A new F-Zero, Nintendo? Please?

F-Zero is a fantastic Nintendo franchise that needs a new entry, especially with the crazy hardware capabilities of both the WiiU and the 3DS. The last major console title -- F-Zero GX for the Gamecube -- was a kickass game and one of my favorite racing games of all time. It came out in 2003 and I STILL love playing it to this day.

I could talk for days about GX, but I would much rather talk about what's great about the franchise and why it absolutely needs a new game in the series. For those who don't know how awesome F-Zero really is, buckle up for a sec and read on.

Imagine, for a minute: the year is 20XX, of fabled Nintendo fame. Space travel is so possible we don't even give a fuck about it anymore. We humans are too busy RIPPING THE GALAXY APART so we can put crazy anti-gravity racing tracks everywhere for our own enjoyment.

You're some alien dude with a souped-up zero-gravity machine called an F-Zero, and you wanna race your ASS off in the most watched sport in the world: the F-Zero Grand Prix. Only thing standing in your way? 29 other borderline insane racers who want nothing more than to crush you into a fine silicon dust on the racetrack. Including this motherfucker:

"Black Shadow," a douche villain/C. Falcon's nemesis.

On tracks like this:

It's called "Fire Fields" because it's literally just a tube suspended above a bunch of lava...

And then there's Captain Falcon, the main protagonist who can blow up the entire damn universe with his punches:

2012: the year that gaming (sort of) grew up

Instead of another dreaded year-end "best of" list that most folk love to hate, I decided to take some time to go over some of the important trends and news stories from the game industry. Gaming turned 40 last year -- and with this progression the claims that it has "grown up." In my opinion, the growing pains have just begun.

Geoff Keighley being dead inside is a pretty good way to sum up how weird last year was.

2012 was a wild year for gaming as a global community. As a whole, the entire business of thinking about video games has been in the process of upheaval from all corners, regardless of how slow actual progress may seem to be. There were also a lot of painful, awkward incidents that (hopefully) helped teach universal lessons to developers, writers, PR execs and gamers alike.

In my own opinion, one of the biggest things that happened to the gaming community in 2012 was the corrosion of the powerful hold that shitty, racist, sexist and sophomoric people have on our electronic entertainment. Part of this beautiful corrosion was a result of the continued blossoming of games writing sites that encourage thoughtful discourse about the tenets of game design and the issues surrounding it. For example: BrainyGamer, Gamasutra, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and even Kotaku all had some wonderful posts.

Digital immortalization

Death is a specter that haunts everybody throughout their lives.  Sometimes it may seem like it's everywhere--in our personal lives, in our jobs, in the news--and that's because it is.  It is an inescapable part of life, though everyone deals with it in their own way. Often times for myself, it's hard to even fathom the concept even when it's one of the few single experiences that every human being will eventually share and has been since the beginning of time.

I apologize for wanting to write about such a somber topic, but the recent theater murders in Aurora, Colorado as a result of one cowardly person's actions have sent my brain into a tizzy.

Don't read this, you should be watching "Prometheus"

"Prometheus."  Go see it.  Stop reading up about my pathetic life through my writing and see something fucking real.

It was kind of a humbling experience, watching the movie.

The kickass crew of actors (Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron) fit the movie like, well, actors in a really good Ridley Scott movie should.  Rapace is the new Sigourney/Ripley, and good god is she as gorgeous and badass as the new female protagonist any "Alien"-lover could only hope and dream for.

I wish this movie didn't feature you getting the shit beat out of you so much, girl,
but if it makes you feel any better you made me fall in love with you while it happened.
/SUPERCREEPYMODEDISENGAGE

Story-wise, too, it blazes along the well-traveled path of great science fiction that causes us to question our humanity, like a sequence of contaminated, foreign DNA racing through the body of one of the film's unfortunate souls.  The movie's terrifying in a psychological way, even moving beyond the hideous alien forms and their murderous tendencies.

Of course, the special effects and sound design are great, too (convincing boom booms and deepass alien-sounding bass). But there are also some truly mind-blowing examples of cinematography in the film that aren't going to leave my mind anytime soon.  Yeah, the script isn't particularly inspiring at times and there are a few "plot holes" if you could call them such, but they still aid the overall experience in a meaningful way.

