What I've been up to

Hey strangers. Work has been busy as hell. My anxiety has been crazy high. My downtime has been reserved for doing things I enjoy that calm me down, and less for writing about them. I’m still playing games and reading comics, but I’ve been doing it to keep me healthy and distracted.

But I haven’t published anything in a minute and that’s giving me a whole new type of anxiety. I wrote something really personal and intimate about Avengers: Endgame but I’m not quite happy with it yet, so instead, I’m going to talk about something else while I get my bearings on that. But yeah, I’ve beaten like 12 games since the last Backlog Quest Log update, I just haven’t written about them yet, but hey - that one’s on me, I’ll get to them at some point. I might just do a paragraph dump on each to catch up so the games are fresher when I write about them, I don’t know. Part of me wants to get back to writing more about comics since as you’ll see, I’ve really been falling down that rabbit hole.

COMICS

If I seem biased towards Marvel comics here, that’s because I kind of am. Marvel Unlimited is a pretty incredible service that makes reading comics way too easy. Recently I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite stuff from when I was in high school to see if it holds up, and checking out a few events. 

X-Men Deadly Genesis 1-6

Ed Brubaker was one of my favorite writers at Marvel when I was in high school. His Captain America book was the top of my read pile so I was always happy to see a new book from him. It’s funny too, because in Captain America, he was bringing Bucky back from the dead, and in this lead-up miniseries to his own X-Men run he was dredging up something else from the past. 

Deadly Genesis is all about Gabriel Summers, a previously unknown brother to Scott and Alex Summers, Cyclops and Havok respectively. It takes place after House of M, so Mutants have their backs against the wall and they’re under constant surveillance of the Office of National Emergency, or O*N*E*. It turns out that the story of the X-Men is a bit more complicated than we were lead to believe. The reason we have mutants like Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and a bunch of other international heroes is because the original team was caught and being held hostage by Krakoa, the living island. Professor X gathered these then-unestablished characters as a rescue team, but it turns out before he did that, he sent another relief team and they were completely wiped out and the memories of them erased from people’s minds. Gabriel finally wakes up, and is hellbent on revenge, which… yeah, fair. This story handles his ‘return’ to the Marvel Universe. 

Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire 1-12 (Uncanny X-Men 475-486)

The start of Bru’s run on X-Men proper, Rise and Fall sees Vulcan take to space to hunt down his absent father, Corsair, living in Shi’ar space, a group of aliens with intimate links to the X-Men. Professor X takes a bunch of second string characters and chases after him. The Marvel cosmic universe was going through changes thanks to the Annihilation event, but this was a more personal kind of story despite the fact that it’s galaxy spanning. The pacing was. Little weird for this series overall, but the marathon nature of Marvel Unlimited makes it a little easier than the originally bi-weekly schedule the series had (bi-weekly for the first few issues, they gave that up pretty quick). One thing that hasn’t endured as well is the multiple artists. Billy Tan kicked this story off with pretty killer art, with lines reminiscent of David Finch but a bit looser and more kinetic. Because of the expedited release schedule though, a fill in artist was brought on and while Clayton Henry is a fine artist that I actually really like, the two styles clash pretty harshly in spite of being a continuous story. That said, the Shi’ar were featured pretty prominently in the 90's X-Men cartoon so it was cool to see them become the stars in one of the first X-Men runs I started reading. 

Uncanny X-Men 487-499

The Ed Brubaker run on Uncanny X-Men feels a lot shorter in hindsight than it did at the time. Following Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, Bru moved into two (and a half) stories before wrapping up and passing the baton onto Matt Fraction. First up was The Extremists, which I really like, and Divided We Stand, which I liked even more. Turns out when you have Bru at the helm with art from Salvador Larroca and Brandon Choi it’s hard to get a bad comic out of it. The former deals with a series of grisly murders happening in the Morlock tunnels and calls a mostly whole X-Men team to task in order to solve them. Divided We Stand is the last story between two status quo shifts, and the big marketing push for 500. It’s a quieter, sweeter story that sees Cyclops and Emma Frost go on vacation to The Savage Land and Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus go through Europe. Cyclops and Emma eventually pack it in and head to San Francisco once shit pops off there and voila, we have the next 40 or so issues of X-Men decided when they move to the Bay.

X-Men Messiah Complex (13 issues)

My first real X-Men Crossover since randomly grabbing issues of Onslaught in the mid 90’s, Messiah Complex holds up really, really well. It deals with the first mutant birth since House of M/Decimation, which has huge ramifications for The X-Men, the New X-Men (students at Xavier’s), The Marauders (evil mutants working for Mr. Sinister), the Purifiers (racist religious zealots who feel divinely inspired to eradicate mutants), the Reavers (a cyborg themed villainous group following Lady Deathstrike), and Predator X (a weird dinosaur like thing that gets more powerful after every mutant it kills and consumes). The stakes always felt super high though out all 13 issues and it did a pretty good job of reminding me how good the other books were. X-Men (before it changed to X-Men Legacy, which I’ve never read), Uncanny, X-Factor, and New X-Men were all books that served very specific purposes and somehow were firing on all cylinders at the same time. This was a really special era for the X-Men franchise where their backs were up against the wall, threats were coming at them from every angle (even occasionally from the fucking wall). New X-Men in particular was an awesomely intense soap opera with big stakes. Characters you thought were safe, weren’t. Also, spinning out of this was a new volume of X-Force, which would have big ramifications down the road. Fuck this crossover is so good. And the cover dress was absolutely gorgeous. I love the layout, it looks so sophisticated, and the David Finch covers unified the crossover and… yeah, nothing else to add, I just love this book.

Son of M 1-6

House of M had a twist ending that made the villain of the story someone you weren’t expecting. This was the follow up series that explored just how desperate they got in its aftermath when the Scarlet Witch de-powered them as well. I think I read the first issue when it came out but finances of a 15 year old made following up on the story kind of a big ask since the next big event was in the pipeline. And you know what? This story was rad. The art was weird and felt almost like an indie comic, it looks gorgeous all these years later in spite of it not really jiving with the more cinematic approach Marvel was taking at the time. The book is heartbreaking and provocative and the hero in this isn’t a hero, they’re a dick and so compelling because of it. 

Silent War 1-6

The Inhumans were greatly affected by the end of Son of M and this little mini-event dealt with the natural progression from it. The moon city of Attilan finds itself at war with the US Government after the Terrigen Crystals, the materials needed for Inhuman culture and powers, are confiscated. They butt heads with the Avengers and themselves and the status quo is majorly shook up. The Frazier Irving art is gorgeously haunting, and makes the Inhumans feel genuinely otherworldly. Much like Son of M before it, the art serves to make the story feel different than other contemporary Marvel comics. It makes it feel less like an event (even though it totally is), and more like a horror-war comic (which it also totally is). 

Young Avengers + YA Presents + YA the Children’s Crusade

Alright, so, I’m biased because this was one of the first books I remember buying off the shelf, but holy hell I love this comic. The Young Avengers came to be in the wake of Avengers Disassembled. The teenager that would grow up to be Kang the Conquerer goes back in time to ask the Avengers for help, because turning into one of the greatest tyrants in history isn’t something he wants to do, but the Avengers have disbanded. But one Avenger he finds is a deactivated Vision, who activates his protocol to find the next generation of heroes. We get a pretty eclectic cast of characters with close and personal ties to Avengers whether they realize it or not. In 12 issues, Jim Cheung and Allan Heinberg tell three incredible stories. Afterwards, there are a series of one-shots that explore characters or pairs of characters in a more personal way. Following that is a nine-issue miniseries that punches with a lot of weight for a story that was somehow never billed as an event. This story is huge. This story is important. This story is awesome. These three feel like an abridged trilogy for the characters over a five or so year span and I cannot recommend it enough. The only Young Avengers book I haven’t read yet is Dark Reign Young Avengers, but that’s not really a YA series so I don’t feel too bad… but I just found a pretty incredible reading order list for Dark Reign so I might jump on that after all.

Secret Invasion + every tie in

I don’t think I’ve ever been more up a comic publisher’s butt than I have with Civil War. I bought every tie in and was basically subscribing to books I ultimately didn’t care about because of it. By the time Secret Invasion rolled around a few years later, I was wise enough to know I didn’t have to do that… but Marvel Unlimited made it too easy not to. 

Secret Invasion is the payoff from some of Bendis’ first big stories at Marvel, spinning out of his New and Mighty Avengers titles. Turns out, the story was too big for two titles, so on top of getting a gorgeously drawn event book courtesy of Leinel Francis Yu, it also touched nearly every major character of the Marvel U. And now, I’m going to tell you which books were worth it. 

New Avengers - As important as the main event, read these in order between 

issues, the event is where all the action happens but New Avengers is shining a 

light on all the clues you’ve missed over the years and doing its best to answer any 

questions you could possibly have about how certain things happened. 

Mighty Avengers - See above answer for New Avengers. 

Captain Britain and MI:13 - So, this book is super dense and hard to jump into if 

you’re not familiar with characters like Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom, but it’s a 

fun and different team story that’s probably a little hindered by its immediate 

tie-in to an event, but eventually becomes a great book in its own right. 

Incredible Hercules - After World War Hulk, the Incredible Hulk became the 

Incredible Hercules and it’s a super fun book, well done with care by Greg Pak and 

co. but ultimately not the most important tie-in. It’s not necessary for the event, but 

the series itself is worth reading from the beginning. 

Guardians of the Galaxy - Not a super important tie-in whatsoever, but it holds up 

really well in re-reading the main series. It’s a perfectly tangential crossover that’s 

unexpected and advances the series own agenda. Read it for the series, not for 

the crossover appeal. 

Avengers: The Initiative - I was never really a fan of this series and not just because 

I was #TeamCap during Civil War. Something just felt off about it to me and while I 

guess it’s technically an important tie-in just given how involved the Skrulls were 

with the Initiative, I can’t say it was the most enjoyable read. The best part of it is 

the B-story focusing on a Skrull who left the empire and joined the Initiative 

independently, with no intent to help them conquer Earth when they came. That 

story rules, but the 3-D Man and Skull Kill Krew part was kind of plain. 

Ms. Marvel - For those new, Captain Marvel used to be Ms. Marvel, and this was 

her first solo book in quite some time. This tie in is… fine. It’s gorgeously drawn by 

Adriana Melo and the narrative boxes are pretty sparse but it’s not the most 

exciting story. That said, it’s breezy and fun enough that you won’t feel like you 

wasted the five minutes it takes to read each issue. 

X-Factor/She-Hulk - the cool thing about a writer helming two books is it makes 

crossovers pretty easy. This is a pretty solid McGuffin story but doesn’t affect the 

larger story at all. That said, Peter David is an incredible writer and his She-Hulk 

and X-Factor runs are worth reading independently anyway. Special shout-out to 

the Michael Deodato Jr. covers though, those things are friggin’ gorgeous. 

New Warriors - I can barely tell you what happened in this book. There were some 

cool set pieces, but since I never really followed the New Warriors, and especially 

didn’t after Civil War, the characters mean nothing to me, the conflict meant 

nothing to me, and the resolution meant nothing to me. 

Thunderbolts - It was a sad day when Warren Ellis stopped writing the 

Thunderbolts, and sadder still when his replacement was announced to be Cristos 

Gage. I’m not the biggest fan of his writing, I think it’s pretty plain, but this tie-in 

was surprisingly fun, and actually very important to the overall story of Secret 

Invasion. The art is serviceable, but nothing special. 

Black Panther - This was a tie-in I missed and holy hell I wish I didn’t. This was 

incredible. I still don’t get how T’Challa wasn’t part of the Illuminati, he totally 

should’ve been, but even still, this story while not important to the grander 

narrative is an absolute must-read. 

Deadpool - I’m always skeptical of series that start off with an event, you’re always 

concerned that it’s the momentum of the event propping the book up and not the 

other way around. Thankfully, this series started off on a high note and just held its 

finger on that piano key for the next 5 years. This tie-in is funny, impressive, twisty, 

and cool, and worth reading. 

Nova - I wasn’t super in love with this tie-in, but I like the series overall. Yeah, 

another one of those. 

Iron Man: Director of Shield/WAR MACHINE: Weapon of SHIELD - Like I said 

before, I’m not the biggest Cristos Gage fan, and this story doesn’t matter. In spite 

of a few cool moments, I can’t recommend this story as being important. 

Punisher War Journal - there was no point to this being a Secret Invasion book at 

all. Skrulls were in it, I guess? But it makes no sense just jumping into it, and it’s 

not worth reading. Wait til Remender jumps on the book and gets weird. 

Ok, now that we’ve covered tie-in propers, let’s cover mini-series tie-ins. 

Secret Invasion: X-Men - Super gorgeous and well-written mini. Not super 

connected to the heart of the Invasion in New York or the Savage Land (the X-Men 

had just moved to San Francisco), but super fun to read regardless

Secret Invasion: Inhumans - Not the most fun tie-in, but important to the overall 

direction of the Inhumans, so I was stoked to read it anyways in prep for what 

comes next to the Marvel cosmos. 

Secret Invasion: Front Line - Gorgeous book talking about real people surviving 

the invasion of New York. People die in this book, and since they’re not heroes you 

know they won’t come back. I really liked this one. 

Secret Invasion: Young Avengers/Runaways - Granted, I’m a sucker for the two 

teams, I haven’t read Runaways since BKV’s run over 10 years ago, so it wasn’t 

the easiest to follow out the gate. That said, given Hulkling’s heritage, I’d rank this 

as one of the more important tie-in books

Secret Invasion: Thor - Super fun book where Matt Fraction stretched his legs 

before taking over the main Thor series a year or so later. It’s beautifully drawn by 

Doug Braithwaite and does a good job of balancing both the story of Thor and 

Donald Blake in a newly reformed Asgard. Also, Beta Ray Bill is the shit. 

Secret Invasion: Spider-man - Spider-man’s not in this one. Honestly, skip this 

unless you’ve read all the Brand New Day spider-man stuff, this is basically a 

repository for an extra story featuring Spidey’s supporting cast. The notes from the 

editor were my favorite part. 

Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four - We see the Baxter Building destroyed in the 

beginning of the main book and this tie-in explains what happened, so it’s 

technically important in that regard, and for eagle-eyed continuity followers of the 

FF. It’s written tightly, it’s drawn pretty well, so I give it about a B.

Secret Invasion: Dark Reign - Yeah, this book rules. Don’t want to spoil things, so 

I’ll leave it at that. 

Secret Invasion: War of Kings - This book justifies the Inhumans tie-in mini, and 

this sets up one of the more major status quo shifts of the event (after Dark Reign, 

obvi)

Invincible Iron Man 1-7

Characters come and go in waves. In 2004, Warren Ellis came onto Iron Man and reinvented the character for the 21st century. But then he left, and the title kind of  meandered. A lot of new number one’s are meant to signal to customers that there’s a sea-change, a commitment to the series and that there’s a direction that it wants to head down. That’s what Invincible Iron Man was. 

And it’s one of my favorite series from the era. 

It makes sense that Matt Fraction is friends with Warren Ellis (dude met his wife on Ellis’ message boards for fuck’s sake), because they both have uncompromising visions of what the future could look like. Post 9/11 Tony had to be different, and Fraction took the best parts of pre-and-post and melded them together for this insanely fun ride. It doesn’t hurt that Salvador Larroca turned in some of the best work of his career on this book. The only odd thing that isn’t really that odd but kind of stands out now, is the coloring. It makes the armors and the tech standout, but faces are all lit a bit strangely and look kind of vinyl because of it. I don’t care, I love it, but it’s weird going back and looking at this in comparison to current books who go for a more flat, evergreen technique that makes them pop a bit more like animations rather than stills from a movie. 

I read this because from Iron Man 8-19 it’s the fallout from Secret Invasion and I am stoked as hell to see if that holds up.

Uncanny X-Men 500-503

Decided to mention this separately from the other X-Men I’ve read because I wanted to keep the Matt Fraction books together. For these issues, Bru and Fraction were working together but I think it was mostly Fraction’s baby. As much as I love the dialogue in his Iron Man series, I’m a little underwhelmed by it here. The plotting is awesome; the story itself is great, but I’ve repeatedly seen dialogue and narration boxes that see the same word repeated in the same sentence and it drives me fucking crazy. The art is pretty much handled by two creative teams - Greg Land and Terry Dodson. First time around I was blown away by Land’s pencils, but they haven’t aged the best. Everything is stiff and rigid - Dodson is definitely doing all the heavy lifting visually and I’m always excited to see he’s on an arc. I like the new location, I think moving coasts to the bay area gives the team a much needed shot in the arm, especially since they chose to move there, they weren’t forced to. The only thing that really bums me out about it (besides Land’s weird faces), is that… man, they don’t know San Francisco. The geography is all wrong and it takes me out of the story a bit during chases and what not.

GAMES

AC Odyssey 

Assassin’s Creed Origins is maybe one of my favorite games of all time. The way it blends elements from other Ubisoft open world games with what makes Creed a unique franchise was incredibly well done and addictive as hell. 

Odyssey is that dialed up to 11 and while I’m incredibly happy to be playing it and I find myself still thinking about it when I’m not, I think it’s a little too much. Much the same way I like Arkham Asylum more than Arkham City, Odyssey’s huge, sprawling nature makes it a bit unwieldy at times, and the muddling of play styles between the armor/weapon stats and character progression makes the game feel more like an MMO than an RPG sometimes. 

But again, my favorite part about Friday is having the time to play it. It’s really satisfying to go into a new region, destabilize it, and fight to conquer it on the battlefield. Clearing out bases, bandit dens, tombs and temples along the way means I’ll be playing this game for the next hundred years. 

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished a Zelda game. There. I said it. I really like them and have a blast along the way, but the journey is always more fun than the destination. I usually lose interest after the last dungeon and pack it in, but not this time. Playing A Link Between Worlds before bed has been a blast. It’s difficulty is moderate enough where I feel like I’m accomplishing something, but I’ve never been whiteknuckling my 3DS which is perfect because who the hell wants to get that worked up right before bed? The game is charming beyond belief and I’m officially further in it than I was after it launched, so, slow and steady is not winning the race, but it’s at least getting to the finish line before all the doughnuts are gone. 

TV

Friends

Back on my bullshit. I can’t fall asleep without the tv on. I’ve had a tv in my room since I was about 8 years old and some kind of dvd player or streaming device since I was 11, so putting friends on before sleep is a great comfort as I make out with my pillow. 

I just got to season 3 and it’s pretty easy to forget how much heat the early years were throwing if the last thing you watched was the cartoonish final season. It’s weird watching the show with these people who defined adulthood for child-me and being older than them now, but the pre 9/11 New York with a Clinton White House is a wonderfully stress-free show that’s perfect to fall asleep to. 

I’ve had this idea about empirically deciding which sitcom character was the funniest. I want to go through each episode and compare how many laughs/applauses/cheers/aww/etc each character gets in relation to their lines. I’m thinking there needs to be a three episode minimum just so I’m not doing this the rest of my life, but I think it would be interesting to compare characters from different shows and see where Chandler compares to Kramer compares to Sam Malone compares to Urkel. The only real problem(?) Is that it only works for shows with laugh tracks. I’d want to do a bit of research because I’d prefer them to be filmed in front of a live audience rather than added in post, but that cuts out How I Met Your Mother, and for better or worse that was a pretty important show in the mid-2000’s. 

And if I keep not writing on a weekly basis, I might just have the time to do it. But I will never cover two and a half men or big bang theory. I won’t even give them proper nouns, I’m especially not giving them any research.

Cougartown

No, seriously. I love Cougartown. It was recently added to Hulu and I can’t think of a more stress free show in the history of shows. It’s basically just day-drinking: the show. Jokes are funny, layered, and feel like a genuine evolution from the show runner’s previous effort on Scrubs while still showing the same roots. If you shrugged this show off in the past I can’t recommend jumping back into it enough. 

MOVIES

Avengers Endgame

I have another article in the works about this one. For now I’ll just say I really, really liked it. 

Detective Pikachu

Oh man. I wanted to love this movie so bad. The trailers made it look so strange and unique and brilliantly thought out, and for the first three quarters of the movie it was. The first two acts were executed so beautifully but holy shit does this movie jump the shark before credits. The good news is the world is awesome and can totally be revisited with ease. I want to see a rom-com in this universe, a heist movie in this universe, a sports movie. Bit the last thing I want to see right now is Detective Pikachu 2. 

Booksmart

I haven’t seen a ton this year (better than most years, but still, not like I was in college), but Booksmart will probably be my movie of the year. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at such weird, clever jokes. The teen actors were incredible and sold a brilliant script so naturally. It’s going to draw comparisons to Superbad, but Booksmart is, well, smarter, in every single way. I’m really looking forward to what the cast does next and I can’t wait to see what Olivia Wilde chooses for her next project. 

And that’s all he wrote.

y’know, for now. See you soon, campeones.

Game of Thrones Death Pool

Hey Champions,

I’ve been quiet because I’ve been freelancing a ton lately and that’s been eating up all my time. And instead of writing about games or comics, I’ve been spending my downtime playing and reading them just to stay current. But I miss writing things longer than a headline so I’ll get back to it soon, because I know all both of you are dying for my thoughts on 4 year old strategy games and 11 year old superhero games that came to the GameCube.

Today at lunch though I had some spare time and threw this together for the last season of Game of Thrones. Feel free to download these JPEGs (uploading a PDF on squarespace is a pain in the ass) and play along at home. Send me updates on Twitter (@gbloftus) and I’ll be sharing mine as the season goes on.

Happy Thronin’, y’all

30 Likes = 30 Video Game Answers

And now for something completely different. I’m having fun playing games and writing about them again, but after cranking out three in two days, I want to change pace a little bit and write other things. I’ve got some stuff in the works but I saw this trending on Twitter and while I don’t like sharing things like this from my account, I really liked the idea of it and the opportunity it’s giving me to dive into micro topics with more than 280 characters to boot. So without further ado, let’s jump into a very spoilery exercise.  

Very First Video Game

The first game I can remember playing is Duck Hunt. I was either four or five years old and at my grandparents house, where we’d go every summer and have mini family reunions. They have a ton of grandkids so they had a Nintendo Entertainment System with a metric shit ton of games. I remember watching my brother and sister obsessively try to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 and cheat in Track & Field, using their hands on the gamepad to make their runners move faster. I’m significantly younger than my siblings (8 and 7 years respectively) so I didn’t have the best motor skills. Neither did my dad who’d always try to include me, so together we’d tackle Duck Hunt, with that beautiful, orange light Zapper light gun. It was a game that made as much sense to my 40-something year old dad and to just out of diapers me. 

Surgeons have their scalpels. I had my Zapper.

Your Favorite Character

It’s gotta be Cortana. Mordin Solus, the Salarian scientist from Mass Effect 2 and 3 just missed the cut. Cortana is the AI companion that lives in Master Chief’s helmet in the Halo series. Voiced by Jen Taylor, she encourages and aids Master Chief as he fights against the Covenant, the Flood, and later the Prometheans. She’s equal parts charming, confident, vulnerable, and badass. She’s a perfect foil to Master Chief and while I really disliked Halo 5 because of the turn her character took, I’m really optimistic that the series isn’t done with her yet. Halo Infinite, the next in the series, if it’s continuing the story, will find some way to get the Cortana we know back into the fold and where she belongs - at the top of the Halo food chain. 

