Last Rebellion (PS3, 2010)

My history with gaming goes back to the moment I met Mario. Mario was an overwhelming experience for my young mind, until Sonic the Hedgehog came along and showed me how much more intense that formula could be. So I saved up money from Christmas and birthdays and bought a Sega Genesis. I was confident that that was the best choice out there as, Mario just couldn't compete in my eyes. Then I went to my friends house and he showed me Chrono Trigger, and from that point on, JRPGs were a part of my life, especially my next find, Final Fantasy VI (my favorite game to this day). Needless to say the Japanese Role Playing Game format has been fading away as of late, with Final Fantasy XIII pretty much abandoning decent storytelling techniques in favor of trying to make Call of Duty loving American's like it's new fast paced action. Meanwhile, the Western style RPG has been growing greatly, being all about doing whatever you like, which is fun, but personally I miss the days of having a story so compelling that you yourself wanted to keep moving the plot forward. Ultimately, that lead me to, after beating Skyrim and Dark Void, dust off Last Rebellion which has been on my shelf for a bit. It's a JRPG, I wondered if it would fill the JRPG void in my life.

First off, in recent years, a large staple of Japanese games is to have overwhelmingly obnoxious characters as your protagonists and to have every conversation be about as wordy as a Dostoevsky (without any substance). That guy on the cover, his name is Nine. He's a prick and is always making things more difficult than they have to be. The girl, she's relatively logical magic type chick named Aisha, her arch is to realize that she should be more like him who does nothing but talk shit to everyone and whine a bunch. Also, they totally fall in love in less than 10 hours.

My other big gripe with this game is that it looks like an early Playstation 2 game, which doesn't matter that much, because my favorite game of all time looks like this.

This is easily one of  my favorite moments in gaming history.

I had to mention it, but I was easily able to look past the visual problems. In spite of the bad graphics, I really liked all of the character designs and the level designs. The game shows you lots of beautiful places...in bad graphics. Still, it provides a unique experience in that respect.

The nice thing about Last Rebellion is the imagination that it puts forth. It's one of those classic Japanese feeling storylines, where there are two competing gods. One with the power of life, the other with the power of death. The life god has grown too powerful and is making it so that people and monsters aren't staying dead, thus the world is gradually becoming a monster paradise and they can't really be stopped. The death god then assigned two different types of people in this world to deal with the problem. There are Blades who are there to fight the monsters and Sealers who are there to seal their souls away so they won't come back. The main characters meet when Nine, the strongest of the Blades, is stabbed in the back and is dying and Aisha casts a forbidden spell to absorb his soul into her. Thus they set off on a journey to set things right, where only one can exist at a time. So if you're playing as him, you can abruptly change to her. This also works in combat, and allows you to attack a whole lot more because of it.

The big thing about this game is that the music is fantastic! It sets the mood very well and I often time would find myself just leaving on the main menu while working on other stuff, just to hear it. In fact, the music was way too good for this game, which is a terrible shame.

Overall, the joy of a JRPG is that  you can sink 100 hours into an engrossing story and feel a great connection to the main characters while it happens. You know a JRPG has been successful, when you are watching the end credits out of respect, and reflecting on the great moments that you were lucky enough to experience. For this game, during the end credits, I was only thinking of how cool the music for this whole game was in spite of the nothingness that was the game. It was too easy, and finished with all side missions and everything in 11 hours. That's just depressing. It's a pretty terrible game, but at least I got a bit of that Japanese gaming that I've been missing.

Oh, by the way, I killed this dragon! That's 3 games in a row with dragon killing! Booyah!

Dark Void (PS3/X360, 2010)

Dark Void inspires in me a great emotional response. This game does so much right and contained some of the best game design elements I have seen, but it also has it's fill of flaws. I bought this game for 5 dollars brand new a few months back. I bought it because I played the demo years ago and thought it had some potential, despite having heard nothing but terrible things over the years. Now that I've given it a full playthrough on the Hardcore difficulty I find myself torn on it as a whole.

