Reviews

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Rogue

I’ve always really liked Rogue as a character. She’s generally fun, she has an interesting power with interesting positives and negatives, her overall design is nice as well. It probably helps that in the old cartoon series she was always paired with Gambit, whom I also really like as far as X-men go. The point is, I am kind of biased towards Rogue, especially this particular design, which in general is one of her more popular designs.

Unfortunately, there has only been one other figure of this design in this size, back in the Toybiz line, and it is god awful. Ok, the basic figure isn’t that bad, the face sculpt is god awful. She looks like a 90 year old woman pretending to be Rogue or something. She has been much overdue for an update.

This update certainly does a good job. I kind of miss the cloth goods jacked of the old figure but the face sculpt this time around is a lot better to be sure.

She even has appropriate accessories to replicate her power, she comes with an ungloved hand. In case you’re not familiar, Rogue absorbs other character’s powers through physical contact, so having an ungloved hand allow her be able to touch other figures, so to speak. Her design even allows for the wrist bit of the glove to be removed, which is a nice touch.

My only real complaint is the usual hit or miss derpy eye look that is a problem across the board on Hasbro’s female figures. I don’t even understand why this tends to lean towards females vs males. Otherwise it’s a welcome update to a popular design for a popular character.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Hardhead

Jan 12th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

Of all the Headmasters, Hardhead is one that’s really been hurting for an update for a good while. There was a repaint of the old SWAT truck Onslaught that looks nothing like Hardhead. Not much else other than the original toy. Part of the travesty of his lack of an update is that Hardhead was a major player during the early runs of IDW’s Transformers comics, back during the time they were on Earth. He was one of the core handful of Autobots on earth, though he wasn’t a headmaster in that storyline. That was back before Hasbro constantly made direct nods, or any reference really, to the IDW books. These days the two run together pretty heavily both in general plot and design queues.

We almost got an updated Hardhead a few years ago as a remold of Generations Warpath. Occasionally leaks or mistakes are made, around the time of Generations Warpath, there were instructions being leaked, with alternative heads, one was Warpath as Hardhead. It would have been a pretty good use of the mold too, they have similar vehicle modes and transformations, the turret chest doesn’t quite match but it would have been forgivable.

All that’s moot now though, we have a real update to a pretty popular character. It’s one of the better Titans Returns figures for sure as well. The design is right out of the comic and essentially is an update to the original with modern engineering. Plus he’s a headmaster again.

Part of what makes this figure one of the best is the overall solid playability of both modes. A lot of this comes from the large cannon. It moves up and down, springs up to rotate, in robot mode, it can convert to be a shoulder canon, it’s removable, it opens up and converts into a seat for a Titan Master. It’s even removable to be held or attached in other ways. This seems a bit mundane on paper but it really makes both modes a lot more interesting since it can be adjusted for a lot of variety in poses.

It helps that the robot mode is also really solid despite the simple transformation. He’s well articulated without any major hindering factors. He doesn’t seem to be plagued by any of the looseness issues on joints or the head attachment that other figures in this line seem to have.

It feels a bit like cheating talking about a toy that has no major issues, but sometimes it happens, and Titans Return Hardhead is one of those times. He’s just a good solid figure all around.

Review – Star Wars – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Jan 6th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

I’m going to cut to the chase here a bit. I enjoyed it. I have been more excited for this movie than I am for Episode 8, especially after how patronizingly fanservicy Episode 7 ended up being. There are some dodgy bits, especially during the middle act, but it’s decent overall.

What Rogue One does the best, is being a good movie set in the Star Wars Universe. Ok, sure, that’s what it is. I get that. What I mean though is, it’s not part of the “Main Saga”. It’s a side story, like other classics such as The Ewok Adventure, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, and of course, The Star Wars Christmas Special. The environment and ascetics are definitely there on all levels. The musical score isn’t super memorable, but it does fit the tone and some of the familiar themes show up here and there. There’s even a few of the classic characters, though aside from one or two, they almost feel like cameos.

