Heh. I get a phone call during The Walking Dead finale from a friend asking me “So, what’s this Dark Souls II all about?” right after this ad airs. Whee! Of course, I had to tell him to ring me back in an hour or so or just wait for a quick email. He’s not a gamer at all, so I’ll give Namco Bandai props for getting an ad out that gets people not into the hobby all hot and bothered. Amusingly enough, I actually don’t have a copy of the game yet – it’s in my backlog of stuff to grab for the PS3 once I make a bit more money. I’ve played a bit of it already thanks to walking another friend through the first two or so hours of the game as he grabbed it on launch day and was having a hard time because yep, it was his first time playing something that difficult. Anyway, I got to play and he got to keep the character I made, so that’s a fine trade off, I’d say. Naturally, he got the poor guy I created killed a few times since, but my tech support ends when I leave the premises. Otherwise, I charge a flat fee (and it’s not cheap), heh…
Heh. They ought to see my current game library. Hmmmm… if I had the time and a camera to make a fancy video, maybe I should send them a clip so all those people could fall out of their fancy (but relatively inexpensive) Swedish-designed chairs as they scramble to solve MY particular problem. Bonus points if they can get 2000+ games, about 40 or so systems, a ton of press materials and a smaller stack of movies spread across storage in THREE rooms into ONE. Then and only then would I be a true believer! Then again, the wonders they did for this guy in Singapore sure are pretty neat to behold, so there’s hope for me yet.
Nope, if you DON’T go to the movies, RoboCop won’t roll up and drag you by the collar to the nearest theater and plant you in a seat with no popcorn. Nope, you’ll just have to live without that embarrassment, people. However, if the film is worth seeing and you miss it, you’ll have to deal with those pals of yours yakking on and on about it until you crack an break out that wallet for your own ticket. Of course, those noise-canceling headphones people seem crazy about just may be your new best friends for a few weeks if you’re holding out for that home video release. Just nod and smile when people talk to you and it’s going to be alright.
Of course, you may end up joining the army, a cult, suddenly getting married or even become part of a robbery team RoboCop has to break up if you go about your days nodding and smiling at everything, so don’t rely TOO much on those headphones…
Depending on your frame of mind, The Boys From Brazil will either creep you out of make you laugh a wee bit too much. It will do both if you’re somewhere in the middle on the mental front (or are a first time viewer), but I’ll leave you to let this one settle where it lands. Franklin J. Schaffner’s signature directorial style is on full display here as this semi sci-fi/dramal/horror flick does its thing with some interesting casting choices, dialog ripe with amusing yet nasty situations and a number of creative demises for a few characters.
Granted, the subject matter is a bit touchy to some, what with the book and film positing real-life Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck!) as alive and kicking and still working on a pretty outlandish experiment that involves almost a hundred little Hitlers. But the film pulls you in right from the start and keeps you watching as the bad, mad doctor’s plans slowly but surely come to fruition. Well, sort of…
I’m still on the “jury’s out” side when it comes to this not quite sequel coming out. So many movies and TV shows have copied the green screen slo-mo technique and color palette of 300 that this film outdoing the first one in terms up upping the chaos is almost too amusing to see working so well. Granted, those who loved 300 will love this as well, but I don’t expect the pickier historians out there to be so kind to this follow up. I’m in the process of going through the first movie again this week (I haven’t seen it in a few years) and I actually thought it was longer than it actually is. I think I digitally inserted scenes from that Spartacus series randomly in my head as I was watching or something. Eh, whatever – we’ll see what this does at the box office soon enough before it makes the short four to six month trip to Blu-Ray/DVD like everything else does…
Yeah, this film is going to be a disaster of an epic scale, but yeah, people will go see it because it’s got a hunk in the lead and it’s basically Titanic but no one gets out alive. Um, hopefully. I have the feeling that somehow, someone will make it out alive. Hey, think like a Hollywood writer looking to make the best of any tragedy: history says everyone died there, but what happens if there were people who were just out of range of the doomed city who saw it all go down? Yuck. Anyway, my Friday blew. I got nothing done thanks to some SLOOOW as hell wi-fi. How slow? Even though the connections was “Excellent” (so sayeth my computer via pop-up message as I glare at that stupid little box and want to strangle it), I was stuck at the startling and less than adequate speed of 11.0 kbps, BOO. Anyway, tomorrow is another day, I guess. I need to fly out of here early to mail off a big box of books, so I’ll be trying to get in some updates and posts as soon as possible, as there’s a LOT going on in my inbox.
Look, as much as I love Frank Miller’s incredible graphic novel 300 and its amazing (and historically inaccurate) take on the 300 Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae, both it and this sequel (which seems to be based on Miller’s yet to be released follow up, Xerxes) are turning some younger people into ill-informed dopes. I actually overheard a conversation a few weeks back between some kids who tried to use the film and comic to write up a report a history class and yes, they all failed. One kid tried to blame the history teacher because “He’s old and he never even read the comic OR saw the movie!” which made me dash away to laugh myself silly. Ah, you kids… always trying to find the easy way out of some hard work.
