Brad Knapp

Space Marine 2 is an absolute blast. For about a week, it was extremely frustrating due to some massive balancing issues and a few bugs that made the moment to moment gameplay rage-inducing, but there was a hotfix released within exactly a week, and the game is back to feeling incredible. As a disclaimer, this is a MOSTLY online multiplayer game. The campaign, while awesome and full of incredible moments, is about 8 hours long. The biggest chunk of content, the meat and potatoes of this game is Operations and PVP (Eternal War). I think tor most players, myself included, it's Operations. Operations CAN technically be played offline by yourself, but the game warns you every time that your progress will not be saved, which is pretty bizarre. This means that you will not retain experience on your class of choice, or keep your guns you upgraded, or skill trees. Normally, this would have been an absolute dealbreaker for me and I 100% would not have bought this game if I knew this advance. That being said, however, I've fallen in love with Operations. The gameplay itself iust feels incredible, and when the game is firing on all cylinders and you're playing well, it's a feeling I haven't gotten in a game since Sekiro. I would highly recommend it if you're looking for a game that's a change of pace and just a good, fun time. It's challenging and can take some getting used to, but man is it a blast when everything clicks. The devs obviously care about the game, and a new mission has already been released a month into the game. There's a roadmap of free content coming down the line that don't require season passes or battle passes- the Ultimate editions they sell just come with extra cosmetics. I have wanted a Warhammer 40,000 game for the longest time, but have no interest in first-person shooters and I want to feel like I'm progressing, getting stronger, and leveling up-- and sometimes I also just want to fire up my chainsword and cut a filthy Xenos scum in half. This game provides that in spades.

These 5-star reviews have to be massively inflated by bots, there is no way people consider this a "5 star" show. The protagonist is supposed to be "the female Sherlock Holmes of the 21st century", but the ONLY thing they have in common in drug use. For 7 episodes, she runs around in a dead panic, making this stupid, confused face all the time whether something sad, scary, dangerous or happy is happening. Every episode they make a different person out to be the culprit, and the instant she finds a new piece of evidence she just runs around confronting the person immediately and being wrong, AGAIN. For some reasom though, every time she confronts a new person, they alwaya act really menacing and suspicious. Supposedly everyone has a motive, but eventually people are just dropping like flies in increasingly ridiculous circumstances. Our two leads are absolutely insufferable, and half of the show is flashbacks to another case that only Super Special Darby and her face-tatted, mulletted boyfriend can solve. She says stuff like "I was trying to solve the case, when I should have been trying to understand the victim". That makes no sense at all, ESPECIALLY when the real culprit and motive are exposed. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Empathy and adderrall are her superpowers. For most of the show, she's an extremely emotional, impulsive person, snorting pills and breaking into people's rooms, hacking computers, playing people's therapy session recordings over intercom, and sneaking off to rummage through people's belongings during every social gathering. Yet, for some reason, everyone talks about her like she's this brilliant, one-of-a-kind sleuth and is super nice to her, despite the fact that she never really has an actual conversation with anyone. Oh, she has a pixie haircut, doesn't shave her armpits, and has a chest tattoo; isn't she SO speci and quirky?! Aside from all of that, there's huge plot holes that are never explained and the pacing is glacially slow. After all that, it just...ends. Everythjng is just explained in the last 5 minutes and then it's over. Even my wife hated this show, and she loves everything as long as "there isn't too much cussing". We really only dragged ourselves through finishing it because of a sunk cost fallacy. Would not recommend, and honestly this and The Beekper having good audience reviews on Google has me thinking I can't trust those scores anymore.

Man, this game is so great. Can't believe I waited this long to play it. It's a perfect, smooth blend of Dark Souls, Sekiro, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and Diablo set in Sengoku era Japan, retelling historical events through the lens of demons and soldiers. There are times when I would zoom out and unfocus and I could swear I was playing Sekiro, which is perfect, because it's in my top 5 games of all time, along with Diablo 2. The combat is so satisfying and fast-paced, with an amazing amount of depth. Be forewarned, it does have a very high barrier for entry, I think I spent about 8 hours just on the first mission alone, now missions take me maybe 20-45 minutes. After I beat the first two missions, it began to feel MUCH easier and I was dying much less than I expected. There is a rhythm to combat much like in Sekiro, but there are mid-combo weapon stance changes that feel like Devil May Cry or God of War. The combat gets deeper and deeper the more you fill out skill trees for that weapon. Even though the weapon you're using is sort of like your "class", you're never locked into a weapon though, you can switch at any time. It has the level design of a Dark Souls, with shrines spread out through the level to rest at, which respawns most enemies (except bosses and minibosses), with unlockable shortcuts and little secrets hidden off the beaten path. There is so much to do in this game and so many ways to customize your playstyle. I'm only 20 hours in, and I've heard there is a near-endless amount of replayability to it, so I could reasonably expect to play this game for the next year or so lol. I got 400 hours out of Sekiro, which was maybe a 30 hour game. I got hooked on Nioh 2 VERY early on compared to other Soulslikes.

