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Dragonball Z:The Frieza Saga

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After defeating Ginyu at the end of the Dragonball Z: The Namek Saga , Goku is rushed into a Revitalization chamber while Ginyu hops around, stuck in the body of a frog. Frieza, a tyrant of seemingly unstoppable power, is approaching. While Vegeta sleeps, Gohan, Krillin, and Dende attempt to summon the dragon undisturbed. They manage to revive Piccolo and there Kami as well, and have Piccolo sent to Namek where he fuses with a dying Nail, becoming stronger than he thought possible. Frieza finds them, unleashing a new transformation just when our heroes believe they can win. Frieza brutally kills Vegeta, who tearfully tells Goku that he was a slave under Frieza his whole life and he never had a chance to be anything else. Angered Goku faces against Frieza’s final form but even with all his strength he can’t match Frieza’s might. His final solution: drop the biggest Spirit Bomb on Frieza he possibly can, having his friends try to hold him off. At first, it appears the bomb worked, but there hopes are quickly smashed when Frieza emerges, wounded and pissed, killing Krillin and mortally wounding Piccolo in a blink of the eye. Goku is furious, unleashing his rage in a frightening display, becoming the golden haired, aqua eyed Super Saiyan of legend. Suddenly the tables turn on Frieza, who is suddenly completely outmatched. However, he has a final transformation under his belt and uses his power to destroy the planet. Can Goku defeat Frieza before Namek explodes?

Here is where DBZ sold me. Frieza is a simple villain but his multiple, strange transformations and iconic voice make him one of the series most memorable bad guys. We see Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta, and Piccolo at some of there most badass but let’s face, Goku steals the show with his Super Saiyan transformation. Super Saiyan Goku vs Frieza on dying Namek is on of anime’s greatest battles and Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation set the standard for epic transformations in anime for decades to come. The finale is suspenseful as hell and ends on a great cliff hanger. This is one of my favorite sagas, despite the fact it’s pretty much one fight and Frieza does get annoying at times ( not to mention that son of a bitch can’t tell time to save his ass) but because of the awesomeness that is Super Saiyan and the suspenseful as hell climax and satisfying as hell end to Frieza, it’s one of my favorites and well worth a watch. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

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Reboots and remakes can be a wonderful thing. Star trek (reboot) reignited my love of Star Trek and The Hills Have Eyes(06) is one of my all time favorite movies. When Planet of the Apes was getting there shot, I was skeptical. I wasn’t a fan of the original series and well, my first foray into the series was Tim Burton’s remake so…yeah. I was pretty stunned afterwords.

A scientist is testing an Alzheimer’s cure on chimps for a multi- billion dollar company; one of the test chimps was pregnant and birth an adorable baby chimp. Will, one of the main scientists, takes the baby chimp home and raises him as his own. The chimp named Caesar is not like a normal monkey, his intelligence is well beyond that of a normal chimp. The happy life Caesar leads doesn’t last forever; he’s taken back by the company and it’s there that Caesar learns the cruelty of man, and its then that Caesar spreads his gifts to the other apes and they break free…

Nothing about this movie feels goofy like the others that came before it. The CGI and motion capture work is beyond recognition combined with effort of the actors making the apes amazingly lifelike. Andy Serkis is outstanding as Caesar. The plot maybe streamlined but there’s a ton of heart to carry the movie. I must say though, the after credit scene is vital to the series so definitely stay tuned until the very end. I love the emphasis on remaining a grounded drama first and sci-fi movie second. It’s a great first chapter to an awesome trilogy and I highly recommend it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

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Bioshock 2: Minerva’s Den

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I don’t really play many DLCs but if it’s a game I really love, I go all out. Minerva’s Den is a side story told alongside Delta’s story in Bioshock 2. We play as a Big Daddy named Sigma set off to venture into Minerva’s Den, the computer heart of Rapture. You’re sent by a man named Porter to search for the Thinker, which is said to be able to predict everything. It’s protected by the co-creator, Reed Wahl who’s gone mad from splicing…

