The Hunger Games

So before I say anything else in this review, I want to make one thing very clear. I did not read even a single word of the books that this movie is based on. So my opinion on this movie is solely from the movie and nothing else. And I will obviously not be able to say how well it matches up with the book. So if this is a horrid butchering, I don't know that. We all on the same page here? Good.

Plot
In some horrid land where the government pretty much owns everyone and want to make sure the people all know their place, the people are forced to send children ages 12-18 to fight to the death in a competition for food. The competition has 24 children, 2 kids, one boy and one girl, from each of the 12 districts. The heroine of the story, Katness, valiantly steps in as a volunteer to go when her younger sister is selected as the initial tribute, willing to take her place in her more-than-likely demise to save her sister from such a fate. From there they show off the preparation for the event, focusing heavily on how the event is shown to the public as a spectacle that the poor are forced to watch and the rich pay to see. Alliances form and break as everyone wants to stay alive and knows to get that the other 23 people in the huge arena with them have to die for that to occur.

Is it good? I thought it was actually pretty decent. When it came out I wasn't jumping to see it cause I didn't expect to like it. But I was pleasantly surprised. I did actually enjoy the movie. I really liked seeing how much effort went into making the event a show piece. If I did have one complaint to level at the movie, though this didn't personally upset me, I would say it's maybe a bit slow. If all you want to see here is the fight between all the kids, that doesn't start till just over an hour in and there's really not a lot of violence or action in it. Now as I said this didn't bother me, but I think it is something that might turn off some people. Personally I think everything they had before it was good and it help to build the atmosphere and as I said above, show off the event as a real spectacle. Grooming up the contestants then parading them around for everyone to see.

Overall, I did enjoy this movie quite a bit. But as I said at the beginning, I have no idea if it's anything like the book or if it's a disgrace to the series. I also said some people might find a lot of it slow or boring if they just want action, cause this movie isn't an all out action flick. The most action packed part of the movie takes place as about the first five minutes of the fighting, and the main character isn't even involved in it. So just consider these things if you wanna watch it.

8 tributes to the greatest song in the world out of 10

To anyone who didn't get that scoring system,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lK4cX5xGiQ

Status Update

Hey where the fuck is all the content on this blog?

There's supposed to be like two posts every week from Blue and two from Green as well as Green's monthly YouTube thing and Blue's box office shit.

But there's been nothing going up for a while now, what up with that?

We're here to explain what up with that.

Both of us are college students and are at this time starting up a new semester and have been busy preparing to do that. That is why there has been a recent lack of content. We sincerely apologize and would like to make it very clear that we have no intent to stop doing this.

However college is important and costly so that will be taking up a lot of the time that we previously had free so there will be some cutting back in content in that as opposed to two updates per week from both writers, now both of us will typically put out one post per week. Now this doesn't mean that two posts a week won't ever happen it just means that we don't want our readers expecting it and not getting that. Two posts, or perhaps even more, may happen from either of us if we happen to find the needed time to properly assess media and then write our thoughts about it down.

Speaking personally as Green, I have no plans of canceling my monthly series on YouTube, and I highly doubt Blue is going to cancel his box office series, dude is in love with movies. Like to an unhealthy degree.
I hate cutting back on content here and I am gonna try and find the time and put out consistent stuff, I'd like to say I'm still gonna do two posts a week, but I am gonna be in college and I will need to focus on that a lot. So I'm doing what I here. And Blue is too. We do care about this blog and we don't wanna see it die..... again. Seriously it was tough enough to reanimate once. Don't believe me? Try making a Frankenstein of a Frankenstein. It's fucking difficult okay.

So yeah, Colored Media is gonna end it's just gonna have a bit less stuff coming out than we did over the summer. Sorry, but it's just how things are.

Lord of War

They say that I am the lord of war, but perhaps it is you.

I believe it's warlord

Thank you, but I prefer it my way

Nicholas Cage play Yuri Orlov, only he's not Yuri Orlov, a jewish, only he's not jewish, gun runner. You still with me? The dude lies. A lot. In fact the movie probably would have been called lore of lies, but then that quote would lose some significance.

