Savior Gaming

The Conjuring 2

the conjuring 2

The Conjuring 2 is another movie based off the allegedly true story of Ed and Lorraine Warren whom leave their chosen sabbatical to travel to Enfield, a place in North London to help Peggy Hodgson. One day a little girl is caught smoking at school, but during this her friend gives her a spirit board. Now kids being kids of course her and her sister play with it and now their family home is haunted. Now the movie isn’t bad really. In fact any horror fan should watch it. But visually this time around its not as good neither is the sound or acting. Many parts of the movie come across as trying to hard to be scary, for example the over use of things going thud or the chair sliding across the floor and into the kitchen in front of the police that immediately leave and tell the woman to contact a priest. There is also now a random nun floating around the Warren family home that Ed dreamed up then painted which seems like it was added not because it made sense or was needed but simply to help push the struggling story a bit. For all its faults however I would still absolutely suggest seeing the movie. Once again thanks for reading and may the gaming god bring you glory.

Terminator

Our best ideas come from the strangest places and sometimes are fears are the things right in front of our face the entire time. James Cameron’s Terminator is a prime example. Cameron had once had a fever dream about a metal skeleton crawling out of a hellish fire almost like a phoenix and the rest became history brought to horrific life by legendary special fx master the late and great Stan Winston. Terminator is the story of a war in the future where Skynet has brought man to the brink of extinction with their horde of advanced machines, the worst of which are the T-800 Terminators, flesh covered androids made for inflitration and damn near unstoppable. The resistance against Skynet is lead by John Conner. To stop John Conner, Skynet sends a Terminator back through time to 1984 to assassinate Conner’s mother before he is even conceived. So in response, Conner manages to send back his soldier Kyle Reese to protect Sarah Conner from the machine that doesn’t feel pain or remorse or fear and will not stop until Sarah is dead. Schwarzenegger is suburb as the Terminator, cold and emotionless as he hunts down Sarah Conner by killing his way through to find her. He tracked her to a tech club where Reese intervenes by blasting him down with a shotgun, only for him to get back up again. They loose the machine in a car chase, causing him to crash in a accident that would have certainly killed a normal man. Reese and Sarah are taken by the police who realistic start explaining away the events of the night, convincing her it was a normal man on drugs in a Kevlar vest and Reese is crazy. We cut away to the Terminator alone in his shitty apartment, face mutilated by a ruptured eyeball he cuts out of his own head, revealing part of a steel skeleton and a cold red camera. He arms himself and goes to slaughter the whole police station to get his target. While on the run, Sarah and Reese get intimate and begin falling in love. The movie pushes to a thrilling climax where we see the Cameron’s nightmare realized in the form of the red eyed robot skeleton revealing itself, and at the end it’s up to only Sarah to defeat it and protect the future.

So I won’t lie, I consider Terminator 1 and 2 almost perfect, timeless classics without a doubt. The plot is still solid full of great performances by our main cast and effects that hold up fairly strong today with downright bleak glimpses of the future that I feel are especially relevant today in our technology obsessed society. Pick it up and I will be back

t1 skeleton

The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring

The Conjuring is the allegedly true story of Ed and Lorraine Warren and their investigation of the Perron family. The story goes the Perron family moved into a house that seems like any other house. But as time passes small odd things start occurring that would eventually lead to a full blown poltergeist or demonic possession type scenario. Now I am not saying the story is real or not, nor am I here to debate whether it is or isn’t. The movie itself is pretty well made and is easily one of the creepier movies I have seen in recent memory. The effects are very well done and add to the creep factor. The sound and music are also really well done and do a great job of adding to the ambiance of the movie itself. The actors alone do an amazing job of selling their terror. While far from a perfect movie any fan of horror movie would do well to check this one out. As always thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mortal Kombat 4

