Martin Scorsese is back with an all new movie about the rise and fall of a criminal. This time the story is about a criminal stock broker named Jordan Belfort, who must be the biggest douche in all of American history. The amount of crime, antics, and drugs this guy does are in such an extreme level, it’s hard to believe that this movie is based on a true story. What’s even more surprising is how funny the movie is. Scorsese is known for making his gritty and serious movie, all which should be watched and studied for they’re great as looking at an art exhibit while reading a great book at the same time. It does have its flaws, but hey, it’s Scorsese, the guy practically gets a pass on everything.

The film stars the someday Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, who started out as a good man, and slowly ended up being, as mentioned before, a great big douche. Now, this film is very interesting since it seems more like a character study of this guy. He firsts thought that the best way to make it up wall street is to make his clients happy. This was disproven by Mark Hanna, played the enigmatic Matthew McConaughey who is still thin from his role in Dallas Buyer’s Club. This guy showed him the truth, and the douchevolution began. He started swindling people’s money, hiring the worst kind of people to start his company, taking pounds of drugs, and even cheating on his wives multiple times. As usual in criminal movie fashion, some government agent shows up to bring the man to justice. This time it’s Agent Patrick Denham played by Kyle Chandler. With mistakes done by him, he ends up falling, and crashing down. Put all that in a three hour movie, with multiple comedy bits, and you get The Wolf of Wall Street.

The main thing that stands out about this film are the actors. Everyone acted in a phenomenal level, one being Jonah Hill. The chemistry he had with DiCaprio is just great to watch, adding more to the comedy bits. Speaking of comedy, Leonardo DiCaprio really shows that he can be a comedic actor. Being a serious actor for his entire career, it was surprising how funny he can be from his movements to the way he presents his dialogue. Not to mention Naomi Lapaglia, another actor who swam from the shores of Australia, who does that weird Jersey accent very well, and just acted great in the movie. Then there are multiple cameos from every actor you can think of. It feels like Scorsese was just walking down the streets of Hollywood and just pulled these guys to do bit parts in the movie. We have appearances from Jon Favreau, Cristin Millioti,  Jon Bernthal, Henry Zebowski, and Jean Dujardin just to name a few. All of them just made a small appearance, including McConaughey, which we could’ve used some more.

The direction is of course great, and the writing is witty as it is jam packed with great comedy and dialogue. However, there can be at least thirty minutes taken off of it. It’s hard to laugh for three hours straight, and at one point the laughs just stop, despite the amount of humor that keeps on coming in. Despite the length, though, it’s still worth another watch, especially as a character study. Mark Hanna became such an influence to Jordan Belfort that he starts to dress like him, start to act like him, and even brought back this cheesy chest thump music Hanna taught him in the very beginning of the film. But overall, it’s Scorsese. He’s the most consistently good director we have of our time. Nothing he made is bad, so everyone should go see that movie just because his name is attached.

Honestly, I noticed a lack of tweets from him around July 5th, as I usually end up on his Twitter account for a bit to look for some laughs. I thought that maybe he was just taking a break, or found something more important to do for a bit. I understood. Today, the news came out of his passing, sometime around the morning. I must admit that I looked around to see if it was a joke, checking sources and such, being that the Giant Bomb crew are a ragtag group of hooligans. But once I remembered that the tweets stopped, it kinda hit me. Well, it may have still not hit me. I’m in this moment where I don’t know how to feel.

I never met Ryan Davis. I never met anyone who knew him. I was just dirt-bag kid who grew up listening to him and the rest of the Bombcast talk about video games and such. Sometimes I would listen to the casts just to hear how their weeks were going. And now, I wonder how I can ever feel close to someone I’ve never met. To hear about his passing to feel like a god has died. I cannot say I didn’t praise him. He was a funny guy who not only shared my feelings on video games, life, and ridiculousness, but was an amazing person. How do I know? How could you not. Everything Ryan did, he put his soul into, which made everything he did entertaining and fun to not only watch from an informative level, but from a personal level. To listen and watch Ryan laugh and have fun was fun for me. I envied the man took his passion to the fullest and created a job out of it. Maybe subconsciously, he helped start this podcast that I do with my friends.

Honestly, I dreamed of going to E3 one day and meeting him there. I cannot say that I did not have the greatest urge to be on the E3 panel for his podcasts, where he would ask me what I thought of the show and the games. I dreamed of having a beer or two with him. Ryan seemed like the guy where names did not matter. He wanted to know you and how you were, and he was sincere in return. I wanted to live in San Francisco for so long  just so I could go to the Giant Bomb office and share hands with the guys. I bet Ryan woulda gave me a hug. That’s the guy he was.

So today, I lost a friend I never met. He never met me, and nor will he ever know the impact of Giant Bomb had on my childhood. That’s all I wanted to tell him. I just wanted to let him know that he work touched millions.

RIP Ryan Davis 1979-2013

In this cast, we go over the epic battle between Xbox and Microsoft at E3!!

Topics:

Microsoft Press Conference

Sony Press Conference

Nintendo Press Conference

In this cast, we lose a friend, but we talk about our E3 predictions!

Topics:

E3 Microsoft predictions

E3 EA predictions

E3 Ubisoft Predictions

E3 Sony Predictions

Samifish

In this cast, Samifish and Vaderfan talk about EVERYTHING.

Topics:
New Guilty Gear community
Switching from pad to arcade stick
Soccer around the world
Black Dynamite
Papers Please
Risk of Rain
Resident Evil: Revelations
Valve and other companies
Technology future proofing
Silvers Lining Playbook
Now You See Me
Intel Haswell processors
Gundam

Samifish

In this cast, Vader and Sami wise up Koshr on the life of a student.

Topics:

Advent Rising

Metro: Last Light

Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil 7

Destiny trailer – Law of the Wolves

Star Trek

and etc…

Samifish

In this cast, we talk about everything Xbox One!

Topics:

Xbox One

Xbox One Hardware

Xbox One Controller

Xbox One Exclusives

Television

Halo Television Series

Koshr

Koshr here to wrangle up some of the Xbox announcements so far released today. So first off, Microsoft showed it off as the Xbox One. I will do my best to leave my opinions out of this post since VaderFan and I plan to do a podcast tomorrow with our opinions. I’m expecting it to get heated. On to more facts. Microsoft went on at length about entertainment features. The Xbox One will feature a snap option that allows you to watch movies TV shows and whatever else while do other tasks. They also showed using the new Kinect to browse television without a remote by simply talking to your Xbox One. Next came the hardware announcements.

Personally, I wasn’t surprised at all by its specifications as listed above. This emulates pretty much any current PC. After the hardware they mentioned the controller.

The controller is pretty much a redesign of the 360’s controller. A big change is that the Xbox One’s controller has a built-in battery pack that does not protrude like the 360’s. The triggers will have some form of force-feedback, or so it seemed from the way it was mentioned. After internal software and hardware Microsoft gave the stage to EA Sports to talk about their new Ignite engine. EA has four titles in the works using this engine slated for the Xbox One. Microsoft then announced Forza Motorsport 5 and Remedy’s (Max Payne, Alan Wake) new game: Quantum Break, which has a thoroughly intriguing trailer. Microsoft Studios will releasing 15 exclusives in the first year, eight of which being new IPs. Apparently there is a Xbox Entertainment Studios which will change television entertainment. This leads into them announcing a television series based on Halo that Steven Spielberg will be attached to. Microsoft will also be partnering with the NFL to feature Fantasy Football options directly on the system. Xbox one will “release around the world later this year” with more details at E3. Microsoft finished their reveal with a behind the scenes look at COD: Ghosts and announced that Microsoft will continue to get the COD dlc releases early exclusively. That finished out the official Microsoft reveal. Since the reveal aired, almost all of the major video game websites have announce more information as well as other developers. Almost every major next-gen game has come out saying that their game will be for the Xbox One including Watch Dogs(Ubisoft) and Destiny(Bungie). Wired posted my favorite Xbox One article so far here. I’ve also found articles mentioning that Microsoft is tying their Azure cloud platform into development for the system so it is possible that games that use Azure features will require an online connection.

