How to slay a Dragon: A Fantasy's Hero's guide to the real middle ages

I saw this book in the Gaming section of a Barnes and Noble, no idea why it would be there.  It has nothing to do with games.  But I was hooked by the premise of the back of the book telling me this was how real world medieval people would deal with fantastical beyond real life things.  This is How to slay a Dragon, by Cait Stevenson.

Who doesn't like dragons?  aside from the knight being roasted on the cover.

So this book is basically a history book in disguise, but viewed through the lens of the tropes of sword and magic fantasy.  How to trick the genie, how to tame the dragon, how to rescue the princess, etc, etc.  That's not me just saying this, the author herself in the intro says as much, that this is a history book in disguise.  But it's a very good, entertaining history book.  

The book is separated into different sections not by time period but by trope of fantasy stories, further separated by how far into 'the heros journey' the hero is.  How to prepare for the journey, hazards on the way, reaping the rewards, etc etc.  The subjects range from How to deal with the bard, how to win a barfight, how to slay the dragon, and how to traverse the cursed swamp.  

However not all titles are indicative of what is in the chapter, like the cursed swamp one was about medieval plumbing for example.  But, the books overall is a very good read and tells very exciting and wonderful facts about medieval history. 

My only two complaints are that without a proper timeline anywhere in the book, I had no idea what time period each event took place in, since it hopped around a bit.  The other is equally minor, the book spends a bit of time insulting the reader.  Which, might be funny but I've been bullied enough both by others and myself that I don't find it so.  

Anyway, I give this book 4 our of 5 stars, which is a damn good score for something that cost me only 15 bucks, or maybe 20.  It was quite awhile ago I read this book, hence the short review.

Anyway, the reason why my review stopped is due to a mental break down in February that I have since recovered from, but depression/anxiety/laziness stopped me from resuming reviews.  Hopefully this will resume them.

See you all, next time.

Ori and the Blind Forest

This was finished awhile ago, I have quite a back log of reviews that need to be posted.  I might start posting twice a month.  Without further ado, the review,

Holy shit this game is BRUTAL.  I mean dear god.  I'm sure you're thinking, what game could it possibly be for me to call it brutal?  I'll tell you what, it's Ori and the goddamn Blind Forest.

Stop looking so innocent, cover art!

Make no mistake, the cute, amazing, beautiful and almost dream like graphics and art is a ruse.  A con to lure you into the world, to care about the characters and story.  

The music was arranged by an evil genius, able to elicit any emotion from your mind, but instead brings about soul crushing sadness and makes you weep.

The animation, gorgeous, the soundtrack, amazing, the art, stellar.  But make no mistake, this game should be rated M, for mental breakdown.

It's not the gameplay, hard as it is at my 450 plus deaths after finishing the game, a tough as nails platformer that puts Hollow Knight to shame, that involves precise jumps, dashes, and bouncing off enemies and projectiles like mad.  

It's the story that will bring you to your knees, that will make you sob uncontrollably, and you think, ' maybe if I do something differently it won't make me cry'.  NOPE, the ending will bring you to tears.

This game is treacherous.  Downright evil.  Do not play this game without plenty of tissues!

...with that said I give it 4.5 stars out of five.  The only reason I don't give 5 out of 5 stars is because in the Definitive Edition, if you don't do the DE only part of the game you might be lagging behind in unlockable skills to better withstand the trails Ori faces.  I found it a little too difficult to be 100% fun at the end.  If you can withstand or even like hard platformers, buy this game immediately.

...No I will not spoil the story, not even the prologue.  But even that is heart-breaking.

It's Christmas, Carol! (Sadly not the movie, the Theater Play)

I went to Ashland recently, just the weekend from the 9th to the11th of this month in fact.  For those of you who have no idea what that is, Ashland is a small town in Oregon that has many theater groups in it.  It however denies it's a theater town, but anyway.  The point of this is I saw a play, and I'm going to review one of the two plays I saw.  This is "It's Christmas, Carol!"

What the...and this is only part of the image I cropped, people.

I should note that there's a hallmark movie of the same name, with a similar starting point but set in modern time.  Also as you might have guessed from the title, I would've preferred to watch that one.  This one is a Marx Brothers inspired version, with, as you might've guessed with Groucho there, them staring as characters, even if the original actors are long dead.

Anyway, this is also a musical.  The musical parts....weren't that bad actually, even if most of them had nothing to do with the plot and sometimes the lyrics were hard or impossible to understand.  The acting also was fine, with one exception, but we'll get there.  

One last thing: This is an exception to my usual 'No spoilers whatsoever' rule, as I will be talking about the plot in depth.  Why?  Because unlike my other reviews here, this is not something you can buy easily, you would need to be in a specific location, at a specific time, to see this.  

The play starts with a narrator talking about what The Christmas Carol story will be, if the major players were woman instead of men.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.  The titular Carol Scrooge is a noble woman who actually loves Christmas just fine.  But she only does actions that benefit her some how or stroke her vanity.  So her best friend in life, who got her hitched with a rich husband, comes back from the dead to warn her that her actions will earn her eternal damnation.  

But that's about as far as it gets, because the first ghost to arrive is in fact Groucho Marx.  And so the Marx brothers invade the play, with no regard to the story.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.

Of course there's wit and humor around, and it's mostly very good, but unfortunately most of the jokes or gags are used too much or go on too long.  

Anyway, Groucho completely derails the plot until he's given a time machine to go travel in time with.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.  And then there's dinosaurs for some reason.  And later zombie future.  Don't ask question, please, wait until the end of this.

After the first act, the plot literally stops mattering because the narrator, who is a character, says "Screw it!" and just goes along with the Marx brothers running amok.  There is no plot after that, no follow through, and not even a thread of consistency.  

But dear god are there puns, and bad puns are my jam.  I loved every terrible pun.  Seriously, I was practically raised on the Muppets and Monty Python.  I can't get enough of them.

Anyway, this is also a musical, and most musical numbers aren't that bad, even if they're obvious parody's of Christmas songs.  But the last one was just "What's it to ya" as a parody of "Hallelujah".  And it made no sense and I couldn't understand the lyrics and was just confused over how the play didn't have an ending, but just stopped with no resolution whatsoever.

Now that I (badly) talked about the play, I will say there are four major problems in it.  As I said before, one is reusing or going on too long with the same joke.  Second is the lack of a plot or any consistency at all.  Third is that while the acting was great, the actor playing Harpo had the stupidest expression on his face.  I mean, I watched the Marx Brother films at age of Too Young to understand, so Harpo was my favorite character because of all the physical gags, but his expression was usually normal or varied, not constant one of "I just got a lobotomy."  

The fourth and final major problem is that there are actually several ideas here that could work as a full play.  Female main characters for Christmas Carol?  Great!  Time machine for time shenanigans in the Christmas carol?  Awesome!  The Marx brothers crashing a play?  Brilliant!  But combine these three together, and even more I didn't mention, and you just get a confusing mess.

So the too long, didn't read version is basically just...everything was good, but the script wasn't.  I give this 2.5 stars out of 5.  Why?  Because I enjoyed it and don't regret seeing it, but I wouldn't see it again.

Anyway, see you all, next time.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

I reviewed this book awhile back, when the COVID pandemic was just in its first year.  It's an old one, but without further ado, enjoy these words.

What the-A book review?  I read books?!  When did this happen?!  I don't read anything that isn't related to video games, obviously.  Besides, nowadays I read primarily non-fiction.

...Wait, it's about dinosaurs and is non-fiction?  Well...I guess I can review it then...this is The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A new history of their Lost World by Steve Brusatte.

The front cover!  Look at the Dinosaurness!

