Fallout 4

Posted by John Klein III on March 15, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

So I’ve become addicted to Fallout 4 like I was on jet!

Thanks to Betheseda Softworks for hosting their own video!

I’ve also really gotten into reddit!  I’m subscribed to the TMNT Legends page, the PS4 page, the Lego Dimensions page and two Fallout related subreddits – Fallout and FO4.

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

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/

I really wish there was a way to hide the right side bar on the Fallout subreddit as it is very busy.

I was impress when I found that Tea had its own subreddit and now I try to click on all tab to see what else is happening in the world of reddit.  I was hesitant to subscribe to PS4 as I thought it would just explode in my feed but reddit does a good job of keeping my updated on the other subreddits.

Are there other subreddits worth subscribing to or other Fallout related subreddits worth exploring?

. . .

I’ve downloaded the Fallout Shelter game app and that was fun during a lunch break but I don’t think I can fully commit to how massive it seemed to be.  So I uninstalled that.

I also downloaded the Fallout Pip-Boy app and uninstalled and now it is back on my phone again, now that I got the hang of it.  I thought it was going to be more of an aid but now I like it for how it keeps track of my progress and I’ve gotten used to how not-in-sync it is with my current game, when it is in offline mode.

I do wish there was a way to mute the Pip-Boy app.

. . .

My started my male character, as myself, and a week later, I started really regretting not making a female playthrough.  Especially with how many men are in the game, and how great it would be to have the Black Widow perk as (once maxed out) having 15% more damage being done to dumb male Raiders and such, that will come in handy.  So over the weekend I created a sarcastic female character based off of my wife.  I’m going to have her join the Brotherhood and be strictly a melee character.

If you are going to go along with a melee character, I highly recommend these two websites –

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/12/05/fallout-4-is-twice-as-fun-when-you-dont-fire-a-single-shot-the-melee-build/#1e639cf12033

Melee builds in Fallout 4
byu/kirilos inFallout

Of course, I recognize that I’m in the super minority who are just now playing Fallout 4 for the first time but from what I’ve seen on reddit, I’m definitely not alone.

I just adored Fallout 3 and I passed on Fallout New Vegas though now I wished I did play that one.

Within the first two hours of playing, I got a security baton, skipped going to stupid Preston and Concord and attempted to follow the road to Diamond City, knowing that I was going to end up passing through Cambridge and Paladin Danse.  Which is pretty much as far as I wanted to get, and I was pretty impressed I was able to get there relatively find.  I got a tad lost on my way there as I meant to memorize the map better but I got there, and that’s what counts.  I also want her dressing in different outfits and not using stimpacks as much.  She’s going to be more of a napper, like my lovely wife.  She used to be quite the sleep tank prior to our son coming along.  From there, she’s going to strictly be a Brotherhood member and I’ll do all of those types of missions.  She’s also not going to be building as many settlements, if I can help it.

. . .

My male character was mostly just forged through a very organic playstyle.  I’ll take perks as needed or as I learned which ones are necessary.  Right now, in the main storyline, I’m at the part where I am supposed to be going to the Glowing Sea and meeting Virgil.  I read that I should be using weapons that do more than 50+ damage and I finally got a few (like two! a shotgun and a rifle).  I’m also super late to crafting and weapon modification.

I also just learned that I can check on the current stats of my settlements so now I’m trying to make all of those people happy and/or not disappointed in me, so that has changed my game play.

I am also in the middle of the Silver Shroud mission and just loving that costume!  I was just having him wear the Vault 111 costume with various pieces of armor but now I’m all about costumes.

I also was just going to use Dogmeat but after having Valentine as a required companion, I’m trying to make up for lost time.  I have his perk, Piper’s perk (who I really liked her), and I finally got MacCready’s ultimate perk.  I plan on getting Hancock next.

As I really like a list, I’m just going down this list here –

https://www.polygon.com/fallout-4/2016/1/13/10760088/fallout-4-companions-guide-perks

So that makes Hancock next but I was hoping to finish MacCready and move on to Hancock but Hancock won’t come with me as I haven’t activated the Big Dig side quest so I’ll do that when I get home.  So I plan on ditching MacCready for Strong (as I haven’t come across Cait as I haven’t entered the Combat Zone yet either).

So I’ll use Strong until I get access to Hancock.  Which might not be until after I get Big Dig done, Pickman’s Gallery, and Silver Shroud completed.

I naturally joined the Minutemen, but never had Preston join me, which was a mistake in hindsight.  I should either use Preston or Strong, I’ll think about that.  I’m still tempted to go with Strong but time will tell.

Joining the Minutemen was nice as it had me running around the map.  Preston gave me two missions/settlements to check out that are deep south and one to the west and the other to the east.  I already had my butt kicked going down and to the left on the map screen as I needed to check out all of those police stations for Valentine so I’m hesitant to go to the Glowing Sea at the moment.

I have also started doing some of the Railroad quests as I read that the Railroad and the Minutemen do not conflict but then I read that you have to choose one fraction at the end to success (maybe?), which makes sense so I’ve decided I’ll do a pure Railroad playthrough on a third time and an Institute one on a fourth.  Ideally, I’ll just create a hard save whenever that becomes an option and just continue my Minutemen to Institute as I can’t imagine having to do a pure vanilla playthrough skipping both Minutemen and the Brotherhood and going strictly to the Institute.  The Railroad is super easy to ignore.

I also don’t think I have four playthroughs in me though, especially as I have so many other games I really want to be playing.  I mostly set up my wife’s game so that one day I can come back to it.  I had the idea of jumping between both characters but I know I’ll get frustrated doing that with the lack of progress.

That’s the thing about Fallout 4 is that I meant to stick with the main storyline, as I really want to get my son back!, BUT, it is super hard to not to get distracted and help out people as I come across them.  For my wife’s playthrough, besides Brotherhood storylines, I want to keep her on track of the main story.

