2015 End of the Year Wrap Up

As the first full year of the rebooted It Is A Title I wanted to take a moment and look back at the year. I suspect this post could be far too self-fellating for many, so if you skip this one I understand. I'm just going to look at each month, each project, and the few straggling posts that never came to be.

For those who don't want to read this entire thing, this was a good year I think, a step up from last, and a good foundation to do even better. Thank you, anyone who reads this regularly, semi-regularly, randomly, once, or just woke up from a crazy bender to this sentence in particular. I really appreciate it. To another, even better year!

Twelve Days of Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas all (or whatever holiday you partake in)! I hope the season has been treating you well! I don't usually do too much for Christmas, just spending time with family really, but this year my mum and I have been watching Christmas related things to get into the spirit of things. And I'll use anything as an excuse to write more on the old It Is A Title. We switched off picking what to watch each day, leading up to finally watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Day, because what else would you watch? So without further ado, here's our Twelve Days of Christmas for 2015.

Games I Beat: Fallout 4

Fallout 4
Open World Shooty "RPG"
1 Player
 System: Playstation 4
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: November 27th, 2015

Bethesda. Bethesda never changes. Literally. This is pretty much the same engine they used to make Oblivion. Sure, they polished the old girl up, but god damn. It's getting old. There's a trend of apologist behavior surrounding Bethesda games. "Well it is a little better in this way." "They just simplified that to widen the audience." "Well, of course it's going to have bugs, it's a Bethesda game!" At what point do we stop accepting these glaring issues that have plagued almost every Bethesda game? For me, I think I've reached that point. Most of my major complaints about Fallout 4 aren't so much things it does wrong, but things that it just fails to do entirely, ideas that are touched on, but never fully realized. Or even just simple gaming conventions that should be standard for the sort of game Fallout 4 should be. That said, I've spent well over one hundred hours with the game, and will definitely be playing the DLC whenever it comes out. I'm going to be getting very spoiler heavy, as a lot of my gripes revolve around the plot, or at least the plot's structure, so you've been warned.

Road to Justice: Catwoman

Catwoman
Directed by: Pitof
Starring: Hallie Berry, Benjamen Bratt, Sharon Stone, Alex Borstein
Released: 2004
Watched: December 21st, 2015

Thoughts Before: A long time ago I made a vow to never watch Catwoman. It looked awful, I've heard terrible things about it from basically everyone who was unfortunate enough to have witnessed it. Tonight, I broke that vow. I set out on this Road to Justice to celebrate DC comics in all of their cinematic outings. My god. They've failed overall so hard, but this. THIS. If I hadn't decided to idiotically sit through every single DC movie in preparation for Dawn of Justice I would have turned this off. This was probably only the second or third movie where a feeling in my heart of hearts told me to turn it off, but I resisted that urge and saw it through. Granted we did watch it at 1.5 times speed so it was shorter but that only worsened the horribly awkward transitions and made the fight scenes sickening.

Road to Justice: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Directed by: Stephen Norrington
Starring: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran
Released: 2003
Watched: December 21st, 2015

Thoughts Before: I remember this being a fairly standard action movie. I'm not expecting much, but after the last several movies it can't be that bad. I know they used some pretty ugly CGI throughout, and that it doesn't fit the comics very well (though I haven't read those yet, but have been meaning to).  Reasonably speaking though, after Justice League of America, things can only get better from here.

Road to Justice: Justice League of America TV Pilot

Justice League of America TV Pilot
Directed by: Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Starring: A bunch of schmucks
Released: 1997
Watched: December 17th, 2015

Thoughts Before: So, we got off track with this. I can't deny it any longer. It's been such a long stretch of shitty movies, and my friend's life has been rather hectic, so it's kind of been sliding back further and further. We're three weeks behind now, but we will make it up. The movies are going to start (mostly) getting better from here (I mean Catwoman is coming up still...) and things are smoothing out for him, it seems, so hopefully we can get this road back on track. Anyway, this couldn't be THAT bad.

Chronicles of Ivera - Fifth Session

As we headed back to town after our embarrassing defeat and less than daring escape we could see Grief and her men were worse for the wear, putting up a giant barricade where once a door had been. They let us through, though they looked more than displeased. Grief jumped Godfree demanding an explanation, once he calmed her down a bit I realized that Silva had disappeared somewhere between here and there. So I took the clear path set before him, I blamed the entire ordeal on him.

Games I Beat: Dragon Quest Heroes

Dragon Quest Heroes The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below
Musou RPG
1 Player
System: PS4
Developer: Omega Force
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: October 25, 2015

First of all, Square Enix is using this game to hold a beloved series hostage, that being the titular Dragon Quest series. Allegedly the future of that series in the West is dependent on sales of this game. Ironically, this game is basically nothing like a true Dragon Quest game, so this strategy is pretty fucked up. Dragon Quest is personally my favorite RPG series, and if you too are a fan of turn based RPG's I highly suggest seeking out pretty much any of those games to check out (namely I, III, IV and VIII are the typically recommended entry points). If you enjoy the series, think you might or love Dynasty Warrior style games I implore you to pick up this title new. I don't like that Square Enix is holding their own property hostage like this, but I'm willing to negotiate with terrorists. I want new Dragon Quest games, especially those 3DS remakes dammit. (Having written this in the past and having been sitting on this for far too long, DRAGON QUEST VII AND VIII WERE ANNOUNCED TO COME WESTWARD THIS SUMMER! AHHHHHH!)

