The 'Shroom:Issue 116/Critic Corner

Director's Notes
Written by:



Hello all and welcome to Critic Corner as we here celebrate November in the most appropriate way possible: getting ready for Christmas! Below you will find all of our usual contributions that are so lovingly...contributed, but next month is when there's a whole bunch of holidays a whole bunch of people celebrate regardless of faith, race, nationality, and potato chip preference. I encourage all of the current writers of Critic Corner to think about how they can be ~thematically appropriate~ and also welcome anyone who wants to send in a single special section to add to the holiday spirit!

While you're getting geared up for giving, I have a special request for any and everyone who can contribute. Our late bureaucrat volunteered a lot of her time to the Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station to help with banding, research, and community education. This year for the Anniversary Awards prizes we decided to allow people to donate their earned tokens to be converted into an equivalent amount of money to then be donated to the Tommy Thompson fund in her name. As of me typing this out right now we have reached $900 USD which is absolutely amazing!! but we haven't hit that amount in monetary donations to fund this idea. So far we have about $500 USD to fund this pledge and, while I have promised to fulfill whatever amount is left needed, we can certainly use any help! If you are interested please contact me privately on the forum or in chat and I can provide my PayPal link being used to pool the donations.

Congratulations to ..me! for winning CC's Section of the Month! Thanks!!! Lots of votes in this month. As always, thank you for reading and be sure to vote!

Lord Bowser's Inside Story
Written by:

Greetings, 'Shroom readers. This is Lord Bowser here with a new edition of Lord Bowser’s Inside Story for you! Last issue, I covered the PAL Hidden Mansion, the true hard mode of Luigi’s Mansion. This issue, I’ll be covering a more recent entry in the series; the Special Worlds found in Super Mario 3D Land.

The Special Worlds are a set of eight new worlds that are unlocked upon defeating Bowser at the end of World 8. After returning to the game, we see that Luigi has been kidnapped by Bowser's minions in a similar fashion to Peach. Instead of having to go all the way to Special 8 to rescue him, however, Mario only needs to reach the end of Special 1 to rescue Luigi and unlock him as a playable character. Kinda shows how low-priority Luigi is to Bowser, but it's great for the players since Luigi is by far the superior brother.

Anyway, there are a lot of twists included in the Special Worlds. The biggest one is the removal of the Super Leaf, exchanging it for a far better power-up; the Statue Leaf. The Statue Leaf gives you the same fluttering power as the Super Leaf, but not only does it add a stylish new scarf to the Mario Bros.' getup, it gives them the power to transform into an invincible yet immobile statue ala Super Mario Bros. 3. This power-up is very useful for a security purpose, as it will quickly drop you down and crush any enemies directly below you, which can make fights against Boom Boom and Pom Pom much easier. The majority of the levels themselves are harder remixes of the regular levels. There are changes such as faster-moving platforms/obstacles, Cosmic Clones chasing after you, Beat Blocks going one by one, and my personal favorite; 30-second time limits with timers scattered across the level. There are some original levels thrown in as well, and none of them are a walk in the park.

For example, I had a really hard time getting through Special 3-1. The main gimmick of this level are the swinging platforms suspended on pendulums. It doesn't sound that difficult at first, because it actually is not that bad... for the first half of the level. Once you get past the checkpoint, all bets are off. You need to jump between all of the swinging platforms while they're all moving at the same time, with massive drops and gaps between them; the picture to the left of this paragraph shows what I'm talking about. Even with the Super/Statue Leaf, it's really hard to properly time your jumps and not fall to your death, because the platforms will not stay in place for more than one second.

Some of the level remixes are quite cruel as well, with Special 6-Airship being a great example. Special 6-Airship is a harder remix of World 4-Airship, which featured the flipping platforms from Super Mario Galaxy. However, since there is no spin ability in this game, the platforms flip every time Mario jumps instead. That already sounds challenging on its own, but Special 6-Airship takes it to a whole new level. The level is an autoscroller, and some of the platforms have surprise spikes on top of them, which can take away your Super/Statue Leaf powers... or the only way you can beat this level without cursing loudly. There's also a Boom Boom fight in the level, but to make matters worse, it's right past the beginning of the level, meaning he can take your fluttering powers away and leave you to deal with these sadistic flipping platforms, shown on the right, all on your own. I'm just glad that Statue Leaves are abundant in the Special Worlds (one can even be found in this very level), but man, this level was torture when I first played it... and almost every playthrough since. If you thought the above two levels were bad, though, we haven't even scratched the surface.

