squillynerdsout

[squillynerdsout]

This morning I finished getting every achievement in the Arkham games, and I thought I’d share some of my favorite screenshots from Arkham Knight’s photo mode.

[squillynerdsout]

I'm sorry to all of the inconvenienced people in NYC, but I can't stop picturing that problem with the same energy as tourists at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and it's the funniest shit to me

[squillynerdsout]

I'll give you 3 guesses

[squillynerdsout]

No

[squillynerdsout]

♥️♥️

[squillynerdsout]

The Worst Article Ever Made

I've been looking for a way to integrate more general video game content here that wouldn't fit with my Fallout-centric blog @squillyfallsout, and then I stumbled on the worst list article I've ever seen, about the best (as well as the most overrated) games on the PS2.

Featuring such insightful criticisms as:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is overrated because Raiden is in it and the trailers were about Snake (which shows that the writer probably didn't finish the game, because that was a pretty thematically important part of MGS2's narrative and commentary about the world)

Okami didn't sell too well and Capcom didn't give it a true sequel. Therefore it's overrated. No, seriously, that's the argument. Like the meme about why there's no Bible 2 if the first one was so great.

I've never played Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but the comment that there's less than a handful of good movie tie in games is so blatantly wrong it hurts. The Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter games, OG Battlefront II and several other Star Wars games, Spider-Man 2 and Mad Max to name just a few exceptions.

Remember the thing about blatant misinformation I was just talking about? Last time, that could be passed off as a matter of opinion, but the "hot take" on the first Half-Life game is essentially that Halo came out in the same generation and it was better than Half-Life. Halo might be the game that aged more gracefully, but Half-Life was not "from the same generation" just because it had a PS2 port years later.

And for one more spicy take that revolves around missing the point of the game just to bring it full circle, we have Bully.

Yo did you guys know bullying was bad? Crazy. (Also GTA: San Andreas is on this list as one of the best games, I guess they really appreciated the "advocations" in that one. San Andreas is a rad ass game though)

In short, this article will now be my go-to example of why I have long despised the words "overrated" and "underrated".

[squillynerdsout]

Told myself I wouldn't talk about MCU Spider-Man again, but...

Fuckin, chill out you guys.

The timing of all this news is beyond awkward, with D23 showing off the upcoming Marvel shows for Disney+ and a couple of the future movies just days after Spider-Man has (maybe) been removed from the MCU. It sucks, but what do you want Disney/Marvel to be doing? Drop everything they're doing, MCU or otherwise, over it? It sure seems that way, based on the comments of any Marvel post from the last few days.

That last one is particularly annoying, because it's literally just an ad for next week's comics, completely disconnected from the MCU.

It is shitty of Disney to be so tight lipped about the situation, but keep in mind that probably means they're not done dealing with it yet. They'll most likely wait to make a statement until after it's concrete that Spidey will either stay or leave.

One last comment to finish with, I just thought this one was funny.

[squillynerdsout]

What backwards ass dimension did I wake up in where suddenly people feel bad for poor old Disney because they don't have complete control over Marvel anymore?

[squillynerdsout]

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Stephanie Brown becoming Batgirl.

Everyone say happy birthday or drop an F because DC has since fucked her over like every former Batgirl that isn't Barbara Gordon.

[squillynerdsout]

This is Leon and he's my favorite

Every now and then I'll see a comment on a post from the official DC Comics instagram. More specifically this comment.

the12ves, AKA Leon, AKA Mr. Multiculture, AKA Inevitable Man, posts this comment often enough that people will occasionally remember him, but just uncommonly enough that he gets more people who don't know who he is to argue with him every time.

Oh but don't worry, he does hear your arguments and pained groans, and he does respond.

I'm not going anywhere with this, I just wanted to share my new favorite copypasta with you.

Leon Gang

[squillynerdsout]

I swear about once a week I get recommended another article that sounds like it's an exclusive sneak peek at a new costume, and then it's two paragraphs about a movie that may or may not exist, followed by a mediocre Photoshopped image that may or may not actually load.