Also, this game is pretty good overall, just to get that out of the way here and now. I would never recommend purchasing a bad game, unless the situation was incredibly dire. Like some insane man broke into my home and demanded I blogged about how great some terrible games were. Oh if only I were that popular of a writer.

Chronicles of Ivera - Fourth Session

What a day, what a motherfucking day. At least the rogue could lie through his teeth well. Today was almost the day we all died, it wasn't fate, it wasn't because of impossible odds. It came down to pure and simple terrible decision making. At least we live to see the light of day once more.

Games I Beat: Guitar Hero Live

Guitar Hero Live
Air Guitar Justificationer
1-2 Players
System: PS4
Developer: Freestyle Games
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: December 6th, 2015

This one might run a little short, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. I never really got into Guitar Hero, in fact my first experience with it was doing an alright job on the normal difficulty in the third entry, after which a friend of my at-the-time-girlfriend showed me "how to play". He played one of the hardest songs on expert without missing a note and acted like some of god among us due to his mastery of plastic guitars. It was a little off putting. Furthermore, as I did play it more over the weeks I never really got comfortable with how the game played overall. Eventually Rock Band came out and I had the chance to play it at a friends house. The fake instrument genre finally clicked with me.

Chronicles of Ivera - Third Session

As I recovered from my death, near death, our barbarian friend from before wandered back into town. He apologized for wandering off, and we wound up grouping back up. Following him was another tiefling rogue, he asked to tag along as well, to which we agreed with some trepidation. It hadn't gone so well last time. After collecting ourselves we headed back to the Fey Woods to finish our business with Wandering Winds. We manged to make our way there with no real trouble. Winds asked if we would follow him to his druid circle, the Verdant Enclave. Of course we agree.

Road to Justice: Steel

Steel
Directed by: Kenneth Johnson
Starring: Shaquille O'Neal, Annabeth Gish, Judd Nelson
Released: 1997
Watched: November 25th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I have no idea how a Steel movie got made in the 90's. Steel isn't a bad character, but he's never really done much aside from assist around Metropolis when Superman is away, and honestly, after four Superman movies that all left me disappointed and a just as bad Supergirl movie I'm a little nervous when it comes to movie's starring characters revolving around the man of steel's city of choice. I never saw this, and aside from having seen pictures of how terrible his armor looks I have no idea what to expect.

Double Justice: Batman Forever and Robin

Batman Forever/Batman and Robin
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey/George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman
Released: 1995/1997
Watched: November 13th, 2015/November 20th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I watched these as a child, as such I've only ever really viewed these movies as more than cartoons. They've become known for being notoriously bad movies, and I have to agree. Forever sees Batman meet up with his ward who becomes Robin while fighting off Two Face and Riddler. Batman and Robin introduces Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and even Bane for the dynamic duo to fight, and not only that, but Batgirl shows up as well! How could they possibly ruin this? Joel Schumacher.

Chronicles of Ivera - Second Session

We awoke, our barbarian companion had seemingly wandered off into the night. We shrugged it off, and continued on our way up the mountain. A dragonborn monk hurriedly made his way towards us, with the third dwarf brother in tow. After discussing matters we discovered that a group of cultists, including one of the two evil men we saw earlier, were up further summoning some dark force. Erik took his wounded brother and left for town. Our group was hesitant to go into battle having lost one of our warriors, but the other dwarf brother convinced us.

Double Justice: Batman and Returns

Batman/Batman Returns
Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger/Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito, Christopher Walken
Released: 1989/1992
Watched: October 30th, 2015/November 6th, 2015

Thoughts Before: At some point in my youth my mother made an awesome decision to show me all the great movie series. She wound up kind of dropping the ball (still haven't watched Back to the Future for example) but overall I ended up experiencing a ton of fantastic movie series'. The first series we went through was Batman, and damn, what a disappointment. I'll get to that over the next couple of weeks, but the first movie was fantastic. It was one of the first times I was subjected to the greatness that is Jack Nicholson. His Joker is one of my favorite portrayals of the character (don't worry Mark Hamill, no one can top you), even Heath Ledger's Joker couldn't compare (though I think he did great too). This movie still stands up, Tim Burton's vision shines through and really helped this film stand out. Returns on the other hand feels as though they turned the Tim Burton aspect up to eleven. It isn't the worst of the series, but definitely sets up the soon to come massive disappointments to follow. At the very least Catwoman is always entertaining in this movie.