What really ruined Dogmeat for me, was that I kept losing him as I would be looting a room, he’ll get in the way and I’ll accidently tell him to stay and I’ll be almost out of the building before I realized I lost him at some point.  I was in that adapted vault, on my way to rescue Valentine and I successfully speech checked myself out of there and was up and out of there.  Then I noticed Dogmeat wasn’t around and I had to go back through that vault, had to kill that one guy and his buddies (and getting his sweet tux!) and had to go down two floors and there was Dogmeat, just being a good boy.  I’ll come back around on him but I really wanted MacCready’s broken headshot perk and that’s what got me down the companion route.

So once I have Hancock and have successfully completed the Silver Shroud plot, or first the plot and then Hancock (either way!), I’ll get back onto doing the main quest again.  Well, I may do all of those missions he originally sent me to complete but with him, and then go on the main quest, I’ll see how I feel.  His perk isn’t super interesting to how I play though.

What I should do, and this might change my overall playing now that I’m typing this, is recruit Codsworth or X6-88.  Codsworth gets me Robot Sympathy which grants +10 damage resistance against robot energy weapons.   X6-88 grants Shield Harmonics, which is +20 energy resistance.  Both of which I imagine I’ll actually need.

Danse grants 20% more damage against Feral Ghouls, Super Mutants and Synths.

Deacon grants 20% more sneak attack damage which I could use now that I really have taken to sniping dudes from a distance.

Preston’s perk grants 20% extra damage and 20% damage resistance when facing three or more opponents but that doesn’t sound great as I’m rarely up against three people at one go.

So maybe I’ll grab Codsworth when I get home and home in the game (natch!) and attempt the Glowing Sea and see how that all goes for me.  Though I believe I read somewhere that I need Valentine to complete that task so maybe the game won’t let me.  I just really need to drop MacCready so I’ll ditch him and grab Codsworth and see how it goes from there.  I’ve read that he’s amazing in fights and a real joy to have on the long road.

I really wish there was a way to have a bicycle in the game.  I know it’ll be silly to have the Sole Survivor conducting drive-bys while on a bike but it’ll make me less incline to use fast travel.  Which I rarely used unless I get encumbered, which happens a lot more that I’m carrying anywhere from five to six weapons.  What I should do is drop the missile launcher, fat man, and mini gun and that’ll save like 100 pounds.  It was also nice traveling with Valentine as he could hold those three weapons without any real effort.  MacCready can only hold so much.

. . .

Whenever my son sees me play, he really wants me to save the baby and to drive one of the cars.  If only I could do both!

I sort of got spoiled about the son and that has sort of made a disconnect from my super desire to fast track to Shaun but then I read something else recently that makes me question the thing I originally read.

Him wanting me to drive a car makes me realized how much I want a bike in this game.

My son watching me play always makes me want to just get to Shaun, as well.  He mostly just sees me walking around as I don’t want him seeing too much, head shots are fine unless they slow down the graphics and do a super bloody kill – and I’ll never get that Bloody Mess perk as I don’t really need to see people get super killed.  Which is what I like about the laser guns as they just turn people into goo.  I mostly save the Righteous Authority for Super Mutants as they seem to need the extra firepower.

. . .

It sounds like people have a blast on their PCs with mods but mods seem to really break the game, or potentially seem like they can break the game but that’s just me.  They make for good images and awesome settlements but it doesn’t feel “real” to me.

. . .

I also don’t have much interest in playing on Survival mode as that just seems stressful and I really depend on being able to save my progress on a time.  I can only really play at night, once my son and wife are sleeping, for maybe an hour or two if I’m lucky.

I do like my guns and building up my settlements as much as I can.  I doubt I’ll ever platinum the game so unless I can get one of my settlements to 100% happiness, which is one of the hardest trophies from what I’ve read, I haven’t had much interest in crafting or preparing anything 100 times.  I got the build 100 items and that came naturally.  I’ve been using stimpacks for all of my healing needs, besides straight sleeping the pain away, so I haven’t been preparing dinners or such.

One perk I highly recommend putting points in is the Strong Back, as being able to fast travel while encumbered is amazing!  I also maxed out Action Boy as that become necessary.  Now that I’m better with sniping on my own and shooting from the hip or at least aiming, I don’t need as many action points, I mainly use VATS to reload and get a free shot again.  Then I try to get two or three more shots in VATS and I go back to self aiming.

Using a shotgun has helped too as once they are that close, they go down pretty quickly, if I haven’t sniped them prior to that.  I used to really move my 10mm gun too before the foes overpowered it.  But I still like having it be my main weapon as I leave Sanctuary and once it doesn’t one shot kill someone (or even two shots) I switch it out to my mighty rifle.

My current favorite guns are –

Markman’s Harden Combat Shotgun

Mighty .50 Sniper Rifle

Suppressed Advanced 10mm Pistol

I want to like the Markman’s Powerful Pipe Bolt-Action Rifle, and next time I play, I want to change whatever it is that limits it to two shots to anything else as I’m dying out there between reloads.  I forgot how much I hated the earlier guns that had only two shots per round.

I’m bad about really knowing what those perks that deal with guns are and which guns apply to which ones.  I guess, worst case, I should place one skill point into each category and be done with it.  Some seem to be pretty straight forward and maybe I’m allowing myself to be more confused than I should be but I should look into it some more.

Referring to looking at things, I really wish there was a way to quickly look at my character from the front.  I seem to accidently do it from time to time but I think that hurts my chances of trying different outfits as it doesn’t really matter what it looks like from the back as most chest plates cover the same spots, so I used to stick with the highest protection and moved on.  I do like to wear a proper set but now that I’m more laxed about outfits, maybe I can mix and match now.  Though I’ve become quite taken with the Silver Shroud costume.  I do know I’m going to want a hazmat suit and power armor for the Glowing Sea so I know to not be too attach to wearing the costume forever.

