One Schlock’s Requiem

I’m a huge fan of the Ghostbusters. Like many people my age, I grew up with the movies and Saturday morning TV show. I used to pretend I was a Ghostbuster, and run around the backyard with my friends busting ghosts. Recently, I started getting into the spirit of things thanks to hearing the Ghostbusters theme song at every 80s Night @ Inferno.

So when I first saw that demo-real footage of this game that popped up online out of the blue back in early 2008, I was completely blown away (ign.com). Not only was it a next-gen Ghostbustin’ game, but it looked really really good. It didn’t look like some cobbled together FPS. It looked very fluid and real. Amazing.

Since this footage came out of nowhere, no one seemed to know anything about it. A couple days later, after the blogs had done all their research, fact finding and scooping, I knew a little bit more about it. It was slated for a Fall 2008 release, and was developed by Terminal Reality, whose credits were somewhat poor. Blood Rayne was their only claim to fame.

But it looked great, and after a shaky delay due to loss of publisher, Atari picked up the Distribution rights and it finally came out June 16th 2009 (20 years after Ghostbusters II premiered in theaters).

The Game

A couple weeks after that, Gamely finally sent me a copy for the Playstation 3 and so far, I’ve been having a great time with it. Ghostbusters is pretty damn fun. ^_^

Zach and Justin had mentioned how much they were enjoying the game. They commented that it was like being in a Ghostbusters film. And I’d have to agree with them so far. Egon, Ray, Venkman, and Winston are perfect renditions of their original roles.

I should hope so considering this game was even possible thanks to Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. They wrote and developed the story and got everyone back to reprise their original roles. Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis are all voices their original characters. Annie Potts returns as Janine. William Atherton returns as Walter Peck. They’ve also got Brian Doyle-Murray as the Mayor, and Alyssa Milano as the female lead.

And this cast works fantastic together. The dialogue and character balance works perfectly together and forms a new, completely unique entry to the Ghostbusters franchise. This really feels like the “next” Ghostbusters. In fact, Dan Aykroyd has said in an interview, “This is essentially the third movie.”

Playing the game

In Ghostbusters, you play as a new recruit. You don’t actually play one of the original Ghostbusters. (Though, you might in Multiplayer.. I don’t know). Your character rarely ever speaks, and even though you’re the one doing the bulk of the Ghostbustin’, you really are on the side lines for the story.

It actually works out perfectly. This is the first game in which I play the silent “main” character, and feel like I’m totally immersed in the game’s story. Maybe that’s because I’m not the main character. I’m part of an ensemble cast. They’re the real stars and I’m the support. For the most part, I’m watching them unravel the story, and speak their hilarious lines.

But, I’m still totally part of their group. Bustin’ Ghosts is completely a team effort. They’ll throw out their traps while I’ve captured a ghost in my proton stream. They’ll revive me if I’m knocked down. And I do the same for them. They’re my pals!

Virtual Monument

Many of the areas in the game are 3D imaginings of places from the movies. You can walk around the Ghostbuster HQ, you go to the Sedgewick Hotel featured in Ghostbusters 1. You go to the New York Public Library, also featured in Ghostbusters 1. You go the Historical Museum, as featured in Ghostbusters 2.

You also come across many artifacts from the two movies. In fact, the painting of Vigo (from Ghostbusters II) is sitting in the garage of the Ghostbuster HQ. There are tons of references from the original movies, as well as pop culture from the late 80s.

Taking a virtual tour of these sets reminds me a lot of Lost Via Domus. In the Lost game, you play a new character and discover the world of Lost for yourself. You can walk around the hatch, the beach, the pearl station. You find artifacts like the VW bus, the 2 skeletons. You follow the river through the Jungle. The characters are voiced by their actual actors. I wrote about this back on August 24th, 2008. It’s a virtual world.

Of course, the big difference is that Ghostbusters the game was written and “created” by their original cast and creators. Lost Via Domus was a simple fan fiction written by huge fans of the show, who happen to work at Ubisoft.

Perfect Pacing

Ghostbusters is pretty linear, and has some very gamey pacing. The game is split up into several different missions. Chapters, really. Each chapter is about 2 or 3 hours long depending on how much time you waste blowing stuff up, or searching for artifacts.

In my opinion, 2 to 3 hours is a perfect length for a chapter. It’s just long enough that you can get through a chapter in one sitting.  After you finish a chapter, everyone is back at Ghostbusters HQ figuring out what to do next. It’s the perfect point to set down the control for the next game you get back to it.

