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#and there’s another section who were really introduced to it via the sequel
frog-whisperer · 3 years
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I need to get in on the video essay game before someone makes the 5hr Lion King retrospective that only I deserve to
#not that I ever will...but I’ve thought about it#I saw one for Warrior Cats today and it took me tf out#and not to be all ‘I like this incredibly popular Disney movie more than anyone else the Lion King is MY movie’#because that’s really reductive I hate when people say that like they’re the only ones to think it#and it’s not even my favourite Disney movie. Lilo and Stitch all the way#but I AM in the top 0.0004% of monthly Lebo M. listeners so gleam from that what you will#but who else but me could talk about...the tv shows. the sequels. the Broadway show. the remake. the books. the fanbase..the Zazu Tiki Room.#I’m sure there are people who like and are more knowledgeable about every one of those specific things more than me but all together?#and I feel like the way I like the Lion King is Different to the way most do. Again not to be all Not Like Other Fans#but I feel like there’s one side that likes the original movie just for the message and the music and the characters and the stage show#like they’ll have tattoos of the Simba painting and have Timon and Pumbaa on a t shirt#and there’s another section who were really introduced to it via the sequel#so they like the idea of interpersonal lion drama and romance and new lion ocs and kingdoms and breeding Cubs on deviantart#and at a certain point it just becomes scaled up warrior cats#but I’m into like...the core concept. Animals can talk and have a functional monarchy. what are the ethics of that? who can eat who and when#that’s the stuff that’s interesting to me#but no piece of Lion King media really Goes There#actually this might be better as a series of videos instead#oh well I’ll just lay the groundwork so they hire me to write for the re-remake in 20 years
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captainillogical · 4 years
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Home Ch.2
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The domesticity of living with an alien who hasn’t quite had the chance at a normal life.
Distant Lands sequel.
Spinel/Reader
collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants​
The door in front of you is red.
The two of you are standing outside the entrance to, er, what the both of you will now be calling home. It’s.. a strange feeling. You’re excited to be here. And although you’re eternally grateful for the crystal gems for taking you in when you needed it, you’re also happy to be starting a new chapter in your life. 
Pearl should’ve had the last three of your boxes brought up already for you, as you didn’t really feel like doing that all yourself all the way up to the 9th floor if you’re honest with yourself. Your body is still pretty sore in general, especially your legs.
You watch Spinel pull keys out of her pocket and go for the door. 
"Why weren't those in your gem?" You ask as she fumbles with said keys in hand. "I didn't even know you had pockets.."
"Sometimes I forget." She furrows her eyebrows, a bit of her tongue peeking out as she squints, trying to get the key into the deadbolt right. It's kind of comical. "Don't act like you're expecting me to lose 'em already."
"Eh." You shrug, and watch her struggle for a couple more seconds. "Did you want help with that, orrrr,"-
She opens the door, interrupting your sentence with an enthusiastic whoop, and you can see the formidable stack of boxes in the small living room. You take one last look at the long sprawling hallway and the many, many doors on this floor and wonder what your neighbors are like.
"Are 'ya gonna just stand out there or what?" She says from inside the doorway. Looking a bit further down the hall, you can see that one of the doors has several strange notes taped to it - as if there's some sort of weird neighborly interaction going on there.
One of the other front doors opens just as Spinel wraps her hand around your wrist, and she nearly yanks you into the apartment. She slams the door shut behind you almost forcefully.
"You're not even gonna let me introduce myself to the neighbors?" You say, like you had any intention other than to snoop a little. Spinel fixes you with a look. It makes you feel a little giddy when she looks at you like she’s full of impatient affection, which makes you want to be a little obtuse on purpose.
"You can do that later." She folds her arms in slight irritation that you can definitely see in her eyes. "I've been wanting you alone for what feels like weeks now."
"You're a little dramatic," You walk further into the living room, taking note of the small deck outside the sliding glass doors. "It's only been a few days, and we've texted."
“I’m not, and you and I both know that it ‘ain’t the same.” She says from behind you, following you closely. You’re pretending you have no idea what she’s talking about.
You take a peek inside the small kitchen, and you love it. It’s cute. Gems don’t need to eat or store food, but these particular apartments have small amenities in place, as well as a bathroom and bedroom just to keep up with building code. You think it’s kind of hilarious that regular city ordinance gets a say in how aliens should build things, and you kind of wish you were present for the meetings that Bismuth had to have had with them.
You open the fridge, and realize nothing is in there. Oh, right. Of course. You don’t know what you were expecting.
Closing the fridge door, you feel a presence next to you and turn to realize that Spinel is RIGHT there. Like, maybe six inches from your face.
“What,” You say, feeling your heartbeat pick up a little. She’s watching you expectantly, as if she’s waiting for something. “Am I not allowed to check out our place? You’ve already been here for the last few days.”
She takes a half step closer, and grabs your face with the both of her hands to kiss you.
Ah. 
Her lips are soft. 
You won’t lie, you’ve been thinking about her like this on a constant feedback loop ever since the both of you confessed your feelings. 
You exhale out your nose and tilt your head enough to deepen the kiss, and she hums against your lips. She slides down one of her hands to the small of your back, and presses you flush against her, almost possessively. Your face heats up a little at the lack of space between you two.
Your phone dings twice in your pocket, and Spinel makes some kind of displeased sigh against your mouth as if you were even going to answer it. One of your hands finds its way to the side of her face, and you trail it over to the edges of her hairline just to touch more of her. She leans into it automatically. Her hair is soft to the touch, and you wish you could run your fingers through it. 
The hand on your back is searingly hot through the shirt you're wearing, and you can only focus on that and the sensation of her lips on yours.
Your phone dings three more times, and Spinel growls impatiently, and well, that certainly doesn’t do anything to you, no sir.
She pushes you against the fridge, and you’re extremely embarrassed about the groan that comes out of your mouth - she doesn’t seem to care because she’s kissing you a lot more forcefully now. It’s like she can’t keep her hands off you. 
“Spinel,” You pull away to breathe, lips wet. She goes right for your neck.
“What?” She hisses against your skin, and you shudder. A gloved hand slides up your shirt.
“I should probably run to the store for a grocery trip before it closes, there’s no food here and I’d like to eat this week.”
She pulls her mouth away from your skin, and your neck feels a little exposed.
“Can’t we do that tomorrow?” She sighs, giving you another look.
“If I wanna starve tonight, sure.” You reply, deadpan. It's not like you actually want this to stop..
“Uggghhhhhhhhhh FINE.” She rolls her eyes, and removes herself from you like it’s the worst thing to ever happen to her. “But we’re continuin’ this later.”
“You mean I’M continuing this later,” You poke her right in the gem, and she glares at you. Her cheeks tint a darker pink, and you find yourself grinning. “If I have anything to say about it, anyway.”
“Is that a challenge?” She replies, lowering her eyes at you in a way that makes the little hairs on your neck stand up. 
“Maaaaaybe.” You side step her, walking back towards the living room before you decide that actually yeah, maybe fucking her in the kitchen is a great idea right now. 
“I hate the tone you’re using.” 
“Why, does it make you nervous?” You open one of your boxes of clothes, looking for a sweater to wear out. A specific one. The one with the strawberries on the front. 
“No, you’re just smug.” She says, and you bark out a laugh.
You can’t find the sweater you want, which means you put it in a non-clothing box, or you left it at Steven’s. Ugh. Actually most of the clothes you’re rifling through kind of smell weird even though they should be clean. You shrug, coming to the conclusion you’ll also have to do laundry tonight.
“Do we have a washing machine?” You ask her. She looks at you a little confused.
“A what?”
“Y’know, like for washing my clothes. These smell funky and I’d like to wear something tomorrow.” You open one of your regular boxes, but it’s just filled with books. Many, many books.
“Oh! Yeah, Bis mentioned something about there bein’ one on the first floor. Although, I wouldn’t exactly mind ‘ya not wearing anything tomorrow.” She grins, canines shining in the low light of the apartment. 
“I’m not walking around naked, idiot.” You sigh at her, trying to keep your blush at bay. She’s so blunt with her affections now that you don’t really know how to deal with it. “Let’s just go to the store and get it over with.”
You grab your bag, making sure you have your wallet on you, and the both of you head out the door.
Spinel locks the door behind you, and the both of you make your way back down to the base level via elevator.
-
There’s a nearby market that’s still open for the next two hours, and the two of you end up walking there as it’s only a couple of blocks away. 
You look over at the neon sign saying ‘Open’ with the hours listed, and can see quite a few people and gems inside. Eugh. You were kind of hoping it wouldn’t be busy at like, 7pm, but here we are.
“I hope this won't take too long,” You head inside, Spinel trailing next to you. “I don’t even think you have toilet paper, so I’m gonna have to get quite a few things.”
“Toilet paper?” 
“Exactly my point.” You look around, seeing the cash registers at the front and the produce section immediately to your right. It’s.. a little loud in here.
Spinel is looking around in curious wonder, staring pretty hard at some of the sale display signs with obnoxious print.
You grab one of the carts off to the side, and make a beeline directly for the toiletries section, because you don't want to forget anything like you usually do.
"Hey! Don't leave me behind," You feel a hand grab yours, Spinel jogging briefly to catch up with you. "Why are 'ya being so fast? We've got time."
"Sorry, stores make me a little anxious when they have quite a few people in them," You narrowly avoid a few teenagers joking loudly and passing next to you. "I hate busy places."
"They ain't so bad. It's kinda lively." She replies, squeezing your hand. 
You pass four different aisles until you get to the one you're aiming for, having to maneuver around a couple gems that are in the way. You catch one of them looking pointedly to the hand you're holding with Spinel, and you try to ignore the way it makes your stomach lurch a little. 
You hate shopping.
You stop your cart in the toothbrush area, because you might as well get a new one as well as some toothpaste.
"Ooooooooh." Spinel reaches out beside you, grabbing one of those sonic kids brushes with all the lights. "What does this do?"
You grab what you need, throwing it in your cart and looking at your girlfriend (even just referring to her like this inside your head makes you unbelievably giddy) who's.. intensely studying the characters on the toothbrush. She presses the button in the middle, and the whole thing lights up and starts playing music. Her eyes go wide.
"Is this some 'kinda torture device?" She pokes the spinning bristles, eyebrows shooting up inquisitively. She then presses it against her face, and her reaction to it is immediate unpleasantness, and you laugh at her.
"It just cleans your teeth, weirdo." You grab it from her, turning the annoying music off and placing it back onto the shelf. "Although, I bet I could find a way to torture someone with it."
"Let's test it on Peridot." She grins, eyes a little gleeful.
"Do you really want to try her? See what she's capable of?" You ask her, trying to stifle your laughter.
"Oh, jeez, 'ya probably right. Pretty sure she'd tie me to a chair and make me watch reruns with her." She answers disdainfully. “Maybe Lapis, then.”
“If you want to drown, sure.”
She continues to peer at the many kid’s toothbrushes on this shelf, and you walk a couple feet over to grab shower supplies. You toss a couple more objects into your cart, nabbing a pack of toilet paper as well and tossing it in.
“What’s this?” You hear her ask, and when you turn to glance at her she’s got a bottle in her hand. It looks like some ibuprofen or tylenol.
“Painkillers. Toss that in the cart will you?”
“It.. kills pain?” She stares at the bottle. “Why do humans need doctors if they have this?”
“They only temporarily ease pain. Mainly for headaches and a sore back and stuff.”
“You meatbags come up with some weird stuff, there’s so many different types..” She grabs another couple bottles, squinting at them and them placing them back on the shelf.
“Yeah, well us meatbags had to create solutions to make our lives a little less awful.” You roll your eyes at her terminology. “Not that I’d expect a fucking rock to understand.”
“A fucking rock,” Her mouth is agape in offence, and she crosses her arms in a huff. It’s so fucking cute. “At least I don’t gotta eat.”
“You could. I bet you’d liiiiiike it.” 
“Yeah I’m ‘gonna pass on that one.” She scrunches her nose, as if the thought is wholly unappealing. You want to laugh.
“You liked sex.” You say bluntly, giving her a knowing look. She sputters, cheeks turning a much darker shade of pink.
“Shut upppppp! We’re in public, Y/N!” She glares at you, and you can’t stop yourself from grinning. 
A couple turns their cart into the aisle you’re in, and you decide to say nothing further.. For now.
You push your cart out of the aisle, Spinel instantly grabbing for your hand again. You like that she just does it whenever she wants to. 
You’re in the refrigeration section, and there’s a couple people here much to your displeasure. Some lady is loudly talking on the phone with one of her kids on speaker, and you glare a couple daggers her way even if she can’t see it.
Side-stepping a gem, you grab a block of cheese and some butter and you’re looking at the eggs when Spinel scoots right up to your side. She places her chin on your shoulder, and watches you open a carton to check the contents. The gesture has your heart doing a couple flips inside your ribcage.
“What ‘cha doooooin?” She inquires quite cutely, and you realize this probably looks weird to her.
“Trying to get a full, non cracked container of eggs.” You state. She grabs one from the open container you’re looking at. “Careful, only the outside is hard. The inside is kinda fluid-like.”
She squints at it in her palm. “That sounds disgusting. You eat these things like this? ‘Aint that crunchy?”
“You don’t eat it raw, normally.” You shoot her a quick look, and she’s looking at the egg like its existence disturbs her. “Most people cook them or add them to other things for consistency. Stop being so judgemental.”
“I’m not being judgemental..” She mutters, placing the egg back into your carton. This one’s got an egg that looks like it’s about to crack so you decide to put it back on the shelf. The woman talking on the phone near you howls out a laugh. “That lady sure is ‘annoying.” Her breath tickles your neck, and you hold back a shudder. 
