goodvein

[goodvein]

I'm tired of all of the negativity.

Yes, I know, it's my own negativity. But, instead, I want to talk about things I actually like.

Because despite appearances, there are things I love.

[fuck-yeah-intro-movies]

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (USA - 2005)

[fuck-yeah-intro-movies]

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 (2005)

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How Jason Lee Felt About My Name Is Earl

My name is Earl was, without debate, one of the best shows ever created.

The 99 episodes seemed suspicious.  The only thing I could find with 100 episodes was that it’s the usual lower limit for Syndication, as it allows a full 20 week run without repeats.  So, it stopped one episode before it could make the most money on syndication.

WHAT?

Runtime:  7:22

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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Opening [True 1080p HD]

Runtime:  1:29

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Megaman X4

Megaman is one of the oldest video game franchises. They are incredibly formulaic, but fun, if simple. This was back from the time when Mario's primary ability was jumping.

When it jumped to SNES, the SNES had enough power to actually do something really interesting, if barely so. Few video games did it. Terminator introduced real music. Metal Warriors had a great story with almost cinematics, and Megaman X combined it together. Megaman was a rote robot, so they couldn't do anything deep with it.

X was fully sentient. Dr. Light realized it was a good idea to leave him in a capsule to test him for a couple of hundred years to make sure he wouldn't just downright kill anyone.

Dr. Cain decided to copy him into Reploids without such safeguards. And some of them went Maverick.

The Megaman X games had complex characters with minimal dialogue, and music that was as close to Heavy Metal as you can get with a MIDI. The gameplay itself was a lot more dynamic and exciting.

Of course, all good things come to an end. Megaman X was meant to be a 5 part series that jumped off into Megaman Zero. The 5th game was not quite as good as the fourth, but still a good game. Subsequent games were absolutely terrible.

For years, at least a decade, Megaman X4 was considered the best platformer of all times.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic - The Saga Begins (Official Video)

Runtime:  5:37

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Shadow of the Colossus

We could talk about how it's the prequel to a fantastic game, about the basic plot, or even about the beauty, but the most important thing is the control system.

You play as Wander.

Standard video game dude. Has a sword. [] has you do basic attack. /\ is jump. X is call your horse. d-pad (left)/(rght) lets you cycle weapons between nothing, the sword, and a bow you find later one. The bow does no damage to any of the enemies in this game.

O lets you... reflect light from your sword. You might think this is some cool video game attack, and you would be wrong.

This is because, while your sword is super cool, and likely divine, your enemies are all colossi. Not just really tall enemies that you wail at with your sword until they fall down, but walking mountains, or at least hills.

And there are no other enemies in the game.

This is sounding like an incredibly boring game, and you would be right.

If not for R1. Hold R1 and you grab things. Cliffs, enemies, moss, vines, etc. If you have nothing to grab onto, he crouches down, which helps him recover.

In order to kill the colossi, you need to climb them up to their weak point, and stab it with your magic sword. In order to do this, you need the best climbing engine any video game has ever come up with.

And while Shadow of the Colossus completely changed how games CAN be made, there is a grand total of one game that took the basic premise, and made a good game out of it.

You hold R1 to grab things. When you jump near a cliff, or something climbable, you will grab onto it. When you let go of R1, you let go. If you hold down /\ while clinging from something, you charge up a jump. You press your L-stick in the direction you want to go, and let go of Triangle, and you jump there.

This creates such an intuitive climbing system that it feels like you are part of the game as you explore the absolutely beautiful game world.

When climbing colossi, you have stamina, grip strength, and they will actively try to shake you off. This makes every colossus climb a gripping, harrowing experience. Every colossus you kill makes you look more corrupt, (slightly), but also increases your fall resistance. Which is kind of essential, as each colossus gets bigger and bigger, but so subtly that you might not notice the first (few) times you play the game.

When you do this, every part of the game, feels intuitive, and you can simply get lost in the breathtaking world.

Oh, and the sword collects light, and if you point it in the right direction, it creates a beam of light to the next colossus. And when you get there, it points to the weak point.

The bow can be used to piss off the colossus, to get him into position to start a climb. And to hunt lizard tails, which increase your maximum stamina.

There was... eventually... a sequel to Shadow of the Colossus, but it seems the publisher forced on them a standard modern climbing engine, which you constantly have to fight against, and requires constant tool tips to be useful. Taking a game that should be about the joy exploration to one about annoyance and frustration.

The only other game to do this well was Dragon's Dogma. It then had a sequel that tried to mainstream normie the control system that made it infinitely inferior to the original.

[goodvein]

PATTY GURDY - RUN (new original hurdy-gurdy music)

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Onimusha 3: Demon Siege

Resident Evil was never meant to be a good game. And to be fair, they have kept their promise, by never making a good game.

Resident Evil was always designed as a shitty B movie.

Now, are Resident Evil games fun? Yes. At least until they discovered quick time events, (I spit upon the name of God of War for introducing them. Anyways, they started playing around with what they could do with the premise.

One of their spinoffs was Devil May Cry. DMC was based off a potential control system for Resident Evil. It turned out to be a dumb idea for Resident Evil, but a great idea for Devil May Cry.

Another was Onimusha: Warlords. While DMC took the cinematic aspect of Resident Evil, Onimusha took the controls, and tried to perfect them. The end result was what are referred to as Tank Controls. Tanks, at least early tanks, had to stop to turn. While Dante can turn on a time, Samanosuke has to turn that way before moving. This provided a plodding, methodical movement system.

And, we need to take a moment to point out that early 3D games absolutely suck. OoT was great. Mario 64 was 50/50 over whether the camera controls worked at the moment. Parasite Eve has completely unique controls, because while it (barely) worked, they were absolutely idiotic, if fun. Two-stick and mouse-look were not invented until the PS2 era.

