Batman Vs. The Dark Knight

Today I saw something that I thought was really cool so I thought I'd share. It's a side by side comparison of the trailers for 1989's Batman movie and 2008's Batman movie. The trailers are near identical. Check it out.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Also in VGTO news I'm playing GTA IV, so I haven't worked on the show at all today. Hopefully you're doing the same. :)

N Please

It's a little old but yesterday I played a little bit of N+ (again). If you have no idea what I'm talking about N+ is the sequel to the extremely popular ninja physics flash based game called N. You can check out N for free at their website. N+ on the other hand is a game for XBLA (and eventually DS and PSP too, but I think that version is slightly different). The game has a very minimalist graphical style but the graphics are not the point of N+. The fun is in the physics and challenge of the game. You play as a little Ninja avoiding everything from Spikes to robots in an attempt to grab as much gold as possible and make it to the exit. The XBLA version is mostly based on leader boards, where you compete with your friends and in that spirit, if you guys want to challenge my scores you can add Ben1842 to your buddy list on XBLA. I'll play it some today and see if I can't make those scores a little tougher to beat. Also you guys can feel free to hit me up for a game of most anything.

See you there. :)

I'm sort of already sick of all the GTA talk but it's coming out this week and I saw an interesting article on it over at What TheyPlay. In the piece John asks Kids how they plan to get there hands on GTA IV. It's great stuff and some of the answers are pretty sneaky. I never would have thought of half of that stuff when I was a kid. John also has a follow up on his personal blog that goes into it a bit more.

As for the game itself, it's looking to be pretty good. Both IGN and 1UP have given it their equivalent of a 10.

On a Totally unrelated note, I got my hands on Mario Kart Wii today and so far I'm kinda ....ehhh on the whole thing. I'm sure it'll be fun with my friends but I played it this morning with my wife and I have to say that I didn't have any fun until I turned the item setting to “Strategic” or whatever it calls the one where the most powerful items come less frequently. Once I found that, it was just about as fun as Double Dash (minus the two players on one Kart feature). It seems like a decent game but nothing to get too excited about. I haven't tried the wheel yet but I imagine it'll suck. I liked excite Truck but Mario Kart seems like there's just too much to do (including the new tricks) to be able to use the wheel.


Lastly the show is still coming but I'm trying to finish a few of them all at once. This wasn't really a choice since I had a few thing holding me back on each one but I think I'll have them all straitened out soon and be back on schedule. Lance said he'd have the intro for one of them done today so hopefully early next week you'll see something new from me. :)

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

Go Lakers!

You guys may not know this but I'm a huge Lakers fan. I've watched them since I was a kid and for the last 5 or so years I have watched every single game (Thanks to Tivo). This year it looks like the Lakers may have a shot at the title for the first time in a while. Right now they are up 2-0 and I heard on the telecast of the last game that only 16 or so teams have ever come back from a 2-0 deficit in NBA playoff history.
It's not really surprising that the Lakers are winning the first round since they were matched 1st seed Vs 8th seed, but it'll be interesting to see how they do as the Playoffs go on. I'm hoping they can still do well now that it seems like Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza are not going to come back this season.
So what team are you guys rooting for?

*Edit* Lakers Win again, can they make it a sweep? We'll see on Monday. :)

A lucky Break

As the guy behind Video Game Take-Out I have a pretty decent number of handheld games. Over the years I've had a ton of them but some have gotten lost or loaned out to a friend never to be returned. It's sad but true, but luckily yesterday I got a bunch of those games I lost over the years back. My wife was at the local GameStop yesterday (buying Persona 3 Fes) and there was a guy in line trading in a bunch of old handheld games. The clerk totaled it all up for the guy and he was gonna get 20 bucks. Then my wife stepped in and said she'd give him 30 for all the games. Have I mentioned how awesome my wife is? anyway the guy agreed and we got all the games in that picture for $30. pretty awesome deal considering Gamestop wanted about 30 for just the two advance wars games.
On a sad note I just found out that Gamestop is no longer carrying Gameboy Color games anymore, which sucks because they were the only store in my area that still did. Oh well, I still got some great games on the cheap and the internet isn't going to stop taking in GBC games any time soon. :)

EPISODE SIX: "Pr0N."

