Character Showcase: Osaka

Originally posted May 23, 2009, lightly edited since.

Hey, you know what this blog needs?

MOAR OSAKA

She's Number Five! She's Number Five!

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The Walking Dead: Episode 5

Geez, could one thing this year NOT have a disappointing, nonsensical ending?

SPOILERS BELOW:

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Alpha Colony

We hear a lot about the wildly successful kickstarters, some of which are for video games. It's enough to forget that some projects don't squeak by.

"Alpha Colony" is a game that failed to reach its' Kickstarter goal... by less than thirty dollars.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

An Open Letter To Doritos

My name is Alex Hill. I live in Canada, and I am here to tell you what a pain in the ass it was to try and contact anyone even vaguely involved in the production of Doritos. I've spent the last hour trying to solve a completely unrelated problem with the Doritos Halo 4 Double XP promotion. That was my intent before the gauntlet. Now I am sitting here hoping your corporate headquarters gets struck by lightning and burns down.

I have been met with nothing but incompetence and frustration with the sorry excuse for customer service this brand employs. Your websites are a Kafkaesque labyrinth of despair and idiocy. Dead ends and non-existent e-mail contacts that I could only find through Google detective work. Nothing on any official web-page regarding this brand revealed information anyone could ever need to take part in this brand's cross-promotion, or even how to contact customer support. Many of these pages assume you are an American citizen and won't allow contact unless you have a U.S. Address.

At first I was just kind of upset that I'd been cheated out of some points in a fantasy video game. Now I'm actually hoping someone at Doritos gets set on fire. That is how badly Frito Lay, Pepsi-Co and everyone else whose fingers are in that pie are at having an internet presence in the 21st century. I don't know what sub-humans are employed in the creation of this product, or its' promotions, but they need to be on fire.

No really. Fire. Screaming painful agony. Maybe it's not a fair thing to wish upon another person, but it would go a long way to making up for the bullshit I just went through.

Eat 10,000 dicks.

-Alex Hill

Hitman Absolution: MCV

How to stay classy: Tell people to "suck a choad" on your company's official Twitter profile when they politely point out that you're ignoring negative reviews of your shitty product.

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~A.H.

The Wainright Profile

"...spare a thought for the journalist forced out of his job for telling the truth, and for the one still in hers for telling lies."

A man is out of a job for criticizing someone who openly gives praise to games... from a company she works for... and didn't tell anyone about... and then tried to erase any connection between her and the company she acts as a shill for, under the disguise of a "Games Journalist".

Those two words are shorthand for "Intellectual Prostitute".

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Halo 4: Pre-Order Pandaemonium

I have never seen any product enter the free market this terribly. Halo 4 is stumbling into stores this November like a drunken ex-husband on thanksgiving, knocking things down and shouting racist slurs to Grandma.

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EA: "Consumers won't pay for crap."

Then how is EA still in business?

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~A.H.

Chrono Trigger: Review

by Alex Hill

5/5

In 1992, two of the giants of Japanese Role-Playing Games boarded a plane, to check out the latest in computer graphics overseas. Hironobu Sakaguchi is the man behind the perpetual Final Fantasy series, and Yuji Horii is the brainchild of the intensely successful Dragon Quest series. Miles above the surface, they expressed mutual enthusiasm at the idea that they could, perhaps, achieve better results as co-workers. For years they were professional enemies, though not on bad terms. Siskel and Ebert were professional enemies too. Peanut Butter was once thought of as separate from Chocolate, until Reese's came and blew everyone's minds. They were excited at the idea of combining their strengths, and wanted to make a game that had never been conceived before.

When they reached the tarmac, they didn't have any solid ideas on where to take this enthusiasm. They had no clue that this would start the chain of events leading to a masterpiece. No one did. No one could have. No prospector truly knows when he is about to strike gold.


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DOMA

Try to understand how stupid and evil something has to be, if EA and Zynga are the ones standing up to it.

That's like if the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis joined up with the rest of humanity to stop the Oversquid, from eating our planet's supply of dreams and oxygen. It's like seeing the Joker and Killer Croc teaming up with Batman.

It takes a bit of getting used to, is all...

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~A.H.

The Walking Dead: Episode 4

I know the last post I wrote was a bitter condemnation of Telltale Games' QA testing/tech support. But holy fucking shit. I am trying very hard not to call this Game of the Year or something.

Also, Ben? I have all of the feels for Ben.

