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I guess it's true, oh it's true... that good things really do come in even numbered packages... whatever the hell that means...

1998 can be considered perhaps the greatest year of gaming ever conceived considering Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, and the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time were all huge by the time Christmas rolled around. 2000 wasn't nearly as eventful, but even that year had the full force of Dreamcast games to contend with (though I only cheered when the DC finally died...), along with the introduction of the PS2... 2002 however, will forever go down as one of the biggest years of gaming, simply because of Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Zelda: Wind Waker in Japan, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Final Fantasy X here in NA or some crap like that...

And 2004? Who can possibly forget 2004?... when thanks to the likes of Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the video gaming industry actually made more money than the fucking box office return for the shitty ass movie films for that year...

But is it really any wonder than, that in 2005, NPD reports claim that video gaming sales are down more than 30% compared to the holiday season before? Has there really been any decent games this year on consoles for a fanboy to even remotely try to argue against such a stunning figure of a financial drop?...

Now, I loved both Resident Evil 4 and Fire Emblem with all my heart, not to mention both Brothers in Arms games for the Xbox. But all of this software sold like complete shit in comparison to almost anything that went gold and reached platinum status in terms of sales in 2004... The Xbox 360 was also released this year, and demand for it on eBay was just insane at times. That doesn't change the fact that either due to "shortages" as MS claims, or either due to the fact that perhaps demand wasn't as high as we urban dwellers would like to think, the Xbox 360 had a pretty mediocre sell-through number both in terms of hardware and in terms of software...

Simply put, nothing sold on consoles in 2005... and it really ain't hard to see why...

With both the PS3 and the new Nintendo Revolution arriving on the scene in 2006, I'm sure that the even-numbered theory will remain steadfast and true, and I'll be obsessing over my new games library soon enough by the time I write my next bloody hell, noname video game award ceremony that no-one will ever read...

But until then? With consoles so fucking dry and devoid of any gaming goodness for the better part of 2005, I actually turned to the portable gaming market for once... And apparently, if the sales numbers and legions of fanboys on both sides of the war are of any indication? Then I'm sure I ain't alone in believing that 2005 truly was the definitive year for portable gaming systems...

This was the year of the Nintendo DS versus the Sony Playstation Portable. And this was also the year, where I experienced more fanboy threads and wars and goddam clashes on the internet, than ever before since the Playstation 2 took out the Dreamcast in just one fucking year...

If you ask almost anyone here in North America off the streets, you'd get the same ol' response, that the Sony PSP is absolutely decimating the Nintendo DS. And if I only used my own eyes and ears outside of the bloody hell internet, I'd definitely be inclined to agree... If Sony has managed one thing, it's that they suckered a bunch of wannabe rich hipsters across this continent to buy the Sony PSP and fucking use it to play fucking UMD movies. That's all I ever see in public transit or on the fucking streets... 99% of the time, the only thing you'd ever witness someone using in public is a bloody cellphone or iPod. But that 1% of the other time, it's a fucking PSP playing a fucking goddam movie. And I don't think I've ever once seen a Nintendo DS being played, outside of a general WiFi hot spot area that is...

... but the sales numbers across the board definitely don't back this theory up...

Because you see, over in Japan, it ain't even a contest anymore. In December, the Nintendo DS has already sold over 1.4 million systems (with a whopping 600K of those coming in the past fucking week alone), while the PSP has barely reached the 400K mark for the entire month, I believe. And this hasn't been an isolated incident either, as during the so-called GAF "Easter" months? The Nintendo DS has been doubling PSP sales on a regular basis after the release of goddam Brain Training and Nintendogs of all games...

In Europe, the one continent where Nintendo has never done well (not even during the NES and SNES days), the UK has been eating the Mario Kart DS bundle up like crazy, selling out of all those combined with the Nintendogs bundle at a rate of two or three times that of the PSP at times. The rest of the Europe, France and Germany definitely included, never really minded the Gamecube that much, so it's not that surprising that similar DS vs PSP numbers as the UK's were being echoed there as well... But when you couple all that with the fact that Spain, Italy, and almost every frickin' Sony-loving European country has been selling more DS systems than PSP ones almost all year round? Then you just get a fucking Nintendo-domination, goddam situation that even I almost never thought would've happened just one year ago...

It's obvious why any casual gamer over here in North America would think the PSP was single-handily handing the DS its own ass across the globe, as North America is really the only continent where the sales numbers are even close. Even so, Sony has actually been forcing the NPD to hide monthly PSP sales, simply because they can't fucking take the fact that the DS is managing to outsell it by 10K or 20K a month... I have no idea why Sony is so fucking afraid, especially considering America would therefore be the only major country where at least PSP revenues outstrip those of the DS by a favourable margin. But I suppose all their early corporate predictions, that the DS would be deader than the goddam Sega Dreamcast by year's end, might not be exactly the best for their Sony stocks at this point in time if they admitted number-wise defeat in every frickin' continent of the world...

Now, I like to say I called it, as just one fucking year ago during this Noname Award Ceremony of mine? I clearly stated (I think...) that the Sony PSP would eventually become the "first nail in the coffin" for the Sony video gaming empire. They simply cannot fight a war on two fronts, with the Xbox 360 in North America and the Nintendo DS/Revolution overseas. But even I have to admit that there were times when I questioned my own beliefs and Nintendo-fanboy theories...

I really was fearful at times that Winning Eleven 9 in Japan or Madden NFL 2006 in the US would jump-start the sagging PSP sales in the two separate markets, yet neither game did anything for the system in the end. I was terrified that Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City would do for the PSP what GTA3 did for the PS2 in America and Europe, yet it mustered up absolutely nothing but a minimal software boost in the end either... I'm still worried about the eventual price drop, as the casual gamers out there would probably love the chance to pick up a fucking Sony Gigapack for just $149 US or some shit like that. But as it stands right now, the PSP hasn't steamrolled the DS like so many were predicting a year ago...

... but rather, for once, just for once?... the Nintendo fanboy in me was right...

And as icing on the cake? Both in terms of fanboy wars and in terms of actual gaming bliss, the DS has been my best friend this year. I picked one up in the summer and have simply never looked back... The dual screens at first did seem like a cheap gimmick, until Mario Kart DS proved to me just how damn useful even a simple map could be in a goddam game. And the touchscreen, while not nearly as sensitive or accurate as I was hoping it would be, was simply a goddam godsend for certain games like Meteos...

And the WiFi? I've always hated Xbox Live since it costs annual fees to fucking play, but I've never technically been against online gaming. Sure, I hate how it takes away development time from old skool, splitscreen gaming on current console systems, but really?... there's simply no real, traditional multiplayer shit to take away from when it comes to portable gaming systems... So who am I to complain?...

I've never cared for the Gameboy or GBA simply because all they ever had were single player games with low replay value... But I've just gotta admit, that even if the implementation was half-assed at times? The Nintendo WFC online gaming for Mario Kart DS and even Animal Crossing: Wild World has seriously been the best damn multiplayer gaming I've had since the days of the original Halo and Super Smash Bros. Melee...

2005 may have been anything but the year of consoles, but it definitely wasn't a bad year in gaming overall...

And hell, I suppose there were some pretty decent games released for consoles during the year as well...

Best Game of the Year - Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube... NOT PS2)
Runners-up: 1 - Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS), 2 - Fire Emblem: Path to Radiance (Gamecube)

Was there even a real debate as to what would receive the award for the best damn game of 2005?... The only real competition was the PS2's God of War. But seriously, the only gaming publications that would ever think about yielding the award to that game, are the Sony-based ones who played through the shit RE4 version on the fucking PS2...

The true, definitive version of the game came out for the Nintendo Gamecube in early January. And if it had just been released a couple of weeks earlier? It still would've easily mopped the floor with Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, and GTA: San Andreas for the best fucking game of 2004, let alone 2005... What can I possibly say about this game that hasn't been already said?...

I've absolutely hated literally every single Resident Evil game that came before, as it was just a complete fucking chore for me to work through Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil REmake (which were sadly the best two in the series at the time). And yet somehow, not once could I put the controller down while Resident Evil 4 was spinning in my Nintendo Gamecube. Why was that, really?...

The tank controls in previous games really did feel like you were walking around in a fucking tank, yet here, they actually added to the suspense in RE4 somehow... Was it because of the new over-the-head camera shoulder, the kind of which that made Resident Evil 4 more into a first person shooter? The same camera angle change that also quite possibly forged RE4 into becoming the best damn third person shooter game ever devised?...

It was all about atmosphere in Resident Evil 4, and I still remember how much my hands and nerves were fucking shaking and trembling, the very moment I first got my head sawed off in the first fucking village... This game was intense. I literally couldn't sleep properly for weeks thanks to RE4. Not because I was terrified or any shit like the previous RE games had tried and failed to do... but rather, because every single moment of action in Resident Evil 4 was a fucking pure adrenaline rush...

I don't think I've ever felt that damn enamoured and engulfed by a gaming atmosphere since way back to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time... And for a Resident Evil game of all series to be compared to the best fucking game ever created by man? Then if that ain't saying something, than I don't know what will...

Mario Kart DS takes the runner-up spot, mostly because I keep getting the runner-up spot myself when it comes to the online gaming...

Now, I've always been a huge Mario Kart fan considering I loved the SNES version, I played the N64 version for years without end, and I even managed to adore Mario Kart DD for all the parties that I played it through... The GBA Mario Kart game was shit though. But even when it came to that one, I played it sparingly on road trips simply for the fucking retro tracks I so loved in the original Mario Kart...

I don't quite know if Mario Kart DS is really the best game in the series, but it definitely combines the best features of all the previous incarnations of the series... It has the wonderful cornering at times of the SNES version, yet manages to combine it with the speed of the N64 version and the framerate of the GC version. I still wish it had a better selection of retro tracks, as so many of my favourites from both the N64 and GC were missing in action... but a lot of the new tracks meant solely for the DS version are surprisingly addicting as hell...

The real deal of the game comes online though... I don't know whether Mario Kart DS will ever truly be considered the best single-player Mario Kart experience of all time (even though its tight controls now make Mario Kart 64 and DD virtually unplayable by my hands). And without splitscreen co-op or whatever sort of crap, it will never replace the original SNES or the N64 one in my eyes for pure multi-player fun...

But when it comes to online? When it comes to the sheer replay value, or seeing your opponent get a fucking red shell in hand, and you just manage to perfectly time a banana drop to block the motherfucker's sure-fire attack? Is there any greater feeling in a Mario Kart game than using the dual screens to your advantage and fucking powersliding your way across the finish line?...

Sure, a legion of gamers out there are complaining about "snaking" (powersliding on straight-aways, which I also cannot do...), just like so many goddam gamers claimed "strafing" was an exploit in fucking Quake and Goldeneye back in the day... But I solely play my online gaming sessions with friends, so snaking will never be an issue. And I have to admit, that even if the online implementation is not perfect? Mario Kart DS is still the best damn multiplayer game I've experienced in such a fucking long time...

The second runner-up for Best Game of 2005 was a tough one to pick. I admit that I did love the two Brothers in Arms games for the Xbox with all my heart, but they just didn't deliver the type of true definitive gaming experience that I always seem to get from Japanese developers...

I've lived fifteen years of my life avoiding the Fire Emblem series, simply because I refuse to import games, simply because I refuse to emulate games, and simply because I was always too damn cheap to just buy the fucking GBA versions of the series... But finally, thanks to the Nintendo Gamecube bringing Path of Radiance over to North America? My long wait was finally over, and the game certainly did not disappoint...

Fire Emblem is simply an old skool strategy game, in the same vein as Civilization used to be. It's a forgotten genre really, after Warcraft II and Starcraft and the RTS genre wiped it off the map. But sometimes there simply is no skool like the old skool, really...

Because it definitely says something about the calibre of a game, when I literally played Fire Emblem for forty damn hours while I had fucking homework and fucking real job work to finish at times. It really shows something about the quality of a series, when no matter how frustrated I got with my goddam controller every single time I died and had to reset to save my characters? I still just kept on playing for hours upon hours into the depths of the night...

Perhaps in almost any other year, Fire Emblem wouldn't have made the top of my gaming list, considering it was only one of a select few RPGs released this year. But no matter how starved the console systems were in 2005 for any deep or involving series, there still is simply no denying the fact that Fire Emblem enraptured me in a way that only few games can...

Now, I've put 35 hours into Resident Evil 4 and beaten it twice. I've put countless hours into Mario Kart DS, thanks its immense online replay value... But for Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance? I put 30 fucking hours into just the first playthrough of that game. And then I managed to still finish the game another two damn times... does that mean anything, really?...

The game may not be for everyone, but it definitely made my top three list of the year for a reason...

... I just hope I don't have to wait another 15 years to reward myself by awarding it again...

Best Story of the Year - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Gamecube)
Runners-Up: 1 - Baten Kaitos (Gamecube), 2 - Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)

Ah, the old broken record syndrome. As didn't I just finish my rant about Fire Emblem above, placing it on the highest of pedestals?...

The thing is though, I wasn't just surprised at the quality of the gameplay of Path of Radiance. But I also was shocked to learn that it followed that Halo-style of storytelling, the kind of which that always gets fucked up in sequels like Halo fucking 2...

The Final Fantasy series is the absolute worst when it comes to defying this law. Hell, even Advent Children (the UMD movie released this year) absolutely made no fucking sense, as the series' storytelling these days has become so damn complicated and so damn convoluted just to appease the hardcore fans of the series or whatever sort of crap, that it loses me by the five fucking minute point...

