Midweek Video: Dude Runner

All I can say is that is some excellent editing work. I especially love the fact that M. Emmet Walsh was in both Blade Runner and some of the Coen Brothers early work, so it does sort of tie the whole thing together.

Some of the best editing I've ever seen on one of these.

Tags: m emmet walsh, the dude, the big lebowski, blade runner, nihilists, mashup, coen brothers, ridley scott, replicants, science fiction

Warner Music and YouTube come to Terms

A few months back, I wrote a post admonishing Warner Music for their draconian stance when it came to the work of their artists on Youtube.

Well, Warner Music and Google have now come to financial terms and Warner Music seems poised to return to the site in full force, joining the other major labels as content providers. In exchange, Warner Music gets the majority of the ad revenue generated by clips of their content.

Now, I don't know what this means for the future of mashup works like Mad Max with Ace of Spades for instance, but I hope that if Warner Music are able to say that those clips contain their intellectual property and thus, they get paid their agreed upon ad revenues, that this kind of work will not only survive but thrive under this agreement (after all, this whole thing seems to be all about money, so if they are getting paid, then we should all be happy).

What I am really afraid of however is that a) Warner is going to be very protective of their IP and b) the other media companies might want to get the same agreement WMG has if they don't already, and may use their power as copyright holders to get it, to the detriment of the end user.

So while I welcome that library of songs back into the fold, I am still looking out for some of the ripples this agreement may have started.

Tags: youtube, warner music, universal, mad max, ace of spades, motorhead, mashups, intellectual property

Sunday Video: Carl Sagan meets Auto Tune

The age of Auto Tune videos has been upon us for quite some time, but I never really wanted to to acknowledge it.

Of course, when I think about Auto Tune videos, I think of Semaj who has taken a shine to them as of late, and he has picked some real nuggets out of that stream.

However, when I saw this one, well, I had to post it. When you put Carl Sagan through that process, well, you end up with something that is just so winning.

After all, Carl Sagan is trippy as it is, but with Auto Tune, well, he just becomes almost Dude-like.

Tags: carl sagan, auto tune, stephen hawking, cosmos, semaj, his eminence, the dude

Week 20: Pageant of the Transmundane

I usually preface these entries with a bit of weird news, but that whole Mackenzie Phillips as an adult having an incestuous affair her dad for a decade thing really defines transmundanity, so nothing else in the news really tops that.

This week's winning entry comes from the blog Hunting Lodge and features a series of anatomical images of various Japanese Supermonsters.

And since the winning entry this week has to do with interior view of a series of fictional characters, well, this oldie seems to be appropriate (and since I used a Homer Vs. Godzilla picture a few weeks ago, well, I didn't want to go to that well again so soon).



Congrats to the crew at the Hunting Lodge. Huzzah!



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, hunting lodge, godzilla, mackenzie phillips, john phillips, anatomy, japan

Friday Favorite: A Goonies Sequel? I'll believe it when I see it

Well, I was doing a little digging online about a potential sequel to The Goonies, and I remembered that I had written a post about that which is still relevant (for a few months anyway), and I thought it was worth revisiting.

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There have been discussions about the whole Goonies gang getting back together to film a sequel to the iconic 1985 adventure movie for years, and speculation about the project has gotten some more fuel because Sean Astin has revealed that the sequel is an absolute certainty.

Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. And I am so sure that the project isn't getting off the ground that I am making this pledge to you, my readers.

If this movie is made before 2010, I will be forced to write nice and/or flattering things about the following:

The Four Horsewomen of the Cultural Apocalypse (Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton)
Scientology
The FCC
Uwe Boll
Fox News
Bill O'Reilly
Ann Coulter
and 6-8 additional figures/organizations to be determined by you all.

I would consider that putting my money where my mouth is so to speak. (And I just may keep that whole Four Horsewomen concept for the future).



--

I am prepared to up the ante on this come the new year. Stay tuned to this blog in January 2010 to see what new challenge I come up with regarding this.

Tags: the goonies, sean astin, corey feldman, paris hilton, lindsay lohan, nicole ritchie, britney spears, fcc, scientology, uwe boll, fox news, bill o'reilly, ann coulter, democracy, four horsewomen, cultural apocalypse

Midweek Video: Top Gear and the Motorhome Race

I've been known to flick on Top Gear, the BBC automotive show, from time to time, and sometimes I end up seeing something stupefying.

This is one of those segments.

I guess that's what happens when you get a bunch of racers together and tell them to do something weird.

It was entertaining television to me.

Tags: top gear, motorhome race, bbc, over the top, mythbusters approved

Another Pointless Sequel: Wild Hogs II

News has broken that a new Wild Hogs movie is in the works and it is taking the action across the Atlantic to Europe. As you can tell from the title of this entry, I think this is a mistake.

Sequels aren't necessarily a bad thing, but in my experience whenever a sequel takes place in Europe, bad things are about to befall the viewing public. Take for example another movie series which began life as your basic road comedy about a group of people who drive across country looking for adventure and find a series of misfortunes along the way. You may know it better as the movie National Lampoon's Vacation, which was gold. Then the producers decided to make a second movie, European Vacation, which was an epic failure comedically, one which Eric Idle couldn't even salvage. And the less said about Deuce Bigalow's ill-advised trip to Europe, the better.

So I thought it would be fun to look at the 4 main actors in this movie and think up better sequel opportunities for them as individuals, and ways this sequel news could actually be worse.

