First we had Matt Damon (MATT DAMON!) compare Sarah Palin’s presence on the Republican ticket to a really bad Disney movie. I can see that (oh, and so can all you, too). Well played, sir! Top drawer.
However, now John Cleese has thrown down the gauntlet by referring to Palin as a well-trained parrot followed up by the rather keen observation that her rapid ascension is exactly the kind of skit material Monty Python could’ve dreamed up back in the day. And boom goes the dynamite.
Only 11 days left! Do we have time for another challenger? Take your shot now, this could be your last chance. I wouldn’t expect to see SNL’s favourite punching bag stick around in public after the GOP ticket has finished its long downward spiral.
In the late 1980’s, Sega became Nintendo’s largest competitor in the video game market. A major selling point of the Genesis was that the games were edgier, more powerful, and, to put it bluntly, not for wimps or losers. Several Sega commercials used metaphors to suggest the differences between Sega and Nintendo, including the display of Sega’s game engine as a racecar that raced against a dilapidated Nintendo milk truck, and a young boy who learned that playing Genesis games would be the best way to combat bullies. Much like the “hardcore” Sega Genesis commercials, the Sega CD followed the same trend. Perhaps the most memorable Sega CD commercial involved a man getting the attention of a gamer through his own TV and yelling, “What do you mean you don’t have one yet? Are you waiting for Nintendo to make it?” While this ad’s motto was “Welcome to the Next Level,” the Sega CD was in no way the system of the future and the commercial instead inadvertently illustrated the system’s flaws.
To a certain extent, these commercials were true and Sega games were not meant for the faint of heart. After all, Sega had a plethora of games such as Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage, Slaughterhouse, and Shinobi that were exceedingly more violent than anything produced by Nintendo. Despite this, Sega’s sales lagged in comparison to Nintendo’s productivity, mostly because Nintendo appeared to be quite content with marketing its games to all audiences. Sega, on the other hand, aimed for the older and more “extreme” gamers. Because of this, Sega was ready to launch its next piece of hardware just a few years after circulation of the Genesis.
Enter the Sega CD, a project so covert that not even the console’s designers knew they were working on it until the system was unveiled to the public. What was the initial appeal of the Sega CD? It played CD’s, a technological advancement unheard of in the realm of gaming at the time. The system also promised a greater color palette, a huge library of games, and an experience never before witnessed in any video game system. Although the “angry man” commercial was supposed to detail how extreme and advanced the Sega CD was, it really became the only lasting impression of the system. In terms of Aristotle’s definitions of rhetoric, the angry man in the Sega commercial displays an accurate portrayal of forensic oration in that he isn’t advertising the benefits of the Sega CD, but rather attacking a rival company, Nintendo, in an ad that has nothing to do with the creators of Mario. [Read more]
Once again long, long overdue, the C-F Radio crew finally reconvene for another episode! This time we’re pleased to introduce a new addition to our roster in Mr. Tyler Cooper, fresh from the vast off-yellow wastelands of Saskatchewan. Beers are drank, childish humour tossed around, videogames ranted about… y’all missed us, don’t you lie.
Not unlike last year’s Silent Hill: Origins, the announcement and release of Silent Hill: Homecoming (hereby referred to as SH5 because I’m lazy) has been shrouded in a lot of dread. Not the good kind of dread you got from playing the original game, but the bad kind of dread you get from being very afraid that something you love is going to get reamed.
The news releases all seemed to indicate that it would fix some of the problems fans had with previous entries in the series (clumsy controls, no UFO endings) and still retain what made Silent Hill its own niche (bad voice acting, players pissing themselves.) Regardless, lots of people still complained that they were making it too similar to the movie, or to Silent Hill 2, or that because Silent Hill: Origins wasn’t an A+ game no American developer could do Silent Hill right.
So after a year and some odd of speculation, reviews have been trickling in, and they’re mostly average to positive. But forget that! I’m the one writing this, so this is all about my impressions.
Sorry to keep doing this, folks. The days are only getting shorter.
We’ve all been to many fine drinking establishments in our time, right? Most people play it pretty safe with their orders, no doubt to the relief of the staff. Maybe some of them are getting complacent as a result. Or bored. Ever asked for a Sex on the Beach? Ever wonder how many bartenders would do any better than Coach McGuirk?
