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An Open Letter To @BioWare: Why #ME3's Ending Is Bad And Why you Should Feel Bad For Making It

Dear BioWare:

Hey, did you hear? Mass Effect 3's ending is awful!

Yeah, I know. The internets tend to overexaggerate a bit when it comes to things like this. I heard all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I pretty much tuned them out. I've been a fan of yours since Knights Of The Old Republic, one of the most amazing games I've ever played. I trusted you guys to deliver. Sure, Dragon Age II was bad, but maybe it was just a misstep, right?

And really, if it just came down to being disappointed, I honestly wouldn't be too bothered by it; I used to be a LOST fan, and have a bad habit of watching bad anime. It's a known fact that ending a long-running series is extremely difficult, and it's certainly downright impossible to please every fan of your work. But the ending the ME3 isn't just disappointing...it's downright *awful*. And here's why.

No Closure, Period

Mass Effect 3 has a rather large cast of characters, assuming they all survived the previous game. They all have unique and engaging stories behind them, and (almost) all of them have a special place in fan's hearts. The problem is that very few of these characters get any sort of closure. Tali and Mordin have some of the best writing I've ever seen behind them, but Samara and Grunt are so nonexistent in the storyline it's downright criminal. What gives?

Oh, and since I'm talking about the characters: what's the deal with Vega? Was there any point to him existing at all?

Everybody Dies

I went into the game expecting death. I knew Thane was going to die. I expected other characters to. I even expected Shepard to, and was totally okay with that. Sacrifice yourself to save the galaxy? The epitome of badass. You can't go too far, though. Fred, Lupin, and Tonks dying in HP7 was sad, but Colin Creevey was a bit too much. The emotion was lost.

Mass Effect 3 completely throws this out the window by *killing billions of people in one fell swoop*, including *every single major character* in the series, except Joker, EDI, and perhaps your love interest. How? By trapping them all in the Sol system so they all starve to death. Way to go, BioWare. But it gets worse.

The Problem With The Relays

Destroying the mass relay network effectively strands everybody where they are. This includes the combined forces of every race in the franchise, who are all trapped in the same system. Did BioWare not think the ending through before they decided that was a good idea? I don't think Shepard would have agreed with killing so many people at once like that, yet he doesn't seem overly concerned with the potential consequences of stranding the standing armies of at least ten different species in the same system with no way to feed all of them and no way for them to get back home. Shepard essentially dooms the entire galaxy while trying to save it. What?

All of that is beside the point. Remember when Shepard was arrested at the beginning of ME3 for destroying an entire star system by blowing up a mass relay at the end of the Arrival DLC for ME2? Apparently the writers forgot that mass relays explode with that much force in between writing the beginning of the game and writing the ending. Shepard blowing up the relay network essentially *kills every single person in every single system with a relay in it*, which is pretty much all of them. Let me say that again: Shepard kills everyone. *Everyone*.

Reaper Motivations Make No Goddamn Sense

"Synthetics will always end up killing all organics, so we made synthetics that kill all organics in order to save the organics from being killed by the synthetics...but it's okay, because we turn those organics into synthetics."

....WHAT.

A Glaring Plot Hole

After you blow up the relay network, you see Joker frantically trying to pilot the Normandy away from the explosion after using a relay to jump away (before crashing on a convenient garden planet, presumably to repopulate the universe with his robot girlfriend). The Sol system relay blows up immediately after the Crucible fires...which means Joker had about half a second to go from digging near earth to beyond Pluto to hit the relay. There *are* FTL drives in the ME universe of course, but for him to have made it at all he'd have to see the Crucible fire, key in the course to the relay, wait for the drives to spin up, jump to the relay, slow down enough to trigger the relay, and then spin the drives up enough to jump again. That is, in a word, impossible. I mean he's good, but he's not *that* good.

"But what if he was already running away?", you might ask. Joker running away from a fight is not in his character. Shepard dies at the beginning of ME2 trying to get Joker to abandon the first Normandy. That guy doesn't give up. He wouldn't abandon the fight for Earth unless he was dead. I'd even go as far as to sag he'd keep fighting even if he was dead.

Oh, and how did EDI and my other companions get back on the ship? They were with me the entire time on Earth! Did BioWare even *think* before they did that? I mean what the hell?!

