Here it is, now live for ALL AUDIENCES at ScrewAttack. For a quick refresher, here is the FilmCritHulk article from BAD which the main premise of his episode is affectionately ripped-off from...
So, about this episode...
I really like this one, and believe it or not it came together all at once: I've been pretty sick the last few weeks, and as such a significantly more elaborate episode (in terms of central topic and bookends) that was originally planned to be #66 fell a bit behind in production. I didn't want to make everyone wait any longer than they'd waited already, and it occured to me that A.) nobody had done a "gamer" version of the Hulk-spawned "Why You Love" meme and B.) it would be an easier to script to read/edit with my in-and-out vocal chords since it'd lack run-on paragraphs. Also, I got the sense it could really be something special, but naturally that's up to you to judge.
So I did it up, spent a day compiling the 200+ images (a new record!) and put together some short "filler" bookends that don't necessarily "advance" the narrative but at least they 're-up' everyone on NecroThinker and the Video-Zombies; along with giving me an excuse to 'borrow' that wicked-cool ending animation from "Golden Axe."
Monday, February 27, 2012
Is This, At Last, The Bottom?
If I was asked to sum-up the thing MOST wrong with "geek culture" in general and gamer culture specifically, it would be three simple words: BETA-MALE MISOGYNY - the general sense of angst-driven entitlement among a sizable chunk of geekdom's dominant white/hetero/male demographic that it's somehow "justified" for them to engage in the casual hatred/debasement of women (and minorities and gays while we're at it) because they were (or at least percieve themselves to have been) slighted by women in the past/present.
You see this manifest everywhere, from the absolutely brutal woman-hatred that afflicts shut-in havens like Reddit or Tumblr, to say nothing of the toxic environment fostered in online gaming communities... and, of course, the wailing about criticism of such spaces in the form of "Aw, c'mon! This is the ONLY place left where it's okay for guys to talk like that!" - as though the fact that there shouldn't be a place where that's "okay" has NEVER occured to them - and now you can see it in Kotaku's most-recent brain fart: Giving over article space to a "comedic" memoir by a self-professed "ladies' man" detailing his Tucker Max-esque 'challenge' of getting women to have sex in his Sonic The Hedgehog themed bed.
Okay, so... pretty vile. Congratulations on the traffic Kotaku, you've more than earned it - but can I ask if this can please be the BOTTOM now? Seriously - Gamer Culture? Can we let this be "it," the last worst thing "we" do to make ourselves look like the degenerate lumps everyone assumes we are to begin with? Or do we have further yet left to sink...
You see this manifest everywhere, from the absolutely brutal woman-hatred that afflicts shut-in havens like Reddit or Tumblr, to say nothing of the toxic environment fostered in online gaming communities... and, of course, the wailing about criticism of such spaces in the form of "Aw, c'mon! This is the ONLY place left where it's okay for guys to talk like that!" - as though the fact that there shouldn't be a place where that's "okay" has NEVER occured to them - and now you can see it in Kotaku's most-recent brain fart: Giving over article space to a "comedic" memoir by a self-professed "ladies' man" detailing his Tucker Max-esque 'challenge' of getting women to have sex in his Sonic The Hedgehog themed bed.
Okay, so... pretty vile. Congratulations on the traffic Kotaku, you've more than earned it - but can I ask if this can please be the BOTTOM now? Seriously - Gamer Culture? Can we let this be "it," the last worst thing "we" do to make ourselves look like the degenerate lumps everyone assumes we are to begin with? Or do we have further yet left to sink...
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
EPISODE 66 ANNOUNCEMENT!
Head's up! Episode 66: "Why Do You Love Video Games?" - inspired by this article from friend-of-the-show-FilmCritHULK - will debut wide on ScrewAttack on Tuesday 2/28. ScrewAttack advantage members (remember: Advantage gets you an ad-free site and directly supports the shows of your choice) can get an early look NOW at this link.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
BIG UPDATE TIME!
Okay, so...
Things went a little dark-ish here, for a bit. Short version: Got a nasty sick-bug of some sort that played hell on my vocal chords and knocked-out one of my ears for awhile, so my productivity went to shit. Things are picking back up, so time for some updates:
Firstly, two more episodes have "aged into" YouTube-readiness: Episode 61: "Bells & Whistles" and Episode 62: "Seeing Red."
Second: A new episode HAS been completed, though I don't know when (presumably in the near future) it will air at this time. I will post it as soon as I know more.
Third: I recently learned that, unfortunately, the proposed TGO panel was not picked up to be part of PAXEast this year. Dissapointing, but these things happen. I'm in the process of contacting folks who had offered to participate; and I will still be appearing on/at (at least) two other events at the show.
Things went a little dark-ish here, for a bit. Short version: Got a nasty sick-bug of some sort that played hell on my vocal chords and knocked-out one of my ears for awhile, so my productivity went to shit. Things are picking back up, so time for some updates:
Firstly, two more episodes have "aged into" YouTube-readiness: Episode 61: "Bells & Whistles" and Episode 62: "Seeing Red."