Definitely Play this Game!

If you are or were a fan of the Ghostbusters and LOVE nostalgia, you definitely need to play this game. I would still suggest renting it though as $60 is still quite a price to pay.

One thing to note, the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC versions are identical and were the ones written by the original cast.  The Wii, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, and PSP versions were developed by some other developer and are probably utter crap.

10 years ago, the electronic music group Hybrid released their first studio album, Wide Angle. Wide Angle had an unprecedented sound that brought a cinematic quality to electronica. The album carried the tone and flow of an epic experience and ended with one of their most celebrated tracks of all time: Finished Symphony.

Wide Angle definitely set a trend among producers and music makers, who begin adding a little cinematic flair to some of their music.

In 2003, Hybrid took a slightly different musical approach with their second album, Morning Sci Fi. They added a base guitarist, and lead guitarist/singer. They tried to distance themselves from their electronica roots and bring a more diversified set of sounds to their music. Morning Sci Fi definitely still kept many of the cinematic tones they established in Wide Angle. But they definitely led their songs heavy on the Guitar.

I actually saw them when the toured for Morning Sci Fi! Man, I was so happy. On November 14th, 2003, I completed one of my life goals at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis: Photos! My friend at the time, Stu, got his synth signed, and I got some Vinyl Mats signed!

It doesn’t have Chris Healings signature, though :/

Unfortunately, a few years after that I became too busy finishing school, working, going to Japan, and being depressed after Japan that I missed out on their third album… until now!

I Choose Noise

In Late 2006, Hybrid released their third studio album, I Choose Noise. It fetches a pretty high price on the Internet, actually. Prices on Half.com are in the $125 range for new, $77 range for very good used. Which is ridiculous! Of course, who buys CDs these days, right? You can download the entire album from Amazon for a mere $9. Screw those annoying collectors.

I Choose Noise leaves the band behind from Morning Sci Fi and continues the electronic cinematic experience. It feels like a true sequel to Wide Angle, but still learns from the sharp crisp sounds in Morning Sci Fi. It brings both techniques together to form an absolute masterpiece. It feels really odd that I skipped over this album for the past 3 years.

I know I’m a little late to the party of this one, but definitely check out I Choose Noise. Also, check out their previous two albums if you missed ‘em. I Love Hybrid. ^_^

Upcoming Album #4

After touring for I Choose Noise, Hybrid has been working on their next album. They blogged about it last month on Distictive’s website. Seems like what they original had last year didn’t sit well with them.

But it sounds like they’re back on track with something fantastic that should starting seeing the light of day around October 2009. Here’s hoping!

Update: How embarrassing, I totally spelled Hybrid incorrectly in the title. It’s fixed now.

On Friday morning last week, I got up bright and early, like I do every day. Except today was different. I took the day off work. Instead of waiting for the bus in front of my apartment building, I went down the block and got on a different bus. One that took me over to my local At&t where, 11 days prior, I had paid for my new cell phone!

My new cell phone is the fancy iPhone 3GS, which At&t had opened its doors early for. I was 5th in line when I arrived and 40 minutes later, I walked out of the door with my new phone.

My previous phone

For the last 2 1/2 years, I’ve been using the 8525. After careful research and comparisons which I blogged about here (Jan 23rd, 2007) and here (Feb 5th, 2007), I bought this phone because it could do Japanese and was compatible with Japan’s cellular signals.

This was the first cellphone and cellphone contract I’ve ever done! I was excited and had a lot of fun with it… at first. But as time went on, the 8525 degraded and felt apart like a cheap pencil. These days, I can’t hold a conversation longer than 1.5 hours without the fully charged battery dying. Windows Mobile 5 crashes all the damn time. And it is very slow when doing the simplest of Internet tasks.

Ever since my contract had run its 2 year course, I could not wait to get rid of that piece of shit. We had some good times, but some things in life just aren’t meant to last. We all knew that the 3rd generation iPhone was coming out sometime this Summer. So, I was patient. I needed only to wait. And 2 weeks ago, Apple finally announced that it would coming the Friday after next.

iPhone 3GS

Friday finally arrived, and with it brought my iPhone. That general fancy-gadget excitement had returned! I felt just as anxious and optimistic when I first got my 8525. Not only do I have a fancy new phone, but I actually have an iPod now. All these years, I’ve still been buying and using CDs like a caveman. In fact, the reason I’ve been slacking off on blogging again was because I spent last week ripping all my CDs and importing them in iTunes. I was preparing!

