A change of pace

I recently received the movie Spaceballs as a secret Santa gift. Watching this movie again reminded me how much of an American classic this is, unfortunately this is one of Mel Brook's less known movies. This movie set out to ruin the space genre and for the most part succeeded. It follows a Star Wars like plot line with classic characters like Pizza the Hut, Dark Helmet, Lone Starr, Barf, and Princess Vespa. Much of the movie has some kind of sight joke or some inside joke relating to other movies. For example the beginning of the movie shows the Spaceballs' main ship which takes minutes to reach the end which gives a nod to the Star Destroyer of the Star Wars original trilogy. One of the greatest scenes of the movie is when Dark Helmet watches the movie Spaceballs in real time which means that your watching him do movements of him watching himself do movements at the same time, I guess it is hard to understand but if you see the movie you'll get it. I guess the movie is also a classic in my heart because the actor Rick Moranis is in it and many people refer to me as a look-a-like, even going as far as winning a look-a-like contest. Again if you never have seen the movie Spaceballs I very highly recommend you to seeing it, not only will it be a great laugh, but you'll witness one of Mel Brooks greatest underrated comedies.

Game introductions

Recently I was referred to the greatest game intros of all time: http://gamerhelp.com/article_viewer.cfm?article_id=130860 and I am surprised how amazing some of these are. My favorite two are the intro for Skate and Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, but the one I will always remember is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time because of its simplicity and the expectations that it alludes to. I enjoyed the Stake intro because its humor and Onimusha due to its quality throughout the entire sequence. What is your favorite intro of all time?

Empires Beta 2.0

One of my favorite mods for Half Life 2 released Beta 2.0 which has fixed many of the problems that occurred during the Beta 1.0 life cycle. I really like the changes to the weapons and tools, before they were very stiff and didn't really seem like anyone would want to use them, but now with the revisions to the models and sound effects its a lot better. The graphics engine has been upgraded and optimised so more people can play with better graphics at the same time. The only thing I don't really enjoy about the game is that it feels like your moving a little to quickly on foot. But I probably will get over that soon enough, and determine if I should invest more time into Empires or Team Fortress 2.

An unrelated accomplishment

Today I passed the Department of Labor and Industry's Special Class Engineer test allowing me to safely operate and maintain all classes of boilers and their appurtenances of up to 30 horsepower and to operate as a shift engineer in a plant up to 100 horsepower.

It was pretty evil having to wake up before 7am to be awake when the test started just after 8. But with persistence and determination I was able to pass the test with a safe margin of error. Hopefully, I am able to maintain a high standard in which future people living in my building will uphold.

Where is the US My Nintendo channel

Within the last week Japan received a new channel allowing them to download demo's to their DS's and many other things. This is one channel that I have been looking forward to for a long time and I have to keep waiting, potentially forever, because Nintendo of America is incredibly slow on what people really want in the US. I guess if I could give a message to Nintendo it would be for them to start making channels that people like myself actually want to use and not more Mii related channels.

Director's Commentary in Games

Recently I have been replaying game from the Orange Box with the Director's Commentary turned on. It is really interesting to hear a developer's perspective on level design, voice acting, and how events occur. I find it fascinating to hear and see how they do little tricks to make something spectacular happen, such as the train falling at the beginning of Half Life 2: Episode2. And after listening to most of the games on the Orange Box's commentary I find myself wondering why more studios do this. Not only does it give the player more replayability but it also shows you what to look for in games, even if you would normally never notice it. So again if you never bought the Orange Box, please do because it is worth every penny

Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee

I recently have been watching Yahtzee's game reviews over at Zero Punctuation. To put his reviews in one word it would have to be hilarious. The reason for this is because he talks really fast and the images that he uses complement his reviews perfectly. Another reason is that he is extremely blatant on everything he talks about, if he doesn't like anything in the game he will drive that point home. To see his most recent video you can find it here, but be warned that he uses a little language at times.