Game Review: Mischief Makers

Mischief Makers

• Publisher: Nintendo
• Developer: Treasure
• Platform/Release: Nintendo 64, 1 October 1997
• Genre: Action, Platformer
• Players: 1
• Save: Battery, 2 files
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$5-15)

On the day I started writing this review, I learned a surprising fact: video game publisher Enix had their North American branch office closed from 1995 to 1999.  The reason for this was that their previous works for the NES and Super NES, including the Dragon Warrior (now known by its international name Dragon Quest) and Actraser series, were selling too poorly in the US and Canada to warrant further business in the region.  So, you can imagine how well their 2003 merger with Squaresoft helped them.  Anyway, this story surprised me because there was one game released during that empty period which I have always associated with Enix: Mischief Makers for the Nintendo 64.  Their name is prominently displayed during start-up, even in the American version, so they must have published it, right?  Nope, turns out Nintendo sold it in North America as well as Europe.  It's not the first time they saved a game from not being released, and it wouldn't be the last.  But are we really lucky to have it on the market after all?  Let's take a look.

Mischief Makers is a 2-D action-platformer developed by Treasure, known for theirwork in action games like Gunstar Heroes and Ikaruga.  You play as the Ultra-Intergalactic-Cybot G Marina Liteyears...  Yeah, I'm not gonna bother you with that.  *ahem* You play as robot girl Marina and must repeatedly rescue her creator, Professor Theo.  Way to give us a gender reversal from the norm.  After the professor gets captured the first time around, Marina goes after her and gets thrown into the middle of a war involving the Clancers, the lifeforms of the planet Terran.  On her way to the bosses who kidnapped the professor, she must search for warp stars which taker her from one level to the next.  While the environments fall into the cliched climates like the plains, volcano, and snowy mountain, more than once in a while you'll be thrown a curveball by the contents of the levels themselves.  In one you're climbing up a tower constantly swaying left and right, in another you have to ride a missile to the end gate, and one of the levels is an athletic festival, with the professor as the prize.  Yeah... have fun with that.

50% of what you'll be doing in this game.¹

Marina's main gimmick lies in how she attacks enemies and interacts with objects.  It's not like Mario, where you jump on baddies to bring them down, no.  The only way to defend yourself is to pick up things, then shake or throw them.  You can bet the game is loaded with puzzles designed around this mechanic, as are the bosses, which aren't always the most intuitive affairs.  Your biggest aid during boss battles is a blinking, beeping cursor which shows up for only a second at a time and tells you what to grab, but you might not know what to do with it, unless you really, really pay attention to the hints you can purchase a couple of stages beforehand.  Mischief Makers' control scheme is unique for the Nintendo 64 in that it doesn't use the Control Stick in any way, shape, or form.  Nope, you'll have your hands on the left and right handles, moving Marina with the Control Pad.  Double-tapping a direction on the Control Pad fires up her rockets which boost her in that direction, but it's much easier to use the C buttons for the same purpose.  A tip of the hat to Treasure for giving us that workaround; just be aware it's less effective at times, especially during the aforementioned athletic festival.

3D capabilities get their time to shine.¹

The visual style of Mischief Makers is... well, as weird or weirder than everything I've described thus far.  Almost everything that isn't nature-made sports the hollow face of the Clancers, which in turn was inspired by the Haniwa pottery style of ancient Japan.  If you were freaked out by the hills having eyes in Super Mario World, you may not get any sleep after playing this game: it's kinda like that, only potentially creepier.  (So do what I do and just don't think about it.)  Nearly everything drawn on-screen is a pre-rendered CG sprite; 3D objects are used tastefully sparingly.  As for the sound direction... it's even weirder than the graphics.  While the melodies themselves evoke 80's songwriters like Phil Collins - and coming from me, that's a good thing - the instruments they chose to play the tunes are all squeaky and silly.  Let me help you picture it better: it's like they threw a Fuzzy from Yoshi's Island at the N64's sound card!  Given the game's Saturday-morning anime aesthetic, this decision sounds like it could work in theory, so the soundtrack is more of a love-it-or-hate-it affair.  Occasional voice clips pile on the camp even further, should that even be possible.


If the fans' reactions are anything to go by, Treasure has some high standards attached to their brand name, but for the most part Mischief Makers meets those expectations.  It's weird, sure, but don't let that scare you off; it plays well and provides a fair bit of challenge.  While the individual stages are short, there are over fifty of them, and you'll get some replay value out of this game if you choose to invest your time hunting for Gold Gems or scoring A-rank times or better.  While I shouldn't - and won't - reflect it in my rating, Mischief Makers deserves props for being a 2-D platformer, a rarity for its generation.  As such, I don't think Nintendo of America is praising themselves for choosing to bring this title out of Japan, but that's where we gamers come in.


