Star Wars: Rebel Assault (PC/Sega CD/Panasonic 3DO, 1993)

An evolution of the FMV shooter. It will never compare to the strangeness of one of the progenitors of the genre (seriously- who the heck thought no one would notice where that footage came from?).

The plot kinda sorta follows the first film mixed with the second film. You start out as a new rebel recruit training on Tatooine. You then fly through some asteroids, fight a Star Destroyer (Imperial-II model, because no one ever made an f***ing model kit for the Imperial-I!!!!), fight Imperial Walkers on what looks like but isn’t Hoth, and then you blow up the Death Star.

The Imperial-I seen on the left has most noticeably the top of a cell phone tower sticking out of the top (in between the two white bulbs on top of the rectangle), while the Imperial-II seen on the right does not have that (other differences include the general shape of the rectangle that the cell tower is sitting on top of). In the game, these scenes depict the same starship.

You are presented with several different types of gameplay. In some stages you control the ship from a 3rd person perspective from the rear and dodge stuff (and sometimes shoot). Other stages have you in a 3rd person overhead perspective of your ship where you shoot stuff under you. Other stages have you in the cockpit shooting whatever (and moving the ship based on how far to the side your targeting cursor is), while other stages have you controlling your character from a 3rd person perspective. Your control is limited though, you just aim the gun and fire.

I challenged myself to all three releases of the game last year. Let’s take a look at what I found.

PC

Is this where the Crystalline Entity came from?

How the game’s supposed to be played… I think. My copy had some issues running- I have a laptop that runs Windows 98 (BTW- I learned over Christmas that you can make a festive background video for any occasion by modding Windows 98’s built-in 3D Maze screensaver with some images of your own), but even that was too advanced for Rebel Assault to function. There was no sound, and the controls were way off, but bear in mind I was also using a mouse rather than a controller or fighter stick. Plus, I recall some issues in setting controls for the mouse. (I know, I know, I should have used my most recent PC and just ran DOS-Box. Well, my modern laptop can’t read discs worth a darn).

But it certainly looked great! The graphics were pretty sharp and smooth. It’s like this was a DVD, compared to the 3DO’s glitchy first-generation laserdisc, compared to the Sega CD version which may have been filmed by Abraham Zapruder.

3DO

Skimming the surface, about to pull a Porkins

If you don’t have the right vintage PC, then this is how to play the game. So I’d say this is the most accessible version that won’t turn you off the game completely (I am assuming that as many people out there with Sega CD’s have a 3DO too). The controls work well, certainly better than what I was able to get out of the PC version. The sound is… not CD quality as we know it, or as any music fans at the time would know it, but it wasn’t terrible.

Sega CD

Ohhhhhh boy. So hard to compress the game onto the disc that amongst other things an entire stage was omitted.

Wouldn’t be a Star Wars game without a trench run.

The colors are marginally worse than the 3DO, as the Sega Genesis/CD combo can’t match the 32-bit powerhouse above. I had played a level or two in the past, but I came in this time thinking this version was much worse than it was as far as colors went, so that was a pleasant surprise.

 

What was very much unpleasant however was how the game controlled. In the 3rd Person Fighter Piloting levels, the magnetic force pulling your craft to the side was much stronger, and you had to hold up and right or up and left to break away, no matter where you were on the screen. If you just wanted to go left or right, forget it. Just to experiment I tried holding left, and my T-16 plunged to the right and into the canyon wall, and stayed there until it blew up.

One thing this game did better than the 3DO was that on the levels where you’re in the first person flying a ship, the cursor flowed nice and smooth. However auto-lock wasn’t a thing in this game, and you could be right on top of the enemy and blasting away and still miss every shot.

The downside is that the background on all of these top-down stages isn’t as distinct as it is on the 3DO version, so you get to run into all sorts of things if you’re not careful.

The top-down Death Star level was easier since I knew what to do, but there were some points of interest to it. The lasers seemed to stand motionless in the middle of the screen. My fighter randomly took damage when nothing should have caused it. As with the other top-down section in this game, and with the 3DO version, if you push down lightly on the button nothing happens, but as you add more pressure eventually your ship will suddenly jerk wildly in the direction you’re trying to go. That’s how the controls feel, it can come out kind of smooth on the screen.

The Sega-CD had another issue- it kept crashing. The disc was ok, but the system kept stopping the game. The video playback for the backgrounds and the background music would stop, but the lasers and their sound effects would function. The cursor could still be moved. This struck three times. Twice at the AT-AT stage, so intense the game could not continue. There was a third time at the AT-AT stage, but the game recovered.

The ground stages seemed to have a similar cursor handling to the 3DO version, but it felt and looked choppier.

The Verdict

Sega CD on the left, Panasonic 3DO in the middle, and PC on the right. The video sizes aren’t that big relative to each other, I don’t really know how big they are. Depends on the TV I guess, but the video on my laptop was kinda small.

Well… it’s good to have on the 3DO because it is a good game and the 3DO’s library is pretty poor. Avoid it on the Sega CD: there are better games to be had, and that’s the worst-done port. Only suitable for Completionists. The PC version is perfectly handsome but needs the right hardware. On the plus side- if you have the right hardware for this to run, chances are you can run some other classic Star Wars games, and other old games too (like the PC version of Mega Man X which I found to be quite fun).

Trek Wars: A Star Story (Star Trek Arcade 1983, Star Wars Arcade 1983-1984)

I started writing this a year ago, I think. That last rant at the bottom was all I had to show for it by the time I picked this up. The timeline is tricky. I played the games I review here at the beginning of June 2018. Whatever. So why am I combining reviews for a Star Wars and a Star Trek game? Well, neither game has much going for it on its own. And as for the rant… well, this blog and certainly some of my earlier posts tied-in opinions on social and political issues with games. It’s also a good thought experiment and once again shows that you can always out-Progressive a Progressive, relating to a point I made a while ago about them eating each other.

