Mera'din

Yeah, 75% of the time, best case scenario is it becomes so weirdly unobtrusive that it's almost not there and you miss the feel of the original. Worst case it becomes a legitimate distraction (looking at you FFX). I legitimately bought the PS4 version of the FFX/X-2 collection after already having it on PS3 because it had the added feature of being able to switch back to the original music. Some have been good, and not everything I heard in the demo was like that (the opening music was great and the initial battle music was solid) but I think it's going to be a mixed bag. It bothers me most because they've already DONE orchestral releases of the music from the game before that sounded great. Why not use those? Why go overboard and do a NEW orchestral arrangement that ends up being less good? Seems like a waste of time, money and effort.

9.) Pony Island Man this got trippy. Was pretty interesting though. Went into it kind of knowing what to expect (Stanley Parable-esque mind-fuck game), but still got surprised a couple times. Mostly that 3rd "core" encounter is what got me a few times. That was some inspired shit right there. XD Don't even remember how I ended up with this game, but am considering checking out some of this guys other games at some point because this was an all around interesting experience.

Played through it a couple times now. Only real complaint is I'm not a huge fan of what they did with some of the music. It's almost over orchestrated at times and it loses some of it's impact (mostly the boss music and Shinra music). Hopefully not all of it is that severe. Really liked the combat and the "classic" mode was decent to though not exactly what I was expecting. Looking forward to it even more.

8.) Bioshock 2 Not sure how to feel about this game overall. It felt partly unnecessary, but had some really solid additions to the story, and some great scenes here and there. Liked the gameplay less overall (except the hacking which was a nice change, and some of the new passive abilities were cool as hell). The combat and the system for gathering ADAM were clunky and annoying though a lot of the time. Was expecting worse overall so was pleasantly surprised in the end. Not going for the platinum for this one. Definitely don't have the patience to do it again.

Not happening. XD Didn't actually do a whole lot since I worked the night before. Slept until like 3pm and spent the rest of the day not doing anything in particular. XD

Watched a bit of the full thing and was surprised to hear them say they're actually going to put it up on early access in a couple months. I never played the other ones but have been planning to get the collection for a while now so am in no hurry, but I wasn't expecting them to do that for a title like this. Figure the "real" release date will probably be around Christmas time if not early next year. It's looking good, but some of the animations were definitely a bit stiff and they talked about more races and stuff they will be putting in so there's probably still a bit of work to do.

Bunch of new stuff out about the game from PAX East I'm assuming. Opening Cinematic:

That sounds even worse. XD

Difficulty trophies don't stack? Ewww.

Really not a fan of that cowl. Looks awkward. Like a shitty version of what they did for Daredevil. >_>

I've been considering skipping 2 and going straight to Infinite. Haven't heard anything terribly impressive about it (not that I've heard anything particularly bad either) and I know it wasn't made by the same people that did the first one and Infinite.

MGS games are well into the realm of "Fuckin' NOPE." for me when it comes to trophy/platinum hunting.

7.) Bioshock Was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be overall. I bought this back on PS3 for like $15 but never got more than an hour or two into it. I'm not a fan of the "old" style of FPS games and at that time I hadn't played any FPS for like 5+ years so I couldn't get into it. Since I'm more used to the genre at this point with some stuff I played and with the collection being free on PS+ I decided to give it another go since I don't have anything specific to play until the end of March. Pretty much felt 'whatever' about it until near the end. Some good story twists that I wasn't expecting (surprisingly never had it spoiled over the years) and a solid ending increased my opinion of it quite a bit (not that there was anything wrong with it really). May actually play through again to see the other ending and clean up trophies since I got most of them in the one play through.

One good thing outside the TV show to come of this is apparently working on the show has jump started Hill and Rodriguez's desire to do more comics. They've always wanted to but never quite hammered out what to do for the story and always had conflicting work schedules, but now they have a plan in place for it. Interested in seeing what they do with it. I need to get a hold of the graphic novel myself sometime. My first encounter was via the amazing Audio Book/Drama they did of it.

FUCKING FINALLY. Been waiting for a show for this for years. Based on a comic series by Joe Hill. Not as intense as his normal stories/books, but was still a pretty solid story with some interestingly dark turns. I was worried this would never get off the ground. It had been attempted multiple times now and always fell through. In 2010, it was originally going to be a movie through Dimension, then a TV show through Dreamworks. Fox ordered a pilot, but declined it despite it being well received at Comic-con and tried to sell it off to others but had no buyers. In 2014 Universal was going to do a movie trilogy for it but it fell through again and finally in 2017, Hulu ordered a pilot but passed on it also and Netflix finally picked it up. Really hoping they don't fuck this up, though Netflix has done a good job so far with book adaptations that I've seen and the trailer gives me some hope.

The sound effect for the Head Key is definitely amazing/awful. I finished it last night and for about half of the series I was like 'WTF are they even doing!?' because of certain things they changed heavily, but it paid off by the end. They played it out really well and kept the same sort of twists from the original doing new things with it so I was still able to be surprised in places. Curious about what they'll do going forward because there are parts of the story that still need to be told, but they also completely finished the antagonist's storyline as it was in the comics so there's a weird disconnect that could be interesting going forward. The only part I feel like they didn't do as well as they could have was the build up of the 'echo' in the well. Overall, my biggest concern is it feels like they dumbed down a lot of the story and subplot from the original. There were a lot of really cool and complex story things going on in the background and/or past that have some heavy effects on the story that it feels like they abandoned for fear of not being able to wrap it up nicely at the end. It's hard to say though because the creators are heavily involved in the show so they may have shifted things around to throw people off. I hope so.

