An internet scrapbook/junk journal of games and other stuff I like. Mostly GIFs and images (all created or captured by me, unless noted otherwise) with occasional reviews and word-salad for your reading enjoyment. Fast food kids meal "analyst", and sort-of archivist.
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Another Jackass movie is out and I never thought I would say this but respectfully, please let it die.
Don't get me wrong, I adore Jackass but it was lighting in a bottle. A very specific set of ingredients were used that made the original era great that aren't there anymore.
One ingredient was the art direction. When you watch the movies, its more than just people getting hurt for fun - there's a conscious art direction from set designs to costumes, and colors used. The series had sprinkles of it, but the first three films went all out. I'd count the awesome soundtrack as apart of it too.
The second ingredient that gets misconstrued (is that the correct way to use that word?) is the nature of Jackass. The nature of the pranks and stunts, as edgy as they are was never just guys mutilating each other. It was stuff like "hey, let's see if this bull can see me, while I'm painted to camouflage with this coloring book-style rainbow on this backdrop". I'm not saying there isn't pranks that are just "guy get hurt, hurt guy make me ha-ha", but for the most part, it's a live action Looney Tunes cartoon with set ups, over-exaggerated props and big personalities that make you laugh.
Beyond the pranks and skits, the last ingredient is the guys themselves and the fourth movie 100% proved that. The original cast was mostly comprised of old skatepunks and starving actors willing to try anything to break into the business. They found one another and their chemistry was perfect and ultimately chemistry is just not something you can replicate. They're so genuine and were capable of loving each other even after pulling the most heinous pranks on one another. You see the term "friendship simulator" thrown around a lot these days, I believe Jackass was the original friendship simulator. Through the bumps and bruises, you could tell these dudes were having the time of their lives with one another.
Nothing against the new cast but the age gap was really apparent when they tried to stick them against the old cast. In my opinion, they should've tried just putting them in their own thing. Let them bond and "perform" under their own merits without the original cast immediately in the background.
If there's a bright spot that has came out of the new cast, it's "Poopies"...
Most of the internet disagrees with me but I feel like he was a perfect addition and his only crime is that he was 20+ years too late. He has the same attitude and airheaded "20 bucks is 20 bucks" outlook before doing something that would get him killed. He legitimately almost died filming the Jackass Shark Week special and its rarely talked about. Give Poopies his roses.
Another elephant in the room is Bam Margera. Yeah, yeah I know he's had his problems but Jackass isn't Jackass without Bam. If this truly is the last movie then a great injustice was done leaving him out of it. Same with all of those CKY guys. Brandon DiCamillo and Rake Yohn should've had a much bigger presence in these movies and If I had to guess why they didn't, it's because they didn't want paid peanuts to nearly die on film.
R.I.P Ryan Dunn.
(I've edited this like six times because I keep finding mistakes I made because I wrote it at 3 AM.)
Few hours ago, I went to throw something away at my mom's house and saw this Big Boy sitting on a shelf. I asked "whos Big Boy?" and mom said "I got that for you at a yard sale, if you want it."
I got to examining it and memories flooded back of me wanting one of these when I was in the 5th grade. If memory serves correct, we had visited the state capital and stopped at a Big Boy for lunch. I remember a few classmates with extra money getting them, but I had already spent my money on lunch so I did without. Wasn't a big deal or anything and naturally I got by fine without owning one.
Holding this sucker brought a smile to my face, but further inspection downright made me feel all warm inside.
First the date
1999 copyright! The year I can recall wanting one of these and one of my last great years of childhood. Big Boy was always the cool burger place you stopped at when we was traveling through Ohio, but 1999 was a pretty big year for um..the boy. Big Boy.
