Highlights from June 14 to 20, 2020

This week's highlights covers the week of June 14th to 20th 2020, and features moments from Overwatch, Mass Effect Andromeda, Gears of War, Star Trek Online, Pokemon Shield and Twitch Sings!

Thoughts on AT&T Shutting Down WB Interactive

It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who has seen the complete mess that always comes as the result of corporate mergers and buyouts, that sometimes certain divisions that were once pillars of one company are basically kicked out the fucking door by the new corporate power structure to make sure the 'bottom line' is as pretty as possible for stockholders. Perhaps the biggest once most people my age can recall would be the AOL-Time Warner merger which basically saw World Championship Wrestling get sold off to the then World Wrestling Federation for a couple of million dollars, because a.) the accounting practices of Turner Broadcasting and then Time Warner were fucking abysmal and b.) people really hated that the only reason anyone watched TNT was for the wrestling on Monday Nights.

Still, in the realm of video games, it's probably not as noticeable as often video game publishers like Blizzard or Electronic Arts stay within their lane... but when outside companies come in, say for example Disney, things gets a little strange. Everyone knows Disney as a media empire, the House of Mouse has had its fingers in so many pies from amusement parts, movies, television shows, comic books and of course video games, and for the most part Disney handles things in-house as it relates to its various divisions, often striving for the peak of quality of whatever it is they are doing... right up until affects their bottom line. You see Disney had an in-house video game Division, obvious called Disney Interactive Studios that was around from 1988 to 2016, to make their own games and distribute them to the various consoles out on the market. But Disney being Disney, overtime they found it cheaper to just licensee things out to other publishers to do the developing, marketing and distribution in order to maximize their own profits. It's why Disney basically shutdown Lucas Games who was working on the Star Wars 1313 game (that most people were looking forward too) and awarded the license rights to Star Wars games to Electronic Arts.

So what we're seeing with AT&T and their move to shut down and sell off the studios associated with WB Interactive which includes NetherRealm Studios and Rocksteady is that they are looking to just licenses out their intellectual properties. They make a profit off of it it because a video game publisher is paying for the right to make a game based on something they own and also get a good size of the profits of anything sold, the risk entirely falls on that of the publisher. They not only must develop and sell a quality product they have to do under the pressure of having to make the another company 'happy'. It's why when EA screwed up royally with Stars Wars Battlefront II it was such a big deal and a blow to the Star Wars brand that Disney basically had to step in and tell them to get their act together , threatening to pull the license and award it to another publisher. It's why EA basically got rid of micro-transitions as it related to SWB2 for quite some time before slowly rolling them back in. In the case of AT&T, which will still own the rights to Mortal Kombat and obviously the DC Comics franchises, they are going to be in seat Disney has been in.

Now, What does this mean for things like Mortal Kombat... well once would assume that whoever buys NetherRealm Studios would get the Mortal Kombat license to go along with it and probably will still have the permission to develop the Injustice series for further installment, but now the risk ends up being there could be a chance that if NRS gets shutdown by whoever buys them, another studio would work on the MK games. So one would worry if say Electronic Arts bought NRS, and known their habit of shutting down studios and basically restructuring them to the point they can't be effective... but considering that the Mortal Kombat franchise is so huge, I wouldn't worry too much, but I'd have that in the back of my mind the entire time.

The real question is who do we want getting their hands on these different studios and getting access to the various licenses to the AT&T catalog? From my point of view, the big ones are Microsoft, Sony, EA and Blizzard. Microsoft and Sony would make whatever they get their hands on console exclusives, so of the two, I'd want Microsoft to have the rights to things since you not only have the Xbox release but also PC versions, and they have proven to be willing to work with Nintendo to expand things to the Switch. Sony on the other hand would want to keep everything to their systems only, so this would probably reignite the console wars based on what games are exclusive to what system. With EA and Blizzard, they'll want to release whatever is developed on as many systems as possible, but both have made decisions that were not in the best interest of their customers for the sake of profits.

Anyway.... that's just my opinion

Twitch Milestone, Nintendo Switch and Pokemon Shield: Oh My!

This week we hit the 1000 follower mark over on my Twitch channel, and we celebrated by following through on a plan I put in place back at the end of February to add a Nintendo Switch (and how I managed to get one when they are pretty scarce), my reaction to the button layout and what was it like playing a Pokemon game for the first time in nearly 20 years!

New Art Work From DarkWolf Creative

I once again commissioned new artwork from DaemonsWolf over at DarkWolf Creative (https://www.darkwolfcreative.com) and this time, it was some two cross over pieces. While both features my infamous sidekick, one sees him pondering how to get an idol with Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. The little detail of having the Bunny wearing a shirt the same color as Lara's top was real neat. The second piece sees the Bunny hanging out in a bar with Wrex from Mass Effect and Marcus Phoenix from Gears of War. The bar location is of course Purgatory seen from Mass Effect 3 and that setting location was determined by DaemonsWolf, and is a great example of why I often just give a general idea of what I'm looking for when I commission anything because I don't think I could've came up with that in my original pitch.