. . .

Another thing I want to do, and maybe I will with my third playthrough, or try to do it with my wife’s character, is to run the border of the map.  I just now came across the northern most border when I was tracking distress signals and it reminded me how much I enjoyed walking the border of Fallout 3.  Heck, I might just do it during my male playthrough and I’m leveled enough to actually handle whatever comes my way.

I do like how there isn’t a level cap in Fallout 4.  Knowing and hitting the 30 level cap in Fallout 3, meant I had to very focused on how I wanted to handle my perks.  Knowing that I can eventually get all of the perks I could possibly want, is pretty relaxing.  Though, of course, there is something to be said about getting some perks before others, such as the super important tetralogy of obtaining locksmith, hacker, scrounger and fortune finder, as you’re going to want to be able to unlock every door and computer you come across and when you do get those doors open, you’re going to want to be able to find items in those boxes, such as caps or (not) junk.

. . .

Now that I think of it, it probably isn’t really that hard to go straight to the Railroad, used the same website I used before to get the code to unlock their door, as I wasn’t really keeping track of it as I figured it was Classic Fallout (3) and the password was just going to be an option that I clicked on.  That should be simple enough.

Getting to the Institute will be the harder thing to do and I think the easiest will be to use my idea mentioned above and just create a second file where I do those missions and be done with it.

I really wish I hadn’t started the railroad quests in my Minutemen playthrough as now they are just staring at me.  I mostly started them as I wanted the experience points and that they don’t conflict with the Minutemen but I’m not going to be able to realistically complete both quest lines in one playthrough.

I also didn’t know about radiant quests until I finally looked up if Preston will ever stop giving me quests and marking my map and it turns out, he never will.  So that has made me also want to stop and just concentrate one faction at a time.

Just for my own reference, here is that website for the Railroad –

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/walkthroughs/15058-Fallout-4-How-to-Join-the-Railroad-Faction-Road-to-Freedom-Quest

6. Here’s the code: 1R (fReedom) 2A (trAil) 3I (traIl) 4L (traiL) 5R (tRail) 60 (freedOm) 7A (trAil) 8D (freedom)

Which takes a while to actually do and I wish the arrow that points to the letters pointed right at the letter but it is pretty easy to tell after making the mistake twice.

. . .

Overall, Fallout 4 is an awesome game and I’m super addicted to it and I don’t see an end to it in sight.  An end to the main quest, the side quests, nor my enjoyment of the game.

Though I do want to try the Free March 2018 PSN games a tad more to see if I want to keep them loaded on my main screen or not.

I knew when my wife asked me for which games I wanted, that it was a mistake to ask for both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Fallout 4, as both are giant open world games.  That’s why I wanted an Uncharted game (or all three – Trilogy, 4, and Lost Legacy – and my incredible wife got me all three!).  At least with GTA5, I knew I wasn’t going to do that many side quests or look for hidden items or do special jumps, I stick to the main story as much as possible.  I had to stop as Franklin (and others) dropping n-bombs got a tad much, especially at the beginning of the game.  That has seemed to have stopped once I’m able to play as Michael.  I pretty much stopped right after unlocking Trevor and completing a few of his missions.  I don’t quite recall what prompted to stop that and play Fallout 4, I think my wife was asking me if I had tried most of my games and I popped Fallout 4 in and haven’t really taken it out except for the times I’ve played the Knight Rider world in Lego Dimensions.  Which now that I think of it, I haven’t played Lego Dimensions in a long time!

. . .

I got the benevolent leader trophy:

Taffington Boathouse, and it turns out I did give them a bar of a level 3 quality and the other guy was in the garden. So I had done the proper groundwork, probably a month ago. Then I forgot about it.

Turns out, they were at 97 happiness so I just sleep there for 24 hours and waited I believe three additional days (just on their couch, they were happy about it). And finally the trophy popped!

People 2
Food 6
Water 13
Power 3
Defense 32
Beds 4
Happiness 100

 

Legion Season 2 Trailer

Posted by John Klein III on March 13, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Television, Websites. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

On April 3, 2018, we get the first episode of season two of Legion!

Thanks to Marvel Entertainment for hosting the video!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(season_2)

It’ll be a season of ten episodes and I’m all for it!

Once I saw this at the 50 second mark, I wanted to see it again.  Google Image Search told me the gif was from Tumblr, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on it to give credit to the person who took the time to do it.

I’m all about Rachel Keller as Sydney Barrett!

Though I’m the worst as I have not watched Fargo Season Two yet, and I really should!

Jemaine Clement should have a larger role and looks he gets to have a blast with Aubrey Plaza too!

Navid Neganban has the Shadow King’s comic persona, Amahl Farouk, is amazing casting!  Neganban has been in everything!

He was in American Sniper and he’s going to be the Sultan in the upcoming live action Disney adaption of Aladdin.  Which made me think they were going to take a darker approach to the film.  Then I saw Will Smith as the Genie and now I’m not sure what type of film that is going to be.  The Pink Power Ranger from the latest film is going to be Jasmine.  They are now filming that movie so no photos of people in their costumes.  I still need to watch that Power Rangers film, I heard it was pretty fun.

He was Maz in the Season Five Episode 22 “Memorial Day” of West Wing, which I’ll have to rewatch one of these days.  I’m sure it was a smaller role.

He was Omar, Sayid’s supervisor in Lost, as seen in Season One Episode 9 “Solitary.”  Can’t believe Lost and West Wing were on at the same time, they feel like two completely different eras of television in my mind.

He was in eight episodes of 24’s 8th Season, yes the FPJr season!

He was season one’s big bad on Homeland, Abu Nazir.

He was in Season 2 Episode 5 “League of Assassins” of Arrow as Al Ow-Al.