But Fire Emblem's storyline was kept just so elegant and just so straight-forward, that I really did end up appreciating just how deep the plot became unraveled as the stages went on. Instead of just heaping onto the audience an entire fucking university full of intricate details and storyline nuances, Path of Radiance kept to the simple tale of a boy losing his father and protecting his potential love like any NES RPG had back in the day...

While I'm sure tons of modern, griping gamers would then suddenly complain, "Sorry, but the princess is in another castle? WTF? I played this shit 15 years ago!", I definitely had the patience to wait out the storyline until it eventually evolved and unwove itself. And the series definitely delivered in the end, through a series of bloody hell revelations and simply some of the most beautiful anime artwork I think I've ever seen in years...

So the moral of this story? Just keep the fucking story simple... but also keep it deep...

Archetypes are archetypes for a reason... and Fire Emblem is considered a fucking classic for a fucking good reason as well...

Okay, now here is where I start contradicting myself, as Baten Kaitos had anything but a simple storyline like I was just complimenting Fire Emblem up above...

The thing is though, I'm a sucker for plot twists that I don't really see coming. Because just like I gave the best storyline of the year award to Knights of the Old Republic a couple of years ago? I can't help but think back to Baten Kaitos (which I played this year, even if it wasn't released this year) and remember just how shocked I was when my fucking lead character actually betrayed the rest of my group... How often does that really happen then? Of course there's always one damn traitor in the damn group, but for it to be the hero? It shocked me in Knights of the Old Republic, and I got suckered into it here as well...

Besides that though? I don't know... Baten Kaitos wasn't exactly the most stellar of storylines, but it still had its specialities. The voice acting apparently wasn't so damn bad once you turned on surround sound (I was in plain stereo mode for the whole game, though... uggh...), and there was some decently strong writing when it came to the Magnus cards infecting people with sin and shit like that...

Either way though, I'm still praying that the sequel arrives on North American shores this coming year. And that's gotta mean the game left a positive impression on me at least, right?...

... and when you're dealing with RPGs, often enough the storyline is the game... so that's gotta mean something...

It was kind of hard for me to pick my second runner-up for Best Story of 2005. I mean, Brothers in Arms may have had a generic WWII plotline, but it still had some brilliant writing along the way (which is more than I can say for the shit dialogue in Call of Duty 2)... And Jade Empire? Some of the side-characters had their moments. But when I could see the fucking plot-twist coming from miles away, let alone from fucking Europe with Marco Polo in tow, then you know something just ain't right with Bioware up in the head...

Resident Evil 4 therefore takes the cake, simply because the game was so damn good that it didn't need a story. The action itself was the story, as Capcom managed to actually make me feel like I was part of the fucking atmosphere, the kind of way that games always made me feel back when I was a child... and I am the no-name nostalgic, afterall...

But more than that, it followed the KISS style of simple storylines that I only wish more game developers would adhere to. You knew who was evil in the game, you knew who was good, and you got both the giant, giggly breasts and exposed panties from the president's daughter at the same damn time. What could be really wrong with that?...

There was nothing special about the B-movie type plotline, of parasites mutating people to the point where they become almost an insect-like Hive. Haven't I seen this before in tens of sci-fi television shows just this past season alone?...

But still, the execution of it was what counts. And just ask anyone who experienced this game first-hand, and they will tell you flat-out that Ada was a stunningly beautiful mystery, or that the Regenerators felt like a bigger threat than any other villain of the year... Hell, even Leon had some decent writing along the way. Just listen to the shit he says with Luis during the defence of the house in Chapter 2, and then you suddenly realize exactly why a Resident Evil game of all series managed to get my fucking game of the year...

Hell, Resident Evil 4 may even challenge The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as the best damn game of this entire generation of gaming...

... and there's absolutely no fucking way in hell I would have ever admitted to that, unless there was a decent enough story behind the action to hold the sum of the whole together as one...

Best Multiplayer Game of the Year - Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS)
Runners-Up: 1 - Timesplitters 3 (Multiplatform), 2 - Animal Crossing DS: Wild World (Nintendo DS)

Do I really need to explain Mario Kart DS again? It's online, and it's great. Now play it.

I forced my best friend into picking up the Nintendo DS bundle with Mario Kart DS back in November. He was hesitant at first of course, considering he hasn't really played video games since the NES and SNES days... But the Nintendo DS really is the system that's drawing back the gamers of the old days back into the fold. Whether it be from the touch screen or the beauty of the simplistic controls for games like Mario Kart DS, the system is definitely drawing millions of gamers back. And now my friend, the non-gamer, is actually upset with me when we don't get to play Mario Kart online every fucking night...

Now, obviously there are some concerns with the Nintendo WFC implementation that I have... I have no quarrel with Friends Codes, considering that I understand Nintendo's plight with potential pedophile cases. And besides, I've always hated to hear motherfuckers shout and sprew profanities online, claim that they're "so high", or brag that they're getting their cock sucked over Xbox Live or some shit like that. And I understand that having voice chat during online games may be just too much for the Nintendo DS processors to handle as well...

However, why not have voice chat between friends before and after online games? And when it comes to random gamers on the net, why can't we just have a standard lobby system (with simple text chat of preset words, for instance), so that the Nintendo WFC servers wouldn't be so strained in auto-assigning three other P2P gamers to play with all the time?... A ton of gamers who have tried to have Mario Kart DS tournaments have failed to even get online against each other properly because of this. And it still bugs me to this day that a) a lot of courses are not playable online (I mean, even the SNES Donut One isn't? WTF?...), and b) we can't play battle mode online...

But that doesn't stop me from literally going onto the internet and playing with my friends in Mario Kart almost every single fucking night of the week. It's just a quick pick up and play game, one that I picked up from the store and never fucking looked back... Even with more players on Nintendo WFC than Xbox Live has ever had at once, the P2P nature of the Nintendo DS has allowed me to have absolutely lag-free WiFi gaming almost every single time (except once on Wario Stadium, when I saw the other karts jumping up and down like grasshoppers... but that was only once...)...

And there's simply no denying how damn convenient it is to play the DS online, as I can do it from almost anywhere in my house, whether I'm watching TV or surfing the goddam net. And hell, even my friend (who didn't want Mario Kart DS in the first place, since he thought he wouldn't be able to set it up online) has found the WiFi nature of the system to be fucking second nature to him... Aside from a few potential router problems (which were on his side in the end, not the DS), he was online with me within a matter of minutes. He set it all up with barely any guidance from me whatsoever. And he hasn't had a single real problem on his router side since, not even fucking once...

And I haven't even talked about how fucking good the gameplay is itself online. That's how fucking amazing Mario Kart DS truly is in the end...

So instead of making me write all my shit out again, just do yourself a favour and just buy the game already, 'kay?...

Multiplayer wise on consoles, it's been a pretty bleak year. I mean, I'm sure X-Men Legends II would've made it here if only I had played or bought it, considering Activision supposedly fixed all the fucking problems I had with the original... And Star Wars: Battlefront II was a pretty decent game as well. But since I don't have Xbox Live, I can only judge it by its shitty ass splitscreen mode, and not by its online multiplayer mayhem... And surprisingly, I've found Mario Party 7 to be right up there with Mario Party 5 as the best of the series. But more of the same doesn't necessarily secure a spot on my award list roster...

I loved Timesplitters 2 though, and I found Timesplitters 3 to be a decent enough companion. While inferior to the original, considering multiplayer gaming sessions now seem darker and somehow less intense than they were in the original, I still have to admit that the game is a hell of a lot of fun at parties... The grenades still work great, the framerate is mostly steady, and the massive multiplayer mayhem against monkeys (or MMMAM for short...) beats the hell out of any first person shooter other than the HaloBox with 16 players at once...

Timesplitters 2 has always been the best splitscreen first person shooter game released this generation of gaming, just like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were back in the day... Timesplitters 3 suffered from possibly being a bit too different from the original in retrospect, just like the feel of Halo 2 differed too damn much from its prequel for its own good. But I still adore the Timesplitters series, for making the silliest damn combat I could possibly supply at a goddam birthday party with FPS kids...

The final runner-up for multiplayer game of the year is Animal Crossing: Wild World, even if my Mario Kart-obsessed friend thinks its the fucking worst game in the world...

Fact of the matter is though, that tons of people online are fucking obsessed with this game. Hell, when it comes to time travelers, I've actually seen people pay other AC gamers online 100,000 bells just to go into their town through WiFi and fucking pluck all their overgrown weeds... It's like a fucking Everquest economic system in there, as people are literally posting their "Stalk Market" turnip prices daily and asking if people will pay duty fees to enter their fucking towns to shop at Nook's... unbelievable...

Now, I've never cared about the Animal Crossing world to nearly that extent. I personally bought AC: WW as just a fucking chat device, as I'm too fucking cheap and lazy to just buy a WiFi card for my goddam ancient laptop... And I must admit, that I'm a bit disappointed at how laissez faire the whole Animal Crossing online arena really is. The Friends Code and hub system I don't mind, but what is there really to do in each other's towns except to buy and sell shit?... Fishing competitions, tag games, and even fossil dig ups are all shit that you have to make up and organize yourself. Why didn't Nintendo just implement a few sanctioned gaming areas, where you and your friends can play simple soccer or tennis or fish or shit like that?...

Still, for what it's worth, Animal Crossing is still one of the best multiplayer games of a very weak gaming year. The chat system may be primitive, as I can't type worth a shit with the stylus (and why not let us hold L or something to capitalize stuff?), but it still gets the job mostly done... And while I've never cared for the economics of AC shit, somehow I still get excited when exotic fruit is brought into my town and I get a few seeds to plant into trees of my own...

My friend may hate this game, and I may be neutral about it, but one thing's for sure...

If I hated the original Animal Crossing, yet I still played it for half a fucking year by just checking Tom Nook's store every single night of the year? Then how the fuck long will I stay addicted to this online sequel to the game, which I definitely feel is superior?...

Not nearly as long as I will with Mario Kart DS, I'm sure... and perhaps I will never have as much fun with AC as I do with the Timesplitters series...

... then Animal Crossing DS may ironically become a better online game six months down the road for me, than it strangely is now...

Most Surprisingly Good Game - Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (Xbox)
Runners-Up: 1 - Meteos (Nintendo DS), 2 - Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)

Ah, finally I get to give Brothers in Arms just some of the props that this game from Ubisoft definitely deserves...

When I first picked up the first Brothers in Arms, I just expected it to be another generic first person shooter. I mean, I hated the entire Medal of Honour series, and I absolutely despised Call of Duty (yes, even the decent PC version)...

Yet as soon as I started controlling my squad and realized the potential that both my men and this series had? I absolutely fell in love with Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, as it was perhaps the only damn WWII game that felt more like an actual war than a fucking Quake III clone on Vietnam drugs...

So often more than not, fucking epic war games try to create an atmosphere intended for online gaming, where only headshots count and every fucking n00b just runs for the sniper positions first and foremost. But in Brothers in Arms, oddly enough, you barely ever get to use the sniper scope, as most of the whole game is devoted to fucking over the Krauts with pure fucking, flanking strategies...

Instead of running and gunning in this game (even on easy mode, until you learn how to utilize your assault team well), Brothers in Arms completely consists of strategy. While some have complained that the strategies are way too straight-forward (entirely consisting of flanking from either the side or high ground the whole time), I personally just welcomed it over being the solo-destruction team in almost any other first person shooter... While other companies have tried to create squad-based gaming (Rainbow Six 3 and Halo to some extent come to mind), Brothers in Arms had the most pinpoint accurate system when it comes to being the leader of your men. While moving, suppressing, and assaulting may not seem like enough commands at first for controlling your squadmates, surprisingly it's all you ever needed in the game, and the focused simplicity of the gameplay made for one hell of a wartime experience...

And the most ironic thing of it all, was that even after falling in love with the original Brothers in Arms? I was still expecting the sequel, Earned in Blood, to completely suck ass, considering it was released just a few months after the original... Yet still, I found myself absolutely shocked and surprised that even the sequel just screamed out a level of polish and quality, at least in terms of gameplay and fun factor...

... and through the simple fact that I was fucking addicted as hell to the series once more..

I've already implied at least a dozen times by now, that the Nintendo DS was perhaps the best fucking damn surprise I could possibly get from gaming. I mean, I loved the NES, SNES, N64, and I suppose the Nintendo Gamecube as well with all my heart, but never once have I ever been so impressed with a system (let alone a portable one) right out of the gate... With the NES, I was playing Mario Bros and Duck Hunt for ages, and it was Super Mario World and Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES. N64 had Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64 early on to tide me over, and at least the Gamecube was reasonably solid with Luigi's Mansion and Super Smash Bros. Melee...

But with the Nintendo DS? Already I've fallen in love with Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime Pinball, Animal Crossing DS, and even the goddam minigames in Super Mario 64 DS... And I'm sure that if only I bought them as well, Advance Wars DS, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, and even fucking Nintendogs would've sucked the hours from my life as well...

Whoever thought that a game I bought for fifteen fucking bucks would ever be this fucking good?...

Puzzle games have always been my bane, as I could barely pass the second damn stage in the original fucking Tetris for Christ's sake. And things are certainly no real different on the DS, as I haven't even broken the 1000 point mark yet in Meteos (while I believe so many others have reached the millions. WTF?...)...

