Davedevil

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Posts posted by Davedevil

  1. Enjoyed it. The fight scenes were really good, the characters were fun*, and it provides a good springboard for the DCEU going forward.

    Spoiler

    *this is easily the best Superman portrayal in the DCEU, as they're finally letting Cavill's natural charisma shine through

    My cons are that it's nowhere near as bold as it could've been with such huge stakes and characters, the seams between scenes and mandated additions are really visible, and the villain is not that interesting.

    Overall, it was good but not great. I've said that about all of them (though I'm still a big fan of BVS). They could and should be better, but I still enjoy what we've been getting.

  2. Transistor - Pretty art style, fun and innovative combat system, cool sci-fi concepts that bleed over into magic, just enough storytelling, and some of the best music I've ever heard in a game. Can't really find a flaw in it. Everything about this game is right up my alley.

    Fallout 3 GOTY Edition - Pretty sure I'm a little more than halfway through the main story? Doesn't really matter anyway, I just got lost in sidequest hell, which helped me create my character in my head better than the main plot. And by that I mean she would stand in a radioactive pool for twenty minutes just to help someone find out exactly how radiation affects people, and get a cool perk of regenerating limbs quicker when irradiated. Haven't had any of the Fun Bethesda Glitches(tm) yet, mostly just frustrating ones where my character ends up in a wall without a way to fast travel out since there's enemies I can't reach.

    Dishonored - About 2/3 done with this game and it's a pretty fun experience. I mean, despite the constant reloading to make sure I don't accidentally kill people or cause too much chaos. Can't wait for 2 especially.

    Final Fantasy VI - Just past the Floating Continent. This is the first FF game I've ever gotten far in and it's hard for me to imagine me liking another one as much as this.

  3. I agree! All of the movie felt very natural with its humor and drama, which made the horror scenes even more terrifying. There were some rather inventive scares in the movie, images that really stick with you. Good stuff, I'd recommend it.

  4. Monster movies have had subtext since the beginning. The 1954 Godzilla's political message has been covered to death, but then you have stuff like King Kong vs Godzilla, which was a satire on commercialization, or Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, which tackled pollution. Hell, this isn't even the worst the American army looked in a monster movie, which is probably the 90s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, where proto-Godzilla killed WW2 soldiers, to the cheers of Japanese forces (To be fair, that one did result in apologies from the studio).

  5. One of the better Spider-Man films. The performance and writing of Holland's Spidey is probably the best (I still have nostalgic fondness for Maguire, and an admiration for Garfield), but there are things holding me back from calling this the definitive Spidey as of now. Namely, the compromises they had to do for the sixth Spidey movie in 15 years.

    There's a lot of having their cake and eating it too here. Peter gets his cool tech from Tony Stark, but he already developed his webbing and basic costume. He wants to become an Avenger, until he decides at the end that he wants to "go small-scale and help out the little guy." People got sick of Uncle Ben so they're not gonna mention him at all, even in a moment where it would be understandable. I wish there was a way to have a Spidey movie without any of the baggage of a shared movie universe or previous movies that define the character in the eyes of the general audience. Of course, this is me realizing I have to temper my fanboy expectations.

    I appreciate building up a supporting cast. The Raimi films were pretty much the Pete-MJ-Harry show, with ASM being pretty exclusively about Peter and Gwen, this seems to say that we'll see these characters grow as the movies go on. I did not appreciate most of the treatment of Aunt May though. The only time I felt like she was treated as a person was in the middle of the movie, when Peter was at his lowest point. But she felt like a joke for most of it.

    It took them over 50 years, but they finally made the Vulture cool. Michael Keaton and that costume sure help a lot. Made for some cool action scenes that we haven't really seen in the Spidey movies yet (ASM #33 homage AHHHHH). Having the other villains teased or playing minor roles felt right.

    I still think serialized storytelling is better for Spider-Man, but this movie did a fair job in having the elements of the mythos and giving them room to grow.

  6. Starstruck - I appreciate its existence as a comedic, feminist, creator-owned sci-fi story (especially with how dude-heavy stuff like 2000 AD is). I dig the worldbuilding that goes on. I like the themes. But man, was this hard to follow. Whenever I feel like I gave a handle on the plot, it shifts scenes into something completely different. 

    Maybe I just need to read it again, and much closer but this initial reading took me a couple of months, on-and-off. 

    As for stuff I loved, I adored just about every single page of artwork. I'm a fan of Kaluta's Madame Xanadu, and this was something a little different but still had a similar feel. Especially with Lee Moyer and Charles Vess doing colors, maaan. 

    The Galactic Girl Guide backups were pretty cute. Those were more enjoyable for me on a first reading. 

    I will say this though, I'm intrigued about the world. I found the audiodrama version on Spotify, so I'm giving that a listen.

  7. American Vampire Vol. 3 - Continues to be awesome. The guest artists Daniel Zezelj and especially Sean Murphy turn in some gorgeous stuff, in addition to the solid Albuquerque art.

    Excalibur Visionaries: Warren Ellis Vol. 1 - Mixed on this. First arc with the Soulsword is pretty good. But then Age of Apocalypse happens and the book gets thrown off course. The arc with Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom left me very cold. It didn't help having such inconsistent art. I dug Terry Dodson's work, and the others to some degree, but it changed far too much for my tastes.

    Umbrella Academy: Dallas - Baffling to read but it comes together pretty well in the end. Gabriel Ba's art continues to be my reason to read these. 

  8. Got Prey by Arkane Studios and Bethesda (Bethany Esda), since horror sci-fi is my jam. A couple hours into it, and I'm digging the game. There's some neat twists and turns story-wise, and I'm enjoying how Morgan Yu's character keeps shifting the more you find out about him. The worldbuilding in the game is great, with a great balance of darkness and humor (loved finding that one dude's D&D character sheet). There's so much thought put into where everything fits, it's amazing.

    The world design is pretty interesting, having a central location that links back to every other place you need is something I haven't personally encountered much. That leads into my only complaint so far, that loading times are pretty bad for how much the game relies on you going from area to area. It's more than a little annoying that a lengthy loading screen (with interesting art to look at, to be fair) has to be followed by another loading screen.

    But yeah, I'm really digging the game, it feels like a natural (and better) extension of games like Bioshock and Alien: Isolation. 

  9. It took five months due to life and other games getting in the way, but I finally finished the Mass Effect Trilogy. I don't really have any complaints, aside from 1's gameplay being very frustrating. It was an amazing experience to me, and I just loved seeing my FemShep, Liara, Garrus and Tali grow over the course of the story. I don't know how likely I am to replay this any time soon, I'm a little too attached with how it went this time to do so. 

    I got into this series because Andromeda got me interested but considering how all that's worked out, I might just wait until they've worked out everything first.

  10. So after 50-something hours, I finished Horizon Zero Dawn. I don't think I've ever Platinum'd a game before, but I did it with this (and still have so many unlockables and map icons left). This is one of the few times I felt a game's plot was just as engrossing as the characters and the gameplay, as I often feel they have two of those three but not all. But I love the dense world holding, the characters that had just enough depth for a first game, and the combat that constantly had me figuring out new tactics. 

    Aloy is a great character, I'm looking forward to seeing her grow over how many games they're planning to do. Everything with Rost just pulled on my heartstrings, especially when you visit his house later on. I don't like that, aside from Sylens, there's hardly any constant characters alongside you for most of the game but I get it. The side characters are wonderful though. Talanah, Petra and Vanasha are my absolute favorites. They're all so much fun.

    Whatever they have in this game's future, I'm here for it.