While they may seem catered toward children, Lego games have a long-lasting appeal for people of all ages.
I've always thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle solving and button mashing that comes with every Lego game. The puzzles feed your mind and the button mashing makes even the most casual player feel highly skilled.
And even with all the similarities in gameplay across the roster of Lego games, each installment within each series brings something new and interesting to the table.
One of the more entertaining things each game does is find different ways to make characters who died in the source material stay alive in some weird fashion. One example of this is in "Lego Jurassic World" when all the "dead" characters are still alive in the mosasaurus' stomach, just playing a card game.
I wanna play cards with Zara too ;-; And Indominus Rex. He seems chill when dead 🥺🥺 AND THE CARDS ARE SO BIG IN ZARA HANDS ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ pic.twitter.com/CKdPINN2JR
Likewise, achievement hunting within each game can keep anyone busy with hours upon hours of enjoyable content, even when cheat codes are turned on. My goal is always to try and 100% Lego games, no matter how long it takes.
And the popularity is clearly long lasting even for older Lego games. My brother's "Lego Marvel Superheroes" videos from a year ago are some of the most popular videos on his YouTube channel, as shown with the video above that has over 110k views.
Lego really is for everyone, especially in regard to its games.
JT Music is a two-man music group created by childhood friends John and Christian, aka Pat and Skull. They create all kinds of songs, many of which are based on video games. Some of my favorite songs they've made are about the "Five Nights at Freddy's" franchise.
In particular, I really enjoy "Join Us for a Bite," "We Don't Bite," and "Another Five Nights." The songs get better and better as time goes on. The songs for the first two games are sort of middling to me, but JT Music seemed to hit its stride starting with the third game's song and continued from there.
Each song infuses gameplay and lore while going back and forth between raps and electrically autotuned singing that perfectly fits the atmosphere of the games.
"Join Us for a Bite" and some of the other songs from the fifth game onward feature more real singing without electrical autotune since they feature different singers.
When I heard that the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie was going to include cameos and fan-made content, I hoped to hear one of JT Music's songs, but the group's songs weren't included. Hopefully, there will be an opportunity to use the songs in future installments.
Variant covers of "Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman" vol. 1 issue 1.
"Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman" is a comic series dedicated to fleshing out the origin story of Agent 47 and his handler Diana Burnwood from the "Hitman" video game series.
I received a digital copy of volume 1 issue 1 as a bonus reward when I bought one of the more recent games. Today happens to be the anniversary of this issue's release in 2017, and looking back, there's plenty to like and plenty to critique.
For one thing, I enjoy the art style and character development.
One issue I have though is that Agent 47 and Subject 6 look a little too similar. I know that's part of the point since they're both cloned from the same DNA samples, but in some panels, I wouldn't be able to tell which was which if I hadn't gotten story context from playing the games.
And that leads into another point. While I enjoy the idea of fleshing out the characters' origin stories, much of what's in this issue is a rehash of flashbacks from the games. Or perhaps the games' flashbacks are a rehash of this issue, but still.
Likewise, while the jumps back and forth between Diana and Agent 47's stories would work in a more cinematic medium like a movie or a video game, I think those jumps are a bit disorienting in the written medium, even one that's as visual as a comic book.
I also have the original version of the comic where the year 1985 is mistakenly used instead of 1989, but I actually enjoy the idea of having that minor mistake in my copy since I'm sure copies with the mistake have become increasingly rare as revised copies have been printed.
All in all, the comic is interesting and I'm glad to have it, but there could be some improvements here and there.
One of my favorite episodes of "The Vampire Diaries" spinoff "Legacies" is season two episode five, also known as "Screw Endgame."
Prior to this episode, no one remembers Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) as a side effect of when she was stuck inside a mud monster known as Malivore, which is a creature that makes people forget anything it has consumed.
But thanks to an incident involving dark magic in the fourth episode, Lizzie Saltzman (Jenny Boyd) now remembers who Hope is and decides to confront her about why she hasn't tried to make anyone else remember her. They then end up stuck in a labyrinth that simulates '80s video games.
Aside from the obvious fun that comes with the '80s video game theme, one reason why I love this episode is that it really highlights Hope and Lizzie's friendship. They're always a fun duo to see onscreen and the episode really shows how far their friendship has come since the previous season.
For most of season one, Hope and Lizzie were frenemies with an emphasis on enemies. But they've always had a back-and-forth chemistry and when they discovered that the foundation of their feud was based on a lie, their friendship really blossomed and made them even more of a dynamic duo.
That's really highlighted in "Screw Endgame" as they seem to pick up right where they left off while dealing with the dangers at hand.
In season one, Lizzie hated Hope so much that she briefly wished her out of existence. Literally. In "Screw Endgame," when they're presented with the choice of who should sacrifice themselves to free the other, Hope insists that Lizzie should be the one to go home while Lizzie insists the opposite.
While this is indicative of each girl's sense of self-worth with regard to Hope thinking everyone's been better off without her and Lizzie trying to avoid the merge, it also shows how much they each value the other's importance in their lives.
After they each emphasize the other's importance and Lizzie discovers that the choice is a trick, they work together to eliminate the minotaur, which is the labyrinth's biggest threat, and end up both being freed as a result.
Likewise, the subplot of the episode is that they're trying to get back to their school's '80s dance in time to stop Hope's boyfriend Landon (Aria Shahghasemi) from sleeping with Lizzie's sister Josie (Kaylee Bryant).
Lizzie even tries to encourage Hope that she and Landon are meant to be together even though she notoriously doesn't like Landon.
At the end of the day, Hope decides not to interfere, and she and Lizzie have a friendship moment where they say that they "don't exist for just one path" or "just one boy." And then they dance and try to have fun together.
Hope and Lizzie's friendship is my favorite part of the series, so seeing their development in this episode was a genuine delight. The only thing that might be able to top it is when their friendship is further emphasized in season four.
Seeing a strong female friendship is always a welcome sight, and Hope and Lizzie emphasize the best of that in this episode.
If you enjoy nothing else about "Legacies," I think you'll enjoy Hope and Lizzie's friendship. I know I do.
The "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie, which premiered in theaters Oct. 27 and on Peacock Oct. 26, is everything I hoped for when the movie was announced.
The movie is based on the video game franchise of the same name, particularly the first game, though the movie does include characters and lore from later installments as well.
And despite necessary changes for the sake of adaptation, the movie actually sticks close to the soul of the games, most likely because game developer Scott Cawthon was involved in the screenplay, story, and production of the movie.
The casting and cameos in particular are amazing for this movie.
Josh Hutcherson stars as Mike Schmidt, a security guard hired to maintain an abandoned Freddy Fazbear's Pizza location. Likewise, Elizabeth Lail plays a local police officer named Vanessa Shelly and Matthew Lillard plays a career counselor named Steve Raglan.
Cameos include YouTubers MatPat and CoryxKenshin as a waiter and a cab driver, respectively. Markiplier was also set to be the security guard preceding Mike Schmidt, but filming for his "Iron Lung" movie conflicted with the "Five Nights at Freddy's" filming schedule.
Series antagonist William Afton also makes an appearance as Springtrap and a lot of the lore surrounding the children whose spirits inhabit the animatronics' bodies is included in the film.
The fan-made song "Five Nights at Freddy's" by The Living Tombstone is even used for the movie's end credits.
And the attention to detail on the animatronics and pizzeria are great too. Jim Henson's Creature Shop made sure the animatronics are accurate to the games, complete with the two rows of teeth. And the pizzeria looked just like it did in the game, minus the power-sucking security doors.
Cawthon previously mentioned that there could be sequels if the movie was successful and Lillard signed a three-movie deal, plus the movie made several times its ~$25 million budget during opening weekend.
I'm excited about the possibility of sequels, especially with all the new locations and cameo opportunities that could arise.
Beyond fleshing out the story, sequels could provide an opportunity for Markiplier and other streamers to be included, not to mention all the other fan-made songs that could be included from artists such as JT Music.
Likewise, each game takes place in different locations in varying states of newness and abandonment, so sequels to the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie have plenty of material to draw on.
I highly recommend watching "Five Nights at Freddy's" in a theater or on Peacock.
