SDCC 2019 : Marvel Cinematic Universe Announcements!

Posted by John Klein III on July 25, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/sdcc-2019-all-of-the-marvel-studios-news-coming-out-of-hall-h-at-san-diego-comic-con?linkId=70839221

Marvel held a pretty epic presentation on Saturday that explains what the next few years are going to look like for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both in theaters and on Disney+.

Since I have the handy link above, I’m going to go in that order, if you want to follow along.  Except I’m going to break that right off the bat with the first film as it just makes sense to go in release date order of release.  I’m also going with Logo first and then my thoughts as that makes more sense to me.

Thanks to Variety for having a highlight reel of the announcements too!

It took ten years but Scarlett Johansson is finally getting her proper movie!  With no Hawkeye in sight too!  More on that later!  She’ll be joined by Stranger Things and Hellboy, David Harbour, as The Red Guardian.  I looked it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_(2019_film)

It only made 40 million worldwide on a 50 million budget, that isn’t ideal so Harbour is free to be other comic book characters.  He deserves another shot.  I haven’t heard anything about Stranger Things 3, so either people are respecting no spoilers or I’m just out of touch.

I’m a pretty big fan of Yelena’s take of being the Black Widow and I’m looking forward to how Florence Pugh portrays her.  I didn’t realize she played Paige in Fighting with My Family.  I must not have looked into it as I just assumed Paige would pull a Howard Stern and play herself in the movie about her life.  Paige is 26 and would have gotten acting experience through WWE, I wonder what made that decision?  Apparently the film is based on a documentary that I should probably watch now that I have so many questions.  That won’t be answered in the documentary but still.  Pugh will be one of the ladies in Little Women.

O-T Fagbenle, who I know from Harlan Coben’s The Five series (that I think about enough that we should really finish that series!) will be Mason, whoever that is. He’s also one The Handmaid’s Tale and I wonder if my wife recognizes him from the earlier show?

Rachel Weisz will be Melina, another character in the film.  I imagine the film is going to be an origin story and it ends with Natasha coming back to life, right?  Or a quick 15 minute origin story, she blips back to Earth and then just continues with her spy story, and then the film ends with her telling a hero that she’s alive?  Those are the two easy options I came up with.

Johansson is only 34 so she must have been 24 when Iron Man 2 came out and she looks exactly the same, so she can totally pull off an origin story!  I probably didn’t even need to look it up but I was curious.  She’s been working since 2001’s Ghost World with some smaller roles before hand but gosh, she really blew up.  I wonder what her thoughts are on Jennifer Lawrence, who is only 28, and what advice she’ll give her as they both have the same fans, I imagine.

Coming to theaters May 1, 2020.

The movie Marvel is hoping to recapture that Guardians of the Galaxy buzz with!  Kevin Feige said it is going to have plenty of Jack Kirby in it, which would be the only thing I want want from it.  Especially as I really don’t know the Eternals are.  I’m sure Marvel will release like three trades that will be the inspiration for the film’s plot but it is pretty wide open as of now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternals_(film)

Richard Madden, Game of Thorne’s Robb Stark, is going to be Ikarus.

Kumail Nanjiani, who love, is going to be Kingo.

I’m not familiar with Lauren Ridloff who is going to be Makkari.  My wife would probably recognize her from New Amsterdam’s Happy Place episode.

Brian Tyree Henry has been in a slew of things I haven’t seen, but he’s the voice of Jefferson Davis in Into The Spider-Verse, he’s going to be Phastos.

In a surprise announcement to me, Salma Hayek is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Ajak!  I do love me some Salma Hayek.

Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for Lia McHugh who is going to be Sprite.  Which I am familiar with that Eternal as I’ve been curious why Kitty Pryde was known as the second Sprite.  Just don’t pull her Tab!

I’m not familiar with Don Lee either, who is going to be Gilgamesh.

I knew Angelina Jolie was going to be in the movie, she’s Thena.  Should be a pretty interesting film.  I’m also not familiar with director Chloe Zhao’s work either.

Coming to theaters November 6, 2020.

I had forgotten that Daniel Bruhl is returning as Baron Zemo for the series!  Now I’m even more excited!  Once this is officially on Disney+, we will be subscribing to it.

Coming to streaming devices Fall 2020.

I must be way out of touch as I didn’t recognize anyone from the cast of this but I’m super excited!

Simu Liu is going to be outstanding as Shang Chi!

I’m glad that we’re finally getting the real Mandarin and Tony Leung is going to be awesome at it!  I’m glad Marvel Studios found a way to properly introduce him into the MCU.

He’s Little Tony to Tony Leung Ka-fai’s Big Tony.

Coming on February 12, 2021.

We still haven’t seen Captain Marvel – I’m hoping we buy it off of VUDU next weekend.  We’ve been waiting to buy it for when we can actually watch it.  Teynoah Parris is going to be playing adult Monica Rambeau, which is terrific to have that plot thread picked up.  Parris was Dawn Chambers on Mad Men.  She’s also Detective Pamela Rose on Empire.

I’m super excited about this show as I just want more Wanda and Vision!  Hopefully Vision has all of his emotions or gets them back by the end of the show’s run.

Coming Spring 2021 to Disney+.

I wasn’t hot on Loki until Endgame, then I had one of those ah-ha moments and I’ll love to see what Post-Avengers Loki is up too without all of that fun character development he got from the films that came after that.  He should be pretty fun.

Coming to Disney+ Spring 2021.

Like a dman fool, I was saying how it might not be necessary to get a proper sequel to Doctor Strange but I’ve been proven way wrong.  I’m glad Marvel is running with the idea of the Multiverse that was teased in Spider-Man : Far From Home.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Earth-199999

We’ll have to see if they reveal the MCU to actually be considered Earth-199999, officially named in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z 5.

I love how Marvel isn’t making the mistake they did with the Netflix series (more on that later), and actually making sure the events of the Disney+ series matter by making sure the plot threads are picked up in the movies.  I was never worried that once the characters went to “TV,” that they would never come back to films but as proof, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) will be in Doctor Strange’s film and it will take place after the events of WandaVision.

Coming to theaters May 7, 2021.

 

The first series actually set in the MCU, and not just inspired by it, and it is just a fun take on the MCU!  So far, we only know there will be an episode based on the idea of Agent Peggy Carter becoming Captain America.  I’m sure there will be several other episodes that would be equally fun.  Hopefully the original actor will do the voicework for their character like we know Hayley Atwell will.

Jeffrey Wright, Felix Leiter from the latest James Bond films, will be providing the voice of The Watcher!  He was also Colin Powell in Oliver Stone’s W and Beetee in the Hunger Games films.

Coming to Disney+ Summer 2021.

This show will get me excited once they cast Kate Bishop.  I’m getting myself pretty jazzed for a Young Avengers film that might be in the works.  I’m also hoping with Jeremy Renner coming back to TV, that we can get a re-release of ABC’s The Unusuals as that was a fun show.  It only had ten episodes but I’m reminded of that show a bunch.  Mostly when I’m reminded of Renner and when I wonder whatever happened to Amber Tamblyn, She’s going to be Mariette Callows in the upcoming Y : The Last Man series coming to FX as simply “Y” which like “er” will be very difficult to Google.

Monique Gabriela Curnen being in the Dark Knight didn’t bring the show back on any streaming device but with Disney only ABC, I wonder if the show will appear on Disney+?  She was Detective Anna Ramirez.

The Unusuals also had LOST’s Harold Perrineau (Walt!) and the original Adam Goldberg!  Such a great show.  Now I wish I can watch it all over again!

So yeah, maybe there might be something about this show that will get me to think about the show itself.  Hopefully Matt Fraction gets some dollars from this, that’ll be nice.

Coming to Disney+ Fall 2021.

I loved Comic Book Queers Legacy’s idea of simply calling this film, Thour, that would have been super fun!

Natalie Portman is coming back to the MCU and she’s going to be Thor!  How amazing is that!?!  I can’t wait to see what she looks like as Thor!

I was going to make another difficult to Google joke but “Natalie Portman Goddess of Thunder” should at last bring some images

Yep, that worked!  That makes two awesome humans who are worthy to pick up Mjolnir.

I wonder if Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard will be in this?  Maybe at least as cameos?

Also, will the Guardians show up for a fun cameo as they drop Thor off on his latest adventure?  They have to address it at least for a line of dialogue.

Coming to theaters November 5, 2021!

We end with Blade!  Mahershala Ali will be the daywalker, Blade!  Ali is 46 to Wesley Snipps 56.  Gosh, Snipps has six kids!  He hasn’t been working much but has two films in post-production right now, Dolemite Is My Name and Cut Throat City.

So Mahershala Ali has played one other Marvel character, Luke Cage’s first season villain, Cottonmouth.  So that’s a shame that Marvel is not only double dipping into other roles already but also, it sort of implies the Marvel Netflix series don’t really matter.  I guess there is an argument to be made that nowadays, it doesn’t really matter, but also, it isn’t like Ali was a hero character being recast as another hero.  But he was pretty pivotal to Luke Cage’s first season.

But Ali is a great  actor so it makes total sense that Marvel will want to keep working with him.  I’m just having a silly knee jerk reaction.

No date for when the film comes out but oh boy, what an amazing late of TV and Films!

.  .  .

PSPrices notified me that Late Shift was under seven dollars.  Apparently the game has gotten below five but I had recently gotten paid and I figured I’ll treat myself to a new game.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/late-shift/guide/

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/late-shift/308021-late-shift-platinum-walkthrough-text.html.

I was going to do eight playthroughs, one blind, and then follow the guide and do the official seven endings but then I figured, why not just do the seven endings as the game is an hour and half each time and I’m pretty limited in my time I get to play.  I don’t really regret it, I’m three playthroughs in and having a great time.  I’m breaking it up with other games as I broke down and made a list of five games to play so I’ll have a nice rotation.  The third one was my favorite until midway through it.  So I’m hoping the order of playthroughs is worst to best.

.  .  .

After watching how much fun the PlayStation Access crew had playing XCOM 2, I figured I’ll get it a shot and recreate my family, plus Spider-Man, Santa Claus, Dr. Peter Venkman, and Kitty Pryde.

So I played with the tutorial and then did the first mission.  We lost the forced character, which was lousy that I couldn’t immediately play with four created characters but then I was thankful that I only lost the one soldier, and it wasn’t one of my characters.  There is perma-death, even on the easier mode, so I was being super careful.  Maybe too careful as I had forgotten we were on a deadline with only so many number of rounds but right at the last round, my wife was able to disarm the bomb.  She eventually got seriously wounded and can’t fight for the next 23 days.  So now I’m worried about sending any of my people out.  Like a f’n coward.

So I made us three and then Spider-Man, she got wounded, so I needed an extra created character.  So that’s when I made the other three people.

I’m not sure how much I’ll actually commit to playing but I’ll try to get it a few more matches.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/xcom-2/guide/

I earned the tutorial trophy last year when I first played it during June 2018 when it was a free game through PS Plus.  Looking over the list, I probably should be playing on Normal and I’ll see if I can change the setting or I can at least start a new game as I bet it would only take an hour to get back to where I currently am.

I saw that there is only one online trophy and all I had to do was start and finish a match so I did that.  I went with a super basic team and two people didn’t want to just give me the trophy so they dropped out.  Then the third person went ahead and fought me.  It went a tad longer than I thought it would but it was pretty fun to get a little more experience with the game.

I wanted to get a more official team line-up photo but I couldn’t select any of my three created characters so that killed my buzz for creating more people as well as continuing that playthrough.  It might be another year before I play again.

.  .  .

With this rotation idea, I finally started Batman : The Enemy Within, and it is so good!  I took Catwoman to the Batcave and tried to romance the heck out of her!  It really is all I wanted to do and I’m so glad I got back into the game.  Alfred seemed supportive.  I’m probably going to upset Gordon as I did warn her the police were coming.  I’m not sure if he’ll get the chance to yell at me as I also took the heat for Catwoman stealing Harley’s laptop and Mr. Freeze put me in a tank and froze me.  I have two more chapters but I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get out of this.

.  .  .

So I have two chapters before the platinum for Batman and five playthroughs before the platinum for Late Shift and now I’m in my head about a very silly thing.  My last three platinums are for Lego Movie 1, Lego Marvel Superheroes 1, and Lego Avengers, so it would look pretty cool if I got Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 instead of how it will be spaced out with two games in-between it but I’ve also made my peace with it.  LMSH2 is such a massive game and I’ve taken long enough breaks from it now that that’s simply the prize I have to pay.  Plus, it is a silly thing and I’m not even sure who else would even notice that.  Or they will see my list and see how I snuck in two quick games.  Though I’ve been having Batman : The Enemy Within on the backburner for way too long!  Foolishly long!

So I’ve completed my two Inhumans chapters, there was a silly Minikit I should have been able to grab in the first of the two missions, but Crystal was too close to the platform and it started rising up before I realized there was a free floating minikit.  But that’s what Free Play is for.  I’m nowhere near the platinum for this game, I realize.

While exploring the underwater city, we noticed there was a race for the Homecoming suit, so I got that for Walker Dennis.  It took longer than I was thinking it would.  The races for no reason are much harder in this game with how the controls are.  I’m not great at flying races and I had forgotten how bad I was at swimming races from Lego Dimensions.  But they made it super easy to restart races so I kept pressing Circle and eventually got it.

I keep falling into the trap of trying races when Walker is also playing and the split screen is not productive for racing.

.  .  . 

Referring to romancing, I’ve finally committed to playing Beyond : Two Souls again as well.  I completed The Dinner chapter.  Jodie put on a fancy dress, made a nice Asian Beef dish, and then she and Ryan totally made out.

There were two chances for Aiden to ruin the night, that lasted way to long, to the point where I felt tempted to do something destructive to get out of playing as him, but it eventually timed out.

Next is the Night Sessions chapter. It started with a young Jodie so I can’t imagine it will be too long.

https://beyondtwosouls.fandom.com/wiki/Chapters

Looking at the chapters list, I think I’m finally at the half way point.

.  .  . 

KITT has finally come to Rocket League so for two dollars, he can be yours too!  Now I’m just waiting for the Rocket League : Game of the Year Edition to go on sale so I can snatch up the game proper.

Thanks for Rocket League for hosting their own video!

I can’t tell if the license plate is red or is that just the light from the back making it look that way?  Also, there is a clear red stripe going around KITT that shouldn’t be there but I guess a sleek all black car wouldn’t look as exciting against other cars.

Rocket League Fall 2019 Roadmap
byu/Psyonix_Devin inRocketLeague

Apparently, KITT doesn’t have a Super Pursuit Mode, any voice work from William Daniels, nor any of the iconic sounds.  It would be cool if we at least got the sounds.  Even cooler would be if we got KARR!  But it took them four years to get KITT so we probably have to wait a long time before we get that.  The game came out in July 2019, so we’re in their anniversary month right now.  Now it all makes sense.

Actually, PSPrices has been blowing up my phone with discounts!  The Game of the Year edition is currently 50% off so I scooped it up so quick as $13 is quite a deal, down from $25!  So hopefully we’ll start playing that tonight or tomorrow.

There is an entire summer sale going on right now through the PlayStation Store.

With the deals, I should get at least one of those Batmobiles and then wait on those five Hot Wheels cars, at least three of them are bundled together.

The Witcher 3 Complete Edition and Fallout 76 Tricentennial edition are heavily discounted too.  Though both games are pretty well discounted most of the time anyway, so don’t pay full price for those two.  One day, I’ll have both of those as well.

In all of my excitement, I went ahead and bought the three Batmobiles for six dollars.

So the only other cars to tempt us are:

Triple Threat for $6
Gazella GT, MR11, and FAST 4WD (three cars I don’t recognize by name)
Bone Shaker $2
Twin Mill III $2

For the grand total of ten dollars!

But now I only have $14.15 in my PSN wallet so I’m going to have to put ten dollars on there just to get back over my $20 goal.  I should treat myself to a $25 card and have plenty of future fun to be had.

We were able to start playing last night and we got super addicted to playing and I stayed up late and started chipping away at the trophies!  Such a fun game!  We’ve heard 32% of the trophies and I got at least one trophy per DLC except for Champions Field.  I thought I was going to get the trade five rare items for an ultra rare but I only have one item and it isn’t trade-able so I’m going to have to play a bunch more.  But I’m going to have to as one, it is a super fun game, and two, it is going to take a long time for me to drive 50 km.

.  .  .

The reason I don’t have as much money in my PSN card is because Dead by Daylight had some more items for sale, namely both Ash Williams and Leatherface for half off which made them both combined for six dollars.  If I had deep pockets, I would have just threw all of my money towards the DLC but like my gaming goals of buying my wishlist once they are only a certain price, I’ll start with the cheapest options and work my way up.  I should just say heck with it and treat myself to Ghostface as he’s who I really want.  Maybe once I’ve gotten my moneys worth with Rocket League, I’ll jump back to Dead by Daylight.

I can’t imagine I can properly pay two multiplayer games but maybe I’ll do it like I do my main games and make one my chill game one day and the other the chill game on another night.  That’s probably exactly how I’ll end up doing it.  I’ve spent so much money on these games, I better commit to playing them!

I bought Michael Myers and have barely used him, and I’ve only used Leatherface the first night I bought him.  I’m a bit of a stickler for using the dailies to direct how I play.  So I’ve had several survivor tasks so I’ve been bouncing between Ash and Laurie from Halloween.

.  .  .

I thought I wrote about Friday the 13th : The Game before but it doesn’t appear like I have.  Dead by Daylight has some lengthy wait times, both during the matching phase and then for the final lobby portion.  So I’ve taken to looking at my fellow survivors’ trophy lists.  We can’t see the killer, for the surprise element I’m sure, but when we play as the killer, we get to see all of the survivors.  I never think to check out the killer’s trophies after the game though.  Unless I’ve earned a trophy, then I follow all of those peeps who made it possible.

So I kept seeing all of these players who had Friday the 13th : The Game as a game they all have played.  Which makes sense as they are both horror mutliplayer games, where a group of people (counselors vs survivors) are against a killer (Jason v Multiple Options).  I like how the counselors can actually fight against Jason, though it is super complicated to actually kill him, but at least we can take the offense instead of just hiding and working generators.  That being typed, I still prefer Dead by Daylight.

My other problem is that we can’t choose to play as Jason, it is a random draw.  We get to chose our counselor and which Jason we want to play, but it is a 95/5 chance of playing as Jason.  Once we see Jason in the opening scene, at least one can tell if they are going to be Jason if he matches.  I barely even saw the first Jason option and when I did, it wasn’t me.

https://fridaythe13th.fandom.com/wiki/Deborah_Caldwell

I must have played 30 matches as a counselor and I finally unlocked Deb.  She might be my favorite at the moment.  I unlocked her at level six.

I should say I have never seen a Jason film so I just learned she is from Jason Goes to Hell, The Final Friday.  The ninth film in the franchise.  She’s Jason’s 92nd victim.

I was playing so much I was tempted to get the costume DLCs, as they are only two dollars each and there is only two of them.  One is the bathing suit and one is a fun costume option.

Then I got to finally play as Jason and now I’m done with the game for a bit.  We were so close!

Deb’s costume is a bunny costume!  That’s when she won my heart!

But not my two dollars.  Who knows, maybe I’ll stop being a fuddy duddy and just spend the four dollars but I also have plenty of time as well.

.  .  .

So my break from Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and my addiction to Dead by Daylight also led me to playing Warframe and Apex Legends, as I kept seeing both of those games on people’s trophy lists.  Which makes sense as people who like multiplayer games probably like free multiplayer games.

I didn’t take to Apex Legends, I’m no good at shooting people, but it was fun running around.  I got the jump master trophy and felt like I had done by part.

Warframe, I had a much better time with, and I could see myself playing a few more nights with it.  Sort of like how I’m given these PS Plus games, I feel like I can pick them up and drop them at any time.  Like, I didn’t earn the games, so I didn’t have to fight for them, or they are not as real to me, if that makes any sense.  But I’m learning that they are a lot of fun.  I have committed to the idea of playing a game until I get the first trophy and then seeing where I land after that.

I also hadn’t gotten to the online portion of Warframe, but I did the tutorial and the first real mission and earned the Rank 2 trophy, No Longer a Rookie.

I have been seeing a lot of GTA V trophies but I rather not take the Lego Marvel Collection disc out and replace it with GTAV and then sit for three minutes as the game loads.  Maybe that can be my next physical game I play.  I should at least try to beat the main story as well as complete the online tutorial, as that’s the trophy I see most people have earned, and I can at least do that much.

Girlfriend Reviews also just did a video for the game so it is just on everyone’s mind, I supposed.

.  .  .

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

Finally, Comixology has two new Marvel comics for free!

X-Men : Worst X-Man Ever # 1
X-Men : Psylocke # 1

Total savings of $3.98!

You can read my review of the first issue of Worst X-Man Ever by following the below link:

X-Men : Worst X-Man Ever 1

It was a very fun series!

Man of Medan has Multiplayer!

