From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride"

MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Eve, everybody! Well, the time has finally come. Let's introduce my favorite companion of the Russell T. Davies era...who sadly has a premiere that is multiple varieties of not great. Actually, a lot of things about this episode really aren't that great. However, it does have one of my favorite moments in the Russell T. Davies era (which admittedly should have come long before this point) and a few good moments here and there. With that, let's get into it.

MadCap At The Movies - "Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker"

Well, here we are again.

To misquote a poorly-written version of a great Jedi Master, "no one's love of Star Wars is ever really gone". However, does this mean that The Rise of Skywalker has re-ignited my love of the franchise that Rian Johnson snuffed out and has spent the better part of the last two years laughing at me from his lofty perch supported only by Reylo shippers and bullshit?

But I repeat myself. Let's get into the end of the "Skywalker Saga", which I could have sworn I reviewed quite some time ago, but nevermind me.

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 10"

Once more creeping up behind set of crates after set of crates, ship after ship, Calen found himself no closer to locating any sign of Ordos. This was a stupid plan, and he knew it well. Or, at least, he knew it now. Knowing Tessa, the rest would be taking off the moment they got that transport running, no questions asked. Some allies! Calen supposed he couldn’t blame them. To be a member of the Rebels was a death sentence as far as the Empire was concerned, so perhaps he was in good company. It seemed even this far out in the galaxy, the War wasn’t something that could be so easily avoided. Stuck in the middle of it now, he made the choice to save Ordos, if he could.

 The deck was still crawling with Stormtroopers, all searching. Calen watched their patterns, did his best to get through them without arousing suspicion. The lights were apparently on his side (either through Dax’s machinations or poor maintenance as had been with the stairwell’s coolant system), but how long would that last? How long could he creep from shadow to shadow to find what he sought? How long could-his eyes caught the movement, seeing the older man moving to a docking control terminal.

 ‘What is he doing?’ Calen thought, watching him manipulate the interface. It began to loudly shriek out yet another alarm.

 “There he is! Stop right there!” A Stormtrooper was drawn to the sound and received one of Ordos' blaster shots to the head for his trouble. Three others were moving in on him, Ordos ducking behind the lowered ramp of a freighter to avoid their fire and return with some of his own. Calen immediately began to rush forward, hoping to assist him in his defense and get him to the transport without further incident. It was then that Ordos managed to take out not one, not two, but all three of his attackers in rapid succession. It was then that the old man noticed him.

 “You shouldn’t be here! Go, now!” Ordos snapped.

 “I was just trying to-” Calen started.

 “Go, to the transport! Get out of here!”

MadCap Fixes Movies - "The Last Jedi"

Oooooh, boy, has this been a long time coming. Hasn't it?

The time was December 15, 2017. I had settled into my seat to be dazzled and amazed by the next chapter in the Star Wars saga. The movie started rolling...and then we saw Luke Skywalker haphazardly chuck his father's lightsaber over his shoulder and go on to drink milk he'd milked out of alien boobs.

We saw Poe Dameron making "Yo mama" jokes.

We saw Finn's character arc destroyed and reverted as he turned into a comic relief joke.

We saw Admiral Holdo, who is potentially the worst military leader since General Custer.

We saw Snoke made irrelevant within the space of a few seconds.

We saw any defense Rey had against being a Mary Sue be destroyed as any attempt at answering questions was ruined.

We saw Rose Tico and bullshit moralizing that ended up with a bunch of children still in enslavement.

We saw a "kill the past" message being rammed down our throats by literally the worst character to be chosen to be the one to give said message considering his Discord account is xxDarthxxVaderxxLoverxx1337.

We saw whole fragments of canon being ignored or perverted just to tell the story that Rian Johnson wanted to tell.

And none of it being acceptable in the EIGHTH FILM OF YOUR FRANCHISE!

And then, of course, there was everything that came after.

What If...the Empire of the Wolf began in Tooth and Claw? (Part 1)

Hey everybody! It's MadCap with another What If? born out of my insane mind! This time, I want to go all the way back to Tooth and Claw in Series 2. For those of you who don't want to click that link and help contribute to the all of three bucks of ad revenue I've garnered in almost a decade running this blog, here's a quick recap of the episode: A bunch of monks who do kung fu once and then never again help a werewolf in its quest to bite Queen Victoria. The Doctor stops them using the moon and a diamond.

