Year of Critique

Ōkami Publisher: Capcom Review: Anybody who has spent a decent amount of time talking to me about video games in the past knows that the "The Legend of Zelda" series is not only my favorite Nintendo series, but possibly my favorite video game franchise of all time. When I heard then that there was a game that closely followed the structure and style of "The Legend of Zelda" but with a traditional Japanese art style, I was incredibly excited. I purchased the game right away for the Nintendo Wii in 2014 and intended to play it as soon as possible. This was unfortunately, like many of the games I have been meaning to get around to, right around the time I stopped playing single player games in favor of multiplayer ones and as such this game fell by the wayside in a sea of "plan to play" games I thought I would never actually get around to. Now though it has been released on the Nintendo Switch in glorious HD and I have been finding value again in ...

The King's Speech Director: Tim Hooper Review/Critique: To stay interesting and engaging while remaining faithful and believable, I see this as the biggest challenge facing any long form story based on real events. This is especially true for a story as seemingly tame as " The King's Speech. " Although I of course expected the movie to succeed at keeping me engaged throughout, due to its popularity, I had doubts about how realistic it would feel in comparison to its real world counterpart; however, as a movie  based on real events  " The King's Speech " is an absolute success. I figured there was no way a film with as straightforward a plot as "a man helps his King learn to overcome his speech impediment" could grip me without pushing the boundaries of believability, but this film managed to do so incredibly well. It has its fair share of "Hollywood moments" that stuck out even moreso because of how non-hollywood the rest...

In the Court of the Crimson King King Crimson Review: In a failed attempt to diversify the type of music I listen to for my year of critiques, I've now listened to two of the most famous progressive rock albums of all time in the span of five months. What's cool though about the blanket that is prog-rock is that you can listen to two albums under its umbrella and go from a broad introspective listen to getting punched in the face followed by Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. This has very much been my experience listening to  " In the Court of the Crimson King" , following " The Dark Side of the Moon " as I came to learn that these two albums, and the prog-rock genre as a whole, is much more diverse than I could've expected .  " The Dark Side of the  Moon " was an easily digestible, likable album that felt just introspective enough to make you ponder existence but not so out there that you awaken from the simulation that is your ...

Hello everyone! We are well into June which means it is time to divulge into my picks for June. The Lord of the Rings season is over which means everything is back to normal and the themes are no longer going to be centered around any series in general. The theme I have chosen for this month is  Space , let's get into the picks! Album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust Why I chose this Album: An incredibly famous album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust is what launched David Bowie into stardom. I have never listened to any David Bowie album in its entirety before, and as he is one of the most culturally relevant figures in modern society it is a stain on my back to say the least. Therefore, I wanted to listen to one of David Bowie's albums this year and the theme of space was the perfect month to do so. Many of David Bowie's albums could have worked fine as his central character Ziggy Stardust acts as a messenger for extraterrestrials - but I chose this one ...

Wolfenstein II Bethesda Softworks Review/Critique: As I stated in my picks for May, I am not a big fan of the FPS genre. In fact, to my knowledge, I have never actually played an FPS game to completion. That makes Wolfenstein II the first FPS game I have ever completed and in all honesty, although the rating may be a three out of six, I was actually pleasantly surprised with how much fun I actually had playing the game. Now before I get into the review, a quick aside. I want to try something a little bit different for this review, so bear with me and let me know if you like it more than what I have been doing before for my video game reviews. I would super appreciate feedback! ...          Wolfenstein II was a game I enjoyed far more than I expected to. Maybe it's just because the idea of an FPS game set in an alternate timeline where the Germans win World War II is an inherently fun one... I don't know, but something definitely clicked for me...

Pan's Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro Review:  While Guillermo Del Toro may be an incredibly famous director nowadays, known for his super out there artsy fartsy films, there was a time when he was little known - at least in the American public eye. He certainly wasn't a nobody, but if you asked most Americans if they'd heard the name before, they would say no. That is until this movie came out. Pan's Labyrinth is one of the most famous foreign films ever made, and pretty much single-handedly launched Guillermo Del Toro into the spotlight of modern film making. What struck me as odd about this film though right off the bat is that even though every single one of my friends had heard of this movie before, close to none of them had seen it. One of them even contested that the movie was in Spanish since "the film has David Bowie in it." So yes while most of my friends had heard the name " Pan's Labyrinth " before, they had absolutely no ide...

Through Silver in Blood Neurosis (1996) Review: Through Silver in Blood is an album I certainly did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. I'm not the type of person to say that I dislike any particular genre of music, but I'd be lying if I said metal is something I choose to listen to in my free time. In addition, when I saw that this album was 70 minutes long and that the genre is one I hardly listen to, I started dreading the thought of listening to this album in its entirety. So - I decided I would break my rule and just put this album on in the background while I did other things. I quickly found that I had set myself an impossible task as this album requires more attention to listen to than any other I've ever heard.          Through Silver in Blood is a war album. Not a glorified war album, the real stuff and man does it deliver on that idea. This is undeniably the most haunting album I have ever listened to. It transported me to another ...