The GameCube is, for me, the best video games console of all time. Maybe it's because I grew up with it and was never off it, but one thing is for sure, I prefer it over every other console. But the GameCube didn't sell as well as Nintendo thought it would. This could be for a number of reasons, lack of disc space, the competition with Sony and Microsoft or maybe, just maybe, it was the launch titles.
NES launched with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt.
SNES launched with Super Mario Land, Pilotwings and so on.
N64 launched with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64.
The GameCube changed things up a bit, three games launched with the system. One being Super Monkey Ball, another being Wave Race: Blue Storm. The final, was Luigi's Mansion. This was the first Nintendo console to launch without a traditional Mario platformer. But why the change? Was it to give the Mean Green Machine the LIMElight (See what I did there? No, oh...)
But would the Nintendo GameCube have sold better with, say, Super Mario Sunshine at launch? In my opinion, no, it wouldn't have. The biggest reason for this was because the Playstation 2 was also released. The original Playstation was critically acclaimed and millions were waiting for the arrival of the next gen console. Also, Microsoft entered the gaming market with it's Xbox, so competing with those two behemoth companies would be pretty difficult, especially with the exclusive games coming onto the Xbox like the new Oddworld. Not to mention the PS1 was an RPG buff, so people were expecting more RPG's for the Playstation 2.
So, in short, the GameCube wouldn't have sold better with a Mario launch title because of lack of space on the discs and other competitors such as Sony dominating the market.
Sunday 14 September 2014
Saturday 6 September 2014
Why Is The Movie Coraline So Disturbing?
Just a quick note:
SPOILER ALERT
I was watching E4 as they had their usual How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory episodes on, then I saw that Coraline was on afterwards. So I thought to myself, "I'm a big movie fan, you could even consider me a movie buff and I haven't seen Coraline before. Let's see what it's like."
My GOD it's disturbing. I like the style of animation, very Nightmare Before Christmas-y and it's lovely and I could go on but you get the idea. The opening scene made me think it was a different movie, I was genuinely freaked out by it, when the doll is getting pulled apart, stuffed and so on. So the movie goes on and she finds the door. The door is basically what I'm calling Limbo, the other side is literally the opposite of everything. Where her mother has time for her and her dad doesn't look like he spilt a bottle of mascara on each eye.
Seems ordinary, apart from everyone's eyes are sown shut and are buttons...
This movie. Makes buttons. Look scary. I feel slightly afraid to put any of my shirts on now, only problem is that's all I have to wear, because I only wear the richest and finest clothes as I'm eating my Lobster on my patio, with a glass of the finest red wine.
But it turns out the mother wants to sow up Coraline's eyes. You get the subtle hints, when the show Coraline see's is over, the mother stands at the door, points to her friend (name escapes me) and points to her mouth, giving her the most grimacing smile, ever. Afterwards, things start getting weird immediately. She sits down at the table and she gets a gift! Hooray! What could it be? Perfume, clothes, buttons-it's buttons. Two black buttons and a needle.
It gets even MORE disturbing when the father is playing the piano, the gloves come out and keep forcing him to face the piano, playing and playing. This film is starting to creep me out, but it can't get any creepi-it turns out everyone has been stuffed by the mother and is being controlled by her. The cat shows this by biting one of the circus mice, which makes the grains fall out of it, turning it into a rat. But, if the rats were stuffed, were the people stuffed as well? Like, the father, was he stuffed? Some poor bloke got killed, emptied, turned inside out and buttoned up to live in this creepy fantasy.
The mother turns into a giant spider, thing and runs after Coraline. That's when I drew the line. Mostly because the face and the ghost children were creeping me the hell out. So I did a bit more searching and this damn movie. It's somehow a PG film. I'm serious, the ghosts in that thing are the creepiest things I've seen, One of them has their mouth permanently hung open and starts FLOATING towards the screen. I can only imagine what the 3D on this movie would have been like if they did put it in 3D.
The movie thinks it's a good idea to keep zooming in on the gho- more creepy stuff follows. Honestly worse than the ghosts. His mouth was stitched up, permanently. Just like The Joker. I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie, mostly because it's still on and I haven't seen the ending yet, but I honestly recommend this over a lot of horror movies today, because this is seriously creepy.
Just, keep away from the cupboards.
SPOILER ALERT
I was watching E4 as they had their usual How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory episodes on, then I saw that Coraline was on afterwards. So I thought to myself, "I'm a big movie fan, you could even consider me a movie buff and I haven't seen Coraline before. Let's see what it's like."
My GOD it's disturbing. I like the style of animation, very Nightmare Before Christmas-y and it's lovely and I could go on but you get the idea. The opening scene made me think it was a different movie, I was genuinely freaked out by it, when the doll is getting pulled apart, stuffed and so on. So the movie goes on and she finds the door. The door is basically what I'm calling Limbo, the other side is literally the opposite of everything. Where her mother has time for her and her dad doesn't look like he spilt a bottle of mascara on each eye.
Seems ordinary, apart from everyone's eyes are sown shut and are buttons...
This movie. Makes buttons. Look scary. I feel slightly afraid to put any of my shirts on now, only problem is that's all I have to wear, because I only wear the richest and finest clothes as I'm eating my Lobster on my patio, with a glass of the finest red wine.
