February 2019 Free PlayStation Plus Games

Posted by John Klein III on February 19, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Songs. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

So of the four free games I could access on the PS4 for February 2019, I have to say the one I really gotten into is For Honor.

Gunhouse was fun, I’m not sure if I really got into the mechanics of it.  I’m sure if I kept updating the weapons, I’ll eventually get better at it.  The art style was pretty fun and the game was overall entertaining.  I just kept thinking of playing Rogue Aces.

So then I started playing Rogue Aces and the training modules were fun but then came the tutorial for bombing a city and I was doing decently with that.  The hardest part was getting back to my base to reload.  I was getting the hang of it but it was a bit more work than I was willing to do at that time.

I did all of the work to start Hitman First Season, I downloaded all of the episodes.  I went to the demo for Hitman 2 and made sure I had the legacy pack downloaded over there.  I went back to the Complete First Season and did the initial story segment (like three minutes) and then I saw the yacht.  It looked like more of a time committed than I was willing to give on that day.

Which brings me to For Honor.  I did all of the work to make sure I was a member of the Ubisoft Club, which thankfully was one of my six passwords so I didn’t need to click “forgot password” or anything like that.  I saw in the club that I could download something for free if I had Steep so then I downloaded that game and was confused by I still couldn’t download the item.  So I had to actually play the game and access the club through Steep.  I was only slightly disappointed that there wasn’t a free item in Steep for owning For Honor.  Steep was a free game in January that I never got around to attempting.

Walker Dennis was a pretty big fan of Steep, he mostly liked seeing the guy fall down.  But he also enjoyed snowboarding and hang gliding too but the falling down was pretty rewarding.  I need to go back and attempt some of the easier Steep runs.  I got Silver in a few and Bronze in a few more but then I went back to For Honor.

For Honor has been a lot of fun!  I’m glad the fighting mechanism wasn’t as crushing as people said it was.  Or they commented that once you got it, you got it but I’m not sure how anyone would not get it but then again, I didn’t get either Rogue Aces or Gunhouse.

I’ve been doing the Single Player Knight storyline, I have Chapter Six of Six left.  Then I’ll do Viking and Samurai after that.  I’ve been playing on Normal and having a fun time.  I’m not finding all of the Observations or the Breakables, but I do want to make a point and get all of the Observables, as I like learning the story.  I haven’t bought anything with silver, but I know one of the trophies is to buy all four heroes in a class, so I will do that.  I was tempted just to burn through it with the Knights but I figure I’ll see which of the three classes I like the best.

With real money, I did buy For Honor Dynamic Theme 1, for $2.99.  I was just looking forward to my next game session and that’s when I realized I was going to be committing to For Honor for a while and I’m now trying to match my themes with my main game.  There was two of them, but I didn’t like the second one that was portraying a giant battle of the three classes.  I preferred the simple image above with one from each class.

I turned it to Easy for Walker Dennis to try it as he wasn’t thrilled with Spider-Man’s theme being gone.  Either the game wasn’t as bloody as I remembered or they turn it way down.  That or he was only hitting them with the light attack and not the heavy attack but he was doing pretty well.  Then I got uncomfortable with him playing it and had him stop after two or three minutes.

We’re in the course of moving so I hadn’t had much time to play but For Honor has been a fun game and I’ll probably keep playing it until I’ve gotten through all of the story missions.  I think, if my skills carry over to Hard, I’ll attempt Hard but I haven’t really mastered parrying yet, it feels like I do parry but I also miss sometimes too but maybe by the time I have another six chapters in with Vikings, I’ll have it down to a sweet science.

.  .  .

This past weekend, we took Walker Dennis and his cousin to see Lego Movie 2 and we all had a pretty great time.  I keep having the Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi “Not Evil” song stuck in my head.

Thanks to YouTuber Chuyperron 25 for hosting the video.

My beautiful wife keeps getting the Everything’s Not Awesome song stuck in her head.

Thanks to YouTuber ToyBox 23 for hosting the video.

The third song that I really enjoyed was Gotham City Guys.

Thanks to YouTuber aranha verso for hosting the video.

Ironically, Catchy Song was not all that catchy for me.

During the film, there were times when I was thinking about the upcoming game and how would we even “play” the movie as there is a few action sequences but not that many.

We did buy the full game so I’m just waiting for Tuesday,February 26 to come out and then we have to wait for the Easter Bunny to give the game to Walker.  We did catch a playthrough of the first level and the game does look fun.

Thanks to Gamer’s Little Playground for hosting the video.

It is a more complicated game than Lego Dimensions but it also seems like instead of having characters with abilities, we’re just making items that do those abilities.

I keep thinking about how I don’t feel like I myself am ready to move onto a new Lego game as I feel like I still have Lego Dimensions goals.  So also for Easter, I want to get him the Fantastic Beasts story level, as that’s the last story pack he’s missing and I like the idea of owning all four of the portal variants.  Then I want to get him the Beetlejuice fun pack as I still regret not buying it at Walmart that time I could easily have bought it.

So funny how Walker kept talking about Lego Dimensions during the film.  During the Gotham City Guys song, Beetlejuice showed up and Walker couldn’t help himself but comment on it.  He was just so excited during the film.  We are definitely buying that film when it comes out.  It will definitely benefit from a second viewing as there are so many references that it is hard to notice them all in one viewing.  Also, the story itself needs to be watched again knowing what we know at the end.

Walker’s favorite scene was the one when we learned Rex Dangervest’s proper backstory.  Massive Spoilers when you click the video.

Thanks to NATE 28 MeMz for hosting the above video.

But his favorite moment was seeing the Back to the Future DeLorean and the TARDIS.  He was so excited that I missed the Terminator reference and the Hot Tub Time Machine reference.  At least I got to see Bill and Ted’s Phone Booth.  I looked for the above video myself but then I noticed the sequence in another video Walker was watching and that boy knows how to find videos on YouTube.

There was no direct references to Dimensions, which I figured there wasn’t going to be but characters from the game show up in the movie like Gandalf.  They do quickly address the Lego Batman Movie in an exchange and we’re back to the film.

.  .  .

I also committed to not playing Spider-Man on the PS4 during our move.  Walker got into the spirit of things and agreed to pack up his Legos, including his Lego Dimensions figures and bases.  We kept the game out and the box is accessible but he seems committed at this point.

But Walker has really gotten into Spider-Man these past few weeks.  I did buy him that Carnage Lego Set so now he has a Lego Miles Morales.  I also bought him the Titans Heroes Miles.

Now I’ve been regretting not treating myself to the Titan Heroes Scarlet Spider but if I come across one, I’ll snatch it up now.

We’ve been wanting to rewatch Spider-Verse for a while now.  We’ve been getting by on watching Sunflower by Post Malone and Swae Lee.

Thanks to Post Malone hosting his own video.

Then we added “What’s Up Danger” by Blackway and Black Caviar, to our playlist too.

Thanks to Viral MEDIA for hosting the above video.

Now Walker goes around saying “Hello Danger” all of the time, no matter how many times I correct him about the actual song title.

So he wanted to play Spider-Man PS4 and I didn’t have a problem with that.  I had forgotten that we left Spider-Man in his underwear so we laughed about that and then Walker changed the suit to the Infinity War suit.

Sort of nice that we live in this age where I can did a search for “Spider-Man only scenes in Infinity War” and get a supercut of just that.

Thanks to YouTuber Something Something for hosting that video.

Walker was happy to not have to sit through a two hour movie for seven minutes of footage.

I can’t believe Lego Movie 2 was nearly a two hour film, but Walker had a great time and never got fussy.  Unlike Aquaman that had him either restless or bored during portions of it in the middle of the second act.  He’s excited for the next Spider-Man movie, as I told him we’re getting two this year, Avengers Endgame and Spider-Man : Far From Home.

Thanks to TomScott1703 for hosting a video of all of Spider-Man’s scenes from Civil War.  I wished I thought of that two weeks ago when Walker was bored through so much of Civil War just waiting for Spider-Man to show up.  But once he does, he’s in that movie for a fair bit.

He didn’t want seem to want to watch Homecoming but did watch Amazing Spider-Man 2 and was with it for most of the time.  I’m hoping to get the Toby Maguirefilms for Easter as Amazon has the trilogy on BluRay for $30, and it comes with digital codes!

https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Trilogy-Limited-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B06XZ588HB/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=spider-man+trilogy+bluray&qid=1550611914&s=gateway&sr=8-2

The first Garfield movie is also only ten dollars on Amazon, both BluRay and with digital code

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008QZ5PY2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

So it’ll be nice to get both of those and be caught up on our Spider-Man collection.  If not, I’ll probably buy it some time later as after Easter, it is safe for me to buy myself inexpensive items until November.

I’ve been thinking of Easter a bunch lately.  My wife just wants the second Fantastic Beasts film on BluRay, Crimes of Grindelwald, as she missed out on watching it when it was in theaters.  Plus, she has the first one and I think it’ll be cute to get her that one while Walker gets Fantastic Beasts for Lego Dimensions.  It will be a theme Easter of Fantastic Beasts and Spider-Man and Legos.  I’m sure we can find eggs of all three of those.

.  .  .

Walker was just swinging around on my New Game Plus file and noticed backpacks on the map.

Thanks to Sick Critic for hosting the above image.

I’m not sure what made him want to find them all, maybe as he has his own backpack and can relate to Spider-Man on that level but he wanted to get catch them all.

He has a Hot Wheels backpack but I can see us buying him a Spider-Man one for Kindergarten.  It is odd that a poor high school and then college student could afford to buy 55 backpacks but we just have to go with that.

In 30 minutes, I had found 27 out of 55 of them, but I also had to find the satellite towers too to make it easier.  I wasn’t going to activate the satellites and leave the map as hazy as possible but here I am activating them and getting backpacks.

Walker is also taking my phone and taking pictures of the contents, even though the images are not going away anytime within the game.  So I’m going to have 55 images pretty soon on my phone.

The very first one we found was the Spider-Plushie one and from there, he wanted to see them all.  I had already found the menu from his first date with Mary Jane, as that was a story moment.

Here is Walker’s picture of the plushie.  I have 26 other images of various success rates.  The clock used to be on the wall until I took all of the nails out of the walls.  Now it just sits there.

One fun aspect of this is that Walker knows how far away 27 is from 55 and is appreciating the amount of work it is to get all of these.

One of these days, I have to fight Shocker and change the night mode to day mode, it would make finding the backpacks easier.  But instead of doing that, I played For Honor instead.  There is a game store a block up from FEAST that has a spider-plushie in it but it is closed at night so we couldn’t see it in the game.  Which is super fun to see stores keeping regular hours in the game.

Thanks to redditor TerraFlaeKSFL for taking the selfie and telling us where it is and the name of the store, Gamer’s Paradise in Chinatown.

Look what I found in Chinatown 🙂 from SpidermanPS4

Which I hadn’t really thought about but it makes total sense that FEAST would also be located in Chinatown with Martin Li owning it.

I did have the thought of just loading the finished file or any of the DLC files so Walker could see all of the contents of the bags but this way is more rewarding and fun.

Walker wanted to see Spider-Man hang upside down so we had to find an overhang to make that possible and then Walker wanted me to hold him upside down and take a picture of him looking at Spider-Man being upside down but I couldn’t both hold him and take the picture.  My wife tried her best but by the time she was in a decent position, I was losing my grip and the tv picture didn’t show up well in the photo either.  We just have too many boxes but we’ll try it again in our new place.  It was sure cute at the time though.  Of course, I had him in the position and then he had the thought to have a picture taken.  He’s a heavy 38 pounds right now and I’m not getting stronger as he gains weight, which I thought would be the case but I have to start lifting weights as I don’t want these days to be numbered.

