Poem About Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs come in many shapes and sizes.  Some are small.  Some are big.  Some are in-between.  But, there's one thing they all have in common... they're all dead.

Arrow Review- "Suicide Squad"

Diggle is happy his squad consists of Black Dynamite, Kano, and that "one dude from Firefly."

Warning: The following review contains a quiver full of spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

Seeing the previews for this week's episode of Arrow excited me.  The "Suicide Squad" was going to be formed, and this is another small step forward into merging the Arrow universe with the overall DC comic universe.  So, there's no way the episode could have been bad, right?  Wrong.  What we get is a Diggle episode, with a Diggle flashback, and brief moments of the Squad worked in...not to mention a brief, overly pouty, Oliver Queen story thread.

Diggle gets his team.  Diggle does not really want this team.  Diggle hesitantly accepts the team.  One team member is poorly killed off-screen, showing that they need to continue to take orders from Waller and do their job.  This is interlaced with flashbacks of Diggle in the war, protecting a high-value target, existing only for the sole purpose of letting the audience know who the high-value target is, while strengthening the relationship we have with Diggle and his ex-wife.  There were a few scenes where Ollie is running around, looking and acting like a bratty teenager, wanting to find Slade Wilson before anybody is hurt.  But forget the stuff that even matters for the plot progression of the show, let's go back to Diggle and his ragtag group of felons!

After getting 3/4 of the way through the episode, I realized this is less Arrow, and more "24."  The only standout in the latter portion of this episode is Deadshot, who Diggle has to coerce to leave with him with the whole "you got a kid" play as a predator is rapidly approaching to destroy the house.  Even the reveal at the end of the episode is weak; Waller actually mentions the name "Deathstroke" at the end of the show and the camera pans in, after Waller explains that he's been leaving a trail of death behind him.  Didn't we pretty much already know this, though?  Was this supposed to come as a surprise and serve as a cliffhanger?

All the negativity out of the way, that being said, there were a couple of standout moments in the episode.  First of all, props for the Harley Quinn cameo.  That made me think of endless possibilities in which the story can progress in the near future if she is, indeed, introduced into the universe.  Diggle has a nice line near the end of the episode that shows his morality conflict: "...the guy that killed my brother has more character than the woman who is supposed to be protecting the world."  What is really considered "good" and what is "evil?"  I don't know.  Let's hope Diggle doesn't have an existential crisis.

Overall, it was a very by-the-book generic episode.  It felt wholly out-of-place with the progression of the season, and felt quite risky to pull this during the much anticipated Suicide Squad episode.  While it is nice to get a little bit of background on Diggle, and give some screen time to the supporting cast, I think viewers are much more interested in Ollie vs. Slade at this point in the season.  Sorry Diggle, your time to shine was nothing more than mediocre.

Overall Rating:

6/10

 (6 out of 10)

South Park: The Stick of Truth Review (Xbox 360)

The children are our future.  Well...maybe not these ones.

Warning: The following review has spoilers and some language.  Read at your own risk...m'kay?

  

When dealing with a video game based on a licensed product, such as a movie or a television series, expectations are extremely low due to the overwhelming shitty track record throughout the years.  There have been a few (and I mean....a few) exceptions, including the wonderful Goldeneye on the N64, some of the Lord of the Rings games, and Escape from Butcher Bay starring and voiced by none other than Vin Diesel as Riddick.

South Park has had a handful of games in the past.  The initial game was an FPS on the N64 and while it was fun for a little while, it quickly grew tiresome fighting a seemingly endless amount of turkeys by flinging snowballs, darts, and plungers at them.  From this we move into Chef's Luv Shack...which I don't even want to talk about *cries inside*, and South Park Rally, a pitiful Mario Kart clone.  Jumping years into the future, we were graced with two South Park games via download on the XBLA, South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!...and South Park: Tenorman's Revenge.  The first was actually a decent game, but incredibly short...and of questionable genre for diehard fans of the show, considering casual video game players probably have no idea what a Tower Defense game even is.  Tenorman's Revenge had potential in the beginning, but quickly became monotonous, infuriating, and simply not fun.  I remember me and a group of friends purchasing this simultaneously and screaming at each other over Xbox Live, trying to pin the blame on each other for the suggestion to buy this travesty.