Chronicles of Ivera - First Session

Recently my friends and I finally got around to playing some good old fashioned Dungeons and Dragons (well 5th Edition is decidedly new-fashioned, but whatever)! Currently four of us are playing together; Ivera is our dungeon master's own home brew world where we are journeying through. As far as I know it's an amalgamation of most standard D&D settings as we can use pretty much any rule book we can find. These chronicles are to record the happenings of the game, just because I want to, and possibly for a refresher depending on how long the game lasts. We're mostly amateur players, so I describe some fairly newbish shenanigans I apologize. Also, one of our teammates died immediately because he was being a dick. Maybe he learned his lesson?

DLC I Beat: Operation Anchorage

Fallout 3 Operation Anchorage
Reverse Engineered RPG
1 Player
 System: Xbox 360
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Year of Release: 2008
Beaten: November 11th, 2015 (and sometime in 2008!)

Fallout 3 bastardized the series pretty hard. Going from a classic infinity engine inspired RPG to a post apocalyptic Elder Scrolls with guns. It did reignite a fan following for the series though, even if many still cannot get into, or flat out dislike the original two, either way, Fallout 4 is THE game right now. Unfortunately a day after release and I still haven't been able to pick it up. I'd been playing Fallout 3 prior to release because, well, I was pretty fucking excited to head back to the wasteland. Little did I know I'd still be playing after 4 came out, like a sad little drug addict.

NaNoWriMo 2015 and Apologies

I kind of dropped the ball last month, at least personally I did in regards to wanting to write more blogs and failing to. Luckily, this month I'll keep that trend a-going! For those in the know, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place throughout the course of November. Ever since High School I've talked about taking part, and have always let myself down. Not being in school or working is leaving me a lot of free time, so this year I'm aiming for it. 50,000 words in 30 days. I think I can do it. I'm not sure if what I write will wind up being worth editing together into a real novel, but either way I'm hoping the exercise will prove fruitful either way.

Due to this though, I'm going to probably not post much here for the month (oh look, it's already a week in!). I plan on turning the next couple of Road to Justice's into Double Features (Batman/Returns and Forever/& Robin) which will help, especially since conveniently these movies almost feel like two separate duologies. Aside from that I have at least one Games I Beat to finish up (Dragon Quest Heroes, in short, please buy it new to support the series overall, it's mostly worth it /spoilers), and hopefully something else? Another huge detracting factor is Fallout 4 and Bloodborne's expansion are releasing this month. At least that will give me more stuff to write about I guess!

Before I stop procrastinating from my NaNoWriMo (or at least before I look for something else to use to procrastinate) I do want to mention I originally intended to do at least three other Occult Origins of October. I was considering Ghost Rider, Swamp Thing, Frankenstein (one of them at least), Son of Satan, Tomb of Dracula, Blade, and many other "horror" comic icons. I'm sure eventually I'll get to them, maybe next year for Halloween?

Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed reading so far. Feel free to leave a comment, I would really love to hear from someone who isn't a robot that reads this blog! I'm sorry for the (probable) lull here, but I don't plan on abandoning good old It Is A Title anytime soon!
-Adam

Games I Beat: Batman Arkham Knight

Batman Arkham Knight
Vengeance Simulator
1 Player
System: PS4
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: October 9th, 2015

So the Arkham series, you know, not my favorite series of games really. Look I like Batman, and Arkham Asylum was like "HOLY SHIT! They finally got a superhero game right!" I mean, the first Spider-Man games based on his first couple movies were good, but really Asylum blew it out of the water in my opinion. Then City opened things up, and it got a bit tedious and the plot a bit convoluted. Then Origins, the shady cheap whore of the bunch, stumbled out looking underwhelming while promising an experience mirroring the previous games. Poor girl just couldn't match up with the pros. Which leads to Arkham Knight. It's probably the best of the bunch honestly, I mean, YOU CAN DRIVE THE FREAKING BAT MOBILE!

Road to Justice: The Return of Swamp Thing

The Return of Swamp Thing
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Starring: Dick Durock, Heather Locklear, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1989
Watched: October 22nd, 2015

Thoughts Before: After the original Swamp Thing movie, I'm not expecting much. On the other hand, there is almost no way this movie could be worse than the Superman flicks I've been subjected to as of late. Oddly, this movie wound up leading to a 72 episode television series. Apparently this movie tried to be a bit more humorous, and the show went with the original's "darker" themes. I'm morbidly curious about the TV show, they even managed to get the same guy to play Swamp Thing from the movies in the show.

Road to Justice: Superman IV The Quest for Peace

Superman IV The Quest for Peace
Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Mark Pillow, Margot Kidder
Released: 1987
Watched: October 17th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: From what I can gather, this is the least respected most looked down upon of the Superman movies. I can understand a movie series falling apart by the fourth movie, but how does a series that was never good manage to last that long. Yeah I said it. The Superman movies are fucking terrible. Every last one of them has been a boring mess with very little going for it, other than Christopher Reeve being a pretty damn good Superman/Clark Kent. Really anyone managing to pull off that dynamic well deserves praise. I just wish he had been given better movies to work with.