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

Atari 5200

This came out for a few systems and computers, but I only have it on the Atari 2600, 5200, and Colecovision. The arcade version looks pretty awesome, it’s like you’re playing in those vector graphics that we see on the viewscreen in Star Trek II during the opening scenes. But not on the home ports-they just did sprites for those. The sounds are about what you’d expect- beeps, boops, and static.

Colecovision- it’s supposed to be in color but A: the system gives you the option to do black and white and B: the cord or the system was messing up so all I got was the black and white image.

The premise of the game is appropriate for the vector-graphicked version: you are a cadet playing around in a simulator just like at the beginning of Star Trek II when we saw the aforementioned vector graphics. You fight Klingons, and then Nomad for whatever reason as sort of the final boss. The game doesn’t really end- you get a congratulatory screen for beating Nomad, then you go back to the beginning and do the levels all over again. They come in a pattern- a couple of Klingons assaulting a starbase (dock at it to repair and reload your ship), then an asteroid field you have to navigate, then more levels of Klingons attacking other starbases, then the Nomad fight, rinse and repeat.

Atari 2600 version. You’ll note that in all 3 screenshots in the bottom half of the screen I am targetting the same type of ship (Klingon Battlecrusier) from the same angle (the front), and in each game it looks different.

Such a complicated game! So much so that you need the Atari 2600’s joystick AND the single button on it! Well, like I said, there just wasn’t enough about it to warrant its own article.

Star Wars Arcade

Those little fuzzy balls you see two of on the right of the screen in between the TIE Fighters are energy bolts of some kind. When of them hit my X-Wing, it made my Colecovision’s video output change from a clear black and white to this grainy colorized image.

I only had this on the Atari 5200 and Colecovision.

Atari 5200- going against the towers

You re-enact the climax of the first Star Wars movie by fighting your way through TIE Fighters and then running along the Death Star’s trench. Once you beat that, you are taken back to the TIE Fighters, but then once they’re cleared you’re treated to a new stage: you skim along the surface of the Death Star blasting the towers (shield towers I think is what they were called in Star Wars Rogue Squadron II). After that, you’re back in the trench. Then back to the TIE Fighers. Rinse and repeat. See? Not enough to float its own post!

Atari 5200- trench

I do have a bit of a gripe with this game though, a gripe I extend to some segments of Star Wars: Rebel Assault. Aiming the crosshairs (except in the TIE Fighter swarm) also moves your ship around. So if I’m aiming at a tower to my left, then move the crosshairs over there, the whole ship is going to move over towards it. That makes me somewhat reticent to actually aim at anything, and it makes dodging things a slow process because your crosshair has to go all the way across the screen before you lurch in that direction.

Trek Wars Section III: The Last Rant

Yup, this would be way too short, so I’ll use the above discussion of Star Wars Arcade as a farcical justification for this total non-sequitur. Besides- above I gave the “Trek Wars” mentioned in the title, so I owe you a “Star Story”.

Here’s a long overdue critique that I touched on in a previous post (a 16 month old post). But I haven’t really gone after culture warriors or elaborated on my earlier remarks, so I might as well get that taken care of here. Maybe these remarks are still sort of current at the least because there hasn’t been a new Star Wars since I wrote them.

I ran into a reddit thread where the gist was that if you hated any of the recent Star Wars movies you were a sexist. That was the view held by every person in that thread. So I’m sexist, because Last Jedi was less enjoyable to watch than the Holiday Special. At least the Holiday Special had Jefferson Starship and Harvey Korman! Last Jedi on the other hand was a racist and sexist dumpster fire.

Rumors that David Duke designed the Mary Sue Asian character after attending an anime convention have so far not been substantiated. Image from Politico

You read right- it was racist. First of all, let’s start with the “diverse” human cast. If I were to ask a Klansman to build an anime fangirl from the ground up, he’d come up with Rose (I found it particularly ironic that “Twitter user @fangirlJeanne tweeted, “This isn’t just ‘hate of the character.’ This is sexism and racism. They don’t like Rose because she isn’t a racist stereotype of Asian women. She’s not sexually objectified, not demure, and she doesn’t have purple streaks in her hair. They resent her being a actual person.”” Because guess what, she is a hilarious racial stereotype! Asian female otaku Mary Sued into the plot, to use the parlance. The Trade Federation were subtle and nuanced in comparison.). Second, let’s get to the human-centric nature of the films. Star Wars takes place in a galaxy where millions of sentient lifeforms exist, yet Last Jedi revolved solely around humans. I thought the message was diversity? Why am I watching a human-centric film where humans save the galaxy? Are all other races inferior to the human race? #GunganLivesMatter. And what about the human races NOT represented? Blacks, Asians, Whites, and Hispanics, but where are the Indians and Native Americans? I don’t recall any Somalians or Samoans or Saudi Arabians either. Hmmmm… only blacks, whites, asians, and hispanics matter?

You read right about the sexism allegation too- where were the trans characters? We had some skin color diversity and a mix of males and females, but what about transmen and transwomen? Where are they? Were any homosexuals represented? The filmmakers left that out. And where was the Muslim character? Seems the filmmakers forgot a few boxes on their diversity checklist. Having more than one skin color and a smattering of male and female humans does not make your cast diverse, especially when you have a whole galaxy of races and genders and sexualities that are not represented, or in this case implied to be inferior because the cis humans are the only ones that matter. Liberals complain about how Western-centric world history and culture is, yet here they are showing that we are supposed to support such a thing in a galaxy far far away.