I will admit, I was incredibly worried when I found out South Park was going to have another video game based off of their material.  The games in the past have not quite captured the essence of what makes the show great, and the idea of an RPG with South Park characters made me think it was going to be similar to a flash game you can play for free on the internet.  Well, I can gladly say I was wrong; South Park: The Stick of Truth delivers for fans of the show, including all of the raunchy over-the-top humor the show is known for, while delivering a solid gameplay experience to boot, but has a few issues.

I would like to begin the review portion by stating that the game is clearly for an older demographic, as noted with it's hard M rating.  I say "hard M" because, although this is cartoon-based content being presented in front of us, the game devolves into being downright pornographic at times. Hell, the game was even censored in some areas outside the United States for some of its content.  I was absolutely shocked by what was displayed on the screen, but was laughing the entire time.  No video game has made me laugh this hard in my life.  That being said, I would suggest to stay far away if you are easily offended, or are around the vicinity of younger children.  I'm not kidding.

The plot of the game starts off simple, then becomes overly ridiculous (in a good way), just like an episode of the show.  We are presented with a character customization screen to create our "new kid" and venture out into South Park to simply "make friends" as stated by your in-game father.  The new kid meets Butters, and is brought to Cartman, who is involved in a child-like fantasy game where the members of Kupa Keep are protecting the "stick of truth" from the elves...shortly thereafter, the stick of truth is stolen and a giant conspiracy unravels, questioning who took it...all the while you are learning about this "new kid" you are playing as.  As the game progresses, the way you make friends relies on someone sending you a friend request on Facebook.  Some are obtained over the course of the main campaign, others are obtained through completing the game's hilarious side-quests, and the rest are obtained through simple exploration.

The main campaign in itself is short for that of an RPG, perhaps roughly 8 hours, give or take, not including the side-quests.  You are taken from iconic areas in the show, to a UFO where anal probing is being done, to inside the walls of your house after you are miniaturized, and to many other locations thereafter, including the foreign land of Canada, where the game gives you a world map, essentially turning into a classic 8-bit RPG.  The breaks in the main campaign of trying to get the stick of truth back are absolutely hilarious, while extremely vulgar and raunchy.  It is the first game where I had to fight a gnome while shrunken, under my parents having sex.  The main storyline was a blast, but I let down by the ending of the game, due to it being rather predictable and extremely abrupt.  Others may beg to differ, but I found the pay-off to be entirely weak in its execution.

The side-quests are varied and well worth doing considering they are just as good as the main storyline.  Some of these include helping Al Gore track down ManBearPig, assisting Mr. Hankey and his wife with finding his children, and "finding Jesus."  Most of these side-quests reward you with friend requests, while some reward you with "summons" where you can call in a character of the show to do a large amount of damage to a group of enemies.  I never had the need to use any of the summons in the game (you can't call them in during bosses), but used one or two just to see what would happen, and I advise players do the same because some of the animations are laugh-out-loud funny.

On the game-play front (battles), this game delivers pretty well.  It is very, very similar to the gameplay mechanics of Paper Mario.  Upon attacking or using an ability, you have to press a certain button or do something with the controller to maximize damage.  Same goes with blocking; if blocking at the correct time, it efficiently minimizes damage done to your characters.  The party member system is even ripped straight out of Paper Mario, as you can only have one "buddy" with you at any given time.  Sure, you can swap back and forth between them, but the fights are far less "Final Fantasy" than people will expect going in.  To accompany you in battles, there are many forms of equipment that can be found or purchased, including armor and weapons.  The physical appearance of your character can be changed due to make-up and wigs you can find, as well as by visiting Tom's Rhinoplasty...where if you get the most expensive procedure, your character's head is turned into a real-life photo of David Hasselhoff.  This is hilarious at first, but can prove to be annoying because any hats/wigs you attempt to put on do not appear on the character, so if you opt to revert your face, you lose a significant amount of money and will have to pay the full price to change back to the 'Hoff.

