Comixology added four new comics to their list for the week! Not only are there four comics but they are all What if…? comics!
What If? Civil War (2007) # 1
What If? Wolverine : Enemy of the State # 1
What If? Spider-Man : The Other # 1
What If? Planet Hulk (2007) # 1
A total savings of $7.96!
I’ve actually read all four of these and they were all pretty good.
Gosh, I thought I wrote a review for What If? Wolverine : Enemy of the State but it doesn’t look like I did. I’m really am the worst! Such a great comic and I reference it a bunch when I think about how much of a villain Kitty could be if she went bad.
I imagine since they wrote (2007) that means there has been additional Civil War and Planet Hulk What If titles which makes sense as those two are ripe for additional stories to be told.
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Just to try to make this a bigger post, I’ll give a few updates on my gaming progress. I’m still at rank 15. I played some Dead by Daylight last night, once as David Cage and I did not accomplish either daily goal. One was to be chased for 120 seconds and I got up to 90 seconds and the other is to open one exit, which I wish I was better at. It took two minutes to match me up and then I was dead within two minutes as Ghostface just found me, I got unhooked and healed and then he found me almost immediately and hooked me again. I really wish I had such luck or skill when I’m the killer. I played as the Nurse so I could teleport and hit a survivor four times and only managed to hit one of them. So I was playing pretty well last week and I picked up the game for the first time in a week and I was complete trash again. But instead of using it as a chill game, I have decided, with this and Rocket League, that I’ll just commit a gaming night to each game instead of trying to do another game and end the night with one of my chill games. That wasn’t doing justice to any of the games, plus it takes so long to match me that I’ve started losing interest or patience with it. Which is crazy as I really do adore Dead by Daylight but I spend so much time waiting and then I get killed so fast, it just stinks all over. I’ll keep playing but not as addictively as I have in the past.
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I’ll be playing Rocket League tonight and I’m hoping to knock out a slew of trophies or at least, make decent progress on them. I think I’m ready to pay online some more, especially in some four on four matches, so that way, there is a higher chance of me not holding the entire team back. I’m looking way forward to it. I have a list of trophies I want to tackle and everything.
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I was playing Beyond : Two Souls before Dead by Daylight and finished up the Old Friends, which turned into the Nora chapter, and then I started Dead by Daylight. I was thinking Old Friends was taking way longer so I did rush through it and that’s when I realized I need to really just mentally commit to one game. I missed two trophy opportunities but not really as we have the option to let a character die or live and if we were killing or saving all characters, this character would be considered the final character to let live or die. Which I’m pretty sure I’m 50/50 on that progress so I was already going to miss out on that trophy. I did choose to let the person die and it wasn’t much of a life they were living.
The next chapter is the Briefing, and it does feel like we’re leading up to the big finale. At this point, I do want to just get to Detroit : Become Human but I’m not trying to rush it but it might be time to put this game down. The Mission chapter was pretty great and worth playing just for that alone, plus the excellent character work, but I’m definitely not going back to the homeless chapter and playing forward like I originally thought of doing. I’ll save that for a second playthrough.
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I completed my fifth playthrough of Late Shift and I even experimented with making a video!
So . . . thanks me for hosting my own video on YouTube!
It looks like I can only post 50 minutes of video so if I want to put my first playthrough of Man of Medan up, I might have to purposely only do it in 45 minute chucks.
So that was a nice experiment to test out ShareFactory.
Anyway, so I wanted to make a video of my all time favorite story beat in Late Shift! I included the part where they call Sebastian’s friend to find his location to set up the hospital scene properly. Then there is the moment with the old man with the magazine that is cute.
But right around the 8:20 minute mark, Mark touches May-Ling’s hand and the moment with the heart monitor is such perfect writing! Joe Sowerbutts and Haruka Abe have such great chemistry and I can’t wait for these final two playthroughs to see what happens with them in the best endings! Hopefully the fifth one was the end of the bad ones.
I thought I was being a tad racist that the girl from Clean Bandit’s Rather Be looked a lot like Haruka Abe but it turns out they are one and the same! I loved that video before but now it got even better!
I wonder if this is why I’ve been thinking about Clean Bandit so much lately. The other night, I had the hardest time remembering the name of the band and had to look up Kiesza’s Hideaway as I recall the two songs being out at the same time. I’ve been in a 90s music mood as well as a 2014 music mood lately.
Apparently she was Po in that horrible Emerald City show but I don’t recall that and the Wikipedia page for the show doesn’t even list Po so she was probably a minor character. Shame she nor Sowerbutts has gotten more work. He was in a movie, I Capture the Castle that I should check out one of these days.
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I’m getting closer to completing the main story for Lego Marvel Superheroes 2. I believe I just have three more chapters and then I would have all of the hubs unlocked and I can start tackling the DLC and replaying levels for all of the minikits and to save Stan Lee. There are challenges scattered across the world that I will also have to complete as well.
I’ve been waiting to get to Knowhere so I can get the trophy for having Lockjaw and Cosmo in the same team.
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VUDU finally got Avengers Endgame and I immediately went to the third act battle sequence which literally starts a bit after the two hour mark with a full hour of the movie left and it was as glorious, if not better, than I remembered! We still need to buy Captain Marvel but I’m going to be spending a bunch of time with this film and its special features which include character spotlights and a commentary track that I’m going to listen the heck out of!
WipEOut Omega Collection is a trilogy of games that were package together and released on June 6, 2017. They are a futuristic racing game that from my reading, are pretty intense to master. This game is also VR-Supported.