I love you, even when you go rogue and try to execute a technocratic coup across the galaxy

A Game that is Underrated

I briefly just mentioned it, but the amount of shit that Mass Effect 3 gets absolutely baffles me. When it released, people were upset about the ending of the game, because the ending essentially boiled down to choosing one of three outcomes. I don’t get why people hated that so much since every interaction you had that brought up the dialogue wheel boiled down to three choices as well (Paragon, Neutral, Renegade), but c’est la vie. What bums me out most is that people who complained that the ending of the game wasn’t up to snuff failed to realize that the entire game was an ending. You spent time with every character of significance and had ample opportunities to say goodbye and make your peace with them after getting to know them throughout the series. 

I died as MaleShep. But I lived for FemShep

Your Guilty Pleasure Game

There are some games that are bad but you just don’t care because they’re a blast. While I don’t necessarily feel guilty for playing the recently reviewed Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I feel guilty for jumping into it so often when I have other games I can spend time with. Like I said in my review, the game itself isn’t great; the combat lacks impact, the story is good but doesn’t gel with the Marvel Universe today, and the trophies are a pain in the ass to chase, but the game is just comfortable to me. It’s the perfect game to play on a rainy Saturday when you’re killing time and catching up on podcasts. 

Just me n’ these honchos, y’dig?

Game Character You Feel Most Like (Or Wish You Were)

I don’t really play video games to to project myself into them. I don’t make characters look like me or behave the way I would; I generally try to play games by creating a character I then get to act like, or as close to how I think the devs intended. All that said, the character I wish I were more like is Link, especially in the Wind Waker. I’m not the biggest fan of Zelda games, but there’s something really romantic about how he answers the call to action in the beginning of those games. 

I take it all back; who hasn’t been Link?

Most Annoying Character

Waluigi. The character himself is fine, he’s just a lanky, weird, bizarro Luigi in purple - there’s nothing inherently wrong with him, but I absolutely hate the cult he’s inspired. I think he’s just irony on two legs and the obsession people have with him is infuriating. I’m so freaking happy he’s not in Smash and it’ll be a sad day if Nintendo ever panders and includes him in the roster. He can stay in Mario Tennis though because let’s be honest, having that body type represented is the most accurate thing about the whole game. Although now that the trailer for Pokémon Sword and Shield is out I’ve basically become a Waluigi Stan for Sobble, so I get it. I just don’t like it. 

Even Waluigi doesn’t like Waluigi

Favorite Game Couple

I’m pretty early in the game still, I missed it on GameCube when I was in middle school, but I actually really like Mario and FLUDD together. Mario had been given a new series of jumps when he first moved to 3D on the Nintendo 64, but FLUDD augmented them and gave him more mobility. It was a smart way to go bigger in a sequel but to give a logical reason as to why a character can suddenly do more. Plus it serves the vacation vibe of the game and it makes me think of summer, which is really nice since it’s been raining in San Francisco for what feels like ten years. Seriously, it’s been raining so much I feel like I’m in a very specific Ray Bradbury story. 

oh my god, just fuck already

Best Soundtrack

Best Soundtrack is Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Every station, even the talk shows is filled to the brim with absolute bangers from stem to stern. But I think that’s a cheat answer, since there isn’t a whole lot of original music, and the original music that is there is pretty much just an imitation of stuff that came before, so let’s talk about video game scores. I love Halo and the work Marty O’Donnell has done on all of his games, but I’ve got to give it up to the original chiptune soundtrack from Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow. The walking music, the battle music, biking, caves - every song in those games is permanently imprinted on my brain. Every time I have a headache and take an ibuprofen I even do the little trickle that plays when you heal your team at Poké Centers because I’m that dumb and that entranced all these years later. That said, my favorite single video game track of all time is from Far Cry 3, your final fight with Vaas. I listen to this track all the time whether I’m working or working out.

Saddest Scene

I’ve never played Final Fantasy VII so I don’t give a shit about Aeris - sorry, y’all. Two honorable mentions come from different Halo games. “Don’t make a girl a promise you know you can’t keep” is fantastic, like I said Cortana is my favorite game character and that line delivery just guts me. Halo Reach was an absolute blood bath, but the death of Jorge was terrible and wonderful. On one hand he dies thinking he saved Reach. On the other, he didn’t, and died for nothing. But no, the absolute saddest scene in a video game is when you decide to be a Paragon in Mass Effect 3 and Mordin Solus pays the price. I remember playing Mass Effect 3 the day it launched (thankfully the Tuesday of my Spring Break senior year of college. I had no idea the choice I just made was going to mean Mordin’s life… he died. I just stared at my controller for a few minutes after putting it down. I finally paused the game, poured myself a drink, and went onto the porch of my apartment building (read: modified farmhouse, thanks, Vermont), and just smoked the world’s saddest cigarette.

Best Gameplay

The most game-ass game I play and love to death is Super Stardust. It’s a twin stick shooter where you’re a ship running along the outside of a planet shooting at obstacles. It’s arcade as hell, there’s a kick ass soundtrack, and it just feels so good to play. I like the PS4 version a lot but this game on PlayStation Vita absolutely rules. It’s a perfect mobile game and runs butter-smooth on the handheld. 

Gaming System of Choice

My favorite video game console of all time is the PlayStation 3. Here’s a short list of why:

• High Definition gaming

• Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu that you didn’t need a subscription to access, unlike Xbox 360 at the time

• Free online multiplayer

• More exclusive games than you could possibly imagine

• You could plug in a hard drive and stream digital video off it… I was really into torrents in college

• Backwards compatibility 

• The MMO DC Universe Online

• Wireless controllers that didn’t need AA batteries

• Could be programmed into being a media center

The PlayStation 3 was the system I had when I loved games and when I needed a break from them. It let me watch as many tv shows as I wanted when I was depressed, it let me use my TV’s speakers to blast music when I had friends over, it let me do everything I wanted. Gun to my head? I’d still take the PS3 over the PS4 any day.

The only shitty thing was that this wonderful console didn’t ship with an HDMI cord

A Game Everyone Should Play

The worst part about Journey is that it’s a PlayStation exclusive. I wish everyone could experience this beautiful, beautiful game. You play as an unnamed character making a pilgrimage to a mountain in the distance. The game gives zero direction - you just start playing and start walking. Occasionally you’ll bump into other players but there’s no way to plan it or communicate with them outside of whistling for their attention. The entire game can be beaten in just a few hours. If you have a PlayStation 3 or 4 and haven’t played it, please just get a dark liquor, a pizza, and play it on a Friday night, you won’t regret it. 

A Game You’ve Played More than 5 Times

I don’t know if I’ve played any game more than five times. But if I have, it’d be one of the following: 

• Pokémon Blue/Red/Yellow/Let’s Go (between all of this this has to be 5) 

• Super Mario 64

• Grand Theft Auto Vice City

• Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader

• Marvel Ultimate Alliance

• Mass Effect 2

• Borderlands

• Battlefield 4 (trophies)

See? Video games are art

Current (Or Most Recent) Video Game Wallpaper

I’ve never had video game wallpaper on either a phone or a computer before. It’s usually comic art. But if I had to choose one, it would probably be one of my favorite video game covers of all time - the reverse cover of Bioshock Infinite. I just wish the title logo was made to be more like the actual art. 

For the first time since 2012, the thing I voted for and the thing that won were the same thing

Post a Screenshot from a Game You’re Playing Right Now

I’m playing a ton of different games right now. Between Marvel Ultimate Alliance (fuckin’ trophies, man) Pokémon White (first time, it’s pretty good) I’m clearing all the star coins from Super Mario 3D Land (game still slaps real hard), Batman the Telltale series (RIP), and Halo 2 on the original Xbox (they changed the score in the Master Chief Collection). But you know what game I play every night before I go to bed? Mario Golf World Tour on 3DS. I fuckin’ love Mario Golf, man. I think it’s one of the most underrated sports games, one of the most underrated Nintendo games, and one of the most underrated handheld games of all time. Hotdamn. I love Mario Golf. 

You ever see Tin Cup? Tin Cupped the shit out of this hole. Rene Russo would be proud

Game With the Best Cutscenes 

I sound like a broken record at this point, but Halo 2 was an absolute game changer (no pun intended) for me. I first played it when I was 15 and even though I had just beaten the first Halo game in one sitting the night before, Halo 2 dialed everything that made the first game great up to eleven. It was the first game I ever played that genuinely felt like a movie. It really helped that it was a first person shooter and there wasn’t a lot to the UI, there wasn’t a lot of time spent in menus once you started the game, and the cutscenes weren’t overbearing - cutscenes weren’t doing basic things that you could’ve been doing, they were handling transitions between environments, something that was way too ambitious for that generation of consoles. They were so pretty that they felt like rewards - like after finishing an incredibly cool level I was given a chance to see something that somehow looked even better. The fact that a game could look this good absolutely melted my brain, and the updated effects from Blur for the Master Chief Collection may be the prettiest things ever made? 

Favorite Antagonist

Blue from Pokémon Blue/Red/Yellow is the perfect villain. I talked about it in my review of Yellow/Let’s Go Pikachu, but he was such a cocky asshole that it was all the motivation I needed ti complete the game over and over again. I wanted to beat Blue more than I ever wanted to beat the Elite Four. Especially in the original games. He’d throw his first monster out and it would be that grossly oversized sprite. At the beginning of the game he purposely picked the Pokémon that had a type advantage over whichever one you chose. He’s such a prick - I love him. He’s totally that kid whose dad wants to shut down the rec center and says things like “When my father hears about this…” - he’s totally an 80’s teenage villain and I love him for that. 

I wish I made this. I know; this is the best part of this post

Favorite Protagonist

It might feel like an easy answer, but Nathan Drake is excellent. We’re at a point in time where there are more good Uncharted movies than Indiana Jones movies (they’re games, sure, but they’re really not) and that’s pretty fascinating to me. They took a character that seemed so cool because of his time and place and managed to adapt him perfectly to the 21st century. He’s charming, confident, dangerous and no matter how many people he’s killed or how many ancient structures he’s destroyed in the name of preserving them, he’s still so freaking likable. 

Oh shit I think I’m pregnant

Picture of a Game Setting You Wish You Lived In

There are few places as idyllic to me as a setting in a Pokémon game. THey’re all pretty special for various reasons, and as much as I love Kanto and especially Johto (Red/Blue/Yellow/Let’s Go and Silver/Gold/Crystal respectively), I really, really love the Alola Region, the settings from the Sun/Moon/Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon games. It’s modeled after the Hawaiian archipelago and something about the revised gym structure, the multiple islands without the pain of surfing between them, and all the commodities of a modern game make it such a compelling setting. The vibe is so relaxing that I’m playing the game completely different than any other game before it. In the original games I thought of stopping Team Rocket as a chore, something that got in the way of what I wanted to accomplish, but the side story in Sun/Moon is more important to me, so much so that my Pokémon are on average about ten levels higher than the Elite Four equivalent and I haven’t even been tempted to fight them yet because I’m having so much fun exploring and filling out my Pokédex. Add in the Poké Pelago mini games where you basically have a farm to grow berries, a cave to explore, an obstacle course to train your team on, and a spa level where they can go to relax - and Alola is hands down my favorite region yet. 

Aloha, Alola

Favorite Genre

Even though I probably spend a majority of my time playing first person shooters and roleplaying games, I think my favorite genre is actually strategy games. Starcraft means so much to me. When I was moving all my units on a Zerg base, it felt like I had hundreds of GI Joes and all their vehicles and I was throwing them against the bugs from Starship Troopers. Civilization V is another game that I’ve lost hours, days to without even realizing it. “Oh, I’ll just play for a few hours before meeting up with friends…” Next thing I know it’s 3 in the morning, I’m chain-smoking on the patio and I’m trying to fend off a nuclear blitz from Catherine the Great and Ghandi’s newfound alliance. There’s something so satisfying about moving your civ through different time periods and organizing the transportation systems between your cities and maximizing the efficiency of every tile in your empire. There’s really nothing else like it. Pulling off a miraculous grenade stick feels great, but it’s momentary compared to the bliss you feel of a 1200 turn diplomatic victory on a large map with max opponents. 

After 1100 turns, you’d drop bombs too.

Best Story

Halo Reach has, to me, the most perfect story in any video game. It’s brilliant because you know the ending. You know exactly what happens, they tell you in the beginning of a game that came out 9 years earlier, but you’re convinced you can change the outcome regardless of its inevitability. The symmetry and the way loose ends are tied up is just perfect. It makes perfect sense to me that I liked Star Wars: Rogue One as much as I did because it and Halo Reach are like 95% the same story. And y’know what? They’re both beautiful

A Sequel that Disappointed You

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is a game I wanted to love so much. I still remember going to Game Stop in Bangor, ME and being completely shocked that it was on store shelves. I had no idea that it was coming out, let alone that it was already in stores. I was so happy about cancelling plans to dive into a new Star Wars game in one of my favorite Star Wars series. A lot of the aerial levels were awesome, and I actually liked the inclusion of land vehicles - piloting an AT-AT felt as rad as I wanted it to, and way more satisfying than it was in Battlefront, but the on-foot missions were so poorly executed that it marred my entire experience. There was no consistency - I never felt like I was in control as much as I was lucky. Add in the fact that there was no real advantage to getting a blaster rifle over your infinitely ammo’d pistol and there just wasn’t a lot in these sequences that made me feel as cool as I did in an X-Wing and I wish they cut them. There wasn’t a lot served by including them that couldn’t have been done with the mid-level vehicle swaps done in Rogue Squadron II. 

I didn't like it, but I still would’ve bought it again on Wii, had this version ever released :/

Best Art Style

I’ve never beaten it, but holy shit Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I feel like making a game because you have an art direction shouldn’t make sense, in theory that’s shallow, right? It’s not like Nintendo made Legend of Zelda Windwaker because they happened upon cel-shaded technology - they went with cel-shaded graphics because it made everything else they were trying to do easier. The fact that they thought it would be cool to make a world completely out of art and craft supplies and then made a more than competent Kirby game to fit into the art direction just blows my mind. And it looks so good! On inferior, sub-HD they found an art style that still to this day holds up and holds up better than a lot of other games that were perceived to be more ambitious. I love that it’s continuing with Yoshi’s Wooly World, and even to an extent with the Link’s Awakening Remake coming to Switch this year. While everyone was super excited about Fallout: New Vegas, I was just stoked to get back stateside and dip my toes into a game that looked as fun as it was. 

This game is crazier than you’d believe, and prettier than you’d expect

Favorite ‘Classic’ Title

Classic is a weird word. I spent a lot of time with the NES but I have no real affinity for it, since I hadn’t developed the vocabulary necessary to understand and appreciate them. Because of that, the first game console that I consider ‘mine’ was the Nintendo 64, and since it’s the first Nintendo console capable of rendering things in 3D, I think it should count. So, that said, my answer is Super Mario 64. That game was a watershed moment in my gaming history like I’m sure it was for many others. It was the future printed onto a tiny grey cartridge. For the first time since his first NES release, we got a new Mario thing. It set the standard for 3D games and still holds up more than 20 years later. I know because I played it the other day. Think about that; all these years later, I still want to play it. 

A Game On Your List to Play

Oh man, I actually have a pretty long list of seminal games that I haven’t played. I’m bad about video game required reading:

• Metal Gear Solid, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Peace Walker was dope though)

• Persona 4

• Resident Evil, 2, 3, 4

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

• The Last of Us

• Resistance 3

• Half-Life 2

• Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII (V was like Peace Walker: dope)

• God of War (loved the PSP ones)

• Red Dead Redemption II

• Pokémon White (Playing through it for the first time now)

• Halo Wars 2 (Not seminal but it’s on my list)

This year I finally crossed Gears of War, 2, and 3 off my list so I am making some progress on my list, I swear. It’s just slow, and… c’mon, if you’re reading this, you’ve read other things I’ve written. You know what kind of games I like. 

Not really my jam, believe it or not

Best Voice Acting

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Because I’m struggling to think of a more haunting video game voice than Michael Mando in Far Cry 3. I love Steve Downes in Halo. I love Troy Baker in Bioshock Infinite. I love Camilla Luddington in the Tomb Raider Reboot. But I can still hear Vaas’s voice so clearly sometimes I swear he’s behind me. His performance was so delightfully unhinged that I was a little disappointed that the game didn’t end after your final confrontation with him. He was such a weight on my shoulders throughout the entire game that I really felt like I beat the game the developers wanted me to finish and that I could’ve stopped right there. Turns out I’m glad I didn’t stop because the second island in Far Cry 3 rules, but those feelings of completion and relief after defeating him are testament to how wholly he filled his role. If Blue weren’t such a playful asshole, Vaas easily would’ve been my number one antagonist. 

Most Epic Scene

Alright so picture this; It’s Christmas 2005, and it’s just me and my dad all snowed in in our little one story tract home on an island off the coast of Maine. After telling him how much fun I had at a friends house earlier that year playing some weird game called Halo, I open up my last Christmas and unwrap the games Halo and Halo 2. We watch our movies, we eat our food, we have a blast. But my dad goes to bed and I pop Halo into the disc tray. I beat it in one sitting the night. The next night, I pop in Halo 2, and while both remain excellent even to this day, Halo 2 is just clearly more ambitious and impressive than the lofty original. I’m fending off a Covenant Strike team that boarded Cairo Station, and after doing a spacewalk on the outside of the orbital artillery platform, I enter a room that filled to the brim with Elites, some of the toughest enemies in the game. It seems like Earth is going to fall, there are just so many Covenant ships in the sky that you think they outnumber the stars. But Chief doesn’t worry, so you don’t worry. He works together so fluidly with Cortana that you think they have a chance. After disarming a bomb that’s destroyed countless other Orbital artillery stations, Captain Miranda Keyes asks to engage an enemy cruiser of ungodly proportions and is denied. When suddenly this exchange happens:

MC: “Sir… Permission to leave the station?”

Admiral: “To what purpose, Master Chief?”

MC: “To Give the Covenant back their bomb.”

Admiral: “Permission granted.”

Cortana: “I know what you’re thinking, it’s crazy. 

MC: “So stay here.”

Cortana: “Unfortunately for us both… I like crazy. 

Cortana: [beat] “Just one question… what if you miss?”

MC: “I won’t.”

And suddenly they’re sucked out into the vacuum of space with the Covenant bomb in tow. A UNSC cruiser is shot down right in front of them. Two bombers come out of nowhere and punch a hole in the Covenant cruiser, giving Master Chief and Cortana a chance to enter the ship and push the bomb into the ship’s reactor core before narrowly escaping and crashing onto a friendly ship just to be brought down and engage the enemy on the ground. How important is this scene to me? I wrote that whole thing from memory because since December 26th, 2005 it’s been burned into my fucking brain like some kind of cattle branding that I’ll never be able to get rid of. Good god it is so good. It’s so, so good. Video games are just the best, man. Top shelf, bottom drawer - the fucking best.

Favorite Video Game Developer

This is a cheat because they’re so many developers under one name, but Nintendo. They’re the Pixar of video games. The medium has advanced so much over the years that genres have lived and died because everyone else is chasing trends. Nintendo is the one creating them. Everyone else gave up on 3D platformers in the 90’s but Nintendo puts out an amazing one in 2017. Fans think Nintendo can’t do online first person shooters but they put out the most inventive one of any first party developer this decade in Splatoon. Every time people think they know what Nintendo can’t do, Nintendo proves them wrong just because they can. They’re incredible. They’re not bulletproof, but they’re the closest thing to bulletproof this industry has ever, and more likely probably will ever see. 

A Game You Were Surprised You Liked

I started playing it begrudgingly for work but I was sold hook, line, and sinker when I was playing Final Fantasy 15. I wanted to dislike that game so much because so much of it is just not my cup of tea, but the sum was indeed better than the parts and everything I played was such a treat that it’s definitely a game I want to get back to, and maybe even platinum if I have the stomach for it. That opening where Florence and the Machine’s Stand By Me starts playing is so pretty I want to cry. It’s a very special game that I never thought I’d like in a million years but I truly do. 

Favorite Game of All Time

This is super tough because video games are incredibly nostalgic to me. The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve tried to separate the game and who I was/what I was doing when I was playing them, but then I get even a little bit older from when I try to do that and I get sentimental about the exact thing I’m trying overcome. It’s tough, but I don’t think I can do it. I only think I can try to do it. 

That said, my favorite game of all time is the original Star Wars Battlefront on PlayStation 2. Not because it’s the best game (it isn’t), not because it’s the best Star Wars game (it’s not), and not because it was the system’s best shooter (it wasn’t). 

It’s my favorite game of all time because I love my brother, and despite our age gap at the time it released - I was starting high school just as he was finishing college - we bonded so much over that game. Even when you’re related, it can be hard for a 14 year old and a 22 year old to relate to each either, but that game was a perfect excuse for us to sit down next to each other and talk about everything. Movies, girls, Dad, fears, music, high school, college, adventures. Anything I had even the smallest semblance of curiosity about, we’d talk about, even if he had even the smallest semblance of an explanation. 

Super Mario Galaxy is a 10. Halo 2 is a 10. Mass Effect 3 is a 10. But those games didn’t give me dozens of hours with my brother, so how could they possibly be as great as a mediocre that did?

The only way to play

And that’s it, probably the only 30 for 30 I’ll ever produce, but at least it’s something. Thank you so much for reading, champions, it was nice to talk about games more comprehensively for a change, and I might do it again in the near future, so look out.

17 - Battlefield One (PS4)

There was a three week stretch in 2016 that in hindsight was completely insane. I’m not talking about Steph Curry’s MVP push - I’m talking about video games, obviously. You get what you pay for, fam. (But damn, Steph Curry was insaaaane that year when he led the dubs to a 73-9 finish, he got all 131 first place votes and he deserved them).

But hey, back to video games:

On October 21st, 2016, Battlefield One was released. 

On October 28th, 2016, Titanfall 2 was (confusingly) released. 

On November 4th, 2016, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was released. 

Those are all top tier shooters but there’s only so much time in a day. I initially bought Call of Duty and absolutely loved it. I then got Titanfall 2 because giant robots will always be cool and that’s since become one of my favorite games of the generation. The one that fell through the cracks was Battlefield One, but I recently corrected that and I’m so glad I did. Between its varied single player campaign and its insane multiplayer offerings, Battlefield One offers a comprehensive experience even years after its release. 

While Call of Duty took to the stars in Infinite Warfare, Battlefield One dialed the clock back to the beginning of the 20th century to offer a detailed look at World War One. Instead of a traditional campaign that follows a single character the way Battlefield games had traditionally been done, Battlefield One features vignettes that focus on different aspects of the war. There are six multi-level stories that tell shorter, more intimate tales. It’s pretty amazing that for a conflict so large it has to be called a “World War” how small and personal the devs got while highlighting the mechanics that separate Battlefield from other franchises in a crowded market. 

Before I get into the game proper I want to talk about the prologue for a second, because it subverts how first person shooter games traditionally begin and I love it for that. This prologue sets a completely different tone than what you expect and is very reverential to the conflict it’s set in. They run you through the basic controls the way you’d expect a tutorial to do, but does so in a very impactful way, and damn, I love it. 

Needless to say, this game is gorgeous

Through Mud and Blood focuses on a British tank crew pushing through German lines. Friends in High Places follows an American who lied his way into the Royal Air Force to fight Germans in the skies. Avanti Savoia tells the story of a heavily armored assault special forces operative looking for his brother in the Pyrenees mountains. The Runner shows a an Australian recon vet looking out for greenhorns as they try to conquer a fort held in the Mediterranean. Nothing is Written shows Lawrence of Arabia assisted rebels in the Arabian Peninsula fighting against the Ottoman Empire and their new incredibly powerful armored train. It’s an anthology that touches every front of the war and showcases the technology of the time in what’s probably an unrealistic way, but is a respectful and entertaining way. 

