Malady’s Games & Movies Blog

Hey fellow Zombie fans,this movie is actually pretty good.

Whats it about?
Six friends on a road trip stop for the night at a Bed and Breakfast in the sleepy town of Lovelock. After a night that leaves both the Inn’s owner and chef dead, the gang finds themselves under suspicion by the local Sheriff. But that’s only the beginning as nearly all of the town’s quirky residents become possessed by an evil spirit and pin down the friends inside the B&B. In the vein of Evil Dead II and Dawn of the Dead.

Crazy voodoo action, some great B movie actors, and a zombie rockabilly singer spice this movie up. Each scene ends with some illustrations straight from a comic book and little jingle to get get you to the next scene.

Now who stars in this movie?

Ever Carradine–John Carradines granddaughter of Bubble Boy fame
Portia de Rossi–of Arrested Development and Ally Mcbeal fame
David Carradine–Kill Bill and Kung Fu
Oz Perkins–Not Another Teen Movie, and Secretary—I personally think he is AWESOME in this movie
Gina Phillips–Devils Advocate and Jeepers Creepers
Diedrich Bader–Drew Carey Show and Eurotrip
Devon Gummersall–My So Called Life and Independance Day

and others.

But these guys I’ve seen in other stuff and really for it being a low budget film, this one really is worth seeing. Its humerous and bloody with some hot chics and come crazy plots.

I am actually going to look for a soundtrack too. If your into Psychobilly/Rockabilly, you’ll just love the music in this movie. The music and lyrics are amusing and catchy. Also there is nothing like fighting zombies to a little Frank Sinatra.

Yes I believe everyone who loves a little zombie action will enjoy this movie. Plus the dvd is only 19.99 and comes with a fab 3d cover. Even though I have a copy I’m picking up this nifty dvd for my collection.

First I will start off this review with, yes I saw Shaolin Soccer, and sorry guys it sucked real hard. Now on to Kung Fu Hustle. I liked it, wasn’t too bad and I went into with many doubts. The comedy is great and I found myself laughing through the whole movie. It actually had more of a story line then Soccer so I think that’s why I enjoyed it more. Yes the story line isn’t a huge epic but it’s sweet and painful at the same time, like a really good lollipop:) (Inside joke)

The story starts out with the Axe Gang causing havoc and being downright violent. Yes….violent. This movie is incredibly violent, something I wasn’t expecting but kind of liked. The Axe Gang is run by this crazy guy whose ego is bigger than he is pretty much. He accidentally stumbles upon Pig Sty Alley and finds out he may not be the top dog anymore. The main character, Sing (Stephen Chow) draws everyone together in a fight to the death only because he is pretending to be someone he is not.

Lots of fighting ensues as the movie continues. Amazing special effects and trickery make this movie look really cool and fun to watch. As you continue through the movie Sing is confronted by bad men, snakes, fat ladies, and a beautiful silent girl from his past. Oh yes there is a love angle for those of you with hearts.

I did think the movie ran a little bit long I started to get fidgety but other than that it was a pretty good film.

I give it 4 out of 5 

Malady

 

Let me begin by saying I adore the CSI tv series. They draw you in and always think of nifty ways to catch the bad guys. This is why Webslave was kind enough to buy the PC game for me to try out. I hadn’t played anything on PC in awhile so it was a nice change of pace I thought.

I sat down with a bag of peanut M n Ms and began to play. Wow is this game hard. You really really have to think before you do anything because you may have missed the tiniest clue if you don’t. First you meet the line up of people since your playing a rookie.

you are now told to start your first case which is called Daredevil Disaster. This guy has a horrible accident and its your job to figure out who did it. After interviewing people and collecting stuff to take back to Greg Sanders you finally reach the end and you know who you need to talk to and your stuck. Why am I stuck because there is a bug in the game that even with the patch I cannot make it work. Your supposed to talk to this girl —>except where you see words in the picture, there aren’t any. The game fucked up majorly leaving me unsatisfied. After hours of looking through forums on the internet where people were all asking the same question I had, and not getting any answers I quit. Yep, I quit. Couldn’t even get through the first level because the game has a friggin BUG! Why don’t they fix these things before sending them out. Oh well.

So how many rubber ducks does this game get. I suppose I’ll give it 1 for the one level I almost got to finish!

Malady

This is an oldie but goodie. This movie took me back to the Chevy Chase “Fletch” days and that made it pretty funny and a great watch. I recommend this to anyone in need of a good laugh, its Bill Murray at his best.

