After a pair of two-part episodes, it’s
time for the Rebels to return to home base: Lothal. It’s nice to go back to
Lothal every once in a while to return to the show’s roots, and these episodes
were no different as we saw a few returning faces as well as several teases for
things to come.
Both episodes were exceptionally well
done, even by Rebels standards. While
the first episode was far darker than the second, each had great moments with
the characters while still setting up plotlines for the future.
The first episode, The Occupation, was the better of the
two, as the Rebels return to a Lothal completely under the Empire’s control.
The background art and lighting in this episode was exceptional, as they were
able to show off the burned atmosphere of a once peaceful planet exceptionally.
The darker themes translated into the
story, as Ezra and friends struggled to find their way through the streets of
Imperial Lothal without attracting trouble. They manage to escape with the help
of that kid Ezra broke out of the Imperial Academy in Season 1, travelling
through the sewers to escape.
They get away of course, leading
directly into the second episode. I do find it weird that we’re still doing
double features every week instead of one episode at a time, especially since
this season’s been confirmed to be shorter than others. We only have roughly 10
episodes left after this week, and hopefully they’ll start padding them out
once the New Year begins so we don’t run out quickly.
The second episode, Flight of the Defender, had a much more
lighthearted tone to it, while bringing some mystical Force elements back into
play. Ezra and Sabine are charged with getting some data on a prototype TIE
Fighter that is rumoured to be the fastest thing the Empire has in their fleet.
There were a lot of fun moments here,
like the stupid Stormtroopers chasing the lothcats miles from the base. Things
did get a little silly when you consider why Sabine didn’t just use the TIE to
kill Thrawn while he was standing still, but overall this was a fun episode
with a lot of great ship action.
And I have to bring up the elephant in
the room: the lothwolf at the end. First glimpsed in the trailer, fans have
theorized endlessly on what this thing is going to be. While we didn’t get much
info here, we got a few basic tidbits on what’s going on with it: first off,
only Ezra can see it, probably because he’s force sensitive. I’d say Kanan
could probably see it too, but…you know.
And the other thing is what the wolf
says before it disappears at the end of the episode: according to fans who
watched the episode with closed captioning on, while it may have sounded like “Doom”,
it was actually saying “Dume”, which is apparently Kanan’s real last name. I
guess that was a thing from the Kanan comics I never read.
Overall these were both excellent
episodes for entirely different reasons. The first part was great for being
dark and different, showing Lothal in a completely different light than we’ve
seen it before, and the second episode was a ton of fun and reintroduced the
Force mysticism I’ve come to love from this show. While we may be rocketing
through the season at record pace, I’ve actually found myself hoping the
episodes are padded out a bit so we don’t end the show too soon.
It’s that time of year again!
Halloween is right around the corner, and continuing on tradition, it’s time
once again for a spooky Top 10 list. Last year I gave you my Top 10 Best Creepy
Easter Eggs, and this year I have my Top 8 Creepiest Enemies in Non-Horror
Games. The only rule is only one entry per game franchise, and again, this is
just my opinion, so take it as you will.
8. Ghost (Hitman: Contracts)
Starting off with a simple one, this is just a random ghost
you can find in the mission “Traditions of the Trade”. If you go into just the
right area of the mission early on, you’ll get a glimpse of the ghost wandering
through the halls of the hotel you’re in. Later on in a washroom you can see
the spectre again through a mirror. Pretty creepy stuff added into an already
gloomy game, but what makes this count as an enemy?
Hilariously, the ghost can be killed
just like any other enemy in the game. Whether this is a joke or a programming
oversight is unclear, but you can do it. Even funnier is the fact that if someone
spots you strangling the ghost, they’ll send all the guards in the building
after you as if you’d just been spotted killing a living person. And perhaps
best of all, if you manage to kill the ghost without being spotted in the HD
remastered version of the game, you’ll receive an achievement titled simply
“Ghostbuster”.
7. Drifloon (Pokémon)
Pokémon is, for the most part, as
cutesy and kid-friendly as it gets. Aside from a few unnerving areas such as
Lavender Town and Mt. Pyre, things rarely stop being fun and colourful.
That is, of course, until you open
your Pokédex and look at the descriptions given for the colourful critters
you’ve seen on your journey. Kabutops slices open its prey and drinks their
entrails. Cacturne follows lost wanderers through the desert until they
collapse. Mimikyu hides under a cloak because its true form would scare anyone
who looks upon it to death. All sorts of stuff the people in these games are
perfectly happy exposing 10 year olds to!
