An IvanF, IVT, No-Name Whiner, HomePage Production... March 2006: IvanF's Noname Brand News and Reviews Website...

- NoName.Mycrowsoft.com - "Where do you want to Crow today?"

- Tweakui.Mycrowsoft.com (IvanF's Software Tweaks and Dweaks for PCs) - ( Mirror )
- Download.Mycrowsoft.com (PowerVR, Matrox, S3, nVidia Hardware News) - ( Mirror )
- Office.Mycrowsoft.com (Archived Webpages from Past IvanF Updates) - ( Mirror )
- MSN.Mycrowsoft.com (ATI, 3dfx, Intel, AMD, Via, ALi, SiS Hardware News) -
- Support.Mycrowsoft.com (IvanF's No-Name High School Online Courses and Projects) -
- Cows.Mycrowsoft.com - IvanF.Mycrowsoft.com - Development.Mycrowsoft.com -

- Welcome to IvanF's IVT No-Name Brand Website -
- boring everyone who comes online since May 5th, 2002 -

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

The only fucking way that I could've ever enjoyed this episode, was if either a) Chloe was giving me a blowjob...

"Simone had her chance to sexually hypnotize both Chloe and Lois Lane in the end, and yet all we got instead was the seduction of Ma fucking Kent? WHAT THE FUCK?!?"...

Fuck, Simone wasn't even hot in Hypnotic. She had the complete look of a whore, which just doesn't seem to work in the overly pubescent world that the Smallville writers have created... And seriously, she strips down to her undies and then asks Clark to make "love" to her? Not only does absolutely nothing happen between the two that night, but she also never asks the guy to just fuck her during the countless hours they spent together later on? WTF is this? The Victorian Age?...

Is it any wonder, that everyone's favourite former vampire was stealing blood samples of all things?...

Old habits die hard. The undead die even harder... Why am I somehow not surprised?...

As always, Milton Fine was absolutely the best part and the only good part of a Smallville episode. At first, I was confused as hell as to how he possibly could've survived his destruction in the Fortress of Solitude. But even I felt a sense of dread upon seeing three or four copies of the Kryptonian AI all working in unison, all with the same exact powers as the lone Brainiac had beforehand... Not only am I curious as to what the fuck that alien ship is doing in Honduras, but I gotta also assume that at this point, Superman is fucked...

But alas, that was the extent of everything decent in the fucking episode. Even Lex's appearance in the Vancouver-like jungles of Central America fell flat in the end, as the guy just looked like a doofus for believing Fine was actually a secret government operative (unless Brainiac had planted that information as a ruse)... Why the fuck was Lex such a pussy? After spending so much fucking time tracking down Milton Fine (and surprisingly actually finding him, unless he wanted to be found), he then discusses a few extraterrestrial stories over a hot cup of tea, and then just quietly leaves back for his mansion where it's obvious that Simone would try to take him out? WTF?...

Seriously, how many fucking times can Clark Kent throw the man across the room before Lex fucking gets a hint?...

You gotta love Clark Kent too. He was hypnotized to kill fucking Luthor, yet he instead decides to take his time and toss him around the room all over again instead of just frying his brains out with his heat vision in one damn stroke... nice...

... even without his free will, this kid ain't exactly the brightest bloke on the block, now is he?...

But then again, what else would you expect from the guy who was still dating Lana fucking Lang of all bitches, even after they had broken up how many times now? For what, three episodes in a row? WTF?... Why the fuck are the two crazy kids back together yet again? Are their memories on the show that damn short and that damn brief, that Lana still is fucking horny enough to keep repeatedly asking the man of steel to strip down to his boxers?...

I hate Lana, I really do. And maybe the writers have finally gotten the hint, that the actress can't play anything but a broken hearted, cruel bitch in the end... I was actually clapping and cheering and laughing my ass off at the TV when she walked in on Clark supposedly doing it with Simone. Not only did the fucking Lana bitch have that kind of pain and punishment duly coming to her, but it was absolutely ridiculously amusing to watch Kristen Kreuk actually try to act in tears when all was said and done. Because I mean, the bitch actress can play a fucking demented vampire better than she can ever pull off a soft-spoken, broken hearted, innocent little girl...

She ain't so innocent anymore though. Because was it just me, or did the actress somehow seem happy when Clark officially broke it off with her the umpteenth time at the end of the episode? Ma Kent even tried to spin things like a Sonybot later on, telling Clark that perhaps he never revealed his secret to her because she simply wasn't the one (while completely ignoring the fact that Clark did tell Lana his secret and even proposed in the 100th episode... guess that slipped his mind as well...)... Apparently though, Lana proved herself that she wasn't the one with her slutty ways just one episodic second later. She went crawling right back to Lex Luthor's corruptive sort of comfort, and it's only a matter of time until she ascends her throne again as the queen bitch of the series...

At least Chloe was semi-cute? But besides tossing around some kryptonite while Clark was throwing Lex around like a ragdoll, what the fuck did she even do? She may have pulled a Clark with her quick exit after saving Lois Lane, but I never really did give a damn about her ace reporter, heroine moments and all...

All I did care about, was that Simone was fucking touching and rubbing herself (in the hypnotic gem at least...) as soon as she saw Chloe there. And honestly, in an episode where you have an evil bitch just begging for a wardrobe malfunction, and you have fucking porn-star quality actresses like Erica Durance and Allison Mack, all revving and horned up for a paycheck? Then how the fuck could you not hypnotize the two, to at least stay off your back by fucking you up the feminine ass? WTF?...

At least Tom Welling did what was to be expected from him. He not only broke Lana's heart, but he broke Lex's back in the process as well. How can I really fault him for that?... Sure, it was Tom Welling episode #346 where once again, he strips down to his underwear thanks to being under some horrible spell. But at least this time, unlike the last time the three witches produced the worst fucking television in the history of the world? At least it made sense why he was being made to be the funky, fluky, flunky boy in the first place... Lex wanted Clark and Lana to split up. Mission accomplished at least, which was perhaps the only intelligent and legible thing in the entire fucking episode to mention...

... and at least we got the return of Milton Fine back, right?... but really?...

It's just sad, that the one and only thing that turned me on this episode?... was Simone seducing Marth fucking Kent of all bitches...

Y2kk Update: - Nintendo's / Kuju Entertainment's Battalion Wars Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers...) -

Wow, it's like I've been asleep throughout the entire lifespan of the Game Boy Advance or something. To be honest, I didn't even know that Nintendo had revitalized the Advance Wars series in the West until I finally got a GBA myself...

The last time I played a game in the Nintendo "Wars" series? Well, that was pretty much way back when it was still called Famicom Wars, and when Star Wars (or at least Return of the Jedi) was still considered the New Kid On The Block...

The thing is, even though I owned a GBA and had plenty of disposable cash to use on the Advance Wars series? I still haven't picked up a single AW game for the portable system, if only because my love for turn-based strategy games seemed to die out during the time of the original Civilization and Master of Orion 2...

You know, back when I was so damn clueless about video games, that I was actually shocked to see Super Mario Bros. 3 "unveiled" in The Wizard...

And also way back when movie-goers were still goddam frothing in anticipation, at the mere thought of the Star Wars prequel trilogy...

But because I seem to buy practically every goddam Gamecube game on the face of the planet, I picked up both Fire Emblem and Battalion Wars sometime last year without even considering what I was buying. And truth be told, I was so damn pleasantly surprised by the turn-based strategy of Fire Emblem GC, that I couldn't simply wait until I got more of the same godly goodness from the Battalion Wars series...

... which, as you may have guessed, provided quite another surprise to me as well...

Suffice to say, I was confused as hell when I finally looked at the back of the box, and realized that Battalion Wars was nothing like its predecessors. Instead, it had far more to do with Halo than it ever did with the turn-based strategy of the same series on the GBA... All the kickass concepts I had recently fallen back in love with, of just letting loose the dogs of war one step followed by another in time, was replaced by complete real-time action and the most funky of colourful graphics possible. WTF?...

The thing is though, I was pleasantly surprised yet again. I'm still reeling a bit from the fact that Battalion Wars simply was not the game that I had expected nor really wanted in the first place. But there's simply no denying, that Kuju really put a lot of that Nintendo touch and polish into this highly underrated (or at least, highly underpurchased) title...

The first thing I have to mention, is just how kickass it is to actually control an entire army in realtime. I mean, it's been attempted time and time again on consoles during this generation of gaming, from the completely independent AI of Halo marines, to micromanaging all the crap (including guys taking a crap) that your soldiers do in the Rainbow Six series...

And yet here, in Battalion Wars of all kiddie looking games? Here, the division and specialization of infantry and tanks and fucking air units is so damn fucking simple, that it puts to shame almost every "mature" war sim out there today... Using just the C-stick, it's ridiculously easy to switch between each of your groups of units, as it's absolutely no problem to attack one army of opponents with your flamethrower units, roar in a bunch of tanks to cover their asses, and then call in a fucking air-strike with your goddam jet fighters, just for shits and giggles as well...

The basic controls consist of just pressing R to aim, L to lock-on, A to shoot, B to jump, and Y to order your troops to kick ass and take names. It's absolutely one of the most intuitive control schemes I have ever come across in a war game before, and it simply puts to shame even the Battlefield series in just how damn easy it is to learn...

It's amazing just how quickly any regular Joe of a gamer can learn how to pilot a helicopter, or bomb a fucking fleet of tanks with a massive air battlestation and shit like that. Sometimes I do feel the controls are a bit floaty (considering you are floating in the air half the time) and weapon accuracy could be better, but that's just a small price to pay for one of the most enjoyable pick up and play combat games I have ever experienced in my life...

Sure, there are a few small problems with this set-up. Mainly, sometimes Nintendo and Kuju made it a little too easy to get your troops to follow a command, almost to the point where often enough times, you accidentally make them do shit that you don't want them to do...

Take for instance the X button. While pressing Y targets and sends in your troops for combat rolls and strafing maneuvers against an enemy, X recalls them back to your side in follow mode... The problem is, as far as I could tell, the X button seems to recall all of your troops, even the ones that you currently haven't selected. While sometimes that is a godsend (since you don't need to manually recall all your units individually), it really does fuck things over in the middle of combat, when you only want to reinforce your commander with a small little portion of your battalion and not the whole damn thing...

But for the most part? I was just as amazed with the overall AI of the game, just as much as I ever was when the first Halo debuted... Now, of course the naysayers will claim that your units in Battalion Wars do nothing completely wowing like the first time you saw the Sarge snipe an Elite in Halo. And I will agree, that perhaps it was just sheer dumb luck and laziness on the programmers' behalf, that the AI turned out to be so damn likable in Battalion Wars in the end...

But the fact of the matter is, except for maybe that X-recall issue I mentioned above? The AI has never done a completely dumbass thing on me. Not even once... Sure, they don't always target automatically the highest priority enemy (eg: units with AA artillery don't automatically seem to fire at approaching bombers). But they will always stand their ground, they will never ditch your side to go chase an enemy into suicidal territory, and they will never just stand there as target practice when an enemy is making a strafing run...

Hell, whichever programmer was actually smart enough to automatically make your units return to you after their target is eliminated is a fucking genius. Why the fuck can't other developers realize this same shit, whenever they leave my men just lying around in enemy territory as sitting ducks after they've got absolutely nothing better left to do?...

Your units may not be pure snipers, but all of them definitely are survivors. And while offensive wise, you do have to micromanage your units with the C-stick, it's rare that you ever have to truly take command and pull your hair out simultaneously, when it comes to certain death and defence (which is more than I can say for most of the AI units out there in combat games today)...

To be honest? The last time I was this impressed with how smooth and intuitive and natural feeling the commanding of units was in a game, was the last time I played Freedom Fighters for the GC/Xbox. And that one game alone somehow still serves as my true definition of exactly how to make gang warfare fun... While I suppose Battalion Wars can't quite reach up there on the same pedestal, even when it comes to taking out communism with an iron fist (a theme both games ironically seem to share)? There's simply no denying that BW completely beats the living crap out of Freedom Fighters in terms of graphics, style, presentation, framerate, and goddam mind-numbing action on screen...

It's amazing just how many explosions can occur on screen all at once in Battalion Wars, and yet the game never slows down. It always seems to chug away between 30 and 60 fps, and always seems to keep on smilin' in the end as well... The graphics are absolutely beautiful here, almost to the point where I could call them "Viewtiful". I mean, the bright colour schemes and cartoony characters really bring a false impression to anyone who only checks out the ads or the back of the box for the game, as Battalion Wars is probably one of the most hectic and eye-dropping feats of programming in this entire generation of gaming in terms of sheer, blistering action...

There is absolutely nothing, nothing on consoles today, that even remotely compares to the sight of dozens of infantry units on screen duking it out with jeeps and tanks and jet aircraft and fucking battlestations high in the sky, all at the same fucking time...

And it's not just the graphics themselves that are amazing. Because like I was just as impressed by the AI here in Battalion Wars as I was upon seeing the Marines first time in Halo? I am still just as damn amazed as the first time I jumped in a Warthog, at just how damn shockingly kickass the vehicle physics are in Battalion Wars...

While unfortunately for the image of the game, the infantry units seem far too cartoony with the way they bob their heads and prance about the battlefields? There is simply no denying, that the feeling you get while riding in a jeep here or soaring through the skies with a fucking locked and loaded gunship, is just as fucking impressive as any vehicle ride I've ever experienced in a console game before...

Now, just like with any "underrated" game, there are obvious drawbacks that perhaps made the game underrated in the first place. And yeah, I do wish at times that the aiming in Battalion Wars was quicker and more precise... You're forced to use the R button to look around, Metroid Prime style, not only for infantry and tanks, but also to change altitude as aircraft as well. This basically made the game feel like Metroid Prime lite in the end, as I was forced to constantly keep using the L button to lock onto enemies instead. And I sort of do wish the game could've found an identity of its own in terms of control, in that one small bastion of a regard at least...

I absolutely love the graphics, but I just can't say the same about the sound. The voices of the characters are meant to be funny, as a nice little throwback to the Cold War propaganda against communist Russia (go Freedom Fighters, go?)... But besides being (sadly) kinda hot, Betty was just a fucking bitch to listen to throughout the game. And not only was it completely jarring to see prerendered, full motion video in a Nintendo published game? But I really just couldn't give the slightest damn about any of the caricatures that Kuju forced upon us to watch in-between stages...

And absolutely the most unforgivable thing of all? It's the fucking fact that while Advance Wars has made a name for itself out of multiplayer, Nintendo chose to completely omit dueling action from the Gamecube version. WTF?... If any game out there was screaming and writhing in pain to have at least a deathmatch mode, if not a co-op mode, featuring dozens if not even hundreds of disposable units? Then this would be the game. And yet Nintendo chose to concentrate on the short (but sweet) four or five hour long single-player campaign instead?...

But I suppose, 'what the fuck' really does sum up everything that I knew (or thought I knew) about Battalion Wars as a whole...

I had thought it would be a turn-based strategy game, yet it turned out to be a 3rd-person Halo clone in the end. WTF?...

I had thought it would just be a 3rd-person Halo clone, and yet it turned out to be Metroid Prime lite with tons of units to command. WTF?...

And even more surprising than that? Battalion Wars turned out to be not only just a fun little addictive game, but absolutely perhaps the benchmark for all future battlefield games to be compared to in the future, both in terms of non-stop action and blessedly intuitive controls?...

I mean seriously, the last time I had officially even tried a game in the "Famicom Wars" series, was way back when "Yoda" and "The Force" were still fucking new terms to me... and that's definitely a long fucking time ago, from a galaxy far, far away...

Battalion Wars as a result not only feels like a completely new genre, but also somehow feels like a nice, nostalgic throwback to the golden age of video games as well. Back when I would actually dream of fun, innocent, little moments of blowing endless shit up like we can and do here...

I guess it's only fitting then, that I found Battalion Wars to be way more fun and way more engrossing, than the fucking Star Wars prequel trilogy ever was...

Now, what exactly does that Star Wars shit actually got to do with Battalion Wars? Beats the shit out of me...

Y2kk Update: - Activision's X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers...) -

Being the huge (or former?) Xbox whore that he was, my brother couldn't fathom (or fandom?) back during the Christmas break just why I chose to buy X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for the Gamecube rather than our Xbox. Afterall, it's not like we didn't have enough Xbox controllers for multiplayer or any crap like that...

And suffice to say, I am kind of missing here the 720p lush colour and graphics that only the Xbox version of the game could supply. But either way, if only thanks to just how damn comfortable it is to play an X-Men dungeon crawler on your couch with a Nintendo Wavebird? X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse still manages to shine...

Is it a perfect game? Absolutely not. But it's nice to know that the developers heard most of our complaints from last year's incarnation, and tried to produce a much more fun experience than they had before... Sure, the basic formula and RPG premise of the series hasn't changed a bit, as it just seems damn awkward to be jumping and bouncing about a boxed in area of a screen with the floaty controls given to the characters. But meh, I enjoyed just mindlessly and endless hacking away at X-Men baddies before, so why not now?...

Right away, I noticed that you can't instantaneously fall off of cliffs into bottomless pits or anything any longer. I think that deserves a thumbs up, just for the fact that such a stupid move would ruin an entire stage's progress before... Sure, it's a dumb decision that you still can fall into those pits if you try to, but at least I can't just ruin my entire playing session with one wrong tap on the analog stick anymore. And at least if you lose one character in a stage (Iceman, for instance...), now the levels are designed so that you can still keep going with whoever is left in your crew, for the most part at least...

Another complaint from the original X-Men Legends was that I simply had no clue where to go in stages. X-Men Legends II still seems confusing in that regard, as all the dungeons or stages or whatever you want to call them, look pretty much all so bland and generic in the end that I still manage to get lost... The map and the little arrows that point you in the right direction still don't do the job adequately enough, considering both still get you all confused when dealing with multiple areas in a single stage. But at least a little objective and a direction here and there is a start...

What is X-Men Legends really good for though? The original was a fun little game for us X-Men fanatics (or X-Men nostalgic here), who still prefer the animated series' voice for Wolverine over the Hugh Jackman shit from the movies... The core gameplay of X-Men Legends has always been to button mash and mix along with the powers of the X-Men. A big problem that arose though, was that certain characters were just so superior to others (Iceman vs Cyclops... 'nuff said...), that the variety of characters in the original game simply went to waste...

I can't exactly say that the sequel remedies this, although it definitely does a good job of spreading the action apart. Cyclops still sucks like a bitch, but other "magic" users (Iceman, Storm, Magneto, etc...) really do become uber-powerful as the experience levels go by. Meanwhile, old skool bruisers like Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Colossus all still do their parts of being effective hack and slash guys, which really provides a nice balance when forming your team in later stages...

I still absolutely hate how experience levels are handled in X-Men Legends. It's just so damn disruptive for each player to have to constantly pause the game to level up their stats, lest their character continue to suck if they never bother to manually upgrade... Sure, there's that whole "automatic" point distribution thing, which my brother and I sadly chose to use out of spite for the leveling up system. But dammit, it was pure blasphemy all the way, as the auto system keeps fucking focusing on powers and traits that you don't want your character to power up. It was just a broken system in the end, when all I really wanted to do was to get right back to the multiplayer mayhem...

That will always be the greatest strength of the X-Men Legends series, and that's exactly why I chose to get the game for the Nintendo Gamecube. Sure, the graphics look dark and almost grainy compared to how colourful the cell-shading may be on the Xbox, and sure all the dialogue and recorded voices are a bit more tinny than you've come to expect from this generation of gaming...