Again, we’re planning a duo-cast for tomorrow, so keep your ears to the ground for the heated debate between me and VaderFan.

Koshr, signing out.

In this cast, we brave the beginning of the summer drought with some comic talk.

Topics:

Oblivion (The Movie)

Superman and the Man of Steel movie

Justice League

Iron Man 3

Magneto

Rights to Star Wars games given to EA

What Disney is doing with their IP’s

FTL: Faster Than Light

Street Fighter puns

Halo 4

Robot Unicorn Attack 2

Samifish

I started watching the first two episodes, and couldn’t really get into it. The series were shot like a basic low budget series that would’ve been shown on the Sci-Fi channel. It had basic character plot and development, and the uniqueness of the world that combines the Wild West and Chinese culture is interesting. However, I couldn’t really get into it because of Nathan Fillion’s acting. He was a robot on the set, just speeding through his lines, and not showing much emotion at all. This bothered me a ton since I know Fillion is a really good actor, and great even when he’s doing stuff with Whedon. His character is Captain Mal Reynolds of the ship, Serenety, which would make him the main character for the entire series, the one that the audience supposes to relate. So if I, as an audience member, can’t really relate to him, the whole series falls down. Another thing that bothered me was Summer Glau’s character, River, whose mystery just kept dragging on, and I just wanted to see her stop being a weird child. Also the random Chinese cursing just threw me off.

I told my friends about my opinion of the first couple episodes, they were quite upset, and I got in a heated discussion with one of them who likes to keep things “kosher” with his “fists of fury”. They convinced me to watch a couple more episodes with them, and I still couldn’t seem to get into it. They told me the series does get better, so I buckled down, and continued to watch. Fillion’s acting did get better as the series progressed, so it got more bearable, but it wasn’t until episode 10 that I thought the series was actually good. We get to see more dimensions from each character, seeing them do things that we wouldn’t think they would do, and seeing more human sides to them through their tragic pasts. However, that’s the main problem. It didn’t catch me from the beginning, and I have to wait until later to actually get into the series. The fact that the episodes are 45 minutes long didn’t help either. Normally this is a series that I would like, but I just couldn’t seem to get into it. Maybe the plot and direction seemed way too basic, maybe I cared more about that than the world it’s based, and maybe that’s why everyone liked it because of the world it’s based in. Maybe everyone overhyped it too much for me.

Watching the series I can see how much they based the idea off of the legendary Western movie, Stagecoach. For those of you who don’t know, Stagecoach is what made westerns very popular, and it was the premiere of legendary John Ford and John Wayne. It made B movies great and fun to watch since it has good characters, action scenes, and a very basic plot. I could write more on the movie, but I should make the comparison. The movies and the series have a group of travelers heading to some destination, and both involved a gun for hire, prostitute, doctor, preacher, and a stagecoach driver/pilot. Both involved similar character arcs and conflicts, so in some ways, Firefly is a fan made series that pays homage to Stagecoach. Some of the episodes’ plots also pay tribute to other western classics such as A Fistful of Dollars and Magnificent Seven. However, despite seeing all this, I still had a hard time to get into the series until the last few episodes of the first and only season.

Now, with a series that I just can’t seem to get into, I’d normally be done by episode five, despite what other people recommend me. For me, there’s no reason to continue since I gave the series five opportunities to grab me, but I kept watching for one guy, Jayne played by Adam Baldwin. Whenever this guy does something, whether it’s shooting someone or talking, I just laugh in enjoyment. I keep watching just to see him do something, despite the annoyance or dislike I keep having throughout the series. He brings a sort of balance for me when watching the entire series. I guess I relate more to Jayne than anyone else in the series, more so that I believe he should get his own spinoff called Jayne’s Adventures. It has a nice ring to it. For me, he’s the saving grace of the series, and he’s the reason I think the series is an ok series, not a good or great one. So right now, I’ll finally get to see Serenity, and hopefully I’ll like it more than the series.

We get so many Hollywood movies that are based on a true story, and a majority of them have been changed to make the movie more dramatic or entertaining. Well, it’s the opposite for this movie. The very highly, over the top, unbelievable scenes are actually true, and the more believable scenes aren’t actually true. I’ve read the journal story in The New Miami Times, and I am in shocked with how much the movie got it right. But, I’m going to talk more about the movie and not to make a comparison with what actually happen.

The movie stars Mark-E-Mark as the body-builder trainer, Daniel Lugo, who believes he deserves more in life. After a seminar to teach him how to be rich, he decides to steal money from his very rich client, Victor Kershaw, played by Tony Shalhoub. He enlists the help of coke addict turned Christian, Paul Doyle, played by The Rock, and the steroid obsessed small penis friend Adrian Doorbal, played by Anthony Mackie, or The Falcon. Of course, once you get a bunch of dumb bodybuilders together to come up with a heist, funny chaos ensues. Things always wrong in a heist movie, but this movie takes it to another level. Unlike normal heist movies where it involves a bunch of smart characters, calmly calculating their next move, this movie has just a bunch of idiots winging it as they go on. They fail to capture Victor a couple times by trying to sneak into his house, but abort after they found out he was doing the Shabbat; then try to capture him by trapping him in his BMW, but got the wrong car; and finally they just directly confront him in ninja outfits, and taser him. I didn’t spoil much, since it’s in the trailer, but just the example of the hilarity that is in this movie. And even funnier is that all that actually happen in real life. I’m not going to go into much detail on how they got all his money, but they eventually did and got caught because of stupid mistakes these guys make. One of them being is accidentally killing a guy from ‘roid rage, and leaving a toe with a dog at some guy’s mansion.

I can’t help but see this movie as some sort of dark comedy character piece, despite the fact it’s directed by Michael Bay. Daniel Lugo starts off as a charismatic character, some guy that anyone can get along with, but he has a very short temper, especially when it comes to fitness. He also has this delusion of grandeur, where he thinks it’s up to him to ruin a jerk that has a ton of money because it’s un-American to let a guy like that to be rich. Lugo also gets mad when someone just talks shit about fitness, or his pecks. Then we get Anthony Doorbal who can be viewed as a tragic character for having such a small penis, but he is unlikable because of his idiotic use of steroids and just being an all-round jerk. Then we get Paul Doyle, who is probably the most likable character of the bunch. He is trying to do good after getting out of jail, since he found Jesus, and is the most nice and friendly guy out of the bunch. He was the only guy who treated Kershaw right during his captivity. However, he is so dumb that he can be convinced to do some heinous acts, such as killing a man. Surprisingly, the actors did a really good job in playing these characters. Normally in a Michael Bay movie, actors never really gave a grade A performance, hell not even a grade B, but these actors really performed well.

This movie really works for Michael Bay. It is set in a very wacky world that is his style. His other movies tend to over fictionalize all the action segments, and he kinda over sexualize the women in his movies also. It is hard to find any sort of believability in his movies, but since this movie is based on a true story, we just got to accept everything that happens. It is a fun watch, especially when watching with friends with a great sense of humor.

I’ll tell you right now, this movie is hard to talk about without spoiling anything at all. I’m going to try my best to talk about it, but I’m not going to promise that it will be spoiler free. This movie is another great example of a pure sci-fi film. It’s smart, beautifully shot, and tends to be vague in so many ways, that it makes the audience think. If you’re a sci-fi enthusiast and plan to watch the movie, then stop reading and go watch it. It’s really that good. This is your last warning before I ruin anything for you.

The movie stars Tom Cruise as Jack, not Reacher, who is a drone repairman in a post-apocalyptic ruined Earth. He is accompanied by Victoria, played by Andrea Riseborough, who is his communications officer/lover. The movie starts off with Jack narrating the background of the world, which is that a bunch of aliens invaded Earth, we used nukes to wipe them out, thus destroying the planet, and moving all of humanity to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Jack has to repair these drones that are being destroyed by the alien remnants, since they defend these giant rigs that suck up the Earth’s water supply, and at the same time, fight the alien remnants, called Scavs. Soon, Jack finds a crashed pod that relates to a Scav beacon, where he discovers some humans, and the drones start killing them. He manages to rescue one human Julia, played by Olga Kurylenko, who seems to be in Jack’s dreams. He is then captured by the Scavs, where the Morpheus character Beech, played by the enigmatic Morgan Freeman, reveals to be the leader of these remnants, and told Jack that nothing is what it seems. From there, plot twists are revealed, and cool action scenes ensue.

I felt like the twist was a bit too predictable, since I had a feeling it was something like that just by watching the trailers. However, the journey up to it is what made it enjoyable. Jack has some sort of relation to Julia, and he tries to fight against everything he knows to find out what that connection really is. The movie also hints that there is something wrong with the situation, since the headquarters called the Tet floats around in space like some sort of emotionless angel, watching over the Earth. Then the drones give off a very scary monster aura, which made me question if man really made these machines or not. Then we get the subtle appearances of the Scavs, where they first look like robotic dogs, then turned into a Tusken Raider and Predator infusion. However, the Scavs look a lot less scary than the drones. The film messes with the audience mind by telling us that the drones are good, but the way they are shot along with the sound effects tells us something different. In a way, it asks us what you should really believe: what people tell you, or what you really see and feel. We also get the theme of the film from Stanza XXVII of “Horatius” from “Lay of Rome”, which is “To every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods.” This is the theme of the whole film, which came in full circle at the end in such a genius and brilliant way, it puts a tear into my eye.

The best way to describe the way the film is shot is beauty. Despite how ruined the Earth is, with every monument that showcase the civilization of humanity ruined and buried, there is a sense of beauty built into it. It’s like a painting that one can stare at, and appreciate the beauty and wonder of the planet. In many ways, it’s like the aliens became the second god of the earth, recreating it in a way that is similar to the beauty of nature. Another deep symbol built into the movie. The action sequences are also cool to watch, since they’re not really super fast paced or confusing. It shows everything that is going on, and it starts off slow, and eventually builds up to giant explosions. We even get a mini-video game sequence on the ship Jack pilots. Jack also runs a lot, which seems to be in Tom Cruise’s contract, since every movie that guy has been in involves him running.

The acting is a bit subpar, since each actor didn’t go all the way with it. Tom Cruise did a good job in having the audience relate to him a bit, but some of the emotional seem to fall short with him. Andrea Riseborough does a good job in making me hate her since her character is a stickler for rules, but one scene of her crying is a bit laughable. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, not much to argue there. Then there’s Olga Kurylenko, whose only job is to look worry and be a dramatic push to the main plot. Oh yeah, Jamie Lanaster made a short appearance as a sniper expert/scruffy-looking-man-who-hates-the-main-character guy. He even gets a cheesy 80’s action movie moment near the end, which is always something I love to see.

I have to give a lot of credit to the director, Joseph Kosinski. Not only did he co-write this movie, he also wrote the graphic novel the movie is based off of. He knew how this movie was going to be like before it even started, and he really pulls it off. The beautiful artful sceneries, the great stories, and a great direction really made this movie a pure sci-fi film. If you’re still not convinced in watching this movie, it pays great homage to many sci-fi films in the past such as Moon, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and some of Phillip K. Dick’s stories.

In this cast, we learn a few things about life.

Topics:

Soccer

Injustice

King Of Fighters XIII

Deadpool

Star Wars

Perspective

Slender: The Arrival

Samifish

I was stumbling along Kickstarter looking at games when I should be picking up games like FTL or The Bridge to play and I saw a nice little picture of a game called Risk of Rain, which had JUST started its funding campaign. Curious, I jumped in and looked at what they had to offer. “An action platformer, huh? Haven’t played one of those in quite a bit…”. I was attracted by the 8-bit cover art, the interesting title, and one of the pictures on the Kickstarter campaign webpage that had about 700 enemies or bosses or whatever. Being the gaming masochist that I am, I assumed this game to be challenging. Next thing that caught my attention– free demo. “Why not? Can’t hurt, right?”

When I started up the demo, I instantly went into controls, as I normally do with any game. To see controller support on a demo of a game that just started its Kickstarter was a good sign. It definitely brought the impression that these guys really want this game to be as accessible and fun as possible. I don’t necessarily like using the arrows on the keyboard, as I’ve gotten so used to the WASD controls from all the Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 that I’ve played that any alternative sounded barbaric to me. I hooked up my Xbox controller and started mapping. It took a bit of fussing, but I think I found the best solution. If you would like my layout or if you are having problem finding a suitable layout yourself, just leave a comment or tweet me and I’ll find a way to distribute it, as I do believe I found the best solution for an Xbox-style controller. The reason I bring up the controls first is because I instantly felt the tightness of the controls in this game. I almost couldn’t believe that this was a demo build. The game does exactly what you want and is very easy to get use to, as this is a different-ish feeling game. With four abilities and a jump, there wasn’t much to learn or keep track of, and that helped getting into the fun.

Taken a few steps back, when you hit the start game button, there is a choice of two different playing characters for the demo and three difficulties to play with. There is a nice little summary of the character’s four abilities, as each character has different moves to have different play styles. There is also a hint on how to play each character, giving you a baseline if you have no clue on what to do. Honestly, I have only played the first of the two, commando, because I wanted to get a strong feel for the game and learn how to play the game before I started the other character. Understanding how the commando played, I assume that the same will go for the miner — you need to develop a play style for the character in order to progress. I rather enjoyed this with the commando, as it can be seen that the character can be played a few different ways.  The best part is that the character select screen has about eight empty seats, which hopefully hints at the ability to play this game a substantial amount of ways.

