Follow @Mr_McCrackelz

Friday, June 20, 2014

Better Call Saul gets 2 seasons and a pushback.



I'm very unsure about this Breaking Bad spinoff. I mean, it's more Bob Odenkirk on tv... it's hard to complain about that. But I do not envy the job of following one of the best TV series of the last ten years, and quite possibly, of all time. But AMC has faith in it, seeing as they pushed it back a bit (probably to give them more time for rewrites/re-shoots) and ordered a whole second season sight unseen.

We'll all see how it pans out from here. Fingers crossed.


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Superego's The Family Feud


Here we see Patton Oswalt headlining again for the Superego crew, and he makes it feel like he'd always been there. This is one of what feels like five Family Feud sketches, and it's honestly not even the funniest one. But, it is animated, so I have an excuse to shove it down your throats again! I don't want you to love them. That makes it sound like I'm giving you a choice. No; you're going to watch this; you're going to laugh audibly, and  then you're going to buy seasons 1 and 2!

Well maybe just 2. 1's pretty rough around the edges.


 It's worth noting  that the podcast version has the actual Family Feud theme.
Kind of.
I don't know why I always fixate on that sort of thing.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Watchdogs PC has snark in it's code.


I'm... having a hard time finishing watchdogs. Sometimes I'm having a great time with it, other times I'm couldn't be bothered to put five more minutes into if you were offering free booze. Some of those issues are with the PC version alone. It's an ubisoft port, I expect the fps to drop to 30 a bunch. But what's crazy is that dropping shadows and anti-aliasing (big ticket performance hogs) doesn't affect the frame rate. AT ALL. In any other game I'd be getting double the performance out of it. It's as irritating as it is bizarre. Never unplayable, but it rides my patience something fierce. But to be fair, they've been trying to patch it since release and they say they're getting close.

But it's been quite a long time since release, and coders have been kicking the tires ever since. What they've found is surprising. For one, remember how good it looked at E3 2012? And how all of a sudden it started to look far, FAR, jankier in demos a year later? Well that sh*t's still in there. Though unoptimized, and frankly, not all that impressive as it forces the world detail down to medium. But still, stuff like that is why I love PC gaming. It's a wild west of coders and artists out here. Patching things and modding for free.

But the cherry on top is a messege deep in the game's code floating around where the abandoned effects are that says:

... I do. I CARE.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Superego's Knell before Zod... 's Public Defender.


This may be the funniest sketch they ever did, it's definitely in my top 3. I mean even while improvising Patton Oswalt is still both A. funny as hell, and B. stays convincingly in character while Zod's going off on how much droopy cleavage disgusts him. I actually think this one's a little funnier without the animation so... I don't know, close your eyes?

-also starring Chris Tallman



I haven't forgotten you, Crackpot!



I've just been busy... well, more tired than busy. I got on the front page of the Sunday paper this week, for what it's worth. Any who, I'm sorry I stayed away. You don't do this sort of thing for the money. Because online ads are as tacky as they are depressing. But mostly because I wouldn't get chicken feed for em'. I got bills, man...

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

ADDENDUM: The Protagonist of Farcry 4 is... anouther white guy. Or is HEEEEEEE?!


Seems pretty damning from this distance...

False alarm, I guess.

I'd like to thank Chance the blogger (whose blog is linked on the right ) for the correction. That wooshing sound you're hearing is my massive sigh of relief over Ubisoft making the right decision. Though he's still Jason Brody's Nepalese brother from another mother...

And you can't stay mad at evil Troy Baker. You physically can't.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

I guess I'm a professional journalist now.



The blood sweat and tears that went into my English degree has finally, finally, led to actual financial gain. All $50 dollars of it. I wrote a small piece on a local Latin cultural festival, but I'm having a hard time focusing on that.

I have my hands around an actual, honest to god, career now. It's only been a year since I graduated, I honestly thought I'd be in the service industry a hell of a lot longer than that. I feel good. I feel DAMN good. I feel "gin and tonic staring into the middle distance" good. My education actually got me somewhere... somewhere I had actually intended it to go! 

