Rants: Convince myself and begin again.

Hey gang, it's been a while.

For nearly a year, I haven't posted much on this blog. To be honest, I've been lazy. I didn't really feel like updating this blog. I was busy studying Chinese and Japanese languages for the last year or so. Even though it may look like to some of you people that I'm having to good life over here in Korea, I have been keeping myself quite busy. Now, taking a gap year has been very nice indeed. I never had to take any finals and do projects that were graded. Not having any pressure on me has been a novel experience, and a one that I enjoyed very much. But now, I must return to United States to FINALLY begin my college life.

I've been trying lots of new things over the last year or so. Things I didn't have the time or the will to do in high school. I tried working out (Semi-successful, but no 6-pack yet), learning the piano, learning new languages. It has been awesome doing the things that I wanted to do instead or the things I needed to do. But most importantly, I think by taking some time off and reflecting on myself, I gained a new perspective on myself and on my goals.

I looked backed on myself a lot over the last year. Trying to figure out what mistakes I have made in my life so far and how I could go about becoming a person that I wanted to be in the future. This task wasn't really that hard; especially when my mother was constantly preaching to me. Truth be told, I'm not exactly at the state where I want to be right now. I thought I was a better person than who I turned out to be in high-school. Soon, I realized where I went wrong. My fundamental problem was pride.

In high-school, I was surrounded by a lot of smart people. And for some reason, I started to think that I was some kind of a genius as well. Believing in a false image of myself, I didn't necessarily try that hard. I thought things would naturally go the way I wanted all the time. Even when the reports cards started to show that I wasn't necessarily the sharpest crayon in the tool-shed, I still believed that things would naturally work out for the best. My pride was always what got the best of me. The pride always justified my lazy and stupid actions. The belief that I was the best always got the better of me, and I never worked to actually become the best.

Now, I am an extremely arrogant guy, so the process to break my pride wasn't that easy. Some people have awesome battles against themselves (at least in literature), but mine was quite pathetic. It was a long, painful, and ultimately a stupid process. No matter what I told myself, no matter what evidence I saw, I never refused to believe that I was a genius and that my destiny was to be the best. As Jack Nicholson would put it I couldn't "HANDLE THE TRUTH". A lazy fool who believes that he's a genius, is there anything sadder than that? In the end, it wasn't some single major that showed me that I was a fool, but the realization of what I wanted to become that changed me.

What is a hero? Well, that's a really complex topic and I would have to start a entire rant just to describe what I think a hero truly is, but one aspect I would like to focus on today is perseverance. A Hero never gives up and continues strive for his goal no matter the odds, and ultimately achieves his goal. You know the saying "Hard-work beats talent"? Ever since I was little, I really believed in that message. No matter what happens to real people in society, hard-work will always beat talent. That was the justice that I believe in.

I had been a hypocrite. I had been acting like talent beats hard-work all this time. All this time, I acted like some villain that insults the hero by saying that he is superior and that no one could hope to match his strength. I was never the genius hero that I foolishly believed in, but a idiotic villain instead. And hypocrisy is something that no one can stand right? If I have to be evil, so be it. But I would never pretend to be good while I was evil.  Not even the realization of my hypocrisy changed me in an instant, but my arrogance no longer barred my path. I didn't convince myself that I was a fool, that I wanted to become persevering hero who saves the world through his will alone.

Thus, I never truly defeated my arrogance. I continue to believe I am some kind of a genius somewhere deep down inside me, but I have forced my arrogance to compromise at the very least. Hard-work WILL be necessary in the future, and I cannot go around it by saying that I can do something without working for it, for perseverance is part of the very ideal that I strive for.

Next week I head for America. On one hand, I'm really scared. I fear that my skills have atrophied over time and that I will fail when I start college. I'm also scared of the fact that I have wasted my gap year and didn't accomplish anything. This period of peace I have had is finally ending, and I fear that once I begin feeling the pressure again, I will crack. On the other hand, I finally determined how I should become what I want to be, and that has given me new strength (or so I like to think anyway :)). Now, It's not my arrogance that tells me that I'm great, but my childish dream of becoming a hero that tells me to work hard for my goals and to change to world.

