FROM DUST Is Rad - This Means You Should Buy It

From Dust is a recent entry in the Xbox Live SUMMER OF ARCADE promotion alongside Bastion and the upcoming Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

All 3 games are really rad, but From Dust really stands out. This is the kind of game that I dreamed I was playing as a child. I played stuff like Populous and Sim City, but I always wanted a little more. From Dust is nothing like Populous and Sim City, but it still scratches that I MUST CONTROL THE WORLD itch that sandbox games strive for.

You don't have direct control over anyone... only some of the elements. It's a strange place you're thrown into... with the power to move earth, water and lava... but no power to physically manipulate the people you're trying to save. Tsunamis and lava rivers can only be redirected, not completely stopped. That is... until you get the special powers that protect villagers from water and fire. But even then, it's up to THEM to bring the knowledge back to the village. It's your job to make sure they can get there safely.

This is the kind of 'GOD' game I've wanted. A game where people go about their business and you control the world around them. You influence the people rather than push them.

But hey... you can still drown them and burn them alive, so it's all good.

Seriously. Get the demo.
It's coming to PSN and PC soon, but it's on XBLA right now for 15 bucks.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is stupid

I was making a running tally of everything that was wrong with the movie, but really just pick a 10 minute section of the movie and you will notice something stupid.

Alice explicitly states that there is no sign of life in LA, not even any undead. Then it cuts away to a massive crowd of zombies. Apparently no sign of undead means thousands of them.

Just awful in every way....except for Wentworth Miller. How is he not a bigger star yet?

Assorted Cartoon Notes From After the Rapture

So May 21st came and the world didn't end. What did happen was Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes had the episode titled "Hail, Hydra!" Which was the best episode yet. There will be spoilers for the episode, so if you're going to watch it, you might not want to read this first. The episode is about AIM and Hydra fighting over the Cosmic Cube. The Avengers move to stop them, and SHIELD shows up, under the new Director, Maria Hill, and she declares that the Avengers are no longer getting the same pass that Nick Fury had given them while he was running SHIELD. She makes a few comments about them needing to be registered (ugh, Civil War was a pile of shit and I hope it doesn't rear its head in this series again), but there is no real followup in it in this episode. What DID happen is Baron Strucker and Captain America touched the Cosmic Cube at the same time, and it appears as if nothing happened. Until the closing moments, where it's revealed that when Cap touched the Cube, he wished that Bucky didn't die. Obviously we're going to get a Winter Soldier, and this was a far superior way of having Bucky live than what the comics went with (they chose an "Everything You Know Was Wrong" approach rather than give a good reason).




This comes onto the heels of the fact the Guardians of the Galaxy are confirmed to be on the show's second season. It's not the real Guardians, but rather the new version of them, but still it's close enough. The fact that AEMH keeps getting better is real plus for fans of the Avengers, as well as fans of superhero cartoons.

The other big superhero cartoon on television right now, is Young Justice, which still isn't airing new episodes, but the show has been at a very high quality as well. Some of the continuity changes are fantastic additions (Superboy's power level) but the lack of The Kid's personality really breaks my heart. Miss Martian is a great replacement for Secret, and Artemis is a very interesting choice.

I guess we will see which one of these shows ends up being better in the long run (I'd put money on the Avengers though).


In other cartoon news, I recently watched Birdy the Mighty: Decode on Netflix Instant Viewing. It was an excellent anime. It was essentiallty a story about Mar-Vell in the form of an attractive Anime girl. It's a space cop named Birdy, who accidentally kills a teenage boy, and then they end up sharing a body while she searches for an alien weapon named the Ryunka. It's a short show (13 episodes that not counting credits are all about 20 minutes) so there isn't a ton of time investment involved with it. There is a single annoying character, who thankfully isn't in every episode.

Finally, I noticed some Marvel Motion Comics on Netflix Instant Viewing. They seem to be done really well, the Iron Man one is really great, but the Spider-Woman has terrible voice acting. There is also an X-Men one but I haven't watched it yet. Also, the entire Black Panther cartoon is on Netflix Instant Viewing. I put it here because it's animated a little less than the other motion comics. It's quite shameful. It's also just the telling of the terribad Reggie Hudlin origin where everything is about evil white people trying to kill the T'Challa because because he's black royalty. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone who isn't already a fan of the Black Panther because it's quite disgraceful to the character (much like Hudlin's entire run on the comic book series).

Wackydeli's top 20 games

Top 20 games of all time, by WackyDeli

Kaboom sucks and sorry for having a busy and hectic life since I originally wanted to do this.

Also PC games SUCK.