mk4

I’m going to go on a limb and say this was my first M rated video game and damn it was funny. I didn’t know all the moves or even how to do a fatality, because dammit it used to take like eight buttons to melt a face off. So why did I decide to review this beside the fact it was my first M rated game; well it was hugely inspired plotwise for the tenth entry, which was badass as hell. We got many our classic characters like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Lu Kang, and Johnny Cage to name a few but with four we also got Fujin, Tanya, and main antagonist Shinnok. I played it on the N64 so the character graphics are understandably crispy but the backgrounds are pretty well done for the time. For this game, every fighter is able to pull out weapons which added a new level of awesomeness if you could bring it out or a new level of dick-it-try if you can’t. What’s harder than fighting a spry acid spitting reptile man? How about fighting the same bastard who’s packing a giant double sided battle ax. Also there were throwable items left around certain levels and a titanic fan that can be used for my favorite fatality of all time. The game is fun but damn if the combos aren’t easy and the 3 dimensional moving can be kind of annoying but so much blood and Wilhelm screams, who gives a shit, put on the bitchin dance track, grab a friend, and get ready for MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

Sword In The Storm

sword in the storm

Sword in the Storm is book one of the Rigante series by David Gemmell and is the story of Connovar, the son of a dead man many believe to be a coward. This drives him to do many foolish and downright stupid things at times, but like Legend that i discussed in a previews review it is the starting point for an entire world full of people, cities all with different morals and cultures.

This book will take Connovar on an adventure from childhood to being a young adult on his way to eventually becoming the leader of his people. You will meet a ton of different people including a witch and what is this worlds version of a god, tho there are many variations of them. This one grant wishes but those wishes won’t always turn out how you want and are rarely given away for free, sort of like an old school genie. This series however does have a set order to them and you really do need to stick with that order to truly understand the story. Thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Body Harvest

body harvest

No clue why I felt like reviewing this but hey, we all have those days. I remember the cover to this game grabbed me as a kid because of the cover and I thought you played as Samus (the dude you play as looks like Samus and Stallone’s Judge Dredd had a boring ass baby.) I can’t tell you much about the plot because I found this game hard as shit to play. Even picking it up again as a twenty something, I still couldn’t fully get the hang out of it. It involves a space soldier who is on the run from giant bugs that shoot lasers and poop murderous gloobs of green jello looking shit- watch a play through and tell me I’m wrong. So I’m going to say this game wasn’t as fail for me because of crap controls but more like over ambition. It was the first open world game I can recall playing where you walk through towns, jump into vehicles and generally explore with shooting mechanics that looking back remind me of a primative Resident Evil 4. I feel like if this game came out on the Nintendo GameCube instead of the N64 I think time would have been there to flatten out and smooth the mechanics. I’m not saying it wold have been a good game but slightly less of a dump. There’s a funny as hell animation where you glitter and do a series of aerial rolls to enter a vehicle through its roof which is funny as hell. If, like my friend and supporter Hatter, enjoy old school games for the better or worse but I personally don’t recommend playing it as much as watching a Youtube video of it or something. As always may the gaming gods bring you glory and beware the green jello everyone.

Legend Review

Legend is the first book by David Gemmell in what is known as the Drenai Saga. The story of this book is the drenai are under attack by people from the desert known as the the Nadir. As people gather to defend the wall from attack and await the hero, Druss the Legend. Intermixed with the story of war are many smaller stories about various people manning the wall along with plenty of back story for the world as a whole. You eventually find out that the Nadir are far from evil and actually are victims of many raids by the Drenai as well as other countries and powers. See the story with in this book actually builds for what will become an entire series based around many people and countries and in different time periods within the same world. You can actually read any of the Drenai saga books in any order you want,but I would recommend this one first. As always thanks for reading, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Green Lantern: Agent Orange

