Yep, it’s a Spider-Man game

Luther M. Siler

I don’t know how many of you recall the numerous posts I made about the PS4 Spider-Man game when it came out a couple of years ago, but I went back and forth on it several times only to end up deciding I loved it not on the strength of the gameplay (which ranged from deliberately annoying to phenomenal, depending on what was going on) but on the strength of the story. Miles Morales has been one of my favorite comic book characters basically since his introduction and there was no way in the damn universe that I wasn’t going to end up jumping at this game.

Unsurprisingly, so far, it’s basically the exact same game, only with a few alterations made to account for Miles’ slightly different power set. And I’ll tell you what: at about the hour and a half mark (and it’s important to realize that I’ve also spent some time in the last couple of days playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance with my son) I was musing to myself that it was kind of tiring how superhero-themed video games had limited themselves so thoroughly to beating up bad guys and causing property damage, and how it was so exceptionally rare to feel like I was saving lives in these games as opposed to endangering them.

Well, uh, there’s a massive set piece that occurs right around the two hour mark or so that put that particular worry to rest rather authoritatively. I’m in damn good hands here, I think. This isn’t nearly as long a game as the PS4 Spider-Man was, so I’ll likely have it done and dusted before Christmas, but I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it along the way.

Star Wars and stuff

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

This post is going to be kind of grab-baggy, so be prepared for that, and there will probably be various and sundry spoilers for various and sundry things, so be prepared to potentially be spoiled somehow on basically anything I mention.

The Mandalorian continues to be … a thing, that I watch. The show annoys me as often as it entertains me, to be honest, and reintroducing Boba fucking Fett back into continuity got directly on my damn nerves no matter how much of a badass Temuera Morrison is in the role. The show’s structure is kind of aggravating, too; I’ve talked before about how video games seem to be imposing their structure on serial storytelling, and this show is really big on episodes that feel exactly like side quests in video games. Plus, for a bounty hunter, Din Djarin sure doesn’t hunt a whole lot of bounties. Baby Yoda (Grogu, whatever; I’m actually fine with the name) has basically eaten the show. That said, I thought the show’s most recent episode did some really interesting narrative stuff, including shortcutting past what I thought was going to be an entire episode about breaking a character out of prison ended up dispensing with the entire “breakout” by basically having one character pull some strings and dealing with it in two minutes.

The show’s budget is also completely out of control, in a good way. It looks gorgeous, and it doesn’t skimp on … really, anything at all. But I feel like I spend at least half of each episode sighing.

While I’m talking about Star Wars, I may as well point out that I’m working my way through The Clone Wars, and … well, that’s a thing I watch too. I’m mostly interested in filling in my knowledge of Ahsoka Tano’s backstory, so sooner or later I’ll move on to Rebels. I’m not loving the show, though, so it’ll probably take a minute. Also, the more time I spend watching Stormtroopers shoot at people and miss or droids shoot at people and miss, the more it starts to actually get on my nerves. Turns out there’s a limit for this stuff after all.

Then again, this has happened:

… and, damn, I am so back in. I didn’t know how much I needed a Patty Jenkins Rogue Squadron movie until seeing this teaser, which blew my damn mind. I spent the whole thing thinking she was either talking about Captain Marvel 2 or, for some reason, Green Lantern, which seems kind of an unlikely announcement for a Disney production. So when she pulls that X-Wing pilot helmet out … damn.

Let’s see, what else? There was a teaser for Ms. Marvel, too:

I have kind of checked out of the MCU since Endgame and especially Far from Home, which is easy for me to say when the global pandemic has seriously curtailed any actual chance I might have to watch any new programming. But this? This is what I want, and Iman Vellani seems like the perfect actress for this role. I also continue to be hugely psyched about WandaVision, mostly because of Monica Rambeau’s presence in the program.

I have reread R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic in the last couple of weeks, and I finally, finally got to start reading The Burning God, book III of that trilogy, today. It was the right call to reread the first two books again, which 1) reminded me of just how phenomenally good the first book was, and 2) made me realize that the second really is just as good as the first one. This series really isn’t for everyone, I still stand by that, but my God is it an amazing piece of work. I can’t wait to see how Kuang wraps up the trilogy with this final book. The rest of my unread shelf can wait.