Review: Rebel Moon

Just watched half of #RebelMoon part one on NetFlix.

Synopsis: Nonwhite girlboss warchild leads band of mostly nonwhite misfits to fight off oppressive whites in order to save a weak community of white farmers that can't protect themselves without nonwhites.

#Spoilers - but I'll try not to too bad.

The Motherworld armada, run by Admiral Noble, lands a dropship on a peaceful Skandinavian-like farming planet to make a deal for food to feed their army.

They offer 3x going rate for the grain. The jarl (called Father) lies and says they don't have surpluss to provide.

This was the first problem I had with this movie, other than being blatantly antiwhite.

At a 3x compensation and a 9week grow season he could have easily given the military the 10k bushels they were asking for, kept 2k for replanting, and purchased food for the season until the next crop is ready, and probably had money left over.

That isn't what happens, and it doesn't go good, because now he's pissed off the admiral and they're just going to take their food with no compensation. And he leaves a squad of marines to ensure it happens.

Our hero first saves a white girl from being raped by a bunch of white soldiers, and her only help comes from a nonwhite soldier. After she easily kills 7 men without taking a single hit from apparently incompetent veterans (the nonwhite soldier is a private, so he's obviously being oppressed as well and not recognized for his nonwhite awesomeness) they decide now they have to fight off the entire Empire.

This is the second major problem I have with this story. Because without seeing the rest of the movie, or the second part, I'll tell you what I would do, were I that tyrannical military leader. I'd come back, ask for my grain, see they were going to fight instead, and return to space and glass the planet.

If I were going to be overrun and unable to take off in my dropship, I would radio to my destroyer in orbit to glass the planet.

So this "rebellion" gets nowhere and gets more people killed because the Father felt like lying to a tyrannical military leader was better than taking their money to save his little farming village.

Some of the action scenes were cool, but collecting the crew felt like a significantly less entertaining version of OnePiece (which was great, btw).

And the chinese lady with the lightsabers... she should have started with that. This was not a cool scene. It was eye rolling.

There's a griffin and a dryder... was this supposed to be Star Wars or D&D?

When she goes to get the amazing nonwhite general that stood up to the white king to fight off the oppressive Empire, that's where I turned it off. about 45 minutes through a 105 minute film, and won't finish it or bother with part ii.

#antiwhite #notsurprised #stillnothingworthwatching holding out hope for #Cavils40k

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Necromunda is pretty cool

 I played Necromunda: Hired Gun.

It was fun.

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Final Fantasy XIV

MMO's aren't very fun for me. Granted, I haven't played a lot of them: WoW, Anarchy Online, SWTOR. 

WoW was tons of go-fetch quests that steadily move you to do go-fetch quests in each area and on to the next area where you do more go-fetch quests. The lore is fantastic, but I didn't learn about the lore playing the MMO. I just did go-fetch quests and the occasional raid with my friends.

AO was incredibly boring. Run help island until you get to level 10. Run the subway until you get to level 29. Run the temple until you get to level 59. Run the cave until you get to... why am I playing this?

SWTOR had a lot of potential, I am a pretty big SW fan, but I didn't have any fun with the smuggler character I played. The Sith Inquisitor was much more fun. there's a great review on that one here: Worst MMO Ever? SW The Old Republic - JSH from a guy that had the same experience. Don't be fooled by the title, Worst MMO Ever is his series.

Final Fantasy XIV is what all those other games should have been. It's an incredible story that puts your character in the center of a major upheaval of politics, wars, rumors of wars, invasion of elder gods, dragons, corrupt popes... with side quests of brewing potions and knitting a hat.

The graphics are beautiful, the music is amazing, and there's plenty to do by yourself or in teams.

The ability to go back and play chapters you've previously completed with new players, and to be their guide, is very handy. And I love that you can switch classes just by switching gear, so only one toon is necessary. And if you want to change the way they look, you can buy the item that does that. Change from a stately Au Ra to a diminutive Lalafel, gender swap, hair styles, whatever.

Be sure to watch this WoW player's experience of FFXIV: Pint Tries FFXIV

If you're tired of WoW and looking for something else, give FFXIV a try.

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Where Did You Go, Burnadette?

