List of SF4 Materials and Attributes

This is just the start of the list, so hopefully I'll be able to add a lot more as time goes on. Everything will be formatted as:

Name/Source:

Material: Plain English

[Hex code]

Attribute: Plain English

[Hex code].

Akuma's eyes:

Material: Emission_W

[45 6D 69 73 73 69 6F 6E 5F 57 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00 00 00]

Attribute: Glare

[47 6C 61 72 65 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 01 00 00 00]

Highly Reflective Metal Effect:

Material: SpcEnv_W or SpcEnvAlpha_W (for use with an alpha channel)

Attribute: ReflectCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 CD CC CC 3E]

ReflectFresnelBias

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 42 69 61 73 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 33 33 33 3F]

ReflectFresnelCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3F]

Medium Reflective Metal Effect:

Material: SpcEnv_W or SpcEnvAlpha_W (for use with an alpha channel)

Attribute: ReflectCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3F]

ReflectFresnelBias

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 42 69 61 73 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 CD CC CC 3D]

ReflectFresnelCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 40]

Minimal Reflective Metal Effect:

Material: SpcEnv_W or SpcEnvAlpha_W (for use with an alpha channel)

Attribute: ReflectCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 CD CC 4C 3D]

ReflectFresnelBias

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 42 69 61 73 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A D7 23 3C]

ReflectFresnelCoeff

[52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 43 6F 65 66 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 CD CC CC 3D]

Works on any non-metal material:

Full Transparency (compatible with DXT5 or DXT1 w/ 1-bit alpha DDS)

Attribute: AlphaTest

[41 6C 70 68 61 74 65 73 74 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 96 00 00 00]

Semi Transparency (only compatible with DXT5 DDS)

Attribute: AlphaBlend

[41 6C 70 68 61 62 6C 65 6E 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 01 00 00 00]

Attribute: AnimationChannel

[41 6E 69 6D 61 74 69 6F 6E 43 68 61 6E 6E 65 6C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 03 00 01 00]

Attribute: ZWriteMask

[5A 57 72 69 74 65 4D 61 73 6B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 01 00 00 00]

Attribute: GlareCol(RGB)

[47 6C 61 72 65 43 6F 6C 52 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 EC 51 78 3F 47 6C 61 72 65 43 6F 6C 47 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 EC 51 78 3F 47 6C 61 72 65 43 6F 6C 42 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 EC 51 78 3F 47 6C 61 72 65 43 6F 6C 41 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3F]

Attribute: LowRes

[4C 6F 77 52 65 7A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 01 00 00 00]

New Arcade Edition-only Materials (vfx-related)

HAKAN's Oiled body: SpcBumpBrushOilSSS_Shadow_UV1_W
HAKAN's Oiled clothes: SpcBumpBrushOilSSS_UV1_W
HAKAN's Oil: T1_C_Scroll_Emission_W

MAKOTO's body turning red: SpcBumpBrushSSS_Col_S_UV1_W
MAKOTO's face turning red: SpcBumpBrushSSS2_Col_UV1_W

EVIL RYU's body emission: SpcBumpBrushEmiMask0_UV1_W

ONI's body emission: SpcBumpBrushEmi_UV1_W
ONI's Right Arm emission: SpcBumpBrushEmi0_UV1_W
ONI's Left Arm emission: SpcBumpBrushEmi1_UV1_W
ONI's Right Leg emission: SpcBumpBrushEmi2_UV1_W
ONI's Left Leg emission: SpcBumpBrushEmi3_UV1_W
ONI's hair emission: SpcBumpBrushEmiAlphaConst_UV1_W
ONI's UC2: SpcBumpBrushEmiMaskConst_UV1_W

Beginner's Guide to SF4 Skinning

There are several tutorials floating around for skinning in Street Fighter 4, namely those by Providenceangle and hornyyoshi, but they were both written fairly early on and have not been updated to reflect new, easier methods. So, here is a definitive guide to creating new skins in SF4:

1. Collecting the Tools

First and foremost, you'll need a painting program. Photoshop is obviously quite common but also very expensive. GIMP is a free alternative that works quite well (it's what I usually use) and you can download it free from here. This tutorial will mainly focus on Photoshop, but I'll include some info for GIMP when possible.

Next, you'll need a plugin for your paint program to allow you to open/modify DDS textures, which are used by SF4. For Photoshop, you can use Nvidia's free Photoshop plugin, available here. If you would rather use free software, GIMP has a DDS plugin available here. I'm not going to cover installing the plugins, but you should be able to find documentation at the respective sites.

