Alone in the Dark, the movie

It's already here! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!

I love the Alone in the Dark series, but I've never played the games, just seen playthroughs.  The reason I love this game is the same reason I love Doom, Alone in the Dark created the modern horror games, which for some reason is usually attributed to Resident Evil.

The first three focused around Edward Carnby, a private detective who often found himself in paranormal situation.  In 2001, the series was restarted, with Edward as  a official paranormal investigator, who was investigating the death of his friend on a mysterious island, and uncovers a plot to take over the world.  Of course!  The fifth game in the series was released in 2008, and has nothing to do with the fourth one, and is technically a sequel to the original trilogy.

Anyway, we're not here to talk about the games, but the movie of the same name.

In case your wondering why I didn't say "based on", it's because this movie is directed by Uwe Boll.  And if you don't know who Uwe Boll is... Good.

To be honest, I feel like reviewing this is kinda pointless.  No, not the nostalgia critic review, but this article by Blair Erickson.

The film starts with a two minute text scroll, which is narrated to you.  If your going to have a prologue, have it either be a text scroll or dialogue, not both!  What makes it worse is that the prologue could have easily been told while the story was being told.  In fact it is.  I'm not kidding, they repeat what the prologue said during the film.


Now, after you've aged ten years while waiting for the prologue to end, we get a flashback!

Oh god.  A flashback?  Whats next, an annoying monologuing charact-

"The night was dark...And I was alone..."

 ...

Fuck.

Prologues, flashbacks, or narrators, while they can be used for the powers of good, are usually created because the person writing the script is ten.

The scroll of text tells you that there was once a tribe of Native Americans called the Abkani who died out.  I have no idea why this is a big deal, but apparently it is.  It also says that Bureau 713 is a US paranormal agency, and that there was a experiment where orphaned children were experimented on and turned into half man, half bear, and half pig.  Show of hands, who wants to see Edward vs. Manbearpig.

What does this have to do with the plot? NOTHING!  

The flashback shows a Catholic orphanage, where an old Dr. Quest is taking 20 kids, by striking a deal with the Nun.  Whats the deal?  Uh...er...giving her steel rulers?  One kid runs off, and we see him hiding a eletricity box, and then, flashback over.

Technically the next scene is Edward on a plane, talking with a kid, but screw it, it has even less to do with plot then the next scene.

Edward is picked up by a hippie in a taxi, and we learn that Edward is a paranormal investigator.  Another taxi is following them, and the hippie attempts to lose hm, but he crashes, mainly because Edward tells him to drive into a market filled with people.  I have no idea why Ed thought that would be a good idea, the car was too close behind them to provide a benefit, and actually hinders them.  Especially considering it turns out to be a dead-end.

What follows is the most nonsensical fight scene in the world.  After leaving the hippie in the cab to die, he runs away, and during this time, the taxi chaser runs up the stairs, onto a bridge, jumps off it, and lands on Edward, all in slow motion.  yeah, that takes a full minute.  Taxi man is then thrown through a window, who then smashes through door, and jumps through another window to tackle Ed, who finally falls to the floor, and taxi man grabs a rock from Eds pocket.  Then Ed does a back flip, FROM THE GROUND, ON HIS BACK.  Okay, it was cool looking, but it was physically impossible, and some characters can pull it off, but when Carnby does it, it feels off.  They then enter a...a...I have no idea, all i know is that there's ice on conveyor belts,.  Ed shoots taxi guy, but he just looks annoyed that his shirt now has holes in it.  After stupid stunts, Ed kicks taxi guy onto a box with fish and a pointy stick, which kills him.  Somehow.

It doesn't matter how I describe the fight scene, it will still sound rushed and weird.  Because it is.

After that...we suddenly switch scenes.  yeah, expect those words to be repeated alot.

We're on a boat in the evening, despite the fact it was noon last scene.  Here, all we see is Dr. Quest on it talking with the captain, and a box being lifted out of the water.

This is 70% of the moive.  

Scene change!  Now we're in a museum with a blond chick, who talks with some delivery dudes, which tell us about the Abkani.  


