Let's Talk ConnectiCon 2011

Ok guys, Port 2 is coming to CTCon in two weeks.  You know where; Hartford, CT.  July 8-10.  We'll be taking pictures and posting them in our Flickr account.  Be prepared to see us on the ConnectiCon forums with more information about our blog and our cosplay/event pictures.

We'll also be in cosplay.  Can you find us?!

Movie Short Takes

Sup folks, i know i havnt been posting a lot, but with my computer problems, thats to be expected, a new computer is in my future if i stop buying ghostbusters gear off my friend.

Regardless, ive seen quite a few movies so far, and so many infact, i have roughly 5 movies in que to do Three Word Reviews on. Rather than try to kill my computer with trying to make some videos, which i will get to one of these days, i will do a short paragraph based on what i liked what i didnt like, and what to look out for in my new segment, Movie Short Takes. It only means ill go into more detail about movies than what i do in the 3WRs.

First up in no particular order:

Xmen First Class
I admit, i couldnt really get into the Xmen movies too much, but i didnt think they sucked. Xmen 3 yeah, i think we all agree about that one that the only redeeming quality was Ellen Page's hotness in that movie. But i went in excited that this could be the reboot that this series needed, unfortunately, it was only a direct prequel to the trilogy. This was what the movies should have been like, none of that story with Rouge in the first one or bringing the Phoenix saga right away, this was awesome. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was a good decision in those, but i am getting away from the topic. I was skeptical about James McAvoy being Professor X from the moment i saw the trailer for the first time. There was one thing that kept me waiting for this movie to come out, the trailer music. That kept me interested. I went and saw this movie, and i was not let down. Truely a great movie.
Three Word Review Sum Up: Best One Yet

Green Lantern
DC comics i have never had a really big interest in, but i do like the Batman movies...ahem...most of them that dont require a Bat credit card. But i went into this one knowing absolutely nothing about the character, going on the mention that its something about rings and grean and stuff. I didnt think much about it but the trailer grabbed me. The visuals were great, the action was lacking but it was overall a good flick, one of those popcorn movies if you will. I still dont know what i feel about Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, wasnt he Deadpool in Wolverine Origins?? Whatever the case, i did enjoy it though. I wonder with Marvel working on the highly anticipated Avengers movie, will DC go for the obvious Justice League movie. Who knows.
Three Word Review Sum Up: Too Much Green

Fast 5
Oh no, not another Fast and Furious Movie. Seems these movies forget about the racing that the first one had and went for a new direction. Not much to say about it other than Dwane Johnson comes in and tries to raise all sorts of hell in Modern Warefare 2...i mean Fast 5. I was not a fan of this movie, and i wish they would just stop, but it seems another movie is on the way.
Three Word Review Sum Up: Just Stop Already

Well, thats it for now, more in the future! Oh, just a personal anouncement, my Vlog has beome a partner with Senpai Magazine!

Awesome Games in the 21st Century: Alice Madness Returns

After all these posts I have been making about one of my most awaited games, I have to say that is satisfies everything I dreamed it would be.

While other game reviewers gave this about a 70% rating, not too bad but not so great, a lot of fans were disappointed because of how much success the original American McGee's Alice was.  Since it's been around a 10 year gap between these two games, many of the fans also suspected them to be completely differently.  Way too much has gone on in programming between now and then so personally I think it's unfair to compare two completely different games.

So I'm just going to cut the bullshit about the negativity hype with Alice Madness Returns and hop right into it.  But because I haven't finished the game yet, it's going to be limited to what I have seen up to the 3rd chapter.

You play in chapters, and one of the oddest things that I haven't experienced in a game yet is that you can restart the chapter any time you want through the pause menu.  That's something that I have never seen before.  You'd think they would have a replay chapters mode, which I'm certain they will once you finish, but again referring to Tomb Raider Anniversary you can replay any level at any time as long as you beat it in a new game save.

As for the story Alice is at a mental hospital for young children and offers to help out around for her sessions with another doctor (another doctor meaning not the first one she's been to).  Because the game starts so abruptly in the story, you have to go through fragments of memories in order to understand how Alice got from the end of the last game to this.

