#secret countdown timer hit! time for plot!

[sinnohsiblings]

*Felix hesitantly approaches Calama. This was the void spirit of another world but he looked 10x as intimidating as the one from his that he had once had an encounter with. Felix had to be brave. He knew beings with great power like this could smell fear. Too bad he couldn’t control the shaking legs, the sweat that began dripping off his face or the quiver he could feel in his fingers.*

Felix: Erm, hi, great one. I, erm, I was just wonderin’, considering how long a being like ya lives for, i-if ya had any wisdom or anythin’ for someone like me. N-not callin’ ya old or anythin’, great one. Just because ya seem ta have a lotta experience. Ya see, I happen ta have a friend who just so happens ta want ya mess with beins on ya power level. Just simple insults, that’s all. But, I know it’s gonna land ‘em in a lotta trouble real soon. Like, gods like you can w-wipe us out in an instant and they don’t seem ta be gettin’ the message. Have ya had anyone in ya life who’s gone too far with somethin’ that ya have had ta step in ta stop ‘em from doin’ somethin’ stupid? How did ya go about it? Erm, I probably should’ve brought an offering or something, haha.

Calama: "Some people will not change unless you actually hold true to concequences and make them change. If you want this person to change you need to hold them accountable for their actions and if needed cut them off entirely if they refuse to change. This friend of yours will get you killed if they continue to be that reckless" Calama: "Do you have any idea what kind of tyrants a creator god can be if insulted? There are gods who will kill the firends and loved ones who slight them just to have the empty void of lonliness and the blood of their companions on their hands to serve as a message to never try their patience again."

Calama: "If they wont make the effort to change, for your own survival sake cut them off. A good beating could do i-" With that Calama's eyes narrowed and he ripped himself back as a massive darbed tendril larger than even the great giant ripped passed him and shattered off parts of the island floating infront of him.

Goliaopede has initiated a territorial dispute!

[seriousfic]

Watching Snyder League

-Diana literally vaporizes a guy armed with nothing but an assault rifle.

-Also, these have gotta be like the dumbest terrorists. Their plan:

A. Send multiple armed gunmen to take hostages.

B. Stall for time

C. Set off a suitcase bomb on a one minute countdown (why not just set it off immediately? It's In The Script)

You have a suitcase bomb--just park a car somewhere, set the timer, leave it in the trunk, and walk away. You can kill as many people as you want without losing any of your own guys.

-Superman's scream sends out five separate shockwaves. Which makes me think the guy's milking it, personally.

- I'm amused that both SOP for the Amazons is having, like, fifty people standing around guarding the Mother Box. AND that they don't ramp up security after it wakes up.

- And there's this system of burying the Mother Box.  Which 1. seems like the only way to get there in the first place is to teleport in. What good is this system against a teleporter?

2. It takes six guards to suicide themselves by knocking down pillars, which seems like--in five thousand years, you couldn't come up with something where you just pull a level from twenty feet away?

This is the problem with the Amazons. They're all women, so none of them go into STEM fields.

- It's also real weird that this Bruce Wayne doesn't even try to hide that he's Batman. He just walks right up to Aquaman and goes "hey, Bruce Wayne, I'm also Batman." And remember, he's getting the Justice League together entirely based on a hunch. At least in Josstice League, there were Parademons all up in Gotham.

- And should I even bother to ask why Darkseid's people can't just bring three new Mother Boxes to Earth? Are those the only three? If so, you'd think they'd try to get them back sooner. Like, A LOT sooner.

- Okay, this was supposed to come out one year before Infinity War, but still, it was pretty obvious what Marvel was doing with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. They had to know they were inviting comparisons.

-I love the implication, tho, that Darkseid just lost track of the Mother Boxes and just... no one realized they were back on Earth. And they have Parademons that can specifically sniff out the Mother Boxes. 

-And if Superman dying was such a momentous occasion that it woke up a Mother Box, why not the Old Gods dying? Why not Ares dying? Wouldn't that have left Earth just as undefended?

-I have no idea why any of this is happening a couple years after Superman debuted and then died and not in, like, 1446.

-Are the Mother Boxes like finicky computers? Do you need to turn them off and on again? When Superman showed up, did they shut down for real, and then he died, so they came back on for real? Is it like a Windows 95 thing, where you can't JUST turn the computer off, you have to go to the start menu and press Shutdown and then wait for it to close up shop?

-It’s so weird that this is supposed to be a Dark, Mature Adaptation For Adults! And it doesn’t have the same basic logic you’d get from an episode of Power Rangers. 