Now what I wrote is indeed childish. I think in a child like way when I should be thinking like an adult. People always tell me to grow up, and my parents often tell me that the fact that I'm not where I want to be in my life is because I think and act like a child. I'm not necessarily proud of my childish self either. It's kinda embarrassing to write a post like this. But unfortunately, this is what I am and I feel better by writing myself out.

Thanks if you've still been reading this blog! I'll update often from now on!
~JC

Here's some music I listened to while I wrote this post.

Rant: Bun-Dong Style!

Hiya Gang. It's JC again. It's been awhile since I've updated this blog hasn't it? Well, I have been busy, but from now on, I swear to update this shat regularly again.

So, as most of you may or may not know, I'm in South Korea now. I declared I desired a gap year after getting accepted into a certain college, and the folks there kindly let me have a year off from the swamp of sorrows that it education. So I'm free! Unlike most of you people who I assume are in college! HAHA! But while the gap year does allow some time off for me, I do somewhat envy you guys who are in college. Apparently, college is a great experience and I feel like I'm getting left out of the loops. Whatevs, I guess. Not like I'm never gonna get to go to college. So, I'm sure you're all wondering whats going on with JC in SK. Well, allow me to fill you in. In the style of the Bun-Dong variety...

After flying for 14 hours in a metal coffin some have imaginatively called an 'airplane', I got off in the In-Cheon Airport in South Korea. My grandfather arranged a guy to meet us there and transport us to our old home which I had left 8 years ago. My old home is in a place called Bun-Dong. You see, Bun-Dong is not a very nice place. It's nothing like that place that PSY describes in his hit song 'Gangnam Style'. That's where my cousin lives. Oh btw, speaking of Gangnam-Style...

IM SICK AND TIRED OF THAT SHIT. KOREANS NEWS IS ALWAYS GOING OFF ABOUT HOW THAT SHITTY ASS SONG IS POPULAR AROUND THE WORLD AND IN AMERICA. They are always showing some white/black/non-asian people going the dance from bun-dong style or saying how great the song is. It practically turned PSY into a national hero because everyone thinks he's done some great job spread k-pop and the korean culture. Goddanging, the news are even showing the shitty parody videos some white kids with too much time on their hands made! Why are Koreans so crazy about this song being crazy on youtube! GAAAAAHHH I CANNOT ESCAPE PSY! But, back to Bun-Dong.

Bun-Dong would be among the poorest part of Seoul. Every night when I try to sleep, I hear some drunken guy puking, singing, shouting, fighting, or doing something that can't really be described in english. I see signs of domestic violence everywhere, and the streets are filthy and smells putrid. After living for 8 years in the boring serenity that is the suburban usa, I must admit its quite a change. The only good thing is that apparently gangs of scary young people don't exist around here. At least not the ones like in the usa. It ain't hellhole or new jersey I guess, but it's fairly bad.

We live here because my grandparents live here, and the Korean  tradition decrees we must live with our parents when they get old. I haven't got much qualms against that. Honor thy parents and all that palava. But kinda ticks me off that we own a GREAT ASS apartment in Gang-nam, and live in Bun-Dong, the literal geographic opposite of Gang-nam. My parents say that we don't really need to live there, and that living in Bun-Dong is fine, but I kinda get ticked. Apparently, my parents have decided we're gonna continue to rent out that place for at least 2 years, and there's nothing I can do to convince them otherwise. So, here I am in Bun-Dong, hearing a family being torn apart due to financial issues next door while im sitting in the bathroom, humming a theme to 'Battle on the Big Bridge" from Final Fantasy IV. I really feel like I don't belong in this neighborhood, but I'm sure I'll grow out of my discomfort. So, I'll cover topics other than my neighborhood now. Such as my internet.

It sucks. You thought internet in Korea would be great right? I did too, until I would have to resort to leeching off my grandfather's wifi with a shitty almost broken computer my sister gave me when she got a new labtop from her job. Due to the fact my grandfather uses to shittiest connection availble, and the fact I use some random linksys thing that was randomly lying aound the house with a computer that practically breaks down if you use it for more than 90 minutes, the internet I'm using is pretty much at the level of dial-up. Whoop-de-doo. So you can stop envying my internet in Korea, cause whatever concoction you have cooked up in college is probably better than mine. Such misfortune!

