Retro Blog: F-Zero GX

For nostalgia's sake, I'd like to post about things from the past, generally 5 years or older. The first entry will be about F-Zero GX, a futuristic sequel to older titles such as F-Zero and F-Zero X for the SNES and N64.

Like any title, they are fastpaced racing games that are fun to play, especially F-Zero GX for me, which made me like the franchise more than say, Mario Kart, and unfortunately, we haven't seen a new title in years.

A rich cast of different characters with their respective cars await you inside this difficult game, giving us variety not only in likes and dislikes, but also in gameplay itself. I said difficult because Story Mode is especially a nightmare on harder difficulties and will guarantee let you retry for hundreds of times on certain chapters.

To accompany these characters, very specific songs embody their nature. It's one of the reasons that I really enjoyed playing this a lot with friends in the past. Not to mention the hidden video clips each of them have, sometimes to give us comedy, sometimes just for awesomeness.

The race courses of the game speak for themselves, at times you travel in a long tunnel with hazards, at other times you are going down several slopes and race on 3 very straightforward paths (your choice) in order to win. Like the rest of the game, the courses are varied and categorized into difficulty, and luckily there's plenty to pick from.

There is also a few customization options and gimmicks here and there (interviews come to mind) , but what F-Zero GX primarily is about is to enjoy the races. It doesn't have a random generating course like in F-Zero X but it certainly is a challenging game with lots of things to do if you have delved interest for it.

Sure, Nintendo is doing an excellent job with it's other franchises such as Kirby and Donkey Kong currently to bring them gloriously back with great games, and I know that Nintendo hasn't forgottten about F-Zero at all, but still, it doesn't hurt to say that I would like to see a new title once again, either for the Wii or even the 3DS.

To get to the point: where's mah sequel?

The Emerald Isle

Phew, what an active vacation i've just experienced! Just came back from Ireland, where I participated and observed Larry Tatum's Open International Kenpo Karate Championships. That's one name to call it, but we also call it an L.K.K.A. organisation. To be honest, this trip had it's ups and downs.

Let's just start from the beginning, with a large group of fourteen we went to this international tournament not just to show our techniques and forms, but to also enter seminars from Black Belt users and of course to enjoy some of Dublin, where we resided in the Green Isle Hotel. Our flight went well as well as transportation towards Schiphol and the hotel. After scouting out the area and packaging our stuff out, us seniors had our first seminar from the grand master himself, Larry Tatum. A bit unexpected, because from what I recall, other seminars were planned instead of this. However this was a unique moment to watch and listen to this legend for 2 hours.

On friday we basically had nothing to do regarding the tournament for the whole day except for the evening, so we went on a bus trip towards the centrum of Ireland's capital. Lucky for us it was the majority of the time a sunny day, unfortunately the bus trip itself was not good for the stomach for some of us including myself. Then we explored Dublin's spots and shops and we noticed the very expensive prize these people labeled onto their products. I guess Ireland really is in dire need of help.

After heading back to the hotel we experienced another seminar of Larry himself, however this time it only lasted for 30 minutes. After that, a 2 hour seminar of a certain Black Belt named Joseph would follow, going deeply into the subject "Gun disarm" or just basically weapon disarming. After hearing from the others that this was too tough to follow (and a good chance of hurting yourself) , most of us followed a private seminar by Kevin Mills instead, known for his Sublevel 4 lessons.

Saturday was the first big day for the juniors, and the amount of children present was so unexpected that instead of being finished around 13:00 PM, the tournament lasted late until 21:00 PM. Inbetween performing the things we exercised about generally speaking, both juniors and seniors in our group had to wait at least for an hour before we were able to go to the next division. So, while the juniors were participating, us seniors could only watch, support and record the things that were happening. Tiresome at some moments, I felt lazy.

That evening, some of us decided to eat in the hotel's restaurant. Well that sucked, I cannot describe it more precise than that. We had to wait for an hour after ordering our meals, but not before we witnessed that an individual and after that two others of our group managed to get their food before us, and one of them even had the same meal I ordered, all of that in a time span of 15 minutes. Turns out that the kitchen was very confused, the waiters did not communicate and both of them were slow moving. And by the way, the next day we went with the whole group this time, giving it another chance, but they foolishly served us our meals first while we clearly stated that we wanted to order drinks, very amateuristic.

So, on sunday the senior events happened, and that is when I did Long Form 2 in front of 3 referees including Romano, our own master, and my score was roughly a 7.6. I was content, but that's all I entered into for this year's tournament. Next time however, I will definitely try to enter more events including freestyling, which is a competitive form of fighting where you must gather points from your opponent to win. Also, our group managed to get 7 golden medals from various divisions, which is amazingly well done.

That evening, we had the traditional Brotherhood Dinner event, where everyone from every country would dine and dance together. Well, that was enjoyable, but what I only mentioned once up until now is that pretty much on every official day, there were massive delays. For example, we had to be gathered by 8 PM sharp for this event. We could finally enter the conference room at 21:15 PM. And at the beginning of the junior events, we had to all wait for an extra 30 minutes before the juniors were being called out to their destinations.

