[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024) | Chaos Control(led)

Time for Shadow to enter the fray, in the third live action Sonic The Hedgehog film.

The plot sees Sonic and his friends Tails and Knuckles summoned to fight a new menace, Shadow, a nother powerful alien hedgehog that was sealed away for the last 50 years in a remote prison, until someone freed him, framing the defeated and basically retired Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik as the culprit, so the trio has to team up with the “Eggster” to find what is going on..

The first one was ok, the second i liked more and felt was a step up from the previous one, and once again this is an improvement, upping the stakes, introducing new characters , managing to pick up the right/good elements from the videogame series (Sonic Adventure 2 in this case) and use them well in this new narrative, committing to its 90s ‘tude even more by having Jim Carrey go full Dumb And Dumber as he plays two characters, both “Eggman” and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, doubling the slapstick ham and sillyness, for better or worse.

Honestly, i do enjoy Carrey doing some of his old schtick, even if it’s a bit too much at times.

Also, the effects and CG for Sonic and friends are top notch, arguably the best they’vee ever been, seamlessly blended, he action delivers some fun corny “DBZ but even more for kids” fights, and it does manage to be silly and referential but without being grating, even for adults.

While i find it to be a quite decent kids film, honestly it’s about as good as a Sonic live action filn could have been, in both spirit and form, and while the post ending credits scenes tease of more, it is the cap of a trilogy, providing some closure indeed.

Platformation Time Again #1: Ty The Tasmanian Tiger HD [PS4/STEAM]

HISTORY

After Pangaea was no more, Sony released the Playstation 2.

I did receive one for Christmas 2002, and if you also did, you will remember the original “fat” model was kind of a piece of shit, but besides that, that generation of machines would eventually become the “Twilight Of The Gods” age for the mascot platformer, which was also often the “collectathon” kind of platformer and had already peaked, especially on the Nintendo 64, where Rareware did crystalize decades of 2D platformer and collectible obsession with Banjo Kazooie, before completely quintupling down on this style with the infamous Donkey Kong 64.

While they were starting to feel like a dying trend, it must be made clear that even if they were not as rampant as on the PS1 and Nintendo 64, there were still a LOT of 3D platformers that console generation, either sequels of legacy series or new IP s, because they were still quite profitable, and – while shrunk – the market for these kind of games did exist, Nintendo aside that kept doing their thing as they have been for decades, regardless of trends or logic or many other things.

What i mean by this is that while Naughty Dog continued their platform games legacy with the Jak Daxter series, other studios threw their hat in the ring with new mascot platformer, hoping one day to see them playing golf, tennis or racing each other, and the Australian Krome Studios were certaintly one of those studios that did such a thing, with Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, published by EA Games and released in 2002 on PS2, X-Box and Gamecube.

Makes more sense than having Polish people making games about kangaroos, i guess.

Continua a leggere

Introducing “Platformation Time Again”

If you happen to be a long time reader or followed any of my previous italian blogs (not ruling that out), this announcement will feel like a deja-vu, but yes, i’m starting over this column about platforming games with a brand new format and a “when i can” irregular posting.

If you have no idea what i’m talking about and somehow skipped the “column about platforming videogames” part just above, yes, this will be a column about platformers, with in depth, structured reviews with no regular cadence, a new entry/review will basically happen when i can actually set time aside to play and dissect a game, so irregular cadence it is.

And yes, it will be all written a new from scratch, so don’t worry about that.

Not much in the way of rules, just i don’t plan to review hacks or bootlegs, at least for now, but i doubt this rule will change over time. Just making this clear.

As to why, i’m a big platformer buff, so i missed doing these, hence are we again. 🙂

Also, i might be commissioning a request for the column’s logo later down the line.

MIGHT.

The first entry/review for Platformation Time Again will hit later today, bye!

One Piece (Shonen Jump’s) GBA [REVIEW] | USA Piece

There are many One Piece videogames, even on the GBA, most RPGs or fighting games, but there is a notable exception, even weirder than usual since it out came out in North America, and North America only. Yep, despite being developed by Dimps (the Sonic Advance series, Draglade, many Dragon Ball and Shaman King licensed games… and shit like Seven Samurai 20XX), it was never released in Japan or Europe, only in the US as simply “One Piece” (also listed as Shonen Jump’s One Piece for cataloguing needs) in 2005.

