I fear for the Deadpool movie.

So this week "Deadpool fans" were treated with the trailer for the upcoming Deadpool movie. While the trailer has gotten a lot of hype, I can't help but see all the hall marks of potential failure.

It has an R rating so kids can't go watch it, I'm sure Fox should know that what makes the Marvel movies such a success is that EVERYONE can watch em, and I'm sure a massive part of the profits come from kids dragging their family to screenings; and what about the franchise outside the films? If kids aren't watching Deadpool then they aren't buying Deadpool merchandise, which in turn limits the franchise greatly.

You could argue that films like Mad Max: Fury Road and even Rambo 4 got decent results from it's R ratings, but these weren't superhero / comic book movies. These were established franchises that had a mature following. I think one major thing comic book movies should not over look is that kids still do read comics, regardless of how old comic fans like you and I are.

Lets not forget what happened with The Punisher films. The first film had an R rating with generally negative reviews that barely made it's money back. (Budget of 33 Million earning 54.7 Million at the Box office)

Punisher: War Zone upped the antics and embraced the characters violence (Much like the Deadpool film intends to do) and though it got slightly better reviews (mixed to negative) it earned 10 million at the Box office on a budget of 35 Million.

 Now lets talk character and plot.

We know Ryan Reynolds can be funny, but his witty on-liners did nothing to save the Green Lantern film. You can argue that that's because the story for GL was crap, but we haven't seen him do anything in the Deadpool trailer except be Van Wilder in a red suit. There is no hint of a plot and no sign of a character arc to explore. We see him start off as a funny guy dying of something terminal turning into a funny guy fighting "bad" guys.

Plus Deadpool on his own is meh. In the comics his most memorable moments come from him messing with other established big league heroes, none of whom will be seen this film because it's a Fox movie and not a Marvel film. We saw him take a punch from what looks like Colossus in the trailer, but who cares about Colossus? We might get a surprise and see other Xmen characters in the final film, but I highly doubt that.

In fact Deadpool went from having several books staring him to just one where his the title character and another where he shares the title with Wolverine. The rest of his appearances have him guest staring in other titles. It will also be interesting to see if the film adds the "forth wall breaking" stuff that Deadpool does a lot of in the comics.

I predict that the Deadpool film will be a decent flick that will pull favorable reviews but will fail at the box office.

Having said all of this, there is a part of me that really is hoping that this movie does do well.

Why?

Because I want to see a R rated Punisher film that has a decent budget. I want a Terminator movie that doesn't have a fucking PG-13 rating. I want studios to be able to reliably invest more into R rated movies knowing that there is a market for them, instead of watering every action film down to something they can sell to the kids because they think that's the only way that they can make money.

It is for this sake that I hope that the Deadpool film is much more than just the Merc with a Mouth and actually has some bite to all it's bar, like I said, there was no hint of this in the trailer but maybe the film is hiding it's aces.

I might go watch it, though I wouldn't break a date for it... what about you?

Terminator: Genisys - I loved it.

When I first heard about Terminator: Genisys (TG) I was both skeptical and excited. Skeptical because I know that Hollywood is going through a phase where they're  grabbing at anything that can rake in the cash and any franchise that already has a fan base is big game.

I was also skeptical because I was afraid it would end up as a "star vehicle" for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The way Terminator 3 was just a machine to boost popularity during his election, I felt that TG might be just something done to get him back into the game. Not that there's too much wrong with the later, he does need to make a come back some how and what better way than to reprise his most iconic role.

The excitement I felt for the news of TG was from me being such a massive fan boy of the Terminator franchise. T1 and T2 are near perfect movies for me and seeing them as a kid shaped my taste in so many mediums.

Once I laid my eyes on the early trailers I was very hopeful. The film looked to be at the very least an decent action movie and for all the story and time theory the Terminator films try to cram into themselves, at the heart of it their main attraction for me is the action.

Sadly though before the film even came out we had the bullshit plot reveal in the trailer. A plot point so essential to the over-all enjoyment of the movie that even the films director Alan Taylor (Thor the Dark World/ Game of Thrones) couldn't believe got out. So right of the bat there was some serious controversy with the film's story. As a Terminator fan it was a major step away from the films backbone in a sense, but I was still keen.

Then the early reviews got out and the film was pretty much panned across the board. Bad reviews were coming from "fans of the series" and even a few sites whose words I hold as the bible truth pulled no punches when it came to trashing the film.

Despite all this I was pretty much set on watching the film for myself. Now this might come as a surprise to some, considering I used to host a film review show, but I'm not a fan of going to the movies. Mostly because I like watching movies that I know and lover over and over again. It takes a very special film to get me out of to the films.

So last night I went to watch Terminator: Genisys with pretty much no expectations except to re-enforce the negative reviews the film already has.

And you know what?

I can't believe the shit reviews. Let me preface what's to come by saying that though there might be things to hate in this film, as a Terminator fan there are a lot of things to love.

I thought TG was the best film in the franchise since Terminator 2 and that's saying a lot. It may not be the best Terminator movie because that's highly debatable between T1and T2, and it may not be the best sequel because that's definitely T2.  But as a Terminator Film, it stands right up there with the first two films and it has become the unofficial Trilogy for me.

Terminator: Genisys knows it's got big Arnie size boots to fill, and it makes no quarrels with letting us know that it knows the first two films are great because the way the film is made, the first half of it pretty much lives in the original Cameron films shadow.

Now there's going to be some spoilers here, but nothing as major as what has already been leaked through the trailers.

Because of the way the film is made and its plot unfolds, to me the first bit of TG plays out like a love letter to Terminator fans.

The opening scene which features a battle between the human resistance and Skynets hordes of machines is finally getting the visual respect it deserves. Sure the SFX isn't the best, but these days we know CGI when we see it. What turns this around is that we get to see something we've only ever heard whispers of in the previous movies and that's the turning point in the war against the machines.

In fact we get to see the fall of Skynet as told by Reese in the first film. This is the Resistance victory that promoted Skynet to send a Terminator back in time to kill Sara Corner. We get to see it unfold... with a twist of course.

