So the dust has settled, and The Avengers is the newest, greatest, hero movie on the block. It was also announced yesterday that a sequel WILL be made (if you didn't realize that already). I'm going to make the assumption that Whedon will still write and direct the sequel, even if that detail isn't ironed out yet.If you were smart enough to stay after the credits, you were graced by the villain of the next Avengers film and other marvel films; The Mad Titan himself, Thanos. Without getting too into what Thanos (the big purple man that isnt Galactus) is about, check this out.
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May 09, 2012 at 04:37 AM
The Avengers hitting the big screen has been a cinematic event Ive waited for since I was a child. As I grew up in the suburbs of New York, I always spent my Saturday mornings, and weeknights after homework, playing video games, reading comics, and watching cartoons. Superheroes were IT in the Staub house, and to this very day, there is much respect for the superheroes that once dominated our televisions, reading sessions, and game consoles. Marvel more than delivered with Joss Whedons The Avengers, a film (or cinematic event) that has once again challenged the norms of the film industry, and lifted its own genre up a peg. The Avengers proves that superhero teams are NOT too big for film, and should hopefully open up the gate to more successful superteam franchises.
April 23, 2012 at 02:19 PM
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After days of soul searching and reaching out to the innards of my being, Ive come to terms with the notion that some of the games I hold incredibly close to my heart, are just plain bad. Not bad in the same sense of how amazing Nicholas Cage is, but games that are somewhat shallow, lacking in design and concept, and enjoy the bargain bin of many different retailers. These are games that I admit to loving, this has been quite the difficult realization for me, but its the utmost truth. I feel as though Im coming clean with myself and those who read this blog. And Mega Man may make more than one appearance.
So you say, Mike Staub, Sonic Adventure 2 isnt that bad and I say Youre fairly correct, if its 2002. Sonic Adventure has not aged well at all. The controls highlight just how difficult it was to transfer the feeling of speed that the original Sonic games had grown so famous for. Before 1999s Sonic Adventure the blue speedster was strictly a 2D phenomenon. There was the fake 3D in Sonics 3D Blast, but that clearly was a gigantic mistake on the part of Sega. In the Dreamcast days (which I miss) Sonics 3D adventures felt different and fresh. The Dreamcast then collapsed and Sonic saw himself in many strange places. The strangest, the Nintendo Gamecube. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle was a continuation of the Sonic Adventure series, and I played that game far too much. What makes it a guilty pleasure is not that the game isnt great (because it isnt), but that I easily wasted 15-20 hours trying to raise Chao babies in a ridiculous offshoot game that was like pokemon if you had a mental handicap. Chao raising is what kept bringing me back to Sonic Adventure 2, and it was inane and pointless. Im so upset with myself right now... Heres a video to show just how ridiculous it was. I wasted an entire summer playing this, no wonder I didnt have a social life....
Dance Dance Revolution
Im a dancing machine. Well, I WAS a dancing machine. Back in my high school days, I was more than overweight and needed something fun and cardio-pumping to get me to begin the eventual weight loss I would experience in college. That something was DDR. I played way too much DDR in high school, and realized that while video games were frowned upon by many a popular kid, those who played DDR with intensity made the weirdos look like normally sane, well-balanced, individuals. Even if youre a DDR player today, youre an endangered species. If you hit up a machine at a local Dave Busters, youll draw a crowd. Not a crowd that says, Wow this dude is so cool, we should worship him but a group that exclaims, Lets watch this guy, because hes a freak. DDR has a certain freak element to it that portrays the player as a wacky, detached, person with no understanding of the world around them. That being said, I love DDR. I hope it comes back and makes Just Dance look like a laughing stock. You cant tell me that the wonderful blend of J-Pop and overweight white guys smashing away their titanic thighs on a metal arcade cabinet is not your idea of an awesome Saturday. In my opinion its the ONLY Saturday. But seriously, have you ever seen anybody freestyle DDR its totally amazing. Ugh...Im regressing, get me an order of Mass Effect stat, were losing him!
