Spider-Man; Into the Spider-verse: Spider-Man 4 as you always imagined it.

Alright, let's start from the beginning one last time. My name is Liam Sanders, I wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last five years, I've been making content for this site. I hope you know the rest, but probably don't, but even still I'm not continuing on with this joke.

Venom: We... are getting motion sick

And you thought Bayformers was hard to keep track of...

Ahh, Sony. Always one for jumping on bandwagons, yet always getting cold feet when doing them. You do love you Symbiotes don't you? Like I said at the end of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 review, I wanted Venom to fail. Not because it looked bad, because the trailers only looked unfinished, even to the point of showing scenes before the CGI was even implemented. The reason I wanted Venom to fail is that Sony has a habit of overdoing things when it comes to this style of movie making. Why just make one movie that might not be a success, but you can plan out the next 20 cause the character means it will be a success. Yes, that is the MCU formula now, however, there is still a set standard of quality, and with Sony, that quality isn't there. To use a gaming comparison, EA can make all the claims in the world that they're getting better, I'm not going to believe them until they show consistent quality. Excuse me if I sound bitter about this, but because this was a hit, I now have to keep an eye on a Kraven the Hunter movie, a character who I honestly question if anyone cares enough about to warrant a solo movie, but then again we are getting Dora the Tomb Raider and "Not The Killing Joke in live action", so what would I know?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Stuffed with content is not always a good thing.

If there's one thing that the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all of its imitators have taught us, it's that rushing things like world building and sequel baiting is never a good idea. There are times when it works, a nod here, a cameo there, but stopping the movie for the sake of sequel bait never works, especially if the sequel isn't in active development yet. Build it up slowly, and people will be willing to accept it because you could tease a movie that is years away and people will happily accept it because they know it's going to happen. But if you, for example, tease the appearance of a team of six villains by forcing three of the potential candidates into one movie, and have scenes teasing the others, including ones that people know can hold their own movies, especially in a sequel to a less then critically acclaimed film... At least this wasn't the Dark Universe?

The Amazing Spider-Man: Some chosen one...

Sony: "You were the chosen one! It was said you would make us money forever, not fail so hard we had to give you up!". Look, I've been wanting to make a parody of that for years, was waiting for the right movie to do it.

With the breakout success if Iron Man, the moderate success of The Incredible Hulk, and promises of movies like The Avengers in the works, it should come as no surprise that both Sony and Fox were intimidated by the sudden competition, and quickly tried to replicate the success themselves. While Fox’s attempts involved bringing the old director back and throwing in time travel, Sony’s was more… destructive. Spider-Man 4 was not turning out the way they wanted and was taking longer to make then they had hoped. As a result, a reboot was in order and once they could finally cancel Spider-Man 4, The Amazing Spider-Man was fast-tracked to better align with Sony’s goals for the IP. How well did it go? Well, Spider-Man is now under joint custody between them and Marvel Studios so you can imagine that it didn’t go well. Welcome to the prequel of MAYvel Phase 2, where we see what Sony has done with the IP post-Avengers, what Fox began doing post-Avengers, and also looking at the movie with some red asshole in it because he won’t shut up… No the Fox one!

Mediaholics Podcast: E3 2018

Late to the party? Maybe, but better late than never (unlike PrE3 this year)

Spider-Man 3: A spider’s greatest villain isn't within, it's corporate greed

We come to the end of a time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe stole the talk when it comes to Marvel movies, and (at least at times), superhero movies in general. Unfortunately, many see it ending more with a whimper than a bang. Views on both Spider-Man 3 and X-Men 3 are mixed at best, but do they still deserve it? You’ll have to wait until Sunday for X-Men’s chance, but for now, let’s see how Sam’s Spider-Man trilogy ended, with Spider-Man 3.

Spider-Man 2: Guilt be a two way street dear spider.

Fun fact, one of my earliest Spider-Man experiences was one of the Lego Sets for this movie (aside from watching… I’m not sure if it was the DVD or VCR, of Spider-Man 1 at my grandparents’ house with my cousins. You can blame them (or at least one in particular) for exposing me to superheroes). If anyone is curious as to the set, 4857 Doc Ock’s Fusion Lab. Doubt it will get a review cause I’ll probably have to replace parts (if I can find them), but it’s still a fun fact.

With a hit in the form of the original Spider-Man, it only makes sense that a sequel would be made, not to mention this was a point in time where the number 2 didn’t have negative views if it was attached to a Marvel movie, though Marvel did have a mixed reception at this time. People were still excited for Spider-Man 2, so how well does it hold up over a decade later? (Yeah, the first Spider-Man movie is going to be 20 years old in 2022, and the first X-Men movie is going to be 20 in 2020).

Spider-Man: No, I won't go into 9/11 here

That's not me saying that the 9/11 attacks don't play a role in how this movie was received, far from it actually. It's more that I am not the right person to go into something like that, the attacks happened when I was 5 after all. There are many, many, many other people who delve into how media has been affected, either in their creation or reception due to the attacks. Me? I'm going to do what I do, review the movie, but look at one other bit of the cultural landscape that this movie helped change. Because this was one of the movies that revived the superhero genre after Batman and Robbin almost killed it. You can trace back the Marvel Cinematic Universe if not many other superhero movies to this trilogy and the other trilogy of films this month taking up the Sunday slots, the X-Men. How well do they hold up by today's standards? One way to find out, starting with Spider-Man.

Mediaholics Podcast Episode 12: Post E3

One whole week of E3 news, and now two people come to talk about it before going to recover from a week of livestreams.

Ghostbusters 2016 Extended Cut: This is a pitchfork free zone people, put them away

I said it before, I'll say it again. I have no issue with the female focused main cast. Now can we please just talk about this without starting a war in any comments section again? I do know what I said in the Chima opening impressions is quite over exaggerated, but to many, that's how it felt. The world seemed to forget that it was ok to either want to see a movie, or to not see it because they didn't want to. The trailers for this movie, any way you look at them, did not make the movie look good at all, but many who tried to talk about the movie for the movie itself were attacked on both sides of the extremes. If you were seeing the movie, then you were disgracing the original's legacy. If you didn't, then you were a racist, sexist, homophobic piece of scum that deserved to be subjected to what some call modern day witch hunts. Throw in people cyber bullying the cast and director, with them also saying things that were not painting them in a good light, and you have a PR manager's worst nightmare. Unlike Dawn of Justice. I did see this movie at the cinema. I was bored, had a free ticket to any movie I wanted, had already seen Suicide Squad and nothing else was on. At least the cinema was mostly quiet. But, lets talk about the extended cut of the movie, the supposed superior version of the movie...

The Angry Birds Movie: I don't know if I should be happy, or sad

Video Game movies... have not had a good track record, have they? Taking out movies like The King of Kong and Wreck It Ralph, as they're more movies based on video games as a whole, rather then being a video game movie, we're left with "gems" like Super Mario Brothers, the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies, Dead or Alive, Warcraft, and that's just the ones I recall off the top of my head, all of them I've heard of in passing. At this point, mediocre would put it at the top. So lets take a look at the newest member to the club of video game movies, from a game who's plot is about... throwing birds at pigs via a slingshot because they stole their eggs... Franchises have been made with smaller plots, so lets see how well the silver screen treated these birds.

E3 Day 2 Summary: Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Sony

Microsoft introduced new games as well as old ones. Scalebound is a new title but personally it rubs me the wrong way. Some of the monsters looked like they were copyright safe rip offs from monsters in Monster Hunter. Not only that but the voice over is pretty annoying. It seems like they want to make the character a cool dude that kills things like Dante. Though if the game is multiplayer, wyvern riding while trying to kill big bosses sounds pretty fun.

