10.31.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 12:03 pm by earl
Yes! It’s True! I have not one, but two games on Hands-On with Earl today. And heeerrrrreee we go. We’ll start with Metroid Prime 3:Corruption. After giving Gamespot my Drvier’s License, I was able to play the first few moments of Metroid Prime 3:Corruption on the Wii. It starts out with a pretty cool story, where you, Samus, are being called in to help out the Federation with the evil Dark Samus. You had control over your ships devices, and had to use them to land. You basically point, tap A on the device, and Samus will push it. You also had to type ina certain code and send messages using the motion sensing, which felt nice, although a little sensitive at times. You then on board the ship where you basically fire with A and aimed with the Wiimote. You could change visors by holding down - and tilting into the certain zone of that selected visor. Pretty simple. I would recommend it to any FPS fan that owns a Wii trhat’s looking for something unique.
I then dropped by Target and gave Heavenly Sword a spin. After a cutscene I skipped, I made Nariko jump onto a rope where it came into an interactive cutscene. The soldiers on the other side cut your rope, but once I got to the other side I taught them a lesson. The combat felt a little loose and repetitive, but once I tilted the controller to the side when finshing off a baddy, she went into a mini-cutscene where she pulled an awesome finsihing move. I did this several times and then went on to the end of the demo. Overall, a pretty strong game for the PS3.
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10.30.07
Posted in Weapons of Mass Enjoyment at 4:28 pm by earl
Yea, I know, I’m posting this a little early, but I know I’ll forget it tomorrow, on Halloween. Everyone try to be safe if you are traveling, and have a happy and safe Halloween.
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Posted in The Tube at 9:02 am by earl
Heroes is back and better than ever! Well, maybe not better than Genesis. Anyway, we are actually getting somewhere in the story! Which makes all the difference!
Hiro is still back in time, and they plan on rescuing Yaeko’s dad from WhiteBeard. However, when escaping, Hiro and Yaeko are nearly shot so Hiro accidentally teleports him and Yaeko outside from the battle. She realizes his power and that all the qualities of Kensei she loved came from Hiro whenever he dressed up as Kensei. They kiss, and Kensei decides to get revenge, he knocks out Hiro later and gives Yaeko and her father to an army in order fora favor. Ando continues to read his scrolls.
Claire strived to join the cheerleading squad so she could fulfill her lie to her Dad. But when rejected, she and West trick the cheerleader and make it look like’s she’s crazy. She’s accepted on the squad when its found out the trickee was drinking.
Maya, Alejandro, and Sylar finally reached the border. But when some patrolmen come to stop them, Sylar convinces Maya to kill them on purpose. When they finally do get to America, Alejandro threatens to leave. Sylar tells him in English which Alejandro doesn’t understand that he will kill both of them and steal Maya’s power. Just like the old saying, two’s company, three’s a crowd, that third person will eat your sister’s brain.
Mohinder was having some moral struggles at the Company. Bob wanted him to give Monica a shot that would remove her power. He refused, and threatened to leave the company and take Molly. Bob apologized and sent Niki to be his partner. Mohinder is trying to be good and is refusing to do things against his morals.
Bennet and The Haitian went to Russia where they found Bennet’s old mentor. Bennet continuously threatened with and did get The Haitian to erase some of the man’s precious memories. The man finally did tell where the 7 other paintings were, but Bennet realized that if the company found his hostage with missing memories, they would go to Bennet and The Haitian. So he killed his mentor. Bennet found the paintings, which showed several things, including one of Hiro and Kensei battling.
Peter and the Irish girl went to Montreal to see the building from the painting where they went inside and found a note. It read, Peter, the Company is up to no good. You must stop them. They then were in a weird future on June 14, 2008 where a mass evacuation had been issued for that day. It’s just like last season’s premonition! On the preview for next week, it said “93% of the population is dead. Evil has decided our destiny. Good must overcome it.” I think it has something to do with the shot Mohinder almost gave to Monica, who was returned home. Mohinder said, if this spreads, it could kill. Bingo!
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10.29.07
Posted in The Way Earl Sees It, Video Games at 2:12 pm by earl
No, I’m not talking about sales or which game is the best, I’m talking about the game rivalries we’re facing today, namely the big battle between Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band, and Skate and Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. So which one is better and which one deserves your cold hard-earned cash? This is the way I see it.
About a year ago we heard new of Skate, which was rumored to be a Tony Hawk killer. Well, Skate did release back in mid-September, and Proving Ground just released a week or two ago. So, with releases like this, the Battle of the Bands, and all of the rivalries of genres which can look really similar, which one should you buy? Well, it all depends on what you want! No two games are exactly alike. One may be way better then the other and the other can be an atrocious failure, one may have a different gameplay aspect, one may be more broad than the other, whicever you prefer. If you don’t wanna pay $200 for Rock Band but want a more cheaper experience, go with Guitar Hero! It all depends on what you want!