Can’t even rely on the ol’ rainbow flag to symbolize Star Wars’ diversity. How many species in that universe can’t see one or more of these colors (for that matter, how about the colorblind in the human race?)? How many species can see MORE than the colors the human eye is capable of seeing? Infrared and Ultraviolet are probably colors to a sentient Star Wars race. Image from Wikimedia

Beyond their agenda for diversity exposing how racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, and Western-centric the scriptwriters really are, we also get to just plane bad writing. The First Order can’t target capital ships far away, but can target the much smaller escape pods of those capital ships when they get even farther away? If going into lightspeed to destroy an enemy fleet is so easy, why was the Death Star so big a threat? Why was the planet superweapon in Force Awakens such a big threat? And those stupid speeders on that salt planet- first of all their existence is an abomination, but also why was that scene even needed? If all they had to do was shoot at the cannon that was about to destroy the base’s front door as the cannon was getting ready to fire, why didn’t they wait until it was closer to being ready? Why didn’t they just aim a cannon at it from in front of the base and shoot it? The way they make it sound, and the way the blasters on the speeders are, you’d think that if Han shot first with his trusty DL-44 then the cannon would explode like Cannon after a wafer-thin mint (a warning to the squeamish- that wafer thin mint link goes to the relevant clip from Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life)! And Princess Leia suddenly learning to use the force while dead in space- where did that even come from?!

Oh, and one more thing- the Resistance and First Order ships spent much of the movie constantly accelerating at sublight speeds.  Well, for those versed in relativity you should understand that while minutes were passing for the people going at that speed on the ship, days and years were passing for the rest of the galaxy. Look up the twin paradox. So when they went to find Benecio Del Toro‘s character, to the Resistance ships that whole segment should have lasted only a couple of minutes if not seconds. I bet the real reason no one responded when Princess Leia asked for help at the end was that decades passed for the rest of the galaxy while the Resistance and First Order were at relativistic speeds. With all the Resistance and the might of the First Order travelling out of time in that one area, the rest of the galaxy could easily have forgotten about all of them by the time she signaled for help. Now, for the audience too it probably seemed like years, but that had more to do with bad storytelling than it did with relativistic travel and time dilation.

However, to the people in the reddit thread I read, none of the above matters because I’m sexist, I’m just mansplaining why the female head of the Star Wars franchise should be replaced by a man or something according to the redditeers. The irony of course is that I didn’t know and didn’t care who that Kennedy lady was; I only judged by what I saw on the screen. Besides, if she was around for Solo: A Star Wars Story then she made up for Last Jedi, because Solo was a good one… at least until the end, but my friend told me that if I had watched some of the non-live-action stuff then that ending would sort of make sense (my complaint had more facets than what you might think, which is why the non-live-action stuff didn’t answer all the issues raised).

To make my point succinctly: stick it in your exhaust port! And this is the Colecovision version of the game.

For those stinging from the remarks that the franchise head Kennedy made about not needing to cater to male fans, let me just say that this alone isn’t a bad statement and in the context presented at the link she’s right. Male fans make up the bulk sure, but you want a product for everyone if you’re a big studio. Star Wars I don’t think was ever designed just for men, maybe just by men but not just for men. Even in 1977 it wouldn’t fly if Lucas told a big studio like Fox that his film was solely for men; they probably wouldn’t even take a chance on it. Besides, poor Ms. Kennedy has to worry more about criticism from her Left flank since that’s the Achilles Heel of every liberal in Hollywood and could easily bring her down. If you don’t like her, pile on where it hurts. As you hear in this quote they pretty much just added Rey because they wanted to sell toys to little girls, not because feminism or anything noble. Capitalism is why we get Rey, and isn’t the male-dominated capitalism the enemy of the female-friendly-inclusive-socialism? Thus wouldn’t Rey, a product of male cisgendered heteronormative capitalism, be actually more a thing for the female Trump supporters than any woke SJW warriors?

Where The Anti-Semites Play Part II: Tlaib’s Terror

Image from Getty Images

Part One, which I will link to and use evidence from without citing throughout this post, can be found here. Mostly because I only want to have to link back to one page when I cite this later.

Honestly, I debated waiting another week to see what other gems Democrats would give me. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) must have read what I wrote last week and said “HA! If he thinks that’s bad, let him see THIS!”. Because the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day. she stated that the Holocaust gives her a “calming feeling” because the Palestinians welcomed Jews fleeing the Holocaust with open arms. As you read last week, as anyone with any understanding of history knows, it took 30 years for the British to force the Arabs, Palestinians included, to accept a Jewish presence, and even at that the Arabs, Palestinians included, fought tooth and nail to STOP the Jews from living there immediately after the Holocaust, immediately after PALESTINIAN leadership promised Hitler they’d exterminate the Jews in their region (pictured here is the Palestinian leader meeting with Hitler, possibly that very meeting I just mentioned). And they continued fighting the Jewish presence for the next 71 years, and will keep fighting it longer. Tlaib is one of those fighting the Jewish presence, continuing the same anti-Semitic violence that her Palestinian ancestors greeted Jews with.

If it weren’t for this caption, you’d be hard-pressed to tell if this was during the Holocaust or during Palestinian resistance to Jews in 1947-1949. Either way, it gives Tlaib a “calming feeling”.

Now, Tlaib is catching flak for that first line about the “calming feeling”, sort of disconnecting it from the rest of the sentence which is as much a lie about history as when terrorist spokeswoman and fundraiser Ilhan Omar gave her speech to CAIR. I’ll defend Tlaib partly on that point- she makes it clear that it’s a calming feeling only in the context of the lie about her ancestors helping the Jews. So taken at face value, she didn’t really say anything wrong assuming everything in her statement is true. But A: she was lying through her teeth, the Palestinians wanted Jews dead then as much as now and B: YOU DON’T SAY ANY TRAGEDY GIVES YOU A CALMING FEELING! THAT’S POLITICS 101 YOU MEATHEAD!

“Slavery gives me a calming feeling because I think of how the Civil War showed whites were willing to fight for the freedom of people they thought were inferior” is equivalent to what Tlaib said and any Republican would be made a nonperson if they said it! In fact, what Steve King was exiled from the GOP for saying was equivalent to what Tlaib said. You’ll notice that Tlaib is still happily sitting on the “Oversight and Reform” and “Financial Services” committees in the House of Representatives while Democrats defend what she said (the managing editor at the mainstream polling firm Zogby said that attacking Omar and Tlaib over their anti-Semitism and pro-terrorist positions amounted to Islamophobia- which means either he doesn’t pay attention to what they say, or he believes all Muslims feel this way thus justifying anyone who really has Islamophobic beliefs… so he can either claim to be stupid or claim that Islamophobics are 100% correct, because those are the only two possible explanations behind his statement given the facts).

Maybe the rest of the Democratic Party gets a warm fuzzy feeling from Holocaust Denial stories? Because that’s almost what Tlaib said, separated only by 3 years. The Jews in Europe went from the Holocaust frying pan into the Arabic fire, the Palestinians wanted exactly what the Nazis wanted, and the Jews spent the next 71 years fireproofing themselves. Meanwhile, Tlaib STILL wants to finish that war from 1948 with her BDS support. THAT’S what Republicans should be focusing on, because without adding this further insight about how much of a lie what she says is, and just focusing on the “calming feeling” phrasing, they are doing exactly what Tlaib is accusing them of: twisting her words.

As for Tlaib’s claim that any opposition to her is racist: she’s the one participating in what I guess should be termed as post-Holocaust Denial. It goes worse than that- not only does she lie about the Palestinians slaughtering Jews, she says the JEWS are the evil ones in all this! The Palestinians tried to kill the Jews and carried out various pogroms even before the Jews were resettled to Israel, land which I’ll remind you again the Palestinians did NOT have control over anymore. But Tlaib tells you that the Palestinians welcomed the Jews, who then formed the Jewish State of Israel and started genocide or whatever against the Palestinians. Pick up a history book and you’ll see Tlaib is lying. And while Tlaib paints the Palestinazis (because remember- their leader agreed to work with Hitler to kill Jews) as saviors and Jews as villains, she is greeted with applause by the Democratic crowd that showed up for the taping of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Myers, an interview in which Tlaib literally says you are a stupid racist if you believe that the Palestinazis tried to exterminate the battered and broken Jews, rather than believing that the Jews tried to exterminate the happy and welcoming Palestinians. Based on the reception from the mainstream late night host and his crowd of Democrats, Tlaib’s pro-Palestinazi perversion of history is mainstream Democratic Party thinking. NBC executives didn’t can her appearance, the crowd laughed and cheered, the host was very welcoming, millions tuned in to watch it, companies did NOT boycott it, thus we can only conclude that millions of Democrats and billions of dollars BELIEVE Tlaib. Except, surprisingly, CNN who are now stupid and racist according to Tlaib.

Image from Wikimedia, showing how the Palestinians and their allies welcome the Jews after the Holocaust. Tlaib said this welcoming is why the Holocaust gives her a “calming feeling”.

The historical inaccuracy goes even further than what I was able to think of off the top of my head- Jews had been fleeing to that area for a long time before the Palestinians welcomed them post-Holocaust with open “arms”… well, “arms opening fire” is a better way to phrase it. In fact, Palestinians had been attacking Jews in the region for that whole time too, though it didn’t explode into open war until the late 1940s. A Jewish state was rejected for the region too, before the Holocaust. In actuality, it looks like the Palestinians barely tolerated the Jewish presence, killing Jews just before the Holocaust, supporting Nazis before the war, then their leader met with Hitler and pledged to exterminate the Jews (“Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine & the Arab world” is what the Palestinian leader at the time wrote), then finally decided to do it themselves after the Nazis were defeated, killing a bunch of Jews even before a Jewish State was voted on at the U.N. So the time Tlaib is praising the Palestinians for acting during, it was that very time period where they became the MOST opposed to Jews being in the area. Also, Tlaib is speaking as if the Jews were a foreign intruder rather than the historical owners of that region- the Jews controlled that area until Tlaib’s ancestors raped and murdered the Jews living there. So even if what Tlaib said were true, her idea of generosity is tolerating a Jewish presence in an area that Tlaib’s ancestors stole from Jews by raping and murdering them. How kind of her. I suppose Indian Reservations give her a warm and fuzzy feeling about the Trail of Tears?

But you know, that point about how out of centuries of potential tolerance, Tlaib picks one of the most intolerant periods to glorify, it seems to be an overall pattern with Democrats that I mentioned last time– out of the many good Muslims in the country, Democrats rallied behind Omar and Tlaib instead. Democrats can’t seem to find a good Muslim anywhere though, last week they had an openly anti-Israel Imam deliver the House prayer. I guess that goes right along with the Dems in 2012 letting someone connected with the 9/11 attackers, someone whose son ran terrorist training camps, deliver the opening prayer for one of their events at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Which goes along thematically with letting the Taliban-praising homophobic father of the Orlando Nightclub shooter deliver an address at the Democratic National Convention, where Democrats praised him. That was 2016, when Democrats were still mainstream enough that Hillary Clinton could be their candidate, they’ve now spent 2 and a half years moving Leftward of that position where they thought the Taliban-lovin (the Taliban is, not coincidentally, seen as anti-Semitic)‘ homophobic Muslim was mainstream… so it’s no wonder they’re behind Tlaib and Omar.

As a quick aside- Tlaib tries to say that her support for a One-State Solution is different than groups like Hamas and BDS which she backs and defends… so pretty much she’s lying about that too, and very badly since she’s openly supported the very groups whose ideology she claims she does not support.

Time For Some Republican Shaming

Fake News CNN would never have such an accurate chyron. Original unedited image from CNN, edited one you see here from MS Paint

I looked all this up at 5:30am two days after it all went down. Washington Examiner gave a proper response describing the history around the topic, New York Post at least mentioned a sentence on it (in a piece cited earlier), whereas Rep. Lee Zeldin, Rep. Steve Scalise and Rep. Liz Cheney and Fox News… didn’t have diddly about it in their writings. That means CNN had a better response! Heck, the New York Times in its DEFENSE of Tlaib noted that she got the details on the Palestinians horribly wrong!

