Author: Shmee

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Shmee Has Gone Home!

Much like Oxenfree, I had heard that Gone Home was a good game, but I guess I was just waiting for Microsoft to give me a copy as part of the Games with Gold program.  It turns out that I probably shouldn’t have waited so long.  It is a fantastic tale, and it only takes a couple of hours to play.

In Gone Home you play as Katie who has just come home to Portland from a European tour.  You would expect your parents and sister to be home to welcome you, but they are nowhere to be found, so you have to rummage through the creepy house they moved in to while you were away trying to find clues as to their whereabouts.

When Gone Home came out on PC four years ago it was one of the premiere ‘Walking Simulators’.  In fact it was Polygon’s game of the year.  It only came out on console last year after an engine upgrade so that it would play better with controllers, and it holds up very well.  The game is super atmospheric, and early part of the game is very creepy.  It will have you digging through every drawer and hidey-hole trying to find out what happened.  As with all Walking Sims they live and die by their story, and the story in Game Home is fantastic.  I obviously will not spoil it, but trust me it is worth experiencing.

I shouldn’t have waited four years to play this game, but I did, and it is still worth playing.  It should be pretty cheap at this point, so there should be no financial reason not play it, so do yourself a favor and crank the volume or put on some headphones and play Gone Home.  You will be glad you did.  I know I was.

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Voltron Season 4 (AKA 3.5) Is Much Better Than 3!

Splitting the latest Voltron season in to two parts didn’t do it any favors.  It killed the momentum of the first half, but thankfully what they are calling season four delivers on goods promised in season three.  It is action packed, full of drama, and it is nice to see team Voltron making some headway.  There are also quite a few twists in this half of the season, so I can’t wait to see how those play out in seasons five and six, provided they split the show yet again.

However, I am hoping that this show has an end point planned out for the near future.  While I love watching it, I would hate for it to get full of filler and randomness just to keep it going.  There is nothing worse than a show just making stuff up as it goes along just because they don’t want to cancel it.  I am looking at you Naruto!  BELIEVE IT!

So while season four of Voltron only clocks in with six twenty-two minute episodes, they are all quite good, and I am ready for six (or thirteen) more whenever they want to drop them.  Sooner or later I will not be able to justify the price of Netflix, but thanks to shows like Voltron, this is not that day.

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Return To Hawkins For Stranger Things 2!

After the insanely popular first season of Stranger Things, people were wondering how and if the Duffer Brothers would be able to live up to their audiences’ lofty expectations for season two.  It turns out that they followed the mold of Alien versus Aliens.  Go bigger and keep the gas peddle down.  It mostly works.  It slows down in the middle, but it recovers, and sews seeds for the future.

Stranger Things 2 (what they called their second season) also deals with how children and self medicating alcoholic sheriffs handle trauma.  The question kind of answers itself, but in general they don’t handle it well.  However, watching the cast deal with what happened last season and overcome it to deal with season two’s new threats is excellent.

Stranger things still has one of the best casts out there, and they added Sean Astin to it, so in other words it got even better.  Though not all the new additions are great.  Not to give anything away, but there are some punks you will meet halfway through the season that are little more than 80’s stereotypes.  Whether it was they way there were written or the acting, it is hard to say, but they don’t come off well.

Still one bad episode compared to eight goods ones is kind of being picky.  Most shows wish they had that kind of ratio.  The question now becomes where Stranger Things goes after season two.  Season one’s ending gave us several questions that needed to be answered.  Season two’s remaining threads aren’t near as interesting, so the Duffer Brothers will have their work cut out for them, but after two great seasons you know I will be back for season three, and based on what I am seeing on Facebook and Twitter so will you.  I can’t wait to get back to Hawkins Indiana to hang out with everyone’s favorite middle-schoolers!

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Conan Feels The Same Way About Assassin’s Creed We All Do At This Point!

While Assassin’s Creed did take a year off to find itself, it is still hard to get excited about yet another entry in to the series.  Origins is the 10th game in the main series.  That is right 10th, and the first one came out only 10 years ago.  Its mythology is so convoluted that no one can or should try to follow it.  Which is why it makes sense for Conan to spend much more time focusing on Aaron Rodgers’ injury than playing this game.  I bet he and everyone else wished they were playing Wolfenstein 2 instead!

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The New DuckTales Is Better Than We Hoped!

I have watched more than a few episodes of the new DuckTales with my daughter, and all I can say is that they nailed it.  It is more of a comedy than when I was a kid, but I can live with that.  The core of the show is still Scrooge McDuck and his nephews going on outlandish adventures and halving a lot of fun doing it.  It has been good to see Disney return to adventure cartoons, and hand drawn ones at that.

I was happy they updated Mrs. Beakley and Webby quite a bit.  In the original they didn’t get a lot to do except annoy the boys, but now Webby is capable, but just a little socially awkward, and Mrs. Beakley is some sort of spy.  Why she is working for Scrooge we don’t know yet.

The new voice actors take a little getting used to, but once you do they are all great and very expressive.  I was a little worried that when they went out and hired a bunch of recognizable names that a few of the actors would just phone it in, but so far that hasn’t been the case.

If you have Disney XD, DuckTales is well worth your time.  If you don’t, you should put it on your list of things to watch when you can.  DuckTales was a major part of my childhood, and I am glad to see Disney took the time to reboot it with care.  I am hoping the new Big Hero 6 cartoon is just as good.  If so, Disney XD might have become my new favorite channel.