Plot
Yrui Orlov stars starting as a nobody living in the lower end of town who decides he wants to sell guns. He get's his brother to agree to sell guns with him and they quickly become big hotshots supplying weapons to some significant parties for loads of cash. But of course that's not the whole story, you can't have two brother start selling guns to the world and have everything work out flawlessly for all parties involved, cause someone has to get shot with those guns. So yeah they start selling guns, fall in with unsavory crowds, Yuri's brother becomes a coke addict, and just in general while they both end up rich it's clear that selling guns only pays off in the dollar sense and largely ruins both Yuri's and his brother's lives.

Is it good. It's alright. It's not fantastic. But it's pretty decent. Maybe saying this will murder all my credibility as a movie critic, but I don't get why it is everyone seems to hate Nicholas Cage. I like him in both National Treasures I loved him in Bad lieutenant, and I think he does a pretty decent job here. So yeah if that makes you hate me then, oh well. Rant at me in the comments that'll make you feel better.

There's not too much for me to say here, its a movie about Yuri selling guns and how his job impacts his life and the lives of those around him. Most of the movie is Yuri talking with either one of the guys he's arranging a deal with or the cop trying to arrest him but repeatedly failing to do so. My favorite moments of the movie are when the cop gets right up to the point of catching Yuri and he quickly has to weasel out of the situation however he can mange to do so, such that he either is, or at least appears to be legal.

So consider this a half-hearted recommendation. If you really want a movie and can't find anything better then this movie is alright to throw on.

6.5 AK-47 pallets out of 10

Stake Land

Stake Land a movie about vampires that look like zombies and sound like werewolves. In fact if they hadn't been explicitly explained to be vampires and often killed with stakes I wouldn't have known.

So this movie wasn't like a big thing despite all the praise on the picture above. I'd never heard anything about it till randomly deciding to look for horror movies one day. And I wanna comment about that really quick; "American horror film of the year" this movie should not be called horror. It is not at all scary. It doesn't even have things pop out then call surprising scary. So it's not even incorrectly scary. Anyway that rant aside I'll continue.

Plot
The film centers around two main characters; Martin a 16 year old who has his parent slaughtered by a vampire right in front of him, and Mister an otherwise nameless guy who is apparently the authority on kicking undead ass and takes the newly orphaned Martin under his wing at the request of the dying father. The only really plot is the two trying to survive the ruined world as Mister teaches Martin the ways of making the undead redead so that they'll stay dead. Along the way they have a few others join their group as they attempt to reach some fabled safe region see I am legend for more information about this plot point.

So is it good? It's okay. It's not great. It's certainly not deserving of all that praise on the picture up there and I almost used a different one but it was the best picture I could find. I find myself in an odd position on this movie. I really like the world the movie happens in I just don't really like the movie that happens.

***The following paragraph contains some very minor spoilers though nothing that would ruin the movie***

Allow me to elaborate. The atmosphere of the movie is really good. I enjoyed seeing things like trading vampire teeth and weed and prescription drugs for goods at the various human settlements. I really enjoyed seeing the crazy cultists who worshiped the vampires and even would sacrifice people to them. The different variants of vampires was also a cool concept though I think it was a little underused and could have been made better with more differentiated vampires showing up more commonly.

***Even minor spoilers over***

So it's a great world I just wish the story in it had been more interesting.

7 not-vampires being called vampires out of 10

Resident Evil 5

So then Resident Evil 5, a game all about shooting zombies, only not really.

In fact what you really spend most of the game shooting are actually living humans that have been infected with a parasite that controls their brain and makes them extremely aggressive without lowering their intellect or giving them a taste for human flesh.The actual plot of the game apparently has heavy tie ins with the rest of the series that I never played so all I really understood is you spend about half the game looking for a fellow named Irving then the next bit looking for Jill then the last bit trying to save the world. You know, just a typical day for Chris "Arms like a gorilla" Redfield. Seriously, the devs really wanted to make his arms impressive even going so far as to add a scene in during which Chris pushes a fucking boulder by punching it; a Boulder that is easily ten times the size of his body.

