Coming hot off the heels of the acclaimed Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy is a surprisingly robust experience given its short development cycle. Stepping into the boots of Jaden Korr rather than the series’ usual protagonist Kyle Katarn makes for an interesting change of pace. You play as a student, learning under Katarn himself, which allows you to grow and develop your force powers in a way that feels more organic than in past entries. As your force powers grow, so too does the intrigue of the narrative, as faces new and old pop in to weave a compelling tale. This, paired with the lightsaber combat the series is renowned for, makes for one of the most well-rounded Star Wars titles in Lucasarts’ history.
After all, it’s all about the lightsaber combat, isn’t it? Both Jedi Outcast and Academy represent the pinnacle in this. Sure, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order did a good job, but Jedi Knight’s more action oriented combat has never been surpassed. Hacking and slashing your way across a surprisingly large number of planets, many of them noteworthy in the expanded universe, has never been as satisfying as it is here. The fact the combat has aged as well as it has is truly impressive. Unfortunately, the AI cannot keep pace. Enemies are woefully inept, more likely to spin in circles than actually attack you.
Unlike the Jedi Outcast port, Jedi Academy includes the multiplayer component. It’s been brought forward to the new age exactly as it once was, which means all of the jank and lack of balancing are still present. Don’t let that stand in your way though. Despite the relative lack of polish, wildly swinging lightsabers at one another is a blast. The multiplayer is just as fun as you remember it being.
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I am going to hold off on this one since they don't match players up via input device as they should. Hopefully they will add a patch at some point to do just that.
Awesome. Couldn't agree more.
I'm finding myself surprised by just how much variety the game throws at you, during those "tackle in any order" act missions. Each is its own unique adventure and I've loved every one of 'em (well, except for the one built around swoop bikes, which is the most glaring example of how rushed this PS4 port must've been).
After I was rather disappointed with Jedi Outcast, part of me was braced for another underwhelming experience, but Jedi Academy is surely one of the greatest Star Wars games of all time... and I say that without having finished it yet.
i did take one look at the trailer and said, no thanks. the graphics and gameplay looks horrible dated and should be left in 1998. its time people remove their rosy tinted glasses of nostalgia.
@RogerRoger Disappointed by Jedi Outcast?!?!?! I love both of these games so much haha. Jedi Outcast is one of my favorites ever, but I do love Academy too. Yeah, the mission structures are wildly different, and almost all of them are a ton of fun! I'd absolutely include this in the greatest star wars game convo. Jedi Knight 1 & 2 &Academy, Rogue Squadron, KOTOR. Republic Commando? There's a ton!
@Genrou The game not requiring the same precision as a more contemporary shooter makes it a little more palatable here than in other games, but yeah, agreed on offering players the option!
@TheBuzz The graphics look horribly dated because the game's 17 years old. And it's got nothing to do with rose-tinted glasses. My point was the despite being 17 years old, this remains the best example of lightsaber action combat that Star Wars has ever produced.
Looking forward for this 😃
One thing I always loved about Jedi Academy is that you can learn Sith Force powers but still remain on the light side of the Force.
Good review. Thanks for writing it. It's so good to see this game get a good write up.
Got the Switch version and really enjoying it, bit of learning curve though.
@TheBuzz 1998? How are old you? Because anyone who played games in 1998 knows full well games did not look this good in 1998, the PS1 for its time was beast and no way in hell could the PS1 run this.
On the Switch version PC players can join even cheat in multiplayer, is that problem present in the PS4 version as well?
It doesn't affect me because I only bought it for single player, but I am curious.
@gbanas92 When I was a kid, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II was my first proper videogame, and the only one that'd run on our creaky old PC. It informed so much of my tastes in both gaming and wider entertainment, with its live-action cutscenes and clever morality tracking system. Then I got a PSone and never looked back, but it meant I missed so many Star Wars games on other consoles. I played Jedi Outcast for the first time last year, when it came to PS4, so it was inevitably gonna fall short of 20+ years of anticipation. Whilst I could get picky about it (no divergent endings, different actors, etc.) I reckon the bottom line is that I simply missed the boat.
Which is weird, because I just loved Jedi Academy from start to finish. Completed my Light Side playthrough last night, and went back this morning to see the Dark Side outcome. I think the variety was its biggest strength, although I also appreciated the return of a "choice" moment and the fact that, if you want it to be, it's one of those rare things; a Star Wars game with a non-human hero (Kel-Dor all the way!).
That aforementioned focus on PlayStation gaming means I've missed a lot of other classic Star Wars games over the years, including many you just listed as the best ever. I'm all about things like Episode I - The Phantom Menace on PSone, Bounty Hunter on PS2, The Force Unleashed on PS3 and Jedi: Fallen Order on PS4. Both incarnations of Battlefront II have also been personal highlights, and LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars has got to make the list, as well.
Sorry for the ramble. In case it wasn't abundantly clear, I do enjoy a bit of Star Wars every now and again!
@Heavyarms55 I haven't noticed any outright cheating, but they are present yeah. It gets annoying now and again, but hasn't hindered my fun to this point
@Churchy Yeah being able to be a "grey" jedi is such a good idea that not nearly enough star wars games involving lightsabers take advantage of
@RogerRoger Ahhh okay that'd do it. I played Jedi Outcast back when it was brand new, and it lived up to everything I could possibly have hoped for! Jedi Academy too actually. I also played Dark Forces 2 back then. I love this whole series so much.
Yeah, the way it handles your alignment is really engaging and the choices you get to make allow the game to be wildly different. More than I'd have normally expected of a game back then.
I have never played Jaden as anything other than a Kel Dor too!
I definitely liked the older days of star wars games a ton more. I used to love all the old FMV ones. I must have beaten Rebel Assault 2 like 20 times. Anytime I play the new ones, I hold up to how much I loved the old ones, and they just never hold up for me. Jedi Fallen Order was pretty good, but I wish EA had done more with the license up to this point. Very disappointed in how that's gone down. Misstep after misstep since Disney purchased the property
@gbanas92 Kel Dor FTW!
If only Outcast and Academy had come to PS2; no idea why they never did, it wasn't like Star Wars games were scarce back in the day. I know some folks complained that LucasArts oversaturated the fifth and sixth generation markets with them but, when compared to the three tiny pebbles EA have seen fit to chuck our way, I'd much prefer to be picking diamonds out from a handful of sand. You and I agree (again) that Disney's handling of our galaxy far, far away hasn't exactly been wizard.
I've got an old, two-disc physical copy of Rebel Assault 2 on my shelf; it's a shame that the PS3's slightly speedier PSone emulator kinda breaks it, because I rather enjoyed it when it worked! Might try and find a PC copy someday.
@RogerRoger Yeah I actually only had an Xbox (well and a gamecube) that gen, so I played all sorts of Star Wars games haha. I played Outcast on PC first and then Academy on Xbox first I think. They may have oversaturated, but when you consider how consistent (or if not consistent just how frequently) the titles were great, I was pretty okay with it haha. Yeah, I was actually really excited when Disney first bought them, because up to that point the Marvel acquistion had gone well. Foolishly, I thought that Lucasfilm actrually had a plan going forward like Marvel did lol. And now look where we are! A couple good books, an okay movie or two and the rest is garbage!
I have a big box copy of Rebel Assault 1 for PC haha. Rebel Assault's on steam now too! I think it's a bundle for both Rebel Assault's. For like a year or so? Something like that! I haven't actually tried to run them, but I did just play through all of Rogue Squadron on steam a couple weeks back, so I'd assume it's functional haha
@gbanas92 There was a bit of "grass is always greener" with me back then. I remember so desperately wanting to play the Obi-Wan game on Xbox, regardless of its terrible reviews, but never did and likely never will (probably for the best).
But you're right, even the most average Star Wars game scratched that recurring itch. Having a bunch of samey saber-swingers was better than waiting for Jedi: Fallen Order and hoping that it wouldn't be cancelled, or stuffed with microtransactions... heck, just hoping that it'd be good. For all the talking heads who keep bringing up Masters of Teräs Käsi or Kinect Star Wars for a giggle, Star Wars games were more often great than not.
I'm real relieved to find that I'm not alone in thinking this, because the echo chamber of the internet can often threaten to drown out my inner monologue, so thank you!
But yeah, it's quite disheartening to see what Disney have done with the franchise. Funnily enough, I reckon their spin-off stuff has been pretty great; Rebels, Rogue One, Solo and Jedi: Fallen Order have all been head and shoulders above anything achieved in the core sequel trilogy. Oh well. At least we're getting these sweet nostalgic re-releases whilst the franchise is "rested" for the next couple years. Can't wait for Episode I: Racer to appear on the PS Store. I hope it's soon!
In the meantime, thanks for the Steam tip! I'll check 'em out!
@RogerRoger Yeah definitely don't go after Obi-Wan now haha. It wasn't good when it released, let alone now! I fell into that trap with Rogue Squadron. I wanted to play every flight game after that, but none of them ever hit the highs of Rogue Squadron (or the X-Wing / Tie Fighter games of course)
My expectations before Fallen Order came out were "god, I hope it's at least mediocre" and I felt like I was reaching too far! Pre-Disney, there are a ton of Star Wars games that could be called not just great, but arguably some of the best in gaming's history (notably KOTOR out of the bunch)
Yeah, it seems like we absolutely agree on the state of star wars haha. I'm wayyyy into the expanded universe. I have every single book from the old canon and I'm reading my way through them, and sure some of the books are bad, but a ton of them are amazing, whereas the new canon books, everything's either "perfectly fine" or bad. With 1 or 2 exceptions. It's really disheartening.
All my peak excitement over star wars these past few years has been stuff that either got re-released or things I just never got around to until now (the older books). I'm very excited about Racer as well. I played the hell out of that game growing up!
Yeah there's a ton of the older Star Wars games on steam now!
@gbanas92 Thanks for confirming my Obi-Wan fears! I had a lot of fun with Starfighter and Jedi Starfighter on PS2, but then I wouldn't know what I was missing, as I've never played a Rogue Squadron game before. It's on my "maybe get an old N64 someday" bucket list, for sure.
The problem is now, a lot of those amazing Star Wars games have gotten too old. That isn't their fault, and I don't hold it against them, but some have been a real test of my fanboyism. Jedi Outcast was one, as I mentioned. I also tried Knights of the Old Republic for the first time ever last year, and walked away from it after I became (and please don't hate me for saying this) crushingly bored. Couldn't engage with it at all. Probably because I'd just come fresh from Dragon Age Inquisition and the Mass Effect trilogy. I was basically playing BioWare's back catalogue in reverse order, so it was only ever gonna get worse!
Whilst these re-releases are great an' all, going backwards can be a bit of a risk in some places. I'm keeping fingers tightly crossed that EA learn from the success of Jedi: Fallen Order and start to deliver on the franchise's promise a bit more frequently.
Ah, you're an Expanded Universe bookworm? Awesome! I keep meaning to delve in, but never have. Spent most of my youth writing my own stories, so I'm long overdue checking out some of the more famous examples, like the original Thrawn trilogy (which keeps being recommended to me, particularly since his brilliant inclusion in Rebels). Would you say that's a good place to start?
@RogerRoger (Rogue Squadron is also on steam ). For what it's worth, it plays really well still. I was impressed with how good the controls were using a gamepad even now!
Oh, I feel you. I grew up on all the "golden age" star wars games, so their feeling dated is easy to ignore if you've played them for years. I had the same problem you did with the first Metal Gear Solid. I never played it as a kid, and trying to play it now, I just couldn't stomach it! KOTOR definitely hasn't aged as well as some of the other games haha.
I honestly don't know that I trust EA to do anything but mess up going forward haha. Now they know Fallen Order worked well, I'm worried they're gonna tighten the grip on Respawn and basically make them do the same thing again for the sequel, which could hurt the potential of the series.
Oh boy, am I haha. Waist deep in Star Wars books! Tons of people start with the Thrawn trilogy, and I'm inclined to agree. They're technically the first books of the expanded universe (there was a trilogy of Lando and Han books from the 70s and 80s, but the quality fluctuates wildly), so you don't need to know other events to understand them, because there were no other events that had been released yet (it infers things, but the Thrawn books started all the ideas, and other books filled in the gaps later).
I personally got introduced to the expanded universe by the X-Wing books, which I love! it doesn't focus much on Luke, Han, and Leia (they're there once in a while but that's it) and instead focus on a combo of brand new characters, and underutilized characters like Wedge. They delve way into the intricacies of space dogfighting and space combat, etc, but the stories are really good. And they touch on many important events like the New Republic taking Coruscant. Stuff like that! The Thrawn trilogy and then the X-Wing books would be a good starting point I'd say!
@gbanas92 Thanks for your book thoughts! Will definitely take them into account, especially since I hadn't considered the X-Wing series at all. The fact that they dragged poor Wedge back for a blink-and-you-missed-it cameo in The Rise of Skywalker recently made me think about his character, and how great it would've been to see him and other well-loved secondary folks better served in the sequel trilogy.
But if the Thrawn trilogy is chronologically first, then I'll start with them. I was tempted to buy the new books Timothy Zahn wrote, exploring Thrawn's origins during the Clone Wars and leading up to his role in Rebels, because I'd heard a lot of great things, but I'll go back to the beginning (which is technically the future, one that doesn't exist now... gosh darn it, Disney!). At least I'll have a distinctive voice in my head for his character now, which always helps!
The one book (and comic adaptation, too) I did read back in the day was Shadows of the Empire. Really enjoyed that. Out of historical curiosity more than anything, I'd also like to check out Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Have you read that and, if so, what did you think of it?
And thanks for not condemning my difficulties with KOTOR back there, by the way. As a big Metal Gear fan, I can totally appreciate that the earlier games haven't aged well, particularly for newcomers (and they're an acquired taste regardless). Bringing it back to Star Wars, when Bounty Hunter was released as a PS2 Classic on PS4, I raved about it to a friend and got her to drop money on it. When she found it a clunky, janky disappointment, I really had to check my nostalgia at the door!
So, here's hoping we get a braver, more diverse sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order that we can all agree on someday!
@RogerRoger Well that's where it gets complicated haha. The Thrawn trilogy came out first, but on canon timeline, the first 7 X-Wing books come first, then 8, 9, 10 are various points in time after the Thrawn trilogy.
They do a lot with Wedge in the new canon books (notably the Aftermath trilogy), but they're not good at all haha. Also, Zahn has said multiple times, he went out of his way to make his new canon books not contradict the old canon, so you can just count the new canon Thrawn's in the old one if you really want haha (The first new canon Thrawn is amazing, 2 and 3 are just okay). I also read Shadows of the Empire back in the day! I loved it then, but I haven't read it in a long time. I'm curious how I'll feel about it now, amidst my current readthrough.
Yeah, I read Splinter of the Mind's Eye, I don't really like it, but I don't like Alan Dean Foster's writing style very much. I will say it's worth it though, for how curious an entry it is in Star Wars lore. Seeing where things coulda gone pre-Empire coming out makes for a very interesting read haha.
Yeah KOTOR has a ton of noticeable issues that I could see turning off new players. I played it like 10 times as a kid, so I don't mind, but if I were brand new to it, oof. That game deserves one of those top to bottom remakes. That'd be amazing!
I did skip MGS1 but I absolutely loved 2,3, and 4! So even skipping that I still love the series. And then 5 I have mixed feelings on. It's a great sandbox game, but I wouldn't call it a good Metal Gear game.
Yeah, Bounty Hunter, I didn't play until the PS4 port, (well other than at demo booths at my local Target as a kid), and I wasn't a fan at all haha.
Yeah, bring on a daring, adventurous Fallen Order sequel!
@gbanas92 Well, that's the age-old Star Wars question anyway, isn't it? Release order, or chronological order? As with the films, I'll probably go chronological to begin with, so thanks for the heads-up!
Brave of you to keep reading Disney's new books, considering what they did to the previous continuity (the only reason I was considering Zahn's new trilogy was because of its timeframe, meaning it wasn't overwriting anything; it's good of him to try and preserve Thrawn's literary origins in some small way). From what I've heard, they're much more conservative and low-key than some of the grander, more extravagant storylines and concepts from before. Shadows of the Empire had some pretty outlandish moments, if I'm recalling it correctly! Hope it still holds up for you, when you get around to it again.
It was specifically that idea of Splinter representing where a low-budget sequel would've gone, had A New Hope not made bank at the box office. If I struggle with the writing style, I suppose there's always its Wookieepedia synopsis!
Aren't BioWare supposed to be working on a new Star Wars game at the moment anyway? I wish EA would give them a break, and let them remaster and / or remake KOTOR and Mass Effect. It's what the people want, gosh darn it! Fingers crossed we get our wish someday; I'd definitely give KOTOR another chance if it was shown a little love (although something tells me I'd still hate Bastila regardless)!
Ever tried MGS: The Twin Snakes on GameCube? It's not a completely faithful remake of the PSone original, but it plays way better. I loved MGSV for what it was, really loved it, but you're right; it doesn't quite fit with the others, does it?
Ah. Right, yes. I'll shut up about Bounty Hunter, then.
Thanks for chatting about all this, by the way. Hope I'm not keeping you from anything! There'll be a bunch of delayed articles on the front page which open with "Sorry, would've posted this sooner, but Rog wanted to know about Star Wars books!"
@RogerRoger I personally went for chronological order. Given how many books there are in the old canon, I wanted to see the timeline start at one point, and end at another rather than jumping around, but I'd say both are valid for different reasons!
Most of the Disney stuff is either bad or mediocre, but not ALL of it! One newcomer is amazing! Any chance you get to read Claudia Gray's star wars stuff, take it! She's amazing! Other than her, the rest of the good new canon books seem to be from people who wrote in the old canon too (Luceno, Zahn).
Yeah the new canon, Disney seems unwilling to let the authors do anything major. So most of the books feel like they're treading water until the movies "really" answer questions, which I do not like!
Yeah, I'd say Splinter's worth soldiering through no matter what. It was a very short read, so I was able to power through it no problem.
I don't remember if they said Bioware was doing anything beyond "they're working on something, trust us". Star Wars wouldn't surprise me though. Well, and them basically remaking Anthem I guess? Not that anyone really wants that lol. But Bastilla's amazing! How dare you!
I did not. My MGS fan friends told me to avoid the Gamecube port at all costs because it's ridiculous. And I had no reason to doubt them haha. I ended up watching a motion comic of the first game and played starting at 2 instead. which I'd say worked, cuz I definitely love the series now!
But of course! I could talk about Star Wars basically infinitely haha, so always glad to do so!
@gbanas92 When I revisit things like Star Wars, I go chronological but first time through something that's new to me, I prefer release order because there are often in-jokes and references that I'd otherwise miss. Imagine watching the closing scenes of Revenge of the Sith without ever having seen A New Hope, for example! Not sure the books would ever do similar (?!) but it's something I like to try and guard against.
I've heard the names Luceno and (obviously) Zahn before, but never Claudia Gray, so thanks for that! Will keep my eyes open, but will also hold off on the new Disney canon material for a while, and seek out Legends titles as a priority. I'm not a big fan of e-readers, so am gonna have to clear out some shelf space before placing an order for the proper book-books!
And I'll add Splinter to that first order, as a curiosity more than anything. Especially since it's only short! Cheers!
There's always hope BioWare will reveal a secret Star Wars project that they've been working on for years; that would at least go some way to explaining why ANTHEM was such a disaster, if they were distracted with other things they couldn't divulge. But then that would make a degree of sense, and this is EA we're talking about, so... yeah, never mind, then!
Hmm, okay, let's not compare notes on favourite BioWare characters! If you reckon Bastila's amazing, then it seems like we'd disagree on quite a few but hey, each to their own!
The Twin Snakes has some ridiculous moments in it (like how, during the Hind D boss fight, Snake may or may not do a slow-mo backflip off of an incoming missile...) but at least it plays like MGS2. If you watched the Digital Graphic Novel instead, though, then you're good! That's a solid way of playing catch-up, pun semi-intended. Another franchise where its handling by corporate overlords has been a source of shame, though. Why are we doomed to love these things?!
Yeah, me too. Work and life be damned!
@RogerRoger There's quite a bit of that with the books haha, so if you wanna be "in" on that stuff, release order sounds like the right approach for you!
Yeah, Luceno is one of the best at unifying disparate areas of the old canon. He wrote the Darth Plageuis book, which I think is the best star wars book period. The book is so good that it actually makes the prequels better movies! Yeah Claudia Gray was a Star Wars newcomer under Disney, and she's great! Oh hey, me too! I loathe digital books. Paper or nothing! Having every legends books takes up a lottttt of shelf space lol.
Oh Bastilla's nowhere near one of my favorites of theirs, I just really liked her. It's more her entire arc than any one moment though. If you take snippets of her, she just seems like a pompous jerk lol.
Yeah the missile backflip is the example that was used to swear me off it almost every single time haha. True playing like MGS2 is a good thing at least. Yeah I caught up on the series years ago at this point, but I might try the Twin Snakes if I do a series replay since that's no longer my first impression of the game at least! Oh I'm no stranger to properties being butchered by the studio as things wear on. My favorite property after Star Wars is probably Alien....
@LaJettatura Perhaps "cheating" is the wrong word, but poor sportsmanship then. That's what I would consider experienced players intentionally targeting new players for easy wins.
Of course it could be innocent too, people who had the game on PC wanting to play with new friends who bought it on consoles.
@gbanas92 Ah, that's good to know, thanks! I was hoping you'd confirm or deny for me. Thrawn it is, then!
The Darth Plageuis book is definitely something I'm looking forward to reading, and I have a feeling it'll be a firm favourite, so I'm glad you brought that up. I'm a staunch defender of the prequels (yeah, we do exist!) so anything that adds layers to their complex and fascinating lore will be welcome. Will likely spring for a hardback copy, if I can find one!
Well, that'll be where Bastila and I fell out then, as my abandonment of the game meant I never saw her arc through to completion. Couldn't put it any better than "pompous jerk" from what I saw of her! Now that you've said that, I'll have to give her (and the others) another try sometime. I was okay with Carth, but then I usually like all of the "boring" BioWare characters, like Kaidan and Jacob from Mass Effect and Anders and Cole from Dragon Age. It was nice having an astromech and a Wookiee as squadmates, though!
Eek. Yeah, I was late coming to the Alien films, but after watching Prometheus I stopped and will just hold tight to the first four, I reckon. Didn't go in a good direction at all. Which is your favourite, and have you played Isolation at all?
@RogerRoger I have mixed feelings on the prequels myself lol. I think they're very bad movies if you view them only as movies. But they have so many ideas that are interesting in isolation, and they allowed so many awesome expanded universe things to happen. Meanwhile, the Disney movies are clearly better-made films, but I don't care in the slightest about anything happening outside of the movies, so the expanded universe under Disney is just a waste of space!
Oof, I've been looking for a hardcover copy of Plagueis for literally years. Hopefully, you can find one!
Yeah her full arc is what sells her, so without that full experience, I can very easily understand not liking her lol. Yeah, Carth is definitely the "vanilla" guy in that game. I don't particularly like him, but there are a couple quests involving his past that were really good still. Zaalbaar the Wookie is a great character though! There's some other characters later that are amazing too. Canderous the Mandalorian is probably the best one!
Yeah, Prometheus isn't great either lol. I loved the first act of the film, didn't like the middle and hated the end, but I was not expecting it to get worse in Alien: Covenant, but boy did it! So I have a bit of an uncommon opinion of Alien. My favorite is actually Alien 3 lol. Specifically the "Assembly Cut". The theatrical cut is an incoherent mess that the studio ruined, but the assembly cut restores multiple plot lines, is like 40 minutes longer, and is coherent. Alien3 is also my favorite film score of all time, so that's part of it too. But Alien and Aliens are also like top 10 favorite movies ever, so basically a third of my top 10 movies are alien movies lol. And oh hell yeah, I played Isolation day 1! I LOVE it! It's the first (maybe only?) good thing to happen to the franchise in years lol.
@gbanas92 Well, I was eleven when The Phantom Menace was released, so I was the target audience (after having been reeled in by the theatrical run of the Special Editions a couple years beforehand). Maul was cool, Jar Jar was funny and everything was bigger, louder and shinier than I'd ever seen before; I saw it eight times, and later would wear out a VHS copy. I grew up with the prequels, and watched how they matured alongside me; I could relate to the angsty, hormonal core driving Attack of the Clones at fourteen, and then loved the darker, foreboding spectacle in Revenge of the Sith at seventeen.
And I think we've hit upon the key difference there; the prequels were released three years apart. It was the story for an entire generation. Each episode had room to breathe, for the audience to take stock and fans to explore the wider Expanded Universe content. As you say, we played games, read comics and books, and it all felt part of a cohesive and imaginative world.
Disney rushing out a movie every year, desperate to build their own equivalent so quickly? It was never gonna work as well.
It's the same story with The Clone Wars animated show; starts off goofy to appeal to kids, and has many an average episode peppered throughout, but when you stand back and view it as a whole, it's an unparalleled epic.
Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there! Feel free to skip it!
It was Zaalbaar's mission to Kashyyyk which killed KOTOR for me, I'm sorry to say. I loved his character, but standing motionless and listening to the same three roars and growls looping over endless subtitles about this ancient tradition and that cultural system... urgh. I love Star Wars but I struggle with fantasy, and so that was where its balance as a "sci-fi fantasy" franchise got a bit too skewed for me. I did get to recruit Canderous just before that part, though, and he seemed cool!
After being told it was the worst one, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Alien 3 as well, although I'm not sure which version of it I actually saw (it felt quite long, so maybe it was the Assembly Cut). Elliot Goldenthal did the music, didn't he? Same composer who scored the Joel Schumacher bat-films; he's utterly superb, very good choice for your all-time favourite! I'm too much of a coward to play Isolation for myself, but I've watched a full playthrough on YouTube (during the day, with funny people playing it) and was incredibly impressed. Certainly an improvement over Colonial Marines, let's put it that way!
@RogerRoger Oh, I'm for sure the demographic for the prequels as well. I was 9 when Phantom Menace dropped, so I grew up with those as "the" movies, even though I liked the original trilogy more even back then. I definitely like them more than I would have had I grown up with the original trilogy instead. I was pretty invested in the expanded universe even at that point though, to be honest. Shadows of the Empire especially. I had almost the whole series of action figures for them lol.
And exactly! Each form of media felt as if it were building towards the same thing, instead of 9 different voices saying 9 different things, none of them informing the other. The Disney expanded universe is also afraid of important things happening anywhere outside of the movies, so most of the books are meaningless wastes of time. Yeah the Clone Wars show is fantastic (both shows actually. the Tartakosvky one is amazing too!)
Oh hey me too! I don't actually usually enjoy fantasy very much. I vastly prefer sci-fi. Outside of the Witcher, I don't usually like it. A lot of that stuff about Wookie culture has come up here and there in the expanded universe so I was engaged enough to just see some of those ideas expanded upon, so I can't say I minded the Kasshykk stuff. I will say though, that's the weakest location in the game!
The assembly cut is close to 3 hours. What animal did the chestburster come out of? Cuz it comes out of different animals depending on the cut haha. Dog in theatrical, Ox in Assembly. Yessir, Elliot Goldenthal! The Alien3 score is pure magic. The most amazing soundtrack I've ever heard. Yeah, he did the Schumacher scores too, which are also great! (The scores anyways. While I don't hate those movies like some people, I don't particularly like them either lol). Isolation is so good though!
I played only at night with noise cancelling headphones. It was magical! Oof, the less said about Colonial Marines, the better....