ALL OF THE FEELS.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

The Walking Dead

So I bought episodes 2 and 3 of the point-and-click adventure game "The Walking Dead" for the Xbox 360. I finish Episode 2, at which point it freezes. When I restart and go back in, I find it didn't save any of my progress... so now I have to go back and do the entire thing over again.

Because I so loved playing a game where you don't get enough time to even understand what your option are before selecting them, and then half of the time the game doesn't even register that you've made an option at all.


So I go to play Episode 3... and it only loads up the first episode. Astute readers may know that three is a number that comes after one, not before it.

So, hey, thanks for locking me out of content I FUCKING PAID FOR, Telltale! I guess I should have known when you guys went to pretty dirty means to cover up how badly you fucked up that Jurassic Park thing from a while back. If these people think they can get away with duping people into buying clearly unfinished bullshit, and then not even let them play that, well... mission accomplished.


Boy, that was a close one. You were ALMOST a respected developer. You sure showed us!

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~A.H.

Phoenix: "Issue 7"

...is now up. 


I'm just glad all of the files survived my last computer crapping out on me. But after 3 months, I finally got off my ass and made a new issue of my stupid Halo 3 comic that doesn't actually have anything to do with Halo besides the graphics engine.

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~A.H.

Onlive

Well, so much for cloud-gaming. What was especially interesting to me is that in some of these articles, the total player-base is listed at about 1,800 people. Despite two million or so people signing up, less than two-thousand actually supported Onlive.

I think it's amazing how long they kept this quiet. Do you suppose if they had been more open about it, it might have made people sympathetic and boost their numbers? Or would it have given everyone the impression that they failed, and then make them fail faster than they did?

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~A.H.

The Dark Knight Rises: "Bane"

This was going to be included in my appendum article, but I keep finding more and more I want to say about this lump of Tom Hardy barely disguised as a character. At first he was a forgettable bad guy in a worthless film. But the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing a lot of that is the fault of "Bane". He's a black hole, dragging everything else around him down into a place where it all stops making sense.

I am going to try and explain why he is the single worst villain in any Batman movie. But first, a few questions:

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The Dark Knight Rises: "Appendum"

And now, here's some more specific questions/criticisms of "The Dark Knight Rises" I could not fit into the review proper.

Just about every major spoiler in the film will be discussed here. Except for stuff regarding Bane, which will be it's own article.


You've been warned:

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"The Dark Knight Rises" Review

by Alex Hill

1.5/5

Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.

I still remember the enormous triumph of "The Dark Knight". I walked out of the theatre a drooling idiot. I couldn't remember where I lived, because that beautiful thing came and shattered my mind. I knew better than to expect the last installment of this Batman trilogy to surpass that. But I was not prepared for this. When we left the theatre, my friend and I looked at each other. He said to me:

"...Did that actually happen???".

I know I saw it. I know I've been waiting for four years to see it. I have witnesses who can vouch for my whereabouts. I have the receipt! But in many ways, I'm still waiting for that proper conclusion. This movie is a bad dream.



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FFV: Four Job Fiesta Pt. 2

Alright, adding in the new jobs, I notice "Mime" counts as a 'Water Crystal" job... even though you can't get access to the Mime class until after the Earth Crystal. Do I allow access to that job to be a 5th Re-Roll? Do I eliminate the possibility entirely?

-So I get the Water Crystal jobs, and re-roll the characters:

Phaze: Blue Mage
Reina: Knight
Galuf/Krile: Time Mage
Faris: Red Mage


This is a pretty damn good setup. It's too bad this is probably the shortest stage in the game, so I won't be able to take advantage of it for long.


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Mass Effect 3: "Extended Cut DLC"

...I can't speak for the additions/changes made to the standard ending choices. But they gave me my ending.

THEY GAVE ME MY ENDING, YOU GUYS

I'd been waiting for this to come out before reviewing Mass Effect 3. Now I'm starting to realize that, there's no way I could review the same game as you. All I can really talk about is My "Mass Effect", My "Shepard", and my version on these events. And I shall. A 3-part series of articles will loosely sum up my experiences with each of the games in the series, and my thoughts on them.


For now though, let's get back to the Extended Cut DLC:

No, it doesn't fix a lot of the stupid, contrived bullshit. It doesn't give satisfying answers to every question(even though it finally lets us ask those questions). And it's pathetic that it took this long, and this much banging of pots and pans just to get a complete fucking product we paid for months ago.