Graphics: 4 face blocks out of 5
Audio: 2 face blocks out of 5
Control: 4 face blocks out of 5
Design: 5 face blocks out of 5
The Call: 80% (B)

---

¹Mischief Makers. Hardcore Gaming 101. Ret. 2011-Jan-30 http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/mischiefmakers/mischiefmakers.htm.

Game Review: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Note: Box and cartridge art may vary.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

• Publisher: Sega 
• Developer: Banpresto 
• Platform/Release: Genesis, 1994 
• Genre: Fighting 
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$2-10) 

There's nothing else like the Power Rangers franchise. Each series of this kids' action show is a partial adaptation of another series, Japan's Super Sentai. Rather than a direct dub, they used fight scene footage from the Super Sentai shows, while more or less rebuilding the plots by shooting new footage. The first and most memorable incarnation of the former, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, aired from 1993 to 1995 and was based on the 16th season of the latter, 1992's Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. While the heroic team of Zyuranger consisted of five tribal members from the time of dinosaurs, the Rangers from Mighty Morphin' were random teenagers skilled in martial arts and involved in community service.

With a property as hot in its day as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, there were obviously a whole mess of video games made based on the show. As a matter of fact, given the glut of consoles and handhelds at the time, there were five different titles bearing the exact name Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Some were good, like the versus-fighter for Game Gear. Some were bad, like the interactive movie stylings of the Sega CD title. But what about ones for the more popular consoles, like Sega Genesis?

This version, like the one for Game Gear, is a versus-fighter. In the one-player story, you play as any one of the five (six after you unlock the Green Ranger) Power Rangers, who face off against the monsters created by villainess Rita Repulsa and her crew. There are five stages (the enclosed instruction book incorrectly states that there are seven instead, which is true of the Game Gear port), each except the last consisting of one on-foot battle and one giant robot, or Zord battle. Unlike in other fighting games, these fights aren't best-of-three: if you drain the enemy's life once, you move on. And if you lose, you have unlimited continues, but doing so from a Zord fight takes you back to its corresponding regular fight.

Contrary to more popular fighting game series like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, this game only uses two buttons; one for light attacks and one for heavy attacks. Given that the Genesis controllers have 3 or 6 action buttons, this feels like a huge waste of potential. It makes me think that the Game Gear version was the original game, and the Genesis version was the port. Having only two options for basic attacks means you'll use them a lot less than the Rangers' and Zords' special attacks, and as a matter of fact, the CPU opponents seem to think the same way and tend to spam their specials.

A meter below each player's life bar builds up when the character takes damage; the higher up this meter is, the more damage specials do, but in practice it's not much of a difference. Then again, some special attacks are far, far more effective than others. For example, the Black Ranger's Spinning Axe attack will frequently land three hits in a row with no window between hits to block. (SFII's Chun-Li and her thunder kicks would like to say hi.) Even the Zord/monster fights are cheap: a good way to win is to play as the Megazord and land a string of heavy sword attacks, each knocking the opponent down. If you can keep your timing perfect, it's possible to do this the entire length of the match for a flawless victory.

Special moves (and not much else) set the Rangers apart.

The special attacks for each ranger are built around the weapons they use occasionally in the show; i.e. the Red Ranger's sword, Black Ranger's axe, and Pink Ranger's bow. All of them also have a weak laser gun attack, conveniently mapped to the same command (↓,↘,→,A or B) as the world famous Hadoken of Street Fighter fame. It's a good thing their fighting styles are so different, because colors aside, it would otherwise be way hard for players who don't watch the show to tell them apart. The sprites of all the Rangers are palette-swaps of each other, except the Pink Ranger's, since her costume is the only one with a skirt built in. No, seriously, they all have the Red Ranger's helmet and everything!

The presentation tries,
but doesn't leave an impression.

Don't expect to be floored by the rest of the presentation, either. In between bouts are cutscenes starring animated cutouts of the characters, which are honestly well-rendered, ignoring the washed-out colours. The music is the typical bass-heavy fare which represents 95% of all the music from every Genesis game ever. Yes, they did include Ron Wasserman's famous theme song, but being dragged through the Genesis's sound processor strips it of all its cheesy charm. There are even occasional voice clips during the matches, but they sound nothing like the Rangers uttering them. The Yellow Ranger's "Tiger Crash!" is especially cringe-inducing.

It's funny that the Rangers are based on dinosaurs, because this game plays and feels like a dinosaur compared to its fighting-game genre peers. Despite having come out a couple of years after its competitors in the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat series, it fails to live up to not only those standards but the standards of any other fighting game worth its salt. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers on the Sega Genesis, while certainly playable, is a bland and unbalanced mess. If you own a Game Gear, on the other hand, you're much better off tracking down the version for that platform, because its big brother proves that what's acceptable on a handheld won't always fly for a full-fledged console.

