Category: Opinion

Why love the “grays” of Marvel

I wanted to do something kind of different today and talk about something that really changed my outlook on how super heroes and villains are portrayed. Marvel has given us such great examples of gray characters, characters that ride the line between the borders of good and evil. Granted, while characters like Spider-man or the Red Skull are purely good and evil, many are unclassifiable.  Magneto wants safe refuge and rights for mutant kind after witnessing man’s cruelty first hand as a holocaust survivor; Doom just wants his people to prosper and be a good ruler, hoping he can see his dead mother again; Venom wants to protect the innocent; Hulk is just a beast that yearns for peace; Punisher kills, mams, tortures those who do the same to innocent people. The list goes on and while Doom ultimately is a villain, Hulk is ultimately a anti-hero, and The Guardians of the Galaxy are ultimately heroes, the verdict is out on the characters of Marvel as it is on us all in our everyday lives. Are we really good, are we really the villain we appear to be to those who trespass against us or the hero our loved ones take us for? That perspective always drove me in my personal work, and I think that’s why Marvel’s characters resonate so deep with us. May the gaming gods bring you glory, and as the epic Stan Lee would say, Excelsior!

 

Unfriended: the Dark Web trailer 1

Why is this a thing? I know we live in a digital age and there are plenty of opportunities for horror in that age but I give up when you have movies based off social media or Skype. I will say the second movie has a interesting premise and I’m glad it’s not a ghost story, but I can’t the trailer really wowed me. I’d watch it on Netflix or something like that but wouldn’t pay full for it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Devil Inside

devil inside The tagline directly above is true, I’m sure the Vatican doesn’t want you to see this movie but I have to say after seeing it, it’s Ok to follow there advice.

Maria Rossi murdered three people during a failed exorcism in 1989. In 2012, her daughter, Isabella journeys to the Vatican to try getting answers after not seeing her mother for all those years. The first act dives into the teaching of priests as exorcists and how the Vatican declares demonic possession from mental illness. Isabella reaches out to two students who privately practice exorcisms, and some interesting ethical questions are raised concerning the Vatican’s involvement with exorcism or lack thereof. To understand, she accompanies them on a trip, deciding she wants to try on her mom to disastrous results that prove fatal..

The Devil Inside is a good example why I don’t like the sub genre of found footage. There are good questions brought up in the movie and it looks alright enough but its a pretty forgettable horror movie. The interesting questions disappear and we get the same possession cliches redone. I never actually believed or felt immersed in the found footage experience like I was in The Last Exorcism or the first Paranormal Activity  It was a lot of little things how the lead actress always looked perfectly made up the whole movie or how people seemed really lenient waving a camera through the streets of the Vatican, a high security mental institution, a basement where a girl that is clearly dangerous is being held. The ending is an absolute insult I’m going to spoil- it’s a advert for a website that isn’t even still running. That’s it. If you were enjoying yourself, that final minute will turn your pissed meter to 11. In the end, it’s fine to skip the Devil Inside and the gaming gods will bring you all the more glory for doing so.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink

power rangers pink Who the hell didn’t love the Power Rangers in the 90’s? The kick ass theme song, the weird mix of monster fighting, giant robot dinosaurs, and American kid sitcom- the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is still a good time twenty some years later so I was glad Boom brought us the same Rangers, new stories.

Pink follows Kimberly Hart, the original pink rangers years after leaving the group as an up and coming pro gymnast. Life is totally different than that, happy, but she misses the thrill of being a Power Ranger and saving the world with the rest of her friends. Well, Kimberly is about to get her wish when a outbreak of monsters takes over the village in France where her and her family now live. People have been taken by old nemesis Gouldar and turned into monsters to serve Rita and Zed by a new monster. Desperately, she contacts Zordan to find out the Rangers are off planet getting there asses kicked by Rita and Zed. Things aren’t looking good. Zordan, sacrificing his own power grants Kim a weapon to partially restore her power, because she was of the first to touch her coin, the power of pink is still inside. But she’ll need help- so she enlists help from Zach and Trini, the original black and yellow rangers as well as the help of new friends to face a quickly devastating threat with severely limited resources. Can the former pink ranger rise to the challenge?

