Classics: Sid Meier's Pirates!

Game review here!

A classic game, remade in 2004 (or somewhere around that time) for PC and Xbox, Sid Meier's Pirates is... well, heck, I don't even know what genre you'd call it. Adventure, I guess.

You play as a young man, named whatever the heck you want, who is separated from his family by some evil count guy. Years later, he signs on with a ship. You get to choose, English, Dutch, Spanish, or French. As soon as you choose what crew you sign on with, you get a nice cinematic where you lead a mutiny because the captain is a total dick.

Nice! Go from swabbie to Captain before the game even starts!

So basically, the only thing that's really influenced by the captain you choose to sign on with is what port you start at. You can change your alliances in game easily just by deciding who to shoot at and who not to shoot at. If you're me, you'll have a tendency to shoot at the Spanish, because everybody knows that the Spanish were dicks back in that day. They might be dicks now, I don't know, I've never been to Spain. If you're my roommate Chris, you'll have a tendency to shoot at the French, because he just plain doesn't like France.

The game is essentially a sandbox, except that its filled with water and looks like the Caribbean. You can capture other boats, and create a fleet of up to ten ships, provided you have sufficient crew to man all those ships. Different ships have different stats, as well. The smallest ship, the Indian War Canoe, carries 50 men (75 with upgrades), something like 8 cannons, 20 or so tons of goods, and is the fastest, most maneuverable ship in the game. The largest ship, by contrast, carries hundreds of crew, 50 cannons, and hundreds of tons of cargo. However, it is clumsy to maneuver, and sometimes goes backwards if the wind isn't blowing just right.

You also have to deal with food. The more crew you have, the faster food will be consumed, and if you don't have enough crew, some food will go to waste. One upgrade can help with this. If you buy barrels, food lasts longer. Presumably without barrels, you just kinda tossed the foodstuffs on the floor of the hold, and it probably got stepped on every time someone had to get some rope or whatever.

The story, should you choose to actually pursue it, involves beating up the same bad guy over and over to get clues about the location of your missing family members. Once you have sufficient information, you can go to that location and dramatically kick down the door, at which point your relatives, who have not seen you since you were a little kid, will instantly recognize the angry pirate you and run up to hug you. Then you never see them for the rest of the game. Weird.

You also have to occasionally divide up the plunder, which basically resets your possessions and gives you the option of raising the difficulty one notch. If you do not divide the plunder, your crew will start to get irritated and leave. Before you divide the plunder, it is best to sell all your goods and every ship except your best one. Note that you do not lose any story progress or maps by dividing the plunder.

Getting on the good side of factions can get you promoted, which grants you bonuses, such as goods being cheaper, ship repairs being cheaper, and crew being easier to recruit, but to get on the good side of one faction, you have to get on the bad side of whoever they are at war with.

Replay value is practically infinite, as many events in the game are random, so it is never quite the same twice. You can also choose from several different time periods, which pretty much just changes the distribution of ports and cities.

The Bottom Line: excellent game. Highly recommended. Besides, it has Pirates in it. And you are one. Why are you not already playing this game?

Eternal Sonata

Hello again! H4ZM4T with another review! This time it's Eternal Sonata, a game about Classical music, crazy dreams, and annoying combat.

Eternal Sonata pits you in the Dreams of Frederic Francois Chopin, who, in all honesty, is a Badass (And a classical music composer.) What blew me away is that Chopin was a real person, and the stuff it says about him in this game is actually true. He really did fall in love with some girl who smoked cigars and wrote romance novels, and he really was a good composer.

Now, on to the premise of the game. You are pitted in Chopin's Dream, where he meets this girl, whose name is Polka, and she can do magic. SINCE She can do magic, she is dying. And because she is dying, everyone hates her. They go off, in his dream, and try and find out what is going on with them while Chopin is convinced this is all some crazy fricken dream and he's about ready to wake up.

