Just saying the name Vevo disgusts a lot of people, but why? When you go on YouTube and you look for that one music video, be it something recent, or nostalgic, you can be guaranteed that Vevo's name will be on it. In my experience Vevo's stuff is of a respectable quality by YouTube standards, but the issue is if you want to watch these videos, you're forced to sit through ads before you can watch them. There have also been reports of said ads interrupting the videos themselves. Normally I'd tell people to get Firefox and use adblock plus, but in this case, I can sympathize with them. It used to be I could go on YouTube and just sit there and watch a music video ad free, but now if I don't have AdBlock Plus enabled, I'm forced to sit through a 20 second ad either before the video, or somewhere in the middle of it.
Internet
March 03, 2011
March 12, 2010
QUICK!! SOMEBODY CALL JESSE VENTURA!! [INTERNET][COMEDY]
(FIND OUT WHAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW)
Ever heard of a cartoon called My Life as a Teenage Robot? No? Well, you've heard of it now. It was a cartoon on Nickelodeon that got its start on a program called Oh Yeah! Cartoons when it was known as "My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot." It was created by Rob Renzetti, and in 2003 it was picked up for a TV show. While the ratings were there, it took two years too long to get a season out, resulting in the show being too much of a money pit and resulting in the cancellation of the show before it could reach its potential. It's sad when something like this happens. Recently, the show has been on Nicktoons Network, and they are doing a thing called Clash of the Nicktoons. I guarantee that by the time you finish reading this your face will be buried into your palm.
Clash of the Nicktoons is basically the same thing as March Madness. You know, make your brackets, and see how well you do. Well, it seems that Teenage Robot had a lot of luck being paired up against Invader Zim. If you're not familiar with this, Invader Zim is a show that aired in the early 2000s about a failing Alien invader who lands on Earth in an attempt to conquer it. Due to a series of circumstances regarding parental groups and scheduling, the show was pulled before it could get anywhere near a third season of production. Despite all that, the ratings were good enough that it at least got on DVD. Now here's where Clash of the Nicktoons comes into play. Zim and Jenny went head to head, and fans voted for who they wanted to win. However, I don't think it was that easy, as it probably went fans pick who they THINK will win, and the decision is made some other way.
Basically, what happened was Jenny lost. So, how does the Teenage Robot fanbase take it? They scream conspiracy, fraud, farce, and any other word in the book I'm thinking of. The conspiracy is that Nickelodeon was doing whatever it takes to make sure MLaaTR didn't win the whole thing, and they put Zim through as a middle finger to the fanbase. If you do not believe me, then go to this blog post. Seriously? You guys are getting worked up about something as stupid as a popularity contest? OH MY GOD, CALL JESSE VENTURA!! IT'S A CONSPIRACY BY NICKELODEON TO KEEP MLAATR DOWN!! THEM NETWORK TYPE PEOPLE DON'T WANT ME TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS BEHIND THE SCENES!! Let's be serious now, what would MLaaTR winning this thing do? Would it tell Nickelodeon to make another season? No, it wouldn't. Everybody that worked on that show moved on to other cartoons, and I think they'd rather move on than go back. Would it prompt Nickelodeon to attempt a revival/reboot? No, because the show failed once, and a majority of the fans gave up on the show.
MLaaTR fans, let me ask you this. Is this how you want to be portrayed?
January 18, 2010
Army of Two: The 40th Day [PS3][REVIEW]
(I wouldn't spend another 40 astro seconds with these two)
Oh EA, the first Army of Two was so bad, what made you think we wanted more? Anybody who read the last post I made would know I was sarcastic about that remark. Army of Two is one of EA's many new IPs, and its debut title wasn't exactly a good game by any means. The game was too easy, characters were stereotypical, and the whole co-op mechanic didn't work as well as intended. Despite the mediocre reviews, the game sold well enough to warrant a sequel. While the sequel is a much better game than the previous Army of Two, it still feels like nothing more than an empty package. Another way to describe this game is Halo 3 ODST.
The previous game took place in various regions of the world, over the course of a big time frame, but here, it takes place in Shanghai over the course of a few days. Rios and Salem are called to Shanghai to perform another mission being the PMC mercs that they are. After the task is done, it's suddenly all about getting out of Shanghai alive before you are destroyed along with the city. Is this a good story? No, is it credible writing? No. This is nothing more than your standard generic action plot number 564. Sure, there are points where you can make moral decisions, but these can be described as if you go for the reward, you are evil. They do not affect the story at all. However, at the end of the day, you will ultimately feel no satisfaction when you reach the end.