--

Martin Lawrence

Sequel I'd Rather See: Blue Streak 2. I've always liked Blue Streak, and the prospect of seeing Martin Lawrence playing the two kinds of roles that defined him as an actor (cops and criminals) in a single movie is an intriguing prospect. Of course, the main cast from the first movie wouldn't likely appear (though I could see Luke Wilson popping up again for a cameo).

How It Could Be Worse: Big Momma's House 3: Senior Citizens on Patrol

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Tim Allen

Sequels I'd Rather See: Big Trouble or Galaxy Quest. Big Trouble was a movie based on a novel by Dave Barry that was very much in keeping with the Elmore Leonard tradition of comical crime picture, and I wouldn't mind seeing those characters together again, and Galaxy Quest is just pure awesome... and while I wouldn't want to see it sullied by a bad sequel. I get that, but again, there is always room for more story (though I think the fact that the actor who plays Tommy Webber, Daryl Mitchell, is now in a wheelchair might put a slight damper on things).

How it Could Be Worse: Too many to name, but I will mention three titles: Jungle 2 Jungle 2: Too Jungle, Too Furious, Zoom 2: The New Nightmare and Christmas with the Kranks 2: High Dosage

--

William H. Macy

Sequel I'd Rather See: Um, although he has been in a lot of movies, looking down his filmography reveals one movie that I could possibly see potential in sequel for, and that would be Mystery Men. I mean, I like Mystery Men, but when it is that hard to find something that might work as a sequel, it tells you that someone either picked very wisely or unwisely as an actor. I'll let you be the judge of which side he was on.

How it Could be Worse: Boogie Nights 2: Electric Little Bill

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John Travolta

Sequel I would Rather See: None. Not even in a prequel to Pulp Fiction. And I stand by that.

How it Could Be Worse: Battlefield Earth II: Xenu Strikes Back or Look Who's Talking Four Me: The Power of Attorney Years


And can someone write a sequel to My Cousin Vinny or something so Marisa Tomei doesn't have to be in this movie either. Please... anyone?

Tags: john travolta, vacation, european vacation, deuce bigalow, william h macy, boogie nights, wild hogs, mystery men, pulp fiction, battlefield earth, big momma's house, blue streak, zoom, galaxy quest, big trouble, jungle 2 jungle, my cousin vinnie, tim allen, marisa tomei, look who's talking, xenu, christmas with the cranks

Lee Sargent and the Guest Post of Doom

After last week's marathon session of posting, I was both honored and relieved to discover that long time reader and super blogger and artist Lee Sargent of Quit Your Day Job fame had a guest post up his sleeve for me.

In fact, I think this is the first guest post I've ever had. I've written a few, but I've never had one.

Lee wrote an eloquent entry about what he looks for in a game (which he knew would be right up my alley), and it is like a walk down memory lane, even though I didn't go down the exact same path he did as a child.

Lee, I am forever in your debt my friend, and I thought you'd appreciate the title. It was probably better than referring to you as my favorite Eric Bana character ever.

--
When thinking about my favourite games I'm usually driven by two factors that your general game reviewer probably disregards for completely appropriate reasons given their goals. But as I maintain with any of these types of ranking exercises it's so much better to be personally subjective and so the following two factors play a large part for me:

* Nostalgia
* Social networking

Nostalgia is of course an incredibly powerful thing, especially in a marketing/retail environment. Nostalgia is what makes you generally interested in an A-Team film, despite the fact that upon detached and objective revisits to the A-Team television show you find yourself wondering how you ever could have found the show engaging on any level. Go on, watch an episode of the A-Team and tell me that it's a perfect show with great production value and logical well thought out plot lines and it's not just the 'idea' of the show that you remember and love.

Whilst not exactly the same but similar can be said for video games. As a very young man playing the very first Leisure Suit Larry command driven adventure game it was exciting because I could (mostly) beat the questionnaire that attempted to weed out people under 18, the game responded to commands driving a linear story and the game was generally pretty funny. I do want to point out that despite the adult nature of the game there was very little 'sexy' about it. I say that to qualify the next statement and to alleviate the growing impression that I'm some kind of video game smut addict. I recently sought out a copy of the original CGA (kids, you're just going to have to Wikipedia that one) and not the remade cartoon styled point and click monstrosity.

After several rounds of slowing the computer down enough so I could actually get the game to run like it wasn't an episode of The Flash (awww Dawson's Dad was a superhero) I managed to get into the game and enjoy it for about a minute. The graphics aren't great, the gameplay is not good and the command line is cumbersome and more than often frustrating. Of course the nostalgia gene still maintains in my head that Leisure Suit Larry is an awesome game that I do want to play again.

To sum up nostalgia, often instead of saying oh yeah I love that game, one probably should should just say oh yeah I remember that game.

The second criteria, social networking, fortunately has a much more tangible reason and legitimate worth behind it when ranking video games. Now before Facebook and Twitter showed up, the term social networking had a different connotation to it. It referred to your circle of friends, your relationships and the bonds formed between these. It doesn't take a social media expert to work out the natural progression into the Web 2.0 world and the weight the social networking aspect of games may weigh them more heavily.

