#I love what Toys for Bob did with the trilogy

[doodliver]

doodle 🐲

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp Movie Reviewcap! (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! And we have a special review today for two reasons. The first is that this is my second patreon stretch goal review, having hit the 15 dollar goal back in march thanks to my wonderful friend Emma, the same patreon whose responsible for the Green Eggs and Ham Reviews,  who helped me hit the 15 dollar goal.  As a result you fine people are getting three movie reviews each based on a Disney Afternoon Movie with Treasure of the Lost Lamp today, a goofy movie at the end of the motnh for  a weeklong tribute to my favorite dogmandadguy.  Extremley was going to be part of it but the length of this review convinced me otherwise, but I will be doing it this summer so keep an ear out. If you want to help me hit my next stretch goals do yourselve a favor and zip on over to my patreon YOU CAN FIND MY PATREON HERE. My next stretch goal at “OH Look 20 Dollars” would give everyone patreon and not, a monthly review of Darkwing Duck as decided by my patrons, reviews of BOTH season 2 mini series from Ducktales 87, introducing Fenton to the world and blighting it with Bubba before the 2017 series fixed him, and as a brucey bonus added last month a review of Danny Phantom the Ultimate Enemy. And if that wasn’t enough if you help me get to the goal after that at 25 unlocks another trilogy of disney film reviews, this time for the proud family and recess movie and the best kim possible movie, and dcom period, so the drama as well as Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s two stand alone graphic novels, lost at sea and seconds for you Scottaholics in the audience.

The other reason now the shilling’s done. is that the plan WAS to review this back to back with Treasure of The Found Lamp, to the point the orginal review had a whole thing about that, why it was delayed etc... but now that review’s been scrapped all together as something sudden and wonderful happened. After just kinda giving up someone came through with a translation of Della’s first apperance so presumibly i’ll be doing that as part of the build up to mother’s day, and since I still want ot do maternal instincts too, and already had to let the Floyd Gottfredson birthday special slide away as well... it had to go as I want to leave the only open space on the schedule for the lovely person who found the story for me. But this review is still done, i’m very proud of it so join me under the cut won’t you?

Behind The Scenes: Before I get into it i’d just like to note this article from SyFy Wire. It , along with articles I found via wikipedia citations, was an invaluable resource. 

The film was an experiment: It was an experiment to see if one of their tv properties could bring in theatrical money, to see if a movie made on a cheaper budget and still rake in decent money, to see if a film could be made being outsourced to several diffrent places, and to see what one of those places, their recently aquiried french stuido, could handle this kind of work. 

The film, if succesful would be the first of Disney’s MovieToons line, a series of films based on their shows. As you can tell by the fact only this movie and Goof Troop happened and the Movie Toons label wasn’t applied to that one it very much failed. While the film was warmly recevied by people who liked the show general audiences didn’t turn out for it. As a result the MovieToons label was scrapped, future projects with it were canceled.. but the stellar work put in by the french stuidio lead to it perserviering for several more decades and lead to them working on the Goofy Movie, which we’ll get to later this month but needless to say was a MUCH bigger hit with a much bigger budget. 

As for why the film failed... I have two theories. THe first is that parents were stupid back then and didn’t want to pay to see something on the big screen they could see on tv’s. This is a stupid mentality to me as generally a movie of a tv show puts in a ton of extra effort and usually goes bigger and dosen’t go home. It’s a likely theory given most liscened films of the era didn’t do quite well, with all three hasbro films tanking. And look I get Transformers the Movie is cheesy and killed a lot of people’s childhood toys, but damn if it ain’t aweosme.. and also something I need to cover at some point. Thankfully this died out by later in the 90′s with Rugrats getting a hugely succesful if flawed film, a better sequel and a third one that was also a crossover with the wild thornberries. 

And even now in 2020 we’re getting the Loud House and Rise of the TMNT movies sometimes this summer, we were SUPPOSED to have gotten the bobs burgers movie this summer but arne’t because Disney is being a dick about it.

And we got a phineas and ferb movie last year. With this trend hopefully thsi means we’ll get a Ducktales 2017 movie at some point since season 4 left a huge sequel hook laying right there to grab for a feature film.  One final note: The film was conceptually thought up as a 5 part serial like “Treasure of the Golden Suns”, “Catch as Cash Can”, “SuperDucktales” and “Time is Money, something that DOES show as the movie weirdly has act breaks. In a feature film. Yup. 

The Guest Cast:

I won’t go into the full cast since I’ve sung Alan Young and Russi Taylor’s praises PLENTY on this blog before, and I plan to go into Beakly and Launchpad’s actors when they show up in the pilot movie. But i’d be remiss if i didn’t talk about our three guest actors for our three new parts. 

First up is Merlock voiced by legend and if I had a hall of fame, hall of famer Christopher Lloyd.. I need to get me one of those. Lloyd is of course known for playing Doc Brown in back to the future but has done countless other films, voicework, and other good stuff. Among his MASSIVE filmography includes The Back to the Future Trilogy (Already mentioned it but it bears repeating), Star Trek III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit as the pants destroyingly terrifying Judge Doom, The Addams Family duology as fester, a role rip torn would ironcially play for the animated series made to captalize on said movie, Hey Arnold! The Movie, The Oogieloves in The Big Ballon Adventure (Look everybody needs money sometimes okay?), and Art of the Deal: The Movie, which was not, thankfully an ego filating nightmare made by trump himself but a film made by funny or die parodying his terrible book and having Llloyd return as Doc Brown. TV Wise he’s known for Taxi, Back to the Future the Animated Series, Cyberchase and he most recently popped up on Big City Greens. How I missed that ep I.. do know as I haven’t watched season 2. Gonna fix that later this month. Lloyd is utterly awesome, a great guy and thankfully still alive at the time of this writing, so I was happy to have him here. 

Less familiar to me but still known is Rip Taylor, a comedian known for his flamboyant unique way of speech and his marvelous mustache. He showed up in things occasionally and always seemed like the nicest guy and his passing in late 2019 truly is sad. He does a terrific job here but more on that in a moment. 

Finally we have Richard Libertini, a comedian I never really saw in anything besides this who according to IMDB was most famous for his ablility to do a foreign accent. I REALLY hope all of them aren’t as horribly racist as this one. We’ll.. get to that in a sec as it’s time for the plot!

A Treasure Uncovered:

We open our film gorgeously. The animation is great in the film, having some rough edges I chalk up to the film’s hectic production, the studio being new at working at disney properties, and the film not being meant for HD. That being said a few rough spots here and there aside.. the film looks ungodly gorgeous. Like most theatrical films based on a cartoon it takes an already great style and makes it look great. It feels like a more fluid evolution of the cartoons look and it’s a shame we didn’t get more movies in this style for both this show and others, ESPECIALLY Darkwing Duck. Can you imagine a Darkwing Duck movie with this lush animation? Hopefully we’ll get one eventually. 

So our heroes are going to somewhere in the Middle East. That’s.. that’s all wikipedia gives me and all the film gives me. As usual Scrooge is after treasure in this case the Treasure of Collie Baba, the greatest thief there ever was based obviously off Ali Baba from 1001 nights and that one Beastie Boys song. 

It’s here we find the WORST thing about the film, the thing that makes this a hard one to watch depsite otherwise being pretty good, and that makes my skin crawl knowing i’m a white man and a BUNCH of white guys, Ducktales series creator who did the voice casting for this character, the writers who wrote him, the direector disney them fucking selves who thought this was okay. 

The film has some horrible steroytping. It starts with a bunch of backgorund guys surronding Scrooge, with crooked teeth and steotypical voices. This on it’s own is odious. 

It somehow gets worse. Then we meet one of our antagonists. We meet Dijon. 

This Fucking Guy 

Djon is horribly offensive reminding me of other such luminaries in being ungodly offensive yet somehow getting put to film as Jar Jar Binks (With all respeect to his poor actor Ahmed Best, this is not his fault), Rob Schinder as a Sterotypically asian preist, Skids and Mudflap, Rob Schinder as a sterotypically mexican bandit, The Whitewashed cast of The Last Airbender, and Rob Schinder as a stereotypically asian preist. What i’m saying is Djon is an AWFUL, horribly offensive character.. and that Rob Schinder should be shot up into space, not to watch cheesy movies, he’s not funny enough for that, but instead to be sent to a satlitie that’s liveable, but also filled to the brim with spring loaded boxing gloves. Just tons of boxing gloves that feel like getting punched by a heavewight boxer all hidden... they could hit his legs, his face, his nuts, his face and his nuts, the point is he’s in constnat pain unless he moves carefully. 

And lest you think i’m exaggerating for starters this is his design. 

It just screams “vaugely but sterotpyically middle eastern” along with cowardly. The fact he’s also a literal rat is just the icing on the cake made of broken glass, shrapnel and broken DVD’s of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen. They say if you eat a reveng eof the fallen dvd John Tutoro appears at the foot of your bed and watches you while you sleep.. and by they I mean me. It was a bad bet. I got rid of him with some insese and a bribe of five dollars. 

Oh but that’s just design.. when he talks it’s MUCH worse. His voice is like if they took Apu from the simpsons and said “This but MORE offensive”, and his perosnality is WORSE. He’s a thief.. and not in the endearing loveable rogue way but he’s a pick pocket and a running “Gag’ is that he’ll often grab eveyrthing within reahc. As the deisgn shows he’s a coward running at every opportunity. Oh and to top it all off he’s the willing servant of the white coded, given all ducks in this series are white coded and voiced bby white actors, big bad. And the actor is naturally VERY white to make this cocktail of offensivness so complete that if Disney ever got rid of this film I GUARANTEE the republcian party would be running in with accusations of cancel culture gone amok and never shutting up about this like they did the muppets. Which for the record THEY DIDN’T CANCEL THEM, YOUR POINT IS ILLEGITMATE, THEY JUST WANTED TO BE SENSTIVE YOU GHOULS. 

I do have a reason for bringing up Disney’s content warnings... most damming of all given just how DEEPLY uncomfortbale this character is.. there isn’t one for this movie. I double checked: There isn’t even wanring notes on the website. It’s just.. on there. And given just how ghastly a sterotype Djon is.. that’s not right. Seriously they DID put them on certain episodes of the show, theyk now this sort of thing is wrong and they done wrong.. but for NO reason they haven’t done so for a film released 31 years ago. Around the same time as the series and just offensive as that show at it’s worst if not more so. This is flatly inexcusable.. par for the course for Disney’s incompetence but still horribly furstrating, disgusting and shameful.. which has been the theme of the last three days really. I expect better because when it comes to putting that warning label on this stuff, they usually are better. First the scheduling mixup and now this. You already do a handful of things wrong Disney why add this to the list?!

It’s just draining not only to run into another Disney Fuckup after a weekend of dealing with one of their worst in recent memory, but just to watch Djon. To see this horrible caractrure saunter onto the screen and go on with his harmful schtick, to see that THIS is what Ducktales 87 reduced non white people to more often than not.  It’s remarkable just how throughly and awesomely Frank and Matt completely and totally reversed this. Instead of horrible sterotypes in the reboot, we got TONS of loveable people of color, an endearing latino hero, a smart african american buisness woman who takes no shit but is still a consumate professional, and an egyptian HERO with an intresting story and a strong moral code instead of this horrible reminder that racisim in media was such an afterthought not ONE person brought this up during the scyfy wire stuff or in any inteview i’ve seen. No one cared. Djon was POPULAR enough that he got three episode sin the series. THREE FUCKING EPISODES. This film could be GOOD.. but it’s just so bogged down EVERY FUCKING TIME this artists interpreitation of what Tucker Carlson sees when he looks at a middle eastern person I had to pause to compose myself and had to take a break writing this review to avoid tyiping this in all caps and using the phrase YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS every other sentence. And again i’m white, I get this is second hand offensiveness.. I do... but it dosen’t mean I can’t be offended other white people were so callous about other cultures behaviors this happened.

And what makes me feel worse.. is that I just sorta... never thought about white people voicing non white characters. Things like this I noticed sure, I realize now part of the reason I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it was this alex jones version of a looney tune, but I do feel shame for not noticing or caring long before this. Sure I loved it when a character of color got played by a person of color.. but I didn’t realize just how deep that problem was and how LONG it went on for before the outcry post george floyd and the call to action lead to most shows still going course correcting. It’s why stuff like this extra botehrs me: because THIS was just as okay at the time. No one blinked twice about this and odds are the creators involved still haven’t. And that.. that’s just terrible and it hurts to think about and  I still have most of the movie to go.  

The Pyramid of Peril:

So we do get a gorgeous unvewling scene of a box Scrooge found out about from Collie Baba’s horde that should lead them to the treasure. This scene reminds me of Indina Jones.. and I bring this up because the poster was specifically made to mimick an indinia jones poster, to the point of getting drew struzan to do it. THe creator of Ducktales objected..l but I do not get WHY. While I”m not sure if he had yet, Speilberg flat out admits the Carl Barks comics were an inspiration for Indina Jones, with the iconic bolder chase coming from a similar scene in one of Barks Stories. Gotta cover that too. So yeah I don’t get not wanting an indina jones style poster when both were inspiried by the same work and it’s just simple logic and it looks so neat. Thank you. 

Scrooge finds seemingly just clothes.. and a map. Jeff Dunham’s Most Racist Puppet reports to his master, Merlock. Merlock is a.. meh villian. Christopher Lloyd does try.. but Lock is your standard evil overlord wants to take over the world type. He dosen’t have much depth, or personality and only his style saves him from dragging the film down along with Dana Carvey’s most racist disguise in master of disguise. He does have a deent shape shifting gimick and being played by Christopher Lloyd means he’s acted TREMENDOUSLY. Alan Young was apparently in awe watching him work and that’s wonderful to hear. The guy did his best. Weirdly Merlock would show up in tons of other works, mostly video games.. but even weirder he NEVER showed up in ducktales 2017. Both Djon and Gene would, Djon thankfully renamed we’ll get to all of that tommorow thank god. I need it after this. But Frank has outright said they didn’t use Merlock because there simply wasn’t anything they could do with him they couldn’t dow ith magica. My likely guess is the might of found a way to revamp him EVENTUALLY, it’s not like radical revamps weren’t there thing come on, they just had way more stories with Magica and didnd’t get around to it before the show was canceled. Just make him some sort of evil god or something. it’s what I might do. There’s a lot of angles with him. Though I would’ve still gotten christopher lloyd back. I mean most of the recasting is good but he’s still alive and deserved a better shot at things. 

