Video Game Review: Sonic Dash

And the iPhone game saga continues.

Sonic Dash is a free iPhone game that is very similar to Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (if you’re playing as Sonic or Shadow), but you have a touch screen instead of controller. All you do is run through the course collecting rings and killing bad guys without dying. You can play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, or Amy.

There is extremely little I like about this game, but I will put forward that I might have set my expectations too high. I love Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is one of my favorite games of all time. So when I say I had high expectations for this free game, I really did expect a lot from it.

But this game is a horror scene. Whoever thought that making everything the same bright colors is a moron. You can’t see some of the obstacles, and making some of the objects you go over and some you go under look the exact same makes the game play confusing. Additionally, the game consistently puts obstacles in awkward spots so you don’t actually see some of them before you need to avoid them.

The game does not respond quickly to one’s touch, so if you want to avoid something at the last second it will not work. I also don’t like that tilting the phone doesn’t do anything (unlike Temple Run 2) and that you have to use your finger to do everything; it’s really annoying.

The most irksome thing for me is how much the ‘free’ game relies on money. Unlike Temple Run 2, in order to advance in Sonic Dash you do need to spend real money. I don’t mind if people spend money on a game if they want to, but if you are going to have a free game don’t make buying things once you’re in it necessary.

In case you couldn’t tell I’m not recommending this game to anyone. It’s a wonder I haven’t deleted it from my phone already.

Project Runway Season 11: Steampunk for the Win

There have been eleven seasons of Project Runway and two full seasons of Project Runway: All Stars. Usually the show turns out lots of pretty dresses and other things you might imagine on a high-end-ish (this is reality TV after all) runway. Sometimes they go a little funky or costumey or tacky, but rarely do they ever pick something truly outside of these norms for the win.

This time, however, they did.

Michelle Lesniak Franklin from Portland, Oregon did her take on a steampunk collection. I personally liked her since the first episode of the season, where she described her ideal client as ‘a hip girl who can recite the entire periodic table of elements.’ So sort of like me and a lot of the women who probably read this blog. I rooted for her all season (even when she was getting screwed over by the judges) and she finally came out on top a couple weeks ago! Yay!

In geekdom, there are a lot of different points of view when it comes to fashion and you see it at cons; our version of a catwalk so to speak. In general, you have your cosplayers, your more goth kids (who Saika calls ‘the people who fell into Hot Topic’), and your steampunk. If you follow more mainstream fashion, you know costumes, Hot Topic/goth gear, and steampunk are not exactly trending right now (or ever). So to have a popular reality TV show acknowledge someone who has more of a steampunk aesthetic is a big deal. It says that geekier fashions have a place outside conventions—that your leather jacket with 5,000 buckles is cool and not bizarre.

So congratulations, Michelle, and thank you for making the fashion world acknowledge that steampunk has its place there!

Book Review: A Dance with Dragons

Finally finished it you guys! Sorry that took so long, but this book seriously dragged. In a lot of ways, A Dance with Dragons was similar to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—both had all of their central protagonists be whiny as hell.

Manga Mondays: It’s Not My Fault That I’m Not Popular

It’s Not My Fault That I’m Not Popular by TANIGAWA Nico (a pen name for two artists) is a manga about a high school girl just figuring her life out. I saw it on the home page for a scanlation site and I was intrigued by the title, so I decided to start reading it. I got through about twenty chapters before I had to stop reading.

Kuroki Tomoko has no real friends and is a super introvert; all of her ‘social skills’ she’s learned through anime and her borderline-pornographic video games. She spends her free time in her room watching anime and only has one friend, her old friend from middle school.

I have no problem with the concept of the series; it’s a coming of age story about a super nerdy girl. However, Tomoko is seriously creepy. In one chapter, she went to her old school roof to watch fireworks but instead was a peeping tom (watching some couple ‘get busy’) with some middle school boys. She vacuumed her own skin so that it looked like she had been kissed to impress her elementary-school-aged cousin. She’s also delusional; if any boy so much looks in her general direction she flips out. Oh, and she cheats at card games against elementary schoolers.