Control: 3 morphers out of 5
Design: 1 morpher out of 5
Graphics: 2 morphers out of 5
Audio: 1 morpher out of 5
The Call: 40% (F)

Product Review: NES Advantage & Super Advantage

There used to be a huge discrepancy between arcade video games and their home console ports.  Not only were the graphics capabilities different, but the control interface was a whole other animal.  There are some gamers, myself not included, who can't deal with anything but a huge joystick and buttons.  Fortunately, there are a number of arcade-style joypads available on the market for all matter of systems.  I am going to take a look at the one that started it all, as well as its spiritual successor.  Ladies and gentlemen, the NES Advantage.

The NES Advantage.

The NES Advantage controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System was manufactured and sold by Nintendo in 1987.  It has an 8-way, ball-top joystick replacing the Control Pad, and has the same A, B, Start, and Select buttons from the controller.  The color scheme roughly matches that of the NES control deck and controller, being mostly off-white with some use of black, red, and dark gray.  Unlike on most controllers, two controller plugs come out of the device at once.  This precludes any simultaneous multiplayer modes, but most NES titles with multiplayer capabilities, especially earlier ones like Super Mario Bros., had players take turns, so we get a switch to pass control between players 1 and 2.  It works out if you've lost your second controller and need to do special functions, like manual saving in The Legend of Zelda, but it's way hard to tell which plug goes in which port, and if you mess that up, the controller may not work correctly even if you set the switch the opposite way.  In terms of construction, the only complaint I had is that the A and B buttons won't go in or may even get temporarily stuck if you press them on the edge.


The special features on the NES Advantage are the Turbo and Slow switches, which to my knowledge were pioneered by this mother.  Turbo works when you hold a button, and the controller rapidly sends the input signal as if you were tapping the button faster than is humanly comfortable.  Unlike the one-switch-fits-all turbo capabilities on most other third-party controllers, the A and B buttons each get their own turbo switch, so you can leave one on and the other off at the same time.  In another rarely-seen function, there are also two dials which control the rate of either turbo input.  Some of you may wonder why anyone would want to set their auto-fire speeds at anything less than maximum, but for old shooter games where you can only have so many bullets on the screen at once, it pays to experiment.  And yes, it is fast enough for Track & Field II.  The slow switch, on the other hand, rapidly and automatically presses the Start button to simulate slow motion.  It only works on games that use Start to pause, and works best if doing so manually freezes the game instead of taking you to a menu.  The problems with using this is if you press something while the game is paused, it will not register, and in an admittedly minor complaint, you may sometimes turn off the slow function and the game will remain paused, since it was in its paused state when you turned it off.

The Super Advantage.

But what if you want to play a game's sequel on the Super NES, or you have one of those 2-in-1 Famiclones which use SNES controllers?  You think you'd be out of luck, but no: they made one for the Super NES as well.  It's called the Super Advantage, and technically it's not manufactured by Nintendo, but by Asciiware.  The device is larger than the NES Advantage, and mixes the visual styles of the American SNES console (the two-tone grays and the non-functioning purple "buttons" near the top) and its Japanese/PAL region counterparts (multi-colored buttons instead of two-tone purples).  Unlike its spiritual predecessor, the Super Advantage has only one controller plug attached to it and is intended for one player.


The turbo and slow capabilities are carried on to this controller - and then some.  Each of the six buttons (A, B, X, Y, L, and R) have a corresponding 3-way turbo switch and fire rate slider (as opposed to a dial).  Not only can each of the buttons be set to Turbo, firing repeatedly when you hold the button, but Auto, which sends the input command automatically.  Meanwhile, the slow function has its own slider, so you can control how fast the Start button input is fired.  Pretty much the only major drawback for some is the button layout.  The L and R buttons are placed on either side of the main cluster (A, B, X, and Y).  For games like the Street Fighter II series, which use two rows of three buttons each, this may be a hinderance, especially considering the fact that the new Sega Genesis controllers of the time used that 2x3 layout.  This is far from a deal-breaker for me, though; I'm more concerned with the stiff construction of the buttons themselves, which, again, don't go in if you press them on the edge.


The used price for either of these controllers should be around US$20.  They're real lifesavers... okay, thumb-savers for games which normally require quick button tapping, like shoot-em-ups that pre-date auto-fire.  It could even help you with the obstacle course in Double Dare, where you have to press Left/Right or Up/Down rapidly.  Both of these controllers have their construction flaws, but I highly recommend you get them if you can find a good enough deal.


The Call:
NES Advantage: 80% (B)
Super Advantage: 90% (A-)

Travel Tips: Japan

I'm breaking from my usual topics to share with you some knowledge which should make certain parts of the world less scary and more interesting.  In May 2010,  I traveled to Japan for a week (just to get away from Shrek: The Final Chapter, I joked).  Being as excited as I was, I researched the heck out of everything I expected to do and everywhere I expected to go.  Still, there were things I was not prepared for that struck me as interesting.  So before I forget too much, I would like to impart my wisdom onto you.  If you are planning to travel to Japan in the near future, good for you; if not, I hope I have inspired and/or encouraged you to do so.


