Online Arguments: Serious Business

http://kotaku.com/5621295/

Oh, you silly humans and your "Hunting down and attacking a man who insulted you while playing Halo." (And yes, I know that it was a PS3 game they were playing, and therefore could not be Halo. Quiet down with your facts).

Predators

After the horror that was Damios’s post, I feel that we need something to repair our brains. You can start by listening to this.

Now to continue the therapy, by talking about something very unlike Ms. Glitter Demon. That is, “Predators”, by Robert Rodriguez. The film, released last month (Yes, I’m a bit behind the times. Shut up.) was made as a sequel/spiritual successor to the original “Predator” film, with the intention of taking it back to its roots.

I should warn you now, I have never seen the original Predator. A horrible crime, I know, especially when I’ve seen most of Ahnold’s other famous movies. I am familiar with most of the memes that spawned from the film, but apart from that, this review will be from the eyes of someone new to the franchise.

The premise of the film is simple. Six of the world’s best killers (and a doctor), ranging from Spetsnaz to Yakuza (why does spellcheck hate Spetsnaz, but not Yakuza?), are dropped onto an alien planet, where they are hunted as game by three aliens. No time is wasted in establishing this premise either; film starts, people are dropped out of the sky onto the planet, everyone gets together, and we get into the action.

“Predators” does exactly what it tells you it’s going to do, and no more: Provide 1 hour 47 minutes of human versus Predator action in an alien jungle, filled to the brim with action and testosterone. There’s nothing else going for it; the plot is simple, the characters are flat, and there’s no message the director is trying to give us. But that type of manly awesomeness is what the Predator franchise does best, and “Predators” is very, very good at it. There’s no mystery for the audience when we walk into the theater. We know exactly what’s going on when all the characters find themselves on the planet, even if they themselves don’t know. Even people like me, who haven’t seen the original films, are so familiar with the concept that we don’t need anything to be told to us. The film knows this, and works with it amazingly. It’s as though Transformers had just compressed everything with the human characters and their silly human stories into 10 minutes, and then had spent the rest of the film in a huge battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. It’s nothing but cheap action and suspense, but it’s good cheap action and suspense.

And here I need mention Hanzo. Hanzo, played by Louis Ozawa Changchien, is a Yakuza enforcer. He singlehandedly outbadasses every other character in the group. I now feel that Damios’s talks about how amazing the Yakuza are how now been justified, as from the moment he steps down onto the planet, in his clean, white suit, every action he does is filled with awesome. This is despite the fact that he has among the fewest speaking lines out of every other character (which really only adds to his badassness). And towards the end of the film, he succeeds in outdoing every other character from the Predator franchise by (spoilers ahead) fighting and defeating a Predator in single combat WITH A KATANA. Yes. A katana. No traps, no tricks, no camouflage, he stands out in a field, waits for the Predator to come, and then fights it. With a katana. I feel that has to be reemphasized.


“Predators” is nothing but action oriented fun; that’s all it succeeds at being, and that’s all it tries to be. There is absolutely no reason at all to go and see it unless you want over an hour and a half of violence and testosterone, but if that’s what you want to see, hell yeah go and watch it. And then bask in the manliness that flows outward from the screen, as you chop down a tree and eat a shattered glass and rusty nails sandwich.

And I never thought I would describe a movie with Adrien Brody in the lead role as manly….

The Death and Post-Mortum Rape of Music

I consider myself a fairly decent music reviewer. Yes, I have very particular musical tastes, and I make them well known. But even with genres I don't like, I can appreciate music for what it is. For example, I greatly dislike pop, but I can respect Lady Gaga for writing her own music rather than having it written by the Matrix like everyone else in mainstream music does nowadays. And I don't even mind all that much if someone else writes your music as long as everyone accepts the real intent behind it. I don't hold it against performers like Miranda Cosgrove, or even the dreaded Miley Ray Cyrus, because it's a big marketing tie-in by the television networks. This is fine. It's to be expected, it's a way to make money, and it's a way to have little kids get more involved in their programming. I don't take it seriously and I move on, like most people eventually do. I like to remind those who think real music is dying that fads come and go like they have since the music industry became huge. Let's face it folks, if you don't think that the 70's and 80's had shitty music, you're blinded by nostalgia. And that, too, is fine! I've embraced it! Look, my favorite incredibly shitty 80's synth pop song of all time is a living drug PSA! I can't recommend that song enough, for the record. So I always said what I've always said about mainstream music, that contrary to popular belief it's not getting any worse.

Today, I just ate my fucking words. I watched Ke$ha's latest music video.

To preface this as a form of self defense, I got to the video in a cracked.com article. I read it not knowing at all who Ke$ha was prior to reading the article. Never even heard the name. Read through it all in a manner of minutes. The complaints in the article about the lyrics and autotune were so par-for-the-course that it just kind of left me unimpressed. "WOW, you mean a pop star used gratuitous AUTOTUNE?! I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE THE DAY!" At the bottom of the article was a link to a music video of hers, so I figured I'd click it and give it a whirl. I expected it to sound exactly like Britney Spears, or Miranda Cosgrove, or Miley Cyrus, or Victoria Justice, or whoever else is big nowadays.

