A Gate for Gamers at 12:11 PM

As you may have heard, this last month we've seen a bit of trouble here in videogame liking land. That problem has been given the name Gamergate, and a few accompanying hashtag warcries tag along it now.

I dread to recap it, because it's the kind of topic everyone's already settled their minds upon, and any deviation from their version will probably end up in accusations of bias, missinformation, missoginy, and many more things. So let's break this down.

Some lady I don't know, and also a lady I kind of know, claim to have been targets of harassment by lowlives that happen to also like games. This leads many game sites to simultaneously claim that gamers are over/dead/unnecessary. This leads to some more backlash from gamers, who are now angry with the media for being full on the side of these ladies. They claim these ladies manufactured their own threats, and also screwerized actual profemale gamejams. I think I got most of it. Now put it in there in the comments that Bestgeekever is biased  against someone, because it is, and it's called EVERYONE.

I've always believed that most of the times, when we're looking for the truth in extremes, we're off the mark. So basically you're all wrong in my eyes.

Gamergate partidarians, I acknowledge that your sides accusations of media bias towards Whatever's side should have been acknowledged. And that's exactly the problem with begging everything with massive harassment. Even if Ms Whatever was the conniving succubus you claim her to be, no one likes to see a lady get attacked. I learned this in school, when I teased a girl who had teased me everyday, and some random kid punched me in the gut. "Not fair?" Fuck fairness, play to win with the rules that are in place!

It's natural that  claims of harassment will be heard over claims of "having em' rolled around her little finger". Why wouldn't they? Even if they aren't biased, as far as they know that's just the harassers falling into self defense! That's what I would believe!

And you media? How dare you? For shame! "Gamer's are dead now"? "Game's culture is a shame?" Weren't you at E3 just  a few months ago, sorrounded by those famous "adults in mushroom hats" you so now loath, telling about all the future upcoming products we were going to buy? And all of a sudden, because a few bad eggs did something, you want to disolve the whole thing? Kotaku ain't got no love for Gamers and Cosplay and Death Row?

And really, it is just a few bad eggs. Don't make this about Gamers. SOME ASSHOLES sent harrassing messages to those people, just like some assholes might yell insults at the players during a basketball game. You don't see Sports Illustrated going "We don't need B-Ball fans anymore, they're stupid." Because yes they do. Who's gonna buy the tickets and merchandise if not the fans? Who is going to convince others to get into it if not the fans? Do you think if they all leave some new type of fan will materialize itself, as if fandom was a naturally occurring phenomenom?

Some of us have been into gaming a while, is all. We have injokes. We remember certain things. We don't just play games every odd moon, we try to know about them. We don't hate people who don't play videogames as much as us. I knew this one family of like, 8 kids that all they had was baseball games (and also my Smash Bros cartridge that they never gave back...) That's okay too. But some of us like games in a more intimate levels.

And finally, to all you who want to see the games industry get some more variety overall, this I agree with. But, as I told  one of said ladies once, the point is not to nag the industry into compliance. The point is to create a niche, from where different kinds of games can grow. Prove that such different experiences have a market to them, and you will sow the seeds of change.

And finally, to all I say: disagree as much as you want. Democracy is made of people arguing until one argument is agreed more than the other. But remember that, just like using the Game Gennie on a single player game, you only cheat yourself if your arguments aren't truthful and fair.

And now you can witness my initial reaction for this and how right it was.

Now go inside and play.

Post-post 9-11 at 7:55 PM

It's been 13 years since the towers fell. I'm sure most of you have been made aware of this. If not, well, I think we are under orders to never forget.

I was 16 at the time, essentially the middle of my life  up to this point. I remember where I was. But I also remember other  things from that year. I remember a Britney Spears interview from Summer where she spoke of how great a year it had been. We'd all gotten over our fear the Y2k bug/The Great King of Terror would end civilization. I felt well on my way to one of those optimist futures where food comes in pills and cars fly.

I also remember a discarded magazine from the library. It was Time, from before 2000. It wrote of the things we feared might happen in The millennial new year.  Sure enough, Bin Laden's face was in there.

I wish those of you born after 2001  could see what I'm talking about. I don't want to let nostalgia grab hold, because I was fairly young, but in all my pre 9-11 life the major wars America was involved where nothing compared to Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea of carrying water or a Hockey stick into a plane was not something we had to watch out for. We had terrorism! But we kind of kept living.

