The SkullBlog

What base moniker does one acquainted with the baser ways of the world purposefully bestow upon the object of their derision? Let us linguistically ponder.
Begin first with the conception, be it unfounded or not (for the insulting nature of the term is more paramount than the possible technical applicability of the actual verbiage), of the individual in question, so as to debase the subject’s very root of being. Conjecture, therefore, that the initial, and conceivably, only direct purpose for the individual’s conception was indeed the consummation of the solicitation of the slaking of basic carnal lust for prearranged monetary remuneration. Phrase the resulting undesirable concept in an archaic form, plastering the near-forgotten nomenclature of yesteryear upon this derision. This is the starting point of a proper insult; the objective decrying of legitimate parentage in the unforgiving eyes of the world at large.
Compound this accusation of prenatal illegitimacy, then, in the insinuation that the object of this verbose-in-nature yet succinct-in-delivery turn of phrase has, as their primary and, conceptually, only defining aspect of their existence within the confines of humanity, a specifically crudely described set of female human genitalia. Insinuating the cornerstone of their presence amongst the population of the planet to be a baseline term of such low-brow derogative nature completes this most detrimentally unabridged and crudely constructed insult.

Whatever day it is, there’s a new word today. My favorite word.
The.
–definite article
1.
(used, esp. before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an ): the book you gave me; Come into the house.
2.
(used to mark a proper noun, natural phenomenon, ship, building, time, point of the compass, branch of endeavor, or field of study as something well-known or unique): the sun; the Alps; the Queen Elizabeth; the past; the West.
3.
(used with or as part of a title): the Duke of Wellington; the Reverend John Smith.
4.
(used to mark a noun as indicating the best-known, most approved, most important, most satisfying, etc.): the skiing center of the U.S.; If you’re going to work hard, now is the time.
5.
(used to mark a noun as being used generically): The dog is a quadruped.
6.
(used in place of a possessive pronoun, to note a part of the body or a personal belonging): He won’t be able to play football until the leg mends.
7.
(used before adjectives that are used substantively, to note an individual, a class or number of individuals, or an abstract idea): to visit the sick; from the sublime to the ridiculous.
8.
(used before a modifying adjective to specify or limit its modifying effect): He took the wrong road and drove miles out of his way.
9.
(used to indicate one particular decade of a lifetime or of a century): the sixties; the gay nineties.
10.
(one of many of a class or type, as of a manufactured item, as opposed to an individual one): Did you listen to the radio last night?
11.
enough: He saved until he had the money for a new car. She didn’t have the courage to leave.
12.
(used distributively, to note any one separately) for, to, or in each; a or an: at one dollar the pound.

A relatively long time ago in a video game studio relatively far far away….

Metroid happened.  It was pretty hard to miss, I’d say it was the best platformer of that generation.  Maybe Mega Man….  Either way, it was a great game that I’m going to assume we’re all familiar with.  And be “We all” I am referring to mostly the audience to whom I am addressing this rant.  This one’s for you, guys.  If people actually read the stuff I put up.

Anyways, the Metroid series has, as far as I can remember, always been filled with large, vast, gynormous, ridiculously huge, extraordinarily big worlds that are often more complicated than they need to be.  This has not changed in Other M, and that’s a good thing.  I enjoy wandering around through what I thought I’d seen before, but somehow not being sure, despite having a map of the place.  Sometimes when the exit should be obvious but it isn’t, it gets a little annoying, but beyond that the expansiveness of the Metroid worlds is brilliant.

This game starts out with a pretty simple story.  You’re on a ship.  Creepy stuff happens.  Shoot alien thingies.  It’s sure to get more complex in not too long though, and I like a simple opening.  It starts with you going to restore the power to the ship so everyone can see where the crap they’re going.  Helpful.  What’s not helpful is the stupid guy you’re working with who doesn’t authorize the use of all your weapons.  This is the same as every other Metroid game where for some reason, usually falling down a hole or something, you lose all the powerups you acquired in the last game.  After more than twenty years, it’s a bit old, but then it brings back that nostalgia of starting from scratch every time.  No wait, I was right the first time, it’s just tedious.  Besides, you’re a bounty hunter, bollocks to what the bloody marine says.  If you’re going to follow orders, why not just stay with the stupid military in the first place?

Anyways, the stuff I said just there is hit and miss, but the parts of the story I didn’t spoil are pretty cool and I’m excited to see what happens next.  Story gets a 14 out of 17.

