#Mac vs evil plots | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stuck-in-the-ghost-zone · 3 years ago

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hello hello mx ghostiezone once again i am sending u 1am asks ^___^ anyway. 1) this is also a free pass 2 talk about YOUR ocs from what i have heard. their lore is so neat i am so so so curious i would love to know more. pls pls pls. 2) u r so cool actually. fond of mac ghostiezone. sending u excellent vibes & also sharing my raspberry tea with u rn >:) ok gn!!!

HIII HI ROSWELL IM FINALLY ANSWERING THISSS it's been sitting in my inbox for like a fucking month now I'm SO sorry but I am finally able to form coherent thoughts so I hope u don't mind if this is SO long. I am going 2 tell u ALL about tfobh. which is likeeee. the oc universe/story I am the most obsessed w nowadays. btw i post all of my oc thoughts @ghost--core so if u wanna know all abt my cringe little guys.... eyes emoji

so. the basics. there r 5 (technically 6?) main characters, and they're all supposed to feel like they've been dropped from totally different stories into one group.

Oliver Brody is the wholesome sitcom/slice of life anime. he really likes bugs, rides a skateboard everywhere, dresses in bright colors and is generally a rlly optimistic dude!!! he LOVES his wife and kids so much but during the plot of the story he is separated from them because. his wife works as a park ranger n got a job at a HUGE national park. so she and the kids moved out there to their permanent home while Ollie stayed behind in the city to finish his last few semesters of school (he wants 2 graduate n get a good job to support his family.... he is the world's SECOND most perfect man. you'll find out who the first is later.) he calls his wife every night to kiss his kids goodnight and talk to her about her day !! he's connected to the main group because he and henrik were roommates the first time he went to college :]

Jackie Bowers is the superhero/comic book. He's a freelance urbex photographer and spends a lot of his time exploring abandoned buildings. hes the youngest of the group n is still very much a child at heart, he LOVES movies and comics and gets excited very easily! he's very impulsive and that's kind of a detriment more often than not. he's also got magic! jackie has something called intrinsic magic, meaning he can call on his magic at will whenever he wants without any outside help. this makes it VERY unpredictable and hard to control and he's not very good at that (he's got lightning magic btw. he got struck by lightning when he was a little kid 😌 he calls it his origin story). he's very justice-minded and even though he's not Actually a superhero he's got a very black and white view of good vs evil. he's connected to the main group through henrik as well, who he met during his Frequent visits to the hospital for parkour-related accidents.

Merrow Atwood is a high fantasy/dnd style fae (half-fae, technically. his father was a human). there r two types of magic in the tfobh universe- intrinsic and ritualistic. fae can only have ritualistic magic, meaning they need some sort of outside force to call upon their magic, whether that be a wand or certain ingredients or a potion or a book or whatever. they can't just conjure things all willy nilly so it's a much more controlled, tame form of magic. they consider intrinsic magic dangerous because it's so much harder to control. so BECAUSE merrow is half-fae though. his dad had intrinsic fire magic. So merrow inherited that and hes got both types. during an accident when he was younger, he ended up setting a huge section of the forest on fire and was banished by his village, deemed cursed and too dangerous to ever return. he wandered in the woods on his own for a rlly long time, but one night he ended up sleeping in an abandoned building and that's when Jackie found him!! blah blah story stuff happens but. oh my god they were roommates. are they in love? are they just homies who kiss sometimes? who knows, least of all them! merrow is very level-headed, kind of aloof and mysterious without meaning to be and he knows NOTHING about pop culture/media/current events/ANYTHING like that. Jackie, known movie lover and big fucking nerd, has a FIELD day introducing him to everything

HENRIK SOMMERFELD. THE MAN HIMSELF. there's not really a single ""main character"" in tfobh. but god. henrik sure is something. he is like. the Frankenstein/Dr.Jekyll of tfobh. science man that tries to play god (thank u aster). he is SO morally grey and fucked up. HE DIDNT START LIKE THAT THOUGH. he and Ollie went to college together, became great friends n stayed in contact even after ollie dropped out the first time and hen went on to med school. he works at the big hospital and every day on his lunch break he walks down the road to the same bakery. this bakery just so happens to be run by his best friend in the whole world! henrik is. very tired and grumpy and closed-off and VERY hard to talk to. so he doesn't have a whole lot of friends. with the exception of Adrian, who I will get to next.

henrik and adrian are SO interconnected with each other that i CANNOT talk about one without including the other. so fuck my organization this is why I did these two last.

Adrian Daugherty is!!!!!! the world's most perfect man. he's the punk with a heart of gold trope. he's the older brother that loves horror movies. he's. so sweet. he dresses in all black with ripped jeans and a flannel shirt and piercings ALL over his face. he rides a motorcycle to work and looks like he could kick anyone's ass at any given moment. and he works at a bakery making cookies and pies all day. he risks being late to work in the morning to talk to stray cats on the sidewalk. he and henrik become friends solely because Adrian saw this miserable wet blanket of a man walk into the shop every day at 1:16 pm SHARP, order a black coffee and a croissant and sit in the corner to gloomily stare out the window until he had to go back to work. Adri dealt with this for about a week and a half before he started setting out the usual order 5 minutes before he walked in the door so it'd be ready when he got there. eventuallyyyy they started talking and adrian was the extrovert that adopted him. they became SO incredibly close.

and then. you see. you have to understand why I am choosing to call henrik the viktor frankenstein of this story. you see. Adrian dies.

Adrian dies, and henrik becomes SO consumed by his guilt and grief that he steals a book of spells from merrow. henrik doesn't believe in magic or ghosts or anything like that, but he's so desperate that maybe *something* will be able to give adrian back to him. he performs some VERY forbidden necromancy, and because he wasn't born with any sort of magic and knows absolutely NOTHING about what he's doing, he fucks it up ROYALLY. he ends up summoning a creature the book calls "the shadow" and accidentally fuses it with adrians corpse. this creates a new being that is neither shadow nor adrian. he names himself azrael.

Azrael. is. hmmmm. hes like. the sympathetic villain I guess? he's the horror movie monster. he's both somehow the protagonist and antagonist at the same time. he is. absolutely PISSED at the fact that he exists. he doesn't remember anything about adrians life, he just remembers suddenly being woken up to loud noise and a splitting headache and all the pain and agony of existence all at once. He lashes out at henrik and disappears.

Merrow finds out his book was stolen and is RIGHTFULLY pissed about it. he and Jackie are the ones that find henrik in the aftermath. they decide azrael needs to be found and destroyed because he was created with dangerous magic and realistically should have never existed in the first place, much to henriks dismay.

so the story goes, you've got two separate groups trying to hunt azrael down. henrik and Ollie don't want to kill him, theyre trying just to talk to him and maybe get him to calm down enough to be civil. The problem with their strategy is that henrik refuses to stop calling him Adrian. this just pisses Azrael off more because hes not who they think he is, hes not Adrian, he doesn't even know who Adrian is so he doesn't understand why theyre expecting him to be this. guy. on the other hand Jackie and merrow are hunting him down to try to kill him. Neither of these is a good option.

I REFUSE to create a story with an unhappy ending though, so it does get better in the end. merrow has a change of heart after some plot stuff and ends up figuring out a way to separate shadow from Azrael enough that he can still exist but won't have all the murderous tendencies of a demon. they have like. weird found family vibes at the end :]

#GOD I AM SO SORRY THIS IS SUCH A BIG WALL OF TEXT.#BUT LIKE. THIS IS ME RESTRAINING MYSELF #I WANT TO WRITE LIKE 5 MORE PARAGRAPHS ABT THE MAGIC SYSTEM *ALONE*#i want to talk about jackies backstory SO bad. and merrows. theyre the big dramatic backstory boys.#merrows fae village has so much lore that ive been thinking about making a spinoff story about two of the characters from there #((one of which is basically responsible for merrow getting banished. ooooo i love her))#if tumblr deletes this ask im going to go fucking insane #godddd that ending is so bad and not compelling but i kinda ran out of steam lol #plus if i went into detail about the azrael plot we'd be here for like 3 more pages of text #anyway!!!!! Thank u!!!!!!!#fuck dude i love mt ocs so much #asks #friends!!!#swordkind #<<< feels SO strange not to be using ur other url omg.#my ocs #ocs #tfobh

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allykakamatsu · 4 years ago

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Hypothetical P5A

Okay, gonna make this clear right up front, I wanted to make this post for a while but the main reason I decided to do it now is because the Atlus announcement thing is almost here, and also cause I saw a video on this topic by Thorgi’s Arcade (go watch it btw it’s good) and while I agree with a lot of what he said, there’s also some things I’d change, not just cause I disagree, but also cause I think it would be fun. Anyway enough beating around the bush, let’s do this

Gameplay

I’m a firm believer in the phrase, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and the Arena games are already really good so not much to change. That being said, I still wanna change some things. First off though, we are keeping this 1 vs 1, no tag team matches. The arena games already have a lot of Mechanics going on and trying to keep everything as well as some new stuff WHILE adding a tag team button, yeah no let’s not outside of maybe a bonus mode.

This means I can’t add Batton Pass in as a new mechanic to represent P5, but I have a solution, that being Technicals. Status ailments already exist in this game, so how about when you inflict one and do a specific combo you do more damage, also providing risk vs reward as the player with the status will have a better idea of what the opponent will do making them more predictable. Also as for Persona’s, mostly everyone’s will be fully evolved, minus Yu cause him getting a final boss persona normally is a tad to OP, meanwhile the P5 characters will have their starting Persona’s, but they will evolve for big moves, like awakened mode supers and instant kills

I’m also borrowing Thorgi’s Arcade idea of having supports giving a slight buff in battle, like if you pick Fuuka your meter can build faster for a bit, meanwhile if you pick Futaba you’ll get an attack and defence buff. It’s the fairest way to include them without having to make them playable. I know Rise is already playable but this roster is going to have to be small as it is, and being a support doesn’t mean you can’t be DLC later.

Also, we’re not bringing back the Shadow Characters, just, we are not dealing with the likes of Shadow Naoto again.

:readmore:

Story

I am about to cop out a bit here, but Thorgi’s Arcade video had a really good idea for the story so I’ll just link it here https://youtu.be/yyB5rEM9UVU

youtube

To summarise for people who don’t want to watch, Nyarlathotep, the main villain from the Persona 2 games, has been gaining strength from all the suffering humanity has gone through due to 3, 4 and 5, and has gained enough strength to create a new Joker to try finish what he started and destroy the world. Mitsuru might think the Phantom Thieves are behind it cause this is clearly persona related and the fact that the leader of the PT’s is also named Joker is public knowledge, Naoto gets largely the same idea, Katsuya and Maya decide to have their own investigation, meanwhile the Phantom Thieves are trying to prove their innocence and help save the world. Nice excuse to bring everyone together, but who will the everyone be?

Base Roster

Okay, I know the dream is getting everyone from Ultimax back plus the new P5 characters, but given Arc System’s standard for small base rosters, I’m not holding my breath. The ideal would be everyone plus who I’m about to say for P2 and P5, but I’m keeping it… somewhat realistic. Anyway onto the actual size, 16 seems fair enough. One more than the most recent Guilty Gear game for a series that had pretty big success so that sound fair enough. Let’s get the obvious out of the way though, all the base 8 Phantom Thieves besides Futaba are making the cut

Okay so that’s obvious but how will they play? Starting off with Ren/Joker, Smash Bros already laid a great foundation with him being very fast on the ground and in the air plus being great at combos, so I see no reason to change that. Also no need for him to be a Jack of all trades either cause spoilers, Yu is coming back and he already fills that role.

As for the others, Ryuji I can see being a slugger charge hybrid. Basically starting out he hits pretty hard but is a bit on the slow side to compensate, but just like any good athlete, give him a chance to warm up, ie do a charge input, and he becomes a lot faster and has better combo potential. Or we could make him a toned down version of Little Mac where he’s great on the ground but he’s in trouble the second aerial combat is involved. Then there’s Morgana who with his ability to turn into cars and the fact he introduces thief tools like smoke bombs, I can see him being a faster but frailer successor to Teddie.