The Plot goes something like this:  “Wallace Ritchie flies to England to spend his birthday with his brother, James. James has business guests coming over and must find something to occupy his brother until dinner’s over. Wallace ends up taking part in the “Theatre Of Life,” which promises to treat the participant as a character in a crime drama. Trouble begins when Wallace is mistaken for a real spy and shoots a man. Now he’s tangled up in a plot to kill Russian dignitaries on the eve of the signing of an important peace agreement. For him, it’s all an act. But to the men who want a second Cold War, Wallace is public enemy number one. “

Wallace (Murray) keeps thinking he is an actor in a game and plays along until the very end. Never really figuring out that he has thwarted the enemies of the government and the woman he is wooing is not an actress but a blackmailing call girl (but don’t call her that or she will slap you).

This movie made me laugh from start to finish it didn’t have that dumb humor that so many newer movies have. It was funny for the unspoken WTF moments it gives you. If you have never seen this I slap you now because you’re missing out on a good laugh.

5 out of 5 laughing 

Malady

Screen advantage absolutely goes to the PSP. Widescreen and huge, gotta love that.

Sound goes to the DS, don’t know what nintendo does with those speakers, but I think they sound clearer and are definately louder.

Game selection goes to neither…DS has some good things in Mario and Wario, everything else from 3rd party companies are hand me down gba games or just plain bad.BUT it does still play gba games… MINISH CAP ANYONE? PSP on the other hand has a lot of ps2 hand me downs which in turn aren’t programmed as well and are too glitchy. This is MOSTLY observed from the THUG2remix side of things, but the other games are having some of the same probs. Feels like the launch games were rushed on both systems.

Control….toss up. PSP has a version of an analog stick, that while “slick” doesn’t feel like the normal sticks,but more like the NES Turbo pad used for R.C. Pro Am, and the DS has the touch screen, which has the same amount of precise control, but has no tactile feedback, so therefor doesn’t feel right either. The D-pads on both are nice, but I personally think the DS d-pad is the best one put on a handheld yet. Buttons are responsive on both, and I’ve not had the “sticking” problem some PSP’s have had.

Graphics can’t really be judged because most companies are being lazy with the DS. The PSP has “ps2 style graphics”, but being a gamer I know and can see the tricks used to get them. The DS has “better than N64″ graphics, but only a few games have used them, so to the common person, advantage PSP, to the hardcore gamer, they both have their strong points.

In the end I say, look at the games and buy the system that has what you want to play. Both support wifi wireless, and by E3 or a little after will be online.

Kaneda

Katamari Damacy is one of the coolest games I have played in awhile. Its truly truly Japenese made down to the Singing Ducks.Yeps thats right Ladies and Gentlemen (are there any of those here GRIN) I do love me some singing ducks. The gameplay concept, the visual style, the soundtrack, even the backstory are all a colorful weirdness that is nothing less than Japanese oddity at its very best. It’s not a complex game, its not even long or really that hard. It is, however, so fun and downright simple to play that you have to pick it up just for the surrealness of it.

The totally strange concept of Katamari Damacy is that the King of All Cosmos, a colossal celestial being ,who got a little “crazy” one night and woke up the next morning with a headache and the realization that he had destroyed all the stars. Now, the King of All Cosmos and his Royal Rainbow have decided that he is to Royal to fix his naughty little mess up and sends you the Prince of All Cosmos, to Earth to collect enough stuff to create a whole new set of stars by rolling up anything you can find into a big ball. Now the King of All Cosmos is consistently weird and funny, and you definitely get the idea that Royality may not have all their wits about them.

While the King of All Cosmos is big enough to destroy all the stars, the Prince is only a few inches high, and when you start the game, you are given a katamari (which roughly translates to “clump” in Japanese) not much bigger than yourself. You’re ordered to roll it around the world, collecting anything you can to increase its size. Basically, you stick stuff to your katamari just by rolling over it. You can only get certain things at a time because size is a major factor in this game.

Using the analog sticks exclusively, you’ll roll the katamari around with tanklike controls. Pushing both sticks up moves the katamari forward, pushing both sticks down moves it backward, and pushing one stick up and one stick down will cause it to turn. There are other things too that you can do but mostly you roll around.The shapes of the things you collect will affect the overall shape of your katamari, thus affecting how it actually rolls. So, if you roll over a bunch of pencils or a ladder or some carrots your katamari you become unstable and teeter alot. But thats fun too.

Most of the levels in Katamari Damacy are simple races against the clock–you have to make a katamari of a specific size before the clock runs out. However, there are certain constellations that require a katamari to be built out of specific stuff that corresponds to the shape of the constellation. For example, Cancer requires you to get as many crabs as possible (I got 90 bitches), while you’ll need to find the biggest bear that you can to create Ursa Major. The bear one is hard because you have to actually avoid the many many other bears. The game starts you off inside a Japanese home, then moves you out into the yard, then into town, and it just keeps going from there.

