^ Fact.

Anyways, I have a few things in this blog and if you don't want to bother reading my walls of text, then just type this as a comment: *gives graf some rubber bands*, and get out.

Firstly I'm sorry to my union CW and other unions, I've been so inactive recently... feel free to demote me and all that jazz, I don't think I will have much time for unions in the future anyways. (No I'm not leaving but I can't keep up anymore).

Secondly, I want to shake Ben Yahtzee's hand link.

If you have never seen his reviews, watch a few of them before you read on... seriously, stop reading and watch.

Ok firstly though, I should say what I thought about Yahtzee (Now abbreviated to Y) before. I've watched all of his reviews, they are custom animated video reviews, so he has a visual aid under his direct control. With the lack of ingame gameplay the visuals are solely beneficial to him and they add to his reviews a lot. Next review he does, press play then minimize the window but listen to his voice, it will be so different.

Ok then, he is one of those naggy nit-picking reviewers, I'm cool with that. But I don't consider his reviews "reviews"; let me elaborate, I wouldn't consider what he says when purchasing a game. Then again I never let what professional reviewers say to influence my purchases, oh sure I read reviews but since I started writing my own reviews I check out reviews just to get better myself at writing them. Usually when I see a game, I know whether or not I will get it, it's that hidden innate ability I have. I see a game, I know I will like it or not, doesn't matter if it has a few bugs or whatever I just know.

Back to Y. I watch his reviews because they are hilarious, yes they are funny and I admit that. Like I said before he is a negative reviewer, he rats on anything in a game, but after I watched a few reviews I said to myself "does this guy even enjoy playing video games? If something isn't perfect in a game he dislikes it, no matter how innovative or anything, he gives no second chances and takes nothing less than perfection, offers absolutely no slack at all for any game".

He touches on the things that matter most to a game yes, but fails to mention a lot of stuff in a review that I have come to expect. For example, value, do I get my money's worth? I don't think he ever mentions how long a game will last you. Oh and he only reviews single-player aspects of a game, but he didn't do that in his SSBB review though. In his Halo3 and Condemned 2 review he reviewed the game solely on it's single player modes. Now I enjoy a solid campaign, but with a larger emphasis on multiplayer modes and online gameplay nowadays, I feel that he is missing out from both a reviewing aspect and a gaming aspect. Leaving out multiplayer entirely in a review when it is a big factor is just plain stupid on his part in my opinion, some people enjoy multiplayer. I'm not saying anything about Y's tastes, I'm just saying: If you're going to review a game when multiplayer is very important and you focus solely on single player modes, don't even bother reviewing it, because you really are missing out on a large chunk of the game.

His latest has changed my mind though. He did a "Mailbag showdown" against all the Nintendo fanboy e-mails he got concerning his SSBB review. Y gave me some faith in him now, he really does understand gaming. He is a critic yes but at least now I know that he knows his position and understands the review system and console wars. I must say, even though I don't give his reviews any merit I want to shake his hand. I agree with him somewhat that this generation of consoles is the most balanced, to some extent.

Also his comments about professional reviewers was great and I appluad him for it. I mean if Ninty fanboys were just going to buy SSBB anyways regardless if it got poor reviews, then why are they bugging out about Ys review about it? I mean they all probably have the game already unlocked all the characters that no one knows about and stuff... seriously. Plus majority of them most likely already have watched Y's reviews before and should know that he is one of those nit-picking hates everything reviewers, so why bother watching it if you knew he wasn't going to enjoy it? They probably went back to gamerankings or whatever and stared at the beautiful 9.0+ scores just to assure themselves that the game is great.

Lastly, his comment about numerical scores was what I say as well. Numbers cannot represent a complex opinion sufficiently, and to me numerical scores are just a quick at-a-glance look at the overall quality and accessibility of a game.

Well I just decided as I was writing those last few lines above that this will be part 1 of a new blog series. part 2 will come later, oh and if you haven't figured out what part 2 will be about, it will be about reviewing again.

You didn't read? Rubber bands please.

Devil May Cry 4, Devil Hunter difficulty, Mission 8... I'm ranked 162 in the world ^_^ (in 360 version, I'm not sure if the leaderboards are shared between PS3 and 360). Well I'm fine with that.

Also I saw the Ironman movie. It was good, not great, but still worth seeing. Time for a mini-review.

Tony Stark; billionaire business tycoon, gearhead engineer, typical carefree has-everything-you-could-imagine guy. As one of the leaders of Stark Industries, which was founded by his father Howard, he goes on a routine showcasing in Afghanistan. Now Stark Industries creates weapons and after a demonstration of the new jericho missile he is kidnapped by a group named the "Ten Rings". They force Tony to create a jericho missile for them, and he complies. But instead of making a missile he creates a suit that he uses to bust out of the camp and makes his way back to California. After his return he takes his company on a little stinge by halting the weapons developement program... which is the only program that Stark Industries is involved in.

Now I won't go on with the plot, but just now it's good and it does a lot of things right, like not being really corny. Moving on, throughout the film Starks sarcasm and personality shines through, it never shuts off. He's always got some little jibe or one-liner to say and the thing is, he's got the goods to back up his cocky attitude. Actually he's not really arrogant he's kinda like the nice popular laid-back rich kid in high-school, who is somewhat humble and isn't an a55hole but can be mistaken for one easily. Other characters are fine as well, showcasing a great variety of interactionary levels revolving around Mr. Stark. His personal assistant Peppers is at times a little too friendly and sometimes all strict business, it's great. Rhodey is obviously very good freinds with Stark but knows his position, the characters are memorable and relateable.

Ironman is a superhero movie right? Not really actually. Maybe because Ironman's powers are artificial at it's deeply rooted in realism and the baddies are well... quite bland and predictable, Ironman doesn't have that superhero vibe. Let me use the Dark Knight as an example, in Batman Begins (or any Batman show/movie) it feels like a superhero movie through and through. It's not because of Bruce Wayne though, he has no powers at all except sheer unshakable determination, no Mr. Wayne is not the reason Batman feels like a superhero flick. It's the enemies he faces, from the Joker, to Mr. Freeze, and Poisin Ivy and the whole gang, while some of them do have artificial power, they all give Batman that unique fantasy/sci-fi aura that is believable but not likely to occur. Look at manbat, he is well... a manbat, yet when you see it you accept it as a real possibility.

Ironman just didn't feel like a superhero movie, sure Tony could fly, with the help of jets in his boots, he could shoot energy blasts, with the help of thingies in his palms, he could survive getting thrown into a bus and getting hit by missiles, with the help of the gold-titamium alloy that makes up his suit... ok so what? Yeah, when the main dude and everyone else is just a normal human being and they only get powers with suits, it's not a superhero movie anymore.

Ok I'll try to wrap this up, the action was good, just there were too many flying scenes! I wanted to see more on the ground fights with Ironman fighting some mutant menace or something. But no, he just battles the "Ten Rings" which are humans. One scene that was sweet though is when he is being chased by 2 fighter jets. This was pure Hollywood and it rocked. At the end of the movie he fights another person with a suit similar to his, this was... good and bad, it felt a bit choppy and you knew it was going to end with the requisite "death by something in the environment" cliche. I wanted to see Ironman get trashed yes, it was satisfying to see him get tossed around a bit, then after a while I was like "ok Stark, time to pull some strength out of somewhere and beat up this chump" then when he starts hiding from the enemy and calling someone for assistance, I knew he wasn't going to finish him and that the fatality would be the environments pleasure.

Overall though, I recomend Ironman. It has style, the CG and the suit look awesome, action isn't bad, Tony outside of the suit is great, it's funny and there is an Audi R8.

wow that was so not a mini review, oh yeah remember I got 162 in DMC4 leaderboards for mission 8 on DH difficulty ^_^

edit: I'm now ranked 98 on the DMC4 leaderboards! same mission and difficulty. I'm in the top 100 :D

Well drop a comment in the box and some more rubber bands in my hand. (I still don't have enough for my catapult, you guys are so frugal :P ).

What is the big deal with Grand Theft Auto IV? Enlighten me. Say 3 or 5 things that will make it as awesome as it's supposed to be.

my major gripes with GTA4:

- from a gameplay standpoint, what's it bring to the table? the leftovers from wringing out the series in a food processor, thats what. It looks the same as GTA3, ok sure you're a vodka chugging ex-KGB or whatever and you're in New York City, but that's it? cover system? oh wow, took 'em long enough to put one in. anything else I'm missing?

- I'm not one for graphics debates really, but the animations in GTA4 look... pretty bad. I've seen smoother and more fluid animation on last-gen hardware. The environments looks pretty good though, Rockstar captured the NYC look really well. Also I know it's not supposed to be a graphics showcase but still, I know it can look much better.