Then there’s Ann who, no doubt, she’s a Zoner, and with her fire she’ll be Yukiko’s sort of successor. However instead of healing, I’d implement the fact that she learns concentrate and have it so the more she charges it up, the stronger her attacks get, but the Meter will gradually go down over the match. Yusuke, as tempting as it is to cop out and say ‘have him play like Vergil in Marvel vs Capcom’, I have a different idea. Namely, take advantage of the fact that Yusuke can learn counter by having him be the defensive specialist, set up ice traps to freeze the opponent, and if they get close, he can either counter or go for some combos.

Then there’s Makoto who would definitely be a grappler. I mean, she practices Aikido and is really strong, she can 100% pull it off. Finally Haru…… TANK! I mean come on, Haru wields an axe, has a grenade launcher, and Melady is literally a dancing tank in a pink dress, it just makes too much sense. I’d also give her a bit of armor cause if she’s slow she at least needs a chance to get her attacks in.

Okay so that’s 7 out of our 16 slots down, and given that one slot will have to be saved for the Evil Joker who would be the villain, we’re halfway done with 3 games to go, lord help me.

Okay, starting this off with P4, I’m gonna give them more than the others purely because they were the focus of the originals and there’s less realistic cuts I can make compared to 2 and 3. To make things simple, every returning character would play the same, and as for the ones I’d bring back for the base roster, we’ve got Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Naoto. Why them specifically? Well Yu is the main character, Naoto being a detective would basically mean she’d be the one getting everyone involved in the first place, Chie is currently training to be a cop as confirmed in P5 so her getting called in makes sense, and Yosuke is the best investigator after Yu and Naoto, he’s always up for a mystery and the second he learns Yu is involved he’s joining in. I just couldn’t cut him.

Now before the really painful cuts, Persona 2 is really easy. Out of Innocent Sin party members, by the end of the series Maya is the only one left with a Persona, and Katsuya is not only older brother of Innocent Sin’s protag Tatsuya, but he’s also pretty important and a detective so he’s definetly the one Maya’s dragging into this. As for how they play, they both use guns like Naoto, but how I’d mix them up is with Katsuya, I’d let him attack while moving (unlike Naoto who has so stay still to fire) at the cost of less combo potential, meanwhile Maya dual wields her guns so she’ll probably play like Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue where she’d more or less just use the guns to get longer reach melee attacks instead of shooting.

Now, for the hard part. There’s only 2 slots left, one of them basically has to go to Mitsuru (not that I’m complaining I’d probably add her anyway) meaning now I have to choose between the rest of the Shadow Operatives/SEES for the last slot. I narrowed it down to the 3 that were in the original Arena cause they’re the most plot relevant, but that still meant I had to choose between Akihiko and Aigis. I ended up deciding on Aigis though cause A, with Labrys not making the base roster someone has to represent the robots of the series, and B, with Akihiko currently pulling a Ryu by travelling to get stronger, it makes more sense that Aigis would be closer and easier for Mitsuru to call up. Honestly I was tempted to bump the roster up to 17 so I could have both of them on the base roster, but this is ArcSystems, 16 is already kinda pushing it.

DLC

Given that this is a modern fighting game, DLC is inevitable. However since this DLC will likely be like Ultimax where the story acts to wrap up loose ends and have a new story, it’s going yo be big, especially since there’s going to be a fight with Nyaraloptep, so go big or go home in this case. Okay so first order of business, anyone who was in the previous arena games who wasn’t in the base roster is getting added back in, it’s only fair. That out of the way, the new faces I’d add are Futaba actually being playable now and the big 4 P5 characters I skipped, Akechi, Yoshizawa, and Sophie. Before anyone asks though, Sophie was added into a Dragalia Lost collab with Koei Techmo not being credited so she’s likely Atlus’s copyright so she's safe to add.

With that out of the way, how would they play? Starting with Futaba, I’d think she’d be the resident puppet fighter, sitting on top of Necinomicon and only occasionally adding in some of her own attacks like a projectile. Also she'd also probably act as a bit of a grappler cause her Persona has tentacles (no hentai jokes please) which have long reach so that'll be perfect for it. Next up is Akechi who I can see as semi being two characters in one. My basic idea is that at first Akechi will be fighting with Robin Hood and he'll be a solid jack of all trades with a slight focus on rush down. However once he goes into his awakened mode he'll gain Loki, which will increase his speed and attack strength, at the cost of his defence, turning him into a glass cannon.

Next is Yoshizawa, or 'Sumi as I like to call her, and her thing will be she's the mobility focused fighter, namely constantly moving around the stage and poking at her opponent while doing it, at the cost of being frail. Finally there’s Sophie who would be a combo focused zoner, as in her standard projectiles (the yo-yo’s) wouldn’t hurt that much on their own, but she can string them together into the fancy yo-yo tricks to potentially do big damage. As for how much this DLC would cost, it’s going to be very big, so €25 to €30 sounds fair

I think that more or less covers my thoughts. I could keep going on about this for a while, but I think this is a good place to stop. Hope you like my idea!

#Youtube #persona 5 #persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 2 #persona arena #phantom thieves #investigation team #SEES #shadow operatives #happy 25th anniversary Persona!

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girlbossdennnis · 4 years ago

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ok tell me abt the gangs fav horror movies then i would like to know

hell yeah! ok so, horror movies i think each member would like:

charlie - he would like the fun, bright and colorful comedy horror movies over the serious ones so movies like Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Evil Dead 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Zombieland, Sleepaway Camp 2 (lotta sequels huh)

and for fun i think he would like Little Shop of Horrors for it's musical aspect and most definitely tried to have his own audrey II by making frank buy this ridiculously expensive plant that he's sure is legit and names waitress II only to kill it within the week by watering it with the blood bucket

dee - i switch back and forth between what kind she likes cause her character seems to flip flop on being a pick me and hating all men a lot but regardless i do think she'd like more female killer movies like Urban Legend, April Fool's Day, Bride of Chucky, Tragedy Girls. I think she resonates with the movie Carrie a lot but wouldn't admit it. I also think she would like Midsommar and firmly would believe it's a girlboss type movie

dennis - like i've mentioned i don't actually think he'd like American Psycho or House That Jack Built type of movies cause i don't think he's that guy or trying to be that guy at all. I do think he'd like "smart horror" like Scream and Behind the Mask for it's horror homages. He'd also probably like more 80s horror in general like Prom Night, Poltergeist, and certainly Fright Night for it's vampirism and having two vampire (or vampire and his familiar i don't remember) dudes living together for years in solitude..

same with dee he also likes midsommar a lot but views it as a cult cautionary tale movie. this leads to many hours of fighting and arguing and finally having another in house trial to settle it once and for all

mac - DEFINITELY action horror no doubt about it. we know he already likes Predator but I'm adding Alien Vs. Predator as well cause it's monster fighting. I don't think he digs traditional slashers but would enjoy Freddy vs Jason for it's comedy and once again monsters fighting. Following the action horror line he probably would like Tremors and Army of Darkness and possibly Jaws but just cause he thinks he could take down the shark on his own

bonus: yes i said he hates slashers but i think he would watch the first Sleepaway Camp a lot cause all the male counselors are in literal booty shorts the whole movie and he's a man with taste and eyes

bonus bonus: the saw movies purely because they always explain everything at the end which helps mac cause he doesn't understand movie plots at all

frank - i think he's the wildcard in terms of horror and likes a bit of everything. Saw 6 specifically cause it has a lot of gruesome kills but on the other hand would love Scary Movie and it's sequels. Also Creepshow 2 and Eight-legged Freaks cause they're just fun watches for him with the anthology style and comedy monster movie. Definitely Jason Takes Manhattan and more specifically the scene where Jason takes his mask off in from of the kids like that's right up his alley man.

basically whenever they get together to watch a horror movie it's a constant fight cause they all have differing tastes in what they like in horror

#whew got carried away a bit oops #also following the midsommar movies mac thinks that the boyfriend didn't do anything wrong and was completely justified #charlie just likes its bright colors and the bear costume at the end #the one thing they all come together for is the dong shot <3 #sunny #iasip #sunny hcs #the gang #mac #charlie #frank #dee #dennis #asks #horror

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purble-turble · 4 years ago

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Idea about Evil Clone MK: Claims, when people finally realize he's a clone, to be made from the ugly part MK doesn't want to think about- the bastard that points out that he can do whatever he want with this power and not even Heaven can stop him that is pushed deep down.

Interesting!!!

I guess I’ve been considering the evil clone scenario mostly from the point of view of the clone or Red Son but you’re absolutely right to bring up MK! This is an opportunity to hold a mirror up to MK so he has to confront his inner demons.. this clone knows all his selfish desires he’s trying so hard to suppress and decides to act on them.

I don’t know that the clone would refer to himself as the “ugly” part of MK.. more likely he’d think of himself as the strong part of MK. He says he’s the part that’s confident and isn’t afraid to use the power within him to take what he wants or care about what anyone else thinks about him. He taunts MK and calls him weak because he’s ruled by his fear of disappointing others.. maybe he even brings up Red Son too, because this clone knows that MK has a bit of a crush on Red but is too afraid to do anything about it. But HE was strong enough, and that’s why he gets to have Red Son and MK gets nothing. Of course this whole line of thinking is wrong and MK knows that deep down, but it still definitely hurts.

This plot thread kind of makes the Evil Clone MK be like the Macaque to MK’s Sun Wukong. And I love the themes of what is the true vs the illusory mind when it comes to those two, and in the case of MK and his clone that could be an interesting thing to explore and have MK defeat his inner selfish desires in the way Wukong does through Macaque.

...Although, since that’s already a story that’s been told, it could also be fun to have the focal point be on MK’s relationships with others. Specifically his friends.. the evil clone has obviously abandoned all of them in favor of joining the DBK family out of selfish desire for power (and potentially Red Son) and so views MK’s loyalty to his friends as the source of his weakness. It would make sense in a case where that is the focus to have MK’s friends be instrumental in the defeat of the clone, proving that friendship and loyalty breed strength, not weakness.

Well... whether it would be about nonduality or friendship, I heckin love all the possibilities of this plot. If I wasn’t so wrapped up in my Mac and Red comic I might write something about it.. don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to two large fan projects though..

so if someone else wants to create something with the evil clone plot (whether it follows this story line or something completely different) you have my blessing :U just send a link to it to me if you do.. honestly, I’d just love to see more MK clone stuff, I absolutely love the story possibilities~

#ask #blog #spicynoodleshipping #dark spicynoodles #evil clone mk #mk #mk clones

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage – The Comics History of the Symbiote Rivalry

https://ift.tt/3APMTrk

Something that impresses me with a superhero movie like Venom is when it doesn’t rush directly into the expected villain. When there are four different Fantastic Four movies, and they’re all about emphasizing Dr. Doom, it’s a breath of fresh air when, say, Man of Steel only makes an Easter egg reference to Lex Luthor instead of going directly for that confrontation. The MCU Spider-Man has yet to meet an Osborn, guys like Thanos and Darkseid started out as ominous benefactors, and the existence of Heath Ledger Joker was merely a cliffhanger tease in Batman Begins.

Much like how the Justice League movie decided to take its time by giving us Steppenwolf of all people, the first Venom movie had Carlton Drake (who hasn’t appeared in the comics since the early 9��0s) and Riot (the most forgettable of all of Venom’s comic children). By letting Venom build himself up on his own, flanked by some rather mundane villains, it gave more meaning to Cletus Kasady showing up in the post-credits. Carnage, Venom’s main villain, gets more fanfare by appearing in the sequel where our hero is fully formed.

