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FightingSeraph
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Shane @FightingSeraph

Age 39, Male

Need a new one.

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Slidell, Louisiana

Joined on 5/25/01

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Things on my Mind datatrack 26

Posted by FightingSeraph - December 27th, 2014


166722_141970484712_dbd_apple_watch.png1. Michael Sporn's Death: I knew when he wasn't posting regularly that something was up. While I haven't seen any of his films; Poe looked like something worthwhile. Unfortunately, his death from pancreatic cancer killed the chances of that getting finished. To be honest, I was expecting him to recover, but that turned out to be a fool's hope.

2. Rick Santorum: Dr. Michael Hurd and Edward Cline were right to criticize him and this country's conservative faction. Seriously, he's basically another man in the government-control obsessed, Barack Obama/Edwin Edwards/Mitt Romney/Newt Gingrich tree. If it is between extreme socialists, the extremely religious, and/or corrupt moochers running this mercantilist, overbearing, surveillance obsessed, war addicted, schizophrenic, hypocritical government; is the United States still savable/worth saving? In case you are wondering: I do not, nor will ever endorse conspiracy theories.

3. Hayao Miyazaki: From the films that I have seen from Japan's most highly regarded animated filmmaker; they aren't as good as both critics and the general audience proclaim them to be. Kiki's Delivery Service felt like a sterile, expert-but-empty excercize; Princess Mononoke came off as confused and had nothing but an “I hate everything everyone's doing complex;” and Laputa felt like he was trying too hard. However, he is an excellent draftsman, and I do agree with him on the following: The Fleischer Brothers (though their influence on his animation style rarely shows), a dislike towards most anime, and a common complaint regarding Japanese voice actors (almost all of them sound the same).

4. Gnash: I've been telling people about this through e-mails, and it is the GNU Flash Player. They have made versions for Windows, Raspberry Pi, Android, Wii, Haiku (open source implementation of the Be Operating System.), Amiga One (Hyperion Entertainment bought what was left of the old company), PS3, etc. I have also suggested to those that I have emailed to tell as many people about this. Here's the links:

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash

http://www.gnashdev.org

http://wiki.gnashdev.org/building_for_android

Rob Savoye deserves both our thanks, respect, and support.

5. Filmation: With both Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland dead, I'm going to be honest on Filmation: they weren't very good in spite keeping jobs stateside. Fat Albert was mildly enjoyable at times, but the rest of that studio's cartoons were either vapid (Superman) or pretty damned shitty (Mighty Mouse). Look, Lou Scheimer appeared to be a nice guy in interviews, and yet he didn't give a shit about how his studio's output turned out to be. I mean, John Kricfalusi and his friends worked at that studio and hated how they had to trace model sheets on every show they worked on; Milton Gray had a nice-looking walk cycle for Flash Gordon, but the production manager rejected it for fear of embarrassing the studio heads; and for every good storyline that Paul Dini and J Michael Straczynki wrote, there were a shitload of badly-written dreck that got approved. (To be fair, other studios at that time had those same problems in varying degrees.)

6. Roland AIRA: This series of instruments also has left me conflicted. For starters, I like the designs, MIDI/USB enhancements, and the SH-101 add-on. On the other hand, the TB-3 looks like a cross between the TB-303 and the Kaoss Pad 3. I mean, couldn't they have used a single two-waveform oscillator like the original and the numerous clones such as Bassbot's TT-303 or Mode Machines' x0xbox? Or for that matter, re-release the originals with MIDI/USB enhancements akin to what Korg did with the MS-20?

7. Robin Williams' Suicide: I have to concur with what Stefan Molyneux said in his “The Truth About” series, along with many of Free Domain Radio's members. I liked most of his movies such as Popeye and Death to Smoochy, and despite his personal deficiencies, was a genuine successor to the kind of comedy that Bob Clampett and Tex Avery did. (The other was Jim Carrey, but he fucked up after Bruce Almighty.) Here is what really bothers me: How come it is okay to downplay one person's (Such as Mr. Williams or our own Ben Spurgin) achievements because of how they died, but can't criticize the equally dead Edd Gould's cartoons due to his cancer death? In addition, I have to concur with what Maddox had to say not only on how ABC covered the story, but how various other News outlets didn't credit him for pointing out ABC News' little hypocrisy. Speaking of which, it reminds me of all of those people who only credit YouTube for the Internet Animation Revolution. Never mind Atom Films, Newgrounds, Ifilm, TX Mafia, Deviant Art, etc., which have been in Internet Entertainment years before YouTube. (And people bitch about Bob Clampett taking credit for cartoons that he had nothing to do with?)

8. Wii Homebrew: Yep, I softmodded my Wii to play homebrews. So far I have WiiMC (which does swf, MP3, MP4, MOV, WMA, WMV, OGG, OGM, and various other audio, video, and image formats), Wii Doom (An exceptionally worthwhile port of Id's original), Wii Quake (Which suffers from Wii Remote hypersensitivity), The Prophecy (A good Castlevania clone that ought to be finished), Wii Xplore (which hopefully will get Gnash soon), Wii Abuse (another amazing PC game port), ProjectGMS (A Mega Man clone with amazing graphics), Nowhere (an unfinished First-person adventure game in Spanish), Engine 02 (Now under a different name), and many others. Here's where I learned about this: http://www.wiibrew.org and there's a page for Wii U: http://www.wiiubrew.org

9. PS4 vs Xbox One: Am I the only person who thinks that the X-Box 360 and the PS3 were powerful enough to not warrant replacements for another two or so years? Another thing is why the hell would anyone want to stream videos on a video game system? Sure, I have Netflix on my Wii, but never use it. If I had a choice, it will get deleted. In spite of Nintendo's overreaction to this site, the Wii U had all of its features since it was launched. In addition, it has plenty of great stuff that no one has noticed. (This is also why Maddox plugged the E70 by Nokia.) Oh, and one more thing: Here's one game that I would love to have...