But it turns out the mother wants to sow up Coraline's eyes. You get the subtle hints, when the show Coraline see's is over, the mother stands at the door, points to her friend (name escapes me) and points to her mouth, giving her the most grimacing smile, ever. Afterwards, things start getting weird immediately. She sits down at the table and she gets a gift! Hooray! What could it be? Perfume, clothes, buttons-it's buttons. Two black buttons and a needle.
It gets even MORE disturbing when the father is playing the piano, the gloves come out and keep forcing him to face the piano, playing and playing. This film is starting to creep me out, but it can't get any creepi-it turns out everyone has been stuffed by the mother and is being controlled by her. The cat shows this by biting one of the circus mice, which makes the grains fall out of it, turning it into a rat. But, if the rats were stuffed, were the people stuffed as well? Like, the father, was he stuffed? Some poor bloke got killed, emptied, turned inside out and buttoned up to live in this creepy fantasy.
The mother turns into a giant spider, thing and runs after Coraline. That's when I drew the line. Mostly because the face and the ghost children were creeping me the hell out. So I did a bit more searching and this damn movie. It's somehow a PG film. I'm serious, the ghosts in that thing are the creepiest things I've seen, One of them has their mouth permanently hung open and starts FLOATING towards the screen. I can only imagine what the 3D on this movie would have been like if they did put it in 3D.
The movie thinks it's a good idea to keep zooming in on the gho- more creepy stuff follows. Honestly worse than the ghosts. His mouth was stitched up, permanently. Just like The Joker. I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie, mostly because it's still on and I haven't seen the ending yet, but I honestly recommend this over a lot of horror movies today, because this is seriously creepy.
Just, keep away from the cupboards.
Wednesday 3 September 2014
Is It Worth Watching: The IT Crowd
The two frequent readers of my blog will probably know I enjoy games, books, movies, music etc...
But, please remember like always.
SPOILER ALERT
I especially like comedy, it's my favourite thing, especially when I actually wanted to become a stand up comedian for a few years. More of my humour is based on sarcasm, much like The IT Crowd.
The IT Crowd takes place in the basement of Reynholm Industries. A business that sells...well, we don't know. The basement is home to the industries IT Technicians Maurice Moss and Roy Trenneman. New employee Jen Barber is made the Relationship Manager of the Tech Support Team after she is hired by Denholm Reynholm.
I should just note that the casting for this is absolutely brilliant. You have Richard Ayoade, who is a geek in reality. Chris O'Dowd, who's sarcasm is some of the finest quality, almost as good as mine. Jen Barber is played by Katherine Parkinson, who is well known for her role in this show, along with Doc Martin and voicing some of the Worms Games. The final main cast member I'd like to talk about is Matt Berry. He plays Douglas Reynholm, son of Denholm. I have to say, Matt Berry's voice is absolutely amazing. I'll leave a link to a video displaying his best voices,
Anyways, I'm not going to spoil anything too major but I will spoil this:
None of the episodes link together, They do make little nods to each other, but the previous episodes never have any consequences. For example, Moss and Roy get arrested, next episode they're acting as if nothing happened. Scrubs however, my favourite show of all time and I adore it dearly, links each episode together seamlessly. I worship Scrubs for doing this but shun other shows like The Big Bang Theory for not linking them together. Don't get me wrong, they have a plot, but it's loosely threaded.
Another thing I don't like about the show is the character Richmond. He seems unnecessary and breaks the flow of the story. It doesn't help that I'm not the biggest fan of Noel Fielding's comedy as I find he just doesn't flow through it as good as others such as Frankie Boyle, Michael McIntyre and Russel Howard.
But, the question remains.
Is it worth watching?
Yes.
Matt Berry's Voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNc0ErvirBE
But, please remember like always.
SPOILER ALERT
I especially like comedy, it's my favourite thing, especially when I actually wanted to become a stand up comedian for a few years. More of my humour is based on sarcasm, much like The IT Crowd.
The IT Crowd takes place in the basement of Reynholm Industries. A business that sells...well, we don't know. The basement is home to the industries IT Technicians Maurice Moss and Roy Trenneman. New employee Jen Barber is made the Relationship Manager of the Tech Support Team after she is hired by Denholm Reynholm.
I should just note that the casting for this is absolutely brilliant. You have Richard Ayoade, who is a geek in reality. Chris O'Dowd, who's sarcasm is some of the finest quality, almost as good as mine. Jen Barber is played by Katherine Parkinson, who is well known for her role in this show, along with Doc Martin and voicing some of the Worms Games. The final main cast member I'd like to talk about is Matt Berry. He plays Douglas Reynholm, son of Denholm. I have to say, Matt Berry's voice is absolutely amazing. I'll leave a link to a video displaying his best voices,
Anyways, I'm not going to spoil anything too major but I will spoil this:
None of the episodes link together, They do make little nods to each other, but the previous episodes never have any consequences. For example, Moss and Roy get arrested, next episode they're acting as if nothing happened. Scrubs however, my favourite show of all time and I adore it dearly, links each episode together seamlessly. I worship Scrubs for doing this but shun other shows like The Big Bang Theory for not linking them together. Don't get me wrong, they have a plot, but it's loosely threaded.
Another thing I don't like about the show is the character Richmond. He seems unnecessary and breaks the flow of the story. It doesn't help that I'm not the biggest fan of Noel Fielding's comedy as I find he just doesn't flow through it as good as others such as Frankie Boyle, Michael McIntyre and Russel Howard.
But, the question remains.
Is it worth watching?
Yes.
Matt Berry's Voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNc0ErvirBE
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