It was funny, enjoyable, and interesting. My wife identified with Burnadette enough to be concerning. I liked it. I hear the book is totally different, and that's fine with me. Go see it with your wife.

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Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I am a huge fan of the AC series.

Well, except for Liberation. While the story was engaging and the gameplay elements that were added in were cool, the issues it had being ported from the Vita to PC were horrible and I couldn't finish it. My NPC escort would get hung up on ladders, trees, whatever. Oh, so annoying, especially after I had just finished III and Black Flag, which were fantastic.

I went on to Rogue, and felt right at home, back in the familiar controls of Black Flag and III, and loved seeing characters I was familiar with, people I knew and a story that blended so well from episode to episode in North America.

I finished Rogue the other day and instead of going on to Unity, I thought I'd give Odyssey a try.

Holy crap, culture shock.

The controls are different. The graphics are different. The gameplay is different.

And in this case, different is good.

It took a little time to get used to the new controls, because they are quite a bit different than III-Rogue. Perhaps a controller would be better, but I like the fine targeting control with the mouse.

Combat is actually a skill to master, and is much more difficult. In all of the previous AC games that I played i could easily take on a group of six to ten guards and tear them apart. Now three give me trouble.

As you progress in the story you unlock large scale battles. Pro tip: make sure you take the Warrior's Second Wind ability or there is no way to heal during battle. After dying about six times in that battle I had to reset my abilities to better suit large scale combat, which cost about 500dm (the currency, Drachma, which the game tells us was used up until Greece entered the EU in the early 2000's).

Act I of Odyssey is set in Greece long before the Assassins and Templars, some time after the Battle of Thermopylae showcased in the movie 300. You take on the role of a Spartan child grown up to be a mercenary, during the Peloponnesian War. The story is very interesting and engaging, and there are a lot of side quests to keep me interested in exploring the open world.

Upgrading the armor and weapons gets tedious, however, because you have to do so every 2 or 3 levels for your kit to remain relevant, and the numbers you're dealing with for damage are ridiculous. For example, I am spec'd Assassin. My hunter damage is 250-ish, my warrior damage is about 300, my assassin damage is over 5300! And even then some enemies of the same level (though are captains or other similar elite baddies) are not killed by an assassin strike, and I have to use a charged strike which doubles the damage o.O

And it isn't just the armor and weapons you need to upgrade, you have a ship, also. And lieutenants to lead your ship. As with the other games, upgrades and style sets are available for your ship, but that requires more money and more resources, and after upgrading my kit to level 11 (i'm now 13) I didn't have enough money and resources to do any upgrades on my ship. I could spend entire days just farming resources, which isn't what i want to do.

Instead of using your assassin's vision there is some sort of telepathic connection to a golden eagle that flies ahead and marks all points of interest in your vision. Many of the skills I was comfortable with in the earlier titles seem to be getting a primitive treatment in Odyssey, which I really enjoy. It feels like the things we do in Odyssey will someday become the standard for assassins and templars.

Overall, it has a semblance of the AC feel, but easily stands on its own as an exciting RPG adventure that keeps my attention and makes me watch the clock for the time when the babies are in bed and my wife is watching crime shows so I can go play Spartan until way too late in the evening.

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Battletech

Woah, there's some dust and cobwebs on this page. I guess I should do a little housecleaning. Well, maybe later.

Today I wanted to talk about Battletech by publisher Harebrained Schemes.

I played this game a lot with my friends as a kid. I loved the idea of piloting giant robots across the battlefield, ripping the arms off of them, and beating them with it like a club. I loved the chess-like strategy, and the utter chaos when a plan goes wrong.

As with most of the games I played as a young teen, this game was introduced by my friend Damian's brother Brian, but after that my friends and I were hooked, and this became one of our regulars.

I saw this one on Steam, and have to admit I was excited by the nostalgia. But as with most things, nostalgia isn't what it used to be, so I delayed purchasing it. I've been burned too many times to go through that again.

My buddy Tony bought it and told me it's a lot like the board game, so I bit the bullet and bought it.

