Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge does a great job of capturing the essence of the TMNT arcade game from 1990, which later came to the NES. At the time there was already a TMNT game on the NES, so this was given the title of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.” It allowed up to four players to take on the Foot Clan as each of the TMNT. You can check out the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(arcade_game) It also very much reminds me of the Simpsons arcade game, which was popular.

This version allows up to six players online and offline. If you’re playing on Steam, you’ll have the chance to link to your Epic Games account. I haven’t played multiplayer yet, but it seems like a great game to play with both family and friends.

I think those of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s as TMNT fans will get the most out of this. I don’t know how someone who grew up outside of that time will see the game. I’ve enjoyed it although I wish it was longer. The game only has 16 levels and my average time of completing each one seems to be about 6 minutes.

One of my favorite things in many of these similar classic video games is breakable environments. This game has them. There are many boxes and parts of the environment you can break which will sometimes hide things like pizza that restores your health or a variety of other helpful items. Sometimes you’ll also uncover a “cameo.” These are characters such as Irma, Vernon, and others. They’ll have a quest which is that they’re looking for certain items hidden throughout the levels in these breakable things. Irma, for instance, is looking for pieces of her diary. Completing one of these quests will give the power points

Power points are like experience points used to increase your power level. Doing so increases your health and Ninja Power Gauge. As for the latter, it will increase as you attack enemies. Once it reaches a certain point, you can use it for a special move ("Y" by default for XBox One controller). With this special move, you can attack many enemies all around you at once. You can also use it in other forms.

There are levels to the Ninja Power Gauge. You reach a new level of this by not using it when it fills up. So, once you fill up one, the next starts filling up. Once you reach three, you can activate Radical Mode. Once activated, it gives you a damage boost, but it drains the Ninja Power Gauge. It’s great to use against bosses.

There are some achievements, which you can see and keep track of in-game. Some of them have to do with seeing every story ending and finding all cameos. I’ve only played through the game with Leo and Don. Pro tip: If you don’t skip the very end cut scene, you can see what your character is up to after the story is over.

The world map reminds me a lot of the first TMNT NES game. It’s been so long since I’ve played it. It’s the same kind of map you see in Mario games.

I’ve seen that there may be more content coming.

If you were a TMNT fan growing up like me, you’ll probably love and appreciate this as much as I do or more. If you have kids, this is a great game to play with them and introduce them to your era of gaming.

Let me know what you think about this! Did you enjoy the original TMNT arcade game?

The quick news
Here are two extra trailers to check out:

“Master of Puppets” trailer: https://youtu.be/WVZTsTXO3Nk
“Official Gameplay Reveal” with a March release date: https://youtu.be/8eeGFDDU3Hg

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is coming 10/7/22 and the embedded trailer is awesome! The embedded one has a nice cover of “Enter Sandman” in it. Playable characters include Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Venom, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Blade, Ghost Rider, Magik, and Nico Minoru. The Wikipedia entry calls the game a “tactical” RPG. “Combat will be turn-based similar to Firaxis Games' XCOM series,” according to the entry.

The Midnight Sons
The game appears to actually be a play on words, since many of these characters are from the Midnight Sons. Moon Knight star Oscaar Isaac mentioned the group in an article about the show (see: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/moon-knight-star-oscar-isaac-teases-midnight-sons-mcu.html/). Here’s a helpful piece from it:

“In Marvel Comics, the Midnight Sons are like the Avengers, but the team consists of supernatural heroes, including Moon Knight. Other group members include Ghost Rider, Punisher, Blade, Werewolf by Night, Doctor Strange, Morbius, Iron Fist, Black Cat, and more.”

Wikipedia (linked below) has a different list, “including Hellstrom, Jennifer Kale, Morbius, Werewolf by Night, Doctor Strange, and Ghost Riders Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze.”

A key phrase is “supernatural heroes.” This is one of the many groups of heroes that the MCU seems to be getting into. There are currently Blade movies portrayed by Wesley Snipes. A Blade movie for the MCU is coming and he’ll be portrayed by Mahershala Ali. You heard him if you saw the Dane Whitman post-credits scene for The Eternals.

