The intro to Starcraft: Brood War

I suck when it comes to title names.

This is the video introduction to Brood War, the expansion pack to the original Starcraft. It's also one of my favorite video sequences in a game, ever.

The original Starcraft game had a pretty nice intro sequence too, very eerie, moody and almost scary, but Brood War's was on a whole different level. It's so well directed, it wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi movie, with some twinking here and there of course. And then its whole subject matter is also great, which is the reason why I love it so much. In it, as in most of the game, you see the humans for what they are, douchebags, not heroes.

It's something you rarely see in games, but Starcraft did an excellent job at this. And lest we forget, strategy games are hardly renowned for their plots and storylines. This is one of the reasons why I liked the original so much, you spent as much time fighting other humans as you did fighting the alien races. And the atmosphere of that game was amazing. I can't really put this into words, but the storyline and the atmosphere is what made me love Starcraft, even though I preferred the Command & Conquer games as far as gameplay is concerned.

This concept of humans being... well, themselves, was also introduced in Warcraft 3, but then Blizzard of course had to dump it down for the masses and so the humans are again the "good guys" in WoW. If there's ever a Starcraft MMO (and I hope there won't be), they'd better not mess with this aspect of the story.

Of course, most people would roll Protoss, but that's besides the point.

Here's the video:



Tom, if you're reading this, I want a rematch in Brood Wars one day. xD

This isn't a post about Starcraft 2.

I'm a horrible liar. Of course this post is about Starcraft 2.

"Hell, it's about time."

The unnamed marine in Starcraft 2's trailer put it best. It sure was about time.

You know that a game is going to be huge when it's the #1 news item in the splash screen of World of Warcraft. The PC gaming market definitely needs a successful game that's not an MMORPG at the moment.

(On a side note, can anyone believe it's already ten (10) years since Starcraft was released? Sweet Jebus.)

And am I ever glad that Blizzard's big announcement wasn't a Starcraft MMORPG. Not only did it make little financial sense, as WoW is still going strong, and a Starcraft MMO would be a bitch to balance properly, we didn't really need another MMO. Honestly, the market is becoming saturated as it is, there is no real need for another MMO based on a well-known and beloved franchise.

Of course, this being the Internet, many people were disappointed by the announcement, my favorite type being the ones who accused Blizzard of being afraid of creating something new and original and not as derivative as Starcraft, while at the same time demanding Diablo 3. Ah, Irony, how I love thee.

There are a few things about Starcraft 2 that worry me a bit, but now is not the time for that. Excitement is still high over the announcement, and there's no reason to spoil that mood. I'll make another post regarding this game in the near future.

Devotion

As you may or may have not guessed from my previous post, oh faithful reader, the team I was supporting in the Euroleague final won.

Panathinaikos is the new Euroleague champion, for the fourth time in history. It's the first team in history that has managed such a feat, and its captain Fragiskos Alvertis is the only player who has managed to win the title four times in his career.

It's funny, this guy was just starting when I first started watching basketball, and seeing the amount of titles he has won in his 17-year career was a strange feeling. I guess you don't realize how important or even legendary some people are until they retire.

At any rate, the game itself was excellent. I'm kind of bummed I couldn't have a ticket for it, but on the other hand I'm also kind of glad. Every time Panathinaikos got a decent lead (up to 12 points at some point), CSKA kept coming back again. And again, and again. It made for a very tense game, and given that I get hilariously stressed when watching sports, I'd probably get an aneurysm or something.

But yes, it was a great game and a great final, worthy of the two (arguably) best teams in Europe at the moment. The final score of 93 to 91 is also one of the highest ever for a final. In the end, and in my ever-so-humble opinion, the better team won. Every single player from Panathinaikos did what they were supposed to do, while CSKA depended a bit too much on Papaloukas -who played unbelievable well, by the way. But sometimes one man can't make the difference, at least on his own. Sorry Stan Lee.

An interesting thing, Panathinaikos had offered to do a little tour in the States (sort of like the "NBA in Europe" yearly event, but reversed), and now that they've won the Euroleague, they are allegedly requested to go to Texas to play against the Rockets and the Spurs. The way I see it, after suffering several painful losses lately (former champion CSKA destroyed the Clippers 95-73 last fall), NBA teams are looking for an excuse to bitchslap the finest that Europe has to offer.

It should be interesting, and I hope that Panathinaikos manages to attend. I honestly believe we can defeat the Rockets if our key players are in a good day. It should be a dreadful match as far as beautiful plays and "showtime" basketball is concerned, since both teams are very defensive (unless JVG does leave), but it should still be an interesting and very technical match. When it comes to the Spurs, I don't think any European team can defeat them or any other high-level NBA team.

Yet.

Sup

Pew pew.

Mirror match

Today's the day. It's the Euroleague final, Panathinaikos Vs. CSKA Moscow. Dimitris Diamantidis Vs Thodoris Papaloukas. The three-times Defensive Player of the Year against the two times Euroleague MVP. Arguably the two best European players currently playing in Europe, still. But what's more interesting is that they're both the same type of player, hence the title of my post.

They're both point guards, tall, athletic (for Europeans anyway), fast, and with long hands, which make them excellent for stealing passes and contesting shots. It's thanks to their skills that the Greek national basketball team became a force to be reckoned with again. The only slight difference between them is the fact that Diamantidis is better at taking three-pointers, while Papaloukas is better at scoring inside the paint. The battle between the two should be very exciting tonight.

But what's more important is something that can't be shown with statistics. Just by being on the court, they make their teams better, more coherent. Even if they don't score points, steal the ball or make assists. I'm not sure how or why they do this, but it happens.

All in all, I hope the game tonight will be fun, and nothing like the borefests of Friday. Euroleague basketball isn't as flashy as NBA basketball (even though the recent Rockets-Jazz series was bad enough to almost make me change my mind on that), but there have been some really great games over the years.

Speaking of the NBA and the Rockets, how bad must it be for a team when the coach doesn't trust more than 7 players? Seriously, how can anyone expect the same 7 people to just go through an entire full season and still have stamina left for the playoffs? Yes, I'm sorta bitter because Van Gundy didn't give V-Span enough time this year, but JVG was doing the same to most of his bench players. I don't get it.

Oh well, Warriors-Jazz should be interesting. I wonder if the Warriors have it in them to go all the way to the Western Conference finals. I'll be rooting for them in that series, a Jazz-Spurs WCF series sounds a bit too much like the Euroleague semis for my taste.

Enough blabbing, ΈΛΑ ΜΩΡΗ ΠΑΝΑΘΑ!

Liverpool Vs A.C Milan, round two!

Technically, it's still "tomorrow".

I sort of had this long-winded rant ready about how Liverpool managed to disqualified Chelsea in the Champions League semi-finals because they had the balls to do so and Chelsea just had a lot of expensive players and an arrogant (and pretty douchebag-y) coach. But I decided against actually writing it, as I'd just be reciting what people have been saying for the last few days. Moving on then.

So it's official, the Champions League final here in Athens will be a rematch of the 2005 final between Liverpool (which I'm supporting, as you may have already guessed) and A.C. Milan, a team that was supposed to be disqualified from the competition originally, and only got through in the end because they're A.C. Milan. And people still ask me why I think cosmic irony is the driving force in this universe.

At any rate, it should be a very interesting match. Not because either team is known for their fast-paced football, full of technique and skill, on the contrary. However, their last match in the 2005 final was one of the most memorable matches in recent years, Milan got the lead 3-0 early in the game, but Liverpool managed to tie the game and win the cup in the penalties. Not the most beautiful football game ever, but definitely one I (and others) will remember for years to come.

It's a shame that the tickets for the final are so expensive, I had no chance of getting one on time. I would have loved to hear Liverpool's fans sing "You'll never walk alone" in the middle of the Olympic stadium here in Athens. Oh wells.

What really sucks is the fact that the Euroleague final four (think European basketball) is starting tomorrow, again here in Athens... And the team I'm supporting, Panathinaikos, is taking place in it. Of course I haven't found any tickets for either game, seriously now.

It's funny, I went all the way to Paris when I was 15 to watch Panathinaikos win their first European championship, but I haven't gone to either Final Four that has taken place in Greece, that would be 2000 in Thessaloniki, when I was studying Geology there, and the current one.

I'd say that's pretty fucking ironic as well.

