Inhumans Review: "Behold…The Inhumans / Those Who Would Destroy Us"

Not so super

(This review contains spoilers!)

          If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably familiar with my love of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I never miss an episode, and I’m usually one of the first online cooking up theories about what’s going to happen next. So when it was announced that S.H.I.E.L.D would be taking an extended break to make way for a show based on the Inhuman Royal Family from the comics, I wasn’t too happy. Still, I was intrigued. Inhumans has had a lot of behind-the-scenes woes in the MCU, starting as a movie before it slowly transformed into the miniseries you see today.

          But even before the actual show began, Inhumans was slammed by critics and fans alike, calling it the lowest bar for the MCU franchise to date and an insult to the comic book characters. My opinion?

          Yeah, they’re not wrong. But if you’re like me and you enjoy watching bad movies just so you can heckle over them, this episode alone is a goldmine.

          Much like Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily bad movie The Room, everything is done so spectacularly awful that it does a complete 180 and somehow becomes great again. The writing is atrocious. The acting is stilted and stiff. The plot makes no sense whatsoever. The main characters are either unlikeable or barely onscreen. The pacing moves way too fast. Everything comes together to create a perfect trainwreck that you can’t tear your eyes away from no matter how hard you try.

          Set in the hidden city on the moon known as Atillan, Inhumans tells the story of the Inhuman royal family. Black Bolt, the king of Atillan, is silent thanks to his powers of supersonic screams every time he makes any sort of noise. His wife Medusa can manipulate her hair however she wants. Their friend Karnak has some sort of deus-ex machina power that is never explained, and there’s a few others there too. Bolt’s brother Maximus is the only one of them to have no powers, and he’s angry about it. So angry, in fact, that he wants to take over the city. 

          He accomplishes this goal in about three minutes.

          So let’s start with the characters. I don’t blame the poor actors for anything that went wrong here. When it comes to things like this, I have a saying: If one actor gives a bad performance, they’ve been miscast. If all the actors give a bad performance, they’re stuck with a bad writer, director, or both. I like to call this the “Attack of the Clones Clause”. And yes, this episode falls into the latter category. Nobody gives a good performance here, but some of them are clearly trying their best to work with what they were given. Medusa and Karnak are both given some cool and fun moments to work with, and Black Bolt has a strong advantage in that he doesn’t have to deliver any of this awful dialogue. That doesn’t stop him from running around with sad puppy-dog eyes all the time for some reason, but he’s probably the best human character in the show.

          Easily the character who got it the worst is Maximus. I guess they were kinda going for a Loki in the first Thor movie-esque plotline here, but he comes across as more goofy than threatening thanks to the direction the actor was given. The entire first episode is spent watching him go from person to person saying “I should be king! Listen to me! Black Bolt doesn’t know what he’s doing!” He does this three times in the span of less than one commercial break. He also seems to have an addiction to putting his hand on other people’s shoulders. I don’t know why, but every time he’s in a scene with this one kid character that’s what he does.

          The writing is the clear catalyst for what went wrong here. The characters all have personalities more befitting of cardboard than cool alien superheroes. Black Bolt is a stony loner, Medusa is his awesome wife, Karnak is the wisecracking warrior, Maximus is annoying, and Gorgon and Crystal share the personality trait of not having any. They’re all built with the foundations of a house made of popsicle sticks, and they end the episode exactly the same people as when it started.

          Things could be better if they had better lines to say, but man, some of this stuff makes your jaw drop at how multiple people had to look at the script and say “Yeah, this is good”.  A personal favourite of mine is when this random scientist lady is talking to her superior. He tells her something along the lines of “You used to be brilliant with a bit of nutty. But now the nutty is pushing the brilliant out.” Honestly, that sums up the show better than I could ever do.

          Inhumans made a big boast about how it was the first TV show to be filmed in IMAX cameras, but boy howdy, was that ever a mistake. The budget quality of the show is extremely apparent thanks to the higher camera quality, making it look like it was made in the late 90’s instead of 2017. Medusa’s costume looks like it waltzed straight off the set of a cheesy David Hasselhoff music video, and her wig isn’t much better.

