Endless Ocean

I've been playing Endless Ocean all weekend and I'm pretty much in love with it. Yea, the story is kind of cheesy and the graphics could be a little better, but hey, for what it's worth, it's a great package with a ton of stuff to do for only $30.
The big thing for me is the treasure hunting and fish discovery, but I'm just stoked over the new locations. Exploring a murky portion of the amazon then flying over to the Red Sea, followed by Antarctica is just awesome. Not to mention that you get to deck out not only your diver but your own personal island! Add in a ton of side quests, a bunch of achievements and this game is just what I need to get me through my stressful mid terms.

The untouchable 64

So, unless you really care about Super Mario or Nintendo, you probably won't care about what I'm about to say, but it's my blog and I'll write whatever I want to! Hoohah for free speech!!

So, anyways I was playing Super Mario Galaxy when my roommate came in and said "I wish they would make a sequel to Mario 64." To which I said, "Thats what Mario Galaxy is." He then said no, I want a mario game just like Mario 64, with paintings and flat levels." I said, "this is the same thing, your just on planets not flat levels and instead of paintings you just beam up to little universes." He still disagreed.

I then realized it wasn't so much the game he was in love with, it was just the memory of Mario 64. I've seen this happen with tons of Nintendo 64 games. For some reason people have it in their heads that they are just the best and there is no beating them. They see the new Mario Kart and say "this is good, but it's no Mario Kart 64" or they see a new Zelda game and go "well this is good, but it's no Ocarina of Time."

In this day and age of gaming the Nintendo 64 seems to have gained some legendary status between pop culture gaming and hardcore gaming. This ends up with most of the games seemingly untouchable. People never want to hear anything bad about mario 64 or Golden Eye because they have such fond memories of them.

Truth be told, I never had a Nintendo 64 till I got one at a thrift store a few years ago and I finally got to fully play through those old games. I played Super Mario Sunshine and Zelda: Wind Waker before I played through Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. While these old games are great and have quite prominent points in gaming history, I didn't have the fondness for them. As for Ocarina, I understand, since its quite possibly one of the best complete story ever told in video game history. As for mario 64, I'm still a little baffled. See, a game like Super Mario Galaxy is pretty much the same, only with better controls, better visuals and more levels. There isn't as much hidden materials but it's made up by sheer variety in level design. When I go back to Mario 64, the controls feel clunky and the camera seems to get stuck on everything. I can't tell you how many times I flung my little mario off cliff after cliff simply because of the combination of camera and control.

So, yes I understand that they are apart of gaming history, but I just want to state that that doesn't mean they should be untouchable. We should never forget them and never stop playing them, but we should also remember to never make them out to be something they aren't.

Top 5 Best Zombie Movies

I love Zombie movies and I thought I'd put together a short list of the best!










5. Zombie
-Italian director, Lucio Fulci originally made this film as a spiritual successor to George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." Many say that "Night of the Living Dead" is better, but I disagree. This opinion, however, is based mostly off the fact that there is a scene where a zombie fights an actual Tiger Shark under water, which is actually, pretty amazing when you think about it.









4. 28 Days Later
-Being more of a revival of zombie movies rather than a continuation, this movie came out of no where to blow everyone away with it's haunting film style and creepy music. To be perfectly honest, the monsters in this movie aren't exactly "zombies" since they never die, but rather they are a sort of sub-category that has become popular ever since called "The Infected." This explains how the "zombies" don't shuffle around but sprint, yelling and screaming like animals.












3. Evil Dead 2
-"Evil Dead 2" is pretty much the same movie as "Evil Dead" only much better and much crazier. This movie is just packed with bizarre moments, from the possessed dear head on the wall to the main character's chainsaw hand. It's become famous for being the movie that not only made B movie king Bruce Campbell famous, but it's the movie that truly made director Sam Rami career possible.











2. Dawn of the Dead
-Ten years after he created "Night of the Living Dead," George A. Romero made this genius follow up. An interesting fact about this movie is that it was a collaboration between both Romero and Italian film maker, Dario Argento (famous for directing "Susperia" and other psychological horror films). Romero directed and wrote, while Argento lent the movie Goblin, a band that he hired to make most of his film's music. Another interesting thing about "Dawn of the Dead" is how often you see it referenced in pop culture. For instance, the end song of the show Robot Chicken is a chicken clucking one of "Dawn of the Dead's" songs and the band Gorillaz has used tons of clips from the movie in their work, even using a piece of the film's music to open up their album Demon Days.









1. Dead Alive
-If you think you know director Peter Jackson simply because you've seen "Lord of the Rings" you've seen nothing. Before he became known for creating incredibly long epics, he was known for making some of the most raunchy and over the top gory movies of all time. Saying that "Dead Alive" is kind of gory is like saying the ocean is kind of wet. This movie is drenched in blood and the action scenes are truly insane. People get attacked by zombie intestines even! But what really makes this movie great is how incredibly original it is. There is nothing else like it and I highly recommend seeing it, just for the crazy trip.