Super Smash Bros Brawl: Subspace Emissary

I've been playing "Super Smash Bros Brawl" for over a year now.  Yet, I never did find the time to actually play through its story mode.  Also I always played "Brawl" in my friend's Wii, but thanks to some very crafty handiwork, the "Smash Bros" disc is now sitting in my own personal white phallic-titled game system.  And thanks to that, I finally got to play, and beat, Subspace Emissary.  Yeah, I know this review is really late, but what do you expect?  When "Brawl" first came out, I didn't even have a blog then!

With harsh memories of "Dissidia" behind me, I was really hoping that Nintendo could succeed where Square Enix had failed so miserably:  have a massive crossover plotline without accidentally creating one of the worst storylines in the history of all mankind.  With a name like "Subspace Emissary", a bizarre coupling of two words whose exact meaning I still am nowhere near understand, I was already getting some bad "Final Fantasy" vibes.  "Subspace Emissary" could easily be the next subtitle to the newest "Kingdom Hearts" game.  However, "Brawl"'s story mode immediately shows itself to be something very different than "Dissidia" by taking an interesting approach:  no dialog.  Of course, many of Nintendo's franchises are either dialog-less or have very sparse storylines, so this is an appropriate way of going about telling the story.  It would be a bit odd for Link to suddenly start talking out of nowhere with Fox.  And after "Dissidia"'s unbelievably awful script, and "Other M"'s raping of Samus in an sad attempt to add a plot, I can't say I have any problems here.  The last thing anybody wanted was Link to start talking about his dreams of filling the world with flowers.

"Subspace Emissary" above all else is a simple sidescrolling game.  As with Nintendo's overall gaming strategy, gameplay is placed well above story issues.  They wanted to make a fun adventure before writing an epic poem, basically the opposite of "Dissidia"'s strategy.  And which would I rather play?  Which would anybody rather play?  "Subspace Emissary", that's what.

Bleach Recaps: Ep. 197, Let's Green Egg and Ham It

Laptop is back!  Yay!  Now my creative juices are flowing at full spirit now that I know that random people can't see me watch shows where large Black men dress up like toddlers.  Instead it will be my closest friends and roommate.

Last week "Bleach" inaugurated a new round of battles:  Kenpachi vs. Spoony, Byakuya vs. Shaq, and Dr. Insano's ridiculous new look vs. the audience.  Things are generally looking up for this show, I have to say.  As long as their's brainless repetitive anime swordplay, "Bleach" will still have one viewer in me.  This Sunday's* episode was entirely about the battle between the prettiest man in the Soul Society vs. a dude with spikes on his head.  And amazingly at the end, the fight almost seems concluded.  Finishing a fight in under three episodes?  This can't be "Bleach" I'm watching now, right?

So after a hideously long recap of last week's events, we return to the action.  Byakuya and Zommari are still arguing over which one of them is arrogant.  All Shaq seems to want is to be treated as an equal, and maybe get enough respect to at least get pretty-boy's name.  But Byakuya, showing a really nasty side that I doubt his fangirls will enjoy, refuses to accept Shaq as an equal.  Shaq is like "I'm an Esapda, you're a Captain, come on dude, we can at least not be dicks."  Then Byakuya is like "You're a lesser species, I don't want nothing to do with you."  I know Japan is a highly racially homogeneous country - the worst ethnic problem they have there is some angry Korean immigrants - but to a Western eye, I see a light-skinned man telling a Black man that he does not count.  Not cool, "Bleach", not cool.  I mean, yeah, the show is talking about the difference between Hollows and Soul Reapers**, but its easy enough to see some really deep problems here.

minus.

"minus." by Ryan Armand is a webcomic about a little girl with the powers of Almighty God.  Its never explained where the little girl gets her powers from, but everybody seems to just run with it.  Her name is "minus", always spelled lower cased, though in the comic title its spelled with a period for no apparent reason.  Through minus' inexplicable omnipotence, the comic becomes a weird and wonderful world where anything can happen.  One day minus can be the warrior queen of the ant-people, and then the next she'll be playing with her lunch (see above).  Thanks to the unlimited imagination of this little girl, "minus." becomes a 21st century digital "Calvin & Hobbes" - which is easily the highest recommendation I can ever give a webcomic.