Army of Two's biggest selling point is the co-op third person shooting gameplay. The only way you should play this game is with a friend, or online. There are times where the AI will do nothing but get in your way and block your shot, it won't respond to your commands, and it will shoot at air. In the event you are shot down, you can be saved by your partner provided you do not bleed out. However, if you use the AI partner, he'll usually drag you out into the open to save you where he most likely will get shot. There is no penalty for being saved countless times. In Kane and Lynch, you had to be careful not to overdose on adrenaline, but here you don't have to worry about overdosing, both characters have taken enough steroids as it is. There are plenty of weapons to buy, but the kicker here is the good guns can be bought early in the game, and ammo will never be an issue. The guns themselves can be customized with different stocks, barrels, magazines, scopes, silencers, and paint job. Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen in this game is a gold grenade with diamond studs that costs $100,000. We be ballin' yo!
There is a cover system, but it feels like it was sloppily added. Sometimes you'll think you're in cover, but it will turn out you aren't. There's no clear indication of when you're in and out other than to determine how much damage you're taking. There are two instances in the game where you and your partner stand back to back. These give you unlimited ammo, and no reloading required. I've found the best thing to do here is spin round and round while spamming boolets. Granted, that's not effective, but it works considering how insanely easy this gets. The auto-regenerating health is back in full force, but EA decided to be totally generous about it and have it regenerate really fast. Enemies will not move from cover spots unless you throw grenades at them, why? I don't know, maybe because if they shifted cover positions, it would require you to actually aim at somebody.
There are multiplayer modes here, but I'm not going to sit here and review them, want to know why? EA had the audacity to make you go into the marketplace and BUY a gameplay mode. Isn't it enough that we paid $60 for this, now you want us to pay for some game mode that sounds like an already existing mode of play in Gears of War 2 that didn't cost a dime? This is the same thing Resident Evil 5 suffered from, in that they made you buy a gameplay mode. It sickens me to no end that companies can get away with this and people are suckered into buying it. Even though when I bought this game, the guy at GameStop gave me the free month of play, I'm not using it. I'll let somebody else fall victim to this game.
There aren't too many improvements over the visuals from the previous game. Frame rate issues occur the minute you start firing a hail of bullets while the enemy does the same thing. While there is a small variety to enemy designs, they all end up looking the same at the end of the day. Oddly enough, there is a ton of polygon clipping, which is something we still can't seem to get under control. Seeing Shanghai explode into pieces isn't too bad in itself, but it's not as exciting as it should be. You will recognize Salem's voice actor as the same guy who plays Nathan Drake, and he doesn't do much to make the two sound any different. If anything, it means that at some point after the Uncharted storyline, Nathan Drake took steroids, changed his name and became a mercenary for hire. I'm obviously joking there, and the voice acting itself sounds like a bunch of people just reading off a script, deadpan and all. Most of the music consists of 10-second loops that won't wear on your nerves because the gunfire, the shouting, and explosions will drown them out.
So for all this, how long is the campaign? Five hours. How much is the game? $60. Does this add up? No, it doesn't. I was hoping for an average 20 hour length game, but I guess that was asking for too much. You could rent this game, and finish it in a day. There's no real reason to buy this game, even if you were die hard for the last game. No new ideas, it feels like a big Hollywood generic action flick. It suffers from the same problems Halo 3 ODST did, but ODST had a few positives to it compared to Army of Two the 40th Day. Trust me when I say, your money is better spent on another game.
December 27, 2009
Wait, what? Project Apple Pie? [INTERNET][FAIL]
September 02, 2009
Dir en grey too American? [MUSIC][RANT]
Dir en grey is one of my favorite Japanese bands. I'm not going to say they're a J-Rock band, because it's a term I refuse to refer to any Japanese band. Well, it seems that some fans went off their rocker and are claiming that Dir en grey had become too Americanized in their music, and many fans lost faith in the band ever sounding any good again. I say Dir en grey sounds so much better now than they did before. Now I had gotten into them during the Kisou era, so I was into them JUST BEFORE the "drastic changes" I keep hearing about. What's wrong with a Japanese band putting music before visuals? I don't get it...