You should see the ridiculous image in my head right now. Both my journalistic idols slapping me on my shoulder, vicariously proud of my tentative step into a beleaguered but proud profession. Oh if only there were a gif that perfectly encapsualted my...


 oh wait, here we go:


Friday, June 6, 2014

Netflix is back in Black. But also Orange. Because orange is the new black is... you know what? It's not worth it.


Orange is the new Black is back for season 2, live on the web. It's all up there for your binging pleasure. I'm not going too much into detail if you're not in the mood this week. But let me say that if you were looking for the immediate fallout between Piper and Warden Healy... you're gonna be disappointed. 

It really feels like we've jumped straight to season 3. And would you believe I mean that as a compliment?


Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Dark Souls 2 DLC on the way!


I really, really, liked Dark Souls 2. But not as much as the first, either because I could see it's nastiest tricks coming most of the time, or the setting wasn't as inspired. I don't know, I should probably write a review...

Anyway, let's gab about The Lost Crowns! A three part dlc epic ($9.99 a piece or $24.99 for the season pass) expected to drop on July 22, August 26, and then September 24. Isn't that nice of them? TellTale never gives specific release dates...

Here's a link to the video, IGN and blog spot aren't getting along so I can't embed it here. But I can give you From software's deetful press release.

Some mighty fine deets right there. I mean, don't you wanna know what makes an ability... esoteric?

Monday, June 2, 2014

Anthony Bourdaine digs Hannibal



I'm a huge fan of the nerdist network, and today they dropped one of the best interviews in a long while. Not that there's been a quality dip, I just liked this one personally quite a bit. For one; Matt and Jonah sat in, that's always a plus, but I also got to check in on Bourdaine. I hadn't heard from him since his Girl on Guy episode about two years ago.

It's a damn good interview and worth listening to all the way, but the best part for me was hearing him rattle off his viewing habits near the end. Yep, I love Justified's second season too. Yeah, Fargo is pretty damn good. Hannibal?! He watches Hannibal?! Thank god, if anyone would appreciate the food photography (literally one of the hardest things in the world to photograph well) It'd be him. And he just... gets it. Everything the show does well does not go unnoticed by him. It's rare to have an accomplished chef/journalist/author/cinefile in general. I'm just happy he didn't pass on it.

Anywho, check it out. He's a fiercely interesting guy.

...his sexist joke about foie gras that my sister won't stop reminding me about, notwithstanding.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The Watchdogs Launch Day Spectacular!


"Citra? No... no, Clara"

Watchdogs is out just in time for my 3 day weekend that happened to start yesterday. Launch quibbles aside, i.e. not being able to ping my activation code for 4 hours, everything runs decently. But only just so. I didn't invest in a high end PC (GTX 780 SC and a I5 3570k) to run at 30 frames per second. And WD veers wildly in the fps ditch whenever I hop into a car. Everything else is smooth as silk though, and it's a damn sight better than AC Black Flag. The thing makes my rig grind and whir like nothing I've ever heard, but if I'm being honest, it only looks slightly better than Sleeping Dogs and runs about 30% worse. There's clearly some next gen voodoo going on in there somewhere, but I don't see it on the screen.

As for the game itself... I like it. It's a very close cousin to AC but manages to do it's own thing. The protagonist is a raspy cipher, but I can handle that. Your sociopath fixer buddy has more than enough personality for the both of you. The main missions are fun, and the script is better than I thought. When meeting a hacker femme fetale (I know, I know, but just go with it) for the first time, she rolls her eyes at you saying "you're exactly what I expected." It's nice to see AAA video game writers hang a lampshade on their bore of a leading man. If nothing else, it's good to know that they know.It's not like they wrote a racist character arc for him, realized their mistake too late in the game to change anything about it, then had the gall to call it "satire."

Watchdogs is worth it. It's not the half assed insult that GTA IV was (performance wise) and it's original enough for me to recommend financially encouraging it. For all it's familiar choices I can say it's stands on it's own. But can you imagine what would happen if this fails? Can you imagine how much more homogenized AAA development could get? I'm not saying this game is a $60 ballot in the new IP electoral process, but don't pretend powers-that-be aren't paying close attention.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Josh Sawyer Speaks!


