#PLUS we get to see him in Neo form which then goes super and then WE GET METAL OVERLORD??

[rojaceartandgaming]

I love rereading Sonic IDW bc right off the back I get to see my favorite character being the coolest fucking character in the whole goddamn franchise

[idwsonicmegareview]

The giant robo-dragon is heading straight for us! – Volume 3: Battle for Angel Island (#9-12)

The last two volumes have set the stage for a major battle the likes of which we usually only see at a game's climax! It's going to take all of Sonic's friends and allies working together to pull this one off.

Neo Metal Sonic, acting as the temporary head of the Eggman Empire, has seized the opportunity to occupy Angel Island and with it, he's taken control of the Master Emerald.

Sonic and the Resistance rally to save Angel Island, and the whole world, from the robotic monstrosity's machinations.

Story

The stage is set. Metal Sonic sits on a literal throne on top of the Master Emerald, self-assured that his victory is now inevitable.

Sonic and Amy rally the Resistance as well as outsiders like Silver and Blaze, newcomers like Tangle and Whisper, and even wildcards like Shadow and Rouge. They lay out a plan for a three-pronged attack focused on disabling the Egg Fleet, neutralizing the badnik ground forces, and of course getting the Master Emerald out of Metal Sonic's control.

Not one to be out-done, Knuckles volunteers to go after Metal Sonic while Blaze the Cat volunteers to take out the Egg Fleet on her own with her super form, Burning Blaze, and the Sol Emeralds.

The plan immediately goes off the rails when the team's airship takes heavy fire and everyone has to bail out on Extreme Gear hoverboards, plus Shadow completely ditches the Resistance and goes straight for Metal Sonic.

Sonic and Knuckles break into the "throne room" and rush for Neo Metal Sonic, who uses the Master Emerald to charge up into a super form, baiting the heroes to "show me what you're made of." Neo then easily overpowers both Sonic and Knuckles and is only stopped by a surprise attack from Shadow.

Coming into contact with Shadow allows Metal Sonic to copy his data, however, giving him the final piece he needs to transform into his monstrous form: Metal Overlord, a giant robotic dragon abomination.

The Resistance rallies together to help the boys fight off Metal Overlord and in the melee, Knuckles is able to remove the Master Emerald from the robot's chest and get it back to the shrine on Angel Island before the island could crash into the world below.

With Metal Sonic neutralized, the team celebrates their victory. Meanwhile, Rough and Tumble return and they're sent by a mysterious Dr. Starline to kidnap Mr. Tinker. Starline uses hypnotherapy and electroshock to try and restore Dr. Eggman's memories to no avail.

Sonic and Tails reactivate Metal Sonic in his original form, minus his weapons. Sonic offers him a truce and asks if they can coexist in the wide world. Metal Sonic, of course, rejects this offer and runs out on them, only to rejoin with Eggman and trigger his awakening, restoring the Doctor who plans to unleash a new terror on the world in retribution for his defeat at the hands of Sonic and the Rookie.

Review

Characters

We have an embarrassment of riches in this story arc when it comes to characters both new and old. While the video games have been content to strip the cast down to as few as possible for years now, the comics shine by giving everyone a role in the big climactic moments like this.

Seeing Amy take on a leadership role in the Resistance was a surprise when I first read this one, but it makes sense the more I've thought about it. The games have needed to do some serious reworking with Amy's character for years now that it's no longer acceptable to just make the girl character's entire personality her infatuation with the male lead. In a world where girls are looking up to more complex characters like Princess Bubblegum and the Crystal Gems, Amy can't just be Sonic's stalker anymore. Plus moving her into a leadership role fixes another problem: Knuckles.

It never made sense for Knuckles to be in charge of the Resistance since his number one priority is and always has been the Master Emerald, as its guardian. Now, Knuckles is free to go back to Angel Island and the status quo has been restored.

Shadow and Rouge are still a little out of character in this volume but it's not as bad. Rouge has gotten involved in team ups like this in the past, but usually while following Shadow's lead, so when they get separated at the beginning of the battle I thought it was strange that she stayed to help Amy and her group.

Shadow charging in to fight Neo Metal Sonic almost felt forced in order to get us to Metal Overlord, but I could buy it either way.

Even our new supporting characters, Tangle and Whisper, had some screen time in the fight but they weren't in this arc very much. More like a reminder that they're around while the main cast took the lead on this one. I definitely didn't expect Rough and Tumble to ever come back, let alone for them to be the ones to get Eggman back into the villain game!

Artwork

Battle for Angel Island has some of the best spreads we've seen in IDW so far. From the Resistance charge against Metal Sonic to the full-page spread of Neo Metal giving his villain monologue while sitting on the Master Emerald.

Especially in issue 11, I noticed that artwork duties were swapping between Tracy Yardley and Evan Stanley from page to page, but I felt that their styles were coexisting nicely. I think they met somewhere in the middle on how they stylize these characters so it didn't distract from the flow of the story.

That said, I actually started to prefer Evan Stanley's art here with the shape of the eyes, the fangs on some characters' teeth, and the expressiveness she brings to the characters.

Writing

Overall I think writer Ian Flynn does a good job of keeping the pace of the battle moving forward. While the scenes cut back and forth between different fronts of the battle, it does so to show us interesting moments like Blaze firing a kamehameha at the robotic wings attached to Angel Island. It's not just cutting back and forth for the sake of it.

I did think the "missing piece" part of Metal Sonic's plan needed to be explained a bit better. I haven't played Sonic Heroes since 2003 so I didn't recall him needing Shadow's data in order to transform, so I felt like the gravity of his mistake was lost on me when it should have been a shocking moment.

The Verdict

We've now finished our first story arc of the IDW Sonic comics. We've seen Metal Sonic's rise to power and the culmination of his plans in an epic showdown that united the entire Sonic cast, something we haven't seen in the game continuity in a long time!

IDW has a talented team of writers and artists who are taking care of this brand and keeping these stories going. I think fans owe a lot to the work these people have put in over the years.

And the story only continues from here, because Dr. Eggman has a new plan ready to go and this next story arc is even longer and the stakes only get higher!

Next week we'll be reading the 2019 Annual, which covers some of the aftermath from this arc and sets us up for what's to come. It might seem optional since it's not in the main Sonic book, but the Annuals are essential reading for fans of the series!

[epicspheal]

Hi again! Just wanted to know your opinion on the Pokemon villains, especially towards a chance of redemption. I think the only villains that kinda got redeemed was Archie and Maxie, learning that what they did was a mistake ( a little too late tho) and maybe Colress ( being the true neutral he is), through the Alola games. But yeah, what's you're opinion on them?

Hi Ihopethisendswell!

I’ve been sitting on this ask for a bit just trying to gather my thoughts. To be honest, the Pokemon Villains are some of my least favorite aspects of the games, mainly because in my opinion they’re rarely handled well (except for original Team Plasma and Team Skull, those guys are amazing and I except no slander of either)

I’ll start with Team Rocket. They have a very basic but realistic evil goal (especially in a setting as fantastic as the world of Pokemon). I honestly can’t say I dislike them. I would like to see more teams using their concept of just taking advantage of Pokemon for profit and selfish reasons rather than trying to tie in some philosophy (because to be honest in my opinion most of the teams who try to use philosophy to justify their extremism just end up looking really stupid for the most part). I like Kanto Team Rocket better than Johto’s plot and Rainbow Rocket was only good for the “what if” aspect and adding to the new multiverse lore. As far as redemption...I don’t think Giovanni or the grunts really deserve it.

For Team Aqua and Team Magma, I actually like them in a “so bad it’s good” type of way (definitely nostalgia based as even though I got into Pokemon during the original anime, I didn’t get to play a main game until  gen 3). Like the idea of having two separate evil teams competing against each other to see who can enact their plans first is a super cool concept in my opinion but wasted on the idiocy of the “expand the land/expand the sea” goals. I will say I enjoyed their Emerald enhanced plot and ORAS’s expansion on them in the Delta Episode. I think the Emerald clash of Kyogre and Groudon was the most logical conclusion to their schemes. As far as redemption goes, I do think Maxie and Archie should’ve served some jail time like Chairman Rose because their plan was just as catastrophic if not more so.

