Joining the Buy Zack & Wiki Campaign!

When I first heard about Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbados' Treasure for the Wii, I was intrigued by the idea of a point and click adventure made ground up for the system. After seeing this video, I've gotten very excited. One of the big selling points of the game is playing it as a group and figuring puzzles out together, which is much easier to do around a TV than a computer monitor. The colorful and appealing art style will also help grab different people.

If you're dying for a new adventure game or something to play on the Wii in October, look into this. At least give it a rental.

The madness of Otakon, Pt. 1

Funny thing: my trip to Otakon was totally last-minute. I ran into a friend at the beginning of the school year (Year-round scheduling), and while catching up, she briefly mentioned going to it. I don't keep track of cons, didn't know it was so soon and so close, and wanted to try something new. It's only the second con I've ever been to (First was Katsucon '05, working at the booth for the store I was working for at the time), so I was still a novice to how everything worked.

Highlights:

-I don't know if I'd call the registration line a highlight, but it was memorable. The length was crazy: Across the street connecting the buildings, a huge loop in the opposite direction of the entrance then back, and hot weather with many people in thick suits. Some people were crafty enough to sell water. I spotted many memorable costumes, best of all a guy in full Spartan warrior gear walking down the middle of the loop for pictures. I got one, but like the others, it still needs to get developed.

-Many incredibly huge and creepy/handicapped-looking people. A guy behind me at one panel seemed to have four chins, and there were several points where I literally gagged while walking past certain people and catching a whiff of them.

-I spent a lot of the day walking around, trying to figure the layout of the building and where everything was. It was very confusing trying to get to the dealer's room, and it wasn't open immediately, resulting in long lines at the start.

-The dealer's room seemed decent, but there was a lot of identical merchandise at various places. I ending up getting Bobobo, Genshiken and Harlock DVDs, I Feel Sick, a Golgo 13 manga, a Mario mushroom phone strap, and best of all, a Robot Carnival cel, which inspired me to go make a topic about it. I ended up visiting a booth solely devoted to doujin, which had a section that was allegedly tradition shonen-based stuff. I looked at the first three, almost immediately found a topless Winry on a cover, and left.

-The Steve Blum line was a disaster. I got there a half hour early, sat in front of the door, was told that it was moved to another area, got in the closest line, was told 10 minutes later that it was for Vic Mignogna, moved into the real line, stood there for 20 minutes with very little movement, and a rep finally came out and said that everyone who hadn't got a reservation ticket had to leave. Some of this was my fault, but they could have tried to say that sooner. I heard that he might come back tomorrow, though.

-The Michael Sinterniklaas made up for that in spades. Due to traffic, he was 15 minutes late, but he felt so bad that he decided to make it up to the crowd by throwing change and pins into the crowd, and offering us to come up and get some of his gum. The guy was an absolute riot- Very friendly, enthusiastic, and funny. He had many funny stories and info about his time in the industry (Including the time when he first entered the VA business, and got a warning from his boss that he'd be stuck voicing hentai if he did badly). There was naturally a lot of Venture Bros. talk, along with two girls dressed as Triana and Dr. Girlfriend. The most memorable quote had to be him talking about times where he had to read a line without knowing the context of it in the script: "Grab hold of that shiny metal ding-dong!" This got a huge laugh, and when the time came for autographs, I had him sign my Venture Bros. Season 2 set with that, and a regular signature on Season 1. I also caught the second half of Stephanie Sheh's Q&A because I didn't have much else to do (She was under the alias of Jennifer Sekiguchi for some reason, probably union-related), and while I'm not a big watcher of most of the things she's involved in, she had some neat stories and answers, and belched into the mic in the middle of a question.

-One oddly funny event did happen to me in the Steve Blum line. The guy next to me was dressed as a Bleach character, and as we struck up a chat, he showed me some pretty bad Jhonen Vasquez ripoff stick figure comics he did (One of them was almost completely a copy of the toilet bit from Squee), and showed me a picture of Orihime he had Stephanie Sheh sign. What was the memorable moment of this whole talk was what he told me he said to her: "Orihime is a goddess, and you're the one who gives her life." Maybe the other way around, but still just as weird. (If you ever read this, sorry, guy. You were cool otherwise)

-Geneon's screening room showed the first four episodes of Dragon Hunters, covered in a previous blog entry. The bad news is that it was the rather lousy first episode, and it was the only one I could see before Sinterniklaas' panel started. I ended up leaving early, and I only hope the viewers stuck it out to the better episodes (And didn't get pissed that it wasn't anime).

