Resident Evil: Revelations 2 first impressions

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As a horror fan, of course I’m a Resident Evil fan but I can’t say I really played the Revelations games. Friends and fellow fans give them good reviews but I just never played them. Well, I got Episode 1 of Revelations 2 (which the fact the game is episodic kind of pissed me off at first) Playing a decent chunk of the game however, I found quite a lot of things I really liked.

Series veteran Claire Redfield and Moira Burton (daughter of RE alum Barry from the first game) get kidnapped during a fancy fundraiser and taken to a dark, dank, underground prison where some biological experiments have gone on and they have to survive while being surveyed by a raspy voiced watcher.

First I have to say I love the game’s familiar controls just made more fluid; standard controls feel like 4 but made quickened and the partner switching is just as fluid and easy as it was in 0. Aiming is easy and quick but I have felt a bit airy when shooting- like something about shooting gave me a feeling at first like I may have been missing when I wasn’t.  Moira’s part is interesting. She pretty much mans a flashlight and a crowbar, using the light to blind zombies or find hidden items while using the crowbar to defend yourself or Claire. I never found her useless like prior sidekicks and her A.I isn’t brain dead either and vice versa. The monsters I found so far are…well, Resident Evil standard, gooey, gory, and want you dead. Did I find them scary, eh not really but never the less the bastards weren’t paper people either. I get why the story is episodic now but I still wished it was  just one game. In the end, I want to finish it up and enjoy it because I think it will be good. May the gaming gods bring you glory, and dammit no one wants to be a Jill Sandwich.

5 of my favorite Deadpool stories

deadpool movie What can I say, the Merc with a mouth has stolen the hearts of millions since the debut of his movie and that atrocity we don’t talk about in 09, you know what I’m talking about. I picked up Deadpool in late 2013 and have been a fan ever since. Here’s a list of awesome Wade stories I’ve read in no particular order starting with one I already covered…

deadpool vs xforce Deadpool vs X-Force – what can I say, Cable and the X force hunting Deadpool through time so America doesn’t become a tyrannical superpower in the future. Such WTF.

dp draculas guantlet 2. Deadpool: Dracula’s Gauntlet- if you are a fan of horror like myself, this book is for you. Dracula has a job for Deadpool, but than comes a double cross and we get a great WTF story.

night of the living dp 3. Night of the living Deadpool- Deadpool in the modern zombie craze. Zombie fans will eat this story up as we get some pretty funny jokes about the zombie cultural phenomenon as well as a good story.

Dp killstrated  4. Deadpool: Killustrated- I briefly touched on this story during my 5 Marvel stories that hooked me post, being part two of the Deadpool kills trilogy, centering on Deadpool slaying the fictional characters that inspired the Marvel Universe with appearances by such as Moby Dick, the Little Women, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the stories ultimate antagonist, Sherlock Holmes.

dp v carnage 5. Deadpool Vs Carnage- two super powered psychos duke it out like a episode of R rated Looney Tunes. It’s funny, crazy, and bloody. Simple but classic.

I hope you all found this helpful; it’s good to be back. Best wishes and may the gaming gods be with you all.

What’s the difference- mutant, mutate, or inhuman (Marvel)

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In Marvel, many of it’s fine heroes and heroines have extraordinary abilities and powers. In Marvel, these folks can be broken down into three main categories though of course not every character fits, for example Thor, Vision, or Ghost Rider but this will help clear up questions I’ve gotten in the past such as ” is Captain America an Inhuman?” ” Is Spider-Man a mutant?” “What’s the difference between a mutant and mutate; what’s the difference between mutant and inhuman?”

Mutants primarily exist within X-men and are people who naturally develop powers around puberty. There powers can vary in there degree of devastation and physical change; I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t notice Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, or Jean Grey walking down the street but guys like Beast, NightCrawler, or Apocalypse are a little harder to hide. Besides the X-men, other famous Marvel mutants include Submariner, Franklin Richards, and Cassie Lang (Stature). Submariner has flight capabilities unlike an other Atlantean and while Franklin’s parents aren’t mutants, he was born with powers, much like Cassie’s who developed later. Blade doesn’t count because he’s  vampire hybrid. I do get questions about Scarlet Witch, in regards to if she is magic or a mutant and I can’t really tell I’m afraid.

A mutate is someone who got powers from a source of some kind. This is where the Fantastic 4 fall into place as well as Spider-Man, Deadpool, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Hulk just to name a few. The Four and Hulk got hit with radiation, Daredevil got chemicals to the face, Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider, and Deadpool and Cage got experiments done. Capt. America is a interesting specimen in this regard. Project Rebirth pushed his body to its upmost peak, pretty much the best a human body can be. Does he qualify? I think not just because he doesn’t technically have powers in that way but the argument is still there.