The premise, though stupid, is actually not that bad once you get into it. I'm a huge RPG nerd, and this game made me happy in the fact that it had potential to be a good, classic RPG.

The combat, I will admit, is pretty annoying. The Dialogue is worse though. The only good voice actor is the guy who plays Chopin, because he's the only one who actually sounds like he's hit puberty. The combat was really fun when the game first started. It has this weird system where people take turns going, but it's free roam and they have generally 5 seconds to attack, heal, whatever. When they stand still, the time will stop, so they can prepare to do whatever. This was an excellent idea, until they decided that "Hey! We're gonna go and fuck it all up for you!" They added in a feature where your party gains "Levels." Why? I don't know either. You'd think "Well hey! I gained a level! What excellent feature does that unlock? More time?" No. As a matter of fact, you get LESS Time. Why? I don't know. It's fucking extremely retarded though. Also, when you stop moving, the time keeps ticking away. You know what it's thinking? "Why are you standing still, retard?!"

Also, aiming can be annoying. I miss all the time when I think my guy is standing close enough to hit him without grinding on him. Unfortunately, you practically have to rub your junk against the enemy to Do some damage. Also, the fact that the amount of light and dark in a level affects how you play is really annoying. Some enemies get stronger in those areas, and you can only do certain attacks in different light spectrums. Again: I have no idea who thought this was a good idea.

Finally, it's just another RPG. It's long, it's tedious, it has it's wonderful moments, and I personally like it. But you have to be into the genre to love it as much as I do.


For Classic RPG fans, I give it a 7/10. The game isn't as bad as it seems, but it can be very tedious, but for Regular gamers I give it a 3/10. If you don't like the Genre, this isn't a game to play.

Spice and Wolf

Can't think....

Sooo fluffy....

NO! FOCUS!

So anyway, Spice and Wolf is an anime show. I have just watched the first season, which consists of 13 episodes. It has been renewed for a second season, which is supposed to air this Summer in Japan. We English speaking folks can expect subtitled versions sometime after that. Probably not too long.

So anyway, the show follows a merchant named Craft Lawrence, who travels all over the place messing with people in order to make money. One night, he finds a naked girl sleeping among the furs in the back of his wagon.

Now, why he objects to this is completely beyond me, but he does, and as he tries to wake her, he notices she has ears and a tail. A big fluffy, huggable tail that I want to stick my face in.

NO! FOCUS!

This girl turns out to be Horo, the Wise Wolf, who is the goddess of the harvest, or the wheat, or something. Honestly, I was distracted by the tail, and might have missed a few lines of dialogue. After she steals some of his jerky and eats it, he asks to see her real form, and then I'm not even sure what happens, but he gets knocked out or something. Horo appears naked in the show many times, but its never explicit, and she doesn't have any nipples.

So anyway, some more stuff happens, and she ends up accompanying him on his journeys to sell stuff. And he finds that a cute girl is a good way to throw shopkeepers off guard and get them to sell things unreasonably cheap.

The show is undeniably slow paced, and yet, for some reason, incredibly riveting. The tail is certainly part of it, but it alone cannot explain why I found myself so glued to the show, episode after episode. There are moments of intense action and conflict, but honestly, they are few and far between, and much of the show is driven by dialogue.

Twice in the first season, Horo turns into a huge fucking red wolf and kicks total ass, which more than makes up for the overall slow pace of the show.

The Bottom Line: Excellent anime, but I'm not sure why its so good. And be careful if you Google it. There are a lot of Horo pronz out there on the interwebs.

Gran Torino

So... Gran Torino. Going in, all I knew was that it involved Clint Eastwood, which was reason enough for me to watch it.

The title of the movie, however, should have been more along the lines of "Clint Eastwood is a Badass Old Man."

Clint Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, is a Korean war veteran who is undeniably racist, and basically just a grouchy old man. He's also the only white guy still living in a neighborhood full of Asian immigrants. Or in his words, "gooks." Walt's family constantly pisses him off, and his grandchildren fail miserably at deserving an ounce of respect for him. Near the beginning, his granddaughter is seen texting at her grandmother's funeral.

