The New Mutants

As someone who had been watching a lot of superhero movies at the time, the idea of a superhero horror movie sounded interesting to me when I learned of The New Mutants, one of Fox’s later installments in the X-Men film series. However, while the quality of Dark Phoenix had nothing to do with Disney’s acquisition of Fox, The New Mutants unfortunately did, which resulted in it being the last of the X-Men films to be released. Although production went smoothly for an April 2018 release, things got a bit dicey when the merger occurred, with planned reshoots being continually delayed until the film was declared complete without any having been done at all. On top of this, the COVID-19 pandemic affected distribution plans, with Disney initially planning on a streaming release before changing their minds and finally giving it a theatrical run in August 2020. As it stands, while the final product is surprisingly decent considering the circumstances, it serves as an example of what can happen when your project becomes a crossfire victim of a corporate merger.

Resident Evil 3 (2020) (PS5)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil 2 (1999) and Resident Evil 3 (2020).

Following the success of the original Resident Evil 2, Capcom put a number of Resident Evil projects in development to capitalize on its success. One of these projects was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, which was developed as a standalone expansion to the story to the story of Resident Evil 2 and, after a rough development period that saw a number of concepts altered or scrapped, launched the very next year in 1999 (incidentally, this also led to Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami leaving Capcom). Later, in 2019, Capcom would officially announce a remake simply titled Resident Evil 3, though it was developed at the same time as the remake of Resident Evil 2. Like its predecessor, the remake launched to critical acclaim in 2020, but not without criticisms for its length and the extent of the changes made from the original.

After playing the remake of Resident Evil 2, the next natural step was playing Resident Evil 3. Like with Resident Evil 2, I did so through the 2020 remake, specifically the free PS5 upgrade, out of cost and accessibility. As such, I have no experience with the original release and can’t personally attest to the impact of any of the noted changes. That said, while flawed, I still had a blast from start to finish.

Katamari Damacy Reroll (PS4)

 

With the increasing complexity of the gaming landscape at the time, director Keita Takahashi created Katamari Damacy with the intent of creating something simpler that was also fun, though he had difficulty getting it off the ground due to him being in Namco’s art department at the time. When the game first released for the PS2 in 2004, his efforts paid off, spawning a long-running franchise across multiple console generations, only for it to becomes largely dormant following Touch My Katamari on the PS Vita in 2012 before coming back into full swing in 2020 with Katamari Damacy Reroll, a remaster of the original game for then-modern hardware. When I first played the original game on the PS2, I was instantly hooked by its simple, yet addictive nature, leading to it becoming one of my all-time favorite series. Due to the large gap of time following the PS Vita game, I became instantly excited by Katamari Damacy Reroll (Reroll) when it released for the Switch, but ended up holding out until it received a PS4 release, as it was my preferred platform anyway since I more heavily associate the series with the PlayStation brand, though the timing of its release led me to not play it until recently when its sequel, We Love Katamari, received a remaster of its own. After having not played the game for so long, Katamari Damacy Reroll served as a great reminder of why I loved the series in the first place.

Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time

 

Note: This review contains spoilers for Samurai Jack.

As an avid Cartoon Network watcher growing up, one series that I consistently tried to watch every Friday, and one that would consider one of the network’s greatest shows, was Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack, about a time-displaced Japanese samurai trying to get back to the past to defeat an evil entity known as Aku. When the series didn’t make it that far in its initial run, with the IDW comic holding me over in the interim, I was excited when [adult swim] finally brought it back more than a decade later for a fifth and final season to give it proper closure, a season which I found ultimately satisfying. When I heard about a new video game based on the series, Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, and that it would take place during the final episode, I eagerly played it after a lengthy wait from Limited Run and ultimately enjoyed it, which then led me down a Cartoon Network nostalgia trip. Upon going through another nostalgia trip, I decided to revisit the game and found it to be just as good on my second playthrough as I did the first.

Destroy All Humans! (2020) (PS4) - Ich Will

Destroy All Humans! is a game I was aware of at the time it first came out in 2005, including seeing it in store displays, so a vague interest in it was always somewhere in the back of my mind. The announcement of the 2020 remake from THQ Nordic, however, was when I felt more committed to actually checking it out through said remake, thanks in part to the announcement trailer’s expert use of “Ich Will” by Rammstein. Due to a number of factors though, I didn’t get around to playing it right away, though what pushed me to play it as soon as I could was listening to a physical CD of the original game’s soundtrack that I found in the wild. I was then pushed even further when, in that brief window of time, Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed, a remake of the 2006 sequel, was announced. After finally getting around to it, I found the Destroy All Humans! remake to be a flawed, yet ultimately satisfying experience.

Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition

When I first heard about Spirit of the North, I was intrigued by the Iceland landscape-inspired visual style and the playable fox protagonist, which happened to line up with a couple other fox-themed games I was interested in at the time (the others being The First Tree and Endling). I didn’t play it when it came out on PS4 because there were a number of other games coming out at the time, however I was reminded about the game when the PS5 re-release, Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition, was announced, which I eventually received as a gift. I generally enjoyed my time with it, though it’s not without problems, among them how it isn’t the best representation of what the PS5 can do.

