Fantasizing about greatness

The Fans have decided to create a port of the infamous Sonic 06 to the PC, likely for the specific purpose of making it better than it’s original last generation retail discs for the 360 and PS3. I just wanna say that…. this the funniest damn thing in the world. Why? Because as much as Sonic Fans try to deny it, they still, after 12 years of it’s initial release, have such a vested interest in the game, to try and improve it’s mechanics for the future. This goes to show you… that even though the game is one of the most, if not the most, hated Sonic Games of all time, the fandom will not let it go. So they go on to a platform and try to fix the problems of the original product. 

But even with that, you still have this kind of shit going on. 

These 2 are starting to realize a much more egregious problem with the Sonic fandom at, as well as the industry. Its time we have that talk. Years ago, I made a series of horribly outdated posts titled “The real reason people hate Sonic”. That shit is no longer relevant because as I’m learning, this really IS a result of the fans rather than the games. The fandom doesn’t care about the quality of the series. They’ve stopped giving a damn. And here is why.

We, and I say that because i’ve talked the same shit, like to say that “Sega is stupid” simply because the quality of the Sonic series is in the shitter, and we relate that to their ability as game designers as being inefficient. That… has never… been true. I’ve also stepped back and said “if they WANTED to, they could make a fantastic Sonic game”. It’s not a matter of talent or competence. If the Yakuza series can get praise for each and every entry, then it says a plenty about Sega’s ability. What they lack is the desire! How do I know? Well, why do we have a live action Sonic movie coming out next year? Why do we have a Sonic Boom Cartoon? Why do we have Sonic Comics? A lot of people would say “it’s to capitalize off the games!”. That excuse would work back in the 90s. Because Sonic was popular! You could capitalize on the games because they were hot shit! That isn’t the case. What I’m seeing here is the same thing I’m seeing with pacman and that future Megaman cartoon. They’re trying to make money off of an IP the company has no real vested interest in. I’m certain a lot of these “cross media” ventures are not done in-house, meaning they could reap profits with the minimal amount of effort. They don’t need to make good on their actual source material. Thanks to the MCU and Teen-Titans go, these companies now have prime examples of how to make money without really having to do a lot of work with the original source material. This is why Marvel can hire a bunch of Feminist dykes and apologists to work on their comics because their bread and butter are coming from the movies. This is also why it’s stupid and pathetic for people to decry the freedom fighters bring in fan games.

Think about this. I at one point tried to convince some folks that Castlevania is the shit. And failed miserably because it’s content and overall difficulty isn’t appealing. Now after a damn Netflix show, I can now talk about that shit without being ignored! Lets just be real. A lot of folks aren’t going to get invested into a series by it’s source material alone. You need supplemental material to entice more people to your franchises. Much as I hate the idea of Jim Carrey being fucking Robotnik, if that’s what it takes to get people interested in Sonic again, so be it. Just as long as it ain’t Boom level shit. 😛 This is smart on Sega’s half. On the one hand, they can draw interest into the series with supplement alone, and they don’t have to do any real work. On the other, the source material suffers. But in either case, you still have fans rolling in. And Sega could care less. They clearly don’t give (too much of) a damn if the freedom fighters are in that material. 

But if Sega wanted, they could’ve made good Sonic games years ago. I am in full belief of that. But… if they want to do anything, it’s to convince people that they care. Everything they’ve been doing thus far was, as stated in an interview, an attempt to “let the fans know they’re listening (which is a damn lie because otherwise that zone ratio would’ve bee rectified). And so far, with both Mania and Forces, they’ve been trying to meet the fans halfway. You can admit that much. And it’s not just them. Even Nintendo is trying to please fans. Smash Ultimate alone is a testament to how much of your dick they actually want. Instead of making all these BS excuses as to why certain characters can’t get into the game, Ridely is finally in! Cloud Strife killed their lies, and now they’re caving in. And now they’re not trying to bury the prime series and announced a prime 4 (though if Star Fox Zero is anything to go by, they might try to sabotage it). Namco is trying to save Soul Calibur, a developer had (claimed) to fight to get a 6 in production and are trying to make good with the fans. And Capcom, holy shit. RE2 remake alone and the return of Mega Man.

Yes I know Nintendo is acting like a little hoe in regards to emulation, I got you.

The Japanese industry was apparently in a state of catastrophic jackassery last generation, and are swallowing their pride to appease their fans. If PSO2 gets exported, that would be proof positive. Sega is no different in that regard, and we see that with Mania and Forces. 