Road to Justice: Supergirl

Supergirl
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Starring: Faye Dunaway, Helen Slater, Hart Bochner, Peter Cook
Released: 1984
Watched: October 8th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: Yet another movie I haven't seen yet, all I know is this is supposedly pretty bad. I don't really know what expect, and especially coming off of the other Superman movies my expectations for this are incredibly low. An 80's flick starring a female superhero with very little ground to build off in regards to the superhero genre? Yikes, things aren't looking up for our maid of might! (No really, they called her that once upon a time...)

Occult Origins of October: Man-Bat

Man-Bat vs. Batman (Detective Comics #400, 402 and 407)
Written by Frank Robbins
Drawn by Neal Adams
Published by DC Comics
Released 1984 (Originally 1970/1971)

Randomly one evening while playing through a good chunk of Batman Arkham Knight, I realized I didn't really know much about Man-Bat. That night I started on a journey to assemble every single Man-Bat appearance in order, by the next day I'd gotten all my bats in a row as it were. The Man-Bat origin I'm used to plays out a little differently than how it originally worked out. With Man-Bat killing, or at least seriously pushing away, his wife/fiance after accidentally transforming into a seemingly mindless beast. This actual origin lays the groundwork for that, but it's a much more silver-age take on the concept. Zany, if silver-age means nothing to you.

Road to Justice: Superman III

Superman III
Directed by: Richard Lester
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Robert Vaughn
Released: 1983
Watched: September 28th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I know nothing about this movie other than it's apparently bad and that one time Superman hung out with Richard Pryor. Strange. I don't really know what to think, and I don't think an established villain even bothers showing up. Before deciding to start down this road of justice I thought I'd never watch this movie. I'm a little disappointed that I'm breaking that vow. When do we get to the good stuff?

Games I Beat: Ninja Baseball Batman

Ninja Baseball Batman
Beat 'Em Up
1-4 Players
System: Arcade
Developer: Irem Corporation
Year of Release: 1993
Beaten: September 24th, 2015

This, this is the sort of game that causes me to love the medium so. Four ninja baseball batmen must travel across the United States to recover pieces of a precious stolen Babe Ruth statue. This is one of the wackiest beat 'em ups I've played and I loved every second of it. Sadly, when it originally released it was pretty much ignored across the board. It's gotten some of the recognition is deserves in more recent years at least. Anyone who enjoys solid beat 'em ups and cartoons antics owes it to themselves to check this out.

Road to Justice: Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Ray Wise, Dick Durock, Adrienne Barbeau, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1982
Watched: September 24th, 2015

Thoughts Before: Having never watched this I'm not sure what to expect. Actually, writing this led to me finding out Wes fucking Craven wrote and directed this. So I guess this is in memorial to him. I assume this is going to be a corny monster movie, I saw the suit by accident earlier. I'm not expecting much.

Road to Justice: Superman II The Donner Cut

Superman II The Richard Donner Cut
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp
Released: 1980 (2006)
Watched: September 17th, 2015

Thoughts Before: This one I remember a lot better, there were some silly moments to be sure (specifically that weird cape attack..) but I've never seen the Richard Donner Cut. It's kind of interesting. Back in the day Donner got kicked off the project for whatever reason, and Richard Lester finished the original version. Eventually though, some lost footage was found, and someone decided to reedit the film to be as close to Donner's vision as possible. I'm excited to see the changes, but hopefully it doesn't make the movie more similar to the first...

Road to Justice: Superman

Superman
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando
Released: 1978
Watched: September 10th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I watched this one a long time ago along with the sequel. Having watched them back to back I can't really remember what happened in each of the movies. I do remember liking them, and Christopher Reeve makes a damn fine Superman. A Justice League movie starring Adam West, Lynda Carter and Christopher Reeve, that could have been awesome. Anyway, after seeing this I'm sure I'll believe a man can fly.

ROM Hacking Diary - Entry Three

A ton of busy work later and I finally accomplished adding in every evolution introduced in generation four! ... With some minor exceptions. First, some of the sprites didn't really hold up very well during the conversion process. Almost all of them were "good enough" (I'm still hoping to find some way to fix them but for now, eh) except for Gallade. Just... Look at him.

ROM Hacking Diary - Entry Two

Huzzah! One of my first major hurdles was passed today, adding in new Pokemon. Wow, what a bitch that turned out to be. I don't want to add in new Pokemon, but as Fire Red is a third generation game any Pokemon introduced from the fourth generation up are left out. Really, I just want to add evolutions of Pokemon already present in the game.

The first problem is the size of the sprites in the DS era of Pokemon games are larger than the GBA games, which is an obvious first problem. Luckily I found a complete database of DS era sprites resized without artifacts on the Pokecommunity, a great forum that I've sporadically followed since I've had internet access really.

Fangasm: The Secret of Cinnabar Mansion

The Secret of Cinnabar Mansion
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Involuntary Twitch
Year of Release: 2015
Download Here

Made for the website Relic Castle's Game Jam 2015, The Secret of Cinnabar Mansion is a short plot-centric Pokemon fan game made with RPG Maker. Anyone who knows about early Pokemon lore knows what the titular secret is in reference to, the creation of Mewtwo. So from the get go it's kind of obvious what you're getting into. Is this short little game worth your time?

