Resident Evil Afterlife - Downward Zombie Spiral

So, after the decent entertainment of the third movie, the story gets dumber and more nonsensical. This is when the movies really started to go belly up. This is when it became clear that Anderson didn't know where he was going with the film series. All of the potential from the earlier movies is brought to a brick wall where they set things up only to cut them off before the payoff. Where the third movie brought about a clone army, this fourth entry kills them at the very beginning. 

Yes, through semi-decent CGI to bring multiple Alices to the screen, we see all of them die off immediately as they try to invade Umbrella Corp. Wesker takes out all of them and then takes away Alice's powers, of which are still poorly defined. Okay, so now she can't use telekinesis or super enhanced agility and accuracy. Throughout the entire film, she is still basically invincible. You'd almost suspect the decision to take away her powers was brought about after the scenes where she uses them were already partially shot. 

So, the real problem with this movie, aside from that jarring batch of scenes that basically retconned the earlier films, is that it is a shelter and place movie. Alice pulls off a terribly impossible landing on top of a building. So, instead of going off to find a new community in Alaska, it turns out that it was all some random ship off the coast of a zombie apocalyptic city. Zombies are all around this one building where Alice now finds herself with a whole bunch of refugees that will become entirely superfluous in the long run. 

This movie is probably one of the worst examples of horror movie tropes. There's a pervert, a sweet motherly lady who makes sandwiches, a mechanic, the one no one trusts and on and on and on. Every single one of them, aside from Claire Redfield, will be gone and seldom ever mentioned again. They even bring in Chris Redfield, and he's played by the guy from Prison Break. Wentworth Miller literally thought they were kidding when they told him he would be a prisoner who knows a way out of the building. Apparently, they thought the reference by itself was worth putting us through some of the most cookie cutter plot devices as a result. 

Even the coolest part of the entire movie is a bit of a downer, as we finally see a cool zombie known as the Executioner. This RE5 zombie makes a small appearance in the movie, and the doublebarreled shotgun Alice uses quarters as buckshot. As unrealistic as this is, it is still somewhat entertaining. I hope you enjoy this scene if you ever watch it, because it's as good as it gets. Beyond this, it's the obvious betrayals, zombie kill jump scares and slowly coming to the realization that MAYBE they should actually listen to the guy who says he knows he has a way out. It is mind-numbing. 

Throughout the whole thing, the seemingly unpowered Alice just kicks more ass and solves every problem until she needs to be dumb for the movie to last longer. All of this leads up to getting to the ship off the coast of the city. There's some idiot refugee that betrays the others and steals the plane so he can fly... to the ship and immediately serve Albert Wesker out of nowhere. That's right, Wesker is on the ship and now he wants to literally eat Alice. He says that he is infected with T-Virus powers... like Alice... just go with it--and he needs to take in her essence to regain control because... that's how science works... maybe? 

Either way, they fight the video game boss like an actual video game boss and Alice is the only one who exists in Resident Evil Retribution. Nothing is connected and even though Wesker seems like he died at the end of this movie, he didn't. No, his actual death is beyond lame and probably would have been more prominent here. Either way, even with the semi-decent effects and the awesome appearance of the Executioner, this movie is nothing and means nothing. It is a nonsensical segway into another movie and blatantly wastes its time in an uninspired zombie city building lockdown movie. Dawn of the Dead did it much better and this is just a mess. If you're still watching the movies by this point, you should know what lies ahead is so much worse. Virtua Nosedive.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero (PS5) - The Final Battle Again!

 If there was ever an immortal concept in anime, it is Dragon Ball. Even when this series went on hiatus, a small band of fans called Team Fourstar brought about Dragon Ball Z Abridged. No matter what part of history it is, Dragon Ball has existed since it started and then Dragon Ball Super came about and things got... complicated. Either way you look at it, Dragon Ball has had a long history and the story has been told to exhausting extents. Even before this game, other games have completely followed the story in one way or another. Dragon Ball FighterZ came up with a cool story of its own, which was refreshing, especially with such a good game included with it. Then there was Xenoverse and I played that since the very beginning. I'm pretty sure I still have my Goku statue from Xenoverse 2. The story was different, but ultimately the same. What was great about that was you got to play your own character customized to your liking. They fought along with the main characters of the series and gained their own abilities. 

