#the opening line is actually featured in the series' flagship song

[dysphoric-affect]

Actually, The Sequel Was Better

          Often times, not just in gaming but with entertainment in any medium, there can be a tendency to look upon the first in a series as the definitive, superior entry, with all others to follow damned to never be able to measure up. The original titles gain an almost religious reverence and deference shown to them, with them continuing to be pointed to as the standard bearer for later titles to attempt to measure up to. Sometimes the original may indeed be the superior entry, but often it seems to me this consideration being shown to it truly stems from its place chronologically in the series rather than any objective consideration of its merits compared to the sequels, with the reasons for why being manufactured after the opinion is formed, rather than serving as the basis for it.

          I dispute this whole notion. The original games in a series tend to excite because it is our first time being exposed to its various elements: the characters, big picture story of those characters’ world, the core gameplay mechanics, the set of weapons and abilities available, and so on. However, while these elements may be good, often the excitement that’s felt for them has more to do with the sensation of freshness from not having seen these things before compounding on their solid quality, rather than being as purely based on their quality as such “original is the best” devotees would lead you to believe. Essentially, when an original game in a series is good, we all will tend to enjoy a sort of “honeymoon” phase with it where we’re caught up by all its good qualities. Some simply remain in that phase, hence the loyalty to the original.

          The problem with such unquestioning loyalty to the originals is that it misses the shortcomings they can and do often have, encouraging a stagnation that never fixes them. The thing about the first iteration of game series is that the ideas are just being tested out for the first time in the wild as it were, and things that overly complicate and slow down character progression, make the pacing of the narrative feel off, don’t satisfy in their depth on customization and so on can be missed during a studios internal testing and never discovered until the trial by fire that is being opened up to gamers to explore. Some of these mistakes could go to misjudgments arising from the studio, whether general bad calls or simply learning the nature of their new IP and what does and doesn’t work in how they should handle it. Other things aren’t mistakes at all in the short term necessarily, but with time giving greater perspective, namely from sequels coming around and improving on the formula, come to feel like mistakes, or it at least feeling like certain elements feel dated because of the various quality-of-life improvements and greater refinement those elements have been able to be shown with time.

          On this other end, besides sequels being able to cut those bad or unnecessary elements and refine those solid but imperfect elements, they are also able to benefit from hindsight in having what new elements are introduced to excite players being based off that understanding and more likely to be more consistently well-executed, satisfying and exciting than the new elements in the original, which are inescapably a mix.

          Undoubtedly some examples would make this whole case better than exposition, so let’s get into it.

          Rock Band 2 is one of the simpler examples of the case I’ve been making. The original felt perfectly fine for its time, but RB2 expanded the base song list in the game natively as well as providing much greater support for expanding on that content with regular new DLC song packs to download, smartly making these available to buy in smaller doses rather than forcing you to buy an entire album or album’s worth of material, undoubtedly making them greater sales from fans more willing to part with a little spare cash for a song they love regularly while also satisfying fans with that formatting so they never felt obligated to have to spend money on unwanted content. This was a clever encouragement for replay value as well: checking back to see what new songs were added, seeing a handful you really enjoyed and getting excited about whacking out the drumbeats of one of these new options or watching your friend and “bandmate” attempt to do its vocals knowing he’d fail hilariously got you excited to play all over again. Speaking of your bandmates, the greatly improved customization system for the look of your characters and your instruments while performing and being able to use that in collaboration with your friends to come up with a look and feel for the in-game band you created together that you all loved was a really simply but greatly satisfying improvement.

          Now, Rock Band isn’t a series that I do see the original being revered over the sequels with, but I wanted to bring it up to illustrate the point I was making more clearly about how sequels can benefit from the understanding of how the basics of a game concept have been received.

          Now we can turn to a couple case that do more fully deal with the issue I’m talking about. One would be Pokémon. The Red and Blue Versions and the first generation roster of Pokémon are often held up as highlights of the series, not just by fans, but even in practice by those making the newer games, with new pre-evolutions or evolutions or forms for that generation’s Pokémon being implemented in the sequels that have occurred since in far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than any other generation. Yet...those games and that roster actually represent some of the weakest the series has had to offer. With the games more generally, the region design wasn’t particularly interesting in retrospect, there wasn’t much of a story to speak of, the battle mechanics - while not bad for their time - have been greatly outclassed by the later changes made to it, the representation of types was poorly handled in some cases - the one Ghost type line seeming weak to the Psychic types they were on paper supposed to be strong against or Dragon types seeming weaker to Ice than they were because of their only lines final form being extra weak to it, for example, and an extremely limited post-game involving one small new area to explore and one new Legendary Pokémon to catch. The biggest problem with that roster I already mentioned in the mishandling of the type distribution across the different lines in the games, but beyond that is just the simpler facts that subsequent generations have had more interesting designs, better typings and more interesting evolutions methods to attain them.

          With almost every single specific element of those original games, putting aside the new features not introduced until later, we can find a sequel generation in that series which did it better: every generation except the fourth has had better region design, third and fifth had excellent world stories while the new eighth generation tells an excellent Gym Challenge-related story, second through fourth - with arguments to be made for others - made needed improvements on the core battle mechanics, basically every subsequent generation has had better type distributions across the new roster, and the second and third generations especially had excellent postgame content with revisiting Kanto for the former and the Battle Frontier for the latter greatly expanding the time you wanted to play beyond the Championship.

          All of this, understand, isn’t to say the first generation of games or their roster of new Pokémon were bad, just that in comparison to what has come since, they are far from the pinnacle of what the series stands to offer you and certainly not deserving the infallible status some ascribe to them.

          Now, let’s turn from Nintendo’s flagship franchise to Microsoft’s. With Halo it is considered considerably more contentious than with Pokémon to challenge the original’s superiority. To be fair, Combat Evolved stands the test of time better than Red and Blue versions do for Pokémon. The story’s tone of desperation juxtaposed with Master Chief’s badass capabilities and heroism is a great dynamic, which along with the sense of awe looking around the environments and the sense of exploration and decision on which objectives to approach and how all serve to be strong benchmarks for the series to make it a point to reach, either directly or in some equivalent sense. However, the reuse of multiple levels along with the general monotony of the Library level’s design, overly frail allies with questionable decision making hurting their survivability, often confused multiplayer map design that can complicate efforts to strategize with a team, and the overly centralizing Pistol and Scorpion making use of most other weapons and vehicles moot are all rough points to it.

