Power On - Episode 1

First video Review!

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Something goes horribly wrong when Beanie attempts to review a horror movie. Has he been sucked in? What will become of him? Will he get out or will he forever be the prisoner of his tormentor?

Attack on Horror Games

Also in keeping in with the season, I thought I'd do a review of the genre pertaining to horror video games.

I'll admit that I am not a big fan of Horror games, for a few reasons:

1, they're not scary

2, the story usually sucks

3, the controls are usually overly comlicated

4, what constitutes a "horror" game anywhay?

As I said, I am not a fan of these types of games; therefore, I haven't played many either. Among the ones I have played are some of the Resident Evil(Biohazard) and Silent Hill games. Even Devil May Cry, but I wouldn't really call that horror (even though it deals with demons and junk) But the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games are really the ones that carved out the genre we all know. And lets just say, because of them I'm not a fan of horror games.

In Resident Evil, you play either a male or female S.T.A.R.S. operative (mostly) there has been an outbreak of the T-Virus which causes the deceased to become reanimated and crave to feed on the flesh of the living, and in some cases cause severe mutation. Simple enough. So what's the problem? Well ya see, this game would technically be called an over the shoulder action shooter game because that's what it is. It just so happens that there are zombies and monsters running around. The controls are terrible(which IS the main reason I stopped playing the games) I mean really, I have to press the directional right or left buttons and then the down button to turn around (fully rotate the analogue stick once available) that's utter bull! I want to be able to turn at a moments notice in the direction I need to go. And don't say the technology wasn't there. There were plenty of games around that time that allowed instant direction change. It's a hinderance to have to fully control the turn. When zombies are pouring into the hallway I want to be able to run not pivot slowly while they draw nearer. It doesn't make sense.

Now like I said, I think this game series more accurately belongs in the action genre and not the horror genre. it's not that scary. "Yes it is," you say? Take a closer look. What is really scary about it? Monsters? Non horror games have monsters and its not scary. Zombies? Just think of them as a mass of slow moving targets. They aren't scary, there's just way too many of them. That can go for any action game too. When you're surrounded by dozens of enemies(no matter what kind they are) you get anxious. Then is it the fact that things pop out at you? The classic jump scare. All games nowadays and even back then had moments where something unexpected jumped out at you. Especially action games. You're walking along a path, or through a clearing minding your own business when BAM! monster. Resident evil is just an action game with zombies in the dark.

One of my most anticipated horror games coming out is Saw. Now I haven't played it yet so I can't really include it in this review, but I will say it seems scary from the footage I've seen. If you've seen any of the movies, you know the drill about how it works. You play a person who has to go through Jigsaw's maze of death traps. And at any moment you could to the wrong thing and BAM! dead. It seems to have an uber dark atmosphere like the movies, where you're not entirely sure what is in the shadows. I'm sure there will be some jump scares as well, but it is not an action game. Saw is a puzzle solving game. You must think in order to survive. The problem here is that once you've figured out the puzzle it lessens the replay value of the game. (that's the problem with all puzzle games, but I still play them) I will definitely play this game because its not an action game masking itself as a horror game.

Now that i've talked about the horror game genre, I'd like to illustrate the top 6 of my favorite scary moments out of video games (not just horror games) Carefull there may be spoilers ahead...

#6 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - During the final act of the game, Raiden - after being captured and robbed of his gear - must sneak through the Tron-looking facility butt naked. It is then that he begins to receive abnormal codec calls from the Colonel. In these calls, the colonel's voice becomes distorted as if he's mechanical. The calls also range from him giving you mission orders from the previous games, to him talking about being abducted by aliens. But the Scariest moment is the first call. Raiden - butt naked covering his junk - runs up a flight of stairs. And the colonel calls saying, "Raiden, turn the game consol off right now... The mission is a failure, cut the power right now... Don't worry, it's a game. It's a game like usual..."

"You'll ruin your eyes playing so close to the TV..." interjects Rosemary. Now a videogame telling you to turn it off is pretty out there, but think about this. Like me, most people who played this game probably played straight through with no stops(except potty breaks hopefully) and reached this point of the game after about 20 hours, probably between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning. Running only on adrenaline and the drive to beat the game, they (and me) were extremely exhausted when this was dropped on them. I was terrified. The Colonel, the man guiding me through the game suddenly tells me that I've done something wrong and should turn off the game. And to top that, every now and then his face disappears and you can see his skull. WTF! It terrified me so much that I wont even look at the screen at that part of the game. Now to be fair, this is not as effective a scare when you play it at noon in the bright daylight. You can tell that the designers knew that people would play straight through the first time and reach that point in the still dark of 2:00 am tired and unwary. It still freaks me out tho.

