FBTB

Category: Movies

  • What We’re Looking Forward To In 2022

    What We’re Looking Forward To In 2022

    As we go into the 25th month of 2020, it feels like time has no meaning anymore, yet it turns out that things do keep coming out and there’s plenty of marketing things to stir up FOMO and get us excited. It’s telling exactly how much the pandemic has sort of skewed the whole perception of time, though, when you think about it. Like… how many people even remembered that the Snyder Cut of Justice League came out in 2021 until I put it in my list of 2021, or that the boat got stuck in the canal less than a year ago?

    It’s hard to even gauge some of this when it comes to video games, because so many things got pushed back from last year to this year, or announced without any dates at all. Both the Xbox and the PlayStation were guilty of it, but the PlayStation, especially, saw most of its marquee titles moved to 2022 at the earliest. Still, there’s plenty of things coming, so here’s the things we’re looking forward to the most, be it media, tabletop, or maybe even some toys. Who knows, it could happen.

    Ace

    Look, my list is all about video games right now because that’s pretty much where my head is at. I will include a list of non-video game honorable mentions at the bottom though.

    Splatoon 3

    I need to lead with this. Oh yeah. My favorite Nintendo franchise is coming back. And I am more than ready to come out of retirement to get my splat on. Heck, maybe I’ll come out early and work off the rust in some ranked battles in Splatoon 2. No solid release date yet. It can’t come out soon enough. I am STOKED!

    Metroid Prime 4

    True story: E3 2017. I was driving to the L.A. Convention Center in stop and go traffic on the 110. Nintendo’s Direct was airing so I did what I advise everyone NOT to do and set up my phone on my dash and brought up the stream in my YouTube app. I watched and watched and the moment the trailer played and the words “Metroid Prime 4” revealed itself, I just lost it in the car. I may or may not have shed a tear too. My favorite Nintendo franchise is coming back as a proper sequel to the Metroid Prime trilogy.

    Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

    It came as a bit of a surprise when Nintendo pegged a 2022 release date for this game during that one Direct. Sadly, I haven’t finished the first BOTW yet, but that should be pretty easily done at this point. Everytime I go back to the game, I keep trying to finish the Master Sword trial and failing. Meh. I guess I don’t need it. I can’t wait for my favorite Nintendo franchise to come back with the BOTW sequel. I’m guessing the holiday season will be the release window.

    God Of War Ragnarok

    Eric told me that playing the PS5 upgrade of God of War is “life-changing”. I’ll take his word for it right now but I do kinda want to get back and play New Game + mode. Might be a good way to whet the appetite. Completing that game on Give Me God of War difficulty is still one of my greatest video game achievements. Ragnarok looks more of the same but like way more and that is just fine because what is already there is awesome!

    Gran Turismo

    So like this video came out a few days ago as I write this, a 30-minute deep dive of the game. It looks phenomenal and I don’t say that word too often. It comes out on my birthday month, on March 4th to be exact. That’s in one month! Needless to say this is the game I’ll be playing on my personal new year day and then some.

    Horizon Forbidden West

    I was hesitant putting this one down on this list. I really liked the story and combat of the first game, especially the combat. Fighting off robotic prehistoric dinosaurs with a bow, trip wires, and what have you, just so much fun. But for some reason, this sequel is something I can wait for a sale on. That’s how I got the first game, might as well follow tradition.

    Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2

    Ah, Final Fantasy VII Remake. The game where everyone in your party is ridiculously attractive. I haven’t heard a peep about Part 2. No trailer, no teaser photo, no release date, nothing. Supposably, Part 2 is supposed come out this year, but I’m not holding breath. And honestly, with all the games I mentioned above, I wouldn’t mind if Part 2 came out in 2023 or later. And since there’s no video for FFVIIRP2, I posted one of the DLC pack for Part 1 with Yuffie. This reminds me, I still need to play through that.

    Honorable Mentions

    Okay, so non-gaming stuff? In no particular order:

    • Reducing my video game backlog.
    • The last of my Kickstarters finally being delivered. I’ve given up supporting anything on there. It’s a bad habit, full of FOMO and other nefarious tactics. I’ve only regretted backing one thing on there, I’ve received everything else thus far, and I consider myself extremely lucky for that track record.
    • Stranger Things coming back on Netflix.
    • My tax return.
    • Dining in indoor restaurants.

    Eric

    I always like to look back at last year’s post to see how the games I anticipated actually turned out. So, quick review time!

    Hitman 3. Yes, I was excited for it, but I actually never bought it. As much as I liked the game loop of these Hitman games, I’ve just never really found a great need to buy them on release. I still haven’t even gotten around to playing Hitman 2.

    Deathloop. This one was my Game of the Year, until I played Bowser’s Fury. Deathloop is so, so fun, and I’ll probably write an in-depth review of it one of these days. But if you haven’t played it, and you like action games, pick it up.

    Resident Evil: Village. People love this game, and while I don’t think it’s bad, it’s definitely not my favorite Resident Evil game. I thought Village was fine, but haven’t really had an urge to go back and play it. Although I do like that the overarching story of Resident Evil actually progressed for once. I’m interesting to see where Capcom goes next with this series.

    Little Devil Inside. Still waiting on this one to come out. Still excited. Looks like Winter 2022, and if gets delayed, I’ll probably be mentioning it again this time next year.

    Back 4 Blood. This one…hoo boy. I didn’t hate it, but me and my buddy just fell off of it really quickly. All of the mechanics in the game are pretty good, it just didn’t have the staying power I hoped it would.

    Which leaves one game. Still. For the third year in a row.

    Sigh. Throw up the teaser.

    I haven’t watched this trailer. I haven’t watched anything that’s come out in the last year. I’ve been going back and playing old Soulsborne games in anticipation.

    There’s not much I can say about this one, honestly. We all know it’s going to be great. It comes out February 25, 2022. 

    Aside from Elden Ring, I’m weirdly content with the games I have right now. I’m working my way through my back catalogue, currently playing through The Last of Us: Part II and Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. So I figure I’ll just keep churning through the hundreds of games I need to play through and wait for 2023.

    Nick

    I really don’t know a whole lot that I’m looking forward to this year when it comes to video games, and I have no idea what’s coming out for LEGO. There’s plenty of stuff out there, and I’m sure some shows. I’ll be honest, last year, I kind of adopted a “wait and be surprised” attitude a lot of the time when it came to stuff. I watched very few trailers, I didn’t seek out a ton of information, so I went into stuff blind a lot.

    I also didn’t play new releases for games, and just generally let stuff go. Which certainly saved me some money and time, and generally, stressed. Turns out I didn’t miss most of it. Weird.

    Saints Row

    I’ll admit, I’m a little bit skeptical about this game. I honestly don’t trust THQ Nordic and their parent company, Embracer Group, to make fantastic games like the old Deep Silver was capable of doing before THQ imploded. Saint’s Row started its life as a buggy-as-hell GTA clone that had a decent story to become a better-than-GTA game with III and a “it has no right to be this stupidly fun” over-the-top romp in IV that threw everything out the window in the franchise and opened the game up by having you climb a nuclear missile with Aerosmith playing in the background before aliens invaded and blew up the earth.

    I repeat, that was the opening of the game. It only got crazier from there. I loved that game, and still play it from time to time, because it was just crazy. Sometimes, you gotta go with the crazy game. The new entry, due in the middle of the year, is supposed to go back to a mixture of comedy and drama, somewhere between 2 and 3, and have a bit.

