Deathstroke the Terminator

Deathstroke the Terminator, or just Deathstroke if you prefer, has to be one of the coolest and toughest characters in the DC universe. With his sword and his staff and his guns and his eyepatch, he is someone you do not want to mess with. And even though he's getting a little old, he's still capable of fighting the entire Justice League. Because of this, I'm really glad he's been in so many things recently. He's been in Arrow, Injustice, and he's going to be in Arkham Origins once that comes out. And all of them have portrayed him rather well. That wouldn't really be worth remarking on if he hadn't been portrayed so badly in Smallville. This is the part where I usually say something along the lines of "Hey, you should go check out what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with it so you can better see what I'm saying," but not today. Not today. If you haven't seen Smallville, that doesn't really matter to me. Watch it if you want, since it has good moments, but whatever you do, steer well clear of the part with Deathstroke in it. Or at least they say it's Deathstroke. In reality, I think it's just a lame version of Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galactica wielding a sword. Don't believe me? I'll prove it.

 So yeah that's pretty bad, right? Don't even watch the part of the show with him in it. He even uses the wrong kind of sword. He uses a katana, and katanas are cool, but Slade is supposed to use a straight sword. I'm ok with them giving him an Asian style sword, but couldn't it at least have been a gin or a straight shirasaya or some other kind of straight sword? Promise me you won't watch it if you're a fan of the real Deathstroke. Spare yourself the pain. Save yourself! And if you're not familiar with the character, I suppose you can watch it if you really want to, since that'll make the real Deathstroke all the more impressive. He's supposed to look something like this: 

 Now isn't that way awesomer? And without his mask, he still looks awesome! So thank all that is holy that he's been cool in his recent media appearances! Whoops! I just realized I accidentally introduced probably a couple people to what Deathstroke should be, so if that's you, my warning not to watch his Smallville appearance applies to you now. You're welcome. Anyway, Deathstroke was decent in the Teen Titans show, but they called him by his first name instead of his chosen alias, which is probably because it's a kids' show and the makers didn't want the villain's name to have the word death in it, but still. Those kids should show some respect, even if they have no choice since their actions are controlled by the writers of the show. Also, they gave him a long ponytail sometimes, and I never liked that. More importantly, that show was never really on my radar that much, so I'm glad he's appearing in things that are. His recent comicbooks have been fantastic and I realized I've been saying fantastic more often after marathoning Christopher Eccleston's Doctor Who episodes, which I maintain are severely underrated, even though Rose was annoying sometimes, and her mom was annoying too, and I kinda hated the Slitheen, but none of that is the Doctor's fault, and I strongly disagree when people say you can just skip his run; I personally wish he had had more seasons, but without cutting into David Tennant's time, since he and Matt Smith were terrific too, and why does Matt Smith have to go I wish he didn't and I started this really long run-on sentence talking about Deathstroke, didn't I? I suppose I could go back and edit that out. But I won't. Even though it feels like travelling back in time and changing history but not nearly as cool or important, I'm arbitrarily deciding that this is a fixed point in time, and if I change it, time and the universe will be all messed up, but the truth is that I'm leaving this stream of consciousness the way it is because I like to ramble sometimes. Anyway... Ok there are so many more directions I could take this, but I'll save that for another time. Maybe one day I'll just write a post of everything I'm thinking about at the time, and you can see the weird directions that my mind goes, but right now, I'll finish talking about Deathstroke. He's one of my favorite characters in Injustice, which is a good game by the way, and he was cool in Arrow, even though the show itself doesn't live up to its full potential and they took some liberties with the lore. Arkham Origins isn't out yet, but if it's anything like Asylum and City, it'll be fantastic (see?), and even better since the story is largely about the assassins of the Batman mythos, who are some of my favorite characters. Deathstroke is the best, but I also really like Deadshot, who was also in Arrow, but got killed off too soon in my opinion. Deadshot was actually kinda cool in Smallville, unlike Deathstroke. So that's all I have to say about Deathstroke. It'd be nice to see him in a movie though. So I guess that wasn't all I had to say, but now it is.

