What’s Cookin’? The Case Of The Moving Rice Cookers

Posted on November 6, 2015 by geelw

Okay, I haven’t done a food piece in a while and this isn’t really one at all, so that trend continues. Anyway, today I ended up having to do a favor for a very busy friend in the form of going downtown to pick up and deliver four rice cookers to be used by a certain Japanese retailer as part of an in-store celebration. I take it they’re cooking rice to go with something or perhaps someone will be making rice balls to pass out to the masses who show up.

That, by the way may not be a great idea, as a good rice ball will fill you up and make you want a nap just as soon as you take that last bite. I think the sight of a few hundred people laid out and snoozing all over a store isn’t the best publicity image, but someone’s mom will be really happy because her rice ball recipe was put to good use. I actually DO have a food story to tell that involves ranch dressing, a few chickens and eventually, rice. But I’m away from my camera with the pics I wan to run with that piece so it will have to wait.

Actually, this day was quite draining and I didn’t eat much so I could actually use a big ol’ rice ball to put me under for the evening. Too lazy to look up and activate a recipe am I, so it’ll be something faster like a quick eggy thing with some of those onions and peppers I chopped up last night. Back tomorrow.

Random Film of the Week: The Pirate

Posted on November 5, 2015 by geelw

Every movie fan (this writer included) has a case of “Hollywood Blinders” they slap on for certain films they love because without them, thinking of anything abnormal taking place behind the scenes ruins much or all of a particular movie’s strengths. This little review just so happens to be about one of those films some outright adore while others don’t take to it all that well.

While its comic book colors and highly exuberant performances make Vincente Minnelli’s 1948 musical The Pirate a mostly to extremely fun to watch slice of Hollywood entertainment, it’s the behind the scenes stuff that makes the film somewhat problematic as a classic one can fully enjoy unless you ignore certain elements. For this particular film, those Hollywood Blinders take the form of an eye patch (or bandanna or even a big felt pirate hat if you like watching your colorful, imperfect musicals with two working eyeballs).

The pairing of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland should have been a wonderful one and in fact is when the film hits most of its high marks. But thanks to the studio system’s lousy treatment of her from the beginning of her career, Garland’s star was far from shining bright during the troubled production. The results are amusing and impressive at times, but it’s also a somewhat flawed film with a too quick finale that pops in as if the cameras were running out of film and something needed to get shot or someone had to walk the plank.

(thanks, SuperVintageCinema!)

Garland’s assorted troubles (including a nervous breakdown that kept her off set for an extended period) thankfully don’t show up in the finished product. But it’s clear that the wide-eyed gal next door who played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz less than ten years previously was a wider-eyed and far more troubled soul on a downward spiral to a much shorter life than she deserved. Toss in a fantastic Gene Kelly dance sequence with The Nicholas Brothers that seemingly got them pushed out of the movies (and Hollywood) for a few years too long and you end up with a film best seen with those Hollywood Blinders on. Nice and tight, now. So, buckle your swash and slap on that eye patch, folks. There’s a storm a-brewin’ on the shooting stage and you’re getting shanghaied and strapped into your seats for a wild ride… Continue reading →

Electronic Super Joy: Run, Jump, Dance (Just Don’t Drop The Controller)

Posted on November 5, 2015 by geelw

Just when you think you’re just about “retro-ed” out, yet another striking indie game comes along to get your face smiling away and your toes tapping to some nice killer beats. I’d never even heard of Electronic Super Joy until an email announcing it was ported to the Wii U and now available in the eShop popped up in my inbox. Nice. I’ve been getting a lot more use from my system thanks to a few recent games (Slender: The Arrival, Whispering Willows, Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Mysteries, among others), so this one’s getting added to the backlog queue. I’m still working on the time machine I absolutely need so I can play all those games stacking up, but this one’s probably worth pushing up a few notches on the list because it’s so immediately catchy on a few levels.

While the cure for an aching backlog isn’t usually MORE games, ESJ sure looks and sounds as if it’ll be a memorable remedy of sorts. Go check it out if you like what you see and hear above.

