Gamecube Q4 Retro Releases

I've picked up a few cheap titles for my cube of the old-school arcade games emulated on various platforms. Found out that a few more are coming out by the end of the year:

• First off is a sequel, Midway Arcade Treasures 2, which includes Gauntlet 2 (a huge improvement over the original, you don't have to plug your joystick into the 3 slot if you want to play the elf. Other games that I remember are NARC, MK II & 3.
• Another one is actually not based on any arcade game but a first-gen home platform: Intellivision Lives! It will be interesting to see the success of this game. Don't know how exciting sprite-based graphics are anymore, it took like 8 blocks to render a character back then. My folks actually did buy us one of these units back in the day. I do remember playing Snafu (like the Tron racing game), which is one of the 60 games to be ported over.

Update (9/22): MAT 2 is slated to be released on October 4th

Flames Trade Analysis

Coming: Daymond Langkow (21 G, 31A, +4, 40 PIM) of the Phoenix Coyotes
Going: Denis Gauthier and Oleg Saprykin

Tough to lose Gauthier, but he was definitely the odd man out on the D-line. Flames should still have good depth with top 4 D of Regehr, Leopold, Lydman, & Warrener eating up most of the ice-time and Ferrence, Montador, Commodore, Phaneuf and Evans all ready to step up when needed.

Getting Langkow is great, especially when Reinprecht is so injury-prone. Allows Nilson to play wing even tho he did have some success centering Iggy. I guess anyone should be able to play with our franchise player tho, just ask Sakic & Lemieux. Saprykin is just a Nieminen-wannabe. Might as well keep the original. Pretty much a throw-in to even up the salaries.

Did we give up too much for Langkow tho? Guess it depends if Sutter knew Barnett was ditching Langow for Nedved. This is one of those rare trades that should work out for both teams. Phoenix's free-agent signings this offseason (Hull, Ricci, Nedved, etc) should improve their 14 games under .500 record enough to at least challenge for the playoffs. Also remember Nagy was having a breakout season before getting injured. I guess it depends if Boucher can bounce back from a mediocre numbers last year. I remember the Flames and their fans use to worry about their goaltending until we traded for San Jose's third-string goalie.

Alien vs Predator review

Opening the same weekend as last year's Freddy vs Jason. AVP re-used the simple formula of combining two movie franchises to generate box office $$$. The plotline to interwine the two is quite far-fetched, but we are talking sci-fi here, actually b-movie sci-fi, so maybe I'm just giving it a hardtime. I liked how they explained the Predator mythology a bit more tho. Can't really complain any more cause I bought the Predator DVD which included a free admission to AVP, so it worked out to only $24 for both.

With decent action scenes, not enough use of the Predator infrared vision, and stereotypical paper-thin human characters, I could only recommend this to Alien or Predator fanboys.

Blog name

Finally settled on a proper name for my blog. Might even register this as a domain, even tho .com is already parked. Is there another OPP blogger out there?

Another Car Pet Peeve

It usually takes a lot to tick me off, but on my drive home the other evening as I slowed down to a 4-way stop, a car on the other side of the road just screamed right through it! It wasn't even one of those "half" or "rolling" stops, it didn't slow down at all and went right through it. Probably going at least 60km/h. The intersection wasn't deserted, there were at least three cars on my side of the street and another car approaching on the intersecting road that could have been broadsided if it had arrived a few seconds earlier. I am just stunned as just a block away is two schools, so a lot of kids are always nearby and folks on their evening strolls are around as well. There's a 4-way stop by my office building that I've seen a few cars roll through as well. I don't understand how the potential for such a fatal disaster doesn't deter such idiots that go through 4-way stops. End rant...

Bourne Supremacy Review

Caught this sequel a few weeks ago on opening night, but forgot to write about it. It definitely builds on the original that came out two years ago. Just when you thought Jason Bourne was able to escape from his unknown past, a sting operation that goes bad brings him back into the CIA's sights.

Pretty textbook storyline with a familiar cast (Julia Stiles, Brian Cox, Gabriel Mann & Franke Potente are all back) and a few new faces (well, not that new if you watch LotR). Doug Liman (who's currently filming another spy caper, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.) was originally set to direct up to three Bourne movies, but he steps aside to just produce this one and lets rookie Paul Greengrass carry over his style from Bloody Sunday to give moviegoers a bad case of nausea.

In summary: Decent summer fare with good casting and shaky camera work. Still gonna try to catch Anchorman, I Robot, Harold & Kumar, and The Village before they leave theatres. Alien vs Predator and the Resident Evil sequel are the only other movies coming out soon that are worth catching.