6.) She Remembered Caterpillars Puzzle game with cryptic, semi-depressing story. AKA 75% of indie titles I'm coming to realize. This one is relatively throw away. Decent puzzles, short, but story is peripheral at best, text only and so broken up between the stages it's even harder to keep track of than it needs to be. By the end I was more annoyed with it than anything and couldn't be bothered to care about what was or wasn't going on at that point. This style and tone of game was done much better by other titles such as 'Thomas Was Alone'.

Everything I've seen of him outside of the Twilight stuff (which is panned by most of the people that were in it along with everyone else) looks pretty solid so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Definitely tends to act in stuff I don't have any particular interest in, but he was in 'The King' on Netflix (based on the Shakespeare plays about Henry IV and Henry V ) as the Dauphine and his stuff in that was pretty good (and often hilarious). He's also going to be in that Tenet movie that Christopher Nolan is doing. Interested in seeing how it goes overall though I'll keep my expectations limited regardless since the DC films tend to be pretty mixed in quality. Here's his first scene in The King:

I've only had time to watch a couple episodes so far. Definitely some differences (including the name of the town), but I guess Joe Hill was completely involved in it so I can't really complain. He explicitly wanted to change the name of the town apparently for the show to honor another writer than influenced him (was originally Lovecraft and it was changed to Matheson). Not sure where the show leaves off, but the graphic novel did start a little lighter (outside of their fathers death) and slowly kind of descends it being more and more intense by the end.

5.) Steins; Gate Elite Barely a game, even as far as visual novels go, but still incredibly good. Best time travel story I think I've ever seen and doesn't shy away from trying to explain the (theoretical)science behind it. This particular version of the game basically just took the anime they did and turned that into the game so it was a lot more impressive looking than this style of game usually is. Probably spoiled by it now and will have trouble with the genre going forward. XD Working on getting the different endings/platinum now. One more to go. Hoping it explains the couple little story gripes I have with this one since it will be the "true" ending.

4.) Alan Wake's American Nightmare This felt like more DLC (not sure if it technically was or not) but it's a standalone release so I'm putting it separate. Saw a lot of bitching about the story in this, but I really enjoyed it. It is a fair departure from the original game tone wise (more pulpy, action-horror/dark comedy instead of isolationist, psychological thriller), and still doesn't exactly "finish" the story, but it provides a theoretical conclusion that gives a nice sense of closure if they never are able to do more with it without "finishing" the story. The villain was a lot of fun too and it gave the actor that plays Alan Wake a chance to really go wild and have fun with the role (the villain, called 'Mr. Scratch' is basically an evil Doppelganger of Alan himself). Thought it was a fun premise as well as the character is actually mentioned in the main game a couple times, but you never see him which means they probably had some sort of plan for this from the beginning. Combat was a lot cleaner but also a LOT easier since there is guns and ammo EVERYWHERE. I imagine it's more meaningful in the 'Arcade' portion of the game, but I have no interest in something like that as I just wanted the story. Overall this is probably a relatively weak title, especially as a standalone experience, but I had a lot of fun with the story and it added some interesting depth to the overall narrative from the original game. Really hope they can do something more with it in the long run. Control had quite a few references to the events from the series and built on some of the story for it so I'm hoping that means they still have plans going forward. Also learned that the song written for this game actually has a reference to Control in it which is some pretty crazy breadcrumb shit. XD

*blows dust off of topic* IS ANYONE WATCHING PICARD!? It's been fucking fantastic so far. Lots of solid nods and cameos to TNG (and eventually other series' ) without going overboard and is all around a solid story so far. 3rd episode came out today and this is probably the most interested I've been in Star Trek since I was like 15. They also very effectively make use of the normal timeline side of the event (Romulan Supernova) that caused the JJ Abrams movie timeline which I thought was a nice touch.

3.) Alan Wake When I originally got it in a Humble Bundle, it was something I had never intended to play and wrote it off. After playing Control though, and enjoying that as much as I did, I decided to take another look at Remedy's other games. I had always wanted to play Quantum Break, but when it first came out I could only get it on the Windows Store (or XBox) and noped right off of that one, but it's on Steam now. However, I already owned the Alan Wake games and those are tied more directly to the story for Control so figured I'd give it a go. Glad I did. Story was really solid, despite an iffy ending. The DLC episodes are where it really shines though IMO. Plan on playing the last part next to see if that resolves the story a little better. Gameplay was fine. Leaned a little more towards survival horror than I care for these days, but it's more of an action game hiding in a horror games shell so it ended up being more enjoyable than I thought it would be. These guys really know their way around a solid experience. Looking forward to playing some of their other stuff and seeing what else they can do going forward.

I love how people are so bitter and disillusioned with Blizzard that not only did they meta-bomb the game, they actually started giving positive reviews to the one game that had a lower score (at the time) than WC3:R to help the process along.

New trailer. There is definitely a lot more going on than in the original game. Looks like they moved up some flashback stuff too. This trailer also features all of the Shinra heads and shows that the Honeybee Inn IS in fact still in the game. I can't wait. XD