So this is one of those games I got cause I saw it on sale super cheap. I got this for 50 cents, and that's the price range where it's really easy to get me to make an impulse purchase.
Now let's be up front about this, this game is a mobile port. But, this game is an acceptable mobile port. Standard price is $5 and there are no micro-transactions in the game, so I'm okay with this port.
There's no story to speak of so if you like a deep engaging narrative you might not grab this. The gameplay involves controlling, literally, a conga line of heroes. It's snake, albeit with a good does of added flair.. That's what it is and the game does fully acknowledge this. They ask you if you remember snake in the tutorial. You run around a small area dodging enemies and walls because if the lead hero should collide with either your game is over. If anyone who is not at the end of the line is collided with, either by an enemy or in fact by the lead hero, that person will die instantly regardless of health. Colliding with your own guys does not result in a game over, but is still very very bad, cause you'll lose a bunch of guys and seriously hurt your combat potential.
So, if you're not allowed to touch the enemies, how is it that you're meant to kill them? Good question. Each of the heroes has a particular attack. Some swing various melee weapons, there's an archer, a guy with a gun, a couple mages, and others. All of these attacks have a range and an area of effect. When any of the bunch of heroes is in a position that their attack might be capable of hurting an enemy, they will attack automatically. So combat mainly involves of running past enemies and doing a sort of drive by style hit on them, or running at them headlong then turning the fuck around and running away before you actually hit them, trying to get as close as possible to T-boning them, so all your guys have a chance of hitting, without actually doing so, because that would kill you.
It's very simple, but it's very much so not easy. At any point you are capable of dying instantly. If anything should collide with you leader, the game is over. In addition to this, you do have to worry about being whittled done and bled out. And even if you aren't, you still have to kill the enemies as that is how you progress. Kill enough guys on a stage and you move to the next stage.
There are a few power-ups that will drop randomly from guys you kill. There's a temporary attack speed increase, a healing potion, a magnet (draws in money), a bomb (explodes and kills nearby guys), a shield, and a magic spell that will temporarily freeze all enemies. Unlocked heroes will also sometimes be dropped and passing over them will add them to your conga line. Your conga line always has the capacity limit of all the heroes you have unlocked allowing you to have one of each at any given moment. There are 16 playable heroes.
Heroes do gain experience as you get kills whit them. Each hero can level up three times each time gaining a passive buff to their combat prowess. I believe these buffs are still in effect even if the hero is not the leader of the conga line, but I'm not 100% sure of that. Though Gizmo's 3rd buff would be really useless if it only worked with him being the leader. His third buff is explode on death. This would highly suggest that buffs work for the characters even if you aren't playing them, seeings as that buff would be totally fucking useless if you were playing Gizmo.
There is a neat little arena
mode, where in you can play once daily and get to enter in a clan name
when you do. So you and all your friends can fight to have the best clan of the day.
I'm having a lot of fun with this. Is deceptively simple, but it's not fuckin easy. I look forward to fighting my way through the levels and unlocking the rest of the heroes so I can play as all of them. My current favorite is Gizmo with his bomb attack. Decent range and damage, and lovely area of effect on the explosion. I'm interested to see if anyone will claim that spot.
Gameplay: 9 out of 10
Story: N/A
Visuals: 8 out of 10
Audio: 7 out of 10
Overall: 8.5 tiny hidden buttons out of 10
This game is so damn old school it was your grandpa's junior high principle.
Really though, that is the easiest way to describe this, it is fuckin old school. There is even an option to draw your on map with pen and paper in real life. That is however an *option* and it is defaulted to give you the in game map. So don't freak out if that's not a thing you wanna do. Old school really is the theme here though. Tile based map, moving one tile at a time, 90 degree turns, cryptic hints for puzzles.
This style is actually really refreshing and different and really hits the nail on the head of the "dungeon crawler". It really does give you a sense of crawling through hte dungeon tile by tile, room by room, floor by floor, fighting and dying just to get the hell out.
That is the story, what little of it there is. Your group of four people are accused of a non-descript crime against some non-descript empire. You're punishment is to be pushed down a pit into the dungeon of Grimrock, with the caveat that as you are plunged into the depth of the dungeon, you are pardoned, in a non-descript manner, such that should you survive and manage to escape from the dungeon you will be a free of the crimes. And that's pretty much it for story. And really, the story is not the draw here. The draw is in the gameplay, and it's very good gameplay.
I would thoroughly recommend this game if it sounds like your cup of tea. I would, if one particular thing had not happened. Grimrock 2 came out. I've watched some videos. I've read some comments people have to say about it. And it seems to be that Grimrock 2 is the epitome of what a sequel should be. Bigger and better the the original without losing the style or feel. One thing that's particularly cool about the seond one is that you get to go outside. The entirety of the first game is in a dungeon. The second features several dungeons with a large outside area connecting them. There is even an implemented day night cycle. So as much as I would reccomend Grimrock, I'm not gonna. I thoroughly recommend Grimrock 2. Seriously I wish I had the sequel it looks cool as hell.
Oh and speaking of looks, the game is very pretty. And I'm sure some of you are going to comment that spending the whole game starting at stone walls would get boring, and you aren't wrong. That is one of the (very few) criticisms I have about Grimrock. The environments, while very well rendered, are a bit lacking in quantity. This is another thing the sequel fixes. But if you do look at the picture above, it's quite clear the artists did a very good job at what they were doing. There's vines and moss growing over the old bricks. you can see the scratches in the bricks and the beasts armor. The art is seriously impressive.
The sound is slightly less impressive, though still absolutely fine. Sound is more important gameplay wise than artistically though. If you are in an apparently cleared out area, but can hear an enemy shuffling around this could very well mean there is a secret area you have yet to find, and that said secret area will contain an enemy. Or of course, perhaps the area isn't as clear as you thought. And the audio is well done enough that it never fails in this task.
One thing I do really like is that there are no random encounters, or respawning enemies. Once you clear an area, that area is clear. This can be quite important if you have to retreat and lick your wounds before trying something again.
One gripe some people have is that the combat is easy to sort of.... gimmick. Due to the grid based nature of the game, it can be easy to avoid most attacks of the enemies by simply side stepping left or right. And if you have a 2x2 area to fight in you can pretty well safely engage most enemies in the game. The combat can get a lot more dangerous real quick if you're backed into a corner or facing multiple enemies, but single enemies in even remotely open areas are almost more of a chore than a danger. And you can stand there and just try to tank your way through the fight, and not dance cutely around the enemy, but it just feels kinda foolish. I could stand here and get hit, or move over and not get hit. Why would I not move?
All in all though, very cool game, I'm very happy to see the guys behind it did well enough to make a sequel, and I'm thrilled to see how fucking awesome the sequel looks.Gameplay: 9 out of 10
Story: N/A
Visuals: 8 out of 10
Audio: 7 out of 10
Overall: 8.5 tiny hidden buttons out of 10
I've often heard of swear words being refereed to as "four letter words." Often times things like "some people don't like four letter words" or "you shouldn't use four letter words" will be said. Now, anyone who has read basically anything I've wrote on here knows I have no predilections about swearing, but every time I hear this I think about how difficult it would be to communicate without four letter words. So I'm going to try and write a story for you all with no four letter words.
Four Letter Words
Clerance awoke startled by the blare of his clock and rolled out of bed. He walked to the table covered by payments due and overdue. He sighed deeply not pleased by his situation or how he meant to fix it. He strode towards the cabinet in the corner and opened it slowly. There on the third shelf sat his piece. He got it as a bit of security since he was fully aware of the things people did in his neighborhood. Ideally of course, he wouldn't be living where he was, but things sadly did not often end up in their ideal fashion, as had so often happened to Clerance. He reached forth and wrapped his fingers one by one around the weapon. He brought it up looking along the sights for a moment before slipping it in the waistband of his pants and pulling his shirt out to attempt to conceal it. He stepped out of his house, peered at his lifeless grass, turned and walked to his old car, climbed in, and pulled out before driving off.
