Sometimes it feels like I did more stuff outside of my goals list than inside, I might copy previous blog entry introductions, there may be commentary, etc. Not included here are movies from my 2015 favorites list.
TV
Hadn’t seen before:
- Agent Carter (season 1)
- Daredevil (season 1)
- Freaks and Geeks (season 1/the complete series)
- Heroes Reborn (most of season 1)
- Parks and Recreation (seasons 1-7)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (season 1)
- Toy Story That Time Forgot
- The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (season 1)
- Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (season 1)
Had seen before
- Heroes (seasons 2-4)
- It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
I’m a sucker for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so Agent Carter and Daredevil were no-brain watchers for me. I really enjoyed both of them, and am looking forward to the second seasons in 2016. The hallway fight scene from the first or second episode of Daredevil was a standout moment of pure awesomeness.
I had heard good things about Freaks and Geeks, though I don’t recall from where. My wife and I watched it on Netflix in the fall and it was pretty great. It was fascinating to see a young James Franco and Seth Green, and especially John Francis Daley.
I decided one day that as I had put off The Office, so had I put off Parks and Recreation, and it was time to watch. I binge-watched the whole thing in about 3 weeks and it was absolutely fantastic. It took me some time to warm to some of the characters, but somewhere in season 2 I just began to love it all. I think it’s a show I could watch again in a couple of years.
It’s been my intention to watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager for a while, it just took some time to get to. I’m attempting to watch them more or less in continuity order, which means I started DS9 in the middle of Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6. It hasn’t captured me like TNG yet, but I hear it gets pretty good, so here’s hoping.
I decided to watch Kimmy Schmidt based on Tina Fey’s involvement, and wow, what a funny, funny show. I am eagerly awaiting season 2.
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is a Netflix original show; a prequel to the film from some years ago. It was spotlighted whenever I would start up Netflix, and the cast of the film sounded good, so I watched it, liked it, and then watched the show.
I watched my DVD set of Heroes season 1 and decided to watch the other seasons on Netflix since Heroes Reborn was to premiere in the fall. I still think season 1 was by far the best, but the others were still pretty good, and not as bad as I remembered. Heroes Reborn is great whenever Jack Coleman, Masi Oka, or Zachary Levi is on screen, and generally okay otherwise. I’m looking forward to the final three episodes.
Movies
Hadn’t seen before:
- Braveheart
- Bridesmaids
- The Cat Returns
- Chasing Amy
- The Interview
- Kill Me Three Times
- Kingsman: The Secret Service
- Maleficent
- Mission: Impossible II
- The Painting
- Paranorman
- Planes: Fire & Rescue
- Pom Poko
- Porco Rosso
- Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
- Shakespeare in Love
- Tales from Earthsea
- Wet Hot American Summer
- Witness
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- The World’s End
Had seen before:
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
- Aladdin
- Batman
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
- Cars Toon: Mater’s Tall Tales
- Despicable Me 2
- Dumb and Dumber
- Forrest Gump
- Ghostbusters
- Good Will Hunting
- Hot Fuzz
- Hot Rod
- Jurassic Park
- Justice League: Doom
- Love Actually
- Mulan
- Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
- Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1
- Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2
- The Princess and the Frog
- Puss in Boots
- Robin Hood
- Spirited Away
- Superman: The Movie
- Superman II
- Superman III
- Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
- Superman: Unbound
- Superman vs. The Elite
- X-Men: Days of Future Past
Video Games
First-time plays:
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
- Pikmin
- Yoshi’s Woolly World
Replays:
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
- Metroid Prime
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- Pikmin 3
We enjoyed the Captain Toad levels in Super Mario 3D World, and so when I found Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for a good price during the summer I bought it and the whole family has enjoyed it. A few of the levels were quite challenging.
Having thoroughly enjoyed Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3, I bought the original Pikmin when Nintendo was selling refurbished copies $15. Pikmin 3 still remains my favorite, but they all have wonderful charm. I really hope Pikmin 4 sees the light of day in 2016. Our family has also started collecting action figures from the World of Nintendo line and we’ve been lucky/determined/insane enough to each pick up Olimar action figures for myself and the three kids, plus a combined total of 30 Pikmin of various colors. We also have various action figures from the Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Donkey Kong lines, and some of the plushes–mostly Pikmin.
We also started collecting amiibo, first just a couple of characters to scan while playing Hyrule Warriors, now a sizeable collection with multiple duplicates because the kids have crossover character interests. Yoshi’s Woolly World is a game we bought sort of on a whim during one of our “amiibo expeditions,” which included the game and a Green Yarn Yoshi amiibo. We, of course, bought the other two colors of Yarn Yoshi as well (and eventually one of each color for each child). YWW turned out to be really fun, and really difficult at times (or it would have been really difficult had we not played on “mellow” mode).
Early in 2015 Nintendo released a couple of Wii titles for the Wii U Virtual Console. One of the first was the Metroid Prime trilogy for a price of just $10. I don’t really like the controls introduced in Metroid Prime 3, which were carried over to the trilogy re-release of MP and MP2, but I wanted to experience the widescreen presentation of the original games, and for the price I figured why not. So I played through the first two games, which remain my favorite Metroid games, and somehow didn’t replay the third. I guess that’ll be on the 2016 list along with Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission.
Sometimes old school is the best school. I remember first playing A Link to the Past at around 12 years old. I replayed it on the Wii U and it’s a lot harder than I remember it being, but still one of the great Zelda games. The Minish Cap was released some time ago for the Wii U Virtual Console, and I finally bought it and played it a couple of months ago. I had played it some years back on a Gameboy Advance emulator, but remembered very little about it. It was fun, and I hope to enjoy more Zelda goodness in 2016, with Skyward Sword, possibly more Hyrule Warriors content, and hopefully the new Wii U Zelda title.