Transformers Review (BAY TIME!!)

By Corey Floyd

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for Michael Bay to once again Ham it up straight to the Bank Today I’m covering Transformers: The Last Knight. The fifth installment in the guilty pleasure of the Transformer Franchise directed by Michael Bay.  Of course, each film has been completely panned by critics. But Bay has never cared about what they say and neither has the studio. The Franchise has grossed over billion dollars and that’s not counting merchandise. I have had a tendency to slam him every chance I’ve had. But I realized something, what he does in his films is show us his reflection of America and it’s scary accurate. Okay here’s the formula Patriotism + Sexism +US armed forces with a dash of racism add a big a cup of explosions. That's every Bay movie. With that being said let’s get into it.

Where we last left off Optimus Prime left earth to find his maker. Well say hello to Quintessa Queen of Cybertron

Not sure what all of her powers are but one of them is brainwashing. That’s why we have seen so many commercials of him attacking Bumblebee. He has been reprogrammed to go back to earth to retrieve a staff that Merlin used. Yes, Merlin! The fucking wizard. This film reveals that Transformers have been around since the dark ages.

and the Witwicky family were the protectors of it.  Don’t worry there's only a photo cameo of Shia this Witwicky is played by Sir Anthony Hopkins who is the only living one left. They killed of Shia Labeouf just like the rest of Hollywood gives a phenomenal performance as a marvelous guide for Mark Wahlberg. He returns playing himself doing Mark Wahlberg things like quick insults and a harsh Boston accent even though his character is from Texas. We also meet  Izabella a survivor who ends up under Mark Wahlberg's wing but unlike like most kids in movie franchises she's pretty smart. Ironically she is played by Isabella Moner who is known for her comedic chops in kids movies and television. She's traded that in for a gutsy soldier and ally to lost Autobots. My problem with her is she seems so independent until she meets Mark Wahlberg after that she makes the dumbest choices like getting on a plane to assault Megatron. But for the sake of the story, you have to have at least one kid in the movie. As I watched the movie I noticed something Bay traded his sexist card for a strong women card. Which is a step in the right direction or he’s pandering to what people say they want you to be the judge. I say this because Wahlberg is not the savior of the movie. The non-Transformer Hero is Vivian Wembley who is Merlin’s descendant played by Laura Haddock saw in Guardians of the Galaxy as Star Lords mom. Here she plays the savior who doesn't believe they are the savior.  

I’ve been talking about humans a lot in Transformers movie right? That’s the bullshit I can’t stand with this film series. So allow me to get to the nuts and bolts of things. First of all, Megatron, what the fuck happened to Galvatron?!

This is how he looked at the end of the last movie. How the did we get to this?

there was no explanation.  Also, There was this old robot that was pretty cool and most of the comedy relief in this movie. Also, a lot of this Film takes place in Europe mainly the UK, maybe in each following film will take place in a different corner of the world. Since Agent Simmons (John Turturro ) had a few scenes via a phone booth in Cuba with a soccer playing Autobot maybe the next one will be in South America? Peter Cullen returns as Optimus Prime to give another beautiful over top Shakespearian performance that steals every scene. He really is the high point of the film. Frank Welker returns as the original Megatron but they hardly have any camera time.  

At this point I just realized something.  

The entire franchise is riddled with inconsistencies, mild racism, and explosions. Like a drug addict, we can’t get enough. Did I enjoy this movie? Kinda tbh I feel like I could have been doing something while this was on in the background. Another thing that took the enthusiasm away from seeing the movie was the marketing campaign. They showed too much of the movie in the damn trailer.  If you don’t recall me talking about it before click here  http://amerimemedia.blogspot.com/2017/05/dammit-trailers.html?view=magazine . It's upsetting because I feel like I actually would have like this one but they showed so much of it in trailers. They saved the world, of course, The Queen teleported away and Prime Spartan Kicked Megatron out a window so naturally there will another one. By the way, Earth is UNICRON  

the planet eating robot under the surface. Why, does it even matter.  Final Grade  D+ In Bays eyes

Read More

Get ready for a New Challenge Dragon Ball is back with a new 2D fighter

By Luiggi Cavanna

A few weeks ago, we found out that Bandai Namco is developing a new Dragon Ball game, but this time it’s a 2D fighting game. There was a mistake and two screenshots were released ahead of time, letting the world know what was coming. Also, we found out that Bandai Namco is working with Arc System Works, the people behind the Guilty Gear games.

