Author: Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Better Than Ezra – All Together Now Review

Better Than Ezra is a band I’ve known about for a long time thanks to their contribution on the Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks album, but the rest of their discography escaped me until I stumbled across All Together Now. That’s just as well, because this is the only album I like. I’ve tried giving their earlier work a try but just can’t get into it. I mean, it’s okay but not nearly as catchy. So for long-time Ezra fans, All Together Now may be too much of a departure. I’ve read reviews that confirmed as much. This is probably Ezra’s attempt at mainstream appeal, since the songs here have an obvious pop influence to them. That pop sound is exactly the kind of catchiness they’ve needed, though.

I’ve had the album in rotation for about two months now and still love it. “Insane” is easily my favorite. It’s crazy and upbeat and full of kooky sounds. There’s an underlying sense of goofiness throughout that maybe comes off a little too strong in other songs like “Dollar Sign.” To be fair, that one’s pretty fun, too, but it can feel a bit cringey at times. Other highlights include “Crazy Lucky,” “Gonna Get Better”, and “Diamond in My Pocket.” The only songs that didn’t resonate with me are “Before You,” which hits like a speed bump compared to the rest of the album’s energy. And “Shut Up and Dance” is an odd note to end on, giving up some of the earlier pop qualities in favor of more alternative rock. Maybe that’s a bone the band decided to throw to their older fans. That’s great if it is. But I’m only a fan because of what we have now.

My Time at Portia Review

It’s been a while since I’ve lost myself to a farming game (ahem, Stardew Valley), but here we go again. My Time at Portia isn’t your typical farming game, though. While it has the same inheritance storyline, friendship system, and mining/fishing mechanics of any Harvest Moon title, Portia is much more about crafting and building than farming. That means you’ll spend a good chunk of each day hunting down the materials you need to shove into your various crafting machines, then waiting for said machines to spit out boards or bars that can eventually become a crane or bridge or water tank. Is it tedious? Well… yeah, sometimes. But completing these tasks to open up more of the world can be very rewarding.

The 3D perspective definitely makes for a more engrossing environment that begs to be explored. If you’ve had your fill of Stardew Valley and other 2D farming sims, still give Portia a try. Running around a 3D town has a much different feel to it. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been experiencing Portia on the Switch, where glitches and graphical hiccups abound. That hasn’t stopped me from sinking over 50 hours into the game, though. I gave up on Stardew Valley at the 50-hour mark, simply because I’d seen everything I wanted to see in that game. But in Portia, there are still areas yet uncovered and dungeons yet explored. It’s a huge game that paces its story missions just right to keep you busy without feeling overwhelmed.

Flynn and Freckles Review

“If I die again, I’m uninstalling this game,” is something I found myself saying a lot. Flynn and Freckles was a borderline frustrating experience, burdened by many classic 3D platformer problems. Surprisingly, the camera wasn’t one of them, but the jumping mechanics more than made up for it. This is the kind of game where ledges are spaced just far enough apart to require annoying precision. When the game introduced a double jump, I thought that would solve these pain points, but that just meant levels started placing platforms farther apart. Missing a ledge here and there wouldn’t be such a big deal if it weren’t for three other glaring issues: 1) Flynn dies if he touches water. 2) Flynn can’t fall very far without getting hurt. 3) There’s a half-second pause before Flynn can jump again.

Seriously, this game would be 50% more enjoyable if there was no jump cooldown. Alas, the game constantly sets you up to fail by having platforms that sink as soon as you touch them, and yet you have to wait for Flynn to recover before jumping to the next one. It’s ridiculous. Oh, and sometimes Flynn will randomly glitch through the ground and die, so there’s that. It’s kind of a shame, because Flynn and Freckles can actually be fun when things are going smoothly. The setting and level design and secret-finding are all passable. While the in-game treasure doesn’t have much of a pay-off, it’s still rewarding to grab those hard-to-reach chests. The quality gap between this and other indie platformers like Poi is probably too wide to ever bridge, but with a few patches, Flynn and Freckles could be a fun second place.

