Brandon L

I remember being 8 years old. Moved into a new house and finally had cable TV. I was so excited for all the channels. Me and my sister stumbled upon Ghost adventures during its first season in 2008 and we fell in love with the show. We'd watch it every weekend with my cousin and neighbor during sleep overs. From 7 pm all the way to 4 in the morning. We continued doing that until 2013. Over the years me and my sister stopped watching it consistently as we stopped having cable TV. But we still have a huge love and appreciation for the show and for the guys. I feel like this show is one of the reasons why I love the paranormal so much. Fast forward to now and I'm so so so glad that I have Discovery Plus because it just brings back a rush of nostalgia and joy being able to watch the show again. I even had a dream that I met the guys and went on a ghost tour with some other people. I have a heart condition so I know I can't do this.. and I know I unfortunately can't visit Zak's museum.. but it was nice. The guys (especially Zak) get a lot of criticism for how they act on the show.. but I can tell that they're all good people. This show is just so special to me.. its just.. the best. I'd love to meet the guys someday..

I've never played the original but I've heard time and time again of how great a story it was with brilliant and cleverly written characters and narrative. Let me just say that the decision to make this remake into multiple parts was a HORRIBLE idea. The pacing in this first part is absolutely horrendous, so much is irrelevant and after a while became so tedious and boring. I honestly couldn't finish it because it was that bad imo. Don't get me wrong, a lot of moments in the game were unique and fun but I couldn't get behind the story and at times even the characters. I heard that some things were changed/removed from the original (such as adding those weird monsters you encounter causing the original story to now be going in a different direction) which I'm sure must be disappointing to all the og fans. I get that they wanted us to better explore the city with a modern retelling of the story but having these changes already damages the original charm that many players wish to re-experience or experience properly for the first time like me. I'm glad that many really like it but the padding/filler and the new story elements just ruin it for me.

As a die hard fan of the Guitar Hero franchise, I seriously wonder why the new developers wanted it to be live. There was absolutely no charm to the game after this change making it feel extremely awkward and lifeless. And it sucks too because Guitar Hero 7 was canceled for this garbage. I'm both happy yet sad that this game failed. Happy so that they can see that players didn't want this yet sad because they gave up on the franchise due to how bad GH Live sold and performed. This is the reason why 7 was canceled, to give it more time to surprise the fans with more hard work and effort. Even now you can Google/youtube search 7 to see early footage for how they wanted it to look before it was canceled. I'm at a loss of words for how they threw all that work out the window for a cheap and lifeless experience. It seriously feels like a wanna be knock off of Guitar Hero. And don't get me started on the faulty Guitars. It's embarrassing that Guitar Hero 3 guitar's from 15 years ago (2007) held up much better than GH Live Guitars from 7 years ago (2015). Live is just a cheap game that made cheap accessories. The only positive thing about it is the set list, a pretty good array of songs that I would've loved to have played for 7.

I like that the main character, Honor, is a very "fake it till you make it" type of person. She does whatever it takes to make it in High-school/life which I think is really unique as you don't see many characters in media do this. They often struggle or fight against the norms whereas Honor seemed to embrace it like making friends with the popular girls despite hating them. They might actually be friends but the way she talks about them gives me the impression that she doesn't like them. This also comes with problems though, Honor as a character would be good if this was just it.. but she comes off as very pretentious and thinks that she's better than everyone through her inner dialogue. I couldn't make it 20 minutes into the film thinking "who is this made for?" I'm 22 but I'm sure other people in my age range might like this but my gosh is the dialogue so CRINGE. Honestly should let high-schoolers themselves write dialogue for this movie because it's super unrealistic and just screams of that meme "How do you do fellow kids?" I didnt make it through the movie so I don't know how it plays out but it just seems mediocre at best. I wouldn't be surprised if this was pitched for Netflix first because it gives off that exact same quality that most Netflix originals suffer from. Particularly the new Resident Evil, might even be the same writer.

The trailers were already so mesmerizing that I remember being so excited to see Men when the film came out. I was initially planning to see it in theaters (I only do this with movies I'm really hyped for) but I decided to wait to own it on DVD. Surely it was worth owning forever right? Ugh... how wrong I was.. Much like the trailers, the opening sequence was so stunning, the visuals with the beautiful music went perfectly together. It immediately had me hooked. As the movie went on it just kept getting better and better, I was really starting to think this movie would be one of my new favorites. And then the middle started dragging on.. not too bad. And then the climax and ending happened and I didn't know what the hell was happening anymore. A24 is very hit or miss with me, I adore so many of their other movies but hate the rest. Even with the ones I enjoy, I was never a fan of their over the top symbolism at times. And my God does Men have WAY too much of that during the ending sequence and it was so disgusting and felt like a huge waste of time. It ultimately didn't end with a satisfying conclusion. So many unanswered questions.

