Report of Summer up to June 30

Hey guys. So its July 4th week, the midpoint of the summer. So far no really big movies for the nerds, Iron man 2 the biggest so far.The following week Robin Hood i liked the film but it could have been so much better. The idea was suppose to have The sheriff be the good guy, but it was changed. Next came Prince of Perisa that fell thru the floor and is still traveling to the bottom of the bottomless pit. A-Team followed with good but not great reviews. Jonah Hex. Now I like Josh Brolin but really you passed on T4 but did that. In the coming month we have Predators and The Expendables. Hoping againest hope that they will make the summer worth and hold us over till next summer. With Thor and GL coming out.

CardCaptor Sakura all growed up.

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle



Syaoran, a boy who wants to become an archeologist, and Sakura, a princess from the Clow Kingdom, are childhood friends with a close relationship. On a fateful night, Sakura lost all her memories as a result of a conspiracy to obtain her powers. In order to regain her memory, Syaoran seeks help from the witch, Yuuko. Yuuko tells Syaoran that he has to travel from one alternate reality to another to collect fragments of Sakura's memory. However, even if Sakura regains her memory, she will have no recollection of Syaoran. Travelling together with them is Kurogane, a warrior who was exiled from his country, and Fye, a magician who wants to escape from his King. With the help of a magical creature, Mokona, they set off on an exciting journey through time and space.

The best thing about Tsubasa is that coincides with the anime xxxHolic. Maybe not so much in a huge way but, periodically you will see Syaoran talking to Yuuko to help him save his friends out of certain situations and vice versa. Me, being the huge CLAMP fan that I am…is also happy that a lot of CLAMP’s most enjoyable characters play major roles throughout the entire series. Major titles include Magic Knights Rayearth, Chobits, RG Veda and Angelic Layer.

I’ll be completely honest I haven’t watched the entire series all the way through but, I have kept up (and finished) with the manga. So, I am a little partial to the characters and story that takes place in the manga. It seems to cover a lot more than the anime. Of course, when is the movie ever like the book?

The story can get pretty confusing the more you delve into it. So, paying attention to details is most vital when watching this anime and/or reading the manga. I won’t spoil it for any of you but, yeah, even I got uber confused and had to re-read some chapters or re-watch some of the later episodes.

The anime series does take a break and creates an OAV called Tokyo Revelations. It’s pretty decent and it still stays consistent with the storyline but, I’m not quite sure why this part of the story was turned into an OAV…must’ve been because there was a lot of ground to cover (you at least get to see Sakura get horribly banged up and mangled).

In conclusion, worth taking a look at but, you have to keep up with it and pay attention or I guarantee you WILL get lost. Tsubasa is beautiful as far as artwork is concerned but, I’d prefer its’counterpart, xxxHolic.

Mokona is Mokona!

Tenchi Muyo! This ain't no kiddy anime.

Tenchi Muyo!
(Going old school, baby!)

Tenchi Muyo! (天地無用!, Tenchi Muyō!?), is a Japanese anime, light novel, and manga series created by Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi about a boy named Tenchi Masaki, which has grown into a larger franchise. Along with the likes of Moldiver, Tenchi Muyo! Was one of the early successes for AIC, the animation company behind it, which went on to create El-Hazard, Battle Athletes, Oh My Goddess!, Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure and many other anime series. The generally accepted translation of the title is No Need for Tenchi, though at the time of its appearance it was also translated variably as No Heaven and Earth and This Way Up due to the original title's pun nature and multiple meanings.

Masaki Tenchi is a typical high school teenager... until he finds out a little bit more about his grandfather and his lineage. Who could have guessed that he was a descendant of a Royal family from an alien planet? Things get even more out of hand when the Masaki household begins to get visitors of every sort, including a notorious space pirate and the beautiful heir to the Jurai throne... both of whom have their eyes on poor Tenchi!