With Mania (yes, I’m talking about Mania again!) I’ve seen a particular response crop up in one form or another. “Lol it took a fan to show Sega how to make a proper game”. I’ve seen similar remarks to the 2011 port of Sonic CD. Here, we’re seeing folks complaining about those similar remarks on a PC port of Sonic 06. How about this. Lets just say that…. all these years in the aftermath of 06 or Unleashed, lets just say… that the fans, and the industry…. they LOVE the idea that Sega will always do wrong for Sonic games…. Because then they can masturbate to the idea that they, the fans, could do a better job than Sega?

Over the years, I have seen responses to fangames that the fans know how to make better Sonic games than Sega. Even I fed into that mindset. When you’re frustrated with the state of a series, we all sing the hymns of “I could do better“. I’d be lying if I said I thought otherwise. Or discontinued thinking that way. Shit, I can name a million ways to do Lost Mind better. It doesn’t include no pink ass music note wisp, that’s for damn sure. 

See, it goes back to this whole validation kick that Gamers are starved for. It’s not enough to be accepted by others online, oh no. Sometimes it goes deeper into psychological masturbation. They have to deeply feel that their beliefs are valid. It gives them a sick pleasure. So in the case of the Sonic franchise, the fandom has gone off into the deep end in declaring the series will never be good… if only to fantasize about being the guy to save the series. It’s not even about having a really good idea, this is a damn fetish for them! They beat off to perpetuating the narrative of Shit Sonic games if only to go on these tirades of “how to save Sonic”. They get high off that shit. It’s an addiction for them! They WANT to be the ones with all the answers.

When it comes to fan projects, whether they be fangames, mods, ports of a game, or even rom hacks, the fandom loves to hype up the idea that “we’re awesome” and go “in your face, Sega!!” That makes them feel all kinds of good! This level of euphoria is a drug to these people, so much so that they will shoot down legitimately good ideas from Several  sonic games if it meant they could live in that fantasy of “I know the answer!” Again, with the Avatar. There was nothing. .. wrong… with it. But everyone was talking about “man, it’s deviantart the game” eck… Who gives a fuck about deviant art!? And you mean that’s your only issue with a CaC system!? Bitch, you serious!? You know there are other sites where Sonic fans exist who have their own fan characters? The fuck does deviant art have to do with it? 

It’s an overarching problem, though. When industry games get shitty, people look to themselves, or people like them, to create those amazing experiences. And that’s not bad in and of itself. It’s how you get stuff like FNAF and Minecraft. Terraria and what not. But the weariness of the game industry created this obsession for independent developers not because of higher quality material, but because they wanted to spite the game industry. This wouldn’t be so bad if the indies didn’t fall into the same goddamn habits as the industry. How many horror clones do you see trying to capitalize off of FNAF? Do a rundown of Dashiegames and please, bullshit me on what that looks like.

Now, this praise for the PC port of 06 by the fans, I don’t know what went into the game as far as if it was a fan project or if it was commissioned by Sega themselves, but if it’s the former, lets put things into perspective. The failure of Sonic 06 was largely the result of production problems (or poor content,  take your pick). You had teams being reshuffled, you had Yuji Naka leaving midway through development, you had crazy deadlines, you had new hardware… there were plenty of factors that resulted in 06 being a fucked game (course they had similar issues with Heroes and that turned out well, but I digress). 06 had plenty of obstacles to overcome in the development phase, and that just didn’t work out. But… that’s the story for a lot of games being developed. There have been thousands of games that have been fucked over due to production problems. And, especially when you consider the tight ass deadlines, these guys don’t have the luxury of perfecting the games by launch, which is why they abuse online patches to such an amazing degree. Personally,  I’d prefer if the game worked at launch with a $60 price tag, but eh.

Got that? Because people who make the fangames and what not? They don’t have production problems! They don’t have deadlines! They have the luxury of working by themselves or with people they readily agree with so there won’t be any bullshit politics to overcome. Bottomline, their output is gonna be more polished because they don’t have to put up with shit! They can literally take all the time in the world (and many of them do, which is why you have to wait decades for one game to finish, reducing many of them to mere tech demos), and they all can operate on engines of their choice, or public domain tools, or in the case of romhacks and this port, COMPLETED FUCKING GAMES, to make their shit work. Fangames have all those advantages, of course many of them will have better shit! They’re not subject to arbitrary changes that publishers often invoke. You can literally sit yo fat, autistic asses on a keyboard and program whatever the fuck you want! Stress free!