Perhaps scariest of all is Drifloon,
the adorable Ghost/Flying typed balloon-like Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Nearly half
of Drifloon’s dex entries describe how it uses it’s balloon-like appearance to
grab onto children’s hands and cause them to vanish. For years we had no idea
what Drifloon did to the poor kids, until Pokémon
Sun cleared things up, saying that it dragged them away to the afterlife.
So yeah. While it never actually does
any of these things in-game, it should help you sleep at night that you can put
the Sinnoh region’s resident child murderer under control thanks to a simple
Poké Ball.
6. Dastardos (Viva Piñata)
Viva
Piñata is a deceptively tricky game hidden behind a cutesy atmosphere. The
further you delve into the papery, colourful world of Piñata Island, the more
things you’ll need to keep track of. Crops need watering, predatory visiting
Piñata need to be kept away, need requirements must be met, villains bent on
destroying your hard work must be taken care of, and your Piñata must be kept
healthy.
If that last requirement isn’t taken
care of, your animals will become sick, requiring a visit from the local doctor
to nurse them back to health. But if you leave them ill for too long without
calling the doctor, one of those villains I was talking about will show up.
Called Dastardos, he floats through
your garden moaning a weird song until he stumbles across the ill Piñata, which
he then smashes to pieces. The thing about him is that as long as you keep on
top of things, you can have entire playthroughs without ever even seeing him.
What really makes him unnerving is his
origin story. According to the Storybook you piece together over the course of
the first game, Jardinero (the guy who gave you the garden that appears to award you
various upgrades) had four children: Stardos, Leafos, Storkos and Seedos. The
latter three help you out on your journey, but Stardos is nowhere to
be found. According to the later chapters of the book, Stardos followed the
villainous Professor Pester into the jungle, and hasn’t been seen since.
Dastardos arrived sometime after Stardos disappeared. So basically when
Dastardos shows up in your garden, you’re trying to fend off a kid corrupted by
evil voodoo from smashing your paper animals.
Man, this game is weird.
5. 02 (Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards)
Another franchise you wouldn’t expect
creepiness out of is Kirby. Just one
look at the design on Kirby himself, the world’s he’s in, and most of the
enemies tell you that this is a cutesy adventure aimed at young kids.
But all that goes out the window at
the end of Kirby 64 when you reach
the final boss and come face to face with this monstrosity.
Called 02, this thing is probably the
most gruesome thing ever seen in a Nintendo game. You have to shoot crystals
into its eye, which bleeds on contact. Seriously. And this like Ocarina of Time where they colour
corrected the blood to be green in later versions. This is the real red deal.
Seriously, how did this make it into a Kirby
game of all things?
4. The Piano (Super Mario 64)
For many this was the first jumpscare
they ever saw in a video game. Big Boo’s Haunt is unnerving enough already,
what with the Boos and ghostly enemies everywhere, the creepy text box that
taunts you every time you try to kill something, and the eerie music box that
plays in the carousel underneath the level.
But nothing, and I mean nothing compares to the Piano. At first
glance it looks like a regular old piano, nothing too scary. But take one step
too close to it and suddenly it springs to life, making clanging piano noises
with every step as it lurches closer to Mario.
Even worse, you’re forced to come into
close contact with the Piano on one of the Red Coin levels. The devs hid a Red
Coin right behind the thing, and this ended up being a true test of bravery to see who wanted that Star the most.
3. Creepers (Minecraft)
Minecraft gets a bad rap. When playing
alone it can be one of the most unnerving experiences you can have with a
non-horror game. The atmospheric noises coupled with the fact that your
adventure can end by the hand of a number of unholy terrors at any moment is
legitimately scary if you don’t have friends around to lighten the mood.
I considered putting both the Endermen
and the Ghasts on this list, if only because of the noises they make and the
threats they pose to you if you aren’t prepared. But at the end of the day
those two aren’t super scary if you know what you’re dealing with and have the
means to take care of them.
Creepers, on the other hand, are
nightmarish creatures that can ruin your house, your world, and your entire day
if you let them get the better of you. At any moment in the game if you leave
yourself vulnerable and the spawn conditions for hostile mobs are met, you’ll
hear a hissing noise from behind you, followed by a massive explosion. On
higher levels of difficulty a close encounter with a Creeper often leads to
immediate death. Even if you’ve had a perfect Hardcore mode run, one wrong step
near a Creeper can end your entire playthrough in seconds.