#5 Metal Gear Solid - About halfway through the game you run into the boss character Psycho Mantis. At this point in the game you've already fought 2 bosses, so you're getting a little cocky. Well the game has a surprise for you. Apart from Mantis reading your memory card and moving the shock controller(which I still think is neat) you're not intimidated by his tricks and you're ready for what ever he throws at you. Or are you? The fight begins, you hear Mantis' creepy laugh and BAM! the screen goes black. A word pops on the screen "video" and you think, omg I turned off the game at a crucial point and like mantis said I havn't saved in such a long time! After a moment the screen comes back on and You see that you didn't turn the game off, but something's missing. Where is mantis? He's gone. You just have time to think, "wha't going on here," when BAM! mantis attacks you. That guy is invisible! SOB! After a few minutes of dodging his invisible attacks he reappears. Now it's on! You pull out your trust SOCOM and open fire. Wait. He dodges all of the bullets! What the hell! BAM! screen goes black again. The word video is back, but wait... it doesn't say video it says Hideo. For those of you who don't know (and shame on you for that) Hideo Kojima is the creator of the Metal Gear Franchise. So it is all to mess with the player. It really shoots down your confidence. I was 12 when I played the game for the first time, (again really late at night) it freaked me out beyond belief, now I've beaten the game so many times it doesn't even bother me, but it still remains one of the most terrifying moments of my gaming history.

#4 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Around 2/3 of the way through the game, snake is captured, and tortured, ultimately losing his eye in the process. Afterwards Snake is held in a dingy cell and fed rotten food. I need to take this moment to explain a side aspect of the game. Every time you enter a new area and save the game Paramedic will enlighten you with a synopsis of a movie she's seen (generally science fiction) this will conclude with a witty banter by Snake which annoys paramedic. If you save the game while snake is in the cell, paramedic will tell Snake about dracula, and we find out that snake is afraid of vampires. What's the scary part, you ask? Well, I actually found this by accident. It only happens if you load the saved game from the cell. I had to stop playing because it was dinner time, and my family went out to eat. It had been a few hours since i had played, by the time I started again it was pretty late at night (again 2-3 am) I loaded the game expecting to just escape the cell and continue on my way. I loaded the game whenBAM! I was playing a completely different game. I was no longer snake. I looked more like Dante from Devil May Cry or something similar. I was in a warehouse being attacked by monsters dressed like cops. They were wolfish and large, but I had 2 sword-like weapons and began to tear into them, eventually if you kill enough monsters you transform, your hair becomes white, and instead of swords, you use your bare hands to tear the monsters in half with blood gushing. You also bound around on all fours. You eventually go back to normal. and the screen fades. Snake wakes up in the cell after having a nightmare. I was shocked and terrified when this happened. Now I just think of it as cool, and play that section on purpose.

#3 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Halfway through the game you initiate a boss fight with a sniper called The End. This fight takes place in 3 areas. The End is a terrifyingly good shot, but that's not what makes this moment terrifying. There is no music during the boss fight (there's actiony music in every other boss fight in all of the games) The weather changes from calm and sunny, to a heavy rain, and to fog. The End is perfectly camouflaged to blend into the environment and he could be anywhere just waiting for you to come by so he can shoot you, which he will if you just go running around. And if you think you can wait him out, you're wrong. He doesn't move until either he shoots you or you shoot him. (he does fall alseep tho, which makes it easier for you to move in on him) He also can sneak up behind you. which is the most terrifying. You can only see one direction at a time. Sometimes you need to use First Person Perspective to find him, but that's when he'll sneak up on you. This and his creepy voice echoing through the valley, make The End one of the scariest bad guys in MGS. But like with mantis, once you've gotten through it enough times it means little.

