Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin: A Brother In Need

"For once, Ash decides to be helpful."


A new HAWP came out yesterday, but I was too busy finally finishing Folklore to post it. Now I can begin playing Fallout 3 which, according to my roommate and his seventeen hour marathon, will consume the majority of my time for the next few months. Yay college. Anyway, enjoy the video. It was not the funniest one I have seen by any means, but hey, it's Ash!

New Half-Blood Prince Trailer

Two posts in one day? Insane! Anyway, a friend of mine from deviantArt.com brought this to my attention a few minutes ago and I thought I would, in turn, bring it to your attention as well. Remember, the film is still set to release on July 17, 2009. Enjoy.

The First Dragon Ball Reviewer... Didn't Burst Into Flames?

Full version here, excerpt from Kotaku.com below:

" Positives

• Action - I wasn't expecting the action scenes to be as awesome as they were. Simply put the best thing about this movie. The last action scene of Goku vs. Picollo are simply amazing... This fight scene was around 13-15 minutes long. There are other small action scenes that are fun and entertaining with slo mo but nowhere as good as the picollo vs. goku scene.

• James Marsters as Picollo was awesome. He was perfect as picollo... Oh and Picollo transforms into a light greenish color picollo towards the end of the movie.

• Justin Chatwin as Goku. This guy surprised me a lot. I really didn't like him when they casted him as goku but he did a damn good job in the acting department and he nailed the KAMEHAMEHA line.

Negatives
• Story - Dragonball fans will be dissapointed with some of the changes they have made with stories and characters etc... High school setting for the first 22-23 minutes was so not needed but ah well typical hollywood garbage of adding bullshit like that.

• Chow Yun Fat as Master Roshi - I was dissapointed with this. I wanted the fucking perverted roshi who fucking grabs breasts and asses like in the anime but alas all of that is fucking gone. Also he acted like Mr. Kesuke Miyagi. You know what I mean. The lines he spoke were fine but I felt he was uncomfortable in the movie. Very dissapointed.

• Shenron the dragon - Ah another huge dissapointment... FUCK FUCK FUCK you fox. So ya they get all the dragonballs and the dragon appears but the dragon is hiding behind fucking clouds and you only see his shadow. The voice of the dragon was provided by none other than Christopher Sabat who provided the voice for the dragon in the american version of the anime. When the dragon spoke it was chilling but damnit it was hiding behind clouds. One can hope they will fix this but chances of that are very slim."

I know, right now you're probably as shocked by this as I am, but thankfully this fact can be rationally explained. Point the first: the reviewer is a complete amateur. From his overuse of expletives to his neglect of capitalization. (Though neither of those bothered me nearly as much as his replacement of "yeah" with "ya.") Second, he obviously has no idea what the actual Dragon Ball series was like because this movie is not related in anything outside of the names. Thirdly, he spelled "Piccolo" incorrectly, twice. Not to mention that he was pleased with the fact that he turns light green near the end of the movie from his newly albino vampire form. Lastly, he labeled Goku's ape form under the positive category even though he clearly states that Goku transforms into an "8-9 feet tall giant baboon." Correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn't Goku's ape form originally eight to nine stories tall? What, he barely doubles his considerably short size and he's a giant all of a sudden?

Bleh. For as excited as this guy is, I for one have not changed my prediction that this movie will be a disaster. The most I can hope for at this point is that the film will be laughably horrendous as opposed to painfully horrendous.

Free Games Anyone?

Newgrounds.com has always been a good place to go when you're bored in class, at home, or well anywhere. It has long been a safe haven for small time developers to put up their games and movies for the all time low price of not a penny. The downside with anyone being able to upload anything, however, is that you will of course stumble on to your fair share of complete garbage. Well if you're like me and are not interested in getting your hands dirty, here are two games that I have had quite a bit a fun with in the back of Dr. Kennedy's Intro to International Affairs lecture.

Here's a quick note though: Meat Boy is extremely difficult. I mean extremely. If you choose to play it in a public place, then be sure to keep a handle on that temper of yours. You know who you are.

Meat Boy

Hunted Forever

Hey Ash Whatcha Playin?

Yes, kindly say hello to my recent webisode addiction. Destructoid.com isn't a site that I frequent all too often, but as of late I have been going to the site almost hourly to watch their Hey Ash Whatcha Playin? video segments. The videos follow Features Editor Anthony Burch, his little sister Ashly, and their family and friends in crazy "adventures" of gaming, movie, and outright crude humor. You can go here and here to watch all of them as they seem to be the most organised lists. Hey, I know that you might not like them... but well, you should.

Oh, and the sibling duo have a facebook group now as well so join the community if you become a fan.

The Stalker

The Stalker

I creep, I peek.
I see the moments
No one is supposed to see.
I hear the cries
No one is supposed to hear.
I bear the rage
That threatens to consume you,
In silence.

Always in silence.

I sneak, I listen.
I notice the grimace
Hiding behind your smile.
I sift out the hurt
Masked by your laughter.
I observe the scared child
Within your adult shell
From afar.

From so very far away.

I creep, I peek,
I sneak, I listen,
And I love.

But you will never love
Me.

How terribly ironic.


