Opinion – Page 158 – Savior Gaming

Enter the Matrix

enter the matrix

Remember the early 2000’s when the Matrix ruled the world? Although I’m not the biggest fan of the movies, I do however think the games were fun as hell. For Enter The Matrix we play as Niobe and Ghost in a plot running parallel (I believe ) to Reloaded and Revolutions. Using a mix of hand to hand combat and gunplay, we get to slow time through the Matrix and take down cops, SWAT, and agents. While not perfect by any means, this game still has some really entertaining combat and graphically was pretty damn jaw dropping for the era. The driving portions can be fun but much of the time can be annoying as hell. There’s a car chase about halfway through where you have to follow a plan that almost made me rip my own hair out. Fighting is mostly button mashing and easy to master, which kind of kills any real threat the agents may have. The epitome of a review I can give this game is it’s fun but flawed but still worth checking out, especially if you loved the movies. 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.

Bug

bug

I never knew a romance movie would ever make me speechless, but it did. I’ve never been so impacted by a love story than this strange psychological horror film. Bug doesn’t delve into ghosts, monsters or aliens but delusions, mental illness, and madness.

Agnes is a damaged waitress: her child was abducted, her asshole ex blames her and beats the shit out of her after tracking her down to the middle of nowhere, and she copes with booze and drugs. Than one night, she meets Peter. Peter seems quiet but polite. Agnes starts to fall for the strange man when he defends her from her ex. They make love. Apparently Peter is a veteran who suffers from schizophrenia and a host of other issues. He believes the government is hunting him and he believes they planted bugs under his skin. These two people make a lovely couple…

This movie is incredible but hard to watch. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are brilliant as the leads and there relationship intensely carries the film. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen once the movie really gets going. The only real flaw is the beginning half hour is pretty slow but once it starts moving, it really rolls. The climax is jaw dropping. If you want a anti- normal love story this Valentines Day, seriously check this out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Slither

slither

Happy Valentines Day everyone. So to celebrate the day, let’s talk about an amazingly underrated horror comedy from James Gunn, future directer of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) . Also, it’s pretty much Savior and I’s bromance movie.

Slither is the story of a small town being invaded by alien worms from a alien planet. Grant Grant, about to cheat on his hot wife, found a meteor crashed in the woods and like every drunk ass dude with raging whiskey dick decides “hey, I gotta poke this thing”. A needle pops out and stabs Grant as something passes into him. Grant suddenly has an obscene craving for raw meat and has tentacles coming out of belly buttons. His poor hot southern wife Starla, thinks Grant is having an affair only to get dragged into the terrible truth- Grant is mutating into a squid monster thing. She teams up with her old beau, the town sheriff and his posse who find Grant’s enlarged, impregnated mistress who explodes into thousands of worms that take over the town…

Slither is a strange but wonderfully awesome. I love the characters, especially the mayor. The monsters are cool but reminiscent of older horror films which is a cool throwback. I get why many wouldn’t like this movie and I’d definitely would say it’s a cult classic; no joke, the only reason I happen to have it is it’s on a $10 four pack I got from Wal-Mart. I hope more people look into this movie and it has a reemergence in the future and more people discover it. So to end my review, I recommend it, and I’m ending this with my favorite end credit song, and the song I literally listened to moments after breaking up with my ex-girlfriend. Be safe and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Planet Terror

planet terror

Robert Rodriguez is the only man I know who can write a scene where a badass guns down pus riddled zombies while popping a wheelie on a pocket bike. Seriously, this movie is hardcore WTF but it is one of my all time favorites.

Cherry Darling is a spunky, sarcastic stripper- I mean go-go dancer- who wants out of her crappy life. After encountering her lost love El Rey at a truck stop and on a ride with him on a dark. misty night, they crash and Cherry is yanked from the car. And her leg is bitten clean off. El Rey shoots the sickos with a gun he ain’t supposed to have and they take off. This small Texas town is having small problems when these sicko zombies are running amok and the infected soldiers are quarantining the town, and the hope for a eclectic survivors is a stripper with a machine gun leg…

I love this movie with all my heart from the mock “Machete” trailer in the beginning that years later would become real, to the final reels of the film. The characters are all great and memorable, whether it’s Cherry and her sour sarcasm, the Josh Brolin as a vengeful doctor catching his wife in a lesbian affair, or a chemical engineer/ druglord that has a unhealthy obsession with collecting testicles (no that is not a typo, I did mean this dude collects testicles) as well as great and WTF cameos like Fergie, Bruce Willis, and even Quentin Tarantino. The score is a lively jazz inspired that brings a welcome Cowboy Bebop flavor I really enjoyed. Don’t watch this if you can’t handle pretty extreme gore and disembodied testicles (it’s my Birthday today so pardon the frequent use of the word testicles). If you want a really cool WTF kind of movie with a lot of heart and gore, absolutely check this out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Star Fox 64

