LIST-O-MANIA: 10 Best Comic Book-based Games

It's kind of funny how things have changed. It used to be that comic book movie adaptations were the laughing stock of cinema. While the occasional Fantastic Four or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sneak in to stink everything up, by and large this is no longer the case. People actively look forward to these movies now! Instead, it's comic book-based video games that generally have a bad rap! Sure, a lot of the worst of these are actually adaptations of the movies based on the comics, but more or less, the number of great comic book games are a bit limited.

While we can't say that all of the games on this list are truly "great" games, they are games that we enjoyed a lot. It's what we would generally consider the best of the comic book games, and are things we would recommend checking out to our fellow comic geeks.

The rules are pretty simple: the game must be based on a character or franchise that existed as a comic book before becoming a video game (so no Gears of War or Halo or Mass Effect since those were video games that were turned into comic book properties as well). This also excludes games focused on super humans, like inFamous or Saints Row. And most importantly, they're games that we had to have actually played! But that one is probably a given. (So, sorry DCU Online and X-Men Legends, we just have had time yet!)


10. JUSTICE LEAGUE: HEROES  (2006 - PS2, XBox, PSP, Nintendo DS)

Justice League: Heroes is a dungeon crawl game Warner Brothers put forward, largely to ride on the coat tails of the more successful X-Men Legends series from Marvel. The strength of X-Men Legends is that it allows you to pick from pretty much the entire team on any given level. Heroes opts to take away that choice for most of the game. The story causes the team to split up, and often forces your teams without your say so. The powers are pretty fun to use though, and the Justice League seems based on the popular animated show of that time. Frankly, this game is pretty much interchangeable with Marvel Ultimate Alliance which came out a week after. Ultimate Alliance has a better team, but Heroes, in our opinion, looks a little better and is a little bit more fun.

Main reason we like it:  Fun character powers.

Metacritic Score: 68
Metacritic User Average: 8.5




9. THE INCREDIBLE HULK: ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION  (2005 - XBox, PS2, GC)

There's something about the Hulk that makes him really difficult to translate to the big screen, but Ultimate Destruction highlighted what makes him such a fun character to use in video games. An open world game, players control the Hulk and can just pretty much do whatever. Or rather, can just destroy whatever. The story is penned by Paul Jenkins, a former writer of the comic, so it feels as much like a Hulk story as it can. While the battles can get a little stale and tedious after a while, it's still just tons of fun running around and being the Hulk - something that hasn't really been captured since.

Main reason we like it: Free roaming destruction of whatever you want!
Metacritic Score: 83
Metacritic User Average: 8.7




8. INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US  (2013 - XBox360, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Wii-U)

Fighting games can feel pretty repetitive. They can also get really frustrating for players unfamiliar with them, as it can very quickly turn into little more than button mashing and hoping for the best. Injustice isn't ultimately much different in that regard, but it does feel a bit tighter than a lot of 2D fighting games. A solid roster and interactive environments helps make the game feel a little less generic. Fans of the comics will probably just have a lot of fun. We're admittedly not big fighting game fans, but we had a blast playing. As usual with these games, it's more fun to play with friends than the single player experience, which has a pretty "meh" story, but then, no one really plays these games for the plot.

Main reason we like it:  Great beat 'em up combat.
Metacritic Score:  81
Metacritic User Average: 7.9



7. SPIDER-MAN: WEB OF SHADOWS  (2008 - XBox360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii)

Spider-man games have had a bit of a checkered history. Sure, they've never been as terrible as, say, Superman games. In fact, a lot of them have actually been pretty fun on some level! But they've never quite felt much like Spider-man games, really. Things started to change after the Sam Raimi films, and Spider-man 2: The Video Game really opened up what was possible. That game, in reality, is terrible, but it paved the way for future Spider-man games. While its story isn't exactly the best (not that it's the worst either), Web of Shadows is perhaps the most complete Spider-man experience to date. Set in the Marvel universe, players are treated to a variety of cameos from other popular characters. Combat is very fun and rewarding. There's this cool element too where you get to choose how often you're in the symbiote suit, and that impacts the game.  Most importantly though, swinging around the city actually feels awesome, giving you a more detailed and entertaining New York City sandbox to play in.  While not our favorite Spider-man game, this would be the one we describe as the most definitive web-slinger experience yet.

Main reason we like it: Most accurate Spidey experience we've encountered.
Metacritic Score: 68
Metacritic User Average: 8.6


6. MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2  (2009 - XBox360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Nintendo DS)

Marvel had seen success with its X-Men Legends series, and even carved out a place in the dungeon crawl market with its own Ultimate Alliance. The sequel isn't too far of a departure from that formula, but it mixes in enough new elements to make it superior. Apart from just looking better and including more characters (although not necessarily better, per se), the game also includes a pretty distinct choice early on. The story is loosely based on Marvel's big crossover event Civil War, and as such, you essentially have to choose which team of heroes you want to play as. Much of the time is then spent fighting other heroes, as well as traditional villains. Ultimately, it doesn't give the game that much replay value, as the differences aren't great, but it's always fun to go back and play as the opposite team. What's even more awesome about the game though is that it allows for four players, so it's a great party game.

Main reason we like it:  Fusion attacks, which have team mates combine powers.
Metacritic Score: 74
Metacritic User Average: 7.1



5. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD  (2010 - XBox Live Arcade, Playstation Network)

If the comic (and subsequent feature) are heavily built on video game nostalgia, the video game adaptation takes it to a whole new level. Scott Pilgrim is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up game in the same vein as most of those classic arcade games you can think of. Or, really, of those earlier days of superhero video games. Each character has their own unique moves, and gain experience, giving it a bit of an RPG feel to it. Players earn coins during battle, which they can spend on upgrades at shops. It plays a bit differently from most beat-'em-ups as a result. Co-op play is fun, and it has - as one might expect - a killer soundtrack. It's every bit a love letter to those retro games, while being just as fun.

Main reason we like it:  Super retro.
Metacritic Score: 77
Metacritic User Average: 7.8



4.  THE WALKING DEAD  (2012 - XBox360, XB1, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Ouya- because that was a thing...remember that thing? It was a thing once, I swear)

Telltale Games have a nice little thing going. Telling narrative-driven games with limited gameplay, but built entirely on player choice allows for some interesting things to happen. At some point though, it stops being particularly fun or interesting and starts feeling tedious. Still, for all the problems that exist within it's overly simplistic game engine, The Walking Dead really transformed what people thought of these sort of "choose your own adventure" games. Broken down into "seasons," each with five episodes, it plays out a lot like the comic. You play for a while, get to some crazy cliffhanger moment, and then you have to wait for the next episode! This can get frustrating for a lot of people, but comic book readers should be used to that by now, especially for The Walking Dead. The first season is extremely flawed, rendering your choices clearly meaningless from the get-go. This is a huge flaw in a game entirely built on the idea of player choice being the only game mechanic. Even with that though, it still managed to pack an emotionally compelling story - with some of the best character development and emotional punches in the entire Walking Dead license! The second season does a much, much better job covering up whether your choices make much of a difference. While perhaps not as emotionally potent, the overall experience of the season two is substantially better, to the point where it might have very well saved the Telltale formula from collapsing in on itself.

Main reason we like it: The feels...oh...those feels...
Metacritic Score (Season 1): 89
Metacritic User Average (Season 1): 8.7
Metacritic Score (Season 2):  80
Metacritic User Average (Season 2):  8.2



3. BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY   (2011 - XBox360, PS3, Wii-U)

Gliding around a sizeable chunk of Gotham (or rather, a prison in Gotham) creates perhaps the definitive Batman experience. The strength of City is how it fits its narrative and sidequests into this dark, dreary sandbox. Even when distracted by side villains, you never stray too far from the central story of the game. It works in Batman's villains seamlessly, all while never clogging your to-do list with too many tedious and time consuming chores - as can be the case in open world games. Combat doesn't feel all that different from the first game in the franchise, but it's still fluid and extremely fun. Boss battles have been a little tricky for the Arkham franchise, but they actually feel pretty solid here. Frankly, it was kind of a toss up on which installment to put here. Most people would probably rank City over Asylum, and it's not hard to see why!

Main reason we like it: Feeling like the Batman, gliding around the city.
Metacritic Score: 96
Metacritic User Average: 8.6



2. SPIDER-MAN: SHATTERED DIMENSIONS  (2010 - XBox360, PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS)

Listen, it might not be the best Spider-man game, and we can totally see why some people won't be into it, but we're admittedly big fans of the alternate reality Spider-men. The story involves traversing different dimensions, giving the player control of four different versions of Spider-man. There's classic Spider-man, Ultimate Spider-man in the symbiote suit, Spider-man Noir, and Spider-man 2099. While the story is that inherently silly kind (which itself is actually a lot of fun), it connects to gameplay. By throwing the player to these different versions of the character, the gameplay is regularly changed up. Some people might not be into it, but it can be really interesting and engaging to get various styles of play. Each Spider-man has his own unique abilities, which forces the player to play differently in each world. It spices it up. (And really, we'd absolutely buy a Spider-man Noir game on its own!)  Far from a particularly accurate Spider-man experience overall, we found this to be one of the most fun Spider-man games we've played. It's maybe not a great game, but it's great fun.

