Category Archives: Blog

Random (aka Mega Ran) – Splash Woman

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Knurds.

My gift to you is a love song about the classic story of robotic boy meets mechanical mermaid. And then they fight to the death. It’s a tale as old as time.

Random, a.k.a. Mega Ran, is a Philly born and Phoenix based rapper known for his combination of video game influenced beats and creative rhymes. In a world filled with hip-hop stereotypes and gimmicks, Random’s style is a refreshing breath of realism. Despite rapping about fighting robots.

Another of his songs, the Jeremy Lin rap, has been receiving a lot of attention in the last few weeks and has been featured on ESPN, NBC Sports, The Harvard Crimson, and a ton of other places. Listen to that here.

And don’t forget to get to order your tickets for his upcoming tour here.

Cheers,
JD

Why Mario Will Never Score With The Princess

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Mario has saved lands, liberated worlds, and rescued galaxies, but there is still one stage that he will never escape: The Friend Zone.

I know that no relationship is perfect, but Mario and Peach are the most dysfunctional couple in video history. And that includes Batman and The Joker in Arkham City.

Princess Toadstool gets abducted every other Thursday, and yet the Mushroom Kingdom refuses to beef up security. And why would they when the Princess has her own personal bodyguard wrapped around her pinky finger?

Not only will Mario journey across eight worlds and a special zone to save her, but she even has him picking up all the money he can carry before he gets to her. Her knight in shining overalls has defeated dinosaurs, dragons, ghosts, and aggressive agriculture to save his beloved. And what’s his reward for all of this effort? A kiss on the cheek.

The same kiss on the cheek his brother gets if he makes it to the final castle first.

It’s easy to see why Peach doesn’t share Mario’s romantic interest. Mario is short, chubby, and old enough to own a plumbing/construction/pizza company back in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Peach is young, blonde, and doesn’t even look old enough to vote.

Of course, there might be another reason Peach doesn’t reciprocate Mario’s feelings. Perhaps someone else has snared the fair Princess’s heart. But who could it be?

Who else could it be, besides the only other person she spends the majority of her time with? He’s powerful. He’s dangerous. He’s royalty. And let’s be adults, we all know those Koopalings didn’t come from nowhere. Wendy even has her mother’s eyes.

Yet, Mario still can’t seem to take a hint.
“Hey, Peach. Want to go play tennis/golf/go karts?”
“Sure. Who else is going? Is Bowser coming?”

Sorry, Mario, but your Princess is in another castle.

—DrunkKnurd

3 Details The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer Nailed (That the Raimi Trilogy Failed)

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This trailer makes me want to want to see this movie. If you haven’t seen the latest trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man movie, here it is:

I was leery at first about Sony’s decision to reboot the Spider-Man film franchise barely a decade after it began. It felt rushed and greedy, but after Disney killed off the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, I was eager to see a new take on one of my favorite characters. Still, my expectations were set pretty low. I mean, what more could they do that the first three films hadn’t done already?

According to this trailer, these three very important pieces of the Spider-Mythos.
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Mega Man Fan Film Review

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There is a Mega Man fan film. And it’s not horrible.

MegaMan (which should be two words, just to nitpick) is a non-profit fan film written and directed by Eddie Lebron, based on the first eponymous game featuring the super fighting robot, Mega Man. Staying fairly faithful to the American localized plot of the game, the movie also mixes in some drama of Rock/Mega Man wondering about his purpose, his estranged brother Blues/Protoman, and Mega Man and Roll being the surrogate children that Dr. Light never had.

It’s hard to tell if the robotic acting from Jun Naito and Jeanie Tse as Mega Man and Roll is intentional, but it works. Dave Maulbeck’s Wily is textbook mad scientist, cartoonish and over the top, and I love it. Edward X. Young as Dr. Light is a fountain of exposition and it gets tiresome, but this might be an intentional nod to the games where that’s his role. Still, he gets in some genuine moments with the robots that are enjoyabale. The special effects are nearly on par with the finest SciFi Channel Original Movie, which is a compliment for a low budget fan film. I was impressed by the design of the three all CGI Robot Masters, but I’ll admit that my expectations were low. The robotic armor for Mega, Proto, and the other Robot Masters would be distracting in a big budget film, but they’re forgivable in a fan production like this.