agent orange

Agent Orange is our last story before Blackest Night, and it’s introduction to the Gollum of the DC universe in Larfleeze. Larfleeze is the a oddity in the world of Lanterns in that he’s the only flesh and blood lantern in his Corps, the orange light steals the likeness of all Larfleeze kills so he almost has a never ending army at his disposal. At the core of this story is a set up for Blackest Night, leaving off where Rage left off with the Green Lantern Corp still dealing with Sinestro and Atrocitus as Hal Jordan deals with the blue ring bonded to his hand. It may have broken the spell of the red ring but the blue continuously asks him what he hopes for, inhibiting his ability to use his own green ring, although his blue ring is keeping his fimiliar ring charged because a new threat is coming… ancient former accomplices of the Guardians stumble upon a hidden evil bearing an orange lantern. A trap is sprung and the trespassers are slaughtered by Larfleeze. Larfleeze, set upon revenge for a treaty broken, begins hunting the Green Lanterns. Larfleeze easily overpowers them, absorbing there green light, until he becomes transfixed with the new light emulating from Jordan’s other fist. The Guardians are even overpowered by Larfleeze’s hosting greed; consumed by the secret biting them in the ass. Long ago, Larfleeze and a band of thieves uncovered the orange lantern, unleashing it’s horrible power that couldn’t be contained by them, forcing them to comprise with the remaining thieves: they can keep the power but they would be banished to the Vega Sector. Both running on nearly unlimited energy, Jordan and Larfleeze clash until Hal learns the power of the blue ring and is able to subdue him. The Guardians make another deal with Larfleeze; with the blue ring spent off of Jordan, the Guardians reveal the homeworld of the blue lanterns, led by two of there own. And as the story concludes, all the Corps are at war and the Blackest Night begins…

Probably the shortest Green Lantern story I’ve read to date, it is a good character piece on Larfleeze and Hal Jordan. Larfleeze is a creepy, wretched beast that is bad ass; it’s cool to see Jordan’s take on hope. It’s also a good representation of how imperfect the Guardians of the universe are, feeling jealousy over the new power Sayd and Ganthet unlocked and the fear they continue to try to hide while the universe falls to shit around them. Overall it’s a fine, well written story about greed vs hope and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Happening

the happening

The Happening staring Mark Wahlberg is a rather interesting movie. Mark plays a science teacher in a world where a weird phenomenon involving mass suicide on the east cost of the United States. The movie waste no time at all getting into the meat of the story, the first scene shows two women on a park bench reading when one notices some weird shit going on and the other eventually stabbing herself in the neck with a knitting needle he for whatever reason has in her hair.

That being said with such a starting point as you can imagine there is no real high point or low point to the movie. Now I never really came to a point I wasn’t interested but I can see why others would. The movie is also pretty graphic which is part of kept me interested. I would avoid this movie tho if you have any issue with dead bodies or suicide in general. However if you don’t the movie is worth watching. Thanks for your time and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Alice, sweet Alice

alicesa

I heard a few years back that this strange ass movie was getting a remake and felt saddened; is nothing sacred anymore? I originally saw this listed towards the bottom of Bravo’s 100 scariest movie moments and like everything on that list, I wanted to see for myself to better myself at the craft that is horror.

Alice, sweet Alice (or Communion as it is sometimes referred to) is a 70’s mystery slasher set around Catherine Spages and her two young daughters Karen (Brooke Shields film debut) and Alice. Alice is jealous of her beautiful, sweet sister that everyone adores. Alice is a weird duck, always wearing hearing her strange translucent drag queen mask and going off by herself. Catherine and there church’s priest Father Tom are fussing over Karen’s debut at there big Communion ceremony; Alice is fed up with it all. Moments before the ceremony is about to begin, Karen is killed by a figure in a yellow raincoat, drag queen mask, and white gloves; her body dropped into a hamper and burned which brings the ceremony to a screeching halt. Annie, Catherine’s sister, suspects Alice was responsible for her sister’s demise on the merits of jealous rage but Catherine won’t believe her. The girl’s estranged father returns for the funeral. We’re introduced to the perverted, obese landlord of there apartment who tries to get fresh with Alice. Soon Annie is attacked by the same figure that killed Karen, screaming in the rain it was Alice. Alice is taken away to a home but the deaths continue by the same figure, making us ask whether it was her until the very end…

So I have to say, I really enjoy this movie. It’s filmed to have a dreamy quality made vintage by the film and clothes, while the music is a creepy, childish singing. The acting is on the verge of over the top but it works given everything else. There isn’t much gore but the figure is damn unsettling enough to carry the movie. The killer’s identity is clever but somethings when thought about at great length don’t make a lot of sense but it ain’t overwhelming. If you can find it, it’s worth a watch and may the gaming gods never give us a remake.