Main reason we like it: Different worlds with their own style of play. Spider-man Noir is especially fun.
Metacritic Score: 76
Metacritic User Average: 7.6



1. BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM  (2009 - XBox360, PS3)

Let's just be real here: Arkham Asylum opened up what the comic book game could be. It's innovative and extremely satisfying combat system has been cloned time and time again. It blended practically every era of Batman into one thing - incorporating elements of the Nolan movies and the comic books with elements of the animated series and even the Burton films. Even people who aren't particularly huge Batman fans can appreciate this amalgamation (and yes, non-Batman fans do exist). A lot of folks might bemoan the linearity of the game, especially compared to later installments that focus more on open world environments. What's great about Asylum though is how it works that into its narrative and gameplay. The whole story takes place in this one mental institution. The series of tight spaces and linear corridors creates a claustrophobic atmosphere that really makes it feel like this is a crazy house. When engaged in combat, it adds a sort of desperation, as you don't often have a ton of room to maneuver. Caught in a group too big? You can't really just flee. Certainly, the bosses in the game are disappointing, but overall, we still every so slightly prefer this to City. How much of that is just because it came first is up for debate.

Main reason we like it:  Super satisfying combat system.
Metacritic Score: 91
Metacritic User Average: 8.7





When trying to pin down a list here, it became clear that comic book video games have really seen a ton of improvement in the last ten years.  Maybe it's that the technology is finally at the point where you can translate comic book worlds to video games, or the characters and their powers to consoles, or maybe it's just that so many people grew up with these characters at this point that there's more care in getting it right. To be sure, there are always terrible games. A lot of those comic book movie based games just feel like cash-grabs (X-Men Origins: Wolverine being the lone exception, where more care seemed to be given to the game than the film). Otherwise though, it really does seem like original comic book based games are trying harder to get it right.

For us comic book nerds, it's pretty exciting times.


Looking back on the list, it seems like a lot of these games could easily swap positions. Don't think of the rankings as particularly permanent, especially since it's been a while since we've played some of these. What do you think are the best comic book inspired video games?

The Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005)

Preface: I don't really review much television. It's not really one of my go-to mediums. Not that I don't like TV shows; I just don't care about that many shows, at the end of the day. The Powerpuff Girls was such a pleasant time when I revisited it that I just had to talk about it a little bit. I'm throwing it in the "comics" category just because that seems like the closest fit. It's an animated superhero show. Seems to belong there more than "movies."




A few weeks ago, I was browsing the options on Netflix Instant hoping to find something I could put on and only half pay attention to as I ate lunch before work. After a minute, I came upon the Powerpuff Girls and remembered how each episode was broken down into two mini-episodes. That made it ideal for lunch-watching!

But I knew I was going to want to finish re-watching it all from the moment the opening theme song came on! Easily one of my favorite themes, it is very visual in its sound. It rocks out when Buttercup pops up on screen. It softens and becomes cute when Bubbles shows up. It gets menacing when the horde of villains appears. It's an awesome theme song! Here:



Pretty catchy. Stays in the brain.

A lot of people probably pass off the Powerpuff Girls as your typical animated kids show, but it is much more than that. Like all great "kids' fare," is really does cram a lot of stuff for the adults in there too. There are a lot of jokes that kids just wouldn't possibly get (and those jokes are actually pretty funny!)  Here's an example:



There's no shortage of adult-aimed humor. (I think my favorite was the episode where the girls are rewarded with candy and they wind up with a candy addiction. The way that they eat the candy and react to it...well...it's gonna fly over the heads of kids, for sure.) You can also see that they target an older crowd with episodes like "Meet the Beat Alls," an episode that essentially parodies the Beatles, while almost every line of dialogue is from a Beatles song. There are also a fair number of Star Wars references. (And here, my personal favorite reference occurs during a random conversation between the girls and the Professor where they keep rhyming. The Professor then says, "No 'buts' and I mean it!" Then Bubbles follows up with, "Anybody want a peanut?" It's a really funny, sick reference to The Princess Bride.)

Seriously. There are tons of references, from Scarface to South Park to Ocarina of Time to Planet of the Apes. There are all sorts of shout outs (including a rather random shout out to Mos Def). Then there is a lot of oddball humor, like when everyone is turned into a cat. We see owners allowing their cats to do all sorts of things like sleep on the bed and scratch up the curtains. Then we cut to a silent shot of the Mayor slowly licking his cat. It's really strange, but ridiculously funny.

The humor is one of the strengths of the show, but it's far from the only one. The Powerpuff Girls each have their own unique and widely differing personalities. Bubbles is cute. Blossom is smart. Buttercup is a badass. Everyone has their favorites (mine was Buttercup, but in the rewatch, Bubbles quickly became my favorite!)




 How can you not just melt watching that? Daaaawwww....

The rapport the girls have with each other and with the Professor feels pretty genuine (for a cartoon). They definitely seem like a family. They get along, but aren't without their fights and conflicts. The Professor himself is just as funny as the girls are too!

And of course, if a superhero comic is only as good as his/her villains, well, the Powerpuff Girls still hold up. Their cast of villains are incredible. You've got the troublesome Gangreen Gang. There's the rich and spoiled wannabe Princess. There's Fuzzy, the creature who only cares about his property. There's the inept Amoeba Boys. Then there's the gender-confusing devil known only as "him" (my personal favorite villain). And of course, their main arch nemesis: the super smart chimp Mojo Jojo. All of these villains - like the girls - have very well defined character traits and personalities. To me, this is the ultimate strength of the show and why they are able to do so well in the humor department. If these characters weren't as intentional in their design, or if they weren't so unique and odd, the show would probably fall in on its own cultural references.  These characters prevent the show from ever truly becoming dated.

The Powerpuff Girls is somehow more entertaining and more hilarious than I remembered it being.  If you watched the show when you were younger, then I definitely recommend you watch it again. Even if it's  just a few episodes here and there, odds are you will find yourself laughing more than you anticipated.

I don't think about life with kids. I mean, I'm so far removed from that even being a possibility! But I do know that if I have kids - boy or girl - that kid is watching the Powerpuff Girls. (Oh yeah, it really is a show for everybody! It really isn't "girly," but it also isn't a show you would think, "boys watch this" either.)

It definitely stacks up. Weird, clever, cute, touching, hilarious, and great characters mixed with an interesting and attractive animation style, it's as good an all-ages cartoon show as it gets. It has to be up there with the likes of Adventure Time.

Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

It isn't very often that I come away from a first person shooter feeling bad for the character I'm playing as. Don't get me wrong here: I find FPS games to be really entertaining. I've played a good number of them, and some of them would make a list of favorite and/or best video games of all-time! Typically though, when it comes to the story and characters, they can have a habit of feeling a bit lackluster.

At first glance, a Wolfenstein game should be just another military shooter. Going back to replay Wolfenstein 3D, it's hard to argue otherwise. You play as this big, Schwartzenneger-esque action hero - except an American, naturally - named William "BJ" Blazkowicz. You basically just run around, killing Nazis. The Wolfenstein games separate from normal World War II shooters by placing you in an alternate history timeline. The Nazis always have futuristic, advanced technology that comes straight out of a sci-fi movie.

It's something of a silly change of pace, but it makes a world of difference. Even though at its core, it's just the same as any other WWII-era shooter, it never feels like it. They specifically avoid trying to do what everyone else is doing. Visually, it is more interesting in that way, and even though realism was never the point, they still include some of those classic "war is hell" moments found in every post-Saving Private Ryan games. It also goes a long way to making the game a lot of fun. Right off the bat, you find yourself against robot attack dogs, and you know this isn't just another WWII shooter clone.

Wolfenstein: The New Order has very smooth controls and gameplay, which is the most important part of any game, really; especially fast-paced action shooters. The number of weapons you get access to is somewhat limited, but they make up for it by allowing you to dual wield anything. Few things are more fun than running through an area with two shotguns in hand! Still, it might have been nice to allow players to mix and match. Running through with a rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other would have been really fun too.

What's really helpful, and a mechanic that seems to be increasingly popular in first person games lately, is the ability to lean. I know, I know. It sounds like such a minor thing, but it does make a difference. A lot of third person shooters incorporate some sort of cover mechanic. You can hide behind objects, peak over, and fire. With a lot of first person shooters though, you're restricted to ducking behind cover where you can't see anything. The only thing to do is pop out of it, exposing yourself to enemy fire. The ability to lean doesn't prevent you from taking damage, but it reduces the chances of being hit. Leaning from cover, and being able to shoot from that position, is hugely helpful.

