Mister Jack

Damn, my hard drive is already almost full. A terabyte really doesn't go as far as it used to, especially when a huge chunk of it is used up by system files. I can't even buy a secondary drive until Sony gets off their duff and releases the update to make it work. Guess I'll be juggling games for a while.

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part Two The absolutely insane, ball breaking difficulty of part one has been dialed back for part two. It's still pretty challenging, but it's not the hardest shooter I've ever played in my life. In fact, I've heard rumors that they patched part one to be less punishing but I haven't gone back to verify this myself. While you don't have any bullshit like huge battles in heavy fog in part two to make your life miserable, I think the main reason part two is easier than part one is because you're given a really powerful new weapon that not only does respectable AOE damage around you but also dazes enemies AND makes them drop pickups. You can't spam it endlessly but refilling the charge for it isn't hard to do so you'll probably be using it at least 3-5 times in every major battle which really helps in keeping you alive. I know it saved my bacon more than a handful of times. There are new enemies that are only vulnerable to certain weapons to keep you from being totally overpowered, but you're still in a pretty good position thanks to that weapon. The final boss fight is easier than the part one boss too, mostly because the arena isn't full of lasers and buffed enemies and other bullshit like that. It feels more like a proper duel, although the ending is a little anticlimactic after pretty much the entire Doom franchise was building up to this battle. Oh well. Still a kickass shooter and a worthy expansion to Doom Eternal.

Yeah it's disappointing but I just put the dongle into the USB slot and then put a usb-c to usb-c cable into the other port for everything else. If there is something I have to knock on the PS5's design it's that there aren't enough ports. Hooking up the VR alone took up both ports on the back.

If you want to use it wirelessly, yes.

I had pretty much the same thought. "Mass shootings are back? Gee, I guess covid really is over."

My old headset was literally falling apart. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one of these. Apparently these are also being scalped. I have to say this one is super comfortable to wear.

Zack Snyder's Justice League Boy, this is a tricky one to talk about. If this had been released in theaters back in 2017 it would have been an absolutely unbearable slog to get through. Utterly unwatchable. The freaking thing is four hours long. Imagine watching a four hour movie with no intermission to take a bathroom break or stretch your legs or anything. It never would have worked. Watching at home on demand, though? It's...passable. I watched this movie over three sittings and when I did it like that it was okay. I do appreciate that the movie was broken up into six parts so you could easily digest it in chunks. Two parts per viewing worked pretty well for me. As hard as it is to divorce the movie's length from its quality otherwise, I'm gonna try to do that here and say that the film is kind of a mess. It just has too many moving parts and it gets dull at times. I'm not going to put all the responsibility for this on Snyder, though. He had the unenviable task of having to make an ensemble film with characters where several of them didn't even have movies of their own to establish them beforehand. A lot of the new footage is for building up these characters. Does it work? Ehh, I only really think it worked for Cyborg, but I appreciate that Snyder was trying his best. There's still a lot of Snyder trash in here though. If they cut out all the slow motion I bet it would have shaved 30 minutes off the film's run time. I also watch with subtitles because of hearing issues and I can't tell you how many times I saw [Ancient lamentation music playing] on the screen. Snyder has his cliches that he just can't let go of and he certainly didn't decide to let go of them here. The last half hour or so also has nothing to do with the story at hand and is just meant to build up a sequel. I would say it should have been cut off and saved for another movie, but they're probably never coming back to the Snyder stuff so I guess they wanted to just dump everything they had and then wash their hands of it? I don't know. At least the action scenes are generally better and not chock full of that shaky cam nonsense. If I have to choose between slow motion and shaky cam, I'm picking slow motion every time. Of course, all the extra footage is only going to do so much to fix the movie. At its core it's still average at best. Cyborg and Steppenwolf's designs still look really stupid, even if Cyborg as a character is better than he was. The Flash is still really annoying and unfunny and that bugs me because I usually love Flash. The conflict is pretty much over the moment Superman shows up during the final battle, but to be fair each member does still feel like they have an important role to play. The pacing is all over the place. Still, I suppose it is better than the theatrical cut. Of course, being better than a total piece of crap isn't saying much, but it was an interesting watch just to see HOW different it was.

The Otto lab ones with the circuits and the chemicals. I did them all back on the PS4 but they just break up the pace too much.

Man Spider-Man is much more fun to play when you have the option to skip all those stupid puzzles.

Sony reveals the next-gen VR controller It's pretty much everything I was hoping for, especially the tracking without a camera, so I'm pretty delighted.

What worries me is that Microsoft might try to pull an EA/Ubi/Epic and decide to pull all their games from Steam and make you buy it from the Microsoft store. Just the thought makes me want to vomit, and we know that Microsoft intends to buy up more studios so this is absolutely a possibility. An even worse possibility is that they might remove the ability to buy them at all and make you subscribe to their service if you want to play the games. That probably wouldn't happen now, but in 5 years time? They tried to force an always online console so I'm not putting anything past those fuckers.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Well that was short. There's an okay amount of side content but I still think this is about 10 dollars too expensive. Putting the price aside, this is a good expansion that does a decent job establishing Miles as a character. I'm glad they set Miles up in a spin-off game so that we won't have to waste a bunch of time doing his spider training in the sequel and the plot can just focus on the main story. The venom powers and invisibility are pretty cool additions. Other than that it's pretty much just more of Insomniac's Spider-Man so it's as good as you would expect.

Yeah, I'm not buying Gamepass just for one studio's games. This is Epic Store shit and it pisses me off. I don't want an Xbox and getting a PC that will be good enough to play next-gen releases is just not going to happen anytime soon because PCs are just too god damn expensive now. Whenever I do manage to afford one, however, I'm definitely not resorting to Gamepass just for Doom, Fallout, and Elder Scrolls. If they try to keep those games from Steam and make them Microsoft Store or Gamepass only then I'll grey market or even pirate that crap with no remorse. Say what you will about exclusives being bad but at least Nintendo and Sony typically make their own exclusives.

@Thursday Next It almost feels like the cling ring is mandatory unless you're a total god at the game, which I am not. That's a pet peeve of mine in general with some games, not just Demon's Souls. I hate it when I feel like I'm required to play a certain way to get anywhere, like when Hollow Knight doesn't even show where you are on the map unless you use up some accessory slots for the privilege of a map marker.

Demon's Souls Remake Okay, so I liked this game. I didn't love it, but I liked it. The lightning fast load times, buttery smooth performance, and quality of life improvements went a long way toward warming me up to Demon's Souls, but I have to say that there is still some stupid bullcrap that is intrinsic to the game itself and was never going to be changed. I don't like the world tendency system. It just cuts you off from content if you're not in the right tendency. It also makes the game harder if you're doing poorly, which is the opposite of how it should be. In fact, I really can't think of anything positive or interesting that this whole system adds. Being blocked off from paths or having extra enemy spawns because you're in the wrong tendency is dumb. It wouldn't bother me so much if getting white tendency didn't require killing other players in PVP, which can be easier said than done in a Souls game. I also REALLY hate that your health bar is cut in half when you die. Is it not enough that I get sent all the way back to the beginning of the level and lose all my souls in the process? You have to take off 50% of my life bar too? Granted, you can get your life bar back by doing co-op, pvp, or using a certain consumable item, but if you die as a human then it fucks up your world tendency so you're really just better off staying in soul form the whole time. See why I hate the tendency system? The humanity in Dark Souls was much more fair, and even then I thought it was a dumb system. That's why I'm glad Bloodborne just gives you the bells to summon or be summoned with and you don't have to worry about all that bullcrap. Those things irritate me just as much now as they did back on the PS3. However, the changes made in the remake are just enough for me to say that my time with Demon's Souls was more positive than negative. If I discount the shiny new graphics and next-gen performance I'd probably still call it my second to least favorite game in the Souls series after Dark Souls 2. I didn't hate it though, so I call that progress.

My philosophy is that it should not be harder to do something in a game than it would be in real life. Not that I have any intention of stabbing somebody in the back, but if I did I'm pretty sure I would be able to line the knife up.