That hasn't stopped me from pouring so many hours of my nightlife (sadly enough) into Meteos, which is absolutely the best fucking puzzle game since the original Puzzle Bobble. This is absolutely the best fucking experience I have had with a touchscreen in my life, as flipping around blocks and igniting Meteos rockets works so damn perfectly with the stylus...

The awesome feeling you get as soon as you clear the screen is something that I'm sure would've sold tons of DS systems, if only Meteos had been sold in every bundle just like Tetris was with the Gameboy. I really don't know why it wasn't... Then again, looking at the sales charts? It's not like the DS needed another boost to rocket into first place or anything...

While the Nintendo DS has obviously been the biggest damn surprise for me this year, that's not to say the Gamecube didn't have it's fair share of surplus pluses as well...

I won't talk about it much here, considering I've already written about it twice in this fucking noname award ceremony of mine that nobody will ever read. But really, I bought Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube as a collector's item, never expecting to play it considering I fucking hated the Resident Evil series up to that point...

... and then I found that I couldn't even fucking put down the Wavebird controller for two fucking weeks straight, as long as there were fucking Las Plagas parasites to kill...

Now, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I hated, I hated, I absolutely hated the Resident Evil series until Resident Evil 4...

And now suddenly? Resident Evil 4 has become not only one of my favourite games of this entire generation of gaming, but also one of my favourite fucking games of my entire fucking video gaming life, dating all the way back to the Atari 2600 and Intellivision?...

Most Disappointing Game - Jade Empire (Xbox)
Runners-Up: 1 - Star Fox Assault (Gamecube), 2 - Star Wars: Battlefront II (Xbox)

And here we get into the shit of the year of 2005... too bad I can't extend this list, otherwise Doom 3, Half Life 2, Call of Duty 2, Geist, and even Far Cry Instincts would've made lovely showings on the list (and that's not even including all the games that really did suck this year...)...

Jade Empire by far was my biggest disappointment of the year... That's not to say however, that it was a terrible game. Afterall, it couldn't be that bad, considering I fucking beat the whole thing twice, finishing every single goddam sidequest in the process?...

Problem is, I fucking beat the entire game in just over 12 fucking hours the first time through, when I was expecting a goddam 30 hour game for the shitty ass money I paid... And I beat the game a second time with all sidequests finished in less than nine fucking hours? WTF?...

Combat in Jade Empire was simply atrocious. I could literally beat every single opponent, including the last boss, without even getting hit most of the time by just jumping behind them, whacking them a couple of times, and then rinsing and repeating. WTF?... Not only was this a complete mockery of any Chinese/Japanese RPG beforehand, but it was just a complete embarrassment compared to the deep and involving D20 rules that Bioware had implemented for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic...

Obviously, Bioware's accomplishments in the Star Wars and Neverwinter Nights realms had raised the bar of expectations in my mind to near ludicrous levels. But even so, I was willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt considering I am Chinese, and considering I loved the Hong Kong atmosphere in Shenmue II (and was hoping for a similar effect here)... But rather, not only did Bioware completely tarnish their name by producing an RPG that felt too much like a bad NES Kung Fu game, but they completely fucked up the atmosphere of the Chinese world as well. Except for a few decent Oriental tunes, it was like I was living in some fucking New York, gangsta-style, anime shit version of the Japanese world or some shit like that...

It's that while Jade Empire is my own personal, most disappointing game of 2005?...

Ironically enough, it's also IGN's best fucking game of 2005 thanks to a fucking 9.9, "underrated" rating...

The thing is, the real negative surprise for me this year came from Star Fox Assault. I mean, I had heard all the rumours of just how much the game sucked at E3 and beyond, but I tried my best to cover my ears and ignore it all... Afterall, this was the Star Fox series we were talking about. Sure, Star Fox Adventures was shit in a lot of people's eyes, but when has the main core series in space ever really gone wrong?...

The Arwing stages in space aren't that bad, considering how hard could it possibly be for Namco to fuck up an on-rails shooter? This was the Ace Combat team we were talking about who were developing the Star Fox game, and have they ever really gone wrong with flight?... The second stage especially was absolutely beautiful in Star Fox Assault. And the Asteroid Field stage was definitely the one saving grace that preserved the Star Fox series from suddenly reaching mediocre status...

... or like putrid feet, really... as I mentioned time and time again in my review...

I really would prefer not to rip the Star Fox series apart here, considering I loved Star Fox 64 and I was mostly pleased with the SuperFX chip of the original... But short story short, how the hell could I not bitch and complain to Nintendo, for ruining one of their great franchises with a Fox McCloud that handles like a fucking retard at the Special Olympics when he's running about on the ground?...

I may love Nintendo, and they have done no wrong so far with the Nintendo DS (besides some poor filtering effects here and there...). And I do love my Gamecube... just definitely not when I had Star Fox Assault in the disc tray, that's all...

... especially after I had just finished Resident Evil 4 for the second damn time...

Now, I'm hard pressed to put Star Wars: Battlefront II here, considering it is a pretty good game... and especially considering how many Xbox games (and even Gamecube games) have stunk it up in the year 2005...

But the thing is, simply because the original Star Wars: Battlefront had made a run for the most surprisingly good game of 2005? How can I possibly not be disappointed when I realized that the sequel to one of the best Star Wars games ever, turned out to be sadly worse than the original in almost every aspect that I gave a damn about?...

The split screen combat had been increased to four players and the framerate seems to have mostly stabilized, but at what cost? Four player mode ironically looks worse than it did in fucking Goldeneye for the N64, and it all plays worse thanks to altered controls compared to the original (and not for the better)... Aiming and precision and targeting all now feel off, both on land and in space. And I just can't fucking get over the fact that weapons now feel slower and bulkier than they did before, and they can't even fucking reload the way I want them too...

A first person shooter game is only as good as its best weapon... But what weapon would that be in Battlefront II, exactly?...

Now, don't get me wrong. Star Wars: Battlefront II is still a much better game than most of the shovelware shit released on consoles in 2005... It's just that, considering I loved X-Wing vs Tie Fighter back in the day, and saw with wide eyes that LucasArts had tried to recreate it with Star Destroyers in this game? And considering my expectations for the land combat had been just so goddam raised from the original?...

Well?... I guess that 2005 was definitely a year for disappointments in consoles...

... though I suppose the industry was not alone in that department... considering Star Wars: Episode III sucked Jedi ass as well...

And yup, that was the year of 2005 in a fucking Nutcracker of a nutshell. There were a hell of a lot of stinkers, and there was a hell of a lot of shit as well, as almost every single console went months, if not even half the year, with absolutely nothing decent to play... The PS2 had God of War, the Xbox had Brothers in Arms, and the Gamecube has Resident Evil 4. And seriously, those were the only decent games to come out before the holiday season finally arrived. We're talking about nine or ten fucking months here, for bloody Christ's sakes...

2005 was definitely a piss poor year for consoles, just like the same can be argued for 2001 and 2003 as well to a lesser extent...

By why the fuck would it matter to me, when my fucking Nintendo DS got more playing time than almost any other system since the SNES, and the PSP vs DS wars got more of my attention and reading time than almost any other industry battle beforehand?...

Now, 2006 is looking to be an exciting year, both in terms of consoles and handheld systems... it is an even numbered year, afterall...

The Nintendo DS will be prepping for the inevitable PSP price drop, by releasing Metroid Prime Hunters in March and hopefully a hell of a lot of decent RPGs come summertime as well... Because who really knows? I pray that I'll never know the taste of crow, but even I have to admit that a PSP with a built-in harddrive could take over the market, just like it took the iPod a couple of years in obscurity before suddenly becoming the hot ticket item on everybody's goddam wish-list...

Console wise, the Xbox has been left for dead, and the PS2 is really faring no better. The Nintendo Gamecube has The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess still coming up in April, and that alone may make 2006 into one of the best years in fucking gaming. But that one release alone also has a lot of other help from separate sources to back up the latter claim... whatever the hell that means...

Both the Sony PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution will be launching this year, and I fully expect a real war to be brewing now that advertisements for Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 are finally beginning to appear... I have never really given a real damn about anything that Sony has produced in the gaming market, but I am definitely interested in the gaming market itself. And I will now be on record in stating, that Nintendo will be far closer to the PS3 in terms of worldwide sales than they ever were with the Gamecube against the PS2, as the Nintendo Revolution will undoubtedly be able to replicate at least some of the success of the DS in Japan...

... I'm almost expecting the two new systems to be neck and neck in the oriental homeland, really...

Over in North America, I know that the hype train will bury Nintendo, as so many gamers right now are holding off on the Xbox 360 thanks to shitty ass kiosk demos and the promise of the fucking goddam, faked PS3 Killzone video (which even I was amazed at for the time, might I add... until I realized it was all goddam faked...)...

Still, the mindshare of the Xbox 360 is currently far stronger in the casual market than it ever was for the Xbox. And if the PS3 simply cannot deliver on the types of graphics and the incredible, Incredibles experiences that Sony has promised? Then I fully expect the Xbox 360 to pull ahead in the console race, at least in the short run of things...

It's true, oh it's true, that 2006 may very well turn out to be one of the biggest fucking years in the entire video gaming industry... with Halo 3, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and possibly even the next Grand Theft Auto all in line...

But all I care about right now, is that until the heavy hitters of the year start showing up in April and May around E3?...

... that I will continue to thank Nintendo and my seven lucky stars, that my Nintendo DS is simply that damn good and that damn fun...

I may be a guy, and this may be a romantic comedy. But believe me when I say that that's not the reason why I believe the above rumour to be damn well true... Afteral, there have been plenty of romantic comedies that I have loved in my life. You've Got Mail, The Wedding Singer, and even fucking American Pie 2 have all made me feel... well, something... You know, by giving a loser like me hope and all...

But I felt absolutely nothing in Rumour Has It. It felt as dead to me as Mark fucking Ruffalo's acting...

This film started out with the phrase, "based on a real rumour". The thing is, if it actually was based on a real rumour, I would've preferred a better fucking rumour than the one we got... namely one with lots of naked women, lots of fucking lesbian sex, and lots of fucking kidney stealing from naked hot chicks in bathtubs...

Jennifer Aniston has always been a favourite of mine, as she was once considered by me to be the best looking woman on earth. But either age has finally taken her toll on her, or that the high definition size of a movie projector screen is just not warming nor welcoming to her complexion, but she looked pretty damn awful in Rumour Has It...

Every single romantic comedy that I've loved in the past needs some sort of hot chick to be passable. You've Got Mail had Meg Ryan still at her cutest, Drew Barrymore was adorable in The Wedding Singer, and I still have a thing for Alyson Hannigan and everything... A few years ago, Jennifer Aniston would've definitely been near or at the top of that list. But a few years ago is a hell of a lot of time in the movie world...

... just ask Shirley MacLaine about that... or at least, her character of Grandma Catherine (aka Mrs. Robinson) in the film...

She was absolutely the only real interesting character in the film. While Rumour Has It took place in Pasadena, California, where everyone is as fucking fake as you can possibly expect from fucking rich actors pretending to be fucking rich tennis players, she was really the only honest one amongst the crowd. The writers chose to make her stand out to the audience, and she strangely enough did have that kind of feeling of a Mrs. Robinson that was somehow even more alluring than fucking angsty, Jennifer Aniston in the film... By the end of the movie, while I was rolling my eyes at fucking Sarah getting back together with her beau of a fiance, I was actually rooting for fucking Mrs. Robinson to go after Beau fucking Burroughs...

... or with Jennifer Aniston too, really... considering Shirley and her were the only two with decent damn chemistry in the whole damn film...

I'm sorry, but Aniston just sucks in the movies. Why does she always play the bitchy good girl in films, instead of the cute and irresistible character that was created for her on Friends?... In Rumour Has It, all she did was go through a mid-life crisis, the same kind that almost every woman does when they get engaged or become a bridesmaid, never the bride. And I just couldn't help but roll my eyes at the whole moral of the shit story and all... From the moment we met him, I wanted her to dump fucking Mark Ruffalo for an actor with some decent romantic skills. And yet the moral of the story still somehow ended up being to find yourself, marry your best friend, live your life in boredom, and become your own fucking mother by fucking your grandfather...

I must admit though, that the general premise of the story of the movie was alright. By far, the most interesting parts of the movie came from Sarah Huttinger discovering just who she was and what the family history was... I am an Oedipal guy at heart, and I think absolutely the best part of the film for me was when she suddenly felt possessed to fuck the man she had once thought to be her farther. And the scene where she writhes and squiggles and squirts from the sight of Beau's son wasn't that damn bad either...

Now it's true that Rumour Has It definitely had its fair share of comic parts that made me snicker. The look on Sarah's face when the Mrs. Robinson music started playing in the background was wonderful, Sarah and her blonde-witted sister screaming over the phone at the same time did have the theatre cracking, and who could possibly forget Jennifer Aniston talking with Lt. Cadman outside of the 1997 Internet Conference as well?...

... well, alright... so maybe the latter wasn't so funny... It still had me smiling though, picturing those two naked and fucking horny with each other... Now there's a rumour I definitely could go for...

But what good is a decent premise to the story and a few decent gags inbetween, when the delivery of almost every single line was so damn boring and deadpanned?... I will pan Mark Ruffalo's acting for all its worth, as it's pretty much worth nothing in the end. Meanwhile, Kevin Costner was decent in his role, but I just felt that he was more creepy than charming when it came to all his eternal horniness (which works in an independent film, but not exactly in a romantic comedy...)...

