Let's discuss The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Part 2)

>investigating boundary limits

>scanning for data

>new data packet found

>uploading

>launching post 260

A Very Hraet-y Non-Canon Holiday Special (3)

Beat 1-3: Nothing but Successes Here, to be Sure

Lloyd pulled back a few inches, suddenly treating Trixie like a swarm of bees.  “Eh wha?!  Y-you’re going to try and teach me how to swim?”

“Not try.  Teach.”

“Ah.  Er…well, I wish you the best of luck, because I’m certain you’ll need it.”  He pressed a hand to his chin.  “I seem to recall that the last time I came across a large body of water, I tried to moonwalk my way through it.  The end result was not exactly something worthy of acclaim or footage for a music video.”

“Well forget all that, ‘cause when I’m done with ya you’ll be a lean, mean, swimmin’ machine!”  She patted a hand against Lloyd’s shoulder.  “Just leave it all to me, and I’ll be sure to make a real man outta ya.  ‘Cause when ya get down to it, ya just ain’t all the way there if ya can’t swim.”  Almost as soon as the words came out of her mouth, Trixie got a bad feeling -- like a phantom pain, or gas from a poorly-cooked burrito.  And she could immediately guess why.

“So you’re saying that I’m not a man?” Patton asked.  “Because I can’t swim, either.”

Final Fantasy 13-2: Good Morning, Kupo! (Part 0)

*sigh* Well.  Here we go.

I’m reminded of the words of fellow blogger Chihuahua Zero (whose blog you should be reading) on a post I made a while back: “That’s a part of being a critic: loving something and then taking it down.”  And it’s true.  I love video games.  I love the worlds they make.  I love the skill and creativity that goes into them -- the writing, coding-wise or story-wise, that makes them amazing.

But my love only goes so far.  It stops very abruptly right here.  Right now.

A Very Hraet-y Non-Canon Holiday Special (2)

Beat 1-2: Merry Mrfhmfhmas!

“Heh HA!  And another round of ho ho hos for good measure!  The time has finally arrived!”

Lloyd made his way out of the kitchen with a smile -- or at least an attempt at one.  It looked like a fusion between a grin and a grimace, with his muscles and veins pulsing as he dragged himself forward.  But as promised, he didn’t venture out alone; he carried with him (or at least towed) a burlap sack almost as big as him, and twice as wide -- and inexplicably plastered with a pink and fuchsia heart.  “Ready your souls and your faces, my comrades!  For before the light of dawn tickles your chilled skins, I intend to bless you with smiles as heavenly as mine!”

Lloyd (ignoring Trixie’s clear revulsion) brought the sack to a stop at its destination: two inches away from where he’d first appeared.  “Now then.  Who’s ready for a present?”

Spirit Showdown #9: The Lovers

>breaching boundary

>accessing terminal

>uploading post number 256

>initiating summoning procedure

>summoning complete

>initiating spirit protocol

A Very Hraet-y Non-Canon Holiday Special

Beat 1-1: Waking Up is Hard to Do…Except Pancakes

Chet ran a comb through his curled ducktail one last time, making sure his blonde locks were in the proper order.  He could count on them to keep up their sheen without his tending touch -- the perfect complement to his glimmering teeth.  He’d seen some of the staff try to use his smile as a mirror; as they bustled around off-set past cameras and wires, he made sure to grace them with his famous smirk.  It had the same effect as always; a young intern caught a glimpse, and then scurried away with a shake of the head and a low noise.  She was so overwhelmed, she had to escape my rugged charms, he thought as he straightened his tie.  It’s a wonder they let a man as dangerous as me on TV.

“All right, Chet.  You’re on in five,” said the crewman, with the camera’s lights blinking and the machine moving into position.  “And try not to do that smirk of yours.  It makes you look insincere and…kinda like a jackass.”

Looks like duty calls again, Chet thought, ignoring everything after the word “Chet”.  He sat at attention in his desk, and just as he always had, he spoke in his heart-meltingly suave voice.  “Good evening, ladies and gents; this is Chet Levitin, welcoming you to KPGL News at Nine, and wishing all of you --” He pointed at the camera and winked, ignorant of the groans on the sidelines. “Happy holidays, indeed.  And let me be the first to welcome all of you to the new year.  Tonight’s top story: jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell doom.  The mishap at the community rec center earlier today has -- according to new reports -- left a family of three, an elderly woman, and some random southern girl nobody cares about missing and presumed dead.  But first, here’s our weather report.  And before that, here are my teeth.”  He flashed a (presumably) sultry grin.

