***My apologies, I actually thought I posted this final part already. I typed it up, saved it and for whatever reason didn't post it but here it is now.***
So now we hit the best of the best with the Mortal Kombat series. With no time to waste, we jump into the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat II (1993). I know what you're thinking, "MK 2 is only the third best game?!" "Sacrilege!" Perhaps you'd be correct on both counts but here's the thing, this was a great game but I don't at all believe it to be the best MK game. I've honestly grown over time to find it to be rather overrated. Don't get me wrong, it improved on MK 1 in every way possible and like MK 1, many of the new characters introduced have become pop culture icons. In fact, when most people think of Mortal Kombat, this is usually the game they're thinking of. The beef I have with the game is its difficulty which has long been acknowledged as being tougher than most every other MK game. Even when played with the difficulty setting on easy, the AI in the game is capable of doing things that no human could do without using cheats in the game itself. I've seen people beat the game before without ever losing but the only way this occurs is when people exploit glitches in the AI or just flat cheat. I don't consider it to be a good thing to have a game be hard to a level that it practically can't be beat without cheating or resorting to what I consider to be extremely cheap methods to win.
On the plus side, the graphics are stellar for the time, the music is extremely memorable, the storyline is good, and it features the best, most original fatalities of probably any game of the series. I still remember its home release date, Friday September 9, 1994, and the trip to Rose's Store with my dad to pick up the game. The game had a sticker on the cover which said that it couldn't be sold to anyone under 17. For the record, this was just before the ESRB was established and began using the rating system familiar to most people today. My dad had to be with me when I purchased it to give the illusion that he was buying it for himself but he made it blatantly obvious that the game was for me because he had no idea the name of the game, let alone which console it was for.
Most people consider MK II to be the peak of the series. I think if the difficulty levels had been a bit more manageable and reasonable, I would probably agree with them but because the game is so hard, especially if you're lucky enough to get to Kintaro, I simply can't consider it any better than the 3rd best game of the series.
Which game earns a spot as the second best game of the Mortal Kombat series? 1995 would give us the answer with:
Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). Two games? Not really. MK 3 was released in April 1995 with UMK 3 following in September 1995. I consider these both to be a single game because UMK 3 was what MK 3 was intended to be. In essence, MK 3 was an incomplete game but was released as a finished product while UMK 3 was considered a mere upgrade in the same way that Super Street Fighter 2 was simply considered an upgrade to Street Fighter 2. The major differences between them were that UMK 3 included 4 new stages and many characters that weren't in MK 3. I've never found anything as to why this upgrade occurred and why UMK 3 wasn't the final version of MK so I have no answer for that. I think it had something to do with Dan Pesina's troubles with Midway which necessitated characters that he played being removed/redesigned for the game but that's not confirmed.
The gameplay, graphics, music, and storyline are all stellar with many new, memorable characters. Among these new characters was, other than Sub-Zero, my all-time favorite MK character, Kabal. The difficulty of this game was also far more reasonable and unlike its predecessor, this game could be beaten without resorting to cheap methods or flat out cheating. I have so many great memories of playing this in arcades and if I ever purchased a real arcade standup to have at home, I'd probably purchase UMK 3. If any criticism could be levied at this game, it would be that some of the fatalities were a bit too comical for my tastes. It also didn't help that some fatalities which caused the opponent to explode would manage to produce multiple skulls, 5 or 6 arms or legs, multiple rib cages all from a single body. Granted the game isn't really bound by realism, but seeing something like that can really make it difficult to suspend disbelief.
As far as I know, most fans consider this a disappointing follow-up to MK II and most of the hard-heads who are stuck in the 90's consider this game to be the beginning of the end for the series. To me, this game was the best of the original 2D games and is one that I can still play over and over again nearly 20 years after its original release.
Which game comes in at the top spot? Well, there's only one left so do the math and figure out which one's missing. If you don't want to do that, I'll tell you anyway. The best Mortal Kombat game yet released is:
Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004). The pinnacle of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This game is as close to perfection as just about any game can get. It's not only my favorite of the MK series, it might just be my favorite video game of all time. Nearly everything about it was spectacular. The graphics were an improvement from Deadly Alliance. We had new characters galore along with some awesome redesigns of some old favorites. Although in all fairness, anyone who thinks Sub Zero's look in this game wasn't a near complete rip-off of The Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is crazy. The fatalities were all improved in every way imaginable and for the first time, we had introduced stage fatalities that could be done on certain stages at any time during the fight. All of them were wonderfully creative and original. The stages themselves were fantastic even if they didn't include a stage fatality. My personal favorite was the Sky Temple stage. MK: Deception also introduced a concept that has only existed in this game which was the "Hara-Kiri" fatality. Basically, if you lost the fight and didn't want your opponent to perform a fatality on you, you could off yourself with a rather gruesome suicide move. Other than the fact it looked good, it really didn't serve much of a purpose.
The major selling point of this game was the expansion of the Konquest Mode which was introduced in Deadly Alliance. Konquest Mode in this game was more or less a separate video game to itself which featured RPG elements combined with traditional Mortal Kombat fights. It allowed for open world exploration of all the main realms in the Mortal Kombat universe for the first time. This mode also did more to reveal the complete backstory of many characters and events in the MK universe. Even if the arcade mode of the game weren't awesome, this alone would be worth purchasing the game for. Mentioning the arcade mode, this is another portion where the game truly shines. The difficulty isn't ridiculous with this game. There are certainly challenging portions, but there are no instances such as MK 2 where the AI can do things that human players simply can't do, nor are there instances where you'll spend hours on end trying to beat one character such as the final Shao Khan battle in MK9. All in all, it's a fair and reasonable challenge.
The game isn't above criticism however but the points in question are very minor. For one, Konquest Mode's voice acting is horrible for the most part. Especially the voice of the main character, Shujinko. Also, most of the game's stages had lackluster background music but this is made up for by the slightly remixed versions of past MK themes that were used in updated stages. By "updated stages" I mean stages that were in the previous 2D games that had now been upgraded to 3D. The music for these stages was basically the same except that it had been upgraded using much more modern recordings than what was possible in the mid-90's.
As a bonus, there were a good many video packages included with the game which ran through new character backgrounds and histories as well as behind the scenes features on our old favorites. The Kollector's Edition of the game also came with an arcade perfect emulation of the original Mortal Kombat game which was the first time it was released in this format.