After my first 5 days with this thing, I love it. It blows my previous phone out of the water and does so much more. Much like when I first got the 8525, I feel like I’m carrying around a little personal computer. Most everything I do on the Internet, can be done on the iPhone. So if I’m away for the weekend, I can easily keep up with News or whatever without clunking around my laptop.

The iPhone isn’t the only fancy phone on the market these days. Palm released its Palm Pre about a month ago. The Palm Pre is a little amazing piece of technology of its own. It’s every bit good as the iPhone… except there is one thing that the Palm Pre absolutely does not have.

Video games

Thanks to the overwhelming market share, the iPhone has started becoming a contender in the game market. Game Developers are actually starting to take it seriously, to an extent. The larger developer studios mostly see it as a quick way to make some money, like with Metal Gear Solid Touch and I Love Katamari.

But some PC studios have released their full fledged games on the iPhone, like Gameloft with Oregon Trail and Popcap Games with Peggle and a few others.

Not only that, but in the next few months, we’ll see the release of the Dexter iPhone game. Which will be the first “high” budget, full-fledged released iPhone game. In the game, you carefully stalk your victims, building a case as to why they should killed. You justify their murders, kidnap them, and justify your decision to their face. If you correctly uphold the law of Harry, and don’t get caught or let your guard down, you win.

The Dexter iPhone game had an impressive showing at E3 where many journalists compared it to the Phoenix Wright series on the DS. That should come out in July.

But anyways, I’ve been having a great time with the games I have so far. Here are the games I’ve bought so far.

The reason I started off with these games was that I wanted to see what established console and PC developers were trying to do with the iPhone. Especially games like Metal Gear and Katamari, which are games that really have no business of being on the iPhone.

Also, these games are the reason I’ve been slacking off on blogging for this week so far.

There’s a couple other things I’d like to mention concerning Metroid before I drop the subject for a while. I find it somewhat odd that I’ve had Metroid on the brain so much since the announcement of Metroid Other M. I’m a huge Zelda fan, but I guess I never really considered myself that big of a Metroid fan. I think a lot of that fandom was taken away by Metroid Prime

Metroid Prime Trilogy

I think the Metroid Prime series adds a whole lot of glitz and glamor and takes away from some of the charm and prestige that Metroid garnished on the Super Nintendo. I thought it was nice that they took it a different direction than Legend of Zelda for the transition to 3D, but it felt empty. There was no emotion in the game.

Anyways, I still think Metroid Prime 1 and Metroid Prime 3 are pretty fun games. And I think what makes Metroid Prime 3 so great is the fluid controls of the Wii-mote. So far I think it’s one of the best designed games on the Wii.

Luckily!, Nintendo is re-hashing many of their Gamecube classics with Wii-mote / Nunchuck “enhanced” controls. Nintendo has announced that in August, they’ll release Metroid Prime Trilogy. A collection of all 3 Metroid Prime games with Wii-controls for a mere $50.

For those of you who missed Metroid Prime 1 or 2, or who loved the new controls of Metroid Prime 3, this is the perfect opportunity to revisit these games and experience the full “story” arc of the Metroid Prime series.

The Emotion of Super Metroid

I think what makes Super Metroid so rich are the emotional moments experienced between Samus and her Metroid hatchling. Samus found the Metroid hatching after traversing the depths of SR388 uncovering a horrible grotesque plot of Metroid mutation. The Metroid hatching thinks of Samus as her mother, and there are a couple moments where this mother/child relation fosters itself into something few games did at that time.

2 years ago, Chad Concelmo of Destructriod wrote an article that focused primarily on this aspect of the game in full detail. It’s a great read: The Memory Card .01: The return of Baby Metroid.

Metroid 2 – fan remake

Metroid 2 is probably the most difficult to replay out of any Metroid game. Released in 1992 for the Game Boy, Metroid II has not been officially re-released since its debut. Every Metroid game except Metroid 2 can be played on a modern gaming device. (Unless you discount the DS Lite due to the DSi release) You’d need to find a Gameboy Advance in order to play Metroid 2.

Anyways, Project AM2R has been working on a remake of the game to make it more playable for today’s generation.

Here’s their most recent trailer:

It looks pretty fantastic. ^_^. Check ‘em out at http://metroid2remake.blogpost.com/.

I wonder how long it’ll be before Nintendo shuts them down.