Now I really regret not taking the extra 15 minutes just to do the Shocker fight.  It was pretty hard the first time around, I died several times, as it took me a while to figure out how to web sections of the wall and throw them back him.  The auto-saving was pretty generous but I’m not sure if that holds true for New Game Plus and Ultimate mode.  I did do so much better with the Kingpin fight, but Shocker is really the first boss you come across in the game.  Then the game takes a break for an hour before the next big showdown.  Maybe I’ll try it tonight if I can find those other backpacks.

When I was playing, my main priority was listening to J. Jonah Jameson’s podcasts and barely cared about collecting backpacks or landmarks (public or secret), I just did them for the costumes and moved on.  Oh, and I cared about getting the newspapers too.  Turns out, you store them so even if you don’t see all of them, they are in your collection, you just have to manually look at all of them to get the credit for all 53 newspapers.

Advertisements

Comixology – Free Comics – February 7, 2019

Posted by John Klein III on February 7, 2019
Posted in: Websites. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

Free Comics that Comixology are offering this week :

Solider X (2002 – 2003) # 1
Darkhawk # 1
Cosmic Powers (1994) # 1
Sleepwalker (1991 – 1994) # 1

Darkhawk and Sleepwalker would be two comics my buddy Greg would have loved back in the day.

It looks like Marvel offers free comics every month but that changes as well.

I’m not sure what Cosmic Powers 1 is but it also came out in 1994.  Thanos is on the cover.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Cosmic_Powers_Vol_1_1

Such a great creative team!  Ron Marz, Ron Lim, Jimmy Palmiotti, TOm Vincent and Ken Bruzenak.

Thanos killing people, looking for a distraction.  Classic Thanos.
Solider X, I actually read and recall it being pretty good.  The art is rough by Igor Kordey but that’s what the title required with its realistic take on war.  I remember liking the supporting team of Irene Merryweather (skin change and all) and Spider-Man’s Robbie Robertson being added as well.
Shoot, Deadpool killed her in Despicable Deadpool 292.  Well, that’s unfortunate.
Well, at least Stevie Hunter is alive.
At least as of X-Men Gold 9, she was elected to Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District in the House of Representatives. 
.  .  .
No real gaming updates.  I’ve downloaded all of Hitman Season One, I had to quit the prologue and downloaded the rest of the chapters within the game as well as the legacy pack.  I haven’t started the Hitman 2 demo to see if I can play One in Two but I believe I have all of the parts necessary but I’ll confirm that tonight.
We’ve been grabbing minikits in Lego Dimensions and having a good time there.
I threw five dollars for the preorder of Lego Movie 2 at GameStop so we can get the special Emmet and Stuck Star set.
Walker Dennis is super excited and probably just pay for the whole thing next payday.  He knows it is an Easter present so he should be chill about the wait time.  Well, as chill as any five year old that knows a present is coming but I hope he sort of forgets about it.
So this might mean we are done with buying Lego Dimensions items if he can move onto the next game.  I’m not sure if I’m ready to move yet but I could easily be ready for it as well.  There are several other Lego games I want to get.  It could be fun to get a new (but not to us) game after getting the Platinum in a game.  The GameStop clerk told me that there will be an upcoming collection of Marvel Avengers, Superheroes 1 and 2, which I can only imagine will cost way too much, especially as the Deluxe Edition of Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 is still a $75 game.
That’s the one I want but I also wouldn’t mind buying Avengers, playing the heck out of that one and seeing the latest game come down in price as time goes by.  Lego games are massive time sinks which is what makes them so much fun.
In Spider-Man PS4, I got to play for a little bit, and I’ve decided I’m just going to do the main missions, and not even bother with the towers or anything else, unless I come directly across the tower or the crime.  I really like how not having the towers activated means the map has holes in it.  The police don’t bother me and crime still shows up as a red dot.  I think I’ve done two of them, thus far.  I’ll probably have to go back and do the Financial District as that’s where the Ghostbusters house is but I’ll wait until Walker Dennis tells me he wants to check that out.
In the game, we just celebrated Aunt May’s five hear at FEAST and I’ve met Mary Jane and the Demons, so I have a very long way to go.
My plan is to take a slight break from Spider-Man to try out the free PS Plus February games, I just have to find the time to do it.

February 2019 Free PS Plus Games

Posted by John Klein III on January 30, 2019
Posted in: Games. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

They announced the free games for February 2019!

For Honor (PS4)
Hitman : The Complete First Season (PS4)
Gunhouse (Cross-Buy with PS4 and Vita)
Rogue Aces (Cross-Buy with PS4 and Vita)
Divekick (Cross-Buy with PS3 and Vita)
Meta Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots

Not a bad line up, games I haven’t really heard of besides in passing.  I’ve never been much of a Hitman guy, the games seem complicated with all of the options one has for stealth kills but I’ll give it a try.

I was trying to hold out until someone was nice enough to link to the games respected pages but that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Easy enough to do through the website though.

Got to store.playstation.com
Click PlayStationPlus (under Featured)
Click Free Games (also under Featured)

You can’t select all but you can add them separately and then purchase all at once.

According to this thread:

ps+ free games for February from PS4

Fellow redditor RingmasterJ5 is telling people a handy trick :

RingmasterJ5

RingJ5

154 points · 1 hour ago 

PSA: By owning Hitman Season One, you can upgrade all the levels into Hitman 2’s engine for a major visual and slight gameplay upgrade, but the process is somewhat obscure.

  1. Redeem the season on PS+.

  2. Download the main “Hitman” app that it comes with, the level files shouldn’t be needed.

  3. Launch the game.

  4. When prompted, redeem the “Legacy Pack” on the main menu.

  5. Download “Hitman 2 Prologue” for free on the Playstation Store, along with all the “Legacy Pack” files.

And that’s it, feel free to delete the original “Hitman” app.

I’m sure it makes more sense once it is live and available to do.  It just seems a tad complicated.  Like, how is that demo able to hold so much information, usually demos are barely the size of the demo but it must work as others are commenting that it works.  Also, the trophies are available for the first game, through the demo, which also sounds odd.

But by doing this, you get to play Season One with better graphics, so it might be worth trying.  I’ll attempt it and see how it all goes.

There is some discussion regarding how the Season One has more content than if you do the above trick, which is what I can only imagine was the way.  I haven’t heard of a company that just lifts a game and dumps it into the sequel, besides Pac-World having the option to play basic Pac-Man in it.  From another thread, all of the main levels from 1 are in 2 but none of the bonus content per level is there.  So I might just stick with the proper Season One game for the proper experience.

My plan is to pause Spider-Man and attempt the four games available to me.  For Honor doesn’t sound like my type of game, it has a single player campaign but it is mostly a multiplayer game.  Gunhouse is a tower defense game, which I’m pretty sure I’ve never play so I’m not sure that’ll be for me.  Rogue Aces sounds like a fun airplane fighter game like the old Red Baron game on PC.  Which I only got to watch my father play and he wasn’t really good at it but refused to let me play.

But this is the same guy who was upset that I was able to play with relative skill the 7UP Spot game from back in the day and he couldn’t.

.  .  .

As usual, here are the videos from my peeps.

PlayStation Access

I’m surprised they went with Nathan for this video as Rob is such a Metal Gear Solid fan but Nathan only reviews the two PS4 proper games so that’s that.

PlayStationGrenade

I do like how his videos are mostly reviews of the games.  Hitman was his 2016 Game of the Year, so that’s pretty impressive.  The Complete First Season means that it comes with additional DLC and a few costumes too.  He makes all of the games sound pretty fun actually.  Gunhouse is about saving towers full of orphans against insanely designed bosses.

These two videos went up so fast!

Platinum Chasers

On the trophy side of things : For Honor is a 5/10 Trophy Difficulty, but I’m just going to stick with the single player mode as I don’t really do Multiplayer.  There’s a few glitch trophies too.

Shame Hitman doesn’t have a Platinum but that happens from time to time.  I like that it is a 3/10 difficulty, as I’m a tad concern with the stealth elements.  I do like using stealth in both Spider-Man and the Batman Arkham games.

Gunhouse doesn’t have much information except that only five people completed the trophy list.

Rogue Aces was more popular Vita game and has a platinum.  I’ll play this one and it looks kid friendly too so I’ll see if Walker can handle the controls.

.  .  .

According to this website :

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/gaming/755831/PS-Plus-February-2019-Free-Games-Good-and-Bad-news-for-PlayStation-Plus-users-this-Feb

Following the announcement, a representative for Sony told Polygon that after February 2019, the monthly PlayStation Plus lineups will consist only of two free PS4 games.

Which is a real shame, as I was hoping to at least get two games from the early PS4 days of 2013/2014 as I’m sure there are plenty that can be offered.

It is nice that the PS3 is going out with a bang with Metal Gear Solid 4, which I played and got pretty far (I bet I wasn’t even half way through) but I just couldn’t connect with it.  Now, I’ll be all for playing it and giving it a proper try.  I’m hoping playing these games will give me a great appreciation for different genres.  I can be more than just the action adventure gamer that I know myself to be.

Also worth noting, is that the cloud saves of games is being expanded from 10GB to 100GB, which seems pretty nice.  I wasn’t nowhere near my 10GB but now I don’t have to worry about it at all.

.  .  .

I’m getting old dad status and haven’t gotten much further in Spider-Man.  I’m still in the middle of Silver Linings, I just got the mystery investigation started.  So now my map is open, so I’ll knock those out and any crimes that come along the way.  Getting the map cleared unlocks the Into the Spider-Verse costume.

Which I wouldn’t mind completing the game in that suit.

Also, Insomniac released two new Fantastic Four themed suits, and for free too!  I would have gladly threw another ten dollars their way to get a proper DLC pack with further content like levels but getting it for free is fantastic!

Walker Dennis isn’t a fan of either of them, as he prefers the classic red and blue or the underwear costume.  So he’s an odd duck.

Once again, thanks to Polygon for such great pictures!  I wish I could play them together on the same line but WordPress seems to be fighting me on that.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/8/17831834/spider-man-game-ps4-costumes-comics

.  .  .

I also got him a Lego Spider-Man playset that came with the Spider-Mobile and Green Goblin!  Target had the shelf tag listed for $20 but then it turned out to only be $10.

Now he really wants Miles as he’s a huge fan of Into the Spider-Verse.  Which most likely the BluRay + Digital Code will end up in his Easter basket too.

The only set I saw that came with Miles also came with another Peter Parker Spider-Man and he really doesn’t need two.  Actually now that I have both pictures next to each other, it looks like a modified Spider-Man, which is nice.  I guess one of them can be a bad Spider-Man, that’s what we did when he ended up with two Captain Americas from the Titan Hero line.  So now his Avengers can fight Thanos and Evil Cap.

I get why they want to make sure a person gets a traditional Spider-Man but if I wanted to get my son a set that features Doctor Octopus too, then we’ll have three traditional Spider-Mans and I want to say the basic suit was the same in all three sets.

Both of these sets are $30 each, which is disappointing but they each come with two vehicles so I can see the value there.  Miles by himself is $12 so I might as well get a set that he comes with.

Then again, $30 and then we’re done with Legos for a while, so that’s not a bad deal either.