“Yeah, I hate people like her. It’s fucking rude honestly.” You mutter back, grabbing a different carton. The last three had eggs missing, weirdly enough. Are people just taking single eggs and sticking them in their pockets? “Like how hard is it to just place it against your ear? Why do the rest of us give a shit about what you’re eating for brunch tomorrow?” Spinel chuckles, vibrating against your shoulder. “I ever tell ‘ya that you’re amusing?”
“No, but I’ll remember that next time you call me unfunny.” This carton has all eggs intact inside, so you place it gently into your cart. 
“Psssshhh.” She replies, and you move over to grab a half gallon of milk. You open the door to where all the milk is refrigerated, and Spinel makes a weird noise of disgust. “What the fuck is that? Why’s it white?”
“It’s just milk.” You give her a look. “And it’s white because of the proteins, chill. It comes from cows.” You point to the cow on the carton of 2% you’re buying. “Fucking judgey-ass gems..”
“That animal is in there??” She makes a face. “You guys are so weird.”
“No, idiot,” You laugh, trying to not lose your shit at her conclusions. You point to the udder. “They produce it, it’s not their flesh. Humans can do it too..”
“Can you do it?” She stares at you strangely.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” You say, not wanting at all to elaborate on this and she barks out a laugh. You put the milk in the cart.
You’re in the bread aisle trying to figure out what kind of bagels you want, and Spinel is.. deeply studying the colorful bag clips hanging off the display strip on the side. You hear her grabbing the package and snapping the clips like crab claws, and you can’t help but snicker a little to yourself. 
She doesn’t seem to notice when you wander off to the other short bread aisle, because there's a few more options here that you want to look at. You missed bread so much that you’re feeling like you could eat all of them.. So you grab three different kinds to toss in the cart.
“Y/N?” You hear shuffling from the other aisle, and the rising panic in Spinel’s tone. “Where’d you go..?”
You walk back over to where you left her, and she looks slightly stressed out. She makes eye contact with you and visibly relaxes immediately.
“Sorry, I was just grabbing something from the other side.” You say to her, and her hand shoots out to grab onto your arm. “I wasn’t going to leave you, if that’s what you’re worried about..”
You raise an eyebrow, and she rubs the back of her head, embarrassed.
“Sorry, I know it’s irrational.”
You move your hand to lace your fingers with hers in comfort, palm fitting nicely against it. She seems a little taken aback with your gesture, but she doesn’t say anything by it.
“It’s not irrational.” You squeeze her hand, and seeing no one else around you, you lean in to give her a kiss on the cheek. 
“Y/N!” She hisses, looking around the aisle frantically as a small blush forms on her face. She places her other hand against where you kissed, like it’s somehow sacred. “In public?!”
“It’s not like there’s anyone around to see,” You can’t help the grin forming on your face. The lines on her cheeks look a little bolder with how flustered she is, and honestly? If you could pepper her face in kisses right now, you would. You’ve got this overwhelming amount of affection you’d like to give her, with nowhere to put it. Not until later, anyway. “God, you should see your face. It’s cute.”
“Will ‘ya shut up?!” She pointedly looks away from you, and you laugh. “I’m not cute.”
“I’ve got loads of proof that you are, but okay.” You give her hip a little bump, and her face looks back to yours to shoot out a glare that you’re not intimidated by in the least.
“Yeah, like what.”
“You know..” You trail off, and lean in close to the side of her face. You whisper something to her about the other morning, and she chokes, face going completely red. 
“I’m going to KILL you one of these days, Y/N.” She retorts, avoiding your eyes on purpose. You give her another nudge, and you can see her try desperately to stop the grin forming on her face.
“Let me at least finish shopping,” You reply, grabbing your cart to swing around to get a few more things on your mental list.
It doesn’t take that long to get the other staples you need, and before you know it you’re standing in line at checkout. You start placing your items on the belt once the other customer is finally paying, and you watch Spinel as she hilariously just tosses the items out of the cart and onto the conveyor. Ahhhhhh yeah you knew she wasn’t exactly graceful, but still.
“You find everything you need?” The cashier makes small talk with you, as you see her eyebrow raise at Spinel’s heart-shaped gem. Said gem seems utterly fascinated by the clerk’s bagging speed. 
“Yeah.” You politely answer, grabbing for your wallet as you watch the total rise. You maybe need another job, ugh..
Spinel raises an eyebrow and looks like she's about to say something asinine, so you step on her foot lightly to shut her up.
She yelps a little, and glares at you. You stifle a snicker, finishing the transaction so you two can get out of here. 
Once you're done, Spinel makes the effort of just placing the bags of groceries inside her gem conveniently, so you don't have to carry anything the short distance home. 
-
You don't give yourself the chance to relax much though because as soon as you get home and the groceries are put away, you've left Spinel to unpack your stuff as you go do a quick load of laundry.
The elevator dings and you're on the first floor again, hamper in hand. Opening the door to the communal washing room, you see several units here. There’s no one else around, and you’re so glad for that, honestly. Now you can look at memes in peace.
You fit all your clothes in one load thankfully, and you lean against the machine in wait after you fill what you need with soap. The wash cycle shouldn’t take too long, and you’ll go back upstairs briefly to help your girlfriend after you leave it on the drying cycle. You’re maybe in here alone for five minutes when a man and a giant basket of laundry comes in grunting. It’s another human.. You try not to stare too much.
“So, you live here?” He turns to say to you after dumping half his clothes in the machine in front of him. Of course he’s chatty.
“Yeah. Just moved in today.”
“Sweet, another human here! Now I won’t have to feel so alone.” He replies, swiping his brow lightly. He’s a bit older than you with some dark facial hair, and you don’t know how to say this.. He’s just extremely nonthreatening. “I live up on the 5th floor! Convenient for me since I work nearby, and the rent is so cheap..”
“How long have you lived here?” You ask, typing out a reply to Steven’s messages from earlier.
“A few months. It’s not as quiet as I hoped, gems are a bit on the wild side sometimes but everyone’s friendly!” He grins, pouring soap into his machine. “My boyfriend thinks it’s too loud, but he doesn’t pay the rent so he can’t complain. You live here alone?”
A boyfriend, huh? Maybe you can be friends with this guy.
“Nah, I moved in with my girlfriend.” You state, and the man just kinda stares at you for a moment, as he’s putting two and two together, realizing you’re the only two humans in the building.
“Are you dating a gem?” He asks a little apprehensively, and while you think you might be a little offended if someone else asked this way, the look on his face makes it obvious that he’s just extremely curious. “What’s that like?”
“Yes, and uh.” You stop, not knowing exactly how to answer, and the man barks out a laugh at the look on your face.
“You’re the only human I’ve ever met that’s dated a gem. I’m so telling my boyfriend, he’ll freak. He might have a buttload of questions for you next time I see you. Name’s George, by the way.” He holds out his hand in greeting.
“Y/N.” You take his hand to shake it, and the two of you talk for a little while as he asks you a few probing questions.
After ten minutes or so, your load is done and you put it in the dryer, saying your goodbyes to your new human neighbor.
On your way back upstairs, you manage to bump into a gem right as you turn to the hallway into your apartment.
“Oh! Pardon me,” The gem apologises, looking up from their cell phone.
It’s that same Rose Quartz from earlier.
“It’s you!” She says, slightly taken aback, but nonetheless pleased. “What do you happen to be doing here?”
“I live here.” You give her a small smile, and you notice her eyeing you up. Uh.
“That makes me very happy to hear.” She says in a way that kind of makes you a little nervous? 
“Well, it’s nice bumping into you here, I’ll see you around!” You make quick for your door, and she watches you the entire time, smile on her face. 
It gives you a bit of the heebie jeebies.
You slam the door behind you, and Spinel’s excited face greeting you immediately puts you at ease.
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bog-o-bones · 4 years
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Kaiju Media Forecast 2020
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The kaiju fandom has certainly seen a gigantic upswing in content since the last time I did one of these “year going forward” reviews. Let’s take a look at some of the major movies, events, merchandise and more that kaiju fans have to look forward to in the coming year!
Movies
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Every year since at least 2013, the kaiju fandom has had one “tentpole” film event of the year, usually the most highly anticipated feature coming out that year that most media and merchandise hype will surround. This year’s choice is the latest (and possibly last?) of the Legendary MonsterVerse which just last year introduced us to the first American incarnations of Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. Later this year, the King of the Monsters will once again take on the King of Skull Island in a rematch nearly 60 years in the making with Godzilla vs. Kong. The only snippet of footage we’ve seen is featured in the screenshot above and recently leaked toy fair displays have quite a lot in store for the big crossover event of the MonsterVerse. Godzilla vs. Kong drops November 20th.
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According to your definition, the first kaiju film of 2020 launched two weeks ago with Underwater. The Kristen Stewart-helmed deep-sea monster movie isn’t really making the splash it was looking for box office-wise and most people who have seen it say that it’s okay at worst. Regardless, if you like big monsters and quasi-Cloverfield type films, you can give it a shot in theaters now or in a few months when it hits home media.
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Godzilla’s sole big screen appearance won’t just be limited to the big crossover with Kong as a snow-covered cameo role will land him a spot in the new Shinkalion movie. From a clip posted on Yahoo Japan (refresh the page if it doesn’t work) Godzilla briefly faces Hatsune Miku piloting a giant train-based mecha (I tried pinching myself, believe me) at the very end. This role is likely going to be very short but nonetheless, it’s always satisfying to see Godzilla pop up in the most unexpected places.
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Again, stretching the definition of “kaiju” here, but also apparently the Monster Hunter movie still exists and is coming out later this year in September? I don’t know much about the franchise, but I do know it’s probably going to be butchered with a Paul W.S. Anderson directed schlock fest. Who knows, maybe the monster scenes will make up for it?
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As is tradition, the Ultraman franchise hits us once again with an annual theatrical movie based off the previous year’s show. Ultraman Taiga The Movie: New Generation Climax will be out in March and judging by the title, will feature a climactic event featuring the New Generation assortment of Ultraman heroes. I still have yet to see Taiga but hopefully this provides a fun conclusion to the show.
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Famed director Hideaki Anno returns to the world of his most famous creation with Evangelion 3.0+1.0, the highly anticipated final installment in the Rebuild series to be released this June. I have not seen any of the Rebuild movies myself but this is sure to be a wild and crazy ride for Evangelion fans.
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Finally, the oddball of the bunch. Kadokawa rises from it’s dusty grave with a brand new monster film focused on the unproduced predecessor to Gamera: Nezura 1964. Featuring giant rat monsters and a cast comprised of many Daiei/Kadokawa favorites, it’ll be interesting to see if this film can capitalize on the recent kaiju craze and be successful enough to possibly give our old turtle friend the revival he truly deserves. Nezura 1964 is due out in December in Japan.
Television
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Not much on the television docket this year. It’s far too early to speculate about Tsuburaya’s next Ultra series, leaving us with little to discuss. Studio Trigger is supposedly making some kind of new series related to it’s Gridman show from last year (another item I have yet to see). Titled SSSS.DYNAZENON, nobody knows when it’s due out so for all I know this could be a rather outdated entry.
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What we do know for sure is coming is something not particularly kaiju but still related via the tokusatsu connection is the continuation of Kamen Rider Zero-One, the first Rider series in Japan’s newly named Reiwa period. This isn’t really related to the year 2020 but honestly I’d rather have something in this TV section to talk about than just the Gridman sequel.
Merchandise
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Last year was one of the greatest years in the history of the American Ultraman fandom with the officially sanctioned releases of Ultra Q, Ultraman, Ultraseven, Ultraman Orb and Ultraman Geed to Blu-Ray in the West for the very first time. In this new year, Mill Creek will continue to satiate the needs of Western Ultra fans with releases of previously unseen-on-western-disc series Return of Ultraman, Ultraman Ace, Ultraman X, and the Ultraman Orb Origin Saga. A schedule flyer released online also teases many other entries in the franchise making the continuous release of these beloved shows a treat to look forward to. You can pre-order the four releases discussed above on Amazon.
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American toy company Playmates acquired the license for the Godzilla vs. Kong toyline last year and in early January, a few figures from their non-film focused toylines showed up at Walmarts across the country. They’re uh...well, let’s be honest: they’re not great. Leaked images of the Godzilla vs. Kong toyline were also shared around social media but I’ll avoid talking about them here for spoiler purposes. Let’s just say the line is looking mighty juicy for kaiju fans and it will be interesting to see if they’re promoted come New York Toy Fair.
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Bandai’s Movie Monsters Series line will likely continue to issue newly reissued/remolded monsters in the Godzilla line (as well as produce new figures for Godzilla vs. Kong) but coming out in March is a sight for sore eyes: a brand new sculpt of the 1995 Gamera design for the 25th anniversary of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Hopefully a Super Gyaos is not far behind!
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The S.H. MonsterArts line had a fairly predictable and underwhelming list of releases last year. Great figures for the most part, but obvious choices without much surprise. This being a movie year, I don’t expect much to change and we’ll likely see Godzilla vs. Kong figures soon enough. What is confirmed and releasing in May is their take on the Burning Godzilla design featured in Godzilla: King of the Monsters last year. Originally a Tamashii WebShop exclusive, it’s being released in America by Bluefin around June.
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Media company SRS Cinema continues to throw unexpected independent kaiju films our way with releases of Deep Sea Monster Reigo and Deep Sea Monster Raiga last year on limited Blu-Ray and wide-release DVD. They’ll continue the assortment this year with Attack of the Giant Teacher and Raiga vs. Ohga. The films likely won’t be much to look at, but more independent kaiju films seeing a western release is never a bad thing. Here’s hoping Daikaiju Eiga G or Gehara see a release soon.
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In an almost perfect repeat of Daiei and Toho’s box office bout sixty years ago, boutique label Arrow Video has reportedly secured the rights to the Gamera franchise and are planning a box set that could rival Criterion’s late 2019 release of the entire Showa Godzilla series. Arrow Video puts out sublime products and kaiju fans will likely want to keep their eyes peeled for this set, even if they’ve already secured Mill Creek’s rather dull bargain sets from years past.
