My God...It Might Actually Work!

Let's face it, after Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within bombed, all hope of an actually good videogame-based movie fell off the radar. Mortal Kombat was a good action movie (ie: a literal waste of time) and Resident Evil 1 (not the sequel) was a good B-movie, but there hasn't been anything that everyone, fan of the game/genre or not, can enjoy.
So many other projects have been announced. One which was a Dead or Alive movie. Yes, based on one of the few games that was more likely to have a hot-coffee-like scene in it then GTA: San Andreas, but somehow doesn't, is being made into a movie.
So Kotaku had this news post: http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/castlevania/studios-threaten-to-make-doa-2-castlevania-movies-183836.php#more.
It warns of upcomming efforts to make a sequel and a movie based on Castlevania. But mostly, it puts down the good (but far from AAA) people behind the DOA movie.
But that is not what convinced me. On that page, there is a YouTube trailer; watch it, I'll wait.




Yes, they integrated a bra into a fight.
I can't say it will be a transendant film, but it does exactly what Tomb Raider needed to be: it just doesn't take itself seriously. It seems to be Charlie's Angels-esque movie, but with luck (as the trailer implies), it will be a fun movie. It likely still won't live up to the expectations of either Final Fantasy film (Spirits Within or Advant Children), but the trailer alone has exceeded my expectations.

Lawless Wiretaps Into Lawful

I find it a sad when everyone knows something is illegal, and rather then investigating into it and dealing penalties if they do apply, they instead would make a program into a legal exercise.
Wired reported that the White House is close to making an agreement to make the controversial warrantless NSA wiretaps into a lawful procedure (story: http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71238-0.html?tw=rss.index). The Bush Administration still asserts that they already have such powers in law. You know, the one that says that the President can do anything, just as long as it is loosely connected to terrorism (if you don't remember, it isn't your memory, it's theirs).
Arlen Specter said in this article that the program is illegal, as it avoids the legal requirement of going to the FISA court (note on the "warrantless" part of the controversy), but still said in the article:

"We're getting close with the discussions with the White House, I think, to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

Wait, he wants the new law to do the EXACT SAME THING as the law already says. Ludicrous, to say the least. Republicans want to run away and/or denouce the President as a Republican, but dont' want to anything substantive, to a point of redundancy.
This should be a case of people doing the right thing and bucking their party/party leader, not a prime example of how terrible a single-party government can be.

Retro Review: Warcraft 3/Frozen Throne

I got Warcraft 3 last Christmas and finally completed the single player not too long ago. Suprisingly, many seem to be getting this game now, with much of the background of World of Warcraft rooted in this game. Now on to the review.

This game comes with a fat manual, which is actually better described as a source book. It has the entire history of the Warcraft universe, including the beginings of each race and the aftermath of Warcraft 2/Beyond the Dark Portal. The story starts as Arthus leads a mission to save his realm from the plagues that are turning people into the undead. All the while, Thrall is trying to lead the Orcs to a new land where they can be freed from the curse that has caused their rage and live in peace. The Frozen Throne expansion pack continues some threads of the main game, but through new perspectives.

Graphics/Sound: While the graphics may be dated, the art style still carries well. This game should on well on pretty much any modern computer. You won't see the same amount of units on screen as in Starcraft, that probably had more to do with gameplay changes then the graphics engine. Also, it is good to hear all the dialog actually voice acted, although not very lipsynced. The prerendered FMV's are also among the best I have seen in a game.

Controls: Umm...basicly the same Starcraft/Warcraft we've seen before. Can still be played without a keyboard, but learning how to hotkey units and abilities will help alot. Nothing special, but nothing wrong. If anything, there is limited camera control, but changing the camera angle doesn't really do much for the game anyway.

Gameplay: Much tweaking has been done to the Warcraft/Starcraft formula. The most appearent difference is the inclusion of the Hero unit, a completely unique unit (Starcraft mostly had heros as sooped-up versions of regular units) that can gain experience. This gives the game more of a RPG feel to it.
Another major change: the amount of units you control. Starcraft had a total of 200 possible units; this game tops out under a hundred. Also, the new upkeep system saps gold you collect if you have too many units. Too many units will majorly hinder the gold you collect. As such, it often is better to have a few groups of units, all fully upgraded. Because of this, Heros become much more important, since they can strengthen the few units you can get.
What this game really succeeds at is when they deviate from the standard Warcraft/Starcraft mission formula (ie: kill the opponent's army). Those dungeon levels that frustrated you in Starcraft, Warcraft 3 makes them actually enjoyable. Frozen Throne is the best expansion pack I have ever played, since they play more with the formula more then the main game.
If there's one problem I had with this game, it was the last levels in both games. They're frustrating, Frozen Throne's especially so. All the other levels are balanced right, but these often stack the game excessively against you. You may need to start over a few times on each.