As a nerdy, ‘not-popular’ girl, I take offense to this entire series. By making Tomoko out as some sort of pervert (which the series does), it puts forward the idea that all socially awkward girls obsess constantly about sex and engage in this sort of self-harming behavior; that every not-so-popular person is a Tomoko. That is blatantly wrong. While I do pity her to a certain extent,Tomoko is a terrible character and is a horrendous example of what typical nerdy, anti-social girls are like.

She is so extreme in her actions that it leads me to believe that the authors think that they’re being funny, that Tomoko’s over-the-top antics are supposed to be laughed at. Well, they aren’t funny. At all. This is a terrible way to stereotype antisocial high schoolers and is in no way, shape, or form funny.

On a completely different note, the art is off-putting. Tomoko’s eyes are super creepy, which goes with her personality. Unfortunately.

In short, I do not recommend It’s Not My Fault That I’m Not Popular.

An Ideal Casting of Game of Thrones

So I actually started watching Game of Thrones the other day to see how it compared to the books (I haven’t actually watched enough to do that yet) but in my head I kept thinking ‘That’s not what Cersei should look like,’ or ‘That is Stannis?!?’ Because of this, I decided to do some recasting of my own. And yes, I did try to cast people that looked quasi-similar in the same family and I did try and pick actors who looked like the characters as described in the books. However, that didn’t always hold, most noticeably in the Starks. Anyway. The list:

General Feels on Disney Princess Perfume

I’m a true believer in the idea that kids should be kids while they are kids, so the idea of perfumes targeted for small children irks me.

Disney Princess Perfume is what it sounds like, and it comes in pretty themed bottles labeled with Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, and more. And it has very similar packaging to other Disney Princess products, which leads me to believe it’s meant for the same age group as their other products are marketed towards: young girls. From reading some of the reviews of these products on various websites, the perfume has been given to girls as young as three.

First things first, I don’t like perfume to start with. It gives me a headache almost instantly. I was the reason Axe got banned in my middle school because I wouldn’t stop sneezing. So the idea of perfume doesn’t appeal to me.

And if you are an adult and want Disney Princess perfume, that’s fine. But to target young children just sickens me. Now if a child wants to play dress up or put on make-up for fun, that’s one thing. But I feel perfume is different because you can’t just take it off like lipstick or high heels.

Marketing perfume to pre-schoolers seems wrong to me because it is sexualizing. Four-year-olds should be seen as four-year-olds, not as sexy ladies. And while you can say, “There’re high heels and lipstick for my toddler too, why aren’t you whining about how they’re sexualizing?” They are sexualizing; however, because you can take them off, you don’t have to leave the house with them on. You can’t pretend to smell like an adult; you either do or you don’t. And they’re small children, if you want to smell like an adult, I think you can wait until you’re an adult. And I personally don’t consider smelling different a ‘play thing.’

So is my hatred of perfume clouding my judgement on this? Should the toddlers be encouraged to smell like women? Let me know what you think in the comments.

TV Review: Revenge

While this show is more mainstream drama-rama than our usual stuff, I really want to talk about how it’s got all the strong ladies.

Here’s the simple explanation: Revenge is a story of a girl who wants to get revenge against the family that put her father in jail; like Bruce Wayne, she gets trained by a League of Shadows-esque organization so that she can carry out her revenge. However, when you factor in all the different characters and put the show in the Hamptons, it becomes a complicated hot mess. Everyone knows everyone, everyone pretty much hates everyone, and everyone pretends to be really nice to each others’ faces.

Video Game Review: Temple Run 2

If you are all wondering why I haven’t really written anything about A Song of Ice and Fire recently, it’s because I (finally) got a smartphone. And then Temple Run 2.