Anyway, after this point we’ll move into the spoiler section and some other more detailed thoughts. You’ve been warned…

The Spoiler Section

A brief rundown in case you’re here and don’t care about spoilers, the movie follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), members of the rebel alliance (eventually) as they work with a rag tag group of other misfits to retried the Death Star plans for the Rebellion. Jyn Erso is enlisted because she is the daughter of Galen Erso, who was lead designer of the Death Star, and Cassian Andor is just a rather ruthless Rebel mercenary.

This movie takes place before the original 1977 Star Wars movie, Episode 4, a New Hope. It’s possible it takes place literally seconds to minutes before, though I’ll touch on that a bit later. It doesn’t involve any Jedi, it doesn’t get it’s own opening crawl, it doesn’t center around any of the Skywalkers. Most notable, as many have pointed out, none of these characters exist in the “Original Trilogy”, which also makes the ending a bit of a downer since well, everyone dies.

I’m rather glad they went this route though, trying to come up with some cheesy mechanic as to how say, Jyn survived but decided to go into hiding or something wouldn’t have worked as well. There’s already some vague continuity issues with the job they did connecting this movie to Episode 4.

I’ll start with that connection, since it’s part of the bad of this movie in a few ways. It’s also on the level of “nitpicky nerd shit” really. The movie ends with the Tantive IV, Leia’s big white ship that we see in the opening to A New Hope blasting off into hyperspace with the Death Star Plans. Just before this is Darth Vader, rampaging through a troop of familiar Rebel soldiers trying desperately to get the Plans onto the ship on a little data disc. I know there have been some complaints about how Vader is a bad ass here while being “weak” later during his battle with Obi-Wan but Vader is also kind of a bad ass again later during Empire and Jedi, so if anything, A New Hope is and always has been the outlier in this whole Vader’s Power Level debate.

I’m more concerned with the need for a little flimsy data disc. The entire climax of the film centers around needing to transmit the data up to the command ship, the command ship can’t just transmit it to the Tantive IV? This may also be a bit of a Star Wars thing though, it’s a very odd mix of technology in it’s universe, some things are crazy advanced while others are downright primitive.

Anyway, the closing moments also give us Princess Leia on the ship. A very, CGI Princess Leia. It’s a very very good CGI Leia, but it’s definitely not real. Which brings up another more major oddity. Grand Moff Tarkin also appears in this movie. Tarkin is the commander of the Death Star from Episode 4 who ultimately goes down with the ship… er… moon… whatever… Since Peter Cushing, if he hadn’t already passed away, would be very old to reprise his role, they opted for a CGI Tarkin. It’s very very close, like Leia, but it’s also clearly CGI. He also shows up in the film a lot more than Leia’s 5 second appearance. The movie centers around the rebels recovering the Death Star Plans, it makes sense that the guy who is in charge of the whole project were present during the film. There are only a few other real noticeable characters from A New Hope, the two thugs from the Cantina, Dr Estibaz and Ponda Baba make a brief cameo, and the Rebel leader, Mon Mothma also makes an appearance, though instead of going CGI they just got a new actress to play her.

My biggest gripe with the film is most of it’s middle act. There are a lot of “conveniences” which always feel like bad writing and feel like they are showing up more and more in films in general. Basically what I mean is, in logical writing, Event X occurs because Action Y. There are many moments where Event X happens, so that Action Y can happen, which makes things seem contrived and crap. Most of this occurs during the scenes on Eadu. They end up crash landing while trying to remain “under the radar”, something that feels like it would have made them more noticeable, but it doesn’t.

Cassian intends to assassinate Jyn’s father there, though Jyn is under the impression they are mounting a rescue operation. It’s not super clear why the rebels would want to assassinate him since even if he weren’t already obviously trying to defect to the Rebels through previous actions, he would be an amazing source of information on the Empire’s new Death Star, since he, you know, designed it. Killing him seems really reckless. Conveniently, Cassian has a sniper rifle and Galen Erso happens to be in this random supply outpost AND he happens to have a need to come stand around on the upper deck while Cassian is waiting to shoot him.