What follows this is pretty much Terminator Nostalgia as we see pretty much the opening of Terminator one redone. The fan boy in me jumped like a giddy school girl as I tried to figure out whether the scenes were Arnie's T-800 arriving in the past was redone or simply touched up versions of the original. Either would be awesome.

 Then we have the film's Kyle Reese follow suit, arriving in 1984 and from here any avid fan would know that film makers were going out of their way to put in nods to the orginal series.

There is a bit where a cop car pulls up to investigate the light show from Reese's appearance and it is spot on a replica shot of the cop car pulling up to investigate the T-1000s appearance in the second film.

It's also important to note that Terminator 2 also suffered from a trailer reveal of it's plot and if we hadn't seen Robert Patrick's character as the baddy in the T2 trailer it would have been safe to assume he was the good guy and Arnie was the bad Terminator again.

I got all that from that cop car simply pulling up.

Then we have the bit in the clothing shop where Kyle is being escorted out by two cops and he gives a confused glance at a silver store mannequin. This same gesture was done by the T-1000 in Terminator 2 for-shadowing it's full silver body appearance to come.

I honestly could go on with this list of nods but the point is for the Terminator fan in me these were just awesome (The smile gag from T2, the ability to learn after removing the chip), but it doesn't end with all this nostalgia of course because we have a franchise to reboot so half way through the film decides to rear in it's own identity and by now I am so pumped by all the fan service the film has already given me that I am open to where ever the film wants to go. It's almost as though the film makers wanted to prove that they know "Terminator" before they showed us what they had in mind for it's future.

I also liked the way Arnie was not the aggressive killing machine he was in the first two films and despite his age was forced to be in the third film. Here the film gives us a reason for his aging and slower reflexes and this created a solemn moment for me as a fan of not just Terminator but of the Governator himself, moments that even made me sad at times.

This coupled with suggest that the T-800 may actually be learning how to feel and take responsibility of who it is protecting at almost an emotional level, sounds like a silly bull shit sci fi moment, but you know what? We're dealing with time traveling robots here, lets not get hung up on robot logic.

Movie logic wise though the film doesn't suffer. We have characters doing what we'd pretty much expect them to do without looking stupid. By the time we get to the "John Conner Reveal" I can buy it. In fact I'm kind of glad they leaked this in the trailer because it's such a "WTF" moment that instead of brooding over it at the movies, knowing about it before you go in makes it easier to accept.

"Easier" is used sparingly though because I'm still not a 100% sold on the "John is over of them now" thing because a part of me feels like it robs us of the the films "back bone" and that is that everything we do in these movies is to protect John.

But then again, to turn that idea on its head. I respect that.

There isn't much else I can tell you about what I liked with out telling you the about the whole movies, but for me as an action film and a Terminator Sequel/ prequel / reboot, TG really delivered. So for the life of me I do know what critics and film goers were expecting to give the film such harsh reviews.

But then again Fast 7 got about 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. A movie about cars and action that barely has a 2 min race in the opening and no action till about 35mins into the damn movie. Even then the action is spread so far apart that it tries to up the drama factor even though none of these movies are known for it's stars acting ability.

Terminator: Genisys on the other hand knows exactly what it is and doesn't let up. It might even be by some standards a by-the-book action flick, but the thing about these "by the book" films is that they come in flavors and this one is Terminator Flavor.

Let me end this by saying that Terminator: Genisys may not be the best Terminator film, but it is a better entry in the series compared to what's come after Cameron's T1 and T2. If you are a fan of the series or just in the mood for a good action film, Terminator: Genisys hits the spot.

My Old Scrap Book

A very dear friend of mine was nice enough to send me some pics of my old scrap book that I had given to her before she left Fiji. Looking at these is a trip because it's like looking at a piece of me from 14 years ago. You can click the pics to see them bigger.

A brief history of Me: part 1

Washing dishes with my granddad

In honor of me turning 32 today I decided to reminisce a bit.

Growing up I was told that I talked too much and that I could never sit still. I'd always be running around outside with my Ninja turtles or Transformers; talking to myself and smashing things. I have a very entertaining story involving a cubby house that I'd love to share over drinks.

I used to draw a lot too when I was younger. In class 1 I remember being told to draw something by out-lining shapes. I drew Star Scream from Transformers. By the time I was 9 I used to draw my own comic books. They were mostly just me making up my own Batman and Spiderman stories. Although I did have one original character who I named Radioactive man, and this was before a character with the same name appeared in the Simpsons. I still remember my reasoning behind the name. Characters like Spiderman and The Hulk were all made from radiation, why not have a guy who got his powers from being exposed to radiation and just call him Radioactive man.


I wasn't into just comic books though; I used read a lot of Enid Blyton. Adventure stories were my favorite. My Aunty Benji used to have a massive collection of Hardy Boys books which were fun to read too. Despite all this reading I couldn't spell to save my life. I couldn't even confidently spell my name till I was in class four.

Around the age of 10 I really got into some weird occult / supernatural reading. I had a copy of The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural by Collin Wilson that would I read over and over. This is about the time I started keeping a journal. After watching my first episode of X-files around this time too; I wanted to grow up and be a paranormal investigator.

This was the time "Ghost Writer" would play on TV, so I had formed a group of "investigators" - our password used to be "visum et repertum" which was Latin for "Seen and Discovered"

By now I used to watch a lot of horror movies too. My granddad and I would watch a horror film almost every night. He would fast-forward all the sex stuff but was totally fine with me watching Jason Voorhees stab people in the face. House, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, the original Hills have eyes; we watched them all. We had some decent movie shops back in the day that stocked a lot of great movies, but my spots were Preet's movie shop up in Tamavua and A1 video in town. Because of them I watched so many films that are considered horror classics now.

Horror seeped into my reading too.

By the time I was 12 I had read all the classic horror novels. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible man; I had made it a point to research and read everything considered a "horror classic".

English and literature were the only things I liked in school. In my later primary school years I started to write plays and I remember my Class 8 teacher Master David Doughty telling me to stick with it cause I wrote good stories. He used to read my short stories in class. As an educator he was probably the most positive influence in my life.

