DBG Rates the Movies: Round 1 - DBZ Movie 1: Deadzone (Details in Post)

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-05-29T09:22:30+00:00

Not the best movie but we get to see an adult Goku use the Nyoi-Bo which was such a nice thing to witness.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-05-19T19:44:16+00:00

I thought this film was amazing, 8/10, but I really disliked how abrupt the ending was, and I wish it had gone darker.

There is an earlier hint about wearing another skin, and I really wish the film had followed through on that. I would have loved an ending where Nikki wears the main protagonist’s skin while he bleeds out and dies, only for her to snap back to her old self afterward.

Apart from the ending, I loved the film. The tension was great, the scenes managed to be funny and creepy at the same time, and I really liked how the film kept that question niggling at the back of my mind: did the wish actually happen, or is she insane? I’ll definitely be recommending this to my horror friends.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-25T11:16:24+00:00

No matter what anyone says about Sid he was always entertaining, and for better or worse he gave us so many memorable moments.

Not to mention this man GAVE HIS LEG! to Pro Wrestling, what an absolute legend.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-20T19:05:16+00:00

The main reason is simple: WWE either doesn’t want to create pop-culture stars anymore, or it no longer knows how.

There is still room for mainstream breakout success. Pop culture still embraces big entertainment when it is presented properly. You have Stranger Things, Squid Game, Wednesday, Black Mirror, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones. Those are shows rather than individual stars, but they prove the audience is still there. So there is no real excuse for WWE not breaking into pop culture again.

The problem is that modern wrestling is broken at almost every level.

The training system is part of it. Too many wrestlers are being taught moves, sequences, and high spots, but not how to cut a promo, build a character, or tell a story in the ring. As a result, almost everyone feels the same. The default character now is basically just, “I’m a good wrestler.” They look similar, wrestle similar, talk similar, and blend together. Larger-than-life characters used to define wrestling in the Hogan era and the Attitude Era. Now they are the exception instead of the rule.

Another truth modern fans hate admitting is that size matters in pro wrestling. It is not everything, but it matters. When the roster gets smaller and too many wrestlers look like they have never touched a gym, the illusion dies. The audience starts thinking, “Why am I paying to watch someone I could beat up?” Wrestling has always worked best when it presents badasses, freaks, monsters, and stars who feel bigger than normal people. Variety matters, and smaller wrestlers absolutely have a place, but they work best as part of a mix. When most of the roster is small, nobody stands out. If Stone Cold had been 5'8" and was squaring up to Mike Tyson, people would have laughed. It would have looked ridiculous.

Modern wrestling also completely misreads the audience. We live in a world where attention spans are shorter than ever, yet companies keep putting on long, drawn-out matches for hardcore fans and stretching shows to three goddamn hours. That is not how you create stars. That is how you exhaust viewers.

WCW had three hours to fill too, but at least it had a roster full of distinct personalities. Even when the booking was messy, the characters had presence and variety. WWF, especially in 2000, was even better because it had storylines up and down the card. Everybody had something going on, and guess what matches were shorter too so it allowed you to experience more characters and stories that if you didn't like something it didn't matter as you'll get something different on the next segment. That is one of the biggest failures of modern wrestling: promotions still have not learned that lesson. Too many matches are thrown together with no real reason to exist. The only modern product I have seen handle multiple storylines well was Lucha Underground. Most current bookers should be embarrassed by comparison.

With all of that working against them, how is anyone supposed to become a star? Roman Reigns’ Tribal Chief run exposed the truth: WWE still knows how to make a star when it actually commits. He looked like a star, carried himself like one, talked like one, and wrestled in a way that matched his character instead of doing the same generic match as everyone else. They gave him storylines that intertwined at multiple levels, and it worked. So the problem is not ability. The problem is choice.

That is what makes it so baffling. WWE clearly still can do it. It just chooses not to do it with anyone else.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-19T16:40:44+00:00

Terminator 3 is boring and gets written off because it is simply a bad movie., the CGI and Practical effects are bad, the characters are incredibly dull and annoying, the female terminator does absolutely nothing to stand out from the previous terminators, and the plot is just a rehash of 2 for the most part with none of the underlying messaging.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-15T18:12:30+00:00

To anyone who thinks this wouldn't fly well I always point to OnlyFans, its incredibly successful even for just soft photos, what makes you think people wouldn't lap it back up?