Things I like:

• How similar it is to the tabletop game.
• The weapon selection
• Death from Above
• The available mechs (and the expansion adds more)
• Campaign mode (not just arena deathmatch. thank you)
• career mode (yes! campaign style play, make your own story. thank you)
• playing a match against my buddy was fun and reminded me of the tabletop

Things I would like different:

• More multiplayer modes:
• I would like it if your friends could play through career mode or the campaign together in a lance
• I would like it if you could have more than one opponent in a match, or in teams.
• I would like the option to do skirmishes against the computer in team matches, (i.e. Me and my buddy against two computer opponents)

Things I don't like:

• It is seriously difficult to get a start in career mode. There's a good reason that you get a benefactor in the campaign. Mechs are expensive.

I guess that's it. I really enjoy this game as is, and would like more options to play with my friends as well.

So if you're an old fan of Battletech, or if you played the rpg Mechwarrior, or maybe even if you enjoy watching old indie movies like Robot Jox, give this a try.

Battletech by Harebrained Schemes Steam Link

Robot Jox

PG

 1989 ‧ Cult film/Indie film ‧ 1h 25m

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Review on Lux-Pain for Nintendo DS

The long awaited review finally arives! Just like the last one, I did not watch the trailers I linked for you, nor did I read any reviews by those people who played the game at E3 or the GDC. I also did not read the instruction book. My feelings of excitement for this game are completely related to the manga pics I saw on the website and the genre listing it as a psychic detective story. Also, I haven't finished the game. I like to write the review after about six hours of gameplay when I have a feel for the game but haven't experienced everything yet.

Initial Thoughts

1. Maybe i should have read the instruction manual on this one. It threw me right into the middle of an investigation, and i did okay at picking up what i was supposed to do after staring at the screen for 1.5 minutes before realizing it wanted me to do something.
2. I don't know if they did it on purpose, but the dialogue isn't the same as the captions, and its kinda disorienting for those of us who are compulsive about reading our anime. Did you ever watch Steamboy in english with the english subtitles? yeah. its like that. And then we get to two drunk girls, one has voiceovers far off the captions, the other of which has no voiceover at all.. again, disorienting. The voiceover thing bothers me a lot. And it isn't like its just here and there. Its different all over the place. I'd say 90% of the captions don't match the voiceover script. The captions seem to be more of a direct translation from the original Japanese, while the voiceovers are what it would sound like it if an American said it. And it isn't like they're trivial characters. Some of them are main characters. And sometimes characters who normally have voiceovers.. don't. In fact there was not one voiceover the entire way through day 3. Its like they gave up.. *sigh* I have no problem with reading the captions only. I think it would have been better to go all or nothing on the voices. It detracts from the game.
3. The intro vid is pretty sweet, good graphics. They had a good group of artists.
   
4. Hmm.. a few spelling mistakes in the english captions. Should have read thru them again.

Initial Thoughts Rating: -

Storyline

Once I began to ignore the voice issue, the storyline became really interesting. A psychic investigation into a rash of suicides. The clues, the characters, the interaction, all very engaging and captivating.

Storyline Rating: +

Gameplay

Investigation is the most pervasive element in this game. Either by talking to people and answering their questions or responding with an emotion (coded by colors... blue is sadness, red anger, yellow happy, purple laughter, etc.), or scratching their face off hunting for small psychic worms, called Shinen, that contain thoughts, emotions and feelings. The search for the worms is innovative, and do refrain from trying to clear the whole screen... I .. burned out a subject's brain and ended the game... *blush* Briefing is given at the beginning of each day, debrief to remind you of the clues is given at the end. I have experienced a single combat, which was in the form of a mini-game ala whack-a-mole.

Gameplay Rating: +

Genre Elements

Lux-Pain is listed as a psychic investigation game, and it hits dead on. There is a small rpg element with experience gathered when worms are collected or important clues are discovered. Leveling up increases aspects of your psychic searching power (Sigma ).

Genre Elements Rating: +

Replay-ability

The story is very linear and clues will be uncovered pretty much regardless of the order in which you investigate the areas of the city (this i found out after a fatal mistake or two and reload). It plays like a book, with a few interactive areas, and is a one-shot story. A good story, but no replay.

Replay-ability Rating: -

Summary

Lux-Pain is a really good story-driven investigation game with innovative elements and a strong storyline. The voice acting is good, but the seeming randomness of using voiceovers and the completely different scripts is distracting.

Summary Rating: (3 out of 5)

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