When Vulgar had come out and I gave it a listen, I fell in love with the album. I thought Dir en grey had peaked at that point, feeling it would be a difficult album to top. Their sound was more raw compared to the poppy tunes they had been putting out, and Kyo's voice was less run through a filter. Another change being made was that at this point, the band had started ditching it's visual rock roots, possibly because the band realized in the music industry, music comes before visuals. While they toned down the visuals with Kyo having less make-up, Die cutting his hair short, Kaoru getting a goatee, Toshiya just being Toshiya, and Shinya still being picked on, it didn't stop their videos from giving off any shock value. The Obscure video in its uncensored glory is one of the sickest things I've seen, and if you ever see an english translation, your mind will spiral out of control. Their sound was basically more fitting to their lyrics compared to older albums.
However, when Vulgar was coming out, many people starting to show distaste for Dir en grey by saying they were straying too far from their roots. For those of you that don't know, when Dir en grey first started, they were heavy on a visual rock look, known over there as "Visual Kei" where the band members do crazy crap with their hair, put on pounds of makeup and wear ridiculous outfits. This is one of the things that caused people to fall in love with the band the first time around. Their music had a more poppy tone to it as well, with Kyo not screaming, his voice sounding like it went through a filter. The same goes with the music, to a lot of people it seemed more energetic and more fun, despite the lyrics having a very serious tone. To a lot of people, this is what Dir en grey was, and should have been, another indie visual kei band. However, because the band got successful and was aware of people in the US interested in the band, they started changing so that more people would take them a bit more seriously. As a result, this caused fan backlash with the usual sold out comments, but what struck my nerve was a lot of these fans were not willing to give Dir en grey's new music a chance. The one comment I saw that caused me to rage like no tomorrow was "Dir en grey has become too Americanized." Is there a difference in sound between Japanese rock and rock in the US that requires Dir en grey and other Japanese bands be classified as "J-Rock?"
I've listened to all their albums, and I don't understand why people put Gauze so high on the list. It's not a good album from a music stand point, it doesn't define what Dir en grey is for me. The songs are too poppy in the instrumentals, there's too much filtering in the music, and Kyo's voice isn't there. Do you expect upbeat, energetic pop backing lyrics about child abuse? The only song that comes out right on that album is Mazohyst of Decadence, a song about abortion from the perspective of the fetus being aborted. It's disturbing, uncomfortable, and many other things that I could list. Aside from that song, nothing felt fitting on Gauze, it seemed like their look was more important to the fanbase than Dir en grey's music. When Vulgar had come out, nobody saw the changes to the band coming. They wore a hell of a lot less make up, their look was starting to get less flashy, hair was cut, Kaoru's goatee was starting to come in, and the music was about to go through drastic changes. We probably should have seen the changes coming after Kisou's music started to fit to the lyrics. It was hard, distrubingly beautiful, and started to sound more raw. I think rather than sit through all this, I'll just list the albums in order of release and leave a short comment about each one. I'm not counting Six Ugly, Missa, or Ain't Afraid to Die because Six Ugly and Missa are mini-albums and Ain't Afraid to Die is just a single.
- Gauze - Generic indie Japanese pop rock with many filters
- Macabre - A work of art that comes off as a great concept album
- Kisou - Less generic indie pop, more hard rock
- Vulgar - Pure, raw, obscene, violent, brilliant
- Withering to Death - Their most diverse works
- Marrow of a Bone - Generic hard rock
- Uroboros - Macabre mixed with Withering to Death
July 06, 2009
Shadow of the Colossus [PS2][REVIEW]
Shadow of the Colossus has a simple story, but many people have looked so deep into it beyond belief, it's incredible. The game opens with a cutscene of a man on a horse carrying the body of a woman, the one he loves. He takes her to a shrine, and the Dormin speaks. Legend has it the Dormin has power over life and death. You're at this shrine because you want to revive this fair maiden, and the Dormin states the only way this can be done is by slaying the sixteen idols, dubbed Colossi, in the area. It's a simple story that's meant to be more along the lines of an experience, since the cutscenes will not offer too much in the way of a story. Simple as it may be, SotC will leave you curious as you wonder, what will happen when you bring the girl back to life? Will it be a happy reunion, or will her revival cost your life? It keeps you hooked until the end, something a lot of games have trouble with.