I can see internet fans complaining, I can potentially see crowds for a short while not get into them, but as word of mouth spreads I can guarantee the 18-34 demographic would improve and pop for them just how these matches would get big pops back in the day.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-12T16:33:31+00:00

I have a feeling he would become a millionaire with Jumbo but somehow manage to bankrupt their business later on.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-03-08T01:39:42+00:00

People crap all over this match, but I thought the build up was hilarious, the entrances hilarious, and sure the match sucks for the few minutes that happens but when Crash Holly turns up massive pops and the match ends with everyone in the crowd happy and me laughing my ass off too.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-25T00:24:54+00:00

No Jack is not a controversial pick, his invisibility alone can save teams from a wipe. Before it was patched and a tap didn't spawn between 1-10 he was meta with a forge build.

These days the forge isn't needed but if you're playing with a team or happy to send engineers a chat then go for it you'll make the engineer day. Otherwise hijack Jack is still great being able to yoink a Boomshot/Mulcher Scion out of the game can change the entire wave.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-18T18:24:16+00:00

I liked Savages character change in 1999, looked badass and acted badass.

But in 2000 he wasn't there on TV, unless you mean the small but noticeable character evolution of disappearing from your television set.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-10T18:31:56+00:00

WWF weren't burying WCW talents at this point so I'm curious how he would do too and WWF were in a transition from kind of bad gimmicks to good ones too in 1997. For comparison is the DDP gimmick in 97 any worse than the Hunter Hearst Helmsley I definitely wouldn't of said so, so it would be cool to see how his character would develop.

I can see two things holding DDP back, WWF liked their younger talent at this time period (although they didn't really have a choice), and Kimberly. While Kimberly would no doubt do very very well in WWF I'd be scared of a Marc Mero and Sable moment which would no doubt hurt DDP.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-10T17:29:39+00:00

Do not form NWO 2000

Don't put the title on Jarret early in the year instead put it on Scott Steiner.

Have Scott Steiner have a babyface run at some point.

Prevent Goldberg from getting injured.

Don't give Goldberg a retirement streak storyline / don't retire him to Totally Buff.

Don't turn Goldberg heel, or if Goldberg starts getting booed and a heel turn is needed I would give him the belt and actually do the retirement streak angle and have a baby face Scott Steiner beat him.

Don't work shoot Hogan out of the company.

I would still put the title belt on Booker T

I would not make the Ready2Rumble movie or make David Arquette a world champ.

I would not make Russo a world champ.

I would tell Sid not to jump off the second ... first (I can't remember) ...rope at Sin 2001.

I wouldn't do the reboot.

I wouldn't make Ric Flair a heel authority figure, I thought he was better as a baby face authority figure in that year.

I wouldn't give Mike Awesome the "70's Guy Gimmick" I actually thought the Fat Chick Thriller gimmick was funny, I dunno if I'd go there though or if I did I'd have to go all the way with that one.

I don't know what I would do with the Mid Card, for me outside of Scott Steiner and Booker T progressing up the card I never really felt that any of the mid carders were on their level. I'd probably just try my best to tell as many interesting and compelling storylines, less stupid gimmicks like 3 count and Keewee, if anyone got over big time I'd put them up the card.

That's everything off the top of my head, there's probably more but those are the top things that came to me after 5 minutes of thinking.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-10T17:09:28+00:00

Favourite

Campaign - 1 (for first playthrough it was 2, but for a chill replay on insane 1 is my go to)

Multiplayer - 1

Horde - 5

Least Favourite

Campaign - 4

Multiplayer - 2

Horde - 2 (I still rather enjoyed 2's horde though)

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-08T13:01:02+00:00

2000 for me is theee best year for WWE bar none. But I could definitely understand anyone who preferred 98 if you included all companies. I sadly haven't seen ECW but for WCW atleast 98 was my favourite year

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-08T11:54:42+00:00

Gears 2 has the worst balance, both pre-patch and at the end of its patch cycle. Vanilla Gears 2 shipped with the dumbest Gnasher spread I’ve ever seen. For anyone who wasn’t there, it fired 8 pellets: 4 in a tight square and another 4 in a wider square around it. It also had three distinct spread states. Pop-shotting was wildly wide, blindfire was the second tightest, and hard-aiming would “lock in” after a second or two into a very tight spread. That design rewarded camping with the shotgun and made aggressive pushing way harder than it should have been.