The exploration element of this game is highly enjoyable, as you can walk around the entire area of South Park, and its surrounding elements, and enter (almost) every single door.  While in the field, you will see enemies wandering around (again...like Paper Mario and other games of this nature) and will have the opportunity to hit them to get the first strike in battle, or ignore them entirely.  Your "buddy" will always be following you, and each character has an out-of-combat ability which can help with manipulating elements in the environment, such as Kenny's ability to "show his boobs" to someone to distract them.  Your character gets a handful of abilities to be used outside of combat, including a varied set of farts to do things such as clearing out rats, and lighting things on fire (the farts can also be used in combat, and are considered your "magic" of the game).  You also gain the ability to teleport via a piece of an anal probe broken off in your ass (believe me, I am not making this stuff up), and the ability to shrink yourself down in size to enter small areas.

While there are many hilarious scenarios to take part in over the course of the game, there are also some downfalls.  For starters, I had an issue where in multiple cutscenes, my character was nonexistent.  The cutscenes still played out, but the fact that there was a gap where my character was supposed to be standing was a bummer.  The leveling system caps at 15, which is far too low.  I hit max level not even 3/4 of the way through the game, because I jumped on every side-quest when I had the opportunity.  Somewhat going along with this is the overall length of the game; while scouring South Park for side-quests and collectables certainly lengthens the overall experience, you can still complete everything this game has to offer in around 10-12 hours...which is very short for an RPG.  My biggest complaint, which upset me greatly, is upon completion of the game, you are allowed to wander around.  However, the game environment seems to mirror that of the "first day" you are in South Park, which means that there are not certain enemy types which are presented further into the campaign.  One side mission relies on you going to the police station and accepting a quest in which this enemy type needs to be killed.  It is completely inaccessible if you complete the main story without accepting the side-quest and completely mars your game if you are gunning for 100 percent completion; this is completely inexcusable and requires you go through an entire new game to complete.  While we're on this topic, too, it seems there is absolutely no way to replay story missions to collect missed gear/Chinpokomon collectables, also demanding a restart from the beginning.  I put in additional effort to scour every single story map, and collect every last item I could get my hands on while making friends with everyone in South Park, only to have my game be ruined because I was unaware of a particular side-quest...which, in turn, gives me the last friend request I needed.  Not cool, man.  Not cool.

Overall, South Park: The Stick of Truth is a great game that mirrors the quality one would come to expect from an episode of the show.  The combat system is solid, the storyline is hilarious, and the open-world South Park is a blast to wander around.  Although there are a few glaring flaws with the game, I would still recommend everyone to give it a go that is fan of the series.  But, please make sure you're of age; Curse words, naked body parts, and crude sexual humor is abound.

Overall Rating:

8/10

 (8 out of 10)

Quick Review at a Glance: True Detective Season One

Moments before they kiss.

Warning: The following review has mild spoilers in it if you are a human.  Read at your own risk.

 

  

There comes a time and a place where everybody that watches a decent bit of television sits back and contemplates what the best show they've ever seen is.  Is it The Wire?  Is it Breaking Bad?  Or is it something else?  Whatever the case, there are only a few shows out there that come close to perfection from a technical, and a story-telling standpoint.  While it can be argued that people drastically differ in opinions when it comes to "favorite" television show, there is no refuting that some shows exhibit a quality of excellence that is not found in others.  True Detective is one of these shows.