There is one world that would make even Hell jealous. One world that will break even the strongest person's sanity. One world that will make you question all of your life choices. What world is that?

Special 8.

If you haven't played Super Mario 3D Land yet, you might imagine Special 8 as this hellish wasteland filled with acid, lava, and all that good stuff. Well...



"Hey, it's yellow and nostalgic! It can't be that bad!" Yeah, just wait.

Special 8-1 isn't that bad. It's a remix of World 1-2, except the level is played backwards, there is a Cosmic Clone chasing after you, and the level has a 30-second time limit. Sounds hard, right? Well, it's the easiest level in Special 8, so if you have trouble beating it, this world will be the death of you.

Special 8-2 gets much worse. It's the second-hardest level in the game for me, because it's a harder remix of an already quite tough level; World 8-3. It features quickly-rotating platforms and a lot of Rocky Wrenches, meaning that a Super/Statue Leaf is basically required in order to feasibly beat this level. As you can see from the picture on the right, it's just as hard as it sounds. I remember once literally spending over an hour to get through this level, along with me violently cursing every time I fell. But, there is still one level out there that takes the cake for the hardest level not only for me, but for the vast majority of everyone who has played the game, and that is Special 8-Crown.

Special 8-Crown is essentially everything hard about this game, multiplied by 10, and all combined into one unholy level. Unlocking it is no cakewalk, either; in order to unlock it, every level in the game must have all three Star Medals collected, be beaten by both Mario and Luigi, and have one of the brothers reach the top of the flagpole. This isn't all that bad for the regular worlds, but having to re-do levels like Special 3-1, Special 6-Airship, and literally anything from Special 8 is enough to drive anyone insane... and then Special 8-Crown will drive them to complete and utter madness. This game takes a page from Super Mario Galaxy 2 by including a final, extremely difficult challenge at the end of the game. This level has single blocks that you need to get across, a fight versus Boom Boom and Pom Pom at the same time, an abundance of fire via fire bars and flamethrowers, and a giant Cosmic Clone chasing after you. Fortunately, there is no 30-second time limit in this level, but you will most certainly need at least the majority of the 500 seconds given to you to finish this level, as it is also one of the longest levels in the game. There are no checkpoints or power-ups at all in this level, meaning you have to clear it in one go; if you die near the end, you have to do all of it again. Even with a Super/Statue Leaf, this level is by far the hardest in the game; I can't even imagine ever beating this level without the fluttering power. It's a formidable challenge, but at least it's not as sadistic as The Perfect Run from SMG2.

Now that I've covered the Special Worlds and commented on some of the harder parts, it's time for me to give a final rating. Taking all things into consideration, the hard mode for Super Mario 3D Land receives a score of...

9.4/10 (A)

The Special Worlds might be a pain at times, but the majority of the levels are really fun and I enjoyed the twists that they had. It's a nice way to replay the same levels without getting bored. Some parts, especially Special 8-Crown, were a little too aggravating for my tastes, but the fun parts were able to mostly outweigh them.

Thank you for reading through my review of Super Mario 3D Land. Tune in next issue where I'll review a rather notorious challenge in the series. This is Lord Bowser, signing out!

Graphic Novel Reviews
Written by:

Greetings, book fans and graphic novel nerds alike! In this month's Graphic Novel Review, I will be looking spoiler-free at this year's reprint of Super Mario Adventures!

This new edition contains the original comic, which originally ran in Nintendo Power from January 1992-December 1992, and the Mario vs. Wario comic that was printed in the January 1993 issue. If you want to read more about the history of the comic, you can check out the page here on the Wiki, since I will mostly be focusing on the book and content in this review. I will try not to spoil more than I have to, because I have a feeling that this is the first time many of you might be reading this comic (as it is mine as well!)

Moving on to the book itself! It's actually massive, compared to all of my other graphic novels. Yes, it's only 112 pages so weight isn't an issue, but it's the size of an actual magazine! Actually, I think it might be bigger than the issues of Nintendo Power that I own. Hmm. Anyway, it's a bit unwieldy with it's size, so it's definitely something you'd want to read while sitting at a table to avoid hurting the pages or the cover. The reason for this is most likely because of the publishers not wanting to alter the format of the original comic, which is respectable. The pages are really nice, they are shiny comic paper without being the type that makes that screechy sound if you accidentally drag your fingernails across the page. Colors are vibrant without looking washed out or overly enhanced, and text is easy to read. There aren't any errors that I've noticed, which can happen in reprints of older comics by publishers. Viz Media does a pretty good job doing graphic novels.

Now, onto the comic itself. I'll be giving just a basic summary since you can read the Wiki page to get any more details. This story is a bit different from your regular Mario game. Actually, it's more like a beginning for the Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi are regular plumbers, and they are called to Princess Peach's castle to fix her clogged pipes. While they are there, green pipes start to pop up all over the Mushroom Kingdom! Bowser suddenly appears, and starts turning Toads to stone! The Princess leaves with her guards to find out what's going on, and the adventure begins!

The art style here is really charming. It's got a really 90s-cartoon-y feel to it, like a newspaper comic. Expressions are really vibrant, and the characters have really good life to them, at points the expressions can be a little... creepy. Nothing super scary, honestly, probably nothing worse than that Pepe meme. But the rainbow of expressions is just the start! The scenery is lovely, so vivid and iconic. Classic enemies are everywhere! Even though this comic doesn't play out like the games (actually, in one instance, it even breaks continuity and the fourth wall), it's obviously a part of the Mario family.

My favorite is the treatment that Peach received. Unlike in most of the Mario games, she doesn't get captured by Bowser right at the start, rather, she takes a group of guards to find him and force him to turn her people back to normal. You have to love a headstrong princess! I certainly do. She's ready to kick some Koopa butt and look good doing it!

After spending some time with this book, I can give it a big thumbs-up! If you're new to the Mario series and you haven't read this comic before, you should definitely invest in this book. If you've played since before the NES and you've got all the Nintendo Power issues it ran in, well, you should still buy it too! It's a great reprint, and everyone can find good value in it. Just make sure your bookshelves are tall enough, though!

That's all for me this month, readers! Join me next time for another smashing Book Review!

Character Review
Written by:

Colonel Pluck When the Donkey Kong Country series was announced, many people were expecting the return off all the classic Donkey Kong Country things, like the Kremlings and Zingers and Gnawtys, instead they were greeted by a tribe of wooden instruments, whichI have already given my thoughts on. Now it's time for me to give my thoughts on one of the game's bosses.

Whilst I'm glad that the bosses for this game are actually original ideas, and not just bigger versions of enemies like the early Donkey Kong Country games, barring Donkey Kong Country 3, the whole spiel of this instruments hypnotise boss to do battle motif gets pretty old after like the third one, especially when certain ones, like the Mugly or the mindless beasts shouldn't need to be hypnotised. So by the time you get to Colonel Pluck, you already get a feeling of been there done that. I could forgive Colonel Pluck for this if he a had a decent design like Mugly or Mangoruby, instead he is quite clearly a rip-off of Feathers McGraw, the villain from Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.

His boss fight is okay at best. It suffers from what most boss fights suffer from: repetition. Wait for him to land, and then keep pounding his underside. The only change it adds is eventually he'll start realising mini robotics bomb chickens, and they don't really spice the fight up, rather make it more of an annoyance than a chore.

Donkey Kong Country Returns had good and bad things about it, Colonel Pluck falls on the bad side. It's nice to have an original boss, but given how he's a chicken it comes across as a bit generic. But maybe it is all a metaphor, Nintendo chickening out of bringing the more popular Kremlings back.

Meta Knight's Boss Battle Reviews
Written by:

Hello everyone and welcome to this month's Boss Battle Review. This month, we're going to look at something from the 2D Mario games. There isn't really a whole lot of really impactful, or long, or challenging, or whatever kinds of boss battles in the 2D games. However, this boss from Super Mario World is unique despite the simplicity. With that being said, lets take a look at the Reznors!

Reznors are the creatures at the end of the fortresses that are throughout Dinosaur Land. The fortresses are different from the castles, and there are four of them. One in Vanilla Dome, one in Forest of Illusion, one in Chocolate Island, and one in the Valley of Bowser. Each fortress has some sort of obstacle for you, but in the end you'll fight them. Each time you fight them is exactly the same as well, so there isn't any variation between fortresses. This could be seen as either good or bad depending on your perspective. On one hand, if you're good at fighting the Reznors, having something easy at the end of a relatively difficult level is nice. On the other hand, the repetitiveness can be boring for some.

However I don't think that the Reznors are repetitive. Even though you fight them up to four times, and all of them are the same, the battle is quick. Reznor is a triceratops-looking dinosaur, and there are four of them on platforms that rotate on what looks like a ferris wheel. In order to defeat them, you have to jump under the platform and hit each dinosaur off. They will also throw fireballs, and the floor will dissolve after two dinosaurs are knocked off.

This battle is not particularly long, but it still manages to make me feel tense despite being so simple. The feeling of jumping across a moving platform and successfully landing on another gives a rush of adrenaline. Even though I can beat the Reznors easily now, it's unique in the sense that there is a lot of precision, something many of the other bosses in Super Mario World don't have. If you haven't already, I would recommend this boss. It's unique, and if it's too hard you could always just take a different route within the vast lands of Super Mario World.

Marioverse Reviews
Written by:



The name’s PowerKamek. Do you have a feeling that this year is going by fast? Already November? The scary thing is that I’m turning 18 next September. I always ask myself: “Am I ready for the real world”? I need to start preparing before it’s too late. Anyway, I’m going to review the new colorful Paper Mario: Color Splash today!

Paper Mario: Color Splash released on October 7 in North America. It has recieved well reviews by those critics, but it’s time to hear my opinion! So far, I think I’ve played it enough to review it. So, in the first paragraph, I will explain the positives, and in the second, I will explain the negatives. Here we go!

When I started, I actually was enjoying it. I met this paint bucket named Huey, and after a while, I started the adventure. I would say the Gameplay is fun. It’s more fun than the gameplay on Paper Mario: Sticker Star! I actually didn’t even get how to play the game until I did a few levels, though. The thing I like about this game is that it’s different. It may seem like Sticker Star to you, but to me, it’s a whole different game. At least painting cards is more fun than having stickers, right? Huey is also a great partner to have… well… sometimes. I will explain that in the next paragraph. Also, the music is pretty good. It keeps me entertained while I’m playing the game.

Now you get to see my evil side! Negative time! Well, to start off, I’m going to say that the game is confusing. I was stuck for a while because the stupid game didn't give me a hint of what to do. Huey was useless, he didn't tell me what to do. Not even the internet helped. Talking about Huey, he gives horrible advice sometimes. I listened to him closely, and it made no sense to me of what he was saying, and I was stuck on this level for three days. Also, the battle system is kind of cool, but the repitance of painting and using battle cards gets so boring after a while, and irritating. I once used all my battle cards during battle, and had NOTHING to fight with. So, I died, and had to start that level all over again, which led me to raging and shutting off the game.

I can say this about Huey, though. He is so cute when he is happy, and it makes me smile everytime!

Review Time: Pros: Great Gameplay, Huey is helpful and cute, and Great Music Cons: Confusing at some points; Huey is useless sometimes; Battle System get annoying and irritating over time I would give this game a 6.5/10. Fair review, right?

Summary: Has fun gameplay; Huey is cute and helpful (and sometimes not) ; Music is joyful; Game gives lame hints that make it confusing; Huey can be an idiot sometimes; and the battle system needs to improve. Have a great November, and hope you… Gobble, Gobble, Gobble,... excuse me… hope you have a thanks-tastic month!

Movie Reviews
Written by:

Gods of Egypt

Coldness is creeping in, over here the Northern parts are actually getting some snowfall, so to distract me from all of that, my mind took me over to a land of desert and heat in the form of ancient Egypt. And to transport me there, it used the film Gods of Egypt, the latest ancient mythology fantasy film to hit the silver screen.

To my knowledge, no film has dedicated itself to ancient Egyptian mythology; yes there was the film Immortal, but that took place in 2095 and its plot revolved around Horus being freed from a pyramid so he could have sex with a human. I'll admit to having a only a basic understanding of Egyptian mythology, but I didn't feel overwhelmed by all the aspects that it was throwing at me. Whilst some things were captured well, like Ra fighting off Apep, or Set murdering Osiris, there were a few errors. Apep is represented as a serpent in the myths, here it resembled a cross between the Mongolian Death Worm and Galactus from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Osiris was also meant to become the god of Death following his murder, but this role was given to Anubis, who in Egyptian mythology is actually the good of cemeteries and embalming; and Nephthys is the goddess of many things, but not protection. It also would have been nice to see Ammit, the demon who devoured souls deemed not worthy enough of progressing into the afterlife, especially given how the film does use the scale system of judging someone against the feather of Ma'at.

In regards to the plot, it is a typical revenge fair, with Horus seeking revenge on Set for murdering his parents and ripping out his eyes, and it brings absolutely nothing new to that kind of plot. The film does well not to have any sub-plots that fail to resolve themselves, as everything that happens is in direct relation to the main plot, but it is slightly boring.

Character wise it isn't thrilling either. Bek and Zaya are the only two likeable characters as the other human is an ass and all of the gods come off as extremely arrogant, with the good ones: Horus and Thoth, being the worst offenders of this. I should be rooting for Horus to beat Set, but in all honesty the only person I cared about was Bek, and I don't know why I bothered with that considering how for the majority of the film he's completely indestructible (spoilers:, honestly you will be annoyed by how he seems to possess superhuman agility and endurance just for him to die from what appears to be a medium-sized cut on his arm . The writing isn't enough to justify its own paragraph, but it's average at best. Some early lines are awful, and it's stare at the screen bad when the Sphinx's response to having its riddle solved is "Oh, bother."

There was one thing that surprised me in this film though: I never expected ancient Egypt to be so white. In a film set in an African country our main human character, Bek, is played by a white Australian, whilst our main gods, Horus and Set, are played by a white Dane and a white Scotsman, respectively. The only main character of colour is Chadwick Boseman, who plays Thoth, and he gets 20 minutes of screen-time as a maximum. And annoyingly, no one thought that the Egyptian god of storms, the desert, chaos and war should not have Butler's native Scottish accent, Butler's performance is fine, but it is heavily undermined by this amusing oversight.

I wouldn't recommend Gods of Egypt, it killed two hours perfectly fine, but there's nothing worth going back to. It's a plot that has been told in numerous other films in a better way. If you want to watch an ancient mythology film, stick with the Greeks.

Yoshi876's Monthly Thoughts
by:

Hello readers and welcome to my Monthly Thoughts! Here, I give a run down on the 10 news stories that interested me the most in the past month. Now, the things that will likely interest me are disasters and similar things; politics; and scientific discoveries, particularly in the fields of astronomy and biology. This issue we'll be covering news from October 9 - November 12, 2016.

10. Penguin underpass in New Zealand - The news can be hard-hitting most of the time, so it warmed my heart to see this nice little story, especially since I love penguins. The underpass was brought in so penguins could safely cross a busy road after fishing at sea and returning to land so they could feed their chicks without getting hit by cars.

9. British UFO files to get further censorship - Well, this is a blow. Apparently some of the information don't have an FOI (Freedom of Information) certificate, so they can't be released. The date for publication of those that can be is now Spring 2017, but in all honesty, if the government are hiding files like this still, it's obvious that nothing worthwhile will come out of their release.

8. French law scraps forced sterilisation for transgendered people - Last month I shared the story of the first openly trans soldier to serve on the front line, well now I share another good trans story. In the past, transgendered people in France needed to be sterilised before they could undergo sex reassignment surgery, now they don't. This is a great move as Europe continues to become more LGBT friendly, although there are still a few nations where it's not the best.

7. Terracotta army built with help from Greeks - Archaeologists have discovered that it is very likely that the Terracotta army was built under supervision from someone who took inspiration from the ancient Greeks. Why is this thought? It's down to the discovery of European-specific mitochondrial DNA, this also blows apart our previous beliefs about how the West and China met each other, as this means that we were there 1500 years before what is commonly accepted. This is quite the amazing find, and whenever I saw trailers for the documentary that exposed this, I never thought that this would be the secret that they were hiding.

6. Previous incurable diseases get a boost? - Potentially, yes. Scientists have mined an antibiotic from inside human guts and in animal testing so far, 100% of mice with the MRSA virus were cured from it. Obviously, this doesn't mean that this will work on us, as mice don't get lung cancer from cigarettes, so the drug could have a different effect on humans. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Another one this month was Alzheimer's. Fans of this section will remember a couple of months ago I talked about this, and it's come up in the news again after passing another drug trial. Previous Alzheimer's cures have been rejected due to side effects like liver toxicity or eye disease, but this one has none of those. Researchers haven't yet said when the drug could make the market, as they still have additional drug trials to go through, but the outlook is sunny. And whilst not an incurable illness, the first breast cancer drug for 10 years has been approved in England. Eribulin will be available for women with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

5. Indonesian President wants to protect LGBT people - Indonesia isn't a country one associates with being pro-LGBT, and some groups have called for the death penalty for those who in engage in homosexual practices (boo). The majority of the population don't have issues with it, providing it's kept private, and it seems the President of Indonesia doesn't have issues with it either as he called on the police force to protect LGBT citizens. This isn't going to solve Indonesia's anti-LGBT stance, sadly, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

4. Cancer rates to grow by 2035 in UK - At the moment, the current rate of cancer diagnosis in the UK is 352,000 every year. Research has suggested this will grow to 514,000, mostly due to the result of the aging population. However, other factors like smoking, poor health and improved screening for the disease will also be the case. NHS cancer services are already been stretched, so hopefully the government will do something that will help alleviate this.

3. Turing Bill in England to pardon gay and bi men convicted of homosexuality - The Bill brought forward this month seeks to pardon gay and bi men convicted under old legislation that made homosexuality illegal. The Bill is named after Alan Turning, the man who cracked the enigma code, as he killed himself after being chemically castrated for being gay. The main result will be wiping the criminal records of the deceased who were persecuted under those old laws, so whilst they won't enjoy the benefits, their family will know that in the eyes of the government they have done nothing wrong. It's shameful, that the bill has been delayed due to Sam Gyimah MP speaking for so long, but on the other side I was surprised to see former Labour Minister, Chris Bryant MP, get moved to tears over the Bill. I'll admit to not knowing when it will be issued, but I know that this Bill will.

2. People scared away from GPs due to receptionists - Studies last month found out that 'probing' questions asked by receptionists was off-putting for patients and could cause some with serious symptoms to decide against visiting their GP. A survey of 2000 people found that 40% stated that a dislike of discussing symptoms with a receptionist would stop them from seeing their GP. There are other barriers as well though, getting a good time was a worry for 42%, whilst 35% worried about being seen as someone who makes a fuss. It's worrying for the health for many that simple things like this are stopping people from potentially finding out they have a serious illness. I can understand the time thing, but equally just keep going until you get a good time. As for the receptionists, various critics have said this needs to be dealt with, and I agree, people should not be off-put from visiting a doctor because of them, and with the fuss thing, get a grip, this is your health we're talking about, you need to take priority.

1. Donald Trump wins U.S. election - I can say this came as a massive surprise to me. It was an idea in the back of my head, but never one I thought would actually come to fruition. I'm going to try and remain politically neutral on him for the time being, because whilst his campaign was ludicrous, since he's gotten power he appears to be a lot more responsible and less aggressive towards people. I think at this point, it's more Trump's team that worries me. Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions are anti-LGBT, and I've read supposed plans to stop funding HIV treatment in favour of conversion therapy, or allowing businesses to discriminate against people based on sexuality. I'm sure if these ideas do come true, the uproar they will create will be massive, and hopefully would stop them from coming into being. But I do worry.

[[File:AntonHalfBakedLogo.png]]
Written By:

Heya guys I felt like I should have an intro so I could include something that said "hey there's gonna be spoilers in here but I guess that's already pretty implicit" so if you don't want to be spoiled on things I review then uhhhhh go watch Mad Max so you can come back and read my review because not reading it is not an option. Enjoy :)

Watch Mad Max: Fury Road
So I watched this on October 14th as part of my final day at Stoob’s place, and even though I probably could’ve done this review at that point in time I decided to save it because it didn’t fit with the theme I had for last issue. As a result, I sat on this for a few weeks before actually typing this out which further resulted in not remembering details, but luckily Google and Wikipedia have teamed up to provide plot summaries for me to kickstart my memory. Nothing really prevented me from writing this for a couple weeks, but I did joke to Stoob that I wouldn’t write this for a few weeks and thus forget everything so here I am being a good friend and not lying to him :)

Now, Mad Max: Fury Road is about some dude named Max played by McCree starting out as being a blood bag for a sickly warboy called Nux, played by Junkrat. They get caught up in whatever kinda mess that Imperator Furiosa, played by Pharah, causes by pushing the payload to its destination. Max soon finds out that this payload is a group of the last women on Earth who’ve showered, as played by Mercy in various alt costumes in her best homage to Eddie Murphy she can muster. After this they start fighting about team composition until the timer ends and they just gotta play. There’s a bunch of car chases and they keep stopping for various reasons and then have more car chases after. Lots of cars blow up and there’s a bunch of sand. Eventually Immortan Joe, played by Roadhog, who owns the wives or something to make more Junkrat babies with, catches up with them. This happens a few times and lots of cool explosions happen after each one. Soon enough Furiosa, Max, Nux, and the Wives all make it to the Green Place where a bunch of old women, all portrayed by Ana, are hanging out. Furiosa is elated to finally be here but one of the old Vuvalini ladies is like “this isn’t a Payload map, it’s a Hybrid”, and then Max is like “yeah after this Control Point we gotta take the Payload back.” I feel like I’m overdoing the joke so I’ll just get to the end and tl;dr Furiosa rips Immortan Joe’s face off and they make the Citadel where they started off their new home after liberating it.

This movie was directed by who I can safely assume is a gay Quentin Tarantino given that an entire secondary plot revolved around Max and Nux taking turns on who’s gonna have a bare foot in alternating scenes. It all starts with Nux’s brother ripping off Max’s boot, followed by Max taking one of Nux’s boots and focusing on his bare foot for a good like 3 seconds of camera time, and then again for a good like 8 seconds again soon after when McCree throws Junkrat into the sand for some reason. Some other stuff goes on and eventually Furiosa is like “we need things and stuff and also there’s that one guy who’s wildly shooting at us somewhere back there” so Max is like “sure I’ll go” while Capable, played by Tracer, helps Nux become a developed character. Soon enough Max comes back with things and stuff, but also now with a boot he stole from someone else off-screen as a kinda apocalyptic bff anklet for Nux, who is confused at first but is like “wow thx”.

As for my opinion, it was actiony, sure, yeah. I guess the whole “why the hell is any of this even happening” is supposed to be part of the feel, probably exacerbated by me not having watched the first three films in the series. The problem with this though is the deepest connection I really had to anyone was “wow her dress is pretty, I hope she doesn’t die.” I guess you can empathize with Furiosa and the Five Wives, or Max because he’s the titular character despite not really having any more than 5 lines, but I just didn’t really feel invested in anyone?? The Green Place being a bust and Furiosa being upset about it was probably the emotional crutch of the film but to me it felt like it kinda had to be a bust because there wasn’t a big explosion yet and Immortan Joe hadn’t been dealt with; the movie couldn’t just end there. Also I had no sense of time; was this all done in an afternoon? A 3-day weekend? Who knows. This is a movie you really have to watch out of pure loyalty to previous installments of the series, or by wanting to see really good cinematography and explosions. This isn’t to say it was completely devoid of plot and meaning; I did appreciate the reversal of the standard hero role and gave that mainly to the female leads and supports, while the male lead just kinda went along for the ride. Like honestly there was a scene with a bunch of beautiful young women whose entire purpose is to be impregnated just kinda hanging around the desert in lingerie and flowy dresses just hosing themselves down. If this was a Michael Bay film it easily could’ve went into slow-mo here and just focused on all that, but instead it focuses on their fight for freedom and their strength without being too ham-handed with t-shirt blasters bedazzled with “GRRL POWER”. Unfortunately there’s just not a whole lot I can say about car chases and explosions other than “wow they were cool and had me actually focusing on details of what happened instead of just ‘kaboom’ and done” so, bam, there’s my hearty review which I guess was more of a hyperextended reference joke and plot summary.

Rating:  Value Size bag of Bold Chex Mix

Explanation: With shaking up traditional roles and throwing in more explosions than probably necessary but still appreciated, Mad Max takes the way of Bold Party Blend. Bold is basically the same as Traditional but with more ...flavor I guess? It’s hard to describe. But who can really contest being different and also being a giant bag for an unbeatable price.

The process of designing a new ‘Shroom section
I’ve designed like maybe three whole ‘Shroom sections and someone asked me to review that and I can totally I’m fresh enough for this to qualify.

I’m not entirely sure what other people do when thinking about creating a new ‘Shroom section. I’ve seen some people express interest in filling in empty slots on the sign-up page and stuff like that, but for me it’s different. Almost all of my ideas are born and incubated in private chats with Edo and 22 and maybe a few others sometimes where we’re just goofing off and suddenly I’m like “you know, this sounds like it could be a good awards presentation/’shroom section/something else” and it goes from there. It’s almost completely spontaneous. Dear Anton I can’t really remember, I think at the time I was wanting to do something and then the Ask ___ section opened up for Fake News. The persona I use for Dear Anton is an exaggerated view of me already exaggerating my own features also when being silly in chat, combined with my desire to fulfill some kind of mother hen role in the community, and it just kinda seemed like a natural progression to dole out crappy advice as a vehicle for attention; it also was an excuse to draw more, even if it was almost entirely of myself. Fightin’ Footwear was conceived one fateful evening when Shoey and I were messing around in a chatroom and suddenly the idea arose of “hey you guys should do this for reals” so we did. Anton’s Half-Baked Reviews, surprise surprise, was also the result of idle chit-chat that snowballed into “huh this sounds like a good idea for something” which came around the time the Critic Corner director position was opening up and it just kinda 2+2=:bowser:. My M30 presentation for the 2016 Awards Ceremony was actually originally an idea for a ‘Shroom section that got used for a presentation instead because Miitomo kinda died really quickly and I couldn’t justify having that be a monthly thing, but still wanted to get the idea out.

While this method is totally against my usual nature of hyper-planning every detail, it’s kind of freeing. It lets me be creative and allows me to just flow into whatever feels right. I just want to be silly sometimes because a lot of the time I have to be serious or something with admin duties as well as my actual work life.

A major issue I’ve faced though is coming down from the inaugural issue high. All of my energy went into making an impressive first...impression...and then wondering what the hell am I going to do next to not disappoint myself and everyone else who thinks they’re going to get the same level of quality each and every time.

Rating:  Entire bag of Muddy Buddies

Explanation: You go into it thinking “wow this is gonna be amazing, I know exactly what I’m gonna do!” and just jump in with a huge fistful of Muddy Buddies. The combination of chex, powdered sugar, chocolate, and peanut butter is just absolutely perfect and everything seems right in the world...then you grab a second handful….and a third. Suddenly you’re coughing; powdered sugar has entered your lungs, gasping for air, unable to swallow because it has completely caked and dried up your mouth. Through this suffering, though, you still feel like you’ve made the right decision. All you need is a glass of milk.

Tune in next month where I tackle whatever kinds of end-of-the-year holiday traditions people throw at me. Also, tell me what to review next! Here’s my Steam Inventory filled with games I haven’t played for some ideas, but things you can tell me to do can also be movies, shows, physical actions, trying new foods, music, literally anything and I’ll cover it eventually if it’s not too ridiculous. Just send me a message here on my talk page or PM it to me on the forum. Don't like what I have to say? That's fine, and probably bound to happen because I'm putting no effort into really learning about my subjects! We at Critic Corner will welcome your alternate review of it as a new section for the next issue!