Scene change!  Now we're with Edward walking home, who looks like he's being followed.  But he isn't.  Unless you count the cameraman.


Okay, I can't keep the scene changes straight anymore, I'm going to just organize it by character.


Old Dr. Quest is locked in the room by the greedy captain, because the box they found was made out of gold.  When the captain unlocks it, a monster emerges and kills them all.  Oh yeah, it's night now, despite the next scene change shows it's noon in the city scenes.  Space is broken, time is warped, left is right, and the cake is true.  Uwe Boll still sucks though.


Quest somehow gets out of his locked room, and finds everybody dead and the ship docked.  At this point, I'm surprised that Uwe Boll still remembers that this scene is on a boat. 


At the museum, we see blonde...and nothing happens.  I'm serious, until she meets Edward, her scenes are pointless.


Edward is at his home, and he lives in a furniture warehouse.  He monologues somemore, and then his decoder ring artifact which he suddenly has, and it emits a ring, which causes him to fall over, and causes some people to stop what there doing and...walk off the movie.  Okay.


Ed learns of the people who disappeared, and talking with his buddy from Bureau 713, and learns that...

You know what, screw it, it doesn't matter, lets skip forward.

Edward goes to the museum after learning that all the people who disappear came from the orphanage Ed was in.  He finds blonde, who hugs him, and then slaps him.  Blonde and Edward are supposed to be a couple, and then Ed left, but it's never stated in the movie.  So where did Carnby go?  Hell if i know, that's not important enough for the film.

After learning that the ring was found in different parts of the world, there attacked.  How the hell did Native Americans bury the pieces of the decoder ring all over the world?  No answer?  I hate this movie...

Edward and blonde are then attacked by a Xenomorph from Aliens, and then Bureau 713 comes in and saves the day.  Here are some of the worse props I've ever seen.  At the end of the fight, a guy with a labtop comes up and says, "scanners clear!".  I had no idea Dell labtops could sense aliens.  Oh, and all the soldiers body armor have abs.
After this, Edward goes see his friend from 713, who tells him about the creature he fought.  Called a Xeno, these creatures appear all over the world, and light, gold, magnesium, and phosphorous are deadly to them.  They also disrupt electricity, causing flickering lights, but the closer the light to the power source, the less disruptions, which is a really lame excuse to keep the flashlights but make everything else flicker.  Eds friend gives him some magnesium bullets, which are bullets, with LED lights.  Uwe Boll doesn't know what magnesium is, does he?

When I heard what the monster were called, I expected the final fight to be against a queen and all the soldiers to equip flamethrowers. 

Blonde and Edward go back to his place, and they start making out.  I don't think Walmart will be happy when they come to pick up their bed.

Here's a bunny to take the pain away

And then, monsters attack.  Just like that.  The fight is incredibly boring, expect for the fact that the Xenos act like there drunk, brawling into walls, running full speed into doors.  oh, and a couple dozen evil people come in and try to kill them too.

I get that these people are supposed to be the orphans who were experimented on, but there was only 19.  but you see alot of people, more then 19.

713 comes in again and some get killed by people who are completely unarmed.  yeah, 713 sucks at its job.

Here is the scene that this movie is infamous for.  Edward shoots at some evil lady, and the bullet leaves the gun, and it PASSES OVER HER HEAD, but she falls down dead.  Looking at this scene carefully, you see a bullet being fired behind Edward, which goes much faster and is smaller then Eds bullet.  the next scene shows the smaller bullet hit the woman, along with a spray of blood, but it's so small you'll miss it if you don't slow it down.  I think one of the digital effects people got fed up with the film and put in there against Bolls wishes.

This starting to suck away my will to live, so I'm going to finish it up.

They go to an island, 713 sets up a defense, Edward and blonde goes in the mine, 713 gets attacked and killed by Xenos despite the fact the have miniguns with LED bullets, and Edward finds that the orphan experiment was funded by 713, they accidentally open up a doorway into hell where a whole bunch of Xenos are waiting, they blow up the entrance, run away, and escape to the orphanage which is conveniently next to a exit in the mine.  Oh, and Dr. Quest was in charge of the experiments, but I have no idea why he wanted to open the door.  And Edward finds that the Nun killed herself by carving crosses on her wrists.  uh...deep?  oh, and it turns out that the entire USA has now disappeared.  Everyone's gone, expect for Ed and blonde.  No, i have no idea what happened.