Please don't watch this. If you must watch, wait until the end of the article. I feel I am legally obligated to provide a link to the video I watched. But I can't stress this enough, don't click the video.

If you watched it against my warnings, then you might as well stop reading now because you know. You understand. You realize what's so...just...wrong about this...soundscape and you don't need another couple of paragraphs reminding you of the trauma you just witnessed. In fact, I'm begging you to turn away from this post and just go ahead and enter the shower to wash away the shame. Reading a whole blog post about what you just had to endure is comparable to forcing a rape victim to watch the video of her experience. And to those of you who wisely chose not to watch the video and read this paragraph, YES IT REALLY IS THAT BAD!

I really wanna single out the autotune for starters. I know earlier I said every pop star and their little brother uses it, but I never thought I'd see the day when someone's singing would be so bad that even fucking autotune couldn't mutilate it into something passable and not offensive to the human ear. I liken autotune to a miraculous device that can squeeze clean, drinkable water out of animal droppings. And yet somehow this would-be-diva's bullshit is so toxic and foul that no matter how hard you try and wring something worth enjoying out of it, you can't. I'm serious. I really can't even put into words what her voice sounds like, because no one on earth has ever failed this spectacularly at making music with a full multi-million dollar production team behind them, so I have no point of comparison. If robots could have sex, Ke$ha's voice on autotune would sound like one crying rape. In fact, that's almost a perfect way to describe her voice. Imagine an entire song being sung by the female version of Robocop. No, seriously! If you make the mistake of going back to listen, please tell me how "Female Robocop" is not the best way to describe her autotune. And I don't mean the first 10 seconds of the video that is distorted, I mean her actual...ick, I'm hesitant to call it singing...

Oh, and then there's the music itself. Remember that song little kids used to sing on the playground, the "There's a place in France" tune? Yep, she basically turned the beat from that into a fully-fledged song. That's not just lazy, that's spectacular. That's not simply "not trying," that's trying extra hard core at "not trying." It's like she thought to herself "Hey, how can I show the musical world that I couldn't give less of a fuck about it's integrity? Oh, I know! I'll do dirty children's tunes!" Is it seriously that fucking hard to have someone write a few new original riffs?

And don't even get me started on the fucking lyrics. "Dirty version of kids tunes" doesn't just cover sound. The Chorus? "There's a place downtown where the freaks all come around. It's a hole in the wall, it's a dirty free for all." And then, "There's a place I know if you're lookin' for a show...where they go hard core, and there's glitter on the floor!" Yep. Let that sink in. She must mean "hard core" in the porno sense of the term, because when I think of hard core shows, my mind goes back to the shows I went to that I considered "hard core." There wasn't glitter on the floor, there was blood, and lots of it. There weren't strobe lights, there were torches. And afterwards I didn't smell like sex, I smelled like cigarettes, vomit, and dead animals. Then again, I imagine the outcome of a Ke$ha concert would smell very similar to that if you're standing in the front row.

It will take three days of scrubbing to remove the smell of dead fish from your clothes.

Then there's the actual video. It starts off with a really boring clip of her running around, hopping over cars with her friends for no apparent reason...in fact, that part was kind of funny. I'm not sure why her friends walk to the car, jump ontop of it, walk across the hood, and then jump off and continue walking. It's the only car in the fucking parking lot, and yet they singled it out as their own personal area rug. Is it even theirs? If that bitch got anywhere near my car, much less stand on top of it for kicks, her sorry ass would be chained to the back getting dragged at 120 miles her hour while I'm blaring real fucking music through the speakers. But I digress. Stupid as that bit is, it's not really noteworthy. Nor is the gigantic free-for-all tag game that takes place in the entire upper lot of the hotel. Again, I'm forced to wonder what the point is. Aren't there other places to play tag, where you're less likely to piss off someone who is likely just trying to get some sleep? I'd write something about what I'd do to her if she woke me up in the middle of the night at a hotel with a game of tag, but I've already included a car dragging murder scene. I feel if I wrote a violent threat every time she did something stupid then this whole piece would just devolve into a gory murder fantasy.

Regardless, if you get past that and the part where they throw trashcans around (those horny rebels), you get to the pool scene. This is where everyone starts ripping off eachother's clothes in a haphazard fashion. Then, all of the sudden, tension! A young man and a young woman eye eachother from across the pool...no sorry, same side of the pool...with intense animal passion! Unable to restrain their physical urges, they run towards each other to meet, and as they leap into the air to embrace, they explode in a gigantic poof of pink and blue sand!...yes, you read correctly. They explode upon contact into tons of gender-color-coded sand. Yes, to YOU it may seem non-sensical, but to the mind of a lyrical genius like Ke$ha, whose entire song amounts to a naughty little kids version of a naughty little kid's song, the multi-colored explosion has deep symbological meaning! In this case...yeah. Sex. I get it, two people of opposite gender bump into eachother and you get sex. There have been stupider metaphors for orgasm before. I get that. So we'll just pan to the next scene, where for some unexplained reason Ke$ha is covered in pink and blue sand...wait. Wait. Didn't we just establish that the sand explosion was a metaphor for sexual climax? So if your face is covered in it then...what the Hell? Is that something to be proud of? Fuck, I'm starting to think I've put too much thought into this. Ok, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's not a metaphor. Maybe she never figured out what a metaphor is. But if that's the case, we are only left with a literal interpretation of the previous scene,which would indicate that the sand is just what used to be that one guy and that one chick. So which is it Ke$ha? Is your face and hair caked with sexual fluids, or the crushed remains of your now dead friends?

