Awesomer Than Thou

Game Review: Monster Bark

2012-01-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

Back when my family got its first computer, there were a few different games and other progams that came with it. (That was a thing, back then. Man, how times have changed.) My favorite was probably Star Crusader, mainly because I loved flying around in space, but there was another one that I played quite a bit, at least until the computer suffered from a serious bug and my unfortunate mother probably deleted it somehow. (That's still one of the strangest things a computer's ever done to or around me.) Anyway, said game, Chip's Challenge, was a puzzle game where you controlled a fairly helpless character in a top-down maze scenario in an arena full of monsters, obstacles and puzzle pieces that you had to avoid and solve.

Monster Bark is a fun game with a twist on that concept.

Now, having more than one controllable character isn't that new. What's fresh here is that each character has very distinct and unique abilities, at least compared to any puzzle games of this nature that I've played.

The dog can momentarily stun monsters by barking, is small enough to move through certain obstacles, and is able to move quickly enough to avoid most of them most of the time.

The tough kid can jump over obstacles and push blocks (which can be used to activate switches).

The scaredycat girl (if you read the title text, you saw me mention stereotypes) is quiet enough to avoid being noticed by sleeping monsters and can scream continuously and indefinitely to stun any monster (or activate a special kind of switch).

The heavy kid (sigh) can sit on switches to activate them or roll into a ball to smash a certain kind of non-movable block.

The nerdy kid (groan) is skinny enough to move through certain obstacles (which, incidentally, can't be crossed by the dog) and can also activate a certain kind of switch (which, incidentally, is represented by him handling a pair of broken wires-I don't think this game has good role models).

Anyway, you have to switch control of the kids and use their abilities in specific order to solve most of the puzzles; there's a few puzzles where you can bypass steps that you were clearly intended to take, though.

All in all, it's a refreshing (but short) game, and the ending movie is kind of cute. I can recommend playing it through at least once.

-Signing off.

But That's Not A Star Wars Term!

2012-01-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why the Koreans picked Darth Vader to advertise a product named the "Olleh LTE Warp," as there's nothing in Star Wars called that (unless they dubbed it funny in Korea), but I can't object to something that results in funny videos of Darth Vader and stormtroopers doing silly things.

Particularly amusing is the weird march the stormtroopers do through the airport.

But I think the funniest thing, intentionally or not, that these commercials bring across is the idea that Darth Vader is an invalid.

He is, you know-the man's in extremely poor health, and can only move because of all the mechanical bits. (Even if that weren't the case, it's not like that costume is comfortable either. I myself can't even drive while wearing a hood; imagine walking down the street with your field of vision that restricted.) So the fact that they depict him trying to make his way around regular life and having great difficulty is... well, it's actually a bit sad.

Well, maybe "sad" isn't the word.

No, definitely not the word. A bit sobering though.

Mostly. Not counting that one.

-Signing off.

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away, Chess Is Boring (and Buggy)

2012-01-26T21:30:00.003-05:00

Thus far, I haven't had a single post this week that didn't include either the "chess" or "Star Wars" tags. That's not changing today.

As should be evident, I like chess pretty well. I also like computer chess games (most of the time). And I like Star Wars.

So Star Wars chess ought to be awesome, right?

Not so much.

While the animations are pretty clever (if rather bizarre), the incredible, mind-numbing slowness of it all makes it painful to sit through. What's more, if you watch carefully, you can tell that the computer wouldn't let the player make legal moves. There's something wrong with the program, whether it's an interface issue or just bad programming.

Probably still better than Chess Titans, though.

-Signing off.

Random Absurdity

2012-01-25T21:30:00.000-05:00

I like absurd things; if you've been here for a while, you've probably figured that out.

Here's a cg animation of chess pieces dressed as Spartans and Persians as they appeared in "300." (Note that there are a few sprays of blood, but there's nothing too violent.)

And here is game footage from Age of Empires 2 where some cars drive around killing everything. Yes, some cars drive around killing everything.

And from some Age of Empires game, a cartoony trap.

Note that apparently, the trap took more resources to create than the war elephants did.

-Signing off.

Too Big Shogi

2012-01-24T21:30:00.001-05:00

The game of chess is played in many parts of the world, but it isn't truly an immutable constant. It's descended from a different game, and other games also descended from that one. The relative of chess that I find most intriguing is Japan's shogi, whose name means "general's game."

Unfortunately, shogi is a counter-intuitive game for a chess player; pieces generally have rather bizarre movesets rather than chess's hyperstandardized ones (chess's memorable simplified moves were arrived at after centuries of simplification), and it's difficult for someone who can't read Japanese characters to keep the pieces apart, as the pieces pretty much all look the same. Further, capturing and promoting work rather differently-when you capture a piece, while it is removed from the board, it becomes yours to "drop" or deploy back onto the board.

The real reason the game fascinates me is because of the numerous alternate rulesets that are known to exist. True to Japan's nature, they invented more different ways to play the game that were hideously and hilariously bizarre and complicated. The most notable variations on this idea are the "dai shogi" ("great" or "big" shogi) variants.

Of these, Wikipedia notes: "It is thought that the really huge games (dai shogi and up) were never really played to any significant extent and were devised merely so that the creators could have the fun of inventing enormous games, amazing their friends and confounding their enemies."

Let's look at a few of the rules on size for these games...

Dai dai shogi ("big, big" shogi): 17x17 board, 289 squares, 96 pieces per player, 64 piece types, and 68 move types. (The reason there are more movement types than piece types is because you promote a piece by flipping it over, and the promoted piece has its own often entirely new move type or moveset. Fortunately, many pieces promote into pieces virtually identical to other pieces, and many different pieces will promote into the same pieces.)

Tai shogi ("grand" shogi): 25x25 board, 625 squares, 177 pieces per player, 93 piece types, and 96 move types. (I have an old program that only runs on pre-2000 versions of Windows that will run shogi variants up to tai shogi. In fact, I was able to find a YouTube video of someone playing tai shogi with the same or a similar program. It looks... byzantine-if you pay attention towards the middle, each side seems to set up huge lines and advance in waves, in a way that, if you're familiar with chess, looks impossible.)

Taikyoku shogi ("ultimate" shogi): 36x36 board, 1,296 squares, 402 pieces per player, 209 piece types, and 253 move types.

Here's a diagram of taikyoku shogi's piece setup (lifted from Wikipedia). (You can also find pictures of the setup here.)

After a brief calculation, a board for taikyoku shogi with 1.5" squares (there's no information on how big a shogi board's squares traditionally are, so I checked a chess board I dug up) would be four and a half feet to a side.

Yeah, I don't think that would be too practical. (For that matter, tai shogi is slightly too big for my old computer's monitor, and I have to tweak the heck out of it to see the whole board.) I suppose it's just as well nobody's really sure how to actually play taikyoku shogi. (That is to say, nobody knows absolutely for sure what all the rules are.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #29

2012-01-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

281. Esh-kha. From what I gather from their page, the Esh-kha are a really nasty bunch who, at a population of just 100,000 or so, gave nasty fights to the Old Republic and Sith Empire of about 4,000 years before the movies. And they had been trapped in stasis for 20,000 years or so before that, by an empire that had existed even longer ago. How and why? Apparently, they had caused some general nastiness for that old empire by destroying a bunch of their slave worlds or something, and after the war between the Esh-kha and said empire (which was called the "Infinite Empire"), only 100,000 of them were left.

Rating: 3/5. This sort of thing really indicates the scale of the Star Wars galaxy-it's got a long history.

282. Esoomians. Esoomians are big (nine feet tall) guys who are rather cartoonishly topheavy and have rather interesting facial construction. Supposedly, they're simple-minded and garble their sentences.

Rating: 3/5. Mainly because they're rather cool to look at.

283. Etti. The Etti are almost human, except that they're described as having pale blue skin.

The most notable Etti was a half-Etti (and half human) Imperial officer who was so racist against nonhumans that even other humanocentric people thought he was an extremist.

Rating: 2/5. I don't really like humanlike races so much, but that's enough of an interesting piece (not to mention commentary on some real life bigotry) that this group at least sort of has their place.

284. Euceron. They're described as humanoid, with large domed heads and "delicate" limbs, and as dressing plainly "as if to offset their colorful buildings." They hosted the Galactic Games (i.e. the space Olympics) on their world shortly before the Clone Wars.

Rating: 2/5. Eh, kind of boring, but at least it adds something: The Star Wars galaxy has space Olympics.

285. Evocii. The Evocii were the natives of a planet named Evocar, which would later be called Nal Hutta.

In case you can't guess, the Hutts, whose homeworld died at some point, kicked them off in order to take it for themselves. (Incidentally, the fact that the Hutts survived the death of their homeworld caused the Hutts to believe they were gods, which might be why they're so nasty.) The Evocii were believed by many to be extinct in the present, but they weren't... at least until the Yuuzhan Vong showed up.

Rating: 3/5. Blipping Yuuzhan Vong.

286. Ewoks. The Ewok article on Wookieepedia is incredibly extensive, and for good reason: The Ewoks have a lot of material.

All I really have to say on them is that Michael Wong, who runs a fansite largely dedicated to measuring the effectiveness of science fiction military organizations against each other and real military organizations, thought that the Ewoks' performance against the Galactic Empire was perfectly realistic, and I mostly agree. Have you seen the sort of thing Ewoks have to deal with on a regular basis?

Rating: 5/5. Don't forget: If nothing else, the Ewoks will happily eat you.

287. Exargans. Exargans or Excargans are natives of Excarga, and apparently you can't tell whether a child is male or female until it's about thirteen.

Rating: 2/5. The profile notes that Boba Fett met an orphaned Exargan once. All I have to say is that I would feel particularly sorry for an orphan who's a member of a species which would need to have a version of "the talk" that would be that different from the norm.

288. Exodeenians. Exodeenians have six arms, six legs, and six sets of teeth. They also throw six-armed punches.

Rating: 3/5, merely because excessive sixes are kind of funny in this context. It's like guys with four arms and four eyes.

289. Extorin. The Extorin tried to take over their sector. But they didn't because the Jedi stopped them.

Rating: 1/5. Meh, whatever.

290. Fairfolk. The Fairfolk are some kind of psychic ghost Jawa-cloaked things.

That is all you need to know.

Rating: 4/5. Psychic ghosts wearing Jawa cloaks are pretty awesome, even if they apparently only showed up in a 3D story or something and thus have only funky art of them. They also had some kind of thing where they were being used by Darth Vader to try to mind control Luke, which is kind of amusing.

Holy cheese, next time will be #30, and the 300th entry! (Which, from the looks of things, will be something totally stupid! Yaaaayyy.)

-Signing off.

Mob Violence, Korean Movie Style

2012-01-20T22:00:00.002-05:00

I saw this over on another blog, and I thought it was funny enough to post.

(It looks better on YouTube itself, since it's so darned huge.)

I think the funniest things about this are that 1) the movie seems to offer basically no explanation as to why these hockey, baseball, bicycling, and street dancing teams (and whatever) are trying to beat that guy to death, and 2) you can tell he thinks it's pretty ridiculous.

And of course, it's also pretty funny when all of them are showing up and surrounding him.

Korean films seem like they've taken steps forward in the last decade, which is hardly a bad thing, but if they stop making movies with stuff like this, it'll be sad.

-Signing off.

Yes, I've Been Looking at Digimon Stuff Again

2012-01-19T21:30:00.000-05:00

So sue me, but I like it.

In the Xros ("cross") Wars anime, which might possibly be translated as "Fusion Battles," although it's a series I have a hard time believing would be good for the American market (it's certainly a kid's series in many regards, but also has pretty hardcore violence and incredibly over the top fanservice), there's a scene where several characters are trapped inside "Prison Land," a place where souls are sent by the villains. (Bare minimum amount of story necessary to understand it.) One of the villains who is there with them is "Apollomon Whispered," an evil personality who overwrote the mind of a good guy, Apollomon.

When Whispered's confidence is driven down by his failure to defeat his enemies, Apollomon's soul comes bursting out of him and blows him up. But before the actual fighting comes this terrific exchange:

(Obviously, the dark one is Whispered.)

(Get ready...)

(In case you can't read these for some reason: Whispered says "It can't be," and Apollomon replies "This is the world of souls. There's nothing strange about this.") And that is the best thing about Xros Wars that isn't spoilery story stuff or visually driven.

-Signing off.

IT'SA ME... MARIO!

2012-01-18T21:30:00.001-05:00

(In case you haven't seen it elsewhere already today [I find this unlikely], did you know that the SOPA/PIPA legislation is bad? I've read that in Greek, "sopa" means "don't talk," and I'm not even going to print what "pipa" means in slang in Greek.

This blog couldn't exist if that legislation passed. It's not that big a deal for me on most levels, but this has always been a nice place to share random things I've found. Sharing random things you've found could be illegal under some of this legislation [depending on content]. Seriously.)

Funny, I thought I had posted this before.

The best parts are easily the sudden cutoff when he falls in the pit (and the lost life theme plays) and the part where he's invulnerable ("Now I'ma toucha you anda you die, 'cuz I'm INVEEENCIBLE!")

-Signing off.

This Shouldn't Work...

2012-01-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

...but it does.

A while ago, I discovered the Gurren Lagann Parallel Works, a series of what are essentially music videos, which were created to promote the Gurren Lagann movies.

The best of these, and the only one with canonical content to the series or movies, is Parallel Works 8, which is proof that anime is art, as far as I'm concerned.

(I seriously could watch this thirty or forty times a day and be happy.)

What the title of this post is referring to is that there's another song, "Just Like You Imagined" by Nine Inch Nails (which is known for being the song from one of the 300 trailers) which fits the video so well with no editing whatsoever that it's uncanny.

I seriously get chills watching that.

What's even better: Look for any big pounding soundtrack type music, and it'll probably fit too. (I've been checking. I'm very creative at wasting time.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #28

2012-01-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

271. Enzeen. There's a planet named D'vouran which eats people. The Enzeen wear amulets that contained force field generators which prevented D'vouran from eating them, and also protected them from blasters; this is because they have formed a symbiotic relationship with D'vouran, wherein they draw in tourists and discourage them from leaving in exchange for feeding on D'vouran through disturbingly long tongues. (It's possible they went extinct when D'vouran went berserk after one of their amulets fell into its core; the parties visiting the planet who had learned it ate people thought that D'vouran had imploded, but it had just traveled through hyperspace to some other location, where someone "discovered" it as a "new" planet.)

Rating: 4/5. They're fleas living on a planet that eats people. That's pretty entertaining.

272. Eodons. Eodons are talking elephants that live on Endor. Apparently, they frequently had their tusks stolen without being killed, and in an episode of the Ewoks cartoon, one came and asked the Ewoks for its tusks back.

Rating: 3/5, mainly because that's a somewhat grim piece of comedy with real-world context, but it's still funny.

273. Epicanthix. Uh... They're "near-humans" who can be told apart by being played by Asian actors, or something.

Rating: 0/5. No no no. Bad. BAAAD. (Incidentally, the actual actor who played one doesn't actually have any obvious ethnic features, but "epicanthic fold" is the feature on an Asian person's face that gives the "slant eyed" look which is so often seen as the most identifying ethnic trait of the region, so I can't let it stand.)

274. Equani. The Equani went extinct gradually after their homeworld was depopulated by a solar event caused by a Galactic Republic superweapon test during the Clone Wars. They were furry, had empathic abilities, and were tall bipeds. One served as a psychologist/therapist in a Republic medical facility during the Clone Wars, and was a double agent for (apparently) both the Confederacy and the criminal organization Black Sun.

Rating: 3/5. I'm pretty sure they were implied pacifists, more or less, but the fact that one was a spy was interesting. The fact that they died out slowly after the extinction of most of them also gets a pity point for them.

275. Equat. Known to be epic poets. Poets of epics, presumably, and not the other meaning of epic.

Rating: 2/5. Wouldn't it be weird to only know epic poetry and other art forms as created by other species?

276. Er'Kits. Er'Kits... are mostly background characters from all over the place. (An Er'Kit senator was arrested for involvement in a slaving ring, and an Er'Kit was a podracer.)

Rating: 3/5. There's nothing exciting about them, but we know they're not a one-note society by virtue of having seen members of the species in very different walks of life.

277. Er'stacians. For some reason, these ugly blotchy purple guys get an entire subcategory to themselves. Apparently, they vary a lot in appearance depending on clan, although they're all still ugly and purple. There's a lot of information on them comparitively.

Rating: 3/5. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt; they aren't really a standout or anything, but they seem to have a lot of information and internal variation, so they get one more point than my automatic inclination. Just don't ask me to look at their page too long.

278. Ereesi. The Ereesi were at one time slavers who harassed the Argazdans. It'd be unkind to call it poetic justice.

Rating: 2/5, if only for the weird detail that slavers were bothering former slavers who had a special reputation as former slavers.

279. Ergesh. The Ergesh are described as "one of the few sapient species that evolved from plant based organisms on their homeworld." Parse that sentence carefully and tell me what you think of it.

Anyway, they're essentially shambling mounds of vinelike slimy tentacles, and can live to 200 and weigh over half a ton. And they wear belt things with pouches to carry their possessions.

This is awesome.

Rating: 5/5. The Ergesh are great.

280. Ermi. The Ermi apparently are extinct. According to a play written by a Hutt playwright (heck yes), Xim the Despot, who lived over 25,000 years before the era of the movies, wiped them all out and justified himself by saying they were slavers.

Their planet may possibly still be inhabited, however.

Rating: 3/5. This kind of confluence of cultural details amuses me greatly. A Hutt playwright? References to Xim the Despot? A play that exists in the Star Wars galaxy?

Kind of funny that there are two sparse articles related to slavers in this lot...

-Signing off.

Do These Remind You of Anything?