You'll never walk alone

More tomorrow.

Veronica Mars addendum

It seems I may have spoken prematurely. The lovely miss Kristin Veitch updated her blog later on Friday with new information about the future of Veronica Mars, and it seems like the series hasn't reached the end of the proverbial line yet. To quote the CW rep from the above link "The final decision will be made on May 17."

Still, it looks like the show as we know it may be over for good, as it is presumably heading for a total make-over, with the rumored new season taking place 4 years after the events of the season three, at a time when Veronica has become an FBI agent. These are all just rumors yet, but they are strong rumors.

I'm kind of torn on this. Throughout the second half of the third season it has been heavily hinted that V could very well join the FBI in the future, so this isn't a surprising development, but it may be a premature one. I'm not sure how well I'd stomach a fast forward to the future, with most of the main cast gone.

But what I'm mainly worried about is what the tone of the series will be. CSI: Neptune? The uh, VM-Files? Monk 2,0? There's so many things that could go wrong.

On the other side, there's also a lot of things that could go right. After watching the second (and arguably worst) episode of the first season, Credit Where Credit's Due, on television again, I realized just how much better it was than anything we've seen recently. I keep mentioning this, but the first season was just so much edgier than the following two. Even visually, all the moody colors that gave VM a certain cool neo-Noir feeling that made it stand out of the rest of the TV shows out there are gone. Plus, my favorite bit is gone; no more brooding monologues from the protagonist herself. Heck, even all the characters seem to have lost their realistic flaws that made them so endearing to us.

Perhaps an all new, FBI-based, setting could provide with the darker atmosphere that the show is sorely missing since its first season, especially if it will be targeted to an older audience than season 3. You see, the execs decided that season 3's target group would be teenage girls, and that's why we got all that groan-inducing relationship drama between Veronica and Logan. Rest assured that there's a special place reserved in Hell for people who mess up that much with a good story *nods*.

Furthermore, a new cast could mean that the supporting characters wouldn't feel so out of context anymore, and they would also be as dark and deeply flawed as the ones in season one.

What can I say, I really love the first season of Veronica Mars. It's one of those things I'm pretty sure I'll still love in twenty years from now, which is more than can be said for most of the things that are on TV or in film these days. I like Lost, Heroes, 24, but in ten years from now I'll probably look at them nostalgically rather than say "Damn, this show is still great even now!"

P.S.

While Credit Where Credit's Due is pretty mediocre by season one standards (Paris Hilton is in it, 'nuff said), it also has one of the best lines in the entire series:

Troy (looking at V's flat tire): "Flat?"
Veronica: "Just as God made me."

More sardonic humor like that, less teen-drama, please.

Farewell, Ms. Mars

Rather unsurprisingly, it has been pretty much confirmed that Veronica Mars will not see a fourth season. With the way the ratings were going, it's hardly earth-shattering news, of course.

Still, it's kind of a shame since the recent three or four episodes were really damn good. The dialogs and acting were always good throughout the season, but in these latest episodes they managed to provide us with good storylines too that made us care for the characters again. Also, I really liked the ending to the main arc, which is a first.

I guess, at the end of the day, it's for the best. It seems like Rob Thomas and Co. could never top the excellent first season, so it was all downhill from there. In other words, it's better to cancel the show now, while it's still one of the best shows on TV despite its declining quality, than let it drag on and become awful.

Anyway, since a certain person insisted that I'd provide a link for Sarbel's Eurovision song "Yassou Maria" because he wanted to listen to it, here's a link for ya.

Oh and I saw 300

This information needs a separate post, just because.

Anyway, of course I saw 300. I was there on the opening day, March 8.

It's exactly what you'd expect from the trailers. 2 hours of ass-kicking, badass action involving Spartans. It goes without saying that I loved it.

It really is a shame that a few of the best moments of the graphic novel were lost during the transition to film. I guess they were too quiet and somber for the badass feeling the director was aiming for. *shrugs* Stuff happens.

Apparently the movie had a great opening in the Box Office, I hope it keeps this pace and ends up making a buttload of money. That way, the movie version of "Gates of Fire" may actually become a reality (with Michael Mann at the helm, please!)

"Zeus Thunderer! Hellas and Freedom!"

The (sorta) unthinkable has happened

No, I'm not referring to my updating this blog again after 10,000 years. Between being out of the city for several days, getting a new PS2 because my old one was stolen and other random things, I didn't have much of a chance to write anything, plus I really didn't have anything interesting to say.

Anyway, I'll start with something interesting. Tom made a series of posts on his blog about MMORPG's, they're really well-written and accurate, definitely worth reading if you're into that kind of games, or just gaming in general.

At this point I'd like to point out that I didn't change my site's description because he did it, hell, I hadn't even realized that the word "musing" is derived from the Muses (pathetic, I know), I've just been meaning to do so for a while. So there!

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to refer to the title of this post, which is a reference to the fact that a local channel has started airing Veronica Mars (Message to all Greeks: Κυριακές στο Star Channel, 3.30 με 4.30, να το βλέπετε μη σας πάρει ο Διάκολος!)

I guess since the series is getting cancelled in the States at the end of this season, its royalties must be pretty cheap now, so that even a Greek channel can afford them...

:(

Sorry 'bout that. The good thing is that it will be on the same timeslot that Smallville was on previously, so the target audience is there. Almost.

As for the show itself, watching the pilot again (for like, the 12th time) has made me realized just how much better season 1 was compared to the following 2. Season 2 had its moments and season 3 is pretty solid, but it feels like the writers were a lot more concentrated during the first season. It's kind of like what I read on a forum, the characters in Veronica Mars were created with a specific storyline in mind, that of season 1 of the series. Once they're out of that context, they just seem out of place, we can't relate to their stories as much anymore. But I'll be damned if that whole season isn't among the finest I've ever seen on TV.

Another thing that becomes painfully obvious if you watch any episode of season one of VM today is that its darker elements were lost on the way. No more Noiresque voice-overs by Veronica, hell she's gradually becoming less and less of a badass with every episode. At least some of the storylines are still pretty interesting, and often delightfully cynical.

I think this show will never get over the fact that it tried to go head-to-head with Lost on its second season. Talk about a bad idea.

While on the subject of TV shows, last week's Lost and Heroes were pretty great. I mean, a Lost episode that actually provided some answers, what the fuck! Last weeks "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" was a fun and enjoyable episode, but it was just filler material. This week it was great. But it was a Sayid episode, Sayid episodes are awesome by definition.

I've been wondering why the writers don't show Sayid more often since he's easily one of the best characters, but I think that he's too much of a badass for his own good. If he were always around when a mystery or an Other/Hostile popped up, he'd find a solution in nanoseconds, but we can't have that, can we?

Heroes is really shaping up as well. I never cared much for the writing and the somewhat awkward dialogs, but the plot is finally becoming interesting. Plus, hey, who doesn't love superheroes? Peter Petrelli Vs Sylar, fight!

Yassou kai esena

It's crazy, everybody in this damn country had only one thing to talk about today, the song that was selected to represent Greece in the contest that embodies all that's wrong with the world today, the Eurovision. Unsurprisingly, the song (Yassou Maria *groans) that was selected represents everything that's wrong with modern-day Greece, and for some fucking reason it's been stuck in my head all day long. Gah! And I love the use of the word "Yassou", it looks so stupid. What's with the two "s"'s too, huh? (Yassou/Geia sou being the Greek version of "hi").

I refuse to talk more about this topic though, the less said about it, the better off we all are. Instead, I'll talk again about 300, the other topic that's sure to be all the rage here in a few days. Better yet, I won't say much about it, as I've already established that I'm really looking forward to this movie, and chances are I'll love it. Instead, I'll let the following clip do all the talking for me:

Link because embedding doesn't want to work: Clickez moi.

I believe "Holy shit" are the words you're looking for.

The Crusade that Burns.

It was pretty much inevitable. I had even bought the damn game, just hadn't installed it. But when Anton and Jon asked me why on Earth I'm not playing the Burning Crusade (the recently released expansion to World of Warcraft) I answered "Uh, I dunno."

Hell, I mean, it seems that everyone has played TBC for a while at one point or another. Even Ragnar Tornquist and Ron Gilbert are playing too, the latter even making his own Blood Elf guild! I'd so join that if I could play on his server. Oh, wells.

