Smallville Season 3

Smallville Season 3 is a bit wild. This is where the show starts to see our your friends go from more or less innocent kids to adults making real choices and real life or death decisions. This season starts with Clark Kent returning to Smallville after a crime spree that could only be described as momentous and epic. This, of course, brings the attention of one Morgan Edge, a true crime boss.

This season is quite a bit different from the past two, and this is a good thing. We start to see some of the overall stories coming together such as the love triangle with Clark, Chloe, and Lana. Of course, they don’t close out but things start to come together.

The ending is also as you would expect quite a cliffhanger with some people missing, one in jail and others quite possibly dead. We lose a couple main characters this season as well. This season is honestly the first time in the series you realize things won’t always be happy in the end and is a nice change of pace. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Yu Gi Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2017)

After a long hiatus, in 2017 Yu Gi Moto returned to theaters in the 2017 movie The Dark Side of Dimensions. The movie took place about 3 years after the original series, after the duel between Yu Gi and the Pharaoh that left Yu Gi alone and without the puzzle and the Pharaoh back in his rightful place.  An old prophecy has come to pass have and the Plana have received a magical power that will allow them to reshape the world into a better place free of evil. As we know however absolute power corrupts absolutely,

The movie will see Kaiba attempt to reconstruct the Millennium Puzzle so he can finally defeat the Pharaoh in a duel which will cause Diva of the Plana to attempt to stop him and kill Yu Gi so the power of the Plana will be safe forever.

The movie is well done and has something for fans that wanted something new but also gave fans what they also wanted, which was a duel with Yu Gi and Kaiba as well as new monsters, one of my favorites was Deep Eyes White Dragon.

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Tho Gandora-X The Dragon of Demolition was pretty cool as well.

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The movie did an amazing job demonstrating that Kaiba is obsessed with something to the point of almost insanity. That obsession also brought back old enemies long since forgotten and defeated and are more dangerous than ever. For Yu Gi Oh fans this may very well be the definitive movie and ending they always wanted. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Yu Gi Oh: The Movie (2004)

As a kid, I was a huge Yu Gi Oh fan, even as an adult me and my friends played. Yes, my now ex-wife and I used to play. I saw every episode of the original cartoon, I had every variation of Blue Eyes White Dragon, including the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon from this movie. The irony tho, I had never seen this movie until this weekend. See by this point I hadn’t so much fallen but didn’t really had the chance then, and years later I had forgotten about it. So as I am flipping through Hulu I came across it so I tossed it on.

The first thing I have to say, is the reviews on Metacritic and such are terrible. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 5%. For me, this seems odd, but as I said I am a fan. For me, it was a huge flashback to a show I loved. It was almost like watching season one in an hour and a half, we got to see Kaiba duel Pegasus, but how it would play out if he had his newest deck and experiences. We learned more about what happened 5000 years ago in Egypt, and of course, we saw Yu Gi pull a win from the jaws of defeat in a seemingly impossible manner and this was honestly all I wanted.

Sure maybe it wasn’t the best written or visually, and how dated the formula was is apparent. That being said it was a fun nostalgia trip and honestly 14 years after the movie was released, that is all I truly wanted. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Valthirian Arc Hero School Story (PS4)

Valthirian Arc Hero School Story is a cute and fun idea that is home to one of the worst design choices I have ever come across. We will get to that later tho. The game itself puts you in the shoes of a school principal with the responsibility of building a school and training heroes for the queendom. The queendom consists of one High Queen and five lower Queens, tho as you would assume the High Queen dies and you must find her one heir as the place is thrown into chaos.

The game is fun and easy to control, and there are 2 types of quest, errand quest which you send your students on and quest you send your quest on that you control. Each quest will take a set amount of weeks, but here is where the worst design choice ever comes in. If you send all of your students on errand quest, there is no way to speed up time. You have to sit there and wait for time to pass, slowly. It took over 30 minutes for a few weeks to pass with nothing for me to do except watch the screen. Nothing to build, nobody to control. Just wait. Now, this is easy to avoid obviously, simply send one set of students on errand quest while you yourself control a different set on a quest you control. The weeks will pass no problem, but do not send all your students on an errand quest because you will regret it.

The game is quite interesting and while not 100% original, it isn’t something you see often and it is refreshing to get a taste of it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Europa Report (2013)

Europa Report is a fictional story of a manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, but it should be noted it is based off the actual idea that many scientists have and one simple question that again many real-life scientists ask. Is there life on the moon Europa? Obviously, I am not going to answer that question, how the hell would I know? I am just a blogger with an interest in science that picked this movie because of what it was about. So how does a movie such as this stack up? Well much like the mission in this movie it mostly misses its mark.

The movie starts off slow, and I do mean slow. This wouldn’t be so bad but it tends to skip around without warning and without explanation. At one point I thought I accidentally restarted the movie because it skipped back and it was very similar to an earlier part.

The movie also never really speeds up, this wouldn’t be so bad, however, this time isn’t used to make you care about the characters. Not to say the time is wasted, they use it to push how important the mission is which isn’t bad, but really we know it’s important, anyone watching the movie is watching because they love this sort of stuff.

The movie also doesn’t speed up or get interesting until the last 20 minutes or so. Now I will admit, this end portion of the movie is quite amazing. In fact, I won’t even spoil that for you simply because of how amazing it is. It gets exciting, the pay off of the trip is finally found you start to wonder how it will all turn out and even start to see how they will get out of these problems. Scientifically speaking they also do a solid job of making things sound good. That being said, that ending is only worth it for huge fans of science and space. your average person should avoid this movie. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Omen Of Sorrow (PS4)

Omen Of Sorrow is an old-school 2D fighting game that honestly I did not have high expectations for. It kind of looked like a sort of Killer Instinct clone which really probably wouldn’t play very well, but it did look pretty awesome at the very least. Here is the trailer so you can see what I mean.