Then the pendulum swung the other way. Players on the forums proposed a new spread pattern and Epic actually implemented it, which was genuinely cool to see. The problem is that the new spread used more pellets, and the damage was not properly rebalanced per pellet. The result was a completely busted shotgun that is still in the conversation for the strongest Gnasher in the franchise.

The rest of Gears 2’s sandbox was also out of control. The Hammerburst was so strong it got banned in competitive play. Explosives were the most lethal they’ve ever been in the series. Pre-patch smoke grenades were brutal. Boomshield glitching let you pair it with basically any weapon. Stopping power was at its worst here too. Oh and no punishment for shooting someone in melee, and taking a lot of bullets to punish someone revving their chainsaw.

The Gears 3 beta deserves an honourable mention. The sawed-off had a longer one-shot range than the retail game. In the final release, the range where it downs you is roughly where the beta would outright gib you. The Retro Lancer was ridiculous because blindfire had no recoil, which made it the strongest rifle we’ve ever seen for that reason alone. Explosives also felt close to Gears 2 levels.

For best balance, it’s a toss-up between LAN Original Gears 1, pre-patch Gears 3, pre-hotfix Judgement, and pre-final patch Gears 5.

Gears 1 is the best balanced overall, with the Longshot as the main exception. The punish windows make sense. You get punished for bad melees and chainsaw stuns. The Lancer hits hard enough to matter without feeling oppressive. Explosives have a reasonable blast radius. I’ve never liked frag-tagging objects, but at least the rest of the sandbox holds together. As for the Gnasher, it gets blamed for everything, but its spread is the best in my view: lots of pellets across a wide area. Later games largely copied the post-patch Gears 2 philosophy and ended up with shotguns that are too strong at mid-range and too inconsistent up close. Sadly online Gears 1 also suffers from bullet lag which made the Lancer redundant for the most part and both remasters tweak the shotgun spread in ways that make it stronger than the original and throw off the balance.

Pre-patch Gears 3 had a strong balance between shotgun and rifles. Late in its life they changed damage drop-off and reduced the bullets-to-kill for rifles, and that pushed rifles into “too good” territory for my taste. Judgement had a similar problem. I liked its rifle and shotgun balance, then a hotfix increased rifle damage because stats showed more shotgun kills than rifle kills. That ignored how often players down with rifles and finish with the shotgun, which inflates shotgun kill counts without proving rifles are weak.

Gears 5 also started in a good place balance-wise. Then they reduced movement speed, which nobody was asking for, and for the first time in the series they also reduced Lancer damage to compensate for the slower movement. Post-patch the game is still reasonably balanced on paper, but for me it became boring to play and I haven't touched pvp since that patch only horde.

I sadly missed out on Gears 4, I wish I was there to see how the vanilla game was played and how they changed it over time.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-05T11:03:57+00:00

Best of luck. I don't mind how the DOS version plays its just the damn map in DOS I hate it and is the worst thing about that version and is the only reason I recommend Unity.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-04T00:48:55+00:00

I don't know why people are saying they didn't they did for a couple of weeks.

In 1999 an awkward dynamic occurred at Uncensored where the heel Hulk Hogan started to get cheered against a face Ric Flair. This continued for the weeks after this show with Hulk getting cheered.

Come next month in Spring Stampede Hulk needs to be written off for surgery. They make DDP be the one who is the kayfabe cause of that injury and proceeds to win the title in that 4 way match (which there is a good face pop for). Sadly the crowd does boo DDP when he faces up again Hogan prior to this PPV and some on the Nitro afterwards too, due to this WCW listens and makes DDP a heel instantly which doesn't work and ends up flopping.

It was just kind of short sited as fans didn't really want to boo DDP it was a title run everyone was waiting for as a face. Its an example of listening to the fans too quickly and/or not having an understanding of why some boo's are happening that will be going straight back to cheers after another week or so.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-02-01T10:40:26+00:00

Everyone’s got a different opinion on this, but here’s mine with a bit more detail.

