Today I got my PS3 back from repair. This whole thing has been quite a nightmare. A little over a week ago it crapped out on me while I was watching an episode of The Boondocks on DVD. I got the dreaded "Yellow Light of Doom". And the PS3 would turn on no more.

My initial research informed me there were two ways of going about this situation. I could send it in to Sony for $150 so they could take 4-6 weeks to send me back a different refurbished PS3 (at which point I'd be better off just buying a refurbished PS3), or I could give it to some sort of sketchy unauthorized console repair guy in my area and that way I wouldn't lose my hard drive (but the repair might not last).

But I wasn't too worried about losing my data, because I upgraded my hard drive three Augusts ago from the original 40GB to a 320GB. So I could just send in the old one and hang on to the good one, data intact. And, as it turned out, the price to service it wasn't quite so steep; here, for my model, it cost about $112 after tax. And it didn't take long either; I got the thing back, what?, four business days after I sent it in. Swell.

And here my troubles began...



So my 40GB hard drive has been cleared. And the PS3 will not accept my 320GB hard drive without first reformatting and clearing that. It must only work with my original console. And though I'm pretty sure they sent me back the same console, it doesn't recognize it any more. And because the backups that the PS3 accepts are encrypted in some special way, there is literally no way I can back up the data on my 320GB drive. In order to back it up, my PS3 would have to never have been broken in the first place.

So I'm screwed. I have all my data on the hard drive in front of me, and I have no choice but to erase it.

Back up your PS3 hard drives, folks! My sole consolation is, I still have my backup from two and a half years ago. So I don't lose all my data... Just the last two and a half years of it. Ugh. And god knows the headaches I'll get even trying to recover what is backed up! Apparently certain games have 'locked' save data and can't be recovered (still holding out hope for my Fallout 3 and most of my LittleBigPlanet data, at the very least). I'm going to have to redownload so much DLC and so many PSN games it'll probably be more than my monthly internet usage allowance, all at once. So much crap to reinstall. This is assuming the back-up even works.

I remember the headaches when I first upgraded the PS3's hard drive. Here's a portion of a blog post I wrote, way back then:

Now, I was always under the false impression that an external hard drive would add space without the need to actually go through the potentially arduous task of replacing the internal hard drive. So one of the things I got for my birthday is an external hard drive. I formatted it to fat32 and added the folders and plugged it into my PS3, only to find that it's only good for pictures and videos. That's no good, it's the game data and psn games that take up all the (40GB of) space. I had a bunch of money from my birthday, so I went out and bought an internal (320GB) hard drive for about $60, followed Chris Roper's tutorial on replacing it, and had difficulty every step of the way. From waiting like 40 minutes for the Best Buy guy to check the back room to see if the one I was looking for was hidden in the back somewhere (He couldn't find it; I ended up going to PC cyber, a computer specialty store and getting a good one for cheaper than any at Best Buy with no difficulty whatsoever) - to the tray my hard drive is in being designed differently than Chris Ropers - to the PS3 not starting up the same way - to, worst of all, the backup utility restore failing. I had backed up all my stuff to my new external hard drive, but whenever I would restore, after an hour of restoring it would fail. A lot of my files would be back, but the PS3 wasn't completely back to normal. I ended up switching back and forth the hard drives and spent the better part of two days on this before deleting as much of my game data as I could stand (I kept Rock Band and LittleBigPlanet - I ain't redownloading all that DLC) on my old hard drive, creating a back up, resetting my new hard drive and then restoring again. Finally it worked, names didn't have asterisks beside them, my brother's theme showed up, and I began reinstalling all my games. Thank God that's over with.

God knows if I even by miracle had backed up my hard drive before the console crapped out on me, if I would even be able to transfer the data, with all my game data on there, which wouldn't transfer back then! Fuck, this is all so frustrating!

I've never lost save data like this before! I loath to lose data like this! I have 92 save files in Skyrim, lost. All that time a couple months back I spent acquiring all the clothing I could get in Way of the Samurai 4, just to have it. And now I don't. That's the kind of thing I do in all sorts of games. I have no choice now but to adopt a 'well, I probably wasn't going to revisit those games in a meaningful way anyway' attitude. But truly, save data is important to me.

And here's where I need to go on a bit of a Jimquisition-style rant. Because fuck Sony! This bullshit where the hard drive can only work with one PS3, or where the backup data is encrypted so only that PS3 can back it up, is not at the service of the consumer but rather is some bullshit anti-piracy measure. And the 'locked saves' are for what, to make sure people don't cheat at trophies? Fucking trophies? I see no sign that Sony gives a shit about people being able to recover their save data. That's not important to them. They're interested only in preventing piracy, at the expense of the consumer.



And now I can't help but like Nintendo even more. My Wii broke a couple years back. It cost half as much to repair (a third of the $150 it costs some PS3 owners), and took half as long (a fifteenth of how long it took some PS3 owners), and they saved all of my data. I wanted to improve my Wii's storage space, so I got an unused SD card that was lying around the house and plugged that in, end of story, how does that compare to my story above about switching the PS3's hard drive? It's all so easy with Nintendo, and they seem to actually care about seeing you keep your save data.

And now, as we begin a new console generation, I don't see myself buying a Playstation 4. It's not just because of this. My first console was the N64, then the PS2, then the Wii. It wasn't until 2008 I first became a multi-console owner. And now, for real life reasons, I have less time than ever to play games, and I've been thinking I'll just stick with the WiiU for a while. But after this disheartening experience I am more convinced to stick with just the WiiU.

