Mister Jack

Honestly I just bought a big USB drive for like 20 bucks with the intention to replace it every few years.

Well this sucks. Redbox is no longer going to do game rentals. As far as I know they were the last place most people could go for that. Now there's really no good local options left for me. Glad I got Jedi Fallen Order from it when I had the chance.

Mega Man 11 Finally got a chance to play this and it's pretty good! Capcom's redemption arc is going great. There's not a whole lot to say about it, though. It's Mega Man, you know how Mega Man works. The new double gear system lets you power up super attacks or slow down time, which is cool, but 90% of the time you'll be using the speed gear over the power gear because it's just much more useful. If you slow down time and then unload your mega buster as fast as you can next to an enemy it's usually just as good if not better than powering up your normal shots. Anyway, the graphics are charming and a nice evolution for the franchise. I was getting tired of the 8-bit retro look and I had been wanting to see something new and modern so I'm pleased with what they came up with. I found the game surprisingly hard, too. I don't know if I'm just rusty or if they went out of this way to make this game more difficult but I had to use way more energy tanks than I usually do in the other games. Maybe on repeat playthroughs I'll get used to it. That's kinda how these games work, I suppose. If I have one criticism it's that it's a bit light on content. There's a few challenge modes, a time attack mode, and a boss rush, but that's about it. Considering the asking price for this game they could at least give you another playable character like several of the other games did. I was hoping to unlock a Roll Mode when I beat it but that never happened. I got this game for free though so I'm not going to complain too much. Oh, and the music wasn't very memorable in my opinion, but your mileage may vary. Still, if you like Mega Man then I'm sure you'll like this one just fine.

Days Gone It's fine. Yeah. It's alright. I enjoyed my time with this game, but I still have to address the elephant in the room and admit that it doesn't have an original bone in its body. It's an open world zombie game and just from that phrase you probably know exactly what you'll be getting here. You got your enemy camps that have to be cleared out to unlock fast travel points. You got your stealth sections with tall grass. You got your cover shooting, your crafting, your bounty hunting missions, your fetch quests, your skill trees, your survival vision, and your wild game hunting. About the only gameplay cliches that are (thankfully) absent are escort missions and climbing radio towers since you can't actually jump. Sounds pretty awful, right? Well, not really. Yes, it's totally unoriginal but everything that's here works well enough. If I had to sum it up, I'd say it's like if Sony made an Ubisoft game. It's got a bunch of the same crap that they do, but said stuff still works a little better than you'd usually see from Ubi. You don't get completely overwhelmed with shit to do as if Jackson Pollock splattered icons all over the map. There are collectibles and side content, sure, but the distractions are kept to a much more reasonable degree. The stealth works okay. At the very least I never had any moments where I was yelling "How did that guy see me?!" The shooting is adequate, although I had to fiddle with the settings for a while to get it just right. I will also say that I like that they let you use the dualshock's gyro to make fine adjustments to your aiming. This isn't the first game to do that, but I think it's the best use of the DS4's motion controls so I always appreciate it when it's available. Also, this is a minor detail but one thing that really helps reduce the tedium is that when there's a bunch of crafting materials lying together in the same place you only have to hit the button once and Deacon will pick up everything that's in the immediate area. Like I said, this has all been done before but it's done slightly better here than what I've seen from the likes of most Ubi games. It was fun enough for me to keep playing until the end, at least. Weirdly enough, I think the thing I enjoyed the most was upgrading and customizing my bike since the motorcycle is such a huge part of the game. It's the only vehicle you get so you need to take good care of it. Driving recklessly will render it inoperable until you either repair it with your precious scrap metal or you pay a mechanic to fix it, which you don't want to do too often because camp credits are not always easy to earn and you want to be spending them on new guns or bike upgrades. You also have to keep it filled up with gas, which is one of my biggest gripes about the game. You can upgrade your gas tank to get more miles out of it, but until you're near the end of the game you'll be running out of gas probably every fifteen to twenty minutes. This is absolutely ridiculous and I never understand why games like this feel the need to enforce realism by giving you limited gas but then make it run out unrealistically fast. You can't even fast travel unless you have sufficient gas, and until you have the best gas tank available you'll never have enough fuel to travel from one side of the map to the other so you'll probably fast travel to a checkpoint that's hopefully not crawling with enemies, find a fuel can, fill up your tank, and then fast travel to your actual destination. It's a pain, but you have to keep on top of it because believe me, you do NOT want to walk in this game. Not only will it take forever to get anywhere but it will also make you an easy target for freakers. Ah yes, "freakers." Hey, game developers? Can we stop making up cutesy names like we're being clever and just call them zombies? Or you can call them infected if you want to insist they're not actually undead. Anyway, stupid name aside, this is the one aspect where the game kinda stands apart. You might remember E3 trailers showing Deacon being chased by literally hundreds of freaks and it was no exaggeration because this can and will happen and it's downright intense. This isn't the first game to have huge zombie hordes, sure. Dead Rising did the same thing, but the thing about Dead Rising was that unless you got close to a zombie, they mostly shuffled around oblivious to your presence. Here? If one freak in a horde notices you then brother you better believe that they're all gonna notice you and they're gonna make a beeline straight for you like their asses are on fire. These guys are extremely aggressive and you have absolutely no hope of taking them head on when they're in a large group so you have to be smart about it. Set traps. Use terrain and barricades to slow them down. Run through tight spaces so they have to cram together and make themselves vulnerable to explosives. These moments are where the game is at its best and it's the one thing I can say you won't really find anywhere else. The freaks all kinda look the same, unfortunately, but I'm going to assume it was a necessary trade-off to get groups this large to work in the first place so I'll give it a pass. The freaks also have really good hearing and prolonged gun battles with other humans run the risk of drawing hordes to your location, especially at night, so you'll probably get into the habit of relying on stealth whenever you can or at least carrying a silencer around with you as much as possible. On the plus side, you can also manipulate the freaks into taking out enemy camps for you, which is always pretty satisfying whenever you're lucky enough to pull it off. The story is serviceable. It's not exceptional, but it wasn't like Far Cry or Ghost Recon where I spent the whole time thinking "I don't care what happens to these people." I cared at least a little. Deacon is an okay protagonist. He's definitely not going to be the next icon like Kratos or Nathan Drake, but at least he isn't a cardboard cutout. He has a defined personality and a clear character arc. He and Boozer (his fellow biker and best friend) act like a couple of assholes for a while, but they do go through development and by the end they both become much more sympathetic. Of course, that never stops Deacon from taking sadistic glee in slaughtering entire camps of marauders, but what can you do? Oh yeah, there were some technical problems here. Load times are long. Texture pop-in and frame drops were also an issue. I discovered that restarting for each session rather than putting the PS4 into rest mode with the game running helped to alleviate this, but it still shouldn't be happening in the first place. I also experienced one hard freeze that required a total reboot of the PS4. I was trying to send a screenshot when it happened so maybe it was a fluke, but it's worth mentioning. At least I can say I didn't run into many gameplay glitches. Either way, it's a bit rough around the edges on a base PS4. I don't know if playing on a Pro fixes these issues. This is going to make me sound like a company fanboy, but I think if this game had been an Xbox exclusive it would have been better received at launch. It's not a bad game. Like I said, it's unoriginal as hell but you can still have fun doing things you've already done before if they're done well enough and Days Gone is done well enough, certainly well enough for the twenty bucks I paid for it. However, it's a PS4 exclusive which means people will inevitably stack it up against the likes of games like God of War, Uncharted 4, and Spider-Man, which are far more impressive titles. If you like open world games and see this on sale though, I think you could reasonably enjoy it.