And so, Onimusha's tank controls were, honestly, revolutionary at the time, even if they are rightfully left in the dusts of history.

The original pair of Onimusha games played off the Unification Era. Oni are good. Genma are evil. Because, subverting expectations.

The first one was actually close to Resident Evil, in the sense that it starts off as an investigation that turns supernatural. The hero of the first game is Samanosuke Akechi, whom is basically Akechi Hidemitsu. In the game he is an idealized confusion warrior. Confusion warriors are paragons of selflessness, to the point they don't have a personality, and the game is primarily interesting because you are dealing with people from the unification wars, although many of them are possessed/empowered by the demonic Genma. 2 was a different story, with a different character, but still used history as the primary way of making it interesting.

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege brought back Samanosuke, and added a new one.

Jacques Blanc

A modern French soldier with a blue trench coat flak jacket.

The two swap eras, coordinating through tier fairy tengu.

Jacques Blanc has whip-like weapons. Instead of the bow that Samanosuke uses, Jacques uses alternate whip attacks, which can grapple opponents. He can then draw his side arm to pepper them, toss them, slam them, etc. His whip also gives him a vertical movement option, dramatically improving the exploration options.

He allows the game to be a LOT more dynamic and exciting, even if, at it's base, he uses the same tank controls of Samanosuke.

He also has a personality. Girlfriend. Son. Emotions.

Demon Siege also follows the growing Resident Evil tradition of having a bunch of interesting characters have their own sidestories.

And this is an colossal east/west division, as while 3 is far more interesting for a foreign audience, it's largely decried by the Japanese audience.

This was honestly one of the best games of the PS2 era, but because of the disinterest in Japan, will likely never get a modern remake.

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Charlemagne - Massacre of the Saxons - Christopher Lee

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The Crimson Permanent Assurance!

When making The Meaning of Life, Monty Python wanted a cold open. And the official version of why it was so long is simply that no one told them to stop.

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MANOWAR - Sleipnir (Official Lyric Video)

Runtime:  5:15

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WIND ROSE - Diggy Diggy Hole (Official Video) | Napalm Records

Runtime:  5:41

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E Nomine - Wolfen (Das Tier in Mir) (English Translation)

Runtime:  4:43

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X-Wing

One of the two games that made space flight sims a genre. Wing Commander game first. Descent was more of a 3D DOOM game.

X-Wing does an absolutely fantastic job of 3D space flight, and hammered out many of the unmentioned rules of the Star Wars universe. Such as hyperdrive navigation, and the the fact ships are pulled out of hyperspace by heavy gravity wells. Which you can create artificially. Which does come up in the plot.

I think it was in the sequels, but it allows you to attack individual turbolaser batteries.

While the flight is non-neutonian, (if you turn off the engines, you come to a stop; maybe it's a safety feature that stops starfighters from drifting off into nothingness?). Flight is done incredibly well, with various ships having very different handling.

You can adjust the blaster and shield recharge of your ship, transfering power into them, or into the engines. Remember in the first movie, where they put their shields double front? You can do that. And double rear. And balanced. And if you have it balanced and cycle it, when you get back to balanced, it will distribute the shield energy evenly.

And this brings up the glorious TIE Fighter!

TIE Fighters were NEVER meant to be the equal of the X-Wing. The X-Wing was one of the most expensive fighters in the galaxy. They were so expensive that no one could afford to build them en masse. The Empire had... and empire to maintain. The TIE Fighter was designed to be as good as they could get, without spending a lot of money. They ended up with a fighter that looked simple, but packs a lot of punch into an extremely tiny package. Despite the engines and blaster cannons being a fraction of the size, they had the same power as the X-Wing. So, the tiny TIE Fighter had the same speed an maneuverability as the X-Wing, which was, at the time, the best fighter in the galaxy. X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing: Alliance introduce a number of other fights, establishing that the X-Wing and TIE Fighters were far faster than the average. About 1/4 faster.

The TIE Fighter was instead designed to use great training to produce fantastic pilots. The problem is that training can only produce GOOD pilots. Fantastic pilots have innate talent that cannot be taught.

But, a skilled TIE Fighter pilot can keep up with an equal X-Wing pilot. TIE Fighters don't need missile launchers, as they always fight as part of a battlegroup, with TIE Bombers backing them up. They don't need hyperdrive, because they are always part of a battlegroup.

The Empire did had hyperdrive capable fighters, but they weren't as maneuverable as the X-Wing.

In fact, the TIE Fighter is so small and maneuverable, that you might have to turn off auto-convergence for your blasters. You can also switch through Fire Linking, which have single shot, pair, and if you have four, quad-linked.

You can summon back-up. If you have a hyperdrive-capable fighter, you can even make a single jump. As in Star Wars you have to spend a lot of time actually calculating your jumps.

The original has you play as the iconic and prestigious X-Wing, (among other Alliance fighters). The first sequel, TIE Fighter has you fight for the Empire. You get to see the empire as peace makers, and you spend most of your time on pirates, smugglers, crime syndicates, and rebel, (not Rebel), generals. They then produced X-Wing: Alliance, were you play the son of a merchant family who flies for the alliance, but you have times where you have to fly for your family, using another Corellian YT transport.

They then created X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, that tried to balanced the ships. The whole point is that life/war is not balanced. You don't always get what you want.

Since then, they have come out with Squadrons, that focuses more on how diverse your characters are, rather than, you know, space combat. YOU SPEND MOST OF THE GAME IN A FLIGHT SUIT, and you only see the main character's face in the occasional cutscene.