The poor blog is lonely.

Here's an update.

Review: Zombie vs. Ambulance

Zombie vs. Ambulance: The only chilling thing about this game is possibly the loading screen.

Title: Zombie vs. Ambulance (aka: Zombie Virus)
Developer: Vingt-et-un Systems
Publisher: D3 Publisher (JP), Essential Games (EU)
Year: 2006 (JP/EU)

Oh, Japan. You’re the zaniest country a lover of the bizarre like me could ever hope for. Sometimes I love you. Sometimes I just want to strangle you. Sometimes I want to have sex with you WHILE strangling you. This is exactly how I feel in the case with Zombie vs. Ambulance.

In Zombie vs. Ambulance (or Zombie Virus, if, like me, you got the PAL version), you’re a medical student who has survived a zombie apocalypse. Somehow. Realising that there could be survivors out there, you hop into an ambulance and rescue them. While running zombies over in large groups. With a female cheerleader voice urging you on. It’s one of those games that make you either go ‘That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard of’ or ‘My god, that is pure genius’.

I’m not going to say what my opinion is because quite frankly, I don’t know. Ok, you know what? I’m going to give this two scores. One of these scores starts with a ‘T’ and ends in a ‘En out of ten because this is a fucking cool concept’ and the other starts with a ‘T’ and ends in a ‘Wo out of ten because GODDAMN EVERYTHING ELSE IS SO TERRIBLE’.

So, let’s get on with the review. As I have made clear, you drive an ambulance around in order to:
A) Run zombies over; and
B) Rescue people.

This is where it starts getting complex. All at the same time there are like several things you need to keep an eye on.

One is the ‘Morale Gauge’ – an indication of how your survivors are doing back at the hospital. This slowly drops over time. When I say slowly, I actually mean RIDICULOUSLY QUICKLY. Well, I’m sitting here now thinking that maybe, ok, in an actual zombie apocalypse type of situation, people would lose out pretty fast, go insane and all that jazz. So what, this game’s being realistic about a zombie apocalypse situation? I guess now’s a good time to insert a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying that a zombie apocalypse MOST DEFINITELY IS NOT POSSIBLE. I’m just saying that chances are slim.

Did I mention that when the Morale Gauge runs out, it’s game over? Yeah, you’ll be seeing a lot of those in this game. The thing I don’t actually get about the Morale Gauge is that it’s present in the very first mission, when you haven’t actually rescued any survivors. Well, ok, there’s your sexy friend and a couple of other sexy women, but they don’t do shit – they just stand there and look sexy. And report your statistics to you. And save your game.

There’s the ‘Survivor Icon’, which are little outlines of people on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Of course, the number of survivors you have with you is relative to how many of these icons you have. These slowly fill up over time because guess what? They gradually turn into zombies! In your ambulance. When this happens, the only way to get rid of them now is to crash into a wall at fucking high speeds, otherwise they damage… you? Your ambulance? Anyway, let them stick around for too long and you die. Game over.

The only way to prevent survivors from turning into zombies is by getting them back to the hospital, pronto. (Oddly enough, even though all your survivors back at the hospital are fighting off the zombie hordes, there’s always someone on hand to make these people all better. I learnt in movies that you can never undo zombification! Well, maybe those sexy friends of yours has something to do with it.)

Match all this up with the fact that the controls, well, suck, and holy shit is this game frustrating. Not difficult, mind you – I’m sure if I invest more than half an hour I’d be able to get a fair way into the game – just very, very frustrating. Shaking zombies off (the zombies who are already roaming around and attack you so fucking aggressively when you slow down for like one second) by twiddling the left and right analogue sticks is just plain awkward, especially while racing around corners at high speeds without crashing while looking at the map, trying to get back to the hospital, all while trying to run over as many zombies as possible so that you can keep your kill combo up, so that you can keep hospital morale up, so that you don’t get a game over, but HAVING to crash into walls at high speeds in order to get your zombified survivors out of the ambulance so that they don’t damage your vehicle so you don’t get a game over.

You see how long that sentence was? Trying to process my run-on sentence is exactly what the gameplay in Zombie vs. Ambulance is like.

So despite everything bad I’ve said about this game, there are probably some people shouting ‘But it’s a game about running zombies over! In an ambulance! How else should I spend my hard-earned thirty bucks?’ Congratulations, feel free to run out and buy it. Don’t say I didn’t tell you it had fucking terrible gameplay.

Honestly though, much like seeing The Clone Wars in the cinema for $5, I’m happy I have this game on my shelf. It’s one of those games that’s so bad, it’s good and has the coolest (yet the worst) concept ever. So to repeat what I said earlier:

[10/10] – OH MY GOD I’M RUNNING OVER FUCKING ZOMBIES.
[2/10] – It’s like I suddenly can’t drive all over again.