2012-01-13T21:45:00.001-05:00

I was looking for images of a Digimon named Susanoomon because I was curious (back when I watched Digimon, the season Susanoomon was from aired in a weird time slot on a channel that rarely came in). And then I found an image (source) which reminded me of something I'd seen somewhere else.

I'm pretty sure that both these things were inspired by a common source, probably something like Gundam. (It's been around long enough...) It's fairly unlikely that the Transformers example (Primus the Transformer god/planet wielding a starship called the Ark as a cannon) was inspired by the other (Susanoomon the Digimon super fusion god wielding its ZERO-ARMS: Orochi as a cannon), but possible. (Both are loosely based visually on Brahma [specifically, drawing from those big rings behind him in the bas relief, adaptations of which show up a lot in anime] and Susanoomon's name comes from Susano-o.)

The fact that I reacted with this blog post just goes to show that I'm a huge nerd.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #27

2012-01-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

261. Elders. The Elders of Naboo made the suspiciously Buddhism-inspired statues that were in the swamps in Episode I. They drove the Gungans under the sea about 7,000 years ago, and then were driven offworld by the Gungans about 5,000 years ago.

Incidentally, this means the Naboo are fairly recent settlers, and probably also means that the Gungans learned to like being underwater better.

Rating: 2/5. Pretty minor and incidental, but they add a bit to the universe. Not much, though-where did they go?

262. Elom. The Elom of Elom are subterranean mole people, and hecka ugly. This caused the Elomin, who inhabit the same world, to freak out when they met them as a result of a mining accident. However, the Elomin would eventually decide they liked them after all, since the Elom were quite helpful to them when the Empire invaded.

Awww.

Less pleasantly, the Elom are naive and have an unfortunate tendency to get duped into criminal undertakings.

Rating: 3/5. It's simple overall, but they work.

263. Elomin. The Elomin (yes, it's the same Elomin) may be related to the Zabrak, i.e. the species that Darth Maul is from. They weren't very nice to the Elom, presenting them to outsiders as animals and using them as slaves. The Empire wanted the lommite (seriously) on the planet, and decided to just take it; as noted above, the Elom helped them not all get enslaved by the Empire. After the Empire, the two societies started getting along a lot better and started integration.

Rating: 2/5. It's inevitable that the jerks get rated lower, but at least they cleaned up their act.

264. Em'liy. I'm having a lot of trouble not reading that as "Em'ily." Which is annoying.

Anyway, they're scaly-ish noseless human-like beings, who supposedly average a bit bigger than the human average, and after they had a bad time with the Empire, they became nomadic everywhere they live, both on and off their homeworld. Presumably, their breaking had to do with them having been proud warriors.

Rating: 3/5. Partly, I like the concept: They're Proud Warrior Race Guys, but they're in a really hard spot, and so they aren't quite so proud anymore. This appeals to me for some reason, perhaps only because the Proud Warrior Race Guy usually refuses to change and just dies en masse instead when the conqueror comes, or holds out forever. This feels more real.

265. Ementes. The Emente have six eyes and eat only fruit. They apparently have trouble with this, because members of other species can be jerks and put things other than fruit in their food, so they tend to frequent restaurants where they can see into the kitchens.

Rating: 3/5. They haven't got much, but what they do have is interesting. Of course, they also sound like the worst customers in the world...

266. Emmerians. Emmerians are described as a stout race from Emmer who evolved from humans.

Rating: 2/5. I gave them a little extra because there aren't any stupid details like "evolving in thousands of years" and it's unambiguous-they are "humans," more or less, not the nebulous "humanoid" or the not much less so "near-humans." That's the only reason I didn't give them a flat 1/5.

267. Energy vampires. The page picture is a hot purple-skinned chick (albeit in a very cartoony style). The best part, however, is that their description is very similar to the Transformers energy vampires from G1. This is incredibly funny.

Rating: 3/5 for the laughs. However, they make less sense in Star Wars than they did as giant robot vampires.

268. Ensos. The Ensos are near-humans who are at home in extremely cold environments. Thus, on planets like Tatooine, they wear extreme protective gear (the hilariously named coolth suits).

Guys, if you can't stand the desert heat, stay off of Tatooine.

Rating: 2/5, just for letting me type "coolth suits." It's also kind of funny that the article says they resemble humans, and then lists off a dozen features that humans know humans have and would assume of someone who "resembled" humans (such as-get ready for it-two sexes).

269. Entymals. Entymals are insectoids who possess great strength and piloting skills, and also have an ant-based hive society. (Strictly speaking, they're more of a strange-alienoid species with minor insect features, although I'll give them that they look very cool.) They can glide and also can walk on their hind legs or on all fours.

They also find the concept of romance to be peculiar and even repulsive, thanks to the fact that their males die shortly after mating.

Rating: 4/5. Good and solid society, a decent list of physical features and abilities, and they look cool. Just barely short of a 5.

270. Enu. They are the near-humans from Deylerax.

Rating: 1/5. The only cool thing is their planet's name. Otherwise... *yawn*

Although their planet was infested by stone mites, which look suspiciously like they belong in a video game...

-Signing off.

The Better Mousetrap

2012-01-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

Recently, my dad has been crowing about a new mousetrap that he got, which apparently works much better than the old-fashioned kind. I didn't know much about it, but then I saw a new one sitting on the table. (Clearly, he was pleased enough to be a repeat customer.)

It wasn't this one, but it was pretty similar. (Dad's is more rectangular.)

(Picture obtained from Wikipedia, where it said that it was a public domain image. Feel free to steal. Not that I mind anybody taking any of the images I put up.) My immediate thought was that this kind of trap (a "mouth trap") is just one step away from being a mouser robot from TMNT.

That step, admittedly, would be a pretty big hurdle-legs are hard.

Still, it was a rather unsettling realization, even after reading that "mouth traps" don't actually have as much force as other traps.

-Signing off.

G(h)o(st) Busters

2012-01-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

In a hurry (forgot what my schedule for today was), so here's a little something from the upcoming Super Sentai for this year:

Yes, they're actually a "Ghost Buster" team, at least according to nearly everything I've read about them. Seriously.

-Signing off.

Those Martian Guys From Sesame Street?

2012-01-09T21:30:00.001-05:00

They're still awesome.

Incidentally, shame on whoever hacked the Sesame Street YouTube account and made them feel they needed to put up the "safe environment" statement on all their videos. Don't be such a broody joy-hating teenager, whoever you are.

-Signing off.

Ash Ketchum, Eat Your Heart Out

2012-01-06T23:30:00.003-05:00

My mother frequently picks up children's books (traditional books, Western comics, and manga) for my little brother at the local library. Whenever these books happen to be manga, I skim over them because 1) supposed "kids' manga" is often more violent than one might think, and 2) sometimes, "kids' manga" is really great.

This is a little bit of both of those things.

Bakegyamon (Backwards Game) is a manga whose history I know little about. All I know is that I've read most of the 52 chapters. It's a complete little weekly manga. It's mostly pretty silly, especially towards the beginning, but it really picks up in the last two volumes. (I read it in a five volume format; apparently the local library missed volume 3, but I don't care.)

NOTE: Spoilers abound, although I don't think I'll spoil anything I can avoid.

Like many modern "kiddie" anime/manga, Bakegyamon heavily features monsters in the story. Predictably, its protagonist is a kid wearing a black shirt, jeans, an open vest, and a backwards cap, i.e. just like the Pokèmon kid. Whereas Ash Ketchum is an obnoxious little guy who endorses a fancier version of cockfighting, though, this kid, Sanshiro Tamon, didn't accept the status quo: When he learned that the monsters were people too, and had been enslaved for the purposes of this game, he decided that he would use the game's tournament prize, one unrestricted wish, to free them.

However, a previous winner of the game, whose wish was that the game would go on forever (sort of), learning of his plans, decided to eliminate him from the competition by sealing him into one of the cards that the monsters are (predictably) bound up in. There's a game rule that only monsters can be summoned from the cards, so he's trapped forever.

Unless the being who holds the tournament and grants the wishes, and who has despairingly watched it spiral out of control, turns him into a monster.

The problem is that being turned into a monster will probably kill him.

But, even presented with the opportunity to live in a dream world where it will be basically lucid dreaming forever instead, he'd rather risk his life than sit by.

And so, he gets accidentally summoned by one of his friends who's trying to defend herself from the villain.

Some manga artists can and will draw the heck out of anything. This guy is clearly one of them.

Anyway, since he's now a big... thing, the mere fact of his being summoned blocked the villain's last attack.

The villain, annoyed, states that even though he must now be a monster, there's no way a runty monster like himself will stand a chance against his enhanced high-class monsters.

But...

I've read that this will be made into an anime. If this doesn't get a "FALCON PUNCH" meme video, there is no justice.

Predictably, Sanshiro's gigantic fist sends off the villain's monster on the Team Rocket express.

Then Sanshiro's arm falls off.

Yes, his arm falls off. The stress of using his monster powers so soon after being transformed is making his body fall apart, and his arm just snaps right off. (It's depicted like shattering clay, so it's not gory, but it is hardcore.)

What does Sanshiro do next? Keep in mind, this kid is eleven, and his arm just fell off. Most people, much less most kids, would be screaming or passing out at this point.

Well... (Note that it reads right to left, if you're not a regular manga reader.)

Then the villain sends in another monster to attack again. What's Sanshiro's response? (Once again, right to left.)

He does it again.

When the villain sends in a third monster, his response is to grow a new arm and do it again.

He's basically the best kid character since Daiya from Gaiking. (Actually, this manga originally ran just a couple of years after that Gaiking series aired. Hm.)

And I'm not sure that was actually the most batman thing that Sanshiro did. (If you want to know what else you did, go ahead and read it yourself. Going through the somewhat less interesting earlier chapters to get to this one is worth it.

And if you don't know why I use the word batman like that, there's an explanation here. The actual why is because I don't swear except by accident.)

-Signing off.

Dude, Where's My Robot Manservant?

2012-01-05T21:30:00.001-05:00

It's just as well that the retro futures they told us were coming never happened. Case in point:

Imagine if kids had robots that they could order to carry them around. Makes the health problems that we see now look pretty mild, huh?

(Image from The Young Children's Encyclopedia Britannica, specifically the "robots" article. Pretty soon here I'll dig up some images from the "future" article, which are also pretty awesome. These are wonderful old books, especially for kids, and I remember them fondly from my childhood.)

-Signing off.

YOU DEAD

2012-01-04T21:45:00.001-05:00

(I spent some time putting together a post over at that Yu-Gi-Oh! blog where I post stuff, if you're interested.)

This is kind of an interesting little vignette that apparently was part of the Macross 7 series (which is sort of related to Robotech). It tells you a fair bit about someone without actually saying very much (in fact, the character himself just has a few nonverbal vocalizations).

Despite the artful and poetic nature of the piece, though, my favorite part is the simulator game over screen, which simply proclaims "YOU DEAD."

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #26

2012-01-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

251. Ebruchi. The Ebruchi look like Cthulhu people. As I love me some Lovecraft references, this is a good starting point.

They also don't recognize speciesism and apparently, despite being essentially universally space pirates, happily will recruit members of any species and treat them as their own.

So they're also apparently space Vikings with elements of Native American culture.

Who are also Cthulhu people.

How can you not love this?

Rating: 5/5. Seriously.

252. Echani. The Echani are rather militaristic near-humans who almost universally are rather shapely women.

Rating: 3/5, because they're hot. If they hadn't been, it'd have been 1/5. Bias? What's that?

253. Eddelians. The singular of "Eddelians" is "Eddel." I find this amusing.

Former traders decimated by the Empire because they and the Empire apparently couldn't get along; despite slavery being illegal in the Empire, the surviving Eddelians became slaves.

They are known for having a quick wit.

Rating: 2/5. There's something interesting there, but it's kind of incomplete-feeling.

254. Ee. The Ee are eyeball-equipped earthworm things who are somehow still intelligent, apparently. And their name is pretty amusing.

Rating: 3/5. There's almost nothing to go on, but I still like them.

255. Eellayin. The Eellayin are very extinct, as they were apparently cavepeople on a planet that exploded a long time ago.

Rating: 2/5. While there's nothing to go on, they contribute to the backstory of another species who apparently believe that they're somehow connected to them. So they get an extra point.

256. Eglatt. The Eglatt can survive incredibly hot temperatures.

Well, it's something, I guess.

Rating: 2/5, because unlike some entries like this, this one means something, even if it's still not very specific.

257. Eickarie. While the Eickarie are described as reptilian, they could wear stormtrooper armor without difficulty. They are also associated with the Empire of the Hand, a group established by Grand Admiral Thrawn to essentially provide the Empire with a buffer against and a source of information on the area known as the Unknown Regions.

They also had an interesting political situation on their homeworld before they properly joined the Empire of the Hand, which funded a rebellion against an unpopular warlord.

Rating: 3/5. They sound very interesting.

258. Eirraucs. The Eirraucs are from Eirrauus, and they're interesting in appearance. They have six limbs (the middle pair function as both arms and legs, apparently) and are "peaceful omnivores" that eat grass, fruit, and carrion.

That's an interesting diet.

Anyway, they got taken over by the Empire and made into slaves.

Rating: 3/5. I like their name and appearance, and that disparate diet is kind of amusing.

259. Eklaad. The Eklaad are basically elephant/armadillo hybrids, which grants them great strength and durability and the ability to roll up into a ball for defensive purposes. They don't like fighting, but are powerful in combat when they don't have a choice.

They apparently were at one time in serious danger of dying out as a people due to the Empire taking over their planet.

Rating: 3/5. Y'know, I get that the Empire are villains, but there sure is an awful lot of that this go-round.

260. Elathan. All we really know about the Elathan is that first contact with them was supposedly initiated by the Jedi starship Chu'unthor, which at one time was the Jedi training academy.

Apparently, this first contact attracted a lot of media attention.

Rating: 1/5. Eh, who really cares? If you look at the link above to the Chu'unthor article, though, you would learn that while the Chu'unthor was rather flat and thus didn't mass as much, it was actually longer and wider than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, a ship that was built centuries later.

Best school ever?

-Signing off.

Their Toy Ads are Better Too

2012-01-02T21:30:00.000-05:00

Why did Japan get the best John Carter of Mars trailer?

Granted, apparently John Carter is very obscure in Japan. It would not be out of line to say that they could use a little more context.

I mean, it's not like this trailer is bad, but by comparison it feels more generic, visuals and the line "You are ugly, but you are beautiful!" aside.

If you aren't familiar with the franchise, anyway, the Japanese trailer feels like it's much better as a hook.

Boy, I'm boring today.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #25

2011-12-30T21:30:00.004-05:00

241. Dubravans. The Dubravans essentially look like humans with green skin and noseless faces, and with some features (webbed fingers or something) that suggest they're amphibious, although they are not mentioned as potentially being able to breathe underwater. Despite their obvious resemblance to humans in pictures of them on the page, the article's author felt the need to mention that female Dubravans are distinguished from males by their breasts by the third sentence of the first paragraph, and felt the need to mention it again later.

I don't know what's worse for the Dubravans, the Wookieepedia contributor's apparent obsession with their breasts, or the fact that their planet is apparently popularly known as "the armpit of the universe."

Rating: 3/5. I kind of like their design, and I think I added a point out of pity for them. Also, while I think the article's tendency to mention certain things about the female Dubravans is creepy, I have to admit that the example picture of a female Dubravan is pretty hot.

242. Dugs. The Dugs are the species from which Sebulba from Episode I comes. (Momentary aside: Anytime I think of Sebulba, I remember a gag song that someone put together which included the phrase "Who can? Ana-can [Anakin, geddit?]!" Gaaa. Even if I remembered what it was called, I wouldn't tell you what it was, because I wouldn't inflict that on anyone. It's still going through my head.) Their bizarre build (using their arms as legs and their legs as arms) makes them instantly memorable. It's interesting to note that they're second class citizens on their homeworld, which was colonized by another species; that Sebulba was so vicious probably had to do with him having to claw his way up from that.

It's also interesting to note that during the Episode I podrace, one of the other competitors was a member of the species that had subjugated the Dugs, and Sebulba was up close and personal with that one when he killed him.

Rating: 4/5. The Dugs are distinctive. While I don't care for the fact that they're basically all high-strung and aggressive, considering their history and the fact that they're one step less removed from their equivalent of monkeys, it probably makes sense. (Did you know that many chimpanzees' favorite food is monkey?)

243. Duhma. The Duhma are blind because they live on the dark side of their planet, and use tribal tattoos to help them distinguish themselves between their numerous tribes.

...

Wait, what?

Rating: 2/5. Because the obvious lack of thought here cracks me up.

244. Duinuogwuin. The Duinuogwuin are also known as Star Dragons, presumably because it's frikkin' hard to keep track of all those vowels. And, of course, because they're essentially dragons. They can survive and fly in space (and can reach orbit from planetary surfaces), breathe fire, range from about thirty to three hundred feet long, and are mostly serpentine, with rather mammalian heads and numerous arms, legs, and wings. They can live for at least two thousand years, and while they are found throughout the galaxy, they apparently have a secret homeworld where they go to die. They have only one sex (i.e. any Duinuogwuin can mate with any other and produce offspring), and apparently rarely breed because there is a very high risk their offspring will be ravening unintelligent monsters or devious and cunning sociopaths. It is also thought that some of the other many-limbed serpentine or draconic species that live throughout the galaxy may be descended from them.

One was also apparently a Jedi Padawan that was killed by General Grievous. I would say "How?!" ('cuz, y'know, supersonic flight and fire breath) but Grievous was in a starfighter at the time.

Rating: 5/5. The Duinuogwuin are a great alien species by virtue of being interesting and mysterious. They would probably break an RPG in half, though. TIP: Play Duinuogwuin if they're available in an RPG.

245. Duloks. Duloks are green-haired furry people from Endor, and are one of, like, fifteen sapient species who coexist with Ewoks there. Like most of Endor's inhabitants, they had access to at least some magic (yes, really-the Ewoks cartoon and TV movies are why), and even allied at times with a witch who could summon hordes of demons or something.