He was Ali Hasan in Season Four Episode 1 “Panopticon” of Person of Interest, as the PoI!

So many great shows he’s already been in!

Hopefully Hulu carries it again, and ideally, releases the episodes regularly two days after the new one is supposed to be out.  They were good about the first few then the last ones were out a week later or something.  We tried out SlingTV and that didn’t seem to work for us and we’re currently using Philo and that’s been nice.  I wish they had a back catalog of shows, they do to a certain extent but the app is supposed to be more used to stay current on live shows.  I really wish they had FXX.  I’ll see how I have to figure that out as I really want to be able to watch this show as it is airing.

Yoplait Girl Scout Flavors

Posted by John Klein III on March 7, 2018
Posted in: Dining Out. Leave a comment

Has anyone tried these?

Maybe Yoplait Whips are not for me but I found the Peanut Butter Chocolate Whips! to be downright disgusting.  But I thought maybe it was just that combination that I didn’t care for.  Which I’m pretty huge on peanut butter and I like the cookie itself pretty well.

That was not the case when I tried the Girl Scout Thin Mint Whips!  The taste was definitely an improvement and it had that nice mint flavor but the texture was still off.  That’s when I realized I might take the Caramel Coconut.

I saved the Caramel Coconut for last, as the Samoas Girl Scout cookie is my favorite one, and I am looking forward to eating a slew of them in April (or late March, maybe?).  I’m not sure why Yoplait didn’t just call it a Samoas as that’s what it is.  Maybe so people would know the flavor profile, if they were not familiar with Girl Scout cookies.

As I was peeling off the lid, I noticed that it didn’t have the “Whip!” marketing.  It is just the straight Yoplait guaranteed greatness.  I went back to Walmart and bought like six more.  I’ve read that these flavors are supposed to be permanent but in case they are not, I’ve been wanting to have my fill of them.

Don’t worry, Cherry Orchard, I’m still buying you too, but it is nice to mix it up every so often.

From their website –

http://next.yoplait.com/products/yoplait-whips

Yoplait Whips! turns regular yogurt into a fluffy mousse-styled version of Yoplait succulence sure to satisfy even the most discerning sweet tooth. Indulgent treats have never been SO good!

Maybe I’m just not a mousse guy.  Though I recall trying a chocolate mousse as a young lad, and enjoying it.

Batman : The Telltale Series

Posted by John Klein III on January 29, 2018
Posted in: Games, Websites. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Thanks to being a free game to PS4 PlayStation Network subscribers, I was able to finally play my first TellTale game.

I had a blast and I thought about this game whenever I wasn’t playing it.  I just kept wanting to go back to it.

There are plenty of interactive choices.  I sort of wished that they gave us a full minute to make a decision, just so I could playfully ask my son or wife (or both!) for their opinion to weigh in on the choices.  There were a couple choices that clearly mattered but a lot of the “they will remember that” never seemed to pay off.  Like, I was expecting the fifth (and final) chapter to just be a giant personalized story about what I’ve done up to that point.

There were obvious changes made, such as go as Batman or Bruce or Save Harvey or Save Catwoman, or confront Harvey or confront Penguin, that clearly changed the way the next quarter of the game was going to played.

I liked the saving system, it occurred enough that I didn’t have to be a real jerk with having to put my family on hold as I didn’t want to repeat a full ten minute game sequence.

The detective mode was fun, if not added to one of more longer sequences when I was trying to figure out what caused the giant explosion.

I really liked the relationships you are able to effect like with Bruce and Harvey.  I was trying to start a romance with both Vicki Vale and Catwoman.  I missed a big opportunity, or at least I think I did, with Vicki Vale, like in Episode Two just to learn later that I don’t think that was ever in the cards by Episode Four.  That one moment, when I could have provided information to Vicki but I chose to protect my friendships with Gordon and Harvey that I wished I did just give her what she wanted.  Then Episode Three started as if I did provide the information so that was disappointing, to see a decision not really get honored.  It was the sole time I saw that happen.

I might end up playing the game again and, of course, make different choices.

For PS4 players, all I did was literally play along and got a Platinum trophy so there are no bad choices.  One of the options is to select triangle which is a non-response (or the default response if you are not fast enough).  I’m not sure if my first two responses counted or did I think too long but I think those two interactions were soft balls to get prepared for the game.  It might be a long 15 second time delay for a response but you definitely can’t just put the controller down and watch the “film.”  There are fight sequences, that I’m not sure my wife or a more casual player, would enjoy.  You don’t need to be super fast but I think you have to be fast or learn to adapt and anticipate which button sequence is coming.  I never knew if I was going to be pressing any of the four buttons or an arrow direction.  Which I’m fine with but I got the impression quick that my wife wasn’t going to play the game like I was envisioning.  I was thinking she’ll play it and I’ll watch it unfold but maybe we’ll do that now that the pressure of finishing the game is off.

I have it downloaded and unlike the other games I’ve downloaded for free from the PSN.  Which are January’s Deux Ex : Mankind Divided – which I deleted in a matter of 30 minutes, Uncanny Valley – which I deleted as I didn’t know how to get onto the second floor.  And December’s Darkriders II – which I’m enjoying, a tad more on the fantasy side that I’m used to, Kung Fu Panda : Showdown of the Legendary Legends – which I deleted after doing the tutorials as I felt like I wasn’t really playing in a tournament and it wasn’t really that much fun, and Forma 8 – which was fun enough until I got stuck and I’m not sure where to go now but at 12% trophy progression, it was a fun time up to that.  I have those games in my game library until I no longer keep subscribing to the PSN but Batman I only have for a year, which makes sense.  I’ll probably keep throwing $60 at the PSN as I do like the idea of new free games.  The old list has several games I wished I was able to play but I’ve bought Life is Stranger and I’m hoping to get Until Dawn for my birthday.

