Cinema Genesis: Captain America: Super Soldier

Brace yourselves, people, we're talking about movie games today! What I'm about to say, though, may shock and frighten some of you, but trust me, I understand. It could always be worse, especially when the worst game I've played isn't a movie game, but a sequ... reboot? At least, this year. I can't tell if what may be the worst game I played last year may make a come back. I do have one question about them both, though: What's with terrible games having trophy pictures that are flipping the player off? Anyway, today, we're talking about a super hero. Oh, God, no, not that one! An actual hero, and not one who sold his marriage to the devil, and met the President (not in that order?) No, we're talking about Captain America: Super Soldier.

For those of you who saw the movie, you know that there was a lot of things skimmed over, such as Cap and his team destroying several Hydra bases. The game takes place in one of these missions, playing as Captain America as he shuts down AA guns, and destroys the Hydra base. It is a shallow plot, but it doesn't need to be Oscar material. All you need is Cap and Red Skull fighting, right? Well, you won't get that.

That's the first issue with Captain America's game. It takes a lot from Arkham Asylum, including combat, and adding crippling moves. But, you never fight anyone really menacing. You fight a guy with a robot arm called "The Satan Claw," a walking tank, and a robot with a TV inside it's stomach. All of them go down after punching the crap out of them, and then finishing them off. But, there's one boss in this game that pisses me off like no other boss: Madame Hydra.

There's a reason her boss battle pisses me off, and it isn't because it's hard. It's actually quite easy on paper. Reflect her bullets at her until she dies. By the time you get to her, you've reflected a lot of bullets, so it should be easy as cake. You're more wrong than Lex Luthor would ever yell. The timing changes every time she fires a shot. It gets even better, too, because she has a habit of running around in a circle, never stopping. The game is allegedly eight hours long. An hour and a half of it was fighting Madame Hydra because she keeps running around like the flash on speed. When she does stop, she looks at you as if she's tired of being in the game, then starts running again. Maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky, she'll remember she has to kill you.

These types of boss battles are tedious, not fun. I want to fight the boss on my terms, not when ever her lungs feel like collapsing. It's even worse once she's halfway dead, because then, she runs into other rooms, and you have to hunt her down. Apparently, this game became a Bambi Hunt. When you finally catch her, you have to do it all over again, this time, with her on the ground while bad guys fight you. You'll be able to punch her, but that doesn't hurt her much. You can try to throw your shield, but she belly dances, dodges it, then gets to hit you for free. Call me crazy, but, isn't that just a bit ridiculous? The whole game, you use your shield to fight. This boss avoids it like the plague, and you get hit because you did what the game has told you to do the entire time. It's like if an FPS punished you for shooting a guy who has a knife.

The bosses and enemies are cheesy. I mean, Power Rangers cheesy. You fight cosplay rejects at best and people dressed as cardboard robots at worst. It took me a while for me to realize that the guy with the metal jackhammer arm is the same as the guy with the shield. He has the same moves, only one uses a shield to smash the ground. Even the kill move is the same, involving the guy grabbing your arm, requiring you to bash a button to escape. It's a pain to see the same thing over and over again, but it's funny to watch Cap's face of, "Really? Again? I'm just going to wrench it out of your grip and punch you!" I swear I let some guys win out of pity.

It's not a bad game, though, for a movie game. The first half of it will keep a player entertained, but after that, you've seen what the game has to offer. The highlights wear thin quickly, and the lows are numerous, like the collectibles. There is a metric shitload of collectibles in this game for some reason. I understand the Zemo Diaries, the film reels, and dossiers. Why am I looking for ceramic eggs? Is Cap bolstering his own collection?

As far as movie based games go, it's pretty good. If it were any other type of game, I'd be crying in my sleep. Luckily, I have another movie game to do that with...

Taliesin Novel Plot Lines 1-3

Taliesin Mysteries

1. The Angels in the Walls

Andrew Taliesin: An ex-FBI profiler taken off of his job after being shot in the leg and hip, crippling him for life. As sardonic as he is intelligent, his misanthropic demeanor hides a soft side that only few see.

