Tag: Opinion

Why Reboots Really Shouldn’t Bother You

Now let me get this out of the way first, everyone including myself is guilty of this seeing a reboot being made and thinking aw damn it and just hating it. Hell, I still dog Power Rangers 2017. Said it looked dumb from day one, saw the movie and still thought it. Thought IT would suck and was very wrong. That being said the newest thing is the live action Alladin, people are hating Genie.

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I think he looks like nightmare fuel but hey whatever, that isn’t the point. I loved the original and will watch this regardless. Here is the thing tho and it goes for all remakes. If you watched the original the remake is not made for you, you are not the target audience. I know, it is a hard pill to swallow, but you aren’t the ones these companies are selling to.

I loved the original Alladin, but they aren’t making this for me to relive my childhood, they are making this so my kids can enjoy their version of the movie I watched. It isn’t limited to this one either. IT, Power Rangers, Godzilla, and the list goes on and on and that is just movies, none of these are really made for fans of the original they are made to attract new fans. It is why Godzilla looks so vastly different than he used to. Now sometimes this works out and old fans love it anyway, and many times they are pissed.

This will, of course, upset some people, in fact, a few of you may read this and unfollow my blog. How dare I say these things aren’t made for us or for everyone. Trust me, I know it sucks, it is just the cold hard truth. The older you get, the less they design things specifically for you. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From A Mythical Man

There is a story about Bill Murray showing up at a college party and just hanging out doing the dishes and giving out life advice or the story about how he once stole someone’s french fries and told them “nobody will ever believe you” before walking away. There is even a scene in Zombieland where Tallahassee yells “It’s Bill fucking Murray”  which is kind of play on the entire mythos that is Bill Murray just showing up places where ever he wants and being loved by people. There is even a website dedicated to it, https://www.billmurraystory.com/

That is what this documentary is about, Tommy Avallone looking into these stories to see if there is any truth to them and why people love the man so much. He starts out by explaining that Bill has no real agent or anything like that, simply a 1-800 number that if you can get (it is apparently hard) you can simply call him and leave a message to pitch a movie idea, which he attempts to do. Does it work? Well, you have to watch to find out, I won’t ruin it all.

The movie is quite fascinating, and honestly, the man is truly a legend not because of all he has accomplished, which could be an entire article on its own, but because of who he is. He is a huge celebrity that and yet he always seems to enjoy interacting not so much with his fans, but with people in general. The movie also gives you some tremendous insight into the man himself, so give it a watch. Also, Bill, if you read this let’s go for drinks. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Monster Hunter Movie Release Date

Eurogamer is reporting that we finally have a release date for the Monster Hunter movie, September 4th next year.  This is quite the wait but I have to be honest, having over 200 hours into Monster Hunter World and not even bothering to count the others I am not really looking forward to it. The synopsis alone (which can be seen in the Eurogamer article) just doesn’t seem good to me. Happily, it is still quite the ways off so obviously this is by no means a reason to call it quits already, but I am definitely not hyped up for it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

36 Fragments Of Midnight

36 Fragments Of Midnight is a rather simple concept. You are a little square block, bounce around the map dodging all sorts of traps like saw blades and lasers to collect 36 fragments. The game itself is also kind of simple, in fact, in about an hour you can get a nice shiny platinum trophy. The real questions here are is the game fun and how does it play?

Well, it plays pretty well, at no point did I die and think it was the games fault. Getting around is simply a matter of hitting left and right and using the jump button to jump once or twice. As for fun, eh. I didn’t find it very fun at all. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the game, it looks good and plays well I just didn’t enjoy my time with it. For $3 tho, it is worth it for the quick platinum if you are into that sort of thing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Thoughts on Ben Affleck Batman Departure

By now we have all seen the confirmation that Ben Affleck won’t be Batman anymore. If not, here is an article from cinemablend. This is a bit weird for me tho, since when he was first announced I hated the idea. The truth is I actually rather liked him as Batman and it kind of sucks he never got a true solo Batman movie. Not that I think he was the best at the job, but he was far better than I personally expected.

That being said, it did become quite obvious in Justice League he was there more out of obligation than any desire to be there which I understand, it wasn’t exactly a good movie. He was cursed with being a great Batman in a time of mediocre scripts. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Xbox Live on IOS Android and Switch?

Yes you read that headline right, and yes it sounds pretty weird but that is the rumor going around due to a session description for a 2019 game development conference. Polygon has more of the finer details about who and how many, but for me, this is both exciting and weird. It could be interesting to be able to combine your online friend’s list to see who is playing what across console or even on the go. Maybe even the potential of Achievements for mobile and Nintendo games? Now all of this is 100% speculation on my part, but it’s all quite exciting. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

When Is A Villain Not Truly Villain?

