Capeshit (Civil War)

Maybe for 1 post, something a tad different. Seeing as I’ve not kept up with gaming news in the last 2 years. I think I’ve earned it.Brace yourselves for extreme nerdiness.

 

So… I envy the DC fans. I saw the Justice League trailer and I’m just oozing with buyers remorse. Mainly because of the Flash. Look at this guy’s costume. Does he not look awesome!? Hell, they ALL look awesome. Authentic to the source material. Enjoy your legit looking Flash, Fanboys! Our Quicksilver had nothing but a sports bra and tennis shoes! Our Scarlet Witch is a goth kid who’s just a few ounces more attractive than the shit stain from X-Men Evolution. Our Hawkeye wears casual clothing during a battle against an army of robots!

 

*sigh* You just get the sense that Warner Bros. cares more about the source material whereas Disney (obviously) rips these characters apart, exclusively to sell toys. Granted, I saw it coming, but they tried to convince me that they cared. The first 3 movies they got their hands on (Thor, Captain America, Avengers) all gave me false hope that perhaps… Disney was more than a toy company.

 

Then… the Mandarin happened. Then Guardians of the Galaxy. And then the complete ass rape of Ultron. And finally… Civil War. The “Fury Road” of Marvel where it’s not all that good, but tough luck explaining why without being ripped to shreds. When one looks at all Marvel movies, one would get the feeling that these films are comedies. Every 2 minutes, we have to endure bad quips because no one would buy Iron Man toys if people knew deep down that he’s a sociopathic lunatic.

 

On the other hand, you have DC movies that go into the extreme “darkness forever!” slope. Because damn if we want Superman movies to be happy. You ever seen Flashpoint? So far it’s the most deranged DC movie ever made. You got Batman shooting Zoom (or w/e the fuck his name is) through the skull (and of course they show the insides), throwing Harley Quinn off a building, Wonder Woman strangling people with her lasso of truth, decapitating people, murdering children, Black Manta burning through Deathstroke’s body, Aquaman dismantling Cyborg exposing his heaUUUGHHH!!!

 

DA FUK’S RONG WIT U, DC!? I don’t wanna see that nasty ass shit!!! FUCK!!! I literally felt nauseous after that scene. It just comes out of nowhere and if that didn’t get you fucked up, here’s a CLOSE UP of Victor’s pulsating clump of meat!!! I can only assume Aquabitch was stabbing him with his fork, which probably woulda been worse if it happened on-screen. But by the balls of Ra, can you imagine what was going through DC’s mind when making that incredibly obvious and yet still unnerving shockbait?

 

“Hey you sweaty Teen Titans fan! You love CyborgHERE’S HIS HEART!!!”

“Nuuu!!! Can’t…claw eyes…fast enough”

“We’re DC, and you are now traumatized!!” *Winksmilethumbsup*

 

Also, Fuck Aquaman. Kinda easy to see why MKvsDC actually happened.

 

Despite how wretchedly disturbing that movie is… it’s something that can be admired. It shows just how deadly all of these characters are and can be given the right circumstances. And this is all despite the supurb lack of character development. I’m not a fan of DC’s “must be dark and edgy at ALL times” approach to everything they do nowadays (it almost makes “Teen Titans Go” a necessary evil), and I get the impression that they’re ashamed of having a long history of comics that took after the Super Friends level of cornyness that everything they do has to be super serious.

 

But hey, at least someone’s taking their comic movies seriously. With Marvel movies, they’ve gone to the other extreme. It has to be funny and light on tension all the time because the kids are watching!!! So let’s do that along with an astonishing number of shoehorned “set ups” at the expense of the source material, actual character development, logical plot structure, THE VILLAINS, or having a satisfying movie without needing to wait 3 years for a sequel when they’re done asskissing the ones you don’t care about… just to get another infomercial that’s 2 hours long.

 

That brings me to Civil War. Now, I like the movie for it’s action as well as doing Black Panther justice (considering how racist Disney is, that’s quite a feat), not to mention having Giant Man. But see… that’s the problem with this movie. Everyone has criticized this. It’s called “Captain America” but it’s like the Transformers where the title character gets pushed out of the spotlight and becomes the C-Story in his own fucking movie. The whole “it’s more of an Avengers movie” became the redundant buzz phrase of 2016 movie reviews, and for good reason. Cap barely gets any story beyond “protect Bucky despite having no evidence to prove his innocence”.

 

*sigh* Is it ironic to not like America, but be a fanboy of Captain America? Idk, there’s something appealing about how a propoganda tool rebels against his own concept. The man out of time, how a character that was built around the foundations that made Superman a bag of moldy cheese… actually maintains those 1940s qualities in the modern Marvel Universe where everyone has a dark side or a huge emotional problem that causes them to use questionable methods to achieve their goals, or just go apeshit and kill people. Cap remains himself and commands respect from the likes of Wolverine and Spiderman.

Sure his Rogues gallery is shit outside of Redskull or the Serpent Society, but hell, even if it was good, fat chance of knowing that with any of these movies.

 

Now… I loved the first 2 CA movies. First Avenger, to me, was perfect… at least compared to all the movies that came before it. It was the only movie that focused squarely on Captain America (Origin Story, I know) and it wasn’t an infomercial even though the movie pretended you didn’t care about him and only wanted the Avengers. Winter Soldier is… well, it’s not bad (Hell, its fantastic), but it’s far less interesting than First Avenger. It feels like watching a less boring Bourne movie if I’m being honest. Falcon had a jetpack with shitty wings, and Black Widow is just as worthless as ever. Honestly, I kinda wanted to see Cap struggle adapting to the modern world. But fuck all that, just write that shit down in a diary, store in Box 10 with your Bidoof, and proceed to have 0 personality for the rest of your appearances.

Infact, Marvel Studios blatantly assumes you don’t give a rat’s ass about Captain America, so much so that they make him about as relevant as Bomberman. Was he even in Age of Ultron? I literally forgot. Was he the guy that said “language” and the movie just shoved that 1 joke in your face, (thinking it was comedy gold!) cause… you know, his only character trait is to be the butt of Iron Man’s jokes?

 

So I shouldn’t be surprised when Captain America’s 3rd and final individual movie was handed over to Iron Man on a silver platter. Iron Man certainly has more plot relevance, him recruiting Spider-Man is… leik… such a biiiiig deal, and we get some shoehorned sappy backstory of him and his parents just so Tony’s bastardry can be justified in the third act. To the point where people laughibly side against Captain America all for one half-assed reveal. Now to the actual review.

 

Oh noes!! Crossbones went into Africa and stole a random bio weapon! Do we know what it is or what it can do? No!? Fuck it! Excuse plot within an excuse plot, I suppose.

Cap takes Witch, Widow, and Falcon with him (is this a half-assed reference to his kooky quartet!?!?). Falcon scans the perimeter with his pet drone… ugh.

Personal gripe, I’m not ok with Redwing being a drone. Yeah I know. Telepathic link with an actual Falcon is just… “too weird”, but people accept a talking raccoon and a FUCKING TREE as legit heroes, so WHY NOT!? Anyways..

We have a big fight where loads of punches occur against regular mooks… because otherwise the studio would be forced to justify how Black Widow could take on any force that is out of her league. Cap defeats Crossbones who reveals he’s working for Winter Soldier… which makes no sense because Bucky went missing and it’s easy to assume that Hydra didn’t care that he’s gone because he’s… buying plums. I’m not even sure why Crossbones was stealing bioweapons from Africa, I guess it’s just there to set up the soon to be aborted plot of this movie, because blowing up Sokovia in AOU didn’t mean shit! But Witch minimalizing casaulties of Crossbones suicide bombing to 13 people, that just sparks OUTRAGE!!!

There’s no real explanation for this scene other than the need for some manufactured crisis to get the plot rolling when previous films have had enough of them to be used as a spark. You mean to tell me that some tiny explosion which, again, only killed 13 people compared to events from AOU where 2 major cities were devastated and/or destroyed, THIS is the straw that breaks the camel’s back!?

 

Do the writers between all of these movies ever get together to discuss consistencies between their continuities?

 

Anywho, we cut to everyone’s favorite asshole who we might as well call the comic book version of Donald Trump. Once more we are to suffer through RDJ’s dry acting skill of using the same emotional tone in every scene, it’s like he can’t turn off his “pseudo-sarcastic voice” for like 2 seconds. We get holographic exposition due to Tony’s relationship with his parents feeling about as hollow as mist. You know it’s there, but you feel nothing! You wait after 11 movies to give us some details of Tony’s parental issues!?

To top it off, he shares this crap with a bunch of college students during a presentation that has Jack shit to do with his past… meaning that Tony was probably never at all affected by this oh so traumatic event that he figured “hey, I can make a sweet PowerPoint presentation with this!!” What an ass.

Wait, Tony shares his past with strangers but none of the Avengers? Wait, he actually KNOWS his Mother!? Hell, for all I knew, he was adopted by an alcoholic.

So after walking off because Pepper didn’t give up the puh, Tony runs into Miriam Sharpe who blames him for the death of her son. Get it!? Cause it happened in the comics… cept she’s technically right this time around.

 

Back at Avengers mansion, Witch guilt watches tv while showing off her sexy legs in a room clearly designed for a teenager. I can only assume Vision was peeking her legs all this time and decided to wear, for some bizarre reason, actual clothes, probably to hide his infinty erecTHUNDERBOLT ROSS IS BACK!!! And I don’t care.

So he guilt trips the Avengers by showing them footage of their wanton destruction, while only showing 1 disturbing image of an African corpse (Disney’s racism is verrrry subtle, you know). Ross goes on about how the Avengers operate with unlimited power (which is bullshit because Shield (A UN chartered organization) set them up in the first place, but when Shield was dissolved 3 movies ago, the UN just NOW takes action!? No good mutha…)

 

Cut to a scene where Barely Zemo forcibly drowns a man in his own home on-screen, and I’m left bewildered as to how this is less offensive or dark unlike  Batman vs Superman. Not enough bad quips?

 

Back at the mansion, Machine has a military rank pissing contest with Falcon for Amma knows what reason, and then everyone gives their opinions on the accords, and it’s literally 2 against 4 not in favor of the accords. Nice to know we’re balancing out both sides of the argument here. Say didn’t Widow tell the government to kiss her ass in Winter Soldier!? Consistency!!! Hell, even Falcon points this out.

Dont get me started on 7/11’s little “We need to be put in check” speech, as wonderfully idiotic as that statement alone sounds, I’m still pissed that no one brought up the Hulk-Buster scene. How many buildings did you drop on their black asses you fucking retard!?

The only people who have any legitimate reason to support the accords are War Machine and Vision. Machine being a tight ass who’s had to put up with Iron Man’s antics for 2 movies More than likely feels it necessary to regulate metahumans. And Vision’s a robot… and that’s why. Say, weren’t you on Cap’s side and disabled Iron Man’s suit… oh my mistake, I forgot Disney made the source material irrelavent, otherwise Kaecilius wouldn’t be the badguy in Dr. Strange.

Cap is, of course, the only person who has a legit reason to go against the accords. As a guy who didn’t want to be held back by WW2 restrictions when it came time, plus his newfound distrust of Big Brother, he’s like “FUCK these accords! I’ve actually taken the time to ensure that civillian lives were in a safe area before going to kick some ass, it was MY idea to save lives on Sokovia! Nevermind that I needed Fury’s help to even pull those rescues off, why isn’t he here to back me up!?”

But fuck all that! FUNERALS!!!

 

Literally forgot Peggy Carter existed. But oh well, she’s dead and her lame ass show can finally be cancelled. Her big tittied niece delivers a eulogy so bad that they had to steal dialogue from the comics just to appeal to the fans that aren’t pissed about the incorrect rosters. Because Spider-Man is all that matters…

 

BLACK PANTHER!!! I see your lusting eyes, Black Widow, you whore.