 The cover arts good, and on my edition it claims it was a New York Times Bestseller...not that really means much, so was Twilight.  Anyway, to me I think the cover is the least important part of the book, but the words on the back, well, that's what draws you in really, at least, it does for me.

Holy crap, there's a lot of -words- back here.  Mostly other authors or organizations saying how awesome this book is.   There's also a brief blurb of the author, Steve Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the university of Edinburgh, a graduate of the university of Chicago and Columbia, and has named fifteen new species and led pioneering field work through the world.  That's...about it, except that he would also really like you to to buy his book, but that goes without saying. 

Anyway, while the about the author blurb barely exists compared to most books I've read, the amount of people saying 'this is a good book' is astounding. The words actually describing the book also drew me in, basically saying that 'The things you learned about dinosaurs 20 years ago is now wrong and learn what people think they are now today by reading this book.' though it takes about three or four paragraphs to get that point across and in a much better way then I could've.  

I got this book as a birthday present after my mom and I stumbled across it in a shop a good...either a year ago before the pandemic really started or two years ago before that, I am unsure.  Either way, I mentioned I'd love it, left the store and forgot about it immediately.  My mother however bought it for my coming up birthday, and I read it soon after I got it.  So I'm going off memory here a lot of the time.  But I really wanted to review something and since I'm -apparently- allergic to finishing anything, I decided to review this book.

 The book starts with the Triassic period, when dinosaurs first appeared, all the way to their end and even beyond it a little.  During this book, the author talks about the proto-dinosaurs, their rivals as it were, the sauropods in the Jurassic, the tyrannosaurs in the Cretaceous , and even T. Rex, of course.  

They cover dinosaurs all over the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Africa.  Not much is said about Antarctica because, well, yeah.  It's not exactly easy to dig for fossils in frozen soil, even if it had more habitable conditions millions of years ago. 

They cover new techniques used in fossil finding and data gathering, mostly dealing with computers but said in layman terms enough that the uninitiated into dinosaurs can understand.  Honestly, I was surprised how good this book was.  I loved it, and it's easy to understand for me, at least.   

Easy to understand, gives what it says it will on the lid, and an enjoyable read filled with interesting real life people and dinos, I give this book a 4 stars out of five.  I feel slightly guilty with this, it might deserve a 4.5, but, eh. 

Anyway, that's it for now, stay safe peeps!

Monster Hunter: World

Finally!  How long have I been meaning to do a Monster Hunter Game review?  Since at least when I saw the Monster hunter live action film.  Anyway, this is Monster Hunter: World

There be dragons here.

Monster Hunter is a series of games that instead of labeling them one two three, they label them in generations.  It's...not something I really get, but World was the first Fifth generation game, and there's way more then five games. 

Anyway, Monster Hunter World has a more complicated premise then other games of the series, which is usually "You're the hunter of a small village, go fourth and hunt monsters".  Instead, the idea is that some Elder Dragons, massively powerful monsters, are making a migration from the Old World to a new landmass known simply as the New World.  The Hunters Guild investigates by following the elder dragons there, and you are part of the Fifth fleet to do this.  

The story kinda...stops mattering after that, really.  I mean it's still going on in the background, but who plays a Monster Hunter game for the story?     

I've been playing Monster Hunter games since Tri Ultimate, which was a third generation game, then played all the world wide released games after that.  if you're curious, look up the Monster Hunter wiki and scroll down to releases, but I won't list the games here.

Anyway, you start off, after the amazing opening sequence and small 'tutorial' phase, picking your weapon in a training ground area.  There are 14 weapons which are available in World, from your basics such as bow and arrow, dual swords, sword and shield, or Greatsword, to the more extreme and weirder weapons like insect glaive, switch axe, gunlance, and the bowguns.  There are three types of basic non elemental damage in Monster hunter, piercing, (made by bullets and arrows), blunt, (hammer like weapons) and slashing(swords and blades).  They do different damage to different parts of the monsters.  for example, a wing on a monster is susceptible to piercing, but not the other two, a monsters head or crest is hurt extra by blunt damage, or its legs more to slashing.  On top of this, you can damage different parts of the monster that affect how they attack or even move sometimes.

Once you pick your weapon, you hunt big monsters.  There are usually three on any of the large open roam-able maps in World, and no more then three.  It might sound crowded, but these maps are BIG for monster hunter games, the largest at the time, I think they're surpassed by Rises, the newest monster hunter game as of this writing, but they're still big.  My only complain is that in World the monsters that roam are usually much higher, we'll go with 'level' or difficulty, then the starting player character.  So quick tip, Don't fight anything you haven't fought before or the quest you picked up tells you to fight.

Once you fight a monster, you get its parts as a reward which you can craft into armor at the hub city zone, Astera.  You get more cooking ingredients to gain a boost to hunting powers during hunts, unlock places that grow plants or insects so you don't have to constantly harvest things on quests, among other different services, all unlocked as you progress through the story missions.

Monster hunter is split into two or three different levels, in the base game of World, just two, Low rank and High rank.  As you might expect, High rank is harder, and unlocked after you finish the story in Low Rank.  I might as well add that difficulty wise Monster hunter World was fairly easy for me up until the end boss fight in High Rank.

One thing I almost forgot to mention, you can bring on special hunting partners, who you can equip with gadgets that modify what support behavior or abilities they have!  What are these hunting partners?  fellow hunters?  Don't be so droll, no, they're cats!  Palicos! ...yeah get ready for unending cat puns.

Look at his little goggles...!

I give this game a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars.  I'll admit, if I was a new player to Monster Hunter, I would not give this such a high score, since it is a difficult game to get into blind.  But since I've been playing  for awhile, and it filled in my dream of a PC monster hunter game, I loved it.  Compared to monster hunter games in the past, it's a major improvement in almost all areas, even if there weren't a lot of monsters in the base game, but they were all enjoyable to fight, and the maps, including one of my favorite thematic maps in Monster Hunter history, are all great to explore.

I will add that Iceborune, the only expansion to World, is a similar yet also somehow vastly different experience.  It adds the Master Rank, an even harder rank for all old monsters and new, which is difficult enough I called on my online friends to help several times.  If your not good at monster hunting, like me, then, you really need to up your game by learning all the tricks in this game to damage and survive monsters.  But I give Icebourne 4 out of 5 stars.  The only reason it doesn't get the base games rating is because I feel like after awhile your gear plateaus while monster skill and strength keeps growing.  So, yes, I never finished it...

Anyway, see you all next time.

Muppet's Haunted Mansion

This is another old review I never posted.  About a year, so this was seen last Halloween.  Or  was it two years ago...eh, times a weird soup.  anyone, onward!

Why do I do this to myself.  it's a cheaply made Disney movie.  Are muppets really that important to me? to go through this?

The answer is yes, this is Muppet's Haunted Mansion, a Halloween special based off...the Disney amusement park ride.  Why.

*Sobbing noises*

Found on Disney+, Disney's new online streaming service, I actually saw an ad for this on youtube, and was happy just to see the Muppets again. 

I love the muppets.  I first started watching the muppet show as a kid, (from DVD's or VCR tapes, no, I'm not that old.) and have grown extremely fond of these characters.  I'll admit they're....extremely strange entertainment, especially since these were meant for adults as well as kids.  

Anyway, the premise behind this special is that Gonzo and Pepe le Prawn go to the titular Haunted Mansion on halloween to stay one night in it, with Gonzo knowing full well it's haunted, but he...forgot to inform pepe for some reason.  It's also the place where the great magician...The great...Look, he's called Macguffin the Great and they're looking for him, okay?  I hope I don't need to explain why I cringe whenever I hear that name.

