Video Games Woes

As the Christmas season has passed and 2016 is rapidly claiming life after life (Rest in Peace Carrie Fisher, Garry Shandling & George Michael) thus making the being that is The Keith Richards stronger, I figured I'd write about a topic I don't talk about frequently and that's video games. With my recent purchase of "WWE2K17" for the PS3 (which is another article all together, believe me), I've become faced with a dilemma that's albeit easy to solve but one that requires some thinking on my part. So I figured, why not make an article out of it. Here we go;

STRANGE LOG: 12-18-2016

Yes, I know there are 2 Strange Logs released back to back and a lack of actual articles for awhile, sadly there hasn't been much news in terms of entertainment just a lot of various bits and pieces here and there that really only warrant a few paragraphs so in this Strange Log we're going to talk about those things, so away we go...

The Strange Review: Suicide Squad

Okay, okay, okay, as mentioned hither too, I am currently watching "Suicide Squad". Why? Because a friend of mine informed me that it wasn't as bad as I believed it was. Now, granted, I've been saying the very prospect of a Suicide Squad movie was unearned, ridiculous and reeked of absolute desperation, but to be completely fair, I did give "Twilight" a shot and how awful would I be if I didn't at the VERY LEAST give an unearned, stupid looking DC property the same chance I'd give "Twilight", pretty freakin' awful.  So I conceded and decided to watch "Suicide Squad". To start off my current reservations with the movie are simple. For starters the Suicide Squad in and of it's self as a concept that ONLY works in comic books and BARELY (if, that).

It's just a team of anti-heroes (more or less) who got some shine and notoriety for being slightly interesting enough to put in a group to help save the world in order to get their sentenced reduced. Hence the rotating door of members we've seen in recent years. Second, I hate Floyd Lawton. I hate Floyd Lawton with a passion. Ever since I've seen him in "Villains United" I've always hated that douche. He's just over all unlikable and I saw nothing redeeming about him (and please bare in mind that this is a group that featured a random Parademon as a member and yet Floyd was the most loathsome one of the bunch...dwell on that for a spell) by the time the book ended I was hoping he'd be revealed as a traitor so Catman or Deathstroke could put two (bullets) in his noggin and make him go the way of Uncle Ben (mixing companies, I know).

Third and my biggest issue with the movie is that this will unfortunately be the 1st live action Harley Quinn and it's not even Harley Quinn. This is not a slight on Margot Robbie, I've never seen her work, I know nothing about her, she's pretty but ultimately that's all I know, Harley Quinn is a character I do know, EXTREMELY well. Well enough to know that whoever the f*ck this is:

is not Harley Quinn. Sadly, this is the Harley Quinn from The (misbegotten) New 52...a DC Reboot which turned the vast majority of all their characters into diet Batman versions of their original selves. Everyone got darker and grittier updates and costumes, Starfire become a whore, Beastboy turned red, Huntress & The Flash somehow become Black, Superman boned Wonder Woman, good times...(I'm being PAINFULLY sarcastic) and then along came this new Harley Quinn (whom I've dubbed Whorely Quinn) and this took the piss right out of me.

Harley was a fun character, she was cute, genuinely funny and while yeah, she's completely and utterly psychotic and a criminal, she's also extremely nice and easy going. Not given to rage and even willing to look on the bright side of things. This is a chick who took baby presents to Black Canary when she found out she was pregnant, who shared an apartment with Holly Robinson at the end of (that godawful series that was) Countdown during the time where she tried to turn her life around, who dropped a dime on The New Scarface's crime ONLY because the original Scarface (Arnold Wesker) was actually kind to her in Arkham. Whorely Quinn is a slut who pleases truckers for 2 dollars while they eat their cheese burger. Harley Quinn was never a hardcore murderer. Even Batman realizes that Harley isn't a serious threat and can more or less reason with her (which he has, often!)

Long winded story aside, I find Whorely Quinn to be completely distasteful and an EXTREMELY poor representation of the character and unfortunately THIS will be the character that people will remember as mainstream and that sickens me. With all of that preamble out of the way, I decided to make this a real time review in order to avoid ranting posts on Facebook. So if you do watch the "Suicide Squad", you'll be able to following along and see how I feel about this movie every step of the way. And with all that being said, let's dive in

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW TAKES PLACES BETWEEN 4:00PM & 5:00PM, POSTS OCCUR IN REAL TIME

5 Ways Kylo Ren Is Better Than Darth Vader

So "The Force Awakens" is officially in the rearview window and locked in as cannon and a solid return to "Star Wars" form and now in the forefront is "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". Anyway, while "The Force Awakens" was generally enjoyed by fans, one thing that seems polarizing is the villain, Kylo Ren. Lot of people have decried Kylo Ren as whiny and emo. I don't understand this characterization of him. Having re-watched the movie for any instance where Kylo Ren displayed any whiny tendencies, the ONLY thing I can say about him is that he has some server anger issues, THAT'S IT.