I saw this image and I lost it!

Fast Forward to the week of E3 and we get an announcement trailer, in the Microsoft conference of all places.

The best part was that they had a playable demo at E3 so we got a lot of information about the mechanics of the game. The gameplay is fast pace, something I really love in anime fighters, with destructible backgrounds. The battles are 3 on 3, meaning you gotta pick three characters to face your opponent. You can use your other characters as simple assists or tag them in to let your first character recover a bit, make moves safe, or to simply continue combos. This is very similar to the Marvel vs Capcom series, and the fighting game community has taken notice to this.

The memes won't stop!!

The FGC had a field day! Thanks to the less than desirable looks of some of the characters in Marvel vs Capcom Infinite - COUGH! Chun Li COUGH! - the bland character roster, (Where’s the X-men bro?) and changes to some of the core mechanics of the game, the community has happily jumped on the Dragon Ball bandwagon. 

Ok, I love this one, with the horrible grammar and everything.

Memes aside, the games will be different. Matter of fact, Dragon Ball Fighter-Z might be closer to other games that Arc System Works developed before, just like the Guilty Gear and Blazblue series.

Another group of fans that are excited for this game, of course, is the Dragon Ball community.

YouTube exploded with live reactions to the trailer and most of the reactions were from Dragon Ball Youtubers. How can they not be excited, the game is so faithful to the source material, not only with supers and special moves, but with character intros and even normal attacks. Great attention to detail has been put into this game.

I mean, look at THIS!!

The game will be release early 2018 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with a closed beta coming at the end of this summer for PS4 and Xbox One. If you want to get ready for this game I could recommend for you to play some of the previous Arc System Works games, you know, Guilty Gear and Blazblue. If you can’t wait for a Dragon Ball 2D fighter though, I might have something for you.

Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden!!

Bandai Namco and Arc System Works already worked on a 2D fighter Dragon Ball game, the catch is that it was for the 3DS. To be fair, Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden is a very functional 2D Fighter, and we don’t have many of those on the 3DS. In the game, you can have up to three characters or you can use assists only characters instead. Assists characters take less space than playable characters so you can have one Playable character with four assists. This changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit! You can have a match where one player has two playable fighters with two assists vs someone with three fighters and no assists. This is a game where the complexity comes from how you use your assists, and this game has some powerful assists.

And it doesn’t look half bad.

Are you excited for Dragon Ball Fighter-Z? I know I am! Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Goodbye, for now, my friends.

So HYPE!!!

Read More

Salty Truth's E3 2017 Top 5

By Corey Floyd

Last week we were graced by E3 conference. The gaming world comes together in the Ultimate pissing contest to see who can shit on who for the next year. Sony vs Xbox while Nintendo does their own thing. It's always very a wild time and thing you will see is always golden. I Just want to talk about a few things I liked in no particular order.  

5 Cuphead. A few years ago they showed a reveal trailer of this game and I fell in love. I look at the term gamer a little differently than most. I don’t think it just means you play this one particular game really well and you don’t play anything else i.e Madden, COD, Overwatch. When i here that there gaming is just whatever the hot item is I cringe mainly because It has no originality to it. One of the reasons I love Xbox is because they give indy companies a chance to show what they can do. Cuphead is great example of that. It’s a arcade style run around shoot em up like Contra but it’s looks like a old school cartoon. It looks really fun and family friendly. Which is a rarity on any list of mine lol. Here's the Trailer for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TjUPXAn2Rg

4. Assassin's Creed Origins . Now the quality in this series has been called a fall from grace. Since it got to a point they were putting out a games every year. Plus the Unity game failure and subpar sales of their last installment. They went back to Lab took their time and revealed this. One of the things I really enjoyed was they are telling the origin story of the assassins after 7 installments and DLC we never heard how it all began and I wanna know. The gameplay mechanics have been changed. Over the years the mechanics never changed they were too easy. In a gameplay trailer you see they took a few pages from the Dark Souls series. Lucky for us not too many pages. Dodging looks paramount also there's a falcon you can use to look at the terrain ahead kind of like a drone. Also this was the first time we have a Black protagonist and it’s not  DLC or a poorly made PSP title so Hooray !!!!!The trailerr will be put right here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2iBAPsQRto

  

3. Anthem. This is supposed to be their answer for Destiny. Which in my opinion was lackluster due to the fact they did not give you a full story on release and 75% of the DLC was trash. Anthem from what has been shown is a single or multiplayer game where you build and customize these exo suits and fly off and explore the world and take out baddies. Now Luiggi reminded me that it was a EA game so I will tread cautiously on the title. But I’m still excited. Don’t fuck this up EA.

