Monthly Archives - November 2024

Why Batman Really Needs the Batcave

No, it's not just a place for him to keep his stuff. Batman is profoundly, psychologically dependent on the Batcave. It's complicated but so is Bruce Wayne.Have you ever gotten the feeling that when Bruce is alone in the cave and then Alfred or (whichever) Robin walks in, it's rather an intrusion isn't it? He never kicks them out but they don't belong there. Not in the way that he does. There's a reason for that.At first there was just...

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RE:Play Redneck Rampage

Having covered all of the old Sierra games or at least all of the old Sierra games I gave a crap about, I decided to move on to the nineties proper.  That means Doom clones and that means games built with the legendary Build engine.I'm not going into the history of the build engine here because I know it's ashamed to associated with this game.Instead of starting with one of the really great games like; Blood, Shadow Warrior, or Duke 3D.  I...

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The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Gladiator II

“Jug-Jugurtha!” I blurted out laughing. It annoyed the people around me, which also made me laugh. If you don’t know anything about Roman history, making Jugurtha a Roman enemy during the (rather brief) Severan dynasty is comparable to having Generals Lee and Grant put aside their differences and team up against their common enemy, Henry VIII.  It’s that stupid.  Ridley Scott needed a black king and liked how the name sounded. You can tell that was the creative process.I suppose...

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Disney Deathwatch: The Thanksgiving Edition

Captain America 4 is already DOAHere’s a shock, the latest round of test screenings went badly so they are going back, yet again, into reshoots.  I have no idea how many times it has gone into reshoots at this point.  The production budget is well north of $400 million and given the lack of interest it’s not going to make half of what it needs to, to make a profit. I kind of feel sorry for Anthony Mackie.  He seems like...

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The Dark Herald (sort of) Recommends: Wicked (PART I)

I can’t get across to my children what a Television Event used to be like.  What it was in tangible terms is obvious, a marketing ploy and a very successful one. A captive audience of 70 million Americans is something a contemporary ad man doesn’t even dare dream of today, but that was what you’d have back then. If there was a Television Event being broadcast on one of the networks the other two just gave up for that night.  They were...

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Volvo Blows Jag-You-Are Totally Out of the Water

This is utterly ludicrous.Volvo just launched this four minute commercial on YouTube and it is everything that the Jaguar commercial is NOT.It's about a traditional family and a father's hopes and dreams for his daughter as he watches her grow up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQX-QXxwGvA The comments show all the difference in the world. People are saying that they hadn't considered a Volvo before but are now.This is the whole point of an advertisement. Volvo's marketing department has pantsed Jag's, knocked them on all...

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The Dark Herald’s Game of the Year

I step out of the ruins of a record shop and onto the streets of Selaco. My health is 100% and I have plenty of ammo. Like a perfect nugget I’m admiring the scenery instead of checking the corner I’m about to step around.My reward for this stupidity was a flash and a boom heralding the loss of half my health. I chuck an ice grenade at the pair of SOBs while I slide out of their line of fire...

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Hasbro Comes to Bury Gygax, Not to Praise Him

Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are in the process of releasing their DEI drenched new rules for Dungeons and Dragons. As a kind of cross promotion they are releasing a companion book the 40th Anniversary Making of DnD.The forward of which absolutely castigates Gary Gygax for the unspeakable crime of not being a 21st-century Woketard.In celebration of this literary masterpiece, I'll be hosting a special game this weekend.Discuss on Social Galactic

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RE:View – The Muppet Christmas Carol

No story on Earth has been done to death as thoroughly as Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  Every possible iteration on this classic story has been made.  I tried to find out how many versions there were by typing “A Christmas Carol” into the IMDB search bar, and it called me an asshole.Or it may as well have.  I stopped counting the screen adaptions when I hit the fifth search page of results. A Nashville Christmas Carol, A Country Christmas Carol, Dora’s Christmas...

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