Disclaimer: This blog contains major spoilers for “Life is Strange 2”.
Great chapter. Last episode left off pretty bleak, with Sean missing an eye, everyone else injured, and Daniel missing. This episode picks up two months later, with Sean in the hospital, dreading the time when he's declared healthy enough to handed over to the police. But then he finds a note from his friend Jacob revealing that his brother is in a town in Nevada called Haven Point.
Breaking out of the hospital was fun, but a little unbelievable. Looking at the end-of-chapter choices recap, it appears there are four ways to get out of the hospital, but only two of them are non-violent. I didn't want to hurt anyone, so I snuck out the window, climbed along a ledge, popped back in to grab my backpack from a storage room, and climbed down the scaffolding. Sean steals a car and drives for hours, until he finally has to pull over to get some sleep. He's woken up in the middle of the night by a couple of racists who bully him around for a few minutes. It's total filler that doesn't really advance the plot, and some will see this scene as just one more example of how this game hits you over the head with the racism theme. I can't say I agree - it is a little random, but all these terrible experiences are probably going to lead up to Sean's decisions in the final chapter.
He drives until he runs out of gas, then walks in the desert heat. At one point a semi pulls over and gives him a ride. Of course by this point you're wondering what kind of evil bastard the driver is going to turn out to be, but he's a nice guy who takes Sean all the way to his destination. The series is pretty good about manufacturing tension every time you meet someone new, even if they turn out to be good. The town turns out to be a church community. The church is led by a woman named Lisbeth, who feels like an amalgamation of several religious zealots from Stephen King novels. She has discovered that Daniel has powers, and has now uses them to perform "miracles" in front of her congregation.
There's also a little girl there, Sarah-Lee (nobody doesn't like her), who is sick. Her parents refuse to take her to a doctor, opting to pray for her instead. Seriously, now the game is outright pandering to my liberal values. But that's okay, there's too many games that avoid politics altogether. Yes, some people are going to be turned off, but those people would probably never pick up a game like this in the first place. Sean finally meets up with Daniel again, but he's thrown out of the church. Then Sean's mother Karen shows up. She had also been notified by Jacob about Daniel's whereabouts, and came to the rescue. She lets Sean rest and clean up in her hotel room, and then they try to reconnect. They haven't seen each other in years, and Sean is still pissed at her for abandoning her family.
Karen's a bit vague about her reasons for leaving, mostly saying "I wasn't who I thought I was" in regards to having a husband and kids. I think there's subtle hints that she's gay, but I might be reading too much into it. You can choose to be hostile or forgiving, but either way they'll agree they have to rescue Daniel. Sean meets up with Jacob, who was once a member of Haven Point's church until they ousted him for being gay. Seriously, they are going to break the "liberal pandering" meter pretty soon, but I love it. Jacob wants to go back and rescue Sarah-Lee, who is his sister. Jacob helps you sneak into a Lisbeth's house where they look for Sarah-Lee's medical records.
They are caught (at least I was on my playthrough, apparently it is possible to hide better), and brought in front of Lisbeth. Then we have a scene where Sean desperately tries to convince his brother that the church is exploiting him. Sean allows himself to get beaten up until Daniel finally has enough, and goes full-on Carrie on that church. On the way out of the burning church, Lisbeth tries to block your exit. You can choose to shoot her, but I had Daniel force-push her out of the way instead. After exiting, Sean, Daniel, and Karen drive off together. The preview for the next chapter shows them preparing to cross the border to Mexico.
I really enjoyed this chapter, especially the second half. Any game where I get to burn down a church is okay with me. There's just one chapter left; I can't wait to see how it ends. I know it's going to come down to a heartbreaking choice where either decision is a tragedy, and I still think it's going to involve killing my little brother to save some other people. I'm picturing the end of X-Men 3, with Daniel going full on Jean Grey crazy. Good or bad, I'm looking forward to the conclusion.
KJ's DeviantArt Page - Pour painting and other crafts. KJ's Etsy Page- Pour paintings and other crafts for sale. KJ's YouTube Channel - KJ's general videos. The Crafty KJ YouTube Channel - Pour painting videos. Dinner With Dorks- Videos of us eating and watching movies. It's like spending an evening with friends in five minutes. KJ's Twitch - Where we do most of our livestream gaming. We're pretty casual gamers; it's mostly Beach Buggy Racing, Puyo Puyo Tetris, and Tricky Towers. KJ's Twitter- Mostly pour paintings right now. KJ's Steam - She rarely logs on.
I’ve seen variations of the following quote floating around the internet, in reference to Michael Bay’s Armageddon: “A movie that would have you believe it’s easier to train drillers to become astronauts than to train astronauts to use a drill.” Ben Affleck even mentions it in the DVD commentary track.
Okay, first off, you’re wrong. The movie doesn’t ask you to believe that. The characters in the movie spend a long time lamenting on how bad an idea it is. So you don’t get to feel smug just for pointing out that these characters aren’t fit to be astronauts. You’re not clever for repeating points already covered in the movie. Frankly, it makes you look like an idiot.
More importantly, the movie directly addresses it: They send out two teams, in the hopes that if the drillers couldn’t do it, the astronauts could. Now in real life, I’d like to think that every country with a space program would send out dozens of teams, containing all sorts of combinations of astronauts and drillers. But the movie doesn’t have time for this, and simplifies things by only having two teams.
Also, the movie makes it clear that it takes years of experience to master these particular drills. Yes, you can train an astronaut to use a drill, but maybe not these specific drills, at least in the time they have left. The drill team is shown to have a knack for using this machinery, because these drills take as much instinct as knowledge. When the future of Earth is at stake, it’s better to have the drill experts up there with you and not need them, than to get there without them and discover you can’t finish the job. I don’t want to make light of astronaut training – I know they work hard and I respect the training they go through. But we’ve sent monkeys into space. These drillers don’t need to be awesome at astronauting, they just need to survive the experience long enough to lend a hand. Much like the face swapping in Face/Off, if you can’t buy into the concept, you shouldn’t see the movie in the first place.
Which is a good time to bring up the anthropic principle. This basically says that in order for a movie’s plot to happen, the conditions must exist in that universe that allow the plot to happen. In other words, if the astronauts in this movie’s universe could be taught to use the drill, then there would be no movie. “But surely they could have made an interesting movie about actual astronauts that use a drill?” Well, yeah, and they did. It was called “Deep Impact.” It was a smarter movie than Armageddon, but not nearly as fun. Audiences already complained that two asteroid movies hit the theaters at roughly the same time, did you really want them to be even more similar?
I’m not saying Armageddon is some misunderstood masterpiece, but at least hate it for the right reasons. I have no sympathy for someone who buys a ticket to a Michael Bay film about an asteroid, and then complains because it had more style than substance. No one watches disaster movies for their scientific accuracy.