I know it's becoming a cliche but I never get tired of that trope in open-world games when you're traveling a long way on your horse or vehicle and then mood music starts playing in the background. I think this started with Red Dead Redemption but I'm not 100% sure. I've seen it a handful of other times now and it always just feels really cool and atmospheric.

Durability systems. Can we just get rid of them? They're not fun. In fact, by their very nature they're designed to not be fun. I get that games want to be "realistic" but then they often make your stuff break faster than they ever should in real life unless you're using a real piece of crap. It's even more ridiculous when you have to find gasoline for vehicles. I've never in my life ridden a vehicle that runs out of gas in 20 minutes from a full tank. Hell, even those shitty power wheels for kids will last for at least 45 minutes before they have to be recharged. The exception to this annoyance would be melee weapons you pick up off of the ground, I suppose. I admit those would probably break fairly quickly if you're using things like baseball bats or 2X4s so I am begrudgingly willing to accept that, but if you're using an actual sword or something and it breaks before you even finish a battle? Nah, to hell with that.

FUUUUCK I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SUCCUMB TO THE BLACK FRIDAY TEMPTATION IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS!

Whenever you buy a new printer, which hopefully won't have to be soon, I've been pretty happy with the Brother printer I'm using. It feels a lot more reliable than my old HP printer ever was. I've only had it for about a year but at least so far I've experienced no problems so maybe it's just a brand to keep in mind.

I'm curious. How do you, a native Mexican, feel about the possibility of military intervention from the US to deal with the cartel? Is part of you relieved that someone might finally do something about the problem or are you dreading the possibility that US involvement will only make it worse?