While the Creepers themselves are
scary, it’s really the implication of the danger they pose that make them truly
terrifying. The fact that your adventure could either be massively set back or
end entirely if you aren’t careful is one of the best examples of horror I’ve
seen in a game, and it isn’t even in a game designed to scare you.
2. Giygas (Earthbound)
The Mother series has never shied away from including much darker
elements in the games than their initial quirky exterior let on, and the most
famous entry in the franchise, Earthbound,
is no different.
The final boss of the game, an entity
known as Giygas, is the closest Nintendo will ever get to having an eldritch
horror in their game. After a final showdown with your nemesis Porky, the beast
is unleashed, taking the form of what looks like a red ghost skull…thing. The
normally upbeat and energetic battle music cuts out as well, and is replaced by
this:
Rated E for Everyone!
The boss fight gets even creepier when
Giygas changes form. He splits into multiple versions of the same screaming red
skull-thing, albeit with a distinct pattern tying them all together. If you
look really closely, it looks like the red and black match together make the
shape of a human baby. The creator of the game claims this was merely a
coincidence, but you be the judge. I think the resemblance is unmistakable
myself.
1. The Dead Hand (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
Remember
when I said 02 was the most gruesome thing in a Nintendo game? Well, I lied.
Despite being rated E for Everyone
(like almost all of the other games on this list), Ocarina of Time had to be significantly toned down in later
releases. The infamous Muslim chant was removed from the Fire Temple
soundtrack, the Gerudo symbol was changed, and most instances of blood in the
game was colour corrected from red to green.
That is, except for the bloodstains on
the Dead Hand.
Forget the ReDeads, this is the single scariest thing ever
put into a Nintendo game, let alone a Zelda
game. You walk into a room where the walls and ground are built from
nothing but skulls and bones. In the room are long, pale arms with sharp red claws.
Then, nothing happens until you walk too close to one of the arms and you’re
grabbed by one of them. Then, the worst thing you’ve ever seen burrows out of
the ground and starts lunging at you.
It’s kind of hard to explain it
because frankly even I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but the Dead Hand’s
appearance most closely resembles pure nightmares. At first glance it looks
like a giant white worm, albeit with bloodstains everywhere and the most
horrible face 1998 graphics can give you.
The Dead Hand eventually got toned
down significantly in the 3DS remake, removing the bloodstains from its skin,
but despite that it still remains arguably the most terrifying moment in a
non-horror game.
It’s weird to think it’s been six
years since we’ve had a true 3D Mario game.
Ever since he wrapped up his intergalactic adventures, Mario has remained
squarely in his roots of classic sidescrolling action. The closest game we got,
3D World, felt more like a 3D-ized
version of a classic 2D Mario sidescroller
than 64, Sunshine or the Galaxy games,
and as a result felt pretty cookie cutter and uninspired.
But with the arrival of the Nintendo
Switch, it was finally time for the plumber in red to return to his classic 3D
formula. Super Mario Odyssey was
clearly made with Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine in mind, as the
devs returned to large, sandbox-type worlds with plenty of enemies to stomp,
platforms to jump, and secrets to find. Were they able to recapture the magic
of what came before, or is this yet another 3D platformer that ends up being
little more to nostalgic fans of the good ol’ days?
I think Odyssey is best compared to Zelda:
Breath of the Wild in some regards. Breath
of the Wild came along and revitalized the Zelda franchise in a way that made it both fresh and new while at
the same time not shying away from what made the games so popular in the past. Odyssey is exactly the same way. This
game will be looked back upon in ten years the way we currently reminisce on Super Mario Galaxy: it’s one of, if not
the best game Mario has ever starred in, and has become both a must-have game
for Switch owners and an instant Nintendo classic in record time.
Just like all Mario games, the story is deep, thought provoking, and has some
very profound things to say about life and the concept of existence. Bowser has
finally decided to cut the crap and get rid of Mario once and for all, taking
Peach as his bride in the process. Seriously, every time you see Bowser in this
game legitimately it feels like he’s out for blood instead of just a slice of
Peach’s cake or whatever. Your job, as Mario, is as always to rescue the
princess before the wedding can take place.