First off, let me say, I found this game to be absolutely beautiful. On the graphic side of the fence, this game did a great job of showing us various different kinds of locations and having a beautiful cartoony character style that never falls into being too cartoony. When you have great visuals and pare it up with Nolan North of Uncharted fame's naturalistic voice acting, you really end up with something special.

The story blows my mind on this bad boy. I swear, the writers must have sat around and thought of their favorite conspiracy theories and decided to make a game out of it. It's hilarious. Lizard men who transform into world leaders? We got those. People vanishing in the Bermuda Triangle? Hell yes! Tesla didn't really die? Of course. UFOs? All over the place! You take all of those, put it in World War 2 and get a jetpack from Tesla, and the result is laughably awesome!

Throughout the game, you'll find yourself speeding through the sky shooting up UFOs and other things, and quickly landing on the ground to do some cover system gun fighting, which is very well executed, by the way. The controls handle great and it offers you the perfect amount of both types of combat. Flying through beautiful canyons, with waterfalls and battling UFOs with amazing music that puts me in mind of Battlestar Galactica, is a beautiful thing. Oh, and yeah, I did my research. It turns out the music is from Bear McCreary, the maker of the Battlestar Galactica theme. Honestly, there are so many elements coming together to make this game absolutely special, that it's overwhelming, so why all the negative reviews?

Dark Void is an ultimate concept of a game, with a lot of love put into it, but it seems like it was never finished. The development team behind this game apparently went out of business almost immediately after the games release, thus preventing them from being able to patch the glitches and so on, and that is a real shame. I was playing along, oblivously, when I reached what many would call the hardest part of the game, the battleship. After trying over and over again, I finally did it. Something weird happened though, it cut to a cut scene of the battleship crashing and burning and a guy said something to the effect of 'great job, come meet us', followed immediately by a screen that said mission failed. I was left scratching the side of my head for a few minutes, but I went back to it and tried again. Now whenever I flew where I was supposed to land, I would float into the battleship. I mean inside it, through a wall. I couldn't move, and the only way out was the fly into the wall and kill myself. This happened over and over again for about 60 minutes before I exited and reloaded my checkpoint. To my surprise, I was finally able to land, except, when I did what I was supposed to, it didn't play the cut scene that would allow me to advance...so I just flew around until I got killed. I need to remind you that this was incredibly hard, as well as the game refusing to let me pass. After about 60 minutes of that, I shut the system down and tried to figure out why my head was hurting so much. It seems I blew a few blood vessels in my eye. In hindsight, that was probably kinda serious. After I went back, and decided I had to give it one last try, I got by it, and it all worked swimmingly, and the rest of the game was a load of fun! Still, 3.5 hours for one battle, was definitely excessive.

I wish this game did better, so it could have been patched. Better yet, I wish Capcom gave the developers more money so they could properly finish this. It was so close to greatness and that is why this game is so disappointing. It even helped me with my whole dragon killing fetish...I suppose that's a spoiler. Anyway, I  really want to recommend that you play this game, but I need you to understand that it has some big issues here and there. Hopefully, if you do give it a shot, you'll be able to see the hard work that went into this game and how special it really is. So if you actually try it, just set it to easy or something and enjoy the experience, for your health.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go play something remarkably easy to wind down. Perhaps Sly Cooper.

Skyrim (PS3/X360, 2011)

Wow...just wow. I didn't want to play Skyrim, when it was just coming out. I played Oblivion for 200 hours and didn't do the first storyline mission, and quite frankly I have lots of games that I want to play and didn't want to waste my time doing fetch quests. Alas, Skyrim was already ten steps ahead of me. This game knew what I liked to do. It knew I liked to feel powerful, it knew I liked to explore and it knew that I love Sheogorath (The Lord of Madness). Skyrim was eager to give me all of these things, and still it somehow didn't drag on too long. Granted, with all of the exploring of a gigantic country, it took a little time, but unlike Oblivion where the enemies just got stronger as you did so you were always sneaking and praying you wouldn't die, you can actually explore freely and relatively safely...relatively. What I mean by that is that occasionally you'll be walking along when a large shadow sweeps over you and you know you are now experiencing what I call 'go time'.