In all honesty, one of the reasons I started playing WoW again was because I wanted something to drive me away from Justice for All, which I had begun to rush through. And I really want to savor this game, enjoy every single bad pun, figure out every single reference etc. I dunno, it's kind of a weird feeling. From what I've been told, I'm not the only one who gets it with certain games, that feeling of sweet melancholy you get when you're nearing the end of a game you really liked. On one hand you're happy because you had a great time with it, and on the other one you're kind of sad because it's about to end. That's exactly what I got, and since it's gonna be a while before we get Ace Attorney 3, I'm in no rush to finish #2. Besides, playing Justice for all while in bed in the early hours of the night rocks.

So anyway, back to the Burning Crusade. I started playing with my level 60 Druid Erdalion, in my old server Argent Dawn, which is a roleplay server, in theory at least. Thing is, pretty much everybody rushed to level 70 (the new max in TBC) in the first few weeks, so leveling so far has been a pretty lonely experience. Sure I've teamed up with a few people here and there for dungeons or difficult quests, but it feels like most of the people I've met have characters level 70 already and just use the characters I meet them with as a past-time for when they're bored. So yeah, TBC is a Massively Singleplayer Online RPG for me so far in the Outlands. Still, I had a lot of fun with certain quests, and Blizzard's love for pop culture references made me laugh out loud a few times, a good example is the Tenacious Defender.

Unsurprisingly then, it wasn't long before the sameness of everything got to me. Quests so far don't really vary from the "Go there, kill X of this and get Y of that" variation. Sure, the new locations look pretty nice (except Nagrand and Hellfire Peninsula, fuck that place) but it gets boring after spending so many hours in the same place. I've been told that quests get better, and there are several dungeons to explore, which don't take that much time, but there are only so many times you can run those before it gets tedious. At this rate, I'll probably quit the game before I reach level 70 for the ranked Arena matches, but really, single-player grinding is not my favorite past-time, I rank it up there with shoving searing needles in my eyes.

And it doesn't help that the level of roleplay in my server is... Well, I'll let the following video describe it better, even if it's not made for my realm:


In all fairness, WoW isn't exactly tailor-made for RP, and I have found some occasions of excellent random RP. But generally, that's how it's been in the Outlands so far.

So what's a guy to do then? Why, roll a Blood Elf of course! I initially made a male hunter with the intend to level him because hunters are great fun, but I also made a female rogue because I had this storyline idea about such a character and thought I might as well give that a try. The result was, I got hooked on the rogue style of play. Stealthing everywhere is so much fun (even for a druid player, who's used to it) and the starting areas are so well-designed, Silvermoon City is one of the most beautiful cities I've seen in a game, and the quests are interesting and quite balanced. I decided to take this rogue business seriously, so at level 14 I swam all the way to Westfall (one of the starting areas for human characters) and got the Red Defias Mask, a rogue trademark, here's Gil at Undercity:


I'm up to level 21 currently, struggling a bit with the poisons quest, but leveling has been a blast so far. There are many people around leveling their Blood Elves as well, so it's really easy to find a good group, not to mention that most of them are really nice, which is quite surprising. Sure, there's the occasional jackass around, like one guy who expected me to run him through a series of high level quests so he'd get a certain item, when I wasn't really able of doing some of those quests on my own to begin with. And all that for just 5 gold! People these days. But hey, you can't avoid idiots in real life, so it's hardly surprising when you run into them in such an anonymous environment.

I have to say, on the roleplay side of things, I've been lucky enough to find a lot of it so far. Most people react in-character if you approach them that way, and I've had a few excellent RP sessions so far, more than I've had in a whole year almost. Only last night I run into an Orcish/Trollish celebration at Ratchet, apparently they had killed some boss and they were celebrating about it in excellent in-character fashion. They didn't seem to like Elves though, and my character isn't that fond of Orcs either, so this resulted in some hilarious misunderstandings, all in-character though. I hope I can run into more of these soon, here's a screenie of the aforementioned party:


Still, I agree with Ragnar Tornquist when he says that the first 20 levels are the best, after that it gets a bit boring for me. Initially, my goal was to get the Mask, the Cape seen in the screenshot above and a really nice dagger. Now that's over, I only feel like finishing the quest that gives me access to poisons, but after that is done... Chances are, I'll lose interest again, and with many games to play like the new Sam and Max episodes, WoW will be left behind, again. At this point, I doubt I'll ever get Gil the rogue to the Outland (the new area in TBC).

As it is now, I only have one goal in the game. I met this Tauren Shaman called Atlas, my mission is to make him shrug at some point and take a screenshot of that. 'Nuff said.

Spine tingling legal action!

Mind numbing legalese!
You will say "wow"!

Wait, I used that last line in my previous post. Oh, well. Since I can't sleep, here's another Phoenix Wright video, something of a recap from the first two games, with a few scenes from the (as of yet unreleased in the Western world) third game, so spoiler warnings apply to those sensitive to uh... spoilerage.



I think this is a really beautiful video. I have no flippin' clue of what they're talking about either, but I just like how they say it. From what I understand, they are reciting lines from the first two games, so that's definitely no bad thing.

It also got me thinking. A Phoenix Wright game with speech, if done wright, erm... right, would be like the best game ever. And given the care that goes to the script and dialogs, there's no reason to suspect Capcom wouldn't try their hardest to hire some really good actors for the job. Though given that they are Capcom, finding good actors may actually be impossible for them -Resident Evil series, anyone?

Still, such a thing could never be done on the DS anyway, and I think the system is perfect for the game, so it's just wishful thinking, really. Perhaps on the Wii, who knows. Plus, hey, if Resident Evil 2 was released on a Nintendo 64 cartridge, anything is possible.

Court is back in session!

In my second post ever in this blog I mentioned a DS game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I recently got the second game in the series, Justice for All, though now Capcom officially renamed the series Ace Attorney. I still consider Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as the best game I've played in the last oh, several years. Bring me your Twilight Princesses and your Halos, your Half-Life 2's and your Oblivions, WoW's, anything. Nick Wright's misadventure of comedy and turnabouts is that much better. If you're interested, you can read my review in Adventure Lantern,

Here's a trailer from the second game:



I've been playing Justice for All a lot these days, I'm currently at the beginning of the third case, out of a total of four. Sadly there is no special fifth case with new gameplay elements this time around, so the game initially feels like a step backwards from the previous entry. That, combined with a few music tracks that are kinda "meh" and some mediocre writing in the first case, troubled me at first. But after one hour in the second case, when the game really starts rolling, oh my. As Maya Fey says, "You will say 'wow'!"

As I said in my first post all way back in September, Phoenix Wright has mastered one thing really rare among games; perfect balance between humor and drama. For every hilarious moment, there's a touching one, for every silly occurrence, there's a genuinely spine-chilling one. It's so well-written, it even puts several TV shows and movies to shame.

Which is why I personally like it so much. It has that elusive quality, a certain "je ne sais quoi" that ye old games of yore had, it's truly entertaining, but in a deep way, not a superficial one. It has characters and stories that will stay with you long after you've finished the games. Personally, after the seeing the quality of the second game, I now consider the Ace Attorney series one of my very favorite ones, up there with Castlevania, Street Fighter, Zelda etc.

Now some people, for example my good friend Tom, would say "But at the heart of it, it's just a traditional point & click adventure"

In response to those,



*slams both his hands on the desk and raises his left index finger towards the people in question*

Good games are more than just the sum of their parts. Sure, the core mechanics of PW's gameplay are based on a point and click system, but both games make significant advancements with regards to visual and audio presentation. Essentially, the trial parts of PW are a fighting game in adventure game format. Hell, Justice for All even has a health meter! And a person (Maggie/Maggy I think) calls for Phoenix to perform his "special move". Which is probably another reason why I like these games so much, given that since I were a teenager, my two favorite gaming genres were adventures and fighting games. So what better than a game that combines both of these genres?

Anyway, don't want to rant more than I have to (again). I have another video and a few more things to say, but I'll do that in a follow-up post.

Prepare for Glory!

Hyped yet?

Between Gates of Fire (which I recently finished reading -best book ever) and this, I'm in full-Spartan mode lately. When I'm not playing Phoenix Wright 2 anyway, but I'll talk about that in more detail in a future post.

I have to say, I find all the people drawing parallels between this movie and the current situation in Iran very funny, in a "come on!" way. Seriously, come the fuck on people, stop seeing propaganda and conspiracies all the time.

