Opinion – Page 91 – Savior Gaming

Explain-All: The Infinity Stones in the MCU

This Explain-All has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while but with Avengers: Endgame just around the corner this comes as the perfect time. With Captain Marvel being the 21st movie of the MCU, it’s easy to see how some many casual fans maybe confused on the nature and abilities of the Infinity Stones, where were they in the MCU leading up to Thanos getting them, what are they to begin with? So lets begin with the first and most prominent of the 6 we’ve seen…

1. The Tesseract ( The Space Stone)-

Introduced in the end credits of Thor but expanded upon more in Captain America: the First Avenger and the Avengers . This stone contains the vastness of Space itself. Essentially distance becomes nothing- hence why Thanos can get from Titan to Earth in like 2 seconds. It transported Red Skull to Vulmir and with this Loki was able to transport Thano’s army to Earth from galaxies away. The Asgardians held it after the end of Avengers, it found it’s way back to Loki and eventually back into Thano’s grasp.

vision mind stone 2. Loki’s scepter / Vision’s brain ( The Mind Stone)-

Besides the Tesseract, Loki was granted a scepter by Thanos for his attack on Earth. Besides emitting energy blasts, it had the eerie ability to control people, including Hawkeye. After getting the scepter off of Loki, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were experimenting with it while programming Ultron. The scepter helped taint the program leading to his going rogue in Avengers: Age of Ultron ; to create his perfect offspring, Ultron breaks the weapon, using the Mind Stone inside for Vision’s brain, explaining his extreme intelligence and incredible powers. It was the final stone Thanos needed, resting in Vision’s skull.

aether 3. The Aether ( The Reality Stone) –

The Aether is a strange specimen, the essence of reality itself. Unlike the other 5, this doesn’t have a set shape. Introduced in Thor: The Dark World , Jane Foster gets infused with it and Maleketh tries to break it out of her to pretty much crash realms together. After Thor beat the dark elf, his friends handed the stone off to the Collector for safe keeping, as wishful thinking as that was…

the orb 4. The Orb ( The Power Stone) –

Speaking of the Collector, the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) tried selling this artifact to him, unknowing what was inside. Ronin wanted the stone for it’s immeasurable power; the Guardians together used it to destroy him and hand it off to the Nova Corps. Thanos laid waste to Zandar to acquire it and with just that he beat Hulk within an inch of his life. It was the first he got hold of.

stranges amulet 5. The Eye of Agomotto ( The Time Stone)-

What would any of us give to be able to control time itself, what not even the almighty Dormammu can fight against as Doctor Strange ( 2016) proved when he caught him in a time loop. The Ancient One and the sorcerers she trained protected it for ages in this amulet only an extremely powerful sorcerer can unlock. After defeating the Ancient One’s old student, Strange and Wong possessed it until the battle of Titan. After seeing the near countless failed outcomes in the fight to come, Strange surrendered the stone in exchange for Iron Man’s life.

6. The Soul Stone-

Before Avengers: Infinity War this was the stone unaccounted for. Essentially this stone is ultimate life and death; traditionally in the comics Adam Warlock wields the stone and while his creation was hinted at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) , Gamora led Thanos to the distant reaches of Vulmir for it. A barren Red Skull tells Thanos a sacrifice must be made to possess the stone- those who desire it must sacrifice what they love the most. Thanos, despite the millions of deaths and thousands of worlds he’s brought down, deep in his heart, he loved his adopted daughter Gamora, ending her life so he could bring order to all…

I hope this Explain all helps before Endgame comes this spring. Also, I’m dedicating this entry to my newly engaged lil sis and her fiance who requested this a while ago- this is for you guys. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

My Thoughts on Google Stadia

The Google Stadia, besides having what I feel is a really stupid name. Anyone that is curious it has to do with surveying equipment and measuring so the name at least kind of makes sense. That aside Google claims this new streaming service will allow people to play games off basically anything that uses Chrome, and in an interview with Polygon said if you get a good Youtube experience, you can get a good Stadia experience.

