Kyouryuu's Journal

Subject from Kotaku: "A Night Ranger track pack for Rock Band is coming out next week that is strangely without Sister Christian."

Reponse: "I guess the price for flight was too high."

I love it when financial analysts try to predict the video game industry. Michael Pachter predicted that Gearbox Software's Borderlands was "sent to die." He vowed that if it was an RPG, Dragon Age was "going to kick its butt," and if it's a shooter, "Call of Duty or something else is going to kick its butt."

1. Borderlands is the fastest selling new IP of 2009.
2. It ranked third behind Uncharted 2 and Wii Fit Plus for October 2009, selling 418,000 units. It had only been out for about 10 days at that point.
3. Most importantly, it's a really fun game.

I'm serious, I blew through Modern Warfare. Its multiplayer doesn't do a whole lot for me, even though I think the Spec Ops missions are interesting. But when all was said and done, it was "back to Borderlands" for me. It's such a brilliant blend of FPS and RPG gameplay that I can't believe it's only getting an 83% rating on Metacritic. While it's not the first to attempt this fusion, it is the first to so deftly take what makes games like Diablo so addictive and distill it into a formula that FPS gamers can devour. And then you add four-player cooperative on top of that? Seriously? I think video game history is going to show that Borderlands is a more important game than we might initially realize.

This is a spoiler-free post! I'm going to talk a little about MW2's single player campaign and try to remain rather vague about it.

Well, I just beat MW2's single player campaign. As many have remarked, it's not a very long campaign, but it is certainly a thrill ride with the big budget production values you'd expect in a Hollywood blockbuster. If it's any indication, I blasted through the whole thing in one sitting. Course, I was playing on the easy difficulty, but with games like these, I like to savor the "experience" of the game rather than dying left and right.

Trying to judge MW2's campaign against MW1 is difficult. I definitely thought that MW1's story made more sense. MW2 picks up right where the first game left off and, to be honest, it quickly goes off the deep end. I guess the side effect, however, is that the various locations you visit are a lot more imaginative (maybe even excessively so). On the technical side, there's something to be said for such a massive enhancement in visuals that still ran just as well as MW1 on this PC.

MW1's campaign also has better pacing, I feel. In MW2, the action is pretty much non-stop. One of my favorite parts in MW1 was the Chernobyl level where you're sneaking and hiding in ghillie suits in the grass. It's rather quiet and lets you take in the atmosphere. The same was true of the smartly understated and nuanced C-130 mission. MW2 is downright unrelenting in comparison and I kept looking forward to a mission that would have me doing something other than running around with a gun. I mean, yes, there are a number of unique events in each level, but these are woven into the general run-and-gun fabric rather than setting the stage for the whole level. In some ways, it simply felt like it was trying too hard - like it had to bombard me with constant visual and aural overload every second. I missed the subtlety the first game had.

I also thought that the campaign got off to a horribly rough start. For one, you don't have the awesome "tram ride" at the start of the game that helps set the stage while the credits roll. I didn't care for the first couple missions, actually. I won't go until details, but they were just sloppy and poorly executed. No two ways about it. Once the game develops some inertia, it gets going real good - but it is still marred by weird difficulty spikes here and there. Often, it's not the grenade that kills you, but just unclear direction about what to do. Does "run run run" mean engage enemies I come across as I run, or am I supposed to pull a Mirror's Edge and run like hell? It's inconsistent. Another facet of the gameplay I didn't like was the endless smoke bomb effect. Basically, it's a smokescreen that forces you to use specific sight weapons to see. The smoke never ends and it just seems goofy. I vastly preferred the night vision gimmick in the first game.

Fortunately, what's not endless are the enemies. I would say that MW2 has a much smarter encounter design. While the MW1 scenarios were not truly set up with infinite respawns, that's exactly how they felt. In MW2, the enemies always feel finite. You don't feel like you're killing things just to reach some invisible quota that makes your leader say "Okay, now it's time to move!" Perhaps as a consequence to the thrill-a-minute pacing, the game flows evenly from one event to the next and you don't get too hung up in one location for very long.

Some in the media have noted about one particular level in the game that has some people riled up. I can see why. I mean, yes, it is all digital violence and none of it is real, but it did strike me as a rather disturbing level. It is certainly one of those levels that probably tells you a little more about yourself than you care to admit.