So before online gaming, XBox Live and Wii networks really took off the only social networking in conjunction with gaming was to physically have someone else there with you playing the game in two or more player modes. This brings me to one of my favourite games, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade game. Is the game visually stunning? Well no not really, it looks like the cartoon series which is good but it's a side scroller at the end of the day and so fairly limited in the stun factor. The game play and storyline rank about as well as the graphics but the strongest point is that quite simply it was a big bag of fun that I shared with my friends. We would huddle around the machine and drop much coinage in there as we battled our way through Manhattan, eagerly discussed tactics and made predictions about what the next level would hold.

I have similar experiences with Sonic the Hedgehog, however not being a two player game we would take turns beating each level whilst the others would formulate strategies to get that blue hedgehog across the line.

Years later I would battle side by side with my wife as we fought our way through hordes of orcs and trolls whilst we struggled to build up experience points and learn new moves in the PS2 versions of The Lord of the Rings Two Towers and Return of the King (two of my favourite games on the PS2 by far). We would go on to become X-Men or Avengers and finally members of the Justice League, combining three things that I love; comic books, video games and my wife (who is an excellent gamer - yet rarely uses her powers).

But it is these games that really stand out to me and feature at the top of my own list of games, not because they necessarily are brilliantly written or constructed but because I could share the experience with others and I think it is these games that stand the test of time.

Remember Pong is still awesome when you are playing with a friend!

--

Danke Schoen, Mr. Sargent.

Tags: lee sargent, guest post, eric bana, indiana jones, temple of doom, video games, nostalgia, xmen, avengers, justice league, lord of the rings, two towers, quit your day job, teenage mutant ninja turtles, wii, xbox, wikipedia, the flash, leisure suit larry, a-team

Cut Rate Cultural Analysis: The Pina Colada Song

You know when there is something that has been floating around the pop cultural ether for a long time, but you hadn't really noticed it or paid it enough attention to make any statement about it, and then there is a moment where you see it for the first time for what it is.

I had one of those moments today. What was that particular thing that I had up to now almost completely ignored? Escape/The Pina Colada Song by Rupert Holmes. I could have gone the rest of my life without really hearing this song, but now that I have, I just have to talk about it.

I'm sorry.

So the situation as reported by the song is as follows. A dude is in a relationship that isn't bad or anything, just a little too comfortable, so while he is lying in bed next to his girl, he reads a very specific personal ad which lists a lot of qualities and activities he finds intriguing. He then writes a counter personal ad saying that he is looking for those things, and he is in a rush, so why don't they meet at a bar the next day. Said dude shows up, and who does the gal who placed the ad happen to be? The very same woman he was in the relationship with.

And Rupert Holmes makes it sound like that whole thing had a happy ending.

When he was looking at the ad, he sings "I didn't think about my lady. I know that sounds kind of mean" Well, no shit Sherlock. Maybe that is part of the reason your relationship was in the dumps to begin with.

And when his lady shows up at the bar later in the song he makes it sound like it was a non-confrontational "Oh, its you." You know that's not how that would have went down. I think there should have at least been an element of disappointment in her voice. But supposedly they just laughed about it, leading me to hope that this was indeed the beginning of a rather pleasant, no-fault break up.

Because, seriously, if they stayed together after that, well, the relationship would likely be a little less boring now that they have both caught each other in the act of emotional infidelity. They didn't know that the person they were going to meet was their partner until that moment, but yeah, they were both looking for someone else. And now they know that the other person is capable of that. So now their previously dull relationship has a nice new veneer of distrust in it.

And yes, since his lovely lady placed the first ad, well, she may have more to answer for in all this. I mean, if you read her ad, it doesn't paint a particularly flattering picture of his side of the relationship.

"If you like Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you'd like making love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape
Then I'm the love that you've looked for - write to me and escape"

So not only does she think he's stupid, but being in a relationship is so bad that she has to escape. His counter ad doesn't really say anything bad about his partner (although he does repeat the escape motif).

All in all, what I get from this song is basically their relationship needs a little outside help... maybe these fictional lovers will still be together into the Jerry Springer era so he can dish out his own brand of emotional healing.

Of course, looking back at my above ramblings may also be some indication as to why I am currently single.

Tags: pina colada song, escape, rupert holmes, infidelity, song, cut rate, jerry springer, relationship problems

Sunday Video: Penn and Teller's Cigarette Trick

I admit that I really enjoy watching Penn and Teller's Bullshit, but what I enjoy even more is watching them do their day job, which is magic, especially when they make you a party to how the trick is performed.

They've had some elaborate stage show explanations with lots of big props, but I think this one, with its simplicity and relatively small number of moving parts is the best one they ever did.

And admittedly, the bass work is very moody too.

Tags: penn and teller, cigarette, videos

Week 19: Pageant of the Transmundane

George Takei and his partner will be the first gay contestants on The Newlywed Game. All I have to say to that is... awesome.

I've also decided to move these Transmundanity posts to Saturday morning/afternoon so that I have more time to do other blog related activities and to spread the posting out a little more.

Anyway, on with the show.

This week's winning entry comes from a blog called EngrishFunny and it spotlights a particularly weird business name in Asia, one which is clearly zombie-related in some way.

And since this week's winning entry is zombie related, well, this seems appropriate.



Congrats to the crew at EngrishFunny. Here is your badge.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, engrishfunny, zombies, brains, george takei, newlywed game

The 25 Best Playstation 2 Games I've Ever Played: The Top 5

Well, it has been a long week putting this list together, but rewarding and as I enter the final stretch, I'd like to thank everyone who left comments this past week, as it has meant a lot to me. This was a lot more writing than I am used to doing for this blog (the list in its entirety is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand words), but in the end, I think I produced something I am proud to attach my name to. While I thought this might be the start of a series of weeks like this, I think that I should only do this sort of thing on rare occasions. After all, I don't want to wear out my welcome on anyone's feed reader.