The game controls competently though I know there are somethings that will undoubtedly annoy some people, such as the nine item inventory and the inability to shoot whilst moving or hipfire your guns.However the system works once you get a handle one it.

And this is something I wanna stop and talk about. I said the game works well once you have a handle on it and I most certainly do. I've beaten the game a handful times, including at least once on the highest difficulty, obtained and fully upgraded all the weapons, found every treasure, shot every emblem, and you get where I'm going with this. I've done really everything doable in the game so to me the system is completely fine and I'm completely okay with the combat system and the inventory, even having before used the trick of opening the inventory and combining bullets into my guns for a reload in the short cinematic during melee attacks.

However there is the flip side of that coin. Sure I've mastered the game so none of its quirks bother me, but what about the first time though it? Certainly it kicked my ass then, right? Nope. But that was probably largely due to the fact that the first time I went through the game it was with a friend who had already been through it once and was trained for it from several playthroughs of RE4. So I definitely had an easier time through it than I would have if I'd stepped into it blindly and tried going through with the AI partner. Or even if I'd played through it with another individual of my same level that was also blind to the game.

There are a lot of aspects to that while I know them, are not intuitive. Such as, the ability to insta-kill any generic zombie (As I said earlier I know they aren't zombies but saying humans sounds more wrong.) by shooting them once in the knee then stepping behind the when they grab there leg and performing the neck breaker of throat slit if you're playing as Chris or Sheva respectively. Or the insta-kill on a floored opponent with the stomp or impale ability if you hit them in the head with it.

The game has the army of two style pointlessly necessitated co-op so it naturally play better with a friend. The game is fun and its subtleties work okay once you get used to them. Looking at it closer though I do see this rather steep learning curve that I was able to largely ignore due to my buddy. Overall still recommended, higher recommended if you have a buddy, even higher if your buddy or you know whats up with the game.

8 head snakes out of 10

Steam

So a little bit back I did a review of PAYDAY: The Heist. Those of you with good memories should recall that I mentioned I purchased the game through Steam and told you if you didn't know what Steam was should should find out. Well if you haven't done so yet this post is a way to do that.

So, other than water heated to the point of boiling and turned into a vapor, what is Steam? Steam is a digital distribution platform from Valve. You may know valve as the guys behind Left 4 Dead, Half-life, and Portal. What's that? You love all three of those games? I know Valve makes wonderful games. A while back they made Steam to help sell their great games, and other people's games, to the public in an easy, safe, legal, and above all else cheap manner.

Steam is the king of the sale. At any point on any day in the entire year there is something on sale on Steam. At least one something but typically a handful of somethings with daily deals rolling over every 24 hours three days of midweek madness ever single week. Damn near every game being reduced price if pre-purchased or bought during the first week. And many of the pre-purchases come with extra goodies for fucking free. And not just hats for team fortress two either. Yes often times valve will give out tf2 gear t people who pre-purchase games but often, I saw it most recently with Prototype two, they will in fact give out whole games for a pre-purchase. A little while back Steam said to me "Hey man, you buy Prototype two now while it's pre-release, we will give you Prototype one to play for this week while you wait." And I've seen that same deal before more than once. Pre-purchase the sequel and get the original for free is a relatively common deal from Steam.

Now when I say something is always on sale you think I probably mean 5 or maybe 10% off. 15% if Steam is going crazy that day right? Nope. As I write this the daily deal is the original Fallout for 66% off. And sure it's an older game so there aren't many people that would buy it now anyway but let me list all the other deals going on right now.

Fallout collection 66% off
sleeping Dogs 10% off
Death Rally 15% off
Legends of Pegasus 15% off
Fallout 66% off
Cannon fodder 3 15% off
AirMech Beta Bundle 33% off
Fallout 2 66% off
Jagged Alliance: Crossfire 15% off
A virus named Tom 25% off
Fallout tactics: brotherhood of steel 66% off
Quake 2 50% off
A virus named tom soundtrack 25% off
Deponia 20% off
If you Pre-purchase Dishonored right now you get a discount on the Quakecon Bundle.