So Merlock sends Djonn to go with scrooge as his guide to find the treasure, as there’s something of imense power within it. And I gotta ask WHY does Merlock need a minon. No really. This isn’t a situation like reboot magica where he’s trapped in another realm. He can shapeshift into any animal. We only see him use falcon, rat, cockroach and bear but theoritically he can become anything and bear alone is still a LOT. Why does he need this sterotype even other sterytopes ar eashamed of? The film dosen’t NEED Djonn. Just let Christopher Lloyd monologue and leave this post 911 propogranda cartoon at home. 

So our heroes nad rejected jar jar prototype head into the desert, and seemingly find nothing before finding a small pyramid all while Merlock follows desecretley as a mighty hawk. 

Scrooge makes the boys and Djon dig... because they clearly forgot the “work hard” part of his ethos. 

Our heroes unveil the pyramid... and while Merlock SAYS he searched the desert and I get it’s hard to see thourgh all of that.. the dude is immortal, had decades to search and had Mickey Rooney there on standby to force him to go comb the desert. I have an artist rendering of that hang on

So our heroes enter the pyramid and it goes.. really how you’d expect: there’s a bunch of traps our brave explorers have to pass, the boys minintpret a juinor woodchuck saying about loosing your marbles to mean using the ones they actually have which geninely comes in handy as they trip the traps and Rob SChinder as a carrot stumbles into one. Also launchpad is wearing a hawaiin shirt and shades. This has no baring on the plot, but it does bring the movie up a notch in my book and I question why the reboot never used this outfit. Then again they also never properly used Donald’s Quack Pack Outfit (Which bad show or not, is objectively awesome), or his Quack Shot Indiana Jones Riff Outfit, so  it’s not like there isn’t a presdecnt for not giving a character a cool costume change from a previous medium. I really should do a top 12 missed opportunities list for the 2017 cartoon.. the ideas for stuff are really piling up. 

OUr heroes eventually find the treasure which has insidiously clever security the more I think about it: at first I thought it had none, just a pit with some... scorpions? I mean their supposed to be but they look like they crawled out of the same stygian hole in the sky Doofus crawled out of. And if your asking me “wait which Doofus” the answer is both. Both these abominations crawled out of a stygian hole in the sky.

But the treasure is on a platform surrounded by scoprions with the only way out being the trap filled way they came in. Unless someone comes in with a full team and a bunch of lootin sacks, they aren’t getting out with EVERYTHING. They can steal SOME of the treasure but there’s no way to get any signifigant portion... and the team thing itself is an issue, something Collie defintely predicted being a thief himself: while some thieves can work well as a team, hence why we have four oceans movies 3/4 damn good, and for the record 12 is the bad one, 8 is how you do a soft reboot and a female led reboot right, a good chunk of professional crooks will turn on each other or try and swinldle... and tha’ts dangerous in a trap filled temple but hey some criminals ain’t so smart.  If they all were Rudy Gulliani wouldn’t have two razzies for preparing to pull his pants down, and have waved his phone around on tv like a dare for future adminstrations to arrest the shit out of him would he? 

But Scrooge has his family so they get loading. But not before Webby finds the lamp. Not knowing about it Scrooge has no intrest in it, but Webby does. We also get a really simple but hilarious gag where SCrooge dickers over the idea for a second.. before Webby picks up a Jeweled tiara to possibly take instead. The best gags to me are often the ones that just let the character’s perosnalities take the lead and bounce off each other. It’s why when I reviewed the four lilo and stitch crossovers recently I harped on character interaction as their biggest weakness: it’s what MAKES a good work for me. It’s why my faviorite comics and shows often follow a loveable group of disfunctional misfits. I like a group of big personalities who despite in theory should NOT be able to work making it work anyway. And it’s honeslty what’s made Scrooge last so long: Scrooge on his OWN is awesome.. but iwth the boys, donald, and in the case of this series and the reivival Webby and Launchpad, with people to bounce off of who he contrasts heavily with, from Launchapd’s buffonery to Webby’s inehrent sweetness in both versions, to the boys genuine honesty and sense of adventure.... it makes him truly stand out. He’s a great character on his own, don’t get me wrong.. but it’s the people around him that give him chances to show WHY. A good character on it’s own is fine and dandy.. a good character with other good characters around them is where it gets truly special. 

Merlock naturally bursts in and in a VERY Black Heron move needlesly outs what micheal bay sees when he closes his eyes as a bad guy... no really he grabs the guy with his talons as he captures the treasure and reveals he’s a bad guy. I don’t even get why keep Djonn alive. He’s done all Merlock possibly could’ve needed and Merlock is ruthless... this makes no sense and only happens because they need Djonn for later in the plot.

Our heroes barely escape, rafting out on the platform itself in a thrilling sequence.. but it’s the one right after that catches my attention. Scrooge utterly defeated, having searched for this treasure for forty years and unresponsive to everyone else. The anmation, coupled with the incomprable Alan young’s acting makes this the highlight of the film for me. Beneath the armor of wealth and skill.. is only a poor old man who just lost something he’s been chasing after most of his life. Scrooge tries his hardest not to be vunerable and both shows and the original comics all use that so when he truly is devistated like this, and i’ts belivible since this treasure is a personal goal of his and as someone who has had things that they seek out specifically, loosing them always hurts. It hurts to ALMOST reach a goal only to have it crumble out under you

But while this alone is good.. what’s next makes it great. Webby sweetly offers up the lamp. Scrooge turns it down, and her genuine gesture reinvgorates him and reminds us of who he is “I’ll find it if it takes another 40 years”> Scrooge may be bitter, mean and selfish a lot of the time.. but deep down, he’s a good man and one who will not give up, and a momentary setback can only stop him so long as long as he has his family to remind him of who he truly is.. and what’s truly important. It’s genuinely sweet and to me is also a reminder of why 87 Webby is a good character: Shes’ not perfect, her main personality trait is often Girl Sterotype”.. but she’s a genuinely sweet small child with a huge heart. It’s telling that while 17′ Webby is almost completely diffren,t and far better, that heart remains her biggest strength. Sure her reboot self could kill a man nad no one would ever find the body, but it’s her heart and empathy that makes that possible and makes her Webby.  That inherent loving nature is what makes Webby webby wether she’s a toddler having a tea party or a tween getting ready to intergoate a guy with a meat tenderizer while saying ‘Cute girl stuff”. 

Gene Genie Let’s Himself Go:

It’s a few days later and this is the point where it REALLY becomes obvious this was written as a bunch of episodes. Though to the film’s credit while it does ake this feel like a compliation movie as a result... it dosen’t hamper the film’s quality, condiment from Rush Limbaghs’ hot dog stand does that just fine, but once you notice it it’s impossible to unotice it. Weirdly though it seems chunked up into four episodes rather than the usual five, likely cutting down an episode, though I can’t see where they cut out material frankly if they did and i’ts just as likely they woudl’ve had to make one to fill in the space.

So Scrooge is in a mood, being grumpy with his secretary Mrs. Featherly, quackfaster in all but name, and having to be sent home. So while Duckworth goes to fetch him Webby polishes her treasure at long last readying for a tea party, something the boys roundly reject because their sexist little twits and swo were the writers or executies who assumed all little boys act the same. It’s easily my biggest pet peeve with the series as a whole: anytime this crops up with the boys it turns them into the worst dicks imaginable. It’s telling this, being mean about her wantin ga tea party with her surrogate brothersi s TAME. Normally they’ll say she can’t do things because she’s a girl or mock her hobies outright instead of just be mildly dickish. And while she dosen’t look much younger Webby is VERY CLEARLY, in this series anyway, supposed to be say 5 or 6 to the boys 8-10. 7 at most. SHe’s a small child and while it is realistic for older kids to bully younger ones, it’s not fun to watch. It’s why I get annoyed at all the big sibling bully characters.. some work, but most aren’t fun to watch because there’s nothing funny or intresting about it. It’s the same deal here. 

Thankfully that quickly goes away as the lamp moves when Webby rubs it and does so again to prove it did move. Huey finishes it and we’re introduced to Gene, the best part of the film.  Gene is a Genie and he takes a second to dart around before messing with the appliances in the kitchen, as he was last around during the time 1001 Nights Came About. Cleverly though, and so we thankfully don’t have 80 dozen fishout of water jokes that have already been done before. As you can probably guess i’m not a huge fan of time travel fish out of water stuff. Now from another dimensoin or planet, i’m on board with with Star Vs, Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan being great examples of this, as is the comic resident alien. (Despite having the wonderous Alan Tuduk the show sounds way more mean spirited and misses the entire point of the comic as given by the author in the credits, i.e. that the alien is supposed to NOT be a threat and just be gently waiting for a ride) The inverse is also good with Amphbia and owl house, taking a human and plopping them into our world. But time travel stuff just usually runs the same beats of “look at the shiny thing” and what not. The only time i’ve sene something SIMILAR work is with thor where their society is SIMILAR to vikings time but still it’s own thing.. it also gave us a classic gag in..

So yeah i’m glad they dropped this and instead had a clever way around it: Gene reads the encylopedia at the mansion. Granted it’s Scrooge so I don’t know how current it is and given this came out in 1990 thus HOW racist it is. It’s not a questoin of IF it was, but how much.

But having caught up the kids confront him with the fact he has to grant wishes. This lamp runs on what I now realize are Aladdin rules: Whoever currently holds the Lamp is the Genie’s master, they only get three wishes, and that dosen’t reset if it changes hands. The only big diffrence from the usual is Gene dosen’t have to TELL them about the wishes like Genie did, and Gene very begrudginly agrees to it. He also seem’s phsyically pained when doing so. 

So since all 12 know about him, each of the kids gets a wish though it seems unfair with HDL. Their one person, they shoudln’t get 9 wishes just because their brain is spread out over three bodies. 

This film continues the weird simliarties to Aladdin by attaching rules though they instead come up as a result of our heroes talking rather than the Genie just flat out tleling them: both share the “you can’t wish for more wishes” thing, a common rule in these stories and usually only broken nowadays as a clever twist as the rule is SO common place, not having it is a twist. But it is there for a reason: to limit the sheer power of a reality warping wish. The wishes can also only go so far. In a nice line, when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests wishing for peace one earth, Gene says “No pipe dreams’ He can’t bend people or reality on THAT scale. He can bend reality as we find out, but it’s smaller scales like turning someone’s possesions over ot someone else, warping the bin into a castle, or bringing inanitamte objects to limited life. Still HUGE feats worth of a genie, so Gene’s power isn’t so nerfed it’s unusuable, but it does explain why his evil pervious ownder Merlock, more ont hat in a bit too, didn’t just wish to have eternal dominon over the earth or something. Gene can do just about anything but he can’t change the world on a fundemental level. 

And I do LIKE having rules in wished based stories like this, I chalk it up to growing up with Fairly Odd Parents... though they eventually went too far in the oppsoitie direction, pulling rules out of their ass to suit the episode, instead of simply having some very standard, very understandable rules that still pose challenges but don’t outright cheat so the episode can happen. 

So Webby does her first wish.. and wishes for a Baby Elephant, something Gene is against as he prefers they keep the wishes small: otherwise he gets found out, and the fight over him begins. So one of the boys wishes him away. Or Webby does. Point is it’s gone though not before Beakly sees it and Scrooge smells something is up. Our heroes try to hide gene, but gene thankfully simply dresses up like a modern kid and thus is able to pass as a friend of there staying for the night. 

So with the rules established and what not the kids find a clever solution: they simply go a ways away from the mansion into the woods, far enough from town to avoid any suspcion, and same iwth the mansion and just wish for all kinds of stuff: a giant bunch of ice cream toys, standard kid wish fufillment but it’s nice... in part because the kids treat Gene like one of them. Wihle they STARTED asking him about the wishes, this starts the bonding process. Soon he will be part of the hive mind.. SOON. 

Until then though after using another wish to make scrooge not mad at them for coming home late and missing dinner, that night we find out Gene’s backstory.... and it’s an utter tearjerker. As it turns out Merlock wants him back because he’s Gene’s former master and as you’d guess.. it was NOT a happy existnace, used contstnatly to do horrible things with no power to stop himself. Pompeii and Atlantis were both directly Merlock’s fault and it was only Collie Baba stealing the lamp that put an end to his hell. He also answers the two obvious questions botht he audeiince and the boys have: How the hell is Merlock still alive and shoudln’t he be out of wishes then? The first is simple. Unlike pretty much every DBZ Villian whose WANTED to do so, Merlock wished for immortality first chance he got, taking the Zamasu route instead and thus leaving him free. 

As for the wishes thing it turns out his amulet, in adition to shapeshifting, also gives him extra wishes becuase fuck it. 

But the boys sweetly offer to protect him. 

The next day, Apu’s Cousin let’s Merlock know the maps in the mansion and Merlock has him help sneak in with Merlock taking rat form. This backfires as Mrs. Beakley notices the form and chases after him with a broom

Meanwhile Webby has her tea party with Gene after he and the boys played cops and robbers earlier, and he’s bored.. though nicely not because it’s a girly thing, but because the stuffed animals aren’t alive and she naively has him fix that. This leads to 

Which sadly is jsut scrooge vs a duck toy but admit it, you want that movie for Disney Plus yesterday. Call Charles Band Disney. CALL CHARLES BAND! 

Whelp Scrooge Still Sucks:

Scrooge takes for a turn for the obnoxious in the next part, but i’ts fine by me as it’s part of the plot. Naturally this reinactment of Cult of Chucky has lead to Scrooge finding out about the Genie. To his credit, Scrooge is tactical about his wishes. As said by the Duck himself “I could wish for a diamond, no the world’s biggest dimaond, no ten world’s biggest diamond, no a diamond mind, no the MINING INDUSTRY!”