Is it worth a buy? I think so. If you liked MW1, this is pretty much more of the same. If you enjoy shooters, this is still one of the best series out there. You have to remember that even at its worst, CoD is still lightyears beyond most shooters.

This is also to say nothing about Spec Ops mode, which I hope to dive into pretty soon. It sounds quite exciting and a great addition for cooperative-inclined multiplayer fans.

Health care is a complicated issue. Last Saturday, the House passed a version of health care reform that included, among other things, a public option, geting rid of the anti-anti-monopoly clause that protected insurance companies for decades, and so on. It's a start.

The thing is, it also passed with a sweeping ban on abortion funding, courtesy of one Bart Stupak from Michigan. As you might expect, this has set off a firestorm.

It's shameful that Stupak would jeopardize the bill. Michigan as a state is such a disaster, it surely has millions who would benefit from this reform. But alas, religious zealotry knows no bounds and Stupak has decided to hold all of us hostage just to pursue his beliefs. Wonderful.

Personally, I don't honestly care who wins this argument. I'm more concerned about the fate of the bill. Because now, you've got pro-choice politicians saying, "We won't vote for it with these provisions!" and you've got pro-life politicians yelling "We won't vote for it without these provisions!" Both groups miss the point in the middle of their blind arrogance. This bill is about so much more than a relatively asinine one-button issue that to treat it as such undermines how important it really is that we get it done.

Y'know, New Super Mario Bros. just doesn't sit well with me. I have the DS one and there was just an indescribable something about it that didn't feel right. Sure, it had a number of interesting stages, but it felt like I was just going through the motions. Nothing stood out. I feel the same way about the new Wii incarnation.

Was it that it just looks like a glorified Flash game? Is it that it's all been-there-done-that?

Maybe it's the music. I'm serious. The main theme of both games is one of the most dull, lethargic, and lifeless songs I've ever heard in a Mario game. There's nothing dramatic about it. There's no drumline that coaxes you forward. It's a song as boring and inoffensive as its title - Walking the Plains.

Now compare that to Good Egg Galaxy. True, Good Egg capitalizes on the soaring theme of Super Mario Galaxy, but why shouldn't it? It's fully orchestrated and about as "magical" as a Disney number. It captures a sense of wonder and high-flying spirit. Gusty Garden is even more so. And both themes are very hummable earworms that get stuck in your head long after you beat the level.

Nothing in New SMB does that. The most "intense" it ever gets is a slightly sped up version of that main theme. Even the boss theme is sluggish and playful - there's nothing vaguely sinister about it. There's something both about the orchestration and the drum pattern in both of the Galaxy songs that urges the player forward. It's the orchestral equivalent of a driving song.

Am I the only one who sees shades of the Matrix whenever I hear Chevron's "That's the power of Human Energy" tagline? :)

Tetris was great.

Lumines was great.

Tetris + Lumines... sounds like an epic win.

Referendum 71, which grants gay and lesbian couples "everything but marriage" as far as state laws are concerned, narrowly passed here in Washington. It spells victory over religious nutjobs who have sought to repeal legislation from earlier in the year. And, as you might guess, the hateful zealots are vowing to put it on the ballot again. So much for the "democratic" process. They'll just pull the lever over and over again until they get what they want.

Given how zealots for centuries have partaken in the pasttime of selectively interpreting the Bible to suit their needs, I thought I'd share this amusing Internet meme:

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath.Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

A few days ago, the FCC reaffirmed its commitment to protecting net neutrality. For years, large ISPs have fought to destroy net neutrality. Their ultimate goal is to be able to break up the Internet into tiered subscription rates. Just like premium cable, they want to charge a premium rate for you to check your Facebook or watch YouTube, taking the fine world of the Internet and trying to stuff it into tired, outdated business models. For an equally long time, the FCC rules have prevented ISPs from engaging in this behavior, arguing that when users buy access to the Internet, they must have access to the whole Internet. As such, not only are tiered subscription plans against the rules, but so is bandwidth throttling.

Hours later, in order to appease the ISP giants, John McCain produced a new bill - the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009." As one might expect, any bill laden with patriotic nonsense like "Freedom" in its name is bound to be a clunker and this one is no different. Claiming that net neutrality "will stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economy turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market," the bill seeks to strip the FCC of its power and allow the ISPs to do whatever they want, calling the FCC rules "oppressive."