But they finally gave us a real choice to make. It's finally over for me. It's done.


"I can die free."


END OF LINE

 ~A.H.

Dragon Age II: "Prejudice"

I liked the characters and immediate gameplay in DA2 more than in Origins. So I don't think it's a terrible game the way everyone told me it was. But I still find it reprehensible for different reasons, reasons I don't think a lot of people really thought about. I was prepared to call it my favourite game of 2011, until it became apparent just how evil the writers' message was.


It's hard not to draw comparison between the Qunari and the spread of Islam during that whole Crusades business. The persecution by the Templars certainly supports this. The lead writer, David Gaider, even referred to them as the "militant Islamic Borg", so you know there's going to be a fair portrayal here, right? Comparing them to a vicious machine-race that forces a fascist life-style on everyone else. Surely the game will take a stand against such petty tribalistic assumptions, I thought.

And for the most part, I was right...

Via dragonage.wikia.com

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Final Bosses

I "collect" Final Boss tracks from video games. Either physically, or just listening to it over and over. Until it essentially becomes a piece of the life I've lived, listening to video game music instead of becoming a productive member of society.

I believe, with the exception of a strong opening or conclusion, the final boss of a game should be the best part of that game. Ideally, everything should be leading up to that moment, every trick you've learned, every weapon and ability you've mastered should be acquired in service of that inevitable confrontation. It should be what 90% of the game is preparing you for. A final boss ought to be the biggest challenge, and part of the biggest payoff.

Via mariowiki.com

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38 Spouse

Another interesting development in the 38 Studios craziness.

Mark my words: This is going to be EA one day. And what a sweet day that will be.

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~A.H.

FFV: Four Job Fiesta Pt. 1

-It is childish and beating a dead horse to make fun of the translation from a 90's video game. That said, anyone dumb enough to look at "Bat-su" in Japanese and think: "They must be saying BUTTS, LET'S MAKE THAT THE NAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTER" deserves to be made fun of. (I like how even the Wikipedia contradicts itself in the very next paragraph.)

With that out of the way, hee-hee. "Nut Eaters".

And there's two of them!

Alright, moving on.

-So I did the boring intro stuff, and who cares. This is not The Great Gatsby here.

...Why are they making a movie about that, by the way? Why is that a thing? What, were they itching to get in on some of that sweet cash that "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Atlas Shrugged" DIDN'T make at the box-office?

Oh, right. Final Fantasy V.


-So yeah, I followed my rules, randomly decided their first jobs, and I got what you see above in the screenshots.

Bartz = Black Mage
Reina = Monk
Galuf = Knight
Faris = Blue Mage

Kind of an odd profession in a world without cars.

Faris is the only liability at this rate, since there's not really a lot(if any) spells a Blue Mage can learn at this rate, and also I forget how to get Blue Magic in this game. Something about being hit by enemies? And she can't even use healing magic yet either. But at least she can carry a sword.

-I like how the innocent, weak Princessy type ended up as the heavy-hitting martial-artist of the team. Her fists do more damage than the most expensive sword I can find at the time. Say what you will, at least she's not afraid to break a nail.


-The time comes to reveal that Faris is a woman pretending to be a man. They find out when, after they have to proceed through sunken ships to get to a safe zone, they have to dry their clothes by a fire. Because they think Faris is a man, she doesn't go with Reina into what would be the ladies locker room. Modesty dictates it and all.

But before they go into the water, Faris is the one who stops the group and says: "We'll get wet." I always thought that was just needless cautionary exposition, the kind that always pops up when you're about to do a thing. Now I see that it's there to show that Faris knows what will happen. She knows they'll have to dry off their clothes by a fire if they go swimming, and that will blow her cover.

Okay, one more.

Also, in the fan-translation, Faris' excuse for pretending to be a boy is that "a female pirate would be laughed at". Pirates of the Caribean 3 did not dispel this notion. But I forget if it was a separate fan-translation, or the updated GBA localization, but I vaguely recall the reason being changed at some point, to its more logical conclusion: A woman on a boat with a bunch of rowdy pirates would uh... not end well. Not that Faris wouldn't kick their asses, but still. Better to be on the safe side.

*flush*

-I also thought, in a game that's known for being badly written even by early 90's standards, that it was clever how they handled the scene with the Siren. There you are in the ship graveyard in the sea, and the Siren lures three of your party members under her control. She does this by tricking them into thinking their loves ones are beckoning them. The only one who doesn't fall under this spell is Galuf.