...it's Doctor Who, context only makes it worse.

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 9"

This was not proving to be the day for High Admiral Ayro. First, his prisoners had managed to escape due to the sheer incompetence of his men, as well as unleashing a bunch of others in a mass riot, and now he was being told that an entire stairwell had been demolished in a system overload. “How did a damn coolant system destroy all of Stairwell Six?”

“S-Sir, the internal sensors say that it was sabotage and the system was fed back into itself, causing an overlo-”

“Two humans and a damned Wookiee could not fit into that crawlspace!” Ayro roared at the man at the operations station, who shook from the volume.

What If...the Doctor had never met Rose Tyler? (Series 2, Part 2)

Last time, the Doctor picked up a new companion, made amends with two old ones, and tried to remind himself of what it meant to be the Doctor. Will he succeed? Well, let's not waste any more time and pick up where we left off!

What If...The Doctor had never met Rose Tyler? (Series 2, Part 1)

Here we are again! Spinning off from a downer of an ending for Series One, we now enter into Series Two with the same Doctor in the TARDIS. A Doctor who (hehe) is down not one, but two companions. What would be different about Series Two in a world where the Doctor had never met Rose Tyler?

Well, as we saw from the last two entries in this What If?, quite a lot.

What If...the TARDIS never crashed on Pete's World?

Howdy, folks! Here's a new What If? in the style of that last one I did that got downvoted on Reddit!

#oops

Why wait so long to do another one? Simple! I didn't want to do anything in the post-Series 2 world of Doctor Who without having finished my review of that Series...which I'm certain that every single one of you has been very, very diligently keeping up with! Or not.

Also, I wanted to pick one that would be relatively short and easy to do. Call me lazy if you like.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" (1995)

For six years, people waited for an answer to the cliffhanger ending of Halloween 5. Michael had been captured and, rather than being "killed", had actually been arrested by the Haddonfield PD. Young Jamie Lloyd was safe and sound...and then the mysterious Man in Black who had been around during the events of the film showed up, gunned the police down, and freed Michael. A very bleak downer ending that was ripe to be picked up with a sequel.

...then 1995 came along, and we now wish that they really, really hadn't bothered.

Spoiler alert: This movie sucks. A lot.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Night of the Demons 2" (1994)

*thump!*

*thump!*

*thump!*

*thump!*

*thump!*

*thump!*

...no matter how hard I smack my head against the keyboard, it doesn't get any better.

I won't lie and say that I was anything other than a vehement and vocal opponent of insult to sanity that was the first movie. I said it was clearly the worst parts of the 1980s horror films trying to die just so that they could get away from it. Now we're in 1994...there's no excuse for that. Does the sequel fair any better? Well, let me give you a hint...

*thump!*

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master" (1988)

From Dream Warriors to...crap.

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you folks, we're not in for a good one this time. A Nightmare on Elm Street has never been one of my favorite franchises. I like the first three movies, Wes Craven's New Nightmare and that's about it. Why? Because they didn't turn Freddy into a slapstick comedian who occasionally murders people in gratuitous fashion.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse"

So...anyone notice that the first four Castlevania games have a parallel to many movie franchises nowadays? The first one is the original, the beloved classic. The sequel took things in a direction that nobody liked and was largely forgotten. Now we come to the prequel, Dracula's Curse. With two stories of Simon Belmont under their belt, Konami decided to wind back the clocks to Simon's ancestor Trevor - the first person of the Belmont line to battle Dracula. Hmm...for some reason I feel like I've dealt with this before somewhere.

...nah, probably nothing.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" (1984)

It's not.

It's not the Final Chapter, though.

It's never the end.

At least not until Victor Miller comes along.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest"

What a horrible night to have a curse.

And I mean the curse of playing this game.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Doomsday"

"Wait, I have to do how many more of your scripts, Russell?"

Thus, we come to the final episode of Series 2 of Doctor Who. How fortuitous that the death of Rose Tyler punctuates the beginning of Horror Month 2019!

...god, I wish. I wish.

That would almost make this episode tolerable.

So, like I said, the episode begins with a recap of the previous episode's events - the Army of Ghosts, the arrival of the Cybermen, the cliffhanger with the Daleks, and Rose promising us that it's the last story that she'll ever tell.

It's not.

