Guts And Glory (PS4)

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Guts and Glory is a PC game and recently popped up on PS4 surprisingly. I say surprisingly because the game is pretty messed up. The game is all about getting your character through obstacle courses. Some times in a park, or a small city or maybe in a sort of camp ground. The courses are made up of spinning saw blades, flying arrows, cannon balls and other assorted things to kill you. I’ve been shot in the head with arrows, been blown to pieces by landmines and even had my head blown off with a cannon ball.

The game has its issues, for example the controls aren’t very good. The are kind of clunky, and the games physics can be wonky to say the least. The game does have one big thing going for it tho. The game is fun. That is it, the game is just dumb fun. For $15 if you like a semi gory type game that serves no real purpose, this game may be for you. If not, should probably skip this one. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Extinction (2018)

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Extinction is a new movie from Netflix that is going to be hard for me to review. The main reason for this is I have some major issues with later in the movie, but I can’t actually tell you what they are without ruining the entire movie. So I will focus on the good, but touch on the bad a little bit later.

First the good. The acting is solid. The family the movie revolves around feels like a real family with real problems that have legitimate problems that love each other but just don’t know what to do anymore. Peter (Michael Pena) Is having a hard time sleeping. He is having odd nightmares about some sort of disaster. This is causing a strain on his marriage to Alice (Lizzy Caplan) and his job and of course his life in general.

When he is finally convinced to go seek counseling he has a sudden change of heart when he discovers he isn’t the only one having these dreams. A little bit later you will discover these dreams aren’t just dreams, this is something that is about to happen. Soon at a party in fact while out on the deck with a friend, they will witness the start.

I will stop there as to not ruin the story,but from there on we get to what I don’t like. From here it becomes hard to discuss what I don’t like since it could really kill much of the end of the movie which I really don’t want to do. Suffice it to say after a certain point I do think the story falls apart almost completely. It does come back around for the ending thankfully, and I do think its worth a watch. Just be careful because there are some story issues that you may want to simply accept for what they are and not think about. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Good Kids (2016)

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Good Kids is about four kids that basically were losers in high school, never got invited to parties, studied hard, got good grades and got into good colleges. After graduation,  they decided they would have that summer they never had in school. The summer of yes as they call it. The would go out and do all the things they wanted to do. Get drunk, try drugs, have a boyfriend and get laid. Or would they?

Well it turns out they do get invited to a party, and are quite popular. It isn’t long before they are doing all of those things. The tennis pro actually becomes a male prostitute on accident. The movie is funny tho it has its ups and downs, but this movie does something a bit different. Something that can make you wonder about your days in school.

Towards the end of the movie our man and hooker Andy runs into a recently ex classmate Conch when he goes to the wrong house. After a small talk he is told, to use Conch’s words, a “hard truth” Nobody ever disliked them and they exiled themselves. The reason they weren’t invited to the parties was simple. Nobody was invited, people just showed up,that is why it was called a party. Andy being drunk has a sort of epiphany and agrees to come to the next party, where the group is made more than welcomed.

This to me is the highlight of the movie. Looking back at school, how many times have you gone places and weren’t really invited you simply knew to go? Did you ever wonder if maybe the less popular kids simply didn’t know they simply needed to show up? Or is that even a thing? I actually never got invited so I don’t personally know but it was a pretty thought-provoking. Maybe I missed out on some school experiences and friendships simply because I wasn’t aware that there were all these parties I was supposed to simply show up at and nobody told me. Regardless, the movie is pretty solid. Not the best, but interesting enough to be worth a watch. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Life After Beth (2014)

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Life After Beth is an odd movie. See it starts out with Beth already dead. So we see her funeral and the toll it takes on young Zach. Zach does mention to her father,Maury, they were having problems tho. However after they play some chess, smoke some weed and he goes home we discover Beth is back. Shortly after we find out Beth has changed. But has she really? We don’t really know because Zach seems to be the only one to notice at first.

