Picture Post 8

California Speed. Polygons. So many Poligons.

The New Warriors - CONFIRMED!

Rumours have been spreading for a few days now about Capcom announcing either a new character for Street Fighter IV or an overhaul (hopefully a downloadable one) titled Super Street Fighter IV. Yesterday there was a picture with a leaked T.Hawk and a Japanese website (which pretty much confirms the whole thing) and today a French website (which has gone down because its never seen so much traffic) was sent some screen captures. Check them out at Kotaku.

So that pretty much confirms T.Hawk is coming to the game as early as tomorrow but it also confirms a new character named "Juri" who's design is horrible in that pose pic but ok in the fight screenshot. Really Capcom? you couldn't give us Juli or Juni you had to give us a new character and on top of that call her Juri? are you messing with us? Of course it's also entirely possible that this is Juli but has not been translated properly, if so when did she go emo?

I'm willing to give Juri the benefit of the doubt, after all the four new characters aren't completely horrible, but I was hoping for one of Cammy's stewardess friends to make it in also. I'm sure she makes sense but I dont feel like paying $60 for a new game (if its not downloadable) for a new character that didn't make it through the cut and another who I could never cared for in the original Street Fighter. On the other hand, Fei Long and Cammy are already in that would just leave Dee Jay outside so maybe he's in the package too. Still, not paying another $60.

UPDATE: According to the Street Figher Blog (which has more pictures) there are ten additional characters, which pretty much guarantees a new release and NOT a download, according to a comment on Kotaku,

The new characters are supposedly....
T.Hawk
DeeJay
Makoto
Ibuki
Adon
Guy
Cody
Dudley
Juri (original, seen in the photos)
Hakan (an Arab figher, also original)

This is getting interesting. Very interesting,. An Arab fighter? about time. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow. Unfortunately, given Capcom's money grabbing nature and SF fans completest, obsessional nature it looks like its a new game and we're all gonna buy it anyways.

CONFIRMED - Wow a second update huh? go internet! looks like the game has been confirmed as a standalone (new game) to be sold at a modified (cheaper) price. It'll contain 8 new characters (not the ten up there) three have been revealed: T.Hawk, Yuri and Dee Jay. Get a look at the third most famous Jamaican in the world (after Bob Marley and Usain Bolt) right here. Good stuff. By the way Super Street Fighter IV is a good title but you know what's better? Street Fighter IV 2. Yeah thats a winner.

Low Low Prices

I was at REDACTED today and stumbled across the video game section. Not knowing that they actually carried video games I decided to see if they had any good deals. Man was I in for a surprise! if you're looking for a copy of NHL '07 look no further than REDACTED, its not on sale but as you can see the everyday low price is impossible to pass up.

Ok so $29.99 for a three year old game is not a good deal at all but it gives us a chance to have some fun. By the way, if you look for a bigger reason why REDACTED is gonna go under I wish you good luck. Lets look at some fun facts.

• This game was released on September 26th 2006, which not only means that it just turned three years old, it also means that its been at that store for three years. I'm uncomfortable with anything thats been in a store for that long.
• While Alexander Ovechkin still plays for the Washington Capitals the team no longer wears that particular uniform. Its a great sweater, that I actually own, but its outdated, the Caps went to this design in 2007. The entire league's look was overhauled, in fact, as all teams moved to new Reebok Edge uniforms, most of which were different than in previous years so the Caps arent the only team with an outdated uniform, they're all outdated.
• As of this writing the game is available on Amazon for $2.46 used, and as low as $6.99 new. I actually purchased it last year for $7.98 at Target. There have been three new NHL games since the release of 07 (that would be 08, 09 and the recently released 10), only the latest version of the game is more than $29.99 on Amazon.
• The number one movie the week the game was released was "The Covenant" which I've never heard of and the week after that it was "Gridiron Gang" which, ironically, is on FX right now. The number one single at the time was Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack".
• George W. Bush was still President, the recession has not started, the median price for a home was still on the rise, Italy had just won the 2006 World Cup, Harry Potter had not been concluded yet, Easy Tiger had not been released yet, and Michael Jackson still had a few years to live.

The point of all this nonsense is this. Technology moves much more rapidly now than it did in the past, therefore most technologies become obsolete pretty quickly. Nothing has a steeper depreciation scale than a sports game, this can be easily seen in the quantity and prices of used games at brick and mortar game stores.

