I've had Netflix on my game console and computer for a bit over a year now, and for the most part, I've been happy with it. I spend a lot of my time at school and the ability to stream TV shows and movies when I have a bit of a break is very convenient. If I had to complain about one thing though, the collection of movies leaves something to be desired. I mean, they have Hot Tub Time Machine just a couple of weeks after its theater debut, but when I want to see the first Iron Man, and not the countless cartoon versions of it, too bad. Netflix biggest offense is its large amount of B-movie knock offs, or mockbusters, most of which is produced by The Asylum. Scary name for a scary company. Just to educate you, The Asylum is an American film studio and distributor who is known for producing direct-to-video knock offs of major motion pictures. They also take pride in the fact they haven't lost money on a movie ever, which isn't hard to do when your budget is below one million and you make it back in three months. I find them highly annoying for three reasons. They do it quickly. To get an idea, they shot and produced American Warships (American Battleships before they were sued and had to change) on May 15th, three days before Battleships. On average, they can shit out movies, from decision to create title to final product, in 4 months. Their knockoffs are so blatantly obvious, it is sickening. You'll see a lot of this in the list, but to give you an idea, one of the Dis-Honorable Mentions for this list was I am Omega, which is a rip off of both Omega Man and I am Legend and robs plot details from both movies. The quality is shit. I mean, I can't stress this enough. It is 2012, they are ripping off huge movies, and the video and audio quality looks like 70's porn. Furthermore, they have a tough time finding actors for their movies. In The Almighty Thor, a recent knockoff of Thor, most of the deaths happen off screen, where Loki points his stick at somebody off camera, who makes a "ARRRGGHH" sound, then presumably dies.
And Netflix must have some deal with them as pretty much all of their movies is available for instant watch. So yeah, the title of this blog is a bit misleading, but the pun was too good to avoid. So without further adieu, I give you the Top 5 worse The Asylum knockoffs available on Netflix. No particular order, except maybe hilarity. 5. The Da Vinci Treasure
Not To Be Confused With: The Da Vinci Code Plot: Some forensic anthropologist inadvertently discovers subtle clues in Leonardo Da Vinci's works that will lead the finder to "enlightenment". As he pieces this puzzle together, it becomes obvious that other treasure hunters are after the treasure as well. Opinion: If The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure were related and they fucked, this would be their 91 minute long, inbred, off-spring. Containing only 15~ speaking parts, including the one line guys, even die hard B movie fans won't be able to stand this one. 4. Sherlock Holmes (2010 movie)
Not To Be Confused With: Sherlock Holmes (2009 movie) Plot: Sherlock Holmes and Watson are on the case again when reports of monsters, both mythological and historical, are attacking London. Their case leads them to a mad scientist, who created and can control said monsters for some, ultimate reason. Opinion: First of all, yes, that is indeed a dragon, a T-Rex, and a giant squid attacking London. I'll give that a second to soak in. While I have to give props for the creative thinking of having Sherlock Holmes fight these monsters, with a film budget of 600,000, I promise you you don't want to watch it. And as for the plot, it takes so many twists and turns that I gave up trying to watch it. Spoiler alert: the scientist is Sherlock's brother. 3. The Day the Earth Stopped
Not To Be Confused With: The Day the Earth Stood Still Plot: 666 robots land and invade Earth. Two humanoid aliens are captured by the military, where they reveal that the only way the robots won't destroy the Earth is if the humans prove their is still faith in humanity. Keep them away from Facebook. Opinion: Bad visuals comes to play yet again. What is worse is the horrible horrible horrible acting. Similar to The Almighty Thor, they must of had a tough time finding extras. When the giant robots land in the streets, nobody is panicking or comes outside to see what is up, except the handful of main characters of course. And to add insult to this, they released this 3 days before the Keanu Reeve's The Day the Earth Stood Still. 2. Transmorphers
Not To Be Confused With: Transformers Plot: Aliens piloting robots have invaded Earth and forced all of human kind underground by creating an endless night and rain. It isn't until 300 years later that the humans rebel and find out their invaders are actually robots. Opinion: Not much to say that hasn't already been said. Awful acting. A really really small amount of actors. Horrible effects and visuals. I actually misread this as Transformers and got a shameful amount of time into it before finding out I've been misled. 1. Snakes on a Train