          Much was made of Halo 2′s more linear level design and cliffhanger ending, and to some extent not having more time to play as the Chief (though this has died for the most part over time) and it has some of its own unique problems, but what we do have makes it my overall favorite in the series: characters in general are more developed, new characters are interesting, the development of the backstory to your enemies is fantastic and remains relatively unique among all games I’ve played, the level variety is great and your objectives often feel more epic and important. The music within the Campaign is some of the best in the series, arguably its overall best, which does matter given its ties for setting the tone to accompany the narrative. With gameplay, the change to destructible vehicles and the ability to board them both looks cool and provides needed balance to their power while boost added onto Covenant vehicles helps differentiate the feel of them from the human vehicles better. Of course, there was also the addition of dual-wielding to note as well. As I’m a more competitive player, this isn’t something I made much use of personally, but it was aesthetically a really cool thing to be able to do and for my less competitive friends who enjoy the series is something they really loved and have missed since it was cut as a staple element from the series’ gameplay, so it certainly secured its place as a beloved element, too. Last, but certainly not least, is easily the best multiplayer map design the series has ever had. Taken together, this made for Halo 2 to be more satisfying overall - and certainly more satisfying long-term - than its predecessor. Other games in the series have also done various elements better than it, or even better than Halo 2 in some cases as well.

          Ditto again on this kind of case when it comes to Sony’s flagship franchise in God of War as well, which notably goes out of its way more than any of the other series I’ve mentioned to not be beholden to the original as anything sacred and a baseline off which to model itself. The results here are telling: with greater character development and a more emotionally-driven story than anyone ever would have expected, a simultaneously more complex and more refined combat system, a satisfying upgrade system, revamped mission structure and much more, it has all the perfect ingredients to not just make it an excellent entry in that series, but the best yet, in spite of being the fifth. If a mentality of “the original is the best” had been held and it had been developed from that perspective, fans of the series and those the newest just drew in all would be devoid of this gem as it is, however.

          There are of course other series - many more - to which illustrate my case, but I’ll consider these flagship franchises by the Big Three sufficient to make my case as is. Undoubtedly, you can think of other examples yourself. What all of these go to show is in actuality a relatively simple truth: sequels are often, if we are objective about their qualities, better than the originals and deserve to be respected as such. Being the first doesn’t inherently make something the best; that is only a status we’ve arbitrarily applied to how we approach thinking of games, or perhaps entertainment more broadly. Failing to take an honest look at how well sequels do on these different elements and the impact that has on their overall quality not only negatively impacts the individual gamer, who is preventing themselves from enjoying their games more, but also negatively impacts gaming culture, as it sends the message to developers that stagnation in the further work they do is not only acceptable, but to be encouraged.

          When they aren’t encouraged to try bold new ideas they think could improve the formula for what a series stands to offer and instead play it safe, we are denied who knows how many exciting gaming moments we could have otherwise enjoyed, instead left with something akin to the original, but feeling more like a cheap imitation than a true sequel. In this way, that “original is best’ mentality becomes self-fulfilling prophesy, as we inadvertently encourage the very kind of lackluster experiences with sequels that can make the original seem like the best an IP can give us. I think we have a duty as gamers to take a step back more and instead of just being critical of games, also consider being critical of our thought process for how we approach looking at them for this kind of behavior and to rectify that when we find it within ourselves, for the sake of our own happiness and that of the gaming community.

          So, the next time you find yourself thinking “the original is best,” look deeper. Maybe it really is. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll be surprised what you find.

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          Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my content, please consider liking, commenting, following and especially reblogging so it can reach more people. Any support you show is greatly appreciated.

[takerfoxx]

You don't have to make a cheat sheet. If my investment in cookie-senpai is anything to go by, I'm already too far gone.

(though I can’t say I would have ever expected Mokou to be referred to as Cookie-senpai, but now I shall be thinking of her exclusively with that term)Anyway....

All right, peeps. Here’s the deal with this new story. For anyone who’s only familiar with my PMMM stuff, I actually originally broke into fanfiction through writing stories for the Touhou Project, with Resonance Days premiering exactly two years after that. 

And for anyone that’s not familiar with the Touhou Project, it’s a Japanese indie game series of top-down bullet hell shooters. In fact, many would consider it to be the series of top-down bullet hell shooters, with many of the other entries in the genre often cribbing from Touhou’s notes. They’re notable for being completely created from the bottom-up by one single guy on his home computer. Specifically, this guy.

Meet ZUN, a Japanese video game legend known for eating too little and drinking way, way too much. Seriously, he’s admitted to being drunk during the bulk of the programming of at least one of his games, and his first impression of American culture was, “The meals were too big and the beers too small.” 

Here we see him in what I presume was on an average Wednesday.

Anyway, when I said he does everything himself, I mean everything, from the plotting to the programming to the designing the sprite art (which is super pretty) to the character art (which is charmingly terrible) to the music (which is legendary for how catchy it is) to anything else you can think of. And thanks to a combination of their ridiculously huge cast of endearing characters, absurdly difficult and yet somehow not cheap gameplay, and amazing soundtracks, they have amassed a huge cult following that frankly dwarfs so many professional franchises. Seriously, we’re talking oodles upon oodles of fanart, fan comics, impressive fan animations, entire bands dedicated to remixing and covering the soundtracks, and elaborate cosplays. Every Comiket is largely dominated by Touhou content, and whenever ZUN himself shows up in person to drop a new game, expect people to be lining up out the door days in advance.

So onto the games themselves!

The games take place in the mystical country of Gensokyo, with an approximate map reproduction here.

Anyway, Gensokyo is a little hard to describe, so I guess the best description would be that it’s sort of a pocket dimension intended as a refuge for feudal-era Japanese mythology, where all the gods, monsters, fairies, spirits, and other supernatural thingies went to after Japan started to move away from their beliefs, along with a bunch of humans who wanted to still believe in them. And all of those supernatural creatures have been anthropomorphized as cute anime-esque girls in silly outfits!