"Grimdark" For Grimdark's Sake

It is okay to have a dark ending. I don't mind people dying, or things not turning out happy for everybody. What I'm not okay with is making a grimdark ending as grimdark as possible for the sake of making it both grim and dark. Don't force things to be bad. There needs to be some good in there too. Otherwise what's the point to writing a story in the first place? Why make everything sad and depressing without any hope? Everybody's dead after all. The Reapers won, even if they're dead. That's lame.

Let Shepard die. Let the Reapers wipe the floor with the combined fleet. Let billions perish in the pursuit of freedom. But let there be *hope* in the end. Let there be an actual victory after all of the fighting. Let all of those sacrifices, all of the pain, all of the suffering, be worth something.

Billions died to stop the Reapers, to break the cycle of destruction, only to fail and be destroyed anyway. Why do that? It's just hurtful to pull us through this story only to have all of the pain and suffering mean nothing in the end.

It All Means Nothing

And that's what it comes down to. People defending BioWare are saying that my choices do matter, because they all play out before the ending, but they really don't. I saved the Krogan and allowed them to reproduce properly again, but they're going to die anyway. What did Mordin sacrifice himself for if the Krogan are doomed to starve to death on their ruined world? I convinced the Geth not to kill the Quarrians, and even won their homeworld back for them, but since they brought the entire flotilla to Earth they're all just going to starve too! I stooped Tali from killing herself, but she's going to die! I stopped Wrex from attacking me on Virmire, but he's going to die! I got every race in the galaxy to work together, *but they are all going to die*!

What was it all for, BioWare? Why did Shepard try so damn hard to save everybody, only to doom them all to extinction? All of the blood, all of the sweat, all of the tears, all of it was for *nothing*.

"But we're not the first to do an ending like this!", you say. No, you're not. The difference between you doing it and books or movies doing comes down to two things: investment and choice. With a movie, I invest two hours. Sometimes more, sometimes less. With Mass Effect I've spent 150 hours. That is A LOT of time. A ridiculous amount even. I can except nothing coming out of a movie, but when I spend *one hundred and fifty hours* on a game franchise I expect to see something come out of my efforts. You also game me choice. I can choose the fate of individuals and entire races. You made me make these choices, and then you made them not matter by destroying the galaxy. I don't make choices in a book; the story belongs wholly to the author. It's his choice where the story goes, not Mike. When you give somebody the ability to chose the fate of entire races, you don't turn around and kill them off anyway!

I used to trust you BioWare. Then you made the ME3 ending and the abortion that is Dragon Age II. You should be ashamed.

Sincerely,
An Extremely Disgruntled And Disappointed Former BioWare Fanboy

Chris's Movie Reviews: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

ZOMGIT'SOVEROMG

Ahem.

So yeah. HP7.2. It was good, sure, but like all of the other movies it was lacking a certain...lots of details.

For starters, there's the bit that people have been waiting for: Snape's past with Lilly. The pensive scene does happen, of course, but it's all of five minutes long and fails to convey exactly what Snape went through when he was a kid. The last movie (er, the movie before the last one) did a decent job at showing how much of a douchebag James was to Snape, so losing those scenes isn't that big of a deal, but they completely cut out the reason why Lilly gets with James in the first place. Instead of showing Snape's racist outburst that made Lilly start hating him they made it seem as if she just drifted away from him and then started snogging the asshole that always teased the guy she used to like. Huh? They basically made Snape out to be some kind of stalkerish creapo that had the hots for a girl that never looked at him twice, which is completely wrong.

Otherwise the movie was pretty damn good. Only the first 30 minutes or so are spent outside of Hogwarts; the bank scenes were great, and Bonham-Carter playing Hermione pollyjuiced-up as Bellatrix was hilarious. The movie's one other shortfall is that they never bother figuring out that all of the horcruxes are actually items owned by the Hogwarts founders. They do end up looking for an item associated with Ravenclaw, but Harry just suddenly comes up with the idea without actually thinking about it.

