The Exorcist (movie)

the exorcist movie

In 1973 we got a movie that changed horror forever, traumatizing thousands because of its dark as hell themes and realistic effects that hold up remarkably well today, almost 50 years later. Directer William Friedkin (Bug ) took the terrifying book by William Peter Blatty and pulled no punches.

The Exorcist follows the demonic possession of Reagan MacNeil, a 12 year old little girl and the two priests that come together to take on the daunting task. The intro to the movie we meet Father Merrin at an archaeological excavation in the Middle East, culminating in a stare down with a freaky looking statue we get a foreboding dread he has encountered before. Across the world, Reagan is with her mother, a successful actress,  as small, strange things begin to happen. Her mother doesn’t notice until a disturbing sight happens at a big party she throws, leading to sights nothing within reason can explain. Reagan turns violent, having violent seizures and physically striking at the doctors trying to help her. Enter Father Damien Karras, a priest dealing with the loss of faith after his mother’s health plummets and dies;  Chris, Reagan’s mother, reaches out to Karras who inspects Reagan and comes to the dark conclusion about her possession. Can Merrin and Karras save her soul and expel the demon?

The possession sub genre hasn’t been my favorite, for every The Exorcism of Emily Rose  there’s a The Devil Inside but the Exorcist is honestly the greatest and undeniable progenitor of the sub genre. The effects are damn good, even today when CGI has taken over film land. The acting is amazing and the characters are strong. I will say the movie is slow, with decent gaps between scares where we see the characters develop, but some modern audiences may frown upon that. Horror fans and film buffs alike, this is a must watch. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Is Cross Play Important?

images

The question today is simple, is cross play important? This kind of depends on how you look at it. Sony recently has been getting a lot of flack for not really being involved with it which honestly isn’t as true as it is made out. They have plenty of cross play with PC games for example DC  Universe online. That isn’t to say it is great with it, but the idea that Sony is completely against it and has none is false.

The other problem is people keep throwing around the term anti consumer in reference to it, but that also isn’t true. Anti consumer is when a company’s policy is unfairly against the customer in favor of the company. Sony being against cross play is in no way unfair to anyone. You aren’t being punished or hindered from playing the games.

vgchart If you look at total consoles sold for PS4, Xbox one and the Nintendo Switch The PS4 has outsold both the Xbox and Switch, combined. To say there is some anti consumer practice going on where PlayStation 4 users are being hurt and lack people to play with is insane. There is no anti consumer practice occurring.

Companies do things to benefit themselves on a business level and to help their customers, but cross play with Xbox and Nintendo honestly doesn’t add much for Sony. They already have the biggest player base outside of PC gaming. They would simply be giving their competitor access to their customers. And when something goes wrong, they would be blamed. And as a person that owns both Xbox and PS4 I can’t help but acknowledge that I run into far more issues with people on my Xbox than my PlayStation, and I spend more time on my PS4.

Now on to the flip side of things. While I do agree and acknowledge Sony is 100% right for not embracing cross play in a wide-spread manner because truly it does not help them, and people are also ignoring that in the early days of online game play it was Sony that attempted to make cross play happen and Microsoft that said no, and it was because they had the bigger online population which nobody seems to care about or want to acknowledge, there are some games I think Sony would be smart to simply bite the bullet on and just let it happen with. Minecraft and Rocket League for example have been out for so long at this point anyone that is going to buy the games, have basically done so. While it doesn’t benefit them I don’t think ti will really hurt them to go along with it either.

Sony has outsold everyone at this point, and as such they are smart not to let their competitors simply have access to their players at every turn. Especially since most people I have personally come across and know personally legitimately don’t care and can take it or leave it. But to save face and pacify some, Sony would be smart to simply embrace cross play for some older games and see how it goes. Most people don’t care, and with older games it won’t cost them anything. And while right now they are undeniably king of the mountain, at one point so was Sega and Nintendo, being right and being smart aren’t always the same thing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Real Genius (1985)

download (6)

Real Genius is one of those 80’s movies that for some reason most people I know haven’t seen, and that greatly upsets me. The story is simple. Mitch is recruited to a school for super smart people, he works with Chris the smartest person in the school turned slacker. They are tasked with a school project to build a laser. They aren’t the only two doing this but hey they are the main two.

As the story goes on we see all sorts of shenanigans, from the turning an entire section of the school into ice for a winter carnival.

images (2).jpg

To throwing a massive party with the local beauty school.

download (7)

The movie is first and foremost, a comedy. This starts out pretty early with the scene where Mitch meets Chris, and he asks about him being prepared for gravity reversing itself and even trying to convince him the antenna on an odd remote control is in fact a penis stretcher, and offers to let him try it.

The movie does eventually take a more serious turn however, as early on you the viewer will discover the laser is actually being developed by the school for the government as a weapon to be used from space to assassinate targets. Mitch and friends eventually find this out as well, but not until the laser is finished and in the hands of the government.