Temple Run 2 is a game for your smartphone where you are running from a giant monster thing. You also have to avoid all of the obnoxious obstacles and make sure you turn the right way. Along the way, you earn points, and can collect gems (to bring you back to life) and coins (that you can spend on power-ups). You also have side objectives (ex.: collect 1,000 coins) that you can complete to go up a level. Leveling only allows you to unlock more power ups, so it’s not the most important thing.

The actual gameplay is really simple, so you don’t have to be super-into-gaming in order to give it a try. All you do is drag your finger the way you want to go. It also really doesn’t require much thinking, which is why it’s so easy to play. There aren’t any complicated subplots or puzzles to solve; you literally just go.

This is one of those games where I’m not really sure whether I like playing it or I’m addicted to playing it. I was actually starting to wean myself off of it, and then they introduced daily and weekly challenges, which only drew me back in. I personally love games with checklists. It makes my job easier as a player because I know what I’m supposed to do and it also gives me something to strive for.

The only downside of this game is it can get glitchy. Almost every time I’ve played it gets stop and go (like it’s buffering) at some point. And if you get a text/Facebook notification while you’re playing the problem only gets worse.

Temple Run 2 is free for iPhone, so if you’re looking for a new game to entertain you, you should check it out!

Web Crush Wednesdays: Robot Unicorn Attack

Let’s get it started in here.

Robot Unicorn Attack is an Internet Flash game by Adult Swim (of all places) and it’s awesome. It’s your basic side-scrolling game; you play a robotic unicorn and you need to not die. Avoid the obstacles by jumping or swooshing through them (I’m not sure swooshing is the correct phrase but I like it better than whatever Adult Swim uses).

First thing’s first: the song that plays in the background is the shit. Lady Saika and I have rocked out/had dance parties with that song because it is amazing. It’s more of a so-bad-it’s-amazing as opposed to an amazing song. Just listen below if you don’t believe me.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of the premise of the game. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? It just makes me laugh while playing that I’m a robotic unicorn with a rainbow mane. It’s just so much fun.

And if you’re wondering whether or not you need to be some video game aficionado to play, the answer is no. It’s super simple so you really don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed. There are only a couple of buttons involved and once you get used to it (which is not very long) you’ll have no trouble playing.

It’s really a great game, especially when you consider it’s on a TV station website. And even more especially when you realize it has nothing to do with anything on said TV station. The game is so widely popular, that it has several spin off games, none of which I’ve played but assume are fun.

So if you’re looking for a fun way to kill time, look no further than Robot Unicorn Attack.

Manga Mondays: Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth

Here’s what I think when I read this series: What. Da. Hell?

Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth is a spin-off of Naruto that focuses on one of Naruto’s peers named Rock Lee. Everyone is chibi and the series takes place in the past so everyone is there and carefree and happy. And did I mention they’re all chibi?

Most chapters are episodic in nature so you can pick up the series at practically any point and just start reading. You won’t miss much. And if you have an unabated passion for Naruto then you will probably find a place in your heart for this one.

That’s where the plus sides end however. It’s like every bad Hetalia episode put back to back (and I know I’m going to get torn a new one for saying that). Everyone and everything is completely ridiculous and it loses all appeal after approximately two pages. I love Hetalia, but what I think balances out the ‘cray-cray’ of it all is that it is a political commentary (which is what I truly love about Hetalia). RLSToY doesn’t have some greater message to achieve balance. It’s over-the-top for the sake of being over-the-top.

Actually, RLSToY exists to make money. It’s a way of earning a couple more bucks for Shounen Jump and it’s blatant; no effort was made to hide this: if you want to make a series solely for earning the money, at least make it interesting. Most of the plots of RLSToY make for very dumb stories. If you want me to read a spin-off, make it better than fanfiction I can find online.

So if you are a diehard Naruto fan and somehow don’t know about this, check it out. If you don’t fall into that category, you’re better off staying away.