SOPA. PIPA. ACTA.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement are recent lawful attempts to strike back hard against piracy mainly. I'd like to think that the 3 represent the virtual versions of the Axis powers, because there is much more involved than meets the eye here, namely the freedom of the internet.

While copyrights and trademarks remain the de facto argument against stopping piracy online, some of these profits obtained from these sources seem to have shifted from consuming the actual products at retail stores towards more recent ways of acquiring them, such as concerts, theaters and exhibitions over the recent years.

I have opposed as well as supported these illegal ways of getting these kinds of products in the past, and even now, especially during these changing times, I wonder what would be the right thing. Of course, getting the latest songs, movies, games, software and more through different ways other than purchasing is wonderful for yourself and your relatives, but at the same time, I definitely understand some of those companies' complaints. Money talks.

That's why there are proponents and opponents coming up with their issues and arguments. And although it's an expensive life to live out in the rich countries for the middle and lower classes, it's really tempting to lower the budgets as much as possible and scout the internet for free content.

Although I do not know the exact differences between these three proposing laws, they do have a mutual act of punishing suspected illegal websites, protect copyright holders and next to that, the U.S. property. They have the potential power to shut down whole sites, even as gigantic as YouTube or Facebook, simply because of users generating content, and then intentional or not linking towards infringements. I know it sounds crazy, but based of what I have seen and heard about, this seems to be the case.

To me, that drastic, extreme way of combating piracy and theft is a scary thought. Thankfully, at least the White House had something relieving to say: "Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the internet."

But right now, none of them have been effective so far. And discussions will continue on this huge topic. Let's hope that the proposers will adjust to these concerns of opposing people and that the collateral damage won't be severe.

Travel Locations

Not much talking this time around, pretty much only pictures will fill in this post instead. These are some of the places I would like to visit someday:

 

La Paz, Bolivia

Easter Island, Chile

 Tierra del Fuego, AKA Fireland

 Machu Picchu, Peru

 Heaven Lake, China/North Korea

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

 Potala Palace, Tibet

Kyoto, Japan

For me, they are all beautiful spots on Earth, and I hope to have visited and thoroughly seen them in my lifetime.

Resident Evil Revelations

The horror has truthfully returned.

My single wish has been granted by the gaming gods of Capcom(okay, that's overdoing it) while the gameplay of the recent main entries is intact and ported to mobile use. Resident Evil Revelations is the first major third party game to own for real on the Nintendo 3DS. Not a port, not a remake, NOT a quick cash-in.

It presents itself as a videogame first of all, but during the end of chapters, a reminder scene, akin to television series is shown to the player, explaining what happened before this new chapter as a synopsis. This is mainly used because it is convenient to play the game once in a while for small segments of gameplay, and effectively reminds us of it's portable status.

There are many new ideas being designed for this latest entry in the main series. For instance, a new subweapon called the B.O.W. Decoy is introduced to be akin to Left 4 Dead's similar weapon being put to use. You throw it, and the enemies will swarm around it like the mindless infected they are.

A new tool being used here is the Genesis, a radiant scanner that can locate hidden items, analyze monsters and a few other things. Metroid Prime's Scan Mode instantly came to mind. Weapon Boxes are also kind of new, as they allow weapons to be upgraded and their contents travel with each box found. Two old features basically got merged together.

Underwater gameplay is for the first time used, which is fitting considering the marine theme that Revelations is playing nicely. It's easy to manoeuvre around in those sections thankfully. Speaking of the controls, so far, I have used the Circle Pad Pro with great joy. It's almost like holding an Xbox 360 controller for me, except the 3DS is otherwise quite different.

The story features main characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine being accompanied by 4 new playable ones, but the most memorable of them happens to be Parker Luciani. It does not involve the Umbrella Corporation, and successfully creates a well done enigmatic interquel storyline featuring the early establishment of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, the international Federal Bioterrorism Commission, and the bioterrorist organization known as Il Veltro.

Veltro happens to have issued a raid onto the solar powered artificial aquapolis city called Terragrigia during the background, and the FBC is able to overcome the attack using a devastating satellite, killing off the B.O.W.'s, Veltro's unit and the city is destroyed. One year later however, Veltro seems to have survived and their leader, Jack Norman, demonstrates how their deadly new virus called T-Abyss, rapidly mutates fish in an aquarium, making them blood lusted, aggressive and empowered.

Ooze, the new regular enemies, are former humans who got affected by T-Abyss, and their body seems to have hardened up with a white pale skin, while their limbs and face are completely mutated in a grotesque manner. Simultaneously, any parasites being present in hosts mutate at the same time, allowing for accelerated metamorphoses to happen. Incidentally, T-Abyss seems to be the fastest and most aggressive marine based virus introduced into the virology of the series yet.

Interestingly, Revelations uses Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy(which I happen to have read) almost as a lexicon and it's a running theme for the mysterious events which are happening. Several enemies have been named after characters appearing in that old book, and the parts before a new segment of the story, which show us sentences from it, reflect a bit back on the current situation of the story of Revelations. Perhaps another read would reform my opinion about it, and perhaps my imagination must be boosted up in order to comprehend it better.

And you are wondering, does this deliver on the scare factor? And for that, I must say, yes indeed! Not only has Capcom used an excellent location of an abandoned, dark cruise ship as the general area, they have also returned Resident Evil to its roots of horror, with suspense moments, jump scares, hideous new enemies, creepy logs and some genuine effective scares, including an abonimation of a lumbering monster repeatedly reporting in "MaaayyyyyyyDAAAAAY" and a creepy, giggling freak.

Just when I thought the game was over, it continued to go on, which was exhilarating to experience. The length is roughly around the same as Code Veronica, and the main locations are the Mediterranian Sea and Finland. There is intensive music as well as immersive ambient music playing, and the voice acting is the same of what you can expect.

Raid Mode is the online co-operative unlockable that lets you play on many stages, using different characters and weapons. Basically, from what I have played so far, these are extra challenge stages for testing the player's skills. I cannot conclude on this yet, but it seems to be a cool bonus, and might rival the popular Mercenaries Mode.

Aside from some sloppy bad translation errors and a few slow downs(during some elevator rides, the shipwheel doors and whenever there are too many enemies or explosions) as well as the lip synchronization being sometimes just off, the franchise has successfully been put to great use on a portable, and while earlier attempts have been made(Gaiden and Deadly Silence), they do not compare, at all, to the execution this offers.

Resident Evil Revelations is one of the best in the huge franchise, third in place only below the classic RE Remake and the revolutionary Resident Evil 4. It allows for more interesting story events to emerge, handles very responsively with the controls the Circle Pad Pro provides, is scary, fun and a much more faithful survival horror than others of recent memory claim to be.

Rating: 8.8