Time Will Tell How Much I Love You

Yesterday I saw the new Doctor Strange movie. It's terrific! I enjoyed it more than the last Avengers film and Captain America film. Marvel has done it again. Let me give you the good, the bad, and the nerdy. If you haven't seen the film and don't want any spoilers stop reading here.

First, the good. This movie is everything you'd expect from a Doctor Strange origins film. Benedict Cumberbatch does a great job portraying Strange as a brilliant doctor who is full of himself. Even the love interest in this movie doesn't get much love from him, at least not until the end. The best part of any Doctor Strange origin story for me is definitely the beginning. It starts with him losing control of his hands in a car crash. And it gets better from there.

Later, he realizes no Western medicine or surgery can fix his hands but he thinks if he goes out to Nepal for this special treatment he can gain use of his hands again and go back to being a brilliant surgeon. He learns about magic and other dimensions and such. He becomes an apprentice to this British female master-who's bald. Enter epic magic training montage.

The way they introduce everything in the first half of the film is brilliant. If you didn't know anything about Doctor Strange well now you do because of the beginning of this movie. Honestly most Marvel fans already know this stuff though but this is a great fresh reminder of who and what he is.

Now, for the bad. The magic in this movie was very cool but most of the fighting was done using melee attacks, energy weapons (magic sword), and not very much ranged magic attacks. I was expecting like actual ranged spells like in an rpg game or something but instead we got energy weapons made from magic and them using the cgi magic weapons, which were all mostly melee weapons like swords. I wish they used more actual magic in the fighting. Like in Warcraft. The magic used was all cgi trickery that looked super fake. But its not like they could do anything do make it look real.

Now for the nerdy. Stan Lee makes an appearance in the film reading the book The Doors of Perception. He's all laughing while reading it, pretty funny stuff. At the end of the movie we learn that Doctor Strange controls time using an Infinity Stone, which we know is linked to everything in the Marvel Universe. Thanos has an Infinity Gauntlet which basically gives him the powers of God. The fact that Doctor Strange has one makes him one of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel canon.

Lastly, I liked the sentimentality from Strange's love interest. She gave him a watch that said time will tell how much I love you. Pretty sappy but very beautiful. The ending of the movie was amazing. Basically he put himself and this evil dark god (Drommamu) in an infinite time loop where Strange kept getting killed forever until this god agreed to leave and never come back. They could've been stuck in there for an eternity while time remained still on Earth. Pretty fascinating concept for a children's movie. Also, the fact that he endured death for an eternity is very dark for a Marvel movie.

Great movie! The ending credits showed Strange agreeing to help find Thor's father Odin. And the other ending was the goody black dude sorcerer becoming a bad guy sorcerer. Interesting.

Don't miss this one this Holiday season

Overwatch Christmas event coming soon

So some stuff on the ptr suggests a Christmas event is coming soon. There's Christmas music files as well as new hero voice interactions. There's possibilities of a a bunch of great Christmasy skins like a Ana Ms. Claus, sexy Christmas Mercy skin, Reinhardt Santa, elf Torbjorn, Soldier 75 Dad Jumper, etc. This update will probably show up within the first week of December.

In this video here he explains that there's probably going to be some sort of a new arena mode based on some Athena voice-lines. Hopefully it will be a pve mode, something that replaces Junkenstein's Revenge. If it's an arena it seems like its going to be a pvp mode but we already have enough pvp modes in the game. I'm hoping that it's some sort of pve mode where you fight raid bosses and perhaps there will be like World of Warcraft mechanics like don't stand in the fire and stuff like that. But it would have to be based around Christmas. A Christmas raid type of thing would be sick!

I got most of the Halloween skins (except for Mercy's sexy witch skin and "my servants never die!" voiceline) and I plan on getting most of the Christmas skins as well. I really hope they have some great Zenyatta Christmas skin as well as Mercy and Ana as those have become my mains. I used to play Lucio a lot but now I just leave him to other players. 

Christmas is just around the corner!

Blackened Saturday, Cyber Monday Awaits

So the sales got to me and I ended up spending more of my hard earned cash money. I ended up looking up sales online for Gamestop and I found out Fallout 4 was only $10 for pc! Great deal man. I hopped the bus and trekked out there to get it. I also ended up getting a sweet Darksiders 2 shirt for $2 at Goodwill. Talk about awesome!

A few days before I got Doom and an Xbox 1 controller. I've been putting in work in Doom and Fallout 4 as well as playing Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain on my Xbox 1.