I have to say there is some really cool new stuff in the levels. I love the Gravity Well plasmid, which has a awesome final form that can decimate a group of enemies at one. The addition of the ion laser is really nice too which is cost efficient when it comes to ammo and does quite a bit of damage. The Lancer Big Daddies are tough and filled me with dread each time I fought them. The story has a good twist at the end and its a pretty sad story. The only drawback is that it isn’t very long and there’s a lot of searching that can get pretty tedious. In the end, If you are craving more Bioshock this is a fun bite sized entry. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragonball Z: Lord Slug

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Here is where the DBZ movies turned for the awesome, part of which helps is the badass soundtrack featuring old school Deftones, Disturbed, and Finger Eleven to name a few.

The Earth is in panic as a colossal meteor is about to collide with the planet, a planet inhabited by life. Goku and Krillin intercept only to get blasted away as it lands and an army emerges lead by an ancient tyrant known as Lord Slug. Slug has come for the Dragonballs to give himself eternal youth. After being restored to his prime, him and his army set off to terra-form the Earth to create a new cruiser out of it. Goku and his friends can’t compete with young Slug who is revealed to be a Super Namekian, but Goku finds a strange power of his own, but can it bring down a towering Slug?

The Lord Slug movie is badass. The fights are epic and the music perfectly compliments them. Slug as a villain is pretty solid and his henchmen are interesting to watch. How Slug is defeated is pretty creative and it brings a cute scene early in the movie. If you want a quick, fun, badass DBZ film I highly recommend this to anime fans. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bioshock 2

bs 2 A great lesson in life is just because that its better to have small flaws than fix them and break perfection. While Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games, Bioshock 2 had a lot to live up to. Let’s descend into Rapture again..

After the fall of Ryan and Atlas, a new force took over by means of Sophia Lamb’s “Family”, turning the Splicers and down-trotted of Rapture into a cult. Before Rapture’s decline under Ryan, Lamb had her exceptional daughter turned into a Little Sister, protected by Delta, one of the first Big Daddies. Lamb, using a plasmid to control him, makes Delta seemingly kill himself so she can experiment on her daughter more, trying to make her the messiah of the Family. 1968, Delta is woken up again from a coma by Tenebuam, feeling his Little Sister Eleanor call out to him. Can Delta save Eleanor from the clutches of her mother?

There are some tiny improvements to Bioshock 2 but it doesn’t hold a candle to the first. The Story, while fine, feels copy and paste in certain areas; what hurts it is the fact that the choices you make don’t carry the same weight at the end as they do in the first. Although the weapons themselves are bigger, they don’t seem to do the damage they did in the first game either. I do like the fact you can use melee attacks with every weapon and the drill does some heavy damage later. While most of the plasmids and gene tonics are carried over from the first game, there are new enemies including the badass Big Sisters who were a great addition to the series. The characters are pretty good. The graphics are a huge upgrade but I can’t help but notice that they try too hard at times to be creepy with the setting. It was cool to live as a Big Daddy and gather Adam with the Little Sisters but like much of the game itself, it does get stale. Things like hacking, photographing enemies, and tonic storage are really simplified combined with much more straight forward missions makes the game lose some charm. In the end, Bioshock 2 is a good game that could have been great but still worth trying if you loved the first. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ready or Not trailer 1

I feel in love with this trailer. I love the old time feel in the aesthetic and the idea is pretty cleaver. It looks like The Purge mixed with Clue. I like that there’s a fair amount of dark humor and it’s not taking itself overly seriously. I’m pretty psyched it’s coming out in the next few months and I can’t wait to see it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

E3 Blair Witch trailer

Of all the horror movies to make a game out of, I can’t say I imagined Blair Witch would be the horror series to get a game of it’s own. With the exception of Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows , which I actually liked, the found footage films were never my thing. Nevertheless it looks pretty decent, like a slightly creepier version of Slender-man. In VR this could be kinda cool and I’m intrigued how it will turn out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bioshock

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There are few games I’d ever give a 10 out of 10 in life: Batman: Arkham Asylum , Red Dead Redemption , and Mass Effect 2 to name a few. Bioshock is one of them. I’ve played the game through half a dozen times over two console generations and I’m still finding new things in the desolate, leaky city of Rapture.