Not long ago @torstenvblog and I were talking about nerd stuff as we always do and we got to talking about the bad guys in comics and movies, and when maybe they aren’t really the bad guys. Some of them are quite cut and dry, like Jason Vorhees or  Freddie Krueger. One wears a hockey mask and kills horny teens and the other was basically a child molester that later killed people in their dreams. No sane person will ever make a real argument for them and say hey he was just misunderstood or those campers deserved it. There are however villains that, maybe aren’t quite villains, at least not in the traditional sense of they are bad guys, just bad from the perspective of who the hero of the story is.

A good example of this, however, is Magneto from Xmen. He isn’t really a bad guy, he simply disagrees with Professor X on how best to protect mutants. Sure he does some questionable things, but if someone was trying to hurt you and everyone you cared about and your people wouldn’t you be willing to do some less than honest and moral things to protect them?

Another solid example is Ocean Master in the Aquaman movie. All he really wanted to do was stop the humans from destroying the ocean his people live in, and sure while he did steal a submarine and kill a ton of people to start a war under a false pretense but his heart was in the right place. He wasn’t doing it because he wanted to hurt people or he hated anyone, he thought he was doing what was best for Atlantis.

So really, at what point are people no longer villains? Is it when they can reasonably and appropriately justify what they are doing to a reasonable person? Or is it when they give up their quest and die for the greater good like Loki? I’m not sure there is an easy answer, and everyone will have a different one but for me, a big part of it comes down to intent. Look at Thanos from the MCU. Nobody would argue what he was doing was truly good, but he wasn’t really wrong. It would have saved his world, and it did help other worlds he had conquered. Most importantly his intent is good, he wants to make sure what happened to his world doesn’t happen to others. While he is quite misguided it isn’t really fair to say he is evil or a villain, he is just a bad guy from the perspective of the heroes. A future blog we will discuss what makes a hero, and why Captain America wasn’t truly a good guy recently. Until then tell me what you think, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Why I Am Ignore Next Gen Console Rumors

I am sure you have seen them by now because they are everywhere. They have been for a while now. The new PlayStation can do this, the new Xbox will be named that they both will be in 16k. That last one I made up for the record, nobody quote that. Honestly however that is why I am ignoring them. Specs are always subject to change, so at this point even if the leak is real, and it probably isn’t it is far to early to know how real it is.

The other issue is many times these rumors and leaks come from off-handed comments like the one I made earlier. Someone says we wanted to aim for X standard and people want to take it as fact or report it simply because people want to know and they know it will get them clicks or views. For me, the only real option is to more or less ignore them completely since focusing on them won’t make them come any faster. How do you guys deal with the rumors? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Hot Pursuit (1987)

Hot Pursuit from 1987 is the story of Dan Bartlett (John Cusack) and his failure to catch a plane on time after he fails a chemistry test. Now he must catch a later flight to catch up with his girlfriend and her insanely rich family. Upon landing in the Caribbean he tries to catch a cab which is stolen from him, and this is where it turns into almost an old fashioned role-playing game.

Seriously, he will meet 3 friendly Rastafarians that he mistakenly thinks may be criminals because he was warned to watch out for the locals. They actually teach him to throw a machete. He will then narrowly miss meeting up with his girlfriend, he will give up hope and get drunk. He will then be basically kidnapped after he passes out and ends up with a seemingly crazed man obsessed with catching up with the boat his girlfriend is on, but he will luckily end up learning on to sail. I am telling you this because it all comes back around.

Later on, he will eventually meet up with his girlfriend, and I don’t want to spoil the ending but learning to throw a machete and sail factors into the ending. Each main person he meets teaches him a new skill to help him in his quest. This isn’t bad, it was just painfully glaring there. The movie itself has some laughs but admittedly isn’t very good and definitely is not one of John Cusack’s better movies. As a person that loves 80’s movies, this one was just not very enjoyable. I did like the ending, the journey there just didn’t worth it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Welcome To February

Welcome to February, the month of love. This month has a few happenings for me you can see here. Happenings In February That being said, this month around oh I guess the 14th I will probably review some movies about love for no reason in particular. Maybe there is a holiday there. Anyway, January was a great start to the year and played a lot of great games, like Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (PS4) which is a game I had great experiences with years ago and experienced again now. I haven’t had the chance to try out Resident Evil 2 or Kingdom Hearts 3 yet but I am sure I will soon enough. This year in gaming has already been great, and I am enjoying The Start Of Distant Worlds Two as well. So everyone enjoy this month, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.