C:\\BW:> TheWindowKeeper.exe

Brain Junkfood: Saints Row: The Third

2012-09-08T04:49:00.001-04:00

Today, we find out if Deadpool can survive Professor Genki's attack. Okay, so not Deadpool, but an overly busty Asian woman/zombie. But, I digress!

"Sleeping Dogs" and "Payday: The Heist" Reviews

2012-08-18T16:53:00.000-04:00

Sleeping Dogs Review

Payday: The Heist Review

Something I forgot about Sleeping Dogs is that the soundtrack has some damn good songs. "Hong Kong Garden" by Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Pale Shelter" by Tears for Fears, "Eminence Front" by the Who, and rounding it off is Queen and Dream Theater. The only thing missing was Poets of the Fall.

Hold the Line: The Spec Ops: The Line Review

2012-07-27T14:24:00.003-04:00

I should also mention that the game does a damned good job of showing the horrors of war from a foreign national's point of view. A few sections have Arab natives throwing rocks at you, or pushing you, because they don't believe that you are their to help. They see Americans trying to take over their home and are willing to fight for it. This fits in to what I have seen as well, though this is a bit more extreme.

Over all grade: A-

- End game glitches and stutters
+ "Fun" gun play
+ Deep, involving story
+ Terrifying depiction of war
+ Great voice work

Why Not Watch The Dark Knight Rises? Here's a better movie!

2012-07-22T00:50:00.001-04:00

I didn't think about how The Mystic died in it, which was pretty brutal, but still bloodless. We got birds instead. Still, watch The Fall. You will not regret it.

Let's Play: NCIS: The Game Episode 1

2012-07-14T03:48:00.001-04:00

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

The Amazing Spider-Man Review

2012-07-09T23:53:00.003-04:00

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Final thought on it. It's bad for a purist, but if you're new, you may either like it, or be ambivalent to it. The Illusive Uncle made it worth it, though.

2012-07-09T17:33:00.000-04:00

I'm on YouTube now! Be afraid. I know I am...

Brain Junkfood: What's Wrong With This?: Lollipop Chainsaw

2012-07-08T14:09:00.000-04:00

I have one question for people after seeing this image: If this is the look of people who like this game, would you want to associate with them?

I, for the life of me, cannot understand several things:

1: Why people who don't believe in God say "God Bless You" after you sneeze.
2: Why vegetarians chastise people who eat meat for being unhealthy, when a lot of the time, they don't realize they need vitamin supplements.
3: Why people who can't tell the truth call everyone else liars.
4: Why Hugh Jackman, at 6'2", played Wolverine, who is 5'3".
5: Why people like Lollipop Chainsaw.

I'm saying this as a Suda 51 fan, too. I loved Killer7 and Shadows of the Damned up until its ending. Sure, I hated No More Heroes. but I felt that was more due to hype than actual flaws. Oh, and the trainer/rapist. Yeah... that guy...

But, why hate this game, his most normal game of all time? I mean, it's about a cheerleader who hunts monsters. What's wrong with that? So it's not brimming with originality, but either is Call of Duty. The most unusual thing about her is her decapitated boyfriend. She professes her love for his disembodied head. Oh, I'm sorry! Decapitated head. Apparently, his head had a head.

Let's talk about her for a second. There is a conflicting message when the character who tells you not to look up her skirt constantly bends over to show her underwear. Of course, she's trying to be a spoof of the feminist role model, with such lines as, "My mom shows why we wear our vaginas proudly." This is only funny to people who think that the show "Ugly Americans" is funny when every character says the word intercourse in the same nasal voice. The entire game's humor is like this. It tries too hard to be over the top. Let me put it this way, would you laugh if some random guy walked up to you, and started singing the chorus to Rammstein's song "Pussy" over and over and over. It's funny in context of the song, but out of thin air, it's stupid.

And now, that song's going to be stuck in my head. Well... fuck.

In speaking of music, only one joke comes to mind that does work. I killed a boss zombie, and he said "I have that Katy Perry song stuck in my head. Oh, what a terrible way to die!" The only reason I found that funny is because I felt sorry for the poor bastard. I also felt sorry for the bodyless boyfriend because he was the only likable character in the game. Your character, Juliet, is just so damned bubbleheaded and cliche, that she sets women in video games back further than the new Tomb Raider game does with its camera angles and overtly sexually designed "not rape" (you're not fooling anyone Crystal Dynamics). I mean the game makes her so much of a stereotype of the stupid cheerleader in skimpy clothes (including an unlockable string bikini that barely covers a damned thing), that she makes the Dead or Alive games seem like a step forward. And that's including the volleyball games.

Wait... what? WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me?! This is being praised by feminists. Why? Well if you didn't read the article, let me sum it up. The male lead is emasculated, there for it's good for feminists. I could see the argument for her facing her body dysmorphic disorder head on and plowing through zombies. But, no, it's because Nick's head is cut off against his own will, and Juliet forces him to do things he doesn't want to do. She's, in a way, raping him. This isn't feminism. This in misandry. This is no better than the shit a lot of women feel like their put through by men.

I know at least one person is going to say, "Doesn't feel good, does it?" I'm not going to dignify that with response, mainly because I always knew that. The only response that will get is a, "Fuck you in the the cervical vertebrae, you crossbreed of a donkey punching bitch and a santorum drinking baboon."

This isn't feminism. I learned from a friend that done right, feminism is humanism. It's equal rights for all genders, not just women. It isn't just that women are better taken care of, but also acknowledging that these things can happen to everyone irregardless of gender. Both women and men face sexism. Men can get raped. Good feminism sets out to right these wrongs in anyway legally that they can. This game isn't feminism. It's absolute garbage. Immature, half-baked garbage. Suda 51, what were you thinking?

Oh, James Gunn wrote the game. James Gunn, the same guy who wrote Tromeo and Juliet, the movie with the man picking up pieces of his brain and placing them in his skull. The man who wrote the three foot penis monster into a movie. The man who though having Juliet's father beat his wife and sexually abuse her was "funny."

Yeah, he's really who we should take as a feminist role model, people. He's about as good at that as a porn star would be good for talking about abstinence. Or Todd McFarlane standing up for copyright issues.

In the end, this game needs to be given the ET treatment. Every copy needs to get recalled, and buried in a landfill. That landfill, then needs to be jettisoned into space, from which it'll be sent back to us from more intelligent life with a note that says, "We'll be there shortly to destroy your planet. Not because we need resources, but because we want to show you what our brain cells felt while they were dying."

First Impressions of the Summer's First Official Releases (and some older games that I never played)

2012-06-22T10:47:00.000-04:00

Older games:

Stuntman: Ignition: Why does every vehicle control like a brick with propellers? Where's my tutorial? Sweet mother of God, How do I drive?! Oh, R2. Got it. What? I missed the first stunt because it was right in front of me and I thought it was going to make me lose? Thank God you were only $5.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit: I can wreck cars listening to Evans Blue. Plays well, sounds great, and... McLarens?! Veyrons?! Yup... I'm sold.

Need for Speed: Underground: Open world racing, but with out the car crashing fun of Hot Pursuit. Needs a custom soundtrack, but still fun.

Toy Story 3: ...why is this game so much fun?!

New:

Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes: Open world and new driving controls are a must for the game. Same Lego gameplay, but with new voice acting that seems underused. Some badly designed puzzles, though. Oh, and Superman is a dick.

Inversion: At first, I would say "not fun, and stale." By the time I realized I was playing for an hour and a half, I noticed that the gravity mechanic is interesting and fun, and the story is pretty good, if not deep. Feels like a Sci-Fi Army of Two which is not bad.

Lollipop Chainsaw: If I hear the following words one more time, I will kill someone: Vagina, pleasuring, masturbation, tits, whore, fucking whore, birthday, Jimmy Urine, and like. The only words that were on that list before: birthday and like.

Editorial: Unnecessary Roughness: Drawing the Line Between Character Development and Pain for Pain's Sake

2012-06-20T13:27:00.001-04:00

Tomb Raider had an impressive showing at E3 this year. We got to see Lara get out of traps, fight, and almost get raped. Let me rephrase my first sentence: Tomb Raider had a seriously upsetting showing at E3 this year. But, the issue isn't as cut and dry as a previously viewed as tough as nails female hero being sexually assaulted as it seems. The issue goes deeper than is it necessary. It goes to "Is she the right character" territory.

Rape in the media isn't a new thing. It is, however, fairly new to the video game community. The first time I remember it being placed in a game was Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain. We meet our female protagonist, Madison, fighting off several attackers. One tosses her on a bed, and attempts to grab her legs. Throughout the fight, she is in her underwear, having just woken up. (Warning: The video is not suitable for all audiences). She wakes up, realizing that it was a dream. But, further interaction with the character shows that it may have been a memory as well. She cannot sleep in her apartment after having the dream. When kidnapped by a psychotic doctor, she's more panicked about being tied up than she is fighting her way out. She even is visibly uncomfortable when fully stripping for an informant in order to get information. If you made her fully strip... shame on you (I went for the lamp as soon as I could).

It molds her character and personality, but it doesn't mean she's weak. In fact, it helps the player understand her motivations, and makes her human. She is no longer just a video game character, but a person with a history. She even fights her attackers in a panicked, realistic way for someone with no training at all, attempting to strike the face, and using home objects as weapons.

Lara Croft doesn't have that much of a history from the first game. She is an explorer, and raids... well... tombs. She fights with her guns and acrobatic abilities. She is a hero in her old right, who didn't have to worry about guys trying to assault her, other than kill her. If anything, she had more to worry about from the development team than the bad guys in the game when it came to sex crimes.

New Lara Croft looks like a teenaged girl (17-18). She is constantly being bloodied in one way or another, whether it's the environment or baddies. She's supposedly human and vulnerable. She isn't the Lara Croft we know.

Does that mean the attack is needed? No. In fact, to me, it makes absolutely no sense at all. A guy tries to help her, then turns around and tries to rape her. There isn't any sort of anger, it's just him trying to rape her. The most important thing to understand about rape is that it's not the victim's fault The other thing is that it's not about sex, it's about control and violence. New Lara wasn't designed with sex in mind, at least not as much as the Old Lara.

Here's the clincher, though. Not only is New Lara not trained in any form of combat, and is faced with this horrifying event, her reaction is ridiculous. She kicks him in the groin, bites off his ear, shoots him repeatedly, in the groin, of course, and runs away as he chases her. Yes, rape is the most atrocious crime people can commit, some say worse than murder (which I'm inclined to agree with). Yes, kicking a guy in the groin has been suggested as a defense (though the knee joint works better).

But, even considering the event, this seems over the top. One, Lara is not thew character you want to reboot with this gritty of an event. Can you imagine if Mario had a reboot where Bowser was a serial killer and wore Peach's skin like a body suit? No, because that's not the audience Mario is aimed towards.

What makes it worse is that American audiences are okay with this, but we have yet to have a positive character who is homosexual. When Japan had a positive homosexual male character in a game (Persona 3), the character was changed to a straight bully in the American version, because a gay character would not be accepted. Rape and castration are fine, but a positive reinforcement that not all gay men are effeminate is not. This is the message we're sending our future generation.

