Category: Opinion

The day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

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So I am screwing around on Netflix looking for something to watch and I come across this. Feeling nostalgic around Christmas, maybe because my dad died this year and I used to watch stuff like this with him, or maybe just because I haven’t really had the chance to sit down and watch some classic movies in awhile I popped this one on. I learned a few things. First, it felt weird not watching this on VHS and an old tube television. Second, this movie came out decades before I was born and yet I still enjoyed it more than most modern movies. And possibly last but not least, At least once a week I hear someone say ” I wish people would stop with all the political and social commentary in movies and on television.” Honestly, that has always been there. This movie is about a man from space that shows up with a giant robot. We as humans of course shoot him as soon as he tries to hand us something and his giant robot melts some guns and a tank. Space man gets fixed up and tried to get a meeting with the world and of course the world goes all high school stupid and starts with the if he goes I won’t go stuff.

So what is a space man to do when America locks him in a room and says don’t go anywhere? He leaves to see the city. News of course goes nuts, starts gets people all riled up and scared. See a pattern here? This movie was released in the 1950’s and if you replace the word spaceman with words like “Irish, immigrant, communist, Muslim” or any number of words you can change the year and it would fit the social commentary of a decade. The space man even comments about the media spreading needless fear.

Once we get to the end of the movie we hit another topic of social commentary that could hit any number of decades. Our space man finally gets a meeting, but not with world leaders but with scientist. Whats his message? That giant robot is basically the galaxy police force and they have ultimate power that no one questions or interferes with. They are so feared the rest of galaxy wants to trouble so they simply don’t have weapons. Since earth discovered nuclear energy they will eventually use it in a space ship and join the galactic community. Either do so in peace or the giant robots will destroy the Earth. That is a pretty damn severe message I would say.

All and all I have to say I was surprised by the the amount of social commentary in a movie from the 1950s, but more surprised how much of it actually stands true over 60 years later. Best wishes and  may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter

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So leading into the premier of Last Jedi, I’m going to cover some Star Wars, including the 7 movies leading into it, I previously covered Rogue One and here’s a link down below to check that out.

Star wars: Rogue One

So Jedi Starfighter takes place after Attack of the Clones and as the title suggests you command one of two ships, one of which is a Jedi pilot as you fight the Trade Federation forces. Adi is a jedi master in a experimental craft that allows her to use the force to augment her ship’s capabilities like slowing time, causing concentrated force lightning, creating a force shield around your ship and a shockwave attack. We also pay as Nym, a freedom fighter who’s ship does heavy damage with an array of heavy artillery.

This game is flawed but fun. You don’t get to choose which character you play as on each level and sometimes its a challenge, sometimes it’s a royal pain in the ass especially if you crank the difficulty. There isn’t much variety but it’s fun to fly around and blow shit up. I like playing Jedi because her ship is more agile and the force powers really come in handy- lightning is badass. I have to say the A.I companion commands actually work surprisingly well, set a command and they get carried out pretty well.  The graphics are great for the time and turn out pretty nice on PS4. If you want a quick retro Star Wars buzz, I recommend picking this up on a PSN sale. May the force be with you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Are $60 Games Over?

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This seems to be a topic many people have commented on recently. Hell I won’t even hide the fact I have seen a few YouTube videos. Here is one from DreamcasGuy that brings up some valid points.

There are a few others out there, and not even recently talking about things like micro-transactions and day one DLC and all those things that drive many gamers today pretty much insane. Now I am an older guy, not old, but old enough to remember when games would usually cost about $40 and consoles all coming with a game standard not even as a bundle. So at times I have bumped heads with my younger friends that are willing to pay for skins to change a costume then being insulted because I still hold the attitude that I used to get that shit just for playing the game so I refuse to buy it now with a few exceptions.

I however am young enough to recognize that times change. I own something called RPG Maker MV ( RPG maker series more on that here) that I can use to literally make a game easily graphically equal to pretty much any console prior to the PlayStation 1 generation, and for those more tech savvy people you can use the Unity engine available here   to make some pretty impressive stuff. We live in an era where anyone with a decent laptop, the desire to learn, and some time can make a game at home.

