Welcome my friends to another review of the fourth season of Game of Thrones! Today we look at the fifth episode entitled "First of his Name" where Cersei and Tywin plan for the Crown's next move; Dany discusses future plans; Jon Snow begins a new mission.

At King's Landing

The episode starts off with Tommen being coronated King of the Seven Kingdoms to the applause of everyone. When he and Maergery exchanges looks between each other, Cersei stands between the two, looking disapprovingly over to her. Considering how dreadfully boring Cersei's scenes are during KL's segments, I was bracing for the same thing in this episode. It turned out I was in fact surprised to see how good her scenes were. She comes off more sympathetically when speaking to both Maergery and Oberyn, both of whom have little love for her. Its remarkable, because that is the only episode I can think she is given greater focus on while her brothers Jaime and Tyrion are entirely absent. It made me forget for a little while that I hate that witch with the intensity of a nuclear bomb.

Something really interesting we learn from her scene with Tywin is that sh*t is f*cked for the Lannisters too... Turns out the Westerlands ran out of gold mines before the war took place and they now own a massive debt to Iron Bank of Braavos, and you know these guys don't f*ck around when Tywin Lannister expresses fear in having to deal with them. When kings don't pay their debts, the Iron Bank will simply give funds to their enemies instead, either way they always get their due - something that eluded me in last week's episode, because I forgot about that when Davos decided to contact them for a deal, I thought they wouldn't listen to him... But now I am like "Oooohhhhh..." I don't think the Lannisters will be able to pay their debts on this one *wink wink* Tommen's marriage with Maergery is necessary because the Tyrells are the only ones who can match the Lannisters in resources and are therefore important for their survival. Its so ironic that the only allies the Lannisters can really depend on had also conspired to further destabilize their own station. Its almost comical... The Lannisters' enemies have being crushed... But they still don't enjoy the taste of victory just yet.

On Meereen

The news of Joffrey's death had reach Daenerys's court and now she feels confident enough to take King's Landing with her Unsullied army with her, plus the Second Sons and freedmen that joined under her banner. When the members of the court decide wheter or not to go through with returning to Westeros, Jorah breaks out the bad news: despite her efforts from last season, both Yunkai and Asta retaken by the the slavers, making her progress for the most part, pointless. She admits that her plans to liberate the Slaver's Bay are not going as planned and she may not be ready to take on the Seven Kingdoms yet. She decides to stay so she can learn how to rule.

You know, I complained in the past that Dany had lost sight of her end goal, being too entangled into her quest to liberate every slave that came across her way. As well as her storyline being completely at odds at how heroism is not as rewarding as we've seen in this series, yet she is this borderline messianic figure where everything does her way cause her cause is just and stuff like that. We finally get to see that the fallout from her previous conquests would eventually resulted into turmoil, her victories have turned short-lived and she needs to think about the bigger picture. From a strategic standpoint her forces are still too small to take on the Seven Kingdoms just yet. She has 10.000 men under their command, the Lannisters have 60.000 (far more with their Tyrell alliance). Robb Stark could only muster 30.000 with the riverlords' assistance and he was still at a disvantage. So yeah, I do agree; now its not the time to return to Westeros. It going to take a lot of skill to liberate a place that made slavery such integral part of its society though...

In the Riverlands

Arya and the Hound are encaping at night, where she makes her death prayer everytime before sleep (this time she added Melissandre, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr and Walder Frey), which is annoying Sandor who is trying to sleep himself. They both muse over her prayer, which is containted with names of people she want to kill and before going to sleep, she adds a final name: The Hound. Very loudly I may add just so he can hear. In the following morning, Arya is missing when he is awake and he finds her near a river practicing "water dancing", which he finds ridiculous. She is at pains to defend the badassery of Syrio Forel, despite his being killed by Meryn Trant of all people ("But he didn't have a sword!" "He didn't have a sword?"), and finally he dares her to try and use Needle on him. She does, but it doesn't go through his armor. He stands stunned for a second, then backhands her, and comments that whatever Syrio had, Meryn had armor and a "big f*cking sword".

As I said before the Hound is one of my favorite characters cause he is just so badass and takes sh*t from nobody (including Joffrey himself eventuallY), however, we all know he is an asshole and unashamed to admit that. While I do dislike his jerkish behavior as of late, I have the feeling he is intentionally doing that to prevent Arya from getting attached to him seeing how she lost practically everyone she ever knew... Still, I think its going to bite him in the ass since she added him to her sh*tlist and he looked freaked out when he noticed she was missing. He better wise up and try not to further piss off the little girl who as of late, has no problem killing people in cold blood.

At the Eyrie

Geez, wasn't since the first season that we visited the Eyrie? It has being such a long time. Petyr and Sansa are make their way through the Bloody Gate and meet up with Lysa and her son Robin Arryn. Baelish is bethroted to Lysa so that he can become Lord of the Vale and he didn't have much trouble in wooing her in the first place, as she had loved him since she was an young girl. She is so eager in fact, she already the septon ready to marry them both right here and there and proudly claims she shall scream so hard that people across the Narrow Sea will listen to it. And, boy, is she a screamer >_>

Whatever... Its nice to see that Sansa is finally away from that heinous den that is King's Landing where she was used as an pawn by everyone and held like a glorified hostage. It finally looked like she was somewhere safe with someone of her own blood... Or so it looked like. When Sansa kinda mentions how Littlefinger loved her mom, like that Lysa snaps and starts raving accusing Sansa of having slept with him, driving the poor girl into tears, and like that Lysa goes back to normal... What the f*ck just happened? Is Sansa ever going to find peace somewhere?

That is peanuts compared to the bomb dropped in this part of the episode. During their private moment, Lysa lets it slip that she was the one that poisoned Jon Arryn under Littlefinger's instructions and wrote the letter to her sister claiming that the Lannisters were responsible!!

Why is this such bomb? What kicked off the series' events in the first place was Jon Arryn's murder. Since he was investigating the truth about Robert's children, we were initially lead to believe the Lannisters murdered him to keep that secret (though it was never revealed if they did that or not). And if you remember correctly, it was he who induced Catelyn into arresting Tyrion Lannister, which lead to the Lannisters into invading the Riverlands and kick off the War of the Five Kings. And leaving out the fact he has almost half of Westeros between his claws (with him being Lord of Harrenhal, Warden of the East and has the heiress of the North under his wing), I reflected further that during his tenure as Master of Coin, he was probably the one who made transactions that left the crown indebted to the Iron Bank in the first place.

Consider all of that I just said above about him and we can be concluded that all battles, all massacres, every single atrocity that happened during the War of the Five Kings. can be traced back to that man. Thousands of innocents are dead, the entire realm is thrown into chaos, all of that managed only with his devious mind alone, not through military might or wealth like the Lannisters. And the thing is, we still don't know what his end goal is but we assume that he wants to win "the game of thrones" and rule Westeros. Seeing how crappy the Lannisters' situation is right, at this rate, Baelish looks like he might win. If it was not for the Night's King and the White Walkers beyond the Wall, Middlefinger would have easily qualified as the true main villain of this entire f*cking series.

In the Woods

Brienne of Tarth and Podrick Payne are riding north, towards the Wall in search of Sansa, whom they believe may have gone to since her half-brother Jon Snow is there. Brienne is exasperated by Podrick's presence, since she feels he is more of an hindrance than a support to her. Not helped by the fact he is not an very experienced squire. You can just feel the "wah waah waaaaaaaaaaahhh..."

If one thing that can be said about Podrick is that he is certainly loyal and he will stick his neck for those he is sworn for. Brienne warms up to him when he reminesces of how he saved Tyrion during the Battle of Blackwater Bay, by spearing through the neck one of the Kingsguards who tried to murder his liege. While I did like to see the start of a bond between the two as the knight and her squire, I feel like Brienne has no clear direction in her quest. I mean, its obvious we the viewers know more about the characters than they do themselves, but unless if the secret gets out from the Vale that Sansa is hidden at the Eirye, she is going to waste all her time going all the way up to the Wall (and that is if she doesn't run into any brigands, wildlings or Ironmen).

Beyond the Wall

If anything else, I f*cking loved the final segment of the episode and how it concluded, this scene was just so tense and suspenseful. Bran, Jojen, Meera and Hodor are being held captive at Craster's Keep by Karl Tanner and the Betrayers, who are preparing to tie Meera up so they can rape her. Before anything untoward, Jojen warns them that they will all die tonight, fire will burn their body and snow will bury their bones. And just like that, Jon and his friends attack the keep. Unfortunately, Locke is among the Night's Watch rangers and make his way through the shed where Bran is being held captive. He puts a knife into his throat and carries him off into the night, (for some reason, Locke thinks its a good idea to drag Bran's crippled ass all the way up to the Dreadfort instead of just, I dunno killing him and bringing his body in a bag to not cause much trouble). But before things take a turn for the worst, Bran wargs into Hodor. With control of Hodor's body, Bran rips their chains from the wall, chases Locke off and snaps his neck with his bare f*cking hands.

I can't describe how I cheered at that scene, specially how abused Hodor was in this episode and I can safely say that Arya is no longer the only Stark children with an body count. Bran is able to glimpse Jon amidst the fighting, and wants to join up with him, but Jojen points out they cannot procced in their quest to find the three-eyed crow if Jon learns Bran is alive. With Meera, Jojen and Summer safe, Bran escape from the carnage. Inside Craster's Keep, Jon confronts Karl into direct combat, staging an awesome swordfight between the two. Karl keeps Jon on his toes, forcing him on the defensive while trash talking about him and the Starks fighting with honor. Just as Jon is disarmed and Karl moves in for the killing blow, one of Craster's wives (specifically the one that Karl used to beat and rape on regular basis) stabbed him the back with a knife, distracting him long enough for Jon to run his sword through his skull.

I can't decide how karmic this death was: if it was the similar to the way that Karl had killed Craster in the last season or if an a woman he abused so much ended up being the one that brought about his own death. As if enough scum wasn't dispatched enough in this episode, the cowardly Rast (the one who killed Commander Mormont and tormented Hodor in the previous episode) runs away from the fight... Only to be mauled to death by Ghost, Jon's direwolf.

I will admit that this entire sequence was a filler made up to pad the storyline and that it seemed to pointless to have both storylines intertwine, yet none of the characters to interact with each other. Hell, I don't even know if Jon is aware of what is going in Westeros right now (to the rest of the world, Bran and his brother Rickon are dead), and Bran does come close to reunite with his half-brother, I believe that if that happened, then it would probably lead to bigger problems in further contradicting the source material. With that said, the entire final sequence was awesome to see, the swordfight between Jon and Karl was tense, I loved how three despicable characters like Karl, Locke and Rast got what was coming for them and the remaining Craster's wives decided to go their own way before burning the Keep to the ground.

Closing Thoughts

This was a really great episode in my opinion, I loved almost each part of it. The only legit complaint I have is that a big departure from the book that its almost criminal is the omission of Coldhands, a supernatural character that saves Sam and Bran in some occasions in the books and was the one responsible for slaying the Betrayers at Craster' Keep. I think it would have being hard to put this character in the show, since he is just so mysterious and we know very little about him, but I am disappointed that he doesn't exist here just yet v__v I hope he eventually makes an appearence. T

Thank you guys for reading it... Next episode will be "Laws of Gods and Men"

See ya next time =P

yay I had enough pictures for today's Night Watch segment.

Welcome, my friends to another review of the fourth season of Game of Thrones! Today we look at the episode entitled "Oathkeeper", where Dany balances justice and mercy. Jaime tasks Brienne with his honor. Jon secures volunteers while Bran, Jojen, Meera and Hodor stumble on shelter.

At Meereen

We open the episode on Daenerys's camp where Missandei is teaching Grey Worm to speak Westerosi, with the two bonding over their pasts as slaves. Unfortunately, the scene with some meaningful character development is interrupted when Dany announces its time to begin the invasion. Disguised as an slave, Grey Worm and a batalion of soldiers manages to sneak into the city through the sewer drains into a dungeon where the slaves are gathering. He entices the slaves into rebelling, giving them weapons and the means to overwhelm the Masters. In the following mourning, Dany had taken control of the city and her first order is to have the Good Masters crucified the same way the children were in the way of the city... Now the Great Pyramid of Meereen is drapped with the Targaryen banner.

In all honesty I came this close to saying f*ck you to the TV when I saw all that build up to happen offscreen. We don't even get a fight, only one Master dude getting gangbanged by a bunch of angry slaves and next thing we know "WE WON THE BATTLE!!!", we don't even get to see the effects and consequences of the take over in this episode... I saw in the promo for next week that something interesting may happen next, but what the facking tease? Couldn't they had done that in this week's episode? Ugh... I am disappointed. The thing I liked was Grey Worm and Missandei's scene, small as it was... But so much for the epic city take over.

Nitpick: Why in the f*ck is the graffiti saying "Kill the masters" written in common language instead of Valyrian? -______-

At King's Landing

Jaime visits Tyrion in his cell after being admonished by Bronn during their swordfighting lessons. After they exchange some prison stories, Jaime asks if Tyrion did kill Joffrey, but Tyrion is suspicious if he is big brother was sent to kill him instead so he doesn't want to answer. He visits Cersei afterwards (despite their previous creepy scene they shared together in last episode), she is more angry to learn he visited Tyrion in his cell and tries to drive Jaime further away by implying he had betrayed her, when she demands that he bring Sansa Stark's head to him.

Instead of giving into Cersei's orders, Jaime gives Brienne a new task... To find and protect Sansa from whoever might threaten her... He gives her his own Valyrian sword which she names Oathkeeper, reminding both of them to their promises to Catelyn Stark, a new suit of armor and everyone's favorite squire Podrick Payne (who is in dire need to leave King's Landing). Jaime and Brienne part ways once again...

Also, the mystery of Joffrey's death was revealed to the viewers. During the voyage to the Vale, Sansa deduces that Littlefinger was involved in it somehow. He used poison that was carried over in her necklace given by Dontos, but the fool couldn't possibly be the one to have put it in Joffrey's cup, after all he is a drunk and a fool. Someone else in King's Landing was in roots with Littlefinger and when we cut back next we found out who the identity of his accomplice is....

.

.

.

OLENNA MOTHERF*CKING TYRELL!!!!

For book readers this should come to no surprise, but come on viewers. We should probably see it coming... I mean, looking back to the Purple Wedding when she is stroking Sansa's face she probably picks a gem from her collar (which was given by Littlefinger, who provided the poison), Joffrey's cup was taken directly in front of her, you see the camera pan on her face as she looks Joffrey drinking from it and she is the first to scream to save the king just to divert her. Also, she had the motivation: to protect her granddaughter from a sadist such as Joffrey... I mean, I already knew that because it was in the books, but holy f*ck, the clues were right under our nose and we should have picked on it sooner.

We close King's Landing with Tommen being visited in his room by Maergery (who managed to slip through the four kingsguard stationed there). While she did intend to bond with him as they are meant to marry each other, I was creeped out to see Maergery trying to seduce Tommen, cause he is still more or less a kid, and getting really close to his face and saying things like "This will be our little secret".

Eeeeeeeeeeehhhhh... It doesn't help we had an accidental rape scene in last episode and (yes I am not going to let that live it down soon enough) so I was very worried to what that scene would lead. Glad Ser Pouce was there to stop anything serious of happening...

At the Castle Black

Jon and Grenn are training the new recruitees of the Night's Watch in hopes of getting all the men they can get. One such recrutee manages to impress Jon by beating one large man into the ground and forms a friendship with him... Except for the fact, he is Locke, Roose Bolton's enforcer sent to hunt down Bran and Rickon and also possibly kill Jon. The very second I recognized him, I went "Oh sh********t" and it turned steadily worse when I saw Locke managing to bs Jon into thinking he is a friendly guy...

Though Thorne is unwilling to attack Craster' Keep, but Janos Slynt convinces him to let Jon lead the assault so that the mutineers can get rid of him for them. Thorne allows Jon to march to the keep, but so long as he takes volunteers with them. Among those are Pyp, Edd, Grenn, a few others I didn't recognize... And Locke. Geez, he managed to make a friend out of Jon so well and the poor dude doesn't know what is going on.

What annoys me about this scene is that Thorne still holds contempt for Jon despite coming off as reasonable in the last episode, and he lets that little worm Slynt drive more of an edge in the Watch. Can he not see that the Watch is in deep sh*t right now, they gonna need every help they can get and Jon is the one guy that almost everyone else likes and they can get them working no problem? Does he really puts his dislike for the guy above the Watch's needs? Smh...

Beyond the Wall

We cut to Craster's Keep, where sick f*cks turned the place into their rape camp, the poor women became their sex slaves and their leader Karl Tanner sits in the "throne", drinking wine from Commander Mormont's skull (as if we didn't have enough heroic characters having their corpses being desecrated enough). When there is still one Craster boy left, Karl orders his bootlick Rast to leave it outside to be sacrificed to the White Walkers.

Not to far from there, Bran and his friends hear the child's crying and he wargs into his direwolf to investigate. Summer is captured when he gets near the keep, but not before catching a glimpse of Ghost (Jon's direwolf who is being held captive in the keep). When they decide to get nearer, the mutineers captures all of them, torturing poor Hordor for their sick amusement, threatening to do with Meera what they did with Craster's wives and when they learn Bran's identity as heir to Winterfell, the mutineers see a lion's share of fortune to hold a noble and his friends hostage...

Oh sh*t... I didn't anticipate this at all, that they would have Bran's storyline tie with the mutineers at Caster's Keep since none of this takes place in the book. With Jon marching to silence them before Mance can find them, while unknowingly taking Locke, a man that was sent to kill him and his brothers... And conveniently enough, he is being taken to a location where Bran is being held too. All of this tied out make sense, but at the same time, it can lead to a mess. I mean, lets say for sake of argument that Jon is reunited with Bran... Do you really think that if he finds him at Craster's Keep, he is going to let his little brother going further north to find the three-eyed crow where Mance's vast army is marching south?... Unless if for some contrived reason, Jon doesn't meet up his little brother, Bran and his friends manage to escape during the battle which would make the two storylines work out their own separate way, but have made this unifying these somewhat pointless.

Oh f*ck. Where is Coldhands when you need him?!?!?

As if those scenes weren't intense enough, we close the episode with what happened with the baby... He was taken by an White Walker to the Land of Always Winter before a court of Others, where one Walker identified as the Night's King dressed in black armor and bearing a crown the touches the baby's face, which starts turning pale and his eyes become eletric blue. Presumably turning him into a White Walker himself. Not going to lie, I was on the edge of my seat how tense that scene with the baby was. The gifs I just posted doesn't make it justice, I can't tell how freaked out I was over that during the first time I watched it.

Probably because it wasn't what I expected as none of this wasn't present in the book. We know very little about them, almost as much as characters in-universe do. We do know that the zombies we see are NOT White Walkers themselves, those are wights - the White Walker's servants raised from the dead; and we know that dragonglass is their one true weakness... But where do they came from, how many of they are, their true relationship with mankind is not elaborated in the books either. What happened with Craster's sons? Well, the book doesn't tell, but the show apparently did. So is that how they create more of their kind? Did the TV show just spoiled what happened in the books?!?!

Want to hear something worse? Its outright confirmed by HBO that this dark lord character is supposed to be none other than the Night's King, the treacherous Night's Watch Lord Commander that wed a female White Walker and turned the Watch into his private army, sacrificing innocents to their kind the same way Craster did.

Closing Thoughts

Oh well... This was a good episode, if only for its latter half. I was legitimately letdown by the way Dany's plot was resolved here given the set up from last week. I figure the revelation of Joffrey's murderer should probably come to a surprise for TV viewers only. The stuff at the Night's Watch and Beyond the Wall was really good, but at the same time, they were taking a drastic direction from where the books were going as Jon and Bran's storyline were not supposed to align and showing way more than they should about the White Walkers. In all that, Oathkeeper is a step up from Breaker of Chains.

Thank you guys for reading it... Next episode will be "The First of His Name"

See ya next time =P

Welcome, my friends to another review of the fourth season of Game of Thrones! Today we look at Breaker of Chains where.Tyrion considers his options; Tywin extends an olive branch; Sam questions the safety of Castle Black; Jon proposes a plan; the Hound teaches Arya; Dany chooses her champion.

At King's Landing

We literally pick up where the second episode ended,with Joffrey laying dead at his mother's arms and screaming for Tyrion to be arrested. Amidst the confusion, Dontos Hollard takes Sansa away from the wedding to somewhere safe. They managed to slip through the guards and get to a boat, where they meet the person who sent Dontos to rescue her and knew that sh*t would roll down at Joffrey's wedding. Who this mysterious employer turns out to be? Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish!!!!!

As soon as Sansa boards their ship, Dontos demands to be repayed and instead he gets a crossbow bolt, much to Sansa's horror. He wanted to guarantee her safety since everyone is looking for her, as she is one of the prime suspects for the king's death and he needed to silenced in some way, that is why he had to die. He reveals that he was the one who gave Dontos the collar that Sansa used in the wedding that means everything he said was an lie.

Looking from a certain perspective, Littlefinger is prospering well the magnificent bastard - he is the one of the few characters to end each season better than what he started. While his end goal is not very clear as of yet, remember how much power he must wield at the moment. He was named Lord of Harrenhal and was sent to marry Lisa Arryn from the Vale, meaning he is on his way to become Warden of the East and now with Sansa Stark under his wing - the last heir to Winterfell - and the way to North is open to him. And unlike the Lannisters, he managed all that without money or an vast army in his disposal.

Joffrey's funeral is being held, where the only people that is genuinely grieving his death are present - his own family. His brother Tommen is standing guard over his body along with his mom and grandfather, and with his brother's death, he is the new King of Westeros. Fortunately enough despite being inbred like Cersei's children, he is actually a perfectly normal and nice kid. Just like Robb, he hopes to be the "good" kind of king... As "good" this type of setting can be.

Then when everybody leaves the Sept, with Jaime and Cersei being the last ones left, she pleads for him to kill Tyrion (since she remembers the promise he made to hurt her in Season 2 "Prince of Winterfell") alone. And then, disturbingly enough, they start making out right there. And in case you weren't uncomfortable enough watching that, Jaime starts to apparently force himself on Cersei, with her saying "No", "Stop" and "This isn't right" repeatedly.

This is the part where I ask: What in the crucified f*ck was were the writers thinking? I mean its already disgusting when two siblings are having sex next to their deceased inbred son, did they really need to add rape overtones to that scene too? Especially when the books, where the sex scene was completely consensual (Its still icky though)? It's really horrible this scene is so out of character for Jaime, even before his character development kicked in. Made even more mind-boggingly by the fact, for all his flaws, he always expressed disgust towards rape. He defended Brienne from being raped by Bolton bannermen - the very act that had cost his sword hand, mind you. And in the books, he swore he would have killed Robert Baratheon if he ever abused sexually of Cersei. Yet, in the series, he is cool with raping his twin sister (eeeeewwwww) and love of his life (*vomits*). I expected better from the writers, I am really disappointed with them... This is just too much... I believe some sh*tstorm is already being raised over this scene and rightfully so...

Grrrrr... Well, we move on to Tywin, who interrupts Prince Oberyn's little orgy he was planning on having in the first episode, but as always, the Lannisters have to ruin his fun. I really liked this scene (not for the reasons you are thinking, you pervs -_-), because Oberyn confronts Tywin over his sister's death, this time with no restraints and civil politeness - dude goes as far as to look Tywin in the eye without blinking and telling if he could kill him and get alway with it, nothing would have stopped him from doing so. Secondly, Tywin tries to offer his own peace terms by offering Oberyn a place as judge for Tyrion's trial, a place in the Small Council and reveals that Dorne's support is needed into a. dealing with the rebelling Greyjoys b. the army of Wildlings threatening to invade the North and c. Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons amassing their army in the East (This shows that Tywin is willing to acknowledge some real dangers that threaten their victory)... As well as appoint an meeting with the Gregor Clegane, the man believed to be responsible for his sister's rape and death. Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho... I really have to see how is Oberyn going to react meeting with the Mountain... You know, thinking back, its pretty safe to say there is not a single scene about Oberyn Martell that I disliked...

Finally we close off King's Landing with Tyrion being visited by his squire Podrick Payne. We learn that his list of allies are drastically diminishing, since Bronn is under investigation himself and several potential helpers are being sold off by Cersei to testify against him. Pod confides that they offered him knighthood in exchange for his testimony, but since he refused as he is too loyal to the Imp, Tyrion urges Pod to leave King's Landing as he fears for the boy's life since he might be taken as an accomplice. Its heartbreaking to see that Tyrion is possibly on his own, the only one who believes his innocence is his own brother Jaime, and even then, that might not be much of a help.

At the Riverlands

Sandor and Arya are discussing what they will do in the future, with him intending to sail east and join some sellsword company. They are accosted by a peasant and his daughter who asks who they are in his lands. Arya passes her off as Sandor's daughter and him as sworn knight to House Tully. The farmer offers shelter to both of them and even work to guard their home. Sandor is not a very guest, but the man is a decent fellow who offers some honest work in guarding their farm. However in the very next day, Sandor decides to robb them and leaves with Arya, who verbally lambasts him for stealing from the poor guy.

I don't have much to say about this scene. I could easily write it off as filler and I also disliked how callous and harsh Sandor's actions were here. What is it my favorite characters turning into douchebags in this episode? I suppose he is doing what he is going to do to survive and he got point too about Arya's naivetee. She should have know better the world is merciless place after what she has seen as he points out "How many Starks are going to loose their heads before you realize that"...

At the Wall

Sam is taking care of Gilly and her son, and is extremely worried by her safety as she is the only woman at Castle Black with over 100 men and (as the opening of the scene points out) there is a distressing large amount of criminals, namely rapists, among their ranks. Sam decides that for their safety, he sends her to Mole's Town inn where she works as an maid. This causes some friction between them, since she believes he is abandoning him without realizing he is doing his best to keep her safe. How much safe is she going to be there is up to discussion, as one of the women residing there identified her as an wildling

Elsewhere else, in a village south of the wall, in a completely cheery scene featuring a small boy and his father turns into some kind of "doomed hometown" backstory, where the Wildlings under Tormund and the Thenns raid the place, killing everyone except the boy, who is sent to relay the message to Castle Black, warning of their coming. Jon and the Night's Watch contemplate what decision they should take since their numbers are too few and they can't afford loosing anymore members. They are interrupted with the return of the surviving rangers Dolorous Edd and Green, who were held prisoner during the Mutiny of Caster's Keep, who were taken over by the traitors who killed Commander Jeor Mormont.

A new, more serious problem arises: Jon misinformed Mance Ryder, telling that over 1000 people were mounting guard at Castle Black and their number is the only reason he is holding back his full force. However, the traitors know there is only 100 and if Mance gets to them first, he will learn the truth so Jon urges the Watch to ride for Craster's Keep and silence them. This is something really tense we have here, since marching North of the Wall, where their enemy is far more numerous is risky enough, but they will leave the Wall unprocteted by the South where Tormund and the Thenns are closing in by the moment. This situation doesn't look good at all... But it looks very promising in the near future though I hope to see how they can turn out.

DISCLAIMER: My apologies, couldn't find any pic or gif I could use for the Night Watch's storyline in this episode :(

At Dragonstone

Stannis who delivers the news to Davos that Joffrey is dead, and he decides this is the right moment to attack. Unfortunately, they don't have enough men to assault King's Landing nor money to fund mercenaries to help their cause. Stannis fears their time is running out and they need to do something fast before their enemies stop acknowledging his claim altogether. Davos The rightful king decides that is the right time to strike, but they don't have enough men and not enough gold to hire mercenaries. Davos returns to his reading lessons with Princess Shireen where they talk about his experiences with the Bravoosi. Accidentally this gives the Onion Knight the idea of contacting the Iron Bank of Braavos to help out their cause.

If anything else, this was one of the best scene for its much needed light-heartiness with the interactions between Davos and Shireen. She is really one of the most endearing characters in the series despite her very minor role, and her exchanges with Davos were really fun to watch. I have to wonder, how is Davos is going to hope to deal with the Iron Bank? Not even Tywin Lannister f*cks around these guys (though he won't admit it in public) and Stannis' situation is apparently hopeless, are the the Bravoosi even want to going to make business with him?

Nitpicking over here, but doesn't it look like Shireen doesn't have the Greyscale anymore in the scene above?

At Meereen

There you have folks, the episode's title has only 10 minutes of screentime frustrantingly enough :| Daenerys reaches the gates of Meereen with its citizens, masters and slaves alike, watching and jeering despite the woman having a fried-cocking army at her disposal. They send one guy to negotiate and naturally from, he decides to piss on their direction before throwing a volley of insults towards Dany. Grey Worm, Jorah and Barristan all offer to put that fool in his place, but Dany considers them too valuable to be expended even to champion her, though Daario Naharis steps in, pointing out he is a nobody. He confronts Meereen's champion mounted in a horse while he is standing alone in the ground. As his opponent charges with his jousting lance, Daario throws his dagger into the horses' eye and finishing off the idiot before he gets up. He returns the insults by pissing in the direction of the city, even after their arches fire volleys of arrows towards him. Badass...

Seeing how mixed reception to Daario's recast was, this scene might as well be a effort to make new Daario look cool and turn him a fan-favorite character. Whether it works or not, its up to debate, and did liked it in fact but I am disappointed for a completely different reason. In the books, the scene plays out the same, but a completely different character called Strong Belwas took Daario's place and lets just say he goes the extra mile to say the least. I am upset that such character doesn't exists, because he would have probably become a fan favorite in the show, just like he is in the books. Though Game of Thrones is no stranger to combining two minor roles into one or renaming characters for pragmatic reasons or to save up time. So that is probably the reason why they combined Daario with Belwas. Oh well...

Daenerys gives her speech to the city saying their masters offer nothing but chain, suffering and commands, but she wants to give them freedom. With that she orders the catapults to fire in the city direction, the projectiles being barrels containing slave collars and with that the episode ends. That is all there is. I was certainly annoyed by this ending, since I didn't knew at the time what the hell the thing with the collars meant (maybe she intended to cause a slave revolt inside the city walls and not lead to any casualty among her forces?) and it ends before anything meaningful happens, I was sincerely letdown though...

Closing Thoughts

On its own, this was just an adequate episode. There is a lot of exposition and build-up for the future with not too many remarkable moments and a fair share of annoyances. The best thing I can say is that Night Watch and Daenerys storyline will be the most interesting parts in this season judging from what has being set up here, and maybe things will get better in the future. I hope so... From what it looks like, Tyrion's trial is going to be so f*cking loooooooong and drawn out just like all scenes at KL. So "Breaker of Chains", average episode.

Thank you guys for reading it. Next episode will be Oathkeeper!!!

See ya next time =P

Ha ha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry... Sorry... I couldn't resist. But if I had to sum up my review it would have being with the words above. But I believe I am more professional than that so I will give a more detailed review, because something really important happened here and we just can't ignore the rest. In this episode, a who's who of honored guests turns out for Joffrey and Margaery's wedding in King's Landing, but the king's taste in entertainment rubs many of them the wrong way. Meanwhile, Bronn gives a lesson to an unlikely pupil; Bran's vision helps map out his journey; Stannis loses patience with Davos; and Ramsay takes a perverse delight in his new pet.

At the Dreadfort

The episode opens up rather grisly enough with Ramsay Snow, his girlfriend Myranda and Theo Greyjoy (now broken into serving him as "Reek") are hunting with a pack of dogs a poor girl into the woods. Apparently it was the same girl that served alongside Myranda in the previous season into seducing Theon, but Ramsay grew bored with her and just decided to kill her off, by letting his dog pack maul her to death. You know... Considering what he does to his victims in the books, she went off comparetively easy. Brrr... I find intriguing what rol

Roose Bolton returns to the Dreadfort with his new wife Fat Walda Frey and is displeased to see how Ramsay had "taken care" of Theon. I really liked that scene for a number of reasons. First off, Roose pointed out what a stupid move it was to turn Theon into Reek, considering he was heir of House Greyjoy and could have being used as bargaining chip by the Boltons, but now he has being castrated, he became useless to them. Roose can be many things, but you can't fault him for being pragmatic, while his bastard son just loves to delve into his sadistic impulses way too much, something Roose comes to regret for put him in charge. Had Ramsay considered the long-run and kept Theon and not put him through hell, he would have made things easier for his House.

Secondly, while the Boltons took the Starks' place as Great House of the North, they still have a lot on their plate right now: the North is in absolute chaos, ironmen are still occupying their region and the Lannisters expects the Boltons to deal with their problem on their own . Ever since the Red Wedding, most of the Northern army had being killed off so that means the allied noble houses can't provide enough help and with the Bolton's involvement with that events, its possible that not many people are inclined to accept them as their new leaders too. Oh and that is ignoring the Wildlings preparing to invade the Wall that nobody seems aware of it too.

So yeah, things look pretty dire for them, but Ramsay orders Reek to reveal what really happened to the Stark boys that he held hostage when they occupied Winterfell. Realizing that if the Northerns discover that Bran and Rickon are alive they would rally to restore the Starks back to power, Roose orders them to be found immediately, and they deduce they must be going to the Wall where their half-brother Jon Snow is located. This just goes to show that when the backstabbing traitors rise to power, they are can get in a certainly more fragile position than they were before.

Somewhere in the North

Bran is warging into Summer and kills a deer while possessing his direwolf. He is woken by Hodor and told by Jojen and Meera to be careful, since overusing his powers can lead to some serious consequences. They find a weirwood (like the one back from Winterfell) and he has a vision with the three-eyed crow where a voice tells him to meet him, with Bran letting them his friends know where to go.

Its very interesting that while Bran has this great power, he is still at great danger. After all, being able to walk and run is certainly appealing to someone who has being crippled, however the longer they stay warged, they loose their identity bit by bit until they are trapped inside the animal's body, being part of the beast. Bran's burden is a cruel one, a crippled teenager on a quest he doesn't quite understand, and got more questions than answers. And his one way of escape from the harsh reality is at risk of wiping his own self.

The vision he receives is actually worth discussing too. Its a series of montages showcasing past events (like Ned locked in his dungeon and he witnessing Cersei and Jaime in the tower) with future events (such as a dragon flying above a city - possibly Drogon over Meereen?). What was the relevance of that scene? I mean, does it mean he will witness such thing happen in the future too? Will this play a part in the role he will perform? It opens all sorts of possibilities. Or maybe he is just seeing things that only we (the viewers) will see and not him anyway :\

And there is Rickon too. Come to think of it, his seer abilities were kinda foreshadowed way back in Season 1 when he says he won't see his father Ned back, meaning he probably has foreseen it himself. Its was a shame that he split with Bran along with Osha and Shaggydog, because I would like to see him develop his own powers too. I hope we can see more of him, specially now that there are Boltons on their hunt after all it wouldn't be the first time since the show took liberties from non-POV characters.

At Dragonstone

What would have being more appropriate to see about Stannis and his crew than watch people being burned at the stake for not accepting the Lord of Light as their savior? Because of course, there wouldn't have be any other way ever since his introduction that is all they have being doing. I have to say, I am rather upset with the way Stannis is being depicted in the series, not just the fact he doesn't seem to be moving on from the religious zealot schtick (which btw was absent from the books, since he was an staunch atheist who didn't even believe in the Lord of Light in the first place, but only rolled with it, since he needed its support to win the war). Compared to the books, he also seems to have taken a turn to the dark, becoming a borderline villain at times. Where his friendship with Davos seemed to be strong and genuine, in the TV he is willing to execute Davos for saving an innocent about to be sacrificed and only backs out when Melissandre convinces him that Davos is still needed. Where in the book, he was reminded to his duty to the realm, instead of his right to the throne helping the Night Watch and trying to earn other people's support, here he is still wrapped around Melissandre's fingers to do anything by himself. I am sorry I don't like to draw comparisons between adaptation and the source material all the time, but I can't help it when the source material does it better.

I don't have much to say about this scene at all, but I want to share my general thoughts about the Lord of Light and its role in the series. As far as deities go in this universe, its apparently the only active one compared to the Old Gods and the Seven, as the Lord of Light grants some mysterious powers to its priests and such as pyrokinesis, conjuring shadow assassins, seeing into the future and even resurrection. Unfortunately, it cannot be considered a benevolent deity by a long shot, despite being opposite to the White Walkers (the real big bads of the story), since it requires human sacrifice of unbelievers on regular basis to get f*cking ANYTHING done in the story and its followers are such fanatics who will find any excuse to kill you with fire. I mean, geez, Stannis' wife Selyne watched in delight as her own brother was burned to death as he pleaded to be spared. The worst part? Those sacrificed to the Lord of Light are said to join him in his realm. And I was like "this is total bullsh*t" when I heard they saying that. I was reminded of the Godhands from Berserk (great manga series BTW), who are a more or less demonic gods in their own rights, and virtually anyone sacrificed to them or killed by their servants in any way was instantly sent to Hell to be tormented for all eternity, regardless if they were virtuous or sinners. I just couldn't help but think that is exactly what happened to the poor bastards who were sacrificed to the Lord of Light.

At King's Landing

Tyrion helps his brother Jaime into re-learning his sword fighting skills by training him with Bronn, since he is worried that Its very rare to see a genuine moment of kindness, that isn't backed up by some ulterior motives, specially from the Lannisters. Sadly, he has to send Shae away to Pentos when his father discovers that she is his son' whore, knowing that if he knew Tywin would hang the next whore Tyrion visited.

Even if somewhat brief, the Martells showed once again that I am going to root for them, almost as much as the Starks. I loved how Ellaria is out and proud of being a bastard, since in Dorne they are not as stigmatized as the rest of Westeros (she and Jon would have being great friends somehow) and Oberyn borderline tells the Lannisters that they are okay with rape and murder of innocent kids, and its a good fortune that Cersei's daughter is safe with the Martells (i.e. We might as well hold her hostage too).

People everywhere have their differences. In some places, the highborn frown upon those of low birth. In other places, the rape and murder of women and children is considered distasteful. What a fortunate thing for you, former Queen Regent, that your daughter Myrcella has been sent to live in the latter sort of place.

HAHAHAHA Burn....

The marriage is under way and we are treated to very rapid succession of Joffrey being a daft cunt, be by hacking a very thick book that Tyrion gifted him with, pissing virtually everyone off with an reeanactment of the War of the Five Kings performed by little people just like Tyrion, where insults abound towards Robb Stark and Renly Baratheon's memories to Loras, Maergery and Sansa at least, but it was mostly directed at Tyrion. Then Joffrey decides to further piss on Tyrion further by spilling his wine over him, telling he will be his cupbearer that night and then all of sudden, he starts coughing uncontrollably. It soon becomes clear to everyone that he's choking.

The King collapses. Cersei and Jaime run up to him as he starts to bleed from the mouth and nose. The court's fool appear to take Sansa away in the middle of the chaos to safety. Joffrey, in the last act of his life, slowly raises a hand to point at his uncle Tyrion before he draws his final wretched breath. Excuse me for a moment.

OMGWTF I WAITED FOUR F*CKING YEARS TO SEE THIS INBRED SWINE DROP DEAD. HAHAHAHA YOU ARE GOING TO SIT ON THE DEVIL'S LAP TONIGHT! I WISH YOU HAD SUFFERED A LOT MORE AND HAD FAR MORE IGNOMIOUS DEATH THAN THIS. I THINK HE GOT OFF WAY TOO EASY, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER, HE IS GONE NOW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NED STARK, ROBB, CAT AND HOUSE STARK SENDS HIS REGARDS MOFUGA!

In a fit of insane grief, Cersei orders the guards to detain Tyrion based on the past humiliation he was forced to go through previously and now considered the culprit behind the king. Its very clear that Tyrion had being made scapegoat, and while I would love to discuss, who did it I am afraid the touchy spoiler-phobic people would flame me if I said who the right people were according to the books. Oh well...

Closing Thoughts

This is hands down one of my favorite episodes, if anything else, the thing we have waited for four f*cking years finally happened. Joffrey Baratheon is dead. Even if you don't particularly care for anything else in this episode, you can't say this episode was average in anyway. Its a really good sign this season is going to be the most promising one by far and I can't wait to see the ramifications that it will lead.

Next episode will be Breaker of Chains. See ya next time =)

Welcome my fellow Viners to the first entry of our review series of the Game of Thrones tv show! I figure I should have done this a long time ago, in this episode Tyrion welcomes a guest to King's Landing. At Castle Black, Jon Snow finds himself unwelcome. Dany is pointed to Meereen, the mother of all slave cities. Arya runs into an old friend.

In King's Landing

Okay, there is a lot of focus on KL this episode, perhaps a little more than it should have. Jaime gets two swords forged out of Ice (that is Ned Stark's sword, not literal ice) and a brand new golden hand. It doesn't make up the fact that almost everyone in his family decides to sh*t for whatever reason. Tywin wants him to return to retire as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, but he refuses, Cersei admonishes him for not returning earlier, because nobody's feelings in the world matter, but her own and Joffrey belittles him for the loss of his hand and lack of accomplishments because he is a daft c*nt like that. except for Prince Oberyn Martell's intro. You know, I will be really surprised if this character doesn't became a fan favorite. Other than that, all scenes set in KL were rather uninteresting to watch... Well except for Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne's of course. I will be really surprised if he don't turn out to be a fan favorite. His introduction scene establishes what we needed to know about him and it couldn't be more appropriate: he is selecting a prostitue to sleep with him AND his mistress Ellaria Sand, and if that wasn't enough he decides that the male handler should join the fun too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) however when some Lannister goons interrupt it by singing the Rains of Castamere and then talking sh*t about him and his beloved, Oberyn puts them in their place by casually stabbing one of them in the hand.

Oberyn then explains why the Martells hate Lannisters. You see, way back into Robert's Rebellion, Oberyn's sister Elia was married to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the one who provoked the war. When King's Landing was sacked at the end of the war, Elia's children were butchered, while she was raped and murdered by Tywin's enforcer Gregor Clegane aka the Mountain. Oberyn believes this was done on Tywin's orders and so he tells Tyrion to warn his father that "the Lannisters aren't the only ones to pay their debts". Admittedly, this can be very hard to understand or follow for some viewers, especially the ones that stay away from the books or likely never watched the DVD extras to take this bit of infodump. Anyways, I was a bit upset they didn't get Oded Fehr to play Oberyn Martell, but Pedro Pascal does an impressive job and I can't wait to see more of him in the future.

Other than that though, two little scenes that symbolize the complete and utter downfall of House Stark got me more than it should: one where Ned's greatsword Ice is melted into two swords (representing the obliteration of the last physical remnant of Ned Stark) with Tywin throwing a wolf's pet into the fire, and a quick pan to a statue of Joffrey holding a crossbow with a dead direwolf at his feet.

At the Wall

Jon Snow has recovered from his wounds and is questioned by the Night Watch's commanders over Qhorin Halfhand's death and the time he spent infiltrated among the Wildlings. While he almost gets beheaded for his troubles, he is dismissed when he tells that Mance intends to invade the wall from the North and the South, using the "biggest fire the North has ever seen" to signal the attack. I find the scene weird because, who the hell put Alliser Thorne in charge? Don't the Night Watch members vote for their leaders? Eh, I also noticed Janos Slynt is back too you know, the City Watch commander who carried out the massacre against Robert's bastards and was sent to the Wall by Tyrion as punishment? This guy is going to be pain in the ass believe me...

I am disappointed with this scene because I hoped to see more of Jon's reaction to the fact his entire family may be dead - more poignant by the fact that in the first season, Maester Aemon reveals how the exact same thing happened to him in the past. In here, he just reminisces how Robb was better than him in anything and should hate him, but never brought himself to. I hoped that he would fully realize his house is apparently extinct for all he know, just like the Targeryens were for Aemon.

Somewhere in the Gift

This was very short sequence so I will wrap it up quickly. The wildling group is encamped after Jon had deserted them. Just as Tormund is questioning Ygritte over if she managed to kill Jon or not, they are interrupted by the Thenns, creepy-looking, tattoed bald, cannibal wildlings that even other wildlings feel uneasy around them. This scene was and almost not worthy mentioning if it was not for these guys at least, because they look really promising as bad guys.

At Slaver's Bay

Daenerys and her army keep their march to Meereen, the last great city of Slaver Bay. Her dragons have grown a lot since the last season, they are now the size of horses and I wouldn't be surprised if one would be able to ride. That is, if they would allow such thing to happen, since the dragons have become so unruly that at one point, Drogon almost bite her face off.

Also I got to address the fact that Daario Naharis was recast with a new actor that just doesn't feel right to me... I want to say this guy doesn't have the swag as the old one had, but if I would I had to strangle myself. I really dislike when characters get recasted, specially when the actors don't look that similar to begin with, though I want to make some exceptions in Gregor Clegane's case (the new actor seems way more bigger and badder than Conan Stevens in Season 1).

Well, knowing how well the previous cities had fared against the Mother of Dragons, Meereen's masters decide that the wisest course of action would be to leave a grisly message behind, crucifying kids every milepost along the with their arms outstretched pointing the direction to their city. How much miles is long from Meeren? F*cking 163 miles. F*cking 163 crucified children in the way.

Did I mention this show is so hardcore and mature?!?! On all seriousness though, this is just cartoonish villainy right here, we've seen some really despicable characters in this series before like the Mountain, Walder Frey, Ramsay Snow, all of House Bolton and Joffrey f*cking Baratheon, but these slave masters are so over-the-top eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil I picture every single one of them having dastardly-whiplash mustaches, pointy forked beards while drinking their victims' tears from their cups. Which incidentally is how most of them look like and act are in the books anyway...

Somewhere In the Riverlands

The Hound and Arya are marching east toward the Vale, where he hopes to ransom the girl to her aunt Lysa. They stop on a inn where Lannister soldiers are. Arya recognizes one of them: Polliver, the man who captured her and Gendry, took them to Harrenhall, killed their friend Lommy and took her sword Needle. When she decides to barge inside the inn to take her sword back much to Sandor's frustration, he is recognized by Polliver. He offers to rejoin them and go back to the plundering, murdering and raping in name of the Lannisters. However, Sandor rebukes his offer.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT HOUSE CLEGANE'S WORDS ARE, BUT I HOPE IT IS "F*CK THE KING".

The thing goes down hill fast and soon with the Hound fighting all of them. Arya cleans up after him, attacking people as they try to get up off the ground. Clegane beats them all, and in the end Polliver lies wounded on the ground. Getting her hands on Needle, she stands over him, reciting the words he said when killed Lommy. Polliver doesn't know what she is talking about, only too late he realizes who the girl is when she shoves her sword in the throat, the exact way he killed her friend.

This was easily the best part of the episode and a contender for one of the best parts in the series. Not only the Hound's fight with the soldiers was both exciting and tense to see, this one dude going one-man army and winning, Arya shows her fair share of badassery by avenging her friend's death. This is also a big departure from the book, where she killed an entirely different character called the Tickler to reclaim Needle back, while asking him if "Is there any gold in the village?", the exact same thing he told his victims of torture. But since the Tickler died really early in the second season, they had to rework it with Polliver and I am totally cool with this.

Closing Thoughts

This was a really great premiere episode; A real step up from "Valar Dohaeris" in the previous season. There is what the premiere really needed, some memorable character moments instead of picking up the plot where the last season ended. I really loved this episode and I hope that the series keeps the same quality too.

Next episode will be "The Lion and the Rose" and lets pray that the moment we are all waiting happens ;) See ya next time, folks...

Ah, Lord of the Rings... The definitive epic high fantasy, you can't go on more than five steps without seeing others ripping it off all the time. It tells the story of a returning force of evil ready to conquer a world were humans coexist with elves, dwarves, hobbits and other fantastical creatures, and only the destruction of his most precious treasure can stop it. Lord of the Rings has a beautiful message: that even the weakest of all creatures can still make a difference, heroism is a quality that everyone possess and you should all use airlines (or equivalent of that) to spare a really long travel on foot. The Peter Jackson's movies certainly helped to skyrocket their popularity, albeit five decades after its publication and way after the author J.R.R. Tolkien had passed away. However between this period, some attempts at adapting his magnum opus were made and when you look at some specific examples, you have to think: What in the flying f*ck were these people smoking?

6. 1966's The Hobbit Slideshow Apparently Made on 50 Dollar Budget

There is a pretty good chance that you never heard of the first entry in our list. How scared would you be if I tell you that this was the very first adaptation of Tolkien's work ever? To call it an animated feature would have being too charitable, its more accurate to say its a slideshow with very crude drawings that look like a child made it, narrated by some storyteller that is over 11 minutes long and bore as much resemblance to the source material as an fart bomb is to an delicious meal.

First off, Smaug is called Slag and he is black instead of red-golden, Thorin Oakenshield is not a dwarven prince, but actually a human general to the city of Dale, Bilbo is recruited to SLAY the dragon instead of, you know, help the dwarves infiltrate Smaug's . And then there is what they did to Gollum...

There is some funny background surrounding it. The producer William L. Snyder got the film rights to The Hobbit very cheaply because it was still largely unknown at the time, but a use-it-or-lose-it clause meant he had to release "a full-color movie" in order to extend the contract. He planned a full-length film, but after that project fell apart with only a month remaining on his option, he realized nothing in the contract specified how long the movie had to be. So he threw everything he could together exercised the option to extend his rights, and then sold them for motherf**king $100,000.

5. An Never-Made Movie Directed by Stanley Kubrick and Starring... THE BEATLES!!!

Two years after the conclusion of the book series, some early attempts were made to adapt the books into movies and even Tolkien himself was pretty enthusiastic. However, they never came to be for a number of reasons, such as the proposed movie featuring a mix of animation, miniature work and live-action being too costly, but the chief reason was that the story was considered too complicated to be filmed and Tolkien disagreed with many liberties that studios would take in adapting his work.

While the film rights were sold to United Artist, the musical band The Beatles proposed to director Stanley Kubrick to direct live-action version of Lord of the Rings featuring Paul as Frodo Baggins, Ringo as Sam, George as Gandalf and John as Gollum. While the idea was very interesting, Kubrick turned down the project as he considered the movie impossible to film and nothing else came out of it. It didn't help that Tolkien also disliked the idea of the Beatles playing his characters. I, for one, would very much enjoy to see this movie being made if only for the psychedelic value. C'mon, don't tell me that you wouldn't love to see the Beatles playing LotR characters? It wouldn't replace the Peter Jackson movies, but you gotta appreciate some other spins to stories we love, right?

... I know I am going to regret these words in the following entries, am I?

4. Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings Rotoscoping Style

Now this one is a little more well-known than most, and it's very possible that those who do know either love it or hate it. This 1978's animated feature is probably the most famous adaptation of Tolkien's work not related to Peter Jackson and combines classical cel animation with live-action footage on rotoscoping. The movie condenses the events of Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers into its 133-minutes long timeslot. General opinion on it is very divisive and while the animation certainly looks impressive, there are things that just make you shake your head. Sam looked like a complete doofus and his role was reduced to nothing more than comic relief,

Saruman's name was changed to Aruman because the producers thought viewers were a bunch of retarded goldfish who would have mistaken his name with the main villain Sauron, and he sounds SO NOTHING alike the booming and imposing presence of Christopher Lee.

There are Nazgul, who at one moment are limping, moaning whiners and at the other turn into badass knights in black armor and heavy metal red eyes after shedding their cloaks and hoods \m/

But nothing beats what do they do with the Balrog of Morgoth. I am just going to remind you guys, this is what he looked like in Fellowship of the Ring.

And this is what you get in this movie!!!

With all that said, this movie managed to be a success in the box office earning 30 million dollars with only a 4 million budget and it was the primary inspiration for Jackson to make his own masterpiece. Unfortunately, due to a disagreement with producers, no sequel was ever made and according to Bakish himself this movie took out more of him than what he got back. Sadly enough, this counts as one of the few success that he had in his very underrated career.

3. John Boorman's Unmade Lord of the Rings Would Driven the Fans to Tears

John Boorman made Excalibur, one of my favorite movies of all time and the definitive Arthurian movie adaptation. However he is best known for the crucified mind-f*ck that is 1974's Zardoz, a movie where Sean Connery wears what can only be described as something that Starfire would use. Before he made this infamous flik, in he was contracted by United Artists to direct an adaptation of LotR. He wrote an script that condensced all three books into a single movie and according to a fellow writer, they were making stuff up as he went along. Among the absurdities that the script contained.

- Frodo and Galadriel would have sex.

- Eowyn would become Aragorn's love interest instead of Arwen, who would become some sort of spiritual guide to him.

- The Ringwraiths rode no fell beasts, but actually flayed horses. Ewww.

- The hobbits would enter into a drugged frenzy after consuming some mushrooms.

- After the battle of Minas Tirith, Aragorn would heal Eowyn's injuries in a very erotic manner.

- At one point, Frodo would be subjected to torture and we would get a very unneeded view of his naked body.

In the end, the project proved too expensive to studios (budget costs was in fact the reason why they couldn't afford the Nazgul's flying steeds in the first place) and was ultimately rejected.

2. Rankin/Bass's Musicals Gives Ear Worms the Size of Shai-Hulud

Now this is a very weird entry, even for the other ones in the list. Rankin/Bass, an studio best known for the classic Thundercats series, made two Lord of the Rings movies in 1778 and 1980. The first one was an Hobbit adaptation that was made an year before the Ralph Bakish's movie. When that movie was not getting any sequels, they decided to create their own unofficial one with Return of the King. However these movies differ greatly in tone and art design, characters don't resemble each other between incarnations and events are hard to pick up, if you watch this movie right after the Bakshi one.

But that is the least strange thing of them. Both the Hobbit and Return are animated musicals with the former being the best received out of the duo, as well as the most faithful to the source material. However, some of the songs are extremely catchy at best and ear worms of the highest caliber at very worst, so you’ll need to assault your ears with some AC/DC later after listening to them. If you think I am joking, hear these in particular if you are feeling brave.

RotK really takes the cake in the weirdness department. Despite the story's title being about him, Aragorn is barely in the movie for more than five minutes, since the focus is more on Frodo and Sam (he doesn't even appear in the bloody cover, making the title just disingenuous). Gollum looks like what can only be described as a bizarre mutant hybrid between a frog, a lizard and a monkey. There is one unbearably cheesy scene where Sam is tempted by the ring and he becomes the dark lord himself. And what does he do? He covers the world not in darkness, but in THE GARDENS OF HIS DELIGHT! They do adapt one of my favorite moments in RotK when Eowyn confronts the Witch King of Angmar... Poorly. For sake of comparison I am going to post once again the Jackson's version just to remind you how epic it was in that movie.

...And in here the Witch-King sounds he walked straight out of a He-Man episode, sounding all like Skeletor and sh*t.

1. The (Russian) Hobbit... I've Got No Words...

I like to think that Russia is the European answer to Japan in the weirdness department. I mean, look no further at their animations and cartoons and you will know what I am talking about. To be honest, this was the very reason I made this blog post in the first place when I learned the existence of such... thing. Сказочное путешествие мистера Бильбо Беггинса Хоббита which is Russian for "The Fabulous Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit" and is an unlincensed television film made during the days of the Soviet Union, and probably the very first live-action adaptation of a Tolkien's work ever.

The very moment I laid eyes on it, I was instantly reminded of El Chapulin Colorado, an Mexican TV show I watched as a kid that to this day is still popular in Brazil. I found it rather endearing in a nostalgic sort of way, but then it gradualy faded away over time when I watched the movie, the feeling then shifted to sheer horror. I realize that pointing out inconsistences would be a moot or even compare them to Jackson's versio so I am going to show you just how the character look like.

Bilbo Baggins...

Gandalf

Thorin Oakenshield

Gollum

The Mirkwood Spiders

Smaug the Golden

I can't tell if the dude who translated this was just messing around or if that is exactly what the actors are saying in the movie, and the movie is supposed to be a comedy because I wouldn't put that behind in all of its wtf-ery. I suppose I own an apology to Peter Jackson. I gave sh*t to him for stretching the f**k of the Hobbit and padding just to fill out a trilogy. But after watching all of this, I think I am going to rethink my position.

Thank you guys for reading it. I hope you enjoyed it, which ones did you found the most weird of them all? I'd appreciate the comments and your personal opinions.

See ya next time =P

"IN SPACE THERE IS NO DAYLIGHT"

- The movie's tagline. which was the first warning sign that this movie is going to suck hard.

Being a huge Dracula and vampire fiction fan, I look forward to see new spins on the mythos other than the typical gothic, dark and tortured creatures. Personally I prefer when they are depicted as immortal badasses, unmatched in combat and feared by everyone else. As such, there is something that drew my attention to the fact this is a Dracula movie IN SPAAAAAAAAACE. Now, I am not some professional critic snob (otherwise known as w*nkers) who expects every movie to be a pretentious mental exercise. Trust me, I am not above enjoying some mindless B-movie schlock myself - I enjoyed Van Helsing for crying out of loud! That was precisely the very reason why I watched Dracula 3000, I was looking forward to something laughably cheesy or at least delightfully horrible so that I could rant on it later.

But turns out I was disappointed...

Dracula 3000 is so BAD... So utterly REPULSIVELY, UNFATHOMABLY BORING I can't even enjoy on that ironic level. It falls WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY below those so bad its good movies and crosses that bland, dispassionate territory of movie schlock that you just forget it existed 10 minutes after watching, with that lingering feeling of regret that you just wasted 90 minutes of your life that you could have... I dunno, wasted on something better...?

This is how the story goes. An abandoned ship adrift in open space called the Demeter is discovered by the crew of salvage ship Mother III. The group explore the abandoned ship finding nothing but the corpse of the dead captain holding a crucifix and a cargo loaded with coffins. Things get from strange to worse when their ship uncouples from the Demeter, leaving the crew stranded inside a ship with no means of communication, and then one of the crewmembers disappears while checking the coffins. When he returns as an vampire, it turns out they are at mercy of an alien vampire master (who is supposed to be Count Dracula but not really) awakened by said crewmember, and is now after the survivors, who try to find a way to destroy him.

On paper, this premise sounds rather interesting for a B-movie, kinda like Alien meets Dracula. Of course, it wouldn't be very smart, but at least could be enjoyable as movie of this level can. In reality... Its just dull. A really, really boring movie. The worst kind of movie to review, since it's very hard to rant over a big pile of nothing. You can get worked up over things that make you angry and you can write funny things about that. Its difficult doing the same thing when you are bored, but I will try to point out the ways this movie could have being better...

There is a rampant use of references to the original novel like the abandoned ship being named after the vessel used by the Count to sail England, while feeding on its passengers along the way. Even some characters are named after the ones from the novel such as Captain Van Helsing (who is somehow descendant of the original one) and Mina (named after Mina Murray/Harker, the female protagonist of the novel). All to lead you into believing that they are retelling Dracula's story in the year 3000. It really isn't. Other than the names being thrown at your face, not once did it resemble the novel in any way. Worst of all, the motherf**king vampire is not even Dracula. He is named Orlock (as in the vampire from Nosferatu). As if the movie didn't need any more problems, the title itsel is an fat f**king lie. Not even the time itself as accurate since the year is still 2900.

Each and one of the characters are just as bland as the last. You have Captain Van Helsing portrayed by Casper Van Dien who is just like every generic forgettable white male hero ever; Erika Eleniak portrays Aurora, an undercover-police android who is clearly meant to the hot chick of the movie, but its undermined by the fact she looks way past her prime and she acts like a grade-A bitch; Tiny Lister portrays Humvee, the closest thing to a character I found amusing and even then he is not enough to redeem everything else. The best actor in the movie by far is Udo Kier, who plays the Demeter's captain and he clearly looks embarrassed out of his mind, even if his role is just limited to video logs. Our main villain Orlock doesn't inspire one ounce of dread and terror, hardly provides any physical threat to the survivors and his appearance is just too silly to take him seriously. But the crown f**king jewel of annoying character goes to Coolio's 187, the stoner of the group, who despite his relative short screentime and being the first character to get killed in the movie, he gives one of the most cringe-worthy lines of dialogue I've ever heard in my life.........

Did I ever tell you how many times I'd see you and want to xxxxxx all over your bazonkas... All the times I stayed up late, high as a kite, in the non-gravitational atmosphere, while I stroked my anaconda, and dreamed about your snow-white ass.

The script is a bloody godawful mess, the movie states the vampires are from an alien planet called Transylvania from the Carpathian System (lolwut?!?), yet they later say that Orlock was a long time enemy of Van Helsing's ancestors and intends to return to Earth to have revenge. Is he a alien or a vampire from Earth? How are crucifixes supposed to be effective against alien vampires? Why did the captain appear to have tied himself into the chair if the ropes were around his arms? If that is a vampire planet, how do they feed? Are there rivers of blood like in the Vampirella comics? Who the hell names a planet Transylvania? How is it that the existence of such world and creatures is not common knowledge for the entire galaxy and they have to discover it through video logs left on the abandoned ship? There is also the fact that Aurora was a cop meant to spy on the crew members for salvaging, yet it is absolutely superfluous to the plot, except for the fact she is a robot. The pacing is also atrocious, despite being over 80 minutes long, it still manages to feel longer than that, possibly because we don't see any vampires until the one hour mark (i.e. with only one third of the movie left to go).

You know, all of this wouldn't be much of a problem, if perhaps the movie had more action. The poster would led to believe the vampires look like some grotesque alien creatures, yet in the actual movie they look just like classic vampires. There was a brief mention of energy guns in the intro, yet there is none to be found in the movie, only normal fireguns. We see a lot of coffins, which would be good setup for the protagonists to face an army of vampires (which would have being cool to watch), yet you only get to see at most three vampires at time for the whole movie. If they had played up the action aspects, instead of the "horror" (which I gotta say, its non-existent through the entire movie) it would certainly not be more boring than the movie is. You could say its was budget limitations, but anyone with a light of imagination and effort would try to do their best. But the real treat comes to the ending, which I am going to spoil right now because f*ck this movie!

By the end of the movie, every crewmember except for Aurora and Humvee had being turned into vampires and killed, including Van Helsing. Just when you think there will be a final confrontation between Orlock and the survivors, instead they slam the door shot on the vampire's arm, cutting it off and breaking down crying like a little bitch. Then it turns out that the Demeter was set earlier on autopilot into collision with a star system in hopes of destroying Orlock, but since they don't know how to pilot the ship (and there are no windows to expose the vampire to sunlight), their fates are now sealed to die along with him. In the final scene, Aurora reveals she used to be sex-droid before joining the police force and suggests that she and Humvee should do it before dying. Just as he carries her way to do the deed, we are treated to a final message by Udo Kier's character, who intends to throw the ship into the sun to stop the vampires and then the end.

Wow... Just wow... What a bloody waste of time, guys... I have nothing else to add... Time to drive the final stake into its heart...

Final Veredict

1/10 - I can't name a single redeeming quality to this catastrophic experience. This movie has everything - dull acting, atrocious dialogue, weak script, poor atmosphere and action, unmemorable soundtrack and visual effects that were made under a 50 dollar budget. And worst still, there is not even ANYTHING that you can laugh ironically at. This is NOT Troll 2, Batman & Robin or Battlefield Earth. It might be obvious at this point, but please don't waste your time with this worthless piece of trash. not even to see how bad it is. It may not be the absolute worst movie I've seen but its definitely up there. It has absolutely nothing to offer to ANYONE.

Thank you guys for reading, I hope you have enjoyed this review. I'd like to know what you think about the movie (please don't watch it)? What do you think of an premise such as Dracula IN SPACE?

See ya next time =)

Hello my friends! How are you doing? I want to give some important news... As some of you already know, I am huge fan of HBO's Game of Thrones the TV show, and I've considered doing this in a long time, ever since one of my friends suggested it to me last year, but I never got around doing it. I am planning on making a weekly review series for the fourth season of the show that will air on April 6.

How will these reviews be structured? There will be a quick summary in the beginning, then I will recap what happen in the episode by location (since the story is composed of multiple story threads and POVs that make up the overaching storyline), giving my own personal thoughts on the scenes, and in the end, I will give closing thoughts about the overall episode.

I understand that Game of Thrones discussions tend to get a lot of heat when book readers put spoilers of what happens next in the source material and the fans who only follow the show get pissed because the surprise factor was ruined for them. Personally, I don't mind spoilers at all and I would really want to discuss about them in the comments, however I would advise to put this information under spoiler blocks, for the sake of not ruining the surprise for others, alright?

Speaking on that, I want to give another disclaimer for people who haven't seen the show yet nor read the books yet. If you want to read the blog, I'd advise you to get caught up right now, because these reviews (obviously) will contain a lot of spoilers from previous seasons and not to mention, the episode itself will be discussed in depth. So I really recommend you to go out and check out the previous seasons before jumping in the fourth season: the first one was awesome, the second one while pretty good, was mostly build up, and the third one had some of the best moments in the show, it still was underwhelming in some aspects (such as having the weakest premiere and finale).

Oh yeah, another thing for the worried parents that don't want their kids reading about this filth. Don't fret, I won't highlight the most mature parts of the show in this review. Trust me, I don't care in the least for the sex scenes that take place gratuitously. I seriously considered not doing this review out of fear that the moral guardians would flip out with the series in question even though I wouldn't really talk about the racy stuff that happens here in the first place...

Here is what you need to know about this season, its based on the second half of A Storm of Swords, the third book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. After the climatic event from the last season that the draws the War of the Five Kings into a close, it turns out that just because most of their enemies are defeated, doesn't mean that the House Lannister is still the victor yet, as many players will do anything to subvert their success for their own ends. And is that wasn't enough, Daenerys Targaryen is quickly carving her path at Slaver's Bay, now having an army of eight thousand men and three rapidly growing dragons, and she intends to amass enough power to march West and take back her place as the rightful queen. Meanwhile, the Night Watch is outmatched against the Wildlings hordes commanded by Mance Ryder that is marching south, as they are too escaping of the looming threat of the White Walkers, immortal demons of ice who threaten to plunge the world into eternal winter. They are in desperate need of any allies for if the Watch falls, then the realm of Westeros is doomed...

So that is it for now, folks. I hope you all enjoyed these news, I can't wait for the season to premiere in April and get these reviews started. Thank you for reading and be prepared =)

I gotta tell you, game announcement these days were so routine that you are more likely to watch some visually-impressive and well done cinematic trailer meant to generate enough hype before proper gameplay demo that showcases core mechanics and a glimpse how to play when released. I am glad Shadow of Mordor qualifies in the latter category, because I wouldn't be writing this blog otherwise. True, there were some developer vids and written information before it, but I would sooner be excited seeing how the game works rather than some epic cinematic like Dead Island or Witcher 3, because you are less likely of getting disappointed when you are not taken in by the hype.Okay sorry for the mini-rant there. Today I want to do something different than a review or a rant, I want to share my thoughts on one a game that I am highly anticipating that is set in the world of Lord of the Rings, Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor.

The reason why is that this game combines things I really love like Lord of the Rings, open-world games, Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham Asylum, in addition to original some original and unique mechanics. The story is set between the events of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and you are Talion, a Ranger from Gordon stationed in the Black Gate who was murdered along with his family by the forces of Sauron, who returned to claim Mordor back for their master. However, he is possessed by a wraith spirit (as in, like the Ringwraiths) that grants him supernatural powers and thrusts him into his quest of revenge. Along the way, he meets with some characters from the original story like Gollum (who supposedly shares a lot in common with him) and he will be involved with the Rings of Power too. While it has being assured by developers that the story of the game will stand on its own right while aligning with Lord of the Rings' canon at the same time, its sorta difficult since A. we see Sauron in physical form and B. he will still be alive by the events of Fellowship of the Ring takes place - so its unlikely that Talion will have his revenge at the end. Then again, its too early to tell, so lets dig into the make or break factor.

As already mentioned, the game is an open-world set in the land of Mordor, a charred, volcanic plain where one does not simply walk into, and plays the same way as AC/Batman Arkham. Though many others (including myself) were quick to call this game a Assassin's Creed meets Lord of the Rings, as one of the developers of AC II claimed the game took codes, it would be more accurate to call it Arkham Asylum meets Lord of the Rings. Though both those games are very similar, their stealth aspects are entirely different. In Assassin's Creed, there is a strong focus on blending among the crowd and enemies will ignore the player so long as they don't do nothing that turns them hostile, while Batman will always be attacked by enemies if sighted, which is more likely to be the case here. Even the combat is more similar with Arkham Asylum, having the attack and counter routine that Assassin's Creed only adopted from the third game forward.The combat has a leveling tree split between ranger and wraith abilities, Talion is able to use swords and daggers as well magical abilities like teleportation and binding enemies to his will. They can perform actions like gathering intel, assassinating their own leaders or spread rumors about Talion's deeds, making him legendary among Sauron's forces.

I would be sold on the words "open-world" and "Lord of the Rings" alone, but that is not even all. The big selling of game is the Nemesis System - a mechanic it that grants personality to each and single one of the enemies, and player's action will reflect on them. If Talion' doesnt kill them in their first encounter, they will adapt and become more challenging and stronger when you fight them again. As shown in the demo, both Ratbag and Orthag were faced previously by Talion, and in the last encounter with the latter, Talion burned his face and now he hates you even more and is more dangerous than last time. If you perish in battle, the Wraith will return you back to life, but the enemy that killed you will climb up the social ladder and become its own named entity. Oh, and this also include boss enemies getting more and more challenging if you fail repeatedly.

Okay I am both intrigued and confused by this system, on paper it sounds really cool, because it encourages the player to take more careful and varied approaches to facing certain enemies, and since they have their own unique patterns, that make the player deploy what is the best strategy to defeat them. Its much better than games where you have realize a flaw in the AI and exploit it like Dark Souls other games I could mention. However, on the other hand, I have no clue how well this will work in the actual game, let's say for the sake of argument that an inexperienced player fail repeatedly against same enemy, and he will become more dangerous with each encounter to the point, it can probably turn the game unplayable. This could become a problem, specially for bosses. I don't know if they will learn to block your moves, gain special abilities, or just become invincible to anything you throw at them but I am pretty sure this could happen. Not to mention some bugs or glitches that usually come with open-world games like these, as well as this advanced system it will cause some heavy demands to the AI too.

I hope that the developers can make use of the very rich and expanded lore in the Lord of the Rings universe. I mean, I hope we have a greater variety of enemies to fight than just orcs and trolls, but also barrow-wights, Easterlings, Black Numenoreans and many other creatures that served Sauron. I am pretty sure that the Ringwraiths will be in it, specially the Witch-King of Angmar since he is Sauron's right hand man and Talion's wraith is also like the Nazgul too. Even if the previous game War in the North fell short sometimes, I did like the expansion in some ways than others. And with from the looks of it, I am looking forward to some wicked looking bosses in the game too.

So those were my thoughts in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor... I want to know what do you personally think of the game, do you find it legit that it copied from Assassin's Creed or if, it had is that a good or a bad thing? Meanwhile I will keep an eye in this game and if anyone points out that many info bits are incorrect and outdated, please note it was made a little while after its announcement.

Thank you guys for reading it, see you next time =)

"I once sailed for a king. I obeyed men of privilege and wealth. Now, I bend my knee to no man. My only oath is to my crew and together we will take back what is rightfully ours. With blood and steel, we shall stand up to the powerful. Captains will curse our flag, and kings will fear it. As long as empires generate wealth and riches, we will be there to bleed them dry."

Edward Kenway

Dragonborn

Well, I figure I would have to do it sooner or later, now wouldn't I? You probably assume that my previous sentence was written in weary resignation? Not going to lie I was fully prepared to crucify this game on a cross of tomatoes. After all I was one of the few people who hated the sailing in AC III and I wanted the next installment to follow up on Connor' story just like Ezio's saga. But alas it was not meant to be... It doesn't help that I am not much of a pirate fan to begin with, so you can probably guess why I am boarding (lol) with not so much of good faith...

So balance my point of view which is from a long-time fan of the series, a friend of mine that just recently got into the series requested to review the game with me and he is darkazrael999...

Archangel

Before I even begin this review, I would like every one of you reading this, to know that this is my very first entry into the world of Assassins and Templars, running around rooftops in delightfully impractical white robes and stabbing would-be dictators in the back. Sure, I have tried out the second and third installments in the franchise but shoddy and jejune PC ports, unresponsive controls and atrocious frame-rates that reduce the game into anything but playable, gave me an execrable perception of the franchise as a whole.

Fortunately, that would change with Ubisoft’s newest installment in series. A beautiful, sprawling marvel of modern-gaming that places a bigger emphasis on freedom and exploration, taking the series to ridiculous new heights whilst amending some of the flawed execution that prevented AC III from being something truly extraordinary.

Summary

Following the events in the modern times from the previous games, Abstergo Industries creates a new branch called Abstergo Enterteinment that allows people to relive other's ancestors memories through the Animus without sharing their DNA. You play a nameless, voiceless, featureless blank slate research analyst (that we shall refer as R-L) charged with living the memories of Edward Kenway, a pirate turned assassin and the grandfather of Connor Kenway - the hero of AC III. Set between 1715 and 1722 during the Golden Age of Piracy, the game chronicles how Edward rises from a lowly sailor to the scourge of the Caribbean, respected by the likes of Blackbeard, Benjamin Hornigold and Calico Jack. He is entangled on the usual conflict between Assassins and Templars when he encounters an Assassin and kills him, taking his robes and assuming his identity long enough to learn of a great treasure known as the Observatory being sought by both factions which would set Kenway up for life - but also endanger not just the pirate world, but every human being in the planet.

Plot

Dragonborn

The story while well-presented, isn't particularly very compelling as Altair's, Ezio's or even Connor's. Its not necessarily bad or falls flat, it has some great moments here and there, its just not as strong as other titles. It's hard to feel invested in Edward's quest for the Observatory, when he is purely on it for profit, while the Assassins and Templars are thrown into the background and rarely have any impact in his story.

The story is fairly predictable too... I was already guessing what Edward's story arc would be months ago, before playing the game. And when I actually played the game, there are events that have bad sh*t written all over it only to turn out exactly like I anticipated. Its not completely unpredictable though, as there were some unexpected deaths and betrayals that caught me off guard. Last, but not least, Black Flag also repeats the some pacing problems as its predecessor/successor AC III. While it start off strong with Edward already wearing donning the Assassins robes in the beginning (rather than halfway in the story), towards the end, the story starts to rush towards the end, sequences are composed of less and less missions and as soon Edward's manage to turn his leaf around, the final act wraps everything up in a single sequence and BAM! Its over before you know it. To AC IV's credit however, the ending to Edward's story managed to be conclusive in a more satisfying manner which is a big deal for me. (And no, I am still not over the ending to Assassin's Creed III after all this time)

Meanwhile the modern day storyline that is used as framing device for us to explore historical times through the Animus has being reworked, this time you are an anonymous, genderless, faceless research-analyst working for Abstergo that is puzzlingly referred to as R-L. I have a feeling that Ubisoft probably regretted making a overaching storyline featuring Desmond, a initially rather bland and completely average character, so they decided to replace it with something they should have done since chapter I. Regardless, I found the modern storyline rather hard to follow and not very compelling in the least. Say what you will about Desmond, at least he wasn't a blank slate like R-L is.

Archangel

The world of Assassin’s Creed 4 is a wonderful reminiscent of 17th Century Caribbean. Locations are varied and have a significant amount of detail which further adds to the ‘immersiveness’. In fact, there were times when I would wish that this was not an Assassin’s Creed game and instead, a separate Pirate IP. There are three main Cities in AC4; Kingston, Havana and Nassau. Kingston is a unique mixture of rural and urban landscape, which feels unique and different than the generic Assassin’s Creed City. The mix of industry and harsh jungle environments allows for a combination of the game’s ‘tree-running’ and ‘rooftop-navigation’ gameplay. Havana on the other hand, is a Spanish colony that features pre-dominantly European Architecture and urban landscape. It reminded me of the locations in AC II and Brotherhood. Nassau, on the other hand, is a Pirate republic that acts as a Hub for Kenway and his crew. Without spoiling much, it goes through an interesting transformation mid-game.

Besides the main Cities, there are over 50 other locations that are available for the player to explore including but not limited to, smuggler coves, jungles, ancient ruins and underwater caves. Linearity is pretty much non-existent in AC4, except perhaps some the main-missions and a few jungle locations. However the one thing that truly stands out, in AC4, is the open-sea itself. In a way, it’s a separate character in itself. Extremely dynamic and unpredictable, it would constantly throw storms and water-sprouts at you, even in mid-combat. It can be both, an enemy to overcome and an ally against opponent ships. There have been times when I would enjoy exploring the high seas so much that traversing landscapes would sometimes feel empty and uninteresting.

Ubisoft Montreal’s vision of 17th Century Caribbean is the main highlight of this game, for good or for bad. It’s diverse, alluring and immense and offers 50+ hours of enjoyable, open-world gameplay. There is treasure to be found, smuggler dens to be looted, underwater caves to be explored and ancient ruins to be discovered. Only one other game, in 2013, has given this sense of freedom, exploration and discovery and it involved robbing banks and crashing helicopters on police vehicles. :D

Hats off, to the Creative Team, for crafting a world that had me coming back to it, over and over again.

Characters

Dragonborn

I may have given the story a very hard time, but I did find interesting enough due to its colorful cast. Edward himself isn't a likable character in the same sense as Ezio or Connor, as he is driven solely by his greed and self-gain, yet his motivations are understandable as he means to rise above his social status. Which is a running theme for the pirates in this game. Here, they are depicted in a more realistic and sympathetic manner, with them being a low-class sailors that were unable to advance or receive very poor treatment and pay from officers, so they broke out from the British and Spanish Navies and sailed on their own.

I can name several supporting characters that I loved, perhaps even more so than Edward's like his first mate Adewale, Blackbeard (perhaps the most noble and sympathetic incarnation of the character ever), James Kidd (who has a big reveal and has a big impact on the plot much later), Ah Tabai (the Assassin Mentor that reminds me a awfully like Altair) and so forth. Perhaps its the strongest cast after AC II and Brotherhood. I can even say that this game also lay claims to depicting legitimately strong and compelling female characters, even if they are supporting.

The antagonists themselves serve more as obstacles than legitimate threats. The game tries awkwardly to depict Templars in a more positive way, trying to show them as likable and enlightened fellows against the common practice of slavery - while their overall goals don't differ from the normal type and they don't seem interested in actively stopping it either. The Templar Grandmaster, Laureano Torres is just as instantly forgettable as Prince Ahmet from Revelations (Its a wonder I even remembered his name). True to be told, the biggest threats to the game are actually the nameless officers from the British and Spanish army, since they are the ones that seek to undermine the pirate activities and are responsible for the deaths of many named characters, making them, comparatively speaking from a certain perspective, worse than the Templars (one of them advocates to sink all ships anchored in the pirate heaven of Nassau going up against the orders of his superior, that is Templar)

Archangel

Unfortunately darkazrael didn't have anything to add about the characters that hasn't already be said above.

Gameplay

Dragonborn

As the sailing in AC III was completely detached from the storyline and belonged to a completely different game than the previous one, they feel more at home here not just because of the pirate's theme, but because there is a huge map for you to explore and go anywhere you want with your pirate ship. Naval battle has being improved as you can use a even greater number of weapons and your hit detection is more accurate than in AC III. But beware, you need to upgrade your ship constantly if you want to be up going everywhere you want -the south part of the map is replete of ridiculously advanced vessels like Frigates and Men of War. And less said about the Legendary Ships the better... Well I already said it previously...

There is plenty of side activities that encourage exploration in order to further upgrade your ship, like underwater segments were you need to loot sunk treasure chests and avoid sharks with you being completely defenseless while doing that. Side assassinations are back after absent from the two previous games, the Almanaque was reworked into Sea Shanty pages (that will go into detail in the sound effects), hunting has being improved now, that it has an actual point to it. In AC III, you could hunt animals if you felt like doing or just to get more money that you could easily gotten with other missions, but in AC IV, hunting animals is necessary so that you can craft equipment, health bonus among other things.

Combat is the same as AC III, though its somewhat downplayed, since Edward can only carry his hidden blades and his dual swords as weapons, so he isn't allowed the larger variety of weapons like Altair, Ezio and Connor had in their games. Also the dual counter-attacks that allowed you to kill two enemies at once if they attacked together don't happen as often as they did in AC III, which made the combat in that game so bestial. Its really a missed opportunity since the enemies wield more swords than guns like in the previous game. On the flip side, you can access the weapon's wheel instantaneously and certain weapons like the blow pipe can certainly allow a more creative approach if you go to the stealth direction.

You can also wear a great variety of costumes that have purely cosmetic value, as well as perform certain quests to unlock the two best armors in the game, though only one of them is worth a damn since its immune to fireguns but on the flip side, lacks an hood and is rather odd-looking too. The other best "costume" is the Templar Armor that provides a 25% more health, but its really useless at top of also lacking a hood and being ugly as hell.

The thing I really, really hated is that while there is great variety in the side missions, the main story missions are burden with repetitiveness, specifically every sequence in the story has at least one tailing mission - where you need to follow your target without being noticed or you risk a gameover. These missions were never interesting or fun, and it soon turned ridiculously obnoxious and it got to the point, I wanted to rage quit after a particular mission where the tailing target was clearly walking on circles. Note to Ubisoft: TAILING MISSIONS WERE NEVER FUN IN THE FIRST PLACE, THEY WERE BAD EVEN IN ASSASSIN'S CREED II... TONE THIS SH*T DOWN IN THE FUTURE!!! OKAY?!?! RIGHT??!?! GOOD...

Archangel

Gameplay, where do I even begin? Being an Assassin’s Creed game, gameplay is obviously reminiscent to previous games in the series. There is still the simplified ‘free-running’ mechanic from AC III but it feels smoother and more responsive this time around. Of course, there have been times when Edward would go towards the direction, opposite of where I intended him to go but those were few and far-between.

If I had one major gripe with the gameplay mechanics however, it would be the lack of depth in the combat. Combat is far too simplistic and lacks the challenge that a lot of people desire. The ‘press-button-to-win’ mechanic makes a haunting return and combine that with the less-than-stellar A.I, and you can breeze through most of the terrestrial combat in this game. Don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely entertaining to be the ‘Harbinger of Death’ in AC4 but a little bit of challenge would have been more than welcome. The stealth in this game is at best, superficial. Stealth is unnecessary except in certain, overused tailing sections. In fact, stealth is not mandatory in this game. It doesn’t even reward you all that much, which goes against what makes a good stealth game in the first place. Add to that, the lack of a ‘crouch-walk’ mechanic and I would say that the Development Team needs to revise the franchise’s stealth mechanics.

Also, the game lacks a difficulty setting. I am hard-pressed to think of one sound reason as to why the Devs decided to not include a higher difficulty setting for those who desire it. That, fellow Assassins, is definitely a question worth asking. The main highlight of AC4’s gameplay is of course, the naval combat. The Ship plays an integral part in the story and being ‘the second main character’ in the game, can be fitted with a variety of upgrades, some of which require hunting down specific treasure chests to acquire the appropriate plans. In fact, by about mid-game, my fully upgraded Jackdaw was sending every single Man o’ War, stupid enough to be in my way, to Davy Jones’ Locker. And the so-called ‘Pirate Hunters’, they would get ‘one/two-shotted’ within seconds of getting in my sights. Again, a higher difficulty setting would have been extremely welcome in these sections.

In addition, the Jackdaw will also have an expandable crew that can be increased by recruiting Pirates after rescuing them from Templars or hiring them from City Hubs. The Jackdaw is also one of the major sources of income in this game. Most of the player’s money is acquired through raiding, looting ships full of cargo and in turn exchanging them for a profit. And that, in turn, can be used to upgrade Jackdaw. Boarded ships can also be added to Kenway’s Fleet but that doesn’t make much of a difference in single-player or even Multiplayer for that matter.

The game also features four Legendary Ships, located on the four corners of the map and are extremely hard to destroy. These Legendaries are the most powerful ships in the game and taking them down requires a lot of patience, tactics and fast-thinking and as a result of those efforts, it results in the player gaining a substantial amount of money. They however cannot be boarded, for shame. Beating these Legendaries, have been the most exciting thing for me in the game and certainly a welcome challenge.

Multiplayer has mostly been carried over from AC III with the exception of a few new Maps, Characters and the ability to create Custom Game-Modes. It is however a tragedy that the Naval Battles couldn’t be carried over to Multiplayer and I know for a fact that almost everyone who has played this game, holds hope for the Naval Combat to enter Multiplayer in the near future.

Visual Effects

Dragonborn

The dour looking frontier from the American revolution has being replaced with the tropical islands of the Caribbean. The enviroments look more gorgeous and more alive, since they are riffle with animals. During sailing sequences you might be prone to experiencing storm sequences that happen in random and are really awesome to see.

Other than your three main cities of Havana, Nassau and Kingstone, all other locations are unfortunately very generic and unremarkable, including your homebase in Great Inagua. Pro-tip, never, never, never, never, NEVER drop any money on improving your homebase in this game, you never receive anything worthwhile like the villa renovations in Monterigionni and you might as well spend your cash in upgrading your ship.

Archangel

The first thing that came to my attention as I booted up Uplay and started the game was the fact that, there is quite a bit of Mouse Acceleration in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, something that could very well be irksome for a lot of people. It took quite a few heuristic attempts to optimize my Mouse’s default sensitivity and the in-game Mouse Settings to get that ‘sensitivity sweet-spot’. This is something that Ubisoft should take into account as not everyone is used to a Controller and some people, like me, would rather prefer a Mouse/Keyboard’s precise controls over the Controller’s ease of access.

Onto Graphical Options, the game does offer a decent amount of optimization choices for players to figure out what’s best for their machines. However, they didn’t add any Anisotropic-Filtering or Triple Buffering. For those unfamiliar, Anisotropic-Filtering is what improves the clarity and quality of images in games; smooths out those rough, pixelized visuals to enhance graphical-quality. And Triple Buffering, without going into much detail, is what improves Vsync in games without sacrificing Frame-rates. Why they wouldn’t do so, is beyond me but other than that, the game doesn’t have any major issues in the optimization department.

But, and this is a big ‘But’, I did notice that the game suffers from Anti-Aliasing issues. Anti-Aliasing is what improves graphical-quality by eliminating jagged textures in games. However, Assassin’s Creed 4 is screwing over those with Nvidia cards with extremely shoddy frame-rates, specifically during storms, upon increasing the Anti-Aliasing settings. This is not that serious of an issue, certainly not game-breaking but it may be irritating for those with ‘state-of-the-art’, performance machines and want to play the game at Ultra with 60+ FPS. AC4 also has a ‘soft-shadow’ option which offers ‘realistic shadow effects’ but I never noticed any difference in visuals and hence, never really bothered with it.

Other than that, Assassin’s Creed 4 is a graphical-monster, both on next-gen consoles and PC with some of the best water effects this side of Hydrophobia (It’s a game, if you’re wondering). The environments, especially the foliage look lush and beautifully realistic, especially when going in and out of ‘stealth-mode’. The various locations in this game, ranging from the Coastal Towns, to the Jungles, to the Tombs, all exude a significant amount of visual-excellence, especially with the graphics elevated to ‘Ultra’. The character-models look spectacular too, to a slightly lesser degree but spectacular, nonetheless. It is evident that a lot of love and effort were put into making this the most gorgeous Assassin’s Creed till date and I thank Ubisoft Montreal for that.

PC owners with Nvidia Cards would benefit from some rather impressive particle-physics effects, including hyper-realistic firearm smoke, campfire and obviously water effects. The smoke physics in particular, are extremely well-done and add a new voluminous layer of depth to the visuals, especially when it interacts with objects, people and the environment.

Sound Effects

The voice actors were fine at least as the English were concerned, however I must point out that the Portuguese version of the game is so embarassing dubbed I had to put it into English so that I don't have to chew out my own face hearing those bland voice actors phoning it in. There is even one character that is a woman disguised as a man, but the VA is very clearly female and she is making no effort to sound like a man, unlike the English speaking voice actress.

Black Flag has hands down my second favorite soundtrack in the whole franchise, the songs channelling Pirates of the Caribbean (especially the ones during the boarding sequences), the main theme is more upbeat and fits the game so damn well. The biggest adittion however has to be the Sea Shanties that are songs that you crew sing play while you are sailing in the open sea. They help the player immerse into the game even further and they are all great joy to hear, if anything else they are the one reason why someone who prefers staying in the sea going up to the dry land in order to get more Sea Shanties to play.

Final Rating

Dragonborn

8/10. - For a long time Assassin's Creed fan, it's a serviceable enough game, it was nowhere near as bad as I dreaded to be, but far from dethroning ACII as my favorite entry in the series. Now, lets be honest here... If you are not a fan of the series beforehand, never had really played any other previous games, you will have no problem jumping in and enjoy this ride, eer I mean sail.

Archangel

All in all, this has been my favorite Assassin’s Creed game to date, especially from a gameplay and technical perspective. And in my eyes, the Naval Combat has become an integral part of the franchise now and one of it’s biggest strength. The immersive World, the incredible visuals, good gameplay (despite a few setbacks), stellar story, writing and an interesting main protagonist; makes this one of the best games of 2013 and highlights the fact that franchise is indeed headed in the right direction.

Taking all of these into account, I would give Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag a solid 8/10. It's a fantastic game, a must-own and one of the best open-world games I've had the pleasure of playing in a long, long time.

Thank you guys for reading it, I am sorry for the huge ass post, but I hope you enjoy it. See ya next time, there are many things planned and expect the unexpected :)

Bonus Material