Category Archives: Video Games
6 Best Ninja Turtle Knock-Offs
After serious contemplation, I think my favorite cartoon growing up in the 80s was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were a lot of cartoons to choose from, but the Turtles were my favorite. They were great characters, their show was just a lot of fun, and I loved the toyline, which had even more awesome mutants. I loved that there was this endless supply of funny, cool, and radical mutants to collect.
So I’m pretty excited to see the new live action Ninja Turtle movie, even if it threatens to be as soulless as Michael Bay’s Transformers.
Be brave, old friends; you will get through this
But there’s a dark side to my love for the Turtles as well, and that is my love for all of their crappy knock-offs too. Like all successful franchises, the Ninja Turtles spawned more than their fair share of crappy rip-offs. But whereas other companies can’t steal the Transformers without being obvious, it wasn’t that hard to make an action cartoon about anthropomorphic animal superheroes.
Join me after the jump for the best (or crappiest, depending on your point of view) Ninja Turtle knock-offs!
Robin and Red Hood All But Confirmed for Batman: Arkham Knight
There’s no official confirmation as of yet, but based on a myriad of clues that have leaked online – or are on display right now at San Diego Comic-Con – we can almost be guaranteed that Robin and Red Hood will both be appearing in next year’s Batman: Arkham Knight! Red Hood will actually be playable too, according to information about a leaked DLC from Gamestop.
First clue is this video made of pictures from a toy booth at Comic-Con, showing off a Red Hood action figure and a Robin prototype figure. Robin, as Tim Drake, appeared in Arkham City, and was the star of his own follow-up DLC. So he’s a pretty major character. And I was hoping he’d be back in Arkham Knight. So that’s awesome.
Red Hood is probably Jason Todd. He’s got a pretty cool costume in the game.
If you don’t believe that video – or don’t have the time or energy to watch it, then check out these pictures.
Boom, Robin!
Believe my joy
And what was that about the Red Hood being a Gamestop exclusive? Boom! Eat that!
Curse you, Gamestop!
Neither of these is an official announcement, sure, but c’mon! Look at that evidence! This game just gets better and better. Now I just need to buy a better graphics card so I can get the PC version…which wouldn’t allow me to play the Red Hood DLC. Life is unfair.
The 6 Best of Hercules in Pop Culture
Hercules! Hercules! Hercules! That’s still a reference people get, right? Good. The Rock’s big Hercules movie comes out at the end of this month, and that’s reason enough to celebrate as far as I’m concerned! He’s the Rock! Doing Hercules! It’s kind of perfect, actually.
I’m torn as to whether or not the word ‘smackdown’ should be in this movie
I am a huge fan of Greek myths. I can still remember the Big Book of Greek Myths I used to devour from my middle school library. So seeing a big budget Hercules movie (that isn’t that earlier big budget Hercules movie from January) is kind of a treat. It’s the Rock fighting all the great Greek monsters. That alone should be pretty cool. And you know what else is pretty cool: the idea that people have been playing Hercules for centuries. This is a character that has existed since before the Roman Empire. How cool is it that we, as a society, are still telling the story of Hercules?
And why can we do that? Because nobody owns the rights to Hercules! Anybody can make a Hercules movie or cartoon or video game or comic book…and they have! Join me after the jump to check out the 6 greatest pop culture appearances of the Lion of Greece!
4 Reasons I Don’t Believe in Destiny
Destiny.
It’s been on the lips of game retailers and gaming journalists for the past two years. After the Halo franchise, Bungie Entertainment split from Microsoft Studios and set off on an intergalactic course that would take them to this game’s September release. This is going to be the video game release of the fall season on next-generation consoles. Crafted by the original creators of Halo, one of recent history’s most popular games, co-created by Activision, who’s responsible for the bestselling Call of Duty franchise, this game will be nothing short of revolutionary.
I wrote this because this isn’t the first time the gaming industry has brought such hype to a major release. Video games are a nearly $70 billion-a-year industry, and fortunes are at stake during this fall gaming season. Make no mistake, lines will form at stores when the game comes out, and reviewers will gush about how amazing it is. I, however, am jaded. I’ll be waiting at home when this game is released, with no intention whatsoever of buying it until I hear a word-of-mouth review. Here’s why:
Let’s Start the Day With a Little Batman!
The video game convention E3 is in full swing this week, with all sorts of trailers and previews and announcements. I bet it’s just a bunch of fun to be there. Unfortunately, I am not cool enough to get to go, so I’m stuck back here just watching the trailers on Youtube. C’est la vie.
But one of those trailers is a whole mess of gameplay footage for Batman: Arkham Knight!
Just look at the scope of that game! That cityscape is huge! Or maybe it’s just the fact that driving around on the streets in the Batmobile makes it look bigger than when we’re zipping around on rooftops in previous games. Either way, that part looked great. And the Batmobile looks cool…except it instantly made me think of any Grand Theft Auto game, where the moment you start driving around at high speeds is the moment you’re going to cause a ton of collateral damage. The game employee who managed to make turns and drive mostly straight might be good, but the rest of us are going to crash into everything around us. So I guess it’s a good idea to remove pedestrians.
Still, the game looks pretty darn sweet. It’s not enough to convince me to plop down several hundred dollars on a new console, but maybe I’ll get a better graphics card for my computer at least…
Henchman-4-Hire 