-So. Much. Daddy issues.

-Please stop letting Ezra Miller improv.

-They cast like the gayest man in America to play the one guy with a love interest.

-Diana: "I lost someone I loved once." Well, twice, but who's counting?

-All those reshoots and they couldn't get Amber Heard to knock off the British accent?

-Why is Desaad, of all people, Darkseid’s dragon? Is it just because they were rifling through all the Fourth World saga to find the few guys with scary names instead of Granny Goodness or Virman Vundabar?

- And they really play up Darkseid appearing to Steppenwolf, but we've not only already seen him in the big flashback, we saw him get his ass kicked by Zeus of all people.

- And the whole thing where Steppenwolf is part of Darkseid's 'family' really isn't helping the Thanos-Nebula-Gamora comparison.

-It's weird to introduce Darkseid as the guy who was already beaten once. Wouldn't it make more sense that Steppenwulf was the guy who lost, and that allowed Darkseid to take over, and now he's trying to redeem himself for his defeat? Or that Darkseid was never defeated at all, but someone stole the Anti-Life Equation from him and hid it on Earth? Something. Instead, it’s literally just randomly burnt into the crust of the Earth, Darkseid discovers it, then forgets all about it for reasons the movie doesn’t get into despite being four damn hours long.

-It’s only the central plot, whatever, forget about it.

- Pretty sure Kal eye-lasered a couple Army guys to death after he was resurrected, not that he ever gives a shit.

-Third big reveal of Darkseid. Come on, you've shown him three times now. We've heard him talk.

-And this does the same thing as Josstice League with Superman being more powerful than the rest of the JLA put together. Here, he even no-sells Steppenwolf's axe. He just lets it hit him and it doesn’t do shit. So Doomsday could kill him, but Steppenwolf can't even scratch him. And yet Wonder Woman seems pretty evenly matched with both, if not outclassed by Steppenwolf.

-Barry Allen spends the whole climax running in a circle. And he fails at it! Dude's really retarded when he doesn't have Team STAR Labs cheering him on.

-He also casually travels back in time to undo his side getting a Game Over, which makes you wonder how any conflict in this universe can ever have any stakes. Say what you will about Endgame, but at least they explain why time travel can’t solve every problem they ever have.

-Hell, the Mother Boxes can bring people back to life. The example used is literally “it can turn smoke back into a house.” Why not bring Joe Morton back to life? He did a good job in T2, c��mon.

-Speaking of, according to TV Tropes, Ray Fisher got to come up with his own backstory for Cyborg (”I don't praise Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder for simply putting me in Justice League. I praise them for EMPOWERING me (a black man with no film credits to his name) with a seat at the creative table and input on the framing of the Stones before there was even a script!”), which makes it kinda hilarious that this movie’s characterization of Cyborg is that he’s a genius sports hero who also loves helping out the underprivileged.

-AND his big conflict with his dad is that Silas Stone was never there for him, as literally represented by there being an empty seat next to his mom at Vic’s big sportsball game. So apparently the black experience is indistinguishable from Austin Powers In Goldmember. Who knew?

-What else? It's weird that the narrative tries to put some importance in Martha Kent, but then in her big scene with Lois, she's really Martian Manhunter (not kidding) and when Superman is resurrected, he hears encouraging words ONLY from Jor-El and Jonathan. All she really contributes to the story is hugging Superman after he comes back.

-Also, Batman spends a lot of time in the climax shooting people with a rifle. They're bug people and it's, like, a Halo rifle, but still. You can tell Snyder's just chomping at the bit to have Batman carry around a Colt Commando.

-They give no shits about secret identities in this, so why do they still bother with putting a shitty distortion effect on Batfleck's voice? He has a pretty good Batman voice outside the suit, but once he puts it on, he starts sounding like he's giving a blowjob to Daft Punk.

-One of the movie’s, like, four cliffhangers is Lex Luthor telling Deathstroke about Batman’s secret identity, because Deathstroke has a private vendetta against Batman and is out to get him. Of all the Bat rogues who are solely motivated by taking out Batman--why choose Deathstroke, the guy that’s just a mercenary for hire, to characterize as simply hating Batman? (They also imply Batman took out Deathstroke’s eye and THAT’S the big feud between him and--guys. C’mon. This was really supposed to be a whole movie of Deathstroke getting revenge for his eye?)

- The movie ends with them making Wayne Manor the JLA headquarters--God, just tell me if secret identities matter or not.