I can’t believe this is the highest-rated news segment in Porbeagle, the cameraman thought.  What is this guy, some kind of hypnotist?

Let's (briefly) discuss Far Cry 3.

Far Cry 3 is a weird game.

I was willing to give it a pass and a polite dismissal based on its less-than-appealing E3 showing; it didn’t look like anything special besides Call of Duty in the jungle with more knife action.  But then again, almost everything this past E3 looked like some variant/bastard child of CoD and Uncharted, so I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little jaded.  Still, the fact that my brother hyped up the game to an insane degree -- i.e. saying “Far Cry 3 is gonna be so awesome” in the same tone he’d used to describe Darksiders 2, Borderlands 2 and Resident Evil 6 -- didn’t inspire much confidence.  Doubly so when he mentioned the co-op option; I started having PTSD flashbacks to RE6 and its room full of explosive Beyblades. 

So Far Cry’s been out for a while now.  What do I think of it?  Well, let's see if I can sum it up in three points.  This should be a piece of cake.

1) Ignore multiplayer.  It completely misses the point of the single-player game.

2) I like the campaign.

3) The campaign is notably flawed from the outset.

This is a game that’s incredibly easy to nitpick and chide.  Incredibly easy.  But you know what?  It’s not a deal-breaker.  Well, not yet at least.

Django Unchained: One More Thing...

I’m not a hundred percent sure I should be bringing up this topic, but since I left it off the main post I figured I’d be doing a disservice if I just ignored it.  So let’s quickly go through this…and pray that I don’t make myself look like a fool.

But hey, what are the chances of that happening?

*looks at sidebar on right*

Oh.  Pretty high, I guess.

(Hey, what do you know?  No spoilers in this post.  Well, unless you’re the type to intuit entire story events from a handful of words.  In which case, quasi-spoilers!

...Or if you prefer, quasar-spoilers.)

Django Unchained: Can We Talk This Out?

Fancy that.  For a guy who once went years without going to the movies, I’ve done pretty well this year.  The Hunger Games, The Avengers, Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Cloud Atlas, and Django Unchained -- that’s quite a bit of a haul, at least from my perspective.  And I actually saw two movies in one month.  For me, that’s like the planets aligning, or people unanimously deciding to stop making jokes about Uranus.

With that in mind, I figure I might as well rank the movies I’ve seen.  It seems like a tradition to do that for end-of-year posts, and I’ll go ahead and do the same.  So, from bottom to top, here’s how the movies I’ve seen stack up, with a one-sentence “gist” of what I thought of each (and of course, in-depth looks under the Movie Magick tab).  Make of my thoughts what you will…just don’t fire up your Hatred Engines.  This is a happy place.  Usually.

#7: Cloud Atlas

Three hours of philosophizing is a true-true way to test your patience.

#6: Prometheus

An awe-inspiring adventure into an alien world…that is, until the plot happens.

#5: The Hunger Games

It’s far from hazardous to your health (barring Katniss poisoning.)

#4: The Dark Knight Rises

You did well enough, Nolan -- now, about that spinoff for Commissioner Gordon…

#3: Looper

Commendable merely for not creating a time paradox with its existence alone.

#2: The Avengers

Do I really need to say anything besides “Puny god”?

#1: Django Unchained

This one’s gonna require some explaining…so let’s get right to it, yeah?

(WARNING: SPOILERS, as is my usual standard.  Also, this is going to take more than one sentence, so you might want to kick up your boots and take hold of a tall bottle of sarsaparilla.  Similarly, have your trusted six-shooter in your holster, because there’s no telling when some varmint might hassle you, and you’re thrown into a real hootenanny of a hoedown.

Being a pre-Civil War tough guy.  Am I doing it right?)

  

Behold! Happy Holidays!

Best wishes for all of you this Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa Observation of the Winter Solstice Preparation of One's Body for Several Dozen Gallons of Egg Nog holiday season. 

Also, a quick note: look forward to a special holiday chapter of I Hraet You.  It'll be as exciting as it is non-canon!

(But no Spirit Showdown this week.  You can blame that on a viewing of, AND an upcoming post on Django Unchained...and me getting yelled at for doing anything in PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale playing video games with friends for Christmas.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to continue being tormented by Majora's Mask in an alternate dimension of despair and failure straddling the boundary between reality and fantasy.  It's part of a story arc, you see.

And THAT'S how you stay in character.