I did like the talk at the end when Sarah learned that her mother had told her father the whole Mexican story, but Richard Jenkins was just goddam completely useless for the rest of the goddam film... And WTF was with Mena Suvari as Annie? I know she was meant to be as Pasadena, paramecium phony as possible in this film, but she wasn't even convincing as an actress when it came to her anxiety attack later on. Her lines felt forced, as if the writers and director wanted Jennifer Aniston of all people to seem compassionate, caring, and the heroine of the story... even after fucking sleeping with Kevin fucking Costner and getting dumped by Brad fucking Pitt...

And unjustly so, I had walked into the theatre today, expecting Jennifer Aniston to principally be Rachel Green fucking her own father (which sadly enough, never did happen on the actual show...). Suffice to say, I walked away disappointed... And this was the same damn thing I expected from pretty much every other Jennifer Aniston movie in history, only to find that she really does suck at acting outside of the television character and the hair that she had lucked out in having for ten damn years...

Now, Rumour Has It was a decent film in retrospect, if only thanks to the Mrs. Robinson connotations and a few Oedipal direct references here and there...

Rumour had it as well, that Jennifer Aniston was pretty damn decent in this film...

Y2kk Update: - Nintendo's / Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers...) -

With Microsoft pouring all their efforts into the Xbox Three-Shitty, and Sony trying too damn hard to be some wannabe hipster with their PSP, there was really only one company this year that lit the skies of the gaming world on fire...

Now, it shames me to admit this, but even as a hardcore Nintendo fan from the Power Glove 80's? Up to this year, I had yet to play a single goddam Fire Emblem game ever produced. And I really don't know why... Sure, I haven't been the biggest fan of turn-based strategy games ever since I left Civilization for Warcraft II and Starcraft. But I am a huge Japanese RPG fan, and I had only heard the best things about Fire Emblem throughout the whole of my entire goddam life...

My first taste of Fire Emblem came along with pretty much everyone else in North America, when I unlocked Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee. And while obviously at first I just found them to bad anime rip-offs of Link, their true blue-haired badassness soon began to dawn and fawn and grow on me... It was only a matter of time, thanks to the popularity of their characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, that Nintendo would eventually start bringing the Fire Emblem series over to North America. Yet still I never bothered to pick up a Game Boy Advance to try a single one of the legendary strategy games on the portable system...

It was only when the Nintendo Gamecube finally shone a light across the path of radiance, that I finally witnessed for myself what I've been saving myself for after all these decades and goddam years of longing and searching...

Seriously, it was like I was a fucking 23-year old virgin, who just had motherfucking sweet sex with a fucking hot bitch for six hours straight...

For twenty-three fucking years, I think I have been waiting... waiting for this game, and waiting for this game alone...

And of course, like everyone else? Even after it was all said and done with the cigar in hand, we all know what the first words that came out of my ever satisfied mouth were, right?...

Okay, just for the record, Marth and Roy are NOT in Fire Emblem: Path to Radiance. Just like Cloud isn't in every single motherfucking Final Fantasy game, despite practically ever Final Fantasy 7 nut asking this same damn question over and over and fucking over again...

But yeah, at first I was confused whether Marth was the star of the new Fire Emblem game. I remembered from the internet that he starred in the first of the Fire Emblem's way back on the NES, so why not produce a repeat for the North American audiences?... Afterall, Path of Radiance was my first ever Fire Emblem game, much like it was for most of the gaming community here in Canada. We are all virgins when it comes to shocking this shit, it appears...

In the end though, it wasn't the characters who sucked me into the Fire Emblem world (though Ike definitely did have his badass moments). It was the hardcore gameplay of the series itself... I mean seriously, when it was all said and done, all I could really ask myself was, "why the fuck did I ever give up on turn-based strategy games in the first place?"...

Right from the very first stage in Path of Radiance, I was hooked. It was such a simple stage too, with a bunch of houses in the village to visit for items, and only a select few enemies to pummel with your over-leveled, experience-hog, Paladin Titania... The first stage just looked so damn innocent at first glance, until you really get into the strategies involved in the game at least...

It was only a matter of time after that until I started building walls of soldiers and paladins to provide cover for my mages. It was only a matter of time until I literally surrounded my healers with archers, just to keep the flying enemies at bay. It was only a matter of fucking time until I became obsessed with the inventory and bonus experience systems, constantly fucking resetting the game if my stats randomly didn't raise enough along with my experience levels...

On the surface, Fire Emblem looks like a game that's barely evolved above the Ogre Battles, the Gladius', and the Civilizations of our past. On the surface, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance does indeed look like an anime game that any child can grasp... But even so, I can't stress enough just how goddam deep this game gets by the time you reach the half-way chapters of Path of Radiance. Because just like with Starcraft, there is just so much fucking subtlety to the strategies in the Fire Emblem series, that it amazes me still at just how versatile your compliment of characters can really turn out to be in the end...

The first time I played through the game, I concentrated on my Paladins to get me through the tough stretches. For some odd reason, Oscar and Kieran and Astrid and Geoffrey were simply kicking ass and taking names, with Jill and Tanith and Haar holding their own as well. Add in Rhys and Mist for healer support, and I managed to simply beat the whole fucking game on hit and run tactics alone...

Second time through Path of Radiance though, the random stat leveling just wasn't as friendly to my goddam horses and knights. As a result, I had to rely big time on cover support from my mages and sages, as Soren and Ilyana and even fucking Bastian started absolutely decimating the competition... Add in a few brutish guards to protect them, like Nephenee and Lethe and Muarim and Boyd, and a few offensive-men with a lot of luck (Ike and Volke both with Occult skills, in particular), and what did I find? But a completely different gaming experience from the first time I played through Fire Emblem...

And the third time going through the game? Now Boyd and company are fucking sucking dick, although my mages and sages are still going strong. I'm now relying on the luck of my swordsmen to get me through, as Lucia and Zihark and Stefan especially seem to be currently holding the fort along with Ike and Volke again. Thankfully as well, I've finally also figured out the invaluable joys of having Reyson on the team... Once again, I'm finding Path of Radiance to be a completely difference experience than I did before. And I've just got to believe that there is so much more fucking depth to the gameplay than even all that...

And while Fire Emblem has been toned down in challenge compared to the Japanese version of the game at least? That's not to say that Path of Radiance is a fucking cakewalk in the North American version or any sort of crap. As in the end, it's both a love and hate scenario with this shit...

The first time I played through Fire Emblem, I don't know whether it was just beginner's luck or if I had picked "Easy" instead of "Normal" difficulty by mistake, but the critical hits were always in my favour. Take the fucking Black Knight in Chapter 27 for example... He was fucking raping Ike up the ass as I just wasn't prepared for this battle, with Mist not having Psychic Staffs to heal her loser brother from afar. Ike had literally one fucking hit point left after the Black Knight attacked me with his sword, while the boss still had over half of his power left...

And then BAM!... Just by pure sheer fucking shithead luck, Ike's Occult skill of Aether kicked in, and I fucking wasted the Black Knight's remaining power with a single goddam hit. If it wasn't for that and the whole critical hit system, I would've been fucking stuck with the fucking useless Ena in the end rather than Nasir (who also sucked for me, by the way)...

But the tables have fucking turned on my ass, it seems. Marshal's Law has fucking come into fucking Martial Law effect, and I'm getting absolutely destroyed in almost every single stage at the very last minute... I'm on Chapter 26 in my third play through right now, and Boyd is just purely sucking with his leveling up for some sucky ass reason. I left him behind the front lines as I was closing in on the Bertram demon boss near the end, just to make sure he doesn't trip on a rock and conveniently die or some shit like that... Just when Ike approaches the boss, three fucking enemy sages appear out of nowhere, and just happen to conveniently pick on fucking Boyd all at the same damn time. Suffice to say, a couple of gang rapes later and I was back to fucking resetting my fucking Nintendo Gamecube yet again...

Fire Emblem is quite unique compared to other RPGs, in the sense that once you lose a character, they're gone for good. There have been so many fucking stages where I could have easily beat the fucking chapter, only for Marshal's fucking Law to come into fucking effect. And then some motherfucking enemy grunt with 1 HP left somehow manages to dodge Lucia's strike and then critical hits her tight Jessica Alba ass into goddam hardcore submission (though I do love seeing her down on her knees and flat on her back... as Ilyana always seem to be fucking hungry and horny when Lucia's around, now ain't she?...)...

And of course, I then scream and kick and throw my controller at the GC reset button in frustration. Because it just doesn't fucking make any goddam sense!... This is my third fucking time playing through the fucking game! Why am I somehow having MORE trouble with the goddam chapters than I fucking did the first time?...

The first time I played through Path of Radiance, only one chapter gave me fucking troubles in the end. Chapter 28 was absolutely brutal for me, all thanks to critical hits... and all thanks to one fucking weakness of mine above all else...

Fire Emblem was raining brimstone and a fucking Reign of Fire on my motherfucking ass in that stage...

My final clock on my first playthrough may have only read 25 hours... but factor in all the fucking resets, and I'm sure I would've had no hair left at the fucking forty hour mark... and all because of one damn reason...

Fire Emblem is just an inspiring, satisfying game in the end. I've played the game for over fifty hours total by this point, and I don't see myself quitting anytime soon... I mean seriously, is Intelligent Systems a god or something? How the fuck are their games always this damn good, as if they created the gaming universe through Creationalism or Intelligent Design or some shit like that?...

Obviously the RPG genre has never required the best of controls, but Fire Emblem definitely has one of the most intuitive interfaces I've ever experienced... I may not have been a fan of using items in battle (considering they seem to use up an action turn), but I just loved all the variances in combat. From Paladin hit and run techniques, to high ground advantage, to fucking using my Wyverns for air support above the forest trees, was there anything that I didn't like about the strategy in this turn-based game?...

The triangle system (sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword) and its comparable counterpart when it comes to magic, may have been confusing to me at first. But by the end of the game? It became so damn second nature to me that I've seriously been subconsciously searching for it in every fucking other RPG I play...

Graphics are hit and miss of course, just like with any modern RPG. The lighting effects are always good, and magic effects always look decent from Japanese developers... The map view itself could use a bit of work though, as characters and enemies are often shrouded by trees and other objects, and the C-stick just doesn't have the best possible feel in rotating the map. Characters on the map are a bit too low res for my own tastes as well, and the battle sequences remind me more of Pokemon Stadium for the N64 than anything I've seen this generation from the Gamecube or Xbox... And while I definitely wouldn't have minded better animations during the still-anime cutscenes rather than just blinking cardboard cut-outs, I must admit still that they definitely did serve their purpose and got the mercenary job done well...

The story itself in Fire Emblem was actually a pleasant surprise for me. Now granted, there was still a ton of fucking Japanese teen angst in Path of Radiance, when it came to Ike and his Oedipal issues with his father. And I really did roll and Rolf my eyes and groan when it came to all that Laguz-Beorc racist shit, as if Intelligent Systems was actually trying to make statement about the world or some shit like that (though at least it came out better than all that Global Warming environmentalist shit in other RPGs these days...)...

But when it was all said and done, Fire Emblem had gotten the true Halo 1 treatment, and not the Halo 2 shit script... Halo 1 will forever be a better single player experience than its sequel, simply because it followed the KISS method of keeping it fucking simple. And Path of Radiance will forever be remembered and revered for the same damn reason... Spoilers below, for those who dare...

I actually felt terrible for Ike when we learned that his father had actually killed his mother in madness. I mean, if we had gotten any warning of that earlier on in the game, maybe I wouldn't have felt so shocked... But there was just something about that still-anime shot, of Grell holding his wife in his arms as she smiled at the emblem in her hands and the sword through her breast, that actually twang a cord in my own goddam chest... I'm a sucker for this kind of phallic, horny shit through the heart, apparently...

I never really cared much about the whole Ashnard storyline, as the end boss really was a disappointment (how the fuck could I possibly lose when I had Rhys, Mist, Elincia, and Soren all healing Ike at once as he was dueling it out?). And Ena's relationship with the dragon-mount-gone-mad didn't solicit any real sympathy from me either... But the Black Knight was just amazing in his role. And it still kills me knowing that we never do find out who he really was or how Grell was involved with him in the first place...

The anime cutscenes in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance featured the CG-anime-look found in new Japanese movies. And while I will always, always hate the fucking awful dubbing of Japanese shit into English, I just can't get around the fact that the anime cutscenes in this game were absolutely, fucking beautiful... Whether it was Ike training with Grell at the start, Grell duking it out with the Black Knight one on one, or even Ike taking Elincia's gentle hand at the end, there was just such a beautiful touch to every cinematic scene that screamed "art design" of the highest calibre. My only real complaint was that there simply wasn't enough of this anime cutscene stuff in the first place...

Is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance perfect? Hell no... The graphics in-game are subpar for this current generation of gaming, let alone the next. Many of the cutscenes take far too long to read through, yet there is no quick way to skip through the screens (besides skipping them all with the start button or B)... Critical hits are awesome if you're the one dishing them out, but not if you're the one getting raped every single time you fucking approach the enemy boss. And in today's gaming age, it really does seem ridiculous that there is simply no fucking way to save your game in Fire Emblem mid-way through the stages...

Stages I might add, that took me over two fucking hours the first time I tried to play through them... before getting whacked by an enemy critical fucking hit right before the fucking end, I mean...