Notice what I said about conveniences.

Turns out that Director Krennic, the movie’s protagonist who also has a knack for conveniently being everywhere our hero’s are, has also come to Eadu to discipline Erso’s troop for the data leak over the Death Star’s existence.

Logically, sniping Krennic, the guy who is sort of second in command of the Death Star would make a lot of since, but Cassian seems determined to shoot Galen. Around the same time, the Rebels decide that since they can’t raise Cassian and his crew on the radio, they should scramble a bunch of starfighters to the planet. More conveniences. During the ensuing battle, Galen is accidentally killed by a rebel bomb.

The whole sequence of events just felt really… sloppy.

It felt like it was meant to create tension between Cassian and Jyn, the two main characters but that tension felt like it was just thrown away within a few hours time by the end of the movie.

This also touches on a complaint I have had with the Newer Star Trek films. Space is big. Like, really fucking big, even at the speed of light. Yet lately space travel is, when convenient, treated like it’s a 5 second hop anywhere. I mean we just had a short scene where our heroes were chilling in the ship during their flight to Eadu, now the Rebels are sending X-wings almost instantly to the place from Yavin?

The only other real complaint is that Saw Gerrera played by Forrest Whitaker is almost a non character for as much effort as they put into finding him and all of the plot mystery surrounding him. He leaves way more unanswered questions about his background than he really should.

Enough complaints though, what’s good. The visuals are good, really good. Aside from the two uncanny valley moments with Tarkin and Leia, all of the effects are top notch and really fit the world of the original trilogy well. Little scuff marks here and there on background scenery, the odd ball layered outfits and clothing, the weird juxtaposition of fancy space technology with primitive technology. It all does a very good job of feeling like Star Wars.

This film also, as a result does a good job of feeling like it’s paying homage to the original trilogy, without feeling so blatant about it the way Episode 7 was. Where Episode 7 really played up the whole “hey look, here’s this thing you remember from A New Hope!”, Rogue One just does it, and it exists in the world, as if it’s part of the world, not as if it’s part of some barrage of Easter eggs you’re supposed to feel good about.

The cast is decent as well, though the characters are mostly one dimensional stereotypes. As I mentioned right off, it’s hard to get too invested in them in the end, since they all bite it in the end. Jyn and Cassian get the most characterization followed probably by Director Krennec or K-2SO. K-2SO is to Cassian as Chewbacca is to Han Solo, he’s sort of his partner in crime, as a reprogrammed Imperial Droid. He mostly exists to provide some comedy but serves his purpose in the plot. Mostly he comes off as a really snarky C-3PO. He definitely gets most of the best lines throughout the film.

There is also the pair of… I’m not sure what they were, former Jedi Temple guards or something, with Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yun) and Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang). These two join the crew about halfway through the film somewhat by happenstance and provide some on the ground support through a few battles. Most notable is Chirrut Îmwe, who is basically a blind martial artist who very strongly believe in The Force. This feels a little odd but consider that at this point in the time line, the Force has effectively been eradicated. Order 66 was roughly 15-20 years previous and Obi-Wan is still in hiding and Luke Skywalker is busy farming moisture on Tatooine for his uncle. He doesn’t seem to be Force Attuned like a Jedi but he’s very likely Force Sensitive. He’s a fin character though like most of the secondary cast, pretty one dimension in scope.

The climactic battle around the Imperial archive is nicely done as well with plenty of good tension all around. We get a lot of classic Star Wars vehicles and ships along with a few new ones. The Rebels haven’t recruited Admiral Akbar apparently at this point since we get a different, fatter, bluer Mon Calamari in charge of the flagship. There’s some cameos by Red and Gold leader from Episode 4, though their couple of scenes and lines just seem to be remixes of footage and voice lines from the Episode 4. No sign of Wedge Antilles, which I have to say was a little disappointing, considering he’s the only pilot from the original trilogy to survive all three films. Maybe they couldn’t decide which Wedge to use since he’s played by two different people in Episode 4. It’s also possible I missed it.