Enough dawdling, on to the gameplay! The game gives each character four different abilities that all have different effects on the enemy. One of the abilities is a basic attack, basically your go-to move which has no cooldown. Other moves, like the Full Metal Jacket or Suppressive Fire have different properties but require a cooldown and therefore should be used sparingly or in certain situations. To top it off, there is a dodge move that will help you get out of bad situations or help you in the platforming aspect. The idea of the game– find the teleporter. Simple enough, right? However, the levels that are produced are a fair size, both vertically and horizontally. Enemies are randomly spawned throughout the level in a certain radius from where you are, ensuring there are always baddies for you to fight. The mass array for mobs is also surprising, another thing that really made this game feel complete. Everything from fat, strong hitting mobs to quick, nimble mobs are included in the game, along with mobs that are a different tier level than most of the others that increase the difficulty of the game instantly. The difference of mobs is very enjoyable, which is a great addition to the uniqueness they deliver. Also added to the list of baddies is the main level boss, which is randomly selected when the teleporter is triggered for use. Unfortunately, after the teleporter is activated, you have about ninety seconds of a mass amount of mobs of all different levels spawning around you and making your life hell as you wait for the teleporter to power up. Thankfully, once the ninety seconds is over, the spawning stops, and you must commence exterminating the stage of mobs, including the boss mob. You will spend a great amount of time trying to deal with getting rid of the mobs, but the boss will just make your life hell. Amazing fun for a game masochist such as myself.

Where the game really elevates its gameplay is the power-ups. No 8-bit action game is getting away without power-ups, and Risk of Rain have a ton of them. I have played this game for about a total of six hours now and I am fairly certain that I haven’t seen all of them. Simple power-ups such as a speed boost or increased health regeneration to crazy ideas such as making attacks explode or lighting the ground on fire as you walk by exist in the game and with fair balancing on the game, it makes the game centered around acquiring these power-ups in order to compete with the increasing strength of the mobs. This is done by either leveling up, which gives you a boost in max health and increased damage, or currency, which is acquired through killing mobs. Both currency and experience are dropped through killing mobs or opening canisters, which are randomly spawned in when the level is loaded. The money is spent on opening chests or interacting with relics(or what I assume to be relics) to acquire power-ups. These are also randomly spawned on the level template, making sure that looking for these chests are a priority in order to survive. This also adds a variance of different play styles, as the only goal given to use is to find the teleporter. Whether you decide to power up first or find the teleporter first is up to you, but both come with benefits  or consequences.  Why is this important? Because mobs get stronger as the time progresses. Even when you get to the next level, which include different mobs from the previous, they keep that same strength, making your play style also a race against the clock. Also, the beginning level is randomized, which is another way to keep you on edge.  There are other things that also add to the gameplay, such as reusable items, but I don’t believe they have been fully explored in the current build I am playing.

A small article, I wrote this thing for a few reason, with the first being to get my writing juices going. The second reason is to attract attention to this title. I do believe that this game is worth being made, and I would love if the indie community would get behind it as well. Personally, I backed this game enough to get into the closed beta after the Kickstarter is finished I am interested on where this game is headed.  I was a massive fan of Minecraft because of Mojang allowing people in on the early builds of the game to watch the game being built from the ground up. It made me feel like I directly contributed with the game, and it was an interesting experience even if it really didn’t. Nonetheless,  I would pay for an opportunity of similar proportions, and I look forward to doing the same with this game. Lastly, as a massive fan of independent games because of the unique design and strong ideas, I feel like it is my duty to be a part of the community in some sort of way, whether it be a direct line to the people on which games to check out or to merely extend my thoughts on the game and to share it with the internet or people looking for fantastic indie games like myself.

Currently, Risk of Rain is doing their Kickstarter campaign now. On the Kickstarter, I suggest reading the summary of the game, watching the video, and downloading and playing the FREE DEMO that the Hopoo guys have provided.  Make a decision on the game, and tell a friend or colleague to do the same if you enjoyed the game. If you don’t have the means to back it, the word of mouth go farther than you would expect and it doesn’t cost a dime.

Link to Kickstarter “Here”

To sum up in a few words, this is a fun, exciting game that seems to be complete, minus the few bugs. I cannot wait to see the final product.

Written By Samifish. Follow him on Twitter @1KSamifish

In this cast, Samifish and Vaderfan learn that they’re not funny.

Topics:

Sports

Bioshock: Infinite

10000000

Risk of Rain

Zillian fraud

Batman: Arkham Origins

Transistor

Sony vs Microsoft

Skullgirls fundraiser

Capcom’s Balance Changes

Samifish

In this cast, we have Koshr join us this time to round out most of the talk about Bioshock Infinite.

**SPOILER WARNING ** IF YOU PLAN ON PLAYING THIS GAME, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS CAST! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! **SPOILER WARNING **

Topics:

Bioshock Infinite

Samifish

In this cast, a whole lotta spoilers.

**SPOILER WARNING ** IF YOU PLAN ON PLAYING THIS GAME, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS CAST! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! **SPOILER WARNING **

Topics:

Bioshock Infinite

Samifish

Evil Dead – The remake of the campy, cult classic comes in April. I know, it’s actually a spring month, but it’s something that every nerd will have to see. The trailers sell it as an actual hardcore horror movie, so it’ll miss some of the campiness the fans grew to love of the original, which might prevent from watching it, but it has some of the same elements such as the necronomicon, the girl in the attic, and the rape tree. Now, what I’m hoping for is that the trailer just wants to sell it as a horror flick to bring in a bigger audience, and it’ll still be a cheesy movie. Either way, it might still be a good horror flick.

Oblivion – The epic sci-fi, post-apocolyptic original starring Tom Cruise is also an April release, but by this time it’ll be so hot it’s summer. This film looks interesting, and I wonder where it goes. We got the cool effects in it, but then there’s the plot of “nothing seems what it seems, and you’ve been lied to”. Hopefully we get a crazy twist, and some hidden symbol built into it.

Iron Man 3 – Robert Downing Jr. returns as Tony Stark in another adventure, only this time the stakes are higher. Not really, it’s hard to beat a bunch of aliens invading New York, but this time, we finally get Iron Man’s comic book number one nemesis, The Mandarin played by Ben Kingsley. The trailers show how great Kingsley can play as a media terrorist that has a confident, cool persona, making him a great threat to the tech genius of Stark. Not only that, it seems we get a combination of story arcs of Armored Wars and Extremis from the comics, which are some of the best Iron Man stories. Then we get all the armors teased in the trailer, which includes the Silver Centurion, Hulkbuster, and Iron Patriot. The plot is definitely darker, with a ton of action, and I’m pretty sure it’ll please both comic fans and just plain moviegoers. It comes out in May, so it’ll be the official start of summer, and the start of Marvel’s Phase Two.

Star Trek: Into Darkness – The sequel to J.J. Abrams successful reboot of the series. I never liked Star Trek until I saw the last movie, and now I’m a fan. This movie will bring more of the relationship between Capt. Kirk and Spock, and some dramatic action that might result the end of the Earth. The trailers are pretty vague in what the whole movie is about, but Abrams never really made a bad movie. He’ll make this film better than the last, and at the end we’ll all be yelling KHAN!!!!!! Once again.

After Earth – M. Night Shyamalan returns as a director in this other sci-fi post-apocalyptic movie. He also has Will Smith starring with his son, Jaden. The movie seems to focus on the relationship between father and son, since Will Smith is a cold soldier, commanding his son who is a cadet, training to be a soldier. The trailer revealed the twist already that the planet they land in is Earth, and now they have to escape it. It looks cool in some ways, but Shyamalan has been losing his skills in the past few movies he made. I’m willing to give him the doubt by watching this movie, but what will make this movie awesome if Will Smith just yells, “Welcome to Earth!”

