I haven’t written anything for the website recently. Part of the reason for the lapse in content is the daily grind of work and responsibility. Another part is the lack of important things to spin into a full article. I mean, yea, I still hate stupid AAA gaming shit like microtransactions and such, and I have a complete disdain for digital sales because of my incessant need to hoard physical copies like a dragon (685 PS3 games and counting, working on a complete Sony collection). But I do think of other things. Some of those things come out when I participate in the podcasts we put out from time to time. But others are random musings I entertain on my own.
Except, sometimes I want to spew those internal musings out loud. And since I have the self-perceived gift of written gab, I have the urge to spew these musings out in this form. So, this is a written account of some of the random things that bounce around in my head. I’ll start with a pre-thought-of topic and just roll with it from there. I can’t guarantee that my thoughts will make sense in isolation, but I can definitely attest to the fact that these stream-of-consciousness thoughts rummage through the thinky-things in my brain as I write them. Here we go:
- The “debate” about violent video games rages on after the horrific mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. As a person currently sitting less than 20 miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I don’t need to be reminded of the horrors felt by many people in those communities. But of course, Walmart added fuel to the fire by announcing that they will no longer sell violent video games. My first thought after hearing that was simple: What is violence? I mean, Mario kills Koopas by jumping on them. He also beats the shit out of Link, Samus and Solid Snake in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Nintendo has to be the biggest video games sales driver for Walmart. Are they seriously gonna consider banning sales of Mario games because they’re “too violent”?
- Does the sudden retreat by Walmart mean GameStop has been given a second life? Fuck the impact of Best Buy and other big-box stores; Walmart is the biggest retailer by far, and the impact of a sea change like this one from them reverberates across the entire industry. They were the trend-setter in the 90s with their refusal to carry music CDs with explicit lyrics; they have that same power with video game sales today. With them not selling Call of Duty or similar games, does this mean GameStop has a new lease on life? Let’s face it: parents don’t give a rat’s squirt of piss about the moral issues surrounding violence in video games. If Little Timmy wants Call of Duty, ignorant parents are gonna get him Call of Duty. If they refuse to go the digital route out of fear for their wallets (kids are resourceful little bastards that will empty entire bank accounts if their parents aren’t vigilant), they will now have to go elsewhere to buy the game. Like GameStop.
- Also…TIMMM-AYYY!!! (Because I’m a fucking child at heart.)
- After seeing Avengers: Endgame for the 197th time, I feel I should state this: I don’t care about the back-and-forth that exists between the Marvel and DC camps. I just know these three things about superhero movies:
- The second greatest moment in superhero movie history was when Captain America juggled Thanos with Mjölnir and his shield! I’m talking Tekken levels of juggling. The Mad Titan ended up trashing Cap afterwards…but still! #JUGGLEGAME
- The absolute greatest moment in superhero movie history was everything that happened from the moment Captain America said, “AVENGERS…<<pause for dramatic effect>>…assemble” onward. Ignore the fact that MCU fans have been waiting for Cap to utter those words for eleven years. The following battle broke superhero movies for me. That was eleven years of MCU movies – and over 40 years of reading comic books – exploding in front of my eyes in a tantric display of goodness! (And yes, I still cry every single time I see Steve dancing with Peggy at the end. Every. Single. Time. That’s what happens when you commit emotionally to a shared universe like the MCU.)
- The third greatest moment in superhero history? Everything that happened in Shazam. I may be a Marvel homeboy because of the comics I read when I was younger, but if there was a more entertaining superhero movie made (not named Blankman or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), then I want to be told what it is! Shazam is a great fucking movie, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise! Warner Bros. and DC need to get their fingers out of their asses and make movies that actually move the superhero meter! Like Shazam!
- I took two of my nephews to see Dora and the Lost City of Gold. One of them wanted to see it for his birthday, and neither of them had been to a movie theater before then, so Uncle Willy had to oblige. The movie wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. I actually found myself enjoying some parts of it, though I actively cringed in others. My nephews loved it; adults seemed to laugh at some of the ridiculous jokes. I came out of the theater not completely hating it. So…yea?
- Speaking of movies, am I the only person who’s tired of the whole trend of bringing back the “classics”? Fine, Disney needs to make its money (and extend the trademarks) off its intellectual properties by making live-action remakes of classics like The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. But do we really need Bill and Ted Face the Music? After the Matrix and John Wick trilogies, do we really need Keanu Reeves to devolve back to being Ted “Theodore” Logan once again? And I don’t care if Wesley Snipes has meaningful employment again. Do we really need a Coming to America sequel with him in it?
- Now that I mention the Coming to America sequel, does Samuel L. Jackson get a nod? I mean, this is SAMUEL L. FUCKING JACKSON! Yea, Eddie Murphy’s Hakeem swept him up after a botched stick-up in the original, but does he get a chance to show he rehabilitated himself after that and got his life turned around? Does he become a franchise partner for McDonald’s? Is he the main antagonist in the sequel, trying to crush the McDowells? Does he wear an eyepatch like Nick Fury or have a Jeri Curl like Jules in Pulp Fiction? Yes, my mind goes to these odd places!
- The last podcast had me painting a negative picture of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. Though I am definitely disappointed with some of its selling points (REALLY KONAMI? A FUCKING TURBO TAP???), I am giddy with the prospect of playing some classic TG-16 games on-demand when it comes out in March 2020. Including Splatterhouse, because Konami managed to get their heads properly screwed on to add the game to the US list after the fact. Since Bandai Namco had the Splatterhouse licensing rights, I wonder what it took to get the game added.
