Some Randoms

This last week's been pretty bad: sick, work, no access to the SNES. So this has led to a slowing of the updates. There are some news to report:

-Hakan has been officially unveiled for Super Street Fighter IV.
-This weekend was free play for Xbox silver members on Modern Warfare.
-And well actually that's it.

Fortunately I do keep a stash of shit to post for when situations like this come around, namely links to stupid articles that I star on my Google reader. Here are two such articles dealing with video games in real life.

On Buzzfeed.
On Cracked.

Loser of the Week - Photobucket, I like you, I do, you're an integral part of this blog, fuck you're the the fifth Beatle of this blog! but honestly you're not Flickr, you're not Tumblr so please stop trying to be like them. I don't want to catalog and tag my images, at least not with you. So please when I upload something limit yourself to just fucking giving me a link that I can quickly copy and paste. Ok? thanks! bye.

So This Happened

Seriously this is officially the worst kept secret ever. The leaked list of "new" characters appearing in Super Street Fighter IV has all but been proven to be true, with today's unofficial confirmation of Makoto, Dudley and Ibuki coming to the game that only leaves the "new Arab fighter" Hakan. Ummm ok, could they not have unveiled this officially some months ago?

I've talked about this before, many times, and if you follow the Street Fighter tag you'll notice that my tone has gone from incredibly excited to cautiously disappointed to just plain angry at the money grab. As far as the technical aspects go these three new characters look just as good as the previous releases and the original characters do. When Capcom decided on this character style they picked a winner and I'm glad they're sticking with it.

Loser of the Week: NBC and their fucked up Olympic coverage. Almost nothing is broadcast live (especially here in the West Coast, in the same time zone as the fucking Olympics!), they give the American public live figure skating however. Ugh figure skating? that's not actually sport, wheres the hockey? snowboarding? bobsledding? At least I got to see some live curling today.

Pokemon: The Next Generation

Kotaku has a story out today about the newest Pokemon (character, above) signaling the beginning of the new Pokemon (game, movie). This is now the FIFTH generation of Pokemon games and, probably, characters. While the last time I complained about the ever expansive nature of the franchise and yearned for the days of only 150 characters I have come to realize now that this is no longer being made for me so in reality who gives a flying fuck.

The whole situation reminded me of the Power Rangers franchise. One which I grew up with, thoroughly enjoyed and was soon disappointed with. Like with Pokemon my main problem was the move from the original characters to replacements which threatened the very show I loved. I was pissed off when three original rangers were replaced, little that I know that the reason they were being replaced was because they wanted more money.

I was also angry when the Might Morphin' Power Rangers became the Zeo (or whatever) Rangers. Again, little that I know that this was inevitable as the entire show was nothing more than a repurpose of a Japanese show that had been running for thirty years each year changing the costumes and even the protagonists. Had I known this maybe I would have been more inclined to roll with the punches, instead I ended up letting go of my obsession. Of course the fact that puberty was around the corner and I was attending a school with mandatory uniforms didn't hurt either.

But getting back to Pokemon: its now gotten to the point where not only myself but two or three other generations are just about over it yet it continues to thrive as one of Nintendo's most important franchises. The reason is obvious: it finds new markets (you know like capitalism has to necessarily do according to Marx), new kids to which to advertise and to give them something new they add new characters. This makes them feel special while simultaneously giving the older obsessive some more to obsess about.

Loser of the week: A little late on this but its Jim Caldwell. Congrats mate you lost the Superbowl while having the best quarterback in the history of the league on your team. That doesn't happen, it shouldn't happen, Peyton Manning only loses to the Chargers in the playoffs and with the Chargers out of the way you rode the easiest way to the big game possibly ever and you...become more conservative than George W. Bush in 2004 and call some horrible plays. You were up 10-0 go for the fucking jugular! but no, you let the nervous Saints back in and now its gonna be Mardi Gras all year long. Congrats man, you probably wont be back.

If Video Games Were Named....

College Humor has been surprisingly funny and less fratboy-ish lately. It's surprising actually, I used to have to be a 6 foot tall white guy from a red state to enjoy it but now it regularly features shit that even my sophisticated asocial persona finds appealing.

For example see today's "If videogames were named after the phrases said most while playing them" feature. I have found myself saying that exact phrase when playing Modern Warfare 2 though the one I've said most times (in multiplayer) has to be "oh a grenade launcher? HOW FUCKING ORIGINAL!!!!" and "I'm shooting you in the fucking head! Why WONT YOU DIE!" But I'm sure that's just me.

So go to the link and see a few more. Unfortunately it's literally only a few more, get to work College Humor!

Link

Loser of (Last) Week
-San Diego football fans. Why? WHY!!! do you do this to us every fucking year Chargers? Jesus Christ, so much promise followed up by so much mediocrity. It's sad! the Pats have three SuperBowls, The Colts possibly two, Big Ben has two and we have exactly nothing. Well we have the best team in the league but we have nothing to show for it. I'm almost tempted to refer to our team as the Buffalo Bills of the '00s but the Bills at least went to the SuperBowl.

