Scolding Review: Barbie in Princess Power at 4:40 PM

You know, it'd be easy to say Superheroes are "in" right now, in years like this when you have 2 DC movies a year and Marvel has mapped out the life of Chris Hemsworth for the next decade. But in truth, outside of the Big 2,and the companies that once aquired the rights to characters from them and desperately need to make more movies of them lest their rights revert, Superheroes are pretty scant.

I mean, sure the years might yield out the odd Kickass or Avengers Grim, but there is no rush to pick up the rights to Savage Dragon or Youngblood to cash in on the theorical goldrush to be the next Avengers.

Which is perhaps, fortunate. The Superhero genre is a tricky one, and if companies randomly started getting into it just cuz they think it's "in" now, well, some really bad projects could happen.

This was my thought when I first saw that Barbie in Princess Power existed."Jeez, those dicks a Mattel noticed they couldn't compete with the harder edged Bratz and  Monster High, and after doing coke and watching Man of Steel they decided to get in on the racket."

Which, you know, might have been what happened for all I know. But that doesn't necessarilly mean the product is, you know, bad. And so, I decided to watch this movie, and give you a rundown of it.

Our story starts with Barb...Princess Kara of Wyndmere, flying through the sky using a jetpack built by her in-house scientists. Oh, yeah, I think in these movies "Barbie" lately is playing an instory role or something, so she isn't "Princess Barbie". I think it's fucking confusing because no one will confuse Princess Kara for anything other than Barbie with this face.

Oh, no, this is gonna give girls unrealistic expectations of how perspective works.

And further, the cover is got Barbie spelled all over it. So just call her  Princess Barbie of Barbieland.

Anyway, Barbie's parents are all protective and stuff, leading into my main gripe with this movie: Barbie doesn't have anything close to real problems.

I mean, I know this is a DTV for little girls. I don't expect fucking Melancholia here. But when your character's life is full of servants, pets and jetpacks, maybe work harder on those, huh?

No, the fact that she's royalty and a literal Barbie doesn't mean she could not have been made more compelling. With the superhero concept come themes of responsibility and freedom and wish fullfilment and power fantasies, and what does it matter that your character can now fly thoruhg the sky, when the movie opens with her FLYING through the sky? Wish fullfilment works better if characters wish for stuff they get, you know?

I mean, wanting to be a superhero on top of being a princess isn't a character arc, it's a high concept.

Either way the plot kicks in as Rasputin, the kings Eeeevil adviser, is ploting to  overthrow the king. Sorry, I mean, Rasputin.  Hold on, let me check my nonexistent notes...No, he's the Baron. Sorry, but on my defense, he's fucking Rasputin.

Yeah, no guessing Beardo McStrongfeatures is the badguy.

 Because of historical claims, which are played for laughs but seem like they could be a mildly solid reason to go evil, Baron Rasputin is creating a super soldier magic serum, when his lab asistant A Frog knocks it down the drain.

The formula falls on a caterpillar, which  metamorphoses into a butterfly that grants powers to people who kiss it. Barbie's sister,  Bitchy Brown Haired Barbie, I mean, Katarina, tries to kill it, but Barbie stops her, which earns her a kiss from the bug. Which is a mildly unique origin for what is to be a fairly uninspired set of powers. Kararbie gets what I like to call "The Basic Superman" of  Flight and Superstrenght, plus the ability to shoot orbs of plasma pink energy.

Barbie falls ill(which her supposedly overprotective parents let by without any worries) and wakes up displaying strange powers, which only her personal Susan and Mary Test know about. They quickly settle her into  Superhero roles and refferences.

Barbie tries to fly into the city to try and make her community garden, but  highjinks ensue and a sequence  where stuff almost crushes people takes place. As tends to happen in this type of story. Fortunately Super Barbie is there to recklessly bat the things away from crushing people, so they can only almost crush them.

So now, Super Sparkle(yes, that's her super name. The whole damn title is a lie) is an established Superhero, with her own non-love interest in the form of Ken(?) playing the role of the Lois Lane, except he's more of a blogger instead of a journalist.

 Super Sparkle folds a few bank heists and s rescues some people from a fire, all while balancing her life as a famous princess. I make it sound way more interesting than I make it seem. Besides, she's so sloppy, she gets found the hell out real soon by the only other fly in her milk , Bug Killing, Slightly Negative Barbie.

So Brown Hair Barbie puts it together than having been kissed by the butterfly made  Barbie Super, so she finds it, and then forces herself onto the Butterfly, becoming Dark Sparkle.

Now, I know you may be thinking I may be exaggerating by basically implying Barbie's sister raped a magical butterfly. But context is king. The butterfly kissed Barbie out of her own volition, as a reward for saving her life...from this specific person. And now she's her, trapping said butterfly and kissing her as she squirms.

I mean, I'm tagging this rape, juuust in case.

Or I'm overthinking  it.