Nothing brings me back to the magic video games can bring than Star Fox 64. In the Lylat System, a far away system of anthropomorphic animals, a evil scientist named Andross is trying to take control after being banished to planet Venom. Years ago the original Star Fox team: James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dangar went to investigate disturbances from the planet only to be caught in a trap. Pigma betrayed them, and Peppy narrowly escaped, leaving James in Andross’s hands. It’s up to Fox and Peppy with new crew members Falco Lambardi and Slippy Toad to save the Lylat system and destroy Andross.

This underappreciated N64 gem stole my heart as a kid with it’s epic level designs, smooth flying I still haven’t felt replicated to this day. What blew my mind then was how you could forge you’re own path across the system by beating hidden objectives on stages and unlocking passage to harder worlds. Though seven stages to finish the games, there are a crap load of outcomes, including two totally different final battles (the hardest and true ending providing some damn good nightmare fuel at that too). The bosses are fun and many are pretty tricky and the unrelenting hordes of cannon fodder never gets old. If you’re older, there’s plenty of either messed up or funny things you will catch like Peppy constantly rubbing how your father is dead in your face or Slippy trying to talk trash. It’s one hell of a fun time and I give it my highest recommendations. 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.

Project Nemesis

project nemesis

First of all, a shout out to my friend Autobot who loaned me the book to begin with. Also, I want to showcase some lesser known or some upcoming authors if I can because I am one myself.

Project Nemesis is the story of an experiment gone horrifically wrong. To save a ruthless General, he commissions a murdered girl to be cloned for her heart. When it seems impossible, he presents the lead scientist with a DNA sample that not only makes it possible but has her rapidly grow. The DNA was not human. In early development, she appears almost perfect. But then reptilian features develop. Surgery time comes and the girl awakens, strong and murderous, mutating and growing. What began human sized grew to the size capable of leveling cities, each time it changes losing it’s human shape but resurfacing it’s human memories. To try stopping the beast are paranormal agent Jon Hudson and his team, Sheriff Ashley Collins, and pilot Woodstock. But can they stop the incarnation of justice and vengeance…

Nemesis is a cool book that channels a old Godzilla- Kaiju spirit I admit I haven’t seen in much literature. While Kaiju aren’t really my thing, I found the story fun with simple but likable characters and a badass monster. It’s not a long read and the sections of the book are illustrated with some really epic drawings of Nemesis’s transformations. I was a bit jarred at first by the use of first and third person perspective but it’s done well enough. In the end, Project Nemesis by Jeremy Robinson is a fun thrill ride I recommend picking up and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deadpool vs X-Force

deadpool vs xforce

Hey kids, you ever wonder how Deadpool met Cable? You ever wished the merc with a mouth fought in the Revolutionary War? Well, this is the story for you. Time Messiah, Nathan Summers- Cable gets visions of a terrible threat to the space time continuum. A prototype time machine was stolen from a seemingly grieving mogul by Deadpool, who was hired to go back through time and ensure America’s dominance for the future. So Cable enlists aid from Domino, Cannonball, Warpath, and Boom Boom of the X-Force to take Wade down. But despite Cable’s expert leadership, there combined training and powers, Wade Wilson is not so easily dispatched. Cable chases him through time as the X Force has to split and fight the wars without screwing there outcomes.

It’s a very quick read but it’s a fun read. The characters are pretty well flushed out so I would recommend this story to new comers as well as the long time fans. Sadly there are a lot of black censor bars, but in classic Deadpool fashion, they do make fun of the censor bars. In the end, it’s a fun adventure and it’s worth checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Venom trailer

If you caught my Amazing Spider-man reviews, you may have got the feeling I wasn’t thrilled how Sony left its mark on Spider-man. That being said, I had high hopes: Tom Hardy- a great actor, a well fitting R rating, and a second chance to tell the story of one of Marvel, if not all of fiction’s, greatest anti-heroes. That being said, this trailer bummed me out. While I think Hardy is a great choice for Eddie Brock, I couldn’t help having any indication he was Brock, or this had anything to do with Venom at all. It looked like a trailer for a run of the mill Bourne clone with some sci-fi thrown in. I’ll give it a second go but needless to say, it didn’t impress me. May the gaming gods bring you glory.