People characterizes Kylo Ren as whiny mostly because Adam Driver (the actor who plays Ren) is young (32 years old), has a baby face, and because he shouts a lot. Shouting is a declaration of either anger or fear, Kylo Ren didn't appear to be afraid of anything really so I'm gonna go with anger. Also towards the end of the film, people claim that Rey (an untrained soon to be Jedi) managed to best Kylo Ren. Any honest re-watching of that fight would show that Rey spend the majority of the fight running from Kylo Ren and trying to block his attacks. By the end of the film, Rey finally decided to mount an offensive and even then it really wasn't much of an offensive, she used Kylo Ren's anger against him by finding his openings and throwing him off balance. Anyways, ramblings asides, this article is made to prove with 5 simple points how Kylo Ren is better than Darth Vader. These aren't opinionated points, these are objective reasons based on the movies and the various implications of certain characters actions.

STRANGE LOG: 10-13-2016

Here we are again, yet another Strange Log, providing all 1 of my readers (Hi, Guga) with updates in regards to what's going on in the world of Ugo Strange. Not really much, but we'll cover all that and more after the break.

Game Crazy

This is kind of a different article, more of a blog than an article or discussion or anything but I'll try not to be super personal. Anyways, growing up I never played board games. I had a few friends but we mostly played outside, games like Tag & Red Light, Green Light and (my favorite, much to the chagrin of everyone else) charades, but board games was a thing that eluded my brother and I. Sure, we had an occasional Uno games here and there somewhere with someone at one point in time, and despite everything I adore Chess and will always play if there's a board around but that was about it. We didn't have an aversion to them, that's for sure just I don't think of my friends back in the day owned any board games. Anyway, fast forward to now where, now married, my wife's family has a healthy collection of board games and I've learned to enjoy such games a Skip-Bo, Clue, Payday (and my personal favorite) Monopoly Deal (I loathe actual Monopoly with a passion!)

Dead Of Summer: Season One Review

After the nonsense that was "Pretty Little Liars" (let's face it, Cece being "A" was less than underwhelming) ABC Family retooled it's self to become "Freeform", a whole new network catering towards tweens & millennials and with it's new name comes new programming. Making there debuts on the new network are "Guilt" (which stars Billy Zane in a role that is shamefully beneath him, honestly the man is an amazing actor and should be doing better stuff) "Marvel's Cloak & Dagger" (which raises a ton of questions as to why not just go the Netflix route with those two) and finally "Dead Of Summer". Much like "Pretty Little Liars", I got interested in "Dead Of Summer" due to certain theater chains having a "First Look" segment before the previews where you get behind the scenes info on upcoming shows or the next season of shows.

So "Dead Of Summer", what's it about, well its about a camp of teens in the 1980s who arrive at the haunted Camp Stillwater. Going into this series, I have some reservations, I'm none too keen on period pieces that aren't set in old times, but I suppose its harder to write a horror movie in this digital age what with characters being able to call and tweet when paranormal stuff is going on, I mean can you imagine #GhostatCamp. Then again, I think its just a call for writers to step their game up and figure out new ways to introduce horror and make it believable for the digital age. So I can understand if that's the reason why "Dead Of Summer" takes place in the 80s. That being said, we have some heavy hitters in the cast, Elizabeth Mitchell who was in "L O S T" and "Revolution" and the daughter of the late Robin Williams, Zelda Williams and Tony Todd a.k.a "Candy Man".