Mortal Kombat: Deception has been the peak of the series so far and it's a crying shame that more people don't appreciate this game because of the previous closed-mindedness that I mentioned earlier with being stuck in the 90's. Deception is a testament to how far the series can go when NRS is willing to think outside the box and expand the mythologies while MK9 is a testament to how far the series can ultimately fall when NRS panders to this niche audience and throws originality and freshness out the window.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 2
So we come to the middle of our listing of Mortal Kombat games from best to worst. For a recap, see the previous post. Next on our countdown(up) is:
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006). As stated, this game was originally announced as the final chapter of the original Mortal Kombat continuity. This in turn led many people to think it was the last game that would be made whereas if they'd paid attention to the wording, it was clear that it wasn't. Armageddon was the 3rd game in Mortal Kombat's second trilogy of fighting games and it was supposed to bring all the main story lines to a close. Did it? Well, not exactly. Given the direction that the series has taken since 2006, we still don't know which parts of the game are canon and non-canon. The game itself improved on its predecessors in terms of more fluid gameplay and it featured the largest cast of characters in any MK game yet made.
The game was hampered by one humongous problem, "Kreate-a-fatality." This feature replaced the programmed fatalities for each character in the game and for the most part made them all generic. The only standouts were the stage fatalities (known as "death traps") as they maintained their originality. It's been said that it's unthinkable that an MK game could exist without fatalities but that apparently didn't stop them from trying in a way. It's a real shame this feature was included because other, than the fact that the endings of the characters weren't as cinematic as they usually are in the games, it was an extremely good game. The Konquest Mode of the game which told the story of Taven and Daegon was absolutely stellar. The only complaint I had for it was its abandoning of the open-world style that MK: Deception's Konquest Mode featured in favor of a linear style of Konquest mode. In a sense, it's like Konquest Mode made a change from Zelda to Mario in terms of style but that didn't stop it from being a lot of fun.
While Armageddon certainly wasn't a bad game by any stretch, it left a lot of room for improvement. Especially with the idea that we still don't know which parts of the game were and weren't canon. Now in 2013, I'm afraid we've reached the point that no one honestly cares what is canon from this game as it has pretty much fallen into obscurity at this point. In fairness, it would've been nearly impossible for the game to improve on its predecessor which will be listed later in this countdown. Not a great game, but if you can find it for say less than 15 bucks these days, it's probably still worth a go if you can find the Kollector's Edition which featured a bonus disc containing several video featurettes as well as an arcade port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
Up next on our listing, we go all the way back to the beginning. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat (1992) AKA Mortal Kombat 1 to differentiate it from the 2011 rehash. This was the game that started it all. A surprise hit, the game introduced the major characters to the franchise. Many of which have now become legendary in the annals of video game and pop culture history. There really isn't much I can say because there's nothing previous to compare it to and I personally consider it unfair to compare it to the later games because the technology changed and evolved so quickly in just a few years. If you look at MK1 and MK3 which were created/released just 3 years apart, the only similarities between them is the digitized graphics and gameplay style but even then, they're so different that there's hardly no comparison. I guess the biggest thing I can say about MK1 that most people may not know is that it was developed by only 5 people: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, Tony Goskie, and Dan Forden. The game was also intended to be a cheap cash-grab because Street Fighter II was not only the hot fighting game of the time, it was arguably the hottest video game period. I would be willing to argue that this simple cash-grab not only equalled Street Fighter II, but it far surpassed it and even more, I would personally argue that the MK franchise has gone farther than the Street Fighter franchise has. It must be conceded however that if there were no Street Fighter II, there would probably be no Mortal Kombat franchise.
Anyone who is a fan of video games and has never played the original Mortal Kombat owes it to themselves to seek out and play the original. You'll not likely be impressed by it in 2013. In fact, you might look at it and think it's quite primitive. You'd be right, but don't let that stop you from playing the game just to see how the whole thing started. The graphics and audio is extremely primitive compared to today's games, but the gameplay holds up and probably surpasses a lot of modern games which seem to focus so hard on graphics and far less on gameplay.
Mortal Kombat nearly ran out of steam in the late 90's leaving many people to feel the franchise had run its course and would fade away with the 90's. Midway decided the series needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and the result was the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002). Much like MK1 did in 1992, this game actually became a sleeper hit in late 2002. As previously stated, most people had written off the franchise by the turn of the century. There hadn't been a new game since MK4 other than Special Forces and the less said about it, the better. John Tobias left Midway in this time period which left Ed Boon as the sole creative lead of the franchise. Mortal Kombat needed their next game to be a hit and not only was it a hit, it completely revitalized the franchise and took it in a whole new direction. Deadly Alliance is the first game in MK's second trilogy and this game is really where the storyline of the series began to shine. Developed for the home consoles, Midway was able to expand the story so much farther than the previous arcade versions of the game were capable of doing due to expanded memory. Aside from introducing many new characters, it also introduced Konquest Mode to the franchise which served as a side-game and helped tell the story of the game itself. It also worked to flesh out some previously untold backstories of many of the more established characters. This trend would continue with Deception and Armageddon.
Many consider this game the first true 3D Mortal Kombat because it was the first to take place in a completely 3D environment and the first to allow for truly 3D movement. The gameplay was rebuilt from the ground up. Gone were the days of each character's basic attacks being the same. Starting with Deadly Alliance, each character was given their own fighting styles which made every character unique in terms of their abilities. It also helped that each style was based on a legitimate martial arts style.
Many people bemoaned the changes to the game because they couldn't get over the fact that the game was evolving and expanding. I feel that the changes were necessary because it wasn't simply the same-old same-old. It brought MK to a fresh audience and expanded the series in terms of richness, character, and gameplay and it saddens me that so many people were so stuck in the 90's that they refused to accept this. This trend would only continue with the releases of Deception and Armageddon and it directly led to the complete rehash that was MK9 in 2011. Whether these clowns like to admit it or not, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extended the series lifespan by at least a full decade.
We've reached the end of part 2 of our countdown of Mortal Kombat games. Coming up will be the final edition of our rankings. There are only 3 left and most people should know what 3 games these are, it's just a question of the order. The final edition of this post will hopefully be up by Saturday at the latest.
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006). As stated, this game was originally announced as the final chapter of the original Mortal Kombat continuity. This in turn led many people to think it was the last game that would be made whereas if they'd paid attention to the wording, it was clear that it wasn't. Armageddon was the 3rd game in Mortal Kombat's second trilogy of fighting games and it was supposed to bring all the main story lines to a close. Did it? Well, not exactly. Given the direction that the series has taken since 2006, we still don't know which parts of the game are canon and non-canon. The game itself improved on its predecessors in terms of more fluid gameplay and it featured the largest cast of characters in any MK game yet made.