Tenchi is probably the luckiest guy in the entire world….er…galaxy! He’s got a household full of alien women but, I’m sure he doesn’t look at it like that. Now that I think about it….being annoyed by five women ALL THE TIME sounds pretty exhausting. Regardless, the characters are what make this series, in my honest opinion. The storyline is a bit lacking, weaves in and out of WTF moments as well. Muyo! is followed by Tenchi Universe (a basic re-telling of Muyo! and modification of the original character’s personalities and introducing new characters to the mix), Tenchi in Tokyo (Tenchi graduates and attends college in Tokyo...of course, the ladies of the household want to keep an eye on Tenchi while he’s away and interfere with his daily life as usual), Tenchi Muyo! GXP (WTFFFFFFFF) and Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-ohki (Further messed up and WTTTTFFFFFFF…at least they give the three goddesses some screen time). They are also movies that were produced as well; Tench in Love (basically about how Tenchi’s parents meet and get it on), Tenchi in Love (alternate universe where Tenchi totally sexes up this hot woman) and Tenchi Muyo: Daugther of Darkness (Tenchi’s daughter comes from the future and everyone’s trying to figure out who the mother is….bad episode of Maury or something).

All in all, Tenchi Muyo! Is a great series to watch every once in a while. Not intended for the little kiddies, unless you show them the Cartoon Network version then, it’s suitable. However, I recommend watching the original you learn to appreciate the adult humor more. Oh, did I mention that there is full frontal nudity in this anime?

Perverts.

Red Angry's Rant: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Modern Gayfare, Call of Dodo, or a slew of many other puns for the game title broke record sales last year. I had my fare share of alone time with this mega title and for the most part I've had a great time: whether it be in the compelling single player campaign or the additive online multilayer, to the special co-op missions; there's a lot to love about this shooter.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, it's time to break this puppy down li

ke Britney Spears in her last psychotic episode. I have no hate towards the campaign, it's just awesome; with some great plot twits and an ending that channels Halo 2's controller-flinging conclusion; it's worth the 60 bucks alone. So....

On to the rant. Online play, where to begin... I guess I'll start with the most broken, gut wrenching, chest grabbing, putrid, unbalanced excuse for a game play mechanic; the M203 Grenade Launcher, better know as the noob tube. Back in Modern Warfare 1, the vast majority of player that I'd talk to thought it should never have be included in the game. It's just too easy to get a kill with. It wasn't too terrible though because the most shots you could ever carry was 3. In MW2, any balance to this feature went flying out of the window and somehow landed on th far-side of the moon.

With great perks, come great possibilities..... for retarded, fossilized dog feces to be slapped together and called an online FPS. MW2 lets you have not 1, but 2 ways to have easy, camper-friendly infinite ammo. So, where in MW1, you had a max of 3 guaranteed kills, it's now possible to achieve over a hundred; and I know because I've done it.

There's nothing like going 11 and 0 only to have it end by some guy randomly firing tubes on the map. I really could type out days worth of text to explain just how teeth clenching noob tubes are but who gives a bell end. Moving on.

This game has one of the worst spawning systems I've seen in any game, for God sakes, Golden Eye on the 64 had a system that makes MW2 look like that one guy in every group of friends that no one likes and the only reason you keep him around is to make fun of him. One great example is when you manage to snag a chopper-gunner and begin to rain death upon the unlucky enemy team as they spawn over and over in the same corner, not even being able to take one step. I dare you to go to you tube right now and search for chopper gunner ownage if you don't believe me.

There's a ton of brokenness in this game; over powered weapons, joining a losing game with only 3 seconds left, poor skill based matchmaking, game effecting glitches, bad host migration (when it works), and a party system that doesn't allow you to control the party, just to name a few.

I do enjoy online a good bit, but there is so much that erks me that just can't be ignored. On the rage meter, MW2 score around 75% (as in, I'm a fit of uncontrollable roid rage 75% of the time playing the game.)

If you're anything like me or you have a short temper for unbalanced game play, you might wanna skip over this title, or at least only rent it. But if you're into the whole camper-loving, no-scopeing, spawn killing, noob tube fest; then you might be able to keep your shinny new controller from flying into you're HD flat-screen. Peace Bitches.....