Naturally there are a lot of changes of things from the book that end up being pretty minor: the hilarious spontaneous makeout scene between Hermione and Ron wasn't hilarious and was moved to the Chamber of Secrets, although that's a given seeing as S.P.E.W was cut from the fourth movie. Neville expresses his desire to find Luna and do...things with her, which is totally okay in my book, but isn't what Rowling wrote (Neville ends up with Hannah Abbot of all people, and Luna marries some guy that Rowling invented when somebody asked her). The final duel between Harry and Voldemort is a bit different too. It wasn't bad by any means, but I really wanted a sort of 'final showdown' type thing where they both cast their final spells. Instead they do the 'wand tug of war thing' immediately after Neville kills the snake (which was AWESOME by the way, fuck yeah Neville) and when Harry's red magicy thing beats Voldemort's green magicy thing the Elder Wand flies into Harry's hand and Voldemort disintegrates. Meh.

One thing that I was hoping would be changed but stayed the same was the deaths of Lupin and Tonks; we don't get to see them go out fighting, which kinda made me mad when Rowling wrote it in the first place. They cut Colin Creevy being dead too, which is fine, but they left in Lavender getting ravaged by Greyback and even zoomed in on her to show that she's dead (the book left that unclear iirc). The biggest change though was with Fred's death, which is treated just like Lupin and Tonks'. Yeah. You don't get to see him making up with Percy (who was completely removed from the movies after the second or so) and then going out in style. Lame. Fortunately Molly's epic scene with Bellatrix is intact, "NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!" and all.

The prologue didn't look as bad as I anticipated it to be. The CG'ed up cast looked just fine and was nowhere near as weird looking as The Dude was in Tron. They did cut Neville's part in it (and Percy's, of course) though, which was a shame seeing as how much focus he got throughout the movie.

So yeah, the movie was good, and it was certainly a worthy ending to the movie franchise, but it was definitely lacking some details of the book. Here's hoping that they filmed some of those scenes and they end up in some kind of combined version of both parts in a super-duper-collector's-edition blu-ray set. Do want.

Why Am People So Dum?

Why are people so aggravatingly stupid?

This is less a post about me bitching about people being stupid and more of a post about me wondering why the fuck they are. Seriously: why are people so nausiatingly retarded? I don't get it, at all.

My guess: the service industry. People are so used to not having to do anything for themselves that when they are asked to do so they become blind, deaf, and very VERY dumb. They don't want to use their eyes to look for something, instead hoping that somebody will just tell them where they're supposed to go. They don't want to use their hands to throw away their own garbage, instead leaving it all over the floor. They don't want to use their mouths to get an employee's attention, instead just standing there and getting impatient over not being noticed. They don't want to use their ears to listen for instructions, instead charging ahead and doing whatever they want and then just shrugging off the inevitable catastrophic mistake. We let people become the entitled self-serving egotistical lazy as fuck douchebags that they are today. We tolerate them looking down on us because we serve them even though it's quite obvious that we're far more intelligent and most certainly better people. It's our own fault.

After working two different jobs that deal with dealing with people I've decided that any children I have (lol, me having sex with a woman) will be required to get a job the moment they turn 16. This is the best way to ensure they don't turn out to be assholes to the little guy.

Also: I hate people. A lot.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Chris's Movie Reviews: Tron: Legacy

OMG ITZ TEH TRONZ!!1!

Yes, the movie we've all been waiting for since the last movie we've all been waiting for is here, and it's glorious...as long as you're able to turn your brain off anyway.

The story is thus: Kevin "The Dude" Flynn disappeared 20 years ago. His son Sam is, naturally, not happy about it. Flynn's best bro sends Sam to the Flynn's old arcade after getting a page of mysterious origin (yes, there's a joke about Alan using a pager, and yes it's actually funny), and Sam ends up, as you know he would, on the Game Grid, that magical place where discs fly and motorcycles have light trails. Flynn's program, Clu 2.0 (those of you that saw the original will remember Clu 1.0 as a minor plot-point from the beginning of that film) has taken over the system and locked Flynn in. Flynn, Sam, and a rouge program named Quorra must stop Clu and get out.

As you can imagine, the plot is paper thin. The movie is meant to be sold on the visuals, and in that area it excels, but everything else is lackluster. Sounds familiar, right? Yes, Tron: Legacy is pretty much exactly the same as its predecessor: a visual tour-de-force without much substance. What IS there, however, is pretty amazing. The CG work is incredible, save for the uncanny-valley-ness of Clu's face, which is manipulated to make Jeff Bridges seem younger, and the 3D is some of the best I've seen (and I've seen a lot of it).

