Venom

Venom got a lot of bad reviews in the press. In fact, I asked a lot of friends and peers what they thought of the movie and most of them had mixed reviews. However, they still thought it was fun and 'good', albeit in a broad generalized way. I only read maybe two reviews before I saw it. I already knew most of the plot and details from friends but didn't know exactly how it would be displayed. I wasn't disappointed, I thought it was good. 

Tom Hardy's Venom is a kin to the common-man trope in many stories, be they science fiction (Phillip K Dick's characters), comic books (Peter Parker, nerd), or fictional Horatio Alger stories (stories of the great American canon). Tom Hardy is a reporter who's life goes to shit when he loses his job, his girl friend, and all ambition. Venom, a symbiotic form from space attaches to him during this time of crisis, not only that but he identifies with Hardy, saying, "where I'm from I'm a loser like you, but here 'we' can be something more." This is a further identification with the common-man trope, or in this case common-alien. 

Tom Hardy does a great Venom voice, deep and vicious with jokes sometimes and serious threatening behavior the next. Venom likes to eat tater tots and chocolate, which was kind of funny. Venom even eats people, biting their heads off, which of course freaks out Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy's character). I like the way Venom is portrayed here. Yes, he admits to being a 'loser', but he's also a bad ass character, a strong fighter, who develops a sort of labored love towards Eddie Brock, and even his girl friend, who when Venom takes control of her, kisses Brock as She-Venom, quite an intimate kiss. Oui la la. 

My biggest criticism of this flick is that the villains were boring and one dimensional. Donald Trump makes a better villain than any of the characters here. Venom has his evil tendencies, but in the end he becomes an anti-hero, willing to live, take care of, and be a willing part of Eddie Brock's life. First off, that bad guy who finds the symbiotic goo that is the Venom strains (there are millions of them, just like Venom), he's this Silicon Valley type Elon Musk guy named Carlton Drake. That guy is one of the worst villains I've seen in a Marvel movie. Elon Musk is actually much more of a d-bag villain, especially when he called a guy a pedo a while back. 

Anyways, this character was so generic it was laughable. They try to make it more interesting by giving him a symbiotic parasite too, named Riot. But Riot ends up being kind of generic too. Other than the fact that Riot and Venom have an epic fight to the death (with Riot and Elon Musk-alike getting blown up), there's not a thing interesting about these characters. The bad guys need to be better, have better motive, other than typical generalized ideology.  

Lastly, I would say that they captured Venom pretty well. The way he runs up walls check. The way he's like a glue that attaches to Tom Hardy's body check. His jump from Marvel Vs Capcom 2 check. His "we are Venom" characteristic voice-line check. They did Venom right. He comes across as bad ass. I thought the movie was bad ass, in the sense that the action was great, the voice lines were strong, especially the "have a nice life" line. The love interest is sort of down-played in this movie and my friends even said that the actors didn't have much chemistry. Its true, but I don't think the luke-warm relationship hurt the action-packed scenes or the exciting nature of the human-symbiotic relationship. 

As a kid I used to love reading Spiderman, Venom, Carnage, those three were some of my favorite superheroes, antiheroes, and villains, mostly because they're from the Spiderman universe and I always liked Spiderman. The Venom movie is a lot different from the comics but I would still say its does a decent job of not straying completely off base from the comics. In that sense, its a safe portrayal, ultimately a decent one of the classic antihero. 

Overall I think Venom is a pretty damn good movie. I thought a lot of it was humorous but it was also action-packed. This is a better movie than Ant-man and the Wasp, the last Marvel movie I saw. I recommend the movie to comic book fans, Spiderman fans, and Carnage fans for sure. Carnage even has a cameo after the credits so make sure to stay after the credits to see this ginger talk about "bringing carnage."  

Dead Pool 2

Finally got around to seeing Dead Pool 2 with a bunch of co-workers. It was a fun film, and had its moments. Here I'd like to go over the narrative and talk about the movie's best and most interesting moments. 

Basically Dead Pool (played by Ryan Reynolds) wants to kill himself. His girl friend was killed because of him, a bad guy killed her to take away what he loves most, the usual superhero sort of trope. So our guy has to find a new meaning in life and he finds that in this troubled mutant kid, goes by the nickname Fire Fist, or something like that. 