Not To Be Confused With: Snakes on a Plane Plot: A woman has been put under a Mayan curse that causes snakes to hatch inside her stomach and eat their way out. Brujo is trying to take her by train to a Mayan shaman in Los Angeles, keeping all the snakes that eat their way out in jars so the shaman can piece her back together. Bandits attack them, the snake get loose and attack all of the passengers. Later the woman turns into a giant snake and eats the entire train. 6 passengers escape and one of them uses magic to make the giant snake-woman disappear. That is actually the entire movie. Now you don't have to see Snakes on a Train. Opinion: Snakes on a Plane wasn't really a good movie, but a cult classic. You had to see it just because it was so unique, quirky, and off the wall. You definitely wouldn't see Snakes on a Train. Besides the obvious problems you can expect, the movie poster is misleading. You probably can't read it, but it says, and I quote, "100 Trapped Passengers-3,000 Venomous Vipers." In reality, there is only a dozen passengers and a couple of snakes actually shown on film. All in all, the most hilarious and awful knockoff on Netflix. Dis-Honorable Mentions I could of went on and on about these movies. So here are some that either aren't on Netflix or I just didn't talk about. Pirates of Treasure Island-Warning: Jack Sparrow is French. War of the Worlds II-the sequel to the Tom Cruise movie they didn't make Paranormal Entity Chop Kick Panda 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea Titanic II Sunday School Musical-nothing can douche up the Disney rip off like a Christian version of it The Amityville Haunting 18 Year Old Virgin
In the eight grade, I had to interview my grandfather with a list of questions given to me by my teacher. I then had to compare them with myself for some ultimate lesson I've failed to remembered. I love my grandfather, but that project made me realize he is a bit of an old fuck. When he wasn't bragging about all the farm work he did or how he built his log cabin workshop, he was droning on and on about how "kids these days" are lazier, namely how they play video games all day. I think he is just pissed off I beat him Wii bowling. What was the point of that? Well two main reasons. One, I like writing intros. I mean, you have to admit, that intro will tie in nicely with the rest of this blog. You are probably reading this sentence, but still thinking about that introduction and wondering where I'm going with this. Maybe you are laughing, or at least smiling. And you are resting your head on your hand. Secondly, that experience made me vow never to become like him, in the sense that I complain about today's youth. It wasn't until around a month ago that I remembered all of this and realized I've failed. So without further adieu, the top 5 things I hate about kids these days. Wait. Not enough hype.
http:%3Cspan%3E/%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%3E/%3C/span%3Ei.imgur.com%3Cspan%3E/%3C/span%3E2jKom.gif Nice, right? Just don't click it....Oh nevermind. My flashy banner didn't work. You might as well click it now. 5. Weird Ass Things To Get Drunk/High Sorry for the crude title, but that is the only way I could efficiently describe how I feel about this. My little sister recently came home with a note from the school. Apparently kids have been drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk. I mean, what the fuck. And this isn't even the worse. I've seen news and commercials about the choking game, inhaling some crap that comes out of air conditioner hoses, and my favorite, raw sewage inhaled out of bag, commonly called BUTT HASH. Not sure how popular any of these things actually are, but if one kid does it, then I hate all of them for it. 4. Stupid Clothing Honestly, this is the major reason why I hated the majority of people I went to high school with. Well, not really. They were all douches. But this is a close second. So what attire did I find unbearable? A bullet-ed list for your viewing pleasure. Jordan sandals with sock Shorts with long sleeve shirts (this isn't that weird. I just don't like it) Black plush hoodie lined with fur. There were at least 10 different guys who paid like 90 dollars for this coat Crocs The feather in the hair thing And much much more!!!
3. General "No Fucks Given" I'll admit, this one makes me sound like a boring prick. I'm not so much against this type of behavior, just when it leads to whoever doing stupid crap that we all have to deal with later. Two major instances of this happened to me when I was younger. Some kid threw a rock at a school window and we had to sit in assign seats at lunch. I hated that kid for the rest of my school career. Secondly, some kid in high school shat in a Pringles can and offered it to the bus driver. In hind sight, it was hilarious, but he became the bus Nazi and made me hate not driving for the rest of the year. 2. Taste In Music Mainly, stupid rap songs, hip hop shit, and Disney douches. Apparently the new big boy band is One Direction. After seeing this picture, I promised to hate them forever.
1. Facebook Habits Sign in to Facebook. Look at the people you only add to boost your own friend count/because they requested you. Look at their statuses. Shoot yourself. So maybe I'm a boring, irritable person. At least I can look back when I'm 80 and proudly tell my grandchildren I've never stooped as low as to wear sandals and socks and listen to Lil Wayne. My dignity remains intact.