Speaking of The Dude, he's, well...The Dude. Bridges plays the character he played 28 years ago to a T and brings some much needed humor to the movie: "You're messin with my zen thing, man." is but just one of the gems he provides. It's actually amusing how similar Flynn is to Bridges's role in The Big Lebowski; every other line ends with 'man' or something simliar. The movie's lead, Garrett Hedlund, doesn't reeally do a whole lot; most of the important bits for his character are covered by his stunt double and the CG team. The rest of the time he's just sort of there. Olivia Wilde's Quorra has officially topped my "Most Adorable of 2010" list, and Wilde herself may yet usher in a new era of wearing tight suits, because she looks damn fine wearing hers. Bruce Boxlietner is here too, reprising both Alan and Tron, but is sorely underused. To think that he missed out on the last season of Chuck to barely be in a movie where he plays the titular character...it makes me sad. He was great as Daddy Awesome.

Yes, Tron is in the movie, but he barely speaks. He does a lot, sure, but he spends the entire movie masked (they probably used all of their uncanny-valley budget on Clu) and as a character he's just not there. Fortunately for those of you that adore the franchise the movie is left wide open for a sequel...but only if you've been paying attention.

Special recognition needs to go out to the duo of Daft Punk, as they've assembled an absolutely incredible score. Every moment is highlighted beatuifly, and only segues into synth and techno when things start to get crazy. I fully plan on watching them loose an Oscar to Hans Zimmer, who doesn't really need another one.

The basic gist here is that Tron: Legacy is a damn fine movie if you allow yourself to turn your brain off and enjoy the pretty pictures. And how awesome Wilde's ass is in that tight suit. Damn.

Chris's Movie Reviews: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Here it is, hours before anybody else (that didn't get to see it in a promo) can blog about it. Do you like Harry Potter? If the answer is no, then get the fuck out. If you said yes, and you are hot, then call me please I'm desperate. Also read this:

Overall, the movie is pretty damn good, especially so if you're a Potterfag like myself. If you aren't the movie is going to be really hard to follow, as they don't bother explaining a damn thing. Returning characters pop in without any introduction, which both works (Lupin) and doesn't (Fleur, who hasn't been in the movies since the fourth if I remember right). There is a bit of backpedaling regarding Bill: he hasn't been in any of the movies, so he introduces himself accordingly, even explaining the scars from Greyback that he should have gotten in the last film had he been in it (Lupin's joke about him liking his meat slightly more raw is pulled right out of the book). Terms and spells are thrown around without any explanation at all, but to me this is a good thing. I'd rather not have somebody stupidly explaining what a stupefy is or how exactly a polyjuice potion works. I know that shit already yo. The action in the movie is rather well directed, especially the flight from Privet Drive to The Burrow. When Harry and the gang are running from the Snatchers in the forest there's a distinct lack of music, which bothered me, but the direction itself was fine. Speaking of the music...I don't really remember it. That's a problem, especially when the theme for the series was written by John Motherfucking Williams. What the hell man? Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of action in the movie, given how much of the book is covered, but there's enough to keep those that aren't engrossed in the story at least somewhat interested.

As usual, the movies fail to disappoint as far as casting is concerned. Mundungus Fletcher looks like a sleazy used car salesmen, so he's perfect. Grindlewald has two actors, one younger for pictures and for some flashback dreams Harry has, and one older for a brief scene in which Voldemort finds out the location of the Elder Wand. The younger looks like an uptight jerk, which is perfect, and the older one...is old. So there's that. Luna's dad is just as loopy as you'd hope he would be, and all the new incidental characters, including the Snatchers and the odd random Death Eater, are all just fine. As you'd expect all returning characters are played by the same actors, and they do just as wonderfully here as they did before. Gary Oldman even appears to reprise his role of Sirius, although I'm not sure if the image Harry sees in the mirror shard is new footage or just some reused stuff from previous films. If you're a fan of Alan Rickman's Snape you'll be sorely disappointed though: he's in one scene at the beginning, and that's it. None of the reoccurring professors or kids (in fact, other than the main three, it's just Ginny, Luna, and a brief scene of Neville) show up either, but that's too be expected based on how much of the book the movie covers. Helena Bonham-Carter's Beallitrix Lestrange is just as perfect as it always was, and used to great effect late in the movie.

