RE: One Piece: World Seeker

One day I need to have a talk with my brother about his penchant for impulse buys.  

Like, I’m not about to tell him how to spend his money, but him grabbing One Piece: World Seeker -- and preordering it months in advance, at that -- has to qualify as a potential red flag.  Did he know that the game would be good?  No.  Did he have room in his schedule for it, given that its release date was sandwiched between Devil May Cry V and Sekiro?  No.  Is he even a fan of One Piece?  At best, he tangentially orbits it; he’s seen a whopping four episodes, played snippets of one game, and likes the “manimals” of the Enies Lobby Arc.

Oh, and he’s a fan of Tony Tony Chopper…even though he got the name confused and called him Tony Chopper Chopper.

I don’t know what possessed him to get the game, and I never will.  But what’s truly bizarre is that, in a way, I’m actually glad he did.  One Piece: World Seeker is easily the weirdest game I’ve played in a while.  So let’s talk about it.

Because it gives me an excuse to embed One Piece theme songs.

RE: Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Well.  Here’s an interesting situation.

Some weeks back my brother picked up an old copy of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, presumably so he and our buddy could stumble through its co-op between beatdowns in PlayStation All-Stars or Smash Bros. Brawl.  It’s hard to say how far they’ve gotten in their little campaign, but what I’ve seen thus far has been something like watching two penguins on banana peels try to save America from terrorists -- hilariously inept to the point of becoming boringly commonplace at times, but a spectacle all the same.  I wouldn’t say I’d try the co-op for myself, but I’m glad those two had their fun with it.

It should go without saying, but my jam would be the single-player aspect.  And indeed, I was simultaneously interested in and worried by the prospect of trying Blacklist solo.  Its E3 showings turned me off for all the obvious reasons, but for the sake of trying to get out of my comfort zone and giving something with the Tom Clancy brand the benefit of the doubt, I decided it would be stupid of me to give it the cold shoulder just because it didn’t have the requisite full use of the color spectrum.  So I gave it a try.

And as I was playing it, a question suddenly popped into my head: who is this game for?

47 Ronin -- An Emergency PSA

I like how as soon as I try to put the blog on hiatus, I end up seeing a movie so bad that it drags me back in.  I feel like one of those guys in an action movie who gets pulled in for “one last job” and it ends with a death toll in the dozens.  Still, that’d make for a better movie than this.  When the most interesting part of the movie is when the theater has technical difficulties and the film starts glitching out like a sputtering GameCube disk, you know your time has been well spent.

So yes, the movie’s pretty terrible and I hate it, so let’s talk about why.  But quickly.  Because I want to do something fun, like not think about this movie.  Also, because I’m dumb.

Also, don’t see this movie.

Spoilers incoming, but…look, just do what I didn’t and go see Frozen or something.

Season's Wii-tings: Super Mario 3D World

Time for a little positive thinking.  (I deserve this after a month of Family Guy posts.  Just let me have this.)

With November 22^nd now past us, the big three have all released their eighth-generation consoles.  Notably, November saw the release of two of those three consoles within a week of one another, and both have reportedly broken the “million units sold” mark.  Which console won the first fight in the latest and greatest war yet?  Which one will go on to claim true victory over all others? 

Frankly, I could care less.  Right now the Wii U’s the winner in my book.

That’s not to say that the PS4 or Xbox One are worthless or useless.  And that’s not to say that the Wii U’s flawless, or that it’ll suddenly overwhelm the competition to become a financial juggernaut (though that’d be totally awesome and I kind of hope it happens).  But when I look at the games for the “real” consoles and see games that are getting browner, grayer, duller, shootier, stabbier, and microtransactionier…well, I hope you’ll forgive me for not exploding with hype.  (Seriously, you know your console’s messed up when new technology makes it HARDER to do colors.)  Comparatively, Nintendo’s first real step into the HD generation has given us colors, aesthetics, imagination, and a level of splendor that almost heals the wounds left by DmC.  Almost.

So you know what?  It’s almost Christmas.  Let’s make it a special one, and gab about Wii U games -- starting with the kinda-sorta fantastic Super Mario 3D World.  Because as it turns out, it’s fantastic in a way you’ll never see coming.

Let's discuss Family Guy (THE FINALE).

I guess I should probably mention that I’m the Mookie King.

My class and I were on a field trip to a three-day camp adventure so that hopefully us kids would gain a better understanding and appreciation of nature (you can probably guess how well that went).  On the first night, the kids in my group -- about thirty strong, if I remember right -- gathered outside with one of the camp counselors to play a game of “Mookie”.  The rules are simple: one person gets pulled out of a line of competitors, and has to stand his ground amidst his rivals and their attempts to make him laugh by saying “Mookie” as hilariously as they can.  If the single person doesn’t laugh, he moves down the line.  If he does, he goes into the line and loses his chance at winning the game -- at becoming the glorious, undisputed “Mookie King.”

I was somewhere near the start of the line -- second, maybe third -- but I played the game well.  I covered my face with a hat (in retrospect, building up anticipation) and then let it rip.  So I took the hotspot, and had a chance at winning the whole thing…assuming, of course, that I could clear some twenty-eight additional attempts, including the camp counselor.  As it turns out, it was a lot easier than I expected.  Nobody could get me to laugh.  Nobody.  The camp counselor -- who I rightly assumed would be my greatest challenge by virtue of commanding the game for years -- got a slight smile out of me, but that was it.  I probably freaked him out a little.  “How could there be a kid who didn’t laugh?” he must have thought.  “He must be a very sad child.”

No, I don’t think that’s the case.  Maybe it was just a signal -- early proof that I had needlessly-high standards.  I don’t think I’m funny, that much I’m sure of no matter how many people disagree.  But by the same token, I’m not usually the laugh-out-loud type, or even the laugh-at-all type.  I LOVE How I Met Your Mother, but even on its best days it’s barely gotten a chuckle out of me.  It’s not that I don’t think it’s funny; it’s just that whatever mechanisms there are that make people want to laugh (or even smile), I might be lacking.  It probably has something to do with me getting into my dad’s beer can when I was three, but whatever.  I’m sure that didn’t have too serious of an effect on me.

Now, you might be wondering what this little story has to do with Family Guy.  And the answer to that is…it doesn’t have anything to do with Family Guy.  I just thought I’d offer something that’s only tangentially related to the post at the beginning, because A) I do that a lot, in case you haven’t noticed, B) maybe it’s an insight to the madness of King (but not really King) Voltech, and C) it’s about to get worse.

It always gets worse.