Earlier this afternoon I was chastised by a friend over my last update, though in the nicest way possible. Basically: “If you’d just update your damn site in bits and pieces over the course of a week instead of waiting till the very end, you wouldn’t have some gigantic monster post that, no offense, can be a pain in the ass to get through. The fact that you actually sectionalized the last one by day of the week was just plain silly.” And you know, dude has a point. Well with that in mind…
Mickey Rourke Was Robbed, End Of Story
As we all know, last night (make that two nights ago technically, since it’s early Tuesday in the a.m. as I write this) was the Academy Awards, the Oscars, which as I like to explain to people is more or less the Super Bowl for myself and Joe Simko. As retarded as it might sound, our idea of a fun time is sitting through the entire affair, from red carpet to closing credits, despite the fact that we’re genuinely disgusted and often angered by it’s pomp and pageantry, among all the other ridiculousness that’s put on display. And why? Because we both love everything about movies, the good along with the bad, and it’s just hella fun getting drunk, eating tons of junk food (especially deviled eggs, and oh man, does Joe ever know how to make ‘em), and yelling at the TV. Again, like most heterosexual men do when it comes to football and Super Bowl Sunday.
So how did this year’s stack up? It was long and boring and stupid, but that was to be expected. In fact, that’s half the fun right there! Though it was particularly bad this time around. I give them points for trying some new things, like getting previous winners to present the best actor and actress awards, despite some questionable choices and their awkward gaffs. And all those fancy backdrops for certain categories, like costume and set design, I thought was really neat. Yet for the most part, the presentation was piss-poor, with no real ebb and flow to the proceedings what so ever, along with a severe lack of clarity. Like how instead of evenly distributing all the musical performances like usual, everything was forced upon you at once, which made them especially unbearable. Though the absolute worst was when they were highlighting all the people that had passed away last year; you could barely make out the names of the people, and forget about making out their achievements, thanks to the constantly moving camera along with how the monitors that showed everything was too far away. I guess they assumed that everyone at home has 60 feet wide HD television screens. At least it was pretty awesome how during Jennifer Aniston’s bit, they kept cutting to Jolie and Pitt, something most Oscar directors are traditionally too chicken-sh*t to do. Equally brilliant was how whenever graphics were used, in the bottom right corner of the screen, all one could do was focus on the constantly looping clip of Kung Fu Panda.
I personally didn’t mind Hugh Jackman as host. Many wondered why they just didn’t get another comic, and the reason is fairly obvious: with no Bush regime to use as the focal point of cheap/no-brainer political jokes, the Hollywood elite themselves would have taken up the brunt instead, and we all know how well actors and actresses react when it comes to being made fun off. Anyway, he was fairly entertaining, doing the best he could, given what he had, and I especially enjoyed his opening song and dance number, but it’s awfully hard to believe the dude is straight, I’m sorry. Back to politics: with Obama in charge, I was really afraid of celebrities moving onto the current crisis, that being the economy, and there’s nothing more douchey than some filthy rich Hollywood phony trying to appear sympathetic to the little guy, but we thankfully got mostly b.s. free acceptance speeches, with some glaring exceptions. Most presenters were also fairly innocuous as well, except for Bill Maher not surprisingly. What an a**shole. His constant bitching and moaning about that dumb anti-religious documentary of his not getting nominated is beyond pathetic; the dude claims it wasn’t chosen due to its subject matter, but what about the possibility that it just wasn’t any good? Actually, a friend of mine did see it and said it was decent, but the whole thing would have a thousand times better if Maher weren?t in it.
