E3 2009

So another E3 has come and gone. Here is a list of stuff that I was pretty excited about. What did you think was noteworthy this E3?

New Super Mario Brothers Wii

Kingdom Hearts 358/2

Tales of Monkey Island

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Mario VS Donkey Kong: Minis March Again

God of War III

Boy and his Blob

Final Fantasy XIII

Resident Evil PSP

Metroid: The Other M

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Dissidia

Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

The Last Guardian

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Time Travel and The Terminator

I know that you must suspend your disbelief during any type of time travel story, but the Terminator movies make it really hard by throwing paradoxes right in your face. I abhor a paradox, and therefore have tried to explain time travel in the Terminator movies in this way:

1. At some point Sarah Conner meets someone else and has a baby, John Conner. The father is not Kyle Reese. This John Conner still becomes the leader of the resistance and as he is about to deliver the final blow to Skynet in 2029, discovers the plan to send a T-800 back in time to kill his mother, he sends Kyle Reese back to protect her.

2. Reese going back changes the timeline in 2 ways: first, he is now the father of John Conner, and, second, Cyberdyne now has the hand from the original T-800 to speed up its work.

3. Now there is a different John Conner who is trained by his mother to lead the resistance, but, as Terminator technology has advanced significantly, Skynet has built a T-1000 by the time John Conner is about to win, again in 2029, and sends it back in time to kill John as a teenager. John sends a reprogrammed T-800 back to protect himself. Miles Dyson helps them destroy his work, this slows down Judgement Day, but does not stop it, as Cyberdyne would have some info backed up offsite and the Airforce takes over. But this does alter the timeline enough that John does not win in 2029 but later in 2032.

4. After John has defeated the robots and he is killed by a T-800, his wife finds out that, though defeated, Skynet tries one last effort by sending the T-X back in time to kill as many of the Resistance leaders as possible. The T-X fails because Conner's wife reprograms the T-800 that kills John and send it back to protect John and the leaders in the past. The T-X is defeated, but Judgement Day cannot be averted as Skynet is satellite software and cannot be shut down.

5. Terminator Salvation takes place in 2018 before John Conner (son of Sarah and Kyle) manages to get the upper hand on the robots; however, we must assume that John Conner is a significant enough thorn is the side of the robots that they feel the need to kill him now. In another 9 years John will be about to win, send a Kyle back, send the T-800 back and then 3 years later he will win, die, and his wife will send the T-800 back.

6. The Terminator timeline ends with the machines defeated but John Conner as a martyr.

So the events would look something like this:

1984 - John Conner born

1991 - Cyberdyne building blown up, Air Force takes over research

2004 - Judgement day (pushed back from 1997)

2018 - events of Terminator Salvation

2029 - Kyle Reese sent back, 2 T-800s and T-1000 sent back

2032 - Machines defeated, T-800 sent back after killing John Conner, T-X sent back

It is not a perfect explanation but it is the best one I could come up with.

Nosferatu - Black Sabbath Style

The Web can be a funny place; one day you are surfing for the newest in pop culture phenomena, the next day you discover a fascinating labour of love. 

Much respect goes out to a bloke named Neil Swint; he has painstakingly given the 1922 silent horror classic Nosferatu a score using Black Sabbath music. 

I encourage you all to check it out here.  You will be amazed at how well the song selection complements each scene choice and you can see the care taken on this project. 

Punch Out (Wii)

We all have a favourite something that can instantly take us back to childhood. Maybe it is a smell, or a movie, or a favourite food that reminder you of when you were ten. For me it is the thought of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. Punch-Out was one of the first games I had for the Nintendo Entertainment System (the other being the Mario/Duck-Hunt combo) and it still is one of my favourites. The character design was great, the controls perfect, and the challenge could go from pathetically easy (Glass Joe) to impossibly difficult (Tyson himself).

So it was with great enthusiasm that I purchased the new Punch-Out for the Nintendo Wii. Being a huge fan of the series, I was cautiously optimistic when approaching this “remake”. The game features 14 different fighters: 12 from Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out, 1 new character (Disco Kid), and one unlockable character. I was surprised at the inclusion of only 1 new character. If you are going to bother with new blood in a game series why would you only create 1 new face? It may have been better to use all known faces or add 2 or 3 more new ones.

The control scheme is either motion controlled (nunchuck and remote) or the normal way of playing video game (remote held sideways. The motion control method is good for a laugh; it is clunky, tiring, and apparently a prerequisite for any first-party Wii game, but you can’t actually play the game properly using these controls. Try it out once or twice and then switch to the way that most people play videogames.

The normal controls are great with a tight scheme and quick response, drawing from both Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out and taking the best of both games. Stars are much harder to come by and require a trick to acquire them. They can be saved up so you can do a 1, 2, or 3 star punch with incremental levels of strength. This adds some variation on speed knockdowns and trick TKOs which fans of the series will appreciate.

There are 3 game modes: career, title defence, and last stand. In career mode you face 13 other fighters to gain all the belts. In defence mode you must defend your championships against the 13 fighters again. This is a great addition as every fighter is much harder than their championship mode counter-part (even Glass Joe is tricky at first). The final mode is a sudden death type mode where after 3 losses you quick. It is only notable for helping you unlock the hidden character.