So the fans spend all their time looking at these fangames, not really spending time playing them, but often chalk up on YouTube and wax poetic about how much better they, the fans are, at making sonic games than Sega is, and it becomes a damn religion! They have to convince themselves and others that only the fans know what the fuck they’re doing. And the game industry feeds into that toxicity because a lot of journalists are addicted to that same euphoric stench. They gas themselves up in this fantasy, and lose their minds, not knowing the circumstances of how their fangames are perceived as “better than that thou”.

If the fans really thought their fangames were that awesome, they would put a price tag on them. No wait, that would be copyright infringement (got that, Fortnite devs!?) So they couldn’t do that if they wanted to. But it would honestly help their argument. By charging money for something, you are assigning a specific value to it. The higher the price, the higher the value. At least, that’s how it should work. When it comes to videogames, value is determined by arbitrary factors. Most high end retro collections go for under 30 dollars used unless they were made by Nintendo. Then the cost fucking skyrockets for years. That’s why Metroid Prime Trilogy can be $75 for years on end even though only one of those games are any good while the other 2 are horrible. And I doubt it’s a case of rarity, every gamestop I’ve been to has had at least one copy oh I’m rambling again. 

When you assign a price to something, you assign a value to it, meaning you are generating expectations. It makes the product in question subject to criticism of any degree. If the price is high, the expectations are high. No one is going to be pleased with an expensive product that fails to live up to those expectations, which would explain why there’s so much dissatisfaction with the game industry, and why Sonic games are perpetually cheaper than every other game on the market. Keep the value low, keep the expectations low, decrease the chance of bad reception because less money was spent.

People instantly come to the conclusion that you can’t criticize something that had a low price (like anything that comes from a bargain bin or dollar store) because we say that “you get what you pay for“. If you pay little, you should expect little. It’s why if you bought a shovel for 2 bucks and it breaks in 2 hours, you can say “cheap ass shovel”, and blow it off. But if you paid $4000 for a truck, and it breaks down in 2 days, you’re taking that bastard to court.

What fo you expect from something you get for free? Absolutely nothing.  And that’s what fangames result in. You hear more nice things about those games because there are no expectations of them! People are usually nice about fangames because they understand that due to circumstances, they’re not going to be the best games ever simply because they are made by people who don’t have the resources of a corporation. Yes, you’re gonna have those 1-2 “brutally honest” fuck boys, but overall, everyone is going to be nice because they aren’t expecting anything beyond average. You won’t have people demanding immediate patches for buggy fangames because they didn’t have to spend money on them. There’s no immediate value to them because no one is paying gor them.

The fans look at that and go “hmm, these fan projects get all sorts of praise, we must know Sonic better than Sega!” But it’s that no one is expecting a damn thing! But they won’t see that. They see it as “validation” of their fantasies. 

This is why Sonic Mania is the perfect marketing tool. An official Sonic game made by fans in the community!? What perfect validation that is! The fans can live vicariously through Taxman and these ither fan groups and, like Wonder Woman and Black Panther,  turned it into some lowkey movement for themselves. The fans can gas themselves up on all manner of falsehoods, and Sega can wax poetic about the glory of Mania via its artbook and constant reminders of their high ratings. Now, if Sega and the boys were really confident about Mania’s success, the plus version would’ve been $60. 

Yeah, that value would’ve been contested real quick. And truth be told, that observation about Mania’s reception…. didn’t even come from me. 

The fans have internalized the consistent poor reception of the games and turned it into their culture. Where they can try to convince others that they know the answer to Sonic’s dilemma, constantly seeking  other’s validation. And those answers always come in the form of Nintendo logic. Gameplay, physics, level design, they just lay it all out on the table. And if that’s all they talk about, they have no business talking about how to fix the series. Similar to a lot of fangames, actually. They’re all often showcases of  one’s technical prowess. Often just showing off physics engines and programming skills (speaking on the 3D fan projects mostly). They do that because often, the fans lack an artistic soul. It’s not often that you’ll get games like before/after the sequel, Robo Blast 2, or otherwise because now, no Sonic fan is willing to go beyond trying to replicate pinball physics. They’re devoted to showing the world that they know the physics better than Sega does, but do nothing to make v their games appealling. And then they have the nerve to shoot down anything that has Sally Acorn in it. It’s also why most of them turn their noses up at the idea of focusing on content. They’ve absorbed too much of Miyamoto’s geriatric horseshit, and none of them can think beyond that.
Well, I’m gonna go ahead and wrap this up as I’m sure the fandom is foaming at the mouth.

