deanb

Meh. Anywho I got this: Still on the first section, but tbh didn't get it for myself to blast through but for the co-op nostalgia goodness. Unfortunately as we're now all significantly older it's a bit harder to get siblings over to play as of yet but damn looking forward to it.

Red Dead Redemption II I'm mostly enjoying the meditative gameplay, the pretty vistas, and the slower paced missions. But damn if the whole "your weapons are on your horse" bullshit wasn't driving me absolutely batty. Having to constantly bring up the weapon load out and pick your weapons. At the moment 90% of the time I'm going with a shotgun and rifle (unless I'm specifically hunting), but every goddamn time I have to load up the wheel, cycle past my ever growing list of weapons (including a "worn" one I picked up a while ago and seem to have no way to offload). Sure it's "realistic" but on the other hand my horse constantly jumps off little cliffs n picks itself up so I'm not sure they're applying the realism in the right places (and tbh I don't think in reality folks would be completely packing away their weapons each time they get on their horse). Also not having a way to reset missions/checkpoints without dying. But dynamite thankfully only takes a few seconds to get there (and yeah for some reason I leave all my main weapons on my horse but always walking around with a few pound of dynamite, several throwing knives and hatchets, a lasso, lantern, and 20 cans of beans and cigarettes). The trillion methods of interacting also 1. aren't consistent ( to loot a body, to loot a wardrobe being one example). 2. mean that I'm having to double check that I'm not about to blow a hole in someone cos they're stood next to my horse. (shotgun headshots are kind of grossly satisfying though). Really need to finish this game at some point. I got it when it launched, and got to..Altissa I think it is, and then they started with the events and a bunch of patching/updates/additions and such and I was like "okay I'll hold off until they're done". Which I believe as of Episode Ardyn the other month they're now finally done. Generally agree with your assessment of the game though. Pretty, the bro stuff is pretty damn great (even if it's a bit of a bummer there's no females and means limited jobs/classes compared to other games). It's a bit weird, it feels like it might have been the last Final Fantasy game in a way (at least for a long while). It was announced back in 2006 (as Versus), and we're two years after that decade long development and not an inkling of a new game. If/when it is announced I'd kinda like an "old-fashioned" one, like FFIX etc(I know I'm biased) with the medieval-esque setting. XII(plus sequels) and XV both were modern/futuristic settings and it's felt a bit jarring. Like even with VII while Midgar is all quite modern, there's still like the medieval towns n stuff kicking about. I think I'd drop an openworld in favour of an overworld too; kinda miss the foot, chocobo, boat, airship progression.

tbh I only replied so I could use a gif from the film (it's quite giffable). Though the film is five years old. I guess no second screen element you could watch from? Hit up @cinemile on Twitter, they have a young kid n watch films, might have some tips. Probably written something up at some point. Anywho, one more gif.

You used to watch like 300 films a year and you've only just seen What We Do in the Shadows? Anywho now you can watch the TV show! (It's on iPlayer).

I wonder if this means it'll open with the death of Robin as it does in the comic. Also found out Simon Pegg will be Hughies dad, so that's nice.

Men in Black: International I doubt anything will top the first one. But this is at least comparable to it. Story isn't much, it's a mystery of finding "the mole in MiB" which you pretty much know 5 minutes in. The main attraction here is the Tessa Thompson & Chris Hemsworth mix (though I feel Hemsworth was underutilised here, really needs a good director to shine). Thompson here showed she has the chops as a leading lady so I'm all for a Valkyrie film. The other Thompson, Emma in this case, out acts everyone with a raise of an eyebrow but not to be surprised. I think a double-edged sword to this is the massive expansion of the MiB, this shows it to be a pretty damn huge organisation which means you can expand the scope a bit of what they can do, but on the other hand really reduces the stakes when you could have almost an army to tackle anything and near-instant travel around the globe.

Also for anyone caring on the Endgame v Avatar thing: Endgame is about to get a re-release in cinemas with "extra scenes" (I'm aware already the 'post-credit scene' that got added is Spider-man trailer. No idea what'll be extra here).

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Beat this last night. Still got about 5 citizens to get and I'm kinda between the "drop this and move onto RDR2, or do I do that one final push to 'beat-beat' the game". I've a feeling I'm gonna end up on the former. A generally pleasant game, nothing that's setting the world on fire in terms of story. In fact parts of it is a bit...funky in terms of your overall aim of building up your kingdom which essentially involves both destabilising foreign powers leadership and overtime stealing a bunch of their citizens. But gameplay is light and breezy, all pretty, childish graphics, money is rarely an issue and most quests don't require much in the way of thinking. Great vegging out game, or just wanting something that isn't all doom n gloom. About the "right" length too, my playthrough is 50hrs on the save but it'd likely be shorter if you ignore a bunch of sidequests (or did them in the 'proper' order) and also it keeps the clock ticking even if paused on the map which probs accounts for an hour or so on my save easy. My only major issue with it is the RTS battle parts of it are wildly overleveled very quickly on, so without repeatedly grinding on lower leveled versions you're kinda SoL (and since I need to do some that are for Lvl 40 armies for the remaining citizens and mine are Lvl 25 at highest, it's definitely my drive to jump onto RDR2). They're kinda fine, just a bummer they're necessary for some parts, it's a very simplistic RTS which is mostly AI controlled so can be frustrating when your guys die and there's little you can do. If you're in UK, but I'd guess same in US too, it's repeatedly going pretty damn cheap (£8 or so). Worth getting for that price. A good game to get the kids or niblings too.