The more footage I see of Tomb Raider, the more I know I'll pass. It's turning out to be less of a Tomb Raider game and more of Manhunt aka, the Happy Violent Murder Simulator. Heavy Rain did the character development right, by keeping it in grounds with both reality, and how the character acts. This comes off as an attention grabbing technique with a "quick fix" in order to keep the extreme rights groups in check. Which, when you think of it, is offensive in itself, as they see all feminists being angry and violent against men. I guess the moral of the story is, "Why stop at rape when we can offend everyone?"

Brain Junkfood: What's Wrong With This? 3: Singularity

2012-06-16T11:15:00.001-04:00

Let me just put this out there from the start: Time travel plots are usually stupid, cliche, and laughable. Sure, you have The Terminator, which was awesome... then you think, If the T-800 is sent to kill Sarah Conner, shouldn't that be an indicator that he failed? Okay, so something could be said about the fact that he's not human, but if he could calculate the fucking trajectory of a speeding semi with a tank of liquid nitrogen, he should be able to do the math: Sarah Conner + having to go back in time to kill her in the future = failure. What's more is this: because the T-800 went back in time, she got pregnant. That may not have happened if the T-800 didn't go back in time.

...Wow. Now that I completely just ruined The Terminator for myself, I'm extra pissed that I have to talk about Singularity. What? You say it's a good game? Fuck you. This is about as good as a game as 300 was historically accurate. For starters, the game is a First Person Shooter about fighting Russians during the cold war, but takes place in modern times with monsters, and with portal/time travel elements. It's as if someone at Raven software said, "Wolfenstein was a flop, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare wasn't. Let's take that, Portal, and the Terminator, and make that into a game. Hmm... needs more enemies. Let's throw in this obscure You Are Empty game that no one has heard of in their as well." There's three issues with that logic. First, You Are Empty flopped like a tuna in a net. Second, no one played it outside of me and Russians. Third, You Are Empty had something going for it: Giant Carnivorous Chickens!

Raven didn't steal everything, though, I'll give them that. In Singularity, the game is all about time manipulation. You can age things backwards and forwards, as well as time travel. This is actually a pretty interesting gimmick... buuut they used it in all of the wrong ways. You age boxes to get ammo, make platforms to jump on, or to stop spinning fans after slowing them down. This begs the question: If I can slow the fan down, why couldn't I just have stopped the fucking thing? It'd be a bit easier than pushing a rusted box in the blades. You can also age the bad guys, which makes the humans turn to ash, and the Smurf Zombies ("Zeks") explode.

Yeah, let's talk about designing bad guys here, real quick. Your main enemy is buff blue zombies. They're supposed to be mutates from the element (E99) on the island creating a time fluctuation that sends you to the past periodically, but makes everyone else into giant Smurfs. Some of them have heads coming out of their heads, too. The only way I know this is because I had to look it up. You see a two headed zombie, doing think, "Great Scott, Marty! You screwed up the Time Stream!" or do you think, "That's a freaky Siamese Twin monster!" Seriously, the design makes no sense, as there is no hint that the time stream is splitting, only changing. There's also the fact that some of the other enemies are only "slightly" changed. Exploding ticks that only look different because they glow? Doom 3 out did that!

Balance in the game is a little weird, too. Humans go down in a good amount of hits. Ticks, are usually too fast to hit if you don't try to slow them down, and can kill you in one hit. Zeks, the melee guys, are fast, strong, and take a full magazine of assault rifle bullets, or ten shotgun shells to kill. They're the guys you fight first. The enemies seriously get easier as you go on. That's like playing a warped edition of Street Fighter 4 where you fight Seth first, and end the game fighting Ghandi. But, just because the enemies get easier, doesn't mean the game does. No, they decide that swarming you from every direction at once isn't the only douchebag strategy. No, randomly not being affected by your powers though...

Yeah, on more than one occasion, I was told to slow a monster down. I hit him with the BALL OF SLOWNESS dead center. He moves normally. Make up your mind you schizophrenic shit monkey of a game.

But, that's not the part that breaks my brain. Far from it, in fact. The part that breaks my brain is the continuity. In the beginning of the game, you go back in time and save a scientist from falling into a pit of fire. That changes the entire future to him becoming an evil mastermind. You then go back in time again, to a few hours before you went back to save him, and shoot him in the face, sending him flying out the window. So, I shot him in the head, killing him before I had a chance to go back and save him from falling into a flaming death. Mission over, right?

No. Because I saved him from his burning hell on earth, even after I killed him before I could do that, he's still alive. Yes, they seriously either bent the rules of time, or forgot their own story. I even looked this up on their wikia page, and people never pointed this out. The fire you save him from in the beginning of the game is the same one he sets if you don't kill him in the middle. How can he set the fire if he's all ready dead!?

There's only one way to finish this review, and that's by talking about Kathryn. Look at this picture. Do you know what she's looking at? Apparently, she's looking at you. Yes, people in the future are walleyed. That, or the model designer took a flying leap in the middle of working on this game.

Talking about bad games is making my head hurt. But, next time, we have more than a bad game. We have a disappointment. A really, really big disappointment. Goichi, look at you. You've changed considerably. To a dumbass, if I may!

Horrid Horror Movie Review: Episode 50

2012-06-14T00:59:00.000-04:00

here are so many Found Footage horror movies that should be on here. Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Entity, Death of a Ghost Hunter, Grave Encounters, Gacy House (those last two will be on here soon), the list is pretty endless. And, as far as they go, it is hard to find a good one, partly due to the fact that it's hard to be scared of something that does not exist, or doesn't act in the way people see in the movies.

I think that's why so many of these movies are about ghosts. There is a pretty deep debate on whether or not they are real. There are even TV shows on both sides. And, if you'd ask me years ago, I would've said that I was a skeptic. Now, I'm not exactly sure. I've seen my share of bizarre things, but I'm not going to say that every "haunted" place is real. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence I have seen was on the show, "Ghost Adventures." They caught a teddy bear moving in the Edinburgh vaults in such a way that I can't explain it.

This movie, though, try as it might, is nothing like that. If someone actually tried to tell me this movie was real, I'd have to shove them in an oven, turned off, and lock them in until they admitted their faults. Okay, maybe that's a little rash. Then again, you didn't have to watch Episode 50.

We start the movie with Episode 49 of "Paranormal Investigators," or "P.I." as all the hipsters call it. Our host, Jack, and his team of three people, Girl (Andi, I think), Jose (no, that's not a stereotype, but wait for it), and superstitious black guy, Damon, make their living debunking hauntings on their show. What they find in this episode is a faulty fuse box, rats (that we never see), and a "mess of paint cans that are open in the basement, next to a vent." Fresh out of the gate, and I have something to bitch about.

1: The paint cans were in a neatly made stack.
2: None of the were open.
3: They weren't near a vent, but a brick wall.
4: Even if they were in the basement, and covered in dry paint, I doubt they would be hallucinating. That would mean the paint on our walls would make us see things. The only way this would work is if I was eating lead paint, or if I was Hunter S. Thompson hiding his acid stash in Rustoleum. Not even four minutes, and my head is hurting.

As they tell the family this, they make it a point to call the husband names. I'm thinking it's probably because they came their after seeing a tape of him attempting to hit a ghost with a hammer, and instead "hitting" his wife. By "hitting," I mean missing completely, them putting a light coat of make up (sans swelling) around her eye to make the socket look "broken." By "broken," I mean like half of her face is a Halloween zombie costume, made at the last minute. This movie can't even make a bruise look real, how do think their ghosts are going to look?

Our team plans for the fiftieth episode by talking about meeting up with the owner of an abandoned mental asylum. I know, this sounds cliche all ready. Trust me, it gets worse. Much worse. They ask what the catch is, and the guy, who is dying of cancer, tells them... something? Seriously, it sounds like "Catechumen, catechumen, if you do, prove West Virginia. I know where I will burn for eternity." Once more, there are no subtitles for this movie. What the hell is so hard about either hiring actors who can speak, or subtitling. Figuring how many shows subtitle people who have a slight accent, but most people can understand them, it should be easy.

The catch, as it turns out, is they have to work with another group who researches the supernatural. What's the difference? Well, supernatural implies that the phenomena cannot be explained while paranormal means science can explain it. That's what the movie says at any rate. Let me check a big-ass dictionary. Ah! "Paranormal: beyond the range of scientifically known or recognizable phenomena: rare, unusual, supernatural." ...Son of a bitch, movie! That's the, what, tenth dumb thing you've done? I've lost count. Seriously, I know this is how a lot of skeptics see this, but the words mean the same fucking thing. Get over it, and find a new word. Like, oh, I don't know, unexplained phenomena.

The leader of the second group, I'll dub him Reverend Douchenodule, believes he is different from every other paranormal investigator, because he believes in God and "yes, even exorcisms." Upon hearing his high and mighty bullshit, my brain came to a screeching halt.Zak Bagans has called in several exorcists before, during, and after cases he's worked on, believing himself to be possessed a few times from cases. Ryan Buell, founder of the Paranormal Research Society, is Catholic, and even encourages prayer to help ward off malevolent hauntings. Hell, psychic Chip Coffey has stated that he believes "in God and the angels." Where are these atheist paranormal investigators that you're talking about?

He loses more credibility when he gets in a fight with Jose. He pushes Jose, which sets off his short fuse. Yes, because all Hispanics have a short fuse. Somehow, I feel the only book the writers read was "Stereotypes that Will Piss Everyone Off." Hell, even Reverend Dickpunch is a Southern Accent and a child molestation scandal short of being a complete stereotype. I know you maybe asking if that joke was needed, but, trust me, it was. Especially when you find out that he's dating his psychic, who has the personality and characteristics of a child. His voice also randomly gets James Earl Jones deep.

A deal is made: Jack sets up his cameras, and they share the footage with Arch-Bishop Lazyass. His group says a prayer for protection, while P.I. waits for their secret member: Kieron. Oh, sweet monkey farts in Charlie Sheen's hookah, Kieron, the Scottish psychic... who shows up in a kilt, and drunk. So, the writers read two books. They also read "How to Offend the Scottish." He also makes fun of Jose being afraid of bees that magically appear in one of the rooms. Does he make fun of Mathematicians for using logic, too?

The teams split up, Girl and Kieron going to the Bee Room, Jose staying in the TV Room, and Damon and Jack roam around aimlessly. Preacher Assbanger and Psych Girl go to find possible places to make out. And nothing happens for 45 minutes. Seriously, the only "interesting" thing that happens is Kieron and Girl getting EMP's from "the Nurse," while Jack is asking "the boy" for his name. Also, occasionally, we get glimpses of a ghost that walks like something from a Tool video.

Kieron gets scared away by... absolutely nothing. Girl still tries to communicate with the nurse, and eventually gets kidnapped by...

Is that a person in a...

The Joker?! She gets kidnapped and put through electroshock by a person wearing a Joker mask that was painted over. Sweet merciful crap, this movie's budget had to be worse than my tips to McDonald's staff members. Not only are the actors minimum wage workers, but so is the make-up artist.

Girl survives, and tries for half an hour to tell Jack that it was a ghost. He doesn't believe it, because "Ghosts don't exist, because that would mean HE exists." If you don't get it now, wait for it. This piece of dialogue stuck out, though:

Jack: She electroshocked you!
Girl: Yes, but she didn't kill me when she could have. She didn't kill me to tell us that she's the good guy.