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While not on the docket for tie-ins to Godzilla vs. Kong (yet), NECA will likely be continuing to pump out new figures in their Classic Godzilla line. No brand new sculpts are known at the moment, but fans can look forward to a blue, poster-styled repaint of their KOTM Mothra figure and some reissues of their older molds in new box-styled, poster-featuring packaging. Some, like the 1985 Godzilla, might even feature newly molded details.
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In rather shocking news, Media Blasters has seemingly propped one of its kaiju films up from the depths of licensing hell with an announcement of a Blu-Ray release of Gappa the Triphibian Monsters scheduled for a February release. The out-of-nowhere circumstances surrounding this release as well as a proclaimed inclusion of an “uncut” Japanese release (despite the International version containing more footage than the Japanese version) and Media Blasters rather spotty history regarding kaiju Blu-Rays should have folks taking this with a grain of salt until the actual discs are in collectors’ hands.
Events
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As per usual, the kaiju fan’s Woodstock G-FEST will be continuing it’s annual celebration of all things giant monster from July 10-12 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare in Rosemont, IL. No guest announcements at this time, but fans looking to go should register and book a hotel immediately as attendance will continue to spike and rooms in the convention’s hotel are already sold out.
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As is tradition, the San Diego Comic Con will take place this summer a week after G-FEST is over and will likely bring with it new information on Godzilla vs. Kong and many other kaiju-related media. NECA will possibly show off new figures and we may even see some post-2020 information on the MonsterVerse.
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Not necessarily guaranteed, but kaiju fans may also want to look out for this year’s New York ToyFair taking place in February. ToyFair has pretty much become the SDCC for toy collectors with many companies showing off their new products for the new year. Kaiju collectors will possibly get a glimpse at the Playmates Godzilla vs. Kong assortment as well as a few other possible surprise reveals from other companies like NECA or Diamond Select.
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2020 is looking to be a monstrous year for kaiju fans. Hopefully the fandom will enjoy everything to come from our favorite franchises.
Here’s to a happy 2020!
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badbookreviewclub · 4 years
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Complete Review: Insanity: Jeff the Killer by Neesha Nickleson
DISCLAIMER: There are spoilers in this review. I highly doubt you will have any plans to read this book, but if you don’t want it to be spoiled, just don’t read the review until after you’ve read the book. To take a break from Empress Theresa and the pain that it has been causing me, I decided to read a fanfiction that Neesha Nickleson, self-published and sold via Amazon. Insanity: Jeff the Killer is significantly shorter than Empress Theresa, at a grand total of 76 pages. On the Amazon listing, Nickleson admits in ‘Videos for this product’ section that she wrote the book when she was fifteen, which in itself is almost endearing to me. Apparently, she wrote it for a contest that Nickleson claims to have won. I’m not entirely sure what the contest was for, but kudos to her. Nickleson also comments that there’s a sequel to this book, however, I haven’t been able to find it.  Neesha if somehow by the will of the fates if you find this review; Please, I just want book two. When will you release book two for purchase? I need it in my life.  The Summary: “Bullies and liars beware: A new threat is arising. Naomi Jansen just wanted to have a normal carefree life until she met Jeff at summer camp. Jeff is a laid back teenage boy with a dark secret. Then one morning at camp, Naomi hears that one of her long time bullies, Mallory, was found dead in her cabin. Naomi suspects Jeff at first but then decides that he’s too sweet do something like that, until a series of events changes her mind and her outlook on sanity.”  This summary isn’t terrible, to be honest. I’ve read far worse, though personally there are a few things I don’t like about it. First of all, revealing that Naomi’s bully was killed. I know this isn’t much of a plot twist because it happens within the first couple of pages in the book, but it gets rid of a sense of mystery. Second, we don’t really know anything about the characters right off of the bat besides general characteristics. I would have preferred if Jeff’s characteristics were written from Naomi’s first impression, for example: “Jeff seemed like a laid back teenager, though when Naomi hangs out around him, the air feels off.” Not the best that could be done considering I literally just threw that out there, but there are small revisions that could be done to give more of a sense of mystery to the book and the characters without pulling from the content of the summary itself.  I do know that this book is quite literally about the Creepypasta, Jeff the Killer, so it isn’t as if anyone reading it has no idea who Jeff the Killer is, but I do feel like the point still stands. Just because a reader has an idea about the content of the book doesn’t give an author the excuse of revealing plot points in the summary. I do also understand that it was written when Nickleson was a fifteen-year-old, so I don’t hold much against her in that regard. Hell, I wrote shitty fanfiction when I was fifteen. However, if you are willing to publish your work online and even sell it, you are going to have to expect criticisms and reviews.  The Characters: Naomi Jansen - The main female lead, Neesha Nickleson’s original character. Jeff Woods - The main male lead, based heavily on if not is completely a mirror of the Creepypasta, Jeff the Killer. Liu Woods- Jeff’s brother, both in the story and in the world of Creepypasta. Based off of or mirrors the character of Liu Woods. Mallory - Naomi’s bully.  Randy - As per Nickleson’s descriptions, the “average-sized” skater boy. He’s the boss of Troy and Keith. Troy - the “fat” skater boy and can apparently run very fast. Keith - the “skinny” skater boy Plot Summary and Breakdown: Considering that the book is only 76 pages, there’s not much plot to it, but there is a plot. The entire book follows Jeff and Naomi around, from their first encounter at a summer camp to the ‘first day of school’ and finally to the moment when both of them snap and kill their families. It’s a fairly simple and straightforward plotline, which works to the advantage of the story at some points. At other points, however, the rapid pacing of the book can be incredibly confusing and makes little to no sense. There are a lot of logical gaps throughout the story that can leave a reader confused or holding their head in their hands, which I will go into as we delve into the storyline itself. Nickleson also has a tendency to flip between Jeff and Naomi’s perspective throughout the chapters, which is a problem within itself. Thankfully she does label in big and completely capitalized letters when she is switching perspectives, which makes it easier to follow along.  There can be a few problems with jumping perspectives in the middle of chapters because we lose connection with the character who was just narrating at times, though it can certainly help the book from becoming repetitive when you want to repeat a scene from a different perspective. In this case, however, it would have been best to completely write the book from third-person rather than jumping between first-person perspectives. First-person can work incredibly well for emotional impact and drawing the reader in, however, in my opinion, it is still possible to do that in a third-person perspective. Perhaps an author wouldn’t be able to do it as well, but in the case of Insanity: Jeff the Killer It would have worked just fine. We start off the book from Naomi’s perspective as her mom is dropping her off at Summer Camp. She is dropped off at a Summer Camp every single year, though this is the first year that she’s seen Jeff, so we could make the fairly logical guess that Jeff is new in town. Namoi’s first opinion of Jeff is that he’s a ‘weirdo’ for wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer. I honestly can’t blame Jeff for wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer because I do the exact same thing. Admittedly, the hoodie I wear in the middle of summer is a lightweight one, but I do. If I could go all year without ever having to stop wearing my jackets I would be so content (So, let’s stop global warming pls. It’s getting harder to wear jackets in the middle of summer. This is a terrible reason for wanting to stop global warming, but any reason to stop it is decent enough in my opinion). We don’t really get Jeff’s first impression of Naomi, but he does follow her and sit next to her to introduce himself because I guess she gave him a weird look. This is when we meet Mallory, who somehow already knows Jeff despite the fact that I thought he was new in town.  Mallory is a little asshole, ‘nuff said.  Just kidding, I have more to say. Mallory calls Jeff her “future husband Jeffy”. She also absolutely adores the color pink which we find out because she’s covered head-to-toe in pink. We also know that Mallory is Naomi’s longterm bully from the back summary, yet, she already knows who Jeff is despite the fact that I’m fairly certain that Jeff moved in. This was a little confusing for me, but I decided to just take it as a sign that Mallory had met Jeff when he arrived at camp and she decided right then and there that he would be her husband. It’s not entirely unreasonable for a teenage girl to say that about a boy that she finds attractive, right? I mean none of my friends ever said that about anyone that they found attractive, but it’s something that I’ve heard about happening. Mostly in movies, but I’m sure it happens elsewhere.  I think.  Maybe.  Anyways, Mallory basically attacks Naomi with a fucking pink and sparkly knife that her mom gave her. She cuts up Naomi’s arms, legs, back, and waist to prove that she’s better than her. This is where we learn that Mallory is a psychotic fucking bitch, and this is where Mallory kisses her life away. Naomi doesn’t tell anyone who could do something about it that Mallory did this to her and instead just fixes herself up. She does meet up with Jeff a little bit later and shows him what Mallory did, he feels bad about it because he just watched before passing out (I think).  A little later on Naomi goes to bed and has a dream about Jeff killing Mallory, we move on to the next chapter and SURPRISE Jeff killed Mallory and her entire cabin. Here’s where the first logical fail comes in; Rather than keeping everyone in the camp to be interviewed by the police or to keep the potential killer from running away, as soon as it is found out that Mallory and her entire cabin were brutally murdered, the camp decides to send them home early. From what I can gather, there’s a little voice in Jeff’s head that tells him to commit these violent acts, though it really only crops up when someone has hurt Naomi. This seems a little ridiculous to me considering that he literally just met her and as far as the book goes, it doesn’t seem like he had these violent tendencies before he knew her. However, Jeff doesn’t want her to find out that he was the murderer so when Naomi’s mom is giving them a ride home, he tries to hide the fact that there’s very clearly a bloodstain on the pocket of his white hoodie by saying that it’s spilled kool-aid. The bloodstain came from the knife he used to kill Mallory, which as far as I could figure out, isn’t a small knife. How Jeff got away with this, I will never ever know, nor do I think I could ever hope to know. Naomi excuses this and accepts it without question because she believes that Jeff is too sweet to have committed a brutal mass murder. I don’t know if this is naive or endearing that Naomi already seems to be falling for Jeff, though this is mostly from my own inference rather than any emotion that has been implied.  Emotion tends to be another problem throughout the book. There’s no emotion in it. The characters seem to be cold and blank slates, even when facing some pretty anxiety and adrenaline-inducing situations. Even when they’re potentially facing death, we don’t get much emotion out of it, and in this regard, the book tends to be pretty disappointing. The way that the plot is laid out, emotion is incredibly important to the story and so are their thoughts and opinions because it is supposed to be a total spiral into madness. When Jeff and Naomi both snap and lose their sanity, we don’t see that spiral, it’s sudden and jarring. There was no slow spiral or thoughts that circled down the drain faster and faster until both of them gave in. A little bit of that is implied with Jeff, which I’ll talk about later on, but the reader doesn’t get any of that from Naomi, making her sudden transition to insanity abrupt and with no foreshadowing other than it being blatantly stated on the back of the book.  However, I digress. Moving back onto the plot, we meet Liu when Jeff is dropped off at his own house. I assume Liu is around the same age as Jeff, though I’m not entirely sure on that point. This is were another logical fail comes in; Despite having been told only pages before that they were being sent home early from camp, apparently, the first day of school is tomorrow.  The rapid pacing of the book created this failure of logic and made me pause for a second to question just what I was reading. It only took a few seconds to remind myself that this was a book written by a fifteen-year-old and originally was posted as a fanfiction. Of course, that’s not to say that all fanfictions are bad, there are some absolutely amazing ones out there, but I do have yet to find one written by a fifteen-year-old that doesn’t have some error in logic. Nickleson just so happens to have more than a few errors, especially towards the end of the book.  Before the first day of school however, Jeff texts Naomi and tells her to go watch the news. So, she heads downstairs and turns it on. It’s a live report of Mallory’s mother accusing Naomi of killing Mallory. And, as it would turn out, they’re right out front of Naomi’s house as well which is rather convenient because they want to interrogate her on live TV and ask if she killed Mallory and why. Because, you know, having someone interrogated by the news rather than having the police interrogate them always goes well. Naomi exposes the cuts that Mallory gave her and essentially just calls Mallory a horrible person. There was no questioning here, the news reporter just accepting it without a single word and declaring Mallory a horrible person. Ultimately this whole episode and everything that Mallory has done is inconsequential to the rest of the book and everything is pointless.  I’m dragging on the longer side here, so I’ll try to speed things up so my review doesn’t end up as long as the actual book is. The first day of school comes and Jeff and Liu are waiting at the bus stop with Naomi. We meet the three skater boys here, Randy, Tony, and Keith. We realize that Jeff and Liu really are new to town because Randy tells them that the new kids have to pay a bus fee because they’re new. Rather than paying it though, they decide to fight. Jeff stabs Keith in the legs and the arms though this never really matters because Keith is fine. Jeff and Liu run to their house and Naomi runs to hers. A short while later Naomi shows up at Jeff’s house and claims to have knocked out the three boys with a metal baseball bat, though right after she did Randy somehow cut open her arm. Blah, blah, blah, they watch a movie, eat some pizza, and then Jeff makes his love confession to her by kissing her. Naomi reciprocates the love and BOOM I guess they’re dating now, how lovely.  Despite the fact that this is supposedly the first day of school nobody is questioning just why they’re playing hooky from school and just accept the fact that they’re not at school. A little while later they go back to Naomi’s house and we learn that Naomi’s mom was home the entire time. So why she didn’t go to her mom for help is beyond me. Naomi shoots at Randy with a bb gun and they all run off after coming after her and Jeff again. She then goes back to Jeff’s house with him for reasons even I don’t get because it seems like they’re just jumping between houses at this point. Liu gets arrested here after saying that he was the one who beat up the three boys, covering for Jeff. Jeff is upset about it and for some reason, Naomi is as well because she thinks that she could have had proof to stop them from arresting Liu despite the fact that she said only moments before that he’ll spend two days in jail at most. Liu doesn’t get a trial for this whole thing, which only makes it more confusing why he’s spending a few days at a Juvenal Detention Facility.  