This game has taken a new spin and is more platformer, rather than the shooters that we’ve come to know and love from the Prime series, but it’s really a welcome change.   I never really thought Metroid should be a shooter.  The games were great, don’t get me wrong, but I feel Metroid should be a platformer rather than a shooter.  The new system they’ve made for the game is very fun, and it’s a bit odd at first switching to missiles, (you hold the wiimote at the screen and it goes first person) it flows together after a few uses.  I’m extremely satisfied with the combat; it’s not ridiculous, but it’s challenging.  If you screw up too much, you will die.  If you pay attention the whole time, you should be able to get through it with no major problems the first time.  Also, you can jump on enemies’ heads and blast them in the face.  I will never get tired of this.  There’s also obviously new guns and junk, of which I’ve only found one, but I can imagine it’ll be neat to see all of them.  The first one you get changes your charge beam so that it kind of explodes and hits an area of effect for splash damage.  It’s about as awesome as I am.  And that’s pretty awesome.

Anyway, with the new changes and the new features I’m sure to find along the rest of the game, I’m extremely satisfied.  I see no problems at all.  17 out of 17 for gameplay.

I remember when Metroid Prime first came out, and I admired it and thought of it as the game of the generation that had the best graphics.  Not only did all the regular stuff look great, but Prime also added a whole bunch of small detail effects that really made the game what it was.  If you looked up in the rain, you’d see it hit your visor, your visor would fog up, and if you looked, you could see all sorts of little details that really weren’t important in the slightest, but without them, Prime would not have been Prime.

This game takes a similar stance.  You can’t see some of the details as well as Prime, as it’s not a first person thing most of the time, so you just don’t think to look at it, but I’ve seen several little details both in the first person mode and in the walkaround that I would say make it comparable.  I like to see what the Wii is capable of graphically because so many game makers don’t use it to its full potential.  There’s a whole mess of titles that just didn’t look very good.  In the Wii version of Guitar Hero 4, I couldn’t even read the words, they were so pixelated.  It made singing impossible.  I was also surprised to see that Twilight Princess wasn’t all that impressive.  Everything looked good, but games like Metroid and Fire Emblem just make it look sloppy.

Other M’s graphics stand out as the best I’ve seen for Wii.  17 out of 17.

On to the audio department.  I usually don’t count much more than music on the audio, but in a sci-fi fantasy, you’ve got to have a whole bunch of spiffy sound effects that 1: sound wicked-sickly-epicsauce-outrageous, and 2: fit the purpose of the sound effect (For example, a laser should sound like a laser, rather than a cannon.)  Since Metroid has so many kinds of weapons, they had to find a sound to fit each one: the regular laser, the charge beam, the first beam you get that splits off and does lots of damage to an area, missiles, morph ball and bombs…  It goes on.  The effects they pick really stand out to me, for some reason as somehow strange; they don’t sound like anything I’ve heard before.  They’re awkward sounds that I don’t think could ever be imitated.  However, they stick themselves into the lasers, explosions, whatever, and they just sound right.  There’s also a lot of neat sounds that certain enemies make that are kind of neat.

I almost don’t have to review the music.  It’s Metroid, it’s obviously going to be epic.  But I do anyways.  It’s got a few classic Metroid based soundtracks as well as some new stuff, all of which I like and believe fits the scene.  Wow, I can describe it in one sentence.  That’s usually a bad thing, but in this case it’s a 17 out of 17.  Epicsauce.

I’ve made my complaints, which are few and far between, and I’m very impressed with the game.  It’s highly enjoyable from every aspect.  16 out of 17.

Defenestration

Despite not being one hundred percent sure on the pronunciation of the first three words of the title, I am one hundred percent sure on the fact that it’s friggin’ cool.  I read an article in Nintendo Power on the first Shin Megami Tensei game a little while ago, and it sounded pretty cool, so when the opportunity came to get this game and pay for it mostly with my preorder money that I had extra from Zelda, Halo, and Metroid when my game store was closing, I decided, “What the heck?”

So in down I delved into this game, and I found a very unique story that borders on being the strangest and most complicated thing I’ve ever paid attention to for more than twenty minutes.  In fact, the opening cutscene took me an hour to get through.  Despite this arduous process before I found combat, it was kind of a good hook.  The gameplay, however, suffers a bit.  It’s got an interesting system where you can talk to demons and sometimes get them to join your team, or you can fight with your weapons and magical abilities, but it’s very linear and it gets monotonous after about the first half battle.