-All sorts of crazy cosplay. I got a Kodak instant camera and won't be able to see everything for a while, but I remember a Spartan warrior, a female Prince of All Cosmos, several guys dressed as V, many, many Kingdom Hearts characters, SO I HERE YOU LIEK MUDKIPS, a 'Ph3r-bot' made entirely of cardboard, and a terrifying blue moogle complete with snout, which is going straight into my nightmares and leads into this.

Courtesy of HedgeHodge from Something Awful:


I couldn't think of anything clever, so I simply said to him, "So, you're a gay furry?" He looked at me, but didn't respond.

Looking forward to Day 2. Hoping I'll see some of you guys and the friend who told me about the con.

So.

Out of both nostalgic interest and boredom, I watched Ferngully for the first time in 15 years. I had never had strong feelings one way or the other about it as a kid, and now, I find the backgrounds and some of the soundtrack to be nice, but everything else rather blah. One thing struck me, however: It's one of the most opinionated and ridiculously preachy movies ever, animated or otherwise.

If you haven't seen the movie, the rainforest (LAST rainforest? The hell?) is portrayed as a mystical utopian wonderland with lush vegetation, crystal clear rivers, and magic all around. And then the villains- Two dumpy, stupid lumberjacks using A GIANT MACHINE OF DOOM to cut trees, and some evil spirit of destruction who's basically a living glob of oily goo- come in. The lumberjacks aren't really given the clearest of intentions aside from, "cut down absolutely everything and leave desolation behind". Forgive me for arguing, but I don't think the industry works that way- they're a bit more selective about what to cut down and try not to destroy everything willy-nilly. Don't get me wrong, this has been proven to be harmful in the long run, but they try to be careful about it.

Also, the rainforest is not a utopia. The South Park guys' opinion is the polar opposite of Ferngully- they have an episode where it's portrayed as a hellhole of snakes, giant bugs, and cannibals. I don't base my life around these guys' opinions and am against quite a few of them (No proof of global warming exists at all? Michael Jackson was framed?), they raise some points. The rainforest is not a good place for a person to live in, but it is an ecosystem important for many species.

This got me thinking about other things TV and movies seem to want us to believe are the absolute truth. Here are some of them:

All lawyers are evil, money-hungry liars. These guys do a lot of good for people, and almost all of them are honest and hard-working. At least we have Harvey Birdman and Phoenix Wright.

Parents are stupid. This is especially evident in children's entertainment. It really would be nice to see stuff more often with parents who have at least the same intelligence as their children, as stuff like The Incredibles shows that it adds some good dynamics and dialogue.

All gay men are fruity, girly sissies and all lesbians are fat, ugly and butch. Huh?

And now for something you've never heard about

If you're someone who's actually kept an eye on this blog, I'm both surprised and a bit thankful. Sorry I've been neglecting it as of late, but I've got plenty of stuff to talk about now.

The show I'm about to discuss is something I'd be willing to bet money you've never heard of if you're American. However, it's apparently pretty popular in Germany, Arabic countries and France (Its country of origin), and possibly Canada. Not sure. In the U.S, however, it has never really gotten a chance.

The show goes by the name of Dragon Hunters (Les Chasseurs de Dragons originally), and is a fantasy-adventure mix. Taking place in a world made of numerous floating islands (Think Skyland, only good), it usually focuses on a team of three: Lian Chu, the muscle, Gwizdo, the diminuitive negotiator, and Hector, a tamed dragon and assistant. The world they live in has dragons of many varieties scattered throughout it, and they are a common problem for people trying to make a living. Our heroes go about looking for bounties and people in peril, slay the dragon/s, and collect their reward (Sometimes- the show reminds me of Cowboy Bebop in that the guys rarely manage to get cash for their efforts.) The three take up residence as tenants at The Snoring Dragon Inn, a restaurant and lodge run by a portly brunehilde-type named Jennyline and her young daughter Zaza.