I know it feels like the nitpicky negatives outnumber the positives but it’s a good movie. I think mostly I’m still kind of off on this concept of spin off Star Wars movies. I know there have been TV shows and books for ages, I’ve experienced both of them, but the whole spin off movie still seems weird. Maybe after there have been a few more films they will feel more natural. Though it’s possible that by that point I’ll be on Star Wars burn out mode. I kind of wish Episode 7 had done this well in terms of flow, but Episode 7 also had a bit of a bigger role to fill, being the first Star Wars movie in 13 years, and trying to make up for the bad vibes that the last three films had left for everyone.

Review – Shadow Complex (PC, PS4, Xbox One)

Jan 3rd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

2009, 2015 – Chair – 1 Player

The Good

Metroidvania games are pretty much awesome by default.
Interesting use of 2D and 3D
Fun gameplay and puzzles

The Bad

Not a lot of enemy variety.
Controls can be frustrating at times
Bosses are kind of a joke

tl;dr Review

I, like many others I gather, often have a pile of games from bundles that never end up getting played. Recently Shadow Complex appeared in a Humble Bundle and came recommended, so I opted to actually give it a shot. I was really surprised just how good it ended up being.

I was also surprised that it’s a Metroidvania style game, That is, it’s a side scrolling, room based platform game full of puzzles and upgrades and the repeated need to retread old ground with new abilities. These sorts of games, as a whole are pretty fun. And Shadow Complex is no exception. It’s also somewhat unique being a modern day sort of setting for such a game.

It’s not without it’s flaws though, the enemy soldiers get repetitive quick, there’s maybe a half dozen varieties. The bosses are all kind of same-ish giant mechs and aren’t particularly frequent. Some of them are extremely easy to pattern out and defeat as well, there’s one in particular which jets in a circle around the room that I found stupidly easy since it never once tried to enter the one corner of the room. All that was needed was to stand there and missile it each pass.

The controls are also a bit frustrating at times, particularly when you have to do several things at once, like multi jumping and grappling. The puzzles revolving around the speed run effect are also frustrating due to the dodgy controls while speeding along.

These negatives aren’t super bad though, particularly with the frequent save points. It’s a fun platform exploration game and worth checking out.

In Depth

So, like I said, platform exploration. Seeing this game was a modern era game with guns, I pretty much expected “FPS Shooter”. Which also translates to, pretty much completely unoriginal. I didn’t expect to really enjoy this game at all, but I was expecting a completely different game.

The basic plot follows Jason as he works to rescue his girlfriend Claire from a hidden base of radial soldiers. Jason and Claire are out camping and they stumble on an underground complex, hidden complex, a … Shadow Complex, if you will. Claire is kidnapped by soldiers and Jason sneaks into the complex to find her. Over the course of the game, the larger goals of the army are made clear, they intend to overthrow the US government. Knowing there isn’t much time, Jason works to take down the secret base and army. Along the way he finds a super powered soldier suit and upgrades it over time to gain new abilities which allow him to reach new areas of the complex.

The game also takes place in the same realms as a couple of novels written by Orson Scott Card, called Empire and Hidden Empire. These books are part of a universe owned by Chair who licensed the world to Card for the books.

I mentioned Metroidvania, this is a term that is commonly used for this style of game, it’s a combination of the names of the games Metroid and Castlevania, which both pioneered and made popular this style of game. Shadow Complex has a lot more in common with Metroid than Castlevania, but the same basic play style is the same. Honestly the similarities to Metroid are possibly part of it’s negatives as well. Many of the powers gained through the super suit are pretty much lifted right out of Super Metroid, the Missiles, The Speed Boost, the Grappling hook. Granted, there are all sorts of other examples of these abilities in games, and the speed boost works a bit differently with it’s running up walls and ceilings bit, the core mechanics are the same.

