Babylon’s Fall PS4 [REVIEW-FUNERAL] | Enuma Eloss

After previously touching upon the demo, and especially when the inevitable news of the sunset period before the servers would be shot down, i knew i had get Babylon’s fall, for cheap (which wasn’t an issue), actually play and finish before lights were out.

Other times i’ve put out these “funerary reviews” slightly before a game kicked the bucket, just in case, as both a courtesy and a way to let people that might be interested in the game itself, for whatever reason, so they could – potentially – try it or play it, i mean, Jump Force can still be played as second hand copies are still around.

But Babylon’s Fall didn’t even deserve that, so we’re talking about it the very same days its servers will close forever, 28^th of February 2023, not even 1 year after the game launched on the 3^rd of March 2022, couldn’t even held out for 3 days more, in such a hurry to kill to it Square Enix were.

Then again, that in itself it’s nothing special, the company does this to countless mobile free to play spinoffs of it’s own series, it’s like clockwork for many people to learn through these “end of service announcement” that many mobile games based on franchises owned by Squeenix…. even existed.

But it’s Babylon’s Fall we’re talking about, a game that indeed will live on infamy as a golden grease stain on Platinum Games’ record, when they had the bright idea to work alongside the company that once every 2 year lamented every non-japanese big franchise they owned and handled sold “below expectations”, the company of FF VII NFTs, that also later sold all its western-centric studios and properties for a pittance, all to drown more cash into the latest internet money scam.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #2: Pinocchio: A True Story (2021)

Let’s get the “meme boy” one over so we can kill any mystique it could possible accrue in time, by tackling one of the more recent adaptations, the Russian 2021 one that pretty much nobody would have cared about if the english dub had Paulie Shore delivery such a stock effeminate – and most importantly out of place – performance as the titular Pinocchio, especially notable in the clip you’ve seen of him talking to Gepetto of how he wants to see the world on its own, as he ready for it.

Tybald being Pinocchio’s horse, which he never had in the original story, but then again, it bound to be expected from your movie when it can’t even have the gall to call itself “THE true story”.

Just one of the many. Whatever.

I guess someone finally saw Tangled and wanted to have a funny horse character, so much it presents the movie as a story he’s telling you about, giving the basic gist of Pinocchio being carved by Geppetto, dissing the “growing nose” thing and then actually… preseting more than actually narrating the whole thing. Liar. And odd as a Jiminy Cricket replacement. Sort of. Not really.

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Escape Dead Island X360 [REVIEW] #deadislandretrospective

Since Dead Island 2 was just starting his first cycle of development and so there won’t be anything to show anytime soon, Deep Silver figured it was better to keep milking the franchise to keep it relevant in the public eye, so they launched a MOBA style spin-off with Dead Island Epidemic on Steam and a console & PC stealth oriented spin-off, Escape Dead Island.

Since Dead Island Epidemic never left open beta and by 2015 was discountined, i’m not that surprised that people even forgot it ever existed (i learn it was ever a thing only years later by doing some research), but you might have some recollection of Escape Dead Island, developed by Fatshark (Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, Hamilton’s Great Adventure, Warhammer: Vermintide 1 and Vermintide 2) and released for PS3, X-Box 360 and PC.

Playing the X-Box 360 in this case, though i understand the console versions are nigh identical.

Set as a sorta prequel-side story to the original game, Escape Dead Island wants to explain the origins of the first epidemic that kicked off into full zombie pandemic, and puts you in the shoes of Cliff Calo, a rich kid that wants to be noticed by daddy-o by going with two of his friends on the isle of Narapela and doing a report on the origin of the epidemic that spread from the island of Banoi, while also exposing the truth about the big pharma corpo Geopharm.

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[EXPRESSO] Junji Ito Maniac (2023) | Adaptation Curse

At this point in time i believe there is a factory somewhere producing monkey paws exclusively for adaptation of Junji Ito works, because you’d have to be a heathen to ask for more after the incredibly disappointing animated anthology known as Junji Ito Collection.

It hurts even more since this “sequel series” (once again handled by Studio DEEN as “Collection” was) basically showed up out of nowhere on Netflix, while the Uzumaki anime announced back in 2019 and supposed to release October last year has been postponed again.

In a fitting roundabout way, i’m not approaching in good spirit this 12 episode series, which also opts for sticking two short stories in one episode.

And honestly i’m not really surprised to realize that Maniac makes Junji Ito Collection look better in comparison, at the very least it had a better selection of stories, while this one seems to be running on fumes, so much that they do Tomie… AGAIN. Actually, they don’t do even that, just the chapters about the photos out of context and don’t even give that a conclusion.

Animation it’s mostly fine (CGI aside), but the selection is odd, questionable at best, the many stories often don’t work for a reason or another, be it editing, excessively brief runtime, lackluster direction, this when the stories themselves aren’t just kinda weak, underwhelming, not scary and forgettable to begin with.

There are some standout pieces, like the “Hanging Baloons” episode, and some odd comedic picks like The Bizarre Hikazuki Siblings, and it does get a bit better halfway through, but it’s not enough, not for a second attempt/season, and while it’s NOT the worst thing ever… please just go experience the various Junji Ito short stories in their original manga form instead of this sub-par anime anthology.

[EXPRESSO] Burning Fight (Arcade Classic Archives Neo Geo) NSWITCH DDL | Streets Of Mid

I’m a simple man, i see some Arcade Classics Archives games on sale on the Switch eShop, i usually buy them, especially if it’s early Neo Geo beat em up i’ve never even seen mentioned before.

With 3 bucks less to my wallet, i realized why exactly.