The game was hampered by one humongous problem, "Kreate-a-fatality." This feature replaced the programmed fatalities for each character in the game and for the most part made them all generic. The only standouts were the stage fatalities (known as "death traps") as they maintained their originality. It's been said that it's unthinkable that an MK game could exist without fatalities but that apparently didn't stop them from trying in a way. It's a real shame this feature was included because other, than the fact that the endings of the characters weren't as cinematic as they usually are in the games, it was an extremely good game. The Konquest Mode of the game which told the story of Taven and Daegon was absolutely stellar. The only complaint I had for it was its abandoning of the open-world style that MK: Deception's Konquest Mode featured in favor of a linear style of Konquest mode. In a sense, it's like Konquest Mode made a change from Zelda to Mario in terms of style but that didn't stop it from being a lot of fun.
While Armageddon certainly wasn't a bad game by any stretch, it left a lot of room for improvement. Especially with the idea that we still don't know which parts of the game were and weren't canon. Now in 2013, I'm afraid we've reached the point that no one honestly cares what is canon from this game as it has pretty much fallen into obscurity at this point. In fairness, it would've been nearly impossible for the game to improve on its predecessor which will be listed later in this countdown. Not a great game, but if you can find it for say less than 15 bucks these days, it's probably still worth a go if you can find the Kollector's Edition which featured a bonus disc containing several video featurettes as well as an arcade port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
Up next on our listing, we go all the way back to the beginning. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat (1992) AKA Mortal Kombat 1 to differentiate it from the 2011 rehash. This was the game that started it all. A surprise hit, the game introduced the major characters to the franchise. Many of which have now become legendary in the annals of video game and pop culture history. There really isn't much I can say because there's nothing previous to compare it to and I personally consider it unfair to compare it to the later games because the technology changed and evolved so quickly in just a few years. If you look at MK1 and MK3 which were created/released just 3 years apart, the only similarities between them is the digitized graphics and gameplay style but even then, they're so different that there's hardly no comparison. I guess the biggest thing I can say about MK1 that most people may not know is that it was developed by only 5 people: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, Tony Goskie, and Dan Forden. The game was also intended to be a cheap cash-grab because Street Fighter II was not only the hot fighting game of the time, it was arguably the hottest video game period. I would be willing to argue that this simple cash-grab not only equalled Street Fighter II, but it far surpassed it and even more, I would personally argue that the MK franchise has gone farther than the Street Fighter franchise has. It must be conceded however that if there were no Street Fighter II, there would probably be no Mortal Kombat franchise.
Anyone who is a fan of video games and has never played the original Mortal Kombat owes it to themselves to seek out and play the original. You'll not likely be impressed by it in 2013. In fact, you might look at it and think it's quite primitive. You'd be right, but don't let that stop you from playing the game just to see how the whole thing started. The graphics and audio is extremely primitive compared to today's games, but the gameplay holds up and probably surpasses a lot of modern games which seem to focus so hard on graphics and far less on gameplay.
Mortal Kombat nearly ran out of steam in the late 90's leaving many people to feel the franchise had run its course and would fade away with the 90's. Midway decided the series needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and the result was the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002). Much like MK1 did in 1992, this game actually became a sleeper hit in late 2002. As previously stated, most people had written off the franchise by the turn of the century. There hadn't been a new game since MK4 other than Special Forces and the less said about it, the better. John Tobias left Midway in this time period which left Ed Boon as the sole creative lead of the franchise. Mortal Kombat needed their next game to be a hit and not only was it a hit, it completely revitalized the franchise and took it in a whole new direction. Deadly Alliance is the first game in MK's second trilogy and this game is really where the storyline of the series began to shine. Developed for the home consoles, Midway was able to expand the story so much farther than the previous arcade versions of the game were capable of doing due to expanded memory. Aside from introducing many new characters, it also introduced Konquest Mode to the franchise which served as a side-game and helped tell the story of the game itself. It also worked to flesh out some previously untold backstories of many of the more established characters. This trend would continue with Deception and Armageddon.
Many consider this game the first true 3D Mortal Kombat because it was the first to take place in a completely 3D environment and the first to allow for truly 3D movement. The gameplay was rebuilt from the ground up. Gone were the days of each character's basic attacks being the same. Starting with Deadly Alliance, each character was given their own fighting styles which made every character unique in terms of their abilities. It also helped that each style was based on a legitimate martial arts style.
Many people bemoaned the changes to the game because they couldn't get over the fact that the game was evolving and expanding. I feel that the changes were necessary because it wasn't simply the same-old same-old. It brought MK to a fresh audience and expanded the series in terms of richness, character, and gameplay and it saddens me that so many people were so stuck in the 90's that they refused to accept this. This trend would only continue with the releases of Deception and Armageddon and it directly led to the complete rehash that was MK9 in 2011. Whether these clowns like to admit it or not, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extended the series lifespan by at least a full decade.
We've reached the end of part 2 of our countdown of Mortal Kombat games. Coming up will be the final edition of our rankings. There are only 3 left and most people should know what 3 games these are, it's just a question of the order. The final edition of this post will hopefully be up by Saturday at the latest.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 1
So I return after a long hiatus to offer my thoughts/rankings of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This was inspired by the recent release of Season 2 of Mortal Kombat Legacy to YouTube. The series itself is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone whether you're familiar with the franchise or not. Although in all fairness, some of the impact and a few plot points will be lost to those unfamiliar with MK's history but not so much that you can't enjoy the series.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
2012 Movie Awards
Since 2007, I've been doing my own best movies of the year list. It only consists of 3 categories; the "Akira Kurosawa/Sergio Leone Award for Cinematic Excellence (a fancy way of saying best film), a listing of the top 5 films of the year which is a new addition for 2012, and my own special award that I've named the "Finding Nemo Award for Cinematic Excrement." This award describes a movie that is generally beloved by critics and the populace at large but I just simply can't stand. Each year seems to produce one of these movies.
Before I reveal my picks for 2012, I'm going to list previous winners of the Kurosawa/Leone award and the winners of the Finding Nemo award for my own archival purposes.