Got a witness saying Katz didn’t kill over gaming losses. Strange behaviors as well.

The 2 people who beat Katz are still alive. This wasn’t a reaction to a loss. Even he believes this was premeditated. 

One shit game, and they want to give up (SC6)

Same ultimatum as Starfox 3D

Katz was stalking Trueboy for the last 2 years

It hasn’t escaped me that David Katz’s first victim was a black man, no. And the video surfacing the web… showing a laser at his chest before cutting off (the way the video was presented seems odd to me. Can’t put my finger on why). And… Apparently,  this guy was…. obsessed with Trueboy. He was keeping track of his activities since 2016, posting up True’s game guides for Madden on his Twitter feed. Like…. he was fixated on his rising prominence in E-Sports. We got people spittin “he was mad cause he lost to Trueboy”, Stupid ass, he had guns prior to this match. Just like Jason Kessler and his psychos had guns in Charlottesville, but people want to say “there’s violence on both sides”. You go to an arena stocked with led, you are anticipating blood. You want blood. Katz was fixin to kill True the whole time, he didn’t need to wait for an excuse, especially if he was gonna murk himself. 

I see gamers are… getting defensive, so much so that they’re talking gun control and that mental health bullshit, so it’s already confirmed to be racially motivated. This angry cracka was gunning for Trueboy for quite some time. People are talking about “don’t repost this video, it’s likely what the shooter wants”. The shooter is dead. His desires aren’t important anymore. Everytime tragedies happen, people start getting fauxmotional shaming everyone else into just “sending their hearts out to the families of the victims“, we need to find out what the fuck is going on! So there won’t be anymore victims! But…. you got stupid asses online like this asswipe.

This was on Twitter in response to the guy who got swatted a few months ago over a podcast talking about racism in gaming. And the gaming community is ripping his ass upside his head on Twitter right now over this fauxmotional mantra. This is that self-righteous gaming logic. Even though the same people are cracking jokes saying “lol the xbox killer from boondocks”. I’ve said it a year ago that gamers, or simply internet dwellers of a certain phenotype, are a mal-adjusted populace who find little value in other people, and here you see it manifesting. If gamers were really saddened and depressed by this shit, you would not see jokes being made about what is a tragedy. But no. They have no moral fibers to speak of. They’ve gone years doing all these swatting pranks, even after a few people have been killed from it, and pulled the same shit to intentionally get someone murdered! If David Katz is a victim of mental health issues, the gaming populace (of America, since these mother fuckers care about international audiences somehow) needs an evaluation. 

But that would only lead to another thing I pointed out. That thing that I recall getting some rebuke in regards to black mass murderers, the same bullshit statistics that emboldened Dylan Roof to spray up a church.  How the majority of the gaming population aren’t all these white males shooting up everything.  They’re all over the internet, sure, but they don’t game like everyone else. These are the mal-adjusted fucks surfing the web, and is the same group of people that spawned David Katz. Likely the same people who bought up Resident Evil 5 in droves if only to spite those who complained about that game’s content. Same with Last of Us. Got some of these types going off on the keyboard about how they imagine enemies on COD as being “black people”. The kinds of people that Neo-Nazis would attract and/or recruit. Their shit has been allowed to fester on Xbox Live for years. These are the same people that shouted down having the Harlem Hellfighters on Battlefield 1. Same people that made Mafia 3 affordable on Amazon by shitting on the game (suckers). If Samus was ever turned black, even the Nintendo fans would unravel. The same people who fixated on me calling Knuckles black, and getting themselves a rhetorical coon to back them up.

The gaming community, if you can call it that, is infested with these kinds of people, and gamers like “TruetoATL”, are in complete denial. Probably because this describes a lot of them! They have tolerated this nonsense,  and have become desensitized this shit for years. Katz’s first target was a black man that he was calling out for 2 years. That’s abnormal behavior to obsess over mother fuckers like that, and commit premeditated MURDER! And gamers want to preach about not being horrible people and ignore how easily internet people isolate themselves from the real world, become desensitized to all kinds of shit, and can live safely with their own racism under the veil of “#lolstupidgamers”. 

