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Disney Keeps The Streak Alive With Doctor Strange!

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It has been a while since Marvel/Disney has released a bad film, and with Iron Man Doctor Strange, Disney continues its hot streak.  I don’t think Doctor Strange will be remembered as one of Marvel’s best, but it is a fun film that adds some visual flare to the standard Marvel superhero origin story.

Like with many other superheroes, Doctor Strange starts with a rich white guy (Benedict Cumberbatch) who looses his ability to make himself rich.  In this case he is a star surgeon who after a car crash can no longer keep his hands steady.  He tries everything to fix them, to no avail, so as a last ditch effort he decides to try Eastern Spiritual Medicine, but he gets more than he bargained for, and instead becomes a superhero sorcerer.  Not a bad trade.

The overall plot is not Doctor Strange’s strong suit.  I mean if you close your eyes you may think you are watching Iron Man again.  Jerky rich guys are born to be superheroes I guess, and Marvel still needs to find an interesting movie villain.  We can’t hope for Loki to show up in every movie.  Not that the plot or the script are bad.  It is just that we have seen them before from Marvel.

Luckily to cover up the lack of originality director Scott Derrickson amps up the visual craziness.  Doctor Strange still has Marvel’s signature look, but it has been smashed together with a neon version of Inception.  The movie looks great, always showing you something new and interesting.  If you can’t tell the movies apart based on their plot at least you will know what you are watching based off the special effects.

Benedict Cumberbatch was born to be a Marvel superhero.  He delivers the witty dialog with aplomb.  He will be a great addition to their lineup.  I can’t wait to see him stand up with the rest of the gang.  Though it is time for Marvel to try and diversify the makeup of their heroic cast.

Despite having seen this story before, at least it is a good story, and one that they were able to amp up visually.  Doctor Strange may not be the new direction Marvel needs to find to stay relevant, but at least it is an entertaining flick, and one that I can recommend to people who like Marvel’s formula.  If you are looking for something different, you may have to wait a bit longer.

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The New Wonder Woman Trailer Is Here!

We keep waiting for the first truly good DCEU movie, and looks like Wonder Woman may be it!  It looks great.  Though Warner Brothers is pretty good at making epic trailers.  Still I can’t wait to see Diana engage in some fisticuffs!

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The Elder Scrolls Online Did Something Else New For An MMO, Its Customer Support Ruined The Game…

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Days after talking about how much fun I was having with The Elder Scrolls Online I am now writing a post to tell you that I will no longer be playing the game, and the worst part is that it isn’t because the game isn’t fun, but because their customer support is terrible.

My tale of woe started a little over a week ago.  I was excited to try out the new Tamriel Unlimited feature of The Elder Scrolls Online, so cracked open my box and started to install my game.  While that was happening I clicked to redeem my DLC code so I could get access to the Thieves Guild, The Dark Brotherhood, and a couple of other expansions.  Not to mention a horse, but the code said it was ‘deactivated’.  I had never seen that before, so logged a support ticket with The Elder Scrolls Online support, and I went to work playing through the intro areas of the game and doing some of the quests.  Not to mention my epic quest across the world of Temriel.

The next day (like a full 24 hours later) I got an email saying that there was nothing they could do about the bad code, and that it was up to Amazon to replace it.  It was lame to have to stop playing the game so I could return it to Amazon, but I figured they knew what they were talking about.  However the next game’s code had the same problem.  Remembering what The Elder Scrolls Online support said this time I opened tickets with both Microsoft and Amazon.  Microsoft did everything they could to contact Amazon and Bethesda to try and get the code activated, but in the end there was nothing they could do because companies are allowed to deactivate codes in case merchandise is stolen, so Microsoft couldn’t re-activate the code, and Amazon said they used the same process to activate their DLC codes that they always do, so they didn’t know what happened.  They did next day rush me a third copy of the game.

Guess what.  The third copy of The Elder Scrolls Online did not work either, so this time I went back to The Elder Scroll Online support and of course they said their was nothing they could do.  I pointed out that I was the not the only person having this problem:

And that Bethesda is having other Elder Scroll Online Redemption Issues:

So they said they would escalate my ticket.  Then nothing for three days.  I kept asking for updates or ETAs, but nothing.  Just silence.  Not even a hang in their cat .gif.

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I have never felt more ignored by customer support in my life.  Needless to say I contacted Amazon again to get a refund.  To Amazon’s credit they did once again make sure the game was properly handled and activated before being sent to me, but it all looked good on their side, and since they sell a ‘few’ video games I am inclined to believe them.  I contacted The Elder Scrolls Online support to let them know they could close my ticket, but they haven’t even responded to that.  My ticket is sill open.  I have never had customer support ruin a game for me before, but The Elder Scrolls Online figured out how.

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Skyrim: Special Edition Looks Like The Game We Remeber, Not The Game It Was…

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Thanks to owning Skyrim on PC with all of the DLC, I now own the PC copy of Skyrim: Special Edition, so of course I had to boot it up and turn on all the goodies to Ultra!  How did it look?  It looked like the first time I booted up Skyrim an gazed upon its rich vistas.  That is the problem with all old games.  We remember them differently than they are.  I mean playing Knights of the Old Republic now is heartbreaking.  It looks sooooo bad.

After creating a new character in Skyrim: SE and walking around a bit, I then booted up just standard Skyrim and was amazed at how poorly it faired compared to how I remembered it.  That is not to say it looks bad.  It just looks old.  It showed me how far things have come, so when people say that graphics now don’t look that much better than they did five years ago, I can just laugh at them and tell them to boot up Skyrim again.

Skyrim: Special Edition’s new lighting, water, and weather effects really add to the game’s fantastic ambience, and the updated textures and draw distance make the game look great.  Unfortunately the character models didn’t get the same love.  They still look janky.  Their textures obviously look better, but they still look off.  They didn’t even get the models up to Fallout 4’s mediocre standard, and there is something not quite right about the sound, which I was not expecting.  Though Bethesda says they are working on it.

All in all, if you can’t get enough Skyrim, and you want a more stable better looking version of the game, that is what Skyrim: Special Edition is.  That, and now mods are a built in feature.  Since I have played so much Skyrim, I don’t think I will be spending much more time with SE, but if I do, it is good to know that it will look like how I remember it.