Farming Simulator 17 (Xbox One)

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I picked this game up on sale not long ago because I was curious, and admittedly kind of expected Harvest Moon with tractors to some extent. Don’t make that mistake. This could not be any further from that. That is not a bad thing at all by the way. There is a bit of a learning curve tho.

First thing is first, each piece of equipment does have a purpose and that is all it does. You can’t use your pick up truck to pull around huge equipment. You will also need some sort of lifting equipment to toss pallets of stuff into your truck to transport it around town. Don’t be an idiot like me and assume the store will deliver it, they don’t.

The game however is pretty fun, and you can hire workers to do much of the work if you want and have the money while you go do missions for other farmers, they do supply the equipment. This has a double benefit of getting you some money and familiarizing you with much of the stuff in the game, because if you are like me you probably have no idea what any of this stuff does.

Graphically the game is beautiful, but you can easily mess with the games physics engine. They clearly did not count on you taking large trailers in barns and attempting to empty things so the trailer goes through them, it can have some hilarious consequences. Using rocks as jumps in a truck also sends you flipping end over end and spinning while over loading a forklift and trying to do donuts is also something I recommend trying.

Another warning, the game does take a poor look on taking a trailer full of animals into the river. I was curious and it was late at night, I failed that tutorial and immediately had to restart. The game however is fun if you like simulation games, it is easy to learn and easy to control and on the Xbox mods are there, tho you don’t have a ton of space for them. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Masked Saint (2016)

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So I am rummaging thru Netflix and I come across this movie. Now I am a sucker for a wrestling movie, I used to be one. Then I see it has Roddy Piper in. I was a huge fan. There is no way I’m not watching this movie. opening credits end with “Inspired by a true story”. I am hardly convinced. So I watch the movie. But we will get to that,but I want to share this.

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Yes for you book lovers, there is a book by Chris Whaley that the movie is based on, he also happens to be the Pastor/wrestler from the story. I have not read it, but it is something that is out there.

Now back to the movie. First, the acting is pretty good, better than I expected. I was honestly expecting some train wreck level acting like many of these style of “true story” movies have, but that isn’t the case.

The story itself is rather interesting, a retiring wrestler is injured after a shady promoter ( Piper) breaks his word and the new up and comer (The Reaper) intentionally breaks The Saints leg. When he takes over the new perish Chris discovers it is failing pretty hard as most of the people have abandoned it and it is mostly kept running due to one wealthy man and his donations that he will soon lose when he gets into a fight with him.

When Chris is invited to a wrestling event by a friend, coincidentally his former employees event, he prevents The Reaper from injuring his friend which gets him an invite back into the ring. Trust me, leaving the ring is not easy, and it never truly leaves your system. On the way home however he puts his mask on to stop a woman of the night from being mugged, and that is when things truly start to change.

I won’t get into too much more detail. The movie is however worth watching and unsurprisingly the wrestling segments are pretty well done. They don’t give away anything you honestly can’t google, but they don’t treat people like they are stupid either. We all know in 2018 the stuff is scripted and they don’t hide that and I appreciated that. So go give the saint a watch, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Overcrowd (PC)

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So the other day I tossed out on Twitter I need more indy games and movies to check out, and I get a follow from the guy that codes a game called Overcrowd. His name is Alastair and him and his girlfriend, whom has a PhD in molecular genetics, Sarah are creating this game. Together they make up SquarePlay Games. I was a bit surprised by this one, simply because of what it is. The concept seems pretty silly on the surface, maybe because I don’t frequent the subway system. I will let their video explain it however since I can not do it justice.

See, if I had tried to explain this, it would sound silly. However what you get is a deep and engrossing game with a lot to do and managing. The building aspect is only one part as you must also make sure your workers are happy so they can in turn keep commuters happy. Rats, garbage or even blood will quickly turn what should be a happy commuter into a miserable one.

I love covering indy games when I can find them, and the ones I have come across always make me look forward to what is to come. A couple even hold a special place in my heart for various reasons. one because it is a throw back to an old game I loved as a child ( that write-up is coming in the next few days), others because I love the work they are putting into it. And now this one, simply because the originality behind it alone makes me confident it will be amazing. You can see more on Squareplay Games there or here. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Shoppe Keep (PS4)

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Shoppe Keep on the PlayStation 4 is one of those games I saw that seemed interesting but I wasn’t sure on, so I looked up some reviews and noticed there actually weren’t very many of them. The few I did find complained about some very odd things, like having to read the tutorial. Seriously am I the only on that remembers instruction booklets? They were a tutorial you had to read, at one point most tutorials were read. So I couldn’t accept that as a valid complaint. Another I saw was that the cursor speed was to quick, which you can change in-game anyway, so again another complaint that seemed odd to me. Why complain about something you have the option to easily change?