The Demon's Souls Remake is definitely a better experience than the original. A rock solid 60 FPS, better controls, better menus, and the ability to send items directly to storage when you're overburdened go a long way toward reducing frustration. However, there are other things they didn't fix that I really wish they did. These levels can get really fucking long with almost no shortcuts, unlike Dark Souls where shortcuts are placed much more generously. Having to redo an entire level from nearly the end when I die is not fun or challenging, it's just annoying. In fact, if there's one thing I still hate about the Souls series it's having to trudge back to the boss from far away after every failed attempt to kill it and that issue is at its worst in Demon's Souls. It's completely pointless because I've already proven I can beat the rest of the level multiple times over. Why put me through that? It's made me appreciate all the more that Nioh 2 places shrines much closer to its boss arenas. I was really hoping the remake might do something about that, even as an optional setting, but oh well. Maybe that's just too much to ask. What's NOT too much to ask is a backstab indicator. It's hard to tell when you're properly lined up. Unlike the checkpoints, this could have been a really simple fix. When you're lined up for a backstab in Nioh 2 your targeting reticle turns red. That's literally all they had to do, or something along those lines, but they didn't. Because of that, there have been many times when I thought I was set up for a backstab but I just whacked the guy in the back. It's annoying. Despite those two gripes, I'm still having a mostly pretty good time with the game so far, certainly more than I ever did with the original, but those two issues continue to bedevil me to this day.

Bugsnax Yeah, another free PS+ download. I do appreciate Sony letting me redeem this even before I owned a PS5. Anyway, this game is cute and silly. You can't die or fail a quest so it's pretty laid back. The challenge comes in figuring out how to capture each species of Bugsnax. Some of them you can just lay down a trap and wait for them to walk into it, but plenty of others will require you to get more creative. It's neat and the bugsnax themselves can be kind of adorable, walking around saying their names like they're Pokemon or something. Look at this damn silly talking burger and tell me it isn't just precious. The muppet-like Grumpus characters you interact with are also taken a bit more seriously than I expected from a game like this. As you get to know them you end up learning all about their depression or existential crises or even their issues with their sexuality. It was honestly a little jarring at times, but it also made the characters more memorable so I guess I can't say it was a bad thing. Anyway, it's a cute game. Not terribly long and a not very difficult platinum so I'll probably go for it.

Oh boy, here we go. Ancient Gods Part One was like getting gangbanged by spiked dildos. I can only imagine the pain they have in store for Part Two.

The Last Guardian I never played this on the PS4 because I heard it had technical issues, but it's part of the PS Plus Collection on PS5 so I figured by now the performance problems should be a non-issue on the new hardware. The good news is that the game performs just fine on the PS5. The bad news is that it's locked to 30 FPS. Oh well. As far as the game's quality goes, the most impressive thing about it by far is Trico himself, and rightfully so. He moves, acts, and feels like a real animal and the animators obviously spent a lot of time studying real life animals to get the movements and behaviors down just right. Despite how huge Trico is, I never had any immersion breaking moments where he gets stuck on a wall or anything else like that. Whenever he was in motion it always felt totally natural, which is an impressive accomplishment. Trico has a ton of personality and it's very easy to get attached to him (I'm just assuming Trico is male). He helps you solve puzzles and reach higher platforms, defends you from enemies, and can even save you from falling now and then. The bond you forge with this animal feels real and I grew to legitimately love the big guy. Of course, the fact that Trico acts like a real animal and not an AI can also be a bad thing sometimes. Your ability to progress depends completely on Trico listening to your commands. Sometimes he understands what you want him to do right away and sometimes you just want to whap him with a rolled-up newspaper until he gets it through his thick head. I don't know if this was intentional or not but it is a serious problem that leads to frustration fairly often. It especially doesn't help when the puzzle solutions can be pretty cryptic and the in-game hint system is rarely helpful. For example, one puzzle required me to tell Trico to stick his head through a hole so I could use him as a platform to get higher up. I had been playing for about 10 hours at this point and this was something Trico had never done before, nor had the game indicated to me that this was a thing he even COULD do. Even when you know what to do, you might fool yourself into thinking you don't because if Trico doesn't listen to you it's easy to believe you're on the wrong track. I ended up just keeping a walkthrough open on my phone after a while. Unfortunately, the controls are also bad. Anyone who has played a Team Ico game knows that they tend to have awkward, delayed controls. The Last Guardian is no exception. It's the kind of bad you can get used to but it's still bad. I hate using triangle to jump, too. I hate that I can't change it and I really hate that the tutorial pop-ups can't be disabled either, especially because they'll be popping up and reminding you how to climb things all the way to the end of the damn game. This might just be me, but I'm also not fond of how much of the story is left as a mystery. Why was the boy taken? What are those markings on his skin? Who or what is the villain and what exactly is their goal? None of this is ever explained. I know that for a lot of people it's about the journey and not the destination, but I say that's a J.J. Abrams-tier excuse. So yeah, this game is a mixed bag. I don't want to say it's just average because what they accomplished with Trico as a character is really impressive and deserves to be experienced. Just know you'll be having to put up with some bullshit along the way. I liked it and I'm glad I played it but I won't be going for the platinum, especially when this game is pretty stingy with its trophies. I made it all the way to the end with only four trophies to show for it and one of them was because I accidentally spied on Trico taking a dump once.

