Game reviews – Page 82 – Savior Gaming

South Park: The Fractured But Whole (2nd Opinion)

south park

South Park, the Fractured But Whole is a direct sequel South Park, The Stick Of Truth. You may remember @torstenvblog covering South Park: The Fractured But Whole. I didn’t get to play it myself until recently and I won’t say I am disappointed, just that I preferred Stick of Truth. That being said the battle system is still turn based but now takes place in a grid system. Moves now have an area of effect. Each south park child also now has a sort of class that determines the moves they get.

The story itself starts as Stick of Truth ends when Eric finds a reward poster for a cat and decides his team of super heroes, Coon and friends, need to save the cat and collect the money. From there it is typical south park shenanigans with fart jokes, swearing and all around weird shit going on. If you enjoyed the first game or the show in general you will enjoy this one. You also don’t have to play Stick of Truth to enjoy Fractured but Whole tho it does help. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Injustice 2 (2nd opinion)

injustice 2

Now some of you may remember when @torstenvblog covered Injustice 2 awhile back, and with Injustice 2:Legendary Edition coming out I figured I would give my opinion of the game.

The first injustice was great with an amazing story, but after the story there wasn’t exactly much to keep doing unless you were heavily into fighting games. This time around however, we have multiple endings. On top of that there is a sort of RPG element to it where you can level up your characters and equip them with new gear as well. This adds quite a bit of replay value, but they didn’t stop there.

The multiverse alone is a game all in its own. Every day or sometimes every week you can take quest to help heroes from different places save their homes to earn loot or experience. Some require you use different characters or be at some level. This so far may be the best fighting game I have played ever and it is highly recommended. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

GB2

The Ghostbusters are back, sort of. After the events of the first movie they get sued for all the damage they caused and are forced out of business when they are banned from investigating the paranormal. No good deed goes unpunished right guys? Tho it is a Ghostbusters movie after all, so they will do some digging anyway and discover a river of slime under where a baby carriage mysteriously stopped. Of course they get caught and arrested however, it doesn’t really take much to get caught excavating a road even in New York.

Lucky or unlucky for them the judge is a real hard ass, and the slime reacts to negative emotion and unleashes a few ghost in the courtroom. After the Ghostbusters refuse to do their job since they would be breaking the law, they are court ordered to go back to work.

After much more investigation, Vigo reveals himself, and he wants a body. However you are going to have to watch the movie to find out more. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Destiny AKA Reaper (1921)

Destiny

Sometimes I watch movies from way back in the day. Like so far back you need a history lesson. For example this movie, Destiny, called Reaper on Netflix was originally released as Behind The Wall in the United States back in 1921 and was called Der müde Tod: ein deutsches volkslied in Germany it seems. I say it seems because I don’t speak any German so that may just be the same name in a different language.

The movie itself is a silent film that us a fantasy love story that follows multiple couples. My favorite involves a woman attempting to make a deal with Death to get her lost love back but she can’t make the sacrifices Death demands.

The movie, not unlike Metropolis Restored (1927) has been damaged quite a bit over the years and has been re-pieced together from multiple sources tho not as extensively as Metropolis. I didn’t enjoy this one as much but its historic value can’t be understated. Movies from that time are rarely found complete and are even more rarely shown so readily to the public. If you have the time its pretty cool to check out for the movie buffs out there. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Every so often Netflix or Hulu adds a movie and I just have to sit back and watch. Or I just rip it out of my collection for old times sake. Ghostbusters is a classic, and with very good reason. The story of Peter, Ray,Egon and Winston saving New York from Ghost and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man is one every kid in the 80’s and 90’s knows by heart. It launched video games, cartoons, toys, sequels and even came back in 2016 with an all girl cast which got mixed reviews. Admittedly I have not seen it yet but I keep telling myself I will get around to it,

The first Ghostbusters movie covers the founding of the team itself, from them being fired from the local college to the very first call where they capture Slimer. It isn’t long before they get accused of causing all these ghost to appear and tossed in jail by the EPA. There is plenty of fun stuff in between, but I don’t want to ruin this for the rare person that hasn’t seen this. The gaming gods would like to remind you, if someone asks if you are a god, you say yes.

Men in Black (1997)

download (1)

Every so often I see a movie and I notice the year it came out and my brain goes damn it I am old. Tho a friend of mine just recently pointed out I have known her for almost 30 years so that wrecked my life a little bit to know I have known her almost my entire life. Men in Black is one of those movies. 1997 doesn’t seem that long ago, but 20 years went by pretty quick apparently.

Men in Black as you know spawned two sequels, a cartoon, video games and rumor has it soon a Men in Black 4. More on that tho in a future post. For now the original. The first one sees Will Smith as a regular old cop doing his job, and suddenly chasing a guy down on foot. This dude is quick and can jump damn near like an Olympic athlete. This catches the eye of the character played by Tommy Lee Jones, Agent K.

Agent K eventually test a group of people, and chooses Will Smith to be an agent, Agent J. Together they are essentially the police that operate independently of even the governments of the world as the police for the numerous aliens that visit and live on Earth. The movie is fun and has actually popularized a few conspiracy theories, one of which basically says the movie was released by the government to judge how people would take the news of aliens and such a groups existence being real. The movie holds up pretty well, and I definitely recommend seeing it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

War of the Worlds (1953)

War of the Worlds has had many iterations, from the many movies, books and even the original radio broadcast that has spread its own host of urban legends, some of which I covered here Brave New Jersey (2016).

