The Swanton825

I finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits this past week and either I missed the hype train on this game or nobody talked about it. It's a shame because this game is like a Pixar movie in video game form. If I had any major criticism it would be that the combat was trying too hard to mimic the God of War reboot and it just winds up leaving you with frustrating boss battles. Outside of that though, this is one of those games that doesn't really innovate on anything but does what it sets out to do well enough and with plenty of charm that it's still super enjoyable. Also, if you don't find the misleadingly-named Rot to be absolutely adorable, you have no soul.

I am so pumped for this to come out on HBO Max next month! I'm really tempted to go to the theater and see it, but the cheapskate side of my brain keeps winning out.

I still consider Slappy DeMatt my magnum opus, but I'm really happy with how The Circumstance's bio turned out. I love giving workers origins from places that don't get as much attention. Also the second I saw the render, I knew I had to make him a Jersey Shore reference somehow.

Finally watched the new Candyman and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The original is one of my favorite horror movies and after being tormented by the first two godawful sequels, it's great to finally get a good one. My biggest critique would be that it feels like it should've been 20-30 minutes longer because the climax tries to throw in too much too fast for my liking. It blows my mind that this is Nia DaCosta's first horror film. Some of the shots this movie has with this budget is what you'd expect to see from someone who spent a decade grinding it out working for Roger Corman or John Carpenter, not a director relatively fresh out of film school with only one previous feature film under her belt.

I actually enjoyed Lifeforce. Not as a genuinely good film, mind you, but as a fun late night B-movie that just runs with the fact that it's about a naked space vampire.

If it was something stupid he'd tweeted out once as a failed joke or troll and was embarrassed about, I might give him the benefit of the doubt. But he said this heinous crap in an interview that was going to be sold for money. There's no way he didn't believe in it when he said it. If he's changed since then, I only have one question: why didn't he ever come out and disavow it? "I said some very ignorant and hurtful things in an old shoot interview and would like to take this time to apologize for what I've said." See? Not that hard. Here, I'll even take it a step further just to demonstrate how to act when you actually regret something: I've personally been a terrible, confrontational jerk for a good chunk of my life and I've posted plenty of stupid crap I'm ashamed of, some on this very forum. A lengthy string of failures coupled with the pandemic forced me to come to terms with how I've acted in the past. I completely disavow any of the stupid and confrontational things I've said on here and I am sorry. Didn't take me being called out on something to do this. And I'm a nobody! There's no excuse for celebrities in any industry to wait to apologize until they're caught.

In case anyone missed it, they added all three of the newest Hitman games to Game Pass as an all-in-one release with the missions from the first two retouched to take advantage of Hitman 3's features. All three are a must for anyone who enjoys stealth games and with the botched, price gouging Steam release of 3, it's the best and cheapest way to play it.

A Switch is way more worth the money anyways IMO. It's very similar to Skyrim's combat. Light attack, heavy attack, block, etc. The main differences are that you pick a class with three exclusive ability trees and you cast spells and use skills from a hotbar like other MMOs. The neat thing is that every skill tree besides the class ones are open to everyone so you can play a sorcerer in heavy armor with no real issue. The only thing I'm not fond of is that you have to commit to either improving magicka or stamina if you want to stay effective at later levels which means you either use a staff if you focus on magicka or any other weapon if you go stamina because that's what the damage scales with. They try to balance this by letting you "morph" certain spells into ones that scale with stamina but it is kind of a buzzkill that I can't play a sword and shield battlemage with a focus on magic spells without massively weakening my effectiveness. As for 8 and 16-bit games, I had a lot of fun with Flynn, Son of Crimson. It feels a lot like the kind of sidescrolling platformers I played all time on GBA when I was a kid. That might be a bit newer than what you're looking for but I just had to mention it.

