Over the past several weeks, I’ve been going through a splurge of entertainment consumption amidst what little free time I have. From Anthem to The Umbrella Academy to Lego Movie 2, I’ve hopped around at least five or six different titles since I’ve completed Kingdom Hearts III (which I wrote about here). Now I have some things to discuss about each, but certainly not enough for any of them to be their own blog post. As such, I have decided to combine several shorter pieces into one with this series I’m calling “The Media I Consume”. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
Anthem | Free To Play… For $60
Source: https://www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Anthem.jpg
Anthem grew in hype for me much in the way hype builds inside when Pokemon has a new release around the corner. I literally had no interest in this game until a week prior to the game’s “Early Release” period, and I had a painful desire to play it. Instead of spending $60 on Anthem’s full release, however, I decided to spend the $15 Origin Premiere Access fee on PC to don a suit of armor and take the game’s world out for a spin.
And you know what? I enjoyed it. I really did. Much in the way I enjoy another game I’ve been playing lately; a game on Android called Space Justice. While each title’s gameplay is completely different (Space Justice is a shoot em up), the core loop is the same. You’ll progress through several missions that are near identical to one another with similar enemy types that don’t really change at all. Sometimes you’ll grind to level up your character or ship, the story’s pretty bare bones, and micro-transactions are of course ever-present. But it’s still a fun time waster. Just like chilling on the couch after a long day and stuffing your face full of junk food, it’s not healthy for you in the slightest - but it is a good time.
The only issue in Anthem’s case opposed to Space Justice, however, is it’s loading times. If they were even 45 seconds long, they’d be somewhat tolerable. But the fact that I spend anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes loading in between Fort Tarsis, the open world, and the Forge, it’s simply unacceptable. It causes me to actually have to dedicate serious time to the game if I want to leave feeling like I didn’t waste my time. Not to mention encounter various technical issues along that way that could kick you out of the game or fully restart your computer, Anthem has a long way to go before it can become something great.
I can really envision from the tidbits I’ve read about the game to the current state its in how development fell into trouble. It feels like Bioware was very clear in their vision for Anthem early on in development, but as time went on something happened that threw a wrench in everything and forced them to scrap a lot of what they had. Whether that be switching economic models for it or issues with developing the game itself, the game is clearly in a place where only at the end of Bioware’s roadmap for the game will the game feel like it’s justified it’s $60 asking price. This sucks because it really makes you feel like you’re buying into a commitment, a promise, to Bioware. That doesn't scream very pro-consumer to me, and it honestly sours me on the game, Bioware, and EA.
Honestly, just go back to Mass Effect: Andromeda. For all its initial issues, I will forever stand by that game as being a solid, good entry in the series.
LEGO MOVIE 2 | CAPITALIZING ON SUCCESS
The weekend before last, I had the opportunity to make my way out to the theater to watch the sequel to the near-perfect Lego Movie. And this one was arguably just as good, if not better than it.
For me, Lego Movie 2 succeeds through the viewer's knowledge of how the first movie ends. For those unfamiliar, it ends with the revelation of the entire story taking place within a family's basement, where a young boy is playing with his father's toys. It revolves around this adult man finally learning to find ways to connect with his child and letting go of the rigidness of his structured life.
The film captures an energy even more franetic than the first, primarily due to the fact that the film now centers around not just a young boy but a young girl's perspective on toy playing. It's very inventive to see the studio let this dynamic play out on screen. You can tell a lot of care was put into how the boy's imagination was structured versus the girl's, along with how their age difference changes how the characters and worlds interact with one another. For example, the sister's world is a lot more bright, childlike, innocent. However, now that the boy has grown some since the first, he portrays his world's as more dour and gritty, trying to give the portrayal of maturity.
Lego Movie 2's ending also hits a message as impactful as the first. Instead of a father learning to understand his son's desire to connect, the movie passes it down to the son coming to understand his sister's want to connect with her brother. It's a very sweet message, and it's something that really couldn't be pulled off any more tactfully in a more standard type of children's film. I suppose that's my favorite part of these movies; it's acknowledgement of being entertainment for kids while also cleverly weaving a mature message in. I would be lying if I said I wasn't afraid of how this movie was going to turn out since Phil Lord and Chris Miller weren't returning to direct, but I'm happy to know that my fears were unfounded.
The Umbrella Academy | X-Men Story, Watchmen Style
The Umbrella Academy is a series on Netflix that really came out of nowhere for me. It wasn't until about a week after it's release that I even realized it existed. I had heard about the series before and how it was a comic written by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, but I had never taken the time to read through it. Taking the time to watch the first three episodes of this Netflix series, however, I'm surprised I slept on this for so long.
The premise reminds me a lot of X-Men, where several people are mysteriously born with genetic mutations that make them superhuman. However, where I enjoy The Umbrella Academy more over X-Men is in its presentation. The series is a lot more fun to watch. The adopted siblings in the Academy are playful and more stark in their personalities and dynamics compared to X-Men in my opinion.
The filmography reminds me so much of Zack Snyder's Watchmen, from the time period used to the cinematography to the appearance of each character. I don't say this as a bad thing either; I may be one of about a dozen thay actually really enjoys Watchmen. There's a unique style to that film that feels like a period piece, yet is full of fun. It's something that the team creating this really captured, and it works so well; perhaps better than Watchmen.
Watchmen is a lot more grim and dark in its tone, so it doesn't really allow its style to ever fully shine. Since Umbrella Academy is so unshackled from such a grim tone (at least from the three episodes I've watched), that style oozes from all sides. Action scenes ooze with style, and feel very reminiscent of how Snyder directed various fight scenes in Watchmen. I almost can't help but wonder if the series' creator took a lot of inspiration from that film. Not only that, but even scenes that just involve character interaction breathe with a sense of style from the actors and the set.
It's awesome to see a series nail that style I loved so much in Watchmen, but create a more enjoyable package. From the few scenes we've seen of the new Watchmen HBO series, I'm starting to think that even it won't be able to capture that style as well as Umbrella Academy has.
Having taken the time to write this out, I’ve really come to enjoy creating this article. While I greatly enjoy the more full, longer form articles that I write, I’m not always going to have something that I want to take that much time to create. Expect to see more content like this in the future. Until then, stay up to date by liking the Facebook page.