But when you're playing with two or three others in the same room come Christmas party time? It really, really, ridiculously helps to spread the floor with kickass Nintendo Wavebirds and shit like that... And there seriously is nothing more fun to a bunch of fucking Chinese, old skool, comic book nerds such as ourselves than to a) kick ass with Wolverine, b) kick ass with the Brotherhood of Mutants, c) kick the ass of the fucking Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and d) fail to kick ass (as always) when trying to play as goddam, fucking Cyclops...

And really, how the fuck could I possibly not like a game, when it features the ice cold winds of Canada as a fucking background setting?...

Sure, X-Men Legends is far from a perfect game, as the sheer repetitiveness of all the dungeon crawling really does get on the nerves. Getting lost in the poorly designed backdrops is never amusing either. I also wish your AI teammates (when you don't have three other friends to play with) were a lot more intelligent than they actually turned out to be... And hell, on the Gamecube version at least, slowdown in an absolute, old skool bitch. Was it just me, or did the fight against Abyss slow the system down to like four fucking frames per second or some shit like that?...

But there simply is no denying, that no matter how broken the X-Men Legends RPG formula may feel at first? There's just something so kickass cool about fighting as the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants (fuck, even the Scarlett Witch is here... fucking useless House of M...) against the uber-villain Apocalypse and little villains-lite like Mr. Sinister, Lady Deathstrike, Sauron, and even Omega Red...

Sure, Cyclops (sadly still my favourite X-Men) still manages to find a way to get his ass beaten by everyone...

Y2kk Update: - Nintendo's / Next Level Games' Super Mario Strikers Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers?... umm... no...) -

Well, since I'm now officially unemployed again, I figured that it was finally time to get off my ass and, well?...

... to actually get back on it, to finally go through that massive backlog of games that I did collect while I was still employed, that is...

The thing is, I did the usual cliche, family man thing when it came to video games during my employment. Sure, I actually had the cash and the desire to keep buying every single fucking game that I wanted from the market. The only problem was, if only thanks to all the commuting time from the city and back (because Lord knows I did absolutely shit at work), I was simply too fucking tired as soon as I got home to actually play the games that I had just bought...

Seriously, besides a few Nintendo DS games (mostly puzzle games)? Did I ever even sit down and do anything after work but watch the few sports highlights on television that I could?...

Still, there were a few definite gems hidden there within my backlog. And true to the Nintendo name, Super Mario Strikers was one of those remote few games I purchased during my busy months, that I actually did play for more than five minutes total in the end... a lot more than five minutes actually, to be honest...

It's a simple game, and definitely a game I felt I've played before. Super Mario Strikers was developed by Next Level Games', which I believe was the same company that made Sega Soccer Slam or whatever it was called a few years back... Problem was, there was just something about that zany soccer game back then that sucked ass, all the way to the point where it hurt my teeth like the gnashing of a fucking dentist drill. Was it the strange camera angles, or the noname characters, or all those awkward charge attacks? I don't know...

On the surface, I guess you can argue that Super Mario Strikers is more of the same. I mean, you get the same kind of charge attacks here, you get items (ala Mario Kart style) to kick ass and take names with, and you have a depleted roster of only a few Mario characters to pick from (although we perverts seem to always pick Princess Peach and Daisy in the end... did Nintendo really okay the company to dress them in those sports bras and ho-bag outfits of theirs?)...

The difference is, either it's just because of the Nintendo charm? Either it's just the Nintendo whore in me?...

... or either it's just because the controls in Super Mario Strikers were vastly improved?...

Either way, there's just something about Super Mario Strikers that really makes it into one of the funnest soccer games I've ever played...

Now, that's not saying much, considering how as a mothercanucker, I have no taste for the sport that the rest of the world calls, "football". And even that ain't saying much either, considering how shallow Strikers turned out to be in the end... I mean, how many modes are there really to play in it? There's the regular exhibition grudge matches and then the tournament, and what's after that? Nothingness?... It's kind of strange that out of all games, Nintendo didn't even put some mini-games into their soccer franchise. Even a shootout would've been decent (unless that is there, and I simply couldn't find it... I am blind that way...)...

I've already mentioned that lack of characters you can pick on screen. Mario and Luigi and co are all there, and Peach and Daisy seriously look disturbing hot for some half assed reason... But really, this whole "captain" of the team issue got kind of lame. First, you pick your main character, and then you're forced to have the rest of your team as generic Toad's or Koopa Troopa's or whatever sort of crap?... Not only does your team just seem to lack a true identity at the end (because you can't really pick the whole team that you wanted in the first place), but it really makes co-op multiplayer lame as well (considering that only one player can be the captain on the team)...

I suppose I might as well mention the lack of stadiums as well. I mean, I admit that they're all designed very nicely, with more colours and more dazzling effects that EA could ever hope to achieve with the FIFA series. But there are only six or seven arenas in the end, and they just don't seem very distinct from one another in the end...

Super Mario Strikers definitely lacks variety in more than one regard. But I guess it's just a good thing that it sure as hell also brings it where it counts most... and that, for true Nintendo fans, is always the goddam multiplayer fun factor...

First of all, let me just say here that on my television and component cables, Super Mario Strikers is absolutely gorgeous in graphics. Sure, some textures are muddy, and sure some faces could be more detailed (even for a Mario game). But for the most part, the colours are just so bright and vibrant everywhere you look, that it really makes Strikers seem like the best looking soccer game I've ever seen on a console to date...

Sound wise, of course any Mario game could improve. The announcer is annoying as heck here, as they couldn't even get a proper sounding Italian commentator or anything like that... However, the addition of little voice snippets for each character, laying the smackdown and talking trash before games, somehow works a lot better here than it has in any other Mario game. And seriously, after playing with three other family members or friends, who here didn't end up loving it every single time they heard a poor Toadie get tackled and writhe in pain from a shoulder block?...

That's the joy of Super Mario Strikers. It's just that, it's not really soccer in the end...

I mean, you can punch and kick and throw items, and crush your opponents into electric barriers. There are simply no holds barred, and no holding back in terms of violence...

... and fuck, it's a hell of a lot more fun in the end, than either EA's or 2K Games' NHL games turned out this year, at least...

I know that Sega Soccer Slam had the same kind of rough and tumble gameplay long ago, but somehow it just didn't seem nearly as smooth or agile in flow. Yet here, in Super Mario Strikers? Either thanks to the default side-camera view, or either from the kickass effect of all the damn bodychecks, it's just so much more fun here to run across the field and ram a poor helpless opponent into the net...

It's not just the hardcore battle bouts of the game that make Super Mario Strikers fun. It's also the fact, that shooting just feels so much more natural here than it did before... Are passes crisper or something? Because one-timers have exactly the same kind of great intuitive feeling to them that they used to back in the glory days of NHL hockey. And charged shots no longer seem to hurt my teeth for some odd reason, either because the sound effects have been toned down, or because the graphics are just so damn cool everytime Mario rips Peach a new one...

Well, it should. Because for a Nintendo soccer game, Strikers was surprisingly good...

But alas, a soccer game is still a soccer game. And just like with any other sport (except for perhaps Tennis and Golf), without real pro rosters? I eventually lose my attention and just let the game sit on the shelf... until the next family party arises, that is...

I wish that Super Mario Strikers offered more bang for the buck in terms of gameplay and options, instead of just the standard grudge matches of banging and tussling away with your foes. But still, for a classic sort of Nintendo sports-faring venture, Super Mario Strikers is merely just a notch below Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf as one of those can't miss games of pure fun factor on the Nintendo Gamecube. And that's definitely not a bad thing, all things considered...

Sure, I may have struck out when it came to luck and my goddam job employment...

... that the guys at Next Level Games will probably be back, to develop another sweet ass Mario soccer game for the next Nintendo system...

Something to look forward to, for buying and backlogging I guess... the next time I get some more disposable cash, that is...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Camelot & Battlestar Galactica: Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 2) Reviews (Spoilers...) -

It's sure gonna be a hefty wait until summer. Season ten starts in July, I believe? Just how long can Carter hold her breath in space, exactly?...

Was Camelot everything that I expected it to be? Not quite, considering I was pretty much expecting both the Sun and the moon and all the magic of the tales of Merlin from the season finale of Stargate SG-1... I mean, the ninth season of the show has just been that damn good to me on a whole, that of course my expectations for its finale would be that damn ludicrously high...

I admit though, that Camelot was ironically both a bit too slow in pace at the beginning, yet far too rushed in the end. Episodes like Origin, Prototype, and Beachhead stand out because they were all absolutely amazing experiences each for a complete hour, from pretty much start to finish... I just don't know if I can say the same thing about Camelot, considering the episode wasted so much time on even just a village historian red shirt in the background...

But the battle? That final fucking battle?... All is forgiven and laid to rest in the dust. Oh hell, fucking yes...

No, wait. Can I even call what we saw a battle? Did we even manage to scratch the paint of what essentially amounts to an Ori scouting party?...

Were the final fifteen minutes of the ninth season, the best space skirmish that I've ever seen on television? No. And it probably wasn't even the best slugfest fight I've seen from the Stargate series either... While I don't know if this absolute massacre of the Allied fleet will ever surpass either The Lost City or The Siege (Part 3) in terms of sheer kickassness in my eyes, there's simply no denying that the writers and the CG guys put on the most wowing FX display I've seen since at least we first saw the city of Atlantis in Rising...

Okay, I'll admit it. The Supergate "Kawoosh" made me say wow. Oh my fucking God, it was like a blue flame ripping through the depths of space. It was simply too cool and kickass for words... And seeing it all through Carter's eyes, or actually through the very reflection of her EVA visor? Not only was that a brilliant artistic choice, but I think I even got shivers as she was just floating around in space there aimlessly, absolutely helpless against the massive toilet-bowl-seat ships that were roaring on by...