These are not the droids I was looking for

Watched Clone Wars today, because I am a Star Wars faggot. Before I checked it out, I read a bunch of reviews. I must've read something like five. Only one of them was positive. But I was positive and said to myself 'WHO CARES, I WILL JUDGE FOR MYSELF. ALSO, IT IS STAR WARS.' Turns out those negative reviews were right in being negative.

The basic premise of Clone Wars is that Jabba the Hutt's son (!) is MIA and that Anakin, along with some new Jedi apprentice chick named Ahsoka (!!) have to go save him. If not, the Republic pretty much lose the war because Jabba the Hutt closes off some trade routes. Seriously.

So, pluses and minuses.

PLUS:
- Clones. I love Jango Fett. I love Boba Fett. I. LOVE. CLONES.
- DEE MOTHERFUCKING BRADLEY BAKER voices many, if not all, the clones.
- SAM L. JACKSON! ANTHONY DANIELS! CHRISTOPHER LEE!
- Holy crap, is that KIT FISTO in the intro? AND HE TAKES UP MORE THAN A HUNDREDTH OF THE SCREEN? - It's, um, Star Wars?

MINUSES:
- It plays out like incredibly bad fanfiction. No wait, it IS fanfiction.
- Ahsoka is such a Mary Sue. I expected her and Anakin to lean in and kiss at any minute, despite the Padme factor. She kind of got away with more than anyone other apprentice would have been able to. Also, her personality was so annoying that she made Anakin look cool in comparison. I hate Anakin.
- Everyone is so out of character that it's stupid. Anakin's no longer the hot-headed, supposedly badass guy you once knew in Episodes 2 and 3. Suddenly, he is wise and not reckless. Then Obi-Wan, who I thought would be ok at first, but turned out to be sarcastic and wise-cracking (not to mention kind of sleazy). Then Dooku, who really just seemed more petty than strategic. TL;DR - EVERYONE IS OOC EXCEPT FOR C3PO AND R2-D2.
- Actually, I don't know if this is more a minus than a plus. But whatever, it goes here. A single line from Anakin contains more character than he ever had in the Prequel Trilogy. That is how bad Anakin is.
- The score, oh god. The score was by some dude named Kevin Kiner, who, instead of the orchestral music you traditionally hear in the films, threw in a whole bunch of tribal tunes. It really did not work. John Williams would be turning in his non-existent grave. Or spinning around in his house.
- A minor sort of gripe, but did everyone's eyes have to be so fucking big?

In short, while I don't exactly regret spending $5 to see this film on a 25m screen (remember though, Star Wars faggot), it was not a good movie. You should not see this movie. Unless you really like Star Wars. And then you can just rage at how it has fucked up the continuity.

[2/10 (one point for Clones and Kit, one point for... some voice talents.)]

We are finally reviewers

So I owed the good Topdrunkee of the K7 SINdicate a No More Heroes review. So here it is. Alternatively, here's the short version:

'No More Heroes is a game by Suda51. It is not as pretentious as Killer7 (EVEN THOUGH I LIKE PRETENTIOUS, BUT NOT TOO PRETENTIOUS) and also does not have as much of a storyline. You are an otaku assassin. You eventually reach number one but not before being cruelly disappointed. Namely because of the shitty graphics.'

... Well, not quite. The actual review was kinder. EIGHT LAUGHING SUDA FACES OUT OF TEN.

The Great Singapore Adventure

EDIT: Fucked up the last entry, so now that I'm home I'm just going to merge all the entries together. This is about as personal as this blog is going to get: An account of what happens while I'm in Singapore. Expect pictures and the frequent use of the term 'some relatives'.

DAY 1 (25th June)
So the basic idea was that we would take the brand new, fancy-ass airplane, the A380 (it's a two-storey plane) to Singapore. However, the A380 leaves from Sydney, so we had to ferry ourselves over to Sydney first. EXCITEMENT ABOUND, until we actually got to Sydney's International terminal. I have to say, quite honestly, that it sucked. In my experience (not much, but hey), the International terminal is always better than the Domestic. But no.

The A380 was similarly disappointing. I was under the impression that it would be extremely spacious and that there would be many awesome games to play. No and no. The seats are pretty much the same and the games are all terrible. It's not even like on the previous Singapore Airlines flights I've been on, where I can at least play some SNES games. Just a whole bunch of Popcap games that froze and forced a reboot of the system. I'm serious.