The 1953 version however is by far my favorite, Based off the novel by H.G. Wells and the screen play by Barre Lyndon. The story takes place in a small California town on a night like most others. People are at a local dance or out to eat even a few on a little fishing trip camping out. When a meteorite strikes nearby people get curious, after all who wouldn’t?

A few days later when it cools down and people can get close enough to investigate is when things go from fun and interesting, to world-changing bad. As the meteorite opens to reveal itself to be instead to be alien ships invading the earth.

The acting in the movie is great, you can actually believe these people are scared of what is taking place and for its time the effects are stunning. Sure by the standards of today they are primitive but imagine going to see this on the big screen back in 1953 with your girlfriend, having never seen anything like this when the ship starts shooting or when you finally see this alien come on-screen and grab the girl’s shoulder from behind.

Sure we have the benefit of it being remastered in color and have seen things much better, but for its time this thing was creepy as hell. Even when I was a kid having grown up with horror movies I remember thinking how I would have freaked if this ugly little bastard managed to sneak up on me.

The ending is also amazing, and I don’t mind spoiling it because the movie is over 60 years old, but if you plan on seeing it after reading this and don’t want it spoiled now is the time to stop reading. Seriously, last chance.

Now I assume you are ready for the spoiler. The end is with the world mostly in ruins, people rioting cars flipped and burning we find out main characters hiding in a church after even nuclear weapons failed to stop the invaders. When suddenly the ship heading their way simply starts to fall and crashes into a building. A hatch opens, an alien starts to appear and stops. Our brave scientist inches his way over to discover it is mysteriously dead. What is even more is all of these ships seem to be slowly doing the same thing. Not all at once, but slowly over time dying. For all their technology they failed to take into account one thing. The germs of Earth played hell with their immune system. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Zodiac (2007)

zodiac

Hey who here loves serial killers? Pretty morbid question to ask I know. My favorite is Jack the Ripper. I know its cliche and everyone mentions him but he is just a fun one with a great conspiracy surrounding him. This movie is about the case surrounding the Zodiac killer.

Admittedly I am not overly familiar with the case and stuff surrounding the Zodiac killer, but the movie it self does an amazing job telling the story from different angles. From the killer standpoint we get to see the different murders from that perspective. This is interesting but is clearly just supposition for the movie. On the flip side we also get to see the side from the media getting letters from Zodiac and the decision to print the first letters or not and the toll it took on one of the writers when Zodiac started threatening him.

The other side is the perspective of the cops and their hunt to find him and their struggle and the toll it took on the detectives chasing him and what it was like attempting to catch an elusive and dangerous killer as he avoided them at every turn.

The movie was fun and interesting but was pretty long and had a tendency to drag and felt like some parts dragged a big to much. If you like this sort of thing the movie is great, if not you may be a little bored at times. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Kingdom Come Deliverance

kcd

Kingdom Come Deliverance seems to be a pretty divisive game even among my close friends. The word Eurojank gets tossed around a lot as well. One friend takes great issue with the eating mechanic claiming it gets in the way, and admittedly I do wish Henry would shut up with his damn complaining about being hungry every 2 minutes when he isn’t even that hungry. There is one thing we all agree on tho, but I will get to that a little later.

To start, the game is beautiful on my Xbox One X but there is a small exception to that. Sometimes the graphics don’t quite load as fast in some spots on others and for a moment certain things won’t load in and suddenly you got a chick walking around with no head for a few seconds or suddenly a tree that wasn’t there will suddenly be there. Its nothing game breaking and at times it will be funny, but some people this will be a major issue for.

The combat is nice, it is however slow and methodical. Unlike games like Skyrim or the most action games you won’t be running in and hacking and slashing your way to a quick win, at least not often. You will be circling each other and attempting to out smart each other as you slash and stab each other. There is also no magic at all in this game.

Two things you do pretty much NEED to know, as of now the lock picking while technically possible is hard as hell. In fact I have spoken to several people who have never even managed to do it. I tried once and said screw it and stopped trying since the company has said they intend to fix it in an upcoming patch. The second thing you need to know is that you play the son of a blacksmith and as such you pretty much suck at EVERTYHING. In fact your character can not even read at the start of the game. Many of the issues people have with the game actually seems to stem from the fact that in a way this is a true RPG. You aren’t a chosen one or special really in any way. You simply are the son of a blacksmith and the game treats you as such. Many of the games characters actually talk down to you because of it.

The game is far from perfect, you can find many Youtube videos about the many glitches in the game, and there are many possible to run in to. My hours in the game didn’t have me come across any of the severe ones like floating people or people loading inside of other people,sadly because I really want to try to shoot a floating person with an arrow but hey, no luck so far.

The game is best viewed however as a medieval life simulator if you want to get the most enjoyment. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dazed and Confused (1993)

dazed and confused

This is another movie I didn’t see until well after it came out. I actually had a friend that kept calling me Matthew McConaughey and when I asked why he wouldn’t tell me, all he kept saying was watch the movie. Finally I did and well, my girlfriend while legal was a bit younger than me. We met freshmen year in college, tho I went through the army before college and she went straight from high school. You do the math.

The movie itself however is amazing. Its a coming of age story about a few of the football players and choosing between giving in to the demands of the coach, or staying true to themselves. It doesn’t stop there tho. There is a love story as well, there is some philosophy talk and even a fun side story about the tradition of of High School seniors essentially chasing the soon to be freshmen down and beating them with paddles.

Now I am not quite old enough to know anything about what the 70’s was like. I was born after that, but the stories I hear makes it seem pretty accurate. The acting is also amazing and they really capture what many think of when they think stereotypical high school experience. It is one of those cult classic movies people love and there is a reason for it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.