Science has proven and dis-proven many things over the years, and as I'm sure you remember, from grade 4's biology class, dragons are always awesome. Hell...even Spyro is voiced by Elijah Wood. You can't be much more badass than that. Now, let me explain to you how you make it even more badass. A dragon lands on the ground in front of you. He's pissed off. He's storming towards you blowing fire at you, but you are ready for him. Suddenly you turn into a werewolf and charge right at this dragon's face. Suddenly waves of awesomeness start hitting people all over the world from the rippling effect of your great battle. People who have been in comas for years wake up and start moonwalking up and down hallways, all wars as we know it temporarily end, at least until this epic battle finishes, and Larry the Cable Guy actually says a few things that don't make me want to kick a hole in his head! Skyrim is that bloody awesome.

The best thing about this game is that every player get's their very own experience. Ask anyone about the best thing that's happened to them in the game, and sit back, light a camp fire and listen to it. My girlfriend used to ask me for routine morning emails every morning writing about the adventure I had the night before in Skyrim, and I would be so excited to tell her, based entirely on the unexpected nature of some of the adventures. Even the fetch quests weren't as plentiful this time around. I found that I was doing more interesting things than just running into a cave and finding some clumsy buggers dropped sword (though that was the first objective that I got).

My favorite encounter was at a time when I was sneaking along trying to avoid a bear, which at that point seemed to be going well, when suddenly I heard a loud roar. I knew what that was so I started running, of course making the bear come at me. That was bad news in itself, as that bear was stronger than me too. Suddenly the bear is attacking me and I'm trying to block it with my shield, when I see a big badass dragon land right behind it and start charging at both of us. After hitting the bear and I with some fire, the bear turns on the dragon. Yeah, a huge brown bear attacking a dragon. NICE! I used this opportunity to get away, but the bear didn't last for too long and the dragon quickly started his chase again. After about 2 minutes of running I came up to a road and saw two guards and decided to try to hold the line with them. The dragon landed and started attacking us, but we did very little damage and as soon as one of the guards fell, I knew it wasn't gonna work, so I took off running again. As predicted, the dragon didn't give up there and continued it's rage fuelled quest for supper.

At this point, I was so close to being dead that I figured I wasn't gonna make it, when I saw in the distance one last hope. Two giants are roaming around ahead of me so I run past them and the dragon touches down attacking them. The battle seemed to be going pretty close, so I jumped in and started hitting the dragon in the back in hopes that this would finally stop him, and to my heart's content, it actually worked. This was the 2nd dragon I ever killed, and it was definitely the strongest one up to that point. I was so pleased with my resourcefulness, that I... wait a second, I'm flying through the air. Yup, I forgot about the giants. So there I am, now being chased by two very powerful giants who are actually keeping up with me. This continues on for about 2 minutes when I reached the edge of a cliff. Basically, at this point I have to decide between dying by jumping, or dying by giant. Either way, killing that dragon isn't gonna count, so I'm sad. I decide to risk jumping, especially when I discover a very high waterfall. I dive into the water and am swept away, crashing into the water below. I'm hurt, but I'm still alive, and to my pleasure, there is a little mill next to the water, where I ran in to hide. All in a days work in Skyrim.

I know I just told a silly story about what happened to me walking from point A to B, but that's what Skyrim is all about. The game has plans for you, but those plans are different for everyone and that makes it special. I can't recommend this game enough. I was fortunate to not experience any serious bugs either. The game is overwhelmingly huge, so some bugs are expected, and apparently this game has plenty of them, but at most I only got some slowdown from time to time. If you're like me, and haven't played it yet, because you don't feel like you have enough time in your life, reconsider. It's a very special game, with a greatly simplified level and armor system and several unique and exciting experiences.