I mean, it was the age of the beat em up, and while it’s not often fair to just call them knock-offs…. Burning Fight really can’t be called anything else than a “knock-off” of Final Fight, Streets Of Rage, heck even Double Dragon, and one that embodies the definition of “one of those”, since it’s so predictable and derivative to have even the special health-draining moves feel like “legally distinct” imitations of Capcom’s other big series about punching people.

The only distinctive feature is that you can enter some of the shops/facilities and smash some furniture to find health and point pickups, but even these diversions last 4 seconds tops, though there’s some attempts at doing something new with some stages where you move on a conveyer belt while thugs throw explosive at you from the background, but it’s very small stuff.

This is as straightforward, simple and generic as a beat ‘em up could be in that era.

Originality aside, the problem with Burning Fight is that it’s indeed a cheap, brazen and almost sub-par knock off, not unplayable or anything, but the kind it inevitably just makes you wish you were playing the older titles on SNES and Genesis it’s clearly aping, since they’re better in every regard.

So ironically the only way i can justify bothering with this one it’s if you’re a beat em up buff that has already played all the popular ones and are searching for a fix, something that “will do”, and not really anything else.

[EXPRESSO] Babylon (2022) | The Jazz Orgies Of Caligula

Didn’t Square Enix and Platinum Games already did th- nope, this isn’t that kind of “Babylon” (which will die at the end of this February, btw, look forward for a review of that).

This is a spanking brand new – well, kinda, it came out at the very end of last year and we’re getting it here just now – movie from Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash), about the transitional period of cinema during the late ’20s, when the industry moved from silent to sounds films, and the movie depicts the rise and fall of actors, producers and cinematic figures during this time, gleefully showing – with a scope befitting the title – the grandeur and decadence that preceed the “fall” of the old ways cinema had been made, imagined and immortalized.

Excess is the keyword and Babylon revels in it, christen its offspring, before flinging it to the jester dwarf man jousting an inflatable cock as to entertain the coked up orgy attendees, like we’re watching 1920’s cinema-themed scenes from Tinto Brass’ Caligula, though regardless in the first 10 minutes you see golden showers and a bountiful anal evacuation from the costipated party elephant.

You are not gonna hear me complain about the obvious debauched exploitation style direction and contents Damien Chazelle went for, we had more clean or fantastical retellings of period pieces about cinema& its making-of, so we definitely can have a comedy-drama like this that – while also having a cornucopia of big name actors – embraces the medium and its many excesses in a unfiltered fashion, and is able to deliver a lot of laughs, excellent cinematography, incredibly entertaining over-the-top scenes, but also some hearfelt exchanges and touch upon heavy themes.

And never feel tiresome despite the mammoth sized 3 hours runtime.

Loved it!

Taking the post-Christmas break now instead of never

Since i couldn’t take the break post-12 Days Of Dino Dicember as usual (due to some releases i wanted to cover before they could be “forgotten” or whatever), i’m… taking it now before the chance slips aways entirely.

From today until (and including) the 20th of January , the blog will take a complete break, with even EXPRESSO going on a hiatus in the meantime.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 19: Jurassic Thunder (2019)

Oh, boy, THIS one.

I was gonna include it in the original Dino December, but i eventually relented.

Not because it looked like crap, like really atomic level of trash, just a smidge above the realm of stuff like Weasels Rip My Flesh, quite the opposite, i’m even more intrigued by the fact it looks and most likely is utter bungum, as i keep gazing into the abyss (Mondo Zappa style) until the abyss itself gets bored or produces some new unholy artifact for my collection. Which it often does, actually.

I eventually didn’t bother as i was so irritated and angry at it, and i did want to review it, not use the movie as a verbal punching ball. So i let some time pass, and combined with the fact i don’t want to pity people in general, i’d say it’s time to review Jurassic Thunder in proper and earnest and whathaveyou.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #18: Cowgirls Vs Pterodactyls (2021)

In the spirit of exploiting terms like “gender equality” and “inclusive”, i had to follow up my review of Cowboys VS Dinosaurs with this one, because everyone (aside from nazis, fascists, and their “variants”) is welcome to make its own bad movie about dinosaurs, with effects that really stretch the modern goodwill towards crap movies to excuse stuff that’s embarassing even by film student standards.

So cowgirls can fight the other – and honestly more represented in cinema – group of specific dinosaurs, because we’ll pretend we can’t afford to create any other dinosaur that isn’t a pterodactyl.

I do like pterodactyls (and Aerodactyls), so whatever, what plot brings these two factions to fight for the fate of the land without having to kidnap emperors?

A stolen husband. Yep. One day a teacher’s husband is pteronapped, so she enlist the helps of a prostitute and a gunslinger (a rpg class not represented in the title, for shame) to save his ass.

One thing i was hoping for is them trying to do this as “period piece”… and they do!

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #17: Dinosaurus! (1960)

Among the many dinosaurs films ailing from the 50 and ownards, Dinosaurus! comes to mind as a classic cheesefest full of b-movies cliches, incredibly outdated values and characters that would fly only in that decade, sometimes for other reasons besides being offensive.

Never mind it being from the ’60s, or the fact that Steve McQueen was intended to play the lead character (after his success as the lead teen in 1958’s The Blob, also produced by Jack Harris, and also directed by Irvin Yeaworth), but opted out to star in The Magnificent Seven, never mind, because this is such a cornucopia of old timey laughable b-movie trash that it was eventually featured on Rifftrax. It was just a match made in cheap dinosaur heaven.

Such a perfect film to lampoon and ridicule that i’m surprised it took them until 2018, and now it’s fully free on their Youtube channel, so you have no excuse now.

But for us, we’re gonna try and review it in his “riff-less” original release, it’s the season of giving after all, so let us partake in some fermented dinosaur cheese of yore.

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