You'll also want to download Nvidia's free Windows Texture Viewer tool, which will give you some valuable information about the DDS textures you will extract. You can download it here.

Finally, you'll need to download the latest version of piecemontee's Asset Explorer, which greatly simplifies the whole modding process, from decompressing files to identifying, viewing, extracting and injecting textures. It does it all and you can download it from here.

2. Some basic information

Vanilla SF4 uses two main files to control the appearance of a character:

A. The cos file (stands for costume), which is designated by the character's three-letter name abbreviation (ZGF for Zangief, RYU for Ryu, etc.), a number delineating which costume (01 for original, 02 for Capcom's alternate), the file extension (cos) and the compression container (emz). So, Zangief's original costume will be named ZGF_01.cos.emz.

B. The col file (stands for color), which is similarly designated by the character's three-letter name abbreviation, a number designating which cos file the color goes with (i.e., original costume or alternate), a number delineating which color slot the file occupies (one through ten), the file extension (col) and the compression container (again, emz). So, Zangief's first color for his original costume will be named ZGF_01_01.col.emz.

The cos files primarily contain the 3D model and other embedded files used by the engine to display the body that you see in-game. I won't cover editing any of these files here, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

For simple skinning, you will be entirely focused on the col files, which contain embedded texture files stored in DDS format (hence the need for a DDS plugin).

In AE, the *.emz containers are no longer used, so all of the component files are just sitting inside the character's directory. 3D models are stored in the ***.obj.emo file, while textures are stored in the ***.col.emb file.

3. Using piecemontee's Asset Explorer

The Asset Explorer is the cornerstone of the modding process and it takes the place of offzip, Dragon Unpacker and Infuser, all of which are difficult to use and can be scary for would-be modders.

So, just open up the Asset Explorer and drag a cos file and a corresponding col file which you wish to edit into its left-hand pane. In AE, you would drag over an ***.obj.emo model and a ***.col.emb texture file.

Now, expand the entries for the cos file until you see and entry that says #EMO (HND_01.obj.emo) (HND will be replaced with your character's three-letter abbreviation) and highlight it. As you can see, the program will then load the costume model, which will appear spooky and gray (this is the ambiant occlusion map; nothing to concern yourself with, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness):

To see the col textures applied to the model, use the pulldown menu in the middle of the window to select an option that displays 'texture' (the one at the bottom, 'Shadowed + Ink Shader + Texture + Normal Map' looks the closest to what you would see in-game):

Throughout the skinning process, you can use this to preview your work without loading up the entire SF4 program just to check a small detail.

4. Extracting Textures

Back in the left-hand pane of the Asset Explorer, expand the col file structure (and the entry labeled #EMB (HND_01_01.col.emb)) until you see one or more entries named 'DDS.' If you click on it, the preview window will change to display the texture file:

Once the desired DDS is selected, if you right-click on the DDS entry, you'll see a contextual menu with an option to 'Extract...' Choose it and you will be offered a chance to save the extracted texture as a standalone DDS file. This is what we'll be editing in our paint program and then re-injecting later, so I like to name it something that will tell me its position in the DDS order later, such as "ryu-bag-1.dds" or whatever. At this point, I also like to make a backup of the original DDS texture for future reference.

5. Painting Your Skin

When you open your extracted DDS texture(s) in your paint program, be it Photoshop or GIMP, it will bring up a dialog box asking you some questions. It's fine to skip loading MIP maps and to 'Load Using Default Sizes.'

I won't go over how to use the paint programs here (that's up to you to figure out), but some things to keep in mind:

A. Straight-up 'painted' textures usually look like crap. You're often better off using the hue/saturation tools to change the existing textures (there are obviously plenty of exceptions to this, so try things out and see what you like).

B. Some, though not all, textures include transparency, via what is known as an 'Alpha Channel.' I won't spend much time on it in this tutorial, but it is the cornerstone of another modding trick, known as 'col-based transparency.' I just wanted to mention it here so you're aware of it.

C. Since you'll be applying these textures to curved, irregular models, what looks like a straight line in Photoshop does not always look straight in-game. Frequently check your work in the Asset Explorer to ensure everything looks right and save yourself time and effort later.