SotC plays a lot different from every game out there, but to me it seems like an insane take on the puzzle game. After you get control in the game, the land is yours to explore. It's very desolate and quiet, but it's so big! The only way you can really make any progress on the island is to get on your horse, and hold your sword up to the light. If you follow the light, you'll find your way to one of the sixteen colossi. After that, it becomes a mix of a puzzle game and a boss fight making for a thrilling experience. To beat a colossus, you need to hit it in a certain spot to stop its movement and attack. It may seem troublesome, but once you hit this spot, it will bring the Colossus down and allow you to climb on it! I kid you not, these things are SO HUGE that you CLIMB ON THE BOSS TO BEAT IT! Take caution though, as while you climb, your strength bar goes down. Once it drains, you lose your grip and fall off and have to do it all over again! As you climb the Colossus you need to find vital spots and stab them. Sounds easy, but the Colossus will do whatever it can to shake you off its back, and make you lose your grip. Doing this 16 times sounds repetitive, but each fight is a unique battle on its own since no two Colossi behave the same. However, I will say that sometimes the game's framerate can be a bit of an issue since it's constantly below 30 and can cause serious timing issues, but despite all the issues in framerate, control is still as responsive as ever.
As I mentioned just now, the game has graphics issues up the butt. I will say this right off the bat, the designs for the Colossi are absolutely jaw dropping beautiful, but combine their size with the island and polygon counts, there are bound to be framerate issues. It ends up running at about the same framerate as a PS1 game, which is constantly below 30 frames. The color scheme is a bit drab and there's a bit of a haze with the graphics, but it's an empty, desolate island so it's almost fitting. Imagine if somebody had painted a pretty picture and tried to bring the painting to life, and that's how I'd describe the look. SotC is also a quiet game in terms of music. As you explore the island, you notice there's nothing but ambience and the voice of the Dormin to guide you. Then you hear the stomping of a nearby Colossus, and once you're left in peril, the music kicks in. To describe that feeling in one word, I'd have to say it's epic.
Shadow of the Colossus is a piece of genius. It's not high art to me, but it's one of the most breath taking experiences ever. From start to finish, it never gets boring nor does it lose the player's interest. It was one of those games that will be remembered for ages because for something developed by the Japanese, it dared to be different. I stated earlier I'm going to get heat because I don't consider this game high art, but if there existed a Criterion Collection for video games, this would be one of them. If you have a Playstation 2, it's one of those games you must play at some point in your life and experience for yourself. I loved every minute of it, and so will you.
June 23, 2009
Why People on the Internet Shouldn't Write for Cartoons [INTERNET][RANT]
Let's start with something simple like Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! You all know by now this is a show intended for the younger kids, with each episode sending kids a good message or two. In the episode "Special Delivery," Wubbzy ends up opening a package that does not belong to him. Here's a summary I made of the whole episode.
Wubbzy is playing at home with his train set, when the mailman shows up at his door with a big package. It turns out the package belongs to Wubbzy's friend Walden, who is not home at that moment, so the mailman trusts Wubbzy to hold onto it until Walden can come and get it. Curiosity gets the better of Wubbzy as he keeps wondering what's in the package. He plays with his train set and intentionally bumps into the package. Wubbzy notices the package is somewhat open, so he opens the package to "make sure everything is inside." Wubbzy discovers the package is a Tooty-Toot Turbo Train, the coolest train set in the whole world. Wubbzy begins playing with the train until somebody is at his door. He chases the train engine around his house to try and catch it so he can put it away. It turns out Widget was at the door, and she wonders what Wubbzy's up to. She finds out about the train set and finds out from Wubbzy that it's for Walden. Widget reminds Wubbzy he shouldn't play with somebody else's toys without asking, but she's curious about what the track looks like. Instead of putting everything away, they put the track together, making the problem worse! Wubbzy gets a phone call from Walden as he says he's coming to pick up his package. Widget and Wubbzy scramble to put the train set away, but the train engine is outside the house! Widget and Wubbzy chase after the engine, but Walden's already made his way to Wubbzy's house. Wubbzy does everything he can to distract Walden while Widget attempts to catch the engine. Unfortunately Walden knows something is wrong, and Wubbzy finally admits he was playing with his train set and that he can't stop the engine. Walden looks in the box to discover a remote control, and brings the beat up engine to a full stop. Wubbzy apologizes for what he did, and after all that, the train set was Wubbzy's the whole time! Widget and Walden help to fix the engine and put the train set together, and Wubbzy learns an important lesson about personal belongings.
So, now that we know what an episode of Wubbzy is like... let's take a look at what the people of TV.com have come up with for creating an episode.
After an accident involving Mayor Woozles wife and candy carts, he bans all candy carts from Wuzzleburg. A person named Jim begins selling candy for 10 bucks a piece, but then Wubbzy pounces on the opportunity by selling candy for only 4 bucks a piece, and the word gets out
Can you see what is wrong here, even though it's a grammatical mess and incomplete? The first issue is the character of "Jim." Nobody in Wuzzleburg has a generic name like that. A more suitable name would be "Jimdandy." Second off, Mayor Woozle is a goof, and would never put a ban on candy carts over something so silly, that's a bit drastic. Next, there's the issue of Jim's selling of candy when the candy carts are banned. What kind of message are you sending to kids, defy your government? Finally, there's the issue of Wubbzy selling a cheaper candy over Jim's. Wubbzy would never be able to make candy on his own. My biggest complaint however is the episode itself. Are kids supposed to learn about economics in this episode, or about defying your government? I would say conflicting messages, but the person didn't come up with an end for this episode, so the message is unclear.
Moving on to another show, My Life as a Teenage Robot. This is a show that was literally underrated, as in nobody watched it despite being a really good cartoon. Unlike Wubbzy, this show was aimed at older kids who wanted action and humor in their cartoons. Unfortunately, that meant fans would start writing fan fiction full of self-insert characters, make everyone behave out of character, write a story so cliche and melodramatic that it would have no place in the cartoon. Here are a few select fan fictions I've found for your viewing pleasure. Let me know how much you rage.
My Life as a Teenage Robot: Codename: XE-020
Codename XE-020 is a fine example of what happens when you try to make an original character and stick it into the world somebody else created. It is loaded with such incredible writing that I would swear I was watching an anime where somebody is inflicted with fatal wounds and takes 10 minutes to die. However, it suffers the big problem all fan fiction suffers from, in that this person didn't go beyond the prologue to try and give us any form of conclusion.
Nine is the Lonliest Number is a prime example of what happens when somebody attempts to write a serious story about if robots can understand and cope with emotions. If you saw Star Trek Generations, Data had a similar story line where he was implanted with a neurosensor that gave him the ability to express human emotions. While that worked for a Star Trek movie, it doesn't work for this fan fiction at all. It does have some moments where it actually looks like it could be a decent piece of fan fiction, but these moments are ruined by moments where a character falls silent, sighs, has a depressed look on their face, as if they were lonely. While it does have action in it, the problem here is the action is so incoherent that I have NO IDEA what is going on at all. Like the previous one, the author could not go beyond the first chapter.
The Steel Heart is a fine example of the classic reimagining of something. A good description of this would be you have a show you like, but you believe you can do better than the source material, so what do you do? You rewrite every character's personalities and say it's a reimagining as an excuse for poor writing and character development. The Steel Heart details the beginnings of Jenny, what a surprise there, as Dr. Wakeman goes through the trouble of creating said robot. A good 90% of the story consists of Dr. Wakeman screaming, and sobbing uncontrollably. The final 10% is the activation of Jenny, but by this point you've already lost interest in the fan fiction because it didn't go ANYWHERE for that 90%. To make matters worse, this fan fiction, like so many others, failed to go beyond ONE chapter.
As you can imagine however, most of these fan fictions are written by teenagers who are going through that period of angst, reading Twilight thinking it's the greatest piece of literature of all time, living under the assumption in life that anime and manga are somehow infinitely superior to US cartoons and comics, think My Chemical Romance is one of the greatest bands ever, and think that any form of criticism is hate, trolling, and evil in every sense of the words. Because of that, if I were to give my two cents on anybody's fan fiction, I'd get banned from their pages in a heart beat because how dare I have an opinion!
I am not ashamed to admit that I too am guilty of this practice. A while back I wrote a few fan fictions for My Life as a Teenage Robot, and EVERY LAST ONE suffered from all the problems you see here. However, I tried to avoid the idea of multiple chapters and just stuck to one shot fan fictions. That doesn't change the fact that I too was guilty of writing horrid fan fiction. I'm willing to admit to those mistakes, even though people kept saying "Awesome! I love it!" Looking back at those fan fictions, I sit here and wonder... WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING WHEN I WROTE THAT?
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