          The only saving grace this show has is Lockjaw, the giant teleporting bulldog. He looks pretty good when you consider the TV quality, but, as per the budget, whenever he’s onscreen the writers seem to be working overtime to make sure he gets offscreen before too long. Like, imagine if in the last season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Robbie only turned into Ghost Rider once or twice, and even then he went back to normal in under a minute. That’s how much we get of Lockjaw here.

          Last but not least, the fight scenes are gloriously badly choreographed. Karnak vs. some guards looks like it could’ve worked if it were set in an aquarium floating in space, but as it wasn’t it just looked silly. Punches are stilted, slow and silly-looking, almost looking like a beat-‘em up arcade game brought to life. It’s something that needs to be seen to be believed.

          My advice? If you really want to check Inhumans out to see just how bad it is, grab some friends, snacks and drinks, and get ready to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 the crap out of it. Trust me, it gives you plenty of material. Every decision made left me laughing out loud, from the script to the characters to the contradictions to things that happened earlier in the same episode. It’s a hoot and a half for all the wrong reasons.

FINAL SCORE

2/10

Awful

The Orville Review: “If the Stars Should Appear”

What does God need with a starship?

(This review contains spoilers!)

          The Orville managed to succeed last week with its smart blending of a pro-transgender and self-identity storyline with some excellent world and character building. This week thankfully continues the hot streak, as the crew take on an even greater challenge.

          They’ve come across an impossibly large ship in the middle of nowhere, and upon investigating, discover a whole world being run inside. The residents have no idea they’re even on a starship, and it’s all being run by a corrupt politician posing as a man of god.

          And now it’s time for me to introduce the official CanadianYeti Drinking Game of the Fall 2017 TV season! Every time you come across a show making an allegory to the current political situation in America, take a shot! You’ll be hungover till Halloween!

          (Disclaimer: Please don’t actually do that. Drink responsibly, kids.)

          All joking aside, it’s a really solid concept that is handled pretty well. I liked how the team split up in the early moments of the episode, allowing for plenty of separate stories exploring the different parts of the ship. The crew was actually put in danger for the first time this week after Alara was shot and Kelly was captured, leading to an episode where the stakes actually felt pretty high for once.

          The humour was also pretty on-point this week as well. The cold open with Bortus’s mate was pretty funny, as was Mercer’s reaction to eating the food the villagers made for him and the way he was able to get past that one guard. Unfortunately they still rely on low-hanging fruit jokes way more than they should, but considering the showrunner we’re stuck with I guess I should be grateful that it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be. Still, the running joke of Isaac being confused as to what a dick is gets old before it even becomes a running joke.

          The episode ends with a Liam Neeson cameo. No, I’m not joking. They actually got Liam Neeson to cameo on this show as the long since gone captain of the mysterious ship. He doesn’t stay long and doesn’t do much more than just explain the ship’s purpose, but it’s a surprise nonetheless.

          Much like that cameo, this episode was another delightful surprise. While The Orville still has plenty of room for improvement as far as the overarching plot and the relying on low-hanging fruit jokes go, the homages to Star Trek make fans of stuff like The Next Generation feel right at home with episodes like this and the previous ones. It’s well written, creative, and a whole lot of fun.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Knack 2 Review

Not exactly a masterpiece

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          Sit down, children, and let me tell you a story. A story about a console known as the PlayStation 4, and the games it launched with.

          Most of the games the PS4 launched with were ports of the latest releases of franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, and others. But amidst the big names, a new IP stood. Sony’s latest attempt to break into the platforming genre since poor Crash Bandicoot died a horrible death (he’s gotten better now, don’t worry), the game would come to be known as simply Knack.

          It…uh…didn’t do so hot.

          Yet despite the dismal review scores, numerous spots on various Worst Games of 2013 lists and plenty and plenty of jokes lobbed at it, Sony announced last year that Knack 2 was on the way. Is it better than the first game at all?

          Well, as someone who was turned off by the bad reviews for the original game I never touched it, so I don’t feel that I can give much of a comparison between the two. I will say that if it’s true that this game is superior to its predecessor, I can only imagine how dreadful the original was.

          While it’s far from the worst game I’ve played this year, Knack 2 is still not good by any means.