#2 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - I know i've got a lot of it here, but seriously the Metal Gear Series is closer to a horror game that resident evil is. After Snake escapes the cell, he has to get across the fortress without equipment, then run through a sewer being chased by dogs. He eventually leaps down a waterfall and gets pulled downstream. He wakes up and all of the trees surrounding the river are ablaze. Freaky, but not scary yet. It begins to rain, which puts out the fire, and your next boss emerges. He is levitating (which isn't really scary considering the amount of levitating/flying bosses in MGS) He also has a creepy voice(but a great one) This boss is the Sorrow, at this point in the game he has popped in and out on several occasions, and it seems that Snake is the only one who can see him. One the boss fight starts. I know you're expecting me to say BAm again, well not this time. The boss fight eases to its start. It is pouring down rain, snake is waist deep in water, and The Sorrow is floating around infront of you. But wait. The Sorrow has no health. I can totally take this guy. I fire the only gun I have after the escape which is a Single Action Army Colt. But nothing happens, The Sorrow is immune to bullets, what Kind of fight is this? Are you serious? I can't kill this guy? so I walk forward and he floats back, I'm thinking that maybe I can punch him. You can! but again it doesn't kill him. He disappears and reappears further away from you. Slowly as you progress down/up the river (immersed in creepy music) you begin to notice ghostly soldiers approach you. They're slow, kind of like zombies, but unlike zombies, these are ghosts and cannont be killed again. After a short while you realize that these are every soldier you've killed up till this point. And I mean EVERY. Depending on how many people you kill, the time of this segment is longer or shorter. If you havn't killed anyone, only the bosses appear, but if you're like me back then, you killed every hapless person who crossed your path and you had to spend upwards of 15-20 minutes wading through the vengeful spirits. And they do hurt you if you touch them. After you finally get past the hundreds of dead and the bosses, you're finally alone with Sorrow. Now I can finally hurt him right? I'll just calmly walk up to him... BAM! I died?! how did I die? did I do something wrong? How am I supposed to beat someone who can't be hurt by bullets and can't touch? You don't. That's right, this is an unwinable fight. If you cycle through you're inventory at the game over screen, you realize that you're not dead, you're fake dead. Which is something else I'll have to explain. See in the game, Snake has pills that send him into a state of apparent death. this fools the enemy into thinking you're really dead, and they leave you alone. To revive yourself, you have a pill that does that also. You can use it once you die in the river. Now as with quite a few of the other moments on this list, I reached this point of the game really late at night, while I was tired. But even still, facing the spirits of every person you killed in the game as a "boss fight" is frightening.

and now the #1 scary moment in my gaming history... Shadow Of The Colossus. Just Shadow Of The Colossus. The whole game is terrifying. Ok the premise of the game is that you're character brings his beloved to a sacred shrine to bring her back to life. In order to do this you must fight 16 colossi that are hidden throughout the land. And The area of land that you have to search rivals that of San Andreas and Mercenaries. You are all alone except for your trusty horse. All you have is a mystical sword that lights your path, and you are sent out into this vast expanse of changing landscape (featuring everything from beach, to forest, to desert) in search for the 16 Colossi.At first you think yeah, I can do this, no problem. But then after a while into your journey, the vast emptiness and ocasional entrance of the quite creepy music begin to make you think that at any moment something horrible is about to spring out and eat your lunch. I'm going to be very clear on this point - the only monsters you have to fight are the colossi, there are no other enemies in this game. But the mood it sets really scares you. And there is a reason that the monsters are called colossi. Apart from a couple that are roughly the size of small elephants, most range in size from 3-5 story buildings, to battle ships and planes, and they only get larger from their. the final four as I like to call them are the largest monsters I've ever seen in a game(tho I av not played resistance 2 nor lost planet 2, but the final colossus is still larger than the laviathon and the massive akrid shown in the trailers) but it is still the mood and the fact that you don't know when you'll run into the next colossus. (one thing that i dont like in that reguard is that there is only one colossus out and about at a time. I think to make it truly terrifying, they should all be walking around at the same time, it's just you can't get to some as of yet. Shadow of the Colossus is a puzzle solving game, where you have to figure out how to defeat the colossi, but what sets it apart is that, after you kill them, the scene that follows is full of remorsefully toned music and you begin to question whether what you're doing is right. The physical marks become more prominent on your character as well, you grow horns, and you become pale with weird demonic markings all over you. With just the scope of the game and the creative gameplay, as well as the terror mood it immerses you into, This is my number 1 scariest moment in gaming.

