Mister Jack

Digital consoles are always a mistake. There's all kinds of places where you could get a discounted disc. You can even trade with your friends if you want to. But digital? The discounts you get are entirely based on the whims of the company that makes the console. It might seem cheaper in the short term but in the long run the 500 dollar one will save you more.

Money is a little tight right now because I had a vet bill. I wanted to wait a bit to buy it until I recovered from that but Nintendo seems to think everyone has an extra 60 dollars to spare during the launch window and nothing else matters.

I hate this limited run shit. I want the collection but I bet more than anything I'm gonna end up having to get it digitally on Nintendo's crappy eShop with a terrible account system because I won't be able to get a physical one anywhere without paying scalper prices. God damn it.

Too many SKUs is always a bad idea. Even if they think they're giving people more choice, the vast majority just goes for the best model and the lesser ones end up collecting dust or getting bought up by confused parents and grandparents to give to disappointed kids.

Blasphemous This is the most metal game I've played in a while. It's a 2D soulslike/Metroidvania game with an emphasis on platforming, but the platforming is more about ledge grabbing than double jumping if you know what I mean. The sprite animation is some of the best I've ever seen and premise of the game's story kept me intrigued. Blasphemous takes place in a land called Cvstodia---which is heavily based on Spain---and the people who live there are hardcore zealots for their religion. Their religion is fictional but it's so obviously based on Catholicism that you'd have to be stupid not to see it. Before the beginning of the game's story, a supernatural event called the Grievous Miracle fell upon Cvstodia and transformed the people who live there into monsters based on their religious guilt and their desire for punishment and pain. You play as a former holy knight known only as The Penitent One who decides he's had enough of the Grievous Miracle's shit and sets out to find a way to end it once and for all, which puts him at odds against a country full of twisted, tortured people who want the miracle to continue at all costs because they see their own pain and suffering as penance for their sins. So yeah, pretty fucked up premise and totally up my alley. Most of the enemies you fight in the game are either hooked up to some kind of torture device, self-flagellating, or so malformed that every second they continue to exist looks like agony. This is also hands down the goriest Metroidvania I've ever played. The Penitent One has all kinds of gruesome deathblows that go from decapitation to disembowelment, with plenty of pixelated blood and guts to spare. It might come across as juvenile in another game, but in this one it fits the bleak and violent tone of the setting perfectly. Remember the Crusades? The Spanish themed soundtrack is also fantastic. A while back I actually would have had quite a few complaints about Blasphemous. A bad map system, not enough checkpoints or warp points, bad voice acting, and some game breaking bugs were all problems back at release. However, they have recently put out a free update that not only fixes pretty much all of these problems and more, but also adds a bunch of new game+ content. It also redubbed some of the English voices and even added a Spanish voice acting option. I haven't listened to the new English recordings, but given the setting and tone of this game I immediately switched to the Spanish dub, which is terrific and fits the game perfectly. The only real complaint I have about the game's current state is something that is inherent to its design. It has a lot of Prince of Persiaesque instant death spike pits. There are more shortcuts in the game after the update so you don't have to backtrack as much as you used to if you fall on some spikes, but boy does it still suck when one missed jump can set you back on 10 to 20 minutes of progress. I easily died to the spikes more than anything else in the game, including bosses. I still recommend Blasphemous, but that's something to keep in mind. Oh yeah, one other thing I really liked is that this is a Soulslike that gives you a more reasonable punishment for dying. As much as I enjoy Bloodborne and Nioh, losing all of your accumulated exp when you die really sucks and can lead to way too much frustration. When you die in Blasphemous, you get to keep your exp but your magic bar's maximum cap is reduced and you earn future exp at a slower rate until you can return to your grave to claim your "guilt". The more you die, the more guilt you have to retrieve. If you end up with too many graves to manage, you can get rid of them all by either defeating the area boss or finding certain statues spread through the map and paying them a fee with your exp to remove them. This feels way more fair than how most Soulslike games punish death.

I mean, both I guess.

I'm interested in that Super Mario Bros Royale, but why in god's name are they making it so you can only play it until March? That makes no sense to me. Finally Switch Online is getting good exclusive content and they are only keeping it for six months? WHY?

Can people stop doing this shit. It's not like human eyes are equipped with a Watch Dogsesque criminal history scanner. It shouldn't even be part of the conversation.

Shit, Black Panther died of colon cancer. I had no idea he was even sick.

Day one buy. DAY ONE BUY!

I think Aggretsuko season 3 actually made me depressed. God damn, a Sanrio anime about anthropomorphic office workers isn't supposed to get this real.

The worst part is that Gotham Knights is another Destiny clone. I am so sick of this Destiny crap.

