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Resident dickhugger Keenan Evans has published his first novella and we're asking you guys to check it out, so hey look here it is.

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Hey check out this cover of Oh Comely that Fake Smile Jail Cells did

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Metro Last Light: Redux review

I know all of my adoring fans were waiting in anticipation for me to finish this game so I could finally write the review, and now you can all calm down and enjoy this straight fire I'm about to drop. But yeah anyways I really enjoyed this game.

Graphics: This game actually looks pretty good, like the atmosphere in the parts of the game where they want to creep you out is really well done, which is also due to the vastly improved audio. A lot of the character models are pretty detailed, and a lot more interesting than in 2033, which one of my main gripes with that game's graphics was how the character models and monsters were all pretty boring. The weapons still look pretty cool, I've always liked the way those cobbled together sort of weapons look, and the monsters are more detailed, and there is much more variety this time around, like the Rhino and the bear monsters looked really cool. Overall the presentation of this game is pretty great, whether you're in the Metro or in the Moscow wasteland. Some of the textures didn't look great, and of course not every area knocks it out of the park but the way the levels are designed for stealth are fun to look around in.

Sound: I was disappointed that they kept pretty much the exact same sounds for a lot of the mutants, like the nopalises and the watchmen just have boring sound effects. The demon remains terrifying when it isn't overused, but overall the sound is still better than in 2033, but I think that's partially because they very nearly nailed the sense of atmosphere in this title. The guns sound pretty solid, the other sound effects I have no complaints on so that's all good. The voice acting in this game is so much better than in 2033. It isn't all amazing, and not all of the dialogue is perfect, but it's such a breath of fresh air after listening to the god awful acting from 2033. The music is pretty good, helps add to the tension, there isn't a large variety of tracks but the ones they have were used effectively.

Story: The story in this game was far more compelling than before. In 2033 I didn't really give a shit about the Reds and the Reich, I just cared about all the Dark Ones and how they operate and where they came from. This game however, actually made me care about all of the stuff going on in the Metro, and I think they did it through more cutscenes, more meaningful set pieces, and much better acting and writing. This game actually has characters I like other than Artyom, which I wasn't sure was going to happen, but the villains are interesting, and reading Artyom's diaries was just as cool as in 2033. I am glad that I played 2033, because it was satisfying to have some of the questions posed in that game answered in this one, even if they don't answer absolutely everything. Also a lot of the side story bonus missions included with the Redux edition are worth a try, but some of them are pretty shit, like the Tower one, which I didn't bother trying to finish because it sucked.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty much the same, a pretty realistic stealth/action game that makes you manage some additional stuff just to make it feel more tense. I only played on survival mode on normal difficulty, but for the most part of the game I didn't see much of a challenge involved with the extra stuff they make you do. Like there was only one time where being short on filters really fucked me, and it was pretty tense scrambling around looking for just a single filter to last me another minute, but it was never really that big of a problem so it makes me question why one would even bother with the mechanic, but whatever it doesn't detract too much from the actual gameplay.

Things I didn't like: Firstly, the most useful stealth tool is the throwing knife, but they're still extremely difficult to use effectively. However, aiming with every other weapon is a lot easier to aim with than in 2033, and are just overall more effective. I still don't enjoy how shooting out lights is such a gamble, because you never know if they'll hear you and start the alarm or not, it's just irritating if you're trying to really stealth it up. Also, one level that was just really shitty was the one where the whole place was on fire and it was impossible to see anything. Another level I didn't like at all was the Tower bonus level, I tried it twice and just gave up because it was just ridiculous.

Things I did like: The plot was so much more fleshed out, it was super interesting this time around, and everything with the baby Dark One was superb, and the small twists were shocking and interesting. And all of the bonus levels that were story driven were pretty great, like the Pavel level, and the Spider's Lair level were both pretty tense and entertaining. I wanted the Anna level to be better but it was still pretty interesting. One that I really enjoyed was the one where you gather the artifacts, it was a really cool concept that I hope they bring back in some form for Metro Exodus. The main issue for a lot of these bonus levels though was how buggy they were, they should have spent more time really polishing them up beforehand. I think I experienced a small bug at least once in ever bonus level, and one bug in the sniper level that made me have to restart the whole thing which was frustrating.

Conclusion: This game is really great, it gets really tense, the story is very intriguing, and the gameplay is vastly improved from the first game in the series. It made me appreciate 2033 more, and it managed to make me excited for Metro Exodus, so it just does a great job overall of providing a challenging and interesting experience with a great setting and plot.

Score: 8/10.