Related story time: When I was 12 I got into a big fight with some of the kids, enough so that the cops were involved. It was mostly just some throwing of hands and the boys shouting “punch her in the boob.” It happened because one of them, threatened to grope my 8-year-old sister, and as the big sister of the family, I couldn’t let that happen. I called him an idiot and we got into a fight. Nobody was arrested, nobody got into trouble with the police, just with their parents. There were a few bruises and a couple days later at school, the boy came up and apologized to me.  Look, I know Keith got stabbed in Jeff’s fight, but honestly, it’s never mentioned again and Keith runs like he didn’t get stabbed at all and acts like he didn’t ever get stabbed so I honestly don’t know if Nickleson remembers that Jeff stabbed Keith. As such, I think it’s a little ridiculous that Liu, a child, was arrested, and sent to Juvie without trial, for a fight when the three skater boys weren’t arrested either.  Moving along from that whole mess, Jeff and Naomi go to an 8-year-old’s birthday party because Jeff was invited by the kid’s mother after Jeff and his family moved into the neighborhood, and Naomi babysat the kid. Randy and Co. show up to the party and Naomi send all the children inside. The Co. have guns and are aiming them at the adults so they don’t try to interfere. Randy lunges at Jeff and Jeff fucking murders him. Keith obviously is upset by this and breaks a bottle of vodka over Jeff’s head after dropping his gun. I don’t know why he had a bottle of vodka or where he got it, but he has one. He then chases Jeff upstairs and to the bathroom and another fight breaks out. A bottle of bleach from a bathroom shelf falls onto Jeff and douses him in bleach. Keith points out that Jeff is now covered in bleach and vodka and proceeds to light him on fire. Bitch what the  f u c k.  I will admit, I do think that this is a creative solution as to why Jeff has bleached skin and does follow along well enough with the actual story of Jeff the Killer, so I am inclined to believe that Nickleson either did a bit of light research into his story or had some prior knowledge about it. This is one thing that I will give the book kudos on.  Jeff wakes up at the hospital, after the bandages are removed he finds out that his skin is bleached and he says that he loves it. Naomi apparently loves it as well and nobody in his family concerned in the slightest that Jeff loves it. We find out that Keith was caught though Tony managed to evade the police because as the reader learns earlier in the book, despite being larger in size, Tony can run like the fucking wind. This becomes a problem later on in the book because Tony comes back and shoots Naomi. Yes, Tony shoots Naomi despite insisting much earlier on that she wasn’t part of the dispute, only Jeff was. Jeff hears the gunshot and grabs the biggest knife he can find and from what I can tell, he murders Tony as well. There’s a little bit of a typo in this section, as instead of saying that Jeff murdered Tony, Nickleson says that Jeff murdered Keith. This threw me off a little bit before I realized that it was a typo. Jeff goes to the hospital though in the ambulance that Naomi’s mother called when she heard the gunshot. Because when you hear a gunshot, your first instinct is to call an ambulance and not go see what happened to see if everyone is fine first. This is really the first bit of emotion we see in the book because Jeff is pacing back and forth so much that Liu, who is out of juvie at this point, points out that Jeff is going to wear a hole into the floor. Turns out, Naomi is fine because the bullets missed her brain and her heart by a millimeter. Now I’m not a doctor, but I’m at least 80% sure that could still kill you. Not only would a bullet near the brain shatter the skull and cause hemorrhaging from the distance it was, but it would screw a lot up. The impact of a bullet that close to your heart would probably still do a lot of damage as well, and yet, Naomi is released from the hospital that night. I’m more than certain that the doctors would have kept her for observation, but I suppose not.  Before Naomi gets shot, we do get a decently sweet scene of Jeff dancing with Naomi, fulfilling a daydream she had of herself and Jeff dancing to a song called Fallen Angel. The artist of the song is never stated but apparently, it’s really good music for dancing and is appropriate enough for Naomi to daydream of herself and Jeff dancing to it in a ballroom. If anyone would care to fill me in on what song it could be, it would be much appreciated. The scene is short-lived though and doesn’t have as much emotion put into it as I would have liked. I think that it could be a beautifully sweet scene, though it isn’t. It isn’t a beautifully sweet scene simply because Nickleson doesn’t write descriptively enough to fill us in on what the characters are feeling. She tells us what they are feeling occasionally, but even then, it’s only on occasion and a story like this could greatly benefit from having emotions tied into it.  After Naomi gets shot and released from the hospital Jeff snaps. He can’t see how beautiful he is when his eyes are closed and when he’s sleeping, so he goes and burns off his eyelids and cuts his cheeks so he’s always smiling (as per the actual story of Jeff the Killer). He then murders his parents and stabs Liu. I’m not sure if Liu actually dies or not as in his story, he survives though Jeff cuts a smile into his face rather than just stabbing him. Jeff then goes over to Naomi’s house, potentially to kill her and her parents, I’m not sure. He finds Naomi playing the piano and when she turns to him, she has “a cut along both of her eyes and a heart carved into her cheek.” I assume that she has a line cut over the top and bottom of her eye, rather than on her eyes because holy fuck that would be intense. But she reassures Jeff that she finds him beautiful still and shows him that she murdered her parents too. Jeff and Naomi go missing after this and are only seen again when they show up at an interview with a ten-year-old boy whose parents they murdered. They had nearly killed him though they didn’t get the chance, so they decide to take action and killed him and the interviewer in the middle of the interview. Jeff and Naomi then make a promise to come and kill everyone else.  In the epilogue of the book, they show up to Slender Mansion, where they are warmly greeted by our friend, Slenderman whose movie in 2019 holds many nostalgic feelings for me but also sucked ass. If you don’t know what the Slender Mansion is, you can read about it here. It introduces you to what it is and is essentially just a giant rant about why it shouldn’t exist because it basically tells the canon of the creepypasta universe to fuck off as it does what it wants. It’s rather amusing, actually. Rating: 4/10 Ending Thoughts:  Overall, it was an enjoyable read when you didn’t think about it too much. It brought me back to my days of loving Creepypasta and everything to do with it. It was an endearing fanfiction to read, even if not written amazingly well. It was still better than Empress Theresa and was a much-needed break from that shit show of a book. I also want book two Neesha. You said you had book two and it was better than this one. Where is book two, Neesha?  I don’t know what I’m going to post next because I am genuinely dreading reading the next portion of Empress Theresa. It will probably take me longer to get through it as I want to do a couple of chapters in one go. Up next I’ll probably ready a book called The Rose Council, written by a man I absolutely despise. I’ll explain more in that post when I get around to doing it. Or perhaps, I’ll write a review on an actually good book for once. 
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recentanimenews · 4 years
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A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Kamen Rider
For fans all across Japan, Sunday mornings have long been Kamen Rider and Super Sentai time. The latter is well known to Western fans thanks to the Saban Entertainment version of the show, which took the original’s monster fight scenes and cut them with footage of American actors and released it in the U.S. as Power Rangers.
Kamen Rider received the same Saban treatment and was released in the states as Masked Rider (1995–1997), but for whatever reason, the adventures of the grasshopper-looking, super-strong, super-fast superhero never really caught on the way the Rangers did. This may soon change, though, thanks to streaming services like VRV, which is bringing the Kamen Rider shows to Western audiences. But after being out of the loop for five decades, newcomers to the series will rightfully have a lot of questions before deciding whether to give Kamen Rider a go or not. We will attempt to answer some of them.
  Who Is Kamen Rider?
    Well, that’s the thing, there isn’t just one Kamen Rider. There are currently 128 of them spread across 31 shows and a dozen or so movies, some of which crossover in significant ways while others are mostly stand-alone productions. However, while most Riders are unconnected to each other, they all share certain similarities. Near every Kamen Rider is a human endowed with amazing powers via one of your typical superhero origins: some are cyborgs, some wear power suits, some are magic users, one is technically a zombie resurrected by “Earth Spirits.” Stuff like that.
  The main Riders’ job is to save the Earth from threats that include everything from terrorist organizations to aliens, time-travelers, or ghosts. They also do this while wearing armor costumes and helmets equipped with bug-like eyes, with the overall insect theme being something of the characters’ most recognizable feature. Except during Kamen Rider Amazon when the show briefly experimented with a lizard motif. It thankfully didn’t last long.
    This is actually where the genius of the character’s vague name really comes through. By going with a name as generic as “Masked Rider” (the literal meaning of “Kamen Rider”) the show doesn’t restrict itself to any particular theme, tone, or setting. As long as you have a character that is masked and maybe occasionally rides a motorcycle, you have yourself a genuine Kamen Rider experience.
  How Did it All Begin?
    The first Kamen Rider debuted in 1971 and told the story of Takeshi Hongo, a brilliant biochemist and motorcycle enthusiast who gets kidnapped by the evil organization Shocker and turned into a cyborg soldier. Before they have the chance to brainwash him into becoming a mindless killing machine, though, Takeshi escapes and starts trying to dismantle Shocker as the masked superhero Kamen Rider.
  Another thing you should know about the character is that he was also wind-powered. Yeah, all his super strength, speed, and agility were all activated via a turbine in his “Typhoon Belt” which Takeshi needed to kickstart with a gust of wind, usually from riding his bike. Hey, they needed to justify the “Rider” part of the character’s identity somehow. The first series might appear a bit goofy (we didn’t even get to the part where Takeshi is supposed to have an IQ of 600), but there’s a kind of endearing quality to it. Those who love older sci-fi shows like the original Doctor Who or Star Trek are sure to get the same vibe from the original Kamen Rider.
It was also this incarnation that introduced the idea of having different Riders in the same show, which allowed the franchise to grow so much over the years, but the original’s legacy was never forgotten. For example, the newest Rider, from Kamen Rider Zero-One (2019-), sports a distinct grasshopper theme that’s a tribute to the Hongo character. Although his powers come from something much more realistic than the wind. He actually gets his weapon arsenal from an orbiting satellite where he also uploaded and enhanced his mind to learn how to become Kamen Rider Zero-One in seconds. See? Much more believable.
  So Where Should I Start?
    The first five Kamen Rider shows (Kamen Rider, V3, X, Amazon, and Stronger) are kind of a package deal. They have a lot of references to each other and are all tied together by the mentor character of Tobei Tachibana. Thematically, Amazon is the only odd one out of the entire group because of its inclusion of magic and its storylines. But besides that, the first five shows are almost one continuous story about the rise and fall of Shocker and all the revival evil organizations that came after it like Destron or the awesomely-named Black Satan. So a good place to start is actually at the very beginning with the original Kamen Rider, and if you don’t like it, there are a few other places you can try.
  Kamen Rider Black (1987–1988) was an early attempt to wipe the slate clean and introduce a Rider that didn’t come with homework. This series once again features a cyborg character, only this one battled a mysterious cult commanded by an “ultimate evil” called the Creation King, perfecting the mix of fantasy and sci-fi that would come to define many later Kamen Rider shows. The sequel series, however, once again veered into a shared Rider universe and might seem too convoluted for casual viewers. Fortunately, once we get into the Heisei era (1989–2019) Riders, things do calm down a little bit.
  Starting with Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000–2001), most shows can be enjoyed as stand-alone productions, even if they do have nods to previous incarnations and a crossover or two in the movies. Which Heisei Kamen Rider show to go with really depends on what you are into because most of them are about its One Thing — a main theme that inspires the look of the Rider, its enemies, the storyline, everything. You like cars? Then Kamen Rider Drive is just the show for you.
    You like Japanese mythology? You’ll love Kamen Rider Hibiki. In the mood for time-traveling trains? Check out Kamen Rider Den-O. Into spaceflight and rockets? All 48 episodes of Kamen Rider Fourze are waiting for you. Do you, for whatever reason, want to see Kamen Rider with a Fruit Samurai theme? Then the universe loves you because it has allowed Kamen Rider Gaim to exist. Whatever you’re into, there’s a chance that there’s a Rider show out there especially for you, and the vast majority of them can be enjoyed straight out of the box. So do some Googling, pick a show, and see why Japan has been in love with these masked superheroes for half a century.
  Do you love Kamen Rider? Which series is your favorite and why? Which show would you recommend to newcomers to the show? Let us know in the comment section!
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  Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.
Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!
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catcomixzstudios · 7 years
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How To Life Chapter 40 - Judaism
The Abrahamic Quartet Part I: Kill It Until It Gets Better
Man, I REALLY hope you end up liking the stories from this one, because at least three other chapters won’t be shutting the fuck up about how good this one is.
Welcome to part one of the story about the God of Abraham. This is all part of what is known as the Old Testament. The people who follow it today are called Jews, though they may also be referred to by several slurs as well because humans are pricks like that.
I have alot of issues with the faiths that sprung from Judaism, but I find this one itself nice overall. Generally speaking, Jewish people (whether devout followers or just culturally so) are pretty kind and laid back individuals. You probably won’t see any going door to door trying to convince you to join their faith. But the mostly calm nature of the people in the faith is almost baffling considering the God of it is completely and utterly psychotic.
As usual, let’s start from the beginning. God came and created the universe, planets, stars, and everything else in the span of a week (he takes a day off because even God needs a tiny vacation from all that). He got pretty proud of a certain place, the Garden of Eden. He creates two humans named Adam and Eve. God told them to have a good time and all that, but to NOT eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I assume that Adam and Eve had roughly the intelligence of squirrels, so that goes about as well as expected.
Later, a talking snake comes down from the tree and offers Eve an apple from it. Since Eve lacked the specific knowledge that would have told her this is a bad thing to do, she does it. And then gained the specific knowledge that that was a bad thing to do. Whoops. Of course she got Adam to try it too because she didn’t want to be the only one in trouble.