Alongside you this time is Cappy, a
ghost-like…thing that hides inside your hat and allows you to use it as a
projectile weapon of sorts. I’ll talk more about how that works later, but as
for Cappy as a character, he’s fine. He doesn’t have a deep backstory or a
three-dimensional character depth. He’s just a fun companion that adds some
entertaining commentary and gameplay tips along the way. I enjoyed him in the
same way I liked Sunshine’s
F.L.U.D.D: as a cute friend that didn’t intercept the adventure too much.
Odyssey’s
presentation is fantastic, and brings to mind plenty of classic Mario favourites. The game looks
gorgeous in both docked and undocked mode, with no frame drops from what I
could see. You can see every single hair on Mario’s mustache this time around,
and I’d just like to appreciate the fact that someone at Nintendo had to work
on that. The music is also incredibly stellar, as is to be expected from a
Nintendo game at this point. While only time will tell if any of the songs from
Odyssey will match up with past
favourites like Bob-Omb Battlefield, Delfino Plaza and Gusty Garden Galaxy, I
found myself enjoying quite a few of them, especially the music from the
Cascade Kingdom, Sand Kingdom, and New Donk City.
Speaking of those, let’s talk about
the levels. There are several, each of them with a specific theme. You’ve got
your typical ice, underwater and desert themed worlds, as well as several more
original types, including ones based on food, hats and yes, a city inspired by
a combination of New York and Donkey Kong.
While some worlds are bigger and more in depth than others, each is a complete
delight to explore from top to bottom as you search for treasure. New Donk City
ended up being my personal favourite of the bunch, as it’s filled to the brim
with stuff to do and buildings to climg. Equally good is the Sand Kingdom of
Tostarena, which I spent hours in finding oodles of secrets.
Said secrets come in the form of Power
Moons. Just like Stars and Shine Sprites in previous games, Moons are your main
source of progression in Odyssey. Collecting
enough of them will power up your ship enough to fly you to the next world. But
unlike previous celestial objects in 3D Mario
games, Moons are everywhere. You
can find moons hidden in boxes, being held by Toads, under rocks, behind your
ear, on top of towers, in your breakfast cereal, across treacherous platforming
challenges, after the end credits for Thor:
Ragnarok, inside mysterious temples, and more. From what I’ve heard there
are around 999 (!!!) in total, so you’ve got your work cut out for you finding
them all. The sheer number of them results in some being easier to find than
others, but Mario pros don’t need to
worry either, as there are quite a few tricky Moons that require some real
platforming finesse to track down. Overall the Moons are fun to find in the
same way that made Breath of the Wild’s
Shrines so entertaining, as the quest to uncover them is twice as fun as finally
adding one to your collection.
Lastly, let’s talk about Mario himself
and his moveset. He controls exceptionally well, although I did find him a
little faster than in past installments, which took a bit of getting used to.
All your favourite moves from the past are back, including the triple jump,
long jump, backflip, and many more.
As for the much-touted new feature to
the game, the Capture ability is easily the best move Mario has ever had in his
arsenal, and it’d be a shame if we never saw it again in another game. The way
it works is that Mario throws Cappy out in front of him. You can do a number of
things with this move, from dispatching small enemies and objects to using
Cappy as a platform to activating levers and more, but what really makes it fun
is when you use it on certain enemies and NPCs. On most creatures you find in
the overworld, throwing Cappy at them will allow Mario to take control of them
for however long you wish. It’s tons of fun to take control of everything from
classic Mario enemies to new baddies
to even crazier creatures like a T-rex or a random city slicker. The
possibilities are near endless, and the developers do everything they can with
the concept. Much like MarioSunshine being designed around using the
F.L.U.D.D pack, many of Odyssey’s
wilder puzzles are solved by taking control (literally) of your environment and
using it to your advantage.
Despite me singing nothing but praise
for this game, I do have a few nitpicks with it. First off, I was a little
disappointed that the costumes you buy for Mario don’t offer any real changes
to the gameplay. I still loved using them and I’m glad they weren’t just used
as fluff for microtransactions, but I would’ve liked more of a reason to spend
coins on them than just “I wanna see how Mario looks in this.” Again, it’s
still beyond hilarious to see him in his boxer shorts or in an outfit
referencing one of his past games, but I would’ve liked more of a reason to
track down rare purple coins to get some of the fancier outfits.