Infamous Second Son would have been great.  Metal Gear Solid V : Phantom Pain would have been nice to tried after I didn’t enjoy IV.  Just Cause 3 was free and I’ve heard of that franchise.  Assassin Creed : Freedom Cry, I just read, is an expansion pack so I’m not sure if they just modified it so it would work as a stand alone game or would I have needed the proper game to have played it?  I’m sure it would have been stand alone.  I wasn’t that impressed with the first Assassin’s Creed and I didn’t commit to the second one though it was better than the first one.  The Game of Thrones game would have been the TellTale game so now I know that would have been a treat.  We just subscribed to HBO so I’m hoping to get back into that show.  I keep thinking if I watch that show enough, I’ll want to play that game.  I just looked it up and the game consists of a side adventure ranging from the end of the third season up to the beginning of the fifth season – so I’m a distance from that game.  I’m sure they built it so you can just play the game as its own thing but I rather it be more of an award.  I’ve read that the Walking Dead season one game is pretty great too so I’ll be tempted to pick that up.  It has nothing to do with the television series nor the comics, from what I’ve read.  Tales of the Borderlands is fun too, also from TellTale but I haven’t played any of those games but I’ve read how fun their game is.

Abzu and Journey would have been fun as free games too.

Those are the games I’ve missed out of since August 2016.  I keep waiting for

http://www.techradar.com/news/playstation-plus-free-games

To update with the February games.  I’ve been spoiled with not having to wait for December and January lists so it has been a long month.  It seems no one can properly guess at what the games would be but it doesn’t look like they follow a particular path.

Back to the Batman game.

I didn’t care for Alfred’s character design.

TV Tropes informs me that he may be based off of the 1966 Batman Alfred, portrayed by Alan Napier

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BatmanTheTelltaleSeries

Which I can sort of see, without the moustache, of course.

Which, in that case, I rather he have the moustache but then I guess we’ll be in the royalties territory.

I should write that this takes place within its own continuality which might effect how I play my second round.  Not having to look for collectibles will shave off only twenty minutes.  I read that some of TellTale games (or similar story games like these) have collectibles that you may miss out on and have to play episodes over again.  But I originally had played it thinking what we learned can’t be true but then having to commit that, yep, that’s what they are saying is true.  I’m trying not to spoil anything but I believe any curiosity read about the game will spoil what the crux of the game is about.

I do wish that there were multiple save files so that I could play the game and my wife could have her own ongoing game but I’m not seeing that as an option.  I do like how each chapter ends and tells you how your decisions ranked against other players.  I seemed to be in the majority of others but almost all decides had majorities, it wasn’t like they were all 46 to 54 percents.  A few were but most definitely went one direction.

I was hoping the TellTale website would provide me with my stats but they don’t.  I tried to upload my stats to Facebook, when the game said I could but Facebook blocked me all five times.  I wouldn’t normally post my game progress on Facebook but this felt safe enough.

There’s still time to download the game too, I meant to type this up like weeks ago but I rarely have time to play the game much less write about it.

I’m not waist deep into Fallout 4 and getting obsessed with it.  I was doing every side mission, leading me up to Diamond City and now I’m wading through the main quest.  I might try to go back and forth pending on missions.  I just saved Valentine, regarding the main quest.  I’ve apparently told Dogmeat twice now to stay as he got in my way while scavenging a room and had to go back for him.  I forgot how much I hated being encumbered.  My next perk point will go towards the Lone Wanderer perk as I need another hundred pounds lifted off of me.

 

Netflix’s The End of the Fucking World

Posted by John Klein III on January 18, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Television, Websites. Tagged: , . 2 Comments

is such an amazing show!

Here is the trailer –

Thanks to Netflix for hosting their own video.

The show is only eight episodes and all of them are amazing!  The last episode makes me want another season but I doubt we’re getting one.

What really blew me away, besides the stellar performances of Alex Lawther and Jessica Barden, is the amazing soundtrack of the show has!

https://what-song.com/Tvshow/100291/The-End-of-the-Fucking-World

This website goes into more details about the 33 songs used in the show –

https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/End-Fucking-World-Soundtrack-44480428

So great!

The show is very British and I couldn’t stop thinking about that, as they drive cars and always getting on the wrong side of it and their steering wheels are wrong too!  I kid, I kid but I kept noticing it as the characters do drive for a bit.

Alex Lawther plays James and Jessica Barden plays Alyssa.

The show is based on a comic by Charles S. Forsman.

Thanks to Fantagraphics Books Inc. for hosting their own video regarding the book.

I’ve added the book to my wife’s Amazon list so maybe I’ll get it, one of these days.

The two cops are amazing and I really liked their chemistry too.

I like how the show can be broken down to three plots or scenes:  Where it starts, when they get to the house and the aftermath.  I probably could rewatch the show and get more of a two episode breakdown, as I bet every two episodes work as a chapter but maybe it doesn’t quite neatly fit into that, as well.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/twotfw-netflix-comic-book-differences.html

Vulture goes into detail about the differences between the book and the show.  The comic sounds even more intense (which makes sense) and covers more space, which also makes sense.  I should really check it out.  Amazon had a hardcover for only $15, which seems very reasonable.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1705833.Charles_Forsman

Here is the list of all of Charles Forsman’s books, I sadly don’t recognize any of them.

As I’m still obsessed with TV Tropes, here is their page too –

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheEndOfTheFuckingWorld

I’m not sure how else I can convince you fine people to check out the show but each episode is between twenty to twenty-two minutes but move so quickly that I had saw the first three before realizing I was already almost halfway done with the show.

I found this video last night –

Thanks to YouTuber GossipVal1 for hosting the video.

I found several other fun tribute videos but I went back to this one at the end.  Such an interesting couple and the show lends itself to so many great songs!