I don't actually identify myself as a fanboy, like the title of this post suggests, but in the coming years, I'll probably be resigning myself, in the realm of games, to being a 'Nintendo guy'. The Wii was my favourite console, but I think now, increasingly, I'm finding Nintendo is the only console manufacturer I can really respect.



I just hope the WiiU starts getting some freakin' games already.

...written while I wait for the WiiU to update.



I was so in awe of how long it was taking that I just had to write about it. Actually it finished downloading, and that's what took ludicrously long, so it's installing now and shouldn't be long.

So I got the WiiU! Hooray! Okay, it's been a lot more headaches than fun so far. I just spent nearly two hours getting the internet to work on it. And before that I was transferring all my Miis from my 3DS, painstakingly one by one. I don't want to transfer all my data from my Wii since I'm keeping it, so apparently this is the only way to get all my Miis in there.

Oh hey, it's finished installing.

Anyway, I was visiting my grandmother's house right after I picked it up this afternoon, and so I set the thing up there first. Had no problem connecting to the internet at her place, although it gave me an error when I tried to update the system. Probably for the best considering how slow the update is. Spent way too long creating a Mii for the fact I ended up just using my 3DS Mii. Also, the first time I quit NintendoLand, the WiiU menu was loading for so long I had to unplug the system. And the load times in general were pretty frustrating for how much going through menus there was at first.

So I played some NintendoLand. First I played the Game & Watch themed dancing game and it was shite. And Sterling was right about that robot-lady; she's super annoying. But I later played with my brother and cousin some of the multi-player games, and they were quite fun!

Alright, let's see what this update's done...

Ah! There's that Mii Wara Wara! Okay, creating a Nintendo Network ID, now we're talking. Good, "Grethiwha"'s not taken. The more I post on the internet, the more I fear someone will steal my bullshit unique username just to annoy me. Friend me!

Anywho, I have more to check out, and it occurs to me writing the blow-by-blow here as I go through it won't be very interesting.

So yeah. Hopefully this didn't sound negative; I'm pretty excited to check out what all else the thing has to offer. And the controller's pretty rad. Just forgot the amount of headaches that can occasionally come with first setting up a new console. How have everyone else's first experiences with the thing been?

Holy balls crap this game is beautiful! FUCK!

So, as you probably know (by scrolling anywhere on my blog), Ōkami is one of, if not my single favourite game ever. I also consider it, on account of its art design, the best looking game of all-time - better looking than any game this generation has produced, despite the dated graphics.



So, naturally, an HD update should make it an even more beautiful most beautiful game ever. It should do, but I have a healthy scepticism when it comes to HD remakes. The ones I've played include:

- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and ICO, which are fine, but they look a little weird, like they were obviously meant to be played on a CRT television. Seeing them in HD doesn't flatter them.

- No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise, which features broken Move controls, a rubbish new art style, and a wealth of exclusive technical issues.

- and Metal Gear Solid 3, which is pretty ace.

So I thought Ōkami HD had potential to be the best thing ever, but I figured there was a good chance it would let itself down in some way. Anyway, I've put a few hours into it, and it's completely blown away even my most optimistic expectations.



I literally can't find fault in this new version of Ōkami.

So I guess the first thing I have to talk about is the visuals. Here's my academic analysis: HOLY SHEEEEET IT LOOKS SO FUCKING GOOD!

Totally blown away by how good it looks, and I think that's saying a lot considering I already thought it was the best looking game ever. How much better than the best can it look? A LOT APPARENTLY!

Also, you paper-filter obsessives will be happy to know it's now offered in your choice of three intensities! I like "normal". The sky and water have that subtle papery texture to them... Fuck it looks so good! It all just looks so handcrafted and amazing!



Okay. Now controls. Here's where I was most sceptical. Because I liked the Wii controls and I think the Move is rubbish. I figured I'd just use the DualShock controls, and that's what I'm doing. But it's totally fine! This is Ōkami's original control scheme, from the PS2 version, and I'm liking it just fine. The Wii controls made the game faster, but there were a few little issues where you could tell it wasn't the game's original control scheme - like, for example, it was absurdly hard to cross monster's names off your list thingy when you were expected to make a perfectly horizontal line. Now there are no such problems. This is the way the game was originally meant to be played.

And I don't miss the motion controls in combat, nor the incredibly sensitive dodging ability which made it so whenever I scratched my ear holding the Nunchuk while loading a new room, it'd finish loading and I'd dodge back into the previous room and have to load two more times. (Speaking of loading, I'm pretty sure that's way way faster now...)



That said, I did try the Move controls (which was frustrating, because the two halves of the controller both lost their charge from disuse and needed to be charged separately, though I only have one charging cable <_<), and I was... really impressed! Except for I couldn't figure out how to draw thicker lines, drawing works perfectly with the Move's pointer controls. And as far as I could tell, there was no motion control at all - all that's still done with the buttons. Which is great, because the Move's motion control capabilities are shit-house as far as I've experienced, and the Wii version's waggle control was never its highlight.

Still... no fault of the developers, the button layout on the Move, I've come to realize, is a worthy addition to any list of reasons not to like the Move. It just doesn't feel good to press those little face buttons, and I'd sooner just stick with the DualShock.

Anyway, the Move controls are still a lot better than I was expecting, and if you're intent on using them, I don't strongly recommend against them! And besides, just the fact that the game offers both control methods, I'm pretty impressed with.