The fact that REDACTED still has this game at or near the original price speaks volumes of exactly how much this store is disconnected from reality. If they cant keep control of their inventories (because this game should have been gone long ago) or their prices (because if its still there it needs to be on clearance) then how can we expect them to compete, at least as far as electronics, with stores that do keep track of this stuff?

Rival Turf

Rival Turf! is the game that Batman Forever wanted and should have been. It's the quintessential 90's two player beat-em-up in which an unlikely pair must make their way through a city in turmoil in order to rescue a woman, or stop the drug trade or something like that. The objective here is unclear, there is a map and it appears that the characters are trying to make it down to the Mexican border? after a couple of stages in the city a helicopter arrives and takes you down "south of the border" with no actual explanation, you are then fighting in the jungle.

In Rival Turf! you select from one of two characters: Jack Flak whose look has made a complete 360 from outdated to back in style or Oozie Nelson who dresses like M.Bison (by the way was it standard for tough guys to dress like Eastern European dictators back in the early 90's?). They battle a substantial amount of stereotypes with names that say all you need to know about them, examples: Gigante is the big guy, Arnold is the bodybuilder, Reggie is the hip black guy and so forth.

This game, like many other, was based on a Japanese original. In this case it was the Rushing Beat series. Like MegaMan, Darkstalkers and many more games the developers simply replaced Japanese art with Western art (happened in anime too, how is this better than this? its not) and completely Americanized the characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is a shame that that Japanese cover was replaced with shit like this. I wonder when exactly the video game industry realized that gamers were into Japanese art and culture.

The gameplay is smooth, without a doubt the SNES was made for this type of game and its not surprising that titles such as Captain Commando, Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon were some of the most popular on the console. Rival Turf's characters are surprisingly big, they fill up the screen nicely and are drawn in a stylized way that still feels fresh. You get a total of six continues and five lives per continue, with infrequent health boosts and increasing difficulty a beginner can still get pretty far (I got up to stage 4 my first time). Two player mode should be easier and a lot more fun.

The beat-em-up genre sorta died as technology improved and games became smarter. The last one I remember is Fighting Force which was fun but not as much as the sidescrollers but with retro gaming now more accessible these old games return either through wide availability online (as downloads or at eBay) or through places like the Xbox Marketplace and Wii Store. This genre offers mindless co-op fun and works better with simplified graphics, sounds like a perfect concept for the iPhone.

Civilization

I have no idea who Sid Meier is. Sure if I google or wikipedia his name I might find his biography or at the very least his picture but this is unimportant. The only thing that really matters is that his name is on the best civilization game of all time. So good, in fact, that its title is simply "Civilization". It's like if Street Fighter was simply called "Fighting Game" but in a non-ironic way.

The port for the iPhone, Civilization Revolution, takes the classic strategy game and shrinks it down to a package that fits in one's hand. Thankfully instead of trying to include all the flash and little tidbits (both in terms of graphics and the huge amounts of information) of the PC version they bring only the basics, simplify the art (making it more cartoony, just like the console version of Civ Rev), use an overhead camera, and sell it in a nice downloadable package that very often is on sale for as little as $2.99.

The map is smaller, the moves, battles and structures are in 2-D but otherwise everything is just like in the big Civilization games. The objective is simply to start your own civilization, starting with one of more than 10 world leaders (including Catherine). The first order of business is to establish a city and start producing goods: art, defense, religion and its all its accompanying structures. As time passes cities expand and new empires begin to emerge, its up to the player to decide what kind of relationship to have with neighbours.

Sure peace might be the best option but war is often necessary and an Empire that is not prepared will soon find its cities being conquered and its borders shrinking. Luckily one is not just thrown onto the international community alone, there are groups of advisers who help make decisions by telling you the consequences of your actions. New players will find it hard to understand but awfully enjoyable once that threshold has been crossed. Its the only game on the iPhone I've played for two hours straight and its especially enjoyable when one's army's begin to evolve and actually win wars and conquer foreign cities.

The art is perfect for an iPhone game. The leaders are nicely drawn, they range from Bismarck to Ghandi to Catherine and lots more in between. The battles are done as short animated cut scenes, the various troop types and structures are done in a magnificent style with very lively colours. The whole thing is really a treat for the eyes. The menus and controls are intuitive, the play options are endless, the AI is challenging and the sound, from the Sims like dialogue to the battle music is top notch.

