G l i t c h y G o b l i n !

Goblin Movie of the Week: Scott Pilgrim VS. The World

Glitchy Goblin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:40:16 +0000

Alright, if you guys know me personally, you probably know a few things regarding me and the Scott Pilgrim movie. If not, here you go, a nice, bulleted list.

It’s based on a FANTASTIC Canadian Manga series, by Bryan Lee O’Malley
It’s directed by my favorite director, Edgar Wright (Because I think Tarantino got lazy.)
I am square in its cynical, video game loving, punk rocking, anime watching demographic.
I got free tickets to a preview showing thanks to Niko over at Nikoscream.com

That being said, I went into this movie with two mindsets. The first was that everything Edgar Wright touches turns to gold, the second being that I’ve been genuinely underwhelmed by most big movies this year, barring Iron Man 2, How to Train Your Dragon, and on a smaller scale, Inception, but I’ll do that one next week.

This movie was the best movie I’ve seen all year. However, unless you really love the comics, love anime/video game inspired fight scenes, really dig oddball movies, or just have a thing for Michael Cera or Edgar Wright, this movie may not be the thing for you.

That being said, give it a go! I really loved this movie, and can give it NO LESS than a 10 out of 10.

Vegieza’s Virtual Vices: DOAX

Glitchy Goblin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:54:05 +0000

I’m finally back to give you another review. Much like the “Fangirl on the Loose” segment, I am very much a fanboy of something. It’s not Nintendo (though I used to be a fanboy), cart racers, or RPGs. It’s Dead or Alive, my favorite fighting game series. I own most of the games, if not the remakes, and that most certainly includes the infamous Dead or Alive Xtreme series.

As with all Team Ninja games, the DOA series is known for its heightened difficulty. I believe the game mechanics of the Dead or Alive Xtreme series to be one of the most complex of all time, almost as complicated as real-live-action-life women themselves. A game about playing volleyball and giving women swimsuits being complicated is a crazy idea, and I love Team Ninja (well, Tomonobu Itagaki) for creating it. Itagaki, the creator of the Dead or Alive series and every game related to it has since left the company, so let’s see how things have changed.

PROS:

Finally, a new DOAX series game has arrived. I need more of this series in my life. Maybe the next iteration will be in 3-D or have motion control. >:D

It’s portable! Finally one can take the experience anywhere. I plan to play it on board a cruise ship. It’s theme appropriate, after all.

There’s a 10th girl! Rio, some reference to some other game, is now playable once you unlock her.

Virtual Pictorial is way easier to unlock. In fact, it seems like most of the game is based around this feature. It doesn’t take 30+ hours to unlock this time around and finally keeps track of which gravure videos you’ve watched and which you haven’t.

No Hilary Duff! Unlike the soundtracks on the first two games, this one is mostly filled with actual Japanese music. The others were terrible pop and reggae-style beach-themed tracks (Reel Big Fish was nice, though). You can still provide your own music by putting mp3s on yourmemory stick.

CONS:

There’s less of everything. You know when you get the ‘Lite’ version of something, there’s less of something and it usually isn’t as good. That’s this game. It’s DOAX Lite, and the only thing added is the aforementioned extra character.

The difficulty has been removed. I guess Itagaki was the only person making the games difficult, because now it isn’t difficult at all. So far no suit has been rejected. Before this game I would’ve said that this would be a good thing, but now I’m not so sure.

The environment textures are terrible. I know I’ve been playing a lot of ridiculously good looking games lately, but this is like Pre-PS2 stuff. The models’ textures are as good as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (the first game), but the rest of the environment is not.

There’s less control while playing volleyball. Your partner is controlled completely by the right thumbstick on the console versions. The PSP has no right thumbstick, so therefore you can’t control your partner.

There’s less clothing… I know that usually this is a good thing, but in this I mean that there are fewer varieties to choose from. From a female clothing fanatic’s point of view, this is not a good thing. Now you know that about me.