ROMhacking Diary - Entry One

Obviously, I love video games, so it stands to reason that for as long as I can recall I've wanted to make my own. I've made small attempts in the past, reading through a book for making games in Flash, messing around with RPG Maker XP, but I've never made any real headway. Recently I decided to actually do something, anything. Somehow ROM hacking Pokemon Fire Red was what I ended up looking into. For several weeks I read through as many beginner's guides and tutorials that I could find, and finally I feel comfortable starting.

Road to Justice: The New Original Wonder Woman

The New Original Wonder Woman Plus Episode 2
Directed by: Leonard Horn/Barry Crane
Starring: Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner, Christine Belford, Lynda Day George
Released: 1975/1976
Watched: August 31st, 2015

Thoughts Before: Originally I wanted to watch the 1974 Wonder Woman movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, but it apparently wasn't very Wonder Woman-y and I couldn't easily find a copy. Instead we went with the pilot for the show that actually got made. I looked up a list of the "best" episodes of the show, and the second one was among the list, so we threw those in as well. All I know about this show is Wonder Woman twirling to transform, which didn't show up until later in the show apparently. I don't really have any thoughts about this show, other than I'm kind of excited to finally watch a bit of it.

Summer of Screams: Man-Thing (Fear #10-19)

Man-Thing (Adventures into Fear #10-19)
Written by Gerry Conway (10), Steve Gerber (11-19)
Drawn by Harry Chaykin (10), Rich Buckler (11), Jim Starlin (12), Val Mayerik (13-19)
Published by Marvel
Released 1972

Man-Thing is a character I wasn't too familiar with. Sure I knew that which knows fear burns at the touch of the Man-Thing, but beyond that I wasn't too familiar with the big slimy oaf. First appearing in Adventures into Fear, which started out as just Fear for the first nine issues (which look to be just reprints of older stories), the book started focusing on Man-Thing with issue ten. There were still a couple back up stories, mostly fairly lame horror stories, but wound up phasing them out completely by issue fifteen. For ten issues Man-Thing carried the book, setting up the character rather effectively. The real main character though has to be the narration, Man-Thing doesn't think in a traditional manner of speaking, and these narrations boxes drive that point home really well.

Road to Justice: Batman '66

Batman
Directed by: Leslie H. Martinson
Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin
Released: 1966
Watched: August 24th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I haven't seen this one, though I do have a basic familiarity with the most common tropes of this show. Knowing that there is going to be an overdose of cheese I think it should be easier to take. Still expecting to groan more than anything though.

Road to Justice

I know I'm still in the middle of Summer of Screams, which I hope to still get a few more entries in even if it slips a bit into September, but time is of the essence. On March 28th, 2016 Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice is coming to theaters, and on that day we will be ready. This is the Road to Justice.

Road to Justice Schedule

For no good reason a friend and I have planned out a thirty one week long movie marathon, to watch every single DC related movie before Dawn of Justice comes out. Our schedule will bring us right up to the week of release. There's a lot of garbage to trudge through, and sadly a lot of garbage I had hoped to keep out of my life forever, but we're committed. I've decided to write my thoughts on these movies, as what would be a better time to do so? Expect one movie a week.

These blogs will probably be pretty short in general, I plan to briefly talk about my thoughts going into the film, whether I've seen it or not and what I'm expecting. Then a bit about my thoughts on the movie having freshly seen it. I've also looked into a lot of bonus material to watch alongside these movies (old serials, old cartoons, fan films, cartoon shorts, etc.) and I'll talk about them as well (didn't watch anything along with the first movie though sadly). To finish each one off I'll write about the best part of the movie or the worst part of the movie, depending on what stands out more.

As always, a sincere thank you to anyone who visits here regularly, or even just stumbles on this and gives it a serious look through. Refer to the schedule for the movies here, or above, if you want to watch along, or just want to see when I'll get around to talking about specific movies. We did have to drop a few, and a few are technically TV pilots, but I wanted to include as much stuff as possible. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I'm sure too! And yes, I did plan out a Marvel movie marathon, but that won't come around until early 2018.

-Adam

Summer of Screams: Salad Fingers Where's May Gone Act 1

Salad Fingers Where's May Gone - Act 1
Point and Click Adventure
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Geg Games
Year of Release: 2015
Available Here

Salad Fingers is an incredibly odd phenomenon. My group of friend stumbled upon in him back in early high school, and it's quirky style was right up our mostly demented alley. David Firth is the man behind Salad Fingers, and while Salad Fingers and his lust for rust is thoroughly entertaining, he has done some other really great, creepy, off the wall short cartoons that I truly adore. You can find it all on his website, Fat-Pie. Sadly I'm not here to talk about David Firth and all of his off beat creations. I'm here to talk about a very strange, seemingly fan, effort to turn Salad Fingers into a video game. On the one hand I'm certainly not against the idea, especially not in the form of a point and click adventure game, but from the get go things seem amateurish.