This series has inspired a lot of porn.

Anyway, the two main characters of the series are the perpetually poor and always grumpy shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and her best friend the cheerful but also something of a kleptomaniac witch Marisa Kirisame, pictured here. 

And despite being the protagonists, they’re admittedly kind of a couple of assholes. Likeable assholes, but still assholes.

Also, these guys are also often playable as well.

But seeing how my story takes place decades before the first game and most of these guys haven’t even been born yet, that’s not really important.

Anyway, the series sticks to a formula that it only occasionally deviates from. Some weird shit is afoot, so whoever you selected as your character goes to investigate for whatever reason, spend the first two levels not making any progress and encountering boss fights that have nothing to do with the incident, running into someone on the third level that at least knows what’s going on and can point them in the right direction after having the snot beaten out of them, spending the next two levels facing off against the perpetrator’s minions/allies/friends/family/whatever, before facing off against the perpetrator on the final level. Do well enough, and you’ll unlock a super-hard extra stage feature a super-hard bonus boss that has some kind of connection to the final boss.

Anyway, the plots are rarely important, and most of the bosses end up befriending the protags after having some sense beaten into them and sometimes even show up as playable characters in later games.

So, this is where I come in.

Imperfect Metamorphosis is my flagship story. It’s basically a dark fic that plays all of the darker elements from the series straight and involves a freak accident kicking off a series of disasters that has a lot of factions forming, plots within plots, and overall chaos. Heavily influence by Song of Ice and Fire, if you’re into that sort of thing. And Swiftly Descending Darkness is basically the origin story of one of those disasters. Other related stories include the spin-off Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire and the second Christmas special Over an Open Fire, both of which feature Mokou as a main character and thus tie into this story, which is something I’ve been planning for...Jesus, almost as long as IM’s been running.

Anyway, canon characters from Touhou in SDD are Rumia, Keine, Mokou, and Kana (also that annoying blue fairy from the first scene, but that was just a cameo). All others so far are all OC’s, but one or two other canon characters might show up.

And that’s all I can really talk about without veering into spoiler territory. Anyone who’s read IM or is even familiar with Touhou can probably guess where a few things are going, but for those of you who aren’t, well, any googling will be up to you.

So yeah.

There you go.

[turnipsummer14-blog]

Christmas gift guide: what you can order just FOUR days before December 25th

Still have presents to buy? The best Christmas gifts for last-minute shoppers that will arrive in time for December 25th - and they cost as little as £10

Vouchers are the way to go if you're sweating slightly about presents arriving in time for the big day

Online retailers are still offering presents with a guarantee of arriving at your door by the 24th December

Our picks include a day out at The Bear Grylls Adventure in Birmingham to hand-made chocolate truffles

Cost-conscious gifts include engraved perfume from £35 a bottle...and beer in the post for £29.90

By Jo Tweedy For Mailonline

Published: 07:50 GMT, 21 December 2018 | Updated: 15:21 GMT, 21 December 2018

Advertisement

The man in red is already packing up his sleigh...but what if, with just four days until the big December 25th, your present bag is still dismally bare?

Fear not, for online shopping truly offers last-minute Larrys a life-line, for there's a whole raft of internet purchases that can be made on December 21st...and still find their way to your loved one well in time for Christmas Day. Zero to hero in the click of a mouse!

Here, Femail rounds up the best last-gasp purchases you can still make... 

UNDER £50

Nuxe Christmas cracker featuring four mini products £10.00

Ideal for travellers looking for some soothing treats in a smaller size, this Nuxe gift-set includes mini versions of luxurious products including a hand and nail cream, a honey face cream and a dry oil splash.  

Order by 4pm on the 23rd (£4.95 charge) for next-day delivery 

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Hand-made truffles including a Brussels sprout flavour  £10.00

The sophisticated alternative to a selection box? Hand-made chocolate truffles with a Christmas theme include Raspberry Champagne, Prosecco, Milk Champagne and, wait for it, Brussel Sprouts! The box is geometric-trendy too.   

Order by By 3pm on the 21st for tracked next day delivery 

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Tickets to see the Nutcracker live at London's Albert Hall   From £35.00

Forget Hollywood's version, the Nutcracker will play out to awe-struck crowds from the 28th to the 31st December at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The best news? You can pick tickets up straight from the box office... perfect for johnny come-latelys.

Order online and receive by post or direct at the box office 

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Commemorative First World War cut-glass Tommy figure  £29.99

Made by veterans, all profits from this commemorative WW1 Tommy figure go to charities across the military and mental health sector. This 10"/25cm high Perspex Tommy figure is delivered in beautiful packaging. This would be a lovely gift for many, especially to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War this year. 

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas

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Tile Pro device to stop you losing keys and phones  £30

This handy device is ideal for keeping track of items that easily get lost including house keys and luggage. The tile uses Bluetooth to make a loud sound that identifies the location of a lost item as well as shows positioning on a map. 

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Braun Series 3 ProSkin 3080s electronic shaver £49.99

Perfect for the man on the go, the Braun Series 3 ProSkin 3080s has advanced MircoComb technology that reduces shaving time by guiding hair into the cutting element, while the two SensoFoils adapt to every contour to offer extreme shaving comfort and precision. Order with standard delivery by December 21, or next day delivery on December 23. 

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Faux fur cushions  £12.99

These luxury faux fur cushions are the ideal home accessory fur modern living spaces. Their plush exterior is a comfort to feel and their attractive look will compliment your room with a stylish edge.

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas.

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Showtime Alphabet Collection Cushions  £31.99

Featuring all 26 letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-9, the playful, vintage font is reminiscent of traditional circus typography combined with a modern day palette.

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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The Glenrothes Single Malt Scotch Whisky  £40.95

A Glenrothes 12 Year Old in classic style: fruity and sweet. Aged solely in sherry-seasoned casks, this Speyside whisky has notes of vanilla, melon, banana and cinnamon.

Order by 7pm on December 21 with express delivery for Christmas Eve delivery. 

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Gintuition Set £27

Created for all gin fans, this selection of 3 great gin glasses helps you to discover and enjoy the best tasting gin experience. A classic highball and on-trend copa stem are complimented by the stylish martini cocktail. 