It was a quick drive to his destination. He sighed deeply as he looked at the building he'd arrived at. He checked to ensure he still had the gun at the ready and got out of his car. He caught the handle as the person behind him released it and stepped inside glancing around for a moment. He paused for a moment questioning if he had the conviction for the thing he was about to do. He moved quick, drawing the weapon and firing twice in the air to scare everyone present. He grabbed a nearby woman and placed the barrel against her temple. "Do as I say, or she'll be killed!" The woman froze in horror unable to think. Everyone was paying attention to Clerance now. "Empty all the registers! Now! Put the money in a bag!" He aimed the gun at one of the clerks, the weakest looking of the bunch. "You! Do it! Everyone but him, be still!" He promptly returned the gun to be aimed at his unfortunate hostage. Clerance glanced around constantly. Every passing second caused him further concern. The clerk seemed to be trying to complete his mission but he fumbled the bag a couple times and spilled the money meaning he had to pause and recollect all the bills. As the bag dropped again, hitting noisily against the floor, Clerance shouted in anger and fired at the clerk. The bullet struck his shoulder and he hit the floor screaming. Clerance pushed the woman he'd grabbed earlier and snatched the bag taking a second to swipe some of the spilled money inside. He slipped the strap on one of his shoulders and bolted to the entrance.
He barreled through the double doors and found seven police officers weapons drawn and aimed right at him. One of the officers shouted at him and Clerance dropped his gun and the bag knowing he had failed. He slowly kneeled and brought his hand behind himself letting the cop there secure the cuffs on his wrists. He allowed himself to be shoved into the backseat of the car without giving any struggle.
********************************
This was a particularly interesting thing to write and if you ever thing that four letter words are not important I'd challenge you to do something similar and realize how very often they are used. The answer, is a fucking lot.
I'm doing a hell of a lot of these new show spot lights recently. Well what can I say, I've been watching a lot of new shows recently.
So John Constantine here is an exorcist/demon hunter. One night some years ago in the UK, he really fucked his job up and got a young girl killed and sentence to damnation. Understandably, he's upset about this. He was spending time in a psych hospital trying to deal with his issues when an old friend of his called him out of his retirement.
The plot of the first episode sends him to the U.S. to save the daughter of an old friend. For some reason this daughter is being targeted by a demon who would like to see her dead. Constantine shows up, along with his taxi driver friend (who is surprisingly resilient) and of course sorts this demon out.
What I like most about this show is the main character's attitude. His speech is quite thoroughly revealing of his British roots, both in terminology he uses, and his accent. I do like his style though, sort of like "Fine I guess I'll go out and fight the demons of the underworld. Someone has to." Though he does have some motivation hinted at other than trying to deal with his guilt for failing the little girl.
So far I'm interested. I am very curious to learn more about the taxi driver as he's very clearly not a standard human. I do think the daughter will be an important character as well. I would expect something of a begrudging devil slaying duo of her and Constantine.
So I'll be watching at least one or two more episodes. Hopefully this turns out well. I have no idea if this is a faithful to the original story telling or not. A. I haven't seen enough to know. B. I never read this comic series so I'd have no way of knowing anyway.
So I recently started watching this show. And while I haven't seen all of it that there is yet, I feel like I've seen enough to know how I feel about it. It's fuckin cool.So the basic premise here is that the fellow there front and center is a billionaire named Oliver Queen. One day Oliver leaves to go on a cruise for a while with his dad, his girlfriend's sister (you dog), and at least one other guy who.... I'm not sure who it was. Things don't go quite as planned and the boat ends up sinking. Oliver winds up drifting to an island where he remains for five years before finally being rescued by a passing boat.
However, he doesn't come back to his home quite the same as he left it. He comes back harder, and with a mission. His father game him a book with a list of names of people in the city. The people in this book are not good people and Oliver has sworn a vow to take them down and revive his city from the poor state it's been in as a result of them.
In order to do this he covers himself in his green outfit seen above and begins hunting down the people in his list, literally crossing them off one at a time.I feel like I already gave this away, but I like it. And it's not just cause he shares my fondness for this color. I do think it's very well made. I like the characters. Oliver/hood is played with with the character doing a very good job of being both a billionaire playboy and a violent vigilante hellbent on taking down everyone who is hurting his city. Unable to do everything by him he does a sort of sidekick-esq individual. This person is Mr. Diggle (left of Oliver in the picture) often referred to as "Dig" or "Digs". Diggle was originally hired to be Oliver's bodyguard, and quit before coming back to do something sort of similar but much more dangerous. Oliver's younger sister, best friend, and the ex-girlfriend who he cheated on also play important roles (respectively far left, right, and far right.) As with most shows more characters do show up and become relevant as you get further into the show. I suppose one mild criticism I have is that some of the villains are sort of bland and illogical and almost unrealistic in their behavior. Sort of like stock characters, villainous just for the sake of having someone villainous for Oliver to fight. Though even the episodes with such enemies are good. Some of the villains are interesting though; I do quite like the one who intentionally hired 25 goons, because he knew that Oliver carried 24 arrows with him when he put on his outfit. One more thing I do feel like is worth bringing up is that the show does have a tendency to jump around a lot. Often there will be two of three events occurring at once, (or one or two current events and a flashback) all of them being interwoven with a clip of one then another then another. So if you really hate it when shows do that, you're probably not gonna like this show. Personally I don't care.
The one thing that shows like to do that pisses me off the most are super needless flashbacks. Like you'll see a guy walking down the street for a minute. Then it will flash to six months ago and the guy will be like, burying a body. Then it'll cut back to him walking down the street and the guy he buried shows up. And I'm always like... why the fuck was the first minute of him walking down the street important? It fucking didn't need to be there. There was zero point for that. Could have started with him burying the guy then said six months later, would have been the same information presented far less stupidly. But I digress.
The third season just started recently so you can watch it if you would like, alternatively if you have Netflix the first 2 seasons are available there, which is where I've been watching it. It is one of those shows that you could probably watch any random episode and not be too horribly confused, but I personally always prefer to watch things from the start like you're supposed to. And there are plot lines that run for multiple episodes and characters that come and go so if you have seen everything up to that point then you'll be assured to have the proper history, though the "previously on Arrow" bit will usually mention the super important things that you need to know for the episode.
All in all I like it I think it's pretty good. If it sounds interesting definitely give it a try, even if super hero stuff isn't your jam you might try checking it out, and if you think that goody two shoes heroes are lame, Oliver is not a goody two shoes by any means. He is violent, he is mean, the show can be in your face, and people do die. And none too rarely either.
9 arrows planted into hearts out of 10
So apparently right around now is a popular time for shows about comic book heros and not really heros. We've got Gotham and Flash starting up, and Arrow is starting season 3 (By the way I started watching the first season of Arrow, and while the back story is a bit strange and confusing at times, it's pretty fuckin cool)
So the Flash is the fastest man alive. His girlfriend really wishes he wasn't. Alright then, obligatory sex joke out of the way. So I tried the first episode of this a few days ago and I thought I'd talk to you guys about it, cause that's what I do here.
So the justification for Flash having his powers this time is perhaps a little convoluted but try and stick with me. When he was a kid there was some strange.... thing that happened in his house that resulted in the death of his mother, and the (incorrect) sentencing of his father for murder. Fast forward a bunch of years and the soon-to-be Flash is really excited about going to the unveiling and activation of a new particle accelerator. Unsurprisingly things go tits up and the accelerator explodes. However, as opposed to just killing anyone nearby, the explosion causes the release of a strange form of radiation into the city during a thunderstorm. Our boy flash is hit by a lightning bolt from this storm and winds up in a coma. Nine months later he wakes up and finds himself capable of running at superhuman speeds. He wasn't the only one changed that night though, and not everyone who got powers was as kind-hearted as him. Many of the "metahumans" as they are called are using their new found powers to hurt others. Naturally goody two shoes Flash vows to use his power to fight these people.
So then, what did I think of it? It was alright. I'll probably watch at least a couple more episodes. So far the show seems well done, which is good. Thankfully they got the one thing that really really needed to be right correct; the effects of him running look totally fine.
I'll be honest I don't thing I'm gonna love it, but so far it looks like it's pretty decent.
Th-th-th-th-that's all folks.
So this is a bit of an unorthadox post maybe. But fuck it I don't care. YouTube is media, so I'll review it if I want to. So there. All of the people I'm going to talk about are let's players / do gaming related content. Why? Because that's the kind of stuff I watch on YouTube. That and ASMR stuff. Note: These are in no particular order.
1. Gopher
So this guy isn't for everyone. Gopher takes things slowly and often times in a non-optimal fashion. And lots of people seem to get really fucking angry if someone does anything in any way less than the best possible way ever. Because all YouTube comments are 100% perfect at everything they ever do right? Right? Of course they are.
