Sunday 28 May 2017

E14 Toybox #35 - Gravity Greed (Part 2) (Marvel/DC Heroclix Gravity Feed unboxing)

Enjoy the second part of Rob unboxing some Marvel and DC Heroclix Gravity Feed foil packs picked up from the London Gaming Market! In today's haul, there are figures from these sets:

  • The Dark Knight Rises
  • Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  • Batman 66 Classic
  • Captain America: Civil War

What mysteries are contained within?...

The E14 Toybox is a video show hosted by Rob Wade, dedicated to the pursuit and unveiling of fun geeky products. From subscription boxes like Zavvi's Zbox, to Wizkids Heroclix figures, Rob takes the unknown and reveals the mystery within for your enjoyment!


Saturday 27 May 2017

E14 Toybox #34 - Gravity Greed (Part 1) (Marvel/DC Heroclix Gravity Feed Unboxing)

Enjoy Rob unboxing some Marvel and DC Heroclix Gravity Feed foil packs picked up from the London Gaming Market! In today's haul, there are figures from these sets:

  • The Dark Knight Rises
  • Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  • Batman 66 Classic

What mysteries are contained within?...

The E14 Toybox is a video show hosted by Rob Wade, dedicated to the pursuit and unveiling of fun geeky products. From subscription boxes like Zavvi's Zbox, to Wizkids Heroclix figures, Rob takes the unknown and reveals the mystery within for your enjoyment!


Thursday 25 May 2017

Guest Writer - Joe Julians: The John Munch Shared Universe

My girlfriend gave up watching the Arrowverse shows last year because she said there was too much to watch and to keep track of. It’s a fair comment; these shows do take up a lot of time and with a new one Black Lightning looking to join the already busy CW line-up next year, it’s only going to need more time dedicated to it. Thankfully, most of these shows have improved this season, with the exception of The Flash, so keeping up with them all isn’t quite the chore it was becoming last year. But it got me thinking, what is the TV shared universe that would take the longest to watch if you started from the beginning? It has to be the Star Trek franchise, right? Wrong.

First, let’s take a look at the Arrowverse. By the end of next month when the 2016-2017 season winds down, we’ll have the following: 5 seasons of Arrow, 3 seasons of The Flash and 2 seasons apiece for Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. Now of course as the character of John Constantine showed up in Arrow’s fourth run, we need to include Constantine (1 season). Adding to this is the animated series Vixen (2 seasons) which has featured crossovers both ways.

So, what about the episode counts? Well, Arrow will hit 115 episodes at the close of its current run, thanks to its 23 episodes per season. The Flash will reach 69 episodes with the same episode frequency per season, Legends of Tomorrow with its shorter runs bowed out in October with 33 episodes, whilst Supergirl will reach 42. Constantine ran for one season and consisted of 13 episodes, which leaves Vixen at a much smaller 12 episodes across its two seasons. That gives us 284 episodes to watch, basing 272 of those at a length of 42 minutes, we have 190.4 hours to get through. Throwing in Vixen (based on an average length of 6 minutes per episodes) brings us to a total of 191.6 hours.

Arrowverse Episode Total: 284
Arrowverse Time to Watch: 7.98 Days

So quite a while, but actually less than I expected.

Let’s now look at Star Trek.

Spanning multiple shows and movies, this one took some working out!

  • Star Trek TOS: 3 seasons, 80 episodes (including The Cage)
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: 7 seasons, 178 episodes.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: 7 seasons, 176 episodes.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: 7 seasons, 172 episodes.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: 4 seasons, 98 episodes.
  • Star Trek: The Animated Series: 2 seasons, 22 episodes.

So that’s a whopping 726 episodes to get through. Time-wise, again basing this on an average length of 42 minutes per episode (forgetting TAS) for a minute, we’re up to 492.8 hours. Throwing in the animated show with an average of 30 minutes per ep, that lifts the total to 503.8. But, with Star Trek, there are the movies to consider, and there’s a lot of them. Currently, we’re up to 13 of them with a combined run time of approximately 1517 minutes, so 25.28 hours.

Star Trek Episode Total: 726
Star Trek Movie Total: 13
Star Trek Time to Watch: 22.04 Days.

I genuinely thought that was the biggest, surely no other television franchise or shared universe could beat that?

Well it has been beaten, by Law and Order, and in particular one character from it, John Munch, played by Richard Belzer.

I like to call this the John Munch shared universe.

Now there are those that don’t think all his appearances are canonical, I’m taking the approach that they are, with the exception of Sesame Street, because, well it’s Sesame Street.