6. Saving

Saving is a little more complex than hitting ctrl+S. After you name your file and choose its destination, a new dialog will pop up with a bunch of esoteric options:

We need our new texture to have exactly the same filesize as the original or the game will choke on it and crash. So, we'll want to 'Generate MIP maps' and make sure we select the correct DXT compression from the pulldown menu. Remember that backup I suggested at the end of Step 4? To find out which DXT compression to use, take your backup and open it with Nvidia's Windows Texture Viewer tool:

Along the bottom of the window, we can see the format, in this case, DXT5, so that's what we'll save our new texture as.

7. Injecting Your Texture Into the Col File

Now, back to the Asset Explorer. Navigate to the DDS textures and select the one you wish to replace. Right-click to bring up the contextual menu and, this time, choose 'Inject...' and browse to your new texture. If it complains about the filesize being incorrect, you have messed up something, probably in either resolution or one of the saving options, so go back and try to find your error. If not, you can click back on your model and see how it looks:

That's it. You've made your first skin. Congrats!

Once you feel comfortable with this process, you can move on to hex-editing the col file to create transparency effects or material swapping, making custom Normal Maps and directly editing the 3D mesh model.

"Kabsa" & Roasted Lamb Leg كبسة ريش الضأن مع فخذة الضأن المشوية

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أعلم أنه قد مر الكثير من الوقت على آخر مرة كتبت فيها أعذروني وأتمنى أن تستمتعوا دائماً بما أقدمه لكم، وصفة اليوم محبوبة للكثير من العرب، الكبسة هي وجبة من الوجبات التي تتكون أساساً من الأرز طويل الحبة وهي تقدم في دول الخليج، وتعد الوجبة الرئيسية في السعودية. غالباً ما تكون الكبسة مطهوة مع لحم الضأن أو الماعز أو مع الدجاج. وفي بعض البلدان الخليجية تسمى هذه الوجبة بالمكبوس وتطهى بالإضافة إلى ما سبق مع السمك أو الروبيان (الجمبري). ويوضع معها اللحم وسمن ومكسرات وزبيب، وتعتبر ألذ بلحم الضأن الصغير، هذه الوجبة تعتبر دسمة ومليئة بالدهون ولكنني اليوم قمت بالتقليل من الدهون بشكل كبير واستخدمت زيت الزيتون بدلا من السمن أيضاً، حتى تكون صحية أكثر ولا تسبب مشاكل بسبب كثرة الدهون بها، أحب هذه الوصفة كثيراً وأتمنى أن تحبوها مثلي.

نصيحة الوصفة:

1- لقد استخدمت هنا لحم خروف صغير لم يتعدى عمره 6 أشهر وهو حقاً رائع مع الكبسة، ولكن ربما لن تفضلونه إذا كان الخروف كبير (أكبر من سنة) فإذا لم يتوافر لحم الخروف الصغير يفضل استبداله بلحم بقر صغير أو حتى دجاج (في هذه الحالة نقلل الليمون والحبهان عند استخدام أي لحم غير الضأن).

 2- تم استخدام توابل خاصة بالكبسة، إذا لم تتوافر يتم خلط الآتي لتكوين توابل الكبسة: مقدار من كل من (فلفل اسود مطحون - كاري - كركم - حبهان مطحون) ونصف المقدار من كل من (زنجبيل - كمون - كزبرة).

3- يمكن إضافة المكسرات المرغوب فيها إلى الكبسة ولكنني لم أضف هنا إلا الزبيب فقط.

وقت التحضير: 20 دقيقة + تتبيل الفخذة يحتاج ليلة كاملة ويمكن تتبيلها ليوم كامل

وقت الطهي: حوالي ساعة أو أكثر حسب اللحم المستخدم.

تكفي: 5 أشخاص

I know it's been a while since last post forgive me for that and I hope you always enjoy what present here, today's recipe is really lovable by Most Arabs (if it's not all of them), "Kabsa" is one the long grain rice dishes that are served mostly in in gulf countries, and it's considered as a popular dish in Saudi Arabia. "Kabsa" is usually cooked with lamb or deer or with chicken. "Kabsa" also is called "Makboos" in some gulf countries and sometimes they use fish or shrimps in it. This dish contains (meat - fat (Ghee) - nuts - raisins) and it's much better with small lamb meat. This dish is usually full of fat but in this recipe I decreased the fat so much, I didn't use Ghee I used olive oil instead and not much, to make it healthier without causing problems from high fat. I love this recipe so much and I hope you love it too.

Recipe tips:

1- I used small lamb meat (not older than 6 months) and it's really yummy with Kabsa, but you may not like it if the lamb is older than a year, so if you don't have it available you can use small beef meat or even chicken, but in this case you have to reduce the cardamom and lemon in meat other than lamb.