2007:
Kurosawa/Leone: No Country For Old Men
Finding Nemo: Juno
2008:
Kurosawa/Leone: The Dark Knight
Finding Nemo: Slumdog Millionaire
2009:
Kurosawa/Leone: (tie) Avatar/Star Trek
Finding Nemo: District 9 *side note, this film is actually responsible for coining the term "cinematic excrement." Thank you to Aaron Goins for that.*
2010:
Kurosawa/Leone: Inception
Finding Nemo: The Social Network
2011:
Kurosawa/Leone: Moneyball
Finding Nemo: Hugo
Now, for 2012's awards. We'll start with the winners of the two main awards and then finish out with the top 5 list.
For our Kurosawa/Leone award, in 2012 this award goes to The Dark Knight Rises. This one was actually a little closer than I expected because of how unexpectedly wonderful Django Unchained was. However, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy eventually won out in the end and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy joined my own upper echelon with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy as the greatest film trilogies in history.
For our Finding Nemo award, 2012 features the first ever co-winners for this award. We have a tie between Pixar's film Brave and the Wachowski siblings' latest effort, Cloud Atlas. Quite honestly, part of the criteria for this award is that it needs to be loved by critics and while Cloud Atlas fits my description for this award more closely than Brave does, Brave was just so unimaginably awful and disappointing that it had to be at least a co-winner for this award. Cloud Atlas is basically a 3 hour congealed mess of a film. Way yonder too many stories trying to connect and other than the actors playing multiple roles across different timelines, there is no real explanation for how these timelines connect with each other. Someone very accurately described the movie as "a story that can't be understood because it doesn't want to be understood."
To finish out this post, here is the newest addition to my awards which is a simple top 5 listing of the best movies of the year in order. In essence, this is a listing of the movies that were in the running for the Kurosawa/Leone award. We know which one is number one, but the other 4 were all given high consideration for best film this year. So I close this blog with the top 5 films of 2012 in order:
1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Django Unchained
3. Skyfall
4. Wreck-It Ralph
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Before I reveal my picks for 2012, I'm going to list previous winners of the Kurosawa/Leone award and the winners of the Finding Nemo award for my own archival purposes.
2007:
Kurosawa/Leone: No Country For Old Men
Finding Nemo: Juno
2008:
Kurosawa/Leone: The Dark Knight
Finding Nemo: Slumdog Millionaire
2009:
Kurosawa/Leone: (tie) Avatar/Star Trek
Finding Nemo: District 9 *side note, this film is actually responsible for coining the term "cinematic excrement." Thank you to Aaron Goins for that.*
2010:
Kurosawa/Leone: Inception
Finding Nemo: The Social Network
2011:
Kurosawa/Leone: Moneyball
Finding Nemo: Hugo
Now, for 2012's awards. We'll start with the winners of the two main awards and then finish out with the top 5 list.
For our Kurosawa/Leone award, in 2012 this award goes to The Dark Knight Rises. This one was actually a little closer than I expected because of how unexpectedly wonderful Django Unchained was. However, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy eventually won out in the end and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy joined my own upper echelon with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy as the greatest film trilogies in history.
For our Finding Nemo award, 2012 features the first ever co-winners for this award. We have a tie between Pixar's film Brave and the Wachowski siblings' latest effort, Cloud Atlas. Quite honestly, part of the criteria for this award is that it needs to be loved by critics and while Cloud Atlas fits my description for this award more closely than Brave does, Brave was just so unimaginably awful and disappointing that it had to be at least a co-winner for this award. Cloud Atlas is basically a 3 hour congealed mess of a film. Way yonder too many stories trying to connect and other than the actors playing multiple roles across different timelines, there is no real explanation for how these timelines connect with each other. Someone very accurately described the movie as "a story that can't be understood because it doesn't want to be understood."
To finish out this post, here is the newest addition to my awards which is a simple top 5 listing of the best movies of the year in order. In essence, this is a listing of the movies that were in the running for the Kurosawa/Leone award. We know which one is number one, but the other 4 were all given high consideration for best film this year. So I close this blog with the top 5 films of 2012 in order:
1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Django Unchained
3. Skyfall
4. Wreck-It Ralph
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Why do I still even bother with Nascar?
News has come out today that likely starting next season, Charlotte will lose one of its races to Las Vegas. In the words of Bruton Smith, "When the game is over, it'll be money, money, money," Smith told WBTV. "Money will move it."
At least he's being honest about it I suppose. Basically as was said on Facebook, it's nice to see that Bruton Smith, and Nascar as a whole, 10 years since their initial efforts began, are still working overtime to piss off and run off their traditional fans with stupid decisions that will do nothing to benefit Nascar as a whole. Anyone who believes that Las Vegas will draw more money than Charlotte for Nascar is quite simply irrational in their thinking.
I just can't understand why this group is working so hard to run off their traditional fans. There is no other sport on the planet that has done more to purposely run off their core group of fans as Nascar has done since around 2002. Such things as creating and giving races to the "cookie cutter" tracks, taking races away from VERY well established traditional venues such as Rockingham, Darlington, Atlanta, and now Charlotte (which I would've believed to be like Daytona in that it would be untouchable), moving the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to Mother's Day weekend for no reason whatsoever other than to spit in the face of 55 years of tradition and once again, spit in the face of the traditional Nascar fan.
I've written for several years that I wouldn't be surprised to see Nascar fold by 2020-2025. Or at the very least, there would be races that weren't televised live any more, if at all. Regrettably, there are enough sheep out there to keep the sport alive but I see no reason to change my prediction about Nascar on television because any sport depends on its traditional fanbase to support it in hard times. Nascar's attendance and ratings have been down for years and it can be traced right back to the unholy trinity's concentrated efforts to run off the traditional fans. MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, other auto racing bodies such as Indy and F1, and nearly every other sport I can think of tries at least to innovate but still remaining loyal to their core fanbase. In the case of MLB, I think they try too hard sometimes to do this since it hinders progress that could actually make the game better, but they are at least trying to keep their core fans.
Nascar on the other hand doesn't subscribe to this theory. They think that the fairweather fans are the group they need to go after. I'm not saying they shouldn't try to lure in new fans but I am saying that perhaps if they didn't mess with things that worked to draw in fans for over 50 years previously, perhaps they might actually draw in some new fans without running off millions of fans that Bill France Sr and Jr worked for a combined 55 years to draw in.
I've compared Nascar to the WWE for a variety of reasons. Among many other reasons, there is a major reason this comparison is more valid than many people realize. The question has been asked as to whether Vince McMahon was ashamed of the wrestling business given how much he's worked to make the wrestling business a joke in the eyes of mainstream America. This question needs to be asked of Brian France, Mike Helton, and Bruton Smith. Are they ashamed of stock car racing as a whole and ashamed of the fact that the southeastern US has always been the core group that has made Nascar what it was before they came to ruin it? This, like the case of McMahon, being despite the fact that millions and millions of dollars have gone into their pockets from the very thing they seem to be ashamed of?