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Posted in The Tube at 10:35 am by earl
One of my favorite shows, Scrubs, is in its final season. This is really sad for me since this is one of the funniest, most creative shows I’ve ever seen. It will be depriving not to get to see Dr. Cox call J.D. random girls names, the Janitor torture J.D., or to hear J.D. call Turk “brown bear”.
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10.28.07
Posted in The Tube at 3:53 pm by earl
This is a new little thing I’m gonna start doing where I describe one main character from Heroes’ adventure throughout Season 1 and on into Season 2. And I thought who better to start off with than Sylar?
Well, Gabriel Gray’s story started way back when 6 months prior to Genesis. He was a humble watchmaker, who was approached by the then-alive Chandra Suresh, a geneticist who was discovering the Heroes at the time. He told Gabe he had a power, and, just like a little boy at Christmas, Gabe got excited. Turns out he got socks. Chandra told him he didn’t, however he did, the power of super-observance, knowing how things work by looking at them. Anyway, Gabe found a file on a Hero Chandra was going to meet with later, pretended to be Chandra, and killed the Hero because he thought he was unworthy. His first power-Telekinesis/Levitation. He then picked up the name Sylar from a watch brand and began his killing spree. Right before Genesis he comes and gets revenge by killing Chandra. Sylar began to chase down those he remembered from the list. This led Audrey Hudson and Matt Parkman to begin chasing him, but not before he could kill James Walker and his wife, parents of Molly Walker. He obtained James’ unknown power. Sylar then went to Texas where he found and killed Charlie, who was very close to Hiro Nakamura. He obtained super memory. Sylar then hit the money when he went to Claire Bennet’s high-school homecoming, where he accidentally killed Jackie Wilcox instead. Claire escaped. And after failing to kill Peter Petrelli, he was captured by Noah Bennet and the Company. He later escaped and tried to kill Noah’s wife. After escaping from Noah again and running from the police, he pretended to be Zane Taylor, killed him, and stole his power-Melting. While pretending to be Zane, he tagged along with Mohinder, Chandra’s son, to find new Heroes in order to warn them of Sylar. Ironic. They meet a woman with super-hearing, whom Sylar kills and steals her power from. Mohinder then saw the light and poisoned Sylar, beginning to experiment on him, but Sylar once again outwitted him and killed Peter Petrelli, who later revived thanks to his absorbing power ability. Sylar is knocked out by Mohinder. Mohinder and Peter escape, when Sylar finds Issac Mendez’s address. Sylar finds Issac and kills him. He obtained the power of painting the future. He later paints a picture of Nathan Petrelli in the White House, which turns out to be him using Candice’s power of Illusion that he obviously stole. Sylar then paints a picture of him killing Ted Sprague, a man with radiation powers, and then notices the picture of the exploding man that kills all the people in Peter’s dream. Sylar panics, and wonders why he’d kill all those people. He calls Mohinder, but when he hears him dialing 9-1-1, he hangs up. He meets up with his Mom, but shortly after kills her in an accident. Hiro Nakamura comes in to kill Sylar and stop the bomb, but he loses focus and Sylar freezes and breaks Hiro’s sword. Sylar then paints a picture of New York exploding with his mother’s blood. Sylar later listens in to Ted, Claire, Peter, and Matt’s conversation, so he turns Ted into the police, whom he later steals a power from and kills. He obtains radiation powers. In the Season Finale, he paints a picture of him fighting Peter, which he plans to do and kill Peter. He meets up with Peter in Kirby Plaza as his painting suggests, and fights him. He is beaten down by Peter with the help of Niki Sanders, but as Peter’s hands start to glow, Sylar maniacally laughs and says Peter will be the villain. Hiro then appears and crucially wounds Sylar. Sylar falls to the ground, and sees a vision of all those he’s killed, then goes unconsious. At the end of the episode, we see a bloody trail leading to a sewer, with a cockroach crawling around. Turns out, Candice Wilmer saved Sylar and put him through surgeries, and he later kills her. One thing, his powers don’t work due to his wounds. He escapes her warehouse after killing Candice and taking her power. He meets up with Maya and Alejandro Herrera, where he kills one of their friends and lies to them. But that’s in Season 2. In the alternate future where Sylar killed Claire and received invincibility, he had taken Candice’s and Nathan’s powers and pretended to be Nathan as president.
