Movie Review: Wreck It Ralph

Video gaming has been a part of our culture for decades.  The idea of what happens when the games are turned off is very similar to the premise of Toy Story; when the owner is away, the toys will play.  In a somewhat unoriginal vein, Wreck It Ralph follows the main antagonist of Felix Fix It game as he realises that everyone in his game hates him and he doesn’t like being disliked.  When the game hits its thirtieth anniversary, the situation becomes increasingly frustrating for Ralph and he leaves his game to obtain a medal to prove he isn’t a bad guy.

On his way to his medal, won in a first-person shooter style game, like Halo, Ralph obtains his medal, but accidentally shoots out of the hero game to a candy racing game.  In the candy racing game, he encounters Vanellope von Schweetz.  She spots his medal and takes it as her own, planning on using it to enter the race in her game.  Running off with the medal, Ralph is forced to chase her down and ends up embroiled in the situation in her racing game.  While Ralph has run out of his game, this forces Felix to find him and he meets Sergeant Calhoun, who is also after Ralph and an alien he may have assisted in leaving the hero game.

What transpires after this is hilarious and creates some very amusing sequences.  The most notable for me were the cameo’s from other games, like Cubert and Street Fighter.  Ralph was a likable villain, his desire to be accepted perfectly reasonable.  The story with Vanellope was also sweet, befriending each other, both outcasts and finding a common ground.  As kids movies go, this one was as good as Despicable Me, but not better.  I haven’t loved the Pixar movies of late, so I’d argue this is better.  The fact that I am a gamer does sway my opinion.

The cast was, unsurprisingly, amazing.  Everyone was believable and the voices matched the characters well.  I didn’t recognise everyone as I watched, but in some ways, that means I wasn’t distracted by it.  Without spoiling the ending completely, this was a very well told story and well worth watching.

What Happens in the Little Charmander’s Room Should Stay in the Little Charmander’s Room

For those of you that don’t know, I don’t like to use normal words, so let this be the first in what should be a series of entries about the sub-language of created, which requires a Lexicon to understand.  ‘Little Charmander’s Room’ refers to the bathroom.  I don’t think this one needs more explanation, but if you require one, and can get the comments to work, have at it!

So, what is proper restroom etiquette?  I went into the bathroom, to use it obviously, and someone was crying in the stall.  There are only two stalls in the bathroom.  I just beat feet as soon as I could, and commented to my male co-worker that he’s probably never dealt with such a thing, which of course, he hadn’t.  I realise where else would you go, besides your car, to cry in quiet, but if someone does go there, it isn’t to be comforted by some stranger, right?

I have no idea.  But I thought I’d include, for my sister to send to her Met Life rep, the pics of my office from a couple years back with all those Snoopys in it.  Enjoy!

Also – here’s a link to my Video Game Blog – which I update almost daily.

Title-Town, not for Chicago or DC

I stayed up to watch the end of the Heat/Bulls game last night and it was well worth it.  Throughout the series, Derrick Rose, the MVP of the league and Chicago’s only actual player has had the weight on his shoulders.  He was no match for Dwayne Wade or Lebron James, sorry Chris Bosh, one good game does not a superstar make.  However, it seemed eerily familiar, like the Lightning/Capitals series, one good player, Ovechkin against a team that was stacked with stars.

Statistically, Ovechkin and Rose are very similar, great defence, better offence.  Also similar, they attract some talent, but since the team is ‘theirs’ what’s the likelihood another star would really want to come and play.  The Pittsburgh Penguins were lucky to get both Evegni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, already acquiring one championship; the same can be said, however prematurely, about the Miami Heat.  Bring in great players, who understand the compromise they must make, and the winning will come. 

Chicago has the same problem that Washington has, one great player, and no one to stand by that player.  As with Alex Ovechkin, the captain did all he could, but he wasn’t on the ice for a full 60 minutes, the same can be said about Derrick Rose.  He can only play so many minutes before the lack of talent and killer instinct of other players catches up to the team.

This is another reason that hockey, basketball and baseball are fairer in their playoffs than football.  If someone is having a bad day, in football, one game and you’re done.  In the other three, one bad game and you have at least three more games to fix the mistake.  But with both Rose and Oveckhin, even ten games wouldn’t be enough to help them.

Now the game is set for the NBA Finals: my Dallas Mavericks are playing the Miami Heat.  I’m sad to point out that the Mavs lost to the Heat in the 2006 Finals, so this is a rematch.  In the pivotal Game 3 of that series, Dwayne Wade was gifted 40 free throws (fouls against the Mavs) and this turned the series completely around.  I am hoping and praying that the Mavs can keep pace, but what I saw in the last week from the Heat is a little concerning.  I think this is a much more even game than people are giving them credit for, but only time will tell.  Tip-off is Tuesday night in Miami.  Tonight we have Game 7 between the Lightning and the Bruins, which I will try to watch, but have been playing LA Noire like crazy, and can see that getting distracting again.  We’ll see.  I’m predicting the Lightning to win in regulation. 

Next post, look for something I’ve been thinking about and should start putting pen to paper on about a popular series that is coming to a close.

Real or Make Believe?

I spend a good amount of my timing gaming, as one might expect based on the posts I make.  But whenever I get really lost in a game, it reminds me of ‘The Illustrated Man’ by Ray Bradbury, and a short-story found within, called ‘The Veldt.’  It is safe to say that I’ll be spoiling the ending of the short story. 

In the story, the main characters, the adults, are concerned after their children, who have fallen into some sort of fantasy world after the parents bought a virtual system that controls everything in the house.  The parents seek advice from a medical professional and he advises that they turn the system off immediately and leave the house for good.  As you may expect, once this news is broken to the children, they are less than pleased and convince their parents to stay just a little while longer.  When the parents go to investigate what is taking so long, they realise the children have turned the system on and have turned it into Africa.  The story comes full tilt when the parents realise that the strange noises they’ve been hearing are screams from people being killed by the virtual system in place, as the kids have activated it to have lions appearing and devouring anyone who passes through the virtual system except them.