Jurassic World
The observation: Claire outruns a T-Rex in high heels. Critics argue that even if she didn’t have an opportunity to grab some boots somewhere, that she’d be better off barefoot than running in heels.
However, I think that’s the point of Claire’s character. Her “Corporate Warrior” persona isn’t just a costume she puts on each morning, that’s who she is through and through. She’s the kind of person who can run faster in heels that most people can in Reeboks. Having worn high heels myself, I don’t think this is all that unrealistic; it just takes practice. And she’s definitely had practice.
Plus she’s had a busy day with a lot on her mind, so maybe stopping to change shoes was never a big priority. And I kind of disagree about barefoot being better. Step on one sharp rock and you’re dino dinner.
But once again, this was already mentioned in the movie. Owen has a line where he criticizes her heels. I’m not saying that hanging a lampshade on a flaw absolves the sin. I’m just saying it’s a bit disingenuous to point out a “mistake” that’s already addressed in the movie itself, as if it were your own original idea.
Passengers
This one isn’t even a plot hole or movie mistake. This one is squarely about reviewers acting smug about noticing something blatantly obvious. When Passengers first hit the theaters, I must have read half a dozen reviews that said basically the same thing (spoilers ahead):
“Passengers is about a ship full of interstellar travelers, who were placed in suspended animation for a 120 year space flight. A malfunction causes two of the sleep tubes to open early, and the two awakened passengers have to live out their lives on the empty ship knowing they won’t survive to see their destination. It’s a wonderfully inventive concept, but I noticed something that none of the other moviegoers seem to have noticed. Chris Pratt’s character intentionally damaged Jennifer Lawrence’s sleep tube so that he wouldn’t be lonely. By not giving her a choice, he’s basically condemning her to the same life of near solitude. The fact that he romances her while lying about this is practically rape. He destroys her future, all of her hopes and dreams, for his own gain. I can’t believe nobody else who saw the movie noticed this.”
Okay, for those of you who haven’t seen the movie: That is the ACTUAL PLOT of the film. The fact that he woke her is a HUGE plot point. It’s not some subtle secret for eagle-eyed viewers. It is the “A” plot. Yeah, there’s also something in there about a malfunction threatening to make the ship explode, but honestly it feels tacked on for extra drama. The movie is about the male character’s crime, how it affects them, and whether he should be forgiven.
You can argue all you want about whether the his actions were justified and/or forgivable. But don’t expect accolades just for noticing the movie’s main plot. It’s a simple rule: If a plot point is important enough to be mentioned in the summary on the back of the DVD, you’re probably not a genius for noticing it.
Star Wars
Chewie doesn't get a medal. He was the co-pilot, get over it. If the Falcon had a crew of 300, would you still complain that they didn't all get individual medals? Or would you realize that the captain's medal represents the efforts of the whole crew?
I love cats. I also love plays. So of course it's a no-brainer that one of my favorite plays is Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats".
I saw the musical “Cats” at TPAC when I was 13 or 14, and loved it so much I bought the soundtrack. I’ve only seen it on stage the one time, but I’ve watched the play on home video many times. I have large portions of the soundtrack memorized. It remains one of my favorite plays to this day. So when I heard they were making a theatrical version, it piqued my interest. Well, the trailer for the Cats movie dropped earlier this week, and the internet isn’t happy.
You know, I agreed about Sonic being a terrible character design. I see their point about the new Lion King looking flat and emotionless compared to the original. While I liked Green Lantern more than most people, they did keep getting Ryan’s head the wrong size. And Wil Smith’s Genie did look a bit goofy in his blue form. But I have to draw the line here.
Yes, the cats look kind of creepy, and border on the Uncanny Valley. Their insertion into the oversized backgrounds looks sort of off, and the whole thing just makes you feel slightly uneasy. Some of the shots look a little unfinished, so hopefully they’re still tweaking it. But let’s be honest, the makeup in the original play was a bit strange itself. When I saw the play back in the 80s, I heard a few adults talk about how creepy the makeup was. Beautiful, sure, but it still straddled that Uncanny Valley. To me, the film’s design looks like the natural progression of the stage version’s makeup. It looks like what the stage make-up artists would like to have done if it were possible.
In my opinion, Cats was always supposed to feel weird and disorienting. The oversized props in the stage play aren’t just to make the cast look smaller, they also serve to make the audience feel smaller as well. As if the cats have used magic to shrink you down, translate their language, and make their faces just human enough for you to identify with them, all so you can finally understand the world from their point of view. If they’d wanted them to look more catlike, they could have just thrown cats masks on them and called it a day. But I think they wanted them to have human-like faces and expressions so the audience could empathize with them. And yeah, the film version is a little reminiscent of “Seaman” for the Dreamcast, but at least it’s eye-catching.
This is not a straightforward story like Sweeney Todd or Les Miserables, and should not be compared to those. Cats is more like a feature length music video, comparable to The Who’s “Tommy” or “Pink Floyd: The Wall”. Can you honestly say this movie looks freakier than, say, the video for “Black Hole Sun”? Kids these days have no tolerance for the surreal. Get off my lawn, ya unimaginative little toddlers who need reality spoon fed to you. After Lion King and Sonic, it’s like the internet is just looking for special effects to hate. I pity any special effects artist who tries to do anything actually creative over the next few years.
People are asking, why not just keep the original makeup? I agree, the stage makeup was great, and is perfectly filmworthy. But you do realize, you can already buy a filmed version of the stage musical on DVD? Honestly, what would even be the point of giving it a movie budget, if it wasn’t going to do something original with it? And as odd as the new movie looks, I bet that within ten minutes you get used to it.
I love going to plays, but it’s definitely a rich person’s hobby. I hope Cats does well in theaters, because I want them to make more theatrical versions of stage plays. Cats is being released on the same day as Star Wars IX, so I don’t expect it to break any box office records. Actually, I expect it’s going to bomb pretty hard. But I hope not. Sidetrack: My favorite part of seeing musicals in the theater is seeing how many people leave once they realize it’s a musical. I witnessed it during “Sweeney Todd” and “Into The Woods”, and I wonder if it will happen here. I mean, the trailer makes it look pretty obvious that it's a musical, but so did some of the other musicals.
Anyway, the Uncanny Valley can be a disorienting place, but that doesn’t mean it’s always bad. A lot of movies have intentionally set up camp in that valley, and still turned out pretty well. Heck, I heard mentions of the Uncanny Valley when Avatar was released, and look how much money that made.
A while back I talked about how I like a lot of movies other people hate, and vice versa. I also posted about “Introspection Illusion”, where people don’t seem to understand the real reasons they don’t like certain movies. Both those concepts are in full play today, as I blabber about why I like “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” better than “Logan”.