And secondly, I found the main campaign
a little too short. Maybe it’s just because I loved the game so much and didn’t
want to stop playing, but I was able to see all the main worlds and finish the
story in just over a day. While the post-game content has kept me very
entertained, I would’ve liked if they’d used some padding to keep me in worlds
for a bit longer. I was in and out of the snow themed kingdom in about 15
minutes, and while there’s plenty more Moons to find there, I would’ve
preferred staying there a while longer instead of getting rushed to Bowser’s
Castle.
All in all though, those are just
minor gripes. I can happily say that Super
Mario Odyssey is the current highlight of the Switch’s library, even
alongside amazing games like Breath of
the Wild and Splatoon 2.
Everything is done either perfectly or just shy of perfectly, from the world
design to the presentation to the awesome Capture system to the near endless
supply of Moons to collect, ensuring plenty of replayability even after you
reach the end of the somewhat disappointingly short campaign. If you’re still
holding out on picking up a Switch, this is the game that you should buy one
for.
There really wasn’t too much to talk
about this week, so I’ll keep this review brief.
Thanks to Kanazawa (who’s disappeared
into the night) the girls now have a camera at their disposal. As they explore
the new level of the city, they start to discover strange, tall statues that
all stare off to the side. Following the statues lead them to a temple where an
inscription describes a god the people who came before worshipped, as well as a
room with a statue of said god alongside the flowers.
There’s one major drop in this episode
lore-wise, but it’s so subtle you could miss it. I personally only found it out
because some guy online pointed it out in a discussion thread. On the camera
screen, the date reads August 6, 3230. We know this is a date and not a bunch
of random numbers because it changes to August 7, 3230 in the next segment,
which takes place the day after the previous one. So we’ve got a year! The story
taking place a full millennium and more after modern day explains why the girls
don’t know about a lot of commonplace stuff like oceans and cheese, as well as
the overall unusual design of the city. It’s a little strange that it was
snowing so hard earlier if this episode takes place in August, but maybe that’ll
be explained later on down the line.
As always, Chi and Yuu’s relationship
remains the highlight, and they have a lot of fun moments together. Especially
interesting is a brief scene where Yuu thinks she’s lost Chi and takes a moment
to wonder what she would do without her. Of course everything turns out fine in
the end, but the fact that there are some real gloomy and existential moments
slipped into what is essentially a slice-of-life show with an apocalypse
setting really makes you wonder if they’re setting up something for the future.
While it didn’t give me too much
material to write about, this was another very strong episode of Girls’ Last Tour. There’s just something
really compelling about this series that other slice-of-life shows seem to miss
out on. Maybe it’s the relaxed nature and quirky sense of humour that made Non Non Biyori work? Or maybe how the
genre clashes with the setting is the culprit? Whatever the case, this remains
a show I always get excited to see more of.
Last time on The Orville, we got high-stakes action, awesome alien environments,
and fantastic moral dilemmas for our characters to face! What do they have for
us this week?
A sluggish and downright annoying
episode with a preachy message and the most boring setting known to mankind?
Well, that’s disappointing.
Yeah, I wasn’t too hot on this week’s
episode. The crew is sent down to a planet to rescue some missing
anthropologists. It turns out that, what do you know, the planet is a near
perfect replica of 21st Century Earth. Wow, isn’t that convenient.
Seriously, could they have picked a
more boring idea for a location? After having episodes on Bortus’s home planet
and the Krill ship, modern day Earth feels like a cheap cop-out. Maybe the
Krill makeup was so expensive they had no other choice, but overall this episode
has just a very bland and basic tone overall.
It turns out this planet is ruled
entirely by the popular vote. If someone likes someone, they give them an
upvote. If they don’t like someone, they get a downvote. Too many downvotes and
they start parading you around so you can try to apologize to the people. If
that doesn’t work, they fry your brain and turn you into a vegetable
(figuratively).
It’s not a bad concept and there are
quite a few good morals hidden in there, but when you have it set on what is
essentially modern day Earth, it feels less like a fun allegory and more like
the writers beating you over the head saying “THIS IS YOU! THIS IS WHAT SOCIAL
MEDIA DOES TO YOU! NOTICE THAT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE YOU!”
LaMarr gets his first major role this
week, as he earns the ire of the entire civilization after pretending to hump a
statue. It’s kind of irritating that the black guy’s first main role is in an
episode where he has to deal with oppression and is treated like a criminal by everybody
(seriously, they couldn’t have it be anybody else?), but the actor does a good
job with what he’s given regardless.
