Posts Tagged ‘ Spider-Man ’

E3 Day 3 Reaction

Square Enix

Square Enix didn’t have a large presentation, lasting only 30 minutes and mostly just showing some videos of games coming out.

Starting off with their closest release, they kicked off with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the third game in the rebooted Lara Croft’s origin trilogy. I was happy to see Jonah brought back for the third adventure, though I hope he pulls through the plane crash shown in the trailer. The gameplay footage looks great and Lara looks like she’s become seriously dangerous. No longer fighting for survival, she seems more like a predator in the jungle more than ever. I also really dig the muscular definition they’ve given her. The mud camoflage is a cool thing that gives me a Predator Schwarzenegger vibe. I still wish we’d get the dual pistols, though, and releasing right after Spider-Man is really painful.

The Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood patch trailer didn’t do much for me since I’m already playing Final Fantasy XIV and love it already! However, a Palico in FFXIV with a Monster Hunter World crossover? Heck yeah! I definitely want a Palico buddy in FFXIV! I still need to give Monster Hunter World a try as well.

Another look at The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit didn’t tell me much more than was previously shown, but I do like the idea of them treating the Life Is Strange world as an anthology setting allowing them to tell stories of completely different characters unrelated to one another’s stories. Kind of surprising that the game will be free.

Dragon Quest XI is another series I never got into (but will someday, right?). The trailer doesn’t look too bad, though the graphics style makes it feel a little dated. I think that’s just a matter of maintaining the aesthetic of the series, though, and I’m sure playing the game would settle into them not feeling off at all. Nothing particularly commanding interest, though.

The trailer for Babylon’s Fall told me absolutely nothing, but I want to know absolutely everything about the world’s lore based solely from the trailer. It looks really cool.

Nier Automata Definitive Edition on XBox One was already announced at Microsoft.

Octopath Traveler interests me, but I’m interested in the RPGs Square is developing for Switch as they feel very retro SNES era RPG. It was an extremely brief trailer.

Just Cause 4 isn’t a series I’ve played, but the fourth entry looks as over the top and crazy as the others. I’d love to try it someday.

I have no idea what The Quiet Man is from the teaser trailer.

Kingdom Hearts III, of course, got a little more shown, but mostly I felt like I’d already seen it from the previous trailer. I’m a little disappointed there is not one single glimpse of anything remotely Final Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts has become pretty much entirely a Disney property game and though the series has always been Disney worlds with Disney party members, I would have liked to see a few cameo teases from Final Fantasy cast members.

Overall, the biggest disappointment was not one single glimpse, tease, or hint about the progress on Final Fantasy 7 remake, which I’m starting to think will be shifted to Playstation 5 since there’s no way for 3 episodic entries to release prior to that console. It would, however, be interesting to see the game release on the exact day of the 25th Anniversary. I’m also personally disappointed we’ll never likely see a sequel to Sleeping Dogs.

Mostly, I didn’t feel like Square showed anything we hadn’t already seen, making for an unimpressive presentation, even if there are a few games I’m interested in.

Grade: D+

Games I’m interested in: Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Octopath Traveler, Kingdom Hearts III, more info for Babylon’s Fall.

Ubisoft

I liked kicking off with a slight jab at GameStop employee leaking Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with the keychain joke.

A lot of people likely didn’t care for the start of the presentation beginning with the dance routine outside, but I thought it was amusing. It was, up to that point, by far the most entertaining performance of all the presentations. With a mascot panda leading a marching band parade and dancers in colorful and weird costumes making their way from outside into the building and then down through the crowd to the stage, I couldn’t stop watching, all while thinking “wtf is even going on right now” before I finally realized it was their annual Just Dance performance. Major credit to the dancers, who apparently put the whole thing together last minute and are on the E3 floor dancing damn near nonstop all weekend. Sure, it wasn’t showing a game, but it was certainly more entertaining than Andrew WK’s performance for Bethesda. It also got much more of a positive crowd reaction as an opening act than Bethesda’s look of confusion from their crowd.

They went straight into one of their heavily anticipated titles with a long trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2. No game play presented, but the trailer did give a look at the setting and first glimpse of the characters. A friend of mine who knows absolutely nothing about Beyond Good and Evil was intrigued and interested in the game just from half of the trailer, so they certainly accomplished their goal in that regard. I was rather surprised by the ending reveal of Jade. It definitely feels like an HD facelift for the original PS2/GameCube release would be nice to accompany the sequel (actually prequel). After a few words from the developers, they showed a look at pre-alpha footage with the two explaining a few details, such as solo and co-op play. The game looks to be massive.

An interesting addition is the Space Monkey program where fans can create ideas, music, artwork, and original content to be added to the game. Murals, street art, music, radio content, and more can be submitted to be used in the game through a partnership with Hit Record, founded by Joseph Gordan-Levitt. It’s really cool to see celebrities brought into E3 because their projects or companies are actually partnering with the developers rather than just being brought on stage as a celebrity for some stilted pre-scripted dialogue. The cynical will see it as a way to crowd source free assets, but it’s a cool collaborative project for fans to have their creations in game.