Tekken Hybrid (PS3, 2011)

Tekken Hybrid? What's that all about? Let me tell you...I love Tekken. I may have even gone as far as to review their spellbinding movie on this very site. Anyway, after the disappointment that was said Tekken movie, I was deeply curious about what the upcoming Tekken Blood Vengeance CGI film was gonna be like. It was impressive when I finally saw the trailer, as the characters looked exactly like they were supposed to, and it actually looked like they were following the Tekken story (as loose as it is). The big thing that they showed that caught my attention was footage of Jin, Kazuya and Heihachi fighting each other. Nothing says Tekken better than that. So, let's go back to Tekken Hybrid. What is it? Tekken Hybrid is the movie Tekken Blood Vengeance, pared with an HD remake of Tekken Tag Tournement (the one that made me love Tekken in the first place) and a prologue demo of the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournement 2! That's a pretty easy sell for a guy like me, so I picked it up.

Tekken Tag Tournement 2 Prologue

My first stop on this bargain was the Tekken Tag Tournement 2 Prologue. Right away, I noticed that while most modes were open, there were only 4 characters to play as.We had Jin and Kazuya in their Devil forms (if you aren't a Tekken fan, I really can't explain it to you) with Xiaoyu (a dull girly charater) and Alisa (the robotic chick who ruined most of Tekken 6's scenario mode by being too happy and annoying). Oh well, at least we have two characters who aren't frustratingly stupid. I played it for a few minutes before deciding, there are no characters and I don't feel like playing anymore. Overall, it looks pretty much like a Tag version of Tekken 6 and handles about the same too. I guess it's alright, but it didn't sell me on Tekken Tag Tournement 2.

Tekken Tag Tournement HD

This is the reason I bought this anyway. It was me grabbing back a piece of my past. 11 years ago, I discovered that I liked fighting games, because my friend gave me his copy of Tekken Tag. Years have gone by, and the fighting game has evolved a great deal, so it was interesting to see how well this old game holds up. First off, the HD look is nice. The graphics are terribly under detailed, but in a way that adds to the timeless nature of this game. With full HD, it looks smooth and stylized. The gameplay on the otherhand, didn't fare so well. It still is a perfectly playable game, but for some reason there is an auto block feature on, where if your character is just standing around he automatically blocks everything. I don't like that. Not to mention, on several occasions I found myself struggling to even play it without using cheap tactics (Heihachi's  back + right punch attack). Don't get me wrong, it's still a fine game, but I've encountered so much better out there with Street Fighter 4 or even Tekken 6. I don't see me sinking hundreds of hours into this one, like I did back in the day.

Tekken Blood Vengeance

Oh boy, here we go again...another Tekken movie. The live action one blew it, but this was actually made by Namco. It can't be that bad. The basic plot is that a crazy powerful business man throws a tournement and whoever wins it takes control of his company. There are of course subplots between many of the characters, as well as rivalries and so on, such as Jin's rivalry with his father, Kazuya who has a rivalry with his father Heihachi...and so on. Look...all that matters is that it isn't following any of the lame characters from Tekken...

Uh...huh... so...behold. Xiaoyu and Alisa are our main characters...

Yeah, so I shit you not... the movie follows these two on a journey through high school to try to get the attention of a boy...who isn't even a character in the games.... Don't worry, two Tekken characters are jammed into this movie as teachers too! Anyway, they both are supposed to find this mystery boy for whatever reason... (I've seen it and I forget already) for Jin and Kazuya who are trying to one up eachother. Again, by finding some random boy who Jin apparently went to school with at one point, two of the worlds most powerful men will be able to one up eachother.

Somehow they manage to pad out this girly BS story for the first hour and ten minutes of the movie. They eventually end up with a huge confrontation between Heihachi, Jin and Kazuya at the very end. This battle would have been much more interesting if we were building toward it, but oh well. At least this movie acknowledged that those 3 characters are so far out of Xiaoya and Alisa's league that it's insane. The big final battle goes on for about 20 minutes and is easily one of the coolest things I've seen in a while, but this movie doesn't get a free pass as it ends with a huge cop-out and goes right back to the two blandest Tekken characters talking about friendship.

My friend gave an analogy of this whole movie that I think, despite it's vulgarity, sums it up pretty well. Picture an incredibly beautiful girl who wants to pleasure you better than you've ever been pleasured before, but only under the circumstances that she will bite your business for over an hour before she does it. After finally making it through the most nightmarish pain of your life, it all turns around and feels great, however, just when you are about to reach your happy peek, she starts biting you again.