I mean, it's the last story that she'll tell, but it's not the last. Russell couldn't stand that.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Army of Ghosts"

We come to it at last.

Twenty-five episodes and 5,055,636,281 points and counting on the most forced running joke that isn't actually a joke, and we've finally come to it. At last, the time is finally here. The build up throughout all of Series 2 - the Army of Ghosts, Torchwood, and the War. The day where it all ends - the story of how Rose Tyler died.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Fear Her"

This episode sucks. Run away from it.

That's it. That's the review.

If you see Fear Her playing on your television screen, shut it off immediately. Maybe put a large, blunt object through the screen to put the poor thing out of its misery so that it doesn't have to go on knowing that it had this on it. It is literally the least you could do. Come back next week for Army of Ghosts.

...oh, alright, fine!

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Love & Monsters"

Russell T. Davies pitching this script to the BBC (2006, Colorized)

...well. We knew this one was coming. Oh, don't worry...there are episodes that are worse than this one. Primarily the one right after this one. But is Love & Monsters really so bad?

...yes. Yes, it is.

Dear, merciful God, it is.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Satan Pit"

The Devil's into cheap jump scares. Go figure.

We get a lovely recap with Gabriel Woolf being absolutely chilling as the Beast/Satan/Sutekh. Gotta love it.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Impossible Planet"

"...will find the Holy Grail in the Castle of...ARRRRGH!"
"...wot?"

The Doctor and Rose land in a TARDIS that almost seems to be groaning in protest. The Doctor notes how strange this is, and after the pair have a laugh at the thought of going somewhere else, he and Rose find a grafitti'd bunch of symbols on a wall under a heading of "Welcome to Hell".

Putting that bar a wee bit high, aren't we?

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Idiot's Lantern"

Rose Tyler pulls a Face/Off! An alien is over the top! The Doctor survives an electrical shock through the use of rubber soles!

...one of those things is ridiculous even for this show. Can you tell which one?

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Age of Steel"

*record scratch* Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here...

...and that's when the tension died.

Oh, hi! Didn't see you there! Last we left the TARDIS crew, they were stuck on a parallel Earth where the Cybermen came up on Earth instead of Mondas. Does Mondas even exist in the other universe? I have no idea, it never even gets brought up beyond an extreme veiled reference.

But with the Doctor, Mickey, Rose, Pete, and the Preachers surrounded by Cybermen bent on their deletion, what can they possibly do to get out of this one?!

Use a plot convenience card, of course!

What If...The Doctor had never met Rose Tyler? (Series 1, Part 2)

Time once again to delve into one of my favorite storytelling engines - the What If? story. Last time, we spoke about what would happen if the Doctor had never encountered Rose Tyler while investigating the Nestene Consciousness in London in 2005. For the most part, events played out in a very similar way to the broadcast stories. While some, like The End of the World happened without the Doctor's intervention and thus were far worse off, we got what (at the risk of being egotistical) I think is a far better version of the events of Aliens of London and World War Three, with Mickey and his girlfriend Shareen taking up the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS.

What exciting adventures will await them?

...the rest of Series 1, obviously. Though not quite as expected.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Rise of the Cybermen"

"What if you could wvorp between a thousand different worlds?"

So, we come to the New Series version of the Cybermen. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself except I'm not. Russell T. Davies apparently thought that the Cybermen would make much more sense than the Doctor running into another race of evil cyborgs (even though he's already done that and will do so again), and so decided to drum up the Cybermen for Series 2. A solid plan that makes perfect sense. The only way he could make it unnecessarily complicated is by doing something stupid like them coming from a parallel universe or something.

...oh.

Ohhhhh...

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - Westworld (1973)

Science fiction was a very different place before Star Wars showed up. Far and away from the high adventure and wonder, the 1970s in science fiction were all about dark, gritty, and depressing. A wasteland of dystopia that was the truth behind the thin veneer of "the future!". This is characterized in many sci-fi films of that decade and one of the best textbook examples of that is Westworld. Made in 1973, it concerns an amusement park in the future year of...1983.

Well, remember, we've always thought flying cars are just twenty years in the future for the past century...

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 8"

As he quickly stripped one of the two troopers and began to strip off his own outfit to replace with the Stormtrooper armor, Calen took a few milliseconds to reflect on how absolutely insane his life had become over just the past few days.  After that instinct that had told him to run, things had been fairly quiet for a year afterward. Then his captain was killed, he willingly went along on a quest for revenge against the Twi’lek who had murdered him, he’d found there was a cult on a dead planet that was seeking a mysterious power, and that the Empire in the region was looking for that power, too, because of a heist gone wrong decades before.