Metal Metroid

The song in the background of that trailer totally reminds me Metroid Metal. Metroid Metal is a group of dudes who’ve repraised many of the songs throughout the Metroid series in the Metal Rock genre. Their tracks are pretty slick.

Check ‘em out @ Metroid Metal dot Com

News!: As you may have noticed from their website, Metroid Metal will be playing Live at the Penny Arcade Expo this year. Spiffy!

When Metroid Prime was released in 2002, Nintendo finally had their answer to western First Person Shooters. Golden Eye and Perfect Dark were legends, but NOW! Nintendo had one of their core franchises in the FPS spotlight. And felt they had something that contended with the Halo crowd on the Xbox.

Metroid Prime was the first Metroid game since Super Metroid released 8 years prior, so it was a pretty big deal considering the success of Super Metroid. Nintendo created Retro Studios, an American based developer who jumped at the chance to make this game. Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshio Sakamoto were in regular contact to make sure the game was within Nintendo’s vision.

The third dimension worked great for Nintendo and Metroid Prime became the Gamecube’s #6 best selling games of all time with 2.7 million units. 2.7 million doesn’t sound like a lot, but keep in mind only 21.7 million Gamecubes were sold worldwide. Over 10% attach rate is not bad. (Side Note: Super Smash Brothers Melee is the best selling Gamecube game at 6.1 million units sold, which is a little over 25%.)

2 years later, Retro Studios released Metroid Prime 2 which continued where Metroid Prime 1 left off. The FPS gameplay had become iconic for the Metroid series and the idea of a 2D side scrolling adventure became more of a treasured memory of Super Metroid.

Though, those traditional roots have not been forgotten! They’ve been merely overshadowed by the graphical splendor.

Metroid Fusion

Metroid Fusion is the actual sequel to Super Metroid. In fact, the opening credits say Metroid 4. I think this game get overlooked because it was released on the exact same day as Metroid Prime. Gamers were far more interested in the new fresh look on the Gamecube, rather than an outdated gaming experience on the Gameboy Advance.

Metroid Fusion’s development was headed by Yoshio Sakamoto and everyone else who worked on Super Metroid. Nintendo still wanted a traditional follow-up to Super Metroid, so they did. And on November 17th, 2002, fans got a traditional sequel with Metroid Fusion and a fresh perspective on the series with Metroid Prime. But gamers made their choice. Where Metroid Prime ultimately sold 2.7 million, Metroid Fusion sold just a little over 1 million. Metroid Prime was the star.

Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime are interesting entries in the series. It’s interesting in that Metroid Prime had a radically different way to play the game, but the design was incredibly traditional. It had the familiar look of Samus and all the same items you remembered from Super Metroid. Metroid Fusion played the exact same way you remembered from Super Metroid, but the story and character designs were quite different than what you remembered.

Metroid Fusion has a bunch of cutscenes, text and dialogue that progress the story. There’s actual plot! The environment, characters, and enemies are all very cohesive and build a decent story. Unfortunately, the game is incredibly linear which is a big negative for a traditional Metroid. The game opens up once you beat it, but there are power-ups you can miss! What the hell is that crap?!

Through and though, Metroid Fusion isn’t half bad. If you liked Super Metroid, I’d totally recommend it. ^_^ Now that I know what happens in Metroid Fusion, I’m pretty interested to see how Metroid Other M fits in to the story. Though, as a big fan of Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion was a let down. It’s good, but not Super Metroid good.

Metroid Zero Mission

Metroid Prime 1 was pretty sweet and made Metroid Prime 2 just as highly anticipated. So much so, that you may have overlooked the very fantastic Metroid Zero Mission released 6 months prior. You may have also overlooked it because it’s a remake. You may have also overlooked it because word of mouth said Metroid Fusion wasn’t so great. You may have overlooked it because it’s on the Gameboy Advance and not the Gamecube. Whatever…

Metroid Zero Mission is a remake of the first entry in the series, the original 1986 Metroid. It’s nearly identical through and through, but with tighter graphics, faster, more responsive controls, and more weapons than Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Plus, Zero Mission extends the original Plot to fit better into the overall time line of the Metroid series.

Metroid Zero Mission is fantastic. It is every bit as good as Super Metroid. And it’s sad that it’s one of the poorest selling titles in the series at around half a million units sold worldwide.

After finishing Metroid Fusion, I played a little Zero Mission for the first time in a while and it is so smooth. Metroid Fusion is like a step back. Half the time, Samus doesn’t move how I want her to move. The same is with going back to Super Metroid. Those controls are outdated and Metroid Zero Mission is incredibly modern.