God showed back up and was pissed about what they did and told them to fuck off. This completely avoidable event is considered the fall of man. The pair had a couple of sons, and one of them infamously became the first murderer by killing his brother. Because God liked his sacrifice to him more. Everyone’s kind of a dick here. The murderer, Cain, is cursed and he became that person at the family reunion nobody talks about.
For many generations, people began to spread more and more. Apparently, everyone was totally evil and God decided “Fuck it, I’ll just kill everyone and start over.” As it turned out, the only not-evil people in the entire world are Noah and his family. He told Noah to get two of every animal and shove them on a huge-ass boat. Noah did, and then God flooded the Earth, killing literally every single other human being and creature. It’s okay, they were all allegedly bad. God said so. The waters recede, and he pinkie swears via rainbow to never commit mass genocide by flooding the Earth ever again. How thoughtful.
A short time after, a bunch of people try building a tower-city. This pisses God off for some reason and he separated them and made everyone speak different languages. Though their languages were now different, I imagine there was something they were all saying shortly after this that expressed their deep disagreement with that decision.
Eventually, we’re introduced to Abram. He heard a voice in his head claiming to be God that says he’ll have a ton of descendants, but they’ll be oppressed in a foreign land for several hundred years, BUT ALSO they’ll get a ton of land. Abram changed his name to Abraham and cut off part of his dick as a covenant between himself and this voice in his head. Thankfully everyone else went along with it too, or else he’d be considered nuts.
Soon enough, this voice in Abraham’s head calling itself God told him to murder his son to prove his loyalty. Without a moment’s hesitation, he’s totally willing to do it, but God stops him at the last minute like, “Jesus Christ bro, chill the fuck out.” I imagine Abraham’s relationship with his son from that point on was pretty shaky.
The next few sections are mostly God judging people and folks having kids that will impact later parts of the plot.
Past that, we get to the Exodus. The ruler of Egypt, called the Pharaoh, was getting freaked out about all the Israelites and wants all of the newborn babies thrown into the Nile River. One baby was saved by being put on a floating basket and is double saved by being rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter. She named him Moses and raised him. Moses was pretty happy with his life, then God appeared to him in a burning bush (it can never be anything normal with this guy). God tasked Moses with leading his people out of this hell-hole and to the land that was promised to Abraham.
Moses tried asking the Pharaoh nicely to let them go, but Pharaoh naturally didn’t want to lose his main workforce. God sent down a bunch of plagues on Egypt in response. Eventually Moses and the rest of the Israelites got the hell out, but they are pursued by the Pharaoh (a strange choice considering all of the plagues that were cast on him, but whatever). Moses is a level 10 wizard or something so he parted a sea as a way for his people to safely cross and escape the pursuing Egyptians. As one last “fuck you” to them, the sea closed up on and killed them.
After the Israelites escaped, they pretty much wandered the desert for a while. They rightfully panicked about dying, but God created water and magic for them. They eventually reached a mountain that Moses ascended to speak with God. After a bunch of climbing back and forth with various people, God eventually bestowed his most important laws with Moses; the Ten Commandments.
While that was going on, everyone ground-level started getting antsy. They just kind of forgot about all of the awesome stuff God had done for them and just started worshiping a golden calf they made. God’s naturally pissed, but Moses pleaded for him not to kill them all. Then later, the original tablets that contained the Ten Commandments are busted, so Moses had to go up the mountain AGAIN. It’s kind of a bad day all around.
Once that’s finished, he went down to them all and preached all of the important stuff for the faith. The identity of this religion truly took form. And I’m sure nothing bad ever happened to those people or their descendants ever again.
That’s pretty much the major stuff from the Old Testament. Most of the stories beyond that are about the spread of God’s people. They can usually be summarized as “A follower of God (or many) isn’t/aren’t having a good time. Some less faithful/non-believers are ruining it for everybody else. God/his follower(s) kill the shit out of that person.” It does sequel-bait a bit by mentioning awaiting the arrival of a messiah that’ll make everything super rad. And boy howdy, will there be sequels.
I will admit that Judaism is, like just about every other major faith we know about, very fascinating to study and sprung up a beautiful culture. One point of interest is that it’s a faith following a single god rather than hundreds. This is actually kind of problematic; at least when there are a ton of gods, they usually keep themselves busy by being dicks to one another. Sure, humans usually got caught in the crossfire, but we weren’t usually the target. Here… well, things take an uncomfortable turn.
I personally take a more critical view of this faith when it comes to the god. I have no qualms with saying that he’s a complete asshole. Worse yet, he blames us for everything that goes wrong, even when he’s clearly the one who screwed up. Beyond the introductory parts, God gets more and more bloodthirsty.
At least if it had a neat afterlife, I might get excited, but there really isn’t much mention of it in Judaism. It’s mostly just God being a weird prick (my favorite example of this is 2 Kings 2:23-:24, where God sends two bears to murder 42 children for making fun of a guy that was bald).
GOOD IDEAS:
- A vast majority of Jewish people (culturally or religiously) are very good people despite the fucked-up deity at the center of it.
- Books like Ecclesiastes have some good bits of advice.
- The sequels are generally more tame (if a bit boring).
BAD IDEAS:
- Lots and lots of murder, rape, slavery, and occasionally misogyny.
- Has a “might makes right” mentality about most things.
- Monotheism is less exciting and means more humans getting their shit pushed in.
LIKELIHOOD OF TRUTH: ~44%. The beginning of the Abrahamic God’s quartet is one of confusing dickishness and murder. I can see the appeal of a single god that actually seems interested in the well-being of humanity (or at least, the part that worships him), but beyond a few good aspects sprinkled in here and there, it’s mainly just unpleasant. Thankfully though, God apparently chills out between the Old and New Testament.
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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years
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The Weekend Warrior 4/9/21: VOYAGERS, THUNDER FORCE, HELD, THE POWER
Well, things certainly picked up last week, didn’t they? We finally had a relatively big hit with Kong vs. Godzilla, and by that, I mean that it made more in its first five days than most of the other pandemic releases have made during their entire theatrical runs. Sure, it’s great start and a good sign for the recovering theatrical economy, but it’s just a mere start. It will be a long time before theaters can be safe for larger crowds of 50% or more and that’s probably going to be needed to counter-balance the cost of keeping these theaters open. L.A., which reopened after NYC, seems to be going that route, while Cuomo still seems to care more about other businesses and artforms. It’s been a month since NYC theaters opened at 25% capacity or 50 people tops, and other theaters and venues are opening with up to 150 people, so I’m not sure what Cuomo is waiting for. It’s fine, even if it’s the same old shit we’ve been dealing with for a year.
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The widest release of the week is Neil Burger’s original sci-fi thriller VOYAGERS (Liongate), starring Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp and Fionn Whitehead (from Dunkirk), and this is an interesting high-concept movie that feels a bit like “Lord of the Flies” in space. Set in 2063, Farrell plays a counselor put in charge of a group of bioengineered teens shot into space in order to populate a new world hundreds of light years away, a trip that will take them 90 years. Things soon start to go wrong as the kids learn that the “blue” drink they’ve been taking is meant to repress their emotions and urges so that they don’t have so much sex that the cramped ship becomes overpopulated before they get to the new earth. Two of the teens, Sheridan’s Christopher and Whitehead’s Zack, discover this info about the “blue” and decide to stop taking it, and then other stuff happens.
Voyagers is definitely a fairly high concept space movie that you’re likely to appreciate more if you don’t know too much about what happens as it goes along. Colin Farrell has a decent role as the mentor and overseer of these bioengineered kids in space, but at times, it goes into fairly expected places once the kids start getting off the “blue,” creating a conflict between Christopher and Zac, especially since both have their eye on Depp’s Sela.
Of course, comparisons will be made to the fairly recent outer space movie Passengers, mainly due to the long space travel trip, but this is more about a lot of young people cramped into a spaceship and testing out their muscle as they start getting physical in more ways than one. The look and feel of the film is partially what makes the film so intriguing, as it seems to be influenced by films like George Lucas’ THX-1138 or of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but this is a far more primal film rather than one that necessarily tries to be cerebral.
Although the performances are a little flat, possibly as a deliberate decision, the film does build to a fairly satisfying climax and ending, and I quite enjoyed Neil Burger’s exploration of more literary science fiction and world building than other films of this ilk.
As far as box office, I wish I was a little more confident in the movie, although I don’t even know if this will get released into 2,000 theaters by Lionsgate, and there’s still that relatively huge Godzilla vs Kong, which is likely to drop 55% or more in its second weekend but that’s still a second weekend of $14.5 million, which isn’t attainable by Voyagers. I figure this will be shooting for second place with around $4 or 5 million just based on the genre and lack of much else for young people in theaters.
You can also read my interview with Neil Burger over at Below the Line
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Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer star in Ben Falcone’s new superhero comedy, THUNDER FORCE, which will stream on Netflix starting Friday, and while I’m under embargo until then, there isn’t a ton that I can say as you read this. McCarthy and Spencer play Lydia Berman and Emily Stanton, two very different people we meet when they’re young girls living in a world where people who have powers are known as Miscreants, and they dream about having powers themselves but as teens, they have a falling out. Many decades later, they reconnect and Emily has a teen daughter Tracy (Taylor Mosby) and the two end up taking part in an experiment to get super powers themselves, sort of. Thunder Force hits Netflix on Friday and hopefully I’ll have a review to share just as it goes live.
MINI-REVIEW (Coming Soon!)
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We have quite a bit of horror this week, including HELD (Magnet Releasing), the new thriller from the directors of The Gallows and its sequel, Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing. The movie stars Jill Awbrey, who also wrote the script, as Emma Barrett, a woman in a marriage that’s having problems but is really put to the test when she and her husband Henry (Bart Johnson) decide to spend a romantic weekend away and end up trapped in a luxury home by a malevolent voice commanding them to do whatever he tells them.
I was really hoping to like this one because I was hoping for it to be an original take on the home terror genre, but it opens with a fairly ugly date rape sequence that doesn’t seem to do much for the story when it’s introduced. At first, I thought that maybe that’s an important set-up for what’s to happen later, but it’s actually a bit of a skeevy red herring. This story really begins when Awbrey’s Emma arrives at a luxurious house and waits for her husband to arrive. The first night they’re there, a mysterious man in a leather mask visits them and actually changes Emma into a different night gown. Once the couple realizes that they were drugged and something happened to them while they slept, a voice over an intercom starts to make demands on them, giving them massive shocks when they disobey.
There’s so much potential in this premise but the fact is that neither Awbrey nor Johnson are particularly good actors, and while I’ve never actually seen The Gallows, I wasn’t particularly impressed by Cluff nor Lofing as directors either. They do a fine job with creating the proper mood and environment but there’s aspects to the movie that feel so skeevy that it was really hard to get into much of this.
While Held isn’t violent enough to be considered “torture porn” perse, there’s something quite voyeuristic about it that I found disturbing and not in a good way that a thriller might make you feel uncomfortable. The situation gets worse and worse, almost painful to watch at times, leading to a pretty awful Stepford Wives rip-off of a twist that really seems to come out of nowhere.
While Held might start off like it another one of those #MeToo revenge thrillers, by the end, it becomes far clearer that this was not a particularly well-thought premise that just goes downhill as the filmmakers try to prove themselves to be far more clever than they actually are. The whole thing just feels kind of ugly and unpleasant.
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While we’re into the horror section of this week’s Weekend Warrior, streaming on Shudder starting Thursday is Corrina Faith’s THE POWER, a period horror film starring Rose Williams as Val, the newest matron at a big scary hospital during wartime in London when power is being shut off at night to conserve energy.
This very eerie horror film already has a pretty daunting setting by being set in one of those old hospitals during wartime, where there isn’t a ton of things going on but when the power goes out, things start getting crazy as Val starts seeing and experiencing things in the dark, only really having a gas lantern to light her way.
I wasn’t really familiar with Rose Williams, but she gives an amazing performance as a seemingly innocent matron who is particularly scared of the dark and who gets thrown into so many horrifying incidents that she goes through this remarkable transformation from the introduction until the end. There’s also a great group of characters around her, including the evil blonde Babs (Emma Rigby), a bully from Val’s past (a real c-word) and a number of creepy male characters with seemingly lecherous intentions. Another level is brought to the mix by the young girl named Saba (Shakira Rahman) who Val bonds with and tries to protect from whatever malevolent spirit is haunting the hospital.
Faith’s debut feature is quite an achievement, and it certainly feels like she and Williams are two women to watch, because they’re destined to do interesting projects in the future. In the meantime, this is another great offering by the horror streamer that’s really been delivering the goods the past two years. (I also point out how much I loved the score by Gazelle Twin, who also scored the Blumhouse/Amazon horror film Nocturne.)
I haven’t had a chance to see Oliver Hermanus’ BAFTA-nominated MOFFIE (IFC Films) yet, but it’s definitely on my radar as a film set in 1981 South Africa as the white minority government is in a conflict on the southern Angolan border. Nicholas Van der Swart, like all white boys over 16, has to spend two years of compulsory military service to defend the Apartheid regime from “die swart gevaar” (the so-called black danger) is at its height but Nicholas must face the brutality of the army as he makes a connection with his fellow recruit. Definitely gonna try to watch this when time permits, although this coming weekend, there are four awards shows I’m covering for Below the Line.
On Sunday, I watched this amazing independent coming-of-age film called GIANTS BEING LONELY (Gravitas Ventures), written and directed by Grear Patterson, which played at the Metrograph as part of its Live Screening series, plus it will also be released via digital download this week. It stars brothers Jack Irving and Ben Irving as small-town football heroes Bobby and Adam, both of whom have caught the eye of Lily Gavin’s Caroline, but both boys have family issues, Adam whose father (Gabe Fazio) is the coach, and Bobby who is sleeping with the coach’s wife. It’s a pretty amazing movie that reminded me of early Richard Linklater, because it’s so raw and honest in dealing with young people in a small town that goes into some really dark places as it goes along. It’s now available via DVD, Blu-ray and On Demand.
