A night cap, with a huge glass of Coke, with Hibiki Takami
So yesterday, at around 2:00pm, I "defeated" Tony Hawk's Underground. The game is a wee bit short (not to mention easy at the normal difficulty setting) for a Tony Hawk game, but it's largely due to the heavy amounts of mission based gameplay in it. I can't fault the game by saying that they focused too much on it - heck, Tony Hawk 4 had an extreme amount of mission based gameplay (try 15-20 for each level) - but THUG manages to mask this effectively via the use of the Story Mode.
By the way, for defeating THUG at the normal difficulty setting, I unlocked Gene Simmons (yes, from KISS), Iron Man (yea, the Marvel character), and a new level, which seems to be based on a KISS concert set up in South America (from what I could tell, obviously). Haven't tried the "sick" difficulty setting yet, god forbid...
In any case, relearning the Tony Hawk gameplay was enjoyable. I recalled the days when I tested Tony Hawk 2 from Activision, trying to find a single bug just so that I can have my name in the credits. Unfortunately, at the time, manuals weren't created yet, so the maximum number of points I could gather was right around 90,000 (pretty low, by today's THPS standards).
For the record, I didn't find a single bug with Tony Hawk 2... so yea, my name isn't on there.
I realized that I never really played Tony Hawk 4, let alone liked the idea. The whole mission based thing sucked, in my honest opinion, and I was surprised that I became personally involved with my character that I created in THUG. In this game, you don't get to play as a pro skater. In fact, come to think of it, you DON'T see the name "Pro Skater" anywhere on the title now, do you? Instead you create yourself, and try to make a name for yourself. The pointless mission based gameplay in THPS4 has now been given a purpose, that is, for you to be able to seek fame and fortune. Damn, and I thought Neversoft and Tony Hawk ran out of game design ideas.
Really playing THUG is like playing a Tony Hawk game for the first time. The entire interface and look of the game is completely different from the old games. The only thing that really carries over are the various modes of gameplay and the gameplay itself. After that however, that's where it stops. Now, the interface can be skinned using the preset skins in the game, as well as unlockable skins you get from Story Mode as well. You can now create your own tricks as well, in addition to being able to map your face in the game (by emailing Neversoft your photo), and an extensive Create-A-Skater and Create-A-Park mode. The story mode serves more to teach you intricate facets of the game rather than ignoring you altogether and going for tricks, which is an immediate draw to me since I haven't picked up a Tony Hawk game in a year. I learned how to do spine transfers, grinds, lip tricks, and more elaborate versions of it while playing the game, and I must say that it made my gameplay more rewarding than having to second guess what tricks I'm actually pulling.
But yea, I beat the game today though. I am patiently awaiting THUG2, where you can now (gasp) play the entire game in the old style Tony Hawk's Pro Skater gameplay (aka Classic mode) at the same time play the Story Mode as well. I think it'll be a great addition to the franchise, and I sincerely hope that Neversoft focuses a lot of their efforts on this next installment. I did hear that they have a secret project that's not a Tony Hawk game in the works...
So from THUG I switched to Viewtiful Joe, which is an extremely viewtiful game! Get this... you're this guy named Joe, who loves this Kamen Rider-esque looking super hero called Captain Blue, and you're on a date with this girl named Sylvia, right? So Sylvia tries to give Joe a BLOW JOB (yes, you read that right) but, being the weird guy Joe is, he REFUSES (yea, you read that right too) the offer and scolds Sylvia for distracting him while an important scene in the movie unfolded. Sylvia tries again a second time, and only this time, the bad guy in the movies grabs her and kidnaps her. Joe follows her into the Movie World, only to be bestowed the power of transforming into a variation of Captain Blue (except the suit Joe wears is Red. Captain Red?).
Fine, fine, what the hell is up with that? Viewtiful Joe's cel-shading isn't cel-shading at all. It's American comic style shading, with heavy blacks and stuff. It mimics the style effectively, imo, and it never hampers the looks of the game as well as its play mechanic. I love how you can kindof slow down time and fast forward it and zoom into the action, kinda like using a VCR. I heard that for the sequel, which has Co-op mode (yes!), they're gonna have something called Replay (not Rewind, mind you)... though I'm not entirely sure what they're hinting at.