I played about an hour or so into the game so far, and the story keeps getting more complicated, which is kind of a nice break from the linear, cliche stories that we keep seeing in a lot of games, movies, and whatever.  However, it’s almost painful how the combat system never changes.  I expected after an hour that I might have found one upgraded item or gained one new ability, but I’ve still got the default gun and “sword” (The starting weapon is a combat knife.) and my fire shot ability, which adds the element to my regular attack.  I get the abilities whatever demons have, so my fairy can shoot crap with fire or heal me, but this is the extent of the differences between hour two and three.  Gameplay gets a 6 out of 17.  Some neat ideas, but it should keep me interested.

Getting back to the story, which I seem to have strayed off of, you start out as some kind of marine or army guy or some such thing on a mission to stop a big ol’ black blob of death from eating the Earth.  Er eh…  The Schwarzwelt is a big black cylinder that keeps growing out of the South pole and scientists theorize that if it keeps growing it could devour the earth.  So you drive your armored car right into it and start killing demons and talking to demons to help you kill other demons.  Who woulda figured?  Anyways, that’s it in a nutshell, without giving away any major spoilers.  Story gets a 14 out of 17.  Very interesting, though needlessly complicated at times.

I can’t think of a good opening sentence to this paragraph.  All the lead ins to talking about graphics don’t seem to make much sense.  ANYHOO…  I’m a bit disappointed in a lot of games though, ’cause I’ve seen the capabilities of the Nintendo DS, and some just don’t use the full power that the system has.  This kind of bugs me.  I think the Wii has the same problem.  Looking at the graphic difference between some games, for example, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn makes most games for the system look like they were slobbed together in three hours because the programmers put it off until the night before like I always do on my homework.

Anyways, this game’s graphics look good during cutscenes, and they don’t look bad in regular dialog moments, but the runaround mode and combat leaves a lot to be desired.  It’s often very pixely and granulated.  I look towards a day where that’s in the past.  However, it’s still not completely terrible.  11 out of 17.

MUSIC TIME!

Everyone do a little dance or something.  I dunno.  Anyways, the game actually came with a soundtrack cd in the package, which was a neat surprise, giving me an easy reference to the music.  However, that CD is in my by my CD player, and I’m in the other room where a computer is, so I won’t have it for reference.  Either way, the music is all orchestrated and it’s pretty cool.  My one complaint would be the same thing I complain about with a lot of these big orchestral scores they put in games; it’s background noise.  The last game I remember the music from specifically is the first Halo game.  Before that, it’s mostly a bunch of classic games with those simple beats that you could just get lost in.  Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Super Mario, that kind of thing.  The music from those games stays with you forever.  Halo had a very unique way of doing it also, because whenever you heard music, you suddenly knew you were about to fight a million guys and probably die.  It gave it sort of an epic quality I’ve not seen since.  Also, it had a simple basis, and a driving beat that made you remember it.  These orchestral scores are cool to listen to, but nobody listens to them because they melt into the background too well.  Anyways, listening to the music as music, it’s very well done, and enjoyable stuff.  However, I feel it doesn’t add anything to the game.  It’s like the theme from Dodongo’s Cavern in OoT.  It’s just there so that there’s not something.  As music, 14, but as soundtrack for a game, 10 out of 17.

I think that’s it.  So overall, the game has a compelling story, graphics that don’t totally blow, music that’s almost as cool as watching ice melt(Which is actually kind of awesome) but doesn’t add anything to the overall feel of the game, and a combat system that sucks like a hooker in a vacuum.  12 out of 17.  Play it for the story then go buy Metroid.  Speaking of which, look for my Other M rant sometime in the next few days or so.  I’m liking the game so far. :)

Will be coming just as soon as I find a new game store with which to purchase games.  Mine seems to have closed.  AGAIN.  Rather annoying, really, but still.  Anyways, as filler until I find a good store to purchase the games I meant to purchase within the past month, (SC2 and Arc Rise Fantasia mostly) I shall give you some of my poetry.

THAT’S RIGHT! Be shocked and amazed and dazzled at my mad word-slingin’ skillz0rz! Er eh…  Something. And now for a poem.

Walking down the streets in summer,

Have a chance to wonder about stuff.

On the way to work, I think,

“What if I had forty million followers on Twitter?”