Anyway, these final entries on this list are the cream of the crop for me, the games that defined the Playstation 2. While some may not like all my choices, I have a feeling that they would still have to acknowledge that these five games at least belong on the list.

So what titles made it into this elite grouping? I guess you'll just have to read the rest of the list to find out.

5. SOCOM 3: US Navy Seals: The SOCOM series didn't initially thrill me because in many ways its single player campaign mode required a level of precision and dedication that I hadn't been willing to give it. You had to be perfect for an entire level, which meant that if you screwed up, you were dead. It was more realistic, sure, but it was much less fun. Though I guess I should have expected that kind of attention to detail in this third person tactical shooter series from Sony. But then along came SOCOM 3, which had a few alterations to the core gameplay model, such as a checkpoint system, the addition of vehicles and more customization for your gear, changes which finally allowed me to get into this series. This entry doesn't require you to meet exacting standards to succeed, and that makes it more accessible and easier to get into for casual players. The missions are varied and take place in some exotic locales like North Africa, South Asia and Poland, and it is interesting seeing how they develop in those theatres. It is also a game that rewards repeated playthroughs as you keep unlocking more and more gear and weaponry as you finish it on higher levels, and generally when you have more toys to play with, you tend to have more fun. But the thing that I haven't even mentioned yet is the online multiplayer. That was the thing that they sold this title on (this series was one of the things that sold online multiplayer for the PS2), and it certainly delivered. The fact that in the fourth installment of the game, the multiplayer aspect was designed so that players of both SOCOM 3 and 4 could play together tells you just how strong that dimension of the game is. I enjoyed this game so much, I was even tempted to buy a PSP just so I could see the single player campaign from another perspective through the connected title Fire Team Bravo, and for me to consider buying a console just to play a game, you know there is something special about it.



4. Burnout 3: Takedown: This was a great choice for my first experience with the Burnout franchise, as it happened to be the first one published by Electronic Arts, who bought the franchise from an ailing Acclaim, and it was a breath of fresh air. As I wrote in an earlier post, with Burnout 3 "Criterion did everything right to make this game the very definition of a white knuckled ride by not only creating a game with a great sense of speed through blurring and a menagerie of sound but by also tying dangerous behavior to going faster. You are encouraged to pass close to other cars, drift and drive on the wrong side of the road." This was a game that made me remember that racing was supposed to be fun, a lesson I had learned with Super Mario Kart, but after years of playing games that skewed more towards realism and such, I had forgotten the simple pleasures of just driving a car really fast without worrying about anything except finishing the race. Games are in some ways wish fulfillment, and I am sure everyone at one point or another in this heavily industrialized world would just like to drive with reckless abandon down the highways, byways and downtown areas of the places they live and work in. Or perhaps give a driver that cut them off some comeuppance by knocking them off the road. With Burnout 3: Takedown, you can live that dream. And those are just the main racing modes... there is also Crash Mode which is what it sounds like, a game mode that is just you crashing a vehicle and trying to create the costliest multi-vehicle accident you can. And again, while it has a lot of depth which will appeal to hardcore players, it is also accessible enough that even casual players can get into it, and it isn't even a bad game to watch other people play, given the visual flair and short race times. A title that redefined racing games.



3. Resident Evil 4: I almost made a third rule for this list that would have made any game that had previously appeared on another console as an exclusive ineligible, but I just couldn't disqualify this game. The previous installments of this game series left me a little cold because their control schemes were rather unwieldy, so the move from the world of fixed cameras and tank controls to a third person shooter perspective was in my opinion just what this franchise needed. The game tells the further story of Leon Kennedy, one of the stars of Resident Evil 2, as he endeavors to save the President's daughter from the clutches of an evil cult in Spain. While the previous games in the series were very zombie-oriented, this time around, the majority of your foes are very much human though they are infected with a parasite that can control their actions. In a way, it sort of reminds me of the creatures in the movie The Faculty. The game has a great atmosphere, a well-crafted story with some really messed up scenes, intriguing bosses and an eclectic set of weapons. Now, I am also one of those people that doesn't get frightened by games, but there was one recurring creature late in the game that I have to admit was creepy. I ended up playing this game at the same time my sister was playing it on the Gamecube, so it was sort of like a shared experience for us, with me taking a little bit of a lead so I could help her out a little bit when she was getting stuck. Of course, when I got to the end of the game, there was some extra content to play through as well, namely a series of chapters devoted to Ada Wong called Separate Ways, which run parallel to the main storyline and gives you additional insight into the events you witnessed in the game. This was also made me do something very rare: I sat and played it through in an afternoon after I had completed it a few times and had a few of the special weapons. I never do that, but this was such a great game, I felt compelled to do it. And even though I knew everything that was going to happen, I still had a lot of fun.