.  .  .

I’ve been having to come to work early, so I haven’t been allowing myself to stay up late.  I’ve been feeling pretty good as I’m waking up feeling refreshed and not groggy at all.  But I’ll find a balance again as I’ve been missing my gaming time but I’ve been so tired come 10:30pm these past few nights.  So Tuesday/Wednesday nights are no longer going to be game nights for me.  It was a pretty good run though.

.  .  .

Walker Dennis has gotten all of his Lego Dimensions characters he’s going to get for the time being.  In a short span of time, he got Emmet, Green Arrow, Starfire, and Marty.  He still has 66 gold bricks to spend, which makes me want to get him a few more characters but it’ll have to wait until Easter, as he really has plenty of content to play with.  He really wants Benny and Unikitty to complete the Lego Movie set and he really wants Doc Brown as he’s a huge Back to the Future fan now as well.

Heck, even Chad Wild Clay and Vy Qwaint (and Daniel too!) got into the Back to the Future rhythm so that time out perfectly.  I’m not sure why they went that route but they sure did.  Once Joseph Banks showed up originally, I shook my head as he was a clear ripoff of Doc Brown but then it all paid off.

I also showed Walker the time Marty and Doc Brown showed up on Jimmy Kimmel, which is a tad awkward to watch but Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd were great sports about it.  It made me want to rewatch Interstate 60 which I’m always up for rewatching but also overdue in rewatching it as it has been a few years.  Too many years.

Such a great cast and written and directed by Back to the Future co-creator, Bob Gale.  I actually got to see this at a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2002, my last year attending it, I got to see test footage of Doc Ock’s arms as a lead up to Spider-Man 2.  Gosh, 2002 was a different age.

Yes, that’s Amy Jo Johnson’s back.

Great commentary track too with Gale and Marsden.

PlayStation 2018 Year in Review

Posted by John Klein III on January 25, 2019
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/campaigns/2018/wrap-up/?PXP=7b02ed12d24255d099 c65eb7bf809dfe8af069c26058d9a7a867e460988ef445

WordPress used to do a Year in Review until they stopped for 2017 but PlayStation does it and I love seeing my stats!  I’m addicted to checking out the stats of the blog.  I just like seeing the numbers.

You could click on the link but I’m going to provide the information with some commentary.

In 2018, you played 46 different games

Which doesn’t feel right but I must have attempted several games.

My top games were Lego Dimensions (428 hours), Fallout 4 (211 hours), and Fallout Shelter (131 hours)

Lego Dimensions, I definitely share that time with Walker Dennis as he plays solo sometimes.  Also, like his Kindle usage, he doesn’t turn it off so there will be times where he starts the game and then leaves the game on so he can play with his Legos and tries to incorporate the screen into his play or uses it as inspiration.  But still, I imagine it is a legitimate 400 hours.

Top Genre :

Action Adventure, 18 Games, 231 Trophies, 600 hours

Which makes sense, as that’s my go to genre

RPG

I’m not sure what RPG is relating too, I waited to see if more stats were going to load but they never came.

Did you know?  Players made a total of 119,919,423 home runs in MLB The Show 18 last year?

I wasn’t one of those.

In 2018, I clocked in 1,065 hours in gameplay. 

Which seems like a lot!

All of that time was spent locally, I have zero hours in online play and in VR.  As I don’t play multiplayer nor do I have a VR headset.

Longest gaming streak was six consecutive hours

Which I’m not sure when that would have been as I can’t imagine playing for more than three hours in a row.

I played 313 out of 365 days

Which makes sense as I usually try to play at night but I took off 52 days.

My prime gaming hours is the daytime

Which doesn’t sound right at all, that must be Walker playing after school.

My prime day of gaming would be Saturday

Which does sound right as that’s when I get to play with Walker or I get to sneak in some gaming time by myself.

Did you know Kratos was slain 924,757,695 times in God of War last year?

I’m hoping to eventually play God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn at some point this year.  HZD’s complete edition is usually $20, which is right in my price range.  I just want to put a dent in my backlog before taking on another massive game.

I earned 495 trophies in 2018

Which is super impressive!  I love me an open world but there are times when I realized I spent more time in the world doing side stuff but that usually doesn’t amount to many trophies.  But I like to think of myself as more of a casual trophy hunter.  I’ll get the ones I want or am close to but I won’t necessarily grind for one, such as find 100 newspapers or something.  Especially if collectibles are super hidden.

Trophy Breakdown : 8 Platinums, 40 Gold, 107 Silver, and 340 Bronze

I really did try my best to get Platinums this year and I’m impress with the ones I did.

Did you know players drove a total of 7.3 billion miles in Gran Turismo Sport last year?

I wasn’t one of those either.

I downloaded 55 free games through PlayStation Plus last year.

So if you are wondering how many free games there were, it was 55.  Well, I didn’t get the PS3 games and I missed out on some Vita games.  Now I wished I did purposely download the PS3 ones as one never knows if the PS5 will have backwards compatibility (hopefully it does!) and maybe we’ll get to play these older downloads again.  I know I want to play my X-Men arcade game again and Scott Pilgrim too.

I saved $24.99 in sales and discounts

I’m not sure what this one is in relation to as the only thing I bought was the Spider-Man : The City that Never Sleeps DLC but maybe I bought something else but I’m not sure what it would have been.

Did you know there were 28 free PS4 games last year?

I did as I got all of those!  Including Call of Duty : Black Ops III.

2018 Summary

January 10 Games 46 Trophies 47 Hours
February 6 Games 31 Trophies 64 Hours
March 7 Games 10 Trophies 50 Hours
April 3 Games 18 Trophies 65 Hours
May 8 Games 22 Trophies 41 Hours
June 9 Games 28 Trophies 75 Hours
July 6 Games 35 Trophies 176 Hours
August 6 Games 18 Trophies 187 Hours
September 8 Games 15 Trophies 107 Hours
October 8 Games 109 Trophies 82 Hours
November 6 Games 74 Trophies 91 Hours
December 8 Games 89 Trophies 79 Hours

Those over 100 hours months must have been Fallout Shelter related!  I was obsessed with that game.

Most of those trophies have be bronze trophies but it does seem like a lot.

I wonder what same six games I was playing?  Lego Dimensions, Fallout Shelter (I stopped playing that back in September), and whatever my main game must have been.

Knowing these stats might be coming, I really should attempt those free PSN games.  I wish I could get more of a breakdown of what I played per month but I do like seeing the information in a table.  I wished WordPress had a table mode as it bugs me that the lines are not fixed in place.  I had to retype it in Excel to get it in a table format.  It looks so much better now.

Like, what happened in October where I got over a 100 trophies?!  Those must have been some generous games.  That must have been Uncharted 3, right?

I had to go to my PSN Profile Page to get some answers, not many but some.

Games and when I last played them:

Marvel’s Spider-Man, January 24, 2019 (when I wrote this), Platinum in 3 weeks, 3 days
LEGO Dimensions, January 23, 2019, Platinum in 5 months, 1 week
Beyond : Two Souls, December 24, 2018 (then I got Spider-Man)
Heavy Rain, December 15, 2018
SOMA, December 11, 2018
OnRush, December 8, 2018
Uncharted 3 : Drake’s Deception Remastered, December 8, 2018
Roundabout, November 24
Burly Men at Sea, November 21, 2018, Platinum in 2 weeks, 23 hours
Batman : Arkham Knight, November 19, 2018
RiME, October 29, 2018, Platinum in 8 months, 2 weeks
Hidden Agenda, October 21, 2018, Platinum in 5 days, 23 hours
Ghostbusters, October 18, 2018
Fallout Shelter, October 14, 2018, Platinum in 2 months, 3 weeks
Sparkle 2, September 8, 2018
Foul Play, September 5, 2018
Trackmania Turbo, June 22, 2018
Until Dawn, June 17, 2018, Platinum in 1 month, 3 days
Grand Theft Auto V, June 9, 2018
Trials Fusion, June 7, 2018
XCOM 2, June 6, 2018
Ratchet and Clank, May 12, 2018
Psycho-Pass : Mandatory Happiness, May 11, 2018
Fallout 4, May 5, 2018, Platinum in 4 months, 5 days
Might No. 9, March 8, 2018
Bombing Busters, March 8, 2018
Knack, February 15, 2018
Grand Kingdom, February 9, 2018
TellTale’s Batman, January 20, 2018, Platinum in 2 weeks, 1 day
Crash Bandicoot, January 15, 2018

Hidden Agenda was the main game in October, along with RiME, Ghostbusters, and Fallout Shelter.  Four games that were pretty generous.  Games usually start off with loads of trophies but a few give more at the end too, which makes sense on both sides.

I’m a Master Adventurer, with 46 Games, 1065 Hours, and 495 Trophies

Here is what is coming to PlayStation in 2019!

Days Gone

Resident Evil 2

Sekiro

Kingdom Hearts III

Anthem

Concrete Genie

I’m not slated to play any of these but Days Gone does look good.  I’m just not much of a zombie guy.

. . .

Like I wrote above, I got the platinum on Spider-Man, and I’ve 100% The Heist.  I’m still having a great time.  I must be towards the end of Turf Wars, as my percentage is in the 70s.  Using The Heist, I used the Black Cat costume exclusively.

It just made sense.  I wasn’t sure what I should wear for Turf Wars until I unlocked the Mark One armor, then I’m just using that:

For Silver Lining, someone on reddit commented on how the White 2099 costume looks like it could be a Silver Sabre costume:

So that works for me.  Maybe too red now that I’m looking at it.  I’ll start off with it and see how long it lasts.  I was thinking the Armor Mark One suit would be an even better Sabre uniform but it is too late now.  I have so many trophies while wearing the other one, I want to break it up.

Thanks to polygon for hosting the images.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/8/17831834/spider-man-game-ps4-costumes-comics

Such a great gaming website.  I used them a lot for Spider-Man and Fallout 4.

I like how they include the Silver Lining costumes as it seemed like once the game came out, some websites hadn’t updated with the DLC content or they stopped at Turf Wars.

Having the Heist focused on Black Cat, and having a Black Cat provided costume, it just made sense to combine the two for the DLC.  Since I was already having that thought, I wanted to one a main suit for each DLC.

. . .

Walker has gotten Marty from LEGO Dimensions and we are having a great time cleaning up the minikits and rescue characters using the DeLorean.

My beautiful wife got him Starfire, and we’ve been using her rainbow abilities to get other missing minikits.

I had to make a list of all of the time traveling options we need to still do.  During the level proper, I forgot to access the secret Dance location so we still have to do that.  I also got him the Green Arrow exclusive pack, he didn’t unlock anything we didn’t already have but we like Arrow and I got him relatively inexpensively.

We also won a bid on eBay for Emmet for seven dollars, including shipping, so that concludes our LEGO Dimensions shopping.  I might wait two months and get him Fantastic Beasts in March and maybe one more item but we have plenty of content at the moment.

So Walker will be happy, we told him if he really wanted Emmet, he would have to pay for it.  He has five dollars and I’ll probably do that bad parent thing of pretending to take the five dollars and then sneak it back in.  His mother keeps his wallet at all times, so he’ll never know one way or another.  Sometimes he’ll ask how much money he has and then I’m reminded of how much he has but he rarely wants anything that isn’t a dollar or two.

Now I really want that Supergirl figure but unless I’m just given $60 for no reason, I doubt we’ll ever get her.  She does have a few abilities we are still missing.

https://lego-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/Supergirl

She has Ice and Freeze Breth, powers (only two others have it, Blossom and Superman), Invulnerability (something that has yet to come up but would have helped during Portal 2 moments), and she can turn into a Red Lantern, but that’s not something I’ve seen that we need thus far.  She can construct LEGOS which is an ability Buttercup has and I don’t quite remember seeing when we did the Powerpuff Girls World but we must have.

I just checked eBay again and the cheapest I saw was $49.99 and the most expensive was a $70, some are combining her with Green Arrow for well over a hundred dollars but luckily we’re no longer in need of both.

The Teen Titans Go world has a Sonic race that was the first one of those I saw.  Starfire did pretty well until it got to a loopy loop section and I gave up.  There is a jumping race that Lego City world has that I tried several times and I’m just 20 seconds too slow so I’ll have to come back to that one eventually.  I’m not sure which character is the best for acrobatic races but it isn’t Robin.  Though I’m sure they are all the same and it is all operator error.  Though there is a difference with character’s swimming abilities and some vehicles are noticeably better at flying too.

January 2019 Free PSN Games

Posted by John Klein III on January 22, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I’m going to try to do at least a heads up post about the free games, I meant to do this much earlier but you still have time to download the free games from the PlayStation Network.

Thanks to redditor, Bocarprowler, for providing the original links and creating a thread with the games.

[NA] January 2019 PS+ Games Available Now @checkout (individual links to games included) from PS4

PS4

STEEP

Portal Knights

Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion – PS4 Link, free game is for Vita but Crossbuy with PS4

Amplitude PS4 – It isn’t suppose to be a crossbuy, but for me at least, I can download it after claiming the PS3 version, YMMV

PS3

Zone of the Enders HD Collection

Amplitude

VITA

Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion – Vita link, game is Crossbuy with PS4 (doesn’t appear free yet, PS4 version is)

Super Mutant Alien Assault

. . .

I haven’t had a chance to play any of these but I’m glad people were able to figure out how to get Amplitude to be cross-buy.

Here are some helpful videos to better explain what the games are like:

Thanks to PlayStationGrenade for hosting their always excellent video summary of the game.

Thanks to Platinum Chasers for reviewing the games with a trophy hunter’s experiences.

. . .

Steep is a snowboarding game.

Portal Knights is a Minecraft inspired game with a storyline.

Amplitude is a Guitar Hero rhythm style game but with space ships instead of a guitar.

Fallen Legion : Flames of Rebellion looks like a fun RPG game.  Doesn’t seem like that much information is available about the trophies.

. . .

I’ll probably try Amplitude and Fallen Legion eventually.

We have officially one more month of PS3 and Vita games.  PlayStation is going to stop offering these games in March but we’re still not sure if that means March offers PS3/Vita games or if that is the first month that those systems will no longer offer those games.  I’m hoping for a stellar March to send those systems off with a proper farewell but I have no idea what games would even fall in that category.  If it is Uncharted : Golden Compass, I might have to buy me a Vita that month as I want to play that game so much!

I’ve seen people getting the plat for Steep in r/Trophies

https://www.reddit.com/r/Trophies/

But everyone says how hard it is.  I might play Steep just for the fun of it.  I was so excited about Spider-Man that I knew I wasn’t going to make time to play any of these free games.  Maybe in February I’ll start that goal.  I guess the best thing for me would to make this type of post to get the word out on it (not like PlayStation really needs my help with that) and then try to make an end of the month post where I provide my experiences with the games.  I supposed I still have time for that with the January games but it doesn’t look like that will ideally work out at this time.

. . .

One of the things that is getting in my way of games is my current obsession with PlayStation Access.

Here is their video for the January games:

Thanks to PlayStation Access for hosting their video.

I went through a spell of watching WatchMojo videos and I kept being shown videos for PlayStation Access but I ignored them until I finally decided to give it a chance.  My favorite is Rob as he’s the one that makes a Top Seven list as the Friday Feature.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=playstation+access+rob+pearson&sp=mAEB

There is a playlist of 199 videos, so he has been making them for at least three years and I’m slowly making my way through them.  There is just so much content and with only ten to fourteen minutes per one, one would think I could knock them out easily but it isn’t easy to navigate through the 199 video link as my phone isn’t keeping track of where I left off.  It does help that some weeks, I feel I could skip them or I just take the suggested next video but I’ve been enjoying my time with the backlog.

Rob makes me wish that I enjoyed Metal Gear IV more, as I just felt lost while playing the game.  I do want to pick up Ni No Kuni II one of these days, as that game looks like it will scratch my itch for a good RPG and Persona 5 seems a tad intense for me.

He’s also a huge Final Fantasy fan and back in the 90s, I chose Chrono Trigger (I have no regrets) but it made Final Fantasy the other title and I never got around to playing any of them besides a copy of the first game that I bought at a yard sale.  Even that game, I felt lost with but I was young and dumb.  I also tried Final Fantasy IV that came in the Final Fantasy Chronicles (that also included Chrono Trigger for the PSOne).  I told myself, once I was done with Chrono Trigger, I’ll commit time to play FFIV but I never did.  I started it but then I just wanted to play more Chrono Trigger.

Rob reminds me of myself, an older game (but he’s younger than me by at least three years), has a young child at home, a wife, and a full time job.  He’s usually committing on how he doesn’t have much time to commit to video games but he still plays open world games but he also has an appreciation for shorter more narrative driven games, so we share that in common too.

I like how I’ve gotten to know the other hosts as well through Rob’s videos.  I still haven’t learned their names but I like them when they show up.

They have an app you can download if you are in the UK but it isn’t available in North America, which is a lost opportunity, I think.

I was reminded they have a PlayStation theme that I downloaded forever ago as it was free and it had “PlayStation” in the title.

I found a helpful website:

https://yogscast.fandom.com/wiki/PlayStation_Access

That’s Hollie (who just left the show, being replaced by Rosie), Rob, Dave, and Nathan.  Dave seems to be the main supporting player in Rob’s videos.  I’ve named them as per the bottom image, odd how they flipped Dave and Nathan there.

I tried to add Rob as a friend through the PS4 but he’s not accepting friends but I can follow him and that’s good enough, I also follow him on Twitter too.

While trying to struggle to find the Access app and to befriend Rob, Walker Dennis thought Rob and I were friends already so when I commented to myself but aloud, about how the friendship was block, Walker was quick to say “Look, Daddy, best friend who block you.”  And whenever I am watching one of the videos, he still comments on it, so that’s been fun.

I don’t use the theme, of course, but it is nice that it is there if I want to use it.

. . .

I’m in the end game of Spider-Man, I’ve defeated Electro and Vulture and I’m moving onto Rhino and Scorpion next.

We got Walker Dennis the Lego Batman Story Pack for Lego Dimensions so we’ve been playing that too.  I also just bought him the Back to the Future level pack through eBay so I’m waiting for that to come in as well, should be next week.  I’m also bidding on a Green Arrow for $15 (currently) and I’m willing to go to $20 but $30 is asking too much.  Supergirl goes for $50 usually and that’s even way more than I’m willing to pay for a single character.

I’m thinking of buying one a pack a month but we’ll see if I stick with that or not.  We are so close to getting all of the DLC trophies and I really have my sights on Fantastic Beasts as it is the final story pack we don’t own so that one I’m committed too.

Walker really wants Beetlejuice too, as Powerpuff Girls’ red brick provides a big head mode and Bettlejuice offers a Tiny Head mode.  Plus, I still regret not just buying it when I had it in my hands at Wal-Mart.  So I refuse to buy it for more than ten dollars and I’ve seen it for that much on eBay so it is a matter of time now.  Maybe in March.  As long as he has the gold bricks to instantly upgrade the vehicles, I’m tempted to buy him a new pack.  He has 52 currently, so that’s five vehicles or items so we have time.  Plus, each pack essentially offers more gold brick opportunities so it all works out.  He had 104 gold bricks at one point but after Christmas, he had seven until we started actually playing the levels.  It is so satisfying getting all of the minikits from levels and rescuing characters.  Besides the trophies from level and story packs, it pretty much is only for bragging rights at this point.

We still need the following level packs:

Midway Arcade
Adventure Time
Sonic

We are at 86% completion rate though, which is cool.  But we’re so close but these last three are usually $40 each and that’s way too much but if I can bid on something low, that’ll be nicer on the wallet and my mind.

Walker really wants Emmett, who also goes for like $20 and we don’t really need him with how Chase McCain does everything Emmett does and so much more, but with Lego Movie 2 coming out, it makes sense that Emmett is in demand.

Walker is obsessed with Lego Batman right now, watching the movie on VUDU whenever he gets the chance, so he really wants the Joker and Harley Quinn back and Bane too.  He also wants Excalibur Batman, who isn’t even in that movie!, but he comes with the Sword ability that Finn also has, so that’s at least one benefit to Excalibur Batman.  Well, until we buy the Adventure Time pack.

Once I finish the Story Packs and get the three Level packs, I’ll concentrate on opening up on the worlds we don’t have access to such as

Jurassic World
Scooby Doo
Harry Potter
Gremlins
Teen Titans Go
Wizard of Oz
ET

So those are my Lego Dimensions goals.

Free Comics on Comixology 1/16/2019

Posted by John Klein III on January 18, 2019
Posted in: Websites. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Comixology has new free comics!

https://www.comixology.com/free-comics

Angela : Queen of Hel (2015-2016) # 1
Doomwar 1 of 6
New Invaders (2004-2005) # 1

I’ve read Doomwar and the first issue was pretty good from what I remember.

A savings of $5.97 so that isn’t bad.

Also, just “Add all to cart” and you’ll save yourself having to click page after page of comics looking for items to add instead of read.  Seems like only Marvel ever adds anything new, which I appreciate.

Get them now, they might be up for another week but one never knows.

Christmas Games

Posted by John Klein III on January 9, 2019
Posted in: Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

My lovely wife spoiled me this past Christmas!  Besides the other wonderful things she got me, she got me four new games!

Spider-Man
Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice
Detroit : Become Human
Life is Strange : Before the Storm

She also got me a $25 PSN card and renewed both my subscription to PS Plus and at GameStop, so I can keep getting my monthly Game Informer magazine that I so look forward to every month.

So she did a great job of setting me up!

I immediately stopped playing Beyond : Two Souls, I just wrapped up the Navajo chapter.

http://beyondtwosouls.wikia.com/wiki/Chapters

Which turns out to be Chapter 14 of 24, so I’m a little more than halfway, which I thought I was much closer to the end.  I failed a crucial moment in the Homeless chapter (thus far, my favorite chapter) so if it is like Heavy Rain and allows Chapter Selection (I imagine it must), I’m going to go back and make Aiden do his job at the end as I mistook the controller vibration and thought I was shielding Jodie and it looked like I was but clearly I wasn’t.

While organizing Walker Dennis’ Christmas presents, I accidently happened upon my box and saw Detroit : Become Human on the top of it and immediately stopped looking.  But that encouraged me to get one playthrough of Heavy Rain successfully done and I missed out on two nights of playing Beyond : Two Souls, but even if I could play those levels, I wouldn’t have finished it.  I do like how there are longer chapters and short chapters, so nothing feels like it drags, and the longer ones feel more important.  I’m getting to know Jodie a lot and get invested in her story as I’m aware of the big moments in her life and the smaller more character defining moments.

There was a moment when Jodie really wanted to go outside and I was fully supporting her, until we got almost outside, and then I started regretting the decision.  First chance I had to go back, I took it.  It wasn’t the most exciting chapter but I felt like I was actually making real chapters.  That was Chapter 12, Like Other Girls.

. . .

There was this fun thread on the subreddit, patientgamers, about backlogs.

2019 Backlog Challenge: Make a list of at least 20 backlog titles. You must complete at least 1 per a month) You may purchase and play a new game for every 3 backlog titles you finish. Show me your backlog list and preferred new games. from patientgamers

That seemed like it was in good fun the first day and then the second day, people starting cropping up about making lists makes a fun entertainment pastime into more of a chore.  Which I guess one could view the challenge like that, if they wanted too.  Essentially, the thread was about trying to minimize one’s backlog of games, by dedicating a month to one game, with the goal of beating or finishing that game within the month.  I imagine, if you beat a game early, then you can start the next game in the backlog.

Some people were very committed and knew they could finish multiple games in one month but I liked the idea of prioritizing 12 games.  With my hour and a half I get to game at night, there’s no way I’m finishing a game a month but I like the thought exercise.

Plus, it gives me a chance to actually list out the games I have and see which ones I want to play next.

So here’s my list and the order I think I roughly want to work on them.

Spider-Man
Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice
Heavy Rain
Uncharted 4
Life is Strange
LittleBigPlanet 3
Beyond : Two Souls
Uncharted : The Lost Legacy
Life is Strange : Before the Storm
SOMA
Detroit Become Human
The Last of Us Remastered
Knack

Those are probably be higher priority ones and the ones I’m mostly interested in playing.  I from Heavy Rain to Life is Strange : Before the Storm, I wanted to break up franchises as well as not have similar playing games like Heavy Rain and Life is Strange, where they are story based games with decision trees, being played back to back.

SOMA, I’ll probably play with YouTube walkthroughs in front of me, or at the ready, as I clearly can’t go more than three or four sections before needing help.

My wife is clearly never playing with the PS4 again as I think she played a little last January but it has been a full year so the games I got for her or the games we played together, are up for grabs.  Those would be LittleBigPlanet 3, Crash N Sane Trilogy, Atari Flashback Classics Vol 2, and Inside / Limbo.  I’ve been wanting to get some DLC for LittleBigPlanet 3, like the TMNT hero pack and Batman.  That should cost me around ten dollars or so.  Those would be the ones I seek first, my PlayStation wishlist on the store is filled with other DLC packs from that game.  She’s a huge fan of Atari’s Maze Craze, so whenever I see I can get a copy of it, I buy it as we now own it for both the PS3 and the PS4.

My son and I have started the 2016 Ghostbusters game, and he seems to be done with it but I hope to get to that game eventually and finish it one of these days.  It’ll be nice if I had two more controllers but at $50 each, that’s not going to happen.

That’s You was a 98 cent game I got at the GameStop in Bozeman.  So that’s on my bottom of the list.  I figure I’ll do it like I did with Hidden Agenda and at least get a two player game done.  I’ll never get the six player trophies but still, a game that cost less than a dollar, that sounds like a deal to me.

Hellblade looks and sounds like an amazing game, so I really want to follow Spider-Man with that game.

I really want to get into Uncharted 4 after playing 3 and I want to clean up a few more trophies in 3 which I’ll probably do before playing 4.

Knack, I’m well into the fifth chapter so I need to get back to that game as well.  Especially if I can finally commit to playing a chapter section before going back to whatever is my main game.  Which I rarely want to do as I love jumping back into my current game and not having to suffer those thirty seconds to load the game and get back into the flow.

I was enjoying Grand Theft Auto V but I clearly am not stressed about getting back into it so I have that lower on my list of games.

So my second tier list would look like this

Knack
Ghostbusters (2016)
Darksiders II
Grand Theft Auto V
Crash N Sane Trilogy
INSIDE / LIMBO
Mad Max
Atari Flashback Classics Vol 2
That’s You

Darksiders II, was the my first free PS Plus game so I gave it more attention than I did with future titles (that I didn’t complete), so I want to get that one done too.

Subscribing to the Trophies subreddit really influences me too, as I see what games other people have got the platinums for.  Then I want to play those games.  I’m also subscribed to the Uncharted subreddit so that encourages me to want to play Uncharted 4 and clean up 3.

I finally got to Rank 14 on the PlayStation, it has only taken me ten years (with five of those being a gap year) but I’ve finally done it.  I was edging 98/99% for the longest time but with the help of Uncle Ben, I got to 14!

I doubt I get to any of these games but my goal is at least play the top six games.

I did get a few trophies in OnRush so I should try to get through that game some more too.

Going down my list of trophies through the PS App, I do have several games with one or zero percent complete so I’m not worried about those but OnRush has five percent, and Sparkle 2 has four percent so clearly I can quantify an interest in one game over another game by one mere percentage.

Walker Dennis and I also started Foul Play, but we haven’t gotten back to that game either.  I sort of forgot about it.

Trackmania Turbo I’m done with even though we didn’t finish it but ten percent might be all I can do.

Knack I have eight percentage so maybe that game has more chapters than I think it does.  I know there is a slew of collectibles that I don’t have.  Both Knacks have 15 chapters so I’m a third of the way complete with that game.  I thought maybe it had seven chapters and I was close to the end but that adds up.  I’ll probably never get Knack 2 on my own either.

Crash Bandicoot sits at 13 percent complete.

forma.8 sits at ten percent but I’m also done with that game as no YouTube has attempted that game with the lack of videos.

Shoot, Darksiders II is only at one percent and I feel like I’ve played that game for a while.  I’m probably only on the third section of that game but it was fun and the third game is out now.  I’ll never get it on my own but I’m aware of it.  A new developer too, if I recall correctly.

. . .

With the $25 PSN card my wife gave me, I quickly bought the entire $24.99 The City That Never Sleeps DLC packs for Spider-Man, so that felt pretty good.  Later that week, I really wanted to use a Spider-Man theme and avatar but couldn’t find it in the store.  I reached out to Insomniac through twitter and they told me to check eBay.   Thanks to a great eBay seller, hi_corp, I was able to get the PRE-Order DLC Bonus.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Spider-Man-Pre-Order-DLC-Bonus-Spidey-Suit-Pack-Drone-Avatar-Theme-PS4/283250288485?hash=item41f3086765:g:Kd0AAOSw9E5b5Be6:rk:3:pf:0

For $7.50, and same day delivery through e-mail, I got so much!

There is a second Battle dynamic theme that I could also have bought for $2.99 but I took on a chance on the above as it came with an avatar, that I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it listed.  5 extra skill points is nice, and early access in the game to three suits, that also saved me resources as I could spend those resources on other suits and other gadget upgrades.  Oh, and it gave me the spider drone gadget early too.  Plus those suits abilities as well.

I’ll probably never use the Spider-Punk suit or the Velocity suit but I’ll probably use the Avengers : Infinity War suit one of these days.  So all of that sounded amazing.  I’m not sure who is paying an extra $2.25 from another seller while my guy was selling it for less but I went with the guy who was selling it for less.  Turns out there are two different themes but I’ll never use two themes, so I was okay with the first one.

I like how mine is pretty basic and it makes a fun thwip sound when I move from item to item on the Home bar.

I’ve started really enjoying having the theme match the game I am playing.  I was using the Life is Strange one, but hadn’t started the game, and with Spider-Man, I knew I wasn’t getting back to Life is Strange anytime soon, so I didn’t want the constant reminder about it.

While playing Uncharted 3, I wanted an Uncharted theme but they were all $2.99.  Then while looking at the available themes, I had realized I already own an Uncharted theme, so that was a missed opportunity.

I’ve checked and I couldn’t find a LEGO theme, so that was disappointing.  I’m not sure what determines which games get themes.

. . .

True to my word, as soon as I could unlock the Scarlet Spider suit, I definitely did.  I also did a few too many side items or found a few too many collectibles as I was leveling up but I was enjoying swinging around so much.  There is a main story mission that instructs us to start taking pictures of landmarks, and once you have taken two landmark photos and stopped three crimes, you can use those tokens to unlock Scarlet Spider at level four.

https://screenrant.com/spider-man-ps4-suits-costumes-unlock-guide/

A very handy guide on what it takes to obtain all of the base game suits.  I really want the Stark suit too, so I made a point of getting that one and the classic suit.

My next suits I really wanted and unlocked were the Spider-Armor MK IV suit (the All New All Different suit), the Spirit Spider (as my son thinks it looks cool).  My next goals are the Vintage suit (the one that looks like it is straight from a comic page), and the Last Stand suit.

I’m getting a slew of trophies which is fun and the game is known for being an easy platinum but now I’m getting worried I’ll be one of the few that can’t get the plat but I’m hoping to do the work and earn it.  The ones that I think are going to be hard hurdles are going to be getting Spectacular (Silver) on the Taskmaster challenges.  I can do the Combat ones very easily but the drones and bombs seem to be beyond my abilities.  I’m hoping as I rank up, I’ll get increases in swing abilities and such.

. . .

So expect a more detailed Spider-Man write up and a Beyond Two Souls one.  I figure I’ll finish my first Beyond Two Souls one, then go back to Homeless and do a one and a half playthough but making different choices, then recommit to Heavy Rain but I’ll do a Beyond Two Souls post while replaying Heavy Rain.

So those are my gaming goals for 2019!

Also, whenever Man of Medan gets released, like Spider-Man, that’ll move up in my list of games I play.

Heavy Rain

Posted by John Klein III on January 4, 2019
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Thanks to PlayStation for hosting the trailer!

I just completed my first playthrough for Heavy Rain!  There are so many twists and turns with the game.  I did foolishly take five months off from my previous attempt at the game, which really hurt me when it came time for Ethan to explain what Shaun was wearing the day the Origami Killer took him.  Since there is a trophy for providing the right information, I clearly didn’t get it right.

I will go back and get all of the other trophies but Beyond : Two Souls is demanding that I at least get one playthrough of that game done as well.

I did start a second one and I’m at the part where Ethan is trying to give Shaun a snack.  I was able to successfully stay on his schedule so this time, I can be a little more actual about it.

Heavy Rain is very similar to Until Dawn in that the decisions you make effect the rest of the game.  Heavy Rain came first, just to be clear, as it was a PS3 game.

We play as four characters.  Ethan, the father of Shaun.  Norman Jayden, an FBI agent assigned to the case that is working with the local police.  Jayden has a fancy pair of sunglasses that helps him at crime scenes, like a very mobile CSI lab.  It is the only real story element that isn’t realistic.  There is Scott Shelby, a retired cop turned Private Investigator who is working the case.  Then there is Madison Paige, a journalist who suffers from insomnia who gets involved with the case.

I really enjoyed all of the characters except maybe Jayden.  I liked him at first and then I sort of lost interest with him and his attitude while waiting at the police station and wanting to play a ball game using ARI.  Like, he wasn’t taking the case seriously enough for my taste.  He eventually got there but I would rank him low on the character list.  He gets paired with a police detective Blake who has been on the job too long.

Shelby is super lovable guy.  There is this one sequence where he has to change a baby’s diaper that he lost some points with me.  He just left a used diaper on a side of a counter!  What a monster!  I did spend an extra minute or two trying to throw it away in a proper trash container but the game wouldn’t let me.

Shelby also gets a partner at one point, Lauren, a mother of one of the previous Origami Killer’s victims.  I liked her too.

The voice and motion capture was pretty top notch, especially knowing it was a game that originally came out in 2010.  There is a kissing scene that was very uncomfortable to watch.  Like, I wanted to ship those two but there was a quick price to pay.  I mean, I get it, sometimes when passionately making out, sometimes lips don’t connect but I don’t think that was what was happening here.

Ethan is played by Pascal Langdale. He’s been in some shows but I haven’t personally seen any of them.

Madison is portrayed by two actresses.  Judi Beecher is Madison’s voice and facial actress and Jacqui Ainsley is her body.  Which makes me feel bad for Beecher but then Ainsley’s Wikipedia page gets redirected to Guy Ritchie’s page so neither of them is the clear winner.

I wished this version of the game came with the Taxidermist DLC so that we could have gotten more time with Madison.  Also it is a shame that the other characters’ planned DLC never got developed.

Sam Douglas is Scott Shelby.  Apparently he was King Herod on The History Channel’s The Bible miniseries which I really enjoyed but don’t have an image in my mind.

Which I typed and realized I live in a time when I can just see an image whenever I want.  That’s definitely Sam Douglas dressed as King Herod but that’s all I’m getting.  Douglas has bit parts in some pretty popular movies.  He was a cab driver in Eyes Wide Shut.  He was a Chief NY Cop in The Fifth Element.  He was a Kiev Room Agent in the first Mission : Impossible film.  He was also a lawyer in the 1989 Batman, but I can’t recall when a lawyer would be needed in that film.

He’s aged so well!  I bet he’s one of the outside peeps when Harvey Dent is giving a speech or . . . oh!  I bet he’s in the scene where Joker comes out stating he’s the new boss in town and Bruce Wayne is there and Vicki Vale is taking pictures in the distance.  That scene is discussing the change in power so lawyers would be there for that.  Next time I see the film, I’ll try to pay more attention.

Leon Ockenden is Norman Jayden.  Ockenden must have been the big get as he’s been in various television series that I think I recognize their names but he’s constantly working.

. . .

Like Until Dawn, there is a load of Quick Time Events (QTE).  This game has a lot more of them.  For the most part, I did okay with them and the game is pretty generous with allowing you to miss a few of them and still get the end result you wanted.  Well, except for twice with Norman.  One, I didn’t know R1 meant he would shoot a guy and he totally did!  Another, he was fighting the Origami Killer on top of a roof and I missed a few of the QTE but I must have missed more than two of them as Norman didn’t make it to the end of the game.

I got Norman killed and I also failed to save Lauren.  Lauren died to another QTE that I didn’t realize meant saving her or kicking a door open and I kicked the door open instead.

There was also a time with Norman when I was trying to read the two options, take the drug and don’t take the drug, but I had to read the options twice as they were swirling around the screen in a fast manner.  By not clicking either option, he ended up taking the drug, which I didn’t want him to do.

I did end up saving Shaun.  Ethan and Madison got together and the three of them live in a house together.  The Origami Killer did get away and is just walking the streets.

I did not see the twist of who the Origami Killer was.  At one point, Ethan suspects he has a split personality, and I had made my peace with that as Madison seemed cool with it.

The Origami Killer has poor Ethan go through five trials, and I only succeeded in two of them!  I did so horrible in the driving against traffic trial, I didn’t know which direction was a better one.

Also, the QTE that I did the worst with were the ones where I had to tilt the controller in a certain way.  At one point, Madison had to pick a lock and it took me forever to tilt the controller in all of the right directions.  I could have used less of those.

Ethan then had to crawl over glass and through an electrical maze.  I thought I did pretty well until I had to press several buttons that didn’t make sense.  Like, I had to hold Triangle, Square, X, and R1 and L2 but not in that sequence and I couldn’t get my fingers to go to each button faster enough or hold it in place long enough.  So Ethan had to go out the Coward! door.

Next, he had to cut off his finger and I could do that one, then he had to kill a drug dealer and I knew I was going to have him do that one as well.  The final one was to drink some poison and so I did that one like a champ as well.

That poor Ethan was put through the ringer in this game.  I started the game with Walker Dennis in the room and the game opens up two years ago with Ethan and I let Walker control the game.  Everything looked so peaceful.  Ethan took a shower, he walked around, and then his family came home.  Ethan played with Shaun and Jason (Jason!) outside for a time.

Then we got to the mall and I have to be real with you.  One of my biggest fears is Walker getting hit and being killed by a car.  I’m in a constant state of yelling at him to stay to a certain side of the van or to not run directing away from the van.  He’s horrible about looking both ways and also for listening while in a parking lot.  The whole thing isn’t ideal.

So there’s this moment when Ethan loses Jason! and both he and Jason! get hit by a car.  For a little bit after that, Walker Dennis listen pretty well in parking lots but that has since gone away.

When I started my second playthrough, Walker really didn’t want me to play the mall scene again so I turned it off and had to get pass that sequence later that night.  Which didn’t make me feel any better but at least that part of the game is over.

I didn’t get Lauren to open up to Shelby about her son the first time they meet.

I didn’t play two games with Shaun in the park or buy him candy.  I think I was still catching on to the game at that point.  I did play on the see saw but then went to the merry go round and then it all went to heck.

When Blake and Norman meet up with Ethan’s therapist, Norman put a stop to the beat down.

I failed to get Madison to help Ethan escape from the police.

I knew not to let Madison take the drink but I had her not drink earlier at the club so I figured I should play along this time but of course, that was the wrong decision to make.  Poor Madison, because she’s the female character, she gets some truly horrible sequences like her opening action sequence was super intense and I was legit concern about failing it at every turn.  So when I did miss a few QTE, I was super worried about what I was about to witness.

Shelby did not make a good omelet for Lauren.  It didn’t look good but I also was being confused by the QTE, so I kept turning off the stove instead of continuing cooking the eggs.  I could have really used a Triangle leads to Cooking, R1 leads to stopping, dialogue boxes on the screen.  I wouldn’t have mind that at all.  And if those words could be static on the screen too, that would be nice.

At the beginning of each new scene, you can listen to the characters’ thoughts and I would take advantage of it every time but too keep it interesting, the words/thought options kept bouncing around the screen.  So I spent more time thinking about reading the text or processing the text and movements and I would if it was just listed on a list that I could choose from.  I get that the thoughts are supposed to be hurried or jumbled but it would have been nice to not have been so busy.

In Beyond : Two Souls, I just got done with the birthday party and David Cage and Quantic Dream really perfected the interactions, QTE, and general movements.  PS Plus gave Beyond : Two Souls for free in May 2018 and then Heavy Rain was given for free two months later in July 2018.  I hadn’t really started playing Beyond at that point but when we got Heavy Rain, I knew I wanted to go in release order.  I had a hard enough time adjusting to the first Uncharted game after playing and loving Uncharted 2 so I knew to hold off until I played Heavy Rain.  I was also looking into just buying and downloading the digital copy of Heavy Rain and I no longer needed the combo disc that had both Heavy Rain and Beyond : Two Souls on it.

I’m reminded that my friend Jay attempted Fahrenheit, the game that came out before Heavy Rain.  It looked interesting and from what I read, it definitely sounds interesting but we were pretty lost in the opening scene, just trying to get out of the room.  I never really had that problem in Heavy Rain and these things are a bit of a process to figure out what works and what needs to be improved upon.

I, of course, had Ethan forgive Madison as I really liked them together.  I can already tell that my second playthrough is going to be a completely different game.  Which was how different my second and third playthroughs were like with Until Dawn.  I had did my blind playthrough and then I was determined to see what it was like to keep everyone alive, as I had foolishly let Jessica die due to me not having Mike take shortcuts.  I knew it was going to be essentially the same game up to Chapter Ten where I made sure Josh was going to live and Sam wasn’t going to flip the switch.  So my third playthrough, They All Died, was such a different experience.  Then I’ve done some other playthroughs were I wanted to see certain people make it or just chose all of the lesser options.  That’s where the real fun of these types of interactive games comes from, making different choices and seeing how it effects the overall game.  Sure, there will be a very noticeable spine to the game but not everything can be a Choose Your Own Adventure type of book that has 15 different options and endings.

Shelby’s investigation leads him to this big wig and his son.  At one point, there is this giant shoot out and I was doing so good but did get shot like three times.  It was pretty fun.  The main problem is that I never could predict the next button prompt.  It isn’t like Square is always a left hand motion or something like that.  This sequence was mostly R1 and L1 but then I start overthinking it.  Is the game just making me think it is these two buttons and then we have to start getting complicated?  I want to say there were R2 and L2 prompts too.  I was just in a mode of seeing the prompt, repeating it in my head, pressing the button.  I tried to slow myself down to ensure no mistakes but the game doesn’t really provide all that much time to process everything.  But then it doesn’t have a uniform prompt for items either so it is random every time, or that’s how it felt for me.

Then we finally get to the big wig’s office and he has a heart attack.  I so hated that guy that I grabbed his medicine and just walked out of the room.  I wasn’t going to risk him making his way over to the desk and getting his medicine.

I’m not sure if I’m good enough at this game to successfully complete all of Ethan’s trials.  I’ll definitely try my best but maybe I can do it.

There is also a sequence where Shelby has to dust all his and Lauren’s fingerprints and I completely forgot her touching the ballerina music box.  The scene has this intense music and sense of pending doom to get out of there quickly but now I wonder if I did have time to go around and be slow and get everything.

I just remembered another sequence with Shelby in a convenience store and I was surprised by a QTE and completely missed it.  So the robber noticed Shelby as we approached him.  We were able to talk the robber out of robbing the store and the clerk gave us a box that the Origami Killer gave to the clerk when he took the clerk’s son.

I will have to pay more attention to see how many origami pieces were in the box and how many fingers the clerk had.  I suspect that all five were in the box and he still had all ten fingers.  Ethan was clearly the stand out father.  Lauren’s husband isn’t in the picture anymore but I don’t recall if he just left or disappeared during the time.  The baby’s father definitely left after the older son was killed, leaving a cell phone behind.  I forget how many sons the Origami Killer has claimed but that’s at least four that we’re aware of and meet.  Lauren was part of the game I played during July so my horrible memory has lost part of the sense memory.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself and I can’t wait to get to my second playthrough again.  I just want a brief pause from the game.  So, I guess I can wait to get to my second playthrough but I’m excited by the prospect.

2019 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on December 31, 2018
Posted in: Film. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I was noticing all of the movies that are coming out this upcoming summer and it looks like a major movie like every other week or so!  Once I started down the list, I had lots of opinions and I figured I’ll get them out of my head.

For anyone who wants to follow along:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_film

January

Glass.  I still need to watch Split but I’m super excited from what I’ve seen from the trailers.  I just loved Unbreakable and anything that gives us more stories from that world, the better!  Why is Dunn even locked up?!  I could see if he made various visits to Glass and then it timed out well with the Split fellow but he’s clearly locked up there too.

February

Jacob’s Ladder.  Can you believe they are remaking Jacob’s Ladder?!  That’s when I knew I was going to want to write this article.

Lego Movie 2 : The Second Part.  This movie once I tell Walker Dennis that it is coming out, is going to be very eagerly anticipated.  He saw the trailer and wanted to watch it immediately.  Luckily, he’s forgotten about it for a minute so that’s good for us.  We’ll watch it probably the second weekend it is out.

What Men Want.  On the flip side of Jacob’s Ladder, I read this title was thought to me self “what is this, a female version of What Women Want?”  And it totally is and I love it!  Especially as it stars Taraji P. Henson!  I imagine there will be at least one joke about how men are always thinking of sex, or it would be a running gag but I’m hoping it has more than that.

All-Star Weekend.  Jaime Foxx is writing and directing films now.  Pretty great cast with Robert Downey Jr., Dr. Ken Jeong, and Gerald Butler.  I’m not sure why Butler doesn’t act more, him and Clive Owens should have much better careers.

March

Chaos Walking.  I’m not familiar with the series but this has Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, both of whom must have filmed it in-between breaks from their bigger films.  This is supposed to be the start of a new franchise so we’ll see about that.

Fighting with My Family.  Stephen Merchant wrote and directed this movie about WWE’s Paige, who I’m not familiar with at all.  But I do love me some Stephen Merchant.  If you haven’t listen to his episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, please do so!

https://player.fm/series/series-2331217/ep-29-stephen-merchant

So great!

The Rock co-produced the film and will be in the movie too.

Captain Marvel.  I can’t wait for this film, my first film of the year that I really want to see.  I want to see Lego Movie 2 as well but if I had to choose only one film, will it probably be a later film but I wouldn’t watch that one unless I got to see Captain Marvel.  My wife might be done with the Marvel films so I might have to take Walker Dennis with me.  The Marvel films are usually rated PG-13 but that’s for like superhero violence and he sees that type of stuff with most action cartoons.  I was folding laundry and he sat through Scott Pilgrim just fine.  He seemed way into it, now that I typed that.  I was building some Lego sets that he received for his birthday and I had Captain America : Winter Soldier and he didn’t seem to pay too much attention to that one.  Those are two completely different films though.  Scott Pilgrim holds up like crazy.  This past weekend, I was folding laundry again (a weekly chore), and I started Black Panther and that movie starts off pretty slow for a now five year old.  I’m sure watching it in the movie theater will help too.

Dumbo.  Tim Burton’s Dumbo.  The trailers look pretty good and I like how they seem to focus on Dumbo but I’ve seen Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and I’m hoping Dumbo is treated better.

April

Shazam!  I’m all for funny super hero films and Captain Marvel probably lends itself to more comedy or at least, more family friendly fare, but that first trailer left me rather cold.  I do like how both Captain Marvels are getting films in the same year.  At least Carol came first.

Pet Sematary.  Another remake but horror movies can be remade all the time, with special effects being what they are and how long ago the first film was, I don’t see a problem with it.

Hellboy.  I’m really hoping this new version works out as I would love a new Hellboy movie every other year.  He could easily sustain that type of franchise.  David Harbour should be great in the role too.

Breakthrough.  I saw a thumbnail of Chrissy Metz on YouTube and made a dumb judgment call on what the trailer would be like and what type of film it would be but I was pleasantly surprised.  I also had to look up the true story as I do with any film based on true events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impossible_(2017_novel)

It comes out on Easter so that’s pretty smart.  The film also stars Topher Grace and Mike Colter.  We just started Luke Cage’s first season last night too.  Such a great first episode.  We’re hoping to go between Luke Cage and Season Five of Agents of SHIELD but we’ll see how that works out.

Under the Silver Lake.  A neo-noir film starring Andrew Garfield and Topher Grace, could be interesting.

Avengers : Endgame.  My buddy Greg has a theory the film will end with Tony in space, giving Pepper that farewell speech of his that can be seen in the trailer.  I’ll be curious who survives and how Captain Marvel plays into the film.  I’m really hoping no one dies and any of these actors can just come back as they please.  But I also get why the studio has to write them out if the actor doesn’t or can’t come back.

May

Pokémon : Detective Pikachu.  I had shrugged my shoulders when I first heard of this film and figured it would come and go like the other Pokémon films that come to the theater.  Then I saw the trailer with Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu and now I’m all on board.

The Hustle.  A female version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson.  Could be good.  I do like Anne Hathaway.

John Wick 3 : Parabellum.  I have yet to see any of these John Wick films but I really should.

Aladdin.  I’m still iffy on Will Smith as the Genie but once I see the first official trailer, I’m sure I’ll be sold on him.

Brightburn.  A horror film using the premise of Superman, written by the Gunn brothers (but not the third one, he’s producing it though), I’m all signed up for this.  Teenage Superman but with invisibility and maybe only heat vision?  Also, the film has Elizabeth Banks, so that’s great too.

Godzilla : King of the Monsters.  This film will have Mothra, that’s all I needed to know!  One day, we’ll get Mechagodzilla but I imagine that’ll only come with a Pacific Rim crossover.  Hopefully this would be the film that makes it 80/20 monsters vs humans seen on film but I doubt it.

Rocketman.  The Elton John biopic, with Taron Egerton has Elton John.  I still only really know him as the voice of Johnny from Sing!  He was the gorilla.

June

Dark Phoenix.  So odd they dropped “X-Men” from the title as this is going to be the last X-Men film made by FOX.  I’m still hoping that they go into space but it seems like this will be based more off of Ultimate X-Men’s Dark Phoenix, which we sort of did to poor results.  I have high hopes for it.

The Secret Life of Pets 2.  Another film Walker Dennis is going to love.  I wish Patton Oswalt was at least attempting a Louie C.K. impression but I also completely get why Illumination didn’t want that.

Men in Black International.  I didn’t even know we were set to get this picture.  Doesn’t look like we’re getting either Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones but maybe they are holding that as a surprised.  I know it was the first thing I looked up.  This is the London based MiB with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, both great in Ragnarok.  I’m also happy to see Kumail Nanjiani will be in it as well as Liam Neeson.

Shaft.  I was all about Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft with Christian Bale as the villain way back in 2000.  This one stars Jessie Usher as the latest Shaft.  Richard Roundtree is back as well.  Tim Story of Fantastic Four fame is directing the film.  I was hoping they were going to make Usher the nephew to Jackson’s Shaft, so that it was always the brother of the previous Shaft but they are not going in that direction.

Toy Story 4.  I still wished they stopped at 3 but 3 made $1.067 billion so that’s pretty hard to walk away from that type of money.

Grudge.  Another horror movie remake.

Child’s Play.  The eighth installment but a reboot!  Aubrey Plaza is in this one so that’s two things.

Ford vs. Ferrari.  James Mangold who directed the 3:10 to Yuma remake and The Wolverine and Logan, is giving us our sole Christian Bale film of the year.  I thought Vice was supposed to come out but it must have had a limited release in 2018.  Bale is neither Ford or Ferrari but based on the events of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Matt Damon is also in this but is neither Ford or Ferrari.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans

Tracy Letts is Ford II and Remo Girone is Ferrari.

47 Meters Down : Uncaged.  This reminds me I hadn’t seen the Mandy Moore first film where she fights sharks.  Probably not a good sign for her that she’s not in this one.  I do wish they titled it, 48 Meters Down.  That would have been awesome.

July

Spider-Man : Far From Home.  The European Vacation of Marvel films!  I’m all for Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio and Cobie Smulders is in this too!  Keaton is back as the Vulture too!  So many coincidences!

The Lion King.  I know they were never going to do this but it would be great if they let Jon Favreau had his way with the film but just carried over the audio from the 1994 film.  Since there is no human element like Jungle Book, this is just going to be a feast for the eyes.  Plus, they had James Earl Jones come back as Mufasa, so they should have just let everyone come back.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, and I like how we’re still counting these.  His take on the Charles Mansion instructed murders.  A giant cast for this film!  DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Nicholas Hammond.  Yes, that Nicholas Hammond!  thwip thwip!  I forget he was one of the young children in The Sound of Music.  Apparently he made two films in 2018, The BBQ and Ladies in Black.  Ladies in Black has Julia Ormond as one of the ladies who was Sabrina in the 1995 Sabrina remake.  Which is always high on my list of worthwhile remakes.

Al Pacino is also in the movie.  Lena Dunham and Rumor Willis too.  Damon Herriman is Charles Manson.  Looks like a guy who has been in known films but wasn’t known from said films.  Bruce Dern rounds out the cast.  In nondisclosed roles are – Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, and James Marsden!

August

Hobbs & Shaw.  The Fast and the Furious spinoff.

The New Mutants!  Hopefully this movie doesn’t get pushed back any further!  Several July/August horror films so they can be released on BluRay in October.  I can’t wait to see more of Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik and I really hope Lockheed makes the cut into the film too.  I also want to see them in a variation of the New Mutants classic uniforms.  Since this is going to be the last last FOX X-Men project, I want them to just go crazy and include everything as there will not be a sequel.  Unless there is and we can get Warlock and Karma but time will tell.

Dora the Explorer.  A live action take on the story.  I wonder if the plan is to make one of these every year or have this transition into a live action series.  Benicio del Toro is Swiper, I’ll have to rewatch a scene but it feels like a miscasting but I’m sure he’ll be fine in the role.  She’s entering high school and there’s a plot about rescuing her parents.  You know, like in the cartoon.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  I want to be in so hard with this film!  I love the classic children’s stories so much!  They are barely a page long but the images and the words really stick with you as you read.  I used to reference this as my favorite horror stories back in high school and only a few even remembered it.

Such a great collection and Amazon has it for under $20!

https://www.amazon.com/Scary-Stories-Tell-Dark-Paperback/dp/B00ZQB6AW0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545088935&sr=8-2&keywords=scary+stories+to+tell+in+the+dark+box+set

The film is co-written by Guillermo del Toro.  Imagine if this was done like a 30 minute HBO series, roughly animated and retold five stories in those 30 minutes?  That would have been awesome or at least, another take on the story.

Angry Birds Movie 2.  Can you believe they are making a sequel?  I can now that I see the first one made $352.3 million.  That and I’m sure the tie in game makes Rovio Entertainment tons of bank.

Playmobil : The Movie.  Like the Lego Movie but harsher on the eyes is my best guess for the film.  I’m hoping it steals a lot from Lego and has a wealth of references to their playsets.

Especially their Ghostbuster sets!  Walker Dennis got all of these except for the Egon/Ghost and the Terror Dogs sets.  Mostly as I didn’t even know they made a Terror Dogs until right now.  He still wouldn’t have gotten it but still.  The Firehouse, Ecto-1, Stay Puft and Slimer all look amazing.  But the individual figures do not look great on the box.  They are fine and clearly in the Playmobil model but ooof.

A real shame we ended up with two Janines and no Egon but that’s how you sell a boxset.  Walker doesn’t mind at all and he got plenty of people and he’s all for a play house set.

Angel Has Fallen.  A film I was going to scroll pass even though it has Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman in it.  So first the White House (Olympus) falls, then London fell, now Butler’s character is being framed (of course!).  Classic Jack Bauer nonsense where the one guy who has spent years (or two days?!) saving the country and should have a school in every state named after him, is of course, turned traitor and everyone immediately doesn’t question it.  But this one taking place on Air Force One does catch my attention.  I have yet to see any of these films but I’m a sucker for a airplane hostage film.  I get that from my mom’s love for disaster films.

September

It : Chapter Two.  I’ll watch these eventually.

Downton Abbey.  My wife was interested in this once I told her about it.  The show has been off the air since December 2015.  It doesn’t feel like three years has passed but I also haven’t heard people talk about the show in a while.  Probably at least two years.  I wonder if it was better to do a film than a revised television series.  I guess it was as they went with the feature film route.

October

Gemini Man.  Ang Lee directed.  An aging assassin (Will Smith) has to fight a younger clone of himself, also played by Will Smith?  For some reason the younger clone can predict the older one’s moves when you’ll think it would be the other way around.  So the original older model will have to come up with some new tricks, I supposed.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in this, which is what caught my eye.  She’s so great in Scott Pilgrim and one of these days, I’ll pick up Mercy Street again.  I read All About Nina was a good film of hers that came out in 2018.

The Addams Family.  A few horror movies get released in actual October.  This is the kid friendly animated horror movie.

Zombieland Too.  I have to still watch the first one.

The Goldfinch.  Our sole Luke Wilson film of 2019.  Another great actor that I don’t see why he doesn’t get more roles.

November

Terminator 6.  With this film, I’ll be three movies behind on the Terminator series, and one television series.  Linda Hamilton is back, so this one might be the one to watch.

Charlie’s Angels.  This was the other movie that sparked wanting to write this article.  I’m all for Elizabeth Banks directing this film.  I wonder if this is why she didn’t direct Pitch Perfect 3.  The cast on the other hand, ooof.  Kristen Stewart, probably ran out of Twilight money and now needs another success story.  I imagine she’s available for two more films.  Naomi Scott, of Pink Ranger fame in the last Power Rangers film.  She’s also going to be Jasmine in the Aladdin live action adaption, so 2019 could be big for her, she’s on both ends of the year, so that works for her.  Ella Balinska rounds out the trio.  I guess she’s the Lucy Lu of this cast.  I’m sure the other two are fine to great but Kristen Stewart being the star of the film isn’t ideal.  Maybe she’s loosen up these days and is ready to have some fun.  Patrick Stewart is also in this so that could be really neat too.  Seems like this could be a television series if it wasn’t for Naomi Scott blowing up.

I had to check.  Taylor Lautner hasn’t acted since 2016, Run the Tide as his last film and he had a main role in Scream Queen’s second season.

Robert Pattinson has been steadily in films and has four films in post production right now.  I heard Good Time was supposed to put him back on the map.

Sonic the Hedgehog.  We didn’t get Walker the Sonic Lego Dimensions set so he still doesn’t have much connection to the game.  He’ll love it if we got it for him but it doesn’t seem likely.  I like that they kept his red shoes but apparently are giving him two separate eyes, which seems disappointing.  Once the official image comes out, I’ll make up my mind if we’re going to watch it.  It has to be better than the Mario film, right?

Midway.  We way into playing Lego Dimensions again and my initial thought was this was going to be related to the Midway Arcade era of games but that isn’t the case at all.  This movie gives us the sole Aaron Eckhart film appearance of the year.  Not sure why he doesn’t get more work either.  He had four films in 2016 and now this film.  I forgot he was in London Falling and he was in Tom Hank’s Sully film too that year.  The film is about the Battle of Midway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

A decisive naval battle between America and Japan during World War II.  So it will be pretty intense.  I should check to see if there are any documentaries or docuseries that have dealt with the subject material as Wikipedia doesn’t offer any insight with that.

The film also has Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore, and Patrick Wilson in it.  I like Wilson in most things I see him in but he’s making those Insidious and Conjuring films.  He’s always working and it is hard to keep up with him. Glee’s Darren Criss is in the film as well and Nick Jonas is back to acting as well.  Jonas is also in that Choas Walking film too.

Margie Claus.  Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are bringing us a new holiday musical about Mrs. Claus stepping up.

Last Christmas.  One of my favorite Christmas songs and it is being turned into a film now.

Frozen 2.  This is finally happening and I’m sure we’ll be taking Walker Dennis to it.

December

Jumanji 3.  Combining story elements from both previous films and recognizing the sequel was a sequel and not a reboot.

Star Wars : Episode IX.  Working title has been Black Diamond but I’m sure that’s not what will be on the poster.

Cats.  The famous musical will be finally given the movie treatment.  Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift are in it so that’s happening.  JHud has been growing on me with the previous season of The Voice so either she’s tone down her antics or I’ve grown to accept it.  I’m sure it is the latter.  The film of course will be a big deal, lots of names in it.  Ian McKellen, James Cordon (of course), Idris Elba, Dame Judi Dench, Rebel Wilson (also back in a big way in 2019), and Jason Derulo. I recall watching some of Cats on VHS back in the day from the Broadway show but I think I lost interest 20 minutes into it.

Super Intelligence.  Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are also bringing us a Sci-Fi Action Comedy and they are bringing James Cordon along as well.

Little Women.  This film is finally being remade as 1994 was 15 years ago.  1994’s version is when Christian Bale met his wife, Sandra Blažić, who was Winona Ryder’s personal assistant during the film.  That was mine and his main take away from that film.  So it is time to remake that story.  Apparently there was a remake done in 2018 but it doesn’t look as big of a deal but it does have Lea Thompson as Marmee March.  Susan Sarandon was the character in 1994 and Laura Dern is the character in the 2019 edition.  So a rich legacy there.

Call of the Wild.  Jack London’s 1903 classic novel come to life.  Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy and Karen Gillan are in it.  Omar Sy was Bishop in X-Men : Days of Future Past.  He was also in Jurassic World as Barry and provided the voice for Lego Dimensions : Jurassic World – it is truly all connected!

. . .

So that’s the 2019 in Film!  Some big films and some small ones and several sequels and remakes.

Happy New Year from your friends at S&FwM!

Uncharted 3

Posted by John Klein III on December 21, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Thanks to UNCHARTED for hosting its own video!

I finally beat Uncharted 3 on Normal!  I had such a great time with the game.  I was a little concern when Elena wasn’t showing up but then she showed up and all was right with the world!

I attempted a Crushing playthrough and got to the fifth chapter when I wasn’t in the mood to continue doing so.

After I beat the game, I went back and got all of the treasures and the Strange Relic.  I was pretty proud of myself for only missing 29 out of the 101 treasures, so that’s not a bad percentage.

While hunting for the treasures, I was attempting to get a couple trophies.  I was attempting to kill 75 enemies in a row without dying, kill 30 enemies in a row with only my side arm, and defeat 50 enemies in a row without auto-reloading.  I must have killed 100 enemies without dying or if I did die, I exited to main menu as soon as I was dead, and selected Continue so that the death didn’t count.  I figure, once I get back to the game, whenever that day will be, and I’ll choose a later chapter and continue on from there.  I was doing pretty well for myself and then at one point, I had to use grenades for a tutorial and I knew that reset both my side arm kill and my reload, so I’ve attempted to do get these trophies twice now.  I bet I was pretty close to the 75th kill but it felt like I had killed at least 100 foes.  From the stats page, it looks like I’ve killed 64 people in a row so that’s either my current number or the highest I’ve gotten before.

So while attempting that, I couldn’t try the kill 10 enemies in a row, alternating with melee attack then kill with a gun.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/uncharted-3-ps4/guide/

This has been my main guide during my post game adventures.

I also committed to the idea of not getting the platinum.  I don’t have the platinum for the first game but I do have the platinum for the second game.  Maybe I’ll do better during the fourth game.

I figure I’m close to killing 50 enemies by melee attacking from behind.  Then again, I would have thought I was close to killing a number of people with specific weapons at least 30 times but turns out, I wasn’t as close to those numbers as I thought.  I have 25 stealth kills so I just need to do that twice more and I’ll get the trophy.

I must be close to killing 20 enemies by blind firing while in cover too.  I was worried about reloading and losing track so I wasn’t attempting it during my treasure hunting.  I just have to kill one more people using this technique as I have killed 19.  Which makes me want to really turn on the game tonight and just get it done.

I have no idea of how many dumb people I’ve killed by throwing their grenades back at them.  I would have sworn I’ve killed at least 10 but according to the trophy, I haven’t.  Also, I haven’t killed two people with the same thrown back grenade as well.  The game doesn’t keep track of that, or at least, it won’t tell me that number but it clearly keeps track of it somewhere for the trophy management.

I’ve attempted to kill four enemies with one explosion but I didn’t get all four of them in the explosion during Chapter 16.

When I’m hanging off of a ledge, I either don’t think about grenades or I don’t have them.  I just need to kill one more person doing so as I’m at nine of the required ten.  The guide recommends Chapter 12 or Chapter 7 when we first learn the technique.

I know I have killed at least three riot shield enemies so I just need two more for the trophy.  It could be one more as well.  The game doesn’t keep track of this either.  The guide recommends the beginning of Chapter 15 so I might just replay the beginning until that is done.

I have the following weapons that I have to get 30 kills with:

Dragon Sniper – 28 kills
RPG-7 – 14 kills
Mag 5 – 26 kills
PAK-80 – 8 kills

So that’s not bad.  The Dragon Sniper is a weapon I can call upon whenever I want now that I beat the game, so I’ll get that one easily.  RPG-7 is hard to come by and we don’t get too much ammo with it either.  I do enjoy using the Mag 5 when I get my hands on it.  PAK-80 is also a hard one to come by and then I usually only had the guy who was holding it left on the field so I bet I only have three kills with it.

The Dragon Sniper can be found in both Chapter 8 and 12.

The RPG-7 can be found in Chapters 12, 13, 19, and 21.  So that’s two 12s.

The Mag 5 can be found during Chapter 16 and 19.  I know I’ve gotten it in an early chapter as well but jumping in and out of chapters for the treasures might be tripping me up.

The PAK-80 can be found during Chapters 14 and 20.

I attempted the speed run for Chapter 7 and the nine and a half minute mark came and went and I’m not sure I’m good enough to shave three minutes off of my speed.  I should attempt Chapter 16 and 20 as those have 12 and 15 minutes respectfully.  On Easy, it should be a tad better to do.  16 has a long fight in the middle that I’m already anticipating taking forever as it felt like that on Normal.  20 feels doable as it is just racing to the front of a caravan and only killing a few people along the way.

That makes up the normal trophies, the disc came with additional DLC related trophies.  I’m never going to beat the game on Brutal, and from what I’ve read, few have.

I probably can defeat 5 Djinn with a sniper rifle during Chapter 21.  That would work towards my Dragon Sniper goal too.  I’ll probably will try Chapter 21 first to get the Dragon Sniper trophy and this one at the same time.  That’ll be working smarter and harder, which is usually the Klein way.

I’m not sure about completing a speed run as Doughnut Drake in less than 4 hours and 15 minutes.  From what I’ve read, if you don’t do it in one go, the trophies can be a tad glitchy.  Also, how horrible would it be recognize it isn’t going to happen when you are at the three hour mark.  I guess to take full advantage of the opportunity, I should attempt the speed run and the other trophies at the same time.

Now I just have to try to get some of these trophies above and jump into Uncharted 4.

I’ve heard so many great things about Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy (that I will play after 4, eventually).  My only grip is how different Nathan looks from the original trilogy. 

I get that 4 was the first game for the franchise on the PS4 so Naughty Dog took advantage of the more powerful console but he just looks like a completely different person.

I just have a hard time seeing how we got from 3 to 4 and I’ve stared at these faces for a very long time.

Whereas Elena pretty much looks the same, but in higher definition.

But she’s looked great throughout the entire original trilogy for that matter.

. . .

I’ve attempted SOMA and was having a good time, if not an overly challenging time.  The game is fine but there are times where I just feel like I’m missing direction on where to go and the locations are a tad confusing.  I just got to the Theta station.  The story is super interesting but I’m doing that thing I hate and I’m resorting to walkthroughs to get me to the next point.  Once I’ve done that a third time, it kills my buzz for a game.  IGN has a great guide as does Game Pressure.  I’m just disconnected from the game.  I’ll come back to it eventually.

. . .

I’m going to make Heavy Rain my next game I’m going to tackle.