Much like Super Metroid is to the Super Nintendo, Metroid Zero Mission is one of the best games the Gameboy Advance has to offer. If you’re a fan of Super Metroid, you’ve got to play this game.

Metroid Other M perspective

Playing through these Metroid games only feed my hype for Metroid Other M. This is the first game that Yoshio Sakamoto has been deeply involved with since Metroid Zero Mission. But I don’t want to get my hopes up too much.

It seems like Sakamoto’s development team can’t really handle the 3rd dimension. Their original Metroid game for Nintendo 64 Disk Drive was scrapped because it was a mess. Then, Retro Studios picked up the project and basically started completely over. The same thing was probably going on again with Project M, until they brought in Team Ninja to bring the 3D nature of the game up to quality.

I really wonder where Metroid 64 fits into the time line. Did they take the story and recode it as Metroid Fusion? Or Do you think this story will finally see the light of day as Metroid Other M? I think it’s probably the latter. I’m guessing that Metroid Other M is the final product of Metroid 64. Since it’s story was probably too big for the Gameboy Advance. And Sakamoto probably wanted to keep this story close by rather than let Retro take it.

Anyways, I’m thinking too much into this. Metroid Other M won’t even be released for another year, and all this speculation and conjecture is really only based on the trailer and Jeremy Parish’s interview. It’ll really just build it up to something that won’t fit my dream. Who knows, though. It’s fun to be surprised.

Previous thoughts on Metroid Other M: June 3rd.

Anyways, check out Metroid Zero Mission. ^_^

Like most rhythm games that don’t include “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” in the title, DJ Max has its very niche audience. It’s a rhythm based game just like any other, but is exclusive to the PSP, which cuts the audience down even further. It’s developed by Korean group Pentavision Entertainment and it’s music selection is all dancey electronic songs. Maybe some Hip Hop too. I’m not sure…

Unfortunately, I’ve skipped the entire DJ Max series. When DJ Max Portable was first released in the fall of 2006, half a year after the American PSP launch, this was my game to buy! But I never got around to it. I finally bought a PSP, but still never got around to buying it. Even when the game finally came out in America, I still didn’t buy it for some reason. I just wasn’t in the mood, I guess.

In March 2009, they announced that Pentavision was releasing a super deluxe packaged release much like their releases in Korea. So I finally decided that today was the day! It was limited to a mere 125 pieces. My Collector’s instinct kicked in and I bought one as soon as they were available.

A month later it finally shipped. And when I got back from Japan, it finally arrived.

This thing is huge. That press release had a picture of the side that made it look like a regular PSP case. There’s no way this thing will fit on my shelf. Pfft.

The packaging is really nice though. The material is a hard plastic cardboard. There are embedded magnets on the flap that keep the box sealed shut.

On the inside, everything is nice and snug inside felt-like grooves. Included in The Crew Edition is..

- a 3 disc set of CDs comprising the Soundtrack to DJ Max Fever
- a DJ Max Art book
- a 500 piece puzzle
- a Post Card set
- a Funky Mask
- a DJ Max players card to register high scores online
and
- a copy of DJ Max Fever signed by the Developers.

Now let’s take a look at that last one…

The copy of DJ Max Fever is signed alright, but it’s signed on the OUTSIDE of the cellophane. What the hell good does that do me? I can’t opened up the game and play it. It’ll render the signature useless. So, I still can’t play this game I’ve put off for so long. Aside from that, this box is huge and doesn’t fit on my shelf.

I think my money would’ve been better spent buying all the other versions of the game, rather than an expensive version of a single game that I can’t open. At least I can sell it on eBay for a little more than what I bought it for. Which is what I’ll probably do in a couple years.

Around 2003 and 2004 was the tipping for me when it came to expecting high quality games and movies. I think it was The Matrix Reloaded that finally pushed me over the edge. I realized that ridiculous plots and over the top action can make incredible experiences regardless of them actually making sense.

Drag-on Dragoon / Drakengard

I think Drag-on Dragoon (aka Drakengard) was the video game equivalent for me. Published by Squaresoft in 2003 (2004 in US), Drag-on Dragoon was touted as their answer to Dynasty Warriors. You were one man against massive armies of enemy soldiers. On the battlefield, your soul is fused with a Dragon, and together you fight to end the war and achieve piece.