We didn't just continue living in the Post 9-11 world. Not by a long shot. We decided whatever kept us safe, or felt like it would, was justifiable. The  2,977 that died on 9-11 are now joined by 6,717 that died in the War on Terror(I don't know if it's a succesful revenge to lose twice the people you are avenging), a conflict against the general idea of terrorism.  Said terrorism in this case took the shape of two sovereign countries who ended up  costing us 1.5 trillion dollars(so far) and being a detour from defeating the specific group that specifically Attacked America.

We sewed mistrust, and reaped it. After a few years of  war on terror, disillusion was born. Many, tired of the lies of the Government, turned abroad for their lies. Many fell in with conspiracy theorists. Yet many stuck fanatically fast to the government.  Much division ensued.

We did not rebuild the towers. We built a Museum to remind ourselves we once had towers. It's a poor choice if you ask me.

So am I saying everything used to be better? Absolutely not. This era is beautiful. Our phones used to only be useful for calling. And naked Batgirl drawings where a hassle to get.

But we're also still living in a Post 9-11 mentality. We're still looking over our shoulders. We're still thinking maybe we can stop 9-11 II if we let NSA spy on Americans, and hurt anyone we even suspect is a terrorist.

But this year, President Obama finally called used the T word instead of euphemising . It gives me hope, that maybe we're ready to move into a Post-post 9-11 mentality. A world where  we can live without feeling our choices are. getting  blown up by Dessert People or getting touched in the junk at the airport. A world where we don't have to roll our eyes when we talk about Freedom. A world where we're not at war anymore.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a Post-Post 9-11 world. Any old country can suffer a terrorist attack. It takes a truly great country to come out stronger.

Happy 6 year aniversary, Bestgeekeverpr.blogspot.com! NOW DIE! at 8:46 AM

6 years ago, in a time of sorcery and brutality, a blog was born. Forged from the fires of nerdery and greed,  it was weaned on violence, and reared by an angry Michelle Rodriguez. This is it's story.

Back, back in the days when Bush was still president, it was the height of my life. I had a cushy minimum day Full-time that merely required me to speak English and watch over paintings. I could even afford to turn down women. Back in those days, I had a dream, to make the greatest comic series of all time. Or the best movies. Or the best videogames. To be quite frank, I don't really remember what I wanted to do. Just that I wanted it bad. So I opened a blog, in order to promote the forgettable thing I was doing at the time.

But soon, "Just promotion" seemed like a very dull use of a Blog. My friend had just introduced me to Thatguywiththeglasses.com and I was just way into Cracked.com. It soon dawned on me that having an opinion on things could be used to bring joy to people, and maybe make some money.

Since then it's been a weird, wonderful thing. I got to share with the world a bit of me, and my obsessions, and the world got to share a bit of theirs with me. Since I started I changed religion, changed my mind on politics, and  fell out with some family members, but never did I consider never agian blogging.

 But this place has to die.


I've been meaning to  undo this whole thing for years, and always something gets in my way. I'm sick of the black and green. Sick of the disarray.  So, in celebration of 6 years of obssesive blogging, I'm putting Thebestgeekeverpr.blogspot.com to pasture.

But I'm not quitting blogging. Oh, no. I'm just transitioning from Bestgeekeverpr.blogspot.com to Bestgeekever.blogspot.com. It's a whole new thing. I'm not just going to be harping on news and occasionally promising a work I'll never get done. I will also engage in new forms of  creative writting  and other such processes.  But first, I need a site people might be willing to look at for extended periods of time.

In the future I'm hoping I can also again do more reviews of things, as well. It's kind of difficult now, in my current setup, but I'm hopeful this will also come true. Success is inevitable.

So walkers, keep walking, and make a road as you go. What I will do, from now on, is post about recent events, in Spanish. I know for a fact there's a good spanish speaking audience out there, and they need to be served news just as good as anyone else. So I'm thinking some weekly updates or whatever. It's fine. In fact, this is the last post in English. Follow along to Bestgeekever.blogspot.com for all your english speaking stuff. Otherwise, quedense aqui que la transicion toma lugar ahora.

For the newbs: Mecha, androids, Cyborg and Robots at 11:28 AM

I've grown to love Pacific Rim ever since it's on HBO. I didn't even care about the hype when it was being hyped, but now that I've seen it, I don't even know why I like it so much.

However, during said hype, mistakes where made. Mistakes regarding what a robot is and what a mecha is. So, for all those now gettin g into Geekery, this one's for you.

The word robot finds it's root in the word roboto, the polish word for slave. The word mecha comes from the latin mechanical.

A robot is an autonomous mechanical being. In fiction, at least, these usually tend to move for themselves, and act for themselves, without imput from the outside. R2d2 is a robot. So is Johny #5 and Sonny from I Robot. So are the Sentinels form the X-Men and the Transformers.

