This is an often overlooked gem for the Gameboy Advance. Players often dismiss titles based on licensed properties, but Astro Boy Omega Factor is a fantastic game. Most of the game is a 2-D beat-em-up, but there’s a few SHMUP levels mixed in. The developers (Treasure) also found an ingenious way to extend gameplay through the multiple endings that doesn’t feel cheap by creatively using an unexpected feature. I’d say more, but don’t want to spoil it for those that might play the game since it was such a pleasant surprise.
The game is challenging, but not impossible. Highly recommended.
This past weekend I got to see The Faint. I hadn’t been planning on going, but I’m really glad I did get to go, since they put on an amazing show. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the material, since there were two albums (one of which had just been released) that I wasn’t aware of, but it was still great. Also, I like the new album.
SOMA wasn’t as terrible as I had assumed, but yeah it was bad. You can read a review of the show here that will paint a picture of it for you.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking “shit, nothing’s been going on for me to write about here,” but then I realized I was just being lazy. I mean, I haven’t really felt like writing a serious movie review, but there definitely has been some stuff worth mentioning, at least.
I saw Chromeo play at the House of Blues here in San Diego last week, which was awesome. It happened to be P-Thugg’s birthday so they brought a cake out and sang for him. Immediately after that they did a short Journey tribute. Totally rad. Here’s some video I took of it… sorry it sucks.
Later this month I’ll be seeing Radiohead and next month I’ll see Ratatat. I can’t wait for those shows.
Before that was Comic Con. My objective of not spending money was a devastating failure. I bought Tachikoma, Fuchikoma, EVA-01, Paragoomba, and Bob-omb action figures, as well as 8 Samurai Executioner books and 2 Hellboy books. Overall, the show was a laid-back experience. We didn’t make a big effort to get there early on any day, and didn’t go to many panels. The three panels I attended in full were Watchmen, Pixar, and Kevin Smith / Seth Rogen. We tried to go see the Ghostbusters Game panel, but it was cancelled due to a “scheduling conflict” with the talent (aka Dan Aykroyd). I also got some awesome t-shirts. Among them are designs featuring Donkey Kong, Megaman, Watchmen, Ghostbusters, and Marathon.
Aside from that, I’ve gone to see some movies. The highlight has to be the Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which I’ve seen twice now (once in IMAX). This was the Batman film I’ve always hoped for. Heath Ledger steals the show and sets the tone of the movie.
I caught a midnight screening of WALL-E last Thursday night. The movie is simply amazing. I think it currently tops my list as best movie so far this year.
The movie does a few interesting things. It mixes in some live-action video clips, for one, bringing actor Fred Willard into the film. The most daring thing the movie does is that it goes for long stretches without any dialogue aside for the very small vocabulary the robots have, limited basically to their names and a couple other words. Both of these are risky moves for Pixar, but I think they were a rousing success, particularly the lack of dialogue. It makes for one of the most heartfelt, funniest movies of the year.
Something else to note with WALL-E is the short that runs with the film, Doug Sweetland’s Presto. Presto had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. In the short, Sweetland channels Chuck Jones at the top of his form… it’s very trippy to see a Disney short done in the Warner Bros. style. The short alone is worth the price of admission.
Yes, that’s what the new Megaman game actually looks like.
A coupleblogs have linked to this forum post which confirms that Megaman 9 is coming as a Wiiware/PSN/XBLA downloadable exclusive game. Rumored bosses include Magma Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Concrete Man, Hornet Man, Plug Man, Tornado Man, and Splash Woman. The most exciting part is the news that it’s going to look like an NES game and go back to the series’ roots in terms of design and gameplay. I can’t wait to play this… it’s most likely I’ll download it for the PS3. Unfortunately, the Wii’s storage space is too precious, so I’d rather save it for Wii-exclusive titles.
I just got back from seeing Marvel’s latest comic book adaptation, The Incredible Hulk. Like with Iron Man, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. Marvel seems to have learned its lesson and shaken off the stupid (refer to X3 and Ghost Rider, if you’re wondering). Let’s hope the lesson is permanent.
After the movie, Lannice mentioned the scuffle over the final cut of the film between Edward Norton and Marvel. This left me curious, so I did some reading. Norton and Louis Leterrier (the director) pushed for a cut that was about 20 minutes longer, a little more meditative. Marvel wanted a streamlined cut, the most commercial film possible. Marvel obviously won the argument. Some film blog got wind of this, broke the story, and branded it a “feud.” The story exploded, but apparently it’s way out of proportion, at least according to a statement Norton submitted to Entertainment Weekly. You can read the whole story and the statement here.
Anyways, I’m left curious about the alternate cut. Theres a total of around 50 minutes of unused material; I guess we’ll have to wait for the DVD release.
A sidenote: at last summer’s Comic Con, they had announced that Norton would also be working on the film’s script. According to another article I read, Norton did a page-one rewrite of the script, rewriting mostly the dialogue but also adding some scenes. When Marvel submitted the script to the Writer’s Guild, the previous writer, Zak Penn, won the arbitration and was given sole credit. The article says “the Guild tends to favor plot, structure, and pre-existing characters over dialogue,” but that’s still unfortunate.
I recently started reading a newish video game blog, 61 Frames Per Second, and it’s pretty good. Recently they had a top ten list called The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels, and in talking about Zelda II they had some nice insights into Shigeru Miyamoto’s career as a game designer. I thought I would share an excerpt here:
The first Legend of Zelda is, arguably, Miyamoto’s true masterpiece, the culmination of his first design era. His benchmarks: Donkey Kong created context and narrative, Super Mario Bros. brought speed and an expanding world beyond a single screen, and the Legend of Zelda created an actual world to explore, an organic place peppered with secrets. After its release in 1986, the next decade of Miyamoto’s career was one marked more by refinement than creation. But, in 1987, Miyamoto got experimental. Alongside the aforementioned Super Mario Bros. 2 is Zelda’s sequel, The Adventure of Link, a sequel so bizarre in its design choices that it’s still seen as a blemish on a series considered unimpeachable by gamers and designers alike.
Here’s a trailer I found on TIGSource for a gorgeous-looking Flash platformer called Scarygirl by a company with one of the most awesome names I’ve heard in a while, Touch My Pixel.
I found a link in BoingBoing Gadgets today to a YouTube channel run by SSI Shredder, an industrial shredder company. It’s called Watch It Shred, where they post a video monthly of various objects being shredded by their machines. For some reason I find it strangely compelling. Seeing something like a car, bowling balls, or metal shopping carts being torn into little tiny bits just makes things seem so fragile and insubstantial.
Contains flashing images which may cause photosensitive epileptic seizures.
This only begins to describe what is a transcendent, life-changing experience. The titular protagonist is “drugged up on drugs” and “can’t be sure if he’s been awake before.” This premise connects four otherwise unrelated minigames.
I’m not sure what the goal of the game’s design is, but I’m certain that it is monumentally successful at what it does. The game assaults the senses. It will make your eyes bleed and your head explode, both in the best possible way.
Another one of his games that I played recently is Flywrench, which is truly awesome. Flywrench is the game that I’d recommend for the uninitiated in Messhof games. While the Punishment series is incredible, it could be described by some as torture. Flywrench is not only not impossibly difficult, but it features simple yet elegant and engrossing gameplay mechanics and level design, as well as an entertaining narrative, all with very minimalist visuals.
Another of his games that I’d recommend is You Got the Grappling Hook, a small game that takes a simple grappling hook and swinging mechanic and turns it into a Portal-like narrative. Even if you’ve found my descriptions of Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist or Punishment daunting, you should definitely try at least this game and Flywrench.
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