Amazing Pull List 7-12

I don't have too much to say about this episode, since as usual, we recorded it weeks ago and I'm just now posting it.  Sorry if Jared's audio gets weird toward the end.

Here's the episode

War and Beast 45: Directed by Michael Bay?

 

 

This week was the long awaited return of Dinobot!  When I watched the episode the first two times last Monday, I felt like it was overly serious with a handful of physical comedy gags that just didn't work.  It's definitely the most visually dark episode of the series so far, and has some cool themes and stuff.  We had to reschedule the recording for Wednesday, so I watched it one more time before that recording.  Maybe I was in a better mood, but I really enjoyed it that time.

 

Dinobot II's design is easily my favorite since Transmetal Cheetor, maybe since Inferno.  His characterization as a sort of feral soldier comes off as pretty cool, especially for having just been created. 

 

We also had Kasey as a returning guest, who did a great job.  I'm glad we haven't had as many guests this season as we did in early season 2, but this episode as well as our previous episode with a guest have both been great.  It also helps that, at this point, Kasey has been on a few times and sends her news post every week, so we've gotten a better feel for each other over time.

 

Anyway, you can listen to the episode on audioentropy.com

Another Dark Souls Update

40 hours into my play through, I'm still not sure if I like this game.  At first, it felt like every step of the way was a struggle.  That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.  While many of the enemies from the early game are still a threat, my character is over leveled for where I'm at in the main campaign, so random enemies aren't that scary. 

The world seems to have slowly opened up, to where if one section is overly difficult or frustrating me, I can usually go fight a boss in another direction.  This is definitely a plus.  Slowly but surely I'm continuously making progress.  The other night, I was struggling with a boss, and threatened to quit playing the game altogether.  Then I defeated it.

The difficulty actually isn't that bad, aside from the "let's intentionally make the game harder" mechanics like the inability to pause and the terrible souls mechanic, the game is pretty balanced.  Leveling up and upgrading gear takes forever, but it does a good job of making unbeatable bosses a little bit more beatable.  When I defeat an enemy, even after leveling up and looking up strategies online, it rarely feels hollow the way some games' boss fights feel once you figure out the trick.  It seems like they could easily maintain the same balance while offering experience points that can't be taken away though.

It's an Xbox Live free multiplayer weekend or something right now, so when I went to play last night, all of the online features became available.  This basically amounted to way too many notes on the ground that just said "Need Head."  I know there are other online functions, but I have no desire to play this game online.  The fact that I can't turn off the online functionality inside of the game is pretty frustrating as well.  I'm sure there's a way to do it, but it's not that big of a deal.

In spite of everything, I'm still playing the game.  There's something to the monotony and grindy nature of the game that appeals to me.  Leveling up and increasing stats in given areas is pretty nice too.  The customization isn't as good as something like Skyrim, but I'm still playing the character I want to play.  My character clearly is not the path of least resistance character.  I'm not strong enough to wield a shield, and the bow seems to be either useless or broken in practice.  I also don't really want to mess with magic.  I just want to be an agile character who can use a bow and moves quicker than my enemies.  Maybe this is why I'm a little bit more forgiving on the general difficulty of the game. 

I'll write at least one more entry when I either finish or rage quit the game.  In the meantime, I did just start Breath of the Wild to break things up, and I need to put some time into Battlefront ASAP for the next Katarn Collection.  Video games are fun.

Technodrome Tales 9: It Came from Beneath the Sewers

Brad was unavailable this week, so Jerry hosted and Emily(of War and Beast fame) guested to fill out the roster.  This episode was, objectively, the worst episode we've reviewed of the show.  It was still, however, a ton of fun in its nonsensical plot twists.  Why did the turtles need to dress as pizza delivery guys if they were just going to kick the door down?  It gave Shredder an excuse to say, "I didn't order any pizzas, especially not green ones!"

I don't really have a ton of behind the curtain insights into this episode, so I'll let the podcast speak for itself.

Here's the episode!

War and Beast 44: Cyber puberty hits fast and it hits hard

Everybody else hated this episode.  I kind of liked it.  The Maximals come off as pretty misogynist and, depending on your interpretation, a little bit racist too.  Also, Cheetor, out of nowhere, develops a crush on Black Arachnia and suddenly starts suffering from teenage creepiness.  If you give the writers enough credit, I think they took this episode as an opportunity to show the heroes in a not so great light.  Rattrap says some terrible things (even worse than normal), Optimus puts the one woman in charge of the children, and Silverbolt is jealous and possessive.  Meanwhile, the Predacons, relatively speaking, do a decent job of cooperating and almost succeed.  Most importantly, this episode gave us a chance to make fun of men's rights activists.  My alternative title was "Cheetor gets friend-zoned."

You can listen to the episode at audioentropy.com

First Impressions: Rad Racer

The other day, I was out running some errands, and popped into my local used game shop.  After browsing for a bit, I found Rad Racer, a classic racing game, for $5.  This was a game I'd heard of, but had heard mixed reviews.  It sounded like this was one of those games that was every American of a certain age's first game in the genre.  Out of historical curiosity, I picked it up.

One of the biggest surprises of my recent foray into retro-gaming has been how much I've enjoyed racing games.  One of the first N64 games I bought was Cruisin' USA.  Surprisingly I've put significantly more N64 time into that game than games like Goldeneye and Super Smash Bros.  I've also discovered a number of other classic racers like San Fransisco Rush(also N64) F-Zero(Super NES).  Rad Racer is the first NES racer I've played and I'm genuinely impressed with what they did with the technology available.

Rad Racer's gameplay is basically exactly what I expected.  It's a very simple behind the car view going down the road, with other cars acting as obstacles, and street signs that cause the car to get thrown if you hit them.  One criticism of the game is that sometimes cars or turns will pop up without giving time to adjust, and the street signs that warn of the turns are sometimes difficult to read.

In spite of all that, it's a simple game that I can put on mute while I listen to a podcast.  The blue sky or the black night and some of the simple scenery do a great job of making the game feel like I'm on the open road.  Obviously the arcade racing genre has evolved since Rad Racer, and there are probably better games from this era as well, but I still can't shake the idea that without games like Rad Racer, we wouldn't have Cruisin' USA, one of my all time favorite games for N64.  Not to mention, it's a nice break from Dark Souls.

War and Beast 43: Rattrap Fits in a Little Submarine

I know this episode has been out for a few days now, but I had other things to blog about.  Last week, I was house-sitting for my parents, so we recorded with a slightly different set up, so if the episode sounds a bit different that's why.

I don't remember if it was after the break or after we finished recording, Emily suggested that I record a cover of Yellow Submarine to play during the break.  Of course, I'm never going to turn down a request to show off my music skills, so I decided to go for it.  In the back of my mind, I kind of wanted to record a parody about the episode rather than just recording the song and sketched out lyrics on Tuesday night while I was waiting to pick up my parents from the airport.  Then, Wednesday morning, back in my apartment with my normal recording set up, I started with guitar and vocals.  It took an embarrassingly long time to figure out the melody after "and the band begins to play" on melodica, but I'm pretty happy with how that lick turned out.  I haven't played trombone in a while, but I was able to muddle through a bass line before my lips blew out.  Harmony vocals and percussion round out the track. 

You can listen to the episode on audioentropy.com