For Team Galactic, ugh. They’re my second least favorite. They were just boring and made an already painfully slow game even more intolerable. This is where I give the Pokemon Anime credit, they made them more interesting in the games and I actually really loved how it was adapted (proof that when they want to the anime can have some really solid writing). Redemption for them? Nope, you literally tried to rewrite the world. Even with Cyrus’ tragic backstory...still nope.

Now for Team Plasma. This is how you do an evil team. Easily one of my favorite teams to actually go up against in game. I like that they actually tried to tackle an ethical question with Pokemon in Team Plasma.  N was a fantastic antagonist and I’m glad he saw the light at the end and he definitely deserves the redemption. And all of the Team Plasma grunts who actually believed in N’s goal deserve redemption. I really enjoyed what they did in BW2 where they had the Plasma House with the misguided former grunts and the confrontation between the old team plasma and Neo Team Plasma about how ostracized the reformed grunts are. Although I don’t like Neo Team Plasma as much (although the outfits are 100 times cooler), it does make sense that the ones still loyal to Ghetsis would try for another attempt. Also it took me a second runthrough of White 2 to really appreciate Colress and his “this is for science” mantra but you know what, I love him. Him and N are really awesome and deserve the redemption. Ghetsis can go jump in a fucking volcano though, him and his followers (:  As for Team Flare, they suffer a lot from not getting a sequel or third version. But like Team Galactic the anime adaptation did a lot of good for them. Team Flare is like Team Aqua/Magma for me in that I think they’re so bad it’s actually good. They actually had some funny dialogue bits and there was actually a lot of potential for them storywise if we had of gotten another Kalos game. The Great War, and AZ all had a lot of potential. Plus having an Elite 4 member working with them? That was more of a twist than Lysandre being the boss. And the Xerosic post-game plot was heartbreaking. Redemption wise though, it’s kind of hard to do with a group who literally tried to nuke the world. 

Team Skull. I love these guys. I love them so much. This is another example for me personally of an evil team done right. I really liked how they weren’t even evil, just frustrated youth who were failed by Alola’s tradition. Like I could seriously go on about how toxic the Alolan community really is if the fact that a child failing the island challenge (a coming of age journey) somehow makes them feel so down about themselves and feel like rejects to the point they join a literal gang to find some sort of belonging (this is of course not talking about the origins of Team Skull being from a disgraced Kahuna who incurred the wrath of the tapus). Like I feel so sorry for them and I wanted to yell at the Kahunas in game for them not recognizing that their traditions were creating the Team Skull problem. Team Skull definitely deserved their redemption as they reformed in the post game

Aether Foundation though, ugh. Easily my least favorite. I really disliked the Aether Family as a whole as I felt they were invasive to the plot and that the focus should’ve been on team skull and how traditions while important can have harmful consequences. I will say it was nice to have female antagonist and I vastly prefer SM Lusamine to USUM Lusamine. USUM Lusamine was more redeemable but she was less interesting and USUM really screws up Lillie’s development which I dislike (which is saying something because I really can’t stand Lillie). 

Team Yell was a disappointment. Honestly there was so much potential because like Team Skull they are a very grounded team (as you can see, I like the grounded in reality teams more so than the philosphical extremist ones). Like I can totally understand why they would form considering how dilapidated Spikemuth is. The issue is that they aren’t given a chance to do much actual evil. Even though Team Skull wasn’t really all that bad, they still did bad things. Which is realistic given their desperation. As desperate as Team Yell was to get Marnie to become champion I was expecting more sabotage and outright hostility. Which while being bad, would be realistic given their situation. That and the fact that no one really calls out the fact the irony of their sabotage actually delegitimizing Marnie’s strengths as a trainer. Like is Marnie truly one of the strongest trainers from the gym challenge or were their people who could’ve beat her who got targeted by Team Yell and ultimately dropped out? Not to mention the implications of ongoing beef between Team Yell and Chairman Rose. Again so much potential wasted. If they had of just made them just a tad more hostile and had someone point out how they were unintentionally making Marnie look bad, they’d easily be one of my favorites.

Macros Cosmos. I think this was the team most screwed over by the plot, and the controversial anime adaptation did them only a few favors. I’ve said this before, but the royal twins historical manipulation plot was more interesting than Rose’s “I’m going to start the Galarian Apocalypse to save Galar” plot. And the sad part is Rose could’ve been a very compelling antagonist. I’ll say that if they really wanted to make Rose an antagonist, they could’ve taken away the Eternatus plot and just used his poor communication skills to cause problems for the gym leaders and champion. A bad boss with impatience and crappy communication skills is something many people can relate to, and I think would’ve been a more interesting plot than trying to force philosophical extremism on to him because.

And lastly the Royal Twins. Man I hated them, but also they’re some of my favorite antagonists. I think people at times look solely at their goofy hairstyles and entitledness and forget how dangerous these two actually were. They had a whole network of spies loyal to them? Imagine a game with them as the main protagonists where it gets to the point you can’t trust the NPCs because who knows which one supports them. Also their historical revision plot is something so relevant today with textbooks being written in a way to minimize horrible atrocities such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Granted their plot in game left a lot to be desired, but they had so much potential and honestly a better reasoning to want to awake Eternatus than Rose did. As you can see I prefer the more grounded teams such as Rocket, Plasma, Skull and Yell (in theory) and the Royal Twins given how their goals relate to the real world. I also think in many ways Gamefreak does better with those plots wiriting wise than the philosophical extremist teams. 

[musicollage]

Atlas Sound. Logos, 2009. Kranky (USA) / 4AD (UK). ( Lyrics & Music – Bradford Cox )  ~ [ Album Review |   1) Pitchfork  +  2) Pop Matters  + 3) Drowned In Sound  +  4) NME  + 5) Prefix Magazine  ]

1) As we've gotten to know Bradford Cox over the last couple of years through shows, interviews, and blog posts, one of the Deerhunter frontman's most appealing qualities is his deep and nuanced appreciation of the music of others. Some musicians listen to records to see how they work, check out the competition, or trawl for ideas; by all available evidence, Cox feels records, deeply. If he was born without musical gifts and couldn't sing or play an instrument, one can imagine him working at a record store, amassing an enviable collection while driving people on a message board crazy with the sureness of his detailed opinions. Whatever you think of his exploits as an indie rock media figure, Cox's music fandom is easy to identify with and also offers a portal into his own work.

Atlas Sound, Cox's solo alias, in one sense serves as a sort of laboratory for figuring out what makes some his favorite music tick, away from the expectations of his main band. Two collaborations on Logos, the second Atlas Sound full-length, are excellent examples of how music listening can be absorbed into original work. First is "Walkabout", a track Cox wrote and recorded with Noah Lennox from Animal Collective, whom Cox got to know during a European tour. Though Cox's music shades dark and Lennox's is often flecked with uncertainty and doubt, "Walkabout" is the sunniest pop tune of either of their careers. Coasting on a buoyant, twinkling keyboard sample, it is a starkly catchy and irresistible, a clattery post-millennial Archies tune that straddles perfectly the border between simple and simplistic. Interestingly, it also sounds very much like a Panda Bear tune.

Then there is Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab, who wrote the lyrics and sings lead on Logos' "Quick Canal". The song opens with some gorgeously textured organ chords and soon a steady-state beat and drums rise up in the mix, setting the kind of relaxed-but-propulsive neo-krautrock scene that Stereolab perfected very early on. Here Cox gets to play the part of the late Mary Hansen, adding "la-di-da" trills behind Sadier as she intones phrases in her unfailingly lovely, for-the-ages voice. He even throws in a "Jenny Ondioline"-style rupture about halfway through, sending the track into a breathtaking shoegaze section for its final four minutes, wherein it floats magisterially on a pillow of shifting guitar feedback. "Quick Canal" is almost nine minutes long and it doesn't waste a second.

