The Commodore and I decided to partake in an evening showing of Scott Pilgrim a couple of days ago, and we both walked away pleased with the experience.  There were a few things that bothered me a bit.  Michael Cera essentially plays Michael Cera, which grates on me after 2 hours (at least he had some badass moments to break up the high-pitched loser mentality at several points).  The first half hour or so of the movie dragged for me (but held my attention from the first "Evil Ex" battle on - loved all of those, by the way).  And the character of Scott Pilgrim actually rubbed me the wrong way for most of the movie.  Truth be told, he's a bit of a douche - which is hard to root for - but he reached a major revelation by the end that salvaged him somewhat in my eyes.

But that's just the not-so-great stuff.  I found a lot more to like.  The cinematography, choreography, and sound editing were top notch.  I thought the script was well written and funny.  And the supporting cast was very good (special recognition for Knives Chau and Wallace).  Essentially, this is the closest I've ever felt a movie has come to emulating the style of video games, comic books, and various other aspects of geek and (I shudder to say, but must unfortunately include) "hipster" culture.  Unfortunately, that seems to be where the movie has gone wrong at the box office.

I don't anything particularly thought provoking to talk about in this blog entry, just a simple question - which you can find above in the header to this post (in case you missed it).  To be specific about my request, why does everyone under the sun love remaking their past games, but my personal favorite, Final Fantasy VI, isn't even discussed as a possible candidate.  It's even more egregious when you consider how remake-happy Square Enix is.

Yeah, sure, it's been ported to the PlayStation and GBA, but those were more like re-releases.  An FMV here, a translation tweak there, and that's about it.  I really enjoyed what Squeenix did in remaking Final Fantasy IV, Dragon Quest IV, and Dragon Quest V for the Nintendo DS.  So why ignore perhaps their greatest opus?  In fact, FFVI's kinda been the redheaded stepchild of their game library for awhile now, with nary a mention of it... pretty much ever.  I'm actually surprised Kefka and Terra were in Final Fantasy Dissidia, but I assume that was more out of a sense of obligation than anything else.

Actually, the Final Fantasy VII fanboys can relate, I'm sure.  They haven't even gotten the courtesy of a re-release outside of the PlayStation Network.  Square Enix, what the hell?  Probably 90% of Final Fantasy fans would claim one of these two games as the apex of the whole series (citation needed), yet you completely ignore the 3D, fully rendered, voice acted makeovers they so richly deserve.

Sorry for the rant, but it's frustrating that for all the remakes out there, the one (ONE!) game that I would really love to see them take a good whack at dolling up gets the perpetual shaft (which is a great name for a rock band, by the way).  Anyone else have their own white whale when it comes to this topic, or are ok with game companies leaving well enough alone?

In the past decade or so, is seems that an insidious horror has crept into cinema.  A horror that can debilitate dozens of people in one fell swoop (usually those in the first few rows of the theater).  A full blown fad that, unfortunately, cinematographers/directors/whoever-the-hell has decided en masse to be the next big thing in making their movies "real", or "edgy", or "able to cover up poorly shot scenes".  Of course, I speak of shaky cam.

You must have seen it before.  An action scene builds suspense as the heroes finally have their climactic battle with the enemy... only to have the cameraman decide to play make believe and pretend he's some random guy who wandered onto the battlefield with his Handycam.  I get the idea behind it - the director wants to make the audience feel like they're involved in the scene.  Like the action is so lifelike and chaotic, you have to duck and dodge to get out of the way of all the crap flying around you.  It's too bad the effect is so detrimental to the film.

Though the concept's been around awhile, the style seems to have been popularized by the Blair Witch Project (in movies) and Battlestar Galactica (in TV).  However, it's been brought to new amounts of absurdity by films like Cloverfield and *sigh* even Star Trek.  Watching those movies, I never got a good look at the really great effects I was looking for: neither the monster nor the starships.  In fact, even trying just gave was a severe headache.  Judging by the warnings posted outside some movie theaters showing Cloverfield, at least I know I'm not the only one.

Today I've got a little something different.  A few weeks ago, someone had seen my mega-sized review of EarthBound and felt that they should share a story of how much the game had affected their life.  I was actually rather humbled and touched that someone would open up so much to another person who's essentially a stranger on the internet, but open up he did.

I'd like to share his story with you.  Yes, it's ostensibly about EarthBound, but it's really a story that could be retold countless times about many young gamers with almost any game.  Sometimes growing up a geek can be hard.  Sometimes you're lonely.  Sometimes you're ostracized.  Sometimes others just don't get why certain characters, storylines, or musical pieces from games can resonate so much with you.  But it's sobering when you realize that there are many, many people who know exactly how it feels - and how these simple games can shape lives.

The entire story is below the bump (I only edited personal details like names and e-mail addresses that I figured would be inappropriate to share.  And warning, there are spoilers for EB).

Hello all.  Sometime late into our Friday gaming night, the Clan of the Gray Wolf reached an important milestone: our 1,000th subscriber on YouTube!

Honestly, we were all floored when I shared the news with the guys.  I don't know if we ever thought such a goal was attainable, and I know we never counted on any such milestone.  But thanks to all of you guys out there who have seen our videos, subbed us on YouTube, visited the website, and even posted in the forums.  Hell, thanks to you lurkers out there too (and I know you're out there - I've been a professional lurker on many message boards for the better part of a decade).  Without the support you guys have given us, the path here would have been much harder, and I wonder at times if it would have been made at all.  So sincerely, from all of us - thank you so much!!!  (Protip: The extra exclamation points convey sincerity)

In addition, I'd like to thank Enigma and all the other talent at Xtreme Network Online, for taking us on as a partner this past January (and there really is a lot of great talent over there - do yourself a favor and check it out).  Their early encouragement was very... encouraging.  Also, major thanks to Tomato at EarthBound Central, who was the first to drive major traffic to our channel due to our EarthBound retrospective.  That caused a lot of people to find us for the first time.  And a big thanks to the posters on the That Guy With The Glasses forums, who are perhaps the most amenable message board posters anywhere (except for CotGW, of course).  On this note: many people have found us through various outlets, so I've put a poll below this post to try to learn more and get a cross section of our viewership - your participation is mandatory, and recalcitrance will be punished.

Now, though I am tooting our (and your) horns a bit, this milestone doesn't actually change anything.  We'll keep on making our content, listening to you guys, and interacting to develop new ideas for the future.  So if you like our stuff: keep visiting, join the forums (or YouTube channel if you haven't yet), and spread the word to internet and real life friends alike.  We're here to geek up your lives for a long time to come!