DoctorEncore

10 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Some day I'll get to it. And, uh, all of these...

Man, the world building and lore are so good in the games, I'd wager the books are amazing. Honestly, if you're just looking at The Witcher from a superficial standpoint, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a generic fantasy world. It's all the amazing details that come out about the different species, monsters, history, and politics that make it feel fantastical, yet lived-in. What CDPR accomplished with the series (and particularly 3) is really a remarkable feat.

I don't think it really made up for the extra money I spent, but it did give me access to the original NES Metroid in a convenient package which led me to actually beating it.

Armello is a really cool strategy game on PC that I never hear anyone talk about. It reviewed well, but seems to have flown under the radar. Highly recommended if you like tabletop board games and/or card games.

The Witcher 3 is complete! Finally finished my first game of the year. This has been in the backlog since release (2015!) so it feels great to knock it off the list. It's an absolutely masterclass in open world design and I loved nearly every minute of it. The story and world are just fantastic and the game as a whole is a huge step up from the first two games. I still think combat is on the weak side although I do appreciate that there is some strategy to how you approach different enemy types. Overall, it's a 9/10 game for me and one of the best open world games I've ever played. I'll continue on with the DLC at a more leisurely pace. I've heard it is as good, or possibly better, than the main game.

I'm still chugging away at FFX and hope for that to be my next big completion. Also looking at a whole bunch of other stuff that's been released in the last couple years. Not sure if I'm going to focus on the backlog list or not, but there are a lot of cool releases this year that may draw my attention away (Zelda, Starfield, Redfall, Star Wars, etc).

I just watched Alex Garland's newest movie, Men. On release it was quite divisive and I can see why. I think Garland is one of the most interesting writer/directors working right now and he's put in some amazing work on things like 28 Days Later, Dredd, Ex Machina, and Annihilation. He has been skewing more and more towards experimental, avant-garde stuff as his career has progressed and this one certainly takes the cake.

I'll immediately start by saying that Men is an A24 film through and through. If you're familiar with their output as a studio and you read the synopsis for this movie, you can probably imagine much of what is to come. As the title suggests, the movie is an exploration of misogyny told through the eyes of a woman fleeing a recent tragedy in her life. There's not much in the way of plot, so the movie depends on its relatively on-the-nose symbolism and themes to get viewers through. As always, Garland presents a beautifully framed film where the scenery acts as a character and pulls your attention where it's needed. There is a general sense of dread pervading nearly every shot; the uneasiness of the main character is palpable and almost entirely derived from the fact that she is a woman who dares to venture out alone. How much of her danger is projection versus reality is up for debate and central to the core of the movie. Although the plot is a bit of mixed bag, the script is quite good and Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear are wonderful; I'd love to see them together in a more interesting movie.

Overall, this is Garland's weakest film. The symbolism is extremely heavy-handed, particularly the final twenty minutes, to the point that it becomes boring. The film wraps up with an excessive amount of body horror and gore which comes off as silly rather than exciting. I'm sure Garland was trying to illustrate how repetitive and overwhelming this trauma can be, but there is a fine line between making a point and belaboring it. As is typical with these arthouse movies, it's a bit of a slog and the conclusion is left open for interpretation. It's almost worth a watch just to see the two leads chewing the scenery, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many who'd enjoy this film. If you're an A24 and Garland devotee, you're probably better off rewatching Annihilation which plays with its themes in a much more interesting and visually arresting way.

2/5

9/10. I'm going to ignore your descriptions for ratings and rate as if the game was brand new since the experience now is nothing like on launch. One of the only games to nail that amazing feeling of movement and gunplay in a sic-fi setting that Halo revolutionized. Also one of the first games to do live-service really, really well. It was tons of fun with friends with a great loot system. Can't comment on how it evolved or how the sequel plays, but I had a blast with this one for 6 months or so after launch.

On 3/20/2023 at 7:29 PM, avatar! said:

Thrilled to have found this at an affordable (far from cheap, but very fair) price!! Who's a fan?

 

 

 

Very cool! I think I actually prefer the movie, but I enjoyed reading it for the first time last year.

I doubt it. It sold poorly compared to prior systems and competitors, cost them precious third party support, and put them behind technologically. It had no unique features and actually required significant additional hardware to even present the illusion that it was a competent machine. While there were minor successes such as transitioning important franchises to 3D, it was in many ways their first major mistake as a videogame company and a sign of future hubris that would continue to plague the company for many years.

Finally got around to checking out Everything Everywhere All At Once and I loved it. It's so incredibly rare to see a film that successfully blends action, comedy, and drama like this. Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh are fantastic and earned their Oscars. Jamie Lee Curtis is fine, but her Oscar was clearly a career recognition award rather than due to her performance here.

My only real criticisms are the overly long final act and the recycling of the same jokes towards the end (if you've seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about). Overall, it's a fantastic film deserving of all the praise. It's uplifting to see something so unique without all the usual Oscar-bait winning the big awards.