Also, fans of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors will get to see the movie as part of the Metrograph’s Live Screenings program from now through next Tuesday. ($5 a month for a digital membership!) Also playing at the Metrograph until Monday is Michael and Christian Blackwood’s doc Monk (1968) about Thelonious Monk, which is running until Monday and then followed by Monk in Europe starting next Tuesday. Orson Welles’ The Stranger will start streaming Monday for a week On Demand as part of the Metrograph’s “Welles Monday.”
As mentioned last week, New York’s Film Forum is also reopened, and I watched Fellini’s La Strada this past Sunday, which has been extended until April 15. Hitchcock’s Rear Window will also play for a week starting Friday, while Pedro Almodovar’s The Human Voice and A Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the doc The Truffle Hunters will continue in the theater, as well as the Film Forum’s terrific Virtual Cinema programming, which has added Eric Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime.
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Also, now available via digital is Michael Carnick’s THE FORBIDDEN WISH (Conduit Now), a two-hander drama that follows a young man named Isaac (John Berchtold) who visits an Ethiopian born rabbi named Nate (Sammy Rotibi) on the eve of Yom Kippur, Isaac wanting Nate to read him the Mourner’s Kaddish. I have to say that part of me really hated this movie because Berchtold just isn’t as strong an actor as Rotibi, but the writing itself is quite wearisome and not great, although it did grow on me as the scene between the two gets more dramatic and emotional. Still, it’s hard not to imagine this more as a filmed stage play then an actual movie, and maybe I just didn't understand what Carnick was trying to say with this meeting of two men from different backgrounds.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video this Friday is the new horror anthology series, THEM, which I haven’t watched yet but hearing mixed things. Hope to write more about this once I get a chance to watch.
Other films out this week include Charlene Favier’s #MeToo drama Slalom (Kino Lorber), which will play at the Quad Cinema in New York, and Khyentse Norbu’s Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache (Abramorama), which will be available digitally.
That’s it for this week. Next week was supposed to be the release of Warner Bros’ new Mortal Kombat movie, but that was delayed a week, which means the only wide-ish release is Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (NEON), which premiered at Sundance earlier this year.
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rate-out-of-10 · 6 years
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STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II REVIEW
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Two years after the mixed bag that was the rebooted shooter, Star Wars: Battlefront (2015), developer DICE is back with production company EA to bring their Star Wars license to new heights, and hit the notes that were promised in the original game. Battlefront II takes a lot of cues from fans and critics of the first, in many ways is an improvement on the original while keeping the parts did work well, like the fantastic sound score, graphics, and gameplay.
NOTE: My review of Star Wars: Battlefront II is based off my experience with the game on PlayStation 4.
A Much Needed Story
Probably the most substantial addition to Battlefront II is the inclusion of a full cinematic campaign. Battlefront II takes place at the end of the Return of the Jedi (1983) film and mainly follows an Imperial Inferno Squad member, Commander Iden Versio. Overall, the campaign I thought was very well done. Cinematics were top notch and the voice casting was great. Iden Versio became a standout character by the end. She began as somewhat very stoic and unemotional, but through the campaign she opened up quite a bit and became a very strong personality on screen. What the campaign did unexpectedly well was the inclusion of switching perspectives through the story. There are missions placed intermittently where you play as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian. I was very surprised by these segments, mostly because I wasn’t expecting to play as heroes. Luke is the first you play as in the campaign and I was stoked to have that saber in my hands and have the power of The Force. The game is also interlaced with several flying sections, having you pilot TIE fighters and X-Wings. The variance of gameplay was fantastic. Also, you could customize Iden’s loadouts through the story too. You begin each mission with an already curated loadout that the developers thought to be good to play with through that particular mission but there are creates you come across that allow you to choose different abilities and specials and weapons. You’re also able to access this menu upon death. The campaign started out extremely well. The opening mission has you take control of a droid first thing and break Iden out of Rebel containment. It’s a stealth section to kick off the story that I very much appreciated; but once you free Iden and take control of her, the action kicks up immediately as you begin blowing away Rebel soldiers. By the end of the campaign I was feeling very excited and was enjoying myself very much. For what it is, a story that now exists within the film canon, it’s really good.
If anything negative can be taken away from the Battlefront II campaign is that it was pretty short. Maybe 5, 6 hours at most. I wish they would’ve delved a little deeper into Iden and her loyalty to the Empire, her relationship to her father, Admiral Versio, her friendship with her Inferno squad mates, Del and Hask. The pacing of the campaign felt very quick, jumping from moment to moment, battle to battle, without ever taking a substantial breath. It was fun, don’t get me wrong. It never felt dull or played out too much; I was very happily drawn into the story. But I will also say that the perspective of playing from the Imperial perspective was fun and intriguing, however it was over far too quickly, as Iden defects and reluctantly joins the Rebels. It’s just another drawback from how short the game was. Also, there was a section where you play as Han Solo who is trying to procure top secret information regarding the Imperial occupation of Kashyyyk, the Wookie home world. I was excited to drop in on the planet and free the Wookies that have most likely been living in slavery and tyranny since the ending of Revenge of the Sith (2005). Will it be a part of a future story DLC? I sure hope so, I definitely don’t want to wait for Battlefront III to have that answered.
Speaking of a prospect Battlefront III, I did not like the cliffhanger ending that the campaign ended on. The epilogue section has you playing as Kylo Ren decades after the main events of the campaign, and that was fun and all, but after the events of this final chapter, you’re itching to get the controller back in your hands and play as an older Iden and fight the early spawn of The First Order. But it leaves you hanging, almost insultingly. With the pushback on the first game’s lack of campaign and story, this game’s campaign had to be definitive, and part of that definition comes from conclusiveness, but we don’t get that here unfortunately.
Gameplay & the Multiplayer
The first Battlefront game brought the excitement of Star Wars to next-gen consoles in a big way. Classic locations and hero characters battling it out on beautiful maps backed by the iconic John Williams score. Battlefront II brings back all of those iconic aspects, thankfully. The game feels smooth and authentic to the Star Wars universe.
Before I get into the online multiplayer I do want to talk about the “Arcade” mode that was placed in the game. The first Battlefront had a place in the game they passed off as “missions”, where they were actually just a short few mini-missions and the Survival game mode (basically horde mode) on the multiplayer maps. Battlefront II’s Arcade section of the game has a section for “Battle Scenarios” where there are eight missions on both the Light Side and the Dark Side and they’re basically bot matches, you just get to control heroes. There’s also some Split-Screen arcade parts where you can load in bot matches with some customizable options and either play together as allies or versus each other. Aside from the Split-Screen bot games, I’d would have completely substituted out the Battle Scenarios for Galactic Conquest. I know I’m probably the millionth person to ask for Galactic Conquest back from Battlefront II (2005) but it’s a staple to the Battlefront franchise now, and to willingly omit that game type in place of useless and boring Battle Scenarios, it’s a little insulting and lazy. There are plenty of locations in this game that could’ve supported Galactic Conquest. It could’ve gone through all three eras, starting in the Clone Wars, through the original trilogy’s Empire, and then in the sequel’s First Order Era. It could’ve been a great addition that could be played solo or split-screen; I’m not even asking for online, just solo or split-screen, that’s it. That would’ve been great. But no. We get Battle Scenarios instead.
Another piece of the multiplayer is the Star Cards and gear customization. To a lot of pushback, Battlefront II has an in-game currency and crafting system for players to purchase new items and abilities. The micro-transactions is a big piece of controversy for the game, it came under a lot of fire pre-release for its questionable loot crate system, many people were afraid that the game is pay-to-win. But since the early release for Deluxe edition owners, the general manager at DICE, Oskar Gabrielson announced that they were going to suspend the in-game purchases of crystals within the game and focus on progression through game play. I have to give points to DICE on this one. I have no doubt it was the execs at EA that pushed for micro-transactions and give props to DICE  for basically going against their major publisher for their players.
But other than this, the game still has a few problems within the progression. There are now four basic classes (Assault, Heavy, Officer, and Specialist) and each has their own unique abilities and special weapons to use. What makes these classes a little underwhelming is that the weapons they have are extremely limited. Each class has only four guns to use. To make matters worse, the guns aren’t too different from one another. There needs to be more variance with the class weapons. However the special star cards you can get for the classes do vary a good amount and they each have their own use on each map with each game type. Hero characters return and they’re a lot of fun to play. Jedi, specifically, got a tune up. I use to favor the gunner types like Han Solo, but now for reason I like the Jedi more. Perhaps it’s the additions of Kylo Ren and Rey. Finally, you’re able to use heroes based on your in-game performance. You earn Battle Points through games via kills, objective plays, etc. and you can choose to play a hero by spending those points in-game.
There is a lot of give and take with the multiplayer in Battlefront II. The game type list has shorted to five modes, but I really enjoy each mode. Heroes vs. Villains returns and gets a nice tune up. There aren’t any random troopers ruining the hero fights anymore; instead it’s a 4v4 match with each player as a hero. Each round, there is a Target player that the opposing team has to eliminate. First team to 10 eliminations wins. This is a lot of fun. It gives everyone the opportunity to play as some of their favorite heroes. There are a lot of tense moments through these matches and great 1v1s. Boba Fett still destroys everything, some heroes still need to be rebalanced. The major game type in the Balltlefront II is Galactic Assault, a 40 player dynamic objective mode. Galactic Assault is a lot of fun. The games rely heavily on teamwork, some games can be tense, close battles, or completely one-sided blow outs. The games that last are the best ones. There’s plenty to enjoy in these game types for the competitive gamers and the casuals.
Final Rating 7.75/10
It’s a definite improvement upon the working formula that was introduced to us in the first Battlefront. Game play remains tight and enjoyable, and the visuals and sound design/score is impeccable. Battlefront II is definitely one of the best looking games out right now. The campaign is admirable really. Iden Versio is likable and is well written. I really wish it were longer allowing the story to explore this extended piece of the universe more deeply, but I enjoyed the campaign very much overall. The multiplayer is a mixed bag, yet again. The game play remains strong and the game modes are truly fun in their own right. However, the progression and loot system is where the game begins to rust up. Battlefront II needs to be straight forward with its progression. A basic reward system based on gameplay achievements and time is the clearest way to move forward with the future of Battlefront. I hope DICE takes these lessons into serious consideration and push even further to make the best Star Wars game possible. But for now, this will do just fine. Future free DLC is very exciting; I hope in-game tune ups and restructure is also on the menu.
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mukyoucom · 7 years
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How the Iconic Wipeout Series Was Born
From Playstation Blog USA
“It’s only really many years later when you have the benefit of hindsight that you look at the idea, the art direction, the soundtrack, the platform… and it’s all just perfect timing. Those moments don’t come along very often.” – Nick Burcombe, co-creator, WipEout (1995)
WipEout hit 1995 with the force of an earthquake. Its sci-fi vision of armed anti-grav craft battling it out at 1,2000kph for gold and glory on twisting, vertigo-inducing race tracks couldn’t have been further removed from the quintessentially English pub in which it was conceived. Yet it felt perfectly in sync with the world it roared into like a supercharged sci-fi colossus.
Birthed in Liverpool, England and deployed on PS One’s bleeding edge tech, WipEout dropped into the eye of a raging cultural storm that was gripping the United Kingdom. Yet while it embodied the zeitgeist of ‘Cool Britannia’ – a celebration of the country’s beautiful collision of movies, music, art, club culture – its impact wasn’t restricted by geography. Cool Britannia’s epicentre was the British Isles. WipEout’s was anywhere a PlayStation was hooked up to a TV.
How the Future of Racing Started in an English Pub
WipEout was the child of a concept pitch and a vivid memory. The two met in a pub just outside Liverpool in the early ’90s, introduced by a pair of Psygnosis developers – designer Nick Burcombe and artist Jim Bowers. The drinking establishment was a regular haunt for studio staff of which Bowers and Burcombe were two. They’d regularly meet and bounce ideas of each other.
Years earlier, Bowers had created a concept movie of two wedged ships dogfighting along a race track, firing missiles at one another before soaring round a huge loop.
He’d showed it to Burcombe, who recalled the footage when regaling Bowers with a story of how he’d overcome a particularly difficult race in Super Mario Kart by turning the TV’s volume off and cranking up a trance track (‘Age of Love’ by Age of Love) on his hi-fi.
“I had a zen moment were everything flowed perfectly,” remembers Burcombe. That sense of exhilaration as the music reached its peak as he crossed the finish line “was the moment I knew I wanted to make a game that did that to you.”
He envisioned doing the same to Bowers’ concept, setting the piece to a Liam Howlett cover of surf track ‘Wipe Out’ that broke out into the Prodigy’s ‘No Good’.
“I think that was the moment we could both see immediately what the game could be,” Nick says. “Even if it was in our slightly sozzled minds’ eye.”
The concept was gold. But there were two other key elements that helped turn the concept into reality.
How the CD-ROM and the Movie Hackers Made WipEout a Reality
In the early ’90s Psygnosis was making inroads in two key areas. Alongside researching CD-ROM technology on the belief it’d soon be the next big shift in the industry, its Advanced Technology Group art team were getting to grips with 3D modelling. The result was a pair of arcade shooters, Microcosm and Novastorm (the latter, designed from scratch by Burcombe, offered a heavier emphasis on sci-fi).
Unbeknownst to Psygnosis, Sony’s PlayStation console would also use the technology. Impressed by the studio’s output, Sony would soon buy the studio outright and put it to work creating a game for its debut games machine.
