Fightin' Phils!

Well now, it looks like I've finally lived to see our city win a championship, its all the more special being the Phils, a team I've watched and loved as long as I can remember. Checking out GoogleNews and the blogosphere, it looks like pretty much everything has already been talked about; the great plays, the rain delay, Charlie Manuel looking like Grumpy Cookie... I think my favorite part of the whole experiance was watching the guys who actually did the deed celebrate. Fair Weather Fans across the city are cheering "WE DID IT!" left and right, but its these guys who actually did it. What's interesting to me is that the guys on the team really seem to feel as though they did it for us. They've proved themselves to be "our boys" in a way I've never seen before in any team. That's certainly refreshing in today's age of Michael Vick and Terell Owens.

The newscasters kept mentioning that this World Series Championship has immortalized our boys, sealed their names in history. Hearing this, I initially balked at the thought, how corney of a thing to bring up? But on the way to school today I realized there may be more to it than I (or even the sportscasters) originally thought...

Take, for example, ancient sporting events. We can, with just a little speculation, find records of sporting champions from decades, centuries, even milennia ago. We can see that our hero, Testiclies won the ball-stick championship for his town 3000 years ago, and he was a hero, a legend, almost a god for it. These were the days before good records were kept, and when only 30 people were in his town to praise him. In 4000 years, assuming man's presence on the planet, one will be able to open a book (probably not a book, but you see what I'm getting at) and find out that Chase and Shane, Pat, Jimmy, Ryan and the rest of the boys battled the elements and the other best team in the country and became champions...and they did it for their city, their home, and their fans. Our Guys did it for us. Hopefully we'll be able to get some great pictures from the parade tomorrow, we're going to go and give them the thanks they deserve.

On a similar note, while baseball IS just a game, and the World Series doesn't mean much in the great scheme of the universe, many of Our Guys do a lot of good in the community, something that DOES help to change the world for the better. I won't rehash everything that's on the Phillies' website, but two guys, who also happen to be my two favorite players, really stood out to me.

Chase Utley and Shane Victorino are two examples of guys who care more about the world around them than just getting that big fat check every week. Chase gives almost $20,000 in tickets to sick kids and their families every season (something that a surprising amount of Phillies players do, actually), and hosted Utley's All Star Animals Casino Night this year, helping to raise almost $200,000 for the SPCA. Him and his wife also foster an abused pit-bull. In every way, Chase is the anti-Michael Vick, and has secured a place as one of my all time favorite athletes, and certainly tops the list for my favorite Phillies (sorry Jim Thome, you're still up there!).

Shane Victorino does just as much to help out the community, visits sick kids, works with PAL, and hosts Get In the Game, a bowling and billiards tournament with Chase Utley to raise money for mentoring inner city kids. The thing that really stuck with me about Shane is that he attends ALL of the charity events that his teammates throw every year. Talk about dedication.

What I love about these guys is that they both sort of came out of nowhere, were never really expected to be among the greats....Chase Utley is supposed to be one of the most humble people in sports, and Shane Victorino seems to be among the friendliest. They're both hardworking, dedicated and service oriented fellas, and I hope the good people of Philadelphia never forget that.

That's my piece for now, stay tuned for pics of the madness tomorrow.

-Philadelphia Maneto!

"May the Force Kick You Square in the Nuts!", or...

A Super Dudes Power Squad review of STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED.

When I heard that the next great STAR WARS cross-platform game was going to be THE FORCE UNLEASHED, I got so excited that my Wii got turned on.

Unfortunately, the only STAR WARS substitute I had at the time was LEGO Star Wars, and though I love LEGOs, and STAR WARS, the mixing of the two is better left to children and those video game pacifists who get some sort of sick thrill out of a completely challengeless game where you can needlessly play as any character and never die.
Never. Even when you want to.

I must say, I enjoy playing with my Wii as much as the next guy, but I anticipated this new STAR WARS game to be graphically stunning and that somehow the Wii just wouldn't be good enough.

I went out and bought a PS3 (that's Playstation 3, grandpa) several months ago, then I reserved my cot in the closest poorhouse, closed out my bank account, sold my clothes and possessions, and now live out on the street with my $400 game console.

I would have gone for the X-BOX 360, however, the complaints of "brickage" were too much for me and SONY has been my friend for a good time, so fuck-it, I went for the Big Black Monster (don't click that link at work).