- the driving in it looks meh. I like it how Rockstar tried to make it a bit more realistic with the handling and whatnot, but by doing that it makes it not fit with the rest of the game. GTA games have always had a bit quirky and un-realistic/true video game-ish feel, with power drifting through turns in cars, surviving multiple molotov cocktails exploding on you and the mere ability of cheats shows how it's not shooting for hyper-realism. But then GTA games have always had that slice of realism that roots it in a nice niche.

What I'm trying to say is, ok you know what, think of Metal Gear Solid's story and setting. It has a definite sci-fi vibe but you feel as if everything in it could really happen, say in the near future. Like in 20 years Rex and Ray will be real threats and poeple like Psycho Mantis will be the real deal. That's kinda how GTA's gameplay has been like, impossible but with a smidge of realism. The new realistic driving doesn't fit in GTA.

- Rockstar could easily jut give the player a lot of things to blow up, weapons to shoot, people to beat up, rob and have fun in bed with... and they could call it a night. But what about outside the sandbox aspect? I have read like one GTA4 preview so far and don't know anything about the story, and I haven't heard much about it.

Hell, I don't even know the main guy's name, it's Nicholas or something boring like that right? Should of been something funny like Tchaikovsky Gorbachev and have the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 4 remixed into a hardcore trance song with a title named Perestroika as the theme song. Now that would be awesome.

- Box art, yeah I'm complaining about this as well. Come on lose the faux comic book look, it's not working Rockstar. Coloring is decent I'll give it that, but the black outlines are on the fence of heavy or weak, which I don't like, the lighting doesn't accentuate it and the collage-ish look is not working out. It's too subtle as a main picture and too busy as a background, in my honest opinion, the box art is just ok.

Well drop a comment in the box and some rubber bands in my hand. (I'm building a giant catapult with the intention to launch myself to mars and claim the planet as my own.)

Coming soon, to a crazy persons blog near you (that crazy person is me).

(did you like my commercial? I spent so long making it, you can just see the quality radiating from it)

Anyways, if you didn't enjoy my attempt at a teaser, I have a new review up, scroll down a bit to read. Like always, CRITIQUES of all kinds are HIGHLY APPRECIATED, warning: the review is long. Also I recently joined the Gaming Review Union, it's a great place. Not many people are active there but the few that go there are intelligent and most of them write great reviews, so if you enjoy video game journalism check it out. I love to write reviews for video games and I'm always constantly looking for ways to improve on my writing and perfect my skills, as well as help others to write reviews. So yeah there you go.

(no more coins)

any of you guys use the "rate this comment" thumbs up/down feature? I never have and probably never will.

Oh and I better reveal what game series my initials are the same as, msi got a little crazy trying to find out and I know he's not the worst lunatic of all you people :P so its that series with the white haired badass, big sword, 2 guns, a lot of style... yeah you know what it is.

Also I finally found an avatar that I am going to keep for a long time, some of you will know where its from, some of you won't.

Well drop a comment in the box and some pocket lint in my hand.

Well you know the drill.

1. I hate fruit. Seriously, I despise it, borders on phobia. I have never eaten a piece of fruit before in my whole life and I never will. If every other food source disapears I still won't eat fruit. Ever since I was a baby I never ate fruit, my family tells me how I would spit it out as a kid, even at 3 months old! I still have good health though, and I get my vitamin C from this concentrate juice I drink.

2. I'm semi-abidextris. I write and use eating utensils with my left hand, but throw stuff with my right, I can kick/jump off of with either leg, and I can play tennis/badminton/racquet based sports with both arms, but I can only swing righty in baseball. So yeah, some things I can do with both sides, some with only one side.

3. I want to leave USA as soon as possible, I don't like it here. I'm thinking some European bungalow with a coffee machine in every room and a teleporter to the futball stadium... no? In all honesty, when I get the oppurtuniry, I don't think I will reside in this country anymore.

4. My music tastes include everything, really name any genre, I got something like it in my itunes library. But I dislike mainstream/comtemporary music and I think some classic rock is overrated. Plus I play the trumpet, I used to play the piano, but I found it annoying as hell.

5. Not to brag, but I got some slick skills at hacky-sac/footbag. The game is perfect in my eyes, all you need is the footbag, youself and a little bit of open space. Also I dislike organized/competitive sports, basically most other sports out there. Especially games like lacrosse or baseball, I mean look at all the freaking equipment you need in lacrosse, then in baseball you need like a crapload of stuff and a special patch of grass to play on, ridicolous.

6. (Bonus) My initials are the same as a certain video game name acronym, I'll let ya'll figure out which one.

Check the blog under this one to see whom I've tagged.