Part 4 is my personal favorite part but opinions on which part is the best are all over the place.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order This is (finally) what people have been asking for from EA: a single player story-driven Star Wars game with a big budget and a lot of cool Star Wars action. You'll probably hear criticism that this game rips off Uncharted and Dark Souls and...yeah, it totally does. Climbing, wall running, hanging from ledges, that's all there along with unlocking shortcuts, losing your XP when you die, and a much higher difficulty than you'd expect from a Star Wars game although I still wouldn't put it in the same league as an actual Souls game. The game borrows a lot of mechanics almost to the point of plagiarism, but that never really bothered me. If I like Uncharted and Dark Souls and another game gives me more of what I like without making it feel poorly implemented then I don't see the problem. Why would I complain about getting more of something I enjoy? The graphics look quite nice, but that's hardly even worth mentioning for an EA game. Of course it's going to look nice. That's obviously what they care about the most. What I wasn't expecting was plot and characters I could actually get invested in. This is a pretty good story by Star Wars standards, so I have to give Respawn credit for that. I grew very fond of BD-1, the little droid who rides around on your back. At first all he really does is scan the environment, but after you find a few upgrades he becomes a huge help not only in navigation but also in battle. He's loaded with personality, which is impressive for a character who communicates with beeps and boops. Honestly, I think I like him more than BB-8 from the movies. The gameplay is...well, Uncharted and Dark Souls. Have you played those games? Then you have a pretty good idea what to expect. Combat isn't exactly like Dark Souls, of course. You have force powers and some cool lightsaber tricks to get you through skirmishes, but this isn't a game where you can mow down dozens of stormtroopers without breaking a sweat. Aside from the cannon fodder troopers who shoot easily deflected blaster shots at you, the rest of the Empire's soldiers put up a decent fight and if you get surrounded by two or three of them you can find yourself dead in seconds if your reflexes aren't on point. Even a single elite trooper can feel more like a miniboss than a mook if you just try to hack away at it so you'd better learn to parry and utilize your force powers properly to make things easier on yourself. I like it like that, though. I much prefer nail-biting duels where timing is everything over mindless button mashing a la Dynasty Warriors. So am I saying I would recommend this game? Yes, but with a caveat. It's a bit on the short side. You get a small handful of planets to explore, although each one is pretty huge and new abilities will open up new areas on subsequent visits. Even with that in mind, however, I wager most people will probably finish it in about 12 to 15 hours. That's not insultingly brief, but I do hesitate to say it's worth a full sixty dollars when you can just rent it like I did and beat it in three or four days. There's not a whole lot of replay value that I can discern unless you want to try harder difficulties or find all the unlockable customization items, which are really just different paint jobs for your ship, BD-1, or the poncho you wear. Once you finish it once that will probably be enough for most people, which is fine but is it 60 dollars fine? I dunno. I personally would recommend waiting for a sale, but it's definitely worth playing one way or another. I should also mention that sometimes the game struggled a little on the technical front. On a few occasions there was an audio bug that messed up the lip syncing, sometimes the framerate dropped for a couple of seconds, and sometimes the seamless world wasn't quite so seamless and the whole game froze up for several seconds while it was loading the next area. There were also two occasions where I fell through the world, necessitating a reload. These things were infrequent, mind you. We're not dealing with Bethesda here and by no means am I saying this game shipped unfinished, but I do feel I should mention the glitches. To be fair, it looks like Respawn has been patching this game quite a bit recently so these things might not even be a problem for much longer. Even with my quibbles I have to congratulate Respawn for finally giving us a satisfying single player Star Wars game. In fact, EA should just let these guys handle Star Wars from now on and tell DICE to take a hike.

I got Jedi Fallen Order from Redbox. Remember game rentals? Anyway I'll give my full thoughts when I finish it but so far it's definitely the best Star Wars game since EA got their grubby hands on the license.

God damn it, I got some avocados in the mail recently as a gift and I am trying so hard to figure out when they're ripe so I can make guacamole but so far every single one I've tried has just not worked out. I tried cutting one open a few minutes ago because it was dark brown on the outside but the inside was hard as a fucking rock. My spoon couldn't even penetrate it to scoop it out and I ended up just throwing the whole thing away in disgust. They say you're supposed to squeeze it but I have never squeezed an actual ripe avocado so I have no frame of reference. I've wasted four of these damn things so far and it's so frustrating.

Oh, did the steam version come out? I've always wanted to try it but I just can't with those ASCII graphics.

Fuck Konami, man.

