Recent Popular Culture Intake...

I'm not inside my own mind today... I've been playing some movies, listening to some music, all that jazz, and I've got some thoughts to share.

I'm not even sure where to start, let's start with MORTAL KOMBAT!

With WB's recent acquisition of the rights to Mortal Kombat, I was unsure of the future of my most beloved fighting game. What we first saw from their output was the game Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe which was... well, lets just say I wish they had made it AFTER Mortal Kombat but I am happy they made it before because it made them realize something...

They needed to get back to basics. So that's exactly what they did with the new MK game.

The best thing about the new MK game is the story mode, it's something that should hook new gamers and something that old-school fans of the franchise should be drawn to. Without being too spoilerific. The game starts with everybody dead... it looks like the aftermath of a desperate battle. There's one part in the opening cinematic where vultures are munching on Sonya Blade's dead corpse. The scene eventually leads to Raiden fighting Shao Kahn who has recently won Mortal Kombat, before Kahn can deliver the killing blow to Raiden, Raiden sends himself a message from the future to prevent this from happening. REDUX! 

Ah don't you love video games?

Well, I won't go any further into the story from there but I like how it hooks you. Anyone familiar with Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe will not be surprised by the chapter progression of the story mode. I'm currently on Chapter 6, Liu Kang's chaper. I am stuck on a fight where I must fight Scorpion and Quan Chi at the same fucking time! Liu Kang's move set isn't my favorite but he's got an awesome fatality so I'll take what I can get. I have gotten distracted by other games, but if you haven't I highly recommend you check out Mortal Kombat.

As I mentioned I've been distracted, by games like L.A. NOIRE...

This is a great game. Period. End of story. If you disagree, that's your opinion. I won't tell you fuck you but I will be disappointed in you... and maybe I'll tell you fuck you.

L.A. Noire is by far, the most progressive game that Rockstar has ever made and I am hoping this motivates other game developers to take some chances and think outside the box with a video game.

L.A. Noire puts you behind the point of view of Cole Phelps, world war two veteran and newb to the LAPD. Cole rises up the ranks and you're eventually promoted from a street cop to a detective. The game's still got the flavor that Rockstar games are known for but it's a more focused and deliberate venture than Red Dead Redemption was, for example.

You can still free-roam, and Rockstar has gone to great lengths, re-creating 1940's Los Angeles and even re-creating the downtown section of LA building for building. There isn't that essence of complete freedom like with the GTA games or with RDR. In this, you can go from mission to mission, each 'case' leads you from major clues to persons of interest. You can free roam between major objectives but the only thing you can really do is take peoples cars (there are 95 cars re-created from the 40's and you get an achievement after finding 40 of them. I have found ... 40-something).

The game is rather linear as a whole, you arrive at the crime scene, you scope it for clues. Question any scene witnesses, and move from there. Investigating the case up to the point where you interrogate the prime suspect and toss him in the slammer.

I really like this game because of the atmosphere it creates. I like searching for clues. I love interrogating people and I like the dynamic. The game is focused and the tone of the game is pretty much perfect, it's hard not to load it up and get sucked into the game for an hour or two and then realize, what the hell did I just spend my day doing?

If you're on the fence with L.A. Noire, and you are interested in playing it. Just do yourself a favor and buy it. You won't regret it. It's a game with replay value and once they get some DLC it'll be interesting to see what kind of bonus cases they throw into the game. Big props to Rockstar for making such a progressive and intriguing game. This is the kind of video game that we will look back at in a decade or more and realize how ahead of its time that it was.

I was also going to blog about the new Protest The Hero album, Scurrilous but I don't have time. I'll save that for another entry but what I WILL say is that it's a spectacular album that grows on you with subsequent listens. It kind of comes across like Fortress but overall, I think it's got its own distinction to it and the band continues to show growth with the new record. Anyone who enjoyed their first two albums should check this one out. Test drive tracks like Full-Throttle and Dunsel. The first track, C'est la Vie also is a superior opening track to Fortress' Bloodmeat, IMO.

Until next time...

PEACE!

That's what I call getting into a sticky situation guys...

I'm not inside my own mind today... Did the Canadians just elect a majority Conservative government after they BARELY managed a minorty government in the last 2 elections?

Yes... yes we did.

Why?

The system is broken. Simply put, 40% of the peoples vote, made a majority Torrie government. Does that sound right to you? 60% of Canadian voters DID NOT VOTE FOR STEPHEN HARPER OR THE CONSERVATIVES and yet, they now have a majority government. How does that work, how does that make sense. If you have 40 percent of something that's less than half right? Yet that 40% vote gave the conservatives 167 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons. A majority government. Does this seem right to you?