Hollywood; stay out of my childhood memories. Pt 1

Hi Fellow nerds,

First off I would like to apologize for the lack of updates, been a busy weekend. But anyways on with the show. This is going to be more of a rant than a review so I sincerely hope some of can empathize and relate. Some of you may or may not have been around for the 80's and even early nineties to remember some of these wonderful toys and movies that I am going to mention and if not I hope you will wikipedia them and find out more. So without further procrastination lets get on with the rant!.

Ghostbusters:

Now I know a lot of you know Ghostbusters and I sincerely hope you do or your nerd title must be revoked. This classic of a movie was made in the late 80's by Ivan Reitman (lets not mention some of his other movies), starring Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver just to name a few. Of course the name suggests that they went around capturing ghosts and charging people for the service. They end up saving the city of New York from a giant marshmallow man and some dyke looking bird in skin tight Lycra and a extreme haircut that looks like a ironing board. The movie has memorable lines and a well written script. They made a successful toy line, comics and cartoon series, hell they even made a sequel (which in my opinion was not as good) which I fondly remember. I had loads of the toys and comics, I enjoyed every second of it and remains one of my most fond childhood experiences. So why am I ranting about this great franchise? well...they are planning Ghostbusters 3. I just hope to god they do not mess this one up. I hear rumor that the original cast are signed or going to sign up for it (with the exception of Rick Moranis and maybe Bill Murray). Ivan Reitman is back directing and Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyed writing the script. I hope I really do that they remain faithful and do not allow Hollywood to destroy this great franchise as they have done with so many other's. I am worried about this project.

Rage meter: 50%

Transformers:

Holy fuck, where can I start with this great franchise. Again this was created in the 80's by Hasbro (correct me if I am wrong here fellow nerds) as a hugely successful toy line. I had so many of these toys from Gen 1 and still do. I remember having epic battles between the Autobots and Decepticons, hell they even managed to destroy the Millennium Falcon and crush Darth Vader under foot. I would spend many a day hold up in my room only limited by my imagination. There was times I would transform Megatron into that awesome sniper rifle and pretend to shoot my neighbors out of the window. I remember watching the movie over and over again weeping like a little girl because Optimus Prime dies, watching wide eyed as Unicron destroyed planets. I read the comics over and over again also, reading in horror as zombie transformers came back to life. Any self respecting 80's kid loved the Transfomers and transformed many into the nerds we know today. So here I am in my early 30's still going misty eyed at the thought of those gone by memories. I whooped with joy when I first heard they was finally going to do a live action movie, then my heart sank when I heard about the useless fuck that was directing it. Yes that is right, Michael fucking boom boom Bay. What where they thinking? we are talking about the same useless self righteous jackass that made the obnoxious pile of horse vomit that was Bad Boys and Pearl Harbor.

^^^DOUCHE^^^

I honestly think he didnt give two squirts of piss about the franchise. He probably lost track of what he was doing while he was banging some anorexic bitches in his five story trailer. He must have thought "I know, I am going to find the most idiotic bimbo who cant act and drape her across Bumblebee and hope people dont notice what a god awefull pile of shallow shit I am making. OH OH I know like always I am going to dazzle my audience with some fucking huge explosions..yeah BOOM BOOM MOTHA FUCKA'S". So what did we end up with? Shia LeBouf an babbling rectal cavity who is trying to get in Meagan Fox's STD infested panties. Bumblebee who for some unknown reason chooses these two idiots to save the world from the menace that is the Decepticons and plays match maker. Finally what brings my piss to a boil is Optimus Prime. There is a scene where Shithead LeBouf and Meagan Slut is trying to find these fucking glasses and the Autobots are "hiding" in his garden from his parents. Yeah giant fucking robots prancing around trying to avoid the parents who somehow dont notice. Anyways Optimus Prime steps on something which smashes and he says this...and I quote..."Oh my bad"....Optimus Prime, the biggest bad ass this side of Cybertron saying my bad! WHAT THE FUCK!. I know they was trying to reach to a new audience but come on...they are a robotic race from out of space and he says my bad. Its like the writers could not think of something intelligent to say, its like the writer spilled something on the script and was like "oh dur whoops my bad!...hey hang on hur hur hur this would be funny *scribble scribble*). So again we ended up with my childhood memories marred by this unintelligent mess for the masses. In its defense they did try and bring the franchise to a new audience and it worked. It sparked a new toy line (which is terrible and will let my good friend Chris review those) and a upcoming game War For Cybertron (which looks badass). So I am glad for the renewed interest in this franchise and hopefully bringing new memories for the new generation of children as I once did back then. But...this brings me to Transformers 2...and oh boy what can I say about this? you will just have to wait for Part 2.