The success of all this I think comes down to price and what kind of games it supports. If it is expensive or doesn’t support enough AAA titles I don’t think people will care to pay for it. I also don’t think people are ready to give up their ability to play games without the internet which obviously this requires. That isn’t to say it won’t be a success, I think it will be. But a lot of people are talking like this will end consoles and change the landscape of gaming and I just don’t think this is it, yet.

The reason I say yet is that, while consoles may not die, the days of streaming and pure digital are coming. Not with the next gen of consoles but probably the one after. It is cheaper and easier for companies to sell, they make more profit and consumers care about convenience and storage is constantly getting cheaper and cheaper. 10 years ago the idea of massive amounts of cloud data being free or a 1T hard drive being available to the masses was kind of a dream people figured was coming but seemed off. Now if you get a good sale you can get a 4T for pretty cheap and toss it in your pocket.

Physical sales have also fallen across the board all over the world, and Microsoft is making a digital-only Xbox One. The writing is on the wall, and physical copies of games are on their way out tho I think Nintendo will be the last to follow suit. Many aren’t going to like it, personally, I prefer physical but that isn’t going to stop change. Stadia is just one more step towards that, and it is a big one. Sony has Playstation now, Google will have Stadia and Microsoft will have theirs soon enough. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dune Board Game Re-release

As reported by Screenrant, the classic and much sought after by collectors board game, Dune, is coming back into print prior to the release of the new movie. Looking it up I have seen it from anywhere as low as about $100 to as high as around $250. I’m not sure how normal those prices are but that seems kind of insane, and I am not sure if a new release will drive that price up or down since admittedly I know next to nothing about how that sort of thing works. Regardless, it may be a good idea to pick up a couple, one to play and one to collect. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jimmy Carr The Best Of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits World Tour (2019)

Oh Jimmy Carr, your dry British offensive humor. Seriously if you are easily offended, do not watch this. There are jokes about pedophiles, hookers, religion and a whole host of other things. The show runs for about an hour and is quite funny as usual. The biggest issue is not everyone will appreciate his brand of humor because it is quite offensive and he does have very dry humor that is mostly just him standing around delivering one-liners. I do suggest you check him out tho, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Culling: Origins To Shut Down

As reported by PCGamer The Culling: Origins will shut down come May. The game has essentially been a disaster from day one and going free to play didn’t help and as such the developer Xaviant has decided to end things. As of May 15th online will no longer be playable, tho offline play will still be playable. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Princess Guide (PS4 Review)

The Princess Guide, set to release March 26th, 2019 from NIS America. As always in the interest of full disclosure to you guys, they were kind enough to once again toss me a review copy which I am always appreciative and honored to get. The Princess Guide is the story of you, a former soldier turned tutor so to speak. Your student? One of four princesses each with their own story to watch unfold and each with their own desires and missions.

The battles take place in real time in a sort of action RPG style. Each commander has troops you can recruit with their own style of attacks, such as magic or swords. They also can be ut into different formations that have different effects. Need higher defense or attack? There is a formation for that. Want to heal? They have that covered as well. When you are controlling a princess in battle you can praise or scold her, and this interestingly enough helps her increase knowledge which will increase her stats and even comes into play when it is time to upgrade weapons.

The graphics are nice, while admittedly not the best out there I have no complaints. Even with a dozen or more characters fighting on the screen at once I never noticed any framerate drops or glitching. The sound is also nice with the music setting each scene nicely.

My only real issue with the game honestly is, I didn’t have fun with it. I felt like I spent to much time grinding away to power up my princess for the next battle. Also, the fact that I had to use commanders that weren’t the princess seemed to interfere with training her which annoyed me to no end. Obviously, these are pretty subjective and may not bother you at all. I wouldn’t steer you guys away from the game on those grounds alone but for me, that hurt the experience quite a bit. The game is solid, but it just wasn’t fun for me. The game is still a solid 7/10, but it just didn’t do it for me. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock Studios

As reported by Polygon the original creators of Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock Studios, are working on a new game called Back 4 Blood. Not much is known about it aside from the fact that it will be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. They were clear to point out it will have a lot of differences but you can still shoot up a lot of zombies Left 4 Dead style. They aren’t really ready to talk about it and haven’t released any screenshots or videos yet. There will be a campaign, a versus mode and they explicitly said no battle royal and is slated for Xbox One, PS4, and PC and has no release date. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Skulduggery Pleasant

skulduggery pleasant

This request has been a long time coming but this review goes out to my friend Danny, a awesome dude. Miss ya man.