I'm learning stuff in here as well, btw. Taking a course in Japanese and Chinese every morning! Yup, Korea is full of hak-wons (tutoring places) where you can learn all kinds of stuff. So everyday, I wake up at 7 am, and ride the subway to Jong-Roe (A place much better than Bun-Dong, but not as good as Gang-nam) and learn until 1 pm. I'm hoping to learn a lot over the nest year. I think knowing Korea, Jap, Mandarin, and English will really help in me getting a good job when college is done. Also, I want to watch Japanese anime without English subtitles too. So, I have been keeping myself busy here. Speaking of busy, I work out now.

EHHHH! You say, "JC, the weakest of the weaklings, the slothful monster, procrastinator extraordinaire, is working out now???!!!" Yup. I realized over the last couple months that I will never ever achieve my two goals of 1)Being immortal and 2)Getting a girlfriend if I stay the weak nerd that I am. Surprisingly, working out everyday has been quite fun. Although I usually hate moving, once I started to dedicate myself into going a gym everyday, lifting weights and running actually started to become fun. Although this may be the result of masochism or insanity, I would really like to believe that it is due to my powers of dedication.

So, over the next year, I'm gonna work to change myself into a better JC. One that actually has some muscles, quad-lingual, and updates his shitty blog at least once every week no matter that cost. Wish me luck I guess!

~Best wishes, JC

PS: also please talk to me whenever you see me online. It's really lonely here. I haven't really made any friends here yet, and all my old friends in korea don't even remember me i think

Review and Rant: Dark Knight Ryzes

Warning: This post is spoiler heavy. So if you haven't watched the movie yet, don't read this post if you don't want to. Not that it will really matter much really. The plot was kinda weak and there were only couple twists. Also to read this post, you will need basic understanding of League of Legends. So let's get started shall we?

However, due to budget constraints, Chris Nolan could hire only one Ryze. So the title is misleading.

So in order to enjoy this movie to its full glory, one must first understand the plot of the first and second movie of the Ryze series. Basically, all you need to know is in the first movie, Ryze's parents get buckshoted by a random Graves and Ryze travels around the world being all angsty. During his travels, Ryze meets Liam Neeson, the head of the League of Legends, who trains Ryze in how to be an awesome AP Carry and be an badass. After Ryze becomes a badass, Liam Neeson tells Ryze that Ryze must help Liam destroy the Gotham City in order to cleanse it. Ryze refuses, and beats the crap out of him, and returns to Gotham City so that he can help fix it. Unfortunately, Liam had other plans and teams up with crappier alternative of Fiddlesticks who can only cast fear and can't even crowstorm. However, Ryze just kills them both and the day is saved! Not.

Seriously, NOT EVEN ONE PERFECT STORM.

In the second movie, Ryze must do battle with Shaco.. I mean Joker. While battling joker, some random DA dude called Harvey the Brain Dented gets his girlfriend killed by Joker and also loses half his face. Feeling quite irate, Harvey the Hamster goes on a rampage and kills bunch of corrupt cops. oh yea, he also tries to kill Gary Oldman's son, Gary Youngman. Ryze stops Harvey the Aardvark by pushing him off a building, which apparently kills him. Even in a world where getting stabbed and shot won't kill you, gravity does the F!#% around it seems. And Joker also gets apprehended by the authorities somehow and never comes back in the third movie. There, that's all you need to know about the first two movies, let's get to the main meat now.

Gravity, thou art a harsh mistress. 

Our movie begins by showing the main antagonist, Vayne. He apparently is a very smart guy who is very strong and defeats some CIA mooks and takes a scientist hostage. We then cut back to Ryze. After the end of the second movie, it seems that the police has been doing a pretty good job of arresting the criminals and Ryze no longer needs to be a batman to save the city. However, Anne Hathaway randomly shows off and steals Ryze's bling and fingerprints. Also, it seems that Vayne is hiding in the sewers on Gotham and is planning something big. Then Vayne takes over the RiotStore and makes it so that Ryze is bankrupt. OH NOZE! HE WAS ONLY WORTH 450 IP TO BEGIN WITH! 