Review: Poncho (PC)

Posted on November 4, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PC/PS4/Mac/Linux
Developer: Delve Interactive
Publisher: Rising Star Games
MSRP: $14.99
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Official Site
Score: B+ (85%)

With pixel-packed “retro” games showing no signs of stopping, it’s great to see Delve Interactive shake up the scene with Poncho, a game that’s both new and nostalgic with a side of super challenging for good measure. The open world side-scrolling platformer features multiple layers of parallax scrolling to hop in and out of in order to progress and this is both excellent and a tiny bit frustrating until you get your sea legs. The game’s depth also extends to the minimalist but somewhat deep story of Poncho, a cute little robot who finds himself going where no man has gone before because there aren’t any humans left in the world the game takes place in.

Continue reading →

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut: No It’s Not Deja Vu – It’s Finally Coming Out

Posted on November 2, 2015 by geelw

It looks as if the wait is just about over as NeoCore Games is finally getting its beta-tested, gamer approved version of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut out and about to put the bite on your Steam Wallet on November 5. There are three ways to get the game, but you need choose only one. If you’ve already bought the first three chapters, Final Cut will unlock automatically and you can download it once it’s up. If you haven’t bought the trilogy yet and want to play them or just own separate downloads, you can (and should!) grab The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Anthology from Steam, which also unlocks Final Cut for free. Even better, Anthology is going to be on sale for a limited time for 66% off ($25.49), AND you’ll get every drop of DLC from the three games, a FREE copy of Deathtrap, the tower defense game that will make you like tower defense games again.

The third way to get the game is to buy The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut itself for $44.99, which nets you one download with the trilogy and the Final Cut content that includes a new endgame and plenty of other cool stuff. I’ll leave it to you to flip that coin and decide what’s what. Me, I need to go clear out some space on my hard drive and figure out how to get a lot more time to dive into this one. It’ll get played to death, fear not.

Random Film of the Week: High and Low

Posted on November 2, 2015 by geelw

Based on the 1959 crime novel King’s Ransom: An 87th Precinct Mystery by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film Tengoku to jigoku (Heaven and Hell or High and Low to western audiences) is one of those great police procedural films that’s a must for crime drama fans. With perfect casting, a gripping story of a kidnapping gone wrong thanks to a case of mistaken identity and the rush to find the kidnapper before things go further south, Kurosawa’s film is a multi-layered masterpiece worth seeing multiple times.

When “wealthy” businessman Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) and the company he works for decide to snap up the National Shoe Company, there’s a divide between executives on how to close the deal. Gondo prefers the company stick to making well-made and reliable stompers for the masses but other big shots want shoes for all that are cheaply made and thus, more profitable because they’ll need to be replaced more often. With all the back and forth debating going on, Gondo has a master plan he’s hiding from his peers. He’s mortgaged everything he owns and plans to pull off a leverage buyout of National Shoes that would put him in charge for good and keep National doing what they do best.

Little does he know he’s being watched by a few pairs of far more evil eyes looking up at his “castle” from the lower depths… Continue reading →

FedEx Gets To Be The Bad Guy… And Almost Succeeds

Posted on November 1, 2015 by geelw

Yikes. I think FedEx hates me. Or at least stuff they need to deliver safely. Anyway, that’s the box I got from a few days back above, so I guess someone at the company is still mad at me for yelling at a driver who tried to deliver a box of stuff a few weeks back after 10pm on a Friday with not so much as a courteous phone call beforehand to say a VERY after hours delivery was coming. Why take someone’s phone number and stick it on the label if it’s not going to be used? Hey, you’d be as cranky as I was when you have the occasional dope who rings the doorbell downstairs claiming to have a package when they’re just trying to gain entry into the building. Hell, I didn’t even think FedEx or UPS delivered after 9pm except for holidays when delivery times are all over the map and it’s expected that stuff said to arrive in a day shows up late in that day.

