360 Red Ringed
By Romination 6 Comments
Just as I got Vanquish, the game I wanted to play on it the most this fall. Sigh.
I guess it's time to just send it in then.
-Rom
Just as I got Vanquish, the game I wanted to play on it the most this fall. Sigh.
I guess it's time to just send it in then.
-Rom
I was sitting around the other day, thinking about the plot of the original Final Fantasy, as I sometimes do because it's bananas, when all of a sudden something happened... I had a revelation. Now, I'm sure you surmised, possibly, what it was, but let me remind you...
Like some kind of extraordinary rash, video games have spread from being the basement hobby of a few nerds to being a past time trumpeted by celebrities (some more laughable than others, but that's beside the point). As a result of these more widespread gaming populations, the industry has grown from a billion dollar industry to a MORE billion dollar industry, and it seems like everyone wants a piece of the pie. As a result, a lot more games seem to be coming out, and a lot of the, seem to be getting higher and higher profiles from the publishers and marketing teams. Games are everywhere (I just found one in my shoe, I had to tell it to go away, poor thing). And every now and then, something amazing happens.
But you already knew that, DIDN'T YOU?! Now, I'm not saying that it's your fault, but that lump of guilt you feel forming in your guts says everything you need to hear. I remember when I learned about the first Pokemon for DS having Wi-Fi trading and battling. "That's perfect!" I thought. It's an actual evolution for the franchise, getting into the online world, and it's almost a dream come true. As I crawled my way through a wonderful new continent, marveling in the new Pokemon that gamboled about, I finally reached the Wi-Fi building and dove my ass right in, only to discover that
So obviously, the news came out recently that Bungie has partnered up with Activision for 10 years. The outrage was immediate, Bobby Kotick was called as many terrible things as a community of gamers could come up with, and I'm sure more than one voodoo doll was made.
But, come on, aren't we overreacting a bit?
I mean, maybe we should actually look at the details of this partnership. It's a 10-year publishing contract, meaning that Activision's going to be supplying the money and printing out copies of the game. For the people crying out that Activision is going to start exploiting them for everything they have...probably not. In fact, DEFINITELY not. Activision doesn't OWN Bungie. Activision just has exclusive publishing rights for a still independent developer. From what I understand, it's pretty similar to what they were doing with Halo already, and it sounds a lot like the EA Partners Program. Plus, they get to keep their IP rights. Even Microsoft, who's been publishing them for oh so many years, has kept Halo, which is why so many people like Bungie in the first place. That's why you get Halo Wars, and the less said about that, the better! Finally, they're going to be able to go multiplatform. Multi! That means all the people who are sad because their console of choice doesn't get one of the most critically acclaimed shooters and great online setup that comes with it have a chance of it coming to them now!
I can barely see a downside to this. Is it really so bad that it's coming out of Activision? It's just getting to be blind hate for a company simply because they're big, or maybe you can't forgive them for the Infinity Ward kerfuffle. That shouldn't stop you from finding a game interesting. This is something good, you know? It's a critically acclaimed developer working with a large publisher, and it's likely nothing but gold will come from it.
And no, I don't really think this was an act of revenge against Infinity Ward. It may not be obviously apparent, but contract deals and legal work take quite a lot of time and talks to iron out. Surely, there have been conversations going on about this for MONTHS behind the scenes. The announcement now, though, makes it feel that way (though it is possible the announcement was rushed to try and get a little positive press for a change).
So yeah. Anything POSITIVE to add to this? I don't want to hear baseless speculation about how Bobby Kotick will eat their souls and then find a way too keep their new property. I'd like an actual DISCUSSION as to what you think of this, not just that Activision sucks. It kinda doesn't, it just seems no one will ever be happy with anything they do.
Recently (today), there's been an outbreak in the old debate of whether or not games are art. Why? A famous person with an opinion we value on something else said they can't be. Sound the alarms, someone disagrees with something that a lot of gamers think? How dare he! How could he see something like this
Truly, this is not the age of plastic.
At least, plastic instruments.
For, in this age, those who take a trip down to their local Megamart or Electronics Supercenter may fancy a stroll down the fabled Aisle of Musical Bundles, an aisle that actually didn't used to exist for a great many years. It's only popped up recently and is a very interesting development. For those of you unable to make it, it looks a little like this:
Sitting down to this, I'm sure it's going to be pretty bad. Or at least ridiculous. I just thought I'd post my thoughts as I went through.
Opening scene: What the hell kind of accent is that? I think it's Scottish, I guess... I thought the section of "do you have anything else to say before we pass down punishment?" "yes i do!" was kind of funny though. Wearing metal masks of red hot pain on your face is unexpectedly badass though.
-Ah, the 'not too distant future'. A way to keep anything relevant by excluding dates. So even when the future actually looks like Mad Max, it's still the future from THAT, so it's still not there yet! Also see, the year 200x.