Yes, I know. For most people, it’s the other way around. I don’t understand why, but people just hated Origins. Maybe it didn’t fit with their favorite comic book version of his origin story, I don’t know. I’m sure his origin has been retconned 30 times by now. At one point in the comics, I think they even planned for him to be an actual super-evolved wolverine. But I digress.
I recognize the movie had flaws. It had bad special effects (especially the claws, for which there was no excuse), a terrible version of Deadpool (total waste of a great character), and some minor continuity errors pop up when you try to work it in with the rest of the movies. I personally dislike the “laser guided amnesia” trope, with Wolverine having his memories erased by a bullet. I don’t mind that it worked, I mind the fact that Stryker knew it would work.
But none of those flaws really add up to a bad movie to me. It still had a lot of great action scenes, decent pacing, and all the flash and flair that makes these movies fun. It wasn’t Shakespeare, nor should it have been. I still walked out thinking, “I want to see that again.” I know it wasn’t one of the best X-Men films, but I don’t see why it gets all the hate it gets. Meanwhile, “Logan” was apparently loved by everyone who saw it.
I hated Logan. It was dull, boring, long, and depressing. Two hours of a whiny geriatric Xavier arguing with a depowered Wolverine in the desert. It had a few good action scenes, and I really liked Laura/X-23. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a sequel about her, but that’s off the table now. I just can’t understand is why Logan’s so popular. And that’s where Introspection Illusion comes in. Because the plot holes seem bigger in movies I hate. I can forgive the amnesia bullet in Origins, but I can’t forgive the tree branch going through Wolverine’s adamantium spine in Logan.
Yes, that’s right. They establish that his powers are weaker, but his skeleton is still fully adamantium. In fact, that’s relevant to the plot, since the adamantium is poisoning him. So when he’s thrown against the log at the end, and the branch pokes through the center of his chest, I was a bit annoyed. Even if it went slightly to the side of the spine, it still should have been blocked by his rib cage.
I don’t care that they killed off the character; he’s not one of my favorite X-Men. I care more about all the X-Men who are killed off-screen before the movie started. And maybe that’s another reason I judge the movie so harshly. I don’t care about Wolverine, so I can’t accept him in a more dramatic role. I watch the X-Men movies so I can be awed by all the super powers and special effects, and so I can catch all the references to the comics and cartoons. One of the reasons Origins worked for me is because of all the cameos of other X-Men characters. “The Wolverine” was less fun, partly because it had fewer cameos. “Logan” was worst of all, because not only were most of the X-Men dead from the start, but even the living ones had fewer powers.
But that’s all just rationalization. The truth is, I liked Origins because ooh shiny, and hated Logan because zzzzzz. It’s a gut reaction, and all the flaws in the world can’t ruin a movie if it keeps me entertained.
It’s not just a movie being more (or less) than the sum of its parts, it’s more like a movie being almost completely unrelated to its parts. That’s the paradox – all the flaws in “Origins” add up to an entertaining movie, while all the serious drama in “Logan” add up to a snoozefest.
In the 90s, Capcom was the king of fighting games. Whether it was the tournament style fighting of Street Fighter II, or the street brawling of Final Fight and its sequels/spin-offs, Capcom was the go-to company for digital pugilism.
This bundle includes the following classic arcade games: Final Fight (1989), Captain Commando (1991), The King of Dragons (1991), Knights of the Round (1991), Warriors of Fate (1992), Armored Warriors (1994), and Battle Circuit (1997).
When you get down to it, these are all basically the same game with different skins. That said, some are more fun than others. I’ve played a little of each so far, and here are my initial impressions:
Final Fight (1989) – When Final Fight was released in 1989, it immediately dethroned Taito’s Double Dragon as the ultimate multiplayer beat-em-up. After the success of Final Fight, Capcom spent the next few years pumping out similar games, some better than others. I still find this one the easiest to enjoy in this collection, but I don’t know if that’s due to the familiarity or because it’s the least complicated to pick up and play.
Playing it again after all these years brought back all sorts of nostalgia, and longing for the days of hanging out in arcades with my friends. Despite being the oldest game in this collection, it still holds up pretty well.
Captain Commando (1991) – This game is basically a sci-fi sequel to Final Fight. It’s still set in Metro City, but in the faaaarrrr off future of 2026, a time when living mummies will wield sonic knives and mechs will be driven by superintelligent infants. Wow, a lot’s going to change in the next seven years. I can’t wait.
It was nice to finally play this one. I remember Captain Commando being Capcom’s mascot in the 80’s, and I always thought it was strange that he didn’t have a game of his own. When this game finally came out in ’91, I heard about it but I never got a chance to play it. I like this one, and will probably play it again.
The King of Dragons (1991) – I like the fantasy theme of this one. It feels a lot like Golden Axe. I like the characters, it’s your basic D&D party. I wish it had a female character, but I’ll whine more about that below. It felt weird to get experience points and gain levels in this type of game. But it works. I will probably play more of this one.
Knights of the Round (1991) – At first glance this looks similar to King of Dragons, but it feels a lot different. King of Dragons has sort of a D&D theme, while Knights has more of a King Arthur theme. It makes knights feel a little more down-to-Earth, like Warriors of Fate. I might come back to this one, but only after I’ve played through King of Dragons. Just looking at the title gets a Monty Python song stuck in my head.
Warriors of Fate (1992) – This was probably my least favorite game in the collection, though it’s hard to say why. It’s basically the same game as the others, but I found the theme less interesting. The Japanese version is sort-of based on the historical novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (which has actually inspired dozens of video games), but the American version simplified things by making it a more generic story. That was probably a good move, but it’s still not my cup of tea.
Armored Warriors (1994) - Of all the games in this collection, this one feels the most different. While is still has basically the same controls as the other games in the collection, the fact that your character is a mech gives the whole game a different feel. It’s still a beat-em-up, but at times it almost feels like a shooter. I don’t know if I’ll come back to this one or not.
Battle Circuit (1997) – I really like the characters in this one. They’re creative and strange, and there were at least three I’d use consistently. It’s definitely the flashiest of the bunch, and the first one I decided to play all the way through (not counting Final Fight, which I beat many times when I was a teenager). Thumbs up.
Extras - You can change the borders, and there's some options for how the games display on your screen. The collection also includes a gallery of artwork for each game.
A minor gripe; I wish there were more female characters in this collection. Out of seven games, only the last two have playable female characters in them. This is surprising, given that each game has three to five characters to choose from. Now of course you could say that was normal at the time, since video games were considered more of a male pastime back then. But Gauntlet came out in 1985 (four characters, one female), Quartet came out in 1986 (four characters, one female), and Rampage also came out in 1986 (three characters, one female).
So while there might not have been a lot of female characters in single-player games, it was quite normal for multiplayer games to have at least one token female. I’ll forgive Knights of the Round (since the characters are based on knights from Arthurian legend) and Warriors of Fate (since it’s based on historical figures). But the rest have no excuse. The King of Dragons has five D&D-esque characters; they could have at least made the archer female.
But that’s not a criticism against this collection, it’s a criticism against five 30 year old games. And I do have one theory: I seem to remember there being a controversy when Final Fight was released, regarding the female enemies (Poison and Roxy). Capcom was worried there might be complaints about violence against women, so they changed Poison and Roxy to male characters in the SNES version. It also caused Capcom to declare that the character Poison was transgender. They even went as far as to say that she was pre-op in the Japanese version, but post-op in the American version.
Just another example of how trans people aren’t taken seriously. I could easily fly off the handle at this one, but there are enough current examples of transphobia in the news every day. I really don’t need to go back and yell at a thirty year old video game. But just to make my position clear: Violence against transwomen is still violence against women.
But in any case, maybe that’s why they put off adding more women to their beat-em-ups; they were afraid of controversy. And to be fair, I understand the conundrum. Is it more sexist to exclude women from these games completely, or to include them and get yelled at when they get punched in the face? It's one of those cases where you can't please everyone.
Personally, I think inclusion would have been better, but I've never had to deal with that sort of backlash. I suppose I can't fault them for being cautious. They must have gotten over it eventually, because Final Fight 2 (1993) had the female martial artist Maki in it. But these beat-em-ups from 1989-1992 were devoid of playable female characters.
So, are these games still fun today? Well, games have come a long way, and these old school beat 'em ups seem pretty repetitive now. Still, it’s a lot of fun letting off steam by beating up on wave after wave of enemies. Especially after a stressful day.
Is this collection worth it? There’s some good nostalgic action in this set. I really wish it had included Capcom’s “Alien vs Predator” arcade game, but maybe that will make into a future collection. I’ll probably only play about three of the games in this collection for any length of time, but I still think it’s worth the money. Seven games for $20 is a decent value, even if they are pretty similar. I wouldn’t blame you for waiting until it’s on sale, though.
I really enjoyed the humor, the special effects, and all the action. It's doesn't come close to Endgame in order of magnitude, but that's a good thing. After the heaviness of the last two Avengers movies, we all needed a light-hearted romp.
And that's about all I can really say without MAJOR SPOILERS. So read further at your own risk.
First things first: Of course Mysterio turns out to be a bad guy. I don't think anyone expected differently. I know a few people speculated that he was going to be good throughout this movie, only to turn evil in the end credits to set up a sequel (like Sinestro in Green Lantern, which also wasn't much of a secret). But nope, he shows his true colors halfway through the movie.
And that's cool. This movie isn't serious enough to have a lot of layers. Jake Gyllenhaal does a decent job playing both (false) friend and villain. The scene that reveals his treachery to the audience is over-the-top and very comic bookish, which I thought was awesome.
My wife didn't like Spidey's first fight with Mysterio, where he's stuck in multiple layers of illusion. She thought it was too overdone, but personally I loved it. It reminded me of something out of the cartoons. I really loved the final fight against the drones creating the illusion. That was some crazy action and beautiful SFX.
I didn't really care for any of Spidey's outfits in the movie, but I loved the "passing the torch" scene where Peter uses Tony's tech to design the outfit. The stealth suit was just boring, barely even a Spider-Man suit. The one Peter designs is just his normal suit with black replacing the blue. I hate to say it, but Spider-Man's suit is one of the few super hero outfits that looks worse when you darken it. Spidey needs to be colorful, yo.
Okay, so we have to talk about the credits scenes. Mid-credits we have Spidey being framed for Mysterio's crimes, and the world finding out he's Peter Parker. I have no idea where they're going to go with this, though similar events have happened in the comics. I wonder if they're going to just keep his identity public (let's face it, most of the MCU heroes don't even have secret identities), or if they'll magic that knowledge away somehow (paging Doctor Strange).
Of course the biggest bombshell dropped at the ass end of the credits. Nick Fury is a skrull. How long has this been true? When was the switch? I'm sure fans are going to be debating this one for a long time.
My wife thinks it was between Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, during the time he faked his death. Or possibly very recently, around Endgame. That could make sense, since Captain Marvel was back on Earth at the time. She might have brought Talos with her.
But I have a feeling they're saying he's been a skrull since Captain Marvel. If this is true, then Talos!Fury is the Fury we've known throughout most of the series. This means there's nothing to really get mad about. Fury is still the same guy we've always known and loved, it's just that he was actually a friendly alien shapeshifter (in every movie except for Captain Marvel, of course). We lose nothing, really.
So I don't mind if it turns out he's been Talos since the 90s. I also don't mind if it turns out they switched at the end of Endgame (probably before Tony's funeral, since Talos!Fury mentions he saw Peter at the funeral). But I hope it doesn't turn out they switched halfway through the series. I don't like the idea that the first ten movies was one Fury, and the rest of them were a different Fury. That just bothers me, because it interrupts the continuity of the character.
Again, great movie. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I currently have it at #9 on my ranked list of MCU movies.
I'm going to close this blog with a video of Beach Buggy Racing. I know that has nothing to do with Spider-Man, but my wife and I spend the video discussing the movie.
I really wanted to like the Crash Team Racing remake. It’s got great graphics, tight controls (for the most part), a large selection of courses and characters, and tons of unlockables to assure replay value. Unfortunately, a handful of minor flaws – which probably won’t even bother most people – keep it from being a hit in my household.
First things first: The default control scheme is terrible. Seriously, who makes a racing game and doesn’t make the trigger button the gas? You can argue that these games originally came out on the PS1, and they’re just replicating the original experience, but I’ll gently remind you that the PS1 also had shoulder buttons. Just because it’s a really old mistake doesn’t mean it’s not a mistake.
The good news is the controls are easily changed. We had a little difficulty finding the option when we played, because we were livestreaming at the time and our heads covered up the “options menu” part of the screen. Oops, how embarrassing. However, even after changing it to the much superior “Alternate” control scheme, we still had a problem in that it only changed it for player one. I don’t know if it’s a glitch or what, but we couldn’t figure out how to change it for player two.
And while trying to fix it, I somehow managed to lock out player one’s controls completely and turned player two’s controller into player one. Maybe we just missed something again, or maybe the programmers are so used to people playing online, that they didn’t playtest properly for split screen. If it is a glitch, hopefully it will be fixed in a patch.
Second gripe: Most of the unlockables are only unlocked through playing single player. I might be wrong about this, but going by my own experience this weekend, combined with the Cheat FAQs I read online, it appears to be the case. Kart racers are generally more fun with more players, and therefore all your unlockables should be obtainable without even touching single player mode. Ideally each unlockable should have two ways to be unlocked (I’ve seen some fighting games do this), so that you can get everything whether you’re a complete loner or a party animal.
Third gripe: The unlockables you can access seem to be based on player one. What I mean is, let’s say Bob plays single player for a while and unlocks items A, B, and C. Then Sarah plays single player for a while and unlocks items X, Y, and Z. Then they both log on and play two player mode, with Bob as player one. Both players are able to access items A, B, and C, but neither can access X, Y, and Z. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a game handle unlockables this way, but it always irks me. If I unlock a really cool kart, I should be allowed to show it off regardless of whether I’m player one or two.
Gripe #4: Power sliding. This is an important technique that you must master to get around corners in some tracks. I’m sure I could get a handle on it with practice, but I don’t wanna. I don’t want to learn a lot of new gimmicks for each different kart racing game. To me, this is a party game, and as such I just want to pick up the controls and play. Sure, have some secret techniques that let some players master the game, but don’t design the tracks around them, and don’t make those tricks required to beat the enemy AI. Which brings us to gripe #5…
Gripe #5: Difficulty. Admittedly I only rented the game over the weekend, so I didn’t have time to get good. That said, I couldn’t manage to beat the third track on single player. I attempted it five times, and while I did manage to come in third place a couple of times, apparently you have to come in first to beat the track. When playing with my wife, we kept coming in seventh and eighth (out of eight racers) consistently. Look, I don’t expect to master these games on my first try. But I am pretty good at kart racers, so I should at least be able to master the early tracks in just a few tries. Blame my aging reflexes if you want, but I own the road on Mario Kart 8 and Beach Buggy Racing.
Gripe #6: The Flavor. Okay, I’m not a huge fan of the Crash Bandicoot universe. Sorry, but to me, he’s the epitome of the 90s trend of “Radical” animal mascots. But I can’t hold that against the game; I shouldn’t have even rented it if that was going to be a problem. (“When you play Chutes and Ladders, do you complain about all the chutes and all the ladders?” – Sheldon Cooper.) But even within the Crash universe, I had a hard time finding characters I liked enough to use. I kept playing as the tiger kitten simply because I didn’t like any of the other characters better. This one might be more related to having too many unlockables. I like being able to unlock lots of characters, but in this case not enough of them were unlocked from the beginning.
I also thought some of the weapons were boring. The "bowling bomb" was neat, though hard to aim. But there were too many crates and beakers. I hardly ever picked up anything else.
And the way the single player mode uses a "Diddy Kong Racing" aesthetic. I hated Diddy Kong Racing. I don't want to have to drive to my next race. Just give me some menus, and let me select the next challenge from there. Every time someone turns a series into open world experience (See: SSX3, Burnout Paradise), I end up hating it.
Final Gripe: That certain undefinable thing. This is the biggest one, and I can't even put it into words. Racing games just have to feel a certain way, or it doesn't actually feel like a vehicle to me. A while back we rented "All Star Fruit Racing", and it was beautiful. I loved the graphics and the characters, but... it just didn't feel like driving. My wife and I both recognized it after one race. The carts just felt sort of sluggish, IMO.
Beach Buggy Racing has great controls, and it's only $10. Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled almost nails it, but it still feels just shy of actual driving to me.
Bottom Line: Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled is a terrific game. I really appreciate all the work that went into it, and the sheer number of tracks and characters. The customization is fantastic, with all the kart colors and characters skins. I want to like this game. But this is one of those times when minor flaws add up to a lot. Hopefully some of the issues will be solved in a future patch, but some of my gripes are intrinsic parts of the game. It's a great game, but I don't think it's for me.
I know I've talked about this in past blogs, but some of it bears repeating. I wish I liked so-called “Star Wars fans” as much as I like Star Wars. I’ve said this many times, but once again:
The difference between a Star Wars fan and a normal person is that a normal person likes Star Wars.
The first Star Wars film was released on May 25, 1977. I was three-and-a-half years old at the time, and it’s the first movie I really remember seeing in the theaters. Okay, I have a few random flashes of various Disney movies, but I have no idea when or where I saw them. With Star Wars, I have solid memories of seeing it multiple times, both at the drive-in and in traditional theaters.
When Empire came out in 1980 (I was 6), I noticed the title was actually “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”. The title made me realize that Star Wars was both the title of the series and the title of the first movie. Well, that just wouldn’t do. I made it my mission to find out what the “real” name of the first Star Wars movie was.
When Star Wars was re-released in theaters in 1981, they added “A New Hope” to the opening crawl. Apparently George Lucas had wanted the original 1977 release to have the subtitle, but Fox wouldn’t let him because they thought it would be too confusing. My friends and I called it “A New Hope” from that point on. It was just clearer. You didn’t have to wonder if the other person was talking about the series or that specific movie.
These days, there’s a lot of debate over what makes someone a “true Star Wars” fan. I detest this sort of gatekeeping. I’ll admit, I’ve had gatekeeper attitudes of my own in the past, but I was wrong to do so. You are a Star Wars fan if you say you’re a Star Wars fan, end of story.
These gatekeepers say things like, “You’re not a true Star Wars fan if you like the prequels.” They don't like the newest movies because they "pander to the Social Justice Warriors", what with having main characters who aren't white males. The nerve. Some "true Star Wars fans" even hate Return of the Jedi, because it has Ewoks in it. Liking something cute threatens their masculinity.
Apparently a true Star Wars fan only likes two of the (currently 10-ish) movies. Can you think of any other franchise on the planet where you’re only allowed to like 20% of the series to be a true fan? Protip: A so-called “true fan” of anything probably enjoys more than 20% of the content.
Of course, "true Star Wars fans" also can’t like the Special Editions, either. Which is crazy, because you can’t even buy the original editions any more. Think about that for a moment. These toxic fanboys, the ones who consider themselves the only true fans of the Star Wars Franchise, only like two of the movies, and the two movies they like aren’t even available to buy. What a sure fire way to keep new people from joining the fandom. Sure, I wish they’d release the original versions on blu-ray just as much as anyone, but I’m not going to use it as an excuse to ostracize potential fans.
But the one that really sticks in my craw is the idea that real Star Wars fans never call the first one “A New Hope.” For some reason, they associate the subtitle with the Special Editions and the Prequels, despite it being the official subtitle since 1981. These so-called “true fans” apparently never noticed the subtitle until then. I’m sorry, but again, I saw the original in theaters, and I’ve been calling it by its true name since 1981. Are you really going to say I’m not a real Star Wars fan?
I repeat, a bunch of seven-year-olds knew it was called "A New Hope" waaay back in 1981. If you don't think it's called "A New Hope", you're dumber than a seven year old.
So, I’m going to make my own list of what makes a real Star Wars fan:
1. A true Star Wars fan doesn’t accuse others of not being a real Star Wars fan.
2. If you say you’re a real Star Wars fan, you’re a real Star Wars fan. Unless you violate Rule #1, in which case you’re just a jerk.
3. You can like the unpopular Star Wars movies and still be a true Star Wars fan.
4. You don’t have to have memorized every line to be a real Star Wars fan.
5. You don’t have to have seen the original movie in the theater to be a real Star Wars fan.
6. You don’t have to have read all the comics, played every video game, or know obscure bits of trivia to be a true Star Wars fan.
7. This should go without saying, but you can be any age, race, or sex and still be a real Star Wars fan.
8. You can like Ewoks, Porgs, Rose Tico, and yes, even Jar Jar Binks and still be a real Star Wars fan.
Always remember, being a fan is about liking things, not disliking things.
When you think about emotional moments in video games, you probably think of Aeris getting stabbed in Final Fantasy VII. Or maybe you’re not an old fogey like me, and you think of one of the many bittersweet endings in modern games, where the main character loses a loved one or has to make a tough choice. While there are many great examples out there, the problem is that most of them are too easy. Any writer can kill off a love interest halfway through the story. It doesn’t take some great skill. Anybody can throw a jump scare into a horror game, or end a game with a sadistic choice.
Today I’m looking at some of the more subtle moments. Little emotional clues that are hard to capture with sprites and CGI models. Times where programmers showed us how someone feels without hitting us over the head. I’m the kind of person who gets hung up on weird little things, so here’s a few seemingly random examples of emotional moments that stuck with me.
Final Fantasy VI – What Am I?
FFVI (aka FFIII on the SNES) was full of moments that were much deeper than cutesy sprites should be able to convey. Like when Locke tells Celes “That ribbon suits you” before the opera, and towards the end of the game Celes risks her life to save that same ribbon (at least that's my interpretation)… it says a lot about her feelings for Locke. Or how about the part where Celes has to take care of the sick man after the cataclysm? That entire sequence really showed how bleak the world had become.
But the scene I want to talk about is much earlier in the game. Terra, Edgar, and Locke are fleeing from their enemies on Chocobo-back. Terra uses magic to stop their pursuers, which amazes her companions, since magic is all but extinct now. As they continue to flee, Edgar mentions that no human is born with powers like hers, with emphasis on the word human. And Terra’s Chocobo slows to a halt. Edgars’s words trigger Terra’s introspection. She doesn’t know who she really is, or how she got these powers. Will she ever find a place where she really fits in?
It's a very little thing, but the way she slows down, along with the accompanying music, gives you a lot of insight about the state of her mind. You forget that these are silly-looking sprites on the screen, because the actual characters are every bit as deep as those you would find in a novel. It was one of the first times a video game really impressed me this way.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm Chapter 2 – After The Play
Performing Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in LiS:BtS is one of my favorite video game moments. However, the scene after it is where the game really shines. As Rachel and Chloe are walking home, they are positively walking on air. There is a certain kind of natural high you can experience after accomplishing something great, such as acting in a play, and somehow these programmers managed to capture the feeling perfectly. I can’t even begin to explain the energy in the air, but I have experienced it myself, and I felt it again while playing this scene. I haven’t even seen actual movies pull off this emotion this well. Maybe it helps that, unlike a movie, here I actually got to be a part of performing the play. I got to feel the same buzz as the characters because it was partly my own accomplishment.
It's a beautiful moment, a ray of hope at a time when Chloe’s life is in a downward spiral.
Life is Strange 2 Chapter 3 – She's Got The Look
This is a small one, and probably wasn’t as hard to program, but it’s one of those cases where little things mean a lot. In the third chapter of LiS2, there’s a scene where a group of young adults are sitting around a campfire, just chatting, drinking, and smoking. They talk about the kind of things you would expect to hear around a campfire, and the writers really nailed the campfire party vibe. But that’s not what impressed me. Not long into the scene, I noticed that this one young woman, Cassidy, was watching me.
Now maybe I'm imagining things, but while most of the characters stare straight ahead or look at whoever is currently speaking, Cassidy seems to keep stealing glances at me. And… that’s it. Nothing big, but I immediately knew what it meant. Interest. As the others start going to bed, Cassidy potentially talks you into letting Finn your hair. While she watches you get shorn, there's something in her eyes. Again, something hard to capture in a video game. But that look is worth a thousand words.
Again, I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was enough that I knew they'd hook up eventually (which they do, assuming you say the right things). Having been on both ends of that magnetic pull – where you’re in a crowd but only have eyes for one person – I have to say I’m surprised to see it work so well in a video game.
Those are the three best examples I can think of right now. I’m sorry two of them were from the same series, but the LiS team is just really good at emotional moments.
Huge dramatic moments are great and all, especially when they turn the world upside down and twist the plot in a whole new direction. But it’s the subtle touches that bring the characters to life and make you care for them. There’s a reason the death of Aeris had so much impact – you’d already spent half the game getting to know her. And yet, personally, I felt more emotional attachment to the characters in FFVI than I did to Aeris. Somehow FFVI managed to portray deeper emotions with 2D sprites than a lot of modern games do with motion captured facial expressions. I’m not trying to put down the newer games, or to brag that my generation was better, I just want to point out sometimes having an excess of technology causes you to forget the little things. Or at least, the ability to convey emotion has nothing to do with technology.
Or maybe I don’t really have a point, and just wanted to ramble about three of my favorite moments in video games. Hey, it’s my blog, I’ll do what I want, so there!
The Konami Anniversary Collection includes the following games:
Scramble, TwinBee, Nemesis (aka Gradius), Salamander (aka Life Force), Typhoon (aka A-Jax), Haunted Castle, Vulcan Venture (aka Gradius II), and Thunder Cross.
Breaking it down:
Scramble - I loved this game as a kid. It was so colorful, and it remains one of my favorite shooters. Yeah, it's pretty dated by today's standards, but playing it reminds me some of the best moments of my childhood.
TwinBee - An overhead shooter. I never really liked this one, not then or now.
Nemesis (aka Gradius) - The first Gradius is fun, but the power up system annoys me. You pick up power ups, but you have to manually push a button to activate them. This gives you some degree of customization, since you can decide whether to use a power up right away or collect them for a better power up. Except I have to take my eyes off the action to look at the power up bar, and this is not a game that's kind to people who take their eyes off the action.
Salamander (aka Life Force) - This is much improved over Gradius. I love the "Inner Space" theme, and the power up system works a lot better for me. I'll probably go back to this one.
Typhoon (aka A-Jax) - Kind of reminds me of a cross between Afterburner and Space Harrier. A sort of faux 3D jet fighter shooter. I don't see myself getting into it.
Haunted Castle - This is basically the arcade version of the original Castlevania. Oddly, it's the only game in this collection that isn't a shooter. As Castlevania games go, it's not very good, and it's very difficult.
Vulcan Venture (aka Gradus II) - Just more Gradius. Great if you're a fan, but I still prefer Life Force.
Thunder Cross - I like this one. It's my second favorite in the package, after Life Force. It's another one with crazy power ups, but the theme and graphics are totally different than the Gradius/Life Force games.
