Monday, June 21, 2010

The Epicenter of Shit


Pictured above: My thoughts after buying another can of Earthquake: high gravity lager.

All right, I’m long overdue to do a post on some of the horrible alcoholic beverages I’ve consumed. Any time an alcoholic beverage comes in a 24 oz. can, you’ve got to watch yourself. Then when the product is named after a natural disaster, you’ve really got to check yourself. Now, when you’ve got an alcoholic beverage that comes in a 24 oz. can, is named after a natural disaster, AND is 12% alcohol… what do you get? You get "Earthquake: high gravity lager," and maybe a little vomit in the back of your throat.

Remember Warheads? The candy? I know, I know, I sound like I’m on a tangent, but hang on. Remember what the challenge was? Try and keep all of the sour flavor in your mouth without swallowing it to endure the super sour flavor before you got to the sweet candy at the end. Well, I present to you the adult version. Earthquake: high gravity lager. Can you keep it on your tongue enduring the horrible flavor before you get to the sweet drunkenness at the end? Chances are that no, no you can’t… just slam it down quickly trying to avoid all flavor. If you don’t, you’re going to be in for a terrible experience. Let me take a sip and see if I can describe its atrocious taste.

Nope… I can’t. If horrible was a flavor, this would be it. This thing is so vile and disgusting, you can’t pin a particular flavor on it. “Just what does it taste like?” I hear you cry. My response would just simply be… an earthquake, and not just in the sense of the “high gravity lager.” I mean, an earthquake. It tastes like tragedy, despair, dead flesh, ruptured septic tanks, and lost hopes and dreams.

Well, the Earthquake has passed, and I’m in the re-building phase, but I can tell you without a doubt that these things ruin lives. I can now say that I've tasted what homelessness must taste like, and it isn't very appealing. I have a quick question… why do bros drink stuff like Coors Light? If they just had stuff like Earthquake, they could get a lot more drunk for a lot cheaper. Is it really just the notion that it’s “better to drink more?” Even if more is arguably less? Oh right... because they'd rather avoid the seismic shit that is an, "Earthquake." Did... did I just give bros credit for something? If that's not a testament to how much brain-killing power these things have, then I don't know what is.

If your taste buds and internal organs are feeling masochistic, and you've only got $1.50 to your name, Earthquake is the drink for you. If you're anyone else, I highly encourage you evacuate the area before the Earthquake wreaks havoc.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

In the absence of posts


I always say to myself that I'm going to start posting more, but then I never do. Well, this is an honest effort, so while I will still try to do well-thought-out posts, I may also try and do some smaller posts here and there to fill the void between posts.

I suppose I should be talking about all the E3 shenanigans that's been happening, but I don't have too many thoughts. The only one of the 3 press conferences I actually saw was Sony's and all I can say about that one is, "ugh." Very few games actually stood out as titles I would care about. Not to mention, one of the few titles that stood out was Sly Cooper... and even there, upon closer inspection, I believe it said Sly Cooper "compilation" or "collection" so that's probably not a new game. It's neat to see Twisted Metal resurface, but it also was looking pretty complicated. I'm not sure if that will add something or just over-complicate things, but I am keeping my eyes on that one.

Microsoft, I don't know anything about. I totally missed their press conference. As far as I can tell though, they didn't talk that much about actual titles either and focused on their motion-sensing gimmick.

Nintendo seemed to steal the show with titles, and actually showed a few that I'm optimistic for. Once again I missed their press conference, but since I actually own a Wii, I figured I'd check out some of the upcoming titles. More Metroid, and more Zelda. More of the things I love, which is cool, but the one that really caught me by surprise was Kirby. I'm actually very excited about Kirby. It looks to have some very interesting gameplay mechanics. Plus, it's bright and colorful, which is something that doesn't seem to be all that common in games today, and I'm a fan.

As I said, these are going to be shorter posts, and that's about all I've got for now. Look for more shorter posts in the near future, sure to be filled with random thoughts on games I'm playing or me whining about how new games aren't like old games. Hey, you never know, I could play something new one of these days, which better be in 3-D. I mean, it's the future, right?

Saturday, June 5, 2010

"Out of the cockpit and into... WAIT, NO! GET BACK IN THE COCKPIT!"

StarFox Adventures is a game I had no interest in playing when I was younger, and that fact is very confusing to me. I read game magazines (EGM, hell yeah!) so I knew it wasn't like StarFox on SNES or N64. I knew it was a Zelda clone, but I also loved Nintendo and its main franchises. Through the almighty powers of Wikipedia, I've deduced a possibility. If Wikipedia is to be believed, StarFox Adventures was released on September 23, 2002. At this point, Super Mario Sunshine had only been out for about a month, so I may have been aiming to get that instead or I had just gotten it so I'd have to wait for a bit before I got another new game. Not to mention, Animal Crossing was released on September 15, 2002, so I may have been more focused on getting that as well.

Well that's fine and all, but what about the actual game? Well, despite it being the third entry in the "StarFox" series, StarFox it ain't. In fact, it's so "not StarFox," that it originally wasn't even going to be a StarFox game. It would have been called, "Dinosaur Planet" and Fox McCloud wouldn't have been anywhere in sight. That certainly explains why the Arwing traveling stages feel so tacked on. Honestly, while they don't take much time, I think the game would have benefited from not having these sections at all. All they did for me was help clearly illustrate the overall mediocrity of the whole experience.

Like I said, it's a Zelda clone. Not surprisingly, it doesn't beat Zelda at its own game, but it isn't horrible either. I would complain about the massive amount of backtracking, but that's always been an issue for me with Rare games. Now hold on, before you start defending Rare to the death, I like Rare too. I still stand by the fact that Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, and Donkey Kong 64 all had tons of backtracking (though let me quickly clarify that those 3 games should not be grouped together, as Donkey Kong 64 is nowhere near as good as the other two). The dungeons in StarFox Adventures aren't bad, and some have decent puzzles. They're certainly the highlight of the game. The combat with regular enemies is flawed and usually just consists of mashing the A button. You have an evade and a guard, but neither seem to ever help you get past an enemy's defenses any better than just mashing the A button.

All in all what does it add up to? To be fair, the game is pretty good. The graphics aren't bad even by today's standards, which means that they're amazing for 2002. It's kind of odd to think that such an early Gamecube game would have some of the best graphics on the system, but it's true. The combat sucks, but the dungeons help make up for it. The backtracking is a serious nuisance, but I also took long breaks between sessions of the game which surely lead to confusion and getting lost, making backtracking that much more frustrating.

Before I wrap this up, though, I would like to mention that this game definitely reaches, "dangerously furry," on the furry scale. They really push the sex appeal of Krystal at the end of the game, so much so that when her theme kicked in, I honestly felt a little uncomfortable. It's a sultry, jazzy sax solo that when paired with Krystal's extremely sexual design, surely is responsible for at least a few prepubescent boys' ventures into furry fandom. Still, who am I to judge? I mean, I loved Sly Cooper (which as irony would have it, was released on the same day as StarFox Adventures).

In the end, StarFox Adventures is a decent game that falls just short of greatness and lands in the higher part of the realm of mediocrity. It was interesting to take Fox out of the Arwing, and it made for a decent game, but I much prefer his appearances on the SNES and N64. So please, Fox... listen to Guile and, "Just get in the plane!"