Either way, that's about the darkest thing Dark Sparkle does. Henceforth dressed identically to Super Sparkle but like, 3 shades darker pink, she starts butting in on her sister's turf and stealing part of her thunder. She's not like, particularly violent or blunt, so the main issue here isn't her method.

"You've tried the rest...now try ME!" "Ma'am, the mall doesn't open in an hour." "Oh...ok"

Even bigger troubles lie ahead as Lewis Lame deduces Sparkle's secret identity too, and even though he's her biggest fan and everything, he just  fucking puts it on his damn blog.

Like, not even a little doubt. What a dick.

So Sparkster's parents ground her, and forbid her from being a Super anymore. She's Sparkler-Man...no more.

But then Baron Von Rasputin gets his formula together again, and this time mostly drinks it, and starts threatening the king, so it's not a very long time not being  Super. And so begins a pretty long superfight between Super Sparkle, Dark Sparkle and Rasputin Sparkle.

This isn't Barbie's Mud Hole: It's Barbie's Operating Table!

Ok, so it's not exactly The Zod fight from Man of Steel. It's still a DTV Barbie movie, after all. But there's plenty of slamming people into walls and shooting magic missiles.

Midfight, Super Sparkle just tells Dark Sparkle to fuck off and let her operate, and Dark Sparkle is like "ok, whatever". Which is kind of weird, because what's at stake is how alive their family and themselves are.

Meanwhile,  the Frog gets Superpowers too. And the cat and the dog, too. I don't know why the Butterfly doesn't have superpowers of her own, or maybe she does? Does anyone who kiss Barbie, her Sister, and The Baron get Superman powers now?

General Nod is now unable to reach the royal family because they locked themselves into an impregnable tower they have, so he unleashes a river of magma from the frustatingly named volcano Mount Dormant. Barbie stops the tower falling down, but as the lava rushes down to the  city, she is forced to divert it by carving a long ditch on the ground to lead the lavato a lake. However, just as she's running out of stamina to do it, Bug Rape Sparkle comes in for the save. They divert the lava, the now empowered pets beat up The Baron and he's locked into the tower they already explained is impregnable so...I guess if he can die at all he'll die there of hunger.

So Barbie makes that garden she wanted, and steals Ken's phone and forces him to work on the garden. The End.

Look here, I have a lot of hair on my chest, so this thing obviously wasn't made for me. However, there are things on which I think it could have been better.

Different Powers. Given the different context in which  characters get powers in this (bad ones through consumption of a magic potion, good ones through  a bug that ingested said potion) a bit of different abilities would have been nice. You don't even have to be original. Steal from DC. Steal from Marvel. Steal from Dark Horse if you want,  just not the same damn Superman powers!

Give Barbie a more solid arc. Nothing wrong with a "wanting more outta life" plot. But you know, if Barbie's main problem in life is that her parents are too overprotective, you need to either make them actually overprotective or otherwise show us what she is longing for.

If her main arc is her strained relationship with her sister, show that well as well.

Don't make it look like it was made in The Sims. Look, I don't expect Sin City when I put in Barbie in Princess Power. But it looks a little too smooth at times. It's a little offputting.

But as it is it's...pretty decent for a DTV Barbie movie. I don't regret having sat down to watch it. The Bad guy was somewhat fun, the nods towards comic book movies kind of fun, and the dialogue wasn't always grating. Which is frustrating, because if it'd just reached  a little bit farther it might have been good-good, instead of "Not Bad for What it is". Oh, well, at least we have Super Hero High.

Wait, fuck.

Nothing to fear but Fur itself at 5:02 PM

They're coming for you...

Scolding Review: A Goat's Story at 3:47 PM

WHAT LEGENDS! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Sometimes it's hard to know if a foreign film is awful. Sure, awful is relative, but that's exactly the problem. How do you know if something is kinda great in it's home country that, outside of it is just kind of retarded, meanspirited, and vomitous?


For example, here's a Czech movie about a spurned goat who longs only to be loved like a woman by her owner. Maybe that kind of narrative is acceptable over there. Maybe it's a dark comedy. Or maybe it's just a fuck awful CG crapfest made by some goatfuckers. YOU be the judge.

The film starts with an exaltation of the Clocktower of Prague, and then goes to show you how it all started. With images like this.

It's not. But it COULD  be.

NOT HUMAN!

You know, I ain't no expert in worldwide landmarks, but obviously I take it these distorted monsterbeasts built this Cathedral as beautiful as possible to have something nice to look at and forget the fact they look like a literal poor man's Toy Story.

Our lead is this guy LEAD, who just arrived in Prague to  find a job with his goat Goat. Prague is super awful and it and everyone in it sucks, and they're all trying to poach each other or ruin each other or milk each other. That's not my opinion as an Internet blogger, that's kind of what the movie's trying to go for. It seems to be attempting to do some kind of commentary,  you know, with the Church guy say gluttony is bad, while actually being a glutton, and so and so.