Rage meter:88%

Spirited Away

(Yay! For my first post)



-- Spirited Away –

Directed by anime legend Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is the tale of Chihiro, a young girl who is taken down an unusual road by her parents while moving to a new home in an unfamiliar home. The curiosity of Chihiro’s mother and father (who were based on two colleagues of Miyazaki’s) leads the reluctant child into what appears to be an abandoned amusement park. Soon her parents are greedily feasting on various delights from an enticing food stand (Seriously, shit looks good, makes me turn into a fat kid) and are literally turned into pigs. The frightened and bewildered girl then encounters a young man named Haku (quite attractive, I might add), who explains what she must do to navigate this strange and magical realm. Finding employment in a bathhouse for spirits and other odd characters – including kimono—wearing frogs, lumbering tentacled monsters (HEHEHEHEH), and a mysterious apparition named No Face – Chihiro attempts to figure out how she can free her parents from the clutches of the resort’s owner, a powerful witch named Yubaba (Seriously, her head is huge, literally). In the process, she makes some very eccentric friends – and has to deal with some notoriously stinky customers (I imagine if you did work at a bathhouse, it can get pretty smelly sometimes).

Spirited Away reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s, ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Chihiro finds herself in the strange and wonderful world – making new friends, defeating enemies and growing up in the process. Chihiro’s character annoyed me in the beginning because she was whiny, pessimistic about moving to her new home and lazy (I’m sure some of us will admit that we were like that when we were children). You really watch Chihiro grow as a person inside and out. It’s beautiful! I love these kinds of movies when characters are on the road to self discovery!

The visuals in this movie are top notch. The artwork is amazingly detailed, character design makes the characters very much likeable and the scenery is just breathtaking. Dazzling and enchanting, I’m trying to find so many words to describe this piece of artwork.

Don’t be frightened by the tentacle monsters because, this is indeed a family film. Hayao Miyazaki is a storyteller and he targets the younger audience. It is indeed fun for the entire family.

I highly recommend it.

The PC and PS3 crossplatform gaming!!

Hi my nerds,

Just a quick post before I head on to bed. I just read an announcement by Valve Software that they are planning crossplatform gaming between the PC and PS3 for Portal 2 can we say WEWT!. For the moment this is going to be co-op which is great in itself, but just imagine in the future...Counter Strike and Team Fortress pwnage. Finally Valve is seeing a potential in the market and is acting on it. This proves my speculation in my previous post Gabe humps the PS3.

Can not wait.

Rune out!

Some of the best E3 Video's

Well it is that time again that I post before I bugger off to real life and work. But anyways lets get to the meat of the show shall we. I have been trawling around finding some of the most interesting E3 video's so far. Now I am a PC Gamer through and through but some of the video's will be 360 also and PS3 but they just caught my eye. I will give a reasoning why I picked them below the video's. So lets begin shall we. Some of the video's have stupid age verification on them so I do apologize in advance.




This trailer sent shivers up my spine literally. I have been a fan of portal for years and love it. I can not wait for this.




Starwars: The Old Republic probably the most hotly anticipated new MMO. I know I am looking forward to it, I know Bioware will not let us down.




Marvel vs Capcom 3: Oh yeah baby huge fan of the other two and has teh deadpools. Not a PC Title but I will play the fuck out of this.



For some reason this caught my eye, I will investigate on what this is later but it would seem to be a game for the Natal or the PSeye. Comments please.



This seems interesting, not sure what platforms it will be on but it caught my eye.



Oh yeah!!! been wanting some Nam action for my grizzled trigger fingers. Time for me to put on the best of Creedence Clearwater Revival and kill me some folk. YEEHAWW



Well what can I say? its Fallout.



This is probably the most badass trailer of the lot Starwars The Force Unleashed 2



I know not PC related but this looks fun for the children even though this just screams Kingdom Hearts.