Have you heard about RAID: Shadow Legends? It's the hit mobile- Nope, can't do it. In all seriousness, SWTOR is the best if you prefer story in your RPGs and the only current gen Star Wars game better than it is Jedi: Fallen Order. Elder Scrolls Online has gotten really good in the past couple years and is now the best when it comes to combat and a sense of adventure IMO. I'm also weird and have a thing for playing solo, especially in dead or dying MMOs so I've got quite a few hours in games like Age of Conan, The Secret World (now only playable if you owned a copy of the original version, otherwise you have to play the awful Legends relaunch. Thanks, Funcom) and both EverQuests. Though I can't exactly recommend them to anyone but antisocial weirdos like me lol. If you've never played it and don't mind spending a bit during a sale, the original Guild Wars is still excellent. With all the instances, it's more an RPG with online features than a full-fledged MMO but you can still tell ArenaNet's founders were ex-WoW devs. Speaking of, WoW has basically been steadily destroyed from within by Blizzard in the past few years. Instead of adding new content, they've been cutting out older parts and replacing them with stuff for the expansions. I don't mind world-changing events, but I would much rather they happen when I reach a certain level or story point rather than replacing the noob areas (I restart a lot) and more so they "gel" with events of the expansion. ESO does this a bit too, but you can still access the starting areas and even the original tutorial zone with all the quests and stories intact. Hopefully Microsoft buying Activision will be a net positive, though after Microsoft did Asheron's Call dirty, I'm not holding my breath.

I totally forgot about that one! This is the closest we're going to get to a new Freedom Force (even if Midnight Suns is more XCOM-style turn-based) so I'm really hoping it turns out good. Firaxis rarely let me down. I did plenty of emulating before the Wii too, it's just frustrating that companies won't give us easier access to these games. I'm dead sure all the console manufacturers would make a killing if they just sold official emulators for their old systems. Mods in Paradox games are a dangerous thing. Once you try them, you'll never be able to go back to vanilla. And IMO CK2 and 3 are nowhere near as fun if try to play them "legit" for the achievements. Once my annual F2P MMO obsession wears off, I'm sure I'll be digging through my backlog and recommending plenty of indy games.

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Blackman" data-cite="Blackman" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="28397" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Ah, Super Mario RPG. Unfortunately, like Ogre Battle 64, I had to play it through an emulator because they felt it necessary not to release it here, but those games were really good.<p> </p><p> For this year I'm mostly hyped for the upcoming CK3 DLC. Probably will be the year where I'll play Expeditions Rome and Mount & Blade II too. Apart from that, not much on my list tbh apart from some indy titles.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Nintendo acts like we're asking the world of them just to have classic games playable on their newest systems. Well whose fault is it for giving us tons of games with Virtual Console and then never doing that idea again?</p><p> </p><p> I'm super psyched for the CK3 DLC finally coming out, though it feels like a safe assumption that it's going to break the game for a couple weeks before patches roll out. I also heard several of the immersion modders are supposedly working on a super mod that will combine all their mods into one which would be fantastic because I'm tired of troubleshooting compatibility on mods.</p>

Well at least I'll be expecting it this time. Curse you Henry Cavill and your fantastic portrayal of Geralt forcing me to watch!

Is Yennefer less of a sociopath in this season? I got really tired of her "I was treated badly by my family so I'm still the victim even when I'm putting the lives of everyone around me in danger!". I get that she's supposed to be deeply flawed, but there are zero redeeming aspects to her in season one.

We can put that right next to my dream of a road trip buddy comedy starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as themselves. Both of these movies would make money but since they're not remakes, reboots or soft reboots, Hollywood won't do it.

Applicability is something I think a lot of academics ignore when insisting others find hidden meaning in things. For example, I have a deep connection to Lilo & Stitch because I was in the middle of being adopted by my grandparents and that fear of one mistake or one of my biological parents changing their minds before everything was finalized and I get taken away was a legit fear of mine for years. So this cute little Disney film comes out and all the moments of Lilo almost getting taken away resonated with me in a different way than most viewers. So is the whole movie a metaphor for troubled youths and the stress of their guardians/adopters? To me it feels like it, but it'd be pretty arrogant of me to claim my interpretation is proof that's what the creators intended and anyone who can't see it is incapable of "deeper thinking". I think we'd all be happier if people could just go "this is how I see this movie/tv show/video game/etc." and the response was just "Interesting. Here's how I see it". As for Ridley Scott's BS, maybe if his films weren't so inconsistent in quality that most of us would rather wait until we can stream it and maybe if he hadn't made a film about an ugly, miserable moment in history at a time when everyone's already miserable, The Last Duel would seem appealing to more than just history nerds and film buffs.

