Steven Universe Reviews: “Wanted”

A review in four parts

(These reviews contain spoiler!)

          There’s a lot to get through, so let’s get started!

Stuck Together

          I’ve been critical of a lot of things on Steven Universe in the past, but if you asked me the one thing I hated the most on the show, my answer would always be how they shoved characters like Lars and Ronaldo down our throats for multiple episodes without really trying to give us something to like about them.

          While I can’t say they’ve done the same for Ronaldo, this episode did the imposible: it made Lars a relatable character that didn’t make me want to tear my ears off after spending 11 minutes with him. Shocking, I know, but they pulled it off.

          Steven and Lars, for the first time in over four seasons, actually had a normal conversation about how they’re both scared of what’s awaiting them. It’s a great scene between two characters who for the most part share more of a SpongeBob/Squidward dynamic than an actual relationship.

          This episode also gave us a fun new character in the form of Topaz. I’ve long joked that Steven Universe could make an axe murderer look sympathetic, and while they didn’t quite go to that extent here, it was a little surprising to see a character who was silent in her first episodes suddenly start crying because of Steven and Lars’ little chat. On the other hand, I liked that she only liked working for Homeworld and Aquamarine because it allowed them to stay fused, and they worry they wouldn’t survive without the other.

          Unfortunately this partnership didn’t last long, as they arrived at Homeworld and Steven and Lars are separated.

          This episode definitely feels like more of an introduction to the bomb than an episode that can really stand on its own, but it’s still a good episode. Topaz is fun, and I like that Lars is finally starting to become a stronger character overall.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

The Trial

          With a title like that, you know stuff is about to get real.

          The meat of discussion topics in the Steven Universe fanbase until the show decides to crawl out from hiatus again will likely come from this episode, because it was jam-packed with everything a fan could want, including the Diamonds, new gems, and even a conspiracy about if Rose really shattered Pink Diamond.

          Before we can really get into the big stuff, there’s a lot of neat little stuff in this episode. First off, the new gem type: Zircons. A blue Zircon serves as Steven’s defense attorney, while a green one serves as the prosecution pandering to the Diamonds. Blue Zircon definitely spends most of the episodes as a fun and goofy bad lawyer stereotype, but towards the end of the episode when she actually blows the lid off of something huge it leads to a great scene.

          It’s also always cool to see the Diamonds again, and I also liked seeing Blue’s more intimidating side that we barely even got a glimpse of in the Out of this World arc. Having her continue the trial after seeing Steven just because she wants to make him suffer as much as possible is really sinister and awesome.

          The trial itself is fun, especially as characters like Lars and even Eyeball Ruby are brought in as evidence and witnesses against Steven’s case.

          Of course, once the fun was over things got really, really interesting. Remember the final scene from Bismuth, where Steven fought Bismuth over the morality of using the Breaking Point? Early on in that scene Bismuth explained that she invented the Point as a way to shatter Homeworld gems because, and I quote, “Rose’s sword couldn’t”. It’s such a small detail that we completely overlooked it. But think about it. If Rose’s sword is unable to shatter a gem, how exactly did she manage to shatter Pink Diamond?

          Even stranger, as Zircon points out, how would Rose get so close to Pink without a Quartz soldier stopping her or a Sapphire predicting it happening? The only logical solution is that whoever truly did it was close enough to Pink to make it happen and then cover it up afterwards, which only the Diamonds really have the authority to do.

          Of course, Yellow is none too happy about this. Rewatching the episode knowing the big reveal it’s fairly obvious that she’s the primary suspect in the crime (she’s trying to hurry along the proceedings and we know she wants to leave Earth and the war behind and move on), so unless White Diamond has something to do with it (she’s still absent, but there’s a big picture of her hovering over Homeworld) it’s fairly obvious that Yellow shattered Pink for whatever reason and blamed it on the leader of an upstart rebellion.

          While a lot of the Wanted arc is focused on building both Steven’s and Lars’ characters, this episode is entirely dedicated to giving fans answers they want, while posing a million more questions at the same time. Before this there was no doubt that Rose was the one that shattered Pink, but now that this discord’s been thrown into the mix I’m really excited to see how this season plays out.

FINAL SCORE

10/10

Legendary

Off Colors

          If the first episode of the arc was meant to make us finally enjoy a Lars episode, this episode is meant for us to forget all the garbage he’s done over the course of the show’s run. Seriously, in just one episode the guy jumped from being tied with Ronaldo for my least favourite character to being one of my favourite townie characters overall.

          Why didn’t we get development on him sooner?

          After escaping the Diamonds, Steven and Lars find themselves pursued by robots deep underground Homeworld. Thankfully, they find a group of “Off Color” gems, who hide in an abandoned Kindergarten out of fear of being shattered by the other gems.

          The Off Color gems are awesome. They all have some sort of weird defect from the normal ones, and they all are super creatively designed and fun. There are conjoined twin gems called Rutlites, a fusion of a Ruby and a Pearl called Rhodonite, a giant caterpillar-like fusion of six gems called Fluorite, and, what might be the funniest new character Steven Universe has ever seen, Padparadscha Sapphire, who can only predict things that already happened. Every line she says is absolute comedy gold, and I really wanted to see more of her.

          It doesn’t take long for the robots to find them, but as they’re only looking for gems, Lars is able to take them on himself. But defeating them comes as a cost, as they explode and Lars dies.

          I’m not kidding. He’s dead.

          It’s actually kind of funny that a character I was complaining about being stuck with for one of the most anticipated arcs of the series made me feel upset when they died. If you told me a month ago that Lars was going to die in the next few episodes of Steven and I’d feel sad about it, I would’ve called you crazy. But his development in the last few episodes leading up to this one plus a fantastically directed scene really sold it for me, even though it was inevitable he’d be coming back. This is a show aimed at kids after all, regardless of how dark it gets at times.

