Monday, September 21, 2009
-After another hiatus I am back! Hope you liked the RAW report blog, that was a fun trip down to the Twin Cities with Adam and Dave. Feels slightly different and gratifying to know that this is first time since I have had no classes since 2004 with the semester starting a few weeks back. Now just need to find me a job in my career path. I attended a job fair last week and put in my resume at a local radio station, and other than my podcast I have no legitimate broadcasting experience, but my dad kept insisting I apply because he listened to a few of my podcasts and persisted how I am far better than the many talk shows on our local AM stations.
Speaking of the podcast, we are still on a sabbatical. We are still looking for a new server to host us, that and Chris is the one who does that behind-the-scenes site maintenance and he currently has a couple other things going on for him in real life that are taking priority for him and I do not blame him. We do have a couple episodes recorded in the can though so we will have a couple shows ready for your iPod when we come back, including a Genesis retrospective! For now, if you visit ontappodcast.com it will redirect you to our forum channel on vgevo.com. We
-So our theaters suck up here and for whatever reason our local 10-plex and 12-plex did not have Extract and 9 on them on opening day. The 12-plex did get 9 a week after it opened, but neither have yet to host Extract. To get by this, as I did a couple time in the past, I had to drive an hour down to Fargo to see them. I went down with Matt, Danielle and one of their coworkers.
Extract - I admittedly went in with low expectations because it was another Michael Judge workplace comedy, and I loved Office Space and did not think that Judge had another high-calibur comedy in him. Thank goodness I was proven wrong, because Extract ranks right up there with Office Space IMO. I would not say it is better necessarily, but it is not that far off either! Loved the pacing of this film, it is just right and I cannot think of a single character disliked (and so many that reminded me of some of my peers). Brad the juggalo poolboy may be my favorite characters of the year! 9.5/10
9 - Out of the four of us that saw 9, I was the only one exiting the theater not digging this movie. First off, the CG is fantastic, do not get me wrong the CG nothing to do with me not liking this movie. I want to avoid a rant, but they pretty much steal the plot right out of Terminator with the whole "let's build these machines for peace and prosperity" and then surprise, surprise they end up corrupt and turn but only here they exterminate all of mankind. The burlap sack creatures are only too eerily familiar to the kind in the PS3 game Little Big Planet, and I have no idea how the game and this film managed both to come out without a lawsuit against each other. The whole film spends following several sack creatures trying to hide from these machines and rescue captured creatures, but eventual most of the creatures get picked off one by one, until a few of these tiny creatures somehow make some monumental offensive and extinguish the machines once and for all.
The storytelling for how this all occured is 100% crap; and there was no way for me to suspend belief that these few creatures were capable of extinguishing this sophisticated technology that wiped out the human race. On top of the awful narration and the painful way it unveiled the secrets of humanity's demise, there was not a single character I liked. Nearly every stereotype is present and for me anyways none were presented in a likeable manner, I could not get behind any of these characters! It made no sense for the characters to be the way they are once you discover their origin later on. Finally, this battle to save humani---I mean to save this single digit amount of sack creatures, all took place on roughly 3-4 square miles of land. There was not the slightest hint that humanity existed in other underground camps throughout the world, and that there were other machine hideouts/factories too, but the movie pretty much tells you that from now until eternity that all that is left for "life" is these few sack creatures.
All of this combines to make the worst film of the year thus far! I know many of you will probably disagree with me, but for the aforementioned reasons this film did everything wrong for what I look for in a film, and if you are a long time reader of this blog you should be use to how rare it is for me outright hate a film like. I thought it could not get worse than Transformers 2 this year, but 9 easily bests it for that honor. Grrrrr....ok rant over. 1/10
-Final Destination in 3D - This is the first film I saw in 3D, some of the 3D gore and effects were impressive, and made it a more immersive theater experience. I only saw Final Destination 2 before, and going into this I was not looking for a super deep plot, but just to see how creative and ridiculous the filmmakers got with the deaths, and they delivered! If you dug the past FDs definitely check this out! 8/10
-Had probably the last bonfire of the year lastweek. Chris, Lyzz, Jake and Joey made it over as we had a few drinks and BS'd for a few hours. Who knows, may have one more with the surprsingly warmer-than-usual weather we have been enjoying past few weeks.
