The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Timothy Burton is a man who was once well regarded. Now, he is less so. Supposedly. I suppose you can’t blame him for being out of favor with the cool kids: Hot Topic and such have run him and his works into the ground, coolness-wise. Making garbage such as Corpse Bride and that remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really didn’t help things either. Still, you have to give him a little credit. This is the guy who made Big Fish.

I guess what I am saying is that it was really up in the air whether Alice in Wonderland was going to be complete shit, or just a decent popcorn flick.

I mean, I don’t think there was any chance it was going to be a good movie, perse. Alice in Wonderland didn’t need this sort of treatment, especially starring Kefka, the Mad Clown. Nobody with any sense was saying “Thank god, a remake of Alice in Wonderland. About fucking time.” Well, I guess, except the people at Hot Topic.

Still, I think Burton managed to make a fun enough ride. I enjoyed myself.

I guess I’ll get issues out of the way: the biggest problem is that they apparently couldn’t buy a foley artist which could make a decent snicker-snack sound effect. Fable knew that was the sound the Vorpal Sword makes. It’s right there in the poem. There isn’t even a vague attempt to make the sword in the movie sound this way. I was completely let down.
Additionally, the themes of the plot are really, really confused in the story. The story would seem to revolve around Alice not letting other people control her life back in London, and not giving in to the concept of fate, and yet, in the end, she gives in to her fate in Wonderland completely. She only pays lip service to diverging from the path. She never actually does. Even her diverging is “part of the plan,” and she doesn’t really think for herself throughout the story. Somehow, this magically translates to her deciding to think for herself and blaze her own path in the real world. It’s really not hard to set up that kind of parallel narrative. It really isn’t. I’m very confused why the movie had trouble with it. Would it really have been that hard to create a fate for Alice that she sees and then doesn’t follow?

Still, as I said, it was a pretty enjoyable ride if you just turn your brain off. Moreso than Avatar, I think. Avatar kept pounding how “significant” it was into your head, and thus stopped you from just being able to turn yourself off and enjoy the dumb ride. Alice is good enough not to do that. You can just have fun seeing the cool special effects and whatnot, and it works. I saw the film in 3D, and that worked pretty well, too. A bit subtle, and not either in your face with tricks or going “3D IS THE FUTURE OF ALL MEDIA” or whatnot.
I was also very pleased with the amount of Johnny Depp in the film. I feared he was going to play this like Willy Wonka, which was, honestly, pretty annoying. Plus, from everything I saw, I thought this was going to be THE MAD HATTER’S ALICE IN WONDERLAND STARRING THE MAD HATTER, but although he was certainly a main character, he got out of the way to let other characters play a part. I appreciated that. It was still, for the most part, Alice’s show. Which is as it should be.

This wasn’t the best movie. Not at all. But it was passable. It was enjoyable. I did not feel my time wasted. I suppose that’s enough, when you’re going to the theater just to go to the theater, hm? Maybe people do that all the time. I don’t tend to. But I did this time, and I didn’t leave disappointed. I guess I give this movie a slightly better than meh out of five stars. If you have any interest in it, feel free to go see it. You probably won’t hate it, and you’ll have a good hour or two of viewing.

Gamefly sent me some Guitar Hero 5. I thought it would be fun to mess around with for a day or two and farm some achieveingment points, so I had it on my list. We just play a full night of it. It was fun! I mean, I never need to play it ever again, but it was fun. I would not fault anyone for being into it.

The major things about this version that I like is how intelligent it is. Much more so than previous games, which were being cranked out, some thought when into how to set this game up. Letting you have as many of whatever instrument you want, for example, is kind of silly. But when you get in there, and you don’t have to force someone to be on Drums because nobody I play with likes drums? Well, it’s clear that that mix and match ability is a benefit.

Similarly, I love, love, love the party play mode. I mean, we didn’t really use it? But I’ve fiddled with it before. It’s just kind of genius. This actually is the sort of thing I would put at a party. Granted, I would rather have it with my big Rock Band library, but it’s a great feature. Dropping in and out, flipping difficulties on the fly… it’s a really good idea.