Sure, the Persians aren't shown in a very positive light neither in the graphic novel nor the movie, but have you seen how the Spartans are portrayed? Heroic, sure, but also militaristic, narrow-minded and undemocratic (is that a word?) as they were, in fact. Yet the whiners totally ignore this. And yes, in the end, despite all this the Spartans are the heroes, but y'know, that's kinda like the whole point of this story.

The only thing I'll give credit to the whiners for is that this movie has bad timing. Fairy nuff, that much is true. Anything beyond that is just stupid though; people just enjoy being paranoid I guess.

I won't even mention the Greeks whining about the fact that the movie won't be historically accurate, since talking to people who just won't get it it's simply a waste of time.

In case of emergency, please call...

112. This is the EU equivalent of 911, one emergency phone number to rule them all. It's a welcome change, since currently most countries in the EU have different phone numbers for different services, like the police or the fire department. Moreover, none of these numbers are shared throughout the countries of the EU, so you'd have to memorize each and every one, or at least, you know, store them in your cell. At any rate, with this new number the whole procedure becomes much more simplified, and much faster too, hopefully.

In theory, at least. I somehow doubt Greeks will adapt to this smoothly. It's already a pain to call any civil service here as it is, grouping them up together could prove to be a nightmare. Or it could force the local phone operators to grow the proverbial pair, and actually do their job for once. We'll see, I guess.

The following picture has nothing to do with 112, 911, or anything in this post at all, but I just felt like posting it.
I'm truly sorry.

O2 is alright

And so are The Gathering. Their concert in Athens last night was probably the finest of the last 30,000 years. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that they are one of the most important bands of the last decade.

Believe

Original image can be seen here and Neil Gaiman's site here.


Please let this movie be good. Pretty please. I should confess that I'm more hyped about this movie than I am for 300.

Just because

Since I earlier brought up Street Fighter, Street Fighter: The movie and um, stupid "things" I guess, there's a movie I need to share with you.

In fact, I'd go as far as saying that you have never been truly alive unless you've seen this. This is from a SF VR ride*. The ride of your life.

*You know, those stupid pseudo-3D things they used to have in fairs back in the 90's.

Of clouds and silver linings (cont.)

As I was saying, sometimes even the things that will seemingly destroy your soul may one day be the source of something really useful.

Case in point: remember that god-awful fighting game, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game (SFTMTG)? You know, that one, the black sheep of the SF family. The one with the Mortal Kombat-style digitized graphics? In all honesty I never really got the chance to play it, they never brought it at the arcades in my hometown, and the reviews I read all mentioned that it was horrible, so neither me nor my friends ever bought it. It is however commonly known as the worst Street Fighter game ever, and perhaps one of the worst fighting games ever as well, though that may be pushing it a bit. Still, the fact that it is based on Street Fighter: The Movie, a movie that succeeded in eroding the souls and minds of an entire generation of children, is bad enough to probably give it a place in that list.

At any rate, it's been more than a decade since both the movie and the game were released, so our memories of either started fading over the years, our wounds started healing. One question always puzzled me however; why did Capcom, a company I practically worshiped at the time, create such an awful game? Not that they had never created a mediocre title before, but the Street Fighter franchise has always been precious to them, especially back then in the mid-nineties, when fighting games still ruled the arcades. And hell, why did they even make a Street Fighter game that looked like Mortal Kombat, when most people acknowledged that Street Fighter was the superior franchise? Which it always has been, you MK fanbois reading this can go play Deadly Alliance if you disagree.

Over the years I would find out that Capcom had in fact outsourced the game to a little (and little-known) company called Incredible Technologies. That explained a lot, it wasn't created by the original team, such a change is usually a recipe for disaster. Still, it couldn't have been a crappy game from the beginning, otherwise it would have just been scrapped early on. So my questions still remained, how could the game end up like this, what went wrong?

So what do you know, about a week ago Alan Noon, a former Incredible Technologies employee and one of the main people responsible for the creation of SFTMTG decided to start sharing the story behind this game over at the ShoRyuKen forums. He's really going into a lot of detail, describing the whole procedure, from early designing to... actually I'm not sure since I'm still on page 6 of the thread, but I'm assuming he'll go as far as mentioning the feedback they received after it was released.

It's a really interesting read, and not just for people wondering how a game so bad could ever be released under the Street Fighter name. Noon's description of the whole game-designing procedure is really detailed, I think it's actually very inspirational for aspiring, well, game-designers. And yes, I fall under that category. Hell, even if you're not into that and just want to see what's going on behind the scenes of a game, it's still a good read. If nothing else, it shows that even though we now idolize the 90's as the "golden age" of gaming and a time when people cared more about the quality of a game than its potential sales, people still only cared about the money back then as well. I mean, do you actually remember the shit that Acclaim used to release in the SNES/Genesis~Mega Drive days?

Still, truth be told, back then there were less executives trying to boss around people like Warren Spector into making a mascot-based cart racer ("JC Denton's Ultimate Kooky Wheelz" for the win!) , but it was hardly the developer heaven that people claim it to be. Naw, that was old Infocom in the 80's. For more on that, you can read an interview of Brian Moriarty (Loom) over at Adventure Classic Gaming, another great read.

Of clouds and silver linings.

For the past few days, I've been thinking of writing a long-winded rant about something I came across on the Internet...s. It's related to two things, World of Warcraft and complete, undeniable stupidity. Two things that are anything but mutually exclusive, at least as far as the people playing WoW are concerned. I should stop being so cryptic, this "something" is a thread from the official WoW forums, a place I've called Purgatory a lot of times in the past, and I stand by that description, the people posting there are often a perfect example of humanity at its worse.

But you know what? I decided I won't discuss it here, I won't even mention the subject of that thread. Why? It's really quite simple. There's so much stupidity in the world already, there's no reason to perpetuate it more. Like Neil Gaiman said in that awesome book of his called American Gods, we're better off not knowing the details some times. There was a thread in the official WoW forums, and the people in it were being stupid. That's all you want, no, that's all you need to know.

I'm serious, I refuse to talk about the thread, or even link to it. I try to keep this blog lighthearted, and the stupid things I mention here have to be of the funny-stupid variation, not the soul-destroying one. If you're a glutton for punishment and/or pain, go read God Mode or something equally as dumb. Or watch the trailer from Uwe Boll's latest "masterpiece", you will be spending your time in a much more productive way if you do that. The trailer is NSFA by the way, not suitable for anywhere.

And yes, that would be all. I find it self-defeating to spend your time on things that destroy your brain cells. I dunno about you, but I like mine. Hell I even keep them in shape with Brain Training! (tm)

Anyway, I'm ranting again so I'll head straight to my real point in this post; sometime even the most seemingly useless things end up giving us something useful. I'll continue this in a second post because this has gotten way too long for one post.

PS

I may have sneaked in a link to the, by now infamous, WoW thread to satisfy the curious ones out there, but consider yourselves warned and follow it at your own peril. I'm not responsible for any emotional (or even physical) scars you may get while reading it.

PPS

I really need to start making shorter posts, I keep losing my train of thought every so often, 'pologies for that. But whenever I'm blogging it's always a stream of consciousness thing, so it can't really be helped either. *shrugs*

Random stuff - The return!

You know what they say, sequels don't live up to the originals. But it had to be done, because some people would have you think I never update this blog. Which is an outright lie, I update bi-centennially!

Anyway, I found two things today that I thought I should share with the rest of the world.

The first one is Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator. What does it do? Well, it does exactly what its name (subtly) suggests; it creates automated complaint-letters. It's just awesome. An example:

I am not writing to agree or disagree with Rabbi Jeremiah QQ. Stoned V. What I have to say, however, regards Rabbi Stoned's conscious decision to control your bank account, your employment, your personal safety, and your mind. To begin at the beginning, Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that I would like to comment on Rabbi Stoned's attempt to associate sensationalism with cannibalism. There is no association. My intention here is not just to place blame where it belongs -- in the hands of Rabbi Stoned and his noxious encomiasts -- but also to shine a light on Rabbi Stoned's efforts to bamboozle people into believing that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. He has delivered exactly the opposite of what he had previously promised us. Most notably, Rabbi Stoned's vows of liberation turned out to be masks for oppression and domination. And, almost as troubling, his vows of equality did little more than convince people that his tracts defy common sense. Do I blame society for this? No, I blame Rabbi Stoned. He is not only immoral, but amoral. Implying that Rabbi Stoned acts in the name of equality and social justice is no different from implying that Rabbi Stoned can be trusted to judge the rest of the world from a unique perch of pure wisdom. Both statements are ludicrous. Okay, there's no reason for me to be officious, so I'll leave you with this concept: Rabbi Jeremiah QQ. Stoned V's cuckoo fantasy fits neatly into his heartless model of society.