@gbanas92 Woot. Late 80s / early 90s kids unite!
I think having the Expanded Universe on hand (and free to be actually decent) helped a lot during the prequel era. It was a new and, for some, jarring addition to the franchise and so having OT projects sustained kept a balance. I remember those Shadows figures! Didn't have them all, but totally had Chewie with a buzzcut. Always wanted a Xizor but could never find him!
Am hoping Disney have learned from The Mandalorian, and will give Dave Filoni more control over the broader direction of things. You don't want a dictator, but you totally need a singular vision to say "maybe don't do that" to some writers and directors desperate to put their own mark on something so vast.
And funny how, despite that, we each have our exceptions to our fantasy rule (you with The Witcher, me with Dragon Age)! This is where I need to get educated with the Expanded Universe and fast, because I might've been a bit more engaged with Kashyyyk had I known the bigger picture. Earlier this morning, I added a bunch of titles to my Amazon Wish List which I'll order once the current pandemic has eased. Thanks again for your recommendations; they're all on there!
It was an ox, if memory serves, so it must've been the Assembly Cut I saw (explains why I liked it, then)! The quadrilogy is on my "really should watch again sometime soon" list, so I'll be sure to double-check which versions I'm watching when I do. My adoration of widely-panned films doesn't end with the prequels, alas, as I really like the Schumacher bat-films; probably out of 90s nostalgia, and a little because my first exposure to Batman was via reruns of the 60s Adam West TV show so, to me, he's always been a figure of campy fun. Doesn't stop me now appreciating the darker stuff, mind! Comparatively, it's why I could enjoy the bleak Alien3 and then, the next day, equally enjoy the action schlock of Alien Resurrection.
Darn, you're a braver man than I, for sure! Isolation was utterly terrifying to watch; I can only imagine how many times it made you jump out of those headphones! Nicely done!
@RogerRoger Yeah the expanded universe moving in worthwhile places alongside the prequels being not the best definitely helped the soften the blow. The Disney canon, if you don't like the direction things are heading, that's too bad, because all of the mediums are moving in the same direction all at once. Yeah, I had the chewie one too! I always wanted the Dash's ship, but that never happened lol.
Yeah, there needs to be a guiding hand steering the ship, not just a whole bunch of people doing their own things with no cohesion. There's gotta be some pushback somewhere, but also not too much pushback either, cuz then nothing significant happens. Disney seems to be suffering from both too little and too much control at the same time haha.
Yeah, the expanded universe has definitely helped me be more excited and interested in things that pop up in Star Wars projects that I might otherwise have not really cared about.
Depending on your goal with the books, I'd recommend eBay over Amazon, I started with Amazon, but when I switched to eBay I started getting twice as many books for the same price, and they didn't have that annoying "legends" striping on the top from the Disney versions!
Yep, that's the Assembly cut then haha. It's wayyyyyy better. I can't say I particularly like the Schumacher Batman's but I only really liked the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies pre MCU. I do agree that tonally the Schumacher's fit with what Batman was like though. I definitely like the bleaker stuff normally, but the tonal differences are totally cool too. Resurrection is such a weird movie haha. Shot like a pitch-black comedy by a weird Frenchman. So strange!
Nah it wasn't so bad. I was only frozen in place multiple times while playing! It (unsurprisingly) gets less scary as it goes along and runs a little longer than it should have but my god I loved that game!
@gbanas92 Well, that's Disney all over, isn't it? "Come along for the ride, but don't ask to take detours, and you'd better go before we leave because we will not be stopping!"
I think I've got a Micro Machine of the Outrider somewhere... should really dig that out at some point!
Yeah, I don't wanna sound like so many toxic internet armchair critics, but I think Kathleen Kennedy's management of Lucasfilm needs to be analysed quite seriously. I respect a lot of what she's done, but there's been a lack of cohesion which is damning. She could co-manage with Dave Filoni, perhaps?
Thanks for the eBay tip! I'll be honest, I just use Amazon's Wish List because it's a place I can keep track of my wants, on a site which generally has a listing for everything; when it comes to making actual purchases, I'll shop around. There's always the risk of sellers sending you dog-eared copies covered in jam, but it's definitely gotten way better than it was!
Once I've dragged myself out of my current Spider-Man rabbit hole, I reckon revisiting Alien will be my next big thing. It'll be interesting to see whether my opinions hold up, particularly since I've been thinking a lot about Alien3 whilst we've been talking. I do remember Resurrection having a few bizarre choices in it, yeah! Also reckon it thought its CGI was ever-so-slightly better than it actually was. A film I kinda wish I wasn't watching on Blu-Ray, but maybe on VHS or broadcast television, where a slightly grainier picture quality would've helped a bunch!
Are you a fan of the MCU, then? I wasn't, and probably still not, but I enjoy them when I catch up with them. As I say, I'm currently discovering the wider Spider-Man franchise and it might prove an effective gateway into more general Marvel superheroes.
Once I'd gotten a good look at the Xenomorph in the stream I watched, I was less scared, for sure; maybe shaving an hour off the runtime might've prevented it from feeling commonplace? Hmm. Now I'm wondering if it's currently in the sale!
@RogerRoger Yeah basically a "we know best" attitude, but they don't really...That's been painfully obvious for a while now. Well that's the problem too. So many of the people that like the new direction are absolutely toxic about it, which makes having negative things to say make you "toxic by association" basically. It's possible to have gripes with the new direction and not be just evil about it haha. Star Wars is a pretty big part of my life, basically at every stage, so it's important! Yeah Filoni getting more say seems like a solid thing, and I can only assume that's a matter of time. Also, agreed Kathleen Kennedy has done a few solid things too. The portfolio of authors that write for Star Wars now is impressively diverse and is closer to fifty men and women. The old canon, I swear there were like 2 total women writers haha. Not a great look. Definitely agreed, everything moving towards one goal, but that goal seemingly changes every year is just not working.
Yeah, I had decent luck with eBay. I stuck with goodwill accounts and "corporate"
big bookstores on eBay and most of my books showed up in great shape. Only a couple of them were in rough shape, and they were all very cheap so it was worth the gamble haha.
What brought on the Spider-Man deep dive? Always loved Spiderman. My opinions on the Alien films mostly stayed the same. My opinion of 1,2 and 4 basically stayed the same from when I was a kid, but 3 my appreciation has basically been exponentially increasing over and over for years now haha. I love the bleak tone, it's visually amazing (especially given its troubled production) and that soundtrack is perfect! Yeah the CG of the aliens in Resurrection does NOT look good these days haha. The practical stuff is great though. Even though the Aliens are way more...uh...slimy.
Yeah I'd say I'm a fan of the MCU. I don't love it in the way I do Star Wars or Alien, I don't really have interest in the comics, but I've enjoyed most of the movies a lot. As a kid, SpiderMan was the only one I ever appreciated, so I'm glad to have a broader interest in Superheros than I did back then.
Yeah, an hour shorter woulda helped. Honestly several hours. I think my playthrough was about 17 hours? 12 or 13 probably would have been ideal. Even with it overstaying its welcome, I still love more than almost any game from this gen though!
@gbanas92 That's it in a nutshell. I like the idea of Rey, for example, and Daisy Ridley is a fine actor, but the execution of her character has been sloppy at best; bring that up in general discourse, and you'll inevitably end up misrepresented as a toxic, sexist troll. It's why I stick to PushSquare, and don't venture out onto wider social media platforms. I'm too scared to voice my opinions (and then I'd make it even worse by casually adding that the prequels are my favourite!).
These things are important to us, though. There are times when it's okay to say "hey, it's just a movie" but the larger something becomes, the more weight it carries. Ongoing franchises want people to love them, to make them part of their lives, so they've got to be prepared for those same people to subsequently have opinions and expect a certain standard. With any luck, the fallout from The Rise of Skywalker (and the concurrent praise for The Mandalorian) will show Kennedy, Filoni and the other executives the way to go. Tokenism and diversity for the sake of diversity is more offensive than not addressing anything at all, so I hope there's some meaningful change going on behind the scenes!
Sorry, I sound like I'm running for office.
That's an easy answer; it was Into the Spider-Verse. Found it on a streaming service, decided to give it a look-see because I'd heard good things about its unique animation, didn't expect to fall totally in love with the characters. As a narrow-minded DC kid who knew of Spidey, and might've watched the first Tobey Maguire film once, I kicked myself and started playing catch-up. Just finished the core story of the PS4 game last night (and cried). I've got the DLC installed and ready to go, and a bunch of the older Activision games on order. I can only apologise to any Spidey fan I encounter, yourself included, for being so closed-minded for so long!
Because speaking of, I love it when my opinions are challenged and / or changed. That's why I'm probably most looking forward to Alien3 when I give the quadrilogy another shot, because I can apply what we've been discussing and see it from another perspective, so thanks in advance! I'll need to read up about its production as well. Always find that fascinating when re-visiting famous films.
It's great that Sony and Marvel were able to work out a deal to include Spidey in the MCU, then, considering he was your gateway superhero! Would that make Civil War and Homecoming your favourite MCU films, by chance? Were you already following along with everything before he showed up?
Ah, but if Isolation were twelve hours, entitled gamers would've probably complained about value for money or something. It's quality over quantity, people!
@RogerRoger Yeah when the only movie out was 7 I was pretty excited for all the new characters. I was interested in Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe, basically everyone. But after 8 I pretty much only cared about Kylo, and after 9 I cared about no one haha. The movies failed at making me care about or wonder about the goings-on past the movies. The universe in the first two trilogies felt massive (especially the prequels) and I was interested in seeing stories taking place there, but to get the sequel trilogy's story to be the way it was, they threw any pretense of a living, breathing universe out the door, and left a narrow story with a bunch of characters that it got progressively more challenging to care about. But if you voice that opinion in a more public space the end result is something generally more toxic, probably revolving around sexism or being a troll rather offering an actual critique haha.
That Old Republic (or high republic or whatever they're calling it) could be a good sign? Maybe? Claudia Gray's involvement gives me hope, but the idea of "Yeah it's the old republic, but now instead of being thousands of years in the past, it's just a couple hundred" still feels very strange. I guess none of it's out yet, so it's a little early to condemn it, but that just seems very odd.
Ah of course. Spiderverse was so freakin' incredible! Haha, those old Spidey movie tie-in games were great. Spiderman 2 was so good! Nah, you get there when you get there for this kinda stuff! I hadn't watched the Keaton Batman's until a year or two ago! I basically only paid attention to spidey as a kid haha. But now I like the connectivity of the MCU and some of the elements of DC as well.
Yeah, the production history of Alien3 is almost as fascinating as the film itself. The quadrilogy Bluray set has a documentary for Alien3 called "Wreckage and Rape" (sometimes it's called "Wreckage and Rage") that offers a chronology for the whole film that I can't recommend enough!
Honestly, I don't really like Civil War that much haha. Yeah, I was following along from the beginning. Saw Iron Man 1 in theaters and was basically onboard from then on! I do think Tom Holland is great as SPidey though. Homecoming was very good, and I loved Far From Home (Jake Gyllenhaal's my favorite actor, so him being around was pretty great too!). Hmm, if I had to pick favorite Marvel movies, probably Thor: Ragnarok and The Winter Soldier? One of those two haha.
Yeah, that's true too. The game would be too short until the exact minute it becomes too long!
@gbanas92 Alas, that's JJ Abrams all over; he's great at starting things, but can rarely finish them. The Force Awakens is a classic mystery box, filled with questions to slowly answer as you keep the audience engaged; the fact you then had Rian Johnson going completely off the rails, rejecting what character notes had been made and arrogantly re-writing everything in a subversive, deconstructive style, seriously undercut its legitimacy. I think I'd have loved to see Johnson's take on Star Wars in a spin-off, but not in the middle of a long-awaited trilogy. Abrams was never gonna be able to stick the landing after that (even if he were somebody capable of finishing things which, as previously established...) but you're right, we must just be sexist trolls!
Oh yeah, I saw that announcement, the High Republic thing? It sounds ambitious, but I don't really trust Disney with ambition any more. I will try and keep an open mind. We'll apparently see games, comics and possible Disney+ shows alongside the books, so it feels like another "buy everything for it all to make sense" attempt and I'm not sure I have the energy! Will you dive right in?
Spider-Verse really was, wasn't it? Such a breath of fresh air, both in terms of animation and superhero movies. It made me go nuts when certain characters showed up in the PS4 game (which I'm now approaching the end of, whilst eyeing the stack of old Spidey games now sitting on my table... most looking forward to Shattered Dimensions and playing as the four alternate Spider-Men). It's great cracking into such a massive, established world; I sure won't be bored for a long while!
Ooh, what did you think of Keaton's Bat? It's okay if you hated it; I'd imagine it's probably one of those films you've gotta get at the right moment, or indeed age!
Having skipped over the special features last time, I think I'll give them a look-see this time around. Thanks for the documentary recommendation! Even that having two separate titles (one harsh, one clearly softened) speaks volumes about the differing approaches to what Alien3 should be!
Ah. Fair enough! At least I was half-right that you enjoyed Homecoming which, even before I "got" Spidey, I saw and thought was real solid (mostly thanks to that twist!) and yeah, I agree that Tom Holland is a good fit for an MCU Spidey. Still haven't seen Far From Home and don't think I've ever seen a film with Jake Gyllenhaal in, so I'll look forward to that now (wait... wasn't he in that cowboy love story thing? Then I might've seen him before. Apologies if this uncertainty is tantamount to blasphemy regarding your favourite actor!). Winter Solider is definitely one that stood out to me, for sure. I really liked Iron Man 3 as well; one of the few times I walked away from an MCU film and immediately bought its soundtrack album!
@RogerRoger Ep. 9 definitely made me appreciate the Last Jedi more, even If I still can't stand it haha. At least Johnson tried to do something different. But it didn't really work still. Yeah, Abrams isn't the best when it comes to compelling ideas, though I do still think he's a good director. Just please, don't write lol.
I'm on the fence about the High Republic. I'm sight unseen getting the book Claudia Gray is writing, but everything else I think I wanna wait and see. I'm skeptical of everything else within it for the time being. For obvious reasons lol.
Spiderverse is such an incredible, wondrous film. One of the best-animated films I've ever seen! I haven't heard great things about Shattered Dimensions, but I've never played it. The new Spidey game is amazing though!
Nah I think it's safe to call Keaton Batman timeless. Despite not watching them until well after I'd seen the Nolan ones (which I love too) I thought Keaton Batman was amazing! Loved it! Batman Returns was...fine. A bit weird? But fine, haha.
Yeah, the first iteration of that documentary removed bits showing David Fincher talking about how unhappy he was about making the movie, and the Bluray release restored that stuff, which good on Fox being able to own up to the fact that the director hated them and they allowed it to be seen still. I guess? lol. The Resurrection behind the scenes feature is also really good! Though definitely less hostile. Jeunet, the director loved making that movie and is happy with it haha.
Yeah, Homecoming was definitely good! Woah woah woah never seen a film with Jake Gyllenhaal. Whatttttt. I'm a huge fan of his. He's had so many incredible roles. If you like weird stuff, start with "Enemy" (directed by Denis Villeneuve, the best director in film!). Nightcrawler is another incredible performance. Source Code as well! And yes he was in Brokeback Mountain, so that's one at least!
I honestly didn't like Iron Man 3 all that much, even though most people hated the Mandarin twist as the primary reason to not like it. I didn't mind that very much though. Just couldn't get super into it. I do usually like Shane Black films though. The Nice Guys is brilliant! But yeah the Winter Soldier is a great espionage film, and Robert Redford's another of my favorite actors, so that plays a part in it too!
@gbanas92 For all my issues with The Last Jedi, even I've gotta admit that Rise of Skywalker going out of its way to overtly dismiss and overwrite it was more than a little awkward. Abrams is a cracking director, for sure! Didn't hate Star Trek '09 and Mission: Impossible III was pretty great, too.
I was thinking about the High Republic earlier, when considering the new Limited Run Games releases of Jedi Outcast and (coming back on-topic a bit) Jedi Academy. Admittedly, my thought was "if they keep us well-stocked in the classics like this, there'll be no need for any of their new nonsense" but still, fingers crossed and all that!
I'm currently on my NG+ playthrough of Spider-Man PS4, having just 100% completed it and all of its DLC. I can't stop playing it, it's an absolute marvel (pun semi-intended). Even if Shattered Dimensions comes half as close, it'll be worth the price I paid.
Glad you liked Keaton! You're not alone in your reaction to Batman Returns, though, so take heart. It's most definitely "Tim Burton Unleashed" and it has some genuine all-time favourite moments peppered throughout, but it takes a far darker turn than I'd ever expected as a kid. It's a very unbalanced film, let's put it that way! As somebody who can't really stand the Nolan films, so is limited in his options for bat-films, I give it more attention than I probably should.
Very good on Fox (although I'm guessing there's a big ol' disclaimer about "the views and opinions expressed herein" when you're booting up the disc)! Hoping I've got the full version, which I probably do if I've got the Assembly Cut, although there's always YouTube if not. Thanks for the recommendations!
And for the Jake Gyllenhaal recommendations as well; sorry for making you type out three woahs there! Once I've hacked through a significant chunk of my backlog (which the current UK lockdown is helping with... how are you coping where you are, managing to stay safe?) I'll go looking for some of those films.
Honestly, I'm probably just remembering Iron Man 3 more because of Brian Tyler's superb score. A lot of the earlier MCU entries blend together in my brain! Although I did laugh my butt off at the Mandarin twist, given that I love Ben Kingsley and had zero idea who the character was supposed to be... and from what I recall (again, blending) it was a huge improvement over Iron Man 2. Soon I'll be getting Disney+ (once they've stopped being jerks and drip-feeding The Mandalorian to us Brits) and having the entire MCU to run through will be helpful, as I'll be able to refresh and refine my opinions on some of the older films.
@RogerRoger Yeah I don't like The Last Jedi, but the approach of actively undoing it for the sake of it was at best, very awkward. And it made it so they were basically making 2 movies at once, neither one is particularly good lol. Yeah, Mission Impossible 3 is great! Abrams is really good behind that camera, and he seems to be good at directing the talent themselves too, but please just don't write lol.
Ooo that's true if they just keep going with porting all the old great Star Wars games, then we can just pretend the new stuff still isn't happening. That's the approach I take while I read all the old canon stuff anyways. That the Disney canon isn't actually what happens anyways. And I like it a lot more that way!
Man, that was a great game. I did everything except those smaller emergent crimes that happen. I missed a couple districts on those. but what a game. It accomplished something almost no open-world games do. It made the actual traversal environment fun enough that I didn't even wanna use fast travel! Which is crazy!
I actually haven't seen Batman Returns in a long time. I saw that before I ever saw the Schumacher ones I think, but without having actually watched the first Burton Batman. So that was a weird order to watch things too. But I definitely like Burton's Batman. Batman Begins > The Dark Knight > Batman for me!
Yeah, I'm sure there's disclaimer haha. Yeah if you have the assembly cut you should have the full thing. For Bluray at least. The DVD release that first featured the assembly cut might have the edited one? Not sure about that though.
Jake Gyllenhaal's a tremendous actor! I love his work, lots of really great performances in there. Yeah, I've been knocking through a lot of my backlog too! Lots of movies to watch! (yeah, we're locked down too. Northeast US, but one of the areas not being stupid)
Honestly, I don't much remember the music from Iron Man 3, outside of the Avengers theme, and of course the classic Spidey theme, I don't think I could identify any Marvel music as Marvel music haha. From the MCU that is. I still love Danny Elfman's work on the Sam Raimi Spiderman's. Yeah, the Ben Kinglsey stuff in that I honestly really liked, having no real attachment to the comics themselves. 2 I don't remember a ton about it. I remember it was perfectly fine and that's about all I remember. Woah, are you serious?! The Mandalorian isn't even fully out over there yet? What the hell?!?!?!
@gbanas92 I do wonder how history will come to view Rise of Skywalker. People have come back around to the prequels in recent years, but at least they were consistent. Everything has its place, but the obvious disjointedness of the sequel trilogy will forever be its biggest flaw, I feel.
I also wonder what JJ Abrams will do next, poor guy. I feel like he was very trapped by the whole corporate situation. Somebody needs to send him a good script!
Ah, the ol' head-in-sand approach. If it works!
Got the platinum for Spidey on Saturday. Those rooftop thugs in the third act really hammered home how much I was enjoying the traversal, because I hated how they suddenly represented a risk to my carefree swinging and crawling. And you're right; I had to go out of my way to get the "use fast travel five times" trophy! Can't wait to see what the sequel brings, especially with all the set-up for Miles (two playable Spideys would be perfect).
Oh wow, Batman Returns would've made for a very odd introduction to the bat-films, yes! I'm pleased to see you putting Batman Begins above The Dark Knight there, by the way. It's the only one of the Nolan trilogy I can tolerate; works as a half-decent standalone origin story. I can't stand the other two. They're rushed and awkward and The Dark Knight Rises is simply a mess, from any angle. Another head-in-sand moment for me, alas!
Blu-Ray all the way, so that's good to know, cheers. I'm slowly ticking things off my watchlist, so it won't be long now. I'll do Alien before going looking for those Jake Gyllenhaal recommendations. Glad you're keeping safe and staying sensible, and hope you're enjoying your backlog as much as I'm enjoying mine!
The MCU does seem shy about developing consistent, coherent musical themes (outside of The Avengers, as you say). That's why I liked the music from Iron Man 3, because I could hum it afterwards. It felt like a proper theme for Mr. Stark but then they just forgot about it in all subsequent films. Hopefully you'll recognise it when you hear it again:
https://youtu.be/OxL1p99EVCQ
And nope; that's Disney for you. They gave away seven-day free trials when it launched over here, so obviously didn't want everybody binge-watching The Mandalorian and then never paying. Its last chapter is due out this Friday. Thankfully, the new season of The Clone Wars will then finish on Monday (May the Fourth, Star Wars Day) so I'm approaching the point where I can finally subscribe and see everything... uh-oh. In that case, maybe scratch what I said earlier about my watchlist's backlog!
Are we too polite to acknowledge that we've run this comment section to over forty comments now...?! That's not a complaint!
@RogerRoger For me, I think the biggest problem in the longevity of 9 is going to be yes, the disjointedness, but also motivation to hear more stories. While our opinions on the prequels as films differ, I still love that era, and love reading and interacting with supplemental material regarding it. Particularly stuff between Episode 1 and 2 since there's so little of it. Whereas this sequel trilogy, I just....don't care haha. That hunger to hear more stories either directly or tangentially related to those movies just isn't there. I think that's going to cause major problems, which is why Lucasfilm's next step seems to be to go a couple of hundred years backward haha.
JJ'll probably continue working on properties he doesn't create lol. He's attached to HBO developing some show based on the Shining last I heard I think. I wish he'd revisit that plan for Half-Life or Portal movies that got announced like 8 years ago. Member those?
The plat! Hell yeah!!!!! OOoo, I really like the Miles Peter idea. That seems perfect! Maybe a fully co-operative game too? Both Spidey's have to work together to fight....something. They basically already did the sinister six, and I'm not sure what's bigger for Spidey haha.
Yeah, Batman Returns was a weird starting point agreed haha. I knew enough about Batman from just everyday life that it wasn't as weird as it could have been I suppose though. It's harder to not know about Batman than it is to know. Yes, I love Begins! I'm honestly a big fan of origin stories, those are usually my favorite parts, even if they've been done to death like in Batman or Spidey's case. I do love The Dark Knight, and I...liked Rises, but I definitely thought Begins was the best. Absolutely agreed it works as a standalone product too. How do you feel about the upcoming one with Robert Pattinson? Not that we've seen much of it so far.
God, I love Alien so much. All this talking about them has made me kinda wanna rewatch them all again haha. Yeah, I'm crushing my backlog! I just bought Dead Rising in that last sale, and I've actually never played it, so I'm pretty excited! What's next up for you after Spidey? Still gonna go for Shattered Dimensions next?
Agreed. The music's never been particularly bad, but there's just nothing terribly memorable in there (again, except that Avengers theme), so that's definitely a weaker area, especially given the usual quality of those movies! I can't say I remember the music from Iron Man 3 anymore, but I've only seen that one once, and it was in theaters. It's been a while lol.
Oof they do the 7-day trial thing here too, but Mandalorian was completely finished very soon after Episode 9 released! It's weird how behind they are on Mando despite keeping pace with elsewhere for the Clone Wars! What gives?
Hahahah, I noticed that the other day too! Turned the comment to one muchhhhhh longer than I ever expected! I'm not complaining either hahaha. It's worth it!
@gbanas92 Yeah, that's a problem with the prequel era; between episodes one and two, authors were nervous to write about a future that hadn't been formed yet and then, as soon as the Clone Wars hit, everybody just wanted to write that. It's a forgotten decade. Maybe that's why I love Bounty Hunter more than I should, because it moves a lot of pieces into place.
But yeah, try selling me a tie-in book entitled The Continuing Adventures of Poe Dameron and I'm just gonna zone out, sorry!
I do NOT remember that JJ Abrams was supposed to be developing Half-Life and Portal movies! That'd be interesting! His style and (lens)flair could really bring those projects to life. Not that I've played either game (he admitted, shamefully) but they're on my "really should at some point" list.
Much thanks! It was an enjoyable platinum. For the sequel, I was thinking more like Arkham Knight, when you seamlessly switch between Batman and other bat-family members, but co-op would be cool! Although would that be treading on the toes of the forthcoming Avengers game? I can't remember if they're gonna allow Spidey in that or not. The sequel threat has to be Venom. He's the only one they didn't use!
There are three inescapable superheroes, and Batman is one of them; that being said, I'd still never advocate diving in at the deep end with Danny DeVito's gruesome Penguin! Given how oversaturated and cliché superhero origin stories have become, I think it's awesome that they're still your favourite. I agree; there's just something about a formative struggle which a sequel can't match. That's why, yes, I am looking forward to Battinson! What about you? Every bat has been unfairly prejudged, so I always try to keep an open mind... that being said, it probably helps that I've never seen Twilight...!
Sounds like your backlog progress might have to pause for Alien soon! And why not; gotta go where your mood takes you, right? Hope you enjoy Dead Rising (if you haven't started it already)! I took a couple days to play the first Max Payne. Always wanted to, never had. Tomorrow I'll start on my old Spidey games; it'll be Shattered Dimensions eventually, but I've also got the PSone games, so might start at the beginning. I'm feeling retro!
Given how iconic the Avengers theme has become, you'd think somebody at Disney would think "Hmm, we're missing a trick here, folks!" and mandate some more memorable music!
Well, it's Disney, isn't it? They're a business with a captive audience (quite literally right now) so they're gonna milk it for every penny. All they've done is encourage Brits to pirate The Mandalorian, especially after Baby Yoda went viral and us law-abiding fans patiently tolerated spoilers, thinking "It's okay, as soon as March hits we can binge it." Last chapter is released tomorrow, and The Clone Wars wraps on Monday (May the Fourth be with you) so by this time next week, I'll have seen it all. Not long now!
I'm glad but, as epic and as enjoyable as this is, please don't ever let me keep you from anything!
@RogerRoger Yeah there's quite a few fringe books from that era that honestly I really like. Rogue Planet by Greg Bear seems to get ignored a lot, and that's honestly one of my favorite Star Wars books I've read so far. It's a very strange book haha. But it was super interesting! I could see Bounty Hunter having lived on better than it otherwise would have because of that!