The Pathless (PS5)

Having played Giant Squid’s first game, Abzû, the announcement of their follow-up game The Pathless instantly grabbed my attention, as they had proven themselves to me that they could retain the spirit of thatgamecompany’s output. As for playing the game, I opted for a physical edition of the PS5 version through iam8bit as a way to get some early mileage out of the system. While I did find it an overall worthy successor to Abzû, it did feel a little repetitive at times.

Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train

While Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (aka Demon Slayer) had modest success when it started publication in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2016, the strength of its 2019 anime adaptation by Ufotable made it explosively popular, enough to make it the ninth best-selling manga series of all time. This popularity helped feed the box office sales of a pre-planned film, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train (aka Mugen Train), which made $500 million on a budget of $15.8 million and broke several box office records, including both the high-grossing anime and Japanese film of all time. The worldwide box office number also made it the highest-grossing film of 2020 in spite of its release during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, which made it the first non-Hollywood production to top the annual box office.

Of course, due to the pandemic and a lack of a vaccination at the time, I hadn’t seen Mugen Train during its theatrical run in the US and tried to wait for a Blu-ray release of the English dub, as I had viewed the first season of Demon Slayer through a Toonami broadcast. When they hadn’t announced a Blu-ray for months, however, I caved and bought the digital version of the English dub through Amazon Prime. During my viewing, I had the unique opportunity to watch it alongside others who hadn’t seen the anime and concluded that it’s definitely a film worth watching in more than one sense.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (PS4)

Last year, the Kingdom Hearts series concluded the long-running Dark Seeker Saga with Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind, which also included a glimpse at the series’ future. Although no one knew how the series would continue from there, it’s safe to say that few expected the announcement of a rhythm game, Melody of Memory (MoM), as the first post-Kingdom Hearts III (KHIII) title. Upon its announcement, Tetsuya Nomura also revealed that it went into development at the same time as KHIII and would serve primarily as a celebration of the series’ iconic music. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure about actually playing the game right away after playing the demo, but the knowledge that it also contained new story content intrigued me enough that I picked it up during a sale. Suffice to say, while the gameplay felt fresh, I made the right decision not buying MoM at full price.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run

As a juggernaut of TV animation, SpongeBob SquarePants is no stranger to the silver screen. The first feature, aptly titled The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, released in 2004 around the peak of the show’s popularity, followed eleven years later by a sequel, Sponge Out of Water. The third movie, Sponge on the Run (originally subtitled It’s a Wonderful Sponge), would have a comparatively rocky release, however. Though Paramount originally planned a full theatrical release, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced them to reconsider the distribution, including at least one release date change. Eventually, the film got a domestic theatrical release exclusively in Canada, followed by an international Netflix release a few months later and a US release in March 2021 exclusively through the Paramount+ streaming service (formerly CBS All Access). This is how we viewed the film once we could access the service, though we mostly did so since Paramount hyped it as their main draw. While an admiral attempt at expanding on the series’ lore, Sponge on the Run is ultimately underwhelming, especially for those who grew up with the show’s first three seasons.

Watch Dogs: Legion (PS5)

Among Ubisoft’s more recent franchises, a relatively lesser-known one that still gets attention is Watch Dogs, which revolves around hacking mechanics and deals with issues of technology. While not my favorite series, I liked it enough that I played Watch Dogs 2, which I found better than the original Watch Dogs, and felt curious after the reveal of the third entry, Watch Dogs: Legion, at E3. However, I still had my reservations and post-release events reaffirmed my choice to avoid pre-ordering it, since its price got halved in only a month. Still, I picked it up for the PS5 as an excuse to use the system and found my chance later, only to walk away wondering if this franchise still has a future.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer (PS4)

Around the release of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace came a cavalcade of licensed games to cash in on the hype, many of them aimed at children, with varying levels of quality. Arguably the one that best stands the test of time is Star Wars Episode I: Racer, a racing game inspired by the Podracing sequence seen in the film proper. Though this game originally released on the Nintendo 64 system, I have fond memories of playing the PC port as a kid, for which I still have my original copy, and so I was excited when a modern re-release of the game was announced, later picking up a physical copy of the PC reissue and the PS4 port from Limited Run games along with the PS4 port of its sequel, Star Wars Racer Revenge. After finally receiving my copy of Episode I: Racer in the mail, I decided to revisit the game through the PS4 version and found myself having a blast with it despite some technical hiccups with the port.

Stubs - Mank

Mank (2020) Starring: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Arliss Howard, Tom Pelphrey, Charles Dance. Directed by David Fincher Screenplay by Jack Fincher. Produced by Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth, Douglas Urbanski. USA Black and White Run time: 131 minutes. Biography, Historical.

Hollywood films about Hollywood always run the risk of being too inside baseball for the average viewer. It gets more so when the subject matter is 80 years old, as it is with Mank, a biographical film about Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldham) a screenwriter on Citizen Kane (1941), or as the film purports, the writer on the film. Based on a claim, and some would say discredited one, by Pauline Kael in her 1971 New Yorker article Raising Kane that Welles did not deserve screenwriting credit, the screenplay was written by Jack Fincher, a little-known screenwriter, whose son turned out to be film director David Fincher.