And then it gets better! The sand is EVERYWHERE! It coats the walls of the pool, the floor, other people...Not only am I not sure why everyone is dancing in it and slathering themselves in it (a disturbing thought given I still don't know what the fuck that stuff is), but I don't know where the Hell it's coming from. From what I've seen, the only place it comes from is head on collisions between members of the opposite sex. Are people dying off screen to provide you with sex juice/decomposed bodies for your own amusement? Camera pans to Ke$ha, who know has less colored sand on her face for no explainable reason, and then to a disturbing scene where out of a pile of sand on the ground merges and reforms the two lovers from the first scene. Holy fuck! Is this necromancy or did the giant mixture of toxic splooge create some type of primordial ooze from which these invertebrate life-forms spawned? I don't know whether I'm watching the end of the world or the origin of life according to Ke$ha. Either way this shit is more fucked up than anything I've read in the Bible, and God ordered the Isrealites to smash the heads of Babylonian babies in with rocks. Which, according to the Transitive property, means watching Ke$ha is more fucked up than cracking open a baby's skull.

Course, I seem to be the only person disturbed by this Caligula-esque display of hotel pool orgy fun. Everyone is throwing the sand at everyone else, sprinkling it around themselves, at some point the sand becomes glitter which I don't even question...she dons on some random fur coat while everyone else is gorging themselves in the pool, only to immediately take it off. I'd make a snarky comment, but my head is still wrapped around the mystery sand. But then, suddenly, we are given an answer! A young man standing outside the pool reaches in and grabs a young girl who desperately wants to escape this Hellish carnal nightmare, when all of the sudden she rips his arm from him and blue sand pours out of the stump where his hand used to be! YES! YES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE THE ANSWER! Ke$ha MYSTERY SAND IS PEOPLE! Rest easy that Ke$ha doesn't party in vats of semen, but in tubs filled with dead bodies! This discovery almost made me miss the part where a young man dancing gradually has his limbs randomly turn into sand...which is kind of disturbing. I guess he tore his own hands off in some drug-fueled revelry, but whatever!

Though, this does leave the question of what the glitter was. If dead bodies made the sand, what made the glitter? Well, Ke$ha is never one to leave her...audience...unsatisfied, so she did indeed decide to bare all and show us just what the source of her special glitter is. She reaches into her chest to a zipper...a zipper attached to her flesh, which she begins to unzip down. And as she does, glitter pours out of her chest wound, and her arms gradually dissolve away into even more glitter. But...but...I thought dead human bodies made sand? Or...wait...are you trying to tell me that Ke$ha isn't HUMAN? Yes! That must be it! It all makes sense now! So the glitter is the remains of Ke$ha's rapidly deteriorating non-human body! The same glitter that she insisted covered the floor of all her hard core shows...holy fuck, she was describing her own decaying body!

But why, why bathe in the dead bodies of humans? It's a very rare practice that wasn't often done even as far back as history. The only time I can specifically think of is the great Countess Elizabeth Bathory who would bathe in the blood of virgins to stop her body from aging. And that doesn't make sense within the context of that legend. For one thing, the people in that pool definitely weren't virgins, as they were kind of in a gigantic orgy, and for another Ke$ha still dissipated away...wait. No. No. It all makes sense. She dissipated because they all lost their virgin status in the pool! Ke$ha is Elizabeth Bathory! Then...at the beginning...that wasn't a game of tag they were playing at all! THEY WERE KNOCKING ON THE DOORS OF THE ABANDONED HOTEL IN A DESPERATE SEARCH FOR HELP AGAINST ELIZABETH BATHORY! And so they must have resigned themselves to their fate at the end and decided to deny her her feast and destroy her once and for all by engaging in a massive orgy to deny her sustenance! IT ALL MAKES SENSE! Ke$ha IS COUNTESS BATHORY, AND SHE IS NO MORE! Countess Bathory is dead! Long live Countess Bathory!

Or maybe I'm giving her too much credit. Maybe, just maybe, she's a shitty and talentless pop star who has an unhealthy and rather childish obsession with glitter and bright colors.

Yeah. I'll go with that.

Anywho, I realize a lot of this sounded like a bad attempt at humor, and my description of the actual music segued into a ridiculous story about Ke$ha being a many times over dead Hungarian Countess. But I wasn't trying to sound funny. It's really just awful. It was mostly my bitterness pouring out over how little I like her, because it's like no one even tried to make this sound good, and yet it's selling like fucking hot cakes. I truly do not understand anything about her fame and how she came to be who and what she is. If you don't believe me and you're fine with the distinct possibility of never being able to enjoy music ever again, by all means go back up to the top and try out the video. You'll totally regret it.

China Beats Japanese Economy, and Thoughts On New York Mosque

So, for starters there's this bit of important news. A lot of their economic strength, according to the article, comes from how much debt the U.S. owes to them. The nice thing is that they've come into all of this purchasing power now while they still have a lot of room to develop. That money can go towards infrastructure, urban development, building schools, so on and so forth. Not bad for a country with "a fifth of the world’s population and insufficient resources." Glad to see China is progressing well.