It's gonna to be an agonizingly long time before we hear anything else about the next Fallout game. We have Bethesda's torturously mediocre MMO to thank for that. But in the mean time, the New Vegas director sat down with Eurogamer for a chat. The timing seems perfect seeing as I've recently fallen in love with the Mojave Wasteland all over again.

Hit the link y'all!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Hannibal Season Finale Post Mortum: "We're gonna need a bigger body bag..."


He never actually duel wields those kitchen knives. Damn near broke my heart.
I've followed Bryan Fuller for a very long time now. From Wonderfalls, to Dead like Me, to Pushing Daisies, and finally Hannibal. He's become a very different kind of artist since the beginning, one that isn't scared of where he has to go next season. Because he's never actually made it to a third season... ever.

With that in mind, Hannibal's second ended in what I'm choosing to call a bloody, fiery, temper tantrum the likes of which I've never seen before. An ending whose prevailing message seems to be "You can't fire me, I quit!" We will see Hannibal again next year, I'm over the moon with that knowledge, I'd have gladly sacrificed both Community and Parks and Rec to make that happen. Good thing I only needed half a recipe.

But what if this was the end? What if we were all left with Alanna, Will, and Jack all bleeding out in Hannibal's kitchen? That would be some confoundedly grim sh*t made worse by the mockingly upbeat end credits. So yeah, Fuller went full tilt Macbeth last Friday, and made one hell of a meal out if it.

We all knew Crawford was gonna get it, we knew Hannibal would see his trap coming, but damn if there wasn't one little surprise left. Abigail was alive this whole time, presumably living under house arrest to kill in the event Will broke Hannibal's heart. And Will did exactly that.

Thankfully Abigail wasn't just a human sacrifice. She managed to get to Alanna and throw her out a second story window. I for one can't wait for the indoctrination flashbacks for season 3. We already know how fond he is of keeping "pets."

The whole bloody affair was gorgeously filmed as always. Especially the shot with Alanna flying out the window. The way time slowed and the music swelled as everything went into soft focus and then the tiny particles of glass became sparkles? Phenomenal. Better photography than most movies I've seen this year.

So here I sit after gorging myself, week after week, on the best new show on TV. I'm stuffed. Almost glad it's over and I have time to digest. Does the whole plot string together? I'm not sure. The whole business with Dr. Chilton felt rushed. I mean, how long was Hannibal grooming him to be his fall guy? It had to be years. But that's beside the point. I'm not chomping at the bit for more, I'm happy sitting back and letting Hannibal slid into periphery of my attention.

Just so it can come out of nowhere next April and let me have it.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Here's a teaser for Disney-Marvel's first animated feature, and don't worry, it's pretty damn good.


Good physical comedy is a confoundedly rare commodity these days, especially in America. That's why I'll always have room in my heart for anything and everything Aardman produces. Actually I have this whole screed rattling around in the back of my head about how that's why Spongebob got such a strangle hold on the last decade. In that Stephan Hillenburg just knew physical comedy backwards and forwards, while nearly everyone else in TV animation largely ignored it (Dexter's Lab being the obvious exception).

But that's not why you're here; Big Hero 6 is being adapted, and it's teaser is a delightful about-face from the typical "you're so special, you have destiny" garbage that was trite more than 40 years ago. It's just a quick physical comedy sketch between a boy and his poofy crash test dummy robot.

I think you're gonna love it.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Superego's H. R. Giger at Home



What better way to celebrate the death of a great artist than an animated short of a nearly 3 year old improv sketch? I really got to tip my hat to the Nerdist on this one, recently there were rumblings that superego was coming out of retirement and I can't help but think Chris Hardwick had a lot to do with it. So... I dunno, yay? Yes, YAY!

God bless Nerdist industries and long live the Superego Institute!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Superego's Maggie the GPS.


This is the kind of sketch that gets funnier the more times you hear it. Trust me, You'll think it's hilarious eventually. Matt Gourley's spot on computer voice gets me so good it makes me angry.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Superego's Hashimoto Wellness Lab


I've decided to start forcing superego into our conversations more frequently. You'll sit there and take it until you learn to love it. I don't have to go get Mr. Jumper Cables back in here do I?

I didn't think so.


Yep... I still love New Vegas.

You like this picture I took!? I do...
New Vegas found me in a rough time of my life. A lot of my old friends had left my school in the fall of 2010 and I was being frozen out of the scant number of cliques I still had connections with. That was all poured onto the sh*t sunday of a nasty breakup over that summer.

I'm sure I'm not alone in calling Fallout 3 Bethesda's best game to date, and I played the ever loving rads out of it. So my expectations were high for NV. I didn't just want it to be good... I needed it to be great. My first article here is literally a gushing love letter to NV. But I've always wondered if I really loved it, or just appreciated how it helped me through what I call the "Siberia" phase of my college years.



The student body could be spectacularly cruel in it's apathy towards anyone that hadn't shown up to several parties in a row... but that's a can of worms for a therapist, not blog readers. So I'm back in New Vegas and I can objectively say; now that I have a job that I love and a sizable gaggle of drinking buddies, I like it on it's own merits.

But seriously, my steam clock has reached Howard Hughes levels of devotion. I mean, look at that thing! Looks pretty crazy, right? Well what if I told you the first 5 months I owned it, I had to crack it? My school's internet was in a constant bandwidth drought (Charter treated Appalachia like a despot, selling crap internet at jacked up prices) and I could only really launch NV at 5 in the morning or 1 in the morning.

So really, I've played it hundreds of more hours than that. I'm not proud or anything, I absolutely never want to do that again. I clearly needed help.
Pickpocket Snuffles?! Buddy, look at me, I would never do that to you.  
Snuffles, you know you're my boy.


Saturday, May 17, 2014

Did I ever tell you guys about Superego?


As a rule, I can't stand improv comedy. Anyone outside of the brass ring of Greg Proops or Jeff Davis or anyone outside of the Who's Line pantheon just doesn't cut it for me. But last year I ran across the superego podcast which spun me around and left me speechless.

It's like an improvised National Lampoon, but that doesn't do it justice. It's not just the best improv I've ever heard, it's damn near the funniest sketch comedy, period. I've compulsively listened to the last two seasons over and over and I just can't get sick of it. There's things you don't pick up on the first time, running gags years in the making... and Elevator Jim.

I just love them so much. I couldn't keep it to myself anymore.

Buy their sh*t. Do it.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Farcry 4's box art reveled.


Is it bad the second I saw him I thought of this? 

 It is... it's bad. I'm sorry.

But about Farcry 4*...

 It's set in a completely different place with the exact same color pallet... huh. I wonder that since the villain has a hand on another character's head, you play as that guy. Seeing as that's how the box art worked out last time. Maybe you're a put upon citizen of Nepal instead of FC3's insufferable trust fund baby taking up the white man's burden? God I hope so.

It took me over a year to appreciate how maddeningly thrilling 3 was, Let's hope 4 can follow in Uncharted 2's footsteps with style. If you're going to rip off settings why not go with the best?

I'm not being pissy, I honestly think that's a good direction.

Oh and guess what? 9 million copies of 3 have been sold to date! That's 3 million more than borderlands 2! And Farcry was even less of a multi-player game than that! Rumors of the death of the single-player AAA market, it seems, have been greatly exaggerated.

*IGN


Monday, May 12, 2014

What to do... A half assed poem by Alex McCracken.



Dark Souls is over. I have won.
I've traversed Drangleic and praised the sun.
Though boredom now has me in it's sights, and thus,
I shan't make it through a new game +.

 But I hear of something that may break my curse.
A role playing game written wholly in verse.
With it's reviews positive and a cost that's slight,
I have now purchased Child of Light.

It's art is stark and it's tone is striking.
I may yet call it bottled lightning.
But if there's one issue I see time after time,
It's coherent stories sacrificed on the alter of rhyme.


Sunday, May 11, 2014

Community is finally canceled. (and I'm glad it's dead.)


#5seasonsandalifetimeofmemories

It's official. Dan Harmon's stalwart sitcom marginally about affordable higher education is finished. But looking back, I was more than impressed it got two seasons. "That's enough." I thought at the time. "That's enough to land gracefully." Imagine how 2010 me would react at the news it would end at season 5! That's amazing partly because it never compromised. It never tried to go broader in reaction to low ratings. It was always funny and it was always unique. I loved it for that, and I'll never forget how much I enjoyed it.

But these are darker times. I haven't blogged much about it because I didn't have nice things to say. I was one of the few that thought the Harmon-less season 4 was just fine (please save your boos until the end.) and that his triumphant restoration to the showrunner throne had far more diminished returns than his departure.

This was not his fault, no one could have made an amazing season 5. The budget was slashed to even ribbon-ier ribbons and Donald Glover bowed out after only five episodes. Episodes he barely featured in until the last. Jeff became a professor at greendale, but aside from adding Jonathan Banks as a new (and vastly improved) Pierce stand-in, nothing was ever mined from that storyline.

Season 5 felt like it was waiting to die the whole time. Like a funeral where nobody knows what to say. Remember when we did dungeons and dragons? That was fun, right? Hey, Duncan's been gone a while. Well he's back... we've only written one storyline that really uses him... f**k what's the point any more? TREASURE MAP! Now go home.

That's the kind of message season 5 left me. Aside from the bright spots of Troy's departure, meowmeowbeenz, and the Dean's fantastic freestyle in his payday bar costume, I was more depressed than entertained.

Do I wish they could make more? Of course. No real bridges were burned creatively, and no episode was out and out "bad." It was just personally disappointing. If that was the end, so be it. At least Harmon got to throw dirt on the grave in person.

Friday, May 9, 2014

NBC Serves up a 3rd course of Hannibal!



I'd like to go in depth on what this means to me. I'd like articulate why fans of film everywhere should be relived that Brian Fuller finally has a show that will last 3 seasons. I'm trying, trying, to come up with an unbiased critique of the show so far for anyone sitting on the fence.

But I can't.

My id is screaming in my ear and I can't help but join in.

"YES! YES! OH GOD I WAS SO SCARED, BUT YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YESSSSSS!

...It's a really good show, guys.


Thursday, May 8, 2014

Agents of Shield will return next year.


Get back on the front line soldier! Network Television is WAR.
I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm a critic whore. If people say something's not worth checking out, I will believe every word I read. But once in a while I stare at the crowd of unimpressed critics aghast.

Agents of Shield was never Shakespeare, but good lord people jumped ship in a hurry. I couldn't blame them at first. Initially it was rough as a dirt road. I rolled my eyes at the sexy Colombian war lord, I winced at Coulson's flying car, and Skye was a Mary Sue for half of the season. But the scripts were witty and the acting was solid. I also had to admit this was the best show about espionage since ALIAS. From an acting stand point alone it positively blew ALIAS out of the damn water.

So that was the metric I gauged it against for the whole season "Is this as unbearable as the first season of ALIAS?" For the most part it was. They settled into a grove 12 episodes in and the fallout of The Winter Soldier kicked things into 3rd gear for the remaining 6. It's a solid show I feel isn't getting the credit it deserves. This is damn good pop fluff, guys. The fancy three flavor kind you get at fancy grocery stores at Christmas. It's not as good as we all hoped it'd be, but I'm absolutely jacked for season 2. I hope some of you will give the second chance I think it richly deserves.

But yeah... Deathlok's costume is FUH. KING. Corny.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Fargo Review: It's pretty good, don-cha-know?


Breaking Bad ended quite a few months ago and I felt I was let down gently. I'm not exactly dying to fill a Walter White shaped hole in my heart. But I'm always on the look out for quality, and the buzz around the new mini series was good. I think it was because I hadn't been looking so hard for the next big thing (which is Hannibal) that Fargo got to me. It's good. Really, really, good. It feels like the work of budding talent that aren't just parroting Fargo, but have taken apart and reassembled it into something just as interesting.

I've been to Minnesota many times in my life, my mother grew up in Edina, but I can't say I remember much about it. I was 10 the last time I was there, it was always in the summer, and nobody had a particularly thick accent. So the Coen brother's Fargo was just as foreign to me as it must have been to most of you.


"No, I was the English Jim from the other offi- ...You know what? I'm sick of explaining this to you yanks."