One thing notable about this show, and one of its greatest strengths, is the character of Gwizdo. Whoever translated the scripts to English (As well as Rick Jones, his voice actor) did a great job. The guy is a total penny-pincher, coward, and sneak- but it's all pulled off in a way that makes him funny. His dialogue is very natural and often funny- there are very few times where he does stuff that seems out of character. The other two hunters have their merits. Lian Chu, despite being a hulking warrior, spends most of his time knitting and playing with Zaza, and Hector spends a lot of time panicking and speaking pidgin English.

This show has some nice backgrounds. The concept of floating islands is one that I've always liked, and this show does them nicely. They're of all shapes and sizes, and while most of them only serve as scenery, they do a good job of giving the show some atmosphere. When the hunters are on land, the landscapes look very nice and appealing as well.

What keeps me from heralding the show as a true gem is the side characters. The leads are designed and voiced very nicely, but I can't say the same for most of the others- they often look ugly or simply unappealing (Is this a French thing? No offense.), and while the French version might be another story, most of the English actors used for them are awful- apparently the dubbers felt that the main characters should be the only real priority, as they're well-voiced.

Also, this is not a show where you're guaranteed good writing with every episode- there are many well-done ones, but there are also some total duds. Plus, the show has a tendency to do the completely awful "lame joke that everyone laughs at for 30 seconds fade out okay" shtick that wasn't funny when it started in the 70s and isn't funny now.


The reason I'm willing to bet that American cartoon fans haven't heard of this is because Cartoon Network, being the trainwreck they are today, totally botched their plans for it. Originally, they showed it for about a month on Saturday mornings in early 2006 with no promotion other than a 5-second bit in a single commercial for the block it was in, and it was unceremoniously pulled after that, randomly put in months later, than pulled again after two weeks. Whether it was because of ratings or the network just didn't like the show, I'm not sure. But maybe if they had actually made people more aware of its existence, and maybe put it on a prominent block like Toonami or Miguzi, it would be a different story. As it is, the only way Americans can watch the show now is CN's online on-demand service, which will require a PC located in the U.S.

So go give this show a try, as you've got nothing to lose. If you like what you see, Geneon has released a couple of DVDs in all of North America that can easily be obtained through online retailers. Give it a chance- broadcasters certainly haven't.

Gaming in 2006

Highlights:

Everything Telltale Games did in 2006- What a turnabout. After a shitty first entry, the sequel to Bone added some real meat to the gameplay and resulted in a satisfying adventure. Sam and Max have been even better.

Elite Beat Agents- EBA/Ouendan is the best handheld game since WarioWare. This is the kind of game the DS was made for.

Viva Pinata- I only bought it because I'm a Rare devotee and expected it to just be decent, but it's their best game in years. Shame it's not selling well.

Saints Row- It may be wrong to many, but I enjoyed this game much more than any GTA. It fixed a lot of gripes I've had with the series, and I got totally sucked in. Here's hoping Rockstar takes some advice from this game.

Tomb Raider Legend- A bit on the short side, but very fun, atmospheric, and involving. The first Tomb Raider I ever played to the end.

Kirby Squeak Squad- I was hesitant to play this after seeing many so-so reviews, but it's turned out to be great. It got the essence of Super Star's gameplay much better than the GBA titles, and has a ton of unlockables.

Daxter- The best PSP title of 2006, and better than any of its PS2 brethren. Pure platforming goodness.

Letdowns:

Dead Rising- Clunky, frustrating controls and game structure. There are glimpses of something great in this, but it never gets to come all the way out.

Gears of War- Maybe it's just because FPSs aren't my favorite, but other than the pretty graphics, I saw nothing special about this game. Give me Unreal Tournament any day, Epic.

Rayman Raving Rabbids- Michel Ancel finally came back to the Rayman franchise. This was the chance for another classic platformer. But then he played the Wii and decided to make a Mario Party clone.

Children of Mana- It wouldn't be hard to make another Mana game that actually played like Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3. It also wouldn't be hard to make it online. So how come they don't?

In between:

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess & Kingdom Hearts II- Neither of these blew away my expectations or went under them. They just delivered the goods, and I had fun.