Not because the trick didn't work. The Siren somehow knew who his grand-daughter was and what she looked like. The only reason it didn't work was because Galuf didn't know. Because he had amnesia. The Siren knew that this girl was important to him, but to Galuf, it was just some stranger in a bad magic trick.

It's one of the few clever uses of the amnesia trope I've seen. The rest of the game is not this clever.

-Aww, poor Syldra and your hilarious "do-want" snake-face... It's amazing how much the right music can sell an otherwise dopey story... It's too bad that moment is ruined as soon as the upbeat overworld theme kicks in again.

"Aww, someone died and they're sad... CUE THE HAPPY MUSIC! =D"

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Capcom: "Yoshinori Ono"

So remember way back when Keiji Inafune, the guy behind Mega Man, Lost Planet and Dead Rising ragequit the company? And how he told everyone within earshot about what a bunch of cockbags they supposedly were?

Well now here's Yoshinori Ono, who's in charge of the Street Fighter series, with his rebuttal: "Capcom didn't even acknowledge that I had been in hospital."

...Wait a minute...


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FFV: Four Job Fiesta Introduction

There's this thing called "Four-Job Fiesta". It's sort of a cross between the Nuzlocke challenge and a charity speed-run, but with Final Fantasy V. Essentially, it's a fan-concocted Hard Mode for a game relying on the honour system.

Via finalfantasywikia.net

In that game, your party accumulated a series of "jobs" in battle. Samurai could use swords and throw money(?), Black Mages could use magic spells, etc. Every character gets to be a different class, or you can have duplicates if you want.

The idea here is that you tweet the guy running this thing when those jobs are available, and then he randomly decides which Job your party has to be.

You get to be a new job as the game goes on, and more are unlocked. But by restricting yourself from just picking whichever job you want, it's supposed to make an already tough game even more challenging. Or at least more interesting.


Here is why I think that is stupid:

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Gears Of War: Judgment

After 3 games, I finally started to like "Baird" and "Cole" from Gears of War. In fact, I wish we'd gotten more of them. They were a lot more tolerable to be around than the main characters of this series. I can't have been the only one who wished they'd gotten a spinoff. Maybe with "Sam" and "Carmine" to round out the team.

But with the Locust dead forever, they'd probably have to do a prequel or something. Ooh, and maybe they could get the Bulletstorm developer to handle it.

...Yeah, kind of like that.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Halo 4: "Armour"

I've got a couple of articles on the way that are unusually optimistic(or at least positive-thinking) by my standards. Garrus, the Gamecube, and Phantasy Star Online are all on their way to this blog.

But for now, let's shoot some more fish in a barrel:


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"Batman: Under The Red Hood" Review

by Alex Hill

Via fangirlisms.com

I had an idea for a Batman movie featuring a villain who only kills criminals, or convinces criminals to eliminate each other. This was honestly how I thought the last of the Nolan trilogy would go down. Someone who "cleans up" Gotham by doing whatever Batman wouldn't do. It would ask whether or not everyone is worth saving.

I thought it was a mildly clever idea. Turns out I wasn't the only one who thought so. "Batman: Under The Red Hood" tackles this concept. It is a chilling and effective thriller, a story about the repercussions of guilt.

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Sony, Ladies And Gentlemen...

Sony patented a thing where they could literally halt your game, at any given moment, right when you're trying to have fun... so they can show you an unskippable commercial. Remember how stupid and out-of-place that Verizon commercial was in Alan Wake? Now image it happened right when you were in the middle of an important fight or something.


I want you to understand something. I mean to really stop and think about this for a moment: These guys are still employed, but the people who made Kingdoms of Amalur are all out of a job now. That is the world we live in.

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~A.H.

Mass Effect 3: "Not Bad, For A Human"

Lance Henrikson talks about the extended Mass Effect 3 Ending DLC in the works. I'm surprised, since I'd heard they weren't going to bring back any of the voice cast for it. Tricia Helfer's coming back for it too, apparently.

This is going to be another addition to my series of rants about why the Mass Effect 3 ending is garbage, but it's also an excuse to gush about Lance Henrikson. What can I say? The man's paid his dues in a cruel line of work, and brought a lot to science-fiction. And as Alien Vs. Predator showed us, he can make the most out of crap. "Not bad, for a human."