Gopher is most well known for his Skyrim content, in particular his "Skyrim Mod Sanctuary" which is a series he does with fair regularity. If you couldn't guess based upon the name, the series talks about available mods for Skyrim. And to his credit he always explains to you how to install the mods if you're interested in them. Seriously all the credit I can give to this guy for that. I wouldn't have modded Skyrim or Fallout: NV without him, and I totally love my mods for both of those games. So yeah if you wanan know how to mod those games, but don't think you're up the task yourself (which is totally fine, no need to feel stupid for it) he has lots of helpful videos.
In addition to teaching you how to mod games he also does let's plays of games. Primarily he does RPGs which is probably unsurprising. He's played two different characters in Skyrim, a playthrough of Fallout 3, one of Fallout:NV (Currently still on going), and he's recently started a playthrough of the new Wasteland 2. And these RPG playthoughs often lead him to do things in a way that isn't always 100% optimal for his character. This often happens when he's doing some roleplaying and does something that he either doesn't know isn't the best thing, or does something he knows isn't the best but is what the character would do. Or of course there exists the possibility that he just does something for fun, cause ya know he's playing a game, a thing (usually) with the main, if not only, purpose of being fun. In addition the RPGs Gopher also tends to like horror and horror-esq games. He's played both Amnesia games, Outlast, and both Metro games.
Recently-ish Gopher has also began streaming games and him modding games on Twitch. He streams Fridays, I believe Sundays, and I wanna say Tuesdays but don't quote me on that. Thankfully Gopher understands that not everyone can always make the streams so he uploads VODs of (I believe) everything he streams. The primary game he streams at the moment is XCOM. He's currently trying to fight his way through the mean ass long war mod for that game. However, if you hate XCOM don't fret. He does stream other stuff too.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GophersVids
YouTube livestream VODs: https://www.youtube.com/user/GopherLiveVids
Twitch page where he streams: http://www.twitch.tv/gophergaming
2. Northernlion
Northernlion has the largest channel of the people I'm gonna talk about. Northernlion is at this point probably still most well known for being the The Binding of Isaac guy on YouTube. That game (and a much smaller bump earlier on from super meat boy) has made his channel. And I'm cool with that. He in fact still makes videos of it almost every single day. He's almost 1000 episode deep into his lets play at this point, and is in fact currently doing two series of it. One of the current release of the game, and one series of the community remix mod for it.
In addition to his Issac content he also does play other games. He's currently doing a series on Prison Architect that I've been enjoying immensely despite his constant mis-steps. He's also doing a series of Europe Universalis 4 with three other guys. He also has a series of Gauntlet that he's doing with a couple of other guys. He also frequently will do "let's look at"s of games. These are exactly what you'd expect something called "let's look at" to be. He discusses a newly released game going over it's core concept so you can see if you're interested in it or not.
Now one thing about NL is that he's very much so not a pro at the games he plays. Even Issac which he's been playing for literally years, he still isn't perfect at. So again, if you're one of those people who is gonna get really super fuckin pissed off at the person playing the game not being the best person ever, then you probably won't wanna watch it. Of course if you are one of those people then you're probably just mad all the time at everything. Sounds shitty. Ever considered not being needlessly pissed off at someone on the internet playing a game to entertain you for free? Just a thought.
NL also does stream on Twitch. He does a show called the Northernlion live super show (or NLSS) three times a week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He also streams games on Sunday where he plays with his subscribers. The NLSS will usually have Nick (aka RockLeeSmile) on it as well and the two make a good pair. Occasionally other people will be on stream as well. The VODs from this are uploaded onto NL's YouTube channel a few days after the show and I always enjoy watching them.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Northernlion
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/Northernlion
3. Baer (Yes that's spelled like that)
Hey look all the people I'm talking about are animal themed personas. No that wasn't planned. It just worked out that way. In truth the only one of them who even really acknowledges his animalistic name is Baer.
So Baer does lots of let's plays. He's currently running series on Cook, Serve, Delicious!, The Long Dark, Lethal League, and Nuclear Throne. The only one of these I'm not keeping up with is The Long Dark, just cause I don't really care for that game.
Like the other people I discussed Baer also streams on Twitch. He streams.... all the fuckin time. Seriously dude streams a lot. I don't actually watch his streams. Not that I have anything against them, but I just really don't go actually go on Twitch much. Though I have been watching Guardsmanbob stream Hearthstone a fair bit recently, but that's really just cause Ive been sort of obsessed with Heartstone and his stream is the most pleasant and reliable for that game. And the dude has nice music choices. Sorry, meant to be talking about Baer.
Yeah Bear's definitely a cool dude and he does cool stuff. I've been seriously enjoying his Cook, Serve, Delicious! stuff despite the fact I feel like I really wouldn't like to play that game.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BaerTaffy
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/baertaffy
So those are my top 3 favorite YouTubers currently. There are other people I do watch but these three certainly have my attention held the best.
Oh and if anybody was wondering wtf ASMR was from earlier I suppose I can explain that real quick. It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Now those are a bunch of big words that essentially mean a pleasant tingling feeling felt in the scalp or upper back. I don't tend to get those tingles very often but I watch these videos for relaxation and to help me sleep sometimes. It's a thing that if you'd explained it to me a couple years ago I would have thought was super bizarre but I now enjoy quite thoroughly. Might be worth looking into sometime if you're interested. Maybe it won't be for you, but maybe it will. What have you got to lose?
This guy is one brilliant bastard. If you don't know who he is, and if you haven't yet enjoyed his work, you should fix that.
Aziz here is a comedian. And he's very talented at his job. So far he's released 3 comedy specials (that I know of). In chronological order they are Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, Dangerously Delicious, and Buried Alive. Buried Alive is a Netflix original comedy special, so if you wish to see this legally you will need Netflix, but seriously if you don't have netflix, you should consider getting it. Netflix is fuckin awesome.
In case you happen to need some incentive to think that Aziz will be funny click this link: Jizz everywhere joke Yes that does say "Jizz everywhere joke". No I didn't mistype that.
As far as which one of his specials is the best.... that's a tough call. I do really like them all. I tend to recall his middle one the least. There is a bit more audience participation in the third special than the first two so if you really hate that then you might not care for that one.
Not too much more to say about this guy. He's fuckin hilarious. If you haven't watched his stuff and you like laughing (ya know like a normal human) then you should definitely look into his stuff.
Wait! There is one more thing to say about Aziz. Aziz has the only joke ever that's funnier after it's explained. This joke is in the first special. You'll know it when you hear it. Cause he'll say something and you'll be like what? And then he explains it and it's like "I get it!" And then you laugh. Cause you weren't supposed to get it.
10 great bits out of 10
So I just watched the premiere episode of this show and that that it might be worth talking about.
In short, it's alright. The first episode was well done with nothing that bothered me but I'm not totally sold on it just yet. I liked the first one enough to watch a second episode but from there on out we'll see.
So the the people here from left to right are Gordon (future commissioner), Gordon's current partner, Alfred, Catwoman I guess, and Penguin.
I will say that maybe they could have picked a different actor for penguin. Penguin is supposed to be gross and ugly and perverted and fat. This guy has a little bit of a slimy side, and he has the pointy nose and some slightly messed up teeth so I guess you could say ugly. And in fairness he hasn't been around long enough for me to say if he is or is not perverted, but this guy trips really hard on the fat hurdle. He's a damn twig. Penguin is fat! He's fucking fat. Every damn interpretation of Penguin shows him as fat. Don't believe me? Take 4 seconds google "Penguin Batman". I was gonna put a bunch of pictures here to prove this point really really hard, but for some damn reason I'm having issues putting pictures where I want them. But seriously Penguin is fucking fat. The guy playing penguin is a damned twig. And that kinda bothers me. Like when the new guy playing James Bond was fuckin blonde. That annoyed me. But there is an arguable reason for that. But fine I suppose it doesn't have to be a perfect point for point retelling there's some artistic interpretation.
Very mild spoilers in this next paragraph.
The first episode is more or less what you might expect. There's the scene where a mugger shoots Bruce's parents. The rest of the episode handles the investigation of this crime. They show off some characters. Penguin (obviously) shows up, there's a small girl named Ivy, there's a catwoman-esq person who kinda hangs around in a few shots doing catwoman-esq things.
So yeah I see potential here. The first episode was fine. Nothing overly amazing, but it was well presented. So I'll watch the next one and see how things turn out. Anybody else watch it?
No review here either. Maybe next time guys and gals.
Indie games are awesome, I'm gonna talk about one.
This is Closure. Closure is a puzzle platformer. On the surface it's really just a platformer, the entire puzzle aspect revolves around the core aspect of the game, and this is that the whole map doesn't always exist.