Since Carnage’s first appearance in 1992, the idea has always been to make a darker, scarier Venom. Venom was a villain at the time, sure, but he was also on the border of becoming more. Outside of his personal delusions and anger issues, he still claimed that he wanted to help the innocent and punish the guilty. Even when he was able to accept that Spider-Man was good, they couldn’t co-exist due to their different natures as vigilantes. Carnage was simpler because he was full-on evil and had no potential for redemption. He was something so sinister and malevolent that both Spider-Man and Venom knew it was worth it to put aside their differences and take this creep down.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage has hyped Carnage up as being out of Venom’s league and that was the initial push of the character. Over time, the two became roughly equals as Carnage became the go-to bad guy for Venom to punch.

So let’s take a look at the history of Venom vs. Carnage. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to define “Venom” and “Carnage” as characters wearing their respective symbiotes (excluding Peter Parker), or the symbiotes themselves. I’m not going to count Eddie Brock as Toxin, or Flash Thompson as Agent Anti-Venom or whatever.

Carnage’s Debut

Not counting cameos and build-up, Carnage’s first major appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #361, starting off a three-parter. Spider-Man came to realize that he wasn’t enough to stop Carnage and he was going to need help. Specifically, he was going to need Venom. This was an awkward decision as Venom was at the time living his best life on an empty island, thinking that he had succeeded in killing Spider-Man.

Once Venom fully understood the situation, he accepted the temporary alliance. In the very first Venom vs. Carnage confrontation, Venom and Spider-Man tackled Carnage, got slammed into each other, then thrown into opposite walls. Carnage then caused a distraction by putting a baby in danger so he could escape. While he was dominant in that very brief scuffle, he still needed to run off, so I’m calling this a draw.

The handicap match continued into the last issue of the arc at a rock concert. In one-on-one exchanges, Carnage had Venom’s number, but Spider-Man was always there for the save. Spider-Man was able to use the sonics from the amplifiers to take out both of them. Technically a draw again, but it’s also a situation where Carnage regularly kicked the shit out of Venom and Venom only survived because he had help.

Maxium Carnage

Insert your Green Jelly cassettes and press play because it’s time for Carnage’s big ’90s crossover story. After the previous story’s popularity, Marvel decided to add more heroes, more villains, and make the whole thing a whopping 14 issues!

As Venom was a San Francisco vigilante at the time, he flew to New York to stop Carnage’s reign of terror. The first fight wasn’t even shown, as after the reveal that Carnage had Shriek and Doppelganger on his side, it cut away. A brutalized Venom was later found passing out while knocking on Peter and MJ’s door.

As Maximum Carnage was filled with so much filler and extra characters, there were various fight scenes of a group of heroes brawling with a group of villains. Venom and Carnage talked smack a lot, but nothing much ever really happened in terms of fighting. The story finally kicked into gear when Venom used a stolen sonic gun and blasted Carnage while Firestar assisted with her microwave blasts. This would have done the job, but Spider-Man got in the way and Shriek simply cut Cletus’ face open, causing his symbiote to respawn and bring him back to 100 percent health. Carnage and Shriek overwhelmed Venom and carried him off, along with the sonic gun.

Venom spent several issues being tortured until coming up with the plan to sneak some of the symbiote into the sonic gun so that Carnage would splatter Venom with more Venom. He punched Carnage down and escaped with gusto, hiding the fact that he was in no condition to fight.

It isn’t until the last issue that we FINALLY got a real Venom vs. Carnage fight. Venom was physically busted a bit, but Carnage was mentally busted. The heroes hit him with some MaGuffin device that caused him to be haunted by those who screwed him up in life. Venom pretty much just kicked Carnage’s ass around the city while Carnage tried in vain to escape. Every now and then, Spider-Man would appear and go, “B-b-but Eddie! Killing is wrong!” for the sake of giving Carnage a second wind.

Eventually, Venom punched Carnage so hard that Carnage’s brain ghosts went away. Knowing Carnage was more of a threat this way, Venom tackled him into a transformer. After the explosion, Cletus was knocked out and Venom got to weakly sneak away. Hey, good for him!

Venom: Carnage Unleashed

Venom was so popular that we got Carnage. Carnage’s initial storyline was so popular that we got Maximum Carnage. Maximum Carnage was so popular that we got a Maximum Carnage video game. Then we got Venom: Carnage Unleashed, a comic based on the popularity of the Maximum Carnage video game. It…wasn’t all too popular.

Still, it did give us the rarely used plot device that symbiotes can travel through phone lines and the internet! Symbiotes really are like pre-Crisis Superman where you can give them whatever power and people will just go with it no matter how ridiculous. As Carnage escaped from Ravencroft and commandeered a security tank, Venom eventually caught up with him and they had a fight on a runaway vehicle through traffic. Carnage eventually won when Venom got slammed by an oncoming train.

Their final battle here is a big pile of “That’s not how any of this works!” The two characters send symbiote tendrils into the internet, which were rendered on the Times Square big screen as the two brawled in cyberspace. Venom destroyed a nearby heatsink, which blasted both and knocked them out of the internet.

Carnage was ready for another go, but his kidnapped psychiatrist set him on fire and caused him to fall out a window. Venom reached through the phone lines and out the window to catch the falling Cletus because dying is WHAT HE WANTS. Which… no, that’s not true at all. Hell, even in Maximum Carnage, Cletus was freaked out about the possibility of dying.

Venom: On Trial

So there was a big Spider-Man/Scarlet Spider/Venom team-up called Planet of the Symbiotes that culminated in a 40-foot-tall Carnage, but there was never a specific Venom vs. Carnage moment, so I won’t go into it. Venom’s ’90s antihero run did have a storyline where Eddie was arrested and put on trial for all of his many crimes. Cletus Kasady was brought in as a star witness, which was an invitation for him to freak out and go on a killing rampage. I mean, seriously, guys. Come on. You should know better.

This story went all-in on Venom wrecking Carnage. Again, Spider-Man would interrupt and give Carnage a chance to turn things around. This time though, Venom decided to ride the wave by sneaking away while Spider-Man and Daredevil took on Carnage. Realizing that the two didn’t have a chance, Venom picked up a couple syringes filled with dopamine blocker and sprung into action. He smacked Carnage around, injected the blocker into his neck, and watched as the symbiote retracted into Cletus’ body.

Venom Triumphant

Howard Mackie wrote Spider-Man comics for a long while and he had an annoying tendency when it came to storytelling. He would come up with an interesting, if nonsensical, idea that would shake up the status quo, but instead of following up on that and using it to tell an actual story, he would just forget about it and move to the next idea that popped into his head. He was one of the main reasons why the Spider-Man Clone Saga was such a mess.

In the 10th issue of Peter Parker, Spider-Man, Venom broke into the prison where Carnage was being held. Despite the legion of heavily armed guards with flamethrowers and sonic guns, Venom killed them all so quickly that the artist didn’t even show it. Cletus, for some reason, figured Venom was trying to break him out of prison, but instead Venom was there to absorb the Carnage symbiote. Carnage barely put up a fight. Pieces of the symbiote were on him, but he didn’t fully transform or try to defend himself. Venom simply pulled the symbiote off of him and ate it, becoming stronger.

After this issue, there was barely any follow-up to this.

Venom vs. Carnage

This miniseries came out at a really weird time for those involved. Carnage was just a couple months away from being torn in half by the Sentry and being written out of comics for years. Venom was appearing in Marvel Knights Spider-Man where Eddie Brock got rid of the symbiote and it bounced around to different hosts until landing on Mac Gargan. Meanwhile there was a Venom ongoing that was more about a symbiote clone where Eddie Brock only appeared for a couple late issues.

In other words, in the Venom vs. Carnage miniseries by Peter Milligan and Clayton Crain, even the creative team had no idea who Venom’s host was supposed to be. Luckily, the story wasn’t about Venom or Carnage, but a new character who would quickly fall into obscurity anyway.

Venom and Carnage swung around New York City, giving the exposition. The Carnage symbiote was pregnant and Venom was explaining that there was nothing to do to stop the creature from going into labor. Venom was all about protecting the new spawn while Carnage wanted to destroy it, immediately. Carnage got the better of Venom by flinging him into the distance. Regardless, the explosive birth wore out Carnage so much that he could only plant the baby onto a nearby cop and escape to rest up.

When the two had a rematch, Venom was there to save the baby symbiote (Toxin) and its host (Pat Mulligan). As if getting revenge for that Carnage Unleashed story, Venom brought the fight to the subway and pushed Carnage into an oncoming train.

And… that’s really all the Venom vs. Carnage we get in Venom vs. Carnage! Once Venom sees that Toxin is a good guy and capable of kicking Carnage’s ass, he gets afraid of Toxin befriending Spider-Man and decides to team up with Carnage for once.

Carnage, USA

Carnage returned from his maiming at the hands of the Sentry, albeit without a bottom half. By then, a lot had happened with Venom. The symbiote was removed from Mac Gargan and joined with war hero Flash Thompson. Agent Venom went on to join the Secret Avengers.

Carnage, USA told the story of Cletus expanding his symbiote to overtake an entire town in the middle of nowhere. When various heroes went to oppose him, the Carnage symbiote ended up taking over Captain America, Wolverine, Hawkeye, and the Thing. When gaining a moment of clarity, Cap called in Agent Venom for help.

Movies

Venom 2 Trailer Breakdown – All the Marvel and Carnage References

By Gavin Jasper

Comics

Venom: Who is Carnage?

By Gavin Jasper

In their first meeting, Agent Venom easily took down Carnage with some explosive projectiles that came with sonic shrapnel. Then when getting ready for the kill – say it with me everyone – Spider-Man got in his face and went, “No! Don’t kill!” Carnage recovered, and overwhelmed Venom with his army of Carnage’d heroes. Then another obscure symbiote hero, Scorn, popped in to run Venom and Carnage over with a bulldozer and bring them into a facility that would blast their symbiotes off the hosts.

While Cletus and Flash had a fight based around the novelty that both were legless, the Venom symbiote latched onto a gorilla and ran for its life against an entire zoo full of animals with the Carnage symbiote. After almost being taken down by a Carnage lion (Spider-Man with the save), the gorilla returned to Flash and gave him the power to bring Cletus into custody.

As for the town-wide Carnage symbiote, most of it was taken out by an airstrike.

Minimum Carnage

Following up on Agent Venom, he had his own team-up arc with Scarlet Spider (Kaine) with the fun dynamic of a Venom who doesn’t want to kill and a Spider-Man who does. The two chased Carnage into the Microverse, where Carnage was able to create an army of symbiote clones. While Agent Venom was able to decapitate Carnage, the villain had attained some level of power where his body is more overall fluid and animated. In this case, Carnage could just reattach his head with no problem.

Although Flash had sedated his own symbiote and lacked the monstrous advantage, he was able to wipe out a bunch of the clones by amplifying his own inner sorrow outward through the Venom symbiote. Strangely, that’s not the first time Venom was able to do that. What’s left of Carnage slinked away, cackling.

Carnage and the clones returned to Earth and Voltron’d themselves into a giant Carnage. As Carnage tried to devour Agent Venom, Venom shoved a sonic grenade down Carnage’s throat and let the blast do the rest, taking out the enlarged Carnage symbiote almost completely. In the aftermath, Scarlet Spider jabbed one of his claws through Cletus’ eye and lobotomized him.

Venomverse

Venomverse is about a series of Venom hosts from different realities coming together to fight beings called Poisons. Under normal circumstances, Poisons are harmless. If one of them makes physical contact with a symbiote and its host, it transforms them into a nigh-unbeatable crystal-like creature with the Poison in control. By this point, Eddie Brock was Venom again and joined with all sorts of random symbiote heroes to the point that he came off as just a regular dude.

With their back against the wall, Eddie came up with an idea. They brought in Carnage from an alternate universe as a ringer. At first, Carnage fought against the Venoms, but they were reluctant to fight back. Once he saw the Poisons and understood that the Venoms wanted him to kill an army of twisted superheroes, he gladly joined their ranks. He just let them know that once he was done with the Poisons, he’d kill them next.