At the end of Class 8 we had a party where we invited parents and friends to come watch us put up items and plays. That's when I wrote a stage adaption of Interview with the Vampire, I have the whole thing on VHS. I need to get that on disk one of these days.

When I turned 14 an uncle of mine (Well more of a family friend) gave me two CDs. Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's 10. That's when I got into music.

All through high school I wanted to start a band. I couldn't play an instrument yet so all I did was write lyrics and pass them off as poetry. Drawing and writing was what I did with most of the my time. Many nights were spent with Nirvana playing late into the night while I stayed up drawing. I used to carry around a file with all my art which I would show off at any opportunity I got. At the end of form 6 I started carrying around a guitar.

It's funny how dreams start small. When I started to play music I thought it would be a big deal if I ever got to play at the Suva Civic center. At the end of form 7 I got to do exactly that thanks to my school hosting a concert night. My buddy Meli and I played a song called "Miss You" which was the first proper song I wrote with music. By this time I was sure that I was going to be a musician. In fact during my external Geography Paper I got inspired and started writing a song.

I didn't finish the paper. It's not a mystery why I had to repeat form 7.

I started writing music reviews for the News Papers during my second year in Form 7. Around this time the band I was in started gigging. We played Traps, ROC markets, the boulevard, Dragons, music festivals. The pay was crap but we enjoyed it.

This is what I did for about a year after form 7, earning about $80 each per show. Eventually I had to get a "Real Job." I started working as a temp Assistant Events and promotion guy at Fiji Broadcasting. This was my first full time job.

After that for about two months I worked as a debt collector. I didn't like the job but the people I worked with were great.

Luckily though FBC had decided to relaunch their old 104 station and since the man running it, my good friend Russel Fong, knew that I was really into music he asked if I wanted to be a part of it. So I went in for an audition and on one particularly bad day as a debt collector my buddy Dave Lavaki, who had also auditioned, ran into me in front of my office and told me I had gotten the job.

Thus began my love affair with FBC, the place that would take all the things that I love doing and let me make a career out of them.

Getting into Radio came easy as I loved talking any way and I had by now developed a deep appreciation for music, particularly rock music.

I spent about a year on Radio, doing the night show on 2Day which i had the privilege of naming "The system after dark", a name that has stuck around till today. During this time I did a lot of production for radio; liners, radio plays and shows.

I left Radio to start a job as an editor at Fiji Television, a job i loved very much. It was through video editing that I was better able to explore an older passion of mine, which was film.
I left Fiji TV to peruse studies in Animation which is where I made some really good friends who are still around.

Sadly at the time Animation was not popular enough to snag me a job right away so i returned to radio as a producer. I made radio adverts and went back to making radio shows. In 2008 my alternative music show "Something a little different" won me my first ever award. It was a FAME award for best locally produced music show.

I left FBC once and ended up working for myself. Sadly though th local market for free-lance editors has very few things to offer if you do not want to be doing wedding videos. I did however get myself a nice free-lance job with an Australian kids magazine, for whom I did illustrations.

By now my love for movies and film making was strong that I had to do something with it. So through the encouragement and help of my close friends I was able to make my first short film. Which also got me my first Short film award at the Kula Film awards.

One short film followed another and before I knew it i was back in FBC but this time working for Television. The five months leading up to FBC TVs launch had me animating the graphics for a lot of the local shows you see today, as well as designing the look and feel of FBC TVs graphics. i did this with a very talented animator and graphic designer named David Whiteside who is now the Head of Graphics for FBC TV.

i on the other hand am now "Producer Local Programmes" which basically means I'm suppose to look after the local shows. Work with the producers, discuss issues and make sure everything checks out.

As you know, I also managed to squeeze in a few of my hobbies in there as well.
My passion however still lies in Film Making. I have done a few documentaries for FBC TV, one of which won me a very nice World TV award back in 2013.

My next step is a full film which i am working on getting together now.

Playing it Old School

I am an old school gamer. I was reflecting on games, trying to see what stood out for me last year and it dawned on me that I am an old school gamer.

Thinking about it some more I realized all my favorite current gen titles are old school.

Like Dead Space, that's pretty much Doom with fancy weapons. The core gameplay is the same as Doom. You find switches, open doors and kill everything in the way.Yes you fix things here and there and solve puzzles but at the heart of it Dead Space is Doom.

Dark Souls has to be the most old school current gen game ever. It's entire principle is based on the old "risk/reward" philosophy which governed early game design. And in true old school fashion the game trains you through clever level design and enemy placement then tests to see if you were paying attention by throwing a boss at you. Dark Souls is the bastard child of titles like Castlevania and Ghosts n Gouls. It prides itself on being hard and that's what the allure is for a lot of old school games. Beating that challenge.

Lets do one more.

Borderlands one and two. They are Diablo with guns. You kill hordes and hordes of enemies and then rejoice in that sweet sweet loot.

Old school.

Do you know what these games have in common? They are all fun to play and they have absolutely fuck all story. Yes Dead Space has an interesting back story, but in the narrative of the game it takes a back seat to the shooting and bodily dismemberment.

But this is ok because these games aren't about stories. They are about the gameplay. I love these games because of how they work and play.

Now why does this make me old school? Well because in this day and age these kinds of games are very few. Aside from indie titles the majority of the gaming scene is dominated by "new school" games.

The Last if us, Bioshock Infinite. Uncharted, Assassins Creed. Mass Effect

What do these games have in common? Well most fans will tell you that they have a great story.

"I love the story!" "I played it for the story!" " o the story!"

Too bad that these games have the worst fucking game play.

No... stop. Really... think about it. What do you do in Uncharted that's so fucking amazing? Explore? There's barely any exploration as you progress through a mostly linear  path. Platforming? You climb and jump off highlighted areas.

What do you do in Assassins Creed? The combat? I played Black Flag half way killing every guard in sight because all I had to do was push two buttons. Counter and attack. Is it the platforming? You hold down one button and move... the rest happens for you. Mass Effect? Aside from the speech wheel that lets you fuck everything what is the draw in that gameplay wise?