So, uh, if you haven't figured it out, I think this is the definitive version of the game. Easily. Despite my trepidation regarding HD updates. This is the best HD update I've experienced. And it couldn't have been for a more deserving game. I may find myself replaying through the entire 50+ hour thing, shortly - I'm that excited to own it. It feels less like playing a port of a videogame, and more like having my favourite movie - and incidentally the movie I think is the most visually stunning I've seen - be released on blu-ray and given a flawless transfer. I am awed by it. (speaking of: Lawrence of Arabia comes out on Blu-ray this week and is being called "a revelation and perhaps the definitive Blu-ray catalogue release, if not the format's finest presentation". :DDDD)

If you have a PS3, and haven't played Ōkami yet, you're in for a treat (and you WILL buy it, versteht ihr?). If you have played it before, and you liked it enough to buy it again for the sake of owning a more definitive version... you will not be disappointed.



Ōkami HD is perfect.

A little while back I wrote a post about how it didn’t feel right posting about movies and shit here, this being such a game-centric community. But then I felt silly cause most people just told me to write my post.

But I didn’t really have a post in mind; I was thinking about my favourite movies posts I used to do on my old blog, but I’ve since started doing that as an IMDb list. And I don’t want to just, like, copy-and-paste from there, or worse, just rewrite the same shit in slightly different words. But I DO still want to tell you fine folks why the incredibly obscure film Heart of Glass is the best movie ever made. Also, nobody talks to me on IMDb…

So how do I write a favourite movies post differently, perhaps, more specifically catered to this community? The answer: superfluous videogame comparisons! Oh god, this is gonna be awful. Okay, I’ll probably just end up trying to cater my writing style, and focusing less on the sentimental tear-jerky movies and more on the balls-mental movies I like; what I think my audience is more interested in (I’m fascinated by the way, by this delusion that I have an ‘audience’).

So here goes! I’m gonna do my top 21, in groups of seven – my seven favourite favourites counting as #1, the next as #2, and the next as #3, and beyond that in alphabetical order. Because beyond that, the order doesn’t mean much.

Anyways, I like movies about madness and cutting people.


#3:

Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Dir. Werner Herzog

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Uncharted. Fuck me I’m off to a bad start with these video-game comparisons. I’ve offended myself with this one. But they both are in the jungle and make reference to El Dorado, so that’s something.

Werner Herzog is my favourite filmmaker. I consider his movies to be about man vs. nature …and God vs. all. They almost all deal with madness. His films are gloomy, but they are also hilarious, and this juxtaposition is to me their primary appeal. Also of note is how ridiculous the productions get. For this film he shot in the middle of the jungle on a shoestring budget, filming for example from atop rafts in actual rapids. His lead actor, Klaus Kinski, was a madman who would yell and berate the crew for hours at a time – at one point fired a rifle blindly into a tent full of extras, blowing one of their fingertips off. Near the end of filming he decided to leave, to break contract and the whole film would have been for nothing. But he took Herzog’s death threat seriously and finished the film. The pair went on to make four more films together. I could go on forever. I love this.

Anyway, the film is about an expedition to find a non-existent treasure, about men meaninglessly ‘claiming’ land that is hostile and unliveable. It’s a slow and atmospheric descent into collective madness. It’s oft considered Herzog’s best film – it’s pretty rad.


Branded to Kill
Dir. Seijun Suzuki



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: No More Heroes. It’s about a ranked assassin working his way to #1. In it’s insanity, it’s perhaps the closest film here to a Suda game.

This movie is completely incoherent and completely awesome. It’s sort of like a Bond movie if there was literally no exposition, never any established sense of time and space, and every scene was absurd and baffling. You get the essence – he shoots some guys, he gets the ladies, he gets turned on by sniffing boiled rice; you know, the basics. It’ll take you a few viewings to begin to piece together the story, and perhaps to fully appreciate the way it deconstructs the genre, but fuck this movie is always such a good time.


The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
Dir. Werner Herzog

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Oh fuck, god, I don’t know. Fez, because they both feature the colour green.

Another Herzog movie! This one’s about a (real) person who showed up in an 1820s German town one day out of nowhere, speaking only a couple words, who would later learn to speak and describe having spent the first 16 years of his life locked up in a tiny dungeon, being fed bread through a crack – never seeing another human being. The way Herzog explores this character is beyond fascinating. The performance by Bruno S. – a non-actor, beaten as a child by his prostitute mother, who spent most of his life in a variety of mental institutions – is magnificent. And you must understand the significance and hilarity of the scribe character!


Fanny & Alexander
Dir. Ingmar Bergman



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Killer7. I’m actually serious about this one, crazily enough! If you’ve read my post about Killer7, you may remember I described the last section of the game before the epilogue as having some kind of unprecedented and equally inexplicable but incredible effect on me – to do with the colours and the sound design and the mood created by everything that led up to that point… well, the same thing with the last section before the epilogue of Fanny and Alexander. The film is over five hours long (don’t watch the shorter version), and I didn’t even think the first half was all that great at first, but the final part is somehow one of the greatest parts of any movie, and it works because of the mood created by all that came before it.


Mulholland Dr.
Dir. David Lynch



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Deadly Premonition. I dunno, it’s sort of surreal and it features creepy smiling. Also it’s from David Lynch who did Twin Peaks (my favourite live-action show), which Deadly Premonition is based on…

I wasn’t crazy about this movie the first time I watched it (at least not the bizarre and moderately pornographic second half), but some of the imagery came back to me one day like a year later and I decided I had to watch it again and that I would fucking love it and I did. Those creepy fucking old people!


Star Wars Trilogy
Dirs. George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquandt

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: One of those Star Wars games.