As much as I love the muppets, I do question why pepe is the second main character here.  He's a mild to moderate lech, and that's about it.  Can you imagine if Rizzo the Rat was in this special?  Where is he Disney?  WHERE IS HE!?

...Anyway, the film has musical numbers in it, including a variation of grim grinning ghosts.  The...songs aren't great, in either performance or writing.  But they're...not...okay they are bad.  A few are okay.  

There's also -a lot- of guest starts in this, but most are in it for just one scene or even just one line.  The main one is the Host who invited Gonzo over, played by the Canadian comedian Will Arnett.  Who, honestly, I enjoyed watching.  Maybe it's becuase his lines were the best, maybe it's because he had the best jokes, but I got the impression he enjoyed the role he was in.  I could be totally wrong though.

This film also tugs on nostalgia hard.  Ridiculously so.  every major and even minor muppet is included, even if just for a few seconds, and they even make a ghost version of the muppet show.  I...can't say I didn't enjoy this film but it made me think about the fact that Disney owns a huge amount of entertainment companys, and that with no competition, at least at there level, they don't need to compete.  Just watch star wars 4824, we're just selling to nostalgia now.  

Anyway, the film's writing is....not good.  at all.  I almost walked out several times due to how bad it was.  But it's 'barely adequate', so good enough.  If you like the Muppets, anyway.  I did, however, enjoy the moments where they broke the fourth wall, but I'm sucker for those kind of jokes.

I give this...a 2.5 stars out of five.  That's with the addition of Muppet appeal, so yeah.  I'd only see it if you really like the Muppets, and if you haven't seen them before....just watch the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Anyway, that's all for now, see you all, next time.

The Muppet Movie (1979)

I apologize for the four month gap, I like doing it once a month, but, sadly depression is hitting me over the head for the past four months and probably more.  Anyway, moving right along to the review!

I love the Muppets.  Yet somehow, when the 2011 Muppet movie came out, I never saw it.  No idea why I didn't, looking back now.  But I plan to fix that.  But first, I watched the first Muppet movie because...uh...well my mother forced me to.  But anyway!  Let's move right along, because this is the Muppet Movie, 1979!

This movie seems to have a lot of ham in it..

For those who have no idea who or what the muppets are, they are a creation of Jim Henson.  Muppets, both the word and the various characters, are combination of Marionettes and Puppets.  I would go more into the history of them but I know absolutely nothing.  So we'll move right along.

The movie starts off with the muppets...watching there own movie.  It's only going to get weirder from there, since the movie often references and makes fun of the fact it's a movie.  I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say the script of the movie they're currently in is used at one point.  

The muppets and rare human character, which are mostly cameo's of famous 1970 actors, are great.  Sure, the jokes are dumb, but it's dumb in a clever way.  

However, it's not just the jokes, the musical numbers are fantastic.  Written by the great Paul Williams, I've loved every single song not just in this film, but all that I've heard from Paul Williams.  I'll, admit I haven't heard LOTS of them, but, still.  He even makes a cameo in the film.  But moving right along

Jim Henson, was a mad genius.  He did not mess around.  I will say a small spoiler, there's a giant, building sized mupet at one point.  That is not a special effect.  That is a real giant muppet.  I'd like to believe they left it there in the desert but it was probably sadly dismantled. 

Anyway, the Muppet Movie is a great one for muppet lovers of all ages.  And Just a good movie to boot.  The songs are fantastic, the message inspirational, the acting and jokes awesome, and it's just so good.  I'm giving this 5 out of 5 stars.  Yep, my first 5 out of 5 for a movie, and second of all time.  

See you all, next time.  Also, for those who are curious why I said move right along all the time, this song from the Muppet film is why:

Children Of Morta

I love pixel art.  Sure, there's nothing like realistic graphics to bring a game to life, but sometimes a nice pixel look brings more charm to a game then anything else could.  This is definitely true with today's game I'm reviewing, Children of Morta.

I would like to point out there are only two literal children warriors in this game.  It's still awkward.

Uh, okay, so the title card for the Steam Store isn't very impressive, it's more confusing and messy in my opinion, but the game really is pretty!  It's also a rogue-like hack and slash RPG.  For those of you who don't know what any of that means, I'll explain.  Rogue-likes mean that the game is hard and generally levels are randomized, as well as dying in a run then continuing at the start is part of the genre as well.  As I explained to my mother, dying is part of the learning process in Rogue-likes rather then an game over. 

Hack and slash are generally 2-D games where you, uh, hack and slash enemies, sometimes shoot them too.  Self explanatory, really.  RPG's stand for Role Playing Game, and generally includes the ability to customize your characters skills and level them up as you play the game.  

Gameplay wise Children of Morta is great, with fluid controls, and as you level up you gain new abilities as well as additions to old skills, but there's not enough to be overwhelming, nor are there too few that you can't change how you play.  In between dungeons, you can spend gold to make your classes, all of them at the same time, hit harder or take more damage or move faster and the like.  There are 7 playable classes or characters, and you can play as any of them in a dungeon.  You can be an archer, a fire mage, a sword and board tanky warrior, a sledge hammer wielding brute, a hand to hand fighter, a sneaky dagger using theif or a warrior healer from a distant land.   

Despite being pixely, it looks amazing.

Each character would not be, well, a character if not for the story, and the basic premise is that the Bergsons, a family of heroes, is investigating and fighting off the Corruption, a strange purple goo that can turn normal people into monsters.  I won't go into more, that's spoiler territory, but the story is well written, well narrated by a story teller like narrator, and takes some turns I did not expect.  The ending unfortunately just confused me and left me wanting more, but it did not ruin the experience for me.

Before I wrap up this review with a score and everything, I will say the aesthetic is great.  Not to give spoilers away, but while there's obviously magic in this world, some of the 'enchanted' or 'magical' things seem to look more like something you would expect to find in a sci fi game, at least in appearance.  And god damn, do I love that look.  One last thing; This game is still being added onto by the developers, meaning while a complete experience, more stuff is planned to be added. 

Anyway, I give this game a 4 out of 5 stars.  It's relatively short, fun, challenging, and the story is interesting and made me really want to continue playing.  I'll admit if the ending was better it'd probably be a 4.5 star rating.  If you like rogue-likes or rpgs or both, definitely pick this up.

Anyway, I apologize for this review being late, time and depression got away from me.  See you all next time.

Encanto

Disney, we meet again.  I see you have another animated film that looks good.  Is it though?  This is Encanto, on Disney+.

I would make a joke or comment here, but god damn is this pretty.

 The basic premise of the movie is that in the wilds of Columbia a refugee woman with her (about to die off screen)husband and three babies, and that they had a miracle when they were searching for a new home.  A magical house  and valley appeared for them to make there home in, and now, two generations later, the family Madrigal kids all have magical powers...except for one, the main character, Mirabel, who never got a Gift on her fifth birthday like all the others.  Oh boy, and it's a musical too! 

As you might suspect from the fact one family member has no magic gift and all of the others do, this movie plays heavily on the themes of belonging, acceptance, obligations and what those three things have to do with family.   And boy does it play those to great effect.  I can't discuss much without making spoilers, but the themes are great, and something I think everyone can relate to.  Who hasn't wanted to belong to something but never felt like they could?

The graphics, animations, and style are also...I mean holy crap, it's one thing to see them in a still image, but seeing them in motion is honestly an even better experience then what Raya and the Last Dragon provided.  The 'look at how pretty our animation is' scenes are honestly a joy to watch.

The characters and writing are also way better then Raya and the Last Dragon. While Mirabel is the most complex character, none of the main ones are just set pieces or two dimensional.  Another thing is that movie doesn't follow a predictable story, at least for Disneys usual patterns.  I can't say more, but, I was expecting a typical Disney movie and got something much better.