Summer of Screams: Wanpaku Graffiti - Splatterhouse

Wanpaku Graffiti - Splatterhouse
Horror 'Em Up
1 Player
System: Famicom
Developer: Namcot
Year of Release: 1989
Beaten: July 4th, 2015
Translation: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/212/

Splatterhouse, a horror beat 'em up series, is a series I didn't get into until it was all over actually, a new one came out for the PS3/360 several years after the entry prior to that and sadly it seems like it didn't sell well enough for Namco to keep the series going. A damn shame, but like the terror mask itself, the series could see another resurrection someday. The PS3 entry is the one that I first played, and I absolutely loved it. There were some frustrating moments, but for the most part the game was delightful. Odd use of the word I suppose. The first three games in the series were all collected on the new version which is amazing, so I was able to play almost the entire series. Wanpaku Graffiti is a Famicom exclusive game with a strange "SD" take on the franchise. "SD" meaning super-deformed, basically chibi. If it's all gobbledegook to you, it just means it's a cutesy take on the series, a well established horror series. The result is surprisingly great.

Freemium Perdition: Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light

Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light
Super Light RPG
1 Player
System: Android
Developer: Square Enix
Year of Release: 2015

I should not be able to play this game. It was released in Singapore, meaning it has a full English translation, but isn't officially released. Of course it is free to play, and if you can find the apk files for it you can easily install it on your android device and give it a shot. It's a strange feeling getting to play a new Dragon Quest in English, especially when even with a full English translation they still don't give it to us. Square Enix, you guys are scum bags. I speak for the entire West when I ask that you stop holding Dragon Quest games hostage, but of course you won't listen. Damn.

Summer of Screams: Luigi's Mansion

Luigi's Mansion
Who Ya Gunna Call Action
1 Player
System: Gamecube
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Year of Release: 2001
Beaten: A while back

As a launch title, and the first "real" game starring Luigi (Mario is Missing! preceded it, but I'm not sure if Nintendo really recognizes that game) Luigi's Mansion was honestly a bit of a let down. I wish I could say I saw past the weird premise and was looking forward to the game, but worse than any negative feelings towards the game I was wholly apathetic. Eventually I wound up playing a friend's copy and realized just what a pleasant game awaited. Years later, and out of seemingly nowhere, a sequel came out for the 3DS. While it changed the overall game progression a bit the same ghost vacuuming action was left intact.

Farewell Iwata: Balloon Fight

Balloon Fight
Balloon Arena Fighter
1-2 Players
System: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Year of Release: 1985
Beaten: Years ago on Animal Crossing!

On July 11th, 2015, Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, passed away suddenly. He contributed to several quality games early in his career and rose through the ranks quickly from programmer, to president of HAL Labs, to president of Nintendo. I can't find many games that he was the lead programmer of, as he mostly helped solve complex problems with other games. The earliest game I could find that he was mostly responsible for is Balloon Fight, a quirky game that always stuck out to me for some reason.

Summer of Screams: Through the Woods

Through the Woods
Written and Drawn by Emily Carroll
Published by Independent
Released 2014

Fun fact, I've had a fully written and edited blog entry for a non-WTF comic book finished since March. I haven't posted it for some fairly idiotic reasoning revolving around how I want the picture of the cover to look. Needless to say I am throwing all that concern out the window to write about this comic. I'd never really heard of Emily Carroll before I discovered this delightful little bundle of stories. Apparently she makes creepy comics and posts them all the time on her website. If you're interested, check it out.

Games I Beat: Gun

Gun
Mostly Open World Western
1 Player
System: Playstation 2
Developer: Neversoft
Year of Release: 2005
Beaten: July 5th, 2015

With Red Dead Redemption being one of my favorite games of all time, and Red Dead Revolver not quite living up to it's sequel, it's a damn shame I've waited so long to play Gun. While limited in scope due to the year it came out, the game still manages to feel mostly like an accurate depiction of the Old West. There are many tropes in the genre, and many of them show up here. Vengeance, corrupt lawmen, working alongside "savages" to take them down, storming a fort with cannons, a past that reflects the heroes eventual destiny, it's all here. I understand many don't enjoy the genre, and for those people I highly doubt this will win them over, but for fans, this game is a special treat well worth hunting down.

Summer of Screams: It Follows

It Follows
Directed by: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto
Released: 2014 (Cannes)/2015

Like any good horror story, I can't really recall where I heard about this movie from. After looking it up on Rotten Tomatoes my interest was split, while it had high ratings, the description was a little iffy. "After a strange sexual encounter, a teenager finds herself haunted by nightmarish visions and the inescapable sense that something is after her." I'm so glad I decided to give it a go. It seems a little odd to say, but this awkward little movie is a contender among my top favorite horror movies.

Summer of Screams

Hullo all, after a month away I'm ready to get back into this blog. I finished up another term of school, and have just been relaxing since. Unless a job opportunity presents itself I'm looking at a couple of months of free time, and that will hopefully show here. Weirdly, I've been really in the mood for some spooky scary skeleton type of stuff, horror films, comics, games, whatever. Usually I like to wait until October to celebrate Halloween with spooky stuff, but at this point I'm beyond human reason. So through August expect sporadic posts about spooky scary skeletal horror material that sends shivers down your spine.