Enter the AAA title. These things are now massive undertakings, many times years in the making with thousands of man hours and millions of dollars in cold hard cash to make. At $60 each that is a lot of copies just to break even, with more needed simply to fund the next game. Miro-transactions and DLC help with that, and I have on occasion bought a season pass or some cosmetic things to support a company that makes a game I enjoy. For example this cost me a few bucks because I like Frontier development.

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So I bought a paint job for a space ship in Elite Dangerous. However with the recent screw up by EA and Battlefront 2, and I do mean screw up loot boxes are under heavy scrutiny. Even games like Overwatch that really hasn’t faced to many issues with their system since buying them is completely optional is being looked at by many. See Star Wars was designed from the ground up to force people to spend extra money over the long term. That $60 essentially was the buy in to get started playing, with the loot boxes there to entice you to spend more money on the game. Now while I personally feel this is underhanded and wrong, from a business standpoint it makes sense. Every store you go to is built on this concept. From the colors of Walmart to the layout of your local grocery store almost every detail is designed to get you to spend money.

Until now however this design was hidden. Sure we all knew about it, but it was never thrown in our face so blatantly by a large company with a game we paid for. With that design out in the open and under attack by many, that may lead to the death of the $60 game. Prices may go up now in an attempt to mitigate those potential loses. The worst part however to me, is I think the death of the $60 game won’t get rid of the DLC or the micro-transactions dominated gaming world we now live in. We will simply see an increase in prices and thing will stay the same. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

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There hasn’t been a game that made my jaw drop or make me laugh like GTA: San Andreas until I played Borderlands 2.

San Andreas is the story of Carl, a young man returning to the old neighborhood after his mom dies and discovers his old crew is being wiped out by the cops and rival gangs so it’s up to Carl to get the Grove Street Gang back together and retake there hood from shit going down, but in true GTA fashion, is it ever that simple?

While not perfect, the game is pretty damn good and in a lot of ways holds up pretty up well over a decade later. Driving feels really solid and as an open world game it was seriously ground breaking at the time. I love being able to go to the gym and working out to upgrade you’re body and increase you’re stamina, sex appeal with the ladies, and get stronger or eat a bunch of crap and become a fat bastard, that was a awesome feature. The gunplay is hugely improved from the older games. The characters are some of my favorites of gaming, being memorable and also damn right funny at times. Samuel L. Jackson is awesome as Officer Tenpenny.

Overall, it’s a great classic that recommend picking up on sale. May the gaming gods bring you glory and “all you had to do was follow the damn train CJ”

Game Preview: Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark

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Fell Seal:Arbiter’s Mark is an upcoming classical tactical RPG, much like Final Fantasy Tactics. The game is created by Developer 6 Eyes Studio based in Orlando Florida. I won’t lie until recently I had never heard of these guys but a blog I follow did a write up that I shared and decided to do some of my own research on that lead me to some more interesting info. Below is one of the trailers for your enjoyment.

As you can see this is a labor of love as they have painstakingly drawn the maps and characters. The game also boast an impressive amount of skills as well as over 20 classes, and many options when it comes character creations. For more information you can see their website here

I can’t lie, for me this game has some huge shoes to fill. As a kid a grew up on games like shining force, Final Fantasy Tactics and Vandal Hearts. These were some of the most amazing games of the genre ever created. With that being said, judging by the effort put into creating this game I feel comfortable saying in 2018 when this game releases it will be on my must play list, and i feel comfortable saying it will be worth the wait. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Reefer Madness

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Holidays got ya down and need a free laugh? Don’t buy reefer, watch Reefer Madness.

This infamous 1930’s anti-pot film recounts a hilarious downfall a group of American youths at the allure of a couple who get them addicted to marijuana. When I say hilarious, I do mean hilarious from over the top acting, a clear ignorance to the nature of the shit, goofy old time dialogue, whacky scenes that are attempting to be serious you can’t help but laugh your ass off. There’s a scene where after toking a joint a kid guns his car at like 80 miles and hits an old guy crossing the street, but the dude literally just lays on the ground and you can tell the car is being sped up on film. There’s scenes of teens wildly dancing the Charleston while getting high and the guy in the business suit laughing Joker style at nothing. Also, apparently pot makes you go insane and makes you prone to rape, murder, and random violence. Okay doky. This is some shit that has to be seen to be believed and thankfully it’s on YouTube for free in perfect quality so I highly recommend it for a good laugh this holiday season. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Battlefield 4

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Ah the memories.