He ended up being a huge help, especially since the Poisons had a hard time bonding to the Carnage symbiote. Carnage died in an explosion fighting Poisons alongside Poison Deadpool (who was able to bypass his Poison’s mental control).

There was a sequel to this called Venomized where the Poisons returned and tried to invade Earth. They kidnapped Cletus, forced him to bond to an alternate universe Venom, and then bonded that to a Poison. While he was referred to as “Carnage” at times, the Carnage symbiote was never involved, so I’m going to skip this one.

But where was the Carnage symbiote during all of this?

The Red Goblin

At one point, Norman Osborn became the host for Carnage to give us a climactic villain to finish off Dan Slott’s lengthy run on Amazing Spider-Man. Knowing that Spider-Man was out of his league, J. Jonah Jameson decided to fight fire with fire by calling up Eddie Brock and blackmailing him into aiding Spider-Man. This led to a brief fight of Spider-Man, Venom, and repulsor-wielding Mary Jane against the Red Goblin.

Venom and Red Goblin brawled for a bit, but Red Goblin appeared to be immune to the usual symbiote weaknesses, so only Venom took damage. While he got some hits in, Eddie was too exhausted to continue. Instead he offered the symbiote to Spider-Man to give him the extra boost. This brief team-up allowed the two vigilante enemies to finally bury their lengthy rivalry.

Absolute Carnage

Now we get to Donny Cates’ bonkers run on Venom. Cletus had been resurrected and turned back into Carnage via a bunch of cultists who worshipped Knull, God of Symbiotes. Carnage then started going around eating the spines of those who were once host to a symbiote, getting stronger by the meal. Dark Carnage first fought Venom in a subway and easily overpowered him. Still, Venom got the win by grabbing onto the third rail while holding onto Dark Carnage. It was enough to knock Carnage loopy while Venom could get away and seek out help.

Venom and Spider-Man sought out Norman Osborn (who believed himself to be Cletus Kasady after the Red Goblin episode) and were ambushed by an army of inmates possessed by Carnage symbiotes. Overwhelmed, the two heroes broke through a wall and swung off into the night.

Venom got involved in another big fight against an army of Carnages and could have killed Osborn, but instead chose to save a wounded Mac Gargan nearby and brought him to safety. The Venom symbiote wasn’t happy with this and later left Eddie for Bruce Banner, giving us a fight between Venom Hulk and Dark Carnage. This turned out to be a dire choice, as Dark Carnage tore into Hulk’s brain, caused him to shrink back to Banner, then ate his spine. Carnage was stronger than ever.

Meanwhile, mad scientist the Maker had a machine that took the “symbiote codex” stuff Carnage was looking for out of former hosts without the nasty “tearing out their spinal column” part. Eddie unleashed the codex collection onto himself, turning him into a more powerful version of Venom. As he took on Cletus one last time, Carnage made note that Venom was screwed no matter what. Either Carnage killed and ate Eddie’s son Dylan or Eddie killed Carnage, which would wake up Knull and drive him to Earth.

Venom summoned the Necrosword to cut through Carnage, destroying him once and for all. For a time, at least.

Prelude to Knull

Wouldn’t you know it, killing Dark Carnage caused Eddie to absorb the Carnage symbiote into himself. Soon he was separated from Venom and stuck on an island while being bonded against his will to the Carnage symbiote. Dylan was able to remotely control the Venom symbiote and transformed it into a giant Venom T-rex. Like it wasn’t even bonding onto a dinosaur or anything. It was just the size and shape of a tyrannosaurus just because.

Eddie and Dylan had a dreamlike meeting in their minds while Carnage Eddie chopped down at the Venom dino. Eventually, the power of familial love was enough to overpower the Carnage symbiote and blow it up. Eddie rejoined with the Venom symbiote, and a little piece of Carnage latched onto a nearby shark to swim off and fight another day.

Okay, then! Phew! Going by every Venom vs. Carnage fight, I’ve judged them so that there have been six draws, eight victories for Carnage, and nine victories for Venom.

Congratulations, black ooze. Here’s hoping your red offspring doesn’t turn the tide at the box office.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage will be released in theaters on Oct. 1.

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The post Venom: Let There Be Carnage – The Comics History of the Symbiote Rivalry appeared first on Den of Geek.

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takusanno · 5 years ago

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BLOG UPDATE: 25.04.2020

This blog has been under re-construction for some time now and it’s finally about done, so here’s what it involves:

Muses:

As mentioned many moons ago, I decided I didn’t want to mix my canon muses and ocs, so i have moved the ocs onto individual blogs @firecreated ( fire-make mage, Frankie ) and @crimsoncurated ( Archive mage spy/informant, Mags ). They will be very low and sporadic activity ( just like this blog ).

I also mentioned I decided I don’t like to have more than 6 muses per multi, so I have cut this blogs muse list down to 5 ( i hate having an uneven number so there may be another muse added at some point but it wont be one that was on here before because Reasons ).

The muses left on this blog are: Gray, Loke, Macbeth, Rogue, and Frosch.

The muses cut from this blog were Millianna, Jenny, Chelia, Siegrain and Ophiuchus. The girls may end up on their own multi in the future, while Sieg is likely to get his own blog because he is Different.

Interpretations and Divergences:

I am starting to reread FT very slowly to spark ideas and motivation. I did finish reading the manga way back when it did end, but I’m not very familiar with the later arcs, which is another reason why I’m planning the reread.

As I go through the manga, some ideas and aspects of my portrayals may be adjusted, especially towards the end of the manga as some characters get destroyed by bad writing and I decide which parts I’m wanting to keep as canon and what I want to change. Below is a brief bit about where my portrayals are sitting at the moment.

Gray: i like to focus on his observant and artsy side but also the darkness that comes with having demon slaying magic. In order to use the demon slaying magic, he has a demonic element himself, which was activated by Silver during Tartaros. Gray now struggles with his new aspects and abilities and he is not as close to Fairy Tail as he was, because 1. he’s trying to deal with his problems on his own and doesnt want to risk hurting anyone from the guild, and 2. the fact the guild disbanded really threw him off and made him question things.

Loke: the lion aspects are more of a Thing and i will die with him being a gentlemanly knight. Him balancing his animal side and his gentlemanly ideals are my focus. He still flirts and can be playful but he knows where to draw the line, as his responsibilities are important to him. And any canon instance were he was inappropriate is excluded, see my divergence post here. I plan on some serious Celestial World building and the whole time-difference thing is going to be adjusted somehow, I just have to think some more on it.

Macbeth: The biggest thing with my guy here is that he still very similar to how he was in the Oracion Seis Arc ( also see this post regarding his hair, i dont do the fluffy style his more recent appearance had ). He does not care for ‘redemption,’ he is with Crime Sorciere for convenience and because the other OS members are there. I also ignore the Jellal vs Oracion Seis fight. Mac is Bad News right down to his dark and twisted core, he has always been this way, even before being a slave at the tower. There is no changing him.

Rogue: he is haunted by the evil ‘shadow,’ a demonic entity and the struggles he has because of this is important to note. He is doing his Best. I’m kinda 50/50 on a divergence where he is the Sabertooth Master so I think I would leave it flexible depending on Sting RPers ( as some would hc Rogue to be guild master instead of Sting ). The whole Welcome Home Frosch chapter didn’t happen.

Interactions/Ships:

This re-construction also act as a soft-refresh on some things.

Some bonds were started or plotted but are now dropped/reset as those blogs have deleted or reset themselves.

Some old ships ( as discussed with the relevant muns ) will be reset in light of shifting portrayals and also to keep organisation of blogs clean for both parties.

Activity/Following:

I want all my blogs to be relaxing, fun, no-pressure spaces, so that means limiting the blogs I follow, so no hard feelings if I don’t follow back!

It also means I’m not going to let myself get stressed about being ic here or even being here in general. I have other blogs and IRL stuff going on ( as everyone else does too ), so the activity here will be low and I’m prone to disappearing for a month or so at a time. If you don’t want my brand of Inconsistency around, feel free to unfollow/softblock at any time ( i know some people prefer to keep following only people who are active a certain amount, and that’s absolutely fine ).

I think that’s everything (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

#long post #this rpc is dead but here i am #(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧#( ♡ ⋮ OOC. )#( BLOG UPDATE. )

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loadingwestern907 · 4 years ago

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Call Of Duty 5 For Mac Free Download

Download Call Of Duty For Mac. Free and safe download. Download the latest version of the top software, games, programs and apps in 2020. Oct 21, 2020 8/10 (502 votes) - Download Call of Duty 5 Free. Download Call of Duty 5 for free, a wartime FPS. Compete alongside the allies in the Second World War in Call of Duty 5 thanks to this multiplayer client. Anybody who plays shooters will know Call of Duty, a franchise of war games that take place. Free Download Call Of Duty 2003 Mac - Latest Updated till v1.5.5(Nov 2013). If you like this game, support developers, buy it.

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Official CALL OF DUTY designed exclusively for mobile phones. Play iconic multiplayer maps and modes anytime, anywhere. 100 player Battle Royale battleground? Fast 5v5 team deathmatch? Sniper vs sniper battle? Activision’s free-to-play CALL OF DUTY: MOBILE has it all. FREE TO PLAY ON MOBILE Console quality HD gaming on your phone with customizable controls, voice and text chat, and thrilling 3D graphics and sound. Experience the thrill of the world’s most beloved shooter game, now on your phone for easy on-the-go fun. BELOVED GAME MODES AND MAPS Play iconic multiplayer maps from Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, available for the first time for free. Or squad up with friends in a brand new 100-person battle royale survival map. Join the fun with millions of players from all around world! CUSTOMIZE YOUR UNIQUE LOADOUT As you play CALL OF DUTY: MOBILE you will unlock and earn dozens of famous characters, weapons, outfits, scorestreaks and pieces of gear that can be used to customize your loadouts. Bring these loadouts into battle in Battle Royale and thrilling PvP multiplayers modes like Team Deathmatch, Frontline, Free For All, Search and Destroy, Domination, Hardpoint and many more. COMPETITIVE AND SOCIAL PLAY Use skill and strategy to battle to the top in competitive Ranked Mode or to win the most Clan prizes as you play with friends. Compete and fight against millions of friends and foes in this thrilling free to play multiplayer shooter. CHOICE AND COMPLEXITY Whether in gameplay, events, controls, or loadouts, CALL OF DUTY: MOBILE offers complexity and depth in an ever-changing experience. Have what it takes to compete with the best? Download CALL OF DUTY: MOBILE now! _________________________________________________________ NOTE: We welcome any feedback during your experience to improve the game. To give feedback, in-game go to > Settings > Feedback > Contact Us. Subscribe for Updates! ---> profile.callofduty.com/cod/registerMobileGame _________________________________________________________ Note: An internet connection is required to play this game. Please note this app contains social features that allow you to connect and play with friends and push notifications to inform you when exciting events or new content are taking place in the game. You can choose whether or not to utilize these features. 2019 Activision Publishing, Inc. ACTIVISION and CALL OF DUTY are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. By downloading, installing or using this App, you agree to Activision's privacy policy and terms of us, as may be updated by Activision from time to time. Please visit http://www.activision.com/privacy/en/privacy.html to view Activision's privacy policy and https://www.activision.com/legal/terms-of-use to view Activision's terms of use.

Show Less

Previous versions

Update on: 2020-10-13

Requirements: Android 4.3+

Update on: 2020-08-15

Requirements: Android 4.3+

What's new:

Call of Duty Mobile Season 9: Conquest offers new characters, Reznov and Nikto – Stronghold, and takes you to battle through the eyes of Reznov's war flashback. New Shipment 1944 map. And finally, the wait is over... Gunsmith arrives in Call of Duty Mobile! Customize and personalize your weaponry with a vast array of attachments.

