I have a really nice box set of the first six Star Wars movies on Blu-ray.
Sorry, I have to stop here to make an aside about how I very much dislike the fact that Blu-ray is a proper name and requires capitalization.
*ahem* It would be nice if I could slide in another little box that housed the sequel trilogy right next to it. Alas, there is currently no such thing! And probably never will be! The proliferation of digital media has absolutely crushed the market for movies printed on physical media. And also Disney is absolutely not going to sell you three movies in a box when they can make you buy all three separately.
Last December I got a lot of extra money from sources I will not mention, and since I was planning to start creating more video content for my YouTube channel, I decided to spend a bunch of said money on a new computer. In this sense, it was a complete success! The new machine was more than capable of taking on the heavy video processing load that was making my old PC wheeze worse than me after 20 seconds of light jogging.
However! When I selected my new computer, I did not put any consideration into VR capabilities. Any why would I? I bought an Oculus Quest 2 specifically for the fact that it doesn’t need to be tethered to a PC. Fast forward to summer 2021 when I bought an (off-brand) Oculus link cable for reasons I can’t remember, and through some sequence of events ended up trying to play some PC VR games. It did not go well.
If you’ve been following this website for a while, you probably know that sometimes I will do an advent calendar-like daily feature from December 1st to 20-somethingth. It started as the 23 Days of Materialism, in which I highlighted something that I thought was cool each day. It was both a way to show off things I liked and also sort of a stealthy way to give people gift ideas for the holidays. In later years, I would try to spice up the formula with different themes.
This year, I’ve decided to turn the feature on its ear, and so I introduce to you the 24 Days of Desire. This time around I’ll be listing a bunch of things that I would like to have, as opposed to things I already own. It’s… not really that much of a difference, but I feel like it’ll allow me a little more space for creativity. That, and it guarantees I don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of things to write about. Woop woop!
Now that the stage is set, I’d like to start off with something fairly easy:
Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis) – Much faster than the ‘Vanias on Nintendo consoles, but still feels slow because so many enemies are tanky. It brings back the “whip gets powered down when you get hit” mechanic, which suuuuucks. There are a lot of cool graphical things happening in this one, and I like that it has two fairly different playable characters (of course I played through with both).
Resident Evil 4 VR (Oculus) – Played to record for YouTube. (Twice!)
Alisa (PC) – You can see my full impressions in this YouTube playlist. TLDW? It’s a 90’s survival horror throwback that really nails the presentation and stumbles just a little with the gameplay. Also it’s a Kickstarter project that is not quite finished.
Continuing my quest through the series of Ys video games, I am nearing the end of the road with Ys Seven. Considering that it has a very similar gameplay style to Ys: Memories of Celceta (my favourite so far), I was quite excited to start it. However! Since Ys Seven came first… it’s a little bit rougher around the edges.
The first problem is my own: I liked Memories of Celceta enough to play through it twice in a row and collect all the achievements. So I figured that I might as well check the achievements for Seven ahead of time and try to get them all in one run. Unfortunately, there’s an achievement for completing the game on Nightmare mode, and despite knowing that Ys games are actually pretty tough, I took the bait.
A couple months ago, I made a terrible mistake: I purchased Power Wash Simulator.
Maybe you’ve heard of it? It had been all over the internet recently, or so I’ve heard. This is a game that is exactly what it says on the tin: you’re given a pressure washer and a series of things that need washing and… then you just get to it.
Buying this video game was not a mistake due to quality concerns. No, in fact, for a Steam Early Access game, it’s very stable and fully-featured. It’s also a lot of fun, calling back pleasant memories of cleaning all the goop off of Isle Delfino in Super Mario Sunshine.
Power Wash Simulator, however, was a mistake because it’s far too addictive. I spent no less than nine hours playing it on the day I bought it, and then devoted all of my free time over the next two days to it. I didn’t think it was going to be so long. I kept telling myself I’d put it down after “just one more job” or “once I finish this side of the building” or some such nonsense. But I didn’t put it down. Not until every last speck of dirt was washed away.
I just finished up a replay of Kirby: Planet Robobot for 3DS, and I’m thinking that it’s a strong contender for second-best Kirby game of all time. First place will always be Kirby Super Star, of course. Robobot is just so much fun, has so much fan service, and of course, allows you to ride around in giant mech suits that can absorb enemies’ powers just like Kirby does. It’s a heck of a game!
It also got me thinking about how after the first time I finished it, I decided to write an article ranking all of the different mech suit variations. I wanted to read it over and then contrast it with my thoughts from this current playthough, to see if and how my opinions had changed over the years.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that I never actually finished writing that article!
Alas, it was sitting there, the text maybe a quarter finished. There are no images uploaded. Presumably, the looming threat of having to find screenshots is what dissuaded me from continuing to write. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.
Or it could be that I just lost my muse partway through. That happens too. It may very well be that I felt like I was embarking on a journey to write sixteen or so vaguely similar paragraphs, and decided that there was no point in continuing on that path. Who knows!?