He truly Condemns Ryze to take a Tumble down the economic ladder.

After some research, Batman find out that after the death of Liam Neeson, Vayne took over the league of legends in his place and plans to destroy Gotham City because that's what Liam wanted. Quite loyal for a villain. In order to punish Vayne for making him Bankrupt, Ryze convinces Anne Hathaway to take him to Vayne. Anne Hathaway agrees, and then betrays Ryze later. Due to Vayne's betrayal, Ryze is forced to fight Vayne one on one in a deadly cage match. No surprise, Vayne wins, and then proceeds to break Ryze's back and nerfs him. After that, in order to make Batman feel true despair, Vayne drops Ryze down a pit called the ELO Hell so that he may only despair while Gotham city is held hostage by Vayne. Vayne thus so by obtaining a nuclear bomb. How original.

We will hold the Gotham hostage for... ONE MILLION ELO!

While the outside intervention is prevented via nuclear bomb, Vayne frees all the prisoners captured between the 'Dark Knight" and "Dark Knight Ryzes" from the Rune Prison and gives all of them guns so that they might terrorize the civilizans of Gotham City. While Vayne is terrorizing Gotham City, Vayne tortures Ryze by making him watch the said terrorization through a 240 pixel twitch.tv stream. The frustration from watching the low resolution stream gives Ryze back the energy he needs to climb up the ELO ladder and escape ELO hell. After escaping, Ryze returns to Gotham and beats the crap out of everyone by calling upon his desperate power and punching everyone. However, after Ryze defeats Vayne by overloading him with punches, Ryze is suddenly betrayed by A RANDOM INDIAN WOMAN WITH WHOM HE HAD SEX EARLIER ON IN THE MOVIE! EPIC PLOT TWIST! She reveals that she is the daughter of Liam Neeson, backstabs Ryze with a knife, and proclaims she will destroy Gotham City in order to carry out his will. And runs away. Due to the fact that this random indian woman is neither Rikimaru or Shaco, Ryze quickly recovers from the backstab damage and pursues after indian lady, who dies due to her poor asian woman driving skills. So Ryze didn't even really need to chase after her.

Her fate was sealed the moment she grabbed the steering wheel.

However, it seems that the bomb cannot be disarmed! And so our heroes do something... I acutally won't write the very ending of the movie here. I just don't feel like spoiling this one part. Go watch the movie if you want to know about it. Better yet, read the wiki. So anyway, what do I think of the movie? This post doesn't really deliver the message very well, but the story in this movie was fairly weak. There were way to many asspulls, and the villain wasn't very interesting compared to the last movie. It's good, not great. It gets 8 out of 10 in my book. Watch it, it's worth it, but it's no cripple traitor jake sully. There are plenty of explosions and gunfights so that you will never be bored throughout the entire movie. You probably won't even feel that the story was weak until the movie is over. But I may be expecting too much if I want actual plot and character development in a movie about friggin batman. People expect asswhooping and asswhooping is what you will get. GG Chris Nolan.

This guy still makes my blood boil...WAAAAAGH!!

So, it seems that the Batman trilogy is finally over. Apparently, Chris Nolan is doing Superman next. Let's hope they somehow manage to bring back Heath Ledger so he can play a villain again... sniff... Heath, how i miss you so...

I'm GAR for Heath

~Stay frosty

JC

Rant: Power Outage

It's been a while, but I'm sure most of you remember the freak storm that happened around the DC area about 2 weeks ago. It was an uber powerful and an unexpected storm by many people. It knocked out most of the power around the D.C. area, and I'm sure most of you guys were affected by it as well. The trauma left by the experience of not having internet of over 36 hours still haunts me to this day. And I feel like sharing my experience with the internet would definitely be a step in the right direction for my recovery. Thus, let us delve into the tragedy.

Internet is definitely a place of healing.