Once you complete the final level–Making the Moon, there are a few little pieces that can keep you coming back. Many of the levels contain a royal present for the Prince, which, if collected, can be worn by the Prince. The presents include odd random things like scarves, headphones, and championship wrestling belts, though for us fashion foreward people its sad because you can’t adorn him with more than one of the gifts at a time. There is also a split-screen versus mode, where two players race against time and each other to build a bigger katamari. This mode isn’t nearly as cool as the single-player game because it takes place in the same small arena, effectively removing the grand sense of scale that makes the game so cool in the first place. Why play in a fishbowl when the whole world could be yours?

I give this game a 5 out of 5…its surprisingly satifying for all gamer types.

Malady

So PARASITE EVE was a best-selling novel in Japan which they made into a live action film before it became a game. . In it, a scientist named Toshiaki Nagashima is doing research on mitochondria, little cell organism things in the human and animal body that sometimes behave like parasites. In the movie Toshiaki’s hot young wife dies, (she is AMAZINGLY beautiful), well he decides that he can’t live without her even though he has been ignoring her the whole movie so he wants to replicate her using her mitochondria by culturing her liver that this other doctor steals for him. She then seduces him into having mitochondria- human sex with her…..isn’t that illegal?

After that the mitochondria decide to take over the world but ummm something gets in the way Toshiaki loves his wife soooo much and she loved him too and oh no the mitochondria loves him too. Sigh….. What a beautiful love story. Love does conquer all doesn’t it?

Well love did not conquer the bad taste the end of this movie left in my mouth. Now without the ending the movie would have gotten ….3 out of 5. But with the ending this movie drops down to 1 out of 5. Yep that’s right guys an ending that takes a horribly hot(?) monster with no nipples and love conquering all does nothing for ol’ Malady here. Maybe if you’re some sort of Japanese movie freak and love the oddity of the films you will like this movie. Otherwise play the game which btw has NOTHING to do with the movie.

Malady

 

  out of 5

Castlevania:  Lament of Innocence

Well, I picked up Castlevania:  Lament of Innocence the other day for PS2, and I honestly have to say that I had very low expectations of it.  I absolutely love the Castlevania series and have every single game from the franchise (with the exception of Castlevania:  Symphony of the Night on Sega Saturn)… but I, and I believe I’m not alone here, still have nightmares about the horror that was Castlevania 64… Castlevanias first journey into the 3D gaming world.

I’m very pleased to announce that this installation of the Castlevania series was a very nice surprise.  I was amazed at the quality of the animation and graphics, the artistic style, and ambiance.  They truely captured the essence of Castlevania.  I would even be so bold as to say that this game is Symphony of the Night in 3D. 

The controls are very easy and responsive, and there are several equippable items and weapons that you can acquire throughout the various levels.  The level design is quite good, although some of the platforming can be a bit tedius.  You have a variety of combo attacks, and the order and speed that you get these is determined by your play style.  For example, if you dodge often, you will get the advanced dodges more quickly.

The overall gameplay experience was very good.  The enemies were not too easy to defeat, nor too difficult.  There are points in the castle, however when you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the enemies, but usually a little change in strategy will eventually give you the edge you need to push past them.  The boss fights were very good, although some were pushovers and others very tough.  Just as in all of the past Castlevania games, you must find and exploit the weakenss in order to succeed. 

One of the coolest new gameplay additions in this title was the magic orbs.  I had a blast with this new feature!  As in the other titles, you have secondary items that you may use at the expense of “hearts.”  There is one big difference, however, in that these magical orbs change the properties of these weapons.  For example, when you use the axe in the regular mode, two axes span out in opposite arcs in front of you, but when powered by an orb, they will act as a boomerang, spin around you like a protective barrier, or spiral out from you in an ever expanding circle.  These extra abilities come at a higher heart cost to use them.

Now for the bad news. 

My first gripe about this title is the camera system.  It was great for the first little bit that I played, but the first time I had to walk through a hallway with enemies attacking me and all I could see is Leon Belmont facing me and flailing blindly with his whip, I got really annoyed.  It really isn’t often that you get into a really bad situation, but it does happen… and once is too often for me.

Second, this game would have been greatly improved if you had a lock-on feature.  There were numerous times that I would initiate a combo attack on an enemy, and rather than finishing them off, my character would mysteriously continue the combo on another enemy close-by.  This happened much too often for my taste, but after a little practice, you can get past it.

And finally, there were some major problems with the platforming in some sections.  There were times that you were to jump from one place to another and when you were in the air, the camera follows a little too closely and the floor you are trying to land on is out of frame.  There were several times that I took flying leaps into oblivion just because once I launched into the air, I could not alter my trajectory to land properly due to this.  It got old really fast.