I really have one person to thank for this. That's Michael Ignatieff, the leader (...at least he was) of the Liberal party. From day ONE. Hell, even before day 1, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives made this man their prime target. Why? Because he was really, the biggest threat to them. Attack ads, attack ads, attack ads. They slammed Ignatief so hard that the Liberals have their lowest representation in government EVER (34 seats, the next lowest was when they had 40 in 1984, the year Lying Brian Mulroney was elected.). They can thank the Torrie's aggressive slam campaign for that and really the loss of liberal seats that were swooped up by the aggressive Torries and the aggressive NDP's is probably the one of the only reasons the Conservatives have a majority government today. It was the result of this aggressive smear based campaign that DIDN'T EVEN FOCUS ON THE CONSERVATIVES GOALS... virtually EVERY ad they put on TV slammed Ignatieff in one way or another, and had nothing to do with them. THAT was their agenda, DESTROY Michael Ignatieff... and it worked.

Jack Layton is the big surprise. Never in a million years would I have expected him to lead the NDP part to the point that they became official opposition. When I voted in 2008, Jack Layton was about the most boring, unassuming party leader of the bunch. You had Harper who... I learned my lesson when I voted conservative (WHY?!) in 2006. I switched my vote to Green Party after that, but back to the point. Jack Layton was like... this kind old dude you would've ran into church every sunday. He just didn't seem to have any of the fire I wanted in a world leader. Jack may have read my mind because he showed fire in this past election. In the televised debate, he kicked ass and I think that opened a lot of eyes to his cause. Being caught in the middle of a rub-and-tug sting operation maybe helped his chances too... Who am I to judge?

The frustrating thing about this is that, once again, there was a dangerously low voter turn out. Barely over half of Canadians bothered to get out to vote and that irritates the fuck out of me. A large portion of this, I think, is that American Politics dominate the televisions. Canadians probably don't even feel like our countries leader even matters. When we turn on the news it's all America this and Obama that (even when they AREN'T killing Osama Bin Laden) and as a Canadian it's hard not to see that and think "Where are the Canadian leaders and our imput? Why should I care about Canadian politics?"

I don't know. It's hard as a young person who has got out and voted EVERY opportunity that I have had to since I became legal voting age. The fact that there are people I know who I am friends with who are as passionate about Canadian politics excites me but for every one of us, there's two or three people who frankly don't give a shit. That's frustrating to me. I look at my country, a country that I love and I see a mass of apathetic people who don't care and that infuriates me. To everyone that did not go out and vote yesterday, fuck you. That's all I have to say. Period.

Now that I have 4-5 years I wonder what we are looking at here from a Majority Conservative Government. Health Care is at risk, Women's rights to pro-choice are at risk, Hell, the Canadian debt is at risk considering the Conservative government wracked up a defecit of over 50 billion dollars, I expect that to climb exponentially but oh wait we're in a recession right? You gotta spend money to make money? That old adage? Well we don't fucking need SHORT RANGE fucking fighter jets, I'll tell you that much. They will pretend to engage 'active economy' but he will give corporate tax cuts and make the tax impact on the people that much greater. The money's got to come from SOMEONE right? Yet the fact that a major anchor of his tax campaign was "The NDP will raise your taxes, the Liberals will raise your taxes" People... Harper will raise your taxes. Don't kid yourselves. Now Harper said he will balance the budget by 2014, so I will hold him to that.

Of the 58% of Canadians that voted, 40% of those wanted Conservative government so... Where's the math in that. Who's majority is this really? Well. Those figures aren't important to The Harper Government. With a majority government now they're really in a position where they can accomplish the Harper Agenda. This will lead to further 'Americanization' of Canada, mark my words. The air of hope that I had, that Canada may change, that Canada would move forward in the modern world. That hope is gone for at least a half a decade...

As I age into my mid and late twenties I will look back at this day as a a day Canada failed to rise up. The NDP rise in power is a key note that ideology in Canada IS changing and I can anticipate the day where there is an NDP government (or another party...) running Canada. It probably won't be Jack Layton running that party (he would be around the age of 64-65 in the next election so it's not out of the woods, depending on his own aspirations) but whoever it is will be in a position to change Canada, and maybe for the better, as long as the Torrie government, sorry The Harper Government, doesn't run us through the mud first.