-Pointless slowdown count: 1
-Energy weapons are cool. They look pointlessly awesome, especially considering the ship they're being fired from doesn't.
-Those soldiers looks like they have tinfoil for armor. Don't know what kind of cloth that is, but it sparks well!
-Those are probably the best screams possible. It's like falling off a high cliff while being pelted with rocks an given an indian burn.
-SNAKE EYES FROM NOWHERE! GI Joe decided to pop in apparently. Way to be on the ball, assholes, you could have showed up earlier and prevented this movie (why oh why didn't you show up earlier?!)
-Wow, that arrow that just killed that person came from nowhere. Nice it exploded ON HIS FACE!
-Pointless slowdown count #2.
-Way to not kill the enemy, blackgijoeguy (this is where my lack of Joe knowledge is obvious). I'm going to just threaten about killing you because i'm such a NICE GUY.
-Damn, over act as much as possible, eh, Quaid? Why do they need to state name and rank if he already knows all about them?
-Life like hair and kung fu grip joke. BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-I'm sure no one's discovered a big metal door in the middles of a desert. No idea how there's no sand inside it when there's lots of it everywhere.
-SO MANY ACCENTS! I thought this was an American movie! I'm scared of other people's culture!
-Knowing is half the battle joke. BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-In the future, everything's so advanced that even suitcases have holograms.
-Damn it, what IS that accent?! French?! Scottish!? Smarmy rich asshole?!
-GI Joe is a terrible name for any kind of military operation, really. Marines? Navy? Air Force? ...GI Joe. Sexist, too.
-Storm Shadow has the best accent. It's terribly stereotypical. When's he say 'flied lice'? Oh wait, it gets better, never mind. He just looks like he enjoys homosexuality.
-Wow, injected nanomachines magically form the Cobra symbol! So much knowledge that I never knew...
-Knowing is STILL half the battle! BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-What is with this soundtrack? Aside from suckingness, that is...
-So if it's 4 years later, but in the not too distant future, is it still the future? Not too distant is like a few years so does that set it in the past? Is...is this movie now, then? Or is it more than not too distant and more in the middle-far future? This movie's deep!
-Real American Hero reference! BWEEEOOOOO!!!!
-Real life HUDs are very distracting. I wouldn't be able to do anything with them popping all over like 'hey i'm a giant holo-number!'
-What the hell is Brendan Fraser doing here!? Maybe HE should have been Duke!
-Smart talk from Scarlet! Feelings don't exist because they're not scientific! I get the feeling someone was so proud of that line of dialogue they started masturbating on the spot. Everyone was too scared to tell him it was crap.
-Holograms are annoying. If this teaches me nothing else...it's that.
-Why the hell does no one kill women!? Just make an all-women squad and you're UNSTOPPABLE.
-Wow, Ripcord realized extremely fast that his gun was sliced in half. Almost like he as an actor and he knew it was going to happen...
-Ooh everyone get's matched up with the person who's their equal. Two chicks, two ninjas, and the most pointless use of a suit that causes invisiblity ever.
-So nice Storm Shadow can just magically learn to do that jetpack. Maybe it uses a Mac OS?
-Oh, Mr. President, your ability to read the minds of terrorists is beyond even that of those you pay to do exactly that!
-Damn it, TWENTY years earlier?! That's 16 earlier than 4! And that was already maybe in the past of the future, which would be the present, or maybe the past of the past, or past of the present? The not too distant already happened by now? I didn't want to watch a historical set piece!
-It's nice of the stereotypical Japanese man to force his children to speak English. that way America doesn't have to read (as no one really knows how to read these days).
-When did Ripcord suddenly decide he knew everything? Talk about a random leap of logic that...has apparently gone nowhere so far. And how do they randomly realize that they're going to France? These people truly ARE super geniuses! Oh no, they were wearing Nikes? They must be based under the ocean!
-Standing a mere 2 inches from the building that just exploded is a good way to merely get your face scratched, not severe burns and death. Nice for the war to stop so they could have an emotional moment.
-Oooh! I wanna use lasers, lightning and centrifugal force to make a missile start to whistle and flash happily!
-"I told you I'd kill him if he touched you!" "I heard you the first time" *look of shock, as though she just expounded equations of compound physics*.
-Yo Scarlet, hit that big ass ramp! *touches curb and flies 15 feet into the air*...even better?
-"Guys, you have to stop them!"..what were they trying to do before that? Running through the streets in accelerator suits to ask for a cup of sugar?
-Wow, that's 2 actual decapitations!
-Pointless slowdown #3!
-Wow, those bullets sparked on the tires! Metal tires?!
-Pointless slowdown #4.
-Remember, kids, when someone explodes the back of your car, make snarky remarks at the now-dead driver!
-Okay, if you had an energy weapon with apparently unlimited shots, would you use a regular, boring old machine gun? Or would you just shoot that thing and get it over with?
