Monday, April 30, 2018

Avengers 4: Potential Titles


“Infinity War” has been out less than a week and of course people are already theorizing about the sequel Avengers film coming out next year. We were previously told that Avengers 4’s title was a spoiler for “Infinity War”. Now that it’s premiered, let’s theorize what the next movie will be called. As such, there will be spoilers ahead. So between talking to my brother and looking around the internet, here are some ideas I came up with.


Avengers: Disassembled
The “Avengers” roster kind of exploded during this movie with the Guardians, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man. And then at the end of the movie these pseudo-Avengers were literally “disassembled”. So it would make sense that a large part of this next movie would be about bringing these heroes back into existence. Even the remaining heroes are “disassembled”; between physical distance (Nebula and Iron Man on Titan), emotional distance (after “Civil War”), or just not knowing each other (Rocket and the Wakandans), there isn’t much pulling these characters together. So between pulling our remaining heroes together and bringing our dissolved heroes back, “Disassembled” could be a valid title.


Avengers Reassemble
Similar to “Disassembled”, this would focus the movie on bringing our heroes, dead and alive, together in order to put the universe back in order and stop Thanos once and for all. The difference here would be the theme and focus of the movie. Someone pointed out to me that (assuming Hawkeye is still alive), all six of our original Avengers survived Thanos’s snap. As I previously pointed out, the Civil War and the distance of space have torn them apart. As a result, just as they had to put aside their differences and assemble in “The Avengers”, it’ll be time for our heroes to pull together and fight back against Thanos’s forces, just like before.


Avengers: End Game
My brother reminded me that Doctor Strange saw millions of outcomes of their battle with Thanos. Only one resulted in their victory. I had originally thought Star-Lord messed up their one shot, but it hadn’t occurred to me that our mystical surgeon foresaw Quill losing his cool and giving the Time Stone to Thanos. That would mean that this is all part of the plan. Doctor Strange straight up said that “this is the end game”. Avengers 4 is “this” and it is likely all part of the end game that Stephen Strange predicted.



The Last Avengers
As noted before, five of the original six Avengers are confirmed alive. These “last Avengers” will inevitably play a key role in returning the world to normal. We also know that this will be the last movie for a number of our key players, giving the title another meaning, as it will be the last Avengers movie. This title also hearkens back to Captain America’s first movie “The First Avenger”. It would be very fitting for the phase three finale to have a title that mirrors our earliest hero.


The New Avengers
Just as our original Avengers have their finale in Avengers 4 (one way or another), it would make sense for a new team of heroes to fill their shoes. I’m not familiar with the comics, but I know there’s a team call “The New Avengers”. Among their ranks are some of our Phase Three heroes, Luke Cage (from Netflix), Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist (also from Netflix), Mockingbird (from Agents of SHIELD), and many others. We also have a couple characters previously owned by Fox, Wolverine and The Thing. I have little confidence we’d see any of the Netflix heroes or X-Men in Avengers 4, but we’ll be seeing more of them in one form or another. So at the same time we’ll retire Captain America and Iron Man, we could very easily get a new team with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.

What did you think of “Infinity War”? Any theories for Avengers 4? Don’t forget we still have “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Captain Marvel” to be released before then. How do you think they will play into the sequel?


Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Marvel Puzzle Quest-Free Game Review

I know this game has been out for a while, but since I've been playing so much of it lately I figured I'd toss my two cents into the hat.

Marvel Puzzle Quest is a Candy Crush clone complete with the micro-payment extravaganza that has been plaguing modern games like tuberculosis, but with the difference being that Marvel Puzzle Quest isn't pay-to-win, it's grind-to-win.

The grind-to-win model is a response to the play-to-win issue of course, that response being "Alright if you don't want to give us money then you're jolly well going to give us as much of your time as you possibly can and jolly well like it!" The big question is if the grinding is worth it?

In a word... Yes?

So the hook of the game is that you build a team of your favorite Marvel characters with their different powers that damage an opposing team of characters and the drop downs trigger damage and different abilities. This functions remarkably well, since the drop down gameplay is proven to be a great game mechanic in the free to play market. The game features a good 100+ characters to mess around with, from the well known and overused Wolverine to the lesser known like Moonstone and 800 versions of Black Widow for some reason.

Now let's say there's a character or characters that you would love to have because you think they're just the bees knees, either for gameplay or because you have all their comics, like Iron Fist. Well good luck unlocking them because the characters are behind an unlock wall that spits out a random character once you've ground long enough to be welcomed in for a try. Usually you'd just get more of the special currency that helps you occasionally level up your characters and is good for nothing else or endless copies of characters too weak to use or too useless to care about.

If you're fine with paying then the funds aren't much help, since all money will get you is more opportunities to try your luck at the spandex lottery. To add insult to injury the price for these spins increases the more you buy, either with the special and hard to get in-game currency it takes to open them or with that hard-earned cash, so the game fights you at every turn to get the guys you want.

Now I said that the grind is worth it with a question mark, and that's because if you do put in the grind which is usually playing a few games every 3-4 hours, you can start unlocking about a character every few days. This doesn't seem like much, but the drop-down gameplay is still entertaining and the wonky comic book stories they come up with is still enjoyable enough to have it on your phone with few regrets.

Pros: Visuals, gameplay, and eventually playing your favorite Marvel characters.

Cons: Grind, randomization of picking up characters, Nothing worthwhile behind the pay wall.

What's your thoughts on this? Have you played?

If you have and like it join our alliance- Magnitos Right

-JOE

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