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Posts Tagged ‘video’

While the Angry Video Game Nerd banishes the gaming demons of the past, all is not well in the present day. Video Game companies have gotten larger than ever, with millions of dollars spent on advertising, processing power and celebrity talent to push out over-produced carbon copies of franchises that should have died back in the AVGN’s era. Ben Croshaw was just another freeware game designer/author when he decided to take his talent for MS Paint and droll witticisms to youtube and the video game industry at large. The result is Zero Punctuation.

The title Zero Punctuation refers to Croshaw’s rapid-fire delivery of his video game reviews. After the first two reviews hit youtube, the show was picked up as a series by the Escapist, an internet based video game magazine. The deal resulted in 400 percent increase in the site’s traffic. While the British-born-Australian-based wit of the reviewer offers a certain sense of class to the show, it’s no the only reason Zero Punctuation works. Croshaw achieves the holy grail of criticism in any media. He assails the unassailable, and he makes it work. Take for instance the Smash Brothers Brawl review embedded in the post. Personally, I own the game and love it, but the two characters that generated the most hype, Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake, are only available after slogging through a single player story mode. You will have put in so many hours to unlock those characters that you’ll win every time against your friends who don’t have the game. Your dream of having weekly Smash Brothers parties is effectively dashed. Even if you love the game, the logic behind that observation is impeccable

The only gripe I could have with Zero Punctuation is that Croshaw has a few biases against certain types of games, like Japanese-style Role Playing Games. He admits this, and he’s very fair about it, but he’s never going to be able to do a proper take-down of games like the Disgaea or Suikoden series. He doesn’t understand why those games are crack cocaine in binary code for some people. He tried to comprehend this in his review of “The World Ends With You” with amusing results, but I think we’ll have to be satisfied that he mostly focuses on the hubris of larger, more popular game genres. Lord knows the industry keeps giving him material.

Warning: The video in this entry contains NSFW language.

It’s a scene familiar to anyone who has owned an NES. You’ve worked hard doing your homework, mowing the lawn, and cleaning the kitchen. Your $5 worth of allowance isn’t much, but a trip down to the local video store to rent a new Nintendo game makes the past week’s indignities all worth it. You change to channel 3, blow off the connectors and press power. Suddenly, it all goes horribly wrong.

What was hoped to be a break from our workaday world becomes a personal hell of poor graphics, annoying sound and sisyphean controls. You wish you could put it down, but you don’t want your $5 to be spent in vain. You have entered the world of the Angry Video Game Nerd.

James D. Rolfe created the character of The Angry Video Game Nerd as a joke for his friends. Today the series is nothing short of a phenomenon. It’s the 5th most subscribed series on youtube and 5th most viewed overall. For years companies have looked to make a quick buck off video game fans by pushing out substandard games to make the Christmas rush or to coincide with a movie release. Usually we have game magazines to help us sort out the good games from the bad but some stinkers always make it through. The Angry Video Game Nerd is zeitgeist, an avenging spirit to all of us who at one time or another got shafted to make the bottom line of of companies like Acclaim, Bandai, or LJN.

Sometimes the games are so horrible that they conjure up evil spirits in the form of special guest stars. The Nerd has fought Bugs Bunny, Freddy Kreuger, the Joker and Hallowe’en’s Michael Myers among others in his quest to defeat the malformed games of days gone by. The episodes usually end with a crescendo of profanity and a usually creative and hilarious way of destroying the offending game cartridge.

Some people might criticize the nerd for his use of profanity and scatological references. However, most of us who are old enough to remember the humiliation of renting or buying these game are quickly passing the age of 30. The makers of these games made a living fleecing kids out of their allowances. We need an adult response to provide closure for the consumer scars of the past. We need to see our rage blaze across the screen like a righteous fire. We need the Nerd.

It’s hard to have common culture with anyone these days. I am told there was a time when people of all walks of life could meet up at the “water cooler” to discuss shows named “Seinfeld”. Now, even if a show is popular enough for everyone to watch, they’re most likely story arc shows like 24 and Lost. Any attempt to discuss said shows are met with screams of “NO SPOILERS!” followed by a dive behind the nearest desk. This is why I enjoy internet shows. They’re short, contain no interconnecting plot lines, and they usually have a comments section where you can discuss the show with other fans. However, I don’t want to discuss these shows with people on the internet. As much time as I spend on the computer, I’d rather find out what people I actually know personally (and I think that would you out there, reading this) think about these shows. So without further ado, I’d like to introduce one of my favorite internet shows, Wayne Gladstone’s Hate By Numbers.