          While this episode is significantly quieter than the rest of the arc, I loved the new gems that they introduced, which were some of the most creative we’ve seen from the entire series. Lars also had more great episodes, really cementing him for me as a character that deserved a lot more development earlier on than they gave him. His death scene especially hit a lot harder than it should’ve considering how much I disliked his character before this arc.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Lars’ Head

          I’ll admit it: when I saw the last episode of the bomb had Lars’ name in the title I groaned. He really was going to be a major player in this. But honestly, having watched the bomb all the way through, I feel that having the last episode being focused on Lars was the way to go (even though Steven was the true main character).

          Lars is back to life, and now he’s turned pink. He also doesn’t have a heartbeat anymore, so I guess he’s an immortal zombie pink teenager forever now. Oh well, it happens.

          While examining his new features, Steven discovers that he can enters Lars’ hair the same way he can jump into Lion’s mane. Sure enough, inside Lars is the same infinite pink savannah that’s inside Lion, and Steven can even use it to literally walk between home and Homeworld.

          This episode also serves to answer one of Steven Universe’s first big questions: what the heck is up with Lion? While many have speculated that Lion was the remnants of Pink Diamond or even Rose herself, I kind of like having the actual answer be something as simple as “he was a lion Rose used her tears to bring back to life”. While it’s nowhere near as complex as people were hoping, it’s nice to have a quick and simple answer in the tidal wave of questions this bomb posed.

          Of course, this means Lars can’t come home. While I’m glad that this means less episodes with annoying Lars, I think I’ll genuinely miss having this cool Lars around. Granted, I’m sure we’ll be seeing Homeworld much more now that the Crystal Gems have a secret path there, so I don’t think he’s exactly been written off. Plus he still needs to finish up his subplot of his relationship with Sadie, so I don’t think he’ll be trapped for too long.

          So Steven’s back home, he’s reunited with the gems and Greg, and we have no idea when the next episode is airing. Everything’s back to normal.

          While this episode certainly wasn’t the best one of the bomb, it was still spectacular. I loved that after The Trial posed so many new questions we finally got the answer to Lion’s true nature. I also liked that Lars and Steven finally truly cemented the friendship that began way back in Season 1, as instead of doing that chestpat thing they do Lars hugged Steven goodbye.

          There’s still plenty more questions waiting to be answered, including the identity of White Diamond, the chest in Lion’s mane, that weird room in the moon base Garnet hurried Steven past, Pearl’s full backstory, and of course who’s the true culprit in Pink Diamond’s shattering. With Season 5 promising to destroy the status quo, I sure hope it won’t be long before we return to Steven’s universe.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Editorial: Fixing Ubisoft’s E3 conferences (E3 Month 2017 Part 1)

Fixing Ubisoft’s E3 conferences

          Look, a really blurry and messy composition photo made in MS Paint! You know what that means! It’s time once again for E3 Month!

          While we’re not quite at June yet, I wanted to start a little earlier this year considering that this year’s E3 scheduling contrasts with my own, and if I’d stuck to my guns and started doing E3 stuff in June I would’ve had to do this article late in the month when E3’s been over for two weeks and no one cares anymore.

          So it’s time to talk about a certain company that seems to be begging for help when it comes to these things: Ubisoft.

          If there’s one thing people dread during E3, it’s the Ubisoft Conference. While I personally feel that last year’s was an improvement and that Bethesda had a worse show than they did, it was still a complete mess that few enjoyed watching.

          So I thought, to start off this annual event right, let’s play conference doctor and see how I would make Ubisoft’s conferences as hotly anticipated as Sony’s. My one rule is that I can’t change the games announced or add in new IPs of my own creation. They’re advertising the games they make, and I’m the director that has to figure out how to present them.

          If we’re ignoring the games (and trust me, I’ll get to those another day), there are two big problems with Ubisoft’s conferences that need fixing: the emphasis on big personalities onstage instead of the game trailers and demos being presented, and how the trailers themselves are structured. So basically to fix these conferences, we need to burn down everything and start completely fresh.

          Let’s take a trip down memory lane and talk about what needs to go, shall we?

          First off, it’s time to either retire Aisha Tyler or give her a greatly reduced role. She seems like a fantastic person and I love that she’s super passionate about the games despite being a decently big TV star (and she’s definitely better than poor Mr. Caffeine), but she just doesn’t add enough for me to justify keeping her around. After overdosing on her in E3 2015, she took a backseat last year’s event aside from the opening and closing and occasionally coming out here and there for interviews and the like. I can justify having her there for stuff like that, but aside from those if we need someone introducing the different trailers, have it be the developers.

          Speaking of the interviews, we’ll be cutting those out as well. Ubisoft’s 2016 conference was the longest of the five major ones last year, clocking in at a full half hour over the second longest, Microsoft’s. They’ve reached the point where they stuff their conferences so full to the brim with filler content that they go on longer than the ones held by the Big Three companies!

          Let’s look at Ubisoft’s 2016 conference and cut out all the things that need to go. First off, no opening dance number. There are better ways to advertise Just Dance than giving ammo to people who argue video games aren’t an art form.

Then, we cut out all the extended interviews that don’t need to be there. The guy that’s always there to advertise For Honor is the gold standard for how to introduce games at a Ubisoft conference, so everyone should try to emulate his style: get in, introduce the game in an exciting and engaging way, play the trailer/gameplay demo, and then get out to make room for the whatever’s next.

          Next, we need to shorten the amount of time every game gets onstage. Everyone wants their fair share of screentime, but it’s so annoying to have to wait through up to ten minutes of a guy talking about DLC for a game people forgot about after a month. Every game gets up to three minutes of introduction, then their trailer/gameplay demo, and then they’re done. No extra-long skits before the trailer, no bad attempts at humour, just the game and whatever introduction it needs.