This movie is a psychotic dominatrix, and if you are into pain, I highly recommend it to you.

Overall
I can't recommend this purchase. Tekken Tag HD is the only real selling point here, but even then, it's a little too dated now. The demo makes me sick for putting those two stupid characters in, and the movie does the exact same. I don't know what the hell the story writer was thinking but I hope he gets the dominatrix treatment mentioned above.

Green Lantern (PS3/X360, 2011)

When a superhero movie get's adapted to being a video game, it is very rarely anything but a train wreck. There have been exceptions, like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which surpassed the movie (very easily) and ended up being a chaotic action fest. Green Lantern walks a thin line between good adaptation and bad adaptation.

First off, it's a knock off of God of War. If you're gonna steal, why not steal from the best right? However on the other hand, it's more of a shitty God of War game than it is a Green Lantern game. You'll notice early on that Hal Jordan is unable to fly in this game, unless it is to quickly get to the next part of the level when you stand on a specific symbol and press a button. In the place of flight, however he is able to fight with green swords and hammers. As with most God of War knockoffs, there are quick time events, where you are supposed to quickly press a specific button in order to advance a predetermined event. This isn't so bad, however, it tends to be used only for generic battles with enemies you could really beat without the event. Never do you really do anything exciting in these events.

Best looking screen shot I could find in the Green Lantern game.

Unfortunately, when you copy a game, you get compared to the copied game. God of War is one of my all time favorites, so this isn't really a fair fight. Going forward I'll stop the comparisons. Green Lantern is undeniably fun, though perhaps way too easy. My friend and I played through the hardest difficulty in approximately 7 hours, at max, with no struggle. Still I must give credit to a legitimate beat 'em up game having couch coop built in. I honestly wonder where they got the idea to put it in, as the coop partner is Sinestro, who keeps radioing you and telling you what to do. Meanwhile he's beside me firing a gatling gun at the enemies around me. This brings me to the best part of the game.

While I can't give this game many points for originality, I have to commend it for it's 'constructs'. Constructs are essentially special Green Lantern created devices that you build to help with combat. You can launch a jet at your enemies, you can build a giant mech around you and stomp on everything in site, or you can have a rocket firing, auto targeting, destruction raining backpack. These tend to break up the tedium. 

The graphics are pretty lackluster in this one. No one should be surprised by this though. It's a cheap movie tie in and that usually coincides with terrible graphics. Still, that's not a good excuse.

Overall, this game is functional, occasionally fun and offers a decent and short couch coop experience. However, in this day and age, with all of the great games floating around, it's hard to recommend this game. I leave you with this sentiment. Do not play this game, unless you love Green Lantern, and really know for sure that beating up a bunch of crappy robots in an unimportant story will bring you joy.

I want a Batman movie.

Remember when you saw Tim Burton's Batman movies for the first time? They were perfect! Exciting...pure Batman. At least that's what most people told me, anyway. I didn't like them. I loved Batman, but those movies were trash. What was the difference that made me not like them so much? First off, it was the fact that I knew how good Batman could be. He's the best of the heroes, because he never gives up and always finds a way to win, no matter how difficult it is. He won't kill, because he knows the value of a human life and despite being a very dark and cynical personality, he has moments of true warmth. Tim Burton didn't give a shit about this. He saw what Batman looked like, decided that he had to be dressed in black, and made him into a killing machine who shouts at Joker about "getting nuts".

Years went by with people sucking on the Burton Batman movies' teet, some even calling it the best superhero movie, until Christopher Nolan came along and set things right. He understood that Batman isn't a killer. He kept Batman in black, but at least he was able to turn his head, so he had improved on the status quo, and best of all, he put a good story to his Batman. Batman Begins was a great Batman story, despite minor issues, entirely overshadowed by it's sequel, the Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight, really isn't a perfect Batman movie. Remember how I said Batman never gives up? Well, Nolan's Batman can't stop crying about how he has to give up. He's a lousy detective (though better than Burton's) and doesn't have the first clue about sciences. Batman is better than this. With Batman Begins, I give a free pass, as he was becoming the Batman that he would go on to be. Apparently  with the new one, The Dark Knight Rises, he has been retired from being Batman for a few years. Nolan's Batman trilogy is that of a weak, pathetic Batman. I never knew such a thing was possible.