There is nothing negative about this game. It might be a bit expensive (I bought it for 4.99) but if we're going to start talking about the iPhone as a gaming platform we also have to compare its prices to the competitors and $5 for a game is actually pretty cheap. It also sets the standards high for iPhone games, lets be honest some games just plain sucks, some are just money grabs but this is a genuine, well done strategy game available without having to turn on a PC and insert a cd, its available for bus rides and boring family reunions and its in your pocket.

Remember back when having thousands of songs in your pocket was brilliant novelty? well how about having a game like this available whenever you want? I'd say its just as brilliant.

Sub Par

As I was playing the Batman game (which is more difficult in the "easy" setting) I realized that I had played a similar game before but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Sure it felt like Mortal Kombat with the dumb "realistic" graphics and clumsy movements (reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas) but its not a fighting game and I just knew I had played a platformer with the same stupid gameplay.

Then it hit me: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero. Man did this game suck. You played as Sub Zero and you walked around poorly rendered stages so that you could then have the right to beat up on one of the characters from the MK games. Completely unnecessary, completely random but an interesting sidestep on Mortal Kombat's eventual move from motion capture to complete 3D, relying ever more heavily on tons of poorly designed, poorly rendered, mostly forgettable characters.

Not a great lineage for the Batman game for sure. By the way this is the first time I use a cover as the post picture. I have to admit its great looking artwork, the frosty logo and blue scheme meshes nicely with the N64 red border. Great stuff, not that I like the Mortal Kombat logo, I never did, it always felt like somebody designed a logo and then had somebody create a game around it, I guess variety and violence can get you pretty far.

Catherine Says

"A Man ought to form in his own Mind an exact and clear Idea of what Liberty is. Liberty is the Right of doing whatsoever the Laws allow: And if any one Citizen could do what the Laws forbid, there would be no more Liberty; because others would have an equal Power of doing the same."

-Catherine II of Russia

Sounds about right.

Forever! Forever!

It seems that more than any other character Batman seems to go through phases: from the original detective to the campy Adam West show to the Alan Moore stories of the 80's, the first two 90's films, the gay Batman sequels and finally the Chris Nolan series. The story so far has been a constant fluctuation between taking the Bat seriously and treating him like a children's story. Batman Forever for the SNES treats tries to treat Batman like the former but ends up treating him like the latter.

And it makes sense too, the first two Batman films could be considered almost in the same category as the Nolan films, only injected with some Tim Burton crazy for good measure. Starting with Forever (and most ridiculously seen in Batman and Robin) the studios decided to turn Batman into a kids movie, complete with ridiculous villains and even more ridiculous gizmos all designed to sell more Happy Meals and increase profit margin. Two-Face for example was more eccentric than out of his fucking mind, the fact that Val Kilmer was Batman pretty much says it all (even though Clooney played him in the last, and worst, film, its Kilmer who personifies the kiddie Batman era).

The game is supposedly a direct translation of the film, not having seen the movie since it first came out I have no idea if this is the case. It takes a serious leap forward graphics-wise, the characters look and move like they have been pulled out of a Mortal Kombat game to the extent that as he moves Batman seems to be dancing around and is able to pull off the infamous MK crouching uppercut. There is a two-player co-op mode with the second player having the ability to play as Robin. The problem here is that, while the Dark Knight looks well graphically because he's not much more than a few splotches of black, Robin looks like a Mego doll. Also he wears the classic Robin outfit instead of the one he wore in the film (and in the fucking box!), you'd think someone would have noticed this inconsistency during motion capture.

Batman walks along some closed levels beating up an assortment of Arkham inmates and men in business suits with such names as Mad Ned, Amazon and (probably) Anvil. The baddies start off easy enough but once they start ganging up on Batman and pulling out chainsaws and flamethrowers it starts to get pretty complicated. What's worse is that the caped crusader is armed only with his arms (and apparently Batarangs and other weapons that I haven't been able to use) and only has six lives (less than a fucking cat), there is no Save feature, no continues and no password system so one can only advance so far before dying and having to start from the beginning.