I have some bad news for you, "The Adventures of Poe Dameron" is actually one of the next books they have coming out 🤣. It's not called that but it's like "Poe Dameron: Smuggler's Justice" or some crap.
Oh god whattttt. Not Portal or Half-Life?!?!?! Although to be fair I've been in love Half-Life basically since I started gaming. The first Half-Life is the first game I ever actually finished the story of I think haha.
Ahhh okay, that would be awesome too! I mean I'm getting Spidey 2 no matter what, so they can do anything they feel like haha. I don't think Spidey's set to be in Avengers. Not in a playable role at least. I'd imagine there'll at least be easter eggs alluding to him though. OOO yeah, I guess it'd have to be Venom? Or Carnage? I wonder if the Sony movie deal could interfere with that though? Max Payne! I played the PS4 port a little while back, after not having played practically since it first released. Some aspects of it are really great, but it hasn't aged as well as I'd have hoped. I do love Remedy though.
That iteration of The Penguin has lingered with me to say the least lol. Whose 3rd inescapable, Superman? It must be. Yeah, the stories that form heroes into what they become are always more interesting to me than "okay they have their powers and know how to use them, here's another mega threat they need to deal with." Even when they're compelling, they just don't click in the same way origin stories do.
I think I'm gonna have to watch at least the first 3 Alien films again soon. I've been itching to do it! I have not started Dead Rising yet. I think I wanna play Kentucky Route Zero (again) and play the Control DLC first, then probably Dead Rising. I choose a good time (all things considered) to have a huge backlog though!
Oh god, I hope they're not actively asking the composers to not make iconic themes lol. That'd be horrible. "Yeah, you can do the score, but if anything's catchy, so help me, you're off the project!"
I just can't get over how long it's been since the series was done over here. If it started later and finished a little after over here, that's one thing. But practically half a year later on a platform that theoretically could play everywhere at once? Yikes! I am excited about Clone Wars at least. This final arc is excellent!
Nonsense! I just find down moments to reply! Haha
@gbanas92 Happy Star Wars Day!
Hmm, never even heard of Rogue Planet... [adds to list] Thanks for yet another recommendation! I'm gonna be building quite the collection when the lockdown lifts!
For real...?! Gosh darn it, Disney! I was only kidding!
Well, I know of them, if that helps? My own fault for not really being a PC gamer. I know I have a lot of catching up to do, and that they're regarded so highly (by your good self and many, many others). I think I tried the PS2 port of Half-Life once, but it was a blue disc and so kept glitching out.
I'm on the fence about the Avengers game; it'll depend how much I'm absorbed by re-watching the MCU on Disney+ (although I did just get LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes in the current PSN sale, and it's adorable; such a gear shift from Max Payne which, you're right, hasn't aged amazingly well but holds enough nostalgic buzz and wonky charm to be cool). Insomniac's spidey-sequel is a guaranteed day one purchase for me as well, though! They've earned that, and then some, whoever the villain turns out to be. I'm sure the movie and game rights have been kept separate (he says, with more logical thought than legal executives deserve).
No, I was thinking Polka-Dot Man... [/sarcasm] If only!
There's a horrible trend of escalation in sequels as well, which either results in too many villains being thrown in at once, or things just getting stupidly over-the-top. "Oh, he fought a seven-foot guy last time? Make it a nine-foot guy this time!" I tend to prefer the smaller adventures, and not just in superhero terms; I mean, Moonraker was a wonderful bit of nonsense, but For Your Eyes Only is a proper thriller (if you know your Bond...?).
I keep hearing great things about Kentucky Route Zero. What makes you wanna play it again, if you don't mind me asking? Hope you had a good weekend of gaming (or watching the Alien trilogy, from the sounds of things)!
Near enough, alas. You're aware of "temp scoring", right? When rough cuts of a film are given a placeholder soundtrack by a studio, director or editor and then whatever composer they've hired is basically told "Go make it sound like that, please." It's why movie music has become so generic of late, because you can't put a recognisable theme in a temp-score, and the MCU use temp-scoring all the time. There are tons of comparison videos on YouTube. Danny Elfman raged about it in an interview I saw once. It's insidious.
Hope you're celebrating with those last two episodes of The Clone Wars today! Apparently our Disney+ is a little glitchy as well; you wouldn't think it was a service provided by the biggest, most successful company in the world, but hey. I'm starting with a Rise of Skywalker re-watch, then diving in with The Mandalorian tomorrow. Here's hoping it'll be worth the wait!
Ah, cool. I get nervous because I'm a chatterbox, as you can see!
@RogerRoger Happy Star Wars Days indeed! Vader Immortal on PSVR! And then a lot of other stuff I'm less excited about lol. Yeah, Rogue Planet's comin' up on 20 years old now I think! I loved it personally, regardless of the community at large's opinion.
And here it is!
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Poe_Dameron:_Free_Fall
I was close enough on the title lol.
In fairness, it's basically impossible to not know of Half-Life or Portal and pay attention to games at this point lol. I played them all when they first came out and then again in the Orange Box, and then that full-on fan-made remake of Half-Life 1, Black Mesa, that just released its 1.0 build was really great too. Probably a better starting point for you if you have an interest in trying out Half-Life than the actual release these days haha. It updates a lot of elements of the game that have aged less gracefully lol.
I can't say I'm terribly excited about the Avengers games honestly. It doesn't look bad, but they've been marketing it for a while, and even with all that, I still don't feel that I have a really firm idea of what the game's trying to be, apart from "an Avengers game". I'm of course extremely excited for Spider-Man 2, and I'm also very excited for Iron Man VR lol.
Ah, of course, Polka Dot Man, everyone's favorite.....anyways.
Yes! The escalation definitely doesn't help. With the exception of something like the Avenger's films (and even then, Age of Ultron, is dreadful), I think I like the origin stories more because they're a bit more quaint. It's not as sweepingly grand, and it allows there to be a bit more charm than there'd otherwise be. Yeah stripping things down, or back to basics can work wonders. Hmmm, I wonder why you liked Iron Man 3 so much?!?!
@RogerRoger Hoo boy, I freakin love me some Bond, that's a whole new can of worms! I grew up with those films, and I love, love, love the books! Who's your favorite Bond?!?!? (I always preferred Brosnan myself, but while I think he's the best Bond, he didn't exactly get the best material. I do love both Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies though)
Alright, so what I'm about to say is gonna sound like hyperbole, but it's not! Kentucky Route Zero is my favorite game of all time. And I keep revisiting it probably because the way it tells its story is totally unique and gives me an experience I can't recall ever having had in any other game. Plus the mood the game puts me in is fascinating too. Like a nostalgic, somber, happiness. Even though a part of that is paradoxical, that's the best way I can describe it lol. I actually wound up not lying to myself about what I'd play this time either lol. I just got the platinum in Kentucky Route Zero last night!
But of course in regards to temp scoring. Sometimes that can go really well. There's a film from a few years ago called "Beyond the Black Rainbow" where the director filled the movie with a temp score by one artist and after the director showed that to the artist they were just like "well how about I just make the soundtrack instead?". It doesn't always have to be bad! But for Marvel, now you mention that I could absolutely see that happening
Agreed though, mainstream movies are very hard to find special soundtracks. Excepting John Williams, but he's a very special kind of genius. Even a lot of the more popular scores that are viewed as really good I don't love. I didn't really care about the score in Joker for instance. But over smaller films, or from distributors like A24, it's possible to find really good scores still. Like in The Lighthouse! Or in Midsommar, one of my favorite film scores in quite a while!
Just one more episode for us The other one dropped on Friday. But I did watch it this morning. That final arc was phenomenal, even if I coulda done without something they threw in towards the end there. The one stateside is mostly stable now, but it's still feature barren, especially compared to their peers. I know they can add as they go, but Netflix is already a model of the features that people want, so Disney only deciding they liked some of those ideas feels weird. Oof, Rise of Skywalker?!? I don't think I could stomach watching it again lmao Twice was plenty.
Yeah, keep it coming! Who else am I gonna talk about my fandoms with!
(This one I had to split in too cuz I exceeded the character limit. Whoops!)
@gbanas92 I had to edit my last reply a little, to fit it all in one comment box! It's my fault for adding Bond to the mix. Sorry!
Did you have a good Star Wars Day? I was always more a Revenge of the Fifth kinda guy (ba-dum-tssh). Vader Immortal does look good, providing the lightsaber combat isn't too wonky. Hope it lives up to the hype for you!
Yeesh, that anime cover for the Poe book...!
I've heard of Black Mesa, yes. Showed up in something else I was watching on YouTube and I thought it looked real impressive; thanks, you're right, it's probably where I'll jump in eventually (because playing it is somewhat inevitable, no matter how late to the party I may end up being). I'm less interested in Portal, but only because I can't really stand Stephen Merchant!
The wishy-washy "might be a live-service Destiny clone, but we're not telling you yet" approach to the marketing for The Avengers is what has me most concerned. If it was a confirmed single-player action game, then I'd be on board but you're right, I think it's definitely a wait-and-see calendar question mark.
...and what's wrong with Polka-Dot Man?!
Age of Ultron wasn't good, was it? That's one of the rare few MCU films I saw at the cinema, and there was little to like about it (although James Spader should voice more villains). The escalation works in the big crossovers because of sheer volume. Can you imagine all those heroes stepping out of the portals in Endgame, and they're all facing Sir Ben Kingsley as that actor guy? I mean, I'd laugh my butt off, but c'mon!
Of course you love Bond; you're a person of excellent taste, as I'm rapidly discovering! This is where I shamefully hang my head and admit to having read only a small handful of the Bond books. I was introduced to the franchise via the Tomorrow Never Dies PSone game; I thought it was cool, and asked my parents about this spy hero guy I saw in its cutscenes. They found an old VHS copy of A View to a Kill they'd taped off the telly and okay, this Bond looked different to the one in my game, but I was hooked from there. Because of that, my joint favourite Bonds are Brosnan and Moore. They were both my first, in a way, although I think all of the actors have done interesting things with the role (yes, even Lazenby). I keep meaning to read the books but, since my introduction was via the games, then the films, I'm kinda heading in the opposite direction to everybody else. The one I did try and read, Moonraker, was a challenge because the Bond in my head didn't match the Bond on the page. Maybe now I'm older, and can separate the two, I'll have better luck.
@gbanas92 What's your favourite Bond book and, separate from actor, favourite film? Have you played the games, too?
Belated congratulations on your Kentucky Route Zero platinum trophy! Thanks for your detailed thoughts on the game. I shall most certainly put it on my radar. It sounds like a really interesting, unique experience and don't worry, I know exactly what mood you're describing there! Makes me even more keen to give it a try.
I've never heard of that story before, about Beyond the Black Rainbow. I shall have to look that up, sounds like the good exception to the rule! You're right, Joker had very pedestrian music. I guessed its score from the tone of the first trailer and so, when I finally saw the film, it was just kinda... there. You've just named two more films I keep meaning to track down; heard excellent things about The Lighthouse in particular. I've been too mainstream of late! That being said, the layers and components of Daniel Pemberton's work on Into the Spider-Verse really impressed me.
What's the one thing towards the end of The Clone Wars you could've done without? I finished it yesterday, so no worries about spoilers now (and am starting The Mandalorian tomorrow). I thought the final four episodes were absolutely stunning, but there was a bit too much filler in the previous eight. I ranted about it on the forums just now; if you're only gonna do twelve episodes, with so much to address and conclude, you can't waste a single scene. Still, I never thought we'd get any kind of ending to The Clone Wars, so I'll take what we've been given!
I always give films a second shot on home media. In relative comfort, with a pause button and tea on tap, I found Rise of Skywalker to be slightly better than before. Treat it like the throwaway Sunday afternoon nonsense it is, and there's some fun to be had. Mostly from Lando being Lando and Palpy's campy, scenery-chewing nonsense!
Something tells me this'll be my first two-parter...
...yep, I was right! Hope this finds you well!
@RogerRoger Yeah that Clone Wars finale made Star Wars day very pleasant haha. I've heard the lightsaber combat in it's super good, but hopefully, the PSVR didn't have to sacrifice too much to make Sony's set work. Black Mesa's made for someone like yourself as much as me! It's perfect for newcomers and longtimers haha. Merchant's only in Portal 2 if that helps? I like Stephen Merchant quite a bit myself, and he's great in the game, but he doesn't show up in the first one. To balance it out, JK Simmons is also in Portal 2 and he's basically one of the best game characters ever!
The marketing is definitely what's got me worried. If I don't have a clear picture of what kinda game I can expect from the marketing and promo material, then why should I buy the game? I had the same concerns about Anthem, and that uh....yikes.
I have an iron stomach for motion sickness (VR never really bugs me) but Age of Ultron made me nauseous in the theater! the action was awful! I did love James Spader as well though. He was brilliant! I was so excited for Age of Ultron in the build-up too. They were coming right off their 2 best films back to back! Winter Soldier and Guardians 1!
Haha, I'd certainly like to think I've got excellent taste. I' impressed with just how much overlap we've got goin' on here now too! If it makes you feel better I didn't start the books until late high school. A little before Casino Royale came out I think, which since that was the best first book, I wanted to read em all before seeing the movie. Casino Royale is both an amazing book and movie! They're both so good. I remember distinctly watching my cousin play through that PS1 game haha. He's the one I was introduced to Goldeneye through as well actually (the game.). Huh, I honestly remember kinda hating A View To A Kill, but it was one of the first in the series I watched and I haven't seen it since. That seems to be the trick though. very rarely does anyone have a favorite Bond other than the one they grew up alongside the releases of. People I've encountered anyways. Brosnan was my first one, but I'd like to think he'd be my favorite no matter what. He was perfect! I absolutely agree on Lazenby though. Her Majesty's Secret Service is seriously underrated. Yeah, I'd probably release on the books honestly haha. The books layer on top of one another more elaborately than most of the films!
Hmmm, picking a favorite is a tough one. Books a little harder to pick, but I think I'd have to stick with Casino Royale, basically half the books playing cards, and somehow it's extremely compelling! Although the movie pulled that off a lot too. Favorite movie though is no question Skyfall. The set pieces and the cinematography, hoo boy. They're incredible. I think Daniel Craig's perfect for the type of movies the franchise is trying to make, but he's middle of the pack I'd say. And hell yes I played the games! Nightfire was amazing, played it all the time. Agent Under Fire too actually.
Uh oh, another 2 parter haha.
@RogerRoger Haha, thank you! God, I love that game so much!
Black Rainbow a super weird, basically unknown movie lol. The music is so incredible too! The Lighthouse is a damn masterpiece haha. Maybe the best use of lighting I've ever seen in a film! Which is nuts since it's black and white.
As for Clone Wars, I could do without that last little scene with Vader. Unless they did that to set up in the future (which they probably are They will not hesitate to shove Vader wherever they can. I wanna see the new stuff! That last mini-arc was absolutely stunning though, and every bit what I was hoping it'd be! Right? Way too much filler. That second arc was dreadful even if it was Ahsoka's return. Should have condensed that one wayyyy down, maybe just 1 episode haha. It might not have been so bad that way.
That's fair, probably a good fit to just go in excepting an underwhelming movie with just some pretty alright action scenes. Plus Sheev of course.He shouldn't have been in the movie, but it was still great to see. Same with Lando.
@gbanas92 Will you be doing the review for Vader Immortal when it hits PSVR, perhaps? I'd be interested to read your thoughts!
I think I'm at a disadvantage, being a fellow countryman of Mr. Merchant, but knowing JK Simmons shows up in Portal 2 could definitely help, thanks! Seen plenty of GLaDOS being a snarky genius, which would also be a major draw. When I go looking for Black Mesa, I'll keep it in mind!
Yikes, you mentioned the A-word. It's incredible how ANTHEM and Fallout 76 got it so wrong, so close together, and yet publishers and developers still wanna chase that broken idea. Gaming sure has changed of late.
Even me, coming in with zero expectations, left Age of Ultron with a bemused expression on my face... but hey, one or two clunkers out of how many MCU movies? They can be forgiven! Consistent quality is so tricky to manufacture on that scale. Age of Ultron also had the Hulkbuster armour, didn't it? That was a pretty cool concept. Scraps of goodness!
You might even say that we're "Bond-ing" over our tastes... okay, that was properly awful, I apologise!
Sounds like you tackled the books in the proper order, and at the right time. I saw Casino Royale so many times at the cinema, about seven or eight, it was crazy; I think that was around the time I tried to give the books a shot. That's where I should probably try to jump back in because, you're right, anybody who can make a card game that riveting deserves a break! And if they are serialised to the degree which you indicate, then that might've been where I got confused... well, that and reading the English-German original version of Hugo Drax with a French accent!
Skyfall is a great pick for your favourite film; I agree, it's something really special, and suits Craig's Bond so well. Definitely the best of his bunch thusfar (although fingers crossed No Time to Die allows him to leave on a high note). I tend to be more comfortable with the campy fun nonsense for general viewing, just 'cause I can put them on whatever my mood and have a laugh (at or with) so my favourites are actually Die Another Day and a lot of the Roger Moore era. Maybe because I was introduced to Bond via the outlandish, brightly-coloured videogames...? I have to be in the right mood for the more serious entries, although I've always got time for any of the Brosnan films, really. A View to a Kill is widely considered to be terrible, so no worries about hating it; nostalgia keeps my love for it alive, I reckon! Although any film which allows Christopher Walken to chew that much scenery should get a pass (oh look, we're back to Batman Returns again!).
And yeah, NightFire is the best of the FPS Bond games! My favourite has to be Everything or Nothing, though. I treat it like Brosnan's fifth film, it's so much fun and has such a great Hollywood cast. Ah, those were the days; back when EA made half-decent games! I keep dreaming of the day when Bond games make a return. Word is, Daniel Craig is a gamer and so distanced himself from appearing in his digital adventures as soon as his contract would allow because he found it uncomfortable playing as himself (Bond is a soundalike in 007 Legends). Here's hoping the next Bond is more open to the idea!
@gbanas92 You've given me so much to add to my various backlogs! I'm real grateful. Somebody else on the forum just recommended Kentucky Route Zero to me, too, so it seems inevitable at this point. I'll need to go looking for those movies once I'm done with Disney+ in a couple weeks.
Speaking of, I watched all of The Mandalorian the other day and loved it. Such a great, unique-feeling slice of Star Wars and definitely worth the wait, but (just like The Clone Wars, in fact) the middle seemed to get itself a bit lost with some episodic wandering. They were still excellent chapters by themselves, but I'm hoping for a slightly more consistent second season. IG-11 was my favourite character, alongside Mando himself, and I loved the whole Jawa episode!
Agreed about that final scene with Vader. I can see why they did it, but maybe it'd have worked better as a prologue to whatever comes next, rather than an epilogue to The Clone Wars (which was always about more than just Ahsoka, something I think those middle episodes forgot; I get that she's the breakout star, but there were so many other characters and arcs I wanted to see concluded, that we'll now never get). Oh yeah, when they started and ended that episode in the Pike prison cell, I just shook my head... like, what was the point of that entire twenty minutes?! Such a waste of time!
Most certainly Sheev and Lando to the rescue for that film! And BB-8, of course. The one perfect thing Disney created!
@RogerRoger Honestly not sure, I'd certainly be down to do that, but we'll have to see! The game still hasn't got a date past "the summer" after all!
GladOS is absolutely incredible too! And is the face of the franchise (other than the companion cube of course) but JK Simmons character is definitely my favorite haha.
It's just so much easier to cram microtransactions in there. So what if there's no one left to actually spend money on them haha. Make the game good first guys! Thennnnn worry about that.
Honestly, given just how many films Marvels dropped from within the MCU the level of quality is kinda insane! There's not really a film in the bunch I actively loathe either! There were a couple I disliked a lot (Ultron, and Ant-Man and The Wasp) but even those existing doesn't get in the way of enjoying the other entries across the series. Unlike a certain other property Disney bought and ran into the ground...
No, the pun has to stay! Bond puns count for double! 7 or 8! dammmmmmm. I think the most I've ever seen a movie in theaters is twice haha. It probably won't matter as far as the narrative from book to book but definitely character building stuff. I remember there being loads of callbacks to past books. (I haven't read them in a while though). Hey, who's to say Hugo Drax isn't an English/German/French millionaire. Other than Ian Fleming of course. I'm pretty sure he says...But what's he know!
I very much hope no time to die is good haha. I couldn't stand Spectre haha. Unearned romance plot, weirdly unnecessary callbacks, and the Blofeld stuff , yikes. It felt like fan fiction! Absolutely agreed on the tone though. Brosnan ones are much easier to put on if I wanna do stuff apart from sit and watch. Skyfall and Casino Royale (we don't talk about the other 2) demand my attention! Although I only saw Die Another Day...twice? I saw it in theaters and I think I watched it one total other time and I remember almost nothing about it. Just the Ice Castle! Hard to disagree on Christopher Walken doing whatever he wants haha. I'll watch him no matter what!
I uh... I actually completely forgot Everything or Nothing ever existed! And I never played it either (Don't hurt me!). I feel like a lot of studios might be afraid of Bond games now haha. Given the pedigree of Goldeneye, even though there are other great Bond games. And then there were all those really bad ones like Goldeneye 2 (shudder) and a Wii only one I think? I don't even remember the name of that one haha.
@RogerRoger Those are very much movies you'll need to be in the right mood for. Definitely don't throw those on and do other stuff haha.
Yeah, my feelings on Mando are mixed. I definitely like it, but I wish they picked a lane. A collection of separate 1-off stories like the middle of the season OR this epic sweeping plot focused on Baby-Yoda. Them doing both kinda hurt both of those approaches because it looked like they just gave up on having a story halfway through the show. But if that was never the precedent at all, it would have been more interesting to see all those 1-offs instead of "okay, but why are they doing this now?" Personally I think I'd rather see a bunch of 1 off stories about a bounty hunter, but I think I might be in the minority there. Yes baby yoda is adorable, but I'm very worried about what season 2's gonna do. I don't want to know anything about that species. Lucas' decision to say literally nothing about Yoda's species is one I'm down for. Given how long we've gone, and how much expanded universe stuff there's been that didn't do any of that, why not just keep that rolling?
And then all those casting announcements of course. It feels like every single character that was in the animated shows is gonna pop up in season 2. Don't do that either! Although I'm getting ahead of things haha. Gotta give them a chance to actually make season 2 first haha. I'm just nervous given how everything's gone. Definitely with you on the Mando though. He's a fantastic character. Much more interesting than I was expecting given the early trailers made it sound like "his character is he's a stoic cowboy but laser guns" and that was it haha.
I don't even feel like it didn't fit. I'm just sick to death of Star Wars parading the same 4 or 5 ideas over and over because a specific group of people love it every time it happens. I wanna see the new stuff! I need a new fix! And Vader's by far the biggest problem for that haha. If it's been more than a year without something about Vader, watch out!
Yeah, Ahsoka was there yes, but there's other important stuff. That's something I think Rebels handled better than that middle arc. Ahsoka was organically incorporated into the pre-existing stories. Actually you've indirectly convinced me that Ahsoka in Mando season 2 is a good thing. I'm a little more optimistic!
I did that too!!!! I couldn't freakin' believe they had the balls to end in the same place. It's not like it was a clever little plan and only one of them ended up back there. They got caught, messed up, and then got caught again! And not a shred of it was interesting!
Okay, you got me there. I actually love BB-8. He has such a fun personality, and he's also extremely adorable haha. Don't tell anyone, but out of all the robot "core characters", BB-8 is actually my favorite!
I'd group Billy Dee Williams with Christopher Walken too (bonus Batman. Williams was Harvey Dent in the first Burton one right?). Anytime he feels like showing up to do literally anything, I'm in. Lando is one of my favorites to see pop up in the expanded universe!
@gbanas92 Well, fingers crossed you do get to write the review (not to take anything away from the other excellent writers for the site, of course)! And you're right, I don't think there's a gamer alive who wouldn't recognise GLaDOS today!
I'm fascinated by people who buy a game, then dump hundreds of bucks into its microtransactions. They've gotta be out there somewhere, otherwise it wouldn't be a sustainable business model, but who does that? Who can afford to? And who would want to, on games which have obviously been rushed to cash in and are therefore not particularly good? It's bizarre! Have you ever purchased a microtransaction before?
I actually thought Ant-Man and The Wasp was kinda fun, but that was coming to it as a standalone and I think it caught me in the right mood. What was it you didn't like? See, we can't be identical all the time! The universe simply won't have it!
This is true, Bond does love his terrible puns! Well, at the time, I was dating a lot, so Casino Royale was kinda the go-to activity of an evening (because it stayed in the cinema for so long). Even I felt like I'd seen it a couple more times than I should, and I'm usually okay with re-watching things over and over! Hey, you joke about disagreeing with Ian Fleming, but he actively changed Bond's backstory to include Scottish elements when Sean Connery was cast, didn't he? So if he's that flexible, you're right, let's say Drax studied in France and picked up an accent! Sorted!
SPECTRE was a mess, you're right, but I found it an entertaining one because, as I say, I quite like the campy fun elements of Bond and they started to bring those back a bit (the car chase, the exploding watch, etc.) even if, in the next scene, they'd be running at full "Moody Bourne" speed. The romance was appalling, though, totally unconvincing. Quantum of Solace is good for disengaging your brain and watching Bond stunt teams do what they do best (because the film's basically a 90-minute action sequence anyway) but you're right, Casino Royale and Skyfall are a cut above. They're proper films!
You... you've never... never... wait, you've never played Everything or Nothing before?! My word! Don't worry, I'd never hurt you for such a crime, but I might grab you by the shoulders and lightly shake some sense into you! I'd actively encourage you to track down a copy, if you've still got a capable console!
Yeah, the chasing of the GoldenEye name got a bit embarrassing, both by EA and Activision. The former's effort was the villain with the actual golden eye (sigh) which gave him Force powers (again, sigh). The latter gave us the Daniel Craig remake, which was Wii exclusive and then got remastered for PS3 and Xbox360 the following year. It was CoD in a tux (third sigh of the paragraph, it's a new record). I much preferred Blood Stone, that actually had some potential... and then they went and cancelled its sequel, leaving a cliffhanger ending unresolved. Boo!
@gbanas92 I can't argue with anything you're saying about Mando. I think the inconsistency was a result of Dave Filoni's experience with The Clone Wars, where you could switch between episodic and serialised on a whim because the characters and concepts were pre-established; here, he's trying to set up something new, so he needed to (as you say) pick a lane. I actually reckon pure episodic would be brave, and much more interesting than serialised. Whenever they flashed back to Mando's childhood, I kinda glazed over because I knew it wouldn't be fully explained until the end, so I didn't need to pay attention until then. Having those weekly adventures would be more varied, and give us a chance to get to know Mando a little better, as we'd see him tackle loads of different scenarios and contracts.
And yes, Baby Yoda is gonna help sell a lot of merchandise, but I was so relieved when they maintained his mystery. I don't ever wanna know his species' name either. I saw an article on a fan site headlined "Five Questions We Need Answered in Season Two" and I thought, no, we don't need anything answered. So much storytelling today is show, not tell, and barely anything is left to interpretation. Whatever happened to having faith in your audience?
That's the problem; we liked Mando. Now we care about what's gonna happen next. We're protective of its potential, so I don't think you're getting ahead of yourself in the slightest! If only we felt the same about Disney's sequel trilogy... ah well. It's kinda nice to care about new Star Wars again!