          The graphics are astonishingly grotesque. You know how Overwatch is designed to look like a modern Disney or Pixar movie? Knack 2 employs a similar tactic, but instead it more closely resembles those weird knockoff animated movies you find in Wal-Mart bargain bins. I would say that the graphics would look more at home on the Nintendo Gamecube than the PS4, but that’d be an insult to the poor Gamecube. Instead the characters look like they belong in some sort of no man’s console set between the PS1 and the PS2. Models and textures look blocky and ugly, almost like they never quite finished rendering. All the human characters also have this weird and unnerving dead look in their eyes, making you feel like they’re mannequins brought to life through dark magic.

          The gameplay isn’t much better. Knack 2 is a sort of hybrid platformer/beat-em up game, but does neither concept well. Fighting enemies is a chore thanks to a lack of variety in Knack’s arsenal. He’s got a punch and a kick to defend himself. That’s it. Fights become little more than mashing the square button until somebody falls down, and it’s exceedingly tedious. Other abilities become available via a skill tree and story progression, but none dispatch enemies as quickly as the good ol’ smash square attack, so there’s really no point in using them.

          Platforming is slightly better, in that they throw in a few fun tricks to use to get yourself around the map. The main gimmick of Knack 2 is the ability to change Knack’s size. Over the course of the levels Knack can grow to enormous height by defeating enemies and breaking boxes, but at the same time he can shrink down to his smallest size to access tunnels and use platforms that full-size Knack is too big for. It’s a fun little trick that adds a bit of variety to the gameplay, but ultimately isn’t used enough to reach its full potential. Most of the time you’ll just be small Knack until you find an area where you can reach the pieces to turn yourself big again.

          I eventually came to the conclusion that this is one of those games that’s targeted squarely at kids and no one else, but even then I’d find it hard to recommend this to them either. The game is way too easy for one thing, even for the younger crowd. I played on Normal difficulty, but the game was more than happy to offer me an invincibility power-up whenever I entered a room that had more than five enemies in it at once. While taking them is optional, they appear with such a frequency that I feel players used to stuff like Dark Souls might feel that Knack 2 is insulting their gaming ability.

          Ultimately, Knack 2 is way too easy for older players and way too boring for players of any generation, including the target demographic. If you want to play a good platformer on the PS4, the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy is still the way to go. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a game for a kid and Crash is a bit above their skillset, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is more exciting, more entertaining, and has leagues more replayability than this game could ever hope for. Save your money.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad

Editorial: Battle-stillborn

Battle-stillborn

          Alas, poor Battleborn. We hardly knew ya.

          Gearbox has officially announced that it’s pulling an Evolve and will be ending all support for its ill-fated attempt at a multiplayer hero-based arena shooter as of this week. In short, the game won’t be receiving any new characters, maps, balance changes or tweaks, a.k.a things that the modern multiplayer-exclusive game needs to survive in the most competitive market in all of video games.

          But I doubt that Battleborn’s active playerbase will mind about the lack of updates, especially considering they don’t actually exist.

          So how did the game end up in this situation? Well, that answer is simple. It arrived in this situation and never made much of an attempt to dig itself out.

          The game launched in April of last year, advertising itself as a “fusion of genres” to create what was, according to the infamous CEO of Gearbox and lifelike robot piloted by rattlesnakes Randy Pitchford (this is the part where you boo), the most ambitious game the developer had ever created. With Borderlands 3 still but a twinkle in Pitchford’s eye and hot off the heels of two games that blew it big-time (namely Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines), Gearbox needed a hit desperately.

          And, to be fair, they had all the right pieces in place here. MOBAs have quickly become one of the most popular genres at least on the PC market thanks to games like League of Legends and Dota 2, first-person shooters will never not be lucrative, and the colourful aesthetic appealed to those who’d lost interest in modern military designed games like Call of Duty.

          There was just one teensy-weensy problem standing in the game’s way: it was released less than a month before a small, relatively unknown new entrant to the competition known as…

          Oops!

          Yes, hype for Blizzard’s Overwatch was nearing its peak around the same time as Battleborn’s release, and all eyes were on it. Those who’d played the beta maintained that it was among the best shooters they’d ever played, including major gaming alumni such as TotalBiscuit. On the other hand, Battleborn launched to mixed reviews from gaming publications, and never quite managed to make it past 70 on Metacritic. Which would you rather buy?