What about Bioshock infinite and The last of us. Hailed as the greatest games of 2013. Hell Last of us has been hailed one of the greatest games of all time.

What do you do in them? What is the innovative gameplay feature in The Last of us? And don't get me started on the shitty gun play in Bioshock. I think if Bioshock deserves any award it should be for being the most over rated game of all time. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. While most gaming sites have been taking it up the ass for this game there are some game devs that have come out to say: WTF?

But it's ok... because these games have a great story.

Since when is the story the main draw for a video game? Since when does gameplay and function take a back seat to story telling? You think up every single game that was popular before and you will find that the awesome story was usually a bonus. Old school games were built on gameplay and the story complimented that. Now days it's the other way around.

I know that in this day and age the video game medium has come a long way from what it used to be. It's not just something that performs and functions for kid, it's a major market that caterers to all walks of gamers. And that's why I'm an "Old school" gamer... because I can not for the life of understand the appeal for these "new school" games.

It's not all games mind you.

I'm very thankful for Indie developers that are making a killing with their brand of retro "throw back" games. Titles made popular through game play not just story like Mark of the ninja, Super meatboy and Spelunky to name a few.

There are big titles that have not forgotten what it means to be a video game. Games like Farcry 3, Crysis, Battlefield, Halo (most shooters in fact), Skyrim, Fallout 3, Splinter Cell conviction, Dishonored, God of War, Devil may cry, Portal. All of these titles have awesome gameplay features that are expanded by the story. These games also have "so so" stories which can be forgiven because of the gaemplay... that's how it should be.

 But that's how things are these days. "Play it for the story" one of my buddies will say. I've got one friend who will cheat through through some games because he hates the gameplay but wants to know the story. Hell I'm guilty of it to some extent myself with games like Allan Wake. 

As a game maker isn't that kinda shitty? That someone glances over your gameplay for the story? What the fuck are you making a video game or a movie? Don't ask Quantic Dream that, their head will explode.

But I guess the rebutle here could be that for some people loving the story is a very important part of video games.

Remember how people would justify shitty graphics by complimenting on the solid gameplay? Now days people push the story to make up for shitty gameplay.

And most gamers seem to be ok with this.

Steam Sale Nightmare.

So another year comes to an end and as a gamer this occasion is marked for me by the annual Steam Winter sale.

I love and hate any Steam sale because it means I'm going to be agonizing over the sheer number of games that I suddenly want in my game library. Even titles I normally wouldn't give a shit about become "must haves" just because they have suddenly become cheaper.

One thing that sort of throttles my impulsiveness is the fact that I don't own a credit card. So I have to email sales and wanted games to my friends who then buy it for and I either pay them later or more often then not pay them up front.

For the current Steam sale however I managed to put $50 USD into my Steam Wallet so I could buy the games I want without being a pain the ass to my friends. Other wise I'm calling people up early in the morning begging them to buy me something before the timer runs out. Regardless of it being an eight hour timer or twenty four hours, if a game I want goes on sales my fingers burn till I own it. But with the $50 USD limitation I have to be very careful about how I spend my money as my friends had allocated their own credit funds for the games they wanted.

So I had two rules which governed my buying decisions.

1. Only buy games that I would actually download and play. Not to buy anything just for "keep sake"

2. If I had to watch a review to convince myself of a purchase then I was better off not buying it.

This generally worked alright for me though there is still about five days left on the sale and I have about $16USD left in my wallet. Those five days of sales mean that there are about 45 daily deals, 45 flash sales and 15 community choice sales left. Now some of these will be repeats but still that is a lot of games.

I have 40 game son my wishlist. I use this list to determine if the purchase of a particular game is going to set me back any. For example if if see a game I want; I can ask myself "What would I rather spend on?" Then going through my wishlist I can see what else might be a potential buy worth holding out for. There are some games on the list like Injustice: Gods among us and Batman: Arkham Origins that will not be a reasonable Steam buy. Even at a fair reduction these games will still cost me about $40 to $60 Fijian. This would be sweet if these were the only games I bought but doing so stops me from buy more games at a cheaper price. One might argue that it could be quantity over quality that I'm striving for but a lot of the games that I have bought for less than $5 USD have already given me hours of enjoyment.

The first thing I bought was "Risk of Rain." This was a title that I had wanted for a while but paying full price for it in Fijian dollars just seemed a little bit much for me. I got it for $6.69 USD which was relatively the same price same as paying the normal price in USD ... kinda. Know what I mean?

The purchases that followed were also mostly indie titles. Super house of Dead Ninjas, Spelunky, La-Mulana. I also upgraded my Farcry 3 to the special edition for extra content whcih seemed reasonable and the only AAA title I bought was Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate edition. While most of these buys were done because they seemed like good games at a good price, Risk of Rain and Castlevania were two titles that I really REALLY wanted.

Last night though I did my first impulsive buy. I got the expansion for Titan Quest; a game that I've had in my library for god knows how long without ever playing it. But last night I also started playing Diablo 3 again and I was hungry for a dungeon crawler. Upon research I found that Titan Quest was very highly regarded and I figured if I was going to get into it... I was going to get into all the way. I broke my second rule.

I'm thankful that I didn't regret my decision but I have to be careful not to do something like that again. I got lucky with Titan Quest, I played it for the first time this morning and what started with just a "quick look" before work ended up with me playing for an hour and being late for work.

So now I have about $16 left.

I have no idea what to do with it. Now even the games I really want are being nit-picked on because I don't want to risk spending the money only to have something really awesome pop up on the final few days. But I also risk missing out on a great deal only to have nothing I want later on. Plus there is a cut off point to the minimum money I should hold onto. I'm sure anything less than $10 USD won't be much of a buy now since I've already bought all the good "Cheap" games.

I'd love to buy things like Hitman Absolution or Dungeons of the Endless. But that would reduce my Steam Wallet to nothing. If anything I tell myself that I'll pick these games up on the last day of the sale as the prices are valid till the 3rd of January.