Hate By Numbers is actually kind of a strong word for what Gladstone does on his show. He has a very calm and cool demeanor as he takes video clips from various sources and lists what bothers him about them. Here he describes how juxtaposing breast shots with video of animals being neutered might turn a news fluff piece into an odd form of aversion therapy. You may recognize this form of commentary from the Daily Show. This may be no coincidence, as Gladstone also writes for The Daily Show’s Indecision 2008 Blog. However, where the Daily Show focuses on the foibles of world leaders, Gladstone looks outside the news spotlight to find out just how bizarre television has gotten. Armies of production crews are assembled, millions of dollars are spent and this is what we, as a people, have come up with. With our civilization in this state, I am glad we have Hate By Numbers to remind us that “No, you aren’t going insane. Kid Rock really is a boil on the face of popular music.”

It took a quarter century, but it looks like we now have a true sequel to Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. Best known to those of us in the states as the first season of Robotech, Macross was a landmark TV series in terms of character arcs, ideas, and gee-whiz animation. Repeating the success of the series has not been so easy. First there was the Direct-to-Video series Macross II, which was relegated to “parallel universe” story status by fans and creators. From what I’ve seen, Macross 7 is essentially a 49-episode music video. The closest we’ve come to sequels have 1994′s Macross Plus and 2002′s prequel Macross Zero, which were stunning, yet all too brief. For a while there it seemed like Robotech was doing a better job of continuing the series by splicing two other anime series into the continuity. But then came Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, and the less said about that again the better. After all that, it seems like we’ve got a series that takes the ideas of the original Macross in new directions while at the same time keeping true to the original. That series is Macross Frontier.

The show takes place 50 years after the original Macross. The human race was almost wiped out in the first series by a war with the Zentraedi, a race of alien giants. After the armistice, the two races decided the most sensible thing to do would be to repopulate the galaxy. The construction of huge colonization fleets began, as well as further military development to keep the fleets safe from rogue Zentraedi fleets, or anything else that might come along. The fleet called “Macross Frontier” is the focus of the show. The protagonist is 17-year-old Alto Saotome, who enrolled in pilot’s school against the wishes of his Kabuki star father. This involves learning to fly in power-suits known as EX-gear, which serve as a basic interface for any aircraft known to man (I want one!). Alto and his stunt flying team end up doing a show for a rock concert starring “Cheryl”, the latest pop idol who’s taking a galaxy-wide tour of all the Macross fleets. During the concert, the fleet is attacked by mysterious bio-mechanical creatures known only as “Vajra”. A few of the space monsters make it back the colony fleet and start wreaking havoc. In true mecha anime fashion, Alto has to commandeer a damaged Valkyrie transformable fighter with his EX-Gear to protect Ranka Lee, the sister of Ozma Lee, the squadron leader trying to protect the fleet. Alto eventually finds out the squadron leader, along with his high school friends are working for SMS, a private military contractor that handles the jobs that the regular military is too hidebound to do effectively. He must make the difficult choice to join SMS and protect himself and his loved ones.

It’s been a while since an anime series has caused me to geek out like this. It was the balance of realism and the fantastic that got me into anime in the first place, which I guess makes me different from the fans who were attracted by the intricate power fantasies of more popular shows like Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon. I’m really glad we get to see how full-grown Zentraedi fit in to this Post-Terran society on the far reaches of space. Private Military Organizations like Blackwater security are active in real war zones today, so transposing the concept to a starship fleet is also interesting. The animation and mecha are bar-none the best I’ve ever seen. The love-triangle storyline of the original is also present, with both Ranka and Cheryl vying for Alto’s attention. Despite his pretty-boy looks, Alto is so typically male that he’ll be able to fuel romantic misunderstandings for the rest of the series.

There are a few nits I’d like to pick though. Some of the characters seem “borrowed” from the original series or other anime series entirely. Alto, Michael and Luca are basically Vermillion Wing from Macross, only prettier. Ozma Lee is essentially the same as Roy Fokker (although fans of the original must have got a great scare when he uttered “I’ve lost too much blood!”. That was how the original character died). I also hope that some of the major mysteries of Macross get solved, such as the fate of the SDF-2 Megaroad, which went missing 6 years after the original series taking most of the original surviving cast with it. Anime Directors have this obsession with ambiguity that prevents them from properly ending series. The term may come to be known as the “J.J. Abrams’ Lost Syndrome”. Despite all of this, Macross Frontier looks like it will be one of best anime mecha series in a long time. It’s too bad that due to some legal SNAFU with the production company it’s not going to be released until Satan skates to work.

Image courtesy of the Macross Compendium
Macross Frontier © 2007 Big West/Macross F Project, MBS

Hello Everyone!