Second: A new episode HAS been completed, though I don't know when (presumably in the near future) it will air at this time. I will post it as soon as I know more.
Third: I recently learned that, unfortunately, the proposed TGO panel was not picked up to be part of PAXEast this year. Dissapointing, but these things happen. I'm in the process of contacting folks who had offered to participate; and I will still be appearing on/at (at least) two other events at the show.
Monday, January 30, 2012
EPISODE 65: "Open The Vault!"
New show! You go watch now! YOU GO WATCH NOW!
The main thrust of this episode - the need for the license-holders to classic games to get that material back out there for the good of the medium, the fans and themselves - is one I expect to see become a BIG discussion-point as digital-distribution tech becomes as prominent for gaming as it is for music and movies. Golden-age games are going to get out there (much moreso than NOW, I mean) one way or another... so the industry might as well get out in front of it. The all-but innevitable spectacle of Nintendo (and you KNOW it'll be Nintendo) morphing into Metallica to downloadable-classics' Napster would be a pathetic sight I'd rather we avoid.
ALSO! This is the first of the new episodes to "fully" embrace the new presentation-format for the story-segments - i.e. a brief "teaser" before the opening credits followed by a (sometimes) lengthier chunk of it at the conclusion of the main episode. This particular "chunk" involves a MAJOR development for the "RetroThinker" character that I can't wait to hear what people think of. Embedded episode and SPOILERS after the jump:
So! If you're wondering, this is NOT the way RetroThinker's story was originally set to play out; though it has been since at least shortly after I began shooting the live-action footage for these segments.
When I initially sketched out this whole arc, the Yellow Jewel (and now you know why RT wears his silly yellow shirt) was going to be the power source for a time machine RetroThinker would seek out and attempt to use to return to his own era - which would then malfunction and A.) set up an easter-egg for the NEXT arc and B.) "generate" an evil version of himself called NecroThinker (who was concieved, from the beginning, as a Black Lantern parody who commanded video-zombies.) RetroThinker would then battle NecroThinker - ultimately sacrificing his chance to return home to defeat him - and the "malfunction" would be revealed to have been a deliberate act by the Monster Voice Guy.
But while setting up the "final" scripts, it occured to me (and yes, audience feedback was a contributing factor here) that there wasn't really all that much "difference" between OverThinker and RetroThinker as characters - in as much as OverThinker and "real Bob" are both pretty fixated on retro-gaming as it is - so having the new bad guy fought by a guy who was already too much like the hero was going to come out sloppy and could probably be made more interesting. What you now see the beginning of here, a sympathetic good-guy becoming a villain and OverThinker having to combat a retro-centric villain, was the obvious choice is terms of taking the story in a different direction while continuing the goofy/low-rent Tokusatsu send-up vibe I've been aiming for.
The only aspect of this episode I'm not 100% satisfied with is that NecroThinker's costume doesn't look as good here as I wanted to - we had a narrow production window for the matching-shots on the transformation, so we went with temporary version of his cape as I hadn't finished making the "final" one at the time. It looks alright (the final version is made of heavier material but has the same basic color and design) but I'd prefer it "move" a little less like the plastic tablecloth we made it out of. Ah well. The mask, at least, remains suitably creepy IMO.
As for what comes next? Stay tuned ;)
The main thrust of this episode - the need for the license-holders to classic games to get that material back out there for the good of the medium, the fans and themselves - is one I expect to see become a BIG discussion-point as digital-distribution tech becomes as prominent for gaming as it is for music and movies. Golden-age games are going to get out there (much moreso than NOW, I mean) one way or another... so the industry might as well get out in front of it. The all-but innevitable spectacle of Nintendo (and you KNOW it'll be Nintendo) morphing into Metallica to downloadable-classics' Napster would be a pathetic sight I'd rather we avoid.
ALSO! This is the first of the new episodes to "fully" embrace the new presentation-format for the story-segments - i.e. a brief "teaser" before the opening credits followed by a (sometimes) lengthier chunk of it at the conclusion of the main episode. This particular "chunk" involves a MAJOR development for the "RetroThinker" character that I can't wait to hear what people think of. Embedded episode and SPOILERS after the jump:
So! If you're wondering, this is NOT the way RetroThinker's story was originally set to play out; though it has been since at least shortly after I began shooting the live-action footage for these segments.
When I initially sketched out this whole arc, the Yellow Jewel (and now you know why RT wears his silly yellow shirt) was going to be the power source for a time machine RetroThinker would seek out and attempt to use to return to his own era - which would then malfunction and A.) set up an easter-egg for the NEXT arc and B.) "generate" an evil version of himself called NecroThinker (who was concieved, from the beginning, as a Black Lantern parody who commanded video-zombies.) RetroThinker would then battle NecroThinker - ultimately sacrificing his chance to return home to defeat him - and the "malfunction" would be revealed to have been a deliberate act by the Monster Voice Guy.