So It began on what I think was a Thursday night. At that night, I believe I was crazily spending my time listening to retarded music and reading shitty mangas.  It was around 9 pm or so that my older sister came into my room. Apparently, she was bored and wanted me to ask my dad to go out somewhere that night. So after hurriedly finishing an argument on 4chan about the merits of using mirrors to reflect lasers fired by aliens in order to gain aerial superiority, I put my computer to sleep and went downstairs. When I asked my dad if he wanted to go out somewhere that night, he said he would go out under one condition: I would have to play him in a game of chess. You see, my dad was really into chess for some obscure reason for the past few weeks. I magnanimously agreed to his conditions. But I foolishly forgot about the fact that my dad was a really slow chess player. So after about an hour, I finally managed to crush my dad's forces in this grueling chess battle. True to his word, my dad said we would go out bowling or something. At that moment, the power went out.

I don't even know where I got this image from.

Due to my intense focus on the Chess game, I was oblivious to the raging storm that was going on outside.  As soon as the power did go out, I looked out the windows to see the trees in my neighbor swaying like headbangers listening to dubstep musics. I assume people bang their heads while listening to dubsteps right? I'm not in the 'hip' mainstream, so I don't even know what dubstep really is.  Anyway, let's continue from this simile. So for a while, my family just stayed quiet and looked out the window. There were tons of lightning flashes and shitz. In my neighbor's yard, one of the tree's biggest branches snapped and fell. Other than that, there were that much physical damage to my neighborhood. After about an hour or so, the storm died down and my family was getting bored again. So anyway, my dad decided that the best way to spend the night was to drink it away, so my family just ate pistachio nuts for a while and decided that we would go to sleep. 

My only experience with dubstep, and this is only because of my fascination with the WH 40K lores.

Next morning was bloody hot. You know how its been really humid and hot around the DC region around that time right? Thanks to the AC being out, I was boiled to death when I woke up. Frustrated, I proceeded to wash myself and turn on the computer so I could rejoin the fray at 4chan, only to realize that the power went out last night. I scream my dirge of despair into the world, and my family immediately told me to shut up. I was really peeved off as I would have to resort to do things that weren't based one electronics in order to preserve my sanity from the darkness

Dirge is such a good word. I love it.

So since we couldn't cook anything that morning, we ate something weird that day. I don't exactly know what it was I ate, but I do remember it being weird... OH YEA it was cold rice with water that I ate that morning. Cold rice tastes pretty bad, and eating it cereal style by putting water in it doesn't help at all. So my morning was getting just worse and worse that day. I was being forced to talk to my family since I wasn't gonna study or anything (haha). At that moment, my neighbor came out of her house in order to clean up the branch that had fallen during the storm.

No, not that kind of 'fallen'.

My mom basically forced me and my dad to go outside and help her clean up the mess. I was extremely tired at that point, but I reluctantly pushed myself into going outside( which was like 100 degrees btw ), so we helped out neighbor clean up that big ol' branch and talked with her about the power outage. To my great fury, my neighbor told me that it might take a full 7 days before the our houses would be reconnected with the power supply. SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT INTERNET AND POWER SUPPLY?  Around the ninth hour, JC shouted in a loud voice, saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  (That's a reference to the Bible btw. I learned it from an anime. Matthew 27:46. I personally don't have a religion, but being a great man that I am, I feel like its a duty to somewhat learn the Bible, as it has great influence over Western literature. Anyway, back to my crappy story. Sorry if it ain't humorous. Truth be told, I'm just alone in my house right now, and have ran out of animes that I want to watch.)

How can I survive 7 days without anime, manga, and video games?

I don't even know what I didn't that day from that moment on. I guess I just blacked out from the trauma. The sheer sense of abandonment that I felt at that moment drove me to madness I think. Anyway, the time I regained consciousness was about 4 o'clock. At that moment, my dad loudly proclaimed that he couldn't take it anymore and we had to go out somewhere in order to avoid the heat. I readily agreed, and got on the car along with the rest of my family. AT LAST, SWEET AC I thought as I turned the AC on the car to the max.  We quickly drove to McDonalds and ate something there, and for a while, we just stayed there. After cooling ourselves off, we went home and returned to the abyss. It's not a very exciting tale is it? Yea, I know. This tale of power outage wasn't very exciting for me either. That's why it was such a terrible ordeal for me. I hate being bored as almost as much as I hate being tortured. Not a very good comparison I realize, but the point I'm trying to make is that I hate being bored. UGH WHY AM I WRITING ABOUT BEING BORED? Actually, why am I writing to myself? Good god, I have gone insane by recalling the power outage trauma! Quickly, I must amuse myself! I'll watch some shitty anime. brb.

Intermission.

...Ah, I feel like my sanity has finally returned. Let's finish this post up quickly. After returning from my quest to McDonalds, my family just lazed around, listening to the radio. And around 11:30 pm, light finally came back to my house, and I spent the whole night doing god knows what. I feel like writing about the power outage was a very poor choice. I just talked about how bored I was in this post. I'm sure yall have better business to attend to then reading about some guy being bored in a thousand different way. Go out there to the internet and have fun!

It's a series of tubes!

~Stay entertained!

JC

Rant: Downfall of Sonic

Yay, I graduated from TJ about ten days ago. Now I'm no longer a high schooler,  but a bum doing his gap year. I'll be talking about that more on my future posts. But for now, I'm gonna talk about Sonic, one of the most iconic video game characters of our time.

Seriously, who doesn't know who Sonic is? At one point, he stood shoulder to shoulder with other famous video game characters like Pikachu, Mario, and DK. But Sonic, SEGA, and Team Sonic has been going down for a long long time now. Sure, they still produce Sonic games, but they tend to suck. They mostly get horrible ratings by video game reviewers and many gamer alike.  At best, Sonic games will do ok, like Sonic generations, and at worst, Team Sonic will cook up some bullshit like Sonc the Hedgehog 2006, which involved Venice and rescuing a Human Princess named Elise for some reason. Seriously, WHAT HAPPENED? WHY VENICE? WHEN DID SONIC TURN INTO BLOODY MARIO?

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Let's look at Sonic back in his glory days shall we? Back when he was in 2D and the plot didn't involve Venice. Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 was one of the most successful games of the 1990's. It was a fairly simple 2D platformer that simply worked. Despite the 16-bit limitations, the graphics of the game wer amazing for its time, and the Sonic team back then put a lot of effort into this one. It was also a game with great 16-bit music and the blue hedgehog captured the children's hearts. Sonic 1991 remains the best selling Sonic game to this day. The story in this game was pretty much non-existent, but it's still a fine game in my book. With good enough game play, most shortfalls in a game can be overcome. And no story at all is better than a crappy story by my book. (Barring the exception where a game's story is so bad it's good)  Some later Sonic games have story so bad is breaks the 'so bad it's good' barrier by a mile and enters the 'so bad its bad' zone.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?? WHY IS HE HOLDING A SWORD?

WHAT DOES SONIC HAVE IN COMMON WITH KING ARTHUR???? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS??? YOU CAN'T JUST PLACE SONIC EVERYWHERE YOU WANT!! HE'S NOT A KETCHUP!

I actually couldn't find a good picture of Tetsu Kanato, but I assume this is what he looks like. 

The success of 1991 Sonic caused SEGA and the Sonic Team to develop a sequel, creatively named Sonic 2 in 1992. This was another 16-bit game and followed much the same formula as Sonic 1991, but many people still loved the ol' formula and Sonic 2 remains the 2nd best selling Sonic game by SEGA. This game also had some kick ass tunes like the 'Mystic Cave Zone' theme and had creative level designs. Sure, the 2nd player option introduced in this game were much hated by everyone, and this game still lacked a good story, but IT WAS STILL A GOOD GAME.  The release of Sonic 2 was one of the main reasons that Sega caught up to Nintendo in the "console wars". It brought their market share up to 50% within six months of its release. This is the game that made SEGA shoulder to shoulder with the other big cheeses.

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO SHADOW?? WHYYYYY??

Success of Sonic 2 caused the Sonic Team to make a new game, Sonic 3, in 1994. Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, the expasion to Sonic 3, were my personal favorites. It introduced Knuckles the Echidna, and it was the first sonic in which i thought I saw a plot. It still followed much the same formula in terms of gameplay and graphics. But it still had the great level designs and musics as well. The classic fomula in Sonic 1,2 and 3 simply worked. These first 3 games brought Sonic and SEGA to great heights in terms of fame and glory. And Sonic became a hero for many a children. IGN praised the Virtual Console release, giving it a 9 out of 10, and claimed it was the best of the original trilogy of Sonic games for the Sega Genesis, stating "Sonic 1 we called impressive. Sonic 2 we labeled great. Sonic 3, though, is the best of them all – and deservingly earns the highest score of the trilogy." And as much as I hate IGN for whoring themselves out these days, I pretty much agree with what they had to say here.