Posted by John Klein III on July 12, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Podcasts, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

https://www.androidcentral.com/supermassives-man-medan-has-multiplayer-eight-games-planned

I’ll add my voice to the news that Supermassive Games has announced that The Dark Pictures Anthology is no longer a five game franchise.  There will be . . . eight games!  I can only imagine their preorder sales have been incredible and they just are fully committing to making these games.  I’m going to preorder as many as I can!

I’m intrigued about the multiplayer games, playing the game with someone else sounds like fun.  I’m not sure how that would work as I could never commit to playing for five hours, even in the middle of the day on a Sunday.

I’m hoping it isn’t like Beyond : Two Souls where there is only one ongoing save file so you had to either play solo or with a partner.  I want this to be like Portal 2 where there will be options to play single, multiplayer or party mode.  Which now I’m trying to think if Hidden Agenda had different tracks, I want to say it didn’t but that game was super short at barely three hours, a length of a full length movie these days.  Five hours feels just a tad long to be in front of the system, at least to this 37 year old.  If I was in college, then heck yeah, but I got adult responsibilities now and barely no time to play as it is.

I really want to platinum this game so I’m really hoping I can do that and not be held up by the multiplayer mode.  In that case, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to operate without any sleep the night before.

Sounds like the second game must be in near completion mode as the third one is filming soon.  So maybe they can make two games a year work?!

The fourth and fifth games are in the game design mode and they have story concepts for games six, seven, and eight.  This is such an exciting time!

http://play.st/2xHhliW

PlayStation has a little more information on the game too!

.  .  . 

Thanks to Dave and Rosie of PlayStation Access for hosting their video containing multiplayer gameplay!

They even got to experience a real life ghost ship!  So lucky!  Poor Dave, at least he had Rosie there.

.  .  .

For July 2019, the PlayStation Plus games were changed from Horizon Turbo Chase and PES 2019 to Horizon Turbo Chase and Detroit Become Human.

Which is unfortunate as I don’t own the Special Edition of Detroit but I did get the regular edition for Christmas.  I was also really looking forward to playing PES 2019.  I was really hoping Konami was going to pull a NBA 2k19 and make their game $2.99 to take advantage of the hype and disappointment loads of people felt.  As I would never buy the game for $30 but if it was $3, heck yeah!  Especially as PES 2020 is coming out in September and then, no one is probably going to buy 2019, except for me, once it is way cheap.  I can hold out, of that, I’m sure.

.  .  .

Thanks to YouTuber TN_Spicyapples33 for hosting his video of the San Francisco cup!

I’ve only played and completed the San Francisco cup of the World Tour.  This is a pretty fun and relaxing game.  I can see this becoming a nice chill game to play after completing a night’s worth of playing whatever my main game is.  The tracks do not take long and once you understand how the rubberbanding works in the game, I rarely stressed about winning.  The only playful stress I had was trying to get all of the coins and come in first place to earn the Super Trophy.  Whenever I grabbed all the coins, I wasn’t in danger of coming in second but when I came in first, I often didn’t get all of the points so I had to do some replays.

.  .  .

Before I can start a playthrough of Detroit, I really want to complete my first playthrough of Beyond : Two Souls.  It is silly but that’s just what I want to do.  Except I’m not really doing it.  I finished the Separation chapter and I started the Dinner chapter.  And that was a week ago.

Still a fun game but I’m just addicted to playing Dead by Daylight right now.

My goal is to play a level of Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, then play Dead by Daylight, and then the next night, play a level of Beyond : Two Souls, and then chill (if that’s even the word, as unwind sure isn’t!) with Dead by Daylight.

Instead, with some nights I only get to play for like 30 or 45 minutes, I’ve just been playing Dead by Daylight and completing my dailies (or trying my best!).  I’m still no good at it but I’m learning and feeling like I’m getting better.

In Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, I completed the first Inhumans story level and it seems I have one more but making nice progress in the story as well as doing the side content.

.  .  .

Over on the Spider-Man side of my life, Walker Dennis is still super obsessed with Spider-Man!

The excellent team over at Insomiac added the two new suits from Spider-Man : Far From Home!

The Upgraded Suit

and Night Monkey!

So much fun!

The suits look great in the game too!  I started The Heist DLC on Ultimate New Game Plus mode but I just did the first mission as I have other games to make progress with.

.  .  .

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

Comixology has three X-Men comics for free!

Uncanny X-Men 201
Uncanny X-Men 211
Uncanny X-Men 266

A total value of $5.67!

I can’t believe I’ve never done a review for 201 or 211, that can’t be right but it must be as they don’t come up when I did a search.

201 is the amazing Cyclops vs Storm issue.  211 is an incredible issue from the Mutant Massacre story.  266 is Gambit’s first full appearance.  I have never read 266 but 201 and 211 are some of the best comics!

.  .  .

We got to watch Spider-Man Far From Home on July Fourth and the theater was barely full, people must have been out of town or something silly.

Such an amazing time!

Like with Endgame, this at the end of the post and there will be spoilers but also, nothing else but Far From Home commentary so you should stop now if you haven’t seen the film!

Serious

Please

Stop

Now

Here

Comes

Some

Spoilers!

Such a spectacular film!

Jake Gyllenhaal did an outstanding job as Mysterio!  My favorite scene of his has to be after he’s given the glasses and he’s alone in the bar and there is that half minute of silence and then the entire bar explodes with applause.  So great!  I sort of want to rewatch the entire movie again just for that one moment of stillness.

I thought before the movie was how does Mysterio trick super spy Nick Fury into thinking there was a multiverse?  I mean, there could still be one but with Fury’s resources, how does one fake one?  Then the post credit scene, we finally figure out how Mysterio did it.  It wasn’t Nick Fury!  Though how Mysterio still tricks everyone else working for Not-Fury, I’m not sure.  Also, who is that agency?  Is it a side SHIELD?  Seemed like a missed opportunity to use the Agents of SHIELD team.  Or are these guys just private soldiers of Fury’s?  But then how does he pay those soldiers?  Or are they all human agents of SWORD from Fury’s actual appearance in the film?  We really need to watch Captain Marvel.

I got the word “Night Monkey” spoiled for me with the costume reveal but it was a minor spoiler but that was all I got spoiled by, so that’s nice.  We also saw it the day after it came out, so that helped too.

We finally got Ned Leeds and Betty Brant together!  So great!

Martin Starr was amazing as always and they got JB Smooth too!  Such a fun combination.

Peter Tingle, and I kept waiting for it to be called his Spider-Sense.

Nice how the three Lego sets were all actually in the movie proper, that was great.  We still only own the Hydro-Man set but we’ll probably snatch up Molten Man, if we can ever find it again.

The biggest day away though was the mid-credits scene.  Someone had the genius idea to bring back J. Jonah Jameson AND to have JK Simmons come back and portray the character!

I mean, that voice, that face, that’s everything I want!  I imagine they had him bald to separate him from the Tobey Maguire movies and I’m fine with that.

Though, as big of a shock as it is to state Peter Parker is Spider-Man on a popular news outlet, I still don’t feel like it is that big of a deal.  Right?  I mean, the Stark Foundation can help settle this misinformation.  Sure, it’ll follow Peter Parker for a while but if the Stark Foundation or SHIELD can just say it isn’t true, have a nice Skrull appear as Peter Parker standing next to Spider-Man, I just feel the stakes are not that high.  It makes for a terrific ending but I don’t anticipate Peter being hounded by the police or Interpol.  Especially as the next movie won’t be out until 2021 at the earliest.  Funny how we don’t know the next slate of films but it’ll probably come during or right after San Diego Comic Con or D24.

Plus, if Peter is just going to be under the employ of the Avengers or Stark, then he’ll be fine.  Sure, he’ll have to go to a different school or getting his GED through the Avengers, but he’ll be okay.

But such a great ending!

Also cool that they actually got Peter Billingsley to come back from the first Iron Man movie.  And I was reminded that Billingsley is Ralphie from A Christmas Story!  Apparently he was also an executive producer for Iron Man but not for any of the other Marvel films so I wonder how that came about?

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/ralphie-a-christmas-story-stars-in-elf-internet-discovers-peter-billingsley-1202026706/

Apparently he is friends with Jon Favreau so that explains so much!  Favreau is so deep in Disney’s pocket that I can only assume now that he is a majority shareholder in the company.  He ought to be with how much money he has made for Disney and Marvel!

Marisa Tomei and Favreau were also great in the film too!  Such fun chemistry together.

Always great to see Cobie Smulders in these movies.

Zendaya got a lot more to do in this film and she was super fun.  I really like seeing her and Holland together.  Also, super realistic how swinging around New York City has to be extremely terrifying!

People are saying the four Elementals are based on Spider-Man villains, which makes sense with Molten Man and Hydro-Man but I don’t remember even seeing the Earth/Sand Elemental.  Was he only shown on screen during that exposition map scene?  People say the Wind Elemental is Cyclone, which sounds like a stretch as well as he’s mostly just a dude who whirls.  But I completely get that if two of them can be identified as Spider-Foes, then let’s label the other two as well.

So much fun that opening montage of our fallen heroes!  Makes sense the world at large just assumes Captain America is dead.

That’s another thing, with two years between films, we’ll most likely get Peter’s subplot resolved in whatever next film he shows up in.

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2476313/are-the-russo-brothers-teasing-new-marvel-footage

Apparently the Russo Brothers are teasing that on July 19th, there will be an announcement at San Diego Comic Con.

Apparently D23 is named after Disney 1923, the year the company was founded.  That Expo is to be held on August 23, so expect big news to continue.

We know to expect Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Spider-Man Home Run, and one day, Avengers 5.  Plus, Fantastic Four and X-Men announcements.

I’m not sure if I really need  Doctor Strange 2, I feel like the character, much like Thor (and Superman), works better in a team environment or on special guest star status.  But who am I kidding?  I’ll still watch his movie, I will just have to remember to do so.

Oh, and Deadpool 3 has to happen too?  The jokes that movie will have to address will be fun to watch.

Plus, maybe more Disney+ series?

Time will tell!

I also keep forgetting about Eternals too.

https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Phase_Four

Also, there is a rumored Black Widow origin film, Shang Chi, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

https://www.universehead.com/comicbookqueers/2019/7/5/episode-91-spider-man-far-from-home

If you want to hear Comic Book Queers Legacy’s take on the film, follow the above link!

 

July 2019 Free PS Plus Games

Posted by John Klein III on June 28, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The July 2019 Free PS Plus Games are : Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 and Horizon Turbo Chase!

I will admit, when my eyes saw “Horizon” I did a mental “finally!” and then I was pretty shocked by the next few words!

To say the least, Reddit is not so pleased!