The stories are all well told and the fact that they’re short means they generally don’t outstay their welcome, which is my favorite aspect of the decision to switch to this style of storytelling. I never got bored with any one character because even the two-level stories had a beginning, middle, and end all punctuated with incredibly fun and tight gameplay. The only real bummer I have about each of the missions is I feel like there’s an overemphasis on stealth gameplay. I get that; it’s obviously easier to sneak around than it is to engage an overwhelming occupying force but each vignette has extended stealth sections that grew tired, especially on harder difficulties, which may not matter to you, but mattered to me.

This is from the campaign about airplanes

What’s really brilliant about the campaigns is that they’re essentially extended tutorials for multiplayer, arguably the more important half of the game. I chased the Platinum trophy in Battlefield One because I’m an idiot whose anxiety abates when playing video games and for the first time since I first got my PlayStation 4, I got incredibly sucked in to Battlefield’s multiplayer. The tank campaign assures that if you finally do get into a tank online you’ll know what to do, same with the airplane campaign. The Italian campaign teaches you how to use a specialty class, something you can unlock mid-match after reaching a certain score. The Fort capturing campaign teaches you about capturing control points for modes like Conquest, Domination, and Operations. The Arabian Peninsula campaign prepares you for when a Behemoth shows up. This can be a train or a zeppelin or the like and it shows up for the losing team in the larger multiplayer modes; destroying it is critical because they can very quickly change the the course of the game. 

I really like traditional first person shooter campaigns but since Battlefield is beloved for its multiplayer suite, I’d be very ok if every Battlefield game in the future was structured like this. It sucks when you finally get to do something special in a multiplayer game and you die immediately because you never get to do anything special and you have no idea what you’re doing, since you never get to do anything special. This setup mitigates that enough where it helps you be more successful online. 

I didn’t see “Squad Wiped” often, but when I did it felt awesome

Even though it released a little more than two years ago, Battlefield One still has a very active player base, I’m guessing in large part due to its recent inclusion in PlayStation’s PlayStation Plus program, and frequent sales thanks to Battlefield V’s recent release. That made trophy chasing way easier, and actually pretty fun. The three modes I spent the most time with were the previously mentioned Conquest, Operations, and Domination. Those were generally larger maps where every aspect of Battlefield comes crashing together in impressive chaos. Planes dart through the skies as tanks tear through frontlines at a fast clip. Charging infantry are picked off by snipers in the distance but are quickly revived by medics before rushing towards flags hidden by buildings in the town center.

This game is fucking nuts

There are four main infantry classes (Assault, Medic, Support, Scout) and each excels in certain regards. So keep that in mind when you squad up with other players because a balanced team is more useful than you’d think. 

The Assault class was loaded with explosives, making it best fitted to take out vehicles. They unlock submachine guns faster so they’re way more adept at taking on multiple targets. Medics can revive fallen teammates in the window between being downed and respawning, so they can keep momentum when you’re pushing into enemy territory. They unlock semi-automatic rifles faster so they’re pretty good at harassing enemies from mid-range but are easily overwhelmed by groups of them. Scouts can use flares to show all the enemies in a given area and use blot action rifles to pick off enemies from afar. Support can provide ammo and repair vehicles quickly. They sport Light Machine Guns (LMG’s) which is fun if you like your character dying with a lot of unused ammo. 

The reason I gravitated towards the larger game modes is because it felt like it took large maps and larger player counts to really demonstrate what made each class unique and powerful. I’d routinely switch up my class when the situation called for it. This was frustrating at first because progress isn’t shared across classes. So if you’ve unlocked a lot of weapons as a Medic and you need to switch to support, well… I hope you like the stock weapon that class comes with because otherwise you’re shit out of luck. Thankfully though progression moves at a pretty swift pace. In addition to the generous leveling you can also use experience multipliers you get from lootbox-like prizes (I’m sure you can buy them with real dollars, I got them for free just through playing) that dole out weapon skins among other goodies. Even cooler, that experience boost shares with people in your squad, meaning that when someone else is using one, it’ll share with you too. 

All things considered, Battlefield One remains a complete package, even all these years later. The single player campaigns move at a brisk pace and do a good job of putting you in cool situations where you can do cool things while still treating the subject matter with dignity and respect. I don’t normally get into graphics but it’s worth saying here - this game is absolutely gorgeous and helps sell the characters as real people with real feelings and real motivations. I wish that the missions didn’t rely on stealth sequences so much but pure chaos of the multiplayer more than makes up for the silence most campaign stories inevitably ask you to complete.

16 - Marvel Ultimate Alliance (PS4)

Before we saw the Avengers on screen, a gathering of Marvel heroes outside of comics was a pretty rare proposition. Character licenses went to so many different studios that seeing multiple heroes team up was virtually impossible. You’d see Spider-Man but never with his best friend, the Human Torch. Video games seemed to fair a bit better at juggling large casts, since X-Men Legends I and II were good games, especially if you were an X-Men fan, but there was a lot of the Marvel universe that was left unexplored. They started hinting at it in X-Men Legends II with the inclusion of Iron Man as an unlockable character, but nobody gave a shit about Iron Man, so his inclusion felt more like a compromise than a milestone. Thankfully, virtually impossible and digitally impossible are two different things, because that all changed when X-Men Legends II got its followup title, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. 

Marvel Ultimate Alliance is not a particularly good game, but it’s a game I was obsessed with in high school, and a lot of what made it addictive back then holds up now. It’s a third person action RPG brawler that lets you play as some of Marvel’s most iconic characters. Like X-Men Legends before it, you pick a team of four characters and engage on a universe spanning adventure. The story is campy but it’s a genuinely classic Marvel story that feels in the vein of 1985’s Secret Wars in the best of ways. This isn’t an adapted Marvel Universe, this is a straight up Marvel Universe that you can get to play in and that alone was kind of revolutionary. 

This game is really respectful to Marvel history and acts as a kind of ‘greatest hits’ for the Marvel U, getting pretty archetypical representations of characters and artifacts, and honestly if you pay attention to the game you can carry yourself pretty deep into a conversation with someone who’s reading the books on a regular basis. You’d definitely know more than anyone who was just watching the movies at the time.

If you remove Batman Begins, Sin City, V for Vendetta, and Sky High, this was the best comic movie of 2005

Believe it or not, there was a time when characters like Ghost Rider, The Thing, and Elektra were more popular than Thor, Black Panther, and Captain America, but it’s true. Even mediocre movies made them more known in the average household than classic characters that are now beloved the world over. That’s part of why this game was so cool - there were so many characters you could play as. And I’m gonna list them all now because honestly, I don’t see a game in the future coming close to this roster; 

Black Panther, Blade, Captain America, Daredevil, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Human Torch, Iceman, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Mr. Fantastic, Ms. Marvel Nick Fury, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Storm, Thing, Thor, Wolverine, Moon Knight, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Colossus, Hawkeye, and the Hulk. 

It feels like a miracle this game was made at all

Eventually there was even a villains pack that let you play as Dr. Doom, Magneto, Sabretooth, and Venom, which didn’t make the most sense, but was cool as hell regardless. 

Let me explain why that lineup is such a big deal, because it’s easily the best part of the game.

This game came out in 2006, 2 years before the Iron Man movie, 5 years before Thor and Captain America, 10 years before the Luke Cage on Netflix and Deadpool in theaters, 2 years after the last Blade movie… people still don’t know who the hell Moon Knight is, but he’d just gotten a new series that year -so, yeah, this roster is incredible. While the story feels classic, the character design captured the time and place so well, blending so many different visual elements together seamlessly. Cap and Thor were their Ultimate versions, the X-Men were a mix of their film, their Astonishing, and their Ultimate versions. Other characters were taken from their most prominent era; the Fantastic Four were their film versions, Blade was film, Ms. Marvel, Dr. Strange, Spider-Woman,  Hawkeye, and Moon Knight were their normal comic book versions and I’m getting lost in the weeds at this point, because these are just the default skins.

You can unlock multiple costumes for each character and assemble any version of any team you’d like. One of the Thor skins is Beta Ray Bill, and one of the Iron Man skins is War Machine - so technically there are even more characters you can play as when you take their costumes into account. Each costume comes with its own set of perks that you can use to power your character. Some let you do more damage, some let you recharge your powers faster, earn more experience, and a variety of other unlocks.  

I’ve been reading comics for over 20 years and I have no idea who that dude on the right is

The problem is the gameplay is pretty generic. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but its utterly forgettable. This game is basically Diablo with Marvel characters except nothing feels good the way it does in Diablo. Not knocking an enemy out, not looting a chest, not beating a boss - all of the combat in this game lacks impact. Certain characters fair better with their special powers than others and those are usually who I gravitated towards when I was assembling a team. Throwing Captain America’s shield feels good, slashing with Wolverine’s claws feels good, and shooting Iron Man’s repulsors feels good but beyond that you’ll struggle to find a fun fourth to fill out your team. And that kinda stinks because assembling classic teams gets you certain bonus advantages. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Hawkeye? Congrats, you got the Avengers. Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, and Storm? You’ve got the X-Men. Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing? Well, I can’t remember what that team was called but they get you something too. The good news is that these teams only provide minimal stat bonuses so you’re not pressured to do it, just encouraged, nudged really. It needs to be stressed though; you never feel like these characters in iconic Marvel locations. You simply feel like you’re guiding these characters on a tour of famous Marvel locations

Every level looks like a diorama, but at least it’s hard to get lost

And the tour of the Marvel Universe you’re taking these teams on is a really charming one. From the gates of hell to fight Mephisto and Blackheart to the Halls of Asgard fighting the Annihilator armor and Surtur - there aren’t a lot of stones left unturned. This is basically a crash course in the Marvel U where you’re exposed to a ton of villains, heroes, items, and all their backstories, which are exceptionally faithful to what I’d call a “classical interpretation” of them. That’s a big reason why I think the game holds up so well. Outside of a few costumes (that again, are optional/customizable) this game’s story is pretty timeless. It’s just a shame the combat wasn’t given more attention.

Yeah, this game touches every corner of the Marvel Universe

Filling out these unique areas you visit are a ton of generic henchmen for you to fight, punctuated every 15 minutes or so with a mini boss fight against a b-tier character. After 3-4 of those, you’ll be fighting a much larger (literally) boss and engaging in a few quick time actions because this game comes from a time when those hadn’t become overbearing yet. Making the fights easier is the progression system, and it’s one of the better parts of the game. You’re constantly unlocking new powers for your characters to use and the designers were smart enough to leave in every character leveling up at the same time whether you’ve played as them or not. That means that even if you’ve never played as Ghost Rider, you can throw him in during the games final act and still make him relevant. Each character has anywhere between 10 and 12 attacks that you can map to three face buttons, and an ultimate attack that deals insane amounts of damage. Of the attacks you can assign, they vary but they’re all pretty standard. From area of effect attacks that help with crowd control, ranged/physical attacks, offense/defense buffs, and direct attacks, each movie is true to its respective character. The more enemies you defeat, the more experience you get and you can invest back into your characters. It’s a good system because each point you invest makes your characters noticeably more powerful, eventually one-shotting enemies like Captain America and Spider-Man actually would. It’s not the best carrot for the stick, the costume leveling is way more satisfying, but it’s carrot enough regardless to keep you moving forward.

There are sparse collectibles throughout each level and they can be anything from concept art to bonus levels, and even hidden characters you can unlock. There’s a map you can have on screen that fills in each area as you venture through it, so exploring every environment to the fullest isn’t a particularly taxing endeavor, and you should get all the characters after a first play through. Subsequent playthroughs can be done through a NewGame+ mode which will help you power up your characters to the level cap as well as reveal all costumes, which are generally unlocked after arriving at increasingly annoying milestones of enemies defeated. It’s a pain in the ass to get these, but the game is mindless and fun enough that it’s not an impossible task. 

Except when you purposely tie your hands behind certain teams

Marvel Ultimate Alliance is my sweatpants and mashed potatoes of gaming; it’s where I’m my most comfortable. I can play this game when I’m happy, sad, sick, drunk, bored, anxious, and any other possible condition that a person can find themselves in. It’s not the pinnacle of the genre, but it’s still a competently made game that satisfies a lot of what I like about both video games and comic books, and especially what I like about comic book video games. It’s much more fun with friends since the ally (and enemy) AI leave a lot to be desired, but should be played regardless if you’re at all into the Marvel Universe, because this game is made for fans of the Marvel Universe more so than fans of dungeon crawling action RPG’s.. It’s the perfect game to play through while listening to podcasts or bingewatching a series on Netflix.

It’s available on current generation consoles but is generally overpriced. I can’t recommend you spend more than $15 on either the original game or its sequel, which is also available. Replaying it has gotten me excited to see how the recently announced Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order will fare when it releases later this year as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. 

Yeah, I’m gonna play the crap out of this

15 - Super Mario 3D World

There’s something so inherently special about turning on a first party Nintendo game, and few games inspire the same jaw-dropping awe in me that a new Mario game does. Mario 3D World is a peculiar kind of Mario game, and while it may not technically be new, it’s new to be. On top of releasing on the Wii-U, a console we can safely call a failure now, it was the first home console Mario game after Super Mario Galaxy 2, and the first Mario game to come after one of my all-time favorites, the previously reviewed on this site Super Mario 3D Land. While you always want there to be a leap forward in feel between Mario games, especially between the handheld and home console iterations, Super Mario 3D World is a rare exception where more of a good thing is… still a pretty good thing. 

Oh hey buddies

It’s a bummer that the Wii-U wasn’t more successful, because Super Mario 3D World is probably the best Mario game no one’s played. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe recently came to the Nintendo Switch and I hope against hope that 3D World is the next game to come over because simply put, this game is a must play for fans of platforming games or fans of seeing Nintendo do what they do best. 

For the first time since Super Mario 2 on the original NES, Princess Peach has not been kidnapped. Instead, Bowser kidnaps the Sprixie Princesses and it’s up to Mario, Luigi, (a) Toad, and Princess Peach to save them. Where this game somewhat cheats is that, as previously mentioned, it’s basically just a blown up version of the 3DS title and honestly… I’m not mad about it. The levels are bite-sized and can be completed in three minutes or less. Each one is designed with a very specific idea in mind. Whether it’s a seasonal theme or a particular power-up, you’re given the rules of what to expect at the beginning of each level and it’s up to you to figure out the best way to navigate it according to whatever the level’s tasking you to do. 

I know being a dick is his thing, but why does he have to be such a dick?

Each level is just short enough where replaying it never feels like a bother, and exploring it on subsequent playthroughs for all the secrets therein is a manageable proposition. In each level there are three green Stars hidden that you’ll need to use as currency to unlock later levels. This encourages creativity on the player’s part and tasks you with thinking outside the box to see all the game has to offer. There’s also a small stamp collectible you can look for but honestly I was never compelled to go after them since all they do is unlock the hard as fuck levels that I’ve personally never been interested in going after in any Mario game. 

There aren’t a lot of new power-ups here but the new ones are pretty fun. Most famously associated with the game is the cat suit, which gives Mario a swipe attack, an aerial attack, and the ability to climb most surfaces. Beyond that, the only real new item is the double cherry - every one you collect doubles the amount of Marios on screen. While you get to keep whatever power you have when you double, not much is done with this power up after that - it’s fun to have 8 Marios throwing fire balls, but that’s about it; you basically need a certain amount of Marios to place on platforms to unlock certain hidden areas. As far as new elements to the game, there’s no question; the real star is definitely the cat suit. 

What’s not to love about the Cat Suit?

Besides that, a bunch of old favorites return, like the Fire Flower and the Super Leaf. The Mega Mushroom returns and I can only remember using it once and good grief they need to find a way to actually use that power up regularly because it’s fun but so, so underused. There’s also the Boomerang Flower which isn’t anything special, but the fact that it’s able to collect Coins, attack enemies, and even be used to collect the green Stars, is super helpful in later levels when collecting all of them can be a pain in the ass. 

And you’ll need to collect a lot of them. Super Mario 3D Land has a hub world that’s pretty reminiscent of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World- essentially an open board you can navigate and select which course you want to run. This time it’s a full 3D space and you look like a giant running around on a map, but boss levels are gated based on how many stars you’ve collected, so exploration is encouraged. Thankfully though, you’re not terribly pressured to explore every nook and cranny if you don’t want to. 

I think I like this more than hub worlds?

There are mini-bosses every few levels that test your skill with a newly learned mechanic and then a battle against a Koopa kid. These aren’t any different than they’ve been in any other Mario game and while they’re frankly pretty boring, the typical Nintendo charm oozes out of this game’s most mundane pores and makes repeating the same three jumps you’ve been doing for 20 years fun enough if not particularly inventive. It feels like the short chorus of a novelty song you haven’t heard in a while- you’re happy you know the words but they tend to lose their impact after doing it over and over again. 

But it’s still at least always a little fun to sing. I’m lookin’ at you, Chumbawumba.

We get it, dude

In addition to the the mini-boss levels there are also levels where you get to play as a special Toad known as Captain Toad. These levels are small and they’re even more meticulously designed than the typical platforming levels. When playing as Captain Toad, you can’t jump, so you have no way of defending yourself from enemies which makes the task of collecting five Green Stars throughout the level more difficult than in a traditional level. These require a bit of pattern memorization but they’re incredibly fun and help pad out your Star count to access later levels. These are so much fun in fact, that Nintendo spun these levels out to be their own own game in Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, and holy hell is the Switch version of that game is a tripppp. 

You can play as multiple characters each with their own specific movements and physics that make the game either more difficult or more easy depending on your play style. Mario can’t jump as high as Luigi but he controls a little more responsively. You can play as Toad and move around the fastest but with an underwhelming jump, and for the first time in a while you get to play as Princess Peach, who can’t run particularly fast but she has a floaty jump which may make narrow platforming easier for certain players. This game seems like it’d be a blast to play Multiplayer but unfortunately I didn’t get to do that after the first few levels. That said, because these are essentially adapted levels from the 3DS game, the levels are pretty linear, so working together is actually pretty easy from my limited personal experience.

What’s harder in 2019? Finding three other friends or three Wii remotes? The answer is three Wii remotes.

I’m personally really happy about the level design. It feels like a 2D game made into a series of dioramas that make for really fun environments. There’s less cohesion between levels in this game than in traditional 2D games but I actually really like that - the variety kept me engaged and curious about what was coming next. I’ve always really liked the handheld Mario games, especially Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins. It generally feels like the handheld titles experiment more, and a few of the levels here do just that. A lot of Mario games make it feel like you need to complete levels, but there are a few sprinkled in here where it feels like you have to solve them, and those layouts are where the game truly shines. Y’know, there and the Captain Toad levels. 

Where the game doesn’t shine is in the fights against Bowser. You’re basically on an autoscrolling platform following Bowser in a car who drops bombs that you need to swat back at him. I found these not particularly fun and occasionally they were just outright frustrating. Navigating the hazards Bowser throws at you never feels as smooth as you want it to. These are technically more interesting than jumping on the Koopa Kids for a quick three and out but at least those handle the way you want them to. That said, the final boss encounter with Bowser is easily the best because it takes certain elements of the car levels but dials them up to eleven. 

The only real drags of the game

I’m really happy I finally got a chance to play this Mario adventure. Besides Sunshine, it was the only one I was missing. It feels more like an extension of a slightly better game that really took advantage of its hardware, but it’s still a very good game in its own right. I played it on the Wii-U gamepad so it still felt like a handheld game but except for a few standout moments, it generally felt safer than what came before it. I’m sure this game will make its way onto the Switch before too long but if you have a Wii-U and missed this game or have a friend with one who’d lend it to you, it’s an insanely fun way to spend the weekend, and I recommend it highly. 

6 Games That Weren't as Good as Their Trailers (But Were Still Pretty Good)

Trying something new this week, champions. Rather than write something, I wanted to see how frustrated I could get with Final Cut Pro after not using it for a few years and see if I could produce a video instead.

What you’re about to see is me talking about something I really love - Game Trailers. I love them. Over the years, certain game trailers have stood out to me, exceptionally more so than the games they were made for.

Also, I didn’t include games I haven’t played - which is why you won’t see Fallout ‘76 or anything from MMO’s like Star Wars The Old Republic.

So without further ado, let’s talk about Six Games That Weren’t as Good as Their Trailers, but were still pretty darn good.

14 - Mass Effect

I gave up on saving the galaxy seven years ago. My back was killing me from a recent surgery and it was a cold Vermont winter in an apartment where my heater didn’t always work. I tried my darnedest, but I gave up about 65% of the way through. Flash forward to now, and after a panic attack robbed me of an otherwise enjoyable Saturday night,  I wanted something comfortable and familiar, and I just couldn’t stomach the thought of a job left unfinished any longer. So I booted up my PlayStation 3 with a renewed vigor, and went to work. 

The galaxy needed me, after all. 

This is the reversible cover to Mass Effect 3, but it doesn’t matter - because FemShep is Best Shep.

Mass Effect is a seminal game. Blending third person shooting with a meaningful narrative driven RPG where your decisions mattered, it was a game that took everything learned from the highly regarded Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic RPG and dialed it up to 11. Turn based encounters were gone, you had a whole galaxy to explore, and a completely new paradigm to understand your place in. The game is so good I don’t even mind ending that last sentence on a preposition. 

This blog is half keeping me accountable on new releases and half me visiting old favorites. Mass Effect may very well be one of my most of favorites. It was one of the first RPG’s I found myself lost in, and I’m happy to say it still stands above so much of the industry when it comes to impact and presentation. 

Thankfully, the only thing that really hasn’t held up are the load times. Which you’ll soon become very familiar with as you’re going to spend at least 40 minutes of an 18 hour play through in a fucking elevator.

Now that the worst part of the game is out of the way…

You’re Shepard, a human that’s being tested for inclusion into the most elite of intergalactic special agents, the Spectres. I said human because in what became a series staple - you can choose between male and female characters and both are completely voice acted for the entire trilogy. You can customize your background and even your appearance to an extent but holy hell you don’t have time for any of that because on your first mission you witness the betrayal of the most renowned Spectre, Saren, so who gives a shit if you have scars or red hair?

After this inevitable act of sedition, you’re tasked to assemble a team of humans and aliens to help you bring down Saren and his plans for galactic dominance, because of course that’s his end goal. You unravel the mystery of a long-lost alien species, the Protheans because of course you do. Turns out the Protheans left behind technology responsible for humanity exploring the galaxy, but then they just upped and disappeared. Because of course they did. 

Man, screw this Saren guy and the Reaper he flew in on.

The crux of the story, not just in Mass Effect but in the entire game trilogy has you finding out why. 

12 years later, that’s still Mass Effect’s greatest strength, the way the story weaves into the world and and the way the world weaves into the story. It’s so tightly written and makes so much sense on a structural level (the theory of it is a whole other matter, I’m not an astrophysicist so I can’t say), that few games since have reached the same peaks of this franchise’s debut. Throughout the game you have conversations with people and certain reactions dictate your reputation throughout the galaxy. If you’re aggressive and blunt, more options will open up to you allowing you to be more aggressive and more blunt. If you’re more level-headed and diplomatic, the same. This mechanic of allowing you to react in whatever manner you see fit makes Shephard feel like an extension of you better than most other games. While certain story beats are unavoidable, the way you get to them and the way you’re allowed to handle them varies wildly depending on what type of mood you’re in. This helps keep the story fresh on additional playthroughs and keeps you engaged in the moment. It would’ve been so easy for this to feel like less of a game and more like a movie you’re directing and writing on the fly but it never loses sight of this moment to moment attention to detail that elevates it above most games released since. 

The conversation wheel is one of the best ideas other games have stolen.