In conclusion… overall this is an awesome title.  I recommend that any fan of the Castlevania series pick this one up as soon as possible.  It’s a great experience, and once you practice a little you can get past the bad parts.

I give this title 4 out of 5.

WebSlave

Wow this show was amazing and it looks like it will be available on DVD which everyone should look into getting if you missed it. Plus it will probably rerun a few times this month too.

Its starts out with the Prehistoric Dragon making you truly feel that these creatures are real. Then it moves on to the Marine and Forest Dragon and then ends with the sad story of the Mountain Dragon. It includes the story of each dragon and scientific evidence proving they were real.

They used top scientists, artists, and animators in creating a believable and even emotional story of these mythical creatures. You feel for each dragon and in the end you really really believe that it just might be possible that these creatures existed.

I really don’t want to go in to detail because every part of it is so amazing. Some parts are so beautiful that you just sit there in awe, such as the mating flight of the Mountain Dragon. Other parts such as the “curiousity killed the cat” just makes you laugh. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this and continued watching afterwords when they showed the behind the scenes.

Once you watch the behind the scenes you really understand how this show turned out so beautiful and intriquing. These people loved creating the documentry. They put their whole heart into the project and the finished story really shows it. In the end you are left with the final question echoing in your mind………….

Do you believe in dragons?

5 out of 5 

So, last night, after playing a little Blinx (which is pretty good, btw) I decided that I needed some mindless stupid game to put me to sleep. Well, WebSlave was kind enough to let me browse through his SNES titles (he has every SNES game ever made) to pick one out.

NICE! Maybe a little Tetris is what I need to tuck me into bed. But then, it happened… BARBIE VACATION!

Why did it catch my eye? I may never know. I think I was more exhausted than I thought at the time. But, whatever the case, I had decided that this would be some easy stupidness to end my night. But, alas, I was proven wrong.

After starting the game, I decided to go to the carnival in Ohio… Yes, Ohio.

Let me make a little sidenote here… I’m not sure what it is exactly, but Barbie seems to have the same dressing room no matter where she goes on vacation. I guess that’s possible… I mean, I AM Barbie and I own everything, right? I guess it’s perfectly logical that I might have a pocket-sized closet to take everywhere with me… but I digress…

Back to Ohio… I look in my nifty pocket-closet and WOW, do I look hot! Well, not really… I mean, the graphics are disturbingly sub-par. So, I’m looking at my wonky-eyed Barbie, who looks like Paris Hilton (very sneaky, Mattel), trying to color my outfit for her, when I realize something. These colors SUCK! In this game, you choose the color of her shirt, skirt, and shoes, except with each article of clothing you get a new fluorescent choice of colors that could never possibly match. I decide hot pink and Tang orange will look amazing together compared to my other choices…

Now, it’s finally time to really play. I appear to be in the country at a county carnival. Some girl tells me I can’t play any games until I catch this damn pig. Well, this could get tricky… I move Barbie across the screen “chasing” the pig. The pig stops and I walk up to the pig and some exclaims “You caught the pig! Now you can play the games at the carnival!” Luckily for me, the pig is my constant companion as I play mindless games of “throw the ball at whatever they stick in front of you” games. End of Vacation 1.

So, yeah, I know I should have just gone to bed right then… but I felt like testing my luck some more.

My next fabulous vacation spot is a Ranch in none other than… can you hazard a guess? Texas! haha! I figure this will be just as dull, yet I keep on playing. This is where things took a terrible turn. I had to ride a horse and navigate a bunch of jumps. Easy, right? NO!!! This is where Barbie Vacation kicked my friggin’ ass. My damn horse didn’t want to jump right, so I would hit a jump, knock it over, and have to start over. But did I give up? Oh, no. I will not be thwarted by this Barbie game. I FINALLY beat this stage after, like, 50 tries. Well, maybe not quite that many, but WAY too many than it should have taken. Well, I could have gotten past it sooner if WebSlave hadn’t been in my ear whispering “Be One With Barbie” the whole time. Damn! Damn!

I won’t punish you more with the other crappy vacation spots… they all suck. I’m just going to skip to the end.

I collected all these points on all of the vacations and then I go home and collect presents that are hiding in my house. My friend tells me there is someone at the door, but when I answer it the game goes to a screen that doesn’t do anything but play lame Barbie music (much worse than regular Barbie music, mind you) and show Barbie staring at Ken… and his rad convertible. Weird…

Now, why did I play this game? Because I was tired and didn’t want to use my brain. Do you need to play this game? Not if you want any kind of lasting respect from me, or any other normal human being. I mean, lets remember, I’m a girl. Girls can play stupid video games and listen to sucky bands and you’d still find us damn cute.

How do I rate the experience of slutting myself for Barbie?

0.5 out of 5 

Be happy that I suffered through this so you will never have to…

Malady