Henry Imler May 4th, 2008

No, this is not a post about the perils of media consumptions, just some spastic comments touching some of the media I have consumed recently.

Iron Man - Wow, great summer superhero movie.  The folks contributing to Rotten Tomatoes got it right, this one is a gem. From the effects to the story to the the dialog, everything was very well done.  I went with a large group of friends late Thursday night to see the opening.

JR, Jake, Grant, Q, Meredith, and others went with me.  Jake’s wife, Dawn, was too sick to go Thursday.  On Friday Meredith was out of town helping with a wedding shower, so I invited Jake and Dawn to go see it with me Friday.  Jake replied to my offer saying that Dawn was still sick and therefore could not make it.  So, I bought my lone ticket to the 10:45 showing thinking that it was better than sitting around preparing for the review session I am teaching Monday.  About 5 minutes later, I get an email from Jake saying that Dawn urged him to see the flick a second time.  And so we went and reveled in the glory that is Iron Man for a second time.  Afterwards, we got to thinking and happened upon a funny, yet sad fact: we entered into Friday watching Iron Man in the theater and we exited Friday watching Iron Man in the theater.

I appreciated all of the small tie ins to the comic.  From the mentioning of the ten rings to the War Machine plans in the credits, there were lots of little things to notice and look for in the sequel.  The final scene after the credits?  Perfect.  Although, if Fury is Samuel Jackson, then the suit is all wrong and Stark should have been bald and blue-skinned in his young pictures. (i.e. should have been Ultimate Iron Man to go with Ultimate Nick Fury)  However, anything is better than Baywatch Nick Fury.

Fear Agent - This campy, grisly space comic is well worth your while.  As my friend Jake says, it is a 1950’s space comic.  Buy this now.

Super Mario Galaxy - I bought this game with Christmas money.  I played it some over Christmas break and loved it.  After leaving it at my in-laws for 4 months, I am playing it every once and a while.  It is truly a great game in all respects, save one.  The graphics are gorgeous; the game play and storyline are imaginative and fresh (for a mario game).  The one problem is the boss battles, which are often repetitive and simple to beat.  Beyond that, however, the game is spectacular.

Mario Kart - Everything they say is true.  At once, the same is immaculate and ridiculous at the same time.  The new courses are beautiful.  The multiple control schemes allow for fun for everyone.  The only problem?  Item bloat.  The items are simply punishing.  You can go from 1st to 8th in a matter of seconds.  This is all fine and dandy when you are racing your friends, but when you are trying to unlock Daisy for you wife and all you need is to finish Rainbow Road in the top three, getting bombarded with a redshell, lightning, blue-shell and the pow block in a 10 second span on the last lap becomes rather irritating.  Group play?  Fan-tastick, with a k.

Justice League/ Justice League Unlimited - I watched this series the last couple of months while working on Greek or preparing to teach.  It follows the creation and exploits of DC Comics’ Justice League.  The first few seasons only deal with the 7 founding members (in this incarnation, anyway), Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawk Girl, and the Green Lantern.  In the last few seasons, they expand the universe to include all of the members of the Justice League.  Because of this, the last few seasons are great if you want little side stories on minor DC characters.  However, this also has the side effect of series loosing focus.  It is at its best when mantaining a cohesive storyline with the main seven characters.  Overall, it is worth watching on netflix, but not collecting the DVDs.

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Henry Imler April 29th, 2008

This video from GameSpot takes a look at the various incarnations of tracks and how they have chagned throughout the Mario Kart series. 

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Henry Imler April 11th, 2008

Anyone that i) is a Star Wars fan or ii) owns a game console has been looking forward to Star Wars, the Force Unleashed for some time. Basically you play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, who is tasked with rooting out the remaining Jedi that survived Order 66.  It is being hyped as a murder-by-means-of-the-force fest, which is right up a whole lot of people’s alleys.  There are supposed to be three new physics engines being put to work in the game for the first time, allowing for some redic fighting.

The game will be released on the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii.  Some think that the Wii version will suck because of its lack horsepower under the hood.  My buddy Jake sent me this hands-on-preview of the game by IGN:  Hands-on Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

Check it out - the Wii version looks to be super fun and has the added bonus of saber dualing:

My buddy is going to get the Wii version and I am going to pick up the 360 version come this September.