It’s not all perfect, though. Most of it is presentation stuff that I dislike.
I kind of hate the way they display vocals. I’m obviously all about vocals, and I have a much harder time determining how far I am off pitch on the Guitar Hero screen. That’s a big problem, in my book. The vocals are also much, much pickier on even medium than they are in Rock Band. It’s kind of like Expert in Rock Band 1. You really have to be right fucking on that pitch, like a robot. It’s almost no fun.
The art style of the game, too, is just really grating. They’re trying to split the difference between realism and cartoon, and it’s just stupid at this point. Commit to realism or commit to cartoonish parody, already! It just looks kind of awful. It really doesn’t know what it wants to be.

The track list is actually pretty good as well. We found more than enough songs to fill the night that we didn’t completely hate. Granted, a lot of the best ones I already had in Rock Band, but I know that isn’t the case for some people, so it’s still pretty good. “Superstition” was nice. I hadn’t heard that one before. Not-me also got excited about The White Stripes on there and whatnot.

Yeah. It was pretty fun. It was a good night. But there’s nothing there that would make me give up Rock Band. Not to mention I’m so committed. I have so, so much Rock Band DLC. There’s no going back to Guitar Hero. Still, you could do worse if you wanted to rent a rhythm game for an afternoon of fun. Solid, certainly. That’s more than you can say about some recent Guitar Heroes. It’s just not a game-changer.

Galcon was one of the first games I bought on my iPod Touch. It was simplistic, but a lot of fun. It required a lot of strategy, and a game took only a minute, at most. It worked perfectly on the touch screen. It was a great, great portable game. I picked it up in the big Steam Indie Midweek Madness, and I was interested to see how the desktop version would become more full-featured to make it work in a less portable setting.

It really doesn’t change a whole lot.

There’s nothing really lost in the control scheme. Mouse controls work just as good as touch controls. One might even say better, since you can control the percent of ships sent to attack with the keyboard, letting you react with that quicker than having to tap it on the iPod. It works fine, and, of course, sitting in front of the keyboard means you can have chat in multiplayer matches. Finally, someone can call me a n00b when I play Galcon online!

It’s really just the same game. There’s no campaign or anything. Single Player is simply picking a mode and a difficulty, just like on the iPod. This is enhanced a bit by Steam Achievements, however. There’s an achievement for winning a game at every difficulty in every mode, giving a bit of incentive to push yourself and pick harder and harder computer opponents, but this isn’t really a significant enhancement. Just a good idea, and something I’m glad they through in there, but it’s not game-changing.

Overall, though, I would never recommend this version over the portable ones. Being portable gives Galcon a huge advantage. It gives the game much more value. There’s nothing wrong with Galcon Fusion, and if you can’t get enough on the iPhone or don’t have one and want to give the game a try, you’ll have a bit of simple, strategic fun. But if you have the option, pick up Galcon or Galcon Labs on the iPhone. It’s much better as a portable game.

Altitude is really fantastic.
I mean, it’s simple. It’s not necessarily deep. But it has some really good things going for it.

For one, they get how an indie game should digitally distribute. I bought the game on Steam, but they have an online, web-based version of the game I can play anywhere. Alternatively, I can download the game onto any number of machines that I want from their website, even without using Steam. That’s the sort of access I want from a game like this. It puts use in my hands, to do with as I will. That’s a value add. Completely.

Additionally, the game really benefits from how simple and easy to get into it is. There’s no huge load. No 30 screens of developer logos to wait through. You can be in a match in 15 seconds, and just play. There’s no pressure if you quit, either, so you can stop just as fast. It is the perfect game for quick little sessions while you’re waiting for someone to do something, or waiting for a friend to show up. It works so well that way.