The game also includes a few choices, as is popular in modern gaming. While some of the decisions are tough - and impact the unraveling of the timeline in several ways - it isn't particularly a shining example of the mechanic. They're fine and interesting, but it rarely feels like it matters much. The first big decision you make near the beginning isn't really about who to save; it's really about whether you want health upgrades or armor upgrades, which kind of detracts from the emotion a bit.

Perhaps the most surprising element of the game though is its narrative. Blazkowicz looks like your stereotypical FPS protagonist, but he behaves very differently. While he's completely capable of kicking ass and killing Nazis, he frequently whispers to himself about how much he hates the war. He is there because he has to be, not because he wants to be. At times, it drives him into more a much more traditional hero archetype, but it's still refreshing to play a war game as someone who doesn't actively enjoy it.

The story isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good. Some plot elements happen far too quickly (like Blazkowicz's relationship with Anya), but eventually it evens out. I must admit, there was a good stretch of the game near the end where I was starting to legitimately worry that she was long dead. And the ending is one of the more bittersweet conclusions to a game in a while. Traditional wisdom says to leave the players feeling totally empowered, heroic, and satisfied, yet there's been a stretch of games lately that specifically avoid doing that. The Last of Us, BioShock: Infinite, Mass Effect 3, and yes, Wolfenstein: The New Order. It's not as complex an ending as those ones, but it's in a similar vein.

Anyway, as someone who never cared all that much about this franchise, Wolfenstein: The New Order was an extremely fun game with some really interesting story elements and fast-paced action. By no means perfect, it's still one of the better FPS games of the past few years, especially if you love sci-fi historical fiction which pits you fighting Nazis on the moon!

Oh yeah, and there's totally tons of little nuggets to find about this alternate history. The best things often involve things like a German version of the Beatles, or the German who was the first to land on the moon. They really do a good job filling out that world. It adds to the fun.

Attack The Block (2011)

A small British film in 2011, Attack the Block probably hasn't quite made it onto the radar of a lot of Americans.  Yet it might be one of the best science fiction movies in a long time. Produced by the studio that gave us Edgar Wright's fare, you knew right away that something awesome was coming up.

The film starts off looking like it might be the British equivalent of The Wire with a young woman in the "block" is mugged by a group of youths. Things quickly take a turn for the stranger when right after, a meteorite crashes right nearby. As they examine the crash, a dog-like creature lunges out and attacks one of the kids before fleeing. Moses, the leader of the gang, pursues the alien beast, and they kill it and parade it around the block.

They figure that the safest place for it is in the weed fortress of a drug dealer at the top of their apartment building, Ron (played by the always amusing Nick Frost). From the upper floors of the building though, they are able to spot other meteorites as they crash nearby. It is quickly apparent that this is an alien invasion. The kids, feeling invincible, gear up with baseball bats, collector's katana, knives, and loads of fireworks and then roll out to find and kill these new aliens.

The creatures, by the way, look awesome. The most striking detail of the creatures is that they are not CGI. Indeed, they are motion actors wearing giant, furry suits and running around in a way that seems to cross a wolf with a gorilla. (One of the kids even calls it a "big alien gorilla wolf lookin' motherfucker.")  To have them be real objects in the shot instead of computer images superimposed  really adds to the feel of the scenes. Those creatures are literally in that garage with them, literally in that room with them, literally in the building with them. It enhances the nervousness you feel watching the movie.

As for the creature design, they look really frightening in their simplicity. They are an extreme black with glowing blue teeth. It's extremely intimidating. They primarily use smell as a means of finding where to go, so they are able to find everyone with limited problems. And because they have strong arms and legs, they are extremely mobile and agile, able to climb up the buildings, jump far, and cling to the ceiling.

The characters are mostly young, but they are all very well fleshed out. Each character has their own personality that feels complete. You get insight into their respective living situations and backgrounds. But most importantly, you see the development of these characters too. The relationship between Moses and Sam (the woman he mugged earlier who is trapped in the block with them as they battle the aliens) is one of the most intriguing in any movie of the last five years. The way that all of these characters intertwine with each other - from the kids, to their female compatriots, to Sam, to the weird white druggies upstairs, to the major drug dealer - is so tightly wound. Mix this with how smoothly all of the scenes transition from one to the other and you realize just how well crafted this kind of cult movie is actually made.

The acting and directing and writing is all solid. It's scary and funny at the same time. And it's not your typical "kids stepping up and being brave" fare! These kids are in danger. Any one of those characters could be killed! You have every reason to worry (and spoiler: not all of the kids make it). The gore is also quick and not necessarily super graphic (there are a couple of graphic gore, but they're both really quick), so even if you don't do gore and blood, it's not bad.

The movie also have a killer soundtrack. From the very get-go, the music creates the feel of the block and of the film.

It's definitely a fun, exciting movie with a surprisingly well developed set of characters and relationships. The effects are awesome and not heavily based on CGI (which is refreshing). I don't want to say that if you liked Edgar Wright fare, you will like this, but it seems that there's a good amount of cross over.

Frankly, it's one of my favorite films in recent years.

We Kill Monsters (2009)

Oh, you don't read stuff from Red 5 Comics? Oh, you've never even heard of them?

That makes total sense, actually. Red 5 Comics is a small, independent comic book publisher founded in 2007. It mixes creator-owned content with content created by the publisher itself. Being so new and small, it doesn't have a huge selection, but it does offer an interesting variety of titles. If you've heard of any Red 5 title, it was most likely Atomic Robo (which was nominated for an Eisner in 2008).

I try to make it a point to pick up whatever series they're putting out. Most are miniseries that are self contained. Atomic Robo is some 40 issues strong at this point, but it is not presented in your traditional on-going way. Each story is a self-contained miniseries, with little to no reference to past stories. It's actually pretty refreshing.

A couple of years ago, I picked up We Kill Monsters (from writer Christopher Leone and artist Brian Churilla). It seemed like a fairly simple and enjoyable premise: two inseparable brothers must defend their town against an invasion of strange monsters. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but never really strays into "overly complex" territory. Andrew is still in love with his ex-girlfriend Vanessa. A big part of their breakup stemmed from Andrew's relationship with his brother Jake. The mechanic brothers were inseparable, with Andrew feeling a responsibility to constantly look after Jake. This put strain on his relationship with Vanessa. But the town is small and he sees Vanessa frequently. He finds that she has begun seeing Dennis, a suave, attractive, and well-off businessman who works for a cereal company.

One night after moping in the local bar, the two brothers run into a crazed monster. They are able to kill it, but not before it is able to somehow infect Jake with something strange that causes his arm to turn into a monster arm. For the rest of the series, the two hunt down these monsters popping up armed with a tricked out tank truck. Jake meanwhile finds that if he "drinks monster juice" (essentially, the blood of the monsters), he can somehow change his arm into new monster-like forms. Essentially, his monster arm takes on the characteristics of the monster whose blood he drinks.

The big reveal at the end is actually pretty cool. I don't want to spoil it even though they do make it obvious nearing the end, but it actually is pretty clever and unique. The writing is pretty good. Christopher Leone does a pretty good job mixing the serious moments with the funny. Most Red 5 stuff is pretty lighthearted, and this is no different, but it does hit a few key heavy moments. The art is probably the big seller here. Brian Churilla's art is fairly cartoon-like (adding to the lightheartedness), but the way he draws and designs the monsters is great. They are all essentially just messed up animals, like a rabbit or a hornet.

I was also a big fan of Jake's constantly adapting and changing monster arm. It's definitely shades of Bionic Commando, but with an organic twist. It was a fresh take on a somewhat familiar (but not overdone) concept.

It's a fairly quick read, weighing in at six issues. What's nice about Red 5 Comics too is that there aren't ads scattered throughout, so you can pretty much just sit there and read straight through, which is actually a lot more awesome than it sounds. It's not my favorite Red 5 Comic, but it's definitely one of the better and more enjoyable ones.

Definitely check it out if you are into monster related stuff, or just easy, entertaining, lighthearted comics.

Godzilla (1998)

If the original Gojira is a fantastic piece of film making and the Americanization is a cleverly made adaptation for a different cultural audience, Roland Emmerich's 1998 version Godzilla is - for lack of anything more apt - a heaping pile of horse shit. Look, there's just no other way around it. It's not a good movie; it's especially not a good version of Godzilla.

Thing is though: it starts off seeming like it will be! Like the original, it opens with a Japanese fishing boat on the high seas getting attacked by Godzilla. Though there are a few notable differences (namely that in the original, they don't show you any element of Godzilla whereas this shows you teeth and a tail, which makes the mystery more intriguing in the original). Also, the special effects in the opening shot are awesome.