I hope you enjoyed that, be on the lookout for the next review. Maybe even a video or 2.

Attack on Horror Movies

What is it about human beings that we constantly desire to be scared out of our wits?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just listen. Children love to jump out and scare each other; this does not always phase out as they grow older. I know some grown men that still pop around corners flailing their arms and screeching at the top of their lungs. Also, there are amusement parks, water parks, and countless annual fairs featuring rides so jerky and fast that you pee your pants before it starts. Yet we constantly desire to ride them.

One theory is that people enjoy the adrenalin rush from the fear and excitement. Are we insane? We desire to put ourselves in harms way just for a high we get afterwards? Raise your hands; How many of you played chicken? Now, How many of you played chicken on a bicycle? Now, how many of you played chicken on a bicycle against a train? I knew it. A good many of you raised your hands at each question. What is wrong with us? That's right, I said "Us." I've done quite a few reckless and irresponsible things in my day. And that includes taking a bicycle down a bumpy hill while holding sharp implements.

But physical fear is not the only way we can lose our wits, And seeing that it's nearing Halloween, I think its fitting that I talk about one of the most common ways we as human beings scare ourselves. Horror Movies.

Over the last century, horror movies have played a big part in the development of cinema as we know it. But what exactly is a horror movie? According to Wikipedia, "Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror, and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural, or mental illness." Sounds good to me. But we also run into our first problem. Not everyone finds the same things scary. What's frightfully terrifying to one person may only be mildly annoying to someone else.

People are scared of different things. Someone with coulrophobia will be terrified of any thing dealing with clowns, but may not be scared of spiders like the person with arachnophobia. Which is why "phobia" movies don't really do well.

There's your good old-fashioned monster movie, but many of these can just appear cheesy and or not frightening at all. Some of these can even become action movies rather than scary monster movies such as Aliens, Predator, Cloverfield, even Godzilla.

Well there are movies based on horror novels. But many of these are never true to the original works or are just plain not scary. I've never seen a true rendition of Frankenstein that was anywhere close to Mary Shelley's book. Victor Frankenstein was a college student who was experimenting with alchemy not a full-fledged doctor studying scientific research. He didn't make the creature(not monster) in an underground laboratory in his family castle; he made the creature in his upstairs apartment in the city where he was attending college.

Now we come to tragedy movies. They just plain suck.

Moving on.

Haunting movies, whether or not these are based on "true events" does not change the fact that ghost movies are so cliched they're not original anymore. Come on, seriously. A family moves into a haunted house, the children notice things first, it's not until one of the children die or get harmed in some way that the parent/s notice. Things get worse toward the end of act 2, in act 3 we either get help from a priest, voodoo man, or some such thing, but the main character takes it into their own hands and nothing ever really gets solved; either the family moves away and tries to forget what happened, everyone dies, or the ghost go away. Its the same in just about every ghost movie, except a few which I like; The Sixth Sense is one of the most unique ghost movies I've ever seen. But even it, still has elements of the cliches.

Now we come to the most popular "scary" movie subgenre: Slasher/ serial killer movies. Another genre riddled with cliches. Pretty much if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Same concept - a small group/ family are systematically hunted down by one killer, who kills almost all of them, usually there is a heroine (female hero for those who don't know) I don't recall seeing one where there was a hero, unless you count Batman I guess (it follows a similar path, don't believe me? just watch them closely and see the similarities) the heroine will overcome her fear and take down the bad guy after everyone else except maybe one person (either the love interest or best friend) dies. Like I said, if you've seen one slasher flick, you've seen them all. Although there is one movie I've seen that has taken the subgenre and ran with it to an extreme and even points out the "horror" moments to the audience in a clever way. Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon is awesome in that aspect, and I highly recommend seeing it.

Branching off from the slasher movie subgenre is yet another subbier genre. That is torture horror movies (or torture porn as some critics have called it). Basically the whole movie shows numerous people getting maimed and killed in horrifically graphic ways. These movies are full of gor, nudity, and helpless people who can't do a thing to save themselves because they're scared witless. Personally I don't really mind the gor so much as long as it is done artistically and not just a blood fest. But the thing is, in some of these movies, the victims are actually bad guys, and you end up rooting for them to die. That's messed up isn't it. The movie is justifying the deaths of the people by shoeing us their heinous crimes. So who's really the bad guy; the torturer or the victims? Either way, these movies can sometimes be enjoyable on a different level. One of the best examples is the first Saw movie. It had a dark and complex story that showed how everything was intertwined and connected and how these people are forced to see the error of their ways through torture. The later ones I don't like so much, they've basically made it so everything in all six movies are weaved together and joined, which is neat, but it requires you to remember every detail of all six movies. (I know six isn't out yet, but I guarantee you that it will harken back to at least something from the previous five.

