Angel Season 4

Angel season 4 is a bit weird for me. We have mostly left the idea of redemption and helping people and moved into the realm of some ancient evil coming into the world when Cordy and Connor have a baby that everyone instantly falls in love with her.

My only real issue is the season feels rushed for me. We go from one bad to another pretty quickly after discovering the first one that is seemingly invincible is just a pawn to an evil that is inhabiting Cordys body. Then a baby is born that is her, so she gave birth to herself, but its hiding its true form, which is also hiding its true form. Don’t get me wrong the story is good, but it just seems really rushed to me. Connor has a great story arc here and it could have been even better I think if they had just given it more time. All in all the season is still a good one, but you could tell they were closing in on the end of the show as they try to tie up loose ends and all with cast members leaving and all. It is still worth a watch, but this is the season you can tell they are finishing up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bid Wars Pawn Empire (Mobile)

Bid Wars Pawn Empire is a mobile game from Tapps Games and the idea is simple. You bid on a storage unit and sell the contents in your store. Use that money to upgrade your store and vehicle so you can carry and buy more things to sell. The problem is that is really all there is to the game and it gets boring pretty fast.

You will quickly be running into the same items fast and going through the same motions over and over again. The game is fun at first, but it didn’t take long for me to lose interest. Best wishes an may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Angry Birds 2 (Mobile)

Angry Birds 2 is a lot like the first. You will be flinging at random structures to kill green pigs. Levels will inevitably get harder and harder and you will unlock new birds that do different things. Some will explode while others split into separate birds or fly fast to slam through targets.

The game is, in theory, simple and straight forward. Just chuck a bird through the structure and boom, stuff falls over and pig dies. Later on, however, it gets much harder. You will have to aim carefully to take out supports or push wheeled carts over and take things out that way. The game for me, however, failed to recreate the magic of the first one.

When the first released I remember being infatuated with it, playing for hours and draining my cell phones batter. This one looks better than ever and allows for plenty of customization but I just never had that strong desire to play. The game is fun of course and its good to kill a bit of time with, but for me, it just doesn’t do the same job. By all means, try it, it is fun, but it won’t likely be the nostalgia trip you were hoping for. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Angel (Season 2)

As I continue to make my way through Angel, season 2 has a different tone than Angel (Season one)  We learn much about the past of Angel and how he became a vampire to begin with. We always knew he was pretty much one of the evilest vampires to ever live, but he and his creator Darla pretty much went through Europe and Asia killing men, women, and children until he was cursed by gypsies for killing one of their own.

This season will also introduce a new and loved character, Fred, she is a bit crazy and out of touch after spending 5 years in a hell dimension however who amongst us wouldn’t be?

Each episode does a great job of showcasing how the characters have changed since season one and continue to change during season 2. Lorne also really comes into his own with his club Caritas becoming a frequent place the crew will visit for much-needed advice and wisdom. Caritas is a karaoke bar and sanctuary where demons are incapable of violence. It is a really nice touch and a good way to explain how demons can interact without things going badly. It is also a nice addition to the show and worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Junkyard Tycoon Business Simulator (mobile)

This is one of those games that looked pretty cool if you like tycoon games, had decent enough reviews to be worth checking out, and turned out to be horrible.

The general idea is you buy an old car, strip it for parts, and then sell them when the price is high to make your money back. This sounds easy and it techncially is, but it can be very time consuming. Many times I would spend more time waiting to sell parts than it took to get the parts in the first place.

The game starts off sloq as you can only have one car at a time, but as you get more money you can buy more space and more cars. This doesn’t really get you money faster so to speak, you still spens most of your time waiting. The more expensive cars are worth more money obviously but the waiting still sucks.

As with many mobile games I review, this one is best avoided. There are just better games out there that are far more fun. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Angel (Season one)

Angel is one of those shows I watched when I was much younger that I enjoyed, tho it had a counterpart Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I didn’t really care for weirdly. I recently watched season 1 just for a break in my usual stuff while my daughter is running around and I have to say all these years later and David Boreanaz is still a joy to watch. He really nails the dark and brooding part of the show, but his sense of humor is still note worthy. A lot of people can pull of the dark and broody attitude or have a great sense of humor, most can’t do both as well as David. His chemistry with Charisma Carpenter is also pretty great who pulls off the ditzy rich chick role amazingly.

Both characters will slowly grow into people that are trying to improve themselves as they are far from perfect. Angel is on a quest for redemption as his previous life of evil landed him with a curse from gypsies that gave the vampire his soul back. They fight the good fight against other vampires, demons, and lawyers. The last one isn’t a joke by the way, there really is a law firm in the show called Wolfram and Hart. They are basically involved in helping the underworld stary out of jail and hide their activity. It is a pretty cool concept that works out well. Regardless if you haven’t seen the show before it is worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Forager (PS4)

Forager is a game that out the gate seems overwhelming and weird. You basically start as a guy with a pickaxe and are told to build something. After that, the game basically leaves you alone. You then collect resources with your pickaxe to build new things and collect money. More money will let you unlock more land and build bigger and better things.