It's funny you say that about Vader, as this week I replayed Jedi: Fallen Order to abuse its Photo Mode. Did I capture tons of Vader shots? Of course. Was it cool and fun? Absolutely. Did I think to myself "I wish they'd stuck with the original plan, and made this the Grand Inquisitor from Rebels instead" the entire time? You bet. I totally agree with you; it's time for new. The Clone Wars had so much originality in it, so many crazy and exciting and fresh characters and concepts, to reduce it all down to Vader felt... well, alas, it felt predictable.
But hey, as you say, optimism! They've managed it once, so they can hopefully manage it again because, you're right, I loved how they used Ahsoka in Rebels. Her episodes felt like big events, but they didn't overshadow Ezra's core story. Perfect balance; I'm sure they'll find a meaningful role for her!
Or she'll end up back in that prison cell again. D'oh!
BB-8 is equal footing with BD-1 for me, but they're a teeny fraction behind Threepio for me, just because we've "known" Threepio the longest and he's kinda at the core of the six films. It's quite impressive when you consider that Solo is the only thing which doesn't feature Anthony Daniels. But don't worry, your secret is safe with me! I can totally see how BB-8 could occupy the top spot!
I always forget that but yes, Billy Dee Williams was Harvey Dent (and was supposed to be Two-Face in Batman Forever... boy, I would've loved to have seen that!). I was all set to hate the campaign in EA's Battlefront II but they put Lando in a big chunk of it, which made it really difficult to dislike!
@RogerRoger I do love both VR and Star Wars, so I'm very down for that haha. Yeah GladOS is iconic!
I don't think I could ever do it. I only pay for premium cosmetics on a handful of games anyways. The only current one I've put extra money after the game into is Rainbow Six: Siege, but I have many hundreds of hours in that, so it feels justified! Not too many others. I usually ignore that aspect of games unless there's something really great they do. I definitely would be more inclined on F2P games, but those are usually so aggressively monetized that it turns me off even though the game was free.
Ant-Man and the Wasp just didn't work for me as a story. It felt like random nonsense happening for a couple of hours and then "microverse" blah blah. It also felt like the team really wanted to add what Edgar Wright's brilliance brought to the first Ant-Man, but didn't know how to do it so they just did the same stuff again, but for less effect haha.
Ah that makes more sense at least. It is a very good movie, so it'd be a safer (safe-ish) bet to see that haha. As for Fleming, huh that's a new on me if that's true. I don't think I've ever heard that before. There wouldn't have been much time though, he died a couple of years after Dr. No released, didn't he?
Ah the campy elements. That's part of what did it in for me. Not because I don't like the camp (I do love Brosnan) but because it felt completely incongruous with the Bond that Daniel Craig represented. Not so much that he didn't give a good performance (I thought he was just fine) but it just felt like too far of a reach. Man I remember almost nothing about Quantum of Solace. All I remember is I saw it in theaters, and there was something with a secret underwater lake haha. Casino Royale and Skyfall are definitely products of a contemporary world, so the seriousness stands out a bit more, but they're just good!
Yeah I never even played it back in the day! I honestly forgot it had been a thing at all haha. I feel off on Bond games hard after Goldeneye 2. Holy god they got Judi Dench to be in the game too! I never had any recommend I play that one so it flew way under the radar. I think I still have an original Xbox collecting dust somewhere though. If I can ever find a copy of it, if it's that good, I think I'd have to play it!
Yeah Goldeneye 2 is the one that I decided maybe it's time to stop buying the Bond games. But now all those cowards won't even make it. Start small. Make a Casino Royale poker game first! Or not poke. Whatever the game they played was. It wasn't poker though. Oh right Bloodstone! I forgot all about that one. I also didn't play that one! I played a little bit of From Russia With Love though! Not very much but I don't remember hating it!
@RogerRoger Ah but Filoni wasn't the showrunner! He only directed the pilot! (Or maybe not the pilot. One or two of the eps though.) Jon Favreau was the showrunner! Or wait, did Filoni write the show? I might be overcomplicating it haha. Yes, episodic would definitely be unexpected and I'd imagine the general Star Wars audience wouldn't like that? But I definitely think it'd be better. And that's more important. But I also think the subject matter of the show is perfect for that! Well the broad strokes anyways. The silent bounty hunter stuff. Gunsmoke, but Star Wars!
Star Wars is too big to trust people to figure it out! Why do you think they trickle all that random old canon stuff into the new one. It's not even the same material, it's just like "oh that name is canon now! isn't that cool?" and then all the fanboys lose their minds. Although I do enjoy seeing all that stuff, it still comes with an asterisk because the new canon is bad and I don't wanna integrate the two anymore. The new one messed too many things up!
Once in a while the new canon stuff gets me hopeful, but useful for every good thing, they ruin 3 more. That next Padme book is out next though! Queen's...something. I forget the name. The first one, Queen's Shadow was actually really great though, and covered an aspect I was always curious about because the transition was super weird: How Padme went from Queen to senator and the how & why of how something like that would even make sense.
Oh what, was the original plan for that to be the Grand Inquisitor?!?!? That would have made more seennnnseeee though! And it wouldn't have been Vader! Double bonus! Then maybe they coulda used Second Sister a bit more that way too! Yes, predictable! That's the issue. There's only a few fan service things that work almost 100% of the time (on the weak-minded, hehe) and Vader is sadly one of them. I just wish the Thrawn trilogy was the new trilogy somehow still
Yeah and that's not to underscore the rest of the Ghost crew either! I honestly liked all of them! Every member of the team was great! I liked Sabine a ton too.
BD1 is a adorable! I loved him too! The Disney version of Lucasfilms definitely knows how to make cute robots! I definitely like 3PO too, although I find I'm more just glad he's a part of the movies rather than explictly liking the character.Although if we're going for favorite Star Wars droid overall, including outside the movies, definitely gonna have to go with HK-47 from KOTOR. 3PO consistent presence both as a character nad as being performed by Anthony Daniels is really great. And I hadn't even ever really though of that! Yeah he doesn't pop up in there!
Ooo yeah getting to see Billy Dee Williams as two-face would been awesome! Tommy Lee Jones hammed it up brilliantly in that though. Silver lining and such. And Jim Carey was, well, Jim Carey, but it was a pretty perfect casting choice. Yeah, getting to see what those characters were doing between trilogies (since the movies didn't wanna bother showing us the good stuff). I cared a lot less about the other aspects of the story, but it had its moments!
@gbanas92 Yeah, after having paid full price for Star Wars: Battlefront II at launch, there's no way they're ever gonna get any extra money from me. My exception to the rule is that I have purchased a couple keys for blind, RNG loot boxes in Star Trek Online but, as you say, it's slightly different when the game is free (which that is). I much prefer knowing what I'm buying in advance. When you're prepared to make a major investment of time in a game, as well, then that's more personally justifiable.
You're gonna say "yes" but is Rainbow Six: Siege actually fun? I rarely play competitive online (only the aforementioned Battlefront II, and the Uncharted 4 multiplayer) but I loved the old Rainbow Six games, so have always been curious.
That's fair enough, regarding Ant-Man & the Wasp. I shall have to give it a second pass, in context. I've just finished all five Pirates of the Caribbean films on Disney+ and the MCU is my next major undertaking. There are many gaps in my knowledge, which shall soon be filled, one movie per day. They've definitely reeled me in now!
Yeah, one bit of book trivia I do know; Fleming expanded Bond's backstory in You Only Live Twice, first published in 1964 (two years after Dr. No hit cinemas) to reveal that his father, Andrew Bond, was from Glencoe in Scotland. Fleming died later that same year; reportedly, he'd always wanted Roger Moore to play Bond first. Funny how things work out, eh?
Oh, absolutely agreed, the camp in SPECTRE came totally out of left-field and it makes for a very disjointed experience, but I still came away laughing. The stunt with the wingless plane, as well, was very memorable. Funnily enough, it's the plane chase which stood out in Quantum of Solace, too, so there's a theme there! Must be something to do with much of my youth being spent at various airshows and military displays.
Judi Dench, bless her, did most of the games during her tenure, starting with Everything or Nothing. She joins Brosnan, John Cleese as Q, and an original Hollywood cast led by Willem Dafoe. The whole adventure is just superb; it's a love letter to Brosnan's era, and reflects the versatility of Bond's character like never before (or since). I can't recommend it enough. Next time you're pining for the lack of new Bond games, dust off that Xbox! It'll more than make up for the crimes of the GoldenEye sequel, trust me!
From Russia With Love took the mould created by Everything or Nothing, but ruined it a bit. The hand-to-hand combat is dumbed down, and they maul the story in order to make it fast-paced and action-packed. There's an unintentionally hilarious moment when Bond's fighting Grant on the train (a tense, personal sequence in the film) and a hulking, eight-foot chaingun-wielding heavy lumbers in to initiate a shootout. It's, like... no, just... no!
I believe it's baccarat they play in the Casino Royale novel, does that ring any bells? Poker is far simpler to follow, so I'm glad they changed it for the movie!
@gbanas92 Filoni and Favreau worked hand-in-glove on Mando, I believe, with both of them writing, directing and producing. Favreau was in The Clone Wars as Pre Viszla, the leader of Death Watch, so it's where their relationship began and they'll have carried that ethos forward together. I definitely agree with you, though; they've just announced an episodic Star Trek spin-off show, so maybe people are starting to get a little sick of serialised storylines? I think the audience would follow whatever path Mando walks now, regardless. Star Wars: Gunsmoke would be ideal, absolutely!
You and I see through those moments, cool as they are. I think the first one was putting Thrawn in Rebels, and then you start seeing all those reaction videos and speculation blogs dissecting every wall decoration shown in his quarters and you realise exactly why it was done. As long as people are talking about your property, nicely or harshly, it's making money nowadays. Weirdly enough, it's good that they shoved "Legends" atop every old, disregarded book, because that helps us keep it all separate!
Ooh, good to know the Padmé book is worthwhile, though, as that one had caught my eye and was on my shortlist. Thanks! I'm such a geek for saying so, but Naboo's political system had always fascinated me; the idea of a democratically-elected monarch is a great spin, and it's the planet which gave us Palpatine, of course, so learning more about where he came from is exciting. Here's hoping the new one is just as good, if not moreso! Enjoy!
Yep. I almost didn't wanna tell you, because now there's that horrible edge of "Oh, if only...!" whenever you play it, alas. Now that they've used Vader, though, I'm hopeful he'll be absent in the sequel and they'll focus on the Inquisitors (I mean, Cal defeated two of them, so the Grand Inquisitor is bound to be curious about such a threat to his power). Given what we've seen thusfar, and the fan reaction to the "Inquisitor Cal" skin, I'm hoping the threads of his destiny becoming an Inquisitor continue. That'd make for an awesome story and, since we never see him in Rebels... well, do we? Could be become one of the Inquisitors? Such potential; here's hoping they don't squander it.
Also, your "weak-minded" reference made me laugh!
Ezra, Hera and Zeb are my favourites, but I love 'em all. Ezra and Zeb had a great, grudging friendship thing going on, and Hera was just consistently a total badass... darn it, I wanna re-watch all of Rebels now! No, MCU first. Then maybe Rebels.
I never got to HK-47 when I played KOTOR (another reason to give it another shot sometime, because you're not the first person I've seen call him favourite) but you're spot-on, Threepio works because he's almost part of the scenery. It isn't the same without him, even when you don't really notice him. Did you ever get one of the Sphero BB-8 toys? Do you go for merch like that, or is it mainly books for you?
People criticise Tommy Lee's Two-Face and I never understand why, he's a ridiculous delight from start to finish! Glad I'm not alone there, then! Okay, MCU, then Rebels, then Batman Forever... then probably Bond... darn it, I'm never gonna get anything else done this summer, am I...?!
@RogerRoger It's fine they'll just trick other people into it instead! Yeah I like picking specifically what I want as well, but they can eke out extra money with the randomization, plus they can condition (well, manipulate, let's be real) people into loving that high.
So that's actually a more complicated answer than you'd think. Technically, my answer would be a no lol. I love it, and I find the gameplay loop addicting, and it's one of the most satisfying shooters I've ever played, the tacticality and teamwork required to truly do great are incredible. And I've never put more time into a game than that, ever! Like 600 hours? More I think. But I also aggressively loathe the game too. The hit detection can be frustratingly inconsistent, there are weird bugs that the game has had a literal half-decade to fix that pop up constantly still, and my god the cheaters. Once you get up to the higher levels (myself and my "squad" all are by now) it is, and I'm not exaggerating, literally impossible to find people who aren't using mouse & keyboard, which on a console, for shooters, is frankly cheating. It has been maybe a year since I've played a game and not gone up against a squad of mouse & keyboard players? Something like that. We all put the game down until the season starts because we played like a week straight where we were unable to even begin to have fun.
So short answer is no, but the long answer is....kinda? I do like online multiplayer games, but most of the things I like most are single-player only. But out of all the online games I play, Siege is the one that clicked with me most. I just wish it were functional. Having liked Rainbow Six beforehand would probably help, thought the game is nearly unrecognizable from the previous games (Rogue Spear was one of my favorite games growing up!), so even with you having played that I dunno if I can recommend it?
Oh, that's right. There are five Pirates movies haha. I keep forgetting they made more after the trilogy. I think I watched some of 4? And I don't think I saw any of 5 haha. That series was on top of the world for a little while though. Man. MCU def worth it though. I still can't get over the consistency of quality!
Oh oh, the Roger Moore bit you mentioned I actually knew. Well knew in that I've heard it before and totally forgot, but I knew it! And I'll be damned. I never knew that about shifting the character as a response to the movies!
I think I went in with the wrong expectations on Spectre. I went expecting a more similar experience to Skyfall (which admittedly wasn't devoid of humor, but it was more dour humor, less campy), and when it wasn't that, it was hella jarring in theaters. The stunt work was all impressive still (I too remember the plane stunt! And I freakin love that helicopter barrel roll stunt), but the tone caught me so off guard that I struggled to enjoy it in the theater, and then I never watched it again, so I don't know if I'd feel differently now haha.
@RogerRoger Oooo, John Cleese as Q actually got another shot then? DIdn't he only pop up in World is Not Enough or was he there for Die Another Day too? Huh so Defore got himself into games pre Beyond: Two Souls haha. Yeah, you've sold me on the game. That sounds like exactly what I've wanted from that series for years. More Pierce Brosnan! I'm kidding (only sort of), but the whole thing sounds wonderful! From Russia With Love less so haha. I remember very little about it, other than that I played some multiplayer with my friend and I'm pretty sure we played at Fort Knox, but that's about it haha.
And yes! Baccarat that was it. It was well suited to the book, but agreed, might not have been ideal for the movie haha.
Oh god that's right, Favreau had already popped up! I'd forgotten! That rapport was already there then. Yeah maybe the era of "Prestige Television" is closing or at least pivoting to something which I think is better, limited-run series that have planned endpoints and then actually end! Or you could try for the mixture of serial and prestige, but very very few shows ever really pulled that off. Person of Interest? And that's all I can really think of.
Thrawn in Rebels makes me sad. They just kinda tossed him in there, and he never felt like he fit into the show. It came off as if they put him there because the fans like him and that was it. The books (well, the first one) helped a little, and the upcoming Chiss trilogy still has me hopeful, but his being in the show never really made the show better. It doesn't help that they apparently never consulted with Zahn about adding him to the show, which I find super weird? Especially cuz they did approach him to do the books.Gotta get those clicks! Just like his assassin friend. In the show, if I didn't have knowledge of the old canon, that being Rukh would not have mattered or changed anything at all. It coulda just been his bodyguard friend. And just like the Rebels finale! He just throws out a casual line about "Sergeant Pellaeon" (idr the rank for the show. But it's just like "see, Pellaeon's here too guys!" I would love to see more of him, yes, cuz I love Pellaeon, but come on. You're just mocking us at this point guys!
I think you'd definitely like the new prequel Padmé book especially then, as that one focuses a lot more on the queen era of her character and the political workings of Naboo in general too (at least so far, im only like halfway through that one), lotsa good stuff in there!
People have speculated for years, but it's only a matter of time before Disney starts making "new" legends books. Which I agree with. But that makes me both excited and scared. They've botched so much in the new canon, I'm not sure I wanna see them "fixing" the old canon.
@RogerRoger No no, they only used Vader a little in the first one, which means now they get to use him a lot!!! That's the next step. Or maybe pick a new bad guy. Shove Maul in there maybe?
My biggest worry is, do enough people know about the Grand Inquisitor? The general audience I mean. Sure they know of the Inquisitors generally now, but maybe not the hierarchy beyond "Sheev, Vader, then all the other baddies" I absolutely love the idea of him shifting into being an Inquisitor! I'm basically always pro Star Wars good guy turning evil. I was all in on evil Rey for 8 even though I knew the marketing material was trying to trick and there was no way they'd do it. But do it with Cal, you cowards!
Yeah finish MCU first! Then Rebels! Or watch Rebels in the lead up to Mando S2! The whole crew just had really great chemistry, and it's high points were superrrr high. That time travel episode (which upon hearing about time travel, my groan was so loud you could probably hear it in the UK!) was fantastic! When that show went for something they absolutely killed it! (Except Thrawn at least lol). Honestly, KOTOR is practically worth it for HK alone haha. He's so fantastic! Nah, I never got on of those BB8 toys (I think they're really cool though!), but I have Star Wars memorabilia here and there. Mostly knick-knack type stuff. I have a few of the Black Series figures (Revan, and a couple of others) and a few of the Disney Infinity toys, cuz those figures were really nice! And all my Star Wars stuff when I was a kid I still have too. Somewhere. But I do have it!
Batman Forever has a lotta problem, but I def don't think it's with Jones, I freakin' love him in that movie haha! In a similar vein to Arnold as Mr. Freeze! Bahaha, sorry! Too much stuff to do now! And now you're on the clock too! The PS5's gonna be here soon!
@gbanas92 Interesting how we were having that discussion about cosmetic microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II and then it became free with PS Plus; I wonder how many of this month's newcomers have fallen into EA's trap?
Thanks for the expanded answer, and for the honest recommendation (or rather, note of caution). It's a shame you and your squad have hit that cheater-created ceiling and I hate that there are people out there who'll play the game that way; you're right, it simply isn't fair. I hope you can find the fun again at some point, even if it's between long breaks from the KB&M cheaters. It sounds like you've learned to love the game, despite its faults; I've done the same multiple times over the years. I can make some real wonky games look good, games that just hooked me in regardless, because I haven't learned to play them as much as I've learned to compensate for their flaws.
I have just started Phase Three of the MCU today, watched Civil War over a late breakfast. The first two phases went by so quickly the last couple weeks, because they're such easy movies to enjoy. I'm having an absolute blast; oh sure, there are ones I prefer and ones I think about afterwards and go "hmm, actually, that wasn't so good..." but they've all held my focus and, you're right, the consistency is superb.
I like to think Fleming knew that Bond would become equal part a cinematic icon, as much as a literary one, and it was his way of saying "alright, gentlemen, it's over to you now" before passing away... but then I'm a big sappy idiot, so that's probably not what happened at all. It's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it!
You're right, though, some Bond films do change things in quite jarring ways. It's an interesting series to marathon, because each one is oxymoronically identical, yet unique. The humour in SPECTRE was a bit left-field, agreed; it wasn't a natural evolution for Craig's Bond. It's gonna be real interesting to see how he bows out come November. I was secretly hoping they'd release it via streaming instead of delaying it, as I'd gotten just a teensy bit hyped for a new Bond film by now! Oh well.
One day you'll marathon them all again, and you might find your opinions shifting, like I'm currently doing with the MCU... or you'll just suffer through it again. Either way, best of luck!
Cleese was in The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day and a host of games from the era, including 007 Racing and Everything or Nothing, yes. Since I'd gotten into Bond via the games, I felt he was far more established as Q than his two film appearances suggested. I'm glad I have you sold on it! Don't worry, it's infinitely better than From Russia With Love, particularly since it doesn't try and shoehorn in an unwanted multiplayer deathmatch mode; it actually has a co-op parallel storyline following two MI6 agents who mop up after Bond's actions in the campaign. Darn it, now I wanna replay it for myself!
@gbanas92 Having never seen Person of Interest, I'll take your word for it; I do think you're right, though, there's been a definite shift towards shorter, more complete shows of late. The rise of streaming has a lot to answer for! I added several things to my Prime Video watchlist the other day, a mix of old and new, and it was quite telling. Shows from the 90s and 00s which were seven, eight, nine or ten seasons long, versus new shows which boast the same numbers, only in terms of forty-minute episodes.
It's gonna be real interesting when I read the Thrawn trilogy, since I'll be doing it the other way around; my introduction to the character was Rebels, and I'll have that version (and that voice) in my mind when I'm reading. I get where you're coming from, and it's Disney we're talking about here, so I'm certain Thrawn's addition to the show started with "How can we placate the older fans who hate what we're doing to the franchise?" Pallaeon was the commander of Thrawn's blockade in the final episode, wasn't he? The guy he called as all the pergill showed up? Because it's highly suggested that all of those ships were destroyed, so to namedrop somebody as you're killing them seems especially dismissive. I'm sorry it felt insulting to you; like I say, I'm sure I'll have a better picture once I've read the books (and yeah, given all this, I can totally understand your fear over Disney commissioning new "Legends" books... here's hoping that, if they do, they hire some of the old authors, and don't force them to write in a corporate chokehold).
And thanks for the solid recommendation about the new Padmé book, by the way! Hope you continue to enjoy as you read!
Tragically, I think you're closer to the mark than I am, with regards Cal's next adventure; in fact, as I read your reply, I pictured the first shot of the game's opening cutscene, approaching Vader as he stands on the bridge of his Star Destroyer, musing about the powerful young Jedi he encountered... oh no, it's too obvious! Of course that's what they'll do then! Nooooo!!
Given the backlash against Iden Versio in Battlefront II (we were promised a story through Imperial eyes, but she turned Rebel after the fourth mission) I really hope they're brave enough to turn Cal to the Dark Side. I think you're right, though, the wider recognition of the Grand Inquisitor is lacking; the game's story would almost have to reintroduce him from scratch or, as you say, pick somebody a bit more recognisable, like Maul (who, for the record, I'd still love to see). Given how EA supposedly "took a risk" on Jedi: Fallen Order and how it's turned out to be a huge financial success for them, one of two things will happen; either they'll give Respawn more creative freedom, or they'll lock them down tight and force them to make something marketable. I really, really hope it's the former, no matter how naïve that makes me sound!
@gbanas92 Oh, so that's what that loud, reverberating groan was back in February 2018; it was in all the papers, you had everybody real confused for a couple days (and then, because we're British, we instinctively just blamed the French). Yeah, the Black Series and Infinity figures are what I've tended to lean on, because they're reliable; I've got an Infinity Ezra and Kanan sitting under my monitor as I type! Alas, I think I've lost all of my older childhood toys, though, as my family home had a big clear-out whilst I was at university and I couldn't get back to rescue anything. I sometimes look up potential replacements on eBay but they're all so expensive; hold on to what you've got, if you can track it down!
Oh, don't remind me! I was all set to ignore the PS5 reveal stuff, as I'm never an early adopter of new technology, but then they went and showed Aloy, Agent 47 and Miles freakin' Morales... most definitely on the clock! And yet I keep buying games in the endless PSN sales! It never ends!
Episode I Racer tomorrow, too. Will you be reviewing it?
@RogerRoger The game's in a better place where it feels less gross now, so hopefully not too many people, but I'm pretty sure there are still microtransactions in some form another in there to this day.
The new season went live last week and we started playing again and don't hate it quite as much. All the cheaters are still there (and probably always will be now) but the new map rotation helps a bit too. All of our favorite map was out for over a year, and they finally added it back!
Yeah, their remarkable consistency helps me at least be willing to watch things that Marvel makes I normally wouldn't. I don't realllly care about the Black Widow movie but when it comes out (if it ever comes out) I'm sure I'll both watch and enjoy it!
I like that headcanon, let's go with that! It's a shame (sort of) that the movies overshadow the books quite a lot now. I don't really know anyone who read the books, but everyone's seen a couple of movies! Although I do love both. All this Bond talk finally got me. I have Tomorrow Never Dies playing in my room as I type!
No way was that ever gonna drop to streaming, those movies probably cost way too much! All the (generally outstanding) effects and stunt work! Even with how I feel about Spectre, I'm still beyond hyped for No Time To Die. The series historically fluctuates pretty wildly in quality, so I'm never down on it for too long haha.
I will say, my opinions on Tomorrow Never Dies have not changed. I still love it haha. And I still think it has the best intro song in the entire series, I know I'm in the vast vast minority on that, but I will fight anyone to the death over it!
Man, I don't remember Q2 at all in Die Another Day haha. I remember so little of that movie though. Oh no agents that clean up after 007. Now I'm getting Goldeneye 2 flashbacks! Someone should real quick remaster that for modern hardware so I can play it right now!
@RogerRoger Yeah I'm very much in favor of shows cooling it on the whole "staying on for too long and running everything into the ground". It's massive problem, and I think a lot of other people have started getting sick of it too. It seems to be a definite trend towards people wanting a finite endpoint.
That's true! I hadn't even considered that. I don't know how I'd feel about Thrawn. I highly doubt I'd like him as much as I do if the order was reversed, but you could just already like him and then like him even more after! The book version of Thrawn (in both canons) is much better! Yep, that's when they nonchalantly tossed Pellaeon's name out. It almost worked. They got me excited for a second, and then it was like "wait a minute, that doesn't matter at all".
My biggest fear about if they make new legends stories is that even if they hire back the older writers who are great, they'll be too constrained still. Zahn in some interviews talked about how they wouldn't let him write about that second Thrawn book unless it included Darth Vader and they also made it name drop the planet that the theme park stuff happens at? Which....yikes. The second Thrawn was totally devoid of any energy or excitement too, and I think the invisible hand was gripping a little too hard. Thrawn 3 was much better but was very low stakes. The prequel one I have more faith in though since it's less related to established Star Wars stuff, so they might've let Thrawn go nuts on that one. And then some of them just might not be interested anymore. Luceno used to be one of the best but he hasn't done anything in the new canon since Rogue One's prequel book, and I'm afraid he might've retired!
And yeah I finished up the Padmé book last night! Definitely recommend that one. The end of the book (weirdly) covers some of the same ground as the Phantom Menace, but overall definitely liked it. I hope she writes at least one more Padmé book, maybe taking place during the Clone Wars?
ANd you're probably right on that. I can picture that scene on the Star Destroyer bridge as well haha. They'll just remake The Force Unleashed lol. We did that already! And it wasn't particularly good then, let's just not do that! I'm not totally against a Maul game, not anymore. Until Clone Wars, I never bought into the hyper but between that and Rebels, I'm firmly pro-Maul these days. Shame they canceled that Maul game years ago. Pre-Disney I think?
I don't think it's totally naive. They seem to have an alright working relationship (although EA did catastrophically botch the marketing for Titanfall 2, and made one of the greatest shooters I've ever encountered in my life into a financial failure!), but I think it might be somewhere down the middle. EA'll be like "well we'll continue to not force you to put in microtransactions, but you gotta do something for us." Cue extra doses of Vader baby!
@RogerRoger Yeah I have Sabine, Boba Fett, and Kylo Ren on my bookshelf with all my Star Wars books. And Donald Duck. Famed Star Wars character Donald Duck.
Yeah there are a couple brands even as a kid where I was like "this stuff literally always seems to go up in value". Star Wars is one of them, and for a while Harry Potter too. Maybe not these days with...who JK Rowling is haha. Oh and Lego! Although most of the Lego Sets I still have are also Star Wars.