And now, he was being sprung from prison by a bird woman Jedi.

What If...The Doctor had never met Rose Tyler? (Series 1, Part 1)

Hello everybody!

I thought I'd try something new and see what people thought of it. Now, I'm sure you've all been very diligently reading my Doctor Who reviews and know that, by the time of this writing, we are well into Series 2 as far as reviews go. I'm honestly shocked I made it all the way through Series 1, considering all of the really terrible moments in it. However, one of the aspects that I absolutely loved in it was Christopher Eccelston as the Doctor. He was my first Doctor and the only thing I really dislike about him is that he didn't get enough time to really materialize it fully onscreen. If he'd had more time, I think he would have been - if you'll pardon the quip - fantastic.

So, I had a thought about what might have happened if a single important moment had not happened in the Doctor's life - meeting Rose Tyler. Now, my hatred of Rose Tyler is well documented by this point. As of my review of The Girl in the Fireplace we're up to 5,055,636,223 on my Rose Tyler is Awful Count gag. However, this isn't going to be a What If to continue my sane and rational disparaging of a fictional character. Despite my many, many issues with the character, Rose Tyler did change the Ninth Doctor for the better...and then proceeded to make the Tenth insufferable at points.

However I got to thinking...what if that change had never happened? What if, in trying to combat the Nestene Consciousness in London in the year 2005, the Doctor had never met Rose Tyler in the basement of that shop and did not eventually take her off into time and space?

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace"

Tough toenails, Georgia Moffett beat you to him.

Pre-Revolutionary France? You mean somewhere that isn't Victorian London or the 51st century? Moffat, you spoil us!

...and you won't be spoiling us again for several seasons. For better or for worse.

Actually, I tell a lie. This episode is partially set on a spaceship in the 51st century, but it actually has to do with the plot so I'm willing to let it slide. This once. It won't make the complaining about it I'll be doing any less annoying later.

MadCap's Mod Mondays - "Moon and Star"

I think it's time to let everyone know what a big fan I am of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

...yes, I'll give you a moment to recover from that shocking revelation. After all, I've been incredibly subtle about it.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: School Reunion"

"Fan girls...please see Mr. Hartnell after class. No, you don't get me."

So, in the cold open for this episode, Giles goes full Ripper on a kid. Having returned to his native England after the events of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles has taken a position as Head Master (which is why I assume people thought he'd be the Master?) and, meeting a child outside of his office who was sent by the nurse - and finding out she has no family - Giles invites the child into his office...and then eats her.

And somewhere, Ethan Rayne giggles and he doesn't know why.

And no, that won't be a joke through this entire review. Anthony Head is in here, but this is where the Buffy jokes stop.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Tooth and Claw"

Seriously. Why? Why is this here?

Kung fu monks for no reason that are never utilized again! A werewolf! Queen Victoria!

Sounds like a recipe for success, right?

Kinda, actually.

MadCap's Mod Mondays - "Live Another Life as An Infinity Gauntlet Wearing Thor Odinson"

So...as anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, it finally happened. Called by the sweet whistling of the piper known as Todd Howard, I picked up Skyrim on Xbox One for a simple reason - mod support. I've never been a big fan of mods in the past, and I honestly think that just stems from not having had them to use. While I hold that a game should still be able to hold up entirely on its own (and I mean single player, multiplayer games do not count unless they have a story mode), mods can add quite a bit to the experience. And as I said way back in my Hearthfire review, modders will always manage to create things the developers didn't think of.

That being said, not all mods are created equal - as I discovered through a rather embarrassing stint sifting through what scant mods that Sony allowed through for the PS4 edition. So, after picking up a new copy for twenty bucks, I have managed to enter the world of modding proper. Was it worth it? Let's find out in my new segment - MadCap's Mod Mondays!

...don't worry, Reel Thoughts will still be going just as inconsistently as ever for you movie lovers out there!

...sorry, guys.

MadCap At The Movies - "Spider-Man: Far From Home"

HEY! HEY! HEY, EVERYBODY! DID YOU KNOW THAT IRON MAN DIED IN AVENGERS: ENDGAME?! IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THAT IRON MAN DIED IN AVENGERS: ENDGAME! HEY! HEY HEY!