After they went off stage, their mics were still hot, and the excited “we nailed it!” back stage was the cutest part of the presentation. That’s genuine excitement.

Rainbow Six Siege holds no interest for me, but it clearly does for 35 million players. They talked about upcoming esports competition tournaments, but didn’t go too long. They gave a first look at a documentary titled “Another Mindset” about Rainbow Six Siege esports gamers. Normally I’d complain about this being a detraction from showing games, but I understand why they showed it when they did. It allowed them to set up the stage for their next presentation.

Coming into the theater in an Evel Knievel suit on a motorcycle sporting the game title for Trials, we had Antti Il Vessuo, creative director of Ubisoft Redlynx, come on stage to “accidentally” trip and crash through a podium with a TV on it, breaking the whole thing to pieces. Getting up with a simple “oops,” he explained: “Trials is all about crashing with style and getting up again.” He also claimed to be the Prime Minister of Finland before presenting the video for Trials Rising. It was brief, but it scored with the crowd. A camera pan showed people laughing at the crash and “oops” and the applause was there for it. I hadn’t heard of Trials, but it looks like an absolute insane and infinitely more hilarious version of a childhood favorite in Excitebike. This is absolutely not my type of game and I still think it looks like it would be fun to play. After the video, the crew was already on stage cleaning up the set up “crashed podium” and he gave a little aside “sorry about that” which scored another noticeable laugh with the audience before talking more about the game.

By this point I had noticed that Ubisoft was doing something the other presentations had not done – it was connecting with their audience in the theater. Jokes were landing, the little performances and shows were entertaining, and they weren’t overly long before showing and talking about the games they had to present.

I wasn’t impressed with The Division 2 footage from Microsoft, but Ubisoft’s presentation sold me on the plot for the sequel. As it gets closer to release, I’ll see what the gameplay additions are like and make a decision on it. I played the first one with friends and might be happy to do so again with a sequel. Ubisoft has a proven track record with Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs of the sequels having vast improvements over the first game, so I hope that’s the case for The Divison 2 and I just haven’t seen it yet with the first release of gameplay footage. The crowd certainly liked the idea of 8 man raids in the game. Frequent, major content updates were promised with 3 DLC episodes with new story, areas, and activities all free in the first year.

I still haven’t found time to play Mario + Rabbids, but the Donkey Kong + Rabbids was fun with live music played over the video.

Skull & Bones looks like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag without the Assassin’s Creed backdrop and polished and refined with better graphics. The gameplay looks like it was taken right out of Black Flag with ship combat and base captures. They’ve added a multiplayer component with other players joining together to take down ships and then potentially fighting each other over the loot as well. I loved Black Flag, one of my favorite in the series, so I’d be interested to see more details on this in the future.

Elijah Wood was brought out for Transference VR as his company is involved in working with Ubisoft on the game. I’m not too clear on the game, but it seems creepy as hell.

The next game, Starlink, did a complete 360 for me. The initial trailer interested me with its sci-fi setting and the ship combat looked interesting, though I wasn’t crazy about the character designs and art style. Then I saw it was a toys to life game and I quickly lost interest. I do think these are the best “toys to life” iteration to date, though. Where Skylanders and Amiibo were mostly just little statue figurines that had a chip in them, Starlink toys actually are space ships that can be changed with different pieces to alter them in game. That also makes them genuine toys for kids to play with after turning off the game. They can run around the house with their toys shooting down imaginary enemies and narrowly dodging enemy fire, recreating epic space battles in their imaginations.

After a brief bit of information on the game, however, it was revealed that the good guys in Starlink would need all the help they can get and the video started again. Pursued by five enemies and taking fire, the pilot says “could use a little help here” and the video cut to a ship console. Then I heard it….

At first, I thought “Tell me I didn’t just hear that.” Then I thought “Did Ubisoft leave placeholder sounds in their trailer!?” Then I saw the green eye, clearly surrounded by fur, and covered by a green lens and I thought “HOLY CRAP WTF WTF WTF!?”

Ubisoft had strengthened their partnership with Nintendo and Star Fox, or at least Fox McCloud, would be in Starlink Battle for Atlas. Multiple arwings were seen as Fox took off, so I’m assuming the full team may be present.

Just like that, they sold me on buying a copy. I’ve wanted a model Arwing to put on the shelf for years, but the only one I’ve ever seen is about $500, so a $75 bundle of a toy version with game included is close enough for me. Shigeru Miyamoto was even on hand and seated in the front row of the audience to see. They gave him a first prototype of the Arwing and Fox McCloud figure for the game. It looked pretty cool on the display stand they had mounted it on.

I was surprised to see the next game, For Honor Marching Fire, as from my understanding the first game hadn’t done that well. Apparently, however, it was enough to warrant a new addition. However, this goes to Ubisoft’s credit of maintaining majority control of their company and the benefit of games like Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin’s Creed being tentpole games that help finance smaller projects throughout the company. They’re not exclusively bound to focus purely on profit, profit, profit.