Death Stranding This is one of those games that's going to be divisive for years to come. It is very much a Kojima game and if you didn't like Metal Gear Solid this is most certainly not going to change your mind. I think people will either love it or hate it with not much room in between. I personally loved it, though that doesn't mean I was never frustrated with it, but more on that later. People looked at this game and thought "What do you DO? It's not just delivering cargo the whole time is it?" I can say that yes, with a few story-related exceptions, for the most part the whole game revolves around making deliveries. However, this isn't completely aimless like No Man's Sky. There is a fascinating world and storyline tied to the deliveries you're making, and I can honestly say I have never seen a post-apocalypse premise quite like this one. Each delivery you make for the main mission reveals a little bit more about this world and all those confusing and enigmatic elements from the trailers are gradually peeled back until it actually starts to make a weird kind of sense. I "get" this universe now after finishing the game, and that's oddly satisfying. Of course, if all you care about is the gameplay then whether or not you enjoy it is going to depend on your patience. The main gameplay loop is taking cargo from Point A to Point B. However, you often have a lot to contend with. Your cargo and all your supplies take up visible space on Sam's body, and if you weigh him down too much in one area it's going to affect his movement so you want to try to distribute the weight of what you carry evenly between his back, his shoulders, and his hip straps. There is an auto-optimize button to streamline this, but sometimes even then you will still want to manually rearrange certain items. Once you've got your cargo all sorted out you still have to worry about rough terrain, raider camps, bad weather, and invisible monsters called BTs that can seriously ruin your day and your cargo if they catch you. You have a shoulder mounted device that can help point out where and how far away the nearest BT is, but even with that you're going to run smack into one if you act recklessly. It does not pay to be rash in this game, because losing your balance or taking a hit will usually result in a piece of cargo flying off of you. While you can usually recover it, you will often be in situations where it's better to just run for your life and give up whatever you dropped as lost. The neatest thing about this game is the online features. Kojima boasted that he was making a new genre of game. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I will say what he did with the asynchronous multiplayer is really neat. You know how in Dark Souls people can leave behind messages to help or warn other players? Picture that, only people can also leave behind actual structures and tools for people to use. I was frequently relieved to find that some kind soul had built a bridge or left a ladder behind in a place where it really helped me out, and I know for a fact my structures helped out others because the game is quite enthusiastic about letting you know when someone uses your stuff. You can reward these helpful players by giving them likes with the touchpad. Unlike real life, likes actually do something here by helping you level up faster and also making it easier for you to discover other players' structures. If a structure requires certain items to build or upgrade, multiple players can also chip in materials to help it along. If a player ends up losing a piece of cargo, it gets left behind for other players to pick up. If it's a supply item then you can use it yourself, but if it's a delivery item you can finish the delivery yourself or stash it in a locker for someone else to grab. Either way, multiple hands helping a delivery reach its destination means more likes for everybody who contributed to the effort. Oh yeah, and players can also donate unneeded items to shared lockers that other players can access, which gives you extra likes for your generosity. While it is possible to play this game offline in the sense that it won't lock you out if you're not connected, trust me when I say that you don't want to do that. This game is very much meant to be played with everyone working together and helping each other out. A lot of people say they couldn't get through this game and I kind of understand it. It doesn't really open up until chapter 3. Until then you're pretty helpless. You have no vehicles, no real self-defense options, and no better way to do all your deliveries than just hoofing it the entire way. You eventually get all these things, but the beginning of the game is just a lot of walking and climbing without much else going on to keep it interesting. Even after you get all these things, if delivering cargo over treacherous terrain and through hostile territory doesn't sound like something you can have fun with then Death Standing probably isn't for you. It's a very well-made game and technically astounding, but they definitely didn't go into this trying to make a big, crowd-pleasing game that would appeal to everyone. You have to be able to appreciate a slow burn to get much out of this. Oh, and the actors give some fantastic performances too. I usually hate when people add big name celebrities as voice actors or mocap actors just to cash in on their name and then the performances they give are underwhelming because they either didn't take it seriously or because video game roles are simply outside of their skill set, but these people really gave it their all. If you're going to insist on having big name actors for your video game, this is how you do it.

Well the game has been datamined and it looks like most of the returning Pokemon are using the exact same models as they used in the last 3DS game. People found this out by comparing wireframe data. No wonder the game looks so terrible from a graphical standpoint. I was honestly hoping that the first proper console game in the series would be a revolutionary upgrade that gets me back into the franchise since I haven't finished a Pokemon game since the Game Boy days, but this kind of laziness is a pretty clear indication of where the series is headed so unless something changes drastically I think I'm out for good.

Wow, they actually listened to the criticism and gave people what they wanted. I'm impressed, Paramount. Good work.

You mean when they change the names of things based on copyrighted musical references?

I haven't been able to play more than 3-4 hours so far. I can kinda see why some people wouldn't like it, especially if they're expecting something like Metal Gear. This is a game that's got a very slow and deliberate pace so far and impatient types will want to just hurry up and get to the next mission. I'm enjoying it, though. I don't mind stopping to smell the flowers.

Time to experience the thrilling life of a post-apocalyptic Amazon delivery boy.

I didn't even think to ask, are you watching it in English or Japanese? Both shows are fine and I'm usually not a dub vs sub purist but this is one of those cases where it is SO much more enjoyable in Japanese just because of all the hilarious Engrish.

You haven't watched Part 5 yet? Shit, man, it finished a while back. You don't even have to wait for new episodes anymore. At least watch the torture dance!