On these tracks, the confidence Cox shows in melting his aesthetic into the soundworld of other musicians is striking-- both are unqualified successes, very different from each other but among the best things Cox has ever done. But they also sound a lot like the music his collaborators are known for. Cox's sympathetic support and sense of how to construct songs with others suggests a desire to expand the parameters of what Atlas Sound can be. And given his willingness to let others take the microphone on an Atlas Sound project on these cuts, I can't help but go back to Cox's words on Logos before the album was released, which suggested that this was to be less introverted and that was "not about me."

And then I remember that the cover of the album consists of a photo of Cox with his shirt off and the lyrics in the first two songs start with the word "I", which suggests that we probably shouldn't take these statements very seriously. While the songs may or may not be "about" Cox in the strictest sense, the overall vibe is at least as introverted as 2008's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and every note bears the same signature. With its strummed guitars, hushed double-tracked vocals, and tunes more reliant on ambiance and feel than melody or rhythm, Logos feels every bit as diaristic and personal, but with Cox, that's a plus. At this point, we're not looking to this guy for commentary on the outside world; we want to hear him wrestle with private demons in the sanctuary of his bedroom, bathing every sound in reverb to give the illusion of space and as a sonic balm against loneliness and figuring out how to make music as affecting as the stuff he loves to listen to.

So tracks like "The Light That Failed", "An Orchid", and "My Halo" (the latter two, though different in tone, are further entries in Cox's growing line of melancholy waltz-time shuffles) function primarily as the kind of eerie, blown-out mood music he has become very good at. They are amorphous sketches that still manage to convey feeling, capturing the sort of sad, exhausted, and fragile emotional state that is Cox's area of expertise. "Shelia", a taut pop song with a great chorus hook, is a change-up, though the repeating refrain "No one wants to die alone" fits with the rest of the record's themes. And "Washington School", with its dissonant chime of metallic percussion that sound like gamelan or evilly out-of-tune steel drums, contains the record's most interesting production, with thick drones reminiscent of Tim Hecker and menacing rhythm track.

So some things are different, some are the same, but all of it works well together. It's true that every time Cox ventures out of his comfort zone on Logos, you wish that he'd go even further and embrace extremes-- of tunefulness, tradition, noise-- that don't necessarily come to him naturally. He may yet take a big leap with Atlas Sound, but here the steps away, though rewarding, are tentative. For the rest of the record, Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns.

2) Take a quick gander at Deerhunter's discography and you'll notice a clear stylistic trajectory. From the confrontational noise of "Turn It Up Faggot" to the ambient preoccupations of Cryptograms to the straight-up indie-pop of Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., it's plain to see that as the band has evolved over time, its songwriting has increasingly tended toward the more accessible end of the spectrum. Unsurprisingly, it appears that Bradford Cox's other songwriting vehicle, Atlas Sound, is following a similar arc. On Logos, his second album under the Atlas Sound moniker, Cox provides us with 11 songs that are far less insular, though no less dreamy, than those he has penned in the past. While his fractured compositions still evoke the myth of the bedroom pop auteur, the songs on Logos sound considerably more refined than the lo-fi sketches being churned out by many of his peers. This, as it turns out, is a very good thing.

  To wit: "Walkabout", the track that had the blogosphere buzzing with anticipation for the better part of the summer. Built around a squelchy organ sample lifted from the Dovers "What Am I Going to Do", the song simultaneously recalls both the acid-tinged psychedelia of Black Moth Super Rainbow and the technicolor pop of Brian Wilson. Of course, it's impossible to mention "Walkabout" without acknowledging its co-creator, Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear. In many ways, "Walkabout" bears Lennox's fingerprints more than it does Cox's, with Lennox's wistful vocal harmonies echoing throughout the track's four-minute runtime. It's easy to see why Cox chose to leak "Walkabout" well in advance of the release of Logos; bright, bubbly and infinitely catchy, the song perfectly captures the mood of a fleeting summer afternoon and stands as one of the year's best singles.

   "Walkabout" is obviously a standout, though it's also an outlier when approached within the context of Logos. While some may feel as if they've been misled, the good news is that the rest of the album is no less rewarding, if not quite as instantly gratifying. Take, for example, the opening suite that leads up to "Walkabout". Pitting disjointed acoustic guitar strums and distant, reverb-soaked vocals against a backdrop of aqueous noise, "The Light That Failed" succeeds at drawing the listener in while still keeping her at arm's length. "An Orchid", meanwhile, presents the listener with a dreamy ballad that feels like an indistinct outline for a Deerhunter song. Cox's vocals and the song's guitar hook are buried just deep enough in the mix to force the listener to dig a little. When "Walkabout" finally hits, it feels like a reward well earned.

  Luckily, "Walkabout" isn't the only nugget of pure pop bliss to be found on Logos. "Shelia", a disarmingly straightforward slice of jangly college-rock, proves hard to shake, with its Pixies-esque melody and sun-bleached three-part harmonies. Lyrically, the song serves as a world-weary rejoinder to the sweetly nostalgic refrain of "Walkabout" ("What did you want to be / When you grew up"), with Cox explaining, "No one wants / To die alone", before promising the song's titular subject, "We'll die alone / Together." It sure goes down easy, though.

  Cox has publicly acknowledged that Stereolab were his favorite band in high school, so it should come as no surprise that given the opportunity to collaborate with Lætitia Sadier, he puts his best foot forward. On "Quick Canal", he lovingly builds up and tears down a cathedral of sound for Sadier to inhabit, layering a deep bass groove, tambourine hits and a wall of gently panning organs atop a steady, shuffling beat. Midway through, the song falls apart, briefly taking a detour into glitchy noise before giving way to a squall of fuzzed-out guitars. Try as Cox might to obfuscate the vocals, however, Sadier's voice proves indefatigable. To her credit, she sounds right at home here, bouncing her voice off of the song's jagged edges to produce a track that's equal parts haunting and triumphant.

  With regard to electronic composition, on Logos Cox sounds more confident than ever before. Samples and electronic instrumentation form the underpinnings of many of the album's songs, though not to conspicuous effect. Penultimate track "Washington School" illustrates this point better than perhaps any other on the album. Opening with a loop built from fragments of a minor key piano line, the song soon piles on a pounding, bass-heavy beat, chimes and a playful synth line, blossoming into a full-on folktronica number that recalls Four Tet circa Rounds. Somewhere in the distance, Cox's disembodied voice rings out: "Shine a light / On me."

  If Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was the product of Cox's willful isolation, then Logos is the sound of the auteur stepping outside of his bedroom to engage the world outside. Though it cedes little of the hazy delivery that made Let the Blind… so compelling, Logos brims with a wide-eyed energy all its own, conveying a palpable sense of optimism that's all too rare in Cox's oeuvre. This isn't too surprising when one considers the circumstances; the path that led Cox to the album's creation -- globetrotting tours with his idols, collaborations with some of the most distinctive voices in indie rock -- is the stuff of dreams for hermetic music nerds. Perhaps that's why Logos sounds as vibrant as it does: it's the result of Bradford Cox living out his dreams rather than just dreaming them.

   3) One of many unsatisfactory things about end-of-decade retrospectives is that musicians are rarely so accommodating as to plot their careers in nice, convenient ten year cycles. Nonetheless, that’s how posterity tends to remember them, regardless of finer details. Thus the Kinks are Sixties artists, the Clash a Seventies act, Talk Talk an Eighties band, Nirvana from the Nineties, and you’d comfortably stick a punt on The Strokes and Sufjan Stevens ending up defined by this decade we’re exiting.

  But what of Bradford Cox? Even if you were aware of Deerhunter's raucous 2005 debut ”Turn It Up Faggot” at the time, you're a wizard or a liar if you foresaw how their frontman was going to fill the years 2007 to 2009. That is to say: three Deerhunter albums (‘tis a fool indeed who views Weird Era Cont. as anything other than a record in its own right), two EPs, and a solo project as Atlas Sound that’s yielded God-know-how-many free downloads, as well as last year's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and now – an epic 22 months later - Logos. That all of this bar the odd freebie has been good to exemplary is simply astonishing, and points to an artist whose profligacy and cult popularity has him nicely set up to be a defining artist of the next decade.