          Considering the average gamer only buys a few games a year, the fact that Battleborn launched in the same month as its greatest rival was an immediate death sentence for the poor game. It was immediately targeted by Blizzard’s more zealous fans as being a threat to their precious new baby and was lambasted by them as a result. Adding in the extra kick in the balls in the form of below-average review scores, and Battleborn was dead in the water before it even got a chance to face Overwatch on store shelves.

          The game quickly plummeted in sales charts thanks to not only Overwatch but also the equally recent releases of Uncharted 4 and Doom. Perhaps even more embarrassing was the game’s performance on Steam, where even a graphics card overclocking software had more active “players” at one point than Battleborn.

          And keep in mind that this all happened before the game finished its first month.

          Gearbox then cooked up a new plan: drop the price on the same day Overwatch released. Dropping $20, the move failed to garner more than pity from gamers, as it looked like the game was desperately trying to garner attention from those eagerly awaiting their new copies of Blizzard’s latest.

          And the death bell had rung before the game even managed to survive its first month. Gamers only heard of Battleborn again when rumours were abounding that the game was going to give up the ghost in trying to be a direct competitor to Overwatch, and would instead be going after Paladins, a free-to-play alternative game with lots of similarities to Blizzard’s presumably targeted at those strapped for cash. In doing this, Battleborn would be going free-to-play, presumably pissing off those who paid $70 for it on launch day even further.

          Pitchford quickly attempted to quash the rumours, but they essentially came true in June of this year when the game launched its “Free Trial” mode. The trial mode essentially turned the game into, you guessed it, a free-to-play experience, where you played with a randomly rotating selection of heroes in order to earn currency and buy your favourites for permanent use.

          And now we arrive at present day. Just 16 months after the game launched and it’s already being put on life support. Even Evolve managed to last longer than that. I think the biggest one to blame here is whoever decided to schedule the game for launch. Much like EA’s misadventure last year when they cannibalized the amazing Titanfall 2 by releasing it in the same week as the latest installments in both Call of Duty and EA’s own Battlefield, Battleborn might’ve had a fighting chance if it had been released a few months earlier or later. Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 had no Overwatch issues thanks to a 3 month gap in between the two games releases, and the shooters being released in the November Warfare season didn’t have to worry about Overwatch thanks to an equal if not bigger gap since release, as well as being able to grab players who’d lost interest in the game.

          Battleborn sat squarely in the line of fire, refused to move, and as a result got shot right in the head, and now we can finally declare it dead for good.

Song of the Week

Zombies on your Lawn – Plants vs. Zombies

Princess Principal Episode 12 Review + Final Thoughts

The end…?

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Princess Principal truly has been the ultimate sleeper hit of the year for me, maybe even more. It’s rare that I stumble upon an anime that’s this high quality that gets so passed over by the majority of fans. But did the finale wrap things up in a satisfying way? Let’s find out!

EPISODE 12

          While not exactly the lowlight of the season and despite being still a very good episode, this wasn’t exactly the show at its finest. Yes, it was a very high quality episode that most other shows would bend over backwards to have as their finale, but compared to the quality of prior episodes this one doesn’t quite hold up.

          Continuing directly from last week, Princess has been wrapped up in a coup by the Commonwealth to destroy the throne once and for all, and it’s up to Ange to save the day before the evil agents decide Princess is no longer of any use to them. Along the way, Dorothy, Beatrice and Chise return to the spotlight, each of them getting a moment to shine…except Beatrice, who feels like she’s just there because she needs to be. It’s too bad, as her character managed to go from irritating to one of my favourites over the course of the show, so I kinda wanted a bit more of her.

          This episode’s biggest boasts is its action sequences, of which there are plenty. Not a frame goes by without something awesome happening onscreen, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the very last seconds.

          The last minute or so is a bit herky-jerky though, as the showrunners spend all their remaining time pumping in Season 2 fuel. Zelda manages to escape with a flying orb just like Ange’s, the main guy from HQ returns with no real explanation, and more. This is at the expense of seeing if the nobilities attending the party escape safely, or getting a proper ending for Dorothy, Beatrice and Chise outside of the post-credits sequence. It’s incredibly blatant that they want to do more with these characters, which is something I’m really onboard with. But in an industry that only guarantees a second season to the biggest of big hits, this is kind of an underwhelming finale should Princess Principal never return.