The Crew 2 got a presentation and open beta announcement before showing the video. I’m not too interested here either. Give me a Smokey and the Bandit game, instead, Ubi (I’m kidding….. or am I?).

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the closing presentation and it definitely looks good. Based on the trailer and presentation, the game looks good and they’re moving even more in an RPG direction. I was surprised, perhaps a little disappointed, to see Assassin’s Creed return to an annual release as I was hoping Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs would start taking turns leapfrogging each other in every-other-year releases.

I have the Ezio statue from the Brotherhood Collector’s Edition and have thought the others were cool since then, even sometimes thinking they would have definitely looked cool with every one of them together on a shelf, but with multiple statues in the new one, I’m glad I didn’t go down that path (though they do look awesome). I’m still hoping Ubisoft goes back on their word and ventures to Japan with the series (as they did with Egypt), as well as back to China and into India, at some point.

I also liked their show conclusion bringing the entire team, both presenters and so many who were back stage, back on stage for a final curtain call. The final note of working more with you, the gamers which makes everything better was a great note to conclude Ubisoft’s E3 presentation.

Grade: A

Games I’m interested in: Beyond Good and Evil 2, Starlink, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, possibly The Division 2 and Skull & Bones once I read up on more information.

Sony

Sony had announced ahead of time that this year would not be announcing new games at E3, but focusing on four pillar games with deeper looks and more information.

They started off their presentation in a room that had been built to look like a church to resemble the one they had not yet seen in the upcoming trailer. I saw a number of people didn’t like the banjo performance to start the presentation, but I liked it. I immediately knew it was kicking off the show with The Last of Us 2 just based on the early bit of that performance, though I’m in agreement that the church replica was rather silly and completely unnecessary. It caused a weird intermission right at the start of their presentation and broke the flow of their games being shown.

The Last of Us 2, however, looked absolutely fantastic. The detail in the character models and motion capture, the footage shown for gameplay looked very smooth and even more cinematic than the first game did. The focus of the trailer was on the greater danger in any zombie post-apocalypse: other humans. That always seemed like the more dangerous part of the first game, so I like seeing that aspect as the spotlight in the sequel. Ellie laying down in foliage and sliding under cars adds expanded ways to use the environment than just ducking behind things as well. I also found it interesting that the enemies seem to be calling her “wolf” as if she’s earned a title, possibly from hunting their group in the past? I’m a little disappointed we don’t see Joel at all, only getting a hint of him mentioned.

During the intermission while the crowd moved from the first room to the main theater. It took 13 minutes while they talked about Last of Us part 2, Horizon, God of War, and Detroit: Become Human with Worldwide Studios. New Game + coming to God of War was brought up and confirmed as happening. Black Ops remastered maps were announced for Black Ops IIII. Black Ops III was also announced as a free game for PS+ members.

Tetris Effect for PSVR was shown. A short video for Days Gone. Twin Mirror. Ghost Giant for PSVR, Beat Saber for PSVR. Basically a compilation sizzle reel.

Destiny 2‘s new expansion got a featured trailer.

Finally going back to the main stage, Sony presented another musical performance with Cornelius Boots playing the shakuhachi (a Japanese flute instrument) in front of a screen showing hills of grass while dressed in Japanese clothing. Much like the Andrew WK performance, this would have been more interesting if they had some slow paced game footage to show behind him rather than just the grassy hills. Once he was done, we got our first look at Ghost of Tsushima.

This is one of my most anticipated games that was teased at E3 in 2017 and the new trailer did not disappoint me at all. I’m a sucker for samurai and ninja films, so a game set in this time period grabs my attention and an open world style game in this time period is a must have. I’m hoping, really hoping, the final game is playable with Japanese voice acting and English subtitles, though. I even saw a later comment imagining a black & white mode, which would be ridiculously hard to imagine them pulling off, but would definitely be interesting.

The combat looks interesting. It’s definitely not fast paced hack and slash. There are some very Akira Kurosawa moments with the face off and the sudden draw-strike of the katana killing the opponent before regular combat starts. It looks like it’s focused on reaction, blocks and dodges and counter attacks rather than mindless button mashing.

Between games, there would occasionally be weird things like a CG banana playing electric guitar. It was for Dreams, but that game was never really shown.

I have no idea what the game is about based on the trailer, but Control looks like you basically get to play as Jean Gray/Phoenix (but also with a gun), so that looks pretty cool.

Next up was the surprise trailer that almost managed to steal the show: Resident Evil 2 remake was presented from a rat’s eye view. I liked the added touch of an original Playstation controller next to the pizza near the beginning. As the camera moves around, a struggle is heard, the two people fighting knocking things over and eventually falling on our rodent for the camera to shift to a different view to show the killed rat before moving to a zombie biting the sheriff he was fighting before we get our first look at Leon Kennedy.

Expected to have been a remake much like the Resident Evil REmake on GameCube, the footage is above and beyond that in terms of what I expected graphically. The detail is amazing and the crowd loved it, especially when a Jan 2019 release was revealed.