All that on sale right this moment as I write this post on a Monday afternoon. This is typical for steam on a random weekday afternoon. It's not like steam is having some big crazy Summer sale. That happened a week or so ago. It was when I got Payday for 75% off. And either during that or right after is when Blue got by his words "Fallout 3 all the dlc like 6.99 fallout NV and all dlc 10" $17 for two great games and four big dlc packs for both as well as the little start up junk for New Vegas. I think bastion was 66% off when I got it. Portal 2 was also I believe 66% off.

Every day of every week you can expect a list of deals more or less this long unless of course you look during the yearly summer sale or Christmas sale at which point that list would probably be two or three times this length.

Add in to this a load of totally fucking free games including everyone's favorite hat wearing simulator team fortress two and there is really just no reason to be a pc gamer and not have Steam. It is a fucking fantastic service that I am happy to give my money to.

10 vats of one hundred degrees Celsius water turning to vapor out of 10

An Open Collaborative Production Company

I know that the most of you probably read the title and are think "What the hell is that? An open collaborative production company..... that just sounds confusing." I agree, the words by themselves do make it a little bit confusing. But the actual concept isn't quite as complicated. I am going to try to explain it as well as the founder does, but if you're still having trouble I'm going to put links to the, more than likely, better description. Okay so here we go. The name of this company is hitRECord and the website is hitRECord.org. The way that this website works is someone starts a collaboration. It could be anything, a short film, a song, just a guitar track, a poem, or other things media related. What then happens is the founder, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, will pick collaborations that people have started or something that he has started and they will professionally produce it. And it can be anything; a play, a short film, a song, an album, a picture, or any other type of media you can probably think of. Once it is produced and put out there as a money making production, anyone who had a Record, they call it, on the final project gets compensation. They split the proceeds 50/50 with everyone who was involved. I know what some people who are savvy with this sort of thing is probably thinking that once they use it, its theirs. This is not true, you still own it and can sell it anyway you can. It's better explained here: http://www.hitrecord.org/login and here: http://www.hitrecord.org/ Play both videos for a much better explanation than I gave here. 


Before I recommend you join, I want to talk about how genius this website/company truly is. It is a way to get great ideas from anyone who wants to share them without having to worry about copyright and intellectual property laws (unless you upload something that isn't yours which I don't recommend). It is a way for people to work together without having to actually be there. It might not sound so great, but it is.  


That being said, I think there really is no reason not to join this website if you are an artist of some sort. It's great for getting feedback, it's cool to see what other people do with your things once they remix them, and it's a way to be a part of something. Does everyone get to become a part of something they end up producing? No, probably not, but why should that stop you? 

Dressed to Kill by KISS

Yeah, this isn't what I said was coming next, but to better explain it, I need more time to write it. I'm trying to fully contemplate what I can say about it to make you understand it. So here's a throwback album, I chose KISS because I am about to see them in concert here soon. So here it is. 

Dressed to Kill by KISS

Released March 19, 1975

Label: Casablanca Records

Here we have one of my favorite albums of ALL-TIME. I mean really, who cares when it was put out, why they wore so much make-up, and that KISS gets almost no recognition from the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame (yeah, I'm calling those fuckers out, Guns N Roses + The Beastie Boys but no KISS. Terrible. A fucking disgrace.) it's still good. This really is timeless music with catchy rhythms, good vocals, and great instrumental parts. The thing that I probably like most about this album, and all of other KISS albums, is that they write it all themselves. They have one or two writing partners outside of the band, but that's it. Each track is written by Stanley, Simmons, and whoever is the drummer/lead guitarist at that point. Too many bands cave to the studio's demands these days and it's rather disappointing. Hell, look at what happen on Bieber's Believe when he had a little more control. It came out good, and trust me, I'm just as surprised about that as you. But anyways, he has no place here in a KISS post. On with a review. Not the new usual style. In fact, this one is going to be really short. There isn't a single bad track on this album. Really, there isn't and I don't want to waste my time breaking it down track by track. All the tracks are great and they each highlight every band member's abilities. Rock and Roll All Nite is a legitimate rock anthem that probably 98% of the Earth's population knows. The other 2% don't have access to media. They would probably even recognize it if you played it for them. But here's the tracklist. The best of the best are starred. 