Zeldin SHOULD have noted like I did that Tlaib wants a Muslim majority controlling the Jews in the Middle East, and should have noted that Tlaib aligns with the anti-Semites who want that, and should have noted what would happen if the Jews no longer had control of their country in a region that has wanted them exterminated since the first Muslims raped and killed their way into controlling Jerusalem. Instead, we get a sort of foundationless statement- he tells us it is a problem but not WHY, so it just looks vaguely Islamophobic and definitely allows apologists of the anti-Semitic BDS movement room to spread their propaganda and further delegitimize their opponents.

Fox News, Scalise, and Cheney SHOULD have made statements including how fictitious Tlaib’s remarks were. Heck, at the least they could’ve said something like “Tlaib claims Holocaust gives her a “calming feeling” because of how Palestinians treated Jews during and after it. Palestinians MURDERED Jews during and after it.” That would’ve worked, there isn’t a lie in there, they did not twist her words. They merely summarize what she said and then add historical context. In that tweet-sized blurb Tlaib and her protectors would be forced to defend her lies about history. Instead, Republicans simply gave her an out by attacking her in a way that allowed her to say they were merely twisting her words.

I wonder though- was it an accident? Did Tlaib let her true feelings about the Holocaust slip out, then realizing the problem she went on to denounce it and give a false interpretation of history by lying about the Palestinian response, so that way if Republicans challenged her she could say either they twisted her words or that Palestinians didn’t attack Jews and everyone was lied to? Thus her slip-of-the-tongue serves to spread anti-Semitism while also becoming a tool to attack Republicans with, two goals she is more than happy to pursue.

A CAIRing Ending

I just want to touch a little more on CAIR here. Tlaib shared the stage with an Imam known for his hatred of women, LGBT folks, and Jews at an event designed to raise money for CAIR. CAIR CHOSE that speaker, and TLAIB agreed to share the stage with him at that event, to raise money for the organization that supports him and his views. A lot is made about how Trump even retweeting something from a white supremacist makes him one, well what the hell does this make Tlaib?! And what does it make CAIR?

Well, as I mentioned last time of CAIR we know Ilhan Omar lied about its founding. I can also add that more than a dozen leaders of the terrorist-linked group have been arrested for ties to terrorism. But there’s more than that. I came across it in this article about how Muslim children at a mosque in Philadelphia were singing about beheading people in Jerusalem. I’ll conclude with that, but as for CAIR I saw this paraphrase of a diatribe from CAIR’s founder and former co-chairman Omar Ahmad: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant… the only accepted religion on Earth”. He said that in 1998. Contrast that to Omar saying CAIR was founded in or after 2001 to advance the rights of Muslims that George W. Bush was oppressing even though as I said CAIR had PRAISED Bush for NOT suppressing Muslim rights. Literally nothing Omar said in her statement was true, except that line about those people who did stuff.

Another useful quote from CAIR’s current spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper, in 1993: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future. But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.” Education like what Omar and Tlaib received no doubt.

So… CAIR has anti-Semitic speakers, ties with anti-Semitic terrorist groups (Hamas as mentioned previously being such a group), and as they themselves admit want to wipeout all other religions including Judaism, while Omar and Tlaib raise money for them and share the stage with anti-Semites, anti-woman, and anti-LGBT people. Tlaib and Omar also support the self-defined anti-Semitic BDS movement. Tlaib’s revision of Palestinian history paints the Jews as the villain and ignores the Palestinazis’ attempted 2nd Holocaust. And the Democratic Party backs these two in full. They get all sorts of soft interviews, defense form leading Dems, profiles in major magazines, appearances before cheering crowds and thrilled late-night hosts on major TV networks. The Democrats back CAIR just as much- heck, anytime there’s an accusation of Islamophobia against a Republican you can bet that the DNC media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc) will have at least a quote from a CAIR representative if not a full-on interview with one. And then you turn around and say Republicans are the real anti-Semites. Look, meet me halfway: at least admit that Democrats aren’t any better!

As for the video: the Muslim American Society was fully aware of what those kids were singing about and did not care at all, they must’ve thought it was a good thing I guess, until it got translated into English. Then they suddenly found outrage… at the people who felt threatened by a mosque teaching its kids to murder. But they also said that the whole several minute long musical number was a mistake, just an oversight. Nobody pulled the plug on it as it was happening, the parents of those children did not object to the performance in the weeks it must’ve taken to put it together and even while it was happening, no one said anything about it until the video was translated. In other words- until it became a PR nightmare, they thought it was acceptable! Here’s the quote we get on it, from Amir Qasim Rashad of the United Muslim Masjid in South Philadelphia: ““Places of worship used to be sacred, but now they are the target,” Rashad said. “And it doesn’t make a difference whether it’s a mosque or synagogue or church.”

He DOES realize that this was all in response to a mosque teaching children to murder, right? Or maybe Amir has the Palestinian line of thinking that somehow hiding your murderous attacks behind something sacred or civilian should protect you from retribution? Because Amir’s statement that teaching murder in a mosque makes them immune from a response is no different than the Palestinian (and Democratic Party’s) reasoning that launching rocket attacks on Jewish civilians from a hospital or school or otherwise shielding yourself with an inoffensive non-target should make you immune from a counterattack and criticism (Not like the Palestinians need to, the media never had anything but sympathetic coverage for Hamas. CNN went so far as to say that all members of the Jewish State are fair targets and there’s no such thing as an Israeli civilian, and also asked a pro-Israeli teen if she was “brain dead”- the media is quite fond of Palestine and HATES Israel).