          And last but not least, if it has nothing to do with video games it doesn’t belong onstage, so no movies. This was just a thing they did last year when the Assassin’s Creed movie was happening, but if I was in charge they’d never do it again. I’m here to see what’s next in video games. If I wanted to hear movie news I’d watch Comic-Con.

          So that’s how I’d fix the staged stuff. As for the gameplay trailers, there is one major thing I’d like to never see again, and if you’ve been following Ubisoft for the past few years I’m sure you know what it is.

          A few years ago while promoting Rainbow Six, Ubisoft invented an annoying little technique that’s since been come to be known as “the Mic Trick”. For those who don’t know, the Mic Trick is when a trailer features pre-scripted audio of professional voice actors pretending to act like gamers playing the multiplayer matches. This is used to make a sterile game seem far more engaging than it actually is through the power of audio, because if the people in the trailer seem excited and interested, our brains usually pick up that we should be interested as well. It usually backfires (usually thanks to the script being laughably awful and sounding nothing like how a real person talks), but this hasn’t stopped Ubisoft from using it several times since it was first incepted in 2014. Since then we’ve seen the Mic Trick used in several trailers for The Division and most recently in the gameplay trailer for Ghost Recon Wildlands. One has to wonder what multiplayer game they’ll stick it to this year.

          I think it goes without saying that the Mic Trick needs to go, and along with it I also would like to send Ubisoft’s nasty little habit of having E3 trailers looking far more polished than the final finished product sent out the door for good. There’s a reason why people are significantly more skeptical of what they’re seeing at Ubisoft’s conferences than they are at even EA’s, and that’s because of the numerous incidents where a game performing at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second in the trailer releases oftentimes barely going above 30 frames. The most famous example of this was the Watch Dogs incident from 2014, but they’ve done it multiple times since then.

          And that’s just a few ways I would fix Ubisoft’s E3 conferences if I were put in charge. I really doubt they’ll actually do any of these things, but if they decide that this year’s the time to pull a complete 180 and take inspiration from Sony and Microsoft, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

          Stay tuned, because next Monday I’ll be giving out my predictions for what surprises we’ll be seeing at the six major conferences this year!

Song of the Week

          Intro - Steep

Little Witch Academia Episode 21 Review

The winding road

(This review contains spoilers!)

          One of the biggest mysteries we’ve dealt with in the second cour is Croix, how she relates to Chariot, and what her malicious plans are. Despite coming in and introduced as the main villain early on in the second half, she honestly hasn’t done much aside from plot in her secret laboratory and send out minions to try and disrupt whatever Akko and friends are doing.

          With the Diana subplot finished, the time has come to get the second to last word out of the way before I assume we begin gearing up for the season finale. The next word is supposedly something you can find only when you stop looking for it, leading Akko to search for it everywhere. Fortunately for her, she gets a tip from the most valuable of sources: Croix!

          According to Croix, the word is at the top of a massive tree. The only problem is that that specific tree blooms pollen that, when touched by a witch, removes all of their magical traits. Even worse, the tree’s preparing to bloom again, meaning now is the perfect time to not go there. While Ursula obviously forbids Akko from going, Croix is more than happy to take her.

          This episode is much darker in tone than pretty much any of the episodes before it, and it fits really well for an episode about Chariot and Croix. We get a further glimpse into their past, and we see how Chariot first got her hands on the Shiny Rod. Croix wanted the Rod so she could become the greatest witch ever, and was jealous that it wasn’t given to her. But, considering the fact that we also got a flashback of the two of them hugging it out towards the end of the episode, I’d say that this is only part of why their relationship fell apart. My other theory is that Croix lost her magic due to the pollen, and Chariot had something to do with it. That’s why she’s so competent with technology, and, if memory serves me right, why we’ve never seen her using traditional magic. Even this episode, she doesn’t use a broom to go through the leylines, instead flying on one of her roombas.

          Akko’s story was also really interesting this week. She finally confirmed that she’s only interested in finding the words because she thinks they’ll lead her to meeting Chariot, and doesn’t actually care about the Grand Triskelion or reconstruction magic. While one of Akko’s biggest character flaws has always been her selfishness, having her say that (to Ursula’s face no less) really gave her an extra dimension of personality as well as a much stronger reason as to why she’s doing all this for Ursula.

          The episode ends with the sixth word being revealed after Ursula manages to save Akko before the spores go off, and the two of them reconcile. Considering that Ursula still hasn’t revealed her true identity to Akko, even after this episode with a lot of tension between the two of them and a massive focus on Chariot’s origin, I’m guessing that Trigger’s saving the big reveal for the final boss battle against Croix. While I’d also really like to see Akko work with Lotte and Sucy to save the day in the end, this second cour’s been much more focused on her relationship with Chariot (compared to the friends-focused first cour), making the big reveal seem like a satisfying way to cap off their storyline.

          Also, Croix is building a dark Shiny Rod. That’s awesome. Moving on.

          This episode was a big tonal change for Little Witch, mostly trading in the bright colours and goofy jokes for a darker look and feel, and it really worked considering the subject matter. Seeing more of Chariot and Croix’s past was really interesting, and I also liked seeing more of the darker side of Akko’s character. And now that the sixth word has been found, it looks like we’ll be getting a four episode finale as Croix prepares to take control. The only thing I wish this episode had was the big Chariot reveal to Akko, but if it isn’t here I’m guessing the writers are saving it for a big moment in the final arc. All and all I really enjoyed this episode, and while I don’t want this series to end, I can’t wait to see what happens.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Re:Creators Episode 8 Review

Magical Splash Nuke

(This review contains spoilers!)

          We’re nearing the halfway point in Re:Creators, which means we’ve arrived at the point where I’m honestly starting to feel sorry for the people who dropped this show. The mystery surrounding Altair’s creator furthered this week, and the best character on the show got a pivotal, albeit maybe final, scene that turned out to be one of the show’s best.