Fire Fist and Dead Pool end up going to jail after Dead Pool kills some people that were hurting the kid. Enter Cable, who's pretty much an anti-hero here. He says that the kid has to die because he grows up to become a killer after he gets his first kill (he was tortured at this home for mutants, plans on killing the guy in charge there), and he ends up killing Cable's daughter. The murdered family member thing, another popular superhero trope.

The kid makes friends with Juggernaut in prison and they cause a ruckus at the mutant home, where the kid is about to kill the schoolmaster (owner). Cable and Dead Pool agree to work together. Cable tells Dead Pool that if he can't stop the kid he's going to kill him. Dead Pool makes it his mission to stop the kid. 

In the end Dead Pool ends up getting a device that allows him to go back in the time, messing up the time stream. Dead Pool 3 looks even more fun now that we know he has this device. 

Now I'll go over the best and most interesting parts. The coolest thing about the fighting scenes for me was when Cable entered and was using futuristic cyberpunk weaponry. When he was being attacked by Juggernaut he was able to deflect physical attacks with this sort of orange cybernetic shield. His explosives and guns were super flashy and caused some major splash damage. 

The scene that introduces us to Cable was quite the fanfare. We see a dystopian world that reminds you of typical science fiction. And then he uses his time travel device. Two trips. One way. One back. That's it. 

Another scene I like action-wise was when Juggernaut created an earthquake when he was first set free. Now that is how Juggernaut should act. The kid's fire attacks were mage-like too, explosive fiery blast reminiscent of a fire mage a la video games. Also there's a fight at the end between Juggernaut and Colossus that has its moments. 

The most interesting scene was at the end where Dead Pool is dying and he ends up going to a kind of heaven, (which reminded me of speculative fiction) where he sees his murdered girl friend. They have a talk about how it isn't his time yet, and then they kiss. Although most of this movie is sort of a joke (and sometimes not funny) this part had a serious aspect to it that reminded me of some science fiction short stories that depict certain aspects of human relationships. It was good, and not corny like most of Dead Pool's scenes. The best thing I can say about this movie from seeing this part is that it had some human element, not just superhero flare. 

That's the best I can say about the movie. Ultimately its a movie that can be easily forgotten among a sea of Hollywood action and thriller flicks. But its not a bad theater experience for the beginning of summer.

Avengers Infinity War

Avengers Infinity War is a blast of a movie. Literally. Tons of repulsor blasts, magical projectiles, explosions, hand to hand combat, and more. Here I'd like to go over the good, the bad, and what I think could have been better. If you haven't seen the movie and care about spoilers then you should stop now.

First, the good. This movie has the Avengers, Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos' crew of minions and they all get good spotlight. Iron man, Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and the Guardians (Quill, Mantis, Bautista's character) take the fight directly to Thanos on his home planet while the others are busy doing other things like protecting the infinity stone carried by the Vision, on Wakanda. 

Black Panther, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Black Widow, Bruce Banner (not in Hulk form), and Scarlett Witch are all protecting Vision (and the stone) while simultaneously stopping a Thanos army invasion on Wakanada. 

"Evacuate the city. Engage all defenses. And bring this man a shield." -Black Panther

In addition, Thor gets a lot of good screen time. Fitting because after all, he is a god from Asgaard. Thor, Teenage Groot, and Rocket Racoon (or Rabbit as Thor calls him) all go to this planet to craft this legendary hammer from this Asgaardian dwarf, played by Peter Dinklage, called Stormbreaker. Once Thor gets the god-hammer he meets up on Earth in Wakanda to whoop ass. 

"Thank you sweet rabbit," Thor exclaimed happily. 

Everyone got good screen time although some of the minor characters just had short small moments. These characters include Black Widow, War Machine, Thano's minons, Captain America's robotic Hawk flying friend, and the Collector, who had one of the infinity stones. In terms of giving all the fan favorite characters good screen time the director did a fantastic job. I personally really enjoyed Doctor Strange as he is probably the mvp of the entire movie. 

In terms of pure action I loved the fight in the beginning between the wizards (Strange, Wong) with Iron Man against Thano's hulk monster and his skinny alien wizard. The magical projectiles flying around the screen (in Imax) looked particularly impressive. I always like to see more fantasy based magic projectiles as opposed to the standard hand to hand fighting combat or the typical projectile blasts. It looks sweet. 