Stephanie Edgley is both saddened and surprised when her uncle, a famous fantasy/ horror writer, passes away suddenly; saddened because he was one of the few people in her family she connected with and shocked that he left her with his estate. A strange man outside of her family shows up to the funeral and will reading, dressed from head to toe with a scarf around his face. This stranger is Skulduggery Pleasant, a living skeleton and magic detective who will change Stephanie’s life forever, showing her that there is more to the boring life she knew- magic, intrigue, ancient artifacts, monsters, and ancient enemy who basically wants to bring an end to the world. It’s up to an enthusiastic Stephanie/ Valkyrie Cain ( as she will be known later on), the wise-cracking detective, a sword wielding young woman, and some friends to take down Skulduggery’s old enemy and save the day in this opening chapter of a huge series…

I’m really honestly surprised the Skulduggery Pleasant series hasn’t reached Blockbuster status in the US the way so many other series have because it has some cool ideas behind it. I really like how well magic was broken down and the rules the system was given. The characters are likable and interesting; Tanith maybe my favorite because she did have a epic intro and some cool fights throughout. I also liked the White Cleaver at the end, who I kind of pictured as an anime version of Mr X from RE2. Serpine, the main villain was fine but I found him generic as a bad guy but seeing as it’s the first of a series I can’t say I’m too surprised. There’s a few times in the second act leading into the third kind of slow but nothing damming. Overall, it’s a really cool book I’d recommend to readers younger or older and a series worth checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory…

P.S. I Love You Sequel, Postscript, announced. (Book)

Author of the Book P.S. I Love You, Cecelia Ahern, recently announced on Twitter she has written a sequel titled Postscript. It is set to release in the UK first this fall and in the U.S. in April 2020. Below is the synopsis, enjoy and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

“When Holly Kennedy is approached by a group calling themselves the PS, I Love You Club, her safe existence is turned on its head. Inspired by hearing about her late husband Gerry’s letters, the club wants Holly to help them with their own parting messages for their loved ones to discover after they’re gone. Holly is sure of one thing – no way is she being dragged back to the grief she has left behind. It’s taken seven years to reinvent herself, and she’s ready to move on with her life. But Holly comes to realize that when you love someone, there’s always one more thing to say…”

7’scarlet Review (Steam)

7’scarlet is the newest game developed by Idea Factory and published by Intragames, who full disclosure tossed me a copy to review. I am also kinda glad they did because I truly never would have bought this type of game in a million years. I would have seen it, thought it looked interesting but never got around to it. Why you may ask, well it plays out like a visual novel. I have no issue with visual novels, by the way, they just aren’t my thing. This game may have changed that tho.

The story starts off explaining what is going on, which is you are laying the role of a young woman searching for her brother with her friend from when she was a child. This will lead you to the town of Okunezato which is surrounded by all kinds of mystery and intrigue. From the political atmosphere to the odd relationship between the owner of the hotel and the police officer. I know this all seems pretty vague, but it has too. The entire point of this is the story itself, and it would be wrong of me to spoil that and it is worth the experience. In fact, it is designed to be played multiple times as there are multiple paths to take with various characters. This will allow you to see the entire story and adds plenty of replay value.

The game is also quite beautiful to look at which I feel is pretty important for this style of game since you wouldn’t want to feel like you were reading a book instead of playing a game. That, however, is my only complaint. As aesthetically pleasing as the game is to look at, and as enjoyable as the story is, it is still a lot of reading and kinda felt like one massive cut scene even tho I did have to make choices at times. If you like to read books or visual novels this is a great game, it also was nice to relax with. It just wasn’t very exciting, and if you are used to shooters or action games this may not be for you.

As always tho I judge the games I play based off what the designers were creating and the functionality of it, and with a great story, no serious technical faults that I ran into and nice visuals I feel comfortable giving this one an 8/10, but pointing out it is not for everyone. Enjoy the trailer below that I added because honestly, I love the music. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.