If you are a veteran of the series you will have no problem with career mode (I actually finished it in within the first day of playing), but you will find they real game begins in title defence mode. Those who have never played a Punch-Out game before and have no sense of the timing required to stop the Bull Charge will find the career mode enough of a challenge.

At a $60 CAN price-tag they aren’t giving the game away, but Punch-Out fans will get $60 worth of fun out of this one. For those of you who have never played a Punch-Out game before I would suggest renting or waiting until it hits the $30 mark.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I must admit that I was pretty sceptical when I first heard that Hollywood was considering making a Wolverine prequel to the X-men movie franchise. Wolverine is a great character, but his origin has become so muddied and convoluted that adaptation from comic book to feature film would be fraught with pitfalls. I do think that a Wolverine solo movie is a great idea (he has been able to carry his own monthly title for some time now), but his origin should always be shrouded in mystery, maintaining his loner mystique for a legion of fans.

Mysterious characters with an unknown past are, unfortunately, all too common today. More distressing is the current predilection of revealing the background of these uber-cool pop culture icons (remember when Boba Fett was silent, super-cool, and NOT a ten year old kid). But I digress, this is a review of the Wolverine movie.

First of all, I did see the leaked version and I went to the theatre and paid my $11. It was actually sort of fun to see the differences and note where special effects, music, and sound make a much more polished product. For anyone who enjoys any of above-mentioned aspects of movie-making, I suggest you watch both versions of the flick.

I was pleasantly surprised with the film. The characters were well cast, Hugh Jackman does a great job in his fourth outing as the character, and Liev Schrieber has a great turn as Sabretooth, but, for me, his performance was slightly marred by the fact that somehow he will become the monosyllabic giant seen in the first X-men movie.

The plot hums along, blissfully taking bits and pieces from 25 years of comic book storylines and weaving them into an enjoyable, but nonsensical tapestry. Those who study the scriptwriting art will especially cringe at the plot device used to explain Wolverine’s memory loss. The movie does suffer from the all too common “too-many-character-itis” that is found in several super-hero movies (e.g. Spider-man 3, Batman Forever), and would have been better served scaling back the number of mutants solely in the movie to appease slavering fanboys .

However, when all is said and done the movie is still a fun ride and a great way to kick off the summer blockbuster season. This is not the Citizen Kane of superhero movies, but you already knew that. At $11 for two hours of entertainment you are getting your money’s worth, but just barely. Let’s hope the sequel in Madripoor ups the ante with less random mutants and more ninjas.

Collection Update

So I thought that I would fill everyone in how my collection is going. I know that a lot of you look to me for guidance, and I can’t blame you; there is plethora of garbage out there.

Firstly, here is a list of the issues that I collect every month: Amazing Spider-man; Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8; Thor; and Agents of Atlas (a great new read, pick it up). I also collect a bunch of titles only in trade-paperback format: Superman/Batman; Green Lantern; 100 Bullets; Ultimate Spider-man; Fables; Daredevil (if you aren’t reading this shame on you); and House of Secrets (best new Vertigo title out there).

I also have been collecting the Atlantis Attacks! storyline and putting together a run of early Thanos appearances. My big push is trying to get a complete run of Marvel Team-Up (volume one, c’mon people). I always want to be collecting something that I can get for $1 or $2.

Additionally, I always keep my eyes peeled for a great deal on a key book, and recently I managed to score a very nice copy of Uncanny X-men #13 (the second half of the first Juggernaut story). A great book.

Now remember that my collection is constantly in flux; I sell all of it at regular intervals to make room for more stuff. This is the only way to collect, everything is new and fresh, and I only keep the really great stuff.

So I hope that this has been enlightening for you all and keep reading the funny books.

COLLECTION UPDATE: ACTS OF VENGEANCE

Over the holidays I managed to complete my run of every Acts of Vengeance cross over. At twenty years old the story is showing its age, but it does make for an entertaining read. The main problem with the cross-over (and with every comic book cross-over ever made) is the varying quality of product from title to title.

The Amazing Spider-man and Uncanny X-men issues are great, but the Avengers Spotlight and Alpha Flight issues are almost un-readable. The best issue by far is Captain America #367 in which Magneto faces off against the Red Skull to make him accountable for his war crimes. Fantastic. Also great is the Loki vs. Apocalypse street fight in X-Factor #50.

The worst issue is the Power Pack one, with Dr. Doom (who is apparently a psychiatrist) giving mental health advice about sons and fathers to Typhoid Mary.

AOV actually probably would have worked better as a mini-series (the main storyline is sort of hard to follow) that would have allowed for a consistent artist and writer. I mean, the final battle with Loki is actually in West Coast Avengers!? West Coast Avengers? My disdain cannot be accurately conveyed in this forum.

All in all it was a fun read though, and it does not break the bank by any means. So if you are up for the challenge try to find the issues yourself. It is definitely better than DC's Final Crisis. Worst cross-over ever.