| [books] Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series |
[14 Jul 2009|08:00pm] |
[books] Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton
The Anita Blake books are often described as "vampire (and werewolf) porn". If you have never read the books, then this is both more and less true than you probably believe. It is best to describe the series in eras.
Books 1-9 are the police/vampire hunter era. Hamilton has created a world mostly like our own, except the supernatural is real. Vampires have recently been legally declared "alive" in America, and St. Louis has embraced vampire culture in an effort to boost tourism. The main character, Anita Blake, juggles three jobs: raising the dead, legal executioner for rogue vampires, and consulting with the police on supernatural crimes. The books focus on the crimes as well as the supernatural differences of the book's world. Anita's personal life has her boyfriend troubles as well as her growth towards becoming an emotionless killer.
Books 10-12 are "Anita Does St. Louis". Hamilton effectively says "Screw this world creation and crime work, I wanna write hardcore porn." ( Cut for space... )
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| The Replacement Killers |
[02 Jul 2009|10:43pm] |
[DVD] The Replacement Killers
For a movie with so much gunfire, The Replacement Killers is rather boring. I cannot explain why, but it never even grabbed, much less held, my attention. I found myself stopping repeatedly to do more exciting things, like washing dishes.
The action scenes are weak, there isn't much consistency in character skills, and the story takes something of a jump to set up the end piece. ( Probably some spoilers, certainly some complaining... )
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| [manga] Eyeshield 21 |
[13 Jun 2009|08:18pm] |
So Eyeshield 21 has finally ended with chapter 333? Can't say I'm too upset to see it go. It was an entertaining series, but it became something of a mess with its last tournament arc.
( Cut for spoilers )
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| Review: Flightplan |
[10 Jun 2009|10:10pm] |
[DVD] Flightplan
Flightplan is the Jodie Foster airplane movie from a few years ago.
A paraphrase of my brother's description: "Interesting at the start, but becomes stupid."
My description: "If you know anything about this movie, then don't bother to watch it. Just remembering the trailers is enough to make the plot obvious within the first minutes. Honestly, even if you don't know anything about it, you probably shouldn't bother anyway."
I had a longer version of this post, but I deleted it. The movie just isn't worth it. To be blunt, if you've watched many movies or read many stories, the plot is extremely predictable. It relies on some extreme conveniences, and the writing thinks it is more subtle than it actually is. And is mostly just bad. If you wonder about the plot, just ask someone to tell you what happens. Even if you can watch it for free, don't waste your time.
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| Greg Land's art == Toothpaste commercial? |
[07 Jun 2009|08:30pm] |
It isn't difficult to knock Greg Land's comic book art. He is infamous for the "orgasm mouth." There are countless examples online of his shameless copying and swiping of images. His recycling is extensive enough that he fails to establish physical identities for his female characters, so that the only difference between his Jean Grey and Black Canary is hair color, and teenage Pixie looks like an adult because he can only draw one age for women.
I have a different complaint of Land which has only grown over the months. An open mouth can make an image of a face more dynamic, but Land takes this to extremes. He has an obsession for drawing people with their teeth showing. One or two people out of ten is one thing, but Land reverses those numbers.
Take the cover of Uncanny X-Men #510. The image is a large battle between ten characters. Eight have their faces visible, of which only one (Spiral) has her mouth closed. For bonus points, there is even a dragon's head in the background, its mouth wide open as well of course.
( Behind the cut, teeth/open mouths on a page by page basis. )
It sounds silly, but the results on pages range from annoying to borderline insane.
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| Reaper |
[26 May 2009|09:03pm] |
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If your show only managed a second season by being a mid-season replacement on a somewhat desperate network, then maybe you shouldn't assume that you'll get a third season while writing your second season finale.
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| WTF? Mature returns alive in King of Fighters? |
[09 May 2009|05:53pm] |
Mature has been added to KOF XII?! Considered dead since the end of KOF'96, she's only appeared in dream matches since.
Okay, KOF XII is a non-story dream match. But the reason it *is* a non-story game is that SNK has completely recreated all the artwork, and they simply wouldn't have the time to do the characters that they desired for the next chapter of the Ash storyline. So even though XII is a dream match, it doesn't make sense for them to use characters that would not be seen again in future games.
She now sports a modified version of her original outfit from her role as Rugal's secretary, rather than the long dress used when she became an official fighter. And an eyepatch. So, does this mean she is returning for real? And what of Vice? Did she also survive?
SNK Playmore has added a character entries for Elisabeth and Mature
Game Watch Impress has high quality screens and character art
Edit: Replaced Famitsu link to small images with Game Watch link to much better versions
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[02 Apr 2009|09:04pm] |
Heh, the title for tonight's episode of Supernatural is "The Monster at the End of This Book". That was the title of an old kid's book starring Grover that I used to own.
Nice bit of fun when Dean asks what "slash" means, when looking at internet pairings.
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| The Cat in the Hat |
[20 Dec 2008|10:15pm] |
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ABC is showing the live-action The Cat in the Hat. Wow, it is terrible. The Cat has no personality. The acting is bad across the board. Even the people with actual talent are bad in this movie, and the rest are worse. It is everything that people feared live-action Grinch would have been.
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[18 Dec 2008|07:17pm] |
I don't generally do memes, but I haven't posted in a while and it is about games, so:
Taken from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) the_gel
1) What was your FIRST video game console?