Overall, Sylar is one of the coolest villains ever on a TV Show that you would expect from a Movie villain. His mortal struggles and behaviors make the show much more enjoyable.
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10.26.07
Posted in Video Games at 8:13 am by earl
As you may know, a huge huge huge huge huge game came out this week, and its name is Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, and despite its bad review from Gamespot, it is awesome. But it still had some competition. This came in the form of Ace Combat 6, The Eye of Judgment, the new Pheonix Wright, and more. But Ratchet and Clank still wins.
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10.24.07
Posted in The Tube at 9:05 am by earl
This week’s episode was alright, although I just kinda wish they’d get stable and stop adding new stuff! Anyway, Monica is struggling with her new-found power, that is until Micah helps her shows her his power. She then starts to use her power by learning several new skills. Mohinder later shows up at her doorstep for the company.
Earlier on in the episode, Mohinder was back in New York with Matt and the unconscious Molly. Mohinder takes Molly to the Company against the now-in-Ukraine Bennet and the Haitian. And after tasering Jessica/Niki off of Bob, he is sent to New Orleans to get Monica. Meanwhile, matt and Nathan have went to Philadelphia to find Matt’s Dad. And after breaking down the door, nearly getting shot, and handcuffing his Dad, Matt finds a photo with the red helix on his father’s face, rationalizing his father’s hostility. They then reveal that Matt’s father has the same power as Matt! His father promises to tell him the truth, but then he tricks Matt and Nathan into a room where, somehow by his Father’s powers, they live out they’re greatest nightmare and fight there inner demons: Matt- a security guard keeping Matt, his ex-wife, and what turns out to be his son, Nathan-his radiated self in a post-explosion New York. They then realize that they’re fighting eachother, and Matt’s father escapes.
Back in Ireland, Peter has finally decided to open the box, where he finds out his last name and learns about himself. Meanwhile, a strange girl named Nelle is searching for him, and she works for the company, with her daddy. She has an electric power, and kills the man who welcomed Peter after he pretends to not know where Peter is. He got pwned. Anyway, Peter also paints a picture of the future of him and his Irish girlfriend in front of a building with a helix on it. Go figure. Nelle is taken off the assignment by her father.
Hiro is still in feudal Japan, and Ando is having trouble reading his messages. They’re preparing to resue the love of both Kensei and Hiro’s father from Whitebeard. That’s pretty much it.
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10.22.07
Posted in Game Previews at 4:42 pm by earl
My favorte video game designer is the legendary Tim Schafer, whose ingenious works like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and Day of the Tentacle have brought brand new meaning to video games. His newest project is called Brutal Legend, it follows a roadie named Eddie Riggs, who is voiced by the crazy Jack Black. Anyway, Eddie is a roadie who on a tour one day when he accidentally cuts himself and he gets blood on his ancient belt, which transports him hundreds of years into the past. The game’s art design distinctively reminds me of Psychonauts, which is a great thing. The combat looks to be a big part, with Eddie’s main weapon being a guitar, his “axe”. The game will have a load of references to rock and its legends, and it looks to be the unsung greatness of 2008. You can be sure this is going to be great with a genius like Tim Schafer at the helm. ALl 360 and PS3 owners need to do themselves a favor and pick up this game when it rocks on uniquely sometime in 2008.
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Posted in Weapons of Mass Enjoyment at 4:18 pm by earl
Yea, I used to just go outside the box and show my 27 most recent posts, but I’ve decided to go to just 10 per page. That way itwill take you longer to go through my 320+ posts! If you haven’t read in a while at a certain amount of time, you may want to check the next page so you don’t miss out on the Earl’s Blog:Part 2 goodness. If you liked the old way better, let me know. I’m always open to suggestions for my site, except for favorably reviewing certain Sonic games. And the answer is still no!!!
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Posted in Video Games, Weapons of Mass Enjoyment at 9:28 am by earl
Okami has finally been confirmed to be ported to the Wii, thanks to great motion sensing controls. James, this game is 100% clean, and is epic from start to finish. The game is something no Wii owner should miss, and it should be hitting stores sometime in 2008.
Also, they have confirmed that Star Wars:The Force Unleashed will be coming to the Wii. Yes!!! Put this one down along the other 20 million great Wii games I won’t be able to afford!!!
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10.21.07
Posted in Video Games at 4:48 pm by earl
This was another big release week for video games. We challenged Skate to a skate-off in Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, which had some problematic glitches, and we played a few rounds of ping-pong with the port of Rockstar’s Table Tennis to the Wii. There were other great releases, but ne stood tall, and don’t criticize me after reading the scores of last week’s games on Gamespot. This past week’s Game of the Week is Beautiful Katamari. The reason is because BK steps outside and dares to be different in the midst of Tony Hawk and others. So it wins.