So I bought the game and read the tutorial. This doesn’t take long, maybe 10 minutes. The cursor speed really is to damn quick, but that is a simple matter of pausing the game and changing it. The game itself is quite simple, set up a shop, buy supplies like potions, wait for some adventurers to come and buy them, and repeat. As you gain more money and the days go buy better items and sell them for a bigger profit. As you gain levels you can unlock new abilities to make people steal less or unlock new heroes to come in and shop.

You also have to set your own prices, but be careful, set them too high and people either won’t buy or they will just steal them. 4 of my first 7 just stole stuff and ran. You can chase them down and kill them to get your stuff back tho, but I got the hang of that after losing a lot of money in merchandise.

The game is interesting but has its faults, the graphics aren’t bad and it doesn’t explain certain things to well, like how to get rid of dead bodies, which you can sweep away with a broom weirdly. The game also gets very repetitive so unless you are into sim games, probably won’t like this one very much. It is a fun little game tho, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Bucket List (2007)

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I waited a long time to see The Bucket List, not for any real reason, I love Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. I consider both to be two of the most talented performers of my life time. I just never got around to watching them. I regret that decision.

The story as most of you know by now is Jack and Morgan both play characters that discover they are dying of terminal cancers. Morgan plays a hardworking mechanic that has spent his life doing right by his family he started when he was young, he also happens to be brilliant. Jack has been married four times, but his true love has always been his work. He is a very rich man, a very rich man that happens to won the hospital.

Due to a very strict no exceptions two in a room policy Jack and Morgan end up sharing a room and striking up a very unexpected friendship. Thanks to a philosophy class in college Morgan writes out a bucket list, as in things he wants to do before he kicks the bucket. With them both dying, and Jack being a very rich man, they decide to go and live that bucket list.

The movie is simply great, it mixes a nice amount of comedy in with what is a serious movie of two men facing their mortality and it really makes you ask yourself, if you could know when you would die, would you want to know or do you think it would taint the time you have left? and if you did know what would you do with that time? would you spend it with family, or try to check everything off your own personal bucket list? do you even have your own personal bucket list?

For me this movie is bitter-sweet, as you pretty much know the ending, or do we really? I won’t spoil it even tho the movie is over 10 years old as I think for this one the ending is actually special, unlike most movies it may be the most special part of all. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pokemon for the Switch, Officially.

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Yea that headline is real. Look there is even a video, from Nintendo, released tonight. I never write at night last-minute. @torstenvblog does blogs at night. But here it I am, taking time away from drinking..I mean away from the kids.

Yea that is how important this news it, it could not wait until morning. We are getting a Pokemon game on consoles November 16th…2018 and a special Pokemon is coming with it, Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Team Mystic dominates the fifth official Pokémon GO Community Day by catching the most Pokémon and Charmander per player — Pokémon Blog

The fifth Pokémon GO Community Day took place on May 19 across the globe for three hours, featuring increased spawns of Charmander in the wild. The latest worldwide event also featured triple catch Stardust and three-hour Lures. Shiny Charmander has made its Pokémon GO debut as well. Naturally, Shiny Charmander evolves into Shiny Charmeleon, which evolves into Shiny Charizard. If any Charmeleon evolved during Community Day […]

via Team Mystic dominates the fifth official Pokémon GO Community Day by catching the most Pokémon and Charmander per player — Pokémon Blog

Dirty Girl (2010)

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This is one of those movies I have to admit upfront, I enjoyed it. I should not have enjoyed it, but I did.  The story revolves around what is essentially the class slut finding out her mom is getting married to a strict religious man who decides to adopt her, she doesn’t like this so she decides her new friend that happens to be gay is going to go with her to find her dad so she can move in with him. Since the gay sort of friend has an asshole abusive dad he goes with it. They take a stolen credit card and stolen car and head to California from Oklahoma.

Yea the plot is pretty ridiculous. There is some nudity some language  , some violence and a whole lot of down time. The movie is pretty funny tho at times, however this mostly comes from the fact that pretty much every character is a stereotype. The acting while good comes with an at absolute best an average script. Visually and sound quality i what you would expect however. The movie isn’t a dumpster fire or even bad, it is just very cringe worthy in how stereotypical much of it is.

I will give them a quick shout out however for capturing what it is like for many young gay men in the world living in fear of an abusive father with a mother far to afraid and timid to help. They captured some very great and emotional scenes there and that was amazing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Thoroughbreds (2018) — Dan the Man’s Movie Reviews

Always make friends with the psychos. No matter where you are. In suburban Connecticut, where practically everywhere you turn is a fancy mansion or two, Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) rekindle after many years apart from one another. Lily’s a much smarter, more accomplished girl who got to finish boarding-school early, whereas Amanda […]

via Thoroughbreds (2018) — Dan the Man’s Movie Reviews

Keep The Peace

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Keep The Peace is another indy game I stumbled across but this time on  Facebook the game actually has a pretty cool concept tho. You basically are set as the chief of police and your job is to keep the place safe. You will be hiring officers, managing the place customizing the equipment such as cars and deciding what tactics to use and how you will be responding to various calls.

The game still has a long way to go, but from what I can tell it is coming along pretty nice. For more information you can look here. 

Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.