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February, 2017:

Review – From Dust (PC, PS3, Xbox360)

2011 – Ubisoft – One Player

The Good

  • Interesting Gimmick where you manipulate the world using literal God Power
  • Eventually there is a sandbox mode, which is neat.

The Bad

  • The gimmick is way more limited than it is made out to be and the world tends to “right” itself
  • The above makes a lot of the levels frustrating since you try to do X but it just sort of fails…
  • By the time you unlock the Sandbox, you’ll hate the game play.

In Depth

Ok, I tried… I really tried. If possible, I try to complete a game before I do a review of it. This means being late to the game most of the time but it also means I get to experience all that the game has to offer, which is the way it should be. There are exceptions for various reasons, some games don’t have a real ending, some are repetitious enough that it’s clear nothing more is going to be gained by continuing onward.

Others become so frustrating and irritating I just can’t being myself to finish it no matter how hard I want to. From Dust is one of the latter set there. (more…)

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Phoenix (Jean Grey)

This may be a bit of a short one on the text.  I honestly have very little to really say about Marvel Legends Phoenix.  In fact, the main thing I have to say is something I really don’t say too often about anything.  I think I legitimately hate almost everything about this figure.

I’m not even sure it’s an upgrade from my old Toybiz Phoenix figure.  Sure that old Phoenix has some issues, and is far from perfect but this update just has so much that I don’t particularly like that makes for the perfect storm of dislike.

For starters, her sculpt is kind of nasty.  The head is weirdly skinny and angular and the hair looks unnatural.  This isn’t helped by how completely bland her design is.  At least the old Phoenix has a few extra flourishes here and there to keep her from being so blandly green.

She also can’t stand for crap, which only really helps to push my dislike of this figure down farther.  In fact the only reason I bothered at all was that she was the only figure left that I needed to complete the Juggernaut Build a Figure.   There isn’t much else to say, he’s just extremely bland and kind of ugly on the paint and sculpt, which is a shame because several other figures in this wave are excellently done.

Review – Movie – Xmen Origins: Wolverine

You know what’s quickly starting to become a ridiculously overplayed part of the X-Men Cinematic Universe?  The origin story of Wolverine.  I mean, ok, I get that he is a big part of the X-Men universe, and he’s been in every X-men movie so far except for Deadpool.  His origin was sort of touched on in X-men 1, X-men 2 went into much more detail as they return to Alkali Lake, Wolverine Origins gives us the details and events actually surrounding one origin of the event, Days of Future’s Past touches on it a bit with Stryker, we see it again, sort of, in Apocalypse.

How many times do we need to see this?  It’s honestly not even super interesting.  Maybe the upcoming Logan movie can give us a retelling of it with X-23 instead!  It’s also kind of fishy and questionable about how much this film is still considered “canon”.  Probably not a lot other than maybe the general idea.  Obviously the events of the Adamantium infusion are different, since they show up in a different film which occurs later.  Probably the most glaring part of out of canon is the Deadpool movie, which gives Deadpool a proper origin.  The Deadpool film does make some reference to Wade Wilson’s time doing wetworks ops though, depicted in the early part of this film, and Ryan Reynolds plays Deadpool in both films.

Speaking of Deadpool, the biggest travesty of this film, is the butchering of Deadpool.  I mean, ok, I “get” reimagining characters for the big screen.  Not every character will be identical to their comic counter part, some may be quite different.  There is a difference though between reimagining, and more or less name slapping a popular name on a nobody that has nothing to do with the character.  Not to get too many spoilers here, but the creepy shirtless mute with Wolverine Claw style swords that shows up in this movie, isn’t Deadpool, in any way shape or form.

The other big offender here is the special effects, in particular, just how god awful they get throughout the film, especially later with Wolverine’s Adamantium claws.  Considering this is like 90% of the identity of this character, the CGI is incredibly poorly done.  The lighting is all off, and often they don’t properly match his arms and hands properly, especially during movement.

There is some pretty decent Wolverine action in this film, and a lot of interesting appearances by other mutants such as The Blog, and Gambit.  Gambit’s almost wasted however.  He shows up kind of randomly when he does pop up and despite dropping Wolverine off to his final confrontation, he doesn’t actually participate in the battle.

There is also a subplot involving Sabertooth and Wolverine being brothers at odds.  As in literal blood related brothers.  The opening montage shows them working together through several wars, and eventually during a special operation involving Deadpool, a skinny Blob and some other mutants, they have a falling out as Sabertooth starts to get too violent for Wolverine to handle.  This whole plot point is honestly, a little awkward.  Wolverine and Sabertooth have always had a confrontational sort of two sides of the same coin relationship, but they were never brothers.  It’s a little bit of a weird change that doesn’t really serve a huge purpose.  The implication before this revelation was they simply lived in the same household, one a servant family to the other, this kinship would have served just fine as a catalyst for their later adventures, especially coupled with their shared “problem” of being mutants.

