This weekend, a new Die Hard movie comes out. I'm just going on a hunch here, but I'm guessing that it will continue the series' ever-downward spiral since the nearly flawless original movie came out in 1988.
But that doesn't mean it's not fun to talk about Die Hard. We can only hope that Guyz Nite will combine their forces to give us a new fifth verse to their famous "Die Hard Song," but in the meantime, let's take a trip down memory lane and listen to the most recent version.
Over at NPR's "Monkey See" blog, Chris Klimek has taken a look back at the entirety of the series and summed up each movie. It's a fun read, and has a lot of good trivia.
How would you rank the Die Hard films? My ranking goes:
1) Die Hard
2) Die Hard With A Vengeance
3) Die Hard 2
4) Live Free or Die Hard
Though there's a pretty big gulf between picks #1 and #2, as well as between #3 and #4.
Feel free to rank the Die Hard films, or talk about whatever you like, here or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have good conversation. Ho ho ho.
So, Barry here likes Star Wars. A lot. So much so that he's sacrificed an entire room of his house to recreate Empire Strikes Back's Battle of Hoth, in a diorama that would make even Industrial Light & Magic proud.
It's a completely static piece; the explosions and smoke you see don't move, despite how impressive they look. There's infantry, vehicles, fighters, even some re-writing of fiction as Vader gets his hands on Luke. All told, it's 128 square feet (so far).
If you even think about making a "forever alone" joke, forget about it. This man is an artist.
When a tragedy or major event occurs, you can bet on a few key things happening. People will grieve. The newsreel will spin. Twitter will blow up. The Onion will satirize. The blogosphere will write. And of course, thanks to the blessings of accessible game development: someone will make a game.
Unfortunately, recent happenings with Chris Dorner are no exception. In real life, Dorner was wanted for murder after developing a violent campaign against the LAPD, ultimately prompting a large manhunt that ended with Dorner holed up in a burning cabin while officers tried to kill or smoke him out. Dorner's charred body was found and ID'd at the scene.
And now, of course, those events have been made into a video game. The video above depicts Chris Dorner's Last Stand, a video game first linked to in a Reddit thread frequented by posters from the popular message board 4Chan, posted with the YouTube description "4chan can make better games in 10 hours than EA can make in a year."
The game is a fictionalized version of former police officer Chris Dorner's last moments: you have to gun down what seems like an endless number of cops while picking up KFC buckets for health while a song by Gangsta Rap booms in the background.
The game depicting this scenario is far from classy, that much is obvious. Hell, you might even call it insensitive. It's not, however, surprising. Chris Dorner's Last Stand joins the ranks of games like this one depicting the tragedy at Sandy Hook, and the infamous Super Columbine Massacre RPG. More overtly, it's similar to games like Kindergarden Killer—that is, games that depict sensitive subjects offensively.
What would compel a person to make a game like this? Back when we got tipped about the Sandy Hook game which allowed you to play as Adam Lanza, I reached out to its creator, a man that goes by the online handle "LiveCort."
The 37-year-old Canadian was going around multiple websites in an attempt to get the word out on his game—including Kotaku, but also other development websites such as indieDB. Most of these websites banned him as soon as they saw what the game was about, and now it appears his development blog has been taken down.
On his development blog, he was constantly using the word "edgy" to describe the game, to the point that it seemed like the game was a flippant attempt to poke a hornet's nest. I asked him about his intentions, but LiveCort only said one thing:
"I want people to play my game out of curiosity, then be pleasantly surprised."
"I have and will continue to create media my entire life. Some of it will be controversial. Most of it won't. It will be viewed by people who do wonderful things with their lives. It will be viewed by people who basically just get by. Unfortunately, my work will also be viewed by people who do something awful. Responsible use and literacy of media is very important—because like school shootings, media is not going away."
As for Chris Dorner's Last Stand—well, it's made by people from 4Chan. That's a group that is well-known for its baiting and audacity, certainly no stranger to being purposefully offensive. Sometimes for laughs, sometimes for political reasons.
Trying to find a justification for the existence of these games can feel pointless. There might not be any. Perhaps they're an explicit attempt to elicit a reaction from the public. It could be kids just screwing around. Some might even pull the art card, claiming that good art is never afraid to offend or put people out of their comfort zones.
These games might not be good or all that useful, but that doesn't mean future games that tackle sensitive subjects can't be.
What's unfortunate is that these developers don't take advantage of the medium's inherent strengths to explore nuanced and therefore 'worthwhile' depictions of sensitive subjects. It's unlikely that a Chris Dorner game—regardless of what it was or who made it—would ever be well-received simply due to the nature of the subject-matter. Such would also be the case with Sandy Hook and the Columbine massacre, I'm guessing.
Games like Chris Dorner's Last Stand will never be widely accepted or considered tasteful. But that doesn't mean they can't be valuable when exploring complex, perhaps uncomfortable subjects. These games might not be good or all that useful, but that doesn't mean future games that tackle sensitive subjects can't be.
Games allow for a level of complexity that other media do not, and there is absolutely no reason that a game couldn't explore a tragic event with the same nuance as a news report or a documentary.
But for the time being, just like clockwork, anytime something awful happens, there'll be someone making a game out of it. To provoke, to insult, and maybe, hopefully, one day, to try to do something more.
