clear on a couple things. In terms of the actual reviews, I seem to be the only one to get some semblance of enjoyment out of them. Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with him on the two games and to be fair, they’re not entirely great reviews. Somehow, I seem to enjoy seeing kids not know what they’re talking about and act like complete idiots. However, let’s be fair. The kid was doing one of two things; either giving his true thoughts (dispeled as VIB did an actual review of Contra and had some good things to say about it) or attempting to be like an anti-AVGN who bashes good games as a joke.

To be honest, this was something that I had actually thought about doing, but then I saw all the responses these reviews were getting and none of them were exciting kind to the guy. Responses have ranged from typical disagreements to cursing to unwarranted insults to full-fledge parodies. Now I’ll admit that some of these parodies are amusing (NicotineAlien has a particularly good one), but these are all parodying and insulting a kid who just posted a couple videos.

Midway Fighting For Its life

Midway is undergoing ecomonic problems… and considering the current happenings on the stock side of things, who isn’t? According to this piece, Midway is pretty much in dire straights, as they had to cancel a couple projects based on licensed properties and the properties that they didn’t cancel (such as TNA Impact) hasn’t sold as well as they would have liked. Right now, they’re hoping that the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game will be their saving grace.

Could this upcoming MK game have a chance of turning Midway’s fortunes around? I’ll admit that I’m a bit skeptical as to one game making all the difference, especially a game that is part of a franchise known for its excessively violent video games. However, considering the game also features DC heroes such as Superman, as well as a Teen rating for less bloody but still intense action, the possibility might be that the game could make Midway a lot of money. However, it can’t be the only game to do this feat. It takes more than that.

First Impressions: The Force Unleashed (PS2)

So I recently picked up this game recently and only played it yesterday.

As of this writing, I made it up to the third level so far and then took a break from it. For the most part, the game is fairly enjoyable; it’s a simple hack-and-slash with force powers, the story seems fairly decent so far (though it’s supposed to get better later on) and the graphics are of decent quality despite the aging hardware.

However, there are issues. The Force targeting is a little wonky; sometimes I force-levitate an enemy as opposed to a piece of stray debris on the floor more often than not. Also, the camera seems too broken for my tastes, sometimes placing it in front of some huge set piece that blocks my view and thus I have no clue what the fuck is going on.

But other than those minor complaints, I’m liking this game so far.

TMNT on NES… Still A Good Game Despite Nerd Boy

I just ended an hour of TMNT on the NES, somehow managing to beat the game without dying despite the fact that I haven’t played the game in years… and I mean, really play the game, not just “play for a few minutes, relish in the old memories, and then off to the shelf you go.” This was a good ol’ romp through childhood lane.

Some minor thoughts while playing through this game:

– AVGN complained about the pizza in the building (in Area 01) and how it takes much effort to get there. The solution is pretty simple: you see the fucking pizza on the first screen… THE FIRST FUCKING SCREEN. If you actually believe fighting your way through enemies for a pizza is worth, go right ahead and get it, but don’t bitch to me when you do get it and leave the building with one red block left in your life meter.

– The “infamous” underwater level… I actually managed to make it through the whole level without switching turtles. Mind you, ol’ Raph nearly bit the bullet, but I found the level to be actually easier than I thought.

– Splinter tells you to get to the blimp so you can chase the helicopter, but I always wondered how they would find the helicopter after having gone through several extraniously difficult passages. More to the point, I’d like to know exactly how the Turtles uncovered the secret Foot camp (the fifth area).

– Somehow, I managed to find the Technodrome on the first shot. I guess I jumped the gun a bit, so allow me to explain. In the fifth are, you have to search three underground caverns for the Technodrome. Only one path leads you to the monstrous tank, while the other two paths are dead ends. Back in the day, the Technodrome would be found in the hardest of these paths, but today I just took the easiest path and boom – there it was… completely by accident.

– The final area… somehow I survived this area despite being ill-prepared for this. Actually, the flying white dudes didn’t seem as frustrating now as they did back in the day. Either I’m getting better or they’re getting sloppy… probably the latter.

– Scrolls are your friend. Embrace them and DON’T LOSE THEM!

