April 3, 2013 Injustice:Gods Among Us Demo
Yesterday the demo for Injustice: Gods Among us was released for Xbox (and, presumably, PS3 and who knows what else). I’ve had my eye on this one for a while, so I downloaded it and ran through it. First of all, though, let’s clear up what it is, exactly. From the official site:
What if our greatest heroes became our greatest threat? Injustice: Gods Among Us introduces a bold new franchise to the fighting game genre from NetherRealm Studios, creators of the definitive fighting game Mortal Kombat. Featuring DC Comics icons such Batman, Cyborg, The Flash, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Solomon Grundy, Superman and Wonder Woman, the latest title from the award-winning studio presents a deep original story. Heroes and villains will engage in epic battles on a massive scale in a world where the line between good and evil has been blurred.
Short version: DC comicbook heroes and villains beating the snot out of each other, Mortal Kombat-style (have we already talked about Psy doing that one yet? I’m sure someone has, but I refuse to look it up). There already was a Mortal Kombat vs. DC game a few years back, and it was fine, I guess. This one is a bit more interesting to me because it’s just straight-up DC characters unleashed on each other.
Listen, we all know Superman could beat up Batman in less than two seconds – what we like knowing, though, is that Batman could beat up Superman in some instances.
The demo lets you play as either Batman or Wonder Woman, and you fight four other characters: Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor (in a power suit), and Doomsday. Sure, it’s a little stretch to have all these characters equal enough in power to battle each other, but it’s amazing how quickly you can get past that in your mind and just get to the fighting. The environments are detailed and interactive, something I realized right around the time Wonder Woman picked up the Bat Signal and bashed me with it. The moment was tinged with both “That ain’t right!” and “Whoa, cool!”
Each character has a special super move that becomes available once you’ve done enough damage to fill the meter. It’s very easily activated by holding the left and right triggers at the same time, something I appreciate very much. I am, for some reason, completely unable to do combos in fighting games. I can do moves like forward, back, A, but anything under the Combos list is literally something I cannot do. Anyway, I absolutely loved the four super moves in the demo:
- Batman: Tasers the opponents neck with two tasers, and the backflips jsut in time for the Batmobile to come roaring through and smacking the opponent
- Wonder Woman: two fellow Amazons come out and hold the opponent and do do various damage with WW doing some pretty sever hitting as well
- Lex Luthor: fiddles with a mechanism on his wrist that calls down a laser from a satellite which he channels with his suit towards his opponent for a massive explosion which can be seen from space
- Doomsday: pummels his opponent down through the ground for what looks like miles, into some water, and then back up through the ground (but not the same tunnel he just made!) back to the fighting arena.
Along with that, at one point I knocked an opponent off the top of the Gotham Police Station, and at the same time as he was hitting the wall on the building across the alley, he also got hit by a wrecking ball. Then he and the wrecking ball fell down through the street below where he ended up on a subway track, whereupon he was smacked by a subway that then fell through the hole created by the wrecking ball and into a new fighting area. It sounds crazy, but I loved the spectacle of it.
Once you run through the demo once, there’s a montage of characters, arenas, and action showcasing what all else the game has in store. Aside from the 24 (or so) characters and the multiplayer, it looks like there are a bunch of minigame-type things to do as well.
I very rarely buy brand new games at full price – I just can’t afford to, unfortunately. This game looks like it will go in the very next purchasing tier, though, which consists of actively looking for cheap used copy as soon as possible (as opposed to the “oh, hey, maybe I’ll get this game since it’s cheap” method), maybe renting it, or convincing a friend to buy it so I can borrow it from him. That last part sounds like I’m a mooch, but I return the favor when I do buy full-price new stuff, which does happen when it’s Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, or a Lego game, so it’s not as bad as all that.
Now, if someone out there wants to get me a review copy, I’d be happy to oblige with a review, certainly.
Tags: demo review
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- Posted under Videogames
April 2, 2013 Tuesday 14: Surgery Movies
I’m still not up and around, but I figured I could at least copy and paste in a list of movies. Don’t let the title mislead you – this isn’t a list of movies about surgery or even have surgery in them. These are just the movies I’ve watched since I had surgery last week. I was on narcotic pain meds, so if you think one or more of these is terrible, chalk it up to the meds. When I’m feeling better maybe I can come back and comment on them.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Airplane!
- Top Secret!
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Argo
- Killing Them Softly
- The Last Starfighter
- Psycho
- 10 Things I Hate About You
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Father of the Bride
- Little Shop of Horrors (Director’s Cut)
- Flight
- Lock Up
Tags: Tuesday10
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- Posted under Movies
April 1, 2013 No Foolin’
As I hope you’ll get to find out in years to come, we here at zwolanerd don’t engage in April Fools Day nonsense. Sadly, though, my not fooling around post today is about how there won’t be an actual post. I’m still recovering from surgery last week, and my meds have made my vision blurry and have made it difficult for me to focus on things. I’ll do my best to have things back up and running around here as soon as possible.
In the meantime, here are the Ninja Turtles dancing.