Batman: Arkham Origins

Now that a trailer is out there for Arkham Origins, I might as well do a post about it. So first of all, here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet:

So that looks pretty good, huh? Personally, I couldn't be happier with their choice of villains. For the main villain they chose Black Mask, a lesser known villain who seems pretty cool in this from what little we see of him in this trailer. What I really like though is Deathstroke being in this. Bats is my favorite DC hero, so a game with him against possibly my favorite DC villain is something I'm going to play very happily. Sometimes I even root for Slade when he fights the Teen Titans, depending what version it is. I wasn't thrilled with Deathstroke's look when I read the Game Informer article, but now that we've seen him in action, I think he looks like a total BAMF. A little less impressive looking but still cool is Deadshot, who also seems to be a character in this game. They don't name him in the trailer, but judging from his eyepiece and extreme sniping skills, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that's Deadshot. Especially since the story involves Black Mask hiring the world's deadliest assassins to kill the Batman. Black Mask is pretty hardcore and I like him, but I gotta say this is probably the one and only time that if they have one of those plot twists where the real main villain is actually someone other than who we thought was the main villain, I would be totally fine with it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think about The Dark Knight Rises. The main villain turned out to be Talia Al Ghul and not Bane. Something similar also happens in the third installment of another superhero movie trilogy that happens to also star a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist who shall not be named for the purpose of spoilers. We all know who I'm talking about, but I'll sleep easier if I don't go right out and say it. So anyway, I usually don't like when that happens, but if it does in this game, I would be completely okay with it, since that would make Deathstroke the primary antagonist, and he is more than qualified considering his combat skills, strategic mastery, and genius intellect. Playing as him would be cool, so there's a good chance I'll preorder the game, but to be safe I'll wait in case another preorder bonus is announced (which one usually is) from a different store, so then I can choose what I want, but it'll be pretty hard to beat Deathstroke. Or maybe I'll just be lazy and not preorder, then buy the DLC codes secondhand. Either way, I'm still f'sho getting this game.

Injustice: Gods Among Us

So I picked up Injustice this weekend, and I'm impressed. The people who made it are the same ones who did Mortal Kombat, so they know what they're doing. It has almost everyone in it that I wanted except Ra's Al Ghul and Darkseid, but you can play as Doomsday, so that makes up for Darkseid. Also there are already a few Batman characters, so I can understand why they didn't want more. On the plus side though, Darkseid is a part of one of the stage transitions. Each stage has three areas you can fight in, with cool transitions in between. So one of them involves kicking your opponent through a portal to Apokalips, where Darkseid will putt a serious hurting on him, then throw him back through the portal, thus transitioning to a nearby but different area. Each stage is also unique and interactive, with lots of items that are useable in different ways depending on the character. The only other problem I see is that the story is pretty short. Granted, no one buys a fighting game just for the story mode, but a little more of it would've been nice. Especially since the story is pretty good and most of the characters have pretty cool alternate costumes. Sinestro gets a weird helmet, which I don't like that much, but some characters like Shazam look cooler in the alternate universe than the main one, and some of them are about the same in coolness, but a change is still refreshing. Besides appearance, NetherRealm had done a great job making every character feel unique. A big part of that is the fact that now there's a button for a unique character power. For example, Bane juices himself up with Venom, Batman summons some flying bat projectiles, and Wonder Woman changes her fighting style from hovering and wielding her lasso to standing and using a sword and shield. Super moves are also very character appropriate, besides being just plain awesome. Deathstroke tosses his sword into the air, shoots his opponent, kicks his sword into them, then shoots some more, which is something he would totally do in the comicbooks. Same with Aquaman (who's actually pretty sweet in this game) stabbing someone with his trident, then feeding them to a shark. NetherRealm has taken steps to make Injustice very different from Mortal Kombat, which is definitely a good thing, but the one thing I wish they kept is finishing moves. They don't need to be fatalities, but I just want some sort of cool move to use once you've won and want to further humiliate your friends. Overall though, they did a great job with this game, and if you like DC, you should totally go buy it. Even if you're not, but you like cool fighting games, check this one out!