20. Banjo Kazooie

This game was bought on a whim when it came out, and was a gem that has been part of my N64 collection since.



19. Blast Corps

Same as Banjo I had no idea what it was about, but it looked awesome. I have a lot of fun running around making explosions in this game.



18. Mario Paint

Even to this day, I still play this game every few weeks. Amazing game that introduced many of us to the joys of computer art. The fly swatting game is also extra rad.



17. NBA Hangtime

The first sports game to make the list. Hangtime was the first game I slaved over to unlock everything, and complete 100%. I can remember playing this game until 4 a.m. on occasion, and I was nine. What terrible parenting.



I still think thats Emmitt Smith on the cover.

16. Virtua Tennis

The game that made me drive to six different malls looking for it. Well I couldn't drive yet, and we were visiting relatives. Eventually we found this game, and I was excited I could stop spending 2 dollars everytime I went to the Arcade.

The Ten Most Crazy Awesome Things In Japanese Wrestling

Also titled, "OR remembers he's still a writer at KBN, 2011 Edition"

Anyways, as most of the people who view this blog know, Japanese wrestling has three modes: Awesome, Crazy, and Crazy Awesome. But for those who reading aren't aware of this, I say you're missing out on a wonderful and bizarre world. Well, no, I actually say "how the fuck did you learn about Kidnapped By Ninjas in the first place". But after THAT, I say you need OR's personal version of Wacky Japanese Indy Shit 101.


10. Danshoku Dino vs Aja Kong

Just like Japanese wrestling in general has three modes, women's wrestling in Japan (Joshi for those who somehow don't know about this) has three archetypes of wrestlers: Super-Hot asskickers (pretty much just Megumi Kudo and Akira Hokuto here, really), vaguely boyish looking junior heavyweights, and vicious monster women whose primary job is murdering the vaguely boyish looking types.

Aja Kong is the third type. And her favorite weapon of boygirl murder is her spinning backfist.

Danshoku Dino is not a joshi wrestler, however. He is the gayest wrestler ever. That's not a homophobic statement or any kind of hyperbole, mind you... Danshoku Dino (both the character and the person who plays him) is an openly gay wrestler whose primary finishing move involved stuffing his opponent's head into his tights for a piledriver. And he's also got like four variations of this, including one where he also stuffs his opponent's head into the thong he wears under his tights. Also, instead of chopping on the chest, he chops his opponents in the dick. No, really.

One day, they met. And as you can probably guess, Dino's signature offense was of little use to him, so Kong murdered him. What makes this crazy awesome? The finish. Before knocking Dino's head off with her backfist, she forces Dino to grab her own tits. In other words, she out-Dinoed Dino.

For what's probably this match but I'm too lazy to check myself, click here.

9. KUDO's Game Of Death

There is a company in Japan called Triple Sixxx, or 666 for short. It's basically JCW, except without shitty rapping clowns and shitty wrestling, it's got some of the weirdest gimmicks imaginable, including a wrestling monk who constantly wrestles while having his legs crossed Yoga style, and a 500 pound version of Ronald McDonald.

KUDO is Japanese Indy Wrestling's homage to Bruce Lee. Much like Bruce Lee, he can cave in your skull with his foot. Also like Bruce Lee, he is fucking awesome.

KUDO came to Triple Sixxx to do a wrestling version of Bruce Lee's Game of Death... essentially a gauntlet match where he fought a bunch of nameless jobbers and 'killed' them in various ways. He even wore a yellow jumpsuit, presumably because his usual wrestling outfight was at the dry cleaners.

KUDO's final opponent... was KUDO himself! Yes, for the first time since 1994, wrestling had a 'mirror match'. The match ended when KUDO (The second KUDO) snapped KUDO's neck.

Sadly, I can't find this on YouTube. Which is odd because I SAW it on YouTube.

8. Saitama Pro Wrestling

What's that, you never heard of Saitama Pro? Well, there's a few reasons for that. One is that it's roster is comprised of like two people. The other is that they almost never had an actual ring, but wrestled on gym mats. But also, you don't know how awesome Japanese indy wrestling is, because Saitama Pro has arguably one of the most famous absurdly bizarre gimmick ever: KEN THE BOX.

Now, I said the roster has two people in it. Well, outside of kayfabe that's true. In kayfabe, the main hero of Saitama Pro is Survival Tobita. Tobita is basically the Blade of Japanese Indies, only instead of vampires, Tobita fights momsters with crazy ass gimmicks like Education Magamon, who forces innocent people to read (WHAT A SICK BASTARD!). But there is one foe that Tobita has never defeated... Ken The Box, aka Mokujin Ken, aka Bokujin Ken.

