Recent Stuff IV: Friendly Reminder Edition

Around the holiday season, the Nintendo Store was selling refurbished Wii U Deluxe consoles for $200, and I mentioned this in HG chat around then, but that went away after a few months. Probably sold all the ones they had in stock. Well, guess what? As of this writing, they're doing it again, and this time they're also selling Deluxe consoles with Super Mario 3D World for $225! So, if you've been thinking about getting a Wii U, and don't mind it being refurbished, here's your opportunity. However, it's only for US and Canada residents, and keep in mind the shipping costs, as well. Also, shipping will take a few weeks, because I bought a refurbished 2DS for my nephew back at the end of August, and I think it didn't even arrive until midway or the end of September. Link to refurbished page.

-Current Games-

Apache: Air Assault: Been interested in getting this for a few years now, since I have a thing for helicopter action games. It's pretty unapologetic in being a straight action-style game, where you go from one location to the next blowing away targets. Probably the hardest thing to master about the game are the navigation controls, as they really wanted you to feel as if you're controlling a helicopter. If they aimed for an easier control scheme, I wouldn't be shocked if the game was 90% more easier. There's an element of strategy, but in the end, you just blow the crap out of the enemies. I like it, but it's clearly not for everyone.

Night Shift (2014): A few days ago, around 4:20AM, I decided to purchase a Steam game to play before my used copy of Apache arrived in the mail. After viewing a good 10 or so possible candidates, I picked Night Shift. Wrong move. This is something you should not play in the early hours of the morning when you're already tired.

It's a first-person puzzle game with 90s-era Doom graphics, and you drive a car. The world around you is completely dark, except for a yard or two in front of you, and you pretty much solve "puzzles" by flashing your headlights at things. Your headlight power has limited use, so you need to find glowing white trees to replenish them. Also, you talk to white, Grim Reaper-esque ghosts for clues. You can also flash them to turn them to stone, then hit them to watch them crumble, I guess. This game is weird. And the best way to describe navigation in the game is... I guess the best comparison is the Lost Woods in Zelda: if you go in the wrong direction, the area resets. This game is weird.

I would have completed it that same morning, but I got stuck on a horribly programmed puzzle. There's these four post lamps, and weird shadow effects are being cast in the center of these four. If you flash your lights, the shadow placement stops. The ghost ahead hints of a "perfect alignment". After a few guesses, I still couldn't solve the puzzle, so I looked on sites for results, and turns out other people are having the same problem. Turns out, the solution is to make a cross. Fine. The problem lies in the fact that the shadows are so fizzy and whatnot, that it's insanely difficult to see when the cross appears. I think I tried for a hearty 50 or 60 random flashes until I gave up and went to bed frustrated. Haven't returned to it yet.

Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions: Activity Log be damned, this is the most played game on my 3DS since I bought the portable back in late November 2013. I originally bought it for Pac-Man Championship Edition, and I've constantly been trying to overthrow my highest score in the one mode that allows online leaderboards. It's amazing that there are still people to this day that play this on a weekly basis, as the weekly leaderboards (different from the overall one) are packed with highscores.

However, my recent playthroughs have been more dedicated to the original Galaga. It's hard to explain, but there's just something about the energy and the pace of that game that engrosses me. I love it.

-Recent Reviews: I'm Stealing This Segment From EmP-

3D Fantasy Zone: This is the review I previously mentioned took me two and a half weeks to complete. I guess I underestimated having to explain the complexity of the game, as well as the extras in the 3DS version. Oh, well! At least I don't have to go through that agai................

The Legend of Kage 2: So I thought about writing a review for the original Kage after what Joe said in the last blog entry, but then I got my hands on Kage 2, started playing it, and I gravitated towards wanting to write for that. The review itself feels like a fusion of my thoughts between the two games, and there was even a moment where I thought about writing that maybe the original Kage is better than its sequel. But I scrapped that part, since I didn't want people reading too much into it, as it was just intended as a bizarre jab at both games than anything else.

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Labyrinth: I seem to have been playing a lot of games with balls in them lately, or at least it feels like it. Hazumi, the horrifyingly terrible Kerploosh, Cameltry, and now Labyrinth. After typing all that, I kinda want to play Marble Madness now.

-Movies!-

Red Eye: I completely forgot about this movie's existence. It's a neat, to the point thriller that works with so little and succeeds with it. Not an amazing movie, but I liked it for what it was.

Space Cowboys: My weird Clint Eastwood quasi-marathon continues. The first half of the movie is pretty typical Eastwood fare, but I was kinda surprised by the second half of the movie. I never watched the movie as a whole, so the fact that there's some semblance of above-average CGI kinda shocked me.

Hey There, It's Yogi Bear: I dunno. Curiosity.

Robin Hood (Disney): Some don't regard this as highly as other animated features, mostly due to its non-epic scale, but I still very much enjoyed watching it after all these years. The animation is, well, it's oldschool Disney quality, and it's just fun watching various, natural reactions go along with the solid acting, to the point where I completely forgot I was watching a cartoon featuring talking animals.

Transsiberian: Booooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnng. I don't mind slow-paced movies, but this one took way too long to start up, and by the time it did, the movie was almost over. I didn't like the second half of the movie, either. There's just way too much happenstance.

Captain Philips: Good movie, and solid performances by the cast. Even though I already knew the outcome, I was still getting into it during the remaining minutes of the movie, and I almost fell into the realm of numbness when it was all over.

The Mechanic (2011): Heads up, there's a spoiler at the end of this paragraph and this is the last item in this entry. The supporting cast saved this movie from being a total bore. If you've seen Jason Statham in one action movie, then you've seen him in every action movie he's been in: he's a loner, he has one facial expression, he has "skills", and there's the obligatory scene where he has sex with an attractive woman. Ben Foster, even when his character is for the most part an idiot, is what ultimately kept me watching. Donald Sutherland was good, too. Statham had his moments, but they were too few and too far. SPOILERS - I was digging the ending until it was revealed that Jason Statham's character survived the explosion. I mean, it's the end of the movie, take one for the team, Statham! But, I guess we need the sequel, even though no one asked for it.

Yeesh, I need to make more timely blog entries. I didn't realize my last one was literally a month ago...