Look at it this way, even if you don't nab a PS5 right away, a lot of your backlog is probably gonna get a lot cheaper a lot faster haha.
And is it just so happens, I did!
https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/star_wars_episode_i_racer
Haha. I really like this trend. I hope Aspyr ports either Shadows of the Empire or Rogue Squadron after this!
@gbanas92 It's the whole "Celebration Edition" upgrade thing which I'd be curious to see stats on. Paying a one-off fee to unlock 90% of the cosmetics is something I can at least understand some hardcore fans doing, even if I'd never do it myself.
I'm glad you're enjoying the new season of Rainbow Six a bit more, and that your favourite map returned!
Finished the MCU last weekend. Ant-Man turned out to be a surprise new favourite, but the best is still Iron Man 3 for my money, with Endgame a close second (because the "on your left" and assemble moment wrecked me). Given what happened to Black Widow in that film, I'm real curious to see what her standalone adventure is gonna be like now!
I'm glad you enjoyed Tomorrow Never Dies last weekend! It's one of my favourites as well; the action, music and pacing is excellent, and Michelle Yeoh is a badass (she was supposed to have a single handgun during the final battle, and she reportedly turned around and said "no, I'm dual-wielding HKs or I'm not doing it"). The idea of a media baron as the villain was also incredibly prescient for 1997. Interesting you rate Cheryl Crow's theme song so highly; that's cool, I like it more than most do as well, but I much prefer 'Surrender' by k.d. lang which plays over the end credits. It was written by David Arnold, so its melody is included in the rest of the score.
Cleese's Q had one of the best lines in Die Another Day, when Bond tells him "You know, you're cleverer than you look!" and he responds with "Mmm, still, better than looking cleverer than you are." Don't worry, the fellow agents in Everything or Nothing are nothing like Mr. GoldenEye at all, so you're safe!
When shows were episodic for syndication, it didn't matter, because you could just tune in to any ol' episode and get a complete story told to you. Serialisation has made the art of the payoff more important than ever; it's not enough that a story has an ending any longer, it has to be a good one. Look at Game of Thrones (a show I've never watched, and likely never will, but there was no escaping the fallout from its apparently-botched ending).
With lockdown easing here in the UK, I'm getting ready to order all my books in, and can't wait to see what I make of the original Thrawn. I think knowing he was considered a big deal whilst watching Rebels actually helped me think of him as more than just "another Imperial admiral" so I'm on pretty good standing for learning more about him. Oh, that's so depressing; did Disney really mandate that Zahn had to include Vader and Batuu, the theme park planet? Blimey, I can totally see how valid your concerns are now. That marketing determination to make everything interconnected just results in creativity being stifled, and the galaxy ends up feeling much smaller as a result. A quick Google shows me that James Luceno has spoken about new Star Wars book ideas quite recently, but that they're all obviously subject to Disney approval now. I wouldn't mind betting that, if and when they shoot something down, he'll call it a day. He's in his mid-70s, after all (not that age should stop him, of course).
@gbanas92 There's plenty of story opportunity for Padmé during The Clone Wars, as she was very infrequently used in the show itself, so that'd be real interesting to read! Glad you enjoyed that second book, and I'm all for things adding layers to the films, so that overlap with The Phantom Menace sounds really interesting!
Oh, yeah! There's that footage of the cancelled Maul game floating about on YouTube. I tend not to look at it, as I get all upset that I'll never be able to play it. Alas, it shares the same tragic story as Star Wars: 1313 because the developers were working on it during the Disney buyout. They'd had input from George Lucas and everything but, apparently, when they showed it to the new managers they were told "sorry, we're selling the gaming rights to EA, you'll have to speak with them" and then EA said no (I'm betting on orders from Disney, who were on a prequel purge in those early days). I think the best we can hope for is that he's a villain for Cal to fight now, alongside his appearances in the Battlefront games.
And thanks; I agree that Jedi: Fallen Order has repaired any Titanfall 2 damage between EA and Respawn, definitely (and I think the surprise success of Apex Legends can't have hurt, either). I'll keep fingers crossed! No microtransactions and no Vader; surely that isn't too much to ask, right? Right?!
You say that about Donald Duck, but I've got a figure of him from Disneyland Paris dressed as a Stormtrooper. Not on display, mind!
Now is definitely the time to cash-in on any Harry Potter merchandise you might have going spare, absolutely. The damage Rowling did to her own brand recently was spectacular, particularly when you consider that a large percentage of the Potter fanbase are the very people she undermined with her comments. It's a real shame when that kinda thing impacts something so beloved and otherwise respected.
I stupidly got all my LEGO out and built it. I look at how much sets like my Ultimate Collector's Edition Slave 1 go for now and... no, I can't regret it; building it was fun and it looks awesome on the shelf above my consoles! I'll find my PS5 money some other way!
Your review of Episode I Racer was excellent, by the way! I gave it a like, even though I have to admit that I struggled to agree with your conclusions; waiting twenty years to play something so hyped was never gonna end well for me. At least it had an easy platinum and, you're absolutely right, we're long-overdue a new, modern podracing game! Make it happen, EA!
Although you're right, there are a couple more classics I'd like to see make a return. Shadows of the Empire would be my next choice, as it's another I missed out on as a kid!
@RogerRoger Ahh right right, I forgot all about that upgrade thing! I keep thinking that was one of the free updates!
Rainbow is definitely still a pretty frustrating experience on the whole at this stage, but there are still glimmers of what makes it great here and there haha.
Hell yeah! I really liked AntMan as well. It came out at a time where the Marvel movies really coulda done with a breather and a smaller scaled-back story, and it worked perfectly for that! Antman's a lotta fun! And it's got Marvel's best comedic beat to date! (the close up of yellowjacket getting by the Thomas the Tank Engine toy and it cuts to a wide shot of the train falling off the track!) I freakin' love that moment haha. I do still need to give Iron Man 3 another shot. I think I'd like it more now that it offers something a little different from what the standard Marvel formula is these days. And yeah, Infinity War and Endgame both just got so, so, so much right. Endgame's great! I don't know what to expect from Black Widow either. I'm not necessarily excited for it, but I'm definitely curious. Might be a good indicator of what to expect from Marvel going forward.
Yeah! All the new people in the cast for Tomorrow Never Dies are great! And the Media Mogul as the villain is soooooo amazing. And my god, Jonathan Pryce's performance is so campy and great. I love it! You're definitely in the majority on preferring the end song I think haha. Whenever I see Tomorrow Never Dies brought up, wishing that they had stuck with that as the intro seems to be one of the first things brought up. But I just love the Sheryl Crow song, even removed from Bond.
Now you mention it, I think I actually vaguely kinda remember that quip just not who said it, so it musta really stood out for me since I remember almost nothing else haha. Okay, thank god. Not falling in Goldeneye 2's camp is always a plus haha.
Things get hyped so much now, you gotta stick that landing or else! I can attest to Game of Thrones having fallen flat on its face at the end there haha. I was never a particularly big fan (I like it, but definitely thought it was massively overhyped), so I wasn't too upset about the ending, but yeah. It was bad haha.
Definitely excited to hear your thoughts on OG Thrawn. If all we had of him was the Disney iteration, I don't he'd think be thought of quite as highly all these years later, but definitely still a rock-solid character, and one of the best in Disney's canon, although that's less because of how great the character is, and more just how poor most of the Disney ones are. Yes! That stuff's true haha, I can't for the life of me find the interview again, but someone had compiled it all on Reddit a couple of years back, that's how I saw it. The brand absolutely needing to be interconnected above all else, more or less just has them turtling. To this point they've been totally unwilling to letting major happen in the books, so everything is either so small scale as to not matter, or just mentioning important things that happened in the past, but not expanding on them. It's rough. Especially compared to the Old Canon where more or less anything goes!
@RogerRoger Padmé only popped up here and there, so I'd have to think there's enough leeway to make that work. I would absolutely read it! It hasn't necessarily been essential info (a lot of it's the kinda stuff that probably should already have been in the movies haha) but it's very consistently interesting at the bare minimum, especially given how poorly defined a character Padmé was in the movies themselves. The books practically have to get some extra legwork in, just to help the movies out.
1313 could have been so cool! Plus the seedy underbelly parts of Star Wars need more representation! They pop up in the books a ton but quite a bit less the movies haha. I just hate the deal with EA so so much. Handpicking developers that fit the projects best makes so much more sense, and they'd be able to develop even more games that way!
Yeah, there's no way they'd throw in those microtransactions. Or Vader. No chance! they would never ever do that! No way!
Oh, I love those figures! If they're the ones from the park I'm thinking of haha. There's a whole bunch of those! Might be different for each region? I know the ones in Disney World, Donald was Darth Maul instead! He might also have been a stormtrooper, but I don't remember it haha.
Rowling's handling of things of late has been so abysmal haha. A lot more than in the past. It only happened occasionally in the beginning, so it was easier to overlook. But now? Yikes.
No way would I have been buying Lego sets like that back in the day and not build them. Hell even now. If I'm buying Lego, I'm building it dammit!
Yeah, going in after 20 years and expecting it to be great by contemporary standards was never gonna work haha, although I definitely think those new controls are a major. The core gameplay works pretty well still, which is a great indicator I think, for how it was back in the day. People are also more open to the prequels era now. Even excluding PrequelMemes, the fondness for that era and just some of its elements are beloved. Hopefully, the era doesn't continue being viewed as off-limits!
Although much like Racer, if they do go for Shadows of the Empire, that thing's going to need some updated controls too. Even back in the day, I don't recall the controls feeling too good on the N64, let alone now!
Oh and Republic Commando! Let's that one back. Or hell, even a sequel! I would absolutely a play a new Republic Commando!
@gbanas92 Frustration in games is something you can definitely offset with other factors. I just played The Last Guardian and it was near-perfect, despite having multiple frustrating moments!
Both of the Ant-Man films were superb. You're right, that whole Thomas the Tank Engine fight sequence was brilliant, particularly with that perfectly-timed edit in the middle! It'll be interesting whether my opinions stay the same over time, or whether another MCU marathon years down the line will change my rankings. Here's hoping Iron Man 3 improves for you! And yeah, I watched a trailer for Black Widow the other day, and didn't quite know what to think; gonna be interesting to see how that one lands. Fingers crossed it's another classic!
Jonathan Pryce is one of my favourite actors, and he makes Elliot Carver one of my top Bond villains, for sure! He has so many amazing lines, but nothing beats the moment where he mocks Wai Linn's martial arts. It's so over-the-top! And I still really enjoy listening to Sheryl Crow's song (twice as remarkable, considering I'm usually allergic to music with lyrics).
Let's not forget, though, that Tomorrow Never Dies is the greatest Bond movie, simply for giving us this:
I've been thinking of replaying the PS2 Bond games lately, and including GoldenEye: Rogue Agent because it's been a while, and I just wanna double-check that it really is that bad... of course, when it turns out to be even worse, I'll jettison after the first level, but at least I'll have made the effort!
A friend of mine was a massive Game of Thrones fan, and I'm deliberately using the word "was" there. What a disaster!
Disney's version of Thrawn is all about Lars Mikkelsen's incredible voice acting, let's be honest. That and trading on his reputation amongst fans but, if you remove that from the equation, he'd still be a contender for that vocal performance alone. I'd put him shoulder-to-shoulder with the Grand Inquisitor, in that they feel slightly too good for their show (emphasis on slightly). Yeesh, that's so harsh to read and yet, tragically, so very believable because it's so very Disney. I remember somebody telling me that Inferno Squad (from the Battlefront II campaign) turned up in one of the books which accompanied The Last Jedi and I just rolled my eyes. I wish I cared enough to even care!
@gbanas92 Although it certainly sounds as though they've done right by Padmé with her books, so I guess it depends on which character you're dealing with, because "adding background and layers" can obviously work in some places. The right author, willing to try and get creative within Disney's constraints, can probably make all the difference. You don't want anybody phoning it in.
Yep, we should've been playing 1313 by now and instead, we got Bounty Hunter as a PS2 Classic (and we know how well that went for you!). Given the popularity of The Mandalorian, I wouldn't mind betting we see a similar game at some point; at this rate, it'll just probably be when we're gearing up for PS6. And it'll have the ability to play as Vader locked in a loot crate.
I think they had waves, for the original and prequel trilogies, so certain characters might've pulled double duty. I know some folks hate them, but I think they're really fun!
Yeah, I was thinking I should marathon the Harry Potter movies at some point, and then she went and made all those headlines, and it put me right off. Which it shouldn't have, of course, so I'll get to them eventually, but... yeah, blimey.
I'm with you; toys are meant to be played with, gosh darn it!
After getting the platinum for Episode I: Racer, I booted up Racer Revenge and had a much better time with it. Did you ever play that one? It's also on PS4 as a PS2 Classic, and it just nails the feeling of actual podracing much, much better (in my personal opinion, of course). We should be getting a new Star Wars racing game... but no, we've got Star Wars: Squadrons incoming, a.k.a. the game mode from Battlefront II nobody plays, turned into a cash-grab standalone and focused entirely on X-Wings and TIE Fighters again. Good ol' EA staying true to form, once again. Salty? Me? Heavens no!
I've got Republic Command and Shadows of the Empire on my PC, via GOG. The controls are holding me back from trying to start them proper (and you just know that, when I do finally start them, they'll be announced as the next remaster; it's the same reason why I haven't started replaying the Mass Effect trilogy on PS3 of late, even though I've really wanted to). C'mon, Aspyr! Hurry up!
@RogerRoger Oh yeah, I've heard people have a lotttt of frustrations with The Last Guardian haha. But those frustrations feel like kinda the point, so it's okay. Well to a point.
I just can't get into that second AntMan, where the first one's small scope, and more intimate, fun tone felt refreshing, two just felt like a pale imitation of one to me. The vibe I got was that they wanted to emulate the framework that Edgar Wright had set up for the first one, but without his direct involvement, they just weren't really sure how to go about it. So they just kinda repeated gags to diminishing effect. Not that Edgar Wright is a stranger to repetition (the fence gag of course) but still! It just felt off to me. I'd have to agree with you though. I'm fairly confident Iron Man 3 would be better appreciated if I went back to it. Shane Black's too good a filmmaker. (Pretending The Predator doesn't exist anyways).
Jonathan Pryce is wonderful, and I'm glad to see someone else likes him! I feel like he's pretty underrated! Brazil?!?! Come one! Elliot Carver is so fun though agreed. Big fan of Hugo Drax too. I don't mind the interpretation of him in the film, but I lovvvveee book Drax. He's great!
Oh my gahhhhd that gif is spectacular! I've never seen that before! One of my favorite sequences in the movie too!
Nah, you gotta play the whole damn thing! Maybe it's a hidden gem! (I'm not serious, please don't do that).
It's crazy to me how obsessed with the show basically everyone was and now it rarely comes up. I went from hearing about it way more than I wanted to it cropping only occasionally, and it's almost always just "hey that ending was really bad right?". It's so strange.
Absolutely, the voice performance on Thrawn is exceptional. I'm pretty sure Zahn himself gave Mikkelsen his seal of approval too. Very impressed with it. I'm inclined to agree. Too good for the show they were in. At times. Honestly, Thrawn feels too tacked on to feel like he's punching outside his weight class. The character's legacy is for sure, but not his actual relevance to the show. The Inquisitor though I agree. All the stuff with him was so consistently fantastic! Yeah, Alexander Freed wrote a tie-in novel for Inferno Squadron (that released alongside Battlefront 2) unless you mean in an additional book too? Gotta pump up that brand synergy!
The prequel novel for Rise of Skywalker did that too. They broke out a bunch of characters that I hadn't heard mentioned in years, but not in a cool way. In like a desperate, kinda bad way. They just name-dropped a bunch of classic rebel characters, that mega Star Wars nerds would know, but anyone else would react with "who?". Like General Rieekan gets name-dropped? That kinda stuff. It was weird. IT was neat to see, but the book mostly focused on the new characters which dragged the book down a bit.
@RogerRoger Agreed there. Gotta pick the right characters, and the right time periods. We're "blessed" with so many gaps in understanding from the prequels that it leaves a lot of room to carve some interesting books out of.
Suffice it to say I would prefer 1313 over the Bounty Hunter port haha.
Yeah, you can play as Vader if you beat the game on the highest difficulty level. (Nah I'm just kidding, you can pay real money for it.), and if you pre-order RIGHT NOW you can use a character skin for the Mandalorian where he carries the child on his back like Luke did Yoda in Episode 5. Cuz remember Empire? You loved Empire right? Alright, give us the money then.
A couple of different waves sounds about right. I definitely remember seeing tons of different ones through the years! To hell with the haters! They're cute, and were a good brand crossover even before Disney owned it!
On the bright side, she seems like she's cooled off a bit. At least I hope so. I might not hear about it now just because she's done it too many times haha.
I did play Racer's Revenge! Not when it came out, just that PS4 port. I thought it was okay, but it was missing that extra little something that the original has, although I'm sure a lot of that's just nostalgia too. I vaguely it basically just being the same game, but a bit less fun.
I will admit I've been swayed on Squadrons. Horrible name notwithstanding. I was worried it'd be too arcadey when it first got announced, but it seems like it might be somewhere in the middle between arcade and sim. The entire game being playable in VR is definitely what tipped me over the edge though! Given their track record with the property, I'd be very surprised to see it live up to its potential haha.
That just means you have to start both of those so Aspyr brings those to the PS4! Quick go start now! I gotta play those again!!!!! Mass Effect seems pretty inevitable at this point, especially given all the leaks and clues alluding to it, so good call on that one haha. At this point it might even be a PS5 port, but who knows.
@gbanas92 Yeah, it was the whole "real animals would be this obnoxious and unresponsive sometimes" thing (although I still don't know whether Trico's absent-mindedness was a bug or a feature). Still a magical experience, though!
That's fair enough, regarding Ant-Man & the Wasp. Even though I loved it, I can see where you're coming from; I guess I just liked the formula enough not to mind it being repeated! A lot of the things I like are very formulaic, so I tend not to hold it against stuff (stones in glass houses and whatnot) but I appreciate it can be frustrating for those that notice it a little more. Still haven't seen Shane Black's contribution to the Predator franchise; I've been told it's one of those "so bad it's good" disasters...?
He's very underrated, yes. Whenever he's popped up in things, he's quickly become a favourite. Not quite sure who my all-time favourite Bond villain would be... maybe Scaramanga? From the films, of course; I'm quite keen to read The Man With The Golden Gun and make the comparison between book and big screen.
It's good, isn't it? Backseat driver!
Ended up playing the PC port of NightFire last week and eviscerated it in the PushSquare forums review topic. It's an unmitigated nightmare, worse than GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (if such a feat were possible). Avoid it at all costs!
Same. That's the worst damage you can do to a show or franchise; not just give it a bad ending, but give it such a bad ending that seven years of goodwill gets forgotten overnight.
Yeah, there was a lot of "Thrawn lets the Ghost go because he says he has a larger plan" in his early episodes, but it always felt like a bit of a narrative cheat, in order to let the heroes of a Disney cartoon escape each week. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the payoff at the end of the third season, when he tracks down and destroys Chopper Base, but all of the previous "let them have their victory, I'm learning all about them" foreboding didn't feel 100% necessary, which was a shame.
Yes, I think it was that book, but also one of the set-up novels for The Rise of Skywalker had Inferno Squad show up, or get mentioned (as you say, it was their last chance to throw everything at the wall, so they did). It might've been the same one you're talking about, but then it might not be... I wanna say Resistance Reborn was its title? General Rieekan is a deep dive! That's so random, too random, it'd totally break my immersion when reading!
@gbanas92 I was just pondering whether to pre-order a few Black Series figures and there's a big push on The Empire Strikes Back anniversary merchandise at the moment, so your "give us money" comment made me laugh out loud! Also reminds me of The Force Unleashed II, where one of the DLC skins was Dagobah Luke with a little Yoda in his backpack. They've done it before, they'll do it again! Speaking of the Black Series, there's also a special Bounty Hunter edition of Jango Fett coming soon, so everything in that paragraph up there has a connection!
Darn right, they were cute! This is where I'll probably cross a line, but I've also got a select few Star Wars Tsum Tsum things, y'know, those little plush collectibles Disney tried to push for a few years? Couldn't move for them a while back, they were everywhere!
She'll go to ground for a while, on advice from her PR firm. Hers is a brand too big to permanently damage.
That's also fair, and you're right, nostalgia plays a big part in these kinds of things. I didn't play Racer Revenge at launch in 2002 but I did play it a couple years later, so I had fond memories of it long before I booted up Episode I: Racer the other week. It's just how these things go sometimes, although c'mon, Racer Revenge has Darth Vader as an unlockable character, and his pod screams like a TIE Fighter... wait, I've fallen into the EA / Disney marketing trap there, haven't I...?!
You're right to have a little hope for Squadrons, I reckon. It'll have a base level of quality and playability, and the VR thing is a big selling point for those with headsets (between this and Vader Immortal, you'll never take yours off). I won't be pre-ordering, but I'll look forward to the reviews. Will you be writing the PushSquare one?
Sir, yes sir! That makes me laugh, because I said the same to a friend of mine, who was pondering a Mass Effect replay over the weekend; she started it yesterday, so we'll definitely hear something about that this week now!
@RogerRoger I choose to believe that it's a feature no matter what! It's probably a mix of the 2 things, but it's definitely at least partially on purpose!
I think I'd have minded Ant-Man and wasp being formulaic less if that weren't all of Marvel's M.O. If each franchise had a distinct formula, I don't that I'd mind it less, but as they've been going forward, all the properties are getting more and more homogenized. All those weird ones they have coming up have me hopeful they're getting ready to buck that though. Like horror Dr. Strange, and Blade, etc etc! As for The Predator...ehhhhhhhh. I kind of enjoyed watching it from the so bad its good angle, but it was probably a little closer to so bad it's bad haha. Easily the weakest of the 4, given that the other 3 are all at least decent!
Hard to go wrong with Scaramanga! Christopher Lee is a legend! I don't actually remember book Scaramanga too much I only ever read Golden Gun once, I don't remember disliking him though!
Uh-oh, I actually only ever played Nightfire on PC! Although I do remember distinctly I both loved it and had to fight its controls the whole time haha.
It's unreal how fast everyone turned on Game of Thrones. It reminds me a bit of Lost in that regard, although credit to that for still being relevant enough to come up every once in a while. The botched ending reminds me of a certain Sci-Fi property Disney spent $4 billion on
Thrawn is a master tactician. Maybe he knows enough about the Ghost crew that he can literally see their plot armor! It was made even worse by him letting them slip by so much because the book Thrawn was always insanely adept at making snap decisions based on careful but exhaustive observation and he was usually right! It makes him a bit of a mary-sue on occasion but he's so well written that it's easy to forgive. In the show that's less the case, but at least he's still...alright?
Oh, yep yep! That's the name. Resistance Reborn is indeed the one. And funnily enough, that is exactly what mentioning Rieekan did haha. It gave me pause and then I had to start thinking about whether or not it even made sense for him to be alive anymore.
@RogerRoger Right that huge influx of Empire stuff for it's (40th?) anniversary! Oh god, I don't think I knew about that Force Unleashed skin. Those DLC's for that game were (those weird what-if scenarios!) but that's about all that was good in 2 haha. That Jango figure'll sell like gangbusters! Just slap the bounty hunter game logo on there! They'll eat it up! Even though it's basically the exact same suit as in Attack of the Clones!
Oh wow, I forgot all about those Tsum Tsum's. You're right those were everywhere! Just like those damn vinyl minifigs they had everywhere before Funko was even really popular! Couldn't even look in a different direction without finding a new place selling them!
Yeah, she'll bounce back (well the brand at least). Look how popular those Universal Park areas are! Although between her being crazy and just how awful that Fantastic Beasts sequel, it definitely slowed down a bit.
It's basically impossible to get into some of the older Star Wars games at this point, just given how long they've been around. Especially since most of the Star Wars' game golden age is like 15 or 20 years old at this point! It could always be worse though, at least they didn't port Super Bombad Racing!! Oh no, they got you! With the oldest trick in the book too! Vader fan service!
Honestly, almost all of my excitement is tied to the VR mode. THey'll figure out some way to mess it up. I just know it. Well, probably not the devs themselves, but definitely the EA execs! Review wise, Vader Immortal I sure hope I'll be reviewing that one, but squadrons probably not (for better or worse). I don't really "get" to do any of the big games.
Oh god, it might have worked too! There have been another handful of Mass Effect collection rumors! Quick, play something else people have been wanting a sequel of for years!
Oh yeah, I keep meaning to tack this on but always forget to do it! Should you be so inclined, add me on Playstation! I'm pretty sure I have the account linked with my profile on here, but if not I can throw it up on the next exchange!
@gbanas92 Before I forget, Disney and EA have (finally!!) released the score to Jedi: Fallen Order. It's digital only, alas, but surprisingly comprehensive, with over three hours of music across forty-four tracks. I'm listening to it now and falling in love with it all over again, so I thought I'd mention it to a fellow soundtrack fan!
I see your point about Marvel movies feeling identikit. Perhaps that's why DC have been pursuing distinctive flavours for their properties of late; there's no danger of confusing Joker with Wonder Woman or Shazam! and it seems to be working for them. Fingers crossed for the next MCU phase, then! This is the shameful part where I admit to only having seen the first Predator movie thusfar (and for the first time last year, too... I'm surprisingly late to the game with a lot of must-see movies). I do look forward to the others, whenever my neverending watchlists allow me to reach them.
Yeah, reading The Man With The Golden Gun now would make it impossible to hear anybody but Christopher Lee reading Scaramanga's dialogue! He's so iconic!
For real? Buddy, you've got to play NightFire on console sometime! It's a much better experience in every department. Granted, I get that I'm a little late to the PC version, and I'm bringing all my expectations and baggage from PS2, but it's like night and day!
I remember the buzz surrounding the Lost finale as well, with front page BBC News stories about it and whatnot; good comparison (although I think a few outlets learnt their lesson from that show, and underplayed Game of Thrones a bit). Wait, Disney botched the ending to a major sci-fi property? Which one? How very dare they! I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
I've got an image of Thrawn standing on the bridge of the Chimera, flicking through a script for the episode he's in whilst the Ghost approaches out the window... "Hmm, it seems that I'm the villain, and therefore I'm not allowed to defeat them this week. So be it; we shall play our roles, for now." At least there were some semi-recognisable traits in Disney's Thrawn, even if they weren't fully formed. It sounds like such a tactical genius would've been overkill for a supposedly "family friendly" show, one designed to replace The Clone Wars because it got too dark. Would kids even get Book Thrawn?
Yep! Hate it when that happens. I'd have probably pulled up the Battle of Hoth clips on YouTube and listened out for any background dialogue saying he'd died (after all, Leia's the last one in the control room when Han comes to rescue her). It's all technicalities, and sometimes they're fun, but not when they bring the flow grinding to a halt like that.
@gbanas92 40th Anniversary indeed, and yet it still holds up! Wow, I'd forgotten about those random DLCs for The Force Unleashed, you're right! They were... I'm gonna be polite and say "interesting" but I obviously forgot them for a reason! Did you like them? They've made the Bounty Hunter Jango a little shinier, I think, given that he's from a decade before Attack of the Clones. They released him before with his second jetpack, so this one's got his first instead, the one with the missile. God, I sound like that Malibu Stacey episode of The Simpsons. "And she's got a new hat!!" At least he'll go well with my Jango Tsum Tsum!