And then there's this week's non-issue, the Mosque at Ground Zero. I call it a non-issue because in my mind there doesn't seem to be a decent reason for this to be legally questionable. Government can't just opt not to allow a Mosque to be built there for purely religious reasons. You see, the First Amendment's "Freedom of Religion" aspects come with two distinct clauses, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.

Establishment Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"
Free Exercise Clause: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

If the government steps in and prohibits the building of this Mosque, then it is in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by definition. Congress would make a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. As a member of the smallest and most hated religious minority in America (and perhaps even the world), I'm pretty sensitive about this sort of thing. I'm definitely not pleased.

That being said, I'm confused as to how someone thought building a Mosque next to Ground Zero would be a good idea. Not that I believe such a bigoted opinion is right, as I feel that it isn't fair to stereotype Muslims as terrorists and suicide bombers. I may be harsh about the Middle East and Islam given the sheer volume of terrorist organizations they've got listed (see for yourself), but that in no way speaks for the majority. Yes, I've vocally stated that I'm very upset the moderate elements of Islam don't do more to combat the violent extremist image. That's still no excuse for typecasting Muslims.

Now that that's out of the way, I do feel it's only fair to point out that when grieving, people aren't exactly the most "rational." People are upset about the ordeal. So I really have to wonder about the mindset of the group that wanted to erect an Islamic building in that location. Maybe they had a permit to build there prior to 9/11, and in that case then I'd be very sorry that the terrorist hijackers have made things much more difficult on them than need be. Defending the building of that Mosque would be a matter of protecting finances as well as being right, which is twice the reason to do so. But if not, then I'd figure someone in the community had to think "Gee, there might be some backlash for this decision. Maybe some left over anger and resentment." Which makes it almost seem like trolling. Not that they wouldn't be in the right, mind you. They would still completely deserve the place like everyone else. I'm just jaded and cynical, so this comes off as suspicious in my mind. Then again, I've not really met the leaders of the Islamic community that want the Mosque built, so I can't speak for their character. At the end of the day, it's all speculation, and irrelevant speculation at that. Point is, whether you're talking about rightness in the legal sense or in the not-being-a-bigot sense, there doesn't stand much of a reason not to let the Mosque be built.

Twitter Experiment Pt. II

So, after fidgeting about and realizing I'm not very tech savy, or social, I realized that I might not be getting the full Twitter experience. So I was thinking that maybe I could invite some of you, my readers, to join this little Twitter experiment with me. To that end, I invite anyone and everyone who may be interested to create a Twitter account and try it out for a month or so with me. At the end of the month (or whenever everyone involved agrees we've figured out pretty well how Twitter works individually), everyone writes a review write up which will get posted as part of a super mega collaborative effort on the Extremists.

Feel free to join in and leave your Twitter URL here in the comments section and I'll add. Have fun, all!

Twitter Experiment

So I've decided to give Twitter a shot. You might have caught one of my previous rants about how much I dislike Twitter's interface and how hostile it is to users, but in all fairness I haven't used it since like 2006. I figure one more attempt won't hurt any.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is because of how I use my FB anyways. I'm not much into pictures, picture comments, and the likes. For the most part I just post interesting and random shit I find throughout the day. If there's anything I feel like exploring, I go into a bit more detail with the Well Intentioned Extremists. So I was basically using my FB for what Twitter is supposed to be designed for. Who knows, if this works out my Facebook might fall to the wayside. I was never a big fan anyways. I tried to delete it twice, but others insisted I keep it. Omega whined about how difficult it would be to keep track of me. Though I'm flattered, for the record. I feel so loved!

The plan for right now is to try it out for a month or something and then write a bit about the experience. Maybe this time I'll figure out how Twitter works better. Maybe I'll release it was as unpleasant, confusing, and unnecessary as I first thought. But hey, exploration is always a good thing. You'll never know until you try.

So anywho, if you have a Twitter, feel free to "follow" me or whatever. I'll do the same.

http://twitter.com/FraterOphionoi

(I have way too many aliases)

Another Hero

Some of you may have heard of Steven Slater, a Jet Blue flight attendant who did what everyone who has worked in the service industry has always wanted to do. If you haven't, I'll let Colbert explain.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/343699/august-10-2010/alpha-dog-of-the-week---steven-slater

Steven Slater, for your service to employed Americans everywhere, I salute you!

Super Villains! But Of Course!

Yes, that's right, someone decided that now that there's a whole bunch of super heroes out there, we need some SUPER VILLAINS! That's right, a super villain page built as a response to the World Superhero Registry. With super villains.

Kill me now, please.

Real...Life...Superheroes...Sort of...

http://kotaku.com/5611331/nerdy-real-life-superheroes-to-keep-city-safe-from-bullies-jocks

Oh wow. I don't even have words for this.

Alright, in all fairness I can appreciate the desire to become a vigilante and strike out against crime and all, but seriously...watch those videos. Watch the Dark Guardian (ohhhhh boy...yes, that is his super hero name) get towered over by a drug dealer. Watch his reaction when he realizes that drug dealer could crush his windpipe with one hand. And notice how his response is to call the cops? Do you really need a fancy costume and ridiculous name just to phone in the police?