This small annoyance aside the movie is quite humorous, it is also a pretty different take on the usual zombie genre. In fact nobody even believes or knows she is a zombie at first. She walks, talks, eats just like a normal person for the vast majority of the movie. She also happens to be the only one. It isn’t until much later, and until Zach breaks his promise to Maury and tells her she died in the first place that more show up. They also for some reason have an odd obsession with attics.

As Beth gets more and more violent and Zach gets more and more scared and more of these zombies show up, more people start to believe Zach that Beth is alive and not just Zach being nuts.Its a little hard to deny it when your grandparents show up for dinner really. Another odd but fun choice is for some reason, smooth jazz calms the zombies down. I have no clue why, or why it would but hey, lets just go with it guys.

At the end of the day this is an interesting horror comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously and is worth watching if you are a fan of that sort of thing. Personally I liked it and would recommend checking it out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (2018)

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The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is a rather odd comedy. See its the story about a man named Buck Ferguson, a professional hunter that travels the world hunting.  When it son comes to that age where he can go on his first hunt, Buck and his best friend and cameraman Don plan to film the experience. The problem is his son, Jaden is really more of the gamer talk on his cell phone type.

The story starts with Buck and Don going to pick of Jaden from his ex-wife and her new boyfriend. Jaden for some odd reason insist on bringing his guitar to go hunting and his soon to be step dad gives him an assault rifle to go hunting with. Buck of course tosses this in the back of the truck and says he can’t hunt with it because it would be overkill.

After we get to the woods they quickly find their first deer. As Jaden takes aim, his girlfriend calls and the ringtone scares it off. Buck isn’t happy about this, in fact at some point in the movie he will actually take the phone off him it pisses him off so badly. Which I understand, Jaden is kind of a jackass. He will also destroy an ATV, whine insistently, pretty much never listen and cause all sorts of annoyances.

Don it turns out is also quite the pervert and even ends up showing Jaden pictures of the orgy his wife was in, splitting a cigarette with the kid trips and bust his head open on a rock and is also generally just not a very good role model or really anything more than a camera man with some questionable morals when it comes to how he talks to children.

The movie is actually pretty interesting and it does have its funny moments. It isn’t great or all that remarkable, but its good enough to be worth watching. Plus Buck is played by Josh Brolin so you basically get to see Thanos act like an over the top obsessed dear hunter which in itself is a bit funny. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Voices (2014)

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The voices is a 2014 movie Starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick and Gemma Arterton. Ryan plays a man who hears voices, not the typical voices you and me hear tho. The type that we know are just us thinking things like grab milk at the store or hey thank god for yoga pants. No he hears his dog and cat talking to him, just like his mom thought she heard actual angels.

Ryan’s character, Jerry ( it should be noted he does the dog, cat, a deer and bunny monkey character) meets and falls for Gemma’s character, Fiona. Fiona is English and admittedly isn’t fond of Jerry and honestly isn’t very good at hiding it Jerry is just sort of slow and naive. One night after she stands him up for a date she didn’t quite want to hurt his feelings by turning him down for, she gets caught in the rain when her car won’t start. Jerry upset and driving around in the rain legitimately by chance drives by where she left her car and she flags him down and he gives her a ride.

Now they are talking and they get to talking about angels in the bibles with names, now before he can finish the 4th angel with a names actual name they hit a deer. With blood everywhere in the car and Fiona freaking out and a deer begging to be killed Jerry dispatches the suffering creature, turns to Fiona and tells her the 4th angel is Lucifer. This freaks her out and she bolts into the woods. Jerry being the naive and carry man he is, is also an idiot and chases her into the woods yelling about how he told her to do it not thinking about how insane this sounds. Yea, this ends badly. She falls, and of course he falls on top of her..with the knife. Whats an insane man to do but end her suffering? Yup that’s right we get to see Ryan Reynolds stab a chick about a dozen times whole saying sorry in the woods.

When Jerry gets home his dog,Bosco, tries to convince him to do the right thing and go to the police. It was an accident after all. His cat however, Mr. Whiskers, disagrees. This is a horrible idea and he will be locked away because he is an insane murderer. The best option is to do something with the body so nobody can find it and carry on like nothing happened. Jerry being Jerry, and because we need a movie, listened to the cat.