Karl Rade: A tech analyst specializing in forensics and hacking. Though hired by Taliesin, it wasn't for his talent, but at his own father's request. As for why, he doesn't know.

Flora Wintergreen: Taliesin's sister and an empath who can see what happened in a room an hour before by its emotional transference. She knows how dark the world can be, but never understands why.

Chevy Blake: An above average intelligence forensics tech in the body of a woman with a dark past. Despite her looks, she may have been hired for a more noble purpose: getting a second chance at life.

Charmane Tong: An ex-Triad assassin known for playing all sides. Offered a job where her skills could be tested, but used for a cause greater than she realizes.

The first team for the Abominable Crimes Unit is set on a case that will define their lives when a woman is murdered and set up to look like an angel. Talisin's employers think it may be the work of a serial killer, but he suspects something different. He's proven right when he sees the first victim. As the victim's start to collect on the streets, and the scenes get worse, it doesn't take long for Taliesin to realize that time isn't just running out for the next victim, but also for something a lot larger, and more abstract. Pitted against an angered ex-cop, an extremely intelligent killer, and eventually his own team, can Taliesin stop a mad man from doing the unexpected, or will the angels be the harbinger of a nightmare on Earth?

2. The Willow's Well

Taliesin's Team of ACU agents return in a pulse-pounding case that defies logic. After three young girls go missing, Taliesin is called in to look into the town for a potential serial kidnapper. What they end up with is a town where everyone has a motive to kill, being money, power, or revenge. To make matters worse for the team, the victims start to show up in the town's landmarks. Is the town's terrifying history being re-enacted by a killer stuck in the past, or is the town itself striking against those who dishonor its history? If the latter is true, how long will it be before Taliesin and his team suffer its wrath?

3. Eyes of Blood

After waking up in a padded cell, Taliesin and his team find themselves in an unusual situation, an abandoned mental hospital, and in the fight of there lives. The deeper they delve into the asylum, the more gruesome murders they find have happened, both in the name of science and revenge. Without the aid of their higher ups or any computer system to access the exits, the team has to find a way out as well as a way to solve the killings that have occurred since the asylum closed down. To make matters worse for them, the more time that passes, the more they realize they aren't alone. What ever is following them isn't human, either. At least, not anymore.

Brain Junkfood: "Dick Marcinko: Rogue Warrior"

Now, most people will tell you that I'm not exactly a prude when it comes to language. I mean, I'll fully admit to saying some pretty mean things to people. And they deserved it... mostly....

Okay, look. We're not here to talk about my sins of chewing people out in creative ways, though that could prove entertaining. We're here to talk about a game that is absolutely terrible, but is like watching a car accident caused by a train crashing into a rock with a painted landscape. You don't want to look, but you have to, especially with Mickey Rourke slurring his speech more than Tourrette's Guy, and twice as insane. Yes, when your character sounds more insane than a guy who screams "BOB SAGET" when mowing the lawn, you know you're in for a ride. Apparently, the story of Dick Marcinko: Rogue Warrior is even crazier.

Bethesda originally had hired Zombie Studios to make the game, but it was so terrible that they dropped the product, and hired Rebellion Studios to remake the game from scratch. Look at this from my point of view: Bethesda hired the same studio who did the Saw games, were disappointed that a studio known for bad games made a bad game, then hired another studio known for doing subpar games. Here's the kicker: Rebellion, known for Aliens vs Predator, but also known for Shellshock 2: Blood Ties, aka, "The Vietnam War is Being Eaten By Zombies," made very few changes to the story, and kept the same gameplay that Bethesda fired Zombie for... and Bethesda released it. It's like they threw up their hands and said, "Fuck it, we can't make a good game based on this shit!"

I can completely understand, too. I mean, when was a good game ever made about a real life soldier fighting terrorists? I mean, name one. All right, bet you can't name a..no...ther... Okay, so Bethesda dropped the ball. But, seriously, there isn't much you could do with this game in the first place. Rogue Warrior has one plot: infiltrate Korea, find out where they're taking nukes, and destroy them. It takes place in the cold war, no less, so Russia is the other bad guy in the game. Feasibly, a good game could be made from this.