And then notice Shadow Hare and his team. I really want to know exactly what a bunch of teenagers who range from pudgy to skinny, who have absolutely no muscle between them to speak of, and who seem to not even have any protection besides their hand-sown costumes, can do to a coked out drug dealer.

Oh, and they totally have a website where you register and form a team. I'm not even kidding. Please, have a look see at these profiles. I like how they actually have an "Arch-Enemy" section. So far only one person has filled that section with anything other than "None." That guy is the Tothian, whose "Arch-Enemy" is Osama Bin Laden. I shit you not.

Ugh...Like I said, I really really wish I could say that I support this, but please...have a look. I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're gonna do something like becoming a costumed vigilante, please actually do all the necessary work and take the correct precautions. Don't put on a costume and cape and assume you can take on the world with your well meaning demeanor. The world has guns. You will lose. If you have to, please exercise, learn free running, learn a martial arts, carry real weapons, and don't announce your presence to the world. Otherwise...ugh.

The Path

Well, this blog seems to be alive again. And since we have a large Omega symbol at the top of the page, and the word “Extremists” is plural, I have a nagging feeling of responsibility to at least make an effort to contribute. Although I would like to comment on my annoyance that, when Damios makes a post filled with girls he considers attractive, the responses are “Hawt” and “I’d tap that”, yet whenever I do something similar, the responses instead are “You sick bastard!” and “I’m calling Chris Hansen!” Seriously, what gives?

Anyways, onto the subject. “The Path” is an art/horror computer game created by Tales of Tales, which can be downloaded online for $10. The game confuses me; at the start, I am given a choice of six girls to play as, all with names based on “Red”. You appear on a path in the middle of a forest, with the instructions to go to Grandma’s house, and not leave the path. Being the obedient person I am, I have consistently followed these instructions to the letter, going straight down the path, for the 1-2 minutes it takes to reach the house. Then the game ends, and tells me that I failed. Very confusing. But at least I have the comfort in knowing that I did what I was told.

Okay, serious review now. Technically, everything I said above is true. In case “Grandma’s House” and the names based on red didn’t tip you off, the game is (another) gothic take on Little Red Riding Hood. The only way to actually play the game is to completely disregard your instructions, and leave the path to explore the forest. Exploring the forest makes up the core of the gameplay, although gameplay may not be the correct term. The Path isn’t a traditional game; there are no enemies, puzzles, or challenges at all really. The goals are vague, especially since the ones stated by the game aren’t the ones you’re supposed to actually follow. Most of your time is spent just wandering around the woods, looking for landmarks. Depending on the girl you’re playing as, approaching different objects/landmarks may trigger a reaction from her, and let you read her thoughts (which is where a lot of the characterization for each girl comes from). If you wander enough (Or if you’re feeling lazy, and just make a beeline for the wolf paw print on your screen) you’ll encounter the Wolf. Each girl has a different Wolf, and for only one of them is it an actual wolf. After meeting the Wolf, a cutscene plays, and the screen fades to black. When gameplay resumes, the girl is lying outside Grandma’s house, except now the color is drained, she moves slowly, and everything is even more bleak and depressing than it was before. When you enter Grandma’s house, inside things get…. Weird. Then, after reaching the end of the house, you’re given a grade depending on how much stuff you found exploring (the grade really doesn’t mean anything at all), and you can try again with a different girl. So, it isn’t really a video game. What is it then?

Well, The Path is what happens when someone, upon learning about metaphor and symbolism during English Class, started taking their use way to seriously, and built up an entire game around it. I’ve heard The Path described as the Rorschach test of video games, and I believe that to be a fitting title. I have read flame wars online between people debating the meaning of each girl’s story. Some of the girls have pretty basic ones which everyone can agree on (Carmen), others tend to be a bit more confusing (Ginger) and others left me with filled with WTFery at the end (Rose). If you try to take a literal approach to the game, you will be confused, and likely won’t be enjoying your time playing. If you go for a metaphorical outlook, you’ll still likely be confused, but at least the game won’t just seem like a bunch of random nonsense.

It’s hard to give a definitive statement on how good the game is. The Path suffers from a massive case of Your Mileage May Vary. I personally liked it, but it has some glaring flaws. Gameplay is incredibly repetitive. There’s only a single map, most of which is a featureless forest. The girls move at different speeds, but some of them feel horribly slow, which only accentuates the blandness of the map. Controls, while simple, can get a bit iffy at times, and the collision detection is absolutely horrible. Graphics aren’t very good, and no matter how high you put the graphic settings on the game, they will never be as high quality as the screenshots from the official website. Another thing the website lies about: The genre. It claims to be horror, but there really isn’t anything scary in it. Creepy, yes. Surreal, yes. Disturbing, yes. But nothing there that would actually scare the player. It’s like they set up the atmosphere for a horror game, but then didn’t add the actual horror. Plus, the lack of instructions can lead to some confusing situations where you sit around having absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to be doing.

But as I said before, I still enjoyed it. First off, I love exploring in video games. I’m one of those freaks who loved sailing in Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and who end most game playthroughs with near 100% completion, even when I’m not doing a 100% run. As such, I really didn’t mind the repetitive exploring of the forest, even if I did find myself critiquing the running forms of some of the girls while exploring. Also, I, as an English major, love to analyze things. Trying to figure out the meaning behind the use of the greenish light hue during Scarlet’s walkthrough of Grandma’s house? Fun times! While we’re at it, we can debate about how much Freudian imagery is in the game! It’ll be a party!