Let me explain, each level has a predefined map with specific elements at certain spots, some are manipulable, some are not. But here's the trick, these things only exist if you can see them. You've likely heard of a physics based platformer, well Closure is a light based platformer. Yes there might be a path from point A to point B, but unless you can see that path, it doesn't matter, stepping out of the light will cause you to fall away into the dark abyss, even if there would be a platform where you stepped. If you can't see it it's not effectively there.
The above picture is a fairly good representative of the visual style of the game. That four legged creature with a hole for a face is you. Why are you trying to solve all these puzzles? I have no idea, I guess for the same reason that people climb mountains; because they're there.
One thing that is interesting is that the.... thing you are changes during some of the levels. I haven't done them all yet but the first section causes you to put on a mining helmet, and this causes you to turn into an (albeit somewhat strangely proportioned) approximation of a human. Why does this happen? Fuck if I know.
The sound is minimal, but I think it suits the game well. In some sense you could argue that the game as a whole is minimal. The entire screen is very very rarely actually displaying an image, usually at least half of it is just black. There are small amounts of ambient noise, but mostly it's just sound effects of things happening.
There is no story. If that wasn't clear. Or at least there is no story yet. Perhaps at the end there will be something of an explanation, but I'm definitely not holding my breath waiting.
There is a sort of collection quest. Some levels in the game contain little glowing moths. Apparently there are a total of 30 of these, and grabbing all of them unlocks a bonus section. So that's kind cool.
My feelings on it? Very cool idea, somewhat flawed execution. The default controls for jump and interact are shit, but these can be rebound, so that's not too much of an issue. Issues that are not fixable are that the exact distance the character can jump seems to be not quite dependably standard. The number of pixels of darkness I can safely walk over versus the number that I can fall into and die is also difficult to parse. It's perpetually annoying to do 98% of a puzzle correctly screw up at the end and be forced to do it all again. Light orbs can be smashed for really no reason other than to force you to restart the puzzle, but I suppose this might actually be used as a puzzle element later. Your character can also be killed if a barrel or box falls onto you from pretty much any height. This I can't say could be a mechanic later. I want to like this for the cool things that can happen, but I'm not really sure I can because of all the very uncool things that do happen.Gameplay: 4.5 out of 10
Story: N/A
Visuals: 6.5 out of 10
Audio: 5.5 out of 10
Overall: 5.5 light orbs out of 10
The demo is open to the public! It came out on Friday guys and gals, so in case you hadn't heard you can grab it now, totally free.
For those of you who don't know what smash brothers is..... wtf the fuck is wrong with you? These games are awesome! It's just a bunch of Nintendo characters violently beating the shit out of each other!
Now of course this is a demo, so not all of the content is avaliable, there are only 5 playable characters; Link, Mario, Megaman, Pikachu, and the villager (What the hell is he from?) only one stage, and the only game mode is a two minute kill fest, but this is a really solid demo and it makes me feel that the game is put together well and will certainly be worth the money.
The demo does allow you to play with your friends, provided your friends are nearby. So that's pretty cool, and it does show an online mode that would presumably allow you to play with anyone in the world, and one would hope inviting registered friends to a match is somehow worked into that.
There is also supposed to be some means of connecting it to the wii u and using the gameboy as a controller. Which I guess would be kinda neat to do once just to see it, but I feel like in general if I went to my friends house to play the wii u with him, I'd want a damn controller. Though I suppose if you didn't have a second controller (or third or whatever the required number is) then being able to use the DS and play with your buddy would be nice so you wouldn't have someone left out.
There is a limit of 30 times that you are allowed to launch the demo, but considering that the real game is out in October, I don't see too many people actually using up all of those before it hits shelves. And if you do use up all 30 plays, then I think the demo served it's purpose quite admirably.
My favorite character thus far is link, which is unsurprising, cause I used to love him in both melee and brawl and he's pretty much unchanged, which I can get behind. Fox will be in the full release which is cool cause I liked fox. Marth will be returning but sadly not his bigger, better brother Roy.
All things considered I'm definitely looking forward to smash brothers. If you're on the fence, grab the demo and give it a whirl, if you're already on board the demo will give you a little bit to play with while you wait, and even if you don't think you'd like it maybe give it a try anyway, after all it's free.
This doesn't get a rating, cause it's just the demo.
That's the author there holding the first book of The Iron Druid chronicles. The novel was Released in 2011 and was published by Del Ray Books.
The novel's main character is named Atticus O'Sullivan, or at least, that's the name he currently uses. One finds it best to change their name a few times when they've been running from an angry god for around two thousand years. Summed up shortly the plot is that a long long time ago Atticus wound up in possession of a magic sword. A particular god named Aenghus Óg would really prefer that the sword was with him and that Atticus was laying somewhere six feet under the surface of the earth. The book explains how Aenghus tries to get that to happen this time and how Atticus manages to (spoilers not really) not wind up dead in the process.
What matters most, and what I think is done well here, is the cast of characters. Atticus is a druid and has the proper bravado to make himself a proper lead role, but he's not foolhardy or invincible. I really liked Oberon, Atticus' dog. Yes, his dog is an important character. Through some special magicness Atticus is allowed to mentally communicate with his dog. And his dog is... well more or less what you'd expect a dog that could talk would be. He's sort of like an excitable child and it fits very well. In addition to him there is the shapeshifting goddess of death who Atticus has made a deal with for immortality, The vampire and werewolf lawyers he employs, and the sexy redhead possessed by a witch.
I read this book because it was said to be similar to Jim Butcher's Dresen Files (By the way, go read those books. Now. Seriously, get out of here and go read the Dresden files if you haven't) and I can see how people would say it's similar. It certainly is similar in some ways. The main characters are actually pretty damn similar. The description of Atticus I gave applies very much so to Harry if you replace the word "druid" with "wizard." But that being said I do like this layout for a lead character, and I'm not saying that no two characters are allowed to be similar. Nor am I accusing the author of copying Butcher.
In short, I liked it. I'll probably look into getting the next one soon to see what new bullshit Atticus and his buddies will have to deal with. So if you're into modern fantasy mixed with a liberal splash of older lore and mythology then I'm sure you could do a lot worse than this.
8.5 iron talismans out of 10
In #ExplainAFilePlotBadly fashion, "Russian nerd films as his comrades getting killed one by one." I like that hastag, that hashtag is fun. Also "Insomniac punches self in ear, others join club." One thing I always wondered about that though, what was going on in the second guy's head? Cause in the film he asks for the next fight, but really he would have been asking one guy to fight him when that guy appeared to have been fighting himself.
So anyway back to Doc Frankie and his messed up pets. This is a "found footage" film. Which, normally, I fuckin hate. I normally hate these films cause the camera work is poor, intentionally yes, but intentionally poor is still poor. The filming in this movie is actually done very well by found footage standards, You could almost not know it if you started watching 20 mins in. And it's only really relevant a few times when the camera is dropped and one guy makes a messages to his parents. So this movie I'm okay with it being found footage style.
The actual plot, explained a little better, is as follows. During WW2 a small Russian scout team is out on recon when they start hearing a distress call from another group of Russians. Their radio then begins malfunctioning, but the sarge insists on moving to help the other unit. They wind up entering a town where the only inhabitants are some weird half-living, half-dead, half-robot.... things which the film actually calls "zombots." And despite how fucking silly that sounds, it's actually a fairly accurate name. The zombots, are the creations of "the doctor" a crazed nazi scientist using bizarre machinery to animate half corpse half metal abominations almost all of which are extremely hostile, and difficult to kill. From here things go roughly the way you'd expect. There's a reason pulled from a hat to prevent the guys from doing the sane thing and saying "fuck this, I'm out" then dropping the mic and heading to literally anywhere else.
The film is not great. It's not bad, but all in all it's just not terribly interesting either. It kinda just meanders around for an hour and half doing stuff. The film has a 2.9 average rating on netflix, and that's about right for this. It does get a small allotment of credit for being strange and not fucking anything up. If weird horror films are your thing, then maybe try this movie out. If not, well maybe skip this one. What this film would probably actually be really good for, would be a mystery science theater style joke fest with a buddy or two. It's well done enough that it's watchable and silly enough that it could provide some decent fuel for jokes.
5.5 mad scientists screaming "IT'S ALIVE" out of 10
The sixth guy just said it, he didn't scream it.
Cool album cover guys, but what about the music, does it suck? Oh it doesn't. Alright then. This album was released Nov. 8th 2011 and is the 4th album released from this band. It is the first album I have listened to from them. Track listing is as follows.
