Lothar Hex

I HAVE SEEN IT. Went with my wife as we both grew up with Sonic. Is it good? Yes. Is it great? No. Honestly, I was expecting this to be a dumpster fire, and it’s not. It’s generic in a lot of ways but still fun. Cool things that aren't spoilers: 1) Sonic’s voice actor, Ben Schwartz is pretty good at portraying a young, scared and emotionally unstable Sonic. He feels like the 15-year-old he’s supposed to be. He brings the same energy he lends to Dewy in the new Ducktales cartoon. 2) Jim Carrey as Robotnik, probably the best singular character in the move because it’s Jim Carrey being wacky. 3) The action sequences are fun, well executed and feature good camera work. 4) Most of the jokes land. There is one fart joke. It does not land. There is a Sanic reference and that does land if you know about it. Cool things that ARE spoilers. Dumb/Bad things that aren't spoilers: 1) Every human character that is not Robotnik is just…there. Even James Marsden’s Tom. His entire contribution to the move was to be Sonic’s chauffeur and punch Robotnik. This is justified in the trailer because Sonic doesn’t know how to get to the building from the trailer. His entire role could have been replaced with a smartphone with Google Maps. He’s not BAD he’s just there. Same with his wife who I cannot remember the name of. Hell, same with every other human. Nobody gives a terrible performance but nobody stands out either. Oh minor spoiler. 2) All the best bits are in the trailer, as per usual. There’s only one or two bits as mentioned above that you haven’t seen. Dumb thing that is a spoiler: Meh things: 1) Slow-Mo fight scenes. There are two, one seen in the trailer. And while cool and all they go on for a bit too long and don’t really compare to Quicksilver’s sequence in X-Men: Days of Future past. The bit’s where Sonic uses his speed to do multiple things at regular speed at once are far more interesting. 2) The soundtrack. There’s Don’t Stop Me Now, and…others. The film’s credit scene/official song is dull. So overall, 7/10. Would buy on Blu-ray for £10 and see a sequel. Not as good as Detective Pikachu (which I’d give an 8). Better than pretty much every other video game movie. I will say that if they had kept the fucking original man-hog design, it would have sunk the movie HARD. The classic design is far more emotive and interesting to watch. That thing was a horror and would have made every scene just unpleasant to watch and ruin every second you saw it, which are the best parts of the movie. Cannot believe they nearly went with that.

My opinion on a game hasn't 180'd so quickly before. The script is brilliant, the concept fun. But the game? It doesn't really feel bad or good, just lengthy. I just spent 20 mins shooting up Beverly Hills and didn't really feel anything. Checking if I can get a steam refund but yeah, probably better to watch than experience.

I assume if Trump said "Suck My Missile Punch" he'd point at his crotch though.

Only played 2 missions but here's my thoughts. It plays like a 2004 From Software game. As in good fun, and kinda clunky controls. The real meat is the Good-Bad vocie acting and the entire concept of the US President flying around in a mech while brandishing a revolved, and a bazooka before changing to a multi-missile launcher and shotgun to attack the railgun strapped to Alcatraz prison. Look all I'm saying is if that if I was a US citizen and a presidential candidate shouted "SUCK MY MISSILE PUNCH" I'd vote for them.

Got this downloaded and ready to play when I get home in a couple of hours. I'm ready to take America back from those evil *checks notes* other Americans...

So is this better than The New Colossus or about the same? Was disappointed with TNC due to the weird health/armour mechanics and all over the shop difficulty and weird mission structures.

Been playing a few matches and having a laugh with it. One thing I'm slightly confused by is this 60FPS? Gears 4 was only 30 IIRC.

So thanks to Eurogamer I got Xbox Gamepass until the end of my current Xbox Live Gold subscription in June next year...for a quid. Essentially if you have time left on your Gold and go for the free £1 for first month it applies it to your current subscription so it lasts until then. Just make sure you turn off recurring billing. The good part is is that MS have become aware of the error but are keeping it going as a promotion for a "limited time." Obviously in the hopes of you forgetting to undo it when your current gold ends or you like the service so much you re-up. Plus you have to add the months before you purchase it. Still though Gears 5 for a quid at launch. I'm good. https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2019-07-17-microsoft-officially-embraces-popular-community-lifehack-to-save-big-on-xbox-game-pass-ultimate?__twitter_impression=true

Kinda yeah. I mean its still fun because Halo but there's bits that make ypu think "But why?" In an earlier version they made all vehicles driveable. Including the Covenant tanks on the inside of Truth and Reconciliation. This meant the Covies would use them too. Cue being killed multiple times in tight corridors. They figured out that was a bad idea eventually.

So I've been playing Halo, SPV3 lately. Essentially it's Halo 1 PC modded to hell and back. It gives you weapons and vehicles from other games, completely new vehicles, puts Brutes in, adds Skirmishers, several variety of Hunter and Flood etc. If you want more information about it, you can see it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/halospv3/ Now is it good? Yes. Is it better than vanilla Halo 1? Eh....sorta kinda but not really? Lemme explain. Halo 1 is a masterclass in a lot of ways, level design, weapon balancing, how to use the same tile-set over and over again and repeat levels BUT BACKWARDS to lengthen your game. Gripes aside there's a reason it's immensely playable even today nearly 18 years later FUCK I'M OLD. *ahem* Excuse me. Now the game became a case study for the modern FPS, but retains a simplicity and well done game "feel" that makes it leaps and bounds above a lot of it's contemporaries, even now. There's a reason that Halo games tend to be more about tweaking things, rather than trying to innovate for the sake of innovation. Halo SPV3 feels like it sometimes forgets that, and is not a good game to play as someone's first Halo game. Far better to play the original. For a start, a fun thing that SPV3 does is give you laods of human weapons, including stuff like the battle rifle, DMR etc. Hell it even adds things like suppressed variants, and a Battle Riffle that has an undersigned grenade launcher. Which is cool...but they're all unneeded. Say what you want about the Halo 1 pistol (yes it was overpowered) but it did the job that SPV has two weapons for. The DMR and Battle Rifle perform the exact same function...so why have both? See in Halo 4 and 5 they had both yes...but it was rare that both would appear in the same level. And if they did, they were distinct enough to, in theory, have both used at the same time. DMR had longer range and is more powerful, but fired single shots and has reticle bloom so it fires slower. The BR is not as powerful and has shorted range, but fires faster. Now that's the case in this mod, but because of the way Halo 1 was designed, it feels redundant to have two versions of the original pistol where one would suffice. I mean yeah it's cool. But does it add much? Not really. And that's also what happens with the levels. I've played up to and including Assault on the Control room so far, and every level features a remade section. Hell there's two versions of Silent Cartographer, one which features a whole new layout, and the original. But a lot of these sections feel tacked on and not well thought out. In Assault on Control room in the original game, you get to the last section where you can start climbing up the titular structure and fight enemies on the way up. OR if you're quick enough you can nick and enemy Banshee and start dive-bombing alien gits. In SPV3 they change it so there's a second tank section which is slow, dull and mistakes "more enemies" for a good way to add difficulty. It just stretches out the level, which can be a slog in the original game, but doesn't really do anything interesting with it. That "more enemies = more difficult= good game design" is prevalent everywhere. They shove a lot more enemies in some sections and especially Hunters. OK yes. The Hunters of Halo 1 are a bit of a joke. Grab pistol. dodge blow, one shot behind job done. But in theory they're supposed to be terrifying mini-bosses. That didn't work out from Bungie. So the SPV3 devs thought the best way to fix this was to buff their health a smidge, then throw loads of them at you. There's a bit in the remade Silent Cartographer where you have four of the fuckers...and it gets dull. Because it's a big open room with lots of other enemies, but there's lots of ways to give you breathing space. So while in theory you have got to tend to all these threats, you just end up popping off a few until you get a power weapon to knock out the Hunters. Which is usually their own. Now if you kill Hunter you get his arm cannon...which completely negates any threat because they can die in one hit now. So all you've really got to do is kill one and you're done. There's a reason Bungie and 343 stick to the 2 occasional Hunters rule, even after they improved them so they don;t die in 1 pistol hit. Because they lose all impact when they do turn up. You're supposed to go "OH SHIT A HUNTER." Not "Oh look a Hunter." There's also the fact that this game has been so heavily modded it actually makes an 18 year old game hard to run on a decent PC. My PC can play vanilla Halo in it's sleep. Hell it's not a monster but I can play stuff like Doom 2016 at 60fps on medium. Here? You will get drops in frame rate. Not because of your PC, but because the original Halo 1 engine (even if this is the PC version) was not designed to do as much stuff as this wants. It seems to happen most when there's a big light source in the area, mainly the big blue beams the Forerunners like. Speaking of lights, the game is so over-modded that there are sections that are pitch black. I''m not joking, this is the reason given by the dev team. they worked so hard on the lighting that when it comes to darkness, it has multiple layers of it and this means there are bits that if you don't use an optional power up, you can;t see shit.The opening section of Truth and Reconciliation is so bad I ended up waiting for the said night vision power up tor charge before I could move on multiple times. That;s the only level where's it's a major issue, but it does makes other sections of the game darker than it should be, so you end up farting on with the gamma settings in the game for a bit to get it right...and even then certain parts are still pitch black. So overall would I recommend SPV3? Yes, but only to people who have played Halo 1 to death because it does give you new stuff and in most parts it still has that great Halo gameplay. But it's hard to recommend to anyone else. Here's some other images so you can see what it should look like as well. [

Anyone else going to Metallica at the Ethiad Stadium tomorrow?

Holy crap it's a videogame I give a shit about!

Fuck that they brought back Darkwing...PROPERLY. AND Brilliant

Why is it using Gangster's Paradise for the trailer song? There's tonal dissonance then there's using GANGSTER'S. FUCKIN. PARADISE with a BLUE CARTOON HEDGEHOG.

https://bit-tech.net/news/gaming/xbox/microsoft-hikes-xbox-live-gold-price/1/ Good thing I decided to renew my subscription today via cdkeys today.