You can choose how many paragraphs your letter should have, I chose one in mine to keep it short. The results are usually hilarious and I can think of a lot of situations where I could use this (mainly for trolling the official World of Warcraft forums, though). It's not without its faults, however. I've seen a few typos in every single example so far, and while I can overlook that, the main problem is that the end result always suffers from the "wall of text" um, effect. I guess that's kinda the whole point of this, but walls of text hurt my eyes.

Edit: Okay, this is just golden. While even I haven't read it all, I don't have to either. I just know that a thread like this would gather at least 10 pages of angry responses at the official WoW forums (A.K.A. Purgatory). Shame you need an active account to post there, I think it's time to make some phone calls...

The second thing for today is a short but very funny video. As promised, there's a streaming version up now, or if you wish, you can download it here. It's a NSFW vid though, so careful where you watch it. If you don't know what this is, it means that this video is perfectly fine to watch at work if your first name is Pavlos.

While I was sleeping...

It's sorta funny (and I am using the word "funny" in a very loose sense here), if people were to ask me what I've been doing for the past couple of days, my answer would be "Uh. Sleeping", and it's true.

I guess it's what I get for dealing with deadlines the way I do. Whatever the deadline is for (article, university paper, anything) I work on it for short periods of time, but leave most of the work for the last few days before the deadline expires, in which days I forgo everything, social interaction (what's that again?), watching movies or TV, or for that matter generally doing anything, even sleeping. It comes with being Greek, I presume. So the result is that after a deadline is over, I end up sleeping for a good two days.

Anyway, the catching-up with the world part that comes after that is usually no big deal, I mean it's just a couple of days for Christ's sake. But on rare occasions, you get some really weird shit, so weird that I have to question whether I've actually woken up, or if I'm still dreaming, in which case I start worrying about the condition of my unconscious.

I mean, a 29-year old child molester tricking two other child molesters into thinking he's a 12 year old boy and having sex with them? Who comes up with that stuff? Seriously, if this was the plot of a TV show, we'd dismiss it as nonsense. Sure, the guy in question shaved his body and used make-up in order to look younger but... An adult's body looks nothing like a child's. And that's all I'm gonna say on the subject because, quite frankly, it grosses me out. This whole story's still just absurd though. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but this is pushing it.

Then again you get stuff like Hilary announcing that she'll be running for Prez in 2008, which is something you knew it'd happen eventually, at which point I was sure I had woken up. I'll be rooting for Obama however, because a man with such a skin color, and a last name and middle name ("Hussein") that evokes such negative feelings to Americans, running for President? The dude must have balls of steel. Go Obama!

But then you have to hear some even weirder things again. Quick question, which do you think is the neighborhood with the highest crime rate in the world? You have five seconds... go!

WRONG. I don't care what you answered :P. If you haven't heard this story before, there's no chance you got it right, nuh uh, I ain't believin' ya. Because, you see, the neighborhood with the highest crime rate in the whole world (aren't italics just great?) is...

The Vatican.

I'm not joking. 341 civil and 486 criminal criminal cases in 2006, out of a population of 492! As the article states, that's 1.5 cases per person. Not a bad average, no? I find the whole thing just hilarious, I don't know.

Anyway, speaking of... numbers, let's check out a new all-time low percentage.

Hey, hey, GWB,
How much lower could your approval rating be?

That's right, 28%. Keep it up George, and you'll beat even Nixon! Honestly, I do wonder what it would take for this 28% of people to, you know, not approve of monsieur Bush? I mean, that is, assuming they are familiar with the meaning of the word approve and all that. Okay, now I'm just being a dick, so I'll stop.

So those are the most interesting things that happened while I was in hibernation for the past few days. Oh, and apparently some dude took a piss on his Xbox 360. I swear, stuff like this never happen when I'm conscious. (Edit: Hellfire and brimstone, the pics in the thread died :(. This is why imageshack sucks kids, never use it. No I didn't save the pics, why would I? Ew. The story is true though, I saw the pics. Kinda wish I hadn't. Oh and scroll down a bit in that thread to see the Van Damme .gif, it is made of pure win.)

New Veronica Mars episode coming up tonight! Hopefully it will be worth the wait. Heroes' return last night was good, but a bit too slow for my taste.

Oh and as of today you can leave unregistered comments, unlike before, because people were bitc... commenting about it. I doubt this blog will attract spammers anyway.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes... in the Constitution.

Over the past few months, people here have been getting worked up over the discussion of a possible amendment in Article 16 in the Greek constitution. In its current form, the article states the following:

"University level education is provided exclusively by institutions which are bodies corporate of public law and fully self-governed. The said institutions are under the supervision of the State and entitled to financial support."

So basically, non-state universities that do exist in Greece are practically not fully recognized as such here, especially by the Greek government. I don't want to get in to too many details on this, I'm quite frankly tired of the conversation, each side has some valid points, but in the end it doesn't really matter much. If the EU wants this, or any other law, changed, it will happen. I keep thinking the EU will turn all EVIL OVERLORD OF DOOM on us one day, but for now they still seem pretty benevolent.

Anyway, Article 16 isn't really my main interest in this post, so I'll just say this. I can't help but chuckle a bit whenever I hear all these people talk so passionately against this change, saying it's going to be bad for public education and will only benefit the financial elite, etc. Sure, it's a valid point of sorts, though whether or not our public education can be any worse is definitely up for debate.

Anyway, I keep getting carried away. My point was this: It's funny how people here act like Greece will be the first country in the universe to allow the existence of non-state universities. Really, people. Come on, keep up. It's been like this in other countries for years. And for those that just stumbled in this blog, I graduated from a non-state university. But, I've also spent a year in a state university, so make of that what you will.

Heh, turns out I couldn't help talking about Article 16 after all. I guess it can't be helped since it affects me on a personal level.

But as I said earlier, that wasn't the point of this post. No, my point is about a possible amendment in another article that isn't discussed in news reports by random people all day long, and one that is probably a lot more important, Article 24.

The main part of Article 24 states the following:

"The protection of the physical and cultural environment constitutes an obligation to the State. The State must take special preventive or repressive measures for the conservation thereof. A law shall regulate matters relating to the protection of forests and forest areas in general. Any change in the land uses of public forests or public forest areas shall be prohibited, unless the agricultural use thereof or any other use be beneficial to the national economy or dictated by the national interests."

The most interesting part is the last sentence, and especially the last words. Essentially, the Greek government can change the description of an area from "public forest/public forest area" to whatever else, so that it's no longer protected by law.

Now the current government was trying to make such a change in Article 24, a change that would mean that 40.000.000 square meters of forest area would no longer be protected by law, unless my math is off, which I doubt it is. This isn't just a small forest near a beach that a corrupt politician wants to change into a summer resort. This is a big fucking part of Greece, essential to the entire eco-fucking-system. 'Scuse my language, I get all emo'd up with subjects like this.

At any rate, this change is apparently so big, that even a change in Article 24 is not sufficient in order to remove the protection over the area in question. I don't want to get in to too many details, but these parts of the land are protected for a reason. Selling them off to the highest bidder would not only mean that the ecosystem would be destroyed, but it wouldn't even help the country's economy (if that can ever be seen as a valid reason to mess up the environment we live in) since the people who would buy the land would use it for their own profit*. So we're in a lose-lose situation here.

What I find most frustrating is this discussion wasn't mentioned in the media at all, until last week, and the Parliament was supposed to vote on this change this week. People have been recycling the same nonsense over Article 16 over and over for months, and we weren't even informed about Article 24. Of course, Article 24 and environmental issues generally aren't as catchy as young students getting their panties all in a bunch (oops, so much for playing nice in this post), but come on. We never even heard about a possible constitutional amendment a few days before it almost came to pass? That's retarded.

Luckily, in the end the Parliament voted against the amendment in Article 24, so it seems for now the forests are protected, and I can stop being so angry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some trees to hug.