But still, even so? There is simply no denying just how much of a wondrous experience any gamer would be missing out on, if they simply missed out on the Fire Emblem series...

Path of Radiance is simply stunning in almost every single production regard. The storyline is amongst the best that I've endured in an RPG this generation of gaming, the anime cinemas are amongst the best I've ever seen in any medium period, and God is the music absolutely ungodly magical in this game... Sure, some might complain that it's still midi-oriented rather than fully orchestrated. But besides the god-annoying battle-attack music (which I turned off, by the way)? There are simply more touching tunes in this game than I think I have ever experienced in any RPG since The Wind Waker, or even Ocarina of Time...

Honestly, if you love RPGs, if you love a challenge, if you love depth in a game, and if you love pulling your fucking hair out next to the fucking reset button, then you'd be insane to do what I did and ignore the fucking Fire Emblem series for over fifteen fucking years of your goddam life... Even if your only motive to try this game out in the first place is to finally figure out where the fuck Marth and Roy came from in Super Smash Bros. Melee, believe me when I say it's fucking worth your time, effort, and motherfucking money for the Nintendo Gamecube version...

Seriously, with the Nintendo DS lighting the world ablaze, and games like Resident Evil 4 and Fire Emblem radiating a soft glow on the Gamecube this year? Nintendo has been simply a welcome sigh of relief...

And as a 23-year old virgin? It shamefully took me fifteen long, fucking years to finally discover the joy that can only be summed up as Fire Emblem...

And if it takes me fifteen more long, arduous years before I can finally ask where the fuck Marth and Roy are again?...

... and yes, I'm more than willing to walk that path to radiance just once more...

Y2kk Update: - Activision's Call of Duty 2: Big Red One Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

Has it become the duty of every single goddam game developer out there, to produce a World War 2 FPS or some crap like that?...

If Call of Duty 2 had simply come out in 2004 rather than 2005, I seriously would've hailed it as the best WWII FPS of this generation of gaming. Because honestly, what else came out before it that was any damn decent in the first place?... The Medal of Honor series had become a complete running joke after its first incarnation, and what else was there? Does Battlefield 1942 even count as a real World War 2 game?...

... and it's not like the first Call of Duty, for both the PC and its neutered version for consoles, was any goddam better either...

Factoring in all this shit, then yes, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One can really be considered the best first person shooter of the WWII epic ages. The only real problem is, it ain't 2004 anymore... It's 2005, soon to be 2006 actually. And I have played Ubisoft's Brothers in Arms series, don't you know...

It's not that Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is particularly bad or anything. It just pales in comparison to just how ungodly good the Brothers in Arms series was to me... Afterall, in Ubisoft's game? I was able to control the fates of two squads with my every command and action, and I was able to use flanking strategies on every single enemy rather than just relying on the twitch of my goddam aiming finger... Something was just satisfying about all that, as the controls and epic atmosphere of those two Brothers in Arms games were amongst the absolute best of all games this year, US BAR none...

Now, don't get me wrong. Call of Duty 2 is definitely a step up from the original Call of Duty for consoles, as Activision had a complete brain fart when they cooked up that first piece of shit. The original Xbox Call of Duty had the most ridiculous auto-aiming I had seen in a game before, had some of the most floaty controls I've ever felt, and some of the most ADD-suped up, sped-up animations I had ever witnessed in my goddam life...

Call of Duty 2 still suffers from their whole attention deficit disorder shit, in the sense that reload and death animations are done so damn quickly that it almost feels like you're watching a damn cartoon at times. But the introduction of your Big Red squadmates and the fact that aiming (while still ridiculously babied thanks to the auto-aim) is a hell more satisfying than it was before, ensures that this game at least won't be going to the bottom of the bargain basement bin within the next couple months or so...

Activision has followed the Halo FPS genre example, so to speak. While every other company these days seems to be stealing the shield idea from Bungie, Call of Duty 2 was intelligent enough to strip the AI squadmate stuff instead... As a result, it's pretty cool to go headfirst into enemy fire with a whole wave of disposable human shields. For the most part, you play through each and every stage with a hell of a lot of generic red shirts who get gunned down just as easily as the goddam enemy. And while obviously they don't help you out in missions very much, at least the red shirts do make for a pretty damn decent atmosphere when push comes to shove...

Then you have the actual Big Red infantry squad that you're part of. Those guys are practically goddam invincible, pulling a Sarge as if this was Halo 2. And for the most part, they're not so bad to play with, if only to use as a human shield and simply stay behind when the going gets rough...

Problem is, Call of Duty 2 ends up being completely the opposite of Brothers in Arms to me in the end because of this. While in Brothers in Arms I was leading my troops, what the fuck am I supposed to do in Call of Duty 2? Not only am I a lowly private in the squad, but I take less hits before keeling over in death than my goddam squadmates do? So in essence, I have to always follow their lead and stay behind their asses, just to survive? WTF?...

The original Call of Duty, both for the PC and for consoles, was heavily scripted to the point where I almost felt like it was an on-rails shooter. But at least back then, I could choose which direction I could head off to... But in the sequel, WTF did Activision and Treyarch and whoever else really do? You can't even seem to venture off to wherever you want anymore, as invisible barriers and doors you can't open blockade your freedom every chance you get (ironic then... America, war and freedom?... oh, nevermind...). Instead, you're forced to always rely on and follow your squadmates, as only they can open doors and only they can initiate all the endless goddam scripted events you encounter througout the goddam game...

Still, while I'm certainly far more of a fan of the Brothers in Arms series than I am of Call of Duty 2, that's not to say the latter is completely void of any sort of decency... I may absolutely hate the physics in the game, as the ragdoll shit is way overdone to the point of being comical. But there certainly are a few nice touches, like shots to the kneecaps and lovely animations when you snipe some German motherfucker in the head...

I'm not a fan of the preset control scheme that Call of Duty 2 has, as I keep fucking chucking grenades rather than manage to reload my Carbine in the heat of combat. But eventually I got used to the system, before going back to my trusty Kar98 in Brothers in Arms that is... The weapons are decent in Call of Duty 2, notably the automatics which are somehow more fucking accurate than even the goddam rifles in the game. Sure, it ruins the epic WW2 feel of the game to run and gun, but it does make Call of Duty 2 into a much less frustrating experience than the first game in the series ever was...

Like I said earlier, the auto-aiming is ridiculous at times as well, as I can even fuck some Kraut over dead centre in the helmet with even a fucking heavy, suppression machine gun from a mile away. But at least I actually have to aim in the general direction of the guy unlike the previous Call of Duty, and at least it makes the stages somewhat more bearable challenge-wise in the end...

Sound wise, I miss all the epic music I experienced from Brothers in Arms. That's not to say that Call of Duty 2 doesn't hold its own, even though it reminds me more of a mix of Medal of Honor and Godsmack than it does of war-time hymns and tunes... Sound effects are clear as daylight, as I can hear every voice shouted and every line muttered. I just wish there was some decent dialogue in the game though, you know?... Somehow, random Big Red morons conversing about killing random Germans in generic ways, is just not the same as hearing about the Brothers in Arms guys comparing Batman to Superman while they're offing some Krauts on the goddam toilet...

Now, it's hard for me to talk about the graphics about Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox, when I've already played through a lot of the game on the Xbox 360 as well. Though basically, I can see why Call of Duty 2 was the best selling (and only decent selling) game for the Xbox Three-Shitty... First reason out of all, I sadly do know quite a few casuals who think that the CG Call of Duty 2 commercial is actually real gameplay. And second, because COD2 really is the most beautiful overall game on the next generation system...

On the Samsung 20" HDTV kiosks (which Microsoft sent to almost every store) set to a picture perfect 720p, I just absolutely love the resolution on Call of Duty 2 for the 360. The smoke effects from your grenades in particular are jaw-dropping, as I don't think I've ever seen effects like that on a high end PC just quite yet... and they absolutely put the original Xbox to shame, in that one regard at least...

Of course, the sad thing is, I've seen Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360 on a standard SDTV set as well. And let me just tell you, it looks almost goddam identical to the same game on the ol' Xbox itself. Hell, it's not like the 720p version of the game is that much better either, besides the added particle effects I mean... Sure, the framerate is smoother to a small degree, the textures are definitely higher res but not by a large margin, and the added resolution helps out when it comes to aiming in normally-muddy-looking buildings. But besides all that and a flock of seagulls, is there really anything to give two or three-sixty shits about?...

Granted, I definitely would've preferred to pick up the game for the Xbox 360 rather than the Xbox, but I don't have a three-shitty just quite yet... In comparison, the low resolution of the Xbox version does look like shit in comparison, considering every building looks washed out in colour and I can barely even differentiate uniform colours between Germans and my own goddam squadmates... But truth be told, after popping back in Brothers in Arms? Not only does that Ubisoft game ironically look comparable to Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360, but it just completely shames the COD2 on the Xbox in terms of both bloom lighting and nitty, gritty World War 2 graphical atmosphere...

I'd even go so far as to claim that Activision purposely made the Xbox version of the game look like shit just to contrast how damn sharp and bright the Xbox 360 version is... Why else would Call of Duty 2 have worse particle effects, worse physics, and worse death animations than even the first Call of Duty for the Xbox, while all of the above are perfectly good and high res on the next generation system?...

Bah, whatever... Surprisingly, the gameplay is better on the Xbox controller than the Xbox 360 one, as I'm far more used to the black and white buttons than the L1 and L2, PS2-copied ones on the new white pad... and somehow, the 360 analog sticks are just too flimsy and perhaps too GC-like for their own goddam good (though that could be from the kiosks I've tried)...

... and surprisingly, my brother just absolutely loves Call of Duty 2, while he just can't get into Brothers in Arms whatsoever... go figure...

He loves on the on-rails shooter gimmick sort of thing, as he doesn't need to ever think about where to go. He loves to run and gun and mindlessly aim at Krauts rather than strategize, because if it wasn't for Goldeneye? Then I'm sure he would've turned into some PC FPS nutjob rather than the Xbox-Halo whore he eventually became...

And yes, despite all my apprehensions, Call of Duty 2 is definitely a serviceable game. And not that damn bad of a tribute to the war-time service either... but still, it's just that?...

... while Brothers in Arms is the goddam, honoured and revered lieutenant in charge of the best damn WW2 series this generation of gaming?...

Because not only did I tolerate LOTR: The Two Towers on television the other day?...

... but I kinda didn't mind Stargate Atlantis' The Tower episode this week either...

The thing is, I'm guessing that if this episode had aired anytime within the first half of Atlantis' second season, I would've called it a flat out joke. I mean seriously, after watching the episode, the first bloody hell thing that came to my mind was... WTF? Half of the actors were wearing 15th century Halloween costumes, and the other half were wearing Nazi uniforms? WTF?...

But to be honest? I still kind of enjoyed this episode, the same kind of way that I somehow enjoyed Childhood's End and Sanctuary last season. Childhood's End had some brilliant comedy from McKay, Sanctuary had a fucking hot bitch to fawn over (and more McKay hijinx to boot)... And while The Tower didn't really have the same kind of comedic touch as I was hoping for? It still had that corny, campy feel to it that somehow makes the no-name, Star Trek, holiday nostalgic in me to forgive this filler of a throwaway episode...

Actually, Mara or whatever her name was, wasn't really that hot. Until she went fucking naked that is, and God was her backside ever shaved and fucking sexy smooth... Her face though? While it was above SG-1's standards, it just wasn't up to the Maxim stuff that I've come to expect from Atlantis... I mean really, Mara was just a pure blonde, bubblehead in this episode. If they wanted to go the 15th century bimbo route, why not just get Maria from the WWE? Now there's a fucking bitch I'd give this episode four fucking stars and three thumbs up for... and you can guess what the third thumb may be...

This was another one of those filler, Kirk episodes for Lt. Col. John Sheppard. The thing is, I still tend to enjoy the episodes where Joe Flannigan just sort of slapstick mulls his way through the wacky sort of adventures he always ends up coming across... He technically didn't say much this episode, considering his MO inside of the Ancient Tower was basically to pretend like he didn't know what the heck was going on with that chair. Yet his reactions to Mara ("Wow. I never see this coming.") and his Hamlet kind of duel at the end, were exactly the kind of zany, WTF shit that somehow keeps a virgin miracle loser like me entertained...

The Tower was definitely one weird ass episode, combining the sister city of Atlantis with fucking King Lear, or King Richard, or Shakespeare in Love, or whatever sort of crap it was meant to emulate... God, Shakespeare in love fucking sucked...

To be honest, a lot of the aristocrat shit in The Tower was just so damn bad. It was just so predictable (predictably so?), from the cliche advisor of a Jafar wannabe with the bald head, to the fact that practically no actors on the set even tried faking a fucking snobbish accent. And hell, don't even get me started on just how damn annoying the King's son was, and definitely not in a love-to-hate way... Not that I can blame the writers, considering their source material. Afterall, I dare say that Shakespeare doth sucks liketh Spielberg for a bakleth reason...

But I dunno, I just seem to have this weakness, of seeing advanced technology merged together with the campy, wacky shit of our past. I seem to also end up loving an SG-1 episode where the Stargate manages to wow somebody who's never seen it before, and I just loved the effect of all the drone weapons here in The Tower approaching the axe-wielding village from afar (or Jafar... heh... oh, nevermind)...