It’s interesting that Mahershala Ali portrayed Cottonmouth in Luke Cage (remember?). He isn’t the first actor to portray at least two characters even within the MCU. You can check out a cool list of 10 others here: https://screenrant.com/mcu-actors-previously-starred-other-marvel-movies-chris-evans-jon-favreau/

Even though Sony owns Spider Man, Venom, and Morbius they still have to work very closely with Marvel (and accept a cut to give to Marvel). The multiverse got broken in Loki’s season one and characters have been able to travel to other universes. Recent Sony movies have show this happening. Venom left something behind some “goo” in the MCU during Venom 2’s post-credits scene. What happened in the Mobius post-credits scene is still confusing. We’ve also seen this occur during Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The reason I’m even just slightly aware of the Midnight Sons, is because MT has mentioned them multiple times in New Rockstars videos (NR channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/NewRockstars/videos). I’ve been obsessively following this channel for probably a couple of years now. They’ve really fed the Hellstrom fire of my Marvel obsession (see what I did there?). Just like I do for Gmail and Cheerful Ghost, I keep an open tab for them that I refresh daily multiple times, so I don’t miss a video (unless it’s something I’m not interested which isn’t too often actually).

What do you think about this? Are you interested? Are you a New Rockstars fan? Let me know!

Marvel’s Midnight Suns on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel%27s_Midnight_Suns

Midnight Sons on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Sons

Go grab Ark: Survival Evolved for free on Steam before June 19 at 10AM PDT. Studio Wildcard just released a free new map to the game and also made some announcements on the official website (see link below). The embedded trailer contains the map's announcement, but there are other videos on the YouTube channel that also provide info about it and the new exclusive creatures to the map.

I haven't gotten into the game yet and I don't want to get into details. I just want this to be a quick announcement. If you're interested in reading about the new map, Ark 2 (next year) and the Animated Series (which has a full cast of very well known actors), check the link below.

Get the game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

Official news source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/articles.html/redefining-the-survival-genre-with-ark-2-and-an-update-from-our-studio-founders-r1949/

I cannot pass up writing this post! The trailer is so awesome! If you're familiar with the classic Munsters TV show, this trailer will probably greatly impress you, too! It doesn't even matter if you don't know who Rob Zombie is! (I'm a fan of the music, but not interested in the horror movies. I like the Zombie family, but I don't like zombies, except for Zombie Dr. Strange.)

Rock legend and horror film aficionado Rob Zombie said he's been chasing this project for 20 years. At first, I was concerned, knowing how much Rob Zombie loves horror movies and I do not. I was not expecting to be so greatly impressed! It's not like a scary horror movie, it's pretty much exactly like the show, but in "living color!" I should have realized an avid fan of the show, as Rob Zombie is, wouldn't butcher it into something it wasn't.

I love everything about this trailer! The actors do such an impressive job! They've clearly captured the essence and mannerisms of the characters and actors we're so familiar with. Uncle Herman acts just like he did back in the 60's, for example. This truly impressed me! The costumes are also very similar and wonderful. Of course there's the awesome "Munsters theme" music, too! (I think I'm gonna have to watch this again!)

What do you think about this? Are you also a Zombie fan? Are you a fan of the original show? Did you see the one released in the late 80's? (I didn't know about it until I saw it at the end of the article.) Are you planning to see this? Let me know!

Source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/rob-zombies-the-munsters-film-gets-first-teaser-trailer/1100-6504308/

Do you smell what the....Black Adam.... is cooking, jabroni?! The trailer for Black Adam is now live and the movie hits theaters on 10/21/22!

Black Adam is (obviously) played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I don't know anything about this character other than what's in the trailer. I love the line where he says he died as a slave and was reborn a god! Another line I like is that super heroes "don't kill people," to which Black Adam replies, "I do!"

I'm looking forward to this mostly because I love comic book content coming to live action, even if it's something I know nothing about. Also even though I'm much more obsessed with and aware of Marvel than DC. The Rock is my favorite wrestler. He was so..."electrifying." I'm glad he's still acting. (Did you know it's been suggested that he, Dwayne Johnson, should run for president? I think he said he was considering it.)

What do you think about this? Are you aware of Black Adam? Would you like to share something about him? Are you going to go see this? I think it's likely I'll go.

