Author: Shmee

Posted on

What’s Up With Loot Crates?

By now I am sure you have heard Star Wars Battlefront II had to remove the ability to buy in game currency with real money because that was how you bought Loot Crates, and in Battlefront II Loot Crates are how you make your characters better.  In other words it may not have been pay to win, but it was definitely pay to get better, and worse it was pay to get randomly better.

In every other game so far Loot Crates have been random rewards, like new character and weapon skins, or in Forza 7’s case random cars, but never the way to progress in a game, and I personally always liked them.  I like opening them up to see what I can see, and for the most part I was always fine unlocking them through my in game play.  It didn’t bother me that other people were buying them with real money because it mostly just meant that they had cooler looking stuff, but we were still on a level playing field.  Battlefront II changed all that, and fans rightfully came down on that game.

Like I said I am all for Loot Crates.  I can’t wait to see what I get once I earn one, but game makers just need to make sure they are not taking things too far, and Star Wars Battlefront II definitely went too far.  I hope other developers learn from their mistake.

Posted on

The Justice League Has Finally Been United!

It has been a long time coming, but the Justice League has finally made their big screen debut, and for nerds like me it was a pretty great moment, but for everyone else it was probably just ‘fine’.  The movie had too many things to do and not enough time to do it, but the characters themselves were awesome.  Showing that if nothing else DC has a great casting director.

The movie starts pretty soon after Batman v Superman, and the world is still mourning the loss of Superman (Henry Cavill).  AKA The monster that everyone hated after Man of Steel because he destroyed Metropolis, but I guess you don’t know what you got until it is gone.  Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) has decided to take Lex Luthor’s (Jesse Eisenberg) advice seriously and get ready for an invasion, so he has to get a very special team together.

The team is far and away the best part of the Justice League.  Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa are great as The Flash and Aquaman.  Bringing their characters to life with so much fun and flare.  Ray Fisher was fine as Cyborg, but he wasn’t given much to do other then brood, so I will need to see more of him before I pass final judgement.  Gal Godot as Wonder Woman continued to be great, but the movie needed to pick up the camera off the floor when filming her scenes.  We get it, she has a nice butt.  Ben Affleck was given most of the heavy lifting in this movie to try and connect everything together, so sadly a lot of his dialog was exposition, and his character suffers for it.  Making him the least convincing member of the League.  I am not going to say much about Superman, other than he finally gets to genuinely smile, and it is fabulous.

Unfortunately the movie built around this great cast was not great, and honestly unlike everyone else I am not upset about the fact their villain was another gray blob.  When introducing three new characters you don’t have time to develop a villain, so random angry alien guy makes sense.  The problem was this movie was rushed.  The special effects are garbage.  The reshot scenes seemed to be filmed with a different type of camera on cheaper sets, so they stand out in bad way.  All in all this movie needed more time, and Warner Brothers/DC will no doubt pay the price for not delaying Justice League until early next year.

The fantastic cast of well acted characters made the Justice League work for me.  It has been a lifelong dream to see the League all together on screen, and slapdash special effects and poorly edited added scenes were not enough to ruin that for me.  For other people, maybe wait to rent or stream Justice League.  Though you will want to see it.  If only to get ready for Aquaman because after Jason Momoa’s fun performance you will be as pumped for it as I am.

Posted on

You Should Skip ‘See It/Skip It’!

Rotten Tomatoes forced me to watch their new show ‘See It/Skip it’ in order to get the Tomato Score for Justice League yesterday, and I won’t be doing it again.  Thanks to Metacritic I already knew what the score would probably be, but because Justice League is a major film, especially for a DC geek like me, I was super curious.  It was a mistake I will not be making twice.

Listen, even if they pull this, “We aren’t going to post the score until after the show airs for a few hours!”, nonsense again.  I will just be patient and wait for every other media outlet on the internet to tell me what it is because ‘See It/Skip It’ is almost unwatchable.  The hosts have no charisma, or any chemistry together, and it all comes off super scripted.  Plus, I am not sure why I am supposed to take their advice over the advice their website is already giving me.  For the record they both said ‘See It’ for Justice League that way you will know what everyone is taking about Monday, but that they didn’t think it was very good.  Which is kind of an odd stance to take.

Anyway, ‘See It/Skip it’ is a waste of everyone’s time.  There is so much other stuff to read and watch on the internet about movies, and I am sure just about all of it is better than ‘See It/Skip It’.  I am hoping Rotten Tomatoes will have a Tomato Score for its own show because it will not be good.

Posted on

Did Rotten Tomatoes Forget That Metacritic Exists?

So by now I am sure that you have heard that Rotten Tomatoes is withholding Justice League critic reviews and the ‘Tomato Score’ until it streams its new show ‘See It/Skip It’, and if Rotten Tomatoes was the only critic aggregating site in town it might make sense to use its popularity to promote its new show this way, but guess what?  It is not.  If you want to go see a bunch of reviews with an average score just click on over to Metacritic.

I can save you some clicking and just tell you that Justice League is doing okay.  Not great, but much better than Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad.  Apparently the story is rushed nonsense, but the characters are great, so if you love Bats and Wondy, there is a good chance you will like this movie because they act like their true selves.  In other words, the dialog works, so it sounds like the Joss Whedon part of the flick works.  I will find out myself on Friday and then let you know what I think on Monday.  If things work out as planned that is.

Anyway, if Rotten Tomatoes makes this delaying the reviews thing a normal deal.  There are other, and some may say better, places to get the same info.  In this case, Metacritic.com.

Posted on

Shmee Checks Out The Xbox One X Updates For Rise Of The Tomb Raider And The Elder Scrolls Online!

I loved Rise of the Tomb Raider when it came out a couple of years ago, but since I completed most of the game I felt little reason to go back.  However, since the game has been prominently used in Microsoft’s advertising for the Xbox One X I thought I should give it a try.  Because I don’t have a 4K TV the Native 4K mode looked okay, but it wasn’t mind blowing.  The Enriched Visuals mode on the other hand was a massive step up.  It looked great: a cleaner picture, better shadows and lighting, and better effects.  The High Framerate mode was also impressive.  It was much easier to control Lara, and it was silky smooth, but it was hard give up the visual fidelity of the Enriched Visuals mode.  I am not sure I am going to play much more Rise of the Tomb Raider, but it was quite the tech demo for what the Xbox One X can do, and hopefully more developers give us the type of graphical options that Nixxes did.

Next up The Elder Scrolls Online!

The Elder Scrolls online got new textures for Xbox One X and displays in Native 4K, so what that meant for me, the lowly 1080p TV user, is that it looks much crisper.  The textures are all crystal clear, and there are very few jagged lines.  As an MMO, this game was never pushing the boundaries of graphical fidelity, but this is a solid update for people who still play this game.  The ‘just one more quest’ hook almost had me trapped for a while.  It is not the showcase that Rise of the Tomb Raider is, but The Elder Scrolls Online still looks pretty good.

After playing these two games, I am hopeful that more games push out their Xbox One X patches soon because I am liking what I have been seeing!