The ending of the episode was completely predictable, as the only real reason The Tower was even written in the first place was to avoid the Voyager-syndrome of losing unlimited amounts of Puddle Jumpers and drones. But that still doesn't change the fact that I loved all the candles and decorations around the set of Atlantis, and that doesn't change the fact that it was finally fucking nice to see the Ancient chair in action once again...

Teyla and Ronan were sort of just there along for the ride, as they didn't even do anything but stare as the Ancient drones approached to slaughter them both. Hell, I don't even get why Ronan hadn't even heard of the drone weapons before (how many times has he been on a Puddle Jumper and seen the damn glowing Jellyfish already?...), but at least he got a decent fight in near the end... What was Teyla's purpose though? All she did was flirt with Ronan the whole time, and sort of gave him the wife-"oh shit" look when it came to mowing down a soldier with one thrust... Still, somehow I wasn't so annoyed by her in the background. Not when I had Mara's fucking naked backside as a wondrous distraction from Teyla's bad acting, at least...

The comedy in the episode basically came from just Rodney and Beckett. Beckett had a few decent one-liners about house-calls and "wee men", while McKay went into his whole tirade about being stuck in an underground cavern... There wasn't nearly as much comic relief in this episode as I was hoping to get out of these two guys. But hey, as long as I get a few decent jokes in there, like McKay's rant about catacomb superstitions and shit like that, then all is fucking forgiven...

WTF was with that ending? Not only was the whole balcony scene cut two minutes too short (with no real or new feeling of resolution in the end), not only did we learn absolutely nothing (or hear nothing) about the sister city of Atlantis... and not only was Weir just completely uncaring and unfeeling about Sheppard and his team whatsoever?... But she also refused to show us her fucking naked side? WTF is wrong with that bitch? It's fucking Christmas, for Christ's sakes...

I mean seriously, any other week of the year?... any other week of the year, and this episode would've simply been considered goddam shit...

... but bah... it's the Christmas season now... and apparently I'm in a giving mood...

Afterall, with no Star Trek: Enterprise around any longer, or even goddam Smallville?...

Y2kk Update: - LucasArts' Star Wars: Battlefront II Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

I hate Star Wars. But I absolutely loved the commercials to Star Wars: Battlefront II...

Episode III may have been a shit movie in the end, but it's original score definitely still deserves a nomination at the Academy Awards. So how the fuck could I possibly resist a commercial with the Episode III music, blaring in the background of some fucking epic Jedi battle?...

The thing is, it wasn't just the commercials that sold me on the game. It was also the fact that strangely enough, as much as I hate Star Wars?...

While every other Star Wars game has either over-relied on crappy Jedi gimmicks or X-Wings that handle in the skies like paper airplanes, Star Wars: Battlefront concentrated on the one aspect of the series that first person games have always been able to nail down...

So yeah, I picked up Star Wars: Battlefront II, hoping that it could rekindle the magic that I absolutely adored from the first in the series...

Now, sure I knew going head-first into to the sequel, that there would be a feeling of deja vu, been-there and done-that, and the force-has-been-with-you. But considering that the Battlefront series itself between its two games has had barely any changes whatsoever? And considering that I am the no-name nostalgic afterall?... I dunno then. But somehow, even with all the improved graphics and all, Star Wars: Battlefront just can't seem to live up to its predecessor's own standards...

There were three main new additions to the series in the sequel: the new single player campaigns, the introduction of playable Jedi heroes, and the ability to dogfight against Star Destroyers in space...

The single player campaign has obviously never really been the focus of the Star Wars: Battlefront series, or any recent online FPS in history really (hell, even Halo 2's single player mode kinda sucked ass...). And it kinda stings then, that even after putting so much more effort into the campaign mode in Battlefront II? That quite frankly, I still can't seem to give a damn about it...

To be honest, if it wasn't for co-op, I wouldn't even bother with the single player campaigns in this game. LucasArts may have put a lot of voice acting and objectives into shit like the Rise of the Empire mode, or whatever the heck it's called. But for the most part, I felt the gameplay of the series just doesn't jive with what the campaigns were trying to do... What the hell are the point of objectives, when the game physics are all built for nothing but massive, ADD battles and quick two-second kills? The campaign modes just feel too slow compared to the frantic pace that the original Star Wars: Battlefront had, and that's just not what I signed onto this war for...

Notice that I mentioned the pace of the original Battlefront there rather than the sequel?... Now, for the most part, I do admit that Battlefront II has retained the kind of game balance that the first game did have. The only real problem I found ironically enough, was the same damn problem that has plagued Star Wars game for eons and fucking eons...

At first, the novelty of being able to hack and slash your way around in third person mode seemed awesome, and a great change of pace from the original. Double jumping has become second nature to me, I love the force push, and there's nothing more enjoyable than to electrocute some poor Rebel bastard as the Emperor... The problem lies once you do get past the fucking novelty of it all, and start to realize that Luke Skywalker plays like he weighs five fucking pounds or some shit like that. If anything, the Jedi heroes make Star Wars: Battlefront II into too much of a hectic game, with all the rapid button mashing taking away from the running and gunning and fucking no-name precision we've all come to know from the first person shooter genre (even if that is an oxymoron for the Battlefront series...)...

Controls for the most part in Star Wars: Battlefront II are decent, yet something just doesn't seem right compared to the original. I still haven't nailed the exact reason down or anything, but maybe it has something to do with the lack of default, Halo-type controls?... Is it because the reload button no longer works the way it did? Is it because the auto-aim no longer targets the head of a Stormtrooper on the top of a Hoth hill fifty miles away? I really don't know...

All I do know, are that a) the reticule no longer feel as floaty as before, yet now seems a tad bit too stiff, b) accuracy is now more of a skill thanks to less auto-aiming, yet having to actually aim when surrounded by 25 enemies at once just doesn't exactly feel so great... c) grenade throwing is even worse than in the original, as I never ever once hit my goddam intended target... and finally, d) playing with fucking Yoda is like playing with a fucking Rez vibrator... without the fucking hot and horny girl on your lap. that is...

... or at least, I'd prefer that to Luke kissing Leia any fucking day of the week...

To be honest? Like I said before, I knew what I was getting into with Star Wars: Battlefront II. I knew that with only one year of development, the game couldn't be that different from the original. And it definitely hasn't defied my expectations...

Sure, combat is still rugged and intense at times. The only problem is, the new maps all absolutely suck ass... I mean seriously, is it just me? Or is that only the goddam stages from the original are any fun to play in the sequel?... The new level designs just don't cut it when to comes to mindless FPS strategies. And really nothing can ever top the kickass factor of playing again and again on Hoth...

The game is definitely more polished that it was before, but I'm not so sure that was a good thing... Graphics are more solid, as are the sound effects. And little tweaks and dweaks here and there have been added, like the ability to change your character at any zone your team currently occupies. I know a lot of gamers are thankful of that...

At the same time though, something has changed in the core gameplay fundamentals, and I just can't place what. The game just isn't as fun anymore... Either from the change in controls, or either from the altered weapons and vehicles physics, I just don't know... All I do know, is that even with a more stable framerate than before? And even though thankfully co-op splitscreen has returned (which was the best feature of the original)? I still somehow prefer the first Battlefront over what we got here...

Because when I first picked up Battlefront II, what I was really looking forward to were the space battles. After the disappointments I had gotten from the Rogue Leader series, I was begging for a classic throwback to the X-wing vs Tie Fighter days... The thing is, maybe it's actually the space battles of the game that are throwing off my love for the series? Because while I do think the fighter dogfights are implemented decently enough, the repetitiveness of them there does somehow get the best of me...

In space, all you do is appear on your cruiser, run to the nearest X-Wing or whatever, take off, and then just random fly in circles and hope that nothing ever hits you. There just doesn't seem to be any real suspense when it comes to missile locks, perhaps because you can't even see the missiles basically until they goddam hit you... And there just aren't enough evasive maneuvers in the game (or effective ones, at least), considering the right analog click mechanism feels a hell of a lot less sophisticated than the one in Crimson Skies... As a result, taking on Star Destroyers just doesn't seem that impressive, considering their turbo-laser aim is worse than even the actual Star Destroyers in the movies...

And truth be told, the game on the Xbox just can't generate enough Tie Fighters to satisfy my epic battle cravings...

... or is that the reason, really?... is the stupidity of the enemy the reason why I just can't seem to get into Battlefront II?...

I mean, the AI may have been pure shit in the first Battlefront. But at least, the game still posed a unique sort of human-waves and body shield challenge... But here in Battlefront II? Not only does the AI space itself too evenly out across the map, but they often tend to try to fight you one-on-one instead of the ten to one odds I had before... All I have to do is circle strafe on land, or lock on a couple missiles in space, and boom. Suddenly, that battle is over and I simply move onto the next one...

Meanwhile in the first game, there was barely a pause in the action, as taking out one guy simply lead to four more taking his place, right behind his dead fucking ass...

Such a shame really... I had grown so damn fond of that kind of fucking, non-stop, Star Wars insanity...

That's not to say that Star Wars: Battlefront II is nearly as bad as the fucking movie it follows. Capture the Flag in space is a hell of a lot of fun, the return of all the old maps from the original was a brilliant idea, enemy Jedi's may be shit to play with but are satisfying as hell to win against, and at least the graphics no longer hurt my eyes with their N64-style of blurriness...

But after combining the traditional first person genre with third person hacking and slashing? And then combining that with the space shooter genre (back when "shooter" actually meant a game with a fucking airplane with guns)?... Now, I still don't know exactly why I can't help but feel the original is still superior to its sequel. But beyond the whole been-there, done-that, and Star-Wars-sucks motif?... well?...

But at least Star Wars: Battlefront II is still a far better experience than Episode III ever fucking was...

... and hot lava-planet damn, does this game ever have a goddam good commercial...

After a shitty ass season like Stargate Atlantis has been having this year? The writers must've sure been under a hell of a lot of pressure...

The thing is though, while Grace Under Pressure was not nearly as amazing of an episode as Critical Mass was last week? It was still a very solid outing, that reminded me of exactly why I loved the writing on the show back during the first season...

First things first, let's face facts. If you aren't a fan of David Hewlett and Rodney McKay, then you ain't gonna like this episode...

Pretty much every single other character on the show was ignored for the Sam and Rodney show. Ronan and Teyla were completely missing in action, Beckett had less screen time than he did as some other doctor back on SG-1, Landry still managed to suck balls without even being on the show... And Dr. Weir? Oh, don't get me started on Dr. Weir... WTF was wrong with her? Even with Rodney trapped 2000 ft below the ocean, Torri Higginson still acted more like she was fucking flirting with Sheppard than she ever did seem concerned with McKay? WTF?...

Zelenka was decent, I suppose. He did have that one noble scene of his, where he was reluctant at first to go in a Puddle Jumper to save McKay, yet mustered up the courage a second later so that he wouldn't have to be ordered to go... It's just that, the actor just didn't seem like he was really into his role. He seemed more fascinated by his little computer diagrams of the ocean and how deep the Puddle Jumper could sink, than he ever did about McKay and the cracking cockpit windshield up front...

Sheppard was both on and off when it came to caring about his team member. On the one hand, he seemed like he was fucking flirting back with Dr. Weir, when it came to just how damn excited he was about the damn jumper cables he was attaching to the Puddle Jumper (which he didn't even get to use... he sounded so rejected about that...)... Then again, there were a few fleeting moments where he did actually seem to show some adequate emotion. He jumped on Zelenka for not having the guts to fix his mistake and try to save McKay, and he definitely did seem like the ol' Sheppard that we knew from season one when he called Rodney as "buddy" over the comm...

These moments were quite far and between, however... probably because Joe Flannigan was pissed off that this was the episode that Epiphany should've fucking been... Where were the fucking writers back then?...

And WTF? Puddle Jumpers have shields? WTF?!?... And they're just learning this now, after losing how many damn PJ's to Voyager-like shuttle experiences? WTF?...

Anyhew, David Hewlett absolutely stole the show, especially considering this was essentially his own damn show... and kinda mine as well, considering how damn close the episode got to describing the very fabric of my own existence...

You know all those scenes of Rodney talking to himself, calling himself an "idiot"? That fucking reminds me of every single time I do something dunce when it comes to computer programming (although I usually do use words a lot more harsh than 'idiot', even in my fucking office place... much to the confusion of my fellow workers, might I add...)...

I fucking talk to myself all the fucking time like a constantly concussed man. I mean, why the fuck else would I continuously update a nonane site that nobody ever reads?... Seriously, you know what's sad? You know that ridiculously bad scene, of McKay laughing at his own horrible joke of making a "deal"? Sadly, I fucking not only laugh at my own jokes, even ones about fucking deals with inanimate objects (ironically enough)... yet somehow unlike him? I don't seem to need a lack of CO2 to fucking do so...

You know that whole bit about the whale thing, brushing by the adrift Puddle Jumper, and McKay treating it like Lassie as it was humping on by? Hell, I say the exact same things as he did there, to fucking dogs and cats that won't fucking leave me alone. Hell, I fucking even swore at a fucking fly that wouldn't leave me alone in the house today...

And when it came to pretty much every single description that Carter had for McKay? That he was "petty, arrogant, and bad with people"?...

Well, I think that goes without saying for me, really... you might as well just call this episode, "IvanF Under Pressure"...

... although the writers certainly do seem like they've fallen in love with this whole "Grace" in the title thing...