          All in all, this was a decent episode. Was it a good finale? Hard to say. I think they spent a little too much time advertising a potential Season 2 when they should’ve focused on creating a good ending for Season 1, but otherwise this was an excellent “goodbye for now” finale. The visuals and especially the music were clearly put to excellent use this week, and each character got at least a moment to themselves, even if some got more than others. All in all, while it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, I’m still thoroughly satisfied.

FINAL SCORE (Episode 22)

7/10

Good

FINAL THOUGHTS

          Wow, where to begin? Princess Principal came as a complete surprise to me. As the one show that I stuck with out of the five that caught my interest at first for the Summer 2017 season, this show rarely disappointed. The steampunk visuals and jazzy music design created a feel that I’ve never really seen in an anime before: cold and robotic, but at the same time warm and fuzzy.

          The characters are easily the show’s strongest suit. Ange, Princess, Dorothy, Chise and Beatrice are delightfully varied, and you grow to love all of them by the end of the series. Even Beatrice, who I initially wrote off as just being there so they could have a “cute” character, ended up being one of my favourites towards the end.

          The fact that this anime never got the audience it deserved is highway robbery. While it doesn’t quite have the same universal appeal as Little Witch Academia, the creativity put to use here make it an anime that all fans should check out.

          If anything, that’ll give us a better shot at a Season 2 and improving the finale.

FINAL SCORE (Overall)

9/10

Amazing

The Orville Review: “About a Girl”

Now on Thursdays!

(This review contains spoilers!)

          This episode was a surprise for a number of reasons. For one, by the looks of it The Orville has decided to flee the competition of Sunday night, instead resting in a decidedly quieter Thursday spot. This review is late because I didn’t know about the change, so that’s my bad.

          Given the potential I’ve seen in this show despite the overall lackluster quality of the first two episodes, I decided to employ the three-episode rule and give it one last shot to prove to me it can be a show worth watching. If this episode still didn’t impress me, I was out.

          Maybe it’s because I had such low expectations, but I found myself really enjoying this episode. It was everything I thought The Orville should be wrapped in a neat package: it took itself seriously and tackled big subjects like a real Star Trek episode would, but at the same time it still had several actually funny moments. That’s not to say it was perfect, because a lot of the issues that plagued the first two episodes are still here, but the episode as a whole is surprisingly poignant and smartly written.

          Following up from last week, we’re seeing the direct continuation of Bortus’ baby storyline. (I’m learning the character names as best as I can, bear with me) Given that his species is only one gender, Bortus wants to change the child to a male, a sentiment echoed by the rest of his species. However, the main crew disagrees, saying the child should decide what she wants to be when she’s older.

          There’s some interesting subtext about transgender people here, though never too much that it feels like the show is beating you over the head with the message. Throughout the episode the aliens who want to make the switch are rightfully painted as the bad guys, although there is a lot of smart discussion about not only gender politics but also stuff like birth defects from the main characters.

          The episode is also surprisingly very funny. The opening scene on the holodeck (I’m sure it has its own name, but let’s be honest, we’re all calling it the holodeck) with the dancing Mexican bandits was the show’s first real laugh out loud moment for me. Even better was how Bortus was convinced that keeping his baby a female was the right way to go. Similarly to the Real Housewives reference from the last episode, while it was a pop-culture reference, it was integrated into the story in such a way that made it both really funny but also pretty emotional when it was called back to at the end of the episode.

          This isn’t to say that all the jokes are funny. There’s still plenty of references to certain male body parts to go around, and no, none of them land. It’s really disheartening to see that this low form of humour is the show’s biggest crutch is relies upon, because at many times it risked dragging down what was otherwise a pretty smart and funny episode.

          While I do have a concern that this might be a case of the blind man getting lucky once, this episode was pretty darn good. It blended the serious storyline of Bortus’s child with some light and funny humour very well, and the ending is extremely satisfying and well thought out. More of this, please.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Star Wars Wednesday: 8 Easter Eggs in Star Wars

8 Easter Eggs in Star Wars

          Every movie tends to have a few fun little secrets hiding inside of it, and Star Wars is no different. Whether a reference to another movie, a part of the Expanded Universe, or something else entirely, there’s plenty of Easter Eggs hidden in all the Star Wars movies, and we’ll be counting down 8 of my favourites today in the order of the movies they were released in.