... I sincerely hope Sam's wearing a goddam NASA diaper... as it'll be a long wait until July for a rescue, I reckon from this reckoning...

Goddam Asgard. I knew that their little O'Neill-class ship there wouldn't stand a chance against the Ori, considering the Asgard got their collective asses handed to them by the Replicaters for so many years. I mean, I was actually surprised that their boat managed to hold its own against the Superbowl-lookalike evil-malfunctions, considering what we witnessed in Ethon... Sure, the Asgard couldn't make a dent in the Ori's shields. But at least that O'Neill-class vessel didn't bite the Origin dust from a single FPS one-shot-kill, which is more than I can say for the shitty ass, free floating Jaffa...

It was actually surprising too, that the shields on our own Daedalus class ships actually held for a while. Guess the Asgard took my wisdom and complaints to heart, and actually upgraded their throw-away crap on our BC-304's... Of course, being able to take three or four hits rather than just one didn't do jack shit for our fleet in the end, especially considering the Odyssey and Korolev were both dumbass enough just to sit there as they got their asses handed to them. I mean, after the Prometheus had done the same in Ethon, I simply ask, what the fuck?...

And ah yes, the almighty ambiguity in the end. Which of our two ships was destroyed?... While logic dictates that it was the Odyssey, considering it was the only one of our vessels that did not have a member of SG-1 aboard to potentially perish? I dare do think that the past three or four years of Stargate, have truly proven to us viewers which country is the real toilet bowl shitter of jobbers of the SG-1 world...

Now, I really have no complaints about the final space battle in Camelot, despite it being only five minutes long. Because after so many Stargate disappointments such as Revelations, Full Circle, Moebius, and oh dear God, Out of Mind? It was nice to finally get another season finale that actually went out with a bang, quite literally actually...

Poor fucking Jaffa population keeps getting wasted. Maybe they should hire Chief Tyrol as their union leader? I dunno...

I just wish the rest of the episode could've had the same kind of impact as the final fifteen minutes, you know?...

The actual scenes in the village of Camelot felt too drawn out, in my opinion at least. Everything was predictable, as I just knew that Valencia girl was too damn cute to simply stay in the background... It was obvious that she would draw the sword from the stone, though it was disappointing that she couldn't pull a Xena by fighting side by side with Mitchell or some crap like that. Besides that, there was absolutely nothing interesting about the village whatsoever, except perhaps for the neat explanation of how the Black Knight could be impervious to weapons (as stated in legends...)...

... almost reminded me of how much I loved Martin Lawrence in The Black Knight... almost, that is... sniff sniff...

Now, you'd think this would've been Cam's moment, considering his first name kinda does go along with "Cam-elot". And yet despite all his slow-motion sequences, despite all the epic hero music being played, he still got his ass kicked and name taken by the fucking Black Knight? He didn't even score a hit? WTF?... I do like how Mitchell provided some of the few rare moments of comedy in the episode though. I'm surprised the writers even remembered that Teal'c had to once "Kel-no-ream" or whatever, and I always get a kick out of watching the entire village cheer for Valencia rather than our broken down hero in the mud...

Teal'c made his little Easter Bunny reference when it came to humour, but I didn't laugh. I kind of felt sorry for his character instead, as he just felt out of place in Camelot. He obviously didn't belong with books and historical writings in the library, I can tell you that. His only job there was to light candles for the real SG-1 members, I guess... And then what else does he choose to do, but run off to the Lucian Alliance to steal one of their German Luger guns, do a Lex Luger pose himself, and then get a measly three ships to help fend off against the Ori? Wow, that Netan guy must really have a death wish or some shit like that, considering he was playing ensign in the background of the suicide battle...

Oh, and did I mention that Landry sucked? I fucking hate Landry... though luckily, his complete absence here was more than welcome in this episode...

I also did enjoy Colonel Carter in Camelot, but only because Kvasir was now pulling a Hermiod on her ass with snark. I couldn't help but laugh as the Asgard rubbed it in her face at just how much smarter his people really are over humans. And I'm sure he was laughing his little ass off yet again with his tail tucked between his legs, when his ship was perhaps the only allied one to truly survive the massacre intact...

At least Samantha got some decent and memorable scenes in thanks to the special effect guys, as simply her saying "oh my God" or "oh my Kobol gods" or whatever in space as the Supergate rippled, sent tingles down my spine. By she didn't really seem like a leader in Camelot, and she didn't do anything but play second fiddle to Cameron Mitchell first, Daniel second, Colonel Emerson third, Kvasir fourth, and probably Rodney fucking McKay fifth... God, that girl gets around...

I actually kind of preferred Vala in this episode more than I did Carter. I mean, Vala didn't even utter a line, yet I could feel her sorrow as she was staring out of that window at the decimated Milky Way Galaxy fleet. She was powerless to do anything but to literally shit in her pants as her miracle Cylon baby was on the way... I kind of found that attractive, actually. That sent tingles down something else than my spine. Please don't ask me why...

Daniel Jackson probably misses Vala being in his pants, now doesn't he? He certainly seemed a little off in Camelot, even though I normally love hearing his twists and tales of the King Arthur myths... I dunno though. It just seemed to me that most of Daniel's crap in Camelot dealt with him reading books and hoping there was some hidden time travel machine in the library (though thanks to Moebius, shouldn't we still have two of those things somewhere back on earth right about now?). And him searching endlessly through dusty writings for an Ancient pin-number ain't exactly the best form of entertainment, in my honest opinion at least...

I will admit that I loved his "timing" whenever it came to his speeches about magic to the villagers. And for once, the guy thought up the perfect Jack O'Neill solution, of shooting every damn Ancient console in sight... And hey, I think Daniel was getting pissed at that broken record of a Merlin message as well. How the hell can't you go insane from a one liner riddle that keeps looping over and over and over again?...

Please, oh please let this trinket belong to a fucking smokin' hot Atlantis girl or some shit like that on the show. Now that would be my idea of a fucking Holy Grail... But bah, watch it be fucking Valencia or even Vala for all we goddam know...

All we do know, is that the quest for the Holy Grail of Stargate SG-1 episodes continues...

I was so hoping that Camelot would stand right up there with Torment of Tantalus, Thor's Chariot, The Fifth Race, The Crystal Skull, Window of Opportunity, Abyss, The Lost City, or even Threads as the best that the series ever had to offer, both action and mythologically speaking that is... But if only thanks to my own expectations, I was disappointed. Well, except for the final fifteen minutes at least...

... as in the professional opinion of the scholarly Tom Hanks, would it be safe to say?... that the Allied fleet got... 'owned'?...

I dare say yes... because that was sure one sweet ass battle, right up there with The Best of Both Worlds and Sacrifice of Angels, two Trekkie episodes that simply could not have been wrapped up in a single, neat, single hour package...

Yet still... have I ever mentioned that I really, really, ridiculously hate cliffhangers?...

God forbid, if Camelot had actually been the series finale of the goddam show? Needless to say, I'd be starting my own Crusade...

So thank God we get a tenth season of SG-1, although I'm hesitant to believe right now that it would even remotely approach the amazing quality we got this past year in the ninth inning of the series...

I'm actually predicting that the tenth will be the final season of the show, though if so? Stargate SG-1 will then be definitely going out on the best of notes, with the 200th episode coming early in the season, and the rest of the Ori fleet still waiting in the wings (or in the Supergate water closet shitter, really)...

So until then? I'll just keep on rewatching my goddam five minute battle while I sit on the john, frothing in anticipation of the goddam Camelot conclusion... and with that I suppose, I'll simply wish you all?...

I'm getting a feeling of deja vu here... but have I ever really mentioned how much I hate goddam cliffhangers?...

We had been told by Ron Moore himself that he would be taking a major risk in Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 2). And considering this was coming from the guy who let Deep Space 9 get conquered by the Dominion in a fucking season finale, much to the uproar of fans? The sky was simply the limit for what the fuck would happen in the 1.5 hour, second season finale of BSG...

And um, considering just last week I commented, that Battlestar Galactica was the only show that moved slower in realtime than even fucking 24? Then I guess jumping one fucking year ahead in the series, after just one fucking space jump to New Caprica, definitely constitutes a fucking surprise in my eyes...

... and ironically enough?... it was all somehow also enough, to guaranteed for the series the best episode of the week award, really...

Now, I know what all the critics are saying. Basically, Ron Moore pushed the fucking reset button, as almost every single relationship between the characters has been completely changed... Like, for instance, obviously Starbuck ditched Lee because the asshole had become a fat bastard. And something tells me that wouldn't have happened if the series just hadn't jumped the shark along with the jump clock...

It's not just abrupt character changes that concern me, but it's also the fact that the series has on a whole, basically just reset in terms of plotline as well... Two seasons ago, the colonies had been conquered by the Cylons and the humans had to flee in ships. Now, two years later, the colonies get conquered yet again by the Cylons, and the humans have to flee in ships again. WTF?...

And Dr. Gaius Baltar led to the utter destruction of the human race... again?... Does this guy already have the fucking record for this toilet bowl shit or some sort of crap like that?...

I don't know whether it was all a coincidence, or whether the writers intended it to be this way so long ago. But it was Number Six in his head that convinced him to take the nuke from Galactica, and it was a combination of unlucky Sixes that conned him into giving that said nuke up... It was that very same fucking nuke that supposedly led the Cylons straight to New Caprica. And once again, we're stuck exactly where we started off in the first season of the show...

... although ironically, Helo wasn't down on the surface to annoy the frakkin' fuck out of us this time around...

It's been said that you either love the drastic change in the series, or you hate it. That there simply is no between... and I've got to agree with that...

It's just no fun to see characters change in a split second on the show, rather than giving them and the actors a chance to actually grow with the viewers. Take fucking Lt. Gaeta for example... I've just got to assume he's a fucking Cylon, considering he conveniently was the one who knew that the election had been rigged against his man-crush of Dr. Baltar. Then again, one year into the future, he was simply disillusioned with his former hero, as I'm sure every fucking horny Cylon would be with a man stealing two fucking hotties from him at once...