But after opening up with a somewhat dark sequence, it immediately jumps to a stupid joke. Immediately following the scene wherein all but one die, we cut to the introduction of scientist Nick Tatopoulos (a miscast Matthew Broderick), wearing headphones while driving in the rain - singing "Singing in the Rain," of course - while he goes to study the effects of nuclear radiation on earthworms in Chernobyl. As he is almost mindlessly conducting his tests - all the while singing in the rain - a helicopter lands behind him to take him away. As it turns out, Godzilla has reached land and they are bringing Tatopoulos in to help.

Ok, not so terrible so far. In fact, when we get to the site where Godzilla reached land, it too feels a bit (though only a small amount so) like the original. We see villagers surrounding evidence of the giant creature - including a washed up, totally wrecked ship and a bunch of footprints - we see other scientists studying the evidence. There's even a brief nod (sort of) to the original where Tatopoulos can't figure out where the evidence is, only to realize that he is standing in a footprint.

It becomes increasingly clear by watching Roland Emmerich movies that Emmerich really is not a big fan of military personnel, as he always writes them in hyper unrealistic fashions. I like Kevin Dunn as much as the next guy, but he is not a great candidate for playing Army Colonel Hicks - in charge of the military's hunt for Godzilla. Additionally, the character of Sergeant O'Neal exists only for comedic relief in a movie that itself is nothing but.

Hicks and O'Neal aren't even the worst of the crappy, annoyingly unrealistic characters. The worst offenders are the inclusion of Mayor Ebert and his sidekick adviser Gene (get it?? Emmerich is soooo clever). Their childlike, cartoonish nature feels like an inside joke from Emmerich (since it is), but never quite lets you in on it.  Then of course, you get half the cast of The Simpsons in the movie with Harry Shearer playing the sleazy, jerk reporter and Hank Azaria playing the brave, but stupid news cameraman.

The cast tells you exactly what you need to know: this movie exists solely as a vehicle for jokes. This is not a problem if this movie were an adaptation of an older comedy, but it was supposed to be America's take on Japan's nuclear allegory. It was America's take on the dark nature of a beast who represented Japan's anxieties and fears. And America hired a German director to make fun of it. Awesome.

Why???!?

And the actors aren't even that great in their comedic efforts! Azaria is amusing as usual, but the movie plays as one giant confirmation of the New York stereotype. Meanwhile, the military and government are depicted as bumbling idiots in all the wrong ways. Sure, the dialogue is truly a disaster on an Emmerichian scale, but the actors also sound stiff - as if they are literally just reading it off of a card! If you told me that Matthew Broderick read the script prior to five minutes before the shoot, I would not believe you at all. And it's a shame because in a movie centered around a giant monster running through New York City, the ONE thing they could have gotten realistically was the characters. And they missed. Badly.

That is the huge problem with the movie: everything is just a set up to some crappy joke. The following sums up exactly this issue: from the very beginning, they refer to Godzilla as male. It's always, "He's found a good hiding place!" "He's found a good food supply." "He...he...he." Then, randomly, Tatopoulos decides to run a pregnancy test (as, ya know, you do when you're convinced something is definitely male), and of course, it comes back positive. Turns out, "he's" pregnant. They have this entire five minute scene talking about it and explaining it. The entire time, you're wondering, "How did they know it was a he in the first place? If you're going to make the creature pregnant, why not just simply make the beast a female so you don't have to try to over explain anything?" Indeed! But then you miss this gem: Tatopoulos explains Godzilla is pregnant and reproduces asexually (apparently, Godzillas are "born pregnant" he later explains). This of course prompts the allegedly funny line, "Where's the fun in that?"

No piece of the movie quite captures the shitty writing quite like this scene. Here, we have an overly complicated piece of unnecessary science fiction exposition that was completely and totally avoidable for the SOLE PURPOSE OF MAKING A CRAPPY JOKE. That happens all the time in this movie! Even during Godzilla's initial rampage in the city, where we see people getting stomped on and crushed in cars - dark stuff if you really watch it - we are interrupted by an annoying scene with Shearer on the phone looking for a story. His assistant sees Godzilla pass in the background and nervously points out that his story just walked by. Shearer turns around - just missing Godzilla's head pass the building - sees nothing, then turns back as if his assistant is crazy. Then, Godzilla's tail passes the building.

Even the badass characters of the French Legion - headed by the only good element of this movie in Jean Reno - often break character for bad jokes wherein they mock American coffee and do Elvis impressions to get by military personnel (again showing the incompetence of the military in the wrong ways). Everything to Emmerich is just one big joke.

On the one hand, it makes total sense. Americans prior to that point had never truly seen the original Japanese movie, so in a lot of their minds, that's exactly what Godzilla was: a big joke. Still, the film makers did have access to the original piece and never seemed to pick up on the blatantly heavy and dark tones and themes of it. Instead, they watered it down so much that what you got was...well, straight up water! They couldn't even get the action right, really. Here's a movie about a giant lizard attacking a city. So what did Emmerich do? He decided to make the pivotal action sequence happen with smaller, baby Godzillas. In a movie about a giant monster, Emmerich decided to shrink the scale. Instead of getting more, epic Godzilla rampages, we got a Jurassic Park style chase sequence featuring large velociraptors chasing an out of shape Broderick and Reno.

What? Even if you stripped Godzilla of all his layers and allegorical connections, no one in any capacity watches Godzilla movies for small scale action sequences!

The only other thing worth touching upon is the design of Godzilla. My feeling about it is that I actually do think I like the design of the creature, but not for "Godzilla." If this had been a generic monster movie, I would have really liked it. But what they did was change Godzilla from this giant, lumbering symbol of death and destruction - something that was hulking and slow, but inevitable - into this quick and agile animal. Sure, maybe you feel a little bit more for the creature when it is defeated in the end, but that connection comes at the cost of any possible deeper meaning.

It's kind of funny. The legendary Ray Harryhausen often talked smack against Honda and co. for ripping off his movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Except when you go back and watch those two movies, there are only surface level similarities. Gojira is so much deeper, so much darker, so much more layered, and so much more profound than Beasts.  Essentially, Honda took The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and turned it into Godzilla. Then Roland Emmerich took Godzilla and turned it back into The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

What gets especially frustrating is that in the special features on the blu-ray, one of the dudes was talking about how he felt this was true to the source material (which already pisses you off if you liked the original). He also goes on to say that he felt like only now and only in America did the technology exist to make Godzilla in the way that the original creators "intended." This further proves that the makers of 1998's shitfest of an "adaptation" had no idea what the point was.

Still, as a giant Godzilla fan, it is important in Godzilla's history. The entire point of Toho's selling the rights to Sony was to pass the torch. They felt that they had gone as far as they could with the character. Plus in Japan, Hollywood had long been more successful at the box office than domestic films. Yet after seeing that movie, Toho quickly responded by putting out Godzilla 2000 less than a year after the release! And then they made several more before finally retiring the beast again. So on one hand, this movie was a complete shitfest - not even just as a Godzilla movie, but as a movie in general. Yet on the other hand, we wouldn't have gotten those seven other Japanese Godzilla movies without it. (They even make fun of it.)

The movie is good if you hate decent dialogue, hate scripts that make sense and don't try to get convoluted, hate decent, fleshed out characters, like cheesy romance stories, or like terrible jokes. But then really, "Where's the fun in that?"



Related: I'm not sayin' Godzilla: Final Wars was a good Godzilla movie (in fact, it's my least favorite in the entire Japanese franchise), but it is a little bit worth it for this:





I don't remember, but I think after the fight, the angry dude says something like, "I knew that fish-eating monster was useless!"

Indeed.

Gojira (1954) & Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956)

It is almost impossible to talk about Ishiro Honda's 1954 masterpiece Gojira without also talking about Terry Morse's 1956 take on it, which was re-scripted and re-cut with added scenes including star Raymond Burr.

First though, we have to put Gojira into its historical context. The year was 1954. Not ten years had passed since Japan had enacted a brutal war upon its neighboring countries in their conquest to collect one of the largest empires in human history. Still reeling from the war in which many places were destroyed by fire bombings and two cities had been all but wiped off the map by atomic bombs, the Japanese people were still trying to recover. In that same period, the United States and the Soviet Union had begun the Cold War in which the goal was to create the most devastating weapon one could in hopes of keeping the others at bay. Not only did Japan see the effects of the atomic bomb on cities during the war; they had also seen a ridiculous number of hydrogen bombs being tested in their backyard.

Gojira starts off with a boat at sea. All is calm until suddenly, a bright flash erupts from the water and the ship explodes. To American audiences, this scene is just an introduction to the idea that there is a monster lurking. To Japanese audiences at the time though, it has a little more power behind it. See, not long before the movie came out, there was the Lucky Dragon #5 incident wherein a Japanese fishing boat had wandered too close to a place where the US was testing hydrogen bombs. All men aboard were badly contaminated by the radiation and all of them died rather quickly. In fact, the incident created a bit of a stir as suddenly, the Japanese were cautious of tuna. A lot of their food came from the sea, where things were being increasingly contaminated by hydrogen bomb testings conducted by the US.