It really helps that there’s such of a variety of missions for you in the game. Some missions can literally be as simple as stopping someone from talking shit about someone else, or helping an alien who’s legally protesting avoid police harassment. You’re not always saving the galaxy, sometimes you’re just saving one person and that balancing act does so much for the story. It adds a weight to the game and lets you dictate your own pace. What’s brilliant too is it’s possible to miss 75% of the game if you’re not looking out for it, but the world is so compelling you keep discovering these untouched corners of the galaxy because you want to see what’s under every rock and behind every curtain. 

It’s good that so much of the game revolves around exploring over combat because the combat is not really anything to write home about. Third person shooters were rising in prominence when this game came out and while they improved it in later sequels, the original game suffers from pretty average if not downright bad combat scenarios. While the game is technically a cover based shooter, there’s not a lot of thought put into making combat ever feel particularly good. You always have a party of three at all times off your ship and each crew member has various powers that change your strategy in a confrontation, but besides controlling what power they use when and on which enemy, there’s not a lot of thought you have to put in the game, even on higher difficulties. While I haven’t tackled Insanity yet, the Impossible Difficulty didn’t ask too much of me besides going 10% slower than I would’ve preferred and taking enemies on one at a time. The few difficult situations were in enclosed spaces against a large number of enemies, like when a long thought extinct alien race makes a surprise reappearance, they ambush you in a tiny-ass room, and there’s a timer - that was more difficult than even the final boss fight just because the combat doesn’t allow for a lot of improvisation. In fact, a lot of the normal encounters with regular enemies were often more difficult than any of the few boss fights. I mentioned there was variety in quests, but any mission involving combat outside of main story missions feel overwhelmingly familiar. 

What mitigates the dullness and difficulty of the combat is the equipment you gain access to. Make no mistake, this is an RPG-ass video game where you’re constantly finding new and improved loot with its own advantages and drawbacks that’s constantly forcing you to reevaluate your approach. I got to the point where I was hoarding specific ammo types and swapping them out on the fly depending on the enemy I was fighting. This sounds tedious, and I guess it is if I’m being honest, but I loved it. It really challenges you to have situational awareness and memorize key strategies. This loot-fest feels less exciting than other games like Borderlands or Diablo however, because there was rarely a visual reward for managing them though it did help encourage you to find better and better weapons. I have to reiterate though, because of the combat ease, there’s little incentive to just seek out upgraded gear unless you’re testing yourself on the higher difficulties. 

There are tons of worlds for you to explore throughout the galaxy, and each world has certain key points for you to look out for. On any given planet there may be privateers for your to take out, artifacts to survey (don’t get excited, it’s just a Simon-Says-like-mini-game), ‘dungeons’ to explore, and powerful enemies for you to struggle against. One point critics to this day still rail against is how you get around these worlds. You can huff it on foot or you can use an all-terrain vehicle called a Mako to get around. I personally don’t get why it’s so maligned. The physics of it don’t feel great, sure, but it’s hardly bad. The one argument I guess I understand is that the best parts about this game are when you get to explore, and the main way of exploring in this game is not the best way to get around and while I can appreciate that, I still think it’s more fun than not as far as a means of transportation. Plus, the worlds aren’t really designed for a better option. I know the vehicle sections were changed drastically in the sequel but those were given an emphasis on combat. Only in the original Mass Effect do you feel like a Star Trek away team setting food on some strange new world with a pocketful of optimism and positivity. That feeling is lost in sequels and definitely helps make the original a standout. 

Shoutout to this blog for helping me find my new favorite gif.

12 years later Mass Effect doesn’t just hold up, it reminds you what games can be like when they’re at their best. Certain details like combat and driving the Mako are far from perfect, but it’s what they allow you to do next that makes the game incredible. The details are what make this game and the details are so well thought out and explored that it’s hard to let these gripes take the shine away from an otherwise incredible game. It’s not just worth a replay, it’s worth a few. 

12 and 13 - Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu

It’s almost impossible to understate just how much of an impact the original Pokemon games had when they released in 1998. Blue, Red, and the later definitive edition Yellow transcended success and became phenomenas, introducing a whole generation of younger gamers, myself included to Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPG’s from here on out). In addition it boosted, or benefited from depending on your outlook, a physical card game, an anime that helped normalize the medium to American audiences, and probably millions of toys and other memorabilia. 

What’s tough is that the first game was such a cultural touchstone, that doing something different runs the risk of alienating fans. To temper this, Developer GameFreak takes advantage of Nintendo hardware longevity and always makes sure to take steps forward for the franchise, while also touching up what came before, either with a definitive version of the game, Yellow in the case of Generation One Pokémon games, Crystal for Generation 2, Emerald for Generation 3 and so forth, but also in straight up remakes. Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green were the original games completely remastered for the Gameboy Advance, featuring updated art, enhanced graphics, and even additional content. Soul Silver and Heart Gold were remakes of Gen Two that came to DS, and the Nintendo 3DS even hosted its own set of remakes with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire while hosting new games like X, Y, Moon, and Sun. 

Advances made in new games trickles down to remakes, features tested out in those remakes make their way into new games and everyone’s happy. Fans get new games, nostalgia nerds get new versions of the old games, and Nintendo’s pockets get lined with gold. 

That said, I’m a little miffed with Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and by extension Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee for playing it a little too safe. The Nintendo Switch, the company’s latest console, is having meteoric success because of how novel of an idea it is; change between having a handheld and having a home console. It’s something completely new and the word of mouth is what’s selling these consoles. Not since the Wii has there been a “holy shit, you’ve gotta see this” piece of gaming hardware. The first Pokémon games to grace it aren’t new games however, they’re remakes of the  definitive version of the first game in the series, Pokémon Yellow. And I get why they’d do that, but the new content, while great, isn’t quite enough to make it feel like a new game.

That said though, it’s still a fantastic, fantastic game.

God this game looks so freaking good.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way - for the most part, this is a nearly perfect remake. Everything has been remade from the ground up while keeping a vast majority of the original gamesexactly the same. The game world is identical, the story is more or less exactly the same, and the goal is exactly the same  too- become the most powerful Pokémon trainer and collect all 151 Pokémon native to the Kanto region. Along the way you’ll have to battle eight gym leaders to prove your Pokémon are tough enough to take on the Elite Four, the most powerful trainers in the region. You’ll have a rival to battle, a gang of illegal Pokémon dealers to battle, and various light puzzles to solve to find your way in the world. 

It’s a fun, 30 hour tour through a place fans know so well. In addition to admittedly gorgeous updated visuals, there are a few tweaks made to the original formula. Some aren’t just welcome, but seem so obvious in hindsight it’s shocking they haven’t appeared sooner. Those are fun, so let’s start with those. 

Now, Pokémon appear in the over world. I know. It’s goddamn genius. You can see which Pokémon are in your immediate area and engage or ignore them accordingly. That means no more Zubats in Mt. Moon, no more Tentacools on your way to Cinnebar Island, and no more Gravelers on Victory Road unless you want them. And you might want them, because in addition to seeing which Pokemon you’re about to encounter, they also introduced a new mechanic called chaining. Chaining is a reward for catching the same type of Pokémon over and over again, that leads to more rare and more powerful Pokémon appearing. Just outside of Celadon City I decided to chain together Pidgeys because there were so damn many of them, and before long a level 25 Arcanine showed up. Which was awesome, because I captured him, and he then rain a train on Erika’s team of grass type Pokémon. I don’t particularly care for chaining, but my podcast cohost Sarah is obsessed with it because it increases your chance of finding a shiny Pokémon, that’s to say a rare color variation of a typical monster. Again, not something I care for, but other people seem to enjoy it, so good for them. 

Look at all the Zubats I don’t have to run into anymore.

The UI has also been completely overhauled. You no longer have a maximum number of items you can hold which is a total godsend. You can have literally every item at once and carry them with you always, which makes navigating the world so much easier that you actually feel like you’re exploring the world instead of just trying to survive it like in the original releases In addition to the items, you also have access to every Pokémon you’ve ever caught at all times, which is kind of mind blowing. While this makes the game easier from a progression standpoint, it removes at least 40% of all headaches the originals caused as well. You no longer have to find a Pokémon Center, remember which Box the Pokémon you’re looking for is in, and change your party with a PC. Now you can just do it all from the same menu and it’s awesome. It’s fanfreakingtastic and I hope to god every remake (emphasis on the word remake) does this going forward. 

A pretty ingenious change that’s somewhat related to the UI is the complete revamp of HM’s. In the original games, HM’s were battle moves that were critical to advancing in the game world. Moves like Surf would let you go out onto open water to reach new areas, Flash would illuminate dark areas like the Rock Tunnel, Fly would let you fast travel, Strength would let you move boulders to solve environmental puzzles, and Cut would remove trees that were blocking your way. In the original games it was a groaning exercise - because you could either teach one of these moves to a Pokémon in your main party, or you could stack as many as you could on a single Pokémon you didn’t want to saddle with relatively useless moves, but then you’d essentially have a five member party, weakening your team overall. HM’s have been slowly phasing out of recent releases and Let’s Go has essentially phased them out completely, replacing them with Secret Techniques. All the puzzles from the original game remain in tact - there’s still a bush blocking the Vermillion City Gym, you still need to Surf to get to the Power Plant, and you still need to move Boulders to get out of Victory Road - but instead of forcing your Pokémon to adopt a move begrudgingly, the mascot of your particular game (Eevee or Pikachu respectively), learns what’s called a Secret Technique, a move to use outside of battle that serves the same purpose. Pikachu hops on a surfboard, gets a balloon-strapped bicycle, and all manner of other crazy things to make progressing through the game way less annoying than it ever was in the originals.

On top of seeing wild Pokémon in the world, you can also pull your Pokémon out of their Pokéballs to hang out with you. Your mascot is with you at all times - either on your shoulder or on your head, but you can also have an additional Pokémon follow you around. They’ll let you know if there’s a hidden item nearby but more than that, it’s just nice to have the company, to be honest. The increased screen size and slight shift in perspective combine to almost make the game world feel smaller strictly because you can see more of it - but being able to take members of your team out and hang out with you make it feel more full. Plus, certain Pokémon let you ride them, making the bike pretty irrelevant, which is why they removed it entirely. Who would want a bike when you could ride around on your Arcanine or fly around on a Zapdos? Fools. That’s who. 

Also, riding a Snorlax is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a game. 

Teehee.

The final unanimously positive change is to the story. Things generally flow much better and you really feel like your actions in one city have repercussions in others, which in turn makes it feel like way more of a singular world rather than 8 loosely connected levels. It’s little things in presentation, like dramatic introductions of characters and locations with some basic cinematography that make the world feel bigger. There’s always an impact when you go to a location for the first time or meet a new character. The cinematic language adds weight to your progress through the game, making it feel way more like a story than the original games ever did. You meet a member of the Elite Four shortly after getting your second badge and damn that is such a cool idea that makes you feel like what you’re doing matters and that’s really cool, because you never got that feeling in the original games. While Team Rocket never feels like a genuine threat, subbing in Jesse and James from the anime at least make them a bit more personalized and more persistent than the Team Rocket Grunts you only fought in the original. Also, the big villain reveal at the start of the game’s third act is made way more meaningful thanks to changes in the story as well. 

Not all story tweaks are for the better however, and while I hate being negative, this next section is diving right into what I don’t like about the game, because there are a few annoying caveats that come with this remake. 

The biggest disappointment has to be the rival. The dude is just so… nice. In a complete departure from the original, your rival is no longer a douchebag, which was the main motivation in the original games. You didn’t want to beat the game as much as you wanted to beat him. But in the Let’s Go series of games, he’s so supportive and generous - he’s still challenging you to battles, but after every bout he gives you some very helpful and expensive items that you’ll need in some of the harder battles. It feels like he’s your friend, and while that’s great, especially for a younger audience who may be playing Pokémon for the first time, it loses a lot of the tension that was in the original game. You almost feel bad for beating hm sometimes because he’s so kind after the fact. 

This guy doesn’t suck as much as you want him to.

One rather significant change is to experience system. In the old games, you’d battle wild Pokemon for experience and level up your team that way, but in Let’s Go, the catching mechanic has been lifted from the wildly successful mobile game Pokémon Go, where timing and accuracy of throwing Pokéballs determines how much experience you get and battling has been removed entirely. This makes the longer stretches of the game without a Pokécenter way less stressful and while it doesn’t mitigate grinding, it changes it completely. Before, you could level up your Pokémon for free; you’d battle wild Pokémon and then head back to a Center to heal up your team and get back out there. But now, you can really only level up if you can afford to, since you need money to buy Pokéballs. Thankfully, the trainer battles are still in the game so there’s a good amount of money to be made just progressing through the world, but someone who’s not familiar with what you need and spends all their money on Potions or Paralyze Heals or what have you can spend all their money and not have the resources to level up accordingly, making the game way more difficult than it should be. That said, I think the devs erred on the side of caution and made payouts for winning battles a little higher in this version to compensate, but still, it’s a problem people could run into. 

One thing that’s made an appearance in recent games but was curiously absent from Let’s Go, is the the hint system given during battles. If you’ve used a particular type of move against a specific Pokémon, you get a little hint telling you whether it’s effective, super effective, neutral, or not very effective. That’s especially helpful in the new games because personally I don’t know the new Pokémon very well, and sometimes one will look like it’s a fire type for example but actually be another, essentially letting you waste a turn. While it’s the same Pokémon set from the first game, small tweaks like separating Special Attack and Special Defense (nerfing a lot of Pokémon in the process), new type advantages were put into place that weren’t there in the first time around. It would’ve been nice to have a little heads up, just because I still couldn’t tell you what’s super effective against Fairy or Dragon type Pokémon, but this is by no means a knock against the game.

All in all, for every criticism of the game there are at least five things the game did so well. There’s an actual endgame now that makes beating the Elite Four just the starting point of some challenging content, including Master Trainers, people in the world who specialize in one Pokémon species and only by beating them in a mirror match. It’s cool that there’s more content after you beat the game, but man this sucks. Who wants to have a fight between level 75 Caterpies? Who thought that was fun? You can do it for every Pokémon and it’s extremely tedious to beat them all. If you beat them all you get the title of Grand Master trainer which is great, but it doesn’t amount to much. Beating six however unlocks a fight against Ash, I mean Red, the player’s character from the original games. Which is an admittedly neat Easter egg. His Pokémon are the strongest in the game, hovering around level 80. 

In fact, after you beat the Elite Four, you can go back and battle a few select trainers again, notably the gym trainers, Red, Blue, and Green - the original characters from the manga. It’s a pretty nice carrot at the end of a very generous stick that extended the game and made is a vast improvement over the original game. But it’s also necessary, since as previously mentioned, you need to beat trainers to have enough money to get Pokéballs to level up and you see where I’m going with this. 

If you have a Switch, I cannot recommend this game enough, whether you’ve never played a Pokémon game, played every single one of them, or if the originals are your favorite games of all time. There’s enough new here to make revisiting Kanto worthwhile, and it’s the definitive way to play Pokémon Yellow. And I know that because I was so excited for this game to come out that I bought Pokémon Yellow from the 3DS eShop and replayed it just to make sure. It was nice going back, yes, but going forward anytime I get a hankering for Kanto, I’m booting up Let’s Go, not the original. The quality of life improvements with item and party management make Let’s Go the definitive version for me. 

We’ve come a long way.

2019 will see a new Pokémon game come to the Switch, possibly a more traditional one with battling wild Pokémon, but we’ll see. Personally, I would love to see every game in the series remade in the Let’s Go style because as an older fan with a life, it was so incredibly nice seeing fully realized 3D Pokémon models and replaying the same adventure I know so well and playing it on my TV. That was everything I wanted 20 years ago and I’m so happy to have it now. Play this game, it’s a time machine, and Pokémon finally looks the way you’ve always wanted it to. 

Star Wars - The Last Jedi - Spoilers n' stuff

I don’t like Star Wars The Last Jedi. But more than that, I don’t like the people who don’t like Star Wars The Last Jedi. The backlash to that movie was something I’d never seen before. Hate campaigns spread like wildfire attacking and threatening principal actors from the film as well as the production crew. That’s obscene and terrible. You don’t treat people the way the internet treated Kelly Marie Tran. Anyone who engaged in that abhorrent behavior should be ashamed of themselves.

There are problems with the Last Jedi, but from what I’ve read and from what I’ve ignored from the most annoying of YouTube pop culture pundits, what we dislike doesn’t align.

I don’t care about the prank phone call Poe makes at the beginning of the movie.

I don’t care how ridiculously slow the bombers are in the beginning of the movie.

I don’t care that Luke got green milk from that Loch Ness looking thing and then pole vaulted to a cliff side.

I don’t care about Porgs.

I don’t care that Laura Dern didn’t tell everyone about her plan to save the Rebel Fleet.

I don’t care that Laura Dern had purple hair.

I don’t care about Kylo Ren being shirtless.

I don’t care about the second act detour to Canto Bight.

I don’t care that we will probably never find out who Snoke is.

I don’t care about the gaff when Rey is fighting the Praetorian Guard.

I don’t care what ramming the First Order capital ship means for the entire history of intergalactic warfare.

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

Me neither, Tommy.

Please stop crying about those things because they’re not worth getting upset about. Anyone who thinks that The Last Jedi is a bad movie has never seen a bad movie. If Attack of the Clones didn’t kill anyone, you’ll survive this. It’s not the worst movie. It’s not even the third worst Star Wars movie.

I actually like most of the things listed above that YouTubers seemed to shit on. I’ve realized that The Last Jedi is a well made movie I don’t particularly like. It’s well cast, it’s well-shot, and as I watch the Blu-ray while writing this, the effects are absolutely gorgeous. The new score with reverence to the original punctuates the right moments. The character design and general art direction are unparalleled. Snoke’s guard? incredibly sleek and intimidating. The casino world of Canto Bight? One of the coolest places since Cloud City or Jabba’s Palace. This movie does so much right that getting upset about those details I listed above is a waste of time, because for each detail most people complain about, there’re 10 others so good they’re chill-inducing.

There are three main things I don’t like about the movie and bring it down to about average for me. In no particular order, they’re as follows:

• Luke phones in the final fight.

• The scope is too small.

• No one is special, not even the special ones.

Alright, champions, let’s break all these down. Also, it should’ve been obvious, but from here on out -

Spoilers n’ stuff to follow.

Luke phones in the final fight.

The end of The Force Awakens gave us our first glimpse of Luke Skywalker in over thirty years. There was a huge, sweeping shot of Rey and Luke locking eyes with Rey extends the lightsaber Luke had inherited from his father. It was incredibly dramatic and gave me goosebumps, even if it may have gone on a little too long.

The Luke we’re given two years later in The Last Jedi is a crotchety, retired hermit whose cut himself off from the Force completely because he sees the Jedi’s intentions and goals as foolhardy and unrealistic. That’s awesome. The Jedi may have saved the galaxy countless times but they’ve had to fail it just as many times to be heroes. That tension of the greatest Jedi we the audience have ever known not wanting to be a Jedi anymore was incredibly compelling. As he begrudgingly shows Rey the ways of the force according to his new belief system, we’re given details to his falling out with the Jedi philosophy and in flashbacks we see his failure. It was a moment of weakness where he feared Kylo-Ren, his nephew, and the power he had.

Given what we know about Kylo now, this is a pretty awesome metaphor for the fanboy who clings to the past but is forced to do something new and is punished for it yet still revels in it. But story-wise, Luke failed to uphold the Jedi ideals and teach his student. He wasn’t there for him in a way that needed to be, and his absence as a reliable mentor was the straw that broke the camel’s back, sending Kylo down a path of darkness that led him to find solace in the Sith. Thankfully though, when all hope seems lost, Luke shows up and shares an intimate acknowledgement of guilt with his sister, Leia.

The final confrontation on that kickass looking salt world (Crait) has the remaining First Order’s army stopped dead in their tracks and firing every possible laser they have at Luke just to have him brush non-existent dust off his shoulder with a pretty great old man scowl. Yeah, he showed up after saying in the beginning something like “what did you want me to do, show up and fight the whole First Order myself?”.

His next words were literally “I know what you mean”.

Reading the situation like it’s a fucking Dr. Seuss book, Kylo goes down and engages in a one-on-one lightsaber duel with his former master. It’s epic as hell. It’s the new generation, the one that came up so long after Star Wars engages in a fight with the one lived the goddamn Star War, yup - that metaphor reared its head again but what’re you gonna do, that’s good filmmaking.

This guy is the stand-in for every Star Wars fan complaining about Star Wars and I love it. Eat shit, internet.

The fight ends with Luke revealing that that he was never really there. He was a force projection coming from the same planet he’d been on all this time, manifesting himself so strongly and wholly that he was able to have a lightsaber fight with his goddamn mind.

One read of this scene praises Luke. Return of the King, baby - the most powerful Jedi does the most powerful thing and makes Kylo look both weak and dumb at the same time for not realizing he was never even there. My problem is that it shows Luke learned nothing from the first time he failed Kylo. His absence caused him to fall from grace and one more time he was absent. Kylo yells at him “Are you here to save my soul?” And Luke coldly responds “No”. Why not though? In a sense this is Luke’s fault. We know that because the next words Luke says are “I failed you, Ben, I’m sorry”. But then when Kylo realizes that Luke wasn’t there, he feels hoodwinked. The audience does too. And they should.

I would’ve been cool with it, but then in the next scene Luke’s corporeal form fades in with the double sunset reminding you of his simple childhood on Tatooine before blowing up the first Death Star and wait a second he died? But he wasn’t even there? How did he fucking die?

How did he fucking die indeed. There’s no real answer, and there isn’t even a hint based on his conversation with Leia or his parting words to Kylo (“See you around, kid”). I’m cool with Luke dying, but if the dude was going to die anyway, why didn’t he show up? Luke was the most idealistic person by the end of Return of the Jedi, he believed in Darth fucking Vader of all people, but Kylo was too much? Not only did he not show up for Kylo, rehashing his original sin, but he didn’t even show up for Leia. Sure he passed the Turing Test, but if he knew he was going to die anyway, he should’ve died there. It would’ve meant more, and it would’ve been nice to see Luke believe not only in the good of people, but to believe in anything before we had to say goodbye to him forever.

It didn’t feel as earned as when Obi-Wan died. Or Qui-Gon. Hell, it didn’t feel as earned as when Solo died.

Or Yoda.

Or Qui-Gon.

Or even Han.

The only worse death in Star Wars canon has got to be Padme.

What the actual fuck was this. HOW DID SHE DIE? “She’s losing the will to live”? She isn’t a cautionary tale in a telefuckingnovela, she’s a sitting senator pregnant with twins, do something, Padme.

The scope is too small.

Star Wars operated on a scale few other franchises have ever dared. An intergalactic civil war between a group of ragtag rebels and a fascist government that, and this bears repeating, operates on an intergalactic level. Just when you thought the words were big, you see the ships. And it’s genius the way they introduce this - the opening shot is of a ship that’s already sizably impressive - a Corellian Corvette. We then see that big-ass ship get kangaroo-pouched by a Star Destroyer, something that dwarfs it to the point of complete irrelevance. Then later in the movie, we see a bunch of those impossibly large ships around the Death Star, something so completely massive, Han Solo sees it and thinks it’s a fucking moon.

Isn’t this terrifying? This would either be the coolest or the worst video game level.

And then in 2015, The Force Awakens comes out, and the ships are so big, you think it’s parody until you see what the ship looks like and you realize how badass it is. Throughout The Last Jedi, a dozen or so of these ridiculously oversized warships are in pursuit of a decimated Resistance Fleet, too tired from running to properly lick their wounds from the first skirmish of the movie, and too small to make a stand. The three Rebel cruisers soon become one after barely outrunning the First Order, but manages a daring attack that cuts the enemy fleet in a half. Side note, that’s still, and forever will be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a movie. But now the Resistance doesn’t even have a capital ship to call home, but that doesn’t matter because they have to stave off a frontal assault of souped up Imperial walkers, y’know, the super cool things from Empire Strikes Back. Eight of them are marching on the base when, thanks to Luke’s aforementioned intervention, the surviving Resistance members manage to sneak out the back of their base and escape comfortably on the Millennium Falcon and wait, what the shit?