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Transformers Devastation Review

So if you haven't caught on by now, I've mostly been reviewing the games I got on psn plus that I just got around to playing, so this time I finally got around to playing this game, and I had a pretty good time. The first impression of the game was interesting, because during the opening of the game it's revealed that this game was developed by Hasboro Games, and I've never played the Monopoly games but I get a feeling that this game about battle robots is a little different from what they're used to making, so good on that developer for trying out something different.

Graphics: The graphics are obviously supposed to be pretty stylized, and similar to the old Transformers cartoon series, and this is made more apparent when they show some stills from what appears to be the cartoon itself. The style works for the game and the source material, but it doesn't look great. Like it's okay, it fits the tone well, definitely feels like you're playing inside of a cartoon, but whether you think that's a good thing or not will be up to you. Personally, it worked for me, but I can tell it isn't exactly a van Gogh of a video game. The enemy design and weapon design can be pretty cool, again they all look just like they do in the old cartoon so it stays faithful.

Sound: One thing about the sound effects that I noticed was kind of strange was that they all seemed like sounds I had heard before. And I suppose there was some comfort in this familiarity but also it was just kind of strange. The weirdest thing to me was the sound effect they give you when an enemy is about to attack, because it was the exact same sound effect that they use in Nier: Automata for the exact same purpose. Obviously Nier: Automata came out after this game so it didn't steal it, but that familiarity made the game harder at some parts and easier at others, which shows just how inconsistent the game can be. The whole purpose of the sound effect is to warn you when to dodge, but for like half of the enemies and bosses it doesn't really matter, so the tempo they present to you isn't always what you should really follow. This is the most present with the heavy soldier transformers with the hammer, like the timing on the dodge sound effect for those guys was entirely off and it was more frustrating than it should have been.

The music in this game fit the tone so well. While I ironically loved it, because it was hilarious to just fight big robots to blaring rock music, I also realized that it does a good job making the gameplay feel more intense, and the battles would surely be a lot less epic if they had opted for smooth jazz instead of 90s hard rock riffs.

The voice acting was pretty much just as good as you would expect in anything starring Transformers. Optimus Prime sounds cool, Star Scream sounds annoying, and everyone else is pretty middle of the road. I mean if you expected anything different then you didn't watch too much of the cartoon. And that's basically it so let's move on.

Gameplay: The gameplay was absolutely the best aspect of this game, which is obviously a good thing. When you first get into it, you don't really expect it to be an RPG, but as it goes along you discover that you have different characters you can play as, all with different stats and attributes, and you can level them up at your home base. And you collect weapons and items and all these various other rpg things. At first I felt like that management was going to feel like a burden on the gameplay, but once I got used to it I kind of liked it. However, one thing that I realized too late is that you can synthizes your weapons to make them extremely over powered. One thing they don't do a good job of is telling the player how to deal with all of these rpg elements, they kind of just have you figure it out on your own, which isn't too hard but still irritating at first, it would have helped if there was a better explanation on everything. You can level up individual attributes, and it isn't like most rpgs where it will tell you which stats will increase when you level up a certain attribute, you just have to level it up and cross your fingers and hope it levels up the stats you want it to. It really is a pretty barebones rpg, it's sort of "baby's first rpg" in a way. That doesn't mean that it's easy though, I played it through on normal and there were still some moments that felt pretty intense, I wasn't sure how I would be able to handle it. However, what was strange was that Megatron wasn't the hardest thing you fight in the game, which felt weird. Sorry, spoiler alert: you fight Megatron at the end of this transformers game, I hope nobody was surprised. It was a decent final boss fight but I was kind of disappointed in it. One thing that isn't great about this game is the world map, it seems like it really wants to be open world but it just isn't, there are some secrets to discover but they're mostly pointless. There is a challenge mode too, I haven't touched it too much because I don't really care for challenge modes ever. Also the side quests were frustrating and unnecessary. I tried them all, but if I just couldn't do it then I wouldn't keep trying. Normally I always do side quests but I didn't feel like I needed to care about them. The gameplay was just dumb fun though, connecting those combos, using devastating special attacks, beating the shit out of robots, it's great. Also, the only character I didn't touch was Wheeljack, I mostly played Sideswipe until I unlocked Grimlocke, because he's a fucking dinosaur. Sometimes that makes vehicle sections next to impossible but he was still totally the best character without a doubt.

Story: It wasn't good, but who really cares? Just beat up that robot and shut up.

