The Clone Wars : Episdoe One : Ambush

Episode One : Ambush

"Great leaders inspire greatness in others."

Episode Brief: Jedi Master Yoda and three clone troopers -- Jek, Thire, and Rys -- must face off against Count Dooku's dreaded assassin Ventress and her massive droid army to prove the Jedi are strong enough to protect a strategic planet and forge a treaty for the Republic.

Karl's Review: The first episode takes place on the moon of Rugosa, a moon with giant coral formations all over it.  Yoda is sent to negotiate with the King of Toydaria (the race that Watto belongs to).. but his ship is attacked and he is forced to land in an escape pod.  Assaj Ventress meets with the King first to try and sway his allegiance to the Separatists.  A challenge is issued.. if Yoda can fight his way through Ventress' battle droid army and reach the King by nightfall he will prove is worth to the Toydarian King.

This episode has lots of Yoda-on-droid action, as he fights his way to the king.  The interesting part is that he fights along with 3 clone troopers.  We really get to see the interactions of these clones, and how they try and differentiate themselves from their identical brothers.  These clones wear red marking signifying them as Senate Security forces, an action figure with these markings was released as an exclusive by Hasbro at ComicCon this year.  At one point they stop to rest, and the clones feel doubtful that they will be able to prevail against the odds facing them.  It is interesting how the clones, throughout the show, have to figure out how to deal with this Jedi, whom they know nothing about.  At times Yoda simply sits and meditates, and the clones are left confused.. they also refer to him consistently as "General" no doubt due to their military training... Yoda is portrayed quite well in this episode, even reverting to his playful nature as he laughs and leaps from battle droid to battle droid.  This is a side of Yoda not seen since Empire Strikes Back.  He also exhibits his wise persona, as he rallies his clones when they are feeling overwhelmed.  "Clones you may be, but the Force resides in all life forms.  Use it you can, to quiet your mind."  Yoda sees them differently through the Force, and convinces them to see themselves that way as well.  I enjoy seeing how the clones choose to differentiate themselves, some with different hairstyles, some with scars and tattoos... It is perhaps one of the more interesting themes to permeate the series, and a good choice to put in the first episode.  Assaj Ventress (am I the only one who finds sith chicks sexy?) doesn't do much in this episode but boss around her droids, but she is an awesome character, and her voice and visual depiction is perfect.  I look forward to seeing her expanded upon throughout the series. 

An enjoyable episode...good depictiongs os Yoda and the Clone Troopers and some cool action sequences, but it lacked the grandure of a war supposed to be engulfing an entire galaxy. I give it 3 astromech droids out of 5.

Stuff and some junk...and some trailers...

So it has been overall.. a pretty crappy week. have not been in a real good mood of late and haven't been in a blogging mood. Sunday I went down to Philly with my pal Mike to visit our friends Jason and Josh. Stayed most of the day... went out to eat some Indian food, played a couple fun games of Warmachine/Hordes (won one and lost one) and when we went to leave we found that Mike's car had been broken into... window smashed, his GPS unit stolen.. it sucked. A crappy end to a good day. And the rest of this week has just been.. blah. I am still planning on writing up my reviews on the Clone Wars episodes.. I will end up being a week behind, since I have to wait for episodes to appear online from now on. (the show is good, I will say that much right now.. it also had the biggest ratings for any Cartoon Network show ever, so its target audience -kids - also really liked it).. anyways... the Tokyo Game Show is currently underway.. and lots of info is spilling forth on lots of upcoming games.. these two trailers made very very happy... the Street Fighter one is just a really cool trailer.. not really any new footage.. and the second.. well its a a new foray into a universe I love to play videogames in... Hurrah for Video Games! They make real life bearable! I am going to be putting together my character for our upcoming D&D game tonight/tomorrow.. so expect a post on that soon as well.

Street Fighter 4 'TGS 2008' trailer HD

Halo 3: Recon 'Debut' trailer HD

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Premieres Tonight!  9 PM  Cartoon Network!

TWO episodes tonight to start things off! ("Ambush" and "Rising Malevolence")  Normally there will only be one new episode per week, but this week they start it off with two.  You can also watch it streaming online starting next week (at starwars.com or , though the streaming episodes will be one week behind the others.  Or you can buy the Season Pass at iTunes and get the new episodes automatically downloaded to your computer the day after they air on TV (that's what I plan on doing)  Anyway, tonight I am heading over to my friend Mike's to watch the premiere on his 108" screen (he built a home theatre).  I will have my review of the first two episodes later on tomorrow if I have time, but I plan on reviewing each episode of the series as they are aired. These reviews will be full of spoilers, so if you didn't see the episode, you may not want to read the reviews.  :)  That's all for now, and may the Force be with you!

Legend of the Seeker

So.. there is a very successful series of books called "The Sword of Truth" by an author named Terry Goodkind.  I read the first book in the series, Wizard's First Rule, and really enjoyed.  It was a great story and was set in a world that had a very interesting mythos/magic system.  The second book was also good, but less so than the first, and I would say the same when comparing the thrid book to the second.  Anyways.. I didn't read the fourth.  Though, I believe there are now like.. 10 books in the series?  I would like to one day go back and read them... for as I said, the world is pretty cool.  The first book in the series is certainly worth ready, for it is quite good.  But, you don't like reading?  Is that what I hear you saying?  Well you are in luck my friend!  For the infamous Sam Raimi (the director of Spiderman) is turning the series of books into an hour long fantasy/drama on your television.  Much in the same vein as Xena:Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, The Beastmaster, and to a lesser extent Cleopatra 2525 (for those wishing a sci-fi comparison)... this show will more than likely be aired at weird times, on less than big networks.  But I am oddly excited to see it.  I guess its more along the lines of me wanting a fantasy TV series to actually work, and actually be good.