          It’s become blatantly obvious that Sota (I think the main character guy joke’s run its course by this point) has something to do with the creator of our villain, and this week the characters all but confirmed what happened to her using some wordplay. She was friends with Sota, but after her work with Altair took off, Sota continued to flounder as an artist. Their friendship broke off, and three months ago she died somehow. Altair is doing all this insanity to get revenge on the world that took her god from her, which includes destroying the other creations that have come in.

          I like that Altair finally got some major screentime again this week as more developments came out about her, because she’s mostly acted as an endgame boss while the hero creations fight her flunkies. She’s definitely shaping up to be a cool baddie, and the connection with Sota will be really interesting to explore in the weeks to come.

          I have noticed another small issue with the show lately that I feel is worth bringing up however: the uneven distribution of the main characters. Some of the creations get ludicrous amounts of screentime compared to others. Despite being the first character seen in the intro and the one at the center of much of the advertising for Re:Creators, Selesia doesn’t enjoy nearly the same amount of screentime that Meteora gets. She only had one or two lines this week compared to Meteora getting a huge scene one on one with Sota. Similarly, despite being introduced as a major player a few weeks back, the mech suit guy’s still done absolutely nothing. He doesn’t contribute to the conversations, nor does he participate in the fight scenes. Right now he just feels like he’s there just because they wanted to get all the introductions out of the way early on.

          Speaking of characters, I probably should talk about Mamika and the ending. Mamika and her relationship with Alice has easily been the best part of Re:Creators thus far. The microexpressions you see on her face when interacting with the others is honestly second to none. You really can see complex emotions like doubt and confusion on this anime girl’s face, and it’s insane.

          Early in the episode it was blatant that her character was about to go into a rough patch, as she had a conversation with Alice about how she wanted her to know how much she liked her and how she believed this world truly was worth saving.

          Uh oh.

          As is the magical girl’s lot in life since Madoka Magica hit it big, everything then proceeded to go horribly wrong for poor Mamika. Upon confronting Altair about her master plan, she was quickly turned into mahou shojou shish kabob. But before Altair could deliver the finishing blow, Mamika finally cast the much-hyped Magical Splash Flare spell, destroying everything in a one mile radius with a pink explosion.

          As far as I can see, there are two ways they can go with this since we didn’t actually see if she died or not. The more obvious choice and the one I think they’ll be going with is they kill off Mamika, arguably the best character with the most development, and set up a story not unlike Magical Girl Raising Project going forth where the creations are picked off one by one. The other option is have Mamika survive, keeping their secret weapon character in play, and have her join Sota’s side, leading to a rift in her relationship with Alice. I personally think that she’s a goner (her scene early on in the episode made it laughably obvious), and if that’s the case, I’ll really miss her.

          Despite the character screentime issue, this episode was easily the best we’ve seen from Re:Creators so far. Mamika’s scenes were excellently animated and directed, being extremely emotional and providing what looks to be a satisfying end to her character arc. Outside of that, I also enjoyed the further worldbuilding and giving Sota more of a role in things going on. I just wished his interactions weren’t limited to just Selesia, Meteora and Makagami. Overall, this episode alone really made all the exposition we had to get through worth seeing. If you dropped this anime, I highly recommend picking it up again.

FINAL SCORE

10/10

Legendary

Troll and I Review

The Half-Assed Guardian

(This review contains a really, really bad game)

          I’ve played a lot of averagely bad games in my time, but sometimes I come across one so mind-bendingly awful that it defies expectation. Troll and I is the latest game to join the ranks of stuff like Star Trek 2013, Star Fox Zero and Lego Worlds as a recent release so inanely terrible that it’s just plain stunning.

          This one legitimately needs to be seen to be believed, but I’ll do my best to go over the whole experience for you.

          The game is apparently set in Scandinavia during the late 1950’s, but honestly I find that incredibly hard to believe because everything looks like it waltzed straight out of Lord of the Rings. The main character lives in a tiny peasant village, they need to use spears to hunt boar just to eat, and he and his family are dressed in clothes that would look more at home in a pioneer village than in 1957. Is this like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village where it turns out at the end that the main character is living in a secluded area outside of modern day? I didn’t get far enough into the game to find out, and I’m not well versed enough in Scandinavian history to know if they actually became a fantasy world for a few years after World War II, but something tells me that neither of those are the case.

          From the moment you boot up Troll and I it’s obvious that this game is going to be a bumpy ride. The game looks so dreadful that the character models in Majora’s Mask look better than these nightmarish mannequins (and by that I don’t mean the 3DS remake, I mean the original game from 17 years ago). The voice acting is especially terrible, making me honestly wonder if this was an instance of some family members of the dev team being called in to play the characters. Sound effects are also frequently completely missing in cutscenes, while others are insanely loud compared to the rest of the game.

          The story, from what I played, doesn’t seem to make a lick of sense. Ignoring the fact that Scandinavia’s been reverted to fantasyland after World War II, the main plot seems to be that everyone’s trying to kill a Bigfoot for some reason or another. Said Sasquatch teams up with Otto, the main protagonist, for no explicable reason. Last Guardian this ain’t. The two of them are then sent on a journey where they must face off against two of the most nefarious gaming foes in history: clunky controls and a plethora of glitches.

          The controls are horrific, some of the worst I’ve seen in a very long time. Both Otto and the Troll/Bigfoot thing move around with all the finesse of a three wheeled shopping cart. The simple act of getting them to turn around is a chore in and of itself, and don’t even get me started on how dreadful combat is. While it’s mostly just swinging whatever weapon you have into your enemy’s face until you win, trying to focus on them is a task straight from gaming hell itself.

          There’s also many, many, many, many glitches all over the place, causing the game to feel more like the result of a community center video game creation summer camp instead of a retail release. For some reason, the entire forest is full of ghosts. There are weird water ripple effects just hanging in thin air with no explanation, so I just assumed that the woods were haunted.