2. Katamari Damacy: I have to admit that this is one of those games which I took a while for me to warm up to, because whenever I would see it on video game shows like X-Play, it just looked so silly to me, and I couldn't really see how it would be fun. But like I said, after I had actually played it (or more accurately, played a demo of its sequel We Love Katamari), I had to have it. I was fortunate that I just happened to come across a copy shortly after that, which was the first and only time I saw the game in the wild for about a year, so it was like it was my kismetic destiny to own it. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the opening for this game, because if you didn't know this was the actual opening for a game, it would have played for big laughs as a parody on a sketch comedy show or as part of a cartoon. If you are unfamiliar with these games, the basic premise is that the immense and flamboyant King of All Cosmos went on a bender, and ended up destroying the stars, and it is up to you, his tiny son, The Prince, to roll various items into a huge ball to remake those stars. It sounds weird if you've never played it, and like I said, I was a skeptic too, but this is just a joyous gaming experience and very intuitive once you understand the basic rules. For the most part, the world is a very bright, colorful and psychedelic place, full of both mundane and fairly strange items and living beings, just trying to get on with their lives. As a Westerner, I think it gave me a wondrous view into Japanese pop culture, because yes, there is a lot of weird stuff within the game, but for the most part, the things you roll up tend to be items which would be relatively uncommon over here, but more standard fare in Japan, especially in terms of food items. In a way, it is almost avant garde as a game without being pretentious because isn't exactly a puzzle game, it isn't an action title and there is no adventure, but it still manages to keep you captivated for hours. I mean, I can't really define by any of the traditional genre names. Of course, the fact that it basically began life as a student's thesis from a Namco-sponsored program in game design, may be part of the reason it is so untraditional (and it probably had one of the cheapest development budgets as well for a major commercial game on the PS2 at just under 1 million dollars US). This is one of those games that I can't believe made it to the North American market, but I am certainly glad it did.



1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: I have a feeling that a few of you already figured out that this was going to be the #1 game on this list but rest assured, I did everything I could to try to talk myself out of putting it here. Yet in the end, this is the title that had to fill this spot. For one, it is literally the reason why I went out and got a PS2. I had resisted going to the next generation of gaming for about 5 years until that point, and it only took one afternoon of playing this title to convince me to give up on the noble dream of not going game crazy with a new console. As I've said in the past, this was exactly the kind of game I wanted as a child. Not the violence, amorality and such... more the sheer freedom to go where you want to go, and make your own decisions within a driving-based game. The story is captivating, the lead character is interesting, and the game features a cast that includes Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda and the late Christopher Penn amongst others, all of whom give movie worthy performances, and if you've read the rest of this list, you know I am big on narratives. But it was the sheer joy of exploring the huge environment and just seeing what I could do that made me a fan (when I first played it, the whole map was unlocked, so I could do a lot of driving around). In a weird way, this game encompasses a lot of the strengths that other entries on this list play to, although it may not do those particular things as well as those individual titles, but the sheer number of things it tries in concert is just astonishing. It allows you to drive really fast without risk of real negative consequences, it has flight combat, a licensed soundtrack that betters most of the Guitar Hero games, a lot of weapons, some role playing elements (because you get better at things the more you do them), the ability to climb and swim, so it is a little closer to being a platformer too and it has a wide variety of minigames, so no matter where you go, there is always something new to try, so even months after you thought you've seen everything, you might find something that you never even thought of doing. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the very definition of sandbox play, and it can be different things to different players. There are some who play it like a third person shooter/beat em up, there are players like me who like to drive around and use the sandbox environment to do crazy stunts (I am partial to driving cars and bikes off the top of a mountain and seeing how many times you can get it to flip and rotate) and so many variations in between. It is a title that is just packed full of content, and that is the reason it is number 1. Any game that allows you to steal a jumbo jet out of an airport hangar, run a triathlon, go skydiving, play casino games, burglarize houses, engineer the intercity train, compete in road races and totally reinvent the look of lead character all over the course of a single play session, and you can come up with an entirely different list like that every time you play is really a game worth having and cherishing.



So I guess that is a wrap. I know that some may have some issues with my choices, so I would love to hear your opinions as well.

The Top 25 PS2 games I've Ever Played
Number 25-21
Number 20-16
Number 15-11
Number 10-6
The Top 5

Tags: playstation 2, top 25, ps2, katamari damacy, socom 3, us navy seals, multiplayer, grand theft auto, san andreas, resident evil 4, gamecube, leon kennedy, ada wong, namco, sandbox, burnout 3, takedown

The 25 Best Playstation 2 Games I've Ever Played: 10-6

This is the bittersweet part of this countdown, as this trip down memory lane for me is nearly complete, but it has been really fun looking back at all the games I enjoyed on the Playstation 2, even the ones that didn't make the list.

And this list of five are ones which I really enjoyed, but they just didn't make the cut for the top 5. Some of them came very close to cracking it, but in the end, the top 5 was very tough to get into. I have a feeling that after reading this penultimate section of the list that longtime readers will likely be able to figure out what some of those games are now.

If you haven't been following this list, the two general rules I have been following are: 1) No Sports Games (Motorsports are the exception) and 2) Only one game per franchise.

So which games made it tantalizingly close to the top of the heap on my list? I guess you'll just have to read to find out.

