Less than eight months after its debut event, GameCon PH is back with a follow-up. The pressure is on as they’re expected to improve upon what they were able to come up with last June, and they’re doing more things to get more hype. I even got a call to attend their press conference on February 1, even if I’m just a two-bit blogger. Just like with the first event, I’d like to talk about what lies ahead in this preview. (more…)
Media Archives
Mulling Over Vikings Season 5 Mid-Season Finale
The fifth season of History Channel’s Vikings hasn’t been exactly what I would call “riveting”. The initial post-Ragnar episodes were pretty good as most of them was about Ivar’s ascent and how the Great Heathen Army are getting the best of the English. However, the fifth season has been quite puzzling with how things have turned out and how relationships formed and fizzled in the blink of an eye. The mid-season finale of Vikings Season 5, entitled Moments of Vision, was both beautiful and bewildering at the same time. (more…)
Mea Culpa on Having Called Mafia a “GTA Clone”
After much deliberation, I’ve decided to make a full post to take responsibility for something I’ve gotten flak for. At the start of my retrospective video on Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, I committed the gaffe of calling the game a “GTA clone”. Some may be puzzled at what may be wrong with that, and I’m still a bit on the fence on how wrong it really was to have done so. At first, I thought it’s like referring to caviar as “salty fish eggs”, which may upset connoisseurs, but is certainly true. But in this case, as I’ve found out, that would actually be a flat-out lie. (more…)
No Man’s Sky Zombie Horse Postmortem
Welcome to a stupid idea i had to pull off to start the new year. It’s outdated, irrelevant, and dumb as all hell. However, I had to do it to open the year as it had been gnawing at the back of my head for so long and 2018 is the year I start cranking out videos. I had to take the challenge, and I started it by putting up such a stupid ass video that would then motivate me to quickly bury it with more videos. It’s basically political commentary disguised as a super late postmortem review of No Man’s Sky. (more…)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review — Internal Conflict
Nowadays, it’s obvious that Star Wars has one of the most fickle fandoms in pop culture. Putting movies out over a decade after the much-maligned prequel trilogy can do that to a franchise so beloved, yet so battered by disappointments over the years. The collective love is so strong that it borders cognitive dissonance, and being able to have something to say about a new Star Wars movie is the mark of a person wanting to be seemingly in-the-know, whether they do care or not. With this review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I shall add to that noise. (more…)
The Buck Stops Here: Loot Boxes and Predatory Practices
Pardon me while this blog post is a couple of weeks late, it’s still better than never. The controversy with EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II and its loot boxes made the rounds in gaming news, even culminating in governments condemning the game and loot boxes in general as gambling. While loot boxes had become the norm in games, especially free-to-play games with not that much room for monetization, publishers had been slowly but surely pushing it as far as it’ll go until the dam breaks. (more…)
On the “Coherence” of Marvel’s The Punisher
This article on The Verge about how Marvel’s The Punisher on Netflix is a mess with how it tackles gun violence in America caught my eye. Since this blog is full of cobwebs and I recently got rejected by a client for my freelance work, I’ve written something here in response, partially to remind myself that I can still write. Also, I have been watching the show. I like it, and I think I’ve seen more of it than the author of that article. (more…)
The Foreigner — Skeleton of a Black Comedy [Review]
If you really want a serious Jackie Chan movie that’s actually good, watch Shinjuku Incident. Otherwise, this film isn’t that surprising for him at this stage in his career. He has always done action-comedy hybrids, so of course he would want to take some detours as he gets older and his body becomes less resilient to the wear and tear he has put himself through over his career. In any case, at first glance, I see The Foreigner like it’s Taken on Prozac. (more…)
Bathos, Sincerity, and Viewing Precaution
There’s this thing with Marvel movies I couldn’t put my finger on until now. I had previously reviewed Doctor Strange and thought that while it was good, it wasn’t the best and was even generic in tone. It seems that there’s something about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s signature style of storytelling that combines seriousness with levity, which worked for a good while. However, something recently came up that may put a damper on its current and upcoming films, including Spider-Man: Homecoming. (more…)
Spider-Man: Homecoming — Laying Eggs [Review]
How many more Spider-Man movies should we get? At this point, I’d expect the webslinger to actually lay eggs, but that’s exactly what this film actually does as far as Spidey goes. With Marvel actually having a hand in Spider-Man: Homecoming instead of Sony just hogging it all for themselves, we finally get one that’s going to be a part of a larger continuity. The creative decisions taken with it were interesting, and the future of this Peter Parker is indeed promising. (more…)
GameCon PH 2017 — Just Games, Nothing Less
This is the first official event coverage for the blog, so I was looking forward to it for a good while. I haven’t been able to attend other local gaming-related events such as ESGS and Pinoy Gaming Festival, so I saw this as my chance at catching up. While I’m only able to publish a post about it already a week after the fact, I was able to put together a video tour of GameCon PH as coverage. (more…)