Conclusion: This game is pure, unadulterated dumb fun. You're blowing up robots, turning into a dinosaur and sitting on other robots, it's fucking hilarious and super fun for the most part. If there is anything I would improve, it would be adding mulitiplayer, because there were so many moments where I thought "I want to kick another person's ass at this game." One other gripe I have with this game is that it seems like a majority of the trophies are impossible to get, and getting free trophies is half the reason I play these PlayStation plus games. Also some of them feel glitched, but idk maybe I'm just fucking them up somehow. Either way, this game is fun, if you got it on psn plus, it only takes like 6-8 hours to beat the campaign, and all of the levels are re-playable with the character progress you made throughout your first play through. If you still have a child in your head that still loves transformers, then let them break free, give this game a shot. I mean, if you got it for free, probably don't pay full price for this.

Score: 6/10

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that’s nice

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Rayman Legends Review

To start off, some full disclosure: I did not pay full price for this game considering it was free in the month of May for PlayStation Plus subscribers. That being said, if you have PlayStation plus, make sure you at least add this game to your library, or if you're stingey like I am with video game costs, wait for a sale or something because this game is honestly worth your time.

Graphics: The look of this game is just fantastic. It is literally bursting from the seams with charm and bounciness, and all of the bright colors just produces this incredibly fun 2d enenvironment to look at. All of the levels are incredibly varied, and they all have different themes, and the ways you interact with the environment all make sense. I haven't unlocked all of the characters, because even after beating the game, it takes so long to collect enough "lums" to get anywhere close to even getting 10 of them, but all of the characters and the animations of them just look great. My personal favorite is Globox, but I've always loved that character ever since I played Rayman Arena on the GameCube when I was a kid. Just the design of this game is really something special, and out of all the platformers you could play out there, this one really nails the look and the feel. The one thing that bothered me is that the only 3d models in the game are the bosses, and they don't always look that great, but I see why they made that choice.

Story: There isn't very much story, the characters you play are the heroes, the bad guys have kidnapped the Teensies and you need to save them throughout all the levels, and then beat some bosses to defeat the Dark Teensies. It isn't exactly a gritty reboot of the series or anything, but if Ubisoft wanted to make a gritty reboot of the Rayman franchise where those Rabbids are just drugged to the brim, I would totally play it.

Sound: All of the music in this game is honestly so great in my opinion, it fits the tone of the levels so well, and there is a lot of variety. Some of it gets annoying, like the music that plays at the end of a level that you hear over and over again, but it only got annoying once I really started paying attention to it. The levels at the end of each world that are basically make the game a rhythm game are the best, the music is just so fun, it just puts a smile on my face every time. The voices in the game are mostly just grunts and high pitched squeels, very typical of a game like this, there is only like one voice piece of dialogue at the beginning of the game, but that's it. Some people may not consider it a good thing, but the sound honestly really makes this game.

Gameplay: This game is basically what Sonic the Hedgehog wishes it could be. It's a fun modern platformer with tight controls, and a just enough variety to spice the gameplay up along the way. One thing to note about this game though is it is deceptively difficult. I honestly did not even bother with the Invasion Paintings because they were just way too hard, and I wouldn't blame anybody else for just skipping on those entirely. I also wasn't very interested in the online challenges, I might play them for the trophies though, we'll see. The levels in this game are mostly just running and jumping, but there are some really fun levels that go off the beaten path, like the mansion level that is sort of like a stealth game, and the side scrolling shooter Origin paintings. My favorite part about those is that you ride a mosquito, but if you play Globox the mosquito rides you, and it's the small things like that which make this game even more special to me. The game really does control well, but like any platformer there were definitely moments that didn't feel fair, but most of the time dying felt like it was my fault.

Conclusion: This game is fun as fuck. It's high octane platforming with precise timing and a great sense of style. I never played the original Rayman but from what I can tell this is a game that is going to push this franchise forward, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Also, side note, Rayman should be a playable character in the next Smash Bros game. Anyways, play this game if you have the time and like cutesy platformers with challenging gameplay.

Score: 9/10

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This is a music video from our band Fake Smile Jail Cells, hope you like it.

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Pokemon Artwork made by Sean Donnan

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Kung Fu Panda: Showdown of Legendary Legends

To start this review I feel like it's important to note that I got this game kind of for free as a part of my PlayStation plus subscription, and you can tell from 5 minutes in that it's a poorly programmed piece of garbage, so if you want to save some time the tldr version of this is: don't buy it, it is good for some easy trophies if you also got PlayStation plus but otherwise there isn't much value to it. The only other way I could see spending someone money on this is if you have a kid that loves Smash Bros, and Kung Fu Panda, but also doesn't understand enough about gameplay mechanics to get frustrated when the game doesn't work.