.

Here’s the trailer, what do you think?. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQhbHwkMSA4  

2. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

I’ve always enjoyed the Wolfenstein series personally. Not many games out there where you can take out the worst people in the world. Unless there a game about the KKK. Anyway, the trailer gave us a very bleak America where they took over. From the trailer, it looks like they did some more world building as well as interesting characters. Its definitely the most brutal installment a shotgun blast to the face leaves quite a mess in this game. Plus there’s a giant robotic bog you can control that shoots flames. The trailer right here of course   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZwU5Xil0sA . Is it just me or does this make me feel like one of the Inglorious Bastards in this game?

1.  Beyond Good and Evil 2 was one of the best moments at E3. The sequel to acclaimed playstation 2 title has been in development hell for almost 10 years. Th3 second installment of this Ubisoft title does not have an official release date. From the game developer of the project who was holding back tears after the trailer reveal we learn this will be a prequel of sorts for the series. I say of sorts cause we have not seen Jade who was the main character from the last one. Little else is now for now but if this trailer is of thing to come I cannot wait. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrofwDfzZBk

You may have noticed I did not choose any console exclusives. I Did not want to shun anyone from this convo. But Mario Odyssey does get a special mention. Also We talk about everything else at e3 on our podcast pleases download and check us outhttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/amerime-junkies/id1212151606?mt=2  .  Till then peace.  

Read More

Comic Cancellations

By Courntey Dunn

Cancellations are a part of the comic book life cycle. A twist on a character or a new storyline will either be met with the rallied cries of fans or the sad sound of a cancellation announcement due to lack of sales. Marvel has been steadily cranking out titles of old, new, and rebooted characters. Though recently, they have been slowly reeling back the production of a lot of the popular titles that they’ve released. They haven’t even all been officially canceled, just not available in the July solicitations. Well, Mosaic, Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat, Star-Lord, Power Man & Iron Fist, Rocket Raccoon, Kingpin, Thunderbolts, Silk, Nova, Black Panther: World of Wakanda, and Elektra have all been officially canceled.  

Now, we all know that sales are important to any business, especially this industry. That being said if about half of your goods are selling at a low, but consistent level, is it worth it to just scrap all the products that are low selling? That seems to be what Marvel is doing despite fan interest. It’s as if they forgot how readers work. Some people need time to warm up to a new character or a new iteration of one. Some people wait to see how well received a new title is before they hop on. Some people wait for the trade so they can get as much story at one time as possible! There’s a lot of reasons why the numbers for these titles hover around the cancellation line, but maybe the cancellation point should be adjusted.

Another criticism that has been making its way around is that Marvel’s attempts to be inclusive and politically correct are killing their sales. I mean, what’s so crazy about expanding a possible reader base? I do admit that some bits of dialogue have been a bit ham-handed, but there’s nothing wrong with passing the torch of power onto someone different. I bet people lost their shit when Mar-vell accidentally shared his powers with Carol Danvers to make her into Ms. Marvel. Oh no, a woman with power! So what if there’s some brown people, women, or even brown women in the books we read? Are they not present in everyday life or is the superhero world supposed to be this magical all Anglo utopia? The idea that Marvel is alienating their “main” demographic is uninformed at best, and just plain bigoted at worst. Becoming inclusive is probably the reason they’ve been able to keep up the sales on certain titles.

With that argument, it makes it especially surprising that the new run of Black Panther is being canceled. Especially in the wake of him joining the cinematic universe. Some readers say that the writer, David Liss, didn’t do the character justice, but does Marvel really care about anything but the numbers these days? Though he doesn’t have a whole lot under his belt comic-wise other than Mystery Men and The Spider, he is a highly acclaimed novelist. I also, personally, really enjoyed what I read of the series. At least a third of ongoing Marvel titles are selling below what they prefer, but hardly any of them have the rolling ball of building star power like Black Panther does.