...this is pretty much the entire first half hour of the film.

What starts out as a fitting and rather well-done tribute to those lost during Endgame (weirdly set to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You") in the first few minutes turns into a film that spends a third of its run time praising a man who destroyed all of his company's weapons in order to build a bigger, more more destructive one and then about forty-seven variations of that, created an artificial intelligence that nearly ended the world as well as killed several thousand people and received no blame for it, willingly handed control over his team to a government that could still be crawling with HYDRA agents for all he knew, then fought and criminalized many of his friends when they didn't want to go along with it, manipulated a teenage boy from Queens into being his own personal soldier, and was apologetic for literally none of it before doing what was literally the least he could have done and sacrificing himself for the greater good.

So. CAN WE PLEASE STOP TRYING TO PASS OFF MCU TONY AS A GOOD GUY ALREADY?!

HE REALLY, REALLY WASN'T!

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: New Earth"

"It's only a model!"
"SHHH!"

Alright, so. In the (at the time of this episode's airing) forty-three year history of Doctor Who, the TARDIS has taken the Doctor and his companions to fantastic locations all around the cosmos. From the planet Skaro to the desert planet of Uxarieus to other planes of existence entirely like the Land of Fiction. Want to know what the all those places have in common? None of them are Earth. Want to know my main problem with all of Series 1 of this show? Everything is either on or orbiting Earth. I'm aware the show had just come back and they were limited by budget and such, but for every story to be set on Earth is just really, really boring when you have a time machine that can go to literally anywhere in time and space.

When the show revamped in the 1970's, there was at least a logical reason that Jon Pertwee couldn't hop into his TARDIS and leave - the Time Lords had wrecked it. The revived series has no such excuse. That's not to say they don't mention other planets, they do, but we never see any of them in Series 1 and it's really a bit annoying. While this might leave the doors open for missing adventures to be made into novels and audio dramas, the constant returning to Earth is just a reminder that I could be watching other parts of the show that are far more interesting.

And I know the Doctor likes to pick up his/her/their humans from Earth, I do, but I'd rather Earth have far less appearances when the Doctor has a time machine that can go anywhere in time and space.

So let's get on to the Doctor and Rose actually going to an alien planet onscreen. New Earth.

New Earth.

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeew Earth.

Really just whetting out appetites for adventure there, aren't you, Russell?

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 7"

His unconscious state was no longer troubled by the disturbing dreams of Ijo Critus and the banquets with incredibly poor health care standards. In fact, his state was no longer troubled by anything at all until he woke up to the feeling of his head being split open as if by a massive hammer. It was the clear result of being stunned so many times over the last few hours, though Calen more acutely remembered it as the same feeling he’d had the morning after he’d spent a night out with his classmates upon their graduation from the Academy.

He did his best to force the feeling from his mind and focus more on figuring out where he was. The blinding light made that difficult by sight, so he tried by hearing...and was treated with a vast, empty void. Feeling, too, was restricted as he seemed to be unable to move his hands. A weight was pressing down on them at the wrists, yet his arms ached with the soreness of strain. His arms were being forced above his head. Again. His vision finally began to clear, and he soon realized the truth of his surroundings - an Imperial interrogation chamber. ‘So, not dead. Still in Hell, though.’ Calen thought. It didn’t look like the ship, so it was likely he’d been transported from there to...somewhere else.

The doors as the far end of the room unlocked and a hissing followed as they slid open, revealing to him a man in an Imperial uniform. Calen recognized the swatches and code cylinders that signified the rank of a High Admiral. The man himself was clearly one who had seen his younger days some time ago, his hair was gray and his eyes a black that peered from sunken sockets. They reminded him of Ordos’, but they were an absence of something rather than its presence. The man stood there for the longest moment, appraising him. After a few moments of neither of them speaking, he began to click his tongue.

“Y’know, you can stop that whenever you like.” Calen groaned out. “The reverberation off the walls is terrible. Seriously, if you’ve never been stunned, I wouldn’t reco-”

“Do you ever stop talking?” The man asked. His tongue clicked. Calen’s brow quirked with the irritation and pain.

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "Avengers #20 and #MakeShulkyHotAgain"

...you fucked up, Jason Aaron. You fucked up hard.