Track List

1. Room Service

2. Two Timer

3.  Ladies in Waiting

4. Getaway*

5. Rock Bottom*

6. C'mon and Love Me

7. Anything for My Baby*

8. She*

9. Love Her All I Can*

10. Rock and Roll All Nite

10 rock legends out of 10

I didn't star Rock and Roll because while it is well known, I wanted to keep the stars down to five. It's in the bottom half of the album. Still great, but bottom half of here.

The Crow

Full week of updates and the guy who does two movie reviews a week puts out one movie update. Deal. With. It.

Plot
The night before Halloween one year a bride and groom to be a violently murdered as they spend the night together happy and awaiting their wedding the next day. Precisely one year later a crow knock on the headstone of Eric Draven the would have been husband. Naturally this cause him to spring to life, imbued with super natural powers and some make-up, and head out seeking revenge against the pricks who killed him and his fiancé, cause I mean this kind of thing just happens when a crow pecks a headstone.

I mean why do you think graveyards have groundskeepers? To keep the ground there lest if float into space? Fuck no. To maintain the place so it looks nice? Only his patsy job. They truly reside there to keep crows away from the headstones. This shit is real. Based on a true fucking story with just the names of people and places changed they just don't put that on the box cause this information is supposed to be kept secret. The only reason I can even get away with mentioning it here is cause I'm hiding behind the pseudonym of Green and you all have no clue who the hell I really I am! Muahahahahaha. Step one of my evil plan is complete. Er uhhh movie. The crow! Yeah that's what I'm talking about here.

Obligatory is it good section you guys and gals are used to from me by now. In fact yeah; it's really good. It's the good old fashion type of hero movie. The bad guys aren't questionably bad; they're guaranteed 100% evil. The good guys aren't questionably good. There's no crying. There's no talks or responsibility. There are the good guy and the bad guys and the bad guys get their teeth kicked in.

So interesting fact: This movie killed Bruce Lee's son. The main actor in it is Brandon Lee and during one of the scene in the movie he gets shot. Now in the filming of this scene they used a dummy bullet and it got stuck in the gun and through a tragic turn of events he actually got shot during filming and a bit of twisted humor about it was that when he reacted like he got shot nobody even knew there was actually a problem right away. It was meant to look like he got shot, so when he behaved as though he'd been shot everyone thought he was just an actor acting. Obviously they realized soon enough that there was really a problem and did everything they could to save him but ultimately he passed away. Due to this happening some of the scene in the movie actually feature a different actor playing the lead with Lee's face placed over him using some fancy computer workings.

9 super-powered birds out of 10

"Box Office" Issue 2

So while I did say that this will becoming out the 1st and the 15th but it looks like I failed. Oh well, better late than never right? So here we go. Box Office Issue Two.

Top Grossing Movies Last Weekend (July 27-29)

1. The Dark Knight Rises

$62, 101, 451

2. Ice Age: Continental Drift

$13, 352, 646

3. The Watch

$12, 750, 297

4. Step Up Revolution

$11, 731, 708

5. Ted 

$7, 353, 150

6. The Amazing Spider-Man

$6, 701, 111

7. Brave 

$4, 305, 153

8. Magic Mike

$2, 619, 128

9. Savages

$1, 838, 215

10. Moonrise Kingdom

$1, 434, 904

It doesn't really come as a surprise that Rises came in first for the third week in a row, but it doesn't seem to be carrying steam like most people thought it would domestically. It lost over 60% of the weekend before last's gross. This may have to do with the shooting, this may not. Honestly, I think that it is a moderately sized chunk. There are many people who are convinced that the movie is to blame for this but it is at 500million worldwide. Warner Brothers is about to make bank here soon once again. That's right folks, you now get to pay three times and buy three DVD's if you want to see The Hobbit both in theaters and your home http://screenrant.com/hobbit-3-movie-trilogy/. There's a link in case you didn't know. Two movies I could deal with, three is ridiculous. I fucking love this book but Warner Bros.' greed is obvious here and quite sickening. Anyways, back to the box office. I'm glad to see Ted stand strong among these other movies seeing as I really liked it. Brave is also doing well still  even though I thought it would almost definitely get knocked out this week. Other than that not much has really changed, women are still rushing to see Tatum and Mcconaughey strip all their clothes off (probably for the fourth time) and for some damn odd reason Moonrise Kingdom is still in the top ten. Oh well. On with the yearly. 

