Tag Archives: Reviews

Friendship is Badass

Posted by BlackWidower on

The 80s, a time of bad hair, loud music, and if you were a kid at the time, marketing. Toys were, for the first time, marketed as entire universes, and had narratives and conflicts. These were used to drive toy sales, by creating brands, and virtual monopolies, because while any company can sell you a doll, only Mattel could sell you a Barbie.

During these times, no company was better at it then Hasbro. Transformers, G.I.Joe, and My Little Pony were all popular cartoons, and successful toy lines, and they all had a universal appeal…well, except for My Little Pony.

Now, I’ll be honest, while I’m sure I watched all three of those shows, I don’t actually remember them. So the following paragraph will all be from information I got second-hand. So, while Transformers and G.I.Joe were actually watchable for anyone with a soul. My Little Pony was a different story. One dimensional characters, and flat, uninteresting plot lines, but with enough colour and shiny things to hypnotize the small minds of its target audience.

But one thing about history and human nature, is that we never expect anything to really change, and sometimes we resist or deny it. This is what causes some conspiracy theories to develop. So when I first heard about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the new My Little Pony TV series, I was skeptical. I thought it would have the same amount of appeal the old series had, that being zero. Continue reading →

Destiny’s End

Posted by BlackWidower on

Last month, I had one of the saddest days of my life…okay, that’s a lie, but shut up, I’m trying to make a point here. For you see, last month featured the series finale of Stargate Universe.

Stargate is a franchise I’ve loved for the past ten years. I remember watching SG-1 when I was younger, fascinated by how they took a modern-day setting, with relatable characters, and merged it with interstellar space exploration. While other shows like Star Trek and Star Wars had awesome space battles and encounters with alien races, they lacked relatable characters. Even though Captain Picard was human, he was a human from 300 years in the future, after human society has undergone several changes. Still relatable, but not by much. Plus, while there were many human characters in Star Wars, they weren’t humans as we know them. They were humans in the sense that they looked human, but they were not from earth and had no concept of any element of human society as we know it. About as human as a Time Lord. Again, not very relatable. Then, there’s Stargate. Where three out of the four main characters weren’t simply relatable, they could be people we know.

Plus, Stargate stayed grounded, because of the designated plot generator, the Stargate. Even though it’s a science fiction about space exploration, the main characters never really needed to go in space, and rarely did. They sort of skip past that. The show was more about guerilla warfare than anything else, at least during the early seasons. As I’ve said before, in season six they got the Prometheus, and that dramatically shifted the series. But it still remained good, and remained alive and breathing for the past 14 years. A terrific run. But now, with the cancellation of Stargate Universe, the franchise is over, and it’s not coming back. Continue reading →

No Ordinary Destiny

Posted by BlackWidower on

Fucking Bollocks! That was my reaction when I heard Stargate Universe, my favourite show currently on the air, wasn’t going to make it past a second season.

This always happens. If I like a show, it will likely be cancelled very soon, while crap like American Idol and The Apprentice remains on the air, or worse, the Jersey Shore. I ended up watching that show a couple of times and it appears to be about cheap whores, cheap man-whores, and one really cheap whore. Plus I never thought I’d hear someone use the word ‘Guido’ with a positive connotation.

But Stargate Universe barely lasts two seasons before being axed, and since the announcement came after filming for the first two seasons was completed, it’s likely the series finale will end in a cliffhanger, in anticipation for a non-existent season three. Which pisses me off more. I know they are likely to say they will release a Stargate Universe movie, but they also planned to release an Atlantis movie years ago, and that didn’t happen. So…

But the big question is: Why!? Why is it being cancelled!? Bad ratings, sure. But why does it have bad ratings? Continue reading →

I Saw It, It’s Alive, It’s Huge!

Posted by BlackWidower on

The giant monster movie genre is one that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in western culture. In ’98 we had the bastard love child of Roland Emmerich and Godzilla, and in 2005 Peter Jackson decided to copy a 72-year-old film rather than come up with an original idea. But beyond those two there weren’t any western monsters that one could call our own, and there are none at all that we could be proud of, particularly in recent history. I mean both Kong and Zilla were taken down by guns and missiles respectively. Fucking pussies. Compare that to the real Godzilla who can survive a fucking nuke to the face.

At least, that was true until 2008, when Cloverfield was released. Possibly one of the greatest monster movies ever made.