Art From My Youth

My aunt sent me these pictures that I drew way back in I think 1991 or 92 (time frame is based on the fact I tried to draw Darkwing Duck), and man I guess what colors I had to work with were really limited LMAO

Ghostbusters: A Big Part Of My Life

As we all know, prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife was supposed to be hitting theaters next month... and so I thought why not write a piece about what Ghostbusters means to me. Being born in late 1982 means I got to grow up with a lot of things, a lot of different influences that in many way shaped me into the person I am today, in terms of how I look and respond to things, what I look for in a show, movie television or video game. Now the earliest franchise I remember absolutely loving was Ghostbusters. Not because of the movie, but because of the REAL Ghostbusters animated series, which aired in syndication and on Saturday mornings on ABC.

Now I can't recall when I first saw the movie, which I know was on VHS, because the version of the film we had was in the RCA red border box... but I do remember the first episode I saw, or one of the earliest episodes, it was 'Knock, Knock', the episode where a Subway construction crew accidentally opens a door that unleashes all sorts of ghosts into our world, and Ghostbusters have to go down into the Subway to seal it, but I think the scene in it that connected with me the most was when they get on a Subway train to head towards the disturbance, with the lights going out and then suddenly our heroes are surrounded by skeletons dressed like passengers and they close in on the boys... then the lights go out again, and suddenly the scene lights up with the Ghostbusters firing their proton streams. What follows if I remember right is a scene of seeing the train on the tracks, with the windows being blown out, obviously indicating the Ghostbusters are fighting off the monsters, but we don't see what's happening in the train, and it's the first time I can really think I imagined what was happening... are they running from car to car, do they remain back to back and firing wildly, we don't know... and it was exciting. So that hooked me. At some point I saw the movie and while not fully understanding as a young kid how come the characters look different than the cartoon (cause I was an idiot, which is something I still claim to be today lol), the spirit of what I saw in the cartoon certainly was reflected in the source material. I think it was the first time I saw something can exist in different forms, a live action movie, a cartoon, and eventually comic books. I remember getting a whole bunch of REAL Ghostbusters merchandise, in fact I still have my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (the hat was lost a long time ago). I remember having the Proton Pack, all of the original figures, the firehouse, the Ecto-One and other vehicles (Ecto-2 gyro-chopper, the Ecto-3, and a Volkswagon Beetle type car that transformed into a monster if I remember right). It's a shame I moved around so much that a lot of those toys became lost over time... but I still got My. Stay Puft! Hell one of the first comic books I remember having was issue number one of The REAL Ghostbusters published by NOW Comics in I think 1990/1, and I made sure to get it again when I got back into comic book collecting a few years ago. So yeah I was a big fan. I remember seeing Ghostbusters 2 in theaters in 1989 (which was the best summer of movies ever!) and loving it, cause by that point I understand the relationship between the films and the cartoons and I was super-stoked when there was an episode of the cartoon that mentioned Vigo. Hell I remember seeing The REAL Ghostbusters Halloween special along with the Garfield Halloween special in the same night and thinking that Peter Venkman and Garfield sounded the same. Yes this was Dave Coulier's Venkman, but to me as a kid, his take on Venkman sounded close to Garfield

Now of course I will admit that I kind of migrated towards The Ninja Turtles in the early 90s when The REAL Ghostbusters faded out from view, but I think it was 1991 I discovered Star Trek and I remembered there being a Real Ghostbusters episode that made so many references to Star Trek which I had no clue what it was until I saw Spock and saw the character similarities to Egon. So yeah I got into Star Trek because of Ghostbusters, go figure and Star Trek became the big franchise I was into...for the duration of the 90s. But when I read in an issue of Disney Adventures that there was a new Ghostbusters cartoon coming in the fall of 1997, I instantly returned to my original fandom. Extreme Ghostbusters was different than REAL Ghostbusters, but it was a sequel, the original Ghostbusters were disbanded, everyone was older... and so a new generation who were being mentored by Egon was going around busting ghosts, and this was real cool to me. Not only because by that point I was entering High School, but the new characters of Kylie, Roland, Eduardo and Garrett were depicted as being not to much older than I was. The stories were in many regards, a lot more darker than many of the REAL Ghostbusters episodes, and the references to pop culture in the show were more in-line with what I was familiar with,. But here's something you won't believe, but its true Extreme Ghostbusters was the first time I understood what antisemitism and racism was in the episode "True Face Of A Monster'. Of course most people remember Extreme Ghostbusters for the two-part episode Back in the Saddle that saw Ray Winston and Peter return... and of course there was that mention of a third movie, which lead me really discovering the internet. I remember going to my High School's library every day at lunch time to search for news of Ghostbusters 3... sadly that never happened. But much like REAL Ghostbusters, Extreme Ghostbusters stuck with me for a long period of time... hell my first attempts of fan fiction were based on Extreme Ghostbusters, and I submitted some artwork to the Ghostbuster Fan Forum back in 2001 during my failed army career. I did get some of the toys associated with Extreme Ghostbuster, namely the Ecto-1 and I think I managed to find the Kylie, Roland and Eduardo figures.... and those got destroyed when my grand-parents basement got flooded in 2003.