As you'd imagine with the lack of Snape there's nothing there involving his and Lilly's past, and the movie is pretty much dedicated to Harry and the gang finding the Slytherin horcrux and dealing with it. Pretty much every bit of that half of the book is there: the escape from Privet Drive, the wedding, Dumbledore's gifts, tracking down Mundungus and infiltrating the ministry to get the locket from Umbridge, and so on. Most of it is pretty spot-on from the book too, although there are some differences. Ginny's attempt to give Harry a 'gift' is gone, which was sort of disappointing. They made a point of adding a vision of half-naked Harry and Hermione making out in front of Ron but Ginny can't proposition Harry for sex? Lame. Most of the other differences are just nitpicky stuff that I can't even remember, so if you're a fan of the books and hate how much was cut out of the other movies (especially the third, oh god) you'll be pleased. And as you'd expect the movie ends in a cliffhanger: just as Voldemort pulls the Elder Wand out of Dumbledore's grave. Expect the entire audience to 'awwwww' when the credits start, because it's pretty sudden.

The bottom line is that Potterfans of any sort will love the movie to death, but if you've only a cursory interest in the series and have skipped a movie or just not paid attention you're going to be completely lost. Now fast-forward time and make it July already. I want to see the damn ending.

Chris's Movie Reviews: Skyline

Wow. That's all I had to say after watching this crap. Wow.

Skyline, if you haven't heard, is about an alien invasion. The beginning is one of those 'tease about a scene later in the movie and then cut to a flashback' things, and it actually works rather well. The rest of the movie? Wow.

So we join the story line 14 hours later with Milo Pressman, of 24 fame, traveling to his best bro Turk's (you know, the black guy from Scrubs) birthday with his girlfriend. They get there. Turk happens to be rich for some reason, but the movie doesn't bother to embellish on this; it might be something to do with movies, I don't know. Milo is an artist, and Turk springs an invitation onto Milo for him to move out to LA, which makes Milo's girlfriend stomp off in a rage. Milo immediately goes to their room to comfort her, and she tells him he's pregnant, and 'oh no I'm not ready for this' 'what do you think I am' blah blah blah drama drama. I'm summarizing here because you need context for this next bit: Turk's hot young assistant suddenly comes running out of their bathroom holding a camera...followed by Turk himself, who must have teleported there immediately after the conversation he just had not sixty seconds earlier with Milo. Whut? I could excuse the crappy drama stuff (every action movie has to have some of that for some reason), but how the FUCK did that guy get into the bathroom that fast?

That was just the first sign of the movie being terrible. The characters are just god-awfully retarded ("Hey, remember that plan where we got like four people killed? We should do that again."), the aliens make no sense (they steal people's brains to power their biorobot things), and the ending...well I'll just spoil it for you: Milo and his girl get captured, the girl gets spared because she's pregnant, and Milo's brain gets taken and put into a...whatever. He naturally ignores whatever it is that makes everybody else's brain not care that they're suddenly alien robots and stops whatever the aliens were doing to the girl. Another alien arrives to see what's going on, he gets ready to fight it...and then the movie ends. I am not fucking kidding. They gave this pile of shit a cliffhanger. Ugh.

The CG varies from meh (the ships, long-distance alien shots) to just plain terrible (the explosions, oh god), the acting is just atrocious (which is par for the course when all three of your main actors are from television shows) and the dialog is cliche ("They're not dead. They're just really, really pissed off"). Go see Unstoppable instead, which is at least entertaining.

Chris's Movie Reviews: Saw 3D

My Posterous is very underused, so I decided to start a review series so I have something to do at work other than bitching about how much people suck. First up: the 'final' entry in the Saw series. Warning: spoilers ahead, because I don't give a fuck.