Yeah, I remember when Harry Potter looked set to eclipse Star Wars as the biggest fantasy franchise out there, but it's definitely eased off the gas recently, for reasons various. Have you been to the Universal Park thing? They're trying to build one here in the UK, near where I live. I wouldn't go for Harry Potter, but some kind of Jurassic Park attraction might get me there (providing it's safe to do so by then, of course).
Hey, speak for yourself; I'd buy a Super Bombad Racing remaster! Heck, I'd pre-order it, I love that game! Of course, my credibility was already at zero because I fell for the Vader fan service trick, so I can say that with a straight face!
Fingers crossed for the VR mode in Squadrons, then. Even if EA put everything except a stock X-Wing and a stock TIE Fighter behind a microtransaction paywall, you should at least squeeze some wish-fulfilment fun out of it. Can you not ask to review specific upcoming releases? Not to blow too much smoke, but I really like your writing style, so I'm sure they'd let you!
You say that, but I recently replayed the Keeley Hawes Tomb Raider games on PC and, lo, there are now rumours about a major remastered collection of old Tomb Raider games, those specific ones included! As a result of my newfound power, I got a bunch of old Sonic the Hedgehog games on Steam, then saw a news story about SEGA noting how popular their back-catalogue had become during the pandemic lockdown, so now they're reportedly shifting focus to remaster and re-release more of their older games to the digital market. I think I'm gonna go buy a lottery ticket!
Oh, thanks! Will do! Your profile page here says that your PSN I.D. is the same as your username, so I'll search for you and send you a friend request in a bit! Cheers!
@RogerRoger Oh I saw! And was very excited! EA's usually pretty punctual about their soundtrack releases, so I was pretty surprised it took so long, but definitely better late than never!
The unique identities that DC are building for individual properties are working better. That might be why they struggle to bring them all together? But it's probably just because they keep trying to rush it. The slew of trailers they dropped the other day look solid too. I'm actually kinda...excited for The Batman? Which I was not expecting at all! Wonder Woman eh, new Suicide Squad also eh, but I'm willing to trust James Gunn blindly so it's probably fine. The first Predator is the only essential so no worries there! I have a soft spot for Predator 2, but Predators is largely an (admittedly solid) rehash of the first one.
I don't think I'd really mind not separating Scaramanga from Christopher Lee though. Just read all the lines with Lee's delivery! It'll be perfect!
Yeah, it was cheaper that way lol. One of the games I got as a redemption from cereal boxes for like 3 dollars (not sure if cereal box PC games were a thing in the UK? But they were all over the place when I was a kid).
Yeah it got underplayed a bit, but that might just have been critics reading the warning on the walls. The last couple seasons before the finale were trending downwards so they might just have cooled their jets a bit on that one like "oh, I get it. It's just gonna be bad the whole way!" As for Disney, I'm not sure. I dunno about you, but when I see sci-fi my eyes just glaze over. Star Trek? Battlestar Troopers Galactica? Something like that. It probably doesn't matter.
Bahaha oh my god, combine Thrawn's genius with Deadpool 4th wall stuff, that sounds amazing! And that's a good point you make. Yeah, many of his traits were definitely recognizable in the show still. Rukh as well, though to a lesser extent. I think Thrawn works for kids yeah. I knew about him as a kid and always thought he was a badass! I found his strategy less interesting then, but just how cool and collected he was to be really interesting. I liked him, in the same way, I liked Xizor actually. I like Thrawn a lot more now though. His tactics are more interesting. For a kids show, whittling him down a bit makes sense, although honestly marketing Rebels as a kids show feels like a facade. All the EU stuff they incorporated definitely gets targeted at the older fans I'd say.
Oh at Hoth itself it makes sense for him to be away. Han mentions a line like "the rest of the command crew already made it to their ship" or something like that. I mean Rieekan at that point honestly should have died from old age! He was what, 50's, 60's in Empire? So tack on like 40 years? It's not impossible he'd be alive, but still viable as a leader and tactician? Ehhhhhhh
@RogerRoger If only to celebrate 40 years we could get a truly original trilogy release. There are some editions that come close, but an official one would be amazing. It does hold up though, absolutely. Watched it sometimes every day for weeks at a time in grade school (Empire was my favorite even as a kid honestly) and I love that movie as much today as I did then, if not more. It's truly one of the greatest films ever made. Very few I'd put ahead of it. The only film, I could confidently say that I love more is John Carpenter's The Thing, anything else it depends on the day haha. I never actually played those DLC's haha, I only know they exist. I didn't really like the base games so I was never terribly interested in paying more to play them again haha. My friend did though and said they were hilarious, so I'm gonna take that as a bad sign haha. Ah okay so he is slightly different at least, that's not so bad I guess. I hope they keep digging into the old games for Black Series figures. Sure. I've got Revan, but I want Kyle Katarn! And how about some Delta Squad figures for Republic Commando! Let's get those in here!
In Harry Potter's credit, Star Wars has also lost an awful lotta momentum to stay popular too! Haha. I sure did! I went to the Florida Harry Potter stuff, but only when the first half was made, haven't been back since the second one was built. Honestly, I freakin' loved it! It's actually right next to the Jurassic Park stuff too! A full-scale recreation of the welcome center from the first movie and some of the fossils on display were used in the film too! Kid me adored it, and now adult I does too, because that welcome center is very much an updated, so it's the '90s as hell!
I guess I would probably play Super Bombad racing too come to think of it...but I wouldn't be happy about it! They could probably trick me with some fan-service characters, but it wouldn't be Vader. Revan would probably work though
That's true, even just sitting in a cockpit and only the one would be engaging. That was all there was in the VR mission for Battlefront and that was still incredible, but that was a free add-on. I'm definitely cautiously optimistic for Squadrons. Star Wars has probably hit rock bottom by now anyways, things can't possibly get worse right? Yeah, there's a request process and all that, but usually, the "biggest" releases are done by the very most senior of staff, although I will in fact be doing the review for Vader Immortal! I'd certainly review Squadrons haha. And awww, thanks! Always nice to hear stuff like that!
You know, I don't think I ever played that era of Tomb Raider titles! I played the PS One era ones (I think all of them?) and then didn't try them again until the first PS3 reboot one. Which hey, was pretty fantastic. The most recent two were huge steps backward but at least that first one was good! Honestly, even if I don't care about them myself, always down for remasters. There are tons and tons of games I'd jump at the chance to play again!
Yep, I'm pretty sure across everything I have the same user name! I'll be sure to accept!
@RogerRoger Also depending on how curious you are, Rainbow Six: Siege has a free weekend starting I believe tomorrow? So if there was ever a time to try it out, those free weekends would be it!
@gbanas92 I saw you champion the soundtrack to Vader Immortal in your article the other day. Has that been officially released as well, then?
DC definitely rushed to start with, and I'm not sure they'll ever do another Avengers-style crossover. They might have familiar faces pop up in one another's movies, I reckon, but more as a standalone nod instead of a tease for a major event. At least we're getting the Snyder Cut of Justice League now, though! Alongside The Batman, that's what I'm most excited for.
Ah, thanks! Good to know I've seen the only essential Predator film (although, given that our tastes align more often than not, I might keep an eye out for its sequel).
We got a few demo discs on our cereal packets, but we mostly got cheap plastic toys. Wish I'd been a kid in America now!
For all my other sins, I'm a Trekkie but you're right, pretty much all modern sci-fi tends to leave me cold. I couldn't stand the new Battlestar Galactica reboot, and every other sci-fi show I've tried to engage with hasn't worked out. I think it's because I grew up in a Star Trek household (my Dad liked watching it, so its terminology and dramatic presentation sank in, although my favourite episodes are always the ones with either relatable character moments or cool starship battles). A lot of the cool 80s things we like technically are sci-fi (Alien, Terminator, Predator, etc.) but they're done in a more grounded way, or they're primarily another genre. Heck, even Star Wars is sci-fi fantasy!
Why do I think that Rukh wasn't a weird little goblin in the books, or am I getting that wrong? I need to get around to actually reading my reading list! And you're right, because I really liked Xizor as a kid, too. I thought he was mysterious but also pretty lethal, and that's a good combination because you're always waiting for that calm exterior to crack and for something badass to happen. Word is, Disney demanded a kid's show from Dave Filoni, and that's why the first season of Rebels had a lighter touch; he just slipped back into old habits, especially in the second year with Ahsoka, Rex and Maul returning. It's also why he was forced to follow it up by executive-producing Resistance, which is most definitely a kid's show.
That's a good point! "Oh no, this whiny teenager's cheap knock-off of the Galactic Empire is threatening to destroy us! We need leadership! Quick, get the pensioners out of bed!"
@gbanas92 The Empire Strikes Back is phenomenal, we agree on that much, but I always preferred Return of the Jedi (because it had more final battles; I loved how that escalated, since A New Hope had one, Empire had two, Jedi had three and then The Phantom Menace came along and had four). I'd watch one of the films on VHS each weekend, wore out my tapes, and I'd spend my after-school evenings playing Star Wars games on PC and PSone... aah, good times! Growing up with the special editions means that I'm not as eager to see an original-original release, but I get why it's a big deal for some and it wouldn't exactly hurt Disney (in fact, that probably would've placated the older hardcore fans more than the blatant pandering in The Rise of Skywalker, thinking about it). I reckon a Kyle Katarn figure is long overdue although, since he's been actively erased by Disney's approach to the Expanded Universe, it'd be weird seeing the "Legends" banner on a Black Series figure! Delta Squad would sell like hot cakes. I'd get them to stand alongside my Rex and Wolffe.
Darn it, I love those kinds of "big kid" experiences! I'd gravitate towards the Jurassic Park attractions, for sure! Think you'll ever go back and see the rest of the Harry Potter stuff they've subsequently built? It's inevitable that I'll visit Galaxy's Edge someday, even if it is centred around all the new films; I'll likely get caught up in the atmosphere too much to care!
I can just picture it now... you sitting in front of your television, playing Super Bombad Racing: Even More Bombad Edition and growling "I hate myself" under your breath! Did you know Revan was to be included in The Clone Wars, originally as part of the Mortis episodes and then later, in the cancelled Season Seven? That would've confirmed him as canon, and reeled you in, for sure!
I read and liked your review for Vader Immortal, by the way! It's a shame you had to be objective about it, as it sounds like a great slice of fan service (although I chuckled at all the references and in-jokes you peppered throughout your review). So many of the games I adore are, if I'm honest, only a six, and I always hate having to admit that. I wish other people could see them how I do! With any luck, your Vader Immortal review could land you the Squadrons gig but, regardless, I'll be sure to ask your opinion of it before I make a purchase. I'm at the "Should I just wait for a PS5 now?" point with my PlayStation gaming, and so won't be pre-ordering anything whilst I work on my extensive backlog.
I preferred Shadow of the Tomb Raider myself, but only because I could abuse its Photo Mode! Congratulations on getting through all five of the PSone games; I haven't even managed that, and I'm a huge fan. They're pretty slow-going! That era of the franchise, the Keeley Hawes trilogy, is one I highly recommend checking out (and it's a shame that rumoured remaster didn't come to pass... yet). At least those Mass Effect rumours are getting stronger by the day. I knew I was right to wait!
Thanks for adding me on PSN, and thanks for the heads-up about Rainbow Six last weekend, too! Unfortunately I wasn't in a position to take advantage, but I'm grateful all the same. With any luck, they'll do a couple more at some point!
@RogerRoger I wish! Nah still gotta scrounge youtube for the time being. The ripped files seem pretty extensive but no official release as far as I can tell. Hopefully it arrives quicker than we saw with that Fallen Order score!
Yeah the occasional glimpses here and there format seems pretty solid too. I like that. Marvel's done just fine with that so far as well, making occasional small scale team-ups more interesting. Works especially for characters who can't quite carry their own movies in a terribly interesting way (Thor and Hulk in particular haha. I love Thor, but mostly because of Chris Hemsworth, and also as a piece of the puzzle not the only attraction). I can't say I'm excited for the Snyder Cut to be honest. I'm absolutely 100% watching it because I'm extremely curious but I'm not very hyped haha. I just don't really like Zach Snyder's style (even the movies of his people consider "good"). Definitely still excited for The Batman though.
If you wanna watch movies in that series I'd call "good" basically any of the first 3 fit the bill. Neither AVP and The Predator are worth the time past morbid curiosity I'd say. Actually that's doing the first AVP dirty. That's a pretty okay action movie. Not the other one though.
Eventually we started pivoting to demo discs too, but for a while there we got full blown games either inside the cereal box or after a low cost mail in. Been a lonnnnng time since I've seen that!
Star Trek's one I never really connected with. I've tried so many times, and it just never clicked. My dad loved it too! I do love the original Battlestar Galactica though, got a soft spot for it (Battelstar's practically worth it for just "By Your Command" let's be real Not really many sci-fi things I like these days. Just like you said, all the stuff we like is usually a different genre first. Alien, Terminator, etc. Black Mirror's pretty good at least. And basically anything Alex Garland touches is still good too.
They portrayed Rukh correctly visually. At least I think so. It doesn't feel too far off, and his abilities felt more or less similar, but he came off...practically feral? I always picture the Noghri, as maybe not hyper intelligent, but definitely more clever and less animalisitc than Rebels showed off. They definitely nailed Xizor's significance too, as he was able to stack toe to toe with the like's of Vader, hell even the Emperor sometimes,. That makes a great deal of sense for Rebels too! Just make that pivot once it becomes clear (or clearer anyways) that shows got something there that more people definitely wanna see beyond the younger crowd! And boy was Resistance ever a kid's show. And not a particularly good one at that. "Okay you made a lot of people like Rebels way more as it went along. Now you have to actually for real help us make a kids show! Get going!"
They had to get the band together! Drag every single character with a name even a few people might recognize into this. How would they care without names they've heard before!
@RogerRoger Man I watched Jedi almost as much come to think of it. And I'm a little ashamed to say it was almost entirely because of Luke's lightsaber hahahaha. I always liked green more than blue just generally, so the green lightsaber just meant the movie was almost better by default! I basically did the same thing! Including the games! Watched the movies constantly, played the games constantly, and read the books constantly. If it wasn't Star Wars, wasn't interested! Oh, how the times have changed I don't mind some aspects of those special editions (many of the updates they made to just the effects are more or less worth keeping, but the cinephile in me just prefers the original versions as they were intended even though I didn't grow up with those versions in the first place. Very true, after Rogue One Kyle basically doesn't exist! I'm pretty sure they've done a couple of figures that would be considered legends though, no? Sure, Revan and Jaina Solo and such were released pre-Disney, but at least in Revan's case, he has been reissued while under Disney's watch. Gotta keep the dream alive!
It was always so awesome! Even just walking through the Jurassic Park (which they use to separate the area!) It's magic! I'd certainly like to revisit it and see the other half. I still like the property enough to be interested. Not in any particular rush this time, unlike for the first half they did haha. Disney's wayyyy too good at their theming to make Galaxy's Edge not awesome, definitely agreed! Would be way better if weren't the new stuff? Absolutely! But it's definitely still gonna be awesome!
They dug themselves into a hole calling the first one "Super" unfortunately. They could called the remaster that! Like Nintendo, let's a make a new console and just call it super this time! Boy I am familiar with it! Saw it get mentioned once before and basically dug absolutely everything about it up. If I remember correctly there's even a very small snippet of footage that included me, but I think that was it!
Aw man, thank you! Yeah objectivity stinks! "You get to use a lightsaber, and also there's a ton of fan service! 10/10". There are so many games I go into just hoping I can be like "yeah, this is the great thing ever. Get it right now it is perfect," but it's basically impossible to justify with so many of the games I play, even if it's like a 7 or 8 sometimes, I just wish I could bump it ever so slightly higher! This PS5 stuff is killing me! Hopefully we finally get that price during that reveal tomorrow, I'm still extremely worried about it, because it's gotta be stupid expensive right? If it was a good price, they'd have announced by now surely? Very nervous about it, even though I'm basically already locked in to getting that one.
@RogerRoger Ooh that's a good point too! The photo mode is great, especially with the pretty games like that! I use the hell out of photo mode on a lot of the bigger games. It's too fun! Honestly, I remember almost nothing about those older Tomb Raiders beyond that I did in fact play them haha. I should definitely put aside the time to play the Hawes trilogy though. Might even be better going into with no memory of what the older games were like. Might allow me to enjoy them more! There's still time! Maybe they can just drop 'em on the PS5 instead! Or they were already planning to do that anyways, so they're just waiting a bit longer to actually announce them.
But of course! The request popped up shortly before I went to write a response that last time, so that's who I figured the request came from! As for Rainbow they will absolutely do more of those. I'm pretty sure they do a free weekend every time they drop a new season. They only skipped out on that once or twice as far as I can remember so it will definitely pop up again that way!
@gbanas92 You'd think at least a digital release of a soundtrack would be an easy money-maker for EA and Disney, especially this year. I can understand delaying a physical release, but uploading files to Amazon is something anybody could do from home!
That's fair enough, regarding the Snyder Cut. I think it'll be interesting as a comment on the Hollywood machine, more than anything else, comparing it to what WB forced Joss Whedon to re-shoot and effectively remake. I agree with you about Thor, by the way! He's great as part of the ensemble, and Chris Hemsworth is very charming and talented, but his character is kinda two-dimensional. I reckon that's why they've stuck him with the Guardians!
Thanks for the recommendation! Will keep that in mind. I'm on a "watch happy and fluffy things" kick at the moment, but I've got quite a few decent classics lined up for when I'm feeling better, the Predator films among them!
Yeah, now it's all mail-away coupons or QR codes for apps. I miss choking on little plastic toys!
Star Trek isn't for everyone. It desperately covers up its good qualities with a lot of Treknobabble and slow-paced plotting which can be a slog, even for me. There are episodes which I'll just start and think "oh, not today, thanks" but it also has its share of timeless classics that I'd recommend to anybody interested. With you on the original Battlestar Galactica, though! Grew up watching re-runs and I thought the Cylons were awesome, with their flying saucer ships and distorted voices!
Oh, okay, that is a surprise to hear because, from watching Rebels alone, I'd have expected Rukh to be a very feral character. It felt at odds with Thrawn's respect for intelligence, that he'd utilise basically an un-killable animal rather than a free-thinking tactician. I've got to get to these books! And back to Disney+ next month as well, for the new season of The Mandalorian. Looking forward to it, or nervous about where they might take it? I have Resistance on my watchlist, but I haven't been brave enough to start it yet. It might've fit my current mood, but it also might've annoyed me, so I didn't wanna take the risk.
@gbanas92 Nothing wrong with liking things based on lightsaber colours; after all, that's why I preferred the villains, because red was my favourite colour as a kid! When I played Fallen Order, I made Cal's new lightsaber green, after his master's original blue one got destroyed, to reflect both Luke and Ezra following up a blue blade with a green one. God, I'm such a nerd! Yeah, there's no harm in having both versions out there, for those that want the original-originals. Bury them away, make them a special feature, it doesn't matter. It's not gonna confuse anybody! Fans will know the difference and make their choices, and your average punter is still just gonna go "Hey, Star Wars, let's stick that on!" regardless... but then, we're rational and objective people, so we couldn't possibly work for Disney and suggest such a thing!
They've just announced some more Black Series figures, and one of them is Jar Jar Binks. I'm really pleased, but I'm also sorry that he's taken the place of a possible Legends character!
Have you seen that new Jurassic World animated show, on Netflix I think? I wasn't gonna watch it, but several folks have told me that it's really good. Disney really are masters of immersion at their parks. I've been on the new Star Tours ride in Paris a couple times and, even though it's mostly the new films, it still made me grin like an idiot! At least they randomise it with scenarios from the other six films.
Glad you'd heard that trivia about The Clone Wars before! Yet another thing we can growl about whilst shaking our fists at Disney. I did like how, in the episode he was supposed to be teased in, Mark Hamill ended up voicing Darth Bane. It's a shame they had to backtrack on all that stuff, as I reckon The Clone Wars would've been the perfect show to tie all of the eras together (especially considering how good the animation got by the end... I mean, I do like Rebels, but it was such a backwards step in terms of visual quality).
Well, at least you don't have to be objective in this comment section! Between us, it's a ten! What did you make of the PS5 price? Did you think it a fair figure? Sorry to hear you were getting nervous about it beforehand; have you managed to secure a pre-order yet, or are you gonna wait a bit?
I took 596 shots with the Photo Mode in Fallen Order, and I think Spider-Man is a close second. I just can't help myself, especially given how gorgeous games look nowadays! Oh, all the classic Tomb Raider games definitely blend together; they made them so samey, given that they were pumping them out annually on PSone. Hope you enjoy the Keeley Hawes trilogy if you do give them a shot, or if the remasters materialise someday! I think a lot of things have been delayed this year, understandably so. Look at the constant on-again, off-again rumours surrounding the Mass Effect remaster!
Thanks! I actually started the campaign from Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 on my PS3 recently, so I'm almost caught up. It'll be interesting to see what they've modernised because... well, let's just say, there's a lot of room for improvement!
@RogerRoger Still nothing But hey, Squadrons had its soundtrack drop day 1! That's something. Maybe they're learning (probably not though)
Definitely very interested to see how wildly divergent these versions of the movie wind up. The Whedon stuff definitely didn't feel like it worked this time like it did when he did his Marvel stuff haha. Yeah, sticking Thor with the Guardians is brilliant, although those characters are also all really funny, so Hemsworth's gonna have to work his ass off to stay as funny as usual!
Predator's totally a feel-good movie! If feelgood is explosions, gunfights, followed by abject terror, and brutal, gut-wrenching violence. Or like...Pixar or something, I dunno...
Yeah, I want there to be a reason to rip that cereal box to pieces and dig something fun out! A toy. A trading card, a mini-comic, something! I don’t wanna scan my damn box! Where’s the fun in that?!?!?
Oh is the older run of Star Trek like that too? I always hear the newer show leans into nonsense technobabble to cover up its inadequacies in other areas, but also hear nothing but glowing, endless praise for the older runs. Although the sources I hear from are usually biased haha. I did watch the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise though, and honestly kinda liked it, though I’m not sure what the general consensus among Trek fans is on that one. Probably not good haha. The Cylons are just so cool! I love everything about their design. It’s a shame the original show isn’t really popular anymore. Now it’s all the new crap!
The Noghri aren’t hyper intelligent in the same way that Thrawn is, but they’re absolutely depicted as intelligent free-thinking creatures, but with a collection of “oppressions” let’s call them, that Thrawn uses to maintain their control. They have their moments where they come off as animalistic, but they’re more depicted in like an archetypal “native” style. Subservience and respect for the land, tribal living. That kinda stuff. Maybe I just misinterpreted the Noghri when I read the books, but they definitely don’t act how I expected in Rebels! Honestly, just entirely skipping Resistance wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world 🤣
It’s bad. Like. Really bad. You are kinda right that it might suit your current mood though. Definitely a little lighter fair, outside of a couple of key moments.
As for Mando, I am both excited and nervous. Exited in that, season 1 did so much right and there are so many fantastic ideas to build off of, but concerned cuz that first trailer didn’t really allay my fears about them expanding the scope too wide, and just adding 8 million different characters cuz “we know them” especially with all those rumors about one of the actors that popped up being live-action Sabine? Ahsoka popping up still makes sense if he needs to learn about the Jedi, so that one I might be able to stomach. But eh. We’ll see. Good Star Wars is just so hard to come by now. But hey, bright spots show up once in a while. That new Thrawn book that just came out? I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and I might go so far as to say that it’s Zahn’s best star wars books to date? It’s extremely good!
@RogerRoger I did the same! I basically changed it the second I could. But I'll be honest, some of that is because I just find blue lightsabers kinda dull at this point haha. My fav color's purple so I changed Cal's to purple the second I was able to haha. Yeah! Don't have to constantly re-release the unaltered ones but dig 'em out every once in a while and let all the people that want those get their hands on them! Yeah, don't let Disney hear you! If you so much as mention the original trilogy, I heard you get fired on the spot!
Wait, is Jar Jar really one of them? That's kinda great in a way! I glanced at the new ones but I musta missed that haha. A new Thrawn figure too! Although it's not in the fancy Black Series box, it's in the other style. I do kinda want that vanilla clone trooper though. The Episode II clone trooper design is by far my favorite! I think I'll pass on Jar Jar though haha. I do still have my Phantom Menace jar jar toy somewhere after all.
Ya Netflix, you're right. I haven't watched it cuz the trailers made it look a little too kiddish, but interestingly, I've also actually heard it's pretty good! Might be worth giving a look-see at some point.
Yeah, Disney's attention to detail at parks is unparalleled by such an insane margin. I still have a soft spot for the original Star Tours, pre-randomization, but honestly, the one with all the new locales added to it is pretty great too, although I don't think I've been on since any of the new movie's locations had been added, so I'm lucky there in a way haha.
God yeah, Bane being incorporated properly woulda been great too. So much great stuff with him in the old canon too. Arguably more than Revan? Because Revan's influenced by people playing the game differently, but the Bane stuff was all book and it was just really really good instead! I don't think I knew that about Mark Hammill though! Neat! Yeah using the Clone Wars as connective tissue for uniting every era woulda been amazing. I get it, but at the same time, it woulda been cooler. Clone Wars looked great by the end though agreed, which is funny given how much people hated the visuals in the beginning haha. Yeah just combine multiple reviews to make everything 10/10!!!
I do! I think the price is more or less fine. Given how long they waited to reveal it honestly, it's cheaper than I was expecting. The launch lineup sounds....decent? The controller seems great, I'm worried about the longevity of the hardware though since the power just doesn't seem like it's gonna be there? Raw specs, the Xbox smokes it, but all the rumors of PS5 games struggling to even manage 4K is pretty concerning. Although games at launch look way worse than what we get by the end, so it could just be those early bumps. Plus the software's gonna be great! I did get a pre-order opening day though. After many many hours of refreshing the same page over and over haha. But I did get it!
My photomode tendencies are definitely more all over the place haha. I usually have like 2 or 3 for most games, then Sony's 1st party stuff usually somewhere between 50 or 100, and then The Last of Us 2 I have 400! I think I took like...30 for Fallen Order? Something like that.
@RogerRoger If we get a software lull from the 'rona (the impacts of that on game software haven't really landed yet so who knows how it'll go) might be a good time to visit some older games I'd always meant to play! Could spend some time with Tomb Raider then! Every time we talk the rumors for Mass Effect always change too! But they never go away! That's gotta count for something!
Hoo boy, yeah this is a very different experience from the Vegas games haha. All of them are great though, so definitely still a reason to play those older ones too! The series looks verrrry different now haha
@gbanas92 Wow, a day one soundtrack release for Squadrons is surprising, especially considering the attitude EA and Disney have towards the game! Have you played it yet? If so, what are your thoughts?
Oh, totally agreed, Predator is a very feel-good movie 99% of the time! Am clawing my way back. I just started the Vanquish remaster on PS4, and completed the original Syphon Filter as a PSone Classic on PS3. Both superb in their own ways, and definitely not Pixar material, that's for sure! I also purchased and downloaded Kentucky Route Zero, since a couple of other folks echoed your recommendation from a while back, so that'll get played after Vanquish. My thanks again; I'm really looking forward to it, looks very unique!
Heaven forfend we actually end up buying cereal boxes for the cereal inside! Being a grown-up is so boring!