Before we borded the airplane though, we had to go through the whole security screening business. I actually had a bottle of water in my bag from the flight from Brisbane which I completely forgot about. The man at the screening asked me if I had any liquid in my bag, to which I replied (honestly, I thought) with a 'no'. So they just let me go past, no questions asked. LAX MUCH?

But holy shit, I'm back. We got to our serviced apartment at around 11PM (Singapore time; this would equal 1AM for you Ausfags). Dad and I went to get some water from the 7-11 (we're smack bang in the middle of the city; HOW CONVENIENT, GOODBYE CASH).

DAY 2 (26th June)
We went off to HMV, which is a pretty kickass place in Singapore, where Chip purchased the MGS3: Snake Eater OST (FUCK YES CD QUALITY) and where I bought the Tokyo Shock edition of Alive. I felt sort of bad, because I want to expand my horror movie viewing but can't actually bring myself to buy any movies that are potentially ass.

DAY 3 (27th June)
Went gallavanting in Takashimaya, a Japanese shopping center/department store. The toy section is quite impressive but noisy as hell. Several small children screaming along with a bunch of toys all out of of their packaging going DING DING DING, DING DING DING. Jesus.

Followed my hunch and bought a copy of Orochi, thinking that it could be the manga that freaked me out when I was like ten. I was completely correct. It doesn't freak me out anymore, but the ending was still totally unexpected. Awesome.

DAY 4 (28th June)
Chip's birthday. Nothing much happened, really, apart from mum saying that I was a disappointment at lunch because I couldn't speak Chinese. Jeez, mum. The food was awesome though, and so well-presented.

DAY 5 (29th June)
Lunch with my obnoxious uncle who kept insisting that we make time for him after we came back from Thailand. After we managed to shake him off we travelled somewhere to meet up with my cousins and to have dinner at their place. SMALL APARTMENT AND MANY PEOPLE? Yeah.

DAY 6 (30th June)
Went to the dermatologist (because apparently we're related to her) and had no idea what I was getting myself into until they put a steam machine over my face. It was so nice and relaxing that I fell asleep and woke up to the lady pressing and pulling my face. I honestly wonder why this isn't a form of torture. It was probably the most painful experience in my life.

And then... DINNER with obnoxious uncle. This time he brought his on-off girlfriend (I don't think they're together any more though; she didn't look too pleased to be with him). He ending up telling all of us about how nagas were real and how once a year you can see them breathing fire out of a small hole in the ground to celebrate the Buddha's birthday. Sarcastically, I asked him what the scientific term for the naga was. "Naga," he said. I pretty much just facepalmed and went on my way.

Another thing I missed about Singapore: the really horrible soap operas. They are so bad they're golden. We were watching one about some guy who had just rescued his girlfriend but was getting held up by the police. The police shot him even though he wasn't doing anything threatening. CRAZY!

DAY 7 (1st July)
We went to this recently opened shopping center called Vivocity which was massive in size but also massive in fail. The only really notable shop in Vivocity was a bargain place where everything was $2. Yet I didn't buy anything.

The high point of the day was finally getting down to beating Silent Hill Origins. That, and eating lungs.

This is a lung. It is tasty and crunchy.

DAY 8 (2nd July)
Mum and Dad were invited to my uncle's birthday dinner while we were not, so we spent the evening gallavanting around the city. Not that there was anything new, really. Because it had been Chip's birthday, he had about twice as much cash as I did. He decided to be kind and bought me the Jazz re-issue (Meister for Japanfags). It's one of those things you should just never EVER take out of the box but FUCK, IT'S JAZZ.

Dinner was at Swensens, which I believe is an American chain of restaurants that seems to have infiltrated Singapore a long time ago. Hell, I know there were many of those when I was still living there, but I had never been. So we went. It is such AMERICA FUCK YEAH food.

I have never had cheese sticks before so I tried them. The first one was HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME but by the second one I wanted to kill myself.

I mean, we're not even in America and the food still comes with little American flags. I swear I kept them, but I don't know where they are.

DAY 9 (3rd July)
Our last day at the fancy serviced apartment. So we moved to my uncle's son's place (same uncle who had the birthday dinner). Their place is pretty much just three houses combined into huge compound. One for my aunt and uncle, and the other two for my cousins and their respective spouses. They gave us the room at the very top of the house and we had to pass this fucking creepy painting to get to our room.

It just reminds me a little too much of this picture I see on the internet sometimes that scares the living daylights out of me.

DAY 10 (4th July)
Woke up at 0300 to catch out 0630 flight to Thailand. It was totally worth it though, as Thailand is awesome.

So awesome, the taxis are pink.