Avengers: Endgame Review

Avengers Endgame

I usually find trailers pretty annoying in how much they give away, and it would particularly suck to have that happen to a movie 11 years in the making, so I appreciate the Endgame marketing withholding what it did. Not that there’s a lot that can be spoiled here (but if that matters to you, navigate away from this website immediately). I mean, we kinda knew the snap would have to be undone and that certain characters would be “retiring” one way or another. What was pleasantly surprising were other character beats like a fat, self-loathing Thor or a Bruce Banner who’s finally at peace with his alter-ego. Just about everything with Thor and Hulk was fun and elevated this to a much more lighthearted film than Infinity War.

I also had no idea where the story was gonna go and didn’t think it was going to do time travel as heavily as it did. Time travel stories are always interesting but super susceptible to plot holes, depending on the rules that they establish. Endgame clearly specified that changing the past doesn’t change the future. Instead, it creates a new, alternate timeline. And I was onboard with that for most of the movie. But then we get a scene at the end with Captain America that breaks from the movie’s rules and starts to make less and less sense the more I read other viewers’ theories. Honestly, they could have just dropped the scene altogether. That and seeing Peter Parker nonchalantly return to school in a post-snap world raises more questions than the sentimentality was worth.

There’s actually a great story there that, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see about how the world deals with 50% of everybody disappearing and then, five years later, how they again deal with the same 50% coming back. That’s a whole movie on its own, and obviously Endgame doesn’t have time to explore that and give the Avengers their due. This is all about paying tribute to the handful of original MCU heroes. Newer characters don’t get much screen time. But there’s still payoff for having watched all of their movies. Yes, all of them. Even friggin’ Ant-Man 2 and Thor 2. This was a really interesting movie experience to be a part of, thinking back to all of the build-up and smaller crossovers along the way. But I hope this means we can take a break now and go back to standalone flicks for a while.

World to the West Review

World to the West

World to the West is a pretty fun adventure overall and could have been a nearly perfect one had it exercised a little more restraint with certain design choices. Most of the game’s flaws can be categorized as “too much” or “too many.” For instance, there are too many monsters wandering around in this world, and they all have too much health. Combat isn’t World to the West’s strong suit, though, so any situation that requires brute force not only feels clunky but really outstays its welcome. They should have just doubled down on the exploration and puzzle-solving aspects of the game, since that’s where the majority of the fun is to be had.

Of course, even that’s hindered by too much backtracking. Many of the puzzles require all four characters to pitch in somehow, but characters can only teleport to areas they’ve visited, so you’ll frequently have to run through the same obstacle courses again just to get everyone to the same place. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, though, because the characters are pretty unique, and the same area can feel almost brand new when approached with a character who can climb walls versus a character who can dig tunnels. World to the West is able to convey a bigger sense of scale than the map lets on simply because of the mileage it gets out of this idea. Does it feel cheap at times? Sure. But when you stumble across a new secret, you’ll be quick to forgive.

Hanna – Season 1 Review

Hanna

I never did see the original Hanna film. After watching the new Amazon series, though, I have a feeling this works better as a two-hour story versus an eight-hour one. TV is usually a great medium to really get to know the characters, but at the end of Hanna, I still didn’t know much about anyone. It doesn’t help that our main protagonist, Hanna, is a robotic blank slate. While that’s arguably the whole point of the show, such an alien-like, fish-out-of-water individual really only works if there are good supporting characters surrounding her. That’s why the few scenes with teenage Sophie are probably among the best and most interesting. Hanna is a terrible teenager, of course, but Sophie plays off of that really well.

Unfortunately, everyone else in the show is pretty bland. There’s potential for a profound dynamic between Hanna and her adoptive father, but the two of them keep getting split up and dillydally in their own adventures. Both characters are fairly unlikable, anyway. Hanna and her dad constantly lie and use people and get others killed. The only reason we have to root for them is that we’re told Marissa Wiegler is much, much worse. But Wiegler spends so much time alternating between being a threat and a non-threat that she’s really just a distraction more than anything. I’m sure they have big things in store for her in Season 2, though, but I shouldn’t have to sit through another eight hours to feel satisfied with a story that could have been told in two.