As of why i’m not sure, sure, it was based/dependant on the 4kids butchered version of the TV anime series, but the same was true for the first OP: Grand Battle PS2 game and that had an European release… so it basically means most people experienced it via emulator, i first did too, until i did found a cartridge for an “okay” price, but unless you’re a fan of the series and-or a dedicated GBA collector, i wouldn’t bother searching for an used copy, since it’s quite pricey today.

I’m not even gonna suggest waiting for a rerelease because it more than simply “unlikely”, unless it randomly pops up on Switch like that Macross GBA game, or Badnai Manco makes a complete One Piece videogame collection in the future.

Regardless, it’s also odd how this was the only One Piece GBA game that released outside of Japan, maybe due to the licensing as the time, most likely the same legal bullshit that saw the first Unlimited game never released in Europe, while the Unlimited Cruise titles never arrived in the US.

Continua a leggere

Futurama PS2 [REVIEW] | … With Blackjack and Hookers

To celebrate the second return of Futurama on TV (even if i’m not expecting much given how these modern resurrections-continuations of beloved animated TV series-franchises, but who knows, i’m remaining cautiously semi-optimistic), time to take a look at its forgotten – and by now quite rare – PS2/X-Box tie-in videogame, simply called “Futurama”.

And what it might as well be the only Futurama videogame, since there’s not much to say about the mobile only Futurama: Worlds Of Tomorrow, besides it being a cheap and shallow cash grab akin to many other free-to-play tycoon simulators, like Simpsons Tapped Out, maybe a little more complete since it had a combat system in it from the start, but still, mostly a shallow time waster very heavy on aggressively try to make you fork out cash for anything of “substance” available.

Then again, it’s not like you can play it anymore, the servers were closed for real (as in they were announced to be closing in 2022) this year on the 9^th of March.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Super Mario Bros The Movie (2023) | Fungine Fun

Anteprima in una nuova scheda

So the new Super Mario Bros movie, the new animated one, is here, and i gotta say i’m pleasantly surprised, since it’s still handled by Illumination, which is… a prolific studio, let’s put it like that.

The plot is what about you’d expect and combines elements from both the previous film iterations of the Mario franchise, so you have Mario and Luigi as unsuccessful plumbers in Brooklyn that one day, while trying to fix a flood, get transported into the Mushroom Kingdom, where Princess Peach is preparing a plan to fight Bowser, as he got hold of the magical Super Star and is bent on world domination… after he pops the question to Peach, that is.

Yeah, there is the isekai element but the world isn’t the weird Blade Runner-looking dino society of the 1993 live action film, instead the one most audiences remember from the videogames, and i say “the videogames” because basically every popular iteration of Mario is represented, there’s even the karts and the Kongs play a not small role in it, as the movie crams a lot of action, varied setpieces and fuckton of references in every scene, making for a pleasing 90 minutes romp where there’s no downtime nor faffing about random shit to pad out the runtime.

Animation is top notch and the script (which is still very “Illumination”) it’s also a lot funnier than one would wager, so older audiences will get more laughs out of it than expected, instead of groaning their way through most of it.

If i went to see it when i was 12, i would have lost my shit, but even disregarding that, The Super Mario Bros animated film stands as a good kids movie, very fun indeed.

It’s better than the Sonic live-action films, i’d say.

Super Mario: The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach! (1986) [REVIEW]

Before this deal of an animated Mario movie was written between Nintendo and Illumination, heck, 7 years before the infamous live-action film with Bob Hopkins and John Leguizamo, Nintendo already had its Super Mario anime movie, with Super Mario: The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach, based on the seminal Super Mario Bros game, which was released just 1 year prior.

While not totally unknown, for years it had been quite the rare, obscure and elusive piece of forgotten Mario media, with some horrible VHS rips flying around the web of thing, until some absolute chads in 2021 came together to fund and execute a 4K restoration project of the film from a rare (possibly even the only surviving) 16 mm print secured by another madlad called “Carnivol”, and then put it on Youtube for free, with updated (and upgraded) english subs.

So you can easily check it out there, not gonna put the link directly because Nintendo, but the effort it’s more than laudable and the people behind the restoration deserve some money thrown at them.

Continua a leggere

Asterix & Obelix XXL: Romastered PS4 [REVIEW] | For Toutatis!

Oddly, this was the last of the Asterix XXL series to get the remaster treament, the first being XXL 2 in 2018, then we had the brand new XXL 3 in 2019, then the “romastered” version of the first game in 2020, the one we’re talking about today, to celebrate the release of a new Asterix & Obelix movie in theathers.