The basic story of the show was how Mickey Rourke got robbed, plain and simple. The dude gave the performance of a lifetime, plain and simple. Only a person like Rourke, with all that he’s gone through in real life, could have done The Wrestler the way that he did. Though most importantly, and aside from the fact that he would have genuinely appreciated the award, Rourke was man enough to admit that he really wanted it! I’m so sick and tired of the “I don’t give a damn about Hollywood and awards” posturing that douchebags like Sean Penn loves to engage in, especially since it’s all just a shtick anyway. Which is why it’s even worse that the jerk-off won. But he played a gay guy, and as we all know, there’s a definite hierarchy when it comes to the criteria for receiving said award (though I guess this year proved once and for all that gays are above retards, since Penn was only nominated for I Am Sam and didn’t win). Sorry, but I guess I’m still annoyed by his pompous attitude a few years back when he bit got all pissy while presenting an award when the host that year, Jon Steward, had the gall to poke fun at one of his acting buddies. Then there’s Kate Winslet, who gave yet another ultra calculated and rehearsed tearful acceptance speech. Yay. It would have been nice to see Meryl Streep nab another award; even though I didn’t see Doubt, I?m assuming she was amazing in it, since it’s Meryl Streep we’re talking about, the greatest actress of our time. As for Winslet, some say she only won because she’s been nominated several times but never won before, and I absolutely loathe that way of thinking. No one should get an award after the fact, period.
Best speech? By far that French dude who balanced his Oscar on his chin. Who, as some might have caught, Maher needlessly bashed afterward. What an incredible a**hole! Though it would have most definitely been Mickey Rourke, based upon his awesome acceptance speech from the Spirit Awards most recently. Again, the poor fellow didn’t win because the academy voters can’t stand people who don’t take themselves seriously, and as a result exposes everyone for being the dicks that they are. Enough Rourke rambling and back to the show: I also found that Pineapple Express skit funny as well, but only because of James Franco, whom I’m a fan of. Didn’t mind Seth Rogan, but I definitely fail to understand why he’s so popular. While Katie has a far harsher stance on the guy, whom she feels is one of the driving forces behind males in comedies becoming castrated nowadays. Anyhow, in the end, Joe and myself got nice and toasty, Katie had a good time watching the two of us get toasty, the deviled eggs were better than ever this time around, plus June ended up doing the hambone at a certain for some reason that I don’t remember, so ultimately a great time was had by all!
Less Than An Hour Of Street Fighter 4/Over Twice As Much On The Subway
The day before, Saturday, was supposed to be a pleasant afternoon filled to the brim with SF4 at Dave Mauro’s apartment. Unfortunately, I was only there for a little less than an hour, thanks to… you guessed it… the bloated, corrupt, and soul sucking entity that is the MTA. Like last time, I’ll spare everyone the 50,000 tirade till the moment is truly right (such as when I finally end up in jail for punching out a subway worker), but suffice to say, yet another splendid weekend ruined by the trains. I just love how nowadays, you have to leave for anything about, no joke, two hours in advance on the weekends. Despite living in Manhattan, it practically feel like Long Island.
Anyhow, this past weekend’s highlight would have been the higher than normal number of MTA garbage collectors who do nothing but just shoot the sh*t with one another, simply lounging around the filthy stations and train cars that they should be cleaning. Which I will again repeat: they get paid an insane salary of $64,000 a year to do, and for a while they forked over NOTHING for health insurance. To think, one of the main reasons why they went on strike a while back was because they were asked to give up an outrageous 0.2% of their income for benefits that many New Yorkers, myself included, cannot even afford. Yet all those dumb f*cks were trumped by the token booth operator on 50th Street and 8th Ave on the A/C/E line, who got so annoyed when I interrupted his newspaper reading to ask him some questions that he gave me the finger. Then, when I got upset, no more so than any other normal person I’d like to think, he threatened to have me kicked out of the station/arrested by calling the police. As it’s been pointed out by so many others, there’s a reason why it’s a felony offense to lay one finger on a MTA employee. Again, it’s downright pathetic that these subway jerk-offs have the same rights as cops and schoolteachers. They’re the main reason why I’m increasingly becoming a Republican, at leas the part about wanting to do away with unions.
But back to Street Fighter 4: how does the final, home version stack up? To be honest, the most helpful info can be found courtesy of Dave and company at the fort90forum. With a guest appearance by the my creepy internet stalker! Though I’ll simply reiterate everyone’s main beef by also stating, Christ, is this game ever broken or what. I struggled to get anywhere with any of the characters, since I flat out suck at Street Fighter (yet Dave has also stated that pulling off supers is, for some reason, very difficult), but once I had Zangielf, it was one unintentional cheap victory after another. Otherwise, SF4 plays it… very safely. It’s not the grand step forward that Third Strike was, that’s for damn sure. As Joe Salina aptly noted, Capcom could have easily called this title Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and called it a day.