Doom is not for pussies that's for sure. The game is graphic as all hell (literally) and has so much blood, it's pretty intense. The heavy metal soundtrack makes for hectic combat against demons from the pits of hell. Great game. I'm currently on the third level. They just introduced these stronger demons called hell knights that are tough. Sometimes it'll take me 5 shotgun shots to take them out. I gotta figure out a faster way to kill them as they are becoming more troublesome and numerous.

Fallout 4 is even better though. Both games are made by Bethesda and this is probably my favorite gaming company other than Blizzard. I'm a big Skyrim fan but I never made it too far in the series. After playing Doom and Fallout 4 I'm definitely going to go back and finish Skyrim-with mods. The mods for Fallout 4 are fantastic. There's literally so much you can do to change and/or break the game in ways devs never intended. The base game is great too. I'm only in the beginning of the game but I can tell that it's something that I'm going to put some time into. Super fun. It's much better than New Vegas, which was my only previous Fallout experience.

I'm definitely adding more single player immersion into my gaming experiences at the moment. At first I was a multiplayer only type of gamer but now I find myself wanting to relax and enjoy a story without playing with a bunch of randos (randoms in pubs-public games, as I mostly solo queue). It's good to enjoy something by yourself and enjoy the depth within the game.

Cyber Monday is today. Lots of people are going to be buying things online. Not me though. I ended my Amazon Prime sub because I didn't think it was worth the $100 a year and things just aren't that interesting on that site.

However, I am still interested in buying more games!

:D 

I might pick up Warhammer Vermintide because its only $15 on Steam. I'm also still interested in Battlefield 1 but I think I should wait on that. Even if the sale on Origin ends soon it will probably go back to $40 for Christmas sales or maybe even less by then, who knows.

Hope you all got something cool for yourselves. If you haven't get something nice today. You've earned it sport!

'Tis the season

Black Friday Loot

So I ended up going out with friends after a super hectic work day of 1pm to 1030pm on Thanksgiving. Glad the rush won't be back until Christmas, New Years, and New Years Eve. My friends and I went out to Best Buy and a few stores at the mall. I ended up getting some good loot. Everybody loves loot!

First, we went to Best Buy where there were so many people! I decided to pick up a wireless Xbox one controller there. My bro got an Xbox one a while ago and his request for me to able to play it was that I have my own controller. It's a plain black wireless one. Got it for $40. Could've gotten it cheaper online but I like buying my products in person and getting it right away sometimes.

Later, we went to the mall mainly to check out and lounge around at Target. There was a ton of people there looking to buy Apple products. I ended up buying Doom (physical box copy, PC version) for only $25! Pretty great deal. I heard great things about Doom's single player campaign so I thought this was a great deal. I was going to get Fallout 4 but my bro has it on his Steam account. All I have to do is share my account with his and I can play it anytime. Fallout 4 was only $20 there. Maybe I should've bought both! :D

Even later, (during Black Friday daytime hours) I went to CD Trader (my local record shoppe). There was a lot of new stuff there but nothing (rock or metal) that really peaked my interest so I decided to get an old jazz record. I went with jazz guitarist John Scofield's 1992 album Meant To Be which features Joe Lovano on tenor sax, Marc Johnson on bass, and Bill Stewart on drums. I'm listening to it right now. Scofield is a master of chorus-infused jazz guitar. All his lines have great happening rhythm. Even though he's white he's a brotha with a lot of rhythm. Haha. But that's a discussion for another post.

I'm glad I didn't go crazy buying too many things that I couldn't afford. There will be more things to buy in the next couple weeks. For sure I will pick up Warhammer Vermintide. I've been wanting to play that game for a long time. Think of it as a medieval Left 4 Dead in Warhammer universe fighting against giant rats. Sounds funny but the game is great. I also was interested in Battlefield 1 but we'll have to wait and see because Christmas will be here pretty fast. Better save up that money for my family and friends too.

The deals are still going on right now online and in stores. Check it out. Buy yourself something nice. You've earned it sport!

Black Friday Is Upon Us

Today is Thanksgiving! For me its a regular work day and I probably won't be able to eat any turkey until sometime after 10 pm. Rip.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about Black Friday and stuff. There's so much people could buy but money is always a limiting factor of course. I wanted to buy a drum machine rather soon but the funds don't look good for it. I can however pick up some great games on sale for good prices. I just found out that my bro got an Xbox one so I was thinking of getting myself a controller and perhaps a game. Not sure what one though. I prefer gaming on pc so I'm not really sure but my ideas were possibly Fallout 4, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Battlefiled 1, things like that. But these are all games I could get on pc.

