Metropolis Community

Anyone looking to sell a 3DS? I will buy a black one from you for 10,000yen if it’s in decent condition! Here is my Metropolis ad: http://bit.ly/pPCxSZ Cheers!

”Super 8” opened in Japan last weekend, a really good sci-fi story written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. It reminded me a lot of such early Spielberg-related movies as ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” ”E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” ”Goonies,” and ”Batteries not Included,” but mixed with ”Cloverfield” (which was produced by J.J. Abrams). It had a really nice nostalgic feel to it with the characters, who were all great. I highly recommend this film, a good story, visually exciting, and funny to boot. A great watch.

@guilhem @justterrible As ye may have already heard, the bad news is Marvel has announced that they’ll soon be killing off Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, at the hands of the Green Goblin. The good news is, it’s the Ultimate version of Spider-Man that’s getting the axe, and this won’t affect the mainstream Marvel Universe Peter Parker/Spider-Man appearing in the original ”Amazing Spider-Man” comics.

I can’t say this is totally unexpected. As of late, Marvel has been trying to really differentiate their Ultimate Marvel Universe from the mainstream Marvel Universe by doing things in the former that they can’t do in the latter, such as killing off a lot of their most iconic characters to make room for newer versions. The ”Ultimatum” storyline alone from a couple years ago itself killed off such major heroes as Professor X, Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Nightcrawler, Angel, Scarlet Witch, Hank Pym, Wasp, Doctor Strange, Dazzler, and Longshot, as well as the villains Doctor Doom, Magneto, and Blob. Other Major Ultimate Marvel Universe characters that have been killed off over the years as well include Daredevil, Gambit, Bishop, Doctor Octopus, and Juggernaut.

From what Marvel’s hinting at, as with some of the other characters in the Ultimate Marvel Universe that have been killed off, there will likely be a new Ultimate Spider-Man to rise up in the future to take Peter Parker’s place.

@guilhem Rented a few DVDs this weekend and last.

”The Expendables” and ”Machete” were both great action movies which made me miss those good ol’ days of wanton violence involving anti-heroes taking down the bad guys. I especially loved Machete for it’s comedy. Robert Rodriguez has been one of my top favorite directors for a while. Actor Danny Trejo was just perfect for the role, and I’m surprised that he’s now 67 and Machete was his first actual starring role. I’m pleased to hear two more sequels are already being planned. And as for ”The Expendables,” the only thing I would have wished for were bigger roles for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis rather than just cameos, and if Steven Segal and Jean-Claude Van Damme could have been fit in somewhere it would have been all the more epic.

Disney’s ”TRON: Legacy” was a visually appealing sci-fi romp. And though I never had any strong feelings for the original, I really did like this one and the soundtrack by Daft Punk was really fitting. And though it was a bit out of season, I checked out Disney’s computer-animated ”A Christmas Carol” featuring the voice of Jim Carrey among others. I liked it, though I may be a bit biased seeing as I’ve been a fan of Jim Carry since his days on ”In Living Color” and I don’t think I’ve yet to see a movie starring him that I didn’t like.

In other news, I downloaded and began playing ”Iris Online,” a free anime-style fantasy MMORPG published by gPotato. I’m still pretty early on, but so far it seems like an OK game. The anime-style artwork is cutesy and bright, which may be a turn-on for some while a turn-off for others. You’re able to choose from one of three races: humans, elves, and hybrids (which basically look like humans with fuzzy ears and stripes). Each race determines which classes you can start off with. Humans can be physical attackers or magic users (either offensive spells or healing). Hybrids can be physical attackers or stealth/agility-type backstabbers. And elves can be ranged attackers or magic users. I haven’t gotten very in depth into the game yet, but so far it seems like your usual fantasy type MMORPG: talk to NPCs, accept quests, collect stuff, form parties, kill stuff, level up, unlock classes, and that kind of thing. Knowing myself I’ll get bored with it within a few weeks, as I have yet to play an MMORPG that held my attention for more than a few months. But we’ll see. And at least the game seems to have a large player base. I’ve tried some games that often felt completely empty except for a handful of dedicated players. But Iris Online seems to have no shortage on players which is nice.

For movie fans, this weekend in Japan the films ”Red Riding Hood” and ”X-Men: First Class” have opened. I caught ”Red Riding Hood” and wasn’t surprised that it was quite similar to the Twilight films (which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, since the director of Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke, had also directed Twilight and the film seemed to be aiming for the same target audience). It wasn’t a great movie, but wasn’t bad either. But that might not have been a good thing. The Twilight films were so bad in my opinion that watching them was so funny that you had to laugh because you couldn’t believe that they weren’t supposed to be satire. But Red Riding Hood just wasn’t as over the top to make it so bad that it’s good or a guilty pleasure, but wasn’t cool enough to be taken completely seriously or make you say ”screw it, that was just plain awesome!” (which ”Sucker Punch” did for me). But it was what it was, and I liked it overall and didn’t regret the price of the late-night reduced ticket.

For those of you who like zombies as much as I do, unfortunately there really aren’t any actual zombie MMORPGs out there to download (at least none that I have found). There are a few browser-based zombie games though. Truth be told however, known of those are particularly exciting, as they are often very text-heavy, require you to use your own imagination, and have limits on how long you can play per day. But nonetheless, if you’re still curious about some zombie-related online gaming, a few games you might want to look into are:

Urban Dead: http://www.urbandead.com/
Zombie Pandemic: http://www.zombiepandemic.com/
Dead Awaken: http://www.deadawaken.com/

If you’re into shooter games, then you might like:

Zombie Frontier: http://www.deadfrontier.com/

And if you’re looking for a zombie strategy game:

Corpse Craft: Incident at Weardd Academy – http://www.corpsecraft.com/

http://entertainment.msn.com/beacon/editorial20.aspx?gt1=28101&ptid=764b59cf-574a-4bc7-839b-d1de8cc3e8e1&wa=wsignin1.0

So for those who are interested in superhero comics and haven’t already heard, DC Comics announced recently that as of August they are restarting all 52 of their current titles. The first title will be Justice League #1 to come out in August, with the other titles debuting in September and the months to follow. Supposedly all the characters, costumes, and backstories will be revamped to be more modern.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, some of these characters are like 70 years old, so they need to be rebooted every now and then to keep them fresh, modern, relevant, and accessible to the newer generations. On the other hand, it gets annoying when all those intriguing storylines and character changes and development you enjoyed is just thrown out the window and is no longer relevant.