Capcom: Dead Rising "Felt Too Japanese"

If the title is a little too ambiguous, which I can totally understand, here's the full article.

I gotta say I loved Dead Rising and been looking forward to the sequel, however the more I read about it the more I wonder how much of the original game is going to make it's way into this one. I'm not saying I want to simply replay the first one, but there were a lot of things going on that I enjoyed that I can see getting stripped out in an effort to 'Westernize' it; I'm afraid we're just going to end up with an attention-deficit-pseudo-action third person piece of junk with no personality when all is said and done.

Dead Rising had the ability to make people say "I hate this part" but still make them come back and play it. Personally I liked the save system and the survivor rescues because of the "realism" it put into the game, real decisions with real outcomes that effect the rest of the game; if you end up making a bad choice and have to start all over again, well that's how life is too sometimes. Having said that though I can understand the frustration people experienced over the survivors and single save, but the point is people kept coming back and playing it even if they did hate those parts.

I'm still not 100% sure what 'Westernizing" means, but I see it as removing all the RPG aspects that made the game frustrating AND addictive at the same time. I'm still looking forward to playing it, but not as much as I was before reading this article.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, I'd still like to know what happened to Frank West, that dude had some serious zombie killing skills when I was done with him, now I got start all over with some freakin' noob? What is it with development companies scrapping their established heroes? I still haven't gotten over Valve's choices in Left 4 Dead 2!

Kick Ass

With the movie coming out this week I recently had to make the choice on whether or not to read the comic or watch it first; I of course opted to read it first. In a word, decent.

In more than 'a' word, I thought it was a really decent read. I won't spoil anything, either read the book or watch the movie on the 16th, but if you've read the comic already you might be wondering if you should bother seeing the movie and, in another word, I would say yes.

I don't think there will be many major deviations from the comic, but that is exactly why I'm going to go see the movie, I want to know if they take the pivotal moment of the story and ruin the entire theme, AKA "Hollywood it", or if the leave the plot intact and deliver the intended message. Obviously I'm hoping they leave it intact, but I won't be holding my breath.

Also, being that the comic was a bit light on dialog I'm hoping to see some clever writing, some funny lines, a little quirkiness to round it out. Comics can make a very good movie platform and I could see this being very good or very bad, I don't see much room for middle ground on it.

Anyhoo, to wrap things up, I recommend reading the comic at the very least and I hope I can recommend the movie a week from now.

Overrated - Gerard Butler

I want to start this off that stating that I'm not just writing this because my wife has a Gerard Butler fixation .... hang on maybe I am because due to that fixation I find myself watching 3 times as many movies with Gerard Butler than I'd like.

To date I've had the misfortune of viewing:

• Law Abiding Citizen
• The Ugly Truth
• P.S. I Love You
• 300
• Beowulf & Grendel
• Timeline
• Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life
• Reign of Fire

Of which the only one I thought was worth my time was Reign of Fire ... yes Reign of Fire. Any movie that features Matthew McConaughey, getting swallowed whole during his heroic attack can't be all bad. All right, upon further consideration Beowulf & Grendel was pretty good if you can over look the complete lack of budget they must have had for makeup when putting together the trolls.

I don't Gerard Butler is horrible I just think he''s overrated and I am tired of seeing shit movie after shit movie get theater time because his name is tagged to it. Gerard has one role he's meant to play and that's an ass kicker, not a funny quirky romantic lead. Yes 300 blew chunks but it wasn't his fault that blame can only be placed on building a movie off a weak and I do mean weak Frank Miller graphic novel. I loved Sin City but 300 was boring in novel and movie form.

The worst of the movies listed had to be P.S. I love you. How is someones plan to torment their grieving wife with mysterious letters and notes for months or was it years after their death freaking romantic. My god let the woman move on. The Ugly Truth had to be a close 2nd, really it almost makes All About Steve look good.

Point is I propose we all boycott any romantic comedy Gerard makes and force the man to look to his strengths which is kick ass tough guy not miss understood male who seems like pig but is really a good guy.

Robs Guide on IMDb

So what the hell is the story with this site anyway? I mean on one hand I couldn't imagine living in a world without it, but, on the other hand, it has got to be the biggest pooling of outright douchebaggery bullshit that human civilization has ever perpetrated upon itself.

Let me tell you the uses of IMDB:

1. You see a movie name and are curious about it, you can look it up and see who's in it, get a plot synopsis and maybe find some interesting trivia about it.

2. You see chick in a movie or TV show you can look up said TV show/movie, find her name, plug it into Google Image search and see if she's ever done anything that involves nudity.

3. Look at the rating of a movie; if it's between 5-7 it's probably worth watching, anything above or below that point will generally be crap.

That's about it, really there's no other good use for the site. You wanna know why? I'm glad you asked.

First off, it's basically an open forum for any idiot who thinks they are a film critic to proselytize about why a movie sucks or shines because of artistic merit. 95% of people could care less about the artistic merit of a movie, and the 5% that do are usually involved in making them and don't care about what regular people think. Thus, the reviews are generally worth shit.

Second, the Message Boards should not be read by anyone who is not studying Anthropology and needs data on just how much modern man is like his ancient cave-dwelling ancestors. Seriously, go look at some of them, it amazes me some of these people can use keyboards, not to mention power on their computers (but then most of them are probably Mac users). You want an example? Check out this brilliant dialog on Reign of Fire. Seriously people, it's a MOVIE, a made up story that has or never will happen.

Finally, let me hit the rating system one last time. The numbers are generally badly skewed because on any given movie people only weigh in if they really love it or really hate it; if a movie is worth seeing other people will vote and shift the number forward or backward. This anything just over the 5 mark usually has strong detractors and strong supporters with a lot of people who kind of liked it. You can't count on the really high numbers to judge because people will vote high on some movies just because they think they should. Basically, there is so much conjecture involved that the rating system is more work than it's worth.

There are many other reasons, but really these are the important ones. Just remember to use the site as a reference tool and not an opinion former and try not to poke sticks at the monkeys on the message boards, although that can be fun from time to time too.

This Blogs God Like Power

I was composing a blog entry about how Gerard Butler movies are tormenting my existence but I'm afraid that needs to take a back seat because I just noticed the god like power I wield with this blog.

I while back I had a little literary fit over the fact that I couldn't get a Nexus One in Canada. Then less than two weeks later Google announces the Nexus One availability in Canada. I also ranted about the Kindle which then later became available in Canada. Yesterday I witnessed my blogging power once more.

A long time ago I vented on Coca Cola for having sexy glass bottles in their advertising and I couldn't get my coke in that bottle. Yesterday, I went to this newer lunch place downtown, The Great Panini, and looked in the freezer to see ... yes Coca Cola and Diet Coke in glass bottles! Not those stupid mini bottles coke sells as a gimmick but glass bottles like the ones you got your beverage in during the 80s. I've attached a picture as proof.

I probably should use this power of mine to rant for World Peace but Rob convinced me I should focus on boobies instead.