  And yet... anomalous as ”Turn It Up Faggot” may seem, such scabrous origins are indicative of a palette that has been cooling and quietening ever since Cox first intersected with the limelight. The soundbite-friendly ‘ambient punk’ aesthetic never really lasted beyond Cryptograms, with Microcastle canning the abrasiveness in favour of reasonably straightforward shoegaze set off with dreamlike Fifties flourishes. Having arrived at something like a commercial sound, another artist might have stopped there; however, Cox has ploughed right on through, this year’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange far and away Deerhunter’s most introverted work, a retreat into quiescent childhood reverie.

  Logos has much more in common with Rainwater... than Let the Blind..., for the most part ditching the dissonant electronics in favour of delayed acoustic guitars and old-time pop structures. On the face of it, it sets out Atlas Sound’s stall as simply being whatever Cox may do sans Deerhunter. Yet in a way the 'ambient solo project' tag still kind of makes sense. Strictly speaking ambient music is defined not by instrumentation, but by its evasion of the consciousness. Whole swathes of Logos are blurred and indistinct - technically melodic, hooky songs treated and delivered in such a way that they all but self-negate, leaving nothing but fleeting impressions: the winsome viola that arrives in ‘Attic Lights’, just as Cox mutters ”maximum pain, maximum effect”; the gay singer’s unsettling yearning for traditional marriage on ‘Sheila’ ("we’ll die alone, together"); the barely discernible mantra ”all is love” that briefly ghosts through ‘Washington School’.

  This might sound like a way of romanticising an unmemorable album, but that's far from the case. These songs are bunched together into two dreamy, fog-like passages that serve as a backdrop for a handful of the most tangible tunes Cox has ever written, soaring atmospherically above the misty dreampop. Opener ‘The Light That Failed’ roots itself in the consciousness through eerily torpid glitching, Cox’s disconcerting use of something approaching a falsetto, and the doomy langour of its titular lyric. It sets up an album that frequently drifts into disquieting areas, yet never quite follows through on this early moment of dread. Indeed, delightful Panda Bear hook up ‘Walkabout’ serves as definitive proof that the light hasn't failed at all. While much of Cox’s early pop obsession speaks of a desire to creep out of the now entirely, ‘Walkabout’ is far more tangible and good natured, thanks largely to Panda Bear’s high, comforting tones and the appropriation of the hook from actual vintage Sixties pop gem ‘What Am I Going To Do?’ by The Dovers. Ironically for a song built around a 40-year-old tune, nothing, else on Logos has ‘Walkabout’s immediacy, though the excellent title track comes close, a rattling Strokes-alike number slightly removed from the world by Cox’s arsenal of floaty FX.

  As we’ve known ever since last year’s leak of the Logos demos, the centrepiece is the eight and a half minute, wholly electronic ‘Quick Canal’. Though tamed a little from the leaked 13 minute instrumental, this more mannered, Laetitia Sadier-sung incarnation is a better fit here, and still towers above the skyline. The Stereolab singer adds an inescapably Enya-ish quality to the gentle early stages, but by the time the song’s swooshing, snowy motorik has kicked into full gear she fits in immaculately, an aloof Old World passenger on a song charged with haughty European electronica. It perhaps doesn’t sound so jaw-dropping as it did in isolation, but a lot of that can be attributed to an intentional effect of the surroundings. Those short, subliminal songs serving to filter away reality and focus, like half remembered dreams that leaves the senses baffled and feverish.

  Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing. While there's every chance he'll wrong foot us, and soon, this record is entirely in keeping with the increasingly self-erasing route Bradford Cox has taken as a musician; it's hard to stifle a shudder at that blanked out cover image. Maybe Cox will go on to be a star next decade - he's a gregarious, prolific man liked by critics. But listen to his music, and that doesn't feel quite right. Maybe he'll become an icon. Or maybe he’ll finally make his escape from our timestream entirely, leaving us to wonder if he was ever there at all.

   4) Much like Starbucks, Bradford Cox has become a ubiquitous presence. What with his work with art-rock outfit Deerhunter, his involvement in Karen O’s official soundtrack for Where The Wild Things Are, and now this, his second solo offering under the Atlas Sound banner, you’d be forgiven for thinking that such familiarity will start to breed contempt. But you’d be way off the mark.

  There are two things you should know about this unlikely lo-fi hero of gangly deportment (he has Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder that stretches his limbs and strains his heart) and a girlish speaking voice (the affliction for this is yet uncertain). Firstly, it is impossible to dislike him (just see Wayne Coyne’s spoof argument with him on YouTube, branding Cox a “dick”). Secondly, his creative output has proved him to be one of – if not the – most forward-thinking and inspiring musicians of our generation.

  So, as Cox takes time out from Deerhunter, along comes ‘Logos’. Less of an experimental minefield than its predecessor, ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, it sees Cox weave in and out of dream-like sequences, such as the sombre ‘The Light That Failed’ and ‘Quick Canal’, the latter featuring the sweetly masculine vocal of [a]Stereolab[/a]’s Laetitia Sadier; while ‘An Orchid’ pitches in as the aural equivalent of a David Lynch storyboard, guided along with looped noises and whimsical vocals.

  It’d be easy to overlook Cox’s lyrics when the soundscapes are this rich and ornate, but there’s a delicate exploration of the most human of sensibilities and yearnings on ‘Logos’. He opens up the emotional vaults on ‘Sheila’, pining softly that “no-one wants to die alone… we’ll die alone together”. Likewise with ‘My Halo’, where Cox reveals “My halo burned a hole in the sky/My halo burned a hole in the ground… so I wait for polarity to change”. There’s much warmth and playfulness to be found here too, the unfeigned honesty and childlish desires expressed on ‘Walkabout’ – featuring the falsetto of [a]Animal Collective[/a]’s Noah Lennox – with its lyric “What did you want to see?/What did you want to be when you grew up?” being a case in point.

  Cox may have tagged Atlas Sound as just another side-project, but ‘Logos’ is a clear indication that his solo creative output is just as richly rewarding as what came before.

   5) For a project originally started as a way for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox to give a voice to his despairing isolation (he records completely alone) as a teenager, Atlas Sound is starting to sound like an arena-filling, widescreen pop project. Logos, Cox’s second proper solo album, takes the dense, gray worlds of Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel and puts them through a rainbow, delivering a splendid album.

  If there’s one word to describe Logos, it’s “watery.” And in that regard, Logos shares a lot in common with Merriweather Post Pavilion (and Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange from earlier this year). Both albums trade in dreamy avant-pop landscapes buoyed by soggy atmospherics. “Criminals” sways like a shipping vessel in choppy seas, while the album’s great closing third (“My Halo” through the title track) sounds like it was transmitted from that underwater base in the third season of Lost. Cox is still reliant on the general ambiance that envelops his solo work, but here he’s willing to let his vocals float above the mix. And while musically this is brighter, he’s still all Debbie Downer. Old standby lyrical tropes of growing old (on “Sheila” Cox sings “we will grow old” like he’s reassuring someone else), loneliness (“Attic Lights”) and lost hope (“The Light that Failed”) show up repeatedly, and he still sounds like he’s on his deathbed when he sings.

  But for an album created largely by one guy alone in his room, the guest performances shine the most on Logos. Stereolab’s  Lætitia Sadier wrote the lyrics for “Quick Canal,” a sprawling, shoegazey track that never loses its motorik motion, peaking repeatedly in its eight minutes. The bubbly “Walkabout,” the high-profile track with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear lives up to all the hypertext spilled about it this summer, delivering the best of both Panda Bear’s effervescent youthful innocence and Cox’s wistful yearning.