Remember kids, if someone kidnaps you, hurts you, but doesn't kill you, they're good. Wait, I meant this!

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Good people don't kidnap you and torture you! For that matter, when they see the tape, they don't call the police. They bumble around for "hours." The only reason Girl researches the boy is because she has a "I'll show them" moment, and finds out that the boy ghost is actually the ghost of a killer who killed seven women to get locked up in order to kill the eighth so he could open the gates of Hell. Wait a minute.... WHAT?!

It's the fucking plot of Silent Hill 4: The Room! I... just... I can't do this anymore!

...

...

Okay, so theirs only a few minutes left in the movie. Seriously... most of it was them walking around, doing nothing. Reverend Donkyballs finds out that the portal of Hell is in the West Virginia Prison, and rushes over to it. Jack follows to tell him that it's stupid because God doesn't exist. He feels this way because he watched as his sister as set on fire, and God didn't save her. This is why Jack became a PI; to prove God isn't real. I suspect Jack's last name is Ass.

Jack follows His Holy Dumbfuck to a series of tunnels where he confronts a projection of the Gates of Hell on the wall, complete with a Devil who kills him... somehow. Jack grabs his cross, now believing in God. He runs towards the wall projection, and.. dies... somehow. By the way... this was completely found footage. Yet... there was no camera man that followed Jack or Father Dicknugget in the tunnels. How did anyone get this footage from the imaginary camera man?

It doesn't matter, because this movie has no right to exist. More than a quarter of it is walking around, and there are no real scares, no build up, and no suspense. Oh, but there are stereotypes that would make a good case for racism in the US.

For now, this is the Windowkeeper, signing off to decipher the EVP from my bedroom.

"There's my stash! In the walls! Nixon!" What the... Thompson!

Horrid Horror Updates and Review Updates

2012-06-08T22:31:00.000-04:00

I just restarted the HHMR's and already, I'm behind. "Sadly," I'm going to put The Human Centipede 2 on hold, but I will start doing the HHMR's again, once a month, soon. Quite possibly, this month. A few things have happened that have kept me from doing the reviews. First is the fact that my fiance is corpophobic, and doesn't want to watch a movie about forcing people to eat shit. Either do I, but, I suffer for my art. Second is the fact that I'm in school, and that, combined with a stressful move, and stress around the house, has sapped my energy... a lot.

Here's a run down:

1: I suffer depression, and I use this phrase way too often for my own liking. I know how it sounds, but I have been diagnosed (twice, now). Meds do not work for the type of depression I suffer. It stems from being bullied most of my life, and being convinced that I'm not as good as others think I am. This affects not just me, but my fiance, as well. This almost led to a breaking point, but we're working through it.

But, it's hard to work through it when I can't walk two steps without being bullied. I'm a 28 year old man, and I'm being treated like I'm a child-like pariah who can't tell fiction from reality. This pisses the both of us off to no end, obviously.

2: We found a mouse in our apartment, and decided to keep her. Over the past two weeks, while dealing with #1 and #3, our rat, Lucy, lost two boys and two healthy girls from her litter, and several other rats, as well as Herman the Mouse died under bizarre circumstances. Yesterday, we went to the pet store and bought a rabbit.

This is Blue Sonata. She's a Blue Dutch with gray eyes, and a loving demeanor. She's helping us cope with the loss of our ratties (Athena, one of our oldest ones, and her last daughter Calypso being two of the biggest losses).

3: I just finished my Math exam. I hate math. I hate it with a fiery passion I reserve only for things that have wronged me. I'm sure math gave me PTSD at some point. This class didn't help. The most recent thing the teacher did was give us a review sheet for the final exam. One of the problems did not have enough information. It didn't matter, though, because that one wasn't on the exam. Margin of Error was, though, and that wasn't on the review sheet. It was also the only formula missing from the formula page of the test. So, now, I'm worried, because if I don't pass that class, I lose my financial aid. I don't think I did nearly as bad as I think, but it's still a worry.

I also start summer classes this Monday, with sculpture. And I cannot stand the professor teaching it, but he was the lesser of two evils.

I'm also going to review some up coming games. Here's a list:

Lego Batman 2
Spec Ops: the Line
Borderlands 2
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Elite Sniper V2 (between big releases)
Inversion (between big releases)
Sleeping Dogs
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Farcry 3
Dishonored
Datura
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Men in Black: Alien Crisis (between big releases)

For shiggles, the up coming HHMR's (other than HC2)

Episode 50
Dreamaniac
Dead Space: Aftermath
Splintered
The Stuff
The Woman
WTF is this Month: Movies that are actually... good?
-Visible Secret
- Creepshow
- Pontypool
- Hellraiser: Inferno
Lance Henricksen Month:
- Hellraiser: Hellworld
- The Garden
- In The Spider's Web
- Dying God
Chop
Scar
Fear Island
Deep Red

These are in no order, but I am probably going to do Episode 50, Dreamaniac, and the Lance Henricksen month (yes, a review a week, hopefully). Stay tuned!

How Far We've Fallen: Why the Series Finale of House Sucks

2012-05-24T01:05:00.001-04:00

You know, I got to give David Shore credit: he made a "medical" drama last five more seasons than it should have with the same three stories, and a romantic sub-plot that is more cliche than calling something cliche. Among the wreckage of story lines involving House's vicodin addiction, everyone lying, or House announcing to the world that God doesn't exist (yes, Shore, we get it, you're an atheist, let's move on), there were some great episodes ("Half-Wit," "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart" being my personal favorites), but, let's face it, the moment House tells the ghost of his best friend's girlfriend that he wants to die because he doesn't want to be in pain, you probably cannot top that.

Instead of trying, we get House going through rehab... again, House seeing ghosts of dead team members, Kutner inexplicably killing himself, House and Cuddy dating (because fans wanted it, and nothing more), House speaking against religion, committing crimes, and going back to vicodin when he fears too much change or loss. Joy. It's the same season with "Huddy" thrown in for fan service. Oh, did I mention Olivia Wilde being in half the episodes she was contracted to be in, because no one liked her character, even after not one but two lesbian scenes in one episode (during sweeps, no less).

The last season has House in jail, then out of jail on parole. Why? Because he drove a car through Cuddy's house. Foreman is now chief of medicine, and tries to keep House on a short leash. Of course he fails constantly, because House is always right. House's tenure should only go so far, but, hey, it's the David Shore ego hour.

Fast forward to the past few episodes. In a twist that only the dimmest of bulbs couldn't see, Wilson the oncologist has cancer. House struggles with accepting this, and becomes a dick... well more of a dick. He finally learns to accept this, after flushing tickets that Foreman gave him down a toilet, clogging a pipe, and causing the roof to collapse on his patient. Wilson has only five months to live. Foreman tells Wilson to spend those months with House... then sends House to jail for vandalism for six months.

House makes a deal to do his job to avoid jail time. Instead he tries to kill himself in a burning building. Wait, no! He tries to convince other people to "take the fall" for him, including Wilson (more on this soon), and ends up on his patient with ALS. While we are tricked into thinking House died in the fire, it was actually a clever ruse by House. It was his ALS patient who died, House switching the medical records, and House gets out of work and jail time to ride off on his bike with Wilson.

This is where it takes a turn for the dumb: "Taking the fall" meant "dying in the fire."He wanted Wilson to "take the fall" for him. In other words, he wanted to kill his best friend, and use him to fake his own death. Wilson thinks that this meant jail time, which means House lied to him. There's a term for this: CONSPIRACY TO MURDER! Also, INSURANCE FRAUD! If Wilson means that much to House, why ask him to do this?

Then there's the "Happy Ending." House and Wilson ride off into the sunset. House, who faked his own death and has to make a fake identity for himself ala David Banner. He either must find a way to control the raging beast that dwells within him (Vicodin), or come back and serve jail time for vandalism of the hospital, arson, insurance fraud, and murder, all of after Wilson dies. Also, if he decides to keep hidden, he cannot be seen at Wilson's funeral, lest he be caught.

Which is inevitable as Foreman finds House's ID, and takes that as a sign of, "I'm still alive." This means that House intends on attempting to come back, or that House tried to get a one up on Foreman and is taunting him. Foreman can easily get the last word by calling the police.

Finally, there's the implication of House being selfish for faking his death in order to spend time with Wilson (whom he offered to kill earlier). This is against his character as proven in "Wilson's Heart." House and Amber are talking on a bus "near death experience. Amber tells House to go back because Wilson needs him. House tells her this: "Because, I don't want him to hate me." Yes, that can be seen as selfish, but think of this: Wilson is his only true friend. He knew that he would potentially lose him over this, and could not blame him.

You want to know something else? He could have stayed, but he went back anyway. He did this knowing that Wilson would hate him. Because, you know... House is selfish like that.

They should have ended the series a long time ago, that's for sure. But, this ending was a joke. I'm not mad that it wasn't a happy ending, I'm mad that it was ridiculous. There is closure, but it feels like a Season Finale, opening more questions than closing an entire show. It's like ending this post in mid sentence, after mentioning the walrus. Oh, I didn't mention the

This... Is... The Payne Killer: The Max Payne 3 Review

2012-05-19T12:33:00.002-04:00

It says a lot about Rockstar that the only reason I don't like one of their games is because I don't like playing the bad guy. Yes, I don't play Grand Theft Auto for it's story, only to create chaos. But, it also says something about them when every one of their games is released as a buggy mess. I still cannot play Red Dead Redemption without John Marston trying to ride off into the sunset, and getting stuck in an invisible wall. They weren't always like this, as I remembered my days playing the first two Max Payne games. As I started to play the third, I thought it would hold up. Then, I learned my lesson.

The story is actually pretty damned good. Max is hired to be a body guard to a rich Brazilian family, and ultimately fails at saving the wife of the rich business man. He goes on a rampage of death and redemption from his alcohol and painkiller abuse to save her, which goes terribly wrong. While one has to wonder how Max always gets involved in these mad conspiracies, the game delivers a hard, gritty story that does keep the player interested. It protects itself from cliches by throwing in elements of the darker crimes that have not been explored in the previous games, and fit the setting. By the end of the game, though, you realize that you've played this game before, as it is pretty much the first two games combined. That's not a bad thing.

Where Rockstar seemed to have dropped the ball was the actual gameplay. What starts off as a Max Payne game has you taking cover in the second third of the game constantly. Shoot dodging becomes ineffective, as you'll die in three hits (at most) on Medium difficulty. The challenge would be welcome, if it weren't more due to bad enemy placement, cheap deaths, and the Last Man Standing mode being incredibly ineffective. In practice, Last Man Standing gives you one last chance to kill a guy before you die so Max can take some painkillers and heal. The problem comes from the fact that this depends on your view, and not Max's. I died countless times shooting at an enemy that Max was looking at, and that my cursor was over, but could not hit because a little bit of a wall was in my view. This is the same wall Max was using for cover, that the bad guy shot him through because he just happened to be hiding on the other side, out of my view.

There is also the instances where you clear a room, but die when you try to progress because either A: there are bad guys in the next room that kill you as soon as you even shoot dodge in it, or B: the game didn't spawn the right number of guys, so when you try to progress, another guy spawns and kills the person you're protecting.