The original 60s Star Trek is more focused on naval traditions than treknobabble, but can still get nerdy with it in a similar way. The Next Generation is where, especially in later seasons, it could get very dry (the problem is, TNG also has some of the all-time best episodes; you've just gotta occasionally wade through the less-excellent stuff in between them). Deep Space Nine ends up becoming a serialised war show, which is quite dark and bleak. It was written by the people who went on to run the Battlestar Galactica reboot, so... yeah, moving swiftly on! Voyager evolves into a weekly action / space horror show, but it still has its fair share of "Science!" episodes because its captain (played by Kate Mulgrew) is a scientist first and foremost.
Enterprise is one of my favourites, I really liked it and liked that it mixed things up a little, but you're right, the majority opinion is against it (for the same reasons). If you liked Enterprise, then you'd probably be okay with Voyager, as long as you're prepared to tolerate the occasional bad episode. The problem is, there's just so much Star Trek out there now, so I wouldn't blame anybody for looking at 700+ hours of it and saying "Hey, it might be great, but screw that!"
You'll be pleased to hear that I steered clear of Star Wars: Resistance, so I shall have to wait to experience its peculiar horrors some other time! Your description of the Noghri rings a bell, perhaps from one of my insomnia-fuelled Wookieepedia Walks where I ended up reading about their history, so I wouldn't say that you've misinterpreted them. You've just reminded me that I need to order those books! I was busy looking at other things and forgot to check my Amazon Wishlist, thank you!
(Skipping ahead a bit here, I was ordering some Black Series figures. I have one of the deluxe Cad Bane figures incoming, and have pre-ordered Jar Jar. I did see the re-release of Thrawn, but I already have Director Krennic and I didn't wanna turn my entire shelf into "white Imps" until I'd balanced things out! Did you see that there's a Darth Nihilus coming soon, too? He's part of the Gaming Legends label, and is due out next month.)
@gbanas92 I'm real glad that the new Thrawn book impressed you so much, that's real high praise! Proof that there's some life in the franchise yet! Fingers tightly crossed for Mando. I have the same fears as you, and every extra cameo rumour (we've had a good four or five now, including Ahsoka and Sabine) has me becoming increasingly nervous, but hey. It'll be what it'll be, and I trust that its execution will be competent on a surface level, at least. I need to re-watch the first season in the coming weeks!
Purple is my favourite colour nowadays, too! And my favourite clones are the standard, original design from Episode II as well (something about the attempt to blend them into Stormtroopers just doesn't quite sit right with me)! Uh-oh, I mentioned something from the original trilogy... quick, before Disney hears me, let's move on!
That original Star Tours was something else, absolutely. I was lucky to ride it in Paris before they swapped out to the newer ones and, sure, the variety and randomisation is fun in its own way, but you could tell the original had been crafted to perfection. The ice asteroid was my favourite part! There's an element of "must hit all these notes, even if it doesn't make sense" to some of the new planets (although, as a prequel fanboy, I considered myself very lucky when my first ride visited Naboo and did all the underwater stuff... that was cool).
I never noticed it at first, only when I saw the credits, but you can totally hear Mark Hamill in Darth Bane's voice if you listen for him. Kinda sounds like his Joker, only darker!
https://youtu.be/mdSw1LqpU_s
You're right, there isn't really a definitive Revan (because okay, I didn't finish KOTOR, but I could see where everything was headed regardless... made it twice as funny that I had already decided to play my custom character, Bynx, as somebody who'd eventually turn to the Dark Side). Oh boy, those visuals! You look at the episodes where Ahsoka and the Wookiees are being hunted by the Trandoshans, and that jungle environment beats a good number of Pixar films!
Glad you were able to secure a PS5 at launch! Fingers crossed it all goes okay, and that your fears aren't realised. Given how long technology is expected to last nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a PS5 Pro released within a couple years, specifically to narrow that hardware gap even further. The launch line-up hasn't impressed me, I'm afraid to say, to the point where I'm gonna wait. I have a backlog of nearly 70 games (and I like to periodically replay my favourites, too) so there's no need for me to rush an upgrade. I'll secure copies of the games I'm interested in, just to make sure I'm not caught out down the line (for example, I'm gonna get Miles Morales because I want the edition with the PS5 port of the first game, and Insomniac aren't releasing it separately) but otherwise, I'm happy to wait and see what everybody else makes of it.
Hey, you just gotta take the shots you like, right? From what I've seen, The Last of Us, Part II is incredibly dramatic and photogenic, so I can understand you going a little nuts there!
@gbanas92 You've made me laugh because, as I came on here to reply to you, there's yet another Mass Effect rumour breaking (about its Korean age rating)! It's like they're watching us or something! You're right, of course, it'll be the next couple years where the biggest impact of shutdowns and lockdowns are felt across the industry. I might actually stand a chance of finishing those 70 backlog games!
Vegas 2 turned out better than I'd expected, and it was a huge improvement over the first one, but the PS3 port is pretty poor from a technical perspective. I might look for them on PC, see if I can actually hear dialogue this time!
Wow, this is the hundredth comment on your review now!
Sorry, couldn't resist!
@RogerRoger Apologies on the super long delay this time! Helping work on launching a couple websites!
I haven't even started it honestly. I dunno what it is. I've got a buncha games that I just haven't dived into that I shoulda. Never even booted up Ghost of Tsushima or Squadrons. They've been sitting on my table for ages! The soundtrack is good though! There might be an article relating to that soooooon. Hmmm.
Syphon Filter! Hell yeah! I haven't played that in so long. Loved it back in the day though! And Kentucky Route Zero <3 It's unique in a way that makes it extremely hard to recommend, so I hope you love it!
Nah just buy the cereal for the cereal inside BUT ALSO the cool stuff in the box. Bring that back. That's the real problem in the world right now.
Huh you know I don't think I knew that about Deep Space Nine. I do tend to forget just how many different Star Trek series there have been too. I think of the original series and TNG, but there are a lotttt of other ones. I don't even know if I knew Voyager...existed? I can't say for sure I knew that was a thing before right now haha. Yeah it's pretty daunting, especially considering just how little of it I've actually already seen, at least at present probably easier to just keep letting Red Letter Media tell me about all of the good stuff in Star Trek, until I eventually (most likely) dive in myself. It's only a matter of when!
Oh man, late-night Wookiepedia dives. I know that feeling! That's happened many a time before. Honestly, there's almost literally nothing I can recommend about Resistance. Like, at all. Yes absolutely get the books! Books books books! I swear sometimes that's all I buy beyond games some months haha. Usually Star Wars too. (And one book that I got recently that apparently is like Kentucky Route Zero but a book! Haven't started yet though.)
Ooooo Cad Bane figure's pretty tempting. The actual coolest Bounty Hunter. Not Boba Fett (more on him later). And what?!?! I didn't hear about Nihilus until right now. Damn, it appears to have already sold out far as I can tell haha. NOt nearly as expensive in the aftermarket as Revan though. Hmmm. I'll have to keep my eyes open for that one! Jar Jar
@RogerRoger Mando was.....fine? It was a fun episode, and I really like Timothy Olyphant, and he's playing the Marshall more or less exactly as I had him pictured! I'll wait for confirmation of you starting, but I will say, as much as I enjoyed episode 1, I'm definitely still nervous haha.
Yeah pivoted from green to purple as I started getting older, and you better believe that my lightsaber choices changed with it! I always thought the attempt to reconcile the tech difference that the prequels did was kinda neat. Obviously, it was so they could make extra toys, but it was kinda cool, even if they didn't look as good. The EP II ones just look SO GOOD. I love them! I wish they got more attention. And weren't in the worst film in the series. Although a certain Episode 9 could give it a run for its money. Everyone gets one. Don't you dare mention the original trilogy again this year. You've hit your limit! The mouse is watching!
Yeah the original version of the ride is wonderful! All the stuff was done in the style of the original movies too! Tons of insane practical effects, miniatures, stop motion all of it! And then all the news ones are CGI. Pretty good CGI, and the ride's a ton of fun still, but eh. I got the pod one my first time, but I just HATE Tatooine so much, so I was disappointed. I managed to ride enough times to see every single piece though! Until the Disney movies started getting added at least. Absolutely bending over backwards to incorporate stuff that doesn't make sense, it's fine though honestly. I get it. Ironically the comet was my least favorite part haha.
Okay going back listening specifically to hear him, oh yeah, it's in there. I don't know how I didn't notice that!
That terrible horrible Revan book tried to kinda make there be a definitive Revan, but by doing that it made almost no one happy. Which I should have expected but I was still young and stupid haha.
Just gotta start the quality of animation there instead of building to it next time haha.
Launch lineups are generally unimpressive, but this one's...okay? I'm gonna get COD to play with my friends, and then I'm absolutely getting The Pathless, and Miles Morales of course! I'm glad my backlog is smaller than 70 haha. It's like 4 I think? Waiting I absolutely get. Especially this gen! The fanfare just isn't there, and the leap doesn't feel quite the same yet. It almost doesn't feel real at all haha.
Oh yeah, absolutely it's both dramatic, sometimes too much, but my god does it look incredible.
@RogerRoger Oh brother more! It's gonna be a launch title for the PS6 at this rate! Or the PS7 even.
Well, probably not 70 of them. Might be able to get it down to 50 though haha.
Wait you couldn't even hear the dialogue? What the hell? Yikessssss.
Holy moly 100! That's actually kinda nuts. We've been back and forth on this for ages now though. No complaints here!
@gbanas92 No apology necessary; life happens! Hope the website launches went okay, and that this finds you well.
I've been the same. There are games I know I'll love (including Squadrons and Ghost of Tsushima) which I'm just gonna wait for, because playing them right now wouldn't feel right to me. It sounds like you've been pretty busy of late, never mind the whole console-generational-transition period we're currently in. I've ended up exploring older games I never got the chance to play instead, as they seem more like "fixed points" at the moment; just completed Star Wars: Republic Commando on PC and kicked myself for never playing it before!
But hey, enough about old games! You'll (hopefully) be enjoying your new PS5 by the time you read this, given that you guys have it releasing tomorrow! Fingers tightly crossed that it arrives safe, and that you're impressed by it (and no worries about reading or replying to all this, just focus on having fun)!
Kentucky Route Zero ended up being an interesting one. I think it's the epitome of a "personal perspective" game; the kinda experience that two best friends could each play in isolation, and end up with polar opposite opinions. It's entirely what an individual makes of it. I can totally understand all the praise, but could also understand any harsh criticism. There were moments which blew me away, but others which literally made me shout "Get on with it!" at my TV. On the whole, I came away satisfied and probably a little more enriched and thoughtful than I did going in. There's no other game quite like it; bizarrely wonderful stuff. Have no fear, I was glad for the recommendation, no matter how tricky! You'll have to let me know your thoughts on the KR0-esque book you recently picked up!
You're absolutely right about Star Trek. If you ever decide to take the plunge, I'd be happy to point you in the right directions, but it'll be something you'll come to in your own time. Kinda like Star Wars, the connections are there if you wanna see them, but they're not essential. Case in point: I did watch the Season Two opener of Mando and thought that Timothy Olyphant's character was a great addition, and a cool way of laying the groundwork for a certain person's return. It was only a couple days later, during yet another late-night Wookieepedia walk, that I discovered that the Marshal originated from a series of books that I haven't read; he was executed so well for newcomers, it didn't matter (he also scored bonus points with me, simply for riding one of Anakin's podracer engines as a speeder bike). That's the kinda balance I like, and Star Trek does that pretty well. You can just enjoy each show and each episode for what it is on the surface.
I'm glad you think Cad Bane is the coolest, because he is! Love him, and really hope they'll revisit his planned demise someday (maybe as part of the Bad Batch show?) or even better, keep him alive and give him more adventures! I got his Black Series figure in-hand the other day, along with a few others; been busy expanding my collection somewhat (pre-ordered some Hot Toys figures whilst I was at it). I tend to use UK sources but, if I'm ever browsing international sellers and see a good price for Darth Nihilus, I'll let you know!
@gbanas92 Yeah, I've covered it a bit already, but I thought the Krayt Dragon episode of Mando was a spectacular audio-visual experience with tons of great fan service, but it didn't exactly add any layers to Mando's character. It was a rollercoaster ride, nothing more. I'm braced for the next episode because I know a spoiler which speaks to my one and only fear; will watch it with the lights on!
Yeah, I found it quite telling that Republic Commando was a direct tie-in to the events of Revenge of the Sith, and yet it caused a discrepancy by still using Phase 1 Clonetroopers, presumably because they didn't wanna spoil the merchandising upgrade to the Phase 2 armour. I love how Captain Rex's Phase 2 helmet is customised and still retains echoes of the Phase 1 design; it's like he knows that it was better, and can't let go of it. I also love how, during Rebels, he's always complaining about Stormtrooper armou... uh-oh, I mentioned something from the original trilogy again! Mickey's gonna get me!
Mind if I ask why you hate Tatooine so much? Is it just the ironic convenience of it being an overused location (supposedly the backside of nowhere, and yet everything important in galactic history happens there)? I'd certainly call it the Darth Vader of planets, that's for sure! Always gotta visit Tatooine. Doesn't matter who you are, or where you're going, there's a booth in the Mos Eisley cantina with your name on it!
Don't worry, I didn't notice Mark Hamill's voice first time around either! Had to read the credits and then go back. He has an easily-disguised voice, and can manipulate it quite well.
Hey, we were all young once! Good to know I can avoid the book about Revan in future, thank you!
My copy of Miles Morales is on its way, but otherwise I'm still kinda happy to be waiting it out, I think. The reviews have made for interesting reading, and I upgraded my television and sound system this past week in preparation for the PS5, but I owe it to those seventy games! If my backlog was only four, I think I'd be joining you in the upgrade. Hope you enjoy Call of Duty (as a student of American politics, their recreation of President Reagan flawed me) and that you can see the leap up-close!
Mass Effect news finally broke! We can stop worrying about when to mention it now! Yay! Always the way, though; I shave off three games from my backlog, and then along comes a remastered trilogy to add three back on!
Yeah, was awful. There was also three-second lag on the sound effects in most levels, meaning that I couldn't distinguish my gunfire from that of the terrorists at times. Really highlighted the importance of good sound design in games, and how much you rely on audio cues as well as visual confirmation. I'd jump at the click of a reload, only to realise it was my own catching up with me. Interesting in a way, but a total immersion-shattering nightmare overall. Level design was ace, though!
No complaints here, either! Just gonna laugh when there's some kind of PushSquare end-of-year review and this turns out to win the "most popular article" category!
@RogerRoger It's been going swimmingly, thanks Launched a couple of days ago! Obligatory link just in case haha:
https://www.utopiadistrict.com
I am pretty glad I held off on playing them in a way now. Especially Tsushima. Since it'll benefit from the PS5. Squadrons I guess it doesn't matter, cuz I'm playing that in VR for sure! I keep adding onto the pile though too! Just scooped up Maneater at Best Buy because they had a crazy good sale for it. The backlog never goes away. I think I was 100% caught up on my backlog literally once in my life. Late 360 era I think haha. Republic Commando <3 .The memories! I played the demo for that on my Xbox like a thousand times and begged my mom for it for Christmas. Loved it. Used to have LAN parties to plan the MP mode with my buddies during sleepovers and such too!
Funnily enough, it arrived today. Several days late, but in one piece! Haven't really gotten to spend much time with it yet between trying to transfer everything over, and getting started on reviews. I was surprised by how large and heavy it was though, I'll say that!
I know exactly what you mean! Yeah that feeling definitely contributes to it being really tricky to making a proper recommendation of it to people. It's like an all or nothing experience. People either love it unconditionally or loathe it (like a certain Last Jedi hehe), and I haven't really seen much in the way of middleground. I also agree that and compliments or criticism of it are pretty well-founded though haha. It's obviously even from like 1 trailer, the game is catering to a very specific niche. I happen to fall under the "indie hipster trash" group for sure (that website being further proof haha) whose favorite show happens to be Twin Peaks which KR0 heavily reminds me of at times. I'm convinced Cardboard Computer just sat down and decided they wanted to make a game specifically for me. And will do! I haven't started it yet, but eventually, I'll have to take a pause on Star Wars books haha.
Yeah in season 1, there's that shot of a spur on the Tatooine episode and my first thought was "that's the cowboy man from the aftermath books!" and sure enough. (Those books are extremely underwhelming by the way haha. Probably not worth it. They just tried to clean the empire up in one big tidy fight, so Disney could shove First Order stuff in basically). I could do without that certain someone popping up, but I do like a healthy balance of cheeky references and new stuff. The most recent episode hit a very good balance on that front! From the bits of Star Trek I have seen, that's the vibe I got from them. Well the shows, not the Abrams movies haha. "There's more here and if I dig further, I could probably find some cool connections," right before I just don't dig any further haha.
Oh man, more Cad Bane sign me up! I am so there! God, that Filoni, man's made an awful lot of great Star Wars characters. More great characters than even Zahn maybe? In the Bad Batch, the show could be cool. Did they mention in passing or something, or would he just be a natural fit you think? Hot Toys? And cheers I had a shot the last time you told me about him but I missed it haha.
@RogerRoger Yeah the opener was a delight. It was wonderful! I too have that fear! But I will say this, as far as just sitting there and watching a show for a bit, that 2nd episode is my favorite of the whole series to date! I thought it juggled all the different tones and things it's aiming for especially well on that one!
Yeah, can't skip out on any chances to make money. Maybe that's why the game opens on Geonosis. See? We started when Phase 1 armor was still there, so none of the inconsistencies are actually a thing! We showed this era so you literally can't complain ever! Ooo that's a good point about Rex. I dunno if I ever really thought about that! Ooooo be careful about mentioning the you-know-what's!
So, that's the newest reason why I don't like Tatooine. "If there's a bright center to the galaxy, you're at the place farthest from it, yet literally everyone seems to go there always?!?!?!?! But the biggest reason I never liked it is I just find desert biomes super super dull. And the fact that's the one that pops up the most is kinda annoying. Jakku, Crait, all of it. Gah, I hate it! It's NOT a coincidence that the ONLY Star Wars movie to not go to Tatooine/Desert Place is the best one. Just saying.
Perks of being a professional voice actor haha. And A damn good one at that! Mark Hammill's just so wonderful. Already loved the guy, but all those interviews after Last Jedi, where he could barely contain the fact that he also didn't like the movie tickled me haha.
It was a losing battle out of the gate, trying to give Revan one definitive story, unfortunately. I appreciate the effort, but I think he's better suited to just kinda being mentioned once in a while, very vaguely. As a nice little easter egg. That way no one gets upset.
Definitely a bigger backlog than 4 now. I have 4 disc games I'm behind on now, let alone all the downloads! Miles Morales was the first thing I installed, COD should be here tomorrow. Download speeds are much much better, so that's something. Honestly, even if I don't like the new COD, it's just...something to play. I'm not a diehard fan of the series, but the Black Ops games specifically I historically like a lot more (Except Black Ops 3. Yikes.)
All the back and forth, Bioware must have been reading this convo! Three more games and then some! All the DLC too! Basically, an extra game all told. So 4 more games haha. But at least there's an official announce of it. What are we gonna talk about now though?
Even more important this generation with Sony's 3D audio push! 3D audio's the real deal though. After all the uses I've seen of it in VR, I really hope other people get behind it! But like you mentioned, sound design's important, and given how Sony's emphasizing it this time, bad sound design is only gonna get that much more obvious!
Oh god, I forgot to bring up Sean Connery! That one hurt to hear about
@RogerRoger
https://youtu.be/slAhuh21ii8
hmmmmm, what's all this then
@gbanas92 Yeah, I'll have to reply to everything properly a little later but, for now, let's just add this to the ever-growing "List of Things We Discuss That End Up Happening Shortly Afterwards" and look forward to playing it someday!
The real question is, should we use our newfound predictive superpower for good... or for eeevil...?!
@RogerRoger Definitely definitely evil. Let's make a Quiet Man sequel happen!
@gbanas92 Actually, I was thinking of mentioning Super Bombad Racing a couple more times. Can't think of a worse evil to unleash upon the world. Mwa ha ha!!
Thanks for the Bond heads-up the other day (and sorry I didn't say it then). Am real excited! Have literally said "Wow, I wish IO would make a Bond game!" out loud to people on multiple occasions over the past couple of years, so it's a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned. I think it's a long way away, but we've been waiting since 2012 so I can wait a little longer. Just knowing it's on the way helps!
That's a good-lookin' website! Congratulations on getting it up and running. Did you write for it, or help design it?
I'm real glad your PS5 arrived safely (especially in light of the scammer and scalper stories emerging from this side of the pond). Noticed the little PS5 icon on your PSN profile the other day and smiled. Have you played much on it thusfar? Not encountered any minor bugs or glitches? Ghost of Tsushima is gonna look absolutely stunning on it, when you get around to it, that's for sure! I agree with you about Call of Duty as well; every third or fourth campaign looks interesting to me, but I'm not a huge multiplayer person anyway, so I feel like the main point of the series is lost on me. You might've already completed it by now, given how short they usually are!
Republic Commando was badass. Can't believe it took me this long to get around to it! Would've loved to have checked out its multiplayer but, alas, even the PC servers are dead nowadays. It made me boot up Battlefront II and spend some time with the Commandos in that, though! Another game which doesn't care about Clone Trooper armour consistency, not that I'm complaining. Phase 1 (or the Geonosis BARC variants) all the way!
Well, I'd certainly remove the word "trash" from your description of indie hipsters, despite not being one myself; after all, you like Star Wars, which is being about as mainstream as you can be! And hey, I adore Twin Peaks as well. Wasn't always aware of it, but was introduced to it a couple of years ago, and I was equal parts confused and mesmerised by it. The entire show, and its movie, quickly became addictive after a couple of episodes. What did you think of its return season? Similar qualities have drawn me to other games over the years, including Virginia and Life is Strange (when I found the "Fire Walk With Me" polaroid in the latter, I might've uttered a literal squee).
Oh my goodness, Mando though. I won't write any details, just in case you haven't been able to keep current with its episodes, but I've been punching the air quite a bit in recent weeks! What do you make of the second season thusfar? Any theories on where it's all heading? It's cool that you got the tease of those Tatooine spurs. I always thought that they were Boba Fett, in light of the fact that I hadn't read the books. I guess I was half-right, given that the spurs (and the scanner noise that accompanied them) would've come from his armour. Be interesting to see what they make of that cameo appearance at the end of the premiere... and good to know I'm not missing much with those books, by the way, thanks for that. When I realised the Marshal had been written about before, I did feel as though I were being given homework!
@gbanas92 Filoni has written and directed this week's forthcoming Mando chapter, so I'm gonna be there, front row centre! No mention of anybody other than the Bad Batch themselves being in The Bad Batch. I just think the timeframe would fit, as would the premise (as they've said that they all have to become mercenaries under early Imperial rule, which is the kinda work that'd put them squarely in Cad Bane's circle).
Hot Toys are a division of Sideshow Collectibles. They make ultra-realistic, statuesque pop culture figures for a couple hundred bucks a piece. I've always looked on them with envy, but managed to snag two over the years, and have pre-ordered three more. They're scarily good (and expensive)!
(I'm kinda mashing paragraphs and topics together as I go, by the way, so apologies for the non-linearity of these replies!)
Oh, I made Tatooine even worse for you! Sorry! That's actually a fair point against deserts, they are terribly bland and generic. There's also the surface of Mandalore itself, outside of the city domes, which they visited during Rebels (and might visit again in Mando now, come to think of it... wouldn't be much of a change, as I've felt most of the planets visited in that show have blended together somewhat, although the second season is trying to mix things up a little better in that regard). Well, we respectfully disagree about which Star Wars movie is the best, but that's actually a point in favour of Empire there, for sure! Give me a forest or a well-crafted city any day!
I've seen those Mark Hamill interviews, yes! They're hilarious, him just rolling his eyes behind Rian Johnson all the time!
And true, best way to handle the product of a choice-based character like Revan, for sure. I kinda respected Mass Effect Andromeda for that, when they deliberately avoided making reference to the original trilogy (one of the few things it got right out of the gate). I got nervous when they asked me whether my Shepard was male or female, but then didn't let me import my customised face; thankfully a bullet dodged there! Really looking forward to that forthcoming remaster. I missed some of the first game's DLC as it was exclusive to Xbox, so I'll finally be getting to play absolutely everything!
I've been wrestling with a few new sound systems in my apartment these past few weeks, trying to find the right one. To test some out, I booted up some older games with poor sound and it was an audio nightmare! I keep hearing a lot of praise for 3D audio, without having actually heard it yet, so I think I'll be leaning on my headset more than ever before.
Yeah, tough news. Roger Moore was a bigger hit for me personally, but it's always a sad day when such an iconic figure passes away. May he rest in peace.
@RogerRoger Well that's a cruel kind of evil. Because i'd be almost obligated to play it
I've never explicitly thought about IO doing it, but I've never spent much time with Hitman (outside of watching friends play it), but after seeing the trailer my initial reaction was "oh, duh!" kinda like the Insomniac Spiderman announce originally. It just seems like such a natural home run!
I didn't design, my buddy founded the site designed it, and did an outrageously amazing job if I'm, being honest. I wrote a whole mess of the launch day content and I'm leading the writing team!
Hoping to see a PS5 pop up on your name at some point too! I haven't played a ton of actual next-gen stuff yet. A little bit of a few things. I wanna play SpiderMan but after all the news about it bricking PS5's and the fact it did break the PS5 entirely once already, I'm staying way the hell away from that until it's fixed. The fact that it hasn't been yet is...troubling...I did actually finish COD hahha. It's short even by COD standards. Maybe...4 hours? 5? It wasn't very good...lol. The Pathless, the game I was most hyped for its by far my favorite so far! It's lovely!!!!!
Those LAN parties I remember it being horrifically unbalanced haha. We used to play a lotta slappers only, cuz of how cool the blade melee was. Assassin's Creed stole it!Yeah consistency on branding has been a problem for Star Wars. Especially anyimte a movie comes along and wants to sell a new Star Destroyer toy or something so it's like "look, this ship happened in between the Venator and Victory classes, we just never ever saw one before because they were fighting in a different region!" they've been pulling the same damn thing basically since Empire. Super Star Desrtroyer!
Oh "indie-trash" is by no means how I'd describe it haha. I see comments like that all the time, usually when the new PS+ games get announced haha. Yeah Star Wars is the ultimate indie trash!!! I always heard about Peaks but didn't start trying to watch until early high school, i loved immediately and kept loving the more times I rewatched it. By the time I started taking film courses in college I was already completely obsessed! Fire Walk With Me is stellar. My favorite Lynch film by far, with Blue Velvet a distant 2nd. "The Return" is complicated haha. If I had to give a simple overall feeling, I love it. But there are lots of asterisks haha. That 8th episode is one of the single greatest hours of television ever committed to film though! Second only to maybe the Twin Peaks pilot haha. How do you feel bout the return? That's the exact reason I wanted to play Virginia!!! I reviewed that for Push Square actually. Life is Strange too come to think of it. Season 1 anyway haha.
@RogerRoger Since I took so long to reply I'm also gonna try n avoid spoilers haha. There's been a lot of stuff that I hate a lot haha. The amount of fan service is absolutely killing me. BUT. All of the fan-service stuff is being done brilliantly if I'm being honest. I still like it all even while I'm rolling my eyes. The Filoni directed episode, in particular, was very very very very well executed!!! Given what we see later this season your guess on the Spurs was actually right! Which makes it even weirder that I thought it was the Marshall who they also then introduced this season haha. Yeah, those books are....not good. Book 1 was really bad, 2 and 3 were a little better but overall I'd say hard pass even with all the important info in them. We do have that Bad Batch trailer to think about now! And seriously Cad Bane popping up in there would be great. The animated shows seem pretty good about that stuff too. Like Hondo! And the... Andor show....and the other 19 projects they announced. I can't say I'm explicitly excited for most of it, but it's not like I'm not gonna watch it!
