Author: Clark

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

McDROID Review

McDROID

The difficulty of this game is an interesting story. Apparently the developer, after the game had already been released for a while, decided that “normal” was too easy after all and made a new difficulty setting called “souls.” The normal difficulty was then renamed to “toddler,” and souls became the new default. I did not realize this at first and was pretty flustered when my wife and I couldn’t even beat the second level. Downgrading to the toddler setting seemed a bit demeaning at first, but even toddler packs a wallop. Some levels still took us several tries to beat.

The thing about McDROID is that it’s crazy. The game will send hundreds of bugs towards your base, which, combined with the many explosions of your own weapons and towers, creates a chaotic cloud of noise that can be hard to make sense of. That’s not necessarily a complaint, though. McDROID is a lot of fun, and if you’ve been prepping your base and towers correctly, those final waves of chaos are fairly manageable. Harvesting strawberries as the game’s currency, spending special gems on extra robot buddies, or upgrading towers to the point where they take up half the screen are all rewarding elements.

So if you haven’t guessed yet, McDOID is another tower defense hybrid, but it’s very hands-on and action-oriented. You’ll spend just as much time collecting stuff around the map as you will tending to your towers and attacking the enemies yourself. Because the game is so big in scope, though, it’s no surprise that there are glitches. Online multiplayer frequently stopped responding for one player or the other, and even on the lowest graphical settings, certain maps were framerate deathbeds. But it’s easy to forgive such flaws when everything else about the game is an absolute delight.

Sick Note – Season 2 Review

Sick Note

Binging this show is a bit weird, since there’s no story gap between Seasons 1 and 2, making the Season 1 cut-off feel out of place. There are definitely some major shifts that take place in Season 2, though. The Kenny West character leaves, thank God. His cartoonish vulgarity was too much. And then we have Lindsay Lohan to replace him. It’s great to see her acting again, although she does seem a bit rusty. The biggest disruption, however, is the arrival of Will. I think Will would have worked better as an online-only presence that still managed to screw with Daniel. Showing us Will in real life was a mistake, mostly because Will is just as unlikable as everyone else on this show.

So Sick Note is one of those shows where every character is either a selfish asshole or unrealistically daft, making it hard to like, root for, or empathize with anyone. While I enjoy mean comedies like Always Sunny and The League, the scenarios have to be somewhat grounded, and the characters’ terribleness needs to affect them more than it does their neighbors. In Sick Note, however, the shenanigans at play—cancer fakeouts, drug deals—keep getting more and more people killed. Sure, I get that this is a dark comedy, a British Breaking Bad parody if you will, but it’s not dark enough and not funny enough to pull it off.

Sick Note is more of a comedy of errors. The only reason Daniel and Dr. Glennis get away with anything is because the universe continues to shower them with lucky coincidences that can be pretty aggravating for the viewer. I think I still enjoyed the show overall, though. It’s hard to tell, because, in the age of streaming content, this is quintessential “binge and forget it” material. It’s amusing and fast-paced and strings you along with legitimate cliffhangers, but I say that with only a hint of praise. It’s not particularly clever or particularly memorable. Rather, it passes the time when nothing else is on. And, frankly, that’s where we are with Netflix shows now.

Fortified Review

Fortified

I’ve seen a lot of other reviews compare Fortified to Orcs Must Die as if the developers should be ashamed of themselves for not having a more original idea. Here’s the thing, though: the world can’t have enough tower-defense hybrid games. It’s one of my favorite genres, so I’ll take an Orcs Must Die clone any day. In fact, I find the retro sci-fi aesthetic of Fortified to be a bit more endearing. Aliens, robots, cheesy dialogue, freeze rays, and WWII-style soldiers? Sign me up! Oh, more importantly, the game’s co-op, albeit online only. But tackling this with a partner is really fun.

What helps is the variety of “towers” you have to work with. Like Orcs Must Die, some of these are basically traps that are either one-time use or have a cooldown. Others are guns that will continue to shoot within a radius, or you can deploy troops who can be ordered to guard specific spots or follow you around the map. I felt like I had a lot of options as to how I wanted to approach each level, and I frequently needed to change up my strategy and restart. The difficulty was nicely balanced (when playing with two people) and kept my wife and I thoroughly entertained through all twelve levels.