Now, John Munch started out in Homicide: Life on the Street, which on its own clocked up 122 episodes across 7 seasons (plus a TV movie). When that show finished, the character was moved over to the Law and Order franchise, heading up spin-off show Law and Order SVU, connecting those two series to one another. And, well this is where things get complicated.

The original Law and Order series ran for 20 seasons and 456 episodes (it also had a TV movie). Its spin off SVU is still going and is just about to finish its 18th season (it will reach 411 episodes). Its third spin-off show, Criminal Intent (195 episodes), ran for 10 seasons. The fourth, Trial by Jury (13 episodes) only aired for a single run as did the 5th show, Law and Order: LA (22 episodes). There are two new shows in development.

So now we can combine those 2 franchises, and that gives us 1219 episodes. Time-wise that’s 853.3 hours, with the two movies bringing it up to 856.4 hours, or 35.68 days. This is a lot, but we’re not done.

John Munch didn’t just appear in these two shows, he crossed over to several more and as such, there’s an argument to be made that he validates the existence of all these other shows within the continuity that Homicide and Law and Order exist in.

His character also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, a sixth season instalment called "Unusual Suspects". That show originally ran for 9 seasons and consisted of 202 episodes and a movie. A second movie was released in 2008 before the show returned to the small screen in 2016 for a 6-episode revival. The runtime for all of that clocks up to 149.35 hours. The Lone Gunmen and Millennium are two more shows existing in this universe, the former only managing 13 episodes, whilst the latter made it to 67. Altogether, that’s 200.85 hours, or 8.36 days. Combine that with the Homicide and Law and Order shows and we’re up to 63435 minutes, or 1057.25 hours, 44.05 days.

It doesn’t stop there.

Munch also appeared in the short-lived show The Beat. Whilst 13 episodes were made, only 6 aired, and as far as I can tell the remaining 7 episodes have never been released, so we’ll call this one 6. That’s 252 minutes, or 4.2 hours.

Next up there’s comedy show Arrested Development. Munch showed up in the third season. That show ran for 4 seasons, its first 3 averaging at 21 minutes per episode whilst its fourth run on Netflix varied. Combined, let’s say 1602 minutes, or 26.7 hours.

And then there’s The Wire. Munch appeared in a fifth season scene in that, so therefore, we include it. It ran for 60 episodes. If we base 59 of those at an average runtime of 57 minutes, and then include the extended finale of 93 minutes, we get 3456 minutes, or 57.6 hours, so another 2.4 days.

Combining all of that, we come to a minute count of 68745, an hour count of 1145.75, and a day count of 47.73. Phew, well at least we’re done. Except, believe it or not, we’re not. Not even close.

Going back to Homicide, that show crossed over with Chicago Hope during its fourth run. Hope ran for 6 seasons and gave us 141 episodes. Basing them on an average of 43 minutes, we get 6063 minutes, so that’s 101.05 hours and another 4.21 days.

Chicago Hope crossed over with the show Picket Fences, which incidentally nearly crossed over with The X-Files for the second season episode "Red Museum" (The X-Files is about to get included in all this anyway). Fences ran for 4 seasons and 88 episodes, giving us an increase of 3696 minutes, 61.6 hours, 2.56 days.

Now, back to Law and Order. The original show had a crossover with Conviction, not the recent Hayley Atwell failure, but the 2006 failure. That show ran for 13 episodes, so again lifts our count by 546 minutes which is 9.1 hours. It also featured a crossover with In Plain Sight. That lasted 5 seasons with a total of 61 episodes. Basing this on a 46 minute per episode average, we lift the overall minute count by 2806, an hour count of 46.7 and a day count of 1.94.

Now there’s yet another show that the Law and Order franchise crossed over with. SVU featured a crossover with Chicago PD, which is itself a spin-off from Chicago Fire. The franchise is still going and now has two more shows to add to its numbers, Chicago Med and Chicago Justice. Fire will reach 115 episodes at the end of this season, PD will hit 84, Med reaches 41, whilst newcomer Justice will finish the season on 13. So that’s 253 episodes, 10626 minutes, 177.1 hours, 7.37 days.

We also have St. Elsewhere to consider. Two characters from that series showed up in Homicide despite the former concluding several years before the latter even began. St Elsewhere ran for 6 seasons and produced 137 episodes, basing those on 46 minutes each, we get 6307 minutes, 105.03 hours and 4.37 days.

Next up there’s New York Undercover. Now this one didn’t actually feature any crossovers with other shows as far as I know, but creator Dick Wolf has said that it definitely takes place in the same universe, so, we have to include it. It ran for 89 episodes, again, basing that on a 46-minute run time, we go up by 4094 minutes, 68.23 hours and 2.84 days.