My bro already has Halo 5 and Titanfall 2 so maybe I should just settle for just the controller and getting some pc games instead. I'm definitely gonna pick up Warhammer Vermintide ($15 on Steam) and possibly Battlefield 1 ($40 on Origin). That would be great.

I really wanted to pick up the drum machine this Friday and hopefully get some good deals but the money is just not right. Gotta save up and hope to buy it next week I suppose.

There's a lot of great sales for gaming right now. Just check out Steam, Origin, Humble Bundle, Amazon, and other online sites. Everybody is doing great deals. On Friday I will definitely check out Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and maybe even Guitar Center with my buddies. Last year we got a good haul. My friend got a Wii U with Splatoon and Smash 4 and I got Star Wars Battlefront.


Happy holidays

Pretty Fly For A Wight Guy

Project Wight is a new game from a group of veteran developers that have worked on Battlefield: Bad Company and Payday 2. They're calling themselves the Outsiders and this is their creation that you can see here. The game is a work in progress but you can already see great ideas just from the short clip.

“There are currently 12 people working at The Outsiders,” says co-founder David Goldfarb, whose previous work includes the Battlefield: Bad Company series and Payday 2. “Our background is a pretty broad mixture of experience. Ben Cousins (co-founder) and I come from DICE, as do the other two founders. And we also have experience from Starbreeze, Sony, Guerrilla, and Avalanche. Lots of Swedish game dev in the house for sure.” (PC Gamer)

“The player will experience life on the other side of the sword as a creature attempting to survive the extermination of its species by humanity,” says Goldfarb. “The creature starts out young and extremely vulnerable, but will eventually grow strong enough to turn the tables on its persecutors.” (PC Gamer)

Project Wight is just a temporary name and they have a long way to go in the development but this little teaser clip is pretty neat. The fact that you can play as what would normally be the villain is a great trope. They tried to do that with Evolve but it just failed hard. I think people like bad guys (like Reaper, Roadhog, Widowmaker) in games and I think people will become attached to these gnarly dark age creatures.

I heard previously that this game was going to be a pvp game so I'm hoping that its built more for that market more so than a single player experience. The creatures seem to look pretty damn medieval. If this game comes out as a multiplayer game you can bet I'll be playing it.

Welcome the new Symmetra, Nummetra

So a new patch hit the ptr today and it completely changed the way Symmetra works. She has an ultimate change, she now has two ultimates! Once her ultimate is full she can use either the teleporter or the shield generator. This puts a strong shield on all teammates in a substantial radius. As long as everyone's within the radius everyone will get it. Her regular shield ability has been removed. She has a new shield ability called photon barrier. It moves on a projected path. It's a shield projectile! It's been compared to Reinhardt's barrier so you know its pretty strong. Very cool new abilities. An ultimate alternate and this photon barrier.

The turrets have been completely reworked. The max holding charge for six. She can place all turrets before the match starts and also she can quickly replace them if they're destroyed. Her primary fire distance has been slightly increased. Barely.

These are some major big changes to Symmetra. She can become a character that is needed in every comp.

Symmetra is definitely a lot better now. The community was crying out for Symmetra changes and for a while we didn't get them. But today it finally happened.

I hopped on the ptr today and sure enough everybody is playing Nummetra. Every match I played (this was Quick Play) Symmetra got play of the game doing some insane killing spree with turrets and her laser. Her projectile shield (photon barrier) is so strong and cool looking. It looks like a bubble shield projectile. It can absorb a ton of damage. In fact, when I tried continuously shooting at it I couldn't tear it apart. It seems very powerful indeed.

I feel like Nummetra could become a thing. Comps could be running Ana/Symmetra as supports, Mercy/Symmetra, or Lucio/Symmetra. With Sombra in the mix the game has certainly become very exciting within the last week. By now we can all say that Overwatch is a game that is constantly evolving and changing. Nothing stays the same for a long period of time.

Side notes to mention is that there is now a stay as party system after a match. This is perfect for solo queue players like myself. Now when I win a match with a team I like I can choose to stay as party and we can group up to play more. Great tool! In addition, there's an unlockable "boop" voiceline for Sombra. Lastly, players can play custom games for 3v3 elimination and 1v1 mystery duel.

Welcome to Symmetra hell.