A Geth from Mass Effect is an alien robot.

Subcategories of the robot include the android, which is a robot in the general shape of a man. C3PO David from Ai  and David from Prometheus are androids.

The Robot Wall-E, while imbued with human-like personality, is not an Android.

 Gynoids, are robots shaped like women, which are somewhat rarer, and even more rare to be described as such. EVi from Mass Effect 3 is a ginoid.

Both the T-100(left) and the T-X(right) are robots, but T-1000 is an Android, while  T-X is a ginoid.

Not to be confused with Cyborgs. Cyborgs are humans with noticeable mechanical parts added to them. The Bionic Commander, Jax from Mortal Kombat and Will Smith's character in I Robot are cyborgs.

General Grievous substituted all his body parts save his heart for mechanical ones, thus becoming a cyborg. However...

Luke Skywalker lost his hand, and had it replaced with an indistinguishable replica. Luke Skywalker is a cyborg.

But a Mecha is not a robot. A Mecha is a vehicle designed  with the appendages of a quadruped. It has no will of it's own. The Jaegers from Pacific Rim are Mechas. So is the Power-loader from Aliens, the vehicles used by the Zion resistance in Matrix Revolution, and the Evas in Evangelion.

A pilot ascends into his mech in the dormant Mechassault franchise.

So, hopefully this will clear up any confusion about that before the Pacific Rim comes out. I know many are not "in the know" of Mecha, because it's a bit of a niche concept here in the west. Robot is more popular. In fact, we tend to refer to a cyborg as "having a robot arm". We need to be working on the jargon, because how are you supposed to enjoy Mecha beating up on kaiju without correcting this technicalities?

The Probe Droid is not piloted, but the Walkers are. Thus walkers are Mecha, and the Probe Droid is a robot.

Unlicenced Lawyer : Van Damme's Guile at 9:46 AM

There once was a time, then a Street Fighter movie did not exist. Not a single one. There were not enough cartoons and animes and comics about Street Fighter to fill a Wikia. There was no Alpha, no Ex, no "Assassin's Fist" and certainly no "VS Tekken". There was only "2", 12 characters whose lives as far as we knew revolved solely around hurting each other in.

Ok, there might have been some.

In that world, full of optimism and potential, the announcement of a Street Fighter movie did exist. Back then, we weren't "tired" of remakes and adaptations(I guess with the record breaking millions these adaptations are making now, you could argue our tiredness can only carry us so far.) A Street Fighter movie was not a horrible suggestion: it was the alternative to no Street Fighter movie.

So the movie was made in 1994. They made some...choices with it. Some of those choices do not sit well with the most hardcore fans, who's clinging to a "sola interactiva" philosophy is as commendable as it is ill advised.

"They ruined T. Hawk!" yelled no one.

There's plenty of deviations that I would not have done, should this have been MY Street Fighter movie. As many, the 20 years since have mellowed my views on it, perhaps nostalgia catching hold, but that doesn't mean we can't have a better version. However, I am here to speak on behalf of one of the movies most fought about elements, it's lead character  Guile, played by Jean Claude Van Damme.

It's easy to see why they would be angry. Of all the National charicatures in Street FIghter, Guile is easilly the harder to screw up: A big, American military man. Why they went with a guy with a heavy Brussels accent, we might never know. We do suspect it having to do with getting a big name in there. Yeah, they where obviously only thinking about only the almighty dollar. But what do we know about Guile? Well, he looks like this.

Wait a minute: American military, huge muscles...early 90s... things that were popular... people with jowls and pronounced chins...

If you think about it, it makes sense to think that, when trying to represent an "American" martial arts/stock character, Capcom's designers would look at what was popular in American Cinema, and nothing was more popular than Arnold at the time. You can accuse Capcom of being ripoff artists, and you'd be right about that. But not only where they not the only ones, but they where pretty good at it, too. They put John Matrix in the hair of some nazi guy from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and then boom! New character.

In this sense, Jean Claude Van Damme is the perfect choice for Guile:  a thickly accented action movie star. There's no way they would have gotten Arnold at the height of his career to play a big, cartoony setting like this, at a time where he was selling movies for himself. And besides, as far as having someone  doing stuff like this:

It makes sense to bring in a guy who can do stuff like this:

I say we have all been a bit unfair to Street Fighter: The Movie in this sense. Now, was giving Van Damme a moving speech a bad idea? Maybe. Was making his pants blue instead of Green a betrayal of SF cannon? Perhaps. Should The Boxer have been working for Bison and the Russian Guy have not been? Definitively.  Is the movie perfect? No. Is Van Damme the Worst Possible Guile? Not on your life, bud.

