No Lives Left

Since I am not a professional reviewer, I always have to wait until I finish a game to review it which can take anywhere from a week to months after the game has been released. But thankfully, due to being a games backer on Kickstarter, I was able to receive and beat a game early so that I can review it when it's still relevant! So while I'm still waiting for my amazingly shabby blog to take off, I'm going to be reviewing Shantae: The 1/2 Genie Hero! I haven't been a fan of Shantae for a long time. I originally found Shantae: Risky's Revenge and Shantae: The Pirate's Curse on the 3DS eShop a few years ago. The games were on sale and described as Metroidvanias which I thought would scratch my Metroid itch. Though both games were relatively easy, I enjoyed the gameplay immensely. Once I found out about Half Genie Hero on Kickstarter, I immediately backed it. Then waited...and waited...until finally this past week when I got the steam code for early access....

It's no surprise that video games have been a major influence in my life. They may be my single greatest passion. And to me, very few things come close to popping in a new game into any system and beginning a new adventure. One of my fondest memories was playing Final Fantasy VII back in 1999. My best friend had a Playstation at the time and brought it over to my house so that we could play his games. After beating a couple of games that summer, my older brother was generous enough to buy us a new game back when EB Games was still around (Gamestops have taken them over now). Being huge Megaman fans, we saw Megaman Legends and immediately purchased it. But after a few hours of playing we decided that the game wasn't our cup of tea and different controls made it hard to enjoy. Being young, all we really wanted was another game that played like Megaman X and Legends was drastically different than its cousins. So we returned it and after some deliberation returned home to st...

So it's been a while and it's mainly because of work but I also am trying to make videos of the games I'm currently playing. I have all the software for capturing and editing, but finding the time and motivation is really  hard. I could talk about the election but I only want to allude to these things with comic/pop-culture/video game parallels and metaphors, so I won't. All I can say is that it was close and it was interesting. Anyways, the video I have here today comes from Telltale's Batman series. I decided to go silent Bruce and Batman at all times and instead of mysterious, it just borders on awkward turtle. I'll try to make more cuts, but I wanted to just test the waters. The editing is still really shaky but I'll try to get better, I promise. The jump cuts were meant to be, I promise! Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-iDnGIS9Sw In other news, I did watch Marvel's Dr. Strange this past weekend. It was a good, solid mo...

Hopefully you all have not been living under a rock and saw the announcement for Nintendo's new console. But if you've just now come out of your bomb shelter ( The 2016 election is near GO BACK IN!), then watch the video  here  and come back to this post. Let me tell you a short story. In 2006, Nintendo launched a system that changed the gaming industry as we know it. Selling out in all stores, the Wii was able to capture the casual gaming market. It had a cheap price point compared to the other consoles and had fun party and multiplayer games. I remember standing in line for a whole day at my local Wal-Mart to get one and feeling relieved that I did since the system was sold out for months . Nintendo tried to double down on the casual market in 2012 with the Wii U, but the company fell flat on their faces. Due to terrible third party support, not having the same cheap price point, and terrible marketing strategy (honestly, there were no commercials  for this thing!)...

Sometimes you find that even when you're a part of a community, you can still feel alone or part of a smaller group of people. The video gaming community is probably larger than it has ever been. I mean the accessibility of gaming now encompasses not only PC and gaming consoles, but also mobile devices as well. But even with the ever expanding community, there are still small groups of gamers that are isolated because of what types of games they like. Even though gaming is my passion, I still have my likes and dislikes. Those likes and dislike don't really jive with the majority of gaming community. Somehow, unless it's a Nintendo title, I don't really like the most popular games out there. I don't play Candy Crush Saga, I stopped playing Pokemon Go, I never got into Call of Duty or Battlefield. Growing up, I loved Japanese RPGs and to this day, I still do. Remember the technicolor frog? Pepperidge Farm remembers... While JRPGs were supreme during the SNES a...