 

So T’Chaka gives a speechKABOOM he’s dead. So much for getting to know these characters well enough to care about them before you off them. But I get it. You didn’t feel like giving Panther an origin story (to hell with them ni-), so you shoehorned it into Cap’s movie with no soul w/e. Also, “parental figure’s death is motivation to become super hero” trope.

 

So now we get to the part that renders the accords story meaningless. Bucky is framed, and Cap’s logic goes full retard. “Protect Bucky at all costs!!! Even at the expense of everyone I run into”. I mean goddamn! He’s beating up law enforcement, stealing people’s cars,  and fucking up Helicopters. Because if I imagine Cap doing anything, its grand theft auto. Consistency!!!

 

No… seriously. This is fucking terrible. Not only does this whole sequence make Cap out to be an inconsiderate asshat, but it’s completely inconsistent with his previous appearances. As I’ve said before, in both Avengers movies, Cap actually went through hell and back to protect civillian life. The way he charged through a subway station to save a woman and her child, jumping in to save an elderly man from being murdered by Loki, trying desperately to save a woman in her car from falling off the cliffside of a flying city, and being the only guy in the whole group to refuse to blow up Sokovia until everyone was evacuated while Widow suggested nuking the city now… just shows how much he cared about people. Cap threw himself into harms way on multiple occassions to protect those who couldn’t defend themselves. Unwilling to sacrifice lives for the sake of accomplishing a military objective. So why in Mary fuck is he THROWING AN INNOCENT DRIVER INTO SPEEDING TRAFFIC!? So what if Bucky’s your friend, you risked a man’s life to save a guy who tried to yours! It just doesn’t compute!!! Even in Winter Soldier, he doesn’t lose his fucking mind when he’s forced to confront Bucky on a shield helicarrier, he fights him because he knew that if he didn’t disable those guns, Hydra would’ve been free to kill whoever they wanted!! He was willing to die on the fucking ships if it meant those weapons couldn’t fall into the wrong hands!!! And here he is throwing people into traffic. Y..you can’t ignore details like that just because you want to make an action sequence!!

 

Panther shows up and makes Bucky his bitch, and some random chopper comes out of nowhere and starts shooting Panther… and only Panther. Cause even though a WHITE guy who blew up an embassy, is a known assasin and terrorist, and led to the death of a fucking KING, the black guy is STILL more threatening even though nobody knows who the hell he is!

 

And OH YEA, Falcon is in the movie!! He does nothing for the scene, however. So then they all get arrested. Machine is all like “Yea Cap, you’re a criminal!” Panther reveals his identity for a dramatic reveal that everyone knew anyway. Did I mention Panther gets the best dialogue? No bullshit tacked-on witty remarks to keep pace with all the other comedic talents otherwise known as the entire goddamn cast!!!

So in this secret base, they meet Everett Ross who in the comics was just a liason for Panther. Here, Evy thinks he awesome and talks more shit than Tony. Speaking of which, he and his ass bitch Widow taunt Cap and Falcon relentlessly. Widow’s demeanor towards certain characters changes whenever she feels like it, eh? Now she’s acting like a total bitch. “Your friend killed the father of the guy I totally wanna bang!”

Then Cap and Irons gets into an argument where Iron actually admits to making Ultron, but says so in relation to why Pepper left his sorry ass. Not because people died or anything. Can’t have the Wolverine of our franchise admitting any REAL faults, yah dig? Oh yeah, there was some shit about Vision, an android with vast amounts of intelligence granted to him from the Mind Gem, not knowing what paprika was… that scene was all shipping so… it’s not important.

But w/e because Barely Zemo snuck into the facility and took a gamble with his EMP bomb delivery. How lucky was he that the bomb arrived just in time for him to mind control Bucky? Man, you could swear this guy and Lex’s plans are all xanatos gambits. Bucky escapes, beats the shit out of everyone except Panther (Cause he’s a boss), but gets captured by Cap and Falcon. That helicopter scene was actually pretty awesome, no?

In some warehouse, Cap and Falcon interrogate Bucky about his darkside and mentions an aborted plot had Captain America 3 remained a pure Captain America movie and not a glorified infomercial. Then we get the scene from Ant Man so as to ensure people they didn’t waste their money seeing it. I mean… good movie, but has Jack shit to do with the rest of this universe.

Then we go to Iron Man not giving a shit about child endangerment to recruit a 12 year old Spider-Man that pissed off legions of fanboys due to his age. Tony wants a private conversation with Peter in his room (cause that doesn’t come across as creepy at all) and the first thing he does is spit out Aunt May’s cookiesTHE FUCK’S WRONG WITH YOU!? Those are delicious! I’m surprised Peter didn’t just whoop his ass right there!! Or the next barrage of insults regarding his computer, twin bed, and his crappy suit. You wanna recruit this kid but you shit all over his self-esteem. Good for you!! But hey, let’s top that off with some blackmail! Tony threatens to tell Aunt May about Peter’s Spider ID, yadda yadda. How anyone can like Iron Man after the last 3 movies is beyond me. Maybe people are just drawn to assholes. Why else would Trump have a shot at being President!?

Back at the mansion, a random, unexplained explosion distracts Vision long enough for Hawkeye to randomly show up for no reason and give Witch some pep talk… while trying to fight V ision. It was awesome seeing Hawkeye show why he doesn’t suck like Widow, but he needs Witch’s help just to break free from Vision’s overpowered grasp. Considering Hawkeye shows the capacity to disable Vision with electric arrows, why the fuck does he take to swinging a stick at him!? You know well enough that he isn’t to be fucked with at close combat! And if the first attack didn’t phase him (hahahahaha) what makes you think a few more swings will!? Hawkeye is smarter than this! Wait… why is he even here!? He just pops out of nowhere, disables Vision, and tells Witch “Cap needs us” and just expects her to go along with him. Witch rightfully pauses in confusion as to what the hell is going on in this movie because clearly the writers realized that they needed to give Cap an actual team for big Airport battle, so at the last minute, they squeeze in Hawkeye, Witch, and Ant Man… for absolutely no reason!!! These 3 have no actual reason to be in this fucking movie!!! Hawkeye is supposed to be retired, Witch feels guilty for causing some deaths, and AntMan is shoehorned in just to establish that he is in this continuity.

In the Civil War series, every character has a clear and legitimate reason for fighting. Their own personal views and past experiences are all accounted for and taken into consideration when determining which side they chose. You could understand why someone like Ms. Marvel would be for the Registration Act and why someone like Luke Cage wouldn’t. But here, the characters (on Cap’s side, at least) are just there because they needed an even number of characters on each team. It is the literal definition of forced.

Say, didn’t Witch’s brother die in the last movie? And she feels nothing from that!? No trauma, no depression, nothing!? Damn, was his character that bland and nonexistent that even his own sister gives less of a fuck about his death!? Fucking Age of Ultron came out last year, and we don’t know how much time passed in universe so we can’t even imagine if she got over it, but not even a single mention or callback!? Everyone in this movie only seem to acknowledge that Sokovia blew up. Nothing about the Hulk-buster fight or Quicksilver’s unnecessary sacrifice. Nothing about how it affected Witch in anyway… oh who am I kidding, if Kevin Feige doesn’t give a shit about Cap’s consistency, why would Witch of all bitches matter?

I also hate how Witch gets recruited by having Hawkeye basically strong arming her. “Hey thanks for explaining WHY Cap needs our help! I apparently don’t need a good reason as I’m too underdeveloped to have any conflicting motivations to even have the capacity to REFUSE to help you despite the fact that you’re making an ass of yourself. But fuck it, I need to get off mine because the plot needs a 6th team member! YAY IM IMPORTANT!!”

 

So Cap First gets his gear back from Sharon Carter whom he also shares a kiss with because hey it happened in the comics so there’s NO reason w/e to take time to develop an actual relationship. “We assume you don’t care about Captain America enough to see his love life, so phone it in! She has big tits and that’s all that matters.” And it’s literally the last time we see her in this movie!!! They didn’t give a shit about anything!

 

Anywho, Cap, Falcon, and Bucky meet up with the rest of their criminals in an airport because I guess no one would look to an airport to catch a terrorist. Why not use Nick Fury’s underground bunker from Winter Soldier instead of conducting your business out in the open? Oh because we need that big super hero fight immediately after the scene! Gotcha. Ant Man cops a feel on Cap’s man boobs and I’m supposed to find that funny instead of weird, innappropiate, and arbitrary. Is Disney promoting a lifestyle here?

Now comes the biggest super hero fight of the century!!!

 

First up, we get the reveal that Iron Man made Spider-Man’s suit… wait. WHAT!? Iron Man gave Spider-Man his iconic design!? Ok, so you give him Ultron (which I kinda accepted) and then you gave him Vision (which I felt was being too generous, but I rolled with it)… But now you cocksuckers give him Spider-Man’s iconic costume!? An element that in ALL Spider-Man adaptations was a costume that Peter Parker HIMSELF created!? FUCK YOU IN THE EAR MOVIE!!!!1111!1!1!

 

I swear, it’s like these bastards are just screaming in your face “everything that occurs in the MCU couldn’t happen without Iron Man’s contributions”. He saves the day in BOTH Avengers movies, is responsible for the creation of the Avengers deadliest villain, and creation of 1 of their most powerful members, and now he’s responsible for making Spider-Man’s iconic fucking costume, complete with shitty CGI work throughout to show us how much of a last minute addition he was to the overall movie, it’s like Wonder Woman in BvS. Shill Tony Stark, Bury Steve Rodgers!

But fuck all that, ITS TIME TO DDDDDUEL!!!!

 

Now, this is the highlight of the movie and is literally the best damn super hero fight in cinematic history… but it ruins Spider-Man for me. Mainly due to his dialogue. Exhibit

 

“You have the right to remain silent!”

Personal gripe, but he says this to Falcon. A black super hero. I know he’s 12 and is just excited to fight people, but in a time where cops seem to be on a murderous rampage against black folks, you think the script might’ve been a little tone deaf about that?

 

“Id love to chat, but I really need to impress Mr. Stark..”

…Are you fucking serious!? That’s your whole motivation right there? These guys want to stop a league of assasins, but you want “senpai” to notice you!? Get the fuck out of here, Spider-Man would never say some shit like that in a fight.

 

“Look kid, there’s some things you don’t understand…”

“Mr. Stark said you’d say that! He also said go for your legs!”

Ok I’m getting pissed now. Spider-Man’s only means of actually damaging Cap depends on advice from a guy who never thinks to do this himself! And the sad part is… that’s absolutely correct as Cap proceeds to kick his lily ass for the rest of the fight.

 

“What else did Stark tell you?”

“That you’re wrong, you think you’re right, and that makes you dangerous”

…Holy shit. You sir are not Spider-Man.

You’re some horrid creature masquerading as him. So because Irons told you that Cap is a bad person, you believe it outright? You could swear… SWEAR that this poor child was horribly indoctrinated before going into battle!

Spider-Man had many flaws, but none of them included niavete. He usually thinks long and hard about all of his decisions before ultimately making these tough choices. And a lot of those decisions came independently from everyone else. He doesn’t just mindlessly join a cause for the sake of a complete stranger who somehow knows your secret identity. Why would anyone trust a person who SPIES on you in his spare time!? And why would you believe everything that comes out of his mouth!?

Are there any Dynasty Warriors fans in this audience? If so, do you like Guan Yu? No? Then you must his fictional kids! Well, maybe not Yinping because teh sexy legs, but in general you know why they’re shit. Because they are but mere extensions of Guan Yu and serve as nothing more than mouth pieces to preach about Guan Yu’s greatness. They have no individual thoughts of their own it seems. Spider-Man… is dangerously crossing into Guan Suo territory. Hell, his costume work is about as real as Guan Suo’s existence. He has no thoughts of his own, mindlessly takes orders without question, and is obsessed with gaining Tony’s approval. Wasn’t Black Widow supposed to be an extention of Iron Man seeing as she’s just as irritating and snarky!? Why did he need another one!? And why Spider-Man!?