A news source I found: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/black-adam-trailer-arrives-dwayne-johnson-catches-a-rocket/1100-6504283/

Here's an official article: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/the-wild-update-here You can also check out this GameSpot article: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-1-19-the-wilds-update-full-details-on-new-content/1100-6504062/

Before I get started, there are three videos on the Minecraft YouTube channel that do a cool job of showing off the new content. It was difficult to choose which to embed, so chose the one I liked best. It’s more natural and includes some content from the previous update. The first one showcases the Deep Dark biome, new sculk blocks, and the Warden. Check it out: https://youtu.be/chuRE9nxLT4 This next one does a good job at giving an overall view of the new content. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/GXr5glhGkzE

What’s new?

If you’re looking for new Minecraft content to explore then you’re in luck! Minecraft just received it’s “Wild Update.” I’m going to get into details, but there are two new biomes (Mangrove swamps and Deep Dark). The latter can be found in caves. There are four new mobs including the scary Warden, the cute and helpful Allay, frogs, and tadpoles (because you can’t have frogs without tadpoles nor tadpoles without frogs). There are some new blocks including “sculk” blocks that detect vibration and summon the Warden. There’s also mud! (Cue Primus.)

Beware though and make sure you’ve managed your expectations! Minecraft Live mentioned content for the Caves and Cliffs Update (both parts including this one) that unfortunately didn’t make it into the game. This has seemingly caused a lot of players to express disappointment and unhappiness with this update, calling it the “Mild Update.” Xisumavoid has a great video discussing the issue. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/YAMHqVL9Gfs Ultimately, we should be grateful we’re constantly getting free new Minecraft content. The game just keeps getting better all the time!

The Deep Dark (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Deep_Dark) is perhaps the most scary biome in Minecraft now. It is very dark and contains sculk blocks, which are sensitive to vibration. (These blocks are also redstone active.) This includes eating, walking, equipping/unequipping gear, and many other actions. If you’re close enough to them and they detect vibration, they’ll summon the Warden. One way to avoid detection is to put a block of wool between you and the block or walk on carpet. You’ll find some in the Ancient City.

The Warden (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Warden) is perhaps the most scary mob in Minecraft now. When summoned, it will rise from under the ground and cause a “darkness” status effect, which darkens everything. This is definitely not an ideal status effect to get in this already dark biome. It is blind, but sensitive to vibration like the sculk blocks. It has a lot of health and can’t be easily killed. It can kill you in one or two hits even with the toughest armor! It has both a melee and a ranged attack! One way to avoid detection is to sneak (crouch). There’s a new enchantment that allows you to walk faster while sneaking. One place you can find these is in treasure chests located within a new structure called an Ancient City (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_City). This structure is very large, kind of like a Nether Fortress. You’ll find yourself alone without any mobs nearby. Don’t let that give you a false sense of security. Sculk blocks are active and difficult to avoid.

Another good tip for the Warden is to misdirect it by throwing something in the opposite direction, replacing it’s attention. I believe I heard that this is why you’ll find snow balls in chests in the Ancient City.

The Allay (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Allay) is a new adorable, friendly mob voted into the game. It looks like a blue fairy. You’ll find these unfortunately locked up in Illager encampments and in cells in the Ancient City. They are always looking for a player and are really good at staying close by. They can sometimes annoyingly get in the way, too, which is something the devs have worked to correct. They’re also very capable of returning to the player even after being separated by a large distance.

The Allay is helpful. Giving it an item is the same as telling it “go find this item and bring me back all that you can,” because that’s how it acts. It can carry multiples of an item instead of bringing you one at a time. However, it can only do this for one specific item. For example, if you give it an egg, it will only collect eggs. It can’t collect eggs and feathers at the same time. To take an item from them, do so with an empty hand. They also like music boxes, so if you have one playing, they’ll look for items around them and drop items at them. I haven’t played with them yet, but I realized how I can benefit from them.

In my 1.18 world, I had livestock pens (as always). At first the animals stood on dirt, but I removed the surface layer of dirt and replaced it with hoppers. The fence stands on top of the same layer of dirt, so I removed two dirt blocks under the fence (remember a large chest is two blocks wide). So, there are a couple of fence posts sitting on top of a chest. Whenever I killed something or sheared a sheep for wool, the drops went into one of the hoppers. The hoppers pushed the item into the chest. Then, I can access the chest without entering the pen. It’s not a perfect system, because sometimes drops don’t make it into the hopper. It’s also a lot of work and that’s a lot iron to collect!