Well, wasn’t that fun? Next week I’ll have a review for you about a little known game called Super Mario Galaxy 2… or something like that.

A Small Golbin Rant… Nickelodeon, are you finally off drugs?

Glitchy Goblin — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:31:54 +0000

I grew up on Nickelodeon. Didn’t have Cartoon Network until my teens, and even then, it was still all about the Nick Toons. Now, since then, Nick got infected with a TON of fail programming, lit by short-lived bright spots, like Avatar, Fairly Oddparents (which went to crap after they had a kid. Curse you, Poof!), even My Life as a Teenage Robot and Danny Phantom weren’t bad. However… other than that, unless you were a ten year old girl, I have no idea why anyone would watch.

And I thoroughly believe that’s about to change.

In a little bit, Nick is going to begin airing Dragonball Z Kai, a remastering/retelling of the classic anime franchise. Also, Saban has finally regained control over the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and they’re going to Nick as well. As if that wasn’t enough, they’re working on something new in the Last Airbender universe. So, I don’t know if the people at Nick were high before… but if THIS is their new programming plan, then I can’t WAIT to see more from our favorite orange network.

Congrats, Nickelodeon, and welcome back to my life!

Vegieza’s Virtual Vices: L4D2 The Passing

Glitchy Goblin — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:20:49 +0000

New downloadable content has arrived for Left 4 Dead 2. This added content is called “The Passing,” and its purpose is to bridge the gap between Left 4 Dead 1’s 4 survivors and Left 4 Dead 2’s 4 survivors.

PROS:

It’s free on PC and MAC. As with all Valve PC DLC (and Mac), it’s free. As stated in the last review, this is a great reason to own L4D2, as it will be frequently updated with new content.

It has a new mode, Mutation. Mutation is a mode that switches every week. It basically changes the rules on one of the types of games. For example, Realism mode was added to Versus for one of the mutations. There was one called Bleed Out where your character’s health was constantly decreasing and health packs were removed. Valve has thought of over 20 mutation variants, so owners of the game can come back for a new experience each week.

There are new weapons. They have added a new melee weapon and a new gun (SPOILERS: the golf club and the M60)/SPOILERS.

There’s a new uncommon common zombie. SPOILERS: The Fallen Survivor is a zombie with lots of health that drops items when you kill it.

There’s even more new things, such as new equipment and caches of many of one item. For example, you’ll open a chest and there will be 30 pipe bombs inside. :D

CONS:

It’s really short. You can finish The Passing in under an hour. This is kinda disappointing, as a couple of these new things are only found in this one campaign.

The L4D1 survivors feel “thrown in.” They only say a couple of lines to you and basically lay slight covering fire for the finale. That’s it.

The past Mutations don’t stick around. Except for Realism Versus, which was voted to be a permanent addition to the game in a recent poll, all of the modes that you missed are gone. Once a new Mutation comes in, the previous one disappears.

It costs money on the Xbox360. With how little is added, it is very difficult to recommend buying this DLC for the 360.

One of the original L4D1 survivors is dead. Now they’re making us wait until the Left 4 Dead 1 DLC comes out to see how it happened. This is very sad.

Basically this is a brief but neat addition to the game unless you have to buy it. Now we have to wait for the first game’s DLC to get the whole story.

Flash Game Blitzkreig: Homerun in Berzerk Land

Glitchy Goblin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:23:16 +0000

Can you beat my score? I somehow doubt that, Goblinites! It gets me points, so if you’d try, it’ll help me. Challenge me afterward, I’ll accept the dare!

Even if you DON’T wanna give me points, play this game. It’s called Homerun in Berzerk Land, and it’s a great twist on a classic Flash Game Genre, the ‘kitty cannon’ or ‘toss the turtle’ type game. Also, ‘Shopping Cart Hero,’ ‘Nanaca Crash,’ the list goes on and on.

HOWEVER, unlike those games, paying attention is actually helpful, as you can minorly control the projectile’s movement, hit him again for extra distance (which increases XP and cash) as well as making you feel really dang cool.

Also, your basher levels up over time, and has equipment to further customize your play style. Play it, love it, bash its brains in. Later Goblinites.

Vegieza’s Tried and True: Left 4 Dead

Glitchy Goblin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:13:49 +0000

I’m back again for another Tried and True, so let’s get started. Valve has always been a company that delivers on content, though their releases are few and far between. They created my favorite game, Half-Life 2, and also spawned the amazingly fun games of today’s review: the Left 4 Dead series. Perhaps the only game series to get zombie survival right so far in terms of atmosphere and intensity, Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are endlessly fun multiplayer games that ooze from the brains with content.

This is frantic gameplay at its finest, with moderately fast-style zombies coming at you from all directions. These FPSs also mix in “special” zombies that are capable of pouncing, grabbing, and even bowling over everyone on your team. In addition, the end of each multi-mission campaign has a “finale,” a sequence in which everyone defends a location from wave after wave of both normal and special zombies while waiting for a rescue vehicle to arrive.

If you have this on PC, all the dlc is free! Microsoft charges owners of the xbox360 edition to get more campaigns, but not so for Steam users. Imagine a couple of games where every little bit of time you and your friends can come back and play more levels for free. Even more than this, there is a level creator in which authors (maybe even you) can create their own levels for others to download and enjoy. These two games provide hours upon hours of addictive enjoyment which will have you talking to other people about your in-game experiences long after the game has been turned off.

If you have a not-so-up-to-date PC, there’s no need to worry. The first game still looks pretty good at moderately low settings, and the second game probably will still be playable at the lowest settings. The graphics aren’t really the point. It’s the ability to have a completely different experience every time even though you’re playing something secretly really repetitive. This coupled with new additions every once in a while and a community-based level creation system makes everything fresh just when you think all the freshness has run out.

The new dlc for Left 4 Dead 2 has just come out. It links the two games’ main characters together. Along with the upcoming dlc for the first Left 4 Dead (yes, they’re still providing content for that as well), new stuff is right around the corner. Steam, the Valve-created PC (and soon-to-be MAC as well!) software where the games are distributed, has tons of deals and sales. You can probably get the first game for like $10 or something, and, because of the 4-player aspect, the games have special deals if you buy 4 games at the same time!

This series should not be missed by zombie lovers, FPS lovers, survival lovers, or any combination. If you don’t like any of those things then you still might like it anyway. If you can find the first one ridiculously cheap, pick it up and try it out. Or you can download the demos for both games to get a little taste of the big picture. Of brains.

Vegieza’s Virtual Vices: Poke’mon HeartGold and SoulSilver

Glitchy Goblin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:00:02 +0000

After a week more I can now bring you a nice weigh in of Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver. This review covers both, even though I only have SoulSilver. HeartGold has the same content albeit a few of the Pokémon that aren’t in SoulSilver, just like all of the other games. I should give you my stats so far (oh no, I’m not through with this game, yet):

Badges: 16
Pokédex: 198
Play Time: 104 hours and 11 minutes

Whew, I’m beat. Keep in mind that the entirety of this content was local to the game cartridge. There was no outside trading from a different game (yet), and I didn’t catch anything on the Pokéwalker (yet). That’s enough for now, as I’ll explain more in the review itself.

PROS:

It’s a remake of Gold/Silver/Crystal (a.k.a. Generation II… G/S/C from now on). The best Generation is better than ever in this remake. The developers overhauled the graphics in the style of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (a.k.a. Generation IV), the only other Nintendo DS Pokémon game. The original was the best because it offered so much content, especially because, in one of the best plot twists ever, there were 16 badges to get instead of 8. Hallelujah!