So, is it worth the $20? It depends on how much you like spaceship shooters. It's kind of an odd collection, with 7 shooters and 1 Castlevania wanna-be. Seriously, it's weird - if they had moved Haunted Castle to the Castlevania Collection, it would actually have improved both collections, IMO. And if they needed another shooter to fill the slot, I would have loved the chance to play one of the Parodius games.
Still, if you're a Gradius fanboy, this is a pretty good value. I only see myself returning to a couple of these games, so I might have been better off buying them separately. Oh well.
When I think about classic side scrolling action games, Contra is the first game that comes to mind. It had everything going for it: Non-stop action, two player simultaneous play, Rambo-like characters (hey, he was big at the time), a variety of weapons, the ability to fire diagonally, and killer bosses. It was a very influential series, the go-to example of its genre. The 8- and 16-bit eras were full of games that players described as “like Contra, but with x”. This long-overdue collection is chock full of nostalgia for my generation of gamers.
The Contra Anniversary Collection includes either 5 or 10 classic Contra games, depending on how you want to count them:
Contra (arcade, NES, and Famicom versions), Super Contra (arcade), Super C (NES), Operation C (Gameboy), Contra 3: The Alien Wars (SNES), Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis), Probotector (Mega Drive), and Super Probotector: Alien Rebels (SNES).
Breaking it down:
Contra (3 versions) –The first game in the series still holds up. This collection contains the arcade, NES and Famicom versions. The arcade version has the best graphics of the three, but the vertical shape of the screen feels weird on a modern TV. It’s like watching a video from someone who holds their cell phone sideways. Don’t… just don’t do that. You would think the NES and Famicom versions would be identical, but the Famicom has a few technical enhancements over the NES version. It’s nice of them to include all three versions here, but marketing it as if they’re three separate games is a bit misleading IMO. Still, it’s great to own a piece of gaming history.
Super Contra (2 versions; the NES version being called “Super C”) – A worthy entry in the series, though it doesn’t really do much of anything new. It’s like they just added more levels to the first one. Fun Fact: Apparently they renamed the NES version because the word “Contra” was very contra-versial (ha ha) that year, due to the Iran-Contra Affair.
Contra III: The Alien Wars (2 versions; the European version being called “Probotector: Alien Rebels”) – This is one of my all-time favorite games. The controls are perfect, the graphics are beautiful, and it puts you in all manner of crazy impossible action scenes. It’s been 27 years, but it still holds up. It’s nice to finally get to play the Probotector version as well. Fun Fact: Several of the Contra games were altered and renamed “Probotector” (Robot Protector) in Europe/Australia, to make them less violent. The Probotector games replace a lot of human sprites with robots.
Contra: Hard Corps (2 versions; the European version is called “Probotector”) – I never had a Genesis, so this one was brand new to me. It’s difficult, but I guess that’s implied by the title. I like that the player characters actually look different, rather than just being palette swaps. My wife and I are going to fight over the female character. Anyway, it's a great game, and I'll be coming back to this one more later.
Operation C – This Gameboy version could almost be called another version of Super C, but it’s just different enough to be considered its own game. It’s important for being the first Contra game to have homing missiles, and to make autofire the default weapon. Unfortunately, like most Gameboy games, it doesn’t really hold up today. I really wish they’d skipped this one and added one of the other Contra games instead. There’s plenty to choose from.
So, bottom line: While this is marketed as having 10 games, it’s closer to five. I mean, sure, the arcade version of Super Contra is a lot different from the NES’s Super C, but you’re probably going to pick a favorite and only play that version. And you’re not going to play the Gameboy version more than once, I’m pretty sure. So that leave four games. Are these four games worth your $20? I say yes. Honestly, I think Contra III is worth the $20 alone, and everything else is just gravy.
This is the third of Konami’s Anniversary Collections they’ve released this year. They haven’t announced any more yet, but I hope there’s more to come. These are great versions of some of the best games in video game history.
The Castlevania Anniversary Collection includes the following games:
Castlevania (NES), Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest (NES), Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (NES), Super Castlevania IV (SNES), Castlevania: The Adventure (Gameboy), Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge (Gameboy), Castlevania Bloodlines (Genesis), and Kid Dracula (NES).
Breaking it down:
Castlevania (NES) – The game that started it all is still fun to play today. Yeah, the graphics are dated, and the sound is a bit bloopy, but if you like 8-bit games, it’s excellent.
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (NES) – Unlike the more linear first game, Simon’s Quest is more like Metroid - you have to explore the world and find upgraded equipment to unlock new areas. I actually really enjoyed this game when it first came out. A friend and I spent a weekend playing our way through it, and it’s one of my better childhood memories. But… honestly? It’s not a very good game. Some of the puzzles are almost impossible without a guide, the translation is terrible, and there’s some coding issues that have always bothered me – the way you can walk past certain bosses, for instance. It’s an important piece of video game history, but I can’t say it’s all that fun to play.
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (NES) – I never got to play this when it was new. I've only played a little bit of it so far, and it seems just like more levels for Castlevania 1. I'm glad it goes back to the more linear levels, though, instead of RPG elements. I'll probably play more of this one when I'm done with Bloodlines.
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) – This is still one of my all-time favorite games. I already owned it on two other consoles, but it’s still nice to see here. The soundtrack is excellent, the controls are perfect, and I love the (now cheesey) Mode 7 effects. That chandelier level is still awesome. The only problem I have is that it lacks personality somehow, compared to the other Castlevania games. But overall, this is a game worth owning, and possibly the shiniest jewel in this collection.
Castlevania: The Adventure (Gameboy) – This doesn’t age well, though to be honest, it wasn’t that great when it was new. It’s short, the controls aren’t as forgiving as the NES versions, it’s difficult, and there’s no sub-weapons. The graphics and sound were pretty good at the time, considering the system it was designed for, but there’s no reason to be playing this game on a modern console.
Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge (Gameboy) – This is slightly better than the first Gameboy title, but honestly, Gameboy games just don’t age well. I do like the fact that you can play the stages in any order, like Mega Man. But it’s short and you walk slow. Pass.
Castlevania Bloodlines (Genesis) – Being a SNES fanboy, I never got to play Bloodlines until now. I just tried it, and wow, it's awesome. It's every bit as good as Super Castlevania IV. I'll keep returning to this one, at least until I've beaten it. It's worth playing even today.
Kid Dracula (NES) – Another new experience, since this one wasn’t even released in America until now. From what I've played, it's definitely a kid's game, with charming graphics and goofy monsters. I'm glad I finally got to play it, even if I probably wont play it much.
So, is this collection worth your $20? I’d say yes. The SNES and Genesis games are the real standouts here, but the NES games are still fun too. I’ve found the Gameboy games to be a waste of space, and really wish they’d put something else in those slots. But the rest of the games are still strong enough entries to make the collection worth it. If you like retrogaming, buy it. It’s the second most fun you can have with a whip.