My name is Blake Rodriguez. I'm currently majoring in Criminology at NC State and live in an apartment in Raleigh. Half Puerto Rican, 3 sisters, been involved with David's online triumphs and downfalls for 3 years and counting, yada yada. Now that that is out of the way, on to the blog. Plan on writing on a wide variety of things I think of: game reviews, random list, semi-hilarious articles, and maybe a little bit of insight on my life. Sharing my wisdom with the world while all the while providing hilarity to the common man and exploiting the newly discovered horizontal rule.
Quest 64: Revisited
Between the raining and surprisingly cool weather, the fact I'm stuck at my parent's house alone during the day, and a 7+ paper on a movie slowly sneaking up on me, half of my Easter break was looking to be a bore. I decided to download and try to beat one of the hardest games I had when I was a kid: Quest 64. Besides it being a horrible, ball-bustingly hard RPG, my mother made a mistake in its purchase.
Damnit Mom, you have to read the back of the box!
Story
If only you knew the first steps to hours of raging is beyond this gate.
The creators of Quest 64 didn't spare any material when it comes to story. It takes place in the magical, monster infested, lawless land of Hard-To-Pronounce-Land. A thief stole some powerful book. Brian's father went to get it back and hasn't come back. You play Brian, some wizard who master elements, in hopes of finding your father, defeating the thief, and getting back the book. All the while, you are tracking down four other thieves who each stole some powerful orb from each major city. Sure it is horribly unoriginal, but it was 1998. We fell in love with The Waterboy and The Parent Trap: what the hell do we know? RPG and Video Game Elements This being one of the first, big RPG's for the Nintendo 64, THQ tried what I hope isn't their hardest to make it one of the best. And they did do some things great. The actual world of Good-Luck-Pronouncing-This-Land is huge with occasional houses peppering the landscape, although a bit linear. While you have a lot of area to walk around and explore, there is an obvious path leading you from town to town. The music is also pretty catchy too, although after hours of raging, this isn't a good thing. And of course, the graphics are nice for it's day and age.
I should just keep on walking.
Sadly that is all THQ did good with this game. First of all, there is no money system in this game, which is really unusual for an RPG. So you may be asking, how do you get food and potions to keep you alive? One of two ways: you either find it or people just give it away for free. Both of these are problematic. Once you find supplies, they obviously can't be found again, so if you were to waste them because you didn't pick up on the combat's steep learning curve, then you are screwed. This is countered a bit by civilians giving you free food and what not, but they refuse to give you an extra of any item you already have. Found a loaf of bread while walking to town? The baker denies you your free sample. It's nice, and somewhat realistic, of the civilians to supply the savior of the world with supplies, but when they have a hard time parting with dew drops, it really is pointless. Besides this horrible detail, the actual leveling up is confusing and the most grinding process I've ever messed with. I'd explain it to you, but even I don't understand it. In addition to that, its dying mechanic is really messed up. Upon the inevitable death, you are transported to the last inn you saved in and you keep your stat increases and items you gained and lose items you used up. While this makes you stronger the next time you enter whatever area you died in, the loss of items you had and the inability to buy more items is going to ensure your death again. Combat
In case you aren't familiar with your Quest 64 beastiary, I'm fucked.
Originally had this with the other bad things, but I couldn't sum up its awfulness and do it justice. Quest 64's combat is a mixture between turn based strategy and live action fighting. That is what some website said anyway. What you will actually experience is turn based strategy and the almost guaranteed fail dodge attempt. Pairing that with how fragile Brian is and you'll be dying. A lot. How about the combat that you do? Maybe that balances out how weak you are. Well it doesn't. On each level up, you get to raise either fire, water, wind, or earth. You can even combine these spells into useful effects, like a water spell that heals you or an earth spell that raises defense. Besides the fact these spells are useless for practical use (a healing spell that heals 5 isn't much good when you are being hit with 7's constantly), they drain your magic ridiculously fast, so you'll find yourself either drinking magic potions (good luck getting those), or hitting things with your stick. The game depends on too much grinding to really be worth it. I couldn't beat the first boss and don't plan on playing this ever again.
Final Remarks My mom buying me games for Christmas was the result of some pretty bad childhood memories; I'm looking at you Yoshi Story. I remember being bummed out I couldn't get far in the game because I couldn't save it. Thank god I missed out on this train wreck of an experience. The only thing this game did for me is make me appreciate the upcoming beach weekend. So take that THQ. I hope this review affects your sells on a game made 14 years ago.