There’s so much to do! I said G/S/C had tons of content, but this has even more content, more than even Platinum (the strategy guide for that game is over 600 pages long). Along with the 16 badges there are stylus-based minigames, two different game corners, a new safari zone, a pal park (like in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum… D/P/Pl from now on), added areas not in the original, added trainers, longer gyms, a trainer house, gym leader rematches, online trading/battle, a battle tower, a Pokéwalker so as you walk around in real live action life your Pokémon gain XP, Nintendo-sponsored Wi-Fi events so you don’t have to make the trip to Gamestop anymore, the Suicune event from Crystal, more legendaries, and more Pokémon overall.

As I said, there as so many ways to get Pokémon! Apart from getting them normally (tall grass, surfing, water, and caves), you can get Pokémon from the safari zone, pal park, game corner prizes, head butting trees, bug-catching contests, breeding, in-game trading, online trading, gifts, catching them on the Pokéwalker, swarms, radio music, and more. Also, since this is based on G/S/C, time is a crucial part in the game, and some Pokémon only come out at certain times of the day. Plus, three different times you get to choose a starter! At the beginning there are the Generation II starters, of course, but after the game you are able to choose from one of the Generation I starters and in a different place one of the Generation III starters! Yay! There are perhaps the most available locally in this one than any other.

There are more legendaries than ever! Game Freak wanted to have 99% of all 493 Pokémon available on the DS series alone, so they crammed as many Legendary Pokémon as they possibly could into it. Along with the obvious Generation II legendaries (Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Ho-Oh, Lugia), there are Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, Latias or Latios, Groudon or Kyogre, Rayquaza (if you have both Groudon and Kyogre), and more will be opened eventually through events (like Mew and Celebi).

The Safari Zone is ridiculously improved! They completely remade the idea of the Safari Zone into a completely customizable experience. Most of the Pokémon in the game can be caught in the Safari Zone if you know what you are doing, and the new idea is to create your very own Safari Zone for your very own little old self. There are six sections to it, and there are 12 areas to choose from. You put which areas you want where you want them, and violà. Then you are eventually given different types of objects to place in the different areas and can put up to 30 objects in each area. Depending on what objects are put in what areas, rarer and rarer Pokémon come out. You leave the objects in the area over a period of time and they upgrade into more powerful ones. From then on those types of objects in that area are forever upgraded even if you remove them and then put them back in later. It’s hard to explain, and you’ll have to look up the minor details to get the full experience.

CONS:

There are some minor issues, like how some Pokémon need the correct objects laid out in the right area for an upwards of 110 days to get some Pokémon to come out. A lot of those I have bypassed by simply getting them a different way, however. Also, the Pokéradar from D/P/Pl was awesome and isn’t in this one. There are still different swarms, but these seem to repeat Pokémon a lot more than in D/P/Pl.

The Pokéwalker’s like 10 year old technology. It’s cool to get a pedometer that also lets you get experience for your Pokémon while you walk, but the thing itself is kind of old. However, it does have some sort of nostalgic feeling when using it. Plus, the little monster inside of it can only go up one level until you reset it by putting it back in the DS. It’s like after that point your Pokémon isn’t actually getting anything useful out of being in there.

This is still like a 10 year old story. As always, for an RPG Pokémon never seems to have much story. This one’s twice as long, but the little story events are few and far between in the second half. Plus, the first 3 or so gyms after getting to the second half are over almost before you know it.

It’s still the same old Pokémon. It’s still the same 2-D battlefield with 2-D sprites and little MIDI sound effects. This will apparently be finally changed somewhat with the release of Pokémon Black/White (Generation V) later this year… in four months, rather. I have a huge list in my head of all of the improvements they could do… stuff that would make this game series even better. I believe the Safari Zone was the first step in doing something right for once.

The “final boss” has Pokémon like 25 levels higher than the previous fight. I thought I was going to beat the final and most powerful trainer before I wrote this review, but no. It will take many more hours of training to beat him. Let me structure it for ya: the 16^th Gym Leader’s Pokémon are about level 60, maybe slightly more. Immediately, it’s like, “Hey, go fight the final dude!” I go there and his Pokémon are around LEVEL 85. OMGWTFBBQ.