There are only two major downsides to Encanto.  One is the songs.  About one third of them are good, one third are okay, and the other third are mediocre.  And possibly because of the songs, most of the movie feels...not exactly rushed, but very quick paced.  Oh, and another problem is that while the musical scene visuals are FANTASTIC, I'm not sure what is actually happening during these.   Are they just talking?  Are the visuals just happening in one of their heads?  Did one of the characters really just take over the town with spiky plants in five seconds?  Anyway, each one left me mildly confused over just what exactly happened and did not happen.

I give this film five out of five stars.  Why?  Because I've changed the rating I've given this film three times, for the reason of I can't stop listening to the music or stop thinking about the film itself.  It's a brilliant film, so I had to give it five out of five.  Also there were rats in it.  I like rats.

See you all next time.

Raya and the Last Dragon.

Holy crap, this movie is a work of art.  I mean, wow.  The visuals are amazing, the character and creature design fantastic, the landscapes living paintings, and the animation gorgeous.  This movie feels alive in a way far more then James Cameron's Avatar ever did to me, and it really comes to life watching it.

Shame the writing tries it's best to kill that feeling dead, though.  This is Raya and the Last Dragon.

Oh dear god, what's wrong with that dragons face?!

The premise is that in the land of Kumandra, an area of land that follows a dragon shaped river, was ravaged by evil spirits known as Druun, 500 years ago.  The last dragon not turned to stone by the Druun managed to use a concentrated magic gem that banished the Druun and turned the people back to normal but not the dragons.  

All of the above and what comes next is basically just backstory; in present day in the movie, 5 warring tribes in Kumandra are fighting each other and trying to gain control over the Dragon Gem, which is being guarded by the tribe slash village known as Heart.  However, a plot by the tribe Talon is revealed that they were trying to steal the Dragon gem at a feast for the five tribes, the aforementioned feast in an effort to stop the fighting.  When this plot was discovered, the other four tribes came in, and started fighting over the dragon gem, which gets broken and releases a Druun(or possibly creates it?).

The druun, which multiples itself quite quickly, turns Heart's people to stone but has an aversion of water and the gem pieces, which quite conveniently is shattered into 5 pieces, so one for each tribe is taken.  The main character, Raya, who is just a child at this time, is saved from the Druun by her father, the father having been turned to stone, and NOW the plot starts with a 6 years later message and Raya trying to find the last dragon to stop the Druun once again.

Wow, that took quite awhile to type out.  Now, I'm sure such a long set up, including some things I didn't mention, would take a good 30 minuets to...wait...you mean it only took ten or fifteen minutes in the film from all that?!  The film is a total of an hour and 54 minutes, with at least fifteen or twenty being the credits of other languages.

So yes, the intro is rushed, but otherwise I did not notice rushed or prolong padding for most of the film.  aside from a few pointless 'look at how pretty the animation is!' scenes that are ironically the least good looking in the film.

Now, as I said, the film is beyond gorgeous, there is in particular one scene where Raya is saved by the Last Dragon from the villain, and that scene is...wow.  I mean, I cannot describe it, but I want that entire 30 second scene framed.  I don't know how you would frame 30 seconds of animation, but man, I want it.

Unfortunately, the plot is rather thin, the dialogue rather stilted and bad, and some characters act like set pieces instead of living breathing people.  While watching it with my mother, there were several times I almost left because the writing was so poor, but I was already hooked by the visuals.

That being said, I am a fan of apocalypses, and having most people be turned to stone definitely counts as one, so I loved the setting and world.  Also the theme of the film is something I truly, really do believe in, and unfortunately can't say because it's kind of a spoiler.  

Also if you've seen the film, the last scene before the proper ending of the film really got to me because of the visuals and the message it was sending.  So I admit I cried.  Admittedly it doesn't take much to make me cry anymore. 

I give this film, a 3.5 stars out of 5.  Why?  Well, it earns 3 for visuals alone.  An extra 0.5 stars for the theme, which I'll admit is a personal thing.

Anyway, see you all next review!

Lost Ember

I'm sure you're all familiar with the saying 'more then the sum of its parts'.   if your not, then it simply means something is better then it's individual combined parts.  I mean, I kinda get it when applied to, say, a car engine or a digestive tract.  Individual organs or parts of the engine would do little on there own, but when combined, you get a thing that does amazing things.  

I get it less when applied to something like a game or even worse, a story.  This is a review of Lost Ember, a game that is most definitely more then the sum of its parts.

The game is bloody beautiful.

The games premise is simple: You're a wolf with a spirit guide investigating the world and trying to find more about both your and your spirits guide former human lives.  To do this the wolf is gifted an ability to possess other animals, and uses these to travel and solve very simple puzzles.

That's it gameplay wise.  It's pretty much a walking, flying, and swimming simulator.  The levels are fairly linear, but there's collectables in the form of artifacts and special mushrooms to find. There are also very rare quick-time events, roughly three in the entire game that require you to just press the same button five times in a row.

So it's just you walking through the ruins of a post human world, in many different forms, including wombats, moles, and hummingbirds.  You learn more about the cultures and certain people in the past, but really the story boils down to the journey of a young woman across the land and her interactions with people.  That does not sound like something that would keep my interest, in either gameplay or story.

And yet it did. 

Now, full disclosure, I did not in fact play this game, but watched and guided my mother through it, and had a more active role in it then just watching despite what you may think.  But both her and I were mesmerized by the game and played it for weeks (She plays for half an hour each day, or tries to).

While the story gets more complicated in Lost Ember then what is just said, and there's several twists and turns in it, I got really intrigued by it and I loved how it went.  The ending sadly faltered slightly from the rest of the story, but, it was still a very enjoyable ride.  

Overall, I give Lost Ember 4 stars out of 5.  Yeah.  I -really- enjoyed it.  Yet, the description I would've given it of 'walking simulator about discovering more about an ancient person', would not have interested me, and I am still baffled by how it managed to.  But hey, I'm very glad I bought it for both me and my mother.

See you all next time.

Last Chance to See (TV series)

You might remember the book by Douglas Adams Last Chance to See, which was a funny and fantastic book about seeing some endangered species on the brink at the time, in 1989 and a little after.  Well, apparently Douglas had wanted to go back and see how they were doing, but, he died in 2001. 

Well get ready to see some endangered species, because there's a TV documentary made in 2009 starring Douglas Adams close friend, Stephen Fry, with the zoologist Mark Carwardine!  This is Last Chance to See, the TV series.

Time to go camping!  ...wait Stephen hates camping.  Oh dear.

The series is 6 episodes long, and yes, those who read my review will note there's more then 6 animals Douglas visited, but, some were left out for reasons I am unsure of, and one was left out for the reason it's extinct, the Chinese blind river dolphin.

The episodes themselves focus on the Amazonian manatee, the Northern White rhino, the Aye Aye, the Komodo Dragon, the Kakapo, and the Blue Whale.  All but the Blue whale were part of the orginal Radio broadcast series, and the Manatee was left out of the book Douglas wrote.

While I won't spoil the episode, each episode not only focuses on the animal, but also other animals and the people who live there near that animal, as well as issues facing that animals survival.   

While Stephen fry is not as funny as Douglas Adams, he's a charming and clever person himself, so this series is still entertaining.  While it's a little more 'shame on you Westerners' then the book was, it doesn't lean into that heavily, just enough to get the message across.  

Despite at times being dark and gloomy, some times rays of hope show through.  for example, the Kakapo at the time of Douglas Adams visit, were down to double digit numbers, and not big ones.  Now, when Stephen Fry arrives, they're up to triple digits. 