Watched this movie with my wife last night and was expecting it to feel dated and corny. Blown away by this film, what a real gem. Possibly the best spy movie I've ever had the pleasure of watching. Uses real-life stuff that's used in espionage tradecraft. Real world espionage doesn't usually look like James Bond (as fun as those movies are). A good 2/3 of the movie is a conversation happening in a CIA board room, and it manages to maintain a sense of urgency and tension throughout. Robert Redford is extremely believable as a seasoned, grizzled CIA handler who has decades of outstanding work under his belt, but who has been passed over many times for promotions and isn't necessarily respected by "the suits". The fact that we watched this movie for the first time in 2023 and it was still excellent is a testament to Tony Scott's directing. If you want a straight-ahead, realistic spy thriller that manages to be engaging and thrilling, this is it. It almost feels like a Tom Clancy story. Would definitely recommend.

This show is like an edgy 15 year old writing copypastas on 4Chan. Needlessly dark and edgy, this show THINKS it has a lot to say, and you can see tiny little glimmers of something RESEMBLING satire or analogy, but nothing is ever explored. There are sub-plots that exist for 10 minutes in one episode and then are never explored again. Not sure what the book tries to convey about corporate culture, religion, infidelity, capitalism, videogames, etc but if it's any good, then this show is a terrible representation of it. The ending isn't even a cliffhanger, the show drives straight off the cliff, smashes the car into a bed of jagged rocks, gets out and says "I meant to do that." Underdeveloped, 1 dimensional characters who never grow, decisions that make no sense, Christoph Walz's character seem to have some sort of mind control over people, but nothing is ever explained. No explanation is ever even hinted at, except for that maybe he's a robot with gold bones who was programmed to better companies by....idk, mouth-raping their CEO's. Hard pass. What looks like intrigue and mystery is just the edgy 15 year old sighing and saying "I'm SO upset, don't even ask. I DON'T want to talk about it." You only ask questions because you know they want you to.

A great game that unfortunately is hindered by what an absolutely infuriating experience it is to play. This is my first return to Pokemon since being a teenager in 2006, and this game has left an extremely bad taste in my mouth. Whether it's trying to hunt for shiny Pokemon and getting a headache and nausea because of how atrocious the game looks, straining my eyes to see the slightest bit of difference in the hue of green a shiny is, or trying to discern the eye color of a 6 inch tall Pokemon 30 feet away. Trying to carefully place ingredients on a sandwich while my character throws the ingredients down like a mixture of Michael J. Fox and Emeril Legassi shooting a HowToBasic video. Having to turn off autosaving so that I can forcefully shut the game down and not lose my super rare sandwich ingredients. It's a sandwich minigame. I shouldn't have to try 9 times in a row to have a CHANCE of finding a shiny. I was shocked the first time I took my level 100 Shiny Garchomp with IV training, EV training and a beneficial nature into a 6 star raid, Swords Danced 3 times, and then Earthquaked the electric Tera Pokemon, only to hit for less than 10% of their health bar, then immediately have the raid boss wipe all of my stat buffs. Every fun mechanic becomes frustrating every direction you turn because it feels like the game is not only unfinished, but hasn't even been playtested. Is THIS final product really worth the developers wearing themselves down with crunchtime only to release a half-finished, ugly game?

First off, let me start by saying that the game itself is amazing. It's truly one of my favorite games I've played throughout my entire 20+ year arc of gaming. That said, I just lost THIRTY-FIVE HOURS of progress because of the insane, archaic way that Fromsoft manages "saves". There are multiple posts online about how if you don't "save properly" or "quit properly" you can have problems with your save file. I've seen the autosave icon on my screen hundreds and hundreds of times since my last "proper" quit. This is my first From Software game, so why would I EVER think in a million years that the autosave feature doesn't actually do anything?! I've been playing offline and using the Quick Resume feature on Xbox Series S, but apparently that's illegal. Despite there having been hundreds of autosaves in the time since, the game decided to revert me from lvl 115 to 87, 5 bosses ago and many, MANY smithing stones and Grave Gloveworts ago. I dont even necessarily care that I have to re-fight bosses...but the fact that the " autosave" feature in this game DOES NOT WORK despite it REQUIRING you to be connected to the internet is infuriating. I have never experienced a deflated sense of rage in my life before. I wish I could get my money back, because this is absolutely unacceptable.