    Starfield

    I honestly don’t know if I’m excited for this game, which is 11 months from release supposedly. It’s never going to come out in November – my prediction for 2022 is that it gets pushed to March next year. Microsoft is bad at a lot of things, and I’ve written plenty about all the terribleness that Bethesda does, but both of them haven’t had the deep-seated crunch exploit culture that dominates a lot of the other big companies. I’m sure they have crunch in spurts, all video games companies unfortunately have that baked into their DNA, but it’s not the pervasive, constant culture that made up “Bioware Magic” and forced out all the Naughty Dog titles.

    This game is supposedly a year out, and we know nothing about it except that it’s a Sci-Fi title from the company that makes Elder Scrolls and Fallout. It’s exclusive to the Xbox on consoles, the first “big” exclusive of the generation and why Microsoft ultimately paid all those billions. Sony players will need to come to the PC to try it, or grab an Xbox Series S. Those are decent enough bones to build from for a game, and hopefully we learn more in time.

    Mostly, though, I’ll admit I want them to get this out so they can work on Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout V.

    Ms. Marvel

    I’ve made no secret that Ms. Marvel / Kamala Khan is perhaps my favorite “new” hero of the last decade. Given the fantastic job that’s been done on the other shows on Disney+, this one feels like a perfect fit, not just because it will fit well

    She-Hulk

    In that same vein, the other show I’m excited for is the angry green lawyer. I like the character, and there are two very good recent runs that could be drawn on for the show… Charles Soule’s 2014 run and Mariko Tamaki’s 2017 Hulk where Jennifer dropped the “she” from the title. The former is more likely, as the latter is a fantastic run, but relies on a lot of established trauma and in-universe events to draw from for the story. It’s a great read, and could be drawn into a great later season, but hard as a starting point.

    More than that, though, She-Hulk is a great connecting title to pull together a lot of other characters and shows. She has long-time ties to the Avengers, but also to the Hell’s Kitchen and Defender types. Bringing in the Netflix characters, you know, for no particular reason, is easier through this character and show. It can also bring in a lot of other characters that didn’t quite make it elsewhere, like Squirrel-Girl, etc.

    Basically, the show has promise for the title character, and promise for everything else it offers. Probably more than any other Marvel show to date.

    Warhammer 40k – Eldar Craftworlds

    I talked in great length how Warhammer 40k became my hobby of choice in 2021, and that looks to continue in 2022. One of the big reasons why is that my “first” Warhammer 40k love, Craftworld Eldar, i.e., Space Elves, are getting a huge revamp this year… their first in a very long time. The model range for Eldar is the oldest in 40k, with some of the kits and models ranging back to the mid-90s without an update, and the average age of kits in the range coming in somewhere around 20 years right now. Compare that to most of the Space Marines I posted, which are all 1-5 years old (a few may be older, but most are pretty new).

    Maybe I’ll write more for the two or three out there who care, maybe not. I honestly haven’t decided… but seeing the army I like fills me with joy and my wallet with dread. This is going to be an expensive and busy year for me, hobby-wise. Time to start clearing out the pile of shame to make room for all the new stuff.

     

  • FBTB Staff’s Best of 2020 – TV / Movies / Streaming

    FBTB Staff’s Best of 2020 – TV / Movies / Streaming

    Any other year and maybe we break these into other categories, but when the highest grossing film of the year in the US turns out to be Bad Boys for Life and Sonic the Hedgehog, things have taken a turn and you gotta open up the category a bit. If you want a feeling of exactly how long 2020 has been… remember that Tiger King came out in March of this year. March was eleven years ago, so it’s kind of insane when you think about it.

    Ace

    Man, I was soooo looking forward to Wonder Woman 1984. I was so sure that I’d like it that when we were concocting our best of lists in early December, I had slated WW1984 as my Best Movie of 2020 but I can’t do that in good conscious anymore.

    And to the point Nick was alluding to in the opening paragraph, this year has just been this amorphous blob of time. It feels like lockdown just started a few weeks ago and a few years ago all at once. It’s hard to believe that 10 months have passed since corona became a real threat that forced people into lockdown. During that time there was a lot of TV watching. Well, I assume there was a lot of TV watching cause we certainly weren’t going out anywhere and doing anything outside of the house. There are two shows that I watched that I can wholeheartedly recommend. I’m sure I’ve watch more than these two shows but try as I might I can’t really think of anything else. Maybe because the quality of the shows and movies I watch are all equally good and so nothing is really that great? I don’t know. But here are my picks.

    There is something oddly compelling about Queen’s Gambit (Netflix). A series about an orphan girl becoming a force to be reckoned with in the mostly male world of chess. I don’t play chess, I know enough about the rules to play a game but I wouldn’t say I’m any good at it. So even with my rudimentary knowledge I still enjoyed this show. Even my wife who knows less about the game was hooked. And that’s really a good indication of how good this show is: the chess is really just the backdrop. Or, really, a vehicle that transports you into this biopic of a chess prodigy. I can’t explain what it is. I certainly can’t think of anything bad to say about it. It is just a great show.

    The Mandalorian is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since Rogue One, hands down. I’ve said that before and I’ll keep on saying it. I may be behind in my recaps but that is not a sign of my lack of interest. I haven’t been this excited for a TV show or even Star Wars for that matter in FOREVER. And it felt good, you know, despite COVID and being under lockdown. During a year of little to look forward to, it was nice to have that feeling again. Which goes to show that having a weekly release for a streaming TV show isn’t all that bad of an idea despite streaming audiences becoming acclimated to the binge watch culture.

    Honorable Mentions

    Speaking of which, our family watched Rogue One over the holiday break because my kids had a lot of questions about The Mandalorian. So I’m making them watch it in release order but prefaced all of it with Rogue One. I used to think that the movie should have cut off the first 20 minutes or so and start when Jyn gets rescued from the prisoner transport. I still do but I’m more okay slogging through the beginning now. The way I see it, the first 20 minutes is truckloads better than what Ep. IX ended up being.

    I got on the Cobra Kai bandwagon a little late, but it’s been fun. Johnny’s irreverance towards pretty much everything is refreshing to watch in this PC world. Season 3 just started and I’m already almost done with that one. There is definitely some cheese parts that will make a rock physically cringe but it’s not bad. The funny moments far outweigh the the bad ones. You can certainly waste your time watching stupider things. And if you haven’t watched all of the Karate Kid movies, no worries, they flashback all the highlights so you can keep up with minimal effort.

    And lastly, I finished watching The Office for the third time while it was Netflix. Because it going to Peacock or whatever? Screw that, I don’t need to sign up for another streaming service.

    Eric

    I started this year off with Regal’s Unlimited Pass, which let me watch, you guessed it, unlimited movies in theaters. I got a good two months of that under my belt. And, you know, looking back, I didn’t see a single movie during that time I would recommend. And I saw every movie during that time. And since I don’t have Disney+ nor any desire to, I haven’t seen any of the latetst lazy remakes they’re putting out. So for this yar, I’m skipping my movie pick.

    Oh, also, I’m skipping my TV pick, because I’m 23 and don’t have cable.

    But streaming! I’m also skipping. Kinda.

    I only watched one show I really fell in love with – and it’s Amazon Prime’s The Boys.