Overall: While this game may not be the classic that Starcraft or Warcraft 2 is, it is still a great game, one which I recommend to any PC gamer. With the Battle Chest for only $30 max, you should go get this game, even if you're adicted to World of Warcraft (spend the time waiting in queue playing this game).

Graphics/Sound: 7/10
Control: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Buyability: 5/5

Resolutions of Pointlessness

I haven't posted in a while, partly due to laziness, partly due to finals (and subsequent tiredness from finals). I will be making a few more posts today, so I hope that makes up for the lack of posting, for whomever cares (likely no one, thus I'm writing to myself like an insane person).

Anyways, no less then three resolutions have gone through the Senate, two by Democrats and one by Republicans. First, the Republicans passed a resolution, one which could be best described as a "trick" resolution, which called to continue to stay in Iraq. I call it trick because it couldn't be amended and it was designed to equate support for the President and the war to support for the troops. So if you don't like the former, Republican challengers would say in the Fall election that they don't support the latter. Still, it was passed mostly along party lines; no suprises there.

On the other end of the isle, two resolutions were put up. Both had the same idea, to set a timetable of a sort for withdrawl from Iraq, but one had a clear deadline while the other had no deadline. The former had the final support of 13 people, while the latter had a much better 39 (story: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2108195).

So why are these pointless? First of all, none have any ramifications attached to them. Heck, it isn't even binding to the Senate. All three bills are just political showmanship, nothing more. They could have just made a blog post to basicly state the same thing. Yet, they waste time debating over something that doesn't have any real effect and could do better on their websites.


Now for a few links. First, the Daily Show did a great segment on the House violent videogame proceedings. Game Politics has a good post on it (here: http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/310875.html#cutid1). One good line from Stewart: "Seriously, the House of Representatives is filled with insane jackasses."
Now for an update to an earlier post, Brendan Hyhan, former editor of Spinsanity, posted one person's account on the current state of conservatives, including on why they reject Bush (here: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/06/jonathan_chait_.html).

Ann Coulter: Do You Even Hear Yourself?

I know you probably have heard all of the complaints already, but here it is: Ann Coulter is insane (see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13186261/)

.
I don't mind one point she makes; that widows aren't infalable. However, what they do bring to the table is a first person point of view, something that pundits or politicians, for the most part, can't bring to the table. They bring a sense of legitimatcy that a regular Joe Schmoe (or Coulter in many cases) don't have.
But then she goes ahead and makes asinine comments like:

“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

That is in her new book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” With a title like that, I will never do the grammatically correct thing of underlining it.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an editorial in my college newspaper on political bias, on how people like Ann Coulter would rather demonize their political rivals rather then actually debate the real issues.
Ironicly, I don't have to demonize Ann Coulter-she does it herself.

Worst Person in Videogames: Backwards Compatability Edition

Blogger note: For those who (for some really unknown reason) looked in my Livejournal version and found this post there several days ago: yes, I am late on this. At the time, Blogger was fraking up, so I delayed posting this until now. Now, read on. So when Microsoft announced that their X-Box 360, they said that the system will be backwards compatable with original X-Box games. It turned out not to exactly be true, since those games have to be emulated to the new hardware. But most people presumed that eventually, if not immediately, all games will be on the backwards compatability list. With only 207 games on the list (here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm), Peter Moore came out and said (here: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6152178.html): "More are coming...but at some point you just go 'there's enough,' or 'let's move on'...people aren't as worried about a game being backward compatible. I like to think we upheld our end of the bargain [with backward compatibility]." Worse yet, he said: "We under promised and over delivered on that. It's a very complicated thing... very complex work. I'm just stunned that we have hundreds of games that are backwards compatible." So you have 207 games on the list, which wouldn't even constitute half of the Gamecube's library. Plenty of popular and great games are still missing on the list. Games like Burnout 1,2,3 and Revenge, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Soul Calibur 2 and Star Wars: Battlefield (1) are not on the list. Heck, of the three editions of All-Star Baseball that appeared on the original X-Box, only the earliest (2003) is on the backwards compatability list. Microsoft, you're off to a good start, but are far from finished. If you want to advertise backwards compatability, don't BS it with a partial list. Both Nintendo (with the handhelds) and Sony (with the Playstation 1/2) have done it right; no fuss and no wait. But to have only a couple of minor updates to the list only to call it quits is terrible. Peter Moore, you over promised and under delivered, not the other way around. For that, you get the Worst Person in Videogames Award.