That's Alone in the Dark, a confusing jumble of events, where the only plot is that there's a gateway underground.  If you wan to get this movie to laugh at it, don't.  if you have friends, yeah, it'll be funny at first, but as you dwell on it, it will drive you mad.  Mad! MAD!  MMMMAAAADDDD!!

The most disappointing games

We've all been fooled by games before, lulled into a thinking that a game would be good, or downright lied to.  Well, here is a list of the ones I've encountered, and to warn you of there siren song.

In case your wondering why I don't have any MMOs on here, it's because most are disappointing because of lack of content and bugs, which are fixed in about three or size months, so I don't count them.

#5: Darkvoid:

This is a textbook case of game disappointment.  For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Darkvoid is a first person shooter that took the two dimension duck-and-cover first person shooter and added a second dimension.

However, they didn't take advantage of it.  While you do have a jetpack, and can take to the air anytime, but you can't hover properly.  You can go faster then a jet, but you can't hover?  Basically, you'll either use your jetpack to jump up to towers, or to fight aircraft, and that's it, because that's all it can do.

Another new feature is vertical cover, which is what you think it is, a cover system, but on a cliff or building size.  And if you think that being attacked from above and the front sounds challenging, well, the two cover systems are always separate.  Which is a shame, because some levels in the game could use the two cover systems.

The plot isn't that bad either, although it's rushed because of the short game.  What ruins it is that during the loading screens they tell you important plot points! It's just...I mean...come on!

I don't encounter many computer bugs, but others have encountered numerous bugs in Darkvoid, and I myself have encountered a game breaking bug.

This game is still fun, but it disproves the saying that the sky is the limit, instead saying that  the limit is somewhere in the first floor ceiling.

#4:Genesis Rising:

I have not played the full game, but I have completed the demo, and that was enough to make me depressed.  Genesis Rising is a Real Time Strategy game, in space!  The main feature of it was that you could customize all your units, turning a normal fighter  into a missile boat, a tank, or an anti-armor unit.  I had hopes that this feature would be implemented into Supreme Commander 3, but, nooo, what they did was take a general unit and make it MORE generalized.

The idea behind specializing ships is that all the ships you have are alive, and putting genes in them gives them new weapons, armor, upgraded health, or special abilities.  Blood is the resource, and that, and genes, are gained by consuming dead ships.  This means that winning and losing battles is much more important then usual.

Or at least it would be, if you didn't start off near a huge blood bank, which means you never run out of resources, and genes are dirt cheap to make.  In fact, so are ships, and you'll spend at least 15 seconds to outfit each ship, which will die in about five.  And when you do outfit a ship, it's maximum health increases, but it doesn't heal, so you have to heal them, which is more complicated then it sounds, and means if there's a sneak attack, your screwed.  And yeah, you get a cookie if you've guessed you can't save gene groups to save time outfitting ships.

This is a bad game, you spend so much time, with no real reward.  Just like real life! 

#3: Empire Earth 3:

Empire Earth 1 and 2 are good RTS games, and although you could argue that 2 isn't a real sequel to 1, but everyone agrees that Empire Earth 3 has nothing to do either of them.

Empire Earth 1 and 2 had different gameplay, but followed the style of choosing a civilization, and upgrading it from the stone age into the future!  Both had standard RTS gameplay, expect for Empire Earth 2, which added weather.  Empire Earth 2 left out some gameplay from 1, but had more units, civilizations, and ages then 1.

Empire Earth 3 had only three civilizations, less then two dozen units for each, and five ages.  Before you say that alot of good RTS games only have three races, Empire Earth 2 had you pick one region of four, and then a civilization.  This meant you had four different types of gameplay, with different subtypes.

Empire Earth threes units also keep on saying "funny" things, and I don't care if you found them funny or not, it gets annoying because every time you select them, they say it!  This, along with the cartoony graphics make this is more like My First RTS, rather then the latest game in a great series.