          Much worse is the problems with an early quick-time event segment. You’re escaping from a forest fire and you need to press X at certain times to jump over several identical looking logs. The only problem is that even when you pull off a jump successfully the game will sometimes register it as a miss and you’ll die anyways. It took me upwards of twenty minutes to beat a level that should’ve barely taken five.

          I think the funniest part of this game is the back of the box. It advertises in big letters that Troll and I won “Best Original Game” at E3 2016 from Eyewave Games. I honestly have to wonder if the folks over at Eyewave saw the game there and assumed they were going to improve on it when it would be released. Regardless of what happened there, I honestly feel sorry for the poor buggers now that their good name is attached to Troll and I for all eternity.

          What’s significantly less funny is what this game costs. If you want to experience the sheer unintentional hilarity of Troll and I for yourself, you first have to pay a suggested retail price of $64.99. The trailer on Steam also looks significantly better than how the game actually looks when playing for yourself, so it’s best to disregard that completely. The fact that these developers decided to try to pull a highway robbery with this piece of crap is just plain disgusting, and I’m glad that this game looks like one that’s going to be lost to time.

          It should go without saying that Troll and I isn’t even worth a rent, let alone buying it for that insane price. This game feels like it was thrown together over the course of a few months by a dev team that just didn’t care, and how it won the few awards it did at E3 last year is beyond me. While this game will hopefully be never touched by anyone ever again, I expect I’ll be seeing it once more when it comes time to list the worst games of 2017 in December.

FINAL SCORE

1/10

Awful

Birthdays the Beginning Review

Plankton!

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Brace yourselves, folks. This is a weird one.

          I’m lucky enough to live in a library system that gets most of the latest games released. While more often than not they order the big-name stuff, every once in a while they find a title that I’ve never heard of. This is one of those times.

          Birthdays the Beginning is perhaps the most clumsily named game I’ve played in recent years. Despite this, it’s actually pretty decent and fun game for kids, but one that I can’t recommend for more than a rental for a multitude of reasons.

          It’s actually kind of hard to describe what you do in Birthdays, but I’ll try my best. Think of it as sort of a hybrid of The Sims and Viva Piñata. You are given a cubical world that is yours to shape and build upon, as you create life from a hunk of rock. There’s not much in sense of a story besides a paper-thin way to tie the various missions together, but honestly this game doesn’t really need one.

          You are immediately thrust into a lengthy tutorial, guided by a glowing blue orb by the name of Navi.

          …I know what you’re all thinking, so I’m just going to assume that that’s a huge coincidence and move on with the review.

          The visuals are pretty nice, but nothing super impressive. All the various plants and animals are easily identifiable, but with a fun spin that makes them look like plastic toys. Birthdays might be home to the cutest T. rex in video games right now.

          You actually don’t have much input in building your world as far as I can see. You can create giant mountains and various bodies of water, but that’s mostly it. Grass, plants and animals all appear by themselves when you take a backseat and allow time to fast-forward. Watching your world grow accompanied by some serene music is actually pretty relaxing, but I actually really wish there was more I could do. I wanted to be able to act like a real god of the world, like spawning and destroying species or choosing terrain types like snow or desert instead of having the game randomly pick them for me. While this game is really cathartic, I can’t exactly call it fun.

          This game also has two big issues that really make it hard to continue after the first hour or so. The biggest issue with the game comes with the stuff you get in the early stages. While the box art advertises dinosaurs, you start off the game by collecting various types of plankton and invertebrates, most of which are so small they don’t even appear in the game world. You need to evolve stuff by either completing certain objectives or using items to get to the big fun stuff. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is when the game announces that I’ve created a new animal, only to find it’s yet another invisible jellyfish with an unpronounceable name. Most similar games like this (again going back to Viva Piñata) start you off with small but recognizable animals, like rabbits, frogs and birds. Having plankton unknown to anyone outside of a real-life biologist be the game’s first impression leaves a pretty bad taste in your mouth.

          The other big problem with the game is that, thanks to gaming being apparently dedicated to making everything as realistic as possible until it stops being fun these days, Birthdays employs an extinction mechanic. At any point while playing a creature in your world may go extinct, and as far as I can tell there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You need to pay rapt attention to the ever-scrolling list that dictates the current state of everything in your world, lest a necessary creature accidentally kicks the bucket.

          But to be fair, Birthdays does explain a way to bring back stuff that’s gone extinct: reset and load an old save file!

          There’s no autosaving in this game either, by the way. You need to manually save the game every five minutes just in case a crucial species accidentally finds itself on the chopping block.

          So I reached the point in the main campaign where I guess a creature necessary to progressing went extinct and because I didn’t save beforehand I was kind of stuck. So I went over to free play mode to see if it was any better. Trust me, if you ever want to play this game I’d just jump right to free play once you’ve finished the initial tutorial. It still has the same problems as the campaign mode, but you have access to way more items that can help you speed up the process.

          The last thing I should probably touch on is the price. Right now Birthdays costs $43.99 on Steam, which is just ludicrous for a game where you spend most of your time sitting and watching your world spin around.

          I’ll give Birthdays this: I like the concept. Building a world from the very start sounds like it could be a lot of fun. The big problem comes with how little interactivity and control you have over the world. The most you can do is raise and lower the terrain to change the temperature. Everything else is done for you, making it really hard to get invested in. I think if this was an iPad game you checked up on once every few hours instead of a PS4 game where you need to set aside time to play it would’ve been more successful. It also doesn’t help that the early-game plankton overload and the complete frustration that is the extinction mechanic really kicks the game in the balls and removes a lot of potential fun to be had. Plus, the price is completely insane considering the content this game packs. If you’ve got a young kid around that’s into prehistoric life, there are worse choices. The thing is that there’s also better choices at a much more reasonable cost.