 

Ugh… anywho, for some bizarre reason that will never be explained, Widow allows Cap and Bucky to escape. And the plot decided it would be funny if War Machine got owned, so they have Vision shoot him out of the air for trailer bait, but he survives to be crippled. Can’t have too many black super heroes, yah know?

I also like how Iron Man shoots Falcon after he fucking apologized to him even though Falcon never shot Machine out of the air, but does Jack shit to Vision… who DID shoot Machine… and didn’t apologize for it either!!! Again… how do people still like this asshat!? Normal people would be like “he’s an insensitive and inconsiderate asshole” but he continues to be showered with praise because he’s just so gosh darn witty! And “he” brought Spider-Man into MCU so fuck you!

Iron Man actually bothers to do some research and finds out that Barely Zemo blew up the embassy and wants that army of super soldiers. So he goes to the Raft prison and ofcourse gives a verbal smackdown to Hawkeye and Ant Man because we just needed to shill him more than usual and give him moral superiority because reasons. It’s unfortunate because this asshat acknowledges Hawkeye’s stupidity and lack of relevance to the plot.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Ant Man. So Pym is very secretive about his work, right!? Not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands like Howard Stark or Cross or the Government… which it is clearly at the mercy of. The government could study his suit and it’s properties or worse, Irons can replicate it for his own evil purposes. Pym should be furious that Scott would jeopardize his life’s work just for a crossover opportunity. Also, with his criminal history and lack of connections to people who would bother to bail him out, how would he plan to get out of prison? How would explain this shit to his ex-wife? Isn’t his prison terms the reason she wouldn’t let him near his daughter… which was his primary motivation for putting up with the Pym’s abuse!? For beating Yellow Jacket!? And here, he just says “durr ok! I’m gonna fight this battle that has Jack shit to do with me!” Consistency!

They literally gave Iron Man all the characters that have moral superiority and legit reasons to be fighting (not to mention being a vastly overpowered team, what with Spider-Man, Vision, and Panther) while Cap’s side is filled with morons who have no reason to fight with Cap at all and are grossly underpowered to deal with Iron Man’s team. Disney couldn’t help themselves. It’s amazing they held their own at all.

So Falcon coughs up the location of a Hydra base in Siberia where Cap and Bucky are. Irons arrives to call a truce and stop Zemo… which he immediately calls off over a video tape.

 

Lets talk about Zemo’s plan. He goes around killing Hydra soldiers because he wants info on “mission report 12/16/91”, but then decides to mind control bucky to get that information, goes to Siberia and finds this badass army of super soldiers… only to kill them off if only for the writers to show that they don’t make mindless cliches, all in order to show Iron Man a video tape of his parents getting killed by Bucky. Then plans to commit suicide. First of all, if he wanted that mission report, he couldve used the Internet more. He does mention that Hydra’s secrets were leaked on the internet, but that somehow didn’t include that specific mission report!? Secondly, an army of super soldiers would make useful body guards and you could’ve used them for a LOT of missions or other shit, but you kill them off because you don’t like metahumans. You could’ve kick started the Masters of Evil you son of a bitch! Third, that video tape wasn’t at all disclosed in Widow’s big leak from Winter Soldier? How!? And lastly, if all he wanted was info regarding Tony’s parents, he couldn’t get THAT from Bucky instead of going all the way to Siberia? Oh and he waits patiently for Iron Man to come to the facility and watch it? What if he never showed up to watch it? Zemo’s plan (if you can call it that) is based entirely on fucking luck, and makes no logical sense. But wait, if he was desperate to get this mission report, then it means he’s had knowledge of the Stark’s murder for quite some time now, and instead

Of sending Tony some mail or w/e to egg him into wanting to kill Bucky, he decides to gamble on Iron Man’s mental instability so that they would kill each other. And what would he hope to accomplish with just 3 deaths? Civil War is so focused on maintaining this theme of lost loved ones (unless you’re Scarlet Witch) that it pushes it at the expense of logic. Zemo’s plan is ass backwards. Let’s not even talk about how there is HD quality street cams in 1991, or why the Starks would take an old forest road to get to an airport.

But fuck all that, it’s time to completely ruin this movie!

 

So you know how in BvS how Lex goads Superman into fighting Batman via kidnapping his mom? Yeah, Civil War ripped that off. Zemo goads Iron Man into fighting bucky and Cap. It’s the SAME DAMN THING!!! But you know, people actually like Iron Man so it’s ok for Disney to pull the same stunt. This plot twist is stupid, forced, rushed, and stupid. For a number of reasons, but I’ll list 4 since by now, you’re tired of my rambling.

 

1.Bucky should’ve just apologized. It might not have helped much seeing as Tony is a dick to those who do apologize (Falcon) but at least do that instead of pointing a fucking gun at him! All you’re doing is signaling that your own life is more important than squashing this beef.

 

2. When and where did Cap learn that Bucky murdered Tony’s parents!? Some theorists believe that it was revealed in Winter Soldier during Arnim Zola’s ranting, but who could memorize a few seconds of 1-2 images flashing rapidly and quickly transitioning to another image? And in a movie that gave fuck all about consistency!? Give me a break.

 

3. Cap had no real reason to reveal this information. He and Irons aren’t even friends for one. There was no mission importance that would require him to reveal, nor any feeling of guilt that would compell him to tell all. Lastly, Cap knows Irons is mentally unstable. Why would you trust a guy you clearly despise with information regarding your BFF? He made fucking Ultron!! Seeing as how Irons tries to kill them both instead of thinking “we’ll settle this after we take Zemo in”, I don’t blame Cap at all for keeping it a secret.             He has no obligation to Irons in any regard. Plus the fact that Irons has been antagonistic towards Cap almost exclusively (and he even mentions that he’s always hated Cap earlier), yeah. Besides, he’s never been shown to care about his parents until now because the writers needed a plot twist.

 

4. This makes Cap the unnofficial badguy of his own fucking movie because OMG HE KNEW!!! You horrible person!!! Everyone was pro-Cap until this very scene where everyone started thinking that Cap was an unrelenting bastard. You know, because beating up SWAT teams for trying to take in a known terrorist, and throwing civilians into harms way just to protect Bucky clearly didn’t piss anyone off!

This scene alone basically destroys the movie as the title character becomes the badguy in favor of coddling Iron Man fans. In just one stroke, Iron Man gets the full backing and support of the audience, and people were honestly hoping Cap would get killed off (plus for the diehards, it would’ve coincided with the comics as Cap died at the end of Civil War).

 

So what happens? Iron Man, considered the smartest man in the world, knowing full well they can take Zemo down with no trouble… gives into emotion and tries to kill Cap and Bucky. Now I’m certain no one pays attention to RDJ’s acting chops, but here, the movie is trying to convince me that Iron Man is pissed and out for blood. But his tone during this whole ordeal… never changes! Hey Russos! Tell RDJ to turn off his sarcastic asshat voice! One of you guys must have a bootleg copy and can easily listen to some choice lines here…

 

“Im eyeballin it”

“I don’t care. He killed my mum!”

“Lets kick his ass!”

“Stay down Cap. Final warning.”

“That shield belonged to my father… forgot the other lines”

 

He sounds so unconvincing. Like he was just phoning it in. Maybe he stopped caring when he read the script.

 

“(laughs) You fucks are serious!? You couldn’t give me a legit reason as to why I’d fight Cap to the death!? (laughs hysterically) you assbites are gonna have to pay me some good money if you’re gonna turn my character into an immature manchild!”

 

No really, highest paid actor out of ALL Avengers actors, and he wants more money. Yep.

 

Anywho, Cap kicks Iron ass, Bucky gets his arm blown off, and Cap ditches his shield. I guess he felt he owed Tony that much.

So Machine is paralyzed, Panther bizarrely let’s Zemo live even though he KNOWS this bastard killed his father, and Cap breaks out his prison buddies. Damn, even in the end, they couldn’t keep Cap an asshole. But then he writes an apology letter, come on dawg! You already gave him your shield (and free Vibranium, you dumb fuck), you don’t need to kiss his ass further. But w/e. He’s hangin out with Panther (who’s totally gonna give him a new shield anyway). Then we get another scene where Spider-Man gets his obscure Spidey Signal… from Tony Stark… as well…

 

…………….Ffffffffffuuuuuuuu…

 

*sigh* Its pretty hard to rate this movie fairly. Its not a bad movie persay, its got great action, better comedy relief that didnt feel desperate, the characters were still likable, Black Panther was amazing, seeing Giant Man was a real treat, and it washed the bad taste of “Age of Ultron” out of our mouths.

But all of it’s qualities came at the complete and total expense of everything else. The movie runs on an idiot plot where characters are… out of character, Captain America gets pushed aside to make room for Iron Man, Spider-Man sucked, the major plot of the Sokovia accords is ignored, Zemo was a lousy and shoehorned villain, half the cast doesn’t even have avoid reason to be in the movie, and the final fight was caused by an extremely lousy plot twist that no one seems bothered by. It’s got so many problems, almost as numerous as BvS, but because it’s funny and lighthearted, no one has the balls to call the film out on it’s faults (probably cause the MCU has rabbid fanboys). Overall, it feels like a rushed marketing opportunity for Disney to sell more toys when the first 2 Captain America movies were so great.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Anything that is merchandise driven is ultimately neutered, and this Disney’s entire thought process. It’s shocking that the first Avengers movie turned out so well, but everything phase 2 and beyond (with the exception of Winter Soldier and Ant Man) is just a barrage of shit movies to sell merchandise. If Guardians of the Galaxy and Age of Ultron weren’t convincing enough, here’s Civil War to make it clear that it’s only gonna get worse from here on out. Half-assed comic relief, shitty costumes, and product placement for future movies (because simply announcing them over the Internet is too much work).

 

It’s unfortunate that it works so well for them that their success has ensured that quality control will never be enforced. I honestly have no hope for Dr. Strange or Black Panther, or they might turn out decent and fool me into thinking they care (like AntMan did) and shit all over my expectations when the next movie comes out.

Sure, DC movies suck too, but they aren’t created with the intention of selling toys. You get the feeling that WB wants to make legitimately good films, that they care about their fans, that they don’t just want to make mindless comic book movies that target the LCDs exclusively, that the source material matters. They’re fucking up badly, but they’re at least trying. It’s more than I can say for Disney.

 

And Black Widow remains terrible.

 

 

Hyrule Warriors plays like ass. (LBX)

Granted, I haven’t played that long (first day and all), but man it runs like piss. Is it because I’m on a 2DS and it can’t handle the alleged awesomeness of the game, or what? Its like trying to play Diablo 3 on an old Windows computer, with those big ass blocky monitors from back in the day. And Linkle (Linket sounds better, btw)

Anywho, since I obviously haven’t played much, I can’t comment. So instead of that, I’m talking about LBX.

The greatest 3DS game ever!

Behold, young ones! You stare into the visage… of greatness!

CUSTOM ROBO! It was a work of beauty. One of the Gamecube’s rarest of reasons… to own that piece of shit console! Twus a game that me feel truly validated for picking the inferior console!

Actually fuck it. Custom Robo was the tits! I would literally spend an entire night just perfecting my Chickenheart wit the Splash/Air Dive Charge Combo and completely fuck up whoever thought they could win by spamming gattling guns, or going with the Lightening Sky Models and raping everything with the After Burners or the Hornets or what may have you. This shit would turn you into a retarded ass Batman, if you will! All this “prep time” and shit you had to deal!?

Ok look, Custom Robo wasn’t the most bomb game on Cube, but would you honestly pick dat Fire Emblem shit over fucking ROBOTS!?