But then there's things that I would love to own for the sake of the sale. Like the Bioshock collection or even the Legacy of Kain collection. I would actually download those Legacy of Kain games and play them. There's even Shinobi 3 which is a dollar something but I'm afraid to buy it because it might just put me under a game I wanna buy later.

Another part of me has sort of decided to just buy a bunch of DLC stuff and a few old titles on the final day if nothing else pops.

I'm not sure if you can tell from reading this but the Steam sale has been very agonizing for me. While some people wish for world peace and not to be sold as a child solider, I wish I could put in more money into my Steam wallet before the sale ends.

Am I just a greedy video game pig? I think I might be ...

But his is the Steam Sale... and this is my nightmare.

Tiny Barbarian DX - For the Gamer in you

"I have zero interest in this game"

That is what one of friends said when he saw the gameplay videos for Tiny Barbarian DX. Which is totally cool because as a gamer I have come to terms with the idea that not every game is for everybody. Some people just don't like awesome things.

So who is Tiny Barbarian DX for?

Let  me take you back a bit. Growing up I never played Zelda and I wasn't crazy about Mario. I had "zero interest" in things like Finally Fantasy or Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger and the likes of. I played a shit load of Double Dragon and Castlevania. I had a cousin who owned a Sega and I spent hours at his place playing Splatterhouse. That game was a treat for me and it was even more special because I couldn't play it at home. And I played  a lot of Golden Axe and Argus no Senshi (published as Rygar in the west). Now those two games in particular, Tiny Barbarian is for people who loved those two games.

No complex story, no leveling up, nothing but jump and attack with movement. Just raw gameplay, but it was the gameplay that made them shine. So many hours of "just one more try, damn it just one more" as you slice your blade through skull and guts leaving a bloody trail of destruction on your quest. If Zelda is the Lord of the Rings of Video games then Golden Axe was the Chronicles of Conan. And that is the idea of Tiny Barbarian DX.

In fact before the DX version Tiny Barbarian was a free downloadable game loosely based on Robert Howard's classic Conan story "The Frost Giants Daughter"

The new game is an even bigger love letter to Conan. Before you even press start you find yourself at the top of what appears to be a massive tower surrounded by dark clouds and fire. Waves of enemies climb the towers steep walls to get their claws on you as you frantically swing your sword to survive.  Such imagery is iconic of everyone's favorite Cimmerian.

Eventually you are over come...

Then the "Start" menu fades in. This happens every time you load up the game and every time you last a little bit longer. This is the glimpse of the trial by fire that awaits you through out Tiny Barbarian DX. There is no tutorial, no direction; just instinct.

You know this game because you have played it before. Back during the dawn of the NES and SEGA systems when game design made you figure things out by playing for yourself.

This same thought and theory is tested when you fight the games bosses. I read some where once that a true game boss tests you on everything that you have learned up to that point and Tiny Barbarian DX never misses a beat to test whither you've been paying attention or not.

"Was that move you pulled to avoid that trap a fluke? Well lets see if you can do it again just to make sure"

As mentioned the game does nothing to hide it's inspiration not just from old school games but from the adventures of Conan as well. The opening scene sees our Tiny hero tied to a massive tree with vultures ready to pick him dry. This of course is a massive homage to one of the most memorable "Conan moments" as seen in the classic tale "A which shall be born" in which a beaten Conan is  nailed to a tree and left for dead. The whole scene plays out pretty much as it does in the story.

Nods to the character can be found all over the game. And the style of the enemies and locations have a very distinct "pulp fantasy" feel to them. It might all be obvious pixels but the art style made up of these pixels is awesome, but like the games of old they leave enough space for your imagination to bring them to life even more.

The animations are a treat to watch, with our hero in particular being a charm to play. Every jump and swing feels responsive and tight with death being a result of miss timing and not bad luck. The music is also a treat as your time on screen is scored as a grand adventure tightly packed into 8bit musical glory. You feel like a warrior as you smash your way through the game.

The gameplay itself is a mix of beat em up and platforming with minor environmental puzzles thrown in for good measure and you will find yourself dying a few times before "getting the hang" of a particular enemy pr area.

Michael Stearns who is the genius behind Tiny Barbarian DX plans to release episodic installments of the game with the first one already available. You do not have to pay for each episode though, they will become available upon release if you own the game. 

For fans of old school action and platforming (and Conan) Tiny Barbarian DX is a must have treat that will stir so much nostalgia in you that you'll feel like a kid again as you play through it.

Here's a video of me fighting the first boss :)

Christopher Nolan: Please stop ruining my favourite characters

Yes I am a massive comic book fan and more so a huge Superman and Batman fan. I have read every one of their comics from Issue one till the issues this month.

And I hate Christopher Nolan's take on my favourite heroes.

Nolan's Batman: I don't kill people.

And yet he blows up anything in his way when his driving from point A to point B.

When he was asked to kill that one guy at the League of shadows place, he says no - then blows up the whole damn place killing everyone in it including the fake Ra's al Ghul... Then he kills Dent in the 2nd film.

Plus I hate how Nolan wants to make everything "Grounded" ... it's a Superhero movie. It's meant to have an element of the extraordinary. You can't look to explain everything and make it plausible. 


Not only did Nolan strip Batman of any of the things that make him a fan favourite; always one step a head, world greatest detective, less brawler more tactician, master of the shadows...

Nolan actually took the idea of a man wearing a bat suit and made it mundane. He sucked the joy out of it and made this "matter of fact" thing, but for all the "realism" he tries to force into his movies he still expects us to suspend our disbelief for bull shit things like Batman escaping that bomb or "Robin" knowing Bruce is Batman because of a stupid look on his face? and what about that broken back that heals in 3 months or how he even got back to Gotham from that damn prison in the ground? ...in time to paint a giant bat symbol that will light up with flames on that bridge.

As for that damn voice; just the fact that Nolan heard Bale do that ridiculous voice and didn't try to change it - is fail.

Most people don't even like the Nolan Batman films for Batman. They like them because of the villains. With Joker being the most loved.