The least bland he ever is.

So we've also got this guys who are actually trying to get the cathedral built, including Merlin, and his assistant.

Or maybe he's a hobo. I watched this damn thing in Spanish and I STILL had not idea wft was going on.

At first, Things aren't going so hot for LEAD, until he meets a beautiful...

OH NO

...He meets a pretty...

YOU CAN'T

...He meets a Nintendo 64 tech demo for jiggle physics. Holy christ!

Ok, let's talk about giant breasts. We all love breasts*. And we like those breasts being gigantic. Yes we do. The bigger the better...is what we think until we see things like this.

Now, you may think, "But what about the giant breasts in such classics as Jessica Rabbit, Powergirl, and the Dead or Alive  series? Well, it's not just size, it's presentation. Here's a chart explaining it.

With that out of the way, now we enter the core of our plot: Goat is in love with Lead. She wants him, sexually. if you think I'm just exaggerating for comedic effects, here's them sleeping together.

Here they are, sleeping together.

Add caption

Here's when the goat tried to dress up as a woman to impress Lead.

Played for serious, guys. Not even kidding on that one.

Here's when the Goat catches Lead and the Girl sleeping together.

Oh, yeah, if you thought that there wasn't gonna be a  sex scene in this movie just because the cover makes it look like they put horns on Shrek's Donkey, you where wrong, wrong, wrong.


So Merlin's apprentice makes a deal with Satan after  being put in the gallows, and Merlin hires Lead to replace him as statue maker. He does very well with this. Meanwhile, the Goat gets drunk in the bar and sees Satan.

I assume everyone making this movie can relate to Satan being an ever present tangible fact of life.

But then the corrupt authorities start showing off, and some Chinamen** show up to ask Merlin to build THEM a clocktower. The authorities won't be having none of that, and  blind, torture, and fatally wound Merlin. The Pretty girl takes him to "see" the tower from the inside before he finally dies, which is just enough for her to look like she did the deed.

So now our lead is forced to finish the clocktower, lest our buxom girl gets killed. For extra good taste, there's a scene  where she's visited by the executioner, and covers her breasts, implying some rape.

Well, "covers" and "Breasts"

But not, she's just gonna get her neck measured. Haha! Good one, Goat's Story.

Eventually, Goat sees how the love of Lead's life is going to be murdered soon, and sees it as a chance to  finally make her move on Lead by dressing as a woman, with hay for a hair and melons for breasts, and  just ashamedly goes to Lead. And they hug and stuff. It's super dramatic, and what the fuck!

As they're leading  the girl to have her neck altered, the apprentice who  made his deal with Satan, and some kids, all crash into the cart, which rolls downhill.

Goat, then makes the hard choice. At the height of the deadline for the hanging of Pretty Girl, she trades places with the bag over-headed girl, and is hanged. Our Lead finishes the clocktower, but far too late.

Wow. I would say this is strong imagery for a children's cartoon about a funny goat, but with the drinking, sex, political, and deals with Satan and social satire, it's clear this movie is not for children and would not betray it's idea that, at the end, the goat that just wanted to be loved gave it all for.

Seriously, don't show this to kids. Or adults. Or...goats.

Who am I kidding? The goat lives. Innexplicably. I mean, I've never hung a goat. Maybe they're immune to that?

So that's the story about the world famous Prague clockwork. It was engineered by idiots, goatfuckers, corrupt overzelous authorities and overblown sexdolls. Way to export your history, Czech republic!

So what is there to say about this movie. Well, it seems to be going for social satire, but it's handled with all the care of a goat in a china shop. The main plot  of the Goat that wants to fuck a man is seemingly an excuse to draw you into the awful, awful world this movie's built which is always morally ugly, and never esthetically beautiful. "Come for the dramatic bestialism, stay for the visuals of a terrible, caca caked world.¨

Or maybe this only makes sense in Czech republic, I don't know.


* "But I don't love breasts!" Good for you. What do you want, recognition in my sentences? Get out. GET OUT!

** No. Not Chinese people. THIS is Chinese people. If THIS isn't a chinaman, what the fuck do I call it?

Trigger Warning: There is a new Strip Fighter game out at 6:35 PM

Ok, now you´re just fuckin´with me.

It was a few years ago, that I decided to create a month solely dedicated to the women that make our fighting games great. While the celebrations have not been as expansive as I'd hope, they HAD yielded some interesting results. 

For example, my write up on Super Strip Fighter IV is one of my most succesful posts, and I can't really figure out why. I mean, I guess nobody else ever went in-depth with  the game and maybe that's the reason? I know I reviewed it in part because of that. If I'd ran into at least 10 people who had written about the game, about the mechanics of it and such, it'd have been one thing. But I couldn't even get a move list, and it was already years old by that point.

And now, a few months ago, a new version of the game saw release. Ultra Strip Fighter IV Omeco Edition is a game that exists.