Well drop a comment in the box and a bill in my hand. (no more coins :P )

Food time!

not.

tomorrow I will put up my six thing blog (yes I am going to put down 6 thigns, not 5) but for now, these are the people I wil tag. Only 5 ppl :D

triple-D fresh! (dragonman or dracogenesisbiblicallatinnonsenseIcan'tspellit, he's already tagged I think, but oh well)

msi (crazy weirdo kid)

oil_kester (he's... oily? IDK)

cube of moon (grammar freak)

riceball (I hope she reads this, she hasn't been very active lately)

well you five, get cracking. oh I have a new review up, it should be right below this blog, read it if you wish, critiques are welcomed.

Well drop a comment in the box and a coin in my hand.

This is about cars.

not.

New review is up, like always, critiques/comments/questions are welcomed and appreciated. I decided a while ago to not review handheld games, I don't know why, I just simply decided not to. But Gunstar Super Heroes was staring at me from my messy desk drawer one day and I fired it up on my GBA, and I was like "wow I don't remember this game being this freaking awesome." So yeah... I reviewed it.

Also Monty Oum strikes again! be amazed, or not.

New banner as well, anyone who knows where its from gets a raisin!

Well drop a comment in the box and a coin in my hand.

OK Im going to sum this up as quick as I can. In my school, the AP art history class collected scrap paper, that would normally be just thrown away, for 1 week, they put plastic bags in each room of the building for people to put paper in. Then they made a paper monument inside an enclosed stairwell. The only way in is from 2 locked doors, which are always locked and the stairs lead to the balcony inside the schools auditorium, and no one can get to the balcony except through the 2 doors. Plus the glass in the door and in between the metal frames of the walls of the stairwell are made of safety glass with wires inside.

Anyways they made the sculpture, it was pretty good, kinda too abstract, simple and a little controversial though, but this wasn't the issue. So the main message of the monument was of recycling/environmentalism, basically they wanted to show how much paper can be saved in a small amount of time and how wasteful we are, afterwards they were going to recycle the paper used in the monument. Now there was a lot of paper in the monument, I mean a ton. At least 35 huge plastic garbage bags full and we had like 15 or so medium sized crates of paper, so it was a lot. I even helped to crumble up some of the paper myself, as even though I'm not in AP art history I still take an art course with the teacher in charge and during that period my class and I went to help them out.

The monument/sculpture has been up since monday and was planned to stay for maybe a week or two. Then the principal of the school tells my art teacher that it is a fire hazard. He said that someone could light a match then slip it under the bottom of the door to ignite the paper inside. Well this is complete frog intestines, ok I admit, out of the gazillion jackasses in my school at leat 99% of them would do it, but still someone could just go into the copy room and torch the place there. The copy room has at least twice the amount of paper then in the monument. By doing this the principal just said that all paper in the school should be disposed of basically, but what makes the monument so much more a hazard then other stacks of paper? What about the school library, oh yeah the books in there are so old they're not flammable anymore!

In addition to this discrimination of potential hazards, even if were to be lit on fire, the fire would be contained inside the stariwell. Since when were brick walls and metal stair railings fire issues? Oh yeah and don't forget the safety glass (safety glass is designed to contain fires in case you didn't know). Also its just paper, there are some wooden poles and rope to help keep the monuments structure as well, so the fire would last like a minute tops.

Absolutely ridiculous I must say, after school I saw the janitors cleaning up and bagging the monument/scuplture, I bet they're just going to throw it away and not recycle it. Oh and I forgot to mention, my teacher asked the principal himself for permission to put the sculpture there and he said yes. Plus I saw a lot of assistant principals and whatnot observing us when we set it up. Also my teacher spent a long time scouting the school for a good and safe place to put the monument. Honestly I could not think of a better spot, ok sure there are little lost niches in the school that are better, but no ones going to see it there, the spot it was in was in a high traffic area and very visible.

While I'm on this subject, give me your thoughts about safety versus art, remeber the cardboard mario box prank? While I do see the potential of this and somewhat the justification of the authorities actions, I do think it was an overreaction. There are tons of other examples like this one and my schools current dilemma. I think that artisitc expression is great and should not be stopped, but if it becomes a matter of public safety then it has gone to far.

But in the case of the mario cardboard boxes that was a tad too far on the pranksters part. If they had asked the town mayor or police deupty or whatever for permission and recieved it, then I'm all for it, but a public prank like that can be dangerous. Does free speech in America stop at the expense of the publics welfare? This can be related to video games as well, how far is the expressionist limit of the developers?

Well drop a comment in the box and a coin in my hand.