Graphics- surprisingly good, it's obviously cartoony as one would expect, and it looks like it was pretty competitently made, the levels look pretty good, and the character models are relatively detailed. Overall no complaints there, but nothing memorable either.

Sound- The music is pretty much just music from the movies, following that traditional Chinese style of music, and it's not bad, it makes sense obviously, but it's not like I was expecting anything other than that. The voice acting isn't very good though as one would expect, the only cutscene they have includes what seems to be Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman, but I don't know for sure because the IMDB page for this game is completely barron. So maybe it's them, if they got impressionists then they do a good job sounding like those actors. But the most annoying thing about this game, other than how shitty it is, is that when you enter the game, it pans to each individual character in the game and they give some dumb line or two, full of stupid puns. While it isn't always the exact same line, it is the same couple of lines that you'll just keep hearing over and over again and I can't fucking stand it. Also, whoever they got to replace David Cross is actually fucking terrible, Crane is the most annoying little shit when he comes on screen. Aside from that, the actual effects sound okay, like there are noises when you hit people that make the hits feel pretty solid. I can't stand fighting games where the hits don't sound solid, so this game managed to pull that off at least. One thing that bothered me is that when you get knocked off the screen there is only a visual cue and no audio other than a light scream or something coming from your character. It definitely made knocking people off the screen much less gratifying. Definitely still a failing grade in this category overall though.

Gameplay- it's pretty much what you would expect from a bullshit cashgrab video game, it is a copy of another popular title but done poorly. In a way it is kind of like a mix of Smash Bros and PlayStation All Stars, (except without good controls) where you can knock them off of the side of the screen, and you also have a power meter that builds up when you do damage, so you can basically use a powerful final smash or "awesome move" if you land it. However I noticed that I would pretty much never use it, because I just wasn't paying attention to it, it wasn't important and they weren't cool enough to where I actually wanted to make sure I got good accuracy with those attacks. It was really just pointless. Also the way you get knocked off of the screen sometimes makes literally no sense at all. Like you got knocked back by the weirdest shit and all of a sudden you're dead. Again, this game wants to be something it just can't be because the mechanics don't work the way they should. I also figured out within like my first few matches that if you want to win you basically just need to keep landing up angled heavy attacks until you hit them off of the top of the screen, and it's seriously waaaaaaay easier than it should be to just do that to win the rounds. Some of the maps were kind of cool, they were more dynamic than I expected them to be, but other than that the maps aren't very interesting, and this is probably due to the fact that a lot of the setting in the actual movie is really mostly uninteresting. Another gripe I have with the gameplay is it has a percentage system like Smash Bros, but it counts down from 100 instead of counting up, and the problem this presents is that the matches can be so fucking long just because it's actually impossible to increase your chances of launching a character off the screen to a certain point. I'm just so confused as to why they thought this was a good idea because it just makes the game even more tedious than it already is.

Story- pretty much nonexistent, Po wants to have a big kung fu battle so they make it happen, the end. And it isn't like mortal Kombat towers where you see an ending of a character, it just goes to the title screen, that seems like such a waste. The whole game is a waste of time though so whatever.

Conclusion- You know, the other day I was thinking "man I kind of miss the days when every movie had a video game tie in, some of my favorite GameCube games were movie tie-ins like Barnyard and Spiderman, I wish we would bring that trend back" and then I look at this game and lose all faith in that idea. I just hope that in the future we can return to a day where actual effort was put in to these movie tie-in games.

Final score- 2/10

Edit: I just had to say, I went back and played some more and found even more garbage to talk about, but what I really want to highlight is how stupid the items are. There's like 2 overall that are useful and the rest of them are either way too easy to dodge or are just totally useless. You can basically instantly win any stock match just by using the Mantis item, and I love how fucking ridiculous it is.

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Hotline miami

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HOTLINE MIAMI

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I want to start doing some quick game reviews so here we go

I’m going to start with Metro 2033 Redux because it’s the most recent thing I’ve played that isn’t Overwatch. Also, full disclosure I didn’t play the game when it first came out so I couldn’t tell you how good of a port this is, but overall the graphics seem pretty alright. However, also full disclosure, I never really cared about the graphics in most games, like if they’re bad I don’t really care, but if they’re really really good then they stick out to me as memorable, I rarely bash games for graphics, especially since that shit seems hard to do. So let me start there I guess

Graphics- The look of this game falls under the “just okay” category for me. They do a good job setting up the tone, and the game does have a pretty consistent tone that I do actually quite enjoy, but some of the enemy design is definitely pretty boring. I like the spider things, and I like those weird blobs that explode when you get too close, but the basic enemies are just boring to me. There were also some times where you could see random texture pop in moments that kind of threw me off. Luckily that never happened in the Dark Ones moments for me, which was nice because those were my favorite parts of the game. Also, full disclosure, I’m a console scrub and only play on ps4 so keep that in mind I guess. And not pro, because I can’t afford that shit. Anyways, again the graphics played well with the tone, and I really enjoyed the setting and the overall concept.