But yea, I've already defeated 2 bosses. I hope to finish the game soon. :)
Hero was an amazing movie. The fight choreography is executed well, and the drama, though minimal, extends to the fight scenes. This movie was, in many ways, somewhat similar to Pulp Fiction - plainly because the entire movie is a set of flashbacks with different perspectives. I won't elaborate much on this, but many of you know that Nameless, Jet Li's character, is trying to avenge something. So, it's no surprise that he came to the King with a murderous intent. But what you don't know, is how he gets to be recognized as a hero, sitting infront of the King.
There's gonna be a few people who've hated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that are gonna like Hero for its multitude of action scenes, but will never understand the complexities of the various forms that they represent in the scenes. A virtue, such as respect or justice, can be easily tagged to replace the character fighting onscreen to be representative of a struggle between two different ideal virtues. Revenge, trust, honor, peace... that's really what the main characters are, in a nutshell. But the ideals that they represent flutter and change between each other constantly. Honor can be represented by how a man refuses the seduction of another woman to be loyal and true to his wife, and yet honor can also be that of revenge, that is, to honor the death of the departed (in Jet Li's case, for instance). So this interplay of ideals and such is common in movies where wire fighting seems to be all the craze.
Unfortunately, again, people who just can't grasp wire fighting ("but that's fake!") will be too distracted to even see what I'm talking about.
But then again, let me put it in a pessimistic manner.
Why does Sarah, in the Labyrinth, have to get to the Goblin Castle in 13 hours? Why not 14, or even an entire day? In fact, what made Sarah so damn special, from all the other girls who want the Goblin King to take away her kid brother, that Jarreth HIMSELF just HAD to go visit her and her brother? While we're at it, please explain why the walls don't seem to have depth in the first part of the Labyrinth?
In short, it's fantasy, people. We don't have to have an explanation of why they can jump like 40 feet in the air. We don't need to explain why David Bowie has a huge boner in the Labyrinth while he's at his castle with his goblins. Unless, that is, you CAN explain why he does have that boner... but let's not go there.
By the way, for defeating THUG at the normal difficulty setting, I unlocked Gene Simmons (yes, from KISS), Iron Man (yea, the Marvel character), and a new level, which seems to be based on a KISS concert set up in South America (from what I could tell, obviously). Haven't tried the "sick" difficulty setting yet, god forbid...
In any case, relearning the Tony Hawk gameplay was enjoyable. I recalled the days when I tested Tony Hawk 2 from Activision, trying to find a single bug just so that I can have my name in the credits. Unfortunately, at the time, manuals weren't created yet, so the maximum number of points I could gather was right around 90,000 (pretty low, by today's THPS standards).
For the record, I didn't find a single bug with Tony Hawk 2... so yea, my name isn't on there.
I realized that I never really played Tony Hawk 4, let alone liked the idea. The whole mission based thing sucked, in my honest opinion, and I was surprised that I became personally involved with my character that I created in THUG. In this game, you don't get to play as a pro skater. In fact, come to think of it, you DON'T see the name "Pro Skater" anywhere on the title now, do you? Instead you create yourself, and try to make a name for yourself. The pointless mission based gameplay in THPS4 has now been given a purpose, that is, for you to be able to seek fame and fortune. Damn, and I thought Neversoft and Tony Hawk ran out of game design ideas.
Really playing THUG is like playing a Tony Hawk game for the first time. The entire interface and look of the game is completely different from the old games. The only thing that really carries over are the various modes of gameplay and the gameplay itself. After that however, that's where it stops. Now, the interface can be skinned using the preset skins in the game, as well as unlockable skins you get from Story Mode as well. You can now create your own tricks as well, in addition to being able to map your face in the game (by emailing Neversoft your photo), and an extensive Create-A-Skater and Create-A-Park mode. The story mode serves more to teach you intricate facets of the game rather than ignoring you altogether and going for tricks, which is an immediate draw to me since I haven't picked up a Tony Hawk game in a year. I learned how to do spine transfers, grinds, lip tricks, and more elaborate versions of it while playing the game, and I must say that it made my gameplay more rewarding than having to second guess what tricks I'm actually pulling.