Yeah. The bad guys went from having an incalculable amount ships to having a half dozen, and the entire Resistance went from being a threat to the First Order to fitting rather comfortably onto one passenger ship made for smuggling. One of the coolest things about Star Wars was reduced to barely noticeable over the course of 2 hours. The story was about the Resistance being rundown and against the ropes. There’s a message that dances on heroism vs martyrdom and Poe learns that some victories cost too much, and while it’s a nice arc for him, it shrinks the universe considerably and spits in the face of my next problem with the movie that I’ll touch on in a bit.

I’ve had this cover stuck in my head since 2007.

The entire time the Resistance is running from the First Order, they’re talking bout their allies in the Outer Rim, and it’s setting up this huge confrontation in the third act that never happens. Story-wise, this is a decision that didn’t amount to much and again, worked to make the universe smaller. It’s great that nobody came except for Luke, what a subversion of expectations, but you already know my feelings on that.

After the final confrontation, we see a child from the Canto Bight scene use the force and we’re given hope of a new generation of heroes and Jedi and people who see the system as broken and will want to fix it. But… the kid was 11 maybe? Inspiring as it was, we’re not gonna see a kid swinging his lightsaber at adults because Disney doesn’t want to, and shouldn’t, glorify child soldiers. So, at best we have to wait at least 4+ years before it becomes visually palatable. Not to mention the fact that Disney probably isn’t in a rush to have a kid protagonist following Episode I.

So now, in the entire galaxy there are two groups of people who aren’t large enough to either fight for the galaxy or to defend it. No one seems to care about this conflict except for the people in it and because of that it kind of feels like a group of parents watching their kids play wrestle in the backyard. The kids think what they’re doing is important when everyone else knows better. I don’t know if the director’s intention is for this to be the vocal minority on the Internet vs. the silent vast majority, but it’s a read I’ve played with and don’t entirely hate…. But man I miss the scale of things. The sheer awe of so many ships they drown out the field of view was something so singularly Star Wars that I don’t know any other franchise that could deliver that amount of spectacle. I’m not saying another can’t, but I am saying it was Star Wars’ beat and for whatever reason, The Last Jedi eschewed it. It doesn’t feel like the galaxy is at stake anymore. The reason Luke trying to save Vader worked was because it balanced the greater story of Rebels against the Empire, summing up that desperate struggle as a son trying to save his father.

Instead of focusing on a conflict of good vs evil, a ton of time is spent talking about the ambiguity of either side. Benicio Del Toro’s character DJ is hacker that Finn and Rose hire to disable a machine for the First Order and he shatters this vision they have of the universe. They were so taken aback by the wealth and lack of care from the elite on Canto Bight when they realized their fortunes were made from arms dealing, that they forgot the good guys buy arms too. There’s a great line DJ makes to Finn after he makes a deal with the First Order to save himself where he says something like “Don’t worry, kid. They blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow.” Finn responds with “You’re wrong”, just to have DJ end the conversation with “Maybe”.

This little exchange is fascinating but when it became a major theme of the movie, it seems like Star Wars can’t go back to operating at the scale it used to, because all that grandeur will translate into a guilty audience. We want too see that spectacle, but knowing that all the ships are war profiteering and probably the result of child labor and shitty working conditions, it’s hard to think of anything else, because that shit’s, y’know, terrible.

No one is special, not even the special ones.

This last argument against the movie is admittedly my weakest, because the other two were about feelings. They made The Last Jedi not feel like a Star Wars story, but no one being special is a story decision so I can’t mount a proper critique of it because Star Wars isn’t my story to tell. But it’s Saturday evening, I just lost a little bit of money on the Cowboys/Rams game and I’m bored, so here we go.

It was pretty clear watching the movie that Rian Johnson likes Star Wars but doesn’t like the Skywalkers, and I can get behind that. The cosmic coincidence that this one single family are the ones steering the direction of the known universe is sort of ridiculous on paper. How the can one bloodline, or one person really, be so important in a galaxy of trillions?

For more than 35 years, what Jyn Erso and the crew of the Rogue One did was just a sentence in the opening crawl of A New Hope.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence when the movie came out. Populism was a political ideology that was sweeping the country in the lead up to the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders electrified a young electorate with his ideas and Donald Trump to some extent even ran on it. Jeb Bush was snubbed (his own doing; I still can’t believe when asked asked at a Republican Primary what female should appear on the $10 bill and he said Margaret fucking Thatcher), and Hilary Clinton was passed over for Trump. The message was pretty clear; we don’t want people who have been here before. We don’t want establishment. We want something different. We’re going to reject the status quo and vote for something radically different even if they lead us down a path that’s radically terrible. It’s not about you, it’s about us, and you haven’t done anything for us lately. Whatever, at least the people who got us here aren’t here anymore.

Some of the biggest draws of Star Wars after the Force Awakens were the mysteries put forth. Who the hell is Snoke? Why did Luke run away? What happened between Han and Kylo. Who the hell is Rey? Who are her parents? Why is she force sensitive? My personal theory was that she was a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi from an old flame he had on the Clone Wars cartoon, a badass Mandalorian leader, but it was up to the movies to answer that question.

Rian Johnson didn’t, and he took it a step further by having Kylo-Ren, the representation to the old films tell her a truth she’d contemplated but never wanted to seriously consider; that her parents were nobodies, junk traders who pawned her off for drinking money and left her to die on the sandy scrapyard of Jakku.

I legitimately love Kylo.

That’s probably the bravest thing Johnson did in the film. He rejected the idea that lineage matters and that to be great you have to come from a special house or have your parents be somebody so that you have a chance to be too. That’s courageous as hell in a series of movies that center completely around Anakin, Luke, and Leia as the people who can save or ruin the galaxy but that’s also what made them special. The fact that it didn’t matter how many Stormtroopers there were, that it didn’t matter how many Star Destroyers or Battle Droids or whatever - that there was always a Skywalker standing between the galaxy and oppression. Yes, Anakin fell, a Skywalker cost the galaxy everything, but two Skywalkers set it right and gave everyone a chance because they were destined to.

Rose become a major player because of fate - she saw Finn trying to escape to find Rey and she stopped him. That’s destiny. That’s someone rising to prominence, but it’s not different enough from Rey being related to someone we know from the old films to completely dismiss that idea, at least in my opinion.

This wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t any Star Wars movies that didn’t contain the main story but there are. For my money, Star Wars Rogue One is the second or third best Star Wars movie of all time, depending on how sentimental I’m feeling (this scene elevates Return of the Jedi so much for me). There’s a new entire offshoot of movies meant to be about people, and not about the greater conflict. They have their own subtitle, “A Star Wars Story”, and everything.

If you don’t like the idea of a single family being so important, why not make one of those movies? Why not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that those movies can be just as important, if not more so than the main numbered entries? It felt like Johnson hated the chokehold the Skywalkers had on the galaxy, and while I can appreciate that, there are two ways to address it:

You can either elevate someone else, or some group, to show that they’re more important, or you can tear down the Skywalkers and tell us they’re not any more important than any other character. Johnson chose the latter, and it just feels like an unnecessarily negative way to accomplish the goal. You can cede the mantle without breaking what came before.

That said, it was definitely awesome watching a bunch of candy-ass fans start crying about The Last Jedi. After The Last Jedi’s release, Johnson was given approval for a new trilogy, taking place at a different time, moving the Star Wars mythos in a different direction.

I don’t like The Last Jedi. But you’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m not going to that opening day.

Oh, and one more thing…

That’s it. Those are the three main things I didn’t dig about the Last Jedi, and why I felt like it was an underwhelming Star Wars movie. The only last point I’ll add is one I’m scared makes me sound like one of those man-babies tearing the flick down, but hear me out.

I actually really liked Laura Dern’s character, Admiral Holdo. I liked her a lot. I wish she’d survived, but like I previously said, that lightspeed scene is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and I am so glad it was in the movie, so the only way I can have my cake and eat it too is if one thing in the story had been different, and it involves my favorite character:

Yeah. This fuckin’ guy.

What I wish had happened was that Admiral Ackbar wasn’t killed off unceremoniously when the bridge was blown up (when Leia was blasted into space and then used galaxy magic to get back inside like some kind of fucking wizard). My favorite character in the whole series was killed essentially off-screen and left out in the cold of space as a pile of particles and debris (another example of not even the special ones being special).. But what if… what if he survived so he could die later? What if Ackbar were the one to lightspeed ram the imperial fleet and Holdo lived to fight another day?

I know why it had to be Holdo. She had to be the one to teach Poe the difference between sacrifice and suicide, I get it. But man, I liked Holdo a lot, and given that Carrie Fisher unfortunately passed away after filming (Rest in power, Princess), it would’ve been a great time for Leia’s heir apparent to take up the mantle of Resistance and Rebellion. Now, I have no idea what the story is for episode IX, so that could be a terrible idea, but at least where we stand now, I wish that had happened.

And I wish Ackbar got a more glorious sendoff than that. I love you, Ackbar. Always will. Thanks for keeping your head on a swivel and warning the rebels that —

11 - Fable Anniversary

In my last post I waxed poetically about X-Men Legends, a game that consumed my life entirely for one weekend in 2004. Licensed games made up a huge part of my early gaming library not even because I was obsessed with their licenses, which I was, but because they were usually the first games to hit the $20 bargain bin. Games like Batman Begins, The Punisher, The Two Towers, Return of the King, Fantastic Four - all these games were perfectly average but more than that, they were perfectly affordable. It definitely didn’t hurt that most of the games to hit were comic book related, but I digress. Certain games deserved their full $49.99 price tag but they were few and far between for a relatively broke 14 year old working 35 hours a week as a busboy.

If I could go back and change one thing, I would make 14 year old me pick up Fable on the original Xbox. Because as I’ve recently found out, holy hell what a game.

Yeah, in hindsight I was an idiot for not grabbing this game. That cover is absolutely fucking gorgeous.

I love my old consoles but I’m really loving the backwards compatibility and library of digital titles on my Xbox One. I recently grabbed Fable Anniversary, a 2014 HD remake of the eponymous 2004 title courtesy of Lionhead Studios. It was an exclusive action RPG for Microsoft’s rookie system and the HD remake is the full game along with its post-launch expansion, The Lost Chapters. and again, I cannot stress this enough;

This is a game 14 year old me would’ve loved. This is a game that 28 year old me currently loves, and cannot stop thinking about.

The game is set in the fictional world of Albion, a fantastical place with an exceedingly English flair. The intro area is the small town of Oakvale, where it’s your sister’s birthday and you need to make money to buy her a gift. With this simple conceit, Fable introduces you to its morality system, something that has since been normalized into games but I can totally see being novel and exciting, especially for a console RPG.

Everything you do in Fable affects what they call your alignment, something that’s essentially a morality score. Good deeds will push your character to be seen one way, and evil actions will give your character a more feared, dubious, and… horned reputation.

From the original game, not the anniversary edition - but you see where being shitty and evil gets you?

The genius of introducing this early in the game is that you’re shown a wide range of acts that affect your alignment, and for every positive action there is an equal and opposite negative action you can take. Whether you decide to guard someone’s shipping crates or smash them up yourself, Albion will know you and your values and respond to you accordingly. It’s a pretty impressive technical achievement that makes the world feel like it’s genuinely responding to the nature of the choices you’ve made, large and small, obvious and obscure. Killing guards and citizens should obviously affect the way the world sees you, but since the first Zelda’s you’ve been taught to smash crates because there’s good shit in them - but if they belong to someone else, that’s not gonna fly. The game effectively retrains you on a primal level about the idea of consequences, and it’s pretty fascinating. Before long though, the smaller touches that you don’t see coming run out and then it becomes a pretty basic binary of “Do you want to help the guards or do you want to help the pirates”, but the more subtle moments highlight a pretty thoughtful mechanic that influences how you can grow your character.

And everything grows your character, for better and for worse. Food will replenish health, but if you eat too much, your character will get fat. Maybe you want to help pirates protect their hostages because there’s a higher gold yield, but it’ll literally change the way your character looks. That said, the story makes it quite clear that Albion is on the precipice of change, so evil actions don’t necessarily feel out of place, but more like a necessary change to the world order, should you feel the need to play that way. That said, I didn’t know about the food thing until after the post-game; it’s very easy to miss a lot of these mechanics and that makes the game all the more impressive.

kicking chickens - good, evil, or just some kind of Albionese flirting?

It makes the world feel alive, in the sense that every character responds to you and your current alignment. I’m really impressed by the ambition Lionhead had when they created this game. However, some content in the game is locked away if you veer to far down one path or the other. There are locations called Demon Doors, hidden locations that tell an incredibly cryptic and frustrating riddle and will only open after you meet the state requirement in front of them. Some only open if you’re good, some only open if your evil, but they’re all filled with incredible treasure and reward you for committing to one alignment or the other, and even a second play through. It’s a pretty smart incentive, and looking at it all form a birds eye view, it feels pretty ahead of its time, especially given the game’s 2004 release date

Ok, so, they’re not all cryptic or vague

One thing that does feel particularly 2004 though is the combat system. It’s basically just z-targeting and button mashing, but you can improve your defense, your attack, and very, very helpful mana abilities that admittedly add a layer of strategy to encounters with higher level, end-game enemies. The easier enemies that you cut your teeth on generally respawn in their native areas, and once you’re about halfway through the story, you finally feel like a powerful hero (or anti-hero) of Albion becoming this truly mythical figure you’re destined to become. But the higher level enemies, the ones that basically scale with you throughout the story are always, always, always sponges and do a bit more than I would’ve preferred to keep your burgeoning legend in check. Fairly early on into the game you encounter a little goblin like enemy called a Hobbe and their proficiency in both magic and physical attacks made them a very special kind of pain in the ass that wrecked me both frequently and thoroughly. Normally though with an older game, the save system would be a pain in the ass if you’re caught in an area underpowered, but between a healing spell you can learn and items called resurrection phials that do exactly what you’d think they do, the inconsistent save system was mitigated in spite of the Hobbes, in spite of the werewolf-like Balverines, and the colossal fucking cave trolls that’ll stun you right out of contention if you can’t master the dodge roll.

The games areas themselves definitely feel like they’re from a different era of game design. While it may seem like every world today is open world, Albion is segmented in different towns, cities, and the paths between them. No matter how much time I spent exploring the world though, I never felt like I got a grasp for the layout. Making things worse, the map system feels like its from an even earlier era, making almost zero goddamn sense. Certain portals open up at the entrances of key locations and those things are awesome because they prevent a lot of headaches but you can only get to those portals by finding them first and that part is never as smooth as I’d like it to be, but that’s because it’s missing one huge quality of life change that’s pretty much made every single video game better since their proliferation: waypoints.

Playing modern, player-choice-driven RPG’s, you can set quests as important and get them to pop up on the map. Hell, some games even have little markers appear above key characters heads if you need to talk to them, some areas or items are highlighted in the environment if they’re relevant to a quest, but Fable is not one of those games, and that’s what really made navigating such a pain in the ass. I try not to look up guides for games on my first play through of a game, but there were definitely a few quests I couldn’t complete without one because they just weren’t clear enough in the game. Like the assassins below. Where the hell were the last ones? I went to where it to go on the map and they weren’t fucking there.

The only disappointing bit was the DLC, The Lost Chapters. However, it was only underwhelming because of its brevity. After the main game’s pretty fantastic climax, you’re presented a followup danger to the world that promises to be larger than what you just went through but ultimately fails to deliver. That said, you get to spend more time with a character I really, really liked, and felt like was underused in the main story, so there are things to like about the post-game activity, but its parts are greater than its sum for sure.

But when you do figure out where to go, you’re treated to a genuinely interesting story that does a fantastic job of projecting scale. You get the feeling the world is in danger. You feel powerless when Jack of Blades presents himself as the main villain. And Jack is a particular kind of evil that just gets worse the more you get to know him - he’s a fantastic foil and you get the sense that he’s from some Fable prequel that we never got to play - you can see so much of yourself in him if you just let yourself make easier choices - that’s what kept me on the straight an narrow.

But conversely, you get to see just how powerful you’d become if you let yourself loose and just took power. Jack punctuates twists along the way that I didn’t see coming and I was so impressed with where the story went and felt that the revelations that happen were both earned and welcome. The main story floored me, and it’s highlighted by smaller side quests and memorable NPC’s that make the world feel lived in, and worth either taking over should you take a more sinister turn in Albion, or worth saving if you wanted to be remembered as her champion.

Albion. Shakespeare was right when he said all the world’s a continuous line with some dots here, some dots there, and some other dots and other lines over there.

Yes I’m sweet on this game in spite of its blemishes but it’s hard to be too critical because… I mean, shit, it’s now a 4 year old remake of a then 10 year old game. And at the end of the day, if you have an Xbox One and miss the way old games feel but not how they look, you’d be hard pressed to find one as fun as Fable Anniversary. The updated visuals are how you want to remember games from that era, smooth and whimsical, befitting a fantastical story. That charming art direction is brought to life thanks to a higher polygon count, improved draw distances, and other touches of modernity that highlight an incredibly ambitious game design that holds up impressively well nearly a decade and a half later, warts and all. This very well could become a yearly or every other year replay for me.

Backlog Quest Log - What I've been Playing

Hey friendos --

Man, it’s been a minute, eh? Yeah, I’ve been bad. Instead of finishing a game, I’ve been getting about halfway through a game, getting anxiety, and then starting another one. I miss writing though, and I wanted something easy to get back into it. Rather than a full blown piece, here’s a medley of thoughts on the medley of games I’ve been playing.

Fable Anniversary, Xbox One backwards compatibility

I actually finished this one, but I haven’t finished the post about it yet. Look back soon. I super dug it though. Great game with a fun story, good art direction, and a ton of ambition that I didn’t know the console had in 2004.

Damn, look how much prettier that is

Fable II, Xbox One backwards compatibility

Fable II is probably better than the original Fable but I don’t think I like it as much. It’s hard to remember that this game came out six years before the Anniversary version I played before it, but this game aged considerably poorer than I’d expected it to. Everything has that first HD gen problem of muddy textures and earth tone pallets, but this game, while more what I would want from a video game, just isn’t as fun as its predecessor.

Splatoon 2, Switch

I skipped the first Splatoon on Wii U so I was pretty happy to see the sequel announced for that shiny new Nintendo thing I got. It’s… fine? The game is beautiful, it’s vibrant, and it’s exciting. It is one of the most mid-2000’s games I’ve ever played and it feels like it was made for the Dreamcast, like it’s a spiritual cousin to Jet Set Radio or something. I love the atmosphere of this game, it’s brilliant in concept, but something about the shooting feels stiff, awkward, and imprecise. When you first start the game its default setting is gyroscope controls to assist with aiming, and since turning it off (because I don’t want to swing the Switch wildly), the game feels less accurate, like it was designed with gyro controls in mind, and that makes me play it a bit more begrudgingly.

Pokémon Moon, 3DS

Every Pokémon game emulates a city or a region, and last year’s Pokemon game (I’m playing the original, not the Ultra Moon enhanced version) is based on Hawaii and its islands. It’s probably my favorite game in the series since Soul Silver. Gym Leaders have been replaced with “Island Challenges (which are 80% the same thing). While that sounds like a small change, the deemphasis on combat permeates the entire game and makes it feel like a more relaxing game because of it. The only thing I’m missing from it is the feature in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire where the lower screen was marked with your collection stats for the immediate area you’re in.

Say what you. will, I actually really dug these starters

X-Men Legends II, GameCube

I’d actually never beaten this game before. I had it in high school and got stuck on a boss battle before convincing myself it wasn’t as good as the first one. I was wrong. Sort of. This is definitely a nerdier RPG than the first one, but that’s a double edged sword. One thing I really appreciate about the first is how streamlined it is, and while that’s lost in the sequel, there’s no denying how awesome it is that you get to make teams out of both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants against Apocalypse, that’s awesome, right? I’m going for broke in this; I’m hoping to unlock both Iron Man and Deadpool, half of my normal team in this game’s spiritual successor.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance, PS4

Oh shit look at that. I actually finished this one too but haven’t done the write up on this either but damn - this is one of my favorite games that isn’t particularly great. I’ll elaborate more in the games on post, but there’s so much to love about this game, you just have to be willing to forgive a bit.

That’s only about 2/3’s of the entire roster, the PS4 version includes the DLC and trophy support

Super Mario 3D World, Wii-U

This is the only 3D Mario game I’d never played. SO far it’s a ton of fun, it definitely feels like a sequel to the 3DS title, 3D Land, which is awesome. That game was great. That said, so far it hasn’t moved the ball forward as impassively as past games, but that’s ok, because Mario Odyssey is also a thing. But, man - screw everyone, I liked the Wii-U

Spider-Man, PS4

Alright, so, this is inarguably the best Spider-Man game to date. That said, it’s only marginally better than previous Spider-Man games. It’s the best produced game, but it doesn’t feel all that different than games like Spider-Man 2 or Web of Shadows. It’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever seen, and it’s the best movement the character has ever had - every hour or so, it feels like a new collectible is introduced and I’m so happy I have another excuse to web around the city because it feels incredible.

Halo: Combat Evolved, Original Xbox

A friend came over and we just blasted through the first halo game on legendary. It’s harder than I remember for sure, but there’s something so special about this game, even 17 years later. The music especially is incredible, Marty O’Donnell is a goddamn genius.

Shadow of the Colossus, PS4

I didn’t play this game for 10 years out of protest. My roommate in college would play this all the time and I just snapped, I couldn’t take the graphics, the sounds, or the colossi. I wasn’t just wrong after playing this, I was absolutely floored with how wrong I was. This is clearly a very special game and the HDR looks stunning, worth upgrading on its own.

God of War, PS4

I only played the opening tutorial section at a friend’s behest and it’s super good, but I never really liked console God of War games all that much to begin with. That said, this one feels different and I intend to get back to it, but I feel like I’ll have to restart it when I do, which is probably making me take a little longer than it should to get back to it.

Assassin’s Creed Origins, PS4

Holy shit, this game. I should’ve started it sooner. This game has consumed me, I’ve probably put in 30 hours in the past 5 days. It takes what made The Witcher 3 special and just perfects it a little bit. Before I write the review on this, I think I want to play Ghost Recon Wildlands some to get a feel for that, because all of Ubisoft’s games are starting to feel like a singularity. There are so many elements here that don’t feel like AC but feel more like Far Cry. The combat itself feels like it borrows heavily from their only melee combat game For Honor, and I’m wondering what it took from their Ghost Recon series. Not that I’m mad - this is some of the most fun I’ve had playing a video game in a long time and I can’t put it down. It’s one of the most impressive video games I think I’ve ever seen and I can’t wait to see this one through. That said, this is the glitchiest game I’ve played in a while. Like, years. I’ve had to restart this game more times in the past week than all other games I have on PS4 combined.

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10 - X-Men Legends

This is a 14 year old game, so, sorry, but I'm going to get a little spoilery with this. But hey. You had your chance. Almost 15 years worth of chances, actually.

In addition to a spoiler warning, I'm going to give a ramble warning. Replaying it made me think about more than just the game and I hit on some stuff that's more interesting to me than just reciting what I liked about the game.

First things first, let’s take a walk. A walk all the way back to 2004. It’s a long one, so strap in, pilgrim - because a lot of shit happened.