And then there is Patrick Kennedy himself, who by now has become a 10th degree Black Belt and also hosted this whole tournament on behalf of Larry Tatum. With all respect towards that degree achievement, everyone from our group noticed Pat's very, very stressful personality to control everything in the tournament, and that feeling already started at thursday evening.

I will only give out 2 examples of Pat's moments, but trust me, there were many more. First one happened during the senior events, where another Dutch group of Kenpo Karate fighters had a Self Defence performance for 3 referees (including yet again Romano) . There was only 1 attacker for the performance available though. After it was done, Pat interfered with it and said that according to the rules (I presume Irish rules) it is forbidden to only use 1 attacker and thus these two fighters were instantly disqualified. Which resulted into what you could call a cold chaotic moment of discussions and anger levels. The two Dutch fighters permanently left the tournament on their own, calling it a joke, while other Dutch fighters including from our own group could not believe what they just experienced.

Eventually, ALL of the other people in the tournament (not just limited to Dutch persons) were able to continue to do their performances that were different from the rule Pat mentioned: that it is necessary to use atleast 3 persons as attackers in Self Defence. Where as in the Netherlands that rule does not exist.

Second example is before we could enter the conference room to dine, Pat tried to talk to everyone in the reception room. After a second time, people were quieting down but small talk was still happening. And at the third time, Pat literally said that he would wait in the conference room itself for 5 minutes before returning in order for the people to start listening to him. Jesus, did that really happen? Yes it did. Really, thinking about it now, Pat kind of looks like Tourette Guy (YouTube that), just a coincidence heh, no offense.

Despite the low points of this trip, I had a very enjoyable time with my group, constantly laughing about many things, had fun with the tournament and it was exciting to see plus now I have also been to Ireland. Next year, Spain will be the location, but personally I still have to think if I will go to that one, since it is coming pretty fast in may already.

End of an Era

The original story known as the Saw franchise has now ended according to it's latest title, Saw 3D (2010). From the very beginning, back in 2004, after watching part 1 with intrigue and amazement, and after confirming that it's sequel was just as qualified as the original, I never could wait for another entry next year.

Indeed, the modus operandi behind the Saw franchise has always been the strongest point for me to watch them, besides the clever twists. And then of course, the brutally crafted traps from each part. After giving it some thought once upon a time, I always classified each Saw movie as thriller first, horror second.

Because the movies really are generally speaking about living out your life, overcoming the mistakes you have done and be reborn, through unspeakable horror of symbolising traps. Controversial decisions have been made by the serie's characters, but more onto that later. Now I know that the franchise is largely despised by many types of persons, such as veteran horror fans, critics who only look at the acting parts, sequel whiners as in "a trilogy is enough"(well done on the daring decision to continue the story beyond Saw III!) and the retarded ones that labeled this as "torture porn". That's like combining golf with porn in a random movie and call it a golf porn movie. Really's because that's what it's about apparently, EXCEPT there is no porn to be found in the Saw movies! No one jacks off to these traps. Reminds me of another moronic quote, ah yes, "Get a life", but enough about humanity's unstoppable word diseases that have been accepted into society.

But the movies never really lowered my interest for them, even if Saw V is the weakest one, they all have several or more connections towards each other, and because of that the whole plot was well thought out in most cases. And we have been through a lot actually, just try out a Saw marathon sometime, will you be able to keep up with the clues, the motivations for each character, the deadly victims and their traps and then be able to talk about plot holes? Sure, there are certainly plot holes, just look at the associated Saw forum boards on the internet, but imaginations do not limit ourselves towards thinking about the circumstances of each scene hmm? What I mean is that sometimes the writers would not be able to think about every alternate solution towards the situation, and I can see why.

Why? Because have you seen some of these traps? And what the human mind and Trial and Error bring to the table considering them? That's right, some of these characters were panicking so much, that is why they kept making mistakes even when they were being tested. Just to bring out an example, Bobby could had used his jeans to lessen the damage in his final test, but consider then that you were him himself, and you've just been through a twisted revival sequence, listening carefully each time to what Billy the doll had to say regarding instructions, and then you see your wife screaming in front of you, and the time keeps ticking. Yeah, consider that just for a moment.

The serie has seen plenty of interesting characters in my opinion. John Kramer, otherwise known as Jigsaw was of course the best character, especially when listening to him in Saw II, my personal favorite. And you know what? It was a good decision by the writers to diverse Jigsaw's accomplices so much from each other. Amanda was a short living one who messed up all of her own designed traps(if I remember clearly) and had even failed her own test in Saw III, Hoffman was on a personal ruthless crusade to judge everyone be it with Jigsaw's methods or by his own, murdering behaviour, in order to never get caught. I believe he really was ready to go on a massacre after killing Jill and already leaving a bloodbath behind in both Saw VI and 3D(by the way, I prefer to call it VII or 7), all because of his sister's death.