Order by 11.30am on December 21 for Christmas Eve delivery. 

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Birchbox gift subscription  £30 every 3 months

Treat someone to 3, 6 or 12 months of beauty discoveries and they'll receive a monthly delivery of 5 luxe beauty treats straight to their door. 

It really is the gift that keep on giving - and the instantly printable certificate means it is great for last minute presents, all the way up to December 24th! 

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Bruno Paillard Brut Premiere Cuvee NV Champagne  £33.95

Brut Premiére Cuvée NV is Bruno Paillard’s flagship Champagne. This lively non-vintage is made exclusively from the first pressing of the grapes (the purest juice) and is a blend of wine from thirty-two villages, all vinified separately. 

Delivery time in London is two hours, and one day delivery is available throughout the rest of the country. 

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Mamont Vodka available to order until December 23rd £31.99

Presented in an ornate Mammoth tusk bottle, reminiscent of its Siberian roots, Mamont is the perfect gift or party pleaser this winter. Produced in limited small batches, Mamont Vodka is an ultra-premium, crystal clear spirit. Next day delivery is available so order by December 23.

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Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition  £20

Jameson whiskey finished in craft stout-seasoned barrels from a local brewery, the stout-cask finish accentuates Jameson’s trademark smoothness with additional rich flavours of chocolate, coffee and butterscotch. 

Order by December 21 for Christmas delivery.

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Birchbox Man Travel Bag  £27

The perfect gift for the man in your life, you'll find everything he needs for on-the-go grooming inside this limited edition bag. From a cleanse-and-moisturise to a cosy pair of socks, we've got his impromptu getaways taken care of. 

Order by 11.59pm on December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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£50-£100

WD 2 TB My Passport Portable Hard Drive  £84.99

The My Passport portable drive is trusted to store the massive amounts of photos, videos and music you love; available in an array of vibrant, fun colors, the sleek style fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, so you can easily take your treasured content everywhere you go. 

Order by December 21 for delivery by Christmas Eve.

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Bear Grylls Adventure NEC  £80

Inspired by the adventurer's real-life expeditions, the Bear Grylls Adventure at Birmingham's NEC opened in September. This particular package offers a 90-minute indoor skydiving experience, an hour on the High Ropes, a go on the free fall tunnel and a zip-lining experience. Other experience packages are available. 

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 Learn to make bread From £75

Bread Angels specialise in making a whole variety of bread sold in the local community. 

Expert teachers also offer four-hour courses across the UK, with gift vouchers for classes starting from £75, with everything from basic breads to sourdough and grissini on the menu. 

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Private dance lessons £54 an hour

Know a Strictly fan who would appreciate a chance to dance? Treat them to a private lesson, learning choreography to their favourite song, with a professional teacher.  Vouchers are for two people and available across the UK. 

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Dry pouch  £65

Newly launched, Red Original’s ‘Dry Pouch’ has been designed to keep wallets, phones and keys completely protected (throw it against a wall and all will remain safe and sound inside) and waterproof (plus it floats) with a YKK zip which will never rust, corrode or let water in. It can be attached through a belt or onto a board, boat, bike etc. Ideal for boating, swimming, skiing. This is a bum bag that a man would actually wear! 

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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KODAK Mini Shot Instant Camera  £84.99

Experience super high quality image processing and super-fast printing with the NEW Mini Shot Instant Camera from KODAK. Featuring powerful patented 4Pass Printing Technology, this 10-megapixel wonder enables you to aim, snap and print gorgeous credit-card-sized photos from the palm of your hand. 

Order by end of play December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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Milano Velvet Armchair in teal  £89.99

The ICON® Milano Armchair offers a rich depth of colour and texture that give this soft seat its soulful personality. Its elegantly supportive form and clean lines are waiting to envelope you in its shimmering velvet fabric. Lift and move this lightweight lovely wherever you wish using its matching velvet handle and its resilient fabric base to rest on. 

Order on December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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House of Marley No Bounds Bluetooth Speaker  £59.99

The No Bounds is our most rugged outdoor bluetooth speaker, crafted with sustainable cork to be as natural as its intended environment. The 4-colour speaker series is water and dust-proof, and each No Bounds boasts a 10-hour battery life which can be charged from flat in just 2 hours.  

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Over £100 

Dyson Supersonic™ Hair Dryer  £299.99

The Dyson Supersonic is engineered for balance, with a motor that sits in the handle, for a new kind of drying experience. A glass bead thermistor measures the air temperature 20 times per second, guarding against extreme heat damage to protect natural shine. It’s acoustically tuned for conversation. The powerful motor is tuned to produce one inaudible frequency.  

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Samsung Galaxy Watch  £279

Always stay connected with the Samsung Galaxy watch. You can receive notifications and calls right on your wrist so you'll always know when your loved ones are trying to reach you. Ideal if you're prone to leaving your phone on silent or not it's not always in pocket.

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Dartington Crystal – Ships Decanter  £115

This classic decanter is a stylish way to keep and present your spirits. The handmade stopper of this crystal decanter creates an airtight seal for your drink. 

Order by 11.30am on December 21 for Christmas Eve delivery

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Kobo Forma  £239.99

With no advertising and no interruptions, the Kobo Forma has been created to provide a great, relaxing reading experience. The device has handy page turn buttons, is bath friendly and has been created with ComfortLight PRO, which provides adjustable brightness and colour temperature to help reduce strain on your eyes.  

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FLIR ONE Pro  £440

The FLIR ONE Pro helps you find invisible problems faster than ever with thermal imagining, whether you're inspecting electrical panels, troubleshooting mechanical systems, looking for HVAC problems, or finding water damage.  

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Sipsmith annual gin subscription  £180

A bi-monthly subscription sends exclusive and delicious flavours of Sipsmith gin every other month. Each box contains 2x 20cl bottles and include flavours such as Black Maple Gin, Pomegranate Gin Liqueur and Bonfire Gin...

