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Written by Pat Vis

Last weekend FanExpo happened in Toronto. For those not in the know, FanExpo is Canada’s largest comic convention. It covers: games, comics, movies, tv, and anime. Because it is a convention, there are the requisite panels, signings, and celebrity appearances. I only attended the convention for one day this year, as this was mostly an autograph gathering trip for me and an opportunity to meet some of the people who make the comics that I enjoy.

Because of my pass, I got into the convention two hours before the general public. The downside of this is that not everything is set up yet, particularly the artists in artist’s alley. It was during this time that I played Injustice: Gods Among Us.  Since the con wasn’t super busy, I was able to get a few games in. If you’ve played the latest Mortal Kombat game, it won’t feel extremely different to you.  The basic flow of the game is the same, but the most notable difference to me was the lack of corners in the game. In Mortal Kombat people were able to push you into a corner of the stage and keep you there through cheap gameplay. However, in Injustice you are able to move around more, thus negating this cheap tactic.

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Written by Andrew Armstrong

What you think of a movie has a lot to do with the expectations that you set before you even hit play, or before the previews start to roll. The marketing behind the movie is a big contributor to this expectation, along with your personal opinion of the genre and actors, among other things. As a viewer, I find that my expectations for a movie have way too much bearing on what I think of the movie. This isn’t saying that if a movie is really good and I’m in a bad mood, I will miss the fact that it is a good movie. As far as my personal enjoyment though, it’s way too critical an issue for comfort. This also causes some really bad second viewings, which is actually what brought this rather depressing realization about myself to mind.

I just re-watched Hereafter (finishing not ten minutes before typing this sentence) and it made me realize I must have been in a really good mood when I first watched this movie. It’s not that it's a bad movie; in fact, I would put it in the 3 or 4 star rating if I had to write a review for the site. (Due to the fact that I like to have a reason or point to my writing, and Hereafter is a couple years old now and neither terrible nor amazing, this is the closest thing to a review you are going to get anytime soon.) Anyway, with Hereafter I only ended up caring about half the movie. Plain as bread characters tended to drag down a cool and unique take on pretty morbid material, with some good talent attached: Matt Damon starred and Clint Eastwood directed (this movie is racism-free). Going into it, I must have been in a pretty good mood, and wasn’t expecting too much, not really aware of what Eastwood could do behind a camera. A four star rating is decent for any movie, but I remember walking away thinking it was the best thing I had watched in awhile.

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Written by Pat Vis

Canadian Netflix is somewhat terrible. What I mean is, while there is stuff to watch on it, it is never anything I actually want to watch.  When you compare the selection to American Netflix it’s like day and night. I originally went on Netflix the other day looking for something stupid to watch, preferably in the vein of The Rock or Con Air. Neither were on Canadian Netflix, however, they did direct me to Mad Max, a movie I’ve heard much about but never watched (and yes, I have seen Road Warrior). Boredom got the better of me and I decided to give it a whirl.

Mad Max stars a young Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a police officer in the Main Force Patrol (MFP). The MFP is the law enforcement arm of a dystopian future Australia where energy is in short supply and the government is slowly but surely crumbling. This has led to the world becoming much more wild west in nature. The film opens with Nightrider, a member of a motorcycle gang, in a police chase with the MFP, Max engages in the pursuit and Nightrider dies in a car accident. This leads to Nightrider’s gang, led by Toecutter and Bubba, taking revenge upon Max’s best friend and eventually going after Max’s family.

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Written by Andrew Armstrong

While writing the Lego Batman 2 review, I was struck with how many Lego-branded games actually exist. It made me think: “At what point does a series cross over to its own genre?” There have been 12 Lego games in the franchise including Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter, and although they have been making strides lately with Lego Batman 2, for the most part these games all follow the same formula. It’s hard to call these games simple brawlers anymore; when you say “It’s a lego game”, it’s a pretty strong indication of what that game is.

It’s weird how things like this work. For example, I don’t really consider Final Fantasy to be its own genre; it is merely the prime example of a JRPG. The number of games in the Final Fantasy series is up to somewhere in the mid-twenties, and they all follow the same formula. For the record, I have played about the same number of Lego games as I have Final Fantasy, that being two each (10 and 13 for Final Fantasy, and Batman 2 and Star Wars Original Trilogy for Lego). Defining the genres is the reason FF isn’t its own genre. I’m just waiting for the day we get a non-Lego game that uses the same formula, and we say: “It’s a Lego game.”

We’re already starting to do this with Ubisoft games, as the company undergoes a kind of “Assassin's Creeding”. Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, and the rumoured Prince of Persia reboot are all beginning to look the same. In five years, are people going to start referring to games as being an "Assassin's" game? It's a really weird thought for me. Games outside of Ubisoft (namely the Bethesda title Dishonoured) look like they could fit under an "Assassin" genre.