Drawn in soft childlike colors with a spare sense of space, "minus." appeals to a sense of childlike innocence.  "minus." does not attack complex issues directly like Bill Watterson's "Calvin & Hobbes", rather it briefly brushed up on them then moves on.  "minus" is a quiet character who simply enjoys playing for its own sake, not some great philosopher like Calvin.  Despite her unlimited power, minus still goes to school, listens to her mother, and has friends, of course all this happens when she's not flying into space and trying to befriend an alien culture or conversing with ghosts.  Typically in stories where little kids get unlimited power, they wind up wishing innocent people "to the cornfield", but minus is not vindictive - but don't get on her bad side or she'll turn you into a balloon, then pop you.

War in Libya

A few days ago the United States essentially went to war with Mummar Gaddafi*, the self-declared "leader" of Libya.  For the past few weeks the world has been watching as the Libyan rebels have been nearly completely defeated by Gaddafi's army, and now were forced into the capital of Bengazi.  If not for American military intervention coming when it did, Bengazi, a city of more than 600,000 would have been the sight of a massive battle with Gaddafi almost certainly being the victor.  Essentially what we were staring at was the prospect of a modern-day sacking.  So yeah, I'm going to support the President in his intervention in Libya, in fact, I've been worried for the last week that Obama would sit back and let us enjoy the watching a city be razed on CNN and the Huffington Post.

Now I know there are those among you who immediately panic to imagine the US in another war, especially after we so brilliantly mired ourselves into two quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade.  Then of course there are those among us who just naturally hate every single military action the US takes, no matter what the situation or circumstance.  Nobody wanted to go to war, but the situation has arisen where once again, if the United States stays silent, nobody will do anything.  Obama gave his support to the rebels several weeks ago when their victory seemed only days away, now that the situation has turned away from them is he to just leave them to be destroyed by a tyrannical dictator?  Unfortunately Obama has blundered his way into an incredibly unclear mandate:  just what the Hell are we doing in Libya?  Acting as a shield for the rebels?  Removing Gaddafi?  We will be backing up similar revolutionary movements in Bahrain, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, where protests have been met with viscous reprisals by their respective authoritarian governments?  How far are we willing to go for our mission here, whatever it is?  And finally, who is in control here?  The UN?  NATO?  The Arab League?  Or like in Iraq, is this going to be a mainly US-led operation?  Most importantly, if we want Gaddafi gone, what is our plan for the Libya to be?

Unless Obama answers those questions immediately with a clear statement of our goals in Libya, we could indeed end up in one more quagmire.  Right now the bombings have not deterred Gaddafi from launching another offensive - one most likely to doomed to be crushed under the bombardment coming from the most sophisticated military hard-ware in world history.  But what then?  Right now Obama is doing the right thing for fighting for humanitarian aid.  But we need a plan.

Bleach Recaps: Ep. 196: Kenpachi Cuts Somebody in Half!

From now I've decided that I hate the regular titles for "Bleach" episodes, so I'm going to add my own.  What I remember most about this episode is Captain Kenny cuts somebody in half in the first two minutes, thus the title change.  The Japanese title is "Joining the Battle! The Strongest Shinigami Army Appears" - which honestly doesn't make any sense because a Shinigami army does not actually appear.  And in AMERICA we call them "Soul Reapers", got it, translators?

So in tonight's episode, after Ichigo's invasion of Heuco Mundo has ultimately turned into well... a complete failure, he is luckily saved at the last minute by reinforcements coming out of basically nowhere.  And who could ask for better reinforcements?  No less than four Captains of the Soul Society and three Lieutenants.  Since one of those Captains is no less than Kenpachi Zarachi, the mad dog who lives and breaths for death itself, I'm pretty sure Ichigo can rest easy while the big boys take care of things.  Or maybe he can't.

You see, Ichigo beat Kenpachi back in the Soul Society arc, and that was two power level jumps ago.  He beat Kenpachi to within an inch of his life before even attaining Bankai.  Now Ichigo, with Bankai plus his Vizard powers can't beat Spoony.  Naturally the power level game should prove that Kenpachi has no chance here, but Kenpachi doesn't exactly play by those rules.  He so insane that in the Soul Society arc he got stabbed in the heart and kept on fighting.  Tosen, now one of Aizen's big dogs, couldn't beat Kenny.  Kenpachi took on two Captains that day, beat one, and probably would have beaten the other.  He's basically an unstoppable monster who is just hilariously out of his mind.  Which is why of course, Kenny is my favorite character.  So let's see him do his thing: