I’ve been playing Monster Hunter Explore on my phone a lot lately, and despite being a pretty fun game, some of the art design is just a little… off.
Yikes.
New Pokémon Trailer!!!
What do I think about it? Aww, so kind of you to ask!
My knee-jerk reaction was that I did not like any of the new Pokémon designs, but that I was absolutely in love with the Hawaiian theme (not going to marry it). Trainer customization seems to be back, but even if it’s not, I think the girl trainer design is perfect and won’t complain. Plus, it at least allows you to choose your skin tone, so that’s good.
Over the course of the morning, and with some persuasion by amazing official art, I have sort of come around on Popplio. I’d probably be choosing it by default anyway because I never take the grass-type starter and I really don’t like Litten. The truth is that I really do like Rowlet, but as I said, I just can’t choose the grass-type, no matter how awesome. If Turtwig couldn’t do it for me, nothing can.
The new legendaries aren’t the worst, I guess. A little too much going on in their design, but majestic and mysterious enough to justify their place as the cover art. Mostly I just want to know what their place is in the plot and then I’ll proceed to never care about them again, like all of the cover legendaries that came after Lugia and Ho-oh.
Based on the Hawaii Land setting, I also spent a good portion of my morning coming up with appropriately-themed Pokémon. I’ll probably draw a bunch of them and post images here. If I don’t, just know that I’ve basically done six months worth of fan speculation in under six hours.
Also most of my ideas are “Existing Pokémon but Incorporating a Pineapple Somehow.”
I am not the most creative person.
Rimshot & Clunk
I went to see the Ratchet & Clank movie with my brother last week. It was totally out of left field because I had no idea that they were making a movie, and also I’ve never played a single second of any of the Ratchet & Clank video games. But the little bro is a big fan, and I’m always down for a movie (as long as I have gift cards in pocket), so off I went.
It was not a bad movie. In fact, I might dare to say that I liked it, for the most part. The characters were fun, although I must admit that Clank is like the polar opposite of what I was expecting from a little robot sidekick. I thought he’d be like the comic relief to Ratchet’s more serious heroic role. But no. In fact, Clank was the only character who was not constantly trying to be hilarious (oh and also John Goodman, but I forget what his guy’s name was).
And therein lies my only real beef with Ratchet & Clank: it’s constantly trying to be funny, and failing at nearly every turn. Like, it’s always on. The never-ending gags are more exhausting than anything, and we were less than ten minutes in before I started wondering to myself if it was ever going to dial it down.
In all fairness, I chuckled a few times and there were a couple of legitimately funny jokes, but most of the time it was just stupid things that were in no way funny. On the other hand, the few Playstation references were very subtle and well-placed, and I really appreciated those. Some jerk in the theatre appreciated them way more than I did, as he would holler out in excitement every time.
“OH MAN, THAT’S THE BOOT-UP SOUND FROM THE ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION! HA HA HA HA AWESOME! EVERYBODY LOOK HOW SMART I AM ABOUT PLAYSTATIONS! I AM IRRESISTABLE TO WOMEN, BUT I AM MAKING THE CHOICE TO BE SINGLE!”
Alright, so maybe I’m exaggerating. But only a little.
In conclusion, Ratchet & Clank isn’t horrible, but nerds are.
The poor, worthless cube
Nintendo released a “free-to-play” game on both Wii U and 3DS last week. That game is Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge. I put free-to-play in quotations there because while the software can be downloaded at no cost, you can’t actually do anything but stare at the title screen without an amiibo figure. Womp-womp.
Scanning an amiibo gives you a little wind-up version of the character you scanned to play the game with. As long as that character is from either the Mario or Donkey Kong family. Also Wario doesn’t count for whatever reason. If you scan any other amiibo, you get to play as a little cube robot named Mini Spek. For reasons that I will get into right away, you don’t want to be Mini Spek.
You can see above that the amiibo I scanned is named Barky. It’s my Wolf Link amiibo. I think it’s a good name. Also my Bowser amiibo’s name is Mittens.
When you scan a Mario character amiibo, you get a fancy little robot toy with a special ability. For example, Mini Mario can do wall jumps, Mini Peach can hover over short gaps, and Mini Bowser Jr can cross over spikes unharmed. These special abilities can be used to collect amiibo tokens scattered about the stages and enter special character-specific doors.
The doors unlock small worlds off the main path, which essentially means that you’re limited to about 11 stages if you don’t have the correct amiibos. Mini Spek is completely unable to enter (or even reach) the character doors, as he has no abilities whatsoever. His game will be over before you know it. Stages unlocked by Mario amiibos account for more than half the game, and nearly all of it when you consider that amiibo tokens unlock the Star World stages.
That sounds pretty bad, yeah? What’s even worse is that the gameplay is actually really fun, so you’d better already have those amiibos, because that’s some really expense DLC if you’re comparing content to dollars spent (an amiibo figure costs $15.99). And if you don’t want to collect those Mario amiibos? You might as well just skip this game. The stages you can play with Mini Spek are good, but ultimately they just made me hungry for more.
Each stage is a little puzzle where you have to get your toy character to the door at the end. You have a certain number of items, like girders and trampolines, to move around the stage to avoid obstacles, and there are coins scattered about to bump up your score. Imagine Lemmings, except you manipulate the environment instead of the character. Figuring out the path to the exit is usually easy enough, but collecting all the coins and finishing the stage fast enough will earn you a trophy, and that takes a little more finesse.
It’s really too bad that Amiibo Challenge is shackled to amiibos, but I suppose that was never intended as a surprise. It is right in the name, after all. The upside is that if you don’t want to spend $160 on amiibos to get all that this game offers, Mario vs Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars (available as a cross-buy on Wii U and 3DS) has the exact same gameplay at a much lower cost. So I think I’ll probably check that out, because like I said, Amiibo Challenge has really only just whet my appetite for this kind of puzzle game.
Forged in the fires of Heaven
We all know when Bruce Banner says “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” that he’s correct. I mean, at least in theory. I like the Hulk, but I don’t think I’d like to actually be around the Hulk. Or, maybe I would. I don’t know. I think we could be buds.
Anyway, I really blew that transition.
What I was originally going for is that you would like a Burger King Whopper when it’s angry. And even more so when it’s angriest.
Yes, I tried the Angriest Whopper, so you know what that means…
~Now it’s time for… How Did This Get Made?~
Wait, no. That’s not right. Geez, I am really off today.
I have no idea when this thing first came out, but I only learned about it last week, and was immediately in love. I am already a huge fan of the plain ol’ Whopper, and a version that comes on a bright red bun would be enough to send me over the moon. Unlike the black bun they did for Halloween, the red bun actually has hot sauce baked right into it. Hot sauce! Into the bun! Right in there! It’s amaaaaaaazing!
In addition to that, there is also hot sauce on the sandwich. That’s double the hot sauce! Spicy stuff! Then there are spicy onions and delicious jalapenos on there to bump up the heat even more. All that on top of the usual Whopper fixin’s make it an absolute flavour sensation. Also, easily the hottest burger I’ve ever eaten. It was wonderful.
In summary, I love the Angriest Whopper. I’m not gonna marry it, but I would if the law recognized man-sandwich unions. It is by a very wide margin the best fast food burger that I’ve ever eaten, and I literally cannot stop thinking about it. It has been nearly a week since I ate it, and every day I strongly consider finding my way to Burger King to get more. The problem is that it’s a very expensive sandwich. At $8, it’s definitely a “special occasions” kind of burger.
Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – April 2016
Late March’s descent into Zeldamania continues. Mostly because I’ve been devoting roughly 95% of my gaming time to Hyrule Warriors again. Which is, you know, not really Zelda, but it looks the part.
This month also saw the release of the new Star Fox games. One of which is a very traditional Star Fox game which people hate because of the controls. And the other is a Star Fox game in name only which people are in love with because of the controls. Wacky!
~ Game Over ~
Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS) – I completed the story, including all the optional stages. But the adventure maps… they just never end. I mean, I guess they do, but there is so much content smooshed into this game that it’s hard to imagine ever clearing it all.
Resident Evil Revelations (PC) – Guys, I’m gonna spoil it for you: the first revelation is that there are two identical boats. The second revelation is that there’s a third identical boat, which had sunk a year before the game’s events, and a man has been living in it the whole time. This game’s plot is bananas. And I love it that much more because of it.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 – Episode 1 (PC) – Been putting this one off for a while, despite hearing that it’s quite good. And I agree! Not totally on board with the flashlight mechanics, but everything else is just swell. I am frothing in anticipation of the rest of the game.
Wherein oats are a meal
I began eating oatmeal for breakfast last week, in an attempt to make my diet more healthy.
What I want to know is, how do people eat this stuff? It is disgusting. All goopy and bland and gross. Bleeeech. I tried tossing some fruit and cinnamon on there, but man, it only helped so much. The flavour is really the least of its problems. I just… ugh.
So yeah, I hate oatmeal. But I will continue stuffing it into my face-hole.
This is the price I pay for trying to be less fat.
TE Movie Review: Basket Case
I’ve been intending to watch Basket Case for over two years now, and only last night did I finally get around to it. Of course, I didn’t exactly watch the movie as I did watch bits of it while waiting for gold to accumulate in Clicker Heroes. Also I sat there with it paused for about 20 minutes at one point while I mulled over whether to go out and get a pizza or not.
I’m really bad at watching movies, is what I’m getting at.
Basket Case was a lot of fun, though. An early 80’s monster movie, it really should have been more engaging for me, as that’s precisely the kind of thing I love. Or, used to, anyway. I haven’t watched such a film since… I don’t know, Pumpkinhead, two Halloweens ago? I used to watch cheesy horror films all the damn time. I don’t know what happened to me…
But that’s besides the point. The first thing you’ll notice about Basket Case is that the acting is all over the place. A lot of it is perfectly competent; not good, really, but not so bad that you’d ding the movie. But then, every once in a while, there is a line (occasionally an entire scene) that is delivered so poorly that you can’t help but chuckle to yourself.
Skool Dayz
So here’s something interesting that I haven’t touched on at all on this blog: I’ve gone back to school! Yep, I am now officially a college student, with all the prestige that the title brings. And only several years from now, I will (hopefully) be able to claim the coveted certificate of accounting.
Normally I wouldn’t bother trying to learn any marketable skills, and just continue to coast through life on slightly more than minimum wage, but since it relates to my chosen “profession,” my employer is paying for it all. Not a bad deal, by any means. And with any luck, it will keep me relevant in my position for a few more years to come.
The course I’m currently in has been fairly easy so far, but aside from the material, I’m learning some very important lessons about myself. First, and most importantly, I am absolutely terrible at remembering definitions. I mean, I know what things mean, and I can match them up if you give me a list, but if I had to write out definitions from memory, I would be 100% boned. Weird!
The other thing, which I kind of already knew, is that school eats up a lot of time, and apparently I freak out a little bit if I don’t get enough Ryan Time during the week. I think that’s something I’m just going to have to let go of though, and somehow figure out how to develop good study habits. That’s going to be the hardest part, because I have been living fairly care-free for quite a while now.
So yeah, it’s quite a shock to my system, but it’s a good thing overall. And I guess that as a little bonus, it’s something I can sort of use as a conversation piece. Accounting isn’t interesting in and of itself, but it’s a heck of a lot more than I usually have to talk about.
Thanks for indulging me briefly. We now return to our regularly scheduled babbling mindlessly about video games.
Dark Souls: I finally finished it!
After literally years of alternating between playing semi-obsessively and ignoring it for months, I have finally beaten Dark Souls. This grand achievement was a long time coming, and as it turns out, all you really need to beat Dark Souls is to be stubborn.
I don’t remember exactly when I bought it, but I think it must have been early 2013. Long enough after release that it had been marked down to a mere $20. That really doesn’t narrow it down, as these days games can be reduced to less than that mere weeks after release, but you get the point. I played up to the first real boss (Taurus Demon), got frustrated, threw up my hands, and called it a wash.
Months later, I related this experience to my younger brother, who had finished and enjoyed Dark Souls. He encouraged me to try some more, and even came over to serve as a sort of tour guide as I played. Normally I like to figure things out on my own, but I discovered that it was nice to get a helping hand in that early stage of the game where I was still coming to terms with how the game worked. From the Undead Parish on, I struck out on my own, though I kept the wiki just a bookmark away for those tough times.