6/10. It's okay, but nothing I'd go back to for a replay. I've never been a fan of the 3D Mario games and this didn't change my mind. I'd take any of the older 2D games over this one just about any day.

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Parasite and Shape of Water both straddle the line.  Artsy genre flicks.

1 hour ago, fox said:

I was going to say Parasite isn’t an art house flick at all.  Shape of Water is pretty mainstream as well.

It’s like anything that doesn’t have capes or blue people is too indie for normies.  

Shape of Water is so damn good. Guillermo del Toro doesn't get included in best director conversations nearly enough considering his body of work. An amazing artist who excels in every genre he attempts. Even his misfires are a sight to behold (Crimson Peak comes to mind). I'd gladly take him over Nolan, Tarantino, and countless other contemporaries.

Still working on The Witcher 3. I am astounded at the amount of quality content in this game. The main storyline is fantastic, but even the optional stuff is heads and shoulders above the story content in most open world games. It's crazy that so many of the side quests lead on huge quest lines with new characters, interesting set pieces, and unique bosses and enemies. I'm loving playing it and could actually see going back every few months after I finish just to explore. I still think the combat is the weak point of the game, but at least it allows for some interesting strategy based on monster type, time of day, weather, and other variables.

I think I'll be stuck on this one for quite a while even though there is a ton of other new stuff I'd like to play (Pentiment, Hi Fi Rush, Wo Long, etc).

9/10. I don't remember too much except that it was awesome. Can't wait to rewatch with my kids.

9 hours ago, avatar! said:

I played all the Witcher games (including the first one on PC). I have to say in my mind, the main plot of Witcher 3 is good. However, it's not as good as Witcher 2 nor the original in my opinion. Hearts of Stone on the other hand, is arguably a masterpiece. The second DLC is also superb. So in short, the DLCs are the best part of Witcher 3  

I enjoyed the first two games, but I'm finding this one to be the most complete package by far. The story in 2 was pretty strong, but the pacing was really bad and the combat was actually a step down from the first game. I think they made a huge mistake by forcing you to choose between two major areas with no way to see the other one without a second playthrough. Most people who play a game don't finish it once, let alone twice. Also, the final chapter was so constrained and full of exposition that it was pretty clear they ran out of time and money.

I just feel like 3 (so far) absolutely nails the pacing. Even if you completely remove all the side content, the main plot flows nicely and you don't really need to take a break from it. The rest of the world is great and exploring is fun, but I'm just blown away by how good the main story is. I've heard from some other people that the DLC is amazing so I'm pretty excited for that too.

I don't think it will crack my list of top 3 open world games of all-time, but it's probably number one when it comes to pure storytelling.

Still whittling away at The Witcher 3. I'm currently in Novigrad (the second major set of quests). The game is fantastic and I really like the story content. I'm focusing on the mainline stuff, important character side quests, Witcher contracts, and Treasure Hunts. I'm sure I'm missing out on a ton of good additional stuff, but I just don't have time in my life to 100% a massive game like this. I want to play other games too! I'm guessing the ending map will look a lot like when I played Ghost of Tsushima, that is to say, about 50% filled in, which is totally fine for me.

I think a lot of people just group it with the original Gameboy since it didn't add a ton of extra features beyond color.

16 hours ago, twiztor said:

Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
for a 1st gen 3d platformer, this is a very innovative and engaging game. it was fun to play and exciting to see how it pushed the ps1 to its limits.
that being said, this game is fucking WAY harder than i expected. based on its reputation and de facto spot as Sony's console representative, i expected a straightforward 3d platformer. I WAS WRONG. this is challenging in a lot of ways reminiscent of the NES. plenty of trial-and-error, leaps of faith  and straight up aggregation await you. play to win at your own risk. the saving/password system is amongst the worst i've experienced.  i'm not ashamed to admit that i beat every level legitimately, but used passwords i found online to bypass the bullshit saving mechanism.
has Crash become an icon of ps1 gaming? yes! but any gamer who can beat this game has earned his or her accolades as well.

I've been seeing this repeated a lot lately, but I had this at launch with my PS1 and I don't remember the game being particularly hard. Now I'm second guessing whether I actually beat it or just played some fun levels and called it quits. I'll have to circle back around some day.

10 hours ago, Brickman said:

Wario World for the GC finished. Absolutely loved this game and is probably my favourite Wario game I’ve played. 

A great variety of levels, each level had a unique boss and heaps of collectibles if you want to go for 100%. Not really much I can fault with this game really. 

I have essentially never heard anyone say anything about this game. Awesome to hear that's it's pretty darn good. Someday I'll collect and tackle the GC library.

