Deeply Delving Dungeons

So I just got back from seeing The Goods on a whim and I felt that it was my duty to warn people away from this movie. Sure, it’s been out for a while and most people who would have gone to see it already have, but I know there is a sizeable subset of individuals who think it’s prudent to wait for the DVD release on movies like this. If you are one of those cautious individuals do not waste your money or even your time with this movie. It is, in a word, shit.

I’m sure that everyone has seen trailers for comedies and thought, “Oh, that looks kind of amusing, and I do enjoy movies with Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so in them, maybe I’ll check this out when it hits theatres.” Then, several trailers later that line of thought changes to, “Well, it’s probably going to be pretty bad, and they probably put all of the good scenes in the trailer, but at least Mr. or Mrs. Whozawhatzit is in it so I don’t mind blowing a few bucks seeing this.” You go see the movie, it’s bad, most of the good jokes were in the trailer but there were a few notables outside of it, and at least Mr. or Mrs. Sugartits was their usual entertaining self. You leave the theatre quoting the few good bits, get home, go to bed, the end.

This is pretty common, especially for comedies, and this was very much my feeling as I went into The Goods. It looked like it had a semi-amusing concept, maybe a little boring but whatever, the gags looked okay and were even a bit offensive, which I appreciate, and I fucking love Jeremy Piven, so I was sold. I pretty well knew that it was going to a stinker, but I kind of enjoy bad movies so that doesn’t bother me much, so long as they revel in how bad they are. But even with all of these low expectations set in place The Goods was one of the most painfully unfunny, poorly directed, and badly acted comedies I have ever seen.

Continue reading ‘The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard’

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and for that I feel I must apologize to what few readers I have (or had as the case may be) for my unexplained absence. For the past two weeks I have been engaged in renovations all around and outside my house and have simply been too tired to be bothered with writing or even playing games for that matter. I can’t say it was all toil however as I uncovered an ancient, inoperative computer tower that had been hiding away in the garage for ages and as someone who spends a lot of time working with computers there is no therapy quite so soothing as beating the ever-living hell out of a facsimile for the beastly rig that has tormented me for so long. I would have made a post about this sooner but before I had little else to say than that and I prefer posts with more meat on them. Also, for some reason Twitter hasn’t been letting me update my status which is only appropriate considering I have only recently given in to this insipid technology’s call and it wouldn’t make sense for it to work for me now that I have need of it now would it? Well, fortunately the renovations are at an end and I’m going to try to step things up a notch as far as posting frequency goes from now on.

As I stated before, I don’t want to simply update my status on here and so this is where the portents come in to play. I have a few reviews coming soon, one of which will be Overlord 2 with which I have been having an extremely hard time motivating myself to finish so you can guess how well that reflects on it, unfortunate considering my love for the first Overlord. Also, before renovations hit full swing I finished up Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and as it winded down I started playing the recent XBLA title Shadow Complex so look out for those two reviews as well. Not game related but no matter how exhausted I may have been I had to make time to see District 9 which was phenome– I mean, which you’ll be able to look forward to my reviewing soon as well.

Aside from that I am looking forward to getting back into LotRO as I have been away from that at least as long as I have been away from this site. I have a few posts lined up where I assume my place in the Designer’s Armchair for the first in what I hope will be a long running series of articles where I let you know how I would have done things differently without having to worry about losing my job for doing so. I’ll start with a few sessions regarding some of LotRO’s mechanics such as radiance, crafting, questing, legendary items, and even some of the little things I would like to see in the game. I will also start to showcase some of my characters and the kinship I lead, the Delving Dungeon Company, and will also be working on adding a kinship site to this one for any interested in joining up.

Apart from that there may be one more special feature I will also be bringing to Deeply Delving Dungeons that hinges upon my ability to draw with any speed. Yes, I will be trying to bring yet another webcomic to the clogged tubes of the internets, keyword: trying. I was inspired to do so by watching copious amounts of the Daily Show as well as by getting hooked on Heroes after having been encouraged to watch it by a friend for over a year. Will it be worth your time? I’m doubtful, not being much of an artist and not really planning to do a comedic comic, but I’ll give it a shot anyways.