And that's why the Ewoks trounced the stormtroopers: After dealing with armies of magic-wielding enemies, most of whom were bigger than themselves (in a few cases, bigger than scout walkers-yes, there's a justification for Ewoks having weapons for use against giant enemies), stormtroopers are just pests with weird sticks that burn from a distance.

Rating: 2/5. I've never watched the Ewok cartoon (though I have watched the TV movies), but I hear it's fairly boring compared to the Droids cartoon (which I thought was pretty great). The Duloks are from it, and they're mangy and ugly too.

246. Duors. Duors are essentially dolphins, and that's all I know.

Rating: 1/5. Dolphin aliens are only mildly less indicative of creative bankruptcy than human aliens. Also, as this is one of my favorite images of a dolphin from pop culture, and I find it to be an accurate portrayal of dolphin nature (seriously, dolphins are vicious), you would suppose correctly if you guessed that I find dolphins rather less cute than most people.

247. Dur Sabon. The Dur Sabon are huge mildly anthropomorphic amphibious eel things. This is awesome.

Their sole fictional appearance was when they gave asylum to a princess whose parents were killed in a coup. That they look that distinctive and this is their only appearance is also rather awesome.

Rating: 4/5. Considering how little we know about them, this is rather generous, but I like 'em.

248. Duros. The Duros are the aliens who look a bit like Greys (albeit tall and green-skinned, and wearing spacesuits) from the cantina scene. They're one of the species who, along with humans, have been spacefaring the longest, and some believe they were the first race to use the hyperdrive. They're known as traders, and (because this is Star Wars) many are also known as bounty hunters or thugs.

They also have a legendary historical queen whose name apparently means "dark cloud," which is cool.

Rating: 4/5. The Duros are an important fixture of the Star Wars universe, even if there haven't been too many major characters who are members of the species. Heck, they're even closely related to the Neimoidians (the Trade Federation guys), whom they despise as cowards and child abusers (seriously).

249. Duu'ranh. Apparently humanoid.

Rating: 1/5. At least they've got a cool name.

250. Ebranites. Ebranites have six arms and are honestly rather ugly. They apparently get tattoos on their uppermost left shoulders at birth that mark them as members of particular clans. When the Empire arrived on their planet, they decided to destroy their traditional authority in order to get at the planet's supply of a mineral useful in medicine, and so they shipped any suspected dissidents off to the region where most of said mineral was mined and enslaved them there. They once had large-scale clan feuds, but this mostly ended when the Empire showed up.

They are described as having a "combat rage" that is "similar to that of Wookiees, but less uncontrollable."

Y'know, I've never been under the impression that Chewbacca ever had any trouble controlling his anger in combat. When he starts grabbing stormtroopers and tossing them around during Empire Strikes Back, that wasn't exactly combat circumstances. Why the heck do people talk about Wookiees having combat rage?

Rating: 3/5. The combat rage thing annoys me, but the rest of it is interesting and useful information.

I notice two things happened twice this time around: I took the opportunity to talk about how nasty animals that most people believe are nice are, and I ranted about how people treat certain species who are mentioned in the context of other species. Hmm.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Creeper World 2

2011-12-29T22:30:00.002-05:00

Creeper World 2 is a sort-of sequel to Creeper World. (Read that review for some basic information. Also, note that the link is to a specific variant of the game and that there's probably a bunch of variants out there.)

It has a significant gameplay change from the original, although it also is quite similar.

The Creeper still flows downhill (most of the time-ironically, the screenshot represents a time where that isn't the case), but "downhill" is now, well, down.

That's right, it's no longer top-down but a sidescrolling game of sorts.

Your home base this time is a ship that has been tasked with wiping out the Creeper. Apparently, in the time since the first game humankind's technology and knowledge of the Creeper have both advanced, and instead of being forced to fight a battle for survival, you can destroy the Creeper's emitters, which had once been thought indestructible.

More features are added to gameplay, including "anti-Creeper" which you produce yourself, enemy drones, and others, while old features have been changed-for instance, your base now generates "wireless packets" so that you don't have to worry about connections, just relay devices called beacons. I have to admit that being able to make a "friendly" version of the Creeper is a great addition-it's much easier to track the danger level when you have your own field of control that cushions you. (As one might expect, Creeper and anti-Creeper are mutually annihilating.)

There are also variable gameplay paradigms. Probably the most entertaining of these is the "zero G" environment (an example of which is shown above) where the Creeper tends to move around chaotically and cling to objects instead of flowing down predictably.

While I don't know if I like this game as well or better than Creeper World (which I like quite a lot), it's a fun little game so far, and you could find plenty of worse games. I can recommend it.

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Review: Towers of Midnight

2011-12-28T22:00:00.001-05:00

I've followed the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan for probably eight years or so. Compared to many of its fans, I'm a newcomer (little wonder, as I was pretty young when it started coming out), but I've been well aware of the series' staggering length and the increasing size of its volumes since I first caught up with its progress a short while after I got the first book. (I got two books from the series for my birthday one year, and was finished with the series by that fall, a couple of months later, and thus had to wait for the later books to come out.)

The series, I've discovered, has been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism for becoming slow, bloated, and meandering. I'll agree that there was a certain amount of that in the last couple of books that came out while Jordan was still alive.

But thirteen books in, Towers of Midnight has turned things around, and I'm excited for the last book again.

I should explain a little. The author Brandon Sanderson, a long-time fan of The Wheel of Time, and also the author of The Way of Kings (which, in case you don't recall, is a book that I have said you need to read), was tapped to finish the series by Jordan's estate and publisher after his death from a long struggle with illness. (Jordan always said that he would keep writing until they nailed the coffin shut. Well... He pretty much did.) While Jordan literally plotted the series out to the end on his death bed, pretty much this entire book was written by Sanderson.

Now, I'm not saying that Jordan wasn't a good writer. He was; he got both myself and Sanderson (and plenty of others) hooked. However, the stretch which readers most often complain about seems to have been a rough patch in his overall plot.

But there's a payoff.

At the end of the previous book, The Gathering Storm, which was largely written by Sanderson, there was a Moment. It was one of the most defining scenes in the entire series.

Basically (I pretty much need to go into spoilers, so you should probably stop reading if you haven't read it but intend to), the main character, who is a prophesied and messianic figure, is on the verge of committing suicide and taking literally everyone else with him. He's been brutalized by his role, with a severe unhealing wound in his side, losing a hand, unable to use his magic powers without vomiting, and insane, with a voice of one of his past lives in his head that he must battle for control of his body. It's rather understandable why he's tried to cut off all his emotions, tapped into dark powers he shouldn't have, and set to murder his enemies with nuclear blast-sized bolts of energy that warp reality itself. And, oh, yeah, his messianic main character powers have turned to corrupting things around him.

And then, he gets better.

Just what this means isn't gone into until Towers of Midnight, but this is the point where things change. And the opening scene of Towers of Midnight shows us just how drastically things have turned around.

I don't want to go into it because details would ruin it, but it is seriously a brilliant exploration of how, within the world of The Wheel of Time, a messianic character works. Any meandering or padded narrative in previous books is forgiven, because much of it, ultimately, set up for this.

Towers of Midnight is the best book in the series for me. Part of the reason it works so well is because the character changes from narrating many to most of the chapters about him to being a mysterious figure that the others don't understand anymore, and don't even understand why they don't understand him. It is seriously one of the most dramatic transformations of a character I've ever seen in a narrative, and it works.

I have a difficult time recommending this book to a general audience. It's a great book, but there are twelve books of prerequisite reading you have to get through to read it. Also, many people would see the main character as too much of a power trip character, i.e. a Mary Sue of sorts. They're actually totally right in my opinion, but the thing is, there's actually a place for such characters.

And this is that place.

-Signing off.

Belated Christmas Junk

2011-12-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

First up: I found both of these on Major Spoilers, which is where I actually find quite a few of the embedded videos I post. (Very useful for low content days like this one.)

Second: This is awesome. I want a snow globe based on this.

Apparently, those are actual sculptures (though presumably not snow sculptures); the only "fake" part is the snow.

Third: I don't know anything about this band or the song, but I think that singing snowman is incredible.

Especially the blinking.

Delivering holiday content days late for years. Go me.

-Signing off.

Cool Old Dude Dancing

2011-12-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

Was visiting with family literally all day today, so I don't have much to post.

Just this video of an old guy dancing.

I wasn't able to dance like that when I was a teenager, much less now, so this guy is pretty impressive.

-Signing off.

A Very Megatron Christmas

2011-12-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

This is great.

I think the best part is how he only gradually moves into the Megatron voice. If you listen to this without knowing who he is or the title of the video, but know the Megatron voice, you'd probably have a sudden realization that "Holy cheese, that's Beast Wars Megatron!"

Who, by the way, is still the best Megatron.

There's another great thing: In the comments on the video, David Kaye thanks people for complimenting him on the video, saying that they've made his Christmas by being his fans, and then says he needs to go shave off his five o'clock shadow.

Kaye is a class act, man.

-Signing off.

Digimon Distraction

2011-12-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry, got pretty distracted by listening to various different language versions of the Digimon Adventure 01 openings.

I'd embed them, but for some reason that's not allowed with any of the videos I've found, so I'll link a few instead.

This video has seven versions, and includes all three different original songs associated with the series, those being the original Japanese, the English intro's song, and the Italian opening song. All the other versions are based on the Japanese or English versions. (Apparently Italy always has to be different.) My favorite rendition of the English song is the French version, because the way they pronounce "champion" just kills me.

And because it's also funny, here's the Hebrew version.

Why was I looking at these things? I fell victim to nostalgia for a moment, I suppose. Pokemon is such a big thing right now, but Digimon was the better show. (Also, to my disgust, the spellcheck recognizes "Pokemon," even though it's strictly misspelled, but of course it doesn't recognize Digimon. Gr.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #24

2011-12-21T21:30:00.000-05:00

231. Draedans. Draedans are sapient amphibians who apparently have skin that ranges from silver to green, can survive in fresh or salt water to a depth of two kilometers, and can live on land as long as they stay moist.

Why they still look so much like humans (albeit with fuzzy-looking tails) is anyone's guess.

They're explicitly mentioned as lacking access to hyperdrives, meaning they have trouble leaving their homeworld. They're also described as usually being "high-strung."

Rating: 2/5. If their appearance was more creative, they'd have gotten at least one more point, but looking that human when they apparently have so little in common lifestyle-wise is, well, increasingly bothersome to me.

232. Draethos. Draethos are apparently very long-lived, with a lifespan ranging as high as a thousand or more years, and aren't considered elderly until they're roughly 700 years old. They are naturally predatory and also naturally possess telepathy which apparently can only be used to communicate with each other.

They also have the funniest-looking mouths ever.

Rating: 4/5. Their rather grandiose uberalien nature contrasting with their goofy overbites makes me smile.

233. Draflago. Apparently, the Draflago enjoy dips in mud tanks.

Rating: 1/5. Are they pig people, amphibious, or something else? We don't know, because all we know is that they like mud.

234. Drall. The Drall inhabit the planet Drall in the Corellian system, i.e. the same solar system where Han Solo was born. They are short, furry, and known for being orderly, serious, and apparently usually a bit stuffy.

Rating: 3/5. Drall have appeared in a few different books, and they are clearly a reasonably complex society. Their insular nature (the whole Corellian system is itself isolationist, and none of the system's inhabitants really like each other, either) means we don't know too much about them, though.

235. Drells. Drells build starships, and apparently these starships are frequently used by pirates. Enough so that a Drell ship is obviously a pirate ship most of the time? Who knows?

Rating: 2/5. At least it explains where pirates might be getting their ships, I suppose.

236. Dressellians. Dressellians are kinda ugly. One was, at least according to Expanded Universe material, going to be the leader of the Endor strike force before Han Solo was chosen for the role; he apparently figured that it was racism against Dressellians that motivated Han's selection, as he was a skilled guerrilla from the protracted subversive warfare that had occurred on Dressel, and there's no way that Han Solo could have the same skills he did.

Also, the old action figure nickname they gave Dressellians was "Prune-Face."

I guess I'd be bitter too, if I was called that.

Rating: 3/5, if only because that one story is kind of funny in a slightly grim way.

237. Drivoks. They come from a planet called Faket, which seems like its name might be inappropriate to say aloud. They apparently are hairless and mauve-skinned, and have no apparent gender distinctions that humans can detect, and also can "sense others," whatever that means, and are often bounty hunters or trackers.

Rating: 3/5. There's not too much substance, but some of the details (their planet's name not matching theirs, the fact that their sensory abilities cause them to be happily employed in certain jobs) add some value.

238. Drochs. Woo hoo, the drochs!

This one is great, okay? The drochs are widely believed on the planet Nam Chorios to be mostly harmless (though intensely repulsive) parasites. And on Nam Chorios, this is largely true. Just get a little sun, and you'll be fine, even though the little blighters dig under your skin and stay there-in fact, they'll die, and you'll actually derive nutritional value from them.

However, drochs also have a dark secret. Anywhere else, they're so darned deadly that the symptoms of their parasitism are called the Death Seed plague. And nobody knew this until there was a modern resurgence of the plague.

That's not even the best part: Drochs get significantly bigger as they age and feed, and they can apparently naturally reach a size comparable to some of the larger land crabs. In areas of Nam Chorios where the sun doesn't shine, they get darned big. And the big ones are smarter than the little ones, and guide them to attack larger prey en masse.

And it gets even better-one droch that appeared was actually a mutant droch genetically engineered by an insane cook (seriously) that could, thanks to a mask, robe, and drapey clothes and stuff, pass as human.

It doesn't get much more awesome than that.

Rating: 5/5. This doesn't even go into just why the drochs were harmless on Nam Chorios, which may or may not have actually been their real homeworld. And yes, there's a reason more complex than "they don't like this particular sun," which has always been kind of a dumb reason for that sort of thing anyway.

239. Drovians. Drovians are big ugly brutes who got addicted to another species' cake flavoring agent, and then turned said cake flavoring agent into a more hardcore drug.

Rating: 3/5. I don't like planets of hats, especially when the hat is something negative like drug addiction, but this one makes me laugh enough that I'll forgive them a bit.

240. Druulgothans. They resemble lizards somehow, and they have an awesome name.

Rating: 2/5 for the name alone. I suppose I should be forgiving of a race created for a pick-a-path book... Nah.

-Signing off.

Sith... or NINJAS? Or Sith Ninjas? Sithjas? (I give up)

2011-12-20T21:30:00.001-05:00

(Hopefully, I'll have the time and energy to put up one of my Star Wars alien posts tomorrow or the next day; today's not the best day for it. I put up a little article over at my sister's Yu-Gi-Oh! blog, though, in the relatively unlikely event that you're interested.)

This is a pretty fun little video.

I particularly like the ending.

-Signing off.

Same Song, Same Reaction, Different Series

2011-12-19T21:30:00.002-05:00

I've heard a fairly significant amount of negativity about the band My Chemical Romance.

I don't particularly know or care if they deserve it-I've listened to exactly one of their albums, "The Black Parade." And what I do know is that basically everybody loves music videos done to the same-titled song.

Case in point: This video is referred to as "indisputably the best anime AMV of all time" by the poster (who didn't make it). (Warning: Significant Gurren Lagann spoilers, although you've probably gotten significant Gurren Lagann spoilers just by having an internet connection.)

Pretty much the same sort of thing has been said about this one. (Warning: While I don't particularly know, seeing as how I haven't seen more than a fraction of the series, probably pretty significant Teen Titans spoilers.)

So is this song just made especially for intensely emotional music videos, or what?

(It totally is.)

-Signing off.

Escape Is Impossible

2011-12-16T21:30:00.001-05:00

So apparently there's a game where you play as Sherlock Holmes, and Watson follows you around.

But, like God Mars, he never actually moves.

Whereas God Mars' seeming immobility is a source of amusement and occasional actual "oh, hey, him moving has actual impact," Watson's not moving is... a source of amusement and sheer terror.

As noted by many, it's essentially just a result of lazy programmers not wanting to come up more than the bare minimum of animations for him. I think this has unexploited potential, though-what if there was a game where an otherwise normal-seeming NPC was always doing this, and it turns out that said NPC is actually Nyarlathotep or baby Cthulhu or something?

It'd be better having an explanation for it than this, anyway.

-Signing off.

Paranorman? Seriously?

2011-12-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know how interesting I find this preview in and of itself.

However, I find the story concept to be very interesting. A ghost medium versus zombies? I can't imagine those powers being immensely applicable against the old infectious mindless plague zombies, unless perhaps anyone who was turned into a zombie automatically was also a ghost, but how zombies relate to ghosts would make or break a concept like this.

Um, yeah.

-Signing off.

Wait a Minute, He's a Robot...

2011-12-14T21:30:00.000-05:00

Y'know, I miss this show (Medabots, or in Japan, rather hilariously "Medarots").

It's kind of unfortunate that they chose to dub Metabee here with what is generally considered a "black" voice, because it brings up questions of whether the dubbers were stereotyping.

But then, a very large number of the children watching the show would never have heard of the stereotype (I know that I'd never heard of it until sometime in the last year or so while perusing TVTropes), so it feels more like political correctness obsession ruining things than anything for me.

In case you want the negativity inherent in the first part of this post flushed out, here's one of the series' more awesome moments.

The awesome part isn't actually that three robots suddenly tapped into their secret powers to fire off giant blasts of energy which nothing could survive. It's that (while you don't see it here) their target ultimately shrugged it off.

-Signing off.

Best Transformers Related Thing...

2011-12-13T21:30:00.003-05:00

...since at least Praise Be To Decepticon (in sequence of my personal experiences with them, not release order). This one could be subcategorized as "Best Transformers Trailer Ever." (And yes, it tops that one with Grimlock in it for the same game.)