Comicbook Mercenaries and Assassins

In both Marvel and DC, the mercenaries and assassins have always been some of my favorite characters. For example, Marvel has Bullseye, and Taskmaster, DC has Deadshot and Onomatopoeia, and Deadpool and Deathstroke are each one of my favorite characters in their respective universes. I love Deadpool's randomness and Deathstroke's sheer toughness and ability to beat anyone if he has time to prepare. I was pretty happy when Deadpool's game was announced, then Deathstroke was announced for Injustice, and now that they've announced Arkham Origins and showed that he'll be in it, I'm a happy man. Especially since they've said that the story of the game is that eight of the world's best assassins have gathered in Gotham to kill the Batman. Now that sounds exactly like the kind of game I want to play. I know that the Penguin and Black Mask are in the game, but they're not part of the assassin squad. Where they're concerned, the only member we know of is Deathstroke, but Deadshot has already been in an Arkham game, so I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up too. I just wish there were more comicbook stories about villains-for-hire. I've read Suicide Squad and The Thunderbolts, but I don't count those. Those are villains being forced by the government to do hero stuff. I want there to be an ongoing series about villains doing some antihero stuff and some villain stuff that ends up working out for the greater good. No government involvement though. They have to choose to do what they're doing or else it's not as good. There are tons of stories with costumed mercenaries in them, but I want them to be the protagonists so they can do what they do, but actually win. Maybe the story could involve some assassins being hired then betrayed by another villain, then seeking revenge. Ir maybe one of thise miniseries type things that take place during a massive crossover event and details what's going on with other characters. Either way, their actions serve the greater good but they're still not trying to be herpes. I am happy though that my two favorite mercs will both be playable in upcoming video games. Deadpool gets his own game, but Deathstroke is playable in Injustice and is a major antagonist in Arkham Origins, so they're both doing pretty well. And that's all for today. Later!

Some Video Game News

First up is Skyrim, which is getting even more DLC! Available now is the Dragonborn DLC, which takes you back to the island of Solstheim, which you'll recognize if you played Morrowind. You also battle the first dragonborn, get some new powers and weapons and stuff, and I'm fairly certain the ability to ride a dragon. I know a lot of people have been waiting a long time for that. And unfortunately for PC and PS3 gamers, they'll have to wait even longer since 360 gets it first. Most people who don't have a 360 and want this DLC have my sympathy, but the annoyingly arrogant PC gamers who think they're better than everyone else deserve this and more. And now a rap by me:
 If you're havin' game problems I feel bad for you, son.
I got 99 problems, but Skyrim ain't one.
.... I promise I won't do that again. That just popped into my head and my brain to keyboard filter isn't working very well.... Do me a favor and forget about that. In other news (see how smoothly I transition?), Deathstroke is a confirmed playable character in Nether Realm's Injustice: Gods Among Us, and he looks awesome. They released a gameplay trailer showing him in action, so if I wasn't completely sold on the game before (we all know I was, but for the sake of the discussion, let's say I wasn't), I am now. Deathstroke is one of the characters that I was hoping would be in Injustice, since I want to play as him, and I heard such bad things about Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, I never played it. It makes sense too, since when you think about it, he's a perfect character for this genre of game. He relies heavily on unarmed brawling, he has mele weapons, and he uses long range attacks too. But guess what? I have even more news. This time about Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. As promised, I'm updating this post after finding a gameplay video. At Spike's 10th annual Video Game Awards, a new trailer with gameplay was released. We've already seen a trailer showing Gabriel as a superpowered vampire kicking the collective a** of a whole army, but we hadn't seen any gameplay before. Mind you, this trailer reallly doesn't have that much gameplay in it, but it's still nice to see some. I just remembered that in interviews, the developers have commented on the first trailer and mentioned that the new healing system is based on drinking blood instead of using light magic, so we already had evidence that you still play as Gabriel, but now there can be no doubt. That makes me very happy because his awesome (awesome is a noun now) has increased exponentially, and if he wasn't the protagonist, I wouldn't want to buy the game. In the first trailer, we saw him teleporting, turning into a smoke bat thing, and killing people with a long red energy whip, but now we see him killing guys with what looks like some sort of glowing longsword, so I'm curious which is the primary weapon, and how many other weapons and powers Gabriel has now. Or should I say... Dracul? And now here are some trailers: