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Sunday, April 30, 2006 2:28 am by Jason.
(Another) Short Video Game Review: Metroid Prime 2 – Echoes (like, the very end of it, specifically … so, spoiler warning, I guess)
First, you kill all the bad guys. Then, you see yourself being thanked by all the good guy aliens whose planet you saved. Then, you walk out and casually wave with your back to them – the ultimate kiss-off – like, “Whatever, I save planets bigger than yours for breakfast.” Then you get back to your spaceship and your armor disappears to reveal that you are, in fact, a skinny, sassy blonde with a ponytail, which kind of ruins the whole “I’m playing a female protagonist who is a badass warrior and not a sex object” thing that you’ve had going for the whole game. But still, it’s way better than the end of the last Metroid Prime, where you take off your helmet and just kind of stare blankly for a second before credits start. Honestly, the best thing about this game was the animation when you died. Sometimes I wanted to die just so I could see the animation.
Saturday, April 29, 2006 11:24 am by Jason.
The New York Times reports that President Bush disagrees with the sentiment behind the new Spanish-language version of the national anthem.
Saturday, April 29, 2006 8:42 am by Dan.
Last Ninja Faces Deadliest Threat of All: Extinction.
Masaaki Hatsumi, the man who bills himself as the last master of ninjitsu is 76 years old, but he has of yet no successor. Which is something of a non-shocker from a guy who advises “Always be able to kill your students.”
Hatsumi is the only living student of the last “fighting ninja,” Toshitsugu Takamatsu, the so-called 33rd Grand Master who was a bodyguard to officials in Japanese-occupied Manchuria before World War II and fought – and won – 12 fights to the death. Legend says that during one battle, Takamatsu snatched an eyeball from a would-be Chinese bandit.
I presume the guy wasn’t just, you know, holding the eyeball.
Unfortunately, ninjitsu has seen a decline in Japan, along with other martial arts like judo and sumo.
Most Japanese are exposed to martial arts in school. But the number practicing judo has been declining since the 1980s as more people turn to Western sports like golf and tennis.
Ah ha! Golf and tennis? I smell Mario’s influence. Perhaps if they released Super Mario Ninjitsu , people would get back into it.
Other factors to blame include stereotypes: “But [Hatsumi] also has watched his legacy co-opted by goofy caricatures such as “Mutant Ninja Turtles” and schlocky Hollywood send-ups like “Beverly Hills Ninja.”
The 34th Grand Master did however say that he enjoyed both 3 Ninjas and its lesser known sequel, 3 Ninjas Kick Back, which he considered to be “a true masterpiece of the ninja way.”
On the topic of pirates, Hatsumi did not comment, but one could detect the faintest hint of a glower through his stoic ninja exterior.
Thursday, April 27, 2006 7:32 pm by Jason.
Unhappy About My Country’s Government.
This has got to be one of the saddest thing I have read in a very long time, and is sadder still because it is happening right now and I have no idea what to do about it, or even if I can do anything at all.
Sunday, April 23, 2006 10:52 am by Jason.
Short Game Review: Metroid Prime.
Somehow video games about killing monsters in space sound a lot cooler to me than they actually are. Metroid Prime was okay, but kind of repetitive eventually. I kept reading all the little “Lore” entries telling the history of the planet, not realizing until the end that there really was no plot, and that that stuff was just filler to make the game seem longer. Metroid Fusion, a retro-style 2-D title for the Gameboy, had significantly more pathos, and I got to fight Mother Brain, whom I have had it in for since our introduction during Saturday morning cartoons. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes started out seeming really cool – a space marine outpost mysteriously littered with corpses (which soon start getting up and shooting you), and then an encounter with an evil twin of the protagonist herself – but, again, then it gets super repetitive (and loses the zombies). And the weapons in this game require ammunition, which is kind of a funwrecker – if I wanted to keep track of numbers, I’d get a real job. At least I didn’t bother reading the “Lore” this time through.
Saturday, April 22, 2006 3:12 pm by Dan.
I Think George Lucas Gonna Sue Somebody.
Those of you who read our erstwhile comic adventures may remember that from time to time, we took some, um, liberties with characters from other properties. And while some of the material might have been protected under parody, our biggest defense was probably our utter failure to ever become popular, and the fact that we never tried to make money off of our endeavors. After all, trying to benefit off of someone else’s works, well, that’s just foolish, isn’t it?
Which is why when I came across this story on Neil Gaiman’s blog, my head almost exploded. Essentially, a fan fiction writer decided that she would self-publish her novel. Her Star Wars fan fiction novel. For sale. On Amazon.