FINAL SCORE

5/10

Average

Editorial: Heroes never die: An Overwatch retrospective

Heroes never die: An Overwatch retrospective

          What does it take to create a great video game? Most would say that strong, compelling and satisfying gameplay are the crucial part, but story, visual design and music are also aspects needed to take in consideration.

          So with that in mind, how do you create a great video game that somehow manages to defy the odds and end its first year basically ten times as popular as it was when it first released?

          So, in honour of its first birthday, it’s time to look back on Overwatch.

          Even just skimming through this blog it’s easy to tell that I am a huge fan of Overwatch. I regularly cover big in-game events, I sing its praises frequently, especially when comparing other online shooters, and I placed it at number two on my best games of 2016 list (a hard decision to make, but one I still stand by). I still play it regularly, at least once a week, reaching the point where I’ve become good at multiple characters.

          So…why? Why has Overwatch outlasted most other games in the increasingly clogged first-person multiplayer shooter genre?

           I think a lot of it is thanks to the asymmetrical gameplay that’s seen here. One of the biggest problems in even good modern FPS games like Titanfall 2 is that the multiplayer mode can often fall flat due to every match feeling more or less like the same thing over and over and over again.

          With Overwatch you get nothing like that. There are four different gamemodes spread out over fourteen stages, and you have no idea which you’ll be playing when you start up the game. Thanks to this you have no idea what’s coming up next, making it much more exciting to jump in and play.

          It also helps that each of the characters play differently. Out of the twenty-four options in-game, there are a grand total of zero clone characters. Each has a unique kit with their own strengths and weaknesses, and oftentimes a player that is dominating as a certain character will cause an entire opposing team to completely rethink their strategy.

          But a unique level select method and varying playstyles isn’t really why I think Overwatch has resonated so much with people. I think people kept the game running through the year because of the characters and how they relate to them.

          Each character in Overwatch has a backstory, a unique and fun design, and a specific real-world nationality. Whereas most modern shooter characters are members of the U.S. Military, Overwatch features heroes from Japan, England, Mexico, and Australia among others. This variety allows more people to see themselves in the characters they play as than if it was another angry soldier guy avenging his dead friends that Activision seems to love so much (hilariously, Overwatch takes that trope and does it one better in the form of Soldier: 76).

          The world of Overwatch is also ludicrously different than most games you see in this genre. Instead of a grim dystopian future, this world is bright and optimistic. Iran has gone from being war-torn to becoming a technological paradise to rival Silicon Valley, same-sex relationships are as normal and nonchalant as anything else, and humans and sentient robots are working towards building a world where they can live hand-in-hand. It’s pretty unusual to see such positivity in a game all about who can blow up their enemies the most.

          How much people have fallen in love with these characters and this world is evident by the outpouring of fanart the game is still seeing a full year after launch. The fans have really taken these characters and made them their own, creating fun interpretations of them, like Soldier: 76 as a disgruntled dad and D.Va as a dorito-munching gremlin. In turn, sometimes references to these fan creations make it into the game itself, such as D.Va’s Halloween victory pose featuring hidden dorito chips.

          Blizzard has always been great at creating fun and interesting worlds to explore, and in my opinion Overwatch outclasses even Warcraft as their best one yet. Creating characters that fans can relate to and really make their own on top of a game with already incredibly stellar gameplay really makes me feel that this game might just be the first in a new golden age for the FPS genre, one I think it desperately needs.

Song of the Week

          Main Theme - Overwatch

Little Witch Academia Episode 20 Review

Cavendish challenge

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Continuing directly from last week, Diana is still working to become the leader of her family, while Akko is trying to convince her to return to Luna Nova.

          It’s the Venus Eclipse, meaning that tonight is the only night for years where the planet Venus is hidden behind the moon. As part of the Cavendish family tradition, tonight is the only night where the heir to the family throne may visit a secret shrine and become officially crowned as the new leader of the family.

          This is definitely one of the better animated episodes recently, even more so than Episode 18. The animators definitely had a lot of fun with this one, using a lot of over exaggerated faces and movements on Akko. I especially liked that she was the only character in this episode to really be wildly animated like that, adding contrast to the more stoic Cavendish estate characters.

          This is especially put to good use in an early scene where Diana is captured by her aunt’s snakes and Akko shapeshifts into various animal forms to try and rescue her. It’s very entertaining to watch her solve the problem by turning into an elephant or a tortoise among others.

          Another highlight of the episode is Diana getting more much-deserved character building. She and Akko share many nice scenes working together, and for the first time in Little Witch as a franchise Diana truly lets her guard down and allows Akko to help her.

          While Akko and Diana work exceptionally well as rivals (Episode 14 is a clear example as to how), I also really like when they’re able to work as a pair. Their scene in Enchanted Parade where Diana indirectly motivates Akko to finish the project is one of the best in the movie, and even in the original short having Diana be the one to save Akko from falling at the end as opposed to Ursula made for a fantastic ending. The two of them make a great pair that I’d really like to see more of.

          This leads to the discovery of the fifth word, allowing the Shiny Rod to transform into Chariot’s broom and leading the two of them on a madcap chase to the shrine as a last-minute secret entrance appears.

          Of course, in the end time runs out thanks to the aunt and Diana decides to return to school with Akko in tow. The two have a nice final scene where Diana thanks her for allowing her to return to school, and the two seem to be building a stronger bond. Diana will surely play a major role in these last five episodes as Croix’s master plan begins to unravel, and I’m sure her newfound friendship with Akko will be tested.

          This episode is a great conclusion to what started last week. The animation is better, and Diana getting more character development is always welcome. I still do wish Akko had a stronger motive for all this though. Andrew asks her why she’s doing this, and she doesn’t really give an answer. But overall, a weak reason for why we got this small arc is better than not getting it at all.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Re:Creators Episode 7 Review

Main character guy almost does something

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Re:Creators left us last week in the middle of an awesome fight scene between all the creations as things finally started to get heated up. Things continued to get better this week, as the overall mystery continued to heat up and the characters got more interactions with each other.