Then I think of something useful instead.

As I approach my destination,

I look back at a tree that looks sad.

I wonder how an inanimate object can appear to have emotion.

Then it throws a rock at me for calling it inanimate.

Reveal my shield, unsheathe my sword,

Battle time.

Wild Tree has appeared, I attack.

Tree takes damage, shakes it off.

Tree throws another rock,

This time it’s actually a grenade.

The Pain,

It hurts.

Throw sword at tree’s eyeball,

Miss badly, not aerodynamic at all.

Tree stomps on my face,

My face be stomped.

Weapon switch, good ol’ shotgun,

Shoot the tree’s face off.

Twice.

Jump up and exclaim,

I AM THE VICTOR!

Then get my experience,

And get back to main quest.

Down the road I go,

across the parking lot.

I get into work,

Boss asks why I’m late.

I explain my epic tale of adventure,

He fires me.

Thank you.  Next time I’ll put up a good one.

Since I haven’t got many new games recently and there aren’t any games I’m going to get for a while, I could fill the space with a movie review.

I only watched a few episodes of the show, but from what I saw, it had a fairly interesting story and I was sort of excited about this movie.  The previews made it look very action-packed and fun.  Unfortunately, that is not the case. You know when a movie is just so bad that it’s good?  This was almost that bad, but not quite.

The movie was very slow paced, plus it seemed to repeat itself a whole lot.  Many of the points were restated like, “The Avatar ran away” and “I stole some ancient scrolls” and “I was kicked out of the fire nation.”  I got these points the first time they were mentioned, the extra four didn’t really help.  Also, I stole some ancient scrolls.

The acting wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but most of the characters seemed to have the same emotional range as a cupboard might.  They had sad, confused, angry, occasionally happy, and that was about it.  I understand that these were just children, but I’m fairly certain if the entire cast was played by a single brick and voiced over that it would’ve had about the same effect.

I did enjoy some parts of the movie, it was still an interesting concept for a storyline.  The problem I see was that they tried to put a whole bunch of storyline into a two hour movie.  The part of the show that was encompassed in the movie was the first “Book” of the series, which was comprised of like 20 episodes.  20 episodes and one movie are not the same thing.  Certain things were rushed and important things happened in like thirty seconds that actually took several weeks.  This is especially odd because of the movie’s extremely slow pace.  It chugged along like a sloth climbing up a hill covered in glue.  Also, I stole some ancient scrolls.

Action is an important part of any action movie, which I believe this was supposed to be, but it was pretty lacking in that category.  I think they could have done all sorts of cool stuff with the crazy magic fire and water shooting powers that the characters had at their disposal.  Instead, they had a lot of slow-mo that was pretty cool at certain points, but having a slow-mo on every combat scene that ever happens doesn’t quite work.  This added to the slow pace that the entire movie took, and detracted from the actiony feel that I think the movie should have had.

As far as production quality, it was very nice.  I can tell they wanted to show off their enormous budget.  Great special effects and CGI, camera work was good for the most part (except for a few scenes where the camera zoomed in way too far for absolutely no reason), and they even hired a big name director, M. Knight Shamylan. Shmalyon. Shymylyn. Shaman’s lawn?  Whatever.  Anyways, it looked really cool.  What a twist it is that with all these special effects that they couldn’t maybe make a decent action scene.

So, overall movie?  I’d see it if you’re a diehard fan of the show, otherwise only go if somebody else is paying for it, or if you really want to make fun of it.  It’s pretty easy.  The story was kind of interesting, but with the awful pacing and lackluster acting, it just doesn’t draw you in. Very cool looking, not very cool.  I give the movie a 6 out of 17.  Most disappointing.

This is odd, my word of the day is actually obscure enough to not be put on dictionary.com.  I didn’t think they had those.

Voetsek; Interjection:

Get lost, go away.

source: www.wikitionary.com

So, this isn’t exactly a new game, but I distract easily sometimes. (This is about the third time I’ve tried to write this post.) Anyway, I definitely enjoyed this game. There are two parts, Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Now this is probably pretty basic, but in this game they are very much two different entities of gameplay. First of all, multiplayer, because it’s a bit simpler to explain.

