RIP Alan Rickman

It's being reported that the actor Alan Rickman has passed away at the age of 69.  He'll forever be Snape to generations of Potter fans.  To people like me, he'll always be Hans Gruber.  His IMDB is just a list of wonderful roles; Dogma, Michael Collins, etc...  Hell he was even the only thing anyone really remembers from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

It's being reported that he lost a short battle with Cancer.  Fuck Cancer.

Muppets Kodachrome

This video hit the internet over the holidays so it's possible that a lot of people might have missed it.  I can't even count the number of times I've watched it.  It encapsulates everything I love about the Muppets in one video.  It also doesn't hurt that it stars the Electric Mayhem.



I really need a shirt with just that Electric Mayhem logo on it.

Party of One

There are a lot was ways to watch or listen to people playing table top role  playing games.  Party of One is a new Podcast that does things a little differently.  Instead of a huge cast of players, Party of One focuses on the Game Master Jeff Stormer and a single player.  Each podcast is a different game and a different player, so they can vary greatly on tone and subject matter.  As of this writing there are four episodes already recorded and they cover things like luchadors and ancient mummy detectives.  While some of them are serious, when they get funny they are very funny.

Each podcast is self contained, so it’s a great study in telling one and done stories.  The longest adventure is just under an hour and a half.  So you aren’t going to get sprawling Tolkien-esque epics.  These are tightly structured, quick stories.  It’s amazing how much gets done in an RPG session when the table doesn’t spend a half hour talking about how to approach the bad guy’s evil lair.

Knowing that these are solo sessions is one of the things that make it so interesting.  In a larger group game, building that special snow flake character can be looked down upon.  Not every person in a party of five can be a long lost prince or time displaced WWII soldier.  But when you’re the only one playing, you’re free to go wild with the wildest of concepts.  You can make that brooding loner character that never would make sense in a team setting.  It’s a very cool dynamic that is fun to watch play out. 

I really can’t recommend Party of One enough.  The Party of One podcast can be found on Soundcloud, Apple’s App Store, and on Google play.  So find it however you prefer and put it in your ears.

Flash Friday: Zoom Mopeez

It’s Flash Friday!  Way back in May I posted about Funko’s newest plush line, the Mopeez.  In that original wave we got all the usual suspects like Batman, Superman, etc.  I was really happy to see that the Flash had made it into those initial seven characters.  I actually found mine while walking down an isle at my local Walgreens to get cold medication or something else completely unrelated.

What I didn’t know is that Gamestop has an exclusive Mopeez of Zoom.  I can’t even take credit for finding him, my wife noticed it sitting on the store counter while I was busy looking for something else.  Needless to say it was an instant buy as soon as I saw him.

There isn’t anything really different about this little guy; he’s just a palette swap of the original Flash Mopeez.  I still find him adorable though and I’m glad I happed upon him.  I haven’t seen anything yet on a second DC wave outside the Rainbow Batmans.  I’ll post it here if I find anything, because I will lose my mind if they make a grumpy little Captain Cold.

Daredevil Season 2 Trailer

Netflix has just released the trailer for Daredevil Season 2.  It doesn't give away anything but still managed to make me even more excited for the show.  On top of that it confirmed the release date as March 18th.

The upcoming season is going to guest star the Punisher, So Matt's reluctance to kill is going to be pushed to the extremes.  In fact some of the released set photos make it look like they are copying a very famous comicbook meetup between the two.  

I'm looking forward to more Daredevil and the eventual Luke Cage.   Hopefully we will get some Iron Fist casting news soon.  

WWE 2K16: The New Day

Last year's WWE 2K15 left a lot of long time fans pretty unhappy with the game.  It seems any time a yearly series makes the jump to a new platform they seem to leave out half of the regular features.  In WWE 2K15 you couldn't even make female wrestlers.  We are about a month away from the new WWE 2K16 and it looks like most of the things that were cut are coming back.  Created female wrestlers are back, there are 100 save slots for created wrestlers, and their My Career mode looks drastically improved.  You might even say this a New Day.

Xavier Woods even manages to mention his wonderful Up, Up, Down, Down youtube channel.  I skipped last year's game but I think I'm back aboard the hype train.  WWE 2K16 will release on October 27th.  Pre-ordering will net you a Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator character.  No other DLC has been announced at this time, but there will most likely be a Season Pass.

Castle Crashers Remastered

A remastered version of Castle Crashers just came out on the Xbox One yesterday.  This was one of my favorite side scrolling beat-em ups on the 360 so I'm really happy to see that it is making the jump to the new console.  The even better news is that for a limited time the Remastered version is free to those who bought the original version on the 360.  There were some slight hiccups with the process early yesterday morning, but I was able to download it last night with no issues at all.

You won't have to lose your progress either!  Behemoth,, the creators of Castle Crashers, posted the image posted above.  The entire process was extremely fast and would have gone even quicker if I didn't have to track down where I had stored my 360 controllers.  The DLC carries over too, so if you added the extra characters like the King they will be available to play.

If you didn't pick up this wonderfully cartoony hack and slasher when it was first released it is still worth the full asking price.  It's a fun game solo but really shines in couch co-op.