2012 Yearly Gross as of August 1st

1. Marvel's The Avengers

$615,996,809

2. The Hunger Games

$406, 079, 037

3. The Dark Knight Rises

$304, 045, 972

4. The Amazing Spider-Man

$244, 281, 030

5. Brave 

$218, 894, 314

6. Dr. Suess' The Lorax

$214, 030, 500

7. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

$209, 903, 246

8. Ted

$195, 855, 985

9. MIB 3

$175, 842, 488

10. Snow White and the Huntsman

$153, 387, 395

Sigh. Not much has changed, Rises continues to, well, rise (smacked that Spider into place), and really, that's a good thing. It's a much better film. It should hit the #2 spot in a few weeks.... WB is planning REBOOT already with Batman, but just read my Rises review to get the details about that (only if you've seen the movie it's in the spoilers). More money for them? Sure, why not? I was really hoping something would knock off Snow White which is really the worst adaption of any movie EVER but sadly nothing probably will until the new Twilight movie -_- . One more film that, like Magic Mike, teenage girls will be running to go see again. And again. And again. While other films around that time will be discarded by the majority or an entire demographic. Women. I really wouldn't be surprised to see that damn thing overtake even The Hunger Games which is utterly ridiculous. But I regress. 5 Predictions for the rest of the year.

1. Looper does well, but not top ten well.

2. Nothing knocks the throne off of Marvel's The Avengers

3. Breaking Dawn Part 2 will most likely take the number 2 spot.

4. The Dark Knight Rises will gross 1 billion. World wide, but still fall short domestically

5. Breaking Dawn Part 2 will be as much SHIT as the other four. Yeah, I'm biased with this, I have a penis. Go deal with it.

P.S. I think this formatting is much better than the previous so this is what we're going with from here on out.

Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Released on November 11, 2011 (11/11/11)

Publisher: Bethesda

Blue's Take:


So it's been a while since Green and I have talked about the same thing on a post and that is what is going to happen here. Obviously the thing in question is Bethesda's Skyrim. A game that I personally, love. In fact, later on I will talk about the Dawngaurd DLC as well, but that is not in this post.

So yeah, here we go, Skyrim. What most people who haven't played it or those cynical types will say it is Oblivion 2. I really have a problem with that. Yes, some of the mechanics are the same but it is a completely different game altogether. I'll get this right out of the way. 1. The graphics have had a complete overhaul. I have played both the 360 and the PC version (medium video settings) and they are both better than Oblivion. 2. The storyline is so much more epic it makes Oblivion look like Bethesda's bastard child from a crack-smoking-alcoholic mother. Too far? Well it's the truth. 3. The leveling is markedly improved. Gone are the days of being able to jump up and down for your levels (that damn acrobatics skill is completely gone by the way) and every swing of your sword, hit you take, spell you cast, and item you sell counts toward leveling. 4. The combat is also markedly improved. The two hand system is something that is so much better than the previous it makes look as I mentioned before. A bastard child from a crack-smoking-alcoholic mother. Yes, the same joke but again, it's true. 
One can make the argument that the game does get somewhat repetitive but for me that wasn't much a problem for me. The thing that got to me was that there are so many ways to go about playing the game that made it badass for me. I mean really, you can choose to go through the story or you could just simply not do that. I mean that's really the beauty of this game. There is so much to do that simply trying just to do one thing (story, thieves guild, etc) for a long succession of time doesn't really work. It is really liberating when you finish a quest and then say.... well what next? I literally had around 20 misc. objectives to do at one point    

It was kind of overwhelming to think I had so much to do. Another way to play the game is to build characters specifically for certain guilds and just do that one guild with them. And combat can vary from character to character just as greatly. I have not found one other game that brings as many options as this one does. The graphics are amazing, the leveling is great, the storyline is nothing short of amazing, and the combat is just as good as the rest of it. 


