brendala | Entries tagged with review

I finally got to see this just before Thanksgiving. And the experience was something else:

--Despite the fact that the movie had been out for about two months at that point, the theatre was nearly half full!
--The audience (which was mostly Mexican families with young kids) was really into the movie. They laughed a lot and even stood up and applauded when the credits rolled!
--The movie's soundtrack is....unique. It's a VERY weird mix of American pop songs and traditional Mexican guitar music that somehow manages to mesh well together (for the most part).

--Also, I was happy to see Doug Langdale credited as one of the writers. IMO, he's one of the most under-rated cartoon writers out there (he's best known for creating the 90s cartoon "The Weekenders"). He is VERY skilled when it comes to writing groups of friends without inserting romantic bullcrap. And even in this film (where a love triangle was central to the story), he never forgot to make the trio convincing as FRIENDS before introducing the romantic drama. And it was a thrill to see him credited in a major film (here's hoping this leads to him getting more projects!)

The Five Stages of Grief you'll go through when Watching the Girl Meets World Pilot

The article linked above pretty much sums up my feelings about Girl Meets World (and I think it's required reading for any nostalgic 90s kids going into the show in the hopes of reliving their Boy Meets World nostalgia).

REVIEW TIME:

I WANTED to like Girl Meets World so bad. But it was just so damn difficult to sit through.The dialogue was painfully forced and unnatural (it made a million references to Cory and Topanga’s spawn “meeting the world” just like her daddy did). And the characters didn’t act like real kids (or real human beings for that matter) at all. ~~Cory-Jr~~ Riley was just a naive follower of her annoying, “bad girl” friend ~~Not-Shawn~~ Maya. And they had a “nerdy” male classmate who was basically a WAY WAY WAY more annoying clone of Minkus. And, because it’s a Disney Channel show, there was also a pretty boy love interest who had the personality of wet cardboard.

( Mild spoilers under the cut..... )

FYI, the Lady Godiva thing didn't happen in the movie. I took that from a gag in the original cartoons.

== Peabody & Sherman 2014 review ==
(Possible Mild Spoilers)

( Read more... )

I saw the Lego Movie over the weekend. It was AWESOME! If you haven't seen it yet, go NOW!

( WARNING: Mild spoilers under the cut.... )

South Park: The Stick of Truth is an amazing game that inspired this amazing piece of fanart:

If you are a fan of the show, YOU NEED TO BE PLAYING IT!!!
And, FYI, Jew is the best warrior class! XD

Princess Jellyfish Review:

Every female nerd should watch this series. Seriously, this show does an AMAZING job of capturing the dynamic of a bunch of oddball, dorky chicks living under one roof. It’s hard to articulate my love for this show in a traditional review, so I’ll just be lazy and make a list of reasons why I think this should be required viewing for everyone…
( Read more... )

For those of you who have never played a Sly game....I swear, I'm not exaggerating here! The differences between the original trilogy and the sexist abomination that was Sly 4 really is THIS EXTREME!!

Seriously, when you actually sit down and compare how Sly is characterized in the Sucker Punch trilogy vs Sly 4, the difference is....pretty stark. Mainly regarding the way he treated women.
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So...a game called The Last of Us is slowly eating up my life. It hasn't knocked Sly 2: Band of Thieves off my "best games of all time" list yet. But it's coming VERY close to tying with it!

My first play-through was on the easy mode. Then I did a 'new game plus' so I could plow through the enemies like Rambo instead of stealthing my way past ~~zombie~~ "infected" hordes. And now I'm currently re-playing it on the hard mode. And this is something I NEVER do with my games because I never understood the appeal of replaying a game on a masochistic, nigh-impossible difficulty setting. But I this game makes me WANT to. And keep in mind, I normally HATE the shoot-'em-up/spooky/survivor type games.

Also, I turned on the French language track for my hard mode re-play just for funsies (and because I need to practice my rusty Français. XD)

I want to go on about how AMAZING the story is, but I don't want to risk spoiling it for you guys. So I'm just gonna say that I HIGHLY recommend playing this game with a box of tissues handy.

NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS, PLEASE!!! I HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME YET!!!!!

I doubted that this game would live up to the hype. But...wow.
I don't want to dub it a masterpiece before I get to the ending (sadly, I've seen lots of games start great only to crap out in their final hours). But so far this one is blowing me away (and I normally HATE the survival/horror/shooter genres)

The way Ellie was handled REALLY surprised me (in a good way). Modern games have a lot of.....issues when it comes to handling female characters (**cue obligatory rant about the-game-that-shall-not-be-named**). And games don't do much justice to kid characters, either. But Ellie's behavior and dialogue actually feels REAL! Her dialogue feels like it's being delivered by a teenage girl and not some 30-year-old male writer's idea of what a teenage girl would sound like.

It's so jarring to see a female lead character in a game actually behave like a human being instead of spank material and/or a lame plot device. And I'm torn between enjoying it and cynically waiting for a fridge to drop on her.

This next drawing has a slight spoiler for the middle of the game, so it's going under a cut:
( Possible spoiler under the cut... )

Please forgive my incompetence at drawing Duck characters. But I just had to express my love for them in art form!

I've beaten this game twice already. I bought a PS3 just so I could play it and it was worth EVERY PENNY!! It's like experiencing a lost episode of the original cartoon!

If you love Ducktales, Disney, old school gaming, and/or beautiful hand-drawn animation, BUY THIS GAME NOW! The sprites are GORGEOUSLY animated and replicate both the look of the cartoon and the feel of the 1989 video game flawlessly. And, for all the people who just want to experience the story without the sadistic old-school NES difficulty, there's an Easy Mode available to play.

And yes, the iconic money bin is a mini-game that you get to swim around in! :)

RANDOM GUSHING!!!
( Read more... )
In short, BUY THIS GAME AND BUY IT NOW!!!!
It's hella fun. And if it sells well, maybe we'll get a remake of the equally awesome 1989 Rescue Rangers NES game. And I want this to happen more than you will ever know!! ^_^

This particular essay caused quite a wank storm among Sly Cooper fans on both Tumblr and Deviant Art. So I thought it would be interesting to see how it's received by the friends I have here who are mostly unfamiliar with the Sly Cooper franchise (save the two poor saps I recently roped into playing the original trilogy ~_^)

Basically, I believe that Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time perfectly encapsulates what is WRONG with the current gaming industry and culture vis-à-vis female representation. And this essay explains why.

FYI, The essay contains MAJOR spoilers for all four games. So if you want to play the original trilogy before reading about how Sly 4 took a steaming dump on it & locked the female characters in the fridge, go do that now. The essay will still be here when you get back.

( Read more... )

Very few male Sly fans seem to understand why this game bothers me. This comic was my attempt to illustrate it in a way they might understand:

Here's the DA link.

I swear, it felt like this game was TRYING to make female players uncomfortable. The original Sly trilogy treated the two female leads very well. But this game...
( Read more... )

So, if any of you guys are getting sick of my recent Sly Cooper spamming. Just keep all those facts in mind and try to be patient with me.

Sometimes, you CAN judge a book by it's cover.

For example, my initial reaction upon seeing the rebooted design for Carmelita Fox (the main female character and all-around badass from the original Sly Cooper trilogy) was, "WTF!? There is no way in HELL that this game will be good!! Why is it directly pandering to the wierdo pervs who draw furry porn!!!!?!??"

For those who aren't familiar with Sly Cooper, here's a side-by-side comparison of the old and new designs (hint: the original design is the one that DOESN'T SUCK!!!):

...but, in the end, I opted to give it the benefit of the doubt and buy the game anyway. That was a mistake.

( Read more... )

I can't help wondering if this sexing up of a game franchise that was previously...
a) not guilty of the sexist nonsense that seems to plague the game industry nowadays
b) primarily marketed to CHILDREN!!
....has something to do with modern trends or culture or whatever. It's just scary how female representation in media (especially in stuff that's aimed at kids) seems to be going BACKWARDS instead of FORWARDS.

On a lighter note, I couldn't help wondering how this game would have been received if the tables were turned and pervy WOMEN had gotten their clutches on this franchise. And then this fantastic piece of crack-art was born...
( Sexy & Sparkly fan-comic under the cut... )

Since the DVD is now available, I thought I'd give a quick, spoiler-free review of the latest Scooby Doo direct to DVD movie!

( Spoiler-free review under the cut..... )

If you want to use these screen caps or show them off elsewhere, that's fine. Just do me a favor and remember to credit me for them. :)

I just felt like sketching Carmelita and Penelope fighting together. And I opted to humanize them because ~~I suck at drawing anthro characters~~ I wanted to challenge myself artistically. It’s not perfect (I did it in pen, so I didn’t have the benefit of an eraser when I messed up); but I still like the way it came out.

One of the things I had hoped to see in Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time was some interaction between Carmelita and Penelope. As much as I adore this series, it was always a bit of a bummer that it had very few cool, non-villain female characters. I LOVED Penelope in Sly 3 and I was curious to see how she and Carmelita would relate to one another if they met in Sly 4 (my guess was that they would both spend hours complaining about the hideous new outfits they got stuck with).

Unfortunately…..

WARNING!!!! SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR SLY 4 BELOW!!!!
( Read more... )

I bought the first issue of IDW’s MLP: Friendship is Magic comic book series. So I thought I’d give you guys a small, spoiler-free review of it.

( Read more... )

In short, I HIGHLY recommend picking this book up! I loved it and currently have it added to my comic shop pull list.

I bought the digital rental of the new Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon movie because I'm impatient. So I decided to snap some screenshots and give you guys a spoiler-free review (and first look) at the new movie.

( Spoiler-free review under the cut..... )

If you want to use these screen caps or show them off elsewhere, that's fine. Just do me a favor and remember to credit me for them. :)

I saw Rainbow Brite and The Star Stealer up on Netflix and I thought "oh, this will be a fluffy, girly nostalgia trip".

I doodled some fanart in the first 10 minutes because these characters seemed like they'd be fun to draw.

But after the first 10 or so minutes....this movie got weird. And kinda disturbing.

Turns out this movie doesn't match my childhood memories at all. I remembered it as silly, sugary fluffyness made with 3-year-old girls in mind. But the movie I just watched was.....really messed up. And confusing as all hell. And the way Rainbow dispatched her enemy was.....well, just read on.

BTW, a lot of people have the whole movie posted on YouTube if you want to watch the movie alongside this review and you don't have Netflix. I'm only bringing this up because I want you to know that you can see this madness for yourself if you don't believe what I write about in this review.

( Review under the cut..... )

Believe it or not, this special has one major thing in common with an anime called Slayers Premium. Both movies are saved by an actor named Crispin Freeman. No, really! Follow Evil Frosty and find out how!!

The Haunted Holidays special is a new mini-movie that's included on a compilation DVD called "13 Spooky Tales: Holiday Thrills and Chills". In addition to the new special, it has about a dozen random Scooby episodes from various incarnations that share a Winter Time theme (but I'm only gonna touch on the new one).

( Review under the cut..... )

Up until now, I've focused on reviewing/re-capping Scooby Doo episodes that I enjoy. However, I’m told that negative reviews are far more fun for others to read. So this time I’m re-capping an episode that sucks from the What’s New Scooby Doo Series: “Camp Comeoniwannascareya”

.....you probably thought I was going to use an episode from the-show-that-shall-not-be-named. However, all my attempts to recap that show ended in a flurry of bra-burning and profanity. So don’t expect me to try that again anytime soon.

Now, let’s begin:

( Review under the cut..... )

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brendala

December 2016

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Page Summary

Book of Life: Spoiler Free Review
Review: "Girl Meets World" pilot
Movie Review: Peabody and Sherman 2014
LEGO MOVIE mini-review (with fanart!)
South Park: The Stick of Truth (fanart/review)
Princess Jellyfish: Art and review
Fan-Art/Review: More reasons why I hate Sly 4.....
New Favorite video game?
The Last of Us
Ducktales Remastered Review
Sexism in Gaming: Why I will NOT buy Sly Cooper 5 if it gets made...
Sexism in gaming & A review in comic form: "How it feels to be a girl playing Sly Cooper 4"
Sexism in modern video games....
Scooby Doo goes to Comic Con (aka 'Mask of the Blue Falcon'): A spoiler-free review
Sly Cooper Sketch: Carmelita and Penelope duo
REVIEW: Friendship is Magic comic series (issue #1)
Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon (spoiler-free review)
Nostalgic review: Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer
Review: Scooby Doo Haunted Holidays
What's New Scooby Doo episode re-cap: "Camp Comeoniwannascareya"

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