I'm jelly.

House of Mouse owns both.

Yeah the opening is in Ding Dong Dell which is the first town in the first game as well, but as far as I'm aware it's sort of the only town to make it from the first game (a lot can happen in 1,000 years it seems). I believe you're playing a direct descendent of the cat king from the first game.

I've been playing NNK:II lately and really loving it. It's just a nice pleasant kid-focused game. So many quality of life features: you go back to a previous area the enemies leave you alone (if you're levelled above them). Fast travel is unlocked early and a breeze, which is super great for some of the silly sidequests where you need like one thing from an area; just pop there and back and presto done. The Higgledies and Kingmaker can help with challenging fights so you can sort of feel a bit like you're struggling but then kind of pull it out the bag (though with type advantage I'll cover more below). And if you want more depth there's the "Tactics Tweaker" which lets you fine tune your play style a bit. Building up the kingdom scratches a nice itch in me. Sort of a bit like the settlements in FO4. Combined with the fast travel it's nice to be able to go down a quest/side quest and if you want a break just pop back to your kingdom and play king for a bit. Oh and so far the diplomatic policy of poaching key citizens from neighbouring kingdoms then foisting a treaty on them is a bit ...awkward. So far i've only gotten one kingdom in my treaty but the route to getting it was: Also the kings chief adviser suddenly turned up during a coup and will readily admit he's not from around their world and has no idea on anything yet none the less is held in high esteem. My only beefs are: Music - it's just naf. Like a lot of it doesn't seem to fit any of the areas at all, in a few places it's almost what I'd expect from battle music. Type Advantage isn't fully explained. Even worse for the skirmish battles which are infrequent enough you don't remember it and "hammers beat swords beat spears" isn't obvious enough to pick up right away.

I only played a bit of the first but yeah Ni No Kuni II is seeming pretty standalone, it's set like 1,000 years after and so far doesn't seem to be referencing much to the first game (apart from some of the locations being around).

I was saying on Twitter how at times I'd quite like access to a second screen, even a small thing like above. It'd be pretty useful at work too, like working on the one at top and having something like Hangouts or Youtube on the bottom. My only issue is it does seem to heavily cramp the keyboard and trackpad down.

Discovery is Netflix over here. Not sure if Picard will be too, but yeah it's odd that they're being produced by different platforms. It feels a bit mismanaged for such a potentially lucrative tv franchise.

Chef is a pretty great feel good film (check it out if you haven't) so this is nice to see. And an interesting take on the film-to-TV spin-off.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/mona-lisa-frown-machine-learning-brings-old-paintings-and-photos-to-life/ Some whacky stuff. Samsung developed tech to allow things like "deep fakes" with just a single image (in this case the Mona Lisa). It's going to get easier and easier to make faked videos. No doubt this will end up popularised in weird snapchat filters or something in the Galaxy 12 or whatever but it's definitely got some horrifying consequences.

Picard teaser. Though without the uniform he looks more like Xavier than Picard. So RE the last thing while I was a bit down overall with the story (though it eventually went where it should have been from the get go) I really really loved Anson Mounts Captain Pike. Like I'm there for a spin-off show.

I mean...did you not hear the stories of how he killed two guys with a pencil? a fooking pinsil!

John Wick 3 It's breathless. Blink and you miss 80 deaths. Really liked the characters in this one (except Bronn who was just Bronn with a funny accent). Really fucking loved the fanboy stuff. loved the creativity of some of the kills. It really embraces the absurdity of the series. And hey if you're someone that took issue with the coins being worth both body disposal and a coke they kinda explain that for you. Also tickled me that the two biggest "oofs" are (in order) the ballerina and a long way down the knife in the eye. I'm guessing you really do mean the first John Wick here?

Kinda quick Q: the lad in grey at that final meeting was the lad from the Vale right? The weirdo one who was breast fed still at 10 or whatever? I liked Tyrions little speech about "stories". End of the day centuries later the War of the Roses (which much of GoT follows), House York was mainly supported by southerners but still the White Rose is the symbol of Yorkshire and plastered all over the place. It ended kinda how it had to really. I was satisfied.

COD:MW Remastered It's COD4 but prettier. Not much more to say. Pretty much just did the main mission to clear it off. Somewhat nostalgic, doesn't feel 12 years since it came out. Also a fun contrast to go from Uncharted where many enemies take quite a few bullets to shift to a game where most are one-shot kills, with the odd one struggling on the floor.

I've been playing COD too, but Modern Warfare (remastered). Figured I'd give it a blast down memory lane then clear some HDD space out. Holds up pretty dang well.

Ordered it just on Monday as one of those "dirt cheap but you'll get it when you get it" type things, expecting for like the end of the month. Arrived today, barely a day over if it was full price on prime. A pleasant surprise. Last thing I got on the "dirt cheap but delayed delivery" thing was a Marvel book I ordered...I think in February or something and only got last week.

Detective Pikachu I'll pretty much repeat Jacks response. It has some clear film clunk, but it's done a live action Pokemon film much better than should legally be allowed. Also tbh the "twist" I kinda figured before I'd even watched the film. It kinda seemed wildly obvious to me. Maybe I am the world class pokemone detective?!?! I guess when aimed at kids it's assumed kids can't figure out stuff early on. Also there's cocaine and masturbation jokes. In a pokemon film. WTF. But yeah, you ever played pokemon? Then yeah go watch Detective Pikachu.