2- I used "Kabsa spices" so if it's not available to you just mix the following: one measure of each (ground black pepper - curry - turmeric - ground cardamom) and half measure of each (ginger - cumin - coriander).

3- You can add nuts as you want but I only used raisins here (my husband hates nuts in rice :( ).

Prep. time: 20 min. + the time you marinate the meat (up to 24 hours).

Cooking time: about 90 min. depending on the meat you use.

Serves: 5 people.

Click here for the recipe اضغط هنا للوصفة »

How to Extract SSF4 Data From an Xbox 360 ISO

For people who want to get into using files from Super Street Fighter 4 on Xbox 360 with their PC version of vanilla Street Fighter 4, you have to go through a number of steps that have never been appropriately documented, so here goes:

1. Collecting the right tools for the job

First off, you need a copy of SSF4 in ISO format. I don't want to know how you get it, but I recommend purchasing it and then ripping it to your PC using the 'hot swap' method.

Next, we need a copy of isoextract, which extacts the data from the 360 disc image. You can download it here or here.

We also need QuickBMS, a script-based file extractor written by Luigi Auriemma, as well as a script to use with it. You can get QuickBMS here and the extraction script here or here.

2. Extracting the ISO

Open up isoextract and you should see this screen:

Using the buttons on the upper-right, click on 'choose ISO-folder' and navigate to the directory where your SSF4 ISO is stored. Next, click on 'choose destination' and select a directory where you want your extracted files to reside.

Then, just click the big button marked 'go' down in the bottom right.

Now, once it's all finished, if you navigate to your extraction directory, you'll find it has created a directory structure from the disc. Go to archive > battle and you should see a file named 'battle.eaf.' This guy has all of the goodies, so we gotta get them out using QuickBMS.

3. Extracting the files

Open QuickBMS and it should pop up a console window like this:

It should also automatically pop up an explorer window, which you can use to navigate to the QuickBMS script we got back in Step 1.

Next, it will pop up another explorer window, which we will use to navigate to our battle.eaf file.

Then, it will pop up a final explorer window, which we will use to select our output directory. I just chose that same 'battle' directory.

Now, back in the console window, you should see a whole bunch of output stream by, listing the files that are being extracted.

That's it. You're done. You should have a complete file structure available now, with access to all of the proper files, including character and stage data. Most of this can be opened with the latest version of piecemontee's Asset Explorer, using the new support for big-endian files.

SF4 Beginners Guide to Material Attribute Swapping

Credit for this tutorial goes to alekqz, I just cleaned it up a bit.

This tutorial will show you how to give a body part a reflective, metallic look, but a similar process can be used to grab other materials, such as Akuma's glowing eyes.

1. First, open a *.cos.emz file using piecemontee's Asset Explorer and look for the body part you wish to modify, in this case, Zangief's upper body:

Take note of the name used to reference the body part, in this case, 'body.'

2. Next, open a decompressed *.col.emz file in a hex editor (I use the free Frhed, but any hex editor will work) and search for that body part name:

Below the name, you will find the material type attribute, usually something like SpcBumpBrush with some more letters and stuff after it, like this:

3. Now, we want to overwrite that material type with 'SpcEnv_W.' In hex, we want to paste in (53 70 63 45 6E 76 5F 57 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1E 00 00 00).

As with all hex-editing in SF4, it's very important that you overwrite because the resulting files must be *exactly* the same size as the original or the game will crash. It should look like this when we're finished:

4. Next, we need to scroll down to the bottom of that section, just before the next section starts, and look for BrushA, BrushB and BrushC, like this:

We want to replaces those Brush entries with ReflectCoeff (52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 43 6F 65 66 66), ReflectFresnelBias (52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 42 69 61 73) and ReflectFresnelCoeff (3C 52 65 66 6C 65 63 74 46 72 65 73 6E 65 6C 43 6F 65 66 66), respectively (forgive the typo in the pictures; it's Fresnel, not Fesnel):

5. Finally, in the case of metal effects, we have to choose how reflective we want to make the material (also known as 'specularity'). This is controlled by modifying the spaces after the Reflect* entries. For a chrome-type effect, change the last 2 numbers in each section to @ symbols (40 40), like this:

For an enamel-type effect, the last 2 numbers after ReflectCoeff and ReflectFresnelCoeff need to be a Euro symbol and a question mark, like this (the last 2 after ReflectFresnelBias should be blank--or 00 00 in hex):

For a polished effect, the last 4 numbers of the sections need to be changed to the hex code of (CD CC CC 3D), (CD CC CC 3D) and (66 66 66 3F), respectively, like this:

Save your file and you're done!