Played: Atari 2600, or maybe one of those Pong knock-offs
Owned: NES (co-owned with my brother, actually)
2) Name a few games you played on said console.
Atari 2600: Breakout, Chopper Command, Stampede, Haunted House
NES: A lot. Pointless to name even a few.
( Pretty long post with 30 questions, so lj-cut for space concerns )
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| Batmanuel |
[13 Dec 2008|04:10pm] |
Most overwhelming thought on watching The Dark Knight:
The mayor is Batmanuel, from the live action Tick TV series. (Nestor Carbonell)
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[25 Nov 2008|09:30pm] |
Never on the cutting edge, some thoughts on Castlevania Judgment:
( Cut for space... )
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[08 Nov 2008|09:06pm] |
Sigh. What does it say when your parents are watching America's Most Wanted tonight because they've read one of their friends will be on it. As one of the "wanted"...
Though I think part of it is to see just how the law has portrayed the guy.
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| Azumi 2 |
[31 Oct 2008|04:16pm] |
[DVD] Azumi 2, (aka Azumi: Death or Love)
Azumi 2 is the cheap kind of slap-dash sloppy sequel that gives sequels such a bad name. On its own, it would be mediocre and sometimes low quality. It only seems worse when compared to the superior Azumi 1.
The biggest two problems with Azumi 2 are its action and story. (NOTE: I will spoil bits of the story below.)( Read more... )
Recommendation: Skip it. If you've seen the first, you'll only be disappointed by the second. If you haven't seen the first, you have no reason to watch this instead of that.
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| DVDs |
[09 Oct 2008|11:13pm] |
For some reason, I've made a list of all the DVDs that I own.
Now I just need to come up with a reason for doing so. Sure, the average person would come up with a reason first. But that is just not my way, I guess.
May not even mean much, as I never upgraded many favorites from VHS to DVD, bought almost nothing that family members owned that I could easily borrow, some were gifts that I wouldn't have bought on my own, several are impulse buys from discount bins, and a few came free with other purchases.
( Might as well include the rough version of the list, behind the cut. Rather long. )
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| Super Inframan |
[05 Oct 2008|08:40pm] |
[DVD]The Super Inframan:
Super Inframan is the Shaw Brothers version of Ultraman or any other show where a guy in a rubber suit fights rubber suit monsters. Being a non-martial arts Shaw Brothers film, one shouldn't have high expectations. Thankfully, Super Inframan is laughably bad, as opposed to something like Black Magic which was just normal bad.
The tone is set from the start with a monster attacking a road, causing an earthquake that nearly takes a van-load of children. Well, later you can figure out that it was an attack. At first it looks like a dead monster fell out of sky, as the special effects consists pretty much of just tossing a pterodactyl man rubber suit onto the road. ( The bulk of the movie is run through behind the cut )
For extra features, the DVD includes a few trailers for other Shaw Brothers movies that have had American DVD releases. And 45 minutes of trailers for seemingly random other Hong Kong/Chinese movies, untranslated. I think I recognized a couple as having had American DVD releases, under I think different names.
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| Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter |
[23 Sep 2008|11:31pm] |
It's been long enough that I figure I should post something.
I've been playing Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PS2. My opinions of the game have changed at least a few times.
Dragon Quarter is designed to be played multiple times. It tries to encourage this with a few rewards and the ability to carry some things across plays. To some degree it works. I had already beaten the game and was on a replay when checking a FAQ annoyed me enough to put the game away.
( Read more... )
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| ARGH Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter |
[29 Aug 2008|02:27am] |
-120m from the surface. Had the cutscene that *shows* the freaking exit to the surface. And I die. Because I was being too careful, I die. On what was effectively a one-shot run through the game. (I had one Retry, but that was just to see what it was like, from a point so early in the game that I was still partnered with Bosch.)
25% on the Dragon Drive gauge. I figured out that with enough Tonics and healing, you didn't *need* the gauge to beat even the ugly boss fights this game throws at you. Even beat the "You must beat this guy in 20 turns" boss without using it. Heck, beat him without having Magic or Attack boosts or AP gauge fillers either.
And then a fight that I knew would happen. No biggy at the start. Sure, he can kill a guy or two, but he isn't using magic. This is probably an "easy" form before he transforms anyway. I'll just switch from magic damage reduction armor to physical reduction. Crap. He cast Primus. Okay, everyone still has half their life, I can recover from this. Oh crap, he's casting Blizzard on main character and Nina. Crap, they're dead. What? He's hitting Lin?! CRAP.
Because of the dirty trick the game does with Save Tokens (gives one before each boss fight until about halfway, when it gives you around three tokens at once, then doesn't give you any more), my previous save is around three boss fights and five levels earlier. I'm so annoyed that I choose to Restart from the beginning, and save over that save.
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| [Wii]Ghost Squad |
[26 Aug 2008|09:30pm] |
Lately, I've been playing Ghost Squad and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.
[Wii]Ghost Squad
The biggest complaint I've seen against Ghost Squad is that it is short. Being both a Sega arcade game and a light gun game, one really should expect "short". Although honestly, it isn't as short as its three stages may make it seem.
The longevity attempt here is "replayability". ( Read more... )
Ghost Squad is a pretty entertaining light gun game though. And the events do give it length.
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