The sheer power this gives him is TERRIFYING, both because of his status.. and because unlike the kids who all wished for simple kid stuff and used up their wishes quickly, he both gets how much he can do with this and could conquer the world economy if he truly wanted to. 

The obnoxious part comes in as he treats Gene as not a person, figuring he’s just there and forces him into the lamp despite the kids protests after Gene grants his first wish: Collie Baba’s treasure. It also dosen’t feel like the wishing nor him using the lamp to get the tresure back goes against his hard work ethos: for the former while he is getting all this magically, he’s still having ot use his wits to get the most out of it, and he did earn the lamp itself square. For the latter, he already earned the treasure square too and had it stolen. He’s onlyg etting back what’s by all rights HIS. Granted he plans on giving most of it up for a tax break but still it’s his by right. 

However the reason his assholery works is twofold: first it’s Scrooge. While he’s not a TERRIBLE person, in the comcis and this cartoon he isn’t a GOOD person either. He DOES have a good heart and will usually do the right thing, but his first instnct is always to get more money and to be a cantakerous old bastard to eveyrone and everything. While he’s subtly grew out of “I hate eveyrone and everyone hates me” as his guiding principal, it’s still his defualt reaction to most situations. But he first relents by letting Gene attend the party, part of why the Collie Baba thing stung so bad was that he’s told the historical society he’d get the treasure for years only to come back empty handed, if shrunken. But he still manages to have a good time while Asok and Merlock infiltrate.. well I’mRunningOutofINsultingNIcknamesCanYouTell steals the silverware. Yes... that.. that really happens. 

Look we’re almost done, i’m almost free of this racist mummies curse. Let’s continue. Gene sees melock and freaks and drags SCrooge with him and while at First Scrooge is cranky...

No but now I want a Donkey Kong Country crossover too dammmit. And to talk about those games. Another thing for the list. But Scrooge is righ tot be a bit surly...

Okay now your just pushing it. As Gene whisked him away without telling him anything other than vauge worries... but then he gets a full idea of why Gene’s so terrified when Merlock shapeshifts into a bear and starts breaking the door down. Eh, could be worse. 

Gene shrinks them to escape and Merlock leaves thinking they fled but leaves Skids Minus Mudflap to go look for them. Scrooge sneaks out but bumps into a cart running from the photo you see when you look up stereotype on google. I mean I assume.. let’s try it. 

Huh you know I HOPED but I never expected... 

So Google Proving My Point plans to give his lamp to the master because of his weird Torgo-Esque obession with helping a man who clearly wants to murder him but takes his sweet time doing so because plot, and Gene figuring this COULDN’T POSSIBLY go as bad as Melock getting him urges the dummy to keep him and make his own wishes.

This goes about as well as you’d expect....

Wiped Out With A Wish:

Scrooge returns home to find Watto has wished to take his poessions, fortune, everything and Scrooge gets thrown in jail for breaking into his own house. We get two great moments back to back. The first is Scrooge lamenting loosing his fortune in jail, and realizing the sheer power and risk of the lamp, especially since he worked hard to earn it, every bit of it.. and Sam Wilson’s 70′s Backstory came in and took it all in an instant. 

The second is Scrooge’s family coming for him, including Launchpad , Beakly and Webby obviously and bailing him out. Though Beakly is UNGOLDLY annoying in this scene, sobbing hysterically and adding nothing and it’s not nearly as funny as the  film thinks. Turns out Goliath getting buried wrapped in chains threw them out. 

Scrooge takes a bit to rebound from all this.. but eventually realizes something: he knows the security of the bin inside and out. He had it put in after all. So it’d be easy enough to break in. So they gotta break in to break out the lamp, undo this nightmare, and END THIS MOVIE. Seriously this review has taken two days  as is I do NOT want to miss my invincible review. 

So they break into the bin, and it’s a tightly paced Scene, scrooge going in one way while the kids go the other and we even get a nice callback as the marbels come in handy to get past one of the traps. It’s just a good scene. it’s only real flaw is that Launchapd just sorta disappears as does Duckworth despite the fact their in a plane, and the bin later gets turned into a floating castle. Kinda a plot hole to not have Launchpad crash in to save htem just saying. 

Scrooge eventually does get to Djonn, whose been ignoring the imminent threat of Merlock while Gene sweats it out... and this backfires horribly as Merlock hitched a ride as a roach (Though there was a hilarious scene of him getting fried constnatly by lasers when Louie went through a laser hallway, as while Louie had the directions, it dind’t take into account passengers on your head. 

So Merlock remanifests in full gets the Lamp and unleashes his wrath on Tin Tin in the Congo and turns him into a wild pig. 

Not you sweetie. He then forces Gene to turn the castle into a fortress and float it back to his home in parts unknown. It’s a DAMN cool scene with impressive and horrifiing animation as the bin melts and crumbles into thte castle and the kids barely make it up the stares as they shift and disolve. Really top notch stuff.

Scrooge stands up to Merlock... and this naturally goes poorlyw ith Gene begging Merlock not to respond.. and Merlock having him blow scrooge off the top of the forgtess storm eagle style, though scrooge understands. And this is the true reason why scrooge being a dick didn’t bother me so much. Because it helps create a great contrast between him and Merlock. Both thought of Gene as a tool rather than a person.. but Scrooge grew to realize he was wrong and what he was dealing with wasn’t some magical goodies creator.. but a child forced to constantly grant wishes, in sheer agony to do so no less, likely so sick of it because again and again and again people used him as a slave to get what they wanted and to hell with what Gene wanted. He realized he was terrible for making this poor boy into his slave simply because that’s his job. In contrast Merlock could give no shits and is a malevolent monster who glefully uses Gene despite the pain the wishes put him through and his protests. It’s why Gene is the best part.. he’s  athroughly likeable, throughly inncoent character with tons of personality and a truly tragic and horrifying backstory and Rip Taylor acts the hell out of every scene with the guy. 

Thankfully the marbles come in handy one last time and Huey, Dewey or Louie snipes the lamp away and a struggle for it insues between Scrooge and Merloc mid air. it’s fucking awesome.. and it get sbetter in how scroogewins. He simply gets rid of Merlock’s amulet, taking it then throwing it. Grante dhe COULD’EVE used it for unimited wishes.. but it was too risky to do that and as we’ll see in the ending , Scrooge realized the Lamp was too powerful to keep around for much longer and too much of a tempting target for his rogues.. not that we see them this movie as the crew wanted it to bea ccesaible and thus kept hte cast to the main cast from season 1 and just made new vilians and a new supporting character, but still. 

He does use his second wish though to undue the damage Merlock had done and the bin and clan mcduck are returned to duckburg in good condition.

Time for our ending, which is genuinely and wholly touching. With the lamp too dangerous to use Scrooge considers just sending it to the earth’s core, which horrifies the kids as it’d mean Gene would be trapped there forever... if the molten lava iddn’t just outright destory the lamp and probably kill him. But Scrooge.. isn’t the bastard he likes to potray himself as. Instead he makes Gene into a real boy. He gives the poor kid HIS wish, which designrates the lamp and undoes all the spells... so Merlock is PROBABLY dead but he does return for some games so maybe not? 

And so we end on two things: Gene happily playing cops and robbers with the boys finally free.. and Birth of A Nation grabbing all the loot he can in his patns and running off. Ha ha ha thank god i’m done with this prick. And no I will not be looking at his ducktales episodes unless I have to. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is OKAY. It has a solid plot, gene is a wonderful chacter, the animatoin is pretty prettay pretty good, and the voice acting as usual is excellent, with Rip Taylor being the standout. 

But as my paragraphs of rage shoud’ve made Clear Djonn is just BAD. Easily the worst character i’ve encountered in my year of reviewing and some of the worst writing i’ve ran into. And that writing includes a goblin man voyerstically forcing two teenagers to make out, making jokes about santa renaming himself Clem the sceneafter he tearfully confessed to letting the elves and ms. claus die, accidental transphobia via the u-men, and Bryan Lee O malley thinking we needed more than one volume of Julie Powers being around.  This was disgusting, even by 1990 standards and especially by 2021 standards and it drags the film down considerably. Without it the film is okay.. with it the film is just VERY hard to watch any time he pops up.  He made getting through the movie a nightmare and while I pause a lot becaue it’s a bad habbit I did so more simply because as I said earlier in the review I could not stand him. 

It makes it a hard film to recommend. If you can stomach the racisim, then it might be worth it, but be aware of what your putting up with going in. But if you can’t.. there’s no shame in that, it’s carbombya levels of bad. Which yes was a real fictoinal country. It was so bad Casey Casem quit transformers over it. True story. So yeah, it’s an okay film, on par with the series at it’s best for the most part.. but Djonn just spoils it for me. 

If you liked this review, like it, share it around that sort of thing and if you want MORE disney movie reviews, in addiiton to the goofy movie one later this month, if you help me hit my 25 dollar stretch goal on patroen.com/popculturebuffet, i’ll do reviews of the Recess, Proud Family and Kim Possible MOvies (Well so the drama anyway), so help me out would you and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

[heyyyharry]

Chapter 10: Darlings

(from the Flatmate Trilogy: Two Hearts, One Home)

…in which Harry is excited but Y/N is worried.

Word count: 4.4k

Chapter 9: Three’s A Crowd - Harry learns a big lesson, and Y/N cannot tolerate his assistant.

Wattpad link

A/N: Please enjoy and spam my inbox. - Allie.

.

.

.

Y/N was pregnant.

The doctor had confirmed it. A pregnancy test stick had confirmed it. The morning sickness had confirmed it. So it was official. She was now positively pregnant.

Before all of this, she had been devastated and almost depressed thinking she and Harry might not have children of their own. Now that the universe had given them one, she fell into a state where she was constantly afraid and anxious. She'd blame it on the hormones and the way her body was changing. The baby was probably not even...a baby yet, and she had already come up with a bunch of different scenarios where she turned out to be an awful parent. It was not until now that she realized how strong her sister had been for bringing up baby Eleanor on her own. Y/N was lucky to have a loving husband, her family, and supportive friends by her side.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!"

Harry burst right through the door. He had just got back from work, still in his suit, and his face was white. But what he found was just Y/N and Layla sitting on the bed, blinking at him.

"Who just screamed?!"

"Layla did," said Y/N with a beam. "I just told her the news."

"I cannot believe I'm about to be a godmother!" Layla punched the air and then drop her smile to give Harry a questioning look. "Wait...why are you holding a frying pan?"

Y/N was in hysterics when her husband lowered his frying pan and rolled his eyes. "I didn't have time to choose my weapon when I heard you scream. I thought my babies were hurt."

"Ew?!"

"Not you, Layla. I meant Y/N and our actual baby."

Layla ignored him and turned back to Y/N. "He's gonna be using plural nouns from now on, isn't he?"

"He's been doing that since the doctor visit." Y/N gave her best friend a shrug and automatically lifted her face for Harry to kiss. Layla sighed in contentment as she watched them.

"I'm so excited for you guys and also for me! When I was little, I always wanted to be Cinderella and now, I, Layla Scott, is about to be the fairy godmother."

"Who says anything about—" All it took was one fierce glare from Layla for Harry to change his opinion in a heartbreak. "Yes! You're gonna be the best godmother! No doubt!"

"I'm sorry baby Styles," Layla leaned down and whispered to Y/N's nonexistent baby bump. "Your daddy's a fake."

"Well, your aunt Layla's a bully."

"Godmother! Ugh!"

Smirking as Layla jokingly flipped him off, Harry dropped his head to give Y/N a few more pecks, one hand under her chin, the other on her belly. "I'm gonna take a shower now. You ladies have fun without me."

"Don't worry," Layla gave him a lopsided grin. "We always have fun without you."

"Dick."

"Pussy."

"Real mature guys. I can totally see myself trusting you two with this child." Y/N snorted as Harry walked out with his 'weapon' after giving Layla a mocking face.

"Love you, darlings," he said. "And that plural noun doesn't include Layla!"

"Thank you, asshole!" Layla shouted at the closed door, making Y/N laugh even harder.

"He's very excited," Y/N said now that her husband was gone. Though smiling, the girl was subconsciously fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. And even such a little action couldn't get past Layla's eyes.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you upset?"

"What? I'm not!" Y/N scrunched up her face. "I'm perfectly fine."

"You don't look fine though. You blink a lot when you lie."

"I do not!"

"Here she goes again." Layla scoffed. "I don't get it though. You're finally pregnant. Harry's falling more in love with you, I didn't think it was possible, but I was just proven wrong." She stuck out her bottom lip and lifted her shoulders. "So maybe instead of looking constipated the second he turns away, you should be happy."

"I'm not unhappy, I'm just..." Y/N paused to search for the right word and then went with, "worried." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "what if I'm a terrible mother? What if Harry's the favorite parent and I'm the one my kid lies to and keeps secrets from? What if we're both terrible and our kid hates us?!"

"The kid's not even in there yet and you're already freaking out about him or her going through puberty?" Layla breathed as her eyes rolled upward. "Look, I don't hit pregnant women. But I'll slap the shit out of you if you say that again, ya hear me? This isn't you talking. This is the pregnancy hormones. Your anxiety isn't real, okay?" Quickly, she grabbed Y/N's shoulders and signaled the girl to copy her as she inhaled deeply and let go of that breath.

"Feel better?" she grinned. Y/N nodded once, looking less uneasy now. "Good. Just know that we're all here for you. You're gonna be fine."

As it turned out, Layla was right.

Soon the weekend arrived, and the young couple had grown used to the new rhythm of their life. Y/N had been paying more attention to her diet and taking vitamins regularly, so she didn't feel as terrible as she had for the first few days. This morning, Harry had a meeting with a client, so he wasn't there when she woke up. He'd left her breakfast on the kitchen table with a note saying he loved her and would miss her terribly until he came home. After everything that'd happened to them, he was making more effort to make sure she knew how much she meant to him. It began to feel like those college days again, and she wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

"Nope, I won't do it!"

"I'll pay you."

"You haven't even paid me for catsitting Tiger!"