Now, who wants to hear about how I think Charlie should be played by Tom Cruise?

You know I'm right!

Scolding Review: Tin Man part 1 at 11:05 AM

Asylum always knew Iron Man would be a hit.

5 years ago, I sat in a theater, with only a confused old lady and a smooching couple to watch Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. It was a story I thought made sense to tell, with people I knew playing characters I liked. We all know how that turned out.

Well, for those who don't the story was a complete affront to the source material. How could these film makers take something we were all familiar with and twist it, dial it down until it becomes this unrecognizable gray mass of flavorless blandness? It was then and there that I felt for the first time stirrings about a movie strong enough to get me to write about it.

But is reinvention always bad?  With straight versions of Batman and the Marvel heroes we're getting today, sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get any weird takes on things anymore. You know, your German Impressionist Batman movie where it's like it's not even about Batman. Your Hulk where it's about how Hulk is angry with his parents and he does wuxia with trees. Your Vampirella where Vampirella is Talisa Soto.

If you're concerned about the lore of Vampirella being tarnished...your a perv in denial.

For example, with public Domain stories now there seems to be a rush to bring them to screen as  rubbery action movies. Snow White and the Huntsman,  Hanzel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, I Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, and more recently Maleficent. It's a trend that's yet to bring us anything but clunkers, seemingly.

But perhaps not all is bad. There is one version of a public domain story starring SF TLOC's own Bison, Neil McDonough and the sister of that lady from Bones and Alan Cumming that may yet prove that there is hope. It is the Sci Fi(before they put a bunch of "Ys" in there) original Minisiries Tin Man.

I know. Sci Fi original doesn't lend it a lot of credit. But let's give this a chance. It's also a perfect time to exploit all the Oz I've been reading.

The story starts with some ominous words in a dreamlike sequence. But it is a dream, one that is happening to our heroine  DG played by Zoe Deschannel. DG spents the whole first episode of the miniseries without anyone calling her anything else. You can fill the letterd yourself!

Why do I work in a retro cafe?

Death Gum is working  a waitress in Kansas, and as many heroes are wont to do in these stories, she wants more to life than what she has. Her parents try their hardest to be Aunt May and Uncle Em.

However, in another place, the evil, crosseyed queen of a land is demanding her men, The Not-SS, to find an Emerald, which she needs before a magical eclipse deadline. In desperation, she sends her men to find Doing Good, though a teletransporting  whirlwind. They arrive, and try to shoot our heroine and her family with their magic laser guns.   But Day Grunt gets thrown into the vortex, which takes her to the magical land of...Outer Zone.

Get it? O.Z.! OZ! Because it's silly, Oz is like, in Australia or something! Well, this movie's certainly about Oz, and they even needlessly credit Baum, but they still feel the need to rename just about all the characters. In some cases it makes sense because a lot of Oz's  characters  don't have names. In others, Well, you're trying to hard to sell us this action-fantasy Oz, Sci Fi.

I mean, I like big butts, but they have to look big relative to the size of the chick!

So Devil Goat gets trapped by Pygmies, who aren't quite sure if they are native americans or  africans, costume wise. They accuse her of being a spy, take her plocket of remember parents, and threaten to flay her. She takes offense to the locket part. However, hiding just above her is Alan Cumming, who they apparently felt they just had to tie to the roof.

Nightcrawler her is the Scarecrow of our Oz, an android called Glitch with severe glitches whose brain was stolen from his head. He certainly draws a few  chuckles. Together both of them escape as  the Notzi army prepares to destroy the NOt-Munchkins Kashyyyk trees.

Azky is not happy that her henchmen did not succeed, so she steals his soul and promotes his subordinate, a man called Zero, to a higher rank. They have some kind of hairy sasquatch man tied to a machine, which sucks his future predicting powers into the machine so it can be shown in her little tv. You know, in the original book the Wicked Witch only had one eye, but with that eye she could see  across the distance like a telescope with no depth perception. Here they honor that by making the witch a little crosseyed.

Azkhadelia's not impressed with the Xbox One price drop.

Danger Guts and Glitch come across a scene of some bad guys  putting the hurt on a family. She tries to help by running at them with a  broken branch, but then it turns out it was all a hologram, designed to  torture our newest party member,  Wyatt Cain, played by Neil McDonough aka Dunn Dunn Dugan from Captain America and Legend of Chun Li's Bison. This was before that, though. Can you believe I wanted to see this series just to know if he'd be good in that? Oh, man, was that ever silly.