  Logos, while just the second solo album from the frontman for a band of marginal fame, represents the latest and greatest chapter in Cox’s ride to indie stardom. He rose to prominence mid-decade as a confrontational trickster riding blog-hype (circa Cryptograms), continuing with a solo album to build his brand (Let the Blind), an indie-rock masterwork (Microcastle) and a solo album of nearly as high repute (Logos). As for what’s next, Cox has remained mum (though Deerhunter might be taking a hiatus), but with Logos, he ensures we’ll all be waiting.  

[theoreticalreanimation]

Resident Evil: Vendetta Reaction Post- Spoilers

One of my first posts under this handle was a moment by moment reaction post of the last Resident Evil CG film, Resident Evil: Damnation. I figure that since I’ve finally found a viable stream of Resident Evil: Vendetta, it would be a good time to reprise that role and continue my live-reaction of a film that I’ve anticipated for a while. 

All I know about this is that Chris, Leon, and Rebecca make an appearance in this film. I’ve been slow on my trailer uptake.

Here we go!

Beginning with a slow-mo walk. Or just someone being super dramatic- OF COURSE IT’S LEON. BECAUSE WHO THE FUCK ELSE WOULD DIVA WALK.

Leon, staring into a body bag is rarely a good idea. Especially in this universe.  “Never thought my life would turn out this way”. Yeah, you’ve come a long way from being the rookie cop who slept in on his first day.

Why does Chris’ introductions always start off with “So you’re Chris Redfield?” WHO THE FUCK ASKS IF YOU’VE KILLED A LOT? Isn’t that like a super taboo question? I wish they’d quit changing the character’s face models and voices. It kinda ruins the aesthetic/immersion for me. Hahaha, Chris has someone apologizing for asking him the stupid question. 

Baddie is “Glenn Arias” and looks like pseudo-Wesker. Thanks for defining BOW for me random Mexican military bro.

It’s a fucking mansion. Of course it’s a fucking mansion. I’m not gonna lie though, I love the mansion thing. OPEN THE DOOR. ARE THERE PUPPIES? Poor Chris just longs for a bungalow or something. This seriously looks like the Arklay mansion. I’m having flashbacks for Chris. True to form, the first explorable room is the dining room. THE CANDLES ARE LIT AND THE FUCKING BUILDING LOOKS CONDEMNABLE. BACK THE FUCK UP.

There was an upside down fireplace zombie. It peeked out like a cheesy peek-a-boo vampire. 

Note for all: All good things happen at 3am. Including zombie mansion raids and sneaking up on a toy truck wrapped up in bed sheets. Continued footage of soldiers shitting themselves when random noises happen. There’s a zombie child playing with an RC truck controller. SLOW APPROACHING GUYS WITH GUNS. AND THEY’RE NOT SHOOTING. THE KID IS COVERED IN BLOOD AND HIS JAW HINGING OPEN. “ARE YOU OKAY” GOOD THING YOU’RE DEAD NOW BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR SHEER STUPIDITY. Chris, no. Please don’t focus on the stupid truck. This is obviously zombie child’s bait. THERE’S LIKE FIVE OF THEM UNDER THE BED. PLUS THE GROUP THEY JUST GOT. Zombie design is cool in this one. It’s a lot more like the classic ones. HAHA POP A GRENADE in the play room. Oh. Mexican bro is bit. Lights out bestie. Chris, how does your whole team always manage to fall victim to this shit?

There’s a half woman/long-haired man whose exposed spine looks like a scorpion tail. And it’s kind of hysterical. 

CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR BEHIND YOU YOU DUMB-oh, the piano wire trick. Well, the last remaining members of Chris’ team are effective mincemeat thanks to pseudo-Wesker’s preplanning.  I’m glad to see the REverse tap in to the scariness of zombie children. 

Chris isn’t immune to slow mo. Leon diva walks in slow mo, Chris slow mo crashes through a window and then proceeds to have a fight with pseudo-Wesker. Growling “Arias” doesn’t have the same effect unfortunately. 

TELL ME THIS GUY AIN’T PSEUDO-WESKER. BITCH SLAP INCLUDED. God I’m only fifteen minutes into this. 

More interesting ideas of zombies who are trained to attack some people over others. Poor Chris has been shot, disarmed and is facing an incoming hoard so... wait for it. And here... we.... *fanfare* the CALVARY ARRIVES. And title screen. Fuck. I’mma have a lot to say. Rebecca isn’t even here yet.

Cut to a wedding. Arias’ wedding. AND A PREDATOR DRONE BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF IT. AMURRCA. He’s still holding his new wife’s severed arm. Dramatic and also a lot repulsive. Appropriate reaction to wife’s death? World domination and black market trading of bioweapons. Good response.

Enter Rebecca. Because no one in the REverse believes in changes of hair style in 25 years. REBECCA IS A BASIC STARBUCKS BITCH. “Caramel Macchiato? Did you remember the chocolate chips?” “And the whipped cream on top.” “Good boy.”

Rebecca, who wears a belt over a sweater vest. Judging you hardcore right about now. She also just pulled seniority to not have to collect samples from infected bodies. I liked her more when she was trudging around with Billy. HER POST DOC DOESN’T EVEN REACT WHEN THERE’S HIGH HEELS CLICKING DOWN THE HALLWAY. YOU’RE GONNA DIE.

That was quick. We’ve already synthesized a vaccine and it’s only twenty-five minutes in. Good thing for when we DISPERSE THE VIRUS THROUGH THE VENTILATION DUCTS. 

Rebecca obviously didn’t read the case notes on RE2′s events to show her why testing her new creation on herself is an AWFUL IDEA. Also, I’m pretty sure virology labs have specialized ducting FOR THIS PURPOSE. I feel like Rebecca’s been out of the game too long. She’s just sitting and staring at her zombified post-doc. HE IS LITERALLY THROWING HIS MOUTH AT YOU AND THE REST OF HIS BODY IS JUST FOLLOWING. I don’t care if he bought you Starbucks, bash that fucker in the head! You just risked being in your safe spot by wanderers for a bottled water. I swear to Christ Rebecca. You keep this up I’m not gonna root for you this whole movie. You’re becoming an escort mission. WHO IS THIS BODY SUIT VIXEN WALKING AROUND BLOWING SHIT UP.  BAHA. Chris is just so done with the shit that goes down in his life. “Rebecca. It’s been a while.” “You should be wearing a clean suit. Or at least a mask.” “Yeah well.” NO FUCKS. Neo-Umbrella was so short lived. There’s no point of mentioning it. Tricell too. Scoot on by.

Rebecca put back in something resembling her old clothes so people recognize her. Also having to re-establish her backstory of child-prodigy STARS medic. Enter “In Raccoon City.” “RACCOON CITY?” Now we’re discussing how much of a “masterpiece” (actual quote) Breaking Bad is. FOR REAL.

Leon is drinking hard “Oh, look who it is. BSAA’s golden boy and Dr. Highhopes! What the Hell do you want?” This is weird, they’ve turned Leon into a drunk cynic which is completely opposite his character. Also apparently we can’t go one story-involved installment since 5 making someone an alcoholic. Leon, who has previously (in all animated installments and games) jumped at the chance to help a person or society in some endeavor. “I’m on vacation”. Burnt out on BOWs. Saying he doesn’t remember Los Illuminados because it was so long ago. Chris is staging a intervention by not letting the bartender bring him another bottle.  Leon is looking old. Not even like a nice old, just haggard. Fighting and then gets tired of it not getting any better and just gives up. Realistic but not quite true to Leon’s character.  “So you’ve got on one hand an arms dealer, and on the other, a government that drops bombs on weddings. Who’s the bad guy here?” I’m not liking this cynic Leon. 

"I know that neither one of you are the type of person who would sit here and argue while the world dies. That’s not who you are.” Thank you Rebecca.

Gathering surviving members of Los Illuminados to launch a large scale bioterror operation. 1) WHAT SURVIVING MEMBERS? 2) Leon doesn’t remember anything about them apparently so the world is S.O.L. Sorry. It was just conveniently established.

Leon trying to trade information for help, and then BANE WITH A GATLING GUN SHOWS UP. 

And body suit vixen has kidnapped Rebecca. Probably because she has short hair like Pseudo-Wesker’s dead wife. Y’know, even real Wesker had that creepy photo in his desk.