First things first: if you haven't watched all six (yes, SIX) previous Saw movies the B story, which involves Detective Hoffman's efforts to completely ruin anything good about the series and murder Jigsaw's wife, is going to leave you very confused. Fortunately the A story, in which some guy whose name I don't remember travels through a mental hospital trying to free his wife from one of Jigsaw's more gruesome traps, has absolutely nothing to do with it! There's some bullshit involving Hoffman sending some internal affairs detective tapes demanding that he hand over Jill (Jigsaw's wife) in order to stop the game, but I'd imagine you can figure out how well that works.

The guy that we're supposed to be cheering for this time is the author of a self-help book based around surviving one of Jigsaw's traps. He and his accomplices are put through this game because, if you haven't figured it out already, he's a fake. There are six 'original' traps this time, four during the game, one in the actually entertaining opening, and one involving racist skinheads (one of which is played by the frontman for Linkin Park, if you can believe that). Save for the aforementioned opening they all suck. There's some bullshit about the old 'hear no evil, see no evil' trope thrown in there, but in the end two of the traps involve shoving sharpened pipes into places they don't belong and one involves hanging, which was so tame I actually ended up laughing. This is Saw dammit, I want to see gore. There's plenty of that to be had in the car trap, in which a man's arms are removed and a woman is crushed to death, and the final trap, wherein our unfortunate hero's completely innocent wife is roasted to death, but the traps in the game itself are pretty lame.

The B story is actually tied into Saw lore, but it's still pretty awful. The racist car trap sets off a chain of events involving Jill trying to not die at Hoffman's hands (given what she did to him at the end of the last movie you can't blame him for tracking her down). In the end it turns out that Hoffman was hiding in a body bag at the station the entire time (LE GASP!) and he kills his way through it until Jill his in his grasp. Then, in an obvious attempt at irony, he straps her to the same chair she strapped him into (how it ended up at the station is anyone's guess) and reaches for the updated 'reverse bear trap' thing she used on him...but instead grabs the original used in the first movie! OMG FANSERVICE! The end result is that we finally get to see what happens when the thing goes off (spoiler: you die).

The ending, however, is easily the best part of the movie. After Hoffman offs Jill, he's attacked by some dudes in the pig mask...one of which is Dr. Gordon (the guy that cut his foot off in the first movie). If you didn't see that part coming then you must have been asleep for the first half of the movie. Anyway, after a montage showing off how Gordon was helping Jigsaw the entire time (SHOCKER!) he locks Hoffman in the bathroom from the first three films (where Zep, Adam, Xavier, and Gordon's severed foot can still be seen, albeit decomposed) while the original version of Hello Zepp plays in the background. The movie even ends like the first, with Gordon saying "Game over" as he locks Hoffman in. The short version of all of this is that if you're a fan of the first three movies (before the series went to complete shit) then you'll love that bit of fanservice at the end.

Verdict: crap, but the ending is pretty good. Oh, and the 3D is pretty bad, even though it was shot in the format. Unfortunately it's not playing in 2D so you'll just have to deal with the extra ticket price.

Why I Hate People

I've worked in retail for going on six years now, and if I've learned anything from the experience it's that people are retarded. I'm not saying that in a derogatory sense; people (as in people, not people you know) are actually mentally handicapped. There's a lot of things you learn about people working cash registers and supervising said cash register workers, but the final straw was broken (is that the phrase?) at my current place of employment: a movie theater. So, here it is: radda's definitive list of why people suck.

1) People Are Douchebags

The first 'rule of people suckage' can manifest itself in many ways. For starters, watch whomever you're with flip out if a minor thing is wrong with their order at a fast-food joint. Does the fact that you're short one order of fries warrant you being a complete dickbag to the person behind the counter? The cashier had nothing to do with it anyway! Just tell them you're short, and they'll fix it. There's no need to be an asshole about it.

These are the types of things that really get under my skin. I've been in many situations with 'guests' (Six Flags's official name for the douchebags that overpay for everything there) that flip out over absolutely nothing. It's a problem I fix in seconds, yet they get unreasonably angry over it. Okay, so he shorted you a dollar. Sure, he didn't give you your ten cent season pass discount. I'll fix it. But why flip out over it? Is there a reason for being angry at me, even though I've done nothing yet? It boggles the mind. The thing that really gets me about this one though is that I've been in situations where a person was totally allowed to flip out and be mad, and yet they were not angry at all, mostly because I was awesome at dealing with people (fuck you Six Flags, I was better than half the people you didn't let go). I don't get it.

