Oh…and what’s the deal concerning rapper, 21 Savage, labeling legendary Queens lyricist and venture capitalist, Nas, “irrelevant?”…..really?
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Oh...and what's the deal concerning rapper, 21 Savage, labeling legendary Queens lyricist and venture capitalist, Nas, "irrelevant?".....really?
One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF
Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!!
Hercules is being made into a live-action movie…that’s inspired by Tik Tok??
Keith and Victoria do their best to figure out what that could possibly mean and what other live-action adaptations they do and don’t want to see. Also, we’ve got a lot of TV show cancellations to talk about.
Hear about that and more on This Week In Nerd News.
Since 1986, there have been nearly 40 games on major operating systems and consoles that have featured Batman predominantly, if not in name than in spirit. Whether it was the original isometric Batman game for the proto-consoles to the recent Gotham Knights (where yes, Batman dies, but arguably that doesn’t detract from how central the character is to the plot and the overall aesthetic of the game), the biggest interval between Batman game releases have never exceeded more than 3 years at most in recent years, with the current 4 year gap between Batman: The Enemy Within (2018)and Gotham Knights (2022) being the longest in the IP’s history.
Conversely though, Superman (aka the Man of Tomorrow), arguably an equally iconic character with just as much source material to draw from, has not had such luxury. The first Superman game came out in 1976 on the Atari followed by a 6 year gap before the next game on the Commodore 64, a slew of games in the early 90s that culminated in Superman: The New Adventures in 1999 largely heralded as one of the worst games ever created, and then a scattering of games in the early 2000s. In fact, the last specifically Superman games consisted of one educational game in 2005, a loosely based movie pairing in 2006, and a handheld TV game (also in 2006). Superman has shown up in other DC ensemble games such as DC Universe Online, the Lego Batmans, Injustice, and Multiversus, but has never been graced with his own current generation game since the forlong days of the Nintendo DS, Playsation 2, and XBox 360. In fact, the last well documented attempt to make a Superman game occurred way back in 2008 that ended up getting canceled due to the economy crashing. In 2021, we were given some anecdotal insight into what the game would have been like thanks to the designer.
In 2007/2008, I was lead designer on a Superman game that was never released – because the economy crashed hard. It killed our publisher, our studio (Factor 5), and the game.
I have multiple unreleased games through my career, but THIS is the only one I mourn to this day…
Back in 2020, there were rumors that Rocksteady was developing a Superman game that was canceled just as quickly and there were only whispers of its existence with no real tangible information here or there outside of the rumors and shareholder reports. That hasn’t stopped the occasional fan mod from catching massive attention as there Unreal 5 demo reel that captured my eyes earlier this year.
Clearly the technology is there to capture the gargantuan scope of Superman’s man, as we have seen several other prominent characters across franchises get a chance to shine in the spotlight. But flight mechanics, the feeling of super strength, and a vast of array of superpowers a game does not make. I’m sure there is a significant part of the readership thinking to themselves, “well of course it’s difficult to make a video game surrounding a nigh-invulnerable, near omnipotent being with an outstanding moral compass and realistically only one or two weaknesses.”
In the last handful of games that Supes has been featured in, one he is a mentor NPC, one is a Lego game where the power and rules of brick building override everything, one is a non-canonical IP crossover fighter, and the most prominent is a dark-gritty interpretation of the DC universe that required all non-superpowered characters to take a special drug to not immediately die from the confrontation and also had Superman break bad.
I’m not going to argue that it’s easy to design around Superman, but as I continue to grow, there is something about the illegal immigrant journalist working on multiple fronts to make the world a better place that speaks to me. I think there are different vectors that could be taken to give Superman a proper game experience that can become synonymous with the character instead of the shambles of the N64 game.
As such, I have prepared three different treatments of pipe dreams of games that diverge from the familiar action-rpg in an open world that we have seen popularized over the years. While it is very much a formula that could work, I think there are other avenues that would better emphasize the interesting parts of the character and mythos.
A God of War Styled Superman/Superboy Action RPG
One of the main reasons I’ve been thinking about a game centered on a god-like character is largely because there was a recent release that featured an actual god character. With God of War: Ragnarok out in the world to rave reviews, I think it’s safe to say that gamers are more than willing to embrace a father-son action adventure game where the duo go up against a world ending scenario. Kratos and Aterus laid out the formula, and I think Clark and Johnathan Kent could carry the tradition forward.
Whether you have a father and son cleaning up Metropolis, or going on an epic space crawl fighting empowered entity across the cosmos, there is a plethora of opportunities for Superman and Superboy to get into shenanigans that would properly showcase their prowess and put them through the paces. Action-RPG is very much the genre that Superman naturally fits into, but by anchoring Superman in a much grander setting that Metropolis allows him to “truly let loose.”
And maybe as a treat, we do get a final showcase of Superman and Darksied to create the world of cardboard speech, but you could just as easily take the fight to Apokolips or War World, Brainiac in space stations, Bizzaro, Mongol, Starro. Hell, throw Lobo in there like a recurring boss across systems like Gilgamesh in the Final Fantasy V. The point stands if you can have an entire franchise devoted to a god-like entity journeying through mythological worlds while exploring his humanity, surely you can adapt to at least one game with a similar premise.