What makes True Detective so fantastic?  A large majority of it is the acting.  Matthew McConaughey does a superb job as Rust Cohle, a mentally odd, yet genius detective.  The character of Cohle is so complex and multifaceted, I could write an entire post just on him; McConaughey consistently surprised me throughout the entire series. Two major standouts for me were the long-take found at the end of the fourth episode (up there with some of the best I have seen in large budget Hollywood films) and the final minutes of the finale.  Woody Harrelson is great as Detective Hart, a by-the-book cop whose darkness is slowly unraveled throughout the show, including him cheating on his wife with various young girls and highlighting his rampant alcoholism.

From a plot standpoint, the show was very good, and kept viewers interested until the finale.  While I feel the finale lacked the touch it needed to be excellent, it still proved to be rather good.  I walked away on a bit of a sour note, since the show kept building up all of this evidence, only to have it somewhat fall flat in the end.  In retrospect, the entirety of the show was fantastic, so the elements I feel were lacking in the finale to provide a better resolution to the show were trivial.  Many shows hailed as excellent do not have perfect endings, as expectations from fans outweigh what the writers can come up with...not everyone can be satisfied by the same ending.

 

With the news that the second season of True Detective is going to star different characters, I was instantaneously saddened.  Hart and Cohle were great characters established over the few eight episodes we had with them and elements of "why" they are exactly how they are still remain unclear.  I would love to see more of Harrelson and McConaughey reprising their respective roles, without it growing too tiresome.  Perhaps the next season will not feature these characters for exactly this reason...to prevent the show from becoming stale and repetitive.  The next leads are going to have a difficult time surpassing what Harrelson and McConaughey brought to the plate; an excellent crime drama with fantastic acting and a great story.

Overall Rating:

9/10

 (9 out of 10)

The Walking Dead Season Two, Episode Two: "A House Divided" Review (Xbox 360)

Seriously guys, who the hell farted?

Warning: The following review contains an assful of spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

The first episode back to Telltale's wonderful game series threw me for a loop.  Playing as the strong, kind-hearted Lee in the first season was wonderful as it was very emotional, but the second season puts gamers in the shoes of young Clementine, providing a very different experience.  The game is still meant to depress the hell out of you with incredibly tough moral decisions with incredibly harsh consequences, but there is now a new layer of depth to the game mechanic; that of pure helplessness.

Playing through the contextual action-oriented events in Season Two, Episode One was terrifying.  Here we see a young girl, who, if buttons are input incorrectly, dies on-screen.  We, as Clementine, do not possess the strength of Lee. However, while not physically strong, Clem makes up for it with intelligence and fearlessness.  Only Telltale could pull off having a child protagonist, and I came to the realization they succeed remarkably in this upon the completion of the second episode.

Why the second episode though?  While I have always loved the character of Clementine, I was mildly bummed out when I heard that she was going to be the playable character of season two.  After I played the first episode, I was worried that the rest of the season would pale in comparison to the excellent first season; while the first episode was by no means bad, it seemed like the story would be heading in somewhat generic territory.  This all changed in the second episode, since we are presented with great morality decisions, a great villian, a sentimental reunion, and as always, great, yet simultaneously terrifying action scenarios.

Keep in mind it is very difficult to review this game normally.  The Walking Dead is essentially a personalized experience for every player, reading off the save files of the past episodes, delivering an experience solely based on what past decisions you have made.  In this review, I will highlight events that happened in my personal playthrough.

The episode opens up with a bang.  In my playthrough, I began with Nick, stuck inside an area resembling a shed.  I had to help him hold a door closed as walkers were breaking through.  In the heat of the moment, I selected the choice "find something" in which Nick, leaving me there to hold the door, finds an object and places it in front of the door.  Realized they were stuck there, Nick finds some good ol' moonshine and has at it.  Clementine wakes up to the sound of Nick throwing the bottles at the wall, in a drunken state.  Some dialogue takes place, while Nick even offers me some moonshine.  I do not accept.  I talked Nick out of his drunken stupor, who basically wants to stay behind and die.  Clem tells him he has a family out there...and Nick joins Clementine in leaving.  Shortly thereafter, surrounded by walkers, Nick yells at Clementine to run.  I refused and Clementine goes over to Nick.  He then responds with a yell..."I SAID RUN."  Clementine then runs away in a contextual button-input QTE.  Hell of an opener.