As per usual I don't have too strict of a plan heading into this, but I'm going to post normal blogs alongside any Summer of Screams entries. Like I said, I could talk about just about anything if it's spooky scary at all, and I have something to say about it. I already have a few really good ideas in mind as I just watched and read some pretty spooky things. If anyone happens to read this and knows of some good horror stuff I'd love to hear about it! If it's really unknown I'm more likely to write about it, but I'm sure there are plenty of more mainstream horror goodness I've managed to avoid somehow.

Thank you so much to anyone who reads and enjoys this blog! I hope you enjoy my romp down horror lane, hopefully we survive the trip!
-Adam

Games I Beat: Bloodborne

Bloodborne
Action Adventure
1 Player/Limited Multiplayer
System: PS4
Developer: From Soft
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: May 7th, 2015

Bloodborne, the reason I picked up a PlayStation 4. I remember those first few moments I played of this at a friend's house, getting my ass kicked and feeling like none of my copious hours of experience with previous Souls games (yes this isn't technically part of that series, but come on) had transferred over to this one. That was the first of many shades of Demon's Souls I felt whilst playing. Eventually I managed to get over that initial difficulty spike, having adjusted to the new mechanics and made my way through Yharnam, purging the beasts from the land. I can't say it wasn't worth going through the trouble of purchasing a new system, but I don't know how much I'll find myself wandering back onto those crowded streets.

Freemium Perdition: Marvel Future Fight

Marvel Future Fight
Supremely Simplistic Beat 'Em Up
1 Player
System: Android
Developer: Netmarble
Year of Release: 2015

Another free to play game, and so soon. Sheesh. As a tie in to Age of Ultron Marvel released a simplistic beat 'em up called, you guessed it, Marvel Future Fight. In this game you control a small squad of three heroes and you go through incredibly basic maps beating up bad guys leading to a stronger boss character with all of your actions controlled by a stamina bar and progress being slower than molasses. As far as free to play games are concerned, you could do worse.

Pulp of a Dead Horse: Mario Kart 8

Mario Kart 8
Kart Racing
1-2 Players (Local) 1-12 (Online)
System: Wii U
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Year of Release: 2014
Beaten: July 20th, 2014

(Wow, this wound up being way larger than I expected. If you just want to see my opinions on the levels and the DLC overall the levels are bolded throughout, and the last few paragraphs are my actual criticism, plus a bonus?)

I haven't stopped playing this, I can't really put my finger on it, but something about this game has worked its way into my psyche and somehow I'm always up for a round of this game. I've always liked Mario Kart, but I've never really been too into them. I think DS is the closest runner up in terms of play time and interest. With 8 I found myself dreading three starring each Grand Prix as that meant a little less content to work through, contrary to some of my initial complaints. Before the latest DLC came out I was finishing up the game, I managed a three star on the final cup but I didn't want to stop. So I decided I'd go for some time trials, something I never really do, I had already done a cup and half's worth, so I figured I'd do about that many. In that sitting I wound up beating every single time trial available. In a desperate attempt to forcibly extend my play session, short of booting up some multiplayer (like a normal person), I decided to collect all the stamps, Miiverse exclusive things of no real importance, which unlock one by one by beating a Grand Prix in 1st as every character. Again, all in the same sitting. I fucking love Mario Kart 8.

Freemium Perdition: Final Fantasy: Record Keeper

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper
Turn Based Battle Simulator
1 Player
System: Android
Developer: DeNa
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: April 11th, 2015

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper is a free to play game for smart phones. The basis of which is that you play the titular role of the Record Keeper (or work for him, honestly I skipped a lot of the introduction), but things have gone awry. Now it is up to you to team up with heroes throughout the multiverse to fix problems and keep the records straight. This is a weird game to write about. I quickly learned my lesson in regards to free to play games, so a game has to offer something unique or very interesting to lure me in while toting "premium currencies" or the like. For the most part Record Keeper doesn't abuse this payment model, as is so easy to do. Which is good because for a game with a premise like that to be squandered on ridiculous fees would be a shame.

Too bad being designed for phones does it no justice.

WTF Did I Just Read? The Spectre #1

The Spectre #1 "The Sinister Lives of Cap'n Skull"
Written by Gardner Fox
Art by Murphy Anderson
Published by DC Comics
Released 1967

Comics sure have changed a lot over the years haven't they? Wow. I really cannot prepare you for the plot of this issue, so I'll just introduce the Spectre. Honestly I'm mostly familiar with the Post-Crisis DC universe, so going back into the Silver Age is definitely different. Needless to say in this version of reality the Spectre seems to be just a ghostly crime fighter who works alongside Jim Corrigan, a police officer. I'm used to him being the vengeance of god made flesh possessing old Jimmy, but the 60's were a simpler time. Mostly appearing in random one off appearances in anthology comics this was the Spectre's first solo series. While it only lasted ten issues, today we are going to talk about just the first.