Austin Powers hit theaters in '97, and one of the more iconic things from the movie is Dr. Evil's "Big Boy" rocket he cryogenically slept in for 30 years. The sequel dropped in the summer of '99 and if you were alive around that time, you knew it was one of the biggest movies of the summer not named Star Wars. There was a lot of hype around this movie from the debut of Dr. Evil's "Mini Me", to Heather Graham's leading lady role that assisted in her ascension to "collective boyhood crush" and the constantly-in-rotation soundtrack featuring Lenny Kravitz's cover of "American Woman" and Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger".
Given how huge that movie was, and the year stamped on my Big Boy, I assume that someone bought this from one of the restaurants because of that movie. It could be coincidence but I'd have a hard time believing otherwise simply because I remember the hype for that movie being otherworldly for a comedy. It makes perfect sense.
Another cool thing is that this thing was made by Funko. Yes that Funko. Researching for this post, I discovered this Big Big is actually the first product Funko ever made!
Per Wikipedia:
"Funko was founded in 1998 by toy collector Mike Becker at his home in Snohomish, Washington.[5][6] He started the business after failing to find an affordable coin bank of the Big Boy Restaurants mascot, instead licensing the rights to make his own coin banks from a Big Boy franchise in Michigan. The coin banks failed to sell and the franchise filed for bankruptcy protection, but Funko remained in business after licensing the rights to bobbleheads for Austin Powers, which sold 80,000 units"
So blame Big Boy for helping launch Funko Pop over-saturation 25+ years later.
I know mom will never read this, but I appreciate this gift so much. The most important things in life are things we can tie to times and places and this Big Boy represents one of the best years and summers of my childhood. A summer of late nights listening to my favorite music and noticing girls for the first time, playing N64 with my brother. I truly had no idea how good I had it. I love you mom, and Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.
(Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co)
( SPOILERS AHEAD)
Boy, what a ride Mouse P.I has been for me as a player. I remember seeing alpha footage of this game back when the Cuphead craze was in full-swing and thought the idea was unique. After years of delay, I wondered if we was ever going to get to play it, then one fine day, we got a new trailer, a definitive release date and a month or so later, here we are.
I got the game after the review embargo lifted and saw several reviews ranging from super-positive to IGN's infa-mouse (get it, infamous, mouse, huh? HUH?) review that got them dragged for a good bit. So what does a much less important "critic" like me think of Mouse P.I?
Mouse P.I is a fun "boomer shooter" (hate that term) that borrows influence from the prime shooters of their heyday like Duke Nukem 3D and DOOM. They're ham-fisted nods to both games (An entire DOOM hell level and several Duke nods, including a "mighty foot" mechanic) but rest assured Mouse P.I is creatively it's own thing. If Mouse P.I has nothing else, it's got a unique style. I have my criticisms and things I could've done without but let's start with the stuff I enjoyed first.
Mouse P.I's gameplay is a blast. Of course there's shootin' aplenty to be had, but I enjoyed the coinciding platforming mechanics that give our main character Jack Pepper unique ways to hop, swing, float and climb around areas. While the platforming isn't explored as much as I would've liked, it's there and it makes for a good time. Floating around while your tail spins like a helicopter as you gun down mice chucking bombs at you is plain cool. They're also handy if you are a looter and like exploring levels for unlockables and secrets.
Breaking up the monotony of shooting things, you can talk to the citizens in town for side missions and lore dumps, upgrade weapons, play a baseball collectable card game, find unlockable safes that Jack picks with his tail (I'm a sucker for lock picking minigames). There's enough here to pad out the playtime for a healthy bit. My initial playthrough of Mouse P.I was 14 hours and for a modern game, that's pretty impressive. Some may be disappointed to here there is no multiplayer, but that's okay. Sometimes the single player experience is enough.
The artstyle is obviously Mouse P.I's selling point. The 1920s "rubber hose" cartoon style adapts to a first person shooter quite well. The animations are fun to watch, and I enjoy seeing classic cartoon tropes like "eyes watching you from the dark" and "inatimate objects having comical facial expressions". Between Mouse P.I and Cuphead, I believe this will be an established style in the coming years across genres. If they're willing to put in the work and money of hand-drawn animation, that is.
