PlayStation 2018 Year in Review

Posted by John Klein III on January 25, 2019
Posted in: Reviews. 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)
byu/Bocaprowler inPS4

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.
byu/oridjinn inpatientgamers

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!

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.

Man of Medan : Dev Diary # 1

Posted by John Klein III on November 29, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Thanks for PlayStation for hosting this video!

My Twitter app did right and told me three separate times that the above Dev Diary had been released.  I accounts I’m following are : @SuperMGames, @TheDarkPictures, and @PlayStation.  Which I didn’t mind at all getting these notification blasts.

The video is Part One of Designing the Ghost Ship and I really enjoyed the interviews.  The video is barely two minutes and twenty five seconds.  Production Designer Lee Robinson, Audio Director Barney Pratt, and Art Director Robert Craig were interviewed.  I’m very eager to see what Part Two looks like.

I’m already committed that when I buy my wife’s Amazon Christmas presents, I’m throwing in my preorder to the game.  I’ll try to caution myself to not get too deep in the weeds but I’m sure they won’t spoil anything in these interviews and teases.

. . .

PlayStation announced the free games for December 2018 –

Arcade_Master22 made a great thread for it over at the PS4 subreddit:

[Video] PlayStation Plus – Free PS4 Games Lineup December 2018
byu/Arcade_Master22 inPS4

I hadn’t heard of any of these prior to the announcement but they sound like pretty fun games.

SOMA is a horror game that I’m pretty excited about.  OnRush came out in June of this year and looks like a racing game that you try to damage the other cars more than try to come into first place, so Walker Dennis should be a big fan of that game.  Iconoclasts is a crossbuy Vita game that can be played on the PS4, it looks like a fun medieval platformer.

I’ve been told Papers, Please is super fun on the Vita and now I regret not making a point of going to the online store and making sure I downloaded all of the pure Vita and PS3 games, I have three months left before the PSN Plus no longer offers PS3 and Vita games to correct that.  I’ve heard great things about the visual novel, SteinsGate, so I’ll download that and while I’m there, I’ll get Steredenn too.

Nice when I copy and pasted his list of the games, it copied over the links, that’s pretty handy for my purposes.

I’m starting to try to start speculation about what PlayStation is going to do about the lack of six free games come March 2019.  I think what they should do is offer four PS4 games, one from each year : 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.  I’m sure, like OnRush, that there might be some games they can offer from 2018 but I figure they can definitely find gems that are popular but interest has started to wane.  It’ll be nice if they could throw in a free VR game every four months, but I’m not sure if there are enough of those to just toss about.  I think it’ll be a truly wonderful idea if, whenever Man of Medan comes out, that month PlayStation offers Inpatient.  They already made Until Dawn : Blood Rush a free game back in December 2017.  Which is nice as whenever we buy a PlayStation VR, we would have all of these games already.  Inpatient is the only Supermassive Game I don’t own but it is hard to justify buying a game for a system I don’t have.

Which is true for these Vita games but since I only downloaded the crossbuy ones, I’ve already played them.  At least I only missed out on a years worth, I guess I could create a list of which ones I missed out on and if I ever get a Vita, I’ll know which games were the free ones.

According to this great website, here are the games I missed out on :

https://www.finder.com.au/gaming/playstation-plus-free-games

Wanted Corp (December 2017)
Furmins (May 2018)
Squares (June 2018)
Atomic Ninjas (June 2018)
Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma (September 2018)
Draw Slasher (August 2018)
Space Hulk (August 2018)

So only seven games, that isn’t too bad.  PlayStation was wise enough to offer several cross buy games and then I was dumb enough not to take the extra step to purchase them through the online store.  It would be nice if the PS4 store would just offer me handy links to download all of the free PSN Plus games and not make me go through a different route to get the other games but it is only one additional step and the problem is fixing itself soon.

Wanted Corp is $11.99

Furmins is $6.49 right now and comes with a bonus world.

Squares is $4.99

Atomic Ninjas is $9.99

Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma is $39.99 and that’s heart breaking!

Draw Slasher is $5.99 and I see there is a Bundle for $5.99 but I can’t tell if the Bundle includes game and whatever else or just added content.  The website could be a tad more informative.