On top of it all, the game is actually pretty clever. You fly planes around on a 2-D map from a side view. There are five different types of planes with completely different weaponry. I like the Bomber, which fires grenades forward in its default configuration, but also has a backward-facing cannon as its secondary fire, to finish people off after you fly past them. I am also taking to the default weapons on the Biplane, which is a long distance cannon, and then a short range “machine gun,” which basically works like a melee attack, and shreds planes who get close, if you can get in range.
These are just the default weapons, though. You gain experience from playing, and level up, unlocking new planes and perks, much like Modern Warfare. Eventually you have 3 different weapon loadouts on each plane, each one a bit different from the last, so you can really strategize and pick your favorites. You also get to pick Blue and Green perks, which modify your weapon energy and your defenses respectively. As such, there is a decent amount of customization on each plane. Not a huge amount. Picking Heavy Armor over Rubberized Hull isn’t going to extremely change your strategy, but you can optimize for your playstyle.
It’s the subtleties of movement that really make the game shine, though. You’d think it would be a very simple affair to zip around the map, but these are planes, and they require finesse that you would expect from planes. If you bump into things, or fly straight up for too long, your plane will stall, and you’ll have to dive a bit to get the motor going again. You can also use this to your advantage: I enjoy stalling on purpose with the Biplane, so people get close, and then letting loose with my machine gun. If I didn’t suck at getting out of Stalls half the time, it would be really effective. Heh.

But yeah, Altitude is a simple game, but it really is a lot of fun. It plays great with a gamepad, if you have one, but works just fine with the keyboard, too. I put it on my lappy and on my main box, and I’ve been playing it off and on since I got it in the recent Steam Indie Pack. It would be a much easier recommendation at the $2 price point it was then. It’s a ton of value for what I paid for it. But even at $10, I think I would have been happy with my purchase. Check it out, and see if it’s something you can get into. It’s simple fun, and completely enjoyable.

Prototype opens with an Abilitease. You start out in a big fight, and you try out a lot of different powers.
None of them are cool.

This was the first warning sign.

I only played Prototype for maybe an hour, hour and a half. But it was already repetitive and grating on me. Why? Well, let me share.

First off, the main character is completely unlikable. He has no personality, and has nothing in mind besides revenge. He also kills innocents all the time for health. He’s a bad person, but they don’t even make him a cool bad person. He’s the “antihero,” and it’s painfully cliche. I don’t give a shit about him. I don’t care what he finds out as he unravels his web of intrigue. There’s no reason for me to want to find out. They don’t give me anything.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the gameplay were fun, but it wasn’t fun as well. You try out a wide variety of melee powers there at the beginning of the game, but they’re all essentially exactly the same with different animations. I got to the point where I unlocked the Claw power. It looked stupid, and honestly, it didn’t seem to affect my attack effectiveness much, so I turned it off and just punched people. Having gigantic metal claws should be cool. Prototype doesn’t make it as such.
Movement is equally silly. If you hold down Right Trigger, Mr. Hoodie Man will run over any obstacle. There’s nothing to stop you. You hold down RT and press forward, and can fall asleep. There’s more you can do with movement, but the game never gives you any reason to, outside of bullshit race missions that I didn’t want to do. It just wasn’t fun running around the city. In Crackdown, you have an obscene range of moment, but it requires some skill to really get going. That makes it feel REALLY good. Also, moving well can keep you out of firefights you don’t want to be in. It serves a purpose. I ran through groups of enemies as Hoodie Man and was in no danger. I didn’t have to do better.
Finally, the game just doesn’t know what it does well. The game is clearly a crazy, open world brawler, and yet all of the missions I undertook involved eating people for disguises and being stealthy. What bullshit. You’re supposed to be some crazy-powered guy. Why would you ever be forced to stealth? It would have been a cool option, but I had to do it for every mission. It was pretty stupid.

So, yeah, I returned it pretty much immediately, and I don’t feel bad about it. It basically matched all I had heard about it, and I’m glad I rented it. It’s a shame. There were some decent ideas in there. The Web of Intrigue, especially. But man, it just didn’t catch me at all.

I was playing a game of LoL with Essner. We were actually doing pretty good! I was playing as Sivir and wasn’t having any huge fuck-ups.

Then I guy named Curv told me I fucked up and should get off the game.
Maybe this would be understandable if I had done something, but I hadn’t done anything wrong at that moment. I was double-teamed, and I ran away, because there was nobody close. It was really annoying.

So I enacted a plan.

“Thank you for your valuable advice!” I said.

“Good. Now Uninstal,” he said.

“Oh, but I could never do that. Now that you’ve graced me with your advice, we should be able to win with no problem! If only more people would help useless players like myself with such advice, nobody would ever lose!” I said.
And then, in a stroke of genius, I kept going.
Every moment I didn’t have to click, I was writing more and more singing Curv’s praises. Telling him how much of a genius he was at the game, and how everything that came out of his mouth was the most useful thing I had ever heard. He would tell me to shut up. I would respond, “But then, how could I sing your praises? Everyone needs to know how much you’re helping me.” Then I’d keep right on going.

