Freaks, Ahoi!

Did you ever visit one of those anime/ manga-conventions outside of Japan? If not, you better continue to stay far, far away from them in case you can't familiarize with odd peeps in general... well, at least that applies to Germany/ Europe. While these guys and girls are completely harmless as well as mostly very kind and open, they always creep me out big time whenever I see them. This is no bashing or something, I just can't get along with some of their weird/ embarrassing behaviors. It's okay to like Japan... after all, they totally dominate the world's gross national weirdness. I guess we can all agree that Japan is indeed kick ass! But addressing none-Japanese-people by Japanese names or throwing phrases and words in that language at each other all the time, w/o actually speaking it... that's just lame. And stop calling everything "cool" or "cute" just because it's from Japan. Seriously you guys, I could make money from you just from shitting in a bag and writing something Japanese on it. Face it: most of you are NOT JAPANESE, start growing some own national pride. Being cultural interested is always an awesome thing - being completely obsessed by it however, is not!

Also, let me have a word on the matter of cosplay here. This may appear a little shallow but the thing I noticed is, that many people do it without consideration of their own look. They just dress up for "fun" and "affection" for their favorite character. Okay, if you guys take so much fun in it, so be it. But pleeeeease, don't go public with a intentional sexy-cosplay (close to none body cover) when you weight 120 Kilogram or so. Absolutely NOBODY wants to see this, it's in no way appealing - just purely shocking! Oh, and it's okay to buy a costume if you don't have the skills to make it on your own. Everything is better than looking like you wear a goddamn potato-sack, really. And finally, let me say this: put some shoes on when you walk outside or in public places, being barefooted there (even if your cosplay should "require" it) is nothing but frigging nasty!

Postal - Another Cinematic Suicide

Most people did already hear of him: The German director, producer and businessman Uwe Boll which has focused on porting video games to movies with his own studio Boll KG. Averagely, Mr. Boll's movies are being criticized for simply being bad and ruining the name of a good game franchise. I mean like "OH, SHIT! I WISH I COULD UNWATCH IT!"-bad. Personally, as huge game fans, we can agree with this. However, after seeing first trailers for his movie Postal we were pretty convinced, that this time, it will be an actually good movie. Dark humor is our thing... and the game got plenty of it. Things were looking good for this movie since the game was already so very much fucked-up (in a good way) that chances of ruining it were close to none. Yet, after watching the DVD-release last weekend, we both agreed: Postal is the worst movie EVER made and screening it should be forbidden by law with immediate effect - it's horrible! But of course Mr. Boll thinks of his movie, like always, as the greatest masterpiece ever made. Here's a quote from a website concerning Boll's Postal in German:

Uwe Boll glaubt, er sei besser als Steven Spielberg

Uwe Boll zelebriert Größenwahn in Vollendung. So startet seine mäßige Komödie Postal (siehe auch Filmkritik zu Postal bei GameStar) in den USA am 23. Mai. Am selben Tag kommt auch Indiana Jones 4 in die Kinos. Doch Angst überkommt angesichts der übergroßen Konkurrenz nicht. In einer E-Mail an bloody-disgusting.com schreibt er, warum sein Film gewinnen wird. "Am Indiana-Jones-Wochenende werden wir starten und Indiana Jones an der Kinokasse zerstören! Wir alle wissen, dass Harrison Ford älter als mein Opa und seine Zeit vorbei ist -- würde Michael Moore sagen!"

Uwe Boll

Auch für Spielberg hat Boll einige nette Worte übrig: "Spielberg wird schluderig. Wir haben das bei Krieg der Welten (warum zum Teufel hat der ältere der beiden Brüder überlebt?) und teilweise schon bei Der weiße Hai, E.T., München usw. gesehen! Meine schauspielerische Leistung in Postal als Besitzer des Nazi-Vergnügungsparks übersteigt locker die von Ben Kingsley in Schindlers Liste!"