Space Hulk is typically $19.99 but there is a 40% off right now and is only $11.99.

So over all, I’m an idiot to the tune of one hundred dollars!  That Zero Escape game being a full price game upsets me.  That’s why you always add everything to your library.  You don’t need to download everything, just add it to your library and you can download it whenever you like, as long as your membership is active.  If it goes inactive, you are just blocked from the games until your membership is renewed and then you pick right up again with your progress.  Also, membership stacks, so if you buy a 12 month membership and then see a three month membership discounted, those three months just tack on to your 12 months.  Which might be obvious but I didn’t know any of this up to like six months ago.

People complain about the quality of games that are given away but just Vita games alone in 2018, half of the ones that were given away for free, are a hundred dollar value right there and we only pay $60.  Well, during Black Friday, there was a deal for $40 and that was incredible!  Some people bought two and I hope we can be that lucky going forward.  Just never worry about it.

Which is why I’m trying to speculate on what they are going to do come March when the six free games (two for each system, PS4, PS3, and the Vita) go down to two guarantee games.  To justify the $60 membership, I think they should offer two older games (2014/2015) and two newish games (2016/2017/2018) as I’m sure asking for six PS4 games might be asking too much but four seems reasonable.  I started with just three but then I remember 2014 was almost five years ago so there has to be a slew of games that can be given away.

Membership to PSN Plus also gets you the ability to play multiplayer and access to 10 GB worth of cloud storage space.  I use it for the free games and the cloud storage space.  I’ll restate, by March, I felt like I had gotten my $60 worth.

If you are interested in a nice summary of the games, here are two great videos!

Thanks to PlayStationGernade for hosting his video.

I really like how he discusses the reviews and his own experience with the games, if he has any.  Also a nice benefit is that he plays the trailers and game footage too.

Thanks to Platinum Chasers for hosting his video.

What I like about Platinum Chasers, and I only discovered his video for the November 2018 games, is that he strictly talks about the trophies.  I now know SOMA doesn’t offer a platinum and has one missable story trophy.  That’s good to know before launching into the game.  Apparently it is one where you have to talk to someone and if you don’t follow the blue lights to green lights to blue lights once you are outside again (I hope it makes sense within the game).  I usually like to wait until I earned my first trophy in the game, and then I will go check the trophy list on the PS4.  I look at the top one, the two surrounding the first one I earned, and the last one and I try to memorize those ones.  Then usually at some point later that night or in the morning, I’ll check to see if there are any missable ones.

I don’t usually care about if a game has one or not, it is disappointing but turns out, I have several games that don’t offer a platinum.  I’m not even that crazy about getting the platinum or all of the trophies, some games, I just know I’m not going to be able to get several of the trophies and that relieves some stress.

OnRush has some multiplayer trophies so that’s nice to know ahead of time.

Iconoclasts has a trophy that is pretty grindy, so that’s good to know ahead of time.

. . .

I’m at Chapter 17 of Uncharted 3 and I keep thinking of Golden Abyss, the Uncharted game that is for the Vita.  I looked on Amazon and that game is still $70 and it came out in 2012.

Worst, it is $78!

I’m not even sure if it comes with a Vita or not.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t but there is a Batman : Arkham Origins : Black Gate that is only $25 and that game came out in 2013.  I imagine that boils down to one game being amazing and the other game being Batman Arkham Origins Black Gate.  he he he

So if I ever get a Vita, I want to be able to purchase Golden Abyss too.

$210 makes me hesitate, naturally, but maybe a pawn shop would have it for $100 or something.  Way too much for me to spend on myself and also too much to ask for it as a present.

PlayStation VR, with two games, is still $300 but you can get it for $275 right now.  I’m told it isn’t good for five year olds to use it, much less, it probably wouldn’t fit on his head, so I’m probably a year away from legit being able to buy it.  I just know that Walker Dennis is going to want to play with it and it isn’t fair to have it if he can’t just play around with it.  Plus, it is three hundred dollars!  It is still new technology so that makes sense.  People who own it love it though.  I wished GameStop could offer a demo of it but someone would probably steal it or break it.

. . .