No. Jack Thompson was wrong. But he was also right. Videogames don’t cause violence. The violence is already there. They simply act as the release valve.  But as this incident shows, that isn’t enough anymore.

I’m starting to become desensitized to these shootings

Doesn’t make what I’m posting any less fucked up, but eh.

So, David Katz, the man responsible for 4 deaths at Jacksonville… happened to be Jewish. That’s already bad news as those alt-right fucks were chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and this incident is going to validate those bastards. But what’s funny is this. Some time ago, I posted a link on how Neo-nazis were using videogames as tools to recruit people into their cults. This… creates a bit of irony as a gaming tournament was just sprayed with led by a Jewish man.

On the other hand, Gamers are all but waxing poetics about this incident. Im sure this question gets brought up a lot, but do gaming tournaments not have decent security? Or is it this belief that because gaming is such an introverted activity that people believe gamers to be “too awkward” to show up with a gun?

Racing games must getting worse (TSR)

Voted best racing game? Well shit. The racing genre must be in dire strats if TSR is getting gold stars.

Oh look, they made a Big expy even though Big is in the game. 😛

Off my chest: Strong female characters

You know that chick from uncharted 4 that was voiced by Lara Bailey, much to my sister’s dismay? Honest Trailers joked that this was a “strong female character”. Unfortunately, for a lot of women, they’d probably take that seriously. Any female character that beats wholesale ass with obligatory fu is considered “strong” simply because she can fight. If you ask me, this isn’t even close being a strong female.  This is a female power fantasy. And the way I see it, it would have to be rooted in feminism because these females are always, always, being uplifted at the expense of men. Strength in this regard always equates to overcoming or belittling men in some regard. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually interesting characters so long as they’re quote “badasses”. 

Don’t believe me? Take a gander at the MCU where every fucking movie has at least one female character beating the shit out of groups of men, showing up the main males, or otherwise. Black Widow was the most prominent power fantasy where all she did was kick the shit out of men for the majority of her appearances. Then you get Peggy Carter, Sif, Wasp, technically the ancient one, valkrye, and yes, that includes Okoye too. 

Gamora was softcore in that she didn’t exist to prop up the female power fantasy game that Disney shoved into every movie, which is one of the few things that shit series did right. Gamora at least had a fucking story. Everyone else simply existed to placate female audiences with juvenile “fuck men” fantasies because somehow, the core of a woman’s existence is defeating men. Yeah, somehow we got stuck in the 40s.

And you know what? The target audience loves that. I remember certain people were irritated by Aria T’Loak from Mass Effect 2, how she was allowed to shit all over your character, and you couldn’t do anything about her…. at all. And some female fans rebuked them by saying they’re merely intimidated by strong females. Some have said the same thing about the female Thor that punched a guy for using the word “feminism”. No, it’s because men have the capacity to criticize characters in fiction, no matter their gender. Chastising them for it simply because they’re female characters shows a level of insecurity on your part. 

My 2 cents.

Castlevania: Netflix’s Curse

Since we’re all on this Castlevania fix… I finally checked the Netflix Cartoon, Castlevania 3: the animated series. Only 4 episodes long, and uses Disney/Game of Thrones dialogue as a substitute for good writing. *sigh* I suppose it’s to be expected. Castlevania as a series sort of lends itself as prey to this kind of writing. As a series of gothic action horror, simply making it about one person traversing a castle to kill the lord of darkness wouldn’t be appealing to a mass of audiences…. but fuck them! That’s what I wanted! A hero’s solo journey through a perilous castle of chaos, kicking demonic ass via conventional means at every single turn, similar to how Samurai rolls! Rockin out to some tight ass Castlevania tunes all the way!

But no. We have to make nice to the GoT crowd and rely more on shock value and anti-catholicism with a lovely dash of sailor mouth. Had enough of that bullshit from Lords of Shadow, minus the rampant profanity. It’s productions like this that make me think that old 80s Zelda cartoon was good in that it at least tried to feel like the damn game. Bah, lets get on wit it. 

So Episode 1. We get a basic history lesson of why the good ol’ count is a dick. Lisa, the human mother of Alucard, wanted…. something from Dracula, I can’t quite remember what. And here, Drac lets her in, they interact for a while, and Lisa was quite taken with Dracula’s little laboratory. Now, this is an awkward way to start off your series, and while this is the only time in history that we ever see Dracula and Lisa interact with each other to show… in some regard why Lisa was so important to her that he would declare war on humanity, it actually fucks up the next 3 episodes. Here’s why.