*Want To Sell: [Broken English]. Please Send Tell. Poor quality guaranteed!

This post is pretty messy and I'm using some strong words, sorry 'bout that. Next time I'm making a long post, I'll make sure to log off MSN first.

The Constitution quotes are taken from http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/gr00000_.html, I'll probably make proper MLA quotes tomorrow, or the day after, mainly for kicks.

Four "ch"'s in "Changes"? Huh.

Random stuff.

God, I love these highly descriptive titles.

This'll be a quick post, because I'm drowning in article deadlines and I'm feeling so goddamn tired lately. Tired enough so I can't do anything decently since I space out after a while, but not tired enough to sleep for a while. Grrr. Anyway, enough whining for one post.

Here's something I found in my mailbox and thought it was sorta interesting and somewhat funny. Edutaining, if you will. The Meatrix. Basically, it's a short documentary made in flash, but with animal characters reprising roles from, you guessed it, the Matrix.

It's almost worth it for the bull called "Moofius", but it does bring up some interesting points as well. It's mostly stuff you've heard before, about the horrible conditions in which the animals that end up in our dinner tables live, and how big corporations are destroying, well, everything and yadda yadda.

Still, it has animals with anthropomorphic characteristics as protagonists, so this makes it a modern fable, of sorts, right? A modern fable, with Moofius.

And then there's this huge list of jokes that the kind people of Games Radio have collected, and trust me when I say it's huge. Sadly, the jokes are all in Greek, so those of you not familiar with the language are kinda screwed. Sorry!

But if you can read Greek, check it out. Given that there's so many jokes in this file, there's bound to be at least a few you'll like. Do ignore the first one if you're not into surreal humor, though. Σοβαρολογώ! /Greek

To Grandmother’s House We Go

I'm totally ripping the title of this post from a similar post in Tom's blog, but it's the truth. I'm off to visit my grandma and the rest of my family and friends in my hometown, possibly getting a 3-day long headache in the process from all the cold and humidity. Good times.

In other news, Saddam Husein was executed earlier this day. Didn't even make it to 2007, poor bastard. Nothing like killing people in order to show that killing people is bad, eh? And yes, Saddam was a piece of shit, but that doesn't justify it.

Happy new year everyone.

Indie Adventure games, part 1.3a.

Small update to my earlier post, since two new games have been released. Not sure what's with the title, though.

Firstly, a game I mentioned in my previous post about indie adventures, the Blackwell Legacy was released yesterday. Having played the previous incarnation of this game, Bestowers of Eternity, I was really looking forward to it. Between Zelda and Sam & Max, I haven't played a lot yet, but so far I'm loving the low-res graphics and music, and of course the story as well, but I already knew I'd like this part. One thing I wasn't too fond of initially was the voice acting, but it grew on me after a while.

Meanwhile, another commercial AGS game was released, Super Jazz Man, by the creators of the Apprentice games. I hadn't realized it was going to be released so fast when I made my earlier post, so this came as a pleasant surprise. It's a commercial game again, but for only 9 bucks, I snatched it without even thinking about it. It's looking really good so far, but again I haven't had much time to spend with it.

Gotta dash, Die Hard is on! Finally something good on TV.

Ruh roh, politics.

I mentioned a while ago that I don't like talking about politics. That's kind of a lie. I like it, but I just tend to avoid it, because I'm not as well informed as I think I should be. I'm weird like that *shrugs*

Anyway, this is going to be one of those times were I discuss politics, since two things have been troubling me for the last couple of days. One of them is kinda serious, the other one not so much. And Pavlos, you're probably not going to like this post, if you ever read it, that is.

As far as the serious topic is concerned, you may have already heard who the "Person of the Year" was according to Time magazine. You. Yes, you. I'll refrain from making any other jokes about it, since it's been done to death already, and I can't beat Jon Stewart in his own game.

Instead, I found something a lot more interesting at the Broken Saints blog (scroll down a bit), which in turn was taken from this blog. Whaddaya know, it's quite possible that the man of the year was actually Venezuelan pres, Hugo Chavez. There's always the chance that 5 Venezuelans and/or Greeks visited the Time site and just pressed F5 on the poll page and we ended up with this result, but that's besides the point, and I'm guessing the people of Time know better than set up an official poll that allows you to vote more than once. Emphasis on the guessing part, however.

No, the point is that Hugo Chavez (not as good a guy as some people would have you think) has become so popular just because he dislikes Bush. Big whoop, everyone with a slightly lower than average IQ is not really fond of him either. And calling him the Devil, classy. Effectively, he's doing what Bush does when he refers to Bin Laden, and yet he criticizes him for his ways. Interesting. *strokes his beard*

Sure, Chavez has done a few good things, I'm not denying that. Even if he did give oil to poor people in NY just to spite the Bush administration, and/or to seem favorable to haters of said administration. And he also intervened when the Argentinian milk company Sancor (2nd biggest in the country) was about to sell the majority of its stocks to an American company the name of which eludes me at the moment. Sancor will have to export milk in powder form to Venezuela for the next 15 years, but hey, at least they'll still be in control of their company.

But to put it in a highly eloquent and articulated way, the dude ain't all that, really. I mean, he's the guy who said during one of he's speeches, "There's God, and after him there's only Chavez." (I may have slightly misquoted this, but that's the gist of what he said.)

Would you feel comfortable with having a guy like this as the leader of your country?

I've never been fond of the "lesser of two evils" concept. In some occasions, you have no real alternative, fair enough. But just because some dude gets on the Republican's nerves, that doesn't make him a hero. He can still be an ass. My enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend, he may still be my enemy as well.

Man, I wanted to say that for years.

On to the less serious thing. There's this little country to the north of Greece. The natives, and pretty much everyone else in the world, call it Macedonia. Greeks (and possibly Cypriots) call it Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM for short), so people don't confuse it with the ancient Macedonia, home of Alexander the Great, something I strangely agree with. We also just call it Scopja, which is the name of its capital, but that's plain wrong.

Now as I was walking through a local street here in Athens, I saw a map of Greece and its nearby countries in a place that was either a car rental company or a travel agency, I forgets. Everything inside that place, map included, was in English, so I'd say that their target group is tourists.

At any rate, on that map, to the north of Greece you could see the magical land of... PGDM. Be there dragons there? I can't really say. Still, I hear you ask "What's a PGDM?" Well, that's the abbreviation of the Greek translation of "FYROM". With Latin characters. So that neither tourists nor Greeks can understand what it means. If the guy who made that map ever reads this, I have this to say to you:

Good job dude, good job.

Independent Adventure Games part 1.

Being a big fan and something of a... connoisseur when it comes to independent adventure games, I figured I'd make a series of posts where I mention the ones that I've found to be the most interesting. For all of you reading this blog (both of you), be sure to check these ones out if you're looking for a good adventure game to play, you'll probably like them. Plus, most of them are totally free!

Enough with the introductions, on with the games! Firstly, the games that have been already released, in no order:

- The Ben Jordan series. Ben is a young paranormal detective, in a series that draws inspiration from TV shows such the X-Files, and the humor of the old-school point & click adventure classics. The graphics of these games are not the best ones around, but the gameplay is solid, and with five games out so far, there's enough here to keep you busy for a while. For more, check out Thaumaturge's reviews here.

- The Apprentice series. Two parts of a planned trilogy are available so far, and these are definitely among the finest independent games out there. Technically sublime (especially the animation), excellent gameplay with logical puzzles, and an interesting storyline. Seriously, if these games were released back in the early 90's, during the time when Adventure games ruled the sales charts, we would still be talking about them.

- The Shivah. A Rabbinical murder mystery, so it's cool by definition. Unlike the rest of the games here, it's not free. But it's only 5 bucks, and with a really good storyline and dialogs, it's really worth the (low, low) price. I've written a review of the Shivah, so read it if you want to know more about it (yes, self-promotion is kinda lame, sue me if you must.)

- Spooks. Join ghoul girl Mortia as she receives a post peculiar prize at the Carnage-Val... A goldfish that's actually alive. Now she needs to find a way to keep it alive, but that's easier than it sounds, when you're stuck in the Land of the Dead.

Okay, my description sucks ass. Just play this game, trust me. It has charming art and an equally charming storyline, genuinely funny jokes and an "innovative use of color", as the game's creator puts it, and she's right ya know. Download here.