That said, has those meddling kids gone and watched 1962’s The 300 Spartans, they might have failed with a higher grade as their teacher was probably around to see that flick. Or maybe they should have cracked the assigned books and checked out this video instead? Hmmmm. Well, lesson learned, I hope. Yeesh – some of these kids better wise the hell up before history forgets all about them one day…
So, here they come. The first of many TV spots for this upcoming remake. Is it me or are people THAT jaded now that this otherwise fine-looking remake/reboot might not be as big as some on the internet are saying? Eh, not that I pay much mind to what others say on the Internet, mind you. I’m just worried that our new “wait it out” culture will wait it out for the first big early review that merely mentions a flaw, cross their collective arms with a mighty “SEE!,I told you it would suck!” and then go torrent the video off some pirate site only to discover it’s not the train wreck they thought. Of course, trying to get those people to pay for anything entertainment wise is a tough haul, but Hollywood loves to keep trying. Me, I think the film will do just fine when it hits a multiplex near you next month.
Of course, I still CAN’T see any darn movies at all around here now that the two closest movie houses are DEAD. Boo. What kind of crap area is this now? We USED to have five theaters in walking distance not so long ago. My “local” theater is now something like four or five miles away at least. Probably more, as I haven’t checked around for a replacement theater in a while. Eh, small world problem considering REAL issues facing too many these days, right? But hey, little things (like a decent cinema) DO mean a lot to some folks…
Somewhere before and in between Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo II, members of Polyphony Digital (seemingly working under the name Cyber Head) worked on a little game called Omega Boost which was released for the PlayStation in Japan in April of 1999, the US that August and in Europe a month later. Japan got the awesome and hilarious TV ad above for the game (the US ad was amusing, but not as nuts as the Japanese one) and when the game arrived at the small indie game shop I worked at, it spent a decent amount of time in the store play stack. Back then, the game was impressive to me and many others right away thanks to the opening movie that still packs a punch:
Thankfully, other than the slightly unwise replacing of the Queen-style rocker that opens the import with some alternative tune that’s OK in terms of it’s title (“Fly” by Loudmouth) but lesser than the original theme music in terms of impact, the US version got the same explosive intro:
By the way, note the “Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jean” autograph reference – I loved that tiny bit of fluff because it was a little detail only a film buff would latch on to right away and smile at. As far as the gameplay went, it was an arcade-style space shooter with 19 stages, some cool planetary and tunnel missions along with a number of intense boss battles and a ton of cool bonuses for the dedicated players out there. Some game critics unfairly compared it to Sega’s Panzer Dragoon games, which only made sense as a frame of reference if you were a PS owner who also happened to have a Sega Saturn in the house. There were some minor similarities, but Omega Boost was more a technical showcase for the PlayStation hardware than Panzer Dragoon ever was on the Saturn.
The game was actually in production as early as 1996 (or perhaps sooner), as a series of Japanese demos I have here shows the early work on the game back then was making for a very different-looking experience running at 60fps with simpler polygon visuals and a few more viewpoint choices. Oh, you want some videos of that for proof? Well you’ll need to come over if you want to see them, silly. I’d thought someone would have posted them on YouTube already, but nope and nope so far. Get on it collectors who never open your stuff, I say!
Oh, all right. One day I’ll get off my butt, dig out those PlayStation Club demo discs and have someone shoot footage of me playing them, but I just haven’t had the time to get onto that and some other projects. As usual, I digress. Anyway, the game wasn’t exactly a “blockbuster” in terms of sales or review scores, but it’s definitely one of those side projects where you could see the quality right from the beginning. Of course, with Polyphony so darn occupied with the vastly more popular Gran Turismo series of games, it’s hard to even think of a new OB rolling out from them any time soon. That’s not to say that is SHOULDN’T be done at all, folks. I’m just hoping that if there is a follow-up or remake, it gets the attention it should on a few fronts the original certainly didn’t.
Eh, perhaps I’ll bite the bullet, download a PlayStation emulator from somewhere and figure out how to record some gameplay. It shouldn’t be that hard to do, although I generally dislike using emulators over an actual console…
Here’s an answer to a question I was asked by not one but TWO readers in person within the space of a week or so (yes, people ask me stuff on the street when they see me) about coverage of some of the bigger AAA titles and why I don’t spend a ton of space covering them like other sites. It’s mostly because I prefer to NOT rush out a review before or with everyone else and partly because I can;t get access to loaner debug units like I used to a few years back. Complain, gripe, whine, et cetera, et cetera. I miss my old PR wranglers who did me the occasional odd favor, but what can you do, kids? Meh, life goes on! I was supposed to get a trumpet blast with that last sentence, but I’ll settle for a bleated out note on the STL Ocarina I’m reviewing…
Anyway, I actually liked last year’s big celebrity-packed TV ad much better, but this has its fun moments:
Granted, I’m a LOT more interested in Call of Duty: Ghosts for the single player campaign (no matter how long or short it turns out to be) and YES, I’m much more interested in the upcoming Wii U version just to see how it turned out (Yes, *shocking!* isn’t it?), as Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 wasn’t bad at all on Nintendo’s overly maligned (by some of the Internet’s troll-iest under bridge dwellers) console which REALLY just needs some love and a lot more good games from first and third parties, as there’s NOTHING fundamentally wrong with it at all.
That said, it certainly looks great on any system I’ve seen it on, so I guess everyone will have it on their a favorite console soon enough. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a root for the underdog guy myself these days, so there you go…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 