The Year was 2004 and…

Friends was ending so people were sad, but not too sad because America fell in love with Eva Longoria when Desperate Housewives came out later that year. Britney got softer with Everytime and forced my generation to think it was one word. The Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years after the greatest comeback in sports history. against the Yankees in the ALCS. Beyoncé was still in Destiny’s Child. The New England Patriots became the first NFL dynasty of the new millennium after a(nother) Super Bowl winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri, though they failed to cover the spread. George W. Bush won his second term, and then Green Day won teenagers with American Idiot. Brian Michael Bendis killed Hawkeye and then Clint Eastwood killed Hilary Swank. Halo 2 taught the world what online gaming was and soon after you couldn’t pause games anymore. Nelly Furtado released her best song that no one cared about. U2 let the world know they can’t count in Spanish on their way to the middle. Usher took his shirt off for Confessions II and holy shit. Lost made everyone talk polar bears and smoke monsters. Sex and the City ended and everyone who’s ever read a book wondered what Carrie ever saw in Big. Edgar Wright graduated to feature films, and Lindsay Lohan dismantled the plastics when she wasn’t swinging in a bird cage denying rumors that were probably true.

Oh, and Paul Giamatti almost singlehandedly destroyed the merlot industry.

I wrote that little "We didn’t start the fire”, because while all that stuff was cool, one weekend of the 52 weeks that year I didn’t give a shit about popular culture. At all. I didn’t listen to music, I didn’t watch tv, read comics, anything. I didn’t care about shit. I didn’t care because I got the X-Men game I’d always wanted, and for 25 hours that was all that mattered.

And again in 2018, for 25 hours, I got the chance to play it again.

The Game Itself

X-Men Legends is a monument to a bygone era of gaming and a shrine to everything I loved about the hobby in high school. Legends comes from a time when games were allowed to be average, devs could lean on a license to sell copies, game design could be transplanted from other games, and there was something oddly refreshing about revisiting it in 2018, 14 years after its release. 

The game came in an interesting for the franchise. The X-Men got a renaissance of sorts thanks to the Bryan Singer films, and those contemporary touches were reflected in Grant Morrison's run on the newly rebranded New X-Men series. On top of that, Ultimate X-Men launched in 2001 and was a retelling of the X-Men's atomic concept in a modern, digital, globalized world without the baggage of the old series. So, there was a lot to draw on for inspiration and Raven Software, the developers, did a wonderful job of blending all possible versions into an easily digestible team that feels more or less like its own thing. In fact, I had to look this up, but this game takes place in its own reality in the Marvel Multiverse, on Earth-7964. That's not important. But it's cool. Y’know, at least to me.

Here's a loading screen from the game:

And here's the naked cover to issue 43 of Ultimate X-Men by David Finch and Richard Isanove.

Before we touch on story, let's talk about what you'll be doing in it. 

The game is an action RPG where you fight enemies, look for loot, level up your character, unlock new powers, and use experience points to make those powers even better. There's a map system with a fog on it that clears once you've explored it, so if you're like me - the dude who hates moving on to the next area until you're sure you've explored every nook and every nook's cranny, there's a system in place to make sure you won't. 

The game just feels good to play. Landing one of Wolverine's strikes on an enemy feels powerful. Getting Colossus to punch a Sentinel to death in one hit gives you just enough dopamine to make you scramble to find the next thing to hit. Even just pulling off non-powered combos feels right. It's a joy to play even if it's hardly ever difficult or challenging and can quickly be repetitive if you don't mix the team up enough. You're able to assemble teams of 4 and switch between any of those characters at any point by pushing on the D-Pad. Some characters are better suited for certain situations, some aren't available for story reasons, some need to be unlocked, and it's fun as hell assembling your favorite mutants and wreaking havoc with them. 

The only annoying gameplay mechanic is one that isn't fun in Pokemon either. Certain characters mutant skills are needed in certain situations, like HM's in Pokemon. Sometimes you'll need to make a bridge and only a few select characters like Jean Grey, Iceman, or Magma are able to create them using their powers. Similarly, sometimes you'll need to weld metal and only characters like Cyclops or Storm are able to do that. Sometimes you'll need fliers, and you get the picture. This forces certain team lineups and once I had to backtrack nearly 15 minutes because I didn't have the right assembly of characters and nearest extraction point, where you can change your team, actually wasn't near at all. 

HM09JeanGrey

The game starts in New York after a young mutant is attacked by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and loses control of her powers, causing a riot to break out. The mutant in question is an original character and as far as someone just created for a game, she's actually pretty cool and interesting. A lot of the time in games, characters like this are just farted out into the ether (Oh, hi X-Men Destiny), but Alison Crestmere is a genuinely fun character. After she's rescued by Wolverine and Cyclops, Alison is taken to the X-Mansion and thrown into the deep end of the team's mission (and drama). This game does a really nice job of tying disparate parts of the X-Men mythos into an engrossing story that's a tour of the X-Men's world.

You'll go to Weapon X facilities, deal with Morlocks, fight Sentinels, go to Magneto's Asteroid M, and even fight the Shadow King in the Astral Plane. You see just about everything cool the X-Men have to offer, and the few things you don't see are addressed in the game's sequel, which you can read about here soon. The story is good, but the writing is not. There's so much contrived, expository dialogue that pushes the story forward but I don't hate it. It looks 2004 but it doesn’t sound 2004, which probably helped the game hold up; it sounds more like a 60’s comic, which lends itself well towards a more mythic, timeless team.

So you see a lot of shit, but in what context? Make no mistake, this game is basically just a Diablo clone, but it's a very, very fun one. And if you're going to copy a game, why not copy the best in the genre? With cel-shaded graphics on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and original Xbox generation of consoles, you'd never confuse this with something pretty, but even on a relatively underpowered system like the GameCube, frame rates are for the most part steady enough that the visual sacrifice is forgivable. I played it on a modern 1080 flatscreen TV and the only time I had issues was on the Astral Plane. The dark art direction bled with the all black backgrounds and made depth perception a little difficult to gauge. That's normally not a problem since you for the most part can't fall off the map, but the Astral Plane was one of the few locations where there were floating bridges that would ferry you between rooms and I definitely fell off the edge a few times not because of a lack of skill but because a lack of clarity. 

The cutscenes themselves are actually pretty impressive for 2004, but the in-engine ones, the majority of the interstitial videos that play between missions are fucking hideous. That said, it's really hard to care now, and was infinitely harder to care back then. 

Why It Mattered

I never thought I’d see Emma Frost or Gambit together as a kid.

Comic book movies are all the rage now but in 2004, they weren't. There were a lot more bad movies than good ones, and special effects still hadn't really... you could tell they were shitty. Never in my life as a 14 year old did I think I'd get an X-Men movie with Sentinels, with juggernaut tearing through the X-Mansion, or with Asteroid M falling towards the Earth while robots fight mutants in space.

Shit, even now that seems pretty ambitious, but at least plausible.

Those cutscenes though? They were the X-Men movie fans wanted and this game gave that to them. We never thought we'd see the fucking Morlocks and this game gave it to us. It gave us Emma Frost and Jubilee and a blue Beast, it gave us everything we wanted.

This game is a testament to the middle-tier of games. It's a textbook 6-7.5 and that's not an insult.  Obviously I want an amazing X-Men game, but now we're not getting any fucking X-Men games and that's depressing as hell. These characters have never been more popular - they've never had more exposure to a global audience and now they're nowhere to be seen on consoles. Games like Batman Arkham Asylum set the bar so incredibly high that we're only now in 2018 seeing a competitor in the AAA space from Insomniac (PlayStation 4’s Spider-Man, look for a review soon).

Arkham raised the bar so high that anything less than it got shifted to mobile if it released at all. Until 2011 or so, there have only been a few random Spider-Man games, a few from Iron Man, one from Green Lantern, at least one Thor game, a Captain America, and that's pretty much it. No one has tried, no one has even attempted to be average.

You really can’t understate what Arkham Asylum did for licensed games.

And that sucks. I like dorking out with something from the middle but that's not an even an option. There are 8,000 superhero games on mobile but they're not feature-rich and they're just now how I want to engage with the license. These are modern myths, and for the same reasons I don't watch movies on my phone, I don't want to play games about these larger than life characters on such a small screen. 

A few years ago, Activision re-released Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 on modern consoles and I wish they'd taken it a step further and released these games as well since this is where that series started. I can confidently say that X-Men Legends is not great, but it's exceedingly good and deserves to be played today. The only recommendation I would make is to try and grab it on Xbox if you could. I personally prefer the the gamecube controller, but there’s actually one fewer button on it than the PS2 and Xbox Controller. It’s no biggie, but on top of that textures are a bit smoother, loading times are a bit faster, but hey - don’t let that get in the way of playing this old gem. The More You Know™

09 - Burly Men at Sea

Calling Burly Men at Sea a video game feels like a bit of an embellishment. You use the directional pad to your characters around, you interact with certain on screen elements, and there's an agency placed on you to make decisions, but after that, calling it a game feels like a stretch. In fact, I'll go so far as to say Burly Men at Sea is not a game. 

It's a gorgeous series of Nordic micro-folktales that you to stitch together into your own grand tale based on how curious and bold you are in any given moment of choice.

In Burly Men at Sea, you play as three brothers who love sailing but feel a desire for adventure. that takes them outside of their village. Before long, they're all of them Jonah and trapped inside a whale. Once inside, there are three options on how to escape. All of those lead to to different outcomes. I think in total there are between 12 and 15 different endings, and all it starts there in that whale. From there, you get to other branching points which all have their own branching points. All of the different stories give each of the three brothers, Steady Beard, Brave Beard, and Hasty Beard their own moment to shine. 

With all those endings, the devs (wife and husband duo, Brain&Brain) were smart and made the game last between 15 and 20 minutes. Yeah. You can play this once and beat it before you're done with an episode of Seinfeld, but beating the game once isn't the point. The gameplay 'loop' that keeps you hooked is a literal narrative loop that keeps you engaged and committed to explore all the possibilities that the story can allow. The game always starts the same exact way and it always ends the same exact way (except for the first time) but the entire game addresses that and does its best to show that it's never the destination, it's the journey. 

Unfortunately, this isn't Bioshock Infinite; there's no grand statement on the necessary elements of story, and why there's only so much wiggle room at certain points, it simply shows you the possibilities and trusts your ability to discern meaning on your own. it gives you questions, but not answers.

And that's fantastic, but as far as texts on narrative go, it firmly straddles novelty and only skirts the edge of poignancy. It had something interesting to say, and rather than say it, they attempted to show it, but they only showed the surface, never a definitive statement. 

All that said, the very good game you do play is better than the transcendental game you don't play - and there's so much in Burly Men at Sea that cements its status as a very good game. 

First things first, this game is absolutely stunning. I'm getting a little sick of minimalism (working in advertising and spending a lot of time with Swedish art directors will do that to you) but the style here is so fucking charming, and the abstract, whimsical nature of the game's loose narrative lends itself so well to the art direction. The bright colors, the geometry of the world - even the score itself is minimalist but as a consumer of media and audio-visual stories in general, the player understands the archetypes of everything on display so you don't need a full orchestra, you don't need an incredibly detailed face on the the three brothers.

I mean, hell, even their names are minimalist. But again, their names aren't names, they're personality traits, further lending itself to the importance of the role archetypes fill in stories, letting audiences understand a great deal very simply. I don't need to say how that's problematic in a lot of instances, and how usually a good character arc revolves around subverting established archetypes to show depth and change, but rest assured there's a genuine nature on display here that never makes you question the inherent simplicity of it all - it all serves a direct and I'd argue necessary purpose that you can't get in other games, particularly those that try to show how much they can squeeze into their game.

You're able to see everything, understand the intent and the implications and inject yourself. The art direction serves a point and the entire thing looks like a children's book that's interactive and oddly infinite in its beautiful possibilities. The point of the game isn't to beat it. The point of the game is to see everything. And the overflow of charm make you want to see everything. 

In case you couldn't tell, I really enjoyed my time with Burly Men at Sea. It's available on a ton of platforms, and while I played it on PS4 (thanks, PSN for such a steep discount), touchscreen may be the best way to play it (or Vita or Nintendo Switch). This is a game you want to play before bed, letting its 20 minute story be something you see a different shade of every night for a few weeks. So much of this game seems designed around putting the player in a good mood and with 12-15 endings, that's a whole lot of happy you can find yourself lost in. 

Coolest things of the Week - Week of August 10

Holy shit. It has been a minute. Sorry about that - a long-term contract I was on ended a few weeks ago and for the first time in like 6 years I've had something of a summer vacation. The only things I've been writing for the past two and a half weeks has been some small work to improve my book with a friend and a sci-fi novel I've been kicking around in my head for a decade. 

It's been fanfuckingtastic, but now it's time to get back to the grind and write everyday again. Get ready for comic deep dives, video game reviews, movie thoughts, and features because dammit I miss writing stuff. 

Anyways - here's some cool shit I've seen since the last time I told you about the cool shit I've seen. A lot of these are going to be tweets because it's the only social media I've been using lately, so let's get to it. 

Steve Ditko's Death

Steve Ditko helped design the Silver Age of comics, the second coming of the medium's popularity in the late 50's and early 60's. He's credited with co-creating Spider-Man with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (who did some pencilling during the character's concept phase and did the cover for the character's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy no. 1)5, but Steve Ditko was the man who wowed us - he's the dude who showed us what a goddamned Spider-Man looks like. He spawned one of the most iconic fictional characters of both the 20th and 21st century. 

Here are some character pinups he did for Spider-Man's rogue gallery. 

Spider-Man villains by Steve Ditko 1/3 pic.twitter.com/2bavtDS4Dq

— Cool Comic Art (@CoolComicArt) July 9, 2018

He passed away on June 29th and there's no two ways about it - the dude's an absolute fucking legend. Like, look at this shit. 

Holy shit, right? For 1966, hell, for now - shit's incredible. You can tell it's incredible because they basically ripped these pages for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Rest well, Steve. Thanks for the stories. 

Old Earth Must Have Sucked

Here's a photo from The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, showing 250 million year old fossils.

These fossils of 250-million-year-old crinoids at @NMNH are exquisite and positively Gigeresque pic.twitter.com/xAaqe1YvBa

— Jason Major (@JPMajor) July 9, 2018

These are the remains of some of the Earth's earliest owners and holy fuck I can't believe that's what life had to look like to survive here 250 million years ago, jfc. 

It's insane that we're on the same planet that sustained those things. Certifiably insane. The dude who posted the photos rightly pointed out how Giger-esque they were, and then I got to thinking about how radical HR Giger was. 

HR Giger was a Swiss painter who's best known for the art direction he provided for Fox's Alien series. The dude fuses biology and mechanics (y'know, biomechanical) in an incredible way. Look at the shit below and try to not feel unsettled or uncomfortable. 

Anyways. Look at what evolution can do over 250 million and once you're done, try to pick your jaw up off the floor. The fact that these organisms succeeded on this planet looking like that and we succeed on this planet looking like us - it's fucking insane. And when you compare that shit to Giger, you could almost say Earth wasn't Earth 250 million years ago, but that Giger's vision was simultaneously ahead of its time and firmly rooted in the past.

Jock rules, I drools

Jock is an extremely talented and prolific artist in the comic book industry. Below he's providing a look at a variant cover he's done for Batman: Year One, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's landmark story that you should absolutely read. 

Batman: Year One variant #catmove pic.twitter.com/JSpV7V9ulR

— jock (@Jock4twenty) July 18, 2018

He doesn't just share his cover, but he shares some light behind the scenes work to show the process he went through to create it. Follow the link to see the process, and some contemporaries being all supportive and cute. 

Mike Judge's 116 second Brilliance

So, there's not a lot for me to say on this one. I love Mike Judge. Beavis and Butthead was genius. Daria was somehow better. Office Space is an incredible relic that preserves pre 9/11 America forever. Idiocracy became prophetic. And King of the Hill was the best piece of fiction to depict daily life in South since Faulkner. 

One second from every King of the Hill episode. (Episodes 1-116)

I'll finish the other half of the show later.#propane pic.twitter.com/lkMGZ4PRq7

— Rascal's Tweets (@Rascal_Jackal) August 3, 2018

And here's one second from the first 116 episodes merged together in a supercut. As soon as I saw this I shopped for the series on amazon because I've been having an obsession with late 90's animation recently, and dammit why isn't there an incredibly cheap bundle with all the episodes yet? If I can get all of Coach or Wings for $30, why can't I get King of the Hill?

RIP EmuParadise 2000 - 2018

I can go on a pretty long piece about this so I'm just going to be upfront about it here and then get into why it's important below - A website renowned for its collection of game ROMS shut down after 18 years. It was a good site and provided a valuable service and I'm bummed about it. You'll see why I'm so bummed below, but the site left a heartfelt goodbye on its page, and here's a more...  professional breakdown, if you read my blog but hate my writing (I only come here for the pictures too)

Ok, so, time for the mini-essay.

Oh man, where to start? Games emulation is kind of a taboo subject in the hobby. Think of it like the equivalent of what Napster did to music in the late 90's; it's providing digital versions to be shared freely and widely with ease. A problem that arises more with games than music, is that generally the rights and licensing is wayyyy more complicated than it is in the music industry,  and because of that, a lot of games that are beloved are lost to legal limbo and that fucking sucks.

Sometimes it's dumber than that - PlayStation 1's, 2's, and 3's can all play original PlayStation games, simple, right? But the only thing you can buy in a big box store now is a PlayStation 4 - so if you want to play an old game like Legacy of Cain or Monster Rancher, or whatever  - you'll have to track down an old system secondhand and then find the game. 

Some games are digitally re-released but again, because of rights management, not all games are. That means all the copies of this game in the world are the only copies of the games in the world. 

That's why sites like EmuParadise were such a big deal. I can see why they'd annoy publishers but it's important for the sake of games preservation that these games are archived and maintained. Also, I happen to have the old Sega Dreamcast that lets you play burned ROMs so yes, the story of EmuParadise finally shutting down is a heartbreaker.

This site kept old games alive and available and now it's just gone. The reason people are upset about this site removing its ROM selection is because this site was reliable, trustworthy, and safe in a way that other sites aren't. It's cool that other sites let you download Wrecking Crew but it's not cool that you'll also get 

The Orlando Magic Throwback Jersey

For the 30th anniversary of the franchise, the Orlando Magic are bringing back the original jerseys they had from when they first started and rocked the fuck out of the NBA. I didn't really give a shit about Basketball when I was young, mostly because none of the games had Optimus Prime or Han Solo, and those were my two biggest interests then.

But look at this shit. This shit is coming back and that's rad as hell. 

The Orlando Magic will bring back these classics to celebrate the team's 30th anniversary 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3ISlzwzhhB

— The Crossover (@TheCrossover) August 8, 2018

I was too young to follow basketball back then, but the older I get the more obscure rabbit holes I fall down, and there's an insanely good documentary covering the Magic from ESPN's 30 For 30 series called This Magic Moment and I can't recommend it enough. Here's a trailer for it. 

 

Bill Sienkiewicz Isn't Human

Steve Ditko wasn't the only comic related person who left us since I last wrote. Margot Kidder, famous for her portrayal of Lois Lane in the 1978 Superman movie also passed away. It was sad in its own right, but once details of her passing surfaced we learned it was a suicide and that the way people talk, or rather don't talk, about Mental Health in this country just got another high profile example. 

To commerate her, one of my favorite comic book artists, Bill Sienkiewicz, drew this beautiful portrait of her and shared it on Twitter with some nice words. 

She was so goddamn good in Superman. Below is one of my favorite scenes, not just from the movie, or a superhero movie, but any movie. 

It's just so damn charming and earnest. 

Australia's Drought is Regrettably Beautiful

Drought is terrible, I'd never pretend it wasn't. But The Guardian provided aerial images of the current drought Australia is facing in, I believe, New South Wales, a state on the eastern coast of the country, and the photos are hauntingly gorgeous. The measurable death and decay is horrifying but visually fascinating. 

You can find the full set of pictures here, at the Guardian's website. 

Anything that can Explode, Probably Will

A man at an electronics store in China was checking to make sure his phone's battery was real. And then it exploded. Maybe technology was a mistake. 

Moral of the story, don't bite your iPhone battery 😬 pic.twitter.com/kXUFIvmvR0

— CNET (@CNET) August 11, 2018

*remembers what comment sections looks like and realizes they're now the public square*

Technology was definitely a mistake. We peaked with indoor plumbing. 

AR is the Fucking Future

To my best recollection, Microsoft debuted its augmented reality initiative, Hololens at E3, but the applications beyond gaming were what was genuinely exciting about the product. Our world exists on well-defined properties and rules; it's a physical world. AR takes those rules and throws them out the window. Here's some coverage on the Tour de France by a Dutch channel that doesn't just throw those rules out the window, it dropkicks them.

Denmark's augmented reality coverage of the Tour De France wins everything. pic.twitter.com/GmIwxMM0ty

— KPP (@KPP) August 10, 2018

We can now edit the way we perceive our physical world and if you don't think that's bonkers, maybe you'll find the next thing bonkers.

Rogue Planet

The numbers on this are a bit staggering and, well, jaw dropping. Out there, is a planet roaming the universe without a star, and it's roughly 13 times the size of Jupiter, which as we know is fucking enormous. That's weird, because planets themselves are collections of gases, dust, and other space stuffs that coalesce because of gravity wells created by the largest nearby celestial bodies, and to my understanding 99% of the time, that's a fucking star. 

This 'rogue planet' travels the universe without a star pic.twitter.com/rsDkdW6jmQ

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 12, 2018

So where did this guy come from? The only reasons scientists were able to detect it was because of a weird signal emitting from the planet's magnetic fields, strikingly similar to Earth's. Because of its size, there's contention about calling it a planet, so they want to call it a brown dwarf, or a failed star. But because of the signals, they want to call it a planet. 

I don't entirely understand this stuff, I'm not an astronomer or a physicist, but if you don't think this shit is awesome, then I don't know what to tell you, because this shit is AWESOME. Here's a bigger breakdown on the story from CNN

Thanks for reading, champions. See ya soon <3

Coolest Things of the Week - Week of July 2

Another week another blog post of cool shit that happened in it. Reading that story about the hypersonic jet concept that Boeing released got me all excited about space and technology and futurism and made me oddly optimistic. So, a lot of the stuff I was looking up this week is related to that. Let's kick things off, shall we?

But seriously last warning - if you don't give a shit about space you probably won't give a shit about this. 

Mobile Suit Gundam live action movie Announcement

This first one is long, so strap in.

I'm trying to remember the last time a piece of (non-political) news made me feel so much. At first I was elated to see what's probably my second all-time franchise get a movie announcement because 10 year old george heard it all the way back in 2000 and that high pitch noise you heard was him screaming through the time-space continuum. 

But then a slightly weighted sadness clenched onto my shoulders when I realized I'm not going to be the person working on it. Seriously. Ever since Michael Bay's first Transformer movie came out about 11 years ago, I've believed a Gundam movie could work, based on that movie's intricate mechanical designs, mature story, and the fact that so many people suspended their disbelief. 

Seriously. I have six gundam movie scripts in the can. I've adapted the original series and the followup, Gundam Zeta into two trilogies, incorporating stuff from the TV series, the model kits, the manga, the games, and MSV (Mobile Suit Variation) Catalogues. 

For those who don't know, Gundam is a long running anti-war sci-fi space opera out of Japan. It takes place in a future where mankind overpopulated Earth and took to the stars in gigantic orbiting space colonies (I'll get into that later in this piece). After about 80 years, some colonists in space decided they weren't being treated fairly and started a war for independence that basically saw half of humanity die in a week. 9 months later, with both forces exhausted, we meet the titular Gundam - a 50 foot tall humanoid weapon of war that people can pilot. 