Money & Shopping:

• The currency of Japan is the yen.  For the best rates, exchange your money at a local bank before you go.
• Both the international symbol (¥, written before the number) and the kanji (円, written after) are used to represent an amount of yen.
• Expect to use a lot of coins.  The highest-value yen coin is worth ¥500, similar in value (as of January 2011) to US$5 or €5, both of which use bills in their respective markets.
• Make sure not to confuse the ¥1, ¥50, and ¥100 coins, all of which are silvery in color.
• When making purchases, most cashiers put out a small tray in front of them.  Put your money here.
• If you need to stock up on food for a day or a couple, try shopping at a convenience store.  There are many chains in Japan, some found elsewhere and some not.
• Don't buy disc-based movies and video games, unless you're sure you have the hardware to run them.  Besides, the prices are typically higher in Japan than for similar products in America and elsewhere.
• Sometimes value differs greatly from one region to another.  For example, one disc of the anime Hetalia Axis Powers sold in Japan would cost about US$25, and only contain 7 or 8 episodes (35-40 minutes).  Meanwhile, the sets sold in America cost roughly the same amount but have the whole season on one disc (130 minutes).
• This may be the reason why individual anime DVDs are so expensive even in America.  They're sold for about US$25 in Japan, but they don't lower the price in other markets to be fair to the Japanese.  ...Or something.
• Games in video arcades, commonly known as "game centers" in Japan, typically cost  ¥50, ¥100, or ¥200 for games that would cost 25¢, 50¢, or $1 in America.  It may seem more expensive, but having a game cost ¥25 to play in Japan would be counter-productive since there is no ¥25 coin.  (It is theoretically possible, but you would either have to use two types of coins, or five of the same.)

Language:

• Japanese is the only official language of Japan, no surprises there, but over the past 10 years, the use of English has increased greatly due to the number of visitors from America, Australia, and etc.  Chinese and Korean are also common, or at least in the airports.  You are more likely to see English the closer you are to the cities.  Highway destinations signs are also written bilingually.
• If you know the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, but only a few kanji, then you can get pretty far.  For example, if you know the kanji for minute (分), hour (時), and yen (円), along with katakana, you should be able to tell if a sign is for a business or service, and maybe even what the business or service is.
• Speaking of which, the Japanese use 12-hour (AM / PM) time and 24-hour time more or less equally, as opposed to always using one or the other like in America (12-hour) or Europe (24-hour).
• If you see the the same kanji often, those would be good ones to learn.  You should also be able to recognize the kanji of places you visit often.
• Even if you don't know the finer points of the language's grammar, spoken Japanese is an easy language to BS your way through.  The reason I'm thinking of is what would be considered sentence fragments in languages like English are perfectly acceptable in Japanese.
• For example, "shinjirarenai" is understood as "unbelieveable" or "I can't believe it" even though it literally translates to "cannot believe".  Breaking it down, "shinjiru" is the verb "belive", and "-renai" is a suffix meaning "cannot".  Yet somehow Japanese speakers are used to filling in the blanks.

Travel:

• To get in from America, you will probably take a plane and arrive at Tokyo Narita airport, which is an hour east of Tokyo by road.  Options to get into the city include limousine buses (~¥3,000) and trains(~¥1,000-1,200), but try to avoid expensive taxis(~¥10,000-30,000).
• There is another much closer airport serving the area, Tokyo International or Tokyo Haneda Airport.  It currently only serves Japan and other Asian countries, but that is about to change.  Direct flights from New York JFK, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Vancouver will begin in February/March 2011.
• In the cities, expect to take the local trains and subways to get between places.  They are often the cheapest methods available.
• Perhaps the most useful train line in Tokyo is the JR Yamanote line, denoted by a light green color.  It runs in a loop, hitting most if not all of the major districts of the city.  Fares range from ¥130 to ¥250, with the maximum length between stations being about 30 minutes and 10 miles/17 kilometers.
• To buy tickets, look for a row of ATM-like vending machines with train line maps above them.  In Tokyo, at least, the stations have maps with Japanese and English place names side-by-side.  Find your destination on one of these maps; it will have a number next to it.  This will be your fare in yen.  Put your money into a machine, order a ticket worth the fare for your stop, and take the ticket and (if applicable) change.
• REMEMBER to keep your ticket intact and on you during the train ride.  You will need it to get past the turnstiles at the other end.
• The Bullet Train, known as Shinkansen (新幹線), is an option for crossing large distances in style, but it is expensive.  A one-way trip from Tokyo to Osaka, the length of the Tokaido line, takes up to 3 hours and costs over ¥14,000.
• There are three classes of Shinkansen trains: Nozomi (のぞみ, express), Hikari (ひかり), and Kodama (こだま, local).  Kodama makes the most stops and will, of course, be a little cheaper.

