Saints Row IV: Even better than Saints Row the Third, which was great

You know I'm born to lose / And gambling's for fools / But that's the way I like it, baby, I don't want to live forever!

I've been meaning to write a review for Saints Row: The Third for a while. So long, in fact, that in the meantime, Saints Row IV came out and I loved it so much that I decided to review Saints Row IV instead. I will still talk a bit about Saints Row: The Third, because it is a great game. They're both great games. If you want to play a game that tries as hard as it can to make sure you're having as much fun as possible at all times, you should check out these two games.

I try to avoid spoilers in this review, but there is some info that you may find slightly spoilery.

Rogue Trader: Review (Part 2 of 2)

Imperial Navy vessels engage an enemy. Artist: Zach Graves

Picking up where I left off in my previous post, I recently bought the Rogue Trader core rulebook on DriveThruRPG. I have spent the past several days reading through it and absorbing the rules, and while I have not yet had a chance to play the game, I can conclude that the book looks great and the game looks fun.

My previous post dealt mostly with how cool it is to be a Rogue Trader and his/her crew. This post will provide more of a review of Rogue Trader, both as a rulebook and as a system.

Rogue Trader: Gothic Baroque Space Piracy for Fun and Profit (Part 1 of 2)

Rogue Trader cover, from the Fantasy Flight Games site. Artist: Andrea Uderzo

I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I really dig the epic scale of it, the grim feel of constant danger, the unabashedly gothic design of everything. But I always thought that, given a chance to play a Warhammer 40,000 pen-and-paper RPG, I would jump at the chance to be an Inquisitor. Playing as a badass religious fanatic who hunts down the demonic enemies of mankind sounds right up my alley. But when I decided to buy one of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40,000 RPGs, I ended up choosing Rogue Trader over the Inquisitor game, Dark Heresy.

The reason for that has a lot to do with the image above. Before I saw that image, I had always thought of Rogue Traders as reckless fortune seekers who explore beyond the borders of the Imperium, only to inevitably uncover something that should have been left buried, get wiped out, and need the Inquisition and/or the Space Marines to come clean up the mess.

But then I saw the image above and something clicked.

The Wolverine: A Wolverine film worth watching

Though the first three X-Men movies were pretty hit and miss, the best decision the people behind those movies made was to cast Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. No matter what else was going on in those movies, Jackman as Wolverine was always worth watching. He walked the fine line between being likable and being badass, and between being a superhero and being believable. I liked the character, so naturally I looked forward to the first Wolverine movie. I was completely disappointed with it. For weeks afterward I found myself wondering when I would finally get to see the Wolverine movie, because my mind had not yet processed that, yes, I had seen it, and yes, it really was that bad.

If I had known at the time, I would have skipped over the first Wolverine movie and seen the second one in theaters instead. The second Wolverine movie isn't perfect, but it is good, and it gets my recommendation.

There are some spoilers under the cut.

I watched the Teen Titans Go! TV series and it was better than expected

DC Comics have always made good cartoons: Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, and the first season of Young Justice are all excellent. These shows have exciting action, fun adventures, and interesting character arcs. A worthy entry in that lineup is the 2003 Teen Titans animated series, which ran for six seasons. This is not a review for that series.

Instead, this is a review for the current series that re-imagines the Teen Titans as a bunch of slapstick, self-absorbed slackers. The new show makes no attempts at character development, plot arcs, or an underlying message.

And yet, I still kinda like it.

My disappointment with the Legend of Korra, Book Two

I loved the first book of Avatar: the Legend of Korra, so I didn't have to think twice about ordering the second book on iTunes. Unfortunately, the second book fell flat in many ways. There were some good moments, but overall the second book was a disappointment.

Spoilers below the cut! They're lengthy. Sorry, I needed to get this off my chest.

Movie Review: Frankenstein's Army

As you probably already know, I am a big fan of the Weird War concept. This setting combines World War II, the most iconic conflict of all time, and adds in elements of the supernatural and/or science fiction. So when I first heard of Frankenstein's Army, I was intrigued. After all, who wouldn't want to watch a horror movie about Frankenstein creating dieselpunk zombie monsters for the Third Reich?

Warning: This review contains spoilers, and also includes a fairly disturbing movie poster and trailer below the cut.