If you like Pokémon, get this. If you never have played one, this is a good place to start. If you hate the game series, this is more of the same. Anyway, after 104 hours I still have much to do in this game, so it’s definitely worth the money. As a parting gift, here’s a nice little fact the game gave me:

Mr. Mime, the Barrier Pokémon: Its fingertips emit a peculiar force field that hardens air to create an actual wall. O.O

Movie Monday: Kick-Ass

Glitchy Goblin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:22:37 +0000

Hey guys. It’s been a minute since I’ve done a Movie Monday, but after me and some friends made the journey to a nearby metropolis, driving for nearly an hour to find a theater doing a midnight showing of the newest Super-Hero film, ‘Kick-Ass,’ I had to report on it.

PREFACE: I read the comic books before I went to see this movie. As most comic-book adaptations suck majorly, I didn’t have much hope. However, then I saw the wonderful trailers, chock full of shot-for-shot accurate recreations, the (mostly) spot-on costumes, and even the great dialogue and ‘R’ rating I knew it would need to be an accurate representation. Here’s how they look in the comics. Hover with your mouse for character names.

I hoped, deep down, that I would see one of my favorite comics well represented on the big screen. With Iron Man, Punisher: War Zone, and The Incredible Hulk, not to mention Sin City and Watchmen, having already done (mostly) faithful retellings of wonderful comics, a little fire of hope welled up in my chest. Spoilers are in green.

The movie starts out VERY faithful to the comic. some things are rearranged, some locations are changed, minor characters removed, although the biggest plot twist, red mist’s betrayal, is known from the beginning and never happens, as he’s still kick-ass’s friend… but they still fight… for some reason, whatever, I’m still happy halfway through! I begin to hope… maybe it really IS a great movie! One of my favorite comics has REALLY come to life and is blowing me away on screen!!! Astounding! YES, it’s everything I DREAMED IT WOULD BE!!! But then… about halfway through, after the induction of Nic Cage (who is a splendid casting choice and rules in this role) things begin to change… DRASTICALLY. He shows up in the love interest’s room and reveals himself as Kick-Ass (which I was hoping was a dream or something) and then, instead of ridiculing him and sending him lude pictures and making him feel miserable, she accepts him and sleeps with him, then gets into comic books and they screw around outside the comic book store.

Yup, he pretends to be gay to get into her pants, pulls off a mask, and bam. Instant girlfriend. Ugh.

Then, the death of Big Daddy gets completely re-written, so that he dies a hero, protecting his little girl through fire, and they have a touching goodbye, as opposed to the books, where she gets shot and falls two stories, then he is revealed to be a lowlife who stole the girl from her mother and hocks comic books online to stay afloat, an average joe who flipped out and became a hero for no reason and dragged his own kid into it. He’s then unceremoniously shot in the back of the head before Hit Girl can rejoin the party (bulletproof vest, duh).

It’s all broadcast on the internet and Katie watches her boyfriend get beaten, but int he books he got his scrotum electrocuted and nearly died, and no one ever knew or cared, because it was alone in a warehouse forever away. Hit Girl blames Kick-Ass for her father’s death, Red Mist wants Kick-Ass to be safe, because they’re bros for some reason. (They still fight though, and Red Mist is revealed to now hate Kick-Ass at the end, even though he spent the whole movie trying to save him. Huh.)
But then comes the icing on the cake. At the movie’s crescendo, Hit-Girl storms the fort and slices and dices, people FEAR her and cower, as opposed to the comics, where a well-prepared adult that takes her seriously can take her down, and then, well… First, let me say that the comics and the movie both state that Batman isn’t plausible because he’s got all this money and tech that doesn’t exist. They say he CAN’T be a realistic hero for that reason. Then, here… with Hit Girl throwing kitchen knives and grown men cowering with rocket launchers, Kick Ass flies up with a jetpack (complete with two mounted miniguns) and mows them down heartlessly, all to Flight of the Valkyries.

…WHAT?!?!