The point is, I didn’t finish writing my Kirby: Planet Robobot mech suit ranking list back then, and I sure as heck am not going to do it now. I’m just a little bit sad that I wasn’t able to relive that little bit of nostalgia.
Besides, it’s obvious that the Jet and Mike mechs are far and away the best of the bunch. Like, it’s not even a contest.
It’s been a while since I wrote a post that necessitated use of the “mobile games” tag. So… here goes?
I was idly watching YouTube last week, as I do, and felt like something was off. Like something needed to keep my hands occupied while my mind was “occupied”. Mobile games are shallow and simple enough to fill that need, but I only have Pokémon Go and SINoALICE on my phone, and neither felt right for that particular moment.
To sum up the next 20 minutes: I spent some time Googling what the best iOS clicker games were, and then poking around on the App Store for the results, to try to see if their descriptions and presentations matched the hype. Did you know that they don’t make apps without the “in-app purchases” tag anymore?
Tales of Arise (PS5) – Cleared all postgame activities and nabbed that plat.
Castlevania (NES) – I used to be okay at this game? But it’s even harder than I remember. Save states were basically compulsory for the last two stages.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA) – The one GBA-vania I’ve never played more than about half an hour of. The first half was far too easy, and the second half was a brutal grind-fest. Maybe I was better off without??
Castlevania: The Adventure (GB) – Speaking of brutal! This game moves at about 10 frames per second at the best of times, never mind when there’s an enemy on the screen. Also suffers from a lot of cheap level design and way way way too many pixel-perfect jumps.
I think that in this age where everything streams digitally, we all have “to-watch” lists a kilometer long. I am certainly no exception. My Netflix queue is always growing, contracting only when something I’ve been putting off watching is removed from the service. However, this past weekend, I was finally able to remove Venom from said queue.
Venom is… well, it’s a Marvel movie. It seemed to fly under the radar when it was released because it’s an anti-hero movie, and also it didn’t tie into the MCU in any way. Venom’s story has always been very closely tied in with Spider-Man, but in his starring role, he’s got absolutely no connection to everyone’s favourite web-slinger.
Despite all that, though, it absolutely has the same feel as any other Marvel origin movie. It follows all the same plot beats, our hero is defined by his snarkiness, and it’s a massive cornucopia of special effects. So you pretty much know exactly what you’re in for, and whether or not you’re gong to like it before you’ve seen even a second of the actual footage.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage also feels like a pretty cookie-cutter sequel. The headbutting duo (reporter Eddie Brock and space-parasite Venom) that learned to work together to save the world in the first film find it too difficult to continue their partnership, and end up going their separate ways. That is, of course, until another evil shows up that threatens them both, which forces them to put aside their differences and discover that they truly make a great team.
Honestly, I don’t quite know what else to say about these movies. I think they’re considered to be C-tier Marvel movies, but I would say that I enjoyed them just as much as any Iron Man. Maybe even more! I couldn’t even tell you what Iron Man 2 was about. And when I say that, I mean immediately after having walked out of the movie theatre. So yes, I would recommend the Venom movies. They are perfectly adequate!
~ Halloween Kills ~
You know what’s the absolute worst thing? An unnecessary sequel. And, I get it, lots of sequels are unnecessary. Probably 95% of them are made it hopes of cashing in on a film or game or book or whatever that made a lot of money. But at the very least, most of those at least put some effort into being entertaining. What I’m talking about are the unnecessary sequels that don’t even try to validate their existence.
Halloween Kills is exactly one of those movies.
Now, I know what you’re going to say. “But Ryan, every slasher sequel is a soulless cash grab!” But that’s not true! Many of them up the stakes! Or throw in some fun/”fun” new lore. Usually they try to come up with creative new ways to slaughter people. At the absolute minimum, they amp up the amount of naked boobies. But Halloween Kills doesn’t really do any of that.
I think what mostly makes me mad about this one is that 2018’s Halloween reboot/sequel thing was just about the perfect way to close the book on the franchise. It completely ignored every movie except for the original (which is still great), and focused on Laurie Strode’s crippling PTSD from what happened that horrific night. I mean, there was a lot of nonsense in that one too, but the finale alone was worth it.
Halloween Kills ruins it all by basically undoing the end of the previous movie by taking place immediately afterward, and of course, putting good ol’ Michael Myers back into the fray. And it makes the entire town of Haddonfield completely obsessed with the whackjob that killed four teenagers 40 years ago. It’s kind of an interesting take on mob mentality and the dangers of misinformation, but it still doesn’t make any damn sense. Laurie has a very good reason to be terrified and mentally scarred by what she went through. The rest of the town… probably would have mostly forgotten about it by now. Unless Haddonfield is one of those itty-bitty hick towns where everyone is related, but it doesn’t seem that way.
I don’t know. I didn’t hate it while I was watching it, and it didn’t necessarily bore me, but it also didn’t do anything really special or entertaining. It wasn’t entertainingly corny or funny in the least. There were no creative kills. There are at least two subplots that exist entirely to pad out the run time. The ending sets up yet another sequel. And the more I think about it, the more I dislike it. Obviously, can’t recommend this one. In fact, I might even suggest that you should deliberately avoid it.
