3 Jan
2015 is off and kicking, already delivering quality movies and videogames right here in Australia less than a week in! It’s going to be an incredible year for entertainment media, but if you missed any of my countdowns wrapping up the year that was 2014, here are the links to every one:
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2 Jan
My final list for the year was also by far the hardest for me to order. 2014 was an insanely good year for movies, particularly the big budget ones. It was easily my favourite year for movies overall since I started this blog, because for the first time ever there were so many high quality films from which to choose that I could genuinely ignore all those awkward early year films that technically count as 2013 movies in the United States. All thirteen of the films on this page can be counted worldwide as 2014 releases, and that is just so good.
I have my regrets about 2014 at the movies – I didn’t get to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, Whiplash, Bad Neighbours or 22 Jump Street, didn’t find enough time at the end of the year to watch Snowpiercer, and to be honest I’m kinda bummed I missed 300: Rise of an Empire. But overall I hit a pretty good chunk of my movie targets throughout the year and I stand by this list. I wrote full reviews for the vast majority of these movies, so please check those out via the links provided if you want further information on my thoughts. This has been a lot of fun once again. A happy new year to all!
If Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs Shark was an indication of his offbeat comedy promise, What We Do in the Shadows is an uproarious confirmation of his talent. The movie has its cake and eats it too as far as vampire movie tropes, cleverly populating its downtown Wellington apartment from hell with vampires from different centuries, each one making use of a different cliche. Jermaine Clemente of Flight of the Conchords fame and newcomer Cori Gonzalez-Macuer are hilarious every time they appear on screen, as is Rhys Darby in a memorable werewolf cameo. Hilarious viewing.
FULL REVIEW: HERE
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1 Jan
And so it is, on the first day of an impossibly exciting new year, that we arrive at the ‘big two’ to round off the year that was 2014. This is my top ten favourite videogames released in Australia in 2014. For a game to qualify for this list I need to have either finished it or played at least five hours – whichever comes first (yes, that does eliminate a lot of really good games – we aren’t all superhumans). For clarification’s sake, significant game remakes count – “remasters” do not. So no, Final Fantasy X HD doesn’t count, because it’s a beat-for-beat upscaled port of a decade-old game.
I tend to define myself nowadays by playing as many games as possible, even if that means I only get to play a small slice of each title, just so I can have some sort of opinion on them and be part of a wide gaming conversation. Because I live for that stuff. But these are the games I actually played, and I mean really played, in 2014. When your free time dries up and you need to be more selective with where you put it, as mine did in 2014, your tastes as a gamer tend to boil down to a more easily definable quantity. And when I look at this list of ten games, there is an overwhelming pattern that shows up.
With maybe one or two exceptions, every game on this list falls into one of two categories: heavily story-driven playable narratives, and games where multiplayer interaction is the single defining trait. I hadn’t realised it until I wrote up this list, but it seems I am looking for experiences that bring people together above all else these days, and when that can’t happen, I’m drawn to well-written stories. We’ll see if the glorious slate of huge-name 2015 releases changes that. But for now, please enjoy. The platform on which I played each entry is in parentheses.
Among other things, 2014 was the year that I finally attempted to quantify my appreciation for Nintendo’s many wonderful franchises, and when the main series Pokemon games ended up on the top of that list, being forced to look at that “number 1” next to its name gave me pause. My lifestyle and priorities have changed recently, as they tend to in, you know, life, leaving me with very little time to devote to the competitive battling scene that has defined the last decade of my Pokemon playing existence. Thus I feared that I would begin Pokemon Omega Ruby and get next to nothing out of the experience, and yet its almost as if Game Freak saw this coming, because the game is amazing, boasting some of the best use of the 3DS’ StreetPass feature I’ve ever seen, giving new playthroughs fresh life with the DexNav and adding just enough extra subtlety to an already half-decent narrative to keep it engaging right up until its genuinely stellar post-game content begins. And of course, it’s still an absolute ball to play with and alongside friends.
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31 Dec
I’m not going to lie – this is a list I do mostly for my own amusement, as I know that K-Pop fans who actually devote the time to listening to albums are kind of scarce. And yet, if you’re reading this, then you are either one of those rare people, or you’re at least curious. In any case, please make yourself at home, sit back and relax as I present to you my ten favourite major album releases in Korean pop music over the course of 2014. In my humble opinion there was a decent amount of good stuff to be found this year.
The list is split into two top fives – one for Mini Albums (essentially EPs) and one for Full Albums, which qualify when they contain eight or more tracks.
I’m sure it isn’t an original expression of opinion to say that the only thing holding up the overall quality of Girls Generation’s non-Japanese album output over the last several years is the work of TaeTiSeo, also known as “What happens when you distill a nine-member group down to its three best / most complementary voices”. Indeed the second album from the SNSD sub-unit is a strong sophomore effort that only falls short of their 2012 debut Twinkle by virtue of having one less track. Holler sees Taeyeon, Tiffany and Seohyun harmonise their way around a handful of vocal showcase songs that push their range and certainly do no harm to the future prospects of these three superstars of Korean pop. The mid-tempo ballads are there, as expected, but Holler also ratchets up the tempo more than Twinkle did, resulting in the highly enjoyable Stay, Eyes and Adrenaline, not to mention a general ‘all seasons’ feel.
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30 Dec
Here’s my favourite annual list once again – my personal top ten movie scenes of the year. These are the moments within 2014 films that drew real reactions from me, mostly either of the teary-eyed or the “That was so sick!” nature. Even if they come from otherwise poor movies, I will still remember these cinematic moments, and if they come from otherwise good movies, well those movies just go up a level and look all the better for it.