It sounds pretty normal… but Jesus was this game bad. I’m pretty sure it broke me. In fact, I have the text to prove it! Read my original thoughts from 5 years ago: May 22nd, 2004, May 27th, 2004, June 1st, 2004, June 6th, 2004.

First off, The title is pretty ridiculous in its own right. Japanese titles in general are sometimes pretty crazy, but what the hell does Drag-On Dragoon even mean?!

Secondly, War brings you to some crazy places. Killing shit loads of soldiers doesn’t really get to me when they’re trying to spear or slice me. But after a few hours in the game, you come across a village whose only defense are their children. These children hardly hurt you, and they SCREAM very loudly when you tear them apart with your sword. What the hell is this game trying to teach me?!

Then shit gets weird…

Drag-on Dragoon has 5 endings. The first 3 are pretty normal, but the story branch for the other two endings opens the gateway to HELL. This massive expanse unloads hundreds upon thousands of gigantic hideous flying human babies into the sky and out for BLOOD. The first thing they do is devour one of your characters like a fucking animal. Tearing off her arms and legs. Stripping the meat from her bones.

It was the most grotesque surreal image I’ve ever seen in a video game. Then the level begins and you’re flying around killing these babies. When these babies die their skin begins melting from their face and bodies as they let out a scream that will haunt me forever.

I will never forget this video game… Though, I’d still never heard of Cavia.

Cavia Incorporated

Underneath the cries of dying melting demon babies was Cavia. Cavia was founded in 2000, partly by Hayao Nakayama, former President of Sega Japan.

After 3 years in business, they finished their first original game Drag-on Dragoon with Squaresoft publishing. Their previous games were Anime licenses and such. And really that’s the bulk of their work. Some Naruto games, Ghost in the Shell, Steam Boy, Dragonball Z, Death Note. A lot of Namco/Bandai licenses, actually. These are the type of games you wouldn’t play anyways.

But they pay the bills and give them the freedom to go crazy with games like Drag-on Dragoon. 2 years later they made Drag-on Dragoon 2, but I have not gotten around to playing it. In that same year, they also finished Beat Down, published by Capcom.

Bullet Witch

In 2007, I would be graced by Cavia’s developmental (emphasis on mental) expertise with Bullet Witch. Bullet Witch was published by Atari in North America. I wrote about this game, too! November 13th, 2007.

Bullet Witch takes place in the near future after half the world has been killed by biological warfare. An airborne virus has infected and killed most of humanity. And makes them just weak enough to be ravaged and torn apart when demons climb out of the ground.

You play as Alicia, who is not quite human. She has magical abilities to dispel the demons. But when that doesn’t work she has a big gun to rip apart her foes with bullets.

The demons definitely aren’t as off-putting as 30 feet demon babies. But they still distort and contort their human victims in unnatural ways that made me shake a couple times. Every enemies still erupts in gallons of blood, too!

Bullet Witch lets up on the weird psycho shit a bit, and focused a lot more on gaming moments. My favorite moment is 10,000 feet in the air and fighting some huge flying demon on top of a 747 airliner. The flying demon is a huge cloud of eye balls that break off and lung themselves at you.

The dialogue is absolutely b-quality-tastic! While Drag-on Dragoon is a repetitive boring pile of shit, Bullet Witch has fun with itself. It’s a great way to spend 6 or 7 hours.

Nier

You may have heard of this game recently. Cavia and Squaresoft are back together again for a new tale. You are a one man army killing hordes of demons. The world is plagued by disease and darkness. Yes! That sounds like Cavia to a T!

Last week at E3, Square released a trailer that described a bit of the story and some of the gameplay. But that was pretty much it. The website actually has some content now: http://na.niergame.com/. But overall, there isn’t much known about Nier.

I pity the poor person who sees footage of this game and thinks it’s the greatest thing ever. I mean, I’m somewhat excited for the game, but the “Game Experience” is not what I’m after. I want this game to shock and disturb me the way that Drag-on Dragoon did when I first sliced into a child. I want to root for the home team as the characters stumble over their lines of ridiculous dialogue.

I want to have fun with it. ^_^

In the meantime, there’s Drag-on Dragoon 2 and Beat Down, both on Playstation 2. I think I’ll check those out and bridge the gap between 2003 and 2007. Stay classy, Cavia.

Back in April, I finally got the chance to see one of my favorite electronic bands Live in Concert. I’m not sure why Ladytron were on tour, but they came through Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago.

Ladytron

Ladytron has 4 members and originated in Europe (somewhere) in 1999. They are somewhat hard to place because of some of their lyrics are in English, while others are not. I always thought it sounded like Russian, but it’s not.. It’s not German either.. Wikipedia indicates Bulgarian.

I started listening to them somewhat by chance. They’d been recommended to me a couple times, but it wasn’t until I came across their CD in Exclusive Company (now out of business) that I decided that today was the day! (Actually, that was only 3 years ago..) One by one, I picked up each of their CDs and began listening to them more and more.

In the beginning their songs are pretty girly. Most of the lyrics were about boys or other emo topics. One song seems directly inspired by lead singer Helen Marnie’s brief career as a fashion model. “They only want you when you’re 17. When you’re 21, you’re no fun.”

By 2003, with their release of Softcore Jukebox, I think they grew out of the emo mentality and started branching out with their music. They tooked some risks and made some fun songs. ^_^

After that, Witching Hour and Velocifero were a definite return to their iconic electronic pop sound. They’ve had some fantastic songs, but I think they rely on that sound a little too much. I’d love for them to do another release on the lines of Softcore Jukebox.

One of my friends commented, “It’s good to see a band steer away from emo lyrics. I think most bands tend to start off strong and then go emo.”

Ladytron Live

My copies of 604 (their first album) and Light & Magic (their second album) were actually re-releases that contained Live versions of their most popular songs. This is the part of the CD I generally skip over because the levels are all weird and you can’t hear the flange of the synthesizer pulling together the bass.

Unfortunately, this “problem” wasn’t with the recording… When Ladytron took the stage, it sounded like their levels were way off. It sounded very amateur grunge (or whatever) without the omnipresent bass. After a couple songs, I totally got into the event, but I think that was because I damaged my ears enough that everything blended together.

They played all of their iconic songs.. Ghosts, Runaway, Sugar, Seventeen, Destroy Everything You Touch, The Way That I Found You.. It was fantastic to actually hear a band live and know all the songs for a change. ^_^

Afterwards, they were downstairs in Smartbar spinning records, but I pulled the old man thing and complained about my legs killing me and how all the kids in the venue are stupid. So we left.

But before that…

The Faint

The Faint were pretty rockin’. Prior to this engagement, I’d not heard of them. So I didn’t really pay close attention to them when they got up on stage, but throughout their set they won me over. Not enough to actually buy their music, but enough to enjoy their performance a whole lot. Their synthesized sounds mixed perfectly with their instrumental sounds. ^_^

The combination of The Faint and Ladytron made this night fantastic. It sucks that we wussed out on their DJ sets, though, but oh well. I’ll visit Smartbar one of these days.

For those who don’t know, Evangelion is one of, if not THE, most popular Anime series in Japan. My pal Justin and I started on the ground floor of its popularity in the US back when it was first being released in 1997 and 1998. It’s the series that put American Anime distributor and localizer ADV Films into a shit load of cash.

It original aired on Japanese TV in 1995 for a total of 26 episodes. The final two episodes lead to a bit of an outcry by fans at to what the fuck creator Hideaki Anno was thinking. Budgetary restraints kept the final two episodes very cheap. Episodes were poorly animated, but kept a pencil drawing type scheme which looked “artsy”.

Despite everyone hating these two episodes, I liked them. These two episodes got rid of all the other distractions of plot, military, espionage, and other characters, Anno picked the most important aspect of the show and completely focused on it for the ending: Shinji.

I think most people (especially Americans) hate this because Shinji constantly whines about responsibility, is spineless, and feels he has no worth. Americans don’t give a shit about a coward for a main character. Especially whens there’s explosions and robots everywhere else in the show. The ending shows how Shinji finally over comes all the fears of himself and becomes confident. “Good job, Shinji!”

But no. The fans were outraged! As such, Hideaki Anno created an alternate ending which replaced those two episodes which kept Shinji spineless and afraid. And allowed Seele to completely control him and absolutely reset humanity. Fans didn’t know what to think of this ending. But they got some amazing action sequences, so most of them consider it the better ending.

Blah blah blah…

But this is not how it happened!

With two endings to his story, neither of which does a good job of ending the series, Anno has returned. He’s making 4 “all new” movies to tell Evangelion as it was meant to be told. The Rebuild of Evangelion is a complete re-imagining of the story from start to finish with a completely different ending that satisfies all aspects of the story. (or so we’ve been told).

The first 2 movies will mostly be direct remakes of the original episodes. Eva 3.0 will begin diverging and take the story to its new ending. And Eva Final will put an end to everything Evangelion.