Maybe the September 2019 games will feature Inpatient to tie in with Man of Medan’s August 30 release. I was also hoping PES 2019 would have been free this month. I will keep tracking it.
WipEOut feels like another addition to the racing games that we seem to be getting recently with TrackMania Turbo, OnRush, and Horizon Chase Turbo. So that will be fun to play with Walker Dennis. Sniper Elite 4, I imagine like Modern Warfare 4, I will play until I become clearly no good at the game, so we will see if I can get pass the first two missions or not.
WipEOut is a $20 game with no DLC and Sniper Elite 4 is a $60 game with a Deluxe Edition bundle at $90, so these two games definitely pay for your subscription with WipEOut being even more of a bonus. It also has a season pass for $35.
There is no free DLC which is unfortunate but there are seven DLC packs including levels, characters, and add-ons. Three levels that are included on the trophy lists are:
Targer Fuhrer for $10
Deathstorm Part 1 : Inception for $7
Deathstorm Part 2 : Infiltration for $7
Deathstorm Part 3 : Obliteration for $7
So four levels for $32 so the season pass might be worth it as the main game plus the season pass comes $95, or just buy the Deluxe Edition at that point.
According to PSPrices, Sniper Elite 4 gets as low as $17.99 (it is currently $15.32 on Amazon (75% off!) and WipEOut Omega Collection gets as low as $5.99. 18+6=24, so in that regard, it is not the worst month to start your subscription either. Two more months with games priced like that and all of the other ten months is just bonus. This is the first month I had the thought to compare the cheapest listed price, which would be good to do going forward.
If I really take to Sniper Elite 4, and I can’t imagine that I will, who knows, maybe I will add the Season Pass to my PSPPrices Wishlist.
The Deluxe Edition goes as cheap as $26.99 and the Season Pass as low as $14, but if it is anything like the Arkham Knight Season Pass, I bet it is super rare when it goes on sale as Arkham Knight as not dropped below $20 in a full year that I have been watching it.
Unlike Dead by Daylight, it does not appear that any of the level packs have ever gone down in price.
I was reminded about 11-11 Memories Retold and I have added that to my wishlist for 56 items.
PES 2019 is still $30, which I doubt it will drop below its lowest amount, $24, any time soon. We will have to wait and see what happens once 2020 comes out in September.
Both subreddits seem to like it, besides that both games are two years old and several people already own them. Also, that WipEOut is extremely hard to master.
Both seem to have simple trophies that I am sure I will obtain early enough but time will tell. I’ve been tempted to go back and play some of the earlier games we have received to try to get at least a trophy in my list to knock down some of these zero percents. The next games on my list is Deus Ex : Mankind Divided and Uncanny Valley, two games that I sort of became lost within the first 30 minutes. When I was thinking about doing this, it was a week ago and I had forgotten I was due for two free games so I might attempt those two games after the August games.
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I have earned my 21st platinum with Batman : The Enemy Within!
The platinum screenshot is yet another lousy black screen so that was not great. At first, I was notified Spider-Man’s file was updated and I thought the platinum was overwritten but it eventually popped later and it was all black. The game ends with a title card and I thought that would be the ideal time for the trophy to trigger but it did not happen.
Such a fun game, I am not sure if I am ready to pick which one was better than the other. I wished Catwoman had more to do in Episode Five. Especially after I betrayed Joker to ensure Waller freed Catwoman. I told Selina that I loved her instead of asking her to come back to the Batcave. I thought both would end with the same result. Instead, Tiffany was in the Batcave and the entire time, I was thinking I should have invited Selina instead. I have since been told that Selina never comes to the Batcave so now I do not have to replay Episode Five. When I saw Waller next, I was super agreeable with her, in comes our earlier deal to free Catwoman was still on the table but Waller never mentioned it.
Then when I was getting the concluding cards, I was told I did not free Catwoman from Waller, so that was frustrating. I am not sure what I was supposed to do instead but any interest in correcting that path is gone as I have a slew of games I want to play.
I was working on Vigilante Joker and when he turned on Batman on the catwalk, that got intense and quick!
I wish we could get a third series but with TellTale no longer being active, that is not going to happen. Maybe one day I will treat myself to their Guardians of the Galaxy series, if it ever drops below ten dollars. I believe it is usually only 15, but I also read that it is not very good. If I ever get in a mood for another TellTale game, I still have Back to the Future to play. Walker Dennis has not mention it in forever but I see it in my list of games every so often. I will eventually get around to it. I should move it higher on the list as I did pay money for it.
With this Platinum, I am so close to Rank 16! I thought for it sure it would take a full year to go from Rank 15 to 16. I think buying Rocket League and getting so many trophies so quickly helped with that.
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Typing about treating myself. PSPrices notified me that The Bunker was now only an six dollar game, down from $20. I was super tempted to do it, but I do not really have the spare money in my PSN wallet but I am also three playthroughs away from completing Late Shift.
Looking at the link, I am so tempted to just buy it but I will hold out for another sale. Or if I can be treated to a $10 PSN card but I doubt that will happen. It would be nice though.
I do believe the Platinum walkthrough is purposely going from worst to best as the first four seem to be getting a tad better every time. I am not sure how much more I can let horrible things happen to May.
Completing both Batman : The Enemy Within and soon, Late Shift, and getting into a routine of playing a different game a night, caused me to think I should try to play some of my backlog and see which games I enjoy and which ones might benefit from a second impression.
Comixology is offering four new free comics, for a total savings of $7.96.
X-Men 2099 # 1
Star Wars : Lando – Double or Nothing (2008) # 1 (of 5)
Ultimate Iron Man # 1 (of 5)
Agents of Atlas (2006-2007) # 1 (of 6)
I can only imagine Lando is to tie in with our recent purchase of Han Solo’s Landspeeder.