Boasting an expanded cast that includes cameos from other  StudioS(STILL UNGOOGLABLE, DUDES!) products, and expanded upon bad touch options, this might just be the best Strip Fighter game yet. Or uh...the worst, if you take fictional rape really seriously. I don't know. I'm not telling you what to like.

Or it might suck. The fact is, I'm not using MY computer nowadays, and the person who does own it may not be cool to run into a game with THIS kind of bullshit in it. I'll let it to your imagination whether such a person is a hot girlfriend, or my grammy.

Point is, I'm not making any promises, but if things pick up, or if I dare try, come next July we'll see if all our Yuki Ice Dick  dreams are about to come true. I will also try to give you a review of the OVA for Variable Geo, the cutey pattootie fighting game that ocassionally  also ends  with rape.

Sigh. The things I do for love.

Fighting Female July: Strip Fighter IV is less bad than you'd think(but not morally) at 6:40 AM

Your name will be inscribed in the pages of fighting's nudie mag. 

..

Of all the franchises  that  could have come back to cash in on the return of Street Fighter a few years back, Strip Fighter is probably the least likely. An obscure PC Engine fighter from the olden days that featured an all girl cast with dignity baring special attacks, it's certainly less popular than Variable Geo and less recent than Battle Raper (oh, yes, that's a real thing.). But now 2010's Super Strip Fighter 4 joins those two in how far it is willing to take the whole "Porn fighter" thing.

Despite the title, Super Strip Fighter 4 is the second in a series. There's not even a vanilla Strip Fighter 4. I guess if your game has  female penile tentacled succubus as a final boss, you don't worry if people think you're trying to ride Capcom's coattails. The game actually is quite a bit above the  prequel in terms of both graphics and design, as you'd expect. Every character from the old game has been revamped, redesigned, or reworked. Notably, eagle hat enthusiast Bella has gone from this...

A woman in her Twilight years...

...to this...

"D"? She deserves at least a B in terms of "Offense".

And Clown Afro sporting Prowrestler Amanda's change was pretty big too.

The only fat woman in a fighting game ever and it ends up being porn... 

...Breasts, breasts, breasts, FIELD, Breasts...

The changes  a decade or two  can have, huh? The graphics, while featuring bland backgrounds and flashly looking sprites, are not bad at all to look at. And for a 2d game that has  the capacity to strip fighters of their clothing, the animation is fluid enough.

The cast is pretty big too. Highlights include "Snakes count as clothing, right?"-minded Medusa, civil clothed Ninja Sayaka and two male characters. For the ladies, I guess.

Most of the new characters seem way better designed than the old returning characters. I don't know, I think they went overboard trying to make the old cast sexier by making their breasts big.  That's just part of it, guys.

What the...this isn't Takein or King of Fuckers, guys. It's not even Cockcom vs SNGay. It's Strip Fighter.

The fighting concerns 3 buttons: light, medium and strong. You can fill up a hyper-bar and launch a super attack. You can also fill up the letters to strip by getting knocked down  or letting yourself open with a specific move. This is the only way to activate the Strip Hyper. This move, when it finishes off the opponent, leads to her clothes (if there where any in the first place.) to break apart and fall, and lets the girl at your mercy. That's when you can ravage  her.

Yes, there is rape in Strip Fighter 4.

Tonight: A very special surprise guest appearance by penis. 

By activating a particular combo or grab during  your opponent's clothesless misery, you can just get in there and have your way with them against their will. In the case of the final boss Succubus,  fat Japanese fanboy Jin, musclebound MMAer S  and token hermaphrodite Ai it's some kind of obvious penetration thing that lasts as long as you want to watch it. Other characters like SnM blond Nina, onion themed waitress Iku and super oily, supernaked Rana have dry humping hypers, specials and grabs that could be also construed as sexual harassment when used against females but when used against males become graphic(yet obnoxiously censored) sex And most of the old cast  hangs on to their nudifying special moves albeit in hyper form. One character's  Strip Hyper  seems to be having sex with the camera.  

 Yet, there are characters that have yet to show evidence of being able to initiate graphic scenes with either sex. I for one, believe this is total bullshit. All the males and phalus enabled women  can rape women, and some of the women can rape men. Why not the others?  Why not make them some of them rape the girls? That makes half the cast just rape victims, Not enough Lesbian Rape, man. What are you waiting for, the tournament edition?

I mean, I don't want to throw a bitch fit over this, but it's like having Mortal Kombat, and having half of the characters not have Fatalities. Why should I bother with Mari or Ran if they don't have the goods? What are they even here for? What, couldn't you come up  anything a girl can do to another girl? No scissoring? No ice dick for Yuki? No fingering? No prehensile hair penetration by Medusa? I accuse this porn game of being sexist!

You know, this mask isn't helping your dandruff problem at all. 