10. Strider 2014: After seeing videos of this game, I have to say this is one of the few high-budget games that are worthwhile. Double Helix did an excellent job at mixing both the NES game and Strider 2 together with a visual style reminiscent of the much-maligned Beast Machines. As much as I want a copy of this game, there are a few things worth mentioning: One) There's no lip-sync on any of the characters. Honestly, when Capcom made Spawn: In the Demon's Hand years ago--which had both lip-sync and jaw movement—it looks disconcerting and amateur. Especially with such excellent voice acting. Two) The music, while not horrendous, isn't that conductive for that kind of action aside from the remixed songs. Would it not have killed them to get either Chris Huelsbeck, Tommy Tallarico, Jesper Kyd, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Tamayo Kawamoto, Yuki Iwai, etc? Three) Why wasn't Moto Kikaku also credited for co-creating the series? (Unless they were mentioned in the credits.) Four)No Wii U version? Honestly, that system could have handled it provided that they played their cards right. Five)I don't have a Steam account, and probably won't. By the way, I do own a sword similar to Hiryu's Cipher.

11. Valve Software: While this company isn't a bad developer by any means; I do find them to be very overvalued. I mentioned before about my dislike towards the original Half-Life on account of being really bland and all the hype surrounding Counter-Strike. On the other hand, Portal has something that was actually original going on, and Team Fortress 2 had a sense of humor. Regarding their Steam Service: It's great for small developers and finding hard-to-find stuff, but I feel that there is a need for redundancy when it comes to selling video games, etc. I'd also mention how similar their service is to the Satellaview add-on to the Super NES/Super Famicom. (I'm not saying that they are ripping St-Giga and Bandai (Namco) off, but that comparison had to be made.) Finally, if Gabe Newell hates consoles so much, then: Why did he agree to port Half-Life to the Dreamcast and PS2; port both of the Portal games, TF2, and HL2 to the X-Box 360 and PS3; or bothering with the Steam Machines?

12. CGI: Let me be frank, I like CGI when it is done right. (Rendering and animaton blends in with the sets/actors/etc. When it comes to effects; judicious use of traditional animation principles in animated cartoons.) Unlike Mark Kausler or Thad K, I consider CGI animation akin to clay; you can squash and stretch it. (Examples: Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Mario Party 3, and Luigi's Mansion.) Unfortunately, the focus is on painstakingly constructed realism akin to the aforementioned live action effects, which explains both DreamWorks and Blue Sky. Hell, those N64 and GameCube titles still like livelier than anything Pixar did after The Incredibles. (Though Ratatouille is the exception.) Oh, and Wall-E has very strong similarities to GiFTPiA and Chibi-Robo, and its junkyard Earth setting looks like it was ripped out of Heavy Traffic.

13. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe: While I have not played this game; there is something that needs to be said. Just because Batman doesn't kill people doesn't justify taking out the extreme violence that MK is (in)famous for. Wouldn't it be much better if they just gave the Caped Crusader a friendship and a babality instead? In addition, Deathstroke is one of DC's most violent characters, which further makes themselves look hypocritical. Thirdly, if Midway was serious about being back in black, they should have just did a follow up to MK: Shaolin Monks, but with Scorpion as the main character. I mean, why DC? Why not Capcom or SNK? (MK vs Darkstalkers would have been a better choice.)

14. Conspiracy Theories: Ugh, am I sick of this shit or what? 9/11 “Truth”, Anti-Vaccine drivel, birthers, climate alarmists, etc. Yeah, I went as far as to compare the warming whiners to the Infowars dickheads. Seriously, if the attacks on the World Trade Center really were an inside job, then why are those saying such still alive? I mean, wouldn't they be taken out in a swift, anonymous operation? Also, wouldn't people working in those buildings notice the explosives or those planting them in the building? And to top it all off, they accuse anyone who refutes them of being shills for ever-evil corporations, while, at the same time, taking corporate money. It makes me want to fucking vomit.

15. Jay Ward and Hanna Barbera: I grew up watching cartoons from these TV cartoon pioneers, but looking back on their shows; the majority of them are really dull and/or ugly. For Ward, Scott, et al, they were hobbled by not just low budgets, but deadlines that were far more stringent than what Clampett, Jones, etc. had to deal with. It didn't help that what worked with a three-minute timeframe didn't always work when extended to five minutes or more. The latter were too self-limited and that impacted their animators, writers, and directors in a very negative way. I mean, the commercials they produced were far better than their shows, but at least Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera did admit to how much most of their output sucked. (Even if they hardly did anything about it.)

16. Downloadable Content: I'm in the middle when it comes down to this trend. While there are games that benefited from this (My Life as King, My Life as Darklord, and Mario Kart 8 come to mind); I cannot stand it when companies take out features from prototypical versions, only to sell them back later. It's a complete jape and has to stop. In addition, the micro-transaction craze needs to stay in the arcades.
 


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