From here, we return to the household, and tell the others about Nick being left behind.  They set out, Clem stays with Sarah to keep an eye out for her and along the way, wanting to make her feel at ease, I snap a photo of her.  Here, a man forces himself in, and we are introduced to the big bad villain of this season...his name we do not know yet at this point in time.  There are many dialogue decisions during this segment, I felt he was a threat to our group so I lied to him the entire time, telling him there was nobody else in the house.  He then finds the picture I took of Sarah.  Whoops.  When this happened, I lied, telling him it was "my sister...she's dead."  He then pretty much detects my bullshit and leaves the house, warning me.

To prevent this review from being too long-winded, I will not detail every single step of the game.  In a nutshell, from here on out, the group returns, we leave the household in fear the guy will come back because we learn the group had a previous run-in with him, we save Nick along the way, me and Luke trek across a bridge toward a resort to make sure it is clear for the rest of the group (accompanied by a pretty slick action sequence), a man approaches us with a rifle, ends up being super nice, but then Nick shoots him because he thinks he's a threat to the group...said man dies.  We get to the resort, and Clementine is shocked.  KENNY IS THERE!  I instantly choose to hug him, and I get a small feeling of relief, which is rare for this game series.  A member of Kenny's group does not take too kindly to us after I tell him we killed the man on the bridge...who turned out to be his friend, a red-haired woman shows up asking for some supplies, we give it to her, she returns with the creepy man and his group shortly thereafter.  Uh-oh.  This places us in a bad situation, and I get the decision to give up and go downstairs, or go outside and find Kenny and Luke (who previously left our group to assist with fixing the electricity to the lodge/resort).  I find Kenny out there, I ask where Luke is, he gets mildly offended.  He takes a shot, killing a member of the group, so the main villain, whose name is revealed to be William Carver by members of the group earlier, kills the man whose friend I killed.  Not to risk anymore, I tell Kenny not to take the shot when Carver grabs another member of the group at gunpoint.  This puts us all in a bad situation, all being captured, and the episode comes to a conclusion.  But...what happened to Luke?  Did he die and Kenny did not want to tell me?  Will he save us all?  I find it quite interesting that Luke was shaping up to be a very big player in the season, then suddenly is M.I.A.

So, now that my version of the play-through has been roughly explained for reviewing purposes, let's continue by breaking down the actual review.  The story presents us with an absolutely fantastic scenario, and the writing for this episode is commended, as I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Michael Madsen does a great job as Carver, invoking a new sense of terror into the game, especially considering you are left off with a life-or-death hostage situation through the eyes of a child.  The supporting characters become very likable in this episode, especially Luke.  The only character I'm having a tough time liking is Nick, which is completely understandable, but I can not escape the feeling that he is basically the "Ben" of season two.

As far as graphics, the game is visually appealing as always.  It still has the whole cell-shaded/drawn look that we've grown to accept and love, a nod to the graphic novel that both the game and the television series have spun out of.

From a gameplay perspective, the episode had a perfect balance of action-oriented sequences and dialogue decisions.  There were a few instances in which we were given full control over Clem, including the pre-dinner sequence which gave us a good "calm before the storm" feeling.  Until we we have to choose who to sit with...and an argument ensues.  Oh well, it was at least calming while it lasted.