Stubs - The Trial of the Chicago 7

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) Starring: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Flaherty, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Eddie Redmayne, Noah Robbins, Mark Rylance, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong. Directed by Aaron Sorkin. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Produced by Stuart M. Besser, Matt Jackson, Marc Platt, Tyler Thompson. Run Time: 130 minutes. Color. USA Political, Historical, Drama.

This has been a year like no other when it comes to films in theaters. The bottom line is that there hasn’t been any worth risking one’s life to see. Not that there haven’t been good movies released but 2020 will be remembered as the year when a big release would go straight to streaming more often than not. Case in point, The Trial of the Chicago 7. Originally conceived as a theatrical release with none other than Steven Spielberg at the helm, Paramount Pictures would sell all distribution rights to Netflix when a profitable theatrical release seemed out of the question (it did get a short theatrical release before disappearing behind Netflix's paywall). Say what you will but putting a film on a streaming service does limit who can see the film, especially since downstream release windows are pretty much broken.

New Super Lucky's Tale (Xbox One) - Luckier Than Ever

The original Lucky’s Tale was originally released as a launch title for the Oculus Rift in 2016, however what prevented me from playing it, despite it catching my interest, was my disinterest in the platform itself in favor of PlayStation VR. The game did, however, receive a sequel in 2017 in the form of Super Lucky’s Tale for the Xbox One, as a launch title for the system’s Xbox One X counterpart, which I actually was able to play. While I generally liked what I played, I did have some issues with it, plus I bailed on it when the final boss proved to be too difficult for me.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Following the success of Marvel’s Spider-Man from Insomniac, a stand-alone follow-up game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, was announced as a PS5 launch title, alongside a digital-only PS5 remaster of the previous game. Having liked the first game and gotten to like Miles Morales as a character through Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I was curious to see Insomniac’s take on him and how they were going to keep fans sated until they release a full sequel to the first game. While Miles Morales also launched on PS4, I weighed my options and went for the PS5 version, helped by the Ultimate Edition (which comes bundled with a voucher for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and bonus content) being included in a PS5 launch bundle from Costco, which also included an extra controller.

The bundle itself took much longer than expected to arrive, an annoyance I wasn’t alone in experiencing, though once it finally arrived, I didn’t get to actually play the game until receiving it as a Christmas present. After finally getting around to it, I found it a worthwhile experience despite its short length.

Bugsnax (PS5)

When Bugsnax was first revealed during E3 2020, it got a lot of traction online for its characters and premise, but it didn’t fully capture my interest at the time. When I got a free PlayStation 5 copy through PlayStation Plus, however, I figured I might as well check it out while I still had some curiosity. I soon discovered that while it’s a creative and lighthearted title on the surface, it actually hides a secret so horrifying that you’ll never view it the same way again.

Stubs - Wonder Woman 1984 - This Year We Need a Hero

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen. Directed by Patty Jenkins. Screenplay by Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, Dave Callaham. Based on Wonder Woman by William Moulton Marston. Produced by Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder, Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Stephen Jones. USA. Color. Run Time: Superhero. Fantasy.

If ever there was a year that needed a superhero, 2020 was that year, and we had to wait until Christmas Day for them to arrive. No matter what you might think of Warner Bros.' decision to open all of their 2021 films in both theaters and on its streaming service HBO Max, the oft-delayed Wonder Woman 1984 was at least released this way with the consent of director Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot. Now, the question is was the film worth the wait?

Soul (+ Burrow)

Like Onward, I will admit that I wasn’t sure whether I would watch Pixar’s follow-up film Soul, if only because of how the story was presented in the initial trailers. Like many films this year, Soul became a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic, initially pushing out the release date before finally being resigned to a Christmas release on Disney+. Since Soul was presented for free to subscribers rather than the premium model of the Mulan remake, I decided to give the movie a fair chance, finding it to be far better than what I initially expected and one of the best new films I have seen this year.

The Last of Us Part II

Note: This review contains spoilers for The Last of Us, The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Undertale and Spec Ops: The Line.

Ever since the PS2 Jak and Daxter games, I’ve been a fan of Naughty Dog and their work, even when they shifted to a narrative-driven style with the Uncharted series onward. I even enjoyed Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy in spite of their flaws and found The Last of Us to have some of the best character writing I’ve ever seen in a video game. When they originally announced The Last of Us Part II, directed by Neil Druckmann, I was intrigued, but news of overly intense crunch periods soured my willingness to play it. Once the game actually released during the early months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, I opted to watch a playthrough of the game and a few videos to see if I had really missed anything.

Although I wasn’t impressed with what I had seen, I eventually decided I should witness the story and gameplay for myself. Considering the praise that the game received, and its numerous Game of the Year awards, I wondered if maybe I had missed something and might change my mind if I actually played The Last of Us Part II. During my 25-hour journey, I did form my own opinion of the story separate from what I had already heard and found that I actually liked a couple ideas. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to like the game, I felt so thoroughly disappointed by such a painfully average experience that I now question if I can still eagerly support a company I once loved.