SCREW YOU, THIS ISN'T A VIDEO! HAHA! But seriously, they really whored themselves here. Was Mass Effect 3  a horrible game, no. But it wasn't a bloody masterpiece either. 

Unfortunately, Sonic 3 was pretty much the peak for Sonic Team in my opinion. Sure, they have had both ups and downs since Sonic 3, but never again would they consistently do well. After Sonic 3, SEGA released titles such as Triple Trouble, Chaotix, and Sonic Blast. These had pretty much the same graphics as the first 3 sonics, but just didn't have much of their magic. They all got mixed reviews and didn't sell very well. SEGA thought that the solution to making a new Sonic blockbuster lay in 3D. And for sometime, they did do well. Sonic Adventures in the SEGA dreamcast were well received by the community. But the steam in the Sonic Team only continued to run out. And ultimately, SEGA tried to solved this problem in the worst way possible, by being hip.

Is this FF7?

It was a game with guns and motorcycles and Shadow, the cool character in Sonic. you gotta understand, people don't play Sonic cause its cool. By taking the 'hip' route, this game dissapointed lot of the old fans.  Sonic is supposed to be a lighthearted game, not grimdark and motorcycle! Copying from wikipedia here,  Critics of 'Shadow the Hedgehog" derided the game's unwelcome sense of maturity for a Sonic series game, especially the addition of guns and other weapons. Game Informer staff writer Matt Helgeson said, "not only is this new 'adult' interpretation of Sonic painfully dumb, it’s also ill-advised and almost feels like a betrayal to longtime fans." Eurogamer staff writer Tom Bramwell felt that "the game's other selling point – its darker edge – [is] not really meant for us." Sonic Team heeded the critics and I don't think they ever tried to make something like Shadow the Hedgehog ever again.

This reminds me of a certain scene in "Dark Knight' for some reason.

However, Team Sonic still sucks. Now, they only stick to 3D platformers, which are supposedly 'hip'. They take the Venice route and... and...GIVE SONIC BLOODY EXCALIBUR INSTEAD OF GUNSSSSS. ARRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. SEGA makes Sonic olympics and cheap cash-ins to sustain their dying company. Sonic hasn't reached the height it did back in the good old dreamcast era for awhile now, and it is unlikely to ever reach the height it did with the first 3 sonics games ever again.

This is the state that Sonic is pretty much at.

But Sonic isn't dead yet in my opinion, it is something that is still salvageable. The fanbase, while dying, is still alive. Many people like me have mourned the sad fate of Sonic, but long for its revival.  They refuse to make a classic Sonic game. All the Sonic games now have to be hip-cool, and dramatic. It's annoying, because it would be so easy to make a traditional Sonic game, and it wouldn't need a blockbuster budget. However, I think Sonic Generations, released in 2011 could signal a new era for Sonic. One without Venice and Excalibur.

Sonic Generations was a game that celebrated the 20th year anniversary of the release of Sonic 1. It was a game without much story line. It involved the ol' formula of collecting the chaos emeralds and defeating Dr. Eggman. It gave up on being hip with 3d and concentrated on 2d, which i think was the first step in the right direction the Team Sonic has taken in a while. This game combined the old levels that fans loved from the original Sonic trilogy and placed the 'classic' sonic next to the 'new' sonic. This game got great reviews by both fans and critics. Copying from wikipedia again here: PlayStation Official Magazine gave it an 8/10, calling it "a masterpiece of platform game design." GameTrailers gave the game a score of 8.1, calling it "the best Sonic game in over a decade." GamesRadar gave the console version 8/10, calling it "the best Sonic game since Sonic 2" So, if Team Sega can keep the new attention they gained from this game, and continue to please the fans by sticking to what they are good at and try to avoid being 'hip', I think Sonic and SEGA may still rise to the heights they did in the past, and a new generations of kids will love Sonic.