Now we go to Deadline, a series set at the fictitious New York Ledger, a paper featured in the Law and Order franchise so again, needs to be included. It didn’t last long. 13 episodes was its lot which gives us 546 minutes or 9.1 hours.

Finally, there’s Jo. A little-known French series that, believe it or not, does exist within the fictional world along with all these other shows. The show went along during its brief run as its own thing, before pulling out a villain from Law and Order: Criminal Intent in its final episode, thus combining the two worlds. The eight 46 minute episodes give us a final increase of 368 minutes/6.13 hours.

Now keep in mind this is just live action non-puppet related shows. I’m not including things like The Simpsons crossover with The X-Files, or John Munch turning up on Sesame Street, if you want to think of them as canon then good luck to you opening all the doors that animation will present!

So our final total for the John Munch fictional universe is:

103,797 minutes
1729.95 hours
72.08 days.

So if you start this tomorrow, and you don’t work, you don’t do anything else but watch this and sleep, say, 9 hours sleep a day, it will take you 115 days to watch the lot. I don’t advise it.

The Arrowverse doesn’t seem so bad now, eh?


Joe Julians is an upcoming author with his first book, Forces, due for release in summer 2017.

You can also find him on his own site at JPJulians.com or on Twitter @joepjulians. He finds himself entertaining even at 140 characters or less.



Tuesday 23 May 2017

E14 Toybox #33 - April 2017 "Genius" Zbox Unboxing!

Better late than never, Rob does an unboxing of the April 2017 "Genius" ZBox subscription box from Zavvi!

For the uninitiated, Zboxes are subscription boxes provided monthly containing geeky goodies chosen by the great folks at Zavvi! From Funko Pop! vinyl figures to books, comics and always containing a themed T-shirt, the Zbox provides a bumper batch of thematic goodness!

April's theme was "Genius"! What's in the box? Watch and learn...

Find out more about the Zbox here:

Zbox from Zavvi

The E14 Toybox is a video show hosted by Rob Wade, dedicated to the pursuit and unveiling of fun geeky products. From subscription boxes like Zavvi's Zbox, to Wizkids Heroclix figures, Rob takes the unknown and reveals the mystery within for your enjoyment!


Saturday 6 May 2017

E14 Toybox #32 - Booster Battle! Rob vs Omer - Avengers Assemble Heroclix Booster Unboxing (Part 5 of 5)

It's time for part 5 of the Booster Battle! Join Omer and Rob as they unbox their way through a Marvel Heroclix "Avengers Assemble" booster brick, making a game of it as they go! For those who enjoyed the "Blind Bag Battle" way back when, this is right up your street!

For more Heroclix videos from Emotionally14, check out the E14 Toybox playlist!

The E14 Toybox is a video show hosted by Rob Wade, dedicated to the pursuit and unveiling of fun geeky products. From subscription boxes like Zavvi's Zbox, to Wizkids Heroclix figures, Rob takes the unknown and reveals the mystery within for your enjoyment!


Thursday 4 May 2017

Sour Crouch's Spoiler-Free Review: Nioh

To say this’ll be a spoiler-free review is an understatement. Truthfully, I’m not even sure what happened in the story. Oft times convoluted, sometimes absent, Nioh is a game less concerned with what’s happening in the background and more concerned with the many-toothed yokai bearing down on you with three of his skeleton archer friends.

This is unfortunately an aspect I felt was most lacking whilst playing Nioh, and perhaps I’m spoilt by the storytelling of the game that I think you know I’m about to compare Nioh to. *Yawn* Yes, of course it's Dark Souls. I’m not saying that the story is absent, because it’s there. It’s just not that interesting, ultimately, which is a shame because I feel like more time spent on making me care about the characters would have soothed this complaint. Sadly, we don’t get that time.

In fact, it’s in Nioh’s very operation that things go a bit wobbly and disjointed. The limitations of Nioh’s setup are what hampers the implementation of a more ‘find it yourself’ story that makes the Dark Souls series so compelling to uncover. Instead of one large sprawling map filled with many secrets for you to discover, we get stages. Unfortunately, what having stages also brings to the table is in affording the player a break, thus losing the tension and feeling of dread present in the Souls series.

But this isn’t Dark Souls, this is Nioh, and If I could make one suggestion for Team Ninja, it would be to focus on making the player care about the stakes and the people you slavishly inhabit your world with. Perhaps it’s because my knowledge of Feudal Japan is on the thin side also, but save for kind-of-knowing who Nobunaga was I found myself feeling like there was a joke I wasn’t part of when newer characters were introduced. Thankfully there is a detailed section in the menus that discuss the historical significance of these people in greater depth, otherwise I would have been completely stumped.

