Category: Opinion

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.

Deadpool 2

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Deadpool , the little antihero who could, has become a huge phenomenon in the two years since the movie. I see countless men, women, and children in Deadpool garb everyday at my day job. The very second the trailer dropped for Deadpool 2, in a rare event I haven’t witnessed since the teasers for Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Force Awakens debuted, I had friends, coworkers, and even random strangers ask me if I saw it and my thoughts (I give a shout out to the creative marketing behind this movie, keeping us engaged with hilarious parody trailers so the actual material wouldn’t get old.) So, does Wade have what it takes to earn the hype?

Picking up months after the first ended, Wade is finally happy being an unkillable mercenary with girlfriend Vanessa, about to start a family when, like every superhero story ever told, tragedy strikes. Wade, left broken hearted is suicidal but that’s for naught because of that pesky healing factor, so he joins the X men as a trainee with old buddies Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. There’s a troubled youth going a rampage named Russel at the Mutant Rehabilitation orphanage, but all it’s what it seems; he’s been abused and in a fit of rage Wade kills one of the assholes responsible and lands him and Russel in a detention center for mutants. It isn’t long until a threat from the future comes, claiming Russel would slay his family one day and it’s duty to assassinate the boy  here and now to save them in the future. Enter Cable. It’s up to Wade to save the boy from Cable with his own group of misfits, but can he change the future?

I have to honest, for a while I’ve been burnt on Deadpool since the first movie and the mammoth popularity in pop culture. That being said, I loved Deadpool 2, but it’s not without some flaws. If you love raunchy, meta comedy, you will adore this movie, especially if you are a superhero nerd like myself. The action is bigger and there’s a host of characters, old and new to fall in love with. This is Josh Brolin’s year, he excels at being Cable just as he did playing Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and Domino was a welcome addition, as well as the well done villain cameo at the end I won’t spoil. A small flaw I had was the movie flows really good until the third act where I felt it dragged a bit. Another issue I had was I felt the emotional parts of the movie stopped having weight to them because of the never ending speed and intensity of the jokes  and I feel the first movie balanced these aspects out a lot better. In the end, I liked it as much as the first film but it easily could have transgressed the first if they work on the serious/ comedy balance a bit better, flushed the characters out a bit more, and paced the jokes a bit better. It’s still awesome as hell and I highly recommend it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Xbox at E3 2018

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So Xbox at its big E3 today, and it started off by making a very bold claim. 50 games, 18 exclusives and a whole bunch of world premieres. For a company that is renowned for having very few exclusives and even less of quality this is a very big claim. Now I didn’t count, but it was over an hour and a half of just games. I marked down a lot of the interesting and big titles, but I will happily assume it was in the ballpark.

We got some big ones, Halo Infinity, 3 new Gears of Wars games, possibly the most random game announced in years with Battletoads, the reveal of Division 2 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. This was possibly the most game staked conference in years if not ever. There was nothing ground breaking or that will change the landscape of gaming, but I have to say unless Nintendo or Sony has something MASSIVE to reveal, Xbox has this E3 in the bag. Best wishes and may the gaming…Oh yea, and at the last possible moment, as Phil Spencer was saying good-bye the lights dropped, and Cyberpunk 2077 was revealed. Gaming gods bring you glory.