I'm a nerd who loves most nerdy things. Lead Shout Caster for Virginia eSports Association. ESports Guy and article writer for NUReviews. Also, I stream and play lots'o games.
Disclaimer…not all games are officially coming out for 2015, but they’re announced and this is me hoping.
2015 so far looks to already be leaning towards a year of incredible releases, as long as the trend of releasing half finished games or delaying the games until 2016 doesn’t continue. Nonetheless, my hopes are held extremely high and I can’t wait for a few games in particular. So why not just jump into that list. This list is in alphabetical order and is not rated by how much I want the game.
A Million Ways to Die in the West is Seth McFarlane’s latest attempt at making the masses laugh with poop and dick jokes, except that he’s
actually starring in this one. The real question though, is did it actually work?
I will admit first and foremost that I’ve never been the biggest Seth McFarlane supporter as a lot of his joke just hit as slightly too immature
to me. I also never enjoyed Family Guy as much as everyone else seems to. That being said though, I enjoyed Ted and figured that I’d give this movie a shot.
The plot of the movie is pretty simple, Albert (Seth McFarlane) a coward from the west who hates every second of it is broken up with by his girlfriend Louise(Amanda Seyfried) after chickening out on a duel. Albert is determined to win her back and tries to get help from his friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and his prostitute girlfriend who won’t sleep with Edward until marriage because they’re christian Ruth (Sarah Silverman). Meanwhile, rough tough bandit Clinch (Liam Neeson) plans on robbing a town, but doesn’t want his girlfriend Anna (Charlize Theron) harmed, so he sends her to stay in the town of Old Stump in the meantime. Albert eventually finds out that Louise has a new boyfriend, the owner of the moustachery, the suave and handsome Foy (Neil Patrick Harris). In the middle of a particularly brutal bar fight, Albert saves Anna and they get to know each other. They decide to attend the fair together so Anna can make Louise jealous. After quite a bit of mocking, Albert challenges Foy to a duel, but not knowing how to shoot, requires Anna to provide some teaching. The next chunk is very predictable, montage of getting better at shooting while they “subtly” fall in love. One of clinch’s henchman see’s Anna kissing Albert the night before the duel and tells Clinch who is know back from his job. He goes over to Anna’s hotel and kidnaps her. And of course, the movie wraps up with Albert having to rescue his new love from the big bad Clinch and prove he’s not a coward.
You get a feel for how the movie will go by the opening credits as the names pop up, you get some music and some dramatic stills of the west. Of course, by the third name, you’re bored and just want the movie to get started. This kind of sets the pace for the movie, as it just constantly drags its feet with the pacing. Occasionally, it’ll hit
it’s stride and carry you through a good 20 mins before coming to a screeching halt to have Seth McFarlane’s character tell a joke that falls flat that brings the whole
thing sliding to a stop on it’s face.
Pacing aside though, the movie has quite a few jokes that had me laughing. While this movie definitely doesn’t take itself seriously, (Seth McFarlane seems to know just a
little too much about the science and how things work, and many references are made to things that weren’t around at the time of the west, but it’s a comedy so I’ll allow it.), It seems to take itself “too” un-seriously at times. The amount of dick and fart and poop jokes can’t be counted your hands and feet. Some of them are pretty funny, but some just have you starring at the screen and pointing, asking why that was necessary (I’m looking at you sheep scene, you know which one).
The best part of this movie is the supporting cast. Neil Patrick Harris is on point and even though his lines aren’t that particularly amazing, he adds charma and wit to them and you can’t help but laugh. Liam Neeson allows them to do something to him for the sake of a joke that I will never look at him the same way again. The true gem of this movie is all the little references it makes including a Doc Brown visit as well as cameos by Ryan Renolds, Gilbert Godfried, Ewan McGregor that last all of 10 seconds each but are great for that always fun game of “hey that was X”.
Overall, the movie was decent, it was funny and had lots of little funny moments that keep me thinking back and chuckling. While the plot was standard predictable, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. The pacing overall though was incredibly poor, and if not for some of the actors, this would have continued to skid on it’s face. Overall though, I would recommend this as a redbox movie to watch in a large group, probably some alcohol involved.