We had gotten Walker Dennis the Nya from Ninjago set for Lego Dimensions

But the box came in pretty rough shape so we just gave it to him.  We don’t have any connection to Ninjago, we tried the first episode of the series on Netflix and it seemed fine enough.  I believe he is getting the Lego Ninjago movie for either his birthday or Christmas, so that should be nice and then we’ll have all three Lego movies too.

Thanks to Glenn Builds Bricks for hosting the in game video of how to build the Samurai Mech.  We like to build it prior to putting it on the gateway so that Walker can play with it when he isn’t playing the game and I don’t have the pressure of trying to build it while the game is active and he wants to be in the World.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/144665-lego-dimensions/faqs/72740/ninjago-world

Thanks legogamesguy for writing a nice FAQ of all of the gold bricks.

We are missing two water ones, one needs a Chima person, which Walker is getting, I forget if it is the eagle or the lion.  I’m pretty sure it isn’t the crocodile guy but it is probably the crocodile guy.  The other water one requires someone to be able to laser gold items underwater, and he isn’t getting the Cyberman so we’re probably not going to be able to get all of the gold bricks.  The third gold brick we couldn’t get requires us to get all of the minikits from the Ninjago level of the main game, Elements of Surprise, the third level.  We are only missing one minikit and it is in the beginning of the level.  We need Chell from Portal 2 which he is getting so that’ll be nice that we’ll be so close to getting all of the gold bricks.

See the Portal wall on the bottom left corner?  That’s where Chell will open a portal and then open a second portal under the middle snake head.  You can barely make out the minikit behind the bars in the photo.  Once we have that minikit, we will quit and save the game, and go back to Ninjago World and activate the mini game there.  Is how I imagine it will play itself out.

Because of this discovery, I finally figured out which gold brick we are missing from the DC World, as there is a gold brick behind completing all ten minikits in the DC World level, Paint the Town Black, that we’re missing a couple minikits in.  It is a work in progress.

We essentially completed the Ninjago world in two play sessions, which was faster than I thought we were going to do it but we’ve been starved for new content in the game.

I wished we were getting Wonder Woman in December as she has mind control abilities and that is one of the missing abilities we need in the DC World and a couple other locations.  Sometimes the game would let us rent characters but not in either of those two situations.

. . .

Happy Tenth Anniversary to my love wife!  We made it to ten years!

Burly Men at Sea

Posted by John Klein III on November 23, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Thanks to PlayStation for hosting the trailer for this game.

Yesterday, I earned my 13th platinum!

This was a fun game, it has 12 different endings, spread out over three story branches.  You get swallowed by a whale, from there, you can either put on barrels, don’t put on barrels, and wait it out with three ladies who were previously swallowed by the whale.  Since the game presents it from left to right, that’s the order I went in.

It wasn’t a bad game, and I enjoyed it for the most part.

There is this one segment where you race against Death that I completely didn’t understand what I was doing so I kept holding down the R2 button and nothing was happening.  Then I read that I was either supposed to click on one of the men or Death.  By then, I was pretty tired and went to bed.

Then I played a few more times and got two or three playthroughs completed.  I think that’s the best way to play this game, maybe do all four storylines of a branch and then come back the next day, or just remember you choose the right cave so next time, you will choose the left cave.

The game can become very repetitive, once you finish an ending, you will come across this sea monster who will tell you that you have finished an ending but she hopes to see you again.  I was hoping when you finished the very last one, she would say a different line of dialogue but she just repeated the different ending line.  That was disappointing.

You will see the sea monster either underwater or above water, pending how you finished an ending, then you will go to a coffee shop and the guy there will essentially say the same thing.  But he will show you a bookcase of all of your endings as you progress through the game.

He will say you have completed the shelf, which was nice.  I’m not sure why they wrote one character with a conclusion line but not the other.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/burly-men-at-sea/guide/

I didn’t use a guide until the very end, to get my last two trophies.

I was missing Out of the Deepening Darkness and Nice Day.

There is a segment when you are stuck in a maelstrom that I made too much of a game out of, you are supposed to either widen (R2) it so the men go all the way down, or shorten (L2) it and have the men break free of the storm.  I was going back and forth and essentially, kept it open so I ended up doing that playthrough twice as I didn’t realize which I one I did originally.  If I had thought about it, I should have known I didn’t close the storm but I was just ready to get the Platinum at that point.

