Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity – Expansion Pass PART 1 [REVIEW]

I did it for Pirate Warriors 4, might as well do it for Age Of Calamity, since it’s also structured in two part as the Season/Expansion Pass for Breath of The Wild was… and since Nintendo itself didn’t really promote it in anyway, revealed this thing was gonna exist and when to expect the content of the pass to arrive, the price, just a couple of images and text. ….Kinda odd.

As promised in the announcement bullet points, this first part of the Expansion Pass won’t add stories or story content, but new types of weapons, new playable characters, and intriguingly new enemies. Alongside the pass immediate bonus of a new costume and weapon (NOT a new weapon type) for Link, which it’s just them giving you something for buying the whole expansion.

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I Eat Your Skin (1971) [REVIEW] | Burial Grounds – Voodoo Terror

Summer means it’s a perfect time to revisit some black and white “exotic flavored” zombie flick of yore.

Made in 1964 as “Carribean Adventure”, titled this way to hide from investors the fact it was a zombie movie… it never saw the light of day until 1971, when the zombie genre was “properly” born via the unexpected, shocking and – as time would tell – seminal release in theathers of a low budget flick called The Night Of The Living Dead in 1968.

Of course, zombies existed in cinema before, but mostly “voodoo zombies”, as in people put under hypnosis or drugged by a scientist or master of some kind, used as both forced labour and goons to dispose of people, usually made invulnerable by magic to compensate their slow, stiff movements, but even by 1964 the “voodoo zombie genre” had already plateaud… heck, you can argue it basically died in the mid 40’s when zombie comedies like Zombies On Broadway happened, as Universal later would make Abbott and Costello meet its own monster roster.

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[EXPRESSO] Monster Hunter (2020) | Isekai Hunt

Yeah, we just got this one in theathers now, once again delayed due to the pandemic.

Preface: i know a bit about Monster Hunter, but not that much, as the franchise it’s one of those i should be really into, but somehow it never clicked with me.

But still, you should know what to expect: it’s another big-budget live action adaptation of a Capcom IP directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, as the Resident Evil movie series did bring a lot of buckaroos, so let’s do it again, and of course cast Milla Jovovich as the lead, i would be surprised if the director didn’t cast his wife for these roles.

And let’s get this out of the way: yes, it could have took place in the fantasy world alone and still deliver on the monsters and action, but nope, so in order to make it more “palatable” to all audiences, let’s have a US military unit get isekai’d into the Monster Hunter world, finding the guns useless on these giant monsters, and having to adapt to dual blades, maces and more “primitive” weapons that actually can damage these things. All while roaming a mostly desert land, searching for a way home.

And sequels.. that WILL probably be made.

To be honest, while the plot is a shining example of Hollywood cowardice and spineless scripts, the movie itself it’s not that bad. It’s dumb as a brick, written as such, but the CG for the monsters looks good, there’s a bit of horror, it adapts fairly ok a lot of elements from the games, preserving the basic gist of the thing, and it’s entertaining.

Not good, not smart, but entertaining enough, like MOST of the director’s Resident Evil movies. Also, it has Ron Perlman with a hilarious “afro Meatloaf” hairdo. XD

Upcoming Attractions: Sharks und Pirates

(Source) https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4273516?q=sharknado+

(no, a Girls Und Panzer retrospective isn’t afoot… YET)

Just a quick overview of what’s coming for the rest of the summer on the blog.

July will be Shark Month. Usually it is anyway, but this year i actually have managed to pile up enough material (despite everything), so there will be a shark movie review out each day, and maybe some EXPRESSO ones too, depending on when i can get to some releases in theathers.

August will yet again be a One Piece retrospective…. of the TV specials.

Last summer we did go over the featurettes, and it’s still too early for me to properly re-assess all the One Piece movies. Like i said before, i’d prefer some more time to pass,, in order to avoid some lazy rewrite-recycle of the old reviews i made in italian years ago.

Also, i’m gonna take a break from the 15th of August (included) until the 1st of September.

This doesn’t mean i will stop posting at all, since EXPRESSO reviews will be made and published, but any time consuming form of review or retrospective will go on hiatus.

That’s about it, so look forward to another summer of sharks and anime pirates!

Putty Squad PS4 [REVIEW] | Blob In Time

Ah, yes, the lost Amiga platformer that wasn’t really lost at all, and even released on Super Nintendo in 1994 (not be confused with the SNES port of the first game, Putty, retitled “Super Putty” because Super Nintendo naming conventions), but was tauted as “reborn” for the PS4.

Yeah, this was a launch title, not that surprising, this is System 3 we’re talking about, i remember distincly them putting Super Fruit Fall on the Wii at launch, at full price, because why not?

Does it merit full MSRP? No. Doesn’t matter, since we’re putting it out when there’s bugger all to even play for the console. System 3 have been one of the cheapest UK publisher around for decades, and they’re still around, even if they mostly put out videogame pinball collections, some “HD” port for modern consoles of their old internal-developed MS DOS titles like Constructor.