You wanna know why the Joker was so awesome? (Aside from Ledger's phenomenal performance) ... because we don't know anything about him. The mystery to his chaos was the major draw - he was like a force of nature. In comparison to Nolan's neatly laid out Batman he was a breath of fresh air.

Plus the villains are the only ones who actually get any character development in Nolan's films, look at Dent or Ras. At the end of the 3rd film Batman isn't any better at being Batman. In fact in Rises his a freaking joke - especially when he goes up against Bane.

And as for Man of Steel. Nolan completely lost the plot with that one. We know his looked at Superman comics... but has he actually sat down to read one? For all the reason Man of Steel fails as a Superman movie there's one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Superman doesn't kill people - no matter what the reason.

For everything that has a capacity to do good, it has an equal capacity to do evil.

Superman, through his strengths and attributes has a great capacity for for good... what keeps him from going evil? His morals. We can't just have him killing people, no matter how it's justified. You and I can't kill people, because no matter the reason it's still wrong and we have to answer to it.

Who does Superman answer to if he kills someone? To have him carry out an act like that totally destroys the foundations of his character, because it's a total abuse of his power. And that alone is proof that Nolan and the Man of Steel crew understand nothing about Superman.

And did he have to kill Zod? It's not like Nolan's Superman did anything to show that he cared about the people around him. He trashed half the city and never took the fight anywhere else... like he would have done in the comics.

Why couldn't he just grab Zod and fly away? Why couldn't he just stand in front of the heat rays? Why couldn't he just cover Zods eyes with his hands? Yes he would have gotten hurt - but if he cared so much wouldn't it have been worth the pain? With all his powers and all his "love for humanity" the first thing that came to mind was to snap a living things neck?

Bull shit... complete and utter bull shit.

Yet people eat Nolan's crap up.

And Superman doesn't have to be a "bad ass" - his not edgy or hardcore. There are hundreds of inter-changeable comic characters to fill that niche. Superman IS the boy scout, he IS the naive farm boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And his not just an alien from another planet. He was born and raised an earth kid, a simple farm boy.

The Batman persona is the real Bruce Wayne and the playboy billionaire is the façade. But for Superman - it's the other way around. The godly spaceman is the outer shell, inside Clark Kent - born and raised - is the real person.

This was totally lost with the dull, emo portrayal of Superman in Man of Steel.

Up yours Christopher Nolan - if you don't like making Superhero movies, then stop getting involved with them.

And yes my hate is directed to Nolan because he and David Goyer wrote the script. Zack Snyder should go back to directing music videos. His ruined Watchman - the only comic book to receive a Hugo award and now he helped ruin Superman.

And then?

And then I went to Indonesia to collect my World TV award for the Doco/ drama I made for FBC TV called A Day At the Beach and to attend the Asia Media Summit.

What an awesome experience. You know I've always wanted to travel and more so I've always wanted to travel to Asia. Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to take part in a work shop in Malaysia which was a country I've been longing to visit.  

I flew into Indonesia through Sydney and then through Singapore which was awesome because I've always wanted to visit Singapore as well. I got spend twelve hours there and though it late when I got with me being very tiered (it was a total of 11 hours flying and 4 hours waiting at Sydney Airport before I got there) I was eager to explore.

The city was amazing - the first thing that struck me was how clean and fresh everything looked. Even for a city that was towering and bright there was a certain air of "zen" about the whole thing. And I use the word zen not because of some hipster connotation to it - but because it just had a great sense of balance to it.

I didn't do much shopping in Singapore though because I was saving my money for my final destination. I did however buy some very awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures that I have come to love dearly.

When I got into Manado, Indonesia I thought I knew what to expect. I had saw some pictures of it online and was looking forward to a up and coming tourist town, instead I arrived in a place that was in very early stages of development. In fact despite the tall buildings and enormous number of fast food joints - my home city Suva here in Fiji was actually more modern that it.

On my first night I met up with my CEO who was also there for the Asia Media summit and the two us decided to hit the town. We walked around for about three hours before we decided to just have dinner and head back to our hotels.

I stayed at the Swiss Bell Hotel which was about 2km away from anything interesting in Mando, it had very friendly staff and the place looked great. The food was pretty awesome as well - though a little on the expensive side for our Fijian dollars. Though the Indonesian dollar is a little on the low side of the exchange rate, they make up for it by making most things very expensive.

The next day I attended a work shop on "The Medias role during a pandemic"  which was very interesting. I was very grateful that I had played the Android game Plague Inc because a lot of what I had learned from it actually came in handy. In fact I even suggested that the participants at the work shop check it out.

The work shop was a relief for me because I was suppose to do a talk as well on "How media can help raise awareness on sustainable development" - so I saw the 30 or so people in this work shop and though - I can do this.

The next day I found out that I was actually speaking in the "main convention room" to a Broadcasting crowd of about 300 to 350 people >_<

O boy...

The next day was the big award day - I was asked to sit somewhere in the front so that it would be easier for me to go up to collect the award. The days events started about 9:30am and the awards were at 12:30pm.

I don't know why but I was very nervous even though I already knew that I had won.

Before they called me up they had all the judges come up and talk about what thy liked or what they saw in "A day at the Beach" and to hear all their thoughts was a surreal feeling for me. I've often talked about all the little themes and messages I've found in movies and to have people dissect something I wrote and planned was interesting. I was pleased that a few of the nods I had put in hadn't gone unnoticed. One judge had picked up on my T.S Elliot reference and a few others saw drew some really deep ideas from it.

As I collected the award I was so damn excited that I stood there speechless, though I had prepared a speech I didn't get to read it because of some kind of error on the organizers part. But they apologized after but I didn't mind.

Later that afternoon I met with my fellow panelists to discuss our talk/ presentation.

When it was time to be up on stage I soon became quit comfortable about it. As I heard the panelists talk i knew I had prepared something interesting enough. My contribution to it was more from a production standpoint. How to make programs on any kind of awareness more engaging for the viewer. Coming up with concepts, looking at budgets, considering the mulch-platofroms of new media to get the info out.

A consultant for UNEP and a man who has become a good friend of mine did a nice little blog post about my talk which you can read here. I was pleased that a lot of people enjoyed my talk saying that it was very "practical and real". Which is all I ever wanted it to be.