For the other trophy, there are two seals that turn the men into seals and they say as long as you stick together, you’ll make it to the surface but I didn’t keep them together so they just got carried up to the surface.  It took some doing but I had them stick together and got them to the surface and got the platinum.

It is supposed to take two hours but I was using it mostly as a break from Arkham Knight.

. . .

Last update regarding Arkham Knight, as I’m done with the game.  I attempted some additional AR Challenges but I’m not doing anymore of those, knowing I can’t get even 20 of them, kills my buzz.  I’m pretty sure I barely got ten or 15.

I did beat the game on New Game Plus, and the fights were not all that bad, including the underground tank vs tank fight and I didn’t even have a harder time with Arkham Knight, I avoided his crew, got underneath him, grappled up and did those quick moments and then took out his goons then.  Then repeat that twice more, so all for all, the only real problem I had was the 60 tanks outside of GCPD during the assault.  After like 15 tries, I finally wussed out and stuck to the left side of GCPD (where that breakable wall is), and I would come out, attack, and hide out.  A few tanks and drones came to me, which was nice but for the most part, I would take out five or six tanks, fire a slew of missiles, and let Barbara do her business.  It was a frustrating matter prior to the final time I completed it.  Same for the underground tank fight, that third round took forever!  I was able to acknowledge that the long load time was for me to strategize and to calm down but I just wanted it to reload immediately.  Same for the tank battle, just get me in there, I heard Batman and Oracle counting down from five so many times, it started becoming a tad maddening.

I only got two additional trophies

The Long Halloween, beat New Game Plus
Savage Metal, smash 10 militia transport vehicles off the road without using the immobilizer

I was hoping to get Savage Metal so it was nice to finally get it when I did, it was during one of the AR challenges.  At first, I though Long Halloween was a bronze medal but I see now that it is a silver medal.  I was expecting a gold medal so when it wasn’t gold, I didn’t note what type it was until typing this.  Silver is better, as it does take a lot of time and skill to get through the story.  Besides the tank battle, I wouldn’t even say the game was that much harder.

I could do the side missions but there is no real incentive to do it so I’m pretty much done with it.

. . .

I’ve started Roundabout, I’m not sure how many chapters there are but I’m on the third chapter, with the farm.  It is a fun game thus far.  You play a  revolving limousine driver, Georgio Manos, who is a lady.  Whenever you pick up passengers, you get a fun live action sequence.  The story is fun and the driving mechanics take a minute to get used to them but there is no way I’m going to be able to get everything done in the game.

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/roundabout/guide/

Especially as one of the trophies is unattainable right now but even if was an option, I probably wouldn’t be able to get it.  It is the trophy you receive from completing everything, so of course, that would be the trophy that would be glitched.

The game only has 18 bronze trophies and one silver, so I don’t feel compelled to get everything.

I do want to just go down the list and just get those trophies as it seems pretty doable that way.  I’m definitely going to finish the main story first, and then from there, I’ll start checking the list.  I have to start pressing L3 for the horn as having to do it literally a thousand times doesn’t sound great and it isn’t like the horn does anything in-game.  I’m in the habit now of dying, blasting my horn ten times, and trying again, as I’m not concern at all about the time limit, so I imagine I’ll get that trophy eventually.

There is a trophy where you have to drive for 8 hours without pausing, and I’m not doing that one either so the pressure is off from this game.

. . .

Once I’ve had my fun with Roundabout, I’ll go back to Uncharted 3 Normal play, I’m on the chapter with all of the boats and I need to figure out the proper route through them all.

I was thinking about playing a different game in-between my Normal and Hard mode playthroughs, and I thought Life is Strange would be a wonderful game to put some distance in-between the two games.  But now that I’m typing that, I wonder if I shouldn’t waste the muscle memory and just go back to back playthroughs.  My problem is that the way I’m planning on doing it, I have to play Uncharted 3 three times, Normal, Hard, and Crushing.  Which I’m all for doing (so Crushing doesn’t, well you know, crush my desires), but that is a lot of time to spend with one game.  A great game but still.  I’m just thinking back on how Crushing was like in Uncharted 2 and having a Hard playthrough would get me even better at the game (I’m hoping), so Crushing will feel doable.  I’m all about the self-motivation.