Million Ways to Die in the West 3:6 (Average, nothing really special)
Most people will already know this, but the 3rd season of League of Legends has come to a close, which means your ranking from last season has already been locked in. More importantly though, it means that it’s time for some patches, and I mean big patches. This preseason 4 patch launched 11/21 in the US and so far has been incredibly controversial.
One of the main reasons for all the controversy in this patch is that many people feel that it has eliminated or really caused the jungler to become unnecessary. Not only were the jungle camps made harder plus the addition of an extra neutral monster, but duo lane supports gold generation was increased so drastically that jungler’s are having a hard time fitting into the new meta.
Besides some of the basic jungle changes, new items and “tokens” have been added into the game. Tokens are reusable items that, while very temporary in their time on the map, allow for free wards, sentry wards, or clairvoyance uses by non support characters. This is a very welcome addition that will allow low level players to get a feel for using wards and increasing vision, which is an issue many people have while learning. The other big addition was the 3 new support tree items. All of these new items are replacing the old gold generation items and allowing for a very simple way of getting your supports farmed as well.
These items are:
ancient coin -> nomads medallion -> talisman of ascension
relic shield -> targon’s brace -> Face of the Mountain
All these items are extremely strong at gold generation and are the main reasons why junglers are falling out of favor. Many people also feel that targon’s brace on both ad carry and support because of the insane strength in lane of that item in particular. The last two big changes as well were the introduction of new mastery trees, as well as the One For All mode, in which each team can only play one champion. It’s not competitive in the least, but it is fun. We’ll have to see if these changes are modified before season 4 really begins.
As an extra note, Brad and I will be playing and recording some matches for league in the future to get you guys an idea about some of the changes going on. While we are not experts in the least, it should be fun. So look forward to that.
The Wii Mini has been announced to be heading to North America for this holiday season. In case you were one of very few people who didn’t own a wii, it will be available to buy and will come bundled with a copy of mario kart wii for only $99. A few of the issues being that the wii mini is not gamecube compatible however and lacks much of the online functionality. It may also conflict with the sales Nintendo hopes to achieve with the Wii U.
For those of you who have been following our NUReviews Plays series of games, we are pleased to bring you the next game in our series. A game that will make you quake in your boots if you are a villain and bring you a big ‘ol dose of JUSTICE!!!! Brad and I along with Sass Master Tori will be playing through Batman: Arkham Origins. So tune in, and realize……that Brad is one terrible Batman.
The Legend of Zelda has always been a poster child for Nintendo and some could argue as popular, if not more so than Mario. With the recent release of Windwaker HD, people are again clamoring for the next zelda game. I’m happy to say that link’s forays back to the portable world so far look quite promising. Gone are the touch screen controls that while smooth and innovative at the time, were often frustrating. What is brought back are the more traditional controls which haven’t been seen on a portable Zelda since Minish Cap. We got a hands on demo of this game at New York Comic Con and the game feels familiar and puts you back into that Zelda zone. While the demo was simply navigating a small portion of a dungeon, the puzzles and controls felt solid and while links wall melding seems like it could get gimmicky, it at the time seemed to lend itself to some decent puzzles.
While talking about how this zelda feels to harken back to the older zelda’s, there are some serious changes in the zelda universe. The most impactful being that you can rent any item from a shop from the start of the game it seems, or buy them if your wallet is full enough. What this means is that you can tackle dungeons in any order. This raises a very large concern of mine. How will the dungeons scale in difficulty then? If they allow the player to get to any dungeon, they’re going to have to be accessible to play from any point in the game, which might severely hinder any challenge that the game would have had. It also makes me wonder since you buy your items, do you even get items from chests in dungeons anymore? That’s a system that has been a staple of the zelda series from the beginning; One that I particularly enjoyed. One of the other big changes though was that there are no longer quantities of items. Instead of having “20 arrows”, you have a bow that can fire infinitely, but a set “energy” bar that will decrease as you fire and regenerate over time. So as long as there is energy, you can use arrows/bombs/magic/etc. This is an interesting system, but it also feels very “handholdy” in that you can’t ever run out of bombs for using them in every room.
