Avengers: Infinity War Review

Infinity War

I had to let this one stew for several days before formulating an opinion. My initial reaction was more negative than positive, and not just because of the abrupt downer of an ending. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a lot of my gripes could be justified away. The unfortunately dumb decisions that drove the plot were still in-character, and while I still feel that Thanos could have been fleshed out more, we have enough information about him to fill in the blanks ourselves. I just wanted more “show, don’t tell” than what we got.

It’s understandable, though, considering how much ground Infinity War needed to cover. We’re rushed through Thanos collecting the infinity stones, which comes across as maybe a little too convenient for him. I feel like some of that could have been accomplished in prior movies. I know Infinity War is supposed to be able to stand on its own, but let’s not forget that the MCU has been building up to this for years now. Not every MCU movie was required viewing to understand what was going on here, but if you missed key entries like Civil War or Thor: Ragnarok, you’ll be thoroughly confused.

If you have been following the MCU, however, then the real fun of Infinity War is seeing all of these heroes finally come together. The interactions between them are great, and the mixed fight scenes are a visual treat. My only standing complaint, then, is that this was still a “Part 1,” and we already know more movies are planned for the MCU. While the ending may have been a shock, it’s only temporary as you realize everyone’s going to magically come back. The lingering question isn’t, “Can our heroes fix this?” but rather, “How are they going to fix it?” I guess it’s still exciting to see how that’s going to get resolved.

Super Mario Odyssey Review

Mario Odyssey

I wasn’t planning to buy a Switch, but it’s hard to say no to flagship games like Super Mario Odyssey. No one knows how to make a good 3D platformer quite like Nintendo, and Odyssey may be their best 3D Mario game since Mario 64. While I also really liked Mario 3D World on the Wii U, that particular game was a bit too linear and implemented archaic time limits. Odyssey, on the other hand, is a more “open world” experience that, at times, feels like an actual adventure game. For starters, you’re not kicked back into the hub after every milestone, the levels are filled with NPCs and shops, and there are secrets galore to discover.

That’s both a good thing and a bad thing, though. There are so many moons to find that they’re no longer special. You’ll obtain several moons by pure accident, and boss battles usually reward you with three moons at once. It’s not as rewarding as working towards Mario 64’s succinct 120 stars and can start to suffer from Rare levels of collectathon fatigue. But the majority of challenges are very fun to find and complete. The hat/transform gimmick definitely helps keep things fresh. Post-game, you’ll still be stumbling across new creatures and inanimate objects to take control of. Hat or no hat, though, Odyssey is a joyful pinnacle of modern 3D platforming.

Sonic Generations Review

Sonic Generations

Allowing the original-style Sonic to stand next to modern-day Sonic just shows how ugly the newer, lanky character designs are. Even in 3D, the shorter, chubbier Sonic looks so much nicer. Character design is about the only thing Sega needs to embrace about its Sonic past, though. I actually like—in theory—the 3D Sonic games. I think it’s totally possible to make a good 3D Sonic, and past games (like Sonic Colors and The Secret Rings) have had their moments of greatness. The problem seems to lie with Sega’s reluctance to drop the platformer pretense and double-down on the “super fast auto-runner” style of gameplay.

There are several instances in Generations where Sonic’s “gotta go fast” mentality is brought to a halt to do precision platforming, and it couldn’t feel more wrong. This happens more often in the 2D sections than the 3D sections, but it’s still pretty much everywhere throughout. I do like the idea of revisiting levels in 2D and 3D, though, but then the 3D sections periodically switch back to 2D. Sega just can’t bring themselves to go all-in on the 3D aspect, and yet those sections were my favorite parts. You can’t run super fast in 2D without fear of crashing into something you can’t see ahead of you.

Fortunately (or unfortunately perhaps?), Generations isn’t that punishing. If you miss a jump, because it came up on you too quickly, that doesn’t necessarily spell instant death. You’ll just fall to a different section of the level and miss out on some secret content. The levels definitely feel very big and branching. If I cared enough, I guess it would be fun to replay them and try to see all of the paths that I missed the first time around. But I don’t and won’t. I had a few hours of fun, but my main takeaway from this game is that I need to go back and play some of the other 3D Sonics to see if they can provide what I’m really looking for.

Nine Parchments Review

Nine Parchments

Nine Parchments answers the age-old question, “What would happen if the developers of Trine made Magicka?” We’ve all wondered that, right? Not surprisingly, the end result is basically the same gameplay as Magicka—a top-down, light action RPG with magical spells—but with the drop-dead gorgeous graphics that the Trine games are known for. It always astounds me how much detail they put in the background, detail that many gamers may not even notice. And, frankly, why would you be looking at the background when you’re getting your butt kicked by a bunch of fire, ice, and electric creatures?