Customs:

• Yes, bowing is everything in Japan.  You might have to bow when you greet someone off the street, but in casual cases like these, it's just a little more than a slow nod.  More formal and/or intimate situations require a deeper bow.
• You will have to take off your shoes if you go into a traditional Japanese building.  You can tell you have to do so if there are straw mats (tatami) about.  In these cases, you will instead walk in your socks.  If you can pull your shoes off without untying them, that's great.
• If you're staying at a place with an onsen (hot springs) nearby, try it.  It may just knock you out for a good night's sleep.
• You will have to be naked to take a public bath.  No one seems to pay attention, so neither should you.
• As such, it should go without saying that, if applicable, you should make sure go in the correct baths for men (男) or women (女).  We wouldn't want a mess-up like the one from Love Hina!
• Clean up in the shower stalls before soaking in the actual bath.  In the more modern places, these involve hand-held shower heads and stools or upside-down buckets to sit on.  Soap, shampoo, and/or etc. are provided.
• The water temperature of the baths is at least 40° Celsius (105° Fahrenheit).  It's so hot that I, for one, could only last five minutes at a time.
• Traditional Japanese restaurants use chopsticks for utensils, so practice with those before you leave home.

Year In Review 2010: Release The Kraken!

If you remember from my deviantArt Journal, on New Year's Eve every year since I joined, I did some sort of recap of the previous year.  Blamethank VH1's I Love The series for my interest in zeitgeists.  But as evidenced by my 2009 recap, sometimes I can't get the creative juices flowing.  So this year, I thought a good place to start would be to analyze the recurring themes of the year's news and events.


Natural Disasters: All Justin Bieber jokes caught trespassing in this section will be shot on sight.  I don't like him either, but unlike you [insert expletive-filled rant I won't even bother to start to fill in] guys, I have priorities when it comes to what's newsworthy.  It's called professionalism.  GET IT.  But seriously, if you were to look only at the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the airplane-grounding volcanic eruption in Iceland, the oil well failure in the Gulf of Mexico, and the mine collapse again in Chile, you would think the news hour would be a bleak place.  But far be it from me categorize all the stories by one recurring pattern.  I'm just here to tell you about said patterns.  And you are welcome to pray for any and all victims at any time.


Heck Freezes Over: In the entertainment world, many of the impossibilities we consigned ourselves to over the past decade came true.  We got a good, or at least passable, video game movie out of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  Yeah, I know it's been done before (my shout-outs to Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and FFVII Advent Children), but think of the horrible success rate they're coming from.  More to the point, The Beatles' catalog was released on iTunes, Shantae got a sequel, and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise got not one, but two good games for consoles: Sonic Colors and Sonic 4: Episode I.  The only thing that could make this better would be the release of Duke Nukem Forever, and while that sadly didn't happen, we did get the announcement that work was being moved to a developer who knew what they were doing.


Question Mark: This is more of a personal thing, but there are some items whose career I am very curious to see unfold.  Apple launched the iPad mid-year, which is basically the same cool **** that the iPod Touch and iPhone are... only bigger.  Being that and not quite a regular computer (wake me when you can run OS X), I personally think it's a waste, but far be it from me to force that opinion on you.  And then there's Justin Bieber...  Will he crash and burn fast, become more mature in his songwriting, or keep on keeping on?  I'd like to know, and while I won't be getting into his music anytime soon (unless it's run at 1/8th speed), I will say this: *why* is all his worst stuff his most popular?


Remakes: In the anime market, most of the big names were remakes or extentions of pre-existing series.  I'm talking about the series Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Dragon Ball Z Kai, and the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.  I'm also throwing Naruto Shippuden in there; even though it's a sequel, not a remake, of the old series, it got an English dub.  And since it moved from Cartoon Network to Disney XD (Disney!?), the former network is pretty much *done*.


Now let's run over all the stuff you shouldn't have missed.  Don't worry, it's never too late to catch up.


Best Movies: Toy Story 3, Inception, Despicable Me, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Tangled
Worst Movies: Alice In Wonderland, Shrek: The Final Chapter (just had to throw that in there ^v^), The Last Airbender, The Tourist
Best Video Games:  Angry Birds (iOS), Call of Duty: Black Ops (Multi), Sonic Colors (Wii, DS), GoldenEye (Wii)
Best Music Artists: Lady Gaga, B.o.B., Bruno Mars, Eminem


And finally, the themes which defined my personal life in 2010.


Not Quite Adulthood: I graduated college in May with flying colors, but then... nothing.  I've been trying to get a job since then, but with no luck.  Out of the dozens of applications I've sent over the past seven-plus months, you could count the number of interviews on your hands - even one finger, if you only consider in-person interviews with the employers themselves.  From what I understand, my family and I have been living reasonably well for the past few years, but now I can say the recession is finally catching up to me.  I can totally understand them having to choose carefully and look over someone like me who has little to no professional experience under his belt... so far.  I'm scheduled for one more interview around the start of the new year, though, so I'm throwing everything I've got at it.