Frankly, he's saying that he will "destroy" Indiana Jones 4, which screens on the same date as Postal in the USA (23. May). Furthermore, he obviously thinks he's better than Steven Spielberg in terms of movie making and calls his theatrical appearance in Postal, as owner of a Nazi-theme park, better than Ben Kingley's in Schindler's List. Nevertheless, we believe Boll to be a really cool guy. I mean, just look at what insane shit he's saying! And he takes his critics head-on in the boxing ring. You simply can't beat that, haha. Anyway, he should lay his hands off video game-movies... or movies in general. That's just not his thing. Really.

Army of Two - Some Tough Shit

With a little delay, we could lay our greedy little hands on Army of Two at last. This much-anticipated title of ours is totally focused on coop-gameplay. However, of course you can play this game in singleplayer-mode as well... but with a KI-buddy, pretty much everything sucks about it. This title is just meant to be played by two people. Well, but was it any good? The answer: Yes, it was pretty damn good! Took us about 9 hours to complete AND we had to switch the difficulty setting from "Mercenary" to "Recruit" towards the end because it's really kinda hard. With never-ending hordes of enemies swarming at you, you will eventually find yourselfs running out of ammo later in the game. Needless to say that this sucks pretty much ass in a shooter. The loads of enemies can get a little repetitive over time... but if you're up for the challenge, try to beat the game in the "Elite" setting and see how far you can get. To sum it up, this is a pretty good game for all of those, who enjoy coop-gameplay as much as we do. Everyone else should probably stay away from it since you won't even get close to unfold it's full potential in the singleplayer-mode.

Wii - Short for "Massive Failure"

So, yesterday we had the chance to borrow a Wii and give it a first real "test drive" since it's release... and boy, what a piece of shit it was. To make this clear: we were never fans of the Wii by any means in the first place (maybe that's why it took us so long to test it) and couldn't get used to the idea of it being a decent console compared to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but as the open human beings that we of course are, we wouldn't let our prejudices make the final decision.

Geared up with the Wii, 2 Wiimotes and the recent smash-hit title Super Mario: Galaxy as well as the all-time-classic Wii Sports, we were ready for the ultimate showdown. While Sports was indeed slightly entertaining (eventhough my arm started to hurt after a few minutes due to all the waving around of the Wiimote), Super Mario: Galaxy really took the cake. Yes, it does have co-op gameplay. But this gotta be the lamest thing ever in means of co-op gaming so far. The Wii itself also holds some major flaws. The overall apperance is very cheap compared to the other two consoles. Almost makes it look like a product from the great China. What we also noticed is, that you can't even switch games while having it already running one... which is just "meh". There are some more points that annoyed us about the Wii but simply put: We are definetly not going to buy one anytime soon... definetly!

Geeky Saturday

There are many people who love to go clubbing with friends and stuff on a Saturday night. While this sure is a nice thing once in a while, I wouldn't be able to stand it if I would have to do it every weekend like some fellas do. At least, our idea of a perfectly spent Saturday differs from the standard concept from most people of our age. Then again, we are sort of geeky so no wonder. Anyway, there is nothing better than a Saturday with your fellow geek buddy, haha.

This time around, we decided to go to see a movie in the cinema next to playing Call of Duty 4 on the big screen. We basically had to choose between Hitman and The Mist. Since we are used to rely on the ratings of the IMDb, we went for The Mist due to a better one in the end. Oooh, what a horrible mistake that was! Frankly, this gotta be one of the worst movies ever made. You toughed the Stephen King based film Dreamcatcher was bad?! Wait till you see this one. Daddy and son are driving to the supermarket, there comes the mysterious mist, people are dying, monsters within the mist, more people dying, people eventually go crazy and talk/do shit, the end. That's the movie in a nutshell. Just very unsatisfying to watch. If you don't like people talking trash 90% of the movie and only 10% action, a plot where nothing is properly explained to you (like where the mist is coming from except for some cheap theory) and a super disappointing end, I recommend you to stay away from this one! In addition, we also had a fucking annoying audience with this movie. Most of the seats were empty since everyone was watching I Am Legend I assume... but as few as they were, they annoyed the shit out of us. For example, the guy to my right constantly kept breathing in a very noisy way which made me believe he was about to die or something. He also almost shouted whenever he made a comment to his friend. Then, behind us, there was a girl which crackled with some sort of bag again and again. Best of all, the cellphone of the very same girl rang during the screening and guess what?! She actually answered it. I really got the urge to punch these people at that point... hard.