Metal Gear Solid, but the Legion of Superheroes
Keeping to the space theming for just a pitch longer, this one is probably a stretch, but the Legion of Superheroes Saturday morning cartoon strikes me as a solid foundation for a game. Young Superman gets pulled into the future to help corral the future Legion of Superheroes in the 31st century. But I’m going to take it a step further and bring it a criminally underused mechanic in the form of Metal Gear Solid’s base building operation.
Imagine, recruiting different heroes to the Watchtower, building a crew of heroes, and trying to set up the Legion for success as you invest in different research and cultivating a kinship among your crew. It feeds more into Superman, the tactician and the scholar, while also still providing ample opportunity for field research.
A Telltale Style Clark Kent/Lois Lane Centric Journalism Series
I know Telltale isn’t around anymore, but I really wish they were because after the duology of Batman games, I truly do think that team could make a phenomenal Superman game. The Telltale Batman did such an excellent job exploring the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman and placed the emphasis on the detective work and moral quandaries of vigilante work. That same framework would be absolute perfect for Clark Kent and Superman, with a healthy helping of Lois Lane.
Imagine, a five-episode run looking into the political policies of President Lex Luthor alongside his criminal enterprise. Imagine, looking at the issues of immigrants and refugees through the lens of one of the most iconic fictional immigrants/refugees. A dual story where you as Clark work with Lois in plain clothes on the ground seeking answers and occasionally dawning the blue fit to tackle more meteoric problems.
It becomes a game not about fighting things directly, but about how you want to tackle issues, the questions you want to ask to find the truth, and much like the Bruce/Bats dichotomy explored originally, lets you find the lines with Clark/Supes.
Maybe Tomorrow…
I’m just a fan spitballing, but I do hope that some company out there is thinking how to properly represent one of the most iconic characters in fictional in video game, because it’s long overdue and I know we can do it. I know it’ll be a struggle, but I’ll wait patiently till tomorrow.
Back with another film after 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, Luca Guadagnino brings us a screenplay adaptation that explores the evolution of oneself and the emotional ride to final acceptance. Based on a 2015’s novel Bones and All written by Camille DeAngelis and adapted by David Kajganich, the film follows Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell), an American teenager who has a condition that calls for cannibalism.
Set in the 1980s, we are first met with Maren as a seemingly normal teenage girl in a new school after a transfer. She easily meets a group of girls and gets invited to hang out after school at one of their houses. The after-school hang out leads to the sudden gory act of Maren biting and eating into one of their fingers, revealing her condition.
Taking off after the sound of shrieking horror, she begins to run home and there we discover more about her. Maren primarily lives in a single parent household with her father in an off grid location in a run-down home. She has had similar moments of cannibalism in her childhood that has caused them to move multiple times to start a new life, and this last time has caused her father to reach his limit. Waking up the next morning to find her father gone, Maren is left to figure it out.
Alone she is not. There are more “eaters” on her journey across the Midwest through characters like Sully (Mark Rylance) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet). Sully takes the c’est la vie approach and decided long ago that he was going to give in to his condition, an older gentleman whose abilities as an eater have only gotten stronger over time. Maren learns the ugly realities of being an eater but also gets an understanding of how he has come to terms with it. Most importantly he teaches her how to smell out other eaters, and that leads to meeting her love.
While at a convenient store, she is able to smell Lee as an eater and catches him in action. She realizes that they are one and the same. As the film progresses, more depth is provided about Lee and his upbringing with the condition and the effects it has had on his personal life. He has a severed relationship with this family, only keeping in contact with his sister after an incident with his cannibalism. It is not until he meets Maren that he begins to second guess his decision to leave everything he knew behind.
The director does a good job of making something so horrific such as cannibalism be met with empathy. Usually films that play with this theme are horror films made with the intent to scare its audiences, but in this film it serves a different meaning. The gory moments are not scary; they’re just an uncomfortable watch. Instead they are seen as a vice that challenges the morality of the characters, giving them human relatability.
To set this tone, Guadagnino made specific cinematic choices when adapting the screenplay. Eaters can physically move through the spaces because their presentation on the outside adapts to society. The characters are dressed in everyday wear for the majority of the time except during moments of cannibalism. Behind closed doors, the eating of their victims leaves them bloody and having to clean themselves up. There is a constant back and forth battle of having to put on a face when outside versus who they really are when no one is looking. Assisting with this is the setting of the film. “The ’80s were a time of great contradictions…I felt the period paralleled the internal contradictions of these characters, their quest for settlement and also the impossibility of such,” said Guadagnino in the film’s press materials.
Though described as a “love story” between Lee and Maren, you cannot help but focus on Maren’s journey. Throughout the course of the whirlwind romance between Maren and Lee it never stops being a reflection of her. As they travel across the Midwest eating victim after victim, Lee has no remorse while Maren feels guilt after discovering someone had a family. She grows uncomfortable realizing that she is seeing herself in him and how it has hindered her life. Now she has to make the decision between working on her condition to have a full life or giving in to the lifestyle of an eater.
Bones and Allis available in select theaters November 18, 2022, nationwide November 24.
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