Well that about wraps it up for tonight's blog, hope you enjoyed watching and please leave some comments.

Godzilla

I was 4years old, One weekend my parents took me to the video store. After searching in the kids section and finding nothing worth renting i walked away from my mother into the scifi section. Where i found Godzilla 1985. After my mother gave me a good yelling at for walking away I showed her what i had found. My father took the movie and smiled saying"thats my boy." Getting home and playing outside all went by fast. When the movie started, It was like this is the greatest thing ever to come about. My Dad who watched it with us, just laughed and asked if we wanted to see more of the films. If I wasnt 4 i am sure i would have said" hell to the yeah.'' Dad took us to another video store and we found more of the videos. From that point I was hooked. Everytime we went into the video store, went to walmart or any store with a video department we would look for a new movie that we didnt have. Dad would help when he could giving us hints. Going to the libary to check out books with Giant Monsters was a treat. Looking for toys, Only having 3 figures two of them the same one just different sizes also a 5 foot blowup Godzilla. My mother says it was funny watching Lane and I drag those things up and down the French Quarter. After reaching 6th grade the hobby went away until one trip to Arkansas. Stopping at Books-a-million found an issue of Fangoria magzine that showed the new newest movie. I was like what new movie. Now this is before the interweb. We had heard of 2 new films after 1985 but was not able to find them. The first film only got a HBO release, but the 2 nd caused a bit of an outrage when it was shown on headline news. I remember staying glued to HLN that entire day for them to show the lips again. Anyway back to the Magzine, in the back it had an address for Creature Feature Productions. Sending 3 dollars to that company in Boston changed everything. But a hiccup occured, Getting the order form with the list of items the company had was awesome. I made a list and gave it to my mother and my father who by this time had spilt up. Dad said Yes. Gave me the cash i got the money order and sent the order away. Waiting and waitng some more. 3 months passed i was crushed. Dad had started to work overseas so he was gone the entire time. After coming home and spending the weekend with us. He dropped us off at Papa's house and went to check his mail. He returned ten minutes later with a package. The 3 movies i had ordered were for some reason put into his mailbox and we had no access. Although it was a school night we watched and loved the movies. Getting on the mailing list for Creature Feature's was the next thing. Getting the newest movies as soon as they were "available" It became that thing that I liked but no one knew except my family. Sports became more the thing to me. After HS i moved in with my future wife, having no choice i told her. She was like "ok" And away it was. She supported me. We even went to Chicago to the annual Godzilla Convention one summer. Today Its the thing i use to be put into better moods.

Thank You

Mom, Dad, Papa, Lane, Brandi, and Toho Productions

Deadpool out

New Twisted Metal In The Works

Well, this is one I haven't seen in awhile, Twisted Metal. That name to me brings back fond memories of blowing up other cars and/or people, all for the purpose of getting one wish granted by Calypso, the demented creator of the sport. I know over the years the story has changed around, sometimes not for the best, but with a new console comes a new hope. I for one am very excited that they are FINALLY continuing the Twisted Metal franchise, this time on the PS3.

And Rape

I took this picture a few weeks ago when I was leveling my Pally tank. I thought I should share with the masses. I thought it was funny.

C'mere Boy

Gabe humps the PS3

So Gabe Newell of Valve Software (HL2, Portal, Left4Dead) announced at E3 that they will be developing for the PS3. This does not come to much surprise to me, but the content of the announcement did. He mentioned that the PS3 is "the most open console" and will be developing Steamworks on it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steam (you been living inside a whale all your life?), Steam is a online distribution service for the PC and also serves as Valves online multiplayer platform. But what has peaked my interest? well not the ability to download games or view pretty trailers. It is the multiplayer and the technology behind it. Could we see finally see a true cross platform system to allow PC gamers on Steam and PS3 players to finally go head to head?. Here is what he had to say.

"We're a huge fan of open platforms in general," Valve's Erik Johnson told CVG today. "That's something that we feel like is the right thing for customers. The PS3 looks like the most open of the consoles right now.

"Fundamentally, we want all of our customers to be able to interact with each other - especially with a game like Portal 2, where people want to tell each other about Portal and have fun together.

"The work we're going to do on Steam [on PS3], feature-by-feature, we don't know exactly what that's going to look like today. But we want to create that same kind of thing on PS3 [as we have on PC] - where people can talk to each other, know what they've played."

"In terms of timing, it was a while ago. The thing for us that made it make the most sense was talking to [Sony] about Steam.

"We shipped Team Fortress 2 on PC and the Xbox. We shipped over 120 updates on the PC and we've shipped less than five on the Xbox. That's something that we feel like we've done a pretty poor job on and we don't know how to fix it.

"There's problems with shipping that many updates on the 360. For us, we kind of need to solve a problem with PS3 customers and hopefully Portal 2 does it.

"We want to make sure we're doing it right and they're gettin the kind of value we like to provide to our customers. We're not interested in giving them a less than stellar experience."

So I will leave you to draw your own conclusions to this information, if you have read my previous post about cross platform gaming then you will understand my excitement. I am not holding my breath for such a feature, but one can dream oh yes one can dream.

Mortal Kombat

Finish Him! Get over here! Say those words to most teens and men up to 30, One thing pops into their minds. Mortal Kombat. But the history of said series is one that most will find interesting. Influences from Big trouble in Little China to Enter the Dragon and Even the terminator series.

The original plan was to have a game that featured the one and only Jean-Claude Van Damme. But Van Damme left the project to go work on another game that failed to be made. But Van Damme why not in the game gave the creators the character Johnny Cage. The Outfit worn by Cage in the first game is a copy of the last Fighting uniform VanDamage wore in Bloodsport.

Now the Great Shang Tsung come on think about? I think its kind of like long lost brothers. But thats just me.

Grandpa m Come to me

Liu Kang Our Hero Played by the guy who was the second best ninja in Beverly Hills Ninja

Kung Lao- will some explain to me how the frak does a hat well more on that next time

All pictures are the property of their owners. No harm is intended with this. Just a little bit of information.

Microsoft - An opportunity wasted

So is PC Gaming dead?..some say it is and some will argue it is not. Back in the mid 90's and early 2000's PC gaming was at it's most popular, it was the most powerful gaming system around. It allowed mods and a massive community, so why the demise of the most flexible gaming system around?. Most say it is piracy which I do have to admit is a huge contributing factor. Personal computers have been plagued by piracy since the early days of personal computing and is still strong today, they also say it killed the giant that was the Commodore Amiga. But this is not a discussion on piracy, this is a discussion on opportunities wasted by companies not seeing the big picture.

One such company is Microsoft a software giant that has a ton of potential but is wasting the opportunity. Why? you may ask...well it has to innovate and not sit back and look at rivals and see what they are doing before acting and investing. Playing safe perhaps? maybe. But this is not a discussion on its investments either, we are talking about PC Gaming. So let me pose a question to you. How many of you out there would like the chance to frag a smug console owning noob at a FPS with your weapons of choice? i.e a mouse and keyboard. Of course you would..who wouldn't?. I for one would love to jump onto Modern Warfare 2 and own the entire map and wipe the grin off of the console loving fools. But alas it is not meant to be. Microsoft had a nice little program going called Live for Windows. This enabled people who owned a few games to actually play against XBox 360 owners, wow this sounds really cool!. But alas no, they only released a few games that allowed you to do so. One such game was Halo 2, released 2 years later to a uninterested crowed and with Halo 3 already in the works DOH!. Today Live for Windows is almost none existent, relegated to the backwoods of their Live! site and no one interested.

And so to my main point, if they released games that would enable the PC Gamer to play against XBOX 360 owners would you buy it? I know I would. If they are worried about pirates then the trick is is not to worry about it. Let them pirate but the multiplayer aspects of the game is what people would be interested in and the community it brings. If you pirate it you wont be able to play online with a plethora of nubs just begging to be destroyed by your powers.

So are you listening Microsoft? you have the infrastructure to make it happen.Show some love to the same people that made your company successful.

So this is the end of my first blog post. More is to come with some exciting idea's and new people. Please feel free to comment.

Microsoft Press release for Games for Windows