Shmee.Me

September 13, 2016September 13, 2016

47 Is Up To His Old Tricks In Bangkok!

After taking a step backwards in Marrakesh, Hitman is back firing on all cylinders in Bangkok. While not everything about Episode 4 was perfect, it did go a long way to alleviate my fears that this murderous episodic journey was headed down the wrong path. Marrakesh seems to have been more of a stumble than a change of direction.

In Hitman: Episode 4, Bangkok, 47 is tasked with delivering justice to a rich daddy’s boy musician that literally got away with murder, and the lawyer that circumvented the law to keep this rich brat out of jail. Doing so will not be easy since they are both in an exclusive hotel with tight security, but as always 47 is more than up to the task.

What makes this episode work so well is that it uses the Bangkok map so effectively. You have to use all the areas available to get to your targets. Not to mention the Hotel must have been laid out by a crazy person. The poor guests must always be getting lost, but the non-linear design forces 47 to stay on his toes and always be looking for his next route. It also seems like they tweaked the opportunity system, so that it kind of clues you in to what you can do, but without completely spelling it out for you. The security in this Hitman episode is really on the ball as well, so just because you are in disguise don’t think you can just go anywhere you want. You will still have to stay out of sight and plan out your hits.

This bump in difficulty is appreciated. The other maps have all been fun, but for the seasoned Hitman player they have all kind of been on the easy side. That is not to say Hitman: Bangkok is hard, but just that it is not the relative breeze the other mission have been. It is good that they are making the player get better at taking out targets. All of this to say that Hitman: Episode 4, Bangkok, was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to visit Colorado later this month.

September 12, 2016September 12, 2016

Cars Can Fly In Furious 7!

In the opening few minutes of Furious 7 Brian O’Conner(Paul Walker)’s son throws a toy car out a minivan door and says that it flew. O’Conner responds that cars can’t fly, but Furious 7 goes about doing its best to prove O’Conner wrong. Much like O’Conner’s son and the toy car, Furious 7 is just a boy playing with his toys. In this case the boy is director James Wan, but the effect is the same: cars doing impossible things in a seemingly random series of events.

I generally like to give some sort of movie plot synopsis or plot teaser, but in this case there really isn’t one. The Furious crew does random stuff while Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) tries to kill/stop them. Also Djimon Hounsou plays a bad guy too. Not sure what his goal was other than to be not good.

Any time any of this movie’s actors were tasked with acting or setting up the movie’s ‘plot’ Furious 7 ground to a halt. It was stilted and cliché. I mean it was almost unbearable. However, once the cars started literally flying the movie started figuratively flying. It was so much fun to watch these characters do impossible things all with wide grins on their faces. For Furious 8 I hope they skip the ‘talking’ scenes all together and just come up with crazy set pieces because that is what the Fast & Furious franchise is now. Mind-bending-ly awesome car stunts.

I am not sure if Furious 7 is a good movie or not, but once the chit chat stopped I enjoyed myself quite a bit, and that has to count for something. I don’t know what sort wild things James Wan has planned for Furious 8, but it will be hard to top what he put on screen with Furious 7. If you want to believe that cars can fly, Furious 7 might just be what you are looking for.

September 9, 2016September 9, 2016

I Am The Knight! With Batman: The Telltale Series!

While cinematically Batman has been having a rough time lately, in the world of video games he has been doing quite well thanks to Rocksteady Studios’ Arkham series. It looks the Dark Knight’s excellent gaming run is going to continue with Batman: The Telltale Series. I played the first episode and witnessed the second during the PAX West group play and it is amazing! While the Arkham series was all about giving you the moves to feel like you were Batman doling out justice, Telltale Batman is all about getting in to the mind of Batman. What it is like to be Bruce Wayne making hard choices.

Gameplay wise Telltale Batman doesn’t differ that much from other Telltale games. It is still a choose your own adventure title with Quick Time Events (QTEs) for the ‘action’. While at first it seems odd to take the action out of a Batman story, this is the first game to really get in the head of Batman and let you pick how he deals with the threats against Gotham, or even better whether Batman is Bruce Wayne’s alter ego or the other way around. It is like the ultimate motion comic.

Stylistically Batman: The Telltale Series looks a lot like Telltale’s other comic book to game outings with a heavy cell shaded look. Though much like The Wolf Among Us this just adds to the game’s living comic book feel. It looks like one of Batman’s on page adventures. Which is to say pretty great.

I guess how much you like Batman: The Telltale Series will depend on how much you like Batman. If the Dark Knight is not your thing, playing a game where you get behind his eyes isn’t going to do much for you. If you are like me on the other hand, and love Batman, Batman: The Telltale Series is a must play. It is another impressive game from Telltale. At this point after Batman and The Wolf Among Us, DC should just give Telltale license to do all their characters.

September 8, 2016

Looks Like The Paladin Took Care Of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. For Me!

I recently watched the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was going to review it, but then I remembered that The Paladin already reviewed it a year ago. Instead of doing all the work of writing my own review I am just going to link to his since we pretty much agree. Plus it can’t hurt my ‘click’ rate (sadly it probably can’t help it either).

The Paladin dug The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

September 7, 2016September 7, 2016

PAX West 2016 Wrap-Up!

Another PAX West (formally PAX Prime) has come and gone, and I am exhausted. There is so much to see and do that it just overwhelms the senses. Every show that I have gone to is different, and this year was mostly about just hanging out with my friends. One big reason for that was the huge indie game presence at PAX, and a lot of them were similar, so nothing really stood out. Indies are usually well represented at PAX, but this year they were everywhere. Word to the wise for all you indie game creators out there: if your new game features the terms rougelike or procedurally generated, your game had better be amazing. There are like eighteen million (not exaggerating) procedurally generated rougelikes out there and they are all pretty much the same. They are not bad, but just not good enough to care about.

Which is why the only indie game that I really ended up enjoying was an old school four player party game called Death Squared from SMG Studios.

In Death Squared each player tries to move their cube to their colored circle. Once all cubes are on their circle the ‘room’ is complete. The problem is by moving your cube you are causing problems for the other cubes, so you all have to work together. It is so simple, but so well executed. This looks to be a must buy.

For board games I was starting to feel the same way that I was feeling about indie games. They all have different settings, but in the end they are pretty the same three or four games. However it took a trivia game called America by Bezier Games to prove me wrong.

I generally am not a big fan of trivia games, but America’s excellent design makes it a ton of fun. Pretty much there are three tracks for every question: the State the question takes place in, the year the question happened, and the amount of something in the question. You get more points for getting it right, but if you are close you get points too. That way even if you don’t know the answer you can guess based on whether you think other people know the answer or not. It is great.

Like I said above with this year kind of being different it took a while for me to come up with a game of show, but I ended up picking Cowbots and Aliens.

This game saved VR for me. Every VR experience I have had thus far has been kind of so-so. Some of it has looked cool, but none of the games have been better because they were in VR. Cowbots and Aliens by Wizard Games Inc. was different. It puts you in a saloon where you can use anything in the room as a weapon. You can flip tables, deflect bullets with spittoons, break bottles over counter tops, you know pretty much everything you have ever wanted to do in the wild west while fighting an Alien Squid. It was a blast.

The best panel by far was Telltale’s group play of Batman.

It was so fun to control Batman with a thousand other people. If you have not picked up their Batman yet, you should. Like everything they do it was well done. I can’t wait to play the rest of this great game.

That was pretty much my PAX West, and while I will need a few days to recover, I can’t wait until next year to do it all over again! I wonder what PAX West 2017 will be like?