As for me, I've just been chugging along on The Witcher 3. It really is a remarkable game and I completely understand the hype. While the story is great, the actual gameplay and combat isn't particularly interesting. Yet it just feels right and the game is definitely more than the sum of its parts. It's just so fun to play and the difficulty balance is perfect. You can run around dominating everything and then suddenly get ripped apart by wolves because you decided to rush in without preparation. Witcher 1 and 2 were both decent, but this is clearly the culmination of everything learned making those games.

On the watch list for sure, but it's gonna be a while.

11 hours ago, Foxhack said:

TL;DR - I'm selling off my collection to fund a bunch of important life things, and one of my items is a rather... unusual prototype that I want to sell. I'm guessing the item might sell for at least one grand on eBay, but it could potentially go much higher than that.

I have never sold any item for more than uh, 500 bucks, so I'm wondering how safe it would be to sell an item that's so valuable on eBay. Or would it be a better idea to sell this privately?

(And before anyone asks, yes, the item has been dumped and preserved. It's not public, but I have the files.)

Buying and selling on eBay is actually exceptionally safe and my preferred method for anything under $10,000. If you take appropriate precautions (detailed pictures and description, shipping insurance, appropriate documentation, detailed messaging, secure payment types, etc), the chance of being victimized is incredibly low. I've bought and sold many gaming items in the low thousands range and have never had a problem. The few times I've had issues, I've never lost any money.

With any other type of marketplace or personal sale, you take on all the risk and expose yourself to all sorts of scams and exploits. 

Now that we've exited the honeymoon period, I would only buy coins with actual utility. Bitcoin's value remains questionable as its only function is as a store of value. At least things like Solana and BNB have some use as marketplace tokens. Personally, I like Orion Protocol for its ability to facilitate decentralized secure cross-chain trading, something that will become incredibly important at some point.

I doubt any of these tokens will return to previous highs. I think it's more likely some new tokens will become main players.

What percentage of people could tell you, without looking it up, which SMA game correlates to which original game? I suspect that number is incredibly low. At least the FF progression makes sense from a market perspective and was corrected later on.

Can't comment on the N64 version, but WWF Warzone for the PS1 was an absolute blast. For me, it's the pinnacle of wrestling games and I doubt I'll ever play another. I must've played through that game a hundred times with every premade character and tons of created ones as well.

On 2/14/2023 at 11:13 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

#100: Sleep Token - The Summoning

 

 

The newest entry on this list.  It will no doubt climb with time.  But for now I'm putting it here while it's still fresh and it's overall impact on me is still fluid.

I love the mix of heavy and melancholic beauty.  I love the funky breakdown.  I love the vocal effects.  I love the atmosphere.  And I love how this song put this group on my radar, because I've jumped into everything they've done since.  These guys are gonna be huge.

Pretty good.

On 2/15/2023 at 3:54 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

#99: Mercenary - The Hours that Remain

The title track off the unheralded Danes' fourth album, I don't quite know how to describe the sound.  Power metal?  Melodic death metal?  Progressive?  Thrash?  All of the above?

Unfortunately they never did end up breaking through to larger acclaim, and have endured a semi-hiatus for the last decade.

Even better. Like the videogamey intro.

On 2/16/2023 at 11:46 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

#98: Shining - Låt Oss Ta Allt Från Varandra

Well, here we go.  The most "evil" artist on the list.  I thought about dumping it, but that didn't seem very genuine, as the number of listens I have speak for themselves.

One trend that will emerge is that with black metal I really need things to be "different" in order for the music to resonate with me.  Which is why the genre will have less than a dozen appearances on this list, and why you won't see early Mayhem or Bathory, or anything like that.

Well, with a few tiny exceptions.

This song definitely won't be for everyone.  And you have to be able to look past just how big of detestable shitbag Kvarfort is.  But if you can power through, you'll find one of the very best black metal albums of the 2000s.

Decent, but not doing it for me.

On 2/17/2023 at 11:47 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

#97: Sepultura - Roots Bloody Roots

Any thrash purists might see this as a controversial call.  Arise or Chaos A.D. are generally considered the definitive works.  Thrash classics.  I don't see i.  I just hear what sounds like Slayer or Testament B-sides.

Roots, on the other hand, brought a unique identity to the table.  This album doesn't sound like anything else out there, and unfortunately it would remain that way with Max Cavalera leaving the band shortly afterwards, leaving it to kinda stand alone in the discography. And nothing the band has done since has been especially noteworthy, with the band's star remaining greatly diminished in the ensuing decades.  When I saw these guys around 2014, it was a tiny bar show, and all I could think about was how far the mighty had fallen.

Still, this is the one album that will always stay in my rotation.

Again, not something that is gonna appeal to everyone.

No thanks. I have never been into this more standard metal style.

15 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Oh yeah it’ll be a Super Mario 3D all stars or tiny troopers. I just wanted to find one because I have fuck all to do at work right now so I need a distraction during the day lol

I have been seriously tempted to buy it since Metroid Prime is one of my all-time favorite games (top ten for sure), but I'm playing The Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy X and need to focus my energies. Must be disciplined!