Double Feature: Hotline Miami/2: Wrong Number

Hotline Miami/Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
Top-down Murder Simulation
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Dennaton Games
Year of Release: 2012/2015
Beaten: March 15th, 2015

I suppose this game warrants a bit of a warning. While this game speaks to me in ways others games can't, I'm sure the message it's screaming at others is quite the opposite. This is a brutally violent game, it has insane characters committing deranged acts and the entire point of the game is to rapidly and dementedly kill as many people as you can. Needless to say, Hotline Miami is a perfect game.

Oh, also the hover text has been replaced with links to some of my favorite songs from these games, so enjoy!

Five Nights of Tedium: Kicking it with Freddy

Five Nights at Freddy's
Stress Simulator
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Scott Cawthon
Year of Release: 2014

I feel like I really don't even need to say anything about this game. For some god forsaken reason I felt compelled to play through this series, though I don't know why as I'm already caught up on both how the game works and the plot behind the games. Honestly that's the only real reason I was even interested in the game. The gameplay looked like (and plays like) shit to me, but the idea of a haunted children's party place is really interesting to me. Plus the fact the developer allegedly made this game out of spite for people who insulted how his characters looked too much like animatronics in his older games makes me respect him a bit more. While I understand why this game blew up in popularity via internet videos, I honestly don't think it's necessarily deserved.

Games You Should (Maybe) Play: State of Decay

State of Decay
Zombie Apocalypse Simulation
1 Player
System: Xbox Live Arcade
Developer: Undead Labs
Year of Release: 2013
Beaten: January 2nd, 2014

In a move risking the integrity of this series in just the second entry I present to you State of Decay, a game you MIGHT want to play. While originally I meant for this series to showcase only truly outstanding games, I'm making a special case for this one due in part because I beat it so long ago and writing it as a "Games I Beat" entry feels disingenuous, more importantly though since reviving this blog I've talked plenty about Nintendo games, and a decent amount of Sony with a smattering of PC gaming getting mentioned too. Aside from other legacy consoles Microsoft was the only one getting the shaft on the console side of things. I've been meaning to make up for that for a while now, I have an unpublished document on here called "xbox games", yeah not even capitalized or anything. The list is... pretty small actually. A lot of the games I truly loved on Xbox were multiplatform, and I didn't want to represent a console based on a game that you can get somewhere else (ironically most of my Sony games are also multiplatform, but I argue that I started off with exclusives!). So we come to the State of Decay, an interesting, though flawed, experience unlike most similar games.

Games I (Mostly) Beat: The Basement Collection

The Basement Collection
Flash Game Collection
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Edmund McMillen and His Amazing Friends!
Year of Release: 2012 (2001-2009)
Beaten: March 5th, 2015

Edmund McMillen has made two of my favorite games of all time. Super Meat Boy is one of the best platformer games I've ever played, frantic yet precise, the game quickly devolves into chaos as obscenities are shouted at the screen and countless meat boys carelessly throw themselves to their death all in the name of true love. The Binding of Isaac is a love letter to the original Legend of Zelda with a rouge-like paint and some possibly heavy religious overtones, though a lot of typically dark subject matter is addressed in the game it manages to handle it well and keep a lighthearted tone and feeling for the most part. Before these games McMillen made a lot of games using Flash that were posted to Newgrounds. I haven't even thought about that site in a long time, I used to visit it all the time. A lot of these games have truly unique ideas (or at least rarely utilized ideas) and for that reason might hold merit, but for the most part I found this to be a really disappointing collection. Also, this is a collection of FREE games that will cost you four dollars. On the one hand, you do get a bunch of extra content, and McMillen is interesting enough to warrant looking into this (if you're a fan), but on the other these are still freely available online. Needless to say that's a little awkward.

Double Feature: Gunman Clive

Gunman Clive/Gunman Clive 2
Action Platformer
1 Player
System: 3DS
Developer: Hörberg Productions
Year of Release: 2013/2015
Beaten: February 25th, 2015

Originally released for iPhones to less than stellar success, Gunman Clive got the recognition it deserved after being ported to Nintendo's 3DS eshop. This success lead to a sequel getting made exclusively for the 3DS, after a few delays it finally came early this year. I caught wind of the first game some time before release and it took little more than the trailer to get me excited for the game:

Games I Beat: Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire

Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire
Fucking Pinball
1 Player
System: GBA
Developer: Jupiter
Year of Release: 2003
Beaten: February 17th, 2015

I planned to start this off differently but, if you couldn't put two and two together, I always look up some basic info about these games and plug it up top to look all faux professional. So I found out Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire was made by this team called Jupiter. Having never heard of them I looked into them a bit. These guys are Picross gods apparently having made almost all of Nintendo's Picross titles. Both Pokemon Pinball games were made by them, as well as over half of the total available games for the Pokemon Mini (haven't heard of it? Don't worry about it). There are some other games that I assume are Japan only, but a few other titles really stood out to me. Apparently they developed the Gameboy Camera? Though I'm assuming just the menu's and minigame functions found within. Most shockingly, they are responsible for (the pretty fun) Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, and even did some work on The World Ends With You. How have I never heard of these guys before?