10. Urban Chaos: Riot Response: Now, I admit that this might seem to be a strange choice, but hear me out. There are games that are full of innovation and are impressive that way, and then there are games that, while not particularly groundbreaking in any area, still bring the awesome in everything they do. Urban Chaos is of the latter breed. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, it just gives the player some really good first person shooter action. Like a good R-rated 1980's action film, this game is just great setpiece after great setpiece in claustrophobic urban environments. You play the role of Nick Mason, a member of a new police task force called T-Zero (Zero Tolerance) and through a series of increasingly tricky missions, you battle a pernicious hockey mask wearing terrorist street gang called the Burners. Urban Chaos is a fast paced game, with a decent amount of blood and it is just viscerally satisfying cleaning up these streets. The story is ok, and in a Remembering post, I had stated that if there was going to be a movie based on a game that might work, this one had a shot. I've played a lot of first person shooters, and this is one of those rare ones where as you are going through a level, you just feel like you are kicking ass. You also don't see a lot of shooters that are cops versus criminals these days (likely because of the connotations), so even that aspect is refreshing (how many times are we going to have to fight World War II after all). In terms of presentation, each mission is prefaced by a live action news report which gives you some indication of the general conditions surrounding not only T-Zero, but also tells you what to expect in your next mission, which was an excellent touch. I wasn't sure if I was remembering making this game out to be better than it was through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia or if it really was that good, so I had a little refresher course with it before I started finalizing this list, and as it turns out, it is still as good as I remember it. I should also note that this was the first game developed by Rocksteady Studios. Their second game? The recently released Batman: Arkham Asylum.



9. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance: I love this game, and I don't read comics. I am judging this game solely on the gameplay and the story, both of which are excellent. Although I don't read comics, I still love Dr. Doom, and being a Marvel property, well, he is naturally in it (OK, that is putting it mildly... he is the evil driving force in this game). Dr. Doom has put together a dark cabal of supervillains together to help him pull of a nefarious plan and with so many evil beings working in concert, a wide variety of Marvel heroes band together to try to combat this threat. The game is an action RPG, with a lot of options for upgrading your characters, from learning and perfecting new attacks to increasing the stats of your heroes. And the team as a whole gets experience as well, which can be used to boost your team's stats. For me, this game is a good primer for the whole Marvel universe, because it introduced me to a lot of interesting characters and settings I may not have otherwise been exposed to, especially on the villain side. The story moves through a lot of different locales, which means that as soon as you may be getting bored with a particular setting, it changes and you are confronted with new challenges. For avid fans of Marvel, this seems like a dream come true I would imagine, as you can make all sorts of super teams that you may never see in print, but who absolutely rock together. I ended up with a team composed of Blade, The Human Torch, The Thing and Captain America (with Iron Man interludes), and with around 20 characters to choose from to make up a 4 member team, well, there are a lot of different configurations you can go with, which means that the title may have a decent replay factor, especially if you have friends to play with you in co-op mode. It seems the development crew had this in mind because after finishing the game, your leveled up characters can start the game anew.



8. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War: I had played Ace Combat 4 briefly the year before I gave this title a shot, and while I wasn't particularly enamored by that earlier game (which seems to make me the exception rather than the rule when it comes to this series), the storyline in AC5 really struck a chord with me. Yes, the story does have some of those classic cliches that appear in the canon of air combat stories, but that doesn't make it any less compelling, and it does have some great plot twists, which to me makes the whole thing memorable on that level. To analogize the setup for the story using real world nations and events, you play the role of a relatively green pilot stationed on an Osean (the country is named Osea, so I didn't make a spelling error) island airbase which is attacked by the air force of the nation across the sea, Yuktobonia (basically Russia attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor), and over the course of many missions, you have to fight the war that this action began. Soon your squadron's successes buoy the entire war effort. This was the game that made me realize that I loved air combat (and opened the way for Secret Weapons over Normandy to appear on this list as well). This is very much an arcade flight combat game, as I don't think there are very many jet fighters that can carry upward of 60 missiles, but again, that is why it is fun, though there are at least 3 missions I can think of that will give you nightmares. Since the Ace Combat series is about modern air combat, the list of planes available to fly by the end of the game is impressive to say the least with 50 licensed models from manufacturers all over the world, but with an emphasis on American and Russian designs, along with some fictional planes as well. In the end, the culmination of gameplay, story and even sound design factors (as the soundtrack is very appropriate) make this one of the greatest games I've ever played.



7. TimeSplitters 3: Future Perfect: The team at Rare that was behind Goldeneye eventually became their own company (Free Radical) and they put out the TimeSplitters games. I started off with the second game in the series, which while being a nice tough shooter with a humorous streak, still had one glaring deficiency... the story was really lacking, so the levels just sort of felt thrown together into a package and the characters didn't really come alive. With Future Perfect, there is a finally a narrative worth caring about. With that added extra, this quirky little shooter series became comedy gold. Following the exploits of Sgt. Cortez, a character who looks and sounds like he was heavily influenced by Vin Diesel's Riddick from Pitch Black, the story takes some great twists and turns across various eras of human history, from the early part of the 20th century to the far future with points scattered in between. The game also introduced an element in the story mode which was really cool conceptually. There would be points during particular levels where you would meet a version of Sgt. Cortez from slightly in the future, and he would help you get through a particularly tricky part and then depart... and then you would start moving through the level and reach a point where you met your earlier version and you would then play that same sequence from the other side. That was a brilliant use of the underlying premise. I am a nut for time travel as it is, so mixing that theme with the development team behind Goldeneye with a good story made this epic. Oh, and I forgot to mention... there's zombies. Lots of zombies. And robots, and a whole lot of other things which are geek friendly (ninja monkeys anyone? How about one that is dressed up like Robocop?). But let's say you don't want to play the story mode (in either single player or co-op mode) and instead you just want to shoot things. Well, this game has arcade and challenge mode options out the yin yang too, and if you have the inclination, you can even design levels for your own amusement and at one point you could share them with others through the game's web site. And that isn't even mentioning the online play. In the end, TimeSplitters:Future Perfect was a pretty full package.