I don't doubt that the joycons aren't as advanced but I remember playing 1-2-Switch at a friend's place back when the Switch first launched and being amazed that they were able to accurately simulate the feeling of metal balls rolling around and knocking against each other so the joycons are definitely capable of more than what they've been doing. I mean, you would think Breath of the Wild of all games would be eager to take full advantage of it but nope.

Astro's Playroom This game is adorable as hell. In fact, I might go as far as to call it the best console pack-in game since Super Mario World. This game does a great job showing off the really cool things that the Dualsense can do. It really does feel like a next-gen experience. It also makes great use of the PS5's hint video feature for collectibles and the levels themselves are chock full of downright charming easter eggs and shout outs to everything in Playstation history from God of War to Vib-Ribbon of all things. Anyone else remember Vib-Ribbon? There's all kinds of super fun and creative gimmicks in each world that makes them all feel unique. If Sony made a full-length version of this game it could be good enough to compete with some of the modern 3D Mario titles. The gameplay is really on point with Astro Bot. The only thing it doesn't have that Mario does is iconic characters with decades of history. On a side note, the Dualsense controller is so cool that it makes me annoyed that Nintendo has practically forgotten that HD rumble even exists in the joycons. Why even include it and charge extra money for it if you're not going to use it for anything? I didn't own an Xbone but I've heard from others that it barely got any use out of the adaptive triggers in its controller too. If there's one thing you can't accuse Sony of doing it's not taking advantage of the controller features in their first party games. If anything they might be too eager to use them sometimes.

Maneater That game where you play a killer shark. Claimed it on PS+ last month and figured I'd give it a whirl. It's okay, but repetition sets in after a while. You play as a shark so all you can really do is swim around and bite things. They try to give you some variety by letting you evolve special skills like a poison bite, but it's still pretty basic. Not too bad in short bursts, though. A pretty easy platinum too.

Tom and Jerry I wasn't quite sure which thread to put this in because this is basically two different movies. One of them is an enjoyable Tom and Jerry cartoon and the other is an unbearable live action movie about a bunch of human characters I don't give two shits about. I decided to split the difference and say it's just okay. The main plot where the protagonist girl is trying to fudge her way through a job interview at a hotel by planning a big wedding is the kind of cliched bullshit you've seen in a hundred other comedies and the only human character I enjoyed was the hotel manager because he treats Tom more like an employee than an animal and I thought that was cute. Aside from that, every human character was either boring or a cartoonish buffoon, and having humans act like cartoon characters in a movie that already has cartoon characters is a pet peeve of mine. Let the toons act like toons. That's what they're there for! Every scene that didn't have Tom or Jerry in it just felt like wasted time to me. On the other hand, while I hated all the human stuff, when the movie WAS about Tom and Jerry it could actually be kinda fun. Sometimes the animation is a bit hit or miss but when it looks good it looks really good. Every animal in this movie is a cartoon, which I thought was a nice touch, and the animators did a good job making it feel like they were really there. Making a cartoon character convincingly interact with a real life object or person is a very difficult thing to accomplish but they pulled it off. When Tom and Jerry trash that hotel it feels like they're actually trashing it so on that technical achievement alone I'm glad I watched this. The writer also clearly understood why people like Tom and Jerry as characters because this movie gave them a ton of personality and, more importantly, they do not talk. Would I recommend it to Tom and Jerry fans? Well, if you already have HBO Max I guess you really have nothing to lose. If not, maybe just watch the Tom and Jerry parts on Youtube sometime and skip the rest.