I suppose it would be a compelling doomsday scenario for some... if it were true. Amusingly, in the same written breath, McCain undermines his own argument. He cited that technology is the second fastest growing job market and that while other industries are slashing jobs, high tech industries have "added over 77,000 good high-paying jobs." It seems to me they need no help making money, but somehow McCain finds a reason. "Wired telephones and networks have become a slow, dying breed [takes one to know one, heh] as they are mired in state and Federal regulations, universal service contributions requirements and limitations on use."

Well, Comcast had revenue of $30 billion in 2007. Verizon had $97 billion. Both had a net income in the billions.

On top of that, I don't know how to break the news to him, but wired telephones are a dying breed! Everyone has a cell phone now. Heck, I don't even have a wired telephone line. So what's the goal here? To prop up wired telephone service? To preserve dial-up ISP services? Why? Technology marches on. Broadband Internet isn't just the future - it's already here and we're not looking back.

Everyone knows the Tootsie Pop commercial. The one with the little boy who asks the animals how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. I remember it as a little kid in the commercials between Double Dare and Inspector Gadget. The commercial actually dates back to 1970 and was in continuous play for about 20 years. I haven't seen it in a while.

According to Guinness, the world record for the longest running commercial is the one for Discount Tire. You probably remember the one with the old lady (who was actually a man dressed as a lady) heaving the tire into the glass window of a Discount Tire store as the narrator says, "If ever you're not satisfied with one of our tires, please feel free to bring it back. Thank you." This still runs on TV and it was filmed in 1975.

Also, the composer of Halo's music originally wrote the jingle "ten million strong... and growing" for Flintstones vitamins back in the day! X)

I swear, if you ever find an old VHS tape sitting around with something you recorded years ago, the commercials are more entertaining that the show itself.

Though I have to admit that M.A.S.K. was probably a good 2-3 years before my time, it had an awesome intro and a kickass theme song for an 80s cartoon.

Lode and behold, the full version of the theme song!

YouTube actually has a few other examples of the full versions of various cartoon theme songs. Sometimes, the 30-second snippet you hear in the intro for the show was actually a subset of a longer song. This was definitely true of the Disney Afternoon. This is the full version of the theme song to Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, complete with a sax solo. There's also the extended version of the theme from Talespin. Likewise for Ducktales. Woo-hoo!

For those who remember The Raccoons, there was even a music video associated with it.

I remember years ago when Comedy Central canceled Mystery Science Theater 3000. While it eventually found another home on the Sci-Fi Channel, Comedy Central - in its infinite wisdom - decided to replace it with Gallagher. Gallagher. A guy who smashes watermelons with a mallet. That's got to do wonders for one's confidence, huh?

Now Comedy Central wields that wisdom again in giving Jeff Dunham his own show. Jeff who? Oh, that guy with the lame and racist ventriloquist act? That guy who doesn't even try to not move his lips? Seriously? I'm afraid so, and the reason must be pure economics. You see, a couple years ago, his Christmas special broke all-time Comedy Central records - 6.6 million viewers. His show in Las Vegas is consistently sold out. He's an inexplicable success. Maybe he's powered by the same people who find you-might-be-a-redneck jokes funny - I honestly have no idea.

There are plenty of comedians that I don't personally find funny, but I can understand why others would. Dunham is just a mystery. But then, if some big network handed me a million dollars for sticking my arm up a dummy's ass, I'd probably take the check too.

Left 4 Dead 2's demo preloaded this morning for release a few days from now. Some interesting stuff I found in the data folders:

- The four Survivors are internally referred to as Coach, Gambler, Mechanic, and Producer.

- There are two levels - c5m1_waterfront and c5m2_park. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd probably say these were based in the French Quarter area that we've seen in earlier footage, but that's just a guess.

- There are unique Bink movie files for each of the regional game ratings - BBFC, CERO, ESRB, etc. X)

For all you Descent fans out there - you know who you are - there's an interesting game on the horizon called, well, Shattered Horizon.

In this game, the moon has been destroyed and factions are warring for control of its pieces. You control a marine in a zero-G environment. The game takes a clever, modern approach to intimidating Descent controls by using basic WASD+mouse to move and drift around and the F key to latch you to any surface beneath you, even if that surface is upside-down. When latched, the controls function as a typical FPS game. Unlatched, Newtonian physics take over and you'll drift around until you boost in the opposite direction - like an FPS version of Asteroids.