It first starts out with an interesting cardboard cut out artsy cutscene (try saying that fast) of Alice in wonderland and what seems to be a doctor telling her to forget useless memories.  The character design of Alice when you see her at the hospital is not what she looks like in the cover of the game nor the trailers.  She looks sickly, pale, and has raggy unkept hair-what a person who is stuck in a crappy mental house in that time frame is supposed to look like.  The rest of the characters also look  pretty morbid.  You are then able to walk around the housing building and out into the streets for your first game play.  Nothing interesting except for hearing stupid children call Alice out and looking at objects happens.  When you chase around a white cat when you get out of the building, Alice is triggered into cutscenes with different characters, who you are not so familiar with, until she eventually goes into Wonderland. 

You immediately either notice how random the shift was from Alice's real world into Wonderland, but get used to it because it happens a lot this way.  The shifting between the two worlds also indicates when a new chapter starts, and thus you meet new characters.  Madness is a platforming and hack and slash game.  There are plenty of extra content to find and story to go through.  Most of the time you will platforming instead of using the battle system, which is a free form hack and slash with different weapons that can also help you look for other items.  The currency here is teeth, which upgrades your weapons.  Instead of having to manually equip weapons, you are able to use different commands that summons them during battle or just roaming around which comes in handy because you are forced to switch between weapons quite often.  I find this MUCH easier than having to deal with equipping weapons in the first game, which was in game play and using the function keys for PC.

While in the previous game you can summon the Chesire Cat whenever you want, here he comes up during selected times.  When you are prompted to let him show up, it flashes on top of the screen.  He also doesn't appear as much as he did in the original, too, but his advice are as confusing and useless as always.  Still his voice actor is pretty awesome so it's not a complete waste of time.

There is no "Sanity Meter" like there was in the original.  You do have a health meter; a vine of roses.  They are also cut into quarters so each rose is not a full hit point but you get different damage depending on what attack the enemy uses.  There are small roses or big roses laying around in objects that you can break with any of your weapons; same goes for teeth.  They replenish, but the only way to upgrade health is to Paint the Rose Red.  When you enter specific rooms, you are allowed to do some sort of mini game and if you get through it, you paint the rose red.  Once you have done so four times, you have another rose for your health upgrade.

Once you are low on health, you can go into Hysteria, which lets you pretty much be invincible until the timer runs out.  It is necessary to collect roses to replenish health during the time because it only is allowed to happen once you're on your last few hit points. 

As far as platforming, Alice can jump, double jump, and float.  It's a lot like Spyro's

You meet reoccurring characters, some more disturbing than when you met them in the previous game, all so enormously bigger than Alice is.  There is no particular order of meeting them that matches to when you do in the first game. 

One thing that is somewhat puzzling is why Alice looks so different in Wonderland than when she is in the real world.  She also has different outfits during each chapter, which when you finish that chapter you can equip on her any time throughout the game.  It's a lot like just dressing her up than these outfits having any purpose.  They're more like unlockable costumes.

The secrets aren't exactly hard to find in this game.  Shrinking does become very commonly used if you are obsessed with getting every item like I am.  Battling isn't exactly hard either once you have a particular pattern down for each enemy you see.  You have to get very familiar with using all of your weapons quickly, but there are also many ways to take down an enemy the more weapons you get. 

The game offers four difficulty levels, and if you are very good at hack and slash, like God of War 3 God Mode good, then this game won't be a big issue.  Although there are some tricky rooms, the patterns for these enemies are extremely predictable, plus the loading screens tell you what to do.  It's just like Bioshock 2.  So getting stuck is not an option.