In conclusion: If you’re a very strange person like me, who enjoys overanalyzing symbolism and trying to figure out just what a story really means, you’ll enjoy the game, and I’d recommend checking it out. After all, it’s only $10. Otherwise, avoid it.


P.S. After reading Damios’s review, I watched Sengoku Basara. Awesomeness ensued. If you’re ever feeling in the mood for something epic, watch it. I’d put it as the second most inspiring show to watch, behind (and I know Damios will disagree here) Gurren Lagann. And it’s half as long as Gurren Lagann, so you’re able to get the epic inspiration in a faster time!

Coolest Gaming Article Ever: What Do The Yakuza Think About Yakuza 3?

Courtesy of Kotaku.

You know, there's a certain mystique about the Yakuza that I just adore. I think it's because they are a legitimate part of Japanese society, and that's just awesome. The Japanese people have embraced the fact that you need people who work outside of the law in your society. At least, that's my rather uninformed view of it. I kind of want to learn more. Maybe some time soon I'll do some research on the Yakuza.

New Layout, New Banner, New Review!

Toyed around with the layout and settled on a nifty new design template (in case you couldn't tell), and we got ourselves a gorgeous new, totally Extreme! banner courtesy of Masterian. Thanks, Masterian!

It's good to be back in business. Check out the review that was just posted, comment, and enjoy!

Sengoku Basara/Victorious Review

“Samurai it’s crazy!”

I first saw Sengoku Basara about a month or two ago. I’d read a lot about it from TVTropes, and I’d seen plenty of memes referring to this as one of the craziest rule-of-cool run TV shows ever written. I stopped watching about 3 episodes in, and started watching last week when I was bored at work. Since then I’ve made my way through about half of season one and gotten a really good feeling for the series as a whole. I figured this would be a good series to get started writing again (got one for VicTORIous on the way) and get posted on the site.

For those of you not in the loop, Sengoku Basara is an anime based off of a video game line that is loosely based off of the Sengoku period of feudal Japan. And I mean “very loosely.” Like, in the same way “the Ultimate Battle for Ultimate Destiny” is based off of world history. Though all the characters were in fact real historical characters during the period, pretty much everything else in the show was taken to extreme levels.

Most of the story deals with various warlords vying for supremacy of feudal Japan in a somewhat mystical setting, with warriors frequently engaging in battles that culminate in Technicolor dragon-shaped thermonuclear explosions miles wide in every direction. The cast is very colorful and has their own little…quirks, if one can call them that. The story mostly focuses on feudal warlord Masamune Date, the “One Eyed Dragon of Oshu,” and the general of Takeda Shingen’s army, Yukimura Sanada. But plenty of screen time is also given to many other feudal warlords, such as the very effeminate Lord Kenshin and his stripperific female ninja lover who gets orgasms every time he touches her hand, or villain antagonist Nobunaga’s brother-in-law Lord Azai, or even Lord Honda Tadakatsu, the series’ trademark living gundam. Yes, you read right. The series has a feudal samurai gundam.

If the bright explosions and absurd-sounding cast didn’t give it away, the series is pretty much a meme factory. The first two minutes of the show has in fact become an ascended meme for Masamune Date’s awesome gratuitous English. The aforementioned Masamune Date is well known for wielding six katanas at once as his personal weapon, and Nobunaga’s cape happens to be twice as efficient at killing people as his shotgun. And then there's also Yukimura getting repeatedly punched in the face by his Lord as a form of training. For the record, they love each other like father and son. Seriously. Also, there’s a living gundam with his own launch bay. I feel as though I can’t emphasize that enough.

Story wise, the show has a plot that’s actually surprisingly complex given that it’s pretty much just meant to deliver solid awesomeness to your screen and leave your jaw hanging from the absurdity. That’s not to say it’s a great plot. It stays true to a lot of the Bushido style idealism that was rather common during the era, with honoring alliances being a major factor in the story. There’s legitimate conflict and forward movement, and the plight of the characters is interesting enough to warrant some emotional investment. But the plot also doesn’t really overreach and always focuses on moving the story forward…for the most part. There are a couple snags and somewhat pointless threads that get caught up every now and then, but ultimately they don’t detract that much from the overall show. If rated on the intricate Japanese feudal plot scale of one to ten, with ten being the Tale of Genji and one being asian porn, this would definitely get about a 5 or 6.

Another area where the show suffers is character development. The villain antagonist isn’t really revealed until episode 4. Until then, you just have a bunch of crazy looking Samurai fighting each other. Worse yet, there wasn’t much motivation besides “CONQUER JAPAN!” with no indication or differentiation between warlords except their crazy costumes/voice actors. It makes it very hard to really care about any of the warlords for the first couple of episodes, which sort of makes it a wash. Of course, the arrival of Nobunaga changes all of that. The first couple of episodes are pretty much a bunch of battles loosely strung together between random factions until the characterization really begins. This was when I first lost interest in the story, because it was just kind of messy, bright, and colorful.