Kara Thrace is a moron. Hell, calling Anders a moron was the only intelligent thing she did all episode... I mean seriously, in the beginning, how the fuck could she not notice the odd stranger in the background, who was so fucking certain that the Cylons had left? And yet both she and Anders still looked fucking shocked as hell when Dean Stockwell admitted he was a Cylon? WTF?... And then on the planet, not only does she fuck up her hair, but she tries to prevent goddam Anders from dying of pneumonia? Frak, the viewers want him to die, and apparently so does Doc Cottle. Only fucking Col. Tigh seemed to frak things up for the fans...

I'm shocked as hell that Saul actually got some decent screen time. It just didn't make sense for him, you know? One moment, he's screwing over the election without any guilt or remorse whatsoever, and the next he's sucking up to Admiral Adama about never leaving Galactica?... And then on the planet, not only is he dumb enough to make amends with Starbuck, but he was enough of a moron to actually want to leave Galactica for that fucking ice rock of a planet? WTF?...

I stand corrected from earlier. Considering how cold the weather was there, and the fact that every bitch was complaining about it?...

Speaking of stupid, I was absolutely shocked that Helo actually was bearable this episode. Was it because he no longer was as pussy whipped when it came to his girl? Or was it simply because he didn't have anything but generic ensign lines to say on the Galactica bridge in the future?... I couldn't stand Grace Park though. I'm not quite sure if that was Galactica's former Sharon who showed up on New Caprica at the end (and if it was, guess she had become a lot more hardlined Cylon than she was before...), but what the fuck happened to the formerly pregnant Sharon? You know, the one that pussy whipped Helo into submission and surrender?...

Did they just let her rot away in the Galactica cell for over a fucking year? WTF?...

Please say that they at least let her pleasure herself with a little vibrating blood-stone. Now that would be my idea of a fucking Holy Grail...

Another character that I was absolutely shocked that I could tolerate? It was Madame President, or the former president of the colonies, really. I know it's all an act and a facade she's putting on, but she really did seem like the sweet children teacher she used to be all over again. I certainly didn't mind a reset button in that regard... Before then though, she was a bitch. She was Airlock Roslin all over again, both in terms of Cylons and Florida ballots. But she was a bitch with a conscience at least, considering she couldn't really go through with her rigging of the polls...

I've complained a lot about Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 2), but that doesn't change the fact that just a few amazing scenes managed to turn this into the episode of the week for me, and probably the third best BSG episode of this shitty ass, second season overall (behind Pegasus and Resistance, but probably ahead of Home and Captain's Hand)...

Edward James Olmos' wasn't the hardass commander that he used to be on the show. Hell, the reset button seemed to have the complete opposite effect on him, as apparently he was too fucking pussy over the course of the past year to actually stage a coup and do what's right for the fleet... He knew that Dr. Baltar would fuck over the colonies. He knew that staying in one place, without let's say the human defences of earth to shield them, would be complete suicide against any Cylon attack. Yet he just laid back and promoted fucking Helo of all people to CIC, to infect his mind with even more pussiness? WTF?...

And the pornstache? WTF?... It made him look more like, umm... Super Mario?... alas, not in a good way...

But even so, Admiral Adama had an absolutely touching scene with the president about her electoral actions. There was definitely a strong connection between the two, as you know a scene just works when for once, I didn't hate fucking Laura Roslin... In the Dean Stockwell scenes, while obviously a lot of the humour there between the two "brothers" was decent enough as it was (I mean, gotta love how quickly the guy gave up on insisting he was human, as soon as he saw his own face sitting there staring back at him...)? Even so, I think Adama interrogating the two of them in utter disbelief, simply pushed that scene over the top in quality...

Adama had a good heart to heart talk with Colonel Tigh as well. I thought the script writing in that scene was cliche, but the respect between the two of them did still feel genuine... And hell, even when the two Adamas were deliberating over whether to fucking jump ship (literally) once the Cylon fleet arrived? Hell, even then, the Admiral still looked like he could kick ass and take names with just his stone cold eyes themselves... Admiral Adama may be a pussy now. But he's still The Man...

Meanwhile, Lee didn't look like he could even kick Dualla's ass any longer in the fatty ass shape he was in. The only thing he'd "hit it" with I bet, would be a fucking goddam McDonald's Big Mac at the time... What a fucking candy ass he's become. He promoted Dualla to being a CAG or a XO or some shit like that, and then was completely too wussy to just tell Starbuck over the phone to "shut the fuck up, bitch, and let me work"? Grow some balls, dude...

I guess I did feel sorry for him at one point, as I think we men have all been in his situation before, of seeing the woman he loves in another man's arms (and to add insult to injury, in the arms of the fucking moron Anders to boot...). But is that any excuse to just waste away with prosthetics on your face, while Dualla over there still looks as fucking fine and bitchy as ever?... Wait, he lives with that fucking petty bitch? Now I really feel sorry for the guy...

Are we supposed to feel sorry for Dr. Baltar though? Because just like with a Full Circle, we come back to the very same asshole who fucked over the colony not just the first time, but the second. The same frakkin' son of a bitch lucky enough to not only fuck two stunning women right up the ass at once (they both looked hot in suits... and even hotter out of them as well...), but also gets to brag he was the lucky man who "fucked" over Cloud 9 (quite literally, actually)?... Was he really any worse of a president than Roslin was? He did what the people wanted, which is supposedly what any democratic country should do. What did he do really wrong then, besides surrender his sorry ass in ten seconds flat like the French?...

... as in the professional opinion of the scholarly Tom Hanks, would it be safe to say?... that the BSG fleet got... 'owned'?...

Ron Moore has already compared the third season of BSG to the occupation of France during WW2. But if you ask me, if the first two seasons of the show were 9/11 and the war on terror? Then wouldn't the occupation of New Crapica sort of make it... the occupation of Iraq?...

OH TEH NOES! Will the Cylons force democracy on us?... Why must the Capricans hate freedom? Freedom isn't free, you know...

Now, I don't exactly know if I truly do like this new dynamic of the show. Why bother with this underground resistance crap, when we already got a taste of it with Helo in season one and Anders in season two? And we now hate both of those two characters as a fucking result?...

You know who I want a taste of though? That fucking hot Mya babe with the baby...

She's from that annoying Canadian Post Office commercial, isn't she? The one that keeps playing with that same fucking song, every single fucking week here for the past year or so... And now she can be in frakkin' New Canada commercials as well in fucking BSG, apparently...

Uggh, despite the shitty ass commercial? Oh, if only she could be my Sangreal... then I would be on fucking Cloud 9 (well, hopefully not the nuked one, but that's besides the point)...

And if only to match just how epic Stargate SG-1 felt this week with Camelot? I think I did get some chills down my spine upon witnessing the massive fleet of Raiders soaring across the skies of the settlement. It was a jaw dropping exclamation point on the episode, the one and only that left me demanding more and more, which is exactly what any good cliffhanger should do...

... but umm, even so?... did I ever mention, that I fucking hate cliffhangers? I thought I might...

I don't know if I was or ever will be quite ready to leave the old BSG formula out in the dust. But I definitely am looking forward to the new season, just the same way I was left in awe at Commander Adama's assassination attempt last season...

I think I'm getting a major sense of deja vu here. But still, until October then?...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Crusade & Battlestar Galactica: Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 1) Reviews (Spoilers...) -

I have my own personal crusade brewing against the Stargate SG-1 writers right about now...

I mean, remember when I said that The Scourge was a cost saving venture for the ninth season? Well, I take it all back...

By comparison, Crusade made The Scourge look like the best damn action-FX laden show of effects since at least goddam Starship Troopers...

... which, in a fit of irony, was the very movie that Michael Ironside made his greatest impression on me, don't you know...

It's just that, I was hoping for so much more from Crusade, you know? Here we had the impending apocalypse day coming from every Prior and Crusader in the galaxy, and yet all we got in this one episode was a pregnant Vala, a flock of seagulls, and a set-up for the real season finale next week? Why the hell couldn't Camelot have started now, and actually brought some decent length to the Arthurian myth and seasonal arc (rather than just leaving it to one hour next week)?...

What we got here, was an episode that felt so much like a clip show, that I was having bad memories of Out of Mind (worse season finale ever) or even Politics (though I guess BSG reminded me more of that shit this week...)... Now, I've missed Vala since Beachhead. She was horrible in Prometheus Unbound, but had improved after The Ties that Bind. Problem was, she was far too emotional and far too pregnant here (and yes, I know about Claudia Black's real pregnancy), and far too chocolate pancakey for me to give a damn about...

Was it me, or did she seem absolutely idiotic for not mentioning the Ori Supergate at the start of the episode? It would've made more sense that way, with the rest of the SG base searching for it while she told the rest of her story, and she wouldn't have felt the fear of losing her communication connection with the SG team in that case either... I do admit that I enjoyed the little teaser opening to the episode though. The gay jokes about Daniel have been used time and time again, but there's just something about Michael Shanks when he's staring at Ben Browder's ass, that somehow feels natural in a weekend where Brokeback Mountain is about to win best picture at the Oscars...

As a technical sidenote, it's just kind of weird how advanced the SG team has become at subspace communications devices... especially after rewatching how damn cocky the Tollans were about their little light bulb that blinks back in the first season...

Sure, thanks to reverse engineering Tok'ra and Goa'uld technology, earth can now build from scratch (from my last count) inertial dampeners, anti-gravity generators, sublight engines, short-range hyperdrive engines, and maybe even Goa'uld ring transporters. However, all of our fair planet's own versions of the aforementioned technology, are still much more primitive than the original sources they got them from...

