The Scruffy Nerdherder

***spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2*** I was riding to a town called Valentine at a slow trot enjoying how beautiful the scenery was in the area when I came upon a man on the side of the road sweetly talking to his horse. It seemed the horse had thrown a shoe and the man had his leg up trying to repair it to get back riding. I opted to greet the man to see if he needed any help. I said "howdy mister". This spooked the horse and he kicked the man in the head, killing him and it ran away. That is Red Dead Redemption 2. It is an unapologetic land that welcomes all newcomers before trying to spit them out, no matter how sweet you try to talk to your horse. After a deliberately slow paced opening which see the Van Der Linde gang running from a job gone bad and into the snow covered hills for shelter, you begin playing as Arthur Morgan, a man that has spent his entire adult life with Dutch learning the ways of the outlaw. Seems this Dutch is different from the m

If you know me on any personal level you know that when it comes to horror movies I am the patron saint of Michael Myers. The original was released 2 years before I was born and since I was in single digits I have watched the Halloween movies and it is the one horror franchise that I hang my hat on. When it was announced that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green were writing a new Halloween and that it would be a direct sequel to the first movie, including tossing out John Carpenter's own Halloween 2 (which Carpenter has gone on record saying he is not a fan of), I was understandably intrigued. So now through various sequels we are in 3 separate realities when it comes to Michael; the original, Halloween 2 with other sequels 4, 5 and 6, then the second reality comes after Halloween 2 with H20 and Resurrection and now we have a third with 1978's Halloween and 2018's Halloween as a direct follow-up. Confusing? If you are a horror movie or comic book fan it is normal.

Since 2013 the rebooted Tomb Raider series has been my second favorite video game franchise (behind The Last of Us). I have gone through the first game so many times I can normally finish it in 2 to 3 sitdowns and play it once or twice a year. And with that comes the completionist in me that has to play Rise of the Tomb Raider after each time I play through the first game. Rise made some great progression over the first game including making crafting more in-depth and making the terrain much more varied and larger. Now 5 years later we come to the end of Lara's origin trilogy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which heads to South America as Lara continues her fight against Trinity from gaining the power to reshape the world. In doing so she ends up starting the apocalypse so...oops. Don't worry, that is not a spoiler it happens fairly early in the game and is the catalyst for the main story. This gives a great reason for Lara and Jonah to have some real tension between them a

Remember when action movies in the 80's would just start? Like you go to the theater or fire up a VHS tape and you get the title of the movie and we are off to the races. Back in the day when movie were between 90 and 110 minutes and moved at a good pace while giving you some ultra bloody action, bad or dirty jokes and you didn't feel like you just raced an emotional marathon? The Predator is here to remind you. Shane Black finally gets a chance to write and direct a movie in the franchise he got his first real acting start before becoming one of the most prolific screenplay writers in Hollywood and a pretty successful director. For the most part The Predator works as sequel, albeit still nowhere near as memorable the original. Basic movie synopsis: a Predator has come to Earth to give humanity something of use to fight off what is coming (no spoilers) and is hunted down by an uber-Predator trying to retrieve said secret. Put simply an uber-Predator is an 11 foot ta

When I walked out of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation 3 years ago I said that Ethan Hunt had become an American James Bond. Of course that was the 5th movie of a franchise and you wondered how long they could keep up the string of success. After seeing Mission: Impossible Fallout the answer is simple: as long as Tom Cruise wants to keep doing it. What movie can claim that its 6th installment is the best one? Let's take a look. On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Not as loved as it should be, but not the best Bond movie by far. Never a good thing when Kojak kills your wife. X-Men: Apocalypse - Not even Poe Dameron can make this anything but a long bore. Olivia Munn dressed as Psylocke is the main winner of the time spent watching. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Nope, Goblet of Fire. Dragons. Mermaids. Harry with his pompadour mullet. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - the most under-appreciated of the original Trek films. No Wrath of Khan even thoug