Power Ups

Alright today we take a look at the new power ups available in Super Mario Bros Wii. We do not spend time on mushrooms, invincibility stars, Yoshi or the kick ass fire flower because those are not exclusive nor new to this game. Sure its very much the case that the fire flower is the greatest power up ever, and it remains so in this game, but for now we take a look at the three new upgrades.

The Ice Flower - Like the fire flower but instead of throwing little fire pellets Mario, Luigi and their unnamed fungi cohorts throw (get ready for it) ice. The ice freezes enemies but it does not eliminate them automatically. Instead the player has the ability to pick up the newly created ice block and hurl it at someone or something. This does come in handy sometimes but I'd rather just have the baddie gone for good. The other upside to the ice is that some baddies that are immune to the fire pellets are frozen by the ice (bones, bullets, thwomps come to mind). I'm happy to report that Boo remains immune to just about everything.

Penguin Suit - Well its tradition that Mario turns into some sort of animal and for this game that animal is a penguin. When dressed as a penguin Mario walks funny, is able to throw ice projectiles like with the ice flower and is able to swim faster and more easily. Underwater it basically serves the same purpose as the frog suit did in Mario 3. Its great for swimming, its as good as the ice flower but it unfortunately does not help with the slippery floors in the ice world. This severely devalues this power up, its sparse availability devalues it even further.

Propeller Suit - The best new power up in the game. It comes in a form of a mushroom that flies up when it pops out of the power block. Once caught Mario dons a red speed suit with a pretty cool helmet (with a propeller at the top of it) that allows Mario to fly up and then float down in a semi controllable fashion. Yes previous games allowed full on directional flight while this only lets you basically jump really long distances but its still really useful in certain situations. This game has an unusually large amount of platforms and shit that moves, if you have a propeller mushroom you can just fly from safe spot to safe spot. Ii you're playing multiplayer you only need one suit to get through. The amount of awesome in this powerup is truly difficult to quantify.

So there it is. We've seen weirder stuff in previous games, flying raccoons, Terminator Mario, Giant Mario, Tiny Mario (which returns in this game) so a flying suit and ice flowers really arent out of the ordinary. Poweups have always added to the individual charm of each Mario game, these new additions represent the Wii version well.

Loser of the Week: The American people in 1998. Turns out Mark McGwire used steroids for the longer part of his career including the Home Run chase of 1998. In other news the Earth is round, the sky is blue. In retrospect we were duped into thinking we were witnessing history, in fact we were witnessing the apex of the steroid era. I don't have an issue with the whole "cheating" thing because technically steroids were legal at the time but it still kinda sucks when we consider that even though Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were doing it in simple times they were also doing it on nothing but beer and hot dogs.

Mario Bros Wii - Gameplay

Just yesterday I finished (NEW) Super Mario Bros. Wii (horrible title) the best game to have ever come out for the forsaken console and was wondering how to tackle it in blog form. Mega post? separate entries focusing on individual aspects? ignoring it completely? I finally decided to go the separate entries route so today we focus on gameplay. Other entries will deal with powerups, characters and so on.

This game is a piece of retro gaming deliciousness. The mechanics are identical to every sidescrolling Mario game from the original Mario Bros. to the numbered entries, World, and the DS titles. Yes despite the gameplay being so familiar we haven't had a game like this on a full size console since Mario World on the SNES. Instead we've been treated to variations on the Mario theme in the form of Mario 64, Sunshine and even Galaxy. Not bad games by any stretch but if I want to play a 3D platformer I'll just...well actually I don't want to play a 3D platformer.

Of course the main differences are the better graphics (better but not in the same league as what Microsoft and Sony are doing) and the inclusion of some of the Wii remote's unique uses. For the most part, however, the game consists of Mario making his way through very long 2D stages, getting powerups along the way, jumping obstacles, destroying baddies, grabbing coins and so on.

The game is markedly more difficult then anything with the Mario title in the past. The stages are huge and powerups are scattered at the rate of maybe 1.5 mushrooms per stage. If this seems scant (and it is) its nothing compared to the number of Yoshi's scattered along, by my count the green dinosaur appears only in three stages and if you make it to the end of a stage with Mario will dismount and wave goodbye to him before going to the next stage. Yep, gone are the days when you could simply go back and grab a Yoshi.

While the powerups are limited the baddies and pratfalls are not. The jumps have to be better timed, the baddies are fiercer and more varied. While the game is incredibly difficult in single player it gets exponentially worse in multiplayer. Yes its awesome that four players can play at the same time but it leads to fucking pandemonium. There are many ways to play multiplayer: when everybody fends for themselves it sucks because you're playing on one screen and all characters have to be on that screen at all times which means you have to wait for your retarded cousin to get to where you are before advancing, when playing cooperatively it sucks because the game slows down and you find yourself just carrying your retarded cousin (in the form of a nameless yellow toad) to the next level.