In the following scenes, we see Lisa being burned at the stake as a witch in her dealings with “Satan”. Some time later, Dracula learns about this from an old woman, and rightfully gets pissed. So he goes to town in the form of Dormammu’s face and warns the people of Wallachia that they have one year to prepare for, or escape from Dracula’s wrath. Now… this is an incredibly arbitrary bit of planning. If you’re pissed now, why give your lover’s murderers any time at all to escape or otherwise? I know Lisa said to forgive them and what not, but you’re already planning on killing a mass of people for her death anyway!!! The only reason is for the writers to find a way to completely justify Dracula’s rampage. 

During the year, the Wallachians did jack shit about Dracula’s warnings…. and even had the nerve to celebrate Lisa’s death. Now this REALLY pissed him off, and Drac proceeds to rape Wallachia to it’s knees. 

GORE!! PRECIOUS GORE!!! This show is all about it’s shock value, so you’re gonna see ass loads of… ass getting torn to shreds. Literally. But it feels like it’s there to compensate for the poor animation than anything else.

But you see the issue? You don’t have any reason to feel sorry for Wallachia. They burned Dracula’s lover, ignored his warnings, and basically took a dump on her memory. In your mind, they deserved to be fucked. Near the end of the episode, you have an adult Alucard (wtf!?) who declared that Dracula’s hatred was going too far, and tried to fight him off. And that’s it for the first episode which, in my opinion, ruins the rest of the series. An episode like this should’ve been shown somewhere in the middle of the series where Dracula’s motivation for wanting to wreck humanity would be shrouded in mystery, and subsequent episodes would foreshadow this revelation. That way, the viewer wouldn’t feel awkward about sympathizing with the villain so early on. Because now, they will want the villain to win at the very beginning. And this goes unmitigated for the rest of the season

Episode 2 picks up where the last one left off. At a bar with 2 guys throwing F-bombs left and right, discussing how much they hate “royal families” or some such. And here we find Trevor Belmont…. as no better than these 2 drunken idiots. Well shit, so much for this guy’s characterization being anything redeemable. Despite knowing that those 2 assholes despise noble families, he goes up to the bar tender to order another round… right where those drunks were… because Trevor himself doesn’t give a shit. So they recognize that he has a family crest and start a bar fight that ends up with Trevor getting thrown out. Cause we just needed an excuse to have a bar fight scene.

Dumbass Trevor then goes to Wallachia and watches one of those demons casually carry off the corpse of an infant, as though we needed more proof of how fucked up this show is supposed to be. And Trevor figures it’s best that he doesn’t enter the city at the front entrance, as his family was supposed to be in exile. So he takes the sewer entrance and (what else, but) shit jokes. Yep! That’s what I wanted to see in Castlevania! Jokes about raw sewage! 

He goes through town, sneaking passed guards, looking over a bridge to see piles of corpses, goes to town to buy and eat what appears to be jerked rat, and gets into a street fight. Here, Trevor finds an old man being harassed by members of the church, and argues with himself whether or not he should save him (So Trevor is supposed to be a jerk with a heart of gold?). He eventually saves the old man and snaps out one of the bastard’s eyes. Gotta find some way to keep your attention, I suppose. The old fart thanks him and takes him to where he and his nomadic tribe stays.

Apparently, the church doesn’t approve of them staying in town, suggesting that they are instead to blame for Dracula’s demonic hoards that appear every night. So they’re demanding they leave, or the church will encourage an angry mob to violently chase them off. I don’t know why the church is putting this on them. They should know why drac is fucking with them. Trevor, obviously,  tells them to hit the road so that they’ll live, but they say they want to help the city with it’s monster nights. As well, one of their own, Sypha Belnades (oh goody, Trevor’s future wife) got lost in the catacombs looking for a “sleeping hero” to save the city. And Trevor agrees to help her.

Episode 3 sees Trevor getting into the caves… and busting his ass on the way down. Deep in the catacombs,  he finds Sypha as a statue (just like the game WEEEEEE!), and that a cyclops had turned her to stone. In an admittedly fun scene, Trevor kicks the cyclop’s ass, and frees Sypha. He takes her back to the nomads and tells them all to beat feet out of town again, and they basically tell him to piss off because they want to help people. Again. 

