After two successful seasons, albeit of varied quality, and a very strong currently running third one, it was time for ABC’s Once Upon a Time to get the spinoff treatment. The result, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, had a lot of potential with a new heroine, a new story and more than a few worlds to explore, combined with the twists and retellings we’ve come to expect from Once Upon. On the other hand, however, it had to live up to the quality of storytelling of its parent series. Continue reading Once Upon a Time in Wonderland – Series Review
The Tomorrow People – Series Review
In the last decade, there have been a few superhero team themed series, each with varying degrees of success and quality. Mutant X was the first among them, a series that in my honest opinion ran for too long. There’s Birds of Prey, the first attempt at doing something Batman related but with a terrible plot and even worse writing. There’s Heroes, a show with a fantastic first and 4th (and last) season, but with everything in between pretty much making sure no one was watching by that point; and Alphas, a show that should have never been cancelled, and with a very interesting and likeable cast and even better premise. Continue reading The Tomorrow People – Series Review
Dracula: Resurrection & Dracula: The Last Sancturary Review
The Good:
- Solid Puzzles.
- Great atmosphere.
The Bad:
- Terrible plot, characters and abominable writing.
- Heavily Pixelated Environments.
- No item descriptions.
I bought Dracula: Resurrection and Dracula: The Last Sanctuary as part of the Dracula Trilogy, a bundle of games sold on GoG.com. I bought them because they were adventure games and based on Dracula, which might be my favorite novel, and also the first one I read willingly and not as part of a school assignment. So, I may be a tad harsher than usual in this review… Continue reading Dracula: Resurrection & Dracula: The Last Sancturary Review
Gamer Memory
Gamer Memory is a term that popped into my head the other day and it’s a combination of muscle memory and instant recall we gamers seem to have. Let me explain: Continue reading Gamer Memory
Deadpool Review
The Good
- The 4th wall breaking moments are fantastic
- The hallucinations.
- The inner voices.
- The pop culture references.
- Mocks itself and its own genre.
- Stays true to its apparent lack of plot.
- In essence: DEADPOOL (all the above)
- Cable.
- Every single cinematic.
- Visually stunning.
- Upgrades feel significant.
- The “Old School” momentum finisher.
- The Wolverine Slapping.
- Rogue-pool.
The Bad
- Some of the humor is off.
- Strange action mapping (Dodge & Counter).
- Repetitive enemies.
- Shooting camera.
- Repeats phrases a bit too much.
- Boss fights too simple.
- No final boss (not really). Continue reading Deadpool Review
Emerald City Confidential
The Good:
- The Magic Duel with Mombi, the only fun part of this game.
- The Gumps.
- You can set the walking speed in the options…thankfully.
The Bad
- Characters are flat and uninteresting.
- Art style is dull.
- Character animations are stiff.
- Voice acting is terrible.
- Puzzles, if they can be called that, are too simple.
- Quest and Item overlays are annoying and in the way.
- Quest-based gameplay takes you by the hand during the entire experience.
- The World of Oz doesn’t feel even remotely “Wonderful”.
- Characters are too noir, and too little Oz. Continue reading Emerald City Confidential
Night of the Rabbit Review
Starting now, I’ve added something new to the reviews, a little Good vs Bad summary at the start because I know some people just don’t like lengthy reviews. Let’s get started!
The Good
- Strong puzzles.
- Visually stunning.
- Fun LucasArts (mostly) Easter Eggs.
- Fun collectibles have you scanning the environment, taking in the beautiful visuals.
The Bad
- Story is a mess.
- Characters are flat.
- Spells are underused.
- Hint Spell is useless.
- Limited World-hopping.
- Some puzzles tie together rather loosely and require big leaps of logic.
- Repetitive actions and animations.
- Extremely specific and restrictive “item combination” recipes. Continue reading Night of the Rabbit Review
The Wolf Among Us
Just played it and finished it, but won’t go into a review just yet, mostly because it’s an episodic game and I don’t like reviewing them until I have the whole experience. In fact I think it’d be rather irresponsible of me doing so. I can’t complain about any plot-point or plot-hole YET, considering that might be a hook for future episodes; nor can I complain about character development when this is just the first episode. It’s like complaining about a movie plot and character development after the first 20 minutes of a movie.
I will say that it’s pretty good, but it doesn’t feel like an adventure game. Like the Walking Dead before it, Telltale’s adaptation feels more like a visual novel than an adventure game.
On other news, I’m playing Night of the Rabbit and will review it as soon as I’m done with it, and after that I’ll go into Cognition, a really cool episodic adventure game.
Atlantis – Series Review
Following the end of the massively good BBC programme (Americans read Show) Merlin, the BBC has recently started another one for the same time-slot, called Atlantis. So far there have been two episodes, and I’ve held off reviewing it until now, I wanted to give it a couple of episodes to get me on board.
Sadly it hasn’t, and if you’ve read the blog before, you know I’m a big Greek Myth fan, all Myths in fact.
Episode 1 opens up in the 21st century with the protagonist, Jason (no foreshadowing there, right?), portrayed by Jack Donnelly, who’s on a big ship and about to go down in a sub to look for the wreckage of his father’s, to try to find out what happened to him. Once down, he gets sucked by a wormhole and spit out on a beach someplace else…naked.
I buy it, it’s cool…but it doesn’t stay that way.
He finds conveniently abandoned clothes on the beach and heads for the town and after making a fool of himself fighting a two-headed iguana, he’s chased by the extremely violent and short-fused city guard. After the obligatory rooftop chase scene, he almost falls to his death but is saved by…Pythagoras?
Sure, Pythagoras (Robert Emms) had a few myths going around him, like being a Scion of Apollo, but putting him in Atlantis is a bit of a stretch, but not as much of a stretch as Pythagoras’ roommate HERCULES (Mark Addy). That’s going out there, really out there, just not the right way…though I do have to admit Hercules might be the only interesting character among them all, since he’s portrayed as fat old drunkard, and episode 1 puts the idea in your head that Hercules’ fame as mostly due to him taking credit for stuff he hasn’t really done, which is fantastic.
Even then I was willing to give it a shot…until the plot reared its head and it lost me: The Minotaur’s Labyrinth. I don’t mind that it’s been done, not at all. Hell, I’ve used it myself. The problem lies when you mix the Minotaur, King Minos of Crete and Ariadne with Atlantis, making them the King and Princess. When you do that you realize the programme is called Atlantis only to spark interest, when it should’ve really been called CRETE.
That’s what I meant with going out there the wrong way. If you’re doing Atlantis, go big, go far, go beyond! Include references to Greek Myth if you want, they’re tied together, but don’t just dump everything from Greek Myth into Crete and call it Atlantis! Take Stargate Atlantis for example, I loathe the show, lost interest in it by its second season, but the concept behind Atlantis, how they shifted that myth and made it work for them, was BRILLIANT. Why not do that here? I don’t mean SciFi, but build your own mythology. Sure, add some references here and there, a couple of cameos, even keep the drunk, overweight Hercules, it’s cool, but do your own thing. Using established myths and just changing the island’s name is just lazy.
Episode 2 doesn’t get better, including some very tame and lame Maenads, the ugliest Satyr’s you’ll ever see (they look like trolls, not goat-men; i suppose they’re recycling CG assets from Merlin) and Medusa, one of the maenads and the only “good girl” among them; and whose fate, according to the Oracle on “Atlantis”, is sealed, so there’s not much of a chance of her becoming anything else but another CG monster to kill later on.
Aside from setting and plot, the acting is more miss than hits. Pythagoras is portrayed as a bumbling genius, though more bumbling than anything else. You’d expect they’d make him an active participant in their exploits, coming up with traps or using math in some very badass ways, but no, he just mumbles and stumbles. Hercules is pretty good, and watching Mark Addy is always a joy. Jason is flat, uninteresting and completely unbelievable. Minos on the other hand is pretty intimidating but that’s Alexander Siddig, who can be whatever he wants to be, and whose talents are pretty much wasted on Atlantis. Ariadne (Aiysha Hart) is pretty good, considering she’s only on-screen for about 5 minutes between both episodes. Finally, the Oracle (Juliet Stevenson) is even duller than Jason, which is sad considering the powerhouse of an actress Stevenson is.
I don’t really have to mention the writing, do I? Merlin had weak moments, several of them, but even at its weakest, it was stronger than both episodes of Atlantis combined.
Even now I’m arguing with myself if I should even watch Episode 3…and I sincerely hope this programme only has one series (read Season) before it’s cancelled.
Should you watch it? Episode 1 with this review running through your head, definitely.
The rest? There’s better ways to waste an hour.
Yaaaay
Happy birthday to me! 30 years of having fun, dealing with crazy shit, and messing people’s minds!!
Here’s to me and 170 years more of doing the same (hoping in less than 40 we’ll have how to extend life for a few several decades more :P)