Author: Shmee

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Shmee Tries His Hand At Cuphead!

Cuphead was a game I wasn’t sure I was going to play.  I knew it looked good, and that it played well, but it is basically a collection of artfully created Mega Man boss battles.  Then just to change things up they throw in some Contra style run and gun stages, and few Ikaruga style shoot ’em up levels.  In other words, all the games I loved, but was terrible at as a kid.  Thankfully while Cuphead isn’t easy, it is fair, so after playing a level fifteen times or so you can usually figure out what you need to do.  Its challenge plus its amazing style means Cuphead is fun and unique experience.

In the game you take control of the titular Cuphead.  He lost a game of dice with the Devil and now needs to collect all the Devil’s contracts for him.  Of course to collect those contracts you need to shoot different guns out of your fingers.  These guns are elixirs you can buy from a local pig/merchant and then pour in to your cup shaped head.

The contract levels are pretty much just boss battles.  The creatures are upset you are collecting their contracts, and they fight back.  They usually go through several mutations, and figuring out the pattern to each mutation is the key to success.  Though for some of them you do take to the skies and shoot them with your plane while tons of stuff and the boss’ attacks fly at you.  To get money for the pig you need to complete the run and gun levels to find the golden coins that are hidden inside them.

The big draw of the game is definitely the art.  According to the developer, StudioMDHR, everything in the game is hand drawn, and it looks amazing.  Which consequently makes the game even harder because sometimes you get caught up looking at the gorgeous animation.  Every still-frame from the game is almost background worthy.  I mean look at this:

And that sort of stuff is on screen non-stop.

Listen, if you have $20 to spare, there is nothing quite like Cuphead (except: Mega Man, Contra, and Ikaruga), and it is well worth checking out.  If only for the art alone it is worth the money.  StudioMDHR needs to release a photo mode just so we can save all these images for the backgrounds of all our devices.  I never thought I would like a game like this, but so far it is a ton of fun, and well worth the Amazon Promotional Credits and Bing Points I spent on it.

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Does Fortnite: Battle Royale Scratch The Console PUBG Itch?

Epic launched their version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds a couple of days ago: Fortnite: Battle Royale, and it has proven to be very popular, but you may be asking, “How does it compare?”  So far, not too favorably.  It can’t quite figure out what it wants to be.  The game features Fortnite’s zany style, but it doesn’t seem over the top enough, and at the same time due to it’s arcade-y shooting, simplified inventory and lack of a prone position it definitely isn’t as tactical  as PUBG.  Not to mention at this point there are no vehicles.

The game plays basically the same way.  At the start of the game you and 99 friends get launched from a flying party bus, and then once you are on the ground you scavenge for weapons while the playable area of the map shrinks over time.  The difference is that you can destroy buildings, trees, cars and rocks, and then use those resources to build ramps and forts.  Early on you will build a lot ramps to get to good weapons and whatnot, but for the most part you will not build any forts or towers until the end of the game when it is easy to figure out where the ‘eye of the storm’ is going to be.  So it is pretty much PUBG for the first three quarters of the game and then Fortnite for the last little bit.

The game has its pluses.  For new players the simplified inventory should make getting in to the game easier.  The cartoony graphics means it runs well on consoles and just about every PC under the sun, and the towns don’t look quite as cookie-cutter as they do in PUBG.  Plus the net-code seems to be much better, but so far it just doesn’t have the same hook PUBG does.  It is just missing something.

I am not a game developer, but to me Fortnite: Battle Royale needs to play to its strengths.  Crank up the crazy fun of their mode.  Make it the quicker wilder version of Battle Royal, and make building stuff more integrated in to the whole game, not just the last five minutes or building the occasional ramp.  Right now Fortnite: Battle Royale just makes me want PUBG on console even more.  However, The Paladin and I have already won Fortnite: Battle Royale, and that is something I still haven’t done in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

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Life With Hulu With Live TV!

Since Comcast has continued to raise rates and give me nothing extra for my money, the wife and I have decided to give Hulu with Live TV a try, and it has been working pretty well, with some caveats.

First off what the service gets right.  You get a good selection live channels as well as Hulu’s already excellent selection of on demand shows.  You also get a feature called ‘Cloud DVR’ which allows you to record shows, but obviously as its name suggests it stores them on the internet.  Then the big seller for us, Hulu with Live TV has most of the local Seattle stations included as well.  Most of the other streaming cable services do not.  We have to be able to watch those Seahawks!  Then you get to take this all with you.  Visiting a friends house for the weekend and your show is on, but they don’t have cable TV?  Just take your Roku Stick with you, and you and your friends can watch it (provided your friend has internet), or you can find a corner and watch it on your phone.

All this is not without its flaws.  The new Hulu interface is not intuitive.  Little icons on the top row indicate were you are, and then massive pictures and bold print tell you the names of shows it wants you to watch, but it is hard to find something other than what they are promoting.  You get used to it, but there is a steep learning curve.  Also, it seems that right now the service is having a slight issue keeping up with demand.  While for the most part everything looks great, it isn’t uncommon for the picture to get a little blurry while the stream catches up.  This doesn’t appear to be due to my internet, since Netflix and Amazon don’t also have this issue.  Lastly, and maybe most importantly for a lot of people, Hulu with Live TV isn’t that much cheaper than cable.  Though you do save some extra green because there are no random fees or cable boxes.

If you are like me, and you just got sick of all the standard cable options and want to give something else a try, Hulu with Live TV is a good choice.  They need to work on their interface, and maybe add a few more live channels to the mix to justify their price, but I gain the flexibility of taking my TV anywhere I want, and more importantly, on whatever internet provider I want.  With the added bonus of sticking it to Comcast.  So far it has been worth it.  Who knows, I may go back to Comcast, but at least then I will be a ‘new’ subscriber again and get all the good rates.

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Shmee Visits Dunkirk!

I heard a lot of things about Dunkirk before going to the theater and watching it: It was inspired by silent films; It got events and names of soldiers wrong; It starred that kid from One Direction, but most of all I heard that it was excellent, and guess what? All those things are true!  While it may be slightly historically inaccurate, and it does give Harry Styles his first starring role, Dunkirk is 106 minutes of gripping cinema!

Most war movies are all about the action.  You are either down in the trenches/foxholes with bullets flying by, or up on the battlefields while men are giving heroic speeches to other men before they to charge headlong in to combat.  Not so with Dunkirk.  The battle is lost before the movie starts.  This movie is just about 400,000 men trying to get home while being harassed by Nazi Germany.  That is not to say there is no action in Dunkirk, but for the most part it is different.  Guys just trying to keep their heads down and not get shot.  Though Tom Hardy’s fighterpilot sequences are a little more straight forward.

Speaking of straight forward, Dunkirk’s stories, there are three main plots, all happen at different times, so that was a little jarring at first, but once you get the pacing down it all makes sense and comes together nicely in the end.  Also all of the stories are great.  There isn’t one where I felt that Nolan lingered too long, or conversely didn’t develop the thread enough.

Dunkirk is a Christopher Nolan film from frame one.  The sound, the color, all of it exudes his style.  If that is a turn off for you, I think Dunkirk is still worth watching because at least all of his style is still working with a story worth telling.  Dunkirk is the best war movie to come out in a long time, and I am sure that it will get some talk around award season, though I am not sure that it will win (we have to wait and see how the indies fair this winter).  Dunkirk was a movie made for theaters, so do yourself a favor and go see it before it leaves your local multiplex in a week or two.  It is well worth your hard earned cash.

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Shmee Played D&D With His Friends And Has This Video As Proof!

Well we went and did it: The Paladin, Plumpy Thimble, Shaun and I played D&D on the internet.  It was a fun experience, and we learned a lot for next time, if there is a next time, like check if your mic is working right off the bat instead of waiting to hear from your little brother that there is no sound.  Mr. Thimble has hosted the video for us on his YouTube channel, along with a brief explanation of what happened during the first 45 minutes.

We got this setup working with a great free software package for streaming OBS Studio (OBS = Open Broadcaster Software).  It is a little finicky, like the fact if you open and close it you need to re-add your mics, but the price is right, and it is very easy to use, so if you want to start streaming it is a great way to test the waters without spending your hard earned cash.  It works to just record your video, or stream it to YouTube, Twitch, or Mixer.  We could only get three cameras working, but that was because of my Surface Book’s hardware limitations, not OBS.

Anyway, if you want, you should check out our little adventure above.  Though I won’t be hurt if you don’t.  The other guys might take it personally though.