Life is Viewtiful

Like many people may age Power Rangers was a big part of my childhood. I remember coming home and watching the show after school. I remember eating it up every time they would do cool poses and I cheered as the Megazord defeated that days bad guy. I was about 5 years old at the time, so I’m talking old school Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. As of last year, I’ve started looking up on videos of all the Power Ranger toys I’ve missed out on and I have plans to go see the power Rangers movie coming out this year (good or bad I still wanna see it).

©Capcom

I say all that to discuss why the video game Viewtiful Joe is one of my favorite video games of all time. The scrappy little beat-um-up is another part of my childhood, being one of the first and one of the hardest video games I have ever beaten. It is a truly overlooked game, created by the same people who made Okami   (from the now defunct Clover studios) and Bayonetta( from platinum studios). The game is based off the Power Rangers or to be more accurate its Japanese counterparts Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (think single Power Ranger with a focus more on vehicles rather than robots). It also takes a lot of visual cues from movies in general.

The story is pretty basic for video game standards.  You play as Joe a  surfer dude sounding mega fan of the old superhero captain blue, who has dragged his girlfriend Silvia to see a marathon of Captain Blue movies showing at his local movie theater. When a robot from the movie crashes into theater and Silvia gets kidnapped by the movie's villain, it’s up to Joe to enter the movie world to save the day. So yes, it’s a save the princess plot. That isn’t  where this game shines though there are plenty of plot twists to keep you interested in the story. Where it really shines is the gameplay.

The gameplay gives you a lot of powers to play with. Slow motion, which boosts Joe's power and allows him to dodge bullets and missiles. Fast forward, which Allows you to move at double speed and even catch enemies on fire. Close up, Which is used to deflect attacks and stunning enemies and allows Joe to punch and kick quickly. Needless to say, you need to master when and where to use these powers if you're going to get through the game.

The game was popular enough to get a few sequels and even it’s own show. Viewtiful Joe 2 letting you play as Silvia(with her power of record) and Viewtiful Joe: red hot rumble, a party game base on the show. The game also had a handheld game called Viewtiful Joe: double trouble for the original DS. The show (from what I’ve seen of it) is a slowed down version of the game's plot with extra characters. The character of Joe also shows up in the Marvel vs Capcom games as a fighter as well. It is definitely worth a play and is an overlooked gem of a series and I hope that one day it is popular enough to get a reboot or another sequel.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Max

I have bought I bunch of video games and movies I really need to get to at some point. In an effort to both cure my lack of not seeing a lot of movies(at the very least), I have been watching movies in my spare time. So, because of that, I have caught up with all of the Mad Max movies.  I had seen bits of some of them before, but never the whole thing. I also had heard some of the movies were bad.

I'll start with the first one, Mad Max. The only part of this movie that felt truly dated to me was the title font. It is a bit of a slow burn of a movie that is more about the atmosphere than story.The movie felt something like a day in the life of our hero Max, and it didn't feel apocalyptic as the other movies would become. It's the only movie where I actually feel like max is a crazy person pushed to the brink. You really feel the desperation of the characters, or at least I did.

Road Warrior is next( or mad max 2 if you're outside the US). This is where most people were introduced to the character and it shows. This is the movie where you have everyone wearing what looks like left-over clothes and sports equipment. I believe that this movie had the most memorable hero characters. The helicopter pilot was the most memorable and fun character to me. The leader of the "good guys" tribe was also done well along with the feral kid. The villains were a little flat and 1-deminsional to me, but the designs of the bad guys were fun and threatening. The story and ending were well written and the ending was great.

That leads us into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. This one I feel is still a good movie, but it is the one that I feel is the black sheep of the Mad Max movies. It's not as dark as the other Mad max movies were. The first two and the most recent one were not afraid to have nudity in their movies and show blood and disfigurement. This one is much more"family friendly"  in tone and at times feels a little preachy, and downright silly. I still enjoyed it, but it honestly would have worked better as it's own movie rather than using the Mad Max name. The ending of the villain's arc, while being more interesting characters than previous villains, was bad and confusing. The movie's ending felt like it went on for a little too long too, trying to recapture the feeling of the second movie without really understanding why it worked.

