From the "How did I miss this" files....

The good news: There's going to be a King Of Fighters movie coming out.

The bad news: Everything else about the stupid movie.

KOF's been kinda hurting lately. KoFXII was a gigantic disappointment that tried to slide by with its pretty graphics, all the while ignoring the bad roster, lack of final boss (how do you not have a final boss in a dream match? It's not like there's guidelines, FFS) and atrocious netcode.

But this is just stupid. Here's the plot synopsis, courtesy of Wikipedia.

"The King of Fighters movie will introduce a new science fiction spin into the setting established in the games’ universe by following the surviving members of three legendary fighting clans who are continually whisked away to other dimensions by an evil power," says insider blog Movieset. "As the fighters enter each new world they battle that universe’s native defenders, while the force that brought them seeks to find a way to invade and infect our world.

That loud crash you just heard was me headdesking at high velocity and with little regard for my well being.

First off, that's not King of Fighters. That's Mortal Kombat(Game).

I never thought I'd ask this question again, as I didn't think I'd have to ask this the first time with the Street Fighter live action movie, but : WHAT IN THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH JUST HAVING A GODDAMN TOURNAMENT?!!!?

You know why Mortal Kombat (the first movie, not the schlock that was Annihilation) was awesome? THEY STAYED TRUE TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL. I don't WANT to see KOF with a Sci-Fi twist, I've already played it. It's called "KOF: The Nests Collection" and it was where the downhill trend hit. This actually sounds worse. Yes, you heard me: I'd rather play a game with watered-down mechanics, madmen with satellites and interstellar space stations, where Akira ripoffs and other shitty forgettable fucks fight in a universe where "We cloned Kyo" passes as a plot than you wiping your ass with the Orochi timeline and throwing in dimensional travel. This isn't Chrono Cross, and don't get any ideas about fucking that up either.

The final nail has to be the roster thus far, though. It makes KOFXII look like KOF2002UM. I see maybe two plausable teams(Kyo/Iori/Chizuru, Rugal/Vice/Mature, which btw is chronologically wrong), NO IKARI WARRIORS (FUUUUUUCKKKK YOUUUUU!), and Terry and Ryo just kinda "there". Oh, and Mai so teens will go see it.

The good news about this is that this is probably going to ping lower than both The Legend of Chun-Li (Irish Bison ftl) and Dead Or Alive and end up next to dollar copies of "Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus II: Bloodlust".

/ragerant

-Trakdown

Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket

The Most Forgettable Gundam Cast, EVER!

My Summer of Gundam continues, and as it does, I decided to check out yet another of the "not often talked about" Gundam series with 0080. Basically, here's the rundown(SPOILERS AHOY):

1)It's short (OVA, only 6 episodes)
2)It's dry (not a whole lot of Gundam action)
3)The characters are badly named and often disposable.

Now, I'm not trying to hold the "short" part against it too much, since some of my favorite series are often short runs (Dominion/New Dominion Tank Police, Paranoia Agent, Gundam 0083). And I'm not going to hold the Gundam designs against it because they really aren't that bad for a series immediately following First Gundam timeline-wise. Indeed, when there is Gundam action, it's pretty awesome.

But then, there's the rest of the story. It's not a bad premise, actually, as it tries to be more humanistic in its approach to the One Year War. And it does tackle the effect of the war on the colonies in a decent way.

And man, is it dry.

The main thrust of the story is supposed to be the adventures of an angsty little brat known as Alfred and the "love story" between Bernie Wiseman (well, Bernard, but who goes by that name?) and Christina McKenzie. I'll get to Al in a minute, but first, this love story is so tepid it's sickening. I'm not sure how anybody could get all that heartbroken over it; by the time the story ends, Chris might as well be saying goodbye to any random good friend. And I'd like to get all weepy about how two people who kinda/sorta think the other is kinda cute end up fighting each other, but given that it's some higher up who forces this hand and the two never even realize it, it's kinda tame. I'm not gonna get emotional over people who interact for all of 10 minutes in a series. Also, who in the fuck even thinks for a second that you can take on a Gundam with a Zaku, especially after that Gundam just ripped apart a specialized MS in a matter of minutes?

"Gimme that camera...wait, don't I know you from Dominion Tank Police?"

And that's where 0080 really falls apart - logic. Look, I get that the idea is supposed to be that Bernie went out fighting, but it's not like his gruesome death is a shocking result from some ninny who hasn't flown a mission yet and listens to a kid who knows less than his own stupid rookie ass. I have to assume that the last name of "Wiseman" is kind of like when they call 7' tall guys "Tiny". This guy makes Kou Uraki look like Jamil Neate. And of course, the kid ends up with irredeemable grief out of it. Why? Well, besides realizing Chris, his "big sister" figure, was in the Gundam when it went down in perfectly reparable fashion, Bernard was found to be in a condition described as "like hamburger". And against Gundam Alex, which was supposed to be Amuro's next suit. SHOCK! If you're in a Zaku and your name isn't Char Aznable, chances are you're fucked.

