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Post by Basil on May 27, 2022 7:48:05 GMT
Also, it's so strange that Obi-Wan had to be told that Anakin was still alive. Like, he knew in ROTS that Anakin had taken on the Sith name Darth Vader, and by the time A New Hope takes place, Vader is a publicly known figure in the Empire. I always assumed Obi-Wan must have figured out himself that Anakin had survived Mustafar. It strikes me as extremely weird and implausible that for ten years, Obi-Wan believed Anakin to be dead, while Vader was out there wreaking havoc.
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Post by Basil on May 27, 2022 7:37:31 GMT
How do y'all feel about the first two episodes of the Obi-Wan series?
Honestly, it's kind of a mixed bag for me. I love having Ewan back playing Obi-Wan, and I loved seeing Alderaan and Tatooine, Luke and Leia, but overall, I felt that the writing and directing were severely lacking, especially in regard to the Inquisitors. The plot in these first two episodes was super contrived and meandering, and there were a couple of scenes that were so badly directed, it was almost laughable (mainly I'm talking about the two Leia chase scenes). I think the potential is there for the next episodes to be much better, amazing even, but if I didn't love the prequels as much, I probably wouldn't be super interested to find out based on what I've seen so far. So far, the show is carried by nostalgia and actors from previous movies, and not much more.
Also, the lack of recognizable Star Wars music was extremely noticeable and disappointing. In a show that relies on nostalgia so much, it seems like such a strange omission to not include any music from the previous movies. There were several moments that would have been made more impactful in my opinion had they used recognizable Star Wars motifs like Leia's Theme or Binary Sunset. The new soundtrack was very forgettable.
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Post by Basil on May 6, 2022 14:23:01 GMT
I'm still on the fence about Elden Ring. I liked it enough to platinum it, there's a lot it does really well, but overall, it is pretty low on my Soulsborne list if I'm being honest. For some reason, it never fully clicked with me.
I really, really did not love the open world aspect. I'm aware it's one of the things people have been praising the most about Elden Ring, but I personally found it exhausting more than anything. The open world is also what completley kills any replay value the game might have had for me. The mere thought of starting from scratch and having to go through hundreds of template dungeons again, fighting the same reused bosses over and over and traversing vast open spaces for hours on end without making any significant progress, it makes me dread going back to it. The entire time I was playing Elden Ring, I longed for the streamlined, linear experience of Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Naturally, the parts of the game I ended up enjoying the most were in fact the Legacy Dungeons: Stormveil Castle, Volcano Manor, Leyndell, were some of the best Soulsborne levels of all time, but the fluff in between actively soured the experience for me.
I don't have a strong opinion on the world and lore of Elden Ring. While I was playing it, I literally had no clue whatsoever what was going on, but afterwards I watched a couple of lore videos on YouTube and felt like I gained a pretty good understanding of what the game was actually about. There's interesting stuff and ideas there for sure, but I don't think it's particularly better or worse than your typical Dark Souls lore. To me, it doesn't come anywhere close to the brilliance of Bloodborne.
Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a great game objectively speaking and I can totally see why so many people think it's the best Soulsborne. It's just that for me, this was simply not the kind of experience I want from this franchise.
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Post by Basil on Apr 26, 2022 19:28:12 GMT
Overwatch 2 beta is out today and the viewer count on Twitch jumped from like 10k, where it's been for the last three years or so, to half a million.
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Post by Basil on Apr 7, 2022 11:18:59 GMT
And unrelated but did you manage to finish Clone Wars? Not quite. I watched in chronological order up until the Mon Cala storyline in season 4, but then I got distracted with other things and haven't gotten back to it yet. I do still intend to finish it, though.
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Post by Basil on Apr 7, 2022 11:06:44 GMT
Lego Star Wars is legit amazing, though. The gameplay feels great and if the character models weren't little Lego people, I swear it would be the most gorgeous Star Wars game yet. The locations from the movies have been recreated just stunningly.
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Post by Basil on Mar 9, 2022 23:03:44 GMT
I'm so hyped for this.
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Post by Basil on Mar 3, 2022 14:36:46 GMT
Glad you liked it! Yeah, that's the spoiler I was talking about. I suppose it would be possible to figure out, especially if you're familiar with Norse mythology, but I certainly didn't. Still find it weird that they would spoil such a big reveal in a trailer that's gonna be seen by many people who have not played the first game yet. I'm currenlty trying to get through Elden Ring, but I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by it. Not because of the difficulty, as a Soulsborne veteran, I find Elden Ring to be on the easier side actually in terms of its combat. But the open world is a bit too much for me. The map is gigantic and without any quest logs or markers, you literally never have any idea where you're going and what you're supposed to be doing. And I get that that's the appeal of Elden Ring, but for me, I think I prefer the more streamlined, linear experience of previous Soulsborne titles. Combat is really fun though. Also, it's funny to think that George has worked on it, because I can't feel his influence at all. The story, if you can even call it that, is very much your usual Soulsborne fare, and you could play through the entire game without even knowing that there is a story. Maybe he was involved in the world-building and background lore, but even that is so obscure, he might as well not have been.
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Post by Basil on Jan 19, 2022 23:40:34 GMT
watch Microsoft buying From Software next
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Post by Basil on Jan 18, 2022 15:39:23 GMT
if Call of Duty goes exclusive, it's pretty much GG for Sony
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Post by Basil on Jan 18, 2022 15:37:07 GMT
Yet another step closer to living in a dystopian capitalist hellscape ruled by megacorps. What an incredible power move on Microsoft's part.
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Post by Basil on Oct 22, 2021 22:06:16 GMT
whooooo!!! so glad he's finally getting the recognition he deserves
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Post by Basil on Oct 22, 2021 13:31:38 GMT
The Mansion in RE1 is by far the spookiest setting of any RE game I've played (on 5 now) despite being the most graphically restricted. Wait until you get to RE7.
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Post by Basil on Oct 22, 2021 11:05:53 GMT
I mean, the games are pretty cheesy too, that's one of the things I love about them. The trailer does look super trashy though, so I don't have too much confidence. I think Avan Jogia is pretty great, he's crazy charismatic and I absolutely loved him in Now Apocalypse (still not over the fact that that show got canceled after just one season 😔). He doesn't look like Leon from the games obviously, but from the types of characters he usually plays, I definitely see him more as Leon than Carlos.
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Post by Basil on Oct 21, 2021 21:33:44 GMT
oof
I mean, it looks watchable, but it doesn't even remotely feel like Uncharted. I don't see Nathan Drake and Sully at all, I only see Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. It was so crucial to nail those two characters if they wanted the adaptation to feel authentic, but man, they didn't even try.
The movie seems to combine story elements and set pieces from several different games, while simultaneously being an origins story.
I wanted to like this, but it looks incredibly generic and feels nothing like the games. Too bad.
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Post by Basil on Oct 20, 2021 13:53:14 GMT
i'm simping respectfully
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Post by Basil on Oct 20, 2021 7:46:47 GMT
Okay, I definitely feel like John Cho looks way too old to be playing Spike. At the risk of sounding shallow, Spike in the anime is literally the hottest animated character to me, so him looking like the middle-aged uncle of the group kind of kills the whole thing for me.
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Post by Basil on Oct 1, 2021 21:40:24 GMT
This is super interesting! The fact that the Death Star wasn't about to destroy the rebel base in the first cut, and that this entire part of the story was fabricated in editing just blew my mind, son. So, turns out, the implication that Star Wars was "saved in the edit", and didn't just go through the same, normal editing process that most movies do, is extremely misleading and aims to discredit George Lucas. I'd honestly implore everyone who watched it and just accepted it as fact (like I did) to watch this, too: The Star Wars fandom has a strange tendency to diminish George Lucas's contributions to the franchise. There is this pretty common but baseless sentiment that the original trilogy worked not because of him, but despite him, that he surrounded himself with people way more talented than him who saved his trainwreck of an idea. I'm guilty of that myself. Not proud of it, but in the past, I've definitely allowed things like the Red Letter Media reviews to influence my opinion on George Lucas as a filmmaker and tarnish my appreciation for the prequels, which I loved back in the day when they first came out, before the internet told me I wasn't allowed to. That's why I find the response video to the "saved in the edit" sentiment so important.
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Post by Basil on Sept 26, 2021 9:34:53 GMT
I talked to my brother this morning and we discussed Midnight Mass, and he told me how much the story of the show reminded him of Bloodborne. I didn't notice this myself, but he's totally right, the basic premise is basically the same. Bloodborne spoilers: The story of Bloodborne is that there was a scholar named Laurance, who was part of an expedition set to explore a network of ancient tombs deep beneath the earth. Down there they found a strange creature that granted them a holy medium in form of a liquid, which of course was its blood. Consuming what they called "The Old Blood" granted them vigor and strength, and it healed all wounds and sicknesses. It made the scholars believe that the creature they had encountered was a God and that consuming its blood would allow mankind to evolve into something greater. Laurence returned to his city and established the Healing Church, an organization that made it possible for everyone to commune with the holy medium. However, eventually, consumption of the old blood begun turning people into violent beasts, robbing them of their minds and humanity.
In Midnight Mass, a priest finds a monstrous creature deep beneath the earth that he believes to be divine. The creature feeds him its blood, which makes the priest young and strong again. He returns to his city, believing to have discovered a holy medium that would help humanity evolve, so he starts feeding the creature's blood to his congregation and the people do indeed become stronger, younger, healthier at first, but eventually, they all turn into bloodthirsty beasts and start killing each other.
Obviously, Bloodborne takes place in a Gothic fantasy setting and everything regarding the old blood and the Great Ones is a bit more complex, whereas, in Midnight Mass, it's just straight-up vampires. But the story beats of the basic premises are basically identical, which kind of blew my mind.
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Post by Basil on Sept 25, 2021 20:36:05 GMT
It looks fanmade. I mean, I don't hate it, and I appreciate the fact that it's somewhat stylized, but it does kind of feel like cosplay. Yep, The Last Airbender remake will do the same, just straight up adapt the original show in live-action. And the weirdest thing about it, we already had a live-action remake and it sucked. And even if this one turned out great, still ... what's the point of retelling the same story over and over? Why not just come up with something original and new? I would kill for another sequel series like Legend of Korra, but no, instead, they're just gonna give us yet another lesser version of the original show.
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