This isn't a regular beat-em-up either, Batman has to solve puzzles, he has to climb up and down levels, has to fill a quota of beat up villains and find secret compartments and doors. Its hard enough that I had to consult a walkthrough online, I cant imagine how the average 8-year old ever managed to advance through this game in the late 90's, its not that the game itself is hard its just unnecessarily complicated. You do get clues along the way (in the form of riddles, ugh) but most of the riddles are cringe-worthy and completely obvious: oh you want me to "climb" something? look "up"? how imaginative!

My main issue with this game is that I bought it thinking it was the one with Poison Ivy, Schwarzenegger and nipple costumes, I was looking forward to some campy shit but instead I got a game that is more reliant on its "technological advances" (as described in the box) than any actual gameplay. It's not really fun, its frustrating, but its also kinda satisfying to get through because its so difficult. The only problem is that once you turn it off you're gonna have to start from the beginning when you want to play again, its demoralizing. But its also Batman, and its hard to be angry at Batman, even if he is a right wing lunatic.

Stages: Guile

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

Because nothing says "superpower" better than a display of military might it was only fitting that Capcom would go to an airbase full of fighter jets to represent Guile's stage. Ok maybe its not full of fighter jets but the one F-16 certainly proves the intended point: the U.S has the most advanced air force in the world, just look at that fucking jet!

The stage has some other interesting features. First there is a U.S Airforce roundel right in the middle of the stage, in the same spot that the hammer and sickle holds in the Zangief stage, the message is simple: freedom, brought to you by the U.S military vs oppression brought to you by bureaucratic factories in the USSR. This isn't a negative thing, its simply the truth! The cold war ended with the inefficiencies of the Soviet model of "communism" laid completely bare, the differences between the two stages highlight these inefficiencies while still maintaining that the U.S and its over reliance on its military is not a utopia either.

In the interest of treating this entry as a meditation on the cold war let us pursue a comparison of the two stages. The many levels of fences in the USSR stage are a complete contrast to the vast openness of the Air Force base, sure there are advanced machines in the Soviet factories but the workers dont have access to them, they're state owned you see. On the other hand if you really want to get in that F-16 then by all means.

Also who would you rather hang out with? the drunken bolshevik workers or the blonde men and women of the United States Air Force, pulled straight out of the then recently released Top Gun. You could be Iceman or Maverick and, better yet, you can get laid right afterwards. In the USSR all you really have to look forward to are more and more meetings of the Comintern and the Comecon. Snore.

Lastly, lets not forget that this is a Japanese game and the differing views of the two cold war giants are not from an American, and therefore biased, point of view but rather from a Japanese. This is not to say that there isn't any bias, Japan being a capitalist country and whatnot, but this is still a valid representation of how the international community saw these two countries: the declining empire of bureaucracy vs the emerging empire of military might. The Guile stage, then, is still a jab at the U.S, but the reason we see it as a positive is because of the images we have grown up with.

Happy 16th of September!

For a few hours at least its still September 16th, the day Mexico officially celebrates 199 years of "independence". I wont get into the specifics of why thats not technically right, why the country still technically isn't independent but thats neither here nor there. The cult of nationalism that is so pervasive across the globe is certainly present in Mexico so if it wants to have a celebration then by all means.

Like I did with the 4th of July post here's a character that represents the entire country of Mexico, its culture, its people and...ok thats not true. But according to my sources Angel (from King of Fighters) is from Mexico. This is pretty innovative, traditionally Mexican characters have not only been male but they've specifically been male luchadors. Here SNK gives us a female character that doesn't even look like what one thinks of when considering a Mexican female.

I'm not gonna fight it, not because the character has sex appeal but rather because it shows how SNK really gets that Mexico is a big market and strives to appeal to it. Look capitalism being what it is its always important to find new markets, Mexico is right there, it has a substantial and powerful bourgeois minority who can buy your games and lower classes who can afford to play at the arcades. Why not appeal directly to both those markets?

Angel's design is a huge step forward in the ongoing battle against national stereotypes. Sure stereotypes might be a real time saver but its good to mix up sometimes.

I'mma let you finish

Dont mind me, just adding to the Zeitgeist.

The Internet Museum of Awesome

If there's something that is sorely missed now that we have transitioned to the user generated Web 2.0 is the old dedicated sites. Be it on geocities or lycos, be it a site devoted to pictures of a particular celebrity or to Zangief there was a sort of relief from finding out that not only did someone else share your niche obsession but they have also gone through the trouble of collecting pictures, interviews and data all in one place.