So, here's to a revival of Sonic and SEGA.

Music in Sonic remains the one thing that's consistently great :)

Stay cool during summer

-JC

Rant: The Starvation Games

This has got angry right now. So angry. Angry enough for me to write a post for this blog again. So, prepare yourselves for bad grammar and lots of capitalization.

THIS SHIT IS FRIGGIN' %Q#^(Y#$^TU$#!!!!!

I first heard about Hunger Games last year in my school bus.  I overheard a certain teenager who happened to be female talking about the greatest shit ever, the Hunger Games. My interest was piqued by her exaltation of this work of literature and I asked her about the book and its general plot. Surprisingly enough, this work had been written by Suzanne Collins, who also wrote the Gregor the Overlander series. Now, I bloody loved Gregor the Overlander series. It's no masterpiece by any means, but I had a fun time reading it and loved the characters in the series. It's about this guy who goes to this subterranean world beneath NYC and fulfilling prophecy and shit. Fairly generic, but read it. It is middleschool level book and may be a bit immature, but I swear you'll have a fun time reading it.

Super COORU!!!

So, realizing the book was about children killing each other and finding out that it had been written by a author that I liked, I decided I would give The Hunger Games a try. Here's the story of the book as far as I can tell.

1. Post Apocalyptic U.S. ruled by a brutal regime! --> 2. Rebellion by the 13 districts thats part of the new U.S. --> 3. Rebellion shut down! --> 4. The brutal regime decides to make a show only slight more depressing than Jersey Shore by selecting random kids to kill each other! --> 5. Our protagonist, Fatness is selected with along with some kid named Pita Bread to fight for their right to party in the reality TV show! --> 6. Generic Action and killing --> 7. Some dogs that look like human out of nowhere and a botched up romance between Peta Bread and Fatness that serves no purpose. --> 8. Fatniss and Peta Bread wins! Yay! Tacos for everyone! --> 9. Peta bread loves Fatniss, but Fatniss loves some other kind of baked goods. --> The End.

How does this become a main character?

OK, so this book WASN'T TERRIBLE, but it wasn't good by any means. It scores about average in my book. So I decided that the sequels were not worth reading and just trashed the book. I never expected it to come up ever again in my life. Imagine my shock couple weeks later after watching Zombieland.

It's a good movie.

After watching and loving Zombieland, I decided to hit the wiki page of Woody Harrelson, the guy above, out of curiosity. Under his filmography, I saw Hunger Games under in production. 'No, No, No' I thought, 'there's no way a pile of average crap like that is getting a movie!' I thought. Hunger Games would pop up again when I was taking the SAT.

I wonder how much money they made off of this. At least 100 million bucks

I was in Chantilly High School when I was taking my SAT last september. AND ALL AROUND THE SCHOOL THE SIGNS WERE TELLING ME TO READ HUNGER GAMES!!!! Apparently, its the book of choice for those CHS kids who can't read jackshit. FOR GOODNESS SAKES, EVEN NARTUO HAS A BETTER PLOT THAN HUNGER GAMES AND NARUTO IS ABOUT A ORANGE NINJA!!! I was pissed at the fact that a book like hunger games got so much recognized and fame while other better works get stuck in the dust. I lost all respect for CHS that day.

Screw them.

And now, there's a movie out and it's earning shit ton of money. Now, I have watched bits of that movie and heard reviews. They all agree that its is just about average. I don't care about the fact that Hunger Games kinda ripped of Battle Royale (which is a better move btw). But I really hate the fact that something so average got a movie deal while better works get stuck in the dust. Whatevs I guess. I just hope they don't make the sequel to this book into a movie as well, but they probably will. To chill off after raging, I think I'm gonna listen to this music piece.

It's the best game franchise ever. Better than Mass Effect.

So, I guess I'm just tired tonight and just can't rage as much as I used to. But no worries, I'll continue this blog from now on. You can expect better and more poor grammar and capitalizations in the future. Adios amigos.

-JC

I haven't updated this place in like forever.

Heck. I'm busy.
I'll start updating next week when the midterms are done.
For now, listen to this awesome song.

'Tis Awesome.