Well, but besides a crappy movie plus an annoying audience, it was of course a full success on all levels again. Last but not least, I made a short video to give you the chance to get an impression of a typical Saturday with us geeks :)

Welcome 2008!

So the first week of 2008 is almost over. We hope your good intentions for this new year still stand and that it will be a good one for all of you. As for us, we spent the new year's eve at what we can do best: Eating, playing games and watching some movies. The only true way to welcome a new year in my opinion, hehe. Plus, I finally got my copy of Call of Duty 4 which I ordered month ago. It's an awesome game~ So yes, the new year is indeed starting pretty good for me. Since it's the first post in 2008, have a video of the nice fireworkshow at Taipei 101.

CG To The Rescue!

Okay, I just saw the trailer for the upcoming CG-movie Resident Evil: Degeneration and I'm totally freakin' over it as a huge fan of the franchise! After the disappointment that were the liveaction Resident Evil films, I hope this one will finally make up for everything that has been done wrong in the past. However, the presentation in the trailer is not too fancy (pretty simple indeed) but what you can tell from the pictures alone so far, looks pretty promising to me. Will definetly be one of the first fans in the theaters when this screens 2008.

The Boomstick And You

Did you know that psychopaths are friggin' cool guys?! Well, at least if you want to believe the creators of the Hitman-series and their newest game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Yes that's right! After the bad luck of last week, we could finally lay our hands on this one for the Xbox 360. We were not expecting too much from it, but we were quiet surprised after rounding up. It's undeniable that the story, graphics, AI, gamemechanics (especially the cover system) and foremost the overall gameplay-time are really on the short/poor side in this one. However, you'll learn to live with that and how to handle these flaws right in a short amount of time. After that, you'll start realizing that the locations in this game always stay very fresh. From urban scenarios over a japanese night club and a U.S. prison to the green hell of a jungle, this game got it all. It also features the probably most awesome game dialoges since long. Imagine you stand of the rooftop of a building, empty a whole MP-magazine into an enemy bitch that just keeps shoting at you and after she drops, your partner says something like: "Kane, I think... she is dead...". Even in the german synchronisation they were still simply hilarious and well done, which is very rare in my opinion. So yeah, this game really was a lot fun eventhough not being the greatest out there. Really not 60,98 EUR-good by any means but decent. We completed the game on the hardest difficulty (here called: morphium) in about 7 ½ hours. If you can rent it somewhere and ideally play it with a buddy in co-op, do it. You will not be wasting your time on a shitty game, we promise. After you get the first archivment for shooting an enemy with Lynch that beforehand begs for his life and tells your about the children he got, you will know what we're talkin about. Simply badass. We also got the remaining skulls in Halo 3 and finally finished it on legendary by the way. Yeah~

On a sidenote: Did you know that spam is actually getting intelligent?! Dude #2 just received a mail with my real name in the subject, informing him that I bought my new watch at some product pirate's website. The funny thing besides the usage of my real name is, I actually bought a new watch just last week. But of course not on this website. Instead, I went to the Karstadt near my place and purchased one. Still a very strange coincident... big spammer is watching you!