Y/N brought Treasure toward Nam's desk and couldn't help but overhear his little argument with Stephanie. While the blonde was rambling on, Nam seemed pretty annoyed. That wasn't at all surprising, because Stephanie's only talent besides being a bitch, was being an annoying bitch. Y/N supposed it was mean to think about her neighbor like that. But that woman deserved to be called a bitch after all the things she'd said and done.

"Y/N!" Stephanie grabbed Y/N by the arm the second she saw her. "Tell him to babysit my niece for me!"

"Oh, now you're gonna drag Y/N into this?" Nam laughed wryly as he took the white cat from Y/N's arms. "Even if you promised me a fortune, the answer would still be no. I already know I wouldn't get a single penny from you. At least Treasure's parents pay me well."

Treasure meowed softly as he stroked her head. "Do you agree, my little furry baby? Tiger's parents are stingy white people, aren't they?"

Stephanie rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms. "Well, cats, children, they're all the same."

"Well, thank God, you're not a mother." That was meant to be an insult, but Nam had unintentionally given Stephanie a new idea.

Her eyes lit up as she turned to Y/N. "Since you're about to be a parent, would you like some practice?"

"Oh, no! Leave Y/N alone!"

Stephanie completely ignored Nam as she went on before Y/N could say anything. "Don't worry, my niece's a good kid. Her parents go away on business trips all the time so she's very independent. All you need to do is to keep an eye on her until her mum picks her up."

"How old is she?"

"Y/N, you're not actually considering this!" Nam cried out.

Y/N gave him a shrug as she pursed her lips. "Tomorrow's Sunday, so why not? And I'm also good with kids."

"That's the spirit!" Stephanie smacked her on the arm, causing the poor girl to flinch. "She's five. The sweetest five-year-old you'll ever meet! Her name is Darling."

Y/N saw Nam hug Treasure and turn away as he muttered something, probably cursing Stephanie. But this time, it wasn't Stephanie's fault. Y/N simply thought this was a great opportunity for her and Harry to practice being parents. It was never too soon to get prepared for such a big change in their life.

Besides, with a name like Darling, the girl must be an angel. Now Y/N couldn't wait to talk to her husband about their new plan for Sunday.

.

.

.

"Babe, I still think you're really overthinking this."

"I'm not," Y/N shouted from the living room as she checked her watch. "Would you just hurry up?! We're gonna be late."

"Relax! They literally live just across the hall!" he said and finally stumbled out of their bedroom.

She stared at him, lifting an eyebrow in amusement. "Why are you carrying your laptop?"

"I gotta check my emails." He chuckled and pressed his lips to her temple. "Come on, babe. Let's go fake-parenting."

Laughing, she reached out to hold his hand.

They had never been in Mason and Stephanie's flat and had never intended to set foot in there, unless it was the only safe place in a zombie apocalypse. So when they entered 'the devil's home' for the very first time, their jaws nearly dropped to the floor.

The place was much cleaner and tidier than they'd imagined. Harry had often joked about his cousin's flat looking like a porn movie set, with sex toys hanging on the walls and adult magazines lying all over the place. At least that was how he imagined porn movie sets would look like. However, the flat was actually decent. Y/N amused herself with the thought that, those who had never met Mason and Stephanie would think they were a basic white couple named Kevin and Barbara, who baked cookies and went to church every Sunday. Lesson learned: never judge a book by its cover.

As Y/N went into the kitchen to check what Stephanie had left for them in the fridge, Harry made himself comfortable on the couch (after having made sure there wasn't a cum stain on it) and opened his laptop. They waited for about fifteen minutes when the doorbell rang, and Y/N rushed to it with a big smile on her face. She opened the door and was greeted by a tall woman slightly older than her.

"Hi! You must be Mary!"

"And you must be Y/N, the babysitter!" The lady returned a smile as she fixed her bucket hat that covered most of her bobbed blonde hair. Then, she turned back to call her daughter who was still idling in front of the lift. "Darling, come here, baby!"

The five-year-old pouted as she crossed her arms and waddled toward her mother and Y/N. She was as adorable as the image Y/N had created in her mind, with big bright eyes and brown straight hair that fell right past her tiny shoulders. The ladybug backpack she was wearing was too big for her body that it made her look even smaller. She could be the baby girl Y/N had always wanted. But then again, she shouldn't be. The girl might look like an angel, her attitude, however, said the opposite. Her little round face contorted as she shot Y/N a spiteful glare. Why?! They had only just met!

"Hello, Darling." Y/N crouched down with both hands on her knees despite the unwelcoming reaction. "My name's Y/N. And that—" she pointed at Harry who raised his hand and gave the child a wave "—is my husband, Harry. We're your babysitters for today!"

Darling looked at Y/N, and then Harry, and then back to Mary. She repeated that one more time before telling her mother, "please pick me up on time, mummy. Don't leave me too long with these strangers."

The mother gave a startled Y/N an apologetic grin before turning back to the child. "Of course," she said. "But you gotta promise to be nice and listen to Y/N and Harry, okay?"

Darling looked annoyed as she crossed her arms, still, she replied with a nod, said goodbye to her mum and followed Y/N into the living room.

"Okay." Y/N breathed as she shut the door. "Why don't we just start by getting to know each other?"

Darling shrugged off her backpack and spoke with a straight face, "I want to color."

"Oh, okay." As Y/N plastered a smile on her face, Harry was biting his knuckles so he wouldn't crack up. "I'll get us some paper and we'll color together—"

"I said I, not we."

"Wow..." Y/N heard her husband say, but she was too stunned to react. The kid hadn't broken that intense eye contact with her that made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

She swallowed hard, nodding her head. "S-sure. Why don't you wait on that couch with Harry?"

Darling didn't reply and dragged her backpack toward the couch to sit on the other end, as far away from Harry as she could. Now that his wife had left, Harry thought he should start a conversation to get to know this child. But before he could come up with anything to say, Darling was the one who broke the silence.

"Why do you wear so many rings? Are you married to many women?"

"No!" The man laughed, his eyebrows pulled together. He didn't know why he was nervous talking to this five-year-old when he'd never found it hard to speak to a girl before (Y/N had been a special case). He stuttered for a moment before adding to his answer, "this is my wedding band, see?" He showed her his ring finger, smiling proudly. "This is the only ring that matters."

He thought she would react in a different way, a more childlike and positive one. However, what he got was a hardened expression that seemed like she was silently judging him.

"Are you lying because you think I'm a child so I don't know what cheating is?"

He arched an eyebrow in doubt. "Do you know what cheating is?"

"Yeah, aunt Steph taught me that word," she said casually. "Cheating is when a husband or a wife sleeps with another person that's not their wife or husband."

"Jesus Christ!" His eyes widened as he straightened his back. "She taught you that?!"

"Yeah." Darling nodded once. "But I think she's wrong, because what if you want to have a sleepover with your friends? You have no choice but to sleep with them, right?"

"Right." He chuckled nervously.

Y/N soon returned with some paper, and Harry didn't think he'd ever felt so relieved. Talking to that girl was like being interrogated by the police. He'd never been interrogated by the police before, but in his imagination, this could probably be worse. He took advantage of Darling being distracted by her paper and crayons to drag Y/N to the kitchen, telling her to keep her voice down.

"Harry, we are not having sex while there's a kid in the other room!"

Her reaction made him chuckle as he held her arms. "Who says anything about sex?"

"I'm not sucking your dick either."

"I may be horny for you all the time, but I know my limits. I'm only here to tell you that the child scares me."

"Don't you think it's a little too late for that?" she asked, pointing to her belly.

"No, I mean Darling!"

"You mean what?"

He exhaled and rolled his eyes, but still found the little misunderstanding hilarious. "I was talking about Darling, the little girl."

"Just call her 'the little girl' from now on to avoid confusion."

"Got it." He snorted and proceeded to tell her about their previous conversation in the living room, adding, "I haven't seen her smile, isn't that strange?"

Y/N gave him a shrug. "Maybe she's a mini Wednesday Addams."

"Maybe she's a mini Layla."

"Okay, that's funny."

Harry tried to look as serious as he sounded but his own joke amused him. Smirking, he went on, "I bet she's out there drawing a picture of the two of us with our heads cut off."

"Harry, you're overreacting. She's only a baby," Y/N said and kissed him on the cheek.

Other than being an emo five-year-old, Darling was actually a good kid. She had been quiet the entire time while working on her drawings. She was using a lot of red, which reminded Y/N of what Harry had said earlier, and now she was afraid to see what those 'works of art' were about.

Soon it was lunch and Darling stopped coloring as she told Y/N she was hungry. Y/N wanted to be a good soon-to-be-mother, so she asked her husband to play with Darling while she made some sandwiches for the three of them.

"No, wait, I'll do it!"

Before Y/N could protest, Harry had already dashed into the kitchen. She knew he couldn't cook to save his life but didn't want to fight him on this, so she sat back on the couch and let him be their chef. It would take forever until they had something to eat if at all. So while waiting, Y/N used Harry's laptop to go on YouTube. Just when she thought she could finally relax and watch some funny cat compilations, Darling's loud squeal made her head turn shot up.

"What happened, dear?" Y/N put down the laptop and came to see what was wrong.

The little girl stuck out her bottom lip, her eyes welled up as she held the red crayon now broken in half in her little palm. Y/N squatted on the floor with her elbows on her knees as she gave Darling a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, you can still color with that."

"It's broken."

"Yeah but..." Y/N took the two halves, each in one hand. "Now you have two red crayons."

"Half a crayon doesn't make a new crayon."

"Who told you that?" Y/N asked, her eyebrows rose.

Darling pursed her tiny heart-shaped lips as she thought for a moment. She was probably trying to decide if she should tell Y/N what she'd never told anyone. Eventually, she confessed, "aunt Steph told mummy that mummy and daddy's marriage was a broken crayon. You can still color with it, but it'll make the picture ugly and messy."

Y/N was frozen by those words. A little girl should not have heard something like that about her parents, ever. Feeling a big lump in her throat, she tried to search for the right thing to say to Darling. It was only then that she looked around at the paintings scattered on the carpet. They weren't what she and Harry had assumed. They were just awful, messy, childish drawings of what any child would view as a happy family. Darling had used a lot of red to draw the hearts. There were so many hearts surrounding her, her mother and her dad. She'd even used that red color to cross out the face of another woman standing in the background, who, Y/N believed, was her father's mistress. That explained why she'd thought Harry was cheating. Her dad had done it, maybe all the men would too.

"Here." Y/N picked up one half of the red crayon as she sat down, crossing her legs. To Darling's confusion, she took a new sheet of paper and began to draw.

She'd been told by her niece Eleanor and Jamie, the boy she used to babysit during college, that she was good at drawing. That was what she loved about children. You didn't have to give it your best shot and they would still think you were extraordinary, simply because you were an adult. And she was right. Darling's mouth had formed an 'o' shape as her eyes followed every single movement of the crayon sliding across the paper. She was in awe to see Y/N quickly sketch a house with a nice garden, the fences, some trees, even a swimming pool. Y/N finished her 'masterpiece' with a family of two, a little cat, and an arrow pointing to the woman's belly as she wrote down the word 'BABY'.

"So this..." She sighed happily now that her work was done. "This is my family," she said, pointing to the picture. "This is Harry, this is me, and you can't see the baby because the baby's in my belly."

"Does your house look like this?" Darling asked, her eyes went round. It was the first time Y/N had seen her act like an actual five-year-old. And there was something so endearing about that. This was when Y/N's maternal instinct kicked in, she felt her heart flutter in a way that she'd only experienced when she was with Harry.

"Nah, we live right across the hall," she told Darling. "But this is our dream house."

"Why don't you buy it? It has a pool and everything!"

"We'll buy it someday. Right now, we want to stay here to be close to work and to our friends."

Darling clasped both hands in front of her chest. "Can I come visit when you finally buy this house?"

"Sure, love." Y/N nodded and handed her one half of the crayon. "Wanna draw yourself in?"

"Can I?!" she exclaimed with excitement, smiling from ear to ear. That was the first smile to be seen on her, and Y/N felt so proud knowing she was the reason for it.

"Sure, babe. You can put yourself next to me and the baby."

Harry finally returned with three (slightly burnt, but still edible) grilled cheese sandwiches. After having struggled in the kitchen for half an hour, he was now considering signing himself up for a cooking class so he wouldn't depend too much on his pregnant wife. But maybe he'd save this talk for later, because his mind went blank the moment he saw his wife...laughing with mini Layla.

"H-hey guys," he spoke, catching the girls' attention. "What...what are you guys doing?"

"Darling drew a picture of us. Wanna see?"

"Is my head still attached to my body?"

"Harry!"

"Alright, alright. Coming."

He put the plate down on the table and sat down with the girls on the floor. His reaction was the same one as Y/N had before when he saw what Darling had been drawing the entire time. It was far different from the horrendous scenario he'd painted in his head.

Excited, the girl stood up and raised her artwork to show it to her two audiences. "So this is you, this is Y/N, this is the baby. I made it a girl because I want a little sister."

Harry chuckled but Y/N shushed him so Darling could finish her presentation, "and this is me, the babysitter."

"She volunteered to be our babysitter," Y/N told her husband before he could ask.

"Told ya she's a mini Layla," said Harry as he waggled his eyebrows, making Y/N giggle and pushed him away.

For the rest of the afternoon, things had gotten much better for Harry and Y/N. They played a few games (that was how Harry discovered he gave great piggyback rides) and did some more coloring. Since Harry had accidentally ruined one picture by coloring outside the lines, the girls threatened to take away his crayons, but eventually agreed to let him color the insignificant details like the trees and the flowers in the background. Honestly, that was the most therapeutic activity he'd done in a long time. He didn't even bother to check his emails and chat with his clients and employees. All he cared about was this happy moment with his wife and their play-pretend family of three.

In nine months, this all would be real.

.

.

.

"I told you it'd be worth it," Y/N said contently as she followed Harry into their flat.

Darling had just left with her mum, who had been so surprised when her daughter appeared with a massive grin and showed her the picture she'd drawn with half a crayon. Y/N hoped Mary had understood and would try to do better for her little daughter. That was what that child deserved.

