You may recall that one month ago I devoted some space on this blog to making fun of a political ad. Now that the elections are over, it turns out that the candidate I was belittling lost the election. He was also the only republican candidate on the ballot that didn’t win in an election marked by lots of republican turnout in an already conservative-leaning county. (But how much difference could party affiliation really make when it comes to sheriffing?)

I’d like to think that this blog has enough influence among Cabarrus county voters to have single-handedly cost him the election. He lost by 6965 votes, meaning that I would have to have convinced 3483 people to change their vote in order to cost him the election. (Neglecting of course the possibility that I changed someone’s decision whether or not to vote.) So... I guess I probably didn’t have anything to do with it.

_{(Incidentally, I actually voted for him myself. Oh well.)}

Over the years, I have reduced pretty significantly the number of reviews that I post on this blog. Mainly, this is because I don’t think I’m particularly good at reviewing things, and there are certainly plenty of people who are far better at it than me. But a few people have asked me specifically about Metroid: Other M, so here goes.

Metroid: Other M is my least favorite Metroid game.

I take that back, Metroid Prime: Hunters still holds that distinction. But I don’t really consider Hunters a Metroid proper, if you will. I think of it more as a side project that is only slightly more Metroid-y than Metroid Prime Pinball.

But back to Other M. The writing in the game is as bad as the writing in the title. (I’m still not even sure who or what the “other M” actually is.) They made Samus into a weak, emotionally fragile two-year-old in an adult’s body. I mean, we’re talking about intergalactic bounty hunter Samus frickin’ Aran here! After everything she’s been through, you’re going to tell me she takes orders from people? That she ever hesitates when she has a shot at a bad guy?

Also, cutscenes with the cybersuit on? She can make some or all of her suit dissolve at will, so why not at least take the helmet off during cut scenes when there is no danger? It looks ridiculous, like if you saw Tom Brady walking around Wal-Mart in full football uniform—cleats, pads, and helmet. It also makes it so you usually can’t tell if Samus’s lips are moving, so you don’t know if what she’s saying is dialog or internal monologue (she narrates her thoughts throughout, sometimes even in the middle of a conversation with other people).

I’ve heard the combat praised, but it seemed to mainly consist of running around waiting for your charge beam to charge, while constantly tapping the d-pad (tapping the d-pad when an enemy attacks will dodge the attack). I get the feeling that Team Ninja originally wanted it to be more difficult, but Nintendo told them to scale it back a notch. (These are the people who made the notoriously difficult Ninja Gaiden, after all.)

The game also eliminates most of the sense of exploration by telling you exactly where you must go, and locking the doors that don’t lead that way. To make it worse, it feels like there is a boss or miniboss about every fourth room. It’s not until the very end of the game that the doors are actually unlocked and you are free to explore. Sorry, Team Ninja, but that’s just not Metroid.

The departure from the series that annoyed me the most, however, was something seemingly minor that I didn’t see discussed in any reviews: enemies do not drop energy pellets. It is especially annoying early on, when you don’t have much health and some enemies can take over half your energy in one hit. You have a checkpoint at every boss or miniboss, and if you die you start over right there, so it’s not that big of a deal. But I’d prefer shooting little enemies or projectiles during the boss battle to pick up extra energy, rather than dying and starting over.

All that being said, it’s not a bad game. It’s just not that good either.

Disclaimer: I am someone with the Metroid item collect music as my ringtone. I may be teh bias.

You may recall seeing this photo of a 2.5 L Coca-Cola bottle that I took in Mexico about six months ago:

You may even recall my caption: Why don’t they make the two-liter bottles look like this in America?

Well, now they do.  So I can say I CALLED IT!  Cue the balloons and ticker tape!