Also, I'll have to say that when Thor arrived in Wakanda with the god-hammer Stormbreaker, ("That's a bit much," Rocket said) he drew lightning from it across the entire war landscape and decimated Thano's creature army to pieces. Pretty cool, it reminded me of the latest Thor movie where he murdered his sister when she broke out of hell. Good times.

Before we move on from all the great stuff about the film I must mention that although this is a dark villain movie the jokes were quality. From talking about ice cream, to "stop massaging the god man's muscles", to "have you seen that old movie aliens", and lastly "how long have you been there?" "An hour". The flow of the film would have been too ghastly if it were not for all of these quirky jokes from the cast of heroes. Its a nice, little touch. 

There are also emotional connections between the characters in this movie. More so than in the other Avengers films. When Thanos kills Gamora in order to retrieve the soul stone (Red Skull guides them to it, says they need a soul for a soul) that was a particularly sad moment. Also when Teenage Groot is about to die we've been told by directors that he saying "Dad" to Rocket Raccoon. The ending in general was quite catastrophic for the characters as well as the viewers. Its the end of the Universe man! 

Now for the bad. This movie only exudes one bad quality trait to me. The fact that the movie flows in a clunky way. The way everything moves around all the time as Thanos tries to retrieve all the infinity stones, its sort of all over the place. However, I don't think they could've done a better job because the point of this story is that everything is happening all over the place. They could've cut down on some of the fight scenes to make more meaningful dialogue and made the film shorter. If the film was shorter it wouldn't feel as clunky. 

Lastly, I must say that the movie is mostly good although I will debate any Marvel fan and say that its still super clunky and doesn't flow well. The first time you see it you will miss certain things not because you're not paying attention but because it doesn't flow well and your thoughts and eyes are focused on other parts. The seconding viewing I saw it, it was still clunky and didn't flow well. However, I still enjoyed it. Maybe even more the second time around (in Imax!). 

The thing is with these films is that yeah its cool they're going to destroy the Universe. That's exciting to all the fans and viewers. However, once you realize that it doesn't matter and that all of this crap is going to get relaunched eventually anyways, that's when the dream dies and you realize its just a movie for kids. 

However, its fun to be a kid sometimes and that's where Infinity War shines. Have fun with this film! 

Kid Gamora: Did you do it?
Thanos: Yes.
Kid Gamora: What did it cost?
Thanos: Everything. 

What are you playing this weekend? End of April Edition

Hey, I wanted to take the opportunity tonight to talk about video games! Its been a while since I've posted about gaming. Here's what I've been playing lately.

Overwatch: After putting in about 500 hours into this game I'm really progressing into a much better Mercy player. The higher up the ranks you go the harder the game becomes but there's a very gradual skill ceiling so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. The great thing about being a Mercy main in competitive? Everybody loves you!

Team Fortress 2: I used to be so bad at TF2 it was kind of pathetic. I've got about 200 hours put in and now I'm an Uber-God Medic (laughs). You know you're good when you're the only medic in a 12 player game and you're top of the scoreboard most of the time. My friend Griff (steam name) has about 8,000 hours and sometimes I play with his hardcore TF2 buddies, which sometimes includes famous players from back in the day, like Vexon (check him out on YouTube). When I play with this great players being a beginner medic with like .1 of the amount of hours they have, I just have to sit back and play my best. After all we're just doing pub casual games. Its super fun.

Warcraft III Frozen Throne: So I had been talking about playing Warcraft III for a super long time and I'd always attempted 1v1 matches but didn't really get anywhere. I took my friend Brian's advice and started doing teams, mostly 4v4 games. Brian used to be one of the top ten Warcraft III teams games players back in the day. He still plays to this day. And I'm finding improvement in my playing although it is still a steep learning curve. The main thing I like about this game as opposed to Starcraft is that the units and battles are smaller, with more focus on the hero play, like a moba. Heroes of the Storm anyone? Its pretty cool. I main Undead, really focusing on learning the race as best I can.

Heroes of the Storm: This has been a mainstay game for me since technical alpha. Still enjoying it. I don't enjoy ranked mode so much but unranked draft is my main hangout. I play most of the healers but I also dps with Nova, Guldan, and Illidan. My main character is Lt.Morales, of course I'm always the medic.