If were up to the people these two raise money for and share the stage with, the Jews would be extinct. Either Omar and Tlaib are absolute morons or dangerously anti-Semitic. AND WHY CAN’T DEMOCRATS FIND ANY GOOD MUSLIMS!? The best they had was Keith Ellison, whose only ties to anti-Semitism are his association with Farrakhan years ago. I KNOW a pretty cool Muslim who’s in politics and has no anti-Semitic ties (that I’m aware of, he’s certainly not an anti-Semite). If I, in my insular life, can meet one such person then surely the Democrats can field a candidate or two like that… right? Or is it because Ellison, Omar, and Tlaib represent the ideals of the party? The warm reception the Leftist media and audiences gives them indicates that to be the case. Image from Associated Press

Where The Anti-Semites Play

Barack Obama meets with noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, probably just before attending one of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic sermons. Image from Talking Points Memo

Predictably, the media’s head is so far up its butt that they don’t know Right from Left. I refer you to how the Washington Post labelled anti-Semitic Democratic hero Louis Farrakhan as a rightwinger. The very next day, CNN made the same mistake. With the New York Times’ history of anti-Semitism and publication of two anti-Semitic cartoons (they published one, explained how it happened, eventually apologized for it, then published a second one, all within a couple of days, much like Rep. Ilhan Omar’s pattern of making terrible statements, apologizing, then doing it again not too long after that will be discussed later).

To be fair, it could be a mistake. The reporters might be so biased that they just assumed anyone who is anti-Semitic belongs to The Enemy. But then it also could be a coverup- they know anti-Semite Farrakhan (who believes Hitler was a great person for what he did) is tied heavily to Democrats as you read above, especially black Democrats, so they want to hide it by telling their readers he’s really a rightwinger and thus only people in Trump country would like him… even though he leads the Nation of Islam, which judging by its name the islamophobic Trumpster fires would wish to avoid. And then there’s the third possibility, a very slim one- the reporters know that Democrats are thoroughly in bed with this anti-Semite, so to try and roust them they’re hoping a far-right label will stick, thus any Democrats tied to him would also earn the far-right label, be too scared to sully the party’s reputation like that, and cut ties with him.

Nah, reporters aren’t the brightest of bulbs these days (just ask Obama Admin official Ben Rhodes), so likely Washington Post and CNN just read “anti-Semitic” and assumed “Trump Supporter”. No need for fact checking because in their world you pretty much can’t be one without being the other.

Which creates a little problem for them- what to do about the black Democrats tied to anti-Semitism. Denial, that’s what. And even praise- take a look at the litany of laurels foisted upon Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) by Leftwing news outlets, compared to her attacks on Jewish people. She is a pro-terrorist anti-Israeli celebrity to liberals. So Democrats have Omar and Farrakhan on their side, have had Farrakhan for decades but now have Omar too. How can they claim to oppose anti-Semitism?

Unpacking The Left’s “Unpacking”

I keep shaking my head at these two- soooooo many Muslims in America that are perfectly good people, and we get two anti-Semites, where the one in hijab is basically a terrorist spokeswoman and the Palestinian one met with associates of a Palestinian terrorist group. Democrats: this is NOT how you combat Islamophobia, this is how you CREATE it. Image from The Economist

Now, you may try to claim like Democrats that there is a distinction between “Jew” and “Israel” in your defenses of Omar (Farrakhan has made far more clearer statements about his hatred of Jews). For one thing, Omar and the later-mentioned Rashida Tlaib support the BDS movement. As you can see BDS’ own words, they’re out to deprive Jews of power. Notice that they say “Jew” a lot, criticizing Israel as a “Jewish State”. The BDS movement makes it clear that it wants Jews out of power and accuses Jews of oppressing other peoples in Israel, even though Israeli Arabs are freer than any other Arab in that region. Aside from the obvious “how can it be a Jewish State but not Jewish, and how can they hate Jews for having the power but not hate Jews themselves?” question that people trying to separate Omar and Tlaib’s views from anti-Semitism have, there’s more work to be done.

Remember Omar’s anti-Semitic trope about money in politics (you should be defining it as anti-Semitic, liberal, you thought something so mundane as Dave Brat beating Jewish Eric Cantor in a Congressional race was anti-Semitic)? Her allegedly heartfelt apology and how House Speaker Pelosi spoke with her? Turns out this wasn’t her first time. A year before, Jewish community leaders got together to talk with her about her use of anti-Semitic language. Now, either she is very dense thus too stupid to be a Congresswoman, or she is deliberately invoking anti-Semitic stereotypes. As you saw in the link, according to community leaders who were present, they picked up that Omar wasn’t going to avoid anti-Semitism.

Image from DemocracyNow

Looking at the tweet Omar sent to apologize for her Jews/money remark, you’ll notice that she says a bipartisan group working on behalf of Israel is the real problem. She doesn’t mention CAIR as a problem too, she only singles out the Jews. CAIR as you know was where she spread terrorist propaganda and was a group founded by terrorists as their U.S. propaganda arm. So… CAIR is ok according to Omar, CAIR has “Islamic” right in the title so it’s clearly tying religion and terrorism together, while the organization representing the JEWISH State is the real problem according to Omar. And as I said, she tried to distinguish between Jew and Israel, which leads to another problem- she doesn’t make a distinction between CAIR and Muslims, she raised money for CAIR, in her speech she said CAIR was founded to help Muslims, she didn’t even make a distinction between her own beliefs and CAIR’s, so… is she saying that Muslims can’t be separated from terrorism the way Jews can be separated from a Jewish State? Does she believe a terrorist-backed organization is less of a threat than an organization working in favor of a Jewish State?

Want to hear further? She wants to destroy the Jewish State, but wants to protect the government of Venezuela which is inflicting a humanitarian crisis on its population. But Omar blames the U.S. for that of course. Interesting how she always sides with oppressors and terrorists, never siding with the country she immigrated to. Moreover, when she says that the U.S.’s “bullying” is behind the crisis in Venezuela, it makes you wonder: what does she think would happen if BDS became mainstream? Similar “bullying” would be inflicted on Israel. If indeed it truly is an apartheid regime then BDS would just inflict even more suffering on the Arabs that Omar wants controlling the country. Can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, I guess. Or maybe she just hates the “Jewish State” more than she cares about the Arabic peoples it allegedly oppresses.

Also, she retweeted something about Jews having hook-noses. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a racist stereotype, it’s like if Trump were to say that Obama looked like a monkey. Understand now? What more does she need to do to prove anti-Semitism, propose legislation that all Jews need to have a Star of David stitched onto their clothing?