A lot has been said on the topic of Godzilla as an embodiment of the atomic bombs. It's not so much that he embodies the atomic bombs specifically, but rather he represents all increasingly destructive weapons. He is this towering, lumbering icon of death and destruction. The film is very dark with a lot of war time imagery that US audiences would not be able to relate to the same way that Japanese would. There were no shortages of ground level shots with unfortunate people being crushed or burned to death by the monster.  The very sound of air raid sirens must have spooked Japanese audiences given that not even a full decade earlier, they heard those sirens in regards to fire bombings and later, possibly atomic bombs.  The shot at the end of Godzilla's raid shows Tokyo set ablaze - a clear call to mind the days of the fire bombings. It then transitions to the morning where we see Tokyo in a smoldering heap in a shot that looks like a straight copy of post-bomb Hiroshima.

These scenes are harrowing for anyone, but it must have hit much harder in Japan where the memory of those raids was still rather fresh. The movie is more than just war time imagery though. You also get complex layers of morality. Dr. Yamane quickly finds himself at odds with the rest of the Japanese community as they try desperately to destroy the creature that he believes has invaluable scientific value. There is also the issue that comes up with Dr. Serizawa's work. Serizawa was conducting experiments trying to find new sources of energy when he accidentally stumbles upon a way to split oxygen molecules which has the reaction of destroying all oxygen in a given area. Desperate to find a positive way to use this device, he refuses to reveal any information for fear of people harnessing it for destructive weapons, such as they had done with the atomic and hydrogen bombs.

One of the biggest plot elements lost in the American cut was that of the love triangle. Emiko was to marry Serizawa in an arrangement made long ago, yet she was in love with a young sailor named Ogata. This triangle seems pretty generic until you get to the end when Emiko and Ogata go to persuade Serizawa - their only hope of stopping Godzilla - to use his oxygen destroyer. At that moment, this seemingly small, personal conflict has the weight of the world balancing on it. Emiko goes to Serizawa's lab not only to reveal she won't be marrying him, but also to beg him to compromise his ethics to "save the world." Though she never quite ends up telling Serizawa about her and Ogata, he can obviously see it is happening. When they get to the lab, Ogata dives right in begging to use the oxygen destroyer. Serizawa, trying to feign ignorance, denies he knows what he's talking about and then turns to Emiko wearing a look of a man beaten by betrayal. And then Emiko tells him, "I broke my promise. I told him your secret." When Emiko says this, she's not just revealing that she told Ogata about the oxygen destroyer; she's also - more subtly - finally revealed that she is not going to marry Serizawa despite promises made long ago.

This layered moment calls to mind another situation that is a little confusing to catch in the American cut, but feels deeper in the Japanese. Masaji is a fisherman from Odo Island. His boat is sunk by the beast and he is the lone survivor. Later though, Godzilla lands on the island and crushes Masaji's house with him still in it. It's a way to say that you can't get away from Godzilla, just the same as you can't necessarily get away from the atomic or hydrogen bombs. If you survived the initial incident, it doesn't mean you're safe. This scene was a physical representation of radiation poisoning that scared many Japanese at the time. 

Many people tend to think of Gojira as just another monster movie - maybe better than the rest of the field, but nothing special, but you don't see that kind of film making craftsmanship with most giant monster movies. You didn't even see that in King Kong. Gojira contains so many complexities and so many layers that it really deserves to be thought of outside the context of just a giant monster movie.

The love triangle still matters in the US cut, of course, but it feels a little less shocking. This is due to cultural differences between the United States and Japan, wherein the latter, they were dealing with a massive cultural shift from traditional Japanese norms to more western influences due to the occupation (marrying for love is a Western idea, but marriages on agreements is a more Eastern tradition). Honda would constantly tackle this theme of the old ways conflicting with the new throughout his career, heavily influencing his future Godzilla movies.

 Sure, the special effects haven't aged well, but at the time they were innovative and not just by Japanese standards.  Tsuburaya mixed a lot of different techniques - from stop motion, to puppets, to the classic man in a rubber suit - to achieve the look of Godzilla. His models were unparalleled. And the way he used matte backgrounds was so well done that even today it's tough to tell what is a matte background and what isn't.

The US cut does feel like a dumbed down version of the original, but I'd argue that you wouldn't see Godzilla succeed in the States without it. It is wrong to think Terry Morse treated the source material with disrespect as he was an avid fan of the original. One thing he did well that still stands up though is that he altered the structure of the movie. Gojira is a pretty linear movie. It starts with that first boat sinking and it goes straight through Godzilla's demise. Morse - a director of 1940s noir pictures - cut it up a little bit differently. The movie starts with reporter Steve Martin (Burr) trapped under the rubble of ruined Tokyo. Where the Japanese cut leaves you with a sense of suspense, trying to maximize this feeling by not showing the monster in full for nearly two full reels, the American cut leaves it more as a sense of mystery. From the beginning, you are left wondering what had happened.

Don't get me wrong here: the Japanese cut is far superior. It's just tough to argue that Morse didn't do a good job in Americanizing it. Yes, he cut out a lot of things that seem politically motivated on the surface. For example, there is a woman with her children sitting by a building during Godzilla's rampage. For a moment,  there is a scene on a train where a couple is talking about the threat of Godzilla. The woman turns to her boyfriend and says that she can't believe she escaped Nagasaki just find herself right back in a similar situation. There are a few other instances that feel like they might have been cut due to political reasons (remember that Japan was occupied at the time and direct criticisms of the United States were illegal); it is more likely though that Morse simply cut these scenes as American audiences wouldn't be able to really relate to them, or at least they definitely would not have felt similarly (since the US's relationship with atomic bombs and nuclear energy is fundamentally different than Japan's).

What the American cut did though was provide an easily accessible version of a movie, kept a good number of the layers, and kept the tone rather dark. Even the US cut is not your average, mindless, 1950s science fiction fare. The recut was still important to the success of Godzilla in the United States.  The way they shot new material and added it - while at first glance seems disrespectful - actually is more innovative and fair to the original material than you might think. I mean, this is definitely just my opinion, but I'd rather they do that then do a bad job simply dubbing everything with white actors doing fake Asian accents (as they would do later in Godzilla Raids Again).

Every Godzilla movie has more depth than people ever will give them credit for, but both Gojira and Morse's Godzilla: King of the Monsters definitely exceed those level of expectations. These are great movies that deserve to be really watched and taken in as a work of art, not as mindless science fiction monster movies. I never get bored with these two and I constantly find some new take on it. The craftsmanship of both versions is more often than not underrated.

Portal 2 (2011)

Portal 2 is a first person puzzle game where you get a portal gun instead of guns that go bang bang or pew pew. The portal gun does pretty much exactly what the name implies: it allows you to shoot portals onto certain surfaces. These blue and orange portals are connected, so you basically move around the rooms by shooting portals onto walls and then hopping through them. Something new to the Portal-verse is the addition of these weird gels. There are white, blue, and red gels, each with their own unique property. (Splashing a non-portable walls with white gel gives you a surface to create a portal on, red gels give you a surface that eases friction and allows you to slide very quickly on them, and blue gels let you bounce high.) There are also the light bridges which will carry you when you jump into them.

All of these additional elements adds a whole new dynamic to an already dynamic game. It means you have to think a little bit more outside the box to solve puzzles (or "do science" as GLaDOS says). The puzzles themselves range in difficulty, which is always good. At first, it might sound like a puzzle game doesn't have too much replay value, but you'd be wrong about Portal 2. Sure, the more difficult puzzles are a little easier if you can remember anything about them, but you'd be surprised at how quickly it takes for you to lose your memory about them!

There's also more of a story in the sequel. Granted, this game is really fun and addictive regardless, but the story - albeit nothing amazing - is definitely just as entertaining. You get a little more insight into Aperture Labs, and in the course of the game, you are forced to work with your mortal enemy from the previous one: the maniacally self-aware robot GLaDOS. The dark, sarcastic, and quirky humor is every bit returned. The addition of JK Simmons is definitely welcome, and of course, the inclusion of the absolutely hilarious Stephen Merchant definitely is a big plus.

What makes both Portal games special - apart from just how fun and funny they are - is that they really do have a little something for everyone. Sometimes I think about what games I might recommend for someone who doesn't play video games. Portal 2 might take some getting used to for those not particularly familiar with first person game controls, but all of the other mechanics are relatively simple. Some puzzles require some fast movement, but overall, it's not a reactionary game the way that many shooters are. You can take puzzles at your own pace. It's a great introductory game for new players, and yet it's just as fun for seasoned gamers.