 

Game of Thrones, First Three Episodes

Posted by John Klein III on January 16, 2018
Posted in: Television. Tagged: . Leave a comment

My wife has agreed to rewatch Game of Thrones, so that I can finally watch the series.  We’re three episodes in and I’m liking it, thus far.  The fantasy elements haven’t really appeared yet.  I’m mostly watching the scenes with Daenerys and Jon Snow with great intent.  I know they are the Big Two of the show, my wife tells me to round out the Big Three, I should pay greater attention to Cersei too.

The show clearly has great production values and I love that my wife gets to share all of her nerdiness for the series, like how I often get to with the superhero shows.

I’ll probably not chronical my entire viewing of the series but I thought I should let you all know that I’m finally trying Game of Thrones and so far, it is pretty fun.  I’m trying to allow myself to forget any of the Film Theory videos I’ve seen on YouTube or forget which “key episodes” I’ve heard about.  I’m also trying to not look at episodes titles either so I let her press the buttons that get us to the episode.

We also tried SlingTV Blue and already thinking of cancelling that free subscription and just paying for Showtime and HBO.  We want Showtime for Shameless, but I have to be honest, I have been just going through the motions with that show for the past two seasons.  I keep wanting to go on Facebook and ask if the current season is better than the previous one or is it pretty much the same.  Does anyone know?

I get that the characters live hard lives and make worst decisions, but at some point, I’m not enjoying the way the story is being told or the characters.

For Game of Thrones, I’m also tempted to stop watching the CW hero shows and just make sure I’m current with FOX’s The Gifted (which should be ending soon) and NBC’s This is Us.  I can’t think of any other show that I’m really excited to watch the next episode for.  Most shows, we can still catch up with but I wouldn’t mind taking a break and letting some episodes build up.

There are a couple shows on TBS that have catching my attention as I’ve been watching lots of their promos and a few sound interesting.  Unfortunately, the TBS app doesn’t really have the first episodes of the series so I’m out of luck with the bulk of them.  Maybe once they come to Netflix, I’ll catch up on them.  The shows I’m interested in are – Angie Tribeca, People of Earth, Wrecked, Search Party (which has every episode on TBS’ app), and The Guest Book.  We tried Snoop Dogg’s Joker’s Wild and that first episode was hard to watch.  It seemed fun but that male contestant sure was hamming it up.

Also on the television front, Hulu has the fifth and final season of the Nick Ninja Turtles so Walker Dennis and me have started that, we’re one episode down.  I’m going to miss this show when it is over.  I do wish the theme song had words, besides some “not catch phrases” being used.  Tales of the TMNT, is the official title for the final season.

We’re also having to find time to watch Game of Thrones when our son isn’t quite around as it can get pretty graphic.

We finished The Office and are trying Schitt’s Creek, which I’m not loving yet.  I like the children and the motel lady but I hate Chris Elliott as the mayor and I get that’s his character but oooof, I want less of that guy and maybe more interesting stories.  My wife heard good things about the series and we’re only five episodes in.  That fifth episode, The Cabin, was probably the first really good episode, so maybe time will tell.  I’m committed for the rest of season one but I’m ready to drop the series if it doesn’t get better.  I see the fourth season started last week so Netflix should get it after it finishes, I’m sure.  So people like it but I’m not there yet.

I still think of Riverdale so maybe I’ll try that show again.  I checked on Amazon Prime and they finally released the tenth season of Doctor Who so I want to jump back into that.  Amazon Prime also had the last two Christmas specials, besides the very latest one, so that’s nice.

Unfortunately, I’m already pressed for television watching time.  My son has gotten way into Knight Rider so that’s the show I’ve been watching the most.  We were going back and forth with the original series and the 2008 series but he’s since committed to watching the original series and we’re at episode 17 of the first season so we’re doing it.  I need to find the 2000 television film and if I can find Team Knight Rider, that’ll be fun to finally watch that show.

Trolls Fruit Snacks

Posted by John Klein III on January 12, 2018
Posted in: Dining Out. Leave a comment

This seems to be comically missing the point of the movie!  My son, Walker Dennis, loves these though!  I asked him if they make him happy as he eats them, and he said that they do!  So those Bergens knew what was up.  But so did that one kid troll from when we first see Poppy.  He tastes himself and realizes he does taste delicious.

Lately, we’ve been watching the opening scenes of Sing as he’s obsess with that film.  If he had his way, he’ll start with Sing, and segue into Trolls but we never get more than 15 minutes into Sing.

Shortening Names

Posted by John Klein III on January 11, 2018
Posted in: Conversations. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Me:  This is my friend, Michael.

Other Friend : Hey, Mike!

Michael : Fuck you!

Like, how much more clear could I have been!?!  If I said his name was Michael, maybe take a cue from that.  Get to know the guy and maybe he’ll say “call me Mike” or correct me and say he prefers “Mike.”

I supposed, knowing that he doesn’t, I could have quickly added “don’t call him, Mike’ but that isn’t a great introduction.

Michael keeps things honest.

Sunday Dinner : Seriously Amazing Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

Posted by John Klein III on December 20, 2017
Posted in: Cooking. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Seriously Amazing Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

This was a pretty nice and easy meal.  I paired it with some baked chicken, nothing too fancy.  This could have used more cheese and more chives!

Since it wasn’t that many potatoes and I finally learned that potatoes need to be cut into eighths for anything that involves mashing them, this didn’t really take too long to prep.

I put in six cloves of garlic instead of four as we really like garlic.  I feel like it barely tasted of garlic still.

I used two cups of cheddar cheese and we still wanted more.  Might end up getting two bags of two cups worth of Cheddar cheese.

I did use three tablespoons of chopped chives but my wife looked into her bowl and asked where all the chives went so next time, five tablespoons of chives, at the very least.  The bowl was mostly white with a few lines of yellow and a speck or two of green.  Not the color feast I was hoping for.