However, just like a lot of games, Skyrim does have it's flaws. They aren't many, but sometimes they become annoying. Glitching through the side of the mountain has happened to me more than once and that was greatly annoying after walking through the wilderness for 20 minutes and not saving because I didn't think there was a need to. (Yeah that was kinda my fault but it happened a lot.) And the fact that even though the graphics were great, they kinda just showed the same thing over and over. But still a great game overall in my opinion. 


9 pissed off Draugers out of 10

Green's Take:

Alright then, Skyrim. This is an interesting review for me to write cause I'm wonder exactly now in depth I should be about my criticism. Not that I even have a lot of criticism. I think largely it's a really good game. I have however one fairly large issue with it. However, before we get to that, I'll talk about the good parts.

Skrim does a lot of things right. I really liked Oblivion and I feel like Skyrim looks at Oblivion tells it what a disgrace and a fuck up it is and proceeds to beat it like a red-headed step child. The level system is altered so that all of your skills actually matter and I feel like the enemies don't get tougher exponentially faster than I do. I feel like the bonuses attained for leveling a skill are actually useful, well all of them basically other than the locking picking tree. The set design is gorgeous. The huge overworld actually varies from place to place. The caves and dungeons are also imaculately done, my personal favorite being the dwarven, or I suppose dwemer, ruins. I love the architecture both of the gilded ruins and the mechanical inhabitants and the freakish twisted creatures dwelling beneath them with their weapons fashion from the hides of dead beasts. The visuals of the games are amazing. It's just pretty to look at and I played it on the 360. I have no doubt it would look even better on a good computer.

So then by now you're probably asking "Well then what's you're problem with it? You're talking a lot of praise here Green." The game deserves a lot of praise. The aesthetics are great. The mechanics are great. The progression system is great. The ridiculously massive open world is beyond great, but also leads to my problem with the game. It's really really samey. I feel like to truly fill a world this size, there really needs to be about two or three times the amount of enemy variance and types of items that there are. Case in point, in the huge world there's only really four dungeons. Don't get me wrong here, the whole world is full of them, but there's only about four different ones. There are natural caves, Typically inhabited by bandits or a few of the not too many types of wildlife, occasionally also there will be vampires or necromancers. But they all look like a cave. There's rocks and some plant life and occasionally light shines in from somewhere, but within a small degree of variance they all look like fairly generic caves. Type two is nordic ruins. These can generally be trusted to be filled to bursting with drauger. And other than the claw doors and the occasional puzzle in these they are again basically interchangeable one for another. Third type, the one I said was my favorite above is the dwemer ruins. These dungeons are filled mostly with the left over mechanical defenders who apparently kill any living thing other than falmer on sight. It looks great, bit underground stone cities with mechanization prominent in every corner. But they all look exactly that way. The last type of dungeon is the innards of a castle. They're typically populated by bandits and again here, they all look more or less the same. These could have all been the inside of one super huge castle that many yeas ago spanned the entire continent. The only one of them I can think of that looks in different is the half flooded one. And it looks exactly like all the others only half full of water.

And I think I'll be done with that line of thought now.

Skyrim is still a great game certainly, it's just not a game that lasts very long to me. I feel like about 70% of the game is spent in a dungeon and it's always one of those same four dungeons. It's really really fun for as long as you can tolerate seeing those same four areas over and over and over. And for me that's about the amount of time it takes to get to level 20. Every so often I'll remember I own skyrim and make a new character on it and play the hell out of it..... for about a week. Then I stop playing it for another month or so. It's an amazing game and I definitely don't regret buying it it just doesn't have very lasting appeal for me.

7.5 shouts better than fus ro dah out of 10

Also Bethesda, bears should not be stronger than dragons. 

Seriously, they shouldn't.

YouTube Top 5 (August 1st 2012)

So you may recall, at least I hope you recall cause that would mean you actually read it, that on July 9th I started a new series and said that I would be doing it routinely at the first of each month. Well guess what fucking day it is.

Quick note here: Anyone who read the first YouTube Top 5 will find songs 1, 2, 3, and 5 eerily familiar. More on that at the end of the post.