Presenting Episode Six; which can be thought of as a sort-of followup to Episode Two. We discuss (well.. I discuss, at least) the somewhat uncomfortable and not-at-all clearcut issue of objectification of women in the video game medium, the likely cultural/societal reasons for it, the ramifications of these design choices on gamers and gamer-culture, possible solutions and any other serious-sounding excuse I can find to run suggestive pictures of the girls from "Dead or Alive." Helloooooo, web traffice ;)



This is the first one of these to hit where I haven't used the sound-speed editing at all, so I hope people aren't too dissapointed to learn how dull my normal speaking voice is.

Overall, I'm happy with how this one turned out considering actually picking a definative point of view was kind of a challenge. On the one hand, as I admit more-or-less upfront in the video-proper.. I not only COMPLETELY understand "why" game designers tend to present their female characters in these ways - I don't see a damn thing wrong with it in the broad sense: You want characters to be appealing, and it doesn't get much more appealing than a sexy, large-breasted girl wearing next to nothing jumping around with ninja skills and yelping in Manga-nese. It's not a new phenomenon, look up a 1940s comic book character called "Phantom Lady" sometime. On the other hand, when you take a step back and look at the medium objectively the fact that characters as ridiculously proportioned/costumed as Mai Shiranui or "Soul Calibur's" Ivy tend to pass entirely without comment (other than "whoa," I mean) well... that says and implies a lot of things about game culture and NONE of it is especially flattering.

So... it's not that I want to see Team Ninja sign all the girls up for reduction-surgery or anything, but we DO probably want to be more aware of how this fits in to the culture, perceptions and all of that. I mean, just keep in mind: The "Tomb Raider" series has NEVER had a single installment that was anything other than average as an overall game, but was SOMEHOW popular and well-known enough to warrant two huge-budget movies starring an Academy Award winner. Lara Croft has TWO movies while Link and Zelda don't have ONE... entirely on the basis of digitally-rendered titties. That's what's known as letting things get out of hand, people.

SRPG 4 Me

A few days ago I picked up a game for the DS called Rondo of Swords. It's published by Atlus which means it's niche and that it will be pretty much impossible to find by the end of next week. It's a Strategy RPG probably most similar to Fire Emblem, but it has it's own weird fighting system that takes a bit of getting used to. So far I'm enjoying it but I think it's probably the hardest SRPG I've ever played.
I really love these types of games though so I'll probably keep at it in my off time. (If I can keep myself away from Persona 3 FES)

The Controller Conundrum

So a few days ago I picked up a Nintendo 64. I traded my old one for a Playstation back when the 64 was starting to look like it was loosing the war of who could get more awesome games. I never regretted the trade but now that I have a 64 something came to mind. Why don't companies still make controllers and accessories for old systems? It's pretty tough to find a good price on a working N64 controller. The joysticks just tend to get loose over time.
I know that Nintendo is capable of making the old controllers because they do it in Japan. Recently they re released the Super Famicom (SNES) controller for the Wii and they started making Gamecube controllers for Wii players in Japan. so why can't I get some controller love here in the states Nintendo?

EPISODE FIVE: "Patriot Games"

There's been a meme going around talk radio and the right-wing blogosphere for about a year now that video games (or, rather, Military FPS games) are becoming the new #1 entertainment for "patriotic" Americans, replacing the output of "liberal" Hollywood. I'm callin' BULLSHIT on this one, details in the video:



I'll be honest, I'm not 100% satisfied with how this one came out. The 10-minute time limit on YouTube meant I had to use the sped-up sound more than I would've liked to, and while it means I got out what I wanted to in terms of words I'm concerned that it undercuts some of the more serious matters I'm stumbling around swatting at with a wiffle-bat. Overall, I think it's as good as I can make it within current circumstances, and the important thing is I think the point gets across. It's not so much that I have a problem with the IDEA of video games having a conservative and/or pro-war political bent, I just happen to think those propping up this whole notion are grasping at straws and damaging the medium as a result.