But he's got his work cut out for him here.

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Activision: "Project Icebreaker"

EA and Activision are like two horses in the Kentucky Derby who are maintaining a steady tie for the lead. Except if the goal for the horses was to be the bigger video game industry scumbag. Sometimes EA will catch a second-wind and pull ahead.

And then we'll find out about Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO hiring shady third-parties to access the computers of two guys he was planning on firing, who helped launch their biggest franchise, weeks before they were about to ink a deal with EA, their competitors. I especially like the part about how they considered, no shit, planning a "fake fumigation" so they could sneak in and access West and Zampella's computers for their e-mail accounts.


And Activision takes the lead!

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Halo 4 Wallpaper

So I get an e-mail from Microsoft telling me about "my piece of the Halo 4 puzzle". Forgive me if I can hardly contain my excitement. <_<

Well, if nothing else, the Halo series usually has some decent Alternate Reality Game promotions. Hell, Halo 2's "I love bees" practically put them on the map. This could be somewhere just barely not approaching the level of fun if I somehow found other people with other pieces to put this thing togeth-

Wait, what's this? If you open a new tab with the picture, it literally says something like: "h4_11"? And if I just adjust the numbers in there, I can get the entire picture?

So, they're confident enough to give you a vague puzzle to promote their upcoming software, but not confident enough that anyone would cheat? No wonder 99% of Reach players are console-modders. Well, I've got nothing better to do:


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Steve Mc...Quark

You know, I'd forgotten how much I like the music from Ratchet & Clank.

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~A.H.

Republiqué

A game with David Hayter and Jennifer Hale needs $300,000 in Kickstarter pledges... in the next week.

Internet, don't let me down.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Mass Effect 3: "Things I Liked"

This may sound hard to believe, but the ending to Mass Effect 3 didn't go back and destroy everything that was good and pure about this series. But that's not for a lack of trying. I can still enjoy the events that lead up to it, even as it tries desperately to make everything I did across 90 hours completely pointless.

Here is a small list of things the ending could not ruin for me(in no particular order).

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU BEEN WARNED):


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Playstation All Stars: Battle Royale

Sony, I can understand wanting to rip off Smash Bros. It's a big, successful, fun thingamajig that takes advantage of decades of franchises and characters.

But don't you need, like... franchises and characters first? I mean, let's count what you guys have to work with here:

• Ratchet & Clank
• Nathan Drake
• Sweet Tooth
• Kratos
• Uh...
• That redhead chick from that game no one bought?
• Flower??
• ...
• ...
• That burlap muppet thing from Little Big Planet?

The first Smash Bros. had 12 characters. Street Fighter II had 8 playable characters, and 4 boss characters. They had Donkey Kong and Blanka. You guys have Dane Cook in Tomb Raider.


I'm not saying this was a bad idea at any time. But it's either too early or way too late to be doing this. You haven't got enough exclusive franchises to build on yet, but it's also too late to go back and throw in Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon.

A very strange and desperate turn of events... Which I know is par for the course with you guys, but still.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Mass Effect 3: "Why The Ending Sucks"

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!

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Mass Effect 3: "Insanity"

I REALLY need something to focus on right now that isn't Mass Effect 3. I'm going to lose my mind if I keep this up. Days and days of nonstop playing the game, writing about the game, drawing stuff for the game, talking about the game, analyzing and joking about the game. Still so much to do, but I need some relief from this. I need closure, but I need a break.

This isn't like when I get the sudden urge to draw cast mugshots for a zombie story. I seriously think I'm starting to go insane here. It just won't escape my thoughts. I'm having a hard time accomplishing even basic rotary functions human beings do every day around the house, because Jennifer Hale is squatting in my brain like a hobo.

EB Games

There is nothing a publisher like EA hates more than used game sales. It means they don't get a penny for when they release rushed, idiotic, childish, pandering bullshit. It means they resort to backhanded business practices(usually by chopping up a game's content and selling it back to you, like a ransom note that comes with your son's finger). And most of all, it means John Riccitiello has to wait a little while before buying another solid-gold yacht he paid for by closing a development studio.