PS+ July 2019 Titles: Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 + Horizon Chase Turbo
byu/sensual_manatee inPS4

PS Plus games for July 2019: PES 2019 & Horizon Chase Turbo
by inPlayStationPlus

I bought NBA 2K19 and was pretty happy with the purchase but it also only cost me three dollars.  So I’m sure I’ll get some play out of both PES 2019 and Horizon Chase Turbo.

Horizon Chase Turbo is a racing game straight from the 90s (and apparently a free mobile game, that we all learned from E3 2019, we all love), and PES is either your preferred soccer game, or it is the game that is not FIFA.

I know of PES as it is PlayStation Access’ Rob and Dave’s favorite soccer game as they have plenty of videos regarding the game.

.  .  . 

Referring to them, here are my peeps’ YouTube videos.

PlayStation Access

Smart to have Rob do the video.  Now that I think of it, when was the last time I heard Dave do a voiceover?  It seems to be either Nathan, Rob, or Elle these days.

PlayStation Grenade

Adam is not thrilled by the games.

Platinum Chasers

Ben isn’t too thrilled either.

.  .  .

Here are the trophy guides for both games.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/pes-2019-a/329433-pro-evolution-soccer-2019-trophy-guide-road-map.html

https://psnprofiles.com/guide/8513-horizon-chase-turbo-trophy-guide

Never a good sign when playstationtrophies.org doesn’t have a trophy guide for a game.

I’ll probably play a tad of Horizon Chase Turbo and then just go down the list for PES 2019 and see how I take to the basic trophies before tackling the ones that require time.

On the PlayStation store, there is a “Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 PS Plus Member Bonus” that is free and I’ve downloaded.  As far as I can tell, it doesn’t stay anything of what it does.  For Horizon Chase Turbo, there is a demo we can enjoy but I can just wait the few extra days and just play the game.

The games would usually cost us, $20 for Horizon Chase Turbo and the Standard Edition for PES 2019 is $30, so $50 total.  PES 2019, like NBA 2K19, also has coins you can buy for in-game purchases but I’m not going to do any of that.

.  .  .

In other games, my casual break from Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 is still going on.  I’m at the part where I have three chapters to choose from and I’m just going down the proper order, so I need Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil to help me out in the Noir hub.  I do have the x2, x4, and x6 multipliers on, so that feels like a real victory.

.  .  .

While looking over the PL Plus Specials (I though it had a name but it has a nice pink and purple banner), none of the two dollar games jumped out at me.  What did though, was Dead by Daylight, which was a free game way back in August 2018.  I figured I’ll attempt to play it as I’m not much of a horror guy but I didn’t even attempt to play it and I really took to For Honor.

I look over the trophy list:

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/dead-by-daylight/guide/

Since there isn’t a single player mode, there were no simple trophies to get but I’m committed to at least get the “reach level ten” trophy.  I’m still not very good at being either a survivor nor a killer, but I’m having fun playing it.

My answer to the question of, What is your favorite horror franchise?” is always Halloween!  And part of the sale is Michael Myers, so I bought him, as he’s typically eight dollars and on sale, he’s four.

Thanks to GameSpot for hosting the trailer!

Halloween DLC comes with both Michael Myers and his sister, Laurie.

The DLC, that must have been free at the time (it could still be, I’m not sure now that I own it), was the Lullaby for the Dark.  From the trophy guide above, it says it is free, so it must always be free.

Thanks to YouTuber CaptainABSea for hosting the video!  And for having a clever screen name!

Looks like they have four videos regarding the game so I’ll try to watch the other three!  Turns out, they just read it from the bio page but I was like, I really want to play as the Huntress now!

The DLC also comes with survivor, David King, as well.

The guide recommends playing first as Nea so that’s what I’ve been doing.

The nice part is that the games don’t last that long, especially if you are as bad at it as I am.  I’m lasting a tad longer, but not by much.  Also, as the killer, I’m the ideal guy, as I might spot a survivor but then they can get away.

So in order to try to get gud, and to sample different aspects of the game (and to get my money’s worth), I’ve been doing three game of Nea, David, Laurie, and then two games of Michael Myers and the Huntress.  They call him, The Shape, in the game, which is a little fun.

Also, I like it mentally as it gives me something new to do as well, playing this way.

I made a list of “doable” trophies so I’m trying to try to get as many as I can or at least, get one trophy, and see where we go from there.

I’ve been making a point of giving whomever I play with a thumbs up on the total screen, as that feels good to do, there isn’t a trophy for “earning 100 thumbs up” but I figure it is nice to do anyway.

The game also added Ghostface from the Scream franchise and I’m sort of tempted to get him, as Scream would probably be a close second on my list.

 

Comixology Free Comics 06-20-2019

Posted by John Klein III on June 21, 2019
Posted in: Free Comics, Podcasts. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

This week’s free comics include :

X-Factor (2005 – 2013) # 1
Cyclops (2014 – 2015) # 1

I reviewed Teen Cyclops’ first issue below :

Cyclops 1

Such a great series!

Peter David’s run of X-Factor (any of them, really) is really great and I liked the detective agency angle that the third volume had.

.  .  .

 I finally finished NBA 2K19’s prelude within the proper game and I’m finally a member of the Phoenix Suns.  I haven’t played an actual game as a Sun, as I’ve been running around the Neighborhood earning trophies, but it feels nice to finally start feeling like I’m accomplishing something in the game.  I then tried to do the story mode in MyGM and I was not ready for all of the reading.  It definitely is 90% reading, so know that as you are going into it.  I lost the Summer League bet as I thought I’ll take a chance an sim the tournament.  We won the first round but lost the second so I didn’t earn that trophy and I just feel done with the game at the moment.  I’ll probably jump back in eventually but a break is needed.

.  .  .

I picked up Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 again and that feels good to be completing story missions again.  I finally unlocked all of Chronopolis, I haven’t explored everything yet but at least the green barriers are gone.  I immediately went and completed the race to unlock Scarlet Spider and I did Spider-Ham’s mission to unlock him.

Apparently, we already had the x2 multiplier Gwenpoole pink brick, so I’m not sure when that happened.  So all of that time I was saving 800,000 studs, I could have have had 1,600,000 studs if I had just turn that on from the beginning.  I would have sworn that it wasn’t there earlier but that’s okay.  I now see I can buy all of the multiplier ones, so I’m going to have to save up again to buy those but it should be easier once i get the x4 multiplier, which turns into an 8x multiplier as these bricks stack.

https://www.ign.com/wikis/lego…2/Gwenpool_Missions_(Pink_Brick_Locations)

I also did Agent Venom’s sidemission to unlock him, which opened up my first Gwenpoole misison which is going to be the next thing I do in the game.  That way we can earn Carnage and proper Venom.  Then I have everyone I need to do the Free Play version of the level, so I might as well do that to unlock the Lizard.

I saw ahead that Carnom is an option to unlock after beating the symbiote main story mission.  Carnom is the combination of Carnage and Venom, and Walker Dennis is going to lose his mind once he seems that as an option.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Deadspider-lego-Custom-PAD-UV-PRINTED-Minifigure-Deadpool-Spider-man/113654140047?hash=item1a76508c8f:g:saoAAOSwyM5boT6e

Walker Dennis really wants to get cut-in-half Spider-Man Deadpool so he’s currently saving his money for him.  He saved up money to buy cut-in-half Peter Parker Venom so he’s maybe learning the value of a dollar.

Walker D also has saved up his dollars and bought Spider-Claus off of eBay.

So that’ll be coming to us from China and will be here around July 19.

So that’s all pretty exciting!

.  .  .

https://player.fm/series/2331217

Michael Rosenbaum concluded his two week Smallville run of episodes and listening to them all really made me want to watch some Smallville episodes.  Now I’m hooked all over again!  I asked on reddit for some Bottle Episodes, as I couldn’t remember any and got a few suggestions:

Bottle Episodes?
byu/JackalsIII inSmallville

Season 5’s Lockdown
Season 6’s Static
Season 7’s Traveler

Not really bottle episodes but it gave me a start.  I’m going to watch the one where Lionel and Clark switch bodies, Season Four’s Transference.  I also snuck Season Two’s Precipice.

I’ll probably bounce around some more and watch more Lois episodes and maybe end on an Alicia Baker marathon of her three episodes.

https://smallville.fandom.com/wiki/Alicia_Baker

Season Three’s Obsession
Season Four’s Unsafe and Pariah

She’s mentioned in two other episodes and as a photograph in two other episodes, so I might try those as well.  I was also thinking of watching the six episodes Tom Welling directed as well.  Michael Rosenbaum directed Season Six’s Freak, so I should add that to the list too.

I rather bounce around along themes instead of watching every episode.  Or start with Season Four when Lois shows up but that’s still a lot of television to watch.

Erica Durance was so great as Lois as was Sarah Carter as Alicia.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

More Man of Medan hype!

Posted by John Klein III on June 14, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Game play for Man of Medan is being released!

Thanks to Game Informer for hosting almost 11 minutes of gameplay!

Kim also wrote a preview too!

https://www.gameinformer.com/preview/2019/05/07/five-big-takeaways-from-our-hand s-on-with-supermassives-next-big-venture

GameStop Gameplay has almost eight minutes!  They clearly are using the same demo though as they end in the same spot but there are some different choices being made here.

Pending on how the game is broken down by chapters or not, I’m going to try to make a post per chapter of the decisions I made during my first playthrough.  I might try to release the footage on YouTube too.  I don’t have a microphone but I’ve been wanting to test the background recording that the PS4 is always doing.

Thanks to gameslice for interviewing Supermassive Games Producer, Tom Heaton, and actor Shawn Ashmore (who plays Conrad).  So much good information!

.  .  .

https://amzn.to/2F8Syht

I believe there is still time to preorder it through Amazon and get early access to The Curator’s Cut, with extra scenes and alternate paths!

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/man-of-medan-rewards-pre-orders-with-curators-cut/.

 

Playing Sonic Mania and Borderlands 2

Posted by John Klein III on June 11, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Songs. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

We finally earn my 20th platinum with Lego Avengers!  So that gave me the perfect break to try the June games.  Of course, Walker Dennis immediately notice there wasn’t anything to do in Lego Avengers so we started Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and he walked around snowy Manhattan and Wakanda.  We got a few gold bricks and some studs but I’m putting that game on hold for a bit.

.  .  .

Sonic Mania took me right back, I especially love how SEGA title card and saying “SEGA.”  I immediately had a smile on my face.  I earned the trophy for setting a bridge on fire.  I got to Flying Battery, the fourth zone of the game, and I couldn’t figure out what to do next.  I just kept going around the same circle and I couldn’t buzz through any walls either.  I’ll have to start the level again and see if I just went in the wrong direction or I’m clearly missing the right path.  I’ll watch a YouTube video and see what I’m missing.

