Castle Magus

Here is an example of Konami from back when they didn't suck so much ass. What happened to that Konami? Why can't we have that Konami back?



Seriously... I miss that so much. Yeah, all of those old Konami (and Ultra) games do still exist, sure, but at this point we'll likely never see their like again (or modern games of similar quality). At least not from Konami itself.

(EDIT 4 - 9/23/2020) Also relevant: this. (/EDIT 4)

(EDIT 5 - 3/24/2022) And this. (/EDIT 5)

Yesterday, I was reading some recent tweets by Dan Shive, the creator of El Goonish Shive, concerning the new King's Quest game. At first, he was simply praising the game (starting around here), but later on, he began to rant (starting around here) about the fact that people were apparently telling him on Twitter not to support the new King's Quest game because of something about The Odd Gentlemen (who developed the new KQ game) and their previous involvement with Hiveswap, the game based on the hugely popular webcomic series, Homestuck. (Let me tell you about Homestuck.) Apparently, there are vague rumors that they misappropriated money from the Hiveswap Kickstarter (which, sadly [or perhaps luckily], I didn't back, because I didn't know about Homestuck at all until well after that had ended) to help fund the King's Quest game. I don't know if that's true or not. If it is, then The Odd Gentlemen are indeed scumbags. However, that is (mostly) irrelevant to the point I am about to make here.

See, I agree with Mr. Shive, for the most part. I think it's kind of dumb to hate on a work of art, be it a video game or a book or music or whatever, merely because you dislike something that the artist said or did (within reason). Hell, I've even said the same sort of thing myself already, years back when I was ranting about Doug TenNapel and his asinine views on the Quran burnings, in which I also mentioned Orson Scott Card and his homophobia[1], among other things as well. Hell, I still play some EA games, such as The Sims 3, even though I hate EA with a fiery passion otherwise (and despite the fact that there are things specifically concerning The Sims 3 itself that make me hate EA with a fiery passion).

However, as Mr. Shive himself also says, I can understand why one might not want to actively give money to an artist (or a game dev, in this case) since that money would actively go to support that artist in their future endeavors, which might include things that one might not want to be involved with. That's completely fair. If you believe the allegations concerning The Odd Gentlemen and want to avoid supporting them by not buying the new KQ game, then more power to you. Hell, even though I still play some EA games, like The Sims 3, I haven't bought any other EA games at all since probably (EDIT a year or so later) Dragon Age IIThe Sims 4. Yeah, I finally caved and bought TS4 on Origin, when it was on a relatively dirt cheap sale overall. >_> (/EDIT)

But again, at the same time, to say that someone shouldn't recommend or even like the new King's Quest game because of some tangentially related thing that The Odd Gentlemen may or may not have done regarding Hiveswap... well, I don't know. I think it's kind of dumb to hate King's Quest over this. For what it's worth, to go with what is probably the most extreme example of this, I think what I've seen of Hitler's paintings are actually pretty good. Yes, I totally went there. ¬_¬ Or, perhaps more timely... will I say that I would never go back and watch (and maybe even possibly enjoy) an episode of The Cosby Show or I Spy or Fat Albert or whatever, due to the current shitstorm surrounding Bill Cosby? If even a small portion of that shit is true, if he only drugged and raped even just one person, let alone dozens, then Cosby is a complete and total shitbag, sure... but I don't think that means that there's now suddenly nothing whatsoever of value that can be found in those older works of his, so no, I'm not sure that I will say that I'd never do that. Nor will I claim that I'd never go back and watch a Chris Benoit wrestling match. Yeah, I know I'm starting to stretch the meaning of the phrase "work of art" there, but still... Benoit was in some pretty good matches.

In any case, as long as whatever crazy, unethical, bullshit things done by the creators don't or didn't directly affect the nature of their works, then I'm not going to straight up avoid those works entirely just because of that. If, on the other hand, whatever asinine things they do are indeed directly affecting the works themselves, then that's where I start boycotting shit (and that's a big part of the reason I don't buy EA games anymore, specifically, and why I'm starting to abandon the game industry as a whole, generally). But I also totally get how this is definitely a YMMV situation.

