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.

A Hat in Time Review

A Hat in Time

I frequently went from loving this game to hating it. The thing is, A Hat in Time is a fantastic 3D platformer… when it’s actually trying to be a 3D platformer. But more often than not, you get caught up in the game trying to be different and zany. And so we end up with really frustrating boss battles, annoying stealth missions, and one-off scenarios that attempt “cleverness” by putting you in a murder mystery or parade. These genre departures simply don’t work, though, and those were the moments where I was really not enjoying myself.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other sections where A Hat in Time is pure platforming gold that sees you scaling beautiful cliffs, effortlessly swinging across lava pits, and using newfound hat skills to discover rewarding secrets. World 4 in particular was a delight, because it was very open-ended and took place in a gorgeous setting reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda. Had the game been more of that instead of, say, World 2 (where you alternate between movie sets), this would have ranked as one of my all-time favorite platformers.

I get why the developers pushed so many new ideas into their project, though. Had they not, they would have risked A Hat in Time being labeled as yet another generic Mario or Banjo-Kazooie clone. It’s not like classic 3D platformers are a rarity anymore, with solid games like Poi and Yooka-Laylee already out in the wild. I’d rank A Hat in Time just below those two, but if you’re a long-time platformer fan, you’re still gonna find a lot to like about this one. Unfortunately, you’re also gonna find a lot to hat. I mean hate…

Jack Ryan – Season 1 Review

Jack Ryan

I like John Krasinski, but I don’t think he was the right person for this role. He excels at being the lovable goof or put-upon smart guy, which is why the scenes of him in the CIA “office” worked, but as soon as they shoved him into the field, gun in hand, it was hard to take him seriously. I get that that’s kind of Jack Ryan’s thing, balancing office smarts with tactical know-how, and that there’s inherent, internal conflict that comes with that. However, I didn’t really see it in Krasinski’s performance and, in his defense, the writing, either. Jack Ryan wasn’t so much a person as he was a crutch to move the plot forward.

The story is somewhat oddly structured, though. For many episodes, the good guys are simply too close to capturing their terrorist target, deflating some of the intensity that you would get in a show like 24 where the terrorists are always one step ahead. Here, it’s pretty obvious they’re gonna get their guy. It’s only in the last few episodes that things heat up, but part of that heat-up is because we’re really rushed through the final stages of Mousa Bin Suleiman’s evil plan. I criticize Netflix a lot for having overlong seasons, but Amazon could have really benefited from 1-2 more episodes.

That, or cut out the sub-plot with the drone pilot. I kept waiting for this to tie into the bigger story, but it just never paid off. It ended up being a really weird thing to include. The plot I did like, though, was getting to watch Suleiman’s wife become disillusioned with what was going on and try to flee with her children. It was nice to get that human glimpse into the “other side” instead of the usual “Muslims hate America” rhetoric, though there’s plenty of that, too. The show loves to remind you that 9/11 happened (and could happen again), but I suppose it handles these topics with a little more grace than you might have seen 5-10 years ago.