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Radius (2017)

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Radius is an interesting movie. A man gets into a car accident, wakes up with no memory at all, and discovers that everything around him that comes within a certain distance of him inexplicably drops dead. Humans, birds doesn’t matter. Actually quite a few birds, P.E.T.A. must hate this movie.

The acting is pretty nice and the story has its ups and downs. It will waste no time getting into whats going on. The movie will start out right at him waking up which is a very good reason. The movie revolves around trying to figure out who he is, and why a mystery woman can be in his presence without dying.

The movie has very few twist and turns or anything surprising in it, except the ending. In retrospect probably should have seen it coming but somehow I did not. It is worth watching tho, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Is there a best Star Trek Series?

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After doing all the Star Trek movies a long time ago, I considered reviewing all the t.v. series, which hey I suppose if you guys want I can still work on. But the real question is, is there a universally best? My father for example would swear up and down the original series was the way to go. Don’t worry, i’m not here to bash any of them. I loved them all, except the new discovery which I haven’t seen because I refuse to subscribe to another service and I hate the idea of simply stealing it.

The original series is just that, the original. It was a bit rough at times. Plenty of over acting the special effects were primitive, but for its time it was pretty damn original. The next generation however has everything the original did, but did it better and by many is considered the best of the t.v. shows.

Deep Space Nine however took us off the enterprise and on to the space station of, you guessed it, Deep Space Nine This one actually took a different approach where the story was less from episode to episode and had a more traditional approach with an over all story. DS9 also took place at the same time as TNG, in fact many of the characters make cameos in both shows and O’Brien and worf actually become permanent parts of DS9.

Next we have Voyager which honestly was pretty much Lost in Space. Do to some jack ass species of alien the ship gets ripped to the opposite side of the galaxy and they journey home. While doing this they will run into new species, some hostile some friendly, and discover new things about the Borg.

Last but not least we have Enterprise. This show is about the early days of Earth exploration, before the Federation even existed. This show was quite interesting but for many reasons never seemed to take off.

But was there an objectively best? I don’t think so. I truly think it comes down to the old fashioned age argument. Older people love the original because they saw it first and it was new. Others in between saw it in reruns but fell in love with TNG, others may love the over all stories of DS9 and Voyager. But at the end of the day it comes down to people loving the world itself. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Top 5 Final Fantasy Games

Yesterday I did the top 5 games not named Final Fantasy, so today its top 5 Final Fantasy games. These are also in an order for once but because hey why not.

Number five happens to be Final Fantasy 5, the game is terribly underrated game. The job system was great, the cast of characters were fun and varied including a female pirate pretending to be a man. and the quest to save the crystals from Exdeath was fantastic.

Final Fantasy 10 seems a bit low on the list, and hey i’m sure some of the higher ones will come across as nostalgia but I will explain my logic later. FF10 was actually fairly linear but it worked out, a big part of why is it went with the story of the summoner being on a pilgrimage. They did a great job at making you feel like you had to be in a hurry without actually rushing you around. The game may not be perfect, but damn if it didn’t come close for its time.

Final Fantasy 7 may actually be the most influential title in the series. Before that the series and JRPG’s in general were kind of a niche hidden secret of the gaming world in the west. Actually many people in Japan thought the western world was to stupid to even play them properly at one point. Then this game showed up and exploded and opened up a whole world to people. The game graphically hasn’t held up great, but the materia system is top noth, and to this day is still one of the best systems in a game and the story is fun. Tho, as you can tell I don’t believe it is the best in the series.

Final Fantasy 9, what many believe is truly the best Final Fantasy game. In fact most of the time I hear people arguing between 7 and 9, and while 7 is great and far more influential 9 is just the better game to me. The story is better, most of the characters are better. The only real flaws is the materia system was better and the final boss of 9 made no damn sense at all, he just kind of showed up. But I am sure many of you are wondering, if 7 is number three and 9 is number two, how the hell do I choose number 8 as number one? Well I didn’t. In fact the best Final Fantasy doesn’t have a number.

Yes, Final Fantasy Tactics, the War of the Lions is to me the best of the Final Fantasy games, and easily the best Tactical RPG ever made. With dozens of classes and monsters to choose from with plenty of characters and an amazing story about the tragedy of war, betrayal and the secrets of history. It is actually a great tragedy the game never got a true sequel, tho there are some theories that Final Fantasy Tactics and FF12 are connected as well as Vagrant story, tho its not really the same thing. All in all however Final Fantasy Tactics is one of those games I would love to see remastered again for the PS4. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Little Witch Academia:Enchanted Parade (2015)

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Now I am not a fan of Little Witch Academia, in fact until I saw this I had never even seen it. This just happened to catch my eye and I figured I would kill an hour watching it. It was actually pretty funny because the English subtitles did not at all match the words they were using, it kind of reminded me of the old Godzilla movies where people would stop talking but their lips would keep moving.

The story itself is a rather cute story about these magic students having to manage the annual witch parade. Clearly this show is meant for kids and teens, but its cute and fun and despite the childish nature of the show I had a lot of fun watching it. The local kids disliking magic and preferring their technology was also a nice touch of social commentary. It is definitely a series worth checking out for anime fans, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Top 5 PS1 RPGs, Assuming Final Fantasy Didn’t Exist.

If you were to make a list of best RPG’s for the Playstation one, or even of all time you couldn’t do it without a Final Fantasy game showing up on the list. Hell you probably would have to include at least one of them in the top 5 if we are being honest, whether it be 7 for the influence it had, or 6 because for some reason I don’t understand people think it was amazing or even 9 because it was actually as good as people think 6 or 7 was. But what would a list look like if we pretended it simply didn’t exist? Well here is my top 5 list, for once from 5-1 as if Final Fantasy just didn’t happen.