It's been on air in some form or another since 1979 and serves as one of the longest running animated series ever. It's basically to Japan what Star Trek is to the US or Doctor Who is to the UK. 

I love this universe. I love this universe so goddamn much. I'm not armchair angry. I don't think they're going to fuck it up or anything like that. I'm just bummed. I wish I could be a part of it. Legendary Pictures out of Burbank is producing it and they've had a lot of kickass movies. Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Town, The Hangover, Inception, Interstellar, Blackhat, Crimson Peak, Kong: Skull Island - this studio knows how to make good movies, they know how to make fun movies, and I have no indication that they'll do anything less with Gundam. I just wish I could be a part of it. 

I've been watching Gundam Unicorn lately, which is kind of a coda to the main Gundam series. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the original series, and basically puts punctuation at the end of every sentence that was left unfinished through various stories. It was one part fan service, and two parts kickass story that gave the series something it never had before: an ending. 

In addition to that, it also had a phefuckingnominal score. Here's a live concert series of the main overture from it with snippets of the show thrown in. It's one of my favorite things to write to. 

Gerard K. O'Neil's The Vision (Uncut)

Gerard K. O'Neil was a physics stud. Seriously. This dude ruled. He was a physicist working out of Princeton University. While there, he invented the particle storage ring, which basically led to the development of particle accelerators, allowing scientists to study the fundamental structure of the Universe at places like CERN. He also invented the Mass Driver, which is a magnet powered propulsion system that would allow non-rocket (read: safer, more efficient, more controlled) launches in space. He also founded the Space Studies Institute, a non-profit that prioritizes the exploration of space and humanity's capacity to survive there. 

This dude was a goddamn genius. In the 1970's he conceptualized what's known now as the O'Neil Cylinder, a means for mass emigration and human survival in space. By using the rotation of the cylinder to create an artificial gravity and mirrors to bounce sunlight in to grow food, the Cylinders are generally considered the most realistic way humans could live in space. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam was so taken aback by the concepts, that a lot of the science in the series was based off O'Neil's research, including a lot of the designs for space-habitats in the series. They were even used in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, as you can see in this scene here, around the 2:10 mark (spoilers for the end of Interstellar). 

Anyways. I recently found a long talk he did on YouTube and the shit is fascinating. This dude was a beast of hope and possibility. 

Lagrange point

Simply, every object has mass, so every object has gravity. Light is an exception, but it's affected by gravity, so it's not really an exception as much as a clusterfuck of a concept that people have been studying for centuries and still don't really understand, least of all some copywriter with a blog who likes cartoons about robots fighting in space. 

That said, there are some physics/astronomy concepts I can, wrap my head around. One such concept is gravitational pull. An object attracts other objects near it. We're standing on Earth and not flying off because the largest object near us is the earth and it's keeping us on it. So, the sun has a gravitational pull, the earth does, and so does the moon. Easy, right?

Well, there are places between all these objects where gravity essentially cancels out, because the pull between two objects is in effect, equal. Three such locations were discovered by Leonhard Euler in the late 1760's/early 1770's. These are called Lagrange points because Joseph-Louis Lagrange found the last two, and the dude had a cooler name so he won out.

It's a weird concept to understand and the shitty diagrams that try to explain it don't really help. But while perusin' the net, I found some awesome art that sort of explains it simply, elegantly, and romantically. Huge shoutout to Rebecca Mock for drawing the fuck out of this. You can find her work here. 

"The Edge of Materiality" 

Let's spend a minute with my friend Hypothetical Henry and say you were living on an O'Neil Cylinder. Obviously water would be filtered, maintained, tightly regulated - flown in from earth (which would be expensive AF) or be ice chipped off of asteroids (which you would need anyway for raw materials to construct the cylinder to begin with). The farming would be done in its own little bubbles that were perpetually exposed to sunlight (you wouldn't want that in the main colony, constant sunlight would make them grow faster anyway). let's say you used real grass instead of turf because you know how there are certain things you can't give up when you're apartment hunting like a gas range or a dishwasher? Let's say that's one thing that people wouldn't give up - landscaping and gardening to keep certain traditions of humanity even in space. They'd be irrigated, right? You're designing an entire world, of course you'd make it as efficient as possible. 

But what about clouds? Can you make clouds? How would you make clouds in a cylinder that's constantly spinning? When the furthest point from the wall of the cylinder is the center, and that's relative to a circle, how would you create clouds that acted the way we know them to? It's a stretch, but it also serves a purpose - a psychological one, if not a resource or aesthetic one. 

I don't know why I think about this stuff. I don't even smoke pot.

Thankfully, Dutch mindbending artist Burndnaut Smilde already figured out how to make indoor clouds, if even for just 10 seconds. Using water vapor and smoke, he's able to create what he calls sculptures but it's heavily dependent on the environment; he needs shit to be cold and damp with no air circulation. I don't know if this could work in a space colony, which is nothing except a giant controlled environment, but this shit is awesome regardless. Check the video below. 

Coolest Things of the Week - Week of June 25

Another calendar week, and another small list of cool shit that happened during it. Let's kick things off, shall we?

Mandy Trailer

There are exactly two people in my life who like Nic Cage as much as I do, and you know what I have to say to everyone else? Fuck you - Nic Cage rules. Watch this shit. Tell me he doesn't rule.

I don't like spookies, they're too... well, spooky. I don't like the idea of paying someone $15 to be scared for 95 minutes, but this doesn't look like your run of the mill horror movie. This looks like a suspenseful as shit thriller that's gorgeously crafted by a director, Panos Cosmatos  who blew my fucking mind with his first film, Beyond the Black Rainbow. 

I hate spookies. But I love auteurs. I don't like Metal Gear Solid games but I buy them because I respect the shit out of the craft. This movie looks terrifying in a smart way - it's unsettling. It looks like an entire universe with its own set of rules and the only things taken from our reality that are even vaguely familiar are the abstract notions of good and evil and the general shape of humans. This looks insane. If you don't think this looks insane, keep in mind that the dude's first movie is in a category that I call 7 - in that I feel like I only have the emotional and psychological strength to watch it once every seven years, and I expect nothing less from his sophomore effort. 

Bad Times at the El Royale trailer

Keeping this movie trailer train a rollin', here's something I neglected to mention in previous posts, but the Mandy trailer dropping reminded me that there's another mindfuck looking of a movie worth getting excited about, and that movie is Bad Times at the El Royale. 

Something about the cadence of the dialogue strikes me as Tarantino, but the way the trailer shows artifice gives it a unique spin that's cool enough to feel both Q and fresh at the same time and I don't really know what else I could want in a movie. Just when I think I'm satisfied and I can't buy my tickets fast enough, the ensemble cast shows up and blows the doors off the hinges. 

The music and the general candor until the first bullet is fired makes it seem like a vacation comedy - like the fucking exotic Marigold Hotel or something. But then gunfire disrupts the tempo and the droll of a clock ticking amps the tension up to 11 and you see a crazy look in everyone's eyes and Jesus Crap, is it October 12th yet?

Demolition Man Pop Up

Demolition Man is one of the best made action movies of all time. It's such an anachronism that blows right past stereotype and becomes charming. For those who don't know - Wesley Snipes was the ultimate domestic terrorist and Sly Stallone was the ultimate cop who kept him in check. Both are cryogenically frozen in the late 1980's to serve their respective sentences. When they're unfrozen in the future, they hardly recognize the world they're released into. 

One of the weirder parts about the movie, but seems pretty fucking on-brand as far as 2018 is concerned - is the anecdote that Taco Bell is the only surviving chain from the Fast Food Wars. Which, thanks to Droga5's work, they seem to be the only fast food chain anyone gives a shit about so, apparently Demolition Man should've been called Nostredemolition Man... Too dumb?

Alright, let's just say it was written by prophets and pretend that portmanteau never happened.

To celebrate that joke, there's going to be a Demolition Man themed Taco Bell pop-up happening for virigins I mean attendants at this year's San Diego Comic Con. Shit like this is the advertising I think is most fun; let's take a lot of money to make a specific group of people not only happy, but very happy. 

At the very least I hope we find out what the three seashells do. I've been wondering for 18 years. 

Hypersonic Jet

I know I swear a lot here but I want to apologize - because in this next one I'm going to swear a lot more than normal.

If you're anything like me you probably think about space a lot. We first went to the moon in 1969 (the anniversary is coming up in July, actually) and - depressingly, we haven't been back since 1971. 

We took the future and we put it in a fucking box.  We did that again with the Concorde plane in 2003. There was an airplane that flew higher than any commercial jet and faster than any commercial jet. Everyone thought it took 8 hours to fly from New York City to London and then the Concorde came out and did it in about three and a half. 

Three and a half. That's insane. At that clip you could get across the continental US in less than two and a half hours. That's fucking awesome because that's what people do. We're goddamn pioneers and the only thing better than reaching the horizon is reaching the next one. 

That's why Boeing unveiling a new hypersonic jet is such tremendous news to me. It's promising to fly from NY to London in 2 hours, and from LA to Japan in 3 hours - which is also sheer fucking insanity. Unfortunately, these concepts won't come to fruition for another 15-20 years per the article. But hey, I'm all for trying something and pushing limits like that. 

Disney/Fox merger approved

This deserves its own blog post and it will absolutely get one, but for now, let's do a mini breakdown of what this means. The merger approval is pending Disney divesting Fox Sports - because Disney owns ESPN, it could be a monopoly in areas that only offer ESPN and Fox Sports. I'm kinda shocked it was included in the deal at all, since I thought Fox Sports was profitable thanks to old NFL contracts but that's besides the point. 

What this really means is we have a whole Marvel Universe. The Fantastic Four are back. The X-Men are back... THE FUCKING FANTASTIC FOUR ARE BACK. This deal is huge because its their entire catalogue - including stuff Fox was the producer or distributor of. To get in the weeds of the nerdy-nerdy, I'm hoping this means we get full season releases of John Semper's Fox Kids' Spider-Man show from the 90's, as well as Blu-Ray releases of the unedited Star Wars movies. But time will tell.

Also, it cost them about $66 billion (with them assuming $13b worth of debt from Fox), thanks to Comcast jacking the price up with their own bid. all of a sudden, getting Marvel for $1 Billion and Star Wars for $2b in cash and $2b in stock seems like they were both steals.  

Archie Bradley Shits his Pants

Archie Bradley is a pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and this week he told the story of the most embarrassing thing to happen to him during a game. And it's not great. 

I mean, it is great. Just definitely not for Bradley. 

The dude shit his pants. Right before going out to the mound, he shits his pants. 

Poor fella. I just wanna give him a hug. But, y'know, not that day. 

Barfing on the field? Archie Bradley has that beat. He pooped his pants in the bullpen right before going into a game and told us all about it on this week’s podcast. https://t.co/3JFb5UvuBC

Subscribe:
Apple: https://t.co/7Thg99UfMf
Android: https://t.co/iEyJbIuLTo pic.twitter.com/MXbSFpYY0A

— Mike Oz (@mikeoz) June 26, 2018

You can find the brilliantly told story above. In better news for Bradley, after his dog, Crash, went missing, he took to twitter and people helped him find the lost pet. 

Girls Like You music video

I don't seek out Maroon 5 but they're pretty far from terrible, so when they have a song on the radio I don't change it. This was brought to my attention by my lady friend who wanted me to see the new music video - and not only is the song catchy as hell, but the video itself is pretty rad too. 

In what's ostensibly a tracking shot, a camera wraps around a platform with Adam Levine and a rotating cast of women behind him. It's simple, it's well executed, and it's one thing I've pitched before at old places and I'm so happy I finally have the clearest possible reference footage I can show CD's in the future. 

Also, Cardi B crushes it in the back half of this.

Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity buying land along the Mexican border to obstruct a wall is an old story, but that's not what I want to bring to your attention. 

I forget exactly what it was I googled at work, but this photo came up and I can't stop laughing. 

No, seriously, it's been 6 days and I'm still laughing. 

You can find the full article here with the photo for context, but just in case you missed the photo, I'm going to put it in again below because good grief...

I'm still laughing. 

Coolest things of the week - Week of June 18

Another week means another 7 days of seeing really cool shit. Here's the stuff that made me stop scrolling, sit up, and notice. Of course some of this stuff didn't happen this week, either because I forgot to talk about it the week before or because I'm just slow putting my fingers to the pulse. 

But anyways - here's the best of the best according to me - 

David Mack Batman 50 cover

I made a cover for #Batman #50.
The wedding of #Catwoman & Batman issue.
You can order it starting at noon today PST here: https://t.co/n4uQfe9z4e…/@surprisecomics @DCcomics
Larger image here: https://t.co/NpY408ARyt pic.twitter.com/G2n9CZ4v6o

— David Mack (@davidmackkabuki) June 8, 2018

I think I waxed poetic about why David Mack is my generation's must love artist last week, so I'll save you the fawning and just show you the art. The dude did is doing one of many covers for Batman #50, the issue where Batman is supposed to marry Catwoman and the cover is, as expected, infreakingcredible. 

Good grief. I love David Mack. The man's got the most talented hands in comics.

Shazam Reprinting

Honestly, outside of a few tie-ins, miniseries, and a key role on Justice League Unlimited, I don't know very much about Captain Marvel/Shazam save for the fact the character is a legal clusterfuck. 

That's why I'm excited that this story, the Monster Society of Evil, one of the first ever serialized comic stories taking place over multiple installments is being reprinted. But when you rerelease a 1940's comic you're getting the good, and the bad.

And let's not mince words; there's a lot of bad. I mean, jfc - right there on the title page you see "Capt. Nazi" and "Nippo". 

That's, umm... not great.

The 1940's were not a kind time culturally to minorities, especially African Americans and after Pearl Harbor, especially people of Japanese descent. The comics industry, while a bastion for representation and diversity now, wasn't always... They were dicks. 

They were monsters, really. They treated minorities horribly and painted them as stereotypical, craven, and subhuman. 

There's a batch of old Warner Brothers cartoons that have been deemed to insensitive to show now. Because they're terribly racist and insensitive, where Bugs Bunny is throwing grenades at Japanese soldiers while shouting racial epithets.

This comic is that equivalent in serial form. It's terrible, but you can't erase your past, all you can do is be better. Read this because it's important to the history of the medium but understand why it's wrong and be better.  

https://www.newsarama.com/40421-shazam-the-monster-society-of-evil-deluxe-edition-hc-captain-marvel.html

Gundam Photoshop Portraits

I love this one old Japanese cartoon called Mobile Suit Gundam - I hold it just below Star Wars and just above Mass Effect as far as science fiction stories are concerned. Because, there isn't a lot you can't love when it's a war between earth and outer space with giant robots and psychics on the battlefield. It came out at a time when anime poster art didn't really perspective but that's what makes it - to me - goddamn incredible. The wonky proportions of all the creative collateral, the muted colors, the crazy-ass story - all of it makes Gundam such a hugely fun fandom to either dip your toe into or just do a full on swan dive into.

Since debuting in 1979, the series just keeps on rolling with new installments, spin-off series, manga, model kits, and OVA's coming out with regularity, making me a pretty happy camper, especially since a new publishing and distribution deal a few years ago with Nozomi Entertainment makes the DVD's easier to get than ever here in the west. Again, I'm happy... 

... But not as happy as I have been on Pinterest lately. I normally trail Gundam on the service because there's sweet custom model kits that give me ideas for how I want to customize my own models and some of that sweet-ass original art I was talking about earlier. But someone, bless them - someone on Pinterest has been superimposing the heads of certain robots from the series over what I think are authentic Victorian/Edwardian portraits of people of prominence and the result is fun. 

It's also stupid. But it's fun. And that's okay. Because not everything has to be Kierkegaard. 

Skryim Remastered Edition

Skyrim has been released on so many platforms it kind of became a joke. Instead of any information on the game's eventual sequel, The Elder Scrolls Vi, we just kept getting Skyrim again and again on new platforms, which is find because that game rules, but it's still not a new game. 

Kyrie Irving on Bill Simmons Podcast

I'm a big Boston sports fan, so last year's NFL season was a heartbreaker, this year's NBA season was a miracle, and the Yankees are leading the AL East, so they can go fuck themselves. Bill Simmons is one of my all-time favorite writers and is constantly teaching me stuff I don't know about sports, so having Kyrie on was a really, really fun episode. 

Dude is smart, humble, articulate, and passionate... He didn't sound like the kind of guy who actually believes the world is flat. 

I know Simmons is a homer. But he owns it. And shit, you're a homer too. That's cool. I'm sorry your fanbase doesn't have someone like Bill Simmons at the top of it because trust me when I say it's really, really fun. Unless you're a Boston fan too, in which case - go Sox, and Brady will never die. 

Bullmoose Music / Fantastic Four Xbox Game

I love San Francisco but there's no place I can take a bus to that sells old video games, which is kind of horseshit for a city full of rich nerds, but I digress. As soon as I found out I couldn't buy old GameCube games here I looked online to one of my favorite stores of all time, Bullmoose. Bullmoose is a local chain of used/new dvd's, books, cd/s records, games, comics, and pretty much anything else you can possibly imagine wanting for your personal library. And what did I want from my library?

I wanted a bunch of superhero games I either couldn't afford as a kid for the GameCube/Xbox/PS2 generation or lost after lending to a friend. I very happily added Spider-man (2002), Spider-man 2, Ultimate Spider-man, Hulk, Superman: Man of Steel, Superman, Shadow of Apokolips, Catwoman, Aquaman, Constantine, Teen Titans, and surprise, surprise - The Fantastic Four.

I played a little bit of all the games and y'know, they're not the best, but one game I ripped into and really enjoyed my time with was the Fantastic Four movie tie in game. Developed by 7 Studios (as far as I can tell, that's the actual name; it wasn't developed by seven different studios) and published by Activision, Fantastic Four came out in the heyday of licensed property tie-in games using the movies as the story and the likenesses of the characters therein. And the Fantastic Four game.. I've literally never heard anyone every talk about it. I couldn't even find the game on Metacrtic. IGN gave it a 6.5 review and that feels about right. 

But you know what? It's a surprisingly fun distraction. It's a four player brawler that bobs and weaves through the narrative of the movie while padding it out with more stuff that would've been cool (Mole Man? Yes, please). It more or less uses the same gameplay mechanics of Activision's then contemporaneous series X-Men Legends, but with a different score-based level structure, compared to Legends's more open ended structure. 

It's a weird change of pace from the generally well-regarded X-Men Legends game series, but it's still fun, if a little janky and less polished than those other games, but again - fun. Like, impressively fun. Like it's the most fun I've had since Far Cry 5, fun. 

Thanks, Bullmoose <3 

100 Greatest Moments in Gaming - IGN

The only thing people like more than video games is comparing them in lists. IGN is the biggest video game website in the world and they have a stable of talented-as-shit writers who can wax poetic on games, and I eat that shit up because I'm a pop culture fiend. Every year they update their list of the 100 best games of all time and this isn't that list, which is awesome. 

This list is the 100 greatest moments in gaming. It's leaving the vault in Fallout 3 and seeing the wasteland that Washing DC became. It's seeing the lighthouse in Bioshock Infinite. It's Pac-Man meeting Ms. Pac-man, it's getting to the roof of Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64 and seeing Yoshi. 

I love the scale of this article. It's this huge, expansive piece of writing that focuses on the smallest, most intimately measurable experiences that left an impact on you. Forget the ranking, just remember how much fun these games are and what these moments meant to you when came across them. 

Seriously, forget the ranking. If you're one of those assholes who has to shout at the writers "BUT PULLING THE MASTER SWORD ISN'T AS IMPORTANT AS..." then you're not passionate - you're just an asshole. 
 

Allred's Dick Tracy

Truth be told, Dick Tracy was never really my thing. I'm a huge comic fan and 80's movie fan yeah, but besides a small appreciation of the film, the character never really did that much for me. You know what does do a lot for me though? Mike Allred. The dude is untouchable, without peer, a goddamn genius. His pop art aesthetic makes every pencil line the dude puts on paper timeless. This could've come out 40 years from now this could come out in another 40. The dude's style simultaneously pays respect to what came before from the Kirby/Ditko/Kane era and updates it with small tweaks, bucking the trend du jour that applies to most hot artists rocking the stands today. The dude kicks ass. Getting him on Silver Surfer throughout the Marvel Now! era was a gift and getting him now for such a stylistic noir story is beyond awesome. Especially from IDW, which is a newer-ish publisher that shows such respect for licensed comics. Their Simon Furman Transformers stuff in the mid 2000's was fucking incredible and one of the best books on the stands of the era, and their TMNT stuff today is bliss in color.   

Lifetime Original Game Show - SNL

Bill Hader is realistically one of the funniest people on the planet and with his show Barry, the dude is an inspiration for me as an aspiring creative writer. I like to have old SNL sketches on while I write because even the bad seasons are still incredible bodies of work (you don't like it, you should try writing comedy sketches week in and week out that are simultaneously culturally relevant but evergreen on top of entertaining and do a good job of balancing the cast's strengths with the weaknesses of the host that's changing every week. Go ahead. I'll wait). 

Anywho, this one just popped into my random rotation again and years removed, Anna Faris and Bill Hader still make me laugh my ass off. Vanessa Bayer and Kristen Wiig anchoring this sketch with the two smaller roles means this sketch has almost no weak links, and Hader's heel turn halfway through the sketch still makes me cough and lose my train of thought. 

MTG Core Set 2019 Reprints

I haven't talked about it a lot, but I'm a huge Magic the Gathering fan. I'm terrible at it, which is probably why I don't discuss it that much. I'll keep this one brief because I've seen the Venn-Diagram of people who visit my site and nowhere in the circle is people who play Friday Night Magic. 

Anyways. There's a whole bunch of different formats that use the same cards. Basically you can use cards going back a year for one format, cards going all the way back to about 2010 for another format, all cards for another, etc. 

One of the most competitive formats is one called Modern, going back to about 2010 or so, when they last updated the card frame, so everything looks the same from a layout perspective. Because over the past 8 years or so the game has only gotten more popular, supply hasn't increased while demand has skyrocketed, leaving a lot of critical cards for certain strategies to raise in price exponentially on the secondary market.

Not only is the Core Set returning, a set traditionally filled with reprints which in itself is a big deal, but the cards are being revealed now, and two of the cards being reprinted cost over $50 each - which is ridiculous when you consider that a play-set is four copies, which is ludicrously expensive and clearly a deterrent from people joining the game. 

Kudos, Wizards of the Coast. Thank you for finally reprinting Crucible of Worlds so I can get it for my Meren of Clan Nel Toth Commander Deck.

Welcome to Marwen 

Zemeckis made one of my all-time favorite movies, so I always take notice when that dude has a new project in the pipeline. Welcome to Marwen is based on an apparently true story of an assault victim who uses art to aid in his recovery. 

It's Steve Carrell, Janelle Monáe, and Leslie Mann in what looks like a tender story about someone trying to move on from PTSD blended in with a mixed media (have you noticed a theme yet?) with an action figure based war subplot? I don't know anything else about this story besides what I've gotten from the trailer. 

I don't want to know anything else about this story besides what I've gotten from the trailer. 

I just want to see this movie already. 

Coolest things of the week - Week of June 11

Hey champions - sorry it's been so long. Weddings. Travel. Work. Sleep. Going away parties. It's been a busy month. I'm excited to say that by the end of the week part 2 of my Marvel Comics Universe Expedition should be over, but the greatest sense of euphoria in my life is hitting the "save and publish" button at the bottom of this blog form and I miss that. So here's a little mini post about the coolest things I've seen over the past week. I think I'm going to start doing this as a casual, low-stress article because there's a lot of cool shit out there worth talking about. I think I want to call it

Coolest things of the week 

I mean, at least it's direct, right?