Starcraft Brood War: So I finally got back into Brood War ever since I bought the new and visually improved Starcraft HD. You can pick it up for as cheap as 15 smeckles. The game looks like a brand new baby, a shiny new coat that improves upon its outdated pathing and visual discolorations. Like in Warcraft III I play team games with a focus on the Zerg race. For the Swarm!

Marvel Vs Capcom 2: I've been playing this game for a long time with my buddies in real life. We play this more than Super Smash Bros now, its become a cult classic. My main team is Spiderman, Rogue, and Doctor Doom with a rotating roster of those three sometimes mixed with Magneto, Jill, and Jin. Its a true fighting game and takes a lot of skill to master the infinite combos.

World of Warcraft: So I resubbed to WoW and I've been enjoying pvp a lot. Its super fun. I'm even leveling a low level character with my friend Griff and we're doing a lot of low level pvp. Its surprisingly fun although difficult. Pvp  in WoW can be super tricky, especially at max level on my Holy Priest. I think Holy Priest might be the hardest class I've ever played in the game. I've got my work cut out for me on this one. Especially because I mostly just log on to pvp.

Honorable mention: My friend Gordon's Super Nintendo and N64 collection. We've been playing a lot of classic video games from Nintendo at my friend's house. They have nostalgic value as well as amazing replay-ability.

I play a lot of games but I also try to play in moderation with a rotation of the games so it doesn't get too stale. This is going to be a great weekend for gaming!

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite Revealed

So we've all heard about it and seen the trailer. There's going to be a new Marvel Vs. Capcom game called Infinite. If you haven't seen it check it out here. In the gameplay trailer you can see Iron Man and Captain Marvel squaring off against Megaman (X) and Ryu. They do some cool combos and show off the power of the Infinity Stones, which will be featured in the game. The Infinity Stones are these gems that give the users God-like powers. They're from the Marvel universe and they're important in the comics as well as the movies. Thanos has like five of those suckers.

"Captain Marvel has the time stone, which gives her the ability to dodge attacks, while Ryu has the power stone, which bathes him in a pink light and makes his punches even punchier." (Kotaku)  So these different stones will give them different abilities to turn the tide of battle.

The game has more of a straight Street Fighter feel by the looks of it rather than a Marvel Vs. Capcom play-style. Marvel Vs. Capcom is supposed to be more like a flurry cluster of crazy attacks and combos but this looks more paced and balanced-like Street Fighter V. The matches will be played 2v2 and there won't be assist attacks or combos where other characters can do an extra attack.

I am a huge Marvel Vs. Capcom fan  but I am a little disappointed by many aspects of the game already. For one thing we know for a fact there won't be any X-men characters because of licensing issues. So that tells me already that they're going to focus more on Street Fighter, Capcom, and other non X-men related Marvel characters. Also, there's the fact that they've changed it from 3v3 in Mvc3 and 2 to now only 2v2. I prefer the triple comp teams that can be made, it adds a lot of spice and variety to the series. Lastly, the fact that there's going to be no assists in the game pretty much means its going to be a straight up normal fighting game. However, I could be wrong. It could be great!    

Its due to be released sometime late next year on pc, xbox 1, and ps4. 