One Life
Invincible
Heaven's Gonna Wait
We Are Unbreakable
Young
Beautiful
Bullet For Your Dreams
Hot Mess
Stormy
Last Call
I Won't Let You Go (Darling)
------------------- Bonus tracks below
Hiding Place
Carry On
Heaven's Gonna Wait (Acoustic)
The first thing I'm gonna say is that the deluxe edition is probably not worth it. I did think this was a decent album, but the stuff I liked was not the bonus tracks. So I wouldn't bother going out of my way or spending any additional money on the this version over the normal.
There are a few songs off of the album I think are worthy of note. The first track, One Life, is a nice little anthem about living your one life (see what they did there?) to the fullest. My thought is, they have no proof. Hmmm what proof have you that I only get one life Hedley? None! For all you know I could have had 73 lives by now! I also quite like young, a fun upbeat song about being young and partying, though in a sense this song carries a rather wistful tone, cause he says "we were young" and talks about the fun things they used to do, implying that such things no longer occur, at one point he mentions being a zombie and feeling like he's 45 so the song (while not instantly apparent) is in a way kind of sad and nostalgic of better times.
Stormy and Hot Mess I'm kinda on the fence about. Stormy I only really like the chorus of, and Hot Mess I got back and forth, more mood dependent I suppose.
But all in all I'd say this is a decent album. I find it's not common for me to like more than 2 songs off an album. Maybe I'm just hard to please (Ladies) but that's average for me. I did find another song by the band that I liked called Kiss You Inside Out (Side note: Hands up for people that this is your fetish I know you're out there) which was on the re-release of this album in 2012. That's probably the version of this album to get, say "sod it" to the sucky deluxe edition content and grab the one other good song.
7 upended ships out of 10
This album is so old I actually once owned the cd for it! I may still have the cd around somewhere. Dragontown was released in 2001 and was Alice Cooper's twenty-fucking-second album. 22 albums! Shit most bands you hear on the radio have less than ten. And I would bet that most bands that have existed have less than ten albums released. Track list is as follows.
Triggerman
Deeper
Dragontown
Sex, Death and Money
Fantasyman
Somewhere in the Jungle
Disgraceland
Sister Sara
Every Woman Has a Name
I Just Wanna Be God
It's Much to Late
The Sentinel
From that list the songs I think are worthy of note are the title song, Dragontown, Disgraceland, and I Just Wanna Be God. Dragontown is a good classic rock anthem nothing particularly special, but well made. Disgraceland is neat because Cooper (at least I think it's him) actually does an Elivs-like voice for some of it, after the song it's title is very clearly a reference to. And I Just Wanna Be God is.... well exactly what you'd expect. It's a song about wanting to be god. The only other song that I can think of being as relateable is Billionaire by Travie McCoy which the very first line of is "I wanna be a billionaire so fuckin bad." Seriously though, if you haven't heard it, and you like rock music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-kkXVcxoxI Go there, listen to the song.
On the whole the album is what I consider fine. I'm indifferent to most everything here. Like 2 of the songs, but honestly, that's a decent album in my books. It's rare for me to find an album with more than 2-3 songs I like even from bands I consider good. Blue tells me I don't like any music, and that I'm way too picky.
6.5 applications of strange/creepy facepaint out of 10
Oh and on the subject of Sex, Death and Money
I know it's considered option people but...... just fucking do it. It helps avoid confusion.
Well, now that I've talked about all four of the major DLC packs I figure it's time I talk about New Vegas proper.
I'm gonna be straight up here. This game is awesome. Though I'm assuming that you probably didn't me to tell you I think that given the fact I've written 4 other posts about it already. But yes, this game is awesome. Yes it's buggy. Yes people sometimes say and do silly things. The game is still totally awesome and I'm super fine with having bought the game twice. I'm not even really sure where to start tackling this beast of a fuckin game. Well I normally talk about story first, so let's talk about that.
The story starts with you being shot in the head. You die and the game is actually over right there. Ballsy fuckin move by Bethesda to release this, but ya know, I think it's good. No no, of course the game isn't over right there. You play the whole game as a ghost. I'm joking again. You miraculously survive being shot in the head and wake up a little while later in the house of good guy Doc Mitchell, who saves you life after a robot pulls you out of the shallow grave you were buried in. After not requesting any compensation for saving your life he proceeds to give you his pipboy and his old vault suit. Seriously, Doc Mitchell is the nicest guy. Anyway your character swears some sort of vengeance upon Benny, the guy who failed to kill you, and promptly runs off in search of him, to educate him in the proper technique for shooting someone in the head, through example of course. Through a series of several other quests the character learns of an oncoming battle over hoover damn between Mr. House and his robot army, the NCR, and the legion. The player can throw their hat into the ring as well in a special hidden (not well hidden, but hidden) quest line.
That's the central story line, and the game ends after the fight for Hoover damn. But..... this being a Bethesda game you're safe to do what I almost always do and tell the main story it can go fuck itself and spend all your time wandering around the massive world. I've spent my recent time with the game playing the DLCs (duh), collecting all the unique weapons, playing some modded quests, and hunting achievements. Cause I so love getting achievements.
There is some interesting play going on with the factions. The major groups (and sometimes minor groups) of the Mojave each have a sort of collective feeling about you based upon your past interactions with that group. Often times an act will gain you positive reputation with one group, while getting infamy with another. This is most commonly seen with NCR and the legion as they directly oppose one another. It can be interesting trying to manipulate your reputation with everyone, though in general it comes down to don't murder anyone in the faction and do a few nice things for a few people and they'll like you. this must be why I always end up hated by the legion. They just make themselves so utterly murderable. Seriously fuck the legion, every one of those guys is a massive asshole. It actually made me smile when I looked at the global steam achievements and saw that the legion support victory was the least common. Fuck you Caesar. The world agrees, anyone other than you is a better leader. One thing that grates on me a little is how exactly do I gain bad reputation if I slaughter an entire group of the faction? Who's telling that story?
"The Black Pearl? I've heard stories. She's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years. Never leaves any survivors."
"No survivors? Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"
Yeah that. when I kill everyone around, how is it that the other members of the group miles away find out instantly about this? (Let alone find out at all) I know it's a gameplay balancing thing. But it can be a little immersion breaking. I guess the argument is there there is some unnoticed survivor who sees me doing all this and runs off while I'm busy committing genocide and tells everyone what a horrible person I am. You can kill someone without having your reputation being affected, if you kill them real stealthy like.
I do want to say that the Karma system is silly, useless, and basically broken. There's a system that is essentially morality. But it's called Karma. I don't out rightly hate morality mechanics, but I find they're pretty much always implemented poorly. They either have essentially no effect, which the one in NV does, or just wind up forcing you to play through the game twice to see all of it. Normally they have the side effect of making the main character massively bland, but that's not an issue here. The mortality is sort of a left over relic from fallout 3. In fallout 3 mortality was slightly more important. Here most of the effects of mortality have been shifted to factions, which makes some more sense. They just chose not to remove the karma mechanic for.... idk reason. In addition to the karma having almost zero effect (at this moment the
only effects I can think of it having is that if you get too evil Cass
won't want to be a follower and it affects what perk you can get at
level 50) it's also very easy to get whatever karma you want. Want good karam? Go shoot some fiends. Apparently murdering a strung-out psychotic junkie who is trying to murder you, is a good act. I get it, you're making the area safer for other people, but that's not why I kill them. I do it as a selfish act to protect me and my stuff. Sometimes I do it even more selfishly. I'll shoot fiends who don't even know I'm there cause I want to loot their corpses. I often murder a bunch of destitute drug addicts then pick over their corpses taking anything of value. And that's considered a morally good thing. If you wanted negative karma, that's easy to do as well, just go into any owned building, walk out of sight and begin taking everything that's not riveted to floor. You lose karma for stealing. So go murder fiends, or go on a massive thievery binge. Either of these approaches get you caps and easily affects your karma.
The implementation of gambling adds some neat little games for you to play (and the ability to make a boatload of caps doing so) and an achievement if you play them well enough to get thrown out of all the casinos. There's also a card game played outside of casinos called caravan. The rules of caravan are a bit odd so I'm not going to get into them here.
Hmmmmm other things to discuss? Well, in case you didn't see them all I did reviews of each of major DLC packs for the game. I'll link them here.
Dead Money - Somewhat linear and it can be annoying at times with it's gimmicks. Not great, but it's worth seeing at least once.
Honest Hearts - Not terribly interesting in any way, but it's pretty.
