Archive for ‘Loaded Review’

4 results.

PAX East Day One Review

by JD on March 23, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Posted In: Blog, Loaded Review

Cosplay: Nothing exceptional in this catagory today. The most impressive costume I saw was a group that mashed up Pikachu and Tron. Pokétron? PikaCLU? There was also a creative Knuckles cosplay I spotted at the hotel. Haven’t seem her at the convention yet, so I’m not counting it. That could just be how she dresses everyday.

There was the usually scattering of Harley Quinns and Fionnas. I thought I saw an impressive Avengers group cosplay, but turned out they were just promoting the Marvel Heroes game. Speaking of which…

Games: Only went hands on with one game on the first day: Marvel Heroes, because the line was short. Once I played it, I could see why. Remember everything that was fun about Marvel Ultimate Alliance? Well, Marvel Heroes doesn’t. There are no variations or combos with the melee attacks or special power attacks, which makes combat very boring.

On the plus side, I got a free poster from their booth. Speaking of which…

Swag: I won the alfformentioned poster for knowing what Wundergore was. Won some free buttons from FanGamer.net, which will go well with the free buttons they gave me with my last order. They love to give away buttons. It’s also suspicious how willing they are to give away those buttons.

Also got some CAH cards and a slap bracelet. The fact that they didn’t give out any Luigi themed Swag for his big anniversary was a disappointment. Speaking of which…

Concert: The concert nights never disappoint. Metroid Metal wasn’t there, unfortunately, but VGO rocked extra hard this year to restore the balance of the evening. Especially their insane paced F-Zero arrangement. The Video Game Choir was with them and they sounded amazing in One Winged Angel and Still Alive. VGO had a new vocalist for Snake eater. She wasn’t as mind blowing at the vocalist they had last year, but she was still great.

I didn’t stay for Those Who Kill and The Protomen. I had beers to drink. Speaking of Guinness…

Alcohol: One of my favorite parts of the BECC is the big bar near the center. The had Guinness Draught in the bottle, which is a major win. Next best thing, if they don’t have it on tap. And the bar is right around the corner from the Rock Band freeplay stage, so I could take a little break from Con-Crawling by drinking a beer and watching a 12 year old crush the drums in an Avenged Sevenfold song.

All and all, this hasn’t been as amazing as previous years. It’s still been great, but the other years just set an outstanding standard.

Final Grade: B+

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Batman: Puppet Master Review

by DrunkKnurd on September 2, 2012 at 1:04 am
Posted In: Blog, Loaded Review

Much like Bruce Wayne coming out of retirement in the conclusion of the Dark Knight Trilogy, I have come out of recluse to drink beer and review things again. Because I’m not the blogger the Internet deserves, but I’m the one that it needs right now.

To get the ball rolling, I’ll be reviewing a slew independent short films set in everyone’s favorite crime ridden city: Gotham. Let’s start with Puppet Master.

Puppet Master is an interquel that takes place between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. The tone and story fit neatly into the Nolan’s trilogy, a blend of crime thriller and comic book movie. They may not have a star studded cast or $500,000 cameras, but this film manages to match the look and feel of the latest Batman movies very accurately through the sets, the score, and even the cinematography.

But let’s not be superficial. This film looks good AND it has a great personality. My favorite thing about this 15-minute flick is that it gives us the Nolanverse version of three interesting Bat-Rouges: Zsasz, Scarface, and The Riddler. Zsasz is just as chilling and psychopathic as we’d expect. And Scarface is great. John DiCrosta nails the voice and Frank Birney’s Wesker is my favorite character in Puppet Master.

And the main character, Mr. Edward Nygma, an FBI agent assigned to bring in Batman for the murder of Harvey Dent. Wil Daniels’s plays this FBI-agent gone rouge like a less insane Jonathan Crane and my favorite part of his portrayal is Riddler’s superiority complex. He’s right, if Gotham is willing to let themselves be victimized by clowns and scarecrows, why should he save them? As a Riddler fan, I would’ve liked to have seen cleverer riddles and more obsessive compulsive behavior, but the condescending looks he gives Wesker and the talking down he gives Batman and his calculated smugness throughout is quite enjoyable.

This short film is a great premise for a full length feature or a mini-series that brings other psychopaths from the Batmythos into Nolan’s world of dark and gritty freaks, so hopefully we will see more from this team.

If you haven’t already watched it, take a look here or here.

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Mega Man Fan Film Review

by JD on December 20, 2011 at 4:53 am
Posted In: Blog, Blog, Loaded Review, Blog, Rambling

There is a Mega Man fan film. And it’s not horrible.

MegaMan (which should be two words, just to nitpick) is a non-profit fan film written and directed by Eddie Lebron, based on the first eponymous game featuring the super fighting robot, Mega Man. Staying fairly faithful to the American localized plot of the game, the movie also mixes in some drama of Rock/Mega Man wondering about his purpose, his estranged brother Blues/Protoman, and Mega Man and Roll being the surrogate children that Dr. Light never had.

It’s hard to tell if the robotic acting from Jun Naito and Jeanie Tse as Mega Man and Roll is intentional, but it works. Dave Maulbeck’s Wily is textbook mad scientist, cartoonish and over the top, and I love it. Edward X. Young as Dr. Light is a fountain of exposition and it gets tiresome, but this might be an intentional nod to the games where that’s his role. Still, he gets in some genuine moments with the robots that are enjoyabale. The special effects are nearly on par with the finest SciFi Channel Original Movie, which is a compliment for a low budget fan film. I was impressed by the design of the three all CGI Robot Masters, but I’ll admit that my expectations were low. The robotic armor for Mega, Proto, and the other Robot Masters would be distracting in a big budget film, but they’re forgivable in a fan production like this.

This movie is watchable, which is more than I can say for most studio produced video game adaptations. My biggest problem with it was the name (seriously, Mega Man. Two words. It’s like making a Spider-Man and calling him “Spiderman.”) and the fight scenes.

But I’m impressed by the amount of effort that went into this. Again, for an independent fan film, Eddie Lebron did a great job. Check it out at and see for yourself at Blue Core Studios.

I can’t wait to see how his next work, based on one of my favorite intellectual properties, turns out. Apparently, Lebron has a thing for blue protagonists taking on mad roboticists.

—JD

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Loaded Review: X-Men: First Class

by admin on June 8, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Posted In: Blog, Loaded Review

After watching “X-Men: First Class,” I saw a TV spot for the movie where one critic called it the “best comic book movie ever.” Now, I don’t do drugs, but I would love some of whatever this guy was on, because it must’ve been some good shit. [Pass that, please. -JD]

“First Class” is easily one of the worst comic book movies in existence. Some reviewers are comparing it to “The Dark Knight” when they should be comparing it to “Batman & Robin.” What follows was supposed to be a review of “X-Men: First Class,” but as I write this I’m pretty sure it’ll just deteriorate into a list (and a long list, at that) of all the things that are wrong with this movie.

DISCLAIMER: Some mild spoilers may appear.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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