In multiplayer you can do a lot of things to earn experience, and depending upon your level of experience collected, you unlock different weapons for free roam. You also unlock a variety of different characters you can be, ranging from upstanding lawmen to Mexican Banditos to Misc Women. I believe that gives you a range of characters to expect. Free Roam, which I mentioned earlier, is sort of akin to a multiplayer lobby. It’s where you hook up with your “posse” which is basically an X-Box live party. The difference between this and other lobbies is in this one you get to roam around with your buddies and shoot up gang hideouts or, shoot up the local saloon and have a huge gunfight with the law.

The gang hideouts are intensely fun, but the main body of the multiplayer experience currently is the different game modes you can join. Especially considering that in online play you can shoot anyone not in your posse, and I don’t know who started the shooting, but it hasn’t stopped. Just riding down the road can be hazardous. What’s that? Oh, it seems to be story time with Babbitt again. Don’t sigh, it’s a short one I promise.

It all began when I was browsing the achievements for Red Dead Redemption. I noticed that there was this one achievement that asked you to ride from one edge of the world to another online. How hard could that be? I thought to myself, Sure online is sort of dangerous, but if I ride fast enough I’ll be fine. Well I booted up online play, took a stagecoach up to the start point and started the long ride. I encouraged my horse into a gallop and started on my way. It all went very smoothly despite the occasional hail of bullets that was traded nearby the road. That is it went smoothly until the road strayed just a little too close to a gang fort. Most of the gang was unaware of me, because they were behind thick mortar walls, and fighting off an invading posse. Yet woe for the rooftop emplacement could see over the walls and was manned by a mad bandito out for blood with no concern for how many bullets he spit from his gatling gun. He spotted me and took it upon himself to send me to the abyss. He redirected his fire towards the road and while I was unharmed he stole the breath from my loyal horse while in full gallop. I lived to see my horse fall, now it had fallen to bears and mountain lions, but bullets at full gallop sent me flying to the ground and I tumbled head over heels for a long while until finally I regained my footing and called for a new horse. I couldn’t believe I had survived! I galloped on to the bridge in triumph and someone 300 yards away on top of some ridge took my head off with a sniper rifle and I nearly put my fist through a table. I decided then that was enough of that game for a day.

So, multiplayer game modes. I expect some of you skipped the story, so yes, there won’t be any more story time with Babbitt in this post. I can only think of two game modes off the top of my head, Shootout and Capture the Bag. I’m not sure if there are any others, but you can choose to play them with different rules that change things like the targeting system. I play with the expert targeting system which gives you no help, because I like to aim myself, and this one particular game pissed me off so much I nearly broke something. Ahem, yes well, Shootout is a shootout. It’s team deathmatch. Capture the bag is much like capture the flag, except it’s a bag of gold that spawns somewhere and you have to grab it before the other team and return it to a chest. And that’s basically multiplayer.

TO BE CONTINUED…

I’ve long since evolved past the need for knowing the date.  My phone or Gimp tells me when I need to go somewhere, so other than that I don’t care.

ANYHOO…

The word of the day is yay.

Yay; interjection:

Used as an exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory.

Now for a rant.  A short rant, but still.

Phones have become gods among technology.  My phone ran out of power so I plugged it in and left it at home tonight.  I then had four things I remember happening that I wanted to post on my Tweeter that I can no longer remember.  I’m moderately annoyed at that.  I didn’t think I’d go so crazy without my phone, but apparently I rely on technology and recounting my stories of stupidity to the media through means of technology more than I thought I did.

It’s odd how I now realize how important my phone is in my day-to-day life and how much I wish my phone was Gimp’s droid.  Gimp’s droid does everything mine does only faster and easier, plus hundreds of different games and apps, plus a touch screen, plus it’s bigger.  And I’m sure that if I looked I would be able to find info on whatever phone Droid’s coming out with next, which will inevitably be even better than this godly machine.

I think it’s really odd that I’m writing about how much I use my phone and yet there are people who use theirs for hundreds of times more stuff than I even have capability of using mine.  Gimp, for example, has reached more than 2000 posts to his Tweeter, while I have I think like 500.  Plus he gets directions from somebody who knows what the crap they’re talking about (I named my GPS app Phonebitch.), he can say something and google search it, he’s got buttloads of games that he could access if he were to want to, which he has accessed some, he’s shown me an app that he can use to make 4.0 D&D characters, the ability to search the web faster and better than my Nintendo DSi, it’s got a camera that’s as good as most cameras, and for god’s sake it’s got permission from Lucasfilm to be called a Droid.  WHAT MORE COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT FROM A PHONE?!

And that’s my rant for tonight.