Over time you can build machines that will blast resources for you as they pop-up and you can get new skills to auto collect them. There is quite a bit of land to explore, temples to explore, enemies to fight and plenty of things to build and upgrade. There is no shortage of things to do, tho they do get a bit repetitive most notably at the beginning when you are simply doing the same thing while struggling to get what you need to build basic things. It isn’t long before things start to open up tho and you start to notice how many things tie together to create a pretty original experience despite the fact it feels like a cross between Minecraft and Terraria, both great games in their own right. If you like them tho, you may enjoy this one. So by all means check it out, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Fishing Paradiso

Fishing Paradiso is a mobile game that is pretty simple and straight forward, tho a bit odd in terms of story. You play as what appears to be a child,who is dead and in Heaven. A huge star looking whale tells you he wants to see you again, but you have to reach him at a higher place in heaven, which seems to be in space.

You awaken on an island with a bird pecking at you to get you moving. He explains that fishing in heaven isn’t quite the same. Fish in heaven are special and as such is treated differently in heaven.

The mechanics are simple, and bait recharges over time or you can pay real money to get infinite bait. Admittedly doing sill will make the game go real quick I am sure as most of what slowed me down was waiting for bait to recharge in the first place. It is pretty fun as far as mobile games go and it is a nice way to waste a fee minutes at a time, but don’t spend any real money on it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bear With Me-The Lost Robots (PS4)

As always, the first thing I want to do is say thank you to the guys over at Modus games for hooking me up with a review copy of Bear With Me- The Lost Robots. It is a prequel chapter to the rest of the Bear With Me series, which is also available on Playstation 4 with the Bear With Me Complete Collection, which as of now I have not played.

The second thing I would like to do is apologize for this review being a bit later than I would have liked. There was a pretty nasty storm earlier this week that knocked trees down and caused some flooding and as such caused some internet issues for many in the area that I am still trying to get sorted out.

Now, onto Bear With me. The game stars Flint and Ted E. Bear as they try to solve the mystery of, you guessed it, the lost robots. I feel I have to say, I don’t like point and click adventures. The story is usual meh at best and you send all your time blondly clicking trying to figure stuff out. I went into this thinking I love Modus games but hate this genre but because of who it was I wanted to keep an open mind and I am glad I did. Paper City is full of interesting people that are well written. The sounds are nothing short of stuff and well placed and even the music tells you exactly what the setting is.

The writing tho is where this game truly shines. Flint and Ted just compliment each other well. Ted is a smart kid with problems of his own that clearly is only helping for the sake of his sister, but this doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm. Ted is a sarcastic, cynical and some times lazy bear that is good at his job. At one point I kept looking at a projector just so Flint would ask Ted if he could fix it because I enjoyed listening to Ted tell me even if he could he wouldn’t because there was one directly next to it that worked.

The excellent writing doesn’t end there, I am not ashamed to admit there is a chameleon named OCD that I discovered if you examine his bulletin board Ted will pull down a story and tell him it has a typo. The results kept me occupied longer than I would like to admit.

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Above you can see OCD just minding his own business editing the local paper.

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Now if you look above you can see what happens when Ted tells him there is a typo. He will freak out and start all over again. The game is full of small details like this. Most of those papers on the wall can actually be examined to get a small piece of dialogue, most of which are some sort of witty joke or pun.

I don’t want to give to much away since the entire game is based on these interactions and everything I have talked about so far was very early in the game. They are by no means the best or even only such things you can do. The story itself is also well written and has its own twist and turns that are worth diving into all on its own. If you are a trophy hunter the game is also pretty good for that as well. There is just really no reason to not check this game out, more so when you look at its price point. A solid 8/10 game that would do any collection well. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

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Ted E. Bear knocking over a sign and fence with a car.

 

Dream Hospital (Mobile)

Dream hospital quickly went from a game a started out enjoying and quickly became highly disappointed in. While the sound and graphics are nice it became quickly apparent there wasn’t enough room to really build most of what you needed and getting the money together to build it was either an insane grind or would require real money. While we all play mobile games knowing this is the game plan because honestly how else will they make money, some games do take this way to far and this is one of those games.

Now the game is admittedly enjoyable, seeing all the people come and go, building rooms, equipping doctors and rooms while leveling up to find cures and new illnesses can be a blast. The added bonus of being able to create items to help cure things is also pretty awesome in itself. It just isn’t really worth the headache of having to grind just to hire a doctor after grinding to build a room. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.