“There goes my vacation. Again.” Leon you’re drunk and in no condition to fight. I KNEW IT. I FUCKING KNEW IT. PUT HER IN A FUCKING WEDDING DRESS.

HIS WEDDING GUESTS ARE REANIMATED IN BOXES AROUND TABLES. THIS GUY IS FUCKING INSANE.

“I heard that you found a cure for my merchandise.” “A cure isn’t the only thing I found” HOW ABOUT YOU NOT EXHAUST YOUR USEFULNESS IN THE FIRST TEN SECONDS OF CAPTIVITY. SHE’S IN MONOLOGUE. 

That’s unnecessarily complicated. Three strains of virus, one airborne, one waterborne.

SHE LITERALLY TOLD HIM EVERYTHING SHE KNEW. REBECCA. I AM SO DONE WITH YOU. GO BACK TO THE CONFINES OF OBSCURITY.

“My team has my research and my blood.” STOP SPILLING THE BEANS.

“-photo flashes up on the screen- That’s Sara. My wife. You look just like her. It’s not a coincidence that we met.”  “Wait. Where are you going with this?” YOU’RE ONLY JUST NOW QUESTIONING THIS? YOU’RE IN A WEDDING DRESS. IN A ROOM DRESSED UP LIKE A RECEPTION AREA. WITH WEDDING GUESTS. NEXT TO A GUY IN A WHITE TAILCOAT. YOU. ARE. OBLIVIOUS.

“I’m redoing the wedding with you.” “Rebecca. Meet Sara!”

NOPENOPENOPENOPE

“I’m going to replace your arm with Sara’s.” NO. 

“What’s going on here?” WHAT DOES IT FUCKING LOOK LIKE REBECCA. CONTEXT CLUES.

Bane 2.0 is bodysuit vixen’s dad. Possibly Sara’s dad too. More on this later, probably.

Let’s release the trigger virus on New York! Because that seems like a good idea where baddies couldn’t possibly get caught up in the fallout of that decision. A plus decision making going on in this place.  A funny detail. They’ve named this virus the A-Virus. The truck distributing it is A-Gua industries. Like someone sat in a board room just pitching company fronts and then everyone has a tear-filled belly laugh for about five minutes before going “yeah, let’s go with that.”

BSAA just dropping hummers and motorcycles. Counter-terrorism measures! Yeah!

Let’s just open the van that’s moving like something’s trying to get out. Because there’s three characters on screen and one didn’t exist before an hour ago, so he’s obviously gotta go. AAAAAAAAAND THEY’RE CERBERUSES. OF COURSE. WHO DIED? NEWBIE MCFRESHFACE.

“Any ideas?” Fucking shoot them, Chris.

Leon is speeding down the streets of New York, during morning rush hour, on a motorcycle, with two cerberuses KEEPING UP WITH HIM. I just can’t do the slow-mo in this movie. It’s too dramatic every time. 

He’s gotta be going like 80 miles an hour.

Oh my god. Leon. No. This is too fucking much. You don’t do a “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions” in a five-second pose on a motorcycle while zooming away. 

Glad to know that they took Rebecca’s blood sample and re-engineered a new strain of the virus in LESS THAN TWELVE HOURS. SOME SPEEDY WORK THERE GUYS.

Oh no, Bodysuit Vixen is down! I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS YET. Well that was pointless.

Oh, baddie monologue. LET’S EXPOSE THE WHOLE PLAN. He’s even wearing black leather gloves. I also don’t get the point of infecting Rebecca if he wants to pretend she’s his wifey. But, whoever said that mass murdering bioterrorists had to make logical sense?

Chris is on a zombie slashing spree in the facility and is getting blood all over him. YOU KNOW BETTER. Chris and Leon are always each other’s calvary. They show up whenever the other needs help because it’s convenient. Leon is not counting his bullets.

WHAT KIND OF MOVE WAS THAT CHRIS.

“Rebecca’s running out of time!” “Let’s split up!” Good thing you guys brought a whole armory’s worth of ammo and you CAN do that apparently.

Conveniently placed incindiary grenade takes care of all your big problems. Bane’s down.  CHRIS. DON’T DO THE DUMB. Obviously infected Rebecca, veins are raised and blue. She’s CLAMPED TO A FUCKING TABLE. “You okay?” NO. NO SHE’S NOT OKAY.

Another Chris v Pseudo-Wesker showdown. Everyone has a gun and rolly slidy moves. The whole thing is ridiculous and also hysterical. The choreography just makes me ugly laugh. WHERE IS ALL THIS AMMO COMING FROM BOYS.

Oh ouch. That was definitely a concussion for Chris. That was pain. I’m also kind of over this whole RE villain dying in the same installment that they’re introduced into. It makes it really hard to continue a story line and kind of makes them worthless as a villain. Like this guy just being thrown down an elevator shaft and then being absorbed by Bane-lookalike doesn’t really provide for a satisfying continuing villain. Even if he is pseudo-Wesker.

BOSS FIGHT. 

I don’t know what to call this creation. Pseudo-Banker, I think.  

LEON BROUGHT THE FUCKING MOTORCYCLE ONTO THE ROOF. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? THIS IS BRINGING THE WARTHOG INTO AREAS OF THE HALO MAP IT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO GO IN. HE WENT AND FOUND AN ELEVATOR SO HE COULD SIT THERe> WITH HIS MOTORCYCLE. ELEVATOR MUSIC PLAYING WHILE THE MACHINE SLOWLY STARTS FILLING THE COMPARTMENT WITH CO2. WHY? SO THE MONSTER CAN BE DISTRACTED BY THE BINGBONG AND LEON CAN RUN HIM OVER.

FOR COOL POINTS.

LEON I SWEAR TO GOD.

Meanwhile while you boys are worrying about looking cool, Rebecca is dying. I mean I personally don’t care much but you guys would so I think that maybe this might be something that you should probably speed up and start worrying about.

THE BSAA JUST SHOT A FUCKING ROCKET THROUGH THE BOW. WHICH RIPPED THROUGH HIM AND FOUR OTHER BUILDINGS. MASS CASUALTIES. THE BOW ISN’T EVEN DEAD YET. IT JUST RUSHED THE HELICARRIER. FUCKING COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Now the girl who shot the rocket is dead, and the BOW is giggling. And rightfully so. 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDIN GME LEON PUT THE MOTORCYCLE AWAY

GoDDAmmiT. THE LICENSE PLATE IS BSAA 752. LAUNCHING THE MOTORCYCLE AT A HELICARRIER THAT IS IN THE AIR IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. The fucking wheel hit him in the arm. Leon shot the gas tank. It exploded. THE BOW IS STILL ALIVE BTW.

And then Chris has the idea to hit the big glowing weak point (his heart) with a grenade launcher. Because obviously even though they’ve all been doing this for 25 years, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR. Oh yeah, when the timer goes off Rebecca dies. Good thing Chris found the gas tank with the antidote in it. Thankfully they manufactured an antidote. The convenience of forethought.  ROCKET LAUNCHER GIRL IS STILL ALIVE. I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S A CONTINUITY ERROR.  Meanwhile, we remembered that all of New York is currently munching on each other and we should probably maybe cure them too and not just Rebecca. So they’re all back to normal but their stomachs are full of blood and flesh so... Maybe you won’t eat for a couple days. Leon and Chris are having their flying off into the sunrise moment where they reflect on the events and decide that it’s all worth it, Leon’s probably no longer a drunk, which by the process of elimination means that Rebecca’s going to start adding shots of Bailey’s in her Starbucks every morning. 

BODYSUIT VIXEN! Red-eyed Bodysuit Vixen. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU.

I literally don’t understand what this has to do with Los Illuminados except that Bodysuit Vixen and Bane 2.0 were probably maybe from Spain.

[commenter2]

Video games that should get a reboot or sequel

I have made posts about TV shows that should be either be rebooted or get a sequel series so I thought I do one on videogames. This post goes into detail on the games so beware of spoilers.