Dead Men Ain't Dead Yet

Never rely on chances. Ever. Because it may turn out the same way as for us: After we planed for a nice gentlemen's day with Mr. Kane and Lynch of the same-named game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, we ended up having our plans blown due to extremely bad luck. After reading the reviews for this title, we calculated that the approximately 6 hours of gameplay one gets out of it aren't really worth about 50 bucks for this one. So we familiarized with the idea of renting it at the local video stores. Since it isn't really a blockbuster-title, ratings are just average, it's already out for some time and we had 3 video stores to check in total, we thought our chance of getting hold of a copy should be pretty high. Well, we were dead wrong. First store: 1 copy for Xbox 360 - gone. Second store: 1 copy for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - gone too. Third store: 2 copys for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - also gone. To sum it up: All 7 copies rented! Felt like someone bitch-slapped you hard, I tell you. Anyway, after this letdown (and some problems with microsoft's gamertag recovery system), we settled for another round of Gears-coop-insane-mode-action and Halo 3 skull-hunting on legendary which turned out to be a hell of fun again. All-in-all not our luckiest day. But hey, can't hold true geeks down, can you!? However, hope we'll have better luck next Saturday. Well, and if not... there are still Locust to defeat and skulls to collect. But I really would love to kick some ass K&L-style next time!

Diagnose: Brain Broken

There it is: Glory to the Filmmaker! (監督·ばんざい!, Kantoku Banzai!). The new comedy film written, directed, edited and starring Takeshi Kitano. Dude #2 received his copy of this "masterpiece" yesterday and couldn't resist watching it right away of course. While he's worshiping Kitano, as well as many Asian-cinema fans do, as his one true god, I was never able to figure what's the big buzz about this guy. Sure, I enjoyed some movies of/with him but I didn't consider them genius at all. Anyway, I was provided with a short and sweet review by Dude #2 which sounds even weirder than the usual Kitano-movie this time around:

The film starts as Yakuza movie. Short after that Kitano says: "Hm, I did this sort of movie for so many times already." The film starts over again. This time as drama. After a few minutes into it; Kitano: "Drama is boring." Film goes off from the very beginning again. Now it's a Samurai film. This film switching goes on for about 50 minutes and after that, the whole thing becomes nothing but pure slapstick comedy. Plus, he always carries this strange Kitano doll as his double with him. And if some action scene kicks in, you see people letting the doll fly trough the air. Everything is just totally strange.

So, whether people consider him a crazy genius or just a crazy fool, he still remains completely crazy in the end I guess. I will get around seeing this pretty confusing movie myself soon I believe. And who knows, maybe I will be able to finally figure his brilliancy by then. With this in mind: KANTOKU BANZAI!

Update:
Saw it just now. Everything can be confirmed. It's one of the strangest movies ever! A story about Kitano and what film in which genre he could probably shoot next, involving totally overstretched comedy elements (which some of are actually pretty funny... e.g. a giant red plastic penis which is played as guitar, yeah!) and the fact that this whole movie is complete nonsense, make it a must-see for all trash-lovers out there. Everyone else (which doesn't thinks of himself as a great movie buff who can read the 'message within' -OR/AND- is a big fan of Kitano's work) should probably not watch this unless they are ready to have their brains melted by about 2 hours of nonsense's finest.

Fuck YEAH, Pancakes!

I like horror-flicks. It's really nice to sit down and enjoy a good one once in a while. So after we had some Gears of War-coop-insane-mode-action yesterday (yes, we are addicted!), we decided to give it a break and watch the movie Cabin Fever on TV since both of us didn't see it yet. Was it a good idea?! Well, here is the plot outline for you first:

A group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.

After you have seen it, this translates to something like this:

Probably the worst and most unsatisfying horror-flick ever. Everything here is simply cheap and poor. Effects, scenery, characters and especially the plot. This movie earns the title "Braindead" more than the original movie which was named that way (and this was actually a pretty awesome one!). So full of shit that you simply won't believe it until you've seen it.

To prove my point, here's a scene where we almost pissed ourselves because we couldn't stop laughing so damn hard. It's so fucking retarded and totally pointless... but at least the new karate-kid which obviously likes pancakes is introduced!