I don't know why that folky song ("The Humbling River," by Puscifer, and yes I just linked another Transformers music video set to the same song) works so goshdarned well, but it does. It's frikkin' perfect. (One of the top YouTube comments on the video quotes the first line ["Angel, angel, what have I done?"] and replies "JUST MADE THE MOST EPIC [expletive] MUSIC VIDEO EVER!!")

My sister says it works because Transformers has always been, despite its trappings, about a primitive, spiritual people-it's just that they're primitive, spiritual people who have access to awesome technology beyond easy comprehension. I can buy that-Transformers don't so much have nations as they do tribes built around their charismatic chieftains. (I don't think this is a function of trying to rip off the various cultures that have tribes, despite that sort of thing being rather popular these days-it's more to do with the way that little boy logic runs. Younger kids see leadership as having to do with being the toughest and/or coolest. That's why Optimus and Megatron kick so much butt, you know.)

At least part of it, I think, is because it implies a father/son relationship between Optimus and Bumblebee, but doesn't smash one's face with it. Optimus is pretty much every Autobot's dad, so that's a positive.

Also: BRUTICUS IS MY FAVORITE COMBINER.

GRIMLOCK IS HERE TOO.

I think my favorite part of Grimlock in this video isn't his awesome entrance or his awesome transformation or his sheer huge presence, but this simple little exchange of nods that he has with Optimus. Why?

Because I think Grimlock and Optimus work better as two awesome guys who respect each other, instead of distrusting and/or hating each other. Come on, guys, the kind of infighting that we usually see between those two was worn out by X-Men decades ago. I think it's time we move past it.

-Signing off.

I HAVE A QUESTION (ABOUT MEN IN BLACK)

2011-12-12T21:30:00.001-05:00

Actually, I've got a few questions.

1. Why are there such huge gaps between the movies? (I mean, I'm not complaining, really-the movies are decent to good, not great or anything, but it's just weird.)

2. I don't know anything about the comics that inspired the movies and cartoon, but I would assume that the cartoon was closer to the comics than the movies are/were. ... Was it? Perhaps more specifically, the lost memory plot of MIB2 and this apparent time travel plot for MIB3-I remember that there were episodes of the cartoon with more or less exactly the same plots, to greater or lesser degrees. Were they also comic book plots?

3. Does anyone else remember the cartoon fondly? Because I thought it was pretty great. (It was probably the first cartoon where I really felt sucked in by the art style, by the way. Really darned slick. And yes, I know it has a lot of competition [Batman:TAS, Gargoyles, Superman:TAS, the Superman Fleischer cartoons {THOSE WERE GOOD TOO DARN IT}, the list goes on...], but something about the muted colors and stark contrasts set it apart.)

My fondest memory of it is probably the first episode, which wasn't necessarily the best, but had a plot that felt like it should have (in ways) been a series-changing story that would result in everything being different afterward. And also was really funny.

J ticks off an entire race of aliens by killing one of them-all of them are now hunting him and have locked onto him. ("You aren't supposed to blast Skrullbians. They blow up." Which is a pun that I only just figured out.) They pursue him everywhere, bursting Alien-style out of hot dog vendors and descending in flying saucers to get at him. So eventually, K decides that there's only one way to get rid of them: Make them even madder at K than they are at J. And the way he does it is by blowing his nose into a handkerchief and showing it to them. It has a kind of Silver Age Superman ending, but that doesn't ruin it.

Gee whiz, but I do miss that cartoon. At least the first season.

... Yeah, those were my only questions, and they weren't very much. FALSE PREMISE!

-Signing off.

Will This Battleship Sink?

2011-12-09T21:12:00.004-05:00

(Because if it's a bomb, you know all the review headlines will be "Battleship Sinks." All of them.)

I'd thought I'd commented on this, but I guess I haven't. (If I have, whatever, I don't care.)

(There's a newer trailer you can see here. I'd have gone with that one because it has much more in the way of Bayhem-style action, and I seem to recall it having more Liam Neeson, but my attempts to use the non-YouTube embed tools did not end well.)

Obvious attempt to cash in on your own success, Hasbro? Really?

Because seriously, what are most people going to think when they see a movie based on a "toy" product which has enormous, intricate mechanical things tearing into major cities?

Whereas even the movie Transformers take a lot from preexisting material, this just comes across as a completely daft way to use a familiar name.

(Momentary aside on Battleship the game: My mother talks sometimes about how she and her classmates used to play it with sheets of paper. Ironically, I suspect that in a proper legally checked-on statement, she'd have to say that she and her classmates used to play a naval conflict representation game on sheets of paper. That kind of thing peeves me.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #23

2011-12-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

221. Donadi. The Donadi are described as being best-known for their meditation techniques which allowed them to "see deeper meaning in images." This is central to the way the famous Donadi stain-paintings are created.

In other words, they're more likely to come up with something from a Rorschach blot, and sell Rorschach blots as fine art?

Rating: 3/5. There's no accounting for taste, and so I can totally believe that such a thing would exist-I'd be amazed if it doesn't in the real world, actually.

222. Doneers. Doneers are one of several sapient insectoid species known as being excellent shipwrights.

Yes, one of several-there are also the Verpine (who I'll talk about much later) and the Givin (who I'll talk about sooner) are a borderline case.

Rating: 3/5. I like smart bug folks. It's interesting to note that the Doneers are actually only noted as the "superior shipwrights" of their local sector, which at least theoretically sets them apart from the Givin and Verpine. However, they're probably the least original of the three groups (albeit also the most poorly known and the least thoroughly described).

223. Dorandeans. Dorandeans look like bald guys with stupid earlobes.

Rating: 1/5. Go away, Dorandeans. You are unnecessary and unpleasant to gaze upon.

224. Dorneans. The Dorneans are described as "humanoid," an awfully vague descriptor, have "leathery, purple skin," and have quills on their eyebrow ridges and their shoulders. Their facial structure in the provided image remind me of walruses and seals to some degree. Apparently, they were able to maintain independence from the Empire with only a small standing fleet thanks to their long military tradition, which dated back to their time as marine sailors on their homeworld.

Rating: 4/5. Kind of, erm, fillery, at least to some degree, but they're distinct. Also, their independence would make them potentially useful in Empire-era stories.

225. Doruns. Doruns have tentacles where others would have arms and eyestalks capable of independent motion.

...Well of course the eyestalks can move independently, that's kind of the point. If they couldn't, it means somebody tied them together, most likely.

Rating: 2/5. Very basic info, but at least they sound reasonably interesting in appearance.

226. Draags. Draags are large reptilian guys who apparently wear temperature regulation suits on most worlds because of their cold-bloodedness (gack), and whose "aggression, intelligence, and pushiness" result in them being "natural supervisors." Hah. They also are supposedly frequently skilled in the use of blasters (uh... couldn't most species capable of holding blasters potentially be skilled in their use?). They have a rather distinctive and somewhat rotund appearance.

Rating: 3/5. Natural supervisors: Best planet of hats ever. Well, not necessarily, but it ranks.

227. Drach'nam. Drach'nam are reptilians who are known for having a slave consortium.

Another reptilian supervisor race?

Rating: 2/5. I kid, I kid. At least they look kind of cool.

228. Drackmarians. A Drackmarian named Omogg lost a planet to Han Solo in a high-stakes card game.

Of course, the planet was in Imperial territory, and the Imperials didn't recognize her deed...

Rating: 3/5. It's pretty awesome that some random alien happened to have a planet as collateral in what amounted to a poker game. Note that I haven't even mentioned that they "breathe" methane (which is ultimately a goofy old-fashioned science fiction thing that makes no sense).

229. Dractuvians. Dractuvians have red skin, are humanoid, and are fairly primitive.

Rating: 2/5. They're pretty much just there.

230. Dradan. The Dradan were peaceful humanoids who offered refuge to Jedi fugitives after the Clone Wars.

Note the past tense? The Empire killed 'em all in response.

Then, a fallen Jedi of some kind used illusions of them to mess with other people who visited their planet, which apparently had a dark side Force nexus on it.

Rating: 3/5. The Dradan illusions appeared to be primitive, but it's interesting to note that there's no way for us to know if they actually were primitive or not. I think that's interesting.

A very average bunch this week.

-Signing off.

UR DOIN IT WRONG

2011-12-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

The people who try to show you why you need products...

...are doin' it wrong.

(Still under the weather, spent most of the day reading [I'm ready to read the last Wheel of Time book when it comes out now], and it's possible that I've posted this before, but I don't think I did. Whatever.)

-Signing off.

Game Review: Steamlands

2011-12-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

Steamlands is an entertaining strategy game.

Its central premise is quite simple: You build a (completely ridiculous) tank using parts found in each mission and overwhelm your enemies.

What makes it truly delightful are its setting and graphics. It's a post high-tech war Europe (said war apparently involved robots larger than skyscrapers, surely the best kind of apocalyptic war) which has reverted to Victorian culture and steampunk-type technology. There are tutorial movies at the beginning of many levels styled after silent films.

The gameplay is admittedly fun, but it would be better as a more RPG-like system, allowing you to continue adding to and upgrading your tank over numerous missions. Also, the difficulty curve spikes radically after the first few missions.

All in all, Steamlands is a good strategy game that, with tweaks, could be a great one.

(A brief review, to be sure, but the game is pretty simple and I'm mildly ill and rather tired.)

-Signing off.

Sanagiman To Inazuman: Best Transformation Sequence Ever?

2011-12-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

I know next to nothing about Inazuman other than his ability to repair buildings by pulling on them with ropes (he did so in his series opening) and his ability to turn into "Sanagiman" before he then transformed into Inazuman.

But that's pretty awesome, for reasons you can see here:

They seriously seem to have just blown up a thing made of foam for that.

-Signing off.

Cool Little Engine

2011-12-02T21:30:00.001-05:00

I had a hard time coming up with a title, because my first impulse was to call this post "Tiny Things That Retain the Functionality of Big Things Are Cool," and it can be hard to get rid of that first impulse.

Anyway, this is pretty neat.

-Signing off.

Tales of Two Fishies

2011-12-01T21:30:00.001-05:00

Illustration from a 1987 children's book featuring fish:

(Image obtained here.)

Illustration (or more properly, a derivation of a derivation of an illustration-it's a screencap from a YouTube video) from a 2008 children's book featuring fish:

(Image obtained here.)

I'm sure this says something about societal changes...

-Signing off.

Some Kind of Creepy Things

2011-11-30T21:30:00.002-05:00

Here, have a video of creepy things.

(If you're interested in Yu-Gi-Oh!, I have a few thoughts on a recent character over on my sister's Yu-Gi-Oh! blog.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #22

2011-11-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

211. Devaronians. Male Devaronians are devil-horned devilish guys. (One was in the cantina scene, smiling and moving his eyes in very obvious fashion. Supposedly, he was really enjoying the music. Also, he was wanted for war crimes and was known colloquially as "the Butcher of Montellian Serat.") Female Devaronians are furrier and lack horns, and from pictures may be larger on average.

Somehow, Devaronians are similar to the devils or demons of hundreds of mythologies of the Star Wars galaxy; this might have something to do with them being among the first species to leave their homeworld, some 27,000 years before the series present. Male Devaronians are considerd violent and are not permitted to have political power in their own society. Also, males are primarily carnivorous, with only some individuals being able to live on diets with large amounts of plant material, while females are omnivorous.

Rating: 3/5. There are lots of interesting details in there, really. Of course, the reason they exist is because they needed an extra costume for the cantina scene, and they were able to pick up a secondhand devil costume on the cheap.

212. Devlikks. Devlikks 1) are ugly, and 2) don't live very long-they apparently are prone to going senile by age 9.

Rating: 2/5. There's not too much to go on, and I find them unpleasant to behold, but the idea of a super-short-lived species is the germ of something interesting.

213. Dhuryam. Dhuryam are Yuuzhan Vong-created lifeforms also known as "world brains." They are designed to maintain the ecosystems of Yuuzhan Vong "Vongformed" (i.e. terraformed) worlds by controlling nearly every living thing on the planet. One was placed on Coruscant after the Vong conquered it.

And Jacen Solo, Han and Leia's son, befriended it. (He turned all Sithy later, but when he was a kid, he was always befriending animals and other strange things. Sadly, it died, and that probably didn't help Jacen with the whole Sith thing.)

Rating: 3/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong generally, but the dhuryam and its relatives amuse me. Especially since Jacen talked Coruscant's dhuryam into causing bugs to bite all the Yuuzhan Vong. All of them.

214. Diamala. The Diamala (singular Diamal) are another group who protected the Bothans during the Caamas Document crisis (I've talked so much about this it'd be easier to say "just read all those other posts-they explain it). At the time, they had a large trade network and some of their least favorite people were also the most vocal enemies of the Bothans, so that might explain it.

Rating: 3/5. They've got some interesting things about them.

215. Diathim. The Diathim are the "angels" of the moons of Iego that Anakin mentioned in his smooth-for-a-nine-year-old pickup line in Episode I. And that means that this post has angels and devils in it. Huh.

They're also capable of flight, do not eat, and can survive in space.

Rating: 3/5. Perfectly understandable why there would be superstitions about them.

216. Dilonexans. Dilonexans apparently suffer from a specific kind of food allergy.

Rating: 2/5. Normally, I would not be so kind to such limited information, but that's rather amusing.

217. Dimeans. We know little about the Dimeans except that they are apparently big, mean, and have scary teeth. One threw a Jedi into his ship's reactor core and accidentally blew up his ship that way.

Rating: 3/5. It's funny; there's no picture of them, even though they were mentioned in a computer game. They're kind of amusing.

218. Dimoks. Dimoks are native to Dimok. They had a war with some other guys, and then the Empire showed up and stomped on both of them, prompting them to ally with their old enemies... and they both still got stomped.

Rating: 1/5. Stories like this are a dime a dozen, really.

219. Diollans. Diollans are featherless avians. They have sensitive enough senses of smell to notice Rodian pheromones are repulsive, but since smelliness is considered an unsavory trait of most Rodians by most species, that doesn't mean much of anything.

Rating: 1/5. Fail.

220. Dolandu. They have white fur, and are known to respect Jedi.

Huh, don't most folks at least sort of respect Jedi? It's a good idea to respect somebody with a laser sword, after all...

Rating: 3/5. This is consolation for me not having time to really go over them carefully, because I'm in a hurry.

-Signing off.

The Terror

2011-11-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Here, have a video of a good-sized crab.

"Tatos the Terror" is apparently this crab's individual name, as it is somebody's pet.

I don't know if I envy or feel sorry for people who live in areas where it's possible to keep coconut crabs and other unusual animals as pets.

-Signing off.

AGAIN, WHAT

2011-11-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

Specifically, what is up with candy commercials for the UK?

I mean, really? (I figure it must be for the UK because I've never heard of this stuff. Correct me if you know better...)

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Review: Empire From the Ashes

2011-11-24T21:30:00.001-05:00

Empire From the Ashes (find it for free here) is a trilogy-turned-collected-volume that is one of the earliest works by David Weber, who is probably best-known for his Honor Harrington series. (His earliest credit on Wikipedia's list of his published works is for some book in 1990; his next is Mutineer's Moon in 1991, which was the first part of this story.)

It's pretty good, especially since you can read it for free, but its quality in and of itself is not specifically the reason why I felt like reviewing it.

No, that would be because it reads like a checklist of his favored plot points and story features.

Here's just a few of the things I've noticed, based on things entirely off the top of my head and only from books of his that I've randomly read:

Numerous and extremely powerful ancient aliens who nonetheless never advance technologically in time periods spanning millions of years. (This book has the Achuultani; the later Safehold series, of which I have read one book, has the Gbaba, which may be an even more extreme example of this. It should be noted that Weber does not use many advanced aliens in his works.)

Humanity has fallen back from being extremely advanced spacefarers to stuck on a single primitive colony world. (Notably, Empire From the Ashes has two worlds shown which this applies to, and it actually happened at least two more times; this is the central precept of the Safehold series.)

A contrast between huge-scale combat between spacefaring civilizations and smaller-scale warfare in medieval/Renaissance-class cultures. (Earth's moon turns out to have been destroyed by Dahak, a massive warship from an ancient human civilization, in order to camouflage itself as the moon, and it was a ship tasked with picket duty [it was also stated that it could have vaporized Earth itself]. On the other hand, the planet Pardal was stuck in a sort of medieval stasis for about 45,000 years. Safehold, again, has a lot of this; a certain amount of it can also be found in the Empire of Man/Prince Roger series.)

Characters are apparently killed and believed missing for a period of months or years, but they're protagonists and still alive, struggling for the entire time to make their way back with limited resources. (Five of the characters were nearly assassinated by the self-destruction of a ship similar to Dahak, mentioned above, but the ship jettisoned them beforehand because it had special programming not to harm them [it's too much of a story to explain], and they spent about two years traveling to the nearest solar system, and found that it was inhabited by primitive humans who were controlling a quarantine system [ditto], but which had what they needed to get home if they could just get a hold of it. In Empire of Man/Prince Roger, a trilogy's worth is about the journey across a planet with varying levels of cultural sophistication to get a spaceship, only to discover that they're now wanted outlaws. And in Honor Harrington, the titular character was once thought dead but managed to escape to a prison planet, where she was able to stage a prison break.)

Religion is used as a tool to hold back technological development. (I'm not going to go too deeply into this, but it's a feature shared, again, with Safehold. It's almost as if the Pardalian sequences intrigued Weber enough that he wanted to do more with them than he had space for, and so he decided to write an entire series about a variation of them. It should be noted that these religions were generally ironically paired with technology to help maintain them.)

