Grizzly Project is quite possibly the greatest documentary of all time. I saw it once by accident as a child on TVO or something…I watch riveted by Troy Hurtubise’s mission. Only years later, I found out that Quentin Tarantino also thought this kicked ass (see, I had good taste back in 1996).

I even emailed and called the National Film Board of Canada to re-release this film on DVD. I would love to own a mobile copy.

It does kick ass…and now that I’ve had my own personal incident with a bear…it is even funnier. Long Live PROJECT GRIZZLY. This is required watching for anyone who watches anything.

Thank you National Film Board of Canada. The OLD MAN is stuff of LEGENDS.

I posted this track over at Punktoronto.com. I can say without doubt that I’m a fan of Propagandhi’s ideas without feeling like I must agree with every thing that they believe in (It wouldn’t be punk rock if we didn’t think for ourselves…dissent intelligently and meaningfully, I say). Check them out: http://propagandhi.com/

However, watching hockey with my little niece has brought up a similar feeling that the band expresses in this song. I know that Coach’s Corner is a comedian routine, but we collectively need to take a moment to talk about what Don Cherry’s exclamations actually mean in the great scheme of things.

Entertainment is the most surreptitious form of political campaigning. There is no better time to brainwash us than when we let our minds idle.

I dunno, but I think it is a little disturbing that a sport can be so tied to our cultural identity. Maybe that’s why I twisted Leaf’s Nation Logo for punktoronto’s website. I’d rather Canada be known as a peace-loving nation rather than a hockey-loving one.

Dear Coach’s Corner :
Dear Ron McLane. Dear Coach’s Corner.
I’m writing in order for someone to explain
to my niece the distinction between
these mandatory pre-game group rites of submission
and the rallies at Nuremberg.
Specifically the function the ritual serves
in conjunction with what everybody knows is,
in the end, a kid’s game.
I’m just appealing to your sense of fair play
when I say she’s puzzled by this incessant pressure
for her to not defy collective will and yellow ribboned lapels,
as the soldiers inexplicably repel down from the arena rafters.
Which, if it not so insane,
they’ll be grounds for screaming laughter.

Dear Ron McLane, I wouldn’t bother with these questions
if I didn’t sense some spiritual connection.
We may not be the same, but it’s not like we’re from different planets.
We both love this game so much we can hardly fucking stand it.
Alberta-born, and Prairie-raised.
It seems like there ain’t a sheet of ice north of Fargo I ain’t played.
From Penhold to the Gatinaeu, every fond memory of childhood
that I know is somehow connected to the culture of this game.
I just can’t let it go.

I guess it comes down to what kind of world you want to live in.
And if diversity is disagreement, disagreement is treason.
Well, you’ll be surprised if we find ourselves
reaping a strange and bitter fruit that that sad old man beside you
keeps feeding to young minds as virtue.
It takes a village to raise a child, but just a flag to raze the children
till they’re nothing more than ballasts for fulfilling
a madman’s dream of a paradise. Complexity reduced to black and white.
How do I protect her from this cult of death?

Game publishers have seemingly gifted us with a slew of unmitigated M-rated titles that feature more tits, ass, and zombies than George A. Romero daydreaming at a strip club. These are games concocted under a seemingly perfect corporate cocktail of girls, guns, and guts; titles like X-blades and Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad.

It is fairly obvious that Southpeak lovingly spent more time rendering Ayumi’s butt cleavage than they worked on her face and that catchy melody to Onechanbara’s advertising song “Asian Girl Don’t Be Rude” has been rattling around my head for weeks, much longer than that SNL classic “Dick in Box” sketch. These games are a syrupy mix of pixilated porn and swordplay. A sure sign that video games have matured past basement obscurity right into the VIP room of the strip club; after all, this is the hardcore we’ve all been waiting for, right? Right?

Nope. It’s like we’ve taken a time machine back a generation to play the travesty that was BMX XXX. Even as you read this, the interwebs are alight and flaming over the simple notion of male frontal nudity in the upcoming Xbox 360 Grand Theft Auto DLC. I could care less. My question is: how does it change the game?

It’s titles like these that make me question the hardcore moniker we all love to throw around so much, the one I place behind my name like some sort video game credential. What makes a game hardcore? Narrative aside, is it pushing the boundaries on the forefront of digital gore or is it a focus on truly unique game mechanics?

The recipe to making a true hardcore title can’t be a reliance on soulless digitized dolls with dynamic boob physics. I’m pretty sure that Rumble Roses disproved that theory years ago. It definitely isn’t the blood and spinal rips of Mortal Kombat or Midway wouldn’t be in financial ruin. It’s that coveted fourth “G” in that girls, guns, guts pyramid that is the true ingredient for success: game play. With great game play, the other three become unnecessary; a potential hindrance even. Anyone who has dreamed in multicolored tetrominoes knows this to be true.

Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad is by far the industry’s most recent and worst offender. Built around bust lines, it offers little towards a truly engaging experience. Originally an import PS2 title under the “Simple” label released back in 2005, it was a budget affair priced at 2100 yen (approx. $29 dollars). Four years later, outside of a mediocre touch-up of the graphics and a jacked up price point across both the Wii and Xbox 360, all the major problems still remain — the characters still control like boats, the combo system is unintuitive, and the game play is more hack than slash.