James Strocel here. I’ve just spent the last week compiling the myriad of contact information I’ve gathered over the years. This message is to make sure all of it works. This list is a combination of my family, friends, co-workers at the various jobs I’ve had, and classmates at the various schools that I’ve attended. That being said…

Wow. Look at you all.

There are almost 300 of you in this contact list. I can’t believe I’ve had the privilege of associating with such extraordinary people. You’ve been all over the world, all six populated continents. If any of you out there has done a jaunt to Antarctica, let me know. Some of you have been to Africa to help out. A couple of you are bringing kids home from there. Some of you are at sea. Some of you have served, will serve, are serving in the Military. Some of you are scientists, trying to figure out what’s happening to this planet. Some of you are selling houses, others are protecting them through the fire department. There’s at least one of you in every branch of the media, be it print, film, music, cartoons or video games. There are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and even a few grandparents. Some of you I haven’t always seen eye to eye with. Some of you may even be wondering why I bothered with this e-mail at all. But I guarantee you this: Each and every one of you in some small way has made me who I am. Even the people I have known only a short time. There is nothing without meaning, and so much meaning is yet to come.

Now that the obvious facts are out of the way, let’s get down to business. As you may know, I got married last month to the sweetest, most beautiful girl in the whole wide world. I want to thank again everyone who showed up. The pictures can be seen at

http://www.james-strocel.com/gallery

It may be old news for some people out there, but I’ve received some requests for them after I first posted them on the website, so I’m covering those of you who I may have missed. I have assumed the duties of managing our yearly Christmas letter. If you’re reading this message, you are going to get one in your e-mail. If you don’t want one, please let me know! Don’t just set up your spam filters and think I won’t notice! I’m also trying to set up a mailing list for my blog, so if you actually enjoy hearing me shoot my mouth off please let me know as well. The blog will also contain any important family announcements I may have. I hope all of you are enjoying the weather, wherever you are.Call me up and tell me your life story some time!

Sincerely,

James Strocel

I believe this is how they coined the internet term, “Full of Win”.

Tommy Lee Jones plays an Alien directed to study life on Earth, and in this installment runs afoul of Japanese cosplayers and Café Maids.

Link to Commercial

Found Via Anime News Network

An enterprising group of animators with too much time on their hands have decided to animate a fanfic from the computer game “Half-life”. Never before has so much effort gone into making something so advanced look so amateurish. Does anyone know where I could find that upbeat background music?

My brother has worked in the television business for over 15 years, and in that time my family was privy to all the bloopers and bureaucracy of the television business. Every time someone dropped a tape or forgot to flip a switch in broadcast TV, we were sure to know about it. For those of you out there who didn’t have the benefit of my brother’s running commentary, there’s Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe. It’s a BBC documentary series on the business of television. It goes into the enormous cost and complexity of creating a television show

The show’s most interesting segments delve into the thinking behind what gets aired on television. As a business, television producers don’t sell content per se, they sell audiences for the consumption of advertisement. So television producers essentially have to guess at what kind of person would watch their program. Sure they have statistical sampling methods like the nielsen box, but that only tracks the people that want to be sampled. This seems as reliable as checking chicken entrails in the age of contextualized advertisement. With the advent of Google you can now tailor ads to specific content. Ads are paid for on a click through basis, and the advertisers website can track where the visitors of coming from. That means that the effectiveness of ads can be measured without any invasive samplings. With luck, the next 20 years could see the end of the insidious practices of “consumer surveys” and “focus groups”.

Clip found at Mayerson on Animation.

2007 started off for me in Bellevue, where Sara and I enjoyed a rosing blow-out at our friend Sandy’s. Explosions of party-poppers and the drunk-dialing of loved ones abounded as the last incandescent new year ball dropped. I had no idea that I had passed all my courses at BCIT and Sara was wondering why I was waxing poetic because for her, the year had started back in September. I was still working my way through a GIS diploma, and even though I had a practicum all set and ready, the jury was still out as to whether I would have a job at the end of it all. The nuts and bolts section of the course had finished, so we were now studying more specific subjects like photogrammetry and object-oriented programming, and more holistic areas like presentations and proposal writing. No sooner did my final exams end did I move on to my practicum at Environmental Criminal Research Incorporated. I spent two months working out of a loft office on beautiful Granville island. Although it was unpaid, it was my first job where I was NOT an entry-level mook interchangeable with thousands of other random hipsters in the city. It was almost like I was being paid to think. I liked it.