The subject-matter has been on my to-do list since before Episode One, but I've been hesitant to jump into politics too early. This is meant to be about the culture surrounding a hobby, not a political machine, and if you get into politics before establishing a broader identity you risk getting pigeonholed as "a liberal commentator" or "right-wing game rant guy" which can turn off a lot of people unnecessarily. For what it's worth, I'm generally libertarian-leaning independent. I loathe Hillary Clinton, I find Obama's cheezy tent-revival schtick insufferable even though he seems like a nice fella otherwise, I admire the hell out of John McCain and voted for him in the Republican primary BUT I'm against unnecessarily prolonging the Iraq War plus I've nothing but contempt for the current administration. Make of that what you will.

Greetings

I'm not going to make it a habit to post things other than new video clips here, (if you MUST subject yourself to me in essay-form, check out http://moviebob.blogspot.com) but given the events of the last 24 hours I felt the need for a more-proper intro here. For earlier (read: pre-4/12/08) readers and friends who may not have noticed, the mighty ScrewAttack.com was nice enough to put OverThinker Episode One up on it's Submission Sunday page yesterday, and as a result that episode and the other four have gone overnight from a slow trickle of views to thousands.

And, really... Wow. I'm kind of in shock. While this may sound disingenuous coming from a guy with TWO blogs... I'm not really good at seeking/recieving attention. So this is pretty wild, for me. But I want all you folks linking here from The YouTubes to know that I'm just incredibly grateful for all the positive feedback so far (and the negative is helpful in it's way, too.)

Also, let me use the opportunity to answer a few questions/comments that seem to have come up an awful lot in the YouTube talkbacks for each vid:

1.) Yes, the speed does change from bit to bit in some of the clips. YouTube only lets you post 10 minutes or less, so in some cases I've done some speeding-up of the recording in order to trim seconds here and there. I'm trying to cut back on this and/or bring more direct attention to it in future installments, because the sped-up speaking makes it sound like I'm trying to steal Yahtzee's routine (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation) which is something I definately want to avoid as much as possible.

2.) Speaking of which, let me put this to bed right now: Yahtzee and The Angry Video-Game Nerd (who's videos are posted at ScrewAttack.com and their GameTrailers associate-page, do yourself a favor and check him out, he's the man) are both 10,000 times better at this than I am. The comparisons are appreciated, really... but I'm not worthy of them. Hell, Yahtzee has a new full review up every week and can actually talk that fast - that's just fucking astounding.

3.) I'll probably be sticking more to cultural-commentary than reviews at this time, mostly for practical purposes: I'm not exactly wealthy and don't have regular access to every new game and/or system, nor does work permit to finish games in a timely enough fashion for a review to be very relevant by the time I could provide it. That being said, "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword" for the DS? BUY IT.

So, um... yeah. Thanks for visiting, and I hope you continue to enjoy the videos!

The Mechanical Man

i've been listening to a lot of mash-ups lately and i came across a Johnny Cash vs. Ladytron mash-up that's kinda an electronic remix of "The Man Comes Around". As i was listening to the song i thought... what if Johnny Cash was a giant musical robot? Well naturally he'd wander through the forrest playing his giant robot heart out!

EPISODE FOUR: "The End of The World as Wii Know It?"

As the runaway success of The Wii seems poised to kick-off a second Nintendo Age, so-called "hardcore gamers" are predicting a dire outcome from the influx of "casual players." The OverThinker isn't so sure... because he's been here once before.

EPISODE THREE: "A Kirby Confession"

The OverThinker makes a plea for open-mindedness among hardcore gamers, and comes clean about his onetime rejection of one of gaming's greatest.

EPISODE TWO: "Super Mario & The Sacred Feminine"

The OverThinker agrees that the portrayal of women in video games leaves something to be desired. Conventional wisdom says it all goes back to Super Mario and "save the princess"... but The OverThinker feels conventional wisdom has got it all wrong.

EPISODE ONE: "A Matter of Character."

In the debut installment, the overwhelming awesomeness of "No More Heroes" leads the OverThinker to lament the lack of originality in the modern game world.