6. Bully: I really enjoyed this game when I played it through in 2007, and my fondness for it has grown over the past couple of years. Conceptually, this does seem like a somewhat strange idea for a console action game. A 15-year old boy is sent to a Northeastern boarding school, and he has to negotiate his way around the various cliques on campus to survive the year. Of course, by negotiate basically I mean he has to force them to respect him. The protagonist, Jimmy Hopkins, is a troubled boy, but in a way, he is the perfect person to take on the cliques at Bullworth Academy, as he is the least of all the evils at that institution, and while he isn't averse to using violence to get his way, he is generally anti-bully. A sandbox-type game that is broken up into chapters, Bully, while being shorter than the average game of this type, still has a lot of content and an interesting set of environments to explore. The fact that the story takes place in the American Northeast means that as the year progresses, the seasons change, meaning that there are opportunities for mayhem that are only available at that time of year (like throwing snowballs, or being punished by having to mow lawns or shovel snow). At one point, I said that this was almost what I would expect River City Ransom to be like if it was a modern game, because in many ways it is carrying on that tradition. Since it is a sandbox game, there is a lot of different activities that you can play around with, from the minigames that most of the classes essential are to a series of games at the carnival to even video games within the game. I was also fond of a lot of the missions, which were quite varied and really allowed the individual characters to shine, because that was something that I really got a kick out of in retrospect--the fact that all the kids at Bullworth Academy are individuals, with their own personality traits and they are all recognizable, as is the staff of the institution. Jack Thompson and anti-bullying groups may have been against this game before it was released, but the finished product has a much more positive spin on the issues that concern them than they had feared. The fact that they keep releasing new editions of the game for additional platforms should be some indication of the longevity of this title.



Tune in tomorrow to find out what games made it to the top of this list.

The Top 25 PS2 games I've Ever Played
Number 25-21
Number 20-16
Number 15-11
Number 10-6
The Top 5

Tags: urban chaos, riot response, bully, rockstar, sandbox, ace combat 5, unsung war, marvel ultimate alliance, timesplitters, future perfect, nick mason, sgt cortez, vin diesel, goldeneye, free radical, robocop, pearl harbor, secret weapons over normandy, human torch, dr. doom, replay factor, playstation 2, top 25, rocksteady, batman arkham asylum, the thing, captain america, iron man

The 25 Best Playstation 2 Games I've Ever Played: 15-11

Well, over the past two days, we've had what I would like to consider a decently balanced list of titles, with no particular kind of game dominating the proceedings (though I am sure if you are looking carefully, certain trends may seem to be emerging).

As we inch closer to the top, the titles will likely start becoming increasingly recognizable as well.

Remember the two general rules I am following for this list: 1) No Sports Games (Motorsports are the exception) 2) Only one game per franchise.

What made the list today? I guess you'll have to read on to find out.

15. Guitar Hero II: Games that require an additional peripheral are generally lame. Anyone who had an NES can attest to that, because for the most part, they just seem gimmicky. The Guitar Hero franchise is one of those rare exceptions, as the controller developed by Red Octane is integral to the enjoyment of this game. While later games in the series have more licensed and master tracks, in this second installment, most of the key features of the franchise were already present. As the first game in the series that I played (I ended up with a nice little collection of them afterward), it does have a sentimental place in my heart. This is also the title with Free Bird so that is a plus. I think of all the entries on this list, this is probably the most party oriented, and it is a title which lends itself to casual play, while at the same time also having features that reward players that put in the time to reach mastery. If you pick it up and play it, you only have to commit as much time as you want to, even if you just want to play a song or two. The fact that this game and the related Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80's were Harmonix's last hurrah with the series before moving on and developing the competing Rock Band series, makes this entry a little bittersweet. If you would have told me that a rhythm game would have made my top 25 list last year, I would have laughed, but I am not laughing any more.



14. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: OK, I am not going to lie... when compared with the other games on this list, Disgaea isn't the prettiest of the bunch with its sprite-based graphics and the simplicity of its cutscenes (I mean, they are just various images of the characters showing emotions, and a limited set of them at that), but even from the start, I knew this game was going to be special. Most tactical role playing games (and role playing games in general) take themselves way too seriously. This is not a problem with Disgaea, which aside from a few tender moments, doesn't take itself seriously at all. It is also not above breaking the fourth wall about the genre as it does its thing. And much like Hot Fuzz did for buddy cop movies, in its own winking way, it ends up being better than the genre it is critiquing, though this trend was more evident in later games in the series and other related titles from NIS America in this universe (like Soul Nomad, La Pucelle and Makai Kingdom). And the game features a cast which, from the onset, doesn't seem like your traditional protagonists. Why? Well, the setting is the Netherworld, the main protagonists are Laharl, the Demon Prince of said Netherworld, a petulant preteen boy, his sarcastic female vassal Etna and a naive, love-obsessed angel named Flonne who was sent from Heaven to assassin Laharl's father. And these are the good guys in all this! Aside from the untraditional story elements (and the multiple endings), there is another feature which makes this game unique. The traditional maximum level for characters in RPGs tends to be 99, and the Final Fantasy standard is 9999 for damage. Disgaea throws those two limitations out the window and lets things get insane. They didn't set the maximum level at 99 or 999... they set their level limit to 9999, and no, those levels aren't easy to come by. Put it this way, to beat the game the first time around, the average level for the people in my party was about 55, which meant that I could have put on 9944 more levels before maxing them out. And this isn't including the ability to transmigrate a character either (basically starting them off back at level one to change their class with a decent proportion of their stats, which means that in theory you might be able to level up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 28500). Of course, if you can level up that high, then the damage you can do is also off the chart. There are people who have recorded characters dealing damage in the tens of millions. If you are into it, the whole thing turns into Math Porn. Indeed, this is a game with a very long shelf life.