They will of course go on a quest to put an end to the weapon and take revenge on the dean of the school for lying to them in the fist place, which will involve filling a house with popcorn. He hates popcorn. Regardless the movie is currently on Netflix, go check this out. The movie is amazing and has a great soundtrack. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Games that made me want a Nintendo

nintendo

Yesterday I talked a bit about Games that made want an X Box and there I mentioned how I only had a Nintendo 64 and GameCube. I have friends that absolutely swear by Nintendo through thick and thin and so I wanted to talk about some games that make me want a Nintendo. In no particular order I’ll begin with the franchise I have a little experience with..

kirby 1. Kirby-

One of my favorite N64 games was Kirby 64 and to this day, I haven’t had a gaming experience so weird but epic at the same time. I’d love to replay it again. I also want to see what else the series offers in cool power combinations and imagination.

metroid 2. Metroid –

Back in the old days, I played the demo for Metroid: Prime for GameCube and fell in love with it. I always like the Giger influences of the earlier games, plus Samus was always one of my Smash Bros. favorites.

eternal darkness 3. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem-

I love a good horror game, and I’ve heard many tell me how much this game scared the hell out of them. I’ve heard stories about the sanity meter and how eerie the game becomes after it becomes distorted. It sounds like a game we need today.

f zero 4. F-Zero

I’m not a traditional racing fan. Cars going fast bore me. But going light speed through bright colored maps in a insanely aggressive slam-feast, hell yeah I want to play that game!

zelda  5. Legend of Zelda –

Believe it or not I never played a Zelda game in my life. I know Link, Zelda, and Ganon by name and name only. I heard rave reviews for several of the games, including Breath of the Wild. Someday I’d love to see what all the hype is about.

I hope you enjoyed my list and may the gaming gods bring you glory

 

 

Trials Rising (preview)

download (5)

Trials Rising is a bike game that is going to spend a ton of time pissing people off, but will be a ton of fun. Just like its predecessor Trials Fusion. The game involves driving assorted dirt bikes across insane tracks full of jumps and obstacles to to finish line for the best time to get bronze, silver or gold medals to unlock harder and harder tracks. Occasionally you will need to get points instead, maybe see if you can fling your rider a set distance or some other challenge.

Trials Rising has added a few new features including a tandem bike multiplayer mode. Two people, one bike, each person providing 50% of the normal riding power and riding ability. This to me sounds like it will be ruining some friendships. Either way the game sounds like a blast, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

I Wish I knew How to Quit You — Master Mix Movies

Brokeback Mountain should have won Best Picture instead of Crash. Honestly, which one of those movies are people gonna remember. When Brokeback Mountain first came out, people only knew it as “the gay cowboy movie.” That’s certainly how I knew the movie back in the day. Which is why I (and likely other straight men) […]

via I Wish I knew How to Quit You — Master Mix Movies

Games that made want an X Box

xbox logo

I’ve never had an X Box in my life. My gaming experience has solely been PlayStation with two turns at Nintendo with the 64 and GameCube. PlayStation was my old reliable, but even I have to admit, the backwards compatibility with X Box is extremely tempting and there are some games I’d like to try, or in one case dive deeper into, so lets begin the list with that particular series…

jedi academy 1. The Star Wars: Jedi Knight games-

I briefly played the sequel on GameCube, going straight for the lightsaber multiplayer levels which were fun as hell. Seriously, with solid FPS and sweet saber combat, how is this not on any Star Wars fan’s list, as with…

star wars kor 2. The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games-

These games were legendary amongst my friends and after I fell in love with the Mass Effect trilogy, the thought of Star Wars having a huge epic story like that peeked my interest hard. I’ll get to it one day.

condemned 3. Condemned: Criminal Origins-

The first game of the series, an X Box, shows up on many lists of horror greats for its freaky atmosphere and brutal melee combat. The sequel, not so much. Regardless, I always love a good horror game.

gears of war 4. Gears of War series-

I can’t lie, one thing and one thing alone utterly sold me on this series: having a chainsaw bayonet on your gun. I like monsters, I like carnage, and I love any reason I can get my hands on a chainsaw. Oh and I hear the stories are solid too…

halo 5. Halo series-

The series that pretty much defined X Box. I heard one and two have great stories but then they fell to the Mutilplayer craze, but I’d still like to see what all the hype was about.

I hope you enjoyed the list and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Devil May Cry 5 (preview)

download (4).jpg

Devil May Cry is a series I have never really got into, not for any real reason. I can’t say anything bad about the story or controls, it just wasn’t my thing. This one still doesn’t catch my interest. There are certain things tho I have to admit, first this game looks great. The trailer at E3 also looked fun as hell.

It has also been confirmed that we will be getting more information in August as reported by VG247 the article also contains more info, so for those interested I suggest checking that out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Order: 1886

order 1886

I know what you maybe thinking, why the hell am I talking about one of the PS4’s original launch games. I’ve never seen a review that called 1886 a masterpiece; mainly every review I’ve seen for this game says it was a huge disappointment. I wanted to play it as long as its been out, and because I found it on a huge sale, I had my chance. Well, I only wasted 4 bucks…We follow a secret order descended from King Arthur’s court going through England in 1886 with their steampunk weapons fighting werewolves and keeping the peace.

First and foremost, the game looks and sounds great. Good thing too, because you will be doing a lot of walking around and looking at random items you find. Primarily the game is a third person cover shooter with a lot of QTEs thrown in. 3 chapters in I found myself getting pretty pissed at the monotony of the chapters. I got to fight  the werewolves which was pretty lame; there A.I is pretty dimwitted. I noticed after they attack, they go right back to the original position and attack again. I can’t call this game truly terrible, but 3 chapters in I’m starting to believe the other reviews. May the gaming gods bring you glory.