It’s Star Wars.


Woman of the Sands
Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Journey (because sand).

Okay, for seriously, this movie is best watched knowing nothing about it. You know nothing about it. Now watch it. It’s SO COMPELLING!


Okay so that’s the first group down! BTW do you like my wallpaper I made up there? I fuck around in Photoshop trying to make these things and I felt as I was making it that it was a massive waste of time and was shit but then it turned out pretty cool in the end and I stare at it a lot. Yeah. It’s got pictures from my top 16 favourite films which include Woman of the Sands and Aguirre from the first group.

#2:

Harakiri
Dir. Masaki Kobayashi



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Uhhhhhh. Fuck. Metal Gear Solid. Because in both the dude has a beard. And Metal Gear’s pretty intense.

I fucking love samurai movies so much. This is like the culmination of everything I learned from watching so many of these films, about ronin and the Bushido code of honour – its not a good entry point if you haven’t watched samurai cinema, but it’s arguably the ultimate film in the genre. It’s cunting incredible. It’s a drama, it’s very ‘talky’, and yet it is somehow the most intense film I’ve ever seen.


It’s a Wonderful Life
Dir. Frank Capra

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Command & Conquer: Generals. Because an angel guides George Bailey kind of like how the player guides tanks in the game.

If you haven’t seen this classic (which plays every Christmas), watch it, ya idiot. It’s easily the best Christmas movie ever and instantly became a staple of my Xmas Eve when I finally watched it a couple Christmases ago. It’s also easily the best thing Classical Hollywood’s ever done, and easily the best a lot of other things I could come up with too. It’s sentimental, a tearjerker, but don’t underestimate its effectiveness.


Kill Bill
Dir. Quentin Tarantino

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Red Steel 2. Cause it’s a mix of Western and Eastern influences. Yeah! I thought about that one for a bit! Can you tell?

I haven’t watched it in a while, but a few years back I was completely obsessed with this film – I’d watch it like once a week for a while. I don’t think there’s a not-great scene in the whole thing. Vol. 2 is particularly awesome. You know.


Lawrence of Arabia
Dir. David Lean

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Uncharted 3. Cause they’re both about T.E. Lawrence. And one of the wankers in the game references the film.

The epic of all epics. Just try to watch it and tell me camels aren’t the best!


Paris, Texas
Dir. Wim Wenders

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: No More Heroes 2. You see, Suda referenced this once when asked what his favourite film was. And, there are a few things in the No More Heroes games that can be seen as sort of homages to Paris, Texas. Travis’ name; Sylvia’s accent. But especially in Desperate Struggle, that sort of phone sex bit through the two-way glass – it’s a concept this film invented. It should be noted however, that NMH2 is not a slow and quiet film about heartbreak.

This is my favourite portrait of the U.S. This might have something to do with the fact that it was made by a German.


Seven Samurai
Dir. Akira Kurosawa

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Way of the Samurai 4. Cause they both got samurai. Although WOTS is extremely silly. I mostly just wanted to mention it because I played 30+ hours of the thing and it’s one of my favourite games of the year.

To me the appeal of Seven Samurai is its ability to transport and endear me to a time and a place better than any other film. I sincerely love those characters.


Stroszek
Dir. Werner Herzog



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Dishonoured. Because Stroszek is the movie I’m writing about now, just as Dishonoured is the game I’m playing now (not literally).

Stroszek is my second favourite Herzog film, and it’s probably his film that I feel most effectively or with the greatest balance captures that juxtaposition of gloom and absurdist humour I was talking about. Also, Bruno S. and the (actually) crazy old guy who played the scribe are back after Kaspar Hauser and even better. Also, the ending is THE best thing ever.


That’s it for the second group. Now the #1s! These movies are all ones I will happily call my favourite movie of all time. For reals. These movies are the shit. My the shit. Are you excited? I’m not. Cause it’s almost 3:30am. And I can sense my writing getting less sensible and I keep having to fix noticing weird mistakes. Also, Jesus balls this is getting long. I’ll have to finish later.

[later]

#1:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Dir. Sergio Leone

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Red Dead Redemption. Obviously.

This is simply one of the most thoroughly stylish and enjoyable and perfect movies ever. Recommended for everyone, forever.


The Happiness of the Katakuris
Dir. Takashi Miike



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Ummmm, Katamari Damacy because it’s kind of crazy and there’s some music in it.

This movie, which I have only seen once, is literally the most entertaining anything I have ever seen. It’s a horror-musical-comedy (with some Claymation to boot) about a Japanese family that opens an inn, but who’s guests keep dying on them. When they discover the first guest dead, that scene blew my mind. I was very literally screaming with delight and disbelief at what I was seeing – at the energy of it. As I continued to do for most of the rest of this film. Holy hell it’s entertaining.

So if you like the kinds of crazy Japanese videogames I like, then this is my highest movie recommendation. Also, one of the actors kind of looks a little like Suda51.


Heart of Glass
Dir. Werner Herzog



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Uhhhhh, Majora’s Mask because there are chickens in it, while, in the movie, there’s a duck that looks kind of like a chicken at one point.

So, the story is this: the foreman of the local glassworks in a small 18th century Bavarian village dies, and with him the secret of their famous “Ruby glass”. Unable to continue making the red glass, the entire town falls into a collective madness. Yes. A seer predicts their doom but none listen. The dialogue is equally baffling and amazing:

-“I want the Ruby again. I want the red glass, understand? I need a glass to contain my blood, or it will trickle away. The sun is hurting me.”
-“You will never see the sun again. Rats will bite your ear lobes.”