The combat in Nine Parchments is easier to control than Magicka, because you can quickly cycle through set spells, but the difficulty is still there. This is a hard game that absolutely must be tackled co-op. When you do play co-op, however, you’ll wonder why the game wasn’t called Friendly Fire: The Musical instead. More than half the time, I died, or my teammate died, because we accidentally electrocuted or fire-bombed each other. Fights are chaotic, and it’s very easy to get caught in the crossbeams. Healing spells didn’t seem worth investing in, either, because healing can just as easily apply to enemies as they can friends.

Overall, the quest is a nice length, if not fairly repetitive. You run down a narrow path until a group of monsters pops out. You vanquish them and continue down the path until another group of monsters pops out, etc. etc. It’s definitely fun to experiment with new spells, though, and some battles can be almost puzzle-like when you realize the monsters at hand are immune to your best spells. There are also a few spots where you can take on an optional challenge to unlock a bonus character. Alas, you can’t actually use the bonus characters until you beat the game and start over. Considering how repetitive the game is, though, I don’t see myself ever doing that.

Ready Player One Review

Ready Player One

This is one of the few cases where I’ve read the book before watching the movie. I actually had high hopes that the movie would be better, though. The thing that bugged me about the book was that its 80s gimmick was so in your face. The story would frequently come to a screeching halt as the author gushed, “Did you catch that reference?!” I also thought it was strange that, in the book, they acted like nothing interesting happened in pop culture between 1990 and 2045. I don’t care how much the creator of the world’s most popular MMO liked 80s stuff, people are still going to want to make avatars of the characters they grew up with.

So that’s one thing the movie rectifies, although how many of us really know our generational Buckaroo Banzai, GoldenEye, and Overwatch trivia? Still, the fact that many of these references can sit in the background and live as fun, little Easter eggs helps alleviate that amalgamation. If anything, the movie wasn’t packed with enough nods to older games and movies, but I’m sure it was hard to get the license to every friggin’ thing ever invented. We do at least get to see a Gundam suit fight against Mechagodzilla while Halo marines scurry between their feet. If that doesn’t satisfy your weekly dose of pop culture, then I don’t know what will.

The VR world here is admittedly pretty fun to see in action. The original key challenges from the book have been rewritten to perform better on the big screen, and the action sequences don’t disappoint. It’s the real-world aspect of the movie that falls flat. We’re given little reason to care about the humans behind the avatars and no investment in their incredibly forced romance. All of the live-action scenes felt like… Oh, it’s a movie, so two people have to fall in love, and of course we have to have a car chase in there, and the villain has to be comically “bad,” and we can’t kill any of the humans to add some real stakes, because that wouldn’t be appropriate for the kids. Anyway, back to the VR stuff!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return – Season 1 Review

MST3K

Whew, I finally did it! I made it through the new season! I wasn’t expecting this to be such a chore, but I think that’s largely because it’s hard to dedicate time to a 90-minute TV show anymore. I’ve found that I much more enjoy watching 30-minute bad movie reviews on YouTube. I really am a sucker for critiquing bad movies, though. I grew up on the original MST3K show, but those episodes are hard to rewatch, because a lot of the humor was timely. So a reboot/return was definitely due. While you could argue that RiffTrax has been a great alternative, nothing beats an actual guy and his robot buddies sitting in front of a screen and physically pointing out the absurdities.

That is, until the new cast spoke. Their voices were so off-putting. Tom Servo’s voice actor didn’t even try to do a “Tom” voice, and he ends up sounding too much like the new host, Jonah, making it difficult at times to keep track of who’s talking. Crow still sounds somewhat Crow-like, though, a feasible jump similar to Beaulieu being replaced by Corbett in the show’s original run. Gypsy is also completely wrong, and her occasional pop-ins during the movie segments never worked for me. They really hammed up the “people sitting in front of a screen” shtick, as the characters interact with the movie way more (and way more distractingly) than they ever did before.

But with MST3K, the setting is all fluff, anyway. It’s the jokes that matter! And the jokes are a mile-a-minute in this new iteration. There’s rarely a moment where Noah and the bots aren’t saying something. However, that means that fewer jokes actually land. Singing a line from a song isn’t even really a joke, and yet it’s something they fall back on time and time again. Many jokes are also obviously scripted. Yeah, I know, the show’s been scripted from the start, but at least the original episodes felt organic. Mike Nelson constantly broke character and laughed, which made it more funny. There are a few moments like that in The Return, but maybe the problem is that the new cast just hasn’t fully warmed up to the system yet.