The trailers got me hooked from the beginning, plus the fact that the creators from Until Dawn helped with this was a sweet bonus. The graphics are amazing, better than the already good looking dark picture anthology games. I will say that Until Dawn's graphics were definitely ahead of their time. The Quarry does look better due to the improvements in the games engine and advancements yet it just feels like Until Dawn had so much care and detail that was poured into both characters and environments that it's hard to top that, even in a beautiful lookong game like the Quarry. The sound design is another great thing about the Quarry and dare I say how I like it better than Until Dawn. Now the characters.. I think all 8 (technically 9 but only 8 are playable) of them were fine, some being much better than others. But I don't know.. the fact that you don't have relationship/personality bars like Until Dawn or the dark pictures games felt like it didn't work in the Quarry's favor. It's a little thing for them to have but it really makes a difference in how you want to play and connect with the characters. I think another problem I have with the characters are the sometimes awkward/cringey dialogue, awkward long pauses, or just that some conversations went on for too long to the point where it became uncomfortable. Both Until Dawn and the dark pictures anthology games never had these problems in my opinion. Now I will admit that both had awkward/cringe worthy dialogue moments but it felt as if it was done unintentionally. In the Quarry, it feels like this was done on purpose to have a similar vibe to Until Dawn but a lot of the time it just didn't work. Apparently a lot of dialogue was adlibbed in the Quarry which sounds good on paper but it hurts the direction a lot and it shows sometimes. The gameplay itself isn't too crazy, it actually feels like there's more cutscenes/decision making if anything. I won't comment on the story as the trailer/Synopsis tells you what you need to know but I will say that I hate how there were so many unanswered plot points/ plot holes in the Quarry. This really disappoints me as it's just.. why? Why would they not try and answer everything for the player? The other games did it but not the Quarry. Speaking of the other games, their endings felt great because there was closure. The Quarry's endings (187 differnt ones apparently) are all so abrupt and really felt underwhelming, just music playing in the background telling you who lived or died.. and that's it! The Quarry had so much potential to be one of the greatest games of this year and a worthy sequel to Until Dawn but man does it fail at far too many things. It's still enjoyable and unique with what it brought.. but it just doesn't feel memorable.

I'm both impressed yet disappointed in this remaster. At a glance, everything seems cleaned up with graphics and scenery that can look absolutely stunning at times. The characters look so much better than the original with skin and hair details that can easily be seen and eyes that are so expressive. I have to also give credit to the special effects as they got some of the biggest upgrades. The hair physics, hair has natural shine now,the lightning/rain improvements, better looking fire, well the list goes on. The blood effects are another thing that I have to give major credit for as they REALLY improved. The scratches Max does on Nathan's face for example can be seen episodes later which is an amazing detail. Or how Warren beats up Nathan, you can really feel the impact now with how badly Nathan looks afterwards compared to the original. Now about all the stuff I didn't like.. I appreciate that the team had taken a few months delay after people's concerns from releasing the game during September of 2021 to February of 2022. I'm sure things were fixed/polished during that time but unfortunately far too much was still buggy with the game. Before the Storm in particular would constantly crash and at one point wouldn't let me continue due to a game breaking bug. Season 1 never crashed for me but instead was really glitchy with bugs that are still in the game at this time. I don't understand how the original never had any of these problems but now the remasters suddenly do. The same thing with lag, sometimes during both games it would get extremely laggy during gameplay or cutscenes which was pretty distracting. I again never had lag problems with the original so I don't understand how it just suddenly went into the game. The facial animations have been improved since the original but I agree with other people on how it's still not up to par with True Colors. Obviously I don't think they could redo the mocap for the 2 games but I was hoping that at least some more effort would go into the facial animations such as wrinkles/creases when characters made expressions. I heard that supposedly the team redid a lot of the animations to add improvements to its fluidity but.. I have to be honest and say that I didn't notice much if any change to them, they basically all looked the same. Aside from the lackluster animation improvements the graphics also suffered from this. Many times during both remasters there were scenes that were noticeably more washed out/ had worse contrast compared to the original. I think they did this to make it seem more "realistic" but.. it just looks weird and doesn't work. This makes it seem like a downgrade instead of what they were going for.