Solving puzzles a second time isn't necessarily as fun as the first time, but it still is a lot of fun, and certainly, replaying the game is easy to do with the story and humor of Portal 2. Certainly, it is every bit as fun the second time and remains one of my favorite games ever. I highly recommend playing it, or trying it even if you don't like video games. And if Portal 2 was your introduction, I'd also recommend going back and playing the first Portal as well.

Here's a little sampling of the kind of humor you're in for:

The War of the Worlds (2005)

When I first saw Steven Spielberg's adaptation of The War of the Worlds, it was late at night at a drive-in theater on a sort of awkward double date (back in high school). The first of the double feature was Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I remember liking quite a bit at the time. The War of the Worlds wound up being the movie in which everyone except me fell asleep during.

My feelings about both of those movies have essentially swapped! After watching Tom Cruise in Oblivion and having spent the greater part of the past five years playing Mass Effect, I figured it was time to give The War of the Worlds another shot.

To begin with, I haven't actually read the book,  despite my love of science fiction. I just don't care that much about the book. It was innovative and important (and Wells seemed to predict with disturbing foresight that there would soon be total warfare with no regard toward human life); it just doesn't quite do it for me as an epic adventure story.

See, here's my thing: you have this incredibly epic backdrop, right? Earth is being invaded by Martians. The entire world is screwed. No place is safe. It's this huge, all-encompassing event. And yet we don't hear about these events unfolding from people actively trying to understand and counter the attack. We hear about it from relative nobodies. They take this huge, event and use it to frame their small, intimate story. I can't help but feel that this "Tom Cruise is a crappy dad who just wants to reconnect with his children" story is not the story that I want to be watching. It constantly feels like the story I really want keeps happening off screen.

Of course, it's this way in the book and the classic 1953 version too. My complaint extends to all of those, too. It just seemed especially noticeable here with the giant action sequences.

Though there were several things I grumbled at (the look of the aliens themselves, the return of Robbie at the end, the tripods rising from underground), there were a surprising amount of things that I thought were cool. It was clever how Ray figured they had no shields left when he noticed birds landing on the tripods. And earlier when the attack started, he got home covered in the dust of disintegrated people. Though the smaller sized story of Ray and his children didn't much appeal to me (especially in the foreground of a large-scale alien invasion of Earth), I did appreciate that they made Tom Cruise's character kind of unlikeable. He's not a very good father and you can see it. He's actually not all that likeable throughout the trip up to Boston. As he's trying to be responsible and take care of his kids amongst all the chaos, he still is quick to frustration. He shouts at his kids and gets visibly angry to the point of throwing things (baseballs, peanut butter sandwiches, et cetera). Still, that was not the story that felt like it needed to be told. (I guess - and I know this is going to sound blasphemous - I want The War of the Worlds to be just a little bit more like Independence Day where you get to see the story of the people who are trying to save the planet.)

The special effects look a bit dated, which seems kind of strange to say for a movie that is barely ten years old yet. Still, you can't help but notice some rough edges to them as you watch it today. It's a little unfortunate too that they seemed to forgo practical effects, just to do everything in post with CGI. In the same sequence of events, they do an homage to the 1953 feature with the long, alien periscope searching through the house, but then proceed to drag it out too long for its own good. As soon as the anxiety from the periscope disappears, they send in two actual aliens on foot to try and bring that anxiety back for a few more minutes. It was a little overkill (and a little disappointing that they couldn't use a cool looking practical effect for the periscope). They do lift a shot straight up from 28 Days Later (they confuse the alien periscope by hiding behind a mirror - straight copy of the scene when Hannah hides from the infected soldier behind the mirror), but overall it was pretty well done.

If you really liked any version of The War of the Worlds, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't also enjoy Spielberg's version. Perhaps you won't necessarily like the ties to the war on terror that they also kind of beat you over the head with, but this story was always sort of political.

My only other complaint is also one that just generally ties to every version of this, but is especially noticeable in the 2005 adaptation: the bacteria cause of death never really made much sense to me. Spielberg's take on it is that the tripods must have been buried deep underground a very, very long time ago (as suggested by the opening narration and a couple of people throughout the movie). Ok, so, these aliens have been so intelligent and so scientifically advanced for so long that they not only could travel in space ages before we could, but they also produced these incredible pieces of technology. And yet, they didn't know bacteria was a thing? Even more, they were already on Earth! Shouldn't the bacteria have killed them already, or, they became immune to it?

I know the point was that sometimes we seem to overvalue our intelligence, but c'mon. When you really think about it and reflect on human history, doesn't it make a little more sense for it to be the other way around? Shouldn't the Martians have brought alien diseases into our ecosystem that killed us? Hasn't that usually been the case in human history when a more advanced society invades another country? Additionally, look at natural history. When do you really see foreign things introduced to an established ecosystem and find that that foreign thing is what gets wiped out? Isn't it more often that that foreign object infects and begins to change the established ecosystem?


Overall, I still prefer the 1953 adaptation, but Spielberg's The War of the Worlds is on par with it. Definitely worth a rewatch if you haven't seen it in a while. It's probably better than you remember it being.

Spec Ops: The Line (2012)

WARNING: It's impossible to discuss Spec Ops: The Line without going into specific detail of the story. Be warned that this is almost nothing but spoilers. Enter at your own risk. 

First Person and Third Person Action shooters have a bit of a bad rep lately because of the repetitive nature of the Call of Duties and Battlefields of the market. The status quo is to oversimplify story and characters to justify the murder of people. It's kind of why zombie games are generally "safe" games: you get to kill stuff without thinking about it. To avoid making the player think about the fact that their "fun" is coming from the killing of people, they often do everything they can to dehumanize the enemies. Zombies, demons, monsters, Nazis. It's almost universal that in shooter games, you're not meant to think of the enemies as anything other than targets to destroy.

Spec Ops: The Line initially starts off this way - a third person shooter in which you get ambushed by what seems like a group of angry, militant Middle Eastern citizens. Very quickly, the game breaks from this norm and causes you as a player to suddenly reflect on what you're doing. Instead of killing hordes of presumably Muslim terrorists or brutal Russians, you find yourself being attacked by a unit of US soldiers that have defected.

Seemingly a minor detail, it is a huge change of pace that immediately makes you wonder how this game got published (especially while a game like Six Days in Fallujah faces constant criticism to the point of probably never seeing the light of day). Here, you play as US Delta force operator Captain Walker, leading a mission to rescue the 33rd Division, only to find that this unit has actually defected and taken control of the city. You spend your time reluctantly fighting off hordes of American troops. Certainly, this fact greatly impacts Walker's two team mates, Lugo and Adams, who slowly become more and more pissed off at their captain for dragging them into this mess in the first place by choosing to proceed into the city rather than stay put as ordered.

As you progress through the story, trying to find out what exactly has happened in the city and why the 33rd has defected and committed some of the atrocities they have for the sake of maintaining order, things begin to unravel. For the first few chapters of the game, it plays like an otherwise generic third person shooter, with the major difference being that you feel a bit uncomfortable fighting the enemy you are. Yet once you get to about the seventh chapter, the game just breaks wide open and punches you in the gut. After coming off as a rather linear game, it eventually provides you with a choice: you must decide whether to go with Adams to save civilians or let Lugo take a shot to save one CIA hostage who has information critical to the mission. This isn't just your usual "Paragon" or "Renegade" choice either. There really is no "right" answer. Choosing civilians seems like a very human thing to do, but at the same time, Lugo has a point that you need the CIA agent to complete the mission. Even more, while the choice doesn't ultimately impact the ending of the game, it does create a rift among your crew. Choose civilians and Lugo will argue and things get heated.

Shortly after though, you are presented with a situation in which you choose to use white phosphorous to attack a section of 33rd soldiers. Lugo objects, knowing how horrible that weapon is, but you are so outnumbered and overpowered, your hand is essentially forced. Right after, it's discovered that the 33rd was actually just providing shelter for civilians, and your phosphorous attacks have slaughtered many. In a moment rare in shooters, your team mates argue extremely heatedly while your character slowly takes in what he's done. The killing is seeping into his mind and he's starting to lose it. It's the first time in any video game that I can think of in which your characters in game seem to be affected by the killing you're doing. 

After a moment, Walker gathers himself and vows revenge on the 33rd, claiming they forced his hand. It's at this point though, if it weren't already evident, that this is not a game built around mindless action and killing. Not long after, you are contacted by the general of the 33rd, and he eventually forces you to execute either a Emirati civilian who stole water or a US soldier who was supposed to bring the Emirati in but killed his family in the process. It's the ultimate statement, really. We're so accustomed to think that the foreigners are "the enemy" and the US soldiers are "the heroes," we never remember that war (and people) are complex. 