Probably the biggest problem of this game is getting around the map. One key component that makes a good Metroidvania title is that the map work. Generally speaking, this means some sort of central zone that easily access all or most of the other zones. It should easily access each one as you unlock new abilities as well. This makes traversing the map for return trips to collect power ups less of a trudge. Shadow Complex has a severe lack of this. Having to repeatedly complete the same simple puzzles to go back and collect some grenade upgrade gets really old the 4th or 5th time it’s done.

There’s also some dodgy points on the controls. Some of the more complex puzzles involve, for example, double dumping around platforms and grappling to walls while avoiding instant death bits. Sometimes while trying to aim the grapple it can be tricky to keep the direction of your jumps going the proper direction. More annoying is trying to time the speed run jumps and flips needed to solve some of the running puzzles. The speed moves too fast and the screen zooms in too much to always know what’s coming soon enough to make a proper jump. This often means failing, then trying again, then failing again because you passed the first bit but now there was a second bit you didn’t know about and didn’t have enough notice to properly react to it.

I’m not saying it should be a cake walk, just that you aren’t even given a chance to make it a cake walk. It doesn’t really hurt the game, but it can lead to some needless frustration.

One interesting aspect is the use of 3D in the 2D world. The whole game is a 2D platformer, Jason only exists in one plane, but the world around you is in 3D, enemies will attack from platforms in the distance, sometimes you will find gun emplacements that let you switch to a stationary 3D view. Your player will automatically shoot into the background when targeting enemies in the background. It does lead to some odd moments, like why you have to scale a set of spiral stairs by leaping from landing to landing instead of just, you know, walking up them (the stairs are in the background).

In the end, Shadow Complex was a surprise but of fun to be sure. I don’t stick around with games for long when it becomes clear I won’t enjoy them, but I played all the way through Shadow Complex once I started it.

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Kitty Pryde

Jan 2nd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

Spider-man somehow gets a wave every other wave, completed with six out of eight figures being new Spider People. Captain America gets a new figure every wave and Iron Man every other wave. Somehow, the X-men, arguably Marvel’s most popular property, only warrants one wave a year, if they are lucky. The last wave was the Jubilee BAF wave too, which is one of the worst disasters is crummy distribution in the history of the line making it extremely pricey on the secondary market. Fortunately the Juggernaut wave seems to be a little easier to get a hold of. It’s a pretty solid wave all around as far as character choices too, though there are so many well known X-men characters that it would be hard to make a truly awful wave of X-men.

Today I wanted to take a look at Kitty Pryde, who ended up being a nice, unexpectedly nice figure from the wave. Kitty has a lot of potential to be a boring throw away figure for sure. Her costume design isn’t particularly flashy and there isn’t really any way to recreate her power with any interesting accessories. The female figures in the Marvel Legends line are also inexplicably plagued with QC issues, especially when compared to their male counterparts.

Kitty manages to skirt right around almost all of these potential issues. The biggest is just how nice she looks in sculpt and paint apps, particularly in the head. I’m not saying they aren’t out there, but I have seen few reports of the common “derpy eyes” that shows up a LOT on the lady Marvel figures. The flesh tone looks nice and natural, the hair sculpt and paint is nicely crisp.

The yellow and black on her uniform is very nicely done as well, yellow can often be a very problematic color for toys. It definitely matches the look of one of her more well known uniforms overall as well.

Kitty Pryde also comes with an accessory in the form of her little dragon buddy Lockheed. Lockheed is really great in his execution. His overall shape from his wings to his tail added with the rubbery plastic he is made of allow him to easy perch on Kitty’s arms or shoulders easily without the need for any ugly pegs or clips. It makes him look very natural on her and though it’s not a rock solid connection, it’s stable enough for some movement while he is attached to her.

Unfortunately, short of disassembling the figure, there isn’t any way to recreate her power, which involves passing through walls. That’s not really a knock or anything, plenty of X-men have non visual powers like psychic abilities or invulnerability. Kitty Pryde was a figure that I expected to be pretty lame but is probably one of the best figures in the wave.