Since even if you wanted to, you can't play with anyone most of the time (on account of awful slowdown you get sometimes. Also, it's a porn game),  story mode is pretty much the only choice. Now, I don't know Japanese, so I guess the story is about how the evil Succubus has organized a tournament  between  girls so she can rape them. You have a an intro textwall for each character.You fight a handful of people, then face your rival. Succubus rapes your rival in a cutscene, and then you fight her. Text ending and credits.  All Japanese. Here, let me help.

My Japanese is a little spotty, though. Or as they say in Japan: "Kawasaki Ninja, Hey! El Mundo conquistaras!"

Except it's not over.  You get to fight everyone else on a harder difficulty, until you tire or beat them all.  Or beat it. I mean, no one wants to be defeated...

Besides Story you have VS mode and practice. They're pretty much the same, except training starts P1 at lower health. You don't even have options ingame. It's a pretty barebones experience.

Nope. Still not the Sailor Moon fighting game.

And I don't want to bandy around terms like "lazy", but the reusage of animation gets pretty bad. It's one thing that Hypers are often just flashier versions of special moves but  even the warning animations for hypers? Here's a note, geniuses:  characters in fighting games do special poses before hypers specifically so people know what is about to happen.

So what can I say? This game makes you work for the smut, but the engine is nice enough that it's not too much of a chore. Sure, if you  really must watch Japanese stereotypes rape each other, you don't need a videogame for it. And there's way better fighting to be found elsewhere. But If your curious and a pervert and a fighter fan, it's probably worth your time.

Fighting Female July: Strip Fighter IV is less bad than you'd think(but not morally) at 6:40 AM

Sex: Now that I have your attention: unconsensual at 12:36 PM

I'll wait until it's 25 dollars...

So...there has been a lot of talk about rape lately, with the New Tomb Raider's already removed sexual molestation scene. It's also appropriate for me to talk about it since the subject of rape is gonna be covered in Fighting Female July. Not the one you'd think, though.

Let's get the basics out of the way:

• Rape is a real thing that really happens.
• Rape is, by definition, unjustifiable.
• Rape is a serious matter.
• Rape is not something you want happen to anyone, but especially not to the more vulnerable members of our society (women, children, old folk) who tend to be the ones most likely to be raped.

Now, as a blogger, I was surprised at how much rape figures in entertainment once you start writting about it(entertainment, that, is.). But at the same time, are characters like Superman not merely modernized, toned down versions of characters like Heracles, who at one point raped and killed a whole society of warrior women? As time went on, people grew more concious that a guy who had his way with a lady in fiction is not too different from a guy who has his way with one's sister.

So rape became the domain of the bad guys. I mean, sure, that makes sense. But then, it became too ugly to even talk about rape negatively. Today, rape is as all encompassing as to include unrequied kisses and sexual relationships with drunk people.

But as a side current, there was merely escalation on the attempts at titillate. Mainstream entertainment, and especially videogames and animationa nd comics, have been trying more aand more to be more sofisticated, and somehow at the same time, have smalller bikinis and loincloths. Lara Crof, in particular, could not have started as a more obvious attempt at manipulating the male hormones to gain audience.

The costume to the right is described as MASSIVE ARMOR. This is our standard.

It was inevitable that these three conflicting ideologies, that of titillation, the concepts of rape in pop culture, and attempted softening of the more over the top elements of videogame culture would collide. To some people we're becoming more liberal and squemish, and to others we're becoming a stern amish society, when the truth is BOTH ARE SOMEHOW TRUE.

So, really, it was innevitable that someday, someone was going to try and rape Lara Croft. Two off the 3 explained mindsets supported it. I know it's easy to go with the outraged response. "This flesh peddlers are trying to sell rape as a way to tittillate. This is not acceptable." But isn't it?

When scavengers in the respective Resident Evil and Terminator apocalypses tried to rape their lead women, was it acceptable because you knew it wasn't going to happen? Is it acceptable in Boys Don't Cry because it really  happend, and if it really happened it isn't being exploited? When is it acceptable? Is God of War's offscreen sexing of concubines acceptable, because they never point out that concubines don't have much of a choice in anything? Is rape just to be left entirely out of interactive media, or just the adventure type games? If they make a Boys Don't Cry game, or GI Jane or  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen game is it okay if it has rape because the source had it? Does it have to be tastefull, and how do you measure what is or isn't tastefull?  I do not ask this questions because I want an answer: It's because if there is a  personal limit, then it needs to be clear each of us what it its. YOU need to answer to yourself this questions before reacting to things like this.



Look, I'll just make the horrendous, insensible jokes, and you fill in the rest, okay?

I'm telling you, in my country, there is a law against the distribution or having of "obscene  material" . And when you go in on what that actually means, it just goes with a really vague "whatever is too offensive to the mayority of peoples.  Now I've been to Hentai Foundry, so I know we might have differing opinions on what we want "My Small Horsies" characters to see doing to each other. But the point is, this kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. 10 years ago it was how much naked our BMX Strippers could be, and today is how much rape can we allow on our adventure games. This things don't just spring overnight, guys.