You know what would make this process much simpler? An Allay! With an Allay, I can forget about removing dirt and adding hoppers and a chest. If I want to collect eggs, for instance, I can just give one to my Allay and it will bring them to me. I could also set up a music box in a chicken pen so that it’s attracted to the area where it will find eggs. I could get separate Allays for each drop I want (feathers, steak, pork, chicken, etc.). I’m looking forward to getting an Allay. I’m just afraid of losing it, because I "/tp" often. I found them in my snapshot world, but haven’t gone to rescue them yet.

Mangrove swamps are another new biome. Minecraft Live showed them off with frogs, tadpoles, and fireflies. During Minecraft Live, frogs ate fireflies. Unfortunately, they were removed since some of them are poisonous to frogs IRL. This is unfortunate, because they added some nice ambiance. Just as xisumavoid said, frogs don’t have to eat them! Removing the ability for parrots to eat chocolate was good, because you don’t want to influence someone to feed a parrot chocolate IRL, because it’s toxic to them. So, parrots eat grass seeds instead of chocolate now.

Since you can’t have frogs without tadpoles (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tadpole) or tadpoles without frogs, both are now in the game. Tadpoles become frogs which are colored differently depending on the temperature of the biome they’re from. There is a list of biomes on the wiki grouped into three different categories; “temperate,” “cold,” and “warm.” (See wiki entry at: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Frog) One example is that tadpoles in a cold biome will become green frogs.

There are also new blocks of light call “froglights” (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Froglight). Instead of fireflies, frogs eat slime mobs if the slimes are small enough. They’ll drop slime balls when they eat them. To get froglights, you have to take a frog into the Nether and get it to eat magma cubes. Each of the three lights can be created by each of the three different colored frogs. I think getting these sounds complicated. Of course, I’m possibly biased since there’s no blue froglight. 😭

It is my opinion that mangrove swamps are difficult to traverse, especially because of the very large roots of mangrove trees. There’s lots of water and lots of mangrove trees, which are very tall. That’s about it, really. However, mangrove trees are grown from propagules, looking like elongated seeds. They can be seen growing on mangrove trees. They can be planted on both dirt and in water, unlike every other tree.

Some of the land you see in mangrove swamps is made from the new mud blocks (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Mud). You slip a couple pixels down into them while walking on them, but they won’t slow you down. You can find them here or create them by using a filled water bottle on a block of dirt. Remember the drip stone that was introduced in the previous update? If you put one on the bottom of a mud block, the mud will eventually turn into clay.

What’s missing? It’s unfortunate that this question has an answer, because the last update did as well. In fact it was the last update’s answer to that question that created this update. Yes, the Caves and Cliffs update was separated into two parts and there’s unfortunately some content that didn’t make it.

Bundles are probably the one I’m most disappointed in not getting. Crafted from rabbit hide, they are able to store stacks of multiple items, which are self contained as one item, the bundle. A bundle pretty much turns a single inventory slot into one that contains stacks of multiple items. I often have a full inventory and bundles would be very helpful! However they haven't made it into the game yet, because they haven’t found a way to get them to work properly with Minecraft’s Pocket Edition. The devs are taking version parity very seriously. What I mean is that they are doing their best to reduce or remove the differences between versions. So the game should be exactly the same with the same content no matter which version you play.

I already mentioned fireflies, which is again disappointing. At the last Minecraft Live, we were also shown concept art for birch forests. They even spent a few minutes talking about it. I didn’t realize it was something players wanted. I hadn’t even though about it. Ultimately the devs pretty much stated that “concept art” does not reflect a content “promise.” Thus we need to manage our expectations.

The devs need to also help by making it clear that while all content is intended, it may not end up in the game. Either that or they need to show us content that’s pretty much guaranteed to be added, things that have already been developed or very close to being finished, instead of showcasing concepts.

Are you interested in this update? What do you like most? What do you think it all?

I made an effort to make this post more readable, which is something I'd like to do more, so that my posts aren't just a boring collection of paragraphs. What do you think of the formatting style I gave this post? Do you like it? Does it make it look more readable? Are there any suggestions you'd like to share about how you'd like to see posts formatted and styled? I was really impressed with Jon's last post and I know readability is important (I don't want to read long boring paragraphs either). Let me know!

