I used a bunch of time off, combined with the three holidays in November to get a lot of what my mom calls 'ass time.' The problem is that the couch upon which my ass rests is cheap and gives the gift of tailbone pain! I've been watching Gargoyles and the Marvel movies on Disney+.
Additionally, I'm trying to stomach the many National Geographic documentaries. BBC documentaries are about animals, narrated more often than not by David Attenborough who is often in awe of nature, and scored by orchestra. Nat Geo documentaries are typically aimed at kids, with some extra sound effects, occasional guitar music, and an upbeat narrator that makes everything seem 1000% dangerous. It's a different kind of style, but most importantly is still gorgeously filmed. My problem is that Nat Geo tends to name the animals, and I'd prefer to stay subjective. In one documentary, we follow these lions with African names and that's cool, but the male who threatens our 'main characters' is named Scar, so of course he has to lose. It's just an unnecessary dramatization of nature to me. Other documentaries will totally break your immersion to give us in-studio shots of scientists or the celebrity narrator. Who cares.
PS4:
In Gamesville, I've put a good amount of time into Apex Legends, getting some questionable wins. Each 950-coin Season Pass that you buy yields 1000 coins back if you complete the 100 levels. That means if you play a lot, you only pay that $10 once for the 1000 Apex Coins.
Additionally, the Switch version of the free-to-play Gems of War got me just wishing to play my further-advanced PS4 version. Gotta get dem MANA SURGEs! Since the game doesn't have a timer, I find myself talking a lot of trash to the CPU. Cause that's how I be matchin gems, son!
Next is SONY/Japan Studio's own forgotten short franchise: Gravity Rush 2. Kat, a cute, red-eyed blonde, is shifting gravity and saving the world again. Gameplay is switched up with escort missions, carry x items, hit-the-target, races, and good ol-fashioned kick Nevi ass. GR2 brings one heavier and one lighter gravity shift modes, which come with their own tradeoffs. In Lunar Mode, Kat moves like she's under water, and can jump super high and has target-seeking melee attacks. Unfortunately, she controls like absolute shit. Jupiter mode weighs her down, so she falls quickly, and her slow attacks pack extra punch. This mode is more tolerable, but her charge up attacks are so slow, you'll often only use this mode to navigate.
Between these unwelcome modes and the story that, in typical anime fashion, goes ballistic and completely incoherent in the final chapter, overstays its welcome. The game should have been about half as long as it was. Kat has some really funny lines, the game has a unique aesthetic, and exploration in all axes is really fun. On the downside, the classical-jazz hybrid music gets repetitive, the story is garbage, some of the UI decisions are bizarre (I have to enter camera mode to change outfits and exit that mode with 'up'), and the extra gravity modes are hassle to deal with. The first Gravity Rush is a must-play. Play the second one if you're not trophy hunting and have a Ph D in Incomprehensibility.
Lastly, I caught Jedi: Fallen Order on eBay for $46 brand new! Not sure why a brand new game would be priced so low, but I'm not complaining. In this gallery, you'll see: Forrest Whittaker, your cute robot sidekick BD-1, an AT-ST's swamp-ass, and a cool lightsaber editor! Also, that short-haired woman that looks like Bangalore from Apex Legends looked familiar to me. The actor also showed up in Modern Warfare, and it's none other than Deborah Wilson, who was last widely seen in MadTV! I think it's cool that she's still active, and also that AAA games model the characters so closely. I've played too many games where the voice doesn't match the character (I'm looking at you Takka of Hammerhead Diner in FFXV!).
Anyway, Jedi:Fallen Order is an adventure game that has running parts like Prince of Persia, climbing and action straight out of Uncharted, and combat much like Dark Souls/Nioh. Thankfully the difficulty isn't quite as punishing, though I've certainly died a lot. The combat deaths are for the most part because I rushed things. I'm loving the combat and story so far!
However, the most frustrating part of this game is platforming. There are certain portions of the game where you're sliding downhill and have to time your jumps. Despite the timing being somewhat loose and forgiving, your directions and trajectory aren't. There's one particular slide in the Ice Caves that got me to bring up a Collectibles guide to finish the area once and for all so I never have to play it again, as opposed to exploring naturally. Also, the camera is too close and is not your friend half the time, so the targeting system is not fun to use. Downgraded after the 20 hours or so I've spent with it, but still a great game. The most frustrating part of this is that this same dev team produced Apex Legends, which has some of the best platforming of an FPS possible.
Switch:
This pixelated NES-style adventure game was a medium-level challenge. I died a lot, but my first time through took about 3 hours. Hunting trophies all the time and playing longer games really makes me appreciate the short but sweet experiences. The story is real simple: Jack is picnicking with his girlfriend, who gets captured. He falls down a well and befriends a talking sword. Conveniently, the being who abducted his girlfriend also cursed the sword. Not exactly riveting, but 3 hours doesn't give enough time to be too bad nor too good.
Anodyne's gameplay reminds me of A Link to the Past, but the setting is completely different. Since I've played it mostly on the bus, I don't really know what it sounds like. There's a lot of warping around and exploration, and I'll likely need to start over if I want to beat this.
Super Mario Odyssey
This is probably the funnest game I've played in 2019. One or two smartasses might ask whether fun was the whole point of games, and I would bring up the popularity of Handmaid's Tale. Rather than a series of 50+ individual levels, there are 8 (and counting) large, open areas with a long checklist of tasks that you get moons for. The moons power up your giant hat spaceship that's chasing after Bowser. Bowser has abducted Peach and plans to marry her, and you're chasing them from world to world, winning back wedding accessories. Forget about the whole forced marriage thing and lack of Peach's autonomy.
If you can ignore some really tired writing, the game has some neat aesthetics. The game is super colorful, there are neat outfits, the levels have some really cool visual themes, and the game is easy enough to completely breeze through. 2-player lets you switch between control-schemes and players smoothly so that one of you controls Hattie McHatterson, or whatever it's named. This hat is both a mean projectile and has the ability to let Mario possess a variety of weird and cool creatures, which is super fun if you ignore the mind-control factor that plays into Bowser, Peach and Being John Malkovich.
Lastly, I'm trying to get into the habit of transferring my screen caps off the Switch, but the process is irritating. Nintendo's website says that I can't just plug a USB stick into the dock, so I've been turning off the system, removing the micro SD, using an SD adapter and transferring to my PC. What's more is that screenshots are divided by date, as opposed to game, and video captures are limited to 30 seconds. This sucks.
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