Squanch Games presented Trover Save the Universe from the creator of Rick and Morty. I’ve never watched the show, but if the humor is like this trailer, I do not remotely see the appeal.

Another look at Kingdom Hearts III showed more gameplay and focused on the Pirates of the Caribbean world before showing a lot of what was seen in the previous presentations. The big addition was the reveal of a Kingdom Hearts III PS4 Pro Limited Edition as well as a 1.5/2.5/2.8/3 all-in-one package for PS4.

Death Stranding gave us a long look at the game and its gameplay while still managing to show almost nothing. We know Redus’ character is essentially a delivery courier, seeing a wide number of terrains being traversed while wearing ridiculously large backpacks. There appears to be acid rain causing burns, hence needing the suits they wear. One of the “packages” appears to be a dead body wrapped up or in a body bag. Others are large crates, sometimes with robots coming with them, other times just carrying everything. Scaling a mountain seemed reminiscent of Breath of the Wild. Though towards the end, we see a village and he pulls out a rifle, so there does seem like there will be combat. It seems like whatever the creatures we’ve seen hinted at have human hand shaped feet, leaving hand prints where they walk. Breathing seems to attract their attention. The woman that meets up with Redus’ character has a suit with FRAGILE on the back (possibly the company they work for). The time fold fast forwards whatever it touches, but the past can never let go. If one of the things eats Redus character, he’ll come back, but the area will be a crater. There are humanoid shapes floating in the air as black smoky clouds, tethered into the sky. They catch Reducs and pull him down into an oil puddle to end the trailer. Ultimately still no clue what the game is about… We probably won’t entirely have an idea when it releases.

Give me your hand in death
Give me your hand in flesh
Give me your hand in spirit

Nioh 2 got an announce trailer, marking the third samurai game for E3 this year!

Finally, Sony wrapped up with an extended look at Spider-Man. The game still looks fantastic visually. Previously, it seemed Mr. Negative was the primary focus of the game, but this kicks off with Electro breaking prisoners out of the Raft and webhead chasing him through fighting low tier super powered criminals in the prison while running into more notable Spider-Man villains Rhino, Scorpion, and Vulture. It’s clear the Sinister Six are featured villains here. The sixth, who masterminded the break out and brought the above five together confronts Spidey at the end, but we’re not shown who it is. Norman Osborn is known to be mayor in this setting, so it could definitely be Green Goblin leading the Sinister Six, but Doc Ock is just as possible. Of course, it could be a surprise rather than an obvious choice.

The game definitely looks amazing. Spectacular even. It even looks Web of. Wait, that last one doesn’t work.

Grade: Absolute A++ on the games themselves, but…. B- for the presentation. I’d even hear out arguments for a grade of C.

However, I feel Sony did what they said they were going to do: showed a closer look at the four big games they wanted to showcase with no muss or fuss. The long intermission was the only real problem I had with their conference. If they had kept everything in the main theater, the shakuhachi before Ghost of Tsushima would have been more of a palette cleanser between the two games rather than feeling like we were stretching on far too long without game footage at a game presentation.

Games I’m looking forward to: Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, Resident Evil 2, Death Stranding, Ghost Giant, Beat Saber, possibly Control once I know more about it.

2018
06/17
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Godzilla Stomps Box Office, X-Men Save the Future, Comics, and More!

Wow, it’s been busy this month.  With the TMNT anniversary month wrapped up, there was a lot of other things going on and it’s delayed me from writing another blog entry.  Godzilla stomped destroyed the box office with his release, X-Men: Days of Future Past hurtled through time to win over audiences and critics, a new chapter began in the Amazing Spider-Man comics, the TMNT anniversary issue and new issue of the ongoing IDW comic came out, and Project A-Kon starts tomorrow!  This blog will be a bit more brief and run through all these items…or will be terribly rambly going through all this items!  Let’s see which!

Godzilla

Despite the poorly accepted Godzilla 2000, it seems most people were still remembering the abomination of a movie simply titled “Godzilla” starring Matthew Broderick.  As the latest American production of Godzilla slowly built up its promotional material, fans were growing more and more excited.  The Internet seemed hopeful and as more teasers came out, excitement actually started building and anticipation grew for Godzilla.  A few weeks before release, I read an article in Forbes predicting the movie was going to be a box office flop.  The King of Monsters proved that prediction false with over $93 million on opening weekend and a worldwide gross that’s reached over $521.5 million in box office revenue.  A sequel is already in the works for the new series of the franchise and I hope they continue to do well.

To me, the movie was great.  Perfect, I’m sure there’s a lot of problems, so no, but absolutely fun.  Some complained about the lack of Godzilla, but the series of films have always been about the human element and the problem they face with another giant monster threatening Earth until Godzilla comes along and fights it.  Bryan Cranston was great as expected, but I felt like Ken Watanabe was underutilized.  I’m hoping he returns with a larger part as a more knowledgeable expert on Godzilla in the sequel.  The plot was particularly enjoyable in that it took the standard set up from past films with Godzilla vs a Monster, or MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) where past Godzilla flops have focused on man vs Godzilla.  We don’t want Godzilla as a bad guy, it’s his film and despite the destruction he causes fighting the enemy, he’s our hero!