The game gets truly cheap in the last third of the game. Every enemy takes roughly five to twenty hits to kill, even with head shots. For a game that is trying to be more realistic, this is terrible. I can understand with the guys wearing helmets taking at least one extra shot, but pumping the same, unarmored guy with round after round to no avail, when he can kill you in three hits is not what the series is about. Throw in some terrible boss battles with guys in full body armor (that you have to blindfire on because all of their bullets hit you even when you're in cover), and you have something that is overly frustrating, and, lets face it, disappointing.
The last level especially is fueled by these moments, as well as one of the most droning, depressing songs they could put in the game. This is what it sounds like when you can't afford Poets of the Fall.

The game does look good, though. Instead of going for a graphic novel feel, Rockstar uses traditional cut scenes, and has certain words pop up on screen. These do spoil the story a lot if you pay attention to them, but it doesn't matter in the long run. Characters react to bullets in realistic, and sometimes hilarious, way. Even in the slums, you're left looking around at the details in awe. But, again, questionable choices, such as Golden Guns, come up, and you're left to wonder if Rockstar wanted this to be Max Payne, or not.

What it comes down to is that Max Payne 3 is a good action game, at least 2/3rds the way through, but not a good Max Payne game. While the story is very well done, and excellent, the game itself is marred by way too many moments of "What were they thinking?" and "What do you want me to do?" If you're expecting to play guns blazing, you will be disappointed, but if you want another cover based game, mixed with a little stunt work, this is your game... or 2/3rds of it.

Overall: B-

+ Great story
+ Action packed
+ Visually appealing
- Cheap placement of enemies
- Bulletsponges
- Not Max Payne
- Terrible soundtrack
- Did I mention the bullet sponges?

Brain Junkfood: What's Wrong with This? 2: Silent Hill 2

2012-05-06T13:06:00.000-04:00

It says something about me as a horror fan when I find something wrong with the fundamental plot of, not just a Silent Hill game, but the "best" Silent Hill game. See, I'm in the minority that thinks that Homecoming was actually not a bad game.And that's funny to me too, because... I'll admit something that I probably shouldn't be admitting. It's the same plot as Silent Hill 2. The only difference is that Homecoming explained some of the dumbest plot twists that Silent Hill 2 had. Do I think that Pyramid Head should have been in it? Well... No, but he also shouldn't have been in the second if I'm technical about it.

See, Pyramid Head represented James' guilt, and would torture him by chasing him around. He also represented Alex's guilt and chased him around. The difference is that Alex's punished the people in Alex's life, in front of him, where as James' acts as exaggerated version if himself. There's also the big issue with the game that I have that pretty much everyone disagrees with me about. The fact that, you know... it's not fucking scary!

The premise of the game, in case you've been living under a rock in the deepest recesses of the ocean buried under the corpses of primordial fish and dinosaurs, is that James gets a letter from his dead wife. At first, James doesn't mention that she's dead, but when this comes up, the player starts going "What the fuck?" The smart player starts saying that ten seconds after they get out of the bathroom you start in. You have to get the map from your car, and walk to the next town. It gets better. It's a straight shot to the next town, of Silent Hill, so James goes down a straight road, gets distracted by a red sheet of paper (more on that soon), and walks further down the straight road into a cemetery where he tells Angela Orasco that he's lost. He got lost... walking in a straight line.

Ladies and gentlemen, clue # 1 that James Sunderland is a moron.

He goes into town, finds a radio and a weapon, and eventually goes into an apartment building. He runs into Pyramid Head, who is raping two monsters. This is supposed to represent James' sexual repression. There are so many things wrong with this, that I don't even know where to start. Let's just say this first off: Why is Pyramid Head punishing James by assaulting the monsters? Secondly, and most importantly, it really has very little to do with the plot.

This is my first of many rants about this game, but only one of three that may be in here. There are only three mentions in the game of James' sexual frustration. First is this, second is Angela being raped by her father, and the third is Maria saying that James wanted someone like Mary who wouldn't yell at him, and could satisfy him. Yet, every monster is either oversexualized (nurses), or taken to mean that it's sexual. Abstract Daddy, I can see. But the lying figure and flesh lips? Let's see, Mary was coughing up a lung, and the lying figure vomits on you. And the flesh lips look like morgue drawers. Hell, even Freud didn't think every cigar was a penis!

Also in the apartment is Eddie Dombrowski, who's a little bit special. He's vomiting in the apartments, but eating pizza the next time you see him. If the cast also represents aspects of the main character, then Eddie must be James' lack of intelligence.He's made fun of to the point where he starts killing those who insult him. As he tells James this in the end of the game, James calls him insane. Yes, James, call the mentally handicapped man with a magnum insane and expect him to rethink his idea.

Of course, he tries to kill you. Clue #2 that James is a moron.

There's a little girl who is pretty much inconsequential to the plot, if you ask me. Sure, she gives you a letter, but most of the time you're chasing her to get information from her about Mary. Then, there's Maria, Mary's doppleganger. James keeps calling her Mary, and this pisses her off. She's the last boss, and "the key" to getting the best ending in the game. The more you protect her, the better the ending. But, as with anything in this game, there's a catch.

At one point, you find Angela attempting suicide. She gives you her knife, and walks away. If you examine the knife, you lose ranking for your ending. I protected Maria, but looked at the knife, and got the worst ending. This confused me until I found out about this today.

Most games in the series have you saving at symbolic points. Here, it's a red sheet of paper. This is supposed to represent the letter you have, but think about it. James picks fights with gun-wielding madmen, gets lost going down a straight line, and can't even think of why Mary and Maria look the same. He confuses them. but he doesn't get that they're the same person. Maria is, like, evil Mary. By the time he figures this out, he has been tricked into getting locked in a monster filled room by an eight year old girl, challenged a challenged person to a gun fight, mentioned time and time again that his wife died (one time, in front of him), but is still believing she's alive, and has fallen down eight bottomless pits. Seriously, one section has so many bottomless pits, that even he asks if he absolutely needs to go down them? Oh, did I mention the wallet?

Yeah, I forgot about the wallet in the puke-and-poo filled toilet. He sees it and decides to take it. Not because of the money, but because it was in there with a combination to the safe. The safe has money, right? No, it has ammo. At this point, I was carrying 120 pistol rounds. I ended the game with 260 Pistol rounds and 100 Shotgun shells. That's not counting what I used. Dead Space gives you less ammo, and that's supposedly action-horror!

Perhaps what really pisses me off about Silent Hill 2 is the fact that everyone makes James out to be evil for killing his wife. Out of the context of the game, this makes sense, killing is wrong. This is a gray area. She's dying anyway, and in pain. She asks the doctors and James to kill her. He finally does it, and people immediately think her disease killed her. Even though she allegedly said that she didn't want to die (I've played the game twice, and only heard James say that she wanted to live in the bad ending), you have to realize that James didn't want to watch her suffer more than she didn't want to suffer. Let's think about this.

James kills her and forgets that she's dead in the span of three years, much less that he killed her. She yells at him, berates him, and tells her to kill her. He has the intelligence of a toddler. My point: James doesn't know right from wrong! This renders Pyramid Head useless. What would have been better was locking James up in his room without dinner.

Or, take it another way. He thinks he failed at killing her, and came to Silent Hill to finish the job. That means that he didn't believe the doctors confirming she was dead. Which also means that if she's alive, the doctors lied to him. Wouldn't he be trying to kill the doctors (since he's too stupid to sue for malpractice)? Chances are that he's trying to legitimately get to Mary because he loves her, not because he hates her. And, yet, that doesn't explain the big issue: how did James forget that he killed Mary?

In Homecoming, Alex blocked that he killed his brother because of both shock and the fact that he never fully grew up. That's not even implied with James (though it is possible). Instead, we just have to accept that he forgot that he killed his wife, and went looking for her, despite knowing that she was dead. The addition of Eddie doesn't help things either. Nor do the joke endings. Seriously, a dog is controlling everything? What the fuck?

It also bothers me how upfront the game is about what they're trying to portray. Towards the end, James wanders through a prison. Subtle, game. It's hard to make him seem evil when all you can see is a misunderstood man who cannot tell what he did was wrong.

If I had to pick a way to close this article, it would be like this. Silent Hill 2 placed the series on the map, but critics feel the new games are taking away from the game entirely too much. Homecoming had the same plot. Downpour dealt with imprisonment. The Room had Walter Sullivan, who in the second killed himself with a plastic spoon. Take this on a deeper level. Maybe they're complaining about those games because they kind of point out how this one isn't really the best in the series. I figure it's this way:

Eddie: James' stupidity.
Maria: James' inability to distinguish right from wrong (hence she looks like Mary as a stripper, but acts "loving")
Laura: The child he could never have/ his mentality
Angela: Abuse and/or not understanding sex
Pyramid Head: Not so much guilt as it is repressed memory
Mira the dog: Escaping reality
Holes in the labyrinth: the plot holes in this game.

In speaking of plot holes, next time, we'll delve into why time travel rarely works they way we think. Continuity away!

Horrid Horror Movie Review: Hellraiser: Revelations

2012-04-20T21:34:00.002-04:00

I thought that Hellraiser: Bloodlines was the lowest the series could get. It broke continuity, and it was badly written and acted (how many French people had American accents in it?). Even Hellworld had some redeeming factors (though that is still coming up). But... what happens when you take the star of the series out of it? You get something that all of the Hard Cider in the world can't take away. Nor can a shoefull of Baily's in a club where people wee on each other. Trust me... I tried. Don't judge me... it was still better than this movie. Without further ado... Hellraiser: Revelation.

We start the movie with Bevis and Butthead going to Mexico to get their dicks wet. That's not a reference to Sideways' "Get your bone smooched" line at all. Then again, Bevis does ask Butthead if he brought the beer, and Bevis is banging Butthead's sister. Fuck me... I'm watching Carnivore again! Semier spack! After picking up a prostitute, and killing her, they find their car stolen, and go to a bar where Sela Ward is stripping to Billy Connelly staring at her. A vagrant walks up to them and tells them that he can sell them something that will put them on the same level as conductors and surgeons. What about engineers? C'mon! The Engineer!

Bevis buys the box and tries to open it. When Bevis tells Butthead that he's a pussy for asking for help, he asks for help on opening the box. You're a pussy for asking for help, people, until you call someone else on it. Butthead films this all as Bevis manages to open the box.

Let's stop before we get to the actual plot of this movie (this was the segmented beginning that's told throughout the film). This is the problem with Hellraiser sequels. Everyone knows how to open the box. How? It's a puzzle! In the first two, it made sense since it was a family member opening it, and she had the attachment. I could buy a detective who was obsessed with puzzles opening it. But, a drunk college kid opening it easily? How the fuck does that work? I mean, with something that complicated, only a Mensa Member should get it.

Turns out that Steve's Mom is watching this all on his camera. His sister, Emma, calls her for dinner with Nico's parents. Emma mentions Nico (her boyfriend) and Steve which causes both of their parents to call her selfish. She's concerned about her brother (mostly). Obviously, she's a selfish bitch. She's sent upstairs as a punishment, while her dad, a psychologist, smokes a cigar. Our Freudian father is not the only mention of a phallus in this movie. Just wait.