I will whine and say the regular 3D environments threw me off initially but the more I played the game, the better it blended. The environments are very reminiscent of Team Fortress 2's setting.
The sound doesn't get enough credit. Like Cuphead, the music is all recorded from an actual orchestra, so expect a lot of jazz, blues and big-band stuff. The sound design is great too, I LOVE the way the James Gun sounds, the walking sounds, there's some good, brain-tickling sound work going on in Mouse P.I
Gameplay and art style is doing the heavy lifting for Mouse P.I and I'm excited to see what the mod communities are going to cook up in the future utilizing these assets.
Mouse P.I's weakest spot is it's story. The initial premise of finding a missing magician's assistant is interesting and in line with a Noir setting but the story devolves into "political party that are secretly Nazis are the bad guys". Before I elaborate, because it's 2026, I feel the need to disclaim to defend myself from weirdos who might read too much into my criticism that no, I don't care about politics, and no, I'm not a Nazi. In the U.S, in the last 10 years there has been a GLUT of media with this same, tired spin and truthfully I'm over it. The same way people in the 80s were over Cold War stories about taking down commie Russians. The same way 2000s people were over 9/11 al-qaeda stories. It's not fresh, It's not a statement that hasn't been made.
If anything, Its going to just age poorly. If Mouse P.I was a little more clever about it, It might've worked but direct quotes from a certain U.S president, down to giving the mouse Nazis his haircut is laying it on thick. Once again, disclaimer, I am not politically affiliated, nor do I care or am invested in U.S politics and criticisms. The fact that I even have to type this on a video game review about a mouse detective that shoots other mice with a laser gun is just lame and It makes me strongly dislike Mouse P.I for forcing this conversation from me in a space I consider my safe place from the realities of the world. If I had known this was a central plot point of the game, I would've probably never played it.
Other negatives with Mouse P.I are mostly minor. As mentioned, I feel the worlds aren't big or open enough to truly explore with your platforming abilities. I'm not expecting Grand Theft Auto big, but large enough to let me take advantage of things like my double-jump and helicopter glide.
While the black-and-white color scheme is appropriate and inoffensive, you really get a sense of how much it dulls the game when you wander into a technicolor part of a level and see how much the colors make the animation and environments pop out. Th option would've been nice at least.
The weapons upgrade system is largely useless in my opinion. I'd rather had seen guns with a default alt-fire as opposed to earning them via blueprints you find and exchange for the upgrades. Even at that, I only found a couple of the weapons consistently usable where the rest might've been fun for a moment but they're not practical.
Mouse P.I For Hire is a fun, unique shooter experience that established fans of the genre will really enjoy and those unfamiliar with old FPS games will enjoy as well. The 1920s animation style in an FPS is a peanut butter and jelly-like home run that will get a genuine smile out of players. The run-and-gun fun and sensory pleasing elements will make you gladly stomach the awkward, non-subtle political messaging.
I'm excited to see the franchise's future, but hopefully with a more creative narrative.
I've noticed more and more stuff getting pulled from Internet Archive. Earlier in the week, I had to edit some old posts removing IA links because the content was copyright claimed and removed.
This is 2008 Youtube all over again. People upload stuff that has never been widely available, and all the sudden IP holders care about properties and media they abandoned years ago.
There's no reason in the world a VHS tape of 6 hours of KidsWB broadcasts needs taken off the internet.
Outright piracy, I understand. Don't upload brand new movies to Internet Archive you idiots.
A VHS recording of the 1996 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards? A fan mod for a 25 year old Game Boy game? A STAR WARS NOVEL THAT HAS NOT BEEN SOLD OFFICIALLY SINCE 2003? There's absolutely no reason this stuff shouldn't be available to the public.
The Internet Archive is so important and needs protected. The art, knowledge, history, nostalgia readily available there is priceless. Let us peons have this one little thing to enjoy.
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