Halo: Reach
Which game have I spent the last few months playing with an addiction so foul that it makes Naruto fans look stable? Take a guess, you may say Mass Effect or Street Fighter X Tekken but sadly the answer is Halo: Reach. I can say that I love Halo Reach and that its a wonderful game. Why is this a guilty pleasure? Halo is revered as one of gamings best franchises, it would only be natural for someone like yourself to enjoy a little Reach. Whats sad is that Ive spent the past two gaming generations bashing and hating Halo like it was some excommunicated family member. I have been off the Halo bandwagon since the second game (the first was just too great to ignore) and have turned my back on my RPG brethren. Im sorry little japanese animations with quirky personality flaws, Im interested in this all-too American shooter now, but we can still be friends. The truth is...I love Halo: Reach. I play online, and yell at people about how terrible they are, and how Im ex-quarterback Rodney Peete. What bugs me about enjoying Reach as much as I do, is that the game is incredibly shallow. Ive spent my gamer life as someone who is incredibly pretentious when it comes to gaming appeal, and a total hipster when it comes to what I like. I HATE when everyone else likes a game, and in many cases will refuse to play it (See: Assassins Creed, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty). I generally like games that are artistic and Im a complete snob about what makes a great game. Halo: Reach upsets me because its so brutish, bulky, and ultimately American. Halo: Reach makes me rethink my entire existence as a gamer. Its a challenge to me, as Ive spent so much time hating on FPS games. Maybe Im an FPS fan after all, and we all know that Wednesday night is Halo night.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
There were dark days in my past. Days so corrupted and evil, that I try not to speak about them frequently. In the Fall of 2006 I found myself at an interesting crossroads. I was working at a local gaming retail chain and had fallen out of love with videogames. I didnt want to play them, see them, or read about them. Sadly, one of my best methods for cooling off after an evening in retail hell, was with an hour or so of gaming before going to bed. During these pressing times only a few games spoke to me, games that felt mindless and repetitive. These games didnt force me to think too much. These games were Street Fighter II and Marvels Ultimate Alliance.
Im not going to say that the MUA games are bad. Im going to say that theyre fun pop games that can be on the shallow side. Where the guilt broods from is my necessity to find every single costume. I must have played MUAs training missions for 50 hours just unlocking the costumes for the giant 33 character roster. Each of these characters had 4 costumes...so do that math. I bet my Ultimate Wolverine, Iron Spidey, WW2 Cap, and Ultimate Iron Man could take out your team ANY DAY OF THE WEEK! Bring it 70s Thor...and dont even think about bringing Beta Ray Bill with you.
What makes this worse is that I did it again...only a few years later with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I need help, Im a costume collector! Seriously though, these games are a lot of fun.
Mega Man Legends and Legends 2
The ultimate insult to my gaming collection and lifestyle. It pains me to talk about a series of games that has spawned so much undeserved hatred. I was a young boy, about the age of 12 when I was in a KB Toys store on Long Island. I had 50 dollars worth of KB-BUCKS! burning through my pocket, as I stared at two different games. Bomberman Hero and Mega Man Legends. After a stare down of Hogan proportions, I decided to make my way out of KB with Mega Man Legends, a series that I still LOVE to this very day.
I guess the guilty pleasure comes from just how corny the Mega Man Legends games are. They have horrible voice acting (Mega Man is clearly voiced by Sailor Jupiter in MML2), colors too bright to make any man feel confident in their masculinity, and some of the dumbest looking villains this side of Disgea. Mega Man Legends was not and still is not Mega Man. It doesnt play like Mega Man it doesnt feel like Mega Man. Its a hodgepodge adventure, shooter, RPG, that makes most gamers cringe. I however, will hopefully play Mega Man Legends until Im an old man, and I will eventually find every laser and every mega bomb. What gets me most about MML is that I realize that theyre not great games, I know theyre BAD! I just cannot get enough of them. I know you all have those guilty pleasures out there, voice your opinion!
March 31, 2012 at 09:00 AM
Its be a good long time since Ive talked about music here at Nerd Blerp. I usually like to jump into something fairly annoying that will ruin the rest of your day or week, but today Im going to delve into my favorite battle themes.