I really don't want to say much more or do a write-up of this movie because, seriously, you should just go see it.  It honestly makes me incredibly depressed -- the fact that I'll most likely never create something on the same scale of "Prometheus."  Most of the strands come together -- narrative, music, cinematography, acting, special effects -- to make a nearly pitch-perfect sci-fi film.  It's unforgettable.

WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT

Oh... one more thing.

SPOILERS SPOILERS DON'T LOOK BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET

Arma 2's DayZ zombie survival mod is everything your lil' nerd heart desires (probably)

Ooh!  Zambies!

Arma II is a 2009 tactical shooter that most people (myself included) had probably never heard of before a few months ago.  Even fewer people had the desire to play it despite solid mechanics, a huge open world and tons of support for modification of the game -- mostly because it's incredibly realistic and therefore incredibly sloooow.  Also, it had tons of bugs at launch.

Then, all of that changed after word got out that there was a new extensive mod for Arma II which turned it into a zombie survival game.  

The mod, called DayZ, was originally coded and produced by one man (who is now employed by Bohemia Interactive, the company that originally made Arma II).  As of the writing of this post, there are currently 726,882 players who have currently installed the mod and have played it at least once.

Keep in mind, that's around three-quarters of a  million people.  Playing a mod.

WHAT IN THE HELL: Dark Souls (VIDEO FEATURE, GURL)

"THAT'S THE BIGGEST PIECE OF ASSHOLE I'VE EVER SEEN.  FUCK THIS GAME.  FUCK THE DESIGNERS WHO EVEN THOUGHT THAT NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD SPEND THEIR TIME TRYING TO PLAY THIS MASOCHISTIC PIECE OF SHIT."--Conor Morris' last words before strangling himself with the charger cord of an Xbox 360 controller while playing From Software's Dark Souls.

I've been playing my suitemate's copy of Dark Souls as of late, though I sometimes don't know why because it's one of the most damned difficult games I've ever had the chance to play.  I'm quite addicted, though, even despite my rage as seen above.  It is in fact a really good game.

The entire experience IS frustrating, but it's frustrating because of what kind of game it is.

It's an adventure game.  A modern ode to the archaic pieces of work in the 8-and-16-bit era that were so fond of blasting gamers with infernal combinations of difficulty, technology limitations and just plain lack of regard for sanity in the consumer.  The original Ninja Gaiden, for example, and even Zelda II (even if it is a bad, bad thing).

Even despite echoing the classic adventure game experience, Dark Souls manages to have its own satanic difficulties that pull at the very essence of your being as it laughs at your suffering.  The interface is pretty barbarically simple for how complex of a game it is, the inventory system too guerilla and with too few hints on how everything works.

Pictured above:  Dark Souls (devils) fucking with you (pussyass pumpkinpeople).

The joy of flight.

I finally finished The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword recently after a whole month of time in which all I wanted to do was play it; alas, though, life occurs and even my favorite videogame series must wait in its wake.

Now, after spending a good 40-50 hours in the game, I think I'm finally ready to talk about not only it, but the Zelda franchise in general.  I'm going to try to keep this relatively short, because I know I could talk for ages about something that's so close and personal to me.

Yes, the Zelda series is a very important thing to me.  Yes, they are a bunch of video games that follow similar archetypal storylines that have been repeated since the dawn of man. 

In that vein, though, "The Canterbury Tales" is just a collection of stories.  "Citizen Kane" is just a movie.  Shubert's pieces were just music.

Shinfo week: "The Human Centipede II"

Hey, you know what's the single most awful piece of media I have ever consumed in my entire life?  "The Human Centipede II."

I'd never had the desire to see "The Human Centipede," and especially not "The Human Centipede II" after being coerced into watching the first by my stupid friends.

In fact, you know what?  These pieces of shit aren't even worthy of being recognized as pieces of entertainment.  I'm dropping the quotes around the names of both movies, and just abbreviating them from now on.

HC2 starts off in what is supposed to be "our world:" a world in which HC1 was actually just a movie, and a world in which it's the favorite movie of a bug-eyed, overweight, mentally retarded guy with a penchant for sandpapering his dick and pooping his pants.  He works in a parking garage and kills/captures people that piss him off a bit too much.

This guy, who never talks aside from random guttural noises and squeaks, is--I'll have to grudgingly hand it to the producers--incredibly disturbing looking and weird.  His life absolutely sucks; his mother wants to kill him, his father abused him as a child, his therapist wants to molest him.  It's an awful world.