As a old school fan of the show, the book is a very welcome epilogue. Kimberly is older, more mature but still the girl we knew and it was cool and heartwarming to see her reunite with her teammates. The narration brings a bit of weight which is pretty welcome. Essentially it feels like a reunion special that sometimes feels a bit too lengthy at times but its damn good special I’d recommend to fans. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Incidents in a Ghostland trailer

 

I like looking up random, lower budget horror trailers now and then just to see a spark of flavor or originality we don’t get much of in today’s mainstream horror. The thumbnail for this caught my attention because as well as the host of strange WTF things I’ve been known to write about, old time porcelain dolls creep me out. At first I took this as a type A kind of haunted house story but I like the twists it seemed to be taking. By the end I genuinely wanted to check it out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Nun teaser

 

So we horror fans got the first trailer for The Nun, the next chapter in the Conjuring universe. I loved The Conjuring (2013) but had mixed feelings when it came to The Conjuring 2 so I was a bit miffed when I heard the Nun was getting there own spin off. After the trailer, I’m actually pumped for it. It’s filmed beautifully with a great atmosphere and a nice scare at the end. Getting to see this after the Halloween 2018 first trailer I hope we get to see the signs of a new resurgence in horror in the near future. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

E3 Thoughts

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With E3 basically over, at least all the major stuff, and having had time to sit down and thought about it I figure I would take some time to sit town and just tell you guys what I thought. First, Bethesda as by far my favorite. I am not saying they had the definitive best conference or anything like that, it was just my personal favorite. They had a great sense of humor with their Skyrim skit and their jokes about Walmart not to mention Rage 2 and Fallout 76 look great.

Microsoft really knocked it out of the park as well, they may have had their best showing in years. It was everything they needed it to be, after years of people screaming where are the games they finally brought some and that was great to see. Tho they are playing pretty fast and loose with the term “exclusive”

EA…oh Ea…I don’t want to say to many negative things here, so I will say this, a Fifa tournament is not the way to end things, and they should be happy Square Enix exist. Speaking of SE, all I can say is that was the equivalent gamer abuse watching that. They wasted 30 minutes of my life and I would like it back.

On to Ubisoft. Serious question, am I the only one that hates For Honor? Of course not, when it came on hundreds of people on Twitch called it a dead game. And now they are legitimately giving the game away on PC. That aside Ubisoft was a fun watch and the new Assassins Creed looks like a lot of fun. The Division 2 has a lot of promise and I can’t wait for Skull and Bones.

Sony and Nintendo will be getting their own little write ups later,but my general feeling coming out of E3 was this may be the best E3 in a long time. Outside of Square Enix there wasn’t really a point I felt a company truly let me down. They were all a lot of fun and had a lot of great stuff coming out, and Square Enix themselves also have great stuff coming like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Dragon Quest 11 so despite their bad conference their games themselves are still promising. I will see you all soon, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Unravel 2

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Now I don’t have a review for Unravel 2, many people didn’t even know it was coming out. Hell some of you still may not know it is out.  Here is the trailer by the way.

What I actually thought was cool about this was the release date choice. We got to the end of all this the speaker simply says and the game releases today (this was from June 9th) This for me was an odd, yet surprising and awesome choice. This is a game pretty much nobody knew was coming. There was no build or hype and the crowd got pretty excited. We get to the end of the preview and boom, this guy says go home and buy it. More companies I think should do this, sure it may hurt sales initially but I think overall it will even out. What do you guys think? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Rocko’s Modern Life

rocko's modern life I have a lot of time to reminisce at my day job, and I started remembering cartoons I’m shocked parents let us watch like Invader Zim and Ren and Stimpy. One of my all time favorites is Rocko’s Modern Life. It’s a story of a wallaby named Rocko just trying to live a normal, 90’s world full of the mad people who inhabit it. With him is trusty dog Spunky, best friends the gluttonous Heffer and sickly Fhilbert as well as other weird ass characters like his neighbors the BigHeads. So the question is yet to be asked, how does this show qualify as  not that kid friendly? When you get older you begin to see a truck load of sexual innuendos, adult movie references, and some WTF moments laced throughout. For example, the superhero Really Really Big Man and his amazing nipples that make you see the future; the restaurant named Chokey Chicken; Mrs. Bighead getting pretty perverse about her sexual frustration and wanting to bang Rocko to spite her husband. Not to say the show is as harsh as Ren and Stimpy for kids, it’s just fine for them, but adults may end getting a bigger kick out of it, especially if you are a 90’s child like myself. In the end, if you find the complete series, which isn’t very expensive, it certainly is a interesting specimen to add to any TV collection. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cyberpunk 2077 E3 teaser

Of all the trailers to drop at this year’s E3, Cyberpunk 2077 is the the least I’m familiar with. Cyberpunk always made me think of Blade Runner or the 90’s Judge Dredd movie. After watching the trailer at E3, I got a heavy GTA vibe set in a neon colored, gritty futuristic world which could be cool. Looking up the trailer for this, I did find trailers for this dating back to 2013 which is worrisome and after Aliens: Colonial Marines I get nervous about games in the making that long. The game looks like it could be a fun sandbox but it isn’t the top of my list. May the gaming gods bring you glory.