Even more, you eventually find yourself working with someone who seems to be on your side, only to find out that he is trying to cover up everything that's happened. One of the elements I loved about the game is that while your characters are trying to figure out what's happened in Dubai, you as a player are trying to figure out who exactly is the good guy and who is the bad guy. The game is almost Game of Thrones-like in that it plays you based on your pre-established expectations of the medium. There are no pure villains or pure heroes in this game. No one is truly "the enemy." No one is truly "the hero" either. 

By the final third of the game, your crew is constantly at each others' throats and Captain Walker is hallucinating and becoming more volatile in his orders. Issuing orders at the beginning of the game, Walker states things like, "Focus fire on that target above!" By the third act, he's issuing orders by shouting, "I need him dead!" Everyone is beginning to lose their minds. 

Of course, the finale of the game is where it completely falls off the rails. Konrad, the perceived villain of the game, turns out to be nothing more than a projection in Walker's mind. Walker was so racked with guilt over everything that happened. He knew the entire time that if he had just stopped when ordered, rather than pursuing in an attempt to be a hero, none of that stuff would have happened. After the white phosphorous incident, his brain just goes bananas in an attempt to handle his guilt. In his mind, he created Konrad as a person who forced his hand and he made himself appear the hero. 

There are four possible "endings," depending on how one handles the finale and the epilogue. All of them just continue to punish you mentally. In one ending, you can kill yourself as your brain starts to truly take stock of the depressing reality. In another, you get rescued and a soldier asks you how you survived in which Walker responds, "Who said I did?" In an even less subtle ending, you get killed by the rescue patrol and you flash back to a previous encounter with Konrad in which he tells you that for men like them, there is no truly "going home" because there is a line they have to cross.

Clearly inspired by Heart of Darkness, the game is perhaps the only shooter that really pushes PTSD out in the fold. It also makes you question your motive for playing shooters. Almost every shooter out there exists for almost mindless entertainment purposes. It's a fantasy power trip. Every game, from Gears of War to Call of Duty to Mass Effect, is making you commit violent acts in order to be the hero. Spec Ops: The Line does not present war or violence as simple. It's complicated. And sometimes you do terrible things that you can't come back from. At the end of the game, the imaginary Konrad says what might be the most profound and poignant line uttered in any video game:

"The truth is...you are here because you wanted to feel like something you're not: a hero." 

Aesthetically, the game bases it in typical "modern shooter" territory. You go to the Middle East and fight in deserts. What's kind of cool is how you're always fighting on humongous sand dunes and skyscrapers. You always have a good view of the city. The soundtrack also mixes a pretty cool original score with real songs that kind of further messes up the sense of reality. The game clearly calls to mind Vietnam. It even uses Vietnam-era rock songs. The menu music is even Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the national anthem. 

Game play wise, it's not necessarily anything to write home about. It's a fairly standard third person, cover-based action shooter. Still, one can't ignore the connection between the game play and the narrative. The game plays a lot like a typical action shooter, throwing seemingly endless waves of future corpses your way. Yet the game always reminds you that you don't really want to be doing this. These are Americans, presumably with American families and American friends. At times, the game is even very challenging. They actually find a pretty interesting balance between wandering into that typical "violence is fun!" thing and the whole, "but I feel really guilty doing this..." 

There is an argument made by some gamers that linearity and too much focus on narrative turns games into basically just movies and harms "gaming" as a whole. Spec Ops: The Line, however, depicts exactly what gaming has to offer as a medium of interactive story telling. It's hard to call it fun, but that's not the point (in the same way that watching Band of Brothers isn't supposed to be entertaining the way that say, Flight of the Conchords is).

 It is linear. It is cinematic. But quite literally all of the emotion is built into the fact that you the player are controlling things. 

Solo Features Episode 2: Volume

The topic for this episode of Solo Features is the new game from Mike Bithell. VOLUME, a top-down stealth game that's a futuristic Robin Hood retelling is the follow up to the great indie puzzle game THOMAS WAS ALONE. How does it stand up to its predecessor? Is it just as great? (Spoiler: Yes, yes it is.)

Archived Link:

The Commercialism is Strong With This One...

Today is Force Friday. Have you heard of it? Just kidding, of course you have. You're on the internet right now. Force Friday is a new quasi-holiday for nerds all about showcasing Star Wars toys. Actually, that's not quite right. Force Friday is a new quasi-holiday for businesses to sell nerds Star Wars toys, because apparently people aren't buying enough already. Never mind the presumable spike in sales around Christmas (which will increase more with the new feature-length Star Wars commercial set to release then), or on May the 4th. No, we need a new Star Wars day specifically about selling Star Wars toys to nerds who would buy it eventually just the same.

This is sort of the problem with modern mainstream nerd fandom though .We've become less fans and more a market than ever before. Sure, that's always been the case. That will always be the case. The very existence of the Star Wars extended universe - filled with comics and books and video games - tells the tale of how commercially viable Star Wars is, even when they're not making movies. After all, Star Wars is perhaps the biggest movie franchise in history, despite having only made six movies in the span of 38 years! How has it stayed relevant so long? More to the point, how has it stayed so financially successful?

Even more, there hasn't even been a good Star Wars movie in 35 years! Return of the Jedi is fine and fun, especially for children, but let's not pretend it's something it's not - and that's a "good movie." When The Phantom Menace released, people were struck with how dumb it was. Collectively, we probably liked it at that time more than we do now, but it was still widely considered a disappointment. Yet a few years later, we rushed out again to see yet another crappy Star Wars movie in Attack of the Clones which, on Rotten Tomatoes, indicates that 59% liked. And it grossed almost $340 million worldwide.

Then, of course, despite getting two disappointing (and frankly, crappy) movies, we did it again a few years later with Revenge of the Sith which grossed almost $470 million worldwide. It somehow has an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 65% liking it. Yes, it's the best reviewed and most liked of the prequels, but still    pales in comparison to the original trilogy. Even Return of the Jedi - which has a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes - was liked by 95% in addition.  And that wasn't even that good of a movie! (I still maintain the reason people were ok with Sith is that it was the darkest of the three. People often conflate darkness for maturity, and by default, quality. In reality, Sith was still a pretty bad movie that lacked any of the maturity - in themes or film making - that the darkest of the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, had.)

Here's the Rotten Tomatoes breakdown:

A New Hope - 94% fresh rating,  96% liked.
The Empire Strikes Back - 95% fresh rating, 97% liked
The Return of the Jedi - 79% fresh rating, 95% liked

The Phantom Menace - 57% fresh rating, 60% liked
Attack of the Clones - 67% fresh rating, 59% liked
Revenge of the Sith - 80% fresh rating, 65% liked


How can a film series that has objectively gotten worse and has been widely disdained and disliked still be this successful and financially viable? Well, it's because Star Wars nerds are nothing if not loyal. Sure, there hasn't been a legitimately good Star Wars movie since before most of us were born, but there were some great video games! And those books? Never mind that the books also turned to shit, but hey, they had a good run. For a long time, Star Wars books actually were pretty good and enjoyable. Eventually (and inevitably), the universe got so big and full of itself that it ultimately collapsed under its own bloated weight. Or alternatively, it stuck its head so far up its ass that it couldn't hit the side of a sandcrawler!

To be clear here, I actually am kind of excited for The Force Awakens. I am concerned it is going to go the route of Sith and take itself far too seriously for its own good, but that last trailer still looked like a lot of fun. And don't get me wrong: I love the original trilogy. Yes, even Jedi, which might very well be prequel-level stupid (even though it really hasn't aged well - it's a lot like Phantom Menace in many ways).

As a nerd though, I find all of this a bit problematic though. I didn't take to Star Wars because it was cool science fiction. I loved it because it was good science fiction. All those books and video games? Again, I didn't take to them because it was Star Wars, but rather because they were good. There still is good Star Wars stuff that gets made. Lest anyone accuse me of allowing nostalgia to take precedence in this argument, I'd point out that I've generally enjoyed most Star Wars video games (and let's be honest: Battlefront 3 is going to be awesome!) I enjoyed some of the comics for a little while. And I was reading some of the books into the early aughts. The Clone Wars television show was also quite good and enjoyable. And I have hope that the upcoming films will be good. No, I'm not just a grumpy old man who thinks things are just generally worse now than they were "back in my day."

This is the thing though: what other business or brand do you let get away with producing so much crap, and you actively reward them for it? I'm not even sure the Cult of Apple would let them get away with regularly producing crappy iPhones and iPods and iWhatevers for 15 years.  Yet we as nerds just suck everything up. We buy everything. We reward poor creative decisions.

The recent events with the Fant4stic movie are a little hopeful. Word was that movie was terrible (and boy was it terrible), but no one went to see it. For a moment, we seemed to have learned our lesson. We've been burnt by bad Fantastic Four movies before, so we avoided the new one. Except Fantastic Four doesn't have nearly the same fanbase as something like Star Wars, or even other Marvel movie properties. How different would things have been if Fant4stic had the full backing of the Marvel Studios brand?  Even Ant-Man did fairly well, grossing almost $200 million worldwide. (Though Ant-Man was actually a lot of fun, unlike Fant4stic, so it isn't exactly a fair comparison. However, it's hard to argue that as a property, Ant-Man has more name recognition than Fantastic Four.)