I’m using psnprofiles to check and that is how I did Uncharted 2, Normal (which gave me Easy), Hard, and Crushing.  Apparently it only took me six days to beat the game on Hard.

https://psnprofiles.com/JackalsIII

Whenever I see that giant gap in my gaming timeline, I have to realize that was when Fallout 3 killed my PlayStation 3 with the Yellow Light of Death (YLOD).  Which I’ve learned that Fallout 3 and New Vegas both killed many PS3s back in the day.

. . .

Proving that Supermassive Games has an awesome PR team, they released another trailer for Man of Medan!

Thanks again to PlayStation for hosting this video as well!

Also, thanks to WordPress for it keeps capitalizing the S for me.

Odd that PlayStation is hosting the video as the game is supposed to be on all systems but who knows, I’m a PlayStation guy so that works for me.

Such an amazing trailer and it gave me real Peter Stormare/Dr. Hill feels from Until Dawn.  Which I’m sure is on purpose.

Of course, I didn’t know about the trailer until recently so I changed my Google account to notify me of all news pertaining to Man of Medan so I’ll be even more updated.

Which, also on my own, I found that we can preorder the game through Amazon!

But since it says December 31, 2019, I’m holding off in case my lovely wife wants to buy it for me for either a late Christmas gift or early Birthday present.  I love that it is a thirty dollar game, as it is supposed to be half the length of Until Dawn, so a five hour game, and $60 seems a bit much for that.  I was willing to spend $60 but $30 makes it even more doable.

I was tempted just to download the game straightly from PSN, but I’m still old fashion and I like to have my disc.  I’ve read numerous times that it doesn’t change the download size, and the free games from the PSN has gotten me in the habit and appreciation of just scrolling over and starting a new game.  That’s what happened with Arkham Knight, I beat the game, attempted some AR Challenges and didn’t want to make all the noise of ejecting the disc, opening Uncharted 3’s case and inserting that game into the PS4.  I wouldn’t think it makes a lot of noise at noon but it is so much more quiet at 11:30pm, that it could wake someone up.  So I just went back to Burly Men at Sea and committed to that game.  I also learned how to spell “Burly” as I keep wanting to throw an e in there but that isn’t how you spell it.

Another game I have my eye on is Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice, which has been strictly a downloadable game, but might be coming to disc.  Which I guess I’ve been waiting for a disc copy so then I can add it to my wife’s Amazon account so she can maybe buy it for me.  A little harder to do without the hyperlink.  I’m having that issue now with the $40 PSN membership (down from $60).  She used the link but since it isn’t a physical card, she’s bummed that she’s going to have to print it and give it as a lame presentation of a gift.  I told her not to worry about it but I get it too.

Heck, even Batman : Enemy Within, TellTale’s second Batman game (and most likely last), that disc only comes with the first episode and a code for the season pass, so buying the disc is essentially pointless as you are still downloading the rest of the episodes.

Yet, it is another game that I want and it is hard to put aside $30 for a game but these are nice goals to have.

I imagine Man of Medan is more of a placeholder date and it will come out earlier in the year, which is another reason why I don’t want to preorder it now, as I might not have the funds for it when it first comes out.  Not like it will surprise me (I hope) but I rather not get ding for it either.

 

 

Batgirl : A Matter of Family DLC

Posted by John Klein III on November 16, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

I’m so glad I spent an extra week with this game!

Thanks to Batman Arkham for hosting the trailer.

I had such a good time playing as Batgirl, I might even do the AR segments, I won’t get enough for her trophy but I’ll have a good time with it.

There are a couple segments where Batgirl and Robin team up and we get the option to perform duo takedowns, which is fun but then you automatically switch players and I was making a point of switching back to Batgirl immediately.  During the proper game, I would do the same thing, switching from Batman to Robin, Nightwing, or Catwoman, as it is nice to take a break from the Bat.

Another relief with this game was that I was able to get the two missable trophies rather early in the process.  I got Ambush as soon as I could take down thugs with a scare effect and I was making a point of taking down all thugs with hacking for the Weird War Tales, prior to even getting to the Ghost Ship, so that felt good.