Anyway.. here are some trailers for the show, which airs November 1st (Check your local listings!)

Perhaps the most interesting character in the series is the female lead, Kahlan.  Digging deep into my memory banks here (so some details may be fuzzy)... but she was

 known as a "Confessor."  All the confessor's were women, and they had this unique power.  They needed to touch their "victims" and then they would release their power and those affected would be completely controlled/enthralled/enraptured/in-love/dedicated to/by/with the Confessor, forever, no questions asked, forever.  So they were called confessors, because their power would be unleashed on a potential criminal at court, and since he was then completely dedicated to the confessor, there is no way he would lie to her... thus his confession 

was always truthful.. of course, then he didn't really have much of a life if he was innocent, since he was now pretty much a slave to the confessor.  The confessor had complete power over the people they controlled, they could command them to do anything, and their victims would not waver.. they were completely consumed by the magically induced love for the Confessor that touched them.  Its an interesting power... and I am curious as to how they depict it in the TV show...  I should try to read that book again before the show starts, but my reading list is already too long (soon to be discussed in an upcoming blog post).. perhaps I can snag the audio book off of Audible.com...

And of course, as you can see in the still frame above, the women have to ride around showing lots of cleavage... or else it can't be classified as "fantasy"... 

And a fun fact for you here... if you look at the poster image above.. and look closely at the guy with the bow and arrow.. you will none other than JayLag'aia known by geeks everywhere for his role as Jango Fett (and all subsequent clones of him in Episodes II and III)

You can view additional trailers/media/information/etc at the official website.

Ryu and Ken's Master in Action!

Street Fighter 4 'Gouken' gameplay

The Force Leashed... then Unleashed again...

So... as you know, I have been playing and enjoying The Force Unleashed...  but a couple days ago I logged out of the game to take a break from it.  Later that same day I popped the disc into the 360 to play some more... and something weird happened. The game started up, I could hear the disc drive whirring away... but the screen was solid black.  No sound, no video, no nothing.  I could not even return the 360 Dashboard, the system just locked up.  Try as I might, I couldn't get it to work.. I had to power off my 360 just to get back to the Dashboard... I could play other games, I could play XBLA games, I could play DVDs... I just couldn't play Force Unleashed.  So... I went to Yoda's Helpdesk at the LucasArts website to ask for help.  And I must say... I wasn't expecting much.. I filled out the contact by email form on friday, and it said I would get a response in 48 hours.  So, I resigned myself to a weekend without slaughtering Stormtroopers (though it allowed me to make some more porgress through Lost Odyssey).  But much to my surprise.. I did hear from them, rather quickly, and on a weekend.  I was very impressed.. surely I though I'd have to wait till after the weekend was over... but no.  Those LucasArts employees are dedicated!  They sent me a solution and it wokred perfectly the first time.  The only problem... I had to erase all my save data for the game... so I am starting over. (I was about 90% of the way through the game)  I decided since I have some experience with the game now, I'd play through on the harder difficulty and earn a few extra achievements while I'm at it.  So kudos to you LucasArts!  If anyone else has this problem.. hear is the solution I got.. to save anyone else the trouble of having to contact them:

Make sure you don't have the game disk in the console and you do everything in the right order.
1. First, go to the Dashboard and access the "system" blade and select memory.
2. Next, go to the hard drive tab and open it.
If you have downloaded a copy of the TFU Demo delete it.
Then, delete any previous saves from TFU
3. Restart the Xbox.
4. Go back to the system tab and select memory again, but do not 'open' the hard drive.
5. Hit "Y", it should open another options window for the HD.
6. On the controller hit X X LB RB X X and select ok.
7. You should get a message about maintenance to the 360.
8. Restart the console again and insert the disk and enjoy.

Blog changes forthcoming...

So... I have been having troubles getting things to "fit" in my blog, and I may be changing the template I am using.  So, don't be surprised when you pop in here soon and it looks completely different.  :)  Variety is the spice of life afterall...

Update:  Gonna try this for a while...  maybe adjust the colors some..  thoughts?

Yay! The 1-Up Show!

So glad the 1-Up Show is back on the air.  I have been watching this for a couple years now, and it has become one of my favorite shows.  These are the same guys from 1up.com and Electronic Gaming Monthly [EGM] magazine (which I have been reading for 10+ years) so I feel like I know a lot of these guys after reading so many of their articles, listening to so many of their podcasts, and watching this show for so long... (though a lot of the original guys have departed the company). Game journalism has become somewhat of a hobby of mine, so I read a lot of different websites/magazines and such.  I definitely feel 1up is the "cream of the crop" when it comes to video game journalism.   This is the second episode of Season 10... they do some great coverage of Mirror's Edge (game looks awesome) and Mega Man 9!   :)  

The 1UP Show: Episode 09/26/08