- King's Quest 1, 2 and 3 remakes. 256-color remakes of the oldie goldies from the 80's, with a point & click system instead of the old parser. Part 2 includes new puzzles and story elements, and is generally better than the original in any respect.

- Reactor 9. The most recently released game in this list, with excellent low-res graphics and a more mature story than most independent adventure games.

Now moving on to up and coming games, that will be released... at some point. That's the problem with most independent games, since most of them are mainly a hobby for their creators. For that reason, some of the most promising ones are lost to due to a lack of interest/time from their creators' behalf.

- The Blackwell Legacy. I mentioned this in an earlier post, it's a game from the creator of the Shivah, and it's actually coming out in a few days. Rosangela Blackwell is a young woman who unwillingly becomes a medium, destined to help troubled spirits, while figuring out her family's background. This is going to be a series, released in episodic format, something I'm quite excited about. Again, this will not be a free game, but 15 bucks isn't much to ask. I mean, most of us spend twice that much on an average drinking night out, and then break our toes by kicking garbage cans. Okay, perhaps just me on that last one.

- Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth. Remember Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? Arguably the best game ever. FoY is something of an unofficial sequel to that game, utilizing such elements from FoA as the same graphics style, a similar fighting system and, of course, Nazi scum. It's been in development forever, but there's a demo available to tide you over until the eventual full release.

- Ben Jordan: Case 6. Judging from the quality of the previous games, this one will be worth playing as well. There's even a trailer available now.

- Fester Mudd & the Curse of the Gold. I just found out about this recently, but it looks really good with low-res graphics worthy of the early 90's games. Not much is known about this game, beyond the fact that the eponymous hero of the game is a poor, lonesome farmer, who suddenly receives a letter from his long lost brother. Judging from what we've seen so far, I'm guessing there will be a lot of old-school fun to be had with this one.

- Diamonds in the Rough. The fact that the game's title is also the title of a song by Johnny Cash should be enough reason for me to play it, but great looking "2.5" graphics, and promises of a unique "thought" system (similar to a usual inventory) and an intriguing storyline make it sound even more promising.

That's all for now, all these games were created/are being created with the Adventure Game Studio, I didn't really do this on purpose, but it's the engine/community I'm most familiar with. In later similar posts I will mention games created with other engines as well.

Breaking news!

Firstly, Pres. Bush acknowledges what the rest of the world has known for the last three or so years. Not winning in Iraq? Really? Where's my "NO WAI" owl...

Secondly, the full trailer for 300 is out. Or rather, has been out for 600 years, and I just forgot to mention it here. So badass. What's with the fighting Uruk-Hai though?

Thirdly, a question. Why is Michael Bay directing a live-action Transformers movie? Yes, I just found out about this today, this is the breaking news section, keep up. Back to my point; why does god let things like this happen?

And yes, I changed the layout of the blog a bit. I think navigation is better this way.

Another post coming later today (two posts on one day?! Zomg bbqnubsauce roflcakes!!1eleventhirtyeight)

Concerning Pieces of Heart. All five of them.

Another long gap between posts. Grumble. At least my first (and for the foreseeable future, last) semester as a graduate student is over, so I should have less stuff to freak out about, for now.

So I finally got Zelda like 5 days ago. I also got Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance along with it but I haven't even opened the box yet. I will, eventually, but not before I've finished Zelda. I was thinking of making a thread about Zelda earlier, and update it as I progressed in the game, but I figured I'd rather just play the damn game first.

But anyway, since I'm here, I might as well post some of my early opinions about the game, being 8 hours in the game, so roughly 1/6 through. I've only First of all, the graphics are astounding for a Gamecube game. The animation is slightly disappointing initially, especially when compared to Wind Waker, but it's generally very good, especially during cut-scenes. Link's walking animation still looks weird, however. :/

The music themes are incredible. MIDI, shmidi, who cares, as long as the music is good. A lot of familiar themes make a welcome comeback, and the music in the Twilight areas is just amazing. Moody, eerie, almost scary at times.

Which is what has made the biggest impression on me so far. The Twilight Princess is incredibly gloomy for a Zelda game. There have always been dark elements in the storylines of previous Zelda games, such as the future version of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, but they had never been so well-presented before. Not just because the graphics are better, the whole game is directed in a very professional, for lack of a better word, way, and it really makes a difference.

The storyline so far is interesting as far as Zelda games go, but nothing spectacular. Which is hardly surprising, Zelda storylines are nice, but never their strongest point. And the dialogs are sometimes cringe-worthy, but hey, it's a videogame about a young man saving the world, what can you do?

Gameplay is classic Zelda fare, with a few twinks here and there such werewolf-Link A.K.A. Gabriel Knight wannabe providing with some really nice touches, like talking to animals and digging holes in the ground for cash and alternative routes around. I've encountered some quite clever puzzles too, which are always welcome.

My only real problem with this game so far is the fact that, like Majora's Mask and the Wind Waker before it, it's lacking the majestic feeling that the Hyrule Field of Ocarina of Time provided. You know, that feeling of amazement you got the first time you left Kakariko (what a name!) village and found a field so vast it just took your breath away. Exaggerating a bit here, but whatever. In TP, Hyrule field (at least the one I've come across so far) is big, but nothing awe-inspiring... Perhaps even smaller than the one in OoT, I should plug my N64 back and check it out. And the starting village is slightly larger than Kakariko village in OoT, which is again disappointing. I'm being a bit anal here, and hopefully the next areas will be more open, but this feeling of having a huge world to explore was my favorite thing about my favorite Zelda game ever (Ocarina of Time, as if you didn't guess), and that was 8 years ago. It's about time I stopped reminiscing about it, and started talking about a new Zelda game that did it better instead. Make it happen Nintendo!

Oh, I'm also playing Sam & Max Situation: Comedy these days, but I can't speak about that yet. Lawlz.

I'm almost glad The Blackwell Legacy got delayed for a week, otherwise I wouldn't know what to play first.

P.S.

For those wondering why I've disappeared from WoW (that still being World of Warcraft), my account expired and I have no interest in renewing it for the time being. Everybody's gotten the "gotta get new gear" fever, only to later realize it's not that easy to get the whole PvP set after all so they just do what the average WoW-player does best: whine about it. Even worse, with the latest patch we got buggy (and old) talents, PvP balance being thrown out the window, and battlegrounds with ridiculous lag (5 seconds on average), it just feels like I'm paying to play a beta. Thanks, but I'll pass.

I'm expecting the early days of the Burning Crusade (the upcoming expansion to WoW) to be exactly the same, if not worse. So unless I get the need to play again because real life friends are playing, for something else besides gear, it will probably be a while before I buy it.

P.P.S.

Was that a... dildo advertisement I just heard on the radio? O.o

Holy crap it's been long.

Holy crap it's been long. So long I need to say this twice to emphasize it. November's been a weird month, and it went by so fast I coulda sworn I was just hibernating through it.

So after waking from my hibernation, I found out that the Wii has been launched in the States and is about to be launched in Europe as well, and I still don't have the money for it. Le sigh.

On to something more interesting, Will Wright (creator of the Sims) appeared on the Colbert Report last night, of all places. The whole segment was a bit awkward, and he didn't reveal anything interesting about Spore, which kinda sucked. Still not sure what to make of that game. Come to think of it, this bit wasn't all that interesting either. Ah, well.

However, Stephen Colbert did reveal that not only is the actress portraying the Virgin Mary in the Nativity Story pregnant (with a little help from Archangel Michael), she is also giving birth to a boy on the 25th of December. Hey, Stephen said it so you know it's true. And you know what that means. Time to repent, heathens!

Also, two days till Zelda, bitches! Ahem, sorry. But the idea of a new Zelda game after all these years (just 2, if you count Minish Cap as you should) but it's still giving me a total nerdrection.

Now if only my papers would write themselves, as we previously agreed. Hmph.

Veronica Mars supplementary.

Okay since for some reason I couldn't embed two videos in one post, I decided to use the lazy man's option and make another post just for this video. This is the one that shows the darker edge of the show, but before you watch this go read the previous post first, it'll make more sense that way. Uhh, I think.



George out.

The obligatory "Go watch Veronica Mars!" post.