The World: The upside of this year was well-suited to the geopolitics buff I have become.  I was able to travel the world on mutliple occasions throughout the calendar year.  After my sister stayed over in England with her school orchestra over the previous New Year, I responded by taking a class trip to Germany and a graduation vacation to Japan.  I shall have to share with you travel tips at some point.  And to top it all off, we all went to Disney World during Thanksgiving Week, giving us a chance to catch up on what we missed.  And for everything else, I hope the future will be kind enough to let me go on many more adventures - Lord knows how many itineraries I've been cooking up in my head.


Internet Reviewers: The Internet fad which defined this year for me would be Internet reviewers, like the fine folks of That Guy With The Glasses.  I started out with Atop The Fourth Wall and the Nostalgia Critic in late '09, and throughout the following year I explored the many other talking heads the site had to offer.  In fact, I got so into it that TGWTG was the inspiration for starting this website!  So I'd like to offer a dedication and thanks to you guys, and here's to a happy and productive 2011 and beyond!!

Decoding the Twilight Saga

I've discovered something about myself this past year: I'm what they call a devil's advocate.  What that means is that I like to argue for the sake of arguing; to counter public opinion.  More specifically, it's because I hate hearing the same jokes about controversial subjects, mainly because they distort the facts.  That president has an IQ in the 120s, that singer is 16 years old (at the time of this writing), and only the worst of those guys cut their wrists.  That's not to say I support or identify with those things, but somehow the opposition gets to me.  Although these were fads that came and went, one of them which is still going strong exemplifies this most of all: the Twilight Saga.  In fact, this time last year, I was involved in a small-scale flame war on the subject.  I don't want to talk about it anymore... let's just say no amount of Lumines or Half-Life 2 made me feel better at the time.  But since those on the other side were too dumb to see otherwise, allow me to state for the record:


I am not a fan of the Twilight Saga.


See?  Because of your bullheadedness, I have been forced to defile this entry with these disclaimers.  Nice job breaking it, hero.  This series has turned off some because of its popularity, but like others, I only started reading the books because they were popular (and, you know, for something to do).  I was never that interested in it, so when I did read it was casually, but by the end, I did it as a sort of rebellion.  Yeah, it's a real middle finger if you don't tell anyone about it, I said with sarcasm.  But unlike everyone else, I went into it with an open mind, which allowed me to pay attention to the themes and understand the purpose of the books.  That's why I'm here; to better explain what it is - and what it isn't.


I am not a fan.


And since you won't shut up about it, I'll get this out of the way first: I know the vampires in the Twilight Saga, sparkle, okay?  I'll discuss this later, but can we move on, please?  It's called professionalism.  GET IT.  But seriously, that's not what I think about when I think about the Twilight Saga.  You must understand that first and foremost, this is a romance novel series with supernatural elements.  It's basically just Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves.  Even the romance isn't all that convincing, given all the times in which the boyfriend just shows up in the girlfriend's bedroom window as if he was stalking her.  Heck, I could write better romances than that - in fact, I would say I already have.  But what do I know?  The only other real romance novel I've read was The Spy Who Loved Me, and we all know how that turned out.  I blew a raspberry as I said that line out loud.


I am not a fan.


Perhaps the second biggest target for jokes, after the sparkle thing, is calling protagonist Bella Swan a Mary Sue.  After analyzing her character, I have to say that's not... entirely true.  She is, or at leasts starts out as, just an ordinary girl (Don't call her ordinary!).  She's from a middle-class family, clumsy, and hates gym class.  If there are any special qualities or skills about her, she certainly downplays them, especially since everything's told from her point of view (except a good chunk of Breaking Dawn).  It's true what they say: everyone's their own worst critic.  I think the goal of her character traits was to make her relatable to the female fanbase these stories were designed for.  Unfortunately, this applies to the author, too.  I am aware that her physical appearance, in terms of phenotypes, matches that of the author, Stephenie Meyer.  (At least Bella's actress in the movies, Kristen Stewart, did a good job of deflecting that relationship for a while.)


I am not a fan.


But if anyone's a Mary Sue, regardless of gender, it's our vampire boy Edward Cullen.  His family's filthy stinkin' rich with little to no explanation as to their wealth, is skilled in everything he does, seems to have a code of ethics (he and his family only draw blood from animals, never humans), and you better believe his physical traits are described in a way which casts him as the ideal for a master race.  Key points here include his skin, which is a marble-like pale under normal circumstances, his golden/amber eyes (You wish it meant that...), the color brought on by animal blood, and his voice, which somehow has a singing, bell-like quality to it even when he's only talking.  Yeah, I never even tried to imagine that, and I will even argue that last one bothered me more than his sparkles, which would also be an extention of Meyer's obsession with portraying him as beyond perfect.  And you don't have to take my word for it.


