No Lives Left

2015 was a wonderful year in gaming. I mean we got Batman , The Witcher 3 , Metal Gear Solid V , Fall Out 4 , Xenoblade Chronicles X (XCX), and a whole list of other blockbusters. Hundreds of hours of content released in a single year, and all I can think about is all that time. Vast and sprawling worlds have been made for me to explore and enjoy—and there is so much to see and do in them—but I can't help thinking of the lack of time there is to do so. 2015 brought that realization: I simply didn’t have time to enjoy every game I wanted to. My backlog of Steam games is so big that I don't even remember what games are in my library! I sometimes peruse games on sale only to realize that I already own them. For some reason, discovering that I already own the game makes me averse to actually playing it. So I took a step back and decided to forgo my Steam backlog. I had this sense of wonder with the gaming world in 2015, simply because I played the games I really w...

I always had a theory that the gaming industry grew up with kids of the 90's. Games have become more complicated, complex, and graphically overwhelming that I don't know if kids could get into these games. I've always felt like the kids who grew up on the Atari or the Nintendo Entertainment System were a unique generation. Video games come natural to us. I find it interesting how it takes my older siblings and younger kids to grasps certain video game controls and mechanics while it only takes my friends and I a few hours to really get the hang of it. The problem is that at some point, for 90's kids, we grew up. We graduated college and got jobs. Some of us are married and some of us have kids. We rarely have time to have long sessions of gaming that we used to have back in the days. Yet for some reason, games are getting more and more content and are getting longer and longer to complete. But I must commend Sony for implementing the one feature I love about it. Th...

Comic Grab Bag Part 6: What If...Daredevil Was The Disciple Of Doctor Strange? Issue #83 The "What If..." comics were a series of comics crossovers that took different superheroes and changed their scenarios and origins. . They were usually one shot comics that were all non-canon and just for fun. They had very interesting combinations like if Spider-man joined the Fantastic Four (or Fantastic Five  because of him) or if Wolverine was the Lord of the Vampires. From one shots, they gradually changed into  full fledged story arcs exploring alternative choices of main Marvel storyline events. An example being What If...Wolverine went back in time to kill Hank Pym which ultimately stopped Ultron from being created. That specific story lasted many issues focusing on several superheroes and new events. Also, fun fact: during the mid 90's DC and Comics set up a shared printing company called Amalgam Comics which took DC characters and Marvel characters and mashed them u...

Sorry for the delay,  Doom Patrol #6 (2010) Backstory: Originally created in 1963 by Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, the Doom Patrol is a group of superheroes who have banded together due to the fact that their powers have alienated them from the rest of society. Finding solace and leadership under Dr. Niles Caulder, the Doom Patrol were trained and lead to fight for the greater good. If you've already guessed, yes, the Doom Patrol closely resembles the X-Men though it came before its popular Marvel counterpart. They even have a leader who sits in a wheel chair. Yet reports have said there was no foul play between the two companies and the creation of each comic were independent of each other. I still think there was some sneaking around somewhere but nonetheless it's interesting to see how one rose to ultimate fame and popularity while the other feel by the wayside. The Doom Patrol do have important roles in the crossovers like the Infinite Crisis, but more people on th...

I recently just finished my play-through of Batman: Arkham Knight and, to be honest, I was fairly impressed by the game's story and how they handled the tentative end to the Rocksteady Arkham trilogy. It comes as a surprise because of the disaster that was the launch of the PC version. It was riddled with bugs and frame rate issues making it virtually unplayable unless you had a ridiculously overpowered computer. The game was then actually taken off the internet  from official sale. See a different development team worked on the PC port, not Rocksteady. There were so many issues with the game they couldn't properly fix in an reasonable time frame. After 3 months, an interim patch was quietly released to test out if the issues were fixed. When I found out, I swooped in to nab a cheap copy and got to playing. Thankfully, the patch eliminated most of the blatant problems with the game, and I was able to finish the game with very little complaints. Sadly, three months is a lo...

Blue Beetle Issue #8 (2006) Background: The Blue Beetle has an interesting history. Not only has the Blue Beetle mantle been passed around many times over the characters inception, it's also been licensed by different publishers. Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski was the original artist for the Blue Beetle in a comic series that was published by Fox Comics in 1939. After Fox Comics went out of business, Charlton Comics picked him up and release a few issues up until 1968 until they ceased to publish the series. Finally, The Blue Beetle found his home with DC Comics after their acquisition (or CC sold their characters to DC. I'm not sure) of Charlton Comics around 1983. The original Blue Beetle was Dan Garret. Dan Garrets father was a police officer who was killed by a criminal. Though being a patrol officer, Dan moonlighted as a vigilante before  getting his super powers. Blue Beetle's powers (just super strength and stamina) came from an ingestion of the chemi...

Soldier X #2 (2002) Background: Soldier X is moniker for one of the more powerful mutants from the X-men, Cable. Also known as Nathan Summers, Cable is the child of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Oh wait, but there's still more. Jean Grey wasn't actually  Jean Grey. See, one of the main villains in the X-Men, Mr.Sinister, was at war with Apocalypse, another X-men villain, and need some weapon to stop him. He knew that the genetics of Scott and Jean would produce an offspring with tremendous power--Enough power to stop Apocalypse. But Jean Grey ended up being possessed by Phoenix Force around this time. The Phoenix Force is like a very dangerous trance Jean falls into due her "true power" manifesting. This gives her amazing powers at the loss of her ability to reason. The saga ends with Jean supposedly dying and leaving Scott in heartbreak. With all that happening, Mr. Sinister moves on to plan B and decides to clone Jean and create Madelyne Pryor. Madelyne h...