Fortunately, once he finally appears things really start to pick up. The show gets a new focus, which is very helpful, and the intricacies of the plot start to develop. Almost every character develops more personality, which is very nice. Individuals I had no interest in at the start of the series become much more fun to watch as time goes on because I actually saw their motivations and what drove them to action.

Ultimately, the story may not be stellar, but I do feel it does a pretty decent job of connecting viewers with the characters. This approach is probably what works most in the series’ favor, since the characters are the biggest factors in whether or not you’ll like the show. The action sequences, while very pretty and really cool (perhaps some of the best in anime) wouldn’t have kept me around if the whole of the series is just a confusing mess of random violence.

Overall, if you’re in the mood for an action-packed show about battle samurai that does a bit more than pay lip service to the story, I recommend Sengoku Basara. The story may have its ups and downs, and the whole thing may have a slow start, but give it about 3 episodes and the payoff will be pretty good.

Victorious

Alright, most of my beloved readers will probably turn away now by simple virtue of this being…well…a teen/tween girl show. And feel free, after I explain myself. Victorious is the most recent of a series of shows all written and produced by the well known producer Dan Schneider. In case you aren’t familiar, Dan Schneider was the producer for classic kid shows like “All That,” “The Amanda Show,” and above all others “Kenan and Kel,” my favorite show growing up as a kid. In fact, “Kenan and Kel” was ultimately what motivated me to seek out a more recent Dan Schneider show. It’d been a long time since I had seen a show by him, since I started getting into stuff like Toonami (R.I.P., you’ll be sorely missed) at about the time “All That” and “the Amanda Show” finally quit out. With such fond memories of the hijinks of the show’s stars, I was curious to see what Schneider was up to.

My options for recent shows were kinda limited, however. There was “Zoey 101,” but I’d rather cut off my own hand than watch anything involving Britney Spears or her younger sister. There was iCarly, which was a legitimate consideration, but “Victorious” was pretty much just came out, so what better option is there for how Schneider had changed than something that was literally being updated live as we speak? Course, there were only about 8 episodes total released, so in the end I started watching both Victorious and iCarly as a point of comparison. Ultimately, this is what I came up with, so enjoy the read.

Victorious focuses on the life of Tori Vega, played by Victoria Justice. Tori gets transferred over to Hollywood Arts (an arts school, if you didn’t catch on) after she replaces her sister Trina in a play and displays enough talent to catch the attention of…whoever makes admissions decisions at the school. She ends up quickly developing a small group of friends who form the core of the show, the entirety of the cast more or less. The lineup (pictured below) consists of nerd Robbie and his puppet Rex, genki girl Cat, older sister Trina, the titular Tori Vega, laid back musician Andre, libby punk girl Jade, and Jade’s boyfriend and laid back cool guy Beck.

If you noticed anything at all about the cast, it’s the eye candy. Those are some very pretty people. And before you ask, when I first saw the show and noticed how good looking they were the first thing I did was Wikipedia the stars to know just how awkward the situation is. Good news is not only are most of the stars legal, but (for me, at least) they also all fall under the “Divide By Two Plus Seven” rule, so it’s not even technically creepy for me to think of them as eye candy. Gotta love technicalities.

Man I'd tap that so hard...wait, is that a giant cupcake?! I'm in love!

Attractiveness aside, the actresses do have a fairly impressive pedigree. Two of them were actually a part of a Broadway play together before. I’m referring to Elizabeth Gilles (Jade West) and Ariana Grande (Cat), who were both part of the play “13,” which has something to do with something about a bunch of 13 year olds and the Jewish manhood celebration thing…I really didn’t look into it that much. Victoria Justice has been around, having been a cast member in “Zoey 101” and was in the iCarly movie “iFight Shelby Marx.” I couldn’t tell you anything about these roles, since neither is as glamorous as a Broadway role and I haven’t seen anything relating to the other two to comment, but honestly she’s pretty good in the show. She doesn’t overact, which I wasn’t really expecting. Ariana Grande actually has a tendency to overact more than any other member of the cast, though as the token genki girl that’s pretty much inevitable I suppose. Everyone else does a passable job, though I’m not the best judge for that sort of thing.

Also, diggin' the attitude on this one. Right, back to reviews!

In terms of story and plot…it’s a tween show. Expect a fair share of drama and “power of friendship” moments. There’s actually pretty much nothing remarkable about the show’s story save some of the crap that they get past the radar and some added bonuses throughout. I mean sure, the characters are decent, but I get the distinct impression that if you’ve seen a family friendly kid drama show you can expect to have seen everything Victorious has to offer so far. It’s akin to how most shonen ultimately play out in a similar fashion. If you’ve seen DBZ, you’d pretty much know the plot progression style of “Bleach” and “Ruroni Kenshin.” I wouldn’t consider it a strike against the show, but it certainly doesn’t work in its favor either. Execution is ultimately what saves a series like this, but execution isn’t really all that remarkable either. Schneider succeeds in telling a story, but that’s really all he accomplishes.