I am not a fan.


Symbolism is rampant in the Twilight Saga, enough to keep Film Brain going for weeks.  One of the themes brought on early is the one about the lion and the lamb: the lamb being the perfectly ordinary Bella, and the lion being Edward, who constantly lives in fear of his vampire instincts forcing him to attack Bella.  He melodramaticizes this fact so much that it becomes a plot point in the second book, New Moon.  Another one is fire and ice.  Think about the real thing: the fire melts the ice, and the melted water douses the fire, so somehow there's danger involved for both parties.  Coincidentally, the vampires have cold body temperatures and the not-werewolves are hot-bodied (in more ways than one, fangirls).  Bella and Edward also like comparing themselves to the famous lovers of Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights.  Never mind the fact that they never bring up the ending of R&J - I don't think it deserves to be marked as a spoiler anymore - but I can't speak for Heights, apart from the semaphore version in Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Look that one up, I guess.  And in a metaphor already commonly seen outside of this series, they seem to use transforming Bella into a vampire as a stand-in for losing her virginity.  Bet you felt silly for thinking that after having read Breaking Dawn, where they did both.
I am not a fan.


At the time of the aforementioned flame war, the biggest thing I was upset about was that everyone would just talk about how the vampires sparkle and never mention any of their other superpowers.  For one, they're super strong, super fast, and nigh invincible, so if you tried teasing them like that they could rip your balls out.  Or your girl balls - however you choose to interpret that, that's gotta hurt.  They can't transform into bats, but they're immune to stakes, garlic, and holy water (not that they're ever tried), and I assume you could see them in a mirror.  Not even sunlight stops them - in fact, they only sparkle when their pale skin is touched by direct sunlight.  There's a reason I bold-faced that: no one seems to care about that, because everyone portrays them as sparkling constantly.  Plus, some have unique gifts, like one-way telepathy in several cases.  In retrospect, all these special abilities make the characters come off as, again, Mary Sues.  And even though I completely ignored this fact while reading the first book, I do agree that having the vampires sparkle was one of the worst non-political decisions ever made, and I would like to know what Stephenie Meyer was smokingdreaming.  But is it really enough to justify saying it's all they ever do?  Is it really enough, combined with the more... valid flaws, to justify calling it the work of the Antichrist?  No, not to that extreme.  I blame the Internet communities who never give anything a fair say these days.


So fuck you Internet, I quit.

Film Review: Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

• Publisher: Paramount
• Studio: Lucasfilm
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Release: 28 May 1984
• Genre: Action, Adventure

There are some superstitions fans use to determine which things in some series are any good.  For the Star Trek movies, it's whether or not the digits of the installment number add up to an even sum.  With the Mobile Suit Gundam video games, it's whether the letter Z is in the title.  And in the Indiana Jones film series, it's whether or not the main villains are Nazis.  The second film in the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, does not put the man up against Nazis, but rather an Indian religious cult.  But far be it from me to treat these superstitions as the reason as to whether something is bad, or a rule for something being bad in the first place.  This is the first feature film review I've reviewed on this blog; the format will be a plot recap with critical comments here and there.  Spoilers will be marked, but read with care in case I miss something.


The setting for this movie starts out in Shanghai, China in 1935.  The opening credits play over a musical number performed for the patrons of a nightclub, including Dr. Henry Jones Jr. himself.  Turns out the song, "Anything Goes", was written in the real world in 1934, and translated to the undefined Chinese dialect for the movie - way cool.  Indiana's business for being here involves making a trade with Lao Che, some crooked crime boss.  Don't worry too much about him; we won't so much as hear about him after the first few scenes.  But after completing the trade, he succeeds in poisoning the man.  The magnificent monster then makes another offer with Jones: the diamond he was just given in exchange for an antidote for the poison.  A bout of chaos ensues, drawn out because the crowd gets scared and start kicking the antidote and diamond about, but Indy steals the antidote and the show's lead singer, a girl called Willie Scott, and makes his getaway in a car driven by Short Round, an eleven-year old Chinese boy.  Did they *have* drivers' licenses in pre-communist China, or are we not supposed to care?  Oh, and the name of the place is "Club Obi Wan".  I can't decide whether I find that clever or corny.


I suppose now would be a good time to get to know our new supporting cast.  Harrison Ford returns as Jones, no problems there.  No, the problems lie with Willie (Kate Capshaw) and Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan).  Willie spends nine tenths of her time on-screen screaming in the face of danger, and the other tenth developing a wildly vacillating love-hate relationship with Indy.  Short Round, despite being more helpful, is somehow no less annoying.  And bear in mind I never had a problem with Jar Jar Binks.  Think about that.