I've seen enough pictures of Robert Pattinson's mouth plastered on CGI Batman armor to fill a Batcave, please stop writing articles about them.

[squillynerdsout]

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Review)

Spoiler alert I guess, but this cut has been out for a while and it’s not too hard to find.

This movie really left me conflicted. The first half is incredible, up to that point I was thinking this was one of the best superhero movies I had ever seen. The acting was great, the dialogue was witty and genuinely funny when it wanted to be, and the villains were threatening (the scene where Zod makes the president kneel to him really sticks out as a powerful moment). The second half, however, does not measure up.

Starting with the really good parts, a surprise to me was how great of a character Lois Lane was, she’s not just the damsel in distress like I expected from a superhero movie of the time. She was confident, capable, and even manages to outsmart Superman as she tries to prove that he and Clark Kent are the same person. Not to mention the amazing performance from Margot Kidder, who makes Lois such an instantly likable part of the film, and easily my favorite character. For all the shortcomings this movie has, she was consistently great in every scene she was in.

Now onto the plot. I’ll cover the first half quickly since I just really enjoyed it and have very few problems with it. The rest of the movie is gonna take a while, though.

The movie starts back on Krypton as General Zod, Non, and Ursa are unanimously convicted by Jor-El and several judge faces on TV screens that I guess were too good to show up in person. Fast forward to many years later, and a redirected missile frees the intergalactic prisoners and they land on the moon, where they kill some astronauts before making their way to Earth. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor breaks out of prison in the most comedic sequence in the movie, and one of my favorite parts. As the Kryptonians quickly rise to power, Lex tracks them down and offers information about Jor-El’s son in exchange for increasing amounts of land as he helps them more.

While all of that is unfolding, Lois Lane starts to suspect that her cowardly loser of a coworker is also the most powerful man on the planet. After testing her theory in another one of the movie’s funniest scenes, Lois and Clark are put on an assignment in Niagara Falls, posing as a newlywed couple while writing an article. Lois is a huge motivator for Superman throughout the movie, as he falls in love with her while trying to keep his secret identity and wanting her to feel the same way about Clark Kent as she does about Superman. Eventually, feelings are reciprocated, Lois tricks Clark into revealing his double identity to her, and then...

The second half happens.

Clark explains to Holo-Dad that he’s in love with Lois and feels that he deserves some happiness after saving the world from Lex Luthor in the first movie. Jor-El basically tells him he’s a selfish little bitch and that if he wants to be with a human so badly, he’ll have to give up all of his power and become one. He goes ahead and does it, and immediately gets the shit beaten out of him by the local hot dog restaurant bully. Right after that, he sees Zod on TV, saying he wants to kill Superman. He then reveals to Lois that he heard the Kryptonians’ reign of terror developing before he decided to give up his power, but he chose to ignore it so he could be with her.

I get the power of love and whatever, but there’s no way Superman would be aware that three supervillains with all of his powers have come to Earth and obviously plan to destroy it, and then decide to ignore it. He should know better than anyone that no military on the planet is capable of killing 3 Supermen, and the only person smart enough to stand a chance is on their side. Could he really not wait, like, 2 days to make his big commitment to Lois and retire?

Anyway, Superman pleads with Holo-Dad until he gets his powers back and eventually meets up with the villains, and there’s a big explosion-filled battle in Times Square because someone forgot to spread the product placement throughout the movie (the Coca-Cola plugs I didn’t mind too much, but the Marlboro ads just left a bad taste in my mouth, no pun intended. It’s a family-friendly movie about Superman and they’re promoting cigarettes? Really?).

I won’t go on too much about the special effects because it’s a 38 year old movie so of course it hasn’t aged perfectly. Some of the effects actually hold up pretty well, but there are some real stinkers in the Times Square scene especially; the green screening for the villains is particularly laughable. When Superman flies, it still looks believable enough that he’s flying, but Zod and the others just flail around like Pumaman and it looks really bad.

After the Times Square fight, the major characters all have a final confrontation at the Fortress of Solitude, and Superman uses a pretty clever plan to beat them, inverting the machine that took his powers away to instead remove the powers of the Kryptonians outside the chamber and shielding himself inside. It’s a cool idea but then the movie just completely falls apart for me. No, the way he beats them is not as dumb as throwing a big cellophane “S” like he does in the theatrical cut, but it’s still very anticlimactic.

Believing that Superman has once again stripped himself of his abilities, Zod commands him to kneel, take his hand, and swear an oath of surrender. In admittedly a pretty cool moment, Superman crushes his hand when he takes it and throws him into the conveniently placed bottomless pit. In attempt to avenge Zod, Non tries to fly at Superman and kill him, but hasn’t seemed to realize why Zod was so easily defeated. He lunges forward, but since he can’t fly, he just falls to his death in the same pit and it’s a really goofy way for his character to go out. Ursa finally realizes what happened, and then Lois kills her by, well, take a wild guess.

And so, with the Kryptonians defeated and Lex Luthor...somewhere (not still inside the Fortress of Solitude, I hope, since Superman destroys the place with his heat vision. He does weirdly disappear after the Kryptonians die in the Donner cut with no explanation though), Lois and Clark have a heartfelt moment as Superman chooses to sacrifice his relationship to continue being the protector Earth needs. It’s a bit of a downer ending, but I liked how the movie shows Superman accepting the responsibilities of his role and moving forward.

So yeah, the third act kind of lost me at points, but at least it redeemed itself in the end-- OH GOD NO WAIT

Yep, in its last moments, Superman once again turns back the clock to prevent the entire movie from happening. It reminded me of the end of Deadpool 2 when Wade is given the time travel device, and instead of doing anything meaningful with it, he goes back in time to kill Ryan Reynolds twice and save only a single member of his X-Force, although I guess in this movie it’s a little more meaningful, and not fourth wall breaking.

Superman’s plan is to go back to right before Lois became suspicious of Clark being the big blue boy scout and makes a foolish pushover of himself. Then he goes back to the hot dog bully, this time with superpowers, and beats him up. I guess he also prevents Zod, Non, and Ursa from escaping the Phantom Zone, but I just watched the movie and I can’t recall them making as big of a deal out of that as they did with beating up the hot dog bully.

These last few minutes are almost enough to destroy the entire experience of the movie, with an ending no better than if Clark woke up in a cold sweat and realized it was only a dream.

I’ve never actually seen the original cut, but now I’m even more interested in seeing what changes it made to the movie and if its ending was any better. Sorry this was such a long post, this is an interesting movie and I really wanted to talk about it.

[squillynerdsout]

Batman: Curse of the White Knight #1

Hell. Yes.

I'm a big fan of Batman: White Knight, and I think the sequel is already living up to its predecessor. I have no complaints with this first issue at all; the art is as spectacular as ever, the writing is great, and even though it's the first issue of a miniseries, it avoids the all too common problem of wasting time with a drawn out setup. Instead, it jumps right into the plot and blends the moments of setup seamlessly.

It's especially nice to get today as most of the other DC series I've been keeping up with have all gone headfirst into Year of the Villain now, which I honestly couldn't give less of a shit about. I'm glad to have another great series outside of the main continuity to keep my interest while another pointless crossover event comes and goes.

[squillynerdsout]

Come on guys, it wasn't cool when Shazam did it in that trailer a year ago, and flossing was still kind of relevant then.

(For real though i liked this trailer as a whole and I'm excited to see more)

[squillynerdsout]

One rough day and a really good sale on Comixology later, I own (almost) the entirety of Dennis O'Neal's "The Question" run.

So far it's like a cheesy '80s action movie where one cool dude doesn't play by the rules and has a dumb blonde mullet. Very different from the Justice League Unlimited version of him I'm used to, but I won't deny it's still a lot of fun to read.

[squillynerdsout]

Another day, another Joker book revealed, this time by Halloween's John Carpenter. I get the movie is coming out in October and all, but Jesus, do we really need, well...

[squillynerdsout]

Let’s be real, Skyrim is boring until you ruin it with mods.

On my other blog ( @squillyfallsout ) I have a couple more screenshots featuring an X-Wing.