Apart from those, what else is there? Well now we get to my favorite type of horror movie. Psychological horror/thriller movies. I really haven't seen to many good examples in live action movies, but there are some anime movies that really take the cake. I'll describe 2 of them, these happen to be 2 of my all-time favorite movies. The first is the original Ghost In The Shell. It takes place in the not to distant future, where technology has advanced such that people can have there "souls" basically and memories downloaded onto a cybernetic brain and can be put into whatever body they choose. AWESOME! The story centers around a secret police organization that deals with cybernetic terrorism. Criminals can hack into other peoples' bodies and force them to commit crimes. AWESOME! One particularly bad ass hacker is going on a massive crime spree. He calls himself the Puppet Master, and no one knows who he is, not even the american government (who hired him to begin with) AWESOME! The majority of the movie focuses on a hot female cyborg who leads this secret police and her quest to understand herself and her possible connection to the Puppet Master. It's not really a scary movie, but it is full of suspense and anticipation as you follow the cyborg on her journey.

The other movie that is a prime example of psychological thriller is Perfect Blue. This is also an anime movie. The story centers around a former pop star who attempts to form an acting career. Her fans don't take kindly to this and she even gets threatening emails from them. Her manager leads her further down the path of stardom and Mima(the pop star) has to make many compromising choices, including being rape(in a scene for the TV show she's in, not physically) posing nude for a magazine photographer, and being detached almost entirely from her former band. As the movie goes on, someone claiming to be her runs a website and knows exactly what she does everyday(as if someone is stalking her), people involved in these less than modest events wind up dead, and to top that Mima keeps seeing visions of the pop-star her tormenting her and committing the murders, Mima loses her grip on reality and eventually she can't tell the difference between her nightmares and her real life. The climax has such a twist that it'll blow your mind, and the sound track is so dissonent that it ads to the breakdown and you start to wonder which is real and a figment of Mima's imagination.

I highly recommend both movies.

Well there's my attack on horror movies. Many are just re-hashings of cliches and other peoples visions, but there are some that decide to take a step out of conformity and try something fresh. And those are always worth it.

Not Really an Attack... again

Hi all. Random Ninja here again with an all too familiar tale.

Remember a few months ago when I told you the tale of my lost filling and the quest for a DDS? Well, just recently I lost another filling... the SAME filling to be exact! THE SAME FILLING! How is that possible, it has only been a few months and the replacement filling crapped out. I mean what kind of shoddy work was that. I wasn't even eating anything hard or corrosive. It popped out while eating a piece of boneless chicken. BONE-LESS. You know, the soft savoury kind. I was just eating it, la-de-da, minding my own business when, pop, it comes out. Well that sent me into a fit of rage I've not been in for some time.

With the shoddy work from the previous DDS (which shall remain nameless) I opted to instead use my regular dentist back home. Unfortunately I would have to wait a few weeks before I could be "worked" in.

Two Weeks of avoiding getting food and crud in the GAPING HOLE in my tooth. That was fun. But I somehow made it with no problems and was able to see the dentist who promptly stuck that fabulous needle filled with novocaine into my inner cheek. Then he decided to ask me about my career plans and how my life was going. Why is it that dentists decide that it's time for a chat right after they stick you with the numb.

While I was numb, the dentist did what the other one should have done. Re-drill the hole and then refill it. I thought I was done, but it turned out that I had two more cavities that needed tending to. However, they had to be done the next day. Why couldn't they be done right then and there. I mean don't they already have the tools and equipment out? It would've taken another five-ten minutes. Anywhay, I had to go back the next day and get those done.

They were on different sides my mouth, so I got double doses of novocaine. AWESOME!

My face was numb ALL day. So far, the fillings are doing well. Be on the lookout for the first video log, coming soon.

Updates!

Coming soon to Random Ninja Attack:

Vlogs.

