Sega Genesis Classics

download (4)

Spent some time playing this one, and many of the games. So I decided rather than try to stuff every game in here I would just review the games I play over time and just give you all a general idea of how this thing is as a bundle. First check here for a list of games. Sadly there are a few missing, like Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles oddly.n Also columns 2 isn’t there but 1 and 3 are, the reason for this is weirdly 2 was not on the console.

The games are amazingly emulated, and have never looked better, if you want. You have multiple options here. For the purist you can make them look damn near like the original release. For those looking for something looking more smooth, this has you covered. Sega has truly gone pretty far to make these seem as close to a remaster as possible without them actually being a remaster. I can honestly say the Phantasy Star series has never looked or felt better. At least not in America and legally. I am sure someone is going to bring up the PlayStation 2 versions that weren’t released here, I am still upset they are unavailable to me as I have never found a way to play them in English.

Any way, on to what I was saying, I have seen a few people complain about input lag, however I have not experienced this in any game I have played. Another cool feature is the ability to rewind and fast forward the game. Suck at Golden Axe and make silly mistakes? Rewind that badly timed jump or ill-advised jumping attack. Seriously, that is a thing you can do and you can rewind a decent amount of time. You can beat half the games on the list if you don’t mind being what comes off as a bit dishonest.

The game selection however is great and have never looked better, any fan of retro gaming should have no fear picking this one up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Special Correspondents (2016)

download (2)

This movie is going to be a like it or hate it situation, I doubt anyone loves it sadly. Ricky Gervais (Albert) and Eric Bana(Frank) play a news tech and a news reporter respectively in New York. Eric is a local celeb that is boss sort of hates and Ricky is a man doing his best that his wife, well his wife is a bitch he just doesn’t know it. Yet.

One day they are chosen to go do a report in Ecuador, the issue? Albert and his wife have a small falling out and in his despair he accidentally tosses the passports,and the tickets and the money. So basically he messes up a lot. This however will be the least of their problems as Frank decides to fake the entire trip.

This starts out pretty well, small phone call, some general info and computer and sound tricks from Albert. Then they invent a leader that other news agencies run with. This sounds like it can not get worse doesn’t it? Until they fake being captured. Yup, this movie takes all kinds of weird turns from bad to even worse. It actually gets even worse from there, but I won’t go any further. I actually really enjoyed the movie and do not understand the hate from many people. The script was nice and it was just different enough to be interesting. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Farming Simulator 17 (Xbox One)

download (1)

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)

images

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.

download

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.

Shoppe Keep (PS4)

download (1)

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)

download

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.

H1N1 PlayStation 4

download

This week H1N1 battle royale finally came to PS4, of course this for many was far to little far to late especially with the juggernaut that is Fortnight already there. However I do believe there is room for multiple similar games if they are different enough, but are they?

Simply put, they are quite a bit different. H1N1 has no building mechanic and there are vehicles to make traveling easier. The rounds also seem to happen much quicker with the gas falling much quicker. I do have some complaints however.

For starters, you don’t really pick where you drop in which kills a large part of the strategy in my opinion. This however is only the tip of the WTF iceberg. The controls feel like something from the early PS3 era, and this goes double for the driving. The graphics are also nothing special.

That all being said, the game is quite a bit of fun, and if you are into battle royale games it is worth checking out. It is different enough from Fortnight to have its place, just know it is a bit rough around the edges. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Galactic Civilizations 2 (PC)

images

So I got this game for free from Humble Bundle, because they were giving it away and I like free stuff. I had actually never heard of it before that day but hey it was free. So I got my game and installed it and then decided to see what it was about.

It turns out it is a turn base strategy game in space where you choose a race, or create your own, then build an empire. You can even design your own ships if you want. As you explore space, settle planets and mine asteroids you will meet new species which you can trade with and get to know. Unless you are me then you hit a wrong button and accidentally start what I call intergalactic World War one. See I accidentally declared a war on a species and his friend declared war on me. So I asked my friend for help and they were happy to help. That makes 4 of the 6 races involved….whelp it turns out my friend brought a friend and this pissed off the last race. Yup, 6 for 6.

After a few years of everyone beating the crap out of, well me. Myself and the next closest civilization had very few ships left and everyone else seemed fine it was time to rebuild tho I was listed as a warmonger and taxed extra by the intergalactic community. So let this be a lesson, the graphics are simple yet nice, the sound is ok and the game is fun, but one wrong button can start a huge war. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dead Island Definitive Edition (PS4)

images

Dead Island is one of those games I missed its original release for, but I always heard mixed things on. There is no story or there is a great story you just have to go looking for it or the game play sucks or it is great. Just all over the place. So I will put this part out-of-the-way first.

Tell me that isn’t one of the best songs in a game opening ever? I dare you. Did you say it? If you did you might be a damn liar. I don’t even like rap music. Anyway back to the review, the game has its issues. The game does have a cool story, but you do really have to go looking for it. Seriously, most of the story is hidden in note books and cards and stuff. If you don’t go exploring you will miss quite a bit of it.

Another issue, your weapons will break a lot. And you can not carry many of them especially at first. You can repair them thankfully but this cost money, even if you built them yourself which makes very little sense. I don’t know why I can use tape, a battery and some wires to build an electrified baseball bat but for some reason it cost me 50 bucks to fix it and $350 to upgrade what I just built. Makes no damn sense.

That being said, I did enjoy the story, the missions are fun and running around with friends on a tropical island bashing zombies with bats and stuff is fun. I loved the leveling up system was fun and different enough with each character that they all felt different enough to be worth trying. For all its faults if you are a fan of the zombie genre its worth picking up, especially if you can grab it on sale like I did. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Citizens of Earth (PS4)

download (1).jpg

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to run around as a nitwit Vice President, recruit other people and make them do weird stuff like beat up stop signs and crabs with road cones on their heads? No? I didn’t either. However with Citizens of Earth you can find out.

That is the main premise of this game, you are the Vice President of Earth, home on vacation after winning the election. When your mom, brother and yourself decide to go for coffee and run into a protest you quickly run into some weird stuff, not the protest that actually makes sense. Your character is a complete idiot, nobody understands how you won including the gardener of your office.

The story is fun and the enemies are strange, such as a deer with a telephone on its head. The game is silly, and it never tries to take itself as anything else. The turn based battle system is pretty basic and can be repetitive and most of the 40 characters really are just there, but are all pretty viable in use. In fact most of the game seems to be spent just recruiting them. There is a demo available that is free to try that I recommend you try, if you like the demo you will like the game. That is essentially what the game is with no real variation, I myself enjoyed it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.