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Socks II: The Smash Files

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Batman Update

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Video Games Jun 04 2013 · 44 views

After some deliberation, and after looking at the comments, I decided to pick up Arkham Asylum, so that I can play it through and be 100% guaranteed to not be comparing it to Arkham City the entire way through. I'll play Asylum and enjoy it, and when I'm done (or when City is on sale again, whichever comes first), I'll move on to the next game.

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Batman

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Video Games Jun 04 2013 · 48 views

Both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City are 75% off on Steam right now. I've only had a little bit of experience with Arkham City; that's the extent of my playing either game so far. I am going to buy one, and I only have enough in Steam to buy one - so I'm looking for recommendations. Arkham Asylum is a couple dollars cheaper (leaving the possibility open that another game comes out on a deal that I can pick up) and it's the first one - otherwise, I don't see any reasons to buy one over the other.

So, I'm asking you folk.

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NAME CHANGED

Posted by Iron Voltex , in BZPower Jun 02 2013 · 37 views

Those of you on the Minecraft Server of Burn will already be familiar with this. But to those of you not in the know, I have assumed the pseudo-secret identity of "Iron Voltex". Blade and I have already developed several Iron Voltex "suits" in MC, and they are on display.

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Fun Fact

Posted by Iron Voltex , May 29 2013 · 17 views

I've created several topics in Games & Trivia - some for myself, some for other people.

Six of them have been closed once the games were ended. The fun fact is that two of these six were closed by Ziko, two of them were closed by Black Six, and two of them were closed by Sumiki.

Yeah, I guess it's not that interesting after all.

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REVIEW: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Review Series 2013, Reviews May 26 2013 · 10 views

Posted Image

I didn’t see the film G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra in theatres. In fact, I almost didn’t see it at all – however, in November 2010 it so happened that my brother had it rented for his birthday party, and the following day I decided I’d give it a go, despite having never seen, read, or played with anything relating to G.I. Joe before.

My memories of the film are a little fuzzy – I watched it twice that week, but I haven’t seen it since (nor do I feel any need to do so). I remember thinking that it was cool, and relishing in the fact that they weren’t afraid to have something like the Eiffel Tower be destroyed within the story. The nanobot technology was very interesting, albeit so obviously fake it was laughable. However, despite any flaws, in its own right, I do believe that Rise of Cobra was a good film. It wasn’t great, and I wouldn’t hype it or recommend it, but it’s not a film that you’ll regret.

Retaliation is another thing entirely. It’s almost as if they sucked up every single thing that was good about the first film until it had shrivelled up like a raisin, and then they just threw all that good stuff out. Up until this point I have never truly regretted seeing a film in the cinema, and this is counting movies like Happy Feet, Imagine That, Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (among a few others, probably, that I just don’t care to remember). So not once in my life have I regretted a visit to the cinema – but I do now. Retaliation was two hours of my life that I’m never going to get back. Retaliation is quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen. I haven’t seen many bad movies, mind, because growing up my father had good sense and taste in what movies he bought or rented for us, and since I became self-aware as a human being I have had the sense to make sure I watch good films.

Until now, of course. Retaliation was playing at the same time that Oz: The Great and Powerful was. My brother and I debated with each other the pros and cons of seeing both films for hours on end, neither of us able to decide upon which film we wanted to see. All either of us really cared about was that it had been almost two months since we’d been to the cinema, and gosh darn it, we were going to go! So we let our younger sibling decide, and in my foolishness I allowed that to settle the decision. Despite the mixed reviews Oz: The Great and Powerful received, I’m sure it would have been far better than Retaliation.

The first mistake was that they killed Duke. This is no spoiler; he’s dead in the first twenty minutes. His death is supposed to trigger the emotional impact necessary for the heroes of the film to take down the villain, but instead, I felt nothing. His death felt absolutely pointless, and frustrating too – what kind of a series kills the main character of the first instalment in the prologue to the second? Duke’s death immediately chops off a bunch of the “good stuff” from Rise of Cobra- the triangle linking Duke, Cobra, and Cobra’s sister (who is mysteriously absent in Retaliation)gave an emotional connection that made Rise of Cobra worth seeing. With this connection vanquished, the heroes have no personal reason to fight Cobra.