Crazy Climber was possibly the first video game I ever called “my all-time favorite game”. It came out in the arcade in in the early 80s, and was notable for its unusual control scheme. Instead of having buttons, you just had two joysticks, once controlling each arm. The controls took some getting used to, but I loved it. The game has you climbing up the side of a skyscraper, using windows as handholds. I never really thought about it before, but your character must have some really odd body proportions to make this possible (or the building has really small, closely clustered windows). You face hazards such as falling flowerpots, birds, closing windows, electric wires, tumbling girders, and giant gorillas. It’s not an easy game. There are four buildings. I think I reached the fourth building one time as a kid, but I didn’t get very far. I always wanted a home version of the game, but it was never released for any system I owned at the time. Well, Wikipedia says it was released for the Atari 2600, but I never saw it in stores. Which is probably just as well, because game consoles at the time wouldn’t have been able to replicate the dual-joystick configuration in any way I would have found satisfactory. It’s just like me to pick a favorite game that is so hard to port. Seriously, my next “all-time favorite game” was “Discs of Tron”, which also had an unusual control scheme making it difficult to replicate on home consoles. Crazy Climber did get a sequel and a few enhanced remakes, but for the most part they exclusive to Japan. The original game is available on the PS4, which is great because the PS4 controllers are perfect for it. When I got my PS4 last year, I got to play Crazy Climber again for the first time in more than 35 years. I also got to play Crazy Climber 2, which I didn’t even know existed.
So, do they hold up today? Ehhhh… I still enjoy them, partly because of nostalgia, and partly because the controls are still unique today. There really aren’t any other games like them. However, they suffer from the same issues as a lot of older arcade games. They didn’t have the resources to make the games longer, so they settled on making them harder. These are games designed to eat as many quarters as it can, as quickly as possible. If Crazy Climber were designed for today’s consoles, it would have 30 buildings, and you could save after each one. The buildings would start out extremely easy and wouldn’t really get difficult until building 10 or so. You would be able to choose from six different climbers, including an unlockable spider monkey. There would be no score, but you would get achievements after each building. There would also be an annoying unskippable tutorial level and about $20 worth of DLC, but maybe I’m just being cynical. So is that better or worse? Personally I’d like to see this one updated. The original still has its charm, but it could really benefit from a modern touch.
About a thousand years ago (well, 1996), a leading video game magazine published a list of “The Top 100 Video Games of All Time.” Their number 1 was Super Mario 64, which had just come out earlier that year. A lot of readers complained that they had picked a “flavor of the month” as the winner of an “all time” list. Yes, Mario 64 was innovative and ground-breaking for its use of 3D platforming, but would it really stand the test of time as well as, say, Super Mario Bros 3 or Street Fighter 2? Or was it just more appealing because it was shiny and new? Two years later they ran an updated list, and this time “Ocarina of Time” came out on top. In both cases, I have to side with “shiny and new.” SM64 and LoZ:OoT are both great games, but even today, there’s dozens of 8-bit games I would rather play before I touched either one.
When I added Endgame to my ranked list of MCU movies, I had a hard time deciding whether to put it above or below Infinity War. With the Marvel movies, I tend to like the most recent ones best, mostly because I haven’t watched them 100 times yet. For each movie on the list, I had to ask myself questions like, “Will I still like this movie as much in five years? Is Doctor Strange really better than Captain America, or is it just newer?” Right this minute, there’s no movie in the MCU that I would rather rewatch than Endgame. It’s the perfect finale to this story arc, and it’s gorgeous to boot. But is it “better” than Infinity War? Will I always think so?
The thing is, Infinity War is a solid, cohesive story with a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, it’s the story of Thanos, and yes, the bad guy wins… but it’s still a self-contained story. You don’t have to have seen a lot of the other movies to understand it. Endgame, on the other hand, is probably incomprehensible if you haven’t seen at least 10 of the last 20 movies. Even some of the movies I would have thought skippable were more important than I would have thought. My least favorite MCU movie is “Thor: The Dark World”, and yet that movie is essential for one large sequence in Endgame.
True story: A couple of weeks ago I was texting with a friend of mine who hadn’t seen Endgame yet. He was talking about catching his wife up on the series so they could see it together. He was about to show her Black Panther and Captain Marvel. I told him that Black Panther is more important to Infinity War than it is to Endgame, and that watching Captain Marvel isn’t really essential as long as you know who the character is and what she can do. I capped it all off by saying, “Really, the only recent movie I can think of that’s essential to see before Endgame (besides Infinity War of course), is Ant Man & the Wasp.” He took a minute to reply, and finally texted, “…Fine. I’ll watch it.” He’s not an Ant-Man fan, and had resolved to just skip that one.
Here's the thing… Captain America: Civil War is one of my favorite MCU movies. But do I really love the movie, or is it just that one scene? When Civil War was released, the airport fight was the best scene in the entire MCU series, bar none. When we first bought the blu-ray, sometimes we would put the disk in and skip to that scene, watching it two or three times before letting the movie continue. But if you edited out that one scene, it would be a pretty average movie at best. It has its high points – Peter Parker meeting Tony Stark, the Iron Man vs Cap fight at the end, the introduction of Black Panther… but it’s not really any better than, say, Winter Soldier. I love Civil War, but if I’m truly honest with myself, it’s one awesome scene surrounded by filler.
I think we can all agree that the final fight in Endgame has dethroned the airport fight in Civil War. Endgame’s lengthy climax is truly the best scene in the MCU series. I’ve seen Endgame three times now, and that scene has brought tears to my eyes Every. Single. Time. When all those portals start opening up, I just lose it. And then Thanos gets that “Oh Crap” look on his face, and my face actually hurts from all the smiling. And let’s not forget Cap picking up Thor’s hammer. But is that one big fight enough to make Endgame the best MCU movie?
Look, I love the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I. The first time I saw it, I thought that one scene was better than anything in the original trilogy. It made the lightsaber duels in Episodes 4-6 look positively antiquated. But I’ve never accused the Phantom Menace of being the best Star Wars movie. One great scene is not enough.
Of course, the climax isn’t Endgame’s only good scene. The time travel stuff was great fun, full of humor and fanservice. Really, there’s no part of Endgame that I dislike. But I guess my real issue is that I’m not sure I consider Endgame a movie, so much as a big long climax. Even though it’s three hours long, it still feels like half a movie to me. Five years down the road, when it has another ten MCU movies to compete with, I don’t know if Endgame will hold up. By then, I don’t know if I’ll even think about watching Endgame without watching Infinity War first. I’m sure I’ll still love Endgame, I just don’t think it will stand on its own as a complete movie the way Infinity War does.
Bottom line: The climax of Endgame is the best fight scene in the MCU series. However, I think Infinity War is a much more solid movie.