This movie is watchable, which is more than I can say for most studio produced video game adaptations. My biggest problem with it was the name (seriously, Mega Man. Two words. It’s like making a Spider-Man and calling him “Spiderman.”) and the fight scenes.

But I’m impressed by the amount of effort that went into this. Again, for an independent fan film, Eddie Lebron did a great job. Check it out at and see for yourself at Blue Core Studios.

I can’t wait to see how his next work, based on one of my favorite intellectual properties, turns out. Apparently, Lebron has a thing for blue protagonists taking on mad roboticists.

—JD

Lives and Continues

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What happened to lives and continues in video games? Nowadays, you die, who cares? Just pick it up from the last long hallway you walked through. How many times? Until you’re tired of playing. The checkpoint and unlimited continue system of modern games has spoiled this generation of gamers. They’ll never know the heart ache of staring the final boss in the face, defient and determined to win, with only one life and no continues, only to be bitch-slapped back to stage one. They’ll also never know the triumph of sneaking in that last attack and stealing victory just as the end is nigh.

These so-called hardcore gamers. How many people would’ve beat Halos of Warfare 3 on OMFGendary if your continues were limited.
And don’t get me started on regenerating health.
Do you know what we used to call these gameplay elements back in the day? Cheat codes. You needed a Game Genie and an 8 digit code to have that kind of peace of mind.

The worst part of it is that that fear is perminantly instilled in me. Even as a play these modern games, I cling to each “life” like it’s my last. Which leads to me cowering atop a gargoyle in Arkham City, while two-bit thugs mock me. All because I’m afraid that one lucky bullet from just one of those crooks will have me starting from scratch in Arkham Asylum.

Oh, it’s cruel? It’s unfair? You know what else is cruel and unfair? Life! It takes you out of the game? You know what takes me out of the game? Being immortal. Having zero consequences for my mistakes. I could be the worst player in the world, and admittedly I might be, but I’ll never see menu screen again until I’m forced to reset the game for the next Xbox Live update.

If you’re going to add checkpoints, why exclude them from the one genre that would benefit most from them: fighting games. What I wouldn’t give to see the “Checkpoint Reached” dialog pop up when I’ve gotten the final boss down to that last sliver of health. Just before he unleashes that SuperUltraMegaCombo with Cheese that rapes 80% of my life bar.

Binge Linking: OverClocked ReMix

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Remember KaZaA? Yeah you do.

Back when Peer-To-Peer File Sharing was all the rage it was my primary source for video game music. And as I mentioned in a previous article, I’m a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. So one fateful evening I went on a download binge and acquired as many megabytes of Sonic music as I could find. It was mostly stuff I’d heard before, but one new and unique gem stood out amongst the fodder: a song entitled Her Azure Eyes.

The melody was familiar, but this definitely wasn’t lifted directly from the score of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. And it was a far cry from the typical techno and hip-hop remixes I was used to finding online. This song was clever and talented. It was fresh and fascinating. It was sexy. But where did it come from? It took the totality of my keen detective skills to uncover its origins.

Right Click > Properties. The album title was a URL: http://remix.overclocked.org/

The site had since been renamed http://ocremix.org, but the premise was still the same. OverClocked ReMix was a website where music composers can post their fan ReMixes of video game music. And as I mentioned before, these aren’t the typical ‘drop a bass and drum break beat behind a ripped video game melody’ remixes. These are professional grade arrangements, based off of music from video games, but reinterpreted into a new piece with a style and genre all its own.

It’s less like dipping a nutritious apple in viscous caramel, and more like turning it a delicious apple cobbler. It may require a lot more talent and patience, but the results are well worth it.