Thanks to YouTuber Tony StrongStyle for hosting his walkthrough of both zones and the boss battle.

I got stuck at the 50 second mark and the far right one takes us lower, I just didn’t commit to it.

.  .  .

Once hitting that road block and having another game to try, I stopped Sonic Mania and attempted Borderlands 2.  I knew there were two characters that had high level requirements, Zer0, who earns a trophy once he’s level 31 and Salvador, who has to be level 25 to earn a trophy.  I left Walker D play as Zer0, as I wasn’t sure how violent the game got.

Walker thought he looked the most like Spider-Man, and that was enough for him.  We haven’t found that sword yet.  So that made me choose Salvador, and that was fine with me.  We ended up with two play sessions, I doubt combined it lasted an hour even.  We earned the trophy after completing the first mission, which was nice.  Walker essentially just wandered around as I shot snow beasts and then he’ll catch up as we reached a new area.  It was pretty fun actually.  We got to the first city and met our first human quest giver, Sir Hammerlock.  While there, we could modify our suits and Walker found a way to turn Zer0 to have red tones so now he looks even more like Spider-Man.  I opted to not change my outfit.

On my own, I got Salvador to level five, earning me a second trophy.  I’m currently on the Best Minion Ever quest.  I can kill Bewn no problem but his brother, Boom seems impossible while he’s in his tank (Big Bertha) blasting at me while two dudes are constantly being respawned.  I also kill running out of ammo and dying, so that doesn’t encourage me.  I seem to knock his health down to half but then his health refills and I die again to repeat the process.  I might not be waiting until it reloads.  I should try again before calling it quits.

The opening song though, is simply amazing!

Thanks to YouTuber EzE for hosting the opening!

The song is “Short Change Hero” by The Heavy, an English band.

It is so great and got me hyped to play the game.

I’m not sure if Walker’s progress with Zer0 is tied to his non-PSN-account or when it is time for me to play as Zer0, do I just carry on at his level 3 status?  I’m going to have to take the time to test that.

Pretty fun game, I just hit a road block and couldn’t figure out how get pass Big Bertha.

.  .  .

We are currently in the middle of PlayStation’s Days of Play right now!  So many great games are on sale.

I had to take a chance on NBA 2K19 as it is typically a $60 game and it is only three dollars so I had to buy it.  I did wish that I downloaded NBA 2K19 Prelude first, as it is free and would have scratched that itch.  But my progress in Prelude carries over to NBA 2K19 proper and I’m a huge fan of that, so I have to get my three dollars worth out of NBA 2K19.  Prelude (that I keep wanting to type as, Preclude) has its own trophy list which I was jazzed about.  I’m not very good at it, mostly doing D+ work but I get into the Cs and I’m definitely capable of getting into the Fs.  I’m hoping more practice helps with that.  My character is a Power Forward as I grew up a huge Phoenix Suns fan (I’m from Arizona) and a Charles Barkley fan, so that’s who I wanted to model myself after.  Turns out, I have no idea what a Power Forward really does.  I’m constantly losing points for being out of position but I stay in the paint under the basket so I have no idea.  Hopefully the proper game tells me more about how to be a proper Power Forward.

I’ve started the game and I just got to the game after the Indiana State Fair.  This game has already gone in ways I would never have expected and I’m having a real blast playing the game.  I’m no good at it and I really need to learn how to make baskets on the courts and off the courts as I didn’t do well in the game on the side of the barn nor the fair game.  I really want my character to start being a team player and to date that Nikki character so I’m hoping I get to make more decisions in the game as I’ve been able to make one or two dialogue options and I’m hoping for more of that.

My goal is to get him on the Phoenix Suns or stay with the Indiana Mad Ants until I can do so.  I’m not really sure how seasons work or once I pick a team, if I can change teams.  I imagine I can’t so I’m just going to hold out and get Phoenix Suns worthy.  Two teams are interested in me but I see the Suns are starting to get interested.  I also need a Phoenix Suns hat for me IRL.  And to learn when the NBA 2019-2020 starts.  Apparently the Suns have had a rough nine years of not getting to the playoffs but maybe they can do it this year.  They have also never won the National Championship either in their 51 year history.

.  .  .

What I’m mostly excited though, is the free Fallout 76 demo that is available right now!

Thanks to GameSpot for hosting the footage!  This is the full Bethesda conference but you can stop watching it after the 20 minute mark.  So mark to lead and address Fallout 76’s rough start and get it out of the way.  Great idea of make all of the DLC free (thus far).

This week, there is a free trial, on the PlayStation Store it is under the Demos, that we all get to play!  So that’s what I’ll be doing tonight!  I’m hoping the progress I make carries over to the eventual day I buy the game.  Pending on how I take to the demo, I might have to move this up my wishlist and no longer hold out for dog companions to be added.

Human NPCs are being added as is a Battle Royal, which seems interesting.

I got confirmation progress made in the demo will carry over and I’ll find out if trophies pop in the demo tonight.  Which I checked and they do not, which is unfortunate but I also understand that they want us to buy the game too.

.  .  .

Another another thing we’re excited about it Ecto-1 and KITT coming to Rocket League!

Thanks to Rocket League for hosting their own video!

Ecto-1 is out already and for two dollars, I’ve already bought it.  KITT will also be two dollars and out on July 22.  I already bought the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

The trailer is filled with hype that can barely contain itself!

I want the Game of the Year Edition so that’s usually $25, I was hoping it would have gone on sale during the Days of Play but it also makes sense it wouldn’t have with the current promotion.  I’m hoping it will go on sale even just for a tad by the end of July but either way, I’ll be buying it soon.  I currently have $14.82 so I have enough for KITT and I’m really hoping to get a $25 PSN card for Father’s Day then I can for sure get it but it might be Mid-August before I do as I’ll just buy a ten dollar gift card every payday until I have the $25 but then I’ll be sweating my PSN Wallet until I get it back over $25 again.  but that’s on me and my anxiety.  I have this plan in place so I can just keep buying two $10 PSN cards and be back on top within a month.  I just have to work for what I want is all it really comes down too.

I can’t find any pictures online so I had to take one myself.

June 2019 Free PS Plus Games

Posted by John Klein III on May 29, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The two free games we are getting for June 2019 through PS+ is : Sonic Mania and Borderlands : The Handsome Collection.  Which is actually the Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2, along with all of their DLC.

I’m all for a throw back Sonic game and Borderlands looks fun but it is one of those games I would never have bought for myself.

People on both the PS4 and the PlayStationPlus subreddits are super excited about the games.  Plus, with E3 coming up, June 11 through 13, and Sony sitting it out, this gives people something positive to talk about Sony.  Though Sony has a lot of good will going on right now with rumors of trailers or information regarding The Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding floating around.

PS June 2019: Sonic Mania & Borderlands : Handsome Collection
byu/sensual_manatee inPS4

Sonic Mania and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection are your PS Plus games for June
byu/b0Ni inPlayStationPlus

Which is nice for a change!

Sonic Mania on the PlayStation Store is $19.99 and it has a $4.99 Encore DLC with extra levels and two additional characters.

Borderlands : The Handsome Collection is $60, so that’s super impressive that we are getting this game for free.  There is a theme for $1.99 and a free texture pack meant for the PS4 Pro but I downloaded the texture pack.  I might be willing to buy the theme if I like the game in the slightest.  Apparently the game does go on sale quite often.

Sonic Mania originally came out on August 15, 2017.  Originally release to celebrate Sonic turning 25!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania

I thought it was supposed to be a tie-in to the film but that isn’t coming out until February 14, 2020 – what everyone wants to do on Valentine’s Day is go see a Sonic film.  James Marsden being in it helps.  Getting classic Jim Carrey also isn’t a bad deal too.  I like how he and Will Smith are able to still call forth their 90s charisma almost 20 years later.

Borderlands : The Handsome Collection originally came out on March 24, 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderlands:_The_Handsome_Collection

Pretty impressive that it still sells at $60, but Borderlands 3 coming out on September 13, 2019 has probably helped with sales in the past few months.

.  .  .

Here are my peeps talking about the games as well :

Nathan of PlayStation Access :

Adam of PlayStation Grenade :

Ben of Platinum Chasers :

I just started following Adam through PlayStation and that guy has so many platinums!  He also states there will be some free exclusives to check out in the store too.  Ben also has a slew of platinums now that I’m following him through the PSN as well.

Ben states Sonic Mania has 3 silver trophies and 15 bronze trophies.  Borderlands has 2 platinums, 8 gold, 28 silver, and 96 bronze trophies.

.  .  .

Referring to platinums, here are the trophy guides to both games :

Sonic Mania :

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/sonic-mania/315504-sonic-mania-roadmap-trophy-guide.html

The game doesn’t have a platinum but like Ms. Pac-Man, I’ll probably just play it for the sheer love of playing and not worry too much about the trophies.  Except Ms. Pac-Man does have a platinum but I’m nowhere near good enough to go for it.

Borderlands : The Handsome Collection

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/borderlands-2-the-handsome-collection/guide/

.  .  .

I’ll definitely be playing Sonic Mania first and see if Walker Dennis wants to be my buddy at all.  Then I’m going to dive into Borderlands and see what all of the fun is about.

Like most people, I adore Girlfriend Reviews and I’m reminded of their video they made for this collection.  I’m going to have to rewatch it again to get a better feel for the game.

.  .  .

I’m still making my way through Lego Avengers, having a great time. I’m just making my way down the trophy list to feel productive and to give myself a direction to go in.  Tonight’s plan is to replay Ready, A.I.M., Fire to unlock Aldrich Killian and then try to kill him for the trophy. Then I’m going to get all of the English characters (Captain Britain, Mandarin (Trevor Slattery), Spitfire (who I remember from Facebook’s Avengers Alliance game), and Union Jack.  I already have Agent Cater.  Then I’ll get the Defenders and some specific red bricks (x4, Stan Lee in Peril, and Quest Detector), then the x6 and x8 multipliers.  Finally, just free play all of the other levels that I still would need and then I’m off to the DLC!  So I bet I have another two weeks with this game and then I’m off to Lego Marvel Superheroes 2.

I should try to at least complete Episode Three of Batman : The Enemy Within.  Walker Dennis wanted to play Fallout 4 as I made a reference to Dogmeat but then it took 30 minutes for the game to reinstall.  By the time it was done, he wanted to play Batman : Arkham Knight which now I want to get the Season Pass again for $20.  We were doing the math and with $20, we would be getting like $15 worth of bonus content, which I do like a value.  I was able to finally download the Scarecrow pack, so that was nice.