    It’s not really a secret that here at FBTB we’re fans of comic book movies. And also, sometimes not a fan. So what The Boys does so well is takes my favorite philosophy – post-modernism – and applies it to this swath of comic book movies we’ve seen over the last decade. Now, The Boys is based on a comic itself, though it’s far more edgy and just…way more cringe-fest early-2000s than the show. Which the show could have done, but it updated the show and even the message to critique not only modern day superhero ideology, but modern day society’s ideology itself. A large corporation dips its toes in manipulating U.S. Congressmen. A mega-church movement’s empassioned leader (and Mr. Fantastic-like stretchy guy) is shown to be a massive sexual deviant. A new recruit of the superhero gang is pressured into giving sexual favor to another member to “really fit in”. The show isn’t neccessarily subtle in the ways it reflect’s modern day, but the addition of superheroes being the ones doing these things add such an interesting angle that it’s difficult to turn away.

    So the story? Well, basically, The Boys (not superheroes themselves) want to go kill the Justice League. Which aside from the incredible character development along the way, is so entertaining in and of itself that the episodes fly by. Every single character in the show, good or bad, is so interesting, complex, and pretty much crazy in their own way, and it adds up to some incredibly wonderful set pieces.

    I would be remissed not to mention probably the best character, Homelander, who is The Boys universe’s Superman. This guy is crazy, like, actually insane. And he’s painted as the obvious antagonist, and there’s nothing quiet as fearful as trying to hide from a guy with X-ray vision, supersonic hearing, flight, and laser eyes. He’s like the Terminator. An insane, very charismatic Terminator.

    Man this show is cool.

    Nick

    I didn’t watch all that many “new” movies this year. The one that stands out the most in my mind was Bird’s of Prey, which was fine, though I wasn’t the target audience for the film (which is awesome, there need to be more movies like this made). I’ve got a few others I want to watch, like the new Bill & Ted movie, but just haven’t felt much in the mood for new movies. Instead, I watch old ones. Lots of them. Again… comfort food. Well, that and a lot of terrible movies, via Rifftrax and MST3K.

    When it comes to television, or honestly, streaming, there was a whole ton of stuff I watched this year. My wife and I have been burning throughs several shows on streaming, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Schitt’s Creek, and The Good Place. If you haven’t watched those, you absolutely should. I’ve gotten through more of Marvel Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D., but still haven’t gotten around to finishing it. There was Netflix’s GLOW (awesome – but sadly the 4th season was a victim of COVID and Netflix’s insistance on killing great shows), and BoJack Horseman early in the year capping off an ending that only that show could manage.

    Turns out a lot of shows that I watched this year were also coming to an end this year, whcih makes me kind of sad. Most of the stuff I was really looking forward to ended up getting pushed later, like the huge slate of Marvel shows that will start up in January with WandaVision.

    Obviously, there was the Mandalorian, which I have a feeling got talked about by Ace above (I’m writing this before he added his stuff), and as a huge fan of Rebels and Clone Wars, I absolutely adored the second season. I didn’t mind the CGI character at the end, I thought it looked okay, and I thought the actual fight was incredible. The start of the season felt a bit slow, but when it hit the gear, it hit it hard and stuck the landing. Plus, as we know now, we’re going to get eleven million new Star Wars shows over the next few years.

    That being said, I’m going to cheat and call out three shows from a rival franchise as my favorite. I’ve mentioned before that I’m as much of a Star Trek fan as I am a Star Wars fan… honestly, maybe even more. I grew up watching TOS in syndication, watched TNG when it premiered, and stuck with watching it even though it was just god awful in its first season.

    There was more new Star Trek this year than we’ve ever really gotten before… the closest before this would have been 1996, when we got First Contact (okay), DS9’s 4th season (amazing) and Voyager’s 2nd season (not so much). More than that, there was more great Star Trek this year than we’d gotten, which pushed the franchise in a bunch of new and different directions. When Picard ends up being your weakest entry, and still was great, you’re probably doing something good.

    Lower Decks is the shows that really stands out among the others… in part because it was so radically different from anything that Trek has ever done. It was funny, interesting… but still intrinsically Star Trek. More than that, at the end of the season, it actually introduced some real stakes, and had some deep moral questions about the Star Trek universe in general. That’s been a theme with everything that came out in the shows this year, in fact.

    I really like the move to actually make the enjoyment of the people in Starfleet feel more varied than TNG ever managed

    Star Trek Picard brought back a beloved character, for good reason, and took it into a completely different direction than a lot of people were expecting. We didn’t have the noble and unshakable Picard, it was a broken, and frankly, defeated, Picard. We saw a Picard who failed, and a bit of conspiracy with it. There were some things to the first season that didn’t land quite right, but there were some moments that so absolutely did. Picard talking to Seven of Nine about dealing with the trauma of the Borg, Kestra in general, Riker and Picard sitting together, and saying goodbye to Data (and somehow making up for the travesty that was Nemesis).

    Lower Decks somehow managed to do something that was seemingly impossible… make a Star Trek comedy show. The worry was that it’d be too Rick & Morty (given that it’s showrunner was a producer on Rick & Morty), or something more Akin to Family Guy. It wasn’t either of those. Yeah, it was funny, and sometimes goofy… it had jokes that sometimes didn’t land and sometimes it used dialog that sounded more like a fan than it was a Starfleet officer. Then again, when you look at Boimler as the ultimate Starfleet fan, which he was, the line “That guy is like a Kirk sundae with Trip Tucker sprinkles” makes a bit more sense. And also, I totally get it.

    One of my favorite aspects about DS9 was that they made the Federation feel less invulnerable than other shows had. We saw that on display at the end of Lower Decks, as well

    But the last episode, more than anything, blew up the show around it and gave the promise of something new and different in the second season. It wasn’t afraid to kill a character, even if it was a supporting one. More than that, though, it showed what the show had been talking about all season, that the Federation is terrible at keeping up on things and people in need, or second contact, or just keeping tabs on all the things that happened in other shows under control. It was the Pakled, a joke character from TNG’s Samaratin Snare (and background characters on DS9), that ended up being capable of destroying multiple Federation ships and killing hundreds of Starfleet Officers.

    Discovery’s third season is continuing its upward trend… I’ve liked all of the seasons for different reasons, but the first one spent too long in the Mirror Universe. The second one gave us Anson Mount as Pike (all is forgiven for Inhumans, Anson), but sort of plodded along trying to find its overall story

    And to think, there are only maybe half as many Star Trek shows in development as Star Trek, but that’s still like half a dozen shows

    . The third one has been a lot more together than I was expecting, to be honest, and giving us a different view of the Trek universe by putting them so far into the future.

     

    Surprisingly, it wasn’t about them trying to constantly get back to their own time, it’s been all about them acclimating to the future. While it still focuses a lot of its time on Burnham, a lot of the secondary characters have been given a chance to grow and shine. It’s not perfect, and it rushes some beats and takes some undeserved moments… but it’s still very enjoyable. I could probably go on another few thousand words, but this thing is long enough… needless to say, it’s a great time to be a Trek fan (and a great time to be a Star Wars fan).

  • Hold on to Your Expectations: A Resident Evil Origins Movie Announced

    Hold on to Your Expectations: A Resident Evil Origins Movie Announced

    Look, writing on this site for over two years has only made me more cynical. So seeing a Resident Evil movie announced that claims to “pay respect” to the characters and the games, I immediately knew this movie will not “pay respect” to the characters and the games.

    A quote from the director, Johannes Roberts: “With this movie, I really wanted to go back to the original first two games and re-create the terrifying visceral experience I had when I first played them whilst at the same time telling a grounded human story about a small dying American town that feels both relatable and relevant to today’s audiences.”