Order online before 24th Dec to guarantee January deliveries 

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Go Pro Hero 7 £179.99

Say hello to the Go Pro Hero 7, the perfect partner on any adventure. It’s tough, tiny and totally waterproof so it can go wherever you do. An intuitive touch screen makes it simple to get great shots. Just swipe and tap. Use the photo timer to grab a sweet selfie. You can even shoot vertically then add your photos and videos right to your Instagram Story. 

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Dell G3 17  £849

17" gaming laptop engineered with NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics, 8th Gen Intel processors and thin design for the ultimate immersive gaming experience. 

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Oculus Go £199

Easily enter virtual reality with no PC or wires attached. Oculus Go is a standalone VR headset made to fit you. Designed with breathable fabrics, adjustable straps and our best lenses yet.  

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Bose SoundSport Free  £179.95

Get clear, powerful sound from our first truly wireless in-ear headphones. They're engineered to stay in place and stay comfortable. We've packed them full of technologies so you can push your workout to the next level. 

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ASUS ZenBook Pro UX580  £1,899.99

The stylish and powerful ASUS ZenBook Pro UX580 has been designed with a 15.6” Ultra HD display, an 8th generation Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB RAM. It will boot up Windows 10 in no time and enable you to fly through any work projects, while the GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card provides gaming options during down time.  

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Blow up paddle board  £1,299

This is a revolutionary new SUP which is a full sized board yet, when deflated, is half the size of all other inflatable paddle boards on the market. The ‘Compact’ board is a real game changer in the SUP market, as it fits down into a backpack so can be transported anywhere and everywhere with complete ease. 

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas 

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KODAK Photo Printer Dock  £189.99

This 2-in-1 printer doubles up as a cradle that also charges your mobile device. Simply plug in your Android phone via the 5-pin dock, or hook up your iOS device with the lightning charger and let the easy printing technology turn your pictures into high-quality prints in minutes. 

Order by end of play December 21 for delivery before Christmas. 

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Xbox One X 1TB Console – Gold Rush Special Edition Battlefield™ V Bundle  £449.99

Enter mankind’s greatest conflict with Battlefield™ V as the series returns to its roots in a never-before-seen portrayal of World War 2. Take on physical, all-out multiplayer with your squad in experiences such as the vast Grand Operations and the cooperative Combined Arms, or witness human drama set against global combat in the single player War Stories. As you fight in epic, unexpected locations across the globe, enjoy the richest and most immersive yet. 

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Luxury dog mattress  £115

For the pet lover in your life. The Casper bed combines pressure-relieving memory foam and durable support foam to create a decent night's snoozing for Fido...the medium size sleeps dogs weighing up to 27kg

Delivered within 48 hours of ordering until 22nd December 

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Filoment hoody for women  £145

Filoment is designed to keep you warm and snug. An active cut, with longer back and articulated arms, makes it ideal for active use. We make our down jackets to last with Nikwax Hydrophobic down. Filoment’s durable polyester outer is DWR coated, helping to shed moisture.

Order by December 21 for delivery before Christmas 

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  Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6414931/Christmas-gift-guide-order-just-FOUR-days-December-25th.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490

[evenstevensranked]

#1: Season 3, Episode 5 - “Band on the Roof”

ANNNND... “BAND ON THE ROOF” TAKES THE CAKE!

I cannot believe I’m publishing the #1 ranking. Next month will mark two whole years since I created this blog and now, after countless hours spent on 64 reviews, we’re finally here! Never thought I’d see the day. I never anticipated that I’d be this emotional about it either. I’ll save the mushiness and some final thoughts for the end of the post. 

When The Twitty-Stevens Connection gets back together, Tom shoots a documentary -- excuse me, “rockumentary” -- detailing the highs and lows of the band’s reunion! What we get is a rollercoaster of an episode featuring (almost) all of our favorite characters, the most legendary quote in the entire series, a mockumentary approach to filming that was ahead of its time, a heartwarming plot for our two main siblings, and one hell of a catchy song to boot. 

For the last time... 

Let’s get into it!

I know I throw the word "Iconic" around loosely sometimes but this is genuinely an iconic episode for the series. I feel like everyone remembers this episode. Even if you didn't watch the show too often, you still remember this episode. This one kinda makes me wish that Even Stevens was one of the first popular American comedy sitcoms to pioneer the mockumentary style gimmick for the entire series. (i.e. The Office, Modern Family, Parks & Rec) Because it works here. Really well. I’ve mentioned a few times before that The Office is my other all-time favorite comedy show, so I absolutely ADORE those strong vibes here. 

According to Wikipedia and their list of “Mockumentaries” (which includes this episode!) -- as far as the genre in television goes, it seemed to become a big thing in the UK first and then spread to places like Australia and Canada. The United States mockumentary television format boom started in the early-mid 2000s, specifically at or around 2003 with Arrested Development and then in 2005 with the humble beginnings of The Office. "Band on the Roof” premiered in 2002. Hmmm. Very interesting! Not sayin’ Even Stevens was ahead of its time once again but that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s almost like this show trial-runs ideas before they take off. First with “Influenza” and then this. Even though this episode was definitely more of a spoof of VH1′s “Behind The Music,” it still totally falls into that mockumentary TV category. 

It opens with the introduction to the documentary, narrated by Tom in a super unnaturally deep voice with a little reverb slapped on there for dramatic effect: “First, there was The Alan Twitty Project... Then, there was The Louis Stevens Experience... The coming together of these two musical forces begat the supergroup The Twitty-Stevens Connection! ...But the band broke up temporarily when bassist Artie Ryan’s mom made him take pottery lessons.” 

Tragic.

Tom introduces himself as “Thomas Gribalski: Rockumentary Filmmaker.” Wow, he’s wasting no time loading up his IMDb page. You document one Junior High band and it’s all uphill from there. He goes on to explain that when The Twitty-Stevens Connection got back together, Louis Stevens asked him to capture those “little moments” for them to look back on once the band becomes “rich and famous.” But, of course, no road to stardom is without its bumps. 

I wanna know how Tom, a 14-year-old, got this swanky studio to record in...

It cuts to band rehearsal in the Stevens basement where they’re jamming to “Crazy” from the Battle of the Bands episode!! Everything’s fine until the band randomly stops playing in the middle of the song and Louis goes off on a never-ending drum solo that he refers to as “a groove.” It always bothered me how the music just… stops. Why did everyone but Louis decide to stop playing for seemingly no reason?! Whoever was in charge of audio here couldn’t be bothered to make it sound more organic lol. It’s really weird and abrupt. Sorry for the nitpicking there. 