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Requirements: Android 4.3+

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Call Of Duty Mobile Season 7: RADIOACTIVE AGENT. Brand new updates with the much anticipated Battle Royale map expansion - 7 new zones, new BR class, and new Tank. Ghost and Price will be equipped with new gear to battle radioactive danger. Unlock new weapons to play in Tunisia and fan-favorite Gulag maps, plus Attack of the Undead mode.

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Requirements: Android 4.3+

Update on: 2020-03-26

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Update on: 2020-01-16

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'Season 3 Update is Live! • New Black Ops III and Yellow Snake themed rewards for ranked leaderboards • New Premium and Free Battle Pass rewards • New Multiplayer maps and limited time game modes • New Multiplayer Operator coming soon • Battle Royale will soon receive a new area! • New Battle Royal Mode and Class coming soon • Various bug fixes and optimizations'

Get Ready for some Spooky Fun

Call of Duty: Ghosts is yet another instalment in the Call of Duty Saga. Although Call of Duty is very popular among first person shooter games, there have been so many releases in the series that some people may have trouble keeping track of them all. Is Call of Duty Ghosts simply a variation on a theme, or does it offer something new and different? Find out by reading the review.

Call of Duty: Ghosts presents players with the fast and fluid game play that the original captured so well. People who are familiar with the original game should be able to jump right into the action and should have little trouble figuring out what to do.

However, Ghosts also introduces players to a brand new gaming premise. The player personalisation is stunning and really captures the feeling that you are playing the game with a team of skilled soldiers. The sweeping changes that the game presents also breathes new life into the old concept and helps make it more original that many people may expect.

Ghosts is set in a whole new world to the original Call of Duty as well as being slightly in the future. For a change it is the South American nations who pose the threat and gamers must strive to take down the evil forces of South America, who have made their money from dominating the oil markets and are now intent on dominating the world. The plot of the game is fairly simple and often feels like it is a bit too simple. Fans of great storylines may find that this is a little lacking in content.

There is plenty to do in Ghosts and missions are extensive and engaging. Although the campaigns are a little complicated at times, there really force gamers to use all of their skills and work hard to achieve their goals. Fortunately the controls are rather easy to manage and players should not be confused for long.

The world of Ghosts is rich and varied and there is a lot of area to explore. The varied scenery leads to a wide range of different tasks for players to complete such as flying helicopters over lush jungle, rappelling down skyscrapers and even engaging in firefights with the enemy in Outer Space. The whole Ghosts world is presented in a single map, which is extremely large and can be rather confusing at first.

There are so many new elements to Ghosts that gamers can enjoy the thrill of not quite knowing what is coming next. One minute you may find that you have to put all of your speed and strategy to the test to evade a group of hungry sharks. In the next scene you may need to take on the role of a dog to complete a challenge, which brings with it a whole new range of skills. Each new scenario that players are presented with requires a whole new strategy and this game is certainly going to keep gamers on their toes, making it anything but boring.

Call of Duty: Ghosts includes many of the great features that fans of Call of Duty have come to know and love. There are enough extra elements to make this game feel fresh and exciting, despite a few small setbacks. However, like many franchises the story has been skipped over a little this time around, which is a bit of a disappointment.

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Call Of Duty 5 For Mac Free Download 2019

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Call Of Duty For Mac

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Call Of Duty 5 For Mac Free Download Windows 7

The maps are too big

The story is rather basic

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arplis · 4 years ago

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Arplis - News: CGMagazine

CGMagazine 5 Great Roguelikes to Play after Hades If you love Hades as much as we do, you’ve already probably run through Hell and back again enough times to have seen most of what the game has to offer. This being said, if you’re still looking for some roguelike goodness, we’ve compiled a list of games perfect for scratching that post-Hades itch: Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon – Red Hook Studios Platforms: Switch, Vita, PS4, PS5 (via Backwards Compatibility), Xbox One, Xbox Series S | X (via Backwards Compatibility), PC, Mac, Linux, iOS Developer: Red Hook Studios First off there’s Darkest Dungeon which, like Hades, is a dungeon crawler roguelike. Unlike Hades, however, Darkest Dungeon plays like a strategy-RPG so it is vitally important that your 4-person party is well selected and well-equipped. And we mean vitally important quite literally, as this game will wipe a feeble party with great ease. This all being said, despite how difficult it is and how oppressive it may feel at times, at the core of Darkest Dungeon is an infectious gameplay loop that will surely have you obsess about load-outs, classes, party positions and how to best manage resources. Final note: don’t get too discouraged when your favourite heroes perish – rebounding from devastating losses is part of the experience. Rogue Legacy Rogue Legacy – Cellar Door Games Rogue Legacy – Cellar Door Games Platforms: Switch, Vita, PS3, PS4, PS5 (via Backwards Compatibility), Xbox One, Xbox Series S | X via (Backwards Compatibility), PC, Mac, Linux, iOS Developer: Cellar Door Games If turn-based strategy does not work for you, a great roguelike to try out is the Metroidvania-inspired Rogue Legacy. The main “gimmick” of this title is that all of the playable characters share the same genealogy and, as such, every knight takes after their predecessor in terms of individual quirks (such as Gigantism or Dyslexia) and in terms of upgrades to the handful of vendors helping you on the way. This means that almost no failed attempt is in vain as even the worst load-outs might, somehow or in some way, set you up for eventually achieving the family’s goal of freeing a castle overrun by evil. It’s addictive, it’s infuriatingly hard – it’s an impeccable roguelike alright. And with Rogue Legacy 2 being still quite a ways off from release, it’s available right now in Early Access, what better time than now to give the original a whirl? Spelunky 2 Spelunky 2 Spelunky 2 – Mossmouth / BlitWorks Platforms: PS4, PS5 (via Backwards Compatibility), PC Developer: Mossmouth / BlitWorks Speaking of sequels, then, the most recent entry on this list, Spelunky 2, manages to refine and make the right changes to the original’s almost impeccable wining formula. And whereas it is true that there’s nothing revolutionary about this continuation, Spelunky 2 replaces the original as one of the best roguelike platformers you can play today. In terms of what makes it different from other platformers of the like, such as the aforementioned Rogue Legacy, Spelunky 2 places a greater emphasis on exploration and is focused more about making the experience bizarrely unpredictable rather than throw-your-controller-at-the-wall difficult. Dead Cells Dead Cells Dead Cells – Motion Twin / Evil Empire Platforms: Switch, PS4, PS5 (via Backwards Compatibility), Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S (via Backwards Compatibility), PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android Developer: Motion Twin / Evil Empire Whereas, yes, at first sight Dead Cells looks like nothing more than a ‘2D Souls-like’, you can rest assured with knowing that this title stands tall and mighty on its own. As an action title, this entry differs from others in this list due to the fact that it exchanges being more methodical with high-speed intensity. What we mean by this is that even if, fundamentally, the risk vs. reward decisions are the same in Dead Cells as in Spelunky 2, for example, these decisions need to be made in the heat of the moment, which in turn, leads to either exhilarating victories or bitter defeats. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – Edmund McMillen / Florian Himsl / Nicalis Platforms: 3DS, Wii U, Switch, Vita, PS4, PS5 (via Backwards Compatibility), Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S (via Backwards Compatibility), PC, Mac, Linux Developer: Edmund McMillen / Florian Himsl Topping off this list is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the grandfather of the entire roguelike genre and the one game that popularised randomly generated dungeons. Who could have predicted that an unholy combination between the biblical plot, the dungeon design of the first Zelda and the gameplay mechanics of a twin stick shooter like Ikaruga would lead to something so special, so attention-grabbing and so “hauntingly beautiful“? Now, of course, there are a handful of other incredible titles that we didn’t mention this time, but this is where you can come in: feel free to drop your own suggestions/lists below! The post 5 Great Roguelikes to Play after Hades appeared first on CGMagazine. #TheBindingOfIsaac #Rogue #EdmundMcMillen #CellarDoorGames #Hades

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/cgmagazine-1

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diversegaminglists · 7 years ago

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Games with undead protagonists.

(Not including Vampires and Ghosts since there’s already lists for those)

Skeletons:

Battle of the Bands

Battle Monsters (Fangore)

Breath of Death VII

Castle Crashers

Crypt (Early Access)

Divinity: Original Sin II (Several different undead species)

Graveyard Shift 2: Skelly's Revenge

Grim Fandango

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

Killer Instinct Franchise (Spinal)

MediEvil Franchise

Mr. Bones

Mutant League Football & Mutant League Hockey

Puyo Puyo

Raskulls

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

Zombies & Revenants:

Ben and Ed

Blood

Contagion

Dark Souls Franchise

Dark Stalkers (Lord Raptor)

Dying Light: Be the Zombie

Gungrave Franchise

I, Zombie

i saw her standing there franchise (excluding the first game)

The Last Guy

Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare Franchise

Revenant

Reverse Crawl

RISK: Factions

Shadow Man

The Sims 1 (If a dead sim is revived by a grumpy Grim Reaper)

The Sims 2 (If a dead sim is revived with not enough money)

The Sims 3 (Life state)

Skullgirls - Squigly

Sonny Franchise

Stubbs the Zombie in: Rebel Without A Pulse

Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys

Three Dead Zed

Timesplitters: Future Perfect (Multiplayer)

Urban Dead

Zombidle

Zombie Night Terror

Zombie Panic! Source

Zombie Tycoon

Mummies:

ARMS (Master Mummy)

Dark Stalkers (Ankaris)

Decap Attack (Chuck D. Head)

Captain Commando (Mac the Knife)

League of Legends

The Mummy Returns (Imhotep)

Mummy Madness

Mummy Run

Powerstone

The Sims 3 (Life state)

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy

Constructs:

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura (Character background perks)

Belladona

Daraku Tenshi (Taro)

DOTA 2 (Pudge)

Frankenstein: Through The Eyes Of The Monster

Monster in my Pocket

Other:

Age of Wonders - Undead Faction

Age of Wonders II - Undead Faction

Age of Wonders III - Eternal Lords - Necromancer

Code of Princess - Lady Zozo

The Elders Scrolls Skyrim: Dawnguard - Plot requires the PC to become undead (or a vampire) to enter the Soul Cairn

Doom (2016)

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - Necromutation

Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy - One of the protagonists dies and is brought back from the dead, with no body heat.

Frederic: Resurrection of Music & Frederic: Evil Strikes Back

The Gunstringer Franchise

Heroes of Might and Magic II - Necromancer

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia - The Necropolis Faction

Heroes of Might and Magic IV - The Necropolis Faction

Heroes of Might and Magic V - The Necropolis Faction

Heroes of Newerth

Lords of Magic

Lusterinia - Necromancers can become Liches

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Franchise

Might & Magic: Heroes VI - The Necropolis Faction

Might & Magic: Heroes VII - The Necropolis Faction

Might and Magic VII, VIII & IX - Mages can become Liches

Might & Magic: Heroes Online - The Necropolis

Mortal Kombat (Scorpion)

Overlord

Rogue - You can resurrect as an undead in some versions

Skullgirls - Ms. Fortune

Soul Calibur Franchise (Cervantes)

Spawn: Armageddon

Undead Knights

World of Warcraft - The Forsaken

Skins:

Ark: Survival Evolved

Borderlands 2

Skate 3 - Unlockable Skeleton

League of Legends

Overwatch

Street Fighter

Special Mentions:

Altered Beast - You do RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE at the beginning of the game.

Corpse Craft: Incident at Weardd Academy - You fight with undead constructs but you’re not technically dead yourself

DarkSiders II - You play as Death

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile - Despite the name I can’t work out what the protagonist actually is

NeverDead - The protagonist can survive being dismembered.

Planescape: Torment - The Nameless One is almost entirely immortal, and he looks like a zombie due to scar tissue, but he’s not technically undead.