Man of Steel – Superman returns in a reboot helmed by Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan. I’ve never been excited about a Superman movie until I saw the latest trailer. From what I can judge, the story is roughly based on the comic Superman: Earth One, which is written by one of my favorite writers, J. Michael Stracynski. The story is about Clark finding his place in Metropolis, going to places to use his skills until an alien invasion put him to wear the red and blue tights, and reveal himself to save Metropolis. This movie roughly follows the same plot, but it may be deeper since there was a scene in the trailer where Pa Kent told Clark that he shouldn’t have saved the bus, where Clark said, “Should I have just left them,” and Pa replied, “Maybe.” It’s a really dark moment between father and son, and it also sets the tone of the movie. This will be an excellent reboot, and if it does well, it might set up for a Justice League movie. I’m going to like the movie anyways, since I’m a sucker for Zack Snyder.

World War Z – The hit novel gets its movie adaptation with Brad Pitt as the lead role. The plot is about the start of the zombie infestation, the chaos that it ensues, and it’s up to Brad Pitt to find the cause of the outbreak to find the cure. The trailer shows a ton of action, with fast zombies leaping high above to capture its prey, and climbing on top of each other to reach a helicopter. From what I understand, the novel doesn’t really have much action in it, so maybe this is another way to sell the movie to a larger audience, but I doubt it. It may be fun to watch, but I’m pretty sure it’ll never be as good as the book.

Lone Ranger – The radio drama gets its movie adaptation this summer starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp. The Lone Ranger wears a mask, and is revived from the dead, giving it a combination of superhero and mystical elements, some stuff that nerds would be into. The movie looks fun, since Depp seems to provide his quirky comedy along with some great action sequences. It’ll probably play out like Pirates of the Caribbean since they’re both produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. I might be neutral about this movie, mainly because of Bruckheimer.

Pacific Rim – It’s been five years since Guillermo del Toro last directed a film (Hellboy II), but now he’s making a return that makes all nerds cream their pants. He’s doing the impossible and is making a giant mecha movie! It’s about giant robots fighting against giant monsters, an homage to the early mecha animes. Del Toro has yet made a bad movie, so there will be no upset in this one. I mean, giant robots, where can you go wrong?

Red 2 – The sequel to the last comic book movie with the entire original cast returning. I can’t say much about this film, other than it looks funny, but at the same time, uninteresting. The last movie wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t in need of a sequel. I might forget about this movie when it actually comes out.

The Wolverine – Hugh Jackman is back as the legendary X-Man, only this time… It looks good. The last wolverine movie wasn’t that great with a stale plot, and not so awesome action sequences. However, this movie is taken right after the abysmal X-Men 3, where Logan travels the land of Japan, and is offered the chance to be mortal. The stakes will grow if he does take the offer, becoming a man, realizing he needs his healing powers, and fight a ton of ninjas on top of a bullet train. This movie brings much more excitement than the first one, and a much better plot. I think Fox will get this one right.

Kick-Ass 2 – The sequel to the hit comic book movie, and this time it’ll definitely kick ass. Get it? Because the movie is called… Forget it. If anyone like the first one, they won’t be disappointed with the second. We get Hit Girl’s cursing mouth, Kick Ass’ clumsy comedy, a new batch of heroes led by the man himself, Jim Carey, and much more comedic hero awesomeness. This is definitely a great way to end the summer of nerds.

So, there it is, a much bigger summer than last time. The ones I’m most excited about are Man of Steel and Pacific Rim. I would put in Iron Man 3, but I already know that movie is going to be good. We have a reboot, which might set the precedence for all DC movies, and an original that hasn’t been done before. I could go more in depth about these films, but my fingers are getting tired from all the typing. This summer is big, but maybe the next one will be bigger. It’s finally happening my fellow nerds, we are taking over, and in a good way.

Now, I personally LOVED so many of the games with the LucasArts “Gold Guy” opening and I could probably say that if it wasn’t for LucasArts games, I wouldn’t nearly have been the gamer I am now. While everyone else was wasting hours away on their N64 in Hyrule, I was saving the galaxy from the Galactic Empire one Tie Fighter at a time. At this time, I was still a casual gamer so I was hard pressed to find a game that held my attention enough to play all the way through to completion. I think Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was actually the first game that I ever beat(I was a late bloomer, so sue me). I won’t even mention the hours I spent trying to beat Boba Fett in Shadows of the Empire or Sebulba in Episode I: Racer.

I can easily remember the moment I realised that I had become a ‘hardcore’ gamer circa 2003. It was summer, nearly my birthday. I had been so impatiently waiting for the release of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You can ask VaderFan. We cycled through countless KotOR backgrounds for our computers in the Cybercorps class we shared. I still have a terrible drawing of HK-47 that I did based off of a screenshot in an old GameInformer. As much as I had anticipated KotOR’s release, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had only just recently started playing D&D 3.0 so I was very new to roleplaying. KotOR was the first game that I played and replayed numerous times, back to back, for the story alone. That ‘moment of infamy’ was when I first *SPOILER* realised that I(the character) WAS Darth Revan the whole time *END SPOILER*. Ever since, I have searched for other games to pull such emotional ties as KotOR did and as small as that list is, KotOR still sits very high(just behind the first Mass Effect). With that, I can easily say that I owe a lot of my gaming life to LucasArts and they will be missed, but that’s not all I have to say. There is still a future.

As I mentioned before Disney has shifted their focus of LucasArts from internal development to a licensing model. My first thought is that I hope the Star Wars RPG that Obsidian had pitched LucasArts a while ago can get developed. This might also allow for more amazing third-party-developed Star Wars games. Both KotOR and Battlefront were not developed by LucasArts themselves. They were developed by BioWare and Pandemic, respectively, who oddly enough merged sometime after these games had released. LucasArts being forced to close their doors also sparked Raven to release their source code for Star Wars: Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy finally allowing for modders to be able to more easily make mods for these games. My speculation is that this could possibly spark enough interest for Disney to consider another Jedi Knight game. (How amazing would that be!) These are my hopes despite Disney having said that they were more likely to focus on social/mobile as opposed to console releases.

With that, here’s to hoping for the best. May the force be with you!

– Koshr

To sum up the movie short, the film is about the cave family, The Croods, where they must leave their cave after it’s destroyed, enlisting the help of Guy to survive the unknowns of the outside world. Watching this movie, I can’t help but notice all the basics of screenwriting, and how it is executed well in this movie. We see the family in the world they know of, which is staying in the cave, hunting for food, and never go to the outside world. Of course Eep, just like all teenage girls, does not want the lifestyle her father bestows upon her, and wishes to just travel outside the cave to be adventurous. She travels out of the cave, where she meets Guy, who is a human that evolved into less of a brute, and more of using his mind kind of guy, a more modern human if you will. He then showed Eep fire, a horn, and warning he world will end. Once the cave is destroyed, we get into the first act. We see how the world the family knows get turned upside down, and they’ll have to evolve from there.

Then we get some of the character interactions. My favorite is the relationship between Grug and Guy. Grug lived his whole life in fear, following the rules, despite how strong this man really is. Guy is the opposite, going out in finding about new things, and using his mind to develop ways to adapt to situations. The family likes Guy, listening to what he says, while ignoring Grug. Grug gets jealous and angry, so comedy ensues around the situations, such as putting Guy in a log, and Grug trying to act all cool coming up with ideas. Then, of course, Grug gets all fatherly defensive when Eep starts to fall in love with Guy. Eep shows the typical teenage girl characteristics when they see the cute guy. They get all jumble, and girl shy, trying to get the guy to notice her. She also always listens to Guy over Grug, since she likes the guy over her father. Typical teenagers, no respect for their elders. It took awhile since she’s a hundred times stronger than Guy, but they do fall in love with each other eventually. Then we get Gran and Grug, which is the whole mother-in-law, son-in-law relationship where they hate each other, and the running joke in this movie that Grug always gets his hope up when he think she’s dead, in which she replies, “still alive.”