Cloverfield was surrounded by much mystery up until its January 2008 release because it was produced by J.J. Abrams. But I’ll get into that later. All that mystery contributed to the much deserved hype. It’s unique and engaging and I for one, loved it. Continue reading →

Mankind’s Future Didn’t Sell Well

Posted by BlackWidower on

Merry Christmas everybody! It’s that time of year again, and as 2010 comes to a close we take two days to worship the gods of consumerism as parents spend thousands on hunks of plastics so their children will love them.

Okay, I’m probably being pessimistic about this. I mean hell, I love giving presents. This year I focused mainly on the little kids in my family because my mom is hard to shop for and I really don’t want to buy anything for anyone else. But when people are trampled to death by other people who want 20% off a Kirk action figure, it can shatter your faith in humanity. That’s why I try to avoid that crap, if a store is too crowded, I put it off for another day. I’m not that desperate for anything. Anyway, kids love books right? However, I need to remember for next year to do my online shopping earlier, like in November, so it get’s here before New Years.

There’s not really a Christmas tradition on this blog, primarily because it has only been around for about a year, so I figure I’ll just write about whatever the fuck I feel like. Which happens to be a video game.

I’m not really a fan of turn-based strategy games. I own a copy of Tom Clancy’s End War for the DS and I just cannot get into it. Believe me, I tried. It’s hard to take a vested interest in little tiny icons on a screen. More recently I bought a copy of Civilization Revolution for the DS. Again, cannot get into it. This could be because the DS version is scaled back, but I cannot get interested in what happens. It also blows my mind that my citizens only need to walk ten feet to meet another nation, when in reality it was likely the early humans had to build great ships before they encountered another nation.

But keeping this in mind, it’s kind of odd that one of my favourite games of all time is Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. …I said “one of.” Continue reading →

Time Again and Mario Rip-off

Posted by BlackWidower on

Video games are new…relatively. So it still hasn’t reached the point where we can call it an art form. It took thousands of years after the invention of writing before the greatest works of literature were formed, like Frankenstein, Dracula, and the great works of William Shakespeare. So, it might take just as long for gaming to make the same impression on the collective consciousness. However, film is less than a century old and we already got some good stuff, the Alien trilogy, the Star Wars trilogy, the Star Trek undecology and the Matrix onelogy. So maybe we can get some really good games that will still be played generations from now…or maybe we already do.

Recently, and by recently I mean April, Roger Ebert caused a ruckus in the gaming community when he said video games can never be art…ever. While Ebert is a very persuasive and brutal movie critic, he isn’t really a major authority on video games, and his exposure to games has consisted entirely of watching someone else play them, which takes away from the experience somewhat. Besides, as far as I can tell, his definition of art is inherently incompatible with anything interactive. It also seems to be incompatible with anything bad. I think the Twilight series is a collection of purely refined shit, but it’s still art. Of course my definition of art is pretty simple, it’s anything that is a reflection of the creator’s creativity and imagination.

I could go into more detail, but I think I’ll leave that to an upcoming blog post. The point is, games are art, now, and to prove it, I give you exhibit A: Braid. Continue reading →

Destiny’s Destiny

Posted by BlackWidower on

I am a fan of the Stargate franchise. I’ve seen every episode, own two copies of the movie, one of which is the Deluxe Edition, and I’ve written a fanfic crossover with Harry Potter. However that was years ago, on a laptop that got stolen. Anyway…

SG-1 is over, Atlantis is over, and at this rate it doesn’t look like there are going to be any more movies from either series in the near future, in spite of what the producers promised. So all we have is Stargate Universe, and as series go, it’s not a bad one. Continue reading →

Geekgasm DS

Posted by BlackWidower on

Well, Halloween is approaching and I really want to take this opportunity to have some spooky halloweeny fun.

Recently I was at our local grocery store and bought a video game from a bin. The store’s called Real Canadian Superstore, they’re like Wal-Mart but in reverse. The price tag said $15 but when I went to cash out the machine said $10…I wasn’t going to correct them.

The game was oddly enough titled Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys…Eloquent. Also, it’s spelled Thingies. There’s no “Y”.

Anyway, the game itself is a puzzle-platformer themed around an alien invasion of Earth. The aliens appear similar to human brains, and apparently they smell similar too, because the stench of brains somehow penetrated six feet of soil to awaken three young zombies, kinda like how the smell of coffee wakes people up in a Folgers ad. Continue reading →