First off, I'm not the biggest fan of multiplayer games. I think I've stated that before in some of my previous blog posts. But it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy  them from time to time as I have also  stated in blog posts about games like Rocket League and now Earth Defense Force. Earth Defense Force 4.1: Shadows of New Despair (or EDF 4.1) is not a very good game in my aspects. Its graphics are subpar, its internet lobby system is archaic, and it glitches a whole lot. Not only that, but it can be frustratingly difficult at times. But I've consistently been playing this game since it came on Steam over a month ago and it's mainly because of one thing: Co-op. I don't find EDF single player any fun. The game is repetitive and has too little story to drive a single person to slog through it. The enemies vary, but not enough to keep interest for the 89 or so missions the game has. The weapons are great, but you soon find out that not every weapon works...

Suicide Squad Review It's been about a week or since I've seen Suicide Squad and I've already forgotten most of the movie. This alone could probably tell you how I felt about the movie but in order to humor myself, I wanted to go ahead and give a full review. Now let me tell you that movie is definitely a "fun" movie filled with some pretty cool action sequences. Sadly, these action sequences aren't as well executed as the sequences in other superhero movies (like Captain America: Civil War). In fact, the fights in Civil War at least include teammates using each others powers together to help combat the other side. It's a shame really. Suicide Squad tries very hard to prove to the audience that it has style and is "really cool," but ultimately it falls flat. And I mean that in a literal sense because the beginning has a really nice sense of color when introducing the main characters of the Squad, but after the beginning the movie just ...

Note: There are what you may want to call spoilers in this post. There is also a lot of crap in this movie. Read at your own risk.  It's hard to write about things. It's hard to describe things sometimes especially before you discuss it with another person. I don't post things as rapidly as I should mainly because it's hard for me to really think out pieces and to have a written opinion that really reflects what I'm thinking. I guess it's sort of a writer's block that I get into very frequently. With writing, you need to have inspiration and passion. Those key aspects will help drive you to write about whatever it is you want to write about. It gets those creative juices flowing and keeps your fingers on the pencil or keyboard long enough to write a cohesive thought. There are countless  books, movie scripts, and poems that have probably been half written or thrown away because of the writer's inability to take an idea to the end and finish it. Some ...

Final Fantasy 15 Hype Justice League Hype Dr. Strange Hype Suicide Squad...Hype? Wonder Woman Hype Harry Potter/Pokemon Go Hype  (I mean seriously that's what this is) Hype marketing is huge these days. There have been so many more trailers leading up the movies and it's relentless. It seems like movies post production phases are so much longer that the marketing department has to spend months and months creating trailers to make sure the movie never leaves the audiences minds. There are a lot of movies presented this year at Comic-con that have 2017 dates. 2016 is barely halfway over and we're greeted with projects that will once again be marketing to us at next year's Comic-Con.  I think it's too much. Some of the reveals are cool but by the time they are actually released in theaters, the trailers released will give everything away. See, since Hollywood has to keep our minds busy for so long, they have to slowly keep releasing more and more mater...

Pokemon GO, the mobile Pokemon app licensed by Nintendo and developed by Niantic Inc, has taken the world by storm. It's been over a few days (which is almost years  in mobile app terms) and there are just too many stories to count of how the game has affected people's lives .  The surge of the game's popularity has helped Nintendo rise up from the ashes . Their stock shot up 25% overnight after the game's release.   After the disaster that was the Wii U, this only brings good fortune for the Japanese company. I'm sure most people who are reading this already know what Pokemon GO is, but let me try to summarize. It's a location based game where you walk around in real life in search of Pokemon. The game uses your GPS to track your location and every so often Pokemon will pop up in certain areas of the map. The player just has to walk up (in real life) to the spot on the map and a Pokemon will appear. The player is then able to capture the Pokemon ...

About a year ago, I wrote  this piece about  Mighty No. 9. I was pissed about how that Kickstarter project was being handled and made my thoughts as clear as I could. But now the game has finally been released and the game's code was sent to my inbox. I hesitantly installed the game with what little hopes I had. I kept thinking that those damning reviews were based off of the negative press surrounding the game and they were missing the little gem that would be Mighty No. 9. I was hoping a little bit of old Megaman nostalgia would seep into my heart and warm the cold, calculated core of my critical heart. But even the tiniest bit hope  I had was lost. when I started up the first level. Mighty No. 9 does not play well. Might No. 9 doesn't feel like a four million  dollar game that took three years  to develop. It feels budgeted. It feels stripped of detail, content, and charm. And most of all, it's not fun. To give it some iota of...