Now, let’s get to some of the animals in the movie. This is a unique world that is created since all the animals are some sorts of mixed hybrid. We got som frilled lizard hyenas, giraffe elephants, a tiger owl, a dog gator, and a saber tooth parrot, which chased the family through a majority of the film. The only normal animal is Belt, which is a purple sloth, sidekick to Guy, keeps his pants up, and provides comedic relief with his high pitch sounds. Some of the animals provide a lot of the comedy in the movie, since their goofiness are made for the kids, but their deaths are also done in a comedic way for the grown ups to enjoy. One death involved a dog gator rolling over a cliff on top of the tree. It really made me laugh since it is a scene that came out of nowhere.

The animation is great. The action set pieces that are put in are always exciting to watch, along with the characters’ animation and face movement. It’s atypical 3D animated film where all the expressions are over exaggerated, but it’s still enjoyable to watch. Not many things that I can really critique about the movie other than the plot is quite predictable, but I enjoyed watching it so much that I didn’t even bother trying to predict what’s going to happen. The actors also gave a good performance in their separate roles. So this is definitely a great animation film to watch with some friends or family.

GI Joe is back to kick some Cobra ass. I was really excited about this movie after watching some of the trailers, since Cobra Commander is in his full glory with his classic helmet, taking over the white house, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars as Roadblock, also Bruce Willis is in it, and some pretty cool action scenes. However, actually watching the movie, it didn’t really meet any of my expectations at all, and in fact, it’s pretty dull. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of GI Joe, I didn’t even watch the original growing up, just the 90’s reboot where Cobra Commander wears a burette and a skull mask, but I do know the awesome sauce that the series poured over the nerd culture, and I do know how good it tastes. The sauce in this movie is a bit mild.

There are a lot of things I’m going to talk about this movie, so here’s your spoiler warning. The movie starts off explaining that Duke, reprised by the handsome Channing Tatum, taking over a new group of GI Joes: Roadblock, played by The Rock; Lady Jaye, played by Adrianne Palicki; and Flint, played by DJ Cotrona. We get to see the Joes in action, and some relationship history between Duke and Roadblock, which wasn’t executed well since their jokes were pretty lame. We get some feeling that they’ve been friends for years, however it seems to undermine everything that happened in the last movie. We’re missing other characters such as Scarlet, Heavy Duty, and General Hawk, some of whom are my personal favorites from the cartoon. Then, out of nowhere, the Joes are under attack, which results the least tragic death for a main character ever, the death of Duke. We just see his face, cut to a vehicle explosion, and the emotionless expression of The Rock. We couldn’t tell if he actually died. The Rock didn’t even seem to care that his best friend died so horribly, it’s pointless. So, at this point the villain Zartan, posing as the president (Jonathan Pryce), states that the GI Joes has became evil, and Cobra has defeated them, thus making them the good guys. So, now it’s up to the remaining Joes to stop Cobra.

Meanwhile, Storm Shadow, played by Byung-hun Lee, and Firefly, played by Ray Stevenson, broke into a high security prison to rescue Cobra Commander. It was a cool breakout, with Firefly’s motorcycle breaking apart into rockets to destroy the facility, and Storm Shadow using his awesome ninja skills cutting through bullets and a bunch of guards. Now, here’s the problem with this scene. Destro is in the prison also, and all we get to see is his eyes squinting once in awhile and looking angry. Then, out of nowhere Cobra Commander said, “You’re out of the band,” and left the fool to die in the prison. It does not make sense at all, since Destro is one of the key villains in the GI Joe universe, and just to write him off like that is almost a kick in the balls. I have a feeling they did this because they couldn’t get the original actor from the first movie to play him in the second, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt played Cobra Commander in the first one, and they replace him in the second, so it does not make sense at all.

Then we get to Japan where Snake Eyes spars against Jynx, where the RZA plays the blind master, narrating what they should do to bring Storm Shadow to justice. Here is where I find the movie to be enjoyable is how Asian the RZA acts. He really got the accent down, even the pronunciation sounds so Asian it made me laugh. The guy really wants to be Asian; I mean he is part of the Wu-Tang Clan. Now, Snake Eyes and Jynx goes to some mountain to capture Storm Shadow, and the action sequence here is really cool. They use zip lines and fight a ton of ninjas on the side of the mountain, and the way it’s done looks like a realistic portrayal of a ninja anime. The ninjas they fight have to be the worst ninjas in the world since they keep falling, tripping over each other, and can’t hit anything for the life of them. It’s like they graduated from the storm trooper ninja school or something. After all this, Storm Shadow all the sudden changed sides, and decides to help the Joes. Here is where the movie starts to lose me. One thing I always looked forward to when I was younger was the fight between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. We barely get that in the movie, and at this point, I never will. Then Bruce Willis shows up, and his character was a waste, it was pointless to have him here.

Now, I’ve been focusing so much on the plot on this movie, and I’ll be the first to tell you that when it comes to action movies, plot don’t matter it’s the action. However, when the action scenes are really dull, you just can’t help but notice everything about the plot. The action scenes suffer the problem of being shot way too close with a shaking camera, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening, and the explosions aren’t even impressive. A lot of it is stuff that I’ve really seen. Eventually Cobra Commander recruits all the world leaders into a war room, where he then reveals that he has a doomsday device that will destroy each of the major cities. Guess what, the Joes manage to stop him from destroying the world. He did escape, but he never did a cheesy “I’ll get you next time,” line. I was really expecting it when he climbed atop his helicopter to fly off. The plot may seem enjoyable to watch, but a lot of it fell flat. Many characters are wasted, everything is all over the place, Cobra Commander barely makes an appearance, and all the action scenes except the ninja fight aren’t that great. If you’re with the right people who like to make fun of movies as they watch it, this one is good for you, but other than that, it really isn’t worth watching in my opinion.

In this cast, we learn Vader doesn’t know the differences between genders.

Topics:

Dead Space

Super Hexagon

No Time to Explain

NHL 13

Tomb Raider

Gex

Darkstalkers

Street Fighter update

Transistor

FFx and FFx-2 HD Remakes

Saints Row IV

Ducktales Remastered

Mass Effect “4”

Mass Effect 3 Chart

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Kojima trolling about Phantom Pain

Samifish

In this cast, we realize that Samifish does not play new games. Ever.

Topics:

Saturday Night Live

Dead Space

Valve

Tomb Raider and 3rd person games

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Year Walk

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Ubisoft

The Bridge

Watching others play

Secrets in video games

Samifish

In this cast, Koshr learns the topic of his future game!

Topics:

Crysis 3 and the other Crysis games

Pun Games

Voting with your wallet

Metal Gear Rising: Revengenace

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Yearwalk

Fez

Mark of the Ninja

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Names for video game related products

Jason West leaves Respawn

Beyond: Two Souls  out October 8th, adds Willem Dafoe

Tomb Raider

Remember Me projected for June

South Park: Stick of Truth

Samifish

In this cast, we talk about the massive news of the newly introduced Playstation 4

Topics:

Playstation 4

-Controller

-Hardware

-Share Button and other social benefits

-PS Vita + PS4

-Downloads and its works

-Games

–Infamous: Second Son

–Killzone: Shadow Fall

–Knack

–Deep Down

–Diablo

–Watch Dogs

–Destiny

Mark of the Ninja

Crysis 3

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Rayman Legends delayed

How much it takes to make a Skullgirls character

Bridge

Intro- Dance Dance Revolution- Drop the Bomb by Scotty D. – http://youtu.be/DBLnOlzowYY

Samifish

In this cast, all of our little fanboy panties get super wet.

Topics:

Coheed and Cambria

Arcades and getting blown up

Destiny

Future Consoles

Darksiders 2

Kickstarter abuse

Minecraft Dragon

Mark of the Ninja

Aliens Colonial Marines

Immersion

Intro- Persona  4-Pursuing My True Self- http://youtu.be/XqVoutY054w

Samifish

In this cast, we learn why moderators are useful.

Topics:

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor and Kinect

Illumiroom

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Future predictions of the industry

Why we got the Xbox

Did achievements help or hinder?

Unlocks or no Unlocks

Darksiders 2

Indie > AAA titles

Sportsmanship and Competitiveness

Pitched Star Wars RPG from Obsidian

New Assassin’s Creed game

Gabe Newell + J.J. Abrams

Intro- Final Fantasy IX OST -Battle 1 – http://youtu.be/r50bTK49Gzc

Samifish

In this cast, the lull is looming.

Topics:

Dead Space 3

Movie 43

Sony Press Release

EVO 8th Game Winner

Bioshock Infinite

Tomb Raider

Street Fighter X Tekken Version 2013

Minecraft

Intro- 3rd Strike- Ibuki Stage- Twilight –http://youtu.be/_IgY23NBAlQ

Samifish

In this cast, mmmmm….

Topics

New Zelda + Wind Waker HD

New Yoshi’s Yarn Game

Super Smash Bros. U and the EVO 8th game

THQ is no more

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Demo

Dead Space 3 Demo

Star Wars 7

Samifish

In this cast, we make a conclusion about 2012. *Hint: Title*

Topics:

Catherine

EVO 2013 lineup

Pathfinder online KickStarter

Nvidia Project Shield

Ouya

TellTale would like to do a Halo game

WOW will make better employees

Dead Space 3 reacts to your emotions,

MetaCritic says 2012 sucked for videogames

Remember Me

New IP and consoles

Intro- 3rd Strike- Akuma Stage: Killing Moon- http://youtu.be/v5BB1v50r8k

Samifish

In this cast, Vader bitches. About everything.

Topics

Asura’s Wrath

Catherine

Ps2 Shipping Stop

THQ goes bankrupt

Goddess Kickstarter

Intro – Persona 3- Burn My Dread –http://youtu.be/vnQ4LexQr20

Samifish

In this episode, we are all united for the first time since the cast has started!

Topics:

Kinect Adventures

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor

Mass Effect 3

Future of Games

Assassin’s Creed 3

Halo 4

Phantom Pain

Baldur’s Gate

Kickstarter

Slender

Intro – Mass Effect -Mass Effect Theme – http://youtu.be/0bHw0w3wnV0

Samifish

In this cast, we talk about the Video Game Awards! We loved it as much as we did last year…

Topics:

Spike’s Video Game Awards

Lego Lord of the Rings

Asura’s Wrath

Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3

DmC (Devil May Cry) Demo

Borderlands 2

Destiny

Why Star Wars: Battlefront 3 got cancelled

THQ Humble Bundle

PlayStation Hybrid Controller

New York’s Museum of Modern Art in introduce permanent video game collection in March

Intro – Opening Demo from 3rd Strike – http://youtu.be/tfZptGnZE4o

Samifish

In this cast, less Halo 4, but enough to make it the title. And we played some other amazing things.

Topics

Halo 4

Assassin’s Creed 3

Super Hero Porn

Nights into Dreams

Fez

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

Intro- Mahna Mahna by Cake – http://youtu.be/Us4PJgunZx8

Samifish

In this cast, Halo 4. Like almost the whole time. And Slippy is a bitch.

Topics:

Halo 4

Writer of Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine to write Star Wars 7

THQ Humble Bundle effects

New Sonic Game??

Mortal Kombat  returns to Hollywood

Assassins Creed 3

Samifish

In this cast, a whole bunch of shit that lead to a lot of editing. Disclosure in the beginning of the cast. Enjoy!

Topics:

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +

Dishonored

Resident Evil 6

The new Xbox Live champion

Nintendo issues

Samifish

In this cast, a hot gamer girl is our new lord and savior. I like this new religion.

Topics:

The Room

Star War: The Old Republic going free-to-play

Dishonored

Assassin’s Creed 3

Playboy’s Miss October’s new job

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker- Menu Music http://youtu.be/SXGGvsHq6iA

Samifish

1K Crew 2013 Gamepad design

So, since Koshr decided to talk about the upcoming year in a bit of a negative tone, I decided that I should put this year in a little bit lighter tone. I recommend you read his article first before you read mine: http://wp.me/p2de2l-7j. Now, I’m not going to refute his article, saying that he’s completely wrong because a lot of it is true. There are only a small handful of new IP’s coming out during the next year, so it’s really hard to get excited about the next year, but I am excited about some the sequels, along with some other things.

In terms of games, I am very excited about Bioshock: Infinite. Every game journalists has gone on and on about this game, so I’m not going to repeat the same stuff they talk about, and you can look online to fill in on what I would be saying. I will add is that I skipped out on Bioshock 2 since it wasn’t made by the same developers as the first one. I didn’t think I’d get the same experience from, despite some of the positive reviews it got when it came out. So, I’m really hyped about Infinite since it’s been a little over five years since I played the first Bioshock. Now, the next obvious thing is the new take on two very old and popular IP’s in the industry, which are Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.  The Tomb Raider and Metal Gear series have been around for a really long time, and for a good reason too. Now, we get a younger Lara Croft in her journey to become the strong female that we know of old, along with crazy set pieces, and brutality that seems only fit for a male, yet she is able to pull it off. There is also some resemblance to the Uncharted series, but that’s a whole discussion on its own. In Revengeance, which I’m pretty sure Kojima was high when he came up with that title, we get to play as Raiden, but this time as a bad ass super cyborg ninja. The Metal Gear series has been known for its stealth mechanics, and now that’s been replaced with high paced hack-n-slash action. The people at Platinum Games are working on this title, so it’s going to be really stylized, despite how it looks like another hack-n-slash game.

The next thing to definitely look forward to the next year is E3 2013. The main reason I say this is that there are ton of rumors that Microsoft and Sony are going to unveil their next console. E3 is always the place to showcase everything that’s new and big, and if the rumors are true, this would be the place to show it. We’ll get to see how the GPU works for the next generation, how the consoles would look like, some key features to each system, the controllers, some stuff we’ll like, and stuff that we’ll hate. We can speculate all day on what will be shown during the biggest gaming event of the year, but if the rumors are going to persist, then Microsoft and Sony may have to give into the pressure and make their new consoles. We’ll also get to see other things during E3, such as Bungie’s new game.

So, there you have it. Yes, the year will be lacking in some new stuff, but we still have some stellar games coming out within the next few months. Afterwards we’ll get the summer of arcade, which I’m pretty sure some indie game will make the headlines on every gaming website, and then E3 will happen during the summer. It will showcase more things to come out later that year, so we still have more things to look forward to. Maybe I’m being way too optimistic about this, but so what? The fall wasn’t that great, so it should get better, right?