-Did we really need two ‘beyond the impossible’ scenes back to back, one for Cyborg and one for the Flash?

-Oh, it’s not Arkham Asylum, it’s ‘Arkham Home For The Emotionally Troubled.’ Was this supposed to be one of those Arrowverse things where they call it Starling City for a while, only to rebrand it Star City because that’s somehow better than just calling it Star City in the first place?

- "[Snyder] also said that the reason Darkseid lost track of which world the Mother Boxes were left on was because he was gravely injured and their forces sent limping away, and upon returning to Apokolips had to fight a civil war for the throne (possibly the event hinted where Steppenwolf betrayed him), wherein their records were lost." Imagine having a movie four hours long and not explaining the fucking backstory.

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Modest Media Game Reviews Spooktober Spectacular!           Resident Evil Directors Cut.

Game – Resident Evil Directors Cut Year of Release - 1997 Developer - Capcom Publisher -Capcom Rated -  Mature Genre -  Third Person shooter, Survival Horror Platform – PS1, Playstation network, PC, SAMSUNG SCH-G100, SAMSUNG SPH-G1000

Resident Evil, one of the most influential and legendary horror games to date. The first Resident Evil was considered to be the first legit survival horror. While horror games like Clock Tower, Alone in the Dark and Splatterhouse were out before, Reisdent Evil was the first to hit mainstream audiences. Originally on the PS1, Resident Evil has seen re-releases on various future consoles, making it a game that is almost always readily available. Now, when considering the optimal way to review this game, most people would say the remake, which has new content and vastly superior graphics. However, I decided to look at the original, or rather the Director’s cut for PS1. I may review the remake some other time.

Gameplay – Resident Evil is a third person survival horror game with an emphasis on resource management. You play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, while these characters have their own experience, they fundamentally play the same. The games controls take a while to get used too, on account that they are considered “tank controls”. It can be difficult at moments to control the character due to these controls and that can be frustrating. Enemies come in various forms, from zombies to giant spiders to the deadly hunter. Many encounters will rely on fight or flight, as ammo and healing supplies is limited. Speaking of supplies, resource management is a necessity here. Each character can only hold a limited number of items. Key items, weapons, ammo and healing supplies must be balanced in order to survive the situation at hand. To make matters even worse is the fact that saves are limited. You can save the game by using an ink roll at a typewriter. In other words, if you have no ink you cannot save. If you die, you go back to the last save, and if you have not saved, then you are set very far back. This an be very frustrating during one of the difficulty spikes of the game. Namely, the hunters, these monsters appear a lot later and can one-shot the player very easily. These green buggers can ruin a good time very quickly. All enemies can be defeated if damaged enough, however they may not always stay down. Zombies can get back up after falling once. Later on there are several zombies that always come back. This might sound terrible with limited resources, but most enemies can be avoided if the player is skilled enough. Boss battles occur as well, and they aren’t too special, they are just cinematic battles. Bosses include a giant snake named Yawn, a killer plant and the deadly Tyrant. Each boss has their own pattern and weaknesses. The game also has some puzzles, these puzzles really boil down to just finding the item needed to advance, but there are some more complicated ones as well. A guide might be needed at some points. So the game can have its rocky points and can be demotivating if you are suddenly killed by a hunter you could not see… However, it is b no means a bad game and can be fun and eerie. Score - 17/20

Graphics – Resident Evil had some revolutionary graphics for its time. While character models were low detailed, this is to be expected for the time it came out. However, this game stands proud with its environment. Using the art of pre-rendered graphics, the mansion looks like a creepy mansion. It might stand against the main characters to much at some points, but it is by no means bad. While today it might be dismissed, I believe that it was great for its time. To composite for pre-rendered graphics the camera is always at a fixed angel, this can make areas more atmospheric, but it can also unnecessarily camouflage enemies. Score - 8/10