Finally, this comparison becomes even more valid because, like the WWE and Vince McMahon, the unholy trinity of Nascar will continue to make money despite themselves because there are enough fairweather fans and sheep who will keep giving them their money for a product that hardly resembles the legitimate product of pre-2004 Nascar which is what I refer to as "Nascar done the right way." As more time passes, they will still continue to make more money because once the current group of fairweather fans move on to the next shiny object on the wall, a new group will come in. Most of whom will not have seen Nascar done properly and will thus not know the difference. Over time, this is how Nascar will survive. Ignorance from their fans who will have never seen the sport run and operated correctly.
So yes, these people will make their money despite themselves just like Vince McMahon.
At least he's being honest about it I suppose. Basically as was said on Facebook, it's nice to see that Bruton Smith, and Nascar as a whole, 10 years since their initial efforts began, are still working overtime to piss off and run off their traditional fans with stupid decisions that will do nothing to benefit Nascar as a whole. Anyone who believes that Las Vegas will draw more money than Charlotte for Nascar is quite simply irrational in their thinking.
I just can't understand why this group is working so hard to run off their traditional fans. There is no other sport on the planet that has done more to purposely run off their core group of fans as Nascar has done since around 2002. Such things as creating and giving races to the "cookie cutter" tracks, taking races away from VERY well established traditional venues such as Rockingham, Darlington, Atlanta, and now Charlotte (which I would've believed to be like Daytona in that it would be untouchable), moving the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to Mother's Day weekend for no reason whatsoever other than to spit in the face of 55 years of tradition and once again, spit in the face of the traditional Nascar fan.
I've written for several years that I wouldn't be surprised to see Nascar fold by 2020-2025. Or at the very least, there would be races that weren't televised live any more, if at all. Regrettably, there are enough sheep out there to keep the sport alive but I see no reason to change my prediction about Nascar on television because any sport depends on its traditional fanbase to support it in hard times. Nascar's attendance and ratings have been down for years and it can be traced right back to the unholy trinity's concentrated efforts to run off the traditional fans. MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, other auto racing bodies such as Indy and F1, and nearly every other sport I can think of tries at least to innovate but still remaining loyal to their core fanbase. In the case of MLB, I think they try too hard sometimes to do this since it hinders progress that could actually make the game better, but they are at least trying to keep their core fans.
Nascar on the other hand doesn't subscribe to this theory. They think that the fairweather fans are the group they need to go after. I'm not saying they shouldn't try to lure in new fans but I am saying that perhaps if they didn't mess with things that worked to draw in fans for over 50 years previously, perhaps they might actually draw in some new fans without running off millions of fans that Bill France Sr and Jr worked for a combined 55 years to draw in.
I've compared Nascar to the WWE for a variety of reasons. Among many other reasons, there is a major reason this comparison is more valid than many people realize. The question has been asked as to whether Vince McMahon was ashamed of the wrestling business given how much he's worked to make the wrestling business a joke in the eyes of mainstream America. This question needs to be asked of Brian France, Mike Helton, and Bruton Smith. Are they ashamed of stock car racing as a whole and ashamed of the fact that the southeastern US has always been the core group that has made Nascar what it was before they came to ruin it? This, like the case of McMahon, being despite the fact that millions and millions of dollars have gone into their pockets from the very thing they seem to be ashamed of?
Finally, this comparison becomes even more valid because, like the WWE and Vince McMahon, the unholy trinity of Nascar will continue to make money despite themselves because there are enough fairweather fans and sheep who will keep giving them their money for a product that hardly resembles the legitimate product of pre-2004 Nascar which is what I refer to as "Nascar done the right way." As more time passes, they will still continue to make more money because once the current group of fairweather fans move on to the next shiny object on the wall, a new group will come in. Most of whom will not have seen Nascar done properly and will thus not know the difference. Over time, this is how Nascar will survive. Ignorance from their fans who will have never seen the sport run and operated correctly.
So yes, these people will make their money despite themselves just like Vince McMahon.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Predictions for the 2013 Major League Baseball season
Will 2013 bring about more of the same in baseball or have we seen a changing of the guard at the top of the league? To be decided. In the mean time, here are my division and postseason predictions for this season. Yes, I alternate sometimes between city and team name.
AL East
1. Tampa Bay
2. Toronto (Wild Card)
3. Yankees
4. Orioles
5. Red Sox
AL Central
1. Detroit
2. White Sox
3. Indians
4. Royals
5. Twins
AL West
1. Angels
2. A's (Wild Card)
3. Rangers
4. Mariners
5. Astros
NL East
1. Nationals
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Mets
5. Marlins
NL Central
1. Reds
2. Cardinals (Wild Card)
3. Brewers
4. Pirates
5. Cubs
NL West
1. Giants
2. Dodgers (Wild Card)
3. Diamondbacks
4. Rockies
5. Padres
Wild Card Games:
AL: Oakland over Toronto
NL: Dodgers over Cardinals
Division Series:
AL: Winners: Detroit, Angels
NL: Winners: Reds, Giants
Championship Series:
AL: Tigers over Angels
NL: Reds over Giants
World Series:
Reds over Tigers in 5 games
Everyone seems to be predicting either Washington or Detroit for the World Series this year. As you can see, I'm going slightly different because I just don't see Washington living up to their hype in the postseason and Detroit has a recent history of getting deep in the playoffs only to not show up when it matters. Especially Justin Verlander. Best regular season pitcher in the game today, but once we get to October, the magic seems to stop and I don't see it changing this year.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...the effects, or lack thereof, of violent video games on society
I've long been a person who has screamed against people who complain that violent video games are the reason for the increase in school violence in the last 20 years. I've also screamed against people who say the same thing about TV and movies but, in the words of Alton Brown, that's another show. I've found an article that does a lot to damn the people who have this point of view. It will be posted at the end of this entry. It's an unusual stance coming from someone who identifies as liberal in their political leanings seeing as how liberals/democrats seem to be the main ones who believe this nonsense. Thankfully this seems to be changing as a recent statement by Nancy Pelosi, a democrat, indicates but there are still way too many people in power in Washington who believe such foolishness.
