Majestic Twelve - Games of 2014

Many argue 2014 was a bad year for games. And I suppose that really depends on who you ask. I found many worthwhile indie games from Hand of Fate to Shovel Knight were coming out and I couldn't even get to them all. I found the Xbone actually had games on it (though I still haven't bought the damn thing). It was a good year for Platinum as they had three different titles release this year (though one was just a PC port, still counts). Telltale had a good year with three games coming out this year as well (two having concluded and the third just starting). And this was an excellent year for Nintendo with many great games worth owning a WiiU for.

Yes, many games did get delayed into 2015, which sucks. But I actually liked that because it lessened the stress on my wallet during the holiday shopping season. And some of those titles are filling up the early spring games drought that we usually get nothing released in. It's a blessing in disguise that few are thinking ahead for (as usual). All that said, let's get to the best offerings of 2014 (As decided by me). And because I said so, these must be true and if you disagree, you're probably wrong and maybe even some kind of racist (though probably not). 

Majestic Twelve: Movies of 2014

2014 was a strange year for films. Most of them were adaptations of Young Adult Novels featuring dystopia-futures where the youngsters played by people who are likely my age or slightly older have to fight to the death of arbitrary reasons. And while I may not have said it often, I’m tired of seeing these kinds of adaptations everywhere because they all basically have the same ideology that the future will suck and these teenage gobshites are going to be the ones to somehow make it suck less with their angsty romance subplots.

But I say no to this foolishness. No such nonsense will make my list this year as we will focus on films that are fun, exciting, and adapted from more interesting things like comics, manga, or lucid fever dreams. Here we go with the best films of 2014 (as decided by me).

Reloading: Indie Game Double Feature

We’re getting righty down to the wire with getting the last of my reviews out before start hitting out “Best Of” lists for the year. So while I found some time, I want to squeak in two indie-game reviews for your pleasure. There’s more I wanted to do, but we’re cutting it close as it is. This week we’re hitting One Finger Death Punch and the Early Access game Hand of Fate. Both are shorter indie titles without too much meat to hold their own full review. So they get to share (still two scores to give though). 

Majestic Twelve: The Twelve Games of Xmas

Starting next week will be our end of the year “Top 12 Best/Worst of” for the year. There will likely be a Majestic 12 post up every day simply because I have to cover games, movies, and events of the year. So the schedule is a bit mixed up and I have one extra day (X-Mas) that didn’t have anything scheduled… yet. So here’s a last minute slapped together top twelve of my own twisted creation. The Twelve Games of Christmas… 

BulletPoints: PC Sanctuary - Exclusionary Gaming Continued

An interesting new debate has sparked that is similar to console wars and rather than wait a week to get a response up and be behind the times, I figured I’d strike now while the iron is hot and weigh in on the issue. Recently, Microsoft has come out and said they want to integrate Xbox (most likely Xbone features) into the PC for their upcoming Windows 10. No details beyond that have been explained, and we’re supposedly getting more details in January. 

Majestic Twelve - The Best of Miracle of Sound (as of 2014)

I’m not very musically inclined. Sure, I played music a while ago, but I’m not all that skilled at it and I certainly couldn’t make up my own serious song. At best, I could write a catchy jingle that people would hate me for because they couldn’t get it out of their heads and it would be a song that gets on everybody’s nerves. Everybody’s nerves. It would be a song that gets on everybody’s nerves… all day long. What was I talking about? 

Right! So I may not be talented with music to any notable degree, but I know what I like. And I absolutely LOVE the sounds of The Escapist Magazine’s indie musician, Gavin Dunne (aka, the Miracle of Sound). For those who aren’t familiar with him (you’re about to be) he’s an indie musician that writes songs based on games (sometimes film and TV too). But it isn’t just a remix of songs from the game. He takes the tone and feelings he felt during the game and translates it into an original piece. Some of the song might have melodies inspired heavily from the original work (such as his Breaking Bad homage, “Forever Blue”) but it’s all his original work and most of it is quite good. Before we kick off our “Best Of” lists for the end of the year, I thought I’d stop and just list my twelve favorite songs of this talented internet bard and maybe see if we can get him some new fans. If not, at least I’ll have fun re-listening to some of my favorites. 

Reloading: Painting the town red with Transistor

Time to review a game that’s been out for so long, you probably forgot about it. But with the holiday Steam Sale just around the corner… this seems like an appropriate time to get this out. Transistor… here we go! 

Reloading: Sonic (go) Boom Review

So… Sonic Boom. I know you guys saw this review coming… sooner or later. 

Majestic Twelve: WORST Comic Book Movies Ever

We did a “Best of” for our favorite comic book films recently. It’s only fair that if we bring up the best, we have to also dish-out the worst. Here are the comic book films we would like to forget, but unfortunately can’t. Please note, I have not seen every comic book movie ever made. If something like Howard The Duck deserves to be on this list and isn’t, it’s because I haven’t seen it. I know it’s probably bad. But since I can’t say that first-hand, that’s not fair the “film” in this case. Let’s get going.

BulletPoints: Why Get Hype For Suicide Squad?

Some of you might have been wondering with the last issue of BulletPoints why I seem more inclined to like Marvel films over DC films. Taking it farther, why I was surprised by my excitement for Suicide Squad over… anything Marvel or Marvel-related. But there are some good reasons which I guess I’ll explain here. 