I know I’ll never convince you people who still claim Israel occupies Palestine. A little history- Palestine REJECTED offers for piece. Now, there was an occupation after years of war and terrorism, but the Israelis relented and pulled out. The Palestinians responded by attacking the Israelis. After that, after the Israelis had conceded and withdrew, after the Palestinians attacked them after getting some land back, the Palestinians VOTED for the political party most dedicated to exterminating Jews- Hamas. The same group who founded CAIR, where Omar gave her terrorist propaganda speech (so it’s no surprise that Omar and Tlaib would defend Hamas as they fire rockets at the women and children of the Jewish State- neither Tlaib nor Omar have condemned Hamas’ terrorism. They’ve defended it. Tlaib outright said that the Palestinian murderers are happy-go-lucky innocent people and telling the truth about what they do only oppresses them. By the way- Hamas is very much against Jews as a religion, and wants to run Jews out of Israel- not “end the Jewish State”, but end the presence of Jews, and Omar and Tlaib SUPPORT this).  Israel hasn’t had a day since at least the 1970s- when an acquaintance of mine lived there- where rockets weren’t raining down on Jews from Palestinian sources (said acquaintance lost two friends, and almost her own life, in one such attack). And what was the root cause of all this? Britain gave Jews some land in the Middle East after almost 30 years of trying, and Arabs did not want Jews anywhere near them (their leadership conferred with Hitler on removing Jews from the Middle East, just 7 years before more Jews would be dumped in their laps). The very cause that Omar and Tlaib strive for and try to separate from anti-Semitism is rooted deeply in anti-Semitism!

So a bunch of lambs were dumped in a den of wolves after surviving an earlier campaign of extermination, and we’re supposed to think that these lambs are evil because they actually managed the miracle of living. That’s what Omar, Tlaib, and the modern Democratic Party backing them would have you believe. Moreover, those enemies that wanted the lambs dead are treated better in ISRAEL than anywhere else in the Middle East. Omar sees this as a problem, and what she supports clearly indicates she believes JEWS are the source of this problem.

It’s not the combined Israeli Jew/Israeli Arab government that works in cooperation every day that Omar targets, it’s the JEWISH state that she hates. It’s not terrorist-lovin’ CAIR nor Islamic terrorists that she sees as being a problem, it’s Jewish State-lovin’ AIPAC and soldiers from the Jewish State-lovin’ U.S. that she criticizes. And she invokes anti-Semitic stereotypes to support her hate. And Democrats defend her statements- they don’t say she’s an anti-Semite, they say she has a legitimate point but just phrased it poorly. They couldn’t even pass a resolution condemning her remarks as anti-Semitic, they tried to protect her, and still have Omar serving on the House Committee on Foreign Policy.

For those not in the know, David Duke was a Grand Wizard with the KKK, and he’s sided with both Omar and Tlaib. Image from Politico

Unlike Republicans who ousted Steve King. And remember when Donald Trump had to denounce David Duke more than a hundred times otherwise he was a white supremacist (he denounced Duke, then two days later did the CNN interview that caused the media to claim he was pro-KKK because of what is likely a faulty earpiece given his prior record of denouncements)… and then the Left simply denied that Trump denounced any hate groups? David Duke supports Omar, and not once has the liberal media asked her about it, nor have her Democratic colleagues mentioned it. Almost like they don’t mind it.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at all this- she misused campaign funds and probably married her brother in order to become a U.S. citizen (which you’ll note from the links that the Obama Administration did not look into).

I will assume that AOC is just too stupid to know what’s going on, since she admitted it herself. And with Tlaib and Omar as her educators, it’s no wonder she’s coming off as just another Latina Jew Hater. Goes with the company she keeps and defends (Tlaib also defended Omar’s verifiable terrorist lies, saying she was telling the truth). And to counter Cortez’s point– who the heck aside from King in Congress runs with racism like Omar does? I mean, aside from Latinx Supremacist Cortez herself. Image from CNN

In addition to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) we have Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) (Some will give AOC a pass, but I won’t. Even the DSA now gives her guilt by association). I keep saying- everyone on both sides of the aisle condemned Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for his alleged white supremacist remarks (I say alleged because we don’t have the tape, and as you saw above the NYT isn’t particularly reliable) and King was kicked off his committees, but NOT ONE DEMOCRAT has condemned Tlaib for her map showing “Palestine” in place of Israel, and while Omar faced a small slap on the wrist for one of her remarks, she was DEFENDED for spreading terrorist propaganda as I mentioned in an earlier post, and that slap on the wrist didn’t even address her casual anti-Semitism except to make an excuse to cover it up (Pelosi’s “she didn’t know what she was saying” line). Republicans didn’t make an excuse for King like I did just a moment ago, they ousted him. But when Democrats are confronted with Omar or even Farrakhan? They make excuses. They haven’t even bothered addressing Tlaib.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to believe that Republicans hate Jews. Republicans have DEMONSTRABLY attacked anti-Semites like Omar, Farrakhan, and Tlaib and white nationalists like David Duke and even people like Steve King who appear to be white nationalist, while Democrats have been caught DEFENDING AND COLLUDING with anti-Semites.

I got sidetracked- onto Tlaib. She is part of the BDS movement which is directed against the JEWISH state and openly wants to put a MUSLIM state in its place as you saw in earlier link, and has a map in her office where there is no more JEWISH homeland. How could it be any more clear that there is no distinction between “destroy Israel” and “destroy the Jewish State” and “destroy the Jews”- the idea to put a Muslim state in Israel’s place clearly shows it’s a conflict over which religion Tlaib (and Omar) thinks should run the area. Furthermore, one of Tlaib’s big fundraising friends is very much anti-Semitic. If Trump is a white nationalist for not denouncing David Duke 101 times, if Steve Scalise is a racist because he spoke at an event that was in the same hotel as a KKK meeting later in the day, and if Republicans hate Jews because they happened to vote one out of office, and if Republicans are all owned by their big business campaign contributors, then SURELY an anti-Semitic fundraiser for Tlaib must reflect her own anti-Semitism, if for no other reason than by the same standard you apply to your enemies of what constitutes hatred.