All of that goes out the window the minute Dick Marcinko opens his mouth. This is what comes out: "A spec warrior: One who gives a fuck. That's me. Whether I'm prowling or growling or going full fucking Faulkner with lots of sound and fury, you cannot miss. I get the job done, and today that means flying under the radar into North Korea. The brass running this op is a dip-dunk desk-jockey named Admiral Travis *mrmrmr*. He tells me the mission is beyond classified, so I'm running a skeleton crew. Minimum footprint, maximum impact. SOP for assholes like me. I trained these men in the SEAL program and they've saved my ugly ass more than once. They're dirtbags and hard motherfuckers. When I'm staring death in the face, it's them I want watching my six. A mole inside the North Korean regime has intel on a munitions factory producing a new breed of missiles. My orders are to make contact and recon the factory. The brass is calling it a simple op, a typical snoop n poop. One thing I learned is that there's a thin line between a simple op and a total goat fuck."

So, spec warriors are the only ones who "give a fuck." We're off to a running start here. Is he actually saying that he's good because he gives a fuck? Of course, it helps when your team of experts is flipping each other off and looking at porn. These guys are immature morons, and have apparently saved Dick's ass multiple times. I wouldn't trust them with my worst enemy, and not one of them is as charming as Jesse Ventura. Especially since a "dip-dunk desk-jockey" with a mumble for a name is leading them.

The team lands, kills a bunch of Koreans, only for his expert team to find a guy who is holding a grenade with no pin. They look at each other, possibly regretting the decision of not running the fuck away. These guys are experts... I keep telling myself this, and it just makes it all the more worse.

The Koreans aren't much better, though. I have spent the entire game using pretty much two tactics. The first is shoot them with my pistol, and nothing else. The second is run up to everyone and stab them in any body part Dick feels like penetrating. This may sound like a bad joke, but here's the thing: Dick does kill some people by stabbing them in the ass with his pig-sticker. By pig-sticker, I mean knife, not "Demo Dick." This isn't that type of game, though you'd expect it to be with what Dick spouts out.

See, Dick doesn't have the cleanest mouth in the Navy SEALS. In fact, Dick says things that would make George Carlin blush. Let's take a look at them. "Die Motherfucker, you motherfucking amateur!" Okay, not too bad, if not excessive and ridiculous. "It's so cold, it could freeze the balls off of a polar bear." Okay, not quite that bad, but makes you wonder why he's thinking about polar bear's balls. No, I think the one that snaps everyone's mind is this one: "Suck my balls, my fat, hairy fuckin' balls! Wrap 'em around your mouth!" There are so many things wrong with what he just said... First of all, the fact that he said "Suck my balls," completely unprompted. He walks into a room and says this. I promise that if you said this, people would look at you like you were a psychopath on fire.

Next, the description. Was it really, really necessary for him to talk about, in detail, his balls? He makes Batman's motives seem sane in comparison, and this is comparing him to a guy who dresses as a bat to fight criminals such as clowns and men dressed as penguins as if it was an everyday occurrence. Okay, it is in Gotham, but the rest of the world, they deal with bald business men who are more over the top than Steve Jobs' bank account. Finally, "Wrap 'em around your mouth." How in the hell does that even work? If you know anything about anatomy, you know that you can't wrap balls around anything without some intense surgery or stretching. That's just too painful to think about. Then again, this would be fun to prank an old woman with...

But, the trick here is that the sticking point of the game is the ridiculous things Dick says in the game. After his team is killed, he just simply says "Fuck no!" to the prospect of turning back. He kills massive amounts of "C*** breath Commie Motherfuckers" without blinking an eye. If you want a collection (and why would you, really?) they made a song from the sayings! That's right, if you weren't offended enough, they made a song that makes gangsta rap by tourrette's patients seem tame.

See, this is what happens when you get your star drunk to voice a character in a game that Bethesda had to have known was going to be bad. So, they redeem it by... making it vulgar (There's a terrible game idea!)? What's the logic in that? It's just not going to make the game any better... unless you have someone calling you "Mr. Cent."