© Warner Bros. Pictures
Last we have the newest one Mad Max: Fury Road. The characters in this one fell a bit more like a mixing of what everyone liked from all the previous movies. The dark gritty realism of the first, the second movie's sense of style, and the third movie's silliness and world building. This movie is the most actiony action movie to ever have moments of action.It is smart, it is a thrill, and It's one of the best movies I've seen in a while.


I think that all the movies had a certain charm to them. None of them really dipped hard into horrible movie territory for me. Most of them are movie classics.They all deserve at least one watch. It's a car ride I wouldn't mind taking again.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Ugh, Streaming

I love supporting the things I love. That usually tends to be movies and tv shows, but it can also be things like youtube and its creators and even some online comics. I also don't make a whole lot of money. So at best the support can be superficial things like watching the ads in front of a show or video. That's where my big issue comes in.

I hate streaming as it exists now. It's mostly because things like Netflix and a Hulu are completely closed off to me. I tend to watch a lot of Youtube, because youtube is free and I can usually find free internet connections just about everywhere, all I need to do is a Youtube account and I'm set, it's not the same with Netflix and Hulu, that require you to pay to subscribe to their content. Now I'm not saying that I feel entitled to this content in some way. If it ever came down to eating and a watching something I would eat every time, but I do like to watch movies and TV shows, and listen to music and read things, just like everyone else.

I hate how many streaming services and channels require you to already have a cable subscription to do anything on the website. Many of my peers are abandoning the TV entirely because simply having the internet is much, much cheaper than owning a cable subscription on top of owning a Television. There are other things like Youtube red, where I can't talk myself into watching shows that I already can watch on the website proper or at least a version of it. Netflix and Hulu and Amazon prime all have their own programming and no free version. While I an easier time thinking of reasons to subscribe( like I really wanna watch Luke Cage, Iron fist, stranger things, and a series of unfortunate events), I simply don't have the extra money to spend on them. There is some hope though.

There are a few websites doing it the right way and it's not what you think. I have been watching  Agents of Sheild on NBC, but I have missed a couple of episodes. I went to their website to see if I could maybe watch the episodes and I fan that I can, and even better I can watch them for free, after a certain amount of time, I can even catch up on it. It is by far the best model I have seen because you can pay to see new episodes right away, but if you're poor like me you can just as easily watch the shows you want to watch. Yes, you have to watch commercials, but it is completely free. It doesn't apply to all their shows, but what it does is allow me to support my favorite show and watch it as well.

 Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Science is More Art Than Science

I love shows that subvert expectations. It's the reason that I watch a lot of Adult Swim shows, watch a lot of comedy shows, and watch many cartoons. These kinds of shows have a tendency to take what I expect and do the opposite. Rick and Morty is the pinnacle of this kind of subversion. It holds nothing as sacred and subverts everything.

I have mixed feelings about this show. It mixes many things I enjoyed from other shows. It takes the improv nature of Home Movies, mixes in the references and depressing Sci-fi comedy of the Venture Brothers, and the deep satire of something like Morel Orel. I feel like I should love this show and it is a good show because of these reasons because it juggles them all well.  I just have a few nitpicks about the show that bothers me.

© 2013 Cartoon Network
I am not a huge fan of how they do the improv in the show. Home Movies did a good job with its improv because I felt like the characters were talking and not the actors. I have a hard time doing the same kind of separation of actor and character with Rick and Morty(especially in the episodes where they watch inter-dimensional TV). I also don't find the characters as likable as I do in something like the Venture Brothers. Everyone seems to be an asshole and not in a lovable asshole fun way like Cartman (of south park) or Archer (of Archer).It's a lot more realistic in its portrayals. I think that the satire is its biggest strength, but it can be a little heavy handed with it, outright calling aspects or tropes of the genre stupid, while using those same aspects and tropes(like in the episode lawnmower dog).

Despite these nitpicks I still enjoy the show overall. It is a whole lot of fun seeing the tropes I have come to know and love being made fun of. Rick and Morty can also have some truly thought provoking and sentimental moments, and any show that has those deserves at least a little bit of love from the viewing public. The show started as a simple parody of back to the future, but it really has turned into its own beast. I am ready to get shwifty and with the coming season three(which hopefully comes out this year).

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

SJWs More Like SJWhat?