Extensive explorations of the implications of differences between the less advanced cultures and both our own counterparts to them and the advanced cultures encountering them are a must. (The planet Pardal, stuck in medieval stasis, had a number of native animals that made for differences in military development between their cultures and ours. Safehold, surprisingly, doesn't explore this aspect much [as far as I recall], but it's a pretty big deal in Empire of Man/Prince Roger. As for advanced versus less advanced, there's usually a lot of adding to the primitive side's tech base in sustainable ways and limited, careful use of the advanced side's limited technological resources and transhuman abilities. It should be noted that this was usually hidden in Empire From the Ashes and the Safehold series and given a mystical explanation when revealed to the "primitives," but in Empire of Man/Prince Roger, they don't bother doing anything but using it. Of course, the people of Marduk, who happen to be the only nonhuman example of "primitives," know a bit better than those others, but still...)

There are probably (well, definitely, actually) plenty more comparisons that could be made, but I don't want to list everything because 1) you could read it for yourself quite easily, and 2) I'm tired right now and I think I'm pretty close to done.

Empire From the Ashes is definitely a good read; if you don't mind reading a long text on the computer and like military science fiction, it's a darned good deal.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #21

2011-11-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

201. Dantari. The Dantari appear to essentially be cavepeople with wonky proportions (sometimes). That's pretty boring, but these cavefolk worship Imperial war machines and stormtroopers. (They apparently witnessed a battle of some kind, and were particularly taken with the big walkers.)

Rating: 3/5. That's an awesome cultural tidbit.

202. Dashade. The Dashade are cool-looking guys who are resistant to the Force (presumably mostly the mind powers) and to radiation. (Yay, randomness!) They are thus often recruited as anti-Jedi assassins. (It's debated as to whether or not one of them was in the cantina scene.)

Rating: 4/5. Eh, I just like 'em.

203. Dashta eels. Despite being regular little old eels, some Dashta eels are sapient. Also, many non-sapient Dashta eels are Force-sensitive, and supposedly "the first species known to be so."

I guess I could believe that some of the other ones are too obscure...

Rating: 3/5. They're mostly just weird, but not in a bad way.

204. Dawferim. Dawferim are known for having a five hundred year long feud with some other guys. ...And other than the fact that they formed a defense coalition to handle said feud, that's it.

Rating: 1/5. I've got nothin' to say.

205. Dazouri. The Dazouri are little guys who are generally supposed to be shrewd and rational, but when upset they get huge and become homicidal maniacs. So they're a species that literally hulks out.

Rating: 3/5. I'm forgiving them their blatant defiance of mass conservation.

206. Dbarians. Dbarians are apparently essentially asexual octopus/cuttlefish people. They are described as "a worrisome race." As in "cause for others to worry" or "worry a lot themselves?" Based on the fact that they apparently also spend lots of time "evaluating" things, I'd guess that it's the latter.

Rating: 2/5. It'd be nicer if less ambiguous words were used in this kind of thing, although I don't think that affected the rating. (There's just not quite enough there to be exciting.)

207. Defel. The Defel are also known as wraiths because despite being huge hairy types, they usually look to most other species like they are merely shadows; i.e. they border on invisible in most conditions. The most notable Defel is probably one who appeared in a couple of Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire books. Who was he? Some random thug.

Rating: 3/5. Something interesting that I think was lost later on is that Timothy Zahn also indicated that Defel (and a number of other species, most notably the Noghri) were more difficult for most to sense with the Force.

208. Delorf. The Delorf... may have been a myth.

Rating: 3/5. I find the idea that there are mythical sapient beings even in an ancient, well-explored, and highly advanced place to be entertaining.

209. Delphanians. The Delphanians sound very ugly, and apparently frequently pierced their lips, sometimes to the point where said piercings jangled.

Incidentally, I find lip piercings unpleasant.

Rating: 3/5. They have a bit more info than that. Incidentally, they were created for Death Troopers, a Star Wars zombie story.

210. Delrakkins. The Delrakkins apparently resemble lizards and live underground. (Is that just a clumsy attempt at describing them as reptilian? Because not all reptilian creatures are lizards, and except for snakes, in fact, most creatures we call reptiles aren't very closely related to each other or lizards. Crocodiles are much more closely related to birds than lizards and snakes, and turtles are off by themselves somewhere. End zoological nerd rant.) The Delrakkins also were once given poisoned bacta (that stuff that was used to heal Luke up in Empire Strikes Back), although the Delrakkins were saved.

Rating: 3/5. I think they get a point because their name is aesthetically pleasing to me.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Ghost Hacker

2011-11-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Ghost Hacker is one of a multitude of tower defense games that I've played.

It's of the "non-mazing" variety, i.e. the enemy moves on a preset path (which, I would suppose, makes it much easier to program). These are my less favored type of tower defense, although I still enjoy them.

What sets this apart from the average tower defense game is the tower customization system. Each tower has two or three "hard points" on it that you can attach an upgrade to. Whereas in most tower defense games, an upgrade is just a perk, here they're half the point or more of the game. Each one grants a special benefit. Each tower is also unique in where it can be placed and what it does. A lot of gameplay is figuring out what combinations are coolest or most effective. (Hint: Splash damage modifiers stack.)

Enemies in a game like this can also make the difference between being generic and interesting; the enemies here are definitely unique and interesting. That said, they're also total (expletive deleted) to deal with.

I think Ghost Hacker is a very interesting game, although it's a bit of a pain to play at times. I can recommend trying it.

-Signing off.

WHAT

2011-11-21T21:30:00.000-05:00

What do you want to bet that there was a sudden plummet in popularity for the candy that this ad is for once it aired?

WHAT.

-Signing off.

Violin Video Game Music

2011-11-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

Violins are pretty cool. So is this chick who is playing one.

I don't have anything else to say on the subject, I guess...

-Signing off.

Sesame Street Martians Investigate Mysterious Device

2011-11-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

I think the surest sign that Sesame Street has gone in a direction I don't like is probably the rarity of segments like this on the modern program.

I mean, those guys are awesome.

It gets funnier if you imagine that this must be playing in their heads starting around 2:27.

-Signing off.

Cool Animation

2011-11-16T21:30:00.002-05:00

I don't have too much to say on this other than "this is cool."

Well, aside from it being pretty good for a student animation.

Also, that ogre/troll/whatever reminds me of the Hulk and Doomsday-how tough is that guy?

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #20

2011-11-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

Finally hitting the letter "D" and also #200. (Note that I skipped "Dalek" because unlike E.T.'s species, there's no evidence that it was ever intended they were really inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy-they're just an easter egg.)

191. Crokes. Crokes are tiny invertebrates (never larger than the hand of a large individual such as a Wookiee) who are reputed to resemble three-legged hairy snails or slugs. They're naturally aggressive and acquisitive despite this, and will apparently ruthlessly eliminate others who stand in the way of their personal gains. This lead to the Crokes suffering greatly when they made war on each other using large, carnivorous, and none-too-picky fast-breeding creatures, apparently all but destroying their populations on many of their worlds.

How, you are probably asking, did they manage to get many worlds if they're so tiny? Apparently, at least part of it comes from the fact that they could pretend to be much bigger than they actually were using Force-based techniques (Lando Calrissian Adventures villain Rokur Gepta was actually a Croke), and they may have naturally had extremely long lifespans, which would presumably be very useful in long-term plotting. How long? Rokur Gepta was 20,000 or so years old when he died of severe injuries (said severe injuries involving Lando Calrissian grabbing him and squeezing until he went squish).

Rating: 5/5. The Crokes are more implausible than a lot of Star Wars species, but in a good way-isn't it a hilarious thought that these teeny tiny things would be scheming and trying to take over planets and whatnot? (And are pretty good at it, considering?)

192. Crotok. Sapient. Alien. A species.

Rating: 0/5. AAARRRGGHHH.

193. Cthon. Cthon are basically H.P. Lovecraft-style ghouls who live on Coruscant, deep in the ground-level areas that are almost inaccessible. Some were goaded into attacking Darth Vader once. It did not end well for them.

They may have gone extinct during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, since those jerks wrecked the place and filled it with their own preferred brands of horrible roving predators and such.

Rating: 4/5. They're pretty amusing, and more logical than their Lovecraft fiction counterparts (if the entire planet is a city and has been for millennia, it's a bit more plausible that there would be creatures like them). Ironically, there's a somewhat similar probably nonsapient species called corridor ghouls that live in the same areas.

194. Cuvacians. Cuvacians apparently have a difficult-to-translate language, because an advertiser for a translation device used their language as an example of what it could translate.

Rating: 2/5. Establishing some languages as harder to translate than others makes sense, I suppose.

195. Cyborreans. They're from Cyborrea, which is in Hutt Space. They breed Cyborrean Battle Dogs, also known as neks, which do not so much resemble dogs as tiny reptilian hippos with gland problems. Neks are frequently used as hunting and attack creatures, as they are designed to be highly resistant to weapons and stuff. They're also apparently illegal in most of the galaxy.

Rating: 3/5. I suppose it wouldn't be timely to make a Michael Vick joke at this point... Whoops.

196. Cyrillians. Reptilian guys as tall as Wookiees, they invented the DUM pit droids, those little saucer-headed robots that had all those crazy antics in Episode I.

Rating: 2/5. Eh, I liked those pit droids, although I'm sure plenty of other people didn't.

197. D'farians. The D'farians protected the Bothans during the Caamas Document crisis.

That's about it.

Rating: 2/5. Minimal information, sure, but the fact that they protected the Bothans, who were at rock-bottom in terms of popularity at that particular moment, is an intriguing suggestion of possible traits of their culture.

198. Dabi. All we know is that one of them had purchased a droid to serve as a waiter, and that droid was extremely obnoxious, leading to the owner praising a Mandalorian (who happened to be Boba Fett's granddaughter-yes, really) who destroyed its voicebox with a blaster.

Rating: 2/5. At least it's an amusing incident, but it tells us nothing about the Dabi.

199. Daimlo. Daimlo come from Daimla. (Ha!) They're fat, are probably short, have long horns and faces (although they don't resemble the Iktotchi beyond their horns, despite what the article says), and are among the species known for podracing.

Rating: 2/5. Amazing how there's a decent amount of of information there, but it says almost nothing as a whole (except that they're really ugly-my observation from the page picture, not Wookieepedia's).

200. Daltarri. They're plant things who look amusing. They apparently don't like it when their allies question them about aiding them (their allies aiding the Daltarri, that is).

Rating: 3/5. I'm not entirely sure what their cultural feature means and attempting to convey the meaning of the sentence that describes it is driving me batty, but it's there and they made an effort. Plus they look amusing.

Yaaayyy, #200.

-Signing off.

Too Many Crabs

2011-11-14T21:30:00.000-05:00

Nature is wonderful, isn't it?

While I wouldn't enjoy walking around there, those baby crabs are genuinely adorable.

-Signing off.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles In Japan

2011-11-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

Y'know, for a long time, I kind of forgot that the original TMNT cartoon was extremely comedic. (I was a kid [and often missed a lot of subtle things when I was a kid], I didn't get to watch a lot of episodes for various reasons, and my clearest memories of watching the show on TV involved the "red skies" seasons, which had less sunlight than Batman: The Animated Series and mostly took themselves more seriously.)

Of course, in Japan, they made "Mutant Turtles" (no "teenage" or "ninja," so far as I know) even sillier. (I've mentioned it before; if you hit the "tmnt" tag, you should find it pretty quickly.)

(Hilariously, in the second episode of this OVA, when ~~Darth Vader~~ Shredder and the turtles travel to Japan and encounter ninjas, they freak out-because in this version, neither group had anything to do with "actual" ninjas.)

And of course, in the UK they dropped all references to ninjas as well, calling them "hero" turtles. They also took away Michaelangelo's nunchucks in later seasons and replaced them with a rope, supposedly because 'chucks were too violent for the kiddies (like a kid is more likely to copy violence involving a relatively rare weapon than violence involving a rope?).

-Signing off.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS THE SPACE KNIGHT

2011-11-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

I used to think that Rom from Marvel Comics was the talkiest space knight ever.

I was wrong.

-Signing off.

Starring Robosaurus

2011-11-09T21:30:00.002-05:00

Y'know, if you're going to make a clip about something obscure like this, you could at least explain that the special effects giant robot dragon thing is a real thing that appears at monster truck rallies and whatnot.

It sounds like it would have been a pretty dumb series, but I don't know that that's a bad thing.

-Signing off.

China Still Loves Giant Robots

2011-11-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

(I'm being self-referential, just so you know.)

Y'know, this looks like a decent CGI anime-type show from China here...

...but my favorite part is probably the song. (It's definitely my sister's favorite part.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #19

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

181. Cosians. Cosians are described as having beaks and clubbed tails, which makes me think that they're a bit like bipedal ankylosaurs.

More importantly, a Jedi Cosian uses the lightsaber equivalent of a sword cane.

HECK YES.

Rating: 4/5. Sure, the species itself has little information, but an ankylosaur alien with a lightsaber cane makes me smile.

182. Courataines. Courataines are known to be squishy and to need help breathing in what we would consider normal atmospheres because of their homeworld's low gravity and thin atmosphere.

Rating: 3/5. For some guys who appeared in the background of one of the Han Solo Adventures briefly (so briefly I don't even recall them), they've got some decent material to work with as a starting point.

183. Covallon. The Covallon basically resemble big hairy reptile dogs, but are just as intelligent as humans. Since Imperials are speciesist jerks, a few Covallon used this to their advantage and were "adopted" as "pets" by high-ranking Imperial officers in order to spy on said officers.

Rating: 5/5. All power to the opposable-thumbless master spies who are cool-looking reptile lion dog things.

184. Coway. The Coway are big tough primitive types, for the most part. They look relatively human, but are covered in red down and all of them have these hilarious feather mohawk crests.

Hilariously, the entry for them claims that their foods would be poison to them if their digestive systems weren't so powerful. No duh, any foods that you can't digest will at the very least be inedible and poison-like.

Rating: 3/5. They're basically bigger, meaner Ewoks who are easier to take seriously. (Seriously, the first story to feature them was actually published years before Return of the Jedi, and they were basically exactly like Ewoks but lived in caves instead.)

185. Coynites. The Coynites are a rather typical dumb warrior race for the most part ("ME HATE WEAK PEOPLE! WEAK PEOPLE ALL DIE!" etc.) but have two interesting notes.

First, they have a physiognomy that would result in a possible 250-year lifespan, but because they're all idiots who constantly tear into each other, their actual average lifespan is 53 years. Good gravy, but they're dumb.

Second, despite a very humanlike shape and general appearance, they are described as giving birth to "litters" of two to six, implying that six isn't an unusual litter. Ouch. (It also notes that each litter is made up of only one sex.)

Rating: 3/5. I hate dumb warrior races (just because they're violent doesn't mean they'll be dumb), but the biological details amuse me.

186. Cragmoloids. Cragmoloids are elephant people. Elephant people who spent time entirely enslaved, and who lost their homeworld to heavy stripmining by a megacorporation.

More relevant to the modern Cragmoloid is the very real issue of being poached for his or her valuable tusks. While they think it's humiliating, most of them saw their own tusks off to ensure their own safety.

Rating: 4/5. I find their delicate societal position rather unrealistic for the most part, but also hecka funny in a grim sort of way.

187. Cranscoc. The Cranscoc are slow-breeding insectoids who communicate by changing their own colors. Cranscoc own Spaarti Creations, which those familiar with the EU will note as sharing the name of the cloning apparatus used in the Timothy Zahn-penned Star Wars novels.

Not surprising, as they appeared in a Zahn-penned story to explain why Spaarti cloning cylinders were in his books when the prequels used guys named Kaminoans instead.

Rating: 3/5. I think this is the lowest I've rated a Zahn book species, although it was more of a Zahn short story species. (Could be wrong.) The thing about Zahn, though, is that even his obvious continuity patching is great.

188. Cratniks. Cratniks are apparently a grossout species, because they're described as large insectoids who are "repulsive" in appearance to humanoids, eat live rodents, and get mad if you impolitely refuse to eat the rodents they offer you. And don't think they won't offer you live rodents to eat-they will. (They will excuse you if you are polite and a vegetarian or don't want to eat raw food. Yes, that's a "polite and it's not part of your diet," not "polite or it's not part of your diet.)

They also attack with their jaws in combat.

Rating: 4/5. I find it hilarious that they were apparently designed with the intention of making them freaky as all heck.

189. Crintlians. Crintlians have a hilarious name.

They're also "territorial" (over their furniture? Over their food? Over the remote? Over their lands? Over their planet?) and "known for their technology" (advanced technology? Primitive technology? Cheap imitation technology? Fancy and with all the bells and whistles technology?).

Rating: 1/5. No good. Please avoid vagueness in your descriptions in the future.

190. Critokians. The Critokians, from Critoki (fun to say and to type), are intended to be giant spiders, although the existing illustration is... odd. They're the canonized entry in the "Under 16" category of the "Design an Alien" contest, which I've mentioned in the past.

They can kill prey with their large claws.

They also apparently have a population on Yavin 4, the rather lush moon that the Rebels put their base on in ANH.

Rating: 4/5. I find the statement above ("They can kill prey..."), which is paraphrased rather closely from the article on them, to be hilarious. Also, I tend to rate spider guys high here...

-Signing off.

Lots of Cartoon Insults

2011-11-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

I love the fact that there are people with enough time on their hands to do stuff like this. (Note that the video is just shy of eleven minutes.)

There are places where this has a kind of mind-blowing cadence, aren't there?

-Signing off.

Great Moments in DVD Cases Cracker Packaging

2011-11-03T21:30:00.001-04:00

I opened a box of Wheat Thins today, and discovered that something was a bit off. And it made me think of the fact that I've had a few posts commenting on poor quality control and other things in DVD packages, and I thought, "Hey, why not blog about a bad cracker bag?"

Yes, it came like that. I was worried that the crackers would be bad, but in fact they were still fresh, and I transferred them to a resealable plastic baggy.

It looks kind of like the sheet of plastic was too short for the machine to seal the proper way; I'm just amazed that the crackers were edible.

And yes, I ate a few handfuls to make sure.

-Signing off.