There's other examples of this, but the series was extremely fun to watch, even for my father, who is not a major animal lover like my mother and I.  It was fun, charming, funny, and informative all in only a six hour package. 

The best thing about the series, for me at least, is that Stephen Fry, even if he was lured on for money or other reasons, I got the feeling he started to really enjoy the animals and travel, genuinely.  Mark Carwardine, of course, loved it as well.  

Anyway, I give this a 4.5 stars out of five.  Very well done, extremely good nature documentary.  Would watch again. 

Anyway, see you all later!

Monster Hunter (2020 Film)

Paul Anderson.  If you've seen the Mortal Combat movie, or the resident evil ones...then you know who he is.  Buckle up kids, because he made a live action Monster Hunter film!

Flaming swords and triceratops monsters, what more could you ask for?  Plot and common sense? nah.

For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a director who makes really bad movies, mostly based off existing material, though not exclusively video game movies.  As someone who has seen his Three Musketeers film, I can safely say that it has little to do with the books, despite never reading them.  But the film has steampunk airships.  I'll let that sink in.

Despite the huge flaws of his films, I enjoy them, if only because they're so over the top and take themselves too seriously.  Basically, they're so bad they're good, in my opinion.  So when I heard a monster hunter film was in development by Paul Anderson, I was overjoyed.  I was even more overjoyed when I heard the basic plot.

For those of you who never played Monster Hunter, it takes place in another world where giant monsters roam and Hunters, well, hunt them to keep people safe but mainly to turn the monsters into cool looking armor.  The locations, monsters, and characters change throughout the series, and there isn't really a overarching theme except for the obvious one of hunting giant monsters.  The plots in Monster Hunter are also simple, to the point that really it boils down to 'monster bad and threatening village, you kill!' and that's it.  So how could they fuck up a plot of the movie?

I'll tell you how; by having the film take place in our world.  To be fair, the plot is that a squad of United Nations soldiers get teleported to the Monster Hunter world, but the first bit of the film takes place in our world.  This is like fucking up scrambled eggs, how do you do that?!

Anyway, I was filled with glee when I watched this movie, and it did not disappoint my...disappointing expectations.  

Oh, also, this film stars Paul Andersons wife, Milla Jovovich, and if you've seen the Resident Evil movies, you know she'll be doing super human feats of strength and just be so cool you guys.

The premise is that Milla Jovovich is leader of a squad of soldiers from the UN investigating the disappearance of a squad, when they get teleported to another world through a lightning storm plus some weird ruins.

First off: The monsters look fantastic.  I cannot explain the joy I felt seeing the main first monster, Diablos, on the screen.  They did shrink the Diablos wings, but, honestly?  It's a burrowing monster that in all the games in the series never flies, so it looks much better with vestigial wings. The CGI effects are nice, and there's some real stunts in there as well, which I appreciate more.

While the plot is not following any plot from Monster Hunter, time and effort was put into to make the human characters look like they came from a Monster hunter game.  This includes some armor made form monsters that you can make in the games, and some that just look like NPC's.  Either way, they did a good job making this movie feel like a monster hunter movie.

The acting...well, let's just say it isn't great, but isn't like, terrible either.  Decent job all around, really, I guess.

The music...is nothing note worthy, which is a shame since the series has AMAZING music in my opinion.  I own all the music starting from monster hunter 4, and there's been 3 major games after 4.

Unfortunately, this movie ends on a cliffhanger.  Which, if you've ever seen any of Paul Andersons films, you knew this was going to happen.  Guy is seriously allergic to ending things.

I give this film...a 3 out of five stars, maybe 2.5 stars.  Sure, it's not a good movie by any means, but it's a good monster hunter experience.  While the previously reviewed Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild is honestly better overall, it's not by a lot.

See you all next review, which probably be soon since I have a ton of finished reviews stockpiled up.

Bunker Punks

...Punks.  In Bunkers.  Let's go, this is Bunker Punks.

In the Apocalyptic future, everyone will be punks!

So, Bunker Punks is an old school shooter released in 2018.  It's a pretty simple and short game, so this review will be short.  It's a Rogue Light game, which means dying is part of the process of learning to win the game.

The story is simple: In the future, a bunch of cataclysmic events happened, and corporations take over the governments of the nations in the future.   It's not a distant future by any means, and you play as the Bunker Punks, who raids facilities to steal stuff to fund there movement to eventually overthrow the evil corporations. 

The gameplay is split between bunker building/strategy layer and the First person shooter run and gun levels.  You spend money earned during raids, on upgrading the bunker you live in, which upgrade damage, health, armor, or heals punks in certain instances during raids.  

During the raids, you kill drones, both the robotic and people kind, to collect money, tech, and new weapons or armor.  There's an elevator at the end of each level or floor, that is the exit point to the next floor, or the exit point of the raid, depending on what floor your on.  

When you inevitably die, you lose all progress...Except for the tech you earned, which you spend after you fail a play through, to unlock different armor,weapons, bunker base upgrades, and even more punks to play as so if you accidentally die as one punk, can continue as another. 

The weapons are split between pistols, shotguns, rifles, melee weapons, and explosive.  Pistols are generic medium range weapons, shotguns get a bonus to damage at short range, rifles get a bonus at long range, and explosive weapon have an area of effect of damage, meaning don't fire point blank.  I have never encountered a melee weapon yet, but presumably they do a lot of damage.

It's an okay game for what it is.  I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.  It's fairly solid, and I enjoyed it for what it was, and it was only 10-15 dollars.  I've spent more for worse products.

Anyway, see you all next time!

Slipways

I love 4X games. I also love Science fiction, so make a science fiction 4X game and I am there like a....a....very fast thing.  And that's how I ended up buying this game called Slipways that advertised itself as a 4X game you could play a session of within 30-60 minutes.

Slip on through to the other side!  ...wait it's Break on through.  Damn.

Slipways is a simple game: you colonize planets and then connect them through the titular slipways to level them up to make more money to repeat the process.  

To start with, you have just a wormhole to send probes through to scan signals for potential planets to colonize.  Some signals can turn out to be space station ruins, asteroids, or nothing at all.  However, near the wormhole there are tons of planets so at first you are spoilt for choice on what to colonize and what planetary specialization the colonized planet should be.

Each planet makes a certain export product but need a import product to go beyond the level 1 of 'struggling'.  Once they've got a import of the kind they require, for example mining planets require people to level up, they go to 'established'.  If you manage to export the product of the planet to 2 other planets and have two imports, plus supply the needed new products to level up, it becomes 'successful'  Level 4, the final level of a planet is 'prosperous', and it requires 6 imports or exports, and has to be connected to 3 'successful' planets as well.  

level 1 planets are a drain on your money and happiness of the sector of space your colonizing.  Not fixing level 1 planets means that the already bad situation will just get worse, but level 2 planets provide good income, level 3 even more, and level 4 the most.  They also provide more score, which is how your measured up at the end of the 25 years of the game session.  Luckily, time only moves forward when you do an action, eg, colonize a planet that takes 3 months, time move forward 3 months and then stops until you do another action.  Even better, most actions can be undone at a click of a button, except for scanning for planets, which can't be undone.

The game also has a tech tree, which you can research techs by building space station labs in the session, but the actual techs you can research are chosen by the council species you pick.  At the start of the game you pick 3 out 5 possible species to be on your council, which affects the techs you have, the types of starter perks you get, and what kind of missions you'll get to improve score will be given.  There is a science based council race, a industry one, a trade one, a food/ecology one, and a mining/resource gathering/exploration one. So you can somewhat cater to what playstyle you like.