E.T. in the Senate

          Palpatine’s Senate chamber is full of various species from all across the galaxy, including several familiar faces such as Wookies and Ithorians. But did you also know that you can find E.T. of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial fame?

          Yes, an entire family of E.T.s can be spotted during one of the Senate scenes in Phantom Menace. While they aren’t prominently featured, they aren’t exactly hard to find either. Just keep an eye on the bottom of the screen during the Senate meetings where Amidala is playing host and you’ll surely be able to spot them.

The club full of cameos

          The scene early on in Attack of the Clones where Anakin and Obi-Wan chase bounty hunter Zam Wessel through the streets of Coruscant is a personal favourite of mine, but even I didn’t notice a bunch of these little secrets even after watching it several times.

          We all know the part where they go into the club and Obi-Wan uses the Jedi mind trick to help that deathstick vendor go home and rethink his life, but did you know that the club is filled to the brim with Star Wars references and cameos?

          Firstly, pay attention right after the two Jedi first enter the club. We see Obi-Wan looking around, and then get a shot of a group of aliens watching some kind of sport on TV. But we want to pay more attention to the screen on the far left, which is currently playing the Star Wars: Episode 1 Pod Racer game!

          Later on it looks like Zam is about to get the jump on our heroes, but Obi-Wan whips his lightsaber out in time and stops her. After she’s defeated, we get a look at two separate patrons reacting to the Jedi suddenly appearing. Recognize them? This scene is the only time we see Anthony Daniels and Ahmed Best not playing C-3PO and Jar Jar respectively in any Star Wars movie.

The Millennium Falcon on Coruscant

          Revenge of the Sith has plenty of little hidden goodies tucked away for fans to uncover, with several of them tying back to stuff in the Original Trilogy. For example, did you know that early on in the movie you can spot the Millennium Falcon docking on a Coruscant spaceport?

          While we don’t know who’s piloting it here (Lando maybe?), that’s unmistakeably the most famous ship in the entire franchise. In motion this one can be notoriously tricky to pin down thanks to the way the scene moves, but if you know what you’re looking for and the general vicinity of where to find it, it’s fairly easy to spot. Next time you’re watching Revenge of the Sith, keep your eyes on the bottom of the screen.

George Lucas as Baron Papanoida

          It’s funny that it took Lucas six movies to finally cameo in one of them, but he finally debuted onscreen in, again, Revenge of the Sith. Here he plays Baron Papanoida, a blue-skinned individual with a very silly hat.

          Unlike the Falcon, Lucas/Papanoida is fairly easy to find. He makes his one and only appearance just before the famous “Darth Plagueis the Wise” sequence, right as Anakin is approaching Palpatine’s balcony. Look to the left right before Anakin goes through the door, and you’ll find Lucas talking to his daughter, both of them in full costume.

Anakin on the Imperial insignia

          We’re still in Revenge of the Sith, and while this one can be argued as more ironic set design instead of an Easter Egg, it’s still fun to take notice of.

          After Palpatine rescues Anakin from Mustafar, pay close attention to the scene immediately after the one we see the two of them marching through the rain on Coruscant. We see Anakin lying on a bench in the chamber that’s about to attach the Vader suit to him. Notice anything familiar?

          You might need to adjust your head a bit to get the full effect, but Anakin is lying on a near-perfect Imperial Insignia. Same circular design, same six spokes, same black and white colours. It’s a nice nod to the creature Anakin is about to be turned into.

Hip-Hop Yoda

          Now here’s a real obscure one. To find what is perhaps the funniest and most difficult to find Star Wars Easter Egg of them all, you’ll need to break out an old DVD Player, an original copy of Revenge of the Sith from 2005, and a DVD remote with a numerical keypad on it.

          Next, on the main menu you must select the Options menu, and then enter 1138 on the keypad (the code itself is a reference to THX 1138, one of George Lucas’s first movies, and a topic I’ll surely get to someday). If done correctly, you’ll be presented with this:

          If that isn’t the best thing ever made, I don’t know what is.