One of the live-action ones, but still, it’s new Asterix & Obelix material!

Originally developed for PS2, Gamecube and PC (with a GBA version that’s basically another game entirely) by defunct french studio Etranges Libellules and published by Atari Europe, this remaster was instead published by Microids (which pretty much took the place Infogrames had back then) and developed by the quite non-defunct (at the time of writing, anyway) french Osome Studios.

The plot sees the titular duo wander off of their little Gaul village to the ol’ boar hunt only to come back and find out Ceasar (yes, Julius Caius Ceasar from Caligula, exactly) has somehow managed to storm the village, capturing most people and sending them off to various distant ends of the Roman empire in order to have locked out sight and mind, hopefully for good.

But with the help of a fired roman spy, you find out that most of the imprisoned gauls most likely managed to get a piece of the map indicating their location, as Ceasar took the extra step – just in case – of ripping the map in pieces and scattering them in various locations.

Good enough as an excuse in terms of videogame logic to have Asterix & Obelix travel to various places like Egypt, Normandy, Greece and Helvetia, freeing their fellow gaul citizens and getting more pieces of the map along the way.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] The Cuphead Show (Season Three) 2022 | Devilicious

I’m gonna be brutal and make it extra clear (in case you didn’t read the reviews of the two previous season/slices/cours): i’m kinda glad this is the end and i hope there’s not more of this to come.

Unsurprisingly so, the whole cliffhanger with Mugman dragged to literal hell by the Devil and Cuphead finding a way to rescue his brother is immediatly dealt with in the first episode, though at least it’s a longer opener to better make the Devil… basically Squidward. Even more than before.

After that we’re back to the usual episodic fair, but there are still some notable moments that also elicit some legit laughs even for the older audiences, and guess what, once again it’s due to the Devil being such a big pile of luciferian ham.

Just in time for some delightfully long christmas themed shenanigans, with a 30 minutes Devil-centric Christmas special that also happens to be the best episode, hands down.

Actually, to be fair, this season does involve the Devil more into the various episodes, might as well since his presence stopped being special, and he still the best character by far (alongside Porkrind and King Dice, of course).

As much i really forced myself through all of The Cuphead Show more for completition sake after season one, i can’t deny this show can still whip up some intriguing visuals and show off some nice editing and composition, alongside some decent jokes, not too bad for something that it’s aimed at kids and just isn’t interested in the amazing opportunity brought by its license…. to do anything that resembles the Cuphead “inspiration materials” aside from the looks.

It’s a Netflix style adaptation of a popular franchise/brand alright, but keeping all THAT in mind… it’s alright, it’s inoffensive. It sure is content.

The (New) Super Mario Animated Movie Trailer Reaction Post For Blogs

I was about to just don’t bother, but since Nintendo decided this warranted a specific 15 minutes Direct to show the first actual teaser trailer for its Illumination produced animated Super Mario movie… whatever, have another pointless hot take, since this thing it’s gonna make gagagorillions of money either way.

I’ll be brief and start with some actual criticism.

As in, the movie looks pretty okay overall judging from what the trailer showed, Illumination isn’t the choice of animation studio i would have preferred, at all, but i get why a company like Nintendo would, especially as they already had ties with other french companies like Ubisoft in terms of collaborations between various IPs.

But honestly it’s look alright, could be fun.

In terms of the english voice acting, i don’t have the same amount of vitriol to spout, mostly because i live in Italy, and like in most european contries, we’re gonna get a localized dub that’s often better than the original, because… it will involve actual voice actors, and not just random ass Hollywood actors that are popular but are some voice actors in the sense that i am one because i can speaketh da english.

Heck, the french dub already sounds better, quite good.

So no real surprise to hear Chris Pratt not even bothering to do a “naw yark” accent, but as expected Jack Black is great as Bowser, and Keegan Micheal Key sounds good as Toad, so yeah, Mario doesn’t sound like Mario as it’s just Chris Pratt talking, but who knows, this dog’s breakfast of a voice cast could work.

We’ll see next year, as it’s slated for a worlwide release April 7 2023.

In the meantime, you could actually watch the original Mario anime movie, 1986’s Super Mario: The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!, as it received a 4K HD fan restoration that you can find online, even on Youtube.

Just sayin’.