(EDIT 2 - 4/19/2018)

To be honest, I find myself dithering on all of this, as the years have gone by since I originally wrote this post. For example, given all the shit that has come out surrounding Channel Awesome recently, I cannot in good conscience continue to watch or support that company by continuing to watch Nostalgia Critic videos as though nothing had happened, even if said shit may not directly affect the content of any given Nostalgia Critic video (though there have been some instances of scuzziness even there which are now put under a new light in retrospect, so... yeah). At this point in time, I am pretty certain that I will not be supporting any future endeavors of the Walker brothers or anyone still associated with them after this. And as for Justin "JewWario" Carmical, I didn't bother to watch any of the guy's stuff when he was alive or in the years after he died when he was being sanctified seemingly by almost everyone on the Internet, so I'm sure as shit not going to start now, not even out of morbid curiosity.

But again, I am only speaking for myself here. For anyone else who has watched Justin Carmical's or Doug Walker's stuff and found value in that, I'm not going to try to go all Moral Guardian here and say that you can't or shouldn't do that. I'm just saying that I am not going to be doing it, myself, at least for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, back to the original post, now.

(/EDIT 2 - 4/19/2018)

Disclaimer: I have not played the new King's Quest game yet, mainly because I refuse to play any episodic games until the whole series of episodes is available, but I most likely will play it at some point, regardless of any controversy that may be surrounding it. (Unless, perhaps, said controversy actually turns out to be true, but even then... I'm still taking the same "wait and see" approach as I was before, concerning the new KQ game.) (EDIT 3) I have indeed played a little ways into the first episode, since I wrote the above. It's... okay, I guess? Not enough so that I actually finished it (yet) obviously, but it's mostly inoffensive, I suppose. (/EDIT 3) I have read Homestuck, and I believe that it is indeed as awesome as most people say it is. I'm looking forward to Hiveswap. For that matter, EGS is also pretty cool, I think.

[1] - And I thought I'd made another post along the same lines as this one here and that other one specifically concerning Mr. Card and the new (at the time) Ender's Game movie as well, about how a lot of people apparently thought that Mr. Card's homophobia tainted the movie too much for them to enjoy it or want to go see it, but I couldn't find such a post. Maybe that post was made to Facebook or something instead of Livejournal, in which case screw it, I'm not hunting it up. *shrug* Or maybe I just started to write such a post but then deleted it without finishing it. There have been a ton of posts that I've almost made like that.

Jurassic Park is one of the few movies that I've seen multiple times, though I only saw it once in theaters. It came on TV the other night and I watched it again, and it's just as good now as it was back then (though leave it to the magic of television to turn a 2 hour movie into a 3 hour movie ¬_¬). The other two I've only ever seen once, which wasn't in theaters, and... eh, they're mostly forgettable. All I really remember about the second one was Malcolm (who, spoiler alert, died at the end of the first book by Michael Crichton and had to be bullshitted back to life for the second book, but who didn't die at all in the first movie) coming back and the T-Rex being brought to San Diego, and all I remember about the third movie was Grant coming back (without Ellie, though I think Laura Dern had a bit part at the beginning and/or end maybe?) and the stupid Spinosaurus beating the T-Rex somehow.

(EDIT)

Oh yeah, almost forgot... this:



(/EDIT)

Below is the copy/paste from my Facebook share of Doug Walker's own FB post of the above video (with some added link references I didn't have in the original FB post):

I have no idea how Doug Walker was able to convince Tommy Wiseau to participate in this, given how badly Doug savaged "The Room" in his review of it. Fair warning, Wiseau is just as incomprehensible in this as he was in "The Room" itself.

I would recommend watching "The Room," though. At least once. Maybe get the RiffTrax for it as well, but even without it, I'd say watch the movie if you can get your hands on it. It really is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, for a myriad of reasons (though still not as bad as "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" or any given Uwe Boll movie). It's actually impressive how bad it is, really. But at the same time, because it's just *so* uniquely bad, it sort of... transcends into something magical.