2) People Don't Care About Anybody But #1

Theaters are always filled with popcorn on the floors. It happens. Kids spill, it falls out of your hand while you're shoveling it into your mouth, whatever. But when I find sunflower seeds and Starburst wrappers on the floor? You did that shit on purpose. Fuck you. There's also the phenomenon that occurs when a trashcan is full. Do people look for another trashcan when the closest one to them is full? No. They do not. They just pile their shit on top of the one that's full instead of taking two steps outside the theater to find one that isn't full. And if they spill outside of a theater? Nine times out of ten they'll just stand there and stare at it, then walk away. They won't tell anybody about it, and they sure as shit won't apologize for making a mess (people DO do the right thing occasionally, with the result being me not actually minding that I have to clean up their mess, because they were actually sorry about it). Oh, and when I'm at the bottom of the theater, holding a trash bag, why do people still leave their trash all over the place? People do not give a flying fuck about the guy that has to clean their shit up.

3) People Are Stupid

Season passes come with coupons. On the back of all of the coupons is a common sense phrase: "This cannot be used in combination with any other discounts.". Did people still get bent out of shape when I told them that you can't combine discounts? You betcha.

Movie theaters have lines everywhere, naturally. Say you've got two theaters, one showing Grown Ups and one showing Knight and Day. Knight and Day starts first, so people line up for it first. After seating Knight and Day, that same line is used for Grown Ups. Do people check and see if the line they're getting in is the one for their movie before getting in it? Of course not! We start seating Grown Ups, and people start getting pissed because they were standing in line for the wrong movie. They of course ignore the fact that their movie HAS ALREADY STARTED while standing in line, and then of course blame us for their inability to figure out if their movie is seating or not (protip: JUST FUCKING ASK SOMEBODY!).

I once encountered a party of three standing by themselves just outside of the same Grown Ups theater as above, while a huge line was forming just to their left, with a sign on the ropes saying it was for their theater and their movie. Did they get in it? No. Their reaction when I told them that they needed to get in line? "Can't you move the line over here?" "Well the line should be over here instead, it makes more sense over here." "Can we get in the front of the line since we've been waiting?" "Well you should mark these things better." All of this was said to me with the snooty attitude of entitlement. The line had a goddamn sign on it. If you're incapable of reading the goddamn sign and getting in the right goddamn line it's your own goddamn fault, and I have no sympathy for you at all. Enjoy the back of the line (amusingly enough I basically told them this to their face with slightly gentler words and I didn't get in trouble for it).

The best part about all of this? Lines weren't a problem for Eclipse. The kids found where their theater was at, looked at the signs, found the right lines, then camped out for fourteen hours (seriously). Which brings me to my next point:

4) Kids Are The Best Customers Ever

Kids don't complain. They don't argue. They don't get mad. They accept what you tell them and move on. They use their brains instead of just walking around like mindless sheep. The only kids I've ever had a problem with are spoiled-rotten northside rich-kid teenagers, and even then they go away when I give them nasty looks. Why is that? This requires further study.

In conclusion: fuck you. Unless I know you, you are people. Stop doing that shit. Be a better person. Throw away your trash, spit your seeds in a cup, and for fuck's sake read the goddamn line signs or ask somebody if you're in the right place.

On #FFXIII (spoilers)

So I finished the game a while ago (and tweeted about some of the weird stuff that happens up to the last boss), and I figured I might as well review it as a whole.

Story
In a word (or three): awesome, but lacking. I love the whole 'fuck your fate, imma do my own thing' aspect, but some pretty weird stuff happens in the end. Fang's actions before Orphan's final form confuse the hell out of me given her development. It feels like they just needed a reason for her to turn into Ragnarok again. Everything about the people of Cocoon being sheeple and the 'man is superior to God' message really got to me though. They REALLY needed to go more into Pulse however. You spend so much time there yet know nothing about how they lived or what exactly they thought of Cocoon (Fang and Vanille do say that they thought Cocoon was evil, but did they have the absolute paranoia that the people of Cocoon had about the Pulseians?). The ending was meh. I didn't mind the whole sacrifice thing, but I wish there was more of an epilogue (Snow and Serah getting married, etc.). There's also no explanation as to how Serah became a l'Cie. It's not THAT important really, but I'd like to know.