Just judging by the title, and from the episode synopsis of being adrift with a concussion of a hallucination to keep McKay all warm and cozy, it'd be pretty much anyone's first instinct to consider Grace Under Pressure as a sequel to SG-1's own "Grace". And judging by the fact that the whole episode pretty much takes place in the back of a Puddle Jumper? I guess you can make a hell of a lot of comparisons to Atlantis' own Thirty-Eight Minutes as well...

But you know what the first thing that came to mind was after watching this episode? Star Trek: Enterprise's Shuttlepod One, really... A lot of Star Trek action fans really hated that episode, but I certainly loved it. And why?... Because it did exactly what I wanted from the writers of Sci-Fi. Just put two great actors in the same room for forty fucking minutes of the show, and let the witty banter and fucking charm exchange and play between the best of the both of them...

Shuttlepod One was great because of that. And while Grace Under Pressure may never be raised up to those same standards? It definitely does hold its own, pretty much all thanks to one man... Rodney was truly the man in Grace Under Pressure. David did it all as an actor, as not only did he have me in deafening silence when it came to his regrets about Griffin, but he also had me absolutely balling in laughter every single fucking time that he wished for Carter to be fucking naked before him...

Ironically enough, Grace Under Pressure wasn't just Rodney's best episode of the season. It was also Amanda Tapping's, and she isn't even meant to be on the goddam Atlantis show... Now, I didn't particularly enjoy the topless bra scene, considering a) Amanda (though I hate to say this) still has a lot of baby fat, and b) it wasn't Sora there fucking naked. But hot damn, I just loved every single fucking exchange she and McKay had about the whole worthless hallucinations thing... Even after all those times McKay whined about the lack of provocative dress codes, I still fucking rolled in laughter when he glanced out from the corner of his eye, just to check whether Carter was suddenly naked or not. I mean seriously, WTF is the point of hallucinating a hot girl, if all you get is a fucking tease in the end? WTF?...

... well, McKay actually used the word, "Siren"... but we all knew what he meant...

Afterall, first came "Grace" appearing before Carter, and now we have Carter showing up before McKay in Grace Under Pressure...

So what's next?... We better get Grace fucking Park, taking off her bra and panties for Sora and goddam Cadman on Atlantis...

But really, I can't honestly believe just how amazing of a job Amanda Tapping did this episode. Last year, she had already shown her versatility by providing completely different personality traits for both RepliCarter and Librarian Carter. And yet here, wearing pink no less, she proved once again that she definitely has a gift at acting... Carter was definitely much more feminine in Grace Under Pressure than she ever was in SG-1. She showed true sensitivity to McKay, and really made me believe that Rodney's subconscious was silently cheering his team members and friends for the save... Why can't the writers ever do the goddam same for Teyla or Weir? WTF?...

It wasn't just the romantic "romping" exchanges that I loved between her and Rodney. All the onslaughts of pettiness and arrogance were definitely the most welcome thing as well, at least since the writers fucked with the McKay formula in Trinity... I laughed so hard when he went back to his old ways of calling Carter as "blondie". And yet, I was quite touched by not just his admissions about Griffin's bravery, but also by how he truly does believe Carter is a lot wiser in the end than he is...

McKay played the role of a man who had accepted his fate to near, Shakespearean perfection. And while that may seem like quite a far-fetched compliment at first, just watch the expressions he has on his face when he's blaming Zelenka for his memorial service, and suddenly you see why the actor was given this whole damn episode for himself...

And when it comes to this episode? When it comes to David Hewlett and Rodney McKay, I definitely do agree...

I don't know if Grace Under Pressure was the best of Stargate. But it definitely did feel like the best of Star Trek... I mean seriously, it wasn't just the Shuttlepod One feeling I got. Did anyone else here think of the giant Atlantis whale as one of those Humpback fuckers from Star Trek IV?... Did anyone else think that that thing was the fucking Flipper or whatever sort of crap of the fucking Atlantis seas? Or hell, maybe even an ascended being in disguise?...

Hell, was Carter the fucking whale (and no, this was not meant as a joke about her baby fat... umm, nevermind...)?...

Well... Grace Under Pressure definitely left a lot of questions open to debate... but at least one thing's as clear as the ocean skies...

Sure, it wasn't the greatest of episodes. But thanks to David Hewlett, Amanda Tapping, and the absolute best script of the season, there was a real flow and pace and grace to this episode that was simply intangible, undeniable, vulnerable, and wonderfully stark naked... And I'm sure that this episode will remain one of the most solid hours of entertainment, in my humble opinion at least, from all of television thus far this year...

Kudos to the writers then, despite all my earlier criticisms this season... for showing real grace under pressure for once...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Lexmas small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Well, okay... so maybe that was a bit of a gross exaggeration... and a bit of an early and very undeserved Christmas present to the writers...

... especially considering that watching Lexmas was one of the most painful experiences I've ever endured in my goddam life...

"Santa Claus can kick Smallville ass? WTF?... I say again, WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH?!?"...

Ladies and gentlemen, this was Lex Luthor's version of It's a Wonderful Life... The only problem was, I already own this fucking movie on DVD. It's called the fucking Family Man, for Christ's sakes...

There was absolutely nothing wonderful about this episode whatsoever. The B-plot was pure shit, as Clark looked so damn mentally retarded as he was trying to talk that Santa out of jumping off of the roof... I mean seriously, with the way that ol' fart of a drunk was talking? Either he was delirious out of his mind, actually giving a damn about the spirit of Christmas when really all he should be doing is pimping out the babes of the Salvation Army. Or he actually was the real Santa, testing Clark for the fucking goddam spirit of Christmas...

Either way though? I just wanted the old fucker to jump. God, was he ever annoying...

It was amazing actually, the other day on the phone... My cousin, who never reads spoilers or even TV Guide synopsis' for episodes, asked when the next new Smallville episode was coming. I told him that "Lexmas" would air on December 8th, and of course he immediately put one and one together and realized it would be a Christmas episode... I asked him if he wanted to know what the episode would be about. He simply shrugged in indifference over the phone, and claimed it would probably be some "lame episode where Clark uses his superspeed to be pretend to be Santa Claus"...

I mean hell's bells, they didn't even use Chloe much! Sure, she looked cute as hell when she was trying to convince Clark at the party that perhaps they had met the real Santa Claus that night, but besides that? All she did was sit behind her desk at the Daily Planet, mulling over the fact that she was too damn dumbass to Fed Ex the whole toy shipment on fucking time...

And when it came to the alternate dream reality? Thanks to the Chicago WB fucking me over with some shit about an airplane crash that took up fifteen damn minutes of the show or whatever (I already got enough of that shit when it happened back here in Toronto), I don't know whether Chloe and Clark were married in the dream sequence or whatever... I did see the two of them at the tree shopping spree, and they definitely did have chemistry there...

... speaking of which... where the fuck was Lois Lane?... was she even invited to the Kent party at the end? If not, WTF?...

And oh yes, the Kents sucked dick as always. Nothing new to see here, as they were just sort of there, wasting up valuable space...

Lexmas was all about Lex Luthor in the end, as you could probably have guessed from the episodic title. He gets shot and sees the ghost of Christmas future in the form of his mother... The thing is though, how the fuck could his mother possibly fuck up a fucking dream sequence as much as she did? Who the fuck would ever want to be a nice guy, if in your vision of the future, you find that turning your back on money and power will just lead to more sorrow and pain? How the fuck did Ms. "I was fired from Stargate SG-1 for having no personality" backfire on her own ghostly ass with her own goddam made-up dream? WTF?...

Seriously, even long before Lana Lang finally bit the big one, I was still getting chilling nightmares from the whole Lexmas alternate reality. I mean honestly, was it just me, or did Lex Luthor have absolutely the most freakish, terrifyingly, evil family you've ever encountered in your life?... First of all, there's Lex fucking Luthor, who we all know is going to eventually try to take over the world. And then you have fucking Lana Lang, the queen bitch who thinks every single fucking hour of the show is hers for the prom queen taking...

And WTF? You then have the addition of some fucking noname kid, who's eerily, overglowingly, and creepingly overpositive in every fucking word he says?...

If there was any decent scene in the whole fucking episode? It was the climax at the very end, with Lex Luthor staring out of the cold, lifeless window to the sound of music of the fucking Imperial March...

If anything, the one thing I did like about Lexmas was the twist at the end of the episode, even if it was entirely predictable. Thanks to Lex's mother fucking the dream up somehow, Luthor becomes even more resolved in his New Year's resolution to kick ass and take Jonathan Kent's name...

It also helps that we finally got some decent moments from his father once more. Lionel still sucked dick when it came to the real world, gambling with Lex's life while showing absolutely no signs of either love, spite, regret, or acting ability. But John Glover truly kicked ass as he finally sat his ass back down in the Luthorcorp chair, as Michael Rosembaum also put on an acting clinic when it came to his dying wife in the emergency ward...

Now, Lexmas wasn't completely void of any redeemable qualities. It was nice afterall, that the writers threw us a bone and an early Christmas present, by giving us hope that it will be Lana fucking Lang who gets killed off of the goddam series this fucking year...

But really, listening to Santa bitch, bitch, bitch? And watching Clark retort back with his fucking "oh shit" looks time and time again?...

This was a critical turning point in the history of the IvanFian episode of the week awards...

... because thank the gods en masse, that Smallville ain't gonna be winning it this week...

I've been whining and complaining and bitching for a decent Stargate Atlantis episode ever since Duet. Because seriously, besides ironically the first three episodes of the season (The Siege, Intruder, and Runner), there has been nothing but absolute shit this second season of Atlantis so far...

There have been a lot of complaints on the net, that this episode felt squished and rushed or some shit like that. But I personally couldn't help but marvel at just how perfect the pacing was for the intended mood of suspense, as Critical Mass really was just as good as some of the best first season episodes of the show...

Seriously, something that has been missing en masse from Stargate Atlantis has been the sense of comic relief and humour that we always used to get from McKay and Sheppard. And while nothing will ever quite top their MENSA test debacle, Sheppard's stubbornness with his "dam" metaphor definitely had me goddam laughing, just as much as McKay was annoyed...

It wasn't just these core two actors who got the comedic ball rolling. Surprisingly, I found myself balling out in laughter at Dr. Lee falling flat on his face when it came to his 101 Dalmatians metaphor, yet every nerd in the room just instantly got the Lord of the Rings reference (with the whole team bursting out in fanboy conversations afterwards, might I add)... I never thought I'd see the day that I'd end up rolling in floor in laughter at a fucking Lord of the Rings moment. But the geek infatuation in that room with the movie trilogy was just so damn infectious, that how the hell could I myself possibly contain the torch I bare within?...

This year on Atlantis, some episodes have had decent comedy, and some episodes have had decent action. But since Runner (or perhaps Duet), no damn single episode this season has managed to merge those two key elements together. Or at least, not the way the series did back in its inaugural year... Thankfully, there were literally tons of ridiculously hilarious moments in Critical Mass, as the episode even finished off with a wonderful reminder of Zelenka's time with the children. But the key to remember here, is that Critical Mass had one hell of a storyline in itself...

A bomb had been placed in Atlantis by a member of the Goa'uld'ed Trust. And the thing is, before Critical Mass? I never would've thought a SG-1 crossover episode would have ever been done decently, let alone one with the sucky ass Trust... But the episode somehow managed to blend together the absolute best aspects of both of the two series. From Dr. Lee's Lord of the Rings rants, to Agent Barrett giving an obvious reference to his obsession with Carter, to even Sheppard's explanation to Ronan of what a Goa'uld is, I actually really did enjoy the fact that finally Atlantis didn't feel completely segregated from its big brother of a television series...

Though lucky enough for the episode, almost every single cast member of the Atlantis expedition brought forth excellence and true suspense in almost every single line they delivered...

Critical Mass was by no means a Sheppard-centric episode. But even in his diminished role, he still stood out thanks to his amazing chemistry with both McKay and Dr. Weir... I've already mentioned his whole river dam argument, which was perhaps the best moment of true comic relief of the entire damn season to date. But there were just so many other times, when he got under McKay's skin for how Cadman got under his skin, that it just made the whole damn episode enjoyable when it came to their banter...

Now, I wish there had been more moments at times between Weir and Sheppard, since those are the only times that Elizabeth ever turns out bearable to watch. But even with their limited screen time together, they really did seem like they cared for one another for the first time since The Siege... Weir was finally the damsel in distress for once, being the one in charge of both torture and interrogations, instead of John always being the one needing the fucking save (Epiphany, for example). And the chemistry works just so much better this way, as Joe Flannigan can show just so much more emotion through his eyes and inflections than that fucking Eliza-bitch ever could...

"Here we are, gloating about in-fighting amongst the Wraith. Are we really any better?"

... ah, yes... but even she did a decent job when it came to interrogating Kavanaugh, and the return of the lovely Novak hiccup routine (I admit, I did seem to laugh on cue with her annoying hiccups this time somehow... I am the no-name nostalgic, afterall)...

Now, I admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the Teyla B-plot. But for once, there actually seemed to be meaning behind a mainland, Athosian story... Teyla just lost her surrogate grandmother. And while it was weird seeing her all angsty and moody instead of being her normal warrior self during the bomb crisis, I kind of liked the one-time change in her image. She had wonderful chemistry with Beckett when it came to her grandmother's dying wishes (to die, really...). And no matter how cheesy the soup scene may have been? I still snickered at it, if only because I feel at times like I've been in the same damn situation...