Project Wight - Upcoming game but the Wight appears to be a mutant rather than an undead.

Threads of Fate - Rue can transform into a skeleton

#undead games #zombies #skeletons #flesh constructs #list actually

5 notes · View notes

the-master-cylinder · 5 years ago

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SUMMARY A “skybike”, a one-man, open-cockpit flying machine, attacks Dogen. Dogen shoots it down and finds one of Syn’s crystals on the pilot’s body. Carved into the crystal is a symbol of a dead tree. Dogen finds a murdered prospector, whose young daughter Dhyana saw him killed by Baal, Jared Syn’s half-cyborg son. Baal sprayed the man with a green liquid that caused a nightmare dream-state, in which Syn appeared and executed him with a crystal. Dogen convinces Dhyana to help him find Syn.

Dhyana takes Dogen to Zax, who identifies the crystal as a lifeforce storage device. Dhyana tells them about the ancient Cyclopians who once used such devices and says the only power against it is a magic mask located in their lost city. Zax affirms this and directs Dogen to find a prospector named Rhodes in the nearby mining town of Zhor.

Dogen and Dhyana are blocked by vehicles driven by nomads commanded by Baal, who sprays Dogen with the green liquid, paralyzing him. Dhyana drives them off and cares for Dogen, who in the dream world finds Syn and Baal looming over him. Syn fails to pull Dogen away from Dhyana: their will is too strong. Dogen awakes, but Dhyana is suddenly teleported away. A summoned monster appears in her place and fires electric bolts at him. Dhyana simultaneously faces Syn in his lair. Dogen shorts-out the creature, and it vanishes.

Dogen arrives in Zhor and finds Rhodes, a washed-up soldier, in a bar. Rhodes denies the lost city’s existence and refuses to get involved. Dogen leaves and comes upon a group of miners beating a captured nomad soldier. Dogen assists him, and the miners turn hostile. Dogen is out-gunned until Rhodes helps him defeat the miners.

Rhodes reluctantly agrees to help Dogen. Deep into Cyclopian territory, Dogen locates a large statue with a single eye and finds the crystal mask. Suddenly attacked by snake-like creatures, they escape, until they are accosted by a group of nomad warriors. Their leader, Hurok, grabs the mask from Dogen and accuses them of trespassing – a capital crime. Rhodes cites nomad law that a warrior can fight for his freedom, so Dogen duels Hurok. When Dogen spares his life, Hurok accepts Dogen as a friend and frees him.

Syn takes Dhyana before a massive crystal and forces her to touch it. Syn says the crystal is powered by captured souls, including that of her father. Dhyana, disgusted, says her warrior will come for her. Elsewhere, Dogen and Rhodes assault Baal’s encampment, and a chase ensues. After evading them, Dogen wears the mask and finds himself in the dream world with a burning tree. In his hand he finds an axe and hacks into the tree. The tree moans like the crystal in Syn’s camp and trickles a stream of blood. Dogen removes the mask and returns to Rhodes. Baal suddenly attacks, extending his robotic arm to spray Dogen, but Rhodes pushes him out of the way and is knocked out. Dogen, struggling with Baal, rips the robotic limb from his shoulder. Baal flees, and Dogen tracks the green fluid to Syn’s camp. He sees the nomads gathered around Syn, and Hurok greets him.

Syn denounces Dogen as an enemy, but Dogen says he has only come for Syn. Hurok refuses to kill Dogen and demands that he be allowed to speak. Dogen says Syn is a liar who wants to enslave them. When the crowd turns hostile to Syn, he activates the crystal, which stuns the crowd. Syn fires blasts at Dogen, but he deflects them with the mask. Baal grabs the mask and it shatters on the ground. Hurok kills Baal, and Syn teleports away. Dogen jumps onto a skybike and chases Syn into the desert, but Syn escapes through an energy portal.

Dogen returns to the nomad camp, finding Dhyana safe with Hurok. Dogen promises to fight Syn if he returns and destroys Syn’s soul crystal. Dogen and Dhyana leave the camp on foot but soon encounter Rhodes in Dogen’s truck. He picks them up and takes them into town.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION Charles Band-known only for a series of low-budget B-movies had finally cracked the big time, pulling off the success of his career, and doing it on a shoestring METALSTORM is the kind of film that everyone involved with wants to talk about, because so many things had gone right. Unlike other recent 3-D productions, the disappointments and problems during production were minimal. And there was the hope-hinted at during filming, rather than openly stated that they had on their hands that Hollywood rarity: a complete unheralded hit.

Critical response and box-office returns failed to meet that early enthusiasm. By Hollywood standards, METALSTORM fizzled when released. But for producer director Charles Band, his labor of love had struck gold. In the beginning. Band was thinking of METALSTORM in terms no loftier than those of his low-budget 3-D predecessor, PARASITE. “We started with the idea of doing something not much larger than that,” explained the quiet, low-key Band. “But then we began to get excited about the story and got some other very creative people involved, and we decided to go for something much larger.” The final budget figure for METALSTORM was less than $3 million, which makes it a mega budget production after the likes of such other Band projects as LASERBLAST and END OF THE WORLD.

As their concept and aspirations for the film grew, so did its budget and crew, necessitating some sacrifices on the part of those working on the production. Explained screenwriter and co-producer Alan J. Adler: “Neither Charlie (Band) nor I have taken a salary on this movie. We are working for love and deferments.”

But working on the edge has its compensations, according to Adler. “Charlie and I bounce ideas constantly to get the best thing on film that we can,” he said. “If the majors financed this thing, a car full of guys in suits could drive up with some crazy idea, and we would have to do it.”

Free to do their own thing, Adler and Band have come up with a simple story of good vs. evil; cowboys-and-Indians in a galaxy far, far away. METALSTORM’s plot revolves around energy crystals, the source of all power in a barren desert land, which are being exploited by an evil magician to gain ultimate power. Screenwriter Alan Adler conceived the film as a western, with a lot of American Indian mythology.” Working with that metaphor, Jeff Byron fills in for Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott, coming to clean up the lawless town; Tim Thomerson is the old drunken lawman who sobers up to help the hero; Kelly Presto is the shopkeeper’s daughter, kidnapped by the guys in the black hats; Richard Moll is the wise old Indian chief, almost-but not quite duped into supporting the railroad baron who wants to take his people’s lands; and Michael Preston is the all-powerful, black-hearted villain.

“I read everything I could find in the library on the Western mythology before I sat down to write this,” Adler explained. “I just woke up at 3:30 in the morning one day, got into the bathtub and wrote nonstop until I finished the treatment.” Although the setting and time of METALSTORM is left ambiguous, Adler based many of his ideas on the Atlantis legend, a theme he hopes to develop more fully in the proposed sequel.

With METALSTORM, Adler also sought to challenge himself by writing a script with as little dialogue as possible. “The movies started out without any dialogue,” he explained. “Besides, 3-D is a dynamic visual medium, and dialogue seems to stop the action. But just because it doesn’t have much dialogue, it does not mean that there are no characters and ideas in the film. Like a western, everything is very terse; everything means something. Bookish, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, Adler seems an unlikely candidate for author of films with titles like PARASITE. CONCRETE JUNGLE and METALSTORM. A film buff and genre aficionado since he was nine years old, Adler has been an avid collector of film memorabilia for 20 years, including a priceless collection of old film posters.

Adler learned his craft by writing and producing local television shows in his native North Carolina, where he also attended a graduate school in film. But his life was changed when he saw STAR WARS. “I saw that movie, packed my bags and left town for Los Angeles.”

Band and Adler have a cooperative relationship rare in filmmaking, especially for a writer. “I’m on the set every day,” said Adler. “He helps me re-write scenes, and I stand next to him and make suggestions, constantly, from sunrise to sunset. Directors who do not listen do not have the value of a writer who knows the story and how a character should be portrayed. Charlie is the director, but there is a tremendous amount of give and take.”

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PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY Principal photography of METALSTORM began in February, and stretched for seven weeks. Filming took place in the Simi Valley, as well as the Vasquez Rock formations outside of Los Angeles. Few interiors were utilized, though the company was driven indoors early in the shoot during two weeks of bad weather. To bring Adler’s mythic Western concepts-as well as plenty of action to the screen, Band assembled an ambitious, hardworking crew of relative unknowns and newcomers, who are trying to make major producers sit up and take notice of their talents.

Among them is cinematographer Mac Ahlberg whose deft work in PARASITE, his first 3-D film, was justly praised. “The reason this movie looks good is because we did not follow the rules,” said Ahlberg. “We had a 3-D consultant at the beginning of the movie, but we got rid of him because he was such a pain in the neck.

“There really are no rules to follow,” Ahlberg continued. “Like when you do a painting or write a book, if you keep to the rules, you get boring. But technicians get very upset when you break the rules. Like when color hit the movies. I spoke to someone who was shooting the first color film, and he had to follow so many rules that it was almost impossible for him to do anything on his own. Now with 3-D, you have all these ‘rules’ and everyone is very scared. I think some 3-D films have failed because people have been so tied to rules.”

Some of the standard” 3-Drules call for long cuts, static cameras and avoidance of high-contrast scenes. Band and Ahlberg ignored them all. “I don’t listen to all those 3-D experts, of which there are lots,” Ahlberg said. “We did some high contrast scenes, and they were some of the best in the movie. Also we tried all the time to let the camera move.” A long Steadicam shot moving through the tent city is a good example of Ahlberg’s innovative 3-D cinematography.

“It’s never been done before.” explained special effects coordinator Frank Isaacs. “They were able to hold convergence on Dogen as he walked through a crowd. It’s as if you were walking behind him. You see the exact proper perspective. It’s a long shot, and you just sit back and enjoy the 3-D.

“Ahlberg knows how to dolly in and out of the scene, keep something on convergence and make it look real, as opposed to what everybody else does: anchor the camera down and let the action come at you,” Isaacs continued. “What he has done is to follow the action and let the foreground and background go their proper paths.”

Another 3-D tenet went by the wayside in their filming of a lightning-quick gunfight in the streets of the tent city, with seven or eight brisk close-ups of faces, guns and lasers blasting into bodies. “Everybody said you must have very long takes, don’t cut too much, cuts are difficult to do, and so on,” said Ahlberg with some impatience. “We found that lots of cuts are very exciting, and the camera should move a lot when people walk.”

Though Mac Ahlberg may not have kind words for 3-D consultants, Chris Condon has a few for Ahlberg. Condon designed the StereoVision lenses used by Ahlberg for PARASITE and METALSTORM, and gave Ahlberg his instructions on the use of the equipment. “There are so few errors in METALSTORM, and those that do exist are very tiny, said Condon, who has often been less than kind to films he and his lenses have been associated with. “Ahlberg really understands 3-D.”

The use of 3-D required extreme precision in shooting the live action. The use of multiple cameras for some shots necessitated extra care in the composition of scenes and the calibration of convergence in each camera. If a scene was planned to cut from a medium master shot to a tight close-up, the convergence of each shot had to be as complementary as possible to spare audiences a wrenching shift in focus, and painful headaches. This forced Ahlberg to be extremely aware of how a sequence might be edited while he was shooting it.

“You have to compose the picture so the audience looks at the thing they should look at,” said Ahlberg. “Because if they look at the wrong things, they definitely get eye pain. If you have converged on a face in the foreground and you have a telephone pole in the back, you have two telephone poles. You actually have this in real life, but you never think of it. You make the audience look at the things you want and not at the distracting things, such as the background.

“We tried to have a continuity of convergence and not strain the eyes of the audience,” Ahlberg added. “That’s one of the things I discovered when we made PARASITE, that you have to keep convergence under control. You can’t converge each shot individually; you have to have a kind of convergence sequence. Every shot’s convergence has to be done considering what it is coming from and what’s going to happen next.