Trevor leaves, but is apprehended by Jehovah’s witnesses and taken to the church. A low ranking sage tells him that the Belmonts are shit and he has to leave with the nomads too… or something like that. 

Sorry, at this point, I kept losing focus on the show because I couldn’t give 2 shits about the corruption of the church! I just wanted a series about these guys fighting endless waves of unique and fucked up demons. Yet you get more of the church being the enemies than anything else.

So Trevor tells the nomads one mo‘ time to get their asses rolling, and Sypha gives him this tired ass ultimatum about he’s a coward/that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself, that kind of shit. So… instead, Trevor tells them to hide while he kicks the shit out of the church’s chickens.

This series might as well be about how the church wants to maintain power and control over the masses, and they’ll shift the blame to anyone else for the misfortune that befalls a city. And that would be all well and good if this wasn’t called Castlevania! Dracula is supposed to be the main antagonist, but the focus on the church’s corruption makes Dracula a justified murderer, and that doesn’t bode well for any further seasons.

Episode 4 comes around and Sypha shows that she has magic. ….ok? 

Trevor manages to convince the town that the Church was responsible for the shitstorm they have to endure, and one of the villagers takes a pitchfork to the clergy bastard. 

That was easy.

And now for the cliche of awesome hero teaching a village how to kick ass… only for the ground to open up and swallow Trevor and Sypha up. Wow… that whole…. “Village vs Demon Hoard” sequence ends with no payoff!? That’s…. rushed. I guess they couldn’t get 5 episodes in one season, so they had to push forward to a sizable conclusion. 

Trevor and Sypha make their way through more catacombs and finds that… yes. There IS a sleeping warrior lying underground! Fangirl trap king, Alucard Vlad Tepes himself, Awakens from his slumber with his effeminate looks and hair…. unfortunately making him the only character that looks like he came out of Castlevania. Trevor, instantly knows he’s a vampire (technically, he’s a dhampir, but eh) and outright assumes he’s Dracula in disguise. I guess the coffin was a dead giveaway, though Sypha isn’t convinced. And Trevor proceeds to beat Alucard’s ass! Dammit, I love this scene.

Despite Trevor clearly owning, Alucard pins him to a wall and threatens to bite him, but Trevor has a knife a few knots into Alucard’s chest, because Alucard doesn’t have foresight for shit. Even worse, Sypha threatens to roast his ass. Alucard clearly knows he can’t get out of this, so he lets up off Trevor, gets out his old Symphony of the Night costume, or what’s left of it, and the 3 stroll on out of the Catacombs on a mission to defeat Count Dracula! 

I get the feeling Grant Danasty is getting cut out of the deal.

Well, only 2 instances where it feels like Castlevania, one of which felt like they railroaded that shit into the last episode. The problem is simple. Because the writers put so much effort in making the Wallachians look like dicks (especially that damn church) you can’t really get behind anyone’s motivation to save that town. There’s no feeling sorry for those assholes. We see it as Karma. Perhaps you could say that Dracula attacking other villages in Romania as a result was going to far, but you can’t be too mad at him for his rage. The show feels like it’s not even about Dracula, and is all just an overextended pilot episode for season 2.

And of course, turning Trevor into a resentful ass doesn’t help matters much. Oh well, we’ll see come October if this show gets to the point.

Game Industry v Consumers

Seems like the industry is on it’s period again.

“Fortnite” 14-Year-Old Gamer Who Used Cheat Codes Is Being Sued By Epic Games

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/fortnite-gamer-who-used-cheat-codes-being-sued-by-epic-games-news.56965.html

Cheaters never win. 

14-year old Caleb Rogers is learning a hard life lesson. Cheating is not a good way to handle anything in life. 

Wanna know how out of touch I can be? I don’t even know what the hell Fortnite is!

Even so, I know there’s gonna be a million devilish advocates who are going to justify these sorts of lawsuits. If you have a problem with cheaters, just ban them! Is Epic Games trying to be Nintendo? They’ve always hated cheats too. Did the kid get some DLC for free? That’s the only reason I could see for that. If not, then NO ONE should get behind this.

you gotta love that opening tagline, it already takes the side of the company with that asshole dialogue. It’s that self-righteous advocacy that makes journalists out to be the royal ass-kissers they are. When did using cheats count as copyright infringement!? Is the game industry going insane again like when they declared used games as piracy!? Or is someone going to come out with some hyper obscure law that makes this so?

This shit here, man…