-I have been watching a little more instant Netflix Streaming via the 360 recently. Catching some flicks and television shows with Matt off there. Matt watched all of the first four seasons of the Office within a week on there, and I managed to catch a few shows with him, but right now our common show we caught several of through 360 Netflix has been Man vs. Food. Show is essentially a guy going around state-to-state checking out local hotspot eateries and in the end trying to conquer a local all-you-can-eat challenge. As expected, it show only increases my appetite and want to try different foods.
-Picked up a couple new CDs for the first time in awhile. Sorry to say it is not some underground niche artist or anything, but merely two best of compilations of Michael Jackson and the Beatles. I blame having Thriller stuck in my head for a few days and playing Beatles Rock Band at Matt's for having me rush and pick these up.
-I am now caught up with all five volumes of Scott Pilgrim. Finished the last two while on the journey to the Twin Cities and back. That book is total bonkers, but its alternate videogame reality is hooking me in and making it an addictive page turner. I hope the film adaptation is not a total disaster.
-Jeff Hardy is an idiot! If everything turns out to be true anyways, the conspiracy theorist in me is wanting me to believe that WWE is pissed that Jeff did not renew his contract and planted a shitload of Vicadin and Steroids in his house and called in the "anonymous tip" to land Jeff in jail. Most likely, Jeff went on a bender after his last match a few weeks prior, I blame CM Punk for making him fall off the wagon. The only thing that does not add up to me is why would Jeff have such a huge stash in his place that led to all the distribution charges? Why would someone of Jeff's popularity be a drug dealer, I would presume the guy probably has a few confidant dealers as his middlemen, but to even to put trus in them is ludircous. If all this is true as it most likely is, they're saying Jeff facing up to 12 years max in prison. Don't know if he deserves that much or not, but dammit hopefully this will be a wake up call for him. The WWE dodged a serious bullet and PR nightmare with this going down and happening just a few weeks after he finished up his employment with WWE.
-Beat games 19-21 of the year - #19 was Saints Row 2 a game I have been playing a few hours on and off since it came out last October. Did a bunch of online co-op with Ryan and Mike for the last several missions to finish it off, and knocked out a few sets of activities too. Should not have dragged out Saints Row 2 as long as I should have because I had a blast with it and it was just as good as the first game, as a matter of fact, check out my review to get the whole rundown!
#20 was Fallout 3! The day I thought would never come became a reality when I finally beat a Bethesda RPG (I guess I did beat Pirates of the Carribean, but let's ignore that for now)! Finally got around to beating this a couple days ago with around 35 hours playtime. Of that a good 8 or 9 I must have spent on Wasteland Survival Guide alone. Yeah, if I would have sunk more time into this around launch, this would have ranked way higher on my GotY Top 10. AMAAAAAAAZING game! I finished with a level 13 character that had my Big Guns skill at 93 and I was plowing through with my Flamer for most of the later half of the game. I was very pleased to get the laser gatling gun and minigun towards the end. I watched most of the endings of the game pre-broken steel, and then installed broken steel and point lookout off that recently released add-on disc and picked up where I left off. Cannot wait to play the DLC and pick up on the many side quests I still need to do.
After beating this I rushed and downloaded the Fallout 3 special podcast from Interactive Distractions, and took in one of the best single podcasts I have ever listened to as it was 3 hours+ of tales of each host's experience with FallOut 3, entailing most of the entire core quest, side quests, favorite weapons, locations, etc. Definitely listen to this if you have beaten Fallout 3, it made me want to rush back and pick up on the side quests I need to still play.
#21 belonged to Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 on Xbox. Joey has been coming over most Saturday mornings past few months and we have been putting in an hour or two at a time at this. Not that long of a game alltogether, and I think is a couple hours shorter the first game. That is not a bad thing though as this was still another awesome mindless hack 'n slash RPG that I crave!
-Going to do what I did last time with quick game progress updates for what else I have been laying! Enjoy!
-Borrowed Chris's copy of Bioshock and am about six or seven hours in and cursing myself for not playing this before. Totally craving this game and am currently at the part where I just activated the Lazarus and got fresh air brewing again in Arcadia.
-Phoenix Wright: And Justice For All - Again, playing the usual 20-30 minutes before passing out almost every day. Now am on the third case, and still loving this franchise. Goal is to beat this, Trials & Tribulation, and Apollo by the time the Miles Edgeworth game comes out.
-Scribblenauts - Only played through a few puzzles so far, but am eager to get back to it. So many possibilities!
-Uncharted 2 Beta - Tried out the new multiplayer mode Gold Rush, which is kind of like a hybrid of Horde mode and Capture the Flag, which is awesome!
-Demos for Darkest of Days & Wet - Wet is almost exactly like Stranglehold, but now with swords also, good crazy mindless fun. Probably will rent it sometime or buy it when it hits the bargain bin. Darkest of Days....well I really like the premise, but it plays like a bad PS2 FPS from 5 or 6 years ago.
-Smackdown vs RAW 2009 - Still working on that last achievement to induct five wrestlers into the Hall of Fame, which is taking forever! Trying to passing time walking through matches while watching television DVD sets I am behind on simultaneously.
-Motorstorm Pacific Rift - Knocked out several more races in the career mode, and played a bunch of split screen with Joey to get the split screen trophies.
-Punisher: No Mercy - Got my second gold trophy ever with No Mercy! Got it by boosting for with Matt online, don't blame me for boosting however because literally Matt and I are the only people left playing this game online!
-Flower - Probably one of the most Zen-like games I have played, not a whole lot to this then pollenating flowers in artsy landscapes...which has a nice relaxing vibe to it. Been throwing this is in to chill out to after some mad game sessions, and was surprised to get a trophy for "coming back to this game after taking a week off."
-All for now, later!
Speaking of the podcast, we are still on a sabbatical. We are still looking for a new server to host us, that and Chris is the one who does that behind-the-scenes site maintenance and he currently has a couple other things going on for him in real life that are taking priority for him and I do not blame him. We do have a couple episodes recorded in the can though so we will have a couple shows ready for your iPod when we come back, including a Genesis retrospective! For now, if you visit ontappodcast.com it will redirect you to our forum channel on vgevo.com. We
-So our theaters suck up here and for whatever reason our local 10-plex and 12-plex did not have Extract and 9 on them on opening day. The 12-plex did get 9 a week after it opened, but neither have yet to host Extract. To get by this, as I did a couple time in the past, I had to drive an hour down to Fargo to see them. I went down with Matt, Danielle and one of their coworkers.
Extract - I admittedly went in with low expectations because it was another Michael Judge workplace comedy, and I loved Office Space and did not think that Judge had another high-calibur comedy in him. Thank goodness I was proven wrong, because Extract ranks right up there with Office Space IMO. I would not say it is better necessarily, but it is not that far off either! Loved the pacing of this film, it is just right and I cannot think of a single character disliked (and so many that reminded me of some of my peers). Brad the juggalo poolboy may be my favorite characters of the year! 9.5/10
9 - Out of the four of us that saw 9, I was the only one exiting the theater not digging this movie. First off, the CG is fantastic, do not get me wrong the CG nothing to do with me not liking this movie. I want to avoid a rant, but they pretty much steal the plot right out of Terminator with the whole "let's build these machines for peace and prosperity" and then surprise, surprise they end up corrupt and turn but only here they exterminate all of mankind. The burlap sack creatures are only too eerily familiar to the kind in the PS3 game Little Big Planet, and I have no idea how the game and this film managed both to come out without a lawsuit against each other. The whole film spends following several sack creatures trying to hide from these machines and rescue captured creatures, but eventual most of the creatures get picked off one by one, until a few of these tiny creatures somehow make some monumental offensive and extinguish the machines once and for all.
The storytelling for how this all occured is 100% crap; and there was no way for me to suspend belief that these few creatures were capable of extinguishing this sophisticated technology that wiped out the human race. On top of the awful narration and the painful way it unveiled the secrets of humanity's demise, there was not a single character I liked. Nearly every stereotype is present and for me anyways none were presented in a likeable manner, I could not get behind any of these characters! It made no sense for the characters to be the way they are once you discover their origin later on. Finally, this battle to save humani---I mean to save this single digit amount of sack creatures, all took place on roughly 3-4 square miles of land. There was not the slightest hint that humanity existed in other underground camps throughout the world, and that there were other machine hideouts/factories too, but the movie pretty much tells you that from now until eternity that all that is left for "life" is these few sack creatures.
All of this combines to make the worst film of the year thus far! I know many of you will probably disagree with me, but for the aforementioned reasons this film did everything wrong for what I look for in a film, and if you are a long time reader of this blog you should be use to how rare it is for me outright hate a film like. I thought it could not get worse than Transformers 2 this year, but 9 easily bests it for that honor. Grrrrr....ok rant over. 1/10
-Final Destination in 3D - This is the first film I saw in 3D, some of the 3D gore and effects were impressive, and made it a more immersive theater experience. I only saw Final Destination 2 before, and going into this I was not looking for a super deep plot, but just to see how creative and ridiculous the filmmakers got with the deaths, and they delivered! If you dug the past FDs definitely check this out! 8/10
-Had probably the last bonfire of the year lastweek. Chris, Lyzz, Jake and Joey made it over as we had a few drinks and BS'd for a few hours. Who knows, may have one more with the surprsingly warmer-than-usual weather we have been enjoying past few weeks.
-I have been watching a little more instant Netflix Streaming via the 360 recently. Catching some flicks and television shows with Matt off there. Matt watched all of the first four seasons of the Office within a week on there, and I managed to catch a few shows with him, but right now our common show we caught several of through 360 Netflix has been Man vs. Food. Show is essentially a guy going around state-to-state checking out local hotspot eateries and in the end trying to conquer a local all-you-can-eat challenge. As expected, it show only increases my appetite and want to try different foods.
-Picked up a couple new CDs for the first time in awhile. Sorry to say it is not some underground niche artist or anything, but merely two best of compilations of Michael Jackson and the Beatles. I blame having Thriller stuck in my head for a few days and playing Beatles Rock Band at Matt's for having me rush and pick these up.
-I am now caught up with all five volumes of Scott Pilgrim. Finished the last two while on the journey to the Twin Cities and back. That book is total bonkers, but its alternate videogame reality is hooking me in and making it an addictive page turner. I hope the film adaptation is not a total disaster.
-Jeff Hardy is an idiot! If everything turns out to be true anyways, the conspiracy theorist in me is wanting me to believe that WWE is pissed that Jeff did not renew his contract and planted a shitload of Vicadin and Steroids in his house and called in the "anonymous tip" to land Jeff in jail. Most likely, Jeff went on a bender after his last match a few weeks prior, I blame CM Punk for making him fall off the wagon. The only thing that does not add up to me is why would Jeff have such a huge stash in his place that led to all the distribution charges? Why would someone of Jeff's popularity be a drug dealer, I would presume the guy probably has a few confidant dealers as his middlemen, but to even to put trus in them is ludircous. If all this is true as it most likely is, they're saying Jeff facing up to 12 years max in prison. Don't know if he deserves that much or not, but dammit hopefully this will be a wake up call for him. The WWE dodged a serious bullet and PR nightmare with this going down and happening just a few weeks after he finished up his employment with WWE.