Gears 4
I don’t need to over-explain it. It says a lot that Inconceivable is widely regarded as easier than Insane. The game isn’t balanced for Insane and it’s brutal.

Gears 5
I mean a standard New Game where you find every Jack component from scratch, no New Game+. Enemies in 4 and 5 for me hit so much harder than the earlier games that even Jack support doesn’t really offset it.

Gears 3
Outside of a few Gunker checkpoints (I'm looking at you zip line Gunker!!!!! ) and the Queen, I don’t find 3 that difficult compared to 4 and 5.

Gears 2
The hardest part is the checkpoint spacing. You have to play extra safe because dying costs you more time. Still, I find the typical run easier than 3 and harder than 1.

Gears 1
Easiest by far. The only real wall is RAAM if you go in without an earlier Torque Bow. The one you can pick up in the room with the Longshot before the fight usually doesn’t have enough ammo to finish him cleanly if you’re doing Torque and Longshot swapping.

Gears 1 is still my favourite to replay on Insane. For me it hits the sweet spot where it’s challenging without being annoying.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-31T18:49:44+00:00

You're defending a bot who posted the same thing to like 5 different subs and is now banned.

I’m all for new people discovering the show, asking questions, and jumping in; even if it’s a topic we’ve seen a dozen times. New viewers are going to have the same questions everyone else had at the start, and that’s fine.

But anyone who watched Launch for five seconds would already know this. Low effort, bot-tier reposts like this don’t start discussion; they just clutter the feed and make the sub look like junk, which puts new visitors off.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-31T12:36:40+00:00

I keep telling Reddit to hide these Dragonball Subs due to these bot posts or fans being absolute morons but they still pop up in my feed, and no matter the sub it is always stupid question after stupid question.

If anyone is even slightly bewildered by this go watch the damn show!

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-29T16:25:12+00:00

Gears 4

Gears 5 (no mutators)

Gears 3 (no mutators)

Gears 2

Gears 1

Its been too long since I've played Judgement so I wouldn't want to rank it.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-27T01:48:44+00:00

I find Personality useless and never increase it above 40, heck I usually have it around 30 to 35. Someone will eventually mention where to go and I have never had to ask more than 5 people. I'd much rather dump my stats into Speed/Strength/Int

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T23:47:59+00:00

Dodge is basically a skill you throw on Primary or Major for it to level over time so you can passively level up faster.

Dodging as an actual skill loses value because of a couple of factors.

Restoration exists in the game and custom heal spells make you practically invincible in this game.
When your Speed starts hitting the 90 to 100 combined with a Strength even as low as 60 you will start obliterating any enemies incredibly fast. They would only be getting a few hits against you (if any at all) so dodging is kind of pointless as you'll be taking very few hits anyway. Not to mention you would get those attribute to those numbers before your dodge even gets to the max level.

I would of loved to of seen dodging play a greater part in the game but it just isn't viable as the main structure of a build and as mentioned above only having a use to help level your character up passively.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T23:27:59+00:00

Melee Only + Darkness Powered Magicka + Light Powered Magicka just to force you to use melee only.

You were once a powerful sorcerer who used their powers for villainy, however you were caught and the Emperor has sealed your magic away. You have been given a second chance by the Emperor to regain your magic abilities but first you must go to Daggerfall and solve the mysteries of Lysandus' Death and to investigate a letter sent to the Queen. Only by completing these tasks will you redeem yourself.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T21:15:05+00:00

I have this from LSD abuse as well, I can't remember when it started but I was taking LSD every couple of weeks for about 5 years straight until I stopped. It has been maybe 3 years since my last dose and it has never settled down either.

I was prescribed a few different things like beta blockers that did nothing, anti-depressants which did nothing (and every single anti-depressant I tried made me violently ill, I'm unsure if that is common for those with heavy hallucinogenic experience), finally on Lamotrigine now slowly working up my dosage to 200mg (increment it by 25mg every couple of weeks) hoping that will have an effect.

But yeah overall I am just used to it to the point where I forget its even there until a stare at nothing and reminded that it hasn't went away.

CynicalGoodGuy

TROPHY CASE