So yesterday, April 7th, April's Humble Bundle was revealed. It's a cheap monthly rate of $12, but it usually gives you a couple of solid titles and a handful of indie efforts. This month felt more like a solid indie bundle. Was it worth the $12? Easily. The winner of Best of bundle for April 2017 for me is Kingdom New Lands. I think I'll be returning to this one frequently.
The Witness
Remember games like Myst and Riven... well I put a little bit of time into this and found it went from crazy simple to more and more challenging. I enjoyed the puzzles that I encountered and can already see that I'm gonna need Youtube to get through some of them. I liked Braid quite a bit (their first game), and it was good value for its price on Xbox Live Arcade, but The Witness is listed at $39.99. Is it worth it? So far I can't really say it is, although I did get this on a Humble Bundle purchase so it was more like two bucks. Don't get me wrong though, it's well made and well thought out for a puzzle game, and so far I'm enjoying it. Unfortunately I find the lack of music creates a bland feeling, but its not game damaging. If I paid $10 for this, I wouldn't be disappointed. It is a very slow paced game though, and one that doesn't seem to have any kind of narrative... yet.
Layers of Fear
Layers of Fear is a great looking game, but is more of a point and click horror/mystery interactive story. Definitely not my type of game. I like things to be a little more linear, or to at least have an idea of what I'm supposed to be looking for and why. It successfully creates a very eerie atmosphere and would probably appeal to the right kind of gamer, unfortunately that's not me. After the little time I spent with it getting nowhere opening a ton of cupboards, drawers and doors, I feel this is one that I will probably use a walkthrough to complete... if I feel like completing it. The only really negative thing I can say about it is the cursor select is very touchy, taking a couple of passes sometimes to find the hotspot. It's not that its a bad game, just not my type of game.
Black Mesa
Touted as the high def version of Half Life. Well I played and beat Half Life many years ago... MANY years ago, like when it first came out. It's been a long time and I was kind of stand offish about jumping into this one. So far though I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I can't remember all the details of the original, but Black Mesa seems to be on the same path as some of the scenes trigger a feeling of familiarity. Apparently it's been re worked from the ground up and it definitely shows. The graphics are much better and it plays and looks like a current gen game. Definitely a worthy addition to the library.
Kingdom New Lands
One of those games I didn't really think I would like, but man what an addictive little adventure that was. I had no idea what to expect with Kingdom, nor did I actually know what kind of game I was getting into. You develop your land by hiring villagers. You assign duties to villagers by building tools. You get paid as duties are carried out. Hunters hunt, builders build, and farmers farm.... and you gotta defend your developing village from attacking monsters that only come out at night. Its kind of a resource management/tower defence game... which I learned too late, causing me to loose the crown and loose the game. Very retro graphics with an ambient soundtrack, Kingdom is a game that can be played in shorter bursts. It's relatively challenging and fun. Definitely an unexpected win in this bundle!
Event[0]
I'm not sure what I'm playing here, but I fell asleep at the keyboard twice. I'm sure it has its redeeming qualities, but not for this guy. This is one hell of a slow paced game which so far is heavy text based decision making. I don't even know if I'm gonna try finishing it.
Tumblestone
Block breaking game. Played through about half a dozen levels. Its well made and addictive, but nothing that hasn't been done before. It'll serve as a fun little distraction, but nothing more. If you like block breaking games, then you'll love Tumblestone.
Slime-San
Fun little platform mini game. Basically getting your slime through each level that increases in difficulty. Retro graphics with slightly irritating 8 bit soundtrack. Played it for a few minutes, completing several levels, but lost interest relatively quick. It's a very "indie" game in all senses of the word. I'll probably go back to it once in a while, but it's not the kind of game I get strongly hooked on.
Jawns
Humble Monthly exclusive. Simply put, Jawns feels like a new take on Chess/Checkers. It's mildly addictive and hooked me into playing half a dozen rounds. Very simple graphics but it keeps you coming back, much like last month's Morphblade... which I still play.
And that's it for April's Humble Bundle. If you haven't given it a try, it's been worth the $12US every month so far. Next month (May) they've already released 2 of the titles. Dirt Rally and Inside. These titles alone are worth the money hands down!
In the near future, a young woman is pulled from a crash and saved through cyber-enhancements with only her brain surviving the process. A ghost is what inhabits the body when there is nothing human left. She has been trained to be the perfect soldier for Section 9 and uses her new body to its fullest to get the job done. While on a mission to stop a deadly cyber terrorist, Major discovers that all may not be what it seems.
Rupert Sanders directs with but one semi successful film under his belt, Snow White and the Huntsman. He was criticized for white washing characters in his Ghost in the Shell adaptation, but I really didn't find any issue with it. There is a very Japanese core to GITS, after all, the shell is just a fabricated body of no real ethnicity. Her character is ambiguous and the fact that she isn't played Japanese is completely irrelevant. Major's ghost is Motoko Kusanagi who is of Japanese descent, but her body is cyborg. Anyways, there have been cases of white washing in the film industry, but this isn't one of them, and its a shame the film suffered so much negative press about it. Good or bad, Scarlett Johannson looked the role. That aside, for his second big feature, Sanders does a pretty damn good job handling such a treasured piece of anime history.
I went into Ghost in the Shell with fairly high hopes of it being good, not caring if it really stuck true to the anime or not. I just really wanted it to be good. Shirow Masamune has done some amazing manga which was the source of some fantastic animated features back in the 80s and 90s, way back when I was knee deep into anime (I would love to see a live action Black Magic M-66), and I wanted to see his character done justice. Scarlett Johansson does a very competent job with the character, with some scenes looking like they were pulled right from the anime. The Geisha scene from Stand Alone Complex was a key selling point in the trailers attesting how good the film was gonna look. Also, the final battle with the spider tank is pretty damn awesome, and with the exception of a few minor changes, pretty friggin' faithful! The look and feel of Major's character is pretty solid, but I found some of the performances a little stiff, possibly a side effect of the real world colliding with the CG world, moreso with casual Major and Batou scenes. Some of their walking scenes just felt unnatural and a little jarring. Pilou Asbæk as Batou was kind of a mixed bag. Some scenes I was like yeah man, kick ass... while other scenes he projects this oafish quality that kind of pulls his character down a bit. I however loved Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi) as Aramaki. Most if not all of his scenes were subtitled, but he was easily one of the most believable and enjoyable characters in the film, even if they were smaller parts. Unfortunately, Ghost in the Shell fails to attach any depth to other members of Section 9. They have very minor appearances, which feels somewhat hollow, and I would have liked to see just a little more development there.
A side thought.... So the film has two villains, and I'm kinda going into spoiler material here. The main villain being the cyber terrorist Kuze, who I felt was very well fleshed out and actually handled effectively. Then there was Cutter the head of the robotics company owning the Major and responsible for cutting edge military advancements used by Section 9. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the Verhoeven '97 classic Robocop. Cutter and Dick Jones of OCP, the robotics company responsible for military weaponry including Robocop, were almost identical characters, and when you think about it, Robocop probably borrowed a lot from Ghost in the Shell. I'd be very surprised if that comparison hadn't been made before.
Visually is where Ghost in the Shell really wins! The trailers alone spoke volumes as to how faithful this project has been. There is so much eye candy on the screen that keeps you engaged from beginning to end... even when the pacing dips. This futuristic Japan is depicted with so much flair, holograms popping from every building, fish swimming the sidewalks, and technological gadgets and coolness at every turn. The underbelly and outskirts of this utopia contrast beautifully with dilapidated structures and grimy dungeonesque corridors hiding Japan's deeper darker secrets. The visual FX team did a fantastic job capturing the essence of the anime.
One of my bigger issues though, and this has always played a key role in film for me, was the scoring. Utterly forgettable. It's not that it was bad. It's just nothing stood out. Key scenes could have been elevated with a better score, which can usually give an emotional push to an otherwise cookie cutter action scene. there was definitely some wasted potential here.
Overall, sure, there are things that could have been done better, but really, this is probably one of the best anime to film adaptations I've seen yet. It's not gonna set any new box office records, nor do I think it's gonna be in the theaters for very long, but I had a good time with it and would highly recommend it to any fan of the anime, or even sci fi in general.
If you like the movie, I strongly urge you to seek out the animated movies, and also the 2 seasons of Standalone Complex which are fantastic!
So I guess the big question is, did the season 7 finale deliver? Did it give us enough to want to tune in again in 7 months? Watching this season I can honestly say I have never felt so much frustration with a show, trying to justify the time spent watching it, and wondering if I'm going to continue going further. The season started strong... very strong with an almost panel for panel recreation of events from the comic book. It was brutally violent as hell and probably more than most viewers were expecting. This, in my opinion, should have been how season 6 ended! By making the audience wait 7 months to see what happened in a pivotal scene from the comics, the show gave us time to loose interest. It was a huge mistake by the showrunners. Most tuned in just to see the outcome, but as numbers dictated, viewers dropped steadily in the following episodes of season 7. Did they learn from their misteps, yes and no. Season 7 started out with a bang but fizzled out and dragged its heals for about 12 episodes, offering up a sacrificial lamb every now and then to try and spark some kind of heartbeat in its audience. Basically the whole of season 7 was spent showing us that Negan is a badass not to be trifled with. Episode after episode of Negan or his men beating down on the surviving clans. If that wasn't bad enough, they introduced a new group I call the garbage pail kids who Rick is all too quick to trust. This new group have devolved way too much to have any place in this new world. I could understand if we're talking an entire generation of time passing seeing something like this, but no, I couldn't buy into their actions or extremely stupid and annoying form of communication. I understand that they are probably building this group up to be the Whisperers IMHO, but c'mon, everytime they were on screen, I wanted to change the channel. So yeah season 7 as a whole was a fail to me, but lets get to the finale.... and spoilers ahead!
What felt like a large chunk of the episode, was spent on flashbacks between Sasha and Abraham, basically solidifying that they were in a relationship closer than what we were shown. Each time they focused on Sasha, I found myself loosing patience and looking at the clock. There was a purpose, and the buildup was necessary I guess to give depth to her sacrifice, but after a boring as fuck season, I didn't need to have my hand held. I knew where it was going and just wanted to get there. So this all gets us down to the last 20 minutes or so of the extended episode. The Garbage Pail Kids are on the walls and everybody is poised for the oncoming battle. Twenty minutes left... we can get a good bit of ground here right. Nope, what we ALL knew was coming was the Garbage Pail Kids backstabbing Rick, making a deal with Negan... the man who supposedly doesn't make deals... the man who with his past history and ego wouldn't have allowed another group to be armed to the teeth somewhere between the two warring factions... but I guess the show runners thought we'd let this slide. The minute the Garbage Pail Kids turned team, I almost turned the channel... I hate the characters that much, and really, to see Rick taken by a group of village idiots with guns, it's just bad television... and it was projected from the first episode we met them. Anyways, enter Sasha who surprises Negan with her sudden transformation to a walker, distracting the Saviors. Without hesitation, Carl KICKS SO MUCH ASS taking the lead turning on the GPK. He actually takes out a few gunmen standing beside him before Rick even knows whats going on. This triggers the first part of the battle which ends fairly quickly with Negan and his men once again in command. Rick just couldn't keep up with Carl. So just as Negan is about to feed Lucile Carl's skull, in comes the Hilltop and the Kingdom (not sure how they got in, or more conveniently at the same time)... led by Shiva taking out a man standing right behind Negan. I have to admit I did get chills watching the ensuing battle even though it played out incredibly safe with neither side loosing any key players, but King Ezekiel's rousing little speech was well received. I'll tell you this, it was a bad day to be standing behind Negan. Not once, but twice, Shiva takes down the man directly behind Negan... c'mon! A lot of people are killed, but Negan and his key henchman all escape unharmed, as does the GBK leader and a lot of her people. I mean really, do we need the Garbage Pail Kids revisited? Are they really that desperate to hold onto passing antagonists to drag the story backwards later on. Move on for Christ sake! The only real loss this episode was Sasha... but honestly she was lost episodes ago, her character much like Andrea's, being wasted into nothing. That, and she's moving on to the new Star Trek show. The episode ends with Negan overlooking his army announcing that "We're going to war!" while Daryl finds a lead army man left by, probably Dwight with a message painted on it "Didn't know", referring to Sasha... at least that's what I think, then Jesus and Maggie putting Sasha down in the woods. So I'm somewhat OK with the season ending (a much better feeling than last season), I'm still not satisfied that we didn't get to see at least one of the henchmen get what was coming. Nobody that dies in this episode really mattered, save Sasha, so a lot of it felt kinda empty and we're heading on that rinse repeat cycle. The only thing really established is a clear line in the sand.
So the showrunners and Kirkman really believe The Walking Dead can go another 10 seasons.... Sloppy writing and bad story telling are a true forecast to a show coming to its end. The Walking Dead was once a GREAT show topping many top 10 lists. It was in my top 3 for the first 4 seasons.... now its not even amongst my top 10. The show is loosing viewers every season. They really have to re-evaluate where the they are going with the show and put just a little more love into it to restore it to its former greatness. At this rate, I'm not even sure I'm gonna watch season 8 live.....