<p>I don't share the same level of hate for the Matrix films (my feelings are best described as intense apathy) but there is an argument to be made that a good portion of the philosophy of the films come from fan interpretation rather than any actual deep thought. Like how people can read Catcher in the Rye find a great statement on humanity and others just see an angsty story about a whiny brat.</p><p> </p><p> The Wachowskis' other films like V for Vendetta (I know they didn't direct it but they were still the producers and screenwriters) and Jupiter Ascending have a serious problem of acting like they're profound when they're really just cheesy action films. Without either the Christian or Zen Buddhist symbolism that you see in The Matrix, audiences don't give either of those films the same benefit of the doubt. (Off-topic, Man of Steel is another great example of a film using Christian symbolism to seem deep or profound)</p><p> </p><p> What I think is neat about The Matrix is that it's become so much about the fanbase, the philosophy they glean from the films and the first movie's long-reaching influence on pop culture that it's almost pointless to argue whether the depth is actually there or not because the impact is the same regardless.</p><p> </p><p> I'd like to thank everyone for coming to my TED Talk. There are free cookies waiting for everyone in the lobby.</p>

That's a shame. I had a feeling the show's humor wasn't going to land with everyone. I really need to start prefacing my comedy recommendations with "I genuinely enjoy crap like Mr. Nanny and Suburban Commando". I'm waiting for the full season to come out so I can just binge it, but the previews for Wheel of Time have me stoked!

It might just be that Dewey as a character started to grate on me near the end of Ducktales and him playing a fairly similar character on MODOK brought those memories back.

I binged Hulu's M.O.D.O.K. show and while I'd hesitate to shout its praises from the rooftops, I still found it to be a fun watch. The first episode should give you a good idea whether or not you'll enjoy it. Side note: Ben Schwartz seems to only be able to play the annoying kid character and I'm steadily growing to hate him.

Red Notice seems like the kind of movie I'd enjoy, but the history nerd part of my brain won't let me ignore the fact the jeweled eggs only date back to the 19th century AND they're meant to represent Easter. It's like if the sequel involves stealing the StairMaster of Charlemagne. Actually, I might watch that lol

Why does it feel like we're having two different conversations? I was making a joke that he was in terrible shape by UFC standards and there was no way he was living at the gym and doping like crazy. Do you even realize that my initial post was actually defending Punk's physique in AEW? Because the only way your responses make sense is if you think I'm dunking on anything about Punk besides his UFC "career".

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Makhai" data-cite="Makhai" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="46243" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Punk looked like that when he was doing all those things. He's going for Nick Bockwinkel in AWA, he's not trying to catch Teddy Hart anymore. And when he turns heel he's going to be the biggest star in the business. And if you don't see it, don't know what to tell you. He's gone out of his way to flash how good he still is as a heel in brief moments so far. It's a slow burn. Let it happen.<p> </p><p> You want to say the booking has been too generic, or the one-and-done matches have not had the effect they should have, I'll listen. But Punk is still 95% what he was, he just can't live up to the nostalgia, he's just an unathletic white guy at the end of the day. It's why his UFC run was always doomed.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Did you mean to quote the other guy? Because I never said anything about the booking. Though if how he looked in UFC was really him at peak performance and not just retirement making him extremely lazy, then he's got genetics working against him worse than Chris Hero.</p>

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Blodyxe" data-cite="Blodyxe" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="46243" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Liked the promo battle between MJF and Punk, but it's a shame MJF can't talk about the most obvious issue Punk has right now. <p> </p><p> He's out of shape and Tony Khan is too scared to tell him about it.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> That's what most 43-year-old men with an active lifestyle look like when they don't live at the gym, pounding dozens of unregulated supplements or speedballing testosterone and HGH.</p>

All the anger over Netflix's take on Cowboy Bebop finally stirred me to watch the original anime. Yes, yes, I realize how insane it is that I'm an anime fan and I've never seen Cowboy Bebop but in my defense I was five when it aired on adult swim and by the time I could actually watch it the hype was so big for it that I assumed there was no way it could be as good as people say. BOY WAS I WRONG! It 100% holds up and then some. The animation is fantastic across the board, the writing is top notch and Yoko Kanno once again makes all other anime composers look weak and pitiful by comparison. Even the dub is still good! Oh and to make my refusal to watch Bebop beforehand even more insane, I love Samurai Champloo and my favorite anime film of all time is Macross Plus, both directed by the same man (Shinichiro Watanabe) as Bebop.

Oh, those two would be great for a buddy cop movie! Those two are already seriously tempting me to get AppleTV+ just to watch See (also Ted Lasso). Not to mention that it'd be a great break from current trend where apparently all action comedies must star The Rock, Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds or some combo of the three.