Deadpool movie

     Today me and the lads went to go see the Deadpool movie. I was not dissapointed. This movie is terrific, action packed, and contains an origin story that leaves the watcher sympathetic to the character. Deadpool isn't really seen as a hero or a villain, he's just a guy who's out for revenge against the guy that scarred his face. He was told that they were going to cure his cancer and turn him into a super hero but instead they fucked up his face instead (they being Ajax). In the end his cancer was cured and he did have super powers.
     He decapitates guys with his swords, guns them down with pistols, and isn't a bad fighter when it comes to hand to hand combat. The cool thing about Deadpool is that he virtually can't die. There were moments like when he was fighting Colossus (from the X-Men, a cameo) and his body just got crunched and turned into a lump of meat. But then he was able to regenerate his broken bones, it was awesome! Kind of reminded me of the Pillar Men from JoJo's Bizarre Adventures if you've ever that. I guess this is Deadpool's mutant abilities at work. All I knew about Deadpool before I saw this movie was that he was a cool Marvel character in Marvel vs Capcom 3, that he liked chimichangas and Spiderman, and that Ryan Reynolds played him in X-Men first class. Now here he is with his own movie! Let me break down the movie.
     Basically the movie goes in a backwards order which reminded me a bit of Pulp Fiction because the story wasn't a linear progression. Deadpool is out to kill Ajax, this baddie that forced a mutation on Deadpool by giving him non-stop torture. Don't ask me how constant torture somehow brings out the genes for super powers but that's how they explained it in this movie. Deadpool is seen as a jokey straight up killer but he actually loves his girl friend and his whole fight in this movie was for her. The story isn't anything great but the action packed scenes more than make up for it. This is a straight up action flick with a lot going on. There are moments when people get messed up horribly but I wouldn't call this a gory movie. However, this isn't a movie you should take a young kid to. There are decapitations, torture scenes, and boobs! Haha, but seriously this is rated R for a reason. If they went with a PG-13 rating this movie would not have been as great as it was. It's great to see something from the Marvel camp that isn't just PG-13 Avengers.
     When I watched this movie there was a sense that everything just flowed well. It was like a perfect super hero movie. Although you can't really call Deadpool a super hero. He's kind of his own kind of hero ya know? I really like that about him. He's not a bad guy necessarily but that doesn't stop him from being a killing machine. Colossus even kept saying that he would make an X-man out of Deadpool yet. So there's still hope for Deadpool to turn to the light side. Things to look forward to when watching this movie; Ryan Reynolds' great acting and hilarious banter, cool action scenes, the strip club scene (which was very random), and a unique origins story. This is how you do justice to a comic book character in film form. It's just that good. Go see this movie as soon you can! 
     Lastly, I've been playing Street Fighter V and the issues that the game had seem to have been fixed. I haven't played any matches online but tomorrow I'll try to play my friend online. I've kind of found an interesting character that I like, Necalli. I thought he was some kind of vampire at first but he's actually some kind of Aztec warrior. Which seems just as awesome! He's become my favorite character just today but I'll probably play a lot of Ryu as well to learn the basics. In addition, I'm looking forward to going to a Smash tournament tomorrow. I'm going to go ham as Zero Suit Samus. I was working on my tech skill, perfect pivots and teching. I've also been working on not rolling so much. I need to completely change my style to remove all my bad habits in order to play better at the competitive level. Wish me luck!

Street Fighter V

      So we're two days away from Street Fighter V being released. I'm planning on picking it up for PC on Steam. I couldn't get it on any other system because its only on PC and Ps4, and I don't own a ps4. I'm not sure if me or my brother will get an xbone or a ps4. However, fighting games on the PC have always been great fun. At one point I bought Marvel vs Capcom 3 and was really digging into playing fighting games (real fighting games, not smash). Later, I got Street Fighter IV Ultra (these are the xbox 360 versions) and gave that a try. Well, now I'm gonna play Street Fighter V. I hope its much better than IV Ultra was. I'm super hyped for this game and I even bought a fightstick (gaming pad with arcade buttons made for fighting games) just to get more into the actual feel of a fighting game. You really can't play a fighting game made for fightsticks with a regular xbox controller. Its just not the same. Plus the fight-stick is easier to play on than a controller, at least for me.
     A lot of my friends at work are all going to pick it up for ps4 and I'll be able to play with them because sf v is going to be a cross-over server game (ps4 and pc users can fight each other). This will be a first for the franchise and in my opinion will ensure that the game's community never dies. I can't wait till this game comes out! One of my friends said he will even help me out to learn the game and teach me how to play while giving me instructions via headset. It'll be great playing with friends and learning other fighting games other than Smash. I was playing Rivals of Aether and Skullgirls for a while but I haven't played Rivals in a while (since then they've released a new character). Also, I had to give my friend his fight-stick back and I don't like playing Skullgirls without it. I've heard that there's a little controversy in the community about Street Fighter V. Hopefully this one is better than IV. Definitely check this game out. It will be released on February 16.

So you want to be a Pro Gamer?

