Kung-Fu Thursday

Batman: The Movie
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin
Fight Choreographer: Leslie H. Martinson
Country: USA
Released: 30th July 1966

Video Game Reviews

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE: LEARN DEUTSCH

Brad: Did they have to make the girl so Aryan? It makes our job easy, yet strangely awkward.
Rob: I like the fact that this series is called Mind Your Language as if German is somehow a series of curse words..."3D representation of a school that the player is free to explore and discover hidden words and letters". Yeah, that was one of my favourite bits about school: "let me just open my locker, oooh look, I found an adverb"
Brad: 3D is the world's most overrated marketing device. The entire world is 3D, yet video games market it like it's some new gimmick.
Rob: They're doing that with movies as well now.
Brad: Yeah, so I hear. I'm going to watch the hell out of 3-D Star Wars, though.
Rob: Did you know that not all films are in 3-D all the way through?
Brad: I don't follow...
Rob: All right: say for argument's sake it's My Bloody Valentine in 3-D. Not all of the film is in 3-D, only key scenes
Brad: Like Nightmare on Elm Street 6?
Rob: Um...yes?
Brad: Okay. Why is the guy on the right holding a wrench?
Rob: I think he's the Language Mechanic.
Brad: Did they have to make the girl's hat look quite so much like an SS cap? It makes our job easy, yet strangely awkward.
Rob: Isn't that hilarious? The age restriction is in German! Isn't that somewhat redundant if this is for beginners?
Brad: Score?
Rob: I'll say a sechs, or 6, because it sounds a bit like sex.
Brad: I'm giving is a 7/10, based on the d10 I just rolled.
Rob: Ooh, that's a good system!
Brad: Yeah, don't let on, but it's pretty much how I review the CDs every week.



NERF: N-STRIKE

Brad: I think I've discovered the most redundant game of all time. NERF = a way of shooting your friends with a gun, without hurting them. First-Person Shooter = a way of shooting your friends with a gun without hurting them. NERF First-Person Shooter = a way of shooting your friends with a...wait a minute..why don't we just...I made a similar point a while ago over a paintball game released on the PS2. If it's a video game, why does it have to be a paintball gun? Why not just make it an ordinary gun?
Rob: That's a good question. I would have said the peripheral was optional, but if they're packing it in with the game, that's not even an option.
Brad: In a perfect world, that peripheral would be another nail in Nintendo's coffin.
Rob: For all your Wii-bashing, I bet I can find a peripheral that improves your opinion of the system. In fact, I already have...



Brad: It looks exactly like the gun I have for Lethal Enforcers on the Sega Mega-CD. Go Nintendo! Continue to innovate!
Rob: I saw one in a store today, it's enormous.
Brad: "Play with over 25 Nerf blasters including the Maverick REV-6, Vulcan EBF-25, Longshot CS-6, and many never seen before!". Back to my point, I had no idea there was any difference between NERF guns besides the colour.
Rob: I assume it's just superficial differences. I find it hard to believe there are sub-categories, like machine guns and shotguns; although sadly, I know there are.
Brad: I...still can't get my head around the pointlessness of this game. Is this aimed at the First-Person Shooter fan or the NERF fan?
Rob: It's a new group they're trying to create, the FERPENS They will prevail!
Brad: I know it's cheating, but I just watched the trailer, and now I hate computer games.
Rob: Jesus...
Brad: Seriously, what's next? A DS cartridge based around reading classic novels?
Rob: I'm gonna give it a 4.
Brad: 1d10 says 9.
Rob: Saves rationalising it, i guess...



IMAGINE BALLET DANCER

Rob: I'd love to imagine a ballet dancer, but unfortunately a court order says I'm not allowed.
Brad: All I'm saying is that I refuse to believe it's coincidence that all the shit games I choose for us to review are on Nintendo.
Rob: It's a definite quantity over quality scenario over there, but then that's where the money is.
Brad: Does 3+ refer to the age range, or the number of mini-games this game has? Nintedo doesn't really make games anymore. It makes collections of mini-games.
Rob: I have to correct you there, most of the mini-game compilations are by other publishers. Have you noticed that all of the girls on these boxes have mysterious blue swirly crotches?
Brad: I'd love to look at the crotch to verify that, but unfortunately a court order says I'm not allowed. Score?
Rob: I'll give it a 3+.
Brad: 2/10



