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Entertainment

The Last Ronin: A Story Worth the Wait

Who all loves the Ninja Turtles? I sure do, as I can assume is the same for most other dudes (nongender specific usage here) in their mid to late 30s. for us 80’s babies, the Turtle-mania is strong. We have two men to thank for all of that, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The story started on a drunken night in 1983 between two friends. Yes, the original Ninja Turtle drawing was just a gag but the empire that it grew into is no laughing matter. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and my personal favorite, Raphael were the 4 terrapin heroes that rocked the airwaves, toy aisles, and even the rest of the store for most of my youth and have come back strongly in my adulthood. It’s a piece of nostalgia pie that I can’t get enough of. I find myself blowing my entire nonbills and expenses part of my paycheck on TMNT themes items such as NECA figures, high-end drip, and pieces of my childhood that I thought were lost forever and I do it happily.

It’s funny to think that the entire overnight dynasty was thrown away by both of its creators over a girl… A ninja turtle girl … Read More

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Entertainment Gaming

Limited Run Games Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game K.O. Edition – What’s In It?

Hi all – this time, I’m bringing you something different from my Andrew’s Angles articles – in this case, it’s a breakdown of the K.O Edition of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World from Limited Run Games (LRG)!

As ashamed as I am to say it, while I did have the game back on Xbox 360, I did not play that much of it, and then, sadly Ubisoft pulled the release from digital stores (the only way that the game could be obtained originally). However, my fiancé (who has helpfully taken the pictures for this article – thank you, Dan!) is a massive fan of Scott Pilgrim – the books, the movie, the game, anything you can think of. So, when LRG announced that they would be releasing the game, it did not take much convincing for the order to be placed for the K.O. Edition – one of the most jam-packed versions available.

The collection itself comes in a large musician case and a slip cover, both adorned with the Sex Bob-Omb logo.

For the musicians out there, this edition also comes with not just one pair of well-made drumsticks, but 3 guitar picks, also unmistakeably part of the Scott … Read More

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Entertainment

Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers New Trailer is the Disney Nostalga Trip I Never Knew I Wanted

In all my years of being a Disney fan, one of my favorite Disney TV shows was Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers alongside other great Disney TV shows such as Talespin, Darkwing Duck, and of course, Duck Tales. The last thing I ever expected was a return to this classic animated Disney show but I also did not anticipate after watching the trailer (which you can check out below) just how much of a nostalgia trip this new movie would be.

So as it seems, this movie takes place in a land similar to Toon Town from Who Framed Roger Rabbit where toons and humans live together in semi-harmony and the plot shows that some of these toons tend to randomly disappear. That is where you will immediately being to noticed a very large number of these animated characters such as Lemur from Beauty and the Beast. The movie shows Dale as more of a CGI character from the fact that he got surgery to do so, Dale decides to pay Chip a visit who still has his classic animated look. Various scenes in the trailer hint at the possibility of Peter Pan being our main antagonist but that will … Read More

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Entertainment

Something Old, Something New… Part 2

Welcome back to a little series I like to call Something Old, Something new. I honestly didn’t know where to go next with this series, because it requires a lot of research. I originally wanted to cover Roseanne/The Conners, Full House/Fuller House, and Twin Peaks, but I’ve only seen one of those comebacks in its entirety and I need to do more research on the matter. I’ll get to those next time, but for now, I needed something I’ve seen and as the resident Horror Fanatic it just kind of came to me. Welcome to Something Old, Something New Part 2: the Slasher Edition. Here is my patented non-spoiler review of  Ash vs Evil Dead, Chucky, and Scream: The Series.

In the first installment of this series of articles,  I referenced how great ‘Chucky’ is. To be honest, I was kind of worried about how this series would do as a television series, but I’ll be upfront, it’s better than Bride and Seed of Chucky.  I’d say it’s better than the reboot Child’s Play movie but the best part of that movie was when it finally ended. Actually, I kind of liked the last act of that monstrosity… the first … Read More

Categories
Gaming

Andrew’s Angles – Demo Days

Sadly, this piece will not be about the album made by one of my favourite bands (one day, perhaps I will put something Gorillaz-related together!), but there is something similar between it and my topic of conversation today – they last came out in 2005 (or, near enough). The topic in question? Game demos.

Now that we’re in full swing into the period of gaming with patches, updates, live services, etc., it seems that the average consumer needs to take a gamble with more and more games based on reviews, previews, live streams, opinion pieces, and so on, without actually getting to try before they buy. With standard editions of games generally running from £50-£70 each, that’s quite a gamble, especially with how hectic launch windows can be. Should you pick up Cyberpunk 2077 or Assassins Creed Valhalla? Kirby and the Forgotten Land or Elden Ring? With the size and price of games nowadays, that can be tricky to answer.

So, when I heard about Sony is mandating that some of the game developers for the games on their platforms include demos/timed trial periods for subscribers to PS+ (the paid subscription that allows for users to play … Read More

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Gaming

Unpopular Opinion: Why I’m not playing Elden Ring.