Their battles are top notch, fifty-star greco-roman classics, like this one here.

7. The Epic Dream Match

This is also from Saitama Pro, and is an even more astounding technical masterpiece. It is the battle that wrestling fans all over the world crave to see, but it has happened only once ever. Two of the greatest and most iconic names in wrestling going at it.

This is... TABLE... VERSUS... LADDER

6. BJPW's Shopping Plaza Deathmatch

Big Japan is basically the CZW of Japan. Well, that's kind of unfair. CZW is more like like Big Japan's braindead stepcousin. One day, they decided to hold a wrestling match in a shopping center in Japan. Where in Japan, I have absolutely no idea. I'm going to guess and say Kyoto. When, sometime in 1996.

Anyway, they have a match... and it kind of sucks really. But then, for absolutely no discernable reason, the wrestlers in the match basically fight all over the shopping plaza, going into stores and punching each other and occasionally knocking over stuff and hitting each other with fish.

I'd go into further detail, but that's pretty much what happens. It's so silly and terrible, and yet like a car wreck, you can't possibly turn away.

Sadly, I can't find it on YouTube.

5. Wrestling HOFer President Ramu

Back to Triple Sixxx for this one, or rather 666's most awesome regular, President Ramu (aka Chairman Ramu, aka Kaicho Ramu). Ramu (the daughter of another wrestler, Onryo) debuted at the age of 7, and almost never lost a match (she held three championships, so I assume she's only lost three matches ever).

Believe it or not, she's only the SECOND youngest wrestler ever, beaten by Mr. 6, but Mr. 6 was essentially a cheesy ripoff of Ramu's act so he's not worthy of further mention here.

For a sample of the awesome that is Ramu, click here.

4. Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship

Dramatic Dream Team is probably the most epic wrestling promotion ever. The home promotion of KUDO and Danshoku Dino, their product is best described as WWE if Vince McMahon was on a permanent LSD trip... and also a billion times more entertaining than WWE ever was. Even their founder/head booker, Sanshiro Takagi, pretty much does a parody of Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Really, I could just put DDT as a whole in this slot, but I'm going to focus on the epicenter of DDT's greatness, it's Ironman Heavymetalweight championship. Having well over 750 championship reigns since it's inception (meaning an average reign is less than a week long), the title is defended 24/7, and the winner does not necessarily have to be a DDT wrestler, or indeed, a member of the human race... or even a living being at all.

And what's not to love about a belt that's been held by a Hello Kitty doll?

Here's footage of one of the belt's most famous title changes, when Ladder #2 (yes, the belt has been won by no less than three different ladders) was pinned by... DDT's ref's dog.

3. The Saga of Yinling's Baby

Before I describe this, watch this video first.

Now, here's what you just saw:

It's from HUSTLE, which was essentially All Japan's attempt at making a promotion like DDT. While it had it's moments, this is by large it's best.

Yinling The Erotic Terrorist was one of the top villains of HUSTLE, and teamed with Tajiri (yes, THAT Tajiri) against Great Muta (yes, THAT Great Muta) and Real Gay (aka Hard Gay #2). Yinling tried to defeat Muta with her "M Style Pin", but Muta countered this by rolling her over and misting her right in her nether regions.

Apparently, the Green Mist does more than just blind opponents, as Yinling became pregnant due to the mist (which begs the question of what would have happened if he used one of the other mist variations instead). Instead of giving birth to the baby, she laid an egg, which grew into... Monster Bono (played by the 64th Yokozuna and guy who kicked Big Show's ass at WrestleMania, Akebono).

I guarantee you if WWE did this exact same storyline only with CM Punk, Gail Kim, and Great Khali, it would lead to MASH Finale-breaking ratings for Raw.

2. YOSHIHIKO

I'm not even going to bother describing YOSHIHIKO, I'm just going to post this video of him wrestling Kenny Omega and let it speak for itself.

1. DDT Campsite Wrestling

Now, if YOSHIHIKO, Danshoku Dino, and the Ironman Heavymetalweight title haven't convinced you yet that DDT is the greatest wrestling promotion ever, then this will.

DDT is the only promotion to feature, and I shit you not, a tag team match in a nature preserve. And this isn't at all like the shitty shopping center match; they actually wrestle. In ring gear. Well, three of the wrestlers do, Muscle Sakai (who, btw, is my personal role model) didn't get the memo and showed up in hiking gear instead. Not only that, but they actually do spots that aren't 'punching a lot'. This is also the first match to my knowledge to feature a BOTTLE ROCKET FIGHT.

This match was so epic, they did at least one more, but here is the original.