#1 Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe

So this song is alright. It's not that good, but it's alright. I wanna take a moment here to talk about some of the lyrics. "Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad." Wait what? Before he came into your life you didn't know he existed. How can you miss something you don't know exists? "It's hard to look right at you baby." Really Mrs. Jepsen? You found an individual so amazingly good looking and beautiful that he is on par with the visual appeal of the Greek king of gods Zeus himself, and if you were to gaze directly upon his true form your puny human eyes would burst into flame at heralding such raw magnificence as him. Now then, the big on, the chorus itself. "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number. So call me maybe." Jepsen you whore! Giving your phone number to a man you just met I bet you let him look at your ankles too didn't you. What would your mother think of you? And the car washing scene, honestly, if you're that desperate to get him to see you, take off your shirt, walk over to him, grab his head, and shove it between your tits. You'll get his attention I promise. But like I said at the beginning, the songs alright.

#2 Maroon 5 - Payphone (feat. Wiz Khalifa)

I was pleasantly surprised to see this in the top five. I'd expected this to be largely songs I'd never heard and might not like. But I have both heard and like this song before. So there's my opinion of this one; I like it. It's good. It's really good. I like cause it's real. "If happy ever afters did exist, I would still be holding you like this. And all those fairy tales are full of shit. One fucking love song I'll be sick." That's real. Fairy tales are cute stories. This song doesn't make me cynical though. It's just like, yeah man I know what you mean.

#3 Justin Beiber - Boyfriend

This is the kind of song I expected I'd run into with this idea of mine. I was sure I would find wildly popular songs from artists that I would almost certainly hate sitting through. Only thing is, I didn't hate it. I thought I'd hate it, but I didn't. I didn't like it really but it was a pleasant surprise compare to what I had expected. When he hits the lyric "I'd like to be everything you want, hey girl lemme talk to you," I actually like his singing, and if the entire song were done like that then I would actually like this song, despite it feeling odd for me to say that. But ya know in the end, Beiber may have looked and sounded like a girl for a while but are we all forgetting the fucking king of pop who did the same damn thing. That's right, I just compared Justin Bieber to Michael fucking Jackson. Deal with it.

#4 One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
Well four songs the same and the only one that's new is worse than the fucking song it replaced. Nice job YouTube. Ugh this song I don't even wanna talk about it. Cause the longer it takes me to write this review the longer it is till my brain can lump up everything about this awful music and throw it the fuck out so I never have to think about it again. No! Fuck. Okay I'm gonna do this. Song is the dude telling the shy girl that she's pretty cause she doesn't know she's pretty and flaunt it. Eh I guess I agree with that. Now then, I hate the singers voices. I hate how the lead enunciates words. The whole video is generic as hell consisting of people on a beach and the fucking director still put his name on the damn thing. Really John Urbano? If I made a bland ass utterly boring video with a terrible fucking band like this bunch of talentless pricks in it I sure as hell wouldn't have put my name in bold lettering on it. Now I've never heard anything else from One Direction, but if this song is any indication I sure as hell am not running out to buy their new album any fucking time soon. I'm done here. This song is awful and unless you enjoy awful music I recommend you avoid it.

#5 Katy Perry - Wide Awake
Alright Katy Perry, I don't actually hate her music much like you might assume a young heterosexual male would. I actually kind like California girlz for a reason other than seeing a nude Katy Perry laying on a pink cloud. I definitely like seeing that though. Yes please. But yeah Wide awake, It's okay. I like the gothic outfit she wears in it. Again yes please. But the actual music part is decent. I don't really like it, but it's alright. Decent beat and she's got a good voice.

So I mentioned that four of these songs probably sounded familiar to anyone who read my first edition of this series. Due to the nature of this series, that's something that may happen. I cannot control the contents of YouTube's high ranking music videos. Apparently YouTube's audiance decided they still like most of the stuff they liked in July, for anyone curious the Katy Perry song has gone all the way down to #6 on their list so it hasn't fallen very far. I do still like the concept of the series so I'm not gonna cancel it right now but when there is a repeated song it will just be a repeat of what I said the first time simply cause if i had something to say I said it, If I had a joke to make, I made it. Hopefully by September there will be some new songs in here.