There’s also a lot of inconsistencies
in this episode. Having the crew be sent down to this planet without any
research on what the planet is like is just plain frustrating, but I guess it
can be explained away by the fact that no one aside from the anthropologists
know what the planet is like. Even more annoying is why they don’t just beam
LaMarr back on the ship and rocket the hell away. Mercer calls the admiral
early on to ask this question, but the admiral basically reads him the Prime
Directive from Star Trek to explain
why he can’t. That’s all fine and dandy, but later on they bring the doctor
back onboard no problem! And I know they didn’t use the shuttle they used to
get down there to get her back, because we see Alara use it later on by herself
to transport a girl from the planet onboard the ship!
Oh yeah, that’s a thing too. They
bring this random barista onboard the ship to try and get LaMarr out of
trouble. The way they solve the problem feels pretty “we’re reaching the 45
minute mark, think of a clever solution!”, but it’s a funny ending nonetheless,
flooding the feed with sympathetic pictures and videos of LaMarr created by Isaac.
This episode is the very definition of
weak, especially when you consider the two episodes that came directly before
it. The setting is dull, LaMarr’s storyline is just plain frustrating instead
of tense, the allegories are way too obvious, and some of the plot holes are so
big you could fly the Orville through
them. I do think this concept could’ve worked better if they tried to go a
little more sci-fi with the world instead of just having it be “oh yeah this
planet is just like Earth in the 21st century!”, like they did with the
biosphere ship episode. Overall, you can definitely give this episode a pass.
After a frustrating and underwhelming
premiere, Star Wars Rebels managed to
spin itself back in the right direction this week with lots of action, fun, and
a very smart story that ties directly into Rogue
One.
Honestly, they should’ve used this
episode as the season premiere and saved Mandalore for next week. Everything
you want out of a good Rebels episode
is present in this two-parter. The Rebels have arrived on Yavin IV to join up
with the Rebellion once again, this time alongside Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and
that one bearded guy who’s name nobody knows. The Rebels are sent on a mission
to mess with a deflector dish Star Trek 2009
style, but things go quickly awry when Saw Gerrera shows up and recruits Ezra
and Sabine to help him uncover a dark secret of the Empire’s.
Saw Gerrera is always a welcome
presence, especially when he’s voiced by Forest Whitaker. It was really cool
how they moved him closer to how he looks in Rogue One than how he appeared in Season 3, but still missing a few
of the robotic parts he has in the movie. He also was the source of a great
moral question: how far is the Rebellion willing to go to take down the Empire?
Being a two part episode, the episode
is split into two separate stories, both of them good ones. The first half is
dedicated to the crew arriving on Yavin IV and trying to disable the Empire’s
deflector dish, and the second half sees Ezra and Sabine teaming up with Saw to
infiltrate a cargo ship to see what the Empire’s working on. Unlike the
ploddingly paced Mandalore episode, both storylines are supremely enjoyable and
kept me glued to my screen the whole time.
This episode tied in to Rogue One quite a bit not just with the
inclusion of Saw and Yavin IV, but also the presence of Deathtroopers as well
as the kyber crystals we know the Empire is using to charge the Death Star
laser. Granted that you can see both Chopper and the Ghost briefly in Rogue One
I wouldn’t be surprised if we got more ties to it throughout the season as we
get closer and closer to the time it takes place.
Please give us a Cassian and K-2SO
episode, guys.
Overall, I enjoyed this episode
leagues more than the premiere. It really felt like a true animated Star Wars adventure with the action,
comedy, quiet moments with Kanan and the kyber crystal stuff, and ties to the
movies with the Rogue One stuff.
While I still think the show isn’t quite as good as it was at the end of Season
3, I’m more than happy to give it the time it needs to get its space legs back.
It’s no secret that the Triple-A
gaming industry has really ramped up their usual scumbagginess to the 10th
degree this year. We’ve had a rogue’s gallery of games notorious for extreme
shadiness in backdoor loot box and microtransaction policies emerge in just the
past few months, and it looks like things won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
Recently those slimy scoundrels over
at GameStop were tasked with encouraging pre-orders for Assassin’s Creed Origins. As usual with these types of games,
pre-ordering will unlock you a bonus mission along with some other optional
stuff. How did GameStop decide to advertise this?
…Oof.
It’s become fairly obvious recently
that whoever GameStop’s got in charge of social media and advertising doesn’t
have a clue how to handle those things. What I can only hope were attempts to
ape the fun and sarcastic quips utilized by the Wendy’s Twitter account instead
came across as rude and patronizing, basically acting like the ultimate gamer
stereotype. Because that’s what we want our most prominent retailer coming
across as!