Sex: Now that I have your attention: unconsensual at 12:36 PM

I'll wait until it's 25 dollars...

So...there has been a lot of talk about rape lately, with the New Tomb Raider's already removed sexual molestation scene. It's also appropriate for me to talk about it since the subject of rape is gonna be covered in Fighting Female July. Not the one you'd think, though.

Let's get the basics out of the way:

• Rape is a real thing that really happens.
• Rape is, by definition, unjustifiable.
• Rape is a serious matter.
• Rape is not something you want happen to anyone, but especially not to the more vulnerable members of our society (women, children, old folk) who tend to be the ones most likely to be raped.

Now, as a blogger, I was surprised at how much rape figures in entertainment once you start writting about it(entertainment, that, is.). But at the same time, are characters like Superman not merely modernized, toned down versions of characters like Heracles, who at one point raped and killed a whole society of warrior women? As time went on, people grew more concious that a guy who had his way with a lady in fiction is not too different from a guy who has his way with one's sister.

So rape became the domain of the bad guys. I mean, sure, that makes sense. But then, it became too ugly to even talk about rape negatively. Today, rape is as all encompassing as to include unrequied kisses and sexual relationships with drunk people.

But as a side current, there was merely escalation on the attempts at titillate. Mainstream entertainment, and especially videogames and animationa nd comics, have been trying more aand more to be more sofisticated, and somehow at the same time, have smalller bikinis and loincloths. Lara Crof, in particular, could not have started as a more obvious attempt at manipulating the male hormones to gain audience.

The costume to the right is described as MASSIVE ARMOR. This is our standard.

It was inevitable that these three conflicting ideologies, that of titillation, the concepts of rape in pop culture, and attempted softening of the more over the top elements of videogame culture would collide. To some people we're becoming more liberal and squemish, and to others we're becoming a stern amish society, when the truth is BOTH ARE SOMEHOW TRUE.

So, really, it was innevitable that someday, someone was going to try and rape Lara Croft. Two off the 3 explained mindsets supported it. I know it's easy to go with the outraged response. "This flesh peddlers are trying to sell rape as a way to tittillate. This is not acceptable." But isn't it?

When scavengers in the respective Resident Evil and Terminator apocalypses tried to rape their lead women, was it acceptable because you knew it wasn't going to happen? Is it acceptable in Boys Don't Cry because it really  happend, and if it really happened it isn't being exploited? When is it acceptable? Is God of War's offscreen sexing of concubines acceptable, because they never point out that concubines don't have much of a choice in anything? Is rape just to be left entirely out of interactive media, or just the adventure type games? If they make a Boys Don't Cry game, or GI Jane or  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen game is it okay if it has rape because the source had it? Does it have to be tastefull, and how do you measure what is or isn't tastefull?  I do not ask this questions because I want an answer: It's because if there is a  personal limit, then it needs to be clear each of us what it its. YOU need to answer to yourself this questions before reacting to things like this.



Look, I'll just make the horrendous, insensible jokes, and you fill in the rest, okay?

I'm telling you, in my country, there is a law against the distribution or having of "obscene  material" . And when you go in on what that actually means, it just goes with a really vague "whatever is too offensive to the mayority of peoples.  Now I've been to Hentai Foundry, so I know we might have differing opinions on what we want "My Small Horsies" characters to see doing to each other. But the point is, this kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. 10 years ago it was how much naked our BMX Strippers could be, and today is how much rape can we allow on our adventure games. This things don't just spring overnight, guys.

Scolding Reviews: Generation X at 1:20 PM

Stay on top, or remain from the underground...

Where a bit spoiled for choice, now, aren't we? I mean, us nerds. Used to be a time when no one thought X-Men franchise was going to exist in live action. That is, until the first X-Men movie: 1996 TV movie pilot Generation X. Finally, we could overlook and ignore the idea for 4 more years!

This weird, forgotten little nugget starts with a dictionary description of what mutation is, as well as the illegal status of having the X-Gene. You're not gonna get no Senate hearings, here, no siree. Just pure mutant hunting! Sentinels, Soldiers...

Just kidding.  What did you think? It's straight to T.V.!

Then we see a scientist called Russel preparing to open up someone crab-handed mutant's cranium. Luckily for the would be lobotomy victim, a lady bursts in the room and starts freeing him. Turns out the thing wasn't quite legal. However, neither was the guy, as he's quickly taken away by the Anti-Mutant squad. Russel is fired, which pisses the lady off because she expects her boss to do some additional course of action that is never explained. In fact, she gets so angry, she uses her mutant powers to create a small storm inside the building. Boy, did you just make Storm white?

Yorrr NEKST!

No, actually she's Emma Frost.  She walks out of the scene despite using her non canon weather powers in the open, where the Mutant Hunting Squad mustn't have even gotten to the elevator. Russel is furious, and we know, because there's a cartoon circle fadeout!