Overall, this episode was very good.  It is equally parts terrifying and satisfying playing as Clementine; watching her overcome obstacles gives the player a great sense of satisfaction because she struggles quite a bit more than Lee.  The fact that Clem is so young gives the player the incentive to try harder and make the correct choices during the dialogue situations.  The morality decisions during this episode are very difficult and dig deep, emotionally connecting you to the story and the people around it.  As it stands, there are many unanswered questions and we are left with another cliffhanger.  For the sake of the season, I hope Luke is still alive as I enjoy him as a character.  Or maybe it's intentional by Telltale to rip away the character Clem most takes a liking to in order to give us that feeling of desperation and hope yet again so Clem will have to be independent and use everything Lee has taught her to rise to the occasion.  We'll find out soon enough.

Rating:

8.5/10

 (8.5 out of 10)

The Walking Dead Review- "The Grove"

Carol spotted a bear.  Carol doesn't like bears.

Warning: The following review contains a shitload of spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

Let's face it...The Walking Dead has been rather weak lately.  While it has been a great way of exploring characters at their most vulnerable points, it has been dragging quite significantly.  While all of the different members being split up provides a very interesting scenario, it feels like this was done simply to "pad out" the rest of the season.  That's not to say that the second half of this season has been bad...it has just lacking that little extra something that usually makes The Walking Dead great.  Until now.

From the opening shot of the eldest sibling playing with a walker outside, the viewer could clearly tell something would be amiss in this episode.  As the episode progressed, some questions were raised...one being who, or what, started the fire in the distance?  Then it dawned on me during the final quarter of the episode that the events unfolding in front of me were some of the most disturbing, yet emotionally powerful moments I've ever seen on a television screen.  And this is coming from a show that's based off of a damn comic book.  Sunday's episode was an emotional punch to the gut that I never saw coming; I was going into the episode thinking it was purely filler, but was absolutely amazed by it.

So, shall I delve into the particular events that unfolded?  Absolutely.  HOLY SHIT.  Excuse me for the language, but that is the most likely the best summary of the collective reaction of viewers throughout their households.  Tyreese and Carol returned and found that the young, sweet sister was downright murdered by crazy girl, in an effort to turn her into a walker.  They arrived just in time to prevent said crazy sister from "turning" baby Judith.  After a brief discussion with Tyreese, when he gathers that the same girl was the one feeding mice to the walkers, Carol claims "She (the girl) can't be around people," takes the girl outside and puts one into her head after she tells her to "look at the flowers."  Damn...and this isn't even the end of the episode.  Carol confesses to burning the bodies, one of which being Tyreese's girlfriend.  This is the ultimate moment of clarification and closure for Tyreese, and the look in his face is absolutely heartbreaking before he breaks down in tears and delivers an "I forgive you..." pulling his hand back away from the gun on the table in front of him, but not before saying that she would have to live with that decision for the rest of her life.

I have been using the words "crazy girl/eldest sibling" and such because the normal viewer probably does not even know the names of the girls.  That's okay, because up until this episode, I really didn't even care what their names were as they seemed quite insignificant to the overall plot structure of the show.  That being said, the performances from both of these little ones was great.  It is difficult for child actors to convey any sense of emotion, but they did a fantastic job with what they had to work with.  Melissa McBride (Carol) was downright fantastic and provided, hands down, one of the best performances on the show thus far.  Chad Coleman (Tyreese) was lack-luster, until the final few moments where he breaks down after hearing the news from Carol.

At a glance, this episode was one of my favorite episodes; similar in "shock factor" to that of the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones.  These are exactly the types of episodes The Walking Dead needs more of.  Episodes have been very dry as of late, and I am hoping this is not the case with the next few considering the season finale is coming up shortly.  This was a breath of fresh air and gives me another reason to eagerly anticipate every Sunday night.  At least for the next couple of weeks.

Rating:

9/10

 (9 out of 10)

Upcoming Reviews (Week of March 16th-22nd)

True Detective- Entire Season One

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth (Xbox 360)

 The Walking Dead Season Two, Episode Two: "A House Divided" (Xbox 360)

 

Arrow- "Suicide Squad"

*Premieres March 19 @ 8:00 EST on CW*

The Walking Dead- "The Grove"

 *Premieres March 16 @ 9:00 EST on AMC*