[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Israel's Phoenix (click to view)
Date: March 2, 2009
After a very close election and weeks of parliamentary wrangling, it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to become Israel's next prime minister.

Netanyahu served in the post once before, from 1996 to 1999. He went down to a solid defeat in the '99 election, and it's one of history's great political comebacks that he was able to fully revive his once discredited political career a decade later.

Of course, what's good for Netanyahu may not be good for Israel. Netanyahu's revived political career has been all about positioning himself on the hard-right of the Israeli political spectrum, denouncing the moderation of fellow conservative politicians like former PM Ariel Sharon. Specifically, Netanyahu has consistently refused to endorse the idea of a Palestinian state, and has more or less opposed every step of the entire "road map" of getting there. He was a firey critic of Sharon's decision to withdrawl Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, and opposes any talk of sharing or dividing the city of Jereselum. As prime minister, it seems reasonable to assume such positions will only harden, as his fragile coalition government will be forced to rely heavily on the support of various fringe ultra-Zionist parties in the Israeli legislature for its survival.

[Kjorteo]

This is almost enough to evoke a sense of political (and general) nostalgia--hey, remember back when we were young, the Nintendo 64 was the new, hot thing, Bill Clinton was President, and Benjamin Netanyahu was the Prime Minister of Israel?

Except that, given his hawkish tendencies, I'm willing to guess that he was kicked out for a reason and that it's not a good sign for peace in the region that he's back.

[Psudo]

I never remember the N64 being the new, hot thing. I always saw it as the symbol of trading well-made 2D in for low-poly, awkwardly animated 3D for no reason other than 3 > 2. From it's release to today, I have consistently preferred the SNES and Sega Genesis to the N64.

[rontal85]

Psudo wrote:

I never remember the N64 being the new, hot thing. I always saw it as the symbol of trading well-made 2D in for low-poly, awkwardly animated 3D for no reason other than 3 > 2. From it's release to today, I have consistently preferred the SNES and Sega Genesis to the N64.

He was kicked out mostly due to an organized purge against him... countless false allegations in the media and trumped up false charges... The economy was doing well, terrorism died down, the peace process was moving at a steady pace (Wye accords).

I will remind you that shortly after he left office the Israeli economy tanked and the second Intifada erupted.

[Kjorteo]

Psudo wrote:

I never remember the N64 being the new, hot thing. I always saw it as the symbol of trading well-made 2D in for low-poly, awkwardly animated 3D for no reason other than 3 > 2. From it's release to today, I have consistently preferred the SNES and Sega Genesis to the N64.

I have the first three Nintendo 64 classics (Mario 64, Mario Kart, and Star Fox--the very same ones to be immortalized in the Nintendo 64 Trilogy soundtrack, which I also have) and consider them to be every bit as groundbreaking and amazing as they were supposed to be. I'm even one of those types that considers every new 3D Mario game (Sunshine, Galaxy, etc.) to be a disappointment compared to Mario 64. It's just that...well, those three games were all the system had, really. It was glorious when it was new and I had those to go through, but they never really followed that up with anything that caught my eye after that. Today, I consider my favorite systems (in terms of library--how many good games does the system have?) to be the NES, SNES, original PlayStation, and Nintendo DS, probably in that order, barely, but it's extremely close and I remain a huge fan of all four, really.

[fire_i]

I was 9 when Netanyahu last was PM of Israel so I know next-to-nothing of him other than he's way on the right, so I won't discuss the man himself.

Still, about JJ's comic in itself, I got to say this is one of the most visually appealing I've ever seen on Filibuster. I just love the contrast between the flashy background and Netanyahu's stern look and dark clothes, and man are the flames and the pile of ash pretty, neat and effective. A lovely image, really.

Oh, and, since we're at it...

I would never say the N64 was a mere stab at 3D: the best games actually mastered it early on! Games such as Super Mario 64 and Starfox remain, to this day, intuitive and responsive - the gameplay is often excellent even though 3D was nearly all new back then, the graphics of some games are still satisfactory (a lot thanks to the cartoonish look) and even the camera angles are adequate, though they did improve a lot with time. Much like Psudo, I prefer the SNES over the N64 (and any other system for that matter), but the N64 was a great system and an important step in the grand scheme of things.

I'll agree the system had few good third party games, though, and since Nintendo released most of its games early on, the N64 was toured too soon.

[Psudo]

I have to concede that StarFox and Mario Kart 64 were pretty dang good, and one without my venomous biases could probably make a good case in defense of Donkey Kong 64, but I never much liked Mario 64. My judgment of "good graphics" leans towards curves, variation, and detail; those were much more available in the use of pre-rendered sprites, such as were used in WarCraft II or the Donkey Kong Country games for the Super Nintendo. Compared to that, being able to see Mario's hat as a phong-shaded octagon more than an inch across and items rendered as flat polygons with a texture just seemed sloppy.

To make matters worse, it came out at a time when I was experimenting with 3D graphics for PC, so I could recognize the graphical tricks they were using on sight. In some cases, I could name better ways to do it (assuming those graphical tricks were available on the N64). This probably helped make me as critical of the N64's graphics as I am on my own (which is to say very, very critical).

Mario Kart 64 easily wins my award for best 64 game. Despite that, I still like Super Mario Kart better. It was a unique case wherein the graphics were better on the 64 (mostly because the mechanism used for Super Mario Kart's graphics was laughably bad), but the gameplay lost a little something. The auto-handicapping was cranked up a notch, leaving victory a little more likely to be the result of coincidence rather than skill, and the difficulty generally was dropped a notch. For my friends and I, who had spent the time to master SMK, it took the edge off of the fun.

