The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Last Sunday me and my family watched the second part of The Hobbit at the cinemas. I liked it, music still great,setting and actors as well. Can't really complain and the changes from the book and other material I have no real problem with (compared to the army of the dead in Return of the King who just rubs me the wrong way over time). Missed certain things like the introduction of the dwarves to Beorn the skin changer, instead we got an action scene, maybe they put it in the extended edition. The elf Tauriel didn't bother me either nor the dwarves who stayed in Lake Town since it helps distinguish them and help flesh out the character of Bard who seemed thrown in the last minute in the book (if my memory don't deceive me that is). The biggest thing that annoyed me though was the ending and 

*spoiler* 

that it ends so abruptly without killing Smaug show that it was meant for two movies in the beginning and they made three of it. It also makes me a bit worried since it feels like that last movie will be packed with the death of Smaug, the defeat of the Necromancer and the battle of five armies. Not even counting the death of Thorin, Fili and Kili (if they stick to the book that is, the animated version killed of even more main dwarves). 

*Spoilers end*

Overall I enjoyed it, but it feels bad that I have to wait another year for the conclusion. Maybe have to watch the Robocop remake in the meantime, sadly the biggest fear I have when I saw the commercial at the theater was that there wasn't a hint about any music and especially not the original main theme. I'm really gonna miss it.

Life Force

A couple of weeks ago I got my hand on my families old NES 8-bit system and a couple of old games. Didn't work since it hasn't been cleaned... ever and we got it in early 1990's. So I began by cleaning the systems and the games and I got them to work, both those who had worked since day one and even some import games that had problems to work and my dad blamed those games for the future trouble. One of those games was Life Force or Salamander. It's a scrolling shooter where you pilot the Vic Viper and if you have a friend (or a working second controller) the Lord British (or Road British as my manual say). Your planet is threatened by the galactic monster Zelos who plans to devour it so you set out in your ship in a suicide mission to enter the monster and destroy it's heart. So this was also the first time I succeeded and won the game. I flied threw the six stages and won losing probably around 100 lives (using the Konami code for 30 extra lives certainly helped).

What makes this game special compared to all other shooters? Well, two-player mode and the awesome music. Lets begin with stage 1:

Pumping you up for a space adventure, traveling through attacking creatures, teeth and appearing walls (making multiple playthroughs a necessity knowing if you should stay in front or at the back of the screen due to the dangerous environment who appears out of nowhere). That is until you hit a wall with some strange outgrowth. The screen stops scrolling and the wall dissipates and something looking like a brain pops out, The music changes and it is boss battle time:

Most awesome boss music at the moment as you dodge the enemy fire and tentacles or whatever trying to hit the core. Made much easier if you are fully upgraded which just for the first boss is one loop around him and then continuous fire on his eye for 5 seconds. BOOM!!! And then onward. The saddest thing about this game is that it is on the Virtual console... in Japan and the US, not Europe. I feel slightly cheated by that fact. Maybe it will show up on the Wii U VC or the 3DS eshop... maybe even the TG-16 with CD quality soundtrack... although that will lose some of the nostalgic feeling.