Because of this, I no longer see used-game sales as the industry-destroying problem it's made out to be. As Chris Kohler pointed out, it seems more like a scape-goat for business execs who don't want to try very hard. There's only so long you can release garbage for ridiculous prices, in a recession, before people start going to pawn-shops. If publishers aren't willing to make games for less(or at least just not waste millions of dollars into rendering James Vega's ass-cheeks), and as long as they keep trying to lock out customers who aren't Scrooge McDuck, places like EB Games are just going to keep eating into their profits. They have no one but themselves to blame for not properly adapting to the demands of their customers.

One would think the best way to combat this would be to not buy anymore EA products. Or Activision, or Capcom, Square-Enix, BioWare, etc. Any corporation that handles customer relations the way Jodie Foster was handled on that pinball machine in "The Accused".

But I think I have a better idea. It's just in the testing phase right now, but tell me if you think this makes sense:

For companies I like, I'll buy games new. 
For companies I don't like, I'll buy games used.




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Digimon Xros Wars: "Hunters"

Man, that new Digimon season is fucking awful. But at least it's contained. Like an epidemic. It hasn't been localized. When I think of more successful rebirths in television, like Dr. Who, it makes me sad to see the people behind this franchise aiming so low. But at least they're sticking to ruining their own characters. Like when Marge baked a separate cake on Maggie's birthday for Homer to ruin.

Fortunately they haven't done anything stupid like, in a desperate attempt to win respect from fans tired of Namco/Bandai's bullshit, parade out older characters we actually did like. It has to be obvious to them by now that nobody has genuinely liked the cast for this show since about 2001. By now they're just relying on the same tired spikey-haired leader, token female and mysterious tall loner bishi trifecta every other anime goes with.

And even though the show has always been a toy commercial, lately it's a lot more transparent about it. Hollow, even, seemingly assembled piecemeal out of the carcasses of a dozen anime programs. Not to tell a story, not to be educational or endearing, but just to hawk some products on people in the most obnoxious and undermining way possible.

But at least the "Classic" characters have been spared this fate, right?

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Mass Effect 3: "Whores"

I think everyone can agree that the ending to Mass Effect 3 is just about the worst conceivable ending for anything. I don't think I'm being controversial in saying that. I think that's something we as a species has decided unanimously. Even the people who reviewed it on professional gaming rags seem to think so, but that didn't stop them from giving it Infinity out of Ten.

There's always been a long-standing suspicion that Publishers of games can buy good review scores. We've never had anything to prove it, and we might not have it now. But when I look at the disparity between the things the critics have to say, and things the fans have to say, it's getting harder and harder to hide.

Something is definitely wrong with games criticism, and for once it's not Yahtzee.

Via "Mass Effect 3 in a nutshell".