But most of these personal sites are now either gone (like the Zangief Shrine which I could not link to above) or have been replaced by celebrity rags, user blogs or social networking sites. It is therefore a true pleasure to discover a site as devoted as the castle of collectibles. This place has a huge amount of posters and other media not only from the old SNK/Neo Geo games but also the current generation.

The gallery might be a dancing baby short of coming straight from the late 90's but the layout is meaningless when compared to the amount of awesome that the website houses. Posters range from the very early, cartoony ones (at the apex of video game kitsch) to some truly magnificent examples (that last one, by the way, one of my favourite ever SNK pics, heres a better look). The great thing is that the guy who runs the site has most of the posters and the pictures posted are of the actual item.

Of course if posters are not your thing there are other sections, including a graph that shows you what games are available for what system and the Vault which houses a ton of old Neo Geo memorabilia, so much in fact that it comes with an old school warning for dial-up users. Yep, this site has so much kitschy goodness and do want that its hard to quantify in a single post, luckily its still there and is actually updated frequently so its a great time waster. I'm adding a links section and this is definitely going on it. It's times like these I wish I had the disposable income to foster my obsessions.

Check it out here
Neo BomberMan's Castle of Collectibles

World Heroes

I remember this game, it was a clear copy of Street Fighter II's formula. You get a bunch of characters who represents a certain country, you make sure to include all available tropes (the weird guy, the woman, America Man, the quiet Karate guy) and you ship it out to the arcades and hope it sticks.

The first time I played it was at a corner store in Tijuana where they had set up some arcades back in the 90's. We would play it on our way back home from church and, honestly, the only good things about going to church on sundays were getting to buy some chips and playing this after. Simpler times I suppose.

The game wasn't that good, it was too kooky to really challenge Street Fighter, it was slower, it was derivative, it was too gimmicky and the art just wasnt there. But it was a taste of other stuff that was out there, specifically on the Neo Geo, a gaming system we all knew existed but could not even begin to hope we could afford.

In the end I suppose it was the pricetag that sunk World Heroes, the Neo Geo and even SNK. Sure they became cult icons but they're not the ones reaping in wads of cash from nostalgia, no its Capcom who's doing that.

Stages: Dhalsim

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

I imagine the conversation in Capcom's offices circa 1988 went something like this:

Capcom Exec -Hey we need an eccentric character for that world champions fighting sequel
Capcom Creative-Ooh I know, how about someone from India? those people are crazy what with their funny hats and recent wars with Pakistan and China...
Capcom Exec -Good idea but how are we going to animate the character's stage?
Capcom Creative -Elephants. Dont they worship a crazy elephant with six arms? well lets just get lots of elephants!

Maybe it wasn't that simple but it certainly feels like it. Dhalsim truly is the eccentric, voodoo, mystery character who can get away with doing supernatural things in an otherwise non-supernatural game. So he can extend his arms and legs, so he can breathe fire, its because he's into that kooky religion! there's your explanation.

His stage suffers from much the same oversimplification and overdependence on the whole ascerbic Hindi thing. Ganesh is there not because he's the Hindu god, nor because it has any special significance for Dhalsim's abilities but rather because he's a recognizable symbol of the religion. Probably the most recognizable symbol, in fact.

Besides the big Ganesh in the middle there's not much else to look at. It's a sort of palace, there are other elephants because that's what you would expect. What else is going to be included? they weren't going to make any political statements so no Gandhi, no nuclear weapons, no mention of the wars with Pakistan or China. But none of this is necessary because this is not an educational game, it was not intended for IR majors, it was certainly not intended for people in India either.

Not that any of this is all bad, with technological and global limitations this was the best they could do. At least they maintained the elephant gimmick in subsequent games, even as they added more elements and beefed up the character.

iMega Man

Mega Man 2 is probably the franchise's most well known and beloved entry. Not to say that the first Mega Man sucked, like the first Street Fighter, but with Mega Man II the franchise really took off. It had more baddies, better stages and was pretty friggin difficult to beat. Twenty years later its been ported to the most powerful machine ever and is available for the low low sale price of only one payment of $2.99.

The game has been perfectly taken from the NES to the iPhone, everything remains the same except for the replacement of the password system with continues. The levels, the villains, the music, the power-ups and the difficulty all remain unchanged, the only difference is that instead of playing on a grainy tv with square controllers you're playing on a minuscule screen inside another minuscule screen using fake screen buttons.