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10.17.07
Posted in The Way Earl Sees It at 9:11 am by earl
As you may know, there is a war going on between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, and each are striving to win this console war. And I’m going to share the way I see each company can win. If you disagree with me please leave a comment and I wil gladly explain further. Micrsoft was the first entrant into this war, and it provided and is still provided solid games, a great array of console extras including Live Arcade, and a reasonable price. Really the only place Microsoft needs to improve is in its customer service. About……. too many 360s give off the red circle of death, which will cause that poor gamer to have to go through a long period to get it fixed. There are also some problems with the 360 in Japan, but great games like Halo 3 have helped.
Then there’s Nintendo. Its Wii has shown to be outselling each of the other consoles by staggering amounts. However, with the delay of Brawl, they need more games. We have Galaxy, Guitar hero 3, The Simpsons, and plenty more, but Nintendo just needs to give the hardcore gaming crowd some more love. I’ll be fine with Galaxy and THe Simpsons, but really besides lack of hardcore games, Nintendo doesn’t need that much more work. With Wii Fit, DAH Big WIlly Unleashed, Brawl, Mariokart, and more on the horizon in 2008, it looks pretty good for the Wii.
Finally the PS3. Sony went from first last gen to last this gen. What went wrong? Well, it mainly has to do with the ridiculous price of the PS3. At $500 dollars, $300 looks a lot better for a 360 which is getting a majority on the PS3’s once exclusive titles. The PS3 only has a few exclusives coming out-Uncharted, MGS4 (for now), Ratchet and Clank. Sony just needs to get those exclusives back, and lower some prices. It has made some progress.
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Posted in DVD at 8:52 am by earl
Do you get the title? Reee-view, Deee-View. That’s as cool as locker buddies!
Anyway, I finally got my hands on the Transformers DVD, and I thought I’d share my opinion of it in DVDeview form. Anyway, the DVD special edition is definitely the way to go if you’re a die-hard fan of the movie, but if you just really want the movie, go with the standard edition. The box looks great, with the DVD box itself just having Optimus Prime on the front and Megatron on the back, with a slidable cover that has Transformers 2-Disc Special Edition wrote on the side. Pretty sweet. The first disc has your movie and a commentary by Micheal Bay on there which is really nice. He even mentions Transformers 2. The second disc comes with all of the special features, divided into three sections: Our World, which covers the humans, Their War, which covers the robots, and More Than Meets the Eye, which covers the amazing Scorponok attack, trailers, and concept art. Overall, I loved the movie, I loved the DVD. I personally just loved watching the movie again without the #1 Most Annoying Person Sitting Next To Me. I heard jokes while watching the DVD I didn’t hear in the theater. They called the cube the AllSpark? (5 out of 5)
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10.16.07
Posted in The Tube at 1:40 pm by earl
This was actually one of the better episodes, and I kinda feel like its starting to get into its flow that it did and that made last season so good.
Micah is adjusting to his new life in New Orleans, where we discover that his same-age cousin likes Wrestling, his grandma has a unique sense of humor, and his older cousin, Monica, has a power to duplicate and perform anything she sees-Wrestling moves, culinary fancies. She then
shows these off after being rejected for her better job by pwning a would-be robber.
The investigation into the Helix Serial Killer (See, I have a name for it now) continued, and Angela confesses to Kaito’s murder, which Matt discovers is false. She’s just doing it to keep the world about knowing about their group. Matt and Nathan find a picture showing all the members of the group, including Charles Devoax, Bob, Linderman, Angela, Kaito, the blurred face of Dallas, three unidentified women and two u.i. men. Also it showed a man who Matt says is his father and Molly says is the Nightmare Man. Matt gets Molly to look for his father, but when she finds him, she goes into shock, thinking screaming for Matt to help her.
Bennet, scared due to last week’s picture, starts asking Claire a lot of questions. She goes ona date with West blah blah blah and then she tells Bennet she was trying out for cheerleading instead, which she is considering. Bennet then leaves with The Haitian to go to Odessa and Ukraine to see more pictures.
We got more Sylar moments when he was found by Maya, Alejandro, and Derek (the dude with the car). He uses his real name Gabriel Gray, and discovers Maya and Alejandro’s powers, right as they were leaving a newstand where Derek started to call the police after seeing their wanted sign. Sylar killed Derek and by the looks on his face, it looks like he’ll try to do something in the future with Maya and Alejandro. I still think it was hillarious seeing Sylar nearly get killed by Maya when she freaked out, causing Sylar to yell out “What are you doing to me!!!”
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