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7 Better Endings For "Mass Effect 3"

~~~~~
-Powerless, the survivors have no choice but to defeat the Reapers... THROUGH THE POWER OF DANCE!

*Cut To: All of the Reapers exploding
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"Katawa Shoujo" Review

by Alex Hill

4.5/5

Katawa Shoujo is remarkable. A love-letter not just to the disabled or to animu dating sims, but to the paralyzing panic of love. We know in our heads things we can't always come to terms with on the inside. We can know, but we can still be hurt or fearful. We can find ourselves hurting the ones we love without trying to, and not understand why. The goal here involves your character becoming romantically involved with one of several girls with disabilities. I don't believe Four Leaf Studios did this out of some fetish or pity, but because they believed in this project.  

It's an honest glimpse into the human heart.

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Penny Arcade, Mass Effect: "Pandora's Box"

Some people started a donation drive thingy to "Take Back Mass Effect 3" after the childishly stupid ending was discovered, mostly by people who had paid hundreds of dollars for the special edition of the game that promised the ending wouldn't be childishly stupid.

They figured the best way to send a message to Bioware that they ought to do something about this would be to show it with their money. But in a misguided attempt at kindness, they decided all funds would go to Child's Play.

Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, two people who -liked- the Mass Effect 3 ending, have decided to reject all funds directed to Child's Play from this movement. Their reasons?

"Child’s Play cannot be a tool to draw attention to a cause.  Child’s Play must be the Cause."

And you know what? As much as I hate the idea of needy kids being deprived of joy that such money could buy... I agree.

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OCRemix: "Maverick Rising"

Good enough.

Although now I have no reason to ever go to OCRemix.org again. They've pretty much done everything I've wanted to hear from them.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Brawl In The Family

I made 200 comics without punchlines, and I'm fit as a fiddle. Matthew Taranto has made nearly 400 comics that are unrelentingly cute and warm and fuzzy, and he gets a debilitating illness out of it.

That is BULLSHIT.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Obsidian: "Metacritic"

Business sucks, alright? It's cold and rigid and occasionally unfair. Such is the case with Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas contract with Bethesda, wherein the developer only received royalties if the game matched or exceeded an 85 rating on Metacritic.

Who would do that? What kind of numbskull bases huge business decisions on the score they get at a review aggregate site? That's like a movie studio determining salaries based on the score they get at RottenTomatoes.com.

I don't think even the guys at EA or Activision are that reckless.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Bioshock: "Founding Father"

When I say: "George Washington robot with a machine gun", Did you giggle? Did you think: "Fuck yeah! All it needs is a velociraptor!"? Now what if I told you it was an enemy in the new Bioshock game?

Now what if I told you it looks completely immobile, so that only a complete idiot standing in its line of fire could possibly get hurt?

Now what if I told you that Ken Levine was being compeltely srs-face about this, and is actually marketing this as a "heavy-hitter", "terrifying" opponent? The one who looks like a Simpsons joke and can be defeated/ignored by taking two steps away from its line of sight.

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Mass Effect 3: "Homosexuality"

The tragedy is that this person is stuck writing for Gamespot. That's not fair.

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~A.H.

Phoenix: "Comic Fury"

Alright, now I have a website for my comic "Phoenix" that doesn't blow(as much as the last one did)!


Easy on the eyes(hopefully), simple layout, buttons to go back, forward, to the first, to the archives, and you can even just click on the comic itself to get to the next page. None of that "RIGHT-CLICK, VIEW IMAGE" crap.


You can find it at phoenix.thecomicseries.com. Sorry it took this long to find a decent host. Hopefully Comic Fury will be a good home for this weird project of mine...

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~A.H.

Operation Rainfall: "The Last Story"

Two down, one to go. 

It occurs to me that perhaps this was Nintendo's plan the whole time. Making people think they wouldn't release these stateside to drum up interest. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, but if true, I'm sure they could have chosen a less dickheaded way to play us all like a fiddle.

That said, XSeed are good people. They're the reason we got Fragile Dreams, and I look forward to giving them all of the moneys again.

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~A.H.

The Tester: "Egoraptor"

"The Tester" makes me mad, more than a Reality show should.

Reality TV is, by its definition a hollow, bitter creature, a frankenstein assembled after the fact in the misguided attempt by producers and editors to make something "interesting". They make people out to be demons for our amusement. They toy with the hopes of participants who perhaps aren't aware of the backstage machinations already in play to make them fall before the stage is even set.

We, as a people, have decided we are okay with that. Despite the fact that the whole point of "Reality" television is that it's supposed to be... you know, REAL. Or real-er than, say, an episode of Cheers. They manipulate the order of things to make artificial conflict, because some sleazebag in a suit believes that's the only way to make "real life" interesting.

...Which the inexplicable success of cake shows has proven that no, that's bullshit, we really will watch any culturally worthless garbage, even if it doesn't have drama or shouting. If fiction uses lies to tell the truth, reality tv abuses the truth to tell bullshit.

R18+

Finally!

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Occupy This

The following is a response to Pat's post on SOPA:

I don't think it's a matter of poor priorities. I think people are smart enough to realize that all of those big problems, the real issues are out of our control. They're completely hopeless. The Occupy movement will never amount to anything, because nobody is willing to go too far. SOPA was a rare cause within our reach.

Occupy is too nice. It's too civil, too quaint. "Oh, look at that, they're protesting. Aren't they cute?"

The only time a frustrated mob of poor-to-middle class people ever accomplished anything is when they dragged royalty out into the streets to be hanged. That's a lot harder to ignore than some teenagers shitting in a state park.

But if anyone does cross that line, then they'll become the bad guys! There's no middle ground, no peaceful negotiations. If a cop pepper-sprays a peaceful protest, he's the bad guy. But if a rioter throws a molotov cocktail, then the entire movement and everything it stands for becomes uglier.

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PHOENIX: Issue 1-B

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"Phoenix" was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from "Halo 3", © Microsoft Corporation.

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PHOENIX: Issue 1-A

Open In New Tab/"View Image":

 <-First->  ~~~  {-PREVIOUS-}  ~~~  <-Archive->  ~~~  {-NEXT-}

"Phoenix" was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from "Halo 3", © Microsoft Corporation.

Additional code provided by blogdoctor.me