    Yeah? That first part? Cool. Second part? Has me worried. The first three Resident Evils are distinctly 90s, so I’m not sure how relevant that’ll be to today’s audiences.

    Besides, the directors has several horror movies under their belt that my friend would like and I would say “I hate cheap jump scares, please stop asking me to watch these with you.” And the producer, Constantin Film, is the same company behind the old Resident Evil movies. And a lot of other crap you never watched.

    Please don’t turn Resident Evil into a cheap horror movie. It’s already been done. Six times.

    Also, no idea what happened to the Netflix Resident Evil series.

    Just play the games.

  • Marvel announces Kamala Khan actress and new documentary series on Disney+ called 616

    Marvel announces Kamala Khan actress and new documentary series on Disney+ called 616

    Over the past couple of days, Marvel has been continuing to churn along with their casting and streaming news. They may not be releasing anything in the theaters anytime soon, but it looks like their slate on Disney+ is going to be absolutely loaded. Even the little nod to the fans with the title, 616 (the universe number for the Marvel Prime universe in their whole convoluted multiverse), feels right.

    The first episode looks to cover “Japanese Spider-man,” a licensed version of the character that’s very unique and nearly unknown outside of Japan. Other filmmakers include Paul Scheer, Gillian Jacobs, Clay Jeter, Andrew Rossi, Sarah Ramos, Brian Oakes, and Alison Brie, and it looks like it’s going to run from the 90s boom, the amazing cosplayers of today, and the impact that comics have in diversity (and a lovely flex against known jackass Ike Perlmutter) among artists and writers.

    616 will be available on November 10th… weirdly making it the first MCU show to come to Disney+.

    Deadline has also announced that 18-year-old Canadian actress, Iman Vellani, has been cast in the title role for the Ms. Marvel / Kamala Khan series. She doesn’t have any credits to her name, but honestly, that’s not much to judge a young actor on. She looks the part of the character, and given the answers she gave to a panel at the Toronto International Film Festival… she’s going to just nail the nerd aspect (her answer to “who would play you in a movie?” was “Iron Man… duh”).

  • Cast and Plot for M.O.D.O.K. series announced and it is bonkers

    Cast and Plot for M.O.D.O.K. series announced and it is bonkers

    While in recent years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has leaned a little bit more in to the “well, that’s just goofy” side of the comics, they’ve always kept one foot grounded in a sort of reality. Yes, it’s about people in tights fighting robots with a bow and arrow and it doesn’t make any sense, but it still has just enough there to make you think… yeah, okay, this could happen.

    There’s so much to the comics universe that’s just crazy and typically wouldn’t work in a live action show, but could carry it in animation. Sony, ironically, figured this out first with their fantastic Into the Spider-Verse movie, but Marvel has mostly stayed away from setting anything in or near the MCU that didn’t fit the cinematic look. That, seemingly, is changing… maybe (they haven’t actually said if the new show will be in the same universe), with the arrival the animated Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. series coming to Hulu.

    This is exactly what it looks like.

    For those who don’t know, MODOK is a giant, intelligent head… the name stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. That is the least crazy thing about him. He was the leader of A.I.M., a name that should sound familiar, as it was Killian’s company in Iron Man 3. The comics had him all over the place, but let’s look at the plot outline they put on Marvel.com for this show…

    [A]fter years of setbacks and failures fighting the Earth’s mightiest heroes, M.O.D.O.K. has run his evil organization A.I.M. into the ground. Ousted as A.I.M.’s leader, while also dealing with his crumbling marriage and family life, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is set to confront his greatest challenge yet: a midlife crisis!

    Okay, sign me up, because that is just crazy on all fronts. There’s a lot to unpack with this announcement, the most important of which is that Hulu looks to be the home of the more “adult” content, which gives me hope that there will be tie-ins for the MCU that aren’t bound strictly to Disney+ rules (which has seen a fair amount of things pulled, censored, or changed). We don’t know that it’s in the MCU, but that would just be lovely, and gives creators a lot of freedom to explore the far reaches of the Marvel Universe for story ideas.

    The big announcement here is the voice cast looks to be locked in place, and headlined by Patton Oswalt as the voice of the titular character. That’s a huge thing in my book, as Patton is a legit nerd and a fantastic actor and comedian. He already had a turn in the MCU-ish as the Quadruplet Koenig brothers on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so it’s nice to see him come back, even if only in voice form. The rest of the cast features comedic actors like Aimee Garcia, Melissa Fumero,Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ben Schwartz, Beck Bennett, Jon Daly and Sam Richardson.

    No date yet on when it will hit the streaming service, but hopefully it ends up sometime this year… or at least whenever Disney figures out how to give me a yearly bundle of both Disney+ and Hulu Ad-Free…

  • Black Widow LEGO Set Revealed

    Black Widow LEGO Set Revealed

    This video and the above box image was posted to our discord. The video description says that Marvel unveiled all of their merch toy tie-ins but I couldn’t find much on the internet about that. It’s probably true; there’s always a big product push for a movie merch with a reveal, a street date, and details. This is just one set for Black Widow. Unknown if there’ll be more but there should be because as big as this set is, it’s missing Captain Comrade or whatever David Harbour’s character name is.

    • Given the piece count, I suspect 76162 Black Widow’s Helicopter Chase will be about $50.
    • David Harbour’s character name is actually Red Guardian. He will probably be a promotional polybag set that will only be available in select countries that have names you can’t pronounce. I think Captain Comrade makes a better name.
    • This movie came out too many years too late. It shouldn’t have taken this long to get a Black Widow movie. She was part of the Avengers from the beginning and should have gotten her due. The same could be said about Hawkeye but he’s lame so…

    Here’s the trailer for Black Widow in case you’re wondering what the fuss is all about.

     

    Most of my comments in this post shouldn’t be taken seriously, except for bullet point number 3.

  • It’s like the 90s again: Morbius Teaser-Trailer Launches

    It’s like the 90s again: Morbius Teaser-Trailer Launches

    I mean, technically the character launched back in 1971 in The Amazing Spider-man 101 after the comic’s code lifted the ban on vampires, and every time I read up on comics history I realize exactly how stupid the Comics Code Authority was. Interestingly, it was the first issue of written by someone other than Stan Lee. Coincidentally, all of these facts are more interesting than the character of Morbius, who is a “vampire” except not really, because it was caused by a biochemical accident and nothing supernatural. Blade showed up two years later and made them cool. Most people my age are probably more familiar of him from the various times he showed up to be X-TREME in the 90s…

    The trailer looks… okay, I guess. I’m skeptical of Sony-led pictures… Venom was decent, but it’s not on par with even the lowest MCU movies. This one is increasingly muddled waters on how Sony movies sit in relation to the regular Marvel, because there’s a cameo at the end by an actor that has ties back to Spider-Man. Maybe this is a setup for the Sinister Six, and that would be great, but at the same time, without Spider-man or Marvel’s involvement, I’m skeptical of it continuing to work. I’d be perfectly happy to be wrong

    Morbius is also kind of a wanker in the comics, so the Leto casting is spot-on.

  • What We’re Looking Forward To In 2020

    What We’re Looking Forward To In 2020

    So, we just wrapped up walking through the past decade, and we’re going into the new one. The juggernaut that is pop culture and entertainment never stops, so that means there are plenty of things to look forward to in the coming year. Here are some completely arbitrary picks for the things we are looking forward to. There will be a lot to surprise us that certainly isn’t on this list, so we have that to look forward to as well.

    Video Games

    2020, especially Spring, is STACKED. Not to mention, around Christmas, when the next generation of game consoles begins with the Xbox Series X. Y’all better get your wallets ready.

