Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Edition (PC) – 20 years later, I finally understand why this game has a cult following that is desperate for a sequel. I’m not in that boat myself, but I get it. Alas, to a cynical Modern Ryan, it seems kinda like a very ambitious project that ran out of money halfway through development.
Peglin (PC) – Several rather large updates means, of course, more Peglin.
TMNT: Splintered Fate (Switch) – 2000+ words coming soon. I like this one. A Lot.
More movies have been watched. As Halloween season is rapidly approaching, I feel even more like I need to be writing about them. Both of the films reviewed below are Shudder originals, as you can plainly see on the posters. Preamble complete.
~ Deadstream ~
This one is about a livestreamer who goes to spend a night in a “haunted house” as something of a stunt to entertain his following. This premise is absolutely as cringey as it sounds, at least until about 15 minutes in and you realize that it’s actually a comedy. Kind of like Evil Dead 2 but with a modern twist.
That said, I had to watch Deadstream in two sessions, because it scared the absolute crap out of me the first time around. Early on in the film, our “hero” Shawn enters the house and starts recounting the tales of why it’s haunted, and he tells a story about a ghost called the Corner Man. If you weren’t already aware, I have a strong irrational fear of ghosts. Having all the lights turned off and watching movies about ghosts alone never ends well for me. I tried my best to remain rational, but I very quickly had to turn off the movie and turn on the lights, because my brain immediately started thinking it was seeing things in my peripheral vision. There aren’t a lot of things that genuinely terrify me, but my overactive imagination is definitely high on the list.
A couple night later, my fears had receded, and I decided to push through. This time with the lights on. As it turns out, after that singular scene, the movie’s tone changes dramatically, and it goes from horror-comedy to pretty much just straight comedy.
A new Five Nights at Freddy’s game came out last week. I knew it was a thing, but also forgot about it until I saw a bunch of let’s plays roll into my YouTube feed.
And who am I to do anything but throw another video on the pile? Well, multiple videos. There are at least two more for this game coming… eventually. Not sure how I’m going to schedule them yet, but they’re on the way.
Some movies, I can very easily ramble on and on about. Others don’t capture my attention/imagination quite as strongly, and I find it difficult to write about them. The following three films are of the latter variety.
~ Arcadian ~
It kind of seems like this one was marketed as whatever the movie equivalent of a “killer app” is for Shudder. I got a lot of emails promoting it! Although, it is a Shudder original, so maybe they just pushed it harder because it’s theirs. Anyway, it’s somewhat similar to A Quiet Place but with Nic Cage. Also, it’s not stupid due to major plot holes and braindead characters, but rather because stupid is just kind of the vibe it’s going for, which I can appreciate.
Plot is as such: About fifteen years after humanity falls to… something, Nic Cage lives on a farm with his two teenage sons. Every night, they maintain a stoic vigil to protect their home from attempted invasions. Obviously, the sons are polar opposites: one a hot-blooded tough guy, the other a quiet inventor. Their inability to reconcile their desires (girls vs learning) ends up ruining the balance that they’ve maintained for years and puts everyone’s life in danger. Because of course it does. Teenagers, am I right?
Froggo’s Adventure: Verdant Venture (PC) – A cute little game highly reminiscent (like, suspiciously so) of Kirby’s Adventure. Only it’s like seven levels long. Very reminiscent of Whipseey, only it looks more NES than GBA.
Froggo Swing ‘n Grapple (PC) – Simultaneously better and worse than its sequel (mentioned above). Better because it’s about twice as long, is much more challenging, and has more gameplay mechanics in general. Worse because the central “swing ‘n grapple” mechanic is a little too loosey-goosey and doesn’t feel great.
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (PS4) – An old-school RPG represented entirely in cards. It’s a bit slow and much too easy, but it’s a Yoko Taro game, so the story, characters, music, and art all make it worth the price of admission.
Happy Friday! I don’t know if I’m going to do this every month, but I like the idea of writing up a preview of all the video content I’ll be releasing in the next month, so here we are.
Please note that while the original home of TE Video is on YouTube, I’ve got my Rumblechannels up and running now, and they’re actually earning me money. Only a few cents so far, but considering that all the videos I’ve uploaded to Rumble have a total of maybe 150 views between them, that’s not bad! It should go without saying, but if you would be so kind as to watch my stuff on Rumble instead of YouTube, that would mean a lot to me.
(Also, I think I listed most of these last month, but ehhhhhhhhh)
Quest For Camelot (GBC) – The first episode went live yesterday, and second half will be up on August 1st. This is a weird, little game, and it’s not good! The first episode, to my best recollection, is pretty normal, but you’ll get to watch my sanity unravel in real time in part 2.
After the big win that was Loop Track, I was ready for another good random horror movie, and let me tell you that I struck gold. A little bit of searching around on Google and Reddit for recommendations of similar films yielded the most perfect result I could have asked for: Hunter Hunter.
Just by the name alone I was intrigued. Hunter Hunter, eh? So it’s going to be a movie about a hunter becoming the hunted, in some way or another. But then the very vague description given, “a thriller that goes full-on horror in the last 10 minutes” sounded like precisely what I was in the mood for. So I plugged in my Apple TV for the first time in months and watched a movie on Shudder for the first time since I initially subscribed to it three years ago. I’m good at money :p
Now, I’ll be honest here, I’ve been struggling with trying to figure out exactly what I want to write about this film. I have been thinking about it almost non-stop since I watched it, and I just can’t get a good mental picture of what I want to put in this review. That’s why I don’t do this professionally. So I’m just writing. I guess we’ll just do the synopsis thing and see where it goes.
Hunter Hunter is (at least at the beginning) about a fur trapper named Joe, his wife Anne, and their teenage daughter Renee. They live in the wilderness outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba (I, uh… I like this setting) and lead a very simple life. Joe is the kind of man who is set in his ways and is training Renee to follow in his footsteps, but Anne is starting to notice that their way of life is becoming unsustainable and wants to move into a town so that she can get a job and Renee can go to school.
I happened to catch a glimpse of a very distressing illustration while clearing my Facebook notifications the other day. But like, distressing in a good way. In the way that, when I learned that said image was inspired by a film called Loop Track, I immediately looked up the most convenient way to watch it (Tubi). And then I proceeded to watch it that very same evening.
Loop Track is a horror/suspense movie about a weird, little guy that goes on a hike through a New Zealand forest. New Zealish? New Zealandian? I don’t know. It’s irrelevant and this bit works better in VO. Anyway, off the bat, we learn that this guy is very on edge and isn’t terribly interested in any sort of human interaction. He’s also poorly equipped for the expedition: he starts off the hike in a sweatshirt and jeans, and is visibly winded once he reaches the first trail marker, which is only 10 minutes from the parking lot. In fairness, he does at least have a big ol’ pack of supplies with him and apparently the nights get very cold, but still… I can’t help but think that you’d be so much better off without that sweatshirt, man.
After barely managing to avoid coming into contact with a couple other hikers on the trail twice, our hero is accosted by an excessively friendly man named Nicky. Nicky seems like a nice enough dude, but completely fails to catch the hint that our main character would rather hike alone and insists that they continue on together. At this point, about 20 minutes in, we finally learn that the main character’s name is Ian.
Cookie Cutter (PC) – Got this one in a bundle, and it’s definitely been one of those games that came out of left field and is awesome. A metroidvania with excellent 2D artwork and a very fun brawler-like combat system. Too bad the game is bugged in a way that makes 100% completion impossible!
Mega Man (GB) – All the Game Boy Mega Man games got dumped onto Nintendo Switch Online recently, so I played them all! This one is incredibly basic and there’s not much to say about it other than hey owned this as a kid!
Mega Man II (GB) – My friend owned this when we were little kids, and it was the first Mega Man game I ever beat. That should be a good indication of how surprisingly easy it is. An absolute cakewalk, and not all that fun.
I don’t know if you follow my YouTube channel at all -and if you don’t, that’s fine- but I took a couple months off from posting anything in April and May. Mostly because I was starting to lose the passion for “creating” video “content.” Putting all those hours into editing just wasn’t feeling worth it for the pithy amount of views I get. But I’m back now! For how long? Nobody can truly say, but I do have videos lined up to at least midway through August, so there will be new stuff going up over there for at least that long.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on at TE-Video throughout June:
