Music review time peoples! Yeah haven't done one of these in a while, well we're doing one now.
So this album is the newest album by Atreyu, technically newest is correct despite the fact it came out in 2009. Give me a break I only learned about it like two days ago. Yeah that's the one problem with putting all my music on my phone and listening to that in my car. Since I no longer listen to the radio, my opportunities to hear new music have been gimped significantly.
So yeah anyway, this is the newest album, despite being half a decade old, because, like so many bands I used to listen to growing up, they have gone the way of the indefinite length hiatus that will almost certainly never end. I hate when bands do that.
Track Listing:
1. Stop! Before It's Too Late and We've Destroyed It All
2. Bleeding Is a Luxury
3. Congregation of the Damned
4. Coffin Nails
5. Black Days Begin
6. Gallows
7. Storm to Pass
8. You Were the King, Now You're Unconcious
9. Insatiable
10. So Wrong
11. Ravenous
12. Lonely
13. Wait for You
-------------Bonus Tracks-------------------
14. We Are the Living Dead
15. Bravery
16. Another Night (Wishing I Wasn't Here)
This was.... kinda disappointing. I was a fan of their previous album, Lead Sails, Paper Anchor, and this one is just not as good. Perhaps I'd like some of their earlier stuff more than this, I did like Ex's and Oh's from A Death-Grip On Yesterday. I find this is how I am with a lot of bands though, I like one or two albums then I kind of fall off with them eventually. That's been the case for a lot of bands, either that or they go on hiatus forever.
You either go on hiatus good, or live long enough to watch yourself become not so good.
If you don't understand that reference get out. No you can stay but seriously go watch the dark night batman trilogy.
This album felt a little heavier and more toward the metal style of music than a hard rock kind of thing. The singer also had the tone of a screamer, he wasn't screaming be he had that sort of style in his voice that people often have in scream-o metal music, and I personally do not care for that. If you do like that kind of thing then maybe this is more for you.
The best track on the album, and sadly the only one I have really any positive feelings for at all, is the namesake Congregation of the Damned, and even that one isn't particularly special. I honestly think I like it mostly on account of it being a bit more like their older stuff.
The one soft song, Wait for You, just winds up sounding very out place. The whole album is a fairly heavy rock/metal album with a guy who sounds like he could switch to screamo at any moment and then out of nowhere BAM soft song, and honestly, if I didn't know it was on this album I certainly wouldn't expect it, hell you could have told me that shit was from a different band and I'd have believed you.
5.5 bands on hiatus out of 10
So this strange movie. It's a French crime... parkour... gunplay... martial arts film.
So yeah can't recall where I heard about this one, but it was on Netflix and I wanted something to watch so fuck it why not.
So the idea here is that Paris has decided that the best way to reduce crime is to take the worst areas and wall them off and just let all the criminals inside kill eahcother. That the guy on the left up there is Leito, the girl is his sister. Leito steals a big pile of coke (no not the soda) from the dude he's pointing a gun at and pisses him off. Things don't go quite as he intends and Leito ends up in jail and his sister ends up being taken captive by the drug lord. Jump forward six months and super cop Damien Tomaso is being sent into this hell hole of crime and depravity to stop a fucking nuclear bomb the French government lost from going off. Since Leito knows his way around the place the two go in together under the plan of taking down the drug kingpin, saving the guys sister and stopping the bomb from going off all in one swoop.
So how is it? Well, it's in French, so that's gonna be an issue for some people, but there are subtitles and they were fine and readable staying on screen for a good amount of time and not having any glaring issues with readability. I don't much mind subtitles cause I've watch anime that is in Japanese and that's the only way you'll understand it, so I'm used to subtitles. But yeah unless you understand French you'll need subtitles.
Aside from that, it's a decent movie, though don't expect something terribly thoughtful here. It's a movie about a couple of stupidity talented badasses fighting way more people than they have any business being capable of fighting, though in fairness a fair amount of the time is spent running away, well except the casino scene, that scene is just a bit silly.
But it's an alright movie, plenty enjoyable I'll likely end up watching the sequel to it some time soon.
7.5 thugs getting shot out of 10
This was the third movie I saw over the holiday season and it was also significantly better than the turtles movie, though again, it's not hard to be better than a steaming pile of shit.
So the story here is that big bad Smaug has come out of his house cause of the dwarves poking at him and has decided that the proper course of action to do is to burn down a village, which seems a like a pretty dragonly course of action. So in very short order Smaug is made dead and news of said death spreads very rapidly, soon everyone and their mother is very interested in that very very large pile of recently made unguarded gold laying in the dwarven stronghold.
The dwarves with Bilbo call upon their friends and family, the humans from the nearby ruined town, the elves from the second film, and whole whole lot of orcs are all soon standing around the dwarven settlement interested at getting their hands on the gold.