Emma sees the camera, and starts to become obsessed with the puzzle box herself. She hears what Pinhead wanted: "The Box. You opened it. We came." The... box... Please, God, tell me this isn't what we should expect for the rest of the movie. Suddenly, though, Butthead returns, covered in blood. Nico's dad tries to use his cell phone, but there are no towers by their Los Angeles home. They also live four miles away from their neighbors. What are these people, the world's worst Mennonites? Also, their cars are gone. They pay no attention to the fact that some one, somehow stole their cars, dropped of their son, and left without a trace. Seriously... no one fucking notices any of this. There's cutting off the characters, then there's reaching for plot points. Take a guess which this is.

Butthead's in shock, and explains that he tried to walk to LA from Mexico, but was picked up by a prostitute that looks like Adriana Sage. The box tells him to kill her, so he follows through. The next thing he sees is a muscle of an arm and a face. It's Nico who says this clunky gem: "Her blood has brought me back to life! Bring me more!" First off... No to the writing. Secondly: NO! In order to start the cenobite resurrection, the blood of a family member needs to be used. This was established in the first movie, when Larry's blood brings Frank back from the Cenobites. Unless the prostitute was related to Nico, her blood isn't going to do a damned thing to bring him back.

I should probably mention something else that isn't like the rest of the movies: Pinhead. Doug Bradley dropped out of this one due to his salary being cut. The two guys, one for the physical Pinhead and one for the voice, couldn't be any less of a fit if they tried. Fred Tatasciore doesn't so much as imitate Pinhead as whispers gravelly. And the guy doing the physical stuff cannot stop making angry faces. Pinhead is supposed to be devoid of emotions. Walking around, scowling at the world like a pissed off emo ass biscuit isn't going to make you terrifying. It's going to make you pretty fucking lame. It also doesn't help that he's making a new Pinhead Cenobite.

Wait... what the flying donkey fucking Phil Hellmuth? The new Cenobite is a Pinhead... Aphex Twin... show my rage. Excuse this next bit, people...

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ASSHOLES!? THE CENOBITES ARE TRANSFORMED INTO A WARPED VERSION OF WHAT BRINGS THEM PLEASURE. THIS IS WHY THE TWINS IN HELLRAISER: BLOODLINES WORKED. THEY COULDN'T STAND TO BE SEPARATED, SO THEY WERE MADE INTO ONE. ANGELIQUE'S BEAUTY REMAINS INTACT, BUT SHE IS FORCED TO USE IT. THE CHATTERERS ARE USUALLY BINGE EATERS, OR CARNIVORES. PINHEAD IS IN PERPETUAL PAIN BECAUSE OF HOW HE BROUGHT PAIN TO HIMSELF AND OTHERS FOR PLEASURE. MAKING ANOTHER VERSION OF HIMSELF (AND WAIT UNTIL YOU FIND OUT WHO IT IS) MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. DID THIS IDIOTS EVEN WATCH THE SERIES?

Where was I? Oh, yeah... Hellraiser: Revelations. Why didn't I just watch The Human Centipede 2? So, Butthead goes on a killing spree, murdering hookers until Bevis is a walking skeleton, and it's hinted that every time one dies, he cuts off some of their skin. Butthead refuses to kill one because she had a baby. Bevis kills her instead, then breaks the baby's neck... for no reason.

We find out that Butthead is asleep, dreaming of skinless women making out (by the way, if you're still listening to the Scream... what's wrong with you?), and getting his face skinned off. Freud, after examining his son's underwear--

I... um... what the fuck is going on? Did I miss a bit of the movie? I mean, I know I skipped some of it, such as Butthead's bored deadpan delivery of lines as he attempts to go night swimming, but I was busy raging. Why is his dad looking at his son's boxer briefs? Why does this matter to me? Because I really don't want to talk about what happens next.

Freud gets a shotgun as Emma watches Nico's dad (Peter) try to force open the puzzle box. She takes it from him, and tries to seduce him while opening the box. Yes, people... when Pinhead said "The box, you opened it. We came!" that was, in fact, innuendo. Is nothing sacred in this movie? Mom sends Emma to give soup to Butthead, which leads to him trying to make out with her. No, not Emma's mom and Peter, Emma and Butthead. You know... brother and sister. Thankfully, she runs out after having visions, but one has to wonder... WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!

Freud and Peter hear noise outside, and find a vagrant. Peter shoots the Vagrant, who then promptly skins Peter's forehead. Suddenly, Peter's entire face is missing, and I'm too jaded at this point to point out the continuity flub. He dies, and Butthead comes out, grabbing the shotgun, and shooting Frued. As it turns out, Butthead is actually Bevis, aka Nico. Nico loved pleasure and pain so much that he tortured women during sex. After opening the box, he was tortured by the Cenobites, in a scene that bastardizes the "Jesus Wept" scene in the first movie. Nico escapes, and after Butthead refused to kill the last prostitute, he skinned him and wore his best friend's skin.

Since his motivations are similar to Pinhead's obviously, he's the new Pinhead, right? No, Butthead is. What... the... actual... FUCK?! No, movie! No! Shame on you! You do that outside, you bad dog! Bad, bad dog! Shame on--

So, anyway, Nico outs that Freud was banging his Mom, and forces Emma to open the box. Pinhead sees Nico, and tries to take him, telling him that he won't trade Nico for Emma. Apparently, she's going to open the box on her own. Freud shoots Nico, killing him. Despite the fact that Pinhead tortures souls he gets pissed off, and takes Emma's mom before leaving. As Freud dies, Emma reaches for the box and rubs it. The end.

I'm not going to say anything else about this. I'll let Clive Barker, creator of the classic Hellraiser and The Hellbound Heart take this. " I want to put on record that the flic [sic] out there using the word Hellraiser IS NO FUCKIN' CHILD OF MINE! have NOTHING to do with the fuckin' thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker, it's a lie. It's not even from my butt-hole." I couldn't agree more that this festering pile of shit is not worthy of anyone's ass. Let's see, what's up for next time?

Are you kidding me?

This is the Window Keeper, signing off and wondering why this always happens when Poop jokes are made.

Move Complete!

2012-04-08T19:44:00.003-04:00

So, the move took three days, but it's finally done. I said that I'd elaborate on that before hand, and now that I'm moved, let's get into this.

One of my old neighbors, lets call him Tom, is part of a motorcycle gang. Said motorcycle gang is now nothing but a bunch of police snitches (not to be confused with informants) who go to the police because they're afraid of every other biker gang in the US. Tom doesn't care, though, because he thinks he's a badass. Apparently, this means he can get anything he wants.

Including deployment movements from the Marines that live next door to me. He also has a nasty habit of snooping on everyone. A few months back, he was seriously wanting to call the police on the Marines for doing their laundry. Tom is not an intellectual giant. Thus, why I wasn't aggressive when I told him that one shouldn't ask Armed Service members when they will deploy. He took it well, seemingly, telling me that his motorcycle gang will protect the building. Between snitches and Marines (and myself being recently discharged from the Army), who am I going to trust. I told him that I didn't care about that.

He threatens me then, telling me I know nothing about his gang. The problem is that not only do I know about the gang, but I have friends in the police force from when I was in my unit (as well as higher). When he sees I'm not afraid of him, he tries to intimidate me by "barking" outside my door all night. By "barking," I mean he sounded like he was coughing up a hairball.

A few days later, as I'm pulling out, I almost get hit by another neighbor speeding into the parking lot. I back up and hit the bumper of Tom's truck. Total amount of damage was less than $10 (seeing as he "fixed" his light with a Mountain Dew can). The police couldn't do anything because it was seen as an accident, and even Tom's significant other, who saw what happened, backed me up on the story. To make things better, there was more damage to my bumper than to his. Figuring it's just a bumper on my car, I offer to pay for the damages. He wants to file with the insurance companies, so we do. His gets a hold of me and mine. My company tries to get a hold of him. He never replies to my company.

A few days later, the apartment manager sees Aberline, my Chinchilla. He gets pissed off, despite being fine before this, saying that Aberline is going to attract fleas. His fur is too thick for fleas to survive in. At this point, I'm looking for a new place anyway, so I tell him just before he says either the pets go or I go.

Keep in mind that the manager of this complex has been my friend for the four years I've been living there, helping me with two problem neighbors, both drug dealers who thought they could intimidate me (one even threatening to kill my family). He then says that I can't tell Tom not to talk to Marines. I explain the issue with that, and he understood pretty well. The next two weeks, though, he starts giving me the stink eye.

Now, back to the drug dealer thing. Most people would move out after the first time. I'm both stubborn, and not wealthy. At the time, I was having issues making ends even come close together, much less meet. Right now, things are tight, but my new situation will help things improve. While I stayed in the complex, I moved from building to building, first because I was losing sleep due to noise (I worked nights at Target and went to night school at the time). The second was because I needed more room. Both of the said dealers knew I wasn't afraid of them, one of them finding out why after he decided to try to hit me in my own home.

Last week, I find an affordable townhouse. My credit checked out, and I started packing, including throwing old, useless junk away. Tom keeps spying on me doing this, and tries to tell my manager that I'm up to no good. The manager won't tell him what's going on, and Tom gets angry. He finally figures out, yesterday, that I'm moving. He talks to the manager about this, and the manager tells him that he evicted me.

While I think he did this so Tom couldn't say, "I scared away an Army guy!" this is something that can land his ass in trouble legally. I wasn't evicted, I got tired of criminals moving in around me. The manager would evict one, and three more would pop up. At my time of leaving, there were eight dealers, a prostitute, a gang, and ten squatters (in an apartment) in the complex, and the owners were more worried about people drinking in their apartments.

I then find out, after the manager greets me cordially that the owners didn't like the fact that I complained about the drug dealers and gang members, so they told him to force me out of the complex. Okay, so I was costing you some business. But, I was costing you the business of criminals. Hell, if they were so worried about it, why did they act like they didn't own the place most of the time? They made it quite obvious that their other property was their priority over this one.

Anyway, this ended well. Last night, I ran into the neighbor above me in the old place, carrying away various chemicals, including cough syrup. He tells the manager's daughter that he's taking care of fresh water fish. With cough syrup and hydrochloric acid. Makes sense to me.

Anyway, I'm in a two bedroom townhouse, now. It's amazing, has two floors, and a porch. The only bad thing I can say is that people around here either don't realize that I'm living here now (which that was remedied), or they don't see that the parking space they're taking is assigned to my apartment. The neighbors got real apologetic when this was mentioned, and seem nice over all so far. The visitors, though... Minor gripe, considering I'm still close to the building, and that it's a nice place to live. If you asked me four years ago, I would've never thought this possible.

Looks like I'm moving on up.

News And Bits

2012-03-28T23:29:00.002-04:00

The good news is that the Brain Junkfoods are coming. I'm doing the What's Wrong With series, skipping "Sunnyville Yard Sale" for now. The reason is that I'm going to start doing Brain Junkfood videos soon, as well as Let's Plays. What's Wrong With series is going to be a little late.

That's part of the bad news, the lateness. I should have What's Wrong With Dead Space 2 done my April. The reason I'm missing my monthly target is because I'm moving to a townhouse next week. I'll elaborate later, but suffice it to say, I'm excited.

Also, I'm working on trying to get some more Horrid Horror Movie Reviews done, possible one a month. I'm hoping The Human Centipede 2 comes to Netflix soon for it, but I have a few on back log. Those may be done in video soon, too, which I'm the most excited about. I have ideas for a lot of the HHMR's and Brain Junkfoods that, to be honest, kind of stuck with me. These include a slide whistle!

