 | Video games, too! |
-GAMES-
I've played a lot of games between my last blog entry in March and now, so I'm just going to talk about my experience with the Wolfenstein franchise during that period. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I intentionally planned for The New Order to be submitted on May 6 and The Old Blood on May 13. Any guesses why? Well, Captain America Civil War's official US release date was on the 6th, so I thought it would be cute to drop The New Order on that day, because of the whole "WW2 soldier wakening in a different era" aspect. Then I realized May 13th was Doom's release date, and I tried getting that review out in time, as well. So, that's my amazing story. Erm... moving on.
I wanted to dive into The New Order for some time, but I didn't have much experience with the series, except maybe a very brief stint with Wolfenstein 3-D a few years back. So, I went to Steam and purchased the following two titles.
Wolfenstein 3-D: You want to know the true extent of my experience with this game? Well, when I picked this up again a few weeks back, I was surprised that the default movement is with the mouse. Stop laughing. Played a few levels and stopped, because I was curious how the next game played like. I intended to come back, but so far, that hasn't happened yet.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: I almost couldn't get this game to run, since apparently my operating system is way too new to run it properly. Thankfully, I found a solution in the game's Steam discussion page. My first impression of the game was that it legitimately felt like a FPS released in 2001. Remember first-person shooters during that time frame, and how they all had a "similar" playstyle and level design? Half-Life, Deus Ex, etc. That's not to say that's a bad thing, but that it definitely felt of its era. Well, I had fun. So much so, that I never returned to Wolfenstein 3-D, which I originally planned to do after playing a chapter or two of this game. But I went through the whole campaign and beat it, and according to my Steam stats, that took nine hours; surprised me, because it felt like I completed it in less time.
My biggest complaint with the game's campaign, though, is that it's very easy to get stuck, especially in one particular spot, because you don't have enough health and ammo on you. I actually had to replay two whole missions again just to stock up properly, and had two backup manual saves just in case. Remember when getting stuck in games was almost a normal occurrence? They don't make a whole lot of those anymore. xD
The New Order/The Old Blood (spoilers regarding chapter 13): I've already talked and poked through these games enough these last two weeks that discussing it more will just feel repetitive at this point. And if you haven't read them yet, here's the reviews for The New Order and The Old Blood. Now, in my The New Order review, I mentioned how chapter 13 is a scam of a stage. It takes place on the moon. It takes place on the moon and the devs managed to screw that up by placing you in generic corridors for the entire chapter. Great job. There's a moment where you actually get to go outside, but it literally lasts five minutes as you go to another segment of the lunar base. You only move a few feet, fight three drones, press a button to open a door, and you're back to typical corridors. What a waste of an opportunity. The Old Blood is a fun game.
I'm curious to try out Wolfenstein 2009, even though I've heard not so good things about that game. I saw a few things in a video that I would like to experience personally. But not now. I'm worn out on playing Wolfenstein titles for the time being.
-MOVIES/SHOWS-
The Harimaya Bridge: I came across this film because I was curious to see what Danny Glover has been up to over the past few years, and this was one of the movies that popped up on his filmography. Looked interesting, so I gave it a watch. I'll tell you right now that he's barely in the movie. Regardless, the movie was an interesting viewing, though on a very personal level between a small group of people, about one person's resentment for the Japanese and how he's forced to go to Japan to retrieve some things. If you were hoping for a movie about the wacky adventures of a foreigner in Japan, this ain't the film. Go watch Mr. Baseball. It also moves at a very glacial pace, and a lot of the film's revelations are pretty subtle, in a "blink and miss" type of way. It's noted as being the director's first full length film, so I guess that explains a lot of the movie's flaws and pacing issues. Still, it has a nice message, but it's easily not a movie everyone can sit through.
Skin Trade: I'm just mentioning this just to warn how sucky it is. It's an action movie about human trafficking starring Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa, and I first got interested in the movie when I saw a neat fight scene clip on YouTube. It also stars Michael Jai White, Ron Perlman, and Peter Weller, and at that point, I was like, "Well, damn, it can't possibly be bad." It is. The movie is just a bore to watch, takes too much time to set up the main plot, and a lot of the action scenes are, like, Direct-to-Video caliber. The worst part is, Tony Jaa is clearly not fluent enough in English, so a lot of his acting in the movie is pure cringe. If you want a movie where Dolph Lundgren is going on a killing spree to avenge his family's death, just watch The Punisher, and if you want Tony Jaa action, just watch anything else. This scene is the only worthwhile thing in the entire film. And yeah, it's a re-sound because the original scene had blah music and weak hit noises.
Other movies watched: Batman v Superman - Never Cry Wolf - To Sir, With Love - Buck and the Preacher - Captain America Civil War.
Zeta Gundam (spoilers): As previously mentioned (16), I almost gave up watching the remainder of the series. However, with the Gundam ZZ Blu-ray collections available, I figured I try giving it another look, maybe see if I could notice new things. It's as bumpy as I remembered it to be... There's just so many unnecessary things going on in this series, to the point where they put a damper on stuff that's actually good. The positives: I'm actually impressed the battles rarely get stale throughout its 50-episode run, especially since a lot of it boils down to "Two ships make contact, then send out their mobile suits in mortal combat."