I thought Godzilla looked great, though he didn’t have the personality of the old films.  He was more animal-like, described as an Alpha Predator of prehistoric origins as hypothesized by Ken Watanabe’s character.  They hint at the original Godzilla film with nuclear testing having awoken Godzilla in the past and granted the first glimpse of him, which was neat as well.  The size of Godzilla is massive. He seemed bigger than I recall, but then the old ones were a man in a suit on a set of miniatures, so it’s more perception than fair comparison.  I’d like to see a little more of his personality in future films, showing he has a little higher intelligence than simply a predatory animal.  After all, the original Godzilla could not only be communicated with by other monsters, but as relayed by Mothra through the twins, he didn’t care for mankind.  In a fight, Godzilla would gloat and laugh at his enemies in his own way and would somewhat throw a tantrum when getting frustrated.  While I don’t think that level of silliness would work for this new Godzilla, showing some level of emotion would be interesting.

I won’t spoil anything, but I will say I was expecting Godzilla to end the fight at the climax by breaking the female MUTO’s jaw.  The way he actually ended the fight shocked me and left me with a big grin on my face.  It was an awesome finisher to the fight.  I’m hoping the next film involves aliens as the source of the monster.
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The film impressed critics, which is saying something.  It’s currently 92% positive with critics and 94% with audiences at Rotten Tomatoes, which is the highest the franchise has ever reached. Even higher than First Class or X2: X-Men United.  It’s also been out for only a few weeks and is already the highest grossing X-Men film, amassing $500 million in just 10 days.  I not only enjoyed the film, but moreso appreciated the direction it has established for films going forward, the next of which is X-Men: Apocalypse.

As Bryan Singer suggested, the film was used to tie up some loose ends and fix some problems almost everyone had with the original trilogy’s plot missteps.  Days of Future Past avoids the temptation of mutant cameos for the sake of saying a mutant had a cameo (seriously, that was NOT Psylocke in Last Stand) and the mutants it does give an appearance to are actually used.  Fan favorites Blink, Bishop and not-as-favorite Warpath join Storm, Colossus, Iceman, and Magneto among the chief combatants in the dark future against the evolved Sentinels.  The story of the Sentinels themselves is different than the comics, but works well and is a nice spin on the storyline itself.

People did complain about Wolverine being the one sent back in time rather than Kitty Pryde a la the comics, but it makes sense to me.  The Mary Sue claimed it was lazy writing that neared sexism, but I disagree.  Lazy writing would be to further strain logic to send Ellen Paige back for the sake of it, having to make a convoluted excuse of her returning to a time where’s she’s not even been born.  Compound that with the fact that Wolverine is the frontrunner for the series and it’s logical to have Jackman’s character as the focal point since his character is logically in the past already.  The series already has enough continuity problems, particularly with ages, to need yet another one with Kitty alive when Kitty wasn’t alive for the sake of using Kitty who has been a minor role in the films as a whole so far.  Honestly, if we were arguing for not using Wolverine in Pryde’s place, I’d prefer to go totally unknown and have Bishop as our main focus.  The nice thing about sending Wolverine back, however, is that he doesn’t actually take the spotlight.  Logan is actually better used as a character amongst an ensemble in this film rather than the focal point of the spotlight.

As stated, though, I’m more interested in seeing how things develop from here.  Days of Future Past is the first Fox X-Film under the world building coordination of Mark Millar as consultant for Fox, Jackman said there was more presence from Marvel on set than previous films, and it’s the first real X-Film that’s been produced as an established comic team in the post-Marvel Studios Hollywood.  The film maintained the thematic continuity of the original films with the future X-Men wearing black armored suits akin to the leather of the original trilogy, but there’s some color coming into them as well.  Blue and yellow (in a black/yellow pattern that gives it a tan look) for Wolverine, for example.

I was stoked by the yellow at the ribs and on the arms, actually.

And with the 70s really being pre-X-Men there were not costumes for the majority of it other than Magneto donning his armor which had far more color than the original dark tones.

Very much like his comic colors

Which leads me to wonder if X-Men: Apocalypse, which has already been confirmed to be bringing in young Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Storm, will be going more traditional in their costumes as well.  Cyclops in a Captain America-like blue, hopefully.  I’m also personally hoping that Storm will have her mohawk for the 80s set film.  My only concern right now is Wolverine.  The timeline was altered in Days of Future Past and rather than undergoing the Weapon X project with Stryker in the 80s, we see Wolverine being taken by Mystique-as-Stryker instead.