    Prepare for me to be a little hyperbolic with this post because I don't think there is any other way around it when you are talking about generalities. Lately, in the world of Marvel's comic books, people have been in an uproar as the big name characters have been slowly getting replaced with new counterparts. People are in an uproar over this because they feel that these characters are simply there for the sake of diversity and to cater to those SJWs(social justice warriors or people they feel are trying to be too politically and accepting of everyone in an unrealistic and unrelatable way). They feel like they are losing their favorite characters and some long time fans are jumping the ship because of this. I can't really say that I agree.

I admit I don't really read a whole lot of comics, but I do love to watch and read about a lot of comic history. I really don't say that I agree with this because most comic book superheroes are power fantasies for people who don't really have a lot of power, to begin with. Superman is the immigrant who moves to the big cities and cleans up the town with his work.  Captain America can be seen as the ultimate expression of growing old and not understanding the world anymore.  Iron man can be seen as money not solving all our problems, as he as had problems with alcoholism. The hulk has dealt with abuse as a kid. Spiderman deals with a lot of the problems young adults face, like juggling a social life, getting money, drug abuse, and just dealing with the day to day problems.

They are social justice warriors and that what makes them relatable. The X-men are one of the biggest examples of this. Professor X and Magneto are based on  Martian Luther King and  Malcolm X respectively. The Xmen themselves are a stand in for any marginalized or a put-down group of people. They live in a world where people don't accept them and it is their literal mission to change that world-view.You can even see this in the movies as there are allusions to the struggles of both homosexual people and the struggles of civil rights groups in the 60s and 70s.

The only legitimate backlash I've actually seen is that their worries that if the sales tank when some of their old fans start to leave and then marvel will flip the other way and completely abandon many of the diverse characters, they are just negating interest in their books both because of this.While I could see that kind of thing happening, I don't think that is gonna be a big of an issue as people think. Comics do that all the time, comics continually add characters and then have massive events to kill off the characters they don't sell or aren't popular. I can only see that happening again. This also ignores the movies, that have versions of those original characters (at least for now) and where most of these companies are making their money at the moment.

I don't think people are fighting against social justice warriors, and I think that term is a little undescriptive of what people are actually having issues with. The aren't against social justice, they are against people they don't feel are genuine and are fake people who simply want to be on the moral or ethical high ground or in essence trying to decry privilege by giving themselves a different form of privilege. Now I think that is a bit of an overgeneralization because at the same time I don't feel like its coming from a place of hate or they are trying to put themselves above others, I think it's the opposite.  In this case, I feel that what it is is a massive understanding between the two groups of people. People who feel that everyone is equally oppressed and people who feel they aren't, but want to protect those who are.  I don't really feel that there is a clear-cut answer on how to deal with that, but what I would at lease like to see is more accurate descriptions of what people are actually having issues with.


Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Everybody Digs Giant Robots

   I am a big fan of giant robots. As such there are few shows I haven't at least watched that include a giant robot. Whether it be Evangelion, Gundam, Robotech, or Power Rangers/Super Sentai, I have seen them all and can tell you the difference between 'em. Pacific Rim is even one of my favorite movies of all time, and I had a smile on my face as through the whole movie, because it was exactly what I wanted, Fun characters and even more fun giant robot fights. I even collected transformers and power ranger toys growing up.

    My favorite mecha( or giant robot) show is Megas XLR. It was a cartoon network show that acted as a love letter parody to the entire genre. It wasn't only aimed at mecha and mixed in comic and anime parodies based on marvel comic characters like Modok and a team based around sailor moon. The show only really lasted two seasons getting canceled as cartoon network's management changed and it was decided to write off the show as a failure for tax credit purposes. This means there can never be any more of the show, which honestly really depresses me as a fan of it.

    The story of Megas starts in the far future, the humans are nearly on the verge of being conquered by the Glorft. Our last hope is a human named Kiva and a robot she took from them, the Megas. When she attempts to travel back in time, she is separated from the robot, along with the Glorft commander that went back with her, and the Megas got sent to a different time. When it gets discovered by the mechanical genius(, but pretty dense in other areas) Coop, he decides to take the broken robot and rebuild it into one massive hot rod of a robot. It even has a car for a head.