I’ll start with reboots first.

Jak and Daxter- A popular game series made by Naughty Dog about a teen and his otter/weasel creature friend saving the world from great evil. The series at first was like an average platformer game but later got more dark and grim, which was interesting. There hasn’t been a new Jak and Daxter game since 2005 and since reboots are popular maybe they do it for the Jak and Daxter series.

Crash Bandicoot- Another popular game series by Naughty Dog about a mutated bandicoot that goes on adventures to save the day from the villain Dr. Neo Cortex. Its been confirmed that a company is releasing a N Sane trilogy, featuring updated versions of the games. Because of this I feel like the game company should reboot the series since if they have the time to redo 3 of the game then maybe they will do an actual reboot.

Conker Bad Fur Day- A game made by Rare about a squirrel named Conker who after getting drunk gets lost in an odd forest and goes on an adventure to get out and get to his girlfriends place. The game was know for its funny mature content, even though it was labeled a E rated game at the time but made it mark as an interesting game, even getting a revision for the Xbox. There were attempts to get the game a sequel but they never worked out, but in this day an age where reboots seem to be popular maybe they should do it for Conker’s Bad Fur Game. 

Bully- A game made by Rockstar Games, the company who makes the GTA games. The game, as the title states, is about a teenage bully named Jimmy who after being dropped off at his new school (which takes place in the GTA universe) decides to become the leader of the school by fighting all the clicks of the school and uniting them under his leadership. The game though dated was fun and had a lot of similar elements from the GTA franchise. There was a remastered edition released in 2008 but I think a reboot of the game would be interesting, plus it a good change then getting another GTA game or GTA DLC. 

Earthworm Jim- A game about a worm that after getting a suit fights evil. It had 2 good games but its fame was over after its game for the Nintendo 64, I think a reboot would be interesting to see.

Dragon’s Lair- a popular arcade game in the 80s that changed gaming in general. The series was so popular that it got several sequels and has been remade for several consoles. The series is so popular that the creator of the game did a Kickstarter in 2016 with the goal of it to make the game into a movie and it reached it goal, and is planning on coming out in 2018. Because of this maybe a company should make a reboot of the game, with new gameplay, an alternate plot and challenges.

Half Life franchise- A popular game series by Valve, about a theoretical physicist named Gordon Freeman who worked for the Black Mesa company when one day a test they were running, causes a rift to another dimension to open. Creatures come out and start to kill everyone causing Gordon to fight the creatures off and close the portal to the other dimension. He succeeds but a mysterious man comes out and tells him he will be needed again in the future. In the next game he awakes some time later to find that another alien species has taken over the Earth and has enslaved the Human race. Its Gordon’s role, with the help of some friends to take down the alien force, which they do but, through the events of Half Life 2 episodes 1 and 2 they will face the full force of the alien race. The goal from then one was for Gordon and his lady friend to head to the location of the lost ship from Aperture Science, cause Half Life is in the same universe as Portal. Fans have been waiting for a new installment to come out but nothing has been announced since 2007. I bet if Valve reboots the series, all the unanswered questions from the franchise can finally be answered.

Now for sequels

Alien vs. Predator (2010)- This was a ok game that consist of 3 stories that intertwined with each other. The game takes place on an alien planet where humans, led by and evil scientist are breeding xenomorphs, of course one escapes and goes on a rampage on the planet trying to get to its queen. To contact this the Marine come in to stop them but are slowly killed off, only for a Rookie to fight off the alien forces, which he does while at the same time trying to get off the planet with the survivors. The 3rd story is about the Predators species, where one is there to prove his worth as a warrior only to go on a mission to stop the humans form defiling there temple. After finding some items from a legendary predator he decides to destroy the temple so the humans, specifically the evil scientist from discovering their tech. All the stories end with the 3 characters you play going to the Xenomorph homeworld. Since then the people who made the game have been trying to get a sequel off the ground but there is no word of it as of yet.

I bet if they fixed the game mechanics a bit, the game can be better.

PlayStation All Star Battle Royale- This was the PlayStation’s version of Super Smash bros. where you play as popular PlayStation icons. The game got good ratings and there is rumor of a sequel coming in the future, which I hope does. If it does I can see it featuring a new villain and let you play as not only the characters from the previous games, but also new characters that weren’t in it.

Deadpool- A game made by High Moon studios about the popular superhero Deadpool going on a wacky adventure. In the game there is a hint that the game will get a sequel and with the popularity Deadpool has, it might/should happen in the near future.

Transformers franchise by High Moon Studios- Another game made by High Moon. I did a post that talks about why they should do another game, here is the link to see it: http://commentron.tumblr.com/post/147021053578/should-there-be-a-sequel-to-high-moons-studios

Dante’s Inferno- This game was made by the people who have made the Dead Space franchise. It was an alternate version of the poem of the same name where instead of Dante “touring” hell, he fights his way through it to save is beloved from Lucifer. Spoiler alert, he does and ends up in Purgatory but ends with a snake forming out of the weird cloth Dante had on his chest the whole time, hinting at a sequel. There had been rumors of a sequel but there is no word on if its true or not.

If they ever do make a sequel I have this idea that it features Dante gong up the mountain but as he gets farther up he notices that Purgatory is becoming a lot more like hell, which not only give the snake a role in the game but also spice up purgatory, cause the poem, though full of kinds of torture like in Inferno, aren’t as bad. Plus it states at the beginning of the actual poem that a snake is present only to be driven off by angels, so maybe the in the game the snake instead of being chased off possess one of the angel, leading Lucifer the opportunity to corrupt purgatory in order to get into Paradise.

Dead Space franchise- Dead Space is an action horror game that takes places in the distant future. You play as Isaac Clarke an engineer who after finding and destroying a Marker, a device that mutates anything near it into a multi limbed zombie like creatures, becomes a key target to a religious group who worship the Markers and those who sent them. Turns out the religious group made the Marker he destroyed and brainwash him to make them another one only to later destroy it. In the last game Dead Space 3, Isaac teams up with another guy and goes to a planet to discover that the Markers were sent by living moons, one is which above the planet there on. After a religious leader turned off the machine that kept the moon from attacking, Isaac and the other guy destroy it, only to discover that it sent a message to its brothers to attack Earth. The stories continues in a DLC that ended with the 2, after fighting about if they should return to Earth, head to Earth only to be on a collision with one of them. I believe Dead Space 4 should come out cause not only did Dead Space 3 make good sales but we also deserve a good ending for the franchise.  

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed franchise- A game about Darth Vader’s secret apprentice who slowly turns to the light side of the force and throughout the 2 games uses his powers of both the light and dark side to fight the Empire. The 2nd game (at least its light ending) ended on a cliffhanger hinting to another sequel but sadly never came to be. I think with the release of the new Star Wars trilogy by Disney, the people who make the games should make a Force Unleashed III.

Sly 4- Sly 4 was a long awaited game for fans of the Sly Cooper Franchise, as it came out 8 years after Sly 3, though it was made by a different gaming company. For those who don’t know the series is about a Raccoon named Sly Cooper who along with his friends Bentley and Murray pulling off cappers together. In Sly 4, Sly and his gang had to travel through time to save Sly’s ancestors, which is a part of the games history, from a great evil. I won’t give away the entire ending but it did give a hint that there was/is going to be a Sly 5 in the future. So far there is no confirmation of a Sly 5 but the original makers have given their approval to the idea. I believe Sly 5 should be made so they can finally wrap up the series.

Lego Star Wars III: Clone Wars- Traveller’s Tales, or Tt has been making lego games of classic franchises for years, and will probably still do this for many years to come, though I am surprise that they never made a sequel game to the Lego Star War: Clone Wars game. The game was based on the 2008 Star Wars: Clone Wars show, as each level was based on an episode from the show, where you play through it as the characters from that episode. I’ve compared the ratings of this game to other games and it looks like it sold just as well as any other Lego game from Tt so I find it weird that they never made a sequel, especially when more then enough season to make a sequel. Maybe they’ll consider doing one after they make games of the other star wars movies that will come out, or maybe one that has episodes from Star Wars: Rebels in it.

Is there a game on this list that you agree with ? What games do you think should get a reboot or sequel ?

[recentanimenews]

AnimEVO: The Fascinating Fan-Run Side of the World's Biggest Fighting Game Event

  EVO is a massive event, filled with thousands of players from across the globe coming to compete in nine carefully selected official tournament games. But with hundreds of fighting games out there, it’s easy for someone’s favorite to be left off of the official roster. So what’s a fan of lesser-loved fighting games to do? You play in a side tournament at the event for your games of choice. And if there isn’t a side tournament? Well, then you roll up your sleeves and set one up yourself!

But being a tournament operator, or “TO,” isn’t easy. I should know, because my boyfriend Matt “LordBBH” Hall and I ran our own side tournament for the very first time this year! You not only have to deal with a lot of running around at the event itself, but you also have other logistics to worry about: getting space, keeping track of entry fees and payouts, handling registration, and getting your tournament publicity. Thankfully for us, there’s AnimEVO, a collective of EVO side tournaments that works to help both TOs and competitors participate in the games they love.

AnimEVO began back at Evolution 2014. As Capcom games like Super Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 dominated the official EVO lineup, many so-called “anime” games, called such for their anime-derived aesthetic (and that they were typically more popular in Japan), were often left off the roster. The first AnimEVO featured games like Aquapazza, Melty Blood, Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, and even Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle.

AnimEVO’s current co-director, Hagure, first joined the event for its 2016 incarnation. “I initially came to the team to create the AnimEVO website. I didn't plan on doing much else besides that at first,” Hagure admits. But as the event implemented online registration and required increased organization, he found himself becoming more and more involved. “Last year was probably the first I was really the one directing stuff.”

And AnimEVO certainly needed someone to wrangle everything. As EVO has grown, so has AnimEVO alongside it, allowing more and more games to join its collective of side tournaments. The amount of players entering every year has increased, too. “Removing a lot of the redundancies shared between TOs and streamers gives them more time to focus on promoting, organizing & running tournaments & streams, leading to more interest & a better event overall,” says Hagure. “Also, online pre-reg & having all the info in one place has helped attract more players. Getting cross-entries from players between games they wouldn't normally enter on-site is something we've seen a lot of. Finally, people, especially veteran [community members], are starting to see that we're here for them year after year, and know that we're dependable. Some folks are now anticipating our lineup more than EVO's [main games]!”

So what kind of games will you see at AnimEVO? Well, you have obvious anime-inspired games like Melty Blood, Vampire Savior, older versions of Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Persona 4 Arena. You’ll find games that have a direct anime connection, like Sailor Moon S for the Super Famicom, the Fist of the North Star fighter, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. You’ll also find older games like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters, and Fighter’s History Dynamite—the tournament Matt and I ran. Even competitive games not considered “fighting games” have been welcomed into the AnimEVO roster, like Gundam Versus, Windjammers, Catherine, and Puyo Puyo. One year there was even a Granblue Fantasy tournament. No, not Granblue Fantasy Versus, the mobile game!

“Obviously, we lean towards fighting-genre videogames, especially those that don't get the usual main-stage treatment. But pretty much as long as it is some kind of competitive game, that has the necessary TOs dedicated to run it, we'll allow it,” says Hagure.

Mark of the Wolves Tournament photo by @NocturnalSRK

This year, AnimEVO’s roster boasted a whopping thirty-one games for players to consider entering. While some players may stick to only one or two games, others may enter multiple titles—and place very well in many of them. Some players even come to EVO primarily for AnimEVO games—this year, a group of Korean players made a splash when they came out to EVO for the express purpose of playing in the tournament for Capcom’s fan favorite Dreamcast fighter Project Justice. 

  The Project Justice side tournament was dope as hell. @bananashot3 and the Korean team came all the way to Evo only to support PJ. Some old FGC heads showed up as well. @NeoRussell is the community MVP for running this. Great times were had ???? pic.twitter.com/ozpd8HrGDa

— Jotamide (@jotamide) August 4, 2019

  Sponsors have stepped up interest in AnimEVO as well, with companies like Sega, Atlus, and Arc System Works promoting AnimEVO’s side tournaments and even contributing things like setups, streaming space, prizes, and winners’ pot bonuses. This year, Arc System Works helped out to run the first-ever tournament for the recently released KILL la KILL: IF, and Square-Enix stepped in to promote free entry and a major pot boost to Million Arthur Arcana Blood. “31 games was a pretty big jump for us, [and] with the ArcSys World Tour, KILL la KILL and Million Arthur Arcana Blood sponsor relations, we did grow a significant deal organizationally over previous years,” Hagure notes. Even the strange, obscure games can get some surprise support: the one-man crew behind the bizarre and beautiful freeware fighter Ultra Fight da Kyanta 2 was watching all the streams and giving out thanks to the players and organizers. 

Of course, not every game in AnimEVO has a corporate sponsor behind it: many are run by and for longtime fans of these games simply to give other folks who love these titles a rare chance to play them competitively. That’s what motivated Matt and I to set up a side event for Fighter’s History Dynamite, a Neo-Geo fighter by Data East that is largely unknown to the mainstream, but beloved by fans of older fighting games. It had never been in an EVO before in any form, and we’d struggled to get casual play set up at previous EVOs, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.

Making the leap from playing to TOing is quite a jump, however. At a major event like EVO, there are many players across many games, all of whom have different schedules and potential conflicts. Chasing down people to play often proved challenging, especially since FHD’s playerbase of Neo-Geo fans overlapped a lot with players being called to play in their pools for the new Samurai Shodown at the same time. Brackets were tough to update online, necessitating a shift to tracking everything on good ol’ pen-and-paper. Japanese players with unusual control setups needed help configuring their sticks and buttons and conveying information to their opponents, which required me to step in as an interpreter. We had hoped to have the tournament done in two hours, but it wound up being more like three-and-a-half due to needing to chase people down to play, make calls on no-show disqualifications, and deal with other odd issues that cropped up. Even with two people, it was hard work!

In the end, however, people really enjoyed our tournament, and several players went home with custom-made trophies featuring original art by Anthony Vaccarelli. It was tough, and mistakes were made, but in the end most everyone had a great time.

  Animevoのファイターズヒストリーダイナマイト優勝しました！ やったぜEVO覇者だ！世界一だ！#EVO#FHD pic.twitter.com/W8RvcVVDHI

— ケンちゃん様さん@8.24白猫ファンミ (@ilpkenchan) August 3, 2019

So, what should you do if you want to run a tournament for your favorite neglected fighting game at EVO? Well, for starters, you must realize that you are going to be committing a huge chunk of your time at the event (and before it) to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. You’ll also have to make tough decisions—if that one guy hasn’t shown up to check in for the past hour, should you disqualify him because he’s holding up tournament progression, even though he’s been doing well? Sometimes you just have to act in the best interests of all the other participants.

Hagure has his own advice for would-be AnimEVO TOs. “First, make sure you're committed to going to EVO and running a side tournament during the largest FGC event. Dedication is the most important thing we ask for. Once you're absolutely committed, we always send out a call for volunteers and create an application form shortly after EVO does their initial lineup announcement. Filling this out & returning it ASAP is the best way to make sure we can work with [people interested in helping with AnimEVO].”

  “When it comes to qualifications: We highly suggest having had TOing experience, especially at a major or regional sized event. Running side events (especially the game they've submitted) is a huge plus. For less experienced folks, we ask them to find someone with more experience to help them run their game. Outside of that: Stay informed and have passion for your game! Love for our games is really what motivates us all in the end.”

What competitive game would you like to see at EVO as a main game or a side tournament? Would you be willing to run it yourself if needed? Talk amongst yourselves in the comments!

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Heidi Kemps writes about games, otaku culture, and other odd topics of interest across many different publications. The amount of doujinshi and figures in her living space is either astonishingly awesome or somewhat terrifying, depending on your point of view. She runs the website gaming.moe and can be found on Twitter @zerochan. 

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com