Not so merry melodies...

Then we cut to the tearfull goodbye of a Hispanic family to Hector, a young man headed for Xavier Academy. It's not too bad a scene, that is, until one of his sisters gets a little to attached to him, and as the car keeps moving she holds on to his hand, which stretches. This seems to really hurt him. I guess this was supposed to be both a tender moment and a showing of Hector's powers. Instead, it makes the sister seem psycho.

But evil is afoot, as Russel has been busy putting Subliminal messages on Virtua Fighter arcades ordering kids to "PLEY MOAR", which might seem unnecessary with people involved already ENGAGING IN USE OF THE PRODUCT, but a quick glance at the screen reveals Jubilee is often just hitting the sticks on Demo Mode.


Oh, yeah, Jubilee's in this movie. Only she's not half Chinese, half 90s slang anymore. Before you start another  "Racebending" type site, she was originally slated to be either Boomer, or Dazzler, but  since Jubilee was popular in the cartoon they put her in, changing the character's role. That's right, this 3 where actually considered interchangeable as starter X-Men  characters!

The trial ends in 15 days.

Jubilee's powers are soon made to go haywire by Russel's subliminal messages, making those sparks that she's known for.  As such, the Gestapo IMMEDIATELY show up to send her to "mutant camp".  However, she's picked up by Banshee and Emma Frost, the later of which uses a neat Jedi trick to break her out of detention.

As soon as they are out of the building, Jubilee starts trying to wriggle away from the two, without even  trying to wonder what they want with her. I can see her getting a block away from the Mutant Detention Center, then getting caught right the fuck up again.

Ah, the silliness of X-Men shining through. Where concentration camps exist in a world where you can't say faggot on T.V. Will Smith can't talk about Hitler without getting in trouble, but human beings with literally no rights can just be hoarded of to some non-descript place because they have the X-Gene. I'm just saying, you'd probably have some of them Civil Rights organizations on the  side of mutants.

So she agrees to go with Good Cop and Bad Accent Cop and they tell her, in those exact words, that she's being trained to be a superhero. See, in the X-Men movie series they never used the term because the X-Men are technically meant to be a force for mutant issues. That they fight people that have nothing to do with that like Arcade or the Brood has nothing to do with it. But here, they are straight telling her she's gonna fight crime, even thought Mutant Genocide is well implied. They probably knew Magneto was only gonna show every once in 3 months and the rest of the time was gonna be spent between mourning Phoenix, fighting  Phoenix and trips to the Savage Land.

Speaking of shit that doesn't have anything to do with the Mutant Struggle, Russel is speaking with his exec partner about how excited he is that he found a level 3 mutant brain because this furthers his goals by allowing him to access the dream dimension. See, dreams occur in another dimension, even the weird ones where you cut your brother's thumb off in the Halo universe, and  Russel asks his friend to "imagine the commercial possibilities for a free market omnipotent being." No, don't ask me. I didn't write it.

More importantly, Russel begins down the path to the character he really wants to be.

Yes, he's the Riddler from Batman Forever. The mind devices, the weird overacting, the sudden impersonations. The actor clearly researched that before doing this one. The only thing he's missing is a crush on Val Kilmer.

So, Hector and Jubilee arrive in Xavier's School for gifted youngsters(Charles Xavier not included). It's the same building  as in the future movies, too. However, there are not a lot of open shots of it. Either way, Jubilee has to get naked for some test thing, and since Xavier's institute likes being sued, no one has to leave or anything. The scene is pretty much an excuse for us to see Jubilee's naked back. Hey, she's 19, I checked!

Then it's time for Jubs and Hector to meet their fellow students. There's Black Jock, who can absorb properties of things. Blond Jock, who has both X-Ray vision and eye-lasers(YES!). There's Insecure Girl, who doesn't want people to see she's Superstrong because she has supermanly muscles. And there's Bitch Mutant, who cites herself as being "perfect" and having "level 8 invincibility". Wowee, I never knew invincibility was so nuanced.

3 out of this for foursome act with ridiculous, unjustified hostility toward the newcomers.  Without any reason they verbally and physically harass them, despite the fact they have no reason to. That's what teenagers are like, right? Especially teenagers who have had to live in exile and be separated from their loved ones? They're instajerks, right?

So, the kids eventually play some Football, which ends into a sort of friendly pileup. But Banshee can't have that in his school, so he uses his mutant powers to break it up. It's a nice use of his powers, but we could make it better.

So after some more jerking around, Banshee and Emma Furostu show up again to show the kids Cerebro(A room full of monitors. Hey, what was you expecting?) and teach them psychic powers. Yes, they all learn psychic powers.  That's how mutants work in  Generation X. Like in Fable.