Why do people like to say that Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Socom, Resident Evil, Call Of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and other such games increase violence? Simple. It's the easy answer to a complex problem. Most people don't want to put some legitimate thought into this discussion and thus, actually have to work their minds so they come up with the easiest answer possible even if it's grossly incorrect. This is the work of people who don't want to work to actually solve the problem themselves but simply want to bitch and moan about it and hope society does it for them.
I have been playing the Mortal Kombat series of games since I was 8 years old. In 20 years of playing those games, I've never once attempted to, or even had the urge to, set someone on fire, pull their head off their torso with the spine attached, or pull someone's beating heart out of their chest. I've never once even had the urge to kiss a stranger just to see if they'll inflate and explode as happens in Mortal Kombat 2. Yet according to these fringe lunatics, I should've already knocked off a few dozen people. I have a close friend who has watched strong R-rated horror films loaded with gore and violence since he was 4 or 5 years old and, to my knowledge, he's never once had the urge or attempted to slice someone in half, crush their skulls, ram a machete through their chest cavity, or anything else that Freddy and Jason ever did on the screen. I myself was the only member of my 2nd grade class to have seen Terminator 2 when it was first released on VHS in 1992. I wondered then why no one else had seen this wonderful movie and it didn't occur until years later that I was the only one in the class who had parents who allowed me to watch a hard R-rated action film. On the flipside of this, I have another friend who, by his own admission, didn't see his first R-rated film of any kind until he was about 16 years old and he certainly wasn't playing any video games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, Primal Rage, Killer Instinct or any other massively popular violent game of the time period and honestly, I don't know if he would've been allowed to anyway.
Yeah, I know I said movies and TV were another show but this instance figures into my larger point.
What is that point? The point is that we had parents who raised us with a sense of right and wrong as well as a sense of fantasy and reality. Many parents these days teach their kids that the universe revolves around them and do nothing to teach them how to deal with adversity which of course means when things don't go their way, they act out. This factor, combined with how easy it is for any J6P in America to get military grade weaponry, is the biggest reason for escalated school violence.
"Violent Video Games Are Good For Society?"
http://beta.fool.com/reubengbrewer/2013/02/21/violent-video-games-are-good-for-society/25235/?source=eogyholnk0000001
Why do people like to say that Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Socom, Resident Evil, Call Of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and other such games increase violence? Simple. It's the easy answer to a complex problem. Most people don't want to put some legitimate thought into this discussion and thus, actually have to work their minds so they come up with the easiest answer possible even if it's grossly incorrect. This is the work of people who don't want to work to actually solve the problem themselves but simply want to bitch and moan about it and hope society does it for them.
I have been playing the Mortal Kombat series of games since I was 8 years old. In 20 years of playing those games, I've never once attempted to, or even had the urge to, set someone on fire, pull their head off their torso with the spine attached, or pull someone's beating heart out of their chest. I've never once even had the urge to kiss a stranger just to see if they'll inflate and explode as happens in Mortal Kombat 2. Yet according to these fringe lunatics, I should've already knocked off a few dozen people. I have a close friend who has watched strong R-rated horror films loaded with gore and violence since he was 4 or 5 years old and, to my knowledge, he's never once had the urge or attempted to slice someone in half, crush their skulls, ram a machete through their chest cavity, or anything else that Freddy and Jason ever did on the screen. I myself was the only member of my 2nd grade class to have seen Terminator 2 when it was first released on VHS in 1992. I wondered then why no one else had seen this wonderful movie and it didn't occur until years later that I was the only one in the class who had parents who allowed me to watch a hard R-rated action film. On the flipside of this, I have another friend who, by his own admission, didn't see his first R-rated film of any kind until he was about 16 years old and he certainly wasn't playing any video games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, Primal Rage, Killer Instinct or any other massively popular violent game of the time period and honestly, I don't know if he would've been allowed to anyway.
Yeah, I know I said movies and TV were another show but this instance figures into my larger point.
What is that point? The point is that we had parents who raised us with a sense of right and wrong as well as a sense of fantasy and reality. Many parents these days teach their kids that the universe revolves around them and do nothing to teach them how to deal with adversity which of course means when things don't go their way, they act out. This factor, combined with how easy it is for any J6P in America to get military grade weaponry, is the biggest reason for escalated school violence.
"Violent Video Games Are Good For Society?"
http://beta.fool.com/reubengbrewer/2013/02/21/violent-video-games-are-good-for-society/25235/?source=eogyholnk0000001
Monday, February 18, 2013
The 12th Anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's passing
The following was posted on my Facebook page on February 18, 2011; the 10th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's passing. It still pretty much sums up my thoughts, emotions and feelings about losing a childhood hero even 12 years later. There will be new thoughts at the end of the original post. In fact, I'm considering the idea of updating this post every year on this date and then re-writing it from scratch to include anything that came later for the 20th anniversary in 2021. Here is the original post as it appeared on Facebook 2 years ago warts and all.
The day of the 500 itself, February 18th, 2001, started off on a bit of a sour note as I woke up to see that longtime Braves great Eddie Matthews had died that morning. He would regrettably be forgotten in the aftermath of the events to come later that day. The broadcast began on Fox at 12 Noon that day. It was the first race Fox had ever broadcast. During the pre-race segment, they interviewed many drivers and Dale Earnhardt was among them. He finished up his interview with a quote that, like Chris' question to me earlier, meant little at the time but would later be seared into my memory. His quote was "you're gonna see something you've never seen before today on Fox."
2/18/2013 Update: I've recently been alerted to a website called The Internet Wayback Machine which is an archive of web pages going back to 1996. In looking through a few of the major sports sites, I've come across a few Earnhardt related links from that time. I have included one in particular with this blog as part of my 2013 update.
From Nascar.com, this was an article from a subsection of the website. It was published on the site, to my knowledge, the afternoon Dale died and was later moved to the tribute section. It is simply titled 2-18-01.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010331055037/http://www.nascar.com/DRIVERS/winston/DEarnhar00/tribute/02_18.html
It's very haunting to read this article again (I've not seen it since 2001 obviously) and it's even more haunting to read it as it's written which is in the present tense. It's all so fresh and vivid as though it just happened.
I'm closing the 2013 update with the lyrics from "Still The Same" by Bob Seger. This was one of 4 songs that were played during Dale's memorial service which aired a few days after Dale's death. I wish I could find the music video that was actually played on the broadcast somewhere online but I can't so I can only put the lyrics here. I have the service on tape but I haven't watched it since it aired live and I refuse to pull it out and watch it now even 12 years later.