Some of the best information we received on this game came straight from Eiji Aonuma himself. At the Zelda Comic Con panel, he addressed the concept of Link traveling from Hyrule, to the opposite world of Lorule (yes, it’s a pun). So, while very similar to a Link to the Past, even taking place in the same kingdom, the game does have a different story and quest to it. Also, Eiji showed some of the graphics off and showed the models that the game would be sporting looked great. He also gave us a short look into the story, but being a Zelda title, the formula is pretty standard, so I won’t spoil it. The biggest tease Eiji gave though, was his reveal that there was something having to do with Majora’s Mask in the game. He also said that we would have to play through the game to find out. This could be confirmation of an HD remake of Majora’s Mask, or something else entirely. This fact has further sold the entire NuReviews team on the game. A Link Between Worlds comes out soon, and we will be keeping our eyes on it.
It’s been being built up over the course of the summer, and it’s finally here. The League of Legends Season 3 World Championship. This event, taking place in the Los Angeles will take place from Sept 15th – 17th for the group stages, and the finals will take later on in October. Teams from all over the world have arrived solely for the sake of being named the best team in the World, but that $1,000,000 prize doesn’t hurt.
All the major gaming regions of the world are being represented by this tournament, with even international teams from all over the world competed for a spot as the international wildcard team which resulted in Lituanian Gaming Gear.EU taking home the spot from Brazil’s Pain Gaming to secure their spot in the group stages.
Meanwhile in North America, the LCS has been taking place and has been covered on this site. Qualifying directly to the Quarterfinals was NA powerhouse Cloud 9 which dominated the NA scene all summer split. But you can’t count out fan favorite TSM as well as Vulcun which has been demonstrating their power as an NA team as of lately. Many people feel that the NA will stand a much better chance after their very disappointing showing last year, with no team making it past even the second round. Will Cloud 9 show their dominance to other regions, or will TSM show that the season 1 and 2 veterans are veterans for a reason.
Cloud 9, was their NA destruction enough preparation?
Similar to the NA LCS, Europe has been having a tournament in the same format, for teams across Europe. But after long insane contests, competing for those last spots, 3 teams have finally emerged from the EU region. The winners of the EU LCS was season 1 winners Fnatic, and even though they had a rough season 2, not even qualifying for the tournament, they’ve been back in force this year, winning the EU spring split and the summer split as well. Other teams will be season 2 Russian favorites, Gambit Gaming (formerly Moscow 5), as well as new competition in Lemon Dogs who were able to take 1st place in group stages in the EU LCS. While many people have commented that the EU scene seems to have fallen behind other regions, but can Fnatic prove the other regions wrong.
FOR MOTHER RUSSIA
Lastly though, even though it is broken up into a few regions, many people know it as one overall area that has dominated almost every eSport since their creation. The Asian scene took such control of Season 2, that many people still feel, they are the heavy favorites of season 3 already. Taking their spot in the Season 3 quarter finals already are Taiwan region champions, the Gamania Bears, the Korean Circuit 1st place finishers Najin Black Sword, and Chinese Royal Club Huang Zu. But, even as terrifying as these teams are going to be, the teams that qualified for the group stages are just as scary. Samsung Galaxy Ozone and SK Telecom T1 are teams that have set the meta’s for the rest of the world and have such talented players that many people are already calling them the winners of their group stages. Lastly, we have SEA champions, Mineski and Chinese Runner Up’s OMG. Asia will again be really strong this year, but are these praises premature, or will they again extend their reign of terror.
Worst Team Name Ever? Doesn’t Matter If They Win
The League of Legends Season 3 Championship is a big deal even if you’re not a big fan of the game for one reason. League of Legends creators Riot are the front runner on trying to get eSports accepted as an accepted event/sport. With the finals taking place in the Staples Center as an actual arena, with sold out tickets to the event, and prize pools in the millions, and all this taking place after actual seasons like a normal sport, maybe this will be the even that really does put eSports in the limelight. Either way, stay tuned to see how things turn out. Streams available on twitch.tv and youtube.
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