"I love to see you so happy," said Harry as he hugged her from behind, kissing the spot right below her ear as she held his face. "Told you you'd be a great mum. You've been acting like my mum since the first day we met."

She rolled her eyes, a corner of her mouth turned up. "I just realized that the personality of the child depended a lot on her parents' relationship."

"That's right." He nodded, holding her stomach with both hands. "Our baby's gonna be an angel, because we're in love. I love you, you love me, we're a happy family."

"I can't have a deep and serious talk with you if you keep quoting lyrics from Barney & Friends, H."

"You're so lame. Our baby would've loved that." He scrunched up his nose and tilted his head to kiss the corner of her mouth. Then, he brightened. "Hey, I think the name Darling is very cute and unique. Let's name our baby something similar, like Honey. Baby Honey sounds so cute!"

She raised an eyebrow at him, lips pressed together as she tried to contain her laughter.

"No? Okay, I'll come up with something else. But I will not give our baby some basic names like Kevin or Barbara."

She froze. "Wait, how d'you..."

"Did I say something wrong?" He gave her a confused smile as he didn't get why she seemed so shocked.

Y/N slowly shook her head and kissed the dimple on his cheek. "I almost forgot that we were like the same person sometimes. Is it weird that I want to marry you again?"

"Not at all. I would do it all over again with you." He beamed, holding her tighter. "Don't worry, love. I promise that I will be the most responsible father and role model—

"Harold!" Mason's voice on the other side of the door interrupted Harry at once. "Harold, I have your laptop!"

"Shit, my laptop!"

"Let's see what kind of porn you have in here!"

"Fuck you, Mason! Give it back right now!"

Y/N hadn't said a word but Harry had already chased his cousin down the hallway. With a gentle smile, she stared at the open door and said to their baby, as if it'd already been there, "we'll give your daddy another try tomorrow."

[xain-russell]

Final Thoughts on Spyro Reignited

It’s good. Really damn good.

Even ignoring the fact that the original games on the PS1 are still great games to this day and have aged fantastically, the Reignited Trilogy still feels worth getting even if at the end of the day it doesn’t really change anything important. Graphics are not the most important thing in a game, despite a lot of the industry trying to convince people otherwise, but the improved look of the games add a lot of charm that was admittedly not present before. Really, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is like an adult artist digging through drawings they did when they were a kid and then recreating them with all the talent they’ve gained over the years. Everything here is just that much better with 20 years of advancement in technology backing it.

What few complaints I have about the games are mostly tied to complaints about the originals. Spyro 1 feels bare bones in terms of what you’re doing and Spyro 3 definitely feels like Insomniac Games were running out of ideas. But as far as the remake itself goes... well, nothing really happened that completely broke the game, at least in my play through, but it was common for the hit detection of the walls and any gems nearby to overlap, causing your dragonfly helper Sparx to not pick them up (not so bad as you can’t pick them up yourself, thankfully). Minor hiccups like that were noticeable, but did no detract from the overall experience. It just tells me that these games probably should have gotten another month of work before release.

Don’t mistake me though, Toys for Bob have done outstanding work and they deserve all the praise they’ve been getting. No, if anyone is to blame for any wrinkles, it’s Activision. I was worried right from the get go that Activision had announced Spyro way too soon after Crash. It felt more like they were rushing to cash in on the hype that Crash had generated and the musings from the internet that Spyro was next. It’s a miracle to me that the game is in such good shape as it is, (again, props to Toys for Bob) but if they’d given the game another few months right from the start and not aimed for a september release window, I have the distinct impression that there would not be any wrinkles at all.

This is all small potatoes though. The Reignited Trilogy is everything I had dared to hope: the original classics with a major new coat of paint. If you grew up with the original games, you’ll love it. If you jumped on the Spyro train back when he was voiced by Frodo Baggins, I implore you to get the remaster and see where it all started. And if you’ve never so much as touched a Spyro game, this is as good a time as any to see what you’ve missed, and at a 40$ price tag it’s honestly kind of a steal.

All in All, I loved this remaster, I’ll probably have completed all three games to 100% four more times by the end of the year, and JESUS ARE THESE NEW DRAGON DESIGNS GOOOOOD! ME LIKEY VERY MUCH THANK YOU!

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #501

Top Ten Things Transformers UK Gave Me

So this week was supposed to be the final week in a grand trilogy of Top Ten lists defining different things about my life. First of all I did a crazy “Top Ten of Everything”; then I listed, ridiculously, my 500 favourite films. this week was going to be totally different, but another list that I’d spent ages working on, an idea percolating for a long time that I was finally ready to share.

Except I decided that I didn’t think it was very good.

I’ll probably return to the concept in the future, either when I’ve refined it some more, or just with a more simplistic take. So instead we do something that is – again – a bit personal. And really it’s something I should have done from the get-go. because as I’ve already said, if there’s one “franchise” that defines me, it’s Transformers. So why not take a look at what Transformers really means to me?

This week, then, is a celebration of all things TF. Basically I started reading the Marvel UK Transformers comic before I could even read, and it had a profound effect on my whole life. That sounds like a crazy thing to say, but it’s true; if I’d not gotten into Transformers, would I have gotten into sci-fi, serial fiction, toys, videogames? Would I have started writing or drawing the way I did (and do)? Who knows?

So there’s not much more to say in this preamble. Let’s get right into why Transformers UK was the best. And maybe next week I can get back to not trying to unpeel my psyche quite so much.

A Love of Serial Fiction: writers like Bob Budianski and especially Simon Furman told stories that took a long time to reach a resolution. Events were seeded in one book, then not picked up again for dozens of issues. Furman in particular was great at picking one continuity point – Prime’s body was lost in space – and then turn it into a multiple-issue-spanning epic years down the road. So each week (or fortnight, or whatever) was a waiting game, on tenterhooks to see which twist and turn the plot might take. I adore this; it’s why I loved Morrison’s Batman or Moffat’s Doctor Who, because each tale built on the last, and there were nuggets of delightful plot-info to be eked out over weeks and months. To successfully build this type of story is a great skill, and then to deliver on conclusions – Unicron attacks! – is a tremendous thrill.

An Appreciation for Melodrama: comics in the eighties were a lot more melodramatic than they are now. I wasn’t reading Teen Titans or X-Men, so I didn’t know that Furman was (presumably) influenced by these huge mainstream American titles, which similarly told grandiose stories. My introduction to this was Transformers, and I loved it; I loved those near-death escapes, those cliffhangers, the way catastrophe loomed like a giant predatory bird. I loved the villains’ speeches and the heroes’ nobility, the way they’d rather fight and die than live with the knowledge that they ran. And, of course, I loved the arch and heightened dialogue, and the way that even when you thought it was over – finished – you’d know deep down that it never ends.  

A Morbid Fascination with Heroic Sacrifice: so Transformers has always had a thing for killing off characters – partly because there are so many, and partly because it’s a toyline and Hasbro wanted the newer toys to be featured instead of the old ones. But it was the way some characters died that got to me, really sunk its claws into me. Impactor dies pushing Xaaron out of the way of a bullet; he’s reincarnated as a zombie, then dies again shutting down an overloading reactor. Prime died twice (at least). Dozens threw themselves at Unicron in an act of sacrifice. Magnus fought Galvatron over and over, picking himself up after defeats, trying in the end to do nothing more than delay him even though he knew it meant his death. There are loads of examples of heroic sacrifice throughout the book, and even today it’s one of my favourite tropes, from Boromir to Tony Stark to bloody Bing Bong. See, now I’m gonna cry again.

A Taste for the Old Ultraviolence: I’ve dedicated a whole Top Ten to this recently, so I’ll be brief, but Transformers was a very violent comic at times. And I loved it, I lapped it up. Not only did I like seeing my favourite characters die heroically, I liked it when the artists got to depict that violence in gruesome ways. Smashed eye lenses, ripped-off arms, leaking energon, dirty great holes in chests, and especially the little dangly wires that Andrew Wildman was so good at rendering. I do wonder if it’s desensitised me to violence in other media, although having said that, I tend not to be a fan of bloodier comic books.

A Strong Appreciation for Comic Book Art: Wildman, Senior, Reed, Williams, Delbo… I learnt the names of the artists, I could tell them apart. I started looking for how they’d drawn it, the brush strokes, the line-art, the page composition. Each issue was an education, and I lapped it up. It’s like when you decided to listen to a song by picking out the instruments. That’s what I loved about the art in the book, and it really turned me on to comic book art in general, finding out the names and styles of other artists as I went along.

A Peek Inside the Wider Industry: Marvel have always been really good at lifting the lid a bit with their “bullpen” stuff and editorials and “Stan’s Soapbox”. Marvel UK was no different, and the first page of each issue was dedicated to talking about the team behind the page. We’d hear of editors, artists, writers – the “stubbies” as delightfully belittled by the Transformers manning the letters page. I realised that there was a whole crew of people steering this ship, and they went to an office and worked together and this was their job. It might not have been like New York in the sixties, but if I could go to Marvel UK in the eighties, that would be a fantastic use of a time machine (better than trying to build a gun to shoot the future, at any rate).

A Sense of Community: building off this editorialising, the letters page was great in fostering a sense of community. I think I was a little bit too young to really take a lot of it in, but here were like-minded fans writing in, sharing thoughts, theories, sometimes criticism. They were swapping issues and toys, they were making jokes about the Transformer who was supposedly answering the letters. And this robotic pen-pal answered back in kind; the sarkier responders were the best, mocking not just the staff of the comic but the readers too. It made me feel part of a club, of a fraternity; I knew I wasn’t alone in liking this thing. I really, really wish I’d made an effort to contribute to that club, especially when the comic itself died.

A Window into a Shared Universe: something else that I got from the non-more-Marvel tone of the editorial and letters pages was the knowledge that Transformers was part of a bigger brand. The facets of the shared universe were few and far between – Spider-Man showing up briefly, a short trip to the Savage Land – but the comic, as a product, was definitely Marvel. There were house ads and references to Secret Wars, and of course there were back-up strips. Sometimes these were similar licensed properties such as Action Force or the Inhumanoids, but we also got other Marvel comics in there too. It’s how I learned who Iron Man was, for instance; and they reprinted both the Jack Kirby Machine Man (in the early days) and also the DeFalco/Windsor-Smith mini-series (and god, is that a good series). And Rocket Raccoon! Really, I don’t understand why I didn’t buy any other superhero stuff. It’s very weird that despite loving it in the comic, I didn’t go out to get other comics about it. Anyway, for years, it was my intro to Marvel, and I’m grateful.

A Fellowship of Fans and Friends: I mentioned before how the comic nurtured a community; well, its influence is far greater than that. Others with our nous or talent took that community after the comic ended and turned it into a huge fandom that persists to this day. Out of that fan community came websites, fanzines, conventions, and careers. I wish I’d been part of TFUK in the nineties; I think I’d have made friends and done more writing. As it was, I came late to the fan community, but I’m there now. I’ve made friends with other Transformers fans, and even some of the creators, who were just as inspired as I was back in the day – maybe even moreso. And it’s just great; it’s great to be able to talk about these terrific, stupid, giant robots. I skipped the last big TF convention – TF Nation – in 2019, assuming I could go again in 2020. Then the world ended, and kept on ending. So next year – when I fully intend to go back – it’ll be three years since I last saw some of these people. It’s been far too long, but like we say – it never ends!

Inspiration: here’s the thing, and I’ve sorta said it already: I don’t know if I’d write if it wasn’t for Transformers. I used to draw fan comics and doodle Transformers in margins. I copied Furman’s writing style and even nicked some of his lines directly in my own early books and stories. I studied Wildman’s art in particular, trying to mimic the way he presented bent metal and exposed wiring, the perfect way he drew a splash of leakin’ lubricant. And even now, with my fondness for wordplay in my scripts, and my desire to tell a long-form serialised story that features heroism, melodrama, danger, and sacrifice, I’m indebted to the Transformers for instilling a love of all those things within me, and more than that, making me want to put more of this into the world. I’m basically writing Transformers fan fiction with everything I do, but because I’m not allowed to call it that I’ve had to think of entirely new settings and characters. I mean, my book’s about a twelve-year-old girl! There’s not a single robot in it! And yet she probably wouldn’t exist if Galvatron hadn’t been riding on Ultra Magnus’ cab, one hand gripping onto a smashed-up windscreen, his face a mask of fury. What I’m saying is, everything from this point on is all their fault.

[heycolorwind]

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time First Impressions

I got an early Christmas present last week, a copy of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time! This is probably my most anticipated game of this holiday season. As a big fan of the original trilogy on the PlayStation 1 (Crash Twinsanity was also alright) and after the great remakes that was the N-Sane Trilogy, I was looking forward to see what Vicarious Visions would do. Turns out they would be busy doing a fantastic job remaking Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, which I see as more of a new game with old content, but I digress. So the task was put on developer Toys for Bob, fresh off of their own remasters of the first three Spyro the Dragon games, Spyro: Reignited Trilogy. However, Spyro plays very differently from Crash Bandicoot so this wasn’t a sure thing for me.

I’ve played the intro area, the first area, and about halfway through the second area and so far, I’m overall positive on the game. The graphics are arguably the best part of the game. Levels are colorful and the animations of the characters are fluid and makes use of the stretch and pop cartoon style the Spyro Reignited Trilogy used. The cutscenes are lively, well voice acted, and fun to watch.

Gameplay feels a lot like the original games and that is to its benefit. The platforming is tight and enjoyable and breaking crates is still as cathartic as ever. However, the controls do not feel like the original games. Specifically, Crash feels lighter than he did in the original games. Many times I would move Crash from a stationary position and it felt like he just took off, moving faster than I expected him too. This has resulted in me mistiming jumps, having difficulty lining up bouncing off crates (despite a new target under Crash’s feet being present to help with precise jumping), and just running off platforms. I’m sure I could get use to it, but so far, that hasn’t happen.

This leads me to difficulty. Guys, this is the hardest Crash Bandicoot game ever. I’ve only played eight levels or so and I feel confident writing that. The N-Sane Trilogy and even the original games were never this hard in my opinion. The difficulty of this game is a bit jarring. There’s very little to wean you into the gameplay and even as a veteran of these games, I found it surprising to be dealing with this level of challenge this early in a game.