Anyway, did the contents of that beat to hell box survive the trip? That would be telling, but let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised. But FedEx needs its drivers to shape up and knock it off with the box-busting handling.

Review: Whispering Willows (Wii U)

Posted on October 31, 2015 by geelw

Platform: Wii U (via Nintendo eShop)
Developer: Night Light Interactive
Publisher: Reverb Triple XP
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: N/A, but probably T (Teen)
Official Site
Score:A- 90%

While its methodical pace won’t be for all tastes, Whispering Willows is a great example of an indie game that does some cool things with an ancient formula. It’s a light horror adventure game that happens to be side-scrolling and going to be visually familiar to fans of many arcade and console titles. There’s no run button here, so young Elena Elkhorn’s exploration efforts will be a languidly paced but somewhat spooky journey in and around the haunted mansion she’s searching for her lost father in. That slow pace noted above means your character and the game she’s in requires you to take in every sight and sound offered (which is fine as a lot of work went into making the game). But as this isn’t action heavy at all, the bulk of the story is told through journal notes found while walking about and you don’t want to go into this expecting to be frightened out of your seat by anything resembling a jump scare or gore galore.

That said, the game’s frights come in a few forms from creepy-looking ghostly things only Elena’s spirit form can see to areas where darkness and strange visual elements make Elena’s trip mildly to moderately terrifying if you’re into the vibe the game creates. The dev team also deserves major props for making Elena of Native American descent, which explains her helpful spirit-walking powers she can use thanks to an amulet gifted to her by her father. Continue reading →

The Last Crown: Midnight Horror – Iceberg’s Happier Halloween Adventure Looks Like A Winner

Posted on October 30, 2015 by geelw

You should SEE my backlog, ladies and germs. It’s huge and scary like a mountain and just as hard to move. That said, Darkling Room‘s new game The Last Crown: Midnight Horror looks really fun. I’d never even heard of the developer until I got an email about this one and how it’s a lighter fright game that’s also an in-between chapter of The Lost Crown and the still in development The Last Crown: Blackenrock, two adventure games I now need to also play at some point. No experience with the first game is needed here as the game’s Halloween theme makes it a standalone “between cases” experience.

Take a gander at the trailer and screens below the jump and if you like what you see, you can grab the game on Steam for a mere $4.49, 50 cents of the normal price of $4.99 (a total BARGAIN for such a cool-looking throwback). Continue reading →

Battlezone Trailer: Rebellion’s Newest Makes Me Feel Very Old

Posted on October 30, 2015 by geelw

As someone who spent plenty of time in the arcades and at home playing the original Battlezone and its Atari 2600 port respectively and later the pretty awesome PC game and the not so awesome looking but still enjoyable N64 version, this newest take on the classic makes my bones ache. It sure looks spectacular and fast as can be, but the more Tron-like vibe and gaudy color scheme is very mildly rubbing me the wrong way. But that’s solely because I haven’t played the game yet. Sometimes it takes getting used to a visual style choice to fully enjoy a reboot, but I’m not going to be one of those internet whiners ranting about cosmetics. I trust veteran developer Rebellion enough that I feel comfortable that once I have my paws wrapped around a controller (and VR or no VR), I’ll be grinning nostalgically and having to have someone drag me away from the game at some point.

Word has it that Rebellion may also be redoing the late 90’s PC game as well, which would be excellent if they went with a more “realistic” look to that one while adding elements from their popular Sniper Elite series. Hopefully, we’ll also see this on the Vita either as a Cross Play/Cross Buy or standalone solo and multiplayer game just because the handheld needs a bonafide smash hit. Tanks are ALWAYS awesome and there aren’t any decent portable games with them these days. Eh, we’ll see as usual. Oh, if someone at Atari isn’t looking at either Star Raiders or Space Lords as possible future reboots, they need to start doing just that. Technology has finally made making even more definitive versions of both classics possible and on multiple platforms as that. Get on it, people – call me if you need some ideas. I work cheap (but not free!).