          The last remaining creations showed up at the fight scene, but it didn’t last long before they all dispersed into their own separate group. The rival guy with the purple hair’s decided to align with Selesia’s group, as has the mech pilot. They both seem like really fun characters to be around, and I hope they actually do something more than just be extras that hang out and contribute with an idea every so often.

          Mamika also got a lot more screentime this week. Despite not being in nearly as many episodes as Selesia and Meteora, I’d honestly say she’s had the most development out of any of the characters so far. I love how she’s trying to bring her beliefs of love and tolerance into this world. She meets up with main character guy in hopes that the two warring creation factions can make up, as well as wanting to learn more about the origins of the Military Uniform Princess.

          The origins of this mysterious villain was the major talking point this week, as the main cast spent most of the time scrambling to figure out who she is and where she came from. It’s still obvious that main character guy knows where she came from (I know his real name but I refuse to use it until he actually contributes something to this anime), but for whatever reason they don’t want to tell us. I guess they’re setting it up to be a big groundbreaking reveal later on, but it’s kind of frustrating for them to tease it, only to keep holding the information from us.

          Whatever the case, the creators learned that she’s a fan art creation named Altair, but that’s all we know right now. I think she has something to do with the girl main character guy remembered when he first researched her, but as of right now she’s a real enigma.

          While this episode was extremely dialogue heavy, I feel like I can forgive it because we actually furthered one of the major mysteries this time around. Still, I can definitely see why those who dropped the show are referring to it as “Re:Exposition”. I definitely feel that the story and characters are compelling enough for me to continue, because even if there are some episodes with a little too much chatter they can still be interesting if done right.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Star Wars Saturday: Ten Great Star Wars Commercials

Ten Great Star Wars Commercials

          A huge guilty pleasure of mine has always been watching commercials. While I’ve usually fast-forward through them quickly and get back to whatever I’m watching, there’s always something alluring about them. They get thirty seconds to hawk whatever they’re selling, and every once in a while you’ll find a real diamond in the rough, a rare ad that really takes its time to create a fun and memorable narrative.

          And Star Wars has never been a stranger to advertising. In the forty years since the first movie came out, Star Wars characters have been used to sell everything from electronics and cars to toys and food.

          So I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at ten of the best, worst, and just plain strangest Star Wars commercials! My only rules for this list is trailers and TV spots for the movies aren’t allowed, and as I’m trying to focus on older ads this time around I won’t be including any commercials from the Force Awakens era (but if I ever do another one of these I’ll probably include some of them there). Also, this isn’t a top 10 list, so I’ll just be listing them off from oldest to newest. With that said…

Burger King glasses

          As far as I can tell, this commercial is from all the way back in 1977, the same year A New Hope premiered in theatres. Once it became clear that the movie was going to be a success unlike anything anyone had ever seen before, companies everywhere were scrambling to get the rights to develop Star Wars products. Burger King was one of them, and they held onto that license until at least the release of the Clone Wars movie in 2008.

          I love how this commercial is a window into the 70’s. You get a new glass when you buy a regular sized Coke for only 59 cents, meaning you can get the entire set for roughly $2.35, provided you live in the 70’s and can get to Burger King before February 2nd.

          Speaking of that, I wonder how much a full set of these glasses cost these days? Let’s go to eBay and find out.

          Yikes.

Japanese tuna (Sea Chicken?)

          Like I said before, back in 1977 everyone and their brother was scraping to get themselves a piece of the Star Wars pie, and some people decided that they’d get it themselves whether they had Lucasfilm’s blessing or not.

          This is a Japanese ad that I think is supposed to be for a tuna brand called Sea Chicken (I’m not even going to try rationalizing why they named their tuna brand after a chicken), and it’s obvious from the first second that this isn’t an officially licensed Star Wars commercial. The costumes look like they came straight from the dollar store, especially C-3PO, who only resembles the original character in that he’s wearing what looks like an actual C-3PO mask.

          This commercial is so awful it never fails to make me laugh. It’s thirty seconds of pure insanity onscreen while some disembodied voice sings “Sea Chicken! Sea Chicken!” over and over again. It’s one of the more memorable commercials on this list in all the wrong ways.

Underoos

          “Star Wars Boba Fett is here! That means Darth Vader’s always near!”

          This one’s such a classic that it made a brief (pun not intended) cameo in the Star Wars Celebration 2017 40th anniversary sizzle reel. And why wouldn’t it? It easily ranks up there as one of the most ridiculous ads the galaxy far, far away has ever seen.

          The premise of this one is that these kids are dancing and singing about Star Wars characters while wearing Underoos. At the end of the commercial R2-D2 asks C-3PO for some Underoos for himself, but is turned down because “Underoos are for earthlings”. Honestly, I think the real reason is because R2 wouldn’t fit in them, but whatever.

          Apparently Underoos are still a thing, but I’m pretty sure that nowadays a bunch of kids dancing around in their underthings on live TV wouldn’t fly as well as it did back in 1980. I honestly don’t mind, if only because I don’t want to spend another thirty years trying to get a Force Awakens-themed Underoos song out of my head.

Return of the Jedi AT-ST toy

          Here’s an ad for an actual Star Wars product. The Kenner toy commercials usually came in two different flavours depending on who they were catering to: there were more collecter-oriented commercials that just showed off the different toys as well as advertising new ones you could only get from mail-order, and there were ones more geared towards younger audiences with kids running around and playing with the action figures.

          This ad is…neither of those.