Finally, the structure of the game is more like Crash 1 but more thematically similar. This is disappointing to me because I liked the change in scenery the previous games gave us. Now all of the standard levels in an area have the same aesthetic, which can be visually repetitive. There are the Flashback levels and the one level I played as Tawnya to break up the pacing, but they feel more like distractions like the animal rides or the plane levels from the previous games rather than a variation to the levels. Last thing I want to mention is the soundtrack. The music is noticeably unremarkable. Crash Bandicoot games typically have a fun, island / electronic / surf rock themed soundtrack. So far, Crash 4 hasn’t had one song I can remember. It’s disappointing to be honest.

Overall, this is a good game and I’m enjoying it but some are claiming this is the best Crash Bandicoot game and I don’t agree with that. At best, having not finished the game yet, this is below Crash 2 or 3 still. But those are just my initial thoughts. Let me know yours in the comments section. Peace and Love, Gamers and Players! Colorwind out.

[geeky-elf]

Spyro Reignited Ripto’s Rage Review

So I just recently 100% the second game and already 33% into the third.   I love how everything flows so well with each other in terms of the story and gameplay.  Something I never realized with the original or just something Toys for Bob made sure to do in order to preserve the flow of the trilogy Just like with the first, the level designs are gorgeous.  Some more detailed than others of course.  There are levels like Idol Springs that took advantage of the lighting and subtle details of the vegetation to create a peaceful ambience to those levels like Robotica Farms that just blew my mind with how much detail there was in the NPCs and the overal level design.  

I love Ripto’s redesign along with all the characters.  They made him more menacing and actually quite intimidating, while still having that napolean complex slash derpiness.  Elora was definitely my fvorite and I love what they did with her.  She looks so gorgeous and definitely on the long neverending list of fan art pieces I want to get done.   The cutscenes themselves were so fun to watch.  TfB really did an outstanding job with more expressive animation and a more dynamic dialogue between the characters.  Bringing out things that weren’t completely obvious in the original.   Overall the gameplay felt really good and the challenges were actually more fun than frustrating in the reginited with an exception of a few.  The flying levels were still so much fun with the newly integrated controls and environemntal aspects that made the speedways in the first game so much more immersive.  Hell I loved the flying so much that I did not hesitate to replay all of the Hunter challenges of flying through the goals.  Crystal popcorn was still one of the few challenges that I despised and I had to get my fiance coupled with luck to beat it.  Lastly I still have that love and hate relationship with Fracture Hills and that dang supercharge.  

Oh and in terms of the supposed glitched and bugs many complained about that seemed to follow the almost flawless first game, I didn’t encounter anything major on my playthrough.  There were some animation glitches where the character’s mouth wasn’t moving with the dialogue as well as if I was moving around too fast the camera would freak out slightly on rare ocassions or there was slight movement lag.  Overall nothing that prevented me from completing a level smoothly and quickly without dying.  The only thing was in the lvel (can’t recall the exact name, but its in Winter Tundra) where you have to freeze the trolls to ring the bells.  One of the trolls froze on top of the ledge and never came back down so I was unable to get up to where I needed to be.  Leaving and coming back to the level fixed it however.  All in all nothing that a few future patches can’t fix.  It already seems they have fixed some thngs already.  

[plufim]

E3 2017 predictions

E3 predictions

In general these come from my thoughts, but also include ideas I’ve heard floated around the web which I completely agree with. Avoiding the already announced/leaked stuff, since that’s not fun!

I’ve sort predictions for all main presentations into 3 different categories based on likelihood (“Lock it in, Reggie” (very confident), “50/50” and “swinging for the fences” (super unlikely but I gotta go all in)). Also, because I’m Connell, this skews Nintendo, but I do have thoughts on everyone! And almost entirely positive ones!

These are in order of the presentation times, hence Nintendo being last. Oh, and a shadow drop is an unannounced game or feature being available for download immediately.

General Predictions/Trends:

- One final push for remastered collections.

- The PC gaming show will be a shit-show again.

- After “Seven Nation Army” did so well for the Battlefield 1 trailer, at LEAST 3 other trailers will use a contemporary song for a game set in another time.

EA:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Need for Speed will have a Cops vs Racers mode. Because it is always the best thing. Shutting down fools for daring to turn MY roads into a race track is always the best.

- FIFA presentation will not mention the Switch version at all. Info will only be turned up at the show floor, with 2-3 units available. There will be a very simple token minigame so they can justify it as being “built for switch”, but it is 99% the PS3/360 version.

50/50:

- Mass Effect 1-3 Remastered collection, for PS4 and Xbox one. Designed to win back trust from gamers who were burned hard by Andromeda, which really damaged the brand. This leads to my further prediction (not for this though) that ME5 then connects both stories together, where the Andromeda crew find a device that allows them to send a message with information back in time to Shephards brain and bam, you’re playing with the character’s people liked again.

- Sim City. It’s been long enough since the last Sim City, which was disastrous. Time for EA to show they learned from their mistakes and can take on city: skylines

 Singing for the fences:

- Mass Effect Trilogy also for the Switch. Despite the only support being a terrible FIFA game thus far, the actual sales of the system will be seen as an opportunity… to sell old games again with very little extra work. Perhaps some token amiibo functionality in the character creator.

Microsoft:

Obviously, this will be all about Scorpio. Every game will make a point to include something about how the Scorpio version is enhanced. Also apologies, don’t really have much

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Forza 5.

- Scorpio will have VR featured heavily

 50/50:

- Scorpio’s final name will be: Xbox Scorpio. Microsoft is done with numbers.

 50/50:

- It will be revealed that Scorpio, unlike PS4Pro, will have games exclusive to it.

 Swinging for the fences:

- Crackdown demo shadow drop

- Exclusive John Wick videogame for scorpio

- BATTLETOADS

Bethesda:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Wolfenstein Titan(?) official reveal.

- Prey DLC chapters.

 50/50:

- Switch Skyrim has Zelda content in it. Because why else would someone pay $60 US for this game for a third time?

- Elder Scrolls VI revealed. Will feature at least 2 of the regions. Possibly Elsweyr and Valenwood

 Swinging for the fences:

- Elder Scrolls finally bring back the Dwemer, either by reviving them or setting it in the distant past.

Ubisoft:

So… most of this conference is already leaked, but still…. Uh… hm. Well here’s a few somethings.

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Rabbids/Mario will have a CG teaser. Gameplay saved for Nintendo.

 50/50:

- On stage reveal for Farcry will include not only making fun of the people who got so angry that the villians are a white Christian cult, but there will be an embarrassing on-stage play where people pretend to be storming the stage to protest the treatment of horrible people.

 Swinging for the fences:

- A switch exclusive Assassin’s Creed side-story, much like they did for Vita around Assassin’s Creed 3.

- Rabbids/Mario features a cover of “All Star”, covered by Rabbids themselves, because this game will be drowning in memes. And I will hate this while secretly loving this.

Sony:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Sony saves IO interactive, Hitman 2 will be PS4 exclusive. Microsoft SHOULD do this, but… this feels more like a Sony move.

- MASSIVE Spiderman blowout, including a lot of show floor stuff. Playable demo. No tie in to the movie, but instead a new story with Goblin and the sinister 6 as the villians. And there’ll be some shitty day 1 pre-order crap, probably involving a Black Cat side story. F4 will cameo, but play no major roles – however Insomniac will be building a shared games universe. Yes, even with the Squaresoft stuff.

- Bloodborne 2. It will happen.

50/50:

- A real, honest to god Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer, with worlds revealed, including Moana and Frozen.

- Shenmue 1+2 Remastered announced. With Shenmue 3 delayed (and that having been inevitable for some time), this would be a smart move to capitalise on the clear demand for more Ryo.

- Another Last of Us Part 2 teaser, but no gameplay yet.

- English Dragon Quest XI release date, mid 2018.

- Red Dead 2 trailer, first with actual gameplay. I also think this will reveal that Zelda-like free climbing is being implemented.

 Swinging for the fences:

- The vita returns as a phone. The switch has shown portable games are still viable, vita has some life in Asian territories, and Sony want to keep the remote play train going. Destined to still fail? Probably! But let’s not let reality kill HYPE.

- Last of Us Part 2 prelude chapter available now, for free. One hour of set up, basically a demo. But that’s what they do to get the kids excited.

- Spyro Trilogy remastered. Activision gotta do something with the guy.

- Red Dead 2 trailer showcases a train heist. I LOVE train heists.

Nintendo:

In general, there won’t be much or any 3DS. They’re getting a lot of that out of the way this week already.

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Xenoblade 2 is not delayed, December 2018. Playable on show floor.

- Mario Odyssey for October 2017. Massive show floor presence.

- Mario Kart DLC, same format as for WiiU – 2 packs of tracks, but this time it’s 8 racing and 2 battle tracks, as well as 3 characters and karts each. A shadow drop of the ability to buy the

- Zelda DLC part 1 shadow drop. Teaser for the rest of the DLC.

- Picross Switch, available now. Not Picross 3D though, they’ll hold off on that.

- Rabbids/Mario gameplay demo

- Dragon Quest XI for Switch officially announced

- Everyone on stage will wear goofy hats because of Mario Odyssey, because hats is a big thing in that game. Hats will grant abilities.

- Splatoon 2 test fire round 2 will be announced to begin the next weekend, with significant tweaks.

- New ARMs content announced, with new ARMs avaialable immediately and

50/50:

- Massive update to switch UI, shadow dropped. Includes multiple UI styles, with Badge arcade built in for further customisation, folders, linking to old Nintendo friends lists, musical themes. Further themes will be on eshop going forward, like 3DS. And finally, this also includes the new online system, hence the new details revealed about it last week.

- Animal Crossing Switch. Early 2018, with much improved social features. Massive amiibo functionality, much like New Leaf now has. It’ll have a new hook, not sure what though. My guess is some Sim City style mayoral stuff like setting up and supplying utilities.

- Warioware Switch, holiday 2017. It’s been a while for the Rhythm Heaven/Warioware team. I NEED THIS ONE NINTENDO.

- Smash Brothers 4 Switch, Q2 2018, rereleased with the best levels from the WiiU and 3DS levels, plus an expanded single player mode. It’s just too crowded for this game yet, but they don’t need to hold off for too long, because it’ll be an evergreen. There will be a teaser though, starring Inklings, Ice Climbers and Spring Man.

- Mario Maker Switch for Q1 2018. It can’t release this year, it needs space away from Mario Odyssey. The game will include a new “switch” block which when hit in game alternates the game style. There will also be playable Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad for each game type, each with different styles, and a different switch block or pipe that changes your character mid-level.

- Skyward Sword HD for switch, with optional non-motion controls for boring people. Q2 2018.

- Partnership with Activision to make an Amiibo action game. You might think this is a swing for the fence, but: Toys for Bob is out of a gig right now. And this would sell better than any recent Skylanders game. Activision would release special versions of select characters, so they can get their cut from the toy sales.

- Donkey Kong Country Returns 3, Q1 2018, by Monster Games. They’ve been quiet for a while, they ported Returns to 3DS, they assisted Retro on Tropical Freeze, this is what they’ve been working towards.

- Dead Cells announced for Switch.

- Layton Collection announced… for phone. Lady Layton western release date.

- Retro’s game. And it’s NOT Metroid, but a sci-fi Western RPG.

- This is a long shot, but T2 is relatively impressed by the switch, so: GTA5 for Switch. With a chunk of the DLC included.

- Switch Sports, holiday 2017. The return of the king. All the games as released for WiiU, plus a few from Wii Sports resort (airplane), with additional modes for each sport. I do have a “swinging for the fence” on this though…

 Swinging for the fences:

- …Wuhu World. Remember Pilotwings 64? Where Little USA was a huge island with different activities, sights to see, and so on? Well, take Wuhu Island, scoot up the detail and resolution, include the small surrounding golf islands, and add a few other themed islands the same size as Wuhu (snow island, city island, etc). It’s a free game where you get the islands and one activity per island, and can walk/drive around each island. Dotted around each is various locations that count as home bases for various sports/vehicles from Wii Sports, Pilotwings and some new items. Each of these is paid, and comes with various different modes and missions. This could be further expanded over time, and allows Nintendo to make money from series that could no longer be sold alone.

- Mario Kart DLC includes mission mode, which is available day 1 with missions on existing courses and expands with the DLC.

- New 2D Metroid by a small team from within Retro. There is a 3D game teased to be in the works also, but not from Retro.

- Splatoon 2 Octoling content and Amiibo, including Octoling mascots. I need this, Nintendo.

- EXCITE. TRUCK. 2.

- Nintendo Pinball. Remember Pokemon Pinball? And Metroid Prime Pinball? That but across multiple Nintendo series.

- Sonic and Mario All Stars Racing Transformed. Sumo has to have been making something aside from Snake Pass, and Sonic Racing 2 sold extremely well on the switch.

- Assault Android Cactus Deluxe for Switch. I believe in you Tim! Even if you aren’t even attempting this!

[saffronaura]

So I heard that the Spyro fangame, Spyro Myths Awaken, got cancelled due to a ceast and desist order sent by Activision. The creator Cyreides has stated he already has a plan B in case something like this happens.

I’m mixed on the situation, since Cyreides did act rude and mean towards Toys For Bob, fans who adore the upcoming Spyro Reignited Trilogy and fans who don’t share his love for PS1 graphics.

However I do feel a bit bad for him on what happened, I even tried out and liked his latest tech demo of Myths Awaken, Dark Glimmer before it was taken down. I wish for him the best on his fangame substitute and hopefully improve his behavior in the future too.

[terryblount]

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – PC Review

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a remake of the three original fun-loving, cartoon-like Spyro games, originally created by Insomniac Games in 1998, 1999, and 2000 for the PlayStation. However, before discussing this modern ‘reignited’ collection, I need to go back to the late 1990s and share with you my personal history with Spyro.