So Jones and his two friends escape on a plane... owned by Lao Che.  Before the plane crashes, they are forced to bail out by - get this - falling out on a life raft onto the snow of the Himalayan mountains.  I have no idea if that's possible, nor do I think it would be a good idea to test it (unless you're the Mythbusters.  P.S. Please get on that, Mythbusters.).  But get this - this movie hasn't yet jumped the shark.  Think about that.


But the real plot begins when an old man leads them to a village in India and tells them about the children and sacred stone stolen from them.  They all go on an expedition to the Pankot Palace, with all the animals of the jungle creeping Willie out.  When they get to the palace, they are greeted by the kid Maharajah and his prime minister, who provide them with a feast of creepy crawlies.  Despite the warm reception, the meal grosses out Willie, Short Round, and everyone in the audience.  It's stereotypes like that which gave this film a bad rap with the nation of India, who demanded final cut privileges and forced production to move to the nearby island nation of Sri Lanka.  And this movie still hasn't jumped the shark!


Back to the plot.  Although Indy is unable to get any leads about the village's troubles from the hosts, an assassination attempt has him exploring his and Willie's bedrooms for a secret passage.  On their way, they avoid getting crushed by a spiked ceiling - accidentally triggered by Short Round - and discover the eponymous temple of doom.  They walk in on a ceremony where a devotee is locked in a cage, gets his heart pulled out of his chest by the head priest, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), and - still alive - is lowered into a fire pit as a willing sacrifice.  This is no simple pool of lava, folks, it looks like a portal to Heck down there.  Somehow, the crudeness of the special effects only serve to make this scene scarier.  And this, my friends, is where the movie jumps the shark.  In lighter news, Mola Ram is the only one of the Thuggees who speaks Hindi.  Since production was moved to Sri Lanka, his mooks all speak the local Ceylonese.


In the aftermath of the ritual, Indy gets caught trying to steal back the stones.  He gets force-fed a potion which traps him in the suggestible state "Black Sleep of Kali Ma" and starts conducting another ritual, this time with Willie as the sacrifice.  Meanwhile, Short Round is sent to work with the imprisoned children in the mines, where according to Indy two more sacred stones are assumed to be, but he escapes and wakes up Indy by thrusting a torch at his chest.  And *how* did he know about that?  Was it just a lucky break, did he do it without knowing he would free Indy's mind, or did he overhear it?  No, not that I recall; it just comes out of *nowhere*, without any explanation!  And Willie's screaming throughout the whole ordeal only makes things worse.


With that shizzle out of the way, Indy steals the three sacred stones and starts freeing the child slaves.  But he is double-teamed by a tough-as-iron guard and the Maharajah, under the Black Sleep of Kali Ma and armed with a voodoo doll.  Yeah, I don't think they had those in India, but the ritual from before took inspirations from other cults around the world, so what do I know?  Indy is unable to fight because of all the intermittent pain from his voodoo stabbings, but Short Round takes another torch and wakes up the Maharajah, letting Indy finish the job and escape with his friends by mine cart.  You know, I grew up after this movie came out, so I've been exposed to a great deal of mine cart chases.  It's weird to see this sort of thing as it became a cliche and then see the one that started it all.  It's like songs written by Jimi Hendrix or the Beatles.


Back to the plot, the mine chase scene ends when the brake lever breaks and Indy stops the cart by pressing his feet on the wheels.  Yeah, it's another Mythbusters moment, but as far as I'm concerned, the movie already jumped the shark, so what do I care?  But the tunnels are flooding with water, forcing Indy and his friends to escape onto the cliffs outside.  There's a pretty funny scene which plays out like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where a mook shows off with a sword and Indy shoots him in response, except he doesn't have a gun!  You don't suppose he was thinking of the gun he dropped during the car chase back in Shanghai?  Nah, that would be giving us way too much credit.


But before we can leave, we have one more future cliche where our heroes are trapped on a rope bridge.  Given a choice between giving himself or the sacred stones up, he chooses instead to hang on and cut the bridge.  Again, show me something I won't see before.  With half of the bridge hanging along the cliffside, Mola Ram climbs down and tries to steal one of the stones.  But Indy stops him by - get this - chanting a spell which makes the stone glow hot and burn Ram's hand, making him fall down to the crocodiles below!  How did he learn this spell, and how did he know what it would do?  Was it something the old man in the village said?  I don't know, but even if this were true, you can't count us to remember something that seemed so trivial at the time!  And if not, EXPLAIN!!!  Well, what's important is he returned the children and stone to the village, and got the girl.  And that's the end.  You are now free to turn off your TV.


So, does the lack of Nazis cripple this movie?  No, but it is plagued with other problems, from the meaningless first act, to the lack of explanations for certain plot points, to some downright annoying supporting characters.  Given these faults and some scenes that are just too scary to watch again, I personally hate this moveie more than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Just stick to playing this movie in the Lego Indiana Jones games.

Writing: 2 whips out of 5
Acting: 1 whip out of 5
Technical: 3 whips out of 5
The Call: 50% (D)