South Park: The Fractured But Whole (2nd Opinion)

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South Park, the Fractured But Whole is a direct sequel South Park, The Stick Of Truth. You may remember @torstenvblog covering South Park: The Fractured But Whole. I didn’t get to play it myself until recently and I won’t say I am disappointed, just that I preferred Stick of Truth. That being said the battle system is still turn based but now takes place in a grid system. Moves now have an area of effect. Each south park child also now has a sort of class that determines the moves they get.

The story itself starts as Stick of Truth ends when Eric finds a reward poster for a cat and decides his team of super heroes, Coon and friends, need to save the cat and collect the money.  From there it is typical south park shenanigans with fart jokes, swearing and all around weird shit going on. If you enjoyed the first game or the show in general you will enjoy this one. You also don’t have to play Stick of Truth to enjoy Fractured but Whole tho it does help. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Injustice 2 (2nd opinion)

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Now some of you may remember when @torstenvblog covered Injustice 2 awhile back, and with Injustice 2:Legendary Edition coming out I figured I would give my opinion of the game.

The first injustice was great with an amazing story, but after the story there wasn’t exactly much to keep doing unless you were heavily into fighting games. This time around however, we have multiple endings. On top of that there is a sort of RPG element to it where you can level up your characters and equip them with new gear as well. This adds quite a bit of replay value, but they didn’t stop there.

The multiverse alone is a game all in its own. Every day or sometimes every week you can take quest to help heroes from different places save their homes to earn loot or experience. Some require you use different characters or be at some level. This so far may be the best fighting game I have played ever and it is highly recommended. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Destiny AKA Reaper (1921)

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Sometimes I watch movies from way back in the day. Like so far back you need a history lesson. For example this movie, Destiny, called Reaper on Netflix was originally released as Behind The Wall in the United States back in 1921 and was called Der müde Tod: ein deutsches volkslied in Germany it seems. I say it seems because I don’t speak any German so that may just be the same name in a different language.

The movie itself is a silent film that us a fantasy love story that follows multiple couples. My favorite involves a woman attempting to make a deal with Death to get her lost love back but she can’t make the sacrifices Death demands.

The movie, not unlike Metropolis Restored (1927) has been damaged quite a bit over the years and has been re-pieced together from multiple sources tho not as extensively as Metropolis. I didn’t enjoy this one as much but its historic value can’t be understated. Movies from that time are rarely found complete and are even more rarely shown so readily to the public. If you have the time its pretty cool to check out for the movie buffs out there. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ghostbusters (1984)

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Every so often Netflix or Hulu adds a movie and I just have to sit back and watch. Or I just rip it out of my collection for old times sake. Ghostbusters is a classic, and with very good reason. The story of Peter, Ray,Egon and Winston saving New York from Ghost and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man is one every kid in the 80’s and 90’s knows by heart. It launched video games, cartoons, toys, sequels and even came back in 2016 with an all girl cast which got mixed reviews. Admittedly I have not seen it yet but I keep telling myself I will get around to it,

The first Ghostbusters movie covers the founding of the team itself, from them being fired from the local college to the very first call where they capture Slimer. It isn’t long before they get accused of causing all these ghost to appear and tossed in jail by the EPA. There is plenty of fun stuff in between, but I don’t want to ruin this for the rare person that hasn’t seen this. The gaming gods would like to remind you, if someone asks if you are a god, you say yes.

Big Bear (2017)

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Big Bear is the story of a wedding that almost was. So what is a guy and his friends to do? Have the party anyway! One small issue however, one of his friends decides the best idea is to kidnap the guy his fiancee left him for.

The movie itself is pretty fun, I was actually expecting a sort rip off of the hangover movies but that is thankfully not what we got at all. The first night we do see a bunch of drinking, and a stripper, and they do have a hangover in the morning however there won’t be any memory loss shenanigans.

The story mostly focuses on how this guy managed to steal his fiancee in the first place,and what they are going to do with him now that his idiot friend kidnapped him in the first place. There are some cheap laughs and it has its moments that will make you think. The movie isn’t great, but I did enjoy it none the less. Its worth checking out if you have some free time but don’t expect some sort of life altering experience. Its good enough for what it is and it will entertain you and the ending is great. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Men in Black (1997)

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Every so often I see a movie and I notice the year it came out and my brain goes damn it I am old. Tho a friend of mine just recently pointed out I have known her for almost 30 years so that wrecked my life a little bit to know I have known her almost my entire life. Men in Black is one of those movies. 1997 doesn’t seem that long ago, but 20 years went by pretty quick apparently.

Men in Black as you know spawned two sequels, a cartoon, video games and rumor has it soon a Men in Black 4. More on that tho in a future post. For now the original. The first one sees Will Smith as a regular old cop doing his job, and suddenly chasing a guy down on foot. This dude is quick and can jump damn near like an Olympic athlete. This catches the eye of the character played by Tommy Lee Jones, Agent K.

