Seeing how we’re just under 1 month away from the IC2S Playlist’s first anniversary, I think I’m going to switch up the format of the update since they’re basically the same boring stuff every week and, as a result, it can be pretty challenging to actually come up with anything meaningful to say. I’m going to try out a little more of an informal, blog-like structure which might actually be interesting to somebody to read, Read More

First up this week is “The Riddle” by Five For Fighting from the album Two Lights. There’s a responsible driving PSA which plays on Metal Rock Radio all the time featuring Five For Fighting’s lead singer, John Ondrasik. They play this song in the background of the PSA, and I recently started to want to hear the whole song. This led me on a hunt through most of Five For Fighting’s discography trying to find Read More

First up this week is “Killing Strangers” by Marilyn Manson from his newest album THE PALE EMPEROR. Basically the only reason I picked this song was because I had a pretty epic movie night double-feature with a friend with weekend which consisted of John Wick and Mad Max: Fury Road (probably my 2 favourite action movies of the past 7 years) back-to-back. As you can expect, it was an awesome night, but “Killing Strangers” was really Read More

We have a couple updates this week before we get into the playlist selections. First of all, Countless Thousands’ Kickstarter is live and already funded. However, it got there through (at this point) only 36 backers, which is a crime considering how good this band is as far as I’m concerned. Check out their Kickstarter page, if only to read through it – a lot of love has obviously gone into crafting this campaign, and Read More

Oh looky, it’s time for another installment of The Rebuttal. What sort of dumbassery made its way into my Facebook feed this week? A friend of mine (we’ll call him Johnny) has an MRA/egalitarian friend, who made a ridiculous post this weekend. Johnny passed this post on to another friend of mine (we’ll call him Atlas), who then passed it on to me, knowing I’d enjoy it. Check it out: Hoo boy… I’m not even Read More

First up this week is “Fickle” by Countless Thousands, yet another song from their debut album We’re Just Really Excited to Be Here. I really enjoy this song because it’s just so enthusiastic, but that’s not the only reason I chose it for this week’s playlist entry – Countless Thousands are also launching their first Kickstarter campaign this week! As you can probably tell, I really love their music and am definitely going to be Read More

If you’ve read even a couple of my posts on this blog, then you’re probably aware that I’m a staunchly left-leaning “SJW”-type person. However, with that in mind, I am absolutely sick of the “#OscarsSoWhite” controversy which has been dominating the news cycle for the last week. Initially I was fine with it – it is certainly odd that we haven’t had a non-white acting nominee in 2 straight years now, which is a situation Read More

AFTERTHOUGHTS This has been quite a journey that we have embarked on. It literally took me months to complete all of the games in the franchise and, at times, felt like I had taken on a second job, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience which has given me a new appreciation of the franchise. Seeing how the gameplay has evolved and gotten more complex was very interesting, and actually improved the original Metal Gear Read More

We’re starting up a new column here on IC2S (to go along with Quick Fixes, Retrospectives and Reviews) which I have decided to call “The Rebuttal”. I get a lot of stupid bullshit in my Facebook feed; I’m sure that you do as well. Sometimes however, we get something that is a new level of stupid though which can’t just be ignored – it needs to be corrected. That is where The Rebuttal comes in. Read More

So finally we come to the most recent entry in the Metal Gear franchise – and likely the final entry for that matter in the eyes of most fans. Would Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain manage to bring the series full circle, while charting an ambitious new style for the series? Read on to find out. (Since this game is quite recent still, I will point out that there are MAJOR spoilers throughout this article.) Read More

Bloody hell, did I ever have a “week”. A friend and I got into a heated argument with a MRA on Facebook (he self identifies as an MRA-leaning egalitarian, but if you’re familiar with MRA/feminist circles, you’ll know that “egalitarian” is just a term which has been unfortunately co-opted by MRA-types to make them sound more reasonable). It was more-or-less a waste of time, but I did get some interesting insight into the MRA mindset Read More

Welcome back to the Metal Gear retrospective! In this entry we’re going to cover the 10th game in the franchise, 2014’s prologue, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes! I actually wrote a review for this game back when it first came out, but in… er… retrospect it was more of a justification for the game’s length rather than a real review. As a result, I’m going to make sure to cover more info on the game itself. Read More

Welcome back to the Metal Gear retrospective! In this entry we’re going to be covering the ninth game in the franchise, 2013’s Raiden-based spin-off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance! After a troubled development cycle and some major fan backlash, would this game manage to prove itself worthy of the Metal Gear name? Read on to find out… DEVELOPMENT The original version of the game which would eventually become Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, was announced in 2009 at Microsoft’s Read More

Welcome back to part eight of the Metal Gear retrospective. In this entry we’re going to be covering Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the second canon installment on the PSP. With the franchise effectively wrapped up in Guns of the Patriots, would Peace Walker find a reasonable justification to keep the franchise alive? Read on to find out… (Note, I will be reviewing this game based on the HD Edition re-release on PS3, and will consequently be Read More