    Ace’s Picks: When I first started writing my part for this section, I started this paragraph with “There is only 1 high-profile game I’m looking forward to.” Then I remembered another and changed it to “There are only 2 high-profile games I’m looking forward to” and then I remembered another and another. I’m up to 5 things now and I’m hoping that’s it. Not sure I even have the bandwidth to get through them all, but here’s my list shown in trailer form:

    1. The Last of Us Part II (PlayStation 4)

    I’m currently on my 3rd playthrough of the first one.

    2. Hollow Knight: Silksong (Nintendo Switch)

    God I hope a release date is set soon.

    3. Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4)

    Still not a fan of the English voiceover. I’m hoping a Japanese language track is an option.

    4. Metroid Prime 4 (Nintendo Switch)

    While I’m hoping for things, I might as well hope for the first trilogy to be available on the eShop at some point.

    5. PlayStation 5 – no trailer for this one. I’ve never bought a console on launch day except for the Nintendo Switch. The PlayStation 5 will be the second one I ever do that. I’ve enjoyed my PS4 a lot so I’m looking forward to playing the PS5 version of The Last of Us Part II even though I’ll have already played it on the 4.

    This list doesn’t even account for any indie titles that may pop up here and there.

    Speaking of bandwidth, other than the four games listed out above, the other thing I’m looking forward to in video gaming is completing more of my backlog. I’ve slowed down on my purchasing of games and in some cases it’s helped me save some money since they all eventually go on sale at some point. Looking back, completing the few games that I did seemed like a Herculean task.

    Eric’s Pick(s):

    In no particular order, let’s hit it:

    I’m talking Baldur’s Gate III. Made by Larian Studios, who were behind the brilliant Divinity: Original Sin games.

    I’m talking Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. The tech alone that Microsoft has put in this game is astounding, and while this game is not my cup of tea whatsoever, I want to get it just to see how crazy cool it is.

    I’m talking Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I talked in a recent article about the big boys of platforming – Celeste, Super Mario World, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I forgot Ori and the Blind Forest, which, while not a strict platformer, is so darn imaginative and clever that I’m willing to say it is one. Will of the Wisps looks to be more of the same.

    I’m talking Resident Evil 3. I’m playing through the Resident Evil: REmake right now, and it’s spooking the heck out of me (and I usually say worse than that when zombies pop up). It’s has a bit of that old-school frustration, though, so I welcome in the modern remakes of RE3 to play here soon.

    And even though no release date has been stated, I’m talking From Software’s open world, George R. R. Martin designed, Elden Ring. Ooh, boy. Ooh. Ooh I’m ready.

    Nick’s Pick(s):

    The problem that I’m running in to here is that I set up this post, then got distracted painting miniatures, so a lot of the games I would have picked have already been put above. I would put Last of Us II smack-dab at the top of the list; I already talked about how amazing I thought the game was back in our 2013 retrospective. I love the Baldur’s Gate series, and own all of the re-releases on the Swtich, so the third installment would most certainly be here.

    Cyberpunk 2077

    Confession time… I don’t really care all that much for Cyberpunk stuff, Shadowrun, or the like. I like the idea of Steampunk, mostly as a joke, but not enough that I’ve ever invested in it past making contests on this site with Don.

    That being said, CD Projekt Red (assuming they’ve really gotten rid of all the crunch garbage in their culture like they say they have) makes games that are simply amazing. Even if I don’t care for the setting all that much, this will be an amazing game that likely defines the very idea of the genre. I’ll likely play it on PC, and wait for the inevitable next-gen port to show up shortly after the new consoles launch.

    Watch Dogs: Legion

    Okay, this one makes me a little bit nervous at this point. Ubisoft had done a lot to improve their overall image in recent years, making the outstanding Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Origins before it. But they’ve rolled out a few duds this year, like the so very disappointing Trials: Rising and the downright broken other Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Breakpoint… yet another open-world looter-shooter live service game that no one wanted. Seriously, AAA industry, live services are garbage and need to die in a fire.

    This was probably the game I was most excited for coming out of E3; it was recently delayed out of its March launch to sometime in the 2020/2021 fiscal year (which for most game companies, runs March-Feb, for whatever reason). My suspicion is that part of the delay was to put it more in line with the next-gen console launch… but also, given the state of how terrible some of Ubisoft’s games were this year, more time for polish is great.

    Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

    Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, was one of the most terrifying games that I’ve ever played. I don’t even like horror, as a general rule, so thankfully Eric is around to cover the Resident Evil games… but I love a good psychological thriller. The original is a game that shows the simple power that audio and sound can have in a game, and if you play it with headphones on (the suggested way to play by the developer), it will play with your mind.

    This is presumably a launch title on the next-gen Xbox (series X or whatever they decide to call it… Microsoft is really bad at naming consoles), so it will be stunning looking, and I look forward to playing it.

    Next-Gen Consoles

    I made the mistake of purchasing the PS4 on launch day… and that was the last time I purchased a console at launch. Looking  back, in the long run it was a fantastic console, but it was not worth the money at all for almost a year after it came out. I got the Xbox One a few months later, with the release of Titanfall (a mistake in itself), and I waited a few months on the Switch as well. I would not have regretted the Swtich purchase in retrospect, but don’t feel bad about a slight delay.

    I’m in a weird spot with those consoles, though… my Xbox One has been slowly failing for some time. The drive doesn’t work, and hasn’t for more than a year. The wifi has been starting to fail on a weekly basis, requiring totally rebooting the console to make it work. The fact that the next-gen Xbox is backwards compatible to everything Xbox makes this somewhat of an easier purchase for me… I can play my old games on the new console and hopefully the older one hobbles along until Winter 2020 when it shows up.

    The PlayStation 5 is a little different… we’ve yet to see what the launch lineup will be, but it’s also supposed to support PS4 games, so long as I can move my library forward, I’ll likely do it to. It was a launch day, and recently had a little bit of “excitement” when my son decided to put a couple of credit cards inside of it because that’s the same as a DVD, requiring me to pull it apart. The drive works again, but it’s very long in the tooth and I wouldn’t mind the upgrade.

    Movies

    You know, I don’t know how much any of us here are ever just sitting around, counting down the days to the release of a movie. I mean, sure, Endgame and Star Wars… but they’re also done. There isn’t a Star Wars release on the horizon or even in production as far as we know, and the MCU will continue, but until we see the new stuff, we have no idea of the direction. Still, there’s some fun stuff coming up, and we’ll likely cover them here.

    Ace’s Pick: There’s only one I’m super looking forward to:

    The lightning-lasso swing is so over the top I love it.

    Eric’s Pick(s):

    WOW 2020 will be full of a bunch of beautifully heartless movies with great CGI. I could not care less. Only two movies fill me with anticipation, and that’s because I’ve been keeping up with it since 2017.

    Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner: 2049). Written by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump). With a legitimately all-star cast. I haven’t read Dune yet, but those factors enough make me ready to go ahead and grab my ticket.

    Weathering with You.

    Because I’m a filthy American trash man (sorry to disappoint you, Ace), I like the English dub version of Japanese movies. Your Name was one of the most beautiful movies that I finally got around to seeing last year. So another movie from the same studio (with the same band, RADWIMPS, doing music, no less), is enough for me to get all hot and heavy. And, lucky for me, Weathering with You comes to theaters in beautiful, filthy English on January 15th and 16th, so I don’t have to wait long.