You always won everytime you placed a bet
You're still damn good
No one's gotten to you yet
Everytime they were sure they had you caught
You were quicker than they thought
You'd just turn your back and walk
You always said
The cards would never do you wrong
The trick you said
Was never play the game too long
A gambler's share
The only risk that you would take
The only loss you could forsake
The only bluff you couldn't fake
And you're still the same
I caught up with you yesterday
Moving game to game
No one standing in your way
Turning on the charm
Long enough to get you by
You're still the same
You still aim high
There you stood
Everybody watched you play
I just turned and walked away
I had nothing left to say
'Cause you're still the same
You're still the same
Moving game to game
Some things never change
You're still the same
So who you gonna pull for when he's not racing anymore?
This is gonna be very much a free for all and may not follow a lot of structure but I've been planning this for a while and been beating myself up all day about what I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it so basically this is as raw and unpolished as it can be.
This is gonna be very much a free for all and may not follow a lot of structure but I've been planning this for a while and been beating myself up all day about what I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it so basically this is as raw and unpolished as it can be.
The question that's in the title of this note was a question posed to me on or about February 9, 2001 by a guy named Chris Stanfield in the RCHS library. We had been working on a project for class and we needed all the computers in the library for the class. Needless to say, I had other things on my mind besides school and today, I wanted to see the practice speeds that had been coming out of Daytona in preps for that year's Daytona 500. Chris was talking with me as I looked up the speeds as well as the full Daytona schedule for that week. He saw me looking specifically for Dale Sr and Dale Jr.'s practice speeds. Just making conversation he asked me was I a Sr. or Jr. fan. I explained I was a Sr. fan but I also pulled for Jr. for obvious reasons. He then out of the blue asked me what was I gonna do when Dale Sr. was no longer racing. I thought little of this, I just simply answered "I don't know. I guess I'll pull for Dale Jr." Little did I know how much of an impact that simple question would have less than 10 days later.
On February 17th, after watching the then Busch series race and the IROC race, my dad asked me who I thought would win the 500. I told him I believed Michael Waltrip would win it, Dale Jr would finish 2nd and Dale Sr. would finish 3rd. I had no evidence for this, it was just simply what came to mind at that moment.
The day of the 500 itself, February 18th, 2001, started off on a bit of a sour note as I woke up to see that longtime Braves great Eddie Matthews had died that morning. He would regrettably be forgotten in the aftermath of the events to come later that day. The broadcast began on Fox at 12 Noon that day. It was the first race Fox had ever broadcast. During the pre-race segment, they interviewed many drivers and Dale Earnhardt was among them. He finished up his interview with a quote that, like Chris' question to me earlier, meant little at the time but would later be seared into my memory. His quote was "you're gonna see something you've never seen before today on Fox."
I didn't watch much of the race itself due to Directv not carrying local channels at that time. The interviews I saw were at my grandparents house where they had basic cable which meant they got local channels. I figured I would read the results and watch highlights later and since my dad was recording it on vhs tape at my grandparents and if Dale won or anything big happened I'd watch the tape. This was up until my dad came in from playing golf around 3:30 pm. He came in the house and asked me had I seen the big wreck that happened. I asked him what he was talking about. He said there'd been a huge wreck with about 25 laps to go and that there was at least one car that flipped. I asked did Dale get through and he said he didn't know. So I went to my room, disconnected the Directv box so I could hopefully get a decent reception on Fox 8 which I managed to actually get through the antenna on the roof of the house. Much better than I usually got. Anyway, I saw the crash itself and watched as Tony Stewart flew like a leaf and 19 other cars hit each other like bumper cars in the crash that Nascar fans usually refer to as "the big one", a common occurence at the plate tracks(Daytona and Talladega). My question was soon answered as they did a rundown of the field and I saw that Dale had gotten through the crash so I was relieved.
After the race resumed, I watched the last 20 or so laps of the race and then came the white flag. Waltrip was in 1st, Dale Jr. in 2nd and Dale Sr. in 3rd, as I had predicted the day before. They come around turn 3, we see a wide shot that pans left as it follows Mikey and Jr. out of turn 4. The camera changes angles and we see in the upper right part of the screen 2 cars crashing. All I could see as to who was in it was a big white 3 and I then silently muttered some obscenity after seeing he'd crashed. But Mikey had won the race and Dale Jr. had gotten 2nd so it was a nice finish. It was Waltrip's first career win in almost 15 years of racing in the then Winston Cup series.
The camera then switches to 2 crashed cars in the grass area just out of turn 4. One of them is Dale's car and one of them is Ken Schrader's car. Schrader was then shown to walk over to Dale's drivers side to see if he was okay. He then immediately jumped back slightly and waved the paramedics over to Dale's car in an almost panic. I knew then something was really wrong. Minutes passed, no new information, simply replays of the crash. It was easy to tell by the commentator's that it wasn't good but they didn't say anything because they themselves knew nothing official at the time. More minutes passed, I told my dad that he'd crashed and I thought something was really wrong because of what I'd seen Schrader doing. I went to eat supper while watching for information about the crash and Dale's condition. After nearly 90 minutes of no new information, I knew something tragic had probably happened and I began to prepare for the worst. Finally, around 6:30 pm, after I'd gone back home, my mom called the house and told my dad that Dale was gone. It was then I flipped on the tv and saw the press conference that had taken place about 10 minutes before and Mike Helton utter those words I will never forget.
"This is undoubtedly one of the toughest announcements that I've ever personally had to make, but after the accident in turn 4 at the end of the Daytona 500, we've lost Dale Earnhardt."
I was empty. I really didn't know what to think or do. I had lost a childhood hero before in 1993 but it was unthinkable to think that it had happened a second time and to Dale Earnhardt of all people who many Nascar fans truly thought was invincible. The driver in 1993 I'm referring to is Davey Allison who died in July 1993 in a helicopter crash at age 32. But it had happened, Dale was gone and the emotion and sadness from that day has not left me, even 10 years to the day of this tragedy.
Dale Earnhardt's death was to me the biggest tragedy in Nascar history and is one that, as time has shown, the sport as a whole may never truly recover from. No sport to my knowledge has ever lost its biggest star in its biggest event of the season. I spoke to many people afterwards who said they didn't care about Nascar any more now that he was gone and that sentiment still runs today. Most fans at some point returned to being fans again but it's more or less universally agreed that it hasn't been the same and will never be the same as it was before this day, 10 years ago.