My one complaint over with, then, if you’re okay with the plot being a bit ‘meh’ then you’ll actually be rewarded with a slick slice-em-up that takes cues from the Souls formula and puts incredibly interesting twists on the ‘genre’. Let me start by saying that the combat here is intense, and Team Ninja have excelled themselves in nailing the inherent tension of a Samurai duel. Every fight feels in some way meaningful, because one slip up on even the smallest of foes can spell your doom. It’s no surprise that Nioh was once based on an unfilmed script by legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa - Nioh just exudes cool.

In fact, Nioh is at its best in these smaller moments of combat. Pensively studying the slight movements of your foe, assessing their stance (high for strong attacks/slow movement, low for weaker attacks/faster movement and mid, which is, well, mid), and identifying what stance works best against him. It’s this balance, coupled with the already fantastic stamina system brought over from Dark Souls and amplified here to now royally leave your backside exposed if you stress your character too much. It’s a much more cerebral way of fighting than Dark Souls, and in fact, I enjoyed it a lot more in most cases.

Thematically, Nioh absolutely nails its setting and I was pleasantly reminded of playing Tenchu (at a ridiculously young age I might add) on the Sony Playstation. Perhaps it was the inclusion of Hatori Hanzo that made me pine for Ninja Master Rikimaru, or Hanzo’s assistant Okatsu who strangely, appears to have had the most work done to her character model (seriously, check her out and compare it to the main character, they’re worlds apart!), who reminded me of Ayame. The comparisons run a little deeper than just characters though. The mission structure seems totally ripped from the obscure Tenchu Z and to be honest, if you mix in Team Ninja’s mainstay game Ninja Gaiden then you wouldn’t be far off in Nioh. That’s probably why the combat is so refined here. Speaking of combat...

Combat is satisfying. Read that again. So often do we have to slog through a game that doesn’t provide that hit of endorphins when you finally do something right. Performing a perfectly timed Ki-burst is an incredible feeling, even well on your way to endgame. Think on the satisfaction granted by achieving a perfect reload in Gears Of War and you’ll be close to what I’m trying to describe. The variety of weapons also serves to open the game right up to allow different play styles, with Swords, Duel Katanas, Hammers, Axes etc, whilst also offering you up the chance to use Onmyo magic or Ninjitsu to further bolster the creative ways in which to dispatch your foes.

Boss fights here are fitting for any Souls-like, and most of them are enough of a challenge to keep you scrambling about for a few tries before you finally best them, though there are a few here that were beyond easy, even with early gear sporting lower than advised stats.

If, at the end of this writing, you feel like overall I seem a little down on Nioh, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. I am disappointed that the story wasn’t as inviting as I’d hoped. Ultimately, this is a complaint that doesn’t matter in the face of what Nioh does incredibly well in terms of combat, variety, customisation and online play. For a first entry (in hopefully a series) I feel as though I would not judge it as harshly had I not been living in a reality where Dark Souls came out first. Having said that, Nioh is at least more accessible to players, at least enough that they can complete the main campaign (but seriously, those extra boss battles that pop up when you complete the game - they can go fuck themselves!).

Luckily though, that means there’s an endgame and the freedom to go back and further explore the maps facing greater challenges and acquiring better gear. What with the gameplay being so moreish it’s even got me contemplating jumping in for a second or third time, not to mention the likely inclusion of DLC later on in Nioh’s lifespan, which seems to add a whole lot of the stuff I enjoyed. Fighting!

When it comes down to it, Nioh is just fun, and you’d be surprised at how many games out there fail to achieve even that for me. Sure, the story isn’t amazing, but the gameplay is as refined and addictive as can be, and in some ways surpasses that of Dark Souls. I can heartily recommend this to fans of Souls-like games, fans of Ninja Gaiden, Tenchu, or any Weeb obsessed with Japanese culture. So what are you waiting for? Those Yokai ain’t going to kill themselves.


Joe "Sour" Crouch is a crusty mollusc with delusions of grandeur and pretensions of artistic endeavour. His tea is served between two and four. He tweets infrequently and Instagrams his food. He has also noted his musings on various media at The Werd, where he co-hosted the "Werd Bugger" podcast with fellow Team E14 member Spike Direction.

Check out Sour Crouch and the Xenophobes, a band starring Crouch himself, along with Blake and Spike on Bandcamp!



Wednesday 3 May 2017

Rob Plays Rocket League (Goal Montage)

Been a while since we did any sort of gaming video on E14 so here's a short collection of Rocket League goals and saves courtesy of Rob. Witness his (relative) ability and share if you enjoy!