Batman Does Not Conform (To Batman's Expectations)

2011-11-02T21:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know.

Batman apparently likes contradicting Batman.

(And whoa, I didn't expect this one to not match the width of the other two so badly.)

And, of course, the MIND SCREW version.

I'm sorry.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Cube me I am a transformer

2011-11-01T21:30:00.001-04:00

Cube me I am a transformer (sic) is a game that's trying hard to be delightful, but falls more than a little short.

Which isn't to say that it isn't a good effort.

The story seems to be a lighthearted jab of sorts at the MacGuffin of the first live-action Transformers movie, the Allspark Cube. The gray stickblob is running with a yellow cube, the green one is chasing him, and then the gray one trips and a chip comes off the cube. The green one picks the chip up.

Then the gray one shoots the green one dead.

The chip from the cube turns the green stickblob into a more rectangular stickblob (and brings him back to life, obviously).

If left alone, your character will jump rope.

Gameplay is basically the ancient Super Mario Brothers paradigm-run, jump, squish, and no hitpoints (although the game's "respawn" system is lazy and your lives are more like hitpoints most of the time)-but by pressing a certain combination of keys, you can turn into a tank, which you can acquire ammunition for.

Sadly, this doesn't make you any tougher-the same things will generally hurt you for the same number of lives.

If you acquire fuel, then you will gain the ability to transform into a helicopter, which can fly.

Sadly, you lose even minimal offensive capabilities (despite what looks like a rocket pod on the side there) and can't move very fast, although that balances it out quite a bit-or it would, if you didn't have such a strict time limit.

I can't get past the second level, which is intended to be the first "real" level.

Why not?

Well, there's a timer.

The ammo and fuel supplies are quite limited.

Fuel lasts for far too short a time.

If you run out of ammo and fuel, the enemies and environments-which include gigantic helicopters that hover over enormous crevasses-are such that they would make even the most hardcore of gamers cry to face them as a functional Mario clone, even if the game had some kind of oneup sampo, which it doesn't. The game is just literally physically impassable if you're not using these skills which have super-limited durations (and since the durations are so short, you won't be using these skills for long enough).

It's a game with quite a bit of potential that I want to like, but I can't. Play it for a couple of minutes, but don't get too furious when it gets to be a pain in the butt.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #18

2011-10-31T21:00:00.001-04:00

Every now and again, there's a whole bunch of guys with too little information to go on in a row. This post may hold the record for that.

171. Clawdites. The Clawdites are shapeshifters. This is why a hot chick in Episode II turned into a nasty thing when she died-she was a Clawdite.

Most Clawdites, from what I've read, can't change their forms as extensively as a lot of shapeshifters; they essentially can only use it as disguise powers. And that rather makes me wonder what the point to Zam Wesell (the aforementioned Clawdite) shapeshifting really was-she went around "disguised" as the same hot actress all the time.

Rating: 3/5. As shapeshifters go, the Clawdites are fairly boring and mildly plausible. They have kind of a fun name, though. Clawdite Clawdite Clawdite.

172. Codru-Ji. Codru-Ji are four-armed people. Their most amusing feature is that they go through a form of metamorphosis-they start as shaggy six-legged doglike creatures, and then form cocoons and emerge as extremely humanoid (and fairly attractive) beings.

Needless to say, visitors on their homeworld often are embarrassed by social missteps. (And outsiders are rarely aware of the Codru-Ji life cycle because not many of them travel abroad.)

Rating: 4/5. I love the idea of completely vertebrate creatures going through insect metamorphosis.

173. Colicoid. These guys designed the droideka, i.e. the "destroyer droids" that mostly showed up in Episode I. And they modeled them after themselves.

That means that they're big vaguely buglike creatures that can roll up into balls.

They also are cannibalistic (by the science fiction/fantasy definition of "cannibalism," which is "eats things that can talk") and will capture passers-by in and near their solar system and kill and eat them.

Rating: 4/5. I like the Colicoids a fair bit. While I don't care for insectoid/reptilian creatures being typecast as ravening beasts who will kill you and eat your flesh for jollies, the fact that they are murderous creatures who also are smart enough to design and build effective weapons systems gives them a good boost.

174. Columi. Columi are tiny-bodied, huge-headed people who ride around in hoverchairs. In effect, a race of MODOKs.

They also are described as being a "very old" species, which is kind of meaningless as a phrase, but intended to indicate that they are highly advanced.

Rating: 4/5. Only because they're basically MODOKs.

175. Conjeni. [EDIT: Whoops, for a while there the link was to the wrong article.] Conjeni resemble red-furred cartoon starfish.

And that's it.

Rating: 2/5. I'm amused by the description, anyway.

176. Constancians. Short, telepathic, mammalian humanoids.

Four out of five of whom are disturbing as heck. (Look at that picture.)

Rating: 1/5. Aaargh no.

177. Cor. Cor are described as "feline" but look suspiciously like rats (a bit like this guy does). They apparently had some kind of mystic powers that let them contain some sort of giant monster. A big space corporation wanted to utilize the land some of them lived on, and forcibly relocated them, causing the huge, invincible monster to wreck everything they tried to do there. And so the Cor were allowed to move back, yay the end.

Rating: 2/5. All that kind of annoys me. At least they got better information than most of this batch...

178. Corasgh. The Corasgh had a terrible name. I say "had" instead of "have" because the Yevethans, another alien species who, like the later Yuuzhan Vong, slaughtered a bunch of people and caused general havoc and annoyance, and who were almost certainly another of the Yuuzhan Vong's inspirations (alongside the Charon).

Rating: 1/5. I must thank the Yevethans for ensuring that I'll never need to type "Corasgh" ever again.

179. Corragut. The Corragut live in the Corellian Sector and are "treated as a client species" by the Corellians, whatever the heck that means in this context.

Rating: 1/5. Don't be holding out for something better, because...

180. Corthenians. They're from the Corthenia system. That's it. As if we couldn't have guessed that without being told.

Rating: 1/5. ...

Half of these guys had practically no information in their articles. That's astonishing in one respect, and predictable in another.

-Signing off.

What Do Slugs Do, Then?

2011-10-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

That's the question I found myself asking when this video stated that snails rely on their shells to retain moisture.

I mean, I'm sure they've got something. Maybe they do that mucus cocoon thing lungfish do in Africa.

-Signing off.

Hey, Look, Grimlock!

2011-10-27T22:00:00.001-04:00

Recently, a Transformer was introduced into the Transformers mythos and received a lot of negative backlash. Why? Because he was overhyped as something new to Transformers but was not. (I'm not naming names, but here's his article on the TFWiki.)

The basic gist of the hype was pretty much "Hey, he's the Transformers version of Wolverine!"

Sorry, guys, we don't need a counterpart to Wolverine: We've got one.

Seriously, Grimlock is what Wolverine would be if he were a giant robot dinosaur guy with a sword longer than a Cadillac instead of a mutant with pointy claws.

(I think my favorite Grimlock quote actually comes from a photo fancomic [much better than it sounds] where a cannibalistic Transformer version of Venom asked him what he tasted like. His single-word response, accompanied by extreme violence, was "Pain."

Grimlock tastes like pain, all right.)

-Signing off.

Greatest Terrible Movie Ever?

2011-10-26T21:30:00.000-04:00

I think I embedded a trailer for this once, but I can't be sure.

This looks like it must be the best ridiculous action movie (as well as the just plain most ridiculous action movie) ever made.

(FYI, as near as I can tell, there's Russian translations loudly trying to talk over the dialogue. Not that I can understand either of the languages it's in.)

-Signing off.

Golden Age Moment of the Day (76)

2011-10-25T21:30:00.001-04:00

From some roughly Golden Age Sherlock Holmes comic book (which you can find a bit back here, but which I didn't bother reading any of until today)...

...You guys? You moved Sherlock Holmes to America? And in the 1950s? (The characters are driving around in '50s era cars all the time.)

Eh, whatever, it's probably still better than the old black and white movie/episode/whatever the heck that had a cowgirl in it. (No, seriously. That happened.)

-Signing off.

Not To Argue With Batman Or Anything, But...

2011-10-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

...it doesn't matter how well-endowed she is, she's still got a lower center of gravity.

Yes, I am a huge nerd, why do you ask?

-Signing off.

Distraction Kitties GO

2011-10-21T22:30:00.001-04:00

Wasn't much in the mood to blog, and eventually it got late...

So have a picture of an old cranky cat and a kitten.

FYI, the gray one's a cat who's about fifteen years old and hates most other cats, especially if she's awake. The other is my kid brother's kitten (who has gotten a clean bill of health from the vet, if you remember the unpleasant story about what happened to the last kitten), whom said older cat currently hates maybe half the time, and seems to not mind as a nap buddy.

Although at some point, he was sitting there chewing on her for some reason.

Oh, and yeah, he sleeps like that naturally if someone holds him.

-Signing off.

Now That's Talent

2011-10-20T21:30:00.000-04:00

I recently was looking at videos on YouTube, and came across this clip of Krang talking.

It credited Pat Fraley as Krang's voice actor.

I thought "that doesn't sound right, he did Bravestarr from, well, Bravestarr, didn't he?"

Well, I checked Wikipedia, and he did do both voices. (I do recall that in the special features from the Best of Bravestarr disk that Fraley remarked he usually did villains.)

So yeah, that's pretty amusing.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Armed With Wings 3

2011-10-19T21:30:00.001-04:00

Armed With Wings 3 is the final game in the Armed With Wings set of games (Armed With Wings, Red Moon, and Armed With Wings 2 are the others).

This game has a few advantages over the previous titles in the series: Its gameplay is a bit more nuanced and has taken on an upgradeable RPG aspect; the art style has had an upgrade; and the protagonist is capable of most feats that the previous ones were with the right ability sets. (The exceptions are the useless distraction ability from Armed With Wings [no loss at all], Vandheer Lorde's throw attack and super jump from AWW2, and the Red Moon protagonist's double jumping.) But I'll get to the gameplay in a minute.

The first thing to note is that you briefly play as the first Armed With Wings (SPOILERS-Also known as "Blackmist," the creator god of the setting), and even though he is now glowing white instead of a shadow like everyone else and has sprouted enormous wings from his back, he still can't jump. This is hilarious: A physical god, and a frikkin' foot-wide spike pit would be a completely impassable obstacle.

This doesn't actually let you do anything, it just goes straight into a cutscene once you walk far enough in one direction. I'm not sure what's up with that. In said cutscene, a monster/villain named Network shows up, the two have a big fight, and both of them seem to be destroyed (sadly, I can't cheer here as much as I'd like to because I actually kind of hate Network, too); then, we see Eivana, the protagonist of Red Moon, lying mortally wounded where Vandheer Lorde and Hawken left her during Armed With Wings 2, apparently being healed by magic energy.

Some years later, we learn she has a son who has a suspicious resemblance to Armed With Wings. Kinda creepy, guys...

Gameplay is basically a "fixed" version of Armed With Wings at first-you control a protagonist who can actually jump this time around, and you can use a magic, remote-controllable bird to scout and solve annoying puzzles, although fewer of them are quite as annoying this time around.

The enemies have been improved graphically, and the only regular foe who is unambiguously repeated from a previous game is this zombieish thing, which I suppose must be related to Network somehow, as they have similar shadow tendril things on them.

They aren't even remotely threatening; the only way they can kill you even at the start of the game is if you stand still against a wall for at least thirty seconds or they knock you into a spike pit, and even the latter is extremely rare.

As noted, the bird puzzles are usually a bit less annoying; the worst are a complicated level that seems to have been designed just to annoy the heck out of me personally, and this one, where the spikes will force you to start over, though thankfully they don't take away any health like the buzzsaws from the first game.

Every now and again, there are typos, which are more noticeable in this game than in the others for some reason (other than this title card, I think my favorite is Eivana calling the protagonist's conception and birth a "miracale").

Most enemies have at least one feature that makes them annoying-better reach than you, an attack pattern that's quick and difficult to respond to, etc.-but there's also a first for the Armed With Wings games, a ranged non-boss enemy.

They wouldn't be so annoying if the level design didn't always have them places where they'll get a good shot at you and you can't attack them.

The jumping puzzles are, of course, back in this game; while none of them are as horrific as in the other games, a few of them are subtly insidious, such as this jump, which should be super-easy but killed me quite a few times.

You're supposed to just wall-jump up onto that platform over there, but once you've upgraded your speed and jumping a few times, your default jump will overshoot it by a wide margin.

Actually, the hardest jumping puzzles involve a trick with placing the bird correctly and then using it for a boost. All the jumping puzzles benefit from the protagonist being able to grab ledges and climb up automatically; they also all suffer from a slight misfire causing a wall jump in the opposite direction.

The final part of regular gameplay are the bosses. Here, I'm actually using screenshots obtained in Survival Mode, which I'll talk more about in a second, because it's much easier than playing through the whole game to reach them.

There are basically two kinds of bosses in these games: "Slow-walkers" and "dual-phase" bosses. (There are a couple of bosses that don't quite fit either description in Armed With Wings 2, but only because they run instead of slow-walk.)

"Dual-phase" bosses are most common in AWW2, but they pop up here, as the simple but dangerous... flaming skull thing.

It has a sort of "meteor" bombardment attack that keeps you from holding still for too long, and then caps its attack phase with a shadow ball attack, which gets more deadly if it's lost a lot of health; then, it passes out and you can beat on it. Obviously, if you're reasonably good at evasion, this is pretty simple.

Most of the bosses are "slow-walkers," though. By this, I mean that they simply slowly walk towards you, occasionally firing off special attacks and trying to maul you if you get close. They are generally considerably more dangerous, merely because some of them have really strong attacks that can potentially reach you no matter where you are, and most of them also have the ability to move faster under some circumstances. Also, you fight nearly all of them in arenas with edges that have lethal drops, and if you manage to knock them off, they auto-teleport back to safety.

The main villain of AWW3 himself, Network, is this type of boss; his "speed move" is teleporting, and he has a number of special attacks that can hit from a distance. By the time you face him, though, you'll be powerful enough that he probably doesn't pose much of a threat; he really doesn't have anything that can strike over a great distance or take you by surprise. I've only ever lost to him by falling over the edge, in fact. (A few of those instances involve the fact that his arena initially only has one deadly edge, and if you're too close to the other one when you knock his health to the halfway point, you'll go down as the floor sinks away and be unable to save yourself.)

The main attraction as bosses go, though, is the final boss, Vandheer Lorde.

This boss fight is genuinely hard, but it rarely to never feels cheap; you'll get thrown off the edges from time to time, but it feels fairer here, and he doesn't have any completely sickening attacks like in Red Moon or Armed With Wings.

All of the regular gameplay pales, however, in comparison to Survival Mode.

In Survival Mode, there's none of that darned puzzle stuff; you just have to fight to defeat as many enemies as possible. Large numbers of regular enemies will show up in waves punctuated by rotating versions of the game's boss fights in original gameplay order. (My current personal best is 355; Vandheer Lorde has been responsible for most of my defeats.) And that means that this kind of stuff is going to happen a lot.

The best part about Survival Mode other than the completely crazy awesome hectic combat is that you get to ditch the bird for a second special power. After playing AWW2 and having access to Vandheer Lorde's six different abilities (punching, kicking, sword strike, "grab," ranged attack, and an ability determined by your weapon), the four in this game (punch, sword strike, bird, and one of seven special abilities, most of which you must unlock) feel a bit meager by comparison; replacing the non-combat ability with another ability adds a lot. (It should be noted that Armed With Wings and Armed With Wings 2 both have Survival Modes, but that they aren't even fractionally as fun because of a lack of huge, splashy combat abilities that can blow away small armies.)

An additional note is that the game has "new game plus" capabilities, meaning you can cruise through the game with all possible upgrades and slaughter the early-game enemies rapidly. There is also unlockable content that you can acquire, most of which allows you to play music on a music player on the game site. (The best songs are "The Final Fight" and "Enter, Vandheer." I can't tell you which environments have the unlock items for them, but I can tell you that I unlocked both of them on my first playthrough without any difficulty.)

All in all, while I think that this game has a silly story, it's well-worth playing as long as you like or can at least endure annoying jumping puzzles, and if you like sidescrolling game combat, Survival Mode is a blast and a half.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #17

2011-10-18T21:30:00.003-04:00

161. Chiss. The first Chiss to appear in Star Wars fiction was Grand Admiral Thrawn, also known as Mitth'raw'nuruodo, and was and is basically the best Star Wars villain not to appear in the movies, and is serious competition for the ones that have appeared in the movies. Thrawn was an exile from his people because of politics, and was the highest-ranked non-human in the Empire's military.

The Chiss Ascendancy is the Star Wars galaxy's greatest power that has never been part of the Old Republic, the Empire, or the New Republic, and played interesting roles in many stories, as it is from an isolated and poorly explored area that is comparatively difficult to travel to and from-they have information on many things that the mainstream part of the galaxy has never heard of.

What I'm more or less saying is that the Chiss fill a very important role, and are pretty great besides.

Rating: 5/5. Did I mention that Thrawn and the Chiss were created by Timothy Zahn? Because they were.

162. Chistori. The Chistori are reptilian people who are "impatient and quick to anger" and "often resorted to violence, and had little use for discipline and order." Cut that out, writers, the only thing more cliched than stupid, violent reptiles is cold-blooded reptiles.

They do have a somewhat interesting cultural trait implied, in that they don't know much about the Force for whatever reason and are superstitious about it, although how members of a galactic society wouldn't know about something like that least a little bit is a bit questionable.

They also look pretty cool.

Rating: 3/5. I'm being a bit generous, mainly because they look cool but also because they at least made an attempt at an interesting bit of cultural background. But doggone do I ever hate reptile stereotyping.

163. Choi. The Choi are from Choi. One got eaten by the Sarlacc on Tatooine. This is known, by the way, because that Choi had become part of the Sarlacc's consciousness and talked to Boba Fett while he was in there.

