Cowa-Sequential

Super Smash Brothers is back and now portable with Super Smash Bros. 4 3DS. Super Smash Bros. 3DS is the portable version of the Wii U console game that has just been released. Not having yet taken the plunge on Nintendo's newest console, I am left with the 3DS version. If what you wanted was Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the go, Mashiro Sakurai and Nintendo have delivered exactly what you have ordered. I can't help be impressed by the sheer amount of content that has been put into this game. The character  roster is expansive as is the stage count with special attention to the F-Zero Super Nintendo themed stage. In actual overall content, I would place it between Melee and Brawl. While the game is lacking Brawl's expansive adventure mode, Smash Run, Classic, and All-Star modes provide a quick but familiar burst of fun. The graphics are among the most fluid I've seen during my limited experience with the console and the 3D effect does provide some added depth. H...

Besides Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel's other great success in 2014 was the launch of  the new Ms. Marvel comic series. Ms. Marvel, the newest incarnation of the titular hero stars Pakistani-American Kamala Khan. Kamala Khan is a Muslim high-schooler from Jersey City who gains superpowers upon encountering a mysterious gas. While I am weary of Marvel's other attempts at 'diversity', Ms. Marvel is an interesting series in both tone and art style. In a medium often accused of one-dimensional characterization, and gender objectification, Ms. Marvel oozes personality, and creates a world which feels far more real than the rather cardboard Gotham City. The comic art is drawn in a way that gives the comic a somewhat grungy feel that one can reach out and touch it. The cartoonish style matches a hero who's primary power is shape shifting.   The series has also been a critical and financial success for Marvel and Kamala Khan proves to be a worthy entry into Marvel...

T he Legend of Zelda is one of gaming's oldest and most esteemed franchises. Originally appearing on the NES in 1987, the series has appeared on every Nintendo console and portable machine with entries such as 1998's Ocarina of Time be lauded as one of the greatest games of all time. I have played the majority of the series and am a solid fan of franchise, however lately something seems amiss. My most recently completed Zelda games are The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance and Twilight Princess on the GameCube released in 2005 and 2006 respectively. The Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for the Nintendo DS remain unfinished as does Wii's motion controlled entry Skyward Sword. Is the Legend of Zelda series losing its spark or did I just lose the motivation to complete these titles? P hantom Hourglass is the touch screen controlled sequel to 2003's Wind Waker. Sailing remains a key element in this film however instead of controlling the ship directly, players c...

Scarlet Johanson has enjoyed an impressive string of success thanks in part to her role as Black Widow in the Avengers movie franchise.In her newest film Lucy , she stars as a woman who is implanted with a drug that allows her to access up to 100% of her brain. Lucy is a French film starring Johanson, Morgan Freeman, Mar Waked, and Choi Min-Sik. Lucy is kidnapped by ruthless Korean gangsters who operate a human trafficking ring that uses tourists as drug mules. During a fight with her captors, the drug pouch implanted inside her ruptures and she is inundated with the potent pills. As explained by Morgan Freeman, this allows her to manipulated objects with her mind, learn information rapidly and even travel through time. The film revolves around Lucy gradually unlocking greater portions of her brain while hunting down the Korean gangsters that kidnapped her. The main theme of Lucy is the passing down of knowledge to the next generation. The cycle of lif...

Not a Selfie When all is said and  done about the Millennial generation, it is my sincere and honest hope that we are not defined by the word selfie. It is unfortunate that selfie is now even a word according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Selfies are narcissistic but then one can say the same for other forms of self portraiture. However  I feel that smartphones have made the an individual selfie picture worthless due to the sheer volume of pictures taken. They are taken to be looked at for a moment and then cast aside for the next one. Artistically rendered self-portraits take more time and care and are ultimately more valuable than a photo file that is lost among the millions online or stuck on a forgotten hard-drive. According to Google's spell-check, the word selfie auto-corrects to both self and selfish and I feel that this is particularly telling. I look forward to the day when this selfie craze dies down as a feel that the word is reaching its saturation point. ...

Guardians of the Galaxy is one of Marvel's more out there properties that I could not believe would reach the big screen certainly not before a Justice League film. However it is 2014 and here we are. Guardians of the Galaxy stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, David Bautisa, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel though Diesel and Cooper are voicing CGI characters. The story is simple. A band of outlaws must work together to stop a fanatic from using the ultimate power to destroy a planet. However unlike other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the plot is loosely connected excluding brief cameos from The Collector and Thanos.  Chrus Pratt starrs as Peter Quill, a human thief  who comes across a mystical orbof unfathomable power. Soon he is joined by Groot and Rocket Raccoon voiced by Disell and Cooper who are bounty hunters attempting to capture him and Gamora an alien assassin who is trying to kill him and recover the orb. Pratt is great in his role but...

The Purge was one of 2013's biggest surprise movie successes. While it didn't draw the box office numbers of The Avengers, it did recoup its budget many times over. Unsurprisingly a sequel, The Purge: Anarchy is releasing this month and due to that, I decided to give the The Purge a try to see what they hype was about. In The Purge, the crime and unemployment rates in the United States have plummeted in a seemingly perfect society, however once a year for 12 hours all crime is legal and all emergency response is suspended. People are allowed to take  out their violence, anger, and hate on whoever they want during this period and suffer no legal consequences. In the film it is explained to be a release and a way to cleanse themselves of their sins however in actually is cleansing society of the sick, weak, and poor.  In an affluent Los Angeles suburb a security systems salesman played by Ethan Hawke and his family must survive an assault by crazed bands of 1%ers. Hawke work...