Games I Beat: Injustice 2

Injustice 2
Fighting
1-2 Players
System: PS4
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Year of Release: 2017
Beaten: May 22nd, 2017

For a good long while I thought Mortal Kombat was a dead series, the whole early 3D era did not do the franchise any favors. And yet, after Armageddon, and a DC crossover, Mortal Kombat's 9th game came out and proved to everyone it wasn't over yet. Since then NetherRealm Studios has been switching between MK and the Injustice series. As a long time DC comics fan, I can't tell you how happy the Injustice games make me, as a concept alone. While taking place in a very dark version of the DC universe, this is just a really solid fighting game with super heroes as characters.

Games I "Beat": Overwatch

Overwatch
Online Heroic FPS
Mostly 12 Players
System: PS4
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Year of Release: 2016
Beaten: Ongoing

Hi, my name's Adam. I'm an avid video gamer, I mainly enjoy single player games, peruse the sidebar and you'll see most of the games I've talked about are single player by nature. Don't get me wrong, I love playing cooperative games with friends, some of my favorite memories grew out of co-op experiences. When it comes to competitive games, I typically don't get into them. There have been a few stints, but nothing has ever grabbed me for more than a week. Weird shit too. Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare, Mass Effect 3's online mode, Rocket League, and random bits of the "mainstream" FPS games. Then Overwatch had a free weekend.

Freemium Perdition: DC Legends

DC Legends
Turn Based Combat
1 Player
System: Android
Developer: WB Games
Year of Release: 2016

I randomly stumbled upon an article that was announcing DC Legends, at first glance I thought it was a straight up Marvel Future Fight clone, which I was not at all opposed to. I'm a massive DC fan, much more so than Marvel, and immediately I, uh, "pre-ordered" it, for lack of a better term, which just let me know when it came out and gave me a bonus character. The game is quite a bit more simple than Future Fight come to find out.

Road to Justice: An Unjust Path

Simply put, I just don't give a shit anymore.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.