Somerled Mcdonald

Definitely a worthy sequel to the first Moana. My kids were much older now, and the movie still held their attention and enjoyment. I didn't care for the songs in the first movie, good as they are, and the songs in the second, though not quiet as "catchy" definitely felt like they really tried to at least musically attempt to keep the quality as high. The animation was impeccable, and the usual focus on whatever new animation tools were developed. The villains are not stock Disney villains and seem to have their own depth. One criticism is the reappearance of ghost grandma, though it's nice to see, it does sort of detract from the sense of loss of loved ones in the first film that made it feel "true to life". By the end of the film, it has a strong feeling of being the middle film of a trilogy, let's hope it doesn't take another 10 years to see how it ends!

Like the quantum mechanics the show references, the opinion of the show is simultaneously fantastic and disappointing, we won't know for sure until the final episode airs and we (hopefully) understand how this puzzle fits together. Amazing cast, but the plot goes from impactful scenes to meandering brooding. Even until episode 7, you're not sure exactly which character you're rooting for, or even who each character is, given the nature of the story. But you can't stop watching. Eagerly looking forward to the final episode so I can figure out what it is I just watched.

I downloaded it on PSPlus, because it was free. 2 things that make me skeptical about games: 1) Gorgeous Title Screen art usually equals, ugly, boring, tedious game. 2) Made in Unity, usually means low-budget, low quality, rote indie game. So i gritted my teeth as I started up the game, expecting something slow and plodding, a la SpiritFarer. To my amazement, the game was simple, yet gorgeous, it feels like playing INSIDE but without the jump scares. It's platforming and puzzles and best of all, surprises, so you really look forward to what will happen next. Best of all, the game treats you like you have a brain, you can anticipate what you need to do, and find the quick, simple solutions to do it. Will know more once I have time to play through it.

This is my first Diabolo game, I bought it because I saw a clip of the impressive opening movie. However, after playing for just 10 minutes, I already want a refund. Aside from the "something went wrong" error message that popped up when I first started the game. Actual gameplay is really trash. The gameplay is so poorly programmed. Everything glitches or lags. You press attack, sometimes it attacks, or your character just stands there. I tried to enter the first dungeon, but it wouldn't let me go down the stairs. I back tracked and went around, suddenly my character randomly warped 3 times, and I'm a few screens away. I walk back to the stairs, now there's a door there I can open and go downstairs. New enemies suddenly spawn, but they don't attack me, they just stand there, so I walk past them. I get to a far wall, it's black as though the assets haven't loaded. My character starts warping again. Now I'm stuck behind some rock ceiling that fills the screen. Suddenly my character just dies. So I revive, and now the enemies move and I can attack them. But the game still lags and I can't attack anything. What kind of triple A trash is this in 2023? Play at your own risk.

Wow, I didn't think it was possible for Marvel to create a more boring, inane show. No sense of pacing, it's like a spy plot written by five year olds. Cringeworthy AI assisted title sequence aside, somehow, they took a supposedly compelling concept from the comics, squeezed out any sense of drama, suspense, and somehow managed to create a six episode series of C list characters nobody actually cares about. I am astounded how they could create so much dialogue that is so inane, it is literally painful to sit through. I found I cared so little about the characters, certain spoiler reveals that certain characters were Skrulls all along, just did more to detract from those characters' actions in the movies. Was the script AI assisted as well? Characters killed just for plot motivation. Nick Fury is no longer the forward thinking badass master spy, he's now a hasbeen, second guessing himself, as though he hadn't just spent the past hundred years as a master spy and tactician. The Skrulls are so generic, with no sense of personality nor culture, just generic stand-ins for any real world refugees. The entire show feels so watered down, filler, I honestly didn't care when the Superskrulls finally had their big battle. Yet another big swing and miss for Marvel's Phase 4 or 5, whatever it is now. And Spoiler: The sudden death of Maria Hill in the first episode, killed by a bullet, screams of bad writing. What, a master S.H.I.E.L.D agent doesn't have body armor, wouldn't anticipate that shape shifting aliens might disguise themselves as a coworker to get close to them? Suggestion to the writers: There's a great course on Spycraft on Udemy. Or just watch the Bourne Identity.

