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Showing posts from July, 2010

I'm back! and I dug something out of the archives, Wolf from 1994

Remember that movie where Jack Nicholson was a werewolf? No? Seems that not many people do, which is a shame, because it might be my favorite film representation of the wolfman. The story kicks off with our man Jack as the editor in chief of a publishing house, which has recently been bought out by a billionaire tycoon. On a return trip from out of town, he hits a wolf with his car, and when he gets out to investigate, it plays dead until he gets close, and then it bites him and runs off. Anyone who sees a werewolf movie will be familiar with the coming scenes of him discovering new animalistic traits in himself. There are two things that keep this from just being a run of the mill monster flick, first, it's Jack, if ever there was an actor who didn't need makeup to play a wolfman, it's Jack, aside from just having the look, he's also got that subtle, creepy, intimidating matter that really sells the alpha dog in a business setting. The second thing that stands out,...

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

I don't know how common the knowledge is, but the Mario Franchise has a surprisingly robust history of quality RPGs. Starting way back on the Super Nintendo, with Super Mario RPG, the series has a history of going light on the RPG elements, and featuring gameplay that's heavy on timed inputs to increase the strength of attacks, or to avoid taking damage. The Mario & Luigi series started on the Gameboy Advance with Super Star Saga, and took a slightly different approach to controlling the characters. Instead of gathering an eclectic cast of original characters to join Mario on his journey, you instead control only Mario and Luigi, for the entirety of the game, and each is assigned to either the a or the b button. In battle, you use the B button to select Luigi's actions, or to evade or counter attack, Mario is assigned to the A button. This is expanded upon by giving them special attacks that they perform cooperatively, for instance, one attack has them kicking a tur...