This guy.

However, all the poor mentally handicapped guy wants to do is recreate his favorite movie, in real life.  And boy, does he ever.

Through an INSANELY huge amount of fortuitous concussions that he gives people with his trusty crowbar which allows him to move their unconscious bodies where he wants, he traps a whole entourage of 12 or so people.  These 12 people include one of the actresses from the first movie (as if her career wasn't already destroyed enough) as well as a pregnant woman.

"Bastion:" a ruined world, a kickass narrator and a great game.

“Proper stories are supposed to start at the beginning.... ain't so simple with this one.  Now here's a kid whose whole world got all twisted, leaving him stranded on a rock in the sky.”--Rucks, Bastion

Supergiant Games' Bastion is one of the best games I've played all year.

Since we're fast approaching the end of the year, I've been thinking back on my year spent through playing games.  There are plenty of fantastic games that I've had the privilege to play that stick out in my memory:  Portal 2, Pokemon Black, Skyrim, Dark Souls, Skyward Sword and many more.  But one of the most special to me has also been the one that I most recently finished: Bastion.

Bastion is an action-adventure game/RPG that came out earlier this year, though I didn't give myself the chance to play it until recently when it was on SUPER SALE on Steam, that most wondrous online platform of all platforms.

Bitterness, melancholy and family trips.

...ohhh gawd.

Family trips are always a moderately frustrating thing for my family, mostly because we have to deal with living with each other in a vacuum for an extended period of time with no escape, especially when we're cramped in my crazy grandma Peggy's tiny trailer in depressing-ass Marion, Indiana.  Also, we're all (specifically my mom and my brother) incredibly stubborn.  Of course, though, this is nothing new.  From the dawn of time man has gotten stircrazy when in close confines with the rest of his/her family (pic above very related).

Normally, all of this is manageable.  But not this year.  As a result of a number of pretty awful circumstances this year there's one less person celebrating with us, and we're all the worse for what happened.

The amount of bitterness between all of us --especially during the holidays after the baggage of the rest of the depressing events of the last year/years--was palpable as we piled into the car after several unbearable screaming matches and almost leaving without my brother.

Quick update: "PORTAL 2" DLC and new Speakeasy article

Hey everyone!  Just a quick update on here, as there's plenty of random stuff to be doin' (read:  that I SHOULD be doing) in my life right now.

SO EXCITE for more robot lovin'!

"Cowboys and Aliens," holy crap!

"Cowboys and Aliens" was really fun to watch.  It wasn't a great movie in any sense, really.  But I'm still glad I saw it.
Because, hell, cowboys are fighting aliens in it.  And Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford team up to beat the snot out of said aliens.  And because alien/western is a pretty cool genre mash-up that shouldn't work very well at all despite the fact that it does.
And Olivia Wilde is really cute.

Pictured above:  purdy.

If you're interested in seeing my full review, check it out on Speakeasy!

My problem with the first season of "The Walking Dead"

Recently, I have talked with a few of my friends about what they thought of the first season of AMC's supposed "hit" zombie-drama "The Walking Dead."  The thing that I keep hearing from the majority of them, and the thing that continually stuns me, is that they actually really liked it.

Zombies.  How could they do it wrong?

Now, let me be clear.  I did not like this show in the least when I first saw it.  I thought that it was poorly done, ill-staffed (both in regards to the actors and the writers) and a general waste of my time.

However, I decided that mayhap I had been too harsh with the fledgling TV series.  After all, the graphic novels of "The Walking Dead" are absolutely awesome and some of my favorite things to read, and zombies have always held a special place in my heart when it comes to my entertainment love.  Much as those macabre shamblers ravenously devour flesh, I too have consumed hundreds of hours of zombie media, be it in the form of literature, movies or video game.

Honestly, I know that I can tell a good zombie story from a bad zombie story.  Rather than doubting myself, though, I decided to watch the entire "Walking Dead" first season again, now with a critical eye to not only the  show but on my attitude itself, to make sure I was not just being some rare breed of zombie hipster elitist.

After watching the series again, and taking a look at the graphic novels, and analyzing what it is exactly that so bothered me the first time I saw it, I've made a few conclusions about the show.

WARNING:  SPOILER ALERT.  I'm talking about a lot of junk from the first season, so if you don't want anything spoiled, then I suggest you leave now.  And preferably read the graphic novel to catch up...