This is a comic book about REALISTIC SUPER HEROES WITH REAL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES!!! Instead, we got THIS?! A movie where the guy gets the girl, everyone’s happy at the end and there were no actual consequences?! Are you CRAZY?! It all seemed like a TERRIBLE joke, and the only thing that kept me from walking out was hoping that it would have LITERALLY ALL been a dream sequence while he was being tortured.

Then Hit Girl doesn’t care about poor dead daddy and transfers into Dave’s highschool (even though she’s 10, or does the movie make her twelve? I can’t remember) and she lives with Daddy’s old cop partner, seeing as how their fake back story was true in the movie. Dave’s dad gets NOTHING, not even a girlfriend at the end, and Dave walks away with a hot girlfriend (as do his two buddies from issues one and two or whatever) and they all live happily ever after, except for hockey-mask-wearing, katana-having, gun toting, red (orange?) mist at the end of the movie.

The movie was an abomination. I feel like I’m having flashbacks to No More Heroes 2. I just want to punch myself in the face until it all goes away. Please, someone, if you can send me back in time to destroy the theater we went to, I’d be a much happier man… anything… please, I just can’t take the disappointment anymore…

I won’t even justify this mockery of a great comic book with a rating… having read the books, there’s no way I can enjoy this film…. ever.

I guess if you hadn’t seen it, it might be good… but please, if you have any soul left… just go read the comics. You’ll be far better for it, and you might even shed tears like I did. Until I recover the pieces of my shattered spirit, -GG.

Vegieza’s Tried and True: Rock Band 2

Glitchy Goblin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:13:52 +0000

Vegieza here, and things are going to be a little different this time. I still have not used or even accessed every feature on my Pokémon SoulSilver after 82 hours, so I feel that at least another week is necessary before I can bring you an accurate review. Also, it would be too expensive and difficult to play and review 52 games a year (there’s not enough of me to go around; I’m only one man), so in this other type of review I’ll cover a game from the past that I feel should definitely be on your game shelf. For even more quickness and streamlining these reviews from non-recent games will not get the 5 Pros and 5 Cons treatment. I will simply tell you why I like it, what kind of gamer you are if you’ll probably like it, and a couple of other things. Anyway, let’s get to the review!

Music rhythm games came to this world suddenly, and now, a few years later, the market is oversaturated with plastic instrument games. I already know of at least 4 more games that are coming this year. Even though this is looking like a tragic decline of the genre, a game still stands out to me as the best of the best among these types of games: Rock Band 2. Harmonix’s Rock Band 2 stands out for me because of a few things.

The presentation is really awesome. Rock Band 2 has a certain type of feeling for me when I’m even just scrolling through the menus. From the background characters during the songs to the actual charts themselves, I know I’m playing Rock Band.

It’s easy for beginners. Guitar Hero’s beginning difficulty curve is off-putting to some. This game eases you into it and makes you feel like a rock star from the get-go.

The DLC support is a beast. Every single week since the first Rock Band was released Harmonix has added downloadable songs to the archive for anyone to purchase and download. The game comes with about 80 songs, and I personally have over 230 because I’ve downloaded so much.

It’s one of the best party games ever. The multiplayer is amazing, and most gamers now have at least a few of the instruments needed to play. I’ve seen this game at many parties, and it’s usually the main focus in the room. Also, the online is still going after a year and a half.

The only reason I can see to not getting this game is if you don’t like music rhythm games or the fact that Rock Band 3 is probably coming out at the end of this year. It’s great on both 360 and the PS3, and even with slightly less support on the Wii it is still one of the best selling games on that system anyway. Rock on!

He’s one BAD Manda- Shut yo Mouth!

Glitchy Goblin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:37:39 +0000

I’m just talkin’ bout Boba!

No, seriously. I can’t post the video, apparently starwars.com wants to make it difficult for you.

However, if you want to see Boba in a shaft style intro, click here.

I would pay money for this show to be real, with Boba hunting Han to sweet Shaft music. I can dig it.