I was also doing the math for getting Fallout 4’s Far Harbor and Nuka World DLC and combined, it is like $45 and its Season Pass is $50, so I might as well just spend the extra five dollars and get the other three DLC as well.  But I’m probably never going to treat myself to that DLC but I could be gifted it maybe.

.  .  .

I completed What Remains of Edith Finch, such a good game!  During my first playthrough, I completely missed Gus’ story but on the replay screen, we are able to replay ones we missed so that was nice.  I didn’t want to replay the entirety of the game just to get to one of the final stories.  People talk about how sad Lewis’ story is, and it is but the one that devastated me was Gregory’s story.  Being the primary bath giver to Walker, it was always one of my grave parental fears something bad happening to him while in the bath and seeing it play out just crushed me.  But I knew the game was coming to a close so I kept at it and 30 minutes later, had completed my first playthrough.  Gus’ story is right after Gregory’s so I probably just walked right pass it not giving it a second thought.

During my first attempt at Ms. Pac-Man, I got to the Pretzel portion and that was about it for me.  I should go back and practice and get gud at it but it wasn’t bad for a quick gaming session.

I also bought Dear Ester and Walker D. and I took turns playing.  He wanted to keep walking way pass the story segments but he got better about pausing and listening to the story.  I missed every urn and I attempted the Director Commentary of the first chapter but I’ll go back to it.  I do like how for the Director Commentary, they put up orange squares so we know where they are and they turn white if you listened to them, that was pretty handy.  Jessica Curry did an amazing job composing the score and she does have a Pandora channel.  Every one of her songs was from Everybody’s Has Gone to the Rapture, so I want to play that game at some point.  I’ll eventually go back and do that second playthrough.  I’ve already committed to the idea that I’m probably not going to be able to find them all as I didn’t come across all of the story segments either but it was enjoyable from what I can only imagine was the bulk of the story.  In terms of walking simulators, I’ll probably rank them as :

What Remains of Edith Finch
Drowning
Dear Esther

Drowning is a shorter game but I felt I got more out of it than I did Dear Esther.

.  .  .

TOKYO – JUNE 11: Pictured L-R: Janelle Pierzina and Britney Haynes on THE AMAZING RACE Wednesday, April 17 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. (Photo by Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty Images)

Last week, poor Britney Haynes and Janelle left Amazing Race.  I knew they were not going to make it as they kept coming in sixth or seventh, and once there is only seven teams, they were going to fall short of their goal.  They were great together and I’m going to miss them on the show.

I never did find a good Amazing Race photo websites but I found those three pictures above.  Britney looked great in that grey jacket.

Classic Britney gif!

I just stumbled across a great Amazing Race Britney gif machine of a page!

https://tenor.com/search/britney-haynes-gifs

They even have their title sequence!

We always find what we need in the most unusual of places.

Playing Overcooked and Whatever Remains of Edith Finch

Posted by John Klein III on May 22, 2019
Posted in: Games. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

It took me far longer than I thought it would but I finally got around to playing the PlayStation Plus Free Games for May 2019, Overcooked and What Remains of Edith Finch.

I earned my 19th Platinum with Lego Marvel Superheroes 1!  Walker Dennis was a huge help as was PlayStationTrophies.org’s guide in general but specifically the note about the race that was high up in the sky, that was my missing gold brick.  I also thought we had purchased all of the vehicles so I thought my last earned trophy was going to be for obtaining all of the minikits in the game but then the platinum didn’t pop for me.  So now I have the platinum shot being for Deadpool’s Scooter.

I then launched right into Lego Avengers and now I really want all of these movies digitally through VUDU as the Marvel films span across all of our physical movie media policies.  We started with just DVDs at first (then sold most of them to Hastings), then just BluRay, to BluRay + DVD packs, and finally to BluRay + DVD + Digital Copies.  Now I’m at the point where I just wan the digital code as taking a game out of our PS4 and putting a BluRay into it is a real pain of 15 seconds.  Or that I lose my place in the game, which is my real issue with it.  Most of the films are $15 through VUDU, so I might have to treat myself to one per pay period.  I really want Captain America : First Avenger, the first Avengers movie, and I’ll probably make Captain America : Civil War my third movie, just to start with.

I was in the second to last level, during the second part of it with Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye, when Walker Dennis really wanted to play the PS4 Spider-Man game.  Which I knew he would only want to play for maybe ten minutes but I decided not to be old dad about it and just save and exited my game and loaded the other game for him.  He’s obsessed with Spider-Man 3 right now, so he wanted to play with the Maguire Attire.  He was having such a great time.

The other issue I would have had was I wanted to beat the level I was on, but I knew that would like maybe another 15 minutes I didn’t really have at the time, and there were some background trophies I was working on and taking advantage of not turning the game itself off so once I obtained Hogun, of the Warriors Three, I would have earned the Warriors Three trophy as I had already played as Fandral and Volstagg.  But it is pretty easy to earn Hogun, play as him, and then just quickly change to the other two characters.

The same is true for playing as every Iron Man variant (which there are 14 of them!), visiting all of the Hub locations in one sitting, and growing Ant-Man, Black Goliath, and Fin Fang Foom all in one sitting.  We just earned Fin Fang Foom and it was going to be a while before earning the other two.  Like I wrote, it would have been pretty pity of me to deny him some enjoyment just because of the most super silly reasons.

We’re still enjoying these games, Walker Dennis was getting bored with Superheroes 1 as we were done unlocking characters but he got to play the other games but then I would go back to the first game as I was so close to beating it.  Now with Avengers, I’m just trying to beat the game story so I can get Vision so I can replay an earlier level to unlock the x2 Red Brick, which always my first real goal in a Lego game.  Usually it doesn’t take that long to earn it but I need it as I can’t get the True Avenger status on most of the levels so that will make getting that easier.

I also don’t like how there isn’t a map option for Lego Avengers, besides the mini one as I like to look at it and try to go for all of the character tokens first and earn the gold bricks around the same area while I’m there.

.  .  .

So, since I had stopped the Lego Avengers game, I also knew this would release me to play Overcooked and What Remains of Edith Finch.

Overcooked is a lot of fun, I have to get my lovely wife and Walker D to play with me.  I was able to obtain two stars by myself so I can only imagine having even an extra person would get me the third star.  I played up to 1-4 then I unlocked Versus mode and did one of those for the trophy.  It felt cheap but I wanted to make up for lost time.

So 30 minutes later, I was loading What Remains of Edith Finch.  I just completed Molly’s story and made a few mistakes, trophy wise, along the way.  The game looks great and it took me a second to get used to walking and reading the captions on the screen so I tried up the volume just enough to hear it.  I didn’t get the first keyhole to the left of the garage, and I also didn’t take the two routes to get to the house.  I went down the one path and felt like I hit two road blocks and went up the hill and go to the house just the one way but I must have just gotten lost in all of the greenery.  The story is very interesting and I knew the game is only three hours so I should commit to at least finishing it.  I’m not sure if I’ll go out of my way to earn all of the trophies but I’ll play the main game and then see which trophies I can clean up at the end.

.  .  .

Another thing that was stopping me from playing was I suffered through a kidney stone from Mother’s Day Sunday to Tuesday, May 21, which is way too long to suffer a kidney stone.  This was my second one, as I had one ten years ago.  That one, I went to the hospital, they gave me fluids and I feel like it was gone before that night came around.  This one, was 7mm of pain.  I was taking so many hot showers and following those up with 20 minutes of sitting under a heating blanket.  It was not ideal.

During the heating blanket, I’ll try another level of Lego Avengers but that was all I could do.  But it wasn’t like I was enjoying myself as the pain would be intense until around the 20 minute mark, and then I had to go to sleep during that moment of peace.  Now I’m feeling like myself but now I need to watch my sodium intake so no more V8s for breakfast and trail mix packs for lunch, as those were the only things I changed in my diet so those are taking the blame.  I just have to be more mindful of my sodium intake and I already tried the Low Sodium McCormick Taco Seasoning and it tasted exactly the same so I think I’m going to try some other low sodium variations and see how that works out.  The only other food item I recall with the low sodium label would be Campbell soups and those barely cost anything so I should get a few of those next time I’m at the store.

.  .  .

There is a pretty great digital sale through the PlayStation Store that I’m seriously tempted to get Ms. Pac-Man for $1.99 (down from $3.99) and Dear Esther : Landmark Edition for $2.99 (down from $9.99), as those are pretty great prices and two games for five dollars is pretty good.  I have until Monday, May 27 to make up my mind.  I just have two full games to still enjoy but I want to take advantage of the sale and I have five dollars to spare but I really do need to get another $20 gift card for times like these as I could get a few more games too.  I just talk myself out of buying for myself so often so it is a hard habit to break.

Actually there are two sales going on, the Totally Digital one and the Double Discounts.

Turns out the mobile version of the PlayStation Store got a make over and I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of it as of now.  That white block up top doesn’t contrast well with the black portion of the store below.

I was more secure in purchasing Dear Esther when I thought it has been a free PS+ game in the past but turns out, it hasn’t been so I wonder if I should just wait and only get Ms. Pac-Man as that game will never be given away for free.

Comixology Free Comics 05-08-2019

Posted by John Klein III on May 10, 2019
Posted in: Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

This week Comixology offers these four comics :

Infinity Countdown (2018) 1 of 5
Indestructible Hulk 1
Killmonger (2018-2019) 1 of 5
Shatterstar (2018-2019) 1 of 5

Infinity Countdown makes sense with Endgame being what it is but I’m not sure why the other three were selected for this week.

All together, a savings of $7.96, which is pretty nice.

.  .  .

PSPrices.com informs me of these deals:

https://amzn.to/2JCpTnQ

Amazon is offering Injustice 2 – Legendary Edition for $28.75, down from $59.99

https://amzn.to/2PZpe1i

PSPrices still doesn’t have a place holder for Kindom Come : Deliverance – Royal edition.  Amazon is trying to sell the regular edition for $21.99, down from $40, which makes sense as they will want to move as many copies as possible prior to the upcoming edition comes out.

https://amzn.to/2DXHjb2

Amazon also as Red Dead Redemption 2 : Special Edition for $35.99, down from $79.99.

https://amzn.to/2LyYAxo

Amazon also has God of War Deluxe Edition for $24.99, down from $50.

https://amzn.to/2JsZRU2

Amazon also as Ni No Kuni II : Revenant Kingdom – Deluxe Edition for $31.95, down from $79.99.

https://amzn.to/2vQMWna

Witcher 3 Complete Edition is $24.89 down from $50 (though I rarely ever see it full prize these days)

This section of the post brought to you from our friends at Amazon!  (if only!)

https://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/final-fantasy-xv-royal-edition/158176

GameStop has Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition for $19.99, down from $50.