These are the only 3 metal effects known so far, but there may be more, so be adventurous! Experiment!

Update 10/18/2010: sensibeat tracked down 3 more metal effects:

metal_gold (less reflective):
ReflectCoeff ÍÌL= (CD CC 4C 3D)
ReflectFresnelBias .×#< (0A D7 23 3C)
ReflectFresnelCoeff ÍÌÌ= (CD CC CC 3D)

metal_silver (more reflective):
ReflectCoeff €? (80 3F)
ReflectFresnelBias ÍÌÌ= (CD CC CC 3D)
ReflectFresnelCoeff €@ (80 40)

crystal (highly reflective, mirror-like):
ReflectCoeff ÍÌÌ> (CD CC CC 3E)
ReflectFresnelBias 333? (33 33 33 3F)
ReflectFresnelCoeff ? (3F)

One word of caution: you'll want to modify the DDS textures to look like whatever material you're trying to mimic but don't make it too dark, as the reflection can make it hard to see.

Bulgur Stuffed Roast Chicken طريقة دجاجة محشية مشوية بالفرن

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هل تعلم أنه لا يجب أبداً إذابة الدواجن المتجمدة في درجة حرارة الغرفة؟ نعم، هذا صحيح، لأن البكتيريا التي تنتقل عبر الغذاء تنمو بسرعة في درجات الحرارة الدافئة، فدرجات الحرارة من 4.4°مئوية إلى 60°مئوية تعتبر في منطقة الخطر، لذا يجب إذابة الدواجن في الثلاجة وذلك بوضعها في طبق ونقوم بتغطيتها ونتركها تذوب تدريجياً في الثلاجة، كما لا يجب طهي الدواجن وهي لم تذب كلياً فذلك يمنع الطهي المتساوي. من المهم أيضاً أن نعلم أنه لا يجب أبداً أن يتم تحضير الدجاج وتقطيعه بالقرب من الطعام الذي سيؤكل نيئ كالخضروات أو السلطة، للحفاظ على سلامتنا من البكتيريا الضارة.

في  هذه الوصفة قمت بحشي الدجاجة بالبرغل، فأنا أحب طعم البرغل كثيراً في الدواجن المحشية كالدجاج والحمام (إذا كنت قد قمت بزيارة مصر فبالتأكيد قد سمعت عن الطبق  المصري الشهير >> الحمام المحشي، أحب هذه الأكلة كثيرا).

في هذه الوصفة قمت بتتبيل الدجاجة قبل الطهي مباشرة، إذا كان هناك وقت كافي يمكنك مضاعفة مقادير التتبيلة ووضع الدجاجة في الثلاجة لمدة ساعتين أو لثاني يوم.

ملحوظة: هذا الطبق يمكن تقديمه مع خضار مسلوق أو على البخار أو سلطة.

الوصفة تكفي: 3 أشخاص تقريباً

مدة التحضير: 20 دقيقة

مدة الطـهـــي: من 70 إلى 90 دقيقة

Do you know that frozen poultry should never be thawed at room temperature? Yes, it's true, because food-borne bacteria grows very quickly in warm temperatures. Temperatures between 40°F (4.4°C) and 140°F (60°C) are considered to be in the "danger zone". So when you take poultry out of the freezer, it should be placed onto a plate, covered, and gradually thawed in the fridge, also it should never be cooked when it is still partly frozen, as it will cook unevenly. It's also important to know that should never be prepared near any foods that will be eaten raw.

To learn more about poultry fundamentals click here to redeem a free (14-days) trial from Food Lover at RouxBe cooking school, then go check out the lesson here.

In this dish, I'm going to use bulgur to stuff the chicken, I love the taste of bulgur in poultry, like chicken and pigeon (if you have been to Egypt, sure you did hear about the famous Egyptian dish >> roasted stuffed pigeon, I LOVE this dish).

In this recipe I rubbed the chicken with onion directly before cooking, if you have enough time you can marinate it for some time, just double the marinade amount and leave it in the fridge for 2 hours or even all night.

Tip: You can serve this dish with salad or sauteed vegetables.

Serves: 3 people approx.

Prepare time: 20 minutes.

Cooking time: from 70 to 90 minutes.