Also, we see a small hint at the hatred this kids go through, as in the lounge room, the TV shows an interview with a pundit comparing the X-Gene to Aids. Naturally, Blond Jock destroys the television, which is met with approval by the kids. Why where they even watching that in the first place? And won't they want to watch something else in the future?

So the Excec and Dr Russel have different variations of the same conversation ("Don't fuck it up!" "I'm so weird! I will fuck it up!") which is pretty fillery, but since the actor who plays Russel gets the weridest lines in the world, and turns the camp up to eleven, it's tolerable.

Eventually, the X-kids convince Banshee to let them drive into town. Yes, a jeep full of impulsive teens with aggressive tendencies and superpowers, with no supervision. You know, parents trust the Xavier Institute with this kid's lives. And even though a trip to the town could land them in Gitmo, they STILL let them. Damn.

Also, leave your 90210 jokes at home. They brought their own.

Eventually Hector runs into some lighthearted bullies who  shove his face in Ice cream for liking the girl of the group.  This of course, causes indignation in Hector's current bullies from the Institute. No, I see what you did there, movie. I guess the bullies have their own bullies, too, right?

Tired of it all, Hector uses his hacking skills to  access a restricted room in the school in which Emma Frost's dream traveling machine resides.

Also, it tones your abs.

But he's not the only one with big dreams, as Russel the next day demonstrates his own dream-ey access-ey machine to a boardroom of investors. They're skeptical, so he tells them he implanted in their mind, through dreams a trigger to fart at a particular hour. This, rather than convincing them to invest in a machine, makes them decide to turn him in to the authorities. I guess the same world where a gene can be considered illegal already has legal provisions against mental takeover, huh?

So Russel kills the Exec by throwing him off a bulding. Yes. Just like the Riddler.

Flying menace!

So, Jubilee and Hector try the machine. She enters first, but Russel is also there, and he creeps her out with his weirdness and his harassy nature. She comes out of the machine crying and saying it was terrible. Hector, seeing this JUMPS INTO THE MACHINE. Yeah, not a smart one, that Hector. But  he travels into the dreams of his dreamgirl, which involve her combing her hair, in her room. Wow, what an airhead. Anyway, Russel also shows up and promises to help Hector with his dream-girl troubles.

But then the cops IRL disconnect him from his machine, which leaves his mind stranded in the dreamstate. This seems painfull, then he seems to enjoy it. The scene kinda just ends.

The next night, the kids are allowed into a carnival. You know...I'm kinda seeing the mutant registration  side of things. How am I supposed to enjoy a good  carnival worrying about some unsupervised teens who can kill me without even trying? Bitch mutant shows off, Blond Jock and Insecure Girl make out in the car, and Hector meets his girl outside the Matrix. Then her bully friends show up and try to harass him again, which starts a fight with the Xavier kids. This gets them in trouble with Emma Frost, who could ascertain that it wasn't their fault if she only read their mind. I guess she isn't a telepath anymore?

Wigs where part of this franchise from the start.

Hector sneaks into the Fantasy Zone once more, and executes a terrible dance sequence with the girl, when shock of shocks, Russel appears again. He begs for Hector to free his body from the mental hospital it's trapped in so he can enter his mind again. He doesn't want to, and that's when shit gets creepy.

Russel threatens that he will...and he uses the exact words "mind-rape"  his girl if he doesn't complain. As an added creepy bonus, he brings up his little sister from earlier(I guess her mind), licks her face, and threatens to rape her mind as well. Wow that's another one for the rape tag.

I don't seek these out. I swear I don't. They come to me!

Hector becomes involved and frees Russel's body and mind(eww). But Russel pays him by kidnapping him for purposes of cutting off his brain. I thought he wanted Jubilee. But I forgot: Nobody wants Jubilee.

Everybody hates you.

Hector uses his...psychic powers...to contact Jubilee and ask for help, which brings but to the film's climax as all the X-Kids, Banshee and Emma Frost head out to fight one middle aged guy with no powers. Needless to say it's pretty one sided. The guy gets zapped, punched, fireworked. But after he's blasted through a wall, he comes back and he's all powerful and behind the wall was the Dream Dimension. I did not understand this.

So Frost offers to stay and go down with Russel, but  Hector instead wraps around him and throws both him and the villain down the eternal hole of the dreamstate. It seems both are gone, but Hector comes back using his stretchy powers.

Winding down, we see that the kids are gonna get uniforms. Here's why we can't have source accurate X-suits, kids.

And yet Emma Frost never uses lingerie as her primary wear.

This movie is...a T.V. movie about X-Men, made in the 90s. It's exactly what you'd imagine by that. The action is pretty bad, and the acting isn't great. A lot of this stuff just can't be realized on a low budget.  The characters aren't really that likeable, though the villain is pretty fun, before he becomes too creepy. I suggest if you like obscure films like those Captain America movies or that terrible Fantastic Four 1994 movie,  or if you need to see every superhero movie out there, give this a chance. If you are lactose intolerant, stay away, 'cause this shit is cheesy.