But while setting up the "final" scripts, it occured to me (and yes, audience feedback was a contributing factor here) that there wasn't really all that much "difference" between OverThinker and RetroThinker as characters - in as much as OverThinker and "real Bob" are both pretty fixated on retro-gaming as it is - so having the new bad guy fought by a guy who was already too much like the hero was going to come out sloppy and could probably be made more interesting. What you now see the beginning of here, a sympathetic good-guy becoming a villain and OverThinker having to combat a retro-centric villain, was the obvious choice is terms of taking the story in a different direction while continuing the goofy/low-rent Tokusatsu send-up vibe I've been aiming for.
The only aspect of this episode I'm not 100% satisfied with is that NecroThinker's costume doesn't look as good here as I wanted to - we had a narrow production window for the matching-shots on the transformation, so we went with temporary version of his cape as I hadn't finished making the "final" one at the time. It looks alright (the final version is made of heavier material but has the same basic color and design) but I'd prefer it "move" a little less like the plastic tablecloth we made it out of. Ah well. The mask, at least, remains suitably creepy IMO.
As for what comes next? Stay tuned ;)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Everybody Do The "Big Nintendo Announcement" Dance!!!
Nintendo has announced that The Wii-U and (presumably sooner) 3DS will support "The Nintendo Network" - an online service for digital-distribution, DLC and (presumably) superior online-multiplayer.
Oh, goody! It's dance time!
Places everyone - you know the steps by now!
Predictable Nintendo Fanboys: Get really, really excited and start pretending that you never ever once said that this particular feature - which literally every other console manufacturer in the business has already been doing for at least six years - wasn't important and/or that Nintendo was better off without it!
Predictable Nintendo Haters: That's your cue to start acting like the "late-to-the-party" thing is really, really significant - and make sure to punctuate with an "Oooooh, super! I can't wait to play [insert-unpopular-Wii-title-here] online!"
Round n' round n' round we go! WHEEEEEEE!!!
Oh, goody! It's dance time!
Places everyone - you know the steps by now!
Predictable Nintendo Fanboys: Get really, really excited and start pretending that you never ever once said that this particular feature - which literally every other console manufacturer in the business has already been doing for at least six years - wasn't important and/or that Nintendo was better off without it!
Predictable Nintendo Haters: That's your cue to start acting like the "late-to-the-party" thing is really, really significant - and make sure to punctuate with an "Oooooh, super! I can't wait to play [insert-unpopular-Wii-title-here] online!"
Round n' round n' round we go! WHEEEEEEE!!!
Capcom Uses PS3 Exclusives to Flip Off Mega Man Fans
Hat-tip: ScrewAttack
Capcom does NOT have a good relationship with "Mega Man" fans these days. Series creator Keiji Inafune left the company last year, and the lack of (good) new projects in the series coupled with the cancellation of "Mega Man Legends 3" and "Mega Man Universe" has turned fans heavily negative on the company.
Capcom's irritation at the situation, along with irritating at the constant drumbeat for the character to pop up as a guest-star in the company's numerous crossover titles, HAS to have just a tiny bit to do with the content this trailer for PS3-exclusive characters in "Street Fighter vs. Tekken;" in which Mega Man is featured in a somewhat unexpected form...
Yup. "American NES Box-Art Mega Man."
I suppose on one level I have to admire the skill/audacity involved in this kind of "trolling;" but I can't say it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Of all the various types of "fanboys" who could stand to be brought down a peg... I feel like Mega Man fans - hell, fans of retro-gaming franchises OTHER than first-party Nintendo properties - are having a rough enough time without Capcom telling them to go fuck themselves. Though, honestly, for me it's not half as painful as watching twerpy "Cole" knock-out Ryu (yeah, right...)
Capcom does NOT have a good relationship with "Mega Man" fans these days. Series creator Keiji Inafune left the company last year, and the lack of (good) new projects in the series coupled with the cancellation of "Mega Man Legends 3" and "Mega Man Universe" has turned fans heavily negative on the company.
Capcom's irritation at the situation, along with irritating at the constant drumbeat for the character to pop up as a guest-star in the company's numerous crossover titles, HAS to have just a tiny bit to do with the content this trailer for PS3-exclusive characters in "Street Fighter vs. Tekken;" in which Mega Man is featured in a somewhat unexpected form...
Yup. "American NES Box-Art Mega Man."
I suppose on one level I have to admire the skill/audacity involved in this kind of "trolling;" but I can't say it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Of all the various types of "fanboys" who could stand to be brought down a peg... I feel like Mega Man fans - hell, fans of retro-gaming franchises OTHER than first-party Nintendo properties - are having a rough enough time without Capcom telling them to go fuck themselves. Though, honestly, for me it's not half as painful as watching twerpy "Cole" knock-out Ryu (yeah, right...)
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