And now, for my final thought: Boy that car is coming real fast I hope it's brakes wo

The Worst Thing About CoD: Black Ops

I finally isolated the worst thing about Black Ops. It actually isn't that the game lacks polish in just about every aspect of it. The only thing that seems to have any real time spent on it was the voice acting. But even though they went all out for the voice cast, they did it wrong. Completely. Look at the cast.

Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, Ice Cube, and Sam Worthington. That would probably make a good movie. The problem is this is a videogame that lacks every single element that makes a movie enjoyable. That's not the only problem. Let's look at the offenders individually.

Sam Worthington. I know he's the next big action star and everything but there could not have been a worse choice for an American soldier in a videogame. For one, he doesn't hide his accent at all. His Australian accent was what got this whole rant started. It was extremely distracting in the game. Video games provide a level of immersion that really can't be rivaled by other media, and miscasting a voice is probably the fastest way to ruin immersion. On top of that, why would you want someone who is famous for their LOOKS in your game where all you will hear is their VOICE? With a game lacking as much polish as Black Ops, the money spent on Worthington could have gone into the game itself.


Ed Harris: I have no idea why he would even do this. I'm assuming they paid him a lot of money. Ed Harris is a good actor, but I didn't know it was him voicing Hudson. Which is the problem with most of the voice casting in this game.

Gary Oldman: First of all, Gary Oldman is one of the best actors in the entire world. He disappears into roles better than almost anyone else. The guy has an amazing range. So they cast him as Reznov, the Russian sidekick to Mason. The only problem is he's doing a Russian accent the whole time so there is no way to even know it was Gary Oldman. I'm pretty sure that someone like him has a high pricetag. I'm also pretty sure that there are hundreds of great voice actors who do great Russian accents for probably half the pay. Nobody is going to know it's Gary Oldman anyway, so why bother hiring him?

But all of that is Treyarch's modus operandi. They can't make a game worth shit so Activision markets the game insanely well. There was nothing in the entire game that was done as well as Call of Duty 4, which released in 2007. In fact, I would go as far as to say Ice Cube was the only thing that the game got right. He is extremely recognizable as well as delivers the lines with the proper emotional tone.

Introducing a new series

Wackydeli's top 20 console games of all time!

Starting tomorrow March 2nd I will begin a countdown of my top 20
games of all time.

BULLETSTORM

"I'm not interested in quantifying how much abuse your ass was built for."

That is an actual line from the game.


Short Review: RAD


Long Review: REALLY FUCKING RAD


Bullestorm is a love letter to me. It's true. Grayson Hunt was completely designed from the ground up to be appealing to people like me. His entire personality is just like mine. He's constantly making jokes, and always has a witty comment whenever something happens in the game. His partner, Ishi, plays a perfect straight man to go along with Gray's outlandish behavior. Trishka is cool as hell as well.

Anyway on to Bulletstorm the videogame. Best game I have played in a while. The most important thing that Bulletstrom does, is be fun. More videogames should be more concerned about being fun rather than exciting (although Bulletstrom has its exciting moments as well). Everything about Bulletstorm says VIDEOGAME. Nothing is taken very serious at all, even the gimmick of score points is worked into the game as a function of the game (they actually do explain it, and it's kind of cool). The object of the game is to rack up points from your skillshots. A skillshot is a method of killing an enemy, and whenever you do one, an indicator pops up on the screen and informs you of what skillshot you did and how many points it was worth. To assist in these, you get the Leash, which grabs a distant enemy and pulls them towards you and puts that enemy in slow motion. You also have a kick which knocks a nearby enemy away from in slow motion, and a slide which pops the enemy upwards into slow motion. The skillshots are an awesome feature. I haven't had this much fun picking apart enemies since the first Medal of Honor, which was the first time I saw an enemy react to getting shot in the nuts. Now I leash someone and kick them away and shoot them in the butthole and get a little popup that says "REAR ENTRY." It makes me smile every single time too. I'm having more fun trying to shoot enemies in different methods with different guns in an attempt to get different skillshots, and that provides a whole different type of challenge rather than just survive or make it to the next waypoint.

Other than the campaign (which is very entertaining), you get two other modes. Echoes and Multiplayer. Echoes takes small parts of some of the levels and you play them with the goal of getting the highest possible score. There is a 3 star rating on how you do in Echo, which gives you a goal to reach. It's very evocative of older games where the challenge was always getting a higher score than your friends. Multiplayer (which people are calling Anarchy Mode, even though it doesn't say that anywhere in the game itself) is similar to the Horde Mode in Gears of War where you and up to 3 other people online take on waves of enemies in an attempt to get higher scores. In between rounds you can purchase upgrades for your weapons and character with the points that you have been earning. As you level up, you will acquire cosmetic changes to your character to customize they way that you look. It starts off very easy and then the challenge increases each round as you take on different types and combinations of enemies.