American Vandal – Season 2 Review

American Vandal

Just my luck, as soon as I start watching this series, Netflix cancels it. But maybe that means the show will leave behind a positive legacy like the first three seasons of Arrested Development and not live long enough to become the villain (like Arrested Development). At only two seasons, though, American Vandal is a delight. It excels so much at being a mockumentary that you’ll frequently forget it’s all fake. This isn’t like the Christopher Guest films, where the whole thing feels almost like the cast is holding back laughter from being in on the joke. American Vandal is played dead serious, which only makes it funnier when the investigation gets more ridiculous.

Of course, the crimes in Season 2 veer on the gross side way more than Season 1 did. Watching found footage of the “Brownout” event (a.k.a. school-wide diarrhea) is pretty disturbing, real or not. But it’s kind of strange that we’re also shown reenactments of this and many other events with staged actors. Season 1 felt very grounded and down-to-earth, since the entire thing was a mash-up of whatever footage the crew could film on their own, beholden to the restrictions of their school’s rules. With fake funding from Netflix, however, Season 2 is more “professional” but, consequently, not as endearing.

Nevertheless, Season 2 is a fun mystery to watch unravel. Because the crimes are more sinister, the show is a bit darker, but there’s still some great humor to glean. Watching the filmmakers argue over the use of emojis as the perp’s telltale makes so much sense but is also so bizarre, you can’t help but laugh. American Vandal’s use of social media is eerily spot-on and makes me glad I didn’t go to high school during this era. I knew a couple of Kevin McClains myself and could totally see their antics going viral on YouTube. Damn, American Vandal, why do you have to know us so well? It’s a shame the show’s canceled now, because I would have loved to see where they went with a third season.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Review

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I feel like a bit of a Xenoblade Chronicles apologist in that I’ve liked all of the games so far even when a lot of friends and family haven’t been able to get into them. The thing about these games—and XC2 in particular—is that you gotta get past the opening fluff before it really grabs you. In the case of XC2, that doesn’t happen until about 10+ hours into the game, which seems like a rather tall order to ask of someone. Unfortunately, the story is pretty dumb… and only gets dumber as the game progresses. I ended up skipping, like, 80% of all cutscenes. It was your typical JRPG melodrama with cringe-worthy, anime-style “humor,” and I just didn’t have the patience for it.

When it comes to Xenoblade Chronicles, though, I’m in it more for the combat and exploration over anything else. And once the game opens up and lets you start exploring, it really is awesome. There are so many different lands to visit, so many different towns to shop in, and so many different quests to complete. Yeah, a lot of the side quests boil down to “find this, kill that,” but many other quests tie into the unique personalities and abilities of the secondary Blade characters. I’ve ignored the main story for hours at a time as I chased down side quest requirements just to make my party’s Blades more powerful.

The Blade system is an interesting mechanic that’s both fun and annoying. Most Blade characters are summoned from “core crystals,” and it’s pure random luck which one you’re gonna get. For the longest time, my healer character was stuck with tank Blades, and my tank character had all of the low block-rate Blades. But with so many Blades and options, it does keep the battles from getting stale. You can always switch up people’s roles if you get bored and experiment with different moves, weapons, and elemental specials. I’ve always liked the XC battle system, and XC2 is no slouch. It’s a bit complicated, sure, but once you find the rhythm, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, even 60 hours in.

Big Mouth – Season 2 Review

Big Mouth

For a show that’s supposed to be about the struggles of puberty, Big Mouth sure wastes a lot of time following the adventures of the adults. Coach Steve was one of my least favorite aspects of Season 1, so it’s pretty annoying that he’s still a major player in Season 2. The character is simply not funny, and Nick Kroll’s Steve voice is absolutely grating. Kroll does not have the same vocal talents of Seth MacFarlane and can only do about 2-3 good voices. Unfortunately, Kroll plays more characters than necessary and ends up ruining a lot of the show’s potential. Lola would be a much more endearing character, for instance, if she were voiced by an actual woman and not Kroll doing his best “bitchy voice.”

It also feels like, this time around, the kids don’t have as much to learn. They were actually giving Coach Steve advice during their sex ed class. And so this feels less like an honest take on growing up and more like just a really raunchy sitcom. The season’s not a complete wash, though. There are still some great themes at play that balance the gross with the sweet. I ended up really liking the addition of the Shame Wizard, particularly in the two-parter gym episodes where he drills into everyone’s insecurities with cruel glee. Big Mouth is still a weirdly charming show that excels at anthropomorphising our most private thoughts. It just needs to stop going out of its way to be “funny,” because it’s never a good look when you’re obviously trying too hard.