I am currently in the process of filming video logs which will be included on this blog and my youtube channel therandomninja5. These videos will be random attacks on things just like my blog posts. I hope you will all enjoy them.

Attack on Stupidity #2

Here I am again with another observation into the world of the stupid.

Today I sat and observed a set of doors for a few hours.

To give you a better Idea of where I was. Think of a patio on the back side of a building with about a dozen tables. There are two double doors that lead into the building. Now this building is closed on sunday. EVERY sunday. This building is on a college campus, and we are half-way through the semester so there should be no excuse for not knowing that this building is closed on sunday. Now to be fair, the entire building is not closed, but the main part is.

In the course of lets say two hours, I witnessed no less than 50 people attempt to gain access to the building. Not all at once of course. Usually they were in small groups. And sometimes the groups would approach frequently.

Let me illustrate the scene... It's mid afternoon and a soft rain is falling. A group of girls approaches the double doors. The try the closest door. It doesn't budge. The accompanying door. Nothing. They pause and sigh a profanity. After a moment they try the other set of double doors. Almost immediately another group of people come walking up, chatting amongst themselves. They try the closest door just after the first group fail to open the second set of doors. More profanity ensues.

Ok they were just going to go through the building, but seriously groups would come one right after the other and try the exact same door as the people before them. and be surprised when even though it didn't open for the other groups, it wouldn't open for them.

But there were people utterly shocked that the building was closed on sunday. Even though it was already established that the building is closed on sunday.

Just for kicks, I propped one of the doors open. Would you believe that everyone tried the closer door rather than the one that appeared to be slightly open. They got mad that the door they went to was locked. Some people looked as if they were going to break the door down by pulling it of the hinges or something. I almost laughed a few times.

A get this. the building in question contains a Chik-fil-A. All Chik-fil-As are closed on sunday. How can you go to one and be surprised when its closed on a sunday.

One person even asked me "why the door won't open."

All I could do was shake my head and say was "It's locked"

Attack On "Mexican" food

I'm sure just about everyone has been to at least one Mexican restaurant in their lives. Or at least has been to a fast-food Mexican restaurant(i.e. Taco Bell, Taco Casa, and any other variety of Taco Huts) I LOVE Mexican Food. But the thing is; the food you get a 90% of these restaurants isn't really mexican food. Mexicans don't only eat tacos, burritos, etc. Mexican food is very flavorful and spicy, but still unique.

Last night I ate at a "Mexican" restaurant. The atmosphere was warm and the air smelled of the delicious aromas I'd expect from that kind of establishment. I got my first notion that this wasn't really a mexican restaurant when I sat down. The waiter was Caucasian. Not that I'm against diversity, but anyway. The chips were covered in the powdered "taco seasoning" that you can buy at grocery stores such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc. Ok, I'll accept that. Sometimes, you want to liven up the chips by themselves without the aid of salsa. Then I tried the salsa. It was chock full of the powdered "taco seasoning" as well. Oh, it was awful. Not the worst salsa I've ever eaten, but close. Salsa does not need taco seasoning in it. Where do they get off, putting that crap in salsa. Ok salsa needs very few ingredients to be awesome: tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and cilantro. That's it. do you see "taco seasoning" in there? No you don't. DOn't Put "taco seasoning" in salsa.

You may be wondering why I've put "taco seasoning" in quotes. that's because REAL Tacos don't taste like that. I friggn hate that powdered crap that stores call taco seasoning. Real Mexican food is naturally flavored. True some have a similar taste to "taco seasoning" but that's because of the chili powder. Not all tacos have chili powder. Besides, the real Mexican food is way better anyway. Carne Asada is amazingly good. Its basically thinly sliced steak which is seared with onions. Its simple its delicioso. And it doesn't contain "seasoning"

I ordered a taco plate(cause its a "mexican" restaurant and not a Mexican restaurant) and the meat was so full of that powdered crap I could barely choke it down. The real shame of it all is that your average joe(or jane) will eat this and think, "oh that's what all mexican food should taste like"

I grew up near a Mexican family, and I visited their home for dinner a few times. and the food they prepared could dance circles around the SPAM* served at these "mexican" places.

*Stuff Posing as Mexican

In conclusion, its ok to like mexican food, just remember which is more authentic. (and just having authentic in the title doesn't make it so.)

The sweet tea at this place was kick-ass though.