Now immediately when you think Summer camp, 1980s, teenagers our thoughts immediately go to Jason and Camp Crystal Lake, but "Dead Of Summer" didn't promote it's self to be a slasher series, rather it promoted its self as having a deep and ancient mythology. Before ABC Family was Freeform, it tired to do deep and ancient mythology with the failure that was "Ravenswood". However, seeing as how it took place within the "Pretty Little Liars" universe, it wasn't well received and was shamefully hookie aside from a few segments. Anyway the reason I bring up Jason and The Friday The 13th Series is because those were movies and contained within a certain running time. Will the campers of Camp Stillwater still be at Camp in later Seasons? That's one of my primary concerns for this show, how can they make this series last logically. You'd have to think that each season would be a week in camp? Maybe? So I'm very curious to see how and where this series takes us and if it'll be something worthy of a weekly review. With all that said, let's get to the episodes proper and see what's what. Spoilers abound...

Supernatural or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About The Winchesters And Hate This Show

Can I be completely and perfectly honest? Of course I can, this is my blog, if I can't be honest here than where else? The bathroom, maybe where acts so horrifying are committed I'm 100% certain The Winchesters themselves would shudder to enter. Anyways, with that overshare of information it brings us to our topic, "Supernatural". Can I be...wait, I already asked that, yeah, "Supernatural" sucks.

Find out why after the break;

STRANGE LOG: 7-21-2016

It's 5:03am and I can't sleep and anyways, I gotta be at work at 8:00, *sigh* my job has been physically, emotionally, and psychologically draining on me to the point where when I get home I just wanna hide away from people and recuperate my sanity (or what little I have left after the day is over). Today is going to be exceptionally stressful because it's a field trip day and while I should be sleeping, I have to be outta the house by 7:00, and I gotta cook breakfast and all that jazz, but I decided before I do all of that, I should update you guys and why I've been dropping the ball on everything! Let's dive in!

THE FOLLOWING ENTRY IS WRITTEN BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5AM & 6AM

THIS ENTRY IS WRITTEN IN REAL TIME

What If...?: Justice League

So after the solo films of "Aquaman", "Cyborg", "Wonder Woman" and "The Flash" (which you can read about HERE), we're finally gonna get a "Justice League" movie. If you've read my previous entries (starting with "Batman v. Superman") then you should know Maxwell Lord and The O.M.A.Cs are the primary antagonists for this film. So let's dive in and see if I can do The Justice League better than D.C. can.

What If...?: DC Extended Universe Pt. 1

Okay, so I started down this path of reconstructing The DC Extended Universe starting with this article I wrote long before I bore witness to the atrocity that was and is "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice". Now that "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice" has been unleashed upon theatres and the masses like Darkseid unleashing The Anti-Life Equation, I took to Youtube & The Strangeverse to pose a re-write of The DC Extended Universe starting from re-writing "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice" as "Man Of Steel II: Dawn Of Justice" (which you can Watch or Read HERE). In this article I'm gonna basically sum up each DC Universe movie in a paragraph or two so that we can get to the "Justice League" movie and what I'd like to do with that. Anyways, enjoy!

What If...?: Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice

What If Batman vs. Superman was Good? No, like really Good. I'm Ugo Strange and welcome to "What If...".Now we all can agree that Batman vs. Superman was a cluster of ideas executed horribly and presented in the most boring fashion possible, But I'm not going to review it, enough people have flayed that movie, I'd recommend Movie Bob's critique of the film as the most entertaining. Rather, this is a re-working of all the elements in Batman vs. Superman and making them Good. But before we dive into that,let's do some housekeeping:

The "Grimmest" Dilemma

So 2 Years ago, I've written two articles (Here & Here) about the pitfalls of NBC's series "Grimm" and unfortunately, this article will be making new points as to why "Grimm" seriously needs some refocusing in the writer's room, especially with this current season and I'll elaborate more after the break.

STRANGE LOG: 3-19-2016

So it's been awhile since I've updated...well...anything that wasn't my Facebook and it's high time I talk to you lot and tell you all what's going on. Lots and oddly enough not a lot to get and we'll address all that and more below the cut.

Kylo Ren's Turn To The Dark Side And Why He Is The Force Awakens

Okay, now that the "Star Wars" hype has sort of died down and everyone's on the same page, I'd like to talk about "The Force Awakens" but more importantly, I'd like to address one of the most fascinating character in "Star Wars" canon and that's the character of Kylo Ren. If you haven't seen "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" I suggest you go and see it, I enjoyed it very much and I'm not just fanboying all over it. In this article I wanna talk about my theory in regards to Kylo Ren's turn to the darkside and how I think he could be a cleverly veiled metaphor for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" it's self. I will be going into some heavy spoilers so if you haven't seen "The Force Awakens", go see it and if you don't care about spoilers then whatever, welcome...and now, the article proper.