Generally speaking, there are just soooo many flaws in this movie, both large and small, that really kind of ruin it.  If you pretend Deadpool is just some sort of unnamed Super mutant and can forget about how ugly Wolverine’s claws look during many scenes, its not an awful movie, but at this point it’s also pretty much non-canon to the Xmen universe, so it’s probably not really worth bothering with.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Highbrow

Like most of the original Headmasters, Highbrow hasn’t gotten a proper update in a while.  There was a pretty neat Highbrow back in the Hunt for the Decepticons sub-line of Revenge of the Fallen, though his alt mode for that line was a Lockheed P38-Bomber style plane, and he was mostly green instead of his original blue and white.  It’s a neat toy mostly for using a cool alt mode, but it’s not very Highbrow and it wasn’t a headmaster.

Like most of Titans Return, Highbrow is a much more faithful remake of his G1 iteration.  He has the same colors and turns into a dual prop Cybertronian helicopter.  It’s not a toy without some pretty bad flaws though, mostly due to the helicopter blades.  This is one of those areas where the lessened budget of newer toys actually become a bit of a hindrance.  The helicopter blades don’t have any way to lock into place in robot mode and don’t fold out of the way in any meaningful way.  They just sort of flip around, which wouldn’t be a problem except they tend to get locked up in his massive helicopter cockpit backpack.

He also suffers from a severe case of “wobbly head” syndrome, which seems to plague a few of these Titans Returns figures.  Part of the problem seems to be that the hook for his head sticks out from his neck a few millimeters.  On the plus side, it means he can sort of look up and down a bit, but it doesn’t make things lose and floppy.  Something that was most common in the Wave 1 figure Scourge, which brings up another interesting bit…

Back in my review of Chromedome, I made a comment about how Chromedome looks like he is a remold of the Combiner Wars Breakdown mold, but isn’t, he just shares a transformation.  Highbrow here has a similar sort of situation going, because technically, Highbrow IS a remold of Titans Return Scourge.  That said, they share almost zero actual parts and their transformations are “reversed.”  Where Scourge’s front form by joining his legs together, Highbrow forms the rear of the helicopter.  The tell tale bit that these are remolds lies in the pull out section on the hips/legs used during transformation.  That, and that they are part of the same lines, it’s actually pretty uncommon to have a remold cross over between lines the way Chromedome and Dead End would have done.

The toys are definitely different enough to warrant owning both of them if you are interested in both.  The transformation results in a pretty near little helicopter.  The cockpit is functional to allow for the Titan Master to fit inside.  The two guns can attach to the underside of the wings to give the chopper some artillery, though they attach via the non round pegs, which is slightly against what you commonly see but it allows for the use of the molded landing wheels.  There’s a third flip out landing gear that isn’t super obvious on the under side of the cockpit.

The helicopter mode looks good and holds together very solidly.   It’s definitely a good addition to the vehicles for Titan Masters.  If your interest in this line lies more with the Titan Masters and their vehicles and bases, Highbrow is definitely a good addition, even if his Robot mode is a little clunky.

S.H. Figuarts – Luigi

Today’s review is on SH Figuarts Luigi.  I’ve previously done a review of SH Figuarts Mario as well that you may be interested in if you’re looking into Luigi.  A lot of what was said about Mario definitely applies here.  The build quality is solid, the paint apps are great, the sculpt is great, the articulation works for what he is, but it’s a little limited.

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Where Luigi differs the most is in his accessory count.  Luigi includes alternate open hands and a stand, both things that Mario lacked in his basic form.    Additionally Luigi includes a basic Block Brick and a Red Koopa shell.  It’s kind of a shame that he doesn’t have a coin, that feels like it would have been the cheapest accessory to throw in and coins are definitely something you can never have too many of when it comes to Mario.   Also included is a swappable back plate to allow the stand to peg into Luigi’s back and a small clear plastic bit that allows the Koopa shell to attach to either of the open palm hands to be held.

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Speaking of the hands, I touched a bit on the build style on Mario being different that your standard Figuarts release.  The hands are another place where this varies.  The pegs are nice and bulky and built into the forearms of both Luigi and Mario.  The hands stay on well but are easily swapped and it doesn’t feel like there is any chance of breaking the pegs.  This is definitely a change from many Figuarts where the removable hands often come off as pretty fragile.  It certainly helps that both Luigi and Mario are chunkier than most Figuarts, but it, once again, kind of feels like that Nintendo Quality push sneaking in a bit.  It’s also notable that it’s very subtle, but the hands are not identical to the ones that are available in the Playset Pack for Mario, they are slightly skinnier as well, to match Luigi’s slimmer build.

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Having the stand and hands definitely help flesh out Luigi’s pose options.  Every since Super Mario Brothers 2, Luigi has been known for his crazy high jumping, so having the stand for jumping poses is definitely a plus.  The hands are also great for both carrying and throwing the included Koopa shell.

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Luigi isn’t a straight recolor of Mario either, he stands a half inch or so taller than Mario and has an overall slimmer build.  I’m sure there is some parts reuse, I think the arms and shoes are the same, but the legs, center mass, and head are all slimmer and seem to be different sculpting than Mario.

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All in all Luigi is a nice package.  He’s definitely a nice addition to go with his brother Mario but the extra accessories make him a nice solid figure in his own right.