And then there is the one person shrouded the most in mystery after being one of the earliest survivors of Jigsaw. Dr.Gordon lives. The truth is out. And in his final scenes in Saw 3D, it is clear that Jigsaw's legacy will live, beyond the story, as he and his fellow "pig men" show us that the copycats won't die as long as the motivation for doing this madness exists. They will try to assimilate him and his ideals as precise as possible. He ends the story just in time, and we see flashbacks of confirmed theories that the doctor was in fact helping Jigsaw in medical courses all along.

The majority of people might have disliked this all, but I am sure that this era of torture will be missed, primarily because of it's storyline few have acknowledged to be so fascinating throughout the whole deal. It will never be a series for everyone however, knowing that we are dealing with an extreme bloody series with plenty of suspense, controversial moments, mind blowing twists, creepy dolls and a great story most of all. It is definitely, definitely my favorite horror series.

Hello Zepp. Goodbye Dr.Gordon.

Let's go criticize the game industry

This is actually an old blog of mine I wrote back at IGN.com, but because their new blog system fails by removing my old ones (lucky enough I backed them up), I decided to bring back some of those old blogs for a second time in here. Enjoy.

"We are currently in a spoiled game industry. Long time gamers can no longer catch that special feeling they have for their personal favorite video games from the past. Casual new entering gamers are enjoying a whole wide new world with games such as Brain Training and Wii Fit, socializing and interacting with them in an intelligent way. Game reviewers keep saying the same critic points for so many laughable video game attempts from game developers that their rivalry is starting to show. All the while MMORPG's and electronic tournaments are dominating on a global scale and single players are slowly being pushed back for multiplayer games...

But not every personal favorite video game has to be from the past. Make no mistake, that very special feeling can still be real during this period. It's just that as a child, your imagination and fascination were much larger than now, so it is quite hard to find one again. You will just have to use the right resources and your own opinion to discover a great game once again. As an example I admire the game Killer 7 for it's very large concept of risk involved. That game truly has a special meaning for me, as it is a grand show of original elements blended in with a great style which never bored me, instantly making Grasshopper Manufacture one of my favorite game developers these days. That only applies to me though, because Killer 7 is truly a love it or hate it game, because of the very unusual presentation.

The wave of new casual gamers is of course fantastic, growing the user base of the game industry to even larger amounts. Gaming is slowly starting to show the other side of the coin. One side is the close minded cult following, the other side is the mainstream of "blockbusting" games, concepts which are designed for the masses. Like Yin and Yang, a person can blend through both sides exchanging through his/her life. A critic point is that in this age, too many casual friendly video games are being made. But let's be honest with this, has there even been made too much before? I don't think so. So let it glide through our lives, and see what the future holds for us.

Game reviews are either intriguing written, or copy pasted shamelessly and with no motivation. I keep noticing myself that many gamers want to see their favorite classic game once again in this age, but then slapped with a different title. Many, many want to see another, or better said, the next Symphony of the Night or the next Ocarina of Time, if you know what I mean. I believe that too many are close minded about this. They do not accept Twilight Princess or Dawn of Sorrow as the next champion, instead, they feel that they are inferior, not giving the same satisfaction as their preceded ones.

Being a "victim" of this means that the game industry itself is also a "victim". People are greedy, that's for sure. They want more more more, almost perfect like games, and game developers are engulfed with stress to combat the question for more. A good example of hungering the gamers is the genre known as Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Personally I am definitely not a fan of it, to each his own, but this might be the best example I can give to keep having the MMORPG gamers satisfied. Developers keep updating with patches, offering new content and fixing up bugs to keep things running smooth in the massive server worlds. It definitely is a different way of playing each time something new is released.

Should such a spoiled gift such as that be made for every other game genre as well? I definitely do not think so, because then, the developers and perhaps also the gamers will constantly search for the perfect, balanced and fun game, which will never happen, as there are too many factors interfering. For some genres, such as the Fighter, I can see it happen. Tweaking Ryu's moves a bit in order to flow better with other street fighters, buffing up Chun Li's throw, little things like that. On second thought, popular competitive games could be even more great with patches. But not single player games. I strongly believe that single players should remain what they present, other than offering downloadable content. A remake of a single player game is an exception, but please developers, do not start patching up single player games, it might shatter someone's memories of that particular game for sure.

Which brings me to the criticize on the Game Industry. Right now, Hardcore gamers are sick of the average sequels, the many ripoffs, the pointless movie to game adaptions and the worthless crap I won't even mention. The game industry is definitely spammed full with these kind of games, which is sad to see. So what can we make out of all of this?

We are spoiled.

We have experienced so many different video games already, that it keeps getting harder and harder to find a true gem. We want more, we want originality, but most of all, we want to have good old fun. Innovation and originality are not the only things developers can use to make a game GotY material. With clever thinking, looking at the market, one can also use other "weapons", such as using a combination of genres, or reviving an old serie, which is the case for Mega Man 9.

Ironically, the concept of reviving something in the movie industry is completely screwed up at this moment, because of the fact that EVERY MOVIE gets remade these days. Everyone, except for newcomers notices this. But this is not the right blog to talk about that industry.

So in overall, I hope to see that the game industry will keep surprising us with it's potential to make true entertainment, despite having many negative games on sale. True entertainment means something different for everyone, but we can all relate to it."