Again - sorries to Mary, Ben and Sean - but the Marvel stuff will be up soon. In the meantime, let's talk about some cool shit. 

The Tetris Effect Trailer

E3 happened over last weekend and all throughout this week. There's been tons of great looking demos, showcases, and discussions about what to look forward to in video games over the next year (or years). There was some kickass news, there was some heartbreaking news (Elder Scrolls VI has barely entered development, wtf is that about?) but there was so much cool shit there that you can tell people are breaking their backs over, stuff that they're designing from the ground up to be somebody's new favorite video game, it's awesome shit, and one of my favorite times of the year. 

Before E3 kicked off proper though, Sony worked hard to make the traditionally one week event into a two week event, with new game announcements rocking headlines the three weekdays before their press conference. And one of them knocked me on my ass. 

The Tetris Effect is a new PlayStation VR game from the mind of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the dude behind games like Rez and Lumines. Based on that resume, you can tell you're in for something that will delight anyone even remotely interested in puzzles, music, or really just any kind of audio/visual pleasure.

But let's talk about the trailer. Things fall into place the way you want them to, lights pulsate in synchronicity with the music like a goddamn Michel Gondry music video, the narrator's booming voice sounds like he should be talking over an anime from 40 years ago, the build up and the anticipation of the song as the video slowly becomes more clear - it's gorgeous. These dudes took what's basically an abstract to a psychology paper and turned it into a video game trailer and for my money, everything works fucking perfectly. I sent it over to my friend Collin and this was our exchange:

It's optimistic, it's simple, it's beautiful. It's awesome, simply awesome. And that song is fucking gold. 

Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse trailer

While Sony finally made nice with Disney and created a fun version of Spider-man that can hang out with the rest of Marvel's characters, they still want to squeeze as much money as they can out of the character, and they should. Spider-man is pretty fucking cool. 

Into the Spiderverse is acknowleding that there's multiple realities, and there's a version of Spider-man in every single one. I don't think I've heard the words Peter Parker yet, but Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe gets some older version of Spider-man  in his world and he starts showing him the ropes (I refuse to make a 'webs' pun there). I'm going to stop talking about the story because I don't really know what it is and I'm cool with that. 

So let's talk about the art direction of the trailer instead because it's beautiful. Animators have been getting bolder lately trying to get their work, their style to really stand out. Adventure Time got super popular and then that seemed like the approach to take - a simplified anatomy and proportions and make up for it with personality and writing. One standout I've seen along the way is The Amazing World of Gumball, and Spiderverse seems to be taking some cues from that show, which I'm very much here for. 

The art directions contrast so much that they blend together, simply by their virtue of being so different. On top of that Jake Johnson is playing a Spider-man, we're getting a feature length film starring Miles Morales, and at the end of the trailer, one of my favorite comic characters of the last 10 years makes an appearance, and it looks like she's going to play a big role in it, which is pretty fucking fantastic for nerds like me. 

Reddit Hobby Thread

Reddit kind of terrifies me. There's so much going on, the UI is a pain in the ass, and it seems like a lot of dark shit happens there. That said, occasionally there are some real gems from the site, and that's what I think this one is. 

Someone put out a call for people to submit the drama happening in the world of their hobby. It was kind of fascinating hearing about all these things you've never thought about. This one dude (See below) told a James Bond style thriller story about the world of exotic and rare plant collection. 

Yeah, I read a story about old people collecting hard to pronounce but even harder to find and I felt a little sweat in the palm of my hands. There are all kinds of ways to kill time in this world and reading this thread taught me about 80 new ones. 

David Mack Action Comics And Superman Covers

I feel like one generation has that artist that just kicks their brain in the dick. Like, the one penciler or painter or colorist that just sums up the way they think a book should best look. Jack Kirby was one of those artists, George Perez, Jim Lee, Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely - these artists distill the feeling of the time into tangible visual art that's so perfectly arranged it tells a story seamlessly, whether you take the time to read the words or not. 

David Mack was my artist for the early 2000's/late 90's. The dude just floors me, always has, always will. There's something oddly melancholy about his work that's summed up to me as a slight failure of the character drawn. The lighter touches of Mack's hand on his line work let's you know that this character transcends reality; it's not a character as much as a concept. When he draws Daredevil not completely symmetrical it feels like what he's saying is the character himself has something broken about him, something that's missing, keeping him off balance. The dude mixes mediums together to make these collages that give off a stream of consciousness tone that I usually find more prevalent in novels than art and it's just killer. 

Anyways, he drew some covers for Superman and Action Comics (which makes sense now that his pal Brian Michael Bendis is writing them) and holy hell are they gorgeous. We know Superman is iconic but it's the crest, the cape, and the bottoms. - that's what's iconic. The blurred face on each of the figures makes me feel like the concept of Superman is what's most important - it's what really slaps you in the face and I freaking love that. Superman's iconography transcends his human appearance and becomes the most important thing about him. The washed out colors show not just his age but also his longevity, making him mythic and timeless in spite of their fade. 

Goddamn the dude is amazing artist. I'll stop gushing now but I will tell you that there are two more covers over here at this link. 

The Bachelorette Bloodbath

I'm gonna level with you guys - I fucking love The Bachelor and Bachelorette especially. It comes on at the perfect time - just when the NBA is winding down and before the All-Star Break in Baseball, which is when a normal person should start giving a shit about baseball. 

And right in that beautiful little window is the Bachelorette, which is basically clickbait the TV show. This year has Becca, the chick who won the Bachelor last season but was then dumped six weeks later for the only person somehow more boring than Ari, the Bachelor. I think it's a litttttle too soon for Becca jumping back into things like this, but also, I don't want to speak for her (on top of not being able to), which is something the dudes on the show could learn. 

On the most recent episode, the editors were sick geniuses and with previews made it seem like there was a fucking murder at The Bachelor mansion. Two dudes were getting into a very uncomfortable argument about how many tinder matches one of them had. The other told Becca. There was a lot of arguing in front of other men at the house, it was really awkward, it was awesome. 

But then we saw the guy who tattled to Becca getting carted out on a stretcher. The next shot was the guy he was arguing with sitting alone on the couch and they really, really made it seem like the tinder guy destroyed the narc. 

“Who did this?” #TheBachelorette pic.twitter.com/RI3gAubE9a

— The Bachelorette (@BacheloretteABC) June 12, 2018

Turns out? No. He didn't. The dude just fell out of the top of the bunk beds and smashed the fuck out of his face. 

Goddamn these editors are incredible.  

Terry Collins Mic'd up Meltdown

It's not really my last favorite thing of the week, but it's my favorite last thing that isn't a video game announcement from E3 or or a puppy I found on Twitter, so let's snap this thing off at the head and do the damn thing. 

Sorry, I'm still thinking about the Bachelor. 

A few years ago, a pitcher got thrown out of a game for a wild throw, and the pitcher's manager got thrown out for arguing with the ump on the pitcher's behalf. Not super special, shit like that happens every once in a while in the game. 

For whatever reason, this one resurfaced recently and I am so, so, so happy it did. Because as you can tell from the video above, this exchange was mic'd up. And this exchange is the best deleted scene from Goodfellas you've ever seen. 

Also, I'm not sure what the phrase "My ass is in the jackpot" means, but it's definitely made its way into my lexicon. 

Also, part of me is kind of sad that Tommy and Terry didn't kiss at the end. I was really rooting for them. 

Machine Impossible

This is so dumb but I love it. This guy on twitter regularly programs bots to write screenplays after making the bot consume an ungodly amount of a particular movie. He's programmed them to write a Saw screenplay after watching 1,000 hours of Saw movies, Olive Garden commercial scripts after watching 1,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials, so on and so forth. 

This time it was Mission Impossible and while I'm excited to see whichever one is coming out this summer, gun to my head I'd see this one first. 

I forced a bot to watch over 1,000 hours of Mission Impossible movies and then asked it to write a Mission Impossible movie of its own. Here is the first page. pic.twitter.com/MLET4SaSGo

— Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) June 11, 2018

And that's the coolest shit I've seen this week. See you soon, champions. 

Backlog Quest Log Sideblog - A 2000's Marvel Comics Universe Primer Part 1

Before we get started, this post is dedicated to Mary, one of my favorite people. A big ol' congrats on finishing law school, champion. Luh yew.

People think about comics the wrong way. They think they're incredibly dense, childish, inconsequential stories with the pathos of WWE's Monday Night RAW, and the ethos of... well, WWE Wednesday Smackdown Live. 

In a perfect world, every day is Rusev Day

Comics are deep if you want them to be. They're light and fluffy if you want them to be too. The only criticism I get at comics is that they're confusing, which is totally fair. I fucking love comics and even I get confused as hell sometimes trying to understand all the characters, their motivations, why I should give a shit, and about 10,000,000 other things fiction can make you feel. 

But there was this pretty incredible run that Marvel Comics had from 2004 until about 2012 that is essentially one long story told by the same key people. And the cool thing? That story is literally as big as you want it to be. Seriously - you can just read the event storylines and you can understand perfectly well what's happening (with minimal Wikipedia searches). 

2004 wasn't just a good year for comics either... 

Or, let's say you really dig Spider-Man, you can throw in the Spider-man issues and get an even bigger story while you read the event storylines. And then you can add in Cap too. And Iron Man, and fuck, who are The Runaways? I don't know, but I like the art style, better add them too. Don't give a shit about the X-Men or the Guardians of the Galaxy? Sweet, bud - don't sweat it, just skip it. 

But Mary is bored. She just graduated law school and even though she should be studying for the BAR exam like immediately, that's the last fucking thing she wants to do, because she's a sane human being. At least, as sane as any human being who just spent three years killing themselves in law school can be. 

So for her, I'm laying out the whole story. The whole goddamn Marvel Universe as it mattered over eight years.

Because you know what? It was a really, really special time. It made me fall in love with the medium, and it really should never have happened. Marvel was in bankruptcy in the late 90's after the comic speculator bubble burst and things seemed bleak as hell. They cut their publishing line and instead of flooding the market with titles, they very deliberately brought in new voices to tell good stories and get people excited with fewer, higher quality books. 

And then they brought in Brian Michel Bendis. From 2004 to 2012, there's one story being told, both under his name and others, but it's all thanks to that sweet little bald genius from Cleveland. 

This post will have issue numbers for people reading on the Marvel Unlimited app, as well as the collection names if you want them in trade from, In Stock Trades. I didn't get paid to say that, I just really love that site. Also, there are digital editions on Kindle that are diiiiirt cheap. 

I'm not going to talk spoilers because the point of comics is to read them. Some of my stuff might be listed out of order for your convenience not for your detriment or simply because it's been almost 15 years. Bendis' Daredevil is on this list, and you know what? If you think it's so good that you can't put it down, then you not put it down. Comics are supposed to be fun, so have fun.

Also, there are tie-ins to some of these events. Some are worth reading, some I don't feel are, but it's totally up to you. I'll try to point  you in the direction of which tie-ins I think are necessary, and which I think are worth it. But also, if you see that a future issue is a tie-in to a larger event like House of M or Civil War or something, then it's up to you. I recommend catching up, but again - you're an adult and you can do what you want. This is supposed to be fun, dammit. 

Here's a little glossary for some words I'm going to be using: 

Issue: a single, numbered book that's part of a specific series or an ongoing book's volume.

Arc: a bunch of issues in an ongoing that tell larger story. They're at least two issues long in an ongoing series.

Ongoing Series: A series that comes out every month. 

Mini-series:  a self contained story in its own book focusing on either one specific or a variety characters. It's predetermined in length and can last most commonly from 2-8 issues. 

Maxi-series: Same as a miniseries but longer, anywhere from 8-24 issues.

Volume: A volume is a series, and it usually changes in regards to a change of creative direction at the publisher. For example, the first volume of Avengers started at Marvel in the 60's. Then Volume 2 started in the 90's after a big cataclysmic event. Then when they wanted a more traditional avengers series, they started volume 3. 

Vol. (2): a volume can also be a collection of an ongoing in trade paperback or hardcover. When a book does bonkers numbers its collected in a hardcover first, but most books are eventually collected in trade. For example - New Avengers Vol. 1: Breakout, New Avengers Vol. 2 The Sentry, etc.. I'll abbreviate to Vol. for the sake of clarity in these posts. 

Publishing Initiative: Think of this as a small creative direction that affects multiple books. It could be something as big as an earthquake hitting New York or as small as a single character goes missing, but the effect is explored across multiple titles. 

And for the sake of these posts:

#. Numbered and this size means 'must read'.

This size means means 'good read'.

Before we get things started remember, these books were coming out concurrently. So some details may be lost as you navigate from series to series, because the trades are collected as stories, not as publishing date, but hey, you don't care - you just want the kickass stories.  

1. Secret War

(Secret War 1-5) This 2004 mini series was one of the first real post-modern works that Marvel released, and it really cut the distance between our reality and the mainline Marvel Universe's fiction. This wasn't a bunch of characters you've never heard of, this wasn't the Ultimate Universe, this was the main Marvel timeline and it was the characters you've known for 40+ years doing real shit. It became less about a fantastic universe of colorful superheroes doing good and more about our post-9/11 reality bleeding over to our fiction, to a place where we had an answer to that skepticism, pessimism, and horror in the form of throwing superheroes at it. Also, Gabrielle Del'Otto's art is one-of-a-kind, and his more-or-less photo-realistic style helped bridged the fantastic to the tangible.  

The story is pretty straightforward and like previously stated, pretty post-9/11. After catching a lower-level villain, Nick Fury, head of global peacekeeping task-force SHIELD, starts crunching numbers and realizes there's no fucking way these dudes who knock over banks for a few thousand bucks here and there - when they don't get stopped by heroes like Spider-man - can afford the tech they have. After tracing them back to a single supplier, they figure out how said supplier is getting his funding, and attribute it to State-sponsored terrorism. So Nick creates a team to do something about it, and that team is going to look pretty familiar. 

Bendis started with working on what we'll call the ground-level heroes. He wasn't doing crazy cosmic shit, he cared a lot more about the less powerful, more flawed heroes. After reading Secret War, you can start spreading out a bit and dipping into these next books. Keep in mind, I don't think they're terribly important to the overall story Bendis and Co. were telling at Marvel, but they involve a lot of the important characters, and they're just pretty good books in their own right. 

Daredevil 

(Daredevil Vol. 2, 16 and up) Bendis took the baton from Kevin Smith and kept Daredevil Volume 2 (you can read the whole thing, but Bendis' run starts in earnest at issue 16, but the Kevin Smith stuff is good too) as a must-read book. When Daredevil's story wasn't being told by David Mack, it was being told by Alex Maleev, and until 2013's Marvel Now publishing initiative, the character never looked better. Bendis helped navigate the character through the millennium-hangover that a lot of books were feeling and gave him an old school noir-voice as the rest of the publishing line started looking towards the future.

Tell me again how comics aren't art?

For the most part, Daredevil was pretty self-contained until Civil War, but Matt Murdock's social life becomes kind of a sticking point for a bunch of other series, and it's worth reading about here just to stay up to date as you navigate other series. Also, this book just kinda fuckin' owns, ya know? I think Mack has more interesting contributions to this book creatively than later artists, but there's something so satisfying about seeing Maleev and Bendis working together over extended period of time, they really hit their stride early and develop a good report that's reflected in the book. 

Alias AKA Jessica Jones

(Alias 1-28) One of my favorite books of all time, Alias, starring Jessica Jones is basically a series about perennial fuck up and former superhero Jessica Jones, as she navigates her way through New York's seedy superhero underbelly. She's a private eye who takes cases no one else will and you see a completely different side to the Marvel Universe than your'e used to, even with books like Daredevil on the stands. It's as different to the rest of the publishing line as the Netflix Jessica Jones show is to the movies. It's just heavier, it's darker, and it's somehow way more relatable. People talk... normally in that book. Bendis' contribution to comic book dialogue is essentially what Tarantino did to movie dialogue, and I think he did it best here. 

The Pulse

(The Pulse 1-9, 11-14) Before it seemed like digital was going to eat print's lunch, it seemed like everyone was just getting dumber. It's not that people were reading the news online for free, it was that they weren't reading at all. And even though he hates vigilantes, the head of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson himself decides that if he's going to slum with costumed heroes, he's going to slum it the best. He opens up a new superhero slanted imprint called The Pulse, and hires Jessica Jones to be its eyes and ears, along with Phil Urich (old school reporter at the DB) and everyone in their respective lives. It's a fun series that was unfortunately just a bit too short lived for my liking, but it's fun as hell and very much worth checking out. 

2. Avengers Disassembled + Avengers Finale

(Avengers 500-504, Avengers Finale, see 'New Avengers' for Link) Any Marvel fan knows the words "And there came a day, a day unlike any other...". Bendis came in, and instead of giving a mighty day for heroes, and gave them the worst day they've ever had by a country mile. The way he broke them was super important, probably the most important, and while a whole bunch of people were pissed at the time, in hindsight, it's pretty clear why he did everything he did, and set up over a decade of stories to come. Obviously, if you want to understand every possible nuance, you can go back and read all of Avengers Vol. 3 (Which I really recommend, it's one of my favorite runs of all time), but all you really need to know is that this collection of heroes is Earth's Mightiest and they're not used to losing. 

Disassembled was a publishing initiative that ran across multiple titles. So, as you see all the Avengers in this book have a shitty day, you can see repercussions of that shitty today in their own respective series. I can't really recommend any of them? I don't think they're bad, but I don't think they're particularly good either. That said, if you like this series or feel intrigued by the idea of heroes losing and want to better understand everyone's headspace before what happens next, don't let me be the one to stop you from reading them. Of them all, one is definitely more, um, worthy of your time than others.... 

Thor Disassembled

(Thor Vol. 2 80-85) Thor's Disassembled storyline is basically the Ragnarok storyline. It's big. It's loud. And it explains why the dude is off the board for the next couple of years. I'm not in love with any of the Avengers Disassembled Tie-Ins, but more than the others, this series is actually pretty important as far as Marvel continuity is concerned. 

Iron Man 

(Iron Man Vol. 4, 1-6) Not the Avengers Disassembled tie-in, but rather the Vol. 4 new series by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov. Yeah, that same Warren Ellis that I'm so head over heels in love with, he came onto Iron Man and blew shit up, making the biggest leap the character has made forward (technologically speaking) in years, and reframed Tony Stark as a futurist first, then a superhero in response to what the future needs, which at the time was a pretty refreshing take on the character considering he was just Secretary of State in a storyline that was a little meander-y.

Young Avengers

(Young Avengers 1-12) Hold on, hold on - I know this sounds stupid but it's not just the Muppet Baby equivalent to the Avengers so don't sweat it. Young Avengers picks up in the aftermath, in a world without Avengers and focuses on very young heroes who all have connections in some regard to someone from the previous Avengers team. What sounds like a cashgrab is legit one of the best 12 issues of a comic I've ever read. It was penned by Allan Heinberg, a Sex and the City and The OC alum who loved comics, and Jim Cheung, a super talented young artist. YA was a fun way to see what happens when a world doesn't have heroes and how there's always someone (or some-ones) good enough to rise up when no one else will. It also has one of the sweetest, most genuine relationships I've read in a comic, and it was between two young men. Also, one of the most badass Marvel characters, a young woman named Kate Bishop, debuts in this book as well. 

3. New Avengers

(New Avengers 1-10) Why did Bendis break the Avengers if he was just going to bring them back a few months later? Because he was going to bring them back pretty freaking different. There were no big-hitters, people you call at the end times on this team, everyone was pretty human and pretty relatable as far as personalities were concerned. And like that terrible day that tore the team asunder before, a new day brought these heroes together by fate. It's pretty incredible that no one had ever put Spider-Man and Wolverine on an Avengers team before, that seems like a no brainer, but before long, Luke Cage and Spider-Woman became the hearts of the team, with a mystery surrounding one of the team members compelling you to keep turning pages. 

Amazing Spider-Man

Mike Deodato Jr. is a gift

(Amazing Spider-Man 519-524) Spider-man is used to having shitty luck, but joining the New Avengers is kind of a turning point for him. The dude has historically been hated on by the press and city at large, so joining the newest incarnation of the Avengers is validating and to an extent it exonerates him in the public eye. But, that doesn't mean his life isn't more complicated, and his own series deals with that in some pretty fun ways. 

Captain America

(Captain America Vol. 5 1-12) This is also a good time to start reading one of the greatest runs on any single character in Marvel history. Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting begin their year-spanning epic when they introduce new villain Alexander Lukin, who's just sold a cosmic cube to the Red Skull. This is part spy comic, part superhero opus, and like nine parts political commentary while being totally accessible and gorgeous. You know how Captain America; The Winter Soldier is one of the best Marvel movies? Yeah, Brubaker wrote it and Epting drew the shit out of out. 

4. Astonishing X-Men

(Astonishing X-Men 1-24, Giant Size Astonishing X-Men 1) I think I've talked about Astonishing X-Men before... shit, yeah, I did - in my last post - but that should let you know how high regard I hold it in. Joss Whedon's name may not mean as much now as it used to, but back in 2004 he was considered one of the best acquisitions by Marvel. Immediately put to work with mindblowingly awesome artist John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men became the X-Men book. While the other main X-books were sort of treading water, riding on their legacy, Astonishing was where the defining stories of the X-Men were being told and having what was considered the canon lineup of the time. 

The first story, Gifted, saw a mutant cure being made available, and saw the return of a classic character. Really, this series is just on there to familiarize yourself with the X-Family, this is a pretty low-investment series in that it didn't really tie in with the rest of Marvel's events and offers a pretty classical take on Marvel's best mutants, making it one of the easier books to jump into years later. Though this series wasn't affected by Marvel's bigger tentpole events, that's not to say the X-Men themselves weren't... 

5. House of M

(House of M 1-8) Alright, so I don't want to give spoilers. I can't really talk about this event without spoiling the events of Avengers Disassembled, so I'll talk around it. 

The X-Men and the New Avengers gather to finally deal with the fallout from Disassembled and they're quickly whisked into a re-written reality where normal humans are the minority and mutants are the majority. It's one of my personal favorite events because of how simple the premise is but how far the effects of it reach. It's written by Bendis and drawn masterfully by Olivier Coipel, a team you'll read about again in a later post. 

The fallout from this event set the tone for Marvel's mutants for the next 8 years and led to some incredible, incredible stories. 

Decimation

(Decimation: House of M - The Day After, and X-Men Vol. 2 177-181) It wouldn't be the end of a comic event without some things being fixed and other things blown to hell. While Astonishing X-Men is a continuity-lite book, if you want to see the direct result of House of M on the mutant population, I recommend checking out the adjective-less X-Men book. The Decimation publishing initiative permeated all the X-books, but this series in particular saw the most bombastic effects of House of M resolution.

Wolverine

(Wolverine Vol. 3 36-40) One consequence of House of M was Wolverine getting all of his memories back. He's a complicated character with a pretty horrific past, and him remembering is basically shit hitting the fan for the rest of the Marvel Universe. 

X-Factor

(X-Factor Vol. 3 1-6)Thanks to House of M's conclusion, we got a bunch of new miniseries and a few new ongoings, but none were as beloved as X-Factor, which saw Peter David return to the fan-favorite series with a new volume. X-Factor was a mutant-run investigation agency that in the wake of House of M found itself more needed than ever. This title was great because it showed a completely different side of the mutant population. These characters didn't want to be superheroes, they just wanted to good and didn't bring any of the drama that the rest of the X-books did. 

And that's it for now, true believers. But hey, this only covers 2001-2005, we're just getting started. Check back soon for Part 2 of my 2000's Marvel Comics Universe Primer.