That night I did an interview on Radio 24 which is a Malaysian station. I talked about my award and what it was like starting off as a radio host before moving in to TV and film production. Later I got a call from a friend I mad on my trip named Chandra, who was from India. He and another cool guy i met named Adam were keen on hitting the night life a bit. So I though "what the heck"


We ended up going to a karaoke bar which was on the basement level of the hotel I was staying at. i walked into the place with a live band screaming out Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit. I was loving the place already. I had a few drinks and stayed for a little over an hour before I decided I'd better get some sleep. 2am in Manado was 6am Fijian for me - and I hadn't totally adjusted to the time difference.

Thursday was the last day of the summit which was wrapped up pretty early so I spent the day with the new friends I had made and just pretty much saying good byes. Bye to Adam and Debasmita, two very awesome people I have to keep in touch with.

That night Chandra and I chit chatted over whiskey and snacks he had brought from India before I head off to bed.

I left Manado at about 1 in the afternoon and took the same route back home through Singapore and Sydney. The flight out of Manado was made interesting cause I got sit next to a very nice young lady from Capetown. Conversations always make the journey better. I hadn't bought anything else on the trip so I picked up some books in Singapore.

I was so pleased to be home after the crazy long flight. Nothing beats Fiji man...

Dark Souls Fun: Artorias vs Manus

The best thing about games on PC are the mods and when a game has a big enough fan base you get all kinds of crazy stuff.

Now the video below might not be of a "mod" but it is a cool example of what you can do with games on PC. Some how this guy got Manus, who is the last boss in the Dark Souls DLC (and arguably the hardest fight in the game) to battle it out with Knight Artorias.

The arena you see is where you clash swords with Artorias; how he got Manus there is beyond me*. But the epicness of this battle is ... Epic.

*Apparently there is a "cheat engine"  that lets you spawn NPCs and such. The owner of the video spawned Manus in the arena and then made him hostile to NPCs.

In Dark Souls Lore Artoias does indeed battle it out with Manus - but we never get to see it.

Well now we can

Loads of fun with Loadout

 
I am a very competitive person.

Some might say that's a bad thing and that I should relax but I enjoy it. It makes games fun for me.

In fact most of the games I'm really into have some sort of competitive component. Dark Souls and World of Warcraft would have to be two games that have totally consumed me.

I PVPed like mad in WoW - in fact my first toon is ranked champion while my last toon, a warlock, spent most of his time poping heads in Athari Basin.And in Dark Souls I love invading peeps and claiming souls. There's something about gearing up and going out of your way to collect stuff which you then use to wreck other players. Now I'm not saying that I'm hot shit at it, in fact I've learned to channel my competitiveness a little, but I do really enjoy playing against other players.

I've never been one for online shooters though until I wrapped my virtual trigger finger around Team Fortress 2. Then I started playing that for hours upon hours. I even got into collecting those damn hats >_<

Well recently I started mucking around on the beta servers for an up coming third person shooter called Loadout, and this thing really has me hooked.

My Loadout home screen

I actually can't remember how I came across this game but I do remember going nuts trying to get my hands on a beta key. It didn't take too long as a simple Facebook message to the games page returned a link to a key for me to grab.

Since then I've been having a blast with Loadout. The best way to describe is that it's like Team Fortress meets Unreal; in that it's very cartoony looking with the action being arcady.

I know these days we judge our online shooters with such games as Call of Duty or Halo, but Loadout is more about casual fun, at least to me.

Rather than trying to be "real and authentic" with its gameplay, Loadout is over the top and frantic.

A typical Loadout match gets very hectic. You might have the occasional sniper with a 10 kill streak but he probably died like 20 times himself. As soon as the countdown timer ends, the screen is splashed with blood and body parts. The death animations are actually a lot of fun to watch and you can't get head shot without letting out a "o shit hahahaha" when it happens.

This is my baby

The biggest pull though is the games loadout system itself. You don't just pick two guns and an item, instead you actually get to craft your choice of weapon right down to what kind of trigger it has to fire. The closest I've come to this would have to be the Free to play shooter Black Light, which has tones of weapon customizing, but Loadout takes that concept and pumps it full of crack - because the results are just insane.

The cool thing is that even though you have people running around with lightening chain guns and 6 barrel rocket launchers that fire like anime mechs, everything is so well balanced. When crafting an item everything has it's pros and cons - so you don't make something that is the best "killer" but rather something that best suits your play style.

Aside from the awesome weapon building you also get to create your toon. Currently the game has two hero characters that you can customize, one of them looks a lot like Rambo and the other Mr T, and the devs have said they'll be releasing a female character as well sometime soon.

The main theme of the game seems to draw very heavily from the action movie culture of the 70s and 80s. Think Terminator, Commando, Cobra or anything else staring the cast of the Expandable and you'll find some reference to it in Loadout. One of the cosmetic options is even the jacket that Arnie takes from the punk in Terminator 1. In fact it's called "stolen punk jacket"

I've got two skins I role with, one being sort of a post apocalyptic theme and the other a rip off of Rick from Splatter House.

I actually cost me game money to take that shirt off.

 Both have the same weapon set up - but I have some other muck around builds as well.

I actually just keep things pretty simple. Yes the weapons with the light shows are fun but nothing beats a slug to the face. But this could change as every time I see someone using an interesting looking weapon I have to try and build it for myself. There's actually an area where you can try out all the guns you've made, but what I would love is a way to share and view other peoples schematics.

There are a few draw backs though as the game currently has a limited number of maps, and in game currency to buy weapon parts and cosmetics are hard to come by. Plus even though there are a huge possible combination of weapons - everyone just uses rockets. Including me :P

At the end of each match you get a wheel to spin, which in turn rewards you with various prizes like weapon parts and "space bucks". So far I've been getting a lot of XP and very little cash. So I went and bought a starter pack.

You're weapons level up as you spend rank points to open up different tiers in the weapons components. The most I've invested in is the Harbinger you can see in the pic up top.