Sound- Honestly if the sound were better, the tone would have been perfect. The voice acting is pretty sub par, which is probably why they didn’t have your main character speak at all, it would have fucked with the tone to have the main character saying poorly delivered shit the whole time. Like a lot of the sound effects sound like stock sound effects that don’t blend well at all, like it took me out of it when I heard some familiar monster scream noises that sounded muffled compared to everything else. It’s just disappointing. However, again, the sequences with the Dark Ones had pretty good sound, so it seems pretty clear that they focused a lot of attention on those sequences which I really appreciated.

Gameplay- overall pretty fun, but it could get very frustrating for me. I play a lot of first person shooters, and not to smoke my own dick or anything but I’m pretty good at most of them. But it is impossible to aim in this game unless you buy something for your guns to fix the accuracy. And sometimes it isn’t even that, thrown weapons just can’t be aimed for shit, and I love any throwing knives in games, I eat that shit up, but it hurts when the mechanic is right there but I can’t use it because one third of the time I throw a knife it just flies past the enemy’s head no matter how well I’m aiming.

I played on survivor, because that seemed to be the way they wanted you to really experience it. There were some creepy sections, and a couple sections that were really tense because I had zero ammo, so I did like those, however I’m not sure I liked this game enough to want to try the Spartan mode, I just didn’t find it satisfying enough to fight the same boring enemies another time. I guess it’s safe to say that there is a lot to this game that just disappointed me, but nothing disappointed me more than the stealth. One thing I like about it is that on the ps4 controller it tells you whether or not you’re visible with how bright the light is, and I like gimmicky shit like that so it made me happy. What I didn’t like though is how the stealth barely works and it takes more time than it realistically should to get into it. I love first person stealth, any time there’s a stealth route I normally try to take it, but this game treats stealth the same way Wolfenstein the New Order did where it doesn’t really matter at all and you can get caught just for looking in the wrong direction. And I get it, it doesn’t have to be a walk in the park, but you can’t expect me to be enjoying myself with the stealth gameplay when I get caught just trying to move from cover to cover. And why give me the option for a silencer if I get detected immediately the moment I shoot a light or spotlight out? I used one of the pneumatic guns and the silenced revolver for most of the game for stealth, and then some sort of shot gun for mutant sections which seemed to work well, but I have no idea where that crossbow weapon was, I looked at all the market places and I guess I just didn’t see it, but I guess I didn’t really need it to get through. Another thing about the stealth is there aren’t enough opportunities to really use it, like there just aren’t that many stealth sections. There were maybe 2 that I managed to get through undetected, and I had a blast with those, it was really satisfying, and I’m hoping that more of it shows up when I break into Last Light, I just hope it works better because I want it to work so bad.

Story- I didn’t read the book that the game is based on but overall I think the story is what kept me going. Mostly the stuff with the Dark Ones, like really none of the characters other than Artyom are memorable because you get to hear his inner dialogue through the notes you find, and it was always interesting to me, and while I didn’t find all of them I read all of the ones I did find and they were intriguing. Everyone else is pretty superfluous though, and it didn’t help that the voice acting was pretty bad. I also didn’t care much for the fascist vs. Red stuff, like again I wanted to because I think it’s important to include stuff like that in games, I find political rivalry and economic unrest to be an interesting backdrop, but it just didn’t come across as a big enough factor in the plot for me to be really invested in it. What really got to me was the Dark Ones stuff. Like they look cool, they’re eerie, and they have a lot of mystery behind them and I always enjoy that. Unraveling the mystery of the Dark Ones and finding a stealth section I can actually get into were the things that made me want to get through the game.

things I liked- Dark Ones, Artyom, weapon design, tone, setting.

Things I didn’t like- clunky gameplay, enemy design, voice acting, superfluous characters.

Final verdict- I probably won’t play it again, but I think it certainly has potential to be one of the more artistic and interesting triple A titles I’ve seen. 5/10.

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This is our Dark Souls 3 episode of minor league gaming, still pretty happy with how it turned out.

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So they got me a body pillow for my birthday.

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Just wanted to share this again, I'm real proud of it.