Yeah, this game took the well developed Empire Earth series, ripped out the basics, and said "It's the same thing, right?"

#2:Gears Of War:

I'm sorry, but this game was hailed as the best FPS of the year, and what did I get?  A THIRD PERSON SHOOTER.  I'll wait for you to read that again.  After getting over that shock, I cleaned my glasses, only to realize that the grit was actual part of the game.  

The graphics are pretty good, but everything is a shade of gray, and the models looks ridiculous.  The marines have speakers on there chest, wear bandannas instead of helmets, and have muscles so large that I burst out laughing when I first saw them.  The weapons and vehicles aren't much better, I mean, a chainsaw bayonet?  That's more like a parody of a weapon then a actual weapon!

The monsters are beyond generic, and yes, the monster in the picture looks pretty cool, but he appears in only one chapter, and the only other cool monster is at the end.  The average enemys, called the locust are  humanoid mole things. 

And no, you never get any back story, your just thrown into the fighting.  Which makes sense, considering that's the only plot.  Go someplace, fight, go someplace, fight, etc, etc.

The gameplay is just boring too.  It involves taking cover instead of the normal running around and shooting, which is fine, my favorite game series, Mass Effect, uses the same system.  But, somehow they made it so boring, it's a chore to play the game.  Why?  Two words: Artificial Intelligence.  Your team mates are stupider then headless chickens, quite often sitting around and doing nothing, or shooting you.  The enemy isn't much better, but they make up for it with an INSANE amount of health, you can upload a full clip into them and they won't die!  All this means is that all you do is trade fire back and forth until one of you dies, slowing a fast paced game to a crawl.

Seriously, why do people like this? why? why!? WHY!

#1:Spore(Oh, what a shock):

Every single list of disappointing games has this as number 1.  And why shouldn't they?  This game was marketed as five games in one, albeit with less detail, with near complete customization of the game, it was called Sim-everything at the start.

The game would start with a microscopic organism, which you would create, and play around until you got enough DNA points to leave the Cell stage, and enter the Creature stage.  Here you makes nest, prtoct your territory, and evolve until you reach the tribal stage.  Once you reached that, you stop evolving your creature physically and starting creating your tribe mentality and social structure.  You even created the buildings and there clothes, and assigned jobs to members.  Next was the city stage, which was cut, but it was a more in depth version of the civilization stage, which was where your tribe ruled the planet!  You got to develop your creatures culture and technology even more, until you went to space, which was the final stage, and where you met and interacted with different races, which other players had made, and acted like how they were played.

If that wasn't awesome enough, the graphics were relatively realistic, and the movement was really realistic.  They moved as if they had been personally coded individually, which was extremely impressive.  Depending on where you put a creature part, they would move differently, for example, the creatures in the image attack with their tail, but a creature with a weapon on its leg would attack with its leg, possibly by rearing and stomping.
This sounds awesome!  How could it go wrong?

Well... Spore was never released.  Maxis released another game similar to it, but it wasn't.
What was released was a short, crappy, game that couldn't even be considered a kids game, doing so would be insulting a mentally disabled toddlers intelligence.

First off, the realistic movement and look has been removed, to the point where even cells have googly eyes, and the creature animations were awfully.  In Spore, the creators allowed you to change both appearance and game mechanics, but this Spore-ripoff made it so you could only affect how things looked, and even then, you could only make cartoon things, unless your really good. 

In the Cell stage, with you create your Beanie baby, I mean, your cell, with a mere nine parts and no control over how the cells body looks like.  In Spore, you could add limbs to your cell.  Oh, and you can't share your cells.  Spore-ripoff  is built around sharing creations, and you can't share cells?  really?

In the creature stage, it's just the same as the cell stage, expect you have more parts, but considering only half a dozen parts have good stats, all the campaign creatures look the same.  Oh, and the only thing you can do is fight creatures or socialize creatures, which the only way to win, is to have better parts, or be more evolved.  Yeah, skill has nothing to do with it.  NPC creatures also don't do anything!  They sit on there nests and wait for you to come along, and designers have said that they had problems with creature wandering around, such as predators killing them all, or leaving to find food, to which my reply is, BE A BETTER DESIGNER!