Warner Brothers seems hellbent on giving us joyless, pretentious comic book movies. They still haven't given us a good Superman movie in 37 movies, but they're going to making the same mistakes, and we're going to keep seeing it and rewarding them financially. Man of Steel wasn't the worst movie ever, and it even did some things well, but it lacked focus and general awareness of what it was doing. It suffered character and pacing issues and had so many plot holes that you'd think it was a New England street in the winter. And that did almost $300 million domestically.

Point being, on this day of acknowledging how easy we nerds are to market to: we seem to be very patient people. (Well, except when someone has a different opinion than we do, in which case we'll rage and harass and exclude.) Why did we become fans in the first place? Was it because something was just mindlessly "cool"? Or was it because we got good comics and watched good movies?

This nerd culture thing? It might as well be a cult or religion. We buy things almost mindlessly because it has the label of the thing we love, but we don't seem to care about the quality anymore. Disney is already planning a Star Wars movie every year for the next five or six years, and we haven't even gotten to see if the first one is any good. But ya know what? It doesn't matter. The Force Awakens could be complete garbage, and we'll still go out in droves to see Rogue One. And even if that is also garbage, we'll still rush to see Episode VIII. And even if that is garbage...et cetera, et cetera.

It's a bit frustrating to be a fan and to want legitimately good materials, but to see the primary focus is on selling toys and other marketing things. If everyone were honest, why do you think A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back were clearly the best Star Wars movies? Well, first, they're actually well written and directed movies. And second, they were the movies that seemed the least concerned with selling toys.

So on this Force Friday, buy whatever Star Wars toys you want. It's fine. Your money is what they're after, and little else actually matters. It isn't about quality, it's about sales. And you're doing the work for them.

JAWS - It's All About the Indianapolis

Recently, I had the privilege to watch Steven Spielberg's classic blockbuster Jaws on the big screen in glorious 4k. It was beautiful, but it the clarify of image wasn't the only thing I saw. On top of that, I noticed copious amounts of foreshadowing (the machete, the scuba tank, the picture of the shark destroying the boat, the life vests, Quint checking Hooper's hands but not Brody's - and I'm pretty sure Hooper was originally supposed to get eaten like in the book, which would explain Mrs. Brody's poorly worded, "I hear you're in sharks?" comment way earlier). And I also noticed something that caused the entire way I looked at the movie to change, or at least, opened up a new interpretation of the film I'd never considered before.

To start off, I should say that I'm no film critic, nor am I a particularly intelligent or creative person. As such, all of these thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm probably stretching on most of things, reading too deeply into some things, and probably just wrong about everything. It should also be noted that this isn't the only thing I think Jaws is really about. It's just one layer.

The theory I put forth is simple: Jaws is actually all about the USS Indianapolis and Quint finally dying the death he should have in the war.

Yes, despite being largely absent from the first half of the movie, Quint's story might very well just be the emotional core of the film. It's all very subtle, and because he isn't in the entire thing, can seem like just a back burner type of story.

Here's what we know about Quint. He was a sailor during World War II and was a crew member of the USS Indianapolis. This was the ship that transported key components of the atomic bomb to the Pacific, which allowed for the first bomb on Hiroshima to be dropped effectively and as quickly as possible. On its return voyage, it was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The mission was so top secret that no one knew that ship was out there, and it wasn't even reported missing for over a week after it should have returned.

Most of the men were killed during the attack or drowned. Many of the initial survivors, however, were methodically taken out by sharks. Quint was one of the lucky ones to be rescued, but he didn't escape unscathed.

We learn this from the scene wherein Quint and Hooper are comparing physical wounds. It's all fun and games - a friendly competition - until Brody asks about one scar on Quint's arm. Turns out, it was from a tattoo removal. That tattoo in question was from his time in the Navy; more specifically, it was related to the Indianapolis. Of all the scars, this was the one that wasn't a laughing matter. Sure, the story was inherently grave and serious, but it wasn't ultimately about the Indianapolis.  The story highlights that Quint left the experience (understandably) scarred mentally.

He tried to remove the memories when he had the tattoo removed, and perhaps his career choice was also an effort to exercise his demons. His profession? Shark hunter. Having survived but witnessed a huge number of shark attacks, he spent his life killing sharks himself. Rather than staying as far away from the ocean as possible, he went on some sort of revenge motif.  Or maybe he hunts sharks because he knows it can be dangerous and he might finally suffer the fate he feels he should have suffered during the war. He seems to know right away how dangerous the shark in Jaws actually is, as evident by his asking price.

When Quint tells his horrible tale, he makes mention of the fact that he was most scared "waitin' for (his) turn."  Basically, he had accepted his death back when he was stranded in the water with all those sharks. At one point, he talks about a friend of his he bumped into after the Indianapolis sunk. Thinking his friend was asleep, he went over to him, only to find he had been bitten in half below the waist. It's not much of a stretch to assume Quint suffered from PTSD. He also probably has a case of survivor's guilt, and he probably felt like he should have been one of the sharks' victims during the Indianapolis incident.

After it's clear this shark means business and the ship is going to sink, Quint accepts his fate. He grabs a couple of life jackets and throws them to Hooper and Brody, but he refuses to wear one himself. This was also alluded to in his story. "I'll never put on a life jacket again," he says near the end.

Quint was most scared waiting to be killed by the sharks. He won't wear the life jacket because it's either they kill the shark here, or he dies. He refuses to be subjected to death toying with him. If the ship goes down, he'll finally meet the fate he thought he should have met in 1945. And yet, the situation is quite similar.

They all felt in control for quite some time, but by the end it's clear the shark was messing with them. It was teasing them with their deaths. It eventually got to the point where Quint lost his cool. He started driving toward shore in a moment of desperation, and despite warnings to slow down, he pushed the throttle and killed the engine. Basically, he started getting panicky and scared after he realized they were going to die, killed by the shark, and he was now just "waitin' his turn."

His fate also parallels his friend's from the story. The person he saw dead in the water back in 1945 was bitten in half at the waist. The last time we see Quint - before he's pulled down into the water and devoured - the entire lower half of his body is in the shark's mouth. He is effectively bitten in half at the waist. This was the exact death he should have suffered in 1945, but somehow escaped.

Plus, Quint's theme was "Spanish Ladies," a traditional sailor's song. "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies," he'd sing frequently. "Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain. For we've received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again."

Though Quint is a fisherman who makes money killing sharks, it often seems as though he does it on his own. It's his job because he makes it his. He does it because he wants to. Brody approaches him and contracts him to do a specific job. In some ways, Brody represents the government/Navy during World War II, and killing the shark represents delivering the bomb. He's "received orders" to sail again, basically. His story about the Indianapolis is all about the people who were eaten by sharks, but he ends in with, "anyway, we delivered the bomb." They did the job.

So if he received his orders, nevermore shall we see him again. His death is pretty well telegraphed in the film.

One might even consider earlier events in the film to parallel the events of the Indianapolis story too. One by one, people start getting attacked. And yet the mayor of Amity doesn't do anything for quite some time. People get attacked and killed in the span of about a week, about the time it took before the mayor finally allowed Brody to act. "They didn't even list us as overdue for a week!" Quint explains regarding the Indianapolis. One of the victims was even attacked on June 29th, as evident by the reward notice. (June 29th was - incorrectly - listed as the date in which the Indianapolis went down, although it was only off by a day.)



Overall, the entire film is ultimately about events that vaguely parallel the Indianapolis story, only this time resulting in Quint's death. Quint maybe even wanted the gig because he knew he might finally meet that fate he narrowly avoided thirty years prior. He might have actively wanted to die by the shark, given that he blew the engines which caused them to sink, and he smashed the radio as Brody was attempting to call the Coast Guard  ("our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent.")

In fact, Quint had probably even set off with all intentions of dying. I know this is a bit contradicted by the fact he demanded $10,000 for his services, but I'd just argue that he's an erratic man suffering from post-traumatic stress and feelings of guilt having survived. We never really see him with the general public outside his introduction. Perhaps he's just putting on a face he thinks is relatively normal. Expecting to die might explain why he was insistent on going out alone to try and catch a deadly great white shark.





Or, it's all just about trying to hunt down a shark that's been methodically killing swimmers. (Although to be fair, this "monstrous shark" also might have gone away - as theorized by Hooper with his territorial theory - so perhaps everything could have been avoided if the mayor had just closed the beaches for a week or two and the shark lost its food supply. By and large, the shark doesn't really do anything "evil" or "monstrous" up until it weirdly starts stalking the Orca. Before that though, it's just being a shark.)

But what fun is it to not try and read too deeply into a movie?