PROFESSOR HEINZ WOLF'S GRAVITY

Brad: I swear I’m not picking on Nintendo games.
Rob: Is his gravity in some way different?
Brad: Why don't people wear bow ties anymore?
Rob: I think the spinning ones have spoiled it for the rest of them
Brad: With a name like "Professor Heinz Wolf", he really missed the boat not getting on the Learn German game. What event was so calamitous at the photoshoot that they had to PhotoShop the apple in afterwards?
Rob: Maybe he's holding something dirty, like a dildo. Dildos are subject to gravity too. that'd be an awesome game for Wii, on a related note: Professor Heinz Wolff's Gravity: After Dark, and he's holding a Fleshlight or something
Brad: The box promises "Amazing minigames for exciting matches with friends". Surely they can only be "dropping shit and seeing what hits the ground first"? There's that "minigames" word again, though.
Rob: I don’t know if there are variations on stuff like that... like dropping Fleshlights.
Brad: Stop saying that. I don't want E14 to be the number one Google result for "fleshlights".
Rob: It'd get us some more Google Ad traffic though, maybe.
Brad: In the worst possible way... "In-game hints to help you on your way"
1: Pick up shit
2: Drop shit
3: Watch shit fall
4: Repeat
Rob: "Gravity makes stuff fall"
Brad: See, I can see how last month's Mr Physics might have had some mileage, but just "Gravity"? That makes it too specific, and I can't help but feel it would suffer as a result. It's like if Theme Hospital was purely based around Triaj.
Rob: What's next? Dr Karl Offenbacker's Centripetal Force?
Brad: Doktor Kurt Krankenschwester Presents: Hooke's Law - The Party Game Edition. Score?
Rob: 9.8m/s squared
Brad: Picking up d10, dropping it, and watching it fall: 7/10



JILLIAN MICHAELS' FITNESS ULTIMATUM 2009

Brad: Who the fuck is she?
Rob: I have no idea, but the name "Fitness Ultimatum" is hilarious to me. It could have been "Ultimate Fitness", that'd have been fine.
Brad: It basically means that a game has gone from conception to publication without anyone thinking to look up the word "ultimatum" in the dictionary. Presumably becuase there's no Professor Adolf Katzenjammer's Looking Shit Up In The Dictionary game yet. I would, however, like to point out that this is also a Nintendo game.
Rob: Maybe this game was preceded by "Fitness Identity" and "Fitness Supremacy".
Brad: I like the girl on the far right. Her body language seems to say "What the fuck am I doing?"
Rob: She looks a bit like Carmen Electra only not overrated, as neither of us have heard of her, let alone had her rammed down our throats as attractive.
Brad: This is a game that could finally use Nintendo's Fleshlight peripheral.
Rob: Is it safe to say you'd hit that then?
Brad: What's your score for this one?
Rob: I'll say 7, cos i'd probably hit that too, but only the one who doesn't know why she's there. I admire her naivety.
Brad: 1d10/10, modified to 1d10+2/10 if it turns out she's some relation to Shawn Michaels.



IMAGINE MY SECRET WORLD BY IMAGINE

Rob: ...Imagine My Secret World, By Imagine?
Brad: Going purely on the cover artwork...I have no idea what the fuck this is.
Rob: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say a rip-off.
Brad: Going by the woman in her late twenties pretending to be a teenage girl whilst showing off her bare feet, it just as easily be called It Came From Brad's Internet History!!!. I'd like to give this a score but...
Rob: Go on...
Brad: 1) I'm still not sure I comprehend what it's about and 2) I dropped my d10 under the table.

Crossovers that should never have been

Often I find myself asking "If I could link any franchises together, which ones would it be?" Obviously, the most sensible ones have already happened: Marvel characters make their debuts appearing in already successful volumes, successful game characters get their own breakaway franchises which then cross back over given enough time. What, then, of the franchises that make no sense? Are they destined to live forever in obscurity?

Not if we here at Emotionally Fourteen have our way.

Gotham By Gaslight - Batman meets Jack the Ripper

Now I know what you're thinking. "Batman meets Jack the Ripper? What an awesome idea." All well and good thinking that, but can you imagine the shit the person who invented this concept was smoking? The contents of his travel bag could probably bring down an elk. Or how long they'd been out of ideas at DC?

"Hey Dave...What ideas did you have for the next Batman comic?"
"I thought he could fight somebody smart and mysterious."
"I like it, but haven't we done that to de-"
"Jack the Ripper."
"....We'll have to make it an Elseworlds comic."
"What the fuck is Elseworlds? And where did I put my crack pipe?"