The Outrider over Mos Eisley

          Among the more obscure references here is one added to the Special Edition of A New Hope. When Luke and Obi-Wan first enter Mos Eisley, you can catch a glimpse of a Millennium Falcon-looking ship leaving the spaceport.

          To those familiar with the old canon, this ship is instantly recognizable. This is the Outrider, a Corellian freighter belonging to Dash Rendar, main character of the massive Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire series from 1996. The series was an enormous success, so much so that when the Special Editions were being made they slipped this reference in as a nod to fans.

          Maybe I should talk about it someday.

Headbanging Stormtrooper

          This one isn’t really an Easter Egg, but it’s the only one I’ll always stop and point out to any newcomers I’m watching with. When Luke is trying to contact 3PO from the trash compactor, you see three Stormtroopers entering the room R2 and 3PO are hiding in. If you keep an eye on the trooper furthest to the right, you’ll see him accidentally bang his head on the top of the door.

          This blooper is such a classic that Star Wars itself has wholly embraced and referenced it several times. With the release of the Special Editions, a “clunk” sound effect was added to when he hits his head, further pointing out the trooper and making an already funny scene even funnier. In Attack of the Clones Jango Fett bumps his head on the door of the Slave I, a reference to the classic goof. The joke’s also appeared in several Star Wars games, such as Battlefront 2015.

          There are plenty more secrets hidden away in Star Wars, including surprise guest actors, cameos from other characters and plenty more movie references. Did I miss your favourite? Leave it in the comments below, and I’ll see you next time for more Star Wars content!

Destiny 2 Review

Homecoming

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          I have an interesting relationship with Destiny. I personally never really got into the first game, but I was able to see what it was like and learn about it through my brother, who quickly became a huge fan. Because of this, I was really looking forward to trying out Destiny 2, which promised to be a better version of the divisive first installment.

          While not exactly the most original game on the market right now, Destiny 2 is an excellent first-person shooter boasting stunning presentation, fun and engaging gameplay, and some of the best writing I’ve seen this year.

          The show is easily stolen by both the graphics and the music. The orchestrated score is just as good as everyone makes it out to be, managing to be both epic and atmospheric at the same time. The theme to The Farm area is especially pleasant to listen to. The graphics and art design are equally good, creating a fantastic sci-fi environment. Destiny 2 looks like a delightful mishmash of famous franchises from the genre, utilizing the bright colours and wacky atmosphere of Guardians of the Galaxy alongside the dark corridors and unsettling environments of Alien, occasionally used right after each other to great effect.

          There is a little left to be desired when it comes to the standard enemy types though. While they all attribute to four tribes and have designs reflecting them, they’re ultimately essentially the same enemies wearing different costumes. I would’ve liked a bit more variety in terms of their abilities, as it gets a bit tedious mowing down the same helpless robots and aliens over and over again, as I’ll discuss in a bit.

          The story is absolutely splendid, creating a great world with memorable characters and an especially intimidating villain, while at the same time never taking itself too seriously. Jokes and quips are sprinkled throughout your adventure thanks to a delightful cast of friends helping you out, and plenty of them are chuckle-worthy.

          Despite the clear humourous nature of the story, the writers also do a fantastic job in making the world one you care very much about by the end. The villain is legitimately frightening, especially after he completely wrecks your character in the first ten minutes of the game. He pops in every once in a while to give a little more background as to why he’s trying to destroy the Guardians, and these cutscenes are among the highlights of the game’s story. The characters that fight with you are equally fantastic, giving you a reason to want to take down the Cabal in the end.

          As for the gameplay, Destiny 2 retains the hybrid first-person shooter/MMO style that made it famous in the first place. You, alongside an optional group of friends, can jump across the solar system, complete story missions and sidequests, participate in awesome public events, or just play in PvP multiplayer. Everything plays just fine, but I found parts of it to be a little bit underwhelming.

          Destiny 2 is a perfectly fine, well balanced and completely enjoyable first-person shooter experience, but its biggest flaw comes in the fact that it never really tries to go outside of its comfort zone until the final chapters of the story. Each of the story missions and sidequests boil down to essentially the same ingredients: follow a path, shoot some enemies along the way, enter a no-respawn arena zone, fight a large number of enemies and sometimes a boss monster, and then you move onto the next one. Don’t get me wrong, the missions aren’t bad by any means, in fact I only found a couple of sidequests that I actively disliked. It’s just that once you’re two thirds of the way to the end and there hasn’t really been a big action sequence to rival the amazing opening or a special level with a cool exclusive item, I started to roll my eyes a bit whenever I found myself in yet another arena with a horde of Vex bearing down on me.