I admit a little bit of anti-N64 bias. First off, I'd never had to handle camera angles before and it irritated me disproportionately to it's inconvenience. Secondly, I had dreams of becoming a PC game developer and had developed a really cool logo: imagine a wooden block with parts carved away until from one direction it looks exactly like the letter V and from 90° to the right looks exactly like the letter N. Then Nintendo announces their new system with it's almost identical logo, thus convincing everyone who ever sees my logo or hears my story that I was just copying Nintendo like some kind of fanboy. *shakes his fist*

Also, being years older than you two (6 years older than fire_i), I was raised on Atari and NES. When I remember with nostalgia the games of my youth, there are rarely more than 16 colors involved and sometimes included a clearly visible single pixel as "you". That being the case, you have the nostalgic effect working in N64's favor while the N64 appears to be a raised middle finger at my nostalgia. 3D was supposed to look like Tron, brightly colored wireframe models with little to no shading.

Honestly, my favorite systems were the original Game Boy and the 386 PC, both of which I liked enough to learn to program ASM for their respective processors. Yoo, N64, git off mah lawn!

[Kjorteo]

I was born in '83, and was thus raised on the NES. Too young for the Atari (though we did get one at at garage sale and it had quite a few fun games with it--I remember Warlords being my personal favorite) but old enough that it's not like the N64 was my childhood or anything, though I do have fond memories of the Nintendo 64 Trilogy pantheon.

I liked Mario 64 because it seemed so vast. I could wander around outside the castle, or inside the castle, and of course the miniature worlds in every actual level--it's probably nothing by today's standards, but back then, it was enough to give me a feeling of total immersion, like this was a vast world I could freely explore. I love games that do that. (Though to this day, nothing can top Pokemon Gold/Silver in that regard.)

In fact, that's the main reason I was so disappointed with the recent Mario Galaxy--not because it's 3D Mario (I loved Mario 64, after all,) but because they removed those massive worlds in favor of a bunch of bitty ones and lots of dead space in between them. Wandering around The Little Prince-sized miniature planets and then being warped from microplanet to microplanet, going through about ten of them per one level, is gimmicky and ironically feels small and constrained compared to what Mario 64 could do with just one big world per level.

[AblativMeats]

Lets not forget that Israel has, to date, never fired the first shot.

Not having Netanyahu as PM has not helped keep random rocket attacks against civilians (intentionally targeted at civilians, mind you), nor the ever-popular suicide bombing of buses, shopping centers, or corner deli.

Israel has done more than enough for this whole "peace process", and I wonder when people will stop blaming them for it's continued failure.

[JJ]

fire_i wrote:

I was 9 when Netanyahu last was PM of Israel so I know next-to-nothing of him other than he's way on the right, so I won't discuss the man himself.

Still, about JJ's comic in itself, I got to say this is one of the most visually appealing I've ever seen on Filibuster. I just love the contrast between the flashy background and Netanyahu's stern look and dark clothes, and man are the flames and the pile of ash pretty, neat and effective. A lovely image, really.

Thanks for the praise. One of my personal vows was to make a conscious effort to improve my art, specifically my Photoshop skills, whilst in Japan. So if possible, I'm hoping to make more "showy" toons of this sort.

[TheQuietKidd]

GOLDENEYE 64! Best game EVER!

This is quite the derailment...

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

I was born in '83 [...] old enough that it's not like the N64 was my childhood or anything

I stand corrected. I'm only two years older than you.

Kjorteo wrote:

I liked Mario 64 because it seemed so vast. [...] this was a vast world I could freely explore. [...] Wandering around The Little Prince-sized miniature planets and then being warped from microplanet to microplanet, going through about ten of them per one level, is gimmicky and ironically feels small

I gotta give you that one. I didn't get that sensation from Mario 64 (perhaps because it meant searching massive levels for the obscure, minor object I missed but was required by the game to find), but I do love that sensation over overwhelming size.

The largest game world I've ever seen was when I downloaded a trial of the MMORPG A Tale in the Desert. The game map is a life-size model of Egypt (with all the cities and modern construction removed). The downside is the vast emptiness. I remember trying to decide where to start working and build my home, and literally walking full speed in a straight line for 90 minutes before I finally thought "Screw it, here is fine." I played for about a week before I saw another player character for the first time (possibly because of the remoteness of my starting location).

[Taospark]

You guys have diverted this topic in the most awesome way possible.

As for Netanyahu, I think it depends a lot on the other players involved. He's not likely to start any major military campaigns this early and not without testing the political waters to gauge public reaction, especially with such a thin margin of victory.

Obama's administration in the US is probably going to push for peace and Abbas is probably the most amenable Palestinian leader yet, assuming his neighbors (including Israel) can give him the political backup to keep Hamas from retaining power. With the historic relationship between Turkey and Israel now becoming strained, it'd be interesting is Netanyahu is able to reach out to Saudi Arabia or Iraq as partners in trade or security.

[AblativMeats]

Then again, I can easily see N telling O to get stuffed if Hamas keeps chucking rockets...

[OPP]

Psudo wrote:

I never remember the N64 being the new, hot thing. I always saw it as the symbol of trading well-made 2D in for low-poly, awkwardly animated 3D for no reason other than 3 > 2. From it's release to today, I have consistently preferred the SNES and Sega Genesis to the N64.

Not to mention the outdated game format used. Sony PlayStation was already way ahead at that time.