We play as Jack who is flying over the mid Atlantic in the year 1960. His plane crashes and he finds himself swimming to a lighthouse, finding only a pod that takes him to the underwater metropolis that is Rapture, where the science and art aren’t hindered by government or god. On the outside Rapture is gorgeous and a true sight to behold. Inside is decadent madness. Addicts called Splicers run free, addicted to the freedom to rewrite there genetic codes with Adam and plasmids. Mutated little girls and there hauntingly armored suit protectors, the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, extract Adam out of the corpses that litter the streets. Rapture was founded and run by Andrew Ryan, a visionary and business tycoon who doesn’t want Jack to leave, especially when aided by Atlas. Would ya kindly remember ” a man chooses and a slave obeys”

Bioshock is more than a FPS game. Besides guns, you get to partake in various plasmids and gene tonics, giving you a cool mix of powers and buffs. The detail in your skin when you change plasmids is one of my favorite parts of the game. The world is fascinating and creepy, hearing the rambling of the Splicers and the groans and thunderous footsteps of the Big Daddies. The characters are well done and the the story is a fantastic piece of smart science fiction. The graphics are pretty good on Ps4. There are a few fetch quests that are a pain the ass and there’s a hell of a difficulty spike after easy mode so I recommend going through on easy for collectibles. The DLC, besides a fun horde mode, also has a pretty interesting mode where you have to use your brain to traverse the levels. In the end, Bioshock is a classic that I can’t recommend more. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Carrion Game-play: E3 2019

I have to thank our mutual friend, Autobot for this one. He is a weird horror game where we play as amorphous beast whose sole purpose is to devour living people and grow. I really like the art style and it’s surprisingly gory. It’s a simple premise that follows through and I can say I’d happily try it out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragonball Z: The Namek Saga

dbz 2 We continue on with the epic tale that is Dragonball Z. After saving the Earth, Vegeta has fled, Goku is wrecked, and with Piccolo and Kami dead there are no more Dragonballs. Mr Popo shows Bulma the ship Kami came in as a baby and she’s able to find the coordinates to Planet Namek, which has it’s own Dragonballs. Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan set off for Namek to restore Piccolo and there friends. Vegeta, pissed at his defeat, is stronger than ever after being beaten nearly to death because of Saiyan genetics and sets off to Namek as well. Despite Piccolo’s original bitter nature, Gohan and Krillin discover the Namekians are a peaceful people who are being slaughtered by Vegeta and a much darker force- Frieza. His army and right hand men Zarbon and Dedoria are searching for the balls as well so Frieza can achieve immortality. Before killing Dedoria Vegeta discovers the Saiyans weren’t destroyed by an asteroid as he was led to believe but Frieza himself, which boosts Vegeta’s blood lust. While a cat and mouse game ensues between Krillin and Gohan and Vegeta, Bulma tries to survive the alien world, and Goku trains with gravity as he races to help his friends on Namek. When the Dragonballs are in there grasp, the pair find themselves having to join forces in order to face Frieza’s squad of strange but powerful mercenaries- Enter the Ginyu Force…

Season 2 was a good blend of adventure and fights. I like how half of the story is Vegeta going on a murderous rampage and he does have most of the best fights in this season. The Ginyu Force is goofy but they are pretty cool. The pacing is a bit off and it it is slower than last saga but it’s worth the wait for what will come next. May the gaming gods bring you glory.