(And yes, in case you didn't know, Boba Fett was indigestible.)

Rating: 1/5. It's just a name. There's no actual species attached to it.

164. Chortose. The only known Chortose seems to have been from an RPG sourcebook. He was a short, chubby, furry hick with strong mechanical aptitudes.

Rating: 1/5, possibly up to 3/5 if more individuals show up and they aren't just clones of that first guy. Not much to go on.

165. Chroman. Chromans are earthworm people. Not nearly as nifty as a sapient planarian (see #29), but it'll do.

Rating: 3/5. They actually look a little too human for my tastes.

166. Chubbit. Chubbits are short reptilian aliens who look a smidgen like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are apparently vulnerable to some kind of high-frequency emissions, and the planet's atmosphere had some kind of effect on industrial machinery that caused the Empire to decide to build a massive high-frequency emitter on their planet that would bathe the entire place in such waves.

Ouch.

Things got better when an Imperial plot gone wrong destroyed the transmitter while they were attempting to capture Luke Skywalker. Then, some while later, the Yuuzhan Vong showed up.

Again, ouch.

Also, some of them had black spots; if you're familiar with many older illustrations of dinosaurs, said spots are essentially the same kind of spots that are used to show "dinosaur skin" in some older children's books and cartoons.

Rating: 4/5. I think I may have given them an extra point out of pity.

167. Chuhkyvi. While they look like orange-skinned humans (or maybe Nebulon), they're water-breathers who need to wear fishbowls on their heads out of water.

Which is pretty funny.

They're also a member species of the Iskalonians, an entire batch of different aquatic sapients who were evacuated to the planet Iskalon, where they all lived as a group.

Rating: 3/5. The idea of a collective bunch of species living together in harmony who happen to all live underwater amuses me for whatever reason.

168. Cilare. The Cilare were a primitive warrior species, at least by the standards of the galaxy at large. They didn't develop much medical technology because they thought it was lame-survival of the fittest and all that. In other words, they were written as stupid people.

And then the Yuuzhan Vong killed pretty much all of them.

Rating: 1/5. For once, I'm actually a bit thankful that the Yuuzhan Vong showed up. (Except that these guys were created for a Yuuzhan Vong story... Argh.)

169. Clantaani. All known Clantaani were villainous outlaws in a video game, where they made up a gang that seems to have been styled after Old West desperadoes.

Rating: 3/5. While I prefer diverse species, every once in a while you need to give in to the hilarious things you'll see. Also, they are very distinctive in appearance, and that's usually a plus.

170. Clatear. The Clatear are humanoids who are "recognizable by their horned heads." I can think of at least four humanoid species who appeared just in the movies without even trying hard that all have horned heads, so that's not very helpful in distinguishing them.

Anyway, they and another species who lived in the same general area used to fight with each other all the time, but were stopped by the Empire (after the Jedi had tried for generations to bring peace but failed); when the New Republic was distracted by the diplomatic firestorm of the Caamas Document (which caused a bunch of planets to send ships to blockade the Bothan homeworld because the Document implicated Bothan saboteurs in the destruction of Caamas, the Caamasi homeworld-see #129), they resumed it. [EDIT: Whoops, I left that an incomplete sentence.]

Rating: 3/5. Their purpose is to show exploding tensions in the galaxy during a crisis, and they do that well.

-Signing off.

Well, That Was Easy.

2011-10-17T21:30:00.001-04:00

I remember playing this game with my younger cousin once on his SNES.

I don't remember it being that easy.

The guy who posted it said that he'd left out one of the game's boss fights because it "took too long."

How long was too long?

Apparently, it could have been less than a minute.

-Signing off.

FOOLS

2011-10-14T21:30:00.001-04:00

Appropriate as the title may be, sadly this post isn't about Doctor Doom.

I was recently reading comments on a recent Shortpacked! strip (a habit I try to avoid getting into) and noticed a number of people mentioned someone called "Excalibur" in reference to Galasso shouting "FOOLS!" This struck me as incongruous, for what ought to be reasonably obvious reasons. Thankfully, somebody was kind enough to link a YouTube video. (Note that the following clip is flipped for some strange reason-note that the word "Excalibur" is mirrored towards the end.)

This guy is hilarious. I could listen to him nattering on like that (with the soft bagpipes underlaid) all day. (Naturally, I looked up the episodes of the series which feature him on YouTube, which have been officially posted there.)

I think my favorite part of this particular clip is how he says "What's your favorite number from one to twelve? ... FOOLS! What right do you have to pick a number? My legend dates all the way back to the twelfth century, you know!" as if the sum total of those sentences make more sense than they do separately.

And perhaps the "No autographs" at the end without missing a beat.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Armed With Wings 2

2011-10-13T21:30:00.007-04:00

Armed With Wings 2 is (duh) the sequel to Armed With Wings, which I recently reviewed. In it, there's an interesting and entertaining twist: You play as Vandheer Lorde, the final boss of Armed With Wings.

Also, the final boss of Red Moon and (SPOILERS!!) Armed With Wings 3. It's a little inexplicable how he got here, because I'm not sure that Armed With Wings Vandheer Lorde is actually a beatable boss by anyone without absurd gaming skills, but whatever.

Vandheer Lorde used to be emperor, but Armed With Wings apparently beat him up and took the throne. What really annoys me about this story-wise is that Armed With Wings is instantly accepted by just about everyone as somehow better as emperor than Vandheer Lorde, despite coming across in most cutscenes in this and Armed With Wings as a whiny little [expletive deleted].

I'm not going to make a secret of the fact that Vandheer Lorde is pretty much my favorite character from these games, partly because his dialogue is hilariously over the top, partly because he looks interesting and rather evil, and also because he's the most fun character to play, notwithstanding the fact that this game is, like most of them, crammed with super-annoying jumping puzzles (and Vandheer Lorde isn't very good at jumping compared to the Red Moon or Armed With Wings 3 protagonists).

(On a technical level, even Armed With Wings had at least one jumping puzzle, and you couldn't actually jump in that game.) I died a few hundred times here (that is, that single last jump there alone), only getting past by luck, before I remembered that you can "get more air" by attacking in mid-air, and started getting across consistently.

Part of the fun in controlling Vandheer Lorde is that he's got a lot of fun and useful abilities, which are fueled by a rapidly refilling "special" bar. He's got an "ice blast" for long-ranged attacks, which aside from being very useful against most enemies and for puzzles is great for whittling down bosses from a distance.

It's interesting to note that this attack is used by Vandheer Lorde in all of his boss fights.

He also has this great kicking animation.

There are a variety of weapons that you can use in the game, and all of them grant you a special ability. Other than one that requires you to finish the game and then start over, only your starting sword is actually useful, because it lets you heal-the others have ridiculously expensive and narrow magic attacks.

Perhaps a little disappointingly, the default sword is a little boring-looking; on the other hand, it's one of the more realistic video game swords you'll ever see.

I mentioned that Vandheer Lorde (you must ALWAYS type out his full name!!1!) isn't very good at jumping generally; his one saving grace in this department is his "super jump," which I nearly always use over his regular jump: You just hold down the jump button (the "up" arrow key) for a few seconds, and he jumps much higher.

With the additional boost from "attacking to get more air," he actually can get pretty high.

Perhaps his single most fun ability, an equivalent to which is not available to the protagonist of any of the other games, is his "grab" attack, which involves him seizing somebody and tossing them, possibly across the equivalent of three or more screens.

It was one of boss Vandheer Lorde's attacks in the first Armed With Wings, although it was only used in the "kills you every time mega attack" sequence as the opening part. While it doesn't work on bosses and on a few other odd enemies, it instantly kills the basic enemy and if used correctly can instantly kill even the elite guards from Armed With Wings, who here are merely a mild nuisance instead of worse than the game's midboss.

(Momentary aside: In Red Moon, which I reviewed previously without finishing because of difficult annoying jumping puzzle junk, Vandheer Lorde as the final boss has a powerful attack which is more super-annoying than it really should be. Why is it super-annoying?

Because, while it can't knock you off the platform [in fact, Red Moon is the only Armed With Wings-related game with a final boss fight where you don't fight on a platform where you can be knocked off by a cheap shot], whenever Vandheer Lorde uses it, he teleports to the ~~right~~ left [EDIT: Whoops, misremembered while I was typing this what he did!] end of the arena, and you're teleported to the middle.

I cannot even express how much it cheesed me off every time he used that frikkin' attack, although I suppose it's better than getting blasted off the screen anytime you're a little too eager to beat up the boss.)

The bosses in this game are probably the easiest out of any of the Armed With Wings series games, partly because nearly all of them have stages where they just sit there so you can beat the tar out of them. The exceptions are Armed With Wings, who is the final boss-he's effectively immune to all your special attacks, fast, and can easily knock you off the platform the fight is on, which makes nearly all of your losses feel like cheap shots-a dude named Hawken who is like a weaker, quicker Armed With Wings who can't block your ranged attack, and the hilarious Smoking Martillo.

I say that Smoking Martillo is an exception to the attack phase/vulnerable phase boss rule, but that isn't actually to Smoking Martillo's benefit: He actually is too lame to have an attack phase. Pretty much all you have to do to beat him is stay back and lob ranged attacks at him, and he'll just sit there and take it. He'll periodically launch an attack where he turns into a projectile and flies towards you, but if you shoot the projectile, he'll just change back and stand still again.

My point is, most of the bosses? You don't have to work very hard.

Once you've completed the game and sat through the ultra-annoying final cutscene, which shows that all your hard work was meaningless and tells you that you stink, you get to use the incredibly awesome Lightning Blade, which can cut the time it takes to finish the game in half or better, because it lets you spam an attack that KOs bosses in one hit. Yes, even that cheap Armed With Wings. I recommend trying a second playthrough just to have the satisfaction of doing that.

A few peripheral gameplay notes, which I'll mention because I know I'll forget if I don't talk about it now: Some of these games have very good music (at least a little bit of the music is apparently nabbed from somewhere, but I don't mind too much) and there's some very interesting camera actions going on relative to most side-scrolling games in all of the titles. If you're close to a boss, the camera zooms in; if you're far from the boss, it zooms out; if there's treacherous jumping stuff going on, it zooms out; and there's a default distance that works for most other things. It actually works to make the cutscenes a bit less jarring.

This at least borders on my favorite of this series of games, and I can recommend it. (The only reason I say "borders" instead of saying it's my favorite is because Armed With Wings 3 has an incredibly fun gameplay mode that, if you've finished the game at least once, makes the playthrough worth it in spades, even though that playthrough will probably be less fun than playing through this one.)

-Signing off.

I Really Kind of Hated That Stinking Game

2011-10-12T21:30:00.001-04:00

This reminds me, for obvious reasons, of the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Of course, I played the original Donkey Kong a fair bit, seeing as how there was an Atari 2600 version of it (as I've mentioned quite a few times, I played Atari games more than just about any other kind as a kid-other than a year or so when I had access to my older brother's NES [with only two cartridges] and my cousin's SNES a few times, I basically didn't have any other video/computer games until we got our first computer, which was rather late in the '90s). And it was one of my least favorite games, because I always made it up to the last level of the tower, grabbed the stupid hammer... and couldn't climb the ladder until the hammer was gone.

And then, if you get up to the top, you have to play through the second tower.

And then the third tower, which is really just the first one repeated. And then the fourth, which is the second one repeated. (Not that I ever got that far; even if I had been better at it, I wouldn't have kept playing through the endless repetition. There was a game called Vanguard that gave you indefinite continues through the first segment and then no more through consecutive segments; I'd always play through the first segment, which ended with one of the easiest "boss fights" ever, and then quit because it felt like a proper ending to the game. There was another game, Phoenix, where I did the same thing. In fact, I think most of the Atari games I played a lot could be played that way.) And so on.

What's sad is that, while I think I'm a strategically stronger player of games now than I was, my hand-eye coordination is probably actually a lot worse now than it was, so I probably wouldn't get anywhere.

If they really wanted the movie to accurately reflect the game, it would probably be ten hours long and would involve "Mr. Jumpman" falling back down to the bottom of the stairwell every five minutes. That would evoke the gameplay pretty well, I think.

My, that was a bit of a diatribe, wasn't it?

(Protip: Don't blog about something you thought was funny if you've just been looking at something that you found much funnier. It takes a little of the funny away.

And if you're wondering, I'll probably mention the funnier item tomorrow or Friday.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #16

2011-10-11T21:30:00.001-04:00

151. Charon. Oh, boy, the Charon!

...Um, this is a bit of a complex deal. Let's see how quickly I can explain it.

The Charon are a race of spider-inspired sort-of humanoid beings. (If you recall me noting how I hate the vagueness of the term "humanoid," critters like the Charon are why. They have eight limbs and an abdominal segment, but are still shaped enough like human beings that you could almost call them humanoid. Even a frikkin' velociraptor is "humanoid" by many measures, and SF author Stanley Schmidt [if I recall correctly] once described them as humanoid in a book about creating aliens. End ranty aside.) They exist primarily in otherspace, some kind of weird dimension that is most often accessed due to hyperdrive accidents.

Now here's the doozy: They have a death-obsessed religion and use organically derived technology, just like the Yuuzhan Vong, those overblown long-term event villains, who also come from outside the Star Wars galaxy. There's a key difference in that the Yuuzhan Vong worship death as a part of life, while the Charon worship death as the absence of life, but it's pretty obvious that whoever invented the Yuuzhan Vong was pretty much just cribbing notes from the Otherspace sourcebooks.

Wow, that didn't take that long at all.

They're better than the Yuuzhan Vong for a completely unrelated reason: They apparently use their natural webbing to entrap enemies. This will never fail to be hilarious.

Rating: 4/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong, but for additional reasons I'll explain momentarily, I like the Charon. They may have lost a point by association, though.

152. Charr Ontee. Charr Ontee? Charrontee? Charron... Charon?

Yes, actually. The Charr Ontee are a genetically engineered species created as farmers by a group called the Kathol, after which the Kathol Rift, the center of the Star Wars galaxy's most blatant Lovecraft references, is named. The Kathol Rift was apparently created in a travel accident (maybe-it might also have been created by the Celestials, #142 in this list) and the accident propelled a population of Charr Ontee into otherspace, where they became the Charon. (Which is why I call the Charon a "race": As the event that propelled them into otherspace was merely thousands of years ago, it's likely they're still technically the same species.)

The Charr Ontee of recent times were survivors of the Rift Disaster that created the Rift, and were in place to protect and serve the DarkStryder, an entity created by the Kathol to preserve them for resurrection at some point. However, the DarkStryder and the Charr Ontee stopped getting along, and they essentially broke into a war with each other. The Charr Ontee are also noted as among the most adept users of a type of Force power that could apparently only work within the confines of the Kathol Rift.

Rating: 5/5. The Charr Ontee are pretty awesome. Spider farmers who went to war with a Lovecraftian computer thing that was guarding the essences of their creator race? Yeah, sure, I'll take two.

153. Chazrach. The Chazrach were a slave race used as mind-controlled expendable footsoldiers by the Yuuzhan Vong. Hey, I thought those guys had some kind of honor thing going on, didn't they...?

Rating: 3/5. Purely because they're really cool-looking reptile dudes.

154. Chestrashi. It took me a moment to parse that name, and then I realized you could interpret it as "chest-rash-i." That's hilarious.

The Chestrashi were only mentioned in a role-playing sourcebook that was about technology and weapons, which noted that they had an interest in biological warfare even though the piece of technology associated with them in the book was called a "void spear," which does not sound like biological warfare equipment at all.

Rating: 1/5. Blah.

155. Chev. The Chev are nearly indistinguishable from humans, and there is debate as to whether or not they are "near-humans" or descended from native primate life. They spent most of recorded history as the slaves of the Chevin, who are next on the list. They apparently had two hearts, and sources disagree as to whether they could live for three hundred years or a mere seventy-some.

Rating: 1/5. They're not really even aliens except for the two-hearts thing, which I'm not sure makes any difference.

156. Chevin. Holy cheese, what's up with all the closely linked ones today?

The Chevin are "pachydermoid" beings, that is to say, they're claimed to be elephant-like. They're actually huge faces with arms and legs, though. Their strength and durability (able to kill humans with their foreheads), surprising speed (supposedly they're only a bit slower than longer-legged forms like humans), and the fact that their mouths are low enough that they can eat things on the ground while watching the horizon (seriously, you need to look at the pictures to understand what a Chevin looks like) let them conquer the Chev and keep them as slaves. Even in the modern era (that is, the era of the films) they commonly keep Chev as slaves. Because of this, a lot of Chevin are on the shady side of the law.

And one of them was possibly Jabba the Hutt's only real friend. Seriously.

(A bit of backstory: Ephant Mon, the Chevin in question, was once Jabba the Hutt's partner when the Hutt was still building his power base. The two were betrayed by others and abandoned on a cold world, Ephant Mon badly injured. Jabba wrapped his huge, fatty body around Ephant Mon, which kept him warm enough that he lived through the night. Ephant Mon didn't entirely believe that Jabba was still his friend during the Return of the Jedi time period, which actually upset Jabba a little.)

Rating: 5/5. The Chevin are kind of awesome, too.

157. Chiggnash. Usually, I hate ultra-short entries. This entry is ultra-short, but it's got enough details that I can proclaim I love the Chiggnash. Why? They are described as "scorpion-like" beings who "could use the control mind Force power" to "breed a large number of warrior drones" and also may form extortion rings.

Rating: 4/5. I laughed so hard. They sound like fun. The article also has a "behind the scenes" note that says they aren't explicitly sapient, "but the fact that they could form an extortion ring heavily implies that they were." NORLY?

158. Chikarri. The Chikarri are "sapient rodents," which means that they're short. Their world is described as having many lakes and plateaus. Does it have any other geographical features?

They are also described as being technology fiends who like to take things apart to understand how they work and possibly improve upon them.