The second mistake is that the three survivors of the attack are all brand new characters. Now, this wouldn’t be such a problem, except that none of them feel real. Dwayne Johnson is there because he has muscles. Big fat deal I want a character I can relate to, and his bogus story of him being bullied when he was younger just doesn’t cut it. They introduce Bruce Willis about halfway through and guess what? His character is non-existent too. Snake Eyes is the same as usual and his new buddy doesn’t develop at all either. They have a sensei that has to blatantly explain the emotional subplots to them, and that’s just sad. I could go on all day, but honestly, there is only one character that has any sort of development in this film, and that is Storm Shadow.

Storm Shadow evolves from a villain to an anti-hero, thanks to a fourth wall breaking statement made by the aforementioned sensei (this guy is like an omniscient narrator trapped in a regular character’s body). Storm Shadow was tricked into becoming evil, despite him becoming evil years before Cobra ever turned evil. The back story and explanation for this trick are lacking like everything else in the film, but Storm Shadow’s development is the one thing that works in this film.

Even the action in this film isn’t enjoyable; it’s like all of the actors are just going through the motions of going through the motions – there just isn’t any sense of a threat whatsoever. I never felt like there was any risk that the bad guys might win. The action is so boring that I’m hard pressed to even call it action.

As the first film that I saw in theatres for 2013 (not counting the absolutely wonderful Les Miserables, since that was a 2012 release), G.I. Joe: Retaliation was an absolute mess, and even worse because it was originally supposed to be released around March of 2012. Too bad it couldn’t be delayed inevitably.

Score: 24%

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The Old Posts

Posted by Iron Voltex , in BZPower May 26 2013 · 3 views

On BZPower, almost every single member is quite the noob when they begin posting. For your first 3 or 4 months, all of your posts and any stories you post suck, because you're just starting to know your way around and hey, you don't know any better.

Then you have the lucky people who join and actually aren't like that, and man, it must be awesome to be those people. (No I am not one of them). These folks join, post, and everybody loves them because who doesn't love a new person that knows what they're talking about? I know I do.

And then you have the people like me, who are lucky like the lucky people but also unlucky like the former noobs. I am talking about the forgotten noobs, and we are the members who join and begin posting during time frames such as September 2008 until March 2009. At times like this, we have an unexpected data loss (such as the Dataclysm, which I just mentioned), where every single post for several months is lost.

Gone. All of your very first, so awful posts, gone. A fresh, clean slate. You can begin anew, and nobody will ever be any the wise.

Except that if you're like me you just post like a noob for another year before you start to actually be a normal person. Sucks to be you, me.

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A Question

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Life May 25 2013 · 7 views

You find yourself in a world where time travel somehow exists! Now tell me, traveller: can you go backward and forward in time, can you only go backward in time, or can you only go forward in time?

I am of the opinion that you can only go forward, though that is just my refusing to accept any possibility that someone could go back and change the past at any moment, thereby taking any semblance of control I have over my life away. You can only alter the ever-changing future, not the brick wall of the past.

Of course, that's just me.

EDIT: I don't think forwards is a word. If it is, I feel stupid. If it isn't, I feel stupid for putting it in this entry before this edit was made.

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Review Blitz Incoming

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Movies May 21 2013 · 5 views

So in the past several weeks I've seen several movies.

-G.I. Joe: Retaliation (how I regret this...)
-Jurassic Park 3D
-Oblivion
-Iron Man 3
-The Great Gatsby
-Star Trek Into Darkness

Six movies. I hope to post six reviews next week.

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NHL Round 2 Predictions

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Life May 14 2013 · 2 views

I'll probably review these later. I haven't checked the games tonight yet, but here they are:

East
Pittsburgh Penguins (1) vs. Ottawa Senators (7) - Penguins in 6. (Revised after thinking on my gut instinct)

Boston Bruins (4) vs. New York Rangers (6) - Bruins in 6.

East
Chicago Blackhawks (1) vs. Detroit Red Wings (7) - Blackhawks in 6.

Los Angeles Kings (5) vs. San Jose Sharks (6) - Sharks in 5.

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STANLEY CUP - Round 1 Update

Posted by Iron Voltex , in Life May 10 2013 · 2 views

As a refresher, on May 1st these were my predictions for the first round:

East
Pittsburgh Penguins (1) vs. New York Islanders (8) - Penguins in 6.
Montreal Canadiens (2) vs. Ottawa Senators (7) - Canadiens in 7
Washington Capitals (3) vs. New York Rangers (6) - Rangers in 7
Boston Bruins (4) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (5) - Could go either way, but I'll say Maple Leafs in 7.