What I’ve been watching since March is the first movie, entitled…

Evangelion 1.0 You are (not) alone SPOILERS, btw

This movie remakes episodes 1 through 6 of the original series. During the episodes Shinji fights 3 Angels (”of death”): Sachiel, Shamshel, and Ramiel. The plot, themes and whatnot are absolutely identical in both the series and this movie. One might think that this is the stupidest thing ever. Especially when the first 18 minutes of the film is almost an exact shot-by-shot update to the original animation. The genius of the movie is the pacing.

There really is no tension when Shinji fights Sachiel and Shamshel because the scenes are nearly the same as the original and the fans already know what’s going to happen. Sure, it looks prettier but the fights are the same. Plus, after Shamshel you have that long boring part where Shinji runs away and nothing really happens.

Then Ramiel appears. Ramiel is a bit shinier, but still looks the same… until..

Holy shit. That’s different. Ramiel is absolutely menacing. Ramiel is pretty abstract to begin with, but now his attacks show the full force of his destructive power.

We still know what happens, but the Ramiel fight takes center stage. I immediately shot awake and continued watching with my eyes glued to the screen. Ramiel is far more dangerous than I remember him… maybe in Evangelion 1.0, Ramiel actually does win. How the hell are they going to stop this thing?

Unlike the series where this is just another episode, the movie builds up to this point and flourishes. Shinji’s own confidence builds to this point as well. He’s beginning to think about why he should pilot Evangelion, rather than doing what he’s told. Both plot lines balance in harmony as Shinji fires upon Ramiel to prove his worth.

With the ending of Evangelion 1.0, Hideaki Anno proves that both plots with Shinji and Evangelion can co-exist and satisfies both camps who prefer either ending of the original.

Stay tuned in November for the American release!

Evangelion 2.0 You can (not) advance

Let the speculation begin. Eva 2.0 is released in Japanese theaters on Sat June 27th. Shots from the trailer feature Angels all the way up to Zeruel, the 14th Angel. As such, apparently this movie will cover episodes 7 all the way through 19, which is TWICE the amount as the first movie. That’s a shit load of ground to cover. Especially when these episodes feature FAR more story than anything that went on in the first 6 episodes.

I have no idea how they plan to cram everything into 2 hours, but I guess we’ll see!

A week and a half ago, Evangelion 1.0 was finally released on Bluray entitled Evangelion 1.11. Not only was this the initial Bluray release for the new movie, but it also adds another 10 or 15 minutes of additional footage into the mix.

Today, I got it in the mail! I tore upon the Play-Asia envelope, quickly unwrapped the cellophane and put it into my Playstation 3. Thanks to the advent of Bluray technology, “they” decided to redistribute which territories fit into which Regions.

Regions

For DVD Regions, the world was split into 6 regions. Unfortunately, the US and Japan were split. Japan and Europe were snug into Region 2, but the US and Canada were in Region 1, all alone.

Bluray is different. The world is now split into only 3 regions. All of the Americas, Japan and the Philippines occupy the same territory. And Europe is on the outside with almost everyone else. That’s good! Now the US has the ability to play Japanese Blurays at our convenience.

This only gives the ability to play the Bluray, of course. There is no Bluray magic that transforms the speech into English or anything. It is what it is. And this particular Bluray only offers Japanese Audio with no Subtitles.

Why then?

3 months ago, I finally downloaded Eva 1.0 and watched it, though I had a little trouble. It’s kinda weird that I waited so long to finally watch it considering how much I love the Anime. I watched it and absolutely loved it. But the quality was pretty bad. It was good for Internet standards, but there were some scenes that were rough.

That’s the main reason I bought the Bluray. I wanted to see this film with absolute clarity. And Evangelion 1.11 does not disappoint. It is crystal clear and absolutely beautiful. The sound is amazing too!

Also, It’s not like I need the subtitles, anyways. After spending so much time getting the subtitles to work on the copy I download back in March, I wondered why I wasted so much time. I’ve seen the Anime almost 100 times now and basically have the whole thing memorized.

Great Bluray, but one problem…

It’s annoying that there are no English subtitles. Half of the reason I buy any movies these days is to share it with people. And I can’t really share this with my friends because they don’t know Japanese. We could attempt to watch it, and I could probably “translate”. But that would really be confusing. Especially for my friends who’ve never seen Evangelion before.

Oh well. The American release is in November.