Old World Blues - It kicks ass and you should totally fucking get this is you have New Vegas.
Lonesome Road - Mostly good, but there's one really fucking annoying moment/choice you're forced into that leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.
So then, aside from those there is also the Gun Runner's Arsenal pack. GRA doesn't add any new areas or quests, but instead adds a pile of new murder devices. Hooray! Many of the new toys are very expensive unique variants of existing weapons you have to purchase from various vendors. In addition to that there are also GRA variants of some already existing guns, the only difference between these guns and the normal ones is the GRA ones can be modded, cause..... just adding mods for the normal guns would have been too easy? Or would it have made too much sense? Maybe there was some reason this actually was easier due to how the game is set up. There are also a handful of new bombs and some new ammo types for a few guns. Just generally more things to add to your arsenal, huh almost like they named it sensibly (not like lonesome road! BURN!). There are also some new achievements three of which are fun and challenging to get. GRA adds in 15 new challenges divided evenly into one, two, and three star difficulties. There are achievements for completing three of each level of challenge. And the three star challenges are not easy to pull off. Feels good to know I am one of the less that 1% of players who have done so. Awww yeeeah.
One minor gripe I have is that the AI is kinda stupid. Like kinda really fucking stupid. It's possible to crouch down directly in front of someone and pickpocket them at times. If you post up a reasonable distance away, you can snipe people and the people standing 3 feet away won't seem to be bothered enough to bat an eyelash. The companions are all borderline suicidal, so their being mortal in hardcore is kinda sucky. Oh I suppose I'll mention hardcore mode.
Hardcore mode has some minor tweaks to make the game more difficult/immersive. Your character requires food, water, and sleep. Stimpacks and rad-away work overtime as opposed to instantly. Broken limbs are only fixable with doctor's bags or help from a doctor. Also ammo has weight. And yes, companions can die as opposed to being simply knocked unconscious. There's an achievement for playing the full game in hardcore.
Well this review is already starting to drag on so if there's some other aspect of the game you'd like my thoughts on go ahead and leave a comment, or tweet me Colored Media twitter or @Colored_Media. I'm also considering doing one last post where I talk about a few mods I'm using (and could also answer any questions). Would anyone be interested in seeing this? Again, please leave a comment or tweet and I'll be sure to read them.
10 big irons out of 10
For those of you who aren't comic book nerds, that glowing blue guy on the right is called Electrode and he's the villain here.... sort of.
So after his girlfriend's dad was offed at the end of the last movie (spoilers!) Peter is now grappling with doubt and insecurity relating to Gwen. He loves her but doesn't want her to be around him in case she gets hurt due to his hero antics, ya know the traditional story the superhero dating a human goes through. So he pushes her away and spoilers it doesn't work. Anyway 2 ball there (get it 2 ball, cause he's bald so like cue ball but 2 is the solid blue one (if you actually got that without it being explained, congratulations)) is a guy named Max who really probably needed to see a therapist or two, and also learn to be a little more assertive. He has zero friends and everyone at his job pushes him around like he's the prison bitch. One day Spiderman saves him, and he developes a very unhealthy hero worship. This is important later on. I don't wanna say too much more, but in short order he ends up mutated into the glowing weirdo you see above and then proceeds to lead a totally normal life but is a bit of a social outcast due to the blue skin. Really unexpected turn by the writers here. No obviously him and Spiderman begin fighting and it leads to a big throwdown near the end. There's also a side plot involving Harry Osboure dealing with a life threatening genetic disease.
This movie actually wound up being better than expected. I recall that the last one left me less than impressed and after reading over the old review that I did of it (located here: Amazing Spiderman Review) I can understand why. The bad guy from the film was bothersome for a few reasons, and the plot on the whole was pretty boring and run of the mill. Is that the one where they line up all the cranes along the street for him to swing on? Or was that one of the other Spiderman films? Either way, that scene was really lame. But yeah, back when I wrote the review I stated that the only good thing about that film is the actor playing Peter and from what little I can recall of that movie (I also called it forgettable) that adds up.
So maybe it was lowered expectations cause of the first, or maybe I'd heard somewhere that this one sucks, or perhaps both, but I went into this expecting to be thoroughly unimpressed. Now, saying that this is better than expected isn't what I'd call a compliment given all that. I basically just said it's better than a big pile of shit. Now, there are plenty of things that are better than a big pile of shit but are still not what I'd call good. This isn't even one of those things. I actually liked this one. It's not the best movie ever, but I think the fight scenes are well done, and though I didn't really expect this, there's actually a reasonable bit of humor in there as well. Spiderman has been know to be a bit of a joker, so a touch of humor here and there makes sense. But yeah, I think things are well done here. Good film. Give it a try.
8 witty retorts out of 10
So I wound up watching this today. Yes I'm aware that Robin Williams recently passed away, so in that respect this review is topical. I'm not going to discuss it aside from saying that I hope his family and friends can find a way to be at peace with things.
So then, the plot of the movie revolves around a magical board game. The board game functions such that up to four people can play, each player taking a turn to roll the dice. Every roll of the dice causes something.... interesting to happen. A couple examples are a horde of trouble causing monkeys and a hunter hellbent upon killing one of the players. There are of course other occurances, but I wouldn't want to spoil all of them.
The movie starts with, well it starts with a pair of boys in the 1800's disposing of the game clearly having played it and not wanting anything else to do with the damned thing. The first important event is when a young boy named Alan starts the game with his friend Sarah. Due to a consequence of one of the rolls Alan winds up trapped inside the game for many years. Fast forward those many years later and a new pair of children pop open the game and place the third and fourth pieces onto the board and start playing. Early on Alan is released and they all vow to keep playing despite the horrible things the game throws at them because supposedly if they complete the game everything will be undone.
That's the basic plot of the movie. Mostly it deals with them handling the various horrors the game throws at them as they all try to continue taking their turns and trying to have one of them get to the center to finish the damned thing. I do think all of the various issues are interesting enough, nothing really over stays it's welcome. The most important of the issues is the aforementioned hunter, but he proves to be interesting enough to warrant the additional screen time so it's quite alright.
And that's basically all I have to say about it. It's a fun little movie if you haven't seen it before give it a try. Or if you have before and now remember it and have that little inkling to see it again. I like it. Not amazing, but it's certainly worth seeing at least once.
7.5 dangerous ass board games out of 10
One question that I was asked while watching the movie was what would happen if one of the players dies? The things the game spawns are very clearly dangerous. The rules of the game state that when it's your turn it must be you who plays. So what happens if someone dies? I suppose either their piece would be removed and the remaining players would have to continue, or the game would simply become unfinishable.
The quickest one sentence description I can give is that it's like if you put Call of Duty in the 1400's. Oh and didn't re-release it every year with a slightly different name.
This game is utter chaos. It's totally utter fucking chaos..... and I love it. It's just a mass of angry screaming guys in blue and a mass of angry screaming guys in red and they run at each other and commit brutal murder. And in truth things do really get very chaotic. When you have five guys screaming and swinging giant broadswords and battle axes in a small area things get messy. Limbs start being hacked off blood gets everywhere and fairly often you wind up accidentally taking out one of your own guys in the process. Yeah warning now, if you super hate team killing, don't play this. Team killing fucking happens. Yes there are people just being dicks running around intentionally killing teammates, but those are in the minority, what I'm talking about here is when you give that massive bastardsword a good swing and happen to stab your buddy on the backswing, or maybe he tried to attack right then and got in front of you, or a little to close to the other guy. and now you wound up chopping off your friend's head in the process of eviscerating the other guy too. It can and will happen. Now, if it's in a moment like that, people aren't likely to get too mad about it cause most people understand that this shit is not an exact science and sometimes you wind up hurting or killing people you didn't mean to. That being said, don't be the dick who team kills on purpose, nobody likes that guy.
Story? What story? The story is grab that giant sword run that way and kill the reds! Kill the reds! Kill the reds! Okay, there is a very minor story. The blue guys are Agatha knights who presumably work for the ruler of the region. The reds, or Mason Order, are a group of rebels best I can tell. but seriously, fuck the story, go cut someone's head off!
There are four playable classes; archer, man at arms, vanguard, and knight. The archer is exactly what you'd think; an archer, very weak but this class allows consistent ranged combat (the other classes can have a few thrown weapons but are very much so meant for up close brutality). The man at arms is a sort of scout style unit, quick on his feet but not going to be taking a huge amount of damage before he starts screaming for a medic. The scout does have one of my favorite off hand weapons in the game: the fire pot. I do so love throwing one at my enemies and laughing as they run around burning. The vanguard is my favorite class to play and strikes a reasonable balance between health and movement, having a decent amount of both. The vanguard uses mostly larger two handed weapons which can make him a good damage dealer. Lastly the knight is the big tanky bitch. They're slow as hell but wrapped in a lot of armor and have the option to use both a two handed weapon and shield at the same time. Your best bet is to out maneuver this guy and get him from behind.