To be perfectly honest, the buttons are a pain in the ass, they're responsive enough but when you're used to getting feedback when you press physical buttons and then that feedback disappears then you really dont know if the blue bomber really is going to jump or just fall to his untimely death.

Then there's the problem with the screen: it's not like they revamped the game to fit the phone's widescreen, nope, instead they basically put the game in a 1.3sq in. square in the middle of the screen and used the rest for the buttons. I suppose you had to put the buttons somewhere but this makes it too small and the characters even smaller. The game can be played in either horizontal or vertical modes, horizontal is better but neither is perfect.

But on to the good news. Its fucking Mega Man! on your iPhone! its the exact same game, if you're sitting on the bus, bored, and you get a hankering for some Mega Man then you can just pull out your phone and get to it. This means that the blue bomber and all his most iconic villain buddies are now in your pocket, from Bubble Man: a frogman who looks like a maniacal surgeon to Crash Man who simply has a windshield helmet to my personal favorite: Heat Man, who looks like a stoned lighter.

I have yet to play through the whole thing as I tend to simply play pick up games every once in a while. I've beaten a number of bosses but cant remember the order in which to do it to maximize Mega Man's efficiency. I do remember that Woodman can be eliminated with just one Saw blade but Woodsman was the first boss I defeated. I cant complain about the gameplay because its the same as the original: sure at times it can get hairy with all the baddies ganging up on Mega Man but since they also kept the short invisibility after a hit thing then its all good.

The limited $2.99 sale makes this game a steal, (though its too bad you dont get a picture of the original cover) its the best piece of retro Mega Man goodness there is right now (well second best) and a great way to show off how cool and ironic you are. Yep, nothing is more ironic than Mega Man.

Coming Together

The Beatles Rockband will arrive in a matter of days. After the controversies regarding the songlist, the price, the obtaining of the licenses and the hype its a bit hard to believe that in a matter of days we will be able to enjoy the experience promised by Harmonix.

For a few days now the PR machine for the game has been activated: in-store demos, television ads all in an effort to increase the hype, maybe even to let some oblivious people know that there is, in fact, a Beatles game coming. Like the preview trailers and the gameplay the actual commercial is a thing of beauty.

I guess the reason why I, and probably many more people, enjoy the commercial so much is because of the way old Beatles footage has been cleaned up, showing the Beatles in HD for the first time ever. Lets not forget that people who saw the Beatles live in their prime become fewer by the day, the only images we have of them are grainy videos and grainy pictures which make the whole thing seem like something unreal, something out of a distant history.

The ad brings the Abbey Road Beatles back to life, it gives us our best opportunity to see the group in person, gives us our best images of the group ever. Its pretty amazing, especially when you hear "Come Together" accompanying it. Sure we've heard Beatles songs in ads on tv before but only cover versions. In short, it makes you want to buy the game.

But its also kinda freaky. Two of the guys are dead and bringing them back to life in this manner is a bit like creating freaky robots or talking wax figures or some crazy automata of John Lennon and George Harrison. Then at the :17 second mark you get that image up there of a very happy John...should he be that happy? they tried to pull at the heart strings, and they were successful but they might have been a bit too successful.

Probably not though, its a great ad for what looks to be a great game one which if my band members cared for the Beatles as much as I do I'd probably have on pre-order right now.

By the way, the best part of the video? at around the :09 second mark, George Harrison checking out one of the guitar controllers. I'm sure more than one person has chocked up watching this thing.

Toyworks.

What the fuck is it with frontmen of emo bands writing comic books? first Gerard Way creates Umbrella Academy which, despite the fact that it was written by the frontman of an emo band, is one of the best comics I've ever read, and now Pete Wentz, Pete fuckin Wentz, decides he wants in on the action too?

I went down the the LCS today to pick up Deadpool and the final issue of Young Liars. First of all what a fucking shame that Young Liars ended after only 18 books, what the fuck? sure it got weird but it was a great read. The point is since it was the last issue I decided to look around for a replacement, my eyes were fixated on Fallout: Toyworks not only for its brilliant art but also because it was the premier issue (also, its not a big 2 book).

I bought it with little hesitation then decided to check what it was about on my phone, after I saw that Pete Wentz was a part of the creative team I nearly walked right back. I mean its not like they try to hide it: the guy's name is on the cover, it says "inspired by the music of Fallout Boy", it says "FOB" presents and it has the word "fallout" in the fucking title. Somehow I missed all of this.

After actually reading it, I'm happy to say that it doesn't suck. First of all the story is an obvious take on classic sci-fi memes: Stepford Wives, 100%, Sky Doll and so on. Secondly, Pete Wentz' name is on this thing to appeal to a certain crowd, his music is only an "inspiration" (and fuck if I know if thats the case, I havent listened to Fallout Boy since Milhouse played him on the Simpsons) its not like in the case of Umbrella Academy where Way thought up the concept, characters and universe and then took them to Gabriel Ba and Dark Horse to make it happen, so even that comparison is flawed.

Ok I may just be trying to rationalize my enjoyment of the book but fuck it,the emo crowd and the comic nerd crowd do not have that much crossover, so why promote this book using that guy's name? I bought it for the art, more people will buy it for the story, the pandering to a crowd is unnecessary. Then again we do live in an era in which good comics are canceled all the time due to poor sales.

This wont be the next Umbrella Academy but hopefully it is successful, hopefully its a good story (its already an interesting concept) and hopefully Image realizes that they dont need Pete fuckin Wentz to sell it. Of course I'm not saying what Fallout Boy is a bad thing (I just happen to not like them) nor am I arguing against new ideas for the comic book world, what I am saying is that it is utterly ridiculous that Wentz gets so much credit for it, to the extent that the books true creators, writer Brett Lewis and artist Sam Basri, get to play second fiddle.

(by the way I do realize the irony, which is intentional, of having the names of those two guys all the way at the end of the post while Mr. Ashlee Simpson's name is plastered all over the entry)

Mario Win

They should just shut off the internet now, nobody is EVER going to match this.

Spider, Man

So I'm at my local comic shop a few weeks ago buying some Green Arrow when I walk up to pay and the guy asks if I have an iPhone, thinking he might recommend a comic book app I answer that I do, he then tells me I should download his new game, one which has gotten some good reviews, is climbing up the download charts and is one hell of a game. I answer that I'll give it a shot, after all I've gotten enough discounts there that its time I returned the favor. He writes down the name of the game on my receipt, I walk to my car to search for the game and hope that it doesn't suck.

Even though the game had all five star reviews I was still skeptical as I had not bought a $2.99 game before, I said fuck it and went with it. Turns out it was quite a good investment. Spider: the Secret of Bryce Manor is unlike anything that I've ever seen in a video game, much less in an app. The main character is a spider, a real one, not some cutesy cartoon or anthropomorphic one, no, its a fucking spider. The main objective is to eat other bugs, to do so the spider walks, jumps, builds webs and traps dumber insects. The more insects you eat the more webs you can spin, the faster you get to the next stage.

Everything in this game is beautiful: the stages are basically paintings, done in a magnificent style, in which nothing but the greatly detailed insects move around. Each stage is a different room/location in a manor, an uninhabited one which reveals all its secrets via letters, tombstones, portraits and so on. Yes the game is about a spider but the location is just as fascinating, as the title suggests there is a secret but the only way to find out what it is is through careful exploration and attention to detail. As for the number of stages? I have no idea, I've played about 15 and have still not reached the end.

The game allows the user to play with their own library of music but there is absolutely no need for this as the in-game music is so good I wish I had it in my iPod library. Its ambient, it classical, it fits the game, I'd pay good money for the soundtrack. The sound effects from the web building to the insect munching and the walking around are also top notch. No bleeps and bloops here.

As I mentioned before the insects are as varied as they are detailed. There are moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, fireflies, ladybugs and so on. Whatever they might be they're all edible, all except for hornets which have to be tackled down. This is one of the most fun parts of the game, there is a certain satisfaction to jumping on a hornet and devouring it, I'm sure the developers (Tiger Style, great logo) knew this and thats why they added an all-hornet stage.

There is a lot going on in this game, the price tag now seems small especially when compared to other "games" which might cost less but are far from offering such an in-depth experience. Is it the best game on the iPhone? I dont know, I havent played all games and of the ones I have played I'd say its definitely in the same category as Civilization Revolution: they're both deep, have great art and provide days of fun. (ok that link wasn't for the iPhone version of Civ Rev but can you blame me? its Catherine!). If anything Spider is easier to pick up and understand, hopefully that helps it sell more and hopefully that keeps comic book guy and his buddies making great games.