Anyways, back on track. I think I can
safely say that I’ve never quite seen an ad like this one for any form of
entertainment. Normally ads for pre-orders try to look all friendly, like “Hey,
if you buy the game now, look at all these cool extra goodies you’ll get!”
And on the other hand, there’s this
ad. “Sorry, the bonus mission is blocked unless you pre-order the game” in
bright red bold text on an all-black background certainly draws eyes, but it
doesn’t exactly breed excitement as it does worry and fear. See, what these ads
are always trying to accomplish regardless of their specific approaches is the
same thing: they want you to pre-order the game. But, as I said before, the
usual tactic is showing off the cool stuff you’ll get if you don’t pre-order,
and subtly encouraging you to put money down because of that.
Here, the tactic is blatant. They’re
not suggesting that there’s some cool stuff you’ll miss out on if you don’t
pre-order here. They’re full on telling you
that if you don’t put money down early for their game exclusively at GameStop,
there’s content that’ll be gated off to you in the final product.
Until it inevitably becomes available
to everyone else via DLC in a few months’ time, of course.
Honestly, the real kicker here is the
phrasing of the whole thing. I imagine that if GameStop had instead worded the
ad by saying “Pre-Order now and get a secret exclusive sidequest!” or whatever
people wouldn’t nearly be as up in arms about it. But the word “blocked” isn’t
exactly something gamers enjoy hearing. “Blocked” makes you think of something
held off unfairly, like you’re a baby and there’s a fence cutting you off from
entering the room where Mom keeps her fine china. “Blocked” also brings thoughts
of censorship, region locking and all that other stuff people don’t like
infesting their games.
And the ad doesn’t even say what the
mission is. Normally with stuff like this you get a fair idea of what you’ll be
getting if you pre-order, like a special gun or character costume. But not
here. For all we know the ultra-exclusive “blocked bonus mission” is one where
you trek across the world gathering apples for some random lady running a fruit
stand.
It’s unclear whether this is GameStop’s
fault or yet another misstep as Ubisoft desperately claws at the chance to
redeem their sins of the past, but personally I think it’s the former. My guess
is that Ubisoft told GameStop about the exclusive pre-order mission and told
them to build an ad around it, and GameStop created the worst possible thing they
could.
I have to agree with Jim Sterling when
he said that this ad is essentially the gaming equivalent of an infomercial
that says “Order now while stocks last for this limited edition product! If you
miss out it’ll never come back!” That doesn’t drive customer interest in a
product nearly as much as it drives fear into a consumer’s mind. When we buy
something, we want the complete package, especially when it comes to video
games that often cost upwards of $60. And when you think about casual customers who buy a few games a year
from names they recognize, that is when this ad’s true insidiousness comes into
play.
Assassin’s
Creed is one of those series that a lot of casual gamers buy annually
thanks to a new game being released nearly every year. Thanks to that, GameStop
knows that they can count on those who don’t pay too much attention to the
industry as a whole to take one look at this ad and think “Oh, that’s for Assassin’s Creed! I’d better pre-order
it now to make sure I don’t miss out on that blocked mission!”, therefore
putting money in the hands of GameStop and Ubisoft before any reviews appear. That’s
what’s up with the red and black colour scheme here. This isn’t an ad gently
encouraging you to pre-order a game because if you do it’ll net you a few fun
bonuses. This is an ad saying that if you don’t blindly throw money at one of
gaming’s most untrustworthy developers, they’ll block you from experiencing
content.
And that just makes me sick. Game
industry, you’re better than this.
Girls’
Last Tour is such a delightful enigma. This episode continues to subvert
anime expectations, as we explore another trope of apocalypse storylines and
turn it into another cute, fun and happy adventure through the wasteland.
Continuing off from last week, the
girls are continuing on their merry way to the tower they spotted, trying to
get to a higher level of this mysterious city. Along the way, they meet a new
character: a map-maker known as Kanazawa. He helps them reach the tower, but as
they climb upwards in the elevator things start to get interesting.
One thing I’d like to point out is how
Kanazawa’s character seems like a reversal of the typical one-off character you’d
see in an apocalypse show. Usually, if our heroes come across some random guy
in one episode who looks like he’s going to help them, the episode ends with
him turning on them and things getting worse for both of them. Given the
overall kind themes of this show, we get nothing of the sort from Kanazawa.