Rating: 3/5. Eh, nothing notable, nothing awful. Move along.

159. Children of the Green Planet. George Lucas once promised Stephen Spielberg, after the latter put Star Wars merchandise in E.T. the Extraterrestrial, that he would put E.T.-based aliens in the next Star Wars movie (which turned out to be The Phantom Menace). And so here they are.

Rating: 3/5. The article hilariously speculates (with plenty of reasonably well-founded evidence) that even in E.T.'s own movie, his species was from the Star Wars galaxy. That earns it a few points for making me chuckle.

160. Chironian. Chironians are "centauriforms," i.e. they're shaped like centaurs, who also have antler-like horns. The only Chironian to appear in a story is Lusa, one of Luke Skywalkers Jedi trainees, who was more pacifistic than many of Luke's Jedi and was killed by a Yuuzhan Vong creature called a voxyn (which was specifically bred to hunt down Jedi and help kill them).

Rating: 3/5, because I like the character but we know nothing about the species at large. Alas, poor Lusa, we barely knew thee. Her death made me kind of sad by virtue of her being involved in one of the interspecies romances that more people would have found kind of weird; the other party, the human Raynar Thul, honestly had a fate that made hers look pretty tame by comparison. (And no, the relationship wasn't a sexual thing, Raynar was just incredibly smitten with Lusa. There was nothing creepy about it; in fact, Lusa was possibly not even entirely aware of it.)

-Signing off.

Some Star Wars Humor Thing Again

2011-10-10T21:30:00.002-04:00

Okay, usually I think these "How It Should Have Ended" things are pretty stupid (I've watched a fair few, but was disappointed by the majority), but this one was pretty funny.

That would have been totally awesome.

And almost as perfect as this.

-Signing off.

Be Thankful He Hasn't Memetically Acquired Jedi Powers

2011-10-07T21:00:00.002-04:00

Y'know, I know how popular the Heath Ledger Joker from The Dark Knight was/is, but I can't even imagine the Joker not sounding like Mark Hamill's version. Dude has the best crazy laugh(s). And on those occasions I read Joker dialogue in the comics, it still sounds like him in my head regardless.

Just in case you're wondering like I did when he tossed the sign out of the "Jokermobile," it said "WAN THE CIRIN GNAL JOKERNOCILE." No seriously.

(I kinda wanted to type "osmemetically" [i.e. "osmotic" plus "memetic" gets "osmemetic"] in the title, but decided against it. Even though I think it's a great word. At least I can claim I coined the word.

It still counts as coining a word if you discover later someone else did first, right?)

-Signing off.

Another Megaman Thing Where Met(taur [the little helmet guy]) Shows Off

2011-10-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

You may have seen this video.

Well, the little helmet dude can take punishment from more than just Megaman. (Note that these videos are based on a totally different series of Megaman games than the other video.)

That boss, Falzar, is considered somewhat weaker-in fact, there are videos of it getting thrashed by another boss. Which boss? Gregar, which the little helmet dude takes on in this video.

And now you know... that little helmet guys can apparently kick most guys around pretty badly.

(And yes, obviously I know they're not called "little helmet guys." Frankly, I don't give a care.)

-Signing off.

The Stuff of Nightmares

2011-10-05T21:30:00.000-04:00

Specifically, my sister's nightmares-she remarked after seeing this video that if this were the size of a train, she'd find it mind-bendingly horrifying.

Something about multiple legs freaks her out, and apparently velvet worms are the worst. Don't know why...

-Signing off.

Game Review: Armed With Wings

2011-10-04T22:00:00.003-04:00

Armed With Wings is a game created by the same guy who made Red Moon, a game that I recommended with reservations. (The positive aspects were artistic style and the combat system; the reservations involved the "jumping puzzle" aspect of the later levels and the fact that there's a dumb justification used for the artistic style [my position is that no justification was necessary whatsoever]. Having since made it to the end of the game, albeit only with extreme suffering, I can also add "has a dumb story" to my reservations.)

Armed With Wings is an older game in the same art style, and it shows: It's still pretty, but the gameplay is rougher. For instance, your guy (who is actually named Armed With Wings, a name that even my kid brother thinks is stupid) can't jump at all.

His default speed is "flat-out run," which sounds like there's nothing wrong with it until you remember that if he goes off a ledge, he'll always go down... and of course every other ledge in the game has a bunch of instant death spikes beneath it.

These weaknesses are mildly mitigated by a few... er, make that one nice ability, the ability to somehow generate a little bird thing and send it out to scout and solve annoying puzzles.

You can also distract some (by which I mean "exactly one type who is mostly harmless, so what the heck is the point?!") enemies with the bird, but it's rarely really relevant.

As the bird is generally invulnerable, albeit with a short "lifespan" that limits how far from you it can travel unless you pick up a certain powerup with it, it's pretty good at the scouting job.

Of course, scouting is useless when you might get randomly dropped through the floor for a boss fight.

It took me thirty-plus tries to beat this silly looking boss (the victory was followed up with a seizure-inducing cinematic, by the way). Why? Because he spends up to two-thirds of his time spinning his sword like that, which makes him completely invulnerable, while also pushing you back towards a wall of spikes that he can knock you into.

As the game goes on, a tougher enemy type, the elite guard, shows up, and boy do I hate them. I think they're slightly nastier than that boss.

Why? They attack really fast, meaning you may not be able to retaliate, can take all of your health in about ten seconds unless you get in hits first, often respond to power attacks with their own power attacks (power attacks are only really relevant for a few minor purposes anyway), and can dodge like the dickens. Their only positive feature is that, since the only way they can dodge is by withdrawing, they're easy to drive into spike pits. That that's their one saving grace says a lot, doesn't it?

I mentioned solving puzzles with the bird, right? For some reason, the bird can pick stuff up, including stuff that even your larger character shouldn't be able to (though you need the infinite flight powerup in order to actually make use of it).

At least once, the puzzle is a huge pain, moreso than some of those enemies: A flying maze, where the limited flight duration acts as a strict time limit.

Oh, yeah, and you know what happens in the second-to-last level unexpectedly? Suddenly, things can hurt the bird, and this drains your life whenever it happens.

So what's the final battle in this game like?

Well, if you pound too much on the boss, he does this to you, and you always lose instantly when he does.

Because you get knocked into the spikes. Or occasionally inside the ceiling, which isn't any better even though you don't die.

So why am I playing this game at all? Well, obviously I like parts of it. It has potential. But this is definitely the weakest of the games this guy has set in his silhouette world. (I think he might be aware of the weaknesses of this game, because the third "Armed With Wings" game [Red Moon is also part of the series, more or less kind of] has the central mechanic of a summonable, controllable bird without any of that other stupid stuff.)

I don't really recommend it. (I kinda wanted to take a screenshot or two of the main villain's speech to the hero, because it was frikkin' hilarious, but unlike every other cutscene in his games, it's completely uncontrollable.) But I'll be talking about the other two games soon enough.

-Signing off.

Best Transformers Song Ever

2011-10-03T21:30:00.000-04:00

Move aside, Lion's rendition of the Transformers theme song. Praise Be to Decepticon may be the best Transformers song ever created.

That's even considering the way that the Japanese parse "Decepticon" ("Desuputicon"-yes, there's a "pooty" in there).

-Signing off.

Cobra Gets Mauled By Mongoose

2011-09-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

This video makes me kind of mad.

Not at what's happening, really, although I like snakes and it always makes me a bit sad to watch one getting mauled. (It's far more common than you might think; snakes are essentially just mobile sausages, it's just that they're mobile sausages that are good at killing things smaller than themselves and being venomous. Of course they're popular prey.)

No, what makes me mad is the realization that all those cartoons that depict mongooses have been misleading people for decades. Look at that mongoose. It's huge. A mongoose doesn't get into a fight with a cobra, it just walks up and goes "munch munch munch." There isn't even a hint of drama, any more than there would be if a tyrannosaur walked up to an angry bull and ate it. (Well, a smidgen more drama, I suppose-the bull isn't poisonous.)

-Signing off.

Watch Out For Low-Hanging Centipedes

2011-09-29T21:30:00.002-04:00

As if the last video I posted featuring a centipede wasn't already good enough at giving people nightmares...

My sister has remarked that centipedes give her the creeps like nearly nothing else. This is a girl who calls nearly any and every strange, bizarre, and borderline misshapen hellspawn animal cute, by the way.

-Signing off.

HOWEVER

2011-09-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, I played video games the even-then ancient Atari 2600. Why? It was what I had.

One of the most infuriating things about Atari games at the time was that they were essentially endless. (Considering how hard it is to reach the end of some newer games, I suppose that could be a blessing in disguise, even if those few of my classmates who knew what I was talking about when I mentioned an Atari game mocked the games' endless natures.) Even then, I think I would have preferred it to an ending like this one.

Yoink, ha ha ha, not really an ending for you.

-Signing off.

FATALITY BRUTALITY

2011-09-27T22:00:00.001-04:00

Betterman at least occasionally had really brutal fights.

He recovers from this by virtue of his Nebula form's head not being his "real" head (it's obviously a bit complicated).

-Signing off.

But It Has Giant Robots, So All Is Forgiven

2011-09-26T21:30:00.001-04:00

I've seen a similar movie to this one that was apparently made by the same group around the same time.

That is, clearly bad, and really dumb.

This one has a clear edge up on that one (Robot Jox, if you're wondering), by virtue of having a giant robot scorpion.

I adore scorpions*, and giant robot scorpions are generally awesome. Even if, as this thing does, they lack the claws.

*Scorpions are like, I don't know, the venomous mutant crocodiles of the insect world. And yes, I know, blah blah not insects blah blah, but they're part of what is called "the insect world," so it doesn't matter. Fussing at anyone but the blatantly ignorant about that sort of thing is dopey.

Where was I? Ah, yes, scorpions weren't content with being able to seize and crush their prey, so they acquired the ability to poison them to death, too. A scorpion's stinger is possibly the most malicious-looking appendage in the entire animal world.

-Signing off.

Watch As I Ignore The Central Premise

2011-09-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Y'know, much as I'm aware that this video is razzing George Lucas for his repeated edits to the original trilogy (most of which don't really bother me at all-if we just forget about that Han vs. Greedo thing, which is honestly the only thing most people pay attention to anyway, I'm fine)...

...I still think that the funniest part is the fake YouTube menu thingy towards the end. Perhaps that's missing the point...

Not that I care.

-Signing off.

Raideen Fights Baragon (The Other Baragon)

2011-09-22T21:30:00.000-04:00

(As a brief, momentary aside, I'm linking to this old column by Dave Campbell about the Red Skull getting thrashed by Magneto. Why? My sister was curious, and I'm curious how well she'd be able to read the article on her phone. That is all.)

One of the most fearsome enemies that the original Raideen faced was Baragon (no relation to the Toho daikaiju that fought a giant Frankenstein's monster, probably), a huge flying dragon created by Barao, the archnemesis of the civilization that created Raideen (the people of the imaginary continent of Mu). Baragon is one of Raideen's toughest enemies, but he's also made of pure craziness.

Here, the great dragon looks fairly... normalish, but you just can't see the crazy details too well. (Incidentally, the weapons in the foreground protect the fortress that maintains Raideen, which, I'm sorry to say I neglected to mention the last time I talked about how nuts this stuff is, is inside an enormous purple oyster shell that closes when the base is under attack.)

I add this image simply to show Baragon's happy face.

Anatomically, Baragon is a close relative of the enemy I've nicknamed Elephant's Head Ninja. That is, it's an animal form with a warrior guy sticking out of a random, convenient location. Baragon's warrior bit comes out of his back. In and of itself, that's not so weird, although the warrior has four arms.

No, what's crazy is that if you're looking closely enough (admittedly, these aren't the best screenshots, but I'm only human and putting too many pictures up takes a lot of time anyway), you can see that Barao's lieutenants are being worn by Baragon's warrior section as hand puppets.

And no, that's not at all misleading or misrepresenting what happened. In the previous two episodes, those guys got killed by Raideen, and so Barao brought forth Baragon for a last ditch attack... and he pulled out a pair of giant hand puppets and gave them to Baragon. That is literally exactly what happened.

So what kinds of abilities did Baragon and his puppet-wielding warrior symbiote have? Well, aside from the obvious flight and being much larger than Raideen (the warrior is of course in the same scale as Raideen), he had some fairly standard stuff, like eye beams and whirlwind generation, the warrior had some melee weapons (silly as they were), and the puppet heads spat projectiles (funny that that ends up being less silly by comparison). He could also recover from being shot in the eye with a giant robot arrow without apparent harm (although that was probably just lazy animation and direction). One of his more visually interesting abilities was his ability to stretch out his hair, which looked like the unholy lovechild of sawswords and barbed wire, and use them as a rather tentacular reaching and grabbing attack.

Apparently, this wasn't enough, because Baragon could also cause the hair stuff to merge into this... Raideen catcher. Seriously, that's pretty much the only word for it.

All of this wasn't enough to bring down Raideen, though, and the two titanic combatants got rather up close and personal with each other, leading Raideen to stab Baragon right in the mouth.

Which didn't go well, because Baragon has lava for blood.

How did Raideen get out of getting lava blood all over him? Well, somebody flew a Bluegar (Raideen's support craft, which I mention in that other post) loaded with a full payload of heavy missiles right down Baragon's throat, and the ensuing explosion split Baragon in half. This weakened Baragon enough (!) that Raideen was able to finish him off.

(And no, I'm not going to say more than that about the Bluegar suicide attack thing. Completely aside from the spoiler aspect, I'd have to explain a whole bunch of other stuff I haven't mentioned at all.)

Of course, that still left Barao to fight, and Barao was pretty bizarre, too... although that's a subject for another post.

-Signing off.

TECHNOBABBLE ATTACK

2011-09-21T21:30:00.001-04:00

In many series, technobabble (phrases invented by writers to describe confusing events in science fiction, fantasy, and other series) is delivered fairly well.

Then there's Betterman's technobabble.

"Electromagnetic... and ultrasonic pulses work in different mediums... but they both cause vibrations."

That's hilarious. After I first found this clip, I told my sister that, if I ever decided to buy and watch Betterman, I'd pretty much just laugh the whole time. (Well, there are some things I wouldn't laugh at, but that's because Betterman also features some truly brutal violence that it's hard to believe characters could come back from [even though those characters do, of course]. Such as decapitations.)

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Review(s): M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales

2011-09-20T21:30:00.001-04:00

(AKA "Pals in Peril.")

Every once in a while, you find a children's book of exceptional quality. (Here's an older review of a comic-format book that I read some time back. I ought to figure out how to review the Robot City books, which I read a while ago, too...) M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales, of which I have read "The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen" and "Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware" are clearly qualified as exceptional.

I'll admit, children's books often have an easy time engaging me. I might be an adult who is generally regarded by those who know me as smarter than average (not boasting, just stating what others state), but I'll happily read or watch things aimed at any age group if it suits my tastes.

And these books have what is usually an easy way to interest me: Make things funny. They are very funny. Even better, it's hard to explain a lot of the funny bits without spoiling the plot.

The narration is extremely lemony, to the point of getting lost in talking about mostly irrelevant things that are happening rather than the plot. Amazingly, the books don't suffer for it.

However, the humor isn't what makes the books great, although it is the primary contributing factor to what makes them an enjoyable read.

No, what makes these books great is that they are perhaps the best metatextual commentary on the nature of fictional characters I have ever seen. And despite being about good and positive things, like friendship, courage, problem-solving, and heroism, the world the characters live in is one of the bleakest fictional worlds I've ever seen because of it. (Though like our own world, it also has its moments of wonder. Those're the good bits.)

Explaining why would be telling.

Also, Jasper Dash is one of the best characters ever. Why? Because he's an Edisonade character living in the modern world. And it is hilarious. (Also, while he's funny and silly, I also think he's a genuinely great guy.)

-Signing off.

Golden Age Moment of the Day (75)

2011-09-19T21:30:00.003-04:00

From Smash Comics #26 (you could find it here if you're interested)...

Remember, kids, Bozo the Robot/Iron Man: Guy who hits people really hard such that they accidentally die. He's no killer./sarcasm>

-Signing off.

Mega Man vs. Met (That Little Helmet Guy)

2011-09-16T21:30:00.001-04:00

I could have sworn I posted the earlier version of this, but can't seem to find where I did it...

Whatever.

Joe Rovang (i.e. the poster, whose user name on YouTube is Rofang) is a genius. Or at least pretty brilliant.

-Signing off.

SA-X From Metroid Fusion: Not the Brightest Bulb

2011-09-15T21:30:00.002-04:00

It's apparently hard to program a good enemy AI into a simple game...

It's not that you can't get something that will exhibit smart behaviors, it's just that testing will reveal... special behaviors, by which I mean, inadequate programming causes the AI to be unable to cope with some situations.

Such as... the player hiding. (In the below videos, the hyperactive orange and red character is SA-X, a sort-of evil sort-of clone of Samus Aran from the Metroid games. The other similar-looking character is Samus, the player character, who can turn into a ball to move through tight spaces.)

Some people remark that the music (which is the theme for the SA-X) sounds a bit sarcastic. I'd tend to agree.

-Signing off.

Revenge of Yar's Revenge

2011-09-14T21:30:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered that Atari created a remake of an old video game, Yar's Revenge.

And I've got just one question.

Can Yar still eat any substance and spit energy missiles capable of vaporizing solid rock?

Because if not, I'm not sure this is a remake worthy of the name.

(Yes, I'm aware that Yar is now a cute girl with extra arms and wings. No, I'm not saying she should spit projectiles because of any kind of weird fetishes-a multiarmed winged chick is bad enough already. And yes, I'm going to quit before I dig a hole I can't climb out of.)

-Signing off.

He's Gonna Get Himself Some Justice

2011-09-13T21:00:00.001-04:00

I agree with Chris Sims' opinion:

That is fantastic.

-Signing off.