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March 28, 2013 Wonderfalls S01E02: Pink Flamingos
SUMMARY
Jaye and her father are in a car, getting ready to go out for breakfast together. As they are leaving, he has to clear the driveway of recycling and garbage bins, and a yard flamingo chastises Jaye to “get off [her] ass” and help her father. When Jaye shuts the window, she accidentally hits the car out of park, and it rolls backwards down the driveway, striking her father and breaking one of his legs. At the hospital, Jaye is taunted by her family that they should expect this behavior from her. Drowning her sorrows at The Barrel, she is accosted by Gretchen Speck-Horowitz to help plan their high school’s 6 1/2 year reunion. Although Jaye doesn’t want to do this, a Mounted Bass tells her to “get off [her] ass”. Fueled by guilt over her father, she agrees to help. Mahandra plots revenge on Gretchen for the mistreatment she suffered in high school. Meanwhile, Sharon picks up her father from the hospital and gets stuck getting him food and blankets, despite having a date with Beth that evening. She drugs her father with pain medication in order to keep her date without having to tell him about it. At the Barrel, the reunion is in full swing, but Gretchen’s Booster Rooster hair clip tells Jaye to “Destroy her!” and so she throws a fruity cocktail on her dress. At first Gretchen is upset and humiliated, but a meeting with an old admirer convinces her that she has a lot to give and that she is wasting her time. She saunters out a “free” woman, after telling Jaye that she is better than her. The next day, Jaye picks up her father from the hospital for his follow-up, and they have breakfast together.
There are three parallel stories running throughout this episode, all focused on a different character, but having the same theme of how others’ perceptions can cause problems with self-image and happiness. Jaye struggles with her family seeing her as a screw-up, Sharon wants her parents to believe she is a successful, normal woman (which involves keeping her sexual orientation a secret), and Gretchen desires to relive her glory days in high school to boost her faltering self-esteem. Jaye wants to change the perception her family has of her, while Sharon and Gretchen cling to the old image that others have, even though it may no longer be true. Eric even gives voice to this, as he says to Jaye, “Oh right, I get that. Certain people see you a certain way, and these people are all from a particular time in your life, so when you’re around them you feel compelled to act out psycho-dramas that have nothing to do with who you are now.” This pretty much sums up the plight of all three of these women. By the end of the episode, Gretchen and Jaye are both made to feel that their fears are unwarranted, or at least lessened. Gretchen has the run-in with her admirer (more on that later), and she realizes that she already does have her mojo back, and that it’s not her fault if Robert doesn’t love her; in fact, she doesn’t love him, so why stay in this relationship? Jaye is told by both her father and her mother that they love her as she is.
On the subject of Jaye’s parents, it seems that they get a bad rap from both sisters on how each expects the Tylers to feel and act toward them. Sharon is completely against telling them that she is a lesbian, although we haven’t seen any indication that they are anything but understanding parents. (There is that throwaway line about “going green”, but it doesn’t match up with the rest of the characterization of Karen.) Jaye feels like her family expects her to fail, although her father states that she shouldn’t demean what she does, even if it is a retail job. As far as TV parents go, Karen and Darrin are good ones. (Also, where was their brother when Darrin was in the hospital? Tsk!)
“And people say you’re an underachiever!” – Sharon Tyler
Gretchen’s interaction with her longtime admirer, Chuck Aronson, is very interesting. It’s not very common that an obsession like this is painted in a negative light. Of course, it is played for laughs, but Gretchen very pointedly refuses to entertain the idea of a relationship with this man because she is creeped out by him, including threatening him with mace. Instead of romanticising it, it is shown for what it is: stalkery, obsessive behavior. Now, Chuck seems like a nice guy (if a little sweaty). But Gretchen gets to choose whether or not to pursue this lead, and she chooses not to. And that’s okay.
There are three muses in this episode. The Pink Flamingos (as yard ornaments and as a balloon) tell Jaye to “Get off your ass!” The Mounted Bass echoes this statement, and also specifically tells her to “Help Gretchen.” Finally, the Booster Rooster hair clip tells Jaye to “Destroy Gretchen!”
TRIVIA & REFERENCES:
- When Gretchen shows Jaye her “couples card”, she explains that Amy Grant and Vince Gill, and Reese (Witherspoon) and Ryan (Phillipe) have them. They are two celebrity couples; however, the latter is no longer together. The address on the cards in a shout-out to a character’s residence on the Dick Van Dyke TV show.
- Mahandra accuses Jaye of throwing a reunion with the anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is a religious figure described in the Bible, described as an evil counterpoint to Jesus Christ.
- When looking at the Speck-Horowitz wedding album, Karen makes a reference to Fiddler on the Roof, which is a musical based on a Jewish family trying to maintain their traditions in the face of opposition.
- Jaye asks what kind of destruction Mahandra had in mind for Gretchen, asking if a “pig blood shower” would be involved. This is a reference to Stephen King’s book Carrie, and the film of the same name.
- Eric confesses that he has a borderline autistic trait of knowing the number of letters in anyone’s name. Jaye quizzes him with Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, to which he says he is asked that all the time. It is the title of a song from the Disney film Mary Poppins.
- The scene where Sharon brings the drugged glass of milk to her father is an homage to the 1941 Alfred Hitchcock film Suspicion.
- The book that Darrin is reading in bed is called Made in Texas by Michael Lind. It is a political book about the presidency of George W. Bush. This is supposed to be a hint that Darrin is a Republican.
- The drink that Jaye splashes onto Gretchen is thought by Chuck to be a mai tai. This is a cocktail with a variety of recipes, but most known to have rum, Curacao liqueur, and lime juice.
- After the destruction of Gretchen Speck-Horowitz, Mahandra asks Jaye is she was channeling Tonya Harding, a famous figure skater who sabotaged her competition (Nancy Kerrigan) by attempting to have her leg broken in 1994.
- This episode was the fourth aired, although it was intended to be the second episode.
Tags: LWST, Wonderfalls
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- Posted under TV