Speaking off, I’ve made mention of the somewhat awkward graphics in the past, but have been waiting to pass final judgment till I got the chance to sit down with it. The verdict? It just looks weird, man, no way to get around it. The character designs, for the males in particular, are just plain heinous. Especially for the fat dudes; Honda has muscles on his big fat belly for some bizarre reason, and then there’s the new tub of lard Rufus, who’s ginormous belly is just plain distracting. The new characters, with the exception of El Fuerte the luchadore simply doesn’t do it for me. There’s just way too many faces, new and old, that wear gi’s. And speaking of old faces, they brought back Dan. Wow. Talk about a waste of space. Audio-wise, that Backstreet Boys-esque intro song? Hilarious.
Guess that’s it for now? Perhaps once I play the game proper, in the comfort of my home, my attitude will change (I believe my retail review copy is in the mail). Till then…
At Least They Like Me In Japan
Time real quick for a few game related vids, including…
- This was passed along earlier this afternoon by Konami, though when I went to see if anyone else had already uploaded it on YouTube, I found a couple that were two days old (guess it was leaked? whatever, they still saved me the trouble): the latest teaser trailer of Metal Gear Solid Touch.
Well… at the very least, the game looks really nice! Though I have serious doubts as to how well it will play, especially with such graphics being pushed. Long story short: the thing about the iPhone and iPod Touch, as I’ve discovered over the course of designing games for them myself, is that each of the four machines (iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 1st Gen, iPod Touch 2nd Gen) operate at vastly different clock speeds, which makes pushing 3D graphics cleanly and consistently across the board a tricky task indeed. It’s not so obvious now, this early into the life cycle of the platform, but it’ll soon become a very apparent issue, especially when the third iteration of the iPhone comes out later this year, unless Apple releases firmware that unifies the clock speeds for all the devices (which isn’t completely out of the real of possibility).
- Katie passed this one along, also earlier this afternoon: a LittleBigPlanet level inspired by Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 1! Simply outstanding. Oh, and here we have one by the same author, based upon The Order in Cremaster 3, which is also very neat, though I really wish it featured Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law in some fashion.
Here?s a fun-fact: the dude that runs the Cremaster Fanatic blog used to be a student of mine! His final was this FPS shooter that was actually this gigantic food fight at a middle school and it was easily the best game of that entire class.
- And courtesy of Kotaku is this training video for GameStop employees on how to handle… as well as exploit… female customers. To be honest, as far as wacky internet vids by large companies for their sheep goes, it’s rather tame. But still filled with plenty of lulz.
- I mentioned this one in passing a while back, and here we have some gameplay footage of Yuusha 30, the RPG that plays everything out in thirty second increments. It’s not quite WarioWare: the RPG that I was hoping it might be, yet it still looks and sounds really neat. For more info, just head on over to the IC forums? thread on the game.
- Finally, here we have What I Want For Christmas (the trailer, part one, and part two), which aired on Gameplay HD this past holiday season. So what?s so special about it? Well, aside from the fact that Dave’s gal pal is the star, I was actually supposed to be in it! Unfortunately, things just didn’t work out in the end, yet I’m not entirely sure what role I would have played… certainly not the host, since I’m definitely not as cute and spunky and whatnot. Then again, it’s just as well; I’m pretty sure shilling Too Human would have done more harm than good for my career.
But at least I’m a star in Japan! Unfortunately… all night long I’ve been trying to provide proof of this. There’s this Japanese television special, on the upcoming GameCenter CX 2, which features me (I was interviewed at the New York Asian Film Festival, which is where it premiered last summer), though for some stupid reason, YouTube refuses to accept the file. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow. It’s too late/I’m too tired to fiddle around with it yet again. Till next time!