The range of OverClocked ReMix’s library is mind blowing, featuring songs drawn from a wide variety of games being converted into an assortment of genres, from electronica to hip hop to classical orchestra. Since their inception, they have evolved from only collecting individually submitted tracks to concentrated efforts to create full length albums.

And have I mentioned they provide all this music do this all for free!? I can’t say enough about how much I love these songs. Warm and familiar, yet new and exciting. It’s something you need to hear for yourself, so here are a few tracks from my favorite albums to binge on. Enjoy!

The well known music of Street Fighter II Turbo, creatively reworked in this album: Blood on the Asphalt.

The quality of that album was so impressive that Capcom contacted OCRemix to compose the official soundtrack to the Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix game they released for Xbox Live Arcade.

The soundtrack of a classic RPG, as performed by a classical orchestra in Chrono Trigger: Chrono Symphonic

Here’s a high speed thrillogy of albums inspired by the Sonic games from the Sega Genesis era.
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Sound of Speed – StH2: Hedgehog Heaven – S3&K: Project Chaos

Another favorites games series from the 16-bit era, two albums based off of the Donkey Kong Country games.
Donkey Kong Country: Kong in Concert – Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business

And lastly, but certaintly not least, OCReMix’s latest and most legendary release: 25YEARLEGEND

Not everyone’s taste in music in the same, but every album has the same range and depth as the site itself. If you love video game music, you’ll love this site. And at the low low price of absolutely nothing, you can afford to give it a shot.

Cheers,
—JD

Subjects Subject To Change S01E01

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This is the first episode of Subjects Subject To Change, where @HIGHlyCRITICal and @DrunkKnurd review, judge, muse, mock, skewer, and wax intellectual about various pop culture subjects.

In this episode we discuss the Paranormal Activity trilogy, the Walking Dead franchise, and when to play the dead grandmother card.

[mp3j track=”http://shotglassescomic.com/podcasts/Ep1.mp3″]
Download Ghosts, Zombies, and the Dead Family Card

Binge Linking: Grand Theft Auto V Trailer and Machinima

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November 2nd 2011 was a very important day. It was the first palindromic date in recent history (11-02-2011), the next one won’t be until February 2nd, 2020 (02-02-2020). It was this humble writer’s birthday, shared with fellow iconic celebrities such as Steve Ditko, Jim Cummings, and Pat Buchanan. And it was the debut of the Grand Theft Auto V trailer.

And it looks like Rockstar has done it again.

Admittedly, the trailer doesn’t give us much aside from the location, but that alone is enough to get me salivating. Los Santos, the City of Saints. A brand new expansive city to run around and cause mayhem in. And I’m confident that the other mainstays of the Grand Theft Auto series will be present, stories and characters and hedonistic criminal fun. I’m tingly with anticipation. Or that might be the hangover from my birthday celebration I’m feeling. Hard to say.
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Binge Linking: Cosplay

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Trick or Treat, Knurds.

In the spirit of the holiday, this edition of Binge Linking is a collection of some of the best cosplay I’ve seen in recent months. Cheers!

  • Batman costumes have come a long way since the child suffocating plastic mask with the rubber band in the back.
  • The live-action reboot of Fern Gully looks good. Tim Curry and Robin Williams are rumored to reprise their iconic roles. No word yet if Samuel L. Jackson will make an after-the-credits cameo.
  • Finally, Legend of Zelda: Twlight Princess in HD. Thanks for nothing, Nintendo.
  • Behold, the glory of the true Doctor Doom. I don’t know who that jerk in the Fantastic Four movies was. Probably a Doombot.
  • It’s hard to Miss a Marvelous costume like this. Get it?
  • This 8-Bit Samus cosplay is made of win. And, uh, cardboard.
  • What’s Wolverine’s favorite desert? A Banana Snikt!

And here’s a pair of galleries of NYCC cosplayers, taken by professional photographers.

Thanks to Fashionably Geek, SoGeekChic, and ComicAlliance for a lot of these links.

Happy Halloween,
JD