All in all I think it was a nice film. The movie was well made and a decent ending to the Hobbit trilogy. Was it amazingly outstanding? No. It isn't going to change my life but I enjoyed it. I think the trilogy was good. I watched all three and all three of them were well made films. I would say the second of the three was probably the best despite the spider scene that while I liked it, it still made my skin crawl a little. Spiders are just plain creepy. Venomous eight-eyed guys who have the capacity to climb up walls and across ceilings and sometimes over the surface of water. They also have the intelligence to lie and will play dead if threatened. they also have been known to kill one another and drink blood. Seriously spiders are creepy as shit.
But anyway yeah, very good film. Definitely worth watching. My only real complaint, and I suppose this is a minor spoiler so if you really care don't read the rest of this paragraph, is that Smaug dies like a total bitch. Seriously, I get his death needed to happen fairly quickly as it is the inciting event for all of this to go down but it's just like, here's Smaug, annnnnd he's dead. He's all "I AM FIRE. I AM DEATH. I AM DEAD NOW." That was disappointing but other than that I enjoyed the movie.
8 bitch ass dragons out of 10
In addition to being subjected to that abomination calling itself a turtles film, I also saw this (and the third Hobbit, that review is next) over the holiday period.
I am happy to say this film was far far better than the turtles film, thought being far better than a pile of shit isn't a difficult task.
So the story here is the human in the picture up there is the infamous Starlord and he has obtained a mysterious orb. Many people seem to want this orb though I'm not going to say why.
The group you see above finds themselves working together in short order, each of them having their own reasons to do so and they must combat a collection of people working for...... some guy who wants the orb to be evil.
And really that right there is the issue. I saw this film a week or two ago and I already remember very little of it. It's just another damn movie. This seriously falls short of the hype. There's nothing wrong here and I'm not saying it's bad or that I didn't like it, but I just... I don't hardly remember it. Sure there's a cool genetically modified raccoon, a sexy green chick, and a large guy who has a funny personality quirk of being exceedingly literal, but it's just...... it's not really all that impressive.
It's totally fine. There's no major flaws with it, I do think Rocket is a cool character, but I just don't really see anything to hold on to here. It's just another damn movie with really nothing to make it special save that Stan Lee can slap his name on it and is in one shot for like 3 seconds in the grand tradition of films he worked with.
Really it's fine. But that's it, it's fine. I don't hate you if this is your favorite movie but for me it just fails to impressive. Completely acceptable but not worthy of any special note.
6.5 neat character personalities out of 10
And for those of you who have seen the film a special bonus afterword that I came across today and found entertaining.
I did not intend on watching this. Frankly I intended to stay the fuck away from this movie, I suspected it would be fucking awful and didn't want to see it as a result. But despite that I wound up watching this with my family over the holiday season. I was right.
So I'd like to start of by giving this movie the only bit of praise it deserves. There's one moment in the movie where the turtles are sliding down a hill and several vehicles are chasing them. During this part Donatello and Raphael do a very cool slingshot type co-op attack. The roughly seven seconds this takes genuinely made me think, Damn that's awesome. Sadly the entire movie save those seven seconds was horrible. I'd advise you to look that up on youtube and watch that and save yourself the rest.
So then, I feel it's probably worth mentioning that I did watch the cartoon as a child and that it certainly affects my opinion of the film in question, probably because the established lore is repeatedly spit on and the base quality of any random episode of the cartoon is infinitely better than this.
Look you want the totally spoiler free review? It's horrible don't watch it. From here on in there will be spoilers if you'd like to avoid them leave now.
So then a huge part of the lore is destroyed in that the turtles are now April's former pets. Also they aren't mutated from a vial of mysterious glowing green ooze. They (and Splinter) were mutated in a lab where April's father and some other people worked. They also now act like fucking six year olds. Yes they have always been called "teenage" but A. that has never been an important part of their character and B. they aren't acting teenage, they're acting down right fucking childish.
Shedder's armor also looks fucking laughable. He really looks like he walked right out of Bay's other travesty, the transformers films. Instead of having the proper wolverine style claws he now has some crazy ass gauntlets with like 15 blades on each arm, all of them capable of being fired ballistic knife style and them magically returning to him like they're a fucking boomerang.
Also, Donatello never wore glasses and are we really not past the whole glasses = nerd thing yet? I'd have figured by now that stupid stigma would be gone. And to comment further Donatello's backpack makes him look like he's cosplaying as a fucking ghostbuster.
Oh oh one more. At least once (though I believe twice) the movie disobeys its fucking rules. There's a point where the turltes are trapped in plastic cages. They then break the cages and they shatter like glass. And I'm fairly certain that Raphael sticks his head into the cab of a semi truck while he is standing in the back. Which would involve going through two sheets of metal and roughly a foot of open space.
Just.... ugh. Look it's fucking awful. Don't watch this.
1 childhood love pissed on out of 10
Happy New Years!
Alright so little baby earth is getting another year older and people really like to summarize things at around this point and lie to themselves about getting in shape.