But is it me, or is earth now absolutely the most advanced race in the known universe next to the Ancients and Asgard, at actually communicating across galaxies?... I mean, we could already do so in Atlantis using the subspace communications aboard the Daedalus (which I assume we can build from scratch as well, considering we designed our own subspace beacons in Off the Grid). And now Carter can perfectly emulate the Ancient communications device with simply just a laptop?...

We're now capable of snatching up bodies on the complete opposite side of the known universe? WTF is this? The Stargate movie redux or some crap like that?...

Either way though, for a purely Vala storytelling episode, I suppose Crusade wasn't that damn bad. I got a laugh out of the familiar beat she used as she was busting a groove on that bread. And she also sold the effect of being starved and dehydrated for three days in a pretty convincing way as well... She also did a great job of handling her pregnancy, in the way that she was concerned over who the fuck the father was. It was obvious that she did care for Tomin, but it wasn't really love. It was more like she owed him one, and I suppose it wasn't that damn bad that she showed the sensitive side of the force of hers for once...

If there was any real saving grace to this episode though? It was at least the sight of the Ori "Starcraft" (God, I want a sequel to that game so damn badly though...). I mean, sure at first glance, neither the Ori ships nor soldiers looked threatening or menacing at all, as Tomin in his armour looked like a reject straight out of the Chronicles of Riddick pretty much... But then again, upon closer inspection? The Ori ships look pretty damn kickass (or at least, Ori-ginal...) as some sort of Trireme or Viking ship with a Stargate in the middle. And while obviously the staff weapons of the Ori seem like a boring retrend of the Goa'uld and Jaffa, I'm willing to give their little blue Jem'Hader phaser blasters the benefit of a doubt until Camelot...

But you know who I won't give the benefit of a doubt to? General Landry, but of course... He's the butt of all my jokes, and why? Isn't it obvious why? He wasted how much goddam time in Crusade in his speech to Colonel Chekov, about how brilliant he must be for having used the damn Stargate Fido rental package as leverage in their negotations? Was there really any need for Landry to lay out in a thousand word essay, exactly how Colonel Chekov just standing there with absolutely nothing to say, was somehow genius?...

Why does it really matter though, if the Russians take back their Stargate? I thought we blew up their DHD, preventing them from ever having leverage in this very manner ever again? Sure, conflict may break out if we took a new Stargate for ourselves from let's say Proculus, a planet too far gone to ever be of use anymore... But it just shows how pussy ass Landry must be, to not even suggest using one of the goddam Stargates we took from fucking Off the Grid. He just gave into Chekov's demands right off the bat, like a wuss curled up in the fucking fetus position...

But bah, who cares if the Russians get a Daedalus-class battlecruiser? We all know from seasons four and five and six, that anything with a Russian flag on it is an immediate red shirt on the series. And we all know that the Odyssey can't (or shouldn't) be destroyed by the Ori in the episodes to come, so?... well then...

At least there was one decent thing about those whole Landry negotiations scenes at least. Because thank God, the Chinese bitch didn't even get to open her fucking mouth... If I had to hear her and Daniel Jackson start spewing absolute gibberish again, butchering the language like fucking murder porn? Then Crusade really would make The Scourge look like The Best Episode Evar...

Meanwhile, Daniel Jackson himself was barely in Crusade at all. Sure, he showed up in Mulan reflections, he made a few gay poses as he screamed for the Academy Award win, and he looked confused as hell after he woke up with pancake shit on his nose. But that was about it... Besides that, he was completely invisible, as his role had been fucking taken over from another galaxy by Vala of all people. I mean, sad to say, he didn't even get a chance to defend himself against the "in her pants" sort of Vala comment thing... Michael Shanks might as well have been cloaked and out of phase from the camera in Crusade. Too bad he already used that trick in last week's episode, that is...

Carter was looking old. Maybe Claudia Black's whole pregnancy thing had weighed down on her make-up people?... Still, despite a few wrinkles here and there, Sam was decently cute as she always turns out to be at the end of a season. She was adorably giddy when she first learned her Ancient device emulator thing was working, and she had that lovely scrunch in her face when asking about who the father was of Vala's child... Besides that though, she took a backseat to Vala, just listening to her story as if Carter was too dumbass to figure out that the fucking Ori were coming herself. I expect more of the same from the writers, once Claudia Black returns next season of course...

Thumbs up goes to Ben Browder to some extent. Not only did he deal with the uber-gay Daniel Jackson in the locker room quite well, but he potentially even made a decent Fargate reference when it came to his reluctant asking of who the father of Vala's baby was... Besides that though, did he really do anything? Though I was surprised as anyone else (or surprised as Carter at least), that Mr. Christian-Grandmother Cameron Mitchell, was actually thinking about the conception of King Arthur instead of you know who...

If there was any one reason to give the episode of the week to Crusade? It was because of Teal'c's most classic line in the history of lines in his entire career...

But still... Teal'c's little obsession with Star Wars (even the God-awful prequel trilogy, apparently) was the only damn time I even remotely laughed while watching this episode... or, well, the only time I laughed from anything the writers meant for me to laugh at, at least...

Michael Ironside was just goddam awful, and so was his barmaid bitch. I was literally balling at just how fucking out of place the Starship Troopers asshole felt, by bringing a piece of Smallville teen angst to the fucking Ori village people (who were once actually badass in Avalon and Origin, alas...)... His voice just didn't match. I know technically he was lying through his teeth whenever he spewed, "Hallowed are the Ori", but he just didn't have the presence or deep Darth Vader voice to give the right kind of atmosphere to any of the goddam Ori or Oscar scenes...

Seevis was annoying, as I was seething at just how goddam predictable it was that he would turn out to be the leader of the resistance. I saw it coming from a mile away, blaming the writers for piss poor writing to the point where I was actually calling their characters, "Seevis and Butthead" in the end. Or Seevis and his ButtWhore, or whatever... I kind of at least liked the one-eyed Prior who had told Tomin about the truth about Vala's child. But besides that, and perhaps the one-eyed sight of all the Ori ships being made, was there any fucking reason to even watch Crusade again in my fucking entire life?...

I was looking so damn forward to this week's episode, expecting it to be the real first half of the Camelot two parter. Yet, besides perhaps a decent ominous feeling once earth and all its allies banded together to find the Supergate at the end? There was just no sense of urgency in Crusade, as even Vala didn't seem to feel a need to tell the others about the fucking Ori fleet until the very fucking end of her story...

Is it just me, or must every fucking season of Stargate SG-1 end with either a) an invincible enemy heading for earth, b) the SG-1 team searching for an alien or Ancient weapon, c) references to Daniel Jackson's gaydar... or obviously, d) all of the above?...

Yet in a fit of disillusion, and the Michael Irony side of things? Both of the above were exactly what I wanted, and exactly what we got...

It's just that, I wanted big ass explosions to go along with my pancakes, goddammit. And more big ass, bar-maid busts, thank you very much...

And as far as I'm concerned? Camelot will be the writers' last chance. It's their holy grail. They better get the goddam formula fucking right...

... to go all Jihad, Crusader, Starship Troopers, and fucking medieval on their goddam asses...

Oh, Battlestar Galactica... You didn't just lay down your burdens. You laid down and took it in the ass, when it came to every single element of your series that I actually did goddam like...

First things first, is it just me, or did it seem goddam Michael ironic on this side of things? That a Battlestar Galactica episode with the actual words "Lay Down" in its title, somehow did not feature fucking sex in the goddam end?...

... and considering Grace Park was no longer with her foobar pregnancy?... somehow I do not approve of this sudden celibacy...

Speaking of celibacy, here we had Dean Stockwell Day as a Kobol priest. He's either the most obvious candidate in the known universe for being a Cylon, or he's actually the best damn priest that I've ever seen in a confession... If there's any real reason why Battlestar Galactica, in all its shitty asstasticness in this week, deserves the actual episode of the week award? It was because Dean Stockwell kicked ass in the teaser opener, mocking the gods and putting Tyrol the pussy into his fucking place...

And obviously, Scott Bakula = Dean Stockwell, while Michael Ironside = Tom Welling. And since Enterprise is WAY >>>>>> than Smallville? Then obviously, Battlestar Galactica would win the episode of the "weak" battle by default...

Some on the net have tried to claim that Lay Down Your Burdens was a decent episode, by claiming that Tyrol kept it all together in one great Vala, storytelling piece. But I'm sorry, but why is he all fracked up again?... First of all, why does he feel bad for slaughtering Cally? We all know that all of us either want to fuck her or frack the annoying bitch up, so why the long face at her bloody nose, Chief? You simply did what we all expected any good natured human to do...

Of course, he doesn't really think he's human anymore. But did we really need half of the fucking episode, if not more to find out that one dumbass revelation, for a character who obviously has had no confidence in himself since he first learned of Sharon's betrayal?... I hate dreams in television, you know? I mean, Tyrol has been having suicidal dreams for just two weeks, yet he's complaining? Meanwhile, I've been dreaming of staking myself in the heart for God knows how many decades by now, yet you don't see me with a fucking God-awful gruffy beard (mainly because as a hairless Chinese, I've never had to shave in my life... but that's a story for another day...)...

Was it just me, or did time flow by so frackin', fucked up fast and furious in Lay Down Your Burdens? Was it just me, or did the Galactica not only find a completely random planet (hopefully thanks to the Cylons as part of their plan), but also completely scouted its surface and discovered the most habitable regions, all in the span of about ten seconds flat? WTF?...

Isn't Battlestar Galactica normally the only show known to humanity, that actually moves slower in time than even fucking 24? WTF?...

Lay Down Your Burdens was just a fucked up episode, I'm sorry. As soon as the opening credits started to roll, it just didn't feel like that same ol' BSG that I've loathed and yet somehow loved for the past two seasons (or first season, really... second season has been mostly shit...)...