Much like Omar who wants to destroy the Jewish State in Israel but believes we shouldn’t do anything to Venezuela, Tlaib (believes that too) thinks it’s ok to boycott Israel but not ok for anyone to boycott those whom boycott Israel. Tlaib and Omar only favor things that attack Jews and Israel, and dismiss those very items if used on actual human rights abusers. Tlaib wants to DESTROY Israel, but then she and Omar get mad when Trump supports the guy in Venezuela who isn’t a dictator and say it’s a coup like it’s a bad thing that the strongman would be ousted (and Tlaib is very clear that she wants to oust Trump too- Tlaib wants to change the governments of the U.S. and Israel, but loves Venezuela as it is- think about that). If it were a coup of Muslims in Israel, their support for BDS indicates they would be onboard with that. Again- supports human rights abusers in Venezuela, but attacks the “Jewish State” and wants a coup of their own against it. Image from Daily Mail

So what if we took it a step further and found that Scalise was following a white nationalist Instagram page? Well, Tlaib follows an anti-Semitic one and Democrats do not care. “The account Tlaib follows shares posts comparing Jews to vermin and Hitler, posts asserting Jews wield an enormous amount of power, and posts claiming Israel “did” 9/11 and supports ISIS.” The same woman who has a map without Israel in her office, who supports the anti-Jew BDS, follows an Instagram page saying all those things. But she’s not anti-Semitic?

Tlaib, in her attacks on the Jewish State, wants to destroy what happens to be the country with the largest Jewish population. Just like Omar. And both have been caught making anti-Semitic remarks while openly supporting attacks on the JEWISH State. They have not been disciplined, no resolutions passed against them, and they still serve on their committees. It’s really starting to look like the Republicans overreacted to Steve King, given how little has happened to Omar and Tlaib, and to bring it on home how little has happened to Democratic supporters of noted anti-Semite Farrakhan.

So, which party is really home of the anti-Semites? Isn’t it really the party of the New York Times, Omar, Tlaib, and Farrakhan (and now Valerie Plame) that harbors and encourages this ideology? A party that seems to be getting more in touch with its roots in hatred? A party that now says you can’t even call out people for the hatreds they express, if they happen to be anti-Semitic and Muslim or anti-Semitic and a minority? Maybe you believe Republicans are anti-Semitic, but unless you have decided that the real world doesn’t exist there’s no way you’re not asking questions about liberals now too! I’d suggest you turn to the Libertarians: the alt-Right and anti-Semitic Far Left hate them so they can’t be all that bad right?

 

 

 

Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 (PlayStation 1996, Sega Saturn and SNES 1997)

You might recall the Sega Saturn edition from previous entries. I thought it was interesting that the Super Nintendo version wouldn’t be released until August 1997, coming behind the Saturn and PlayStation releases by months- there were only 8 SNES games released after it in the U.S., a line which stopped in 1998 (in Japan they kept going right up until November of 2000, less than a year before GameCube was released). Nintendo 64 came out in 1996, 11 months before this game was released on the SNES, which makes me wonder why they didn’t do an N64 release.

the in-game menu on the PlayStation release

Unlike other compilation releases I’ve seen, like the Atari Anniversary one, each port here comes complete with all 6 games: Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout, and Tempest.

Sega Saturn and PlayStation

I’m wanting to say these releases are identical. The only thing that sticks out is this: for Battlezone, the tank controls sort of reflected how real tanks work in that the buttons sort of simulated levers like you’d use to drive one. But I don’t remember dealing with that on the Saturn.

Missile Command on the PlayStation

Otherwise, it’s the same game. Same intro movie, same transitions when you start a game, same documentary. The games emulate the same way- in the documentary they’re claimed to be “arcade perfect”. You wonder how the same game can play differently? Just look at Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Doom on the PlayStation and Saturn. MKT has longer loading times, and while running smoothly on the PlayStation, Doom on the Saturn runs like your system is also trying to download Doom 2016 in the background- a choppy mess.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

You’ll notice that the score isn’t cutoff at the top of the screen on the SNES version.

I only tried two of the games on the SNES. Instead of having a menu to switch between games like on the disc versions, for the SNES you have to reset every time you want to change the game you’re playing. Fortunately the menu loads pretty quick.

The crosshairs for Battlezone flickered in and out of existence on the SNES version

As for emulation, I noticed that it isn’t quite arcade perfect. Missile Command played ok, actually better than the PlayStation as you’ll notice in the screenshots that some parts of the PlayStation screen got cutoff. Battlezone on the other hand didn’t fare so well, it seemed a little sluggish. The best comparison I can think of is that is that it was like playing SNES Doom compared to PlayStation Doom.

Should You Buy It?

It’s the only 16-bit way to play Asteroids, Centipede, and Tempest. Battlezone had a few modernized clones, Missile Command made its way to the Sega Genesis, and Super Breakout had a clone in the form of Arkanoid. I suppose you could argue that Tempest was succeeded by games like HyperZone with the whole “3rd person perspective as you shoot up incoming enemies” notion, but that’s a bit of a stretch in my view.

Usually it’s bad if you see caterpillars coming right at you (centipedes are flat, caterpillars are round like the creature pictured).

As for 32-bit systems? Missile Command and Tempest received updated versions that came out on the Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation. Super Breakout found its way to the Jaguar in an updated form, and another altered version ended up on the PlayStation. Asteroids was remade on the PlayStation. And every game in this collection (plus 6 others) was re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-released for the PlayStation later on in the Atari Anniversary Collection Redux.

Game Boy Advance counts as 32-bit, so here is another release. Like with the PlayStation Atari Anniversary game, all 6 of the games in the Arcade’s Greatest Hits collection are on here. Actually, those are the ONLY six games on here- aside from the added trivia challenge this might as well be just another port of Arcade’s Greatest Hits.