Thao, the son of the Asian family next door quickly finds himself involved with a gang he really doesn't want to be a part of, and they send him to steal Walt's 1972 Gran Torino, also known as a fuckin' sweet car. As he tries to steal it, he is confronted by a pissed off old man with an M1 Garand. Thao escapes, but refuses to return to the gang. They come to his house and try to take him by force, and the resulting struggle ends up on Walt Kowalski's lawn, where he once again confronts them with his Garand. They get the fuck off his lawn.

His actions make him a hero of the neighborhood, and he's actually a bit upset about this, because a bunch of "gooks" keep putting "garbage" on his front porch as thank you gifts.

He becomes a hero again when he saves Thao's sister Sue from not only an idiot boyfriend, but also three black gangsters. When he gives her a ride home, they have a conversation, and the phrase "You're alright, kid." is uttered, proving that despite being somewhat racist, he still recognizes goodness when he sees it in a person.

When one of Walt's sons tries to convince him to move to a rest home (on Walt's birthday, no less), Walt gets pissed off and kicks them out before spending some time sitting on his porch drinking some beers. Sue walks over and invites him to a barbecue, which he only attends because he's out of beers, and they aren't.

Over time, he starts to become fond of Sue and Thao, and the way his character develops is some of the best goddamn characterization I have ever seen in any movie, ever.

Thao is sent by his family to work for Walt as a way of apologizing for trying to steal his car. By the end of the period he was made to work for, Walt is actually quite fond of him, and helps "man him up" with extremely questionable methods and completely misleading examples. Then he helps him get a job.

When the gang messes with Thao again, Walt messes with them. While you have to question the tact of his actions, it hard to question the effectiveness. Beating the shit out of someone and putting a gun in their face is pretty likely to make them more inclined to listen to you and obey your demands.

After the gang steps it up, Walt goes home and puts a fist through every flat surface in his house, then sits down figures out a plan to take down the gang, but I've already spoiled enough of the movie for you, so I won't tell you how it goes.

The Bottom Line: some of the best writing and most believable characters I've seen on screen in quite a while. And Clint Eastwood is just as badass as always. It's well worth it to see this movie, I strongly recommend it.

Resident Evil 5 (Demo)

Hello. H4ZM4T, You're favorite nerd, is here to blog about video games again! And this time, it's the highly anticipated RE5... But just a demo.


So Of course, I don't know everything about the game yet, but I can certainly write about what's good so far.

I, personally, am a HUGE RE Fan. I love every game (Even Survivor) and am very excited for 5. Now Onto the Review.

In this game you play Chris Redfield (From the original RE) who is a badass SWAT Type dude trying to rid the infection in the South African area. You get a partner, whose name is Sheva, and they basically help you rid this monsterous infection. And Honestly? Thank GOD. This game is definitely a lot faster paced then it's predecessor. The Zombies seem to be more numerous, the ammo seems to be sparce, and the piss in my pants seems to grow more and more as I pull the trigger, begging my friend to give me ammo.

As I just mentioned, another WONDERFUL Inclusion of this game is the Cooperative mode, where your buddy can play as your female friend. This makes the game a lot easier, because even though you can roughly tell what your AI friend is doing, it's always easier to communicate with your friend then a computer program (When I am yelling "Dammit Man! Shoot that Zombie!" Chances are, AI Sheva won't hear me.) I'm not going to lie, after seeing the little girl from RE4 practically ruin my fun thanks to the fact she can't do anything except scream "LEEEEEOOOOOOONNNNN!!", My hopes weren't very high. But, when Sheva came in and murdered all the zombies I couldn't see, and proceeded to help my dying ass, I paused the game, got on my knees, and thanked CAPCOM for putting the greatest thing ever into this game; A REAL Partner.