- I’m also not a big SEGA of Japan fan, but the Genesis Mini has me equally giddy. September 19, 2019, cannot get here soon enough. I didn’t pre-order it because FUCK PRE-ORDERS, but I still want it. It may not include Herzog Zwei, but it has almost every relevant Genesis game in my mind, including Eternal Champions, a ridiculously underrated fighting game!
- I want both the Genesis and TG-16 Minis bad enough that I decided to buy the NES and SNES Classics, as well as the PlayStation Classic, as a way to have a shrine to the classics without having to bust out the actual consoles. Because let’s face it: My Model 1 Genesis with the Sega CD Model 2 and 32X un-surgically attached to it looks ungainly as all fuck!
- It also helps that all of the mini consoles have been easy to hack until now. Part of my giddiness is in the thought of hacking the new consoles and bending them to my will the way the last ones did. Yea, SEGA, you’re adding the ultra-rare port of Tetris to the Mini, but I can add Herzog Zwei, Sword of Vermillion, and even Virtua Racing into that bitch! I mean, if you let me.
- Of course, getting all of these mini consoles doesn’t help me one bit when it comes to playing video games. I have a huge backlog of games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, GameCube, and Wii U to play, not to mention the mounting backlog of PS4, Xbox One, and PC games I’ll get to next. How am I going to dig into those if I have a chance to play Clash at Demonhead, Crystalis, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy II again???
- Saying Clash at Demonhead reminds me of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a movie I re-watched for the seventh time recently and still do not like. I get it, folks. It’s a generational masterpiece in the eyes of many people. Edgar Wright is a directorial savant who helped bring the Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End) to life, and I love him for that. Scott Pilgrim is supposed to be a big fucking deal. But I don’t like it. It’s a movie about a PEDOPHILE (Knives Chau is underage) who still manages to find a way to be a bigger asshole as the movie goes on! And it doesn’t help that Michael Cera is overshadowed in retrospect by EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING MOVIE! Do you realize that Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, and CAPTAIN FUCKING AMERICA HIMSELF are in that movie? And I’m really supposed to root for Evan from Superbad in all of this???
- As an aside, I LOVE Aubrey Plaza! It’s never going to matter outside of this article, but I wanted to say it. I love her. I want her to sarcastically demean me until the end of time. As long as she stares into my soul with those piercing eyes of hers, I’ll submit!
- Oh, and can I mention that the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World videogame is no longer available, even for people who purchased it via Xbox LIVE? Grumpy Joe are you reading this? This is the digital future! Someone can decide for you if you’re allowed to play a video game, whether you purchased it or not! Prostrate yourself to your digital future and pray you never want to play a game you paid for but have been told you can never play it again!
- (Oh wait, I forgot. Grumpy Joe doesn’t play a game that is older than 2 months out of fear that it’s too old. I’m still waiting for you to sell me your Vita, Joe. I’m still waiting.)
- Thankfully, CAPCOM isn’t as dickish with DuckTales Remastered. The game has been delisted from PSN and Xbox LIVE, but those who purchased it prior to the delisting can still download it. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is similarly delisted for the PS3, and I re-downloaded it recently after I added a 1TB hard drive to my Slim. Good on you, CAPCOM!
- That hasn’t stopped some from hoarding physical copies of DuckTales Remastered for the PS3 for release at hideously high prices, but I guess everyone needs a hobby. I bought my copy ages ago. I’m not affected. Go on and try to sell your physical copy of a game that can be bought on the PlayStation 4, in its original bitmapped glory, as part of The Disney Afternoon Collection for less than a tenner. Ya capitalist assholes.
- The aforementioned backlog of games to play is longer than the late Hugh Hefner’s conquest list, but I did manage to tick Far Cry 3 on the PS3 off that list. And I absolutely LOVE the game! I thought Vaas was the ultimate asshole in the game, but the game somehow managed to trot out an entire cavalcade of assholes for me to hate and kill besides him! The game is an absolute masterpiece! It was re-released on the PS4, and I’m gonna buy it there just to play it again! For all the crap Ubisoft pulls, you can’t deny that they know how to craft an engaging narrative…even if ya gotta climb fucking towers to play it!
- Oh yeah, and playing Far Cry 3 still doesn’t make me want to shoot up a fucking Walmart, you gun-apologist assholes! I hate to delve into politics, but I have to in this case. Maybe get your own house in order before you try to shift the blame elsewhere, ya ignorant bastards? I have less of a chance of shooting up a McDonald’s than you do! There were guns in Dora and the Lost City of Gold. Why aren’t you apologist assholes campaigning against that? You fucking assholes!
- Oh, and the Second Amendment? IT’S AN AMENDMENT! It was AMENDED to the Constitution, and it can be AMENDED out! It can be changed! Don’t believe me? Go and see how great the Eighteenth Amendment was and how long it lasted! Have a drink while you read it! BECAUSE YOU CAN DO THAT NOW!
As this random spewing of garbage is posted, I’m playing Onrush on my PS4. And I’m counting the days until the box set for the entire MCU is available for purchase. I don’t need the box set; my Plex server has housed every single MCU movie – as well as every movie in the aborted DCEU – since the very moment I could rip it. But I want a physical representation of the love I have for those movies. I wish the DCEU could be a part of it. But when the only bright spots are Wonder Woman and Shazam, what can I expect? I’ll still buy the shit out of a Shazam Special Edition because I love that movie that much!
I have more random thoughts in my head. Maybe I’ll vomit them on you soon.