Finally there are Inhumans. Inhumans don’t really live on Earth exactly but on Attila, a moon kingdom per say. This gets weird. So they basically start as human, but through a rite of passage are exposed to the Terrigan Mists which transform them either, and depending how depends where you go in society. I’m not the biggest on Inhuman lore but I can tell you the royal family is not to be screwed with, especially Black Bolt, who is voluntarily mute because his voice causes mass destruction. I also know that if you expose a mutant to the mists they die. Members of the royal family include Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Triton, Karnack, Crystal, LockJaw, and Magnus; another notable Inhuman to include is Kamela Khan, the new Ms. Marvel.

I hope this helps put things into perspective a little better. As always best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

5 Marvel stories that hooked me

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As a great man always said, “Hey there, true believers.” Though the amount of DC content we have here on Saviorgaming may suggest differently, I don’t consider myself a DC fanboy. I like to think I have a love for both pretty equally. While maybe not considered classics, these were stories I’ve read from Marvel that just hooked me I want to talk about in no particular order, starting with…

cap dimz 1. Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z – this story brings Cap to another time and world out of place, a wastleland of horrors and hardship ruled by Baron Zola. Aided by the boy Zola claims as his son, Cap must survive living hell in  Dimension Z.

thanos imperative 2. The Thanos Imperative- the scope of this massive space story was breathtaking, featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, Medusa, Quasar,  Gladiator, Silver Surfer, Galactus, Captain Marvell, and of course the Mad Titan Thanos, there’s a epic fight amongst our universe and the Cancerverse, leading to a sad farewell to some beloved characters.

ultron book 3. Age of Ultron- disclaimer, this isn’t what the movie was based on. This story focuses on the dystopia of the world after Ultron took over and consumed Vision and became perfect, essentially this is the worst case scenario. It was a punch in the gut to see how destroyed what remaining Avengers become and the book ends with Wolverine and Invisible Woman going back in time to assassinate Hank Pym (Ant-Man) so Ultron is never born.

deapool kills the marvel universe 4. Deadpool Kills trilogy ( Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, Deadpool: Killustrated, and Deadpool kills Deadpool)- as these titles suggest, there’s a lot of killing. An evil Deadpool goes on a murder spree through Marvel, than through the realities of fiction to murder the influences of Marvel, and finally murders his own multi-verse selves. Just wow. Dark, morbidly hilarious and creative, and bloody as hell.

trial of Jean Grey 5. Guardians of the Galaxy/ All New X-Men: The Trial of Jean Grey- if both teams didn’t have enough problems to deal with, a league of alien rulers piss themselves to discover Jean Grey is alive and walking about, not caring she is young, naive, and only vaguely aware of the horrors of the Phoenix in her future. Taken, it’s up to the two teams to band together to get her back, filled with some cool action and laughs, it’s a good crossover.

I hope you enjoyed, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory. Excelsior!

Violence in Video Games…Again

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It seems like every so often after a tragedy someone decides its the fault of video games. Before we go any further by the way, this transcends party lines. At one point Democrat Hillary Clinton took her shots at the industry and she wasn’t alone. The original Mortal Kombat was also attacked from what seemed like all sides for what was touted as realistic violence and blood.

This time around however it is American Republicans. Recently Donald Trump also decided to blame violent video games and movies and according to Robert Nardolillo of Rhode Island they actually need a special Tax applied to them, which while it would help schools it would exclusively be used to punish gamers for an alleged issue being caused by games that I will discuss in a minute, but spoiler, science mostly says otherwise.

In a recent study from the University of New York found no evidence to support the claim that video games make players more violent and in the opinion of Jesse Marczyk, Ph.D this claim also holds no water. There is also some simple common sense to this tho. Violent video games are played all over the world, yet these shootings aren’t an issue in every country. Hell it isn’t even an issue in every state tho I promise you will find a copy of Grand Theft Auto in all 50 states. Another study also shows no link between violent games and movies and real life violence.

I do apologize for all the links on this one by the way, I know they can be annoying at times. I do however realize this subject can be very divisive and I did want to share the source of where the claim was coming from in case people wanted to see that for themselves. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you safety and glory.

Punisher (2004)

punisher 2004

While I’m ridiculously behind on my Netflix MCU stuff like Daredevil, Defenders, and most recently Punisher, I’m glad the vigilante Frank Castle is back in the spotlight once again. It always bugged me his 2004 film never really took off. As far as character origins, Punisher’s is good old revenge, plain and simple. Left for dead after a mobster kills his entire family, ex military man Frank Castle declares a one man war on criminals. Simple but satisfying. Thomas Jane was underappreciated as Castle, the movie had pretty decent acting all around. The action scenes were appropriately gory and badass but weren’t flashy. One of the biggest gripes I hear is it was too depressing- no shit it was depressing. I’ve never heard anyone use comical, light-hearted, or whimsical to describe a Punisher comic. It’s not a classic in the genre but it’s still a good, solid action movie that I hope gets more love in time. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 Games or Series That Deserve a Remaster, but Won’t Get Them.