Back in the Nintendo 64 Days

For his 7th birthday my brother received a Nintendo 64 from our grandparents. This was our first home console, and with this gift we now we had the ability to play so many yearned-for games which, until that moment, could only be played in our most improbable dreams. Indeed, now the two of us no longer were limited to my GameBoy and an old PC, and seeing games in full 3D (limited as it was back then) was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a unique moment in my gaming life.

Spyro the Dragon flying majestically in astounding 3D graphics!

Thinking about that moment, now, makes me almost cry. I had never seen something like that before, and what was even more amazing was that I could also explore such huge, colorful, and incredible worlds thanks to the invention of the analogue stick. I ate up so many games. Super Mario 64 was unprecedented, Mario Kart 64 was so fun, and Banjo-Kazooie was difficult. Through all these games, I felt like my only limit was the time per day I had to explore them because there was always a new corner to discovery and enjoy.

The freedom of flying, with modern graphics, recreated from the original 1998 gameplay.

Besides feeling like the cool kid with my Nintendo 64, I also remember thinking that only Nintendo could possibly provide me with such vibrant worlds. But I realized how wrong I was when, a few years later, I went to a friend’s house and become initiated in the ways of the original PlayStation.

Enter the PlayStation Glory Years

When visiting my friend (thanks to our mothers being busy socializing), my friend and I could play all night long, and we could choose from his wide collection of games since he was one of those friends who had all the games you can’t ever afford. (For the record, my personal PS1 was bought some months after launch, but I just got a few games and lots of demo discs.)

It’s a dinosaur or something who talks and says things!

I remember one night in particular in which my friend (named Matteo, in case you were wondering) decided that evening that we should play a new game he received (probably from his grandparents), which according to him was the real Super Mario 64 competitor on Sony’s console. You guessed it… that game was Spyro the Dragon.

Prior to this night, I had only gotten a chance to see a few screenshots of the game on some of the earliest videogame websites and in some Italian magazines, so I didn’t know much about it. What I did know was that there were no other free-roaming 3D platformers available around that time on any other home consoles, apart from the N64 with the aforementioned Super Mario 64.

There were some other games that tried to be open in their world design. I had the chance to try a PC demo for a game called Croc (which was great!), but it wasn’t very open like Mario. Crash Bandicoot (on the PlayStation) was obviously a great game, but it was built to be “on-rails”. The Tomb Raider series was certainly a thing, but those games were still limited to the confines of the caverns and hallways you were in.

Spyro lets you enjoy the freedom of open 3D platforming like never seen before (in 1998).

Introducing Spyro: A Decent Mario Competitor

With all these things in mind, we now come to my history with Spyro the Dragon, itself (himself?). Sure, Mario was (and likely always will be) the real platformer king, but back in the late 1990s I really wanted to find a decent competitor in order to widen my choice of games to play. And Spyro delivered.

I recall booting up the game. Spyro magically started to live when the disc was inserted into the PlayStation, and it was love at first sight, sound, and play. From the start the humor was there that really made me laugh. The bright, vivid colors popped out at me, and the game was one of the best looking at that time. (Keep in mind that many of the ‘hot’ PS1 games were ‘mature’ with dark colors and themes.)

Spyro’s full of colorful characters who sometimes carry around creamy cakes!

Last, but not least, for us Italians, it was one of the first times where the whole game was completely dubbed with Italian voices, thanks to Italian voice actors. If I wasn’t already smitten with the game before, this last selling point was all it took to totally fall in love with Spyro, the pretty-friendly Dragon!

Thanks to all of Spyro’s charms and much more, the developers, Insomniac (who recently, in 2018, put out the universally acclaimed smash hit Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4), strongly entered the videogames industry, and Universal (the publisher) made lots of money.

The new graphics are just as impressively beautiful and vivid as they were back in the day.

Much more importantly than fame or money, many players finally got to enjoy a real open-world 3D platformer on a console other than Nintendo, and there clearly was an appetite for this style of game. Consequently, Spyro, in his cool purple dragon style, sauntered himself through two additional Insomniac-developed chapters also on the PS1.

Hard Times for Old Heroes

Unfortunately, Spyro soon declined in popularity as game design evolved past the joys of simple 3D platformers. A couple PlayStation 2 titles (2002 and 2004) were developed and were moderately memorable. Other spin-off titles were also made to milk the franchise.

Then there was an attempt to revive Spyro in the 128-bit era by Activision (who bought the rights and owns them to this very day). This led to the creation of less interesting and semi-forgettable titles, including a dubious 2006-2008 rebooted trilogy with big-name voice actors and a planned movie tie-in (yuck).

Given Spyro’s rocky years, Activision shifted gears and directed one of their wholly-owned studios, Toys for Bob, to create a new type of game that mixed real-life collectible toy figures with videogames. This new vision would become the insanely successful Skylanders series. So in 2011 Spyro found himself becoming a ‘collectible toy’ video game designed to be inoffensive and accessible with RPG ‘hooks’ to keep the player engaged (and buying toys).

It’s ironic, then, that Skylanders began as a spin-off of Spyro but soon came to completely eclipse the Spyro brand. Soon enough, Spyro was mostly forgotten about as Skylanders went on to create an entire genre full of collectible toy creatures and mildly interesting ‘children’s’ videogames over the 2011 to 2016 period. Quite a fall for Spyro from being the up-and-coming threat to dethrone platforming-king Mario back in the early 3D days.

Finally, Spyro Returns, Reignited!

Having been dormant for some years now, and thanks to the trend in remaking old 3D classic games, Activision has finally brought back the original Spyro in this modern remake of the three very original games, much like how Activision remade the Crash Bandicoot saga in the ‘N. Sane Trilogy‘ in 2017. To accomplish this remake, Toys for Bob was called back to the action, which is fitting since they’ve had years of experience with Spyro-inspired games since 2011’s Skylanders series began.

Spyro can smile again, having been returned to his glory days in this modern remake!

First released in 2018 on PS4 and Xbox One, this remake has been a huge success from both critics and players, in part because it has allowed so many of us to relive old childhood memories in modern accommodations while retaining the appreciated ’90s gameplay mechanics. Accordingly, sales were huge, and Activision has successfully ridden the wave of instant nostalgia and given fans a real blast-from-the-past treat.

How Faithful is the ‘Reignited’ Remake? Very!

As far as the faithfulness of the remake goes, Toys for Bob have created a very faithful product, with the same story, worlds, and enemies of the originals. This is very much a 1:1 remake, much like its reboot-cousin, Crash’s ‘N. Sane Trilogy.’ With this reboot, from the first moment when you boot the game, it’s like traveling through time with some magic trickery.

Happiness and sunshine is what Spyro feels now having been given a quality remake.

Everything is there, in the same place I remember it, with all the same gems and chests right where I left them some 20 years ago. Even all the enemies are in the right places, with the same movements and noises. Indeed, all the gameplay and mechanics are basically identical to the original games. Even the beloved dragonfly character Sparx is faithfully recreated, who shows how much health is still available before collapsing and losing a life (you’ll understand when you play the game).

The only big difference in this remake is the technical, not structural, changes. Under the hood, the game hums along with excellent performance thanks to the Unreal Engine 4 engine, and all the modern effects create a visually pleasing, if still simplistic, style. The game engine also provides lots of configuration options to fit the power of various PCs, and the semi-cartoon visuals mean the game looks good even on lower settings.

Overall, this remake is ultra-faithful gameplay-wise but also has excellent additional details to make these original games come alive in ways never before seen. All the new aesthetic details are a treat to behold, even if they don’t change the underlying gameplay, and the few minor gameplay tweaks are welcome.

Very strong art and graphics create a new view of these old treasured games.

The Same Gameplay: Both Good and Bad

Delving into the actual gameplay, it should be noted that it’s both good and bad that this remake is so faithful to the originals. There’s no denying that these games are dated in design with gameplay that has aged a bit badly, but as long as you know what you’re expecting, you’ll likely find lots to appreciate.

As far as the structure, all three games maintain the world hub and its respective world zones scattered around it. Just like before, the player needs to collect all the gems, free all the dragons, and find all the stolen eggs using Spyro’s powers.

There’s just a few new additions here and there: for example, Spyro now has a new way of moving, inspired by feline movements, which make him smoother than before. The same treatment was used for every 3D model, allowing cleaner movements, making the game easier to appreciate in our time.

Out exploring, enjoying the smooth movement (but the gameplay is a bit stiff).

An Italian Aside

For the readers out there from Italy, let me once again say that we yet again have a completely localized game with redone (and superior) voice acting. Gone are the questionable accents of the original games, so the localization efforts deserve praise.

Game Difficulty: Not Hard

Let’s bring up Crash Bandicoot again. That series was cruel and difficult despite its happy cartoon-like design, and both the originals and remake were obviously aimed at experienced players. Spyro, on the other hand, was always aimed at younger players, and both the originals and remake have much easier controls and laid-back design.

Mind you, Spyro can still be a tough game at times, but it’s only ever difficult, not nightmarish, and most of the game is easy to explore and enjoy. Basically, Spyro is the type of game everyone (including kids) can play through and reach the end, feeling satisfied at the result.

It would have been nice to have some way to select or unlock more difficulty options in this remake, but whether you’re young or old there still is enough challenge to keep most players focused. Still, you can decide for yourself if the lesser challenge is a plus or minus for you, personally.

Concluding the Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Now I’ve taken you on my person journey through Spyro, leading up to this recent remake. I’ve enjoyed my time with this modern Spyro, and it’s been like a homecoming for me, reliving my old cherished memories. However, even if you’re never played Spyro before, there’s much to enjoy. The game is colorful, smooth, and interesting with a cartoon-like story and charming characters.

There’s much to love in this charming game world, if you don’t mind old game mechanics.

Make no mistake, this Reignited Trilogy is nothing more or less than a totally faithful, high-fidelity remake of the first three games (some would say the only legitimate Spyro titles). New players might not be willing to endure the old-school mechanics and simple challenge, but with the right mindset it’s really enjoyable to play.

At the very least, it’s nice to have Spyro back in a nice modern three-in-one package, reliving his 3D platforming glory days.

Faithful to the original trilogy

Remastered graphics

Easily customizable

3 games for the cost of 1!

Suitable for all ages

Probably too easy for some

No additional levels

No original graphics mode

No bonuses or extras

  Playtime: 12 hours total (and counting). Mathieu has not completed the game, but he’s still playing it to collect all the gems!

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit laptop computer, with 16GB of Ram, Nvidia 1050Ti.

The post Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – PC Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – PC Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[netunleashed-blog]

Spyro Reignited Trilogy: The Tough Choices In Remastering A Classic

http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=23059 Spyro Reignited Trilogy: The Tough Choices In Remastering A Classic - http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=23059 The PlayStation library is home to countless iconic games, but few are as synonymous with Sony's first console as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Last year, Activision remastered the Crash trilogy and it was a massive success, but the company has since set its sights on Spyro the Dragon with the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. As one of Sony's historic flagship franchises, the purple dragon has a substantial legacy, which has understandably made the task of modernizing his most well-known adventures a tall order for California-based studio Toys For Bob.There's a great deal of challenge involved in remastering the visuals and mechanics of the original Spyro trilogy. How do you imbue new life into worlds and characters who were originally created under the pressure of hardware limitations? Technology has advanced astronomically since Spyro's debut in 1998; you can't just touch up these graphics and hope the same charm is expressed. According to the Reignited Trilogy's developers, the solution is far more complex."When you look at the original game and you squint your eyes at it, there's a lot of imagination that you had to do at the time to fill in the blanks." said Toys For Bob co-studio head Paul Yan. "For us, it's taking the game, and asking: What do people remember about this? It was important to start with the memories as opposed to how do you interpret exactly what's on the screen."It's undeniable that memory plays a huge part in our fondness for 3D 32-bit console games. From a visual standpoint, you can argue that graphics from this generation have not aged well at all. Yet we still possess an unwavering affection for these 3D games. Call it rose-tinted glasses, but it's precisely this view that keeps games like Spyro front-of-mind for so many.Fortunately, Toys For Bob has steered clear from interfering too much with our fondest recollections of Spyro, instead opting to harness the personal accounts and memories of both fans and the game's original creators to create a new yet familiar vision of Spyro and his world."We didn't approach [the games] with, 'How can we add all these new ideas?'" commented Yan. "It's really about, how do we understand the truth of them and then bring that up and find opportunities to embellish and add more lushness and detail?"There's an intensity and boldness in the Reignited Trilogy's remastered visuals, as if an otherworldly force motioned its hand to sprout an abundance of life and color across every inch of the original environments. These new details seem to close the gap on what our minds once filled in, enhancing and making real everything we once imagined for ourselves staring at the primitive polygonal edges of Spyro's world.Elder dragons have been redesigned to give them their own unique appearances and personalities.This is reflected best in the way Toys For Bob has approached redesigning the first Spyro game's 80 collectable elder dragons. In the original, they had some size, shape, and color diversity, but their designs eventually started to blend together. To combat this, Toys For Bob has given each of the elder dragons their own unique design and personality. For example, Beast Maker dragons act more shamanistic and speak in Cajun accents due to their home being much like the Louisiana bayou. Additions like this elevate our understanding of Spyro's cast and better connect us to the worlds in which they live."Our philosophy was to try to understand the key style points of the character, and understand what the intention was," Yan said. "We'd ask what was the story Insomniac were trying to tell? Once we felt like we understood that, we'd then try to inject as much new storytelling as we could into both the environments and the characters."We didn't approach [the games] with, 'How can we add all these new ideas?' It's really about, how do we understand the truth of them and then bring that up and find opportunities to embellish and add more lushness and detail?Paul Yan, Toys For Bob co-studio headWhile visuals have been enhanced with new details and narrative threads, other aspects, like environment layouts, had to remain exactly the same. "The one thing that we were always extremely adherent to was the feel and the gameplay because we wanted that to be as referential and one-to-one to the originals as possible," Reignited Trilogy art director Josh Nadelberg said.And it's not just the level geometry that needs to stay the same, it's the sounds too. Prolific voice actor Tom Kenny (Spongebob Squarepants, Adventure Time) reprises his role as Spyro for the Reignited Trilogy, and from early footage, he hits the notes we all expect him to. But even he faces his own unique struggles in the remastering process. According to Kenny, matching line reads he did 20 years ago, while trying to incorporate lessons he's learned since voicing Spyro in 1998, has proved difficult."You want to be very respectful of the way people remember Spyro, but you still want your acting to be zesty," commented Kenny. "You still want Spyro to live. But you don't want to be so concerned with matching syllable for syllable that it becomes a total left-brain exercise." It's a tough balancing act that those involved in the remastering process must follow. But there are moments when the solution is simply to go both ways. The Reignited Trilogy faithfully recreates the instrumentation of the original soundtracks but adjusts them to dynamically shift with the player's actions during gameplay. However, if players want a more faithful experience, they can choose to switch back to the original scores composed by music legend Stewart Copeland (The Police).Even for a high-profile musician like Copeland, Spyro has a special, unshakable meaning. "When I went down [to Toys For Bob], I was hugely relieved because I was actually very emotionally invested in the Spyro series, musically and with the visuals too," said Copeland when asked about his thoughts on the remaster. "I went down there with my hackles up and left with a glow of joy. It was actually kind of emotional to see it brought forward in this way."There's always the original games that they could play and have that experience, but what we've done is we've tried to make the game richer in a way that we feel is honoring the spirit of the originals.Josh Nadelberg, art directorReignited Trilogy music remixer Stephan Vankov and the team were intentional in their approach to offer players options in listening to the series' iconic musical score. "We wanted to provide a fresh way to experience the same music tracks where both new and old players can hear the work and it would be clearly transparent, the updates we've done to the music, and to take advantage of the latest technologies in game audio," said Vankov. "But we also wanted to give players the ability to switch back because the original soundtrack was so beloved, and we know that maybe not everybody's going to like the work that we've done."It's a hard-hitting truth that not everyone is going to love the changes made, a reality that Toys For Bob has come to terms with. In a remastering process as deep as the Reignited Trilogy, there are changes that simply won't fly with some fans. A game like this will inherently trigger division, and after a while, there's only so much you can do to accommodate the tastes of everyone. When working on any creative project, tough calls need to be made, but what ultimately matters is that these decisions are made from the heart and with the best of intentions."There are folks that really don't want things to change. We respect that," concluded Nadelberg. "There's always the original games that they could play and have that experience, but what we've done is we've tried to make the game richer in a way that we feel is honoring the spirit of the originals. We hope that the fans give that a shot and fall in love with the world as much as we did while we were recreating it." Source link