I’d like to be nice and say that this is a ballsy move, designed to instigate a discussion on copyright in the electronic age, but no. No. Not a chance in bloody hell. This is actually just ignorance, compounded with stupidity. She even went so far as to address copyright concerns in a Q&A on her own website (which has since been apparently Alderaaned by Lucasfilm’s Death Star-flying lawyers).
Q: Having set Another Hope in an already existing universe, I find myself wondering if there was any concern on your part regarding copyrights?
No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there.
Q: I also wonder how far a writer is allowed to write in a world and to use characters introduced by another author?
If it’s not a commercial project, I don’t see any problem.
That…is why you fail.
At last check, the Amazon page for the book is still available, though to add insult to injury, it seems as though besides being a massive copyright violation, the book was, well, bad .
Now, I admit, I’ve written some fan fiction in my day; I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with it, ghettoized though it is destined to be. There is, however, a line in the sand, and I rather hope that this one person’s mistake doesn’t end up punishing a whole bunch of people who are just in it for the fun.
Friday, April 21, 2006 8:59 pm by Jason.
Why Businesses Need Geeks.
Geek obsessions with random minutia should probably make them pretty decent fact checkers, researchers, spin doctors, and so on. Take this story on WKRC Cincinnati about two masked men robbing a gas station, for example. This part threw me for a loop:
One of the suspects, disguised as Superman, held a semi-automatic handgun to the clerk’s head.
If you’re going to dress up like a superhero to rob a gas station, at least pick one with a disguise. I wondered if maybe the criminal wears glasses on his day job. Seems to have just been a fact-checking error, though, as it’s referred to as a Spider-man mask later in the story. See, one geek in the newsroom and none of this would have happened. He or she could have pointed out that Spider-man and Superman are two different people, and perhaps even speculated as to who would win in a fight.
I suppose you do need to draw a line between geek fact checking and truly obscure nit-picking, but I would insist that the example above is not an isolated incident. Allow me to remind you of the Reebok Incubus debacle (more info here). For reasons such as these, some day it may even make sense to list your stint as a Dungeon Master on your resume.
Thursday, April 20, 2006 3:57 pm by Dan.
A Case by Case Basis.
I totally have an excuse for falling down on Doombot posting. No, really, it’s a good one: I’m buried under iPod cases.
Aside from my current gig over at MacUser, I’ve been tapped to help out with reviews of iPod cases for Macworld’s Playlist site. Turns out there are a lot of these suckers, and the existing Playlist reviewers had been inundated, to the point where they could easily spend all their time reviewing nothing but iPod cases, as though imprisoned in some sort of Sisyphean nth-level of the underworld. “Don’t panic when you see the first box; it will contain a *bunch* of cases,” Dan Frakes, Playlist’s Senior Reviews Editor, wrote me in an email. Dan has a gift for understatement. I think of a bunch of case like a bunch of, you known, a bunch of bananas ; a dozen maybe, tops.
Try more like forty or fifty. All types: rubber sleeves, acrylic cases, leather, armbands, cute Panda-decorated ones. You name it, I probably have it.
Now begins the arduous process of painstakingly reviewing each and every one. Most of the cases in the box are for the iPod nano. Which they also sent me.
At first, I was at a loss as to what I was going to do with two iPods. I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet; I’m still carrying both around with me, which kind of defeats the purpose (yes, that’s right: if you mug me, you get two for the price of one). There are things I like about each of them; the nano is so small and light, it’s kind of hard to believe, especially since it sounds as good as my video iPod. Obviously, the nano doesn’t play video (which would be ridiculous on its screen), but it does display photos, though I haven’t tested that capacity yet (I’ve barely used it on my larger iPod, to be honest).
Anyway, my reviews haven’t started showing up yet, but that should be happening within the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you need to know about a case for your nano, I’m the man to talk to. There’s also another project in the offing that’s not public knowledge yet, but I expect to write something about that in the next week or two.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 10:30 am by Dan.
A man can dream, can’t he?
So, having been feeling a little guilty about not posting to Doombot in a while (which I’ll explain in another post), I loaded up Google News this morning to see if there was anything worth writing about.
The top story at the time had the following headline: “Bush Taps Portman As New Budget Director.” Given that, I can hardly be blamed for where my head went, okay?
Come on, how awesome would that be? For one thing, I might actually be interested in the budget.
Sunday, April 16, 2006 10:47 am by Jason.
The Most Politically Charged Comics Post Ever.
Shades of the Patriot Act? In what Marvel Comics calls “the most politically charged comic series ever,” superheroes must reveal their secret identities and register with the government or resist and be hunted.
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