The show is light on humor and heavy on canned laughter, which is rather unfortunate. I dislike canned laughter a lot. I don’t really want to be told what is and is not supposed to be funny. If it’s funny, I’ll laugh. But when you make a joke that I don’t find funny, the canned laughter doesn’t do anything besides point out that you failed at making me laugh. Western television in general overuses canned laughter too much. The humor is a bit juvenile, and really isn’t very clever for the most part, but given the audience it’s kind of expected. What I really do like is the stuff they sneak by. I’ve never seen homosexuality referenced so blatantly in a kid’s show before. I’m referring specifically to Cat telling the group about how she discovered the Sky Store catalogue while visiting her “Uncle and Uncle in San Francisco.” The show also kind of pays lip service to drugs more than I expected. In this case, it’s the theater professor Mr. Sikowitz and his addiction to coconut milk, which gives him “visions.” In one episode, Tori Vega incorporates a living bird into her performance while Sikowitz is enjoying his coconut milk. This results an exchange similar to this

*Sikowitz leans forward to whisper in Beck’s ear*
Sikowitz: “You see the bird too, right?”
Beck: “…yeah…”
Sikowitz: “Exxxxcelent…”

There’s other bits like that, most of which you can find in the “getting crap past the radar” page of TVTropes. It’s always fun to catch one.

In the end, the show isn’t all that great. But it doesn’t really have to be. Successful television programming created a series of niches in program scheduling that sort of exist unofficially, but they have to be there. Much like shonen that involve fighting an eternally increasing scale of bad guys, saving the world from certain doom every alternating Tuesday, and bad guys with various “final forms,” Victorious does a decent job of filling the “teenage drama girl” niche by creating likeable and interesting enough characters to warrant curiosity about the ins and outs of their lives. I’m mostly just thrilled that they’re so damn attractive. Still, while I very much doubt anyone here is interested in seeing such a show, one could do worse than “Victorious.” Try it out if you’re curious as to what passes off as a decent, if somewhat unremarkable, kid’s show.

And then there's this.

And A Quickie On Prop 8 Being Overturned

A quick link that collects various views on Prop 8 being overturned by various religious groups.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/08/proposition_8_ruling_in_california_religion_roundup.html#more

In particular, I liked the Baptist guy's post.

"Rev. Welton Gaddy, Baptist minister and President of Interfaith Alliance:

"We are pleased to see that Judge Vaughn Walker was sensitive to the concerns of people of faith who oppose same-gender marriage on religious grounds but that he recognized, as do we, that their religious freedom will not be impacted by the legalization of same-gender marriage. America's diverse religious landscape leaves room for a variety of theological perspectives on same-gender marriage; indeed, some faiths enthusiastically support it and others vehemently oppose it. Under this ruling, as with any constitutionally based marriage equality law, no religion would ever be required to condone same-gender marriage, and no member of the clergy would ever be required to perform a wedding ceremony not in accordance with his or her religious beliefs."

Yay! Give this man a cookie! He actually *reads!*

Also, apparently Prop 8 was overturned by a Conservative/Democrat lawyer duo. The Conservative in question? Drum roll please...

Ted Olson! Or, as one gay blogger wrote, "Ted FREAKIN' Olson!" The man who single-handedly made George Bush Jr. President. He was the lawyer for Bush's side during the whole Florida recount debacle. And his Democrat partner against Prop 8? David Boies. The guy who fought against him in Bush v. Gore. I'm pretty sure that makes this ordeal the legal equivalent of this. For Justice!

We're...back!

Hard to believe, isn't it?

Last two months had no posts because I've been kinda busy and bummed out/depressed with work and life, resulting in me mostly sitting around on my lazy ass watching TV or playing video games. I feel fatter just writing that down, for the record. Needless to say, even with all the lazing about my summer break has not been restful. So I've decided to turn things around and get busy again. This weekend I've got some stuff planned that hopefully I can get turned into posts. Course, thanks to the aforementioned laziness I don't have too much to write about, but I know I do want to write about some great gaming experiences. This will be focusing mostly in "inFamous,""Persona 3," and "Saint's Row 2." Also, maybe some reviews and thoughts on TV shows. Namely Sengoku Basara and possibly even "VICToriOUS," with that last one being for my own personal amusement ;)

But that's for the future. Right now, I'm at work, and probably shouldn't be posting as I have a large stack of letters that need folding. So we'll have to settle for some quick pick-me-ups.

Because life isn't depressing enough, we've got this! Unemployment still not getting any better, and the government census jobs are rapidly disappearing. Economists fear that once the stimulus money is gone, we'll actually start to see even MORE job loss. Exciting!

And then there's...this! Which totally crosses a line. I'm all for firing people like this tosser, though that might just be because he strikes me as a shade or two above retarded. Also might have something to do with the second case being a legitimate reason to fire someone, while the first was a bit more on the tyrannical side. I mean...really, you can fire someone for comments they make outside the work place? I didn't realize people thought it was a good idea to try and work into contracts the fact that you own them outside work hours as well.

Also, Japan is starting to feel the effects of the war on terror! I wouldn't fuck with Japan though, Abdullah Azzam Brigades. You may think you're hot shit, but has a life of piety and devotion to Allah truly prepared you for TENTACLE RAPE? Not to be confused with Tentacle Grape, the delicious rape-flavored...er...grape-flavored soda! Comes with a free novelty (possibly grape flavored) condom. I really, really wanna buy a case of that just to say that I did. I really do.

And that's about it for now. Til the next time!