     Every kid that has a console or PC wants to be go become a pro gamer. The fact of the matter is that most people just don't have the time to go pro at gaming because of work and school, and just because of life in general. Here are the games I wish I could be a pro at in order of my favorites.
     1) Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm, this is easily one of the greatest games ever made, and clearly one of the greatest E-sports as well. What makes this game so great? It has a great single player campaign for casual gaming, as well as an amazing multiplayer experience for people who are competitive gamers. The joke is that the only good Starcraft players are Korean pro gamers, but there are many great American and European players as well. I used to follow all the pros. My favorites include MarineKingPrime(Terran), Scarlett(Zerg), Rain(Protoss), Jaedong(Zerg), Innovation(Terran), Maru(Terran), Flash(Terran), and Forgg(Terran). That's MarineKing in the picture, my favorite pro gamer. I used to play competitively but I ended up losing heart and giving up for about almost a year, which is where I'm at now. The highest I ever got in the online ranking system is top 8 Gold League. The rankings are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamon, Masters, Grandmasters. I don't think it takes much to progress but it does take a lot of skill to be in Masters and Grandmasters league, in my humble opinion. The cool thing about Starcraft is that there's humans (Terrans) and two alien races(Zerg and Protoss), and they all play very differently. All my current California friends said that "its not my type of game", but we all know that they just say that because they know they won't be great at it. Anyways, this would be my number one game I wish I could be a pro at. Could you imagine a pro Black American player going up against Koreans in Korea? It would be amazing and life changing in the E-sports community, like when Scarlett(a transgender girl) was going up against Koreans in the pro tourneys. I watch a lot of pro starcraft Korean tournament streams-like almost every night. My dream in life is to be a musician but sometimes it feels like my dream is to be starcraft II bonjwa(a player that dominates an era, winning a number of titles).
     2) Super Smash Brothers 4 for Wii U and 3ds, I chose Sm4sh over Melee because I haven't played Melee since I was in high-school. Let's face it;Sm4sh is just the better game. I feel like there are too many Melee fanboys who just haven't realized that its a dead game. I still love the game but I think Sm4sh has it all: more and better characters, better stage recovery, less edge guarding, better graphics and music, and dlc that patches the game as well as adds new content. Its the perfect Smash game at the moment. I'm a super competitive player and I main Fox, Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, Shulk, and Diddy Kong. I'm reaching that point where I'm getting better than my friends because I play it more than they do, even when we're not hanging out. I'm even going to be starting to go to weekly tournaments to test my skills. My win rate ain't amazing but its sitting at a cool 50% right now, which my friends say is good, but I've seen people online with like 67% winrate, which still isn't amazing but I think that's really good for just playing online in the ranking system called For Glory. My friends are still a good challenge for me at the moment but the more I play without them, the better I will get, and eventually I'll surpass them. Maybe I can even start placing at tournaments. I would say for me that right now, Sm4sh is my favorite game. It's only been out for a little while and I feel like the pros haven't figured out everything in it, so its a game that I have a chance at being great at. I have a bunch of favorite pros like ZeRo and M2K. This is my favorite game out right now.
     3) Heroes of the Storm, this is Blizzard's newest game, and arguably one of their best games ever made. I love how competitive it is, and how it lacks items, because that's mainly how it differs from other MoBa's like League of Legends and Dota 2. Another thing that makes it different is that experience is shared rather than just your experience that you get from killing minions and players. It's pretty nifty. You'd think these ideas would make for a rather casual experience but once you get to level 40 you can unlock ranked matches, which is super competitive. I would say winning in this game is an art and takes a lot of teamwork to make things happen. You can't really solo anything in this game. It's not like in League where you can solo lane stuff for ten minutes. The main thing I love about this game is the characters that come from World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and the Starcraft universe. It's awesome seeing characters like Nova, Thrall, Raynor, Kerrigan, and Illidan all fighting in the same game-almost like a Super Smash Brothers mash up, they probably got the idea from Smash. Blizzard has done it again! They've made another great game. Did I mention this game is free to play?
     4) Marvel Vs Capcom 3, this game is just one of those all time classic fighting games. It improves upon Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (which I have for Playstation!, its a collectors item),  because of enhanced graphics, and different/more characters. Also, the specials are a lot easier to perform in the third game, especially on Xbox360(which is what I have it for). I bought this game maybe a year ago and first I did was try to play it online. I got schooled. Once I realized I would have to work at it to get good I kind of put it down, only playing it with friends. One of my good friends is really good at it and wrecks me and my other friends mercilessly. When it comes to fighting games I know that once you know combos with one character you kind of learn how to do them with other characters very easily, but I still haven't gotten over that first learning curve. I really like this game because of the triple fighter teams. I usually go Ryu, Chun-Li, and Akuma, because I'm a big Street Fighter fan. Speaking of Street fighter.....