If that quote doesn’t explain why Herzog is my favourite filmmaker, I don’t know what will. Maybe this: this is a movie for which Herzog had all of his actors (save the seer and the glassblowers) act under hypnosis. Their movements are jerky and unpredictable. The result is an atmosphere quite unlike anything else I’ve ever seen: of trance and sleepwalking. By the end of it, I feel that I too am in something of a trance. And the more I think about it, the more I think this is my single favourite film, if I have to choose. I can watch it as a comedy, or completely seriously, or halfway between and regardless I always adore it.


The Human Condition
Dir. Masaki Kobayashi

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Medal of Honour: Heroes 2. I’m not sure why I choose that one specifically, since literally the only connection is they both take place in WWII.

I’m slightly embarrassed about having a movie called “The Human Condition” here, because I always associate that term with Jim Sterling making fun of pretentiousness. It’s totally not a pretentious movie though! It is the greatest war film – the most powerful cinematic anti-war statement! It is ten hours long but it’s length is necessary – the character development is unprecedented, and the degree to which you grow attached to Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai, who will become your favourite actor after you watch this) after spending so much time with him is a big part of what makes the final third of the film the most incredible piece of cinema I’ve ever witnessed. Heart of Glass is my #1 today, but Human Condition was my #1 yesterday (so you can understand why I’m doing this alphabetically here…).

Ikiru
Dir. Akira Kurosawa

Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: God, I don’t even care any more. Kirby. Because both are Japanese.

This is the very best tearjerker type movie on this list. But I said I wasn’t going to focus on those. So I’ll leave it at that. But it is fucking incredible.


Ran
Dir. Akira Kurosawa



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Wahhhh. I don’t know! Halo, cause they carry flags of a certain colour so you know what side they’re on.

This is the very best of the best of Akira Kurosawa – my 2nd favourite director. It’s just… perfect and incredible. It’s an epic about madness – Shakespeare’s King Lear reimagined and surely bettered in feudal Japan. There is nothing I don’t love about this film.


Unforgiven
Dir. Clint Eastwood



Video-game it is(n’t actually) similar to: Ah, fuck it. None! There doesn’t have to be! Videogames are and can be great for completely different reasons than movies. Comparing them can be good when the comparison is apt, but just comparing them all the time is pointless. And further, it’s a waste of a videogame’s potential if it just seeks to emulate movies. …Aw, shucks, what a valuable lesson we’ve all just learnt! :) …>_>

So, this is a great movie to watch after you’ve seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and other such movies. They set your expectations. Clint Eastwood’s character, older now, recalls stories that you can easily imagine in those films. But when I reached a key scene in Unforgiven, I was completely blown away by how different in tone it turned out to be. And ultimately I ended up liking it just as much as tGtBatU, finding it just as perfect, but in a completely opposite way. I consider them now companion pieces.


And that’s all! Hopefully this wasn’t too badly a regurgitation of what I wrote on my IMDb list (which is way longer). And hopefully I’ve piqued someone’s interest on a few weird-ass movies.

And feel free to recommend me some movies I guess, if you want. Occams recommended me “Visitor Q” a while ago which is now the most disturbed thing I’ve yet seen.

Anyways, I won't have reason any more to post about not-videogames for a while now.

Comments?!

Here we go! Finally… My top 5 favourite games on the Wii console! The best of the best! The cream of the crop! The something of the something else not quite as good as the something but still amazing!

These are some fantastic games, guys. If you haven’t played them, well… I recommend them! Extra strongly! These are my 10/10s, on the Dtoid scale. They’re some of my very favourite games of all time. I love them so much!

Dramatic reveal time! Okay, it’s not that dramatic, since three of them are listed in my sidebar, and the other two are just, obvious, since they haven’t come up yet……

EXCITEMENT!


#5! The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword



Twilight Princess made this list, and it’s certainly a fantastic game, but Skyward Sword blows it away. While it’s not quite as good as Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, or The Wind Waker, all in my top 10 favourite games of all time, which establish the 3D Zelda series as my favourite gaming series of all time… I’d put it in the same league as those. In some ways it’s better than those games. The amount of personality, humour, and charm this game exudes is pretty much above anything else Nintendo’s ever done.

Beyond that, the motion controls are excellent and the game remains the only game, besides Red Steel 2, to truly deliver on the potential of the Wii Motion+. It’s great. The art style is fantastic, and the game’s world is beautifully realized (if a bit less cohesive than in past games). The dungeons are some of the best, and there are tons of great little sidequests and NPC interactions to experience between dungeons. The balance of main quest, dungeons, and sidequests is pretty much ideal for me. The game is a massive 60 hours in length, if you do all the sidequests and stuff, and the quality of entertainment sustained over such a time is practically unheard of.

But what really matters is this: when I first started playing Skyward Sword, I felt it. I felt that magic I felt when I first started playing The Wind Waker, or, as a kid, the N64 games before it. There’s something special and amazing about exploring the worlds of these games and interacting with their NPCs. And Skyward Sword has it.


#4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl



Nearly ten years later, (having never owned Melee) I was still bringing out Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 when I needed a game to play with friends. When Brawl came out, the 64 game was finally one-upped. Sadly, when we’re in the mood for a shooter, despite the prevalence of shooters this generation, I still revert to Nightfire and TimeSplitters 2. As far as de facto, go-to, never-gets-old party games, for me this console generation has produced only Brawl. But what a de facto, go-to, never-gets-old party game it is!