Our hotel was awesome too, purely because you can sit down in the shower.

Cut me some slack, ok?

Also, stuff in Thailand is really quite cheap. For example, a bottle of Smirnoff Ice costs about 59 baht, which translates roughly to AU$2. Which is just nuts.

DAY 11 (5th July)
The shopping center we went to was not only huge, but it was also having an anime/cosplay festival. It was painful to see several people dressed as catgirls going into a ramen bar.

There was also a DVD shop that might import from all over the world. The world cinema section basically equated to the erotica section and each DVD was about 1,800 baht (roughly AU$65). Ouch.

DAY 12 (6th July)
We decided to be really touristy and actually go on a tour to a bunch of temples and the Grand Palace. There are a lot of pictures.

DAY 13 (7th July)
Back to Singapore. Bummed around on Dad's laptop at my cousin's place all day long, messing around with the R4 I bought in Thailand. Did I mention that my cousins have small kids? Two of them are ridiculously loud. The other is still too young to be ridiculously loud. They are our nieces and nephew. Chip was nice to them and actually hung out with them while we were staying with them. So they probably know him as 'Nice Uncle Chip' and they know me as 'Mean, Grumpy Aunty Bev'.

DAY 14 (8th July)
Hung out with my OTHER cousin (who produces films and TV shows; shit is SO cash) who had a lot of credit at some beauty salon place. So I got persuaded into getting my brows threaded, which was kinda weird. Apparently they just use normal thread to yank the hair off your face, but it felt as though there were tiny razors on it.

DAY 15 (9th July)
Went back to the dermatologist for more torture. Started playing The World Ends With You which I'm really enjoying, despite the fact that I refused to touch it because it's a Square Enix game. Ugh.

DAY 16 (10th July)
Didn't do too much, just shuffled around tying up loose errands. Ended up watching Event Horizon (which my cousin's husband lent me). It made me laugh more than I should have, but it was quite an enjoyable and a genuinely creepy film. It still didn't do anything for me though.

DAY 17 (11th July)
Tagged along with mum to go see my other cousin (why yes, I do have many relatives!) Heard the news about Fallout 3 being RC'd by the OFLC, which made me rage. I was really looking forward to it. I mean, it's not as if the use of morphine hasn't been present in other games (Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth). Really, if that's the reason for the RC, it just proves that we need a goddamn R18+ rating. Jesus, what am I going to do with my preorder now? I've transferred it from No More Heroes to Brawl and now to this. Anyway.

Before we left, Megan (the oldest of our nieces) threw a huge hissy fit because she didn't want Chip to leave. AWW. That child will end up becoming an actress.

Then the airport and the plane. So I'm back.

Whoops.

Well, I had an Asian Drink Special I was planning to upload. However, it seems that my computers don't want to access the SD card. I've thrown the can out, meaning I can't take new pictures. So I guess I'll have to wait until I buy another can or something. (Not that I mind in the case of this drink.)

So in apology, here's a picture I took ages ago when I was most likely procrastinating doing another blog entry.

Expect more blog entries while I'm on holidays (well, depending on the days I gain access to the internet).

An amusing in-game item.

I got back on the MUD scene (specifically, Dark Legacy, my old friend!) a couple of days ago and came across this amusing item.

First I was horrified, then I laughed. I mean, seriously. It's a vibrating egg.

Horror Talk.

Shutter, that horror film that deals with ghosts and whatnot, hit the cinemas a couple of weeks ago. It's another one of those Western remakes of an Asian horror film, because for some reason it is always decided that the Western audience ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO SEE THIS FILM! But in English. With white people in it. Anyway, the original Shutter was a Thai film, which pretty much proves that they (whoever 'they' may be) have broadened the term 'popular Asian horror film' to actually include movies outside of Japan.

Thank god? Well, not really. The original Shutter was about a photographer, who, after his girlfriend hit-and-runs, is haunted by the victim of the accident (who was actually his ex-girlfriend). Ghosts in photographs, vengeful spirits, etc. So given how closely most remakes follow the original film, you'd think it would be about the same thing, right? It is, sort of. Except for some reason, they decided to set the film in Japan and use the standard (or what has come to be the expectation of Japanese horror) ghost-girl-with-long-hair.

I'll be fair, I haven't seen the remake. I did see the original, which was disappointing especially since so many people told me it was one of the most frightening movies they had ever seen. But if I go to see a remake, haven't seen the original, was told it was a Thai film but get presented with Japanese horror archetypes, I'm going to have to recheck those facts. It's more than a little misleading. Incidentally, the Shutter remake was directed by Masayuki Ochiai, who is obviously Japanese.