First things first, I'm the realest. Second, drop this and let the whole world feel it. Third, I want to start by talking about a bunch of games I haven't played to point out why these aren't here (not that they would be if I had played them) So then games I missed; Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor, Destiny, Ass Creed Unity, Bayonetta 2, Shovel Knight (Though I got that in the steam sale and intend to play it soon), COD: Advanced Warfare, Dark Souls 2, Wasteland 2 (Though fuck that looks awesome) Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Far Cry 4. Fuck, what did I play this year? Well to be honest, not fuckin much cause I rarely get excited anymore about new games. It's gotten very very easy for me to not buy a game. I have no consoles worth mentioning (Well save one that is important for the things on this list), and my PC isn't amazing so that somewhat limits me but really I don't feel like I'm missing out. There were very few games I wanted to play this year, and I played them (save wasteland 2). Call me cynical but I didn't really want to play most of those games I mentioned.
#5 FTL: Advanced Edition
I fucking forgot this came out this year cause it was early in the year, but I do love FTL and the release of AE got me playing it again and it was very cool. I love the new race and the pile of new ships added. Hard mode was also implemented just in case the normal adventure wasn't punishing enough. This game is very fun and if you haven't tried it I highly recommend it, $10 very well spent.
#4 Super Smash Bros 4? SSB Wii U? SSB 3DS? SSB fuck subtitles?
Okay so I played the 3DS version, cause A. It came out first (Staggered release of the same game was not a great idea nintendo) and B. I don't own a Wii U. I played Smash bros on the gamecube, and on the Wii, and loved both of those, so when I heard there was a new one coming out, damn I wanted it. I picked this up, and after I got used to handling it with my 3DS and not a controller, I loved it. There was of course the angry swearing at my friends as we fought one another. My one gripe with the game is that a disappointing number of characters are just copies of another character. Pit and Dark Pit, Link and Toon Link, Marth and Lucina. Are Cpt. Falcon and Ganandorf still very similar? I honestly haven't played those characters enough to know. I also feel like making Sheik and Zero suit Samus stand alone characters is just a cute way to pretend they added more people without doing any real work.
3. Poke'mon ORAS
FUCK YES! Gen 3 was always my favorite gen and damn Nintendo did right by it. It's so good. Everything I loved is still there, and it's cleaned up with the nice new paint. It's just fucking great. If you like poke'mon, and you somehow haven't played this, Fix that shit. Hmmmm Idea, I was considering trying out a Nuzzlock run on the second packet. I played through Sapphire already and haven't really touched Ruby. Maybe I'll do that and tell you guys about my progress. Maybe not. If that interests you leave a comment or tweet me. For those wondering I found a shiny Corpish, I think that was the only colored I ran into while going through it.
2. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
In much the same way that Poke'mon ORAS is, this is what a remake should be. It's bigger in better than the original in every fucking way. The really interesting this is, Rebirth wouldn't exist is it didn't need to. They would have just kept releasing more content for the original, but essentially the original version of Isaac is like 28 pounds stuffed into a 5 pound sack. That game is seriously bursting at the seams with all the shit going on that they couldn't work with anymore because it was made in flash. So they remade it with a new engine and a new art style and it's fucking awesome and I love it. Big props to everyone behind this shit.
Game of the year: Hearthstone
Now this was a serious toss up between this and Isaac and it's really only one over the other because it needs to be for the list format. Heartstone was officially released this year, and I love it. I played it first months ago, I guess probably around when it was released, and then actually stopped playing until Naxxramas. And I'm glad that Naxx happened cause it got me back into something I love and then GVG came out, a big expansion for it with a fuck ton of new cards that seriously changed up the meta in a lot of ways. Heartstone is super fun and I do love playing it. The reason It hink I love it so much, is that for a free game it's actually a lot more deep and complex that you might expect or than it looks.
I love how in depth the deck crafting can be and one thing that's super nice about it is that it isn't phased like magic. I'm not spitting on magic, I like magic. I played a handful of the magic video games (thankfully not the new one) 2011-2013 I believe and while those were very fun, I do kinda hate the very segmented, rigid system of it. Draw phase, upkeep phase, untap phase, main phase, attack phase, main phase 2, end phase. Heartstone tosses all that shit out the window and says, it's your turn do what you want to do in whatever order you want, and in fact this adds lots of depth if you have a couple minions on the field and you have say three cards you wanna play, that's 5 actions which if re-organized can sometimes have seriously different effects. Maybe I want to attack with a weaker minion first and let him die before playing a card that would buff a random minon, that buff now lands on my stronger guy since the weaker one died, then I use the buffed stronger minion to attack someone else that he can now kill. That's one simple example that in fact only involves three cards, not the five I mentioned. There are lots of times where I'm looking at my hand and thinking about the exact right way to play things out and it's awesome that Hearthstone is set up in such a way as to allow it.
And it's a simple difference but I also really like choosing who I attack versus saying I'm going to attack with this guy. Though it's curious to me if that decision was made because they thought it would be more fun, or because they wanted to try and make the system faster by eliminating the time of involving both people in choosing who gets hit by what. Either way, I like that and pretty much everything about Hearthstone. It is a little bit pay to win ish, but I haven't spent a cent (that's a policy of mine. If the game says free on the tin, it will be) and I'm doing alright with it. And spending all the money in the world doesn't help you with the arena. The one thing I'd like to see happen is mages get nerfed a bit to not be so fucking OP. That would be cool.