     5) Street Fighter IV Ultra, this is a game I bought on a whim because I was in Gamestop and my friend recommended that I get it over the regular Street Fighter IV game, because it comes with like 44 characters as opposed to like less than half than that. What can I say about this game? It's not like MvC3 at all because you only play as one character and when you die, you lose the fight. Specials are more complicated too. In fact, I have some trouble doing the specials in this game. I usually end up playing Ryu most of the time, but I also like Chun-Li and Ken. Again, I've only really played this game with my friends and we've had a blast playing it. I know its a super competitive game at tournaments and stuff. The graphics in this game are super up to date with current last gen consoles like ps3 and xbox360. I'm really bad at this game but I still find it amazing. I think eventually I will start playing it more, and as I get better I'll play it vs people online.
     6) Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, Black Ops III (coming out in November), and Ghosts, CoD is just one of those games where its do or die. You kind of either have it or you don't in shooting games in my opinion. But I do think that even if you are terrible at first, you can practice and become great at it, but you'll have to work at it everyday. In Advanced Warfare, I got to a point where I was doing extremely good, like getting first and second place in online ranked matches.The thing that's cool about CoD is that you can do all kinds of trickshots, quickscopes, hardscopes, and go ham with just about any kinds of guns that you want. Plus, the game is so unrealistic that it's just plain easy to shoot the guns, because basically they have no recoil, unlike other fps games where it feels like you're shooting something more a kin to a real gun. This is probably my favorite fps game franchise and I will definitely be getting Black Ops III this November. Right around that good ole time for turkey dinner!
     7) Counter-Strike Global Offensive, this game is also one of the biggest fps games, and one of the biggest E-sports. As it should be. Cs has been on the scene in pc gaming like since I was in highschool, so this goes back to 2004, maybe even before that with the original Counter Strike Source I believe. This game plays much faster CoD, has no aiming down the sights or scopes(except when using a sniper rifle), and maps created by the players. Another thing I like about this game is that the characters run around faster than in Call of Duty, there's no sprinting at all and it has a faster flow to it. There's a lot of big money in this game as an E-sport too, same with CoD. The most fun I've ever had playing this game is setting and disarming the bomb game mode. It's pretty neat.
     8) Speed running games, there isn't really any E-sports potential for speed running games but there is a lot of skill and people will watch your stream if you are a great speed runner. Games that I think that would be cool to speed run are the usual suspects: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Final Fantasy VII, Megaman series, Sonic the Hedgehog series, Earthbound, Final Fantasy I,II,II,IV,V,VI Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade, Xenogears, Xenosaga series, Tales of Fantasia, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG, Mass Effect series, Halo series, and Zelda A Link To The Past. I have a lot of mainly Super Nintendo(quite possibly my favorite system even though I never owned it) stuff I want to play.
     Lastly, that concludes all the games that I wish I was pro at. There's a lot of them. Technically speaking, if I wanted to be a master at any said one of them I would have to focus on one, two, maybe three of them at the most. Any more than that and I would be going straight into filthy casual territory, if you catch my drift. I don't think Starcraft pros play League of Legends(a game that didn't make the cut for this list) and shit like that. I think they focus on Starcraft for the most part to keep up their skills. It's like doing anything really, you do it a lot and often enough, and you become very good at it. Right now I would say I'm focusing on Super Smash Brothers 4, but I'm also playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm. Some people I know have said that they don't think competitive gaming could ever be considered a sport. To them I say they're wrong. E-sports has already proven itself to network companies, the internet, and in some aspects the world (because of the internet:Twitch, YouTube, HitBox, etc). Plus, there is big money to make in gaming because of E-sports. Without pro gaming we wouldn't have people who have quit their 9-5's just to dedicate all their time to streaming video games. And without the great fans of E-sports there would be no money for all of this. This has become one of the biggest subcultures, this being gamers. Being a gamer today isn't considered as nerdy as it used to be say in the 1980's. I think the influence of video games on movies, mass media culture, and the internet is very obvious. If only I could find work in the gaming industry doing something regarding E-sports, being a pro gamer, or working with pro gamers, that would be where it's at. Hell, I would even settle for working at a company like Blizzard. Here's a funny little video for ya-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4w7UZV3NA.