Eventually, he told me he had fucked my mother last night. I went on to thank him for doing such a wonderful job pleasuring her, and for being such a kind and gentle lover. I went on and on about how wonderful it was watching him make love to my mother, and that through that act, I knew his true feelings for me.

All this was going on while I was fighting beside him, healing him, and supporting him, of course.

As the game ended, I, of course, talked about how I could never have contributed to our win without him, and that I and my mother were looking forward to seeing her in the bedroom very soon.

Then I sent him a friend request.
It was immediately denied.

Never have I had so much fun in a game. I can’t wait to try it again. I really can’t. Bring it on, assholes. I’m ready to idolize you.

Beyond this point be Silent Hill: Shattered Memories spoilers. The plot is, by far, the best part of the game, and though I’m sure there are a variety of changes if you get a different psychological profile than I did, the main plot will probably be the same. You’ll be sad if you spoil it for yourself. Play the game first if you’re interested.

Spoilarz from here on in. Here we go.

I thought about this game’s plot more than I have any game in a long time. Hell, I actually had a nightmare about it, woke up, picked up my phone, and then was nervous because your cell phone played so much into the game. Granted, I’m probably a wuss, but the game does a spectacular job of creating psychological horror. I love it.

One of the ways I think it is most effective in doing this is telling you, straight out, that what you do affects what the game thinks of you. Now, I know that, if I dug right down, I could make a chart or whatever of the factors it looks at to affect your ending. But that’s no fun, and plus, I didn’t look up the chart that someone inevitably made. It really made me think about my decisions. I started by just answering things truthfully, but I soon realized that there are things I would normally do that I wasn’t doing because it was a video game. So I started worrying about and doing those, too, to make sure the game read me right.
The best example I have of this is at the high school. There is a chemical closet there. Opening it reveals nothing of interest inside, but there is a big sticker on the back of the closet saying “CLOSE AFTER USE.” Closing isn’t just hitting a button. You have to use the Wiimote to grab and close the door. It’s kind of tedious. I almost left because, as a gamer, there were no useful items, it was useless. But then I started thinking: what is the game going to think of me if I don’t close the door? I would in real life. I actually turned back around and closed the door.
This is how the game really got me going. It wasn’t the running about bits. Those were just frustrating. It was the idea that the game was watching what I did, and that everything I did was going to have some significance. It’s smoke and mirrors, sure, but it made it a ton more fun.

The other main thing that really got me involved with the game were how well the characters were animated. Granted, they were mostly cutscenes, but they moved in very realistic ways and had very realistic expressions. The Voice of the Agency, aka The Psychologist was especially well-done. I mean, everyone was a little uncanny valley, but Silent Hill has always been using that for effect, and not by accident, so I had no problem with it.

Plot-wise, I felt like it tied itself up very well. The video that’s the menu screen made complete sense by the end of the game, and the part that I assume is affected by your psychological profile, the section after that on the tape, is a really cool way to make your decisions matter without completely destroying the main plot. All the subtle changes, or what I thought were certainly changes based on the extremely sexy way my game was going, were also completely cool. I think they did a good job at making that matter without having to go overboard and make X number of games.

I’ll admit I was surprised that it was Cheryl that was in therapy. Granted, it makes complete sense, and I don’t know why I didn’t catch it before the ending. I knew it didn’t make much sense for Harry to be in therapy, seeing as how things were progressing. It also didn’t really make sense for it to be completely disconnected to the storyline and it actually be the player being analyzed, which is how I treated it the whole time. If it was out of the game, I feel like the Psychologist would have been treating the player a lot less… creepier.
Still, I think it really drove home what was happening having it that way. Learning it was Cheryl, and that the whole game was probably a metaphor for her dealing with the loss of her father, really put much more context onto a lot of the game’s events. For example, when you play paparazzi at the school, and end up taking a picture of Cheryl in the shower really takes on a bit more oomph, outside of just being creepy in general, once you put it in that context. It makes clearer the odd connections Cheryl was making between sex (and not even real sex, but more… porno sex) and affection for her father she was making because of the tape. Without the Cheryl context, it was making Harry seem like a horrible person. After that he seemed… like a misguided person, and certainly not flawless. He was obviously cheating on his wife and was pretty obsessed with fucking. But he was more of… a guy, instead of a monster. After Silent Hill 2, which was my favorite game in the series before this one (and probably still is, though this is a close second. I liked the two with the strongest plots. Are you surprised?), I was expecting a revelation that Harry had done something awful. Harry has nothing on James. He’s just a kind of bad father. James is pretty clearly a murderer. Heh.