-Pointless slowdown #5
-It's wonderful that Duke jumps into the enemy's wingless helicopter, smacks the killswitch, and then sits back with a smug look on his face so that they can smack his stupid, stupid face.
-Truthfully, I've never seen people fight with nunchucks like they were just swords or something.
-So...looking at a shadow suddenly makes it possible for people to figure out exactly where someone else was when all they know was the person's height and a bit of trigonometry when they don't know the time that this shadow was seen?
-It suddenly occurs to me that the movie states that some events happen 4 years ago. Not 4 years earlier, but ago, which means that it's 4 years before today, so we've finally figured it out! Existential quandary solved!
-REmember when the president was like 'they haven't made any demands! that means they'er going to use the missiles'? Now he's like "they launched the missiles! but they haven't made any demands! what's going on!?" I tink it means he's a dynamic character...
-So there was a floor that was pressure plated...anything larger than a quarter makes it go boom. So somehow Snake Eyes can walk on his hands and that doesn't do anything. Furthermore, there's things on the outside of the chamber that he could have walked on instead... odd...
-OUR SHIPS CAN'T HANDLE FIREPOWER OF THIS MAGNITUDE!!!!
-WHY THE FUCK WOULD SOMEONE MAKE THEIR SHIP ONLY UNDERSTAND CELTIC?! I'll just make sure that no one knows how to fire this missile now, wahaha!
-Why are super weapons so easy to destroy? One man gets disintegrated in the pulse laser engine and it all goes to hell.
-"when our master died you took a vow of silence. Now you will die without a word" So that's what vows of silence mean!
-I fail to see how this is the RISE of Cobra if 1 member is dead, 1 has gone all star-crossed lover for her ex lover, and bad guys never truly win when it's a summer popcorn movie.
-Also, that was a badass transition (a jet was flying and hit a certain position, and the movie immediately cut to the weird submarine in the exact same position. Blink and you miss it). Too bad it didn't cut to anything that would make the movie better...
-Detonate the ice pack!? But i'm using it to cool off my poor aching back...
-Pointless slowdown #6
-Snake Eyes is probably very sweaty. I hope he never takes that suit off...it would be like when you open a grave and the smell of something rotten comes out that you hadn't noticed before.
-Did you know that ice floats? It does this because its density is less than the density of water. To increase the density, though, one must merely explode it! The density raises and suddenly...sinking city.
-Destro looks like a street performer in San Francisco or something who stands around on a box making robot noises and dancing.
-"You and what army?!" is always the very worst thing you can say in any movie simply because...what are you, 6?
-Pointless slowdown #7
-So how is this the rise of cobra if only one is free!? He's only president, I doubt he can really help the other cobra...
-Oh, wow, black eyed peas over the end credits. ick.
And i think that sums it up. Better than Transformers 2 at any rate, this one could actually be construed as enjoyable.
I guess...
this is just an edit to remind myself that I should do other blogs, including an argument against embargoes and the idea that Sonic isn't as reliant on speed as everyone says it is.
Just a little intro to this idea. Sometimes, I get great ideas for trailers or...ideas, and I figure that when I get an especially good one, I might as well share it. I got a few ideas already, I'll start with what I feel is the best one.
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The teaser starts out as the Mega Man 2 opening. Really, this is just in terms of visuals and musical stylings. The text at the bottom just says "In the year 200x..." (i suppose they could insert the year of the movie's release here) and then the camera starts slowly panning up, then faster, and as it goes, the image changes from adorable 8-bit to a high-definition skyscraper facade, the city in the background engulfed in flames, and the music from an NES sound to a more contemporary Anamanaguchi sound (mix of chiptunes and real instruments). The fire creates a shadow that casts itself over Mega Man so that all we can see is his legs (so as to leave a bit of mystery for the final design to later ads), but we still see a silhouette. The head-part turns toward the camera, it cuts out, and the audience is left wondering if it was all just a fever dream or not.
The follow up trailer would show Dr. Light building Mega Man. Just quick flashes of him lugging things around, turning bolts, inserting things into other things, and then it ends with him at his control panel, flipping a switch and looking up. The camera pans over and zooms in so that all we can see are Mega Man's closed eyes. Dr. Light's voice carries in "Do you read me, Mega Man?" and at the words "Mega Man", the eyes open and it fades out to a title screen.
When the movie would come out though, none of that would be in it. These are all the background of Mega Man you need-he was built by Dr. Light and is a robot. The idea of Wily and the robots should be introduced in the movie though-those are too important to risk an unseen trailer.
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Uh...I'm not at all sure how this'll go (all my other blogs crash and burn and one got me expelled from a school), but how do you think it sounds? Anything else you'd like me to make awesome in some way? I got a few ideas already, but I could always go for more (and responses might also open my door to making new and smarter blogses! What could hurt?!)
Later.
-Rom
PS: Enjoy if you haven't already.
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