Dog and Movies and Game, Oh My
*yawn* Dog sitting is okay. Having a cuddly pup (not that she's really a puppy anymore) around has a certain appeal, though I fret perhaps overly much about not understanding what is wanted at any given time. I could do without the seemingly-random barking at something at near 3 am and I'll be glad to sleep in my own bed, but it made for an interesting change of pace. And I got in some entertainments over the weekend. It's hard to avoid spoilers in some cases, but I try...
Solo: A Star Wars Story was not a movie that I wanted or felt any need for. I kind of wrote it off early, though trailers got me thinking "this might be an okay action/heist movie in the Star Wars setting." That turns out to be a good summary in my book.
It's fine. There's some good action and decent characters. Nothing truly transcends to greatness, but it's an enjoyable-enough ride of a movie.
From my perspective, a lot of the worst bits of Star Wars stem from trying to "fill in the blanks." Explaining the Force as stemming from microbes, elaborating on the Clone Wars, feeling a need to tie 3PO and R2 into as much as possible, connecting Fett to the Stormtroopers... all of these things were more fun to me before someone felt the need to elaborate and burn away any mystery. A young Han Solo movie sounded to me like it would be another prime example. In the end, though, there's really only a couple little points that I found to be offensively over-connecting (primarily the utterly-unnecessary cameo). So I don't feel any fan-rage over it, at least.
Beyond that, I would say I felt the Kessel/Maw segment stretched on too long, but the movie was fine overall.
Deadpool 2 came with a friend-advisement that I might not like it. I'm not entirely clear why.
It didn't have the impact the first one did, sure. It has some serious conflicts in tone when going to Cable scenes (which are Terminatory-dark), though that fits the characters. Cable's own backstory seems seriously condensed and simplified - probably unavoidably. The X-Force bit was... uhh... an interesting way to handle that, but I wasn't offended by it (perhaps partly due to character choice). I still have some mental hang-ups over the differences between comic-Domino and movie-Domino, I'll admit, but I was perfectly happy with the movie-Domino we got. The end-credits scenes raise sooo many questions, but being a Deadpool movie, I'm not even going to worry about those until/unless there's a sequel.
It still manages to be an irreverent, violent movie with lots of in-jokes and fourth-wall breaking. As that doesn't overly offend me, yeah, I can say it was fun.
Detroit: Become Human is one of the two recent PS4-exclusive games to come out recently (the other being GoW4), so house-sitting at a place with a PS4, I went ahead and picked that up to play through.
It is very much a David Cage/Quantic Dream game. Even though it's sci-fi, it's more grounded than Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (which flies off the rails spectacularly), but it's the same sort of gameplay. Actions are all contextual, involving various stick movements as much as button presses. High-paced conflicts play out in quick time events. And there's a lot of conversation and choices to be had.
This one, more than previous games, it built around a story that has a lot of branches. Some are small - asking about X versus Y may change nothing - some can result in a main character (of which there are three) getting killed off well before the ending. That's sort of the pitch and purpose of the game as a game. I managed to navigate through to a "good" ending where all three survive, though it felt close sometimes (especially in timed segments).
The story itself is... pretty standard androids-gaining-sentience sci-fi fare. The broad strokes are predictable and simplistic, not saying anything really new. The fine details are where things can shine. The characters, main and supporting, are well-acted. The story branches offer subtlety to interactions you won't get elsewhere, and that's pretty cool. I really appreciate a game where failure is an option rather than an instant game-over. There was a story twist that felt extreeeeemely forced and the ending I saw came across as a little bit hurried, but it's an interesting experience and very well-done if you want this sort of interactive movie.
Solo: A Star Wars Story was not a movie that I wanted or felt any need for. I kind of wrote it off early, though trailers got me thinking "this might be an okay action/heist movie in the Star Wars setting." That turns out to be a good summary in my book.
It's fine. There's some good action and decent characters. Nothing truly transcends to greatness, but it's an enjoyable-enough ride of a movie.
From my perspective, a lot of the worst bits of Star Wars stem from trying to "fill in the blanks." Explaining the Force as stemming from microbes, elaborating on the Clone Wars, feeling a need to tie 3PO and R2 into as much as possible, connecting Fett to the Stormtroopers... all of these things were more fun to me before someone felt the need to elaborate and burn away any mystery. A young Han Solo movie sounded to me like it would be another prime example. In the end, though, there's really only a couple little points that I found to be offensively over-connecting (primarily the utterly-unnecessary cameo). So I don't feel any fan-rage over it, at least.
Beyond that, I would say I felt the Kessel/Maw segment stretched on too long, but the movie was fine overall.
Deadpool 2 came with a friend-advisement that I might not like it. I'm not entirely clear why.
It didn't have the impact the first one did, sure. It has some serious conflicts in tone when going to Cable scenes (which are Terminatory-dark), though that fits the characters. Cable's own backstory seems seriously condensed and simplified - probably unavoidably. The X-Force bit was... uhh... an interesting way to handle that, but I wasn't offended by it (perhaps partly due to character choice). I still have some mental hang-ups over the differences between comic-Domino and movie-Domino, I'll admit, but I was perfectly happy with the movie-Domino we got. The end-credits scenes raise sooo many questions, but being a Deadpool movie, I'm not even going to worry about those until/unless there's a sequel.
It still manages to be an irreverent, violent movie with lots of in-jokes and fourth-wall breaking. As that doesn't overly offend me, yeah, I can say it was fun.
Detroit: Become Human is one of the two recent PS4-exclusive games to come out recently (the other being GoW4), so house-sitting at a place with a PS4, I went ahead and picked that up to play through.
It is very much a David Cage/Quantic Dream game. Even though it's sci-fi, it's more grounded than Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (which flies off the rails spectacularly), but it's the same sort of gameplay. Actions are all contextual, involving various stick movements as much as button presses. High-paced conflicts play out in quick time events. And there's a lot of conversation and choices to be had.
This one, more than previous games, it built around a story that has a lot of branches. Some are small - asking about X versus Y may change nothing - some can result in a main character (of which there are three) getting killed off well before the ending. That's sort of the pitch and purpose of the game as a game. I managed to navigate through to a "good" ending where all three survive, though it felt close sometimes (especially in timed segments).
The story itself is... pretty standard androids-gaining-sentience sci-fi fare. The broad strokes are predictable and simplistic, not saying anything really new. The fine details are where things can shine. The characters, main and supporting, are well-acted. The story branches offer subtlety to interactions you won't get elsewhere, and that's pretty cool. I really appreciate a game where failure is an option rather than an instant game-over. There was a story twist that felt extreeeeemely forced and the ending I saw came across as a little bit hurried, but it's an interesting experience and very well-done if you want this sort of interactive movie.
Angry Joe got around to a review of Detroit: BH. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiphSNWXIfM Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteMostly agree? As a game, it's pretty limited. As an interactive movie, it asks for interaction for some pretty trivial things. But there do feel like meaningful choices that steer the course of the story and the characters are mostly pretty good, making it a solid experience. 7/10 seems reasonable. I might edge sliiiightly higher than that because the simple fact is I enjoyed it.
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