And yes, they tried selling this one again on Switch, with the “Super” monicker slapped on, though, if you want a retail copy you might have to import it from the EU region.

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Ninja Operation 5: Godfather The Master (1988) [REVIEW] | The Amaretto Ninjas

More from house of Ho…. and admittely Joseph Lai as well, who also directed and produced many of these, even if often Godfrey Ho was still involved in some way or co-directed, even if uncredited.

This one happens to be kinda of unknown compared to other flicks of the same “cut and paste” ilk by Ho, his associates and the company, and it doesn’t help i found it on Amazon Prime Video, simply called “Licensed To Terminate”, which made me waste 2 good hours in researching info, since it happens to be the subtitle for another Godfrey Ho ninja movie, Ninja Operation: Licensed To Terminate, better known as Ninja Operation 3: Licensed To Terminate, as evidently they distributed a good chunk of these by creating non-existing series out of similar films, like it happened for the Zombi non-series of italian zombie flicks made to cash into Night Of The Living Dead.

Doesn’t help the version of the movie streaming on Amazon Prime Video cuts out the title screen and all credits, while copy pastying the generic and non-descriptive summary of the other movie, that also just happens to be about ninjas AND “star” both Richard Harrison and Grant Temple, but no, the one we’re talking about it’s a different one, originally just called The Power Of Ninjitsu but better known as Ninja Operation 5: Godfather The Master.

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[EXPRESSO] Spiral – From The Book Of Saw (2021) | Uzumeki

I have been a big fan of Saw since forever, so i was looking forward to this new one, liked the casting, and you know, it had to work hard to be even worse than the pointless and neutered Jigsaw/Saw Legacy. Plus, we have Darren Lynn Bousman (who directed Saw II, III and IV). So yeah, i’m in.

The plot sees an old cynical detective getting assigned a freshly promoted and entusiasthic rookie as partner to investigate on a series of gruesome murders that look unsettingly inspired by one of the more sordid serial killer stories to ever happen in that city, the Jigsaw Killer. Helped by a veteran cop, they soon find out that they are stepping on a spiral of mistery and traps set up for them.

Yeah, plot wise it’s not exactly a reboot, as in this continuity The Jigsaw Killer was a thing of the past, but it doesn’t make clear if the events of Jigsaw even happened or mattered, so it also works as a new take that doesn’t really rely or require seeing the other ones, and this installment does indeed give the series a new direction, focusing more on the detective/police drama, dedicating more time to flesh out the characters directly instead of a heavy “flashback diet”.

The traps are actually creative, vicious, and deliciously sadistic as expected, with a lot of gore and gruesome details, already making this a lot better than the bloodless boring shit in Jigsaw. But as far as actually reimagining and reinventing Saw as a whole.. no, really no, Spiral sticks to formula with decent results, not really feeling that eager to reinvent itself in the first place, after all.

Not bad, but it lacks the ambition to really try something new with the series and potentially fail.

#E32021 Conferences Recap/Review/Thing

As already pointed out, E3 coming back this year was kind of a big deal, as the pandemic made it impossible to be held as usual in 2020, and even with the usual croc of shit that the event is and promotes… it’s a ritual, it’s a tradition for many people with huge interest in videogames, it’s a communal experience.

But i wonder if one year of non holding the event made many companies just forgot what the hell the expo was even supposed to be, like old people forgetting something they usually did out of habit because they had to stop doing it for a reason or others.

Mind you, E3 history is full of cringy – and often legendary – conferences often full of people that barely could speak english or had any PR experiences, overblown lies and hype for everything, announcements of announcement without nothing to show for titles of interest, so it’s telling this year’s output was a complete mess.

I don’t think that’s too hyperbolic to say.

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#E32021 Nintendo Direct & Bandai Namco [Highlights]

The final piece of rambles-recap-highlights i’m gonna write about this E3 edition… before the actual “final piece” of considerations and overall evalution.

First the long awaited Nintendo Direct, often topped only by the community basically setting themselves up to expect the moon and bitching about when they don’t get it…. or when they get it, because a certain set of people enjoy ranting and being miserable about the videogames they say to love so much, instead of actually playing said interactive entertaiment. You can’t please people that don’t even know what they want.

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#E32021 Capcom [Highlights]

I was gonna include the Take 2 Interactive showcase…well, it wasn’t called a “showcase”, but a “panel”, but still, i went in expecting to see something about the games, but it’s not that.

It’s a long panel where various figures from the company and not discussing equity and representation in games…. and that’s it. Important topics, absolutely, but why even bother letting people assume it was gonna be a showcase, when you don’t showcase nothing? Why bother tricking The Gamers (TM) into watching this, when you already know they are still offended by a random woman existing in videogames?

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