It's Valentine's Day, and so lots of video game companies are putting out goofy cards to celebrate. But what about Fire Emblem: Awakening, one of the most romantic games in recent memory? What would Fire Emblem Valentines look like?
Cute, it turns out. The Nintendo 3DS Facebook Page has shared some fun Valentines based on the game. I would've loved to see Frederick, Chrom, Sully or my beloved Anna in here, but hey, these are still fun.
One of the oddest parts of Remember Me, which I checked out on Tuesday and liked, was this bit at the very end of my hour-long demo. As Nilin made her way through the game's second level, the malls and apartments were all playing ads for this famous bounty-hunter dude who, surprise surprise, turns up at the end as a boss.
But then suddenly, you're both in a televised cage-match straight out of The Running Man. Unexpected? Sure. Kinda cool? Yeah.
What happens next? Well, the demo I was playing faded to black, though an earlier video of the game showed a bit of the fight. I'd imagine that maybe there will be a move where the bad guy charges, and as long as Nilin jumps out of the way fast enough, he crashes into the wall and is rendered dizzy and vulnerable for a little while. Just maybe.
Raise your hands if you spent a whoooole lot of time playing Golden Axe on your Sega Genesis. I sure did and never in my wildest dreams did I think it could be finished in under ten minutes.
That's exactly what Jason 'honorableJay' Feeney does in this speedrun video hosted at Speed Demos Archive. Feeney offers up insights from his time with the classic brawler on the video's homepage. Here, he brings up my most hated part of Golden Axe:
Bonus Stages
The first 4 stages give you a chance to fill up on your magic/health after the completing the stage. The problem with these stages is the fact that the thief patterns are random. There is nothing I can do but pray I don't get a bad pattern. This is the only spot in the game with random elements, making them the most frustrating at times.
Man, I hated those thieves! I'm saving the entire realm, assholes. You should be giving me stuff! Jerks.
Portal may not seem like the most romantic game ever, seeing as how it's populated with a bunch of robots and only a single human character. But even all these years later, people still haven't gotten over protagonist Chell and her doomed relationship with the heart-decorated Companion Cube.
There's already a lot to like about Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, the first-person medieval combat game from Torn Banner. But there's perhaps even more to like about this video of a bunch of people playing on a low-gravity server. Hang with it for about thirty seconds and you'll be sold.
By now, if you've been keeping up with Aliens: Colonial Marines, you've probably come across certain GIF of an alien waddling through a sewer level. See above. I know, I know. It looks silly, it looks ridiculous.
And I'm here to defend that level.
The GIF doesn't inspire confidence in the game, no. Just the same, that sewer level was actually a highlight of Colonial Marines for me.
Basically, that level requires you go navigate some sewers and to make your way back to your squad. The catch is, it takes away your guns and any means of defense. You're vulnerable, and the aliens are still running about and they can still kill you.
You're supposed to keep quiet as you try to find the exit. The point is to avoid alerting the type of alien you see in the GIF—now, this is the incredibly stupid part. They're blind aliens that are attracted to sound and explode on contact.
OK, let's ignore that for a second—how much sense a Xeno like that makes and whatever. Where the start of the game highlighted tension and anticipation, most of Aliens: Colonial Marines is a mediocre shooter that empowers you too much to truly capture the feel of Alien. You can gun everything down, and most aliens run straight at you.
This level, though? As stupid as it was, I actually felt some fear. That's what happens when you have to stand perfectly still as an alien sniffs the air around you, or when you're trying to find a way out while these walking bombs are grazing by you.
I couldn't shoot my way out of that situation. And I had to look at the aliens eye to eye and not freak out. Which is to say, in that level, I believed the utter threat of the aliens, despite how silly they looked. And even though I'm sure the level could be done better, it was a segment of Aliens I actually enjoyed playing.
By now, if you've been keeping up with Aliens: Colonial Marines, you've probably come across a certain GIF of an alien waddling through a sewer level. See above. I know, I know. It looks silly, it looks ridiculous.
And I'm here to defend that level.
The GIF doesn't inspire confidence in the game, no. Just the same, that sewer level was actually a highlight of Colonial Marines for me.
Basically, that level requires you go navigate some sewers and to make your way back to your squad. The catch is, it takes away your guns and any means of defense. You're vulnerable, and the aliens are still running about and they can still kill you.
You're supposed to keep quiet as you try to find the exit. The point is to avoid alerting the type of alien you see in the GIF—now, this is the incredibly stupid part. They're blind aliens that are attracted to sound and explode on contact.
OK, let's ignore that for a second—how much sense a Xeno like that makes and whatever. Where the start of the game highlighted tension and anticipation, most of Aliens: Colonial Marines is a mediocre shooter that empowers you too much to truly capture the feel of Alien. You can gun everything down, and most aliens run straight at you.
This level, though? As stupid as it was, I actually felt some fear. That's what happens when you have to stand perfectly still as an alien sniffs the air around you, or when you're trying to find a way out while these walking bombs are grazing by you.
I couldn't shoot my way out of that situation. And I had to look at the aliens eye to eye and not freak out. Which is to say, in that level, I believed the utter threat of the aliens, despite how silly they looked. And even though I'm sure the level could be done better, it was a segment of Aliens I actually enjoyed playing.
By now, if you've been keeping up with 
By now, if you've been keeping up with 