Familiar beats from the inaugural film remain. There's a brow beaten man turning to a life of violence, mysterious vagrants stirring up more violence, and a strong female lead in law enforcement. But it's obvious from the get go that this is a format that can work for a lot of stories... hence the fact this is now an anthology series.

We open on Lester Nygard (Martin Freeman who's also nailing the accent) sharing a massive bowl of tomato soup with his wife, who nonchalantly (and oh so politely) calls him half the man his younger brother is. Well that's not true, we actually open on something much stranger, but I'll let you see that for yourself.

Does this feel ominous to you? I was going for ominous...
From what I know of Minnesotans (my mother) they are aggressively positive and polite to a fault. This politeness in my mother's case is, more often than not, slathered in mean spirited sarcasm. Everyone's dismissal of  Lester's machismo hit much closer to home than I expected. The casual racism Lester endures from his old high school bully later on, also rang bitterly true. But I'm not going into any personal anecdotes on that count.

I haven't even brought up Billy Bob Thornton yet, and he's having a grand old time playing what is essentially the devil. I'm not exaggerating. The man is cartoonishly conniving and violent. Thornton is clearly having a ball with the material, incredulous though it can be at times, and it's just as much fun to watch him wind all these people up.


It's the relatively unknown Allison Tolman who grounds the series as a rational woman surrounded by contented sheep. She's the only one in the sheriff's department who sees the connection between Nygard's evasive panicking and Thornton's trail of blood. I'm only three episodes in and the chase already has me hooked. Lester is much more sympathetic than William H. Macy's character, but he's still guilty as sin. I'd explain why, but trust me, you'd rather be surprised.

This all struck me as more interesting than the movie ever was, but for a 13 part mini-series I guess it had to be. Sure, a lot of what Thornton's character does seems to be violently creepy for creepy violence's sake... and there's a sub human set of teenage twins that are as boring as characters as they are bad at acting. But to be honest, the Coens did that sort of thing all the time too. Remember John Polito's son in Miller's Crossing? It was like he stumbled out of a completely different movie.

Quibbles aside, it's a damn good serial thriller regardless of the fact it's bobbing in the wake of Breaking Bad. That fact alone should be enough if you were worried about it. It's certainly enough for me.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

I'm not feeling too hot.



Sleeping has become more of an issue for me lately. Not sure why. Sometimes I'm out like a light for 8 hours. Sometimes I'm fresh as a daisy at 3 in the morning... then not so fresh at 7:30. Either way, I'm not posting as much as I should.

So to recap:

 *Dark Souls 2 was wonderful and I plan on running through it a couple more times.

I don't have a "silly" helmet, You! yuh- YOU'RE a silly helmet.
 
* Last night's Hannibal was spectacular.

I said this was the best body horror in decades a year ago. They've improved since. How is this on NBC?

*And that Amazon Gary Busey ad is just the best. Didn't they do one with Kevin Bacon years ago? I didn't dream that did I?

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

So Close....


You might be wondering where I've been. I've been busy. With work and some other more personal thingys. Also Dark Souls 2. God damn, do I love Dark Souls 2. Not only am I happily getting skewered by the final boss-ette right now, I'm apparently in the top ten percent of all steam players.

Because apparently less than 6% of everyone who plays it on steam has gotten as far as I have. That feels pretty amazing. I mean I also have an achievement that less than 3% of all those chumps have. But all I did was talk to some dying soldier until he gave me a helmet.

Still, chalking that up as a win.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Dark Souls 2 PC Impression: Absolutely Goddamn Worth it.


This is a personal screen shot in case anyone gave a damn.
This is the first game I've ever bought twice. That's how deep I am in this series. To think that four years ago (after throwing down Demon Souls in disgust) that I'd not only love it's spiritual successor so much, and then I'd not only buy it's sequel day one, but it's PC port a month later. What happened to me? You know, besides a better paying job? Damn good games happened. Damn good games.

To be honest, there is no major difference between versions in terms of the overall experience, but the little things are already starting to pile up. For one, I can rock the max settings at a silky smooth 60 fps (on a evga 780) which is nice considering even the PC Dark Souls chugged quite a bit during that lava pit sequence. For another, I can read the inventory screen without a damn magnifying glass. Apparently everyone that owns a PS3 also has a massive flat screen and doesn't have an issue with infuriatingly tiny text.