After an extended play session, I could feel my imagination being sodomized; a feat only worsened by the wear on my wallet, even as a rental. If that clashing cowboy hat and pink boa weren’t offensive enough, that upped price point launches the expectations of the game into a realm well outside cult fetishism. Worse still, it deals damage to the advancement of the industry when that “M-rating” equates to little more than immature depictions of sexuality, buckets of gore, and broken game play.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that gaming is entertainment and it will always contain an element of escapism like all good fiction. I know that Street Fighter’s Cammy couldn’t possibly fight effectively with that impossible thong flossing. Yet, ten years running, I still proclaim myself to be a huge Street Fighter fan. So what’s the difference? If we stripped away the anime aesthetics of Street Fighter, tore away all the genre conventions and 13 year old fanboy pleasing, we would still be left with a competent fighting game with stellar tournament mechanics. That’s why it’s a game franchise that has been around for more than a decade; it’s the game play that keeps it fun and has the fans routinely coming back for more.

Sex or no sex, violence or no violence, I can always defend good game play.

Amidst all of the media clamour and in between a shockingly strong February line up of triple A titles, you might have completely missed a short news bit that circulated out of Japan that From Software, makers of the critical darlings Otogi and Otogti 2, have quietly released Ninja Blade overseas, a suspiciously non-copyright infringing Ninja Gaiden clone; a ninja action game with designs by Capcom’s Keiji Nakoka — all region-free on Xbox 360 and presented in English, no less.

While I can categorically state that every console — no, make that everything in life — is greatly improved with the addition of more ninjas, it is with grave seriousness that I say that, while the prospect of playing Ninja Blade early excites me, it is the second half of the last paragraph that truly floors me: a Japanese title region-free on Xbox 360? Wait, I’m still dizzy from it, so let’s say it again: a Japanese title, region-free on the Xbox 360. Microsoft, how can this be?

Maybe I’m over-thinking this, but this region-free Xbox 360 title represents a huge boost in potential for a console whose list of exclusive content is looking a little thin after March. But there is more to it than just that; imagine the fanboy outcry if a certain Square-Enix RPG were to launch region-free on the Xbox 360, cleverly sidestepping the Asian embargo placed on the title. YouTube might just explode. Babies would cry. I’m not saying that this is a fantasy that is totally unlikely to happen; it is happening right now. Tons and tons of Asian and US Xbox 360 titles have been released with no region encoding. Halo 3? Check. BioShock? Afraid so. Gears of War 2? Yup. The list goes on and on. Suddenly, games are no longer trapped in one region; they can now cross borders in the global marketplace.

What makes the case of Ninja Blade so special is that it represents a change of thinking at Microsoft. Ninja Blade is arguably the first uniquely Japanese title to launch region-free. I hope that this sets a precedent for all future Xbox 360 releases as Japan is host to more than a few exclusive titles by old-school companies such as Success, Cave, Triangle Service, and Compile. If this is a sign of things to come, the list of differentiators that separates the PS3 from Xbox 360 suddenly becomes a lot shorter.

I consider myself a gamer without borders; I love Japanese SHMUPS (that is the technical term, of course) and all types of 2D fighters. So, I was enthralled when Sony announced that the PS3 would launch a region-free gaming platform. No longer would I have to modify or buy import consoles just to get my fix of brightly coloured and vertical scrolling digital cocaine. No longer would I have to write those handwritten letters of my youth begging publishers to localize games in North America. True story: when I was 12, I once hand-wrote Capcom a letter — in pencil, no less — politely requesting the localization of the complete Dungeons & Dragons Collection. Two weeks later, they mailed me a full coloured catalogue highlighting a whole stack of games that would never see the light of day on this continent. Suffice to say, a little something died that day. A little something called innocence.

PS3 gamers have been lucky so far, just a quick click onto National Console Support, Play-Asia, or onto Ebay and they’re well on their way to enjoying all kinds of import exclusive titles from Afrika to White Knight Chronicles.

My PS3 is home to a bunch of these hidden exclusives titles. These are exclusives that have hidden in plain sight, held just behind a few borders; titles like: Sega’s superb Initial D Extreme Stage and Genki’s Wangan Midnight. I played Arc System Works’ Battle Fantasia long before it was released on the Xbox 360, pulling off the super moves with ease on my PS3 digital pad while my Xbox 360 friends mucked about on their mush pads. If I could read Kanji, I would be knee deep in Yakuza 3 right about now.

To me, Ninja Blade represents untapped potential. If Microsoft is truly sincere about keeping their hardcore crown in 2009 and beyond they need to get creative. Allowing all titles to go region-free is a move that could expand markets, creating channels for developers to reach their fans right across the planet. It adds an extra element of depth to our conception of what we should consider an exclusive title. I’m already frothing out the mouth at the idea of playing exclusive Japanese titles by Success or Cave in high definition on my Xbox 360. C’mon Microsoft, you listening? Make it happen.