Netflix

After much deliberation on what my obsession was this week, I realized that it was Netflix. I originally started a post on podcasts, and then on the art of Skottie Young (of New X-Men fame). But I just wasn't feeling it. But then I realized what I've been doing all week since Monday when I'm home, building my Netflix queue.

I actually just signed up for the service on Monday after much deliberation. A year and a half ago, I had a Blockbuster Online account, which was ok and pretty cheap(and helped me catch up on Smallville, Scrubs, Lost, and Monk) but the price kept going up and turnaround took too long(this was before you could return stuff to the store). But lately there has been a large amount of movies I wanna see, but no time or money to buy or rent them all. After I set it up I spent a long time figuring the first discs I wanted were. Then I rated a bunch of stuff to get suggestions, which I did for hours. Y'know how you often forget about movies you wanted to see, well those were the ones I was looking for, waiting for them to appear and smack me in the face.

Then of course Netflix now has the feature of letting you watch movies right off the site, I dove into that watching a couple Anime episodes. I also was looking to dive into one of the main reasons for getting Netflix, Doctor Who. Been curious to watch some of the classic stuff, and darn those DVDs are numerous and expensive. So that was how I spent my free time on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday I got my first 3 discs and got to watching. Can I just say there is nothing better than to go home excited that something fun is gonna be in the mailbox, I've started getting monthly comic shipments from DCBS, and now I'll be getting a bunch of DVDs in the mail, rock! My first selections were "Death Note Vol.1", "Idiocracy", and "Paprika". I started my queue with some Anime, and more particular Anime Movies, which Cat(my gf) would never rent with me, and those are the only times I goto Blockbuster. I blazed through "Death Note", and watched "Idiocracy" tonight, and I expect to enjoy "Paprika" on Saturday morning.

Hopefully this will begin a regular monthly movie obsession which I can share with you. I hope I don't sound crazy, I feel like the last person to get Netflix, I hear so many people talking about it all the time, or maybe its just the voices in my head....anyway. Plus now I can give movies I'm even only slightly interested in a chance, because why the hell not? And certain movies I've felt I need to see can finally get watched, "Brazil", "Citizen Kane", "The Good the Bad and the Ugly", etc

Video Game Lawyering

This Weeks Obsession is Lawyering Video Games. It of course all started after Christmas, I used a gift card to buy "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations" for DS, and I just got into it, when I discovered there was a "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law" game for the Wii which was coming out in a few days and I vowed to buy since I really liked that show from Adult Swim. Then the night before I was going to get it I had dinner with my friend Jim, and we exchanged Christmas Gifts. He had gotten me "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All" for DS, the game that preceded the one I bought, so before I could continue with "Trials" I had to beat "Justice". Then the next day of course I bought "Harvey Birdman" and because I like things that are hilarious, I dived right into that. So technically I'm in the middle of 3 lawyering games. And they are all developed by Capcom, based off the same basic game system, the only difference being "Birdman" is more animated, comedy based, and fully voiced.

The Phoenix Wright Games for the DS were originally GBA games that never made it over here, and have been translated over to DS. They are anime styled, and a bit quirky. Basically its your job to investigate a case, gather evidence, interview witnesses, and when your in court cross-examine, which makes up most of the gameplay. Basically during Cross-examination a witness gives testimony, and you present evidence to try and poke holes in parts of their testimony, then they revise their testimony, poke more holes till they freak out and reveal the truth, with a lot of yelling of "Objection!", "Take That!", and my favorite "Hold it!". Its a lot of text boxes, and many repeating locales. But its fun, and interesting, a lot of it is simple logic, sometimes devilishly hard. Its almost like a puzzle game.

The Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law game for Wii/PSP/PS2 is based off of the Adult Swim show of the same name which I highly recommend. In which washed up hero Birdman has become a lawyer who defends other Hanna Barbara cartoons in wacky zany law cases. The game was devoped by Capcom who did the Phoenix Wright games, so the setup is similar but in Birdman visual style. The presentation is top notch, looks perfectly authentic, you are playing original episodes of Harvey Birdman. If you love the show it is a must own, and is hilarious. There are so many animated parts to it its pretty crazy, the game is fully voiced by the cast of the show (Gary Cole, Peter MacNicol, Lewis Black, etc) with the sad exception of Stephen Colbert, but the replacement is competant. This game is much shorter and easier than the Pheonix Wright games, but gives me hope for when Pheonix Wright hopefully will come to the home console, fully voiced and more animated. This game I feel will only appeal to Birdman fans, especially because if you havn't seen the show I feel you won't get the joke, since they don't spend anytime introducing the characters at all, they just toss you in, they don't even play the theme song(which is awesome), but do closing credits at the end of each "episode".

In closing I currently own every lawyer game out there, until "Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney" comes out in February, which will be the first of the Ace Attorney games to be made fully for the DS, and will make it more dynamic and interesting, they only hinted at it in other games.
In case you couldn't tell, I'm obsessed!