Now we'll go into the bigger flaws of this game.  The auto saving is definitely the worst.  Yeah it's one of those games that don't let you manually save at all even when you exit to main screen.  You have to wait until a little icon of a pocket watch is set in the corner, and it sometimes causes the in game to glitch.  I do enjoy auto saving, but if it's a game where it does that not often with too far of checkpoints in between and doesn't let you save regardless, then you better not quit the game before you get to a checkpoints because you'll go back.  Far.  I absolutely hate it when this type of auto saving exists.  And it's also one of those games with only ONE file.  That's right.  You auto save over just one file.  You start a new game, you can't go back.  Unless there is a way to select that through just your saved files under the dashboard or PS main screen, then you're basically screwed.

The voice acting is not the best you'll hear in a game.  For one they are so quiet during the cutscenes compared to the music.  Most of time I have to read the subtitles to even get what they are saying; sometimes they just speak too fast.  As far as the aspect of the acting during the cutscenes, they are pretty rushed and deserve to be slowed down.  You can access the cutscenes in the main screen, which is a God send since I had to look through them a couple of times to "get it".

The game is actually pretty fun despite the mediocre scores it has received.  It's a good length so far, the levels aren't too short or too long, and there is a wide variety of things to do.  I do have to give props for some of the mini games and puzzles except those sliders, I fucking hate those things even when I was a kid.  It is somewhat challenging and the story does compel me to keep going.  One of the main things I was concerned about when this game was announced was how the story was going to resolve if it already did in the first game, but obviously, there is more to Alice than what was already revealed in the original.

Speaking of first game, I'm not sure if you only get this through a pre order, but if you did, the code for the original game is up for download, too!  I'm really excited to see how the engine comes out for the PS3 instead of PC.  And there's only one way to find out.

No Holds Barred Episode 1

Justin and my new wrestling vlog, episode 1 just posted.  Four parts and pretty long.  Here's part one.

Please comment and subscribe to our channel.

Update June 2011

Hey everyone; it's hardcopy.  Again.  Wow.

We have recently went through a few changes that I thought I would like to let you guys know of plus I haven't really done a post in a while.  I was going to wait after E3, but I figured for those of you who read and follow us, it would probably be better to get some buzz flying around.  And for those of you who don't; why not?

We updated Duke's e-mail address, and because he doesn't want to delete his old account for fear that his posts would also get deleted, we're having The Duke's name under contributors still until The 10th Duke, his new account, has enough posts to put on the blog.  So in short he's still him and still abides but just don't get too confused.  EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL.

Justin Peterson's name is also added to our list.  He's going to be our newest contributor and member of Port 2: 21st Century Team and will selectively blog for just Your World in Hard Copy while also doing some vlogging with me-that's right.  Our new vlog is called No HB (No Holds Barred) and it will be about professional wrestling updated every month or so.  We just recorded our first episode and will be putting on our channel at some point during next week hopefully.  It's only going to be audio files unless we change to anything different, but it will always be referenced here and vice versa with this blog site on YouTube.

Tenchi and I are also going to be working on a short film project that will hopefully get off the ground this summer.  It's based on an original script, and once the product is done, we'll tell you when and where to find it.  Be prepared to see some updates here and there.

We also added our blog to Stumble Upon.  If you have never used this website, I think you will be pleasantly surprised and at least entertained for a while.

That's basically all I need to say, and stayed tuned for some E3 updates from our team.  So far there's a lot to talk about such as Nintendo's new product, which is hogging most of the attention.  You...whore...

Adam Vs the Man

Adam vs the Man's mission to basically call out the law on their bullshit.  Down to a T.  Recently over the course of this weekend, his group went down to DC to dance at the Jefferson Memorial.  But because it was "illegal", his group was arrested.

While his group was confronted with a warning, they continued after receiving no answers for their questions concerning arrest and what dancing's legal definition even is (hint: it has none).  During the arrest of a number of dancers, it is in question of this being an example of police brutality/abuse.

After being called out of prison by numerous callers demanding their release, Adam and his group are now inviting people into a public protest against the anti-dancing laws at the memorial, which Adam claims is ironic because his friends were freely expressing themselves in a memorial commemorating a man who has gave us these rights through his writing of the Declaration of Independence.

His protest will be held next Saturday at the Jefferson Memorial.  All are invited to come.