Majestic Twelve: Best Comic Book Movies Ever

Comic-book and super hero movies are probably Hollywood’s biggest commodity at this point in time give the overwhelming success of the popular Avengers franchise. And while other studios (Sony, Fox, and Warner) are desperately trying to get their hands on that cashflow with their super hero franchises, Marvel is still dominating… for now. So here’s a valid question… what are the best comic-book-super-hero movies we’ve seen thus far? 

Reloading: Hyrule Warriors! Come out to play!

I think I’m in a very action-game mood currently. I raced through both Bayonetta games with full intent to go back to the second to unlock more goodies. I have a review here of Hyrule Warriors and I’ll have another for Sonic Boom here sometime soon as well. Maybe I’ll get the nerve to jump back into Metal Gear Rising here in the next week or so and see if I can beat that boss I was having trouble with. Oh, right, I was here to review that Hyrule Warriors.

Reloading: Bayonetta 2 - Messing WIth the Best

I said it was coming and I did not lie. Here is our review of Bayonetta 2. 

Majestic Twelve - PS4 Games... Possibly?

I recently did a top twelve game recommendation for the Wii U. And while I made the recommendations without getting paid by anyone and did so because I think it’s a fine console people should try, I’m fully expecting some kind of reflexive response from people sooner or later about how I didn’t do a list for the PS4 or the Xbone (I refuse to call it anything else). There’s a few problems with that… 

BulletPoints - Trailers and Casting Calls Part One

We’ve done a lot of talking about video games and while I could easily spend another BulletPoints throwing Ubisoft under the bus, I thought maybe this would be a week I could take a step away from that and talk about films. It was either this or the alternative of discussing Naruto some more, but I don’t want to waste anyone’s time with that if I don’t have to (but I totally will if pushed to it). 

While I haven’t seen a new film recently (lack of funds mostly), I have been keeping an ear to the ground on casting decisions for various super hero films and watching the trailers to the big movies of 2015 we’ve all been waiting to see SOMETHING of. This might get long, but this will be kind of a “grab bag” BulletPoints of film topics related to all of these. If anything in particular grabs your attention, please let me know in the comments and I’ll maybe try to expand upon that a bit more in a future discussion. That said… 

Majestic Twleve - Things of Interest on the XBone

I recently did a top twelve game recommendation for the Wii U. And while I made the recommendations without getting paid by anyone and did so because I think it’s a fine console people should try, I’m fully expecting some kind of reflexive response from people sooner or later about how I didn’t do a list for the PS4 or the Xbone (I refuse to call it anything else). There’s a few problems with that… 

Reloading - 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, 1 Review

The Bayonetta 2 review is soon. I promise. But since I couldn’t be home all the time to play Bayonetta, I had to play on my handheld a bit too. And the one game I managed to play continuously, beat, and get done in time for another review is a very peculiar adventure game, 9 Hour 9 Persons 9 Doors, or as most people will call it, 999. 

Reloading: Naruto (The Manga Series) Review

It’s been a few weeks since the end of the long-running Manga series, Naruto and I just realized I haven’t done a single post about it at all. I feel like I’ve let myself down a bit as Naruto was, at one point, probably my favorite anime/manga because I enjoyed the world, characters, lore, and fighting styles they created. All that said… how was the ending? Now that the series is over, does it all feel like a complete and well-crafted story or does it all fall apart?

That’s right… it’s review time! 

Majestic Twelve: Twelve WiiU Game Recommendations

As you all know, my preferred platform for gaming is a PC. But of the actual "consoles" of the current generation, right now the only one that really seems worth owning is a WiiU. I can maybe think of two or three games on the competition that I might want. But on a WiiU? Here are twelve titles (plus more) that, if you owned a WiiU, you could play RIGHT NOW (mostly). Enjoy the top twelve games to give you a reason to own a WiiU. 

BulletPoints - The Problems with Early Access

This is a topic I’m sure many of you have seen elsewhere and discussed a great deal. But since I have yet to weigh in on the topic and I want to keep the blog-posts rolling, why not discuss my take on Early Access games? 

The Majestic Twelve - DLC Ideas for Smash Bros WiiU/3DS

Recent news came out in regards to Sakurai’s decision about DLC after Mewtwo. While fans don’t seem to agree 100% on what he means, the exact phrasing I’ve been told is that, “We have nothing planned as far as DLC.” This doesn’t mean there WON’T be DLC sometime down the road. Articles generally all seem to agree that Mewtwo is going to be Nintendo’s and Sakurai’s experiment with DLC in Smash to see how that goes first before committing to anything further. 

And while I commend them and their reasoning for doing so (not wanting to make people feel they cut content from the game to BE DLC), I can safely say that the game is chalk-full of content that such a worry comes off as nothing more than silly at this point. But still, I would like to know that while nothing is solidly PLANNED for DLC that Sakurai at least has SOME idea of what he might want to do for future content updates. Below are my top twelve ideas of what I’d like to see as far as content updates/DLC goes. Directly… to you. 

Reloading Reviews: Chrono Trigger DS

Here’s a review of Chrono Trigger for the DS. Yes, I know I talk about Chrono Trigger a lot and I know that I have already reviewed the original game. But the DS game bears some significant differences worth discussing. That said, I’ll try to keep this short and focus on those changes. Here we go!