Naturally, this is the most spoileriffic list of them all, so please proceed with caution.
Jeez, I mean – just… Just LOOK at that shot. Badass doesn’t even begin to describe the moment when Godzilla finally bests the “MUTO” menace in his 2014 return to the big screen. It almost makes up for all the flaws in the rest of the movie. Almost.
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25 Dec
A very merry Christmas to all! I’m celebrating with the return of another list that debuted last year – my personal opinion on how the seven major videogame consoles stacked up against one another in 2014, with sales successes taken out of the equation. I like to think I played a decent amount of everything relevant to this list in 2014, so hopefully I’m qualified for a balanced opinion. It is still an opinion, though.
Once again, the two biggest factors that go into ordering this list are overall user experience and quality of 2014 games released on the console. Exclusive games are given priority over platform-agnostic ones unless there is a significant difference in functionality and playability between versions of a game. Also, because a PC doesn’t really count as a console, I may mention certain games as “exclusives” even if they also appear on Steam.
The short-lived era of Western-developed “Triple A” games for the Playstation Vita appears to be over after just two years in the wild. However, it’s still my favourite console on which to play games. Portable, sleek, very pretty and supported by a near-constant stream of high quality smaller titles and big Japanese games, I spent an awful lot of time with my Vita in 2014. Sony actually released two new models of the Vita hardware this year – the even more convenient if slightly less visually capable PS Vita Slim in June, and then the rather odd but quite cool Playstation TV last month (which I reviewed on this site). It may have been completely missing a universally eye-catching new exclusive game, and its operating system may look near-identical to the 2012 launch version, but there were plenty of reasons to love the Playstation Vita in 2014 and it easily slides into my console Top 5 this time around.
21 Dec
And so it is that we are already at the end of another year. You know what that means – I lose the last two weeks of my year in a frantic haze of writing up ten carefully pre-considered Top Ten countdowns, focusing on videogames, movies and K-Pop music. I wouldn’t have it any other way, because this is the most wonderful time of the year. I look forward to helping you revisit some of the finest pieces of entertainment released over the last twelve months, whether you agree or disagree with my particular choices. I hope you’ll sit back, relax and enjoy a pleasant read or ten.
This is my third year doing this and I feel a lot more settled in my approach than I did in 2013, opting to bring back all ten of the specific types of countdowns I ran last year. In fact, just like last year, you won’t see any movie-related countdowns until about halfway through, to allow for me to catch the Boxing Day Australian opening of Disney’s Big Hero 6 before I sit down and finalise my film lists. We begin in about 24 hours with a real downer, my top ten general entertainment disappointments of 2014. See you then!
17 Oct
It may have taken me far, far longer than I initially thought it would to complete, due to a drastic change to my lifestyle that has seen a lot of my free time just evaporate, but I’m pretty happy with the order on which I decided for my Top 30 Favourite Nintendo Franchises here on Vagrant Rant. If you just want a quick glance at the whole list, well here you go:
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30 F-Zero
29 Yoshi Series
28 Pullblox
27 Kid Icarus
26 Pokemon Rumble
25 Luigi’s Mansion
24 Wii Sports
23 Fire Emblem
22 Pokemon Home Console Battle Series
21 Kirby Main Series
14 Jul
It’s time to take stock of the amazing movies of 2014 thus far on the 25th episode of the Mega Ultra Blast Cast. We three nominate our personal frontrunners for movie of the year to complement our half-yearly game conversation on the previous episode, leaving room to discuss the gaming/movie news of the hour, the awful state of Shane’s room, yet another Kingdom Hearts argument, the apparent game drought of the moment and why I won’t play Hearthstone. It’s MUBC. It’s “slick” and “focused”. Yes.
If you feel so inclined, go for a run, take a scenic drive, jazz up your afternoon commute or just curl up on the couch and play some games while you listen to the opinions of three hyperactive Sydneysiders.
You can play the whole episodes right off this page if you like:
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Or you can go to the Soundcloud site/app and listen from there:
https://soundcloud.com/mega-ultra-blast-cast/mubc-25-mid-year-movie-madness
(To download and listen offline, follow the link and then click the download tab)
As always if you enjoy what you hear please share the cast with your friends – Until next time!
26 Dec
Merry Christmas everyone! Here’s a new kind of list that I can see myself coming back to next year. It’s a smaller list to counteract the length of the last one.
There were many videogame platforms vying for the attention of consumers in 2013, which was overall a pretty spectacular year for memorable gaming experiences. Some of these consoles struggled on the sales charts more than others, but most of them enjoyed at least a few worthwhile game releases. So what if someone were to rank them with sales factors out of the equation, based on user experience and, above all, the quality of their game releases throughout the year? An answer to that question, albeit a subjective one, is coming at you right now.
Of the two exciting “next-gen” consoles released worldwide at the end of the year, the Xbox One probably had the slight edge in terms of early game library. The excellent visual showcase Ryse impressed many right from day one, despite its repetitive combat mechanics, while Dead Rising 3 by all accounts fixed many of the problems the series has suffered from since its inception and Forza 5 leveraged the power of the console to great effect with its hyper-realistic car models and innovative “Drivatar” AI augmenting system. Peggle 2 followed soon after launch and received great critical acclaim, with Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare and Titanfall to follow early next year. Its current position is remarkable given the hate thrown its way in the middle of the year, when it was looking like quite a different beast.
Vagrant Rant 