Of course, then there was the whole song she sang... Rachel Luttrell has an absolutely wonderful singing voice. And if you listened closely enough, you could hear a bit of Teyla in there as well... Problem was, the song itself sucked. Who wrote that piece of BSG-ripped-off shit anyhew? The lyrics were all in plain ol' English instead of goddam Ancient Latin, with a huge fucking choir just magically behind her somehow. And the dubbing of her voice was just absolutely atrocious, as not once did the song actually sound like it synched with her lips...

However, once you get past the god-awful thought that a song like this would be sung at a goddam funeral, you then realize that it worked perfectly as the epic background music for what was truly one of the best finishes to a Stargate Atlantis episode yet... Her singing came on cue at almost the most absolute perfect moments to up the intensity of the montage scenes, and I just loved the background riffs when it came to the money shot of the two Wraith Cruisers soaring by. But I'll get into that a bit later on, really...

Now, when it came to McKay, I was a bit disappointed that he didn't seem nearly as intelligent here as he normally does in the series. He did manage to decipher the whole plan of the Trust and the Goa'uld when it came to the ZPM failsafes, but he looked like a goddam dunce when Cadman ended up being the one who figured the whole goddam thing out in the end... Still, what I got from McKay is exactly the kind of Rodney I've been demanding all season long. He had amazing banter with Sheppard, he had his weird ass rivalry with Ronan in the meantime, he seemed jealous of Dr. Beckett as usual, and he was ever suspicious of the ever sexy Lieutenant Cadman on the base...

The thing is, why the fuck was Lt. Cadman in the episode in the first place? Since when could this fucking lieutenant, who showed nothing but her girl power shit prowess while inside of McKay's head, suddenly not only turn out to be one of the best bomb experts in the goddam world, but also seemingly a master of Ancient computer systems as well?... She stuck out as a sore thumb, almost matching McKay when it came to hacking through the Atlantis Operating Systems. I mean seriously, who the fuck was she trying to be? Colonel Carter lite?...

I thought it was obvious that she would turn out to be the Goa'uld, considering not only was she given complete access to the Atlantis computers for the bomb threat, but also was always at a goddam terminal right before something bad happened to the city (and Rodney, for that matter)... In the end though, she was innocent. She really was just this extra body there, taking up space and wasting away McKay's intelligence. And for who? For what?... All she really did all episode long, was just sit there and pout in her goddam tight T-shirt, with her golden hair flocking about her irresistible neck and sultry shoulders... and, umm...

I especially adored that one moment she had with just Dr. Weir in the camera shot... with Cadman and her quivering lips, looking all concerned, worried, and ever hot and bothered as she was staring with intent at Elizabeth in charge... oh, fucking yes...

And the thing is, finally the Stargate Atlantis writers brought back the great endings to episodes. You know, the kind that they used to manage to always pull out of their asses a season ago... Because I will personally admit that thanks to the pacing and sheer intensity of this episode, I had forgotten the golden rule of "whodunnit" shows, that it's always the person you least expect that ends up being the villain of the story...

Maybe it's just because I was just as confused at Caldwell beaming down, as he pretended to be at Weir's accusations? But I can just somehow watch that one scene of this episode over and over and fucking over again, without ever getting fucking bored... although obviously, it helps that the Goa'uld (after boasting about his superiority, no less) fucking got his ass kicked and name taken, without even putting up a goddam fight... I laughed my ass off at his pathetic misfortune, really...

Ronan was absolutely useless for the whole of the episode, right up until the masterful fight scene in the end. But just watching him kick that chair away as if he was a chair-kicking badass, all was fucking forgiven... He tossed Caldwell to the wall, punched him in the fucking face, and threw his sorry ass over a table to the ground. And the look on goddam Caldwell's face was simply priceless... And in the meantime? Did anyone else notice Sheppard cracking a smile as he held the Colonel at gunpoint? Something tells me he was enjoying the beatdown just a bit too much... and so was I, I'm afraid...

I just fucking love that scene. Skinner got owned, writhing in pain from a taser not once but twice, and Ronan kicked the ass out of that chair... Oh fucking yes... The sound effects simply kicked ass in that scene. That chair was fucking dominated!... And the background music thanks to Teyla was pretty damn effective as well...

While Critical Mass won't top The Siege (Part 3) as the absolute best episode of the second season so far, it's already by far beaten Runner for the runner-up spot of the year... Hell, I haven't even mentioned a lot of the great scenes of the episode so far. I mean, from Kavanaugh fainting before his torture could even start, to Hermiod laying the smackdown by telling the said doctor to shut the fuck up, is there really anything about Critical Mass not to like?...

With shots of Cadman in a fucking tight T-shirt all episode long, a fucking brilliant money shot of Caldwell with two fucking taser tongs lodged in his nipples, and Rachel Luttrell proving to us all that she really can damn sing, this episode was simply destined for being money in the bank for the second damn season, plain and simple...

Critical Mass didn't just pull off a guaranteed victory, as the best damn IvanFian episode of the week...

... but it may also prove to be critical, as the turning point of this entire goddam season of mediocrity so far...

And because of that? It's time to spread the message to the masses, far and wide...

Y2kk Update: - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Theatrical Review (Spoilers...) -

... obviously, from my first line alone, you know that my review is going to be fair, unbiased, and goddam impartial as hell...

The thing is, has there ever been a Harry Potter film that I liked? The first one was slow and boring as hell, the second one was bland from all the monotonous darkness, and the third one felt like a cheap rip-off of a Star Trek: The Next Generation film... and Lord knows that I'll never ever goddam read the actual goddam source novels in my entire life...

... which brings me to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which started out with the usual British fanfare of a fucking World Cup filled with English soccer fanatics, as I wasn't sick enough of watching this embarrassing shit already on the goddam news...

Mercifully, the events are interrupted by the marching band of the Death Eaters, bad rip-offs of the Ku Klux Clan who apparently just love to make their presence known in stadiums and arenas with absolutely no goddam security whatsoever... We then see a mysterious figure, as if it was ever in doubt even ten minutes later in the film who the fucking mystery conjurer was. And from that point on? We had ourselves a movie...

Because you know what? There were really only two reasons why I even went to see this film in the goddam first place...

And second? Well, I was hoping that Emma Watson (who plays Hermione) would fucking look hot in her dress... Fuck you, Hermione (once you become of age...). Fuck you...

Problem was, the trailer for the film was just so much better than the film itself. When you only see the Harry Potter cast in snippets, everything seems better... But after the full three damn hours of listening to Ron whine, or Hermione bitch... or Professor Snape, umm, snape... or Harry fucking Potter soak it up in a fucking bubble bath, I was ready to fucking join the Death Eaters and fucking put the goddam world out of its misery...

Basically, the entire plot of the film is centered around a big ass contest, in which Potter wasn't actually allowed to join. The Goblet of Fire manages to spew his name out somehow, and of course despite the actual rules on paper for the goddam contest requirements, he gets entered into a variety of shitty asstastic events...

To be honest? I don't even get what was so hard about these tasks. The mermaid one was lame as hell, considering nothing was really at stake there (hell, the girl who quit still was allowed to get into the finals somehow)... And WTF was with the maze? So what if the branches and the hedges eat you alive? Everyone was still just fine and dandy at the end, except the guys who actually survived the damn thing...

It turned out at the very end, that the whole contest was just one huge ass ruse to get Harry Potter alone and isolated. And in an extremely gruesome scene that I'm sure would've given me fucking nightmares if I were still a kid, Peter Pettigrew actually chops his own hand off and adds Potter's blood to the mix, to bring fucking Voldemort back to life... Honestly though, that was the whole fucking plan? Seriously, why the hell couldn't they have just done this like four years ago, snatching up fucking Potter in his dorm bed before he learned any real magic spells? Why now, and why hide it with the whole goddam contest thing? WTF?...

Not only that, but Voldemort was a pure pussy. Not only did he do the purely James Bond villain thing, letting Potter get back on his feet instead of just blowing his brains out when he had the chance... But was it just me, or did Ralph Fiennes look like a fucking bad Star Wars alien character in the goddam film? Hell, if I didn't know better, I would be asking where his goddam light-sabre was... And as for what he did have, his wand I mean? Sure, Voldemort may be immortal or some shit like that, but God did he ever suck in battle. His blasts reminded me of Cyclops from the goddam X-men movies or some crap like that... and we all know how much Cyclops damn sucks, now don't we?...

The thing is, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire just had so many damn scenes that I was bored out of my mind through. The ballroom dance dinner for instance may have been a decent, if only a) the Indian girls were actually hot, and b) if I hadn't seen the same damn thing in God knows how many teen angst films already... (by the way, speaking as a Chinese Canadian over here, Cho-Ann or whatever her name may be was ugly as fuck...)...

I hated almost every character in the Goblet of Fire, which is something I couldn't even say about any of the previous films... I mean seriously, did Ron even have a purpose in this film? The first act, all he did was sulk it up about Potter getting his name in the Goblet somehow. And in the second act, what did he do exactly?... The poor guy was shunned with the time travel shit in the third film, and now had absolutely nothing to do again here? WTF?...

I paid good money to see Hermione look hot, and I was damn well disappointed (of course, hopefully I won't be in a couple year's time...). And besides her dress scene, was there anything that we were supposed to care about?... Unlike the first three films, she was virtually invisible with the magic (while not being actually invisible, with the cloak thing I mean). She was clueless about the port key boot, she never once used powerful magic of her own, and probably her only memorable moment was when she was too damn pussy as hell to mention what the third unforgivable curse was in class... Sure, there was that goddam tease of a hug she gave Harry Potter, as if that was somehow supposed to sway all the Ron/Hermione 'shippers across the net. And besides all that, what was she? Just a fucking generic cheerleader in the background of the goddam tournament? The damsel in distress for the knights in shining armour? WTF?...

... uggh, even the side characters were utterly disgraceful compared to their former selves... I mean, yes know it was meant to be disgusting, but did we really have to see Hagrid make out with the 10-foot tall French bitch all movie long?... And was there any purpose to any of the professors at all in the movie? At least in the third film, Snape got to look like a dumbass when it came to the Sirius Black situation. But here, besides look ever evil and generically conspicuous as always, did he even have a single decent moment to himself?...

Now, I know my friend was somehow in the begotten mood to enjoy the likes of "Mad-Eye" Moody. But really, from the way the character acted all movie long, was there really any doubt that he would turn out to be the fucking villain of the story?... Did I guess that he was a shapeshifter? No. And quite honestly, I actually didn't believe that he would turn out to be the supreme evil, considering the "evil" characters in past movies (Snape, the Elf thingy, and Sirius Black for example) all turned out to be decoys instead... But nope, not so here. What you see is what you get, besides the whole damn shapeshifting thing I mean. And I definitely did groan at the whole damn MWAHAHA explanation that fucking Moody bored me to tears with by the bard tale's end...

And while I hate to say this (well actually, I don't...), Dumbledore was just plain dumb as a door-nob fuck in this film. Where was the fucking presence you'd expect from a magical man of his stature? Where's the fucking Force lightning, or even the goddam Yoda Kung-Fu shit stance?... Instead, all we got instead was an old man who looked lost half the time, not knowing what the fuck was happening with the Goblet of Fire. I mean seriously, where was the omnipotent sort of father-figure that we saw snicker at the Phoenix burning itself to shreds, or the aging old motherfucker who somehow knew all about Hermione turning back the clock?...

... or at least, kill off the goddam character... put him out of his goddam misery already... God, he's useless...

But yeah, I guess it is kind of pointless to nitpick a Harry Potter film about the actual plot itself, considering any real divergences from the novels would've had about ten thousand petitions on the internet, all ready to burn the film like a fucking KKK enema of an effigy... Sure, I may hate the storyline of the Potter novels, but besides all that? Even I have to admit that Goblet of Fire was a reasonably well done film...

The Philosopher's Stone was an introduction to the Potter world, and therefore was far too slow in pacing. The second film tried to be dark, but ended up just being monotonous in the way it attempted to follow the boredom of the novel, scene by scene... The third film, like I said earlier, didn't even feel like a Harry Potter movie in the end. It was far too rushed, far too fast-paced, and had a third act with an atmosphere that completely didn't suit or match the first two and half movies of the series...

So when I say that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the best movie in the series to date? Then yeah, it obviously ain't saying much... But what's true is true. And I must admit, that the darkness in Goblet definitely attracted me more than most films about magic in the past half decade or so...

It was actually nice actually, how we got to forget about Voldemort and that shitty ass running plotline of his for the first two acts of the movie at least... And some of the minor characters were decently enjoyable. Cedric wasn't such a bad guy afterall, and those French women were pretty damn decently hot (when they weren't speaking with their god-awful accents, at least)... More importantly, the pacing of the film felt pretty much just right. Sure, I hated all the teen angst shit that had slotted and slutted its way in there, but at least all three acts of the movie felt uniform in mood and Moody atmosphere for once...

And oh yes, of course... the wild-card, pulled straight from the burning fires of the Goblet of the noname reviewer...

... as there is always one damn thing that can redeem any damn movie in my goddam eyes...

... and that alone puts Goblet of Fire above the three other shitty ass films that unfortunately bare the same name...

But even so, rest assured that nothing ever changes the goddam fact that, first and foremost?...

Because no matter how many dragons there may be? I can and will not ever forget...

Seriously, with this series? You either walk both into and out of the theatre loving it, or you don't...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
... best viewed in Internet Explorer 4 at 800 x 600 resolution, because that's what I still run at ...