Copyright © 2008 Jarred Lee

Who Loves You?

Sir Ben Kingsley, that's who. A recent post on everyone's favorite Hollywood gossip blog, the defamer, sported this picture of Kingsley looking nice and spiffy for his role in the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time film.

The sixty four year-old actor is set to play the film's antagonist, Nizam, and I must say that he seems to be enjoying it. Hopefully this won't turn into every other video game movie that has tried to make it big in the box office. I say this because I enjoyed, for the most part, the recent Prince of Persia trilogy and I already have the new Prince of Persia game, which is due out this December, pre-ordered from Gamestop. Though from what I've already seen of the film's main character, I fear that this will go the way of Super Mario Bros. Ah well, it's not like I didn't already know that Hollywood is trying to systematically destroy everything I've ever liked.

Artist Spotlight #2: Pesare

I know that it has been a while since my last artist spotlight, but Pesare, or Pete Revonkorpi in real life, has had my eye for quite some time now. His use of soft colors and fantastic themes really remind me of those old bedtime stories I used to read as a child. When I finish up with my current poetry series I would love to contact him about permission to use his art in a children's poetry series I am working on. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pieces from Pesare, but I encourage you to take a look at his full gallery.

Eagle Eye Impressions [Possible Spoilers]

It sure has been a while since I did a movie review. I had to go all the way back to the Dark Knight review I did back in July. Crazy.

Anyway, I'll begin by saying this: Eagle Eye was a pleasant surprise. Sure, people told me it was pretty good before I eventually went to see it. Sure, it topped the box office the week of its release (though it only made 29.1 million). I've never been one to judge purely on what I've been told so I went to see the film last weekend and I must say that I enjoyed it for the most part. Shia LaBeouf did an excellent job and he and Michelle Monaghan had great on screen chemistry. Hell, even Billy Bob Thornton played a great "grumpy" FBI agent. The action sequences in the film were also fairly intense so go ahead and throw that in the "plus" pile as well.

So yes, the acting and action sequences were great, but what kept the movie in its entirety from being just as great was its unbelievability. There were just too many times when I had to shake my head and say "no way." I know that it was just a movie, but I always judge believability in terms of a movie's sphere of logic to avoid being unfair. By the end I felt as though the writer's wrote against the antagonist of the film so drastically that it really broke the character's "personality." Also, the film as a whole felt way too much like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fugitive for me to be comfortable saying that it was any way original.

Eagle Eye was not a disappointment because I expected it to be a lot worse, but it still had some major flaws. I grant this film 3 stars out of 5 for having great acting and intense action, but also being too unbelievable and unoriginal.

Nintendo: Unleashed

My thanks to kotaku.com for the coverage of the event.

Pardon the cheesy title, but for all of you who have been following Nintendo's Fall Press Conference, it really shouldn't surprise you that I am quite excited. Nintendo decided to hold their own conference this year in light of the fact that they wouldn't be attending TGS next week. I couldn't really care less because what they revealed at the conference was about two to three steps past amazing. Aside from the huge number of games that would be coming to both the DS and the Wii in the upcoming year, Nintendo officially announced their new version of the DS, the DSi.



I know what you're thinking, "why do we need a new DS? I just bought my Lite!!" Well, the DSi will feature a built in camera, an internet browser, a DSiware "channel", an SD slot (which peaks my interest because I know this feature will be exploited in a matter of days), and two 17% larger screens (they are dropping the GBA slot) among other things. As of now, Nintendo has no plans of bringing the DSi to the states until later 2009 (whatever that means), but Japan is expected to get the new handheld November 1st. Yes, this upcoming November 1st. It's insane.

Also in big news, Nintendo has finally decided to grant us Americans access into their "rewards" program appropriately titled Club Nintendo. Yes, you'll finally be able to take all those cool Nintendo surveys, and register all of your awesome Nintendo products to collect points that will eventually net you "premium" items. All I can say to this announcement is that it is about damn time. Hell, South Africa got access before we did. South Africa.

Anyways, because Kotaku has been awesome enough to provide coverage of the event, I will provide you with links relating to everything I talked about and more. That's right, I am going to extreme lengths to link other sites to text on my own. Yeah, you're welcome.

*Note: The links with asterisks at the end are videos. You should really see them because a lot of the upcoming games look really cool. I only hope that all of them are bound for non-Japanese shores as well.

DSi News

• Nintendo Announces New DS: The Nintendo DSi
  
• First Look At New Nintendo DSi in Action************
• DSi To Hit Europe in Spring 2009
• Let's Compare the DS Lite and the DSi
• Could the DSi Encourage Piracy?
• DSi Not Bound For U.S. Until Well Into Next Year
• Get A Good, Close Look At The DSi
• Close Up With The DSi (Alright, Who's Buying?)
• More About DSi Camera, DSi Sound
  

General Nintendo And Wii News

• Save Wii Games Direct To SD Card
• Nintendo's New Wii Games
• Nintendo Re-Releasing Gamecube Games On Wii
• Club Nintendo Finally Coming Stateside
• Wii Speak Channel Coming Next Month
• Nintendo Promises Increased Wii and DS Supply For The Holidays
• Japan, This Is Your Wii Line Up***********