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is by a wide margin my most played Wii game, having logged over 200 hours into it. And, though the PS3 doesn’t keep track of this stuff and I have no idea how much time I’ve spent in the level creator in LittleBigPlanet, it’s a strong contender for my most played game on any console this generation. I remember when I got the game, I think it was March Break, and I seem to recall the basement was being renovated or something and I had a little old TV temporarily set up in my room to play it on… I played more Wii that week than I had since the first day I got my Wii – actually more. Apparently, those first four days with the game, I played between nine-and-a-half and fourteen-and-a-half hours a day – and I’m sure I haven’t played any game that much at once since. I was beyond addicted to it, and I’ve had every character unlocked, and all the trophies and stuff that weren’t totally impossible for so long now, I hardly remember all that stuff. Now I mostly just play regular brawls with friends. Indeed, still, four years later, I bring it out as the go-to game to play with friends, as I’m sure I will continue to do, at least until the next Smash Bros. on WiiU.

It’s such a love-letter to so many Nintendo franchises (I found myself wanting to play all the games I hadn’t yet that all the characters came from, just to see these characters, who’re so well and appealingly presented here, on their own adventures) and there’s so much content crammed into every corner of the game, and the core mechanic just remains so very enjoyable. Brawl is the complete package, it’s pretty much perfect, and frankly, I don’t think there’s ever been a better party game.


#3. No More Heroes



I love No More Heroes so much. I’m hard-pressed to name a game as brimming with personality as this one. Travis Touchdown is easily my favourite videogame character of all-time. He’s hilarious, and playing as him both makes you feel like a complete badass, and a total dork and pervert. He’s amazing. This game also started my love affair with Suda51, which led to my discovery of Killer7, etc.; so many good games. But NMH remains, aside from Killer7, easily the best among them. It’s so good.

Sure, the open world aspect is kind of bland, and I wouldn’t want to look for all those “Lovikov Balls” and t-shirts again (luckily, you keep all that stuff on subsequent playthroughs), but still I found myself addicted to it when I first played it, to a degree few games achieve. I loved running around, trying to buy all the katana upgrades and clothing and shit. And the mini-games, like lawn-mowing, are awesome. It’s awesome that lawn-mowing is even a thing. But of course, it’s the main assassination missions that are the best part. The control scheme, which uses the A button to slash, and then a single waggle of the Wii remote for a finishing move… is the most fun thing ever. And when I waggle the remote to cut a guys head off, and like, six guys standing right next to him also get decapitated, their heads being launched into the air by the literal geysers of ultra-stylized cartoon blood shooting from between their shoulders… it’s the most satisfying thing ever. I remember being infinitely amused by the idea that you could cut guys in half the long way. Yeah. This game has the best murder in videogames.

But oh my god the boss fights! They’re all ten of them given so much personality, they’re such unique characters; they’re so bloody memorable. The cutscenes that introduce them are some of my favourite cutscenes in any game – I remember I’d watch them more on YouTube afterwards; they’re just so good. Again with these bosses, it’s that mix of badassness and total ridiculous hilarity.

But there’s another layer to No More Heroes, as a satire, wherein Travis is a metaphor for the gamer, the world is bland to him, except for the few stores he frequents (as we experience the open world), and he has to do boring jobs (like lawn-mowing) to make money to do the one thing he really loves: gaming (killing people). It’s surprisingly easy to accept this understanding of it, and once you get it, you can’t get it out of your head. It’s all executed so well and it’s really brilliant. And I’d say, if any game deserves the title of “art-game”, No More Heroes does. Just don’t think that means it isn’t fun to play, because, at its peak, I think it’s the most fun game I’ve ever played.


#2. Little King’s Story



It breaks my heart to think that Cing filed for bankruptcy after making easily the best original Wii game, period. It doesn’t help, how utterly endeared and emotionally attached to the game’s world I feel. Let me just, for a second, boot it up and watch that opening clip that always plays… “And so somehow, in some such way, the boy was no longer – lonely.” Wahhh I love this game so much! The way the music swells! I know a lot of the music is public domain stuff, but it’s so effective! And gosh, the art style. And now I’m flashing to the ending, which is so beautifully executed. Argh! Everything about Yoshiro Kimura’s game here, from the character and enemy design to the cutscenes to the world to the… – everything – it’s all so thoroughly lovingly crafted. From start to finish, it’s a completely first-class gaming experience.

The gameplay borrows that faux-RTS style from Pikmin that I mentioned earlier how much I adore. Except LKS does it its own way, and it’s kind of better in every way. Your followers start off as “lazy adults”, and you have to assign them to different classes. Unlike in Pikmin, there are a huge variety of classes, and they’re all palpably different, and you need to be strategic about who you take with you. It’s fantastic. And you know how you feel guilty when you let a Pikmin die? Think of that times a thousand. Your followers have names, they can get married, have children, and when even a single one dies, you may actually see your followers holding a funeral for the deceased the next morning. The game is cartoony and looks sort of childish, but underneath the surface, it can be very dark, bleak even, both in terms of stuff like this, and thematically, as it’s about war and global domination, with hints of genocide. It feels like a throwback, to when children’s stories could have this sort of edge – when they were profoundly affecting – instead of just so fucking sterile all the time.

Anyways, from the moment you defeat the first mini-boss, a skull-cow, and your followers throw a festival to celebrate the victory, all wearing skull-cow masks… there’s never any doubt, you’re in for something special with this game. But how special, you still won’t be prepared for. The game is 50+ hours of perfection. The slow evolution from living in a tiny shack, sending a couple lazy followers to pick some turnips, to reigning over a huge kingdom and leading an enormous army of followers all at once… it’s executed perfectly. The main boss fights are easily some of the most well-crafted, unique, and fun boss fights I’ve ever played in any game – “TV Dinnah” is a strong contender for my favourite boss fight ever, period – and they have a ton of personality to boot, being introduced in some of the most creative cutscenes ever.