Anyways, I hope that gives you something to look forward to on this site, and would like to encourage any readers to comment on the posts as I do love to have a little back-and-forth.

We can now breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the impending suit against Double Fine and their upcoming rock epic Brutal Legend having been settled.

For those not in the know, Brutal Legend is an action game being helmed by Tim Schafer at Double Fine while being published by Ex-Evil Overlords EA. If you don’t know who Tim Schafer is I feel sad for you and heartily recommend you look him up on Wikipedia or what have you. He has been a creative force behind some of the finest titles in gaming history and is known for being a god of the adventure genre with such titles as Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, and Grim Fandango under his belt. His first title with his own studio, Double Fine Productions, was the critically acclaimed financial failure Psychonauts, which can now be found on the Xbox 360’s Xbox Originals service (seriously, go buy it if you haven’t already).

This latest outing of Schafer’s is an action game set in a mythical world of all things rock and metal where you play as a roadie, voiced by Jack Black, who is pulled from his world into this metal-lover’s paradise and is forced to take up the axe and annihilate the forces of evil with the glory of rock. Badass huh? Oh, and if that weren’t enough it is going to be released in Rocktober!

This is a Good Thing.

Continue reading ‘For Those About To Rock…’

It was but a scant minute after I posted about my adoption of Twitter that my modem decided to commit harakiri (my browsing habits being less than honourable to say the least) much to my aggravation. Thanks to the BC Day long weekend I was forced to live within the void that is life without internet and was left with no other recourse than to play a single-player game. At first I entertained the notion of going through the Metal Gear series for the umpteenth time but then realized that I would be left with no ultimate payoff due to having no PS3 with which to end the marathon, mine having been stolen some time ago. It wasn’t a perusal of my library which led to my initial choice of Metal Gear however, rather I had been listening to old episodes of Destructoid’s Podtoid podcast recently and they never shut up about Metal Gear Solid, for good reason.

But then I recalled another game I hadn’t played in some time that Mr. Sterling and Co. enjoy raving about: Lost Odyssey. I’ve already played this epic RPG to completion once before, but I really couldn’t recall that much about it outside of two particular elements: it has a very traditional JRPG battle system and it caused me to openly weep on multiple occasions. Then I recalled fond memories of one the strangest game systems I have ever encountered, strange in that it is hardly a game system at all yet it wouldn’t be near so effective without the trappings of a game surrounding it.

That system? A Thousand Tears- I mean, Years of Dreams.

Alright then, I’m game! Let’s just see this poor excuse for interactive entertainment try to tug at my heart strings now that I know all of its little tricks. Do your worst!

Continue reading ‘Tears For Years’

I’m not a big fan of social networking as a rule. It’s not that I have anything against being social or even being social over the internet, it’s just that most people seem to boil that interaction down into the number of people they have on their friend lists and end up caring little for the quality of the interaction itself. This behaviour seems to be embodied within Twitter, made even worse by the feeble attempts of the tight-ass generation trying to be hip by using Twitter during sessions of Congress or by turning CNN into nothing more than a glorified social networking webshow. So I tend to avoid these things like the plague.

However, I am not one to ignore a useful tool, even if its typical application is so repulsive to me. I hate Apple with a passion, wishing to do their chic geek tech what Louis C.K. wants to do to pretentious coffee shop purveyors’ bagels, but I still own and use an iPod. It’s just handy to have, though I am not part of the Apple cult.

And so I must announce that I am going to start using Twitter. But not to let people know what is going on in my life (woke up; ate; played LotRO; ate; went to bed; repeat) but rather to provide an easy way to track new posts. I don’t know how effective it will be for that but I have seen others use it for that purpose so I figured what the hell. Who knows, it might help to generate some traffic as well and I’m always interested in discussing the topics I bring up in here with others (and hopefully with those of differing opinion).

So feel free to follow me on Twitter.
Username: Elandarex
Real Name: Alexander Smith