A wise man once said, “If everyone is Han Solo, No one is Han solo.” This is in reference to why Junior Brown doesn’t like Firefly. While he’s wrong for that, The statement did stick with me and I feel like It can and should be applied elsewhere. Also, he’s a fictional character so I shouldn’t let it hurt me as much as it does. I freaking love Firefly.  So as unpopular as my opinion on some games is, I just can’t help but have no interest in the most recent gaming and streaming sensation, Elden Ring. The idea for this article came from a random encounter with an old friend earlier this week. He used to stream a lot but hasn’t done so recently and we talked about how I’ve been going twice a week for our channel here on the Domain (twitch.tv/thedomaingpce if you aren’t already following us there) and how everybody keeps suggesting I play Elden Ring. It’s almost annoying how much I get asked to play this game. I have zero disrespect for it or its community of players, I even have a great deal of respect for the speedrunners out there. However, it’s just not … Read More

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Entertainment

Six Ridiculous and Cringeworthy Reality Dating Shows from the Early 2000’s

Reality shows are commonplace on TV today, with popular titles such as Survivor, Big Brother, and 90 Day Fiance; but before these familiar shows were the ones that started it all. The awkward and unexpected moments had viewers glued to their televisions and some were even too cringe to watch.

Brian and I are pretty big into Twitch and one of our favorite streamers Hasan Piker recently began watching a forgotten dating reality show from the early 2000s. Now, I had never heard of this particular program, but it was so fun watching on Hasan’s stream that I found myself diving deeper into the rabbit hole of reality tv shows. I had absolutely no idea that many even existed. Literally hundreds, in a plethora of genres. For time’s sake (and sanity), I am going to stick to dating shows in the early 2000s that aired for only one season and are US-based. Here is my list of the most ridiculous and cringe-worthy:

1. Playing It Straight (2004)– This is the show Hasan streamed and hoo boy- I am surprised there weren’t more shocking moments, but for 2004, it was actually pretty tame. A midwestern woman named Jackie and 10 … Read More

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Entertainment

Excessive Sequels: Leprechaun

Welcome back to part 2 in this exciting series where I talk about the phenomenon that I shall dub “sequel-itis”. To recap the rating system, I take a comprehensive look at an entire film franchise and give two separate ratings pepper mills and cheese graters. If you missed the last article about Friday the 13th, I’ll clarify, cheese graters are to represent the highs and pepper mills are the lows. The analogy I used was going to a restaurant and yeah, fresh cracked pepper is nice but too much is a bad thing. However, I think we all make the person grating the cheese fear for their fingers. Apologies to those lactose intolerant readers, my heart goes out to each and every one of you. Currently I am only covering horror franchises but could look at others in the future. for now though, Leprechaun!

This series really isn’t your conventional horror franchise, as in the killer isn’t fueled by vengeance, some flesh eating creature, or criminally insane. In fact, most of the time hes just a dick. Okay, some times its about his gold, but that only seems to be the cause when the writers remember that. Actually, that’s how … Read More

Categories
Conventions Reviews

Pros & Cons Tag Team Edition: Squared Circle Expo 2 Review

While I’ve had the pleasure of attending several conventions and expo’s over the years, some of my favorite have been those shows that cater to a specific audience such as the horror scene for instance and last year I was able to attend my very first wrestling expo, Squared Circle Expo and it left me wondering how exactly were owners Adolfo Dorta & Ed Gonzales going to top what they produced last year and I’m very pleased to say they did exactly that.

Squared Circle Expo 2 took place at the same venue as the first SCX which was the Wyndham Indianapolis West Hotel, a rather familiar venue to locals in the convention scene as it tends to host several other conventions from horror cons to local shows and a space that really feels right at home for such an event as SCX2 as the setup was pretty much the same this time around as it was last year with the same large vendor area with what seemed to me even more vendors this year than there was the previous year. I was very pleased with the amount of wrestling merch to purchase from action figures, to toy wrestling rings … Read More

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Entertainment Reviews

Fantastic Beasts 3: The Secrets of Dumbledore – A Brief No-Spoilers Review

Can you keep a secret?

Well, it’s obviously not a secret that Dumbledore’s been keeping secrets from people – the name of this chapter Fantastic Beasts storyline and an old Harry Potter clip worked into the trailers make it a little hard to ignore.

Mystery, misdirection, secrets… where were we anyways? Oh! Right!

PREVIOUSLY ON DRAGON BA-

er… no. That’s not quite right. Let’s try that again, shall we?

 

PREVIOUSLY ON FANTASTIC BEASTS:

We started out in 1920’s America with Newt Scamander, the world’s first and only ‘magizoologist’, doing some international smuggling and then playing some tag with his magical-animal-rescue-ranch-in-a-trunk …right in the middle of the bustling city of otherwise non-magical people who are mostly unaware of the existence of magic or the wizarding world.

Our socially awkward protagonist faces international bureaucratic turmoil, has some brushes with death, narrowly escapes romance, and sometimes even does both at once. All the while, he and his party of rag-tag witches and wizards try to foil the charismatic magic terrorist and his minions and save as many critters as they can in the process. The social and political landscape are cracking inside and out in the overwhelming state of fear, sparking not … Read More