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.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Devil May Cry 5"

Okay, so first things first, Capcom!

Thank you.

No, that's not a joke. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and an infinite, ever-expanding plethora of gratitude from the dimension of gratitude going on forever and ever into the end of time itself.

If you can't tell, I'm really, really happy that this happened.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2"

Good night to you, childer of Caine!

Those of you that follow my blog around the month of October know that I'm a horror fan. To tie that into my absolutely nerdiness, I'm also a big fan of tabletop RPGs, and thus we come to Vampire: The Masquerade. A tabletop RPG system made for, instead of gearing up, hunting down monsters, and taking their treasure, has you going around dealing with your tortured existence as a creature of the damned while either giving into or trying to rise above your beastly nature.

So, basically, a very effective political simulator.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Far Cry New Dawn"

I have to admit, every so often Ubisoft surprises me.

...oh, right. Why didn't this review come out something like over a month ago and when it was relevant and anyone actually gave a shit about it? And why am I not playing Devil May Cry 5 (even though I probably am by the time this review will come out)?

Well, wonderful questions, voices in my head! I'll be happy to answer them after I give my spoiler tag for the events of Far Cry 5. I think that really goes without saying (or doesn't, actually, but I'll get into that), of course, given what most people know about this game. But it never hurts to cover your bases, or at least that's what I've been taught by vigorous beatings with a baseball bat (thanks, Uncle Gus!), so here we go merrily on our way.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Puyo Puyo Tetris"

...what's this crazy anime nonsense doing in my Tetris?

I have never really been a big Tetris player. My grandmother and mother were rather fond of it, but it appears the fixation with it has skipped a generation. The only reason I'm doing this particular game is by reader request (and being generously gifted the game on Steam, so thank you for that). But will this be a nice little trip outside my usual comfort zone or will I once more find no real reason to care for Tetris beyond the occasional killer of time between cradle and grave? Let's have a look.

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 2"

The command deck of the Imperial Star Destroyer Vigilant Warden was a quite and orderly place, even for the command deck of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The crew did not speak to each other in anything above the lowest of whispers for fear of bringing the attention of their commanding officer down upon them. High Admiral Maltus Ayro was not a man to be trifled with, they all knew only too well. He was a manic man, given to fits of high rage and deep melancholy. They also knew that he was all that existed as a semblance of control within the vacuum that existed in the Minos Cluster. With the death of Moff Dacar by Rebel saboteurs (or so the official reports went), the man was effectively the Moff of the Cluster in all but name...the lack of name being a bit of a sore subject for him.

Despite the rumors that he might have been involved in Dacar's demise, his inferiors were not wont to go questioning it and his superiors seemingly could not have cared less.

It was all of this that went through the mind of Lieutenant Corrin Dax as he approached Ayro, looming above one of the command pits and staring out of a viewport into the void of space, broken up only by the planet Karideph.

"Admiral?" He questioned after several seconds, gauging the man's disposition.

"...what?" The answer came several seconds later, Ayro not looking back from the planet they orbited around at that very moment.

MadCap At The Movies - "Captain Marvel"

I, a twenty-eight year old white male (at the time of this writing), am with sound mind and body reviewing Captain Marvel. Why? Because this is America and I can complain about whatever I like, thank you Brie Larson. Granted, I'm about half the age of the people that she claimed she didn't want to see more reviews of, but I'm happy to say this attitude has not infected Captain Marvel...much.

But let me just go ahead and spoil it here: this is not a bad movie. It's your standard Marvel fare. Whether you like them or not, Marvel Cinematic Universe films are well produced and have wide mass appeal. Disney can cast a wide net and catch a lot of people in it (unless the project head is named Rian Johnson) who will then give them a lot of money. Will Captain Marvel do well? More than likely. Is it going to be some kind of wunderkind film that will redefine films for the rest of eternity, like some sort of Silver Screen form of Jesus?

No.

Just like Black Panther was not that either.

You know what they both were? Fairly solidly made.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Halo 4"

So, we come to it at last. The first Halo game that I didn't actually bother to play when it was new, frankly because I'd lost interest in the property as a whole. I couldn't really pick out one specific reason for you as to why, I mentioned way back in my E3 2012 Trailer Reviews/Skyrim Coma Recovery Post that I had honestly seen 3 as the logical stopping point before the entire series devolved into a pile of loosely-connected references to the expanded universe and the games themselves left pretty lacking in the plot department.

As it turns out, I was just as insightful in 2012 as I am in 2019.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Parting of the Ways"

We come to it at last. The final episode of the the Christopher Eccleston era, the final episode of Series 1, and the culmination of the intricately crafted Davies Masterplan that involves concocting a way to stuff as many Daleks as possible into a location and then finding the most ludicrously over the top way to get them destroyed seemingly totally forever. For real this time.

This would be repeated in Series 2 and 4.

...but not in 3. No, for that one, Russell would concoct something even more ridiculous. But that's another finale for another time.

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 1"

Hello, everyone! You might remember my ill-advised attempt at NaNoWriMo back in 2017. It was a hoot! And I actually managed to get to the 50,000 word goal with my essentially Star Wars fanfiction known as "Minos Mayhem", based on a Star Wars d20 game that some of my friends and I never managed to fully get off the ground.

...and then The Last Jedi happened.

...yeah.

So, in the time since, I've finally gotten to where I'm comfortable with writing this again, so I'm aiming to finish it up. Because I came to the conclusion that my love and appreciation for Star Wars should be far greater than my hatred of the idiots trying to destroy it.

...yes, I have managed to find a way to be both enlightened and vindictive about this.

In this particular instance, I'm going back over the already published thirteen chapters (which will still be available on this blog for those who wish to read them/laugh at my incompetence) and cleaning them up, editing for grammatical errors and the like, and working on making them better! Then I'll get to Chapter Fourteen onward! Hopefully, with it looking as though it wasn't written over the course of a month by an insane, gibbering man on a caffeine binge, maybe people will like it.

And Disney won't attempt to sue me.

...I hope.

Anyway, without further adieu...