Here is a bit more return to form, even though you're playing through the same story, it does have other perks. The combat is a little simple, but not at all boring. It's fast paced and can gain real traction when you're fighting while fully powered up. In the episode mode, you play as multiple characters. Each one of them have fights that were the largest in the series. With Vegeta, you fought enemies like Kuwi, Zarbon, Freeza, but then move onto his large battles in the Android Saga, #19, #18, Imperfect Cell and even Perfect Cell. Each one of them is familiar and well known as his largest battles in the Z Saga. Part of me hates that there isn't more Dragon Ball from the beginning, it is very nice to play some of the older characters. Then there are the newer characters, like Goku Black. He is available very early in the game and this just seems like a waste of a space that could be given to better Dragon Ball characters. His story is boring and a horrific retread of the Future Trunks Saga, which is one of the best ones in Dragon Ball as a whole. I'm sorry, but no, I'm not going to rush to play Dragon Ball Super parts of this game. 

The characters, however, are amazingly vivid and vast throughout the series that you can play as. It is very easy to grind the story for a little bit, collect experience and unlock characters without paying a dime. It's a fake currency that you gain through gameplay. After just a few hours, you can make some very choice purchases for multiple characters, including extra skins! I didn't even check if there was a way to pay real money for this, because it has been rendered wholly useless with this very generous system. Within just the first three hours of gameplay, I was able to purchase most of the characters that I wanted to play. You can customize your own version of the character through skins and extra abilities purchased for Zenni at the shop. So, you can get your favorite character, buff them up, and fight in team battles against real people or computers. 

There is a good deal of stuff to keep you busy for a long time, while also being very beneficial for other modes of the game, constantly adding content. It is refreshing to see such a system and actually did keep me entertained for the whole game. I haven't beaten every storyline quite yet and I've been at it for around 25 hours. Most of that is because it is just a lot of fun to play custom battles and form your own playstyle. It's a game that really makes you want to play it while having the graphics to back it all up. My favorite color is red, and my custom Goku can be Super Saiyan God mode, who has the saiyan red hair. Vegeta is the same way, which is also very exciting to see, because he had skipped it through the first run of Dragon Ball Super. 

From main badguys from the series to main badguys of the movie, this game has you covered, even with the extra ally characters like Tapion or Pikehan. Being able to play as a giant yellow Janemba form is also quite a strange part. Hildegarn is a blast to fight against. Being able to take down giant forms as if they were normal enemies with a lot of reach and power moves is a very satisfying experience. They seem a little easy sometimes, but then there can come a difficulty spike when an enemy constantly performs super moves. So, the impulse is to do the same against them, constantly doing Gogeta's final move he used to kill Janemba or even Vegeta's Final Flash. 

The power up system is simple, thankfully. Sometimes, like in Bodokai 3, you need to press down two buttons and for some reason, that was a bit more cumbersome. You get normal power ups and then ultimate forms take on a secondary power up that unlocks your most powerful move. The ultimate moves are a lot of fun to trip over, especially when it actually works. Goku even unleashes the Spirit Bomb on Freeza randomly in the middle of the fight to finish it off. That was strange, but still quite nostalgic that they actually decided to stick to canon before he turned super saiyan for the first time.

If you're a Dragon Ball fan, this is your game and it is beautiful. Having so many options of play and unlockables is a gratifying experience and it really looks like the put in the leg work both graphically and mechanically. The way that it sticks to the original series and then goes off deeper into the fandom is a lot of fun to relive, especially when it's with your favorite characters. Gohan seems like quite the underused character later on through the series when he grows up, but it is really cool to play with his Super Saiyaman skin! Just seeing him and Videl is another landmark of a highpoint in an otherwise disappointing saga in Dragon Ball. Sorry, I just can't bring myself to like the Buu Saga. Virtua Saiyan Bomb!

Batman or Spider-man? - Saturday Morning Beatings! (Pt. 3)

Very few characters have ever had so many iterations of animated TV shows. Both of them had their own live action and animated series back from Batman's start in the 1930 serials to super hip 60's and 70's shows for both of them with horrific special effects. To Batman's credit, his flew on for entire seasons while Spider-man's poorly received series not even going past 13 episodes. Adam West's TV series went on to be respected as the shark-spraying piece of cheese that it is, but it was hardly the peak of the Caped Crusader's most popular outing. Both of these superheroes have an entire plethora of TV history, but their true renaissance wouldn't come until their Saturday morning animated series in the 90's. 