If I had the money and wasn’t knew deep into the Lego Marvel Superheroes 1 and with two full games to go, I’ll be super tempted to take advantage of all of these deals!

.  .  .

I haven’t had a chance to play Overcooked or What Remains of Edith Finch, Walker Dennis keeps wanting to unlock characters in Lego Marvel Superheroes 1 and I’ve been using that as an excuse to keep playing the game not at 11pm at night so that’s been nice.  I just got us 150 Gold Bricks so we got Doctor Strange, who he really wanted.  He really wants Deadpool so I need to get 175 Gold Bricks to unlock the second to last bonus mission (The Thrill of the Chess) and then 200 Gold Bricks to get the final bonus mission (Bro-tunheim) opened up.  Once we have those two bonus missions, we have to get the last two Deadpool Red Bricks unlocked, and then we finally get Deadpool!  So that’s going to take some time.  I haven’t saved Stan Lee from Peril from the rest of the 14 story missions, I got the first level done at least, nor the mini kits, so that’s 28 Gold Bricks right there, so I can get to 175 easily.  Then there are plenty of races and side missions to do, plus multiple Stan Lees to save on the world map, so I should be able to get 200 easily too.  There is a total of 250 Gold Bricks, so it is just a matter of time but I’m thankful for the extra 50 gold bricks that, by that time, I would be committed to getting those last 50.

At least I’m getting better at the races, so that’s nice too.  Still a few characters to unlock like Psylocke, Polaris, Mysterio, and various alternate costumes, and some Guardians of the Galaxy.  So funny that the first game clearly came out prior to the first movie, so they are comic book accurate for the time instead of movie inspired.  The first game came out in October 2013 and the first Guardians film came out in August 2014.  Which knowing how movies are made, they probably had the costume designs ready way earlier but then again, Lego was probably working on the game up until July 2013 or so, with what we know of how games are made.

 

May 2019 Free PS Plus Games

Posted by John Klein III on May 3, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Podcasts, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The free games for May 2019 are : What Remains of Edith Finch and Overcooked!

I’ve been wanting Edith Finch for so long so I’m thrilled to finally get to play it!  I’ve seen PlayStation Access play Overcooked and it looks like a lot of fun too!

Edith Finch is one of the best walking sims out there and Overcooked is a four player coop game where players try to get meals out and not set the kitchen on fire.

PlayStation Access :

PlayStationGrenade :

Platinum Chasers :

I like how Adam and Ben are still commenting on the lack of games as we used to get six games and now we only get two.  I’m part of the camp that wishes they added a VR game as a third title.

I’ll be pretty happy if they just found a few more crossbuy titles that used to work with the PS3 or the Vita and give those to us on the PS4.

.  .  .

Most of the discussions on the two subreddit pages I follow for this type of news are going on about the lack of quantity of games and the two games are being praised but they are both older games and relatively cheap on their own.

What Remains of Edith Finch is $19.99 and Overcooked is $16.99 but has a Gourmet edition for $19.99 that I imagine comes with The Lost Morsel, an add-on for $4.99.  THere is a free The Festive Seasoning level that I’ve now downloaded.

So a overall value of $37, when sometimes it can be over $60.

PS4 Subreddit’s reaction :

PS+ May 2019: Overcooked and What Remains of Edith Finch
byu/sensual_manatee inPS4

PlayStation Plus subreddit’s reaction :

PlayStation Plus – Free Games Lineup May 2019 | PS4
byu/Matthew0606 inPlayStationPlus

The games are going to be available to download on Tuesday, May 7, and I can’t wait!

.  .  .

As Ben states in his video, neither game as a platinum trophy, which seems unfortunate to pair the games together.  I think that is one of the other annoyances people have, is that both games are indie titles so one game being offered in May and the other in June, would have been nice for some people.  Some speculation is being written about how, even though Sony is skipping E3, we might get some stellar games for June.  Time will tell.

Since neither game has a platinum, I think neither of them gets a proper playstationtrophies.org page but on the forum, both are represented.

Overcooked’s Guide

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/overcooked/309926-overcooked-trophy-guide-roadmap.html

Of the 11 trophies, I’m going to commit to three of them, for sure.  Play a versus mode game, extinguish a burning kitchen, and complete the tutorial.  It’ll be nice to get the other ones, which the bulk seems to be, get one star in at least one kitchen per five hub worlds.

I’m going to see if my beautiful wife and Walker Dennis will want to play with me, if not, I’m going to have to solo the game but I should be able to at least do those three trophies on my own.  I’m going to be attempting this game first.

What Remains of Edith Finch’s Guide

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/what-remains-of-edith-finch/312999-what-remains-edith-finch-trophy-guide-roadmap.html

This is the game I’m going to 100%, for sure.  There are seven missable trophies but reading the descriptions, it seems like just knowing which story you are in, check the guide real fast, and make sure you accomplish the goal.  It doesn’t seem like any of the trophies’ descriptions spoil the plot.  At least, I don’t feel like I have any proper context but time will tell.

Apparently, during a second playthrough, most of the trophies can be obtained except for finding the first peephole which is to the left of the garage on the fence as we approach the house for the first time.  We don’t ever get a second opportunity to do that, so if you are trying to get all nine peepholes and 1 telescope.  Which, stuff like that, is the reason why I look at trophy guides.  Never too closely, as I’m mostly just looking for the word “missable.”

.  .  .

Walker Dennis and I earned our 18th Platinum!

The first Lego Movie is so good and so many mechanics were used in Lego Dimensions so it just felt comfortable.

I went out the very next day and bought the Lego Marvel Collection!  At first, I was going to be an old fuddy duddy and only let Walker Dennis and myself play one game at a time.  Then I warmed up to the idea of just completing the story and then allowing us to move on to the second game.  Then Walker Dennis’ big brown eyes and hearing myself say it for a fifth time, I agreed to playing the games until we got Spider-Man unlocked.  Which it took a long long time before we could access the open world in Lego Avengers.  With the game, the Spider-Man DLC is free, but we didn’t have access to the blue terminals that have the option to switch characters, until after the fifth mission, Helicarrier Havoc.  We’re four percent done with that game.  Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 is pretty quick and it only took two missions and we had Spider-Man, who is freely given.

Going to the individual games’ PlayStation Store pages, we still had the option to buy the DLC, which made me suspect we didn’t get a code for the season passes but once we could open the character page, all of the DLC characters were on the bottom but I checked all three times.  It would have been nice, since once you load the disc, we had to individually download each game, so it would have been nice that the prices on the store page changed from the dollar value to the download option.  That would have given me some peace of mind.

So I’m cool with whatever game Walker Dennis wants to play, he can play but at night, I’ve been doing one mission of Lego Marvel Superheros 1 and I’m currently just passed the X-Men mission and the Fantastic Four one is next.  Which I’m excited about as that means I can defeat 100 enemies using the Thing, as that’s one of the trophies.  I’m not sure if I’m going to platinum any of these games as they are massive!  I’ll definitely strive to do so but ooof, there are a lot of characters and gold bricks floating about.  Plus, those races are pretty hard!  I can’t seem to get a feel for webslinging either.

I’m so happy we got Scarlet Spider in Lego Avengers and I know there is a race to unlock him in Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 that once I can, I’ll commit time to unlocking him.  Spider-Ham is also an option in 2 so I’ll have to get him there too.

1 has Emma Frost and I made a point to do two missions from Professor X to unlock her, and then I did a third mission to unlock him as well.  I sought out Archangel so I now have all of the original X-Men.  I’m having a blast!

Playing Lego Avengers makes me want to rewatch the first two Avengers movies.  We sold our copy of the first one to upgrade to a digital copy but we haven’t done that so I might have to pull the trigger as that movie was fun to replay.  We have Age of Ultron on BluRay but I’m tempted to buy that through VUDU as well.  I’m just ready to stop buying physical movies and buy everything through VUDU but then VUDU still doesn’t get all of the special features so here I am buying the combo packs just for the digital copy and a few extra materials.

.  .  .

My plan is to play one level of Lego Marvel Superheroes 1 and then play Batman The Enemy Within until 11:30pm, and then play until I get to another save point.  Which I’ve been able to do for the most part.  Last night, I finished the X-Men level, so I went around gathering all of the X-Men I could and unlocking Carnage as I’ve been waiting to get Iceman to unlock Carnage.  Walker Dennis turned on the game, and I wanted him to buy Carnage, Superior Spider-Man and a Symbiote Hazmat fellow.  Which he did but we went from 1.5 million studs to less than 150,000 studs in a matter of seconds as he started unlocking everybody.

On my list of characters I want in the first game are:

Agent Coulson, for the trophy
The Lizard, Walker got the first Amazing Spider-Man movie for Easter – and Hop – so he’s in a real Lizard mode, he calls him Dr. Connors, which I love)
Howard the Duck, also for the trophy, it is the last one listed and I’m obsessed!
Magneto, he’s needed for so many items in Free Play

Scarlet Spider isn’t an option.  I would have held off for Colossus until the very end but he was needed for the Fastball Special trophy so I bought him.  I wish they would make a Lego X-Men game, it would be awesome and super cute!

Anyway, this section was supposed to be about Batman : The Enemy Within!  I’m in Episode Three and Catwoman showed up!  So I want to romance her like crazy as Bruce is going through some stuff.  Harley wants to flirt with Bruce but Joker’s man crush on Wayne makes me try to flirt with Harley but keep pushing Joker to keep him happy.  I read a great article in GameInformer on how Episode Five is essentially a compilation of our choices so it really depends on everything we’ve done during the four other episodes.

Thanks to finishing the second episode, I’ve finally reached my Gaming Goal of 2019 by reaching Player Level 15, I’m 6% into it, and I have 18 Platinums, 102 Gold Trophies, 355 Silver Trophies, and 1163 Bronze Trophies, for a total of 1638.

.  .  .

Apparently there is a really great deal going on right now on the PlayStation Store. I  saw something about villains spotlight but nothing jumped out at me but PSPrices makes the deal look very worth checking out!

Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma is $7.99 for PS+ subscribers, down from $40, and I might actually buy that as that’s my Vita white whale!
Witcher 3 Complete Edition is $14.99, down from $50 (though I rarely ever see it at full price now)
Lego City Undercover is $8.99, down from $30
Batman : Return to Arkham is $7.99, down from $20, if I wasn’t knee deep into three games and a Batman game, I would it now, but I probably would once it is eight dollars again.
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is $20 at GameStop, and I love how PSPrices tells us retail sales as well!
Lego DC Super-Villains Deluxe Edition is $44.99, down from $74.99, I wonder if that includes the latest batch of characters like the Phastasm and the Shazam characters?
Kingdom Come : Deliverance is $13.53 on Amazon!  Is that right?  Looks like it is sold out right now.  In fact, there is a Royal Edition coming out on June 11 for $40, so I need to change my version on PSPrices once they have a link for it.
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition is also $30 at Gamestop, down from $60, but this is another game that is usually on sale too.
Batman : Arkham Knight Season Pass continues to be solid at $20, one day it’ll dip to eight dollars, then I shall strike!

I got to add Lego Marvel Collection to my . . . collection so that’s one less game!  I’ll be taking off What Remains of Edith Finch in a week, so that’s exciting too!

I’m looking at Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma and it is stating it is a cross-buy title?!  Was that always the case?!  How did I miss it then?!  So many questions!  I had the Vita version hearted through the store but I’m going to take a chance on buying the PS4 copy and I hope I end up with both!  Alright, that means I now only have 49 games on my wishlist!

Shoot, it only registers as the PS4 version and the Vita version is still available to buy, that stinks but at least I can think that I own it too.  I wonder if I should reach out to customer support and get the Vita version?

I’m chatting with Joseph of Customer Support right now.  He couldn’t make the came crossbuy and now it sort of killed my enthusiasm for ever getting that game or any of the other Vita games I missed out on.  Plus, I was never going to get a Vita.  Once if that day ever came, I’ll reignite my desire for them.  At least I got a refund out of it.

.  .  .

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

Comixology has a rare free non-Marvel title!

Runners Volume 1 : Free Preview

https://www.comixology.com/Runners-Volume-1-FREE-PREVIEW/digital-comic/769939

It is the first two chapters of the volume.  Sean Wang is the writer and artist.

.  .  .

TRIGGER WARNING!!!

AVENGERS ENDGAME DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD!!!

I actually got to watch Avengers Endgame!  I don’t want to spoil anything as I was able to avoid all spoilers so I don’t want to spoil someone else’s good time but I think I can make some comments without giving away any real plot points but I have some thoughts I need to get out of my head.

So if you don’t want any spoilers or hints of spoilers, this is the final section so there isn’t anything else read, so come back once you have seen the film!

First of all, this movie is amazing!  My wife complained almost immediately as we got outside, that she thought he movie was too long, like like 20 minutes, so that killed some of my buzz to talk more about the film.  So we talked about how all of the third act needed to stay, but there were parts in the beginning that probably could have been trimmed or even during the quest portion of the second act that could have been parred down.  I thought it was amazing, like, every minute of it, so I wouldn’t have wanted to shorten anything but it was a fun thought exercise.

We took Walker as he did pretty well watching Infinity War on Netflix.  He ate too much popcorn and had too much of a Coke Icee so I had to leave two times in the beginning of the film so he can attempt to throw up but nothing came of it.  I knew his belly would settle if he stopped eating, and after the second attempt, he sat in his seat and enjoyed the film.

He waited so patiently until Spider-Man showed up, which I don’t think anyone expected for him not to show up, or any of the vanished heroes, so I don’t think that’s a real spoiler (in case someone is trying to read these paragraphs until a real big spoiler shows up – I’ve done it that in the past as reader).

I like how, once the portal opens, there is a good beat of time before Spider-Man swings out, and then Walker would not stop talking about Peter Parker.  He also started commenting on wanting to buy the movie, which I told him I really want it too.  But he was so excited.  Then there were non-Spider-Man moments that he just wanted Spider-Man to come back, so that wasn’t great but once he’s on the screen, he’s in the film and the center of focus.

I loved how, with how epic that final battle was, there is always time for a hug and what a great hug at that!

This entire movie was a celebration of 22 films and ten years of Marvel movie magic!  Well, Endgame is the 22nd film so a celebration of 21 films!

As soon as Sam said, “On your left” I don’t think I stopped smiling for the next ten minutes.

Then the ladies all had a moment, that I’m sure someone is going to make posters of and screenshots of, once the film has been out for a month.  I appropriated so much how the marketing campaign was so nice to avoid spoilers.  Heck, even the Lego sets didn’t spoil anything.  Captain America never got on a motorcycle and Iron Man never went to a room that housed all of his suits.

The Avengers Compound shows up, and that would be the one I’ll be tempted to buy if it wasn’t a hundred dollars.  War Machine never gets a giant Hulkbuster sized suit.  Rocket’s ship is shown but never does anyone ever get into a giant white plane, so of the five sets, only one is in the film.  Not for long though, once Thanos shows up, but still, it is there.

The fact that all of Infinity War mattered as amazing!  I thought for sure, the last five minutes wouldn’t matter but nope, everything happened and everyone has to deal with that.

Okay, now I have to spoil somethings to talk about some things.  So final final warning!

I think most people know there is a time cut, and there is.  Five years have passed since Infinity War.  Earth has not really moved on.  There are monuments with names like the Vietnam War memorial in San Francisco that I can only imagine are represented in every major city, if not every city probably did the same.  I wonder if those come down post-movie as it would be haunting to see one’s name on a wall for all time.  Plus, ever the first anniversary, they served their purpose and are taking up valuable real estate.

Also, high school reunions have be crazy right?  Teenagers are back, half of their friends graduated and then you have to be replaced in your grade and now graduating with half the people you don’t even know.  Also, half of your friends are five years older than you too.  Except it seems all of Peter Parker’s supporting crew are in Spider-Man : Far From Home, so that whole class of recognizable characters vanished.  Which is handy for film purposes.  I wonder how much of that film is going to handle the ramifications of the world, probably just a few lines of dialogue.

I missed the line about Tony losing oxygen and we got a fun interactions with him and Nebula.  For the life of me, I can’t remember what happened in the two minutes we missed the second time.  It was during Black Widow’s debriefing scene.

Thanks to the time travel aspects, we got to revisit some favorite scenes.  Which was so amazing to see again from a different angle!  Also, so fun all of the movie titles being said and how they all got it wrong.  The movie sort of handles it like how Marvel comics handles time travel.  What happened happen, and if you change something, it just creates a new timeline so the present will always be the present.

I had to look it up and that is Ty Simpkins’ character, Harley Keener, from Iron Man 3, at the end.  So nice how they paid homage to the first Iron Man film as this film closes an entire saga.  It helps that Jon Favreau is a director and an actor, and super willing to be in these films.  It probably also helps that he’s directing Lion King so Disney has his phone number.

I wonder what phase four will bring and what the overall plot focus will be.  Perhaps an epic Doctor Doom plot or just Galactus coming?  We have to be working towards Fantastic Four and the X-Men being folded in, right?

Heck, this movie gave us a Hail Hydra!  So amazing!  And America’s Ass!  Captain America can do this all day!  I must have been grinning so hard during long sections of the film.

We got two amazing parent scenes, with one’s mother and another’s father.  Having a child really does put one’s own parents in a different perspective.  Might be worst or better but an understanding does occur.  There’s a nice balance, as all things should be.

This movie even went as far as to try to make Thor : Dark World matter!  Which I would say is by far the worst Marvel movie, even the Earth portions were not great.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_films

Looking at the top list :

1“The Infinity Saga”

Thor : Dark World will be on the top of my ranking of the films.  By a lot!  But gosh, look at all of those films, all of them are pretty rewatchable!  Which is super impressive and the cast of actors we get in this films are astonishing!

I love that if an actor had a free day to film, they got to be in the movie.

We still haven’t seen Captain Marvel but I’m hoping to sneak it in before it leaves theaters.

I was able to text old friend to the blog, and my oldest friend, Greg, some of my thoughts so that was nice to talk to someone about the movie who also loved the film.

He made a comment about the homeless problem probably skyrocketed but I wrote back how with half the population gone, they probably became homefull.

I was on a track about identity fraud and how my chances of being accounted for, even though I vanished, I would still come back five years later to all of my debt still intact, knowing my luck.  It would be like 911 times a hundred.

Does Manifest actually get into the minute details of being gone for five years and definitely being declared dead?

Thor was amazing in the film!

They found a way to keep Loki alive that is super clever and the plot to find Gamora is probably going to be the basis of Guardians 3.  I love that they got a new team member, the reuniting of Groot and Rocket was super nice too.

Cap back in the 70s, so great!  Cap in the finale, was so heartbreaking and beautiful.  I love how Agent Carter : Agent of SHIELD mattered with original Jarvis being shown.  No hard references to Agents of SHIELD or the Netflix shows, from what I could tell.

There are all of these news reports to a Black Widow movie and I want that to happen too but I’m not sure how.  I knew it was going to be her to take the soul stone.

When Thanos’ missiles were firing into the sky, I had forgotten about Captain Marvel and I thought we were about to get a crazy entrance but it was great to see her.  Peter Parker introducing himself to her was amazing, as Walker always refers to him as “Peter Parker” so having the name said by both characters made him so happy.

Greg was wondering if the line about earthquakes was a hint to Namor which would have been cool.  Otherwise, it was just a line of dialogue for dialogue’s sake.

I imagine besides lines of dialogue, the time jump and real world ramifications are not going to be reference again.  Maybe that would be the plot or the backbone to the Disney+ shows.

We knew Hulk was going to be an Avenger as we saw the Pop Vinyl character.

Okay okay, now we’re getting into major major spoilers territory!

oh my!  We finally got “Avengers Assemble!” and it was everything I ever wanted!  Then we got Captain America holding Mjolnir!  I was so happy!

Fun how we got two more Community alums added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Yvette Nicole Brown (who looks like she lost a lot of weight!) and Ken Jeong.

When they were in the 70s, there is this great song by “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” by Harry James and his Orchestra that I just loved the old timiness of it.  Apparently, it is their cover to a 1945 song.

Nice to see Hiroyuki Sanada in the film, he was Shingen Yashida in The Wolverine and Akihiko in the film.

The film has a great balance of comedy and drama, and so many people and characters got a moment to shine.  They definitely got their moneys worth from Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.  Both get such wonderful sendoffs.

We even got Gwyneth Paltrow in the Rescue armor!  So many things paid off from previous films.

I know it won’t take any awards besides MTV and Teen Awards and a few technical awards but it really does deserve to be acknowledged next year.  Not like it matters but it’ll be nice for the box art.

We really need A Time to Die Hard now!

Just overall, I loved the movie and I want to see it again but I won’t until I own it.

Next stop will be Spider-Man : Far From Home but I can’t imagine we’ll watch it July 5 opening weekend.

For two great podcast reviews:

Comic Book Queers Legacy :

https://www.universehead.com/comicbookqueers/2019/4/29/episode-82-avengers-endgame

Living Between Wednesdays :

http://www.livingbetweenwednesdays.com/blog/1-4