    Nick’s Pick(s):

    Bill & Ted Face the Music

    This movie will probably be terrible, but there’s something about seeing them together again, and the silliness that was the original movie and the so-dumb-it-is-fun of the sequel, that makes me think this is exactly the movie that we need in 2020. In a year that’s going to give us the Stranger Thing’s version of Ghostbusters, this is the 80s classic I’m actually thrilled about.

    Mulan

    Okay… hear me out. The live-action Disney movies have been pretty much garbage… a shameless cash-in that doesn’t require anything effort or creativity for the most part. At the same time… but there’s just something about this particular movie that makes it feel like it could work. I love this cartoon… it’s easily one of my all-time favorite Disney movies, and this feels like that rare circumstance where the live-action treatment will enhance, rather than just repeat, what came before it.

    TV Shows

    We didn’t put any TV in our “Best of” lists, mostly because I (Nick) didn’t think about it when I started that whole thing. Which is weird, because, supposedly we are in the golden age of TV… despite so little of it being watched on actual TVs. That being said… the Mandalorian has proven that this might really be the golden age of television, or at least the golden age of nerdy television… and that’s what we care about here.

    Even if I do own all of Friends on DVD and the Office on digital. Don’t you judge me.

    Ace’s Picks: More Mandalorian. Season 1 was so satisfying and saved Star Wars for me after that train-wreck known as The Rise of Skywalker.

    More Stranger Things. It’s one of my favorite shows on Netflix. Season 3 made up for the questionable story elements of Season 2. And given that the show was originally envisioned to be just 4 seasons long, the next one may be the last. And I’d be okay with that. Better that a story has a satisfying end than be dragged out longer than it should have.

    Eric’s Pick(s): I don’t keep up much with new TV shows, but there are two big hitters I can’t wait for.

    Although technically without a release date announcement, I feel it’s a safe bet to say Amazon’s Wheel of Time series will come out in late 2020. So far not a lot is known – the cast announced, a few details revealed – but with how strong of a story that Robert Jordan’s book series is, I have no doubt that this show will be top-notch.

    And a series with somehow even fewer details: Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings. If you haven’t picked up on it, I love Lord of the Rings. I have no idea if this will come out in 2020, but, by God, I’m going to find a way to talk about Lord of the Rings more on this site. That’s my new Year’s resolution.

    Nick’s Pick(s):

    This year is more notable for shows that I love that are ending… BoJack Horseman and the Good Place will both air their final episodes this year, and it both excites me and bums me out. That being said… there is absolutely one show that I’m just counting down the days for, and if you’ve seen what I’ve talked about in the things I like, it probably won’t be a surprise…

    It is such an amazing time to be a fan of the “big two” Star-related shows… we just wrapped up the first season of the Mandalorian, which has done more to energize the fan base than the movies ever have. With Star Trek, Discovery has been a great addition, and the last season was fantastic with the addition of Anson Mount as Captain Pike.

    I’ll be honest, I wasn’t all that enthused about a new Picard series when it was first announced. I love JL Pipes, but I felt that the story was well wrapped up and wanted something new. Or so I thought… then they dropped that preview and saw we’re getting some returning characters, plenty of new ones, and a dog. They had me at Seven of Nine… CBS is getting my money.

    LEGO Sets

    Yeah… this was going to be a tough set. If our best-of lists didn’t tip our hand… despite this having its roots as a LEGO site, most of us just really aren’t into LEGO any more. We buy them from time to time, but it’s not our primary hobby, not by a long shot. It’s a consequence of getting older, but also LEGO hasn’t exactly made it easy. The Star Wars line has been stagnant for years, Super Heroes is barely a thing, and the company itself has made them kind of hard to enjoy the product.

    Ace’s Pick: I just want a $150-$200 set of the Razor Crest. That’s it. Do the ship justice. I’m sure we’ll get a bunch of Mando-inspired sets, like another X-wing, a couple of landspeeders, but let’s get a proper Razor Crest. Shoot, just make it a UCS scale. I’d buy that in a heartbeat.

    Eric’s Pick: I’ve looked through Brickset’s 2020 sets list, and the only set that really stuck out to me was 10270: Bookshop. It has a very You’ve Got Mail feel to it. 

    Here’s our announcement on it from December.

    Though I question LEGO naming the bookshop “Birch Books”. Yeah, it’s next to a birch tree, but it seems a little close to another word…

    Nick’s Pick: Yeah, I got nothing. It’s just depressing to walk down the LEGO aisle any more and see the lack of creativity and the absurdly high prices. Maybe there will be something that I end up grabbing, or something that Ace asks me to review… but it takes something unique for LEGO to excite me anymore, and I don’t know that LEGO is even capable of that anymore.

     

  • Looking Back at the 2010s – Best of the Decade

    Looking Back at the 2010s – Best of the Decade

    I mean, what’s a series of retrospective lists looking at “the best” without putting them all together and trying to pick out that one thing that we loved more than anything across ten years? You have to pick a winner, right? It’s how these things work! Of course not, but it is fun to look back and say “this is the thing that sticks with me the most.” The last decade was one of change for everyone, and it sort of runs the whole field when you look back at it.

    Previous Years:
    2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

    Video Games

    Ace’s Pick: As much as I love Smash, I have to hand the crown off to another Nintendo IP:

    I’m not even picking Splatoon 2 based on hours played. I’m picking it because of how original it is. Everything inside the game is built from the ground up: the characters, their races, the languages, the fashions, the music, the fonts, and last but certainly not least, the gameplay. You shoot paint to make your enemies explode in your paint color and try to cover as much ground in your team’s color as possible. Their ranked matches give slight twists on familiar game modes, and even their take on the zombie rush mode is pretty neat and unique. It’s a franchise that I hope will be as loved and adored as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid, and a series that I hope will be as fun both casually and competitively as Smash and Mario Kart.

    Eric’s Pick: Booyah, we’re back.

    While Dark Souls might have been my favorite gaming experience of the decade, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is by far the best game of the decade. Everything about this game that isn’t gameplay is basically a hot mess, but the gameplay is so solid that it doesn’t really matter. I love sandbox-type games that give you a mission and a billion tools, and Metal Gear Solid V, honestly, I don’t think will ever be beaten at that core concept.

    Nick’s Pick: It came out at the start of the decade, but I need to stick with Mass Effect 2 as the best game of the decade. It might very well be my favorite game of all time… if not, it’s certainly in the top five. I keep coming back to play it, at least once a year… and every time I have just as much fun as I did before.

    It still makes me sad, knowing that Bioware and EA aren’t capable of this level of greatness now, but once upon a time, they made a game that has managed to stand and last the test of time.

    I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite game on the Citadel.

    Movies

    Ace’s Pick: The other night while at home with the kids, we were browsing our home movie library and came across a bunch of the films I picked over the past 10 articles. We decided on what to watch rather easily. This is the only movie that makes me perk up every time:

    I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited at the prospect of a franchise as I have been with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse. I think the idea of having multiple dimensions opening endless possibilities of Spider-Man stories is the real draw. While the major beats of Spider-Man’s origin story remain the same, the finer details, the settings, and the enemies can change. And just the idea of tying or all of them together in some fashion can really open up a possible “Spider-Verse Cinematic Universe”. That is, of course, just a fantasy of mine. I’d be happy with just a sequel. And even if a sequel is never made, I’d be content with just the one movie. There are movies I really like, that I can leave on in the background while I’m doing something else. This is not one of those movies. The visuals of its unique comic book art style are such a major treat that it’s hard to tear your eyes away. You want to drink in every tasty frame. Whether Sony decides to adapt this animation style to other movies remains to be seen, but I’m selfish and I don’t want to share. It’s such a signature look for the film and was so key in giving it that comic book feeling, I’d think it would be difficult to accept it for any other movie that isn’t based on a comic book.