The big controversy in the local news today is that Concord Mills Mall (which Wikipedia says Charlotte Business Journal says is the state’s largest tourist attraction) has decided not to renew the lease on Free Market Warrior, a kiosk that sold conservative and anti-Obama bumper stickers and t-shirts.  I’ve never actually seen the kiosk in question, since I avoid the mall whenever I can.  But I checked out their website after hearing about it on the radio this morning, with the intention of making a blog post saying something to the effect of “Look, of course you’re going to get kicked out of the mall if you sell this and this and this.”  But I can’t find anything that really seems that bad.  The site has two different lists of items they were told not to sell.  I’m not sure which is canonical.  In either case, I know I’ve seen anti-Bush bumper stickers that were just as bad (though I don’t know if they were ever sold in the mall), and you can find much more offensive (though non-political) stuff at HotTopic.  Maybe the fact that it’s a kiosk and you see it just by walking by, instead of having to go into a store, has something to do with it?  I don’t know, I’m not a mallologist.

Oh well.  I guess all I’m saying is that I don’t think they deserved to be kicked out of the mall, based on the items I see on their website.

I received an e-mail forward today that contained something I felt had to be pointed out.  So I took a screenshot and added an annotation.  See if you can find it.

This is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/hot_new_video_game_consists

It’s a satirical news story from The Onion, about a video game called “Close Range.”  I would summarize it more, but I think it’ll be funnier for you if I don’t.

Over the weekend I finished playing through Assassin’s Creed, and I felt compelled to say a little something about it here.  The game was very polarizing to reviewers when it came out last year—most either really liked it or really hated it.  Those who hated it said it was incredibly repetitive.  Gabe said on Penny Arcade that if you were playing it like you were trying to complete it as fast as possible (like a reviewer on a deadline), you would hate it.  All that said, I really liked the game.  It took me over two months to complete it, but that is because I didn’t play it continuously.

Two things I want to discuss.  First, I’m surprised the game wasn’t more controversial.  It is set in Crusades-era middle east, and one of the subtasks is to assassinate various Templars who are stationed around the game world.  Which is to say (if you want to exaggerate and misrepresent), you must kill the Christians to gain experience.  Add to that the fact that many of the assassination targets are Muslims (who aren’t known for being open-minded to such things), and it seems like something that would have gotten more attention from the Jack Thompsons of the world.  I guess Ubisoft was afraid of that too, because there is a disclaimer everytime the game is started, saying something to the effect of “this game was developed by a diverse group representing different religious faiths.”  But I guess either it worked or people just didn’t notice the game, because I never heard of any controversy.

Point the second:  the ending to the game was dumb.  Spoiler etiquette prevents me from discussing it, but it was bad.  In fact, to call it an ending would be to imply that there was some type of conclusion.  It would be more accurately called “the thing that happened before the credits abruptly started playing.”  I think they want me to be intrigued and eagerly anticipate a sequel.  I’d like to play a sequel, but not because of the way the game ended stopped.

Sometimes I wish that I had a really crappy car.  ‘Why?’ you ask?  Because then when someone is tailgating me, particularly when I am already going 5-9 mph over the speed limit and there is a perfectly good lane to my left not being used, I could just slam on the brakes so that they would hit me.  After all, it would be their fault (who’s to say I didn’t see a deer about to run out onto the highway?).  They would learn the hard way not to tailgate, their insurance would go up, and they’d get a ticket.  Maybe they’d even be over the legal blood-alcohol limit and spend the night in jail.  Jackpot.  As for me, I’d just be out a crappy car that I didn’t care about to begin with.  I guess if I did it too many times the police or insurance companies might catch on.  Oh well, it’s not like I’d actually do that.  I’d probably react much more passive-aggressively.  Perhaps by writing a blog post about the tailgating incident.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s Count von Count from Sesame Street, singing a song in which the word “count” has been bleeped out, with hilarious results.  (The video’s pretty old—maybe everyone has already seen this and they just forgot to tell me about it.)

While scanning through my junk mail folder in Gmail, I noticed a new spam tactic: directly insulting the reader.

I’m curious if this is effective.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever read mail that is obviously spam nowadays, but these people must be making money somehow or they’d stop sending this stuff.  My guess is that anything which stands out is likely to be effective in piquing readers’ curiosity, much like the “I love you” e-mail virus from several years ago.  But only if other spammers don’t copy the tactic.