Honestly, I liked that. I liked that it wasn’t some gruesome, horrible thing. I liked that the real reason behind the whole game was something so mundane. It actually makes it that much more disturbing, because once you figure out what the game actually is, things are plausible. Granted, there is an element of supernatural there, but the key events? Completely possible. It makes it stay with you longer. You really feel like you understand Cheryl, even though you only see her on screen for like… a minute or two. By playing through the game, you kind of experience what she’s going through via metaphor. It works beautifully.

The plot is a success. A complete success, in my opinion. I hope future Silent Hill games get made, and I hope they play off of this one. I have no idea if the game was a success or not. I kind of bet it wasn’t, especially since it was not on any “current gen” systems where people who care about the Silent Hill name would think about buying it. But it was so good. Much better than what I played of Homecoming. The plot made me forget all the mechanical missteps I talked about in the last post, and they could fix them in a sequel.

I do hope it happens. Tomm, make it happen!

I’m going to write two posts about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for two reasons. The first is that the story is so important, I want to talk about it at length, but have it separate from the mechanics so there are no spoilarz. The other is just to fill up another blogging day. What? It’s not like I’m that complicated a creature. Can you blame me for wanting to have to write less?

Anyway, mechanics. Of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

There were a lot of mechanical missteps in this game. They had the idea that this game should be accessible to anyone, not just gamers, and as such should not have any combat. This is something that I can completely get behind. I’ve liked watching my brother play other Silent Hill games because I liked the sort of things they were doing with the story. I’ve never been good with Survival Horror combat mechanics, though, and never really wanted to play them myself because of that. The moment I learned this wasn’t going to be something to worry about in this game, I really wanted to play it. Removing combat was smart.

However, they replaced the combat with these “nightmare chase” sequences. They’re completely awesome in theory: tense chases where you’re running away from monsters you can’t fight, having to throw them off before they defeat you, and being unable to fight back. In reality, though, they are painfully trial and error. If you pull it off the first or second time, you have fun, but when you’re trying the sixth or seventh, the fun is gone. This happened often near the end of the game. Constantly, really. I often looked up a FAQ to alleviate this. I wanted to use the in-game map to find my way, but since you can’t look at it and run, it is pretty useless for these sequences, and I had to turn to text on the internet to get me through. That probably means it wasn’t doing what it was intended to do. I certainly had less fun doing that.

They also decided that puzzles are a good thing to have. However, they too seem to be a bit off due to attempting to create a more “everyone” friendly environment. Most puzzles are “Oh, there’s a locked door, oh look, there’s an interaction point behind me, oh look, there’s a key.” They’re really simplistic and mostly involve using the Wiimote to open a door, or sift through a pile. It’s just a little too easy for my tastes, although it’s the kind of easy that doesn’t detract from the game at all. I don’t mind it, but surely it could have been better.
The more involved puzzles were placed, for some reason, in the middle of the nightmare sequences. I liked these puzzles. They were fun and usually interesting. However, having to risk dying to go re-check a solution that you may have seen while sprinting but maybe not isn’t really the best way to go.
If I had to pick one puzzle that I felt the game should have done more of, it would have to be the puzzle in the party shop. That used the “echo” mechanic, the Wiimote manipulation, and the environment to create an interesting way to come up with a passcode. You had to use echo information to find sounds, and then connect those sounds with numbers. It wasn’t TOO hard, but you did have to think for a second. It worked. It could have used more of those sorts of puzzles.