We’ll probably add onions to it for next time.  Maybe some bits of bacon too?  Maybe just go crazy with the whole thing.

. . .

We’re still in the middle of season eight of The Office, our next episode is Tallahassee, which hopefully it is as good as previous multi-episode arcs like Jim’s time in Stamford and the Michael Scott Paper Company arc.  That pool party episode should have been better, one of the few episodes we had to stop in the middle of and it took us a few days to get back to it.

We’re looking forward to all of our shows being done for the winter break, gives us time to catch up with other shows.

Marvel’s Runaways is still going, and that show gets better and better.  I wish there was a local comic book store I could pick up that first trade to refresh my memories.  My sense memory was that the parents were barely in it, more like bookend scenes or something.  The latest episode ended on such an intense note!

Looking up Runaways reminded me that we are getting Cloak & Dagger and New Warriors, both coming to FreeForm.  Which is pretty nice and all three shows are set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so that’s cool too.  I haven’t seen anything on Runaways that proves or disproves that but if Jeff Loeb says it is true, he’ll know.  I didn’t even know that Squirrel Girl was cast but she’s the playwright from This is Us, Sloane, her actress is Milana Vayntrub.  Odd that Squirrel Girl and Great Lakes Avengers’ Mister Immortal are the big names of the show.  At least Night Thrasher and Speedball are represented.  Maybe they can quickly incorporate Justice and Firestar to the show with the Disney / 21st Century FOX merger coming.  There apparently is a trailer for the Cloak and Dagger show that I need to watch.  It occurs to me that I haven’t done a post regarding the Avengers : Infinity Wars trailer.

We’re finally three episodes into Harlan Coben’s The Five.  There is a moment in the third episode that I just loved and now I just want to binge the rest of the seven episodes but we still have to get through The Voice and maybe two other shows.  What happens would have taken maybe seven episodes on an American series but they solved it and the twist in no time.  Detective Kenwood is now my favorite television police detective.  I may have to make a list but besides Batman, I’m not sure I even have a list of favorite detectives for one particular genre.  I guess Dick Tracy and Elongated Man would count.

. . .

I’m on episode 117 of Living Between Wednesdays so I’m getting caught up!  They are reviewing Justice League and I’m going to have to make peace with the fact that I’m going to listen to their Star Wars episode before I even get a chance to see it.  As I doubt our son will want to sit through The Last Jedi but maybe he will.  If anything, it will be towards the end of its run in the theater.  We didn’t see Force Awakens until it was well onto DVD, like a month after it came out.

. . .

TMNT Legends, I’m finally close to getting all of my characters to level 31, well besides the ones that don’t have available DNA to use.

I’m going to have to double time the tournament if I want to get Shinigami, though it is still early in the week.  I usually get to the third tier of the blue one which is where I have to be to unlock Shinigami, so I should be able to do it without any real problems.

I’m at level 66 so I’m close to level 70 where I get to participate in particular challenges, so that’ll be nice.  I still barely play for 20 minutes, in the morning, at lunch and at night.  So an hour is pretty good for a free game.

We are all caught up with Season Four of the Nick Turtles, so I really need Hulu to get season five put up but I imagine that’s a year away.

Now that we are done with that show, I’ll be able to go back to Riverdale.  Sounds like Living Between Wednesdays is wavering if they are going to keep watching it.  I still can’t believe they decided to do 22 episodes of Riverdale, the first season’s 13 was so tightly written and this season just feels bloated and filler-ful.  Which is super disappointing.

PS4 Games Research

Posted by John Klein III on December 18, 2017
Posted in: Games, Websites. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I was writing this for another post but then I realized there is enough here for a separate post.  I’ve been thinking lately about how I could do a quick recipe post and then the “what I watched/listen to last week” as a separate post, but that seems silly as the recipe posts are never very long.

keep thinking about, once I have the PS4 hooked up, when am I even going to play any games?  I might try to wake up at 5am and play, but my wife seems to wake up around 4am and sadly, can’t go back to sleep so that might not work.  I can try to do it on my Shopko nights but if my son is still awake (he tries to stay up to see me) then I won’t be playing on those nights.  Just not sure when I’ll be able to do it.  When he naps, on the weekends, we try to watch a show but he has not been taking naps so I’m not sure.  If he had a sibling, he wouldn’t need so much attention but I work so much, that I like to give him so much attention.  The waking up early is probably my best option.  This is definitely a first world problem but I don’t often get those.  It’ll probably be used for Netflix and Hulu, mostly, but I’m getting a few games that I’m hoping to actually play on a frequent basis.

I keep reading lists of Must Own games for the PS4.  I’m getting Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout 4.  I saw that Gamestop has the Game of the Year edition of Fallout 4, so I’l have to buy the DLC pack.  I also saw that you can get KITT (the car from Knight Rider) in GTAV, so I’m going to want to do that as early as possible.  Though I can’t find the step by step process on how to do it.  I saw that it is super expensive and is part of a DLC pack, so I’ll have to download that one.  I just looked up the word for that DLC and now I’m seeing that GTA Online might be a separate thing?  Is it separate from V or is that just the fancy word for the multiplayer mode?  KITT is in the Import / Export DLC, one of the later cars.  It isn’t a separate game on Amazon so it must be within GTA V.  I guess I’ll find out soon.

I’m also hoping to get the Uncharted Trilogy (for the third game) and 4, plus Lost Legacy.  I’ve been also wanting The Last of Us (also by Naughty Dogs – who develops the Uncharted series).  But then I read (or was reminded) that isn’t the Ellen Page game, Beyond : Two Souls is which there is a double game of that and Heavy Rain, that I really want.

Speaking of Naughty Dogs, my wife is getting the Crash Bandicoot trilogy, which I’ll probably end up playing for her.  We’re also getting Little Big Planet 3 for the family too.  My son likes racing games so I need to add Gran Turismo Sport for that purpose.  I may be wrong, LBP3 might be a future purchase, I’m not sure now.

I just checked metacritic.com for best racing games for PS4 –

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/genre/metascore/racing/ps4?view=condensed

I’m just going to go ahead and switch out Gran Turismo for F1, as I’m not loyal to any racing game franchise.

I want to also get Batman Arkham Knight, to finish that story.  I still haven’t played Origins either but I’ve heard I can skip that one.

I also want to get TMNT : Mutants in Manhattan.  I’ve heard it isn’t a stellar game but it is pretty good for a Ninja Turtles game.  Like, people wanted more from it but what they got, was pretty decent.

In researching games, I found some that sound super interesting games.

Life is Strange sounds super interesting.

Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice sounds like a brand new type of game.

Rachelle of Living Between Wednesdays talks about Lego Marvel’s Avengers, with how fun the Farmhouse segments were.

I’m a nut for Peggle so that could be fun on the PS4.  Maybe a tad silly but another family game.

I never got to play Red Dead Redemption, and it looks amazing.  The prequel comes out next year as does Far Cry 5.  I’ve never played a Far Cry game before, but it is set in Montana (where I live) so I feel compelled to play it.  It is a fictional city, of course, plus super stereotypical of who people think Montanans are but I’m not from here, so I’m fine with it.

I keep reading how much there is to do in Witcher 3 but I’m not the biggest sorcery / fantasy guy.

Until Dawn also sounds like an incredible game, I’ll want to get that at some point.

I’m regretting getting two massive open world games in Fallout 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5.  I wouldn’t mind a smaller or more linear game to play, along side those two.

Then my research took me to easy games to platinum and found a fun list of those games.

https://culturedvultures.com/easiest-platinum-trophies-ps4/

Some sound fun and easy but I’m not sure if I want to throw down twenty dollars just for easy trophies.  Though I’m curious about the TellTale games, when I wasn’t before reading that list.

I also found this list :

http://www.businessinsider.com/ps4-playstation-4-best-games-2017-8

Which has several games on it that seem like they would be fun for my wife and me.  She likes a good puzzle game, and I like games that push the graphic card, to justify the system and the fancy TV.

Those games would be : The Witness / The Last Guardian / Inside / Abzu / Flower / Journey

I kept finding game lists for games that came out in 2017 but I wanted a more comprehensive list.  I also like that we are buying this system in probably its second to last year so a slew of games should be more affordable but if not, time tested.

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ps4/filtered?sort=desc&hardware=all

This is probably the most comprehensive list I could find.  i like how they have it by Metascore and another list created by users (that keeps track of the metascore, too).

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/userscore/all/ps4/filtered?sort=desc

I feel like the user list might be the one I listen to, even though Witcher 3 is on the top of it.

I’ll be tempted to get Injustice 2 once the Game of the Year edition comes out, unless the Ninja Turtles are lame on it, then I might still pass.  I’m not the biggest fighting game guy, or first person shooter nor a racing gamer.

I was tempted by Amazing Spider-Man 2, as it reminded me of Spider-Man 2, being an open world Spider-Man game.  I read decent reviews, back in the day.  Essentially most of them stated to play it on the PS4 and not the PS3, which was the case for most games where that was an option.  Which makes perfect sense.

Night in the Woods sound cute.

We’re getting the 1 terabyte PS4 proper (or it could be a slim, for all I know) so hopefully that is enough memory to last several games.

Here are some other sites that I found with helpful lists.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/10-best-ps4-games-this-generation-s-must-play-titles-1298394

http://www.trustedreviews.com/guide/best-ps4-games

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/best-ps4-games/

At lunch, my wife told me that seven games should be enough to hold us over for some time, so I know four of those games.  I’ll let you know what the other games are, once I know them.

As I do enjoy making lists (it gives me something to scratch out or strike through), here is the list of games I’m interesting in, broken down into tiers as I’m also way into using the word “tiers.”  It really is the little things in life that amuses one, later in life.

Grand Theft Auto V
Fallout 4
Uncharted Trilogy
Uncharted 4
Uncharted : Lost Legacy
Batman : Arkham Knight
Heavy Rain / Beyond : Two Souls
Crash Bandicoot trilogy
Little Big Planet 3
Lego Marvel’s Avengers
The Last of Us Remastered
F1 2017
TMNT : Mutants in Manhattan
Peggle 2                                                                (11)

Life is Strange
Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice
Until Dawn                                           (3)

The Witness
The Last Guardian
Inside
Abzu
Flower
Journey                                  (6)

Which is 20 games, and I do enjoy a list divisible by 10, heck, even 25, which is my comic book upbringing coming through for the latter.

okay, so I counted the list and it is 23 games, so I’m not sure how I missed up counting that before.  I originally had Peggle 2 on there twice but that doesn’t really help.  Oh, I wasn’t counting the games I know we own, that’s how I got to 20 but 23 are listed.  Gosh, the difference an hour makes when writing a post!

The second tier games are the ones I discovered after conducting my research.

The third tier is mostly games I think my wife would enjoy and are apparently very nice to see.

https://www.costco.com/TCL-43%22-Class-(42.5%22-Diag.)-1080p-Roku-LED-LCD-TV.product.100328192.html

The TCL 43″ Classic 1080p Roku LCD TV, is the TV we are going to pair the PS4 with.  The Roku TV is how we’ve been addressing it.  For Black Friday, it was down to $250 but we’ve committed to paying the $280 for it, as it didn’t time out right for us.  My original goal was to “surprise” my wife for it for an anniversary present, as it is the TV she picked out.  We like the Roku brand (until it goes wrong, which is rare nowadays) so it does have everything we want in a television set.

I write “surprised” as anything over fifty dollars, we discuss it as one never knows.  Such is the married life.