This is as far as I will go with the story except to say we end up with talking human heads in a refrigerator. The movie is quite demented and weird, and not at all a horror movie. It is a dark comedy at best and an interesting take on how schizophrenia affects some people. The acting as you would expect from this cast is rock solid, you never get less than 110% from them. The script is great and the concept is an interesting one. The movie however isn’t for everyone, many simply won’t care for the subject or how it is covered. The movie randomly goes from comedy to serious and back again, with Anna Kendrick as Lisa putting on one of the best scenes in the movie in the only scene we really see from a perspective that isn’t from Jerry. You also won’t get your typical Reynolds wit and charm here. He dove WAY out of his usual comfort zone, which I enjoyed and he did great, but I can see why many wouldn’t be happy with it. All in all tho an enjoyable movie, tho the ending musical number was a bit disturbing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Father of The Year (2018)

Father of The Year is a 2018 Happy Madison production Starring David Spade and Nat Faxon. The story is about two college graduates go home and end up having a debate about who’s dad would win in a fight,and the story of what happens when their fathers decide to find the answer.

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Father of The Year is another one of those Happy Madison Production movies that people are going to watch and enjoy, but will get pretty bad reviews. I’m not kidding, when I checked it was at 53% on rotten tomatoes, Roger Ebert gave it a 1.5/4 and Allocine gave it a 3.1/5. I have seen people call it hilarious and others call it garbage. For some reason they always seem to divide people.

The story of the movie was. Two college students graduate and come home for a few weeks before they move to New York. One for work and the other to find himself. The problem is one day they get to talking about which ones dad would win in a fight. Since Ben’s dad, Wayne, is a raging alcoholic and life long color blind screw up and Larry’s dad Mardy is a science nerd that has never been in a fight in his life that gets abused by his 8-year-old son constantly the entire debate is actually quite sad. Mardy of course claims he would win and takes the question as a joke. Wayne however is insulted by the question and later gets black out drunk and goes to Larry’s house to prove he can beat up Mardy.

The resulting spectacle results in a chase thru the house and Ben and Wayne falling off the roof and crashing through the neighbors green house as if they were some sort missile.  This of course results in a prison sentence, which results in Ben losing his job.

There is also a love story involved but I don’t want to the entire movie away. The movie has its moments of being pretty funny and pretty mediocre. The movie offers nothing new and nothing fantastic or special. The best way I have heard it put is the movie isn’t bad, it just isn’t all that memorable. I don’t regret watching it, I just can’t say I would watch it again. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stephen King’s Thinner (1996)

Stephen King’s Thinner is based on the novel by the same name and is the last novel released under King’s the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Released in 1996 by Paramount Pictures.

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Stephen King’s Thinner is based on the novel by the same name and is the last novel released under King’s the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story is about an over weight lawyer named Billy Halleck. Billy is what you would call less than honest.

After winning his most recent case and discovering his diet still isn’t really working he goes out to celebrate with his wife. On the ride home he is enjoying some extra driving activities with his wife and runs over an elderly gypsy lady and kills her. There of course is an investigation to determine if there is any wrong doing and the investigation is a complete sham. The investigator lies about having even done a breathalyzer test. Billy wasn’t drunk, but he still lied in court. The judge also pressures people into lying about the old woman running out of a store instead of walking.

After Billy is found to have done nothing wrong in the disgrace of a trial the husband and daughter decide to take justice into their own hands by setting a gypsy curse on Billy. This curse will make him lose weight. This doesn’t sound bad, except for the fact that he will lose weight until he dies.

At first Billy and his wife doesn’t seem to realize that anything is even wrong. Then they think maybe it is a sign of cancer. Billy is the first however to think maybe something is wrong when he notices the judge also has a skin issue and coincidentally right where the old gypsy man touched him as well. Of course he will see multiple doctors and end up at the mayo clinic, because who would believe gypsy curses are real? I mean would you think this dude could curse you?