13. Hitman: Blood Money: This game is part of the reason I was so disappointed with the movie Hitman. I've played every game in this series that has appeared on the Playstation 2, and this is the one that was the best of all. The second game in the series was censored, and the third, Contracts, featured revamped missions from the first game, so it wasn't entirely original. As the series title suggests, you play the role of a hitman, a bald superassassin referred to as Agent 47. Each assignment generally involves taking out a single individual, who morally, was generally a very bad person, so you don't feel really bad for taking them out. Now, you could just go insane and kill everyone, which I admit on some missions, might be easier, but the more satisfying route is figuring out ways to eliminate your target and only your target without anyone getting suspicious. The beautiful part of this game is in the pursuit of that goal, you have a lot of creative options if you look around the that environment. When I first started playing this game, I used to peruse the IMDB board for it, and I enjoyed reading the solutions that other players came up with for particular missions, because more often than not, they were radically different than mine, and yet we both achieved the same goal without getting spotted and with no collateral damage (which is a feature of other titles in the series I admit). But in this case, the game had a much grander story than the previous episodes, and I think that, along with some of the new additions like the Notoriety system, put this one over the top. And even when a mission went awry (like the first time I tried a particular mission involving a wedding in the Deep South), it can still be rather memorable. I thought the post-mission newspaper report about the crime was also a great feature.



12. James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing: Bond games are a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes you end up with something like the divine Goldeneye, and sometimes you end up with 007 Racing which can be called a disappointment at best. Everything or Nothing is very much in the former category. Featuring the principle cast of the Brosnan Bond movies, including Dame Judi Dench, along with Willem Dafoe, Shannon Elizabeth, Heidi Klum and Mya (along with Richard Kiel's Jaws), Everything or Nothing is in essence the Bond movie producers should have made instead of Die Another Day (and narratively it is better than The World is Not Enough too, and before you ask, yes, Shannon Elizabeth beats Denise Richards in believability as a scientist). It even had the customary pre-credit action sequence (which was a playable level), and since Mya is in the game, she also contributed the title track. Utilizing a third person perspective, this game has everything you would expect from a James Bond-inspired experience. Chases, shootouts, gadgets, a little stealth and a villainous scheme which puts it on par with some of the better Bond films. I mean who hasn't looked at Willem Dafoe and thought that he would be a good Bond villain (all the actors also have their likeness in the game, so it really is Dafoe as Nikolai Diavolo, Russian industrialist and student of Max Zorin). I am not going to really disclose anything else about the plot because half the fun of watching a Bond movie is seeing how things develop. However, I will note that one of the levels has to do with a preventing a particular set of events from happening, and after the game was released, those events happened anyway, so it was in a way strangely prophetic. I am willing to say that this is the best James Bond game since Goldeneye.



11. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Before I played this game, my last foray into the Metal Gear universe was back on the NES with what is considered to be the non-canon game Snake's Revenge. But even though I was not conversant with the entire mythology of the Metal Gear Solid saga, I was still able to appreciate this prequel on a narrative level, despite the fact that I know there are references that went over my head. Telling a story of a secret operation in Soviet Union during the post-Kennedy assassination 1960's, Snake Eater tells a great tale, and does it stylishly as well. The addition of camouflage and wilderness survival techniques gives this title depth, and the cast is filled with people who make their living doing voice work for animation, so they are all very capable in their roles. I was especially impressed with the James Bond-style opening sequence, which I thought really set the mood for the game to follow. Of course, if you don't like cutscenes, this is clearly not the game for you, as there are a lot of places where long cinematics play. I mean a lot. As someone who doesn't mind them, I liked how the story progressed, and it seemed like a much more cohesive plot than the game that preceded it. Put it this way, I can tell you exactly how Snake Eater went down to the detail, but with Sons of Liberty, things get a little fuzzy because it got weird really fast at the end. The gameplay was exceptional, and I really can't find any glaring faults with it. I mean, I would watch this story as a miniseries without hesitation, and I appreciated the twists and turns it threw at me as a player.



Tune in tomorrow for the first half of the top 10.

The Top 25 PS2 games I've Ever Played
Number 25-21
Number 20-16
Number 15-11
Number 10-6
The Top 5

Tags: playstation 2, disgaea, hour of darkness, 007, james bond, snake eater, everything or nothing, mgs, metal gear solid, guitar hero, harmonix, netherworld, flonne, final fantasy, makai kingdom, la pucelle tactics, math porn, hitman, blood money, silent assassin, the world is not enough, shannon elizabeth, judi dench, pierce brosnan, willem dafoe, jaws, free bird, nes, rock band, rock the 80's, imdb, die another day, top 25