Honestly, if the only reason for these cancellations is sales, maybe Marvel should start listening to the fans more and less to the out of touch people at the head. Attempting to bump up sales with mega crossover events, tie-ins, and limited release series do not create long-term readership. If they actually let the books with excellent creative teams and a solid but small readership finish a story then they may have more luck keeping people interested. When I see a new event happening, I’m really just wondering what books to read that won’t be entirely based on ending up at this big showdown. Sometimes people just want to read a good story and maybe Marvel has forgotten that’s what it’s all about.

Hopefully, I will talk to guys again. But until then Cheers

Read More

The Fight Continues, Injustice 2 Review

By Luiggi Cavanna

From the NetherRealm Studios, the same people that brought us the Mortal Kombat series, we have a sequel to the DC fighting game Injustice.

Look at them all dressed up.

Injustice takes place in an alternative universe where Superman has gone mad and rules the world with an iron fist. It’s up to the resistance, lead by Batman, to put a stop to him. Injustice 2 is a continuation of this story, where Batman tries to rebuild after Superman’s defeat but a new evil lurks in the shadows. An evil that might force our heroes to make unlikely alliances.

“Let me out, Bruce! You didn’t even install a toilet in here!!”

So what’s new this time around? Well, NetherRealms have added a bunch of new mechanics and improvements to the game. Now we can use a meter to perform an air escape. When you use the air escape, you bounce back up during a juggle to disrupt the combo. You have two options, hold back or up and then press the meter burn button, it all depends on where you want to land. Be careful though, or you might just land in another combo.

Another new mechanic is the meter burn roll. When you dash forward and press the meter burn button you can roll to avoid projectiles and enter your opponent’s space.This is a welcomed

addition since the Injustice games are projectile heavy. No, for real, the zoning in this game gets crazy!

“Did anyone say PROJECTILES!”

The story mode in this game is great, just as it was in the previous one, and that’s something you can’t say about many other fighting games. This time around, at certain points, you will have to pick between two characters to continue the story. This allows for a lot of replayability, just to see how the story turns out depending on your choices.

Another addition to the game is the multiverse. If you have to play Mortal Kombat X, the multiverse is pretty similar to the towers in that game. In the multiverse, you will find different Earths where you’ll have to go through a series of battles (with different challenges in place) in other to obtain loot boxes and pieces of gears. Gear, my friends, is the “thing” in the game.

You’ve seen the commercials.

Gear in the game is more than for looks, it makes your character stronger. It increases certain stats for your character, and some time you can get skills that can change how your character plays. Don’t worry though, all these crazy shenanigans are off for competitive play. You get your gear not only through the multiverse but after every battle as well.

Damn it! Another helmet for that stupid monkey.

The random drops do get annoying and most of the time you get items for characters that you don’t even play. To add insult to injury those pieces of gear that you get have a level restriction, so you have to level those characters so you can equip the gear.

There are microtransactions in the game, as is the nature of gaming nowadays it seems, but you can easily get money and loot boxes by just playing the game.

I gotta admit that playing the multiverse to get gear gets addictive. I was playing the game for this review and I spent a few hours trying to get gear for Batman and I didn’t even notice.

By the way, clashes are back and they’re better. They don’t take 3 years to finish now.

In conclusion, I gotta say that this is a great competitive game that has a lot of option for a casual player as well. Fair warning, you gotta have some patience though when it comes to dealing with zoners, projectiles are very strong in this game, and the meter roll is not the best solution most of the time. If you’re a fan of the DC universe, you should get this just for the story alone, and for fans of the fighting game genre, this one is a great addition to the library.

 

Oh, and the first batch of DLC characters is coming right up.

So what do you think about the Injustice games? Any other fighting games that you’re hyped for that are coming out? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye for now my friends.

Read More

OUT & PROUD!!!

By Corey Floyd

This upcoming weekend in my hometown we are celebrating Pride day. A day for celebrating the LGBTQ community for being who they are out and proud. Once upon a time being this was extremely frowned upon and they were treated just as bad as being a minority in the 1940’s. A matter of fact it wasn’t until 1989 comic book creators were not allowed to have gay characters in American comics. I thought that today I would touch on characters from across our nerdy planet that have been used as great representations of the community. Some are very known and some are unknown.    