I love how Tom got that shot of a messy hamper in the foreground. It really amps up the grittiness. 

It’s pretty great how Louis subtly changed roles from the band’s manager to the band’s drummer. For once, this was an arc in Season 3 that actually aired in the correct order. In Episode 2, Louis became interested in playing the drums and was gifted a drumset. In Episode 4 he started taking lessons, and here in Episode 5, he’s officially the drummer of the band. Shia is playing for real here as well! So that’s very cool. 

While Louis is drumming his lil heart out during his self-indulgent extended solo, it cuts to shots of everyone killing time and I love it. 

Tom, lol. 

Ren eventually rips the drumsticks out of Louis’ hands and the two start arguing. Tawny reminds them that they promised to get along if the band got back together. Just then, we hear that shrill, annoying and unmistakeable voice chime in: “Can I say something?” The camera searches around until it lands on Beans just chilling there like he owns the place. Oh my god. 

Louis: “Where is he? BEANS! HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?!?!” -- Why is that mockumentary style sooo funny though?! The shaky camera looking around and zooming in is what makes this.

I seriously wish every episode was filmed this way. But honestly, just getting this liiiittle glimpse into what a mockumentary version of Even Stevens might’ve been like is enough to make me feel #blessed. If a reboot ever happened, I’d definitely looove to see it reborn à la Modern Family for at least an arc or one special season. I know the gimmick is a little outplayed at this point but I mean, the Stevens are an eccentric enough family for a documentary crew to follow! Am I wrong?! All of the flagship American mock-doc shows have already ended or are ending soon. The door’s open for a new one. Just sayin’. 

It cuts to Louis ranting about Beans in the first interview portion or “talking head” of the documentary. This is the greatest thing. Holy crap. He says: “Beans is like that policeman in Terminator 2, you know who I’m talking about? I swear, he goes liquid! He can fit through cracks in windows... under doors... through little keyholes!!” And right on cue, Beans appears outta thin air -- “I’m hungry. Let’s get a sandwich!” Again, the camera work makes this 10x funnier and Shia’s face is just too good: 

Note: “Terminator 2″ is yet another completely solid reference to make! 

Something I’d like to point out before I forget: While reviewing the series, I couldn't help but notice that the show could be even funnier if there was no background music all the time. (I tested that theory with this edit and was proven correct, tbh.) If you pay attention.. you'll notice that there's some sort of background music during almost every scene. Sometimes it works if it's heightening a moment or adding some flavor comedically. But during scenes where there’s just dialogue, I feel like it would be much better with silence -- because 1. It's more raw/realistic, and 2. the performances/writing is already so strong, it doesn't need extra sound clogging the material. And that's one of the reasons why this episode is so great! It's dead silent the entire time except for the Twitty-Stevens songs of course and some transitional music for the documentary. I love it. 

So, yeah. Turns out Beans is a bassist?! He walks over to Artie and tells him “you’re horrible. Read my lips -- take a lesson!” Artie quits on the spot and leaves in a fit of rage (”I don't have to take this! I’M ARTIE RYAN!”). Beans backs up his insult by showing off his sick bass skillz to the gang, immediately earning himself a place in the band as Artie’s replacement. I love how Beans isn’t even touching the neck of the bass at all at one point. Seems legit. 

It cuts to an interview with Artie and it’s so good: “I was thinking about quitting the band anyway. I didn’t like the direction it was going... NOWHERE. Since then, I’ve started my own band. Artie Ryan and the Funky Kats. I had some promotional materials made up!! Tom, you want a free one?!” 

Tom (off-screen): “N.. no, thanks.” 

Also... A frisbee?! LOL. I had to write out that whole Artie quote because it’s the last we hear from him in this episode and Artie is the best.

Next, it cuts to an interview with Twitty who claims that there was a whole new energy after Beans joined the band. It’s hilarious because Beans is this tiny, annoying 8-year-old, yet Twitty’s talking about him as if he’s some amazingly respected bassist who helped take them to the next level. He goes on to say that the ~revitalized spirit~ Beans brought to the table motivated everyone to work on new material... Including Louis & Ren, who teamed up to write a song together!! Ahh! It shows us the two of them writing out the skeleton of “Another Perfect Day.” I always laughed at how they’re not just writing lyrics like most middle schoolers would do... Nah. They’ve whipped out the staff paper and suddenly know music theory like it’s nothing. They’re literally transcribing their ideas by ear. I’m a Berklee grad and I still struggle like hell with theory. 

Donnie happens to walk by and notices that his brother and sister are getting along for the first time, like, ever... and calls for Steve and Eileen to come quick and bear witness to it themselves!! 

This show throws in some great little lines here and there that are easy to miss sometimes. When Steve and Eileen come running, Steve shouts “Donnie! Hang in there! You still have 5 minutes left on that hot oil treatment!!” thinking Donnie desperately needed help with his hair. HAHA! I never paid attention to that until recently. We get interviews with Donnie as well as Steve and Eileen here. 

Donnie: “It was just... the sweetest thing. I wanted to hug them!! But I didn’t wanna ruin my hair. Wait!!! That sounded stupid. Don’t use that, ok?” 

Gotta love the trophies as a backdrop lol. 

Eileen: “It was amazing! It was as if the music brought them closer together.” 

Steve: “Those were the happiest days of our lives. It was bliss! Sheer bliss!” 

Hey! This is real stuff, though. Never underestimate the power of music!!

One of the funniest things about this episode is that Tom prefaced the documentary by saying the reunion happened a mere TWO WEEKS AGO! These interviews are so extra, as if they’re recalling something that happened years ago when it literally just happened and is fresh in their memories. It’s great. 

We get a voiceover from Tom elaborating on Steve and Eileen’s sentiments, telling us that Louis and Ren had “reached a new level in their relationship” over corny footage of them casually playing freaking cat’s cradle like a couple’a besties! hahaha. 