An extreme example, I know, but it does beg the question, at what point are people so completely engaged in a game, or virtual world, that they can’t break away?  Recent legislation about video games seems to always trend towards curbing the most violent games away, but is that really what should be controlled?  I think you could argue that the 3DS and the evolution of 3D gaming could begin to bring the concept from the referenced short story to life.

As each new technological advance comes to the gaming world, new doors are opened and technology stretches the limits of what we can handle.  It started simply enough with a joystick and a fire button and has evolved to a controller that has a multitude of buttons and combinations of said buttons.  The boundaries continue to be challenged.  At first games were just displayed on regular TVs, now, games are designed for either hand-held devices or HD TVs, challenging the way the games are both designed and viewed.  It isn’t any wonder that people are finding themselves more and more likely to be pulled into a game and unable to turn it off.

How many times have you said, or overheard, the words, ‘I didn’t realise how late/early it was, I was so into my game.’  This is a by-product of the gaming industry creating games that are impossible to turn away from.  The gaming industry is embarking on another horizon, breaking free from 2D representations of games to 3D representations of games and continuing to forge forward.  But is there any responsibility for this?  Should there be parameters around how much further gaming should go?

Most creators never see a limit to anything they create, but an opportunity to expand, and a consequence of that is not having the foresight to stop, sometimes, and think about what effect this will have on those using your creation.  In the scope of video games, we all enjoy being a ‘different’ person and being able to do things that defy logic or physics, but most would also realise that those things can’t be done in the real world.  But as the next wall is broken, once games begin to be fully interactive, at what point does the gamer realise that he/she are in a game at all?

The point is illustrated much better in the short story by Ray Bradbury, and it is an extreme example, I agree, but that doesn’t mean it lacks merit.  Virtual gaming is on the horizon and even now my PS3, though not my XBOX 360 sometimes recommend that I take a break.  But if a gamer is so heavily involved in a game, would a passive warning really get their attention?  More and more I think that games are both amazing and dangerous.  It isn’t the content that worries me, but the detachment to reality.  The onus is truly on the responsible gamers and gaming companies to make the right choices, which may not always be either the most popular or profitable choices.

Crazy Conservatives

I’ll start this off my assuring everyone I did not splurge on anything.  But I think I controlled myself since I know there are credit card bills coming. 

I am an avid gamer, as some of you may know, and read this article on Gamespot.  It talks about a video game that Fox new is slamming.  Oh yes, the always even-keeled and open-minded Fox news.  What a joke.  These people make stuff up and you can see some really creative editing in the article.  Though, as someone else pointed out, by clicking the link, you’re doing exactly what Fox news wants you to, generate traffic to their site, so do try to refrain from digging further, if you can.

Basically, Fox says that the game could be permanently harmful to children if they play it.  Well, guess what, there’s this thing called parents and maybe they should tell their children not to play it, if it’s so bad.  Or maybe the retailers should do some control.  When I go to Best Buy or Toys R Us, I always get carded.  And despite what I might think, I am sure I look like I’m well over eighteen.

This is such garbage.  If you don’t want kids to be exposed to something, they there needs to be a control for that.  The answer is not always censorship.  Gamespot goes so far as to prove, with statistics, that the claims made by the article are utterly untrue.  I’d argue that there is a negligible connexion between violence in video games and actual violence.  I’d argue that parents do more damage when they act badly in front of a child than when they see it on something else.  I think it is a far reach to say using a bad word and then doing something awful are at all linked.  It is completely ludicrous.

When I was a kid, I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Did I run around wearing a bandana and fighting crime?  No, not so much.  I did take karate classes and learn the art, a bit, but I didn’t go off the deep end.  Why?  Because my parents had controls in place, since I was a kid, that it would not be tolerated.

I think all these conservative types need to get with it and open their minds instead of their mouths.  Get of your @$$ and do some parenting.  Yes, there shouldn’t be any need to play games like the one described, but it is a person’s God given right to play/buy it and who are any of us to put controls on other’s rights.  Man, I wish I’d read this before doing my blog post over at Gamespot today…ah well, maybe tomorrow.

Turn that Frown Upside-Down

When I get down, my usual upswing is to spend money.  I have to get something tangible, like season tickets to a local team, which I’ve done twice now, or find something online I think I need.  Lately, and looking over my financials, I’ve realised this isn’t the appropriate way to go.

I spend a lot of time thinking about gaming, thank you Gamespot.  I’ve gone so far as to create an account and update the blog related to it on a regular basis.  Blogging can also be addicting, in case you didn’t know.  But video games are really starting to become my escape from the world.  The only downside is I have too many scary games in the queue and can’t play those at night, I get scared.

I do get a thrill when I make money.  I spend a good amount of time on ebay and have been selling things decently.  With my newly acquired Washington Nationals tickets, I anticipate some solid sales.  They had a buy two get two free deal for tickets, so I got four seats for the price of two.  Moving them could be an issue, but I think I’ve worked out a solid price structure: $45 for two, or $80 for four.  This way I am more likely to sell the four seats together, since it’s less money.  The other key to these seats is that they are a lot less expensive than the Washington Capitals tickets I have.  The retail on those is close to $350 for the pair, granted, they are VIP seats, but still.

This is the sort of thing that excites me.  I have work, real work, that I could be doing, but I find myself wholly uninterested.  I may have started off on the wrong foot here, but I need to right the ship, sooner rather than later.  I continue that expedition on another blog.