Loadout should be out of closed beta soon and when it hits Steam you should definitely check it out if you're a fan of online play. The community are a pretty cool bunch, but all online groups have the occasional ass, but so far I haven't run into one. The Devs are petty cool to and you can tell they really love what they have and are constantly keeping touch with the fans for ideas and suggestions. You can also catch some live streaming of their games every now and then too.

Now watch this awesome trailer:

A Day At the Beach wins a World TV Award.

And then I won a World TV award.

A short film I did with my FBC TV crew called "A Day At the Beach" won the World Television Awards 2013 Science/environment category for the Best TV Programme on “Creating Ozone Safe Generations".

Now I get to present the Film at the Asia Media Summit, which is a global gathering of broadcasters from around the world, scheduled for the the 29 May in Manado, Indonesia. That's where I get presented with my award too :)

According to the website there's going to be 500 representatives from various broadcasters at the summit so it should be very interesting. 

I was so damn excited when I heard that I had won. It was 1am on a Saturday Morning and I had just finished a few hours of playing Loadout when I got the call from my Boss who had gotten an email telling him I had won. I actually just sat there kinda like "o really... awesome"

Inside though I was kinda in shock because this was my first international award, and a World TV award at that - which is pretty huge.

The film was a made as part of the workshop I had attended in Malaysia.

 As far as films go I never make anything I wouldn't watch. So when I set out to make something on Ozone Depletion one idea just jumped into my head.

After hearing all this talk about stop ozone depleting substances by the year 2050 I started thinking about what kind of effect that would have on us here in Fiji. Can Fiji or the whole Pacific wait that long? What will happen before then? or after that?

Check out the "Boom Mic"

So what came out in scripting was a ravaged Fiji in the year 2063 and the rest just fell into place.

Drawing from such things as Cormac McCarthy's The Road and even a bit of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories soon the script was locked into place.

I had a great crew working with me too so after about a week of planning and a day of shooting we  knew we had something awesome going. I'm lucky to always have a crew that sort of trusts me with concept and planing and especially direction.

I wanted to make the short informative, while still being accessible, so I had written a father and daughter reflecting on all the things that happened to Fiji for it to be the dry, barren place it was in the script.    

We shot the project down at the Sigatoka sand dunes which gave us the perfect back drop for our story.

Before the actual day of the shoot my buddy Samu Soqoyawa and I went up to the dunes to check out the location. I shot a small video of the location on my handycam just to get a feel for the place. I then cut this into a little "mood video" that I showed the crew to give them a sense of what I was trying to capture. I also used this is a site reference when scripting.

The Day of the actual was shoot was a lot harder as the area gets a lot of rain. So it meant packing equipment up now and then, sometimes in the middle of takes, so we didn't get it wet.

What was also interesting is that I had planned to have a  CGI character in the story as well. A computer that talks to the father and daughter, explaining things about the Ozone and the effects of the depletion.

The design for this A.I was pretty simple but looked great - and I owe a lot of thanks to our graphics guy and my friend David Whiteside for his designs. I'm lucky that he is a huge video game buff like me so he had a lot to draw from. In fact he designed all the graphics I animated based on a few crude sketches I had given him. though our render resources and such was pretty scarce - I thought the end product with the AI turned out great.

Lending her voice to the AI, that we named Jacki-0, was the lovely Jacqueline Speight from our very own FBC TV news desk.

The score for the short was done by our very awesome sound guy Jone Nakasamai, who actually composed the main theme a day before we submitted the film for the award.

Our two leads Peceli Rokotuivuna and Ny Vann were great sports. As we had one camera it meant we had to do a lot of multiple takes to get the different angles. Even Seremaia bui Cabecabe who was our drive for the day helped with carrying equipment up and down those mad high sand dunes.

In the end we had something we were all very proud of and to have something that is essentially a work of passion recognized with an award like this is truly amazing.  

Here's the trailer for the short - which plays on FBC TV on the 15th of May at 6:30pm. I'll have a copy online soon after I get back from Indonesia.

Dark Souls 2: Gameplay Reveal

Dark Souls. Nothing else comes close.

Well there's Demon souls ... but Dark Souls is hands down my ultimate gaming experience. I came across  a comment somewhere that read:

"I haven't finished Dark Souls ... stuck in the tomb of giants"

This was then followed by a reply that said:

"Don't blame you... that game is hard"

To which I thought "Fuck that"

I finished Dark Souls 5 times. 4 times on one character which stayed at level 125 while the world got harder around him. Saying that Dark Souls is Hard is a serious under statement. But the game doesn't punish you for mistakes, it punishes you for not learning from them.

Now I don't need to go into any more depth about how much of a hard-on i have for Dark Souls, you can actually just read about it your self on my past blog up dates about it.

Well now after Dark Souls there's only one other game that I'm truly anticipating, more than anything else. In fact it's greatness actually makes everything else pale in comparison. That Game is Dark Souls 2.

From the day I saw the announcement trailer I've been burning (for lack of a better word) to play this game. It's not just the difficulty - in fact that's not my biggest pull - it's the world that you live in when  you play Dark Souls, that's what I'm looking forward to revisiting.

The lore, the characters - nothing beats Dark Souls.

Today the dark gods were kind enough to grace us finally with a Dark Souls 2 Gameplay video. I wish I had recorded my reaction to it because I'm sure my Jaw was dropped throughout the whole thing.

Check it out.



Now if there was one thing that bugged me about the gameplay it was that the player seemed to take a lot of hits. Some of those early bits in the video against those undead soldiers were a bit disappointing because if you take hits like that in Dark Souls you'll be seeing a reload screen shortly after. Plus he seemed to move a little too fast in that amour - something I'm not used to seeing in Dark Souls.

But I loved the atmosphere and the environment throughout the video. It reminded me more of Demon's Souls over Dark Souls because it seemed to have more of a horror aspect to it. And that boss in the carriage - looked freaking awesome. And that bridge with the dragons... fucking hell. And that bit with the monster crashing through the wall... o my god.

I can not wait to see more of it. Dark Souls 2 seems to be shaping up very nicely... Praise the Sun!