In the old days of the PS1 and SNES when we didnt have spoken dialogue running through our RPGs and we had to make up voices for each character, music was one of the most important aspects of a game. We would be spending hours upon hours playing these games without as much as a spoken or recorded peep from any of the characters. Music filled the emotion of the game. Whats better than a good old battle theme? Nothing, I say, NOTHING! Continue reading this mess, and youll see my favorite RPG battle themes. These songs get the blood pumping and the swords a-flyin
March 31, 2012 at 09:00 AM
A long time ago, on a website called, Nerdblerp.com, I wrote a little article about The Greatest Year in Gaming. That year was 1998; a year with Zelda, StarCraft, Metal Gear, and Half Life. Looking back at 1998 is both nostalgic and inspiring. How could one year be so darned great? Every so often I look back at 1998 and think of it to be the best. I then am reminded that just three short years later, 2001 rolled around. 2001 was a year with no bounds. 2001 brought us two new consoles and a few select games that would change the landscape of gaming for years to come.
2001 was a year unlike most. I remember being in the 10th grade and completely stuck in front of my console and television, trying to fit as many games as possible into my free time. I would get home from school and after school activities, and instantly hop down and chomp away at the newest and the greatest. Few years since have been nearly as good as 2001, and while its still not nearly as good as 1998 (nothing really is) 2001, for me, is the closest we have ever been.
If youre confused as to how good 2001 was, firstly, we were introduced to both the Xbox and the Gamecube. Every time a console launches, you can expect and understandable about of total hysteria. Gamers had been hearing about both the Gamecube and the Xbox for months. N64 gamers awaited the release of the Gamecube with an unbridled enthusiasm that the system sadly never lived up to. Next we were bludgeoned by the Xbox. A system that was both mysterious and brand new in 2001. Microsofts first venture into console gaming had so many rumors and speculations behind it that when the system finally released it was like opening a fallen space probe. The system was black and green, smelled like gunmetal, and introduced gamers to the plasma-fueled Halo: Combat Evolved, inspiring a generation of foul-mouthed pre-teens to shoot the hell out of everything with a pulse, and then consequently learn about what tea-bagging means...and tea-bagging on repeat.
The Xbox also gave us Xbox live, a continuation of the concept of online console gaming, which had become standard on the Sega Dreamcast. In addition we said goodbye to memory cards with the Xbox as the system came complete with an on-board harddrive that could store all your games save data, music from cds, and sadly the necessary evil of DLC.
In addition to the Xbox the Gamecube was the little-brother of this console generation. The PS2 rocketed onto the scene a year prior with its sleek, sexy, design and an increasingly large library of games. It played DVDs and was the second system in its generation. If the gamecube was the little brother the PS2 was the older brother with the functional-but-nice car that the whole family can enjoy time with. The Xbox is the older brother who drives a sports car and went to college to study stuff. While the Dreamcast...thats the older brother we dont talk about anymore. He studied art and moved to San Francisco to be a neo-hippie.
But I digress, back to the Gamecube. I personally was incredibly excited about the Cube. It looked like a toy, smelled like play-doh and had a big green button in the center. I know for many the Gamecube was a titanic waste of time, but I still hold the cube close to my heart. 2001 wasnt the greatest year for the Gamecube, Luigis Mansion was shot to bits by critics, the system had no Mario game, and the shining star of the launch library was a little game called, Super Smash Bros. Melee. Melee is STILL the competitive game of choice among Smash players, and with it being over a decade old, thats saying something. Pikimin was the darkhorse of the GCN lineup, and it developed its own niche of fans, and has become a fan favorite for years.
But after all the console launches, its still all about the games! 2001 gave us the holy trinity of then PS2 launches: Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Final Fantasy X. Most of us had not one but all three of these games. GTA III has gone on to be one of the most important games of all time, by introducing us to sandbox style city gaming, and proving that open-world gaming CAN and WILL work on consoles. MGS2 continued to completely wow gamers with its cinematic gameplay and engrossing, if not completely ridiculous, story. Lastly FFX is quite the special game. Many will say it was the first Final Fantasy game to finally break the mold which has brought us to the wasteland of FF13, while others, like myself, think of it as the last game of a generation. At Final Fantasy X, SquareSoft hit the horizon, and FFX was the last traditional game in the series. FFX was a swan song for traditional, console, JRPGs and while they have tried to make a comeback multiple times and still exist, all the Blue Dragons and Lost Odyessy cannot save you. Final Fantasy X said goodbye to the old conventions of Final Fantasy and hello to the future of JRPGs.