 I thought It would be nice to get the obvious out of the way. Thanks to a strong fan base and an awesome movie Deadpool is on the forefront when it comes to great comic book movies. He has also been known to get it own with a lot of ladies between the page as well as a few men. But he is not bisexual. The Merc with the mouth considers himself pansexual. For those of you who don’t know it means that he does not limit his sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, and gender identity. Ryan Reynolds who plays the mutant has actually been very adamant on having a male love interest is his upcoming sequel. I think if Fox Studios was okay with the pegging scene this should be 

a walk in the park.  Next is Northstar is a member of Alpha Flight. A Canadian mutant task force kind of like the X-men. They are not as popular as the x-men but they were in a lot of adventure where they crossed paths. He was Marvel's first openly gay character.  With his powers of super speed flight and energy flashes. The character creators John Bryne and Chris Claremont also thought it would be great for him to get married and in issue astonishing x- men #51 he did. 

Here we have Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Who went through a very relatable character arc for those who are not sure of themselves. In high school, she was the shy girl who fell in love with a boy named Oz played by Seth Green. Who also happened to be a Werewolf. Eventually, the relationship fizzled out and while she was in college she met the love of her life Tara who showed her a deep understanding of Love and Witchcraft. Eventually, Oz returned to the show and put Willow at a crossroad or at least he thought. Like most guys he assumed it was a phase but by the end of the ordeal, he understood. This was a very compelling character development at this time in television since there wasn't a lot of forward-thinking on tv. Lucky for us Joss Whedon was several steps ahead.  

 Batwoman had to make my list. She pre-dates Batgirl! A lot of people don’t even know that. That’s okay I don’t expect them to the character's original run wasn't very memorable. She was originally made to be a love interest for Batman because they were concerned that he was gay and Robin has his partner in more than just crime fighting. She ended play the damsel in distress one too many times. The character faded into obscurity in 1964.  Little spots here and there for a few decades. 2006 she returned in a big way with a red and black suit that was originally designed for bat girl and a more vicious style of fighting that always incorporated weapons. When it came to making the character a lesbian Dan DiDio executive editor and senior vice president of DC Comics said “ It was from conversations we’ve had for expanding the DC Universe, for looking at levels of diversity. We wanted to have a cast that is much more reflective of today’s society and even today’s fanbase. One of the reasons we made her gay is that again when you have the Batman Family—a series of characters that aren’t super-powered and inhabit the same circle and the same city—you really want to have a point of difference. It was really important to me to make sure every character felt unique”. and her adventures have been pretty awesome.

That where I will leave you today. One of the reasons I wanted to write this was to give everyone an idea of the little differences between us as a people.Also to point out that nerd culture has been way more progressive for the LGBT community than most sets even though there was a ban in place till the late 80’s to have it in comics.  What I'm trying to say is we need to learn how love each other despite our differences. GOD that sounded sappy here a pick of Steven Universe fan art. See ya next week .

Read More

WONDER WOMAN review (Spoilers ahead kinda )

By Corey Floyd

The DCEU has been terrible. After Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad, the bar has been set pretty low. So when the first trailer for Wonder Woman was released I was skeptical. But then I looked at their casting pick Gal Gadot and here resume is pretty small. But her life is very interesting a  Motorcycle trainer in the Israeli Defense Forces. Seems like she already is Wonder Woman. The movie starts in the present. Showing her working at a museum when all of a sudden a photo is delivered to her from Bruce Wayne. It takes to her homeland and her time as a child. Revealing a land without men and women are just as strong and as fierce as any man. Preparing for the return of Roman God Ares who wants to destroy the world.

There also a cute back and forth with Chris Pine in this film.He plays the infamous Steve Trevor the first man Diana lays eyes on.  It gets cheesy but not too cheesy. There is light humor throughout the movie which is refreshing in comparison to Batman V Superman. Secondary villain Doctor Poison makes an appearance in the film.  Played by Elena Anya last movie I saw her in Was Van Hellsing they gave her a very spooky and mysterious look. Her face badly damaged and covered in a doll-like mask.

 Now I’m not going to talk about Aries cause that will give up too much plot and maybe a twist or to But this was a great film. That being said I have a few tiny bones to pick at. Sometimes the Lasso of truth looks too fake.

I thought it was interesting that they took a few notes from Thor like the obvious fish out of water routine. They did do a personal spin on it that makes it their own and was still enjoyable. They also took a healthy chunk from Captain America.  The present to past setup, World War 1, an evil scientist and a funny ragtag group of soldiers.

I’m just saying. This was a great movie and I want people to go out there and see it. The fact that this movie did not earn as much as DC other two films on opening weekend I find very disturbing. Wake Up!!! Go see Wonder Woman!!!! 

Also our first book is out go to amazon.com 

Read More