It does need more levels but it just came out so I'm gonna cut it a little slack. They've already added one new game type since they launched and I'm sure they'll be adding more on a regular basis. If it stays this popular we might be lucky enough to end up with 100 or more minigames when all is said and done. Speaking of Fall Guys, it looks a bunch of corporate brands are desperately trying to get their own Fall Guy skin in the game, including the likes of Wal-Mart. The developers decided to capitalize on this by holding an auction for the right to a branded skin. Whatever company or individual (but definitely company) has the highest bid gets to be promoted in the game and the developers will give the proceeds to charity. Pretty admirable move if you ask me.

Also, since Apple is throwing Epic off the whole app store and terminating their licenses, that could potentially jeopardize anyone who made a game using the unreal engine. Lots and lots of small developers who did not want to be drawn into this fight, and I must reiterate that this is because Epic was not satisfied with the billions of dollars they were already making. They wanted more billions. Anyone who believes that Tim Sweeney is doing this for your benefit is completely naive. So fuck Apple, fuck Epic, and fuck Fortnite.

Also this lawsuit seems like a foregone conclusion. Epic willingly and knowingly broke the terms of their agreements with these companies in order to...what? Force a lower rate? Force them to open up their platforms? Either way, they agreed to give Apple 30%, made billions off of it, and only now have decided they don't want to do it anymore. As much as I hate Apple, they're well within their rights to take down the app. But hey, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe the actual lawyer here has some insight?

Yeah, I've heard about it. Gosh I just don't know who to root for because I care about both sides so much.

Ghost of Tsushima 4 player co-op mode!

I have my reservations about Harris as a person but purely from a campaigning standpoint I have to admit she was a pretty shrewd pick. Trump, being Trump, is not going to be able to hit back on her without looking like a huge racist or sexist because he has never heard of subtlety. Which, I mean, he is, but apparently there are still people in this country who haven't made up their minds on that yet for some reason.

No wonder it looked so half-assed. They're gonna have to pull a seriously huge rabbit out of their hat to salvage this game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they planned to launch with Halo in November but the disastrous reception forced them to push it back.

Damn I should look there next time I need to renew.

Yeah I think that's a fairly safe bet.

I downloaded Fall Guys on Playstation Plus (it's also on steam for $20) and played it last night with a couple of friends. It's a battle royale—no! Wait! Come back! I swear it's different this time! This is a battle royale in the style of a physical challenge game show like Ninja Warrior or Takeshi's Castle. The game has a pretty low skill ceiling and all you really have to do is run, jump, and occasionally grab things, but the sheer chaos in competing in events with so many other people can make for a pretty hilarious spectacle. One of the games has you all trying to cram yourselves through a narrow doorway and we were all cracking up at the gigantic piles of bodies trying to climb over each other like the World War Z movie. This does mean that sometimes how well you do can come down to luck. With so many bodies pushing and bumping against each other there will inevitably be times when you get shoved right off a platform. However, this is still much easier to win than a game of Fortnite or PUBG. I managed to win an episode last night, even. I could have won three times but two of those times I made a couple of easily avoided literally very-last-second fuckups that cost me the crown. Oh well. Easy come, easy go. I think there are two big reasons that I enjoy this game when I hate every other BR game. 1) Each round in an episode is quick and lasts an average of two minutes each. It's not a shooter so there's no boring period where you are all just scrambling for a weapon and then waiting for something to happen. There's also no chance of you getting instantly eliminated at the start of the game, leaving you frustrated and feeling like you're wasting your time. No matter how bad you are at the game you will always be able to play through the entirety of at least the first round. If you do get eliminated then jumping into a new game takes mere seconds, server status notwithstanding. 2) This is really more of a party game than a skill-based esports title. While there is some on-the-fly strategy involved in how you approach a challenge, I doubt you'll see much metagaming here. We probably won't be getting any Ninjaesque streamers who dominate everyone else on a regular basis. I won't say your platforming skills don't matter but the chaotic nature of the game can help and hinder you in equal measure. Think of it like Mario Party without the board game bits. My only two big criticisms of the game are easily fixable. First, it needs more minigames, which I'm sure they're already working on. Second, there are a couple of team based games where you can end up losing in the last two seconds even when you were completely dominating the rest of the round. It's like timing a capture the flag game and then picking the winner based on whoever happened to be touching the flag when the clock ran out regardless of how long everyone else was holding the flag the rest of the time. I would prefer these games be scored based on time spent in the lead rather than all-or-nothing at the very end. Still a fun game with a ton of laughs, though. If you have PS+ or you just want something fun and silly to play with friends I'd give it a look.