1. Atari Jaguar -Because nothing says “reclaiming past glory” like a “64-bit” console with a controller that actually makes less sense than using a computer keyboard. Alien vs. Predator was admittedly awesome, but White Men Can’t Jump… 2. Magnavox Odyssey  -Gets obvious points for being the first home console, but loses them all for having no sound and controllers that looked like you could give ultrasounds with them. 3. Vectrex -Because who doesn’t want their video game console to look like the TV screen in the chest of Robocop 2? 4. Philips CD-i -Besides giving us the shittiest Zelda game ever and having a controller that looks like a double-sided dildo head, it retailed for $700...in 1991 money. 5. 3DO -The Steam Machine of the early 90’s. Made by multiple companies and way overpriced to compete in the home market, yet still sold 2 million consoles. Goldstar made one. GOLDSTAR! 6. Virtual Boy -Imagine a 3DS that weighed 5 po

Quick quiz: What is the best Resident Evil game of all time. Ready? On the count of 3. 1. 2. 3. Resident Evil 6. What? I’m fucking with you. It’s Resident Evil 4. Although, I have a special place in my heart for Code Veronica: X, but maybe this is me wearing my Dreamcast feelings on my sleeve 18 years later. The reason why Resident Evil 4 was so great is the same reason that Resident Evil 7 is great. It throws away tried and true gameplay techniques used by previous iterations of the franchise, while keeping enough of the stuff that make it Resident Evil, and then dares you to not shit your pants. The best thing about Resident Evil 7 is its setting. The bayou in Louisiana has always intrinsically had a creepy factor to it, especially if you have never lived there and have watched anything like Hatchet, The Skeleton Key, or the first season of True Detective. Don’t worry, you won’t be going into the depths of Carcosa, but you may wish you had by the time you get finished e

Remember when Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate came out and some were excited because the setting of late 1800’s London is a favorite of history buffs? I do because I was one of them. Remember when the game released how boring it was on a level unheard of in Assassin’s Creed games? I am including 3 which may the be the worst Assassin’s game ever. Well take that boredom and ramp it up to 11...or turn it down to…-11? I don’t know how boredom scales work. Is it like an opposite effect? I don’t know. Anyway, that is Vampyr.  Dr. Jonathan Reid has returned to London after serving in World War 1 and we begin the game with him waking up in a pile of bodies and he has a thirst for blood. Yep, our doctor is a vampire if the title was not enough to let you in on the news. He takes a job at a local hospital that lets you choose to save or sacrifice everyone. Patients, doctors, random characters. All for your dining pleasure. The environment of 1918 London is pretty spot on. While n

-Nintendo will announce a Labo that you build to make into a set of goggles for your Switch and when you activate it the screen turns red. You realize they were playing the long game to bring back the Virtual Boy. -We get a gameplay demo of The Last of Us 2. It won’t involve Ellie and will make people be assholes when they should just shut the fuck up because Ellie is going to be the main focus of the game. Also we get a release month that will be delayed. I will say March delayed to May. -Gears of War 5 will be shown. It will be a Fallout 4 announcement with the game releasing sooner than everyone thinks. I will say late September. Batista will come out and Batista Bomb Phil Spencer and announce the Gears of War movie. -Sony’s one more thing at the end of their show will be a trailer announcing that Syphon Filter is coming. To remind everyone about the game Shuhei Yoshida will tase a random person in the audience. -Halo 6 trailer will be shown with a 2

We all know of the trouble Disney had during the filming of Solo. From Kathleen Kennedy firing Phil Lord and Chris Miller when filming was nearly done and hiring Ron Howard who reshot 70% of the movie, to actors stories leaking about how weird things were on set and even an acting coach being brought in for Alden Ehrenreich because he could not get the performance they wanted out of him, it seemed like Solo was on its way to disaster. Box office may say that it has gone down that road, but as far as the movie goes, for me, it is the most fun Star Wars film since the original trilogy. Solo starts out with our hero living on Corellia living like one of the kids in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Underdwellers". Forced to steal so he has shelter on a shithole planet all while making plans with his girl to get off world. When things don't go as planned and they are separated, Han joins the Imperial military all while making plans to return for her. Afte

Deadpool 2 opens up as you would expect. Wade Wilson is doing his thing being a fourth wall breaking asshole while he kills criminals in the most joyful, bloodiest possible. Then it goes sad. Like, damn Deadpool isn't supposed to be this sad. This is followed by an opening credits scene that is like the opening of a James Bond film as Celine Dion's theme plays and you are laughing after kind of being gut punched. That is what is great about Deadpool 2. It is not just sophomore humor with tons of blood and people saying fuck. There is a ton of that. The movie tows the line with actual character development of the merc with a mouth. Yeah, Deadpool is a fully realized character and actually has layers to him unlike a lot of Marvel Universe heroes. Score one (maybe the only one) for Fox. As he deals with the depression of wanting to die, but not being able to, Deadpool meets up with a teenager named Russell that has been abused and is turning down a dark path. This is t

I am just gonna cut to the chase in case you want to know if you should buy God of War if you haven't already. God of War is fucking amazing. There is no way around it. Even if the story was not one of the best since The Last of Us, the gameplay is so fun and spot on that you could play just for the exhilarating combat and still have a good experience. Luckily the story is the best part about this masterpiece. Yeah, I said masterpiece. God of War (and Kratos) seemed to be a relic of the past. A game that had its time in the sun with the first 3 entries (as well as one good PSP entry) and then limped on with a prequel in Ascension that felt like more of the same. It seemed like God of War had run its course. But series director Cory Barlog decided to take Kratos somewhere he had never been before...outside the confines of Greek mythology. Not only that, but they gave Kratos a son and a deeper meaning besides just running around, screaming at everything and screwing women w

Well...here we are. 10 years after Iron Man kicked of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and 6 years after Thanos turned his head after the end credits of The Avengers, Infinity War has come. There is probably no movie that has more pressure on it to deliver after such a long buildup. Not even The Force Awakens. All that had to do was be better than the prequels. Does Infinity War make good on a decade of waiting and feeding the Marvel machine money? Yes. Mostly. As we all know Earth's Mightiest Heroes are split apart after Tony and Cap had their billion dollar domestic in Civil War. Tony gets the heads up that this giant flying purple people eater named Thanos is coming and takes time to bitch at Doctor Strange about what to do with the infinity stone around his neck. Meanwhile Cap, Bucky, Falcon and friends are trying to figure out what to do with Vision's stone in his head from the fun Tony had from playing god in Age of Ultron. This leads to all the players splitting i

Rampage is a movie. A movie based on a video game. We all know how movies based on video games go (except for Mortal Kombat and the recently released Tomb Raider). So as a movie based on a video game with no plot whatsoever, except that you are 3 creatures destroying buildings and eating people, you would expect this to be a scathing review of some Hollywood cash-in and how terrible it is. Nope. Well, yes it is a Hollywood cash-in. Every movie is that. But Rampage is the right amount of big and dumb and fun to warrant a watch. The Rock is a ex-military man who became a primatologist named Davis Okoye, which I am going to assume is a shout out to former NFL great Christian Okoye otherwise known as The Nigerian Nightmare. He is best friends with gorillas especially an albino named George. One night a mystery object falls from the sky and infects George and 2 other animals in different location across the country and they start going bucknuts crazy and growing in size. Turns o

Fun fact before the review: My uncle and aunt lived in Waco, Texas in the early 90's and my uncle knew and talked to David Koresh on many occasions. I have always had a fascination with cults and maybe this is where it spawned from. Far Cry 5 is not as political as some would want it to be. It has plenty of politics in it, don't get me wrong, but it is also not the Trump-bashing, anti-MAGA game some were expecting. This is fine. It actually has some funny things to say about both sides including one mission called "Make Hope Great Again" where you help a red state gun toter thin out the herd of cultists because he doesn't have time to redraw district lines through gerrymandering. It really is way deeper than you ever could want. (Side note: if you do not know what gerrymandering is, please look it up. It is fucking infuriating.) The reason completely bucknuts missions like that work is because it is Far Cry. We have come to expect the outlandish

When Frankenstein rises from the dead, there is revenge on his mind. I, Frankenstein stars Sgt. Michael Nantz from Battle: Los Angeles as the title character. He is an undead hero who is here to kick ass and say nothing about bubble gum. When a Columbian drug cartel kills his father, Frank travels to South America to avenge his loss. He gets caught up in a revolution by the citizens who want to be free of the tyrannical control of drug-raged werewolves headed by Benicio del Toro, reprising his roles from Wolf and Escobar at the same time. The movie really picks up when he joins forces with twins Percy and Mary Shelley to infiltrate the wolves’ compound. There are plenty of nods to action classics like Lionheart, Cyborg, Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Hard Target, Universal Soldier, Timecop and Double Impact. Lots of kicks to faces and groins. Things get complicated when Frank’s former bride is revealed to be a wolf in disguise. She sides with the cartel to help take down her