The simple point that I'm trying to make is this. Despite Nolan's excellent film making abilities and wonderful eye for action, and looking past the forced dialogue lessons ("It's not who you are on the inside but what you do that defines you" and "you always fear what you don't understand") this Batman series will be overshadowed in time by a better one. We'll look back and see the flaws of the Nolan Batman trilogy. These movies are good. I make no claim against that. It's just that Batman deserves better. It's the best we've gotten, but it's not the best we should be asking for. For those of you who think Ledger's Joker is awesome...you should the Joker from the comics!

Seriously...there are those who say this is the best Batman movie.

Oh well, at least Nolan doesn't have sewer dwelling penguins with rockets on their backs.

My case for tea as a gentleman's drink

It's ok...go on and say it...There feel better? I agree, I am manly as hell.

Apparently, at my new place of work, this is throwing some people off. When people aren't asking me if I can hammer stuff or pull their cars out of snow banks (with my bare hands) I like to sit back and have a nice hot cup of Earl Grey tea. The other day, I walked in to a room, likely to show off my huge manly muscles, when I left my cup of tea behind. As I walked away a girl asked if I left my cup, to which I replied in a growly, brooding and mysterious voice, "yes". When I got back in the room a bunch of the girls were cracking up that I was drinking tea in my cup. I of course had super important stuff to take care of, like saving a kitten from a burning building, so I didn't think too much of it.

Two weeks later, I'm walking back to my office when I stop and talk to the boss. A girl giggles and asks if I'm drinking tea. Of course I am, and she explains that it's weird to see a man drinking tea. Then a few other girls chime in and agree. Let me explain, this isn't herbal tea...this isn't peppermint flavor, this isn't even lemon flavored. This is Earl Grey...the most badass tea out there.

My father, who is the manliest being in the universe, with the exception of myself, is the one who first got me hooked on tea, leaving me with the question, why is tea considered girly amongst some. Believe it or not, not all men only drink beer and talk about Nascar. If you are a woman and reading this, I implore you to reconsider those values, or you're gonna end up with a real winner. People forget that before being manly was ever cool, it was cool to be a gentleman. Now, it's mostly forgotten with good reason, as most men have given up the practice of gentlemanliness, but a few of us do keep it alive. Consider tea, the gentlemanly fuel.

Just because little girls have tea parties, we connect it to women. However, as adults always do, we forget why kids do things in the first place and how the children's imagination works. Little girls having tea parties enjoy them because they are acting out the fantasy of old school high class fun. Hell, their cups are usually empty, so the tea is not a factor. The point I'm making with all of this, though, is that even a child knows that tea is a drink for high class people, to drink and enjoy the company of others.

I would also like to point out that women are totally allowed to drink tea, obviously. It's not an exclusively manly drink. Tea is a drink for those who cherish moments and flavors. Now I'm gonna show a few exhibitions of tea being for men.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A is the Dalai Lama drinking tea. Now the untrained eye may not notice it, but you will be thrilled to see in his other hand a cookie. This is a man truly enjoying a moment!

Exhibit B

Exhibit B deals with marking your tea for maximum manliness. Let me remind you that Mr. T beat cancer. His likeness on this teapot, is definitely working towards beating cultural stereotypes.

Exhibit C

Exhibit C is Alfred Pennyworth delivering a tray of tea to his master. You know who his boss is.... if he drinks tea, tea is cool! (if you don't know who he is, you need to watch Batman Begins while drinking some Earl Gray!)

Exhibit D

Exhibit D, our final exhibit, Jean-Luc Picard, is the reason why Earl Grey is the tea of choice among socially awkward males all over the world and gentlemen alike. Whether you spell it Earle Grey or Earl Grey, it's still manly as hell. Don't argue with that face!