Otherwise, a cut really is not a cut.” Ahlberg continued. “It’s a kind of dissolve, because it takes a second or so for the audience’s eyes to adjust to the new convergence.” Ahlberg believes that the best 3D work pays attention to the depth in a scene. “When you compose a flat picture,” he explained in his Scandinavian-accented English, “you do it so you can get some depth in it, using perspective in the foreground and background. If you compose an image like that and shoot it in 3-D, you get good 3-D. If you don’t make a composition which has depth in itself, if you think 3-D is going to supply the automatic depth for you, then many times you fail.”

Another characteristic of Ahlberg’s 3-D work is the avoidance of too many gimmicks. “In METALSTORM. (Ahlberg) has had the good sense not to abuse the 3-D.” said Isaacs. “He just throws in an occasional gag every once in a while, which works very well. It’s fun, but it’s not to be abused, and that’s what every other film has done so far.”

Despite his success with the process, and the near-unanimous acclaim for his work, Ahlberg is no fan of 3-D. “Really, I hope that I never will have to work on a 3-D movie again,” he said. “I find it so boring, so uninteresting.

“When I see actors in 3-D. I always have the feeling that you are looking through a glass window at them, like they are in a show window. In a flat movie, the actors are very present they seem to be right there. Why? Because in 3-D you have the glasses, the double images, all these things that take the actor far away.

“If I have two alternatives, to make a 3-D movie or not, I will always pick not to make one. I have one exception I like to work with Charles Band. I said when I made PARASITE that I would never make another 3-D movie, and still I’m doing them.”

BEHIND THE SCENES/INTERVIEWS

Actor Jeffrey (Dogen) Byron Remembers Metalstorm

You have been in several Empire films. . Jeffrey Byron: Yes. I met Charles Band when I auditioned for METALSTORM. I had never met him before that. I felt confident about getting the role and after I read for him and the casting director, I guess he agreed. I was hired the same day. They apparently stopped seeing actors after meeting me. Once I started work on the film I had a good rapport with Charlie, and soon after (during the filming of METALSTORM) he offered me the role in THE DUNGEONMASTER.

Which Band production was the most memorable for you? Jeffrey Byron: My favorite was METALSTORM. It was tons of fun to make, and when we were filming it, there was a special camaraderie with the cast and crew. We knew it was a low budget exploitation film but we also knew that it had a chance to be memorable. In the end it has turned out to be quite the cult classic. I enjoyed working with everyone. Tim Thomerson my sidekick and I had fun working together. I am sure there are lots of great (and funny) outtakes in the vaults.

We’re trying to imagine the casting process for THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED SYN… Jeffrey Byron: As I said, I was one of the first actors they saw for the part and once they met me they cast me. After they hired me, I read with many actresses for the part that Kelly Preston played including Demi Moore. She was the favorite and would have been hired but she was doing another project and wasn’t available.

METALSTORM was shot in 3D. Did this pose any challenges for you as an actor? Jeffrey Byron: Not really, other than it being a slow process. Lighting a scene for 3D, at least in that era, was time consuming…

Did you have to endure any grueling make-up or perform any of your own stunts? Jeffrey Byron: Makeup was easy. There were a lot of grueling fight scenes which were fun, but tough. And I loved my costume!

What was Band like as a director? Jeffrey Byron: Charlie was fun to work with. His real gift was the promotion part. He knew how to market a film. He was brilliant at that. He didn’t give me any direction, really. He pretty much left it up to me.

Going head-to-head with Richard Moll must have been intimidating..or is he just a big softy? Jeffrey Byron: Richard was a quiet, introspective guy.. .Nice, and easy to work with, but didn’t say a lot.

POST PRODUCTION/VISUAL EFFECTS METALSTORM’s innovative visual effects benefit from the collaborative efforts of 3-D whiz John Rupkalvis, inventor of StereoScope, working with visual effects supervisor Frank Isaacs and assistant Tom Calabrese. One of the most experienced technicians in the field, Rupkalvis served as both 3-D consultant and visual effects supervisor.

While the film’s live-action scenes were shot with Chris Condon’s StereoVision lenses, special effects photography used Rupkalvis’ StereoScope 3-D system, which works with, instead of replacing the prime lens of a regular 35mmcamera. To photograph miniatures in 3-D, it’s necessary to reduce the “interaxial distance” between the lenses from the standard 2.5 inches to as little as a quarter of an inch or smaller to create the illusion of scale. Since the range of interaxial distances on most single camera set-ups is somewhat limited, twin-camera rigs were employed on both SPACEHUNTER and JAWS 3-D.

But StereoScope offers the advantages of variable interaxial with the relative convenience of a single camera, presenting the regular lens of the Mitchell camera with an image already in the proper over-and-under format. Advantages of the single-camera system for effects work include less light loss than a beamsplitter and savings in the cost of film stock and lab work.

The effects requirements for METALSTORM ranged from simple rotoscope animation to complex blue-screen composites combining as many as five elements in a single shot. While 3-D effects were also featured in JAWS 3-D and SPACEHUNTER, the work of Rupkalvis, Isaacs and Calabrese (collectively working under the banner “Fantasy Creations”) was completed independently, and the trio were forced to experiment on their own to solve some of the vexing problems faced by those working with 3-D special effects.

“Hardly a day went by,” Rupkalvis said, “when we didn’t do something and suddenly realize that what we had done had never been accomplished before.

“There may be a model of the skycycles flying through the air, going through a background shot of a canyon, and at the same time it might include a live action shot of a real actor in a vehicle below, shooting rotoscoped lasers,” Rupkalvis added. “What’s really mind-boggling is that it’s all being done in 3-D, and every point, all the way through, matches.”

What makes 3-D effects so difficult, according to Rupkalvis, is the precise positioning required of the different elements within the frame at any one moment. While effects technicians for flat films speak in terms of background plate and foreground model, backgrounds” for 3-D effects are often both dimensionally closer to the screen and further back than the subject of the shot.

To insure that the models were always in the correct location in space, Isaacs and Rupkalvis would take precise measurements of the model at each frame of a particular shot. “We measured things with micro measuring equipment, with divisions as small as 4 millionths of an inch,” said Rupkalvis. “We took the 3-D down a 20-foot track, dividing each frame into increments. In some cases, when a model was on an angle, we had to take different measurements on the nose and tail, because we didn’t want the tail to appear to skim a rock that the nose clears.”

Their care pays off in an atmospheric night shot, where, surrounded by a crowd holding flaming torches, Dogen jumps on a skycycle to give chase to the fleeing Jared-Syn. The scene shifts to a long shot where a one-sixth-scale model of the cycle, matted into the live action, rises up and flies gradually out of the scene, staying in correct size, perspective and depth throughout the shot. The effects team even put the flickering light of the torches on the model, holding cutouts in front of the lights and moving them precisely for each frame of the cut.

METALSTORM’s climactic scenes feature a breathtaking chase on the skycycles through narrow canyons. To put the cycles in their proper places within the scenes, they and the background footage not only had to match in terms of size and perspective, but with convergence as well.

The convergence point determines the position in space of the entire scene; that is, which elements within a shot will appear to be off the screen, at the screen, or seemingly behind the screen. When the right and left-eye images are precisely overlapped, they will appear to be at the screen. The more the two images are “offset,” the more they will appear to be in front of or behind the screen.

A typical shot might involve a model skycycle flying towards a distant mountain. If the background element is improperly converged, it could appear to be much closer to the screen than originally intended. Instead of the skycycle appearing to be miles away from the mountain, it would appear to be flying straight into the side of a cliff.

The problem was compounded by the fact that the model shots were largely done before filming the backgrounds, because of scheduling problems. So, instead of flying the cycles through pre-filmed background scenery, the effects crew had to search through thousands of feet of footage to find cuts that would match the movement of the cycles.

“Since a lot of our shots were from ‘God’s point of view’ above the two models, you could get away with separate movement from the background,” said Isaacs. “It kind of makes it look more interesting. If you are going around a cliff and there is enough space to fit the model in, it doesn’t matter if he’s moving off axis.”

Much of the excitement of the final chase belongs to the dramatic point-of-view shots flying through the canyon. Much of the credit for those, according to the effects crew, belonged to pilot Vance Colvik. “I’ve never seen anyone do the things he did,” said Isaacs. “There’s one shot as the ground is coming up from 100 or 500 feet away. He was spinning and turning so you didn’t know which way was up.”

Al the climax of the chase, JaredSyn uses his evil powers for an escape to another dimension through a tunnel of energy. To create the effect, the effects team builta long, tapering triangular tube of plexiglass and hung it from monofilament wire. They mounted lights on the motion control system and closed off all but a narrow line of illumination.

“In complete darkness, with the camera positioned at the mouth of the tube, we raked the lights down the tube toward the camera,” said Isaacs. “We would shoot one pass, back the film up, shoot another, back it up, shoot another, up to 30 passes on one piece of film. We used multiple colors-reds, greens, blues-by taping colored gels over the slit of light. Sometimes we did more than one color on a single pass. It looks like pulses of light or energy coming at you down the tube. Since it’s made of plastic, everything reflects off the sides, so you get multiple triangles.”

Much of the effects work on METALSTORM involved shots that required rotoscope animation, including lasers, glowing energy crystals, the hyper-space tunnel featured in the climax, and assorted other effects. While rotoscope animation effects appear relatively simple, they’re very time consuming. Ultimately, three different animation crews were brought in at the final stages of postproduction.

An in-house team, Jan Carlberg and Tony Alderson, worked on the glowing energy crystals, the teleportation effect when Dhyana is whisked away to Jared-Syn’s headquarters, and selected laser beams, as well as coordinating the work that had to be farmed out. A second team, headed by SPACEHUNTER veteran Ernie Farino, was contracted to provide additional laser effects and other elements. Finally, a crew at Millenium Studios, the effects facility of New World Pictures, supplied optical enhancement for the sequence involving the “Chimera,” the energy beast that attacks Dogen.

3-D rotoscoping involves making two drawings for each frameone for each eye-drawn precisely to match the two slightly different views of the scene in which the artwork will be matted in. The primary challenge is to fool the audience into thinking that the flat artwork has the same degree of depth as the live action elements in the scene.

“If it’s drawn wrong (with the wrong convergence) in 3-D, even though it looks right on the flat picture, it could go to the wrong place or even come out backwards,” Rupkalvis explained. “The artist has to find the proper displacement in the actual scene where the drawing will be used. The difference between right eye and left eye drawings might not be that much, but you still have to match the scene.

“For each new frame, the drawings have to move a little bit,” Rupkalvis added. It may seem simple, just drawing point to point, but you have to be very careful with the positioning in space. If you have many elements, you don’t want the lasers to hit something in between. Every element that’s added has to relate exactly to every element that’s in the original photography.”

The rush to the theaters also affected the completion of the film’s optical effects. While bluescreen elements had been shot back in March and April, background plates weren’t shot until early June. Frank Isaacs spent three days screening thousands of feet of aerial footage before turning everything over to compositor Greg Van Der Veer, the son of renowned optical expert Frank Van Der Veer.

“Van Der Veer only had four weeks to composite everything,” Isaacs explained. “That included all the blue-screen shots, the lasers, everything. When you realize that it sometimes can take weeks to composite just one or two shots, you can see the kind of job he did for us. He locked himself away in a little room with an optical printer for four straight weeks and saved us!”

MAKE UP AND PHYSICAL SPECIAL EFFECTS Much of what the audience sees in METALSTORM from scars to scarves, from sidearms to Ball’s bionic arm-are the creations of Makeup Effects Labs, a partnership of three relative newcomers, Alan Apone, Frank Carrisosa and Doug White, who have been practicing their craft since their early teens. In fact, two of the partners, White and Apone, have known each other since their days at Culver City Junior High School in the Los Angeles area.

Back in those days, White was fascinated with drawing and building models and mechanical devices, while Apone had ambitions to be an actor. After they met, they haunted the local movie theaters together, sometimes seeing as many as four films in a single day.