At the same time, Sony Pictures approached the studio to create a gameplay sequence for a scene in its movie Hackers. Bowers and Burcombe saw their chance to solidify the idea born from their recent pub conversation. A tight deadline meant there couldn’t be any fat, and the pair raced to refine their initial idea. Burcombe focused on vertigo-inducing track design while Bowers added pop-up walls that could be shot to access new sections of the level.
Their work paid off. So impressed by the concept, when the studio took delivery of its first PSone development kits, Burcombe was put in charge of creating its debut title. “I think [my boss John White] and Jimmy knew I had something in my head that I wanted to get out,” Nick theorises.
Tracks, Setting, and the Feel of Anti-grav
Initial focus was on perfecting track design. Trackside details, the game’s overall tone and theme were secondary.
“I was much more concerned with the length of straight, steepness of elevation, frequency of undulations and the tightness or camber of chicanes and corners,” says Burcombe.
The designer also had a clear idea about the weapons pilots could use during the races, stating that everything initially designed made it into the final game.
The 2052 setting was picked because of its relative proximity to the modern day. Close enough to relate to (“it should still be recognisable. An arbitrary date – like 3231AD – would mean nothing to me”) but still offer a tantalising glimpse into future tech such as anti-gravity, which would be the cornerstone of WipEout’s feel.
“For some bizarre reason, I’d use vocal sound effects to really emphasise the weight of something or the inertia and drift,” recalls Burcombe of trying to convey the feeling of anti-grav to the rest of the team. “So I’d have to say it is a testament to the programming team who actually understood what I was trying to achieve.”
How the Iconic Soundtrack Emerged
You can’t talk WipEout without discussing its soundtrack. At a time when licenced music was a rarity in the industry, it was a combination of Sony’s extra marketing heft – specifically tapping into Sony’s music label – and an early demo of the game that secured the title’s first artist. Burcombe headed to London to meet Phil and Paul Hartnol – better known as dance outfit Orbital.
“We got talking about [the demo we showed them] and they were really enthused.They took us down to the studio to play me a track they had called P.ET.R.O.L. After some remixing and reworking – this track actually ended up on the disc. I think once that contact had been made, it was easier to get some others.”
Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers soon followed, and the game’s success greenlit further collaborations in sequels with the likes of FSOL, Fluke, Underworld, Prodigy, Photek and more. “It was a who’s who of the ’90s dance scene,” Nick says as he runs down the artist list.
Restarting the Project and Finishing the Game
Yet despite discussing the initial concept at length and fine-tuning it before full production began, creating a fully textured, real-time 3D game proved challenging, to the point that at one stage, the team had to restart the entire project, rethinking its approach to its production and programming pipeline.
“There was a moment when Ken Kutaragi came to the Liverpool studio and left believing we couldn’t make our launch dates,” Nick reveals. “But that was like a red rag to a bull for a team that had already worked very hard on it. The final few months of WipEout’s development was extraordinary, and I think being there for the European launch was a monumental achievement.”
“Looking back on it now, if it was just reverse psychology – it worked,” Burcombe admits.
Even when discussion shifts to the game’s launch, and acknowledgment of the fact that WipEout was on every early adopters’ wishlist come the PS One launch night at the studio’s local HMV, in typical developer fashion Burcombe mainly remembers the less enthusiastic critical responses.
“We were reading the 7s more than the 9s and nodding about the things that could be improved. It really focused our attention on what we needed to achieve for a sequel.”
After celebrating its success the team rolled up its sleeves and immediately started work on the next entry: WipEout 2097.
The Price of WipEout 2097
In the original game, weapons were deployed only to slow the competition down, give you time to overtake. In 1997 follow-up WipEout 2097, the studio introduced ship energy bars, meaning competitor – and player – ships could be destroyed if you didn’t recharge via trackside pit lanes. It added a new layer of strategy to races; WipEout’s version of F1 tyre changes mid-race.
Ships would now scrape up against walls, sparks flying, rather than coming to abrupt halt. While the original’s difficulty had its fans – including XDev’s John McLaughlin (“This is also why it is loved so much,” he says. “Once mastered you become one with the handling model, zipping through tracks, bounding over boost pads”) – the team wanted to make a more rewarding experience.
But the development turnaround proved creatively tough. Coming directly off finishing the original, the studio now had just less than eight months to develop and release the sequel. Despite 2097 bettering the original in every way, some of the original staff needed a break. As a third game went into production, Burcombe became a bystander to the franchise’s future. Nick eventually left Psygnosis – or Studio Liverpool as it was rebranded – to form his own independent label, PlayRise, and work on mobile turned console racer, Table Top Racing.
“I was able to stand back and watch as WipEout 3 launched, then Fusion on PS2 and then the PSP, PS3 and PS Vita versions.” But he remains upbeat about seeing the series continue without him. “Watching it evolve from afar has been great and I know so many of the people who have worked on all these different versions – improving and building on it each time.”
“I think it’s one of those games that actually conveys something of the team in it. It is a game with a soul and I think people get that,” Burcombe concludes. “The ideas, the graphic design, the music and the PlayStation all combined to make it perfect for that moment in time.”
The Origin of WipEout Omega Collection
“It’s a unique game; there’s nothing else like it. It defined a generation.” – John McLaughlin, XDev, Omega Collection
December 2016, Anaheim, California. A packed auditorium’s roars are only emboldened as the tease of a bass-heavy electronica track kicking in merges with stunning HD visuals to confirm WipEout is returning. The Omega Collection couples PS3’s fan favorite tag-team of WipEout HD and Fury to PS Vita’s WipEout 2048 for an upgraded, remastered package on PlayStation 4.
It’s a welcome surprise for fans. For John XDev’s McLaughlin – one of those lifelong franchise fans and brainchild behind WipEout’s rebirth – “it seemed a simple and obvious choice” to bring the series back.
Though he admits it couldn’t be his decision alone, he made sure he was in the best possible position when pitching the idea.
“I managed to pry [WipEout HD’s] codebase from IT and got it over to Hustle Kings developer EPOS”. Together with CEO and programmer Staffan, McLaughlin worked out how they could conceivably make a PS4 remaster happen and worked up a timeline for development. To achieve it, they’d have to reach out to Clever Beans studio (When Vikings Attack) to partner with. The pitch worked. WipEout was on its way back.
The original plan, according to McLaughlin, was just to work on the HD/Fury package. “But very early on in development we looked at the 2048 code,” he explains. The PS Vita launch title is the most recent entry into the franchise, but its fiction provided a glimpse into an earlier era of the Anti-Grav Racing League. “We thought it would be great to bring all of the tracks and ships from that game too.”
Artwork was reworked, details added. SFX was totally remastered. Split-screen was coded in – a first for the previously handheld only 2048 – and a couple of nods to the classic era added (“we set about bringing back a couple of defunct teams from yesteryear and brought back Tigron and Van Uber teams.”).
And today, some months short of WipEout’s 21st anniversary, the futuristic racing franchise is reborn on PS4.
Back in 1995 there wasn’t anything like WipEout. In 2017, there still isn’t.
Your favorite race track from the franchise…
While Burcombe has the very first WipEout track, Altima VII, as a highlight (“I purposely put it first so you get that “wow” moment from the rollercoaster style downhill section”), it’s pipped by the game’s later course Arridos.
“It has a brilliant flow to it,” he remembers. “There’s some insane airborne shortcutting and great air-brake drift corners too. I also love that it looks carved into the landscape; the location seems plausible.”
For McLaughlin, it’s a pair of Sols – Sol2 from HD and Sol from 2048 – that are closest to his heart. “I love being thousands of feet in the air, zipping along at 1200KPH knowing I can fall off the edge at any moment. Real seat of your pants stuff!”
Your favorite WipEout team…
Maybe because it’s the default team come the ship selection menu of every WipEout, but both Burcombe and McLaughlin favour the Federal European Institute of Science and Research, better known under their acronym, FEISAR.
Though McLaughlin “has some affection” for Triakis, Burcombe points out the story behind FEISAR’s naming may be why it’s his only choice.
“It was a bit of a political joke. The UK had just signed the Maastricht Treaty in ’92 and it was a sort of prediction on where the UK and EU might be heading.”
Your favorite music track…
Despite not making its WipEout debut until 1997 sequel 2097, Prodigy and dance classic Firestarter is what immediately comes to mind for both men.
“It’s embedded in everyone’s brain,” Burcombe sums up simply. “Even though the version in [WipEout 2097] is the instrumental, it’s so engrained in the UK psyche, your mind just fills in Liam’s incredible vocal without even thinking about it.”
Your favorite piece of fan appreciation…
Much as WipEout is a unique melting pot of near-future techand killer tracks, so too is fan love spread across mediums, styles and disciplines. Burcombe points to seeing WipEout tattoos (“it blows my mind that its influence is strong, they felt the need to etch it into their skin forever”) but also that he “still gets regular emails” from fans thanking him for getting them into PlayStation, dance music or becoming DJs themselves. For McLaughlin though, a homage to the in-fiction ships wins out. “I simply love this model.”
Celebrate WipEout Omega Collection’s launch with its iconic art and music
Listen to WipEout Omega Collection’s soundtrack on Spotify here, and crank up the volume for a curated tracklist of the franchise’s best track from previous entries in our new The Best of WipEout playlist here.
Check out 25 stunning pieces of unseen WipEout artwork from across the franchise’s history here.
Celebrate the franchise’s stunning artwork with a collection of WipEout League t-shirts and hoodies, available from tomorrow exclusively on PlayStation Gear. The tops which were debuted on stage at PSX last year, feature a variant of the iconic Anti-Gravity Racing League logo – which dates back to the original game. Check them out below..
The post How the Iconic Wipeout Series Was Born appeared first on Ship 2 Block 20.
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pcinvasion-blog · 7 years
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New Post has been published on PC Invasion
New Post has been published on https://www.pcinvasion.com/prey-review
Prey Review
Arkane’s love affair with the back catalogue of Looking Glass Studios is pretty overt, and that’s no bad thing. With 2006’s Dark Messiah, the Dishonored series, and now Prey in their library of releases, the studio are the contemporary champions of the ‘immersive sim’. That genre’s heyday includes lauded classics like Thief: The Dark Project, Deus Ex (designer Harvey Smith is now at Arkane), and, of most direct relevance to Prey, System Shock 2.
There is an actual System Shock 3 in development at Otherside Entertainment (a company with even more direct ties to those Looking Glass/Irrational/Ion Storm years), and if it manages to top Prey as a continuation and tribute to the System Shock ethos then it’ll be quite some game. Despite being stuck with a spare license that Zenimax had lying around (this title shares nothing in common with the Prey of 1998, nor is it anything to do with the cancelled Prey 2), and displaying a shared interest in Art Deco office decor with BioShock, it’s the earlier Shock sequel with which this title shares the bulk of its design philosophy.
There’s also a viewing system called a Looking Glass and a mission called Shipping and Receiving. Yeah.
You are Morgan Yu, sister (or brother, your choice) to Alex Yu, and part of the family-owned TranStar Corporation. The year is 2032, in an alternate timeline where President Kennedy was never assassinated. US-Russian co-operation resulted in rapid progress for the global space program and the creation of the Talos-1 facility upon which Prey is set. There, TranStar is developing ‘Neuromod’ technology, which allows talents like musical or athletic aptitude to immediately be injected into a person. It’s primed for the mass market … what could go wrong?
Pretty much everything, inevitably. Within minutes of Prey’s rather clever cyclical opening sequence, vicious Typhon aliens are running amok and most of the crew will be left with nothing but audio logs and embarrassing email chains as their obituaries. What follows is a tense, first-person crawl through Talos-1’s retrofuturist interiors, driven by astute use of scavenged resources, the recurring challenge of how best to use the space and tools at your disposal, and (if you’re inclined) the desire to piece together what exactly happened in the facility.
The primary narrative is an intriguing one, though the main questline tends to double as a method of pushing the player between the connected areas of Talos-1 (the Cargo Bay, Life Support, an Arboretum, and so on), and relies too often on suddenly blocking progression to send you on a tangential mission. Not a bad device, but repeated so frequently here that it becomes a bit predictable.
Not the ideal conclusion to a scientific test, really.
Like many of its sources of inspiration, Prey shines when the player is off any sort of leash and poking around its interconnected systems and side-stories at their own speed. Happily, this sort of activity constitutes the vast majority of the game.
Talos-1 is one of those wonderful game spaces that’s constructed like a real, functioning (within the boundaries of this sci-fi reality, anyway) space station. Though a little restricted in your movements at first, it’s not long before you can travel between zones broadly at will, either on foot or via a bit of a space walk on the vessel’s exterior. It’s quite possible to wind up somewhere you’re not ‘supposed’ to be, but Prey ultimately doesn’t mind and tends to adapt well to player ingenuity. Quests, and your own curiosity, will bring you back and forth between areas, and your skills and experience will help you uncover new rooms or floors.
For example, early on you may not be able to get beyond a locked door. The most obvious routes inside would be to find the corresponding keycard, or wait until you have sufficient hacking skills to force entry. But you may also be able to smash a tiny section of glass and use your nerf dart crossbow (yes, really) to pop the door release button. Or perhaps create an entirely new path to the rafters using Prey’s excellent GLOO Gun and get in from above. The game gives you tools and systems, then encourages you to learn through experimentation.
Going on little expeditionary detours almost always pays off, either with hidden caches of supplies in hard to reach areas, or weapons and snippets of story you’d usually not acquire until later. Throughout, Prey feels designed with curious, boundary-prodding players in mind.
I can almost certainly get over there another way, but this is so convenient.
The aforementioned GLOO Gun is a primary exhibit of this design philosophy. It’s one of the most versatile and liberating tools since Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun. Useful for traversal, combat, and situational obstacles, the GLOO Gun fires out quick-drying blobs of polymer onto pretty much any surface (but won’t stick to itself). You can widen a narrow beam for an easier crossing, create some rudimentary hand holds to get to higher ground, put out fires, temporarily block sparking electrical outlets, and gum up Typhon foes.