The game starts with the campaign locked until you get a 3 star score rating.  And while the game is easy to play, it's extremely difficult to master.  My personal example, is that I didn't know leveling up planets was the way to win big points at the end of the game, as well as stop happiness from falling so far that the people in the sector kick you out before your 25 year term is up.  So I failed at least a dozen times my first dozen tries.

The game is also addictive in a weird way.  I have 10 hours on it at least, although some of that was in offline mode on steam, so who knows how many I played.  While it can be frustrating, I found it a relaxing in a way, and it became more so once I figured out the mechanics.  

Unfortunately it is not a 4x game, for several reasons, one of which is the total lack of competition ingame, but it's still a good game, so I give it 4 stars out of 5 for what it is.  Unfortunately it's a short experience, with most sessions being under 20 minutes for me, and I also don't see myself playing it again anytime soon, but it was only 16 or so dollars for me, and I think it's well worth the price.

That's all for now, see you next review!

Humankind

 I love Amplitude studios.  As I mentioned in Sid Meiers Civilization: Beyond Earth review, I like 4X games but hate civilization the game series.  Mostly it was just the setting I didn't like, so I was happy to take different settings with the exact same gameplay, but then Endless Legend from Amplitude was released.

A little backstory, before Endless Legend was Endless Space, which was a space 4x game, 4x games being where you control a nation or empire against other nations or empires.  Endless Space 1 was, honestly, safe.  It was good, but it didn't change things up much.

Endless Legend, set in the same universe but as a planet based fantasyish 4X game, did however.  It rocked my world, with each faction playing completely differently, eight to begin with, cities that actually expanded and grew into new tiles, and a research 'tree' that could have people select completely different techs but still be comparable in power.  I'll go into the details more when or if I ever review Endless Legend, but it was awesome.  Endless Space 2 was even better.

So when I heard Amplitude was going for Civilizations throne by making a historical 4x game, you bet I was interested.  I wishlisted that on steam so fast, and eagerly bought it when it was avlaible, and started playing.

Boy, was I in for some bad whiplash.  But more on that later, this is Humankind, the video game.

Whoa.  Someone broke the Time line bad.

Humankind starts with you making your avatar, and then starting a game immediately with no main menu in between, though there is one after you have started the game a second time.  As a character creator fanatic, I loved making my leader look good, even if I couldn't change the clothes.

Each game in Humankind starts with all players in the Neolithic era.  This means you just have a single tribe who will in this era look for food to grow and curiosity to understand the universe better.  Also you can kill animals wandering the land to earn fame stars as well.

Fame stars are in Humankind the way you get to the next era, one out of seven, including the Neolithic era.  While in the rest of the game you can get a total of three from each category of fame, those being researching new tech, growing population, building districts, expanding territory, making money, gaining the resource Influence, and killing enemy units.  In the Neolithic era, you only gain one star from three categorys, killing animals, growing more tribesmen, or finding enough curiositys in the game.  

This is my first problem with the game.  while it's nice to start off as a nomadic tribe and explore the area before setting up your first city, getting to the Ancient era, where game play properly begins, is extremely luck based in how fast you get there.  I wouldn't mind if I could skip the neothlitc era, but that's not an option in making a game session.

To win the game, though you can change how to win certain games slightly when you make one, you need to earn the most fame.  you usually earn fame through the aforementioned stars, but can earn them building great wonders of construction, doing a deed before other empires, and discovering natural wonders.  

When you get to the Ancient era, you pick a civilization, which gives one unique unit, one unique district to be built in your cities, and a unique passive that stays with your empire even when you change civilizations again at the start of another era.  On top of that, each civilization comes in a category that aligns with the categorys of fame stars I already mentioned, research, population gain, building districts, etc.  These, uh, ideologies come with their own set of bonuses, a passive and an active one you must activate.  For example, the ideologily of an expansionist not only gains more fame by grabbing territory, but also can enter other empires borders even when borders are closed. The Empires leaders won;t be happy about that, but you can do it.  

This brings me to diplomacy: Its works, but it's a bit...simple.  while it's nice you don't have to spend influence, a resource in Humankind that is gained in cities and used to make more cities and grab more land, when you are being diplomatic with other empires.  The feature I was most excited for is the badge system, which changes the empires AI personality and gives thme some passive traits that help in some way.  But it's a pain in the ass to get most badges, with me having to look up how to even unlock them.

Cities can build different districts to expand, along with building, well, buildings that don't expand the city but still help it.  Some districts, like the farmers quarter, only gives food and ignores forests or rock fields for industry, and you'll need a makers quarter to exploit those.  I liked the different quarters or districts you could make, and the unique ones were always a welcome addition to any city.

Unfortunately that's the last nice thing I have to say about Humankind.  there's two more major gameplay features I haven't even touched on yet, but I also found out they were entirely pointless to begin with.  That is Religion and Culture.  Culture is spread to other cities and territories even to enemy cities and territories, by building things that make influence.  Religion is spread through making holy sites once you unlock that feature.  The religion you follow and the culture/civics you follow gives you mild bonuses.  But, they don't give you fame or stars, or, really, anything at all.  The most you'll find is that if your culture is being subverted by another empire, you'll just have to get different civics occasionally from the ones you choose, but there so mild differences in them it's not even worth choosing civics or starting a religion most of the time.

Above all, Humankind, the magnum opus of Amplitude, as they've described it...strikes me as a very safe, kinda dull additon to the 4X genre.  I stopped playing and uninstalled Humankind after a mere 22 hours.  in Endless Legend, I have over a 1000 hours played on that game.  What happened?

I don't know, and I refuse to hypothesize, but I will give this a 2.5 stars out of 5.  but it was a close call to give it just 2 stars.  Anyway, hoping to get a new review out soon.  See you all next time.

Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild

I love the Monster hunter game series.  For those who have no idea what that is, it's a game where you hunt monsters in a low magic fantasy setting, originally on the Play station series of consoles, and then Nintendo consoles, and now PC, finally.  It is mainly a Japanese game series, but they release some across the world as well, now much more frequently then in the past.

I will go on about Monster Hunter games once I review an actual game of the series, for now, this is Monster Hunter: Legends of the guild, a Netflix movie.

Hold up.  Why does that girl have butterfly wings.

This movie relies heavily on the fact that you've played Monster Hunter 4, and Monster hunter World.  Or at least a Monster Hunter game recently.  I made my mother watched this film with me I was so excited.  She was just left confused.

This movie also moves fast, both because it's only 60 minutes long, and the 'camera' moves too fast in fight scenes.  This is a problem even for me, who is young and used to fast moving cameras.  The fact that they're trying to cram and entire 2 hour movie into an hour is also a problem.  As you can see from the poster, there's six main characters in the movie.  All of them have a past and backstory.  All of them blurt it out in about a minute, because they don't have time to properly tell it.

If the film had been 30 minutes longer, it would've improved it greatly.  On the other hand, 60 minutes means I didn't have to stay long or suffer from Aidan, the main character with the weirdly floofy hair.  He is beyond annoying.  On top of that, he keeps making puns with monster names, that only Monster Hunter players would know, thus further isolating my poor mother into the confusion corner.

The plot involves Aidans village, who happens to be in the path of a migrating Elder Dragon on the mysterious Elder Crossing(A phenomenon that is investigated and solved in Monster Hunter World).  They of course refuse to flee, and he manages to convince the Ace Hunter, Julian, to help him and his village fight the elder dragon making a bee line for a land across the sea, no matter how many villages there are in its way.  The plot is basic, but it works for what this is and in the time frame.  For SOME reason, they also tell the story as a a story told by Aidan to the hunters on their way to the New World to investigate the Elder Crossing.  This adds more confusion to non-monster hunter gamers, and makes the movie ten minutes shorter to explain or develop characters.