They moved on together to Los Angeles City College, where they majored in drama and art. White did make up for the theater arts department, while reading voluminously to learn different techniques on his own. Apone turned from acting and began to concentrate on art direction and set design.

After school (and some excursions into other fields of employment), both White and Apone took positions with makeup artist Tom Burman, building articulated dummies for PROPHECY. In this highly creative setting, they had the opportunity to learn a vast range of techniques and tools of professional special effects makeup. They also met Frank Carrisosa, who would become the third partner in MEL.

In 1979 they decided to weld their varied talents together to start their own studio. Beginning in a modest 1,000-square-foot facility, their first film contract was EVILSPEAK, for which they created special makeup prosthetics and special effects.

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Now housed comfortably in a, large industrial space in the San Fernando Valley, the three mesh their talents on a busy schedule of projects, working with a cadre of freelancers to offer a wide array of effects, costumes, props, models, masks and special make ups. Each of the three plays a different role in the team. “When we are working together,” Apone explained, “Doug : does a lot of the designing, I handle most of the business, and Frank I will head the shop as far as the techniques used and how we will rig things.”

For the versatile trio, METALSTORM was a field day, a chance to strut their stuff and exhibit every facet of their talents. Like many others involved in the film, their work was largely done for love, and a chance to show what they could do.

“We’d like to be a one-stop house for a producer,” said Alan Apone. “We want to give the producer everything he wants for the money he wants to spend. Obviously, you can’t do STAR WARS for $10,000. But we’d like to give producers the best they can get for $10,000.”

Some of MEL’s most unusual work involved the facial makeup appliances for the Cyclopeans, a race which is supposedly mutating and losing their features on one side of their face. “We started with a book on human deformities,” said White, but found that the actual way a human would look without an eye was too lifeless. So, we had to sculpt in more character, taking the liberty of adding wrinkles and other features. You have to overdo it even more for 3-D, which needs more light, and that tends to flatten out features. For Dogen’s tan, we had to make it much darker than usual for the same reason.”

MEL also had to abandon an ambitious plan to make sclera contact lenses which would give the Cyclopeans a double-iris effect. “I was going to melt two lenses together to show that their eyes were growing together,” White said. “I was going to do a chrome eye for the machine side of Baal’s face. All the scleral contacts got junked, however, because the actors can only wear them for a half an hour at a time. The eye gets starved for oxygen if you wear them too long, and we just didn’t have time on the production to work around that.”

The creation of Baal, Jared Syn’s bionic boy, was the most demanding undertaking for the makeup effects team, involving appliances and props which took five hours each day to apply. There were seven appliances for the face and skull alone, including one which looks like a surgically-implanted metal skull with staples all around the head to hold it in place.

“It’s all latex foam painted in silver pigments,” White explained. “Latex foam can be made up to be either very flexible or very dense, although it never really becomes hard. You use the flexible foam for the facial appliances, so the expressions of the actor will come through.”

Played by R. David Smith, an accomplished mime who was born without his left arm, the Baal character also has a pneumatically-operated mechanical arm, which shoots a green hallucinatory liquid just before he uses the death crystals. The arm featured three telescoping tubular sections and claws that folded out to grasp objects. Each section was pushed out by air pressure through small tubes attached to a compressor.

In reality, three arms were built: one that actually extended, one that was rigged to be torn off, and one which shot the glowing green liquid. “We shot it from every angle possible,” said White. “We did dolly shots as it flipped out in motion. We telescoped it toward the camera, and we fired the liquid into the camera.”

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The makeup crew originally tried to use Chemlite, the green glow found in “night sticks,” for the liquid in Baal’s arm, but its rumored toxicity forced an alternative. “They were going to use it in POLTERGEIST for the veins in the corridor monster,” said White, “but the story I heard was that the guy didn’t want the chemical near him, since he couldn’t be sure what his next child would be like.” Instead, White used ordinary fluorescent paint, which proved to be a suitable alternative.

Pneumatics were used again for one ambitious effect that never made it past the editing room: a shot in which Baal “mummifies” Dyana’s father as he steals his life force. Small tubes were attached at different points inside a life-like foam mask of the actor’s face. As the life force was drained, the bladders were deflated one by one by Frank Carrisosa, who operated valves leading to an air compressor. The resulting effect makes the face seem to shrivel and dry up. The effect was designed to avoid the use of expensive postproduction opticals, a must on the film’s tight budget.

While the “mummification” didn’t make the final print, MEL’s glowing “energy beast” did. Dubbed the “Chimera,” the electrically charged beast is sent by Jared-Syn to kill Dogen. While the sequence was enhanced in postproduction by a team from Millenium (Roger Corman’s in-house effects studio). it was designed as a simple in-camera effect. An MEL Cew sculpted a full body suit and cast it in rigid latex foam. The suit was then covered with Scotchlite paints, which act on the same principle as highway road signs and front-projection screens: while they look dull gray in ordinary light, they shine with a brilliant glow when light is aimed directly at it, in line with the camera lens. To complete the effect, the light was pulsated with a rheostat. “The idea was to come up with something you could do optically in camera, instead of doing rotoscope animation, White said.

The Chimera short circuits itself by stepping in a puddle of molten metal, which Dogen has blasted out of a wall of rock. Winston Jones, the actor inside the costume, slowly folded up his body, and the details of the costume were lost in the Scotchlite glow. The actor was then pulled from the scene, and a shot was taken of the background. A piece of animation of the beast shrinking into the earth was then rotoscoped onto it.

In addition to creating creatures and prosthetic makeup. MEL also provided designs for many of the film’s sets, props and the rugged, desert-scoured costumes, which were made by Kathie Clark, from concepts by White and H. R. Girard, an MEL illustrator.

The Cylcopeans’ costumes look like heavy leather carved in the shape of an exoskeleton. In reality, they were made from rigid latex foam that was sculpted, molded and painted. The use of latex had an unexpected benefit according to Doug White. “In the dailies, it even sounds like leather, like someone wearing chaps,” he explained. “When the actors moved or brushed up against each other, it creaked.”

The Nomads are outfitted in heavy, concealing robes, topped by menacing masks with energy crystals in their foreheads. Originally numbering only 15, their numbers grew to more than 10 (dubbed newmads’ on the set) for certain crowd scenes. As some scenes got bigger and bigger, eventually even a few ‘crew-mads’ were required. For one shot, even co-producer and screenwriter Alan Adler was suited-up. In low-budget films, everyone gets into the act.

SOUNDTRACK/SCORE For composer Richard Band (the director’s younger brother, by two years), the frantic rush to complete the film meant there was less than a month available to write more than an hour of original music. “In fact,” said Band, “I got the final reel a day and a half before my recording session!”

But Richard Band wasn’t really complaining-it was his brother, after all, who launched his musical career in 1977 with LASERBLAST. And although Band has worked for a number of other producers in the six years since (see 13:5:14), half of his assignments still come from big brother Charlie.

“Since we’ve worked on several films together, Charles trusts me to do whatever I want to do,” Band told writer Randall Larson. “He puts the music in my hands completely. On METALSTORM, he never even heard the main theme unul the recording session.

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“Working with your family puts different types of pressures on you,” Band added. “I can exert a type of clout. But I can’t play some of the games I do with other directors when I’m working with family, just because it’s family.”

If Band’s deadline was tight, the musical opportunities were vast. METALSTORM was Band’s first “big” score, integrating a vast array of electronics with a 70-piece symphony orchestra (nearly twice the size of any orchestra he had previously worked with).

The result was thematically simple, yet complexly textured. Band worked with Producers Music Organization and programmer Gary Chang for the electronic portions of the score-performed by four keyboard players using more than a dozen different synthesizers, which was recorded live with the orchestra at the Burbank Studios recording stage.

RELEASE/DISTRIBUTION After principal photography ended in late April, editor Brad Arensman began to assemble the footage. One of his first chores, however, was to complete an 18-minute 3-D demo reel for use at the Cannes Film Festival, where the world’s film buyers gather each year. Both Charles Band and actor Jeffrey Byron made the rounds in late May, and both were elated by the reception the film received. Band returned to Los Angeles to screen the demo reel- which included several completed effects composites-for several domestic distributors. Universal, about to launch JAWS 3-D at more than a thousand theaters, took a strong interest. Reportedly, Universal executives were worried about the financial prospects of JAWS 3-D, and looked at METALSTORM as an inexpensive follow-up to run in those theaters that had already altered their projection equipment to run JAWS 3-D. Unlike the case with most pick-ups, where months may pass between an initial screening and a final deal, Universal agreed to distribute the film in a matter of days.

“When you show a product reel like the one we did, distributors always ask to see the rest of the footage,” explained screenwriter and co-producer Alan Adler. “When we showed it to Universal, they said it was a pleasure to see that the rest of the movie was as good as the product reel. Some people there said they liked the additional footage more. It was a real validating experience.”

There was only one catch. In order to release the film three weeks after the opening of JAWS 3-D, Universal needed a completed print no later than July 27. That gave Band and his postproduction crew less than two months to shoot some badly needed pick-up shots, finish the opticals and to cut, loop, score and mix the film.

Even as Band was completing the score and Van Der Veer the opticals, the marketing department of Universal Pictures was gearing up for the film’s August release. In addition to the standard barrage of print, television and radio campaigns, Universal attached a 3-D trailer to every print of JAWS 3-D, the first new trailer to be shown in 3-D in a generation.

CONCLUSION In the weeks before the film’s release, hopes from Band and his crew were running high that METALSTORM would transcend its humble origins and take on the proportions of a major hit. Alan Adler began work on the script for METALSTORM II, with plans for a trilogy. “We’d already started talking about certain monsters and landscapes,” Adler said. “It was to be one of the most all-encompassing pursuits of all time. Not only would Dogen pursue Jared-Syn through time, but through other dimensions as well.”

There was even talk about merchandise tie-ins. “If Band handles the marketing right,” Frank Isaacs said, “every kid is going to have a little Baal doll. I can see the kids at dinner, squeezing his stomach, sticking out a little arm that will shoot out green water.”

But visions of a sequel-or of millions of Baal dolls pushing E.T. off the shelves-were a bit overenthusiastic. Although it grossed more than $2 million in its opening weekend at 550 theaters, the film was pounded by most of the nation’s critics (except for the two Los Angeles dailies, which gave the film mixed reviews), and grosses dropped off quickly.

We made some mistakes,” admitted Band, already at work on a number of upcoming projects, including the revival of David Allen’s long-dormant THE PRIMEVALS. “But it’s only my second film as a director, so it was a great step as far as practicing my craft. It taught me a lot as far as what not to do next time.

Although hardly a blockbuster, METALSTORM will return a profit to its investors-and to the crew members who worked for little or no money to see that the film got made. Such profits should allow Band the luxury of slightly higher budgets the next time around, and perhaps even a more relaxed pace in which to work.

“The scenes in METALSTORM that looked the best were the ones I took the most time with,” Band said. “With $2.5 million, you can only shoot so many weeks, so you can’t give the time and attention that every scene needs. I took five or six moments in the film-the dream sequences, the scene where Baal gets his arm ripped off, and a few others-and spent a lot of time on them; too much time, in fact, in terms of our overall budget.

CAST/CREW Directed Charles Band

Produced Charles Band Albert Band Alan J. Adler

Written Alan J. Adler

Jeffrey Byron: Dogen Michael Preston: Jared-Syn Tim Thomerson: Rhodes Kelly Preston: Dhyana Richard Moll: Hurok R. David Smith: Baal Larry Pennel: Aix Marty Zagon: Zax Mickey Fox: Poker Annie

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v13n06-v14n01 Delirium#03 Fangoria#30 Fangoria#28

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983) Retrospective SUMMARY A "skybike", a one-man, open-cockpit flying machine, attacks Dogen. Dogen shoots it down and finds one of Syn's crystals on the pilot's body.

#80sFilms #BAND #EMPIRE

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