Usually when I am building a larger set, I like to watch something that connects to the set. We still had not watch Solo so I figured now was the time to do so. It was not a bad movie, but like Rogue One, I did not feel connected to it. Maybe it was because I was assembling a Lego set, maybe because after the opening scene where Han is driving his Landspeeder and then once it is off screen, it is never mentioned or shown again, I was not invested. I liked that it was a space opera’s take on a heist film, and I liked Donald Glover as Lando. He is barely in it outside of maybe three scenes? Like any good heist film, there was a double cross and things went wrong, maybe that was my problem? It was a little too predictable or by the numbers. I might have to watch it again but I am not sure when I will have time to do that.
Walker has been really wanting the Lego Iron Man Hall of Armors set. He saved up all of his money, and his lovely grandmother helped as well and he finally got it. He was so happy! While looking and discovering we no longer own any of the Iron Man movies. We sold them a while ago to Hastings, in order to get the BluRays one day but that day never came. Walmart still wants twenty dollars for the first Iron Man BluRay + Digital copy, and VUDU wants $15 so we will probably eventually get it for $15 through VUDU. I was hoping to be teased with an option to get all three films through VUDU for a price cheaper than $45, but maybe once Endgame comes out, that deal will come back. I want to own a copy of Endgame so much! I just want to rewatch that film!
WatchMojo had a great Top Ten Moments from Endgame that numbers 4-2 made me swell up all over again. Such a great movie!
So we watched Infinity War again, as Netflix got Captain America : Civil War, right around the time we were tempted to buy it and so we did not buy it. Now it is off of Netflix and we do not own a copy of it so Infinity War was it.
Before that, we watched Lego Avengers Resassembled, a fun Lego-ized sequel. It is barely twenty minutes so it was over before I knew it. Which made sense, as at first, I thought it was going to be a full hour and I was not prepared for that but then I was not prepared for the credits to happen when they did. They packed a lot into that short run time.
I’m pretty sure X-Men 2099 is a fun plug for Jonathan Hickman’s Powers of X series. I did read House of X 1, it has Lockheed in it! If I can get my act together, I should do a review for the issue.
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During the summer, I have Wednesdays off and we saw Sherlock Gnomes, the 2018 sequel to 2011 Gnomeo and Juliet. We found a YouTube video that had the first movie running in an edited style. There were two fun Sherlock Holmes references in the film that it did not seem anyone else caught up but it was 95 percent children, but I liked it. One was an obvious Hound of Baskervilles and the other was a sequence of events that led to Sherlock Gnomes falling in front of a created waterfall that was super clever. They also used Irene Adler pretty well too. I totally figured out who was behind it but then there was a late film twist I should have saw coming.
They used Elton John’s music as it is a Rocket Pictures production and the same company produced Rocket Man, so it all makes sense now. Pretty clever way to use your own music, I say.
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I completed the maybe five minute chapter of Beyond : Two Souls titled, Night Session, but when it was over, I checked The Mission, and that seemed very detailed and I wanted to play other games, so I am super slowly chipping away at this game. The Mission has a sole stealth trophy for never being detected so I am going to have to work towards that. Poor Nathan Dawkins, so much is taken away from him and William Dafoe does an outstanding job playing him.
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Finally, I am slowly making progress with Dead by Daylight! I was able to finally survive with my level 15 Laurie, so I got the Adept Laurie trophy. I also got the Skillful trophy by getting one of Ash’s perks to rank three. I got him to level 15 as well but I cannot survive a match as him. I do not survive may matches anyway. I have gotten close twice but then I die as the gates open, which is highly annoying!
We got Bill Overbeck from Left 4 Dead as a free DLC, which was super nice!
I am also super addicted to TydeTime’s YouTube channels that cover the game, pretty much whichever characters I use for the daily, I end my night watching videos that cover that character or characters. It looks like he has since moved on from the game but he left behind hundreds of videos. I have yet to see one video twice, even when I let the next one auto-play.
I am still just loving this game and I need to get better at it. I am sure I will not be able to get any of the Adept Killer trophies as I can barely kill one survivor every five games. I just recently discovered the strategy of patrolling the generators around the basement so when I find a survivor, I can hook them in the basement and knock off anyone who is foolish enough to try to unhook them.
I really enjoy both his gameplay videos as well as his discussions and other produced videos.
Marvel held a pretty epic presentation on Saturday that explains what the next few years are going to look like for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both in theaters and on Disney+.
Since I have the handy link above, I’m going to go in that order, if you want to follow along. Except I’m going to break that right off the bat with the first film as it just makes sense to go in release date order of release. I’m also going with Logo first and then my thoughts as that makes more sense to me.
Thanks to Variety for having a highlight reel of the announcements too!
It took ten years but Scarlett Johansson is finally getting her proper movie! With no Hawkeye in sight too! More on that later! She’ll be joined by Stranger Things and Hellboy, David Harbour, as The Red Guardian. I looked it up.
It only made 40 million worldwide on a 50 million budget, that isn’t ideal so Harbour is free to be other comic book characters. He deserves another shot. I haven’t heard anything about Stranger Things 3, so either people are respecting no spoilers or I’m just out of touch.
I’m a pretty big fan of Yelena’s take of being the Black Widow and I’m looking forward to how Florence Pugh portrays her. I didn’t realize she played Paige in Fighting with My Family. I must not have looked into it as I just assumed Paige would pull a Howard Stern and play herself in the movie about her life. Paige is 26 and would have gotten acting experience through WWE, I wonder what made that decision? Apparently the film is based on a documentary that I should probably watch now that I have so many questions. That won’t be answered in the documentary but still. Pugh will be one of the ladies in Little Women.