Story – The story of resident evil is told through both playthroughs from the perspective of the main protagonist Jill and Chris. After a series of gruesome and strange murders in Racoon City, the police department sent their Special Tactics And Rescue Service, also known as S.T.A.R.S to investigate. Two teams are assembled, Alpha and Bravo. Bravo is sent first and contact is lost, Alpha is sent to find them. Major characters include Jill, Chris, Barry and Wesker. Upon entering the forest, Alpha is attacked by zombie dogs and they take refuge in the mansion. The mansion is crawling with Undead and the team is stuck within the halls. The team splits up, or rather Chris and Wesker disappear from Jill’s perspective. Jill goes through the mansion, discovering its secrets and overcoming the monsters within. Her partner is Barry, who the game builds suspension that Barry is an enemy. Chris goes through the mansion with a young lady named Rebecca, who is a surviving member of Bravo team. Chris and Jill do not cross paths until the very end. As they dive deeper they discover the mansion is a front for a biological weapons lab. As the mystery unravels, more and more dangerous monsters show up, possibly sent by Umbrella (the series main antagonist) to stop them. The mansion holds many secret files that further build detail with the world. Once the characters reach the lab, the final area of the game, it is revealed who the traitor is. The traitor releases the ultimate bio-weapon, the Tyrant, and is then supposedly killed. Jill and Chris, now reunited, flee to a helipad while the mansion is on a countdown self-destruct timer. On the helipad they fight the Tyrant and destroy it before escaping. The mansion is destroyed, and the day seems to be saved…for now. For a game released in the mid-90s this is a great plot. It has mystery, it is compelling, and it builds tension. Score – 8.5/10

Replay Value – Good. In this game you can play as either Jill or Chris. These two characters have fundamentally the same game but different stories. Jill has a larger inventory and a weapon at the start while Chris has a smaller inventory and no weapon. Chris is essentially the hard mode of the game.  The directors cut also features a new arrange mode. Arrange mode rearranges the games layout of items and weapons and can add a new challenge for returning players. Overall this game needs to be played twice to experience everything. One playthrough for Jill and one for Chris, with arrange mode being a additional challenge. Also, depending on the choices the player makes an determine the ending. There are four endings, with each ending determining the fate of the other characters, the mansion and the tyrant. There is a worst, bad, good and best ending. Score - 4/5

Music – The original soundtrack is good. It has some creepy tunes and is overall very suspenseful and eerie. However, the soundtrack was reworked with the dualshock version. Ooof. Someone messed up here. All the music in the dualshock version has been remade and it is a substantial step down from the original soundtrack. The music sounds like it was processed into a bunch of Midi files and sounds older than the game its in. The voice acting is still legendary for how hammy and bad it is, but I like to consider that a part of the games charm. The soundtrack of the original is much better, and I would strongly recommend that one over this one. Score – 3.5/5

Overall – Resident Evil is a cornerstone of the survival horror genre. It was one of the first games to become a mainstream horror title and has been considered by many at the time to be one of the scariest games ever. It might not have aged well, but in the ever growing and evolving world of video games do you expect it to hold up? It did birth a long series of games that have been a mixed bag of content, but mostly good. Now, this game has several re-releases with better graphics and more story. If you can afford them I would recommend playing those versions instead. But, if you want to play the classic but don’t want to go broke trying to get the original, give this version a try! Final Score – 8.2/10 - superb

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-quiet-man-review-silence-is-stupid/

The Quiet Man Review – Silence is Stupid

During Square Enix’s bizarre 2018 E3 conference we mostly saw nothing of value. However, there was one game that caught my eye. This was The Quiet Man, and I’m not sure it captured my attention for the right reasons. Since seeing more of it, I realize I was excited not as a game but as a possible train wreck. Now it’s in my hands, and simply, it’s hard to be quiet about how hilariously awful the game truly is.

You play as Dane, a name I only know because I read the game’s Steam description. The best I can figure is that Dane works for a crime boss and is in love with some lounge singer. Then, some guy in a bird’s mask shows up and kidnaps the lounge singer. After that, I totally lost the plot. At no point does The Quiet Man even try to make sense. Sometimes there are hints of supernatural stuff. I think three different characters betray you. I’m not sure any of it ever matters.

It’s the Hush Hush Lad!

The reason I can’t figure the game’s plot out at all? Dane is deaf. The Quiet Man attempts to emulate this by playing no sound at all at any point in the game. This is a novel idea that can totally work if the developers build the game around it. However, The Quiet Man is not that game. It’s overwhelmingly obvious that this was a regular game that quickly shoehorned this in. Cutscenes will go five or more minutes yet include absolutely nothing but two characters talking. There are no subtitles, there are no translations, there is no way to tell what they’re saying. As such, the plot gets totally lost.

However, The Quiet Man seems particularly strange about this. The excuse given is that you “experience the world as Dane does.” Yet, Dane can understand sign language, so why isn’t any of that subtitled? It’s later shown that Dane can read lips, but the game still isn’t telling you what anyone is saying? Why are scenes that don’t even have Dane in them silent too?

