Reviews

Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 is a game that surpasses the adjectives that are commonly part of the Source Material's titles, such as Amazing, Spectacular, Superior, and Ultimate. The development team at Insomniac have taken leaps and bounds to greatly improve on Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales in both the combat and traversal mechanics, adding such new features as Symbiote Combat to make Peter feel just as strong as Miles, while also not feeling completely game-breaking. Speaking of which, the game does something unimaginable: it doesn't nerf both heroes and villains. You can identify the power scaling. As for the story, it is incredibly emotional. You will be stabbed in the chest with the writing, with the voice acting wedging the blade deeper and deeper. Yuri Lowenthal does an outstanding job playing Peter, and properly conveys the emotion that when the Symbiote slowly starts to take control, he becomes more irritable, more emotionally volatile, and more dangerous. Tony Todd was great casting for the Lethal Symbiote. The rest of the cast are just as spectacular.

If anyone at Insomniac Games is by chance reading this, thank you for giving us such great Spider-Man art for years to come. I cannot wait to see what you do with the presumably final installment of the Spider-Man games, and just know you will pull off the Wolverine game we (at time of this review being written October 2023) know very little about.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is another great installment of this (sort of) new era of films: the age of video-game adaptations. Starting with Netflix's Castlevania and continuing with Pokémon's Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, and Arcane (League of Legends), the Super Mario Bros. Movie is a decent addition to the trend. The plot is simple, however nostalgia, the cast, and the many Easter Eggs to Nintendo and Mario's past holds the movie together. If you are an avid Nintendo or Super Mario fan, heck even a Jack Black fan, then this movie is going to make your evening.

Also if you are mad that Chris Pratt replaced Charles Martinet, then I'm glad to say that Martinet cameos multiple times throughout the movie within Brooklyn.

This movie encapsulated everything I loved from the series: Sly references to previous TMNT iterations, serialized storytelling, an absolute banging theme song, orgasmic levels of animation that would make most anime cry tears of joy, and great comedic punches, not to mention the heart.

However most viewers may be lost if they didn't see the series this movie follows up on, Rise of the TMNT. It acts as a makeup third season since Rise was cancelled.

What is there to say? B:TAS captures the energy of the Batman comics to the letter. Conroy is phenomenal as the Caped Crusader. Best episode in my opinion is "Heart of Ice", but everyone has different taste.

Marvel: Rising has a sort of energy that I really love. The art style is beautiful, we get a spotlight on lesser known characters like America Chavez and Ironheart, and I love the energy between Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan and Squirrel Girl/Doreen Green. I only wish this was a TV Series like Marvel's Spider-Man or Avengers Assemble.

Also I find it odd that some characters that have secret identities in the show are public heroes in the comics, such as America Chavez and Quake, not to mention how confusing the timeline of events of the Marvel Animated Universe.