So after what felt like an eternity after playing the inferior Custom Robo Arena on DS (I still aint finish dat shit), I was wondering “when NIntendo gonna come out with a sequel!?”. Yeah, I know, Custom Robo sold like shit,but so did Pikmin, and that weak ass series got a sequel just cause Nintendo has a hard on for big noses. And swords. Come on, 6 Fire Emblem characters? Just cause Sakurai loves that piece of shi-ok I’m rambling again.

If you or anyone else has been missing Custom Robo, LBX is literally the closest thing you can get to a damn fine substitute.

LBX is a “Mon” type game where the main character, Van or w/e, dreams of having his own killer toy robot. But his mama won’t let him have one because she has husband issues. But one day, a crazy stupid hot chick gives him a briefcase for no reason. Remember kids! Always trust strangers you would totally pork! ……God, that was horrible…

Anywho, when Van gets home, he cracks open the case to find a Mega Man toy.

After Van marvels at his first robot, he is immediately attacked by 3 robots controlled by literal clones (not making this up), so he grabs out his extroller (its a cell phone, really) and proceeds to tear ass. I have to ask, how the fuck do you control robots with cell phones!? It looks complicated.

After the mighty tutorial battle, Van finds his living room is fucked up with bullet holes (O_O) and what not. Yes, these things CAN kill you. And just when you thought he couldn’t be more fucked, his mama comes home, sees her son busted to the living room to shit… and then sees the blue LBX. Logically, this would be his ass for days… but she just says “ok w/e, have fun honey”.

So, the next day, the Mama basically reveals that “It is time for Van to RISE AND BECOME A HERO!” Yeah… the story is kinda dumb, but surprisingly well told that you don’t care about the logic. That or my expectations were severely low.

I’ll say 1 thing, this game gets a thousand bad ass points for actually trying to use a toy robot… to assasinate a mayor! Or using toy robots to send a train running out of control, or just using these toys to initiate a large scale energy crisis. The amount of plots used in this game, and the sheer scale at which they present the dangers of said plots are at times amazing. Sure, the plot loses points for literally having people that cheat Van’s way into victory… over… and over again, but eh. And Amy is completely useless as a person. Otherwise, the story is manageable, and interesting for an excuse plot.

As for the actual game itself? Virtual-On with better controls.

Battles can be fought from 2 to 6 players in typical 3rd person action. Like Custom Robo, you have the opportunity to customize yo shit before a fight. Unlike Custom Robo, fights aren’t entirely dependant on your current equipment… or at least the guns.

You have Guns, Swords, Spears, Knives, Hammers, all kinds of fine weaponry to equip your death machines with. You can also customize the robots entire frame with different set pieces. So you can have like a Gorilla’s arms with Chameleon feet. Why you would want that is anyone’s guess. Beyond the robot frame and weapons, you can also equip special moves which (like lots of games these days) are prone to micromanagement, and they aren’t really all that useful except for the crazy overpowered Super Moves. You know, the ones that have those long cutscenes to emphasize the seering pain it will inflict upon your soul.

Beyond that, you can also customize the Robo’s internal circuitry. Yeah, no bull. You can literally crack the muthas open and fiddle with their CPU, their battery, the core, the processor, all of these things really affect the stats of your robo and how well they perform. Defenses, how many stocks of super guage you get, how fast your guages charge up, how much you resist certain attacks, the kinds of special moves you gain access to, all of it is in the internal parts of the robo you have.

First time I played this game, this shit confused me. Cause there’s so much to keep track, especially the different parts being of different shapes and sizes, so you couldn’t have like several different pieces all over the place. It’s like Resident Evil 4 inventory management system where you’re constantly rearranging shit around to make stuff fit properly just so you can have more room for shit you don’t need. It just ends up with you screaming at the screen until you’re blue in the tits.

Tedious customizations aside, the battle system. You’ve got regular controls, and you got touch screen controls. Both sides are optional, so… don’t worry. Since my shoulder buttons are all shit, I had to stomach the touch screen for certain functions ANYWHO…

Like I said, battles can be from 2-6 combatants on-screen. You can use either a combination of close range or long range attacks. Depending on the gear you have, your robos can be slow or weak. Swords and Knuckle weapons are usually the fastest up close while Polearms, Hammers etc. are slower but hit harder, you get the idea. Also depending on your parts, your robo will excel at certain weapons better than others.

The fighting itself is at a decent pace, if you’ve played games like J-Stars or Digimon All-Star Rumble, or even Xenoverse, this game is pretty similar to some extent. The difference is this game plays better. For one, it doesn’t whore itself out to some puss ass Stamina system (even though LBX still has one). Another is that the fights aren’t as chaotic as the other games, so it’s easier to focus on the actual combat.

1 thing I will say is that guns… dominate… everything. Keeping yourself at a distance and shooting people will often win out more than close quarters. Especially those goddamn snipers with their… high damage… bullets! Its always those damned Snipers that destroy everyone!

So that’s the only real bad aspect of combat in that guns are easy mode and swords are for the non-pussies who know how to get around them. There’s nothing hard about using close-range weapons, but its dealing with bastards that know how to shoot and aim.

….I really don’t how to describe the combat, ok look ITS JUST FUN, ALRIGHT!?

with all that said, there is an aspect of the game I really don’t like, and it’s the sidequests. These are the only real shitty parts of the game, and them being optional, yes I know. The problem with the sidequests is knowing exactly what you are supposed to do. This is a game that really needs a serious game guide with details on everything. There was this one sidequest where you are sent on an errand to retrieve, are you ready for this!? FUCKING CUP CAKES! Not exactly the item, but close enough. You’re supposed to go to this food area and ask a lady if they have any. But you find that they don’t, so you go back to the girl that gave you the quest, but she tells you the same thing. Bring the bitch some cupcakes. Now, I scoured what little internet I could use to see what was wrong, because it took me 1 whole month to figure this out and complete the whole quest. Getting the cupcakes… is entirely RNG based. So you’re supposed to go back everyday, periodically, and check to see if they have cupcakes. And this is RNG, so you’re gonna be checking it over and over and over until you get those cupcakes.

This is one of the most obnoxious, arbitrary side quests in the whole game, and the reward for that quest is mediocre. Thats kind of the thing. Sidequests offer very little in the way of rewards, and if you’re lucky, you get an LBX card (I’ll explain later). Otherwise, they’re a waste of time and not worth the effort of long ass treks between different city blocks (too much backtracking)

So that’s 1 segment of replay value, the rest is… basically going OCD and trying to find more robo parts and sets, and the best way to do that is through the LBX Arcade, where you find LBX cards, slip em in a machine, and then fight the cards themselves. This way, you can gain new parts… randomly. Yeah. You know where that goes.

Overall, sure, I might’ve exxagerated on how awesome this bitch is… but shit, idc, THIS GAME IS BEYOND A FUCK LOAD OF AWESOMENESS! If you need action games where you kick a lot of robot ass, LBX is the game for you! I guess Level 5 gotta compensate for Nintendo’s bitch asses while they futz with Pokemon’s generic gen 7 names.

Seriously, “Sun and Moon”? Could they be any less original?

What I’ve been up to

I dont even think anyone comes here anymore. 😛

Where to begin? Well aside from literally wanting to kill cats and the Warner Bros. for FUCKING CANCELLING MKX… nothing really. Some reason, I now have a laptop as a gift… which caused unnecessary drama too foolish to explain. Deadpool movie was the tits. That’s rich. Fox did X-Men right for a change! That was 100% vintage Deadpool! And unlike the game,  the comedy didn’t feel forced at all! …….oh who am I kidding, I’ll be “wrong” about that somehow.

Anywho, gamewise, I’ve come to learn something. Namco is to Japanese games as a curling iron is to the dick.

Shit… redefined

To be a Tales fan means to have to constantly battle against any and all desires to interact with the fans of said franchise, for there is no threat to your sanity greater  than those that live and breathe this shit.

The Tales games I only invest in for comedic purposes as thus far, somehow, the Japanese actually learned how to be funny… or the localizers used to work on the Mario RPGs. At first glance, you could look at these games and assume they’re Japanese wank fests (it’s not THAT far from the truth), but by some bastion of great fortune, these games managed to exceed the stereotypical nonsense that most JRPGs are prone to (like Star Ocean), and actually entertains you. Sure, they’re long, stretched out, padded out the ass, and can wax poetic about nonsense like the rest of the Animu shmuck, but hey, as long as it’s not a huge bore, then it’s all good.

…….That stopped being the case with Zestiria.

This game, for some reason, managed to be worse than Xillia 1. Worse than Abyss. Worse than… hell, Sticker Star! Yeah…. that’s right, bitch! Sticker Star kicks more ass than Zestiria! Why!? That game’s mere premise alone writes itself!!

……… Oh nevermind. Lets get into it.

Bullshit is about Sorey, your typical JRPG protagonest who is confident, adventurous, and gets randomly picked as the chosen one to save the world, simply because a girl likes him. Sorey is on a mission to liberate the world from the “malevolence”.

He is joined by his best friend Mikleo, a character named after a McDonalds Happy Meal, and has a permanently resting bitch face. One would assume he would be a rival or possibly evil person, but no, he’s just the buttmonkey who complains about everything.

Along the way, Sorey gains the motivation to bring Humans and Seraphim together in harmony. Oh right… Seraphim are beings that live among Humans. Humans can’t see them (except for Sorey) or interact with them in any way. Which makes one of Sorey’s desires… pretty impossible to pull off… or just make sense of. He wants to bring 2 species together when one doesn’t even know the other exists. Right. Someone didn’t check the logic of their universe before handing out character motivations. Oh right, Mikleo is a Seraph too, which makes it look like Sorey is talking to himself… but barely anyone cares.

Sorey is also joined by Lailah, the fanservice bimboo who looks like a stick figure with boobs. Basically a One-Piece character. The voice of reason who randomly rambles about rabbits when conversations get uncomfortable, or makes really shitty attempts at humor because reasons. I would’ve guessed that this was because she was hiding some vaguely terrible secret, that ol’ foreshadowing technique, but an inept idiot could figure out the plot a mile away. And of course, the cast of characters are inept idiots.

Next, there’s Edna, a total cunt that makes Anise Tatlin look the best damn character in Abyss. A “child” genius, she insults everyone’s intelligence, constantly harrasses the McSandwich man, gives everyone stupid nicknames because Japan that would be cute, and makes lewd jokes. Also contributes to 0% of the plot, making her creation solely to piss you off.

Lastly, you have Dezel who’s just as much of a jerkass as Edna… but he dies…. so instead you have Zavied, a shirtless guy voiced by Guile in SF4. Zavied is just a black Zelos Wilder… without all the annoying qualities, and actually makes the game better by default.

Then you have Alisha, a hot white chick voiced by Chun Li from SF4. A princess who fights with a spear, is proactive, will do anything for the safety of her country, and doesn’t cry about shit! But then she leaves when you find out Sorey is allergic to real women… so instead you have to put up with The Mary Sue, Rose. A ninja chick whose only real quality is dat ass. She’s the leader of a merchant… that moonlights as an assasins guild. And somehow a bitch who threatens a kid is pure enough to be Sorey’s Squire…. oh fuck, I forgot to explain that.

*Deep Breath*

Sometime in the beginning of the game, Sorey becomes a “shepard”, a being that can make pacts with warrior Seraphs to kick sufficient amounts of ass, and save the world from the “Malevolence”, which is really just humanity’s own evil (this is game is about religion. Yep). Sorey can also “Armatize” (a fancy word for “fusion” because Japan LOVES fusions! Fusions are IMPOSSIBLE TO ESCAPE!) with the 4 aformentioned Seraphs (Mikleo, Edna, Lailah, Zaveid/Dezel). As a Shepard, Sorey can… “hire” a squire to assist him. Alisha was originally that Squire. But for some reason, Sorey kept losing his senses. Somehow, that was Alisha’s fault. Lets see, a Shepard had to be all pure and shit, and I guess that also applies to the squire. But there was absolutely NOTHING to imply that Alisha was impure. Infact, she was anything BUT impure. But w/e. Japan needed a “BS the player by taking away one of their party members” quota filled and Alisha was the first victim”.

The replacement would be Rose, a bitch so upseld, she’s pure enough to be a better squire than Alisha and even ARMATIZE as well, even though she 1.) Threatened a Child. 2.) Deceived Knights. 3.) Fucking murdered people (she is an assasin, afterall). 4.) Punched the Shepard himself. 5.) Talks about people behind their backs. And of course, she gave the world a pretext for war… so yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit and say Namco played favoritism with this character. Doesn’t help her personality is dismissive. It wouldn’t be enough to bullshit with her, but the game expects you to admire her as much as everyone else does. Even Mikleo, the guy who is overly critical about EVERYONE in the game… believes her dismissiveness is “awesome”. And everyone else follows suit in praising her for basically talking shit.

And the game…doesn’t….stop…. praising her. She might as well be the main character! It must be dat ass…

These days, JRPGs are dependent on good story because they have nothing else going for them, and Zestiria is FUCKED UP about both it’s narrative AND it’s characters. The Story gets repetitive after Alisha leaves, the characters themselves are irritating and/or dull, and shifting all the focus from how to make the world a better place, but to how the game can glorify Rose even further than she needs. The non-stop egotrain that is Rose destroys any semblance of “giving fucks” I might have had with the game, cause in the end, I wanted them all to die… which actually happens. No bullshit.

Anywho, I haven’t even gotten to the GAMEPLAY… which actually makes the experience WORSE. For those who played Xillia 2, awesome battle system, right? Fast paced, easy to understand, easy to play, and Chromatus made everything a joke. Yeah… take EVERYTHING AWAY… and completely fuck it all up. All of it. Fucked beyond. Beyond fucked, I don’t care.

The original battle system of every game starting with Symphonia was basically Smash Bros. meeting Street Fighter. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Battles were fought in 3D arenas with 2D fighting. Characters walked in straight lines toward their enemies and had regular melee attacks and special attacks mapped to a different button. Both moves are done Smash Bros. style so pressing in a direction while pressing special does something and yadda yadda. You could FULLY CUSTOMIZE your characters moves and what not. If this laptop didn’t suck ass so much, I could find pictures to illustrate this. Just go to youtube or some shit. 😛

With a battle system that WORKED JUST FINE, Namco buttfucks the money bed and decides to change it for absolutely no reason other than “because change is awesome”. Now the battle system is in Psuedo 3D and it is literally impossible to perform precise moves. Instead of 2D battles where the camera is situated horizontaly with your party on the left hand side and enemies on the right-hand, now you have stupid 3rd person wannabe shit going on now. Changing the camera perspective was the absolute dumbest move in Tales history. It feels awkward walking up and down when spent all this time walking left and right… like in a fighting game! Depth perception wasn’t an issue until here where I have to try even harder to judge the distance between me and my enemies. The amount of times I’ve missed attacks by even a few inches because I can’t see the space I should’ve cleared is a hassle. I felt like I had to use Semi-auto for once! Fucking hate Semi-auto.

It’s harder to perform normal attacks and special moves. Not because of the camera, but because the actual moves themselves changed. Back in the past, normals and specials were mutually exclusive. Normal attacks had their own combos and what not. In Zesty, however, Namco decided to migrate… fucking specials into normal attack combos. You know what that means!? If you want to use Sword Rain or some shit, you have to press Normal 4 fucking times and the 4th, you have to press into a direction for that specific move to come out. This is like those combo rings that Long and Shenlong had in Bloody Roar, but unfun. Because battle controls are kinda wonky, you end up whiffing your combos. So you may get to use Sword Rain, or you may not.

If moves like Sword Rain remained as purely special attacks, I wouldn’t care. But having to endure these migrated special Normal Combo Rings during a battle ends up being a real drag.

Then there’s the Armatis system. The aformentioned “fusion” system because Japan masterbates to fusions, Sorey and that irritating bitch can Armatize with the other 4 party members to gain new powers. Lailah will give you a fire sword, Mikleo gives you a Hydro Bow, Edna gives you Rock fists, and Dezel/Zaveid gives you… windy wings? Meh, the Armatis system was fun at first, but then it present a glaring problem. You would need at least 2 characters that weren’t Seraphs present… at all times. Meaning if you wanted to avoid using Rose or Sorey… tough titty. You have to put up with those 2 in every….single….battle. This mean Rose’s terrible AI will blow through your Seraphs fast. About that, if you die but have an extra Seraph in reserve, you could swap out 1 Seraph for the other, Armatize, and abuse this for the whole game… if ROSE doesn’t ruin everything. Good thing Seraphs can self heal, even after knockout.

So Armatize would be kewl… if… you know… enemies didn’t arbitrarily ramp up all kinds of resistences. You see, midway through this unnecessarily long fuck of a game, enemies start gaining random super armor, meaning that you attack them, they don’t get stunned, and you might get hurt in the process. Enemies such unbelievable resistences, particularly normal and they love to resist fire. Armatis gives you permant elemental attacks so if you fight an enemy with fire resistence, Lailah is useless. But what if you fight enemies with 2 resistences? Then you’re handicapped. Armatis is, unfortunately, the only way to do any real damage to enemies, particularly Lailah and Edna Armatizing, so if enemies have an assload of resistences (and shit, quite a few enemies have had up to 4 fucking resistences), that Armatis won’t do you a bit of good. And this also goes for that bullshit Combo Ring. You have to keep good memory of what each move does, elemental properties… oh who am I kidding, you might whiff into a move that has exactly what the enemies are resistant against, so you’re fucked either way.

Did I mention there’s a fucking STAMINA SYSTEM in this game!? Oh yes, Namco MASTERBATES to stamina systems! Thank Amma that Tekken and Soul Calibur don’t have that bullshit, but Namco makes sweet luv to de Stamina systems. Instead of an MP meter, your special attacks (and even your NORMAL attacks) run on Stamina. It depletes little by little everytime you attack, free run, etc. Here’s the thing. THe less Stamina you have, the more damage you do, which is basically 1 big fuck you, because then you’d attack lesser and less. This little quirk makes no sense overall and means if you want to do more damage (which is about as noticable as a good Sonic game these days) you’d have to mash away. Oh but that’s not even the worst part. You know that whole cooking thing the Tales series had? You know, that totally useless feature that you never used? Well, you better start using it  because if you don’t feed your asshole team, their stamina starts getting lowered before a battle starts, so if they’re hungry, their stamina might be at fucking Zero. Dats right! You have to actually FEED the bastards! But wait… if I starved them, they do more damage. WORK FOR YOUR MEALS, ASSHOLES!

TLDR, fuck you battle system. You ruined everything. Even the pacing is slower than dirt.

Zestiria is a game that makes me run away from the franchise. The bullshit I assumed about the series before was epitomized in this game. I can’t believe I miss Jude Mathis. At least he kept his mouth shut.. most of the time. Actually, now that I think about it, the Xillia folks were probably the most down to Earth characters in the whole series. But here, it’s like the characters aren’t even… organic. They’re poorly written cardboards for the most part.

And even the gameplay was ruined. You’d think as stagnate as Japanese developers are, they would keep everything as it is with some minor gimmick (Armatus), but shit. I couldn’t even stomach finishing the damned game. Do not play… ever.

Getting away from Tales crap, I soon looked at my collection and had no idea I bought so many Namco games (since company logos are invisible to me until I first boot up the game). Digimon All Star Rumble, had no idea Namco was behind it… probably why that game sucks. J-Stars Victory Vs, no idea Namco was behind it, surprised it doesn’t suck. Dragonball XenoVerse, same story as J-Stars.

And before anyone asks, yeah, I bought J-Stars Victory Vs. And I love it. Come on, why would I pass up the opportunity to take YuYu Hakusho and mother fucking Ruroni Kenshin… and beat the literal shit out of those Naruto characters!!!!!!? ……….It’s RURONI KENSHIN!! Young asses don’t know SHIT about real cartoons! Was hoping Inuyasha was in this game so I could whoop his ass too. Faggot ass Samurai with Cat ears!? Come on…

All 3 of these games have the same glaring issue. Micromanagement. And like I said, Namco jacks off to micro management. Each of these 3 games present “systems” where you must manage a Stamina bar while fighting against hoardes of Astonishingly good AI. You need Stamina to Dash, to use specials, to power up, to guard against attacks, to escape combos, you name it. Each of these games require a Stamina meter. And I ask WHYYY!? Some would argue that it balances the game, and I say they’re idiots. You don’t balance the game by handicapping the players, you balance the game by making sure the characters aren’t too goddamn powerful. And looking at Namco’s track record, fighting game balance isn’t their strongest quality.

Players like to spam moves. If it’s useful, they will not hesistate to abuse the ability. The only safe bet is to not put in such powerful fucking moves in the first place. Stamina systems of any kind only serve to hinder a player from increasing his/her chances of winning a match. It’s literally ridiculous that a single company has produced more games with Stamina ass wankery than an RPG company would. And for Dragon Ball, it’s overkill. We already have the ever-present Ki meter, but we need a secondary meter for other basic functions such as GUARDING!? I can’t tell you how many times getting Guard Broken has ruined my chances of winning missions, cause guard breaks means your whole stamina meter is destroyed and you need to recharge it. During recharge, you can’t guard, dash, or anything useful. It’s like getting dizzied in a regular fighter, but more obnoxious. If Tekken started using a Stamina, I wouldn’t be surprised but I doubt the fanbase would ass kiss that shit.

It’s like Namco set out to bust my balls with every game they produce. Even though I enjoy J-Stars and XenoVerse, these Stamina Systems ruin everything.

*sigh* Got 2 weeks of internet and a shitty Icraig to write this on…

 

Sonic Championship

Flynn vs Pontac: Perfect comparison right there. Honestly, I haven’t read any of the comics since 1999, and I know they’re still hip.

Continuing my nostalgia trip, I pulled out Sonic Gems as I reminisced about being really fucking pissed off that Knuckles Chaotix wasn’t included. What a WASTED opportunity! You know how long I’ve been waiting for a modern console port of this very game!? There aren’t any 32X emulators for Wii or PS3 (to my knowledge). Goddammit! Hell, what about SegaSonic Arcade!?

So, I only had one major reason to buy this game. 3 if you included Vectorman 1 & 2. The one and only Sonic fighting game!

NO! Not that bullshit!

Pff, ain’t no fighting game at all, it’s Power Stone if you had down syndrome.

Dats da one!

It’s the only game from Gems that I hadn’t played at the time, and was probably the only other reason people bought gems (aside from getting SCD). I call it “Sonic Championship” as the localized name isn’t syntactically retarded. Another sign that SOJ cared just a wii bit too much about nippowning their IPs.

Many of Sega’s fighters at the time were all just clones of Virtua Fighter because they got the wacky idea that the game wasn’t shit. Some people compared THE FIGHTERS to another Sega game called Fighting Vipers. I recently had the chance to play that game as well seeing as everyone compared that to Bloody Roar, a series that just kicks ass, but I honestly can’t dig that game. It feels sluggish and not very fun, which was an issue for all of Sega’s fighters that took after Virtua Fighter. Sure it had more interesting characters and faster gameplay, but it feels like everyone is covered in molasses and tar. Even more so than Tekken. Seeing that THE FIGHTERS took after Vipers, I was impressed. It actually plays better in some regard. Either that or it’s just fucking hilarious.

 

Playing all of the characters, you get the slight impression that they’re all clones of each other, just with different animations for each of their attacks. Most of their unique special moves take a Ph’D in arthritis to learn. Not because they’re difficult commands, but because the controls aren’t exactly responsive. Trying to pull off even the most basic moves results in a lot of frustration. When it actually takes a few attempts to perform Knuckles’s Dragon Punch ( which is ) during a match, you know it’s fucked. The easiest “specials” for me to perform were actually the throws. Most of which involved taking the character’s weapon and using it against them. I must say, there’s a great level of satisfaction in taking Amy’s hammer and smashing the horny bastard into the pavement with it as your character shows off a sinister grin.

Oooooooooooh, lick MY ass, will yah!?

That said, it’s a really basic fighting game on it’s own, that will have you button mashing most of the time since every character has the same basic combos. Everyone even comes equipped with a spin dash attack, as well some pro wrestling moves like running up the stage walls, leaping off, and body slamming the opponents. Granted, there are 2 characters in the game that grate my nerves.

These 2 sons of bitches are the only real unique characters of the bunch. Why? They have projectile attacks. And this is a 3D fighter with no real sidestepping or decent jumping physics. You can get around Nack’s cork bullets by ducking at least and spin dashing to counter, but Bean is a real asshole. He just throws bombs around the arena to overwhelm and overpower his opponents. Imagine fighting a spammy ass Deathstroke user in Injustice, and you have Bean the Bastard. That’s how much of an asshole he is. Bark the Bear is the lesser of the “unique” characters in that he’s big, slow, and has short legs. Obviously, he does the most damage….. in a game where the attacks already hurt enough as it is. Nack, Bean, and Bark are overpowered as shit. Just sayin.

Anywho, the game has it’s own quirks that help it stand out from the other virtua fighter clones, such as that annoying ass “losing rings” sound effect every time you take damage. Honestly, every hit you take has the “cute shit” effect of you losing rings (a nice, subtle way of making it look like the characters are bleeding all over the place ala Mortal Kombat, no less. :P) and it’ll hurt your goddamn ears after a while. Trust me. The wacky and borderline cartoony animations for the amount of ass kicked gives this game a lot of energy and flare that was lacking in early 3D fighters, and the roster itself isn’t bad for a Sonic fighting game. It almost treats itself as though it were a Loony Toons game as many of the characters moves look like they were pulled out of the minds of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. It’s this kind of humor that makes this game……. pretty fun on it’s own. When it comes to entertainment, comedy is a good insurance policy that your audience will have smiles on their faces.

…….Which is good, because it plays like ass. I mentioned before that attacks in this game hurt like hell. A single match would probably take less than a minute……often. The amount of health a player loses in the least amount of time is absolutely crazy. Even when you’re not dealing with swollen mother fuckers like Bark, regular joes like Tails could demolish opponents easily with a few well timed flurry of punches. The either the attacks in this game deal way too much damage, or the amount of health you have isn’t very high. This leads to incredibly short matches. This combined with some SNK styled AI makes the game feel like it’s based around luck.

You’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and dig the bottom corners of the screen. The barriers, just what are they? That’s your only means of blocking in the game…… and they’re limited. This is probably the first fighting game that foolishly punishes the player for… playing defensively, and this kind of madness started ramping up in fighting games of the last generation (easier guard breaks, guard crushes, etc.). You see, you have only 5 barriers that are weak. Once they’re all gone, you’re completely defenseless. I thought I’d never see the day when a fighter would feature micromanagement of your basic blocking functions. It’s even worse when you find out that the game allows you to enter a special “EX” mode where you spend 2 barriers just to attack wildly nonstop. Oh, and if you’re blocking and the opponent grabs you? You lose that barrier as well.

My small ass frame, and they give me nothing but PAPER to defend myself with!? Do you see how BIG his fucking hands are, man!?

All this means that the game expects you to be on the offensive, which wouldn’t be an issue if the controls weren’t drunk. It almost feels like playing Brawl. The creators thinking “the game is for FUN!” and removes all semblance of strategy and skill in order to emphasize the “FUN”. The difference between this and brawl is that, yeah, it actually IS fun in spite of all these facts. In the end, that’s all that really matters. Or it should. The problem is the game has no real longevity. Because of it’s wonky mechanics, it becomes less fun over time. Almost quickly.

Especially when you take it up the ass on occasion.

Unlike most other genres, fighting games NEED decent gameplay just to be sustainable and fun, and as much as I want to be biased, Sonic Championship doesn’t cut it. Sure, it’s better than any other Sega fighter they’ve made, but it’s still just as iffy. Bottom line, Sega makes crappy fighting games, and THE FIGHTERS is another, unfortunate example.

It serves the purpose of maybe passing the time and getting a few laughs out of it, but overall couldn’t take attention away from even the worst of fighters.

 

In the midst of my absence

…….I think I’m gonna hurl.

I am a little… shocked. I didn’t expect people to still be commenting even though I’ve not posted a damn thing in the last….5 months, has it?

To reiterate and explain, I was renting out a new (read: 20 year old) house. Because it raped my pocket book, trying to get a laptop at these high ass prices (and the incredibly new experience of paying bills!)…… yeah. And… most of my entertainment money was going to used games anyway. Stupidly, I’m also living with a relative whom, in my deepest naivety, I decided would be the one to pay for internet as she is the one begging for it the most. Which I realize was a retarded idea as… she’s unemployed… and too lazy to find a job. Fuck me, right?

That being said, I’ve been out of the loop on gaming stuffs. Being on vacation thanks to the holidays, I’m visiting folks with internet for 3 days sooo… lemme stop blogging.

I can’t comment on Sonic Boom beyond having to shit myself with laughter with my coworkers at work over Knuckles’s design. 10 months in and it’s still ugly. Currently hearing that it’s just as shitty as I predicted it would be. Is it really more buggy than 06? Really? And before anyone asks, no I have not seen the cartoon. All I got is an antenna and RT International right now. I’m depressed as all get out. And very… very… cheap.

I did have a chance to play Smash 4 on a kiosk. As I’ve told one person thus far, the game feels smoother and slightly faster than brawl. That’s all I can really gather. The demo is so sparse. I tried Mega Man for a while, feels weird as all hell. I don’t know who’s idea it was to make Mega Man’s neutral melee the PEW PEW bullshit, and his smash attack the Mega Buster. It just makes him feel incredibly awkward to play. Speaking of awkward, I see Nintendo has a shit control layout for the game. Why in heaven’s name is X the jump button? I will never know. I can’t believe Mewtwo is supposed to be DLC (from a guy at work… who seems to be a total nerd).

The game’s roster looks strange and horribly planned out. As though there was no real thought put into it. I say that because of Freninja, one of the starter pokemon who has absolutely nothing significant going for it. Pikachu had the status of whored out mascot at least. Lucario has fans with bad taste, and Pokemon Trainer had Squirtle, the most bad ass starter of all! Freninja though? What was the point? It’s the most insignificant Pokemon to add. I mean hell, if you’re not gonna make Typhlosion a playable character…

Then there’s characters like Robin who I assume no one knows and Nintendo just tossed him in for a chance to promote some lame ass game no one cares about. I was shocked that fucking SHULK from Xenoblade is in the game, so I’m proper pissed that the demo didn’t let me play him.

Even if I wanted to get the whole game for shits and giggles, my 2DS is busted. R button acts like it’s being pressed all the damn time. Wouldn’t be an issue if… half my games didn’t use the R button for something. Chaps my ass considering I forked over 100G’s for this thing… on sale. But my used DS Lites, Wii, PS3, and EVEN my damn PSP… works fine! New 2DS…. fucks up in less than 5 months. ARRRG I wanna bite Nintendo’s hardware division in the face! ALL the trouble shooting guides focus on that damn touch screen like anyone gives a rats ass about it! You’d think they’d fix this shoulder button problem from the original DS models a long time ago! 9 years of time to fix these problems, and a REFURBISHED DS LITE works better than this new bitch! It’s frustrating. I mean, The RSE remakes just came out and my shit is jacked up. I haven’t felt this level of frustration since my first Gamecube died.

It’s not fair… 😦

So… as usual, most of my game time was spent on consoles. The best thing about the Wii is finding games below $10. Which pissed me off considering most of them weren’t worth it. After all these years, I was finally able to track down a copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, it kicked ass. Ahhh… Marvel before Disney raped them to crumbs. Shit, they get taken straight to HELL in this game! That is how pimp Marvel was before Disney came in! I know ya’ll seen that Galaxy Guardians. Goddamn, they ruined Drax the Destroyer.

Anywho, before I go off ranting again, here’s a run down of all the tripe I’ve played up till now.

I’ve heard of these games for a while now and wouldn’t you know it? 5-9 bucks!? Shiiiiiiii!

Well, the first game is crap. Oh that’s a wonderful idea, assholes! Lets force the players to scramble through poorly designed minigames called “jobs” just so he/she can scrounge up enough money to progress the damn story! You know those moments in certain games where you have to accumulate enough capital to buy a certain item to progress the story? That’s the ENTIRE game of No More Heroes in a nutshell, and if that doesn’t sound fun to you, you’re not a hardcore gamer! And with that, I salute you for not being a fuck wit. This is probably a more tedious game than Skyward Sword… and I can’t even lie like that! Who in the graceful hell thought this kind of game would be fun!? Oh what’s that you say!? The real meat of the game is in the combat!? Well gee, that’s just swell, let me go around with these dodgy ass controls so I can decimate foes with ease… with the only challenge being that I take an extended break away from the action so I can run away… and shake the Wii Mote to recharge my sword just to get Travis Touchdown to look like he’s masturbating with his lightsaber 3 million buttfucking times in a… ugh.. *chuckles* “Masturbating”, “butt fucking” …I’m immature. Anywho, this is not good design for a plethora of reasons. One, in order to recharge your sword, you have to reach down and press the one button (it’s a nunchuck thing) just to get in buttpounding stance, the charge time for the sword is quite slow unless you take a break after you use like… 10% of the sword during a fight, you start facing enemies that can massively drain your sword in a matter of seconds, and using a motion control for something that juvenile in every fight is not only bad taste but also tiring. I assume that’s why every non-combat moment of the game is dedicated to time wasting jobs which is nothing more than the developer’s asinine way of padding out the game. If you’re not gonna make the… REAL game long enough to satisfy exactly why people play the game, don’t make it at all! Game length wouldn’t be a problem if the game had enough FUN stuff to do!

Now fortunately, Suda got the right idea that the first game blew enough chunks to fix damn near EVERY problem I had with it in the second game. No More Heroes 2 is pretty damn awesome. The combat is much smoother, the controls aren’t as wonky, you don’t have to perform stupid jobs to progress the story (just click on the next fight after each and every one), and the “jobs” are actually awesome now. They took a page from history and made them into NES styled games. Shit, now I WANT to play them all! And I don’t have too! They even have a job that plays out like Mach Rider. Goddamned Mach Rider! This game was officially awesome from that point on. Though you still have the fantastic nonsense of having to jack off your sword, you at least get new swords to play with… ahem, excuse me. Point is, this is a rare example (in my case, at least) of how a sequel can improve over the original without really losing the qualities of the original that people enjoyed (which is unfortunate as the content of the game is still pretty damn juvenile.

FPS’s on Wii are, in my opinion, quite terrible. While I’ve enjoyed the Conduit games, the rest of them have the essence of “no shits given” written all over them. Why? Well, it could be that the majority of them feel like they reused the same damn engine that came from Red Steel 1. And lemme tell you that Red Steel 1 is some aaaaaaaaaaaaaaass!!!

This was a launch title, I’m aware, so obviously it was gonna be pretty lame, but man. The story is typical but likable. Hot asian babe with the phattest ass is kidnapped by the yakuza, so it’s up to you to grab a beer and kick some rear. And I mean that quite literally. You get a simulation of what drunken sword fighting feels like.

The major “break through” for this game was showing off the Wii mote’s potency of creating a life-like tate (I think that means Sword Battle in japan or some shit?). That mission failed hard. Prepare to be frustrated to no end with how terrible the motion controls in this game are. And it has nothing to do with accurate sword swings. It has everything to do with why people hate Sonic and the Black Knight. The mother fucker won’t swing his sword as soon as you swing the mote! So it’s like a button motion, you swing at a certain velocity just so they can react half a second later. This was the same problem with Soul Calibur Legends and plenty of Wii games. Treating the motions as though they were a button press. It’s the core of why people thought motion controls were stupid and couldn’t replace face buttons and a good ol’ fashion controller for the thumbs.