Viagra for the ePenis

It pretty damn obvious that men need their toys. Some love cars, others women (just kidding, no offense, hehe). And then there are also the geeks amongst us. For them, nothing is more beautiful than a new piece of technology. Oh and dear, what true geeks we are when we reach climax upon seeing the brand new 40" Samsung LCD and Onkyo receiver Dude #2 purchased just recently. It's beauty in itself playing a blue ray movie in full 1080p HD on this one. Or the amazing feeling when you are switching between Xbox 360, PS 3 and DVD-Player through the remote of your receiver. Also streaming all kinds of media directly from your PC or listening to radio-streams on the internet over it. And with 2 HDMI-ports, you can hook him up on the LCD and you beamer, allowing you to switch between those at any given time as well!... Someone get me a towel, please.

Call of Duty 4 - Get it Cheap!

For all European gamers who don't want to spend EUR 59,99 on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, get over to Play-Asia and order the Asia Version of it for EUR 36,58 (basic shipping included). Also a hint for every German gamer: It's uncut guys... It's currently back-ordered and will ship as soon as the new copies hit. That price is definitely worth the little wait in my opinion. Plus, playing it will be even sweeter if you know you got it for cheap, right?!

Resistance is Futile...

We got around to play Resistance: Fall of Man for the PlayStation 3 this Saturday. Was it good? Yes. Was is truly great?! No. The coop-play was, as always, a huge load of fun but the game itself just felt a little bit strange. Somehow, the storyline didn't really seem to connect to the things we actually played and especially to the end of the game, everything just appeared way too rushed for my taste and left me highly unsatisfied with the story. Instead of standing out by introducing new ways of fun gameplay and putting a interesting storyline with great twists, things just felt recycled and too straight in this title. Well, the armory was kinda special though, but that aside, Resistance really plays like a very ordinary release title. But since the coop is kinda sweet, who cares, aye?!

Street Fighter Madness

Who doesn't know the world famous Street Fighter-Series by one of the leading Japanese international developer and publisher of video games, Capcom? A franchise that became so huge and popular, that even the most hardcore fans seem to lose track once in a while. With an amazing amount of games released for almost every console, see for yourself, and some more or less remarkable spin-offs, the series is definitely one of the best established fighting games, if not games alone, ever. But not only that. Comics (which are pretty awesome), movies and merchandise. There is basically everything Street Fighter out there. However, the first Street Fighter game I played was Street Fighter II Turbo - Hyper Fighting for the SNES. And believe it or not, this is still my favourite amongst the franchise... followed by the kick ass Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future. Oh yeah, good times~

So I was really excited with the announcement of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix as downloadable arcade game for the PlayStation 3 (PS Store) and Xbox 360 (XBLA) , featuring new sprites and backgrounds in a HD-resolution of 1080p and a massive online ranking-system for gamers around the world. In addition, Street Fighter IV has been anounced by Capcom just recently on the Capcom Gamers' Day 07, leaving fans questioning if Capcom will make the jump from 2D to 3D and if it's a good idea or not. Speculation are going into the direction of a 3D-Cel-shade look... but only time will tell that. So, to make you hot for the upcoming Street Fighter games, here a few videos for you:









Update:

Changing the Fronts

In preparation to this Saturday's coop/mutiplayer-action-day, Dude #2 purchased one of the few PlayStation 3 - Starter Packs left in Berlin. We played through Halo 3 and Gears of War on Xbox 360 already the last weekends and since we don't really feel that there is anything good for coop games left on that system yet (Army of Two will unfortunately be released at the end of November... too bad), we decided to go for Resistance: Fall of Man.

Locust Hordes, Bring it on!

Question:
So guys, what is better than playing Gears of War with a good friend in coop-mode on a saturday night, hunting achievements?
...
Answer:
Playing Gears on Saturday night with a good friend in coop-mode, hunting achievements... on a HUGE ASS SCREEN!

Live at Venus 2007, Berlin

Here is a lil video I made from our visit to this years Venus, which by the way, was pretty awesome. We'll be back next year. Guaranted.