At their next rehearsal, the band starts working on “Another Perfect Day.” Once they have it down pretty well, Louis decides that they have a hit on their hands and need to do something big to get the word out. He comes up with the idea to hold a free concert on the school roof. Twitty interjects “Ya know, that’s not a bad idea because The Beatles did a free concert on the roof once!” Tawny adds: “So did U2!” and Louis finishes: “And now... The Twitty-Stevens Connection.” -- As if they’re anywhere near the level of either of those bands and should easily be mentioned in the same breath. That always cracked me up. (Speaking of The Beatles, the title of this episode is supposed to be a play on the Paul McCartney song “Band On The Run.” Or at least, that’s what I’ve always assumed.) Also, take a look at their single art. Amazing. 

Things start to go sour now. Everyone’s on board for the rooftop concert except for Ren. That’s a shocker! She’s totally against the idea. She agrees that free publicity is great as long as you’re not violating any rules. She even double checks with Wexler who confirms that students on the roof is “strictly forbidden.” 

At lunch the next day, Louis is super excited about the concert and giving Twitty and Tawny a rundown of his plans to set everything up. He says they should “get there early. Really early. Like... before school starts early” so they can get all the equipment and set it up on the roof. Another little exchange that’s easy to miss here is between Twitty and Tawny. Twitty says: “Sweet. What if we wore camouflage?” And Tawny sarcastically bites back: “That is a brilliant idea. What if we dressed up as giant metal vents to blend in with the roof decor!” HAHAHA. I’m just imagining that in my head right now and all I can picture is them looking like Eric Matthews dressed as a couch. Oh, yeah. They’ll blend in, no problem. 

When Ren starts approaching their lunch table, Louis invites her over yelling “Hey, sis!!” Awww. Since we all know that Ren is practically Vice Principal, he asks her for help and advice on how to get up to the roof and such. But then it does a hard cut to Tom:

This needed to be gif’d. 

Ren starts blabbing about how they’re forbidden to step foot on the roof and that she got a permit to perform in a public park instead, but Louis cuts her off before she can ramble any further: “Ren. You’re chickening out.” Ren protests and insists that she’s not a chicken and is just being smart about the situation, but Louis ain’t having it and explodes: “JIMINY H. CRICKETS THE THIRD JR., REN!!! We’re not robbing a bank or anything!! We’re singing on the roof!!!"-- I love this so much. He tells her to take a risk for once in her life. But, Ren being Ren, decides that she doesn’t want to get in trouble and essentially quits the band. As Ren storms away from them, Louis stands his ground and shouts at the top of his lungs: 

Possibly the single most-quoted quote of the entire series. Actually iconic. I have this quote on my Facebook, it's my © footer quote on this very website, people have used this quote in their high school yearbooks. Yeah. It’s a big deal. Plus, it’s a pretty great quote to live by if you think about it tbh. 

Ren leaving the band was only the beginning of their downfall. I love this photo the ‘documentary’ uses to illustrate the in-fighting lol. 

There’s super melodramatic music with an ~emotional~ guitar lick playing here. It always gets stuck in my head. I’m humming it right now. As hilarious as the music is, it actually does make me feel a little upset... 

And just like the ending of an America’s Next Top Model episode, Ren disappears from this photo of the band: 

At home that evening, an instrumental knock-off of “Kiss Me” starts playing in the background of the doc while Ren contemplates the meaning of life. Tom does a voiceover saying that Ren’s decision to leave the band would lead her down a path to “self-discovery.”

She ends up having a heart-to-heart with Eileen about why she’s so reluctant to take risks. We get a glimpse into Ren’s childhood with “home video” showing her being a total caution freak at her 8th birthday party. She ate a single potato chip so she waits an extra 20 minutes before going into the kiddie pool with her friends. I’d like to point out that Young Ren is played by Alexa Nikolas, who would later go on to be a regular on Nickelodeon's Zoey 101. 

Eileen assures Ren that she’ll find something worth taking a risk for someday and go for it!

CUT TO THE DAY OF THE CONCERT! Ren’s decision to leave the band causes everyone else to rethink the rooftop performance as well. Twitty decides to back out because he has one too many detentions already and can’t afford another. His initial poor attempt at an excuse plays out in the most hilarious way possible. (”TWITTY, I WROTE THAT NOTE FOR YOU LAST WEEK!”) Tawny just agrees with Ren. She decides it’s not a good idea and peaces out. And lastly, Beans calls at the eleventh hour and says he can’t make it because he has a hamster cage stuck on his head -- which amazingly, is not a lie. In the end, Louis is the last one standing. Or as Tom says, “A man without a band.” 

At lunch, the sound of someone drumming starts to fill the air, leaving everyone confused for a minute. It’s Louis, of course. He’s up there drumming away and singing his background vocals alone and fully intends to perform the whole song that way. His determination to continue with the concert as the lone remaining member of the band is so admirable and badass honestly. It really shows how bold he can be and how he’ll always try to see his ideas through. Not only does this highlight Louis’ fearlessness, it also leads to an amazing moment for Ren as a character. As everyone runs to get a view of Louis, Ren starts remembering what Eileen told her. She slowly realizes that this could be her chance to seize the moment. 

One by one -- Twitty, Tawny, and Beans join Louis up on the roof! They pick up their instruments and jump right in, each one building and building on the song. All leading up to Ren being the last one to finally run up there as the final piece of the puzzle! It’s a cheesy and predictable climax, but it’s still amazing. Seeing Ren take a chance like that always makes me emotional, not gonna lie. You can FEEL the happiness radiating off of everyone here. It makes me beam every time. 

This gives me legitimate goosebumps. God. Watch this and tell me it isn’t freaking epic and CLASSIC. The final interviews paired with that tasteful background music always tugs at my heartstrings, too. 

The gang ends up facing the consequences of their stunt and are punished by Wexler putting them on trash pickup duty. ^ That ending (seen in the video) is probably my favorite Louis/Ren bit ever. Seeing them both secretly admit to the camera that they had a great time together just warms my heart. I love how they say the same exact thing at one point too: “Don’t tell her/him I said that” lol. It’s so simple but so effective and really sums up their relationship. Two siblings who are always at odds, but at the end of the day, they’re family and have that unconditional sib love whether they want to admit it or not. I love the little slideshow of photos from the rooftop gig to wrap everything up. 