For further reference:

The Nostalgia Critic review of "The Room" (which is how I first heard about the movie): http://channelawesome.com/nostalgia-critic-the-room/

Doug's response to Wiseau having the NC review removed (though it got put back up, obviously): http://channelawesome.com/the-tommy-wiseau-show/

Doug's "Shut Up and Talk" episode with Greg Sestero (who played Mark in "The Room" and later wrote the book "The Disaster Artist" about the experience): http://channelawesome.com/shut-up-and-talk-greg-sestero/

(EDIT 2) And here's a link to the full review. (/EDIT 2)




I'll either do another post later, or edit this one, with the full review when it goes up tomorrow. Apparently, they're going to rip the 2014 Ninja Turtles movie a new asshole. Both of these guys have already discussed the movie separately as themselves and not their characters, but now, several months later, they've decided to do a joint review as the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic.

I still have yet to see the movie myself, so I honestly don't know if it really is as bad as they and so many other people make it out to be. I thought it was a terrible idea from the get go, myself, but several members of my family who went to see it in theaters with their kids said it was pretty good, so... I don't know. *shrug* I still have little interest in seeing it, but I'm not adamantly opposed to watching it either, so maybe I'll get around to it someday eventually.

(EDIT) Oh, and on a semi-related note, Doug Walker is in this week's episode of James and MikeDoug Mondays as well. (/EDIT)

According to Doug and Rob Walker there (and which Google confirms), a live-action/CGI, comedic remake of The Secret of NIMH is in the works.

Yeah... I'm going to have to go ahead and say "Do not want."

They... they actually made a sequel to A Christmas Story? Seriously? ಠ_ಠ

In lieu of going to see the Michael Bay produced TMNT movie myself, I have opted to watch reviews of it. Below are the embeds of the three I watched from Matt, Pat, Woolie, and Liam of Super Best Friends Play, James Rolfe and Mike Matei of Cinemassacre, and Doug Walker of That Guy With the Glasses. (If Noah Antwiler of The Spoony Experiment does a review/vlog of it at some point later on, I'll edit this and include that one as well.)

The embeds are in both the order I watched them and, coincidentally, the order of most hate to least hate, as well as most spoilery to least spoilery (though they all contain spoilers). The Best Friends get way more into the nitty gritty (and somewhat nitpicky), whereas Doug takes more of an overview approach (and goes off on an interesting rant against Michael Bay and about film-making in general), with James and Mike somewhere in between. The consensus seems to be that it's a pretty bad movie, as expected, but not as bad as Turtles 3. (Is it weird that I just did a kind of mini-review of reviews of movies? >_>)

As for me... I'll probably see it eventually, after it comes out on DVD or whatever, but I'm not going to be watching this thing in the theaters. I don't know... I might go see it in theaters if some of my family members want to go at some point. I'm undecided, at this point, but I'm leaning toward not.

( Youtube embeds behind cut )

Oh my... this was very impressive.

Heck, I'm as impressed by the cast as I am by the film as a whole. James Rolfe, Doug Walker (and several others from Channel Awesome), Craig Skistimas, Arin Hanson, and, of course, Jaleel White (better known to most people as Steve Urkel) reprising his role as the voice of Sonic himself. And those are just the ones I personally am familiar with. I'm sure there are other names and faces in there that I don't recognize myself but which are also at least Internet-famous, if not actually famous famous.

Here is a link because LiveJournal is ass backwards and doesn't support/allow iframes for some reason, meaning I can't just embed it here.

(EDIT)

Here, have an actual embed of the Youtube version, since it works now. Also since the above link is broken now.


(/EDIT)

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and spoil the #1 entry. I watched that whole thing knowing, just knowing, that the #1 entry couldn't possibly be anything other than Garbage Pail Kids. If that piece of shit movie hadn't been in the list, or even if it had been in the list but wasn't at the #1 spot, I would have been extremely, horribly disappointed.

Well, guess what? I was not disappointed. Garbage Pail Kids was in the #1 slot on this list. Doug Walker (not the Nostalgia Critic character... Doug Walker himself) rants about that horrid movie for over 15 minutes, which was only 10 minutes less than the actual NC review itself. It was one of the most glorious rants I've seen in quite a while, and I agreed with every single word, hand gesture, and facial expression of it (except, again, for the part where he said he loved the cards as a kid, which I most assuredly did not). I loved that Mr. Walker brought up Manos: The Hands of Fate, same as I did, and also compared it favorably to Garbage Pail Kids. The Garbage Pail Kids rant starts at around 36:30, if you only want to see that part of it (but I would recommend watching the whole thing, if you have an hour to spare).