An unnerving slow burn that pays off in the end, so long as one is paying close attention. Stays with you for days afterward, and this movie is DEFINITELY not going where you think it's going. Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent, as he always is. A long time will pass, and you may feel like nothing is happening-- but it is. Between the lines, in the subtext, is the plot unfolding subtly, emotions and resentment on full display, if only one cares to glean them. Each character's true nature is buried just below the surface, and they present a front to the rest of the world; something we can all relate to. Beautiful cinematography, an excellent score with original composition, and brilliant performances, with Cumberbatch, Dunst, and newcomer Koti Smit-McPhee being the standouts.

If this is the best game in the Tales series, I shudder to think at what the rest of the games are like... Look, full credit where it's due: it can be a very charming and engaging game...when it isn't absolutely BURYING you in hours and hours of dialogue and cutscenes. I'm seeing a ton of reviews that are 5 star, but they're only 8-10 hours into the game. In this particular game, that's simply not enough time to call it a perfect experience. You'll have barely cleared the second town that far into the game. You'll reach a certain point in the game where everything just hits a massive wall, and you end up going from cutscene to cutscene, followed by 2 or 3 skits in between the short sections where you regain control of your character. After that, the game then paraphrases and recap what was JUST SAID one cutscene ago. Of course, all 6 characters in your party have their OWN completely identical take on the conversation that just happened, so you have to have the same conversation again with all 5 of your party members. Yesterday I played for HOURS trying to get through the last section of the story and I just kep tossing my controller on the bed and walking away. I was nauseous from staring at a screen and reading countless lines of dialogue. I can't tell you enough what a massive downside this is to me in this game. For 40 hours or so, I was cruising along having a great experience, now in hindsight I wish I hadn't wasted so much time. In truth, this is a 25 hour game stretched out to 40 with endless, monotonous cutscenes and stereotypical anime character arcs. If I have to read one more cutscene where a male and a female character want to say something to each other, but then one of them goes "OH! Sigh-- it's nothing. I SAID FORGET IT, OKAY?! Gosh leave me alone!", I'm going to get in my Falneitz spaceship and fly into the sun. For god's sake...it's like reading a 13 year old girls bad fanfiction. It's not just that their behavior is immature or childish, it's that you have to watch that scene I just described above 30 SEPERATE TIMES and with 3 pairs of male-female characters. At a certain point it's no longer endearing, and I'm starting to skip the game's dialogue in the MOST IMPORTANT sections of the story. Exploration consists mostly of going into the 2 extra rooms on the map which are obviously where little bonuses are going to be. I love getting a powerful suit of armor for going off the beaten path....but all I did was run 10 seconds out of the way. The upgrades don't feel earned. Crafting materials will just be unlocked as soon as you progress through the next section, so before long you'll simply be capped out on gear. The combat is a lot of fun, and you constantly get a sense that you're improving and becoming more powerful. At first, the main characters are very charming, and I like the themes that are being explored, but they quickly devolve into r/im15andthisisdeep territory about how slavery is bad. If this game had better dialogue, better plot writing, and more areas to explore with cool, unique, secret upgrades that could be earned for doing side-dungeons, it could be the next Witcher 3. As it stands, its a barely distinguishable JRPG, hardly any different from the rest.

Yet another fantastic movie review-bombed by nincompoops and simpletons for not being as "good" as that pile of garbage, Bird Box. Their desperate need to identify themselves as"anti-authority" washes over into thinking they're somehow rebelling against all those "elite, movie reviewer snobs". I'm so tired of hearing people shriek about how you shouldn't trust the critics, only to turn around and rate this movie the lowest possible score because it doesn't have zombies in it. Yeah, seems like your opinion is really objective, I'll just listen to random mobs from now on. ANYWAYS, It Comes At Night is an incredibly suspenseful, excellent example of what can be achieved with just a few barebones elements of filmmaking. A strong performance from 5 actors is virtually all you see take place in the movie. The violence erupts in small bursts, spread out-- you never know when it's going to erupt, which is exactly the point. That's what builds so much anxiety and tension, it feels real as a result. The cinematrography is very matter-of-fact, very few tricks, jump-scares, distorted music; the drama unfolding on scene and the sickening choices characters make in their own best interest is unsettling enough as it is, as they spiral into frantic, desperate behavior. "You don't know what people are like when they're desperate", Joel Edgerton's character says. Appropriate foreshadowing. Don't go into this movie expecting a slasher, or a zombie movie, or a ghost movie. It's a psychological horror, plain and simple, made even more terrifying since the pandemic. Give yourself over to this movie and accept it on its terms, and you'll have an experience you won't soon forget-- you'll find yourself thinking back to it over and over again in the next few days.