There were just too many running plotlines and threads to give a damn about... On one side, we had the fleet apparently scouting an entire planet and having a fucking presidential election, all within the span of half a fucking hour on the show. On the other ironside, we had a massive pointless trip back to Craprica, where Kara fucking goes back for the one man that we all wish she would just put a bullet in the frakkin' head of already... I mean, we all knew she was messed up in the head. But this frackin' fucked up? No fucking way...

And both of these plots probably took place over the course of weeks in the actual BSG universe... So, does that mean that Tyrol was fucking stuck in the same damn conversation with the Stock market priest, for God knows how many fucking weeks as well? God, what a fucking pussy...

And you gotta feel bad for Colonel Tigh as well. The guy only got ten seconds of actual footage on Galactica Actual, with not a single line uttered at all... God, you might as well start calling him fucking Lt. Gaeta or some shit like that...

At least Dualla and Lee didn't have a single fucking scene together (which was odd, as mentioned before with the episode title...). Instead, she was back at her post of being the Enterprise Hoshi of the series, and Lee simply had pretty much just one single scene of saying absolute shit to Kara...

I mean, good hunting? WTF? Is he trying to steal my God Speed, Good Luck, and Good Will Hunting, cliche line or some shit like that?...

I often forget he's the new commander of Pegasus, which is why his briefing scene with Kara was actually pretty decent. She obviously doesn't see him as the boss, and he doesn't see her as his subordinate. The two definitely have a good friendship together, even if it did seem odd to see them both together, talking about fucking useless Anders in the death-trap known as the commander's private room on Pegasus... Will the two ever get together in this space opera? I don't give a frack if they do. But the two actors obviously both know each other and play so damn well off each other's lines and looks, which is more than I can say for anything dealing with fucking Craprica...

You see, the opening teaser of Lay Down Your Burdens was decent, before the whole episode starting fucking up. Afterall, we got Tyrol beating Cally in the face and up the ass, we got Lee and Starbuck sharing some Smallville teen angst, and we got some decent scenes between Madame President and Admiral Adama as well...

The second season of the show has been pretty much a complete wash, considering Admiral Adama has been barely used to his full potential outside of Pegasus. And he was pretty much in only one decent scene in Lay Down Your Burdens as well, but at least he made the most of the moment... Edward James Olmos is a pimp, and he just seems to have such a natural feel with Laura Roslin. It was nice to finally get a reminder of his lawyer of a father, and I always seem to find the superstitions of the successful to be interesting at heart... The breaking of the pencils was decent, I suppose. But I guess he really must hate the bitch and wants her to lose, if he didn't pony up his goddam lighter...

How 'bout Torrie then? Can the cute, babyfaced brown run for the presidency as well? I'd vote for her short skirt anyday...

But meh, I guess at least Roslin was sort of back to being her old charismatic self, when it came to her practice speeches and giggles going into the debate room. But besides that, she was simply the cold hearted bitch that reminds me just why I hate politics in real life, let alone in a fucking show meant for my amusement... Sure, some may comment on the mud-slinging she and Baltar brought forth whenever they shook hands, as I suppose that did bring a touch of realism back to the series. But every time the bitch opened her mouth to make a return comment during the debates? God, her lines were written so damn woefully bad, that it was almost as if she was channeling George Dubya Bush doing improv or some shit like that...

Tom Zarek must be a moron. Why didn't he run for president, when apparently Baltar himself couldn't win alone? Couldn't Tom have just run away with shit like the abortion scheme and this newfound planet himself, and left fucking Baltar in the dust?... Either way, the only decent scenes we ever got out of Baltar were whenever Number Six in his head was sexing up Zarek's shoulders. The actor sure must be a lucky man, just to get that damn close to a fucking supermodel time and time again... But besides that, what else did Baltar do? He had a decent speech about the differences between hope and fear, but simply spent the rest of the episode being the moron who knew nothing without Zarek...

You gotta love the fact that BSG at least sexed her up again with the tight white tank top. You've gotta hate the fact though, that her excuse at being there gave Helo a fucking excuse as well to open his goddam mouth... We got one paltry real reference to Hera being dead or missing from last week's episode. Has that much time really passed in the Battlestar Galactica universe somehow? Helo meanwhile, didn't even seem to give a damn about the miracle Vala child he once had, but rather seemed relieved that he could finally get back into the Cylon's hottie pants all over again... Wouldn't you too, me thinks?...

God, Ron Moore couldn't even write a decent ending to this fucking first parter of the finale. Finally, after grating my eyes for God knows how long, at fucking Starbuck losing a Raptor to a mountain during an effort of saving Anders of all people? Finally, we got some action, with massive barrages hopefully tearing the fucking pyramid playing asshole to shrapnel... And then all of a sudden, just when the episode felt like it was finally actually starting, we got a fucking "To be continued" riff instead? WTF?...

Seriously though, is it just me, or does every season of Battlestar Galactica either end with a) a hospitable planet being found, b) Kara going back to Craprica, c) references to Helo being a fucking pansy gay ass... or obviously, d) all of the above?...

Ironic thing was though, that's exactly what we wanted... and that's exactly what we got...

No, wait... that's not what I wanted, at least... I wanted a real fucking episode, gods-frackin'-smack-dammit...

It was depressing really. Really depressing, that not only did SG-1 suck ass this week? But that Battlestar Galactica laid out nothing on the table but absolute shit for us to eat... Yet BSG still gets the slight nod for the week, if only for the twelve minute teaser opener that actually did make Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 1) seem like it wouldn't hurt my frakkin' brain as a whole...

Because after even just one episode like this one? Fucking goddammit, Ron Moore should just lay down and give up the goddam gig already...

Now, I'll still give him the benefit of the doubt, for his huge "risk" coming in next week's episode. But if that too turns out to be a complete asstastic calamity of suckitude, Voyager proportions?... then, well?...

Then I think it'll be about time... to put a fucking Cylon Jihad on his fucking ass...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Arthur's Mantle & Battlestar Galactica: Downloaded Reviews (Spoilers...) -

It seems that Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica have both been trying to really outdo each other over the past few weeks...

The only problem is, the prize that they both seem to be gunning for?... is to somehow obtain the IvanFian episode of the week, with the worst possible episode that they can produce to still win the award...

I guess it's sort of just like me in university... How close can I possibly get to failing while still managing to pass the fucking course?...

... heh... I got 49.5% in a course once... booyah... but that's besides the point...

While Arthur's Mantle definitely won't be putting any real awards up on its mantle at the end of the season, I guess it should be duly noted that thanks to some Arthurian magic? It still managed to somehow whisk the episode of the week honours away, if only due to the efforts of one man... but I'll get to Mitchell and his stomach growling banter in a moment...

Arthur's Mantle was a predictable episode, with two separate plots obviously converging together in the end to solve the daily double of the day. Of course, I am a fan of tight and circular writing in that sense, even if it wasn't logical for Cameron Mitchell to be seen by just seemingly normal Ancient cloaking devices (I mean, if you can be seen so easily on our own plane of existence, how the heck could Merlin actually hide from the ascended Ancients then?)...

There's obviously no dimension where we can hide from his pure boring shittiness, but I digress...

Cameron Mitchell really didn't do much in this episode either, as all he could do was worry about taking a shit as he no longer could sit down on a fucking toilet. But I think while his actions couldn't speak for himself, his words definitely did (whatever the hell that means)... I never really did laugh out loud at any of the jokes he made, but I definitely did get a slight chuckle from a fair share of them...

I mean, who here didn't crack a smile when he high-fived Carter for just being able to tap the keyboard buttons on the Merlin device thingy? And c'mon, who here wouldn't have taken a swipe at Mitchell's annoying head, with no need to think twice, just like Teal'c did?... Now, I don't know whether the Lt. Col. really had any classic moments in Arthur's Mantle. But I'm sure it would've been hell to have filmed the episode with Ben Browder, considering how much ad-libbed shit he could've ran from his mouth as everyone around him was pretending as if he wasn't there...

Like I already mentioned, Teal'c seemed to have his best moments when he actually could see Mitchell standing right there. It wasn't just the cold faced swipe at his head with a P90 that got a laugh out of me, but also the fact that the cloaked Teal'c didn't give a shit when Mitchell just appeared before his eyes... Now, I couldn't care less about anything else that Christopher Judge did in the rest of the episode. Haikon was just there to talk about how evil Dahak of the Ori must've been to make zombie warriors, only to hear back that Teal'c was apparently too brain-dead to even consider shooting the living, vomiting dead in the fucking brain... Still, Teal'c was pretty badass yet again with dual P90's. And I can't help but forgive him for that...

Amanda Tapping seemed weirdly out of place, mainly because she was out of place (or out of phase, really). I found it definitely odd how she didn't seem concerned one bit about her current predicament, even if she at the time assumed that Daniel would be able to see her... But you know what was even more odd? It was how damn cute she acted this episode. I mean, whether she was smacking her lips at the sight of Dr. Lee bungling up the job yet again, or shrugging her little shoulders at Daniel in the most adorable, girlish fashion possible? There was just something about her that screamed 'romantic comedy'...

I normally don't care for her looks one bit. But is it just me, or does Amanda Tapping always seem to somehow get more Chloe-cute at the end of a season?... She did in season 7, though I attributed that more to the fact that the SciFi channel kept dressing her in either tight civies or tank tops. And then she was also fucking hot as hell in the final stretches of the eighth season, though I credited that more to her pregnancy glow and the fact that evil RepliCarter was fucking smoking hot...

But what about season nine? Why was she cute to me here?... Do I simply get desperate for a woman after Valentine's Day? Or does she really just get irresistibly adorable as soon as she realizes that it's almost fucking time for her vacation break?... Like I mentioned before, she somehow seemed instantly huggable as she was shrugging her shoulders at the sight of Daniel. And she just seemed to be enjoying herself so damn much with her beaming smile, when Daniel was essentially beamed into her phased out dimension...