But honestly? The biggest step up is the loading time. No longer am I checking my texts and swigging coffee during the minute and a half trip back to Majula. Now loading is damn near instant. And that, that, was almost worth anouther $50. Almost.

And it's SO much prettier now. I'm spending most of my time just zooming in the camera oogling the stitching on my guy's leather armor. Stupendous texture work, From Software. Stupendous.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Here's the first Age of Ultron pic:


Would we respect him more if Downy Jr. didn't troll us? I sure as hell wouldn't. It's nice to see some faces of the more unsung founders of the Iron Man cum Marvel saga. That's Jeremy Latcham, by the way.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

"Who preformed this c-section?" no no no no no NO NO NO DON'T... awwwww.


Hannibal has been on spectacular form all season long. The story has zigged when I thought it would zag and it's contrived returns to normalcy seem poetic instead of tactless. I thought they burned through their A material last week with Dr. Chilton and it looks like they're going to take a break from the serial story for a time.

But that means we get some new killers to focus on, and the nesting doll this week kept me from finishing my lunch. I guess it's dinner now. Anywho, if you're not watching hannibal you're missing out on the best thing on tv right now.

Fargo's pretty good, Thrones is holding steady, and I'm waiting on Orphan Black for a while. But I sincerely doubt they can top what Hannibal's got cooking right now. I mean, I was yelling "don't go in there" to a veterinarian cutting open a horse! Where the hell else are you going to see something like that?!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Winter Soldier Review: Coup De Grâce.


I wish I could be contrarian about this. I wish my voice could stand out from the chorus. I also wish I had gotten this done a week and a half ago, but here it is. The Winter Soldier was fantastic. It was both a solid political thriller and super hero action set piece, as well as a damn decent character drama.

This should be the point where Marvel slips up. Where their shtick wears thin, their well of stories runs dry and the shadow of an absent Downy Jr. looms large. None of these are the case for Cap 2, though most were for Thor's second go around. I was scared about TWS precisely because Thor 2 was just so stunningly predictable.

Apparently, they had to go back and add more Loki to the mix. Seeing as he barely took up a 6th (far and away the best 6th) of the film, can you imagine how much more earth we would have had to take? I'm getting off topic, but The Dark World had me really frightened, guys. It wasn't "bad" in a "you couldn't pay me to see it again" kind of way. It was just disappointingly boiler plate. It even walked back it's solitary piece of character growth in the last second, seemingly just to salt my wound one more time.

Cap 2 made up for all of that and then some. I'd almost be fine with all marvel movies from here on out being tangentially related to Captain Rogers. Chis Evans isn't simply that good (he is), the plot isn't simply one of the strongest so far (it is), and the action sequences don't simply build on each other and become more impactful as they go (they do).

All of those things coupled with such breezy editing and a direction so confidant I'm convinced cocaine was involved, we have one the best super hero films ever. The fact it all seems to build to something greater is exciting instead of disappointing. I didn't throw my popcorn at the screen and hiss at the strings of obvious cliffhangers. I was more than satisfied at that point and I understood they had to leave me wanting more. And brother? I want MOAR.

Dude, what are you doing with 70 bookmarks? That's embarrassing.
We last left Steve in the hands of Shield, (a clandestine government agency laser focused on protecting the world from supers and aliens, can you believe I typed that with a straight face? ) after the events of the New York invasion and his struggle fitting in to society after 50 years on ice. He's more than happy to run errands for Director Fury, just as long as he can keep his nose to the grindstone and not get too close with anyone he doesn't already know.

 But something begins to stick in his craw about shield, Scarlet Johansson is constantly trying to set him up both romantically and professionally. It seems he hasn't been privy to all the parameters of his operations and has been responsible for padding Shield's bottom line at the expense of civil liberty.

This whole sequence here is just... I don't even... it's so great. It's beyond the expressive power of the English language.

