Pumpkin Pie

If you want a great looter shooter, save your money and buy The Handsome Collection. The only way this feels like a Borderlands game is because it includes Tiny Tina. The loot is trash. One of the best parts of BL2 was having to farm enemies for certain weapons, and hanging on to that weapon for many levels until it was time to farm a higher level one. Weapon names were funny and unique (come on, an assault rifle called the Veruc?!) You had to choose weapons based on elemental damage or trade off magazine size for accuracy. Now, you get hundreds of weapons that are pretty much the same with names from a random name generator. NPCs were great. Hearing Andy Samberg and Wanda Sykes banter takes so much away from gameplay after the first 5 minutes. The buddies are nice, but they do so much damage, you barely have to kill enemies. It's a cool idea to have so much character customization, but it's an FPS, so you pretty much see your own guy when he dies or if you play split screen. BL2 was much more open world than this. You wander around the Overworld, kill a bunch of random enemies in encounters, smash some chests, and go to worlds that are pretty much all the same. It's repetitive and uninspired, which feels like sacrilege to say about a Borderlands game. Will Arnett is no Handsome Jack. Wanda Sykes is no Claptrap. This feels less like a Borderlands game and more like a Hollywood cash grab. Wanda Sykes reads her lines with about as much enthusiasm as a third grader at school in May. The artwork is beautiful, and we get Roland, Brick and Mr. Torgue briefly. Those are your two stars right there. Sorry, Pitchford, your magic didn't work on this title. At least BL3 had characters from the old games tied in that made me care about their missions.

I'll qualify this by saying I have never played a Far Cry game; I'm a spectator and have watched my boyfriend play FC 3, 4, 5, Primal, and Blood Dragon. This one is boring compared to those. You need 0 skill to play this game. My favorite part of FC3 was watching my boyfriend stealthily take out enemy strongholds by throwing rocks to isolate enemies before taking them down and hiding the bodies, and planting C4 everywhere. There is no way to do that in this since enemies spawn from out of nowhere. It's not encouraged by the game either. The missions are boring and repetitive. Someone tells you what to do, you go and kill some people, lather, rinse, repeat. I miss watching the side quests, like killing a bear with a revolver or a shark with a bow and arrow, or stealth killing a pirate leader. The dialogue and story are awful. He's like halfway through the game and I still don't care if Castillo dies. To be honest, I want Dani to start fighting for Castillo because Dani is the only one doing anything for La Libertad. At one point, Dani tells Bembe "I'm not a gofer." But Dani pretty much is. "Dani, go kill this person. Oh I'm uh, I'll meet you there when all of the soldiers are there." "Dani, go help these guerillas armed with machetes take down a 3-tank convoy." And Dani's motivation is....the 2 friends who died? I really hope the rumors are true and the next Far Cry will be a "5 years late to the party" Battle Royale. Won't be tempted to drop $60 on this. Save your money and wait for this to be a free PS+ game, and pray that they haven't messed up the remastered Blood Dragon.

I want to quit you, expensive Netflix, but then you go and do something like this so I can't quit you. This adaptation captures so much of the magic from the first arcs of the anime. The first episodes capture the humor and adventure, but as we get to Baratie and beyond, the roller coaster of feels from the anime kicks in. There are so many little details that fans of the anime will notice and enjoy, but it doesn't feel like they do too much of it to exclude new fans from joining in the fun. They did a great job of weaving each Straw Hat Pirate's back story into episodes. The costuming is fantastic, especially Mihawk's, and Helmeppo's hair. Love the foreshadowing they are doing by mentioning other characters (Jimbe, Baroque Works, Nami reading Zoro stories of Norland the Liar). Sanji calling Zoro "Moss Head" made my day, and I can't wait to rewatch with Japanese audio to hear "marimo." The CGI is not campy or hokey. Are there liberties? Are characters missing? (No Jango, very sad). Of course. But this is easy to binge and enjoy, and the things that are different don't take away from the enjoyment or the story. I am loving this way more than I had thought I would. There is so much more I'm looking forward to seeing, and seeing how they adapt it (The War of the Best, Davy Back Fight, Sanji at Fishman Island, Sky Island...,Sogeking...).