In the tribal stage, their is only one resource, and you don't affect the social structure of your tribe, or design your buildings.  You do design clothes, but its a crappy system, for several reasons, like skin and clothe color are one and the same, and you can only really add helmets and knee pads.  This, and the civilization stage, are even more simplified RTS games then Empire Earth 3.

The Space stage is AWFUL.  Almost every single system has a sentient species in it, and new species keep on appearing all the time, and there's only one ship your species has, which is the players ship.

People say, "Oh, don't treat it like a game, treat it like a Lego set."  I have two things to say to that, One: This was marketed as a game, so I'm going to treat it like a game.  Two: You can play with Legos afterwards, but you can't with this. And...and...

I can't do it anymore.  Too depressing.  I'm going to go slit my wrists.

Revolution of the Mask Review

Note: Sorry for the delay, meant this to be out on Sunday.

I have always thought that a reviewer could make a good or okay product, depending on whatever they specialize in.  Linkara has put this to the test.

Linkara reviews bad comic books, and in my opinion, is the best reviewer at That Guy with the Glasses, and could be more popular then the Nostalgia Critic, if it wasn't for the fact that still pictures and movie clips don't mix well.  He even wrote a comic book, called  Revolution of the Mask.

Now bear with me, since I don't read many comics, so...yeah.

First off, the cover.  Three copyright infringing heroes are in heroic poses.  Expect for Mystery Man(please don't make me point him out), who looks like he was interrupted while looking for his car keys, and is mildly annoyed and confused.  I would call this a group shot, but it feels like that they were dawn individually and then put together.  What really draws the eye is the guy in front of a row of computer screens, being watched by a camera, with a nest of cables around him.  What makes me stop and think is that all the monitors are green.  In the future, will the blue screen of death turn into the green screen of death?

Anyway, the  comic takes place after a devastating world war, which caused all of humanity to turn into the All, where uniqueness is outlawed, names have been replaced with designations, and anything not restricted is compulsory.  The All are ruled by the Alligarchy, which I'm not sure to put down as a dumb name or a nod to oligarchy.  Throughout the Alls cities are such inspirational messages such as, "Equality means never having to stand out", "You belong to everybody else", and "Think of others before yourself".  I guess the Very Demotivational website took over.

I have problems with this.  First off, if uniqueness is outlawed, then why...why are people still around?  Every person has a personality which is not monitored by the All, and the friends they make also make them unique.  Each person has a different appearance, although they are similar, since all men have short hair, and all women have long hair, but you see them in different styles.  I can see how the All came into power, because people do surprisingly stupid things when they don't have things like food, or shelter.

That's just me, never really got dystopias.  The comic follows Gamma-117, a news censor, whose job is to, well, censor news that disagrees with the Alls views.  Fox news! Of the future!

While Gamma is at work, he receives an all-department message, which simply says "Take cover. NOW!"  And then a guard dances through the wall!   Well, okay, he's thrown through it, but you couldn't tell from this panel.

Yeah, the the first third of the first issue is simply exposition.  The premise is that a group of individuals rediscover superheros and fight against the All, but really, the title alone should tell you that.

Issue twos cover is much better then Issue one, and one was already pretty good.  Unlike the first one, the heroes in this panel are ripping off their street clothes to reveal the costumes underneath.  I think the reason Mystery Man isn't here is because he forgot to put his costume underneath his street clothes.  The sign in the background and Gamma on the sidewalk reading something makes you wonder whats going n in the issue.  This cover made me go and buy both issues.

And...I got nothing.  We haven't gotten much personality from the characters yet, I can't tell you more about the plot, and... oh, right.  Graphics.

Look, as long as I can recognize what there supposed to be, then it's fine.  well, there are some problems with it.  The artist had problems with perspective.  A front shot of hero with her cape flying behind her, it looks like the knee length cape barely reaches her waist, and some people look like their faces are two sizes too small for their head, and how he portrays movement.  As you can see from the dancing guard picture, It's hard to figure out if it's two people or one. 