It's kind of disturbing that I haven't mentioned this show already, given that I use this blog to talk about things I like, and Veronica Mars is pretty much my favorite show ever. Oh well, better late than never I guess. Here's a first taste of what it's like:



As you may have already guessed from the above video, VM is a character driven show. Singular, character, the main emphasis is on the eponymous heroine herself, though most other characters are well developed as well. And I don't mean character-driven in the Lost-"We'll tease you with shitloads of information & puzzles that we'll probably never fully reveal because this show is all about the characters dummy" way, thank the gods. There are still several plots going around, which are for the most part really interesting and well-developed, though the writers seem to lose focus when it comes to the end resolution of a season sadly. But in its heart, VM is the story of a young girl who's forced to enter maturity earlier than she has to, after her best friend is brutaly murdered and she herself is raped soon thereafter, and the subsequent effect that these events have on her life and her interaction with others.

My favorite description of VM is "Teen Noir", in fact it was the use of this term that made me want to see what the deal with this show is (I'm a fan of all things Noir). And it's true, despite having a teenage girl as the protagonist, the show is true to the rest of the "rules" of Noir. The protagonist is a brooding misanthropist, yet not all that bad when you get to know her, and her off-the-camera depictions of events give a unique twist to the usual "quirky teen drama" TV genre. I'll post another video that depicts this darker side of the show on a subsequent post.

Currently in its third (and sadly, most likely last due to lack of viewers) season, Veronica Mars is a show that shows just how good quality TV can be. The writing is excellent, fully of funny one-liners, hilarious innuendo and likeable, if not loveable, characters. Sure, as I said already the writers seem to mess up season finales (season 1 was passable, disappointing for the most part with just the last 10 minutes being exceptionally good, while season 2 was almost disastrous), season 2 was inconsistent quality-wise, and season 3 has had a series of good episodes but no great ones so far... But that does not change the fact that VM is one of the best shows of recent years, and definitely one of the most overlooked ones.

It's really mind-boggling how a show that's well written, has received ridiculously high praise from Pop-culture heroes such as Kevin Smith, Stephen King and Josh Whedon, and also stars a seriously hot and likeable girl fails to attract audiences... Oh well, at least we'll have 3 high-quality seasons and the show won't drag on unnecessarily, I guess that's something.

So yeah, go watch Veronica Mars, now! That's an order, private!

In other, earth-shattering news, being sick sucks. You heard it here first, folks.

The greatest film in the history of films...

... is almost upon us. I'm talking about Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny.

I mean, where else will you find two batshit insane people (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) on an epic adventure which involves Satan, Meatloaf, Sasquatch, Ronnie James Dio and of course, the Pick of Destiny? Nowhere, that's where.

Having seen the first six minutes of the movie, and a music video (not posting any links, but you should know where to look), I hereby declare the Pick of Destiny as the best movie in the entire multiverse. Take that, Earth 616! Ehm, anyway.

Silliness aside, Jack Black and Kyle Gass, the two members of Tenacious D are indeed the bestest. They understand rock music on an almost profound level, and know well enough to take either it or themselves seriously, so the result is pure, unadulterated hilarity. Also, there can be no disputing that a movie is awesome when it includes a song with these lyrics:

"The wizard and the demon had a battle royal,
The demon almost killed him with an evil kapow,
But then he broke his tooth and thus the Demon said 'Ow!'"

Seriously, Citizen Kanewho?

That's it for this week, life's as crazy as ever lately, so yeah. In the D we Trust.

A Kitty Pryde special.

Being a full-fledged geek means you have to invest your time in all aspects of geekdom, including comic books. Who am I to differ? And since I really need a break from... writing, I’ve decided to make the following post to praise one of the finest X-Men ever, Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, A.K.A. Shadowcat.



I deliberately chose a huge-ass picture for the extra emphasis it implies.

So what's the deal with Kitty anyway? First of all, I’ve always loved the name. Simple as that. Cats are cool, pride is definitely not a bad thing, combine the two and presto! You get a name that’s definitely going to get the audience interested in a character. Or just me, anyway. But wait, there’s more; Kitty has one of the best mutant superpowers ever, she can “phase” through any solid object, and can use her power to float, which is almost as good as flying. Through the use of her powers, she can also short-circuit electronic equipment and knock people unconscious.

Kitty is also a trained ninja, and is proficient in both martial arts and sword-fighting. Not to mention that she once punched that despicable bitch Emma Frost on the face.

She’s also one of the smartest people in the Marvel universe, up there with Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, Tony Stark, Peter Parker and the rest. It’s also important to note that she’s the only woman who belongs in that group.

Also, by comic book standards, she’s not that much hotter than the average female, I mean, have you seen most superheroines? Kitty’s a lot more realistic.

Last but not least, she has a pet dragon, ‘nuff said on that. Pedants would argue that Lockheed is an alien being resembling a dragon, but if it looks like a dragon and breathes fire like a dragon, it’s a fucking dragon. So as far as superheroes are concerned, Kitty fulfils all the “cool” aspects.

But being the English graduate that I am, my fondness of Kitty is also owed to her value as a literary character. Let’s not get carried away, we are still talking about comic books here and not literature of the Victorian era, so I’m not claiming that Ms. Pryde is anything beyond a really cool comic book character.

That being said, she’s a lot more important as a character than your usual superhero, even when compared to the most high-profile ones, such as X-men mainstrays Cyclops and Wolverine, Batman and definitely Superman. Fucking boyscout. At any rate, what separates Kitty from the aforementioned heroes is the fact that she is not as well defined as them.

Superman will always be the boyscout, Cyclops will always be a born leader and little else, while both Batman and Wolverine are brooding loners, for example. These, among many others, are a few defining characteristics that have not changed and will not change as long as they are around. Not only that, but they don’t really age either. While Wolvie does not age like a normal human does, and Supes just doesn’t age period, Cyclops, Batman and many many others are as old now as they were when they were first introduced, perhaps 5-10 years older tops, but usually that is not reflected in their storylines. They may have changed somewhat over the years, but their defining character features are the same.

Not so with Kitty. While she has aged slower than a normal human being (she should be in her late 40’s now instead of her early to mid 20’s, but my math is usually off) she has still aged, and that is really visible in her character. When she was first introduced, she was a shy, timid, trusting 13 year old, completely lost in the new world of super-beings that was laying ahead of her. Who wouldn’t feel lost, really?

Then as the years passed, she grew older, and inadvertedly, became more confident, more outspoken, yet also less trusting, more jaded, more dark. Little Kitty became a Cat. And us, the readers, grew older alongside her (as it goes, I read my first X-men story when I was 13, and it was one of the first stories to feature Kitty) and we can still relate with her, we can relate to her new fears and frustrations as they are pretty much our own.

In the first issue of the current-running volume of Astonishing X-men there is a beautiful segment where Kitty comes back to the Xavier Mansion after a long absence, and takes a “trip down the memory lane” as it were by reliving certain scenes from older X-men comics, but she’s not alone. We too are reminded of earlier times, when we were reading those same stories. Too mushy? I’ll stop, you get the point.

This is what makes Kitty Pryde such a great character, arguably one of the deepest that can be found in comic books. She’s still too perfect to be completely realistic; superhuman powers, incredible intellect and martial-arts prowess? Not that common in real life.

But over the years she has become much more than that. Good writers like Josh Whedon that get her character know this. She can be a wise-ass and a cynic, yet sometimes as timid as when she was a young girl. She can save the rest of the X-men team from certain death through her actions, yet she can also be frightened to death at times. She has changed a lot over the years, yet she’s still the same person she was when she first joined the X-men.

That’s what makes her so real, she’s complicated, her character doesn’t have to conform to any pre-determined behavior patterns. In a sense, Kitty reflects the readers themselves, growing older alongside them, changing her perspective of things as years go along. And she’s often the voice of reason, in a universe that sometimes makes little sense to the average reader (Emma “Uberbitch” Frost as an Ethics professor? Are you kidding me?)

So yes, Kitty Pryde, she’s cool.



And yes, in case you’re wondering -and I’m sure you are, I did have a crush on Kitty as a kid. Don’t tell me you didn’t have any meaningless, childish crushes on fictional characters when you were younger, I’m not buying it. And if you really didn’t, you may want to look into that. You may be too normal for your own good.

I’ve ranted enough for now, and I have a paper to return to. If you want to know more about Kitty, check out this really detailed article from Uncanny X-men.net.