Each class does have a variety of killing tools to pick from. Archers have bows, cross bows, slings, and I believe throwing spears for primary weapons. Men at arms have one handed swords, axes, and maces. Vanguards have the two handed swords, spears, axes, and a pole hammer. Knights have two handed swords, axes, hammers, and flails. In addition to these primary weapons, each class is granted a secondary weapon. These will normally be smaller, weaker weapons that you won't be using hugely often, but they aren't meaningless. I've seen knights pull out short swords to deal with men at arms. The thing here is that all weapons have three criteria: damage, reach, and speed. The off hand weapons are usually going to be shorter and weaker, but (most noticeable when compared to large two handers) can be quite quick. Lastly each class gets a third equipment slot. This third slot is a sort of wild card. Archers use it to pick ammunition, while other classes can grab a shield or thrown weapon for this slot.
One thing that's cool is as you use a weapons you'll (usually) unlock other variants of that weapon to use. The variants will have marginally different stats meaning that maybe you like the sword's move set (yes the move sets do vary a bit for different weapons, I personally hate the spear's move set) well here's a new sword, this one is a little slower and shorter, but is stronger. So you can try and get a little bit of say in the exact performance of your weapons. And yes there are different types of attacks that can be performed. The standard attack is (usually) a right to left swipe. Scrolling the mouse wheel forward will perform a stab or thrust. Scrolling it backward will perform the overhead whollop. I believe there is also a way to swing left to right, maybe by holding alt. I'm not sure if the different types of attacks have different actual stats. What I mean is, the stab attack maybe have like 5% better range, or the overhead attack may have slightly boosted damage. I have nothing to confirm if this is true, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was. I do know for sure that the attacks do actually have different areas of affect. Meaning that you'll probably be wanting to use stabs if you have friends (or walls, yes you can hit walls and cause yourself issues) nearby you're trying to avoid hitting. If however, you're perhaps faced with two enemies side by side, a standard swipe may hit both of them at once. The vanguards and knights also have special charging attacks which can be used after sprinting for long enough with the weapon drawn (Note these are class restricted because they are only present on two handed weapons). Much like my suspicions about different attacks having slightly different stats, I have heard that maces do bonus damage to heavily armored units (vanguard and knights) while swords do more damage against lesser armored units (archers and men at war). Again, I don't know if this is true or not, though I suspect if it was there would be a whole hell of a lot more people using maces since a damage bonus would be more helpful against the more beefy guys.
The game is pretty much all online by the way. So if you really hate any interactions with other humans, or you have shit internet, then be warned.
I do have a couple minor gripes. One being that whenever I join a sever it seems to always always move to free for all and never go back to a team based game. One other more significant annoyance is that there is some customization allowed in the game. I don't have an issue with this, I enjoyed playing dress in hat wearing simulator, I mean TF2, but what I do have issues with is that you can change your guy's colors. This really annoys me because color is very very important. And it's really annoying when I look at a guy and can't be sure if I'm supposed to be murdering him or not. This wasn't an issue with TF2 because no matter how silly the hat was the guy was always red or blue, meaning you could instantly know if you needed to kill him or not. This issue is lessened some once you learn that black is associated with red team and white with blue team, but I shit you not I once saw a purple guy. What the fuck team was he on? I seriously didn't know for the entire game. This is really pretty annoying. Change the look of your helmet and chestplate all you like but be the appropriate fucking color. One last thing is that the first person perspective arms, always seem to be really small. I'm supposed to be a big burly knight and I have tiny little child arms.
The game is available on steam for $25. I don't recall it being that pricy when I got it. I think it may have been cheaper as a beta or perhaps it was on sale when I bought it. I'll leave you to decide if you think it's worth the price tag, but it is bloody fun. "Bloody fun" here having the dual meaning of it's fun and it's bloody, and also like the British/European bloody good time usage. That's pretty much all there is to say about it. Brutal medieval combat.Gameplay: 9 out of 10
Story: N/A
Visuals: 5.5 out of 10
Audio: 7.5 out of 10
Overall: 8 violently severed limbs out of 10
Anime time bitches! Yeah kind of a new thing here. I mentioned a couple of them in my top ten tv shows post, but I'm pretty sure this is the first review of one so let's do this shit!
Alright so that dude front and center is named Rin Okumura and there's a reson he's front and center. Fucking spoilers, he's the main character. Bigger fucking spoilers he also happens to be Satan's kid. Yeah that's a thing. Hence why his head and sword are on fire and he has fangs. Everything really starts when daddy comes knocking and offs the priest who was raising Rin and his twin brother Yukio (the guy to the left of Rin). This makes Rin justifiably upset, and Rin vows he's going to become an exorcist and beat up his dad for killing his step-dad. Talk about daddy issues. That's basically the set up for the show. Most of the 25 episode season deals with Rin in training learning to be an exorcist, along with a few friends/classmates who are most of the other people in that picture.
Things change up a bit near the end when a couple of grand schemes are revealed and daddy Satan comes trying to take over the earth. Spoilers again, it doesn't work. And the reasoning behind this is just...... I don't know what the fuck the writers were smoking, drinking, or injecting to think that this was..... no that's not even it either. It's not like the batshit totally out of the buildings behind the buildings that are past the edge of left field. It's just, they reveal some backstory between a couple of characters and it's like..... did this suddenly become a Disney movie? The thing is just like.... really? That's the characters motivation? Fucking really? And it's just silly and sounds like it was made to teach a four year old a moral.
And it doesn't ruin the whole series, or even really make it bad, I honestly found the whole idea of it funny in a "you just have to be fucking joking" way. And in the event that's what was intended (which I doubt) then A+ to the writer. If I was meant to take that shit seriously... 
Yeah that basically. Yeah it's really tonally dissonant with the rest of the show, and I can't wrap my head around why it was done that way and why nobody was like.... "Do you really think this is a good idea?" But like I said, it doesn't ruin the show and while it does make, mostly just one episode, really fucking silly, it's not the worst thing ever.
On the whole though I liked Blue Exorcist. For those of you who are wondering I watched the dubbed version not the subbed version. It is available on Netflix, or was last I knew, though that may be only the dubbed version. Fairly actiony without being too heavy handed about it and there are the calmer moments and the characters and character developments are *mostly* reasonable and for the good of the show. So if you like anime and want a new one, or maybe you aren't hugely into it, and are looking for one to try that's not too crazy, then maybe give this a look. But if you happen to fall into the second category don't judge all animes based upon this ones ending, I swear they don't all do that.
7.5 demonic children out of 10
Did you like the old school Zelda games? This is like that.
So then, this game tells the story Ittle, a young lass with a thirst for adventure, and her constantly drinking companion Tippsie, a.... thing
Seriously what the fuck do you call that? It's like a linoone from poken'mon with a set of bee wings taped to its back. Well anyway that's Tippsie, he doesn't really do much aside from berate you for not being smart enough to solve the occasional puzzle and inform you if a room is solvable based upon your equipment loadout.
There's not a lot of story to speak of so I'll do as the game did and pretty much ignore it. The gameplay is fairly simple. Most of your time will be spent dispatching the few variants of foes and messing with lots and lots and lots of blocks. Stone blocks, portal blocks, ice blocks, cracked blocks, stone blocks you can't push. Also yeah, there is no pull. The lack of ability to pull blocks makes some puzzles much more complicated. Cracked blocks can be exploded with bombs. Ice blocks can be destroyed with fire and depress switches. Portal blocks can be used to depress switches or help teleport objects and creatures.
The basic layout of the game involves going into the very Zelda looking castle and solving puzzles there until you collect enough money to buy a new piece of gear. There are three pieces of gear to buy; the fire sword, the ice staff, and the portal wand. One thing that I do think is pretty cool about the game is that it is actually possible to complete the game with any two of the three pieces of gear. I opted for fire sword and portal wand and told the ice staff some unpleasant things about it's mother and that I didn't want to see it again. The option to avoid one piece of the available gear does help give some incentive to replay the game after completing it. Which, and I know some people will be bothered about this, is probably a good thing, cause the game is a bit short. My (almost) blind run through of it clocked in at just under three hours. In fairness I didn't find all the collectable cards, all the heart pieces, do either of the optional dungeons, was able to entirely skip the ice staff dungeon, and found a shortcut to skip almost all of the portal wand dungeon. So I did have what would be a fairly quick pass through the game, but I was also gimped in not having one of the gear items which also slowed me down some. I'm not too bitter about the length of it, and I may at some point go back and play through the game a couple more times or at least take my existing save and try to get the rest of the cards and heart pieces and do the optional dungeons.