But playing in single player is incredibly fun precisely because its so challenging. You can grab one of the older Mario sidescrollers and beat it in a few hours, in a day at the most, but not so with this game. It took me a solid week to finish it and for this the game developers must be commended. They took a formula which we're all familiar with and made it challenging. And for the better because, honestly, at this point who can't start playing any older Mario game and finish it within the same day?

Replay value is added in the form of star coins or coinstars or whatever they're called. Three huge coins with star imprints are scattered through in each level. Now at first you're only told you can use them to buy hint videos (useless) but then Peach (Toadstool) teases something about world 9 after you finish the game and how you can only play through it once you have every star coin from each stage. Fucking great. I just spent a whole week thinking I didn't need these things and now I have to go back? ugh.

But in the end its an awfully enjoyable game. It's very difficult but its also very difficult to put down. I found my wii remotes constantly needing new batteries (something I've never seen before) and I really appreciated Nintendo not having me stand on some sort of board or making ninja slices or attachments and shit to actually enjoy this game. The best games for Nintendo consoles are those made by Nintendo. This is both a blessing and a curse because you often end up with shitty third party titles but then again the proprietary titles are so good that it makes you want to get a Nintendo console because you cant find these anywhere else.

Coming soon: Talking about power-ups, characters and the long promised Koopa Kids post.

Loser of the Week: TMZ. Haha you spent countless thousands of dollars for an old tattered up picture that purports to show John F Kennedy whoring it up on a boat with some naked Europeans, you call such picture potentially history altering....then it turns out all you bought is a photoshopped version of a picture that originally ran in a 1960's issue of playboy featuring paid models including "Andy" who doesnt even look like JFK. Hahaha, and you put your ubiquitous watermark on it! thus assuring the internet that your dumbassery will live on forever.

For my Homie

Let me take a moment to pour some of my 40 on the curb for my homie Ghost. Today while on assignment in an estate looking for information on a known terrorist in Russia we were both gunned down by a fucking traitor who then proceeded to steal our information and burn us alive with gasoline. To add insult to injury he lighted the fire using his cigar. Fucking ponce.

Ghost was a consummate badass who saved my life a couple of times and led us to success in more than a few missions. His impeccable leadership and knowledge of computers and jails got us through that crazy stage where we broke a bloke out of prison. His trademark skull mask scared the shit out of enemy combatants. Fuck he even has his own comic book! but now he's dead and he's (probably) not coming back.

Motherfuck that Shepherd guy. Now I'm gonna have to kill him.

Loser of the Week: Time Magazine. You named Ben Bernanke the person of the year? why? for not fucking up the economy even more? I thought his job was to fix this thing, it doesn't look like its getting fixed. Well unless you're a Wall Street CEO who's bonus is protected by the government. Good job Time Magazine, just two years ago you picked another consummate badass (Putin), last year you picked the most powerful man in the world (Obama) and this year you pick some moron. You shoulda picked the guys who created Twitter but you pussied out.

Modern Warfare

We got Modern Warfare 2 for the 360 about a week ago, despite my lack of interest in playing games in which you control a gun that shoots others (I know I made that joke before) I found that the combination of the hype surrounding the game as well as my basically free 3 month Xbox Live Gold subscription has had me playing it pretty frequently.

I mentioned in my previous mockery of a post that the usual critiques of a military game, including the glorification and nationalist spirit, applied here but do not necessarily demerit from the experience. It has been my experience, rather, that militarism and nationalism and all other isms though present are fairly contained in this game.

Glorification of the military is limited in online multiplayer. Sure you mainly play with a group focused on a single objective but your team members are hardly united in the same manner as in the actual military. There is a lack of comradeship here probably because you have not spent time training with these guys, you don't care if they die and so on. There are also a number of different factions which fight it out and which you don't select. It's difficult to form a bond to the Rangers or the SEALs, for example, when at any given point you are assigned to be a member of the Red Army or a Muslim Jihadist. Now the Brazilian militia? that's just absurd.

Nationalism is mainly present in the form of selectable titles that consist of a variety of national flags. Yes if you're American you can use an American flag, if you're Mexican a Mexican and so on. Obviously anybody whose willing to use these things instead of other callsigns are predisposed to do so from an earlier age as a product of a specific upbringing. But even when you know this shit, when you think the way I do, you still cant help but wear a comm device and let everybody know that you've just been killed by a Chinaman or that you just shot a Filipino or that that Mexican is really starting to fucking annoy you. It's not necessarily a bad thing, its actually kinda fun.

That's enough of this. I don't want to go into specifics because its not my thing and, honestly, there are very few defects in this game. It's fun, it appeals to a certain instinct, its highly customizable. It's like Tamagotchi for men.

Loser of the Week:
-Gillette. Haha, what the fuck? first Thierry Henry cheats his way into the World Cup now Tiger Woods cheats on his wife? you better hope Roger Federer doesn't kill a hooker any time soon.