Click here for the recipe اضغط هنا للوصفة »

Refutation of G4TV's Metroid: Other M Review

I just got done reading a review of Metroid: Other M by g4tv.com and had a number of disagreements with the author, so I thought I would address them here.

The author takes the stance that, not only is the game technically bad and unfun, but the story presents Samus as a childish, vulnerable brat pining for male validation, thereby shattering her image as a tough, feminist role model, unique amid the sea of helpless-princess-bimbos in video games.

From a technical standpoint, I thought the game was fun and felt like a real sequel to Super Metroid, which the Prime series was never able to do. I agree that the IR-driven scanning/missile dynamic is a little frustrating at times, but I thought it was a decent way to sort of bridge the first-person Prime series and the traditional sidescrolling entries.

The missile/health regeneration dynamic is also a little strange in the context of the series, but it's just a fact of modern combat games, in my opinion. I don't like it in Halo/Gears of War/Modern Warfare/Generic SHOOTAN GAEMS either, but I can live with it.

As for the storyline, this game was much more story-driven than previous games, which often featured no dialog (or really even characters) at all. Now, this is an important point: in previous games, Samus was a (nearly) silent protagonist and it was largely up to the player to decide whether her silence was stoicism or something else entirely.

First off, the g4 reviewer takes issue with the fact that Samus doesn't discover her weapons throughout the environment as she did in previous games, and instead is holding them back on order of her former commanding officer. While the reviewer described this dynamic as "painfully stupid," I find it less so than it would have been to find a bunch of suit-compatible Chozo artifacts scattered around the game's setting, which is just a Federation ship and not an ancient planet. I guess a more satisfying (to me) option would have been for her to decide on her own when she needed to use the items, but that wouldn't make much sense either (why would she *not* use a super missile to open a stubborn door and thus ruin the whole 'metroidvania' mechanic?).

As for the story, I have some significant disagreements with the reviewer's interpretation. She seems to want Samus to be a butch, emotionally void ass-whupper--of which there is no shortage in video games--with her sex being the only discernible difference from Halo's Master Chief. I think this view is belied by previous games, though, where she shows compassion for the baby metroid and allows it to cling to her rather than just blasting it when she has the chance.

Likewise, the reviewer interpreted her deference to Adam Malkovich as weakness, where I saw it as an effort to show respect when she previously had not. She left his command to become a bounty hunter in the first place, so--when she encounters him and her former squadmates at the start of this game--she follows his commands by her own choice. In the cutscenes, we see that she didn't follow his orders very well when she was a cadet, so to follow his orders of her own volition shows maturity, not childishness. Plus, part of the story is that she is reliving painful events from her past in a sort of brutal alien Groundhog Day, which causes her to reexamine her youthful indiscretions.

The reviewer states, "Confronted by her longstanding nemesis, Ridley, [Samus] is spliced into flashes of a little girl, crying and afraid, despite the fact [that] she has already defeated Ridley at least FOUR times already, once when he was a powerful robot." I took issue with this statement because, in an earlier cutscene, Samus mentions her relief that her nemesis was killed in the blast that destroyed Zebes. And then, when she finds Ridley resurrected, she is naturally taken aback and experiences a moment of paralysis as she experiences flashes of her childhood encounter with him. This does not seem out of place to me. Perhaps out of character, but as I said before: she never really had any character to begin with, except what we projected on her from our own imaginations.

In Metroid: Other M, a partial reboot of the series, we get a view into the backstory and motivations of gaming's baddest bitch, but it turns out she's not as badassed as some people thought or would have liked. Perhaps this insight into her mind/feelings was a bad choice on the part of her developers, akin to giving Gordon Freeman a bland voiceover and cornball catch-phrases, but I didn't think it was that bad. Instead, I thought it provided a modicum of motivation to see the story progress rather than the same ol' mindless backtracking to pick up that just-out-of-reach missile pack.

I will concede that I thought the "military obfuscation" aspect of the story was just kinda dropped for the most part toward the end of the game, and I would have liked to see it explored more fully, rather than focusing so much on Samus' feelings. Nevertheless, I found the entire experience to be satisfying and a good, faithful addition to the series.

It's interesting that Nintendo catches a lot of flack for not pushing their games into new directions, yet every time they try, they get slammed for destroying people's preconceived notions of the characters. However, these characters were created at a time when any personalities had to be inferred due to technical limitations, and--as we've all seen with book-to-movie conversions--the "Hollywood" version never stands up to our own imaginations.