How 2001 was better than 1998: It wasnt better by leaps and bounds, but any year where two consoles lauch with significant killer apps (Smash Bros, and Halo) it will stand out against any other year. Games in 2001 also started to mature. GTAIII showed a different, grittier, side of gaming which at that point had still been fairly PG13. Games had blood and gore, but very few console games touched on sex, drugs, and illicit illegal activities. If 1998 brought gaming out of the basement, 2001 put it in the living room.
How 2001 was worse than 1998: 1998 was 1998. There was Zelda and Metal Gear, Half-Life and StarCraft. The birth of franchises that have become mainstays in popular videogame culture. Its hard to compete with that. I think 1998 was stronger due to quantity and quality. There were great games in 2001, but in 1998 there were just more great, groundbreaking games that had changed the face of gaming. 2001 continued with 1998s trend, but was just slightly less revolutionary.
To this day I wish we had another year like 2001...but then I think that it may take away from just how special it was.
March 15, 2012 at 09:00 AM
Every so often I like to dive back into my gaming library and scan my titles and blow the dust off of something that hasnt been touched in a while. I equate it to driving that old sports car thats been in the garage all winter, or hopping on your old bike again. I do these things with games. This past weekend I decided to re-sink my teeth into my middle school years and break out The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the 1998 masterpiece that proved how Zelda could work in 3D in the same way Super Mario 64 brought the same feeling to Nintendos other giant series.
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March 02, 2012 at 08:00 AM
Happy Leap Day! Or this may be posted after Leap Day...so well just play it safe and say that we had an extra day this year. The extra day that we go through each Leap Year always feels like a special day. Its an extra day to work, make some extra cash, play video games, eat cookies, and what not. Also, Disney World is open for 24 straight hours today, so that CANT be a bad thing! After jumping around the Internet, I cant help but to think about Leap Day and its association with time travel. Dont ask me why, but extra day, extra hours, get it! Normally I hate time travel, and especially time traveling characters (Im looking at YOU Cable and Bishop!), but sometimes games are so good, that I can just look past the time nonsense, and embrace the game for what it is.
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February 17, 2012 at 05:00 PM
I always give a few days after watching a movie trailer before making my reaction. I feel that reacting immediately buys into the hype and excitement and it can greatly cloud my judgment, which is already a little fuzzy. I watched the new Amazing Spider-Man trailer and had a few mixed reactions.
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February 03, 2012 at 10:56 AM
The RPG is healthy, my friends. Over the past console generation the RPG has been coming back with a vengeance against its shooter brethren. Its overall success of games series like Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout, The Witcher all producing highly successful and compelling games, it makes perfect sense for the RPG to finally make its comeback. As an avid RPG player (as you definitely know by now), there are some series and games I quite enjoy, that have never got the wide-spread success or draw that they could have. Most of them are JRPGs that have either stayed famous over-seas or never got too great of a foothold in the American market. If you have some extra gaming time, and need some games to play, I would totally take a look at these games and series.
February 03, 2012 at 05:00 AM
It seems to me its every other day that a popular novel gets the big budget Hollywood treatment. No less than six of the nine Best Picture nominees are based on a previous work, be it a play or a novel. And thats not even including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This is further proof (if any was even needed) that Hollywood is completely and utterly devoid of new ideas. Hell, Dragon Tattoo had already been adapted faithfully (and with much more skill) by Sweden. And lets not forget that Tinker Tailor was previously a British miniseries with Alec Guiness in the lead role. So not only is Hollywood out of fresh ideas, but they are also so desperate for good stories that they find themselves green lighting movie versions of works that have already been fucking adapted. Hey, I love a good adaptation as much as the next guys but there are still plenty of great novels out there that Hollywood hasnt touched yet. Here are seven of the finest:
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