          Here we see an AT-ST/Scout Walker storming through the forests of Endor while a really cheesy narration explains everything the toy can do. The awful writing on the narrator is what really makes this one stand out. For a fun drinking game, take a shot every time he says “walk” or “attack”. You’ll be on Naboo before you know it!

          (Disclaimer: Please don’t actually do that)

C-3PO’s

          Star Wars and cereal have gone hand in hand since the 1980’s, and their first ever brand was C-3PO’s. While I’ve never gotten to try it for myself, it basically looks like Cheerios except each bit of cereal has two O’s fused together, which makes it futuristic…I guess.

          This is a fun little ad for them, where R2 and 3PO are lost on a planet populated by what look like rock people. They demand food, and 3PO is happy to serve them the cereal that has his face on it. We then cut to a suburban kitchen, where C-3PO’s golden ghost creepily watches over a pair of kids eating the cereal.

          I said this ad was fun, not that it made sense.

          While C-3PO’s may have become a thing of the past, a new Star Wars cereal was introduced a few years back, and it looks…

          …yeah.

Star Wars for Atari

          Another old favourite, this ad’s become practically infamous after somebody on the internet stumbled upon it a few years ago. An unsuspecting young boy picks out the new Star Wars game for Atari, remarking that the arcade version is great. He then gets…a little overexcited.

          I especially love how barely any of the actual game is shown in this commercial. We get a few shots of it here and there, but most of the time the camera is focused awkwardly close to the face of our protagonist over here. Honestly, for 1983 the original Star Wars game was a pretty darn impressive feat graphically, and I’m definitely going to talk about it more in depth someday. But trust me, it’s nowhere near as exciting as this commercial makes it out to be.

          The Atari has plenty of amazingly awful commercials for their games, with the Star Wars one being the most famous of the lot. If you want to see more, I highly recommend the Spider-Man, Mario Bros. and Atari classic E.T. commercials.

          “SOOOOOOOOME GAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!”

Star Wars for NES

          From one game ad to another, this one’s definitely lesser known than the Atari one but is still delightfully cheesy.

          A suburban home is suddenly overrun by Imperial forces, led by Darth Vader. Upstairs, a pair of kids are playing Star Wars for the NES, oblivious to the carnage going on in their living room. Vader goes upstairs to get them, but their mom heroically throws herself in his way. Before Vader can do what he does best, the kids beat the game and Vader is vaporized. The mom stumbles in the room, and the kids chastise her for not knocking.

          I love the plight the mom goes through in this commercial. She knows her life is on the line when she throws herself in front of Vader, but she does it anyways. Then, when he disappears and she opens the door to check on them, these snot-nosed little brats don’t even thank her for throwing her life on the line for them! Look at her expression at the end. Those two definitely aren’t getting dinner.

          I also love the narration at the end of this one. “A force stronger than your parents doesn’t want you playing.” Uh, okay. I guess I won’t buy it then if someone really doesn’t want me playing. Knowing my gaming skills I probably wouldn’t beat it in time to save my family.

Energizer

          Energizer has always had great commercials starring their trademark sunglass-wearing pink bunny, and my favourites are the series from 1994. This set of ads saw various classic cinema villains trying to take down the poor unsuspecting bunny and take his battery. He went up against characters like Dracula and a generic Bond villain, but the best one is the Star Wars one.

          The Emperor instructs Vader to get the bunny’s battery, and he confronts the pink menace in the Cloud City carbon-freezing chamber. Unfortunately for poor Vader, once he’s got the rabbit cornered his lightsaber runs out of power. He unscrews the bottom and discovers that someone’s replaced his kyber crystal with drained Supervolt batteries, allowing the bunny to keep going, and going, and going.

          There’s a lot of cool little details in this one, most noticeably that it uses Clive Revell’s Palpatine from the original cut of Empire Strikes Back before Lucas overdubbed him with Ian McDiarmid in the Special Edition. I also like that the scream of fury Vader gives at the end of the commercial is significantly better than the over-the-top “Nooooooooooo!” we get from him in Revenge of the Sith.  It’s kind of telling that Energizer did Vader better than the prequels ever did.

Phantom Menace Pepsi

          Even now that the launch of Force Awakens has come and gone, it’s hard to deny that Phantom Menace might be the most hyped up movie of all time. With Force Awakens everyone kind of had a bit of dread that it would turn out disappointing, but with Phantom Menace few even considered it. The three Star Wars movies before it were all amazing, so why wouldn’t this one be?

          This commercial might be the most 90’s thing you’ll see all day. An unsuspecting couple climbs into a taxi (why do all the terrible things in these commercials happen to poor innocent people?) and are confronted by a reject Ninja Turtle who spoils the entire podracing scene for them.

          His taxi turns into a literal podracer, and the cruel slimy jerk ignores the poor couple’s screams of terror and flies them willy nilly around New York, finally stopping in front of a Pepsi machine. You don’t get a good shot of the couple again so I just assume they died on the way there. Phantom Menace kills, kids.

          I especially like that they needed to give you incentive to buy the VHS. If you buy Phantom Menace alongside some Pepsi and tortilla chips you’ll get 3 bucks back. But honestly, I wouldn’t trust any Pepsi being given to me by this alien freak.

Spike TV

          This one is much more recent than the others on the list, but this one was a huge favourite of mine as a kid and I couldn’t help but put it on the list.

          Before the Disney buyout Spike TV was able to get the rights to showing Star Wars movies, and this was their way of telling it to the world. Vader is golfing with some friends, but upon using the Force to cheat they chastise and then attack him.

          Honestly, while Vader’s a dirty rotten cheater here, I think he’s completely in the right to get defensive with these guys. They were going to attack him with a golf club for god sake! What would someone say if you swung a golf club at a disabled man just because they got upset that your friend was unhappy with the way they played golf?

          So those are ten of my favourite Star Wars commercials! Are there any I missed? Feel free to leave a comment telling me your favourites, and I’ll see you next time!