Agent K eventually test a group of people, and chooses Will Smith to be an agent, Agent J. Together they are essentially the police that operate independently of even the governments of the world as the police for the numerous aliens that visit and live on Earth. The movie is fun and has actually popularized a few conspiracy theories, one of which basically says the movie was released by the government to judge how people would take the news of aliens and such a groups existence being real. The movie holds up pretty well, and I definitely recommend seeing it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bill Burr: Walk Your Way Out (2017)

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Bill Burr is one of those George Carlin style comedy guys. He is pretty harsh and abrasive, but most of his stand up is based of his observations of people and things around him. This time around he takes shots at everything from fat people, to where McDonalds went wrong and even tells the story of the gorilla that learned sign language, had a pet kitten and why he thinks they really screwed up not communicating better with it. You with think, you will probably be slightly offended and most importantly you will laugh. Bill Burr once again manages to stand just on that line of hilarious and just being a dick and calling it comedy, which is why his fans watch him in the first place. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

War of the Worlds (1953)

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War of the Worlds has had many iterations, from the many movies, books and even the original radio broadcast that has spread its own host of urban legends, some of which I covered here Brave New Jersey (2016).

The 1953 version however is by far my favorite, Based off the novel by H.G. Wells and the screen play by Barre Lyndon. The story takes place in a small California town on a night like most others. People are at a local dance or out to eat even a few on a little fishing trip camping out. When a meteorite strikes nearby people get curious, after all who wouldn’t?

A few days later when it cools down and people can get close enough to investigate is when things go from fun and interesting, to world-changing bad. As the meteorite opens to reveal itself to be instead to be alien ships invading the earth.

The acting in the movie is great, you can actually believe these people are scared of what is taking place and for its time the effects are stunning. Sure by the standards of today they are primitive but imagine going to see this on the big screen back in 1953 with your girlfriend, having never seen anything like this when the ship starts shooting or when you finally see this alien come on-screen and grab the girl’s shoulder from behind.

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Sure we have the benefit of it being remastered in color and have seen things much better, but for its time this thing was creepy as hell. Even when I was a kid having grown up with horror movies I remember thinking how I would have freaked if this ugly little bastard managed to sneak up on me.

The ending is also amazing, and I don’t mind spoiling it because the movie is over 60 years old, but if you plan on seeing it after reading this and don’t want it spoiled now is the time to stop reading. Seriously, last chance.

Now I assume you are ready for the spoiler. The end is with the world mostly in ruins, people rioting cars flipped and burning we find out main characters hiding in a church after even nuclear weapons failed to stop the invaders. When suddenly the ship heading their way simply starts to fall and crashes into a building. A hatch opens, an alien starts to appear and stops. Our brave scientist inches his way over to discover it is mysteriously dead. What is even more is all of these ships seem to be slowly doing the same thing. Not all at once, but slowly over time dying. For all their technology they failed to take into account one thing. The germs of Earth played hell with their immune system. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Expelled From Paradise (2014)

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Expelled From Paradise is the story of what happens after humanity almost wipes itself out. Humanity now lives in two places, some on a barren Earth struggling to survive and the other in Deva in space living in cyber space. Living inside a computer program in a paradise of their own making in a world where everything they could possibly need or want.

When a hacker starts breaking into Deva security member Angela is sent to the real world and down to earth to discover this hacker and put an end to it. Upon arriving on Earth, Angela will take her Human for a test run by eating, well dirt. Then she will fight a bunch of bugs and meet the necessary male friend Dingo.

The movie is fun, looks good and is full of a few twist and turns that were quite fun and the late movie action scenes were great. The only real issue I had was at times the story could be predictable and the characters were pretty much stereotypical anime characters, tho they do work. That said it was still fun and most anime fans will enjoy it, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Zodiac (2007)

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Hey who here loves serial killers? Pretty morbid question to ask I know. My favorite is Jack the Ripper. I know its cliche and everyone mentions him but he is just a fun one with a great conspiracy surrounding him. This movie is about the case surrounding the Zodiac killer.

Admittedly I am not overly familiar with the case and stuff surrounding the Zodiac killer, but the movie it self does an amazing job telling the story from different angles. From the killer standpoint we get to see the different murders from that perspective. This is interesting but is clearly just supposition for the movie. On the flip side we also get to see the side from the media getting letters from Zodiac and the decision to print the first letters or not and the toll it took on one of the writers when Zodiac started threatening him.

The other side is the perspective of the cops and their hunt to find him and their struggle and the toll it took on the detectives chasing him and what it was like attempting to catch an elusive and dangerous killer as he avoided them at every turn.

The movie was fun and interesting but was pretty long and had a tendency to drag and felt like some parts dragged a big to much. If you like this sort of thing the movie is great, if not you may be a little bored at times. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.