    Eric’s Pick: I’m a sucker for a movie written and directed by the same person, and there’s no better option than:

    Winner of the Oscar for Best Screenplay (which I personally think is more important than “best picture”), and about a billion other awards, Get Out is the type of movie I wish I could see more of. It had a $4.5 million budget which is stupendous with how great it looks and feels. It set Jordan Peele up to make 2019’s Us (which was…not as good) and The Twilight Zone Reboot (I saw the first episode, it’s not bad). Jordan Peele, like Taika Waititi and Denis Villeneuve, is one director whose movies I will always drop everything to go see.

    Nick’s Pick: This was honestly the hardest one for me to pick, because there were so many great movies, some that may have not made the cut for an individual year, but when I go back and look I think “this may be the best.” Arrival is still a mind-bending Sci-Fi movie that I will probably watch many more times over the rest of my life and still find new little details. We got to see where Disney could take Star Wars with movies, and we likely saw the future of where it will go as the decade closed out with the Mandalorian. There might be better, there are a ton worse, but I’m going to go with the movie that I think that will have some of the most lasting effects to a genre I love…

    One weird thing… this isn’t my favorite Marvel movie, that goes to Into the Spider-Verse; the only reason I’m not putting that into this spot is because this movie has likely changed and defined how comic book movies work for Marvel from here on out. This wasn’t some token diversity effort, it was turning over a full story and creative control to people who never get a voice in big-budget blockbusters, and what a story we got. It was beautiful, stylistic, and gave us a compelling villain unlike any others we’ve gotten in a comic book movie.

    At the same time, the movie, which “conventional wisdom” in Hollywood (which is simultaneously liberal while being backwards and conservative) that should have failed – but instead made $1.347 billion internationally, enough for the 9th highest grossing film of all time and the 3rd highest grossing MCU film. It was the first comic book movie ever nominated for Best Picture, and deservedly won three other Oscars for production design, costume design, and original music.

    While we’re seeing movies like Star Wars just keep dropping back to the status quo, we can look forward to Marvel continuing to push boundaries and prove that what moviegoers really want, despite the cries of an annoyingly loud minority of toxic fans, is new stories. That they give a voice to a minority group that rarely gets them was just awesome, and looking at the slate of upcoming Marvel films, we can see it was the first, but most certainly not the last.

    LEGO

    Ace’s Pick: And the award goes to:

    Again, this isn’t based on sheer number. But really, if my collection caught on fire, there’d only two sets I’d be sad to lose. The original UCS Millennium Falcon and my collection of Space Marines. LEGO’s released that armor in other colors in other minifig packs, but none held the same panache for me. The only other one that was interesting to get was part of Lex Luthor’s power armor in that one polybag set. This Space Marine was the pinnacle of the shoulder armor part usage.

    Eric’s Pick: I went on a long rant in the 2012 article about why I love Lego Lord of the Rings so much, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much here.

    If Get Out is my favorite movie on the decade, Lord of the Rings are my favorite movies of all time. Getting the brief chance to see them as Lego sets in 2012 – 2013 was a magical experience, and I wish I’d had the foresight to buy every set, because now they’re way too expensive on Bricklink. I hope that, somehow, once the Amazon series begins to air, Lego will return to this series like they did with Harry Potter last year, and give us more wonderful sets.

    Nick’s Pick: In a decade that saw Star Wars as a thing revitalized, and so many new fans brought in… it feels fitting to pick a set that resonated with me on such a personal level. Return of the Jedi isn’t the best Star Wars film, but it will always be my favorite. It’s full of contradictions and has some pacing issues, but there’s something about the wonder of it that just makes me smile. The same is true of 10236 Ewok Village… a set I need to put together again and display.

  • Looking Back at the 2010s – 2019

    Looking Back at the 2010s – 2019

    Okay, this one will end up being a whole lot longer than the rest, because it’s more of our annual-ish year-in-review article mixed with the looking back series we did leading up to this. Of course, because we kind of screwed up some basic math, it’s showing up in 2020 instead of 2019, but only by a couple of days. I mean, at this point, we’re all still writing the wrong year in any date 80% of the time, so I’m going to just say that this is 80% on time.

    It was been… a year, that’s for certain. We’ve gotten a bit political, even more snarky than usual, and tried to branch out in the stuff that we covered. At the same time, we had actually LEGO reviews multiple times, and we saw the end of the Skywalker saga – maybe by the time this goes up maybe we will have gotten all of the ranting out of our systems for that particular film. (Side note: we haven’t)

    Previous Years:
    2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

    Video Games

    Gaming was looking pretty shaky when 2019 started out… it opened up with the simmering dumpster fire that is Anthem. I don’t even think you can call it a full fire, since EA seems to have forgotten it existed at all. Bethesda released Rage 2, which brought the most deceptive trailer for a video game this side of Dead Island – it was a dull and tedious game that was forgotten within a week of coming out. Far Cry New Dawn was basically Far Cry 5 but a bit more phoned in, and some studios that were among those I loved, Blizzard and Bethesda, were terrible to the point of me (Nick) stopping any support for their titles.

    On the hardware front, we got Google delivering the “yeah, this will be discontinued in a couple of years” Stadia, a product for basically nobody. Sony and Microsoft both announced their next generation consoles, and continued to frustrate by saying they’ll be coming out around the same time: Holiday 2020. Details are somewhat sparse, but we know that the PS5 will be backwards compatible for the PS4, and the Xbox will be backwards compatible for all Xbox titles and support Xbox One peripherals.

    If I had to pin any particular product or service that really came into its own in 2019, it would be the Game Subscription services. I’ve been a long-time skeptic of such services, and a bunch of them are still pretty terrible, but Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is simply an incredible value, and Apple Arcade gives you a ton of value in the mobile gaming space. Sony and Nintendo are playing catch-up on this front, and it remains to be seen if either will take the steps to actually compete on this front.

    Ace’s Pick: Not so much a game, but a gaming service is what gets my pick:

    Do you know how refreshing it is to play a mobile game without suffering through interstitial ads, or being shown a “limited-time deal”, or to feel like you have to pay to play competitively? SO refreshing. Apple Arcade offers quality games and takes out every toxic element that made mobile gaming a trial of wills. Mobile gaming is fun again. And the fact that a family subscription to Apple Arcade is a measly $4.99 a month or $49.99 for a year makes it absolutely worthwhile. Google immediately responded with a knee-jerk reaction with their own arcade style subscription package, but all it was was a selection of games that were readily available in the Google Play store and didn’t follow the same “no microtransactions or advertisement” guidelines that Apple Arcade games follow.

    Eric’s Pick: In the same vein as Ace, I want to first shoutout Microsoft bringing Game Pass to PC. Being able to experience games like The Outer Worlds or Gears 5 on launch day for $5 a month…well, there’s nothing quite like it. I’ve played some standout hits via XGP on PC, and I can’t wait to see what other games Microsoft brings out in the next year. If this is the route that gaming is going, I’m all for it, so long as we can keep actually buying the games to keep them if we want to stop subscribing.

    Anyway, on to the actual games!