Sorry for the immediate dropping into expletives, but this comic really did manage to piss me off quite a bit.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion"

"Okay, gang! We need to figure out how to get out of the RTD era. Thoughts?"

Get it? Because it's July?

Christmas in July?

No? No. I guess it's not that funny. Oh, well. Let's get on with it.

MadCap (And A Ginger!) At The Movies - "Dark Phoenix"

Well, the word is in. Is Dark Phoenix a glorious bird rising up again for one final hurrah or is it the last dying gasp of said bird as it chokes on the ashes? stoopidkid425 and I hit the theater to find out!

...it's the second thing.

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 6"

The room was dead silent. Calen remained rooted to the spot. From what little peripheral vision he had from looking down, he could see that Ordos wasn’t moving, either. The room was still filled with hushed, excited whispers.

“If you will not reveal yourself, then I shall have to reveal you, Calen.” The man in white spoke again after a long pause. “Come along now. What would your father think of his son acting like a coward?” Calen knew exactly what Thaddeus Darkhaven would have thought. Even so, he held fast, his fist clenching tight.

“Look up.”

It had been in his head. There was no echo, no distortion. In his mind, he’d heard it, clear as a bell. The man in white, speaking to him...through...his mind?!

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Skyrim: Myrwatch"

Yeah, I know I promised this quite a while back. Everyone who will read this has either made a stalwart stance against the Creation Club or has already played it. But beyond that, this review also serves another purpose - it's the blog's eight year anniversary!

Seriously, I've been doing this for eight years! What the hell have I been doing with my life?! I'VE LOST COMPLETE CONTROL OF MY LIFE! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

"GOIN' CRAZEEEE! (GOIN' CRAZEEEEE!!!) FROM THE HEAT!"

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Pokémon Crystal Clear"

Ah, yes! The ROM hack. It's territory I've explored before on this very blog, and ironically also in the territory of Pokémon several years ago for my Halloween special! The Pride of Kanto is never coming home!

But when I last went into the realm of that particular franchise, there was something I said...what was it?

The second reason is because of a ROM hack that I'm going to be taking a look at at some point in the future, one that I've taken quite a bit of enjoyment from after having it recommended to me via e-mail. More on that later.

Ah, well...later has indeed come! It's time to discuss one of the most intricately crafted ROM hacks I have ever come across - Shockslayer's very own Pokémon Crystal Clear.

I'm not gonna dance around the issue here - it's a really good one!

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 5"

The two made their way up to the Ascended Level without a word between them. The Ascended Level was Gehenna’s topmost by the helpful diagram on the lift wall, and it was the place that the Church of Infinite Perception called home. One of them, at least, since Calen was given to understand that the Church was at the topmost level of all of Pergitor’s domed cities - each one had an Ascended Level and, presumably, the vision he saw before him.

As the lift breached the floor beneath, they rose up to see banners hung from virtually every wall, all of them depicting the image of a closed eye with a few tears falling. Beneath them were several buildings that, unlike the well-constructed labyrinth levels below, had clearly been designed more for form than function. Calen could see several buildings that were clearly meant to be residents, meant for the super wealthy. Or, at least, what must have passed for super wealthy out this far on a mining colony that had long since stopped being used for that purpose. That being said, however, the buildings were decorated with tempered durasteel and precious gemstones to be as gaudy and ritzy as any of the manor houses of Coruscant.

At the center of it all, however, was a massive complex. It towered over everything, at the exact center of the great chasm that was the Ascended Level. If the other buildings had been gaudy and garish, this was something beyond even that. Calen was convinced that it would draw the eyes of the blind.

“The Grand Cathedral of the Ascended Path.” Ordos announced as they approached.

“Reminds me of Glin’s backroom.” Calen muttered, half-jokingly, and earned a ghost of smile from Ordos and a sound that he could have sworn was a stifled snort. The Cathedral was at least three times the height of the next tallest building, and was uniform in how it was covered with a mosaic of flawless stones, each caught the artificial lights coming from all directions and reflected it in a rather unpleasantly blinding way.

MadCap At The Movies - "Avengers: Endgame" (spoilers)

Okay, so I was going to do a non-spoiler review and a spoiler review and just rake in the mad ad revenue dollars...I mean, have one for those that wanted to avoid spoilers and those that didn't care or had already seen the movie. So that's what I'm going to do. This is the spoiler version of the review. If you don't want spoilers, then watch the movie and come back to read this one or check out the non-spoiler version here. Or, if you do not care about spoilers, then feel free to look beyond the cut to read.