All in all, an enjoyable experience nonetheless and a difficult game conquered. Overall, I still say that this is a good game, regardless of what the almighty NERD says…

Now TMNT2: The Arcade Game? That’s a Cowa-Fucking-Piece-Of-Dog-Shit. I’ll stick with the original arcade version on MAME or on the TMNT2: Battle Nexus game.

Thank you for reading. Good night.

…

The ending rocks too.

A Relic Comes Home (and also Castle Of Dragons)

So I found myself a classic Nintendo Entertainment System.

Well, a working one.

A front-loader. Classic model.

For the most part, it works without fail… mostly. The obvious connector issue is an issue, but it works better than my dearly departed system, which means I can play Castlevania III without fail… and that’s a good thing because that game needs a bit of love that my FC Twin cannot provide.

However, instead of playing that gloriously difficult game, I’m spending my time playing crap like The Last Starfighter and Platoon. Suddenly, I get the feeling as to why my last front-loader died the death it did… even though its last game being played was Kirby’s Adventure, which is not crap.

Speaking of not crap, I also snagged the original Contra in a shop downtown. Truth be told, there’s a lot of good games there, but the prices are just ridiculous. In any case, I got that, along with another game called Castle of Dragon… the less said about that game, the better, but at least it was real cheap.

In closing, I’d like to remind you folks that Mega Man 9 is out now and I do suggest you get it… because it deserves love.

Jake Hangs His Snake Out His Pants

According to this article and the proceeding video (which you can check out here), Jake “The Snake” has gone bonkers after sipping a few drinks or twenty. Normally, I’d say that this is mildly funny and amusing, but after watching that vid, I almost find it sad that he’d turn out this way… maybe he should quit while he’s still… um, yeah.

And you know what the funny thing is? Apparently, this is the same guy who had posted a very detailed analysis of last week’s RAW on his MySpace blog. It absolutely boggles the mind on how he could have gone from fine-tuned commentaries on the net to hanging your dick out at a benefit wrestling event.

Just go away, Jake. As a favor to all of us and as a favor to yourself. You’ve done everything you could have ever done in the business, now it’s time to step aside before you become even more of a joke and embarrassment. We already have a joke of the industry walking God’s green Earth: his name is Hulk Hogan.

Splash has what now?

As some people may have noticed, the Rockman 9 OST has been released – brief snippets can be found on the net (it sounds good). Some scans of the booklet revealing the bosses have surfaced and naturally, the Japanese text was translated for us stupid North Americans. Nothing particularly special (although the new bosses look both awesome and weird at the same time), but then you read Splash Woman’s description, which goes something like this…

A robot who performs rescue work in situations such as sinking ships and people in oceans. Her special weapon is the Laser Trident. It fires a laser that has penetration ability.

Okay, so Splash Woman’s weapon has penetration abilities. Yes, that sounds just about right… yeah.

Um… right.

Very unsettling.

(2019 Update: The Laser Trident can penetrate shields, which makes it useful for enemies that have shields. It’s actually pretty useful despite its somewhat unfortunate descriptor.)

Another Uncommon Relic Claimed

Have managed to snag Tetris for NES. Not the widely-known Nintendo version, but the unlicenced Tengen version featuring two players and more Russian folk songs. Now supposedly unlicenced Tengen games aren’t supposed to work on the FC Twin (according to some sites here and there), but Tetris seems to work fine so far on mine.

In addition, I’ve also snagged WWF Wrestlemania Challenge for NES. This game was the sequel to the first NES Wrestlemania game and is generally a much better game overall, although I hate that you have to hold the D-Pad diagonally in order to move straight along… but I digress.

Power Rangers Game Wizard LCD Handheld Video

Written August 8th, 2015
Digging through the archives and I saw this old 2008 video where I was showing this Game Wizard Power Rangers handheld thing. It doesn’t show off gameplay, the vocal and picture quality is god-awful – I think this was taken with a digital camera that has long since left the world of the living – and the video as a whole is short, but it’s a fun lookback.

In hindsight, I kinda wish I still had this. Then again, I kinda wish this was still working.

Oh well…