-Beat games 19-21 of the year - #19 was Saints Row 2 a game I have been playing a few hours on and off since it came out last October. Did a bunch of online co-op with Ryan and Mike for the last several missions to finish it off, and knocked out a few sets of activities too. Should not have dragged out Saints Row 2 as long as I should have because I had a blast with it and it was just as good as the first game, as a matter of fact, check out my review to get the whole rundown!
#20 was Fallout 3! The day I thought would never come became a reality when I finally beat a Bethesda RPG (I guess I did beat Pirates of the Carribean, but let's ignore that for now)! Finally got around to beating this a couple days ago with around 35 hours playtime. Of that a good 8 or 9 I must have spent on Wasteland Survival Guide alone. Yeah, if I would have sunk more time into this around launch, this would have ranked way higher on my GotY Top 10. AMAAAAAAAZING game! I finished with a level 13 character that had my Big Guns skill at 93 and I was plowing through with my Flamer for most of the later half of the game. I was very pleased to get the laser gatling gun and minigun towards the end. I watched most of the endings of the game pre-broken steel, and then installed broken steel and point lookout off that recently released add-on disc and picked up where I left off. Cannot wait to play the DLC and pick up on the many side quests I still need to do.
After beating this I rushed and downloaded the Fallout 3 special podcast from Interactive Distractions, and took in one of the best single podcasts I have ever listened to as it was 3 hours+ of tales of each host's experience with FallOut 3, entailing most of the entire core quest, side quests, favorite weapons, locations, etc. Definitely listen to this if you have beaten Fallout 3, it made me want to rush back and pick up on the side quests I need to still play.
#21 belonged to Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 on Xbox. Joey has been coming over most Saturday mornings past few months and we have been putting in an hour or two at a time at this. Not that long of a game alltogether, and I think is a couple hours shorter the first game. That is not a bad thing though as this was still another awesome mindless hack 'n slash RPG that I crave!
-Going to do what I did last time with quick game progress updates for what else I have been laying! Enjoy!
-Borrowed Chris's copy of Bioshock and am about six or seven hours in and cursing myself for not playing this before. Totally craving this game and am currently at the part where I just activated the Lazarus and got fresh air brewing again in Arcadia.
-Phoenix Wright: And Justice For All - Again, playing the usual 20-30 minutes before passing out almost every day. Now am on the third case, and still loving this franchise. Goal is to beat this, Trials & Tribulation, and Apollo by the time the Miles Edgeworth game comes out.
-Scribblenauts - Only played through a few puzzles so far, but am eager to get back to it. So many possibilities!
-Uncharted 2 Beta - Tried out the new multiplayer mode Gold Rush, which is kind of like a hybrid of Horde mode and Capture the Flag, which is awesome!
-Demos for Darkest of Days & Wet - Wet is almost exactly like Stranglehold, but now with swords also, good crazy mindless fun. Probably will rent it sometime or buy it when it hits the bargain bin. Darkest of Days....well I really like the premise, but it plays like a bad PS2 FPS from 5 or 6 years ago.
-Smackdown vs RAW 2009 - Still working on that last achievement to induct five wrestlers into the Hall of Fame, which is taking forever! Trying to passing time walking through matches while watching television DVD sets I am behind on simultaneously.
-Motorstorm Pacific Rift - Knocked out several more races in the career mode, and played a bunch of split screen with Joey to get the split screen trophies.
-Punisher: No Mercy - Got my second gold trophy ever with No Mercy! Got it by boosting for with Matt online, don't blame me for boosting however because literally Matt and I are the only people left playing this game online!
-Flower - Probably one of the most Zen-like games I have played, not a whole lot to this then pollenating flowers in artsy landscapes...which has a nice relaxing vibe to it. Been throwing this is in to chill out to after some mad game sessions, and was surprised to get a trophy for "coming back to this game after taking a week off."
-All for now, later!
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