Ahhh okay. Sideshow I do know, but Hot Toys I'd never heard of! Anytime I've ever seen any of those sideshow statues I've been extremely impressed. They look insanely good! The only Sidehosw statue I have is Malgus from the old republic collectors edition. At least I think that was them?
Mandalore is flat, but at least there's color...sometimes? Ish haha. I just find them super dull. Anything anyone could have said or done with a desert was covered in the first movie , and Lawrence of Arabia haha. And the Brendan Fraser mummy. Time to move on!
Agreed, season 2 has been better about distinguishing which place was where! Also the big "Boba" episode, did you catch the name of the planet?!?!? That was one of the fanservice things I was SUPER okay with!
Disney made sure he stopped doing that real quick! Which I guess sure, it's not very professional to do that, but I agree with him, so it's okay this time. And it's just really funny!
I was impressed with how they managed to sidestep that issue as well! It was a clever workaround even if the final product was troubling. You must have loved that new Mass Effect trailer reveal at the game awards then 🤣. Oh god I totally forgot about some of the DLC being exclusive!!! Didn't they "fix" that when they released the trilogy package? Each version of that had different DLC but I thought you could go buy it after that?
Yeah, I can't recommend utilizing 3D audio enough! It's kinda like VR, which makes sense since that's where it first started popping up. In that it's tricky to articulate without experiencing yourself, but it's so so great! Definitely one of the bigger new features since the graphical leap is so much smaller than usual!
Neither Moore or Connery hit terribly hard if I'm being honest. OUtside of losing a great actor tied to a character I'm fond of anyway. And a more general loss of life of course. What DID hit me excruciatingly hard, and still is, was Alex Trebeck Between his love hockey (which I'm obsessed with BTW, we've exchanged so many comments I genuinely can't remember if I brought that up!) and how much I love Jeopardy, It hurts a lot. How popular is Jeopardy in the UK? I'm not sure how significant Alex Trebeck's cultural impact is or was across the ocean!
@gbanas92 I'm sure the experience of replaying Super Bombad Racing would be a positive revelation! Might even convert you into a true believer (although in what, exactly, I'm not sure)!
How goes your holiday period? Well, I hope! Compliments of the season to you and your family.
I can definitely recommend the Hitman franchise, especially to a fellow Bond fan, as it taps into that same cool, calm and stylish spycraft (only with slightly darker context; that being said, Agent 47 is definitely an anti-hero instead of a villain, as all of his targets are thoroughly nasty and deserving of assassination). Some of the older games haven't aged well, but they all contain the series' unique DNA. Being able to play the entire World of Assassination trilogy is gonna be a real treat!
Sweet, nicely done! I miss leading a team sometimes; it's a good position to be in. I wish you and your friends the very best of luck with it going forward!
I was away from my PS4 for an extended stretch, and have only really just returned to it (to play Star Wars: Squadrons which I am not good at, not in the slightest, but the immersive atmosphere is pulling me through). It's gonna be a while before I've cleared my backlog enough to justify a PS5, I think. I'm real glad you've been impressed by The Pathless, but sorry to hear of your issues with the other games you mentioned. Bricking bugs are never fun! That being said, seems like Cyberpunk 2077 has taken the bug-based crown this year... heck, this generation. I'm sure they've fixed Spidey by now, yeah? At least, I sure hope so!
Super-Dooper Ultimate Star System Destroyers!! Hopefully the direction of the franchise will become more grounded; they'll always have the High Republic Era to introduce new merchandise opportunities. I think, if the second season of The Mandalorian proved anything, Disney have started to recognise the positive potential of keeping things familiar.
Because yeah, if my avatar wasn't enough of a hint, I adored the execution of this year's Mando. Did the fanservice get a bit ridiculous? Yes, of course it did, but I felt like it was (almost) all justified; again, it tells me Disney is respecting the canon, and using established logic. Who else could've answered Grogu's call at that time? How else do you draw scattered Mandalorians together, without using their most famous face? I do agree with your thoughts, though. What did you make of the finale, and how has the season left you feeling? At the very least, I've got a bit more faith in the dozens of projects still to come. Beforehand, we didn't have much to place our faith in (one genuinely decent movie, Rogue One, in amongst a terrible trilogy and an inoffensive popcorn box office bomb) but now I'm gonna let myself get excited for The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett. The others I'll give a chance, even if their elevator pitches aren't lighting my fandom on fire. What are your highlights?
@gbanas92 I'm always disheartened by those who're dismissive of indie games, or anything they don't particularly like. Just because it wasn't tailor-made for you, doesn't make it trash! As much as I'm primarily drawn to major Triple-A gloss, I often surprise myself by how captivating I find random, smaller experiences; just goes to show, you shouldn't judge something until you try it for yourself, I guess! You took film in college? That's really cool! I wish I'd pursued my creative talents younger. Trying to reinvent myself as a writer after a career in emergency response has been, and still is, really tough.
Twin Peaks: The Return was a mixed bag for me, but in a unique way which absolutely suited it. For every moment I was blown away, there was a scene I'd get totally bored with (why did we watch that guy sweep a floor for two whole minutes?) but it was all very, very Peaks and perfectly executed. It played with people's expectations in a beautiful way. It left me expecting another season but, the more I thought about it, the more I realised it didn't necessarily need one. Like you said, a lot of asterixis!
I'll bet that Sideshow statue of Malgus looks amazing! Commander Wolffe and a B1 Battle Droid on a STAP are the two I currently have, but I've pre-ordered Clone Wars variants of Anakin and Maul, as well as Jango Fett. Slowly building my army!
Oh, I do love those Brendan Fraser Mummy movies! Makes me wanna re-watch them (but I'm currently knee-deep in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it's kinda gotten me hooked)! Tython was a reference I didn't get until days later, since I saw people freaking out about it and went looking for its Wookieepedia page. I really should start the Knights of the Old Republic games again! Made for a nice nod, though. Maybe laying groundwork to ensure that this High Republic Era project is gonna be faithful to previously-established concepts?
Did you ever find the Liara cameo in Andromeda, by the way? That was good enough for me! Am very excited to replay the trilogy on PS5 later this year, yes, because I reckon they might sprinkle in some hints towards Mass Effect 4 (or whatever it'll end up being called). How can they continue the trilogy without making one of its four endings canon, though? They might just bite the bullet and say "Okay, this is what happened, tough!" because hey, it's not like anybody was happy about the endings anyway! Do you have enough trust in BioWare anymore? And no, some of the DLC for the first game remained exclusive to Xbox and PC, even after the package got released on PS3. It was only one chunk of it, I reckon, but it always made me feel like I was missing something (especially since I love the first game so much; it's almost my favourite of the whole franchise).
@gbanas92 You're not wrong; I saw some PS5 screencaps posted in the forum and yeah, they're nice an' all, but they look like PS4 games to me (albeit good ones). I'm sure, when playing on my new TV, I'll be able to tell the difference, but anything like 3D audio which can give the upgrade an edge will be welcome!
Condolences for the loss of Alex Trebek. I know the name, and know of Jeopardy, but only because I'm a fan of American culture; I doubt few of my fellow countrymen would recognise either, I'm afraid. It speaks to how vast popular culture is, when we share so much of it, yet still keep huge chunks of it within our borders. Kinda like ice hockey, actually; that's a distinctly Canadian-American sport! We have it over here (I grew up near an ice rink which was home to a team) but alas, like most other sports, it's kept in the shadow of soccer, rugby, tennis and Formula 1 racing. Do you play hockey, or just admire it?
@RogerRoger A true believer of super...bom...bad...dery? I guess? Right back atcha on the holiday wishes, even though it's now February lol.
Success seems to vary wildly. I recall one of them (Absolution?) being very poorly received because it was basically just a linear action game and everyone seemed to kinda hate it haha. Having never really spent time with 'em, I find it super weird just how much I've paid attention to them!
Yeah, it's pretty exhausting! But immensely fulfilling. What did you do in the past that called for leading a team like that? What'd you switch to when you stopped?
I keep needing to actually go back to Squadrons. I played mission 1, thought it was alright, and then just...kinda never went back to it haha. I need to finish it! Every time I think I'm ready to go back, I decide it's time for another game. Been playing through all of Control again now cuz of the PS5 one! Yeah, Cyberpunk's a big ol' yikes. I just haven't bothered to start. I'll wait till it's actually in the shape they shoulda waited to ship it in. Probably gonna be a few more months lol. You know I'd have expected Spidey to be fixed as well, but it's not been patched in months, and I still can't play it. Kinda messed up that such a widespread problem is just kinda...okay? Especially given how much attention the game gets.
See I would think so too, but they already knew the familiarity sold well because of stuff like Rogue One. I'm worried that they're gonna overcorrect now. They need Favreau and Filoni to stand firm on their instincts because for better or worse they know their fan-service. It's all still fan-service, but it's hard to argue it's not all done pretty damn well.
Especially with the High Republic stuff, I've looked up some synopses and narrative ideas, and bought the Claudia Gray book (haven't started ut yet) but so far everything I've seen in the era just seems kinda...dull? It all feels like uninspired retreads of stuff that's come before, they're just taking from more sources at once than usual, so it's a bizarre mishmash. And all the stories so far just sound kinda tame. They basically took Outbound Flight and put a bunch of "retro" republic stuff around it haha.
I thought the one to answer Grogu's call would have been Ezra! Or, when I was really worried about the show, I was worried it was gonna be answered by the ghost of Yoda. I got especialllllllly nervous about that when they said they were going to Tython! But I'm not sure I'm more satisfied with it being Luke lol. That final episode was basically exactly what I was worried the show was gonna turn into all along. Although it seems like Grogu might just not be around for season or 3 or something? I'd be very okay with that, but I don't see how Disney could possibly financially justify doing that? But I'd rather have this safe show that connects a lot of things together than someone who actually despises the property? It won't get me excited in the way I'd necessarily want, but at least it won't actively destroy the fictional world? I guess that's a win haha.
@RogerRoger Agreed, I never really got that. It's pretty easy to see something that's good as a quality product even if it doesn't cater to what you specifically want. Just because you don't want it, doesn't suddenly invalidate it as a work of art. And yep yep some film courses, some game courses, little bit o' everything, very helpful for being able to articulate why I think certain elements of a project work or not, not too helpful past that though haha. What kinda writing you trying to pursue? Or do you mean you did do that, and now are doing something else?
Oh yeah, I felt the same way! The further from the Return it gets, the less I feel like I need another season. I'd absolutely watch one, but I don't feel as though I need it anymore. Completely agreed though. For everything that worked, there was something that didn't really land. Which almost became part of the appeal. But the stuff that did work? Hoo boy, it realllllllly worked!
Yeah, it's a pretty damn cool statue! I basically only have statues that were included in collector's editions of games, and by those standards, it's probably the nicest looking one I've got! You'll be able to re-create the entirety of Attack of the Clones soon! Or as, we call it here, the best Star Wars movie.
Oh, I totally forgot about Agents of Shield haha. I watched the first few seasons, I remember liking it early before I kinda just stopped caring haha. I remember I liked season 1 and 2 a lot.
I do miss seeing Brendan Fraser in movies. I always liked him. Bring him into Star Wars, hell with it! Get that man on screen again! Oooo that's true, Tython coulda been placed there because it'll be important for something in the High Republic. I haven't seen it explicitly brought up, but I haven't exactly dug very far into the High Republic yet either.
Oh yeah, I saw that Liara easter egg! All the little references to things happening over in the galaxy I cared about were nice to see haha. Well, luckily you don't have to hurry up and get a PS5 to play the remasters, since they're just...PS4 games? Bit of an odd choice honestly, but eh whatever. The remasters look pretty good from what we've seen so far.
I'm very curious to see what their solution winds up being? I don't see how they can win with doing it either. No matter what ending they pick, a huge number of people are gonna be upset? And if they're so determined to bring back faces from the old ones, then they basically have to pick on no? And I definitely don't have trust in Bioware haha. They lost it after ME3, and continued to not gain any trust back afterwards too. Especially since they said it's gonna take place after the first trilogy. ME1 is my favorite by far too! Not too worried about Pinnacle Station not being in the remaster either lol. The source code was gone so they'd need to remake it, and frankly, it's not worth it. Pinnacle Station was awful!
@RogerRoger I can't wait to start seeing the games taking better advantage of the new hardware going forward. Like that Control PS5 port! Honestly, the game looks and plays like Remedy made it for the PS5 first, but the fact it was still a PS4 game also kinda shows just how much closer the line is than ever for console generations! But those load times though. The SSD, even if it is that teeny tiny one, is sooooo much faster for loading!
Yeah Jeopardy's one I figured might not have carried too far outside North America. Basically, everyone knows the show and Trebeck around here, but it makes sense that that doesn't carry outside the area all that much.
Hell soccer works in that same way in the states. America basically just doesn't care! I always loved playing it growing up, but I don't watch it very much either. So I'm a fairly typical American in that respect. And nah, hockey's huge overseas too! Russia & Scandinavia though, not nearly as much the rest of Europe. Never played, unfortunately. By the time I realized I was absolutely obsessed with it, it was too late to be worth trying to play. When I'm a settled old grump, might try 'n pick up a rec league to play in or something though haha. Agreed though, it's crazy how much overlap differing cultures have, but more interesting is often the stuff that DOESN'T overlap!
@gbanas92 Yeah, a long-overdue Happy New Year to you, too! Every time I log in lately, I seem to be fighting dozens of notifications, but your story about Republic Commando yesterday was well-timed (and awesome news)!
If you're ever gonna give Hitman a go, I'd recommend Absolution. It's very dark and twisted in terms of story, but the gameplay criticisms are slightly misplaced, in my opinion. It's slick stuff, and perhaps what Bond games should've been aiming for around the same time. I've been replaying a lot of Bond recently, in anticipation of Project 007. Can't wait!
I was in a specific branch of emergency response (so yeah, "exhausting but immensely fulfilling" pretty much covers it). After a soap-opera-esque series of events took its toll, I'm now trying to switch gears and become an author, which has its own challenges, but none as immediate or stressful, thank goodness! I'm currently working on my first novel. It's an idea I've had since I was a teenager, but recent events have (hopefully) enabled me to give it some weight and meaning.
Shame about Spidey; I'm assuming it still isn't patched? But yeah, what happened to Cyberpunk was unprecedented. What a crazy situation to watch unfold! CD Projekt Red have lost almost all of their accumulated reputation, and I can't see them clawing it back anytime soon (even if they manage a Battlefront II type of comeback in future). Glad to see such praise for Control, and some impressive technical results. If you're enjoying it so much, I'm guessing you were a big fan of Alan Wake, yeah? From what I understand, it's another game with strong Twin Peaks vibes!
Do get back to Squadrons if you can. I ended up being really impressed with its story. It's nothing special, but it's well-balanced and very solid Star Wars, with some really cool new (and returning) characters to meet along the way. Would be interested to read what you make of it someday!
I've been hearing similar things about The High Republic, which makes me less concerned about letting it all pass me by, if I'm honest. I know I should form my own opinions an' all but I see some of the introductory character profiles and synopses and I just think "...yawn." There's nothing there to really make it stand out, or to make it essential, and launching it alongside the season finale of The Mandalorian was a massive mistake, publicity-wise. Took all the attention and headlines away. Beyond the Claudia Grey book, do you think you'll check it all out eventually? Or will you let a lot of it slide if it doesn't grab you?
@gbanas92 I was hoping for Ezra as well, especially after Ahsoka name-dropped Thrawn in her episode! But I guess we're getting a dedicated spin-off show for that now! Sorry to hear Luke's appearance reinforced some of your fears; as much as I loved it, I'm hoping it was a one-off treat to give Grogu's departure some fanboy gravitas. Like you, I'm concerned that Disney won't let him leave the show for good (he's a merchandising dream come true) which means I'm equally concerned that we haven't seen the last of Luke. With all the spin-off shows running headlong into nostalgia territory, I'd quite like Mando to keep doing his own thing, albeit alongside Bo Katan (although she isn't the deepest of cuts, so she doesn't distract too much). You're right, the danger of having damage done to the universe is all too real. Safe might be dull, but at least it's still safe!
Did you always know you wanted to become a media journalist, then? Is that why you studied a background of the stuff you'd end up writing about? Or did you wanna get into moviemaking and / or games development at some point?
It's weird trying to sell Twin Peaks to people who've never watched it, because you have to basically describe a show which swings wildly between "infuriatingly awful" and "unbridled genius" every other scene! All shows have high and low points, but none are as extreme as Peaks, I'd say. Although when Kyle MacLachlan turned up in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and outclassed every other actor he shared the screen with, it did make me yearn for another season! They could call it "The Continuing Adventures of Dougie" and just film him nerding out about coffee. I'd watch that in a heartbeat!
Brendan Fraser would make an amazing smuggler in the Star Wars universe. He'd work very well alongside Mando, or maybe as one of these new "Rangers of the New Republic" (to replace Gina Carano's planned part, perhaps). There's room for him, Disney! Call his agent!
Yeah, with no exclusive PS5 edition, I'll be playing the Mass Effect remasters right away (they do get an upgrade patch for PS5 via backwards compatibility though, don't they? So you'll see some benefit, at least). I think it looks amazing, lens flare an' all, although I'm slightly disappointed that they didn't take the opportunity to reactivate some of the discarded dialogue, like romance options from the first two games that they bottled due to social outcry. It's a minor gripe, though. Still one of the greatest gaming trilogies of all time, no question!
Do you think they'll tweak something in the remaster of Mass Effect 3 in order to make a sequel possible? Because you're right, they're either killing Shepard and sending everybody back to the Stone Age, or they're making Shepard some all-seeing, all-knowing supercomputer. Oh God, what if they make him / her a S.A.M. implant voice which follows you around the entire game, like in Andromeda with Ryder?! That could be... well, hilarious, if I'm honest, but in a really bad way! Glad to know I'm not missing anything from Pinnacle Station, by the way. Thanks for the reassurance! At least we've still got the Citadel DLC, and Lair of the Shadow Broker. Those were my favourites!
@gbanas92 Jeopardy would get mentioned, or even seen, in a lot of successful sitcom imports, like Friends and Frasier. Comedy and drama seems to translate better than quiz shows; we usually end up making our own versions of some formats, to adapt the questions, but we haven't had a Jeopardy (yet). I see those same sitcoms taking swipes at soccer, so I can believe you on that point! Didn't realise hockey was so international, that's pretty awesome (and of course it'd be popular in Russia and Scandinavia, where the lakes freeze long enough to play on)! It's never too late to give anything a shot.
It's the old joke, the tourist halfway around the world who says "I wanna see how a Big Mac tastes over here!" Although it does make me smile to see "traditional" British pubs in other countries, because they're usually anything but! Same as I'm sure you'd recoil at our idea of an American diner!
@RogerRoger Man, I keep getting worse with responding to these lmao. Every time I remember I need to (basically every day mind you) I think "Nah I'll do it tomorrow when I can give it the time it deserves, and then I just...don't haha. (not opposed to conversing via Facebook or Twitter or some such place should that be faster, I'll leave that up to you!)
Given what I've heard about Absolution (the stuff past "It's bad and should feel bad" mind you) I'm inclined to agree. I think that formula'd work better with Hitman!
Writing!?!?!? If you want someone to do some reading or editing for you, lemme know! I do some o' that on the side from time to time, and I'd love to lend a hand
It actually still hasn't been patched believe it or not! I gave up and just turned the settings down. So one of the games I got with the hopes of it showcasing the PS5, I had to play below its peak performance. Couldn't use the Ray Tracing mode, and I think I ended up playing 30 fps? Idr now haha. It was excellent though! Minus the insane problem! For real CDPR hasn't really gained any of it back yet either! Did you see the thing about the Bonuses the higher ups got compared to the baseline employees??!?! They're very visibly looking like all the other publishers in the scene these days...
Haha, guilty! Alan Wake is one of my favorites of all time! Kentucky Route Zero is like the only game I'd place above it haha. I adore that game!
I did in fact return to Squadrons though! And honestly I uh....I didn't like it very much? It was gorgeous, the story was solid, and I reallllly like the soundtrack, but the gameplay overstayed it's welcome for me. The biggest issue though, couple missions from the end of the game, I got in a hard crash loop where I couldn't progress, and since I was only having an okay time to begin with, I just put it down, and don't really intend to go back. The VR stuff was awesome, but I think overall I'd give the game a big ol' shrug.
Alright so this is gonna be funny, but that High Republic Book I was talking about not having started several months ago, I finished last week haha. It was...not great. Even Claudia Gray wasn't enough! There were like 18 main characters, and they were ALL new (to me at least). Hard to keep track of everyone. Not a great first impression. I basically forced myself to finish so it didn't get in the way of the new Thrawn book haha. At present I think I'm stand by my not being super interested in the High Republic thing yeah haha. Gray is the only author that's worked in the space I alreayd like, and even she wasn't able to do a ton with it. That makes me...very weary. Plus like we've said before, the proximity to the "current" timeline is just awkwardly close. Just go wayyyyy back if you wanted to do your own thing. I swear it was only a couple hundred years back so they could namedrop Yoda once in a while...
@RogerRoger For real! I guess technically that weird Force "Beckon-Call" summoning Luke made more sense, Ezra woulda been more interesting. The spin-off for Ahsoka I'm definitely interested in though. Especially if that leaked synopsis, about Thrawn being the central narrative point of the series is true! I do think that's their plan with Luke, hopefully anyways. It totally reaffirmed my biggest concerns, but all that being said, it was still really awesome to see. Luke's been my fav from Star Wars basically from day 1, so seeing him again (like the Luke people actually care about, not the Rian Johnson version) was pretty awesome. Oh I have a thought about that. And go with me. A Jedi Academy series! Keep Grogu around, do more Luke stuff. My biggest problem is all the big stuff is being shoved into Mando, not that they're doing it in the first place, so I'd be super super down with a Jedi Academy series! Bo Katan would def make sense to keep around though. Her being involved feels less like shoe-horning and just a natural inclusion to the series!
Both in fact! I swapped majors multiple times through college, started with game design, pivoted to film-making, and hated both haha. Just took a writing course as a requirement, but it was journalism, and I found I veryyyyyy greatly enjoyed the reviewing and op-ed end of it all! It's work, but in an enjoyable way. Always like having opinions about media, but never really got into making it myself haha.
Yeah, Peaks is honestly something I just don't try and sell people on haha. THat's a show people either already know they want to watch, and if they don't know that, they probably won't like it haha. Honestly similar to Kentucky Route Zero in that sense! That's not a game you can sell many people on, but the ones you can? They'll probably love it. I completely forgot he showed up in Agents of SHIELD!!! The early seasons of that show were so great. The stuff with Bill Paxton?! Ahhh it was great! More of absolutely anything Peaks I'm in! Well, peaks from Lynch and Frost. Not from someone else haha.
Ooooo I got it! Brendan Fraser could play Dash Rendar!!! Then he could pop up in Rangers and Mando! Both sides of the law type thing! Even if Dash is just Han Solo lite. It's worth it for Brendan Fraser haha.
Was a PS5 patch for Mass Effect confirmed? I don't remember now. A tonnn of PS4 games have been doing it though, so it sure seems likely. As it's gotten closer I have been more and more compelled to dive back in. All of it one package is compelling, especially having them be touched up. Plus it's been so long since I was enveloped in the series, that even knowing I hate the endpoint, I think I could enjoy the earlier stuff to a comparable level to when I first played it finally. I think enough time has passed haha. Now I'm not bitter, just sad it turned out that way. The reworks look excellent though. ME1 especially, obviously haha. The whole game not being in soft focus is crazy to see. ME1 looked great, but all the textures were very soft as a compromise haha. Sneaking a scene or two in there to set up the next one would make a lotta sense to me. I hope they do that!
@RogerRoger Although turning Shepard into basically Navi from Zelda would be hilarious lmao. Agreed on not revisiting some of the old romance possibilities though. Granted 3 huge games and all DLC in one package isn't exactly easy so they just might not have had time, especially with all the work they did do. Yeah so much of that DLC is fantastic! I really loved Kasumi's DLC. And Shadow Broker of course haha.
Adapting quiz shows rather than bringing them over whole-hog definitely makes sense. That seems to happen just about everywhere haha. Hey, at least Frasier made it over haha! I love Frasier! That and Everybody Loves Raymond were always my favorite sitcoms. And Golden Girls. Although a lot of it I'm really glad there are no attempts to adapt it. I don't wanna see an American version of the Big Fat Quiz Shows. I just wanna watch the Big Fat Quiz Shows that already exist! Or god forbid someone tried to remake Garth Marneghi's Darkplace. That would probably kill me so I could then turn over in my grave!
Yeah hockey's got plenty of international power luckily. It's been doing really well these past years ratings wise too, so it might finally get recognition as one of the "big sports" that it deserves! Plus you got The Mighty Ducks continuation on Disney+ too! Ironically it's doing all the same kinda stuff I was sad to see Star Wars do, but I like it there haha. Not sure if you ever watched those old movies growing up or anything, but much as I love them, they're not good movies. So the show being quaint and predictable is kinda comforting in a way.
True, that idealized version of something you see somewhere else that looks so unique and interesting to "out of towners" but ultimately those are just regular things in those areas. So treating them with the reverance they sometimes are in foreign countries just isn't the right tone. Ahhahaha yeah an American Diner! Hell, a lot of the ones here are kinda facsimiles of them now, let alone across the pond!
@RogerRoger Oh oh! And I forgot one!!!! All the Bond talk we did over the months got me antsy to watch them, and it so happens I have a buddy who has NEVER WATCHED ANY OF THEM. He had seen part of Casino Royale and that was it! So now we're watching the entire franchise. Started with Brosnan, finished all those (Tomorrow Never Dies and Goldeneye are still brilliant! World is Not Enough isn't nearly as awful as I remember. Die Another Day is exactly as awful as I remember). Then we went on to Craig after that! I hadn't seen a bunch of these in ages, but man Casino Royale is great. Quantum of Solace big no on that one haha. But somehow, Skyfall was BETTER than I remember? Haha, might be cuz we watched that and Quantum the same day though. Skyfall is absolutely perfect haha. Literally everything they coulda gotten right, they did. I'm kinda dreading Spectre though haha.
Oh god, and the Republic Commando port has come out since too! I need to stay more on top of actually responding haha. So much stuff!
@gbanas92 So, first up, absolutely no worries regarding any delayed response (as I'm proving here with my own late reply). I'm grateful you wanna give our conversation care and attention!
Unfortunately, I'm quite the reclusive luddite when it comes to social media and so, in terms of an online presence, I can only be found here on PushSquare, as well as on PSN. How about creaky old email? Saving an ongoing draft make it easier to write longer replies before hitting send (not that I'd ever expect an essay; we just seem to find a lot to cover!) and we wouldn't run the risk of timeout or length warnings.
If you like the idea, send me a PSN message with your email address on (or I can send you mine first; happy either way). Once we've done a quick handshake, I'll copy over the above and answer it all then. If you'd rather not, no worries! I'll just come back here and continue our steady march towards Comment #150!
@RogerRoger Glad to hear that haha. I quite enjoy the exchanges!
Hahah no worries! Yeah e-mail is a-okay! Shoot your e-mail to my Push Square one ([email protected]) and then I can respond on my personal account after that!
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