The graphics are amazing. I saw the cutscenes and previews and didn't think it would live up to the 360 quality of graphics, but when I saw the vibrant and suspicious area of South Africa, I practically went into a seizure(of happiness, of course.) The Graphics are very detailed, and although the game is no Crysis (Thank god) You should be able to look at it and go "Those are pretty damn good."

Even though it was a demo, I saw very few bugs, except one major one; You can't pick how much ammo you give your friend. This bugged the shit out of me. The people I play with tend to see a box of ammo, realize they have 50 bullets, think about adding it to their collection while I'm blowing off heads saying "I'm down to like, 8 bullets in my box" and go "Well I'll grab this and give it to them!" This would be wonderful, if they didn't give me all 60 bullets they had. Even though I'm more then happy to have a lot of ammo, I feel like a greedy douche having it all while my now ammoless buddy is getting his head ripped off because he is running out of ammo.

Aside from that, the game is astonishing. I thought it would practically be a repeat of RE4, and even though the gameplay is similar, the story, graphics, and overall funness of the game shot through the roof. I have played the Demo over and over and all it does is make me cry at the fact RE5 isn't out yet (I have the Collector's Edition Prordered!)

I give it a 9.5/10. If the small ammo problem is fixed, I'm almost Positive RE5 completed will get a 10. Definitely the best in the series, and it isn't even done.

Robot Chicken

Woah, this is a new one.

Reviewing a television show, eh?

Why yes, I guess I am.

Now to those of you who don't already know, Robot Chicken is the brainchild of Seth Green, and is one of Cartoon Network's most popular shows. It is also filmed entirely in stop-motion, using mostly toys as the actors and props.

And to top that off, it has some of the darkest humor you'll see on TV these days. Well, unless you watch some of the other stuff on Cartoon Network's [adult swim]. That is the place for you to watch TV if you're into dark humor. But anyway, Robot Chicken.

The show is composed of chains of sketches of varying length, and one is very rarely related to the next. The transition from sketch to sketch is a brief moment of static, as though one were changing the channel. Recurring gags are used frequently. Some of the more famous gags are the humping robot, the nerd, and self referential humor. Thus far, the last episode of every season has involved Seth Green and some of the other producers of the show being informed that they have been cancelled.

I'm afraid there's not a whole more I can add here, so I bid you good day, and good bye.

The Bottom Line: If you enjoy dark humor, this is definitely a show for you. Otherwise, you'll probably want to avoid it. And all of [adult swim] for that matter.

Prince Of Persia

Hey Everyone. It's H4ZM4T, here with a Review for Prince of Persia.


So I, Being a huge Prince of Persia fan, was extremely excited to find out that they made a new title for this wonderful series, and was eager to play.

You play a prince, obviously, who has lost his donkey that had plenty of riches on it for him. He goes looking for his donkey and finds this crazy chick who can do a bunch of magic and stuff, which is sweet. Also, she won't let you die, which although helps you, gets a bet saddening. I get sad watching her save my ass over and over while playing the game. Also, you unleash some super demon type thing, and because you do this, it's your job to make sure it doesn't mass murder everything.

The Graphics are wonderful. I've always been a fan of Cel Shading, so that instantly caught me. The cutscenes are alright at first... but then they get extremely repetitive. (Alright, I get it. I suck at this game and you have to save me, but can I skip the cutscene already? I feel like shit every time!)

The Game is EXTREMELY repetitive. After you unlock all the combos and get used to whooping major ass, you start to realize "Wait, This is the 10th time I've foughten you!!!" The Dialogue is terrible. No one wants to hear the stupid prince try and act all super suave after this badass chick you don't even get to play as saves you from death over and over and OVER.

I had a lot of fun with this game for about two hours, which is the point that I realized I was screaming, trying not to break my controller, and feeling like a loser for getting saved constantly. If It wasn't so terribly repetitive, it'd be a great game.

But 20 hours of Nonstop button mashing and feeling like crap? No thanks.

3/10 for the amazing graphics and original idea, but they need more combos and less crappy dialogue