I really really really tried hard to enjoy this game. And, I know all the hard work that went into it. It's boring. It has color, but everything is gray. Cutscenes are mainly people talking or walking and talking. Combat is simple and attack effects and wild camera angles just look like a blobby mass of particle effects. Eikons are only story points and boss battles on rails, you never actually get to summon the summoned monsters. Story is inconsistent, one moment you have epic Eikon battles defeating bosses several times your size, the next, your character goes, "How are we going to get over this wall, it's a fortress!" Spoiler:(It'll probably involve R2 button) It's like someone had a big checklist: crystals, check, swearing, check, nudity, check, token gay characters, check, prostitutes, check, slavery, check. The list goes on, but none of it feels compelling. Rule number one of storytelling: Show don't tell, and 90 per cent of the story is telling. The entire game is basically random empire name on random continent name is at war with other random continent name because of random reason. (Like FF12, but without the cool battle movies ripped off from Star Wars) It's like they took all the parts from awesome games, like the Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bayonetta, Final Fantasy 1 to 10, etc. And removed anything that was moving, fun, or compelling. There are some good characters, the voice acting is not bad, but a lot of characters look the same, and there's a lot of subtle misogyny, weak or prop female characters. The biggest complaint is that you don't really feel like you're playing nor having an adventure, just sitting through boring history seminars and walking to red or green icons, watching distance numbers count down. It's basically Forspoken without parkour. I'm not a FF purist, the action is fine, I just don't get how critics could give it such high scores for such a tepid experience. It almost makes me miss FF15. Almost. Upon completing the game, I've raised it to 2 stars, if only for the post credit scene which finally "shows, not tells" there is potential in this game, they just haven't quite nailed it yet.

So far I've spent the past 3 hours of the game being told to Follow Seyka into the tower, only she just stands next to the bilegut remains like an idiot. If I head to the tower by myself, Seyka calls out, "I'll wait here for you." or "Got somewhere else to be?" If she does follow me into the tower, we get stuck at some vine covered invisible wall, just standing around with no way forward. I've tried jumping off cliffs or into lava, but Seyka just stands around doing nothing, no matter where I warp to. I've tried deleting the DLC and I'm waiting the 10 hours to redownload it. We'll see if that fixes anything. And the combat feels so spastic, Aloy's spear literally misses anything you swing at. Horizon Zero Dawn was my favorite game of all time, and somehow they seemed to have dropped the ball on this one. Feels weird to have a "next generation" game with gorgeous scenery, and yet you are ridiculously boxed in, unable to climb or interact with a lot of things. Even the focus mechanic, which felt awesome in the first game, just slows the game down and doesn't offer any real game advancing functionality. Let's hope they patch this DLC quick and step up their game for the next entry. Really sad, because I have so many memories of Epic moments from the first game, Aloy had so much personality, humor and pathos in Horizon Zero Dawn. Forbidden West's Aloy's personality and the story is much less memorable. It's good, but not something you'd return to just to experience the story like you would the first game. EDIT 01: So redownloading the DLC didn't help, my only fix was to reload my save before i met Seyka on the bridge and then fight the bilegut again in a different location. But now I have anxiety attacks as I'm expecting it to glitch out at every new scene. Aside from that, the game is gorgeous and a blast to play, It's amazing how good it is once it actually works and you can play through it. Let's hope it gets patched soon, I'm eager to see how the story will end.

Update, increased score as, they actually refunded me (though I would have preferred to be able to download the English version) DO NOT BUY this game in Taiwan. Only the Chinese Version is available in the Playstation Online Store. I'd heard Elden Ring was a challenging game, I didn't realize the challenge was having to play the game in a different LANGUAGE! They could AT LEAST have listed the languages in the game description, which they DID NOT as of March 8 2022. One would expect if the game description is in English the game would be as well. The language isn't yet listed next to the game, but tucked away a few screens down in the game info tab. Hopefully they learn that it's not only bilingual players who want an English game, but actual native speakers living abroad who want to play in their native language.