The truth is, The Quiet Man has no interest in showing you how a deaf person experiences the world. Instead, deafness quickly becomes an insulting gimmick. It’s all part of an attempt to try to make a subpar beat ’em up stand out from the crowd. This especially feels true when you finish the game and it flat out tells you that you didn’t actually get the story before showing a countdown timer that shows how long before they release the patch that puts all the noises back in.

The Quiet Man uses his Quiet Hand to deliver a beat down

It should be noted that many of the game’s cutscenes are actually FMVs. It’s clear this is a very low budget production, as the game only uses FMVs for the most simple of moments. Long car conversations play out in FMV and the game awkwardly transitions to CGI the minute any action takes place. It’s hilariously obvious when these moments happen, as the CGI is awful. Sometimes the transitions are sudden, hidden behind a flash of white light. Other times the camera slowly pans to something innocent, like a wall, transitioning as it does so. I got the feeling the goal was to amaze players at these transitions. Instead, they just caused me to burst into laughter.

When its time to actually play The Quiet Man, you’ll be punching people in the face. The game has a very basic brawling system where you combine light and heavy attacks into something that vaguely resembles a combo. I say vaguely because all of the attacks feel sluggish and I was never sure which button did what. There’s a dodge button, and I could dodge attacks to counter-attack in theory. In practice, this only worked about once every five or so times I tried it. There’s no tutorial or interface of any kind. If there’s some secret to how to get consistently working counter attacks, it never revealed itself.

It’s the Quiet… Girl?

There are a few attempts to mix things up with a focus system. At certain times you can focus on an enemy to deliver a special super powerful attack. However, it’s never made clear when these times actually are. The only way I ever got focus to work was by smashing the button until it eventually let me use one. The attacks themselves are only really noteworthy for how underwhelming they are. Nearly every time I performed a focus attack, I got the same one. A really goofy open-palmed slap to the top of an enemy’s head. It’s the kind of thing that makes you just want to say “boop” when it happens, and not once did it look actually threatening.

Not like any of this matters once you learn how easy it is to exploit the combat system. Every single enemy in the game falls victim to the same problem. You can pin them against a wall and lock them into an endless combo by mashing the light attack. This includes bosses and even the final boss. It turns an already boring beat ’em up into a trivially easy one that makes you a tired man. It’s not like there’s even simple enemy variety to change things up. Every enemy is exactly the same, even if they’re holding a weapon. I can’t think of a single fight where I had to do anything other than mash light attacks against a guy pinned against a wall.

I hate everyone in this room

The lack of sound is also present in combat, contributing to a constant feeling of apathy. A dull muffled “thud” is the only feedback you get from your attacks. As you can imagine, this fails to actually sell your hits. There’s no soundtrack at all, which seems weird because it’s not like adding a soundtrack would do anything other than make the game feel a little better.

Everything about The Quiet Man is just plain ugly. Animations are stiff and fail to convey any weight. One awkward scene saw the main character dodging a boss’ punch, but it’s tough to buy when the boss’ fist clips right through the main character’s face. Speaking of Dane, his design looks like someone decided to mash together Spider-Man 3‘s emo Peter Parker with a 16-year-old version of Resident Evil‘s Leon S. Kennedy. The result is a character that I can safely say made me laugh at every scene he was in.

This is a totally normal thing that can happen on the streets of NYC

Look, even as a “so bad it’s good” game, The Quiet Man doesn’t work. It’s a boring, baffling, and genuinely insulting video game that fails at every single thing it tries. The story makes no sense as the protagonist’s deafness becomes a mere gimmick. The beat ’em up elements are absolutely no fun, the controls are awkward, and the game is ugly. The only positive I can pull from this is that I always wanted to see how much worse it could get. The Quiet Man deserves to remain silent.

TechRaptor reviewed The Quiet Man on PlayStation 4 with a copy purchased by the reviewer. The game is also available on PC and Xbox One.

More About This Game

1.0

  Awful

Summary

The Quiet Man is an absolute disaster of ideas that don’t work, bad design decisions, boring combat, ugly graphics, and attempting to use a real disability as a gimmick in a way that feels borderline insulting.

Pros

There May Be Great Voice Acting?

Cons

Dumb, Nonsensical Story

Poorly Used Deafness

Terrible FMV to CGI Transitions

Boring Gameplay

Ugly Graphics

Have a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we’ll take a look!

Samuel Guglielmo

Associate Review Editor

I’m Sam. Been playing video games since PlayStation. Favorite games include Ace Combat 5, Perfect Dark, Final Fantasy IX, Metro 2033, and MonsterBag. Also loves books and can be found face first in one all the time.

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