For those of you who play monster hunter, the monster is a Lunastra, the female version of the elder dragon Teostra, who we just call Toaster for short.  While I'm on this, despite calling them dragons, they are not in fact, dragons.  Lunastra and Teostra are based more on lions then reptiles  So that further brought my mother to the confusion cliff.

But, the monsters and graphics and animations of the movie fit the Monster Hunter games -perfectly-.  Sure, it's cartoony, and humans can somehow jump twice their height and do incredible feats despite being human and not Olympic athletes.  They even included a Felyne from the games!  Who is the only 'good' character of the entire film, because he's actually funny.

While I was more disappointed of this film then the Live Action Monster Hunter film, I did enjoy it more.  I'd give it three stars as a Monster Hunter lover, maybe 3.5

Either way, I hope to review the live action  monster hunter film soon.  See you next time, peeps.

Last Chance To See

 Douglas Adams might very well have been the most amusing man in history.  I'm sure people who read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy would agree, but I never have.  Sure, I've seen the BBC TV series a decade or more ago, but I barely remember it.  I mostly read non-fiction nowadays, due to crippling anxiety that makes me reading fiction a nightmare of emotions(don't ask for reason or logic in this, anxiety answers to no one).  Luckily, I recently found out Douglas Adams wrote a book of non-fiction where he toured the world for the most endangered animals at the time, in 1985 and 1988, and wrote about his experiences.  This is Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.

Here be Dragons...and flightless parrots, dolphins, and a penguin

It should be noted Mark Carwardine is the biologist who travels with Douglas Adams.  Adams job is, as he puts it, is to know as little as possible about zoology and animals, and then write about them, a job which he is well qualified for.  

It should also be noted that the book I got was from the library, and its cover looked nothing like the above.  It had a simple green background, Douglas Adams name at the top in huge golden letters, four pictures of animals in the middle, small picture s at then, and then the title, Last Chance to see in also golden letters.  It looks like an extremely cheap cover, unlike the one above which looks expensive.

The books back describes basically what I already said, with bits of other reviews saying how good it is.  

The book is wonderful, even if at times the subject matter gets depressing and serious, Adams never seems to, always with a quip or joke to say about it.  While most of the trips are detailed enough to my liking, the starting chapter, about Madagascar's aye aye lemur, is extremely short, but is mostly used as a jumping off point for why Adams is doing this.  While Adams was the one who had the idea for the trip, Marks knowledge of endangered wildlife and the original trip to Madagascar is what gave him the idea.  

It should be noted that I think the Madagascar trip was supposed to be a one off, I believe, though I have conflicting info on that thanks for the internet.  They saw the Aye-aye, the Komodo dragon, Mountain Gorillas, the northern white rhinos, the Kakapo of new Zealand, the blind river dolphins of china, and some of the worlds rarest birds on the planet in Mauritius, as well as the Rodriguez fruit bat.  While they also visited the Amazonian Manatee, and the Juan Fernandez Fur seal, Douglas did not write about them in his book, but he did talk about them on the BBC radio show of the same name, I beleive.

While I don't want to spoil the book by telling you everything that happened in it, I will list some of my favorite interactions and scenes from it.  The interaction with the so stereotypical it hurt German backpackers/tourists  had me laughing a lot.  The Land rover hi-jinks (read: Near death experiences) in Mauritius was also put in an extremely amusing way.  The driver would look directly at you and away from the road when asking questions, and would not look back until you answered.  It was certainly a way to get quick and snappy answers.

I loved the book deeply, and it's only 200 pages, so its a quick read for people without anxiety.  There is also a 2009 documentary TV show where a friend of Adams, Stephen Fry, and Mark go back to some of the species they visited to see how they're doing, and I plan to watch that.  Unfortunately, not all of the species in the book are alive anymore, or at least are widely considered extinct.

While depressing subject matter, Douglas Adams manages to keep a smile on the readers face while enjoying his book.  I also felt that Douglas Adams shared many of my views on life and society.  I felt we could've gotten along, and I am sad that he died at the age of under 50.

Either way, if you like animals, if you like humor, or even just Douglas Adams, definitely pick this up.

Wildermyth

I have never encountered a game like Wildermyth.  Sure, on the surface it doesn't seem unique.  It's a game that describes itself as a party based procedural storytelling RPG with turn based combat.   So, fantasy X Com in terms of gameplay in a choose your own adventure story.  That doesn't sound like something truly incredible.  Something I'd love and buy, but, not one that would quickly become my favorite game.

But the descriptions above do not do it justice.  Wildermyth is a character building and myth making game.  Each randomly made character feels, not like a random name or even just a bunch of numbered traits, but a real character of their own.  But enough about that, let's get into the details.

First off, the graphics while easy to run on my non-gaming laptop, are fantastic.  They look like paper cut outs, in a great way.  They really come to life in the comic panels that act as cut scenes, and when in the tabletop like battles, where they do look like paper cut outs, and they hop around the board like an invisible hand just picked them up.  It's fantastic.

Whoa, guy in the middle must be a red bull addict.

There's no voice acting in this game, but the music, while good, is not great.  I'll admit I played part of the game with music off, so, yeah.

Anyway, at launch and the time of this writing, Wildermyth has five story campaigns in it.  This does include the generic three and five chapter campaigns, and while I hate to call them story less, they don't have an over arching story.  Each of the main story campaigns is themed around a main faction of evil monsters, and dear god, let me talk about the monsters.

I won't spoil anything here, but there are no generic undead, dragons, elves or vampires here.  No, instead we have the Gorgons, both serpentine, tentacled undersea creatures and horrifying nature corruption, the Morthagi, ancient clockwork machines that use body parts to create more of themselves, the Deepists, a cult of humans and creatures from deep below ground, the Thrixl, strange dragon/insects from another realm, and the Drauven, a race of earth dragons, that are more like a cross between Dwarves and dragons then pure dragons.  

The enemy factions are at the very least different then most other fantasy, and it could've been so easy to just flow into the mold of most fantasy for Wildermyth.  I'm so glad they didn't, and each enemy unit is a joy to look at and fight.  

But I haven't even talked about the characters yet.  Mechanically, a character is just a made up name, a class, which sometimes/usually you get to choose, and a set of numbers ranging from 1 to 100 for a set of personality traits, like Greedy, Leader, Hothead, and Intellectual.  But the comic like cut scenes have some characters say things differently depending on the personality traits, and different roles in story and events.  

I could continue talking about the mechanics of this, but instead I'll introduce you to Zarnoc, my aloof hothead and my fourth hero I created, counting the first three you make in any adventure.  He's appeared in two campaigns, and was always the first to do what needed to be done.  In the campaign that focused on the Gorgons, this usually meant going around killing anything that even smelled like corruption.  When the other party members held him back from doing so, usually this ended in disaster, so after that they let him have his way.  In the second campaign, he was mortally wounded by a boss controlling a Morthagi factory, and instead of being a COWARD and sneaking away to fight another day, he ripped that boss a new one!  And, died in the process.  I cried a little, it's true, when this happened

This is an example of what kind of character and how attached you can get, in the game of Wildermyth.  Also, this is  a showcase of taking one character and putting them in another campaign, turning them into a legacy character.  Legacy characters are required for some campaigns, and you can recruit legacy characters in campaigns instead of random peasants.  Legacy characters are characters who've survived one campaign in the past, and you saved them to become a legacy character to appear as a playable character in another campaign, albeit a younger one so they don't instantly die or retire from old age.

I see paper doll people...and they are fantastic!

On top of this, characters get into relationships, either on ones you choose, or via the luck of Random Number Generators, or the RNG god.  There's rivalry, friendship, and of course, romance.  And yes, gay is an option for romance sometimes.