Personally, I'm going to buy the next issue of Revolution of the Mask, and come on, it's less then a dollar, so I suggest you do too.  At least give it a chance, check out the previews

Martin Mystery Reveiw

Summer.

I hate summer.

Sure, you get alot of freedom, but i don't have enough brainpower to come up with my own activities to entertain myself. and when I'm bored i do some very, very bad stuff to myself.

No, nothing like that. I just start watching cartoons on youtube.
and what did i find this summer, well, Martin Mystery, a TV show produced by Marathon Productions, and was aired from 2003 to 2006, although I have no idea why it aired for so long.

Yeah, i hate this show, and yet i spent three days watching it, and if i had to go through that, I'm giving it a righteous kicking.

Martin Mystery was based off the Italian comic Martin Mystère. I have no idea if the show is a faithful adaption or not, but I don't care either.

The idea behind the show is that a mysterious organization called the Center, which responds to supernatural and extraterrestrial threats. I don't get this idea that to protect people from the supernatural, is to hide it from the public, so that when it attacks, they won't know how to protect themselves!

Anyway, the series focuses on three agents working for the Center. The three of them attend(or work in Javas case) at Torrington Academy.

Java the caveman is what you would expect, a caveman. He serves as comedic relief, via his interactions with modern things, and his Neanderthal ways. No, I have no idea where they got him. There is a episode dedicated to Javas origins, but it claims that he was cloned by an evil paleontologist for the purpose of...of...making the first Starbucks/Geico joke? However, every other episode implies that he was found frozen in ice.

The next agent is Diana Lombard, who is a goody two shoes. Despite the fact she can fight off a possessed agent with ease, in almost every episode, gets captured and needs to be rescued. However, most of these are caused by Martin being a moron.

Ah, Martin, how I loathe thee. This guy is a complete asshole. Lets see, he attempts to make out with any girl who he sees(I'm not kidding), does the worst pranks, like putting bugs in peoples food, tripping people, covering them in slime, and all the while proclaiming himself as the best agent in the world. Oh, and he blames everyone else for his screw-ups. To tell you the truth, i think the devolpers of Final fantasy 8 saw Martin and screamed, "Yes! Yes! This is the annoying character we need! And we shall call him Zell!"

There are two other characters who work for the center, Billy, a small green alien in a hover chair, and M.O.M., the head of the Center. I should mention that whenever Martin enters M.O.M.s office, he destroys a important experiment she's working on, not by accident, but on purpose. Billy stays at the Center, but he acts as the groups scientist, and for someone who has only two of three appearances, he has alot of dialogue. Wait...his name is Billy... and he talks alot... he pops up when they least expect it... Holy crap! it's Billy Mays!

So those are the characters who run around and stop supernatural and alien threats. Might as well as tell you how most episodes play out.

For season one and two, all episodes started with a short scene from the location the team will be in, right before or during the first attack of the villain, and then would show the title in classic B-horror movie style. Yeah, i love the opening. What can I say, I'm a sucker for B-movies.

The episode then shows the team at Torrington, doing something "funny", and then the Center calling, and they enter a portal to get it.

This is the first problem i have with the series. Okay, so the Center can open portals anywhere. Okay, i can buy that. And yet they have multiple bases, and helicopters. If you can teleport your agents anywhere from the world, you only need one base, and why do you need helicopters and jets? Cars and boats, yes, because they'll be needed for chasing and short ranged travel, but the why do you need vehicles to transport supplies to the Center? You can just open a portal near it and push.

Anyway, the team investigates the area, they consult the poke-, i mean, legend-dex, learn what creature there fighting(despite the fact they should have researched what legends and myths are in the area before hand), Diana gets captured, Martin comes up with a plan which some how works, the Center comes and takes the monster away, and boom, end of episode.

The third season was shark jumping time. The Center was almost never mentioned or seen, and Martian suddenly turned his dorm into a crime lab, and Torrington turned into supernatural central. Billy was given a human form, and he turned from a ok character into a incredible overused comedy relief, basically replacing Java.

Now for something that really annoys me: nothing dies. I'm serious, only in the second season do monsters die, and even then, they just dissolve, and it's implied that they could get better. How someone gets better from death, I have no idea.