Early in the game the tactic of using GLOO to fix humanoid ‘Phantoms’ in place and battering them with a wrench is standard procedure.
The other early adversaries are the much discussed Mimics; scuttling, headcrab-like creatures apparently made out of the same pulsing black substance as the Pus of Man enemies in Dark Souls 3. They can turn into mundane objects like boxes, piles of towels, or even things like medkits (the bastards), and will happily launch themselves at your face with a screech if you get too close.
While that might sound like an awful series of cheap jump-scares waiting to happen, in-game it comes across slightly more nuanced. Mimic attacks are usual somewhat telegraphed, in the sense that you’ve seen them moving around earlier, or you’ve learned that there’s something distinctly off about two medkits sat next to one another in the middle of the floor.
Maybe that chair is a Mimic. Maybe there’s one behind me. Maybe I’M a Mimic. Oh god.
They also escalate and plateau quite neatly throughout the game. At the point where you might be getting sick of the things, you acquire technology allowing you to identify their hidden forms (points to Prey here for making the scanning tech a bit prohibitive to use, so you don’t just wear it all the time). Just when you’re at the point of casually scanning a room and getting the jump on Mimics with pre-emptive attacks, the game introduces the tougher Greater Mimics who can turn into larger objects and won’t show up on basic scans.
Then, when you’re powerful enough to casually blast Greater Mimics away with a half-aimed shotgun, you’ll have become complacent enough to forget all about the original Mimics. Which is exactly when they’ll start to surprise you all over again.
Prey’s enemy roster isn’t vast, and tends to be derived from the same ‘black goop’ template to some extent, but they all distinguish themselves by demanding a slightly different combat approach. The same device used for scanning Mimics can reveal weaknesses (and, at the same time, gradually unlocks Typhon Neuromod powers), so combat, much like exploration and traversal, involves putting your combined tools to smart use.
One particular late-game foe is supposed to specifically hunt you down. Sadly, this doesn’t quite work because he’s very easy to avoid by simply staying in place for a couple of minutes or leaving for another area. If he were able to cross loading zones, his presence might have matched his billing for intimidation.
Scanning kills your peripheral vision and muffles sound, so you won’t be using PREY VISION the whole time.
The usual pistol and shotgun options are present in Prey, but if you want to get more creative you might invest in the ability to be able to hurl gigantic bits of furniture at opponents. Or perhaps you’ll lure them next to a pipe that’s ready to belch out gusts of flame. Maybe you’ll just lob a dependable Recycling Grenade. That won’t just clear up your problem, it’ll also leave you with some handy materials to turn into fresh ammo or suit repair kits at a nearby Fabricator.
At every turn Prey wants you to engage with its systems in smart ways, without ever outright telling you what to do. It even has a broad capacity to react and adapt to some of your off-map meddling. There’s a point in the game where a useful object can no longer be fabricated with materials due to someone on the station implementing a DRM scheme. This launches a standard side quest to the chap’s office; but if you’ve already been there and used his computer, you would have seen the DRM-implementation in process and may have already stopped it happening.
Many of the game’s most memorable details are in little stories, not even specific side quests, relating to the Talos-1 crew. They are all named, and all have roles and recorded assignments. You will never stumble across an anonymous corpse, but will regularly be able to piece together a crew member’s final moments. Humanising details like emails describing a not-strictly-HR-approved Battlebot league taking place in the isolated bowels of the Power Plant, or even just incidental scenery like a photograph with a face scratched out, are all over the facility.
Captain Stabfellow: The hero Talos-1 needed, but sadly didn’t have.
The broader story plays out like a procedural mystery; what happened on Talos-1 and what’s going on with Morgan Yu him (or her) self?
Pacing, largely player-controlled during the opening couple of acts, gets a bit too hectic at the game’s climax. It begins to usher in floods of enemies, rather than the more thoughtful, creative encounters found during the rest of Prey’s 20-some hour story. A different type of challenge, sure, and one presumably intended to test the reserves of your hoarded resources; but one that’s also inherently less interesting. Prey is never a pure stealth game, but you can spec heavily in that direction and the final few hours rather undermine that option.
No matter how you resolve matters on the station, the ending cinematic is abrupt to the point of being jarring, but a much more revealing sequence follows after the credits. There’s a thematic constant running through the game about the role of memory on consciousness and how it affects the ‘nature of a man’ (Chris Avellone, on writing duties here, revisiting familiar pastures). The ‘true’ ending, while a bit of an exposition dump, does retroactively throw all that preceeded it into a new context, and had me thinking that certain discoveries would have increasing meaning on a second playthrough.
A second run is something Prey actively encourages, both through its tacit desire to see the player use their freedom to ‘break’ the story (this is a game where you can continue after killing your main quest-giving NPC), and the duality of its human and Typhon skill sets.
An image of some of the in-game art, with which I’m absolutely in love.
As noted in my article at launch, the PC version of Prey is sort of the opposite world Dishonored 2; well optimised, but lacking in the HUD customisation options that you’d expect from Arkane. A recent patch is said to have dealt with a nasty save corruption bug (which, luckily, I never ran into).
Some bugs do remain. Sometimes audio logs would autoplay upon being picked up, while other times they’d refuse to play at all (even via the shortcut key) until I collected some new ones. One side quest resolved successfully, then retroactively decided (in a totally different location) that actually it had failed. Prior to this latest patch, certain aspects of the audio were mixed far too high or low, but the update seems to have sorted out the most egregious issues there. That’s for the best, as having some of Mick Gordon’s splendid score all over the place in the mix and the ‘Objective Updated’ noise pitched loud enough for a regular jump scare was rather aggravating.
A special word, too, for Prey’s weird hacking minigame. This seems so cheerfully and self-consciously bad that I’m seriously entertaining the notion that it might be an attempted post-modern commentary on how all these games have lame portrayals of hacking. But more likely it was just jammed into the game at the last minute.
You can get up here, so it’s almost certainly useful in some way.
That’s certainly not the case for the rest of Prey’s mechanics, which fit together as interconnected systems with a great deal of thought behind them. Talos-1’s offices, testing labs, and cargo holds have all been designed with player-driven traversal and exploration in mind. Every space has something to reward curiosity, or deft use of environmental objects. What begins as a tense, vulnerable crawl, gradually turns into the confident, resource-rich stride of a protagonist newly at home with their capabilities. Though it’s a slight shame Prey cannot maintain its oppressive tension to the bitter end, twenty hours of that would be pretty grueling; confidence can still breed complacency, and Talos-1 is never truly subdued.
Arkane’s tale of wrench-wielding, audio log sleuthing, and human hubris wears its videogame heritage on its bright red space suit sleeve. Until such time that System Shock 3 may challenge it, Prey is the worthy follow up to System Shock 2 in everything but name.
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iftekharsanom · 7 years
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Fifty Shades darker Movie review & some Facts About This movie:::::::::::::::::::::
Movie Review: In 2015, Fifty Shades of Gray took a critical hit and still reflects at the world box office to have it, to the order of half a billion pounds. For fans of the first movie, there is nothing here that you have not seen before. It is a series of artistically photographed scenes of collision and grinding, interrupted by periods of boring useless dialogue while the actors to catch their breath. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are back in the harness as the dominant Christian Gray and Anastasia submissive 'Ana' Steele. The chandelier, bonking bland, machines have a huge libido but lack personality. Ana Christian left at the end of the first movie and now they want to return. Ana truth without much conviction, but insists on "there are no rules, there is no punishment and there are no more secrets." He has a distance from his good intentions. If Christian does not whip in the cracking job, Ana is taking a masquerade or her private dungeon, the red room. Spanking and body clamp are very strong. They live in a world of glossy lifestyle magazine of yachts, helicopters and stylish apartments. Everything is polished to a perfect degree except for the signature, plot and characters. Ana's new boss chases her office, Chagrin Christian's omission. Meanwhile, two of the former Christian sex partners have their daggers for Ana. This jealousy move along the action, from one room to another. Neither Bella Heathcote nor Kim Basinger has much to do, but at least the latter provides some bite. They live in a world of glossy lifestyle magazine of yachts, helicopters and stylish apartments. Everything is polished to a perfect degree except for the signature, plot and characters. Ana's new boss chases her office, Chagrin Christian's omission. Meanwhile, two of the former Christian sex partners have their daggers for Ana. This jealousy move along the action, from one room to another. Neither Bella Heathcote nor Kim Basinger has much to do, but at least the latter provides some bite. Former director Sam Taylor-Johnson, and is James Foley, best known for directing music videos of Madonna. Unfortunately Foley does not videos his songs Panky scarf, Erotica direct or open your heart, which at least have been a good exercise for him. If you want to see a movie about a billionaire playboy with a penchant for darkness, inflict violence and masks, it is much better to watch for Lego Batman The Movie. Fifty Shades Darker
With a sideways glance, Bachelor Christian Christian opens the door to his "game room," a windowless dungeon, equipped with whips, cat tails, and nine tails. "Welcome to my world," he murmurs, and so sex education gets its latest toy. The biggest triumph of this adaptation to the big screen of El James's novel, the fastest selling paperback in UK history, is the way it easily takes in the world of S & M and a respectable change image. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has achieved the equivalent of the film turn, Charles Manson at any age favorite uncle. Not that critical opinion will affect your closet. With booked at a rate of one in this week every seven seconds tickets in advance, Fifty Shades is bulletproof. Dakota Johnson, daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, 25, plays naive student Anastasia Steele, Christian (Jamie Dornan) meets as he interviewed for the college newspaper. The couple could not be more different - she is a naive klutz all the fingers and thumb while he is Debonair an excess of control - but the mutual attraction is palpable. With the looks of Brad Pitt, Bill Gates' wealth and the sexual appetite of a dozen rabbits on the first day of spring, which women resist? But early Christian warns passionate Ana: "I do not do the novel My taste is very original are .. You can say this again, for the inaccessible lothario is really a "dominant", who wants to turn the 21-year-old virgin into a "submissive." Although many of the weaker section of the book and the interior monologue Ana asinino have been removed, this is not a film that can be described in every world as high art. Ana scenes sucking her penciling moments of symbolism making the soundtrack (including the animal pack of Rolling Stones) is painfully obvious, and Christian, despite his peccadilloes, seems too perfect to be real. With their fancy twins, Audi R8 and an ear for classical music, it seems like the idea of a rich person poor person. Meanwhile, some stabbing stab at its bottom less, ahem to penetrate. Not that it's too important. After all the sex scenes, then I announced that people pay their charges to see and more movie deals. The first coming preliminaries at 40 minutes, Ana sees her cherry, shagged in silk sheets in a mist of breast and the buttocks with questions always misses raunchy, as the movie progresses. Over 15 minutes or more, his naked body is beaten, whipped and mocked, likely to cause with strong Christian use of a vintage filing a complaint with the Jockeys Association in any other situation. Taylor-Johnson has a movie both sexy and stylish. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson reprise their role as Christian and Anastasia. And this time it's not a proposal, more drama and still wet sex scenes.
Since the movie hits the big screen, here are 10 fascinating facts about Fifty Shades Darker. 1. Jamie Dornan is reinforced by the first film Christian Christian is a tanned, toned and misaligned version for which we are accustomed. While Dornan embraced a rough and ready character as a bearded serial killer Paul Specter's fall BBC Two, Gray has never been so stubbly. "Every day shave sucks," Dornan said. "It's also a strange psychological thing, but I feel very exposed and naked with a shaven face." 2. Wait to see more of this time Rita Ora While the star singer who plays the adopted sister of Gray Mia, taciturn about how long she put on the screen in time in steam, it seems a little more than her cameo 90 seconds its fifty shades of gray. We know that Ora is a crucial part of the masked ball scene, when the billionaire barely disappears and his family worries are worried that he is dead. He also introduced a sexy song to Kiss Me Title soundtrack. 3. E. L. James was on the set all the time British author Erika Mitchell reinforced his creative control for "some friction" on set during the last slide. Director James Foley - who took over the role after first director Sam Taylor-Johnson rejected the second film because the taps with the author reported on the system - said the 53-year-old author, even a separate village had producer 4. There was a spy on the set A spy from a busy super fan sneaked into the crowd as he pretended to be a PA. Director James Foley said, "Finally someone started a conversation with her, and it seemed a little strange, and found out she was a spy for a Twitter fan." 5. Jamie's wife Amelia Warner joined him on set Amelia was hit with her husband on the beach during filming of intimate scenes with Dakota Johnson, including rubbing on her sunscreen naked back. Dakota appeared the couple with them between scenes for a bath to go to sea, to become famous. 6. Sex scenes were shot in private
The sex scenes were filmed in a closed set, with only Jamie, Dakota and two directors in the room. The camera was there to interfere - it was remotely supported by a large crane. 7. Kim Basinger was repeated hit by Marcia Gay Harden Rights Kim Basinger of Hollywood plays former lover Gray, Mrs. Robinson, in the new movie, and was "repeatedly beaten" by Marcia Gay Harden, who returns as her mother. In a famous bust-up of the original book, the couple had to film three or four times. 8. E. L. James husband wrote the screenplay Her husband, Niall Leonard, wrote the script for the sequel, so that the couple one more creative control over the film. 9. Jamie was going Full Frontal Apparently Jamie was showing his genitals in the movie a few times, and it was "too close" to do so. But no full frontal nudity in the movie 15 Ratings. 10. Jamie Dakota helped with the American accent Jamie, Belfast, worked to help with a dialect coach to perfect his American accent with Dakota, who was born in Texas. "I would do dramatic readings of your lines," he said. So, I have a T-shirt printed with one of its lines phonetically on it. Enter, buckles and have an additional impact on the delightful and ridiculous sexual slave world of a billionaire curly and playboy playboy.
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