Wow, the suspense! I mean, which MS is going to step on the kid first?

The characters don't help much. They're fairly generic. Bernie's your typical, stupid rookie. Al's basically the little shit running around your local Wal-Mart and being a nuisance. Chris is the gentle, intelligent girl (and the only person whose fate I gave any care about after the series ended; she's like the good version of Flay Allster). And the brass of both sides, as usual, is filled with knuckleheads, but a special "Fucking really?!" goes to the Zeon side, who didn't seem to foresee the problems they would have with a man by the name of Colonel KILLING. I'm dead serious, that's his name. You know, I'm all for winning the war effort and everything, but if I'm serving under Rear Admiral Rapenpillage, I set up a court martial the instant he starts hinting at breaking the Antarctic Treaty. That little episode really doesn't help the case that Delaz was trying to make about the naughty Feddies making a nuclear Gundam in 0083. No wonder Zeon died off until Counterattack.

VERDICT: Skip this one. The love story is weak. There's two whole Gundam fight scenes. Everything's predictable. The fact that every game Chris and Bernie have appeared in puts them at a level usually reserved for Dan Hibiki should tell you how revered these two are. The moral is that war has real consequences. If you're going through the series chronologically, Ghiren Zabi should've driven that point into your skull by now, in the event that human history failed to do so.

Summer Games

For starters, let me just say this: If you have a PS2 and you haven't hooked up a harddrive to that sumbitch yet, you're missing out. I just did, and even though I've already have a game not work with it (Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, which I've beaten several times any-damn-way), it's so much better now. And it saves my laser, meaning I don't have to replace it and worry about being out another modded system should it fuck up.

I've also starting playing some older games on my PSP courtesy of PicoDrive, namely Snatcher and Sonic CD. I'm also plugging through Panic! again, but it's a bitch when they map the "load state" function to the shoulder button and you accidentally hit it when you're 85% of the way through the game. Autosave has spoiled me, truely.

While I'm on the subject of classics, there's yet another Kojima classic out- There's now an english patch for Policenauts, which I've already downloaded. Looking forward to playing it after Snatcher. I never thought I'd play adventure games again, but it's something you have to grab on to when it comes around.

Most of my time has been spent with actual current gen gaming- that is, PS3. I bolted through Killzone 2 pretty quick, and while I enjoyed it, I'm hesitant to pick it up again just yet. Hell, I haven't even done the online yet, but hopefully the community's still there. I'm actually GLAD I put off Ghostbusters until now, since they just patched the PS3 version to a proper res and fixed some glitches. But I didn't jump back into that yet, either.

Instead, I went to my old standby: the fighting game. In this case, BlazBlue. I finished off the story mode in quick order. It's a decent execution, and the story does actually go somewhere. Plus, there's some great comedy to be found, including a mecha tribute featuring Iron Tager. I'm assuming said tribute is parodying GaoGaiGar, but either way, it's hilarious. The only downside is how one reaches 100%, by requiring the gamer go into fights and lose. Hard? No, but it's a hell of a time sink. At least it doesn't give you a "A winner is you!" screen in many of the cases.

I worry about the storyline precisely because of who's behind the wheel. Daisuke Ishiwatari's previous work in Guilty Gear shows us that we will get a hell of a good fighting game with great music, but we're also going to get revision after revision and a storyline that has a wonderfully intriguing foundation with a bizarre, nonsensical structure resting on top of it, made even stranger by the fact that it was never finished properly. And I'd be wary of traipsing into "but what about Guilty Gear 2" nonsense, as there are plenty who would love to take the bad taste that game left in their mouth and transform it into pure vitriol before shooting it out of their mouths at you.

Guilty Gear's main crime for those who, like me, actually wanted the storyline to mean something, is that you never get anywhere near a fight with THAT MAN (the not-so-great name of the main "antagonist"), instead having to fight everybody but him while he spends most games punching himself in the dick over the mess he's made of the world. In other words, it's all the fun you ever had playing Ghosts 'N Goblins, except no matter how many times you go through the game, you never get the real ending, no matter how hard you've stomped I-No's witch ass into the ground.

Is BlazBlue going the same direction? Well, it could- it's already in pretty convoluted territory, and this is coming from somebody who LOVED MGS2. The story isn't very well fleshed out just yet, made worse by the fact that you play through everybody's story and then- and only then- you get to play the "true end" version. Which I'm sure IS the true ending, but it doesn't tell much of a story. However, we have already had our first encounter with the main bad guy, and though it wasn't in a fight, it at least gave me the idea that this jackoff isn't going to be allowed to merely watch from afar. Indeed, he has already gotten involved and thus should be ready throw down eventually.