O-T Fagbenle, who I know from Harlan Coben’s The Five series (that I think about enough that we should really finish that series!) will be Mason, whoever that is. He’s also one The Handmaid’s Tale and I wonder if my wife recognizes him from the earlier show?
Rachel Weisz will be Melina, another character in the film. I imagine the film is going to be an origin story and it ends with Natasha coming back to life, right? Or a quick 15 minute origin story, she blips back to Earth and then just continues with her spy story, and then the film ends with her telling a hero that she’s alive? Those are the two easy options I came up with.
Johansson is only 34 so she must have been 24 when Iron Man 2 came out and she looks exactly the same, so she can totally pull off an origin story! I probably didn’t even need to look it up but I was curious. She’s been working since 2001’s Ghost World with some smaller roles before hand but gosh, she really blew up. I wonder what her thoughts are on Jennifer Lawrence, who is only 28, and what advice she’ll give her as they both have the same fans, I imagine.
Coming to theaters May 1, 2020.
The movie Marvel is hoping to recapture that Guardians of the Galaxy buzz with! Kevin Feige said it is going to have plenty of Jack Kirby in it, which would be the only thing I want want from it. Especially as I really don’t know the Eternals are. I’m sure Marvel will release like three trades that will be the inspiration for the film’s plot but it is pretty wide open as of now.
Richard Madden, Game of Thorne’s Robb Stark, is going to be Ikarus.
Kumail Nanjiani, who love, is going to be Kingo.
I’m not familiar with Lauren Ridloff who is going to be Makkari. My wife would probably recognize her from New Amsterdam’s Happy Place episode.
Brian Tyree Henry has been in a slew of things I haven’t seen, but he’s the voice of Jefferson Davis in Into The Spider-Verse, he’s going to be Phastos.
In a surprise announcement to me, Salma Hayek is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Ajak! I do love me some Salma Hayek.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for Lia McHugh who is going to be Sprite. Which I am familiar with that Eternal as I’ve been curious why Kitty Pryde was known as the second Sprite. Just don’t pull her Tab!
I’m not familiar with Don Lee either, who is going to be Gilgamesh.
I knew Angelina Jolie was going to be in the movie, she’s Thena. Should be a pretty interesting film. I’m also not familiar with director Chloe Zhao’s work either.
Coming to theaters November 6, 2020.
I had forgotten that Daniel Bruhl is returning as Baron Zemo for the series! Now I’m even more excited! Once this is officially on Disney+, we will be subscribing to it.
Coming to streaming devices Fall 2020.
I must be way out of touch as I didn’t recognize anyone from the cast of this but I’m super excited!
Simu Liu is going to be outstanding as Shang Chi!
I’m glad that we’re finally getting the real Mandarin and Tony Leung is going to be awesome at it! I’m glad Marvel Studios found a way to properly introduce him into the MCU.
He’s Little Tony to Tony Leung Ka-fai’s Big Tony.
Coming on February 12, 2021.
We still haven’t seen Captain Marvel – I’m hoping we buy it off of VUDU next weekend. We’ve been waiting to buy it for when we can actually watch it. Teynoah Parris is going to be playing adult Monica Rambeau, which is terrific to have that plot thread picked up. Parris was Dawn Chambers on Mad Men. She’s also Detective Pamela Rose on Empire.
I’m super excited about this show as I just want more Wanda and Vision! Hopefully Vision has all of his emotions or gets them back by the end of the show’s run.
Coming Spring 2021 to Disney+.
I wasn’t hot on Loki until Endgame, then I had one of those ah-ha moments and I’ll love to see what Post-Avengers Loki is up too without all of that fun character development he got from the films that came after that. He should be pretty fun.
Coming to Disney+ Spring 2021.
Like a dman fool, I was saying how it might not be necessary to get a proper sequel to Doctor Strange but I’ve been proven way wrong. I’m glad Marvel is running with the idea of the Multiverse that was teased in Spider-Man : Far From Home.
We’ll have to see if they reveal the MCU to actually be considered Earth-199999, officially named in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z 5.
I love how Marvel isn’t making the mistake they did with the Netflix series (more on that later), and actually making sure the events of the Disney+ series matter by making sure the plot threads are picked up in the movies. I was never worried that once the characters went to “TV,” that they would never come back to films but as proof, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) will be in Doctor Strange’s film and it will take place after the events of WandaVision.
Coming to theaters May 7, 2021.
The first series actually set in the MCU, and not just inspired by it, and it is just a fun take on the MCU! So far, we only know there will be an episode based on the idea of Agent Peggy Carter becoming Captain America. I’m sure there will be several other episodes that would be equally fun. Hopefully the original actor will do the voicework for their character like we know Hayley Atwell will.
Jeffrey Wright, Felix Leiter from the latest James Bond films, will be providing the voice of The Watcher! He was also Colin Powell in Oliver Stone’s W and Beetee in the Hunger Games films.
Coming to Disney+ Summer 2021.
This show will get me excited once they cast Kate Bishop. I’m getting myself pretty jazzed for a Young Avengers film that might be in the works. I’m also hoping with Jeremy Renner coming back to TV, that we can get a re-release of ABC’s The Unusuals as that was a fun show. It only had ten episodes but I’m reminded of that show a bunch. Mostly when I’m reminded of Renner and when I wonder whatever happened to Amber Tamblyn, She’s going to be Mariette Callows in the upcoming Y : The Last Man series coming to FX as simply “Y” which like “er” will be very difficult to Google.
Monique Gabriela Curnen being in the Dark Knight didn’t bring the show back on any streaming device but with Disney only ABC, I wonder if the show will appear on Disney+? She was Detective Anna Ramirez.
The Unusuals also had LOST’s Harold Perrineau (Walt!) and the original Adam Goldberg! Such a great show. Now I wish I can watch it all over again!
So yeah, maybe there might be something about this show that will get me to think about the show itself. Hopefully Matt Fraction gets some dollars from this, that’ll be nice.
Coming to Disney+ Fall 2021.
I loved Comic Book Queers Legacy’s idea of simply calling this film, Thour, that would have been super fun!
Natalie Portman is coming back to the MCU and she’s going to be Thor! How amazing is that!?! I can’t wait to see what she looks like as Thor!
I was going to make another difficult to Google joke but “Natalie Portman Goddess of Thunder” should at last bring some images
Yep, that worked! That makes two awesome humans who are worthy to pick up Mjolnir.
I wonder if Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard will be in this? Maybe at least as cameos?
Also, will the Guardians show up for a fun cameo as they drop Thor off on his latest adventure? They have to address it at least for a line of dialogue.
Coming to theaters November 5, 2021!
We end with Blade! Mahershala Ali will be the daywalker, Blade! Ali is 46 to Wesley Snipps 56. Gosh, Snipps has six kids! He hasn’t been working much but has two films in post-production right now, Dolemite Is My Name and Cut Throat City.
So Mahershala Ali has played one other Marvel character, Luke Cage’s first season villain, Cottonmouth. So that’s a shame that Marvel is not only double dipping into other roles already but also, it sort of implies the Marvel Netflix series don’t really matter. I guess there is an argument to be made that nowadays, it doesn’t really matter, but also, it isn’t like Ali was a hero character being recast as another hero. But he was pretty pivotal to Luke Cage’s first season.
But Ali is a great actor so it makes total sense that Marvel will want to keep working with him. I’m just having a silly knee jerk reaction.
No date for when the film comes out but oh boy, what an amazing late of TV and Films!
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PSPrices notified me that Late Shift was under seven dollars. Apparently the game has gotten below five but I had recently gotten paid and I figured I’ll treat myself to a new game.
I was going to do eight playthroughs, one blind, and then follow the guide and do the official seven endings but then I figured, why not just do the seven endings as the game is an hour and half each time and I’m pretty limited in my time I get to play. I don’t really regret it, I’m three playthroughs in and having a great time. I’m breaking it up with other games as I broke down and made a list of five games to play so I’ll have a nice rotation. The third one was my favorite until midway through it. So I’m hoping the order of playthroughs is worst to best.
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After watching how much fun the PlayStation Access crew had playing XCOM 2, I figured I’ll get it a shot and recreate my family, plus Spider-Man, Santa Claus, Dr. Peter Venkman, and Kitty Pryde.
So I played with the tutorial and then did the first mission. We lost the forced character, which was lousy that I couldn’t immediately play with four created characters but then I was thankful that I only lost the one soldier, and it wasn’t one of my characters. There is perma-death, even on the easier mode, so I was being super careful. Maybe too careful as I had forgotten we were on a deadline with only so many number of rounds but right at the last round, my wife was able to disarm the bomb. She eventually got seriously wounded and can’t fight for the next 23 days. So now I’m worried about sending any of my people out. Like a f’n coward.
I earned the tutorial trophy last year when I first played it during June 2018 when it was a free game through PS Plus. Looking over the list, I probably should be playing on Normal and I’ll see if I can change the setting or I can at least start a new game as I bet it would only take an hour to get back to where I currently am.
I saw that there is only one online trophy and all I had to do was start and finish a match so I did that. I went with a super basic team and two people didn’t want to just give me the trophy so they dropped out. Then the third person went ahead and fought me. It went a tad longer than I thought it would but it was pretty fun to get a little more experience with the game.
I wanted to get a more official team line-up photo but I couldn’t select any of my three created characters so that killed my buzz for creating more people as well as continuing that playthrough. It might be another year before I play again.
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With this rotation idea, I finally started Batman : The Enemy Within, and it is so good! I took Catwoman to the Batcave and tried to romance the heck out of her! It really is all I wanted to do and I’m so glad I got back into the game. Alfred seemed supportive. I’m probably going to upset Gordon as I did warn her the police were coming. I’m not sure if he’ll get the chance to yell at me as I also took the heat for Catwoman stealing Harley’s laptop and Mr. Freeze put me in a tank and froze me. I have two more chapters but I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get out of this.
. . .
So I have two chapters before the platinum for Batman and five playthroughs before the platinum for Late Shift and now I’m in my head about a very silly thing. My last three platinums are for Lego Movie 1, Lego Marvel Superheroes 1, and Lego Avengers, so it would look pretty cool if I got Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 instead of how it will be spaced out with two games in-between it but I’ve also made my peace with it. LMSH2 is such a massive game and I’ve taken long enough breaks from it now that that’s simply the prize I have to pay. Plus, it is a silly thing and I’m not even sure who else would even notice that. Or they will see my list and see how I snuck in two quick games. Though I’ve been having Batman : The Enemy Within on the backburner for way too long! Foolishly long!
So I’ve completed my two Inhumans chapters, there was a silly Minikit I should have been able to grab in the first of the two missions, but Crystal was too close to the platform and it started rising up before I realized there was a free floating minikit. But that’s what Free Play is for. I’m nowhere near the platinum for this game, I realize.
While exploring the underwater city, we noticed there was a race for the Homecoming suit, so I got that for Walker Dennis. It took longer than I was thinking it would. The races for no reason are much harder in this game with how the controls are. I’m not great at flying races and I had forgotten how bad I was at swimming races from Lego Dimensions. But they made it super easy to restart races so I kept pressing Circle and eventually got it.
I keep falling into the trap of trying races when Walker is also playing and the split screen is not productive for racing.
. . .
Referring to romancing, I’ve finally committed to playing Beyond : Two Souls again as well. I completed The Dinner chapter. Jodie put on a fancy dress, made a nice Asian Beef dish, and then she and Ryan totally made out.
There were two chances for Aiden to ruin the night, that lasted way to long, to the point where I felt tempted to do something destructive to get out of playing as him, but it eventually timed out.
Next is the Night Sessions chapter. It started with a young Jodie so I can’t imagine it will be too long.
Looking at the chapters list, I think I’m finally at the half way point.
. . .
KITT has finally come to Rocket League so for two dollars, he can be yours too! Now I’m just waiting for the Rocket League : Game of the Year Edition to go on sale so I can snatch up the game proper.
Thanks for Rocket League for hosting their own video!
I can’t tell if the license plate is red or is that just the light from the back making it look that way? Also, there is a clear red stripe going around KITT that shouldn’t be there but I guess a sleek all black car wouldn’t look as exciting against other cars.
Apparently, KITT doesn’t have a Super Pursuit Mode, any voice work from William Daniels, nor any of the iconic sounds. It would be cool if we at least got the sounds. Even cooler would be if we got KARR! But it took them four years to get KITT so we probably have to wait a long time before we get that. The game came out in July 2019, so we’re in their anniversary month right now. Now it all makes sense.
Actually, PSPrices has been blowing up my phone with discounts! The Game of the Year edition is currently 50% off so I scooped it up so quick as $13 is quite a deal, down from $25! So hopefully we’ll start playing that tonight or tomorrow.
There is an entire summer sale going on right now through the PlayStation Store.
With the deals, I should get at least one of those Batmobiles and then wait on those five Hot Wheels cars, at least three of them are bundled together.
The Witcher 3 Complete Edition and Fallout 76 Tricentennial edition are heavily discounted too. Though both games are pretty well discounted most of the time anyway, so don’t pay full price for those two. One day, I’ll have both of those as well.
In all of my excitement, I went ahead and bought the three Batmobiles for six dollars.
So the only other cars to tempt us are:
Triple Threat for $6
Gazella GT, MR11, and FAST 4WD (three cars I don’t recognize by name)
Bone Shaker $2
Twin Mill III $2
For the grand total of ten dollars!
But now I only have $14.15 in my PSN wallet so I’m going to have to put ten dollars on there just to get back over my $20 goal. I should treat myself to a $25 card and have plenty of future fun to be had.
We were able to start playing last night and we got super addicted to playing and I stayed up late and started chipping away at the trophies! Such a fun game! We’ve heard 32% of the trophies and I got at least one trophy per DLC except for Champions Field. I thought I was going to get the trade five rare items for an ultra rare but I only have one item and it isn’t trade-able so I’m going to have to play a bunch more. But I’m going to have to as one, it is a super fun game, and two, it is going to take a long time for me to drive 50 km.
. . .
The reason I don’t have as much money in my PSN card is because Dead by Daylight had some more items for sale, namely both Ash Williams and Leatherface for half off which made them both combined for six dollars. If I had deep pockets, I would have just threw all of my money towards the DLC but like my gaming goals of buying my wishlist once they are only a certain price, I’ll start with the cheapest options and work my way up. I should just say heck with it and treat myself to Ghostface as he’s who I really want. Maybe once I’ve gotten my moneys worth with Rocket League, I’ll jump back to Dead by Daylight.
I can’t imagine I can properly pay two multiplayer games but maybe I’ll do it like I do my main games and make one my chill game one day and the other the chill game on another night. That’s probably exactly how I’ll end up doing it. I’ve spent so much money on these games, I better commit to playing them!
I bought Michael Myers and have barely used him, and I’ve only used Leatherface the first night I bought him. I’m a bit of a stickler for using the dailies to direct how I play. So I’ve had several survivor tasks so I’ve been bouncing between Ash and Laurie from Halloween.
. . .
I thought I wrote about Friday the 13th : The Game before but it doesn’t appear like I have. Dead by Daylight has some lengthy wait times, both during the matching phase and then for the final lobby portion. So I’ve taken to looking at my fellow survivors’ trophy lists. We can’t see the killer, for the surprise element I’m sure, but when we play as the killer, we get to see all of the survivors. I never think to check out the killer’s trophies after the game though. Unless I’ve earned a trophy, then I follow all of those peeps who made it possible.
So I kept seeing all of these players who had Friday the 13th : The Game as a game they all have played. Which makes sense as they are both horror mutliplayer games, where a group of people (counselors vs survivors) are against a killer (Jason v Multiple Options). I like how the counselors can actually fight against Jason, though it is super complicated to actually kill him, but at least we can take the offense instead of just hiding and working generators. That being typed, I still prefer Dead by Daylight.
My other problem is that we can’t choose to play as Jason, it is a random draw. We get to chose our counselor and which Jason we want to play, but it is a 95/5 chance of playing as Jason. Once we see Jason in the opening scene, at least one can tell if they are going to be Jason if he matches. I barely even saw the first Jason option and when I did, it wasn’t me.
I must have played 30 matches as a counselor and I finally unlocked Deb. She might be my favorite at the moment. I unlocked her at level six.
I should say I have never seen a Jason film so I just learned she is from Jason Goes to Hell, The Final Friday. The ninth film in the franchise. She’s Jason’s 92nd victim.
I was playing so much I was tempted to get the costume DLCs, as they are only two dollars each and there is only two of them. One is the bathing suit and one is a fun costume option.
Then I got to finally play as Jason and now I’m done with the game for a bit. We were so close!
Deb’s costume is a bunny costume! That’s when she won my heart!
But not my two dollars. Who knows, maybe I’ll stop being a fuddy duddy and just spend the four dollars but I also have plenty of time as well.
. . .
So my break from Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and my addiction to Dead by Daylight also led me to playing Warframe and Apex Legends, as I kept seeing both of those games on people’s trophy lists. Which makes sense as people who like multiplayer games probably like free multiplayer games.
I didn’t take to Apex Legends, I’m no good at shooting people, but it was fun running around. I got the jump master trophy and felt like I had done by part.
Warframe, I had a much better time with, and I could see myself playing a few more nights with it. Sort of like how I’m given these PS Plus games, I feel like I can pick them up and drop them at any time. Like, I didn’t earn the games, so I didn’t have to fight for them, or they are not as real to me, if that makes any sense. But I’m learning that they are a lot of fun. I have committed to the idea of playing a game until I get the first trophy and then seeing where I land after that.
I also hadn’t gotten to the online portion of Warframe, but I did the tutorial and the first real mission and earned the Rank 2 trophy, No Longer a Rookie.
I have been seeing a lot of GTA V trophies but I rather not take the Lego Marvel Collection disc out and replace it with GTAV and then sit for three minutes as the game loads. Maybe that can be my next physical game I play. I should at least try to beat the main story as well as complete the online tutorial, as that’s the trophy I see most people have earned, and I can at least do that much.
Girlfriend Reviews also just did a video for the game so it is just on everyone’s mind, I supposed.
I’ll add my voice to the news that Supermassive Games has announced that The Dark Pictures Anthology is no longer a five game franchise. There will be . . . eight games! I can only imagine their preorder sales have been incredible and they just are fully committing to making these games. I’m going to preorder as many as I can!
I’m intrigued about the multiplayer games, playing the game with someone else sounds like fun. I’m not sure how that would work as I could never commit to playing for five hours, even in the middle of the day on a Sunday.
I’m hoping it isn’t like Beyond : Two Souls where there is only one ongoing save file so you had to either play solo or with a partner. I want this to be like Portal 2 where there will be options to play single, multiplayer or party mode. Which now I’m trying to think if Hidden Agenda had different tracks, I want to say it didn’t but that game was super short at barely three hours, a length of a full length movie these days. Five hours feels just a tad long to be in front of the system, at least to this 37 year old. If I was in college, then heck yeah, but I got adult responsibilities now and barely no time to play as it is.
I really want to platinum this game so I’m really hoping I can do that and not be held up by the multiplayer mode. In that case, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to operate without any sleep the night before.
Sounds like the second game must be in near completion mode as the third one is filming soon. So maybe they can make two games a year work?!
The fourth and fifth games are in the game design mode and they have story concepts for games six, seven, and eight. This is such an exciting time!
PlayStation has a little more information on the game too!
. . .
Thanks to Dave and Rosie of PlayStation Access for hosting their video containing multiplayer gameplay!
They even got to experience a real life ghost ship! So lucky! Poor Dave, at least he had Rosie there.
. . .
For July 2019, the PlayStation Plus games were changed from Horizon Turbo Chase and PES 2019 to Horizon Turbo Chase and Detroit Become Human.
Which is unfortunate as I don’t own the Special Edition of Detroit but I did get the regular edition for Christmas. I was also really looking forward to playing PES 2019. I was really hoping Konami was going to pull a NBA 2k19 and make their game $2.99 to take advantage of the hype and disappointment loads of people felt. As I would never buy the game for $30 but if it was $3, heck yeah! Especially as PES 2020 is coming out in September and then, no one is probably going to buy 2019, except for me, once it is way cheap. I can hold out, of that, I’m sure.
. . .
Thanks to YouTuber TN_Spicyapples33 for hosting his video of the San Francisco cup!
I’ve only played and completed the San Francisco cup of the World Tour. This is a pretty fun and relaxing game. I can see this becoming a nice chill game to play after completing a night’s worth of playing whatever my main game is. The tracks do not take long and once you understand how the rubberbanding works in the game, I rarely stressed about winning. The only playful stress I had was trying to get all of the coins and come in first place to earn the Super Trophy. Whenever I grabbed all the coins, I wasn’t in danger of coming in second but when I came in first, I often didn’t get all of the points so I had to do some replays.
. . .
Before I can start a playthrough of Detroit, I really want to complete my first playthrough of Beyond : Two Souls. It is silly but that’s just what I want to do. Except I’m not really doing it. I finished the Separation chapter and I started the Dinner chapter. And that was a week ago.
Still a fun game but I’m just addicted to playing Dead by Daylight right now.
My goal is to play a level of Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, then play Dead by Daylight, and then the next night, play a level of Beyond : Two Souls, and then chill (if that’s even the word, as unwind sure isn’t!) with Dead by Daylight.
Instead, with some nights I only get to play for like 30 or 45 minutes, I’ve just been playing Dead by Daylight and completing my dailies (or trying my best!). I’m still no good at it but I’m learning and feeling like I’m getting better.
In Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, I completed the first Inhumans story level and it seems I have one more but making nice progress in the story as well as doing the side content.
. . .
Over on the Spider-Man side of my life, Walker Dennis is still super obsessed with Spider-Man!
The excellent team over at Insomiac added the two new suits from Spider-Man : Far From Home!
The Upgraded Suit
and Night Monkey!
So much fun!
The suits look great in the game too! I started The Heist DLC on Ultimate New Game Plus mode but I just did the first mission as I have other games to make progress with.
I can’t believe I’ve never done a review for 201 or 211, that can’t be right but it must be as they don’t come up when I did a search.
201 is the amazing Cyclops vs Storm issue. 211 is an incredible issue from the Mutant Massacre story. 266 is Gambit’s first full appearance. I have never read 266 but 201 and 211 are some of the best comics!
. . .
We got to watch Spider-Man Far From Home on July Fourth and the theater was barely full, people must have been out of town or something silly.
Such an amazing time!
Like with Endgame, this at the end of the post and there will be spoilers but also, nothing else but Far From Home commentary so you should stop now if you haven’t seen the film!
Serious
Please
Stop
Now
Here
Comes
Some
Spoilers!
Such a spectacular film!
Jake Gyllenhaal did an outstanding job as Mysterio! My favorite scene of his has to be after he’s given the glasses and he’s alone in the bar and there is that half minute of silence and then the entire bar explodes with applause. So great! I sort of want to rewatch the entire movie again just for that one moment of stillness.
I thought before the movie was how does Mysterio trick super spy Nick Fury into thinking there was a multiverse? I mean, there could still be one but with Fury’s resources, how does one fake one? Then the post credit scene, we finally figure out how Mysterio did it. It wasn’t Nick Fury! Though how Mysterio still tricks everyone else working for Not-Fury, I’m not sure. Also, who is that agency? Is it a side SHIELD? Seemed like a missed opportunity to use the Agents of SHIELD team. Or are these guys just private soldiers of Fury’s? But then how does he pay those soldiers? Or are they all human agents of SWORD from Fury’s actual appearance in the film? We really need to watch Captain Marvel.
I got the word “Night Monkey” spoiled for me with the costume reveal but it was a minor spoiler but that was all I got spoiled by, so that’s nice. We also saw it the day after it came out, so that helped too.
We finally got Ned Leeds and Betty Brant together! So great!
Martin Starr was amazing as always and they got JB Smooth too! Such a fun combination.
Peter Tingle, and I kept waiting for it to be called his Spider-Sense.
Nice how the three Lego sets were all actually in the movie proper, that was great. We still only own the Hydro-Man set but we’ll probably snatch up Molten Man, if we can ever find it again.
The biggest day away though was the mid-credits scene. Someone had the genius idea to bring back J. Jonah Jameson AND to have JK Simmons come back and portray the character!
I mean, that voice, that face, that’s everything I want! I imagine they had him bald to separate him from the Tobey Maguire movies and I’m fine with that.
Though, as big of a shock as it is to state Peter Parker is Spider-Man on a popular news outlet, I still don’t feel like it is that big of a deal. Right? I mean, the Stark Foundation can help settle this misinformation. Sure, it’ll follow Peter Parker for a while but if the Stark Foundation or SHIELD can just say it isn’t true, have a nice Skrull appear as Peter Parker standing next to Spider-Man, I just feel the stakes are not that high. It makes for a terrific ending but I don’t anticipate Peter being hounded by the police or Interpol. Especially as the next movie won’t be out until 2021 at the earliest. Funny how we don’t know the next slate of films but it’ll probably come during or right after San Diego Comic Con or D24.
Plus, if Peter is just going to be under the employ of the Avengers or Stark, then he’ll be fine. Sure, he’ll have to go to a different school or getting his GED through the Avengers, but he’ll be okay.
But such a great ending!
Also cool that they actually got Peter Billingsley to come back from the first Iron Man movie. And I was reminded that Billingsley is Ralphie from A Christmas Story! Apparently he was also an executive producer for Iron Man but not for any of the other Marvel films so I wonder how that came about?
Apparently he is friends with Jon Favreau so that explains so much! Favreau is so deep in Disney’s pocket that I can only assume now that he is a majority shareholder in the company. He ought to be with how much money he has made for Disney and Marvel!
Marisa Tomei and Favreau were also great in the film too! Such fun chemistry together.
Always great to see Cobie Smulders in these movies.
Zendaya got a lot more to do in this film and she was super fun. I really like seeing her and Holland together. Also, super realistic how swinging around New York City has to be extremely terrifying!
People are saying the four Elementals are based on Spider-Man villains, which makes sense with Molten Man and Hydro-Man but I don’t remember even seeing the Earth/Sand Elemental. Was he only shown on screen during that exposition map scene? People say the Wind Elemental is Cyclone, which sounds like a stretch as well as he’s mostly just a dude who whirls. But I completely get that if two of them can be identified as Spider-Foes, then let’s label the other two as well.
So much fun that opening montage of our fallen heroes! Makes sense the world at large just assumes Captain America is dead.
That’s another thing, with two years between films, we’ll most likely get Peter’s subplot resolved in whatever next film he shows up in.
Apparently the Russo Brothers are teasing that on July 19th, there will be an announcement at San Diego Comic Con.
Apparently D23 is named after Disney 1923, the year the company was founded. That Expo is to be held on August 23, so expect big news to continue.
We know to expect Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Spider-Man Home Run, and one day, Avengers 5. Plus, Fantastic Four and X-Men announcements.
I’m not sure if I really need Doctor Strange 2, I feel like the character, much like Thor (and Superman), works better in a team environment or on special guest star status. But who am I kidding? I’ll still watch his movie, I will just have to remember to do so.
Oh, and Deadpool 3 has to happen too? The jokes that movie will have to address will be fun to watch.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