That's so elegant, I love it. I've often pondered how one might make controls for a Descent-style game approachable for a typical FPS gamer, and I think they might just have a solution.

About the only negative I see is that it's a multiplayer-only game. Kind of a shame, but hey, if they focus on the multiplayer and it does well, who knows where it might lead. If nothing else, it would be a good shot in the arm for those still on the fence about whether or not a Descent-style game is viable in today's market.

Funny thing about Steam. Now that I have a computer that can probably run it well, I'd like to play Crysis. It looks like you can buy it off Steam. But, y'know, with so many sales on Steam... you just never know when it might go on sale. Heck, they even have midweek specials now. I remember when I bought Unreal Tournament 3, it went on sale that very weekend and I could have saved $10. I wasn't kicking myself or anything, but still, it makes me not want to buy anything that's not on sale.

As most video game buffs know, Wisdom Tree was responsible for a slew of really terrible unlicensed NES and SNES games back in the day that tried to cash in on the "Christians will buy anything Christian" phenomenon. To this day, I've heard you can find a kind of 3-in-1 game you can hook up to your TV of their greatest hits at some Christian bookstores.

So, a few days ago, I had talked about Asylum and their plot to take over the world by producing awful B-movies that mock upcoming blockbusters. 2012: Doomsday is in that same vein, but they added a new trick to their repertoire. See, taking a cue from Wisdom Tree, it's an ostensibly religious mockbuster. There's probably a market for this down in the Bible Belt, after all. In order to market this, Asylum created a spin-off called Faith Films. You can imagine where this is going.

And yes, I'm well aware that it's a terrible movie. The only reason we watched it was to entertain ourselves riffing it to pieces.

How does a pretentious prediction based on the Mayan calendar turn into a pretentious Jesus allegory? I don't remember much of the train wreck. It starts in a Mayan temple where some archaeologists find a Holy Cross. Because, as we all know, the Mayans worshipped Jesus. NASA... or rather the NSA... the National Space Administration... deduce that the End of Days is coming and the only way to stop it is to apparently bring a pregnant woman into this collapsing temple and toss her onto an altar. Go figure - probably not the solution I would have picked. Of course, and this is rather amusing, they find the solution only after a global flood takes out the entire West Coast of the US. And just the West Coast, mind you, where all those heathen liberals are. The rest of the country, actually the entire world, is completely intact. It's a very selective doomsday.

Finally, to add icing onto this cake and put a political spin on this, we got to the end of the credits and - wouldn't you know it - they credited the people that financed this movie. A little group called Wells Fargo. You know, the same organization that screwed over $25 billion from all of us in last year's economic collapse.

Well, now you know where that money is going, huh?

It reminds me of MST3K's riffing of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, a laughably horrible movie that was made with PBS funding. They sent up that fact in the interstitials, where Pearl kept begging for money for her evil PBS station's telethon.

When it's not busy dropping the ball on rhythm games (first GuitarFreaks, now Beatmania), Konami seems to find itself on a nostalgic streak. The Wii has already seen Gradius Rebirth and Contra Rebirth, new entries in their respective series. A remake of the Game Boy Castlevania Adventure, is also in the works for the platform.

But it was also recently announced that Konami was going to resurrect Sparkster, only this time it would be for Xbox Arcade, PSN, and Steam.

It's too bad that it looks like something built for the Wii.

While I'm not one to completely write off a game based on a single trailer or screenshot, there's little doubt in my mind that it needs a metric ton of graphical help. Comparing it directly to the 16-bit games in the trailer only makes it appear more flat and lifeless. For one, Sparkster's prevalent art style is a kind of medieval steampunk. It's an odd style that hasn't been used in many games and given the anachronisms like jetpacks, they could have had a lot of fun with it. Instead, it looks like a scene out of LittleBigPlanet, or worse the pint-sized world of the Rescue Rangers. Having been created during a time when speedy rodent mascots were all the rage - the faster the better - Sparkster had a jetpack that made him blast around really fast. It was difficult to control, but it added to the game's finesse and sense of speed. They decided to pull the camera back in this new game in order better show what you're flying toward, but it also shrinks Sparkster to barely recognizable size and reduces the sense of speed. It's not a bad idea, but it is overcompensating.