The main problem, though, comes from the Wiimote itself. It’s just obvious at this point how badly the Wii should have had the motion plus stuff built into it from the start. Doing the motions for throwing monsters off of you feels REALLY good, much like some of the motions in Mad World… when it works. When it doesn’t register, then it’s really annoying. That’s the Wiimote’s fault, not the games.
Similarly, I hate, hate, and still continue to hate pointing the Wiimote at the screen. It’s just inaccurate and annoying to do. Now, using the Wiimote as a flashlight is a great idea, and it’s fun enough. It doesn’t keep me from being frustrated about having to do it, though. A few times, I wondered if I would have been better off getting one of the ports to play, but I stuck with this one. It’s a minor concern, but if the game hadn’t been otherwise good, mostly in the story, I would have been complaining up a storm.

Still, the “echo” mechanic, and the Wiimote being both flashlight and cell phone worked wonderfully. I would get a message and, even though I didn’t need to to hear it, I’d always hold the Wiimote up to my ear to listen. After I realized I could call any number in the environment and it would actually do something, I gleefully dialed everything I saw, just to see how Harry would react. I’d swing the wiimote around to point the flashlight at things for Harry to comment on them, and be happy about it. It was awesome. I could feel that kind of interaction and involvement in an adventure game story all day.

And I was very involved in the story. But I’ll talk about that next time.

I’ve been playing a bit of Mega Man 10. Is that surprising? Not really, especially considering how many points I still have from that Pepsi promotion. I’ve beaten a few robot masters, and a full write-up will probably come at some point. One thing is for certain, though.

I suck at video games.

I owned Mega Man 2 and 3 as a child. I couldn’t beat them consistently, perse, but I could get really damn close most of the time.
When Mega Man 9 came out, I played it and tried it. It was really hard to me. I eventually beat a majority of robot masters, but never got close to beating it. It was too hard for me.
When they announced that Mega Man 10 would have an easy mode, I was excited. Finally, I could just enjoy the retro goodness!

I still die all the time.

There are two modes of “easy.” One is the actual Easy mode, which adds platforms over many bottomless pits and spikes so you have less random deaths. The other is picking Protoman over Mega Man, who can use the slide, charged mega buster, and has a shield to block projectiles. I’m doing both of them, and I’m still dying to pits, platforming segments, and bosses.

It’s honestly just kind of sad.

I know that, in general, all that matters is if I am having fun. And I’m having a good time, sure. No worries. But goodness, especially compared to the people on Talking Time, which are probably destroying the game with their eyes closed on one life at this point, I feel kind of inadequate. That hasn’t stopped me from switching most games I play to easy nowadays, and it won’t in the future. It’s just… especially obvious on games like these, which are so much like hard games I used to not have a lot of problems with.

Yeah, I suck. I admit it. There you go.

Can you believe it? On Saturday we sat down and watched a movie that we had rented. How crazy is that? What movie did we watch, you ask?

Black Dynamite.

Basically, some wonderful, wonderful people made a new Blaxsploitation film. It was completely glorious. I have not seen a movie that made me laugh so hard in a long, long time. It is highly recommended.

Why is this movie so successful? Mostly because of the key fact that it doesn’t think it is funny. Besides several very joke-y jokes, which manage to work because they are just so ridiculous (Three Word Example: Captain Kangaroo Pimp), the entire film is played completely straight. Everything is the most serious thing that has ever happened. The drugs on the streets is a real threat! Black Dynamite is one bad motherfucker, and he is not going to be stopped. Not to mention, he has no more than 5 different origin stories and 8 different reasons for going after the bad guys, although it continually changes who the bad guys are. But the movie doesn’t realize how little sense it makes. It’s being completely serious all the time. It makes you laugh so hard, time and again.

Looking at the special features really drove home how much the makers of this movie got it. The special features are all exposition that explains the plot and attempts to make the horrible narrative make sense. These scenes aren’t funny. They’re true to the genre, but they’re true to the boring parts of the genre. Much like how Retro Game Challenge takes the good parts you remember from retro games and removes the bad parts, the makers of Black Dynamite decided, rightly, to take all of those boring parts out of there movie. It makes it more surreal, which cranks up the humor, and it makes it so that the laughs don’t stop.

In any case, I really, really enjoyed this film. It was one of the most entertaining comedies I’ve seen in a long fucking while. If you like laughter, you owe it to yourself to give this a view. You won’t be disappointed.