Lets look at the Center, and what they do. And how much they suck at it.

The Center is supposed to capture creatures, and usually rehabilitate them, considering some are sentient or protecting their territory, and in the first season, they throw that away by showing the monsters the Center have captured in cages that just barely give them enough room to tun around. Two monsters are supposed to be trapped in a book and a box, but in one episode, there shown in a cell. Which one breaks out of. Oh yeah, the only employees shown in the Center are field agents and...people typing on computers. No guards, no one with a gun, and no one actually watching the monster cells. Guess it's no surprise that there's so many escapees.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Martin, Diana, and Java? There the Centers top agents. Yeah, a person who costs the Center millions every time he walks into M.O.M.s office, a girl who keeps on getting captured, and...well, the comedic relief.

As if this wasn't bad enough, instead of giving their agents, you know, guns, they give them watches. well, they call them U-Watches, but come on! The U-watch stores objects digitally, including a laser knife, the legend-dex, a force field generator, and a Scanner. I fail to see why the Center couldn't have given them the devices instead of the U-watch, i mean, what, pockets don't exist in Canada? Oh, right. They needed a toy to sell.

Yeah, the Center contradicts itself constantly. And if that wasn't bad enough, they treat us like we're morons, quite often telling us what the characters are doing while we can plainly see them doing it. And...the "science" behind the monsters.

First, lets talk about the monster design. It's hit and miss, mostly miss. The first episode features the boogieman, and the picture on his book looked really cool, a tall, menacing creature who was made of shadows. and what did we get? A tree monster that liked to monologue, and turned it's body into a tube of maggots, leaving it's head so it can fly. The Djini had this really squeaky female voice, and looked like a black rat that was surrounded by green smoke. they also defeat these monsters in stupid ways. the boogieman trys to tackle them, and Diana holds up the book and he falls in. The Djini forces Martin to make a wish, and his wish is that he could capture the Djini. Some were okay, like the scarecrow, who didn't look menacing, but he didn't look stupid either.

My favorite monster is also my favorite method of defeating it, The Sandman. The Center sends Martin and his team to investigate a university where people are in a coma like state. They find out that the monster behind the comas is the Sandman, a villain who forever sends people to sleep and feeds off their fears. Okay, he was kinda lame, but in the context of the series, he was badass. He was the only monster who talked that had a good voice actor. It was deep, and kinda threatening. They go into the Sandmans world to get his victims out, and when he trys to follow them when they escape through a portal, they close it on him. This is a surprisingly good idea coming from this show, putting the sandman in purgatory. This is ruined by the fact that the Sandmans arm is still alive and flailing around the room.

The "science" behind the monsters can be downright insulting. In one episode, a bacteria that devours oxygen is released in the amazon, and near the end, a giant octopus bursts out of the ground, and apparently this is the bacteria, which mutated. Yeah, bacteria and viruses do change faster then normal animals because of there ability to swap genetic code, but a giant monster? No, just...no.
This isn't even the most idiotic one. One monster, which is a giant tribble with tentacles, injects liquid nitrogen into people, which puts them into a state of suspended animation. liquid nitrogen doesn't do that, it kills people. But the worst explanation is this: Java gets his DNA manipulated to be a super caveman, and is mind controlled by...shining a laser in his eyes. Martin reverses it by shining a laser in his eyes again, but here's the best part: this reverses the genetic manipulation and makes so it can never happen again.

Almost forgot, the animation. As you can see from the pictures, this has a anime style to it, and I personally dislike it, but what i really hate about it is the change between normal style to chibi style. Whenever a charchther is doing something that is meant to be cute, or Diana and Martin fight, they turn into chibis. I...don't know. but, I want the style to remain constant.

Basically, this show sucks. If this was for kids in elementary school, then I would say this is a ok show, but this is meant for middle schoolers or high schoolers. A good show would be entertaining to both adults and kids, but noooo, kids are too stupid to know the difference between reality and TV. Look people, i was playing Doom when I was five, and grew up watching johnny quest, where people were shot on screen, and I only murder two people a year.