It's weird, as well, on the subject of Elseworlds, that so many of the concepts sound so sensible, and then you get that thrown in. I can certainly see the appeal, and also see where the crossover kind of makes sense. Every comic book label has its "What if" series. Unfortunately, Star Wars continuity does not allow for Jar Jar Binks to be crushed by a falling Star Destroyer, so that's restricted to my fanfic. I can always just imagine that he's on Alderaan in its final moments.

Superman: Speeding Bullets sees Superman's pod crash into Wayne Manor, so the story is imagining what he would be like as Batman instead of Superman (presumably rich and immortal. Not bad, Kal-El, not bad at all...) But then there's Gotham by Gaslight, which tells the story of what would happen:

If Batman had been around in the 1880s AND If all his contacts and friends had existed around that time AND If he lived in London AND If he was real.

All of those things happening together? I don't think any more need be said.

WCW Brings in Robocop

In the annals of professional wrestling's dumbest moves, this had to be one of the highest in the list by a country mile until they gave the title to The Great Khali. In 1990, WCW were keen to attract some of the entertainment-loving fans of the popular WWF (before the pandas kicked off and got the name changed). They did this with a gimmick for a wrestler named The Black Scorpion, as well as the aforementioned Robocop appearance. Unsurprisingly, the gimmicks did little to increase house show attendance, and ultimately WCW only succeeded at the time due to breaking away from the NWA federation in 1993 and becoming its own independent label.

In all seriousness, WCW would probably have been better off using Teddy Ruxpin as their gimmick. The need for promo guys at the time was pretty high, and Ruxpin's mic work, while predictable, was hailed as revolutionary by wrestling's key demographic at the time.

The Punisher meets Archie

What the fuck is this? How devoid of ideas were the people at Marvel?! At least Jack the Ripper had some street cred, take a page from DC's book and stick the Punisher up against Hindley and Brady or something, give him some shred of dignity. At least then he can use some of his weapons - in this comic, he's only required to apprehend the notorious drug dealer "Red", who coincedentally looks exactly like Archie.

Here's the problem with that. Surely Archie goes to school at that point. Surely if the Punisher has to go to a school dance in order to apprehend a drug dealer, alarm bells start going off. I mean, the Punisher's a vigilante, not a retard. Besides, this drug dealer, "Red" lacks the correct Punisher villain credentials in that he doesn't have an over the top stereotype name like Red Frapuccino or Red McDougal.

All in all, I'd have sooner seen Cloak and Dagger meeting Heathcliff. I hold out hopes for the future.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

Ever wondered what would happen if Batman fought Scorpion? Me neither.

Ok, I get that Marvel did a crossover with Capcom which is hailed as a cult classic game series. Yes, I realise that Mortal Kombat needed a real re-design after the problems it had with overcrowding the story. However, did it REALLY need to have a DC crossover game?

Probably the biggest flaw with this game (apart from the fact that having played it, it's fucking tedious) is the fact that it's a Mortal Kombat game with a 16+ PEGI rating. Mortal Kombat without extreme violence and fatalities is essentially Soul Calibur, and they lost their way to me when they chose Yoda over Ben Kenobi for the secret character.

That said, the Joker does look awesome in this game. However, there will never be a more recognised Joker than Heath Ledger from now on, and kudos to him for his time of accidental death making the Academy award a certainty.

The Mule

The mule is a hybrid of a male donkey and a female horse. The obvious question that springs to mind is "why not call it a honky?" The simple answer, my friends, is that the term 'honky' is an adjective that describes how a goose acts. As far as I know, that's the only use the term has.

What the hell is the point of a mule anyway? If you want something that can carry a lot, get a donkey. If you want something that can run, get a horse. Surely nobody was sat on a farm one day and said to themselves "this horse and this donkey are all well and good, but what if there was an animal that had a moderate speed and carriage capacity?"

While researching mules, I ventured to Wikipedia, the bastion of all reliable and unflappable knowledge, in order to find out more about the characteristics of a mule. The article makes for very interesting reading. It may or may not interest you (and I suspect I know which) to know that the mule possesses the sobriety of a donkey. That's a relief isn't it? It's good to know that in the event of a massive farmyard drinking party, a mule will keep a cool head if it's got work the next day.

Mules are also curious by nature, and less tolerant towards dogs than horses. They also have a tendency to kick out their hooves in any direction, including sideways. Next time I hear someone say "Those damn honkys piss me off. They're totally intolerant, always violent and often stick their noses where they don't belong", I can turn around to them and say "I think you're wrong, I think you'll find they're called Mules."