I needed a guide to locate three of the Jack-in-the-Boxes as those were really well hidden.  I liked how the teeth moved so I was able to see them from a distance and the balloons were proudly displayed.

The only mini game that gave me any trouble was the strength test as I wasn’t dive bombing well enough to beat it as I was either missing the giant button or not getting enough speed for it.  After a handful of tries, I finally got it done.

. . .

I haven’t made any progress on the 23 Batman AR missions but I made a slaying at the Riddler trophies!  I’m down to the final 25!

Which means I’ve gotten 91.9% of the trophies!

It took some doing to get a picture of the two I’m missing in the Arkham Knight’s HQ.

I’m missing the following trophies:

Bleake Island: 8
Miagani Island: 7
Founders Island: 3
Stagg Airships: 5
Arkham Knight HQ:  2

But the number of trophies I’m missing being 25 makes it a nice number for me to stop at.  At one point, I was pretty proud of how many I got in Founders, thinking I was done when I realized I hadn’t gone back to Miagani and even attempted those.

I have all of the riddles solved, all breakable items, and saved all of the thugs with bombs in their brains.   The ones I’m missing are puzzles that even with the assistance of videos, I’m not fast enough to complete, or there are races that I can’t beat the time for.

I was having a pretty fun time searching for Riddler informants to get more information regarding the Stagg Airships and then I was reminded there were items in the Arkham Knight’s HQ and an underground base as well.

I have three Harley Quinn audio tapes and an Arkham Knight audio tape.  I should check again to see if I unlocked any more since calling it good.

. . .

I’m pretty proud of myself for going back, it was bugging me when I wrote the previous article and leaving so much undone.  I bought some upgrades and I was able to eliminate the watchtowers, I left the one with the four minigun grunts for last and that felt so satisfying taking the last one down.  Once I found I could take out a medic and minigun grunt with a hackable device, that sped that section up.  I still have some upgrades to get, but I don’t know which ones I want, so I’ll probably concentrate on Batmobile upgrades as I know the sections I’m not looking forward to the most are all Batmobile and Arkham Knight related.

The landmines was what I concentrated on first and those tank battles took a while but I got them all taken care of and I located the few road blocks I was missing and take care of those as well.  I saw that aerial drones could be destroyed with the Batmobile so that saved on time having to grapple to tall buildings and hope I landed on all of them.  It took some doing to do it with the Batmobiles as you have to sort of aim below the drone but if you stick with it, you’ll knock them all out.  Some drones hover near tall buildings so it wasn’t that hard to reach them.

I’ve earned the following trophies:

Streets of Gotham, destroy all militia checkpoints
Gates of Gotham, destroying all watchtowers
Dark Allegiances, taking out the Arkham Knight’s replacement, which is what the other three were leading up too.

I attempted what I thought were eight different jumps but I never went further than 100 meters or I only attempted six, as I thought I tried ten of the 16 but clearly I’m not doing it right.

Since I’m going to attempt to get 23 stars in AR Challenges, I’ll attempt to smash 10 militia transport vehicles during the Seek and Destroy AR Challenge.

I took the time to destroy 20 moving cars without using the Batmobile, The Real Deal, which took way longer than I hoped but not as long as I feared.  There are a few street corners that gets lots of traffic.  My secret was pressing square as soon as I thought I was within range which worked more times than not.  When I first attempted it, I was relying on the icon to appear but then I almost missed a few waiting for the icon so I just attempted it.  The hardest part is when the cars are driving faster than I’m gliding and there’s no way to catch up to them by that point.  The best location is to be perched on a street light and just prey on any and all cars that drive under you.

Since I can’t get to Riddler, I can’t get the official Knightfall Protocol started, I sat through what felt like a 15 minute sequence but the trophy never popped.

I’m going to attempt New Game Plus but only focusing on the main quest and burning through as much of it as possible.  I’m imagining the first real hurdle will be the tank battle in front of Ace Chemicals with the Arkham Knight in his helicopter, as that was the first real obstacle I faced in the game, and the first upgrades I had to purchase.  I’m really hoping the Knightmare difficulty isn’t the same as Crushing difficulty in an Uncharted game.  The quick saving mechanic could be a little more forgiving in Arkham Knight.