The thing is, reading some of the developer interviews on 1up, many of the ideas seem sane enough. Tweaks to the way he bounces off walls, giving him a rocket-infused double jump, playing up the idea that Sparkster is very much an honorable, knightly character rather than the typical "rodent with attitude." But it's definitely not translating visually. The animations look stiff, the world looks wrong, and the effects... well they are just laughable. Ironic since, as anyone who played the SNES game can attest, they really enjoyed blowing things up.

Oh well. At least the logo looks nice.

Back in 1983, John Schnatter - who was about 21 at the time - sold his 1971 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 for $2,800 dollars. With the money, he financed what would eventually become Papa John's, the third largest pizza chain in the US and a very successful company with a market value over $680 million.

In 2009, he decided to try to find the Camaro he sold way back when. Surprisingly, it was found and he bought it from its new owners for a cool $250,000.

It's kind of a cool story, starting a huge business by selling a car, making it big, and then coming back to the thing that started it all. Much like the story of KFC's Colonel Sanders, who used his $105 Social Security check at the age of 65 to begin franchising the KFC concept, sometimes very big successful things can have inauspicious and humble beginnings.

Adrenaline Horror is one of the songs prominently featured in Half-Life 1's soundtrack. One unusual thing I've noticed is that the brass hit that occurs at the beginning of the song, and also at 1:07, shows up in other media. Just the other day I heard it in the background of a movie. I've also heard it in TV shows. Others have noticed it in an Aflac insurance commercial.

It's almost certainly a sample, but the question I wonder about - where is it originally from?

Throughout the annals of television, there have been several truly great cartoons. From Batman: TAS to Transformers, these are cartoons that left an indelible mark on our childhood.

And then... there are the really awful cartoons. Truth be told, a lot of them were done by Hanna-Barbera. I don't know what H-B's shtick was. It seemed like anything would fly as a series over there. Just take some popular B-list actors at the time, chuck them into an animated show with dodgy production values, and run with it for a dozen episodes. Most of these were failures, around just long enough to make people wonder, "Wasn't there a cartoon about...?"

Here are just a few I've dug up that should have stayed buried.

Partridge Family 2200 A.D.
The Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family were a big deal back in the 1970s. At the same time, someone at H-B was working on a revival of the Jetsons. An executive probably stepped in and said, "The Jetsons are old news!" and decided that launching the lip-synching family band into space would be a better idea. No explanation was given regarding how they got there. We can only presume that it had something to do with the humanoids in Daft Punk's Interstella 5555.

Fonz and the Happy Days Gang
Arthur Fonzarelli single handedly originated the term "jumping the shark" back in an episode of Happy Days, the 1970s sitcom about 1950s America. The show ran for ten years and led to innumerable spin-offs, including Laverne and Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi, and even Mork and Mindy. That latter spin-off, where Robin Willaims as "Mork from Ork" crash landed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and interacted with the gang, seems absolutely sane compared to this. In this cartoon, a spaceship lands in front of the hamburger joint. It's a time-traveling spaceship, of course, and it came with a token hot alien chick who wins over the Fonz and somehow convinces the group to go back in time. Naturally, they find themselves trapped in a time warp trying to get back to 1957.

Gilligan's Planet
We all know the incipit of Gilligan's Island, a bunch of castaways - Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire and his Wife, the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary-Ann - set sail on a three-hour tour and found themselves shipwrecked an a seemingly deserted island that was nevertheless always being visited by potential rescuers. Through various harebrained schemes, often foiled by Gilligan, the castaways were never able to get off the island. Now, here comes this stupid little cartoon. Gilligan's Island postulates that the Professor managed to build an honest-to-goodness rocket ship. He's just that good, alright? But despite his seemingly boundless knowledge, the space ship wound up not crashing on the mainland, but instead crashing into an unknown planet. Go figure - that bastard Gilligan would do anything to stay with Ginger. Or was it Mary-Ann? Regardless, that's the set-up for what I'm sure was a ton of rollicking family-friendly fun.

The Many, Many Clones of Scooby-Doo
Not ones to mess with a formula that seemed to work, H-B developed an insane number of cartoons in the 1970s to take advantage of the Scooby-Doo concept. You take a bunch of one-dimensional teenage characters, create a "ghost hunting" agency, and give them an obnoxious sidekick. Notable clones included Speed Buggy, the Funky Phantom, Fangface, Jabberjaw, and others. It's unsurprising for one network to duplicate another network's shows, as was the case with the Brady and Partridge families after all. But for one studio to churn out a dozen self-cannibalizing series - it's no wonder H-B animation was so devastated when it was all over!