I could keep going! There’s so much about the game I haven’t mentioned! But I need to try to sum it up now. That’s hard to do! The game is astonishingly deep, challenging, creative, inspired, delightful, endearing, and fun. There are so many surprises in store for you when you play it, around every corner; I don’t want to spoil them. Just play it! I know there’s a Vita version coming out, but it kind of looks like the exact same game, reskinned with a more generic art-style, which Kimura and folks have had no involvement in. If you can, play the Wii version. Please! Games like this certainly don’t come out every year – and there may well be nothing like it ever again.


and finally…

my #1 favourite game on the Wii…

is…

*drumroll*

#1! Ōkami



Heh, here’s where I feel a bit guilty about my weird rule about ports on this list. It just seems wrong to have a PS2 port in the number one spot. But the Wii version is what I played, and it remains my favourite game on the system. If you have a problem with that (punk!), feel free to consider Little King’s Story as taking its rightful title of “Best Wii Game”. It’s pretty much just as good, and in a way, it’s kind of similar to Ōkami. I mean, they’re both that very rare and special kind of game: They seem so very lovingly crafted, and, despite their being very niche and doomed to low sales and obscurity, everything about their production screams triple-A. They’re both 50+ hours of pure gaming bliss. Furthermore, they both offer their unique takes on formulas from Nintendo franchises – Ōkami is to The Legend of Zelda what LKS is to Pikmin – and somehow outdo the Nintendo games. The Legend of Zelda is my favourite videogame series, and while it’s a close call for me to select a preference between my favourite Zelda entry, The Wind Waker, and Ōkami, I tend to pick Ōkami.

The towns aren’t quite as fun to explore, and it’s not quite as voraciously fun as The Wind Waker, but in its own way, Ōkami is even more brilliant. Where to start? Okay, I suppose I’ll start with the most immediately striking thing in the game: the visuals. I consider Ōkami the single most visually beautiful game ever made – it doesn’t matter that it’s decidedly last gen (although the upcoming HD version could look amazing) – the art direction is incredible. The cel-shaded visuals, the way trees and stuff are 2D, the way mountains are drawn into the background – at all points this game looks like a watercolour, or rather, a ‘sumi-e’ painting come to life. It’s astonishing. And this traditional Japanese style of art is complemented by a traditional Japanese style of music, which is also fantastic.

The gameplay is all around fantastic. Being in or out of dungeons is less black-and-white than in the Zelda series – more organic – and on account of that I enjoy Ōkami’s ‘dungeons’ more. The unique “Celestial Brush” mechanic is a stroke (ugh) of genius. Every time you learn a new brush technique, there are tons of ways you can make use of it, and there are plenty of things you’ll have encountered in the game world that you’ll realise you couldn’t do anything with until now. It’s handled so well. The game is also massive, and when you think you’ve fought the final boss, you’ll realise you’ve only explored one third of what this game has to offer. Brand new, beautiful and unique areas open up to you even many dozens of hours into the game, with brand new enemy types and everything. It doesn’t run out of steam or grow repetitive. If you like the game, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

This is also a very funny game, full of memorable characters with tons of personality. And just as it can be light-hearted and silly, the game can also be epic and beautiful. It’s just, all around, one of the best, most lovingly made games ever made. It’s my favourite game on the Wii, and I’ve often considered it my favourite game of all time. I can’t really recommend it more highly than that.



And with that I finally wrap up this ridiculous feature I got myself into! And so now, I’d love to hear from you (yes YOU). What do you think of my choices for best Wii games? What are some of your biggest favourites that I didn’t include on the list? And have I by chance actually convinced anyone to play any of these games?

Write me comments!


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Nintendo has just announced the pricing and release date of the Wii U. It’s like, two months away! In the meantime, I’m counting down my very favourite games for the original Wii, that I played over the last six (!!!) years. I’m now into the top 10!

These games are so good I ended up writing, like, twice as much for them as for the previous games. I expect at least twice as many comments! :p


#10! The House of the Dead: Overkill



With how rarely I feel the need to replay games, and how much rarer still that I actually do replay games, it’s kind of refreshing to me that immediately after I finished playing The House of the Dead: Overkill, I wanted nothing more than to play it again. And I did. And again and again. And again with a friend. The game is two hours long, sure, and the “Director’s Cut” version you unlock after the first time you beat the game and the game’s general arcadey nature all make clear that you’re supposed to play it over and over. But god was I happy to oblige. In a lot of ways, playing this game over and over is like watching over and over a movie I really love. It’s the right length, it’s not taxing to play or anything, and I just can’t get enough of the ridiculous characters.

It’s styled after campy exploitation-type films, and in a lot of ways it’s quite similar to the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse movies – which I’m a fan of… but this is way better. It’s so fucking stupid and hilarious. I could just watch the part where Washington and Agent G are in the ice cream truck over and over. The awkward animations are so good. And I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the prison warden’s delivery of the line “You two gentlemen smell like shit”. Make no mistake. This is a great and very satisfying rails shooter. But the characters and writing and stuff are what push it over the top. Way over the top.