Fast Foward to the mid-2000s with Ghostbusters The Video Game, which obviously was a continuation of the films, but including a few nods to the cartoons, and I loved it. It was a day-one pre-order for me and I remember taking off work, waiting for a FedEx truck and playing it on my PlayStation 3 from like 3 in the morning because of how good it was. I have sense bought the game three times, once the original Steam version for PC, then the re-mastered for PC *which I streamed on Twitch earlier this year) and also for Xbox One just to cover all my basis. The multiplayer on the PS3 version was a ton of fun and I'm hoping it gets implemented at some point for the remastered versions, but I'm not holding my breath. I checked out several of the IDW Published Ghostbusters comics and I love the fact that Kylie Griffin was apart of them in a key supporting role, since Kylie was for me, the star of Extreme Ghostbusters. So now can you take a wild guess of what my reaction was to Ghostbusters 2016 was based on not only growing with the REAL Ghostbusters as a kid, and having Extreme Ghostbusters as a teenager? While I was excited when a third Ghostbusters film was announced... that excitement started to die a quick death when I saw that Paul Feig was the director, and all of his work was basically just 'gender swapped parodies' of other films. So to make this quick, for me Ghostbusters 2016 is a rotten film that has only one redeem quality and that is the character of Jillian Holtzman. Clearly Kate McKinnon didn't intended for this, but with what she did with Holtzman made it seem like she was the only character that could fit in with the two previous Ghostbusters films and the animated series, and it's the only reason why I bought the Funko Pop and Action figures of the character because the idea of Holtzman connected with me the way everything prior to the release of Ghostbusters 2016 had. Also of note that same day I also watched the Ghost Heads documentary to watch to basically wash the taste out of my mouth as soon as I got home (and yes I did contribute to that Kickstarter campaign and got the DVD along with the Funk Pop of Winston in an Ecto-1)

With all that said, I'm looking forward to Ghostbusters: Afterlife with cautious optimism and hopefully, the next big Ghostbuster experience to come along will be a positive one like the majority of things with the franchise has been with regards to me. I'm actually hoping that the COVID-19 stuff will be under-control by next year so I can see it in theaters, but we'll just have to wait and see won't we.

Camden's Police Is Certainly Not A Little Passeri

This is more or less inspired by my back and forth with fellow Twitch streamer YourStarling over on Twitter these past few weeks, and let me begin that I totally get that she is very passionate about her stance on things, and like with everyone in this world, it does not mean she's wrong or that I'm right, or that I'm wrong and she's right. We all have our different points of view on various situations, we all want to see things improve, however the road to get there is not always clear cut.

Now obviously the topic of Defunding The Police, a battle cry of many protestors and politicians in the United States is triggering bit of conversation in the wake of everything that has happened since the murder of George Floyd up in Minnesota, but the thing is, you don't want to Defund the Police in a period of social unrest, you want to start rebuilding it.

Just about seven years ago, my home town of Camden, New Jersey fired everyone associated with the city police at that time and began the long process of rebuilding it from the ground up. It was a complete wipe out of the old guard and the union that basically was holding up progress. In the time since then, I have seen more police officers patrolling neighborhoods, crime has dropped over 40% since, complaints of the police using excessive force has dropped from over 60 complaints in 2015 to only 3 in 2019. Hell the obvious sign there was a difference made is that I don't hear gun shots every night anymore. The police are now a staple of the community, there is no where near the animosity seen towards out police force as compared to what's seen across the Delaware River in Philadelphia as of late. It's really a night and day approach, 

Now is Camden's more community approach perfect, well no, nothing is perfect, but compared to complete anarchy in letting citizens police themselves and leaving things as they were, Camden certainly is giving an example of how to do things. We went from having half the police force with none of the proper training to one that specializes in deescalation of trouble, after all there has to be a reason why over 130 other law enforcement agencies are looking for new ways of doing things, because it's clear the old ways aren't working and you don't want chaos in the streets. And sure as a city Camden has a long way to go, but guess what, we're on our way and with our improving police department that is changing with the times, we'll get there.

Of course that's just my opinion