    Considering how keyed-in we are to games on the site, I played a surprisingly small amount of 2019 games. Death Stranding had a really solid base game and concept, but the story got in the way. The Outer Worlds reminded me for the fourth time that I just really do not like Bethesda-style games. Super Mario Maker 2 is a fantastic game that falls apart online.

    But aside from those three, that was really it. I’m still, to my chagrin, playing Overwatch. I played through MGSV again and realized how much I love it. I’ve been playing through a bunch of old classics ported to the Switch, and I got really into Minecraft again.

    Yet one game that actually came out this year stands supreme, and if you’ve been keeping up with my rankings throughout these “Best of” posts, then it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise:

    The sixth entry in From Software’s crushing games catalog, Sekiro actually managed to change things up quite a lot. For one, no custimzation, which streamlines the game considerably. Now you’re fighting enemies exactly how the developer intended. You can no longer cheese a boss with specific exploits – you gotta get up there and kick their ass proper. Combat is completely different, no longer about managing a stamina bar that runs out, but instead a posture meter that builds up. Blocking enemy attacks with perfect timing is the only way you’re going to get through this game. I can say without hesitation that it has the best combat in any game ever.

    After Dark Souls III, which was a bit of a mess, I’m glad From Software took some time off to rethink and refine their systems, and the game has done absolutely smashingly in sales, especially for this kind of niche game. However, I noted 2019’s all-inclusive game climate when I talked about Celeste for the 2018 post, so I should bring it up.

    A big debate that came up with the release of Sekiro was an “easy mode”. Although a laughable idea at first, considering these games are kinda known for their toughness, in retrospect it’s not a bad idea. If the goal is to have as many people playing the game as possible, and having a good time doing it, then accessibility is a major consideration. But…at the same time, From Software’s games are very specific about how they’re supposed to be approached. Success through immense opposition – which I talked about in my 2011 article. And without the dozens of weapon options of Bloodborne and the Souls games, Sekiro, in a way of thinking, is more accessible than ever. I recommend checking out this Game Maker’s Toolkit episode if you want to hear more about this debate.

    Nick’s Pick: Okay, wow, this is going to be a tough year for game. There were a ton of games that consumed a ton of my time. There was the first good Star Wars game in more than a decade with JEDI: Fallen Order. I mean, I should pick it in this spot just because EA made a game that wasn’t terrible and laden with microtransactions. After more than a decade of telling us that single player games were dead and don’t sell, they released a press release about how it was the best selling digital release they’d ever had. I look forward to them telling us in their earnings report early next year that it was below expectations after saying it was great up until that point.

    Past that, we got a new mainline Pokemon game, Sword and Shield, which should have been awful, but somehow, inexplicably, was actually pretty great. I’ve been working on the review on and off since it came out, but would need to stop playing it in order to do that. Speaking of the Switch, we also got Link’s Awakening, which very likely might be the most beautiful game that has landed on the Switch, stylistic through-and-through, and just a joy to play.

    I was seriously considering going with Untitled Goose Game here, to be honest… because it was equal parts fun indie game and cultural phenomenon, and that asshole goose was just so much fun to play. It’s a game that is pure guilty pleasure, and scratches an itch that games like Donut County and Grand Theft Auto have in the past, but did it with style.

    In the end, though, I’m going to give it to a game that’s the best Fallout game made in ages, maybe ever… only it’s not a Fallout game, and the studio that made it is better than Bethesda has ever been (I pitch this book a lot, but read Jason Schreier’s Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and you’ll see just how terrible Bethesda was to Obsidian in the development of Fallout: New Vegas). The Outer Worlds, quite simply, was a revelation, a game that was lovingly crafted and designed, was fun to play, and legitimately made me laugh more times than I can count.

    That it was also a blistering indictment of late-stage capitalism, something that is pretty on-brand for me at this point, just made it even better.

    Movies

    Ace’s Pick: There were two movies that came out this year that I’ve been DYING to see: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Parasite. Unfortunately, due to time and kids and probably a various other reasons, I never made it to the theater. One of those would probably be filling up this spot right here, and it probably would have been Parasite. But if I’m being honest and pick a movie I actually saw, well here it is:

    Alita: Battle Angel was an adaptation of the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita. The movie rights were purchased by James Cameron years ago, he just needed a director to helm the project. Robert Rodriguez answered the call and in the end, we got a nice treatment that did justice to the anime adaptation of the manga. While I disagree with the decision to Disney-fy her eyes, I got used to it and decided it seemed appropriate given the setting of the film. The action sequences were exciting to watch and the underlying story and character development made the film a little more than just a CGI-laden popcorn flick. I was a huge fan of the anime and was a bit worried that a live-action adaptation would go the same route as Ghost In The Shell did, but Robert Rodriguez did an excellent job and did not disappoint.

    Eric’s Pick: Honestly…I don’t have a favorite movie of the year. I thought Endgame was fine, and wrapped up the main story well. I still haven’t seen Rise of Skywalker. And without Moviepass, my theater viewing have gone down the toilet. Being home for Christmas, I’ve been trying to catch up on some of these big hits. I watched Parasite because Ace was talking about it, and it was great. JoJo Rabbit is another worthy film of the Taika Waititi name. Uncut Gems was…intense. But other than that, honestly, that’s all I’ve seen this year. I yield the rest of my time to Nick.

    Nick’s Pick: 2019 was kind of a down year on movies for me. I didn’t hate Rise of Skywalker as much as Ace did, but I didn’t really like it either. When it was over, I was mostly of the mindset of “well, that was a thing.” We got the event that was Avengers: Endgame, and I honestly still don’t know how I feel about that movie or where I rank it. It was a stunning thing to behold, but it had a ton of plot issues… it just sort of falls apart when you think about it. There were plenty that I enjoyed, like Spider-Man Far From Home, John Wick 3, Hobbs & Show, Rocketman, but none of them are in that stunning realm that some of my other picks where.

    There is one movie that did stand out for me, and if you’ve been following my work here when I talk about my favorite characters in comics, it shouldn’t be a surprise… Captain Marvel.

    I’m not even going to call this the best MCU movie, but it was a great take on the character that did what it set out to do extremely well. It wasn’t made for me, and that’s awesome – I love seeing things targeted at other groups… it’s far more interesting than just watching the same stories over and over. Just getting this movie was great, and the thing that really got me excited after it was done is the promise of where it could go next.

    LEGO

    Ace’s Pick: Going over the list of 2019, I think I might have bought just a handful of sets. I have just a few of those built and ready for review, but given my lack of enthusiasm for the hobby these days, it’s hard to motivate myself to get around to finishing them. So it should come as no surprise that this is my pick:

    Free, low effort acquisition, and awesome. That’s pretty all it took for PS4 Spider-Man minifig to get top spot for 2019. The game this figure is from came really close to being my top pick for last year. Never did I think that we’d get a minifig of that version of Spidey but here he is in all his glory.

    Eric’s Pick: I went for my annual Lego Store visit in around June of this year, and they had this set out on display, and I knew it was a hit.

    75810 The Upside Down is just such a weird set, and that’s why I love it. Honestly, I would have never expected Lego to make a Stranger Things set, but here we are. And, best yet, it’s based on Season 1! Bravo for taking a chance on your adult fans, Lego.

    Nick’s Pick: I actually wrote a few different reviews this year, and got a few LEGO sets… though only one of them, 10266 Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, wasn’t given to my daughter as soon as the review was done.

    I wrote most of my thoughts on the set the review for the set, and I still have it up and displayed on our fireplace mantle. It’s a brilliant set that was a joy to build, and captured something so singular and special that it will be on display for a long, long time.