West
Chicago Blackhawks (1) vs. Minnesota Wild (8) - Blackhawks in 5
Anaheim Ducks (2) vs. Detroit Red Wings (7) - Ducks in 7
Vancouver Canucks (3) vs. San Jose Sharks (6) - Canucks in 6
Los Angeles Kings (4) vs. St. Louis Blues (5) - Kings in 6

Now, below, here they are updated, mostly my thoughts on what could occur in the series that haven't ended yet (I'm not gonna be stupid and just switch my predicted winners, because that'd be sore losing)

East
Pittsburgh Penguins (1) vs. New York Islanders (8) - Penguins in 6 - This prediction could still come true, but in order for it to do so, the Penguins must win tomorrow's game. Do I think they can do this? Absolutely. However, I anticipated the Islanders putting up a good fight, and although they've done so already, I do think they are capable of pushing a game seven, and possibly even eliminating the Penguins. Tomorrow night will tell.

~~Montreal Canadiens (2) vs. Ottawa Senators (7) - Canadiens in 7~~ - WRONG. Senators defeated the Canadiens last night, winning the series in five games. To be honest, I knew this series was lost by game two, but again, wasn't going to just change stuff on the record books. That said, I think the Senators will be lucky to get matched with a team they can beat in Round 2.

Washington Capitals (3) vs. New York Rangers (6) - Rangers in 7 - As I write this, the two teams are tied 1-1 in the second period of game five in a series that is tied 2-2. Despite the blitz of the Capitals throughout April, I believed and still do believe that the Rangers have the firepower to take them down. I don't believe the Rangers can win the cup, but they can certainly defeat this team that should be executed for removing the Jets from the playoffs.
EDIT: After the Capitals won game five, they are up 3-2; I still believe that the Rangers might be able to win the series, however.

Boston Bruins (4) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (5) - Could go either way, but I'll say Maple Leafs in 7. - As I write this, the Maple Leafs also lead 1-0 in the second period of game five. However, the Maple Leafs are currently down 3-1 in this series. If they do not win tonight, they will be eliminated. I will cop out slightly here and point out that I originally said the series could go either way in my first prediction; the Maple Leafs victory was my Canadian bias coming out. I do believe though that if the Maple Leafs win tonight, they might be able to push game seven. After that, who knows.
EDIT: Maple Leafs won and are now down 3-2. Who knows, honestly...

West
Chicago Blackhawks (1) vs. Minnesota Wild (8) - Blackhawks in 5 - 100% correct. Gosh darn, can you believe it? Don't worry, the Canucks and Canadiens proved me wrong enough to compensate for this, but man, it is nice to know that I really understood the Blackhawks (don't expect this again). It was five simple games, and I could see the Blackhawks making the final round, if the Sharks don't catch them on the way.

Anaheim Ducks (2) vs. Detroit Red Wings (7) - Ducks in 7 - As I write this, the Red Wings lead 1-0 at the end of the first period of game six in a series that the Ducks currently lead 3-2. If I'm off by a game and the Ducks win tonight, I'll consider it no big loss. I got the winner right, and that's what matters. However, I can still see the Red Wings pulling off a victory tonight only to fail in the grand finale.
EDIT: Red Wings won, and the series is tied 3-3. Prediction can still stand.

~~Vancouver Canucks (3) vs. San Jose Sharks (6) - Canucks in 6~~ - 100% WRONG. I honestly did not see this one coming - the Canucks being swept? But issues with the coach and which goalie to play let me know by Game 3 that the series was lost, and it was only a matter of time. Luongo should have been in net games three and four. Maybe it would've changed the fortunes of the team, it probably wouldn't have, but at least the Canucks look to be heading towards a restructuring they desperately need. If the Sharks continue to play like this, I could see them finally winning the Stanley Cup they deserve.

St. Louis Blues (4) vs. Los Angeles Kings (5) - Kings in 6 - In just over an hour these two teams will meet in the sixth game of a series that the Kings currently lead 3-2. I'll admit, I'd love for the Blues to go far, and I was a little worried during the first two games that the Kings would lose the cup in the first round, but the royal team has picked it up since, and I can definitely see this game being the end of the road for the Blues.
EDIT: With the Kings emerging victorious tonight, I got another series spot-on.

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