Some of the puzzles can be a bit complicated and there is a "master cave" which is presumably filled with super tough puzzles. As I mentioned I haven't done this yet, but I'd at least buy the ice staff before trying that shit. The combat is very simple. You have one attack: swing the point bit of your sword at the other guy (Or bash him with the stick if you don't have the sword). The ice wand may also be used in combat but I can't say for sure. In the event that you should die, there's basically no consequence, save the room you're in being reset. Enemies are in some instances used as a puzzle mechanic or a little arena room with some reward for killing them all, but more often than not, wind up really just being a kind of annoying housekeeping you have to deal with before solving the puzzle, especially the pancake fuckers that eat bombs. Yes there is an enemy that looks like pancakes. Yes really.
The art style... well look at the images above and you'll have a good idea whether you're going to like it or not. I thought it looked fine. It is a fairly easy game (remember I haven't done the master cave, maybe all the difficulty is in there) so if you're looking for a challenge you might not want to pick this one up. And yes it is somewhat short and the $10 price tag may make some people say that it's not enough, but the option of redoing the game with a different gear set to make you resolve rooms differently helps to add replayability, and honestly, if you compare the concept of $10 for a three hour game to something like going to the movies, which is going to be more expensive, last less time, require you to put on pants and drive to the theater, and be non-interactive, then I'd say the price tag isn't too bad. But if you had ten bucks and were trying to decide between this and FTL I'd tell you to buy FTL. There's just more for the money there.
On the whole it's well made, if a touch light on content. But it doesn't overstay it's welcome and if you want to get your money's worth you can redo the game each time leaving out one of the three items, then take all three for a victory lap. Go for the master cave if you're feeling ballsy and want to prove to your friends you're some kind of brainiac. And for those of you who like things to be over quickly (I bet you're not much fun in bed) there's an achievement to complete the game in under 15 minutes.
Gameplay: 7.5 out of 10
Story: 4 out of 10
Visuals: 7 out of 10
Audio: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 fucking block puzzles out of 10
Ironically the lonesome road is not that lonesome at all. The very first thing you do is in fact get a companion. And a very noisy companion at that who constantly makes noises and forces you into conversations to remind you that you are in fact not alone.
Well one thing that sets this DLC apart from the others is that you're actually allowed to leave the lonesome road at any time. the other DLCs have various contrived reasons of locking you into them; the bomb collar in Dead Money (this one makes the most sense since Elijah was using you for slave labor), the lack of help on how to leave until you assist Grahm in Honest Hearts (Why the fuck do I need his help anyway? I'm the player character, I don't need anyone's help!), and the whole thing about needing you brain to pass the force field in Old World Blues (But you can actually leave your brain in Big Mt. if you want to and still leave provided you leave your brain at the proper place because of reasons). This DLC is sensible, you walk into it, and there's not a fucking thing preventing you from throwing up your middle fingers, turning 360 degrees, and moon walking the fuck away..... and a sensible person would do just that. But more on that later.
The set up for this DLC actually involves the main story of the game itself. If you dig a little you can find out that originally there was a different courier who was slotted to carry the platinum chip but that upon seeing you were next in line backed away from the job saying it should be given to you. That original courier is a man named Ulysses. Ulysses has lured you to "the divide" to have some big showdown with you.
So then lonesome road really thinks it's got the big boy pants on and isn't pulling punches cause it recommends you be at least level 25 and reminds you that if things get to hard you're allowed to tuck your tail between your legs and run away crying. You bitch. I did actually use the ability to leave once though to take a pile of loot back to my house. I didn't think LR was that tough but in fairness I was about level 35 when I started it and my badass revolver would one shot almost all of the marked men who primarily inhabit the area. There were minor issues with the tunnelers, who came from underground, cause they hit fairly hard. I did run into some larger issues when the deathclaws showed up. Because, much like the honey badger, deathclaw don't give a fuck. I had about 35 DT and would still be insta-gibbed by a deathclaw if I wasn't high as a kite on chems. The only difference between fighting a deathclaw now, and at level one is that now I have the capacity to kill the deathclaw before it gets to me. If it does get to me the result is pretty much the same as if I was a naked toddler.
One thing I complained about in the Honest Hearts review was that HH didn't feel like it's own thing. LR doesn't have quite as different a tone as Dead Money and Old World Blues, but it does at least have a different feeling from the Mojave. The marked men are a unique enemy and I appreciate that their existence is explained. The occasional tunnelers are also very different though there backstory is, in my opinion, a bit lame. I quite enjoyed the side objective of finding the 30 undetonated warheads and blowing them all up to reveal the hidden paths and secret caches (and of course the achievement).
I found the majority of this DLC actually well done and enjoyed going through almost all of. The enemy design is cool. There was some side areas to explore and the aforementioned explosive Easter egg hunt. I got a ballin new set of armor and a pile of upgrades for ED-E, one of my favorite companions. I made quite a good amount of caps pawning off the armor and weapons from all the marked men. Unfortunately, there was one thing that happened, that does really grate on me. You may recall that I said earlier that a sensible person would walk away from this DLC. Why? Let me explain.
There is a point in the quest line where you have to go through a particular door. This door is locked by default. The only way to unlock this door is to do something really really fucking stupid. Really really colossally fucking moronic. Alternatively you could do it not for being the stupidest man who has ever lived, but instead as a result of being a homicidal maniac who loves nothing more than chaos and has severe suicidal tendencies. So you either have to do something that you know you really shouldn't fucking do, or not be able to finish the DLC. I did it cause I wanted to be able to finish the DLC and, as a reasonable fucking person would, Ulysses berated me for being so foolish as to do so. The game yelled at me for doing the thing it made me do. I understand the idea behind why this scene exists, I'm sure someone was like "ya know what would be cool?" and then this happened. Possibly a good idea, very much so fucked up execution, and while it doesn't ruin the entire DLC for me, it is a significant black mark on the record.
I will say that my hatred of the event is slightly lessened by the fact that doing it not only allows you to progress, but unlocks a special area. And holy fucking shit that special area. The area is not very large and has about 8 deathclaws and also a well sized orgy's worth of marked men all of who are regenerating health like mad due to the IMMENSE amount of radiation in the area. Even at the cap of 85% rad resistance I was getting 2 and 3 rads a second. The wiki says that some spots in the area have upwards of 25 rads a second. For reference, that could kill you in under a minute if you started from zero radiation. So with the constant warm glow of radiation trying to kill me, the fuckton of deathclaws, and the orgy I interrupted, there was a very significant risk of death here. I spent the entire time here not so much kissing the sky as bending it over and pounding away at it's backside. Kudos if you got that reference.
The story here is kinda weak. Ulysses lured you here to have a showdown with you because of something you did in the past. Cause you're somehow related to the history of the divide, cause you walked that road before. And he's mad about what you did.... or he's not mad. He says things about having learned from your actions... so maybe he thinks he's some kind of successor to you some how. He also constantly rants about the NCR and the legion calling them the bull and the bears after their symbols. Symbols are a very important thing to him for some reason. Maybe I should have paid more attention to his dialogue, or tried to get him to say more, though I continued every talk till the game forced me out of the conversation. But as things were his motives and his goal were at best fuzzy. He was gonna bomb the NCR and the legion cause... he thought he could do better and that sending one bomb at a relatively small portion of each of the forces would some how entirely undermine them both while simultaneously ensuring his total superiority over everyone. Things work like that right? Spoilers: no. And it turns out that basically fucking everything is his fault. Ulysses used to be part of the legion, and was the first among it's ranks to see the hoover dam, when he told Ceaser about it, and the flag with the two headed bear, the legion came to fight their new adversary. Good job numbnuts.
So on the whole this gets a thumbs up, through not for the fucking story, and I am still irritated by being forced to make such a stupid fucking choice, and then being yelled at for having done so. I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT YOU MADE ME SO DON'T BE YELLING AT ME YOU FUCK!
Gameplay: 7.5 out of 10
Story: 3.5 out of 10
Visuals: 6.5 out of 10
Audio: 6 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 stupid fucking choices out of 10