Anyway, I'll keep some updates periodically. Stay tuned!

Brain Junkfood: What's Wrong With This? Part One: Dead Space 2

2012-03-26T10:31:00.005-04:00

There is no quicker way to earn my seething hatred than to take a good concept for a horror movie, game, book, etc, then put a dumbass twist in the end. Well, normally, that is true. Dead Space 2 jumped on the challenge wagon with the infamous "Your Mom Hates Dead Space" ad campaign. For those of you who don't know, the campaign was a "focus group" of mothers watching Dead Space 2, and commenting on how disgusting it, and people who play it, are. This was shortly after the ad debacle with Dante's Inferno, and after Visceral Studios and EA Games claimed that they would never advertise to children below the rating age. So, some genius decided to advertise in a way that would attract children. Having gone to school for graphic design and advertising, this tainted me from reviewing the game, ethically. Unlike IGN, I have ethics! Luckily, this isn't a review, nor completely serious. Without further ado, what's wrong with Dead Space 2?

Continuing from the first game, where Isaac Clarke managed to single handedly destroy a metric shit load of "aliens" and free himself from an overrun mining station in space, Isaac is now in a mental institution on Titan, the moon of Saturn. In a mental institution, no less. Funny. I seem to remember Isaac getting mauled by a Necromorph in the end of the first game, but maybe, I'm looking at this with Rose Colored glasses.

The first section of the game has you escaping from the mental institution with the help of a woman named Daina. So far, every woman in Isaac's life has either A: Died B: Betrayed him or C: Given birth to him (and probably died shortly afterwards, betraying him by never taking care of him). Figuring Daina isn't his momma, chances are, she's going to betray him. But first, she has to remind us several times that the Marker is man-made. Just about every other line: "It's man made! It's man made! It's man made! It's alien technology! It's--" Wait a dog-fucking, honey badger licking minute. Did she just say it's alien technology, after saying that it's man made? And, to make it even better, she says that it's man made a minute later.

Sweet Mother of Continuity Fucking Space Chimps... I cannot believe just how many people missed this point. I couldn't even find it in "Dead Space Wikia." I've played this part three times, and every time, I immediately catch "It's powerful alien technology." So, she just did what I never expected: She betrayed the plot. I'm honestly surprised Isaac didn't lose his mind upon hearing this. No, the mind fuck is yet to come.

She does in fact betray him. She is a Scientologist-- UNITOLOGIST! I mean, the difference is about as major as confusing IGN with Yellow Journalism, or Jessica Chobot with awful role model for gamer girls everywhere. Yeah... that's another topic for another type of article. Lo and behold, she dies when the real villain, Hans Tiedmann, no really, that's his name, shoots the window, sucking her through it into deep space. Isaac crawls in a vent and eventually meets the rest of our sad sack cast of characters. The first is Stross, a fellow mental case who keeps going through "the steps" to destroy the marker. We'll get back to those in a second. The second is Ellie, a pilot who initially hates Isaac for... reasons.

Actually, this is understandable. She doesn't really hate him so much as distrusts him at first. This is quickly changed when she meets Stross, and asks Isaac if she can kill him. Isaac tells her not to, because he can come in handy. Saying that the violent psychotic will be helpful is about as smart as saying a rabid dog would make a great pet. Or that being in a game also means that you can cover it in journalistic stories. Dammit, I did it again! Sorry!

Well, of course the inevitable happens, and Stross tries to kill Ellie. Twice. The second time, he pulls out her eye. This is foreshadowing for later. Yeah, remember those steps that I mentioned Stross ranting about? Well, after you send Ellie off of the Sprawl, you come to grips with your dead girlfriend's death. She leads you to a machine that can be used to destroy the Marker. Step 1: Crawl in to the machine. Step 2:The screws go tight all around. Step 3: Cross my heart hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. If you screw this up, Isaac dies by getting his eye stabbed. This somehow manages to dislocate his entire jaw, too.

After the machine, Isaac goes to the final battle. Teidmann tries to kill him with a harpoon gun. Isaac shrugs two of them off as if he's fucking Superman. He then shoots Teidmann with his own harpoon. Nicole touches him, and he has to fight her and the marker. If he loses, Isaac shoots himself with the harpoon gun, which somehow dislocates his entire jaw. For the love of God, people, physics! Jaws don't just fly off when an area remotely close is hit. Especially when you shoot the bottom of your face through the top of the crown. Your jaw is not going to hula hoop around the harpoon!

If you win, however, Isaac mopes until Ellie saves him. Isaac is a defeatist who won't do anything to save himself, yet he can save a woman with one eye, kill several monsters stronger and bigger than him, and destroy a horrible artifact that he made, despite the fact that it's supposed to be thousands of years old, and alien technology. He can't save himself, though!

But, that's all not the biggest issue I have with Dead Space 2. Enemy AI comes close. Slashers will die if you shoot their arms off. So, what do they do? Guard their heads with their fucking arms! The developers seemed to have decided that the best way to remedy the lack of intelligence by filling the room with more monsters than the room has square feet. If Dead Space 2 were a drink, it'd be really, really bad Powerthirst: "More monsters than this room has room for!!!"

But, the biggest issue is the shitty level design. One area is repeated no less than five times before anything happens. I go from a freezer to another freezer... until finally... a monster screams at me. Then another freezer. Then another. Then finally a fight. In another freezer. With a hallway so full of monsters that they can't even move.

The biggest offender is the school level. I played it more than three times. Mainly because I played F.E.A.R. 2. It's pretty much the exact same level, but in reverse. The only thing missing was, "The ass, he's behind the ass!" Of course, that means she'd have to be in this game, and review it. Okay, that one was reaching a little... Not by much though.

I have to give Dead Space 2 credit; it does have some creepy moments. They're just overshadowed by its sheer stupidity, and lack of original level design ideas. I mean, lets face it, the few new scenes that weren't from the first game were so short lived, that they're barely memorable. The only one I can remember is flying from a train car to another train car, and that's because it was done in two different ways, in two different places in the game. Is it a bad game? Mechanically, not really. Everywhere else, it falls flatter than Jessica Chobot's acting. And you wonder why I refused to review Mass Effect 3...

Coming up, we have the bane of my gaming existence, and killer Smurfs. But, can they compare to the most off the wall bad games that is actually completely awesome? Let me ask my friend, Zack, after we delve into Singularity and Silent Hill 2 next.

When It Rains, It Pours: Thoughts on Silent Hill: Downpour

2012-03-16T20:31:00.003-04:00

While I will fully admit to enjoying most of the Silent Hill series (Silent Hill 2 being the exception of the main canon), I will have to admit that the series was long over due for a massive reboot, or an overhaul to say the least. Homecoming strayed far, focusing on combat over running, and Shattered Memories focused on changing the entire story. The less mentioned about that one, for me, the better, but that's a subject for another time. After Akira Yamaoka left Konami, and Vatra took over the development, I was, to say the least, anxious to see if Silent Hill: Downpour would even be up to par as a game, much less a Silent Hill title. And, I have to admit: I'm pleasantly surprised.

The weakest aspect of Downpour is the combat, and not because of the flailing attacks Murphy does. It's mainly because you can block only one attack, and cannot dodge. This leads to some aggravating moments later on in the game where you almost have to fight to survive. At the same time, the purpose is to run away from. There are also some technical issues, such as loading in certain areas that makes the game skip. While annoying at times, it's minor compared to what it could be.

The story follows prison inmate Murphy Pendleton after he murders a man in a prison shower. As he's being transferred, his bus crashes in Silent Hill, where he must escape. Among the monsters pursuing him is a police officer who seems to have a vendetta, and a mailman whose motives seem unclear. Murphy's journey through the city is expanded to a more open world, giving the player side quests with stories of their own. Much to the developer's credit, these side quests do not detract from the game's intricate story, and add to the city's rich atmosphere.

The side quests are part of the most interesting sections of the game, revolving around environmental puzzles. One such has the player rebuilding a gramophone, and using it to solve a murder in a unique and clever way.

The story itself is told both in present and in flashbacks, that, at first, are confusing, but become clear about halfway through. The player will never get all of the answers until the ending of the game, as the city shows the player constantly who is in control. The monsters, while few in variety, reinforce this, chasing you, and becoming more aggressive when it rains. You can go inside, but that doesn't mean you're actually safe. Certain monsters will never go outside, lingering in the shadows, lying in wait.

There are only a few monster varieties in the game, most of them anthropomorphic, which seems counter intuitive of Silent Hill's "faceless horror" premise. But, considering both that this is an unexplored part of town, and Murphy being a convict who has possibly depersonalized people to faceless beings, it still fits. The new monsters, relentless and cruel, often times take pleasure not only in the chase, but in hiding just out of view so you can't see them while you're being attacked.

The feeling in Silent Hill this time isn't one of dread, but of sorrow. This makes sense considering why Murphy was in prison in the first place. Without saying too much, there is a recurring theme in the city's issues. The game plays off the players emotions very well, especially in one area that left me needing to put the control down to keep from being overwhelmed. The game is truly disturbing, sorrowful, but downright good at letting you make Murphy as human as you want him to be with moral choices and the side quests.

All in all, I went in not thinking of this as a Silent Hill game, but as its own. While I'm glad I did, I can fully accept this as canon with the rest of the series. The roads are broken and blocked, but don't let that deter you from taking this much needed trip.

I'm Commander Shepard, and This... Nevermind

2012-03-11T18:56:00.003-04:00

Here at HyperPixel (where I'm working), we write articles for developers and fans alike, ranging from reviews to full articles. These include the one I just did about video games being art. Some of our upcoming reviews as a magazine will be SSX, Silent Hill: Downpour (which I'm writing), and Syndicate. Mass Effect 3 may not be on that list. The reason is a very bizarre one; we can't find a writer who isn't calling for BioWare's collective heads to be paraded before us on pikes.

I'm not going to lie, emotions do play a large part in this. The emotions that Bioware have forged between player and characters are amazing, and seeing them die is heart wrenching. At least, it's supposed to be. The story in Mass Effect 3 is filled to the brim with moments that make me scratch my head and wonder, "They thought that was a good idea? X-Men: Destiny had more choices implemented than this! Hell, Call of Juarez: The Cartel was at least fun to make fun of!"

A slight warning: *ahem*

THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD! AND HOW THEY BLEED

Joke fell flat, didn't it? Damn, no Clive Barker fans in the crowd.

Anyway, admittedly, I didn't play much of Mass Effect 3, because, at first, I hadn't had much of a chance. I played the game for three hours, or, what honestly equates to half an hour of gameplay and two and a half hours of movie. What I played of the game was very dull, and bared little resemblance to the previous games. It was more shooter based (I was playing on Role Playing Mode, and I felt like I was playing Gears of War with an occasional moral choice). As I didn't have my save from Mass Effect 2 on my PS3, I could not import my character, and much of the choices were made for me.

Then, my girlfriend started to play. She loved the second, and was hesitant to pick up on this one. Even with the rave reviews that it has been getting, we were both hesitant. Especially when half of those reviews are connected to Jessica Chobot, who works for IGN and G4, and is married to one of the hosts for XPlay. If you don't see the problem with that, think about it this way; those news outlets are now connected to the development of the game. If Gene Siskel was in a movie in the '80's, and Roger Ebert gave it a nigh perfect review, would anyone take him seriously? It doesn't help matters when her employers knew that she was in the game, but said nothing until the cast announcement. The one redeeming factor is that she didn't review the game. No, she just previewed it, which can be seen as her not being an entertainer, but a journalist. Even then, it's borderline review. It's hard to not look biased when you pressure the people you work for by being in the game. Give the game a bad review, it looks bad for her. Obviously, we can't have that, now, can we?

Let's cut that rant short, and talk about the game proper. The main squad has been narrowed down to only a few: Garrus, Tali, Ashley/Kaiden, James "Jersey Shore" Vega, and EDI in a robot body. You also get a Prothean if you buy the DLC, or got it for free with the game. You have to spend $10 on DLC that is "story essential" for the game... yet it doesn't make sense. The Protheans are all dead, yet Cerberus knows of the last living Prothean. We played without him, obviously. We were stunned by what we saw.

Here comes the spoiler train:

Pretty much everyone dies. Jacob becomes a merc, you know, those things he hates. Mordin has an honorable death, curing the genophage, and allowing the Krogan to bolster their numbers. Thane either dies saving the counsel and Shepard, or dies a faceless death if you wait to do that mission. One of the most interesting characters dies off screen if you take a side quest.

Let me put it this way: Thane was my girlfriend's love interest in the second game. She saw his heroic death first, but restarted after a death that utterly pisses me off, that we'll get to in a moment. She wanted to save that character, but found out that Thane could die off screen, without the player having a chance to say goodbye. That's lazy writing, plain and simple. They build up the character to kill him off, either in a way that is respectable, or in a way that is a cheap shot at the player that negates all of the work they put into him.

This also goes for Jack. If you do not take the mission to the Grissom Academy right away, you never see her. Why? They all get kidnapped by Cerberus. Jack, the most powerful Biotic in the universe, who punched through a ship's hull, gets kidnapped by Cerberus. In other news, Superman is foiled by a feather. It's as if they forgot who exactly these characters even are. As far as I'm concerned, they aren't the worst offenders.

Tali's character is, though.If you do not have a high enough paragon score, or choose to side with the Quarians instead of the Geth, who are trying to make peace, Tali watches as the entire Quarian fleet dies. She then commits suicide, no matter if you tried to save her or not. Let me repeat that: She dies, even if you try to save her! The game gives you a choice, then turns around and tells you that it didn't matter. If you didn't try to make peace, or you chose to make the Geth peaceful, she dies. For no reason.

As a writer, I find this to be absolutely lazy. Having a character die off screen is extremely lazy, for starters. If you spend the time writing a character for the player to get to know, you had to care enough about the character to give them a meaningful death. Giving the player an option to miss that death, and killing the character off screen is punishing the player for something that they didn't even know. How can you say the player has a choice, when obviously one was wrong?

Which brings me back to the first two games. Udina will be counsel no matter who you chose in the first game. You have to free the Rachni again. If you didn't have a save from the first two games, you miss out on dialogue from characters that you were supposed to know before this game. Finally, any choice you make actually makes no difference. The endings are all pretty much the same, Shepard becomes a messiah (I wish I was joking), and your crew is stranded on a planet after the Mass Relays are destroyed. No matter what you do, you cannot win.

But, Bioware tells us to wait for DLC. So, once again, we got the incomplete story, and we have to pay more to see how it actually ends. Would you buy a blender one week, and then buy the missing blade a month later? Would you be happy if you saw a movie, only to have the soundtrack missing, but the theater tells you to keep the ticket for next week when they play the audio?

DLC is being abused. It's meant to add to a complete story. For example, Enslaved's DLC added a new story entirely to the game. Adding elements that are necessary for the story to even be complete reeks of lazy writing.

And that's when we hit the issue. Bioware's laziness doesn't stop at the writing. They used a stock image for Tali's face, seen in a photo in your room. That Photoshop had to take at most fifteen minutes. This image took four hours, and it still isn't perfect. The clouds aren't blended the way I wanted them to be, but it was a school project. I took the pictures used in this image, and made it. You mean to tell me that Bioware couldn't have done that?

The game probably cannot be reviewed, because the elements in the game's design make us biased against the game, to the point where we can't review it. And, no, making me the next Shepard will not help. I want nothing to do with Bioware unless they take the time to write a complete story. For all the characters involved, too, not just the audience.

Entertainment for Art’s Sake; or Countless Tears Shed for Aeris’ Sake

2012-03-01T02:17:00.002-05:00

The Commander was sent on a mission to destroy a sentient computer, only for the technology in her suit to get taken over. She fought through the hallucinations, destroyed the computer’s avatar, and watched as reality came flooding back. She saw an autistic man, David, hooked up to a machine, and his brother, a scientist, walk in. “It all seemed so harmless,” he started. He describes using his brother to communicate to with machines. The Commander called for her crew to pick David up, but the scientist protests. She punched him in the face, telling him that she’s taking his savant brother where he will be safe from experiments. As the Commander went to release David from the machine, he did his favorite mind-clearing activity: complex square roots. “The square root of 912.04 is 30.2.” He paused, though, adding, “It all seemed so harmless.” He repeated this over and over, tears flowing, until the screen went black (Bioware).

This was taken from Science-Fiction, but it was neither from a book, nor a movie. It was from the video game Mass Effect 2 from Bioware and Electronic Arts. If you asked anyone 40 years ago if this type of story-telling in video games would be possible, chances are that they would say that it would not. There are still people who deny that video games can be more than just a method of telling stories, as well as entertainment. The stigma of having the title “video game” does more than just hinder the true objective of what the designers, writers, and concept artists behind the scenes are achieving. But, what of the emotional responses the players have from forming a bond with their character? What of the philosophy and psychology involved in making a game that, for better or for worse, stands out in the minds of both player and audience? What of the art work and scripts that go into making the game? All of these gather to form only one simple conclusion: Video games are an art form, and do contain a meaning.

As of late especially, comparisons of video game stories to those of films have been drawn heavily. Roger Ebert has gone on the record to state that giving the player the power to make a main character’s decisions harms any artistic aspect of a game (Ebert). Game reviewer and writer Anthony Burch agrees with him, using the game Heavy Rain as a reference. In Heavy Rain, the player controls four characters, all of which are chasing a serial killer (Burch). The player can make several choices that change the story of the game. According to both Mr. Ebert and Mr. Burch, the fact that the player can make these choices change the characters entirely too much for the game to be art (Ebert, Burch). Mr. Ebert also adds that the interactivity of games diminishes them as an art form, as well as the fact that more than one person creates a game, therefore creating a mixed vision based on a group analysis.

How well does this line of thinking work for the players? There are people who play games solely for entertainment, but the same could be said about people going to the movies and books. Yet, movies and books are considered art. What’s more is that a group of people work on movies, to create the director’s vision. That does not render the work of the actors, writers, grips, and countless other behind the scenes workers invalid. They are the artists that bring the movie to existence as the director is the artist who brings them together. In terms of video games, you have the publisher that publishes and releases the game that a developer makes. The developer contains the core pieces of the game: the writer(s), concept artists, designers, texture artists, actors, musicians, etc. Most of these positions are found in the credits reel for movies as well. Individually, they would be thought of as artists. Why should it be different because they are in a group?

The advancements in cinema technology go hand in hand with those of game creation. Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire was released in 2011, with a ground breaking technology that allowed players to actively judge whether a character was telling the truth or lying. The developers, Team Bondi, took this one step further by having certain characters act in an unusual manner. One such character, who is implied to be clinically insane, only tells the truth once when questioned, but acts the opposite way one would. He poses like a superhero, overly proud that he told the truth. Similar advancements are seen in movies to this day, including Pixar Entertainment’s (Bondi).

What of the choices though? In L.A. Noire, you have the choice to accuse the right or wrong person, be it intentionally or not. Those do not change the outcome of the entire game. The choices in Heavy Rain, on the other hand, do. The player can choose to have the father cut off his finger in order to get the clue to save his son, or walk out of the room (Quantic Dream). This can lead to the player getting a different ending in the game. Mr. Burch states that having the father walk out of the room is uncharacteristic of what he has done so far to save his son (Burch). From what little we know of him, he lost one son due to an accident, his second is kidnapped, and he is willing to jump through hoops to save him. But, how do we know for sure that he would cut off his finger instead of finding a different way? Ultimately, the player has known him for a small amount of time, and has been seen through the player’s eyes as more than just a person, but an extension to the player.

Even with the choices changing the ending of the game, as well as certain aspects, the core story stays the same. The same person will always be the killer, and the same scenes will play out in their order, only done differently depending on the player or play through. The character is still written to respond to these in a character specific manner, i.e. the father will see his inability to do what he can to save his son as failure, sinking him into a deep depression (Quantic Dream). In this sense, the game does not loose artistic merit as a whole, but each play through gains a different meaning.

To say that adding story changing choices to video games makes it not artistic means that the game would have to be devoid of those choices. In the case of Bioshcok, there are no blatant moral choices. The player character is guided by a voice over a radio, politely asked to grab a radio, help find his wife, and kill the creator of the underwater city of Rapture. Once the player reaches him, it is revealed that the choice was false all along, and the player was a toll to someone else’s means (2K). But, the game has another choice for the player to make that isn’t seen as changing the character.

Throughout the game, the player encounters “Little Sisters,” mutated children who are protected by monsters in wetsuits called “Big Daddies.” The player can choose to “harvest” the chemicals from the Little Sisters, leading to their deaths, or save them, at the sacrifice of the chemical (2K). These choices are to aid the player while still offering a slight moral choice. This choice changes the ending of the game, but nothing else. The difference is that in Bioshock, the character is a blank slate, whereas in Heavy Rain, they are established from the beginning. But, again, we only know what the game has shown us, not the true nature of the whole character. Ultimately, despite how established a character is in a game, the player molds them.

Bioshock as whole stands out as a philosophical argument of both politics and video games as an art form. The game is in a similar style to an Ayn Rand novel, speaking against government and religion in the form of Andrew Ryan’s utopia of Rapture (Tavinor, 91). It was meant to be a utopia for those who wish to be free of the government taking the fruit of their labor, as well as religion. Ultimately, it fell due to both the people’s need for control, and Ryan becoming what he despised the most: a dictator. These parts of the story are told within the game, via audio logs collected. In the case of Bioshock, the game is art in and of itself, not art placed into a game, because the story is told as the game.

L.A. Noire takes a different approach by having the player control Detective Cole Phelps on his cases, and showing in cut scenes why he is the over achiever that he is. Players see his cowardice in World War II, turning sympathy to betrayal (Bondi). Yet, the manipulation that is forced upon him still makes the player sympathize with him, thus making the ending even more tragic than it would be if he was just a straight shooter stereotype of a police officer. Again, the player has no choice in who the character is, nor the choices he makes, but they still form an emotional response to him.