They get the man out of his torture sarcophaguss, he shaves, and dresses up in his Walker Texas Ranger outfit, and goes into reluctant hero mode. He wants revenge on Zero, and he believes it is best for Glich(whome he outs as a convict, though maybe he means "fugitive?") But we all know he won't leave cutie pattotie Deep Game and lovably quirky Glitch behind.

"Hey, you, multiple attackers! Go away before I hit you with this twig I found!"

"Shit, it's Emily  Deschannel! Run!"

"Actually I'm her sister Zoey!"

"No rush, men."

They try and head towards Central City where the Mystic Man whom Cain used to protect might have their answers, and on the way run into an incapacitated Raw, our Cowardly Lion. He has been entombed by this horrible giant spiders that chase the group until they jump out into a river.

I feel this picture is a Meme that hasn't happened yet.

For the record, There is in the original book a giant spider, which the Lion Kills. Accuracy points, ahoy!

Even then the  bad guys come after them, so they run away and finally find Derp Glow's parents in a village of robots. The twist it, they're robots too! and they're not her parents! Due Gin is, apparently, an Outer Zone native, and her real parents took her to Earth to protect her until she was ready. She takes it all pretty well, overall. Yeah there's no huge breakdown at finding out her parents are robots, but I don't know if there's tone for that, here.

Perhaps  your encouragement levels are dangerously low, huma...I mean honey...

Our party rest up, and hitch a ride into Central City, which is like 1950s new york if they built a castle around it. There they run  into the Mystic Man, a showman hooked on Witch-Vapor drugs who is too high to even properly  refuse to help. Dino Gel eventually slaps him, and the mark robot man left in her awakens the man to reveal where they should go next.

Whoa...It's a giant Billboard of Anne Hathaway's face!

The party heads north, following Dedo Grande's dream-clues, until they get to a snowed in, locked up castle. There they find out the big twist: Her parents where Monarchs, she's a princess, and Azkhadelia is her sister! Her sister killed her as a kid, until her magic mom revived her.

Unlocky for all them, Azhkhadelia finds them using the flying monkey-bats she shoots out of her breasts. No, really.

Fly, my titties, fly!

After running through a couple of obvious green screen rooms, the Mobats(instory name foreal) have captured them all, except for Cain, who gets shot out of a window. This is how episode 1 ends.

I don't want to make my final determination, since this is merely the first episode, but I want to watch the next episode, no joke. The series, while sometimes it's effects are hockey, doesn't try to go too far into being "the serious action Wizard of Oz" one might believe.  It's like a quirky, stupid RPG about Oz. It seems pretty self aware of what it is, and I commend it for it. But is it all downhill from here? We'll see.

Mind over creative matter at 9:01 AM

A few weeks ago, it was announced that a plane simulator had been flown outstandingly by non-pilots using a helmet that directly obeyed their mental commands. "That certainly seems like it could change aeronautics..." I thought. "...but how does that make my dreams come true?"

I wasn't thinking about dreams of a future utopia or equality or anything like that. I meant the weird mental mini-movies that play when you're asleep. For the longest time I've wanted a device that can record what my brain does in it's off hours, so that I can show everyone my dream where Marty McFly is a lady in a blue jumpsuit who Kristen Keruk tries to bribe with  some futas. Well, maybe not that one. That one's for me.

You're not a sex object in my dreams, be-be!

The point being, the technology is still not there to put what we see in our minds into reality. However, there is another use I see for this.

You see, that simulator the pilots flew was made with lots of typing of code, and moving of mouse, to generate what looks  like a plane flying over what looks like a ground. But what if it wasn't? What if, you just put on your little helmet, and go thinking of how you want that plane to look. You go thinking how you want the plane to react. And it just goes arming the program as it goes.

"All you guys, you're fired! We're cutting down the staff to one guy!"

Computer modeling is an art, but if we could remove the required hand coordination, to make a character you'd just sit there squinitnng until the monster you want pops up onscreen. You just squint some more to create a synth voice that sounds like Idris Elba. You animate the movie with your mind, and then as you watch it, you think of the music it should have as  an FL studio ish program creates the music you want the movie to have. With enought Squinting you could totally make your Pacific Rim fanmovie. 

"Da! It feel so good to be alive! We where lucky to eject in time!"

To say nothing of controls for the games themselves. Direct control over your character's exact movements!  Comfort your wounded dog!  Chokeslam your enemies! Slap  every tit in Morrowind!

I feel like Mike Teevee in that Wily Wonka remake. Good, you can fly planes real easy, even though it's hard. However, somewhere along the way of making that easier, these guys seem to have stumbled into a way to make EVERYTHING TO DO WITH COMPUTERS EASIER. Put me down for 20 of those with a USB cable. I have stories about Violet and Merida to tell.