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Seriously nobody would think this guy is going to be serious. It isn’t more than a few weeks tho before our 300 pound friend however is down to about 150 despite eating thousands of calories a day of whatever the hell he wants.

The movie itself is interesting but suffers from the same issue pretty much every King book adaptation does, you will see most reviews come down to “The book was better.” Honestly this may be true, I personally haven’t read the book. The movie itself was fun and had an interesting concept. It also played pretty much every stereotype on every person in the movie. The lawyer had no morals, the cop and judge were dirty, the gypsies were basically magical nomads that lived a long time and seemed to have no morals and are hated by everyone. Pretty standard stuff. I did enjoy the movie and the ending tho, and would happily watch the movie again. It was never scary or really all that funny, it was just interesting. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pokemon Quest (Mobile)

Pokemon Quest is a free Mobile and Nintendo switch game from Game freak released in 2018.

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Pokemon Quest is a cute little game for Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS. I decided to check out the Mobile version on Android since its free and admittedly I don’t have access to a Switch or iOS device. I am curious if there are any differences between the Switch and Mobile versions so someday I hope to find that out, if I ever do I will be writing another one of these.

The game is quite simplistic, you go to an island to discover treasure and befriend a pokemon for help. You will choose from one of the three original starters of Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur. There are also 2 additional choices of Evvee and Pikachu. There is a small twist tho, they are all little block creatures.

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The game is mostly just your pokemon walking around on their own, they also attack on their own but you choose their special attacks. The game is quite intuitive on its own. I never had an issue with them getting stuck or anything like that.

The biggest issue I had with the game was the cooking mechanic. You need to go thru 4 or 5 levels until its done cooking, then you get a pokemon based off what you cooked. While this is interesting it can take a while to get the pokemon you need for where you happen to be. It’s not a deal breaker it can just be pretty annoying at times, tho there are enough guides online to make it less time-consuming. It is also worth noting you can play the game without spending any real money, tho as always it will make your life much easier.

At the end of the day tho you have to ask yourself what you want from a game. Pokemon Quest is basically a cute time sink for the more dedicated pokemon fans. I think your more average fans won’t really put enough time into this to collect the pokemon or the equip items to get far enough to enjoy it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Just Before I Go (2015)

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Just Before I Go is a comedy, but it’s actually a pretty dark comedy in a way. The movie starts with a man underwater.

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This is Ted, Ted is a pretty basic guy with a pretty basic job. Most people would even call him boring. One day at his boring job he meets his wife, Penny. Penny eventually gets bored and cheats on him with her guitar teacher. In the ensuing argument she tells him he may as well be dead, and this is when he decides he really would be better off dead. First however he has some things to do.

When Ted goes home to his home town to stay with his brother and his family things get a bit weird right out the gate. The first night his nephew tells him to use the dead bolt that’s on the guest room door, which he doesn’t only to discover his sister-in-law sleep masturbates in front of house guest. His nephew is hiding the fact that he is gay, which he confided in Ted, which leads to an entirely new predicament with the family.

Ted will also confront his childhood bully and have a small romance with the girl he had a crush on from 4th grade, that happens to now be married. All this while finding a new romance with a family member of the teacher that tormented him after the death of his father.

Now if this sounds like a lot going on, it is. That isn’t to say the movie is bad, I actually rather enjoyed it. The movie did get mixed reviews however, with metacritic giving it a 24% and rotten tomatoes a 10%. IMDb does give it a 6.4/10 with 91% of google users liking it. The movie is busy, but it seems to be another case where critics don’t like it, but people do. I am in this category as well. I enjoyed it a lot.

The movie while not perfect and at times quite busy is quite funny and while has an interesting yet cliché take on suicide. The movie doesn’t shy away from certain subjects like how the gay community is treated many times in high school or by family or even how many feel about themselves because of it. It also has shows how some times bullies act a certain way because of how they are treated, but also because sometimes they themselves are just crappy people.

The movie isn’t for everyone clearly, and it does deal with some sensitive subject matter that may bother or upset some people. It is however entertaining and thought-provoking. Movies don’t always make me stop and think, but this one did. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.