With Lawrence’s Mystique becoming the face of the films alongside Jackman, and Mystique’s history of being used as a tie to Apocalypse, I’m wondering if they’re planning on having the Weapon X project headed by Stryker at the behest of Apocalypse and Wolverine becoming the Horseman of Death.  It would be a comic influence to do so, but not one I’d like to see as it causes continuity questions for the films all over again with the X-Men knowing Wolverine before he joins.  There was some cool speculation that the mutants we glimpsed in Days of Future Past, rescued by Mystique, could become the Four Horseman (or three, because…well, Toad).  Havok as War, the one with the radiation symbol on his face for Pestilence, and the one that made the soldiers simply pass out as Famine.  This would indeed leave death open.  Instead of Wolverine, though, I’d much rather see Angel brought back and made into Archangel.

 

Amazing Spider-Man

I have to admit I really enjoyed the Superior Spider-Man arc and as it moved along, you could literally start seeing the problems that were being put together for Peter upon his return.  As predicted at the start of the run, Peter’s return coincided with the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2 in theaters, and here he is.  The first story they’re telling is going to introduce a new character, Silk, who was also bitten by the same spider that gave Peter his powers in high school.  Now, the character might be interesting, but I hate when writers go back and add to the long held origin story.  The “oh, but here’s what really happened” or “here’s the rest of the story” doesn’t work for me and it rarely adds anything of value to the overall story.  I may also still be annoyed at “Xavier is an asshole” from the Second Genesis addition with Deadly Genesis.

The only thing I was particularly nervous about that won me over in a single issue was Anna Maria Marconi.  It was obvious that Otto had fallen in love with her and was in a serious relationship with her.  I liked that she found he was thinking of proposing to her, but I didn’t like the fact that they revealed that things had gotten to the point of sleeping together.  I’m old fashioned and I do like the notion of monogamy after marriage rather than sleep-around-single then settle-down-married.  Yes, I know it’s old fashioned, but it’s also the type of character I’ve always seen Peter to be yet Brand New Day has had him engage in one night stands and friends with benefits.  I think it would have been more contrasting for Otto, who is an older man and might see things more like his generation did, to have followed that notion.  However, I will say the “I’m pregnant” scene was absolutely fantastic and it nailed Maria as a favorite for me.  It’s been a long time coming, but I’m really interested to see how Spider-Man will work having a bit of a Batman quality to him.  With Parker Industries serving as Wayne Enterprises and Anna as his Alfred/Lucius-in-one.

Now when will Mary Jane appear in the movies again so she and Peter can start dating in the comics.  I will always hate the One More Day plot and dissolving the marriage rather than, I dunno, writing it properly and having MJ as a strong character.  Oddly enough, it seems that the whole Brand New Day has done more to better MJ as a character than done anything to really make Spider-Man/Peter better.  Mephisto was certainly right about one thing, though…just under the surface, Peter and MJ still seem to know they’re meant for one another, but just can’t get there….and the other relationships they enter into just don’t feel quite right.  Damn you, Mephisto.  I hope Dr. Strange gives you a whomping in an arc around the time of his movie release too.

TMNT Anniversary Wrap Up

I watched Secret of the Ooze again.  While the original movie still holds up, the Secret of the Ooze doesn’t.  It’s a perfect example of Hollywood getting involved with too much control. The film is clearly made to be silly and more funny for kids where the original film, an independent film, had a more mature tone.  I couldn’t bring myself to take time for TMNT III or to rewatch TMNT from 2007 (which I actually really liked).

The 30th Anniversary issue came out and while nothing particularly special to delve into on a continuing basis, it was a neat comic.  Multiple short stories, each one in the style of the various incarnations of TMNT: Mirage, Archie Comics, Image, IDW.  Very cool stuff.

The latest issue of the ongoing IDW was great. I really like Don’s friend Harold and the introduction of Metalhead was really cool. Santolucco is a great artist for the series and the writers are still doing some neat stuff there.  With Leo still being my favorite turtle, I’m interested to see how things continue to develop for him.  Everyone writes him off as the boring character since he’s the boy scout, but I think IDW has done well fleshing him out more. He’s sometimes a jerk (he’s the big brother, after all) to the others when they disagree, but he also cares about his family.  Despite being the most dedicated student, you can see a bit of difference of opinion between him and Splinter growing in his concern over agreeing with Don that dealing with the Technodrome and Krang may be most important while Splinter is focused on their direct problem with Shredder.  I’m definitely interested to see where that leads as all children have difference of opinion with their parents as they grow.  We know the Rat King is going to be appearing soon and that will be a good story for Leo as he’ll have to handle things alone if Splinter is under the Rat King’s sway.  Next issue, however, is looking to be great as we get a pairing that isn’t explored enough: Raph and Mike.  I’m really looking forward to that!

And Old Hobb and Slash are still working their own plan, as we saw in the end of this latest issue.  I’m expecting Alopex to wind up back in New York and possibly joining him for a while.  I’ll admit, I really like Alopex.  Granted, she a fox, literally, so that’s a plus for her in my book, but I like the character.  I just hope they don’t further the Raph/Alopex friendship as it makes her too much like Ninjara for me.  I’d much rather see Alopex and Leo form a friendship since they have history of going through similar challenges with the Foot and, honestly, Leo needs a friend.  Raph has Casey, Don has Harold and April, Mike has the pizza shop guy and possibly a police detective.  Leo has his family.  That dude needs a friend.