But hell, even if they were any good, the enemies wouldn’t let you feel like a bad ass. See, combined with bad controls, you also have enemies that can kick your ass without even thinking. They can (and will) block damn near all of your attacks and do like 3-4 sword strikes that you won’t be able to block in time because trying to block requires you to flick the nun-chuck, but that shit reacts too late as well. So you’re just sitting there flailing your arms about like an asshole while the AI is just sitting there whoopin yo ass so hard, you’d think you were playing Ninja Gaiden. There was absolutely no reason for combat to be this tedious especially considering that motion controls were a “new trend” this day in age. It’s the one time I WANTED the game to treat me like a retard.

Outside of sword play is a little better. Regular old FPS combat where it feels like the enemies are bullet sponges. IE they can take bullets to every part of their body. The aliens in the Conduit games are pussies compared to the Yakuza! Even aiming at enemies feels like a choir. Still… much more fun than sword fights. The worst thing about the gun fights is praying to Amma that you don’t run into a random sword battle. In every level, after several gun fights, you come to random sword fights where there’s only ONE mother fucker in the room. When you finished, you get SWARMED with enemies, it’s just crazy and as nonsensical as can be!

As horrible as this game can be, there’s like… one level I enjoyed, and that was the one with the creepy talking rabbit in a fun house. It’s… pretty weird.

Now, again, another rare example of a sequel improving immensely on the original in every way imaginable. Hell, Red Steel 2 is the shit! Let me be the one to say that this is the only…. and I mean… the ONLY Wii game that has precise and accurate sword swings. Ubisoft put Nintendo to shame. Hands down, this game rocks. I don’t like the shift from an urban city in Japan to some crappy western setting. What I like is that they don’t lock you into a specific combat mode like in the first game, you can lash out with the sword strikes, or blast the bitches into smithereens. And it’s so seemless. You also get bitchin super powers and whoop whole sale ass that way too, if you want. The game is pretty short and the environments are the only really lazy part of the game. But if you wanted a sword fighter on Wii, man pick this shit up if possible. It is a BEAST!

It’s ass.

Now, I actually liked these games on the Neo Geo and otherwise. I used to show off my crappy math skills measuring just how to richochet a ball off the wall, bustin all kinds of moves, my fams were hatin…. yeah… this game’s…. kinda like that?

Idk what I was expecting. I love the Bust a Move games like crack, but this game felt… empty. Like there’s no meat to it. It just has 1 player and multiplayer which… is jacked up. Multiplayer isn’t like Tetris Party where each player has their own column to play in, everyone is jammed into one giant column where they kinda have to work together to keep the balls from collapsing. So if you were like a pro-beast-god (like me) and you had the perfect shots lined up, another player could aim where you’re aiming and completely fubar your shot! Goddamn that pisses me off! The game is incredibly sparse of anything resembling replay value and only relies on your complete love and dedication to the Bust a Move series to even marginally enjoy it. Puzzle games (the FUN shit, not the Adventure game bullshit) should have some tangible rewards for playing them over and over again. But this game has nothing. This really is a game for when you’re just bored.

I’ve never been a fan of music games… no wait, that’s a lie, I did buy that… DDR game with the dance pad and everything…… ok fuck it, I like music games. Just don’t give me any of that guitar hero bullshit. Course, the last music game I bought had licensed crap. If I had known there was a goddamned Beiber song in DDRWii, I would’ve cancelled my order! Ah well. Obviously bought Samba De Amigo because Sega was the only company producing anything worth while on  the Wii…. but I had no idea how addictive it was. It’s like every song on this disc is ear sex mang! Sure it’s licensed crap, but they’re also legitimately good songs. Sega has good taste in music, you’ve gotta admit.

I’ve not played the original on Dreamcast, but I can’t imagine doing so now. The way the game works is strange at first. Like… you gotta shake the wiimote and nunchuck at certain elevations and shit. It’s hard to explain, but it’s addictive! I can’t stop playing it for some reason. I’m A ranking every damn song I can play! Ya’ll gonna have to kick me off of this bitch! I’m having the time of my life!

There were plenty of other Wii games I’ve played, but the list would be too long. I’ll just move on to PS3 games.

I’ve never had a taste for turd person shooters. Their awkward over the shoulder camera shouldered with crappy controls turned me off from just about every game that was turd person. Starhawk contains… none of this, actually. It’s probably the only turd person shooter I like. And not because the main character is African. If I was that desperate for positive representation in a video game, I wouldn’t have sold it so soon afterward.

But.. yah, the game is nice. It’s so smooth, combat is bitchin, it has that element of strategy and ingenious ways of taking down enemies in your own special way, man, I’d put Starhawk on a list of PS3 games that you’d need to own.

So why did I sell it? Well, you see… I’ve played many PS3 games and have built up an enormous intolerance for dev/publisher practices that cry “bullshit” which tears at my ears and my balls. Many stupid practices abounds for this console. But none so great than the incredible… and undeniably fucking retarded practice… of requiring an internet connection…. FOR LOCAL MULTIPLAYER!

Read my lip… WORDS! You have to be ONLINE….to play OFFLINE MOTHER FUCKER! No coop for you internet-less bitches! You take deez 10 levels and SHOVE IT!!!

Words… could not describe… the level of my pisstivity. I enjoy coop, and a game that FUCKING ADVERTISES the local coop on the back of the box… should have it OUT the box! Don’t try to hamstring your bullshit “Online features” on a feature that should be fucking free! What’s WRONG with PS360 developers/Publishers?! Are they nutz!?

Nevermind the fact that without internet, you have access to absolutely NOTHING on the disc but the 10 level storymode that is shorter than the entirety of Sonic Heroes. So for the most part, you just have a blank slate.

It was such a nice game too.

Not the localized cover art

Buying PS3 games on a whim is a pretty stupid idea considering just how expensive these games are. Fortunately, EDF2025 was only about half the price of a new game… and not shit.

We’re talking a game that has 85 levels of alien blasting goodness. Tired of all those combat games with crappy missions like escorts, defending, rescuing and shit? Well get ready for a combat shooter that is ALL… ABOUT…. SHOOTING STUFF! The mission of this game is simple. Kill… fucking… everything! As long as you can get over that horrible framerate!

EDF 2025 is damn fun, but runs like shit. The frame rate in this game is the only really flaw (and some long ass load times to boot), but otherwise it’s fine. You have 4 character classes to choose from…. well only 2, actually. Because only 2 of them are usual. The Trooper is your basic soldier on foot… and then you have chicks that can fly (I forgot their names). The other 2 is the Air Raider that… has no actual…attacks. And the Fencer that is too damn slow to move. But w/e the case, the game feels like a slower Starhawk with giant bugs, robot, and alien space ships as your worst enemies. Shit, you have fucking DRAGONS to deal with as well! And the dragons are sneaky bastards that can snag you in their mouths from off screen! GAAAH I hate those bastards, up until I got my AF20 V. HOWZIT TASTE MOTHER…

It has the issue of restricting you to using 2 guns, which makes the game more difficult than it needs to be as you have to really think about what guns you want to take with you on certain levels. It’s like Custom Robo in a way, the right combination of weapons determine your victory. Except only having 2 weapons is bullshit for a game that likes to swarm your ass with a buttload of enemies that, if you’re not careful, can rape you to crumbs in a matter of seconds. These bugs have all kinds of shit that can mess you up. Like the spiders. If those vicious fucking cunts snag yo ass in their webs, you are done for and should accept your inevitable defeat. There is literally no escape from that ass whoopin. If you ain’t got the right weapon to handle all of these different enemy swarms, it becomes literally impossible to win. But at least you can… EXPERIMENT with all of your different combinations and what not to see what works.

Overall, if you can get past the horrid framerate and restricted weapon storage, it’s a fine game in it’s own right. And yes, the spiders are assholes.

Considering my level of depression over Fergusion… and only having RT to watch which is depressing as fuck, there was only one genre I could pay attention to. The dreaded RPGs! To date, I’ve played like… 5 Tales games. Phantasia, Symphonia, Symphonia 2, Abyss, Xillia, and Xillia 2. Wait, that’s 6… shit.

I don’t really know what drew me to these games in the first place.

SHUT UP!!

I was in the whole “try something new” phase as I was getting tired of playing fighting games, and picked up Xillia on a whim. Instantly, throughout the first half of this game, I wrote it off as shit for having characters that felt pretentious and boring from the start. And for some reason, it came off as secretly stereotypical. Jude Mathis looks the most asian of the bunch, is a doctor and knows karate… or Bajiquan or w/e. Milla is probably some interpretation of how Joan of Arc would look if Namco was trying to make a hentai, and Alvin is a guy with a gun who’s looking for money. Obviously he’s American! The game’s story went no where and I got bored immediately. I put it down and found a copy of the Symphonia collection, but seeing just how dull Xillia was, I dared not make a hasty judgment! Of course, the Gamestop clerk assured me that this game was superior to Xillia in every way imaginable, and it was only $20. Fuck it!

Turns out he wasn’t bullshittin. Symphonia WAS better… up until you get to tellethia. No wait, that’s Xenoblade. The hell was it’s name, it’s… Tethe ALLAH or some shit. See, first thing they did right was make the characters a lil’ mo interesting. Despite being an over-exaggerated fuckwit, Lloyd Irving is a likable hero. And I swear that guy did the voice of Robin from Teen Titans. On a whole, the series is… funny. It’s hard for me to resist a game that has a good dose of comedy, and Symphonia’s got it at least. Story wise, it starts off better than Xillia, but then comes to a screeching halt when you get to the… the Tethe…dimension or w/e and the whole game starts to blow chunks. It feels like most of the dungeon design came straight out of Aonuma’s crusty arse, except you’re 100% more likely to get stuck at certain spots. The puzzles in these dungeons are not only tedious, they’re also incredibly illogical. For example, the Earth Temple has these midget fucks that won’t let you pass until you…. leave the whole dungeon…. to fetch some damn curry.

…….No, this actually happens. There is literally a dungeon in a video game that sends you on a little fetch to feed a midget. First off, the characters are twice his fuckin size. Considering how much of a smartass Lloyd, Sheena, Genis, Raine, and that pretentious ass Zelos all are, you would think one of them would have the bright idea to suggest “yo, stomp this mother fucker right here and now! He’s only like 1 centimeter high! COME ON! DO THE MARIO!”. No, you literally have to leave the dungeon, find some ingredients, go back IN the dungeon….. and cook the mother fucking curry! The world is in peril, I ain’t got time for this culinary bullshit! Let that midget asshole cook his own damn food!

The illogical stupidity doesn’t stop there. There’s Ymir forest, probably the worst goddamn dungeon in an RPG ever, has you trying to enter an elven village. But… a young boy who is sick… somehow has all the strength and willpower to stand up and block your path. he says he needs a special kind of fruit to cure his illness. but how do you get this fruit. It’s on a tree. See Ymir forest is basically just a lake with small islets and wooden bridges. You have these special types of flowers which act like whistles. You blow them to call on certain animals. You can call boars to ram trees, and fish to swim around. What you have to do is get a boar to ram a tree with this special fruit so it can drop in the water. THEN…. then, you have to call several fishes to… literally push the fruit all the way to where you can actually grab it. And, there’s a pretty elaborate sequence in which you have to call these animals and if you break the sequence in any way, you have to start back to square fucking one! And this process is long and dull… and boring. You have to constantly move around the dungeon to different flowers, call upon different animals to egh… it’s stupid… tedious, and completely unnecessary. And I DO mean unnecessary. You know why? There’s a character named Colette, she’s like Lloyd doormat love interest that everyone rightfully hates for being too damn nice. She has the power to grow angel wings and fly. Why is this important? The fruit the boy needs… is stuck high into a tree. Colette… can fly high! You see what I’m sayin!? Colette’s dumb ass could simply pick the fuckin fruit so we can take it to the sick bitch and move the fuck on!