I’ve been sort of missing Uncharted 3 and Burly Men at Sea, but I kept thinking of typing this article and that encouraged me to keep trying.  I might give this game another week to try the AR missions with both Batman and Batgirl, and I want to do those in the normal game as I can only imagine how much harder those will be in New Game Plus.  Turns out, I do have access to Nightwing, Robin, and Catwoman in certain AR missions so that’s pretty nice.  I might try the Catwoman ones too, just because she has a different fighting style as well.  I’m mostly looking for new experiences before reliving the same experience but facing tougher obstacles.

I was having such a great time, I’m still thinking of getting the Season Pass to get everything but there is talk of me getting the Spider-Man game and I’ll want a PSN card for the additional DLC in that game as those additional DLC packs come with additional costumes and I’ll want all of those when I play.  Shame the DLC costumes are so tied with the DLC achievements so you can’t play with them earlier but that’s what New Game Plus is all about.

. . .

Walker Dennis has been home sick the last couple days so I’ve had a chance to play during naps.  I’ve gotten past the part with Harley Quinn at Panessa Studios.  I’ve been only focusing on the main mission and not doing any of the side missions.  Which I like the idea of Batman just being hyper focus, though he does ask for updates from Alfred on other crimes.

So far it hasn’t been bad.  The only real obstacles I’ve faced has been large group fights where I haven’t paid the best attention and allowed a few wild punches to occur.

The Arkham Knight fight outside of Ace Chemicals wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, I credit my ability to do well with the tank battles and having better aim against rockets as I didn’t even lose that fight.

Large boss fights and the Cobra Tank fights seem to be my downfall.  Those Cobra Tanks, I wish it took half as long to lock in on their weak spot, and I can’t tell if it takes a little longer than in my Normal playthrough or if I have just forgotten how long it takes.  I had to fight five of them before I could make Founders save to use the Batmobile.

So now I’m really not looking forward to the Cloudburst fight with five additional Cobra Tanks and the Arkham Knight’s tank, but that has been one of the three fights I have been dreading.  The other problem with that fight is that, where it takes place in the game, you have to complete it as you can’t just escape and do side missions.  The other two being the Arkham Knight chase sequence and the following fight with him and his goons.

I was only the menu screen and was noticing the WBPlay icon and figured I’ll do whatever little work it was to unlock the Anime Batman costume and the Zurr En Arrah costumes.

The Anime costume came easily and I had to join the WBPlay forum to get the Zurr En Arrah costume, which I keep wanting to type as Zenn.

I don’t care for how broken the Anime ears look, like there is a clear bend in the ears that isn’t great.  I thought Walker Dennis was going to get a bigger kick out of the Zurr En Arrah costume but he didn’t even notice it.

It feels good having two additional costumes though.

I also got one more Riddler trophy in the second Stagg Airship, which I thought I was going to be able too.  It was the one that is under the floor where we have to move the crates about.  For some reason, I can’t move the crates in that same room in my post game but I was hoping to be able to do it during New Game Plus and it totally worked.

Walker Dennis is now finding question marks everywhere, like road signs or whenever he sees a question written out and wants to point out the Riddler has been up to no good again.

I took him to Hallmark to buy my lovely wife a tenth anniversary card (for November 29) and we looked at all of the Hallmark Christmas Ornaments and he wanted pretty much all of them.  I’ll be all for a Frank Gorshin Riddler being on our tree.

We also rewatched Lego Batman and that movie holds up like crazy and I just love how much Bat-mythos are introduced to such a young audience.  Shame Riddler doesn’t show up more in it.

Another shame is that Batman The Animated Series isn’t available to watch without having to pay $1.99 an episode.  I imagine those will be available through the DC Streaming Channel and that might make that worth the investment.

We’re going through a real Batman phase right now.  I should have showed him Mark of the Phantasm as we still own that on DVD, such a great film!

Still no progress on the AR Challenges but I figure I’ll hit a roadblock during New Game Plus and that’s when I’ll pick those up again.

I’ve also looked into buying a replica of a Riddler trophy but Amazon didn’t have anything besides action figures.  I thought that’ll be a fun thing to own.