When Aone Games gave me this one to try it out, which I am always grateful for I figured I would stream it and give my impressions live. For those that watched you saw me jump right into an online battle and get annihilated. After that, I jumped into the Arcade mode, picture a sort of Mortal Kombat Tower experience where you pick a character and fight your way through opponents. This mode went much better on the I didn’t get killed.

After this, I was encouraged to hit the story mode. The story mode will see you going from character to character as you attempt to discover the secrets behind what happened behind a village of monsters. I won’t go into this but the chat agreed the story was quite compelling and interesting, with some planning to buy the game themselves.

That being said the characters are quite varied and based off the lore of monsters and more with characters such as Imotep and Quasimoto. There is a werewolf and a vampire and more. The characters are beautifully designed and control nicely, each with their own moves and personalities to go with them. In fact, my only real complaint here is the voice that says the characters name and introduces the rounds. She seems disinterested and out of place to me more than anything.

Now the reason you are all here, should you buy this, or simply move on to something else. Truthfully for a fighting fan, this is a good buy, the game could use a few more characters but in a world dominated by high profile fighting games, it is hard for a newcomer to enter the arena. Mortal Kombat and Injustice basically have the genre on lockdown with DBZ right there. Omen of Sorrow isn’t perfect, but it is the best 2D fighter to come along in many years and it is nice to see a fresh face that is fun to play. 8/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cryptract (PS4)

Crytract is a fun JRPG with a full story that is told almost like a storybook with nice graphics, with the classic turned based battles. The story itself is quite solid and concerns a mystical beast and the gameplay itself can be quite entertaining. Here is where the issue comes in, the game is free to play.

Free to play sounds like a good thing considering I just said I just complimented a JRPG, but the reality is it is essentially a pay to win cell phone game on the PS4. Sure you get plenty of free orbs to buy new characters with, but many of the best characters are locked behind “can only be bought with paid orbs” sure the characters you get with the free orbs are useful but against some of the heavier hitting monsters they start to be less desirable. Now the game is less pay to win than many mobile games but the game is greatly designed to get you to spend real money in order to compete in the events. The game is fun and you can grind out and with a little luck get some great monsters, but money makes the world go around. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Epic Dumpster Bear Dumpster Fire Redux (PS4)

First and foremost I would like to thank Log Games for tossing us a review copy of the game. It is always a pleasure to be given the chance to check out a game that a company works hard on making. Now without more waiting, let us check out Epic Dumpster Bear.

The first thing to know is the game is a side-scrolling platformer much like the Super Mario games, in fact, you will be collecting coins, both gold, and red as you make your way through levels.

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The controls aren’t perfect but they are more than serviceable for the task at hand. The staples are all here, wall jumps and sliding down walls as well and of course after a few levels you will be able to eat fish heads to do double jumps. For a little childish humour the double jumps are caused by farting.

The one major flaw to this game is the graphics. They are quite honestly not that good, but for the price point of $4.99 I won’t complain or hammer them too hard. Especially since the gameplay goes beyond expectations for a game of that price. The game takes a solid amount of time to beat as well and has numerous bosses. They certainly did not cheap out on this one anywhere else.

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Now for the end where I tell you a score and recommend you buy or not. A score is hard to say, I don’t like to compare indy titles to AA titles so obviously, this won’t be compared on the same 1-10 scale as say Red Dead Redemption 2. I wouldn’t feel right comparing a small dev like this to a dev that has tens of millions at a title. For an indy title, this is a 7/10 must buy for any fan of this type of game. They did an amazing job and the only real downside is the graphics and even that is usually much worse when you see games in this price range. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Smallville Season 2

Smallville Season 2. I have to be honest, these things seem so much longer than Supernatural. I am really enjoying it, but they seem longer. That being said season 2 starts off with Clark having saved Lana from the tornado from the end of season one and will dig much deeper into the love triangle with Lana, Clark, and Chloe.

The season also will see one of his friends, Pete discovers Clark’s secret tho it is more accurate to say he tells him in epic fashion, by running down his car and stopping it from driving. We will see the return of old enemies and the death of friends and even family. There is even some destruction seen on a scale most shows will never see.

This season actually takes on a much darker tone and the ending that I won’t spoil leaves you wondering how things could possibly turn themselves around. Friends are no longer friends, deals have been made and things that seem impossible have come to pass, we also learn that in Clarks world green means stop and red means go. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Red Dead Redemption 2, Another Look.

I did an initial Red Dead Redemption 2 First Impressions and I have to admit, I still haven’t beat the story. Outside of games, I have reviewed and what my friends and daughter have asked me to play I haven’t played anything else, but I still haven’t managed to finish the story. That isn’t to say I haven’t done some great stuff. I have explored a beautiful world, tamed a rare horse, threw dynamite at the KKK, murdered and robbed my way across the entire map and spent hours upon hours hunting.

Quite honestly, the game is most likely game of the year. I can’t imagine a game-winning out over Red Dead Redemption 2. The story so far is amazingly done. The characters are deep, the world is rich and vibrant and each person seems to have their own personality and wants and needs. The game is truly a work of art.

That being said, I won’t pretend the game is perfect. The controls can be a bit weird at times, but mostly they are as I said in the past quite fluid and well done. The aiming while great with the aim assist can also be a bit janky when you attempt to not use the assist. I also still have no idea what happens when your horse dies because they don’t really explain what happens if your horse dies. There are actually a few things the game doesn’t explain very well tho admittedly this was half the fun, just discovering how to do these things.

No, the game isn’t perfect and the online portion isn’t released yet to even comment on. But game of the year? Almost guaranteed. Game of the decade? It’s definitely in the running. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.