The game is not perfect though, it has two noticable flaws. The campaign's story has two twists that are completely predictable even before the twist comes. One of them was very unnecessary and the other was kind of neat (I'm not going to spoil it for people that care). There are also long load times. This has never been a dealbreaker for me, and it is not starting now. Even with these two minor flaws, Bulletstorm provides the most fun I've had in a game this generation. Anyone who plays games not just for entertainment but for fun would not be disappointed in their purchase of this game. If you can play through this game and not laugh a single time you're better off not playing a videogame ever again and watching stupid shit like Woody Allen movies anyway.

Best Picture opinions

Inception - Inventive, entertaining, popcorn action drama thriller. That's how I would describe the movie. Sometimes it gets tripped up on it's own bullshit, but as complicated as it was I found it to be pretty straightforward. To be honest I probably couldn't tell you exactly what happens in the movie in fear of confusing myself like I so happily tried to avoid. The big question is do I think this deserves the best picture Oscar? No, unfortunately. It was a great movie and in my top 5 of the year, but it felt rushed in spots and long-winded in other which shouldn't be case for an almost three hour movie. This could have been paced a little better, and that might have been the tipping point for me.

The Fighter - This is more than a boxing movie, as most boxing movies are, but this is a different case. In most movies like this the main character would ditch his drug-dealing brother, controlling money hungry mother, and bitchy family members. Maybe that's what he should of done, but in this film (based on a true story of course), he doesn't and still makes it to the top. I think that's a refreshing angle in a film like this. There's nothing storybook about this story and it doesn't really hit any of the storybook notes along the line, but at the end I still cared if he won and was excited that he did. Out of all the movies of the year this one was the most surprisingly good for me, and I can't think of a damn thing I didn't like, but the Oscar does not go to The Fighter.


True Grit - It was said beforehand that this wasn't the typical Coen brother movie, and that much of their signature humor was lost in this film. I completely disagree. This was the Coens brothers take on a western, and even if you have to read between the lines, all their signatures are there. I laughed my ass off throughout this movie, and when I wasn't their was plenty of human drama, action, or even scenery to enjoy. I think the scenery is really the last thing I loved about this movie which says a lot. Usually westerns are visual feats, and sometimes the characters play backseat to it. In this movie the scenery was beautiful, but you really had to quit listening and watching the characters to enjoy. Anyways, it's really a testament to their talent that they can make a western in 2011 a box office hit AND best picture contender. Do I think it should win the statue? No.

The Kids Are All Right - This is a good comedy/drama bogged down by weird story choices. I don't want to spoil the movie too much, but in the end you're supposed to want to see the two women together, but with the way the other characters played out, and the way they just brush them off in the end, I didn't. As much as I did like this movie, when I'm sitting there unsatisfied with a happy ending there are a lot of problems with your movie. I felt Annette Bening's character was underdeveloped and underused, almost a background character in this film, and her Oscar nod is surely based on past work. There were times were you could clearly see her struggling to act out the scene. You could take my criticisms as being frustrated the narrative wasn't cliche, but usually the cliches are there so the story is well rounded instead of lopsided. A little more time in the oven and this could have been a contender, but the way it turned out the damn thing shouldn't even be nominated.

Toy Story 3 - Why is this nominated? I liked it, but the emotional impact just wasn't there. It almost felt like the tearjerker scenes were thrown in there out of expectation and not in any organic way. The characters themselves FEEL like toys this time around instead of actual character. Let me explain; this movie is mostly typical kids move shenanigans. The few scenes meant to make you cry feel out of place with the rest of the film, and are actually relying on your emotional attachment to the character from the previous movies. I'm sorry, but you can't expect me to give a damn about these toys because of Toy Story 1 and 2. I wanted to feel the attachment to them in Toy Story 3. If you cut out every scene in the movie except for the heart wrenching tearjerker scenes you'd feel the exact same impact (had you seen the other two). To me, that means this movie failed, and mostly mostly an experiment in making movie.


As you can see I haven't seen all of the movies nominated. From what I've seen I wouldn't give any of them Best Picture, but I wouldn't be unhappy with a Fighter or True Grit win. My prediction is the Social Network though.

Uruguay is awesome.

As much as I love lucha libre, I never thought it would get this awesome-

Cubsfan posted this on deathvalleydriver. If you don't read the lucha blog over at www.luchablog.com, do it. Also, watch this.