But, what about a game where the character is a blank slate for the player to mold? In Mass Effect 2, the player can create their own individual character, or import the one they created in the first game. While certain sections of the story are prewritten, they player ultimately has choices to make throughout the game to alter the universe as well as the player-character. The player can have a romantic relationship with a team member, gain their loyalty, or have them die on the final mission. The player-character can even die in the final mission, and still win the game (Bioware). This creates not just a story that is a piece of art for an audience, but one that has an individual meaning for the player. That meaning can be one of selfless service, or one of martyrdom, or even one of betrayal. In that case, Mass Effect 2 creates a piece of storytelling not just on par with modern cinema, but a story that holds a potential individual meaning for the player that can change from player to player.

This obviously does not apply for all games, as the writers often times are telling a story in the way they want it to be told. “Winning” the game used to be a completely different concept, meaning an end to a game with a blurb that tells the player what happened to finish a story. At this time, the story was made only to motivate the player to play, i.e. save the princess. In our current generation of gaming, the story is much more than that. Characters have the essence of real people, allowing the player to form an emotional bond, not just with the main character, but with a non-playable character. Many a story has been written about the tragic death of Aerith Gainsborough in Final Fantasy VII, where players have admitted to crying at her death. Aerith’s character is both non-playable, and only in a small portion of the game, yet that much of an emotional response is now expected (Gale).

While seen as one of the most tragic deaths in gaming, Aerith’s is only skimming the surface of a larger, emotional vision in games. Games have reached a period where they can make statements on our world of the past, present, and possible future. But, they have also reached a point where they contain characters who elicit emotions, both by visually having them, and being voiced with emotions. The choices within the games create an individual meaning for the player, as well as on overall meaning for the mass audience.

A final example to point out is one an audience must see for themselves. A website contains an “experimental” game entitled Today I Die. Instead of manipulating the character per se, the player manipulates objects in the world to make words to replace the “dark” words with until the sentence changes to a positive sentence. The world changes with each word that is swapped. There are no choices, no modern graphics, and no voices to manipulate the player’s emotions; only the game and the computer. Yet, changing a sentence from a dead character to a free, living character can cause an emotional response, and leave a meaning with the player. To top it off, only one person made the game. If people are hesitant to deny that as art, why should mainstream games be any different?

Benmergui, Daniel “Today I Die” http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en

Bioshock v 1.1 2K Games 2007

Burch, Anthony. “Why Heavy Rain Proves Ebert Right” http://www.destructoid.com/why-heavy-rain-proves-ebert-right-165034.phtml. February 26, 2010

Ebert, Roger. “Video Games Can Never Be Art” http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html. April 16, 2010

Gale, Paul. “Aerith’s Death is Still the Most Significant Death in Gaming” http://paulgalenetwork.com/home/2010/12/23/aeriths-death-from-final-fantasy-vii-is-still-the-most-significant-death-in-gaming/. December 23, 2010

L.A. Noire v1.1.2406.1 Team Bondi: Rockstar Games, 2011

Mass Effect 2 V 1.02 Bioware: EA Games 2010

Tavinor, Grant. “Bioshock and the Art of Rapture” Philosophy and Literature April 2009, Vol. 33 Issue 1. p91-106 16p

Brain Junkfood: Painkiller Blowout Part Three: Dreamkiller

2012-02-22T01:34:00.003-05:00

It was once said that George Washington had holes drilled in his skull to relieve the pressure in his head. I never used to believe that. Then I played Dreamkiller. Let me put this in perspective: I just compared the stress of the first American President to playing a video game, and I'm completely serious. After playing this game, I feel like I need wooden teeth, and a shotgun while riding a cheeseburger eating robot wolverine. Only something that epic can redeem this mess of a shitty game.

I don't know where to begin talking about it. I could say that the developers tried, but I can't make that statement without cowering in a corner. The one seemingly redeeming factor is the mental asylum that shows that maybe, just maybe, Mindware can do their own game. You start on Scrabble tiles and end up fighting patients in bear traps. The walls have eyes that follow you, but don't, cats eating children, and little boys ready to stab puppies. You then end up in a castle, and the level goes to shit.

The big problem that Dreamkiller has is simple: It's Painkiller with a female character who can only carry two weapons, and makes "witty" remarks. By witty remarks, I mean obvious shit that would be found in only the dumbest horror movies. After killer hundreds of spiders, giant ones, no less, she starts fighting a giant-giant spider, and says, "Something's not right." Really? Tell me more! I mean, seriously, what the fuck was your first clue? It couldn't possibly be the giant spiders, could it? Or the fact that you're living in Someone Else's Dream? Hell, for that matter, someone else's game?

Even the weapons are the same. Freezing shotguns, miniguns with rocket launchers... all the same weapons from Painkiller. They even use the damned dogs. In speaking of enemies, why am I fighting the same giant spiders from the arachnophobia dream in the frigiophobia dream? are spider's Alice's biggest annoyance? I might as well address right now that spiders and "monkey-dogs" will follow you throughout the game.

As for the story, you play as a Suicide Girl turned psychologist named Alice Drake, who has the power to go into people's dreams, and rid them of their phobias. She finds that the Dream Killers are making the phobia's stronger, which means she has to face her past. She was a government experiment as a child.

She was... a government... experiment...

Are you FUCKING kidding me?!

That's the big twist? I went from rip-off to cliche in less than one game. Do you realize the talent it takes to do that? That amount of jackassery and kniveling fuckery is more impressive than the bullshit that most game developers who release the same title every year with different characters (if that) and manage keep their fanbase, if not increase it pull. The only way that's possible is if they actually put effort into the game, and that can't be true! That really can't!

What you don't understand is how bad this game is. I couldn't finish it because the game ramps up the nonsense physics to the point where you can't move. Enemies blast through walls like the fucking Kool-Aid man, and about as destructive. I got stuck under a filing cabinet. A doctor pushed it on top of me, and I couldn't push it off. Not even with a rocket launcher could move it, but a fat-ass doctor could by meandering into it.

If I talk about this anymore, I may explode. This is the one game that numbs my brain faster than eating a bucket of ice cream at breakneck speed. I need something that will make me feel a little more sane. I think I need to check out some Yard Sales.

Why am I in a circus tent...? Oh, God! Sodomizing clown!

Non-Linear Path: Sequelitis

2012-02-10T02:46:00.006-05:00

I know that was going to talk about bad games from hell, but I decided to do something different, while still talking about Call of Juarez: The Cartel and Saw II: Flesh and Blood. I'm sure that I'm going to be stirring up a hornet's nest with this topic figuring that some of the games I'm going to mention are getting good reviews, and honestly, I don't know why. For simplicity, let's start with the worst offender.

Call of Juarez was never an overwhelmingly popular game like Halo, but it was well received, spawning a sequel that explored the past of Reverend Ray. The theme of the Wild West was surprisingly unexplored for the first person genre, with a few exceptions which I may touch upon in a later article. Ray was well written character, one who was an outlaw set on a path to redemption through faith in God, to eventually being drawn back into killing for justice. I love that clip. While all of the characters are criminals you couldn't help but like them, even a little bit.

Then, The Cartel came, and ruined all of our fun. For starters, they ditched the western theme, and made a modern times shooter. You played as one of three cops, all of them not only dirty, but without any redeeming qualities. They also made it co-op first, single player second. This is an issue when you consider this: games created for single player primarily generally suffer from lackluster campaigns once multiplayer is added. Take a look Bioshock 2, a game that made multiplayer-centric, and changed the feeling of the game series by taking away all that was intriguing from the first game making the sequel nothing but a standard shooter, complete with boss battles.

The Cartel had a separate issue. We'll call it the "Dark as Cow's Guts" issue. The subtitles for the game suggest that it was written to be a Western, but was changed to keep up with other shooters, i.e. Call of Duty. This cost The Cartel more than just the series identity, it cost it the series' fan base. People saw just another modern shooter, and, let's face it, a terrible one at that. The rush showed everywhere from writing to AI to graphics. I really wish I had a picture of the rock that only had three textured sides to it. The game was loaded with glitches, as well.

Another issue I've seen is games that are attempts to improve on the last by trying something new. This isn't a bad thing, normally, but in one case, it killed the series. Yes, I'm talking about Saw II: Flesh and Blood. Zombie Studios attempted to fix the laggy combat controls by making combat a minigame. The issue with this is that the minigame's controls were unresponsive as well, namely due to a separate issue involved in programming. Needless to say, the fix didn't work, and served to draw the player away from the game.

There were also several issues with planning, including a puzzle that was supposed to have its solution located in a different room, but it wasn't. Again, the game was rushed to meet a deadline, namely to hit around the same time as the last movie. While that doesn't help matters, sometimes, it just isn't an excuse. They could've actually examined the combat system from the first game, and fixed it while keeping a combat system. This would've been easier than programming a completely different segment all together.

Despite these games, I have one that disappoints more than either of them. Save the flames for when I'm done, because I'm giving this game credit for improving its combat. Unfortunately, the rest of it isn't that good.

The Darkness II does a few things very wrong in comparison to the first game. I had a difficult time pinning down what exactly rubbed me the wrong way the most. Was it the fact that the free roaming and side missions were taken out of the game? They weren't that important to the first game in the first place, but you were rewarded by collectables and funny phone calls. Not to mention that you felt both like a mafia hitman and a good guy, instead of just being a killer.

Was it the controls that moved slowly when you tried to aim quickly? Sure it hurts the game, but does it hurt it enough to make it worth selling back less than a week later? How about the short single player campaign (I beat it in five hours), meant to make room for the multiplayer, which is only a hair more enjoyable than the actual game? Or the enemies with cheap tactics blinding you, stealing your weapons, and then moving just as you hit the trigger?

It hit me in the last hour of the game what left that bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't just all of the above, it was the story. The first game set itself away from the comic by making a more down to earth story, without supernatural enemies. You were the monster, but you had a heart. You were what people were afraid of, but there was a reason. You wanted them to fear you, especially after what the bad guys did. By the end, you're in control of the mob, and no one knows how other than you killed your uncle.

Somehow, though, your powers are no longer a secret. The mob knows you have them, and even comments about them. To make matters worse, a cult with your powers is trying to kill you. You have to rebuild your powers from scratch, no less, meaning you're vastly weaker than your enemies. This is an absolute contrast to the purpose of the Darkness. You're overwhelmed until the last hour of the game, changing what the meaning was.

The Darkness was about power corrupting and how to overcome it. Jackie was able to overcome the corruption and control it, while still being powerful. Yes, he had the Angelus trying to kill him, but she suffered much of the same issues. Jackie had to use his abilities to keep from being overthrown, and defend himself. Very few people lived if he was attacked, and even fewer if his friends were. But, most of all, he kept his technique secret.

All of a sudden, in the game, you're weaker than your enemies, and the world know about the Darkness. What's more is that more people than you have it, which doesn't make sense. Even in the first game, they mention only one person can have the Darkness at one time. Why does this cult have the powers, if I'm the host? I understand the need for balance, but the lack of it makes the game nearly unapproachable, even to watch it, if you know the source or played the first game.

This is a big issue with sequels. Often times, no one is aware of what the story is supposed to lead up to, its themes, or even its characters. Even good sequels have this issue. Silent Hill is a good example. After the development went from Japan to America, the psychological themes were less focused on than the combat. This could be a cultural change, as well as a change between an individual's vision of the series. It doesn't mean one is better or worse than the other, normally. This changes when the game is based on something that is established, it may be a different story.

That's all the time I have right now. Stay tuned for next time when I talk about Guilty Pleasures in gaming.