#9. Donkey Kong Country Returns



DKCR is my favourite 2D platformer ever, as a 2D platformer. Yeah, I like LittleBigPlanet and some other games more, but they have other things going for them, like the user-made content, or whatever. As a pure 2D platforming experience, to me, DKCR is unrivalled – by the Mario games, or… anything. Granted, I was never a huge fan of the original Super Mario Bros. games, but still! DKCR is ridiculously good. I’ll describe a short sequence: where your mine cart suddenly finds itself on top of a giant egg, rolling at a hundred miles per hour, and you’re jumping over enemies, but then there are huge spikes in the ground that make holes in the egg so you suddenly fall into one of the holes and now have to jump over the spikes from inside the egg, as well as the holes that come back around from earlier spikes, while the egg ultimately gets completely destroyed. All this happens in less than twenty seconds, but it was so mind-blowingly exhilarating and hectic that I’ve never forgotten about it.

This is a very challenging game, but as far as ultra-difficult games go, it is for me unrivalled in this category as well. Never have I been so satisfied with such a level of challenge in a reflex-based game before. Every single jump you must make, every enemy you must deal with, especially in the mine cart sequences, is so precisely timed – the game has such rhythm to it – that it’s never frustrating, I always feel I’m improving with each try, even when it takes me many many tries. It’s so satisfying to finally pull through on a sequence that was giving you trouble, and it’s even more satisfying to miraculously get through a particularly hectic sequence on your first try – completely on the edge of your seat, trying to keep up your momentum. I feel like this game is kind of the pinnacle of 2D game and level design.


#8. Endless Ocean



I remember saying somewhere, if Endless Ocean was a nature documentary, it would be narrated by David Attenborough. It’s that good. This is a game with no element of danger, nothing like that… you swim around and pet fish to add their information to your logs. You explore shipwrecks and ruins as well as natural formations like caves and coves. And for the most part, that’s it. It’s a game about leisurely exploration and it’s completely enthralling. When you chance upon a particularly impressive specimen, like, say, a shark or a whale, there’s a sense of awe. One of my most memorable gaming experiences was exploring the deep dark abyss area in the game, and seeing a sperm whale emerge suddenly from the darkness, only a few yards away. At the bottom, there’s a ridiculously creepy shark. I remember also exploring this area with my friend, who I played this game online with a couple of times. Come to think of it, it may be my most played Wii online game, hilariously enough. We could only really communicate with our magic water pens, and some pre-set commands, but I kind of liked it, because if we were really Scuba diving, we wouldn’t be able to talk to each other either. It was fun.

Anyway, there was a sequel to Endless Ocean that tried to address complaints about the lack of challenge, but I think it failed. You had a time limit on dives now, which I thought was a colossal mistake, and also there was some contrived danger where fish now got aggressive and you had to tranquilize them. It didn’t work. Also, they made the encounters with huge whales and stuff happen all the time, and with more than one at a time, and it just made the encounters less special. But gosh how many wonderful hours I had exploring the original Endless Ocean. A beautiful game! I’d love to see another instalment on the Wii U, because if any game begs for HD and photorealism, this does.


#7. New Play Control! Pikmin



The rules for this list are a little weird. It’s a list of my favourite experiences on the Wii… as I experienced them on the Wii… I can’t list Pikmin 2 here, because even though it’s awesome and I bought it for the Wii, I played it first on Gamecube and haven’t really played the Wii version at all. But even though it’s a port, I can totally include New Play Control Pikmin 1, and not even take into account the fact that it’s a port in my ranking. Yeah I make up the rules here – deal with them! Anyways, I actually prefer the first Pikmin to Pikmin 2. It’s got way less content, but then Pikmin 2 had all that below-ground stuff which isn’t as good as the above-ground stuff, and, as much as I love the multiple-character mechanic in 2, there’s something about the original game, presentation-wise, with Olimar stranded alone on the planet trying to rebuild his ship, that’s just so extra memorable and special and that I really love. They’re both incredible, must-play games, but the original has the edge over 2, for my tastes.

Anyway, Pikmin invented a wholly original gameplay style which has been borrowed to great effect in a tiny handful of other games since, and which I personally just can’t get enough of. If you can call it a genre (I refer to them as Pikmin-style ‘faux’-RTS games), then it’s probably my favourite genre. It’s absolutely sublime, and still, though some games borrow the gameplay style, none are quite like Pikmin. It’s still something unique and special and it’s one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played. And the “New Play Controls” are perfect.


#6. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon



This game is beautiful, visually and thematically. The theme of Fragile is loneliness, and it’s executed brilliantly. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier sky in a game (it’s such a good sky!)… Fragile is a game that requires patience – it’s certainly not the most polished game around, and it can be incredibly slow-paced, but if you’re open to its ideas… god, I love this game so much. One of the game’s features is the presence of collectible ‘memory-items’, scattered throughout the game’s levels, all with little sad stories attached to them – and it’s a brilliant device for setting the game’s mood. And then, as you run through and explore the environments on this abandoned Earth, your flashlight subtlely bringing out the beauty in the World, and as you interact with your current companion, always pretextually, for they are only ever ghosts or robots… there is never any question about Seto’s quiet struggle.

I enjoy the combat well enough for the most part, but it’s the exploration, and the game’s pervading mood that makes being in the world so compelling, that are really what make the game great. The story and characters too, are quite memorable, and the climax won’t disappoint. It’s a thoroughly incredible game, and one definitely not like any other. It’s most certainly not for everybody, but for me, it’s one of the ultimate examples of this kind of ‘special’ gaming experience that I play as many video games as I do in the hopes of chancing upon.



And that’s all for now. Only one post left to go! Are you excited?!?!


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