I dislike remakes. I'm unkind about them in the sense that I don't see them as the movie industry trying to showcase the kinds of movies that other countries can put out. I see them more as 'You don't have your own ideas, so you're going to take the idea from a film from another country because only a few people in the Western realm would have heard about it'.

Take The Departed, for example. Very few people I've spoken to who have seen that film knew that it was actually a remake of Infernal Affairs, which, in my honest opinion, was far better. Infernal Affairs didn't rely on sex and swearing (and that much violence) as The Departed did so often. It's possibly one of the things that I will never be able to shut up about.

Anyway, saw [REC] at the Spanish Film Festival with Jordaan yesterday. The whole thing reminded me of a certain videogame, but I thought it was very well done. It certainly wasn't as corny as I thought it would be (and it gets a prize for making me go 'OH FUCK' at one point without using a jump scare!), but the ending wasn't as frightening as I was led to believe. It was well-filmed (haw haw) and well-acted too. But I guess it made me laugh a little too much, especially during the parts that were meant to be scary. [REC], I give you 8.5/10.

DVD Fun #2: Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark

In honour of the new Indiana Jones film that just came out, I bring you DVD Fun #2.

"Join the ligendary hero Indiano Jones (Harrison FOrd of the reates screen adventures of all time now on DVD. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark has been meticulously restored and remastered frame-by-frame and features all-enveloping 5.1digital surround sond. Accompanide gby his feisth, independent ex-fiame Maria Ravenwood (Karen Allen), the two-fisted archaeologist embarks o a thrilling quest to locate the mystical Ark of the Convenant. Indy must discoverthe Ark before the Nazis do, and he has to survive poson, traps ,snakes and treachery to do so. Explore thedarkest ujngles of Soth America, the ustling marketplaces of Cairo, and a top-secret submarine base with Indiana Jones as your guide to adventure. And finally witnessthe power of the Lost Ark unleashed as Indy stays one step ahead of the Nazisn this classic rteasure on DVD."

Images later; this assignment is kicking my ass.

DVD Fun #1: The Accidental Spy

Back with some actual content.

I have a family friend who has a massive box that is literally full of DVDs. Some are legit, but most (95%) of them are pirated. This box of DVDs is big enough for me to get excited about going over to their house. The first thing I do on arrival is run to the box and lift piles and piles of DVDs out, finding ones that I want to borrow. So the last time I went over, I borrowed The Accidental Spy, a Jackie Chan movie.

Or is it? Sure, it may star Jackie Chan, but "Produced by Jackle Chan"? I'm not sure I've ever heard of Jackle Chan! This calls for some Wikipedia!
Oh, what do you know, it's produced by JACKIE Chan. No problem, I'm sure it was a simple typo.

Not at all.

In case you didn't click the link above, it's a scan of the back cover of the DVD. And in case you didn't click the link above, I'm going to reproduce the blurb exactly as written-

"Own to strangely prepare to feel the ability from the small north of device sales man of do exercise to keep fitting of of, and hope earnestlies to one day become the matchless and super spy of extraordinarily brave.A certain, small north by dint of prepare to feel and nimble of hijacker that artistic skill, loot the bank to t here and then arrest, become the newspaper head's news person.It is an orphan that private detective know from the newspaper's report way inside the small north, and may be his a Korea customer dollar of lawyer for son for scattering m any years, taking the small north go toing seeing the positive dollar of .Under th e order abouting of curiosity, the small north decision go to Korea with lawyer t o look for the life experience's. When father and son meet one anothers it, the ol d father is already the date have no many, at time of death and before tell small the north have a pen a mint of money at Turkey, immediately the pass away."

AN OSCAR FOR STORYLINE. Not to mention that the Warner Brothers logo that appears about three times on the DVD packaging shouldn't even be there, because the movie was distributed by Golden Harvest in Hong Kong and by Dimension Films in the USA.

Then there are the credits, which seem to be for a film called To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. I mean, I had no idea that this film, whose cover states that it was directed by Teddy Chan and stars Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang and Vivian Hsu, was actually directed by Michael Pressman and stars Peter Gallagher, Claire Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer. Whoops!

Another point I wish to make is the MPAA rating. You may be unable to see it due to the quality of my scanner (sorry!), but it says R: Vampire Violence. I haven't seen the film, but a quick gander on Wikipedia makes no allusions to any vampires being present in the movie (well, they mention a cross, but that's about as close as it gets). I checked out the page for To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, but that's not about vampires either. CRAZY!

You've really got to wonder though, how close the blurb matches up with the actual film. But somehow, with a description like that, I don't really feel like watching it any more.