Shot at the AVGN And Clones

YouTuber Asalieri thinks Nostalgia Critic jumped the shark and after a few more posts, I somehow came up with this reply (split into two bits but lovingly re-assembled for your reading displeasure… and yes, this is how I actually feel and not some attempt to be a dick):

I pretty much gave up on NC months ago due to general lack of interest. I mean, you can only watch him pull Big-Lipped Alligator Moments so many times before it gets boring. That, and I’ve been slowly veering away from anyone clinging to the ridiculous “angry reviewer” gimmick like it’s gold or something. It’s sad seeing these guys attempt to be angry by screaming their lungs out and using colorful analogies that make no sense whatsoever. There’s a difference between being angry and being ridiculous. And a good majority of these “angry reviewers” tend to be ridiculous… and yes, that includes the internet darling, AVGN.

I also don’t care for any attempts at adding “narratives” or “storylines” to a review – not strictly a Critic thing, but it’s something common with most of the TGWTG. That’s what really turns me off over the constant crossovers and obligatory masturbatory meme fillers. What’s the point of these storylines other than to distract from the review or utter pretense of a review? It’s ridiculous. If they want to do storylines, they should keep them separate from the reviews… or don’t do them at all. I kind of expect this act of stupidity from the Bores, not from anyone remotely competent.

TWO walls of text… wonder how many people will bother to read through this?

By the way, flame shields are up. Red Alert. Arm the photon torpedoes.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #6 (Hamilton Comics)

The final issue of the first miniseries is another two-story issue.

The first story, “Attack Of The Gargantutron!”, poses an interesting premise; a monster is attacking and the teens are summoned to take it on, but they can’t answer because they’re in the middle of class! There’s a couple little bits that I liked here; Alpha recording a log entry (recording in MORPHIN MODE no less), the P.E. teacher calling for a new, unseen character called Kimberly Smith (either that or nobody knew who these characters’ full names were), and the Rocky dream (not THAT Rocky or THAT kind of dream, either). Story is nothing special; your usual Ranger fare. Al Bigley returns for art duties here and somehow the line art is just all over the place. The most you can say that characters look like what they’re supposed to, but they’re drawn in the most exaggerated manner possible that it comes across as goofy. I want to say that this gets better, but it really doesn’t.

Shop Till You Drop… Dead! is the second story in which Finster concocts a shopping mall as a trap for anyone involved, since all the shop merchants and staff are really monsters in disguised. Rocky and Kim eventually get caught, but then escape and help save the day. You know, maybe this should’ve been in the last issue and the “Grounded” story should’ve been placed here; then there’d be continuity. In any event, this is another story concept that would’ve benefitted from a full issue, but otherwise is fine. Gray Morrow returns to handle art duties for the first time since the very first issue and it’s pretty rough goings. The costumes are drawn more like  something out of a bootleg production, not proper MMPR. There is one particular frame that would probably appease some horny teens back in the day, but other than that, the art is pretty poor here.

So that’s the conclusion of the first miniseries. Next up, we’ve got the second Hamilton mini that comprises four issues. Will the writing be a little more consistent? Maybe…

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #5 (Hamilton Comics)

From this point on in Hamilton’s run, each Power Rangers comic comes with TWO stories. And as such, we have two creative teams telling different stories. Both are returning artists and probably the two best artists on the book in my opinion, which is good because both stories have good art.

The first story is “Grounded”, which sees the Rangers facing off against a goofy three-handed cowboy looking fellow who can only be defeated with an arrow from the Pink Ranger’s Power Bow… because you know, cowboys and indians and all that jazz… Alas, Kimberly is grounded by her parents for overspending… which is something that I’m surprised hasn’t happened on the show because you’d think someone who likes to shop as much as she does would eventually get to that point. The story isn’t much and the smaller page count as a result of the new format doesn’t do it much favors, but again, this is a fairly basic idea that would have fit in nicely as a possible episode idea for the show. John Heebink’s art compliments the piece quite nicely.

