Whitestripes09

Resident Evil 8

Resident Evil finally felt weird and scary again with 7. Then RE8 shits all over this idea. I think my biggest issue is that they really lean into the gameplay being more action oriented and an homage to RE4, but the first person perspective is limiting in making it come out that way.

Dwarf Fortress

I might catch flack for this, but after finally playing the long awaited steam release of this game... I'm not really impressed? People have such wild stories of this game and it's supposed to be an incredibly difficult management game, yet I've done two worlds that have ended in similar situations where resources are plentiful. I feel like I can just click play and watch the simulation unfold, but nothing really happens? I'm not sure if some mechanics are broken or working as intended. I guess I'm supposed to dig deeper, but there's no real incentive to if nothing bad is happening. It feels like Rim World perfected this concept of game.

The Outer Worlds

It wasn't super highly reviewed, but this might be one of the most boring game I've ever played. It's not so much the world they've made, but the gameplay just becomes way too easy too fast. It always comes with high recommendations, especially for Fallout New Vegas fans. It plays like a way more simplified version of NV and just lacks the charm of the Fallout IP.

Vampire Survivors

This has the same appeal of that cookie clicker game many years ago on the web browser. There's no denying that it's a well thought out idea and for so cheap. It's kind of like a bag of chips though, except... the bag never ends and you have a monkey on your back called addiction that doesn't let you stop consuming.

Battle royales and more specifically, Fortnite, killed the gaming industry. They spoiled us with non-stop updates and a cash shop that people are more than happy to spend money on because it has their favorite media icons featured in it. No other company seems willing to provide a similar experience or has since. It's stagnated any development forward in gaming because many companies seem to want to bank on name recognition (Halo Infinite and CoD "reboots" of Modern Warfare) even more than risking a new IP that can't compete with a live service like Fortnite.

What's funny is I feel that Trigger treated the world (or fans I should say) of Cyberpunk with more care and respect than CDPR did with their own game on launch. The anime was a surprising fun watch with a good cast of characters.

CDPR has a rebound story to tell with player counts going up and sure, they have fixed most of the technical issues of the game, but I think for me it still has a bad taste in my mouth that it took this long to get to this point with features still missing and probably will never see.

Purely looking at the game and its mechanics, what does Cyberpunk 2077 add to the genre of open world games? I would say it offers nothing new. It plays like a very mediocre FPS and besides the missions to do, there are no side activities to do in the open world. GTA V is a much more detailed world and offers more features. It's also about to be 10 years old and not even Rockstars latest game.

The only saving grace CDPR has going for them is they have an IP that people want to see more of.

I love Halloween. It's a real cozy holiday and time of year. We don't get a real traditional fall in Arizona, so Halloween is the only indication that it's supposed to be Fall. Also, it's probably the only real stress free holiday in my opinion and you don't need every single family member to attend it.

This country is in the toilet and the shit hasn't even been dropped yet. I don't know what else we can do except put our boots over the necks of those in power, but besides maybe a famine leading to collapse of civilization, I still don't see unity in US citizens collectively rising against any of this.

That is what is most disturbing to me. We may be on here expressing our feeling on the issue, but most of us are not going to do much except vote and the most brave us of may attend a peaceful rally, but I feel that won't be enough. We still have a midterm this year and then if we're still a free country, a presidential election in 2 years.

All I can hope is that I'm wrong and through some miracle democracy lives on in this country, but it feels like the odds are so against us as long as we're passive in this.

Arizona water is.... sketchy at best. Recently it was identified that Arizona city water had large amounts of contaminates in it for years. Air force bases in the past used to dump jet fuel and chemicals near residential water supplies. Same goes with Southern California since they actually use Arizona's water. Filtered or bottled for me.

Too sluggish and slow pace.

It's why I just can't get into Kingdom Come: Deliverance and why I didn't beat Metro: Exodus. Also the pacing is wild in those games. I feel like I barely completed a quest and suddenly it's been 4 hours later in real time.

It's not a bad show, but it's certainly not a good one either. It's entertaining and that makes the 12 year old Halo fan in me sad. I think there was crazy potential post-Halo 3 with Neil Blomkamp or Steven Spielberg to make something really special and instead, we get painfully average now.

There is so much material to Halo and across different media... that I get it must be hard to pick and choose which fans to appease. So going in this alternative universe direction is probably the safest option and allows for more creativity, but so far, the story based off Episode 1 and seeing what the trailer hints at, this feels like a disastrous mashup of story ideas from different games. I think that's a huge mistake and it's going to leave people scratching their heads as to why they didn't just do a TV show of Fall of Reach or Halo 1 if they're going to recycle content anyways.

Visually this looks awesome, but so do a lot of other movies/TV shows now days.

The Batman 5/5

This movie feels like the start of something special, much in the same way that Batman Begins kicked off the Nolan series. There is so much I appreciate in this movie. The biggest being that it doesn't treat the audience as stupid. There doesn't need to be unnatural conversations about exposition. You uncover the relationship between characters based off how they treat each other, and it never has to be blatantly explained to you. What a concept that modern Hollywood doesn't seem to grasp. The character growth in this movie is a whole fucking journey that is so poetically well done that it touched that part of my brain that gets an ASMR-like feeling when something is so perfectly well put together. Not only do they get Batman, but finally, someone gets the ancient mythology definition of what 'hero' means besides just 'the big bad must be defeated/redeemed.'

Kimi 3.5/5

I didn't think I was going to like this movie as I was watching it, but the ending did put a smile on my face seeing this character overcome everything that was thrown at them. It's very much a pandemic movie and commentary about the anxiety of reintegrating into society. It's also strangely, a thriller. Though, it doesn't really become a thriller until halfway through the movie and suddenly, it no longer feels like this pandemic movie that you were watching before. Though the situation does allow Zoe Kravit's to confront her past and progress as a character, the remix of these two ideas just didn't really work as well for me. Zoe Kravit did a really great job though and after watching Batman, she plays a much different character than Selena Kyle/Catwoman. It's an interesting movie that feels very low budget and just not quite there to be considered good.

The French Dispatch It'sAWesAndersonFilm/5

Wes Anderson's version of an Anthology film. It has his unique touch that many hate/love. It's very tongue and cheek as always. I found the first two 'films' to be captivating, while the last one felt like a fumble. I find his movies to be hard to describe. They just have that feeling to them that feels care-free and child-like, but can also be incredibly heartbreaking and real. The 70's French-Urban setting also really plays into this. While I found the setting and cinematography to be beautiful to look at, it's a dilapidated city that feels like it's one step away from being a tragedy. That in itself, is very Wes Anderson I feel. If you like his films, you won't find much different in this. It's what you expect from him. If you've never seen his films... well you're in for a weird trip.

This new season reminds me when of they first went back to the V6 with turbos. There was a lot of early speculation and then the next few years were hard development years for every team on the grid. This feels very similar where yes, on paper everything seems great, but there's a lot to improve on. It seems like they take eons to catch up to the car in front of them and then once they do, they don't have a whole lot of options of how to keep ahead. Red Bull - Honda has some pretty serious reliability issues as well. That must really suck for them after coming from such a high last year.

It also worries me that Ferrari is probably going to be the 1 dominant team this year. I think Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz deserve it. They've always been speculated to be championship material and they have the team/car for it this year. But having a sole dominating team makes for a pretty boring season if they pull away from the rest of the pack while everyone tries to troubleshoot their issues.

There's a whole season left and I'm sure the cars are only going to get better with time. I just hope the rest of the teams are able to do it so we can get some more exciting racing. Those 3 laps with Leclerc and Verstappen were the most exciting out of the whole race. Even then, Charles admitted to slowing on the straight, so he had a chance to recharge his battery to come out of the next corners faster and ahead of Verstappen. It's kind of mind boggling to me that Max let Charles do this multiple times to him at the risk of his tires/brakes for no real position gain and so early in the race. That dude has issues about being second place.