Cap's not too happy about that, but Fury demands that he stow it, his pay grade isn't high enough for him to explain himself. But as one of the tensest and most balls out amazing car chases I've ever seen will soon prove... neither is Fury's. What comes next is hard to explain without spoilers, so I won't. The movie's called the "winter soldier" so what about him? That's a good question, and let me answer it by saying you'll forget about him, mostly. Right up until he pops out of nowhere and grabs the narrative by the throat. Sebastain Stan dosn't have a whole lot to do with what could be easily misconstrued as just anouther cybernetic ninja assasin (I know, I know, another one?) but he makes it work. In fact, I wouldn't call the "final battle" a battle at all. It's the most emotionally complex finale of any Marvel film to date.

Man, I haven't even name checked Robert Redford yet, and he's fantastic. Same goes for Anthony Mackie who turned in one hell of an interview for TWS. Seriously, I was laughing so hard my cheeks hurt. If he doesn't do audio commentary I'm straight up not buying the dvd:

Will Smith should be absolutely terrified.

I'd just end up recapping the whole film if I got into those guys. Everyone has room to breathe here and nearly everyone arcs in a meaningful way. Except for Dani Pudi's cubical drone. But he has less than a minute of screen time so, I guess sacrifices must be made. It's so much fun and I'm in the process of nagging my friends into seeing it again. It's the most entertaining treatise on civil liberty you will ever see. You wouldn't expect a American multimillion dollar film to attack drone ware fare so explicitly and so viciously. But it does so with wit and finesse to spare.

Add that to an end credits sequence that's a monochrome homage to 70's paranoia thriller posters and The Winter Soldier has exhausted all the buttons I have left to be pushed. I haven't had this good of a time at the movies since The Lego Movie. But I haven't had this good a time at a super hero flick since The Avengers. That should be enough to get most of you out to see it, though most of the world already has. For a film that should smack of stone faced propaganda, that's incredible. But than again, so is The Winter Solider.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Happy Anniversary!



It's been a whole damn year since I started this thing, and I can't believe I actually stuck with it. While I eventually fell into an every other day post slump, I never let the Crackpot go. Even though I really wanted to.

And you know what? I'm proud of this, I'm glad I'm still writing here, and I have serious plans to keep at it.

So thank you all for reading, it means more than you know.


Sunday, April 13, 2014

Blogspot ate my homework.



So... I was gonna publish my Winter solider review today then do something special for my anniversary tomorrow. But fug it. I'm pissed I managed to piss away 800 words after slacking off for 4 days already. I'll do better next year, I promise.



Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Borderlands 2: The Pre-sequal, Handsome Jack Rising.



   I know I promised you guys a winter soldier review, and I know I promised you guys a goty article on Bioshock Infinite... I'm actually pretty torn up about that. I never sounded convincing enough, it read too much like a true believer instead of objective criticism. I wasn't going to change anyone's mind with it, and it felt like a failure in that regard.

But uh... I don't care about that right now, because there's Borderlands news and it is both surprising and positive. The so called "pre-sequal" is set in between the events of Borderlands 1 and 2 on the infamous Hyperion moon base. We'll see Jack at a better time in his life. A less self absorbed/megalomaniac part of his character arc. If that was all the lore updates they had for me, I'd be more than satisfied. But this is gearbox. This is their flagship and they haven't let this world down yet.

Because Wilhelm (Jack's right hand) and Athena (ex-atlus assassin who hasn't been seen since waaaaaay back in the first game) are playable characters. Even if the game is a cash grab, they've proven to me several times over that no one has more fun with cash grabs than these guys... in terms of Borderlands.

I'm aware of the shady BS surrounding Colonial Marines. How they shoved that piece of garbage out the door and probably siphoned funds from SEGA to fund Borderlands 2 in the bargain. But again, this is Borderlands. The most intentionally funny RPG series ever. One that never seems to get the creative respect it deserves. While this may be out sourced to an Australian dev team, Anthony Birch is still at the creative helm, and he's done a spectacular job so far. Even if it gets absolutely toxic reviews, I'll still pick it up on a steam sale.

I mean come on... Jack's back!

Thanks Polygon!

Look at that shiny MALIWAN something-or-other... god I want it.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Ever wanted to see characters from Breaking Bad in Street Fighter? Well too bad!


Animated by Junior Jessman:


Did you see Hector at the end there? Sometimes I wish I could just hug the whole damn internet!

Happy Weekend Everybody!