-VaderFan

So it’s a new year which also means new games to play. As gamers, this is the time of the year where our wallets get to recuperate while we enjoy the catch up on the slew of holiday AAA releases. This last holiday season brought us such gems as Lego Lord of the Rings, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Halo 4. Personally, I am almost always excited for the first half of the year for games as this is usually when the smaller releases , sequels, and new IPs(intellectual properties) are released. Some of my favorite early year releases I can think of include Jade Empire of Bioware fame and Halo Wars from Ensemble, both of which weaved incredible stories. Usually, January-March sees the new IPs as wells as the smaller or more clique sequels(2012’s included games such as Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning as well as Mass Effect 3). April and May almost always includes releases of the the first half of the year’s major AAA releases(basically everything released by Rockstar this generation). With this all out of the way, my main point in introducing this is to write a little bit on the next few months of video gaming.

This next year will be one of the best video game release years of all blah blah blah, as most websites would put it, though I beg to differ. We will see many great games including Battlefield 4, Grand Theft Auto V and Gears of War Judgement. All of which will sell ridiculous amounts of units, but WHERE ARE THE NEW IPs? Don’t get me wrong, there are new IPs in this upcoming year but what happened to years like 2007 which saw the releases of many of the new IPs which are still fueling upcoming releases(BioShock, COD 4: Modern Warfare, Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect, Rock Band). I understand that years like 2007 only come around every so often but we definitely haven’t seen one quite like it since. This year will see yet another new IP from the wonderful developers over at Quantic Dream who have yet to create a sequel of any of their games. This game is Beyond: Two Souls which will star Ellen Page of Juno fame(oh yeah and Inception…). This new game will run on the same engine that drove the Kara demo that wowed everyone not to long ago. Quantic Dream has been known to spin wonderfully mind bending tales as they did in Indigo Prophecy(a personal favourite from the OG Xbox). Beyond: Two Souls will be Playstation 3 exclusive just like the next game I’ll introduce: The Last of Us. The Last of Us will be Naughty Dog’s first new IP since the trilogy of Uncharted games that so beautifully blended story and action that it made us wish that there could be a good Indiana Jones game. It will include similar third person action following a pair of characters who are trying to get by in a post-apocalyptic playground of mayhem. I’m really starting to sound like a Sony fanboy(If only there were a new Infamous game coming out!). This brings me to my most anticipated *NEW* IP of the first quarter-ish of video games. -Drumroll- Aliens: Colonial Marines will finally give us the sequel to Aliens that we have always wanted. What’s more? It’s developed by Gearbox? Needless to say I am so down for this game. I know that we have seen disappointment from games with the Gearbox name on its packaging(yeah I’m talking about you Duke) but I don’t feel that any other developer in business today could nearly pull of such a wonderful science fiction world with sticking true to the license, and include all of the nerdy comical references(in any other hands it’d be Game over man! Game over!). Now I know you might not consider Aliens a ‘new’ IP since there have been games in the past to feature the always noticeable Aliens such as the Aliens vs. Predator games. My co-host Vaderfan could easily talk you head off about how the Aliens vs. storyline is a completely separate world and popularized in the Dark Horse comics. I’m going to say it’s new since we have yet to ever see an Aliens game in this fashion(:P).

For the long run of the year, I am super-crazy-excited for Destiny which I have already mentioned in the podcast a couple of times. As a brief recap, Destiny will be the new IP coming from the 10 year agreement that Bungie signed with Activision after handing the Halo franchise over to 343 Industries. We still do not know much about Destiny other than that it should be a whole new sci-fi universe for us all to delve deep into much as they supplied us with the Halo franchise. This brings me to my problem with this year. I have now exhausted my ‘Most Anticipated New IPs of 2013’ list. Quite short compared to how I would like to see it. EA has gone on record many times talking about how sequels are just a safer bet, and I don’t blame them after releases like Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning failing to the point of shutting the entire studio down(I know there was more to it than just the game’s sales). Sadly, this is where we sit as an industry. Video games are making their way into adolescence as an industry, which means that the big playmaker companies are trying to squeeze out as much of a hold on the industry as possible. This causes more of a business approach to the development of the major AAA titles, which I’m not against but it does stifle the creativity and blocks the industry from being able to emerge as an artform as I would like to see at some point. This does, however, allow for the independent industry to boom and I feel that, for the next few years at least, I will be forced into being a player of independently developed games.

To all the great games that will be coming out, and more importantly the many that I will never get to see(Advent Shadow and the rest of the trilogy, mainly!) Good night, and good gaming!

-Koshr

Guess what this podcast includes?

Topics:

Coheed and Cambria

Dishonored

Resident Evil 6

Street Fighter X Tekken

Mass Effect Omega DLC

Darkstalkers

Star Citizen

Special Intro Music this week!

Samifish

Look out folks, this one gets a bit dicey!

Topics:

Resident Evil 6

Borderlands 2

Cliff leaves Epic

Dishonored

Yearly Released Games

Competition in Video Games

Mass Effect Fan Made Short Film

Samifish

In this cast, we learn why jobs in retail are the best in the world… or something.

Topics:

Borderlands 2

Off Topic Retail Woes

Dead or Alive 5

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +

Notch dissing Windows 8

New PS3 Super Slim

Library of Congress cataloging videogames

NBA Live 13 cancelled

Mass Effect Box Set

Owners of Bioware leave Games’ Industry

Mechromancer for Borderlands 2 releasing October 16th

Intro Music- Carnival Stage from Marvel vs Capcom 2-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGyd2bvBQc4

Samifish

*** Warning*** Episode contains spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line

In this cast, the trio are together to talk about Yager’s Spec Ops: The Line, back with internet problems and all!

Topics:

Street Fighter X Tekken

Stan Lee’s Comikaze

Spec Ops: The Line

Dredd

Bioware’s CEOs Retired

Dragon Age: Inquisition

New Mass Effect game

Halo 4

Intro- Marvel vs Capcom Character Select Theme- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMdFMJdeYg

Samifish

Topics:

Transformers: Fall of Cyberton

The Amazing Spiderman

Resident Evil: Retribution

Justice League of America and other super hero movies

Silent Hill themed attractions

Stan Lee’s Comikaze

Crashes

Conan O’Brian and Resident Evil 6

Obsidian Entertainment’s Project Eternity

EA and Obama ads

Wii U release date and prices

Intro-The Rolling Stones- Paint It Black- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Egt1Hq4wpE

Samifish

The Crew still stretching the length of the games we happen to play. So pornstars. Nothing to see here.

Topics:

Transformers: War for Cyberton

Sleeping Dogs

Wii U price leak

Halo talk

Go to #5- Samifish’s Double Headshot Betrayal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evpqaOlKZVw&feature=showob

Marvel vs Capcom: Origins and more Capcom bitchin’

Sasha Grey vs Kim Kardashian

Borderlands 2 skill trees

The Hobbit

The future of our October

Intro – Street Fighter 4 Guile’s Theme- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6uo6Q4q4jI&feature=related

Samifish

In this cast, Vaderfan shares a similar feeling discussed by Samifish in various other casts. No, they’re not sexual.

Topics:

Spec Ops: The Line

Borderlands 2

Brothers in Arms: Furious Four

Sleeping Dogs

More Capcom woes

Windows 8

Archos

Super Time Force

Green Light

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R

Lightning Returns

Halo 4 Tech

Halo Maps

Intro- Elena Stage Theme- Beats In My Head –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWSFAditGyQ

Samifish