On the other end of the proverbial Power Coin, we’ve got “Stranger In A Strange Land,” which depicts the teens practicing their skydiving moves for the upcoming movie (er, not really, but work with me here), only for Aisha to be whooshed off to what looks like Angel Grove, but somehow really isn’t. And when she encounters someone who looks like her, things get a bit weird. There’s actually an intriguing element behind this one, but the short page count hurts this one more than anything and the end result is something that is rushed through and not given enough time to breathe. As such, it’s just a thing that happened, complimented with Sparky Moore’s solid illustrations.

GameFAQs Review – Demon Attack (Atari 2600)

Demon Attack was a subject of legal debate back in the day when Atari sued Imagic due to the alleged similarities between Demon Attack and Phoenix, a Taito arcade game ported to the Atari 2600 by Atari. Maybe some people might notice the similarities between the two, but I never did. Unless the similarity is they’re both space shooters… oh well, in any case, the two settled and Demon Attack would become a favorite… and for good reason because it’s a great game.

Demon Attack is one of those childhood favorites that I used to play constantly back in the days when I had my Atari 7800 (the system nobody got despite have some decent titles and backwards compatibility with the 2600 library) and even today is still a generally enjoyable game that follows an all-too-simple-and-familiar premise; aliens or rather “demons” are attacking you and you have to destroy them all to move on to the next level. Do well clearing the wave of demons and you earn an extra life (and this will happen often during the initial stages of the game.)

It’s a fairly simple premise that is rather easy to follow, but as you progress farther into the game, the demons become more difficult and more cunning, introducing a couple new abilities such as splitting into two smaller demons when you shoot them as well as streaming lasers that follow their position, making them increasingly more difficult to dodge. It’s a nice way to vary it up.

Graphically speaking, Demon Attack is fairly good looking. Any time an Atari video game pulls off a gradient background in the form of anything – be it a sky or in this case, the floor – I’m easily swayed to say it looks good. Fortunately, the variety of demons you encounter in this game look decisively menacing in this 2600 format and don’t come off as choppy in terms of animation despite having few frames. It’s certainly helps that the pulsing ambient background noise helps to add to the menacing atmosphere of the overall game, with the tempo rising as more demons are slain.

Now like most 2600 titles, Demon Attack has a variety of alternate modes. Usually, these make the games more difficult or some other curve ball variation. The most intriguing aspect is the 2-player alternating mode, where control of the ship alternates between the two players at pre-determined intervals. It’s a mode that keeps the tension up as both players have to be on the ready once they gain control of the ship, lest they be destroyed by the demons’ attack. It’s actually a nice little feature that I wouldn’t mind seeing in more modern games today.

Overall, if you have an Atari 2600 or 7800 for that matter, enjoy space shooters, and haven’t had the chance to play Demon Attack yet, then I highly suggest you do so. It’s fairly cheap these days and it’s a ton of fun. If you don’t have an Atari, the game is also available on the Activision Anthology set that was released for Playstation-2 several years ago. Either way, Demon Attack is a solid space shooter and a great time to be had by all.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (gradient floor and menacing demons are top notch)
Sound: 8/10 (nice demonic-sounding ambient background noise, individual effects also decent)
Gameplay: 9/10 (classic shooter format with some neat 2-player alternating formats)
Challenge: 7/10 (demons adapt with new techniques every few levels, keeping the game fresh and challenging)
Replay Value: 5/10 (if you’re into classic shooters, you can’t go wrong)

OVERALL: 8/10

RAW (May 24th, 2010) – Bret Hart new GM… hooray.

Last night’s RAW was pretty pedestrian… so much so that I missed the main event match with the incredibly obvious ending (Edge pinning Jericho while Cena does nothing). But to be fair, there were some highlights here and there. So some quick comments:

– Batista (predictably) quits WWE… such a sad note to leave the company at.

– Bret Hart is YOUR new RAW General Manager… WHAT?!!! Okay, I was surprised there, but I don’t see this lasting long. Probably up until they manage to score the Rock or something.

– Bret decides to hold qualifying matches for the upcoming Fatal Four Way PPV. Without mentioning the matches themselves (one sucked, another didn’t happen, and the last one I didn’t see), the main event features Cena, Orton, Sheamus, and Edge. Hey, just like the wrestling sites said it would be. So much for THAT bit of misinformation, guys.