We're hours away from the double Obi-Wan premier and we now have a trailer for the next Star Wars show streaming on Disney+; Andor on August 31. It's been a while since I've watched Rogue One, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it would be best to just copy the description from YouTube and paste it here:

"The “Andor” series will explore a new perspective from the Star Wars galaxy, focusing on Cassian Andor’s journey to discover the difference he can make. The series brings forward the tale of the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire and how people and planets became involved. It’s an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue where Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.

Diego Luna returns as Cassian Andor and is joined by cast members Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough and Kyle Soller. The executive producers are Kathleen Kennedy, Sanne Wohlenberg, Diego Luna and Michelle Rejwan. Tony Gilroy is the creator and showrunner."

I recognized a few faces, one of them was Stellan Skarsgård. I watched Chernobyl recently, which he had a good part in. I heard the first two episodes will premier the same day, as it is with Obi-Wan and there will be 12 episodes.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to it?

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law has it's new trailer and Disney+ release date (August 17th). I'm looking forward to it. She-Hulk isn't a character I'm very familiar with and Disney+ shows don't disappoint me. The MCU's Hulk and Abomination make their appearances as well.

Ms. Marvel premiers on Disney+ on June 8th. She's another character I'm not too familiar with, but I got to know better with the Avengers video game.

Let me know what you think about this! What do you think of her? Do you know much about her you want to share?

News source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/she-hulk-attorney-at-law-gets-first-trailer-release-date/1100-6503563/

It's been almost a full month since Marvel released it's Thor: Love and Thunder trailer and it looks awesome. It's apparently taking some inspiration from the Might Thor comics in which Jane Foster becomes Thor. I haven't read them yet, but looking forward to it.

Who else is looking forward to this? What do you think?

I’m kind of surprised at the Steam reviews for Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition. I recently finished the game and decided I wanted to give those “mixed” Steam reviews a bit of positivity. (I posted a smaller review there, but wanted to write this out here.)

This is one of those HD remasters, although only 3D models were given the HD treatment, so backgrounds do look horrible since our eyes are now so overwhelmed with beauty and impressive graphics these days. However, what a game looks like, even if it’s aged 20 years, doesn’t make or break it.

Chrono Cross was a JRPG that came out in 1999. It is apparently one of the best RPGs ever according to some things I’m reading. I played through it only one time, but I remember that I really enjoyed it. That’s why I was glad it was getting the HD treatment and coming to Steam. You’ve probably heard of Chrono Trigger, well Chrono Cross is it’s sequel. I’d say the two can be thought of as completely separate as different as they are, but they also have similarities.

Chrono Cross, like pretty much all RPGs, has it’s own ways of doing things. For instance, there is magic in the game, but they’re called “elements.” There’s a circle in the upper left hand corner. It contains two other circles. These circles contain colors of the elements used. So, if you use a blue element like “Cure,” the innermost part of the circle will turn blue. The next element will push that blue to the next ring. This repeats until that first color disappears. If you want to use a summon, you have to get the entire circle of circles all one color. So, you’ll probably have to use some elements to get the field the color you need it, but enemy element usage also affects the circle. Items are use like elements, too. You’re limited by how many elements you can use in battle. This limitation is based on your element tech levels, which will grow as you do as you gain experience.

Otherwise, it’s just as familiar as all other great RPGs. You walk around an open world, talking to NPCs, recruiting characters to your party, exploring the world, and getting through the story. It’s very good though, I think. So, if you enjoyed Chrono Cross, I recommend getting this. It’s only $20. It has some extra features, too. You can press a button to speed up the action or another to make your party pretty much invincible.

The “Radical Dreamers” part of the title escaped me, because I was not aware of what it referred to, but I learned. It’s a text-based game based on the game, but as a bit of a prequel. I played it and died. It was interesting.

Steam users are complaining about the fact that sometimes the FPS is surprisingly not smooth. This isn’t an irrational complaint as you’d expect something like this to be smooth especially on today’s PCs. I did notice the issue, but it was so infrequent and lasted so briefly that I deem it as insignificant. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of the game.

After finishing the game, I found New Game+ and Continue+. The latter is confusing. Basically, Continue+ lets you take data from your completed game and put it into a regular save file. So, it won’t work with a New Game+ save. It’s supposed to help you get all the characters. I had trouble figuring it out at first, but I eventually understood.

I tried to replay Chrono Trigger after this, but it was too difficult and I gave up. LOL

Let me know what you think about this. Have you tried it? Do you know about or like Chrono Cross?