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Henry Imler October 25th, 2007

Looks like Super Smash Brothers Brawl will allow you to send your friends replay footage.

This is shaping up to be such a great game! Between this and Mario
Kart for the Wii, no work will get done in our household in the 1st
quarter of 2008. Dishes will pile up, schools will expel, jobs will
fire, Meredith and I will get nothing done.

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Henry Imler October 21st, 2007

The Vortigaunts healing Alex Vance

I took a break from homework tonight to finish Half Life Two, Episode 2.

Spoilers to follow:

I make the trek from City 17 to the abandoned missel silo out in the middle of white forest, saving Alex from certain death along the way (I had to go down into the antlion caves to get an extract that the Vortigaunts used to bring her back to life.)

I not only clear the White Forrest Base from an Combine Infantry/Hunter invasion, but also repel twelve strider/hunter assaults (4 at a time at some points!) in order to protect the launch of a missile that would close the Combine’s portal to Earth. Driving around a gutted 1969 Dodge Charger chasing down the gigantic Striders being protected by the insanely difficult hunters before they reach the base and hoping out to take them down before jumping back into the car to find the next Strider was an exhilarating experience. Beats anything in Halo 3. Hands Down. Quintin Imler I am looking at you.

A Strider `rastles with Dog

An incredible adrenaline rush. The sense of triumph after repelling those intent on stopping humankind’s only chance at survival, and seeing the successful launch of the rocket containing humanity’s only

hope was as great of a rush as I have ever felt playing a video game.After all of this, Alex and I are about to head off to the Arctic to find a ship that contains some technology from Aperture Science, Inc. that might help end the Combine grip on Earth… or trigger an event worse than Black Mesa. Right as we are about to take off, two Advisors show up and attack, killing Alex’s father and Gordon’s mentor, Eli Vance. Luckily for Alex and Gordon, Dog shows up to chase them off.

The game fades to black with Alex holding her dead father in her arms sobbing.

Man. Most depressing end to a video game of all time. The highs juxtaposed with the lows - incredible effect.

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Henry Imler October 11th, 2007

I
have no sympathy for Bowser at all. Who in their right mind would
choose to fight on a bridge that is held up by an easily removable ax?
Now keep in mind that Bowser (King Koopa’s first name) is chillin’ in
his own castle, a huge fortress equiped with all kinds of defenses.

It is not as though Koopa is on his way to meet a Dr. Wiley for
lunch and Mario catches up with him on a creaky “indiana - Jones - and
- the - temple - of - doom - final - sequence” bridge. No, it is
Koopa’s battle pit, where he challenges his foes in some weird mortal
kombat event. What was he thinking when he approved the blueprints?
“Surely no one would ever think to hit the ax attached the to support
chains. Its just too obvious! I’ll hide my sole weakness in plain
sight!”

If I were Bowser, and assuming that I still wanted the Mortal Kombat
bridge of death thing going on, I would use either my endless supply of
hammers to wedge that ax in there good and tight, or use my amazing
fire breath to weld the whole apparatus together.

I blame Bowser’s stupidity rather than Mario Mario’s¹ pluckyness for his downfall.

^{Footnotes
1) His first name is Mario and he and his brother are known as the
Mario Brothers. So I am guessing his first name is the same as the last}

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Henry Imler April 5th, 2007

I finally was able to check out “Beyond the Red Line” this afternoon after section.

It is a total-conversion modification of the open source game,
Freespace 2. Installation is a breeze (one exe installer). I have only
played one training mission and it was enough too get me hooked. You
need some time to mess with the controls and possibly re-map them, but
hey, this should get me by until the mini-movie comes out.

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Henry Imler February 21st, 2007

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Henry Imler November 24th, 2006

Here are the final tourney scores:

The big boys played on Pro, so there were no epic shoot-outs. Brad
was down 3-28 against Casey in the final three minutes of the game.
Brad threw a 50 yard strike to make it 28-7. Casey fumbled the kickoff
return to set up Brad’s next score. Casey’s ensuing drive came to and
end with a ill-timed interception. Casey was able to hold on for the
victory, though.

Final Talley’s

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Henry Imler November 24th, 2006

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