Negatives: Zeta Gundam is a clusterfuck. It's an ensemble show that feels like it doesn't know how to be an ensemble show. Characters that shouldn't have constant focus get too much focus, characters seem to struggle with their ideologies way too much, characters seem to forget they even have ideologies, characters make proclamations only to nonchalantly drop them two episodes later, etc... Rookie pilots are HELLBENT on hijacking the limited stock of mobile suits just to prove their worth, when experienced pilots are strewn about the ship, THEN whine and cry about their failures and civilian casualties when they come back from battle. Then they do the exact same thing in subsequent episodes.
Characters that appear to get along fine during many an ending episode somehow end up bickering and moaning at the beginning of the NEXT episode. Char brings two children with him to space, commenting that he wants to be a father figure, but not even an episode later, he inexplicably abandons his role as caretaker when he goes to another ship. So Fa (Kamille's kinda-sorta girlfriend) ends up being their guardian for the rest of the show, and other crew members visibly and vocally get upset when she doesn't want to do it. Because I really don't damn know why. Reccoa has one of the most bizarre heel turns I've seen in a Gundam show. Katz's stupid boner literally gets him killed, and his death is the most well-deserved death in the show. For me, it's easily one of the greatest moments in the Gundam franchise.
Bringing back Four for two episodes was asinine. Rosemary is an insane waste of space, since she's introduced late in the series and those episodes could have been used for something better. Kamille seems like he hasn't learned anything at all, other than killing people and whining that he's killing people. Jerid even calls Kamille out on killing the most people in the show, which Kamille hilariously responds with, "I'm not a murderer!" Scirocco is a boring antagonist and his hair bun aggravates me to no end. His mobile suit is ugly to look at, too. Yazan's cool simply because he puts some of these characters out of their misery. Haman Karn's cool, I guess. Most of the time. When her abandonment issues don't get in the way. I'm just listing things because I can no longer explain this series' faults in coherent sentences...
I just can't relate to these stupid characters and their stupid ideologies that are actually non-ideologies. I guess that's why I ended up rooting for villains like Haman Karn and Yazan, because their goals actually make sense. The other characters just feel like they're bumbling through these 50 episodes simply, and I'm just guessing, based on how Tomino is feeling the day an episode is written or directed. I didn't think going through Zeta again would be one of the hardest revisits I ever had to do with a show. I watched the first dozen episodes at the beginning of March, then sat on it for about three weeks. Then I resumed at the end of March, then stopped again at the beginning of April, with only five episodes left to watch. Then I just sat on those final episodes for a month and a half... because I remembered how terrible those are.
Man, this was painful.
Turn A Gundam: I thought about watching this after completing Zeta Gundam, but I'm gonna hold on to it after I complete my eventual viewing of Gundam ZZ. The only reason this is listed here is because I picked up the first DVD collection when it lowered in price briefly. I got curious, though, and actually watched the first two episodes anyway. Based on those first two episodes, it seems very unique in comparison to a lot of the other Gundam shows, even the wacky ones.
Gundam X: Okay... so, let me explain. I was getting tired of waiting for RightStuf to break the street date release of Gundam ZZ, since that website seems to be notorious for doing that for a lot of releases, and just purchased the first DVD collection of Gundam X. Personally, I haven't seen this show since it originally aired back when I lived in Okinawa, Japan. I remember, even though I didn't know what people were saying, being intrigued by the show and tried to catch it every week. Then it vanished, and in its place were reruns of Gundam Wing. It wasn't until in recent years that I realized what happened: Gundam X bombed in the ratings, and was pushed into a graveyard time slot early in the morning in favor of the more-popular Gundam Wing.
So I got this purely for nostalgic reasons. I wanted to see if it was actually a good show, too. I've only sat through 9 episodes, and for some reason, it's been weirdly captivating. I wouldn't call it great, so don't go and watch this series based on what I'm saying... The show is filled with cliches and stereotypes in droves, but when it actually tries to treat these characters like human beings with flaws, it actually kinda-sorta feels engaging. I've also been taken aback by how many people have been blown away in these nine episodes. The main character has a Gundam that can unleash a devastating beam attack which needs to be charged and activated by, um, erm, the moon. And well, it's done its job so far with all these deaths. Dunno if I'll continue once I get my hands on Gundam ZZ.
Also of extra note: the DVD quality for Gundam X isn't great. Your eyes easily adjust once you start watching an episode, but it's still shocking to see the picture quality be... not so good. Like, are you trying to bomb this series again, Sunrise? Or did you neglect care for the master prints?
Here's hoping I won't add any more Gundam shows to my plate by the time I do another blog.
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joseph_valencia - May 20, 2016 (12:02 PM) Yeah, Katz was surprisingly unlikable in Zeta. ZZ actually does more justice to his death via a very dramatic scene with Hayato on the Argama. It also redeems Hayato after he became somewhat of an asshole in Zeta, I feel. It's really cool that you were living in Japan when Gundam X aired. It's actually a terrific show, though it would have benefited from the original 49 episode count. It gets real good toward the end, but then the ending gets kind of truncated. Still, knowing what happened behind the scenes, the writer did the best he could. At least it wasn't like Seed Destiny, where they dealt with production issues by leaning on clip shows. |
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dementedhut - May 20, 2016 (08:20 PM) I've never watched Seed Destiny myself, but I remember scanning a Gundam board when the show was originally airing in Japan, and would just read people's disdain and describing why it was so bad. I'm glad I bailed out during the first Seed. Surprised to hear high praise about Gundam X. Maybe I'll try watching it in conjunction with Gundam ZZ. |
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