Project A-Kon 25

The big 25th Anniversary of the longest running Anime Convention in North America is THIS WEEKEND!  This will mark my 10th year straight going to this convention and I’m really looking forward to it.  I don’t cosplay anymore and sadly I won’t be taking Crow T. Robot (or will I?) since I don’t have a friend to carry Tom Servo.  I loved taking Crow and Servo and there’s no end to stopping to take photos, but my time at A-Kon is now usually spent at panel after panel with little time to waste in between.  Then again, there’s always down time in the evenings it seems. Maybe Crow will go, though he won’t be cosplaying this year either (seriously, cosplaying Crow is a heavy Crow).

I’m expecting a larger turn out of Attack on Titan cosplay as well as Sword Art Online. Expect to see a few Log Horizon as well.  I’ll be working on a preview of my schedule and which panels to attend today, packing up and getting ready. I’ll also be driving over today to go ahead and pick up my badge and bag o’ goodies.

A-Kon, here I come! 🙂

2014
06/05
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Amazing Spider-Man 2; Good, but not Amazing (Spoiler Free)

Fair warning, I say “spoiler free” but there are two minor spoilers regarding what I’d say is more of an Easter egg than a plot point.

I saw Amazing Spider-Man 2 on opening night, or apparently on preview night as the showings prior to midnight are apparently called, and while I’ve seen a lot of people hated the movie, I really enjoyed it.  Is it one of the best comic book movies? Probably not. Is it the worst? Absolutely not.  It’s a good movie, it’s fun, and it’s the best version of Spider-Man himself on film thus far.

The first thing I knew from the trailer proved to be accurate; I love the costume.  They finally managed to bring the classic Spider-Man costume to screen in complete accuracy (well, except the stylized spider emblem, but I’ll forgive that).  It looks like cloth, it folds and creases with his movements, it ripples in the wind as he’s free falling, and it looks fantastic with the large white eyes. Hopefully they don’t try to tweak the costume going forward and they just keep this one from here on out.

Seriously, it looks really freakin' awesome.

Seriously, it looks really freakin’ awesome.

Peter Parker is well presented as well, his inner conflict, his hesitation to get close to people out of concern for them, but unable to stay away because he genuinely cares for people.  This is also the semi absent-minded Peter that will ramble a bit before realizing his surroundings when he’s excited or upset.  Honestly, I think Andrew Garfield nailed both Peter and Spider-Man in this film.  He’s got Peter’s emotional anguish as well as his compassion, but foremost, he just seems like a fun Spider-Man.  Cracking jokes, making quips at the expense of his enemies, even just sort of talking to himself while he’s web swinging.

Emma Stone still plays a fantastic Gwen Stacy and the relationship between her and Peter is still perfect on screen. Aunt May is good, though I still can’t quite get over her still having color to her hair, but she’s definitely the caring aunt who still worries but also has her own strength (as she should be).  The only supporting cast member we haven’t seen that I am still looking forward to is J. Jonah Jameson, though I wonder if they’re delaying to set themselves apart from Raimi’s trilogy or if they can’t decide on an actor.  Minor, very minor, spoiler: Jameson does “appear” in the movie in the form of an e-mail response to Peter who is starting to freelance photos for the Bugle.  Personally, I don’t care that it’s a new continuity, I want J.K. Simmons to reprise the role.

Now for the reason the movie was good and not great.  The villains.  Electro is perfectly adapted to screen in terms of his powers and the visual portrayal of them. The fight with Spider-Man is pretty cool and seeing him at full power “living electricity” Electro is pretty cool (unless you’re a purist who wanted the Earth 616 Electro, but remember the movies are, like Marvel Studios films, largely influenced by Ultimate Universe of the comics).  The problem with Electro was Max Dillon.  I don’t fault Jaimie Foxx for a bad performance so much as the writers.  It just felt like he had poor motivation for becoming a villain against Spider-Man.  I kind of dug the origin of him being a nobody that everyone overlooks. Electro has always been a second rate villain in the eyes of many of the rogues’ gallery in the comics and he’s often had stories where his goal is to prove himself a legitimate power player as much as accomplishing whatever scheme he has in the works, so the basic premise of his arc was fine.  It’s just that the build up just seems decent, then the “moment” of going rogue seems fairly forced.

It also felt like the music for Electro’s first fight had this sort of “hearing voices” effect to it, which I felt seemed off for Electro, particularly in a movie with Green Goblin, who is supposed to pretty much be outright insane.  Speaking of Goblin, he also didn’t have the greatest development. Harry had a much better motivation as a foundation for his actions, but it still felt a bit rushed.  I think I also missed a single line that explained why Harry decided to put on the military suit thing that goes with the glider after becoming Goblin.  No spoilers, so I won’t go into detail there.