While he’s not someone I think I’d like to stick around for more than another
episode or two, having an extra companion along for the ride was fun.
The entire sequence on the elevator
and the immediate aftermath is some amazing storytelling. The entire episode is
built around a single question: “What makes life worth living?” For Kanazawa,
the answer is his maps. But as the rickety elevator taking them up to the next
floor begins to shake, his maps fall out as a result. For Kanazawa, he thinks
he might as well follow them out of the elevator window, but Chi and Yuu force
him to go up with them. Yuu then gives the answer to the question: life doesn’t
need to have a reason to be worth living. It’s a delightful ending to an
excellent episode.
The one gripe I have is that the
ending seemed a little rushed. Granted, they covered the moral excellently, but
I would’ve liked to see how they fixed the elevator after getting stuck. The
scene in between the maps falling out and them at the top of the tower is
framed kind of weird. It basically goes “Boy, I hope we can fix the elevator.” followed
by a cut to them at the top and saying “I’m sure glad we fixed that elevator!”
It’s a little weird, but if we had to skip it to get the great ending it was
all worth it.
There was a little bit more lore
sprinkled in this week too. Kanazawa said the elevator is hundreds of years
old, which again poses the question: how long have Chi and Yuu been around for?
The art style makes it kind of hard to tell exactly how old they are. I really
want to learn their full backstories as well as how this world came to be.
This was another fantastic episode of Girls’ Last Tour. Adding in a third
character to push home the existential question posed in the first minute of
the episode was brilliant, as was the way that question was answered. His
interactions with Chi and Yuu were a lot of fun as well. While we might not see
Kanazawa again, he was a great one-time addition.
Star Wars Rebels began its final season
on Monday, as we prepare to say goodbye to Ezra, Hera, Sabine and friends as
they embark on their last adventures. Over the course of the show we’ve seen
many callbacks and characters from the ever-popular Clone Wars cartoon. But what you may not know about is that Star Wars: The Clone Wars was not the
original cartoon set during this time period.
Called
Star Wars: Clone Wars (you can tell
it’s different from the more popular version because this one doesn’t have a
“The” in the title), this cartoon was a hand-drawn take on the titular battles
and aired from November 2003 to March 2005. It was directed by Genndy
Tartakovsky, who you might know as the director of the Hotel Transylvania movies or as the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai
Jack.
With
the Prequel Trilogy preparing to conclude, Lucasfilm wanted to create a cartoon
series that filled in the gaps between Attack
of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
This show attempted to do just that, using an animation style not dissimilar to
Tartakovsky’s own Samurai Jack.
Overall the show looks really stylized, like nothing else you can find in Star Wars.
Instead
of character and story driven content like the 2008 Clone Wars utilized, this series was all about one thing: awesome
battles. Every episode would see your favourite Jedi alongside massive armies
of Clone troopers slicing their way through hordes of battle droids in the most
creative and fun ways imaginable.
That
isn’t to say the show didn’t use the characters at all though. We got to see
some unique spins on our favourite Prequel heroes and villains here. Anakin is
seen with much darker overtones than he ever had in the 2008 Clone Wars, as the show makes his lust
for power blatant from the first few minutes of the first episode. Palpatine is
hilariously displayed as an obvious villain right from the start. His skeletal
fingers even make slimy noises when he taps them together.
Each
episode is about 3 minutes in length (bumped up to around 13 minutes in the
shorter final season) with a small self-contained plot adding into the
overarching story. The first 3 episodes focus on Obi-Wan and Anakin’s
relationship as well as a battle between an elite squadron of Clones and battle
droids. Later episodes star lesser known Jedi such as Kit Fisto and Ki-Adi
Mundi as they fight their own battles on different planets.
This
show can also be credited as the first appearance of popular Star Wars villain Asajj Ventress. Here
she’s seen as Dooku’s apprentice, as well as a major overarching villain in the
series. The series also explains that she’s responsible for the scar Anakin has
over his eye in Revenge of the Sith,
so that’s some nice continuity.
If
you’re interested in Star Wars: Clone
Wars, it takes just over two hours to watch the whole thing and the entire
series is available to watch for free on YouTube as of this time of writing.
While it isn’t canon anymore and never quite matches the depth that the 2008
series got, Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars is
still well worth a look for the awesome animation style and epic battles only a
cartoon could portray.