Battlefield 4 is an epic ass multiplayer experience where you and a lot of people are dropped onto a massive map full of vehicles and breakable environments. Seriously, it’s mind blowing playing a map where you can blast the foundations of a skyscraper and watch the whole thing collapse or being on it when it does, leaping off, parachuting off with a grenade launcher into the water and jumping into a gunboat with your buddy. Even in the prison map, it is freaking awesome going into full scale war with over a dozen people, it’s freaking sweet. The weapons handle well and graphically for a 4 year old game, it looks and sounds great. I do have a couple issues though, like sometimes the matchmaking sucks- sometimes me and Savior or me and Sniper ended up all alone on a map all by ourselves and again, like Black Ops 3, I can’t give a rat’s ass about the campaign.

Overall, this is a great game to get lost in and my favorite I’ve played in the series. Definitely worth the $20 bucks and most of the DLC is free now so all the more reason. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse (2001)

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Oh Mickey you and that contemptible damn duck Donald. Wait this isn’t Kingdom Hearts so the duck is cool. Seriously watching this sense me into flashbacks of him not healing me when he was supposed to so I died. They better make him not a useless jackass in KH 3 or I will be upset.

Anyway on to this movie. It is essentially a series of short Christmas stories for the kids…..that  I watched without my kids. My favorite of course was their version of A Christmas Carol. My capitalistic hero Scrooge and those pesky ghost ruining his life stealing all his cash.

Now that I think about it that wasn’t how A Christmas Carol went, but I am sure someone out there thinks Scrooge was the victim here. The movie is about an hour long and is full of Disney characters from what people my age consider the golden era of Disney when everything was pretty much hand drawn. Cameos galore, over dramatic dancing. Its a great nostalgic blast from the past that everyone should take this Christmas. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

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I remember playing the original Call of Duty demo on PlayStation. It was really cool at the time, a realistic WW2 era shooter. Three console generations later, we got robots. Wtf Call of Duty.

So for the story, there are robots. You get mutilated by them and get new cyber implants so there you go. I can’t lie, I lost interest in the plot pretty damn quick, despite the Christopher Meloni voice over. It’s not excruciatingly boring but not memorable. Multiplayer is clearly the focus. Essentially your standard game modes with you and other players. The maps are pretty small but there a lot of routes to take which is nice but you get kinda bored with them quick. In general, multiplayer can be quick fun until you get wrecked by assholes who bought god-level gear or people that spam you with combat perks or just general cheap shot bullshit. But mechanically and graphically the game is solid all the same. I didn’t touch zombies at all for the same reason I avoid most zombie packs now, they all feel the same to me after a while.

This may seem like a lazy review but in a lot of ways this game feels pretty lazy. Story just feels like a tutorial to play the Multiplayer, which is fun enough to kill time quick but will piss you off when you keep getting dicked by other players and some microtransactions but it ain’t a bad time with friends. I’d recommend it for $20 or less. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mega Man X collection And Mega Man 11

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This week has seen some big news for fans of the Blue bomber himself. If you happen to be a fan of the old Mega Man X games as I am, you are about to be excited. Officially we are getting a collection similar to the Previous collections. You can find those reviews here Mega Man Collection and here Mega man Collection 2. You can also see more about the X collection here. https://kotaku.com/mega-man-x-collection-coming-to-ps4-xbox-one-switch-1820983270

This however may not be the most exciting news about our favorite 8 bit blue man. For the first time since 2010 there will be a brand new Mega Man game in 2018. Admittedly I don’t know how to feel about this, the last few were less than amazing and a small part of me thinks maybe the series just needs to stop. But after this many years it may also be time to give him another shot. Below is what I feel was an amazing 30 anniversary video revealing Mega Man 11.