Batman The Animated Series

Bruce Timm and Paul Dini are the two men credited with making this show the great entity that it was. After Tim Burton's 1989 movie took the fanbase by storm, they wanted to follow it up with a shadowy, more young adult oriented animated series that was also safe(ish) for kids. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill brought about a Batman and Joker that would live on for generations as two of the greatest versions of each character. Each episode was so amazingly crafted with developing stories for both the Batman rogue's gallery and the batfamily, even going so far as to create its own ever-spanning characters like Harley Quinn. Joker's jester-like partner and underling came about with this series in the episode "Joker's Favor". 

Even Mr. Freeze, a character that was never taken seriously before this cartoon, was expanded in his lore and treated as one of Batman's most dangerous opponents. With a wife in a coma with which he is finding a cure, he needs to resort to crime in order to gain the funding. This version of Freeze would become the real version that everyone turned to for reference. Killer Croc, The Mad Hatter, Clay Face, Catwoman, all of them were so done with astonishing quality in both writing and character progression throughout. 

The scripts were written with intelligence and even the worst episode, "I've got Batman in my Basement!", is still good enough to hold its own against scrutiny. Villains were given understanding motivations and some of them are genuinely heartfelt in their dispositions. Sometimes, they don't want to be this way and just succumb to mental illnesses. Most of them are just greedy, though, and with Batman's no-kill rule, it's not as if he's over punishing them. H.A.R.D.A.C. Batman was just confused as to who was the real Batman and actually thought he was the Dark Knight himself. He was a robot clone that was just trying to be Batman. These stories really can go to some dark places and make you think.

The animation and artwork became iconic for Bruce Timm's style and all the way to the Superman crossover and art change, they were very aesthetically pleasing. Once the art change happened, though, Joker, Scarecrow, Bane, Mad Hatter and some others took a bit of a nosedive in character design. It wasn't a dealbreaker and it didn't outright destroy the show, but it didn't do it any favors. The last season is seen as a bit of a weak point but the show was still great. Even when it added the Robins and Batwoman, this series never faltered in its quality. The series in its entirety is still seen as a milestone for the character and comic series of Batman.

Spider-man The Animate Series

Once Spider-man threw his hat into the ring, it took a lot of fans by surprise. You would think it would just copy off of Batman's homework, but it took the series in a whole other direction. The idea for a series was, in fact, directly connected to Batman's, but beyond that, it exists in its own style of art and storytelling. It is far more into progressive storytelling, where the Dark Knight was more episodic. This was a good and bad thing for both series for two different reasons. Sometimes, Spider-man just carried on its stories for a little too long. Sometimes, though, Spider-man pulled off a real banger of a season. 

The early episodes are far superior to the later, though. By season 3, the stories began running on for far too long and this came to a head in season 4 where it ends on a cliffhanger that would never be resolved. It went from episodic and 2 to 3 parters to just going on and on and on with the same story that just ends up getting old. To try and spice it up, they even bring in the X-men 92 characters, but it didn't have exactly the hyped effect that they were hoping for. 

When Spider-man started with fighting Vulture, Scorpion, Rhino and Doc Ock, many agree that the series was at its peak. When Venom and Kingpin had plots, they tended to last longer but kept up the quality writing. There were some fantastic stories being told with pacing that was willing to take its time and build up to the bigger battles. This was when the series was hitting them out of the park! Peter Parker struggled with his home life and his hero life while trying to get with Mary Jane and this had its ups and downs while only really getting annoying by the last season. Then there was the more complicated relationship Spidey had with Black Cat. With villains like the Green Goblin or Lizard being people he looked up to professionally, it held real weight because these were characters we've been introduced to before they went to the baddies. 

There were limitations, though. This was a time when bullet guns were seen as bad, so they switched to lasers. They also wanted to keep a hard Y7 rating for the younger audiences and Fox was on a no violence kick, so there could be no on-screen punches. So, you get more jump cuts away from hits and a whole lot of web shooting to debilitate villains. Spider-man had to use his brain and out smart a lot of his opponents and a lot of kids never even noticed the nonviolence. It didn't really suffer as a result. It was more the graphical aspect and the framerates that hurt the series. Sometimes the slow-motion would just make the screen bug out and the animation would get jumpy and it was weird, even for the younger audience. 