                                                      © Cartoon Network.
   That's when this show really jumps into its strong suit, it's crazy over the top action. Coop throughs everything out to beat the bad guy lasers, guns, swords, other enemies. If you can think of a way to beat a bad guy with a giant robot, Coop has done it.  He has some great bad guys like the Glorft commander, a war-loving general with an honorable side, Magnanimous, a literal floating head, who owns an intergalactic wrestling federation, and even an alternate dimension version of Coop. You also had Jamie, Coop's money and girl loving sidekick, voiced by the ever interesting steven bloom.

The thing that saddens me the most about this show?  It's that I can't buy anything legally connected to the show. I can write to Cartoon Network and ask them for a new show like it, but other then something like a massive twitter campaign there is really no way to watch this show legally. I implore you to track down this show and watch it. It is one of the finest examples of the genre. Needless to say, I really dug this giant robot.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends. 

Nearly 10 Years and I Still Enjoy World of Warcraft

I am a pretty big gamer and I tend to play a good number of RPGS(role playing games). As such I love to get at least ankle deep in a games story and get me some phat loots and collect a shiny new robe for my character.  I usually go for the magic user characters and from there I typically like to pick either non-human race or the "smart" race or both. So, when that came to pick a character in warcraft I picked a gnome mage. That was almost 10 years at this point and I haven't looked back.

         

Before I started, I had been hearing from friends and family how awesome the game was. For the longest time, I didn't have a computer good enough to run it, even on low settings.Eventually, I got a laptop for school and was able to officially start the game. The big nosed guy above in the weird hat is my main character.  He's the character I started out with back in the good old days of 2008. 

The game has significantly changed since those days it has lost and gained features, I have gained friends(and a girlfriend) and lost them(and her) over the game, and both good and bad expansions to the game have come and gone too. I started playing during the third expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and the game is now on its sixth expansion, Legion, with no end in sight. Warcraft has a few spin-offs( World of Warcraft being a spin-off itself of the Warcraft RTS(real time strategy) series) Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is the first one and is an online collectible card game based on characters from the Warcraft universe and even some original ones made especially for the game. Heroes of the Storm is more of an indirect spin-off based around all of Blizzard's properties(the company who owns Warcraft). 

The game is a pretty big investment of both time and money. On top of the starter pack(wich includes all of the game minus the latest expansion, you need to buy the latest expansion, and pay for the 15 dollar subscription fee. If you can get to max level and can make enough in-game currency ou will be able to play the game for free, but that can mean a pretty big time investment. This shouldn't scare you, because the game rewards you for to bring friends into the game with free time and in games rewards like vehicles and pets. With the amount of time the game has been out you will not be in need of things to do in game, there are tons of things to collect, quest and story to experience, and mechanics to master so go save the world.... of warcraft.                

   Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.   

The Greatest Show That NO One Talks About

I know you're all annoyed with me reviewing just adult swim shows at this point, but I got just one more to get out of my system. It is what I consider to be one of the best-written shows on tv, and that is The Venture Brothers. Ever since it's first airing I have been watching this show (yeah, yeah I know I sound like a hipster, but its true). I even own all the seasons on DVD and have started to watch the commentary (something that I rarely do for any kind of movie or show). I honestly believe it is the most under-rated show on Adult Swim.

    © 2002 Cartoon Network

A show ment as a satire of nerd culture wrapped in a family that is a mixture of Johnny Quest and the Hardy Boys, this show has everything you would want from a nerdy TV show.  It has a 60's retro-futuristic aesthetic with ton's of referential humor and just generally funny moments anyone could laugh at. It mixes action and comedy flawlessly and is still a very adult show without falling into the grimdark edge lord route where it feels like their trying to hard to be cool.

The show has been running for 6 seasons with a 7th coming down the line with specials airing in between the main seasons. The creators Jackson Publick (also known as Christopher McCulloch) and Doc Hammer are just as interesting to watch as the show. The show also recruits the talents of Ben Edlund as well( known for his work on Supernatural, Firefly, and every incarnation of The Tick on TV). Needless to say, if you like any of those shows, you should be watching this.

The story is a strong one with fun characters and interesting settings. Like Johnny Quest, the family sometimes travels all over the world getting into all sorts of misadventures. The characters have complex relationships and are written as if their real people, even though they have to deal with super spies, robots, and magic users. Like many Adult swim shows, the show takes a little while to get into ,but is worth it if you can get through the first season which can be a little slow in places. It does an excellent job of introducing the characters and setting up the later seasons, which are where the show get better. This show is like a wine it gets better with time.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.