Beyond the Beyond is a title many people didn’t seem to play and as such doesn’t get much love. Its also a typical RPG in every fashion. Your home kingdom is attacked, you set out to find your dad, you flee the country, you end up as the chosen one to fight evil. But with how its presented and it turns out better than most on PS1.

Long before Persona 5 practically perfected balancing a home, school and dungeon life and before 3 introduced the concept, we were given Persona. Persona didn’t introduce the idea of an adult philosophical RPG, but it certainly was the most in depth and best done at that point. With the power of the PlayStation starting to hit its stride we were challenged to ask which one is the real you, and even shown why you don’t mess with crossing dimensions.

Grandia is one of those games I don’t even know how I ended up with. I think my mom thought hey hey this looks like the stuff Matt likes and my dear dead dad went ” hey this chick has green hair” and bought it ended up as a Christmas gift one year. Be that as it may it wasn’t long before I was calling Justin an idiot for not knowing Feena was in love with him and wondering how the hell I was supposed to win that fight against Gadwin, which it turns out I wasn’t supposed to.

This game was damn near number one, but you will see why it wasn’t. Breath of Fire 3 has multiple endings, great battles, character customization to rival many games even today with its master system and ability to learn moves and transfer them to others and it even had dragons. Add to that an amazing story about a war between dragons and a god and a possible betrayal and its no wonder this thing is remembered so fondly.

Anyone that knows me knew Suikoden was going to be number one, that being said while I prefer one over two, they are pretty much interchangeable to this spot. Both are amazing games, with amazing stories and their sprite characters hold up well even in 2018. Both involve wars in their respective kingdoms that take place in the same world, just different kingdoms. In fact you will visit the kingdom from one in 2 and many of the characters show up in multiple games in the series. Regardless collecting the 108 stars of destiny is an amazing feat to undertake that is both manageable and challenging at the same time. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Slither 2nd opinion (2006)

Oh slither, Torsten showed me this movie a long time ago with the claim of ” hey you will love this horror movie.” In his defense he was right, it quickly became one of our favorite movies. The story is pretty basic stuff, alien life form shows up, takes control of people, people die. You all know the drill. Its how it is done that makes the movie great. The movie knows what it is, I wouldn’t say it is self aware, for example you won’t see any breaking the 4th wall moments. But it is aware it isn’t a AAA blockbuster and it does not try to be.

My favorite example of this would be early in the movie the first guy infected has what appears to be a rash and uses the excuse of poison ivy. Much later in the movie two twin girls actually say in unison “we’re itchy” in a subtle but nice reference once you start to find the life form has a sort of connected hive mentality. @torstenvblog and I actually have a small other reason for doing this movie today, the greatest love song of all time. Enjoy it below, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Crazy Taxi (Sega Forever)

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Crazy Taxi is one of those games I played as a kid and finally got around to trying out the Sega Forever version. I won’t lie, I was worried about this one. Graphically it is one of the more impressive games they released and the sound is also higher end of the stuff they have given out. So how does it hold up?

Well honestly it holds up pretty damn well. Graphically my G6 played it very well and the sound played beautifully. Both of these things actually surprised me but not as well as the actual controls worked themselves. I was expecting this to be the worst in the series of Sega Forever games so far but in fact it functioned the best, so if you are a fan of Crazy Taxi give this one a shot. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Ritual (2018)

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The Ritual is a very odd movie. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. The movie starts out with a group of friends in Europe planning a guys weekend. Arguing about hiking and drinking and where to do it. But its time to go to the shop and buy some booze. They sadly pick the wrong store and some drug addicts packing a machete decide to rob the place. One friend is unseen and stays hidden, while the other gets brutally murdered trying to defend his wedding ring.

Later on they decide to honor their friend by going hiking, having a couple drinks and just remembering their friend in the way he would have liked. Its a nice thought, one that he actually would have loved. This is where the movie takes its odd turn, first they don’t hike anywhere near as far as they thought. Turns out they can still see the cabin they left from in fact. No big deal tho, in the morning they will head back. Or it would be if somehow they didn’t get lost.

This is where things get weird. while lost they find a dead body nailed to a tree, and yes this becomes important later. After traveling all day a storm hits and they find a cabin, a cabin they didn’t see earlier. There is some weird stuff in this cabin they spend the night in. As you can imagine it isn’t long before people in the group start dying and the last two end up in a village that worships an ancient god that kind of looks like a massive skeleton deer with hands near its mouth. The movie is interesting and while not great is a fun watch and I would suggest checking it out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Happy Birthday Torsten

Today our good friend Tors gets a year older,and for those wondering yes he was born on a Friday the 13th which may explain his love of horror movies. Or not, who knows. Either way to the best friend a guy could ask for, Happy Birthday bro. Sadly like most of he must work today which made me laugh, mostly because I spent an hour hunting down a small tree climbing rodant in his house that didn’t exist yesterday. Best wishes bro, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Resident (2012)

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Being a guy I probably miss how scary this movie truly is, but it is creepy as hell none the less. Imagine moving into a new house and meeting a new landlord, nice guy by the way. Doing a lot of nice work. When suddenly weird things start happening. You start sleeping through alarms for example and you just have this eerie feeling of being watched constantly and just a general bad time. That is what this movie is about.

The movie isn’t great, its average at best and at times is very convoluted but the concept is good. Hillary Swank and Negan, I mean Jeffrey Dean Morgan, play their parts well but there is only so much you can do with what they were given. Still the movie is worth giving a watch if you have the time, but be aware the movie has some very trigger inducing moments that sensitive people may not want to see. They certainly do not shy away from the subject matter which honestly I do appreciate. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.