Anywho, back to my actual review...the thing where I talk about the game...
After playing the demo of THE FORCE UNLEASHED, I was left in such pants-tightening awe that I knew I had to have the full version and I had to have it RIGHT AWAY.

Naturally my online pre-order was fucked left, right, and sideways, by...a certain corporate Game Store...leaving me waiting by the door like an orphan whose daddy left for the grocery store four fucking years ago and just hasn't gotten back yet.

Eventually, my golden day did come and my game arrived. Needless to say, I popped it in faster than Levi Johnston (too soon?).

Now, let me say this...I'm a STAR WARS fan, take that for what its worth, but I'm not a freak. My life isn't STAR WARS, but I do have a--probaby unhealthily--vast ammount of knowledge about the Original and New Trilogies. There. Done.
That being said, this game gave me a lot, if not everything, of what I could've asked for.

The story had its share of surprises. It was well-thought out and almost perfectly designed!
For as intense as the lightsaber-action was, I don't know how a Nintendo Wii player could've lasted 5 minutes without having to ice his shoulder and wrist like a serial masturbator.

Now that I've kissed the game's and the designers' asses enough for being surprisingly refreshing, I can talk about why YOU might think the game sucks BALLS.

First of all, there is a slight problem with the targeting system:
There IS no cunting targeting system.
You target what you happen to be looking at, so when there are multiple objects in front of you, like, say...all the fucking time, you'd better accept the fact that no matter how dead-on you are, you'll still wind up targeting an innocent droid that happens to roll by like a Special Needs Child on a wagon at the wrong moment.
The good news, however, is that you can still use it to brick a Stormtrooper's face.

Secondly, the game is very linear and very short. There's nothing particularly wrong with this except that there is so much unlockable content and you only have one fleeting moment to find it all. Not to mention that the possession of the unlockable content will make the rest of the experience of the game significantly more AWESOME.

Though I never reached a MARIO KART level of explatives while playing the game, it was definitely frustrating at times. Especially when you're facing more enemies than pixels on the screen and you need to resort to clumsy button mashing in hopes that you somehow discover a combo move you didn't know about before.

Lastly, no review of THE FORCE UNLEASHED is complete without mentioning the infamous STAR DESTROYER sequence. Keeping the targeting problems in mind, pulling a giant spacecraft out of the sky could be quite a challenge...but it's meant to be a challenge, and you're supposed to be all on your own to figure out how the fuck to do it.
I'm not crying about it being too hard--that's what she said--It's the controlling of the STAR DESTROYER that poses the problem, leaving you fiddling with the joysticks trying to find the mindlessly specific way to make this giant craft crash into the precise location that the game wants it to.

Long story short, the game has its faults and perhaps falls short of many sorted expectations, but it IS fun and re-playable. It IS well-written and fucking cool.
If you're a STAR WARS fan, you may bust a nut playing it.
If you're an avid gamer, you may see it as a lesser rip-off of God of War.
And if you know nothing about STAR WARS and don't like fucking kick-balls action games, then who are you and why are you in my house?

--ALEX

Now, who wants to go home... and who wants to go with ME?

There are very occasions when the trailer for a film will make you say: "Wow, this is going to be the best fucking movie ever." It seems that most of the time, it's either, "This might be alright," or, "This could either be really funny, or a kidney stone," or the dreaded, but inevitable "The Love Guru 2."

J.C.V.D. came out in France and other European countries several months ago; however, the inexcusable and horrific shame is that due to its "Independent Foreign Film" status, it may go unseen. Not that foreign films are overlooked by any means...but with the trash that comes out on a massive scale from film companies, this diamond will remain quietly packed in mud.

Jean-Claude Van Damme hasn't exactly dropped off the face of the Earth, just the face of America. And his films (at least his American films) have never been much to brag about (coughcoughTimecopcoughcough).

In this movie, Van Damme plays himself as an Action Star cunt who finds himself in deep financial trouble, loses his daughter, and (I guess) decides to rob a bank in Belgium.

Judging a film by its trailer has never really let me down in the past, but I have missed out on some possibly-decent movies due to the shitty and unwatchable trailers.
So, we'll have to see about this one.
I could probably see if I could get my hands on a bootleg French version, and if I do, I'll talk more about it...or just wait a week and see it in theaters.

There's really not much more I can say except that this movie looks funny as balls, dramatic, and fucking kick ass.

Watch the trailer (and try not to have a burst of manly-ness surge through your scrotum. I dare you.)