We good? Good. Excelsior!

MadCap At The Movies - "Avengers: Endgame" (no spoilers)

Okay, so I was going to do a non-spoiler review and a spoiler review and just rake in the mad ad revenue dollars...I mean, have one for those that wanted to avoid spoilers and those that didn't care or had already seen the movie. So that's what I'm going to do. This is the no-spoiler version of the review. If you don't want spoilers, then feel free to proceed. If you want spoilers or you have already seen the movie, then feel free to check out the spoiler review here.

We good? Good. Excelsior!

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 4"

Pergitor was even more dreary than Ordos had described it as being. Even from orbit, the planet was a dull gray, the same gray Calen remembered being the color painted onto trash collectors or the panels of a Star Destroyer. Like the Star Destroyers, it really only looked intimidating because it was a lot of gray.  Descent through the atmosphere sent them through equally dull, gray clouds down into a landscape of jagged, gray rocks that were disturbed only by the occasional blue-white lightning strike from the heavens to break up the overpowering mediocrity of the environment.

Also, the rain.

Pergitor was, it seemed, a very rainy planet.

"It’s a good thing we have the sensors going.” Calen commented through the sound of the pounding on the viewport. “I can’t make heads or tails otherwise."

"Sorry about that," Ordos had returned to the cockpit, standing behind the pilot's chair. "Had to check on an old friend. How's our ETA?"

"On our current path, it's uh..." Calen spared a half-glance over at the monitors that detailed their approach. "Roughly..."

"We are eleven minutes and fifty-six seconds from the appointed dock at the domed city of Gehenna." Red reported dutifully. When the droid realized both men were looking at it, it made a sound that almost sounded like a scoff. "I cannot help it if the efficiency of organics is limited."

MadCap (and a Ginger!) At The Movies - "Shazam!"

Yep! Went out with stoopidkid425 again! He says hi, internet! Check him out on PSN!

Given that this movie will very likely be swamped by the oncoming Avengers: Endgame coming out later this month, I imagine that this film is going to need all the boosts it can get. And that's a shame, really, because it most definitely deserves the praise.

Yeah, I'm not going to sugar coat it - this film is good.

Very, very good.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Sims 4"

So...I was bound to get dragged into it eventually, if only tangentially. My friends have been split right down the middle about The Sims series - they either love it or hate it beyond the capacity for rational thought. A lot of that boils down to the ownership of the franchise by Electronic Arts and the changes that have been made between the entries in the series. One thing I will immediately agree on is that EA is really taking the micro-transactions and downloadable content way too far. How do I know?

Right after the start menu (after taking an absurd amount of time to load up), your options for loading the game and changing your profile have six expansion packs, five game packs, and thirteen "stuff packs" that range anywhere from $9.99 to $39.99 USD.

That's a bit excessive for some shiny new coats of paint, EA.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Murder By Death" (1976)

As a fan of the whodunnit genre, I'm here to showcase the absolutely worst that it has to offer. Namely, 1976's "Murder By Death". So what if it has a fantastic pedigree in a screenplay written by the legendary Neil Simon, an all-star cast including the likes of Alec Guiness, Maggie Smith, and Peter Sellers, and scoring that airs on both the creepy and the comedic with pin-point precision?

This is one of the most hackneyed and overdone pieces of trash ever to be put to film, and it is today - on this glorious April 1st, that I'm here to destroy it for your entertainment!

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 3"

Capital City (as it was called in an amazing lack of imagination, Calen thought) was indeed something that Calen thought earned Karideph’s title of “Little Coruscant”. The place was utterly massive, stretching out as far as the eye could see as the Dawn descended from the atmosphere. Calen was treated to row after row of skyscrapers that stretched out in every cardinal direction from a large, center point...the local ISB branch.

Charming.

He brought the ship along the path they were given by flight control, bringing them to a series of rounded holes that descended into the ground just enough to allow ships to land within them, protected by vast, stone walls that followed the outside edge of the hole - docking bays. The chatter from the Port Authority could be heard as they got confirmation and coordinates for their particular circle, Calen steering the Dawn toward it, landing without his usual flourishes, much to the relief of the RX unit that sat in the co-pilot’s seat.