Characters
FFXIII has the best cast of any Final Fantasy ever. Sure, there are better characters in other games (Vivi fans represent!), but the cast as a whole, despite being small, are just completely awesome. Like everybody else I hated Hope at first, but he gets SO much better and mans the fuck UP. Snow stays a retard, but he apes the whole 'headstrong hero' trope by being recognized as a fucking idiot by everybody, including himself. Fang and Vanille's relationship is fantastic (no, they're not gay), but Fang is the weakest character of the bunch because of her choices later in the game. Sazh is just as awesome at the end as he was in the beginning. And yes, Lightning (Claire! Awesome, NORMAL name) gets WAY better, becomes Hope's second mom, and is now mai waifu (do not steal). Her speech just before the final boss's second form had me FUCK YEARing and getting manly goosebumps. Make the impossible possible! The lack of romance is nice, especially after the complete abortion XII had as its romance subplot (Penello x Vaan was fine, but Ashe lusting after Balthier was annoying as hell. Stupid Han Solo tropes.). Serah and Dajh are great plot points as well, and I love how the whole 'fate' thing means that every character (except Hope, for some reason) is tied to at least one of them (both in Fang and Vanille's case, which is why I like them so much).

Gameplay
XIII has my new favorite battle system. Later in the game, after you're allowed to completely customize everything about your party, it just gets fucking awesome, and you don't even notice you're only controlling one character. The AI is VERY smart, and will instantly exploit enemy weaknesses once they're known. There is a slight problem with healing and buffing: the AI doesn't always prioritize healing the party leader, instead dropping Cura (heal all), which doesn't help when you're critical. The AI also doesn't prioritize the buffs I'd like it to (it'll drop element resist buffs before Protect/Shell), but it generally works well enough, and is MUCH faster than a person would be in getting buffs in place. I also hate how an AI Commando will target a different enemy. They did this on purpose, but I don't know why. It means that a Paradigm with two Commandos is pretty useless outside of boss battles and large groups of weak enemies. Some bosses are INCREDIBLY cheap though, and will constantly attack your party leader faster than the AI can heal. The first form of the final boss also has a Death spell that works unusually often, although it only hit my party leader once. I love all of the post-game stuff there is to do too. I'd love a DLC addon with new areas and more mark missions.

Fantastic game, and my new favorite Final Fantasy, even if it lacks in some areas. Can't recommend it enough, especially to those who seem apathetic (*cough*Carter*cough*).

On #FFXIII: The First Two Chapters (no spoilers)

Linearity
This is one of the biggest criticisms of the game, so I might as well get it out of the way: the game is no more linear than FFX. FFX opens itself up a bit earlier than XIII does, or so I'm told, but there's just as much running in a straight line in both. XIII gets the edge because the encounters aren't random, so it's far less tedious.

Characters
This is where the game excels, by far. Sazh is fucking awesome, in a crazy black man with a bird in his afro sort of way. Vanille is adorables, although her Australian accent (seriously) is very jarring. Lots of people have issue with Snow, but I actually like him; he has something to fight for, as seen in an incredible cutscene after chapter two. Hope is...well he's a kid, and a kid going through some tough shit, especially after the party become l'Cie. I hear he gets better. Lightning is probably the weakest character of the bunch, but I've barely begun the game, and I hear she starts to actually show emotion later. The voice acting is pretty damn good, as it has always been since FFX, but Vanille's accent is just plain weird.

Gameplay
For the first two chapters the game is pretty much "Run in a straight line and press A/X to kill things/use potions". Chapter three introduces the actual leveling system, which is almost identical to FFX's (which is totally cool in my book), and where you can finally mix up your attacks and etc. Can't comment on it really since I just started it.

Graphics
I have an SDTV, so I can safely say that I don't notice a goddamn thing wrong with the 360 version. With the 360 version you get delicious achievements and a neato outfit for your Avatar if you register the game, so if you have to choose and you don't give a shit about HD for now, then go with 360.

Okay, I had to get that off my chest. Time for Lost time. I'll probably talk about the story and junk after I get through the first disk.