I completed all of my development targets and pretty soon ECRI had a serial criminal detector that would automatically load up map files. I also gained the distinction of having worked on software that had military applications, which was unfortunate because I had no desire to use it to pick up chicks. When the District of Maple Ridge called me back saying I had won a 6-month contract with them, high fives were had by all. Not only was I now getting paid to think, but they also provided me with Bose noise-cancelling headphones! Can you believe that? Of course, their purpose was to drown out the rack of servers set up behind me, but Bose Headphones! The District has become my favorite place to work so far. I got to make maps, scripts and data models for departments all over the city. When I got out of school, I was afraid of getting into a specialized discipline and having to perform the same tasks over and over again. Luckily for me, GIS is a generalist’s discipline, and will remain so as long as the world keeps changing and evolving.

I could’ve spent the next 20 years working at DMR, but alas for now it is not the case. Last Friday my contract ended and once again I’m out there looking for a patron to fund my calling. It’s odd though, after 4 contracts with some very diverse companies, unemployment feels like coming home after a long vacation. Work has piled up on my desk and I’m ready to approach it with a new resolve. I don’t have any more doubts about if I’ll find work, it’s more a question of where and when. All told, this year is ending on an up note. I’ve got a host of new skills and I am better able to work on projects on my own. My family is also doing well across the board. My sister is moving in with her boyfriend in Dawson Creek, and is looking forward to a new job there. My brother Jon still has plenty of video work, his wife Amber is still making the world’s printers run, and Hannah, my niece is figuring out preschool. Sara’s sister Megan is on a part-time contract teaching kindergarten, and her boyfriend Ryan is starting a new program at BCIT. Jen is finishing her fourth year at UCFV, and her boyfriend which we call “Other Ryan” is an assistant manager at Milestones. Sara, my Fiancee, is balancing her grade 7′s at Clayburn Middle with our upcoming wedding in March, but thankfully I’m now at home with her to help. As for myself, we’ll just have to see. Happy New Year, and God bless.

A couple of thoughts about the writer’s strike. The first is this Video that made me laugh.

Anyone who’s perused fanfiction.net can tell you that the comic embellishment here is at a minimum. These people do exist and that fact is both sad and hilarious. But after a bit of rumination, I felt that this video had some wider implications beyond brightening my coffee break.

This skit takes the producer’s optimum position to its hilarious conclusion. The ability to buy labor using non-monetary benefits. Workers who are just happy to be there! It’s manager heaven! I worked as games tester for about a year, and one thing I learned was that any passion you have for your job can be used to bend you over a barrel. My work was repetitive and there were thousands ready to take my place, so it’s no wonder I didn’t get re-hired after my second contract with the company. 10 dollars an hour and 60 hour work weeks seem like a fair price for the chance to work at a video game company. It’s same deal for the Writer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild and the Screen Actor’s guild. Without them, management could easily do whatever they wanted to workers because people would pay to do the work that they do.

The second item is this blog post by Ryan Sohmer. If there ever was a case for an internet-only entertainment universe, Sohmer would be it. His comic strip, Least I Could Do has run for over five years with four books out and an animated series deal on the way. However he may have trouble getting any help writing said animated series if he maintains his line of thinking. Sohmer believes that if the producers and guild just bucked up and compromised, everybody would get back to work. Everyone MUST get back to work, otherwise all the actors and studio janitors will go hungry, this great 70 year old infrastructure will crumble and America would no longer be the cultural epicenter it once was. Oh no! The actors will have to choose between their dignity and a little gold statue at the Oscars! If you ask me, this sounds like a good thing.

The producers are about to get hit with a terminal case of useless, a disease that few occupations recover from. Back in the days of a three channel, one newspaper, one movie screen universe, the producer’s job was much more important. Making sure that the most appealing if not best content got out there to attract the best viewers and the best advertisers was a task that required strategy and tough decision-making. When the internet came along and made sure joe nobody was as accessible as NBC, creators are now able to make money from a small audience without the interference of committee thinking. Networks and corporations simply are not able to maximize revenue from the personal, specific stories that make mass media what is today. Technology is going to replace the functions of producers until they are simply providers of production capital, and holding money is something the banks have covered pretty well. The Producers know this, and they are attempting every under-handed trick in the book to keep themselves relevant and swimming in cash, from anti-net neutrality bills to copyright extensions. Every trick that is, except serve the consumer and pay a decent price for labor.

Every day the writers remain on strike brings the entertainment industry to a more robust and equitable business model. Furthermore, it’s not like any of the workers on those shows haven’t been unemployed before. In the Vancouver where they film Battlestar Galactica, an unemployed tradesperson is pretty much an oxymoron with this job market. When you lose your job, you don’t dress up like G.I. joe and go shoot up a happy burger. You look for work, you retrain, and you adapt. It may take only a few hit shows on the internet to change the game completely. Besides, if enough actors and directors boycott the oscars, things will really start to get interesting.

Ryan Sohmer’s Strike Musings, Part Deux

Fanfic Video via Writer’s Life