But I'll give credit where credit is due, as Daniel once again made an episode dealing with the Ancients into something decently entertaining in the end... I mean, even if the writers were basically feeding off of my nostalgia? You know still that's a good thing, when as soon as I had finished watching Arthur's Mantle? I instantly had a craving to rewatch The Crystal Skull and get my own fair share of Lepton or Leprechaun or Lesbian or whatever radiation...

At least the SG-1 writers here were more correct and consistent with being out of phase this time around, which is more than I can say about The Crystal Skull. I mean, while in Arthur's Mantle, Carter and co basically just stood around and hoped to God that they didn't fall through the floor? Phased Daniel in The Crystal Skull was leaning on walls and sitting on desks, and for God's sakes, he even fucking moved a chair in that episode... But sigh, I'd still kill an entire army of darkness of undead Jaffa, just to get a real sequel to Daniel's grandfather and the events of the goddam Crystal Skull...

Still, Daniel here helped give credibility to an episode that was barely above Evolution on the, well, evolutionary scale of Stargate (which was the only other episode where The Crystal Skull was even mentioned, might I add). I mean, before we had no idea what Merlin's real purpose in the SG-1 universe was, but now we suddenly realize why he had the orgy of the Ori galaxy on his communication device's speed-dial... It still makes no sense to me why Merlin would need to descend to find a way to kill the ascended Ori. Wouldn't he have vastly more knowledge and power as an ascended being rather than a human? And even if he could hide somehow from his fellow Ancients using his phase cloaking device, wouldn't they just read his mind as soon as he returned to our reality?...

Either way, the new vision for Stargate SG-1 is really starting to take form again in my eyes. I'm starting to see exactly the kind of mythos that we've been lacking since Avalon, that the tales of King Arthur and the Knights Table were really somehow about battles against the magical Ori... If Merlin and his companions back then really did face off against the Ori and their minions and their death stars or whatever, I don't get why the Ori wouldn't know about earth now. But at least thanks to episodes like Arthur's Mantle, and also thanks to more mythological revelations from Daniel Jackson, I can really start looking forward to Crusade and Camelot...

... two episodes that may actually deserve the episode of the week award for once...

Now, obviously the SG-1 writers shouldn't be praised or put on a pedestal, or have their names engraved on a mantle for this episode or anything. I mean, first of all, what the fuck was up with that ten second ending?... And when one plotline of the story involves Dr. Lee being obsessed with 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids', and the other half being some weird ass combination of Space Balls and Resident Evil SG-1?...

... and when, quite frankly?... they made a black actor both look and sound and snarl like an ape?...

... but at least, they wet my appetite for what will hopefully be two epic weeks to follow...

To be honest, if I was running the show around here? Downloaded would get episode of the week... if only for how nicely ironic Ron Moore decided to design the episode of the title, just for people like me...

... people who, you know?... get their episodes through the mail, from their second cousin "Bit" in the Yukon... but I digress...

Because since I'm not running the show around here, while my evil brother Lore is? I can't help but think then, that Downloaded could've been so much more than it was... Though to anyone who says that Downloaded sucked ass as an episode (and you know who you are...), then I'd imagine that they just don't get what the real purpose of Battlestar Galactica really is as a show...

I admit that Downloaded sort of made the Cylons into absolute pussies. They were perhaps made a bit too compassionate and a bit too human in the end. As just a little contact with a human that she loved, seemed to actually make the Cylon model number six think twice about nuking 12 billion humans in a night... While that Diana Biers (Number 3) model seemed to absolutely have no conscience whatsoever, I never would've really expected Number Six to actually have one. And yet here, we had Tricia Helfair absolutely acting her supermodel socks off, if only because waking up naked in a giant vat of white goo is always a plus (or a placenta?) in my books...

So, there's a Dr. Baltar crawling around in Number Six's head, just like there is a Number Six in the real Dr. Baltar? Talk about a fucking ironic plot-twist, because this seriously throws almost every single theory we had between the two of them out of the window... Obviously, neither of them are computer chips. Could there actually be a psychic link between the two of them? Probably not, since neither even knows that the other was still alive... How the heck can both of their visions seemingly predict the future? Because unless both hallucinations are actually projected into their minds by the Cylons themselves, you start to wonder whether there really is a higher power at work here...

Either way, I laughed my ass off in Downloaded at just how bitchy Dr. Baltar was in Six's head. He was berating her at every turn, baiting on her guilt for potentially nuking the only man she's ever loved... It was a nice contrast, really. Baltar in Number Six's head was moving her towards peace, while the complete opposite was happening with Number Six in Baltar's mind back on Galactica. I am a fan of circular kinds of storylines afterall, with all loose threads eventually leading and converging in Rome...

Now, I don't really get why the hell Number Six would feel so guilty about the destruction of humanity or Baltar's presumed death right now, considering she barely seemed emotional at all about it back in the miniseries before she was blown away. But Tricia Helfair really did seem to act her clothes off in Downloaded, going absolutely crazy as soon as she came out in a vat of Baltar's goo, with nothing but the Arthur's Mantle clothes on her back...

If there was any other purpose to Downloaded, it was to finally see Grace Park actually do something meaningful on the show once more. And if only to see her naked in a vat of fucking sticky, white goo as well... Now sure, it was cringe-worthy embarrassing to see her try to act serious in the apartment with the whole picture-throwing thing. I mean, I guess she had to learn bad acting from the best, when she starred with Kristen Kreuk back on Edgemont... But even so? It was fun seeing the ol' Galactica Boomer once again, how attached she still was to Chief fucking Tyrol of all people, and how shocked she was that Dr. Baltar was the one who had betrayed the human race in the end...

Grace Park really did act as if she loved her 'family' back on Galactica. It really makes me wonder whether it would be wise for Ron Moore to send this Boomer and Baltar's Number Six over to the fleet one of these days, and see these two Cylon bitches fight it out over whether to turn Baltar in for treason or not... I hope some sort of oil and white goo would be involved if so...

There was definitely something meaningful that happened between the two of them in Downloaded. They both shared emotional bonds with humans that they loved, and they shared an even more lovely lesbian bond between the both of their arms at the episode end... Will the two of them actually start a revolution for the Cylons? I doubt it. But at least it'd be fun once in a while, to check back on Caprica without the crappy ass sense of having to see fucking Helo like in the first season, or fucking Anders again like we did over here...

Fucking Anders. What a fucking moron. He's still wearing Kara's dogtag? God, he's such a pussy whipped asshole... I guess we now know that he ain't a Cylon, otherwise the Diana model wouldn't have wanted to shoot him on the spot. Sucks to be a fan of the show then, really...

At least, I thought that Anders had a noble purpose on the show, besides forced romance with Thrace over a fucking pyramid game. I thought that his goal was to liberate all the remaining humans on earth or some worthless hero crap like that?... Instead here, we see he's become a lowly terrorist, simply there to inflict pain and torture on an opponent he knows it's fucking impossible to win against. Sound fucking familiar?...

... well, some assholes would compare him to President Bush then... but I rather just compare him to fucking Roslin instead...

Laura was a complete bitch in this episode. Really, when was the last episode where we actually got a touching, motherly scene between her and either Lee or Kara?... Here she was at her supreme overlord-bitchliness once again, ordering that the newborn child be adopted into the hands of Mya or whatever her name was...

Now, I wouldn't personally mind if my bits and pieces had been placed in Mya's hands instead, as long as a certain white good was involved. But really, surely the president knows that giving this kid up for adoption wouldn't actually work in the end?... What if it matures faster than a normal human? What if its Cylon tendencies begin to form, and we get a potential enemy from within the fleet that's almost impossible to track?... What if Hera ever wants to meet her mother? Or what if that fucking hot Mya girl was actually a Cylon, as migraine-inducing predictable that would be (besides the fact that she supposedly had a child before, at least)?...

And does Admiral Adama even know about this? Sure, it may be a wise decision for the president to keep the information private even from the military, considering Diana-model Cylons within Galactica could still be plotting to steal the miracle child of Dahak's... But really, must Roslin constantly keep going over Adama's head? He just seemed like such a slow-witted fool in Downloaded as a result, with his only purpose there being to nod his head in agreement with whatever the bitchy ass president said... though I think all men can definitely relate to him on that...

Helo certainly can at least. God, was he fucking useless in Downloaded or what? His only two scenes consisted of him either playing cutesy-pussy-whipped with his new daughter, or fucking acting stone cold clueless when it came to his child's ashes... At least Doc Cottle brought something to the episode with his dark sense of humour, and the fact that he got the life choked out of him. And at least Tyrol didn't have a fucking line in the entire episode to annoy us with... What's Helo's excuse then? Even the death of his baby wouldn't shut him the fuck up...

To be honest, I was disappointed with everything that happened on the Galactica ship itself. Almost to the point where I ironically had to start calling it Craplactica... Grace Park wasn't even darling in her role. I mean, besides getting her finger wrapped by some ET looking, penis-wrinkly hand, did she even have a part over in the fleet at all?... I expected more, much more, from an episode dealing with the core fundamental story arc that's been running since last fucking season. I may hate the whole religious aspect of the show, but I hate it even more than it's almost been completely forgotten in the goddam series...

Yet over on Caprica? Despite the presence of Anders, it was anything but Crapica for once... We got some valuable insight into the Cylon culture, we got to finally see Grace Park in the hottest fucking sense again as she did sweaty ass chin-ups over the thought of angry sex, and we even got some absolutely classic scenes of Dr. Baltar playing revenge on poor Number Six's fragile mind...

Now, don't get me wrong. I ain't gonna put this episode on a mantle or anything, as Downloaded in the end was essentially what amounts to a clip-show. An hour of television that will hopefully save money for the last two and a half episodes to close out the season, that is... Budget concerns are always there for any series, and we as an audience should never forget about that...

But still, true to the white goo?... and more than true for the aptly named, "Downloaded"?...

[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 ...