I realize in the grand scheme of things, fighting games need a story like NES games need 5.1 Surround Sound, but it's not like this hasn't been done in a coherent fashion with other entries. For instance, before King of Fighters fell into the bizarre, pointless world of the NESTS saga, the Orochi saga managed to not only set the story up remarkably well but actually end it well with the final battle against the eponymous demon himself. Let's hope BlazBlue can get this way and not take 4-5 revisions to get there.

-Trakdown

Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories

Yep, that's a colony being dropped. Original it ain't.

As requested of me by House of Pain, I am jumping around (though in defiance, I am remaining seated) a bit here. Truth is, I'm still trying to decide whether or not I want to watch the first Gundam as a Series or a 3pack of movies. On the one hand, it's quicker to watch the movies, on the other, there's the f'n Gundam Hammer, which was cool enough to feature in Gundam Battle Assault 2. Tough one.

This lead me to instead watch a series that had intrigued me when I saw it on Adult Swim- The OVA series known to me as Gundam 0083.

I didn't really know what to expect from this one, and I still don't really know what I think of it. I do like it, but there's a lot of "yes, but" sentences that have to come out.

Where to begin? Well, first off, the art is pretty damn amazing, enough to be wallscroll worthy for me. Granted, I didn't get the exact wallscroll I wanted, but at least they exist. For a 90's anime, it's really sharp and well animated to boot.

Yes, but there's a problem (told ya). While human beings actually look the part in this series, the Gundams start out being well-designed, if not bland, and then...well, just look.

Hey kids, can you spot the Gundam in the Dendrobium Orchis?

Yeah. We start of with the nice one up top and then move to this monstrosity. I have to wonder how much fucking mercury is in the water fountains at Anaheim Electronics for them to come up with this beast. It's basically an arsenal that also houses a Gundam. And that long, straw-looking apparatus? That's the stamen. Check that one out in your dictionary/biology books for a cheap laugh.

As for Zeon, they actually jack the GP-02A (The bigger Gundam with the boosters and the bazooka), which is good because most of their stuff seems to be left over from the One Year War.
And because it sets up the very first instance of hot Gundam-on-Gundam action (the good kind, not the DeviantArt kind) which is awesome. I'll even give them props for the Neue Ziel, a way-too-big extender class Super Robot that's actually kinda cool.

Gundam battles in this series are a bit easier to stomach than others; if a Gundam goes into a battle ill-equipped, it will get fucked up- no gods here, just machinery and tactics. Granted, this leads to some shenanigans in one of the characters deaths, but at least there are rules. It also helps that this is an OVA, as it's significantly less drawn out than other series would be.

Character wise, it's a very mixed bag, especially depending on what you know about the UC thus far. But even if you don't know anything, you'll soon realize this: Kou Uraki is so dense I'm surprised he hasn't collapsed into himself. This guy takes "rookie" to levels not seen again until ZZ Gundam, and even Judau hammed it up a bit and made it funny. Sure, Kou gets "better", but along with this improvement, he develops an incessant need to yell every 5 goddamned seconds.

"GATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *breath* OOOOOOO!!!"

I get that the point is to show how far behind Zeon's military the Feddies are, but Kou takes idiot savant and capitalizes the hell out of the "idiot" part. He still gets the job done, but he's kinda 'meh' on my list of Gundam pilots- he's there because somebody has to pilot the damn thing.

However, this series does bring along a very memorable character in Anavel Gato, an ace pilot who survived the One Year War. Gato's a hell of a loyal soldier and a damn good pilot, and boy does he stick out. The difference between him and Kou is best emphasized by this scene: After lecturing Kou about principles (or something), Kou says "Yes, sir" and Gato has to verbally remind Kou that he's playing the part of Kou's enemy. All this during a battle. Gato's one of the few people in all of the UC who actually sticks to his principles. Also, he manages to avoid going out like a bitch, which is more than I can say for Char.

The other characters are more minor, though I will say that Nina Purpleton went from being fairly harmless to airlock fodder in a hurry. She's no Flay Allster, but there's a few things that make me generally want to do without her. Like the fact that she can't get over a guy, even though he ditched her on the goddamn moon. Others, like Cima Girahau, were mere annoyances until I read her backstory (check wikipedia). Oh, and South Burning? Yeah, that's a weird name, even in the Gundam universe, but the man bitchslapped an Ensign clear across a repair bay and would have to be played by Clint Eastwood if this ever went live action. He's that badass.

VERDICT: Iffy. I would give it a try, even if you haven't watched the rest of the UC stuff (continuity goes from MS Gundam->Zeta Gundam anywho), as the art's splendid, and there are some truly great characters here, as well as a decent story. It's more mature, and it might be worth a spin just for the fact that there's people over the age of 15 piloting a Gundam. However, there's also a great deal of stupid and some really, really bad Gundam designs. Just a heads up.

Gamer Fail: Memory card not found.

Literally.

Somehow, in the act of moving, I came up short a PS2 memory card. :( Thank god for Ebay.