– R-Truth is YOUR new WWE United States champion after beating Miz in a pretty decent match. I know I paid attention for the most part, so that’s a good sign if there ever was one. Oh, by the way, this match could have easily happened last week when Miz was the champion and thus not requiring Bret Hart to win the title. But at least Bret didn’t compete in another match.

– Michael Cole threatens to sue Daniel Bryan Danielson if he doesn’t give Cole a proper public apology. Oh yeah, I can’t wait to see that one… on DailyMotion. (Sorry, YouTube. When it comes to the really good shit, you just ain’t got it.)

– Samoans take out the Canadians after they dominated the Russian and English tag-team. If you figure any of that out, you get a cookie.

– The less said about Jon Lovitz’s skit, the better…

– John Cena cuts a promo – time to change the channel.

Not really much to say, but in any case… that’s it for me.

Coming soon… the 100th Post of Twisted Blog. Looking to work something in there soon. Until then, folks.

Some game purchases from a garage sale

Went by a garage sale this past weekend and picked up a stack of games for roughly ten dollars. A varied collection for a variety of consoles… that was all that remained of what was allegedly a huge stockpile of video games. I’m guessing the guy who was selling them wanted to get rid of them rather quickly so he charged only ten bucks. It’s surprising to me considering the games I got, but it goes to show how much people tend to be ignorant of some of the games’ true value or worth. Anyway, here’s what I picked up;

– Two Super Famicom games; Dragon Quest I & II and Super Tetris 2 & Bombliss. I’ve played the Tetris one extensively and might merit a video in the future. Sampling some DQI&II is rather interesting; I’d like to be able to sit down and give this a proper go… and contrary to what is said on Wikipedia, Dragon Quest I & II works fine on the FC Twin… at least as far as I can tell.

– Doom for SNES… I’ll be honest; I have no intention of playing this game. I just wanted the red cartridge.

– A fair number of Atari 2600 games; Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Rampage, Commando, and Demon Attack. At last, a classic childhood favorite has filled a void in my collection. Also, Rampage on the Atari 2600 is actually pretty damn fun and provides the player with a rather solid gaming experience. And the graphics aren’t have bad either.

– Some Game Boy titles; Kid Icarus Of Myths And Monsters (the sequel/remake to the NES classic – therefore I own all the games in the series outside of their Japanese counterparts), The Amazing Spider-Man (as featured on AVGN’s Spider-Man episode from 2007… and believe me, despite its flaws, it’s actually the best game in the series, as its sequels are far worse), and a non-Game Boy title, Pac-Man for Game Gear.

– A nice healthy compliment of NES titles to fill out the shelf; Silver Surfer (a game that’s more frustrating than it is crappy), Double Dragon III (this one IS crappy), Twin Eagle (a nice little shooter with helicopters), and Ring King… yeah, the one with the blowjobs.

– Finally, I got Sonic 3 and Columns for Genesis. So that completes the main Sonic titles (only missing Spinball, 3D Blast, and the Puyo Puyo knockoff feature Eggman).

All in all, a rather nice and solid bounty for ten bucks. And that brings my total rack of titles over the 700 mark. Unbelievable.

WWE Over The Limit 2010

HEY KIDS! We’re going Over The Limit! YAAY!

Nope, not doing it for me.

So on the eleventh anniversary of Owen Hart’s accidental passing (and no acknowledgement is made of this fact… possibly due to upsetting the widow), WWE held a PPV in Detroit with one of the lamest names ever… oh wait, the next one is called Fatal 4-Way, isn’t it? Aw shit.

Oh well, let’s get on with it, then.

Continue reading “WWE Over The Limit 2010”

PPV Predictions – WWE Over The Limit 2010

Apparently, the one game they won in this series was played by another team wearing Canadiens jerseys, because they went back to being shut out again yesterday. Oh well, time to shine up the clubs.

In the meantime, kids, we’re going over the limit, kids! WWE Over The Limit!  Okay, that sucked. My apologies…

Yep… you know the drill. Let’s get this over with…

Continue reading “PPV Predictions – WWE Over The Limit 2010”