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Lunar is one of those series many of us remember fondly, but tons didn’t get to play at all. Lunar Silver Star Story was an amazing game, and a remaster for the PS4 would be amazing.

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I have mentioned this game a few times on here, and it wouldn’t take much to just up the graphics and give it to us, but sadly the company that made it Camelot Software Planning now works pretty much exclusively for Nintendo, so this one is likely to stay in the past.

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The Guardian Legend was a game I played back in the NES and involved flying a ship top down style blowing up ships, fighting a boss and then landing on a surface to fight more aliens before they reach Earth. It got mixed reviews and had possibly the longest passwords I have ever come across but the game was fun, and would be fun to see again as a budget title.

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Shining Force was one of the earliest tactics RPG games and was followed by Shining Force 2. There were other games in the series but they varied in game type and quality. Tho oddly enough these were also made by Camelot Software Planning, so these will also probably remain in hiding as they continue to blast out hit titles for Nintendo.

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The Phantasy Star series has had numerous iterations and has been on a few collections as recently as the PS3 and Xbox 360 but what the series hasn’t had is the classic Final Fantasy treatment where they up the graphics a bit, smooth things out and give us a proper remaster. I also do not believe this will ever happen, but it would be a great day if it did. Let me know what you guys would love to see, but know we probably won’t. Best wishes and may the gamin gods bring you glory.

Hulk

hulk 2003

So what happens if you a visionary director, a all star cast, a huge budget and hell, even a legendary composer for the score come together to make a superhero film? Surely this was a sure thing, right? I’m sure we all heard the story of Hulk before but here it is as Lee told it. Bruce Banner was a scientist with some personnel issues that crapped on his relationship with Betty Ross; he did some experiments with gamma radiation that went great or belly up, however you want to look at it. His repressed rage manifested itself with the energy, turning him into a savage beast when he gets angry.

Ang Lee, if you ever read this, you tried. I respect that. This movie tries to be a deep, dramatic character piece full of symbolism and depth. It comes off as a bored, pretentious mess. None of the actors really seem to give much of a shit and with the exception of rumble crack-head bursts of energy from Nick Nolte as the villain (please don’t ask me to tell you what villain he was supposed to be, 15  years later I still don’t have a fucking clue who or what he was supposed to be.) Hulk himself is cartoon-ish, depicted as like 10 feet tall and bright lime green. For a movie about a pissed off green dude on a rampage, there’s very little action. There’s comic panel transitions between scenes which become annoying quick and random trippy scenes added through to be artistic but just crap on the mess. I won’t call this movie a shitpile because I can tell you effort was put into this but it isn’t good. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Celebrity Deathmatch

celebrity deathmatch

If this were the magical phenomenon known as Celebrity Deathmatch, Savior would be Johnny Gomez and I’d be Nick Diamond. Another awesome piece of the 90’s many have shamefully forgotten and to those that knew of it and have I proclaim SHAME! In Deathmatch we got to see the bloody and brutal clay animated fights between celebs we wished would thrown down in real life. Famous Fights have included Beavis Vs Butthead, Jimi Hendrix vs Lenny Kravitz, Nsync vs the Backstreet Boys, and about a million others. Johnny and Nick had there own wacky skits in between fights and every fight began with Mills Lane famously echoing “Let’s get it on”. Sadly the show faded into damn near total total memory though pieces and even a few episodes are up on YouTube. I recommend checking it out if you can and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beavis and Butthead

beavis and butthead

Before the dawn of South Park and Family Guy, this was the cartoon that pissed off parents and scared PTAs because no one wanted to say they spawned idiots like Beavis and Butthead. These two dimwit teenage headbangers were the nightmare of there school, neighborhood, and all of Highland with there raw stupidity as they persevered in the name of scoring chicks and getting beer and nachos. And god love you if they get there hands on power tools. One of my favorite shorts was them stealing poor Mr. Anderson’s (prototype Hank Hill from King of the Hill) riding mower to destroy peoples flowers, get drive through, and ditch it in a four way intersection. May favorite times were when Beavis got jacked up on sugar or caffeine and became the Great Cornholio- which on a personal note, I went trick or treating as when I was 18. Don’t judge. Indeed the show is dumb but some of the satire and parodies are pretty clever and if anything, it’s very much a time capsule of the 90’s for all it’s worth. In the end, I recommend the classic 90’s seasons, not the newer ones they tried in this generation. May the gaming gods bring you glory.