I will say I didn’t care for Goblin overall, though. It’s one thing I really don’t like from Ultimate Universe being used in film. I really want to see Norman Osborn, completely batty out of his mind, dressed up like a fairy tale goblin with green and purple.  It’s not like it has to be total spandex. Green Goblin has had enough iterations that his traditional look should be able to be pulled off instead of some quasi-pseudo-military/paintball suit.  There are plenty of versions of Osborn’s Goblin costume that has a bit of a scale mail design to it, so I’m just not clear on why they can’t go with that for a movie.

Because this could actually look cool on film

Because this could actually look cool on film

Instead we keep getting all green robo-suits for some reason. Osborn, either Harry or Norman, is crazy as a loon. There’s really no reason someone that far off their rocker couldn’t rationally, in their mind, dress up like this actual goblin to terrorize people and Spider-Man.  On top of that, is it just me or does Dane DeHaan look more like he’s supposed to be Hobgoblin than Green Goblin?

Looks more like Hobgoblin to me.

Looks more like Hobgoblin to me.

Add to the rushed, rather weak, development of the villains with a terribly short fight against Green Goblin and you’ve got a rather disappointing film in terms of villains.  There’s also Rhino, who is really used more as a set up to lead into the Sinister Six film, or Amazing Spider-Man 3 (I’m not sure which they plan on doing first), which Paul Giomatti seems underutilized for.  Mickey Rourke seems like he would have been a better choice after his role as Whiplash to play the Russian Rhino.

All in all, I still enjoyed the film. I know critics hated it, though the review I read from a critic seemed overly critical to me, even suggesting that the movies staying true to their source material is a detriment because it takes away some possible surprises.  Critics aren’t comic book fans, it seems.  I don’t know of any fan who WANTS the movies deviating from the source material.  A Spider-Man movie where Gwen and Peter move to Europe and live happily ever after isn’t what fans are looking for.  We want to see our comic stories brought to life and while I’ll agree adaptation does not mean scene by scene replication, the general direction of the films should be true to their origins.

"I would look across the tables and I'd see you there with Gwen, maybe a couple of kids" --wait, wrong movie!

“I would look across the tables and I’d see you there with Gwen, maybe a couple of kids” –wait, wrong movie!

 

Honestly, though, my favorite addition to the Amazing Spider-Man trilogy came in the form of Norman, then Harry’s, personal assistant at Oscorp.  A pretty raven haired young woman by the name of, spoiler, Felicia.  I’ll leave you to guess her last name, which is not stated nor listed in the credits, but I think we all know what the plan is for her.  I think it would be interesting for Peter to have an ally in ASM 3 myself.

Now, that said, I spent a bit of time playing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game on Playstation 4 today as well.  Honestly, it seems like it would have been a better overall script, but you’d need a lot more time, even trimming it down from game length.  I’m well into it and dealing with a gang war, Russian mafia, Kinpin’s presence, and Kraven the Hunter thus far as an ally and I’ve only met Max Dillon once.  I’m interested to see how they develop Dillon into Electro in the game’s story, which may be able to flesh him out further than the film.  He just seemed so sniveling in the film…

The game, however, is pretty fun but nothing new.  The combat is fun, but not as sharp as the Arkham series and I’m beginning to wish, like many, that Rockstar could get a crack as Spidey since Activision seems happy to recycle every previous iteration of free roaming Spider-Man with a few tweaks.  I do like that the game finally returns to the style from Spider-Man 2’s game where you actually have left and right triggers for web swinging. If there’s a building on the left, a right trigger isn’t going to do anything if it’s just open air and you can’t snag a web line to the sky.  I’m still unlocking things, so I’m not sure if it gets as detailed as Spider-Man 2, which is currently still the best free roam web swinging – being able to do different tricks while swinging and such was a nice addition.

Overall, the game doesn’t seem too ground breaking over Amazing Spider-Man, though there’s a few new random crimes to help with.  Since there’s a crime wave, I’d like to see the petty crimes getting so out of hand that there’s almost no way to manage them all and have that reflect on the city’s opinion of you.  Mostly, though, I just wish Marvel and Activision would develop a free roam Spider-Man game with a lot of thought into it and set firmly in the Marvel comics world.  Let players swing out to the Statue of Liberty and hang out with Johnny Storm.  Have Wolverine cameo.  Contact the Avengers for help to find they’re off world or out of the country.  Iron Man cameo would be another nice touch (get a good Robert Downey Jr impersonator and let the game indulge our fantasy of the merged cinematic universe).  Still, if you enjoy Spider-Man games, this one doesn’t have too much to disappoint other than a general lack of new or groundbreaking features.

So far, at least the story has been interesting and Stan Lee is always a welcome addition to any game (it’s still the same “Stan” you were house sitting for in the first game, who owns a comic book store, the “Comic Stand” with the neon D burned out).  The store is where you can view the statues, comics, art, and access the fight challenges on the arcade machine. I also was amused to bring up my camera and zoom in to look over the comics on the stand, t-shirts on the walls, etc.

All in all, I’d say Amazing Spider-Man 2 is worth the look, either in theaters or on your console.

2014
05/03
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