While the storytelling potential of Wildermyth is god damn fantastic, what makes it even better is that if you don't care about storytelling (Get out of my blog, damn you), everything gives a boost to combat in some way.  Rivalry, for example, gives a high chance to 'stunt' or critical hit an enemy if your rival critical hits before you do.  Pets, which are additions to characters and not separate entities, give some extra damage or defense, and some events can physically transform your character, and you can choose how far the transformation takes and what abilities they get.

While I only played two campaigns of Wildermyth, both story ones, I feel like I got a good handle on the systems and can review it.  I was expecting the stories to be bland and generic and just be 'you hero, monsters bad, you kill!' and while this is true of the first one, the second one I played is not that case at all.  I won't spoil it, but it actually made me think about a topic that most storytellers make you think is pure evil.

Wildermyth is amazing. I will continue playing it probably until I reach the last of the story campaigns, if not longer.  It definitely earned a 5/5 stars from me.  It feels less like a video game and more like an storyteller telling you a story, or a tabletop RPG Dungeon Master letting you play with them.  In fact, it feels more like a tabletop game to me then most tabletop games converted to video games do.

Anyway, finally finished a review, will have a few more possibly -book- related reviews in the future.  Hopefully.

Jurassic World: Evolution

I love dinosaurs.  I mean, doesn't every little kid like dinosaurs?  I just never stopped loving dinosaurs and really animals in general, and I'm here still loving them.  I bet there's one franchise that really put dinosaurs into peoples minds...Jurassic Park.

Ah yeah!  Dinosaurs, here we go!

Do I even need to say anything?  I mean, it's -Jurassic- -park-.  THE ultimate science gone wrong, dinosaurs on big screens, lawyers getting eaten movie.  But I'm not here to review Jurassic park the film.

No, I'm here to talk about the Jurassic WORLD franchise and movies.  Which is....uh...well...okay, I've never seen them.  I stopped watching the Jurassic park films after Jurassic park three, which I liked but I was only a teenager at the time, so my opinion now might be quite different.

But as far as I can tell from what little I've seen and know about them, they're basically the original Jurassic Park film done over again, but worse.  I mean, the movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, ends with several hundred dinosaurs escaping into the world, and Malcolm from the original Jurassic Park just...showing up at the US senate saying it's a 'Neo-Jurassic' period now as dinosaurs now live with man kind.

Do I really need to point out the flaws in that?  I do?  Do I have to?  Damn it...fine.  One, all dinosaurs were female in the original film, right?  Sure, they got around that, but in the book at least, the 'disaster' of Jurassic Park was caused because everything that could go wrong, even if it was a less then one percent change of going wrong, went wrong at precisely the right time to make the disaster work.    In Jurassic World did they just...let all the dinosaurs breed whatever?  That seems like an incredibly dumb thing to do.  Two: The dinosaurs were made up of all separate species, so, the chances of a dinosaur even finding fellow dino of the same species are low.  three: They're all in a very small area, just, I don't know, bomb the area if your panicking about dinosaurs surviving in modern day.  And don't get me started on diseases affecting them, along with the whole lack of wilderness to survive on!

...Anyway!  I think that says a lot about my opinion about later Jurassic Park films.  Despite this, way back in or after 2003 I played the game Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, which is a park builder where you remake Jurassic park.  I loved it, and though I own the disc still, I am unsure if it will run on windows 10.  But in 2018, another game came out, Jurassic World: Evolution.  And you better believe I bought that up as soon as possible.

Not again!

Taking place after the Original Jurassic World, but before Fallen Kingdom, you are tasked with building dinosaur parks across the Five Deaths, a fictional island chain in Costa Rico, or, off the coast of the country, rather.  

There are three major DLCS that add new gameplay to the game, and more that just add new dinosaurs, but, I don't own any of the DLC, so I will just talk about the base game.  

The base campaign starts off with Ian Malcolm complaining about life, you, and dinosaurs.   I'm not sure why Jeff Goldblum is here, but the character of Malcolm seems to be here just to tell you this is an incredibly bad idea.  The campaign is divided into five or six island locations to build parks in.  The reason it's five or six is because one was originally the only sandbox island you could play without worrying about money, but a later update made it so once you reached 4 stars out of five with any island you unlocked sandbox mode for that island.

Frontier, the game developers behind this game, apparently had 100 or so developers working on this game.  That does not seem like much, but I fully admit to not knowing how many people normally work on video games.  They also released updates after the games release, adding the above mentioned sandbox modes, challenge modes to reach 5 stars in the shortest amount of time, and other features.

I won't hide the fact that I admire and like Frontier, they make good games that allow a lot of sandbox creativity and freedom.  Unfortunately this is not one of them.

let's talk about the dinosaurs first.  You start off with one viable genome of a dino, and can send expedition teams to fossil sites to get more fossils to get more DNA so that one that's at or above 50% genome can be made into a living creature.  Annoyingly, you don't know what the creatures habits are aside from meat or plant eating until you make the first dino, so it's entirely possible to put in a forest loving dino with one that hates forests.

The dinosaur stats are put into 2 categories, health and comfort.  Health is put into thirst and hunger, self explanatory.  Comfort is more complex, divided into wetlands, grasslands, forests, population, and social need.  Wetlands means how much water is in the exhibit, grasslands is how much space -total- is in the exhibit, forests is how many trees there are, and social is how many animals of the same kind there are, and population is how many animals there are total. 

While it sounds confusing, it's actually too simple.  There's no difference in most dinosaurs aside form some like forests, some like open fields, some need to have one or two others of its kind, and some need to be alone.  There's no enrichment options, and when the game was released, no option to manually place trees and rocks, though there is now.  I fully admit that calling the need for total space, 'grassland'  is annoying.  And none of this is explained in the games very meager, and split up, tutorial.

Now onto the second most important thing in the game, the guests which...don't technically exist.  See, instead of making each guest a entity in the game, with needs and desires and money to spend, instead they focus on each gust building, hotels or viewing stations, needing certain buildings near it, food places, gift shops, restrooms, stuff like that.  While I fully admit this is a novel and new way to model guests in park games, I don't like it.  So I'm old fashioned.

 Another important aspect of the game is the Divisions. They are Entertainment, Science, and Security, and all three want your attention and to be number one in your inbox.  For some reason, doing a quest for one Division, means the other two now hate you, and will actually sabotage your park because they're having a temper tantrum.  But, leveling up one divisions meter will unlock cool stuff for you, and a special mission that unlocks more cool stuff.  There is nothing stopping you from leveling up one Divisions respect in you, then ditching them to get the cool unlocks in another division. 

It doesn't make sense that, the Divisions who you write the paychecks for, will sabotage THERE OWN EMPLOYER because...I really have no idea.  because they don't feel special, I guess.  And this would be a really easy thing to fix, call the divisions investors instead.  Everything could work the same way gameplay wise, just change some dialogue.  I feel like this was a decision made by Universal rather then Frontier, but I could be very wrong too.

So that's the game.  Take care of all way too similar dinosaurs, take care of guests that technically don't exist as individuals, and try to tell the employees that you love them all.  Once you finish one island, you move onto the next, unlock more dinos to research and make, and...that's it.  One island is very much like the next, and I got bored enough that I stopped played after island number three in the base campaign.

I have to say this was my first Frontier game, and they really dropped the ball on it.  I'm not sure why exactly, but I think it was a combination of small team or time frame to make a game, and also Universal making demands on what the game should be like.  I hate to say it, but this gets a 1.5 out of 5 stars.  I hoped that the free updates would liven the game up for me, but I did not get past even island one when I replayed it recently.

Anyway, that's all for now.  See you all, next whenever.  

I seriously need to set this to a schedule some time.  Oh well, later.