Gah! This game started off so well, and as you progress, it just becomes more unbearable, and it feels like the game just drags after a while. The game starts producing way too many characters for you to keep track of, and the gaps between when you see these characters again are pretty long. I think there was some chick that Lloyd promised to rescue from some human ranch, and we don’t see the bitch again for like… 10 more hours of game time?! I forgot she existed!

And man this game knows nothing of balance in the difficulty. There’s no excuse for why the final boss is easier than the first boss or why certain enemies tend to jump up in difficulty at certain points. It’s an otherwise decent game that becomes shit about an hour in a half in. Which is a surprise to me as the game’s sequel (Dawn of a new world) happens to be leagues better. Sure, you only get 2 playable characters while the rest of your army is a bunch of Pokemon rejects, but it’s twice as funny, has reasonable dungeon design, and probably has the most bad ass villain this series has ever produced… second only to Dhaos, but still kinda awesome. The problem with the sequel is that it really is just a retread of old territory, there are very few new areas in the game, and worst yet, you have to revisit older dungeons and do completely revised versions of the last game’s puzzles (Lightining Temple, anyone?) The only good thing about that is that they’re nowhere near as wretchedly tedious as the BS Symphonia weaved for it’s players.

You might notice that I don’t talk about how all of these games play. That’s because if you played one Tales games, you’ve played them all. Well… except Phantasia, it kinda plays worse… but happens to be more awesome than the rest of the series. Why is that? Story is actually kinda… simple? Evil wizard threatens Time and Space. You, a knight of valor, takes on a few friends to kick his ass! Fuck yeah! None of this pretentious new age anime shtick where we overly philosophize the same damn concept of discrimination and repeat the mantra of “All life is precious”, fuck that pussy shit! Evil Wizard over there, kill dat ass! And it’s also a hilarious game too!

All these Tales games are comedy gold to a greater degree than I expected. I think Xillia gave me a crap perception of the series because I wasn’t about to give this shit a second look.

Then… we get to Tales of the Abyss. Now, you want a shitty Tales game, look no further. If you wanted to play a game where every character was an asshole, you don’t go to Jak 2, you go to this mother fucker right here. Honorable mention goes to a precocious little bitch called Anise. The fans can tell you why. But yeah, this game breeds asshole characters like congress breeds asshole policies like a rabbit. Starting with the main character named Luke. He’s a rich kid who’s forbidden to leave his residence because he was kidnapped years ago and lost his memory. And he desperately wants to leave. Which makes his asshole demeanor understandable… to a degree. But then, he gets warped out of the castle during a huge fight and bitches and moans about wanting to go home. Care to make up your mind, dipshit? He continues being an asshole until he sees someone get stabbed… and then he accidently kills someone… and starts becoming a pussy…. then relapses into an asshole when his personal trainer slash gay fantasy father promises to help him escape the castle so they can… live together, I guess. It’s… kinda dumb. The asshole tendencies all start with Luke and kinda spreads out to everyone else when Luke feels like he’s done something absolutely terrible… and it starts feeling like everyone’s taking advantage of his pussified state and relieving themselves of all that pent up rage… which kinda backfires when Luke starts feeling suicidal, and everyone is suddenly wanting him to not kill himself. The game can be summed up like this.

Chapter 1

Luke: My life sucks.

Other Characters: Yep, your life sucks.

Chapter 2

Luke: HEY! I’M ROYALTY! LISTEN TO ME PISS AND MOAN!

OC’s: Mmmhmm, Mmmhmm.

Chapter 3

Luke: I don’t wanna kill people. I’ll to behave a little from now on.

OC’s: Luke’s kind of an asshole, eh? But he’s funny at least!

Chapter 4

Luke: BLARGH I’M DE AMBASSADOR!

OC’s: Man, fuck this guy, seriously!

Chapter 5

Luke: NOOOOOOOO! I just wanted to save lives.

OC’s: YOU FUCKED UP YOU PIECE OF SHIT!

Chapter 6

Luke: Ok, for realz though, I;m serious, I’m going to behave now! Here, I’m gonna cut my own hair to prove it!

OC’s: Haha! You suck Luke! You’re such a retard!

Chapter 7

Luke: Man… I really suck. I’m a clone that only exists to ruin some other guy’s life or something.

OC’s: You’re also really stupid… and a piece of turd nuggets! Punk Bitch! No one respects you because wtf you’re our idiot!

Chapter 8

Luke: I guess… I have to kill myself.

OC’s: Yeah that’s ri… wait, if he kills himself, we lose our own doormat%$&# NO! DON’T KILL YOURSELF! WE LOVE YOU LUKE!

Chapter 9

Luke: It’s settled! I’ll save the world by becoming An Hero!

OC’s: YOU BITCH! FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU! STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID!!

…It’s kinda like that. There are so many things wrong with Abyss, it’s not even funny. As I’ve said before, Luke does something incredibly  stupid that ends up killing an entire village of people which ends up with him being dissed by his peers… and then Anise reveals that she was a traitor to the group all along…. and everyone forgives the little shit. There’s also an overwhelming amount of technobabble…..

……Fuck… I got carried away with these Tales games. In the end, I went back to Xillia, finished it, cheered on for Alvin kicking Jude’s bitch ass across the field, got dissappointed by the ending, and checked out Xillia 2 in hopes that it’s actually an improvement. And it was. Instead of having some boring intro about a med student needing to get a permission slip signed, you get an intro about ASSASINS KICKING ASS! It’s so strange finding sequels that turn out to be better than the originals.

Usually, I tend to come to sequels that suck bitter ass.

It’s honestly the same exact game as the last one with better levels, movelists and music, and more characters. Still good.

I just know someone is going to say “Wow Heru, you tend to like games you shit talked before playing, maybe you should shut the fuck up and play Sonic Boom now!”

Yes, it’s true. I Like…. The Presequel. In a strange twist of fate, Gearbox or whoever actually seemed to mitigate whatever in the fresh hell was wrong with the damage scaling of Borderlands 2. Meaning the game is fucking playable! To an extent, more on that later. But lets take a look at what they got right.

The main characters have action skills that aren’t 3 degrees below whale shit for once (Only Axton’s turret was ever useful in 2), the Cryo element is probably the most helpful element introduced in this series (so much better than that stupid slag), slamming is also useful for shaking off melee enemies, you no longer have to rely on legendary guns to do more than tickle your enemies to death, and best of all, we finally get a vehicle that can jump! The game is probably the funniest in the series yet with humor that doesn’t try so hard to be an internet meme (admit it, BL2 humor wanted to appeal to the internet so fucking much).

What did they get wrong? Well, obviously the game has stupid DLC practices as the last 2 games, but more insulting is just how glitchy the game is. I have run into so many bugs going into True Vault Hunter Mode, it’s gotten to the point that I cannot even progress to the final boss!Yes, unlike Skyward Sword or Other M, you cannot accidentally trigger a game breaking bug. Shit just happens. So currently, I’m stick at this “Pass through the Breach” bullshit where Jack goes on rushing people and doesn’t bother to update my mission progress, the douche. It’s Pandora’s Tower all over again.

And the first thing they release is on-disc DLC for Handsome Jack at $10. Ain’t dat a B? Another thing is how much of a bitch Lilith has become, but that’s a different topic altogether. Presequel would’ve been better than #1 if not for the bugs or that piece of shit grinder that keeps giving me crap loot!

*sigh* That’s a basic gist of what I’ve been doin for the last 5 months, aside from freezing to death in my basement and tossing bricks at them singing cats. Dammit, I need to catch up on Mortal Kombat X and hope Boon is not fucking it up any further.

With that said, who expected Shadow the Hedgehog to be ruined so mercilessly in Boom? I sure as hell didn’t.

 

 

Shinobi 3DS

This game is ASS…

KICKIN that is! 😀 Yo, for real though, this shit is off the hook! This was worth the cramped hands. Bar none, Shinobi Bread Slice is the real deal.

You can tell this game was produced by Stephen Frost. How else was he gonna convince the whole world that Joe Musashi was a Japanese Ninja? You got an art style remeniscent of Okami’s Japanese cel shading, you have a generic soundtrack complete with fuedal Japanese flutes blasting off at every chance, and to top it all off, the narrator speaks completely in haiku. At the expense of even explaining the plot.

Once you’ve heard one…

Dull presentation aside, this game is a prequel (fucking…) to the original Shinobi (if the ACTUAL Joe being based on the very first game is anything to go by. Instead, you are playing Joe’s ancestor/father named “Jiro Musashi”. Now why this game is a prequel is beyond me as nothing in the game is elaborated on, you just have a bunch of references to the Super Shinobi games on the Genesis. I suppose Sega is doing one of Nintendo’s numbers and is shoving as much cute shit into their games as possible. Golden Axe Beast Rider with the gnomes and original coin insert sound effect, everything about Sonic’s Lost Mind, and in this game, take as many enemies from Shinobi 3 as possible and put them in.

It’s not really a big deal. Though having no choice to do research of what the fuck was going on, Jiro starts off in a fairly cliche “battle against a rival ninja clan” as Zeed (enemies of the Super Shinobi games on Genesis) attacks the Oboro Clan village. But for no reason whatsoever, he is sent 800 years into the future where Zeed is in complete control of everything, and Jiro must join a resistance group (not this shit again!) to stop them. Good thing they have no exposition, I would’ve been turned off big time!

That’s enough of the content, the gameplay is tight. Why so? It’s so well designed, it damn near replicates Shinobi 3 in all of it’s essence. Perhaps… A little too much. Right at the very beginning of the game, you have to make some tricky jumps while moving down a large wooden… tower? W/e it was, while it isn’t at all difficult (the double jump isn’t a pain in the ass to pull off anymore), but it was a warning sign that… the game is merely intimidating. A lot of the “tricky shit” you do in this game is piss easy. The real challenge come from the enemies, which is a good thing. Tricky jumps do nothing but piss people off anyway, and the Shinobi series was filled to the brim with lots of trick jumps. This game isn’t an exception, but they are much more forgiving this time around. Mostly due to the Chain Hook which only shoots upward. I could literally cheat the game!

Having a separate buttons for melee and kunai is a welcome addition, but they had to go and use the modernized “3 hit combo” bullshit that does nothing but delay your recovery, making you vulnerable to attacks in midframe. Eh, it goes along with the Ninja themes used in games (every action has a consequence, that kind of shit) so I can’t complain too much. That’s the funny thing, I haven’t really found anything wrong with the gameplay… sans the lack of a dash function. Jiro is probably the slowest Ninja to date, and only having the ability to move faster via a score multiplayer is the silliest thing out there. The game is very demanding of perfection…. just like a Shinobi game.

You can tell these guys are big Shinobi fans just by level design alone, holy shit. Strategically placed enemy… placement, no shit. You really need to think about how you approach each and every one of them. Unless you’re dealing with those homing rockets, then you have no other means than to rush them as fast as possible, or try the really fucked up parry maneuver which seems to work only when it wants to. Sometimes, I could deflect a million kunais, other times I eat bullets. There’s some strict timing to be had with parries. I wouldn’t bother and would focus on trying to dodge attacks… which doesn’t seem to be a very viable option. A lot of times, you be attacked by enemies off screen without warning, so hitting that parry button would be the normal reaction, although with it’s strict timing, you’ll be getting your ass kicked plenty of times.

I’ve not been a fan of modern boss battles, so this game manages to do even those well enough, that just figuring out their patterns and beating whole sale ass on them feels satisfying. Except that laser mine… thingy with the shark… in mother fucking lava. Fuck those guys infinitely.

This game is probably worth a Bread Slice alone. I’d say get it if you can find a copy. Lucky me, I found one for only 15 bucks.