But yea, I beat the game today though. I am patiently awaiting THUG2, where you can now (gasp) play the entire game in the old style Tony Hawk's Pro Skater gameplay (aka Classic mode) at the same time play the Story Mode as well. I think it'll be a great addition to the franchise, and I sincerely hope that Neversoft focuses a lot of their efforts on this next installment. I did hear that they have a secret project that's not a Tony Hawk game in the works...
So from THUG I switched to Viewtiful Joe, which is an extremely viewtiful game! Get this... you're this guy named Joe, who loves this Kamen Rider-esque looking super hero called Captain Blue, and you're on a date with this girl named Sylvia, right? So Sylvia tries to give Joe a BLOW JOB (yes, you read that right) but, being the weird guy Joe is, he REFUSES (yea, you read that right too) the offer and scolds Sylvia for distracting him while an important scene in the movie unfolded. Sylvia tries again a second time, and only this time, the bad guy in the movies grabs her and kidnaps her. Joe follows her into the Movie World, only to be bestowed the power of transforming into a variation of Captain Blue (except the suit Joe wears is Red. Captain Red?).
Fine, fine, what the hell is up with that? Viewtiful Joe's cel-shading isn't cel-shading at all. It's American comic style shading, with heavy blacks and stuff. It mimics the style effectively, imo, and it never hampers the looks of the game as well as its play mechanic. I love how you can kindof slow down time and fast forward it and zoom into the action, kinda like using a VCR. I heard that for the sequel, which has Co-op mode (yes!), they're gonna have something called Replay (not Rewind, mind you)... though I'm not entirely sure what they're hinting at.
But yea, I've already defeated 2 bosses. I hope to finish the game soon. :)
Hero was an amazing movie. The fight choreography is executed well, and the drama, though minimal, extends to the fight scenes. This movie was, in many ways, somewhat similar to Pulp Fiction - plainly because the entire movie is a set of flashbacks with different perspectives. I won't elaborate much on this, but many of you know that Nameless, Jet Li's character, is trying to avenge something. So, it's no surprise that he came to the King with a murderous intent. But what you don't know, is how he gets to be recognized as a hero, sitting infront of the King.
There's gonna be a few people who've hated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that are gonna like Hero for its multitude of action scenes, but will never understand the complexities of the various forms that they represent in the scenes. A virtue, such as respect or justice, can be easily tagged to replace the character fighting onscreen to be representative of a struggle between two different ideal virtues. Revenge, trust, honor, peace... that's really what the main characters are, in a nutshell. But the ideals that they represent flutter and change between each other constantly. Honor can be represented by how a man refuses the seduction of another woman to be loyal and true to his wife, and yet honor can also be that of revenge, that is, to honor the death of the departed (in Jet Li's case, for instance). So this interplay of ideals and such is common in movies where wire fighting seems to be all the craze.
Unfortunately, again, people who just can't grasp wire fighting ("but that's fake!") will be too distracted to even see what I'm talking about.
But then again, let me put it in a pessimistic manner.
Why does Sarah, in the Labyrinth, have to get to the Goblin Castle in 13 hours? Why not 14, or even an entire day? In fact, what made Sarah so damn special, from all the other girls who want the Goblin King to take away her kid brother, that Jarreth HIMSELF just HAD to go visit her and her brother? While we're at it, please explain why the walls don't seem to have depth in the first part of the Labyrinth?
In short, it's fantasy, people. We don't have to have an explanation of why they can jump like 40 feet in the air. We don't need to explain why David Bowie has a huge boner in the Labyrinth while he's at his castle with his goblins. Unless, that is, you CAN explain why he does have that boner... but let's not go there.