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.

No one has abandoned the Wii

So, I've been hearing a lot of flack against the Wii lately for all sorts of random dumb things, but what has really surprised me is the stupid things actual game designers and companies have been saying. Recently I read a quote against the Wii from one of the co-founders of Dice, saying something along the lines of it being "a virus." His reasoning didn't make any sense but the gist of it was that didn't like the wii because he thought of it more as a toy and that gamers were becoming bored with it. Well, as far as gamers getting sick of crappy gimmicky mini-game filled games coming out for it, then yes gamers are bored of that. But as for gamers getting sick of the Wii, I think the sale numbers from New Super Mario Bros Wii will speak for itself. The way I see it, a lot of game industry people have been getting frustrated with their low sales on the Wii as compared to other consoles. This causes then begin making all sorts of dumb comments and making excuses. I even caught Sega bitching about the low sales of their crappy Wii games.

So, for all those who just can't seem to figure out why their game sales are low, let me explain.

You see, a company can make a sub-par game for the x-box 360 and the PS3 and it will get moderate sales. However, they will make a sub-par game for the Wii and get no sales. They brush this off by complaining that people have abandoned the Wii or are getting sick of the Wii, which is dumb. The real reason is that the Wii hardcore gamers are just picky as hell. I know this is true because I'm one of them.

This occurred to me the other day when I started to play Dante's Inferno on my roommates x-box360. I thought the game was ok, but not that good. He was baffled and couldn't figure out why. I then went on to explain all the things I didn't like about it, i.e. lame leveling up system, unoriginal game play, half assed level designs, etc. My roommate said he didn't mind any of those things and thought the game was great.
As a Wii owner, I tend to compare everything to Nintendo's line of games for the Wii and most games just aren't that good. This is the reason that a game can do good on the x-box or PS3, but not the Wii. Its not that Dante's Inferno is a horrible game, its just that compared to other games its not worth my time and money.

When it comes right down to it, its not that the hardcore have "abandoned" the Wii, its just that most of the industry doesn't make games as good as Nintendo. They can complain and bitch all they want, but it's the cold hard truth.

My advice to game companies is this: If you can't make a game as good or better than Nintendo, don't make it on the Wii. If your not up to the challenge of making a great game then make it on another system where people will shell out $60 for your half assed games.

7 Reasons why video games are better than movies

1. Sequels don't suck- Almost every movie sequel, with the exception of Terminator 2 and Aliens has sucked or at least hasn't been as good as the first. Video games hardly ever have this problem. Heck, legend of Zelda's franchise has been going strong since the late 80's and keep getting better. Even if you don't like the newer zeldas to the older you have to admit that at least video games have never had as bad a sequel as Transformers 2.

2. It's like books and movies put together- Let's face it, the melding of books and movies almost never works as well as it should. This is mostly because they are two completely different mediums. It's hard to represent something visually in a book and you can't make people read a lot of text in a movie no matter how well it's written. You can do both quite successfully in a video game, sometimes at the same time. Both good writing and a good visual narrative come together in video games, giving us the best of both worlds. You can have your cake and eat it too (unless the cake is a lie that is).

3. A much longer narrative - The length of movies have been pushed over the years but long movies, no matter how great the are, usually tend to become a drag when they hit the two and a half hour mark. Video games have exceeded this by leaps and bounds. Disregarding any replay most video games clock in at 10 hours. Heck, most RPGs are expected to take upwards of 20 hours. With the extra time, you have time for a more rich story and a better connection with the characters.

4. They fill the void of goriness - Lately, our movie have turned into big sissies. Even the goriest of movies these days pale in comparison to the slashers of the 80's. Fortunately, video games have come in to fill the void, pushing the boundaries of gore and violence. Earlier today, I used a drill to mulch up the face of a crazy, Tommy gun toting, drug addict. That's fantastic. Thank you video games.

5. Kids and adult media in one - With the exception of Disney/Pixar, most kids movies suck if your not a kid. This makes it hard for kids and adults to enjoy the same movie. This is far from the truth in video games. Heck, just mention mario kart and people of all ages will want to play. Not only that, but a lot of modern video games like mario galaxy and Little Big Planet can be appropriate for kids, but also have depth and complexity of game play that hardcore gamers want, perfectly connecting to two different audiences.

6. A better connection with the story - Many movies are good at sucking you in or "taking you away" to a different place, but even in the best situations you are still someone simply watching. You have no control over anything thats happened and in that way you will always be an outsider. With video games it's not just you sharing in the adventure, you are actually living it (sort of). Video games suck you in by not only taking you to another place but by making you the main character. The main characters choices are your choices and their triumphs are your triumphs. Like wise, their losses are yours also, and in this way video games surpass movies by giving you a deeper connection with the characters that just isn't possible in movies.

7. No Shia Lebeouf or Nicholas Cage - As far as I know, Shia and Nick have stayed the heck away from video games (save for recordings in their respectively awful movies made into game performances). Lets hope to God that it stays that way.