So normally around my birthday, I do a final film or video game review and then go straight onto the best of the year posts. But I decided that seeing as Rouge One would be the last film I see on the big screen this year and that I already reviewed it, I will instead talk about why I feel that 2016 has been a bad year. Now don't get me wrong, there have been some good stuff that's come out of this year which I will be covering over the next few days in my best of year posts. But generally this year has just been a bad year and I will give you my thoughts on not every area, but most areas on this:
News
Well to start with, the news in most years is often generally a mixed bag of good and bad news. But this year has definitely been bad for news. 2016 started off by the shocking news about the passings of music legend David Bowie and legendary actor Alan Rickman who are both loved and respected by many thanks to their works in their respective areas. The news about their passings really got to me as I've come to love their work and it was just a shame that they left this world so soon. Of course, there were others that followed such as Sir Terry Wogan and Prince, but it was these two that really got to me. Then there's Brexit which honestly, I felt was a stupid thing on the government's part. Having us to decide on whether to stay or leave the EU just sounded really dumb to me. Though I understood the advantages and disadvantages of either side, but I never honestly thought that it would tear our government apart to the point that a new prime minister had to be appointed. So might be a difficult few years, but I'm sure we'll get through them soon enough. And while we're on the subject of the government, Donald Trump as the new president of the United States. A lot of things wrong with him and yet everyone voted for a man who is out of his mind, is a racist and wants to make the country great again, by building a wall around it. I could go on if I wanted, but I won't. So yeah, the news this year has hit me hard and the next few years will be difficult for many of us. But we will get through it I'm sure.
Films
All I can say about the films this year is that DC really need to sort themselves out if they ever have a chance to go up against Marvel. While I found that Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad were decent films, even I have to admit that there is a lot wrong with them and DC have nothing but themselves and Zach Snyder to blame. Of course, Bay will be Bay and Sandler will be Sandler as their films this year, suck and whether they choose to up their games or not, well I wouldn't care less. Its good that Sandler's new films are now going onto Netflix rather than have us sit through them on the big screen and its also good that Bay is trying to get Transformers and TMNT fans to like him by putting in their favourite characters in the films. But they still need to work themselves out. Also, after having seen some of the films that were given a 12A rating (the UK rating for the average summer blockbuster) this year, I think the rating people really need to change some things around because I saw some children watching these films and believe me, too much swearing and too much violence are things no child should see until the right age. Also, the performance of the DC films has made me question Rotten Tomatoes and whether or not their rating system can be trusted anymore. I mean they are certainly right with some films, but for a lot of films this year, their ratings were just pure bad. So yeah, not a great year for films overall, but we'll be looking at the best ones over the coming days.
Video Games
So this year was meant to be the year where video game films finally get done right and honestly, even though I haven't seen said films, I've heard that film makers are still getting it wrong. Ratchet & Clank was panned, Angry Birds was OK though it did manage to be accurate to the games, Warcraft had good visuals but that alone couldn't save it and Assassin's Creed sucked despite being better made and had a better cast than the others released this year (I know it hasn't been released in the UK yet, but this is what I've been hearing about it so far). So as far as films are concerned, it's been a mixed bag with some getting it right, but still getting it wrong at the same time. As for the actual video games, well if Hello Games has taught me anything, its that game developers need to stick to their promises and give us the games we want with the things that were promised, subject to a few fixes and tweaks if need be. Not only that, but publishers have now taken notice about their games sales being altered because of reviews prior to the game's release and have decided to not send review copies to reviewers and critics in the hopes to make sales be better. Such was the case with Mafia III which was decent at best, Doom which was pretty good and especially No Man's Sky which was bad beyond all belief. Now I am a reviewer of games, but I'm not a member of the press so having the opportunity of playing games early is a very rare occurrence for me. It would be nice, but I'm not a member of the press which is also why I don't go to E3 each year. So that's really all the bad stuff about gaming this year so I will focus on the best parts about it in the coming days.
So that's really all I wanted to talk about today and from tomorrow until New Years Eve, I will be talking about the best things to come out of this year while also granting myself a last minute opportunity to review things I haven't reviewed this year yet. And let's hope 2017 is better.
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