          On the other hand, public events are a complete blast, and something I’d like to see more often in games even if they aren’t multiplayer. At any given time a horde of enemies will spawn in a map, and if certain qualifications are met, they’ll be followed by an enormous boss that’ll take you and all the other players nearby to take down. If you manage to defeat it before time runs out, you’ll be rewarded with not only cool new gear, but also secret unlockable subclasses to power up your Guardian even further. These are incredibly fun, and the way they’re integrated into customizing your Guardian even further is fantastic.

          PvP multiplayer is here as well, and while it’s perfectly fine for those looking for that sort of thing, I actually found running around the world and finding new goodies way more fun. PvP is less of a huge chunk of the game and more like a fun alternative to the real meat and potatoes, which I’m perfectly fine with.

          Destiny 2 is an extremely stellar experience. Despite knowing nothing about the original game’s lore going in I thoroughly enjoyed the story and characters thanks to the extremely funny and smart writing. The gameplay is equally fantastic, and the system to gather loot and new gear is both rewarding and addicting. Lastly, it can’t be emphasized enough how good the art design and music are. If you have a 4K console, this will easily be one of the standout titles on it this year. Whether you’re a franchise newcomer or have been playing since the first installment, Destiny 2 will have you hooked in seconds.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Editorial: Bungie’s Wonderful World of Colour

Bungie’s Wonderful World of Colour

          Despite my misgivings with the first game, I was expecting Destiny 2 to be a fun romp at the very least. Going into the game I was expecting to mow down some aliens while making my way through a passable attempt at a story like most similar titles. What I wasn’t expecting was to find that the game was an aesthetic marvel, boasting a brilliantly written story, a spectacular soundtrack, and, perhaps most importantly, a gorgeous visual design.

          The gameplay’s good too but I’ll talk about that when I review the darn thing.

          Yes, Destiny 2 of all games has emerged as a clear frontrunner for graphical and visual design awards to be given out at the end of the year. How did it do this? It decided to embrace its sci-fi roots and pour every colour in the rainbow all over the game, making it a delight to look at. Different planets are a delight to visit thanks to how unique and beautiful they all look, plus with each new world having its own colour palette. Earth is predominantly green, Io is smothered in yellow rocks, and so on and so forth.

          This has been a growing trend in gaming recently, and one I’m happy has caught on: colour is back, baby!

          I think we can safely say that the days of ugly games trying to justify themselves by being “grim ‘n gritty” just for the sake of it are almost completely behind us. While there are still some outliers (mostly in games where it makes thematic sense for the ugliness, like Gears of War), they’ve become the exception instead of the norm.

          If anything, this year’s games have been just plain splendid at demonstrating the graphical prowess of their systems. 4K might be the cause of it, but whatever the reason I’m thankful. Games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy are powerhouses not just in how realistic they make the games look, but also in how memorable their art design is.

          Art design is something that goes woefully underappreciated when talking about game graphics. Yes, it’s all well and good how you can see every single pore on your main character’s face, but what happens when your game’s looks are completely unmemorable afterwards?

          A good example is a lot of the late 2000’s to early 2010’s Call of Duty releases. Pick any of those games (there’s a lot of them) and try to visualize any specific and memorable visuals from that game.

          And now try and visualize any character from Overwatch.

          The second one was way easier than the first, wasn’t it? That’s thanks to superb art design. Overwatch’s extensive cast of characters and world are immediately recognizable and iconic, whereas all the Call of Duty games are so indistinct from each other and use such uninteresting colour palettes that it’s become a challenge just trying to remember a specific part from one of them.

          And now we come back to Destiny 2. Despite being at its core not dissimilar to Call of Duty mechanics-wise, the planets and scenery are some of the most memorable I’ve seen all year thanks to the hard work and effort put into the art design. What could’ve so easily looked indistinguishable from every other sci-fi first person shooter now has its own look and flavour that fans can use to recognize it by.

Song of the Week

The Farm – Destiny 2