To answer Chris' question if he happens to read this, I did become a Dale Jr. fan for a while as well as a Kevin Harvick fan who was handpicked by Dale Sr. himself to be his successor. It's pretty much believed that had he not died, he would've likely retired at the end of the 2002 season when his last contract with RCR expired. I later fell out of favor with Dale Jr. and focused solely on Harvick which is where I stood until the end of the 2010 season when I left the sport altogether due to many stupid decisions made by the sport since 2004. It is also my considered opinion that if Dale were alive today, he would be truly disgusted to see what this former sport has degenerated into. Dale was also known to be a voice of reason among the drivers and the brass at Nascar as a whole and I truly believe that so many awful decisions that have been made in the last decade of Nascar would've never been made if Dale Earnhardt were still alive.
As we move forward in time and Dale Earnhardt becomes even more of a name and a legend in time, his death will be felt by Nascar as long as it manages to exist and the results will not be pretty. I truly believe that Nascar will continue to tumble in the eyes of American sports fans as well as racing fans altogether. Ratings and attendance at the tracks(save for the major races) have tumbled, and because of this, it's entirely possible that by 2020 maybe 2025, Nascar may not be around any more. If by then Nascar still exists, it may no longer be on television and will be seen in the same vein as pro wrestling is seen in the US which is how many traditional Nascar fans see the sport today. When I say it will be seen like pro wrestling, I mean that it will be seen as a show and simply entertainment rather than a legitimate sport and legitimate competition which as I said is how many traditional fans view what the sport has become already. In the 10 years since his death, Nascar has gone from being second only to the NFL in terms of popularity and the fastest rising spectator sport on the planet, to being the butt of a joke and being one of the few cases in history where a sports own leadership purposely angered and ran off its core fan base over a period of a few years.
Nascar could've survived and even thrived in the post-Dale Earnhardt era but in 2004, it all changed forever and the decline that began with Dale Earnhardt's death went into overdrive and the sport continues on a downward spiral to this day that can only end with either major changes in leadership or with the sport folding and since there is no one around that seems to have the pull or the voice of reason Dale Earnhardt had with the Nascar brass, the sport simply cannot and will not be saved.
It will probably never be proven decisively if my beliefs are true, but I will go to my grave believing that Dale Earnhardt's death was the beginning of the end for Nascar as a sport.
From Nascar.com, this was an article from a subsection of the website. It was published on the site, to my knowledge, the afternoon Dale died and was later moved to the tribute section. It is simply titled 2-18-01.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010331055037/http://www.nascar.com/DRIVERS/winston/DEarnhar00/tribute/02_18.html
It's very haunting to read this article again (I've not seen it since 2001 obviously) and it's even more haunting to read it as it's written which is in the present tense. It's all so fresh and vivid as though it just happened.
I'm closing the 2013 update with the lyrics from "Still The Same" by Bob Seger. This was one of 4 songs that were played during Dale's memorial service which aired a few days after Dale's death. I wish I could find the music video that was actually played on the broadcast somewhere online but I can't so I can only put the lyrics here. I have the service on tape but I haven't watched it since it aired live and I refuse to pull it out and watch it now even 12 years later.
You always won everytime you placed a bet
You're still damn good
No one's gotten to you yet
Everytime they were sure they had you caught
You were quicker than they thought
You'd just turn your back and walk
You always said
The cards would never do you wrong
The trick you said
Was never play the game too long
A gambler's share
The only risk that you would take
The only loss you could forsake
The only bluff you couldn't fake
And you're still the same
I caught up with you yesterday
Moving game to game
No one standing in your way
Turning on the charm
Long enough to get you by
You're still the same
You still aim high
There you stood
Everybody watched you play
I just turned and walked away
I had nothing left to say
'Cause you're still the same
You're still the same
Moving game to game
Some things never change
You're still the same
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A Few Thoughts On the upcoming 2013 MLB Season
A Few Thoughts On is a new series that I will be starting which will be shorter blog posts than my usual fare. The name is borrowed from Robert A. Harris who posts an excellent column in the Blu-Ray section of the Home Theater Forum called "A Few Words About." I hope to make this at least a bi-weekly segment on the blog. Our first topic deals with the upcoming 2013 baseball season.
I just saw the early World Series predictions and I have to ask why everyone seems to think Toronto is a lock for the AL Pennant. Granted they're likely to win the AL East because it will be filled with a lot of relative mediocrity this year but honestly, I see the Yankees, Baltimore and Tampa Bay as being capable of winning that division. Let's not forget other teams outside the AL East like Detroit and Anaheim. You can also bet there will be a surprise team from the AL as there usually is such as Oakland and Baltimore were last year. I believe Detroit and Anaheim(sorry, I feel stupid calling them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) are far more likely to get to the World Series than Toronto is this year. Detroit in particular because they will be playing with a sense of revenge on their minds after their embarrassing effort in the 2012 World Series.
I'm not saying Toronto won't make the World Series but I am saying there have been many "super-teams" in the past who have fallen flat on their faces. My honest prediction for Toronto is that they will win between 89 and 95 games this year and will at least make the playoffs as a Wild Card team. Of course this doesn't take into account the possible powerhouse NL teams that they could meet in the World Series such as Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco and if all comes together, I'll even throw Atlanta into that group as well. Other than Atlanta, all of whom I think are superior to Toronto and as I said, Atlanta may be added to that list later.
I will release my full MLB predictions for 2013 as we get closer to the season. Probably towards the end of March.
I just saw the early World Series predictions and I have to ask why everyone seems to think Toronto is a lock for the AL Pennant. Granted they're likely to win the AL East because it will be filled with a lot of relative mediocrity this year but honestly, I see the Yankees, Baltimore and Tampa Bay as being capable of winning that division. Let's not forget other teams outside the AL East like Detroit and Anaheim. You can also bet there will be a surprise team from the AL as there usually is such as Oakland and Baltimore were last year. I believe Detroit and Anaheim(sorry, I feel stupid calling them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) are far more likely to get to the World Series than Toronto is this year. Detroit in particular because they will be playing with a sense of revenge on their minds after their embarrassing effort in the 2012 World Series.
I'm not saying Toronto won't make the World Series but I am saying there have been many "super-teams" in the past who have fallen flat on their faces. My honest prediction for Toronto is that they will win between 89 and 95 games this year and will at least make the playoffs as a Wild Card team. Of course this doesn't take into account the possible powerhouse NL teams that they could meet in the World Series such as Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco and if all comes together, I'll even throw Atlanta into that group as well. Other than Atlanta, all of whom I think are superior to Toronto and as I said, Atlanta may be added to that list later.
I will release my full MLB predictions for 2013 as we get closer to the season. Probably towards the end of March.
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