The voice work and the overall execution of the series had its very high points, but also had a few flops. A lot of people will point to the Black Spider-man calling after Shocker, and yeah that's when it was most noticeable. While Kingpin's voice became iconic for the character, there's more stock villain voices for a lot of the rogues. After a while, they started making up villains and pulling some of the more not great versions of well known characters. Blade was done pretty well, but Morbius wasn't. Instead of being a blood-sucking vampire, he absorbed plasma through weird growths on his palms. If they weren't going to go full on with him, then they shouldn't have brought him up in the first place. The did the same with Punisher. Obviously, he wasn't going to go on his normal blood baths like in the more adult themed comics, but the laser blasters just took something away from the more tough-guy persona. 

So, obviously, Batman wins this one by a longshot. Spider-man was not a bad series, it just didn't age as well and took a much deeper dive in the later seasons. It had its place in the vast amount of superhero cartoons, but Batman was seen as the prime example to follow. Many could make the case that Spectacular Spider-man was a better choice to face this challenge, but it was made in a different era, whether it was better than the 1994 series or not. The two of them did well in their own right, but this is definitely 5 points to the Caped Crusader himself! Give them a try and next time we'll examine some of the lesser animated series tries. So, be warned that we may be viewing Beware the Batman. That's right, a warning. You're Bat Warned. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order - Chaingunning to the Moon

Sometimes, rebooting and reimagining a game can mean its death. Well, this series jump started Wolfenstein's popularity after a bit of a lukewarm reception of the 2009 version. This was a brand new installment with a grand bit of worldbuilding. This takes place in an alternate future where the Third Reich win the war. BJ Blazkowicz starts us off in World War 2 where the Axis's technology is far more sophistocated than this timeline. As they launch an attack, the allies are all killed except for BJ. 

Our hero gets put into a hospital, and is basically forgotten about because the Nazis believe him to be dead. However, since they won the war, their stranglehold on Germany only grows more and more ironclad. Blazkowicz wakes up from his catatonia to find the world in a neo-fascist state where the Nazi Regime reigns supreme, and soon they come to the hospital and begin killing patients. Anya, the girl who was taking care of him and with whom he becomes interested in, also gets taken by the Third Reich before he comes out of his coma, ready to shoot and kill. Using a dinner knife, he kills one guard, takes his gun and from there, it's time to take the fight to them. 

Basically, it gets to the same place as the original, but then spins it to where you're not just in Castle Wolfenstein. You're going all across a new aged Germany if it was still under Hitler's rule. You find and rescue Anya and you find and join the rebellion against the Third Reich. Throughout the game, you go on missions that gain more and more intelligence about their plans and this eventually leads you to the moon. One of this game's biggest draws was that you are literally killing Nazis on the moon. What sells this idea is that they actually sell it story-wise. You feel the stranglehold the Nazis have because you interact with them and see their cruely play out in front of you. You meet one woman on a train surrounded by guards and you genuinely think they found you out. What it actually was was them screwing with your head and making fun of you. They can play the most horrific practical jokes and just laugh about it and you naturally want to take them down. 

When I say futuristic, I mean giant machine attack dogs, futuristic tanks and mech suits! They even have drones and the combat becomes chaotic when you're having to take down all of these elements along with the normal human guards. You can dual wield machineguns and feel like a real badass in all new ways as you take down the evil Axis!

The graphics are so huge that this game had to be released on multiple discs for the Xbox 360. With PS3, it simply had a lot of load screens. That doesn't take much from the gameplay aside from some textures and frames. The great thing is that you can see where all of that storage space went when you look at the game itself. It's not without its glitches, but it still came out a finished game that is so fun to play because you feel as powerful as the Wolfenstein man himself in Wolf 3D of old. It's science fiction, dystopian fiction rather than the more fantasy/scifi/horror of 2009 and RTCW.  

It is also much more realistic with such detailed graphics and that is felt when you have a Nazi torture session. To find and rescue the rebellion fighters, you need to hurt an SS officer and threaten him with a chainsaw! This man is ready to take down the entire regime himself and that all begins with a new team to do it. BJ builds up this entire resistance himself and together they fight against the entire world order on every front. You want to succeed because you believe in the cause and it means you kill Nazis on a large scale. The story is engaging because you want to finish the mission and kill a lot of guys with big guns. The story has its highs and lows, the biggest low being the open ending that invites a sequel. The problem is that the sequel wasn't quite as good. The series itself took a lot of highs and lows: From the Old Blood to the terribly unoriginally titled Youngblood, the franchise didn't end up going out on a high note. No, it went out thanks to poor writing and ill-conceived story continuations that made no sense. Still, that's a story for another time. The New Order is awesome, it is totally worth your death---time! Totally worth your time.