A new Rare game called Sea of Thieves was announced. It is a multiplayer centered game on having a pirate crew and maintaining your ship while you sail the seas. The game gave me Minecraft vibes in a good way. I just wonder what would happen if you didn’t have enough people to make a crew online.

Sequels like Halo Wars 2, State of Decay 2, and Forza Horizon 3 were also announced. Though I do not know that much about their predecessors.

Microsoft has a new program where if you download a game to your Xbox One, you can get it on Windows 10. So that’s pretty cool if you have both.

To end the conference, they saved the biggest announcement for last. Announcing Project Scorpio, a new console that they claim to be the strongest console in the market. It is said to handle 4k gaming resolution, and it’s VR ready. It’s basically a stronger Xbox One as it’s compatible with all of it’s games. It is said to launch next fall, and they’re taking this opportunity to make more games for it’s launch.

Ubisoft opens with an expected but somewhat interesting opening. Of course it’s another Just Dance, but it’s releasing on eight platforms including the Nintendo NX which is going to release in March. This is the first official mention of the NX at E3 and it’s not even Nintendo.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon caught my eye during the presentation. Not because I’m interested in the game but because of one thing that bothered me. They were showing how the mic was beneficial to use in the game, though they players sounded more like voice actors so it was difficult trying to figure out if it was in use of a mic or it’s coming from the game. The game itself looks pretty fun, you are cops busting a drug distribution. That’s pretty much the jist.

The new South Park game The Fractured But Whole was announced. It follows the style of Stick of Truth but with a superhero aesthetic. The group of friends broke up because of Cartman’s ideas about their game and they are in some sort of “Civil War”. Not just the story was changed, but the combat system is too. It’s more of a technical system in which you move characters to certain areas similar to a tactics game.

A couple of other new titles also got announced. Trials of the Blood Dragon is a sidescrolling platformer that is supposed to be based on a product from the 90’s. A game called For Honor which is a combat game based on leaders of war. A new experimental game called Grow Up which looks to be a platformer with fun little gimmicks. And a couple of VR games like Star Trek Bridge Crew where you command the enterprise with your crew who are other players. Also Eagle Flight which is a game where you battle your friends at capture the flag as you fly around as eagles.

The bigger announcements at Ubisoft’s presentation was Watch Dogs 2 where your a hacker in San Francisco where you can exploit a lot of things. You can use drones to gather intel from hard to reach places. Sneak into a high security company with just a press of a button. The story of the game is based around rigging an election.

The Assasin’s Creed movie was also announced. The movie is going to be it’s own story and not based on the games.

Sony’s presentation opens with a new God of War game where Kratos is helping is son hunt. There was no subtitle, all we know now is that it’s called “God of War”, fans unofficially call it God of War 4.

A few new games were announced. Horizon caught my eye. It’s a new game where you are in a robot infested plains where you hunt and kill corrupted robots for their materials. Days Gone is a zombie game where basically a huge conga line of zombies gang up on you to kill you. The trailer shows the player in a barn that is crawling with hordes of zombies. Detroit: Gone Human is a detective game where you are an android, and you have to make important decisions. Each little decision you make will effect the story immensely. Farpoint is a sci-fi game where you are on an unknown planet. Star Wars: Battle Front was also with this line of games but this isn’t EA’s press conference.

Resident Evil VII was a surprising announcement. It is taken through a first person view and it actually looks like a horror game rather than the action shooting games that the recent Resident Evils looked like.

A Starwars Lego was also announced. It’s basically what you expect it to be. A Spiderman game is announced for the PS4 but not much is known about it. The Last Guardian returns with a few new cutscenes and a release date for October 26th 2016

A small announcement was made that the Crash Bandicoot games are getting a remastered version. These games are built from the ground up. They are going to remaster the first Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped. With this announcement is Skylanders: Imaginators where you can design your own Skylander. A playable Crash is going to be a part of this game.

Playstation VR has a release date for October 13th 2016. Batman Arkham VR though they don’t show much outside of the title. Final Fantasy XV VR, don’t know much about gameplay.

Bigger announcements included Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare where you pilot a fleet of spaceships and take over an enemy station. Along with this is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare remastered.

Kojima returns as a part of Sony to announce his new game Death Stranding though not much is known outside of the title.

Four people talking about E3 2015

EDIT: Version 2.0 of the video because for some reason I didn't catch the bad audio sync.
So what did we think of E3 2015?
Special thanks to CJ, Jeremy and Marissa for joining me on this.

Side note: Really excited for the new Need for Speed as I loved messing around in Need for Speed Underground 2 as a kid. My inner child is excited for Transformers Devastation, even though its not the Unicron Trillogy. And the other inner child in me wants a Yu-gi-oh game for the Holo Lense (or Magic the Gathering if it has a yu-gi-oh theme to it).

Sony E3 2015

Quick note, who was in charge of the vision mixer, when there's something on the screen, PEOPLE WATCHING THE STREAMS WANT TO FOCUS ON THE SCREEN, NOT EVERYTHING ELSE

• The Last Guardian: Looks ok, not a fan of how the feathers on the "griffon" are being rendered, but apart from that, it looks good
• Horizon Zero Dawn: It looks really fun to play and the world just looks gorgeous
• Hitman: Not much to say as it was a CGI trailer
• Street Fighter 5: It looks nice, but its still just another street fighter
• No Man's Sky: Pretty much what I said last year. I am considering picking it up though when I get a PS4
• Dreams: It looks nice, but its something that I can't really describe. I'm probably not going to pick it up because I'm not that kind of artist though. I could see people using it to make movies though for YouTube.
•  Firewatch: I've got nothing
• Destiny The Taken King: It's a little hard to talk about an expansion to a game I've never played
• Assassins Creed Syndicate: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
• Final Fantasy 7 Remake: O.O Getting!
• Ronin: Eh
• EITR: Looks interesting
• Mother Russia Bleeds: That's a gameplay style I haven't seen in a while
• Crossing Souls: Meh
•  Shenmue 3: Nothing to say, its a kickstarter
• Batman Arkham Knight: First person section?
• Project Morpheus: Something I need to test for myself before I form an opinion
• Playstation.Vue: Don't care
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III. I was so close to realizing my dream :( Maybe next year
• Disney Infinity 3.0: Still wanting to see fan movies people will make with these
• Star Wars Battlefront: I'll get to it later
• Uncharted 4: A thief's End: Looks like fun

Sony at E3 2014. Impressions on the conference (or what i could see when the stream didn't glitch...

Sony Press Conference 2014

Pre show

1.       Killzone DLC: Never cared about Killzone, don’t care now

Actual Show (there were errors on Polaris’s stream so I’ll do a update with whatever I missed)

1.       Destiny: looks a lot like the original Halo trilogy, it looks great and something that I would pick up. The Beta is available July 17th

2.       The Order: Amnesia with Werewolf Zombies?

3.       Entwined: Tempest with Origami... I think. Its pretty at least

4.       Infamous First Light: Its Imfamous

5.       Little Big Planet 3: The new characters look interesting and they look like they could add a lot to the LBP formula. The game itself looks great