...and the very last frame of the episode is this picture of THE GREATEST DISNEY CHANNEL SIBLINGS OF ALL TIME and it’s so precious. This photo is so genuine. You can tell it captured more of Shia and Christy than Louis and Ren. It's just so nice:

I would have this framed and hanging in my house somewhere if I were them. Wow! Also... What could possibly be a better final shot for the episode that’s concluding my specific project?! Tell me. I’ll wait. 

And that’s it.

This is one of those ~special fun plot~ episodes, but it’s not super wacky or zany. Like most of the schemes Louis pulls, they somehow manage to make it seem like a couple of middle schoolers could successfully put on a school rooftop performance like this irl. There’s super solid humor, great dialogue, some incredible character moments and plenty of heart to top it all off! It ends on such a satisfying and happy high note. And even though I prefer Comedian Louis over Musician Louis, this episode is just too damn fun for me to care. It sort of benefits from the “Influenza” effect. If you add a song to an episode, odds are it’ll automatically make it that much more memorable. The only difference between this episode and “Influenza” is that it has a lot more going for it story-wise. 

This episode has everything for me. The way it's filmed is unique to every other episode in the series. The humor is extra dry and a little different for the show here, but still feels very distinctly Even Stevens and stays true to what we love about the show. This episode includes practically every major character, too! Let’s round up everyone who makes an appearance here: Louis, Ren, Twitty, Tawny, Tom, Beans, Steve, Eileen, Donnie, Coach Tugnut, Principal Wexler, and even Artie Ryan! My only complaint is that Larry and Ruby should’ve made appearances. Like, just a little scene of Larry taunting Ren about not having the guts to go up on the roof or something would’ve been cool.

Just adding some extra photos from the episode to break up this sea of text.

This is the only episode other than the finale that actually manages to make me shed a tear. But the tear this episode squeezes outta me has more meaning behind it imo. In the finale, I’m pretty much solely crying over the resolution to the Louis/Tawny saga and the fact that it’s the last episode of the series. Here, I’m crying over the pure relationship between brother and sister (the root of the show) as well as the gang’s friendship. No other episode gets me in my feelings like that across the board. It honestly feels like a finale in its own right and I can’t think of a better one to wrap up this countdown with. 

Is this the best episode of Even Stevens? You tell me. Is it one of the most memorable, iconic, hilarious, unique, and feel-good episodes of Even Stevens? Absolutely. Is there even a way to determine what episode is "objectively" or scientifically proven to be the best? lol who knows! If there's anything this whole project has taught me, it's that perhaps this show is just so good, there simply is no "best" episode. In which case, this whole blog has been a complete waste of time. 

SIDE NOTE: It was brought to my attention that this episode shares similarities to a Saved By The Bell episode titled “Rockumentary.” While the overall outline is pretty dead on (the rise, fall, and rise again of a garage band) the actual episodes themselves are extremely different. Annnnd Even Stevens did it better. No surprises there. So, WHO CARES?!

Aside from this being my personal favorite episode of the series and meeting my ranking requirements, I have a few little bonus stats to back up my decision to deem "Band on the Roof" worthy of the top spot:

It's the highest rated episode of the entire series on TV.com, boasting a 9.6, which I wasn’t aware of until a few days ago and was honestly surprised.

Back in 2003, while the show was still popular/on-air, some fans held a march madness style poll for the Best Episode of All Time and "Band on the Roof" was the winner.

This episode has popped up on various nostalgia articles as one of the greatest in the series. One of my favorites is by a published author and screenwriter in the biz who also ranked it #1 on her Top 7 favorite episodes of Even Stevens list. [article] 

In the comments of this episode on YouTube, (which I probably should’ve saved before Disney recently deleted the video... ugh) the general viewer consensus was that it's a widely beloved episode and one of the greatest/solidly written/most memorable. Easily Top 3 or Top 5 in the opinion of others.

I've gotten quite a few comments across the socials for the blog from readers asking about where this episode will be ranked and/or simply randomly stating that ‘Band on the Roof’ is the greatest and iconic.

Basically, there is massive love for this episode. No matter what, there’s a good chance you'll consistently see this one mentioned as one of the best or at least in someone's personal favorites -- Myself included. Obviously, me being a musician and loving the mockumentary style/drier humor here has contributed tremendously to my favoritism -- but the general fan love and praise, mixed with the actual solid content of the episode, makes me feel like ranking it #1 is justified. As objective as I tried to be throughout this process -- I created Even Stevens Ranked to get some personal thoughts and opinions out of my system. Well, that, and to do my best to highlight how fantastic this show is. Please remember, at the end of the day, this is my list. So. :)

Now that I’ve finished the project, I’m honestly quite satisfied with the outcome here. Not only am I so unbelievably proud that I actually saw this thing through to the very end -- I feel like my Top 10, in particular, (or the Top 25 on a larger scale) is the most solid crop of episodes I could’ve ever come up with. I think they all include nice and important moments for all of the characters, some of the strongest humor, and capture the spirit of the show the best. They’re objectively pretty darn good ones to subject a newbie to if ya ask me! 

This project was extremely difficult. It was time-consuming and stressful, but it was also such a blast and only solidified Even Stevens as my favorite show of all time in my heart even more than it already was. When I started, I always knew that “Band on the Roof” would be #1, “In Ren We Trust” would be dead last, and “Influenza” would be #15, but other than that I made countless changes to the list as I went on. The closer I got to the end, I was worried that I’d look back and hate my list, but I’m so relieved to feel very confident in my final decisions and reasons for those decisions. If there’s anything I’d change, it’d probably be to rank “Stevens Manor” sliiiightly higher. But still, I don’t even wanna say that because I have no real problem with placing it at #17. It’s not a bad slot. As I’ve said many times, anything in the Top 25 is pretty much top notch to me.

So... What else is there to say? Here we are. 65 episodes down. 0 to go. The entire series ranked and reviewed. Mission accomplished. From the moment I posted my very first review, I always hoped I’d make it to this point but for whatever reason, I never thought I actually would. I talked about this a little bit when I hit my one-year milestone. Milestones like that are what kept me