[goingnerdyofficial-blog]

Who Want's to Replace Kathleen Kennedy?

There has been very little love lost between fans and Kathleen Kennedy over the choices she made since taking the position at the helm of Lucasfilm. To say the Sequel Trilogy has fans divided is an understatement of truly epic proportions. The Force Awakens received mixed reviews. The Last Jedi seemed to divide the fans in two. But it was Solo that seemed to be the last straw for many fans. Whether you agree or disagree with the power that be, it looks like Disney is looking to replace Kathleen Kennedy. From what I can gather from various reports, forums, and online buzz, Kennedy will leave Lucasfilm sometime in the fall. Reports speculate that she will announce her replacement in September. This should give Disney and company time to find a replacement. But who is willing to take control of the sinking ship? Over the weekend, Bob Iger held a secret meeting to discuss this very issue.

Kennedy Replacement Front-Runners

There have been a number of people tapped as potential options for the role. The head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, seemed to be Iger's top choice for the role. He's essentially brought the Marvel film universe our of obscurity and into the main stream. At the writing of this post, he has not accepted the job publicly. In all actuality, no one seems willing to take on the position. Even J.J. Abrams has been rumored to turn down the job. Personally, I would love to see someone like Dave Filoni or Pablo Hildalgo fill the void, but it's unlikely that either of those would the experience to run something as vast as Lucasfilm. Also, there's the fact that if either of them did take control, fans would lose them in the creative positions that they are currently in and I really want a stand alone movie directed by Dave Filoni.

The Great Divide

Who ever replaces Kathleen Kennedy is going to have a touch road ahead. They will have to regain the trust of disenfranchised fanboys, defend against the anger of those fans who liked what Kennedy was doing, and bring in an entirely new generation of fans. All while making Lucasfilm and Disney money hand over fist. Keep in mind that this is not just to manage the movies. This will oversee all Star Wars products including video games, films, TV shows, books, comics, toys, and even the annoying advertisements we see on everything from bags of lettuce to birth control. What makes this whole thing more interesting is the comparisons that can be drawn between these events and the Prequel Trilogy. We have a ruling figure being ousted from power by making bad decisions or simply a lack of action. Who ever takes her place with either be the longed for chosen one or dark lord sent to bring unity through force. Whoever Disney gets to replace Kathleen Kennedy, one thing is certain: the future of Star Wars is uncertain. Read the full article

[milliebobbybrownfan]

New Post has been published on Millie Bobby Brown Fan #MillieBobbyBrown #StrangerThings

New Post has been published on http://millie-bobby-brown.com/pressphotosvideo-stranger-things-2-returns-to-upside-down-with-new-monster-bigger-story/

Press/Photos/Video: Stranger Things 2 returns to Upside Down with new monster, bigger story

Stranger Things’ telekinetic teen Eleven (breakout star Millie Bobby Brown) may be able to lift government kidnapper vans but series creators Ross and Matt Duffer can rattle off the biggest movies of the summer of 1984 without blinking. Their passion for pop culture fueled the creation of Netflix’s Things, a tribute to the movies they loved as kids in North Carolina (think E.T., The Goonies, Stand by Me). “Obviously they’re nerdy, but that’s what makes them so cool,” says Brown. “It makes [Stranger Things] so authentic because it comes from their hearts.” The Duffers’ canny but old-fashioned combination of emotion and thrills drove the series — about four small-town Indiana friends who find themselves dealing with a portal to a different dimension — to monster-level success after its 2016 premiere. “I don’t think Netflix thought it was going to be as huge as it became, but neither did we,” admits Matt.

On Oct. 27, fans will finally get to see Things’ bigger, badder second installment (To celebrate the return, EW has three different covers featuring the cast). “It’s Stranger Things but just sorta hopped up a little,” says Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler. “It’s almost like season 1 was drinking a Coke and season 2 they drank a Red Bull.” The Duffers have envisioned the return as not so much a second season but a movie sequel. To that end, when the show comes back it will have the cinematic moniker Stranger Things 2. “When we started describing it as a sequel, Netflix was like, ‘Don’t do that, because sequels are known to be bad,’ ” says Matt. “I was like, ‘Yes, but what about T2 and Aliens and Toy Story 2 and Godfather II?’ ” Before the official greenlight came for Things 2, the Duffers had been quietly plotting the next round of interdimensional adventure. Says Matt, “The good news is that a lot of what we wanted to see or what we responded to, that seems to be what the audience responded to. Like we fell in love with Gaten, and there were aspects, like Barb, we were already planning to deal with. It felt like there was a nice alignment between what we wanted to see and what other people wanted to see.”

While season one was focused mainly on finding Will (Noah Schnapp) and defeating the demogorgon, Things 2 features several disparate stories that intertwine but all roads eventually lead to the “shadow monster,” a nickname given to a giant creature Will first meets in PTSD-like visions of the Upside Down. “It’s all connected to this singular threat, which is tied into this shape that Will sees in the sky,” says Ross. By the end of the nine-hour season, fans can also expect new characters, like Bob (Sean Astin), a love interest for Joyce (Winona Ryder), and some pretty wow-worthy action sequences. Says Matt, “Each episode is building on the last one. It gets much crazier than it ever got in season 1.”

Netflix is preparing to relaunch the series with a full-throttle blitz worthy of a James Cameron extravaganza. “Everything the way Netflix is approaching the marketing, the publicity, the licensing, the merchandising, those are all closer to a feature film tentpole franchise model than a second season of a television series,” says Levy, who directed the huge Night at the Museum trilogy. Now the Things team just needs to live up to those giant expectations. “It’s definitely daunting,” says Levy. “The love for this show is so rabid.” But the Duffers are confident that viewers will be more than satisfied with their return to the Upside Down. Says Matt, “We want people to argue about what season is better. I want the debate. I want the Toy Story debate!” – Source

2017: Entertainment Weekly – more scans soon!

[coolcomputerobservation-blog]

Buying A Star Is The best way You can do For your Love

Selecting The best Tradeshow Gifts

You possibly can choose to construct from star wars, Harry potter, sponge Bob, trucks, cars, planes, house and lots of extra. I'm positive there's always a proper Lego toys on your boy. You possibly can encourage your boy to turn out to be a sports activities minded. In this case you'll be able to play along with him and make your boy bodily fit. Some cool gifts that you simply may give are basket ball, foot ball, soccer ball, base ball, volley ball, badminton and hockey. The frames serve as a display for flower photos, children’s artwork, butterfly displays or geological images as a manner to coach children. Gardeners additionally profit from Clear Marker frames by displaying plant names or holding the empty seed packets inside the frame all through the seasons. Clear Marker frames are unique as a result of they allow personalization of the frame’s bordering and wording. There's access to over 60 free particular person borders by downloading a easy phrase document from Clear Marker’s webpage and deciding on probably the most desired image of body.

A scrumptious bottle of champagne or liqueuer.

A teddy bear, usually bearing a pink coronary heart with the printed phrases "I really like You." or another model thereof. A cute coronary heart formed balloon with either "I like You" or "Be My Valentine" boldly displayed. A scrumptious bottle of champagne or liqueuer. An exquisite item of jewellery that finest describes your feelings for her. A bottle of her favourite perfume. But when none of those options give you the results you want, there are many others out there.

- 4 sheets smiley-face stickers

Then if a man shall say unto you, lo here is christ, or there; imagine it not

Infringer's actions are prone to cause confusion with the proprietor's mark

Teaspoon baking soda

310 5555 Mon to Fri (9am – 5pm)

Darth Vader mug shot coffee cup

Cup chopped nuts (non-obligatory)

The internet hosting and area identify registration privacy coverage are excellent

Publisher: Asheesh Pandey New Star Sr. Sec. Writer: Azim Uddin New Star Sr. Sec. Faculty is situated in West Enclave in Pitampura. The school was established with a vision of offering quality education to it college students. Publisher: Louis Brown Elevating dogs has develop into a favourite hobby of people worldwide for along time. Writer: Lazaro Hester Graduation is a good moment that needs to be celebrated meaningfully. Subsequently, you might have to arrange your finest present when your greatest pals are celebrating this moment. There are at all times lots of reward ideas that you can give for them. On this following record, you will have some great ideas that you could strive to consider. Publisher: Jimmy Hayden All that effort must get recognition obviously.

Publisher: Ajeet Khurana You can't get the future for the current. But you positive can get distant objects nearer by using the suitable optical instrument. Writer: Alan Dodd Many people have contributed to the event of telescope making, none more significantly than William Herschel. Born in Hanover, Germany, Herschel settled in England in 1757, the place he turned concerned with astronomy and later (1776) turned his consideration to telescopes. Publisher: Ashish kumar By giving vacation gifts, we show that we care about one another. Christmas Day is a holiday usually noticed on December 25 to commemorate the beginning of Jesus. Christmas is celebrated by an rising number of non-Christians worldwide. Writer: Janehuang This article supplies a reward record for the girls to prepare Valentine's Day gifts for his or her boyfriends. Writer: abirama The individuals who find tough to take a position in the presents can simply use cinema present vouchers. The film is picked in accordance along with your style and curiosity.

The best Games For iPad - The notion is fundamental and but consists of massive depth rendering it simple to acquire began and nevertheless robust to put down, not to say grasp. At it's coronary heart Indignant Birds for iPad is amazingly entertaining to play! We have been enjoying this recreation contemplating that launch and greet every new update with the an identical level of pleasure and anticipation as we did when we 1st downloaded.

This collection of LEGO is greatest recognized for the amount of rare LEGO sets it has. Details and some information about the that I am posting in this post can be located in other pages of importance this site Name a star Nasa .LEGO likes to discontinue units after a sure period of time has passed. This has created a relatively high demand for these sets. That is the second film released for the Pre-quel trilogy of Starwars films. Our Photo voltaic System is almost 5 billion years previous! We imagine it is 4.6 billion years old. Our Solar System started as a cloud of area mud and gasoline. The Photo voltaic System is more than just planets and moons. There may be one solar, eight planets, several dwarf planets, 166 moons (that we know of), and tons of to 1000's of asteroids, comets, dust, and gasoline! Comets are shifting our bodies of rock and ice that orbit the Sun and pass by the internal Photo voltaic System--by the planets--each hundred years or every few thousand years.

There is nothing that really units a typical for the Valentines day present you must choose, but your choice, funds and need. You may choose from, and even make your own Top 10 Valentine gifts for her, and decide your favourites better nonetheless, get her all the things and make this Valentines actually stand out. A new mother may be apprehensive in regards to the babysitter or daycare provider, or could simply want a chance to examine in along with her new baby by way of video. A nanny-kind cam that can be set up in the house, after which seen from any pc online generally is a comforting reward for a brand new mom who's anxious about someone else caring for her baby.

Handbags could make or break an outfit, so that you need to select the very best one that complements their look. Relying on the kind of your wedding ceremony, bridesmaids handbags ranges from formal clutches to less formal tote bags. The same thing goes whenever you decide to give jewelry gifts. You do not need to give a jewelry set that may look fully mismatched to your attendant's wardrobe. You must consider the shade as well as the type of their dresses. Perhaps the most vital part of your windows is the registry system; in the case of damage to it, unexpected glitches can start to pop up. Interrupting software program or machine installations or deinstallations, for instance, may typically contaminate the registry and trigger these and other troubles. There appear to be different choices - what's the most effective strategy to handle this? Yow will discover any variety of potential solutions; nonetheless, i found that most individuals appear to make use of considered one of the numerous registry restore packages on the market to get rid of these errors.

Publisher: SharonStenning097 'Love goes by way of the stomach.' We now have all heard this saying before and most would agree that there is a few truth in it. Lovebirds go for romantic meals, families come collectively for dinner and in your birthday you dig into cake. So why not get your cherished ones the gourmet meals gifts for his or her birthday or Christmas?