6.       Bloodborn:  1800’s Zombies

7.       Farcry 4: The world looks nice, in terms of gameplay: It looks like it plays like any other FPS

8.       Dead Island 2: Getting really sick of Zombies...

9.       Diablo III: Ultimate Evil edition: all the DLC for PS4

10.   Battlefield Hardline: Cops and Robbers. Nuff said

11.   Magika 2: It looks interesting, but I can’t talk much about it from the conference

12.   Grim Fandango remastered: Interesting, but there wasn’t anything to show

13.   Devolver: The games look interesting, and worth playing

14.   Let it Die: Suda51... What drug have you been taking now?

15.   ABZU: Journey, but this time under water

16.   No Man’s Sky: Interesting, but I’m not sold on the art style

17.   Direct Uploads to YouTube and Twitch: it will be helpful for Lets players and Streamers

18.   Making Free to play games best on PS4: JUST AS LONG AS THEY ARE ACTUALLY FREE TO PLAY!!!

19.   PS Now on selected Sony TV’s: Eh...

20.   Playstation TV: Stream lagged so all that I know is that its similar to a Playstation console

21.   Mortal Kombat X: Gore much?

22.   Powers: new graphic novel story/ TV show on the PS4. It looks interesting... from the concept art

23.   Ratchet and Clank the movie: it looks funny but there wasn’t a lot shown off

24.   Last of us Remastered: its Last of us, IN EVEN BETTER HD GRAPHICS!!! WITH THE DLC INCLUDED...

25.    Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain: It looks great, even if the trailer was just a CG trailer and no game play

26.   Grand Theft Auto 5 for PS4: its GTA 5...

27.   Batman Arkham Knight: Gotham looks amazing but JESUS CHRIST SCARECROW!!!

28.   Uncharted 4 A thief’s end: Is this the end of Uncharted, because the trailer gave off that impression

Because of other commitments, next will be Nintendo. The Conference itself was ok, but a bit mediocre in comparison to last year's

E3, the best time of the year for gamers. My wish list/ predictions of the upcoming news

Well folks, its that time of the year again. The time of the year that, to gamers, is better than Christmas even though you get less from it. That time of course is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3for short). With all the theories circulating around the internet at the moment. I thought I might join in on the fun and post a list of games I want to see this year (in some form). This list is in no order, its just what pops into my mind as a write this definitely not filler while I work on the Transformers marathon opinion piece on the matter. With that out of the way...

1.      Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: in the form of a actual game play trailer. The big thing for me for this game is that I want to see how Brendan and May look in 3D. The only other announcement that I want is a Emerald Story mode of the game, seeing as the first Pokémon game I owned was Emerald Version.

2.      A new Metroid game: I was only introduced to the series recently and, even though I haven’t played the 3D games yet, the series is a really nice adventure game. I would prefer it to be for the 3DS as I don’t have a WiiU at the moment (soon...), wether its 2D or 3D doesn’t matter to me. It would be a new Metroid game, something that hasn’t existed since Other M.

3.      A release day for Bayonetta 2: Bayonetta is another game that’s gotten my attention recently. I haven’t played the original (because I haven’t found a copy of it), but Bayonetta 2 does look, from a gameplay perspective, taking out the way she gets her powers... I don’t care if there’s a trailer for it, the main thing for me is a release day.

4.      Sonic Boom: There hasn’t been a lot of concrete news concerning Sonic Boom since it was officially announced earlier this year. A new trailer showcasing Sonic, Tails, Amy and Knuckles and maybe some other characters would be nice, and maybe a new teaser for the show itself SEGA?

5.      Kingdom Hearts III: This is another, “I just want more info please” game. Square Enix is holding back a lot of information on the game at the moment, and seeing as the last trailer was from the D23 expo, new news would be greatly appreciated.

6.      “Poken Fighters”: Only shown off once as a teaser in a timeline of the Pokémon games last year, Poken Fighters, while hasn’t grabbed my attention like the other games on this list, is still interesting because this would be the first of its kind (officially) in terms of Pokémon Spin-offs, possibly being a Tekken inspired Pokémon themed fighting game.

7.      New Smash bros 4 news: but seeing as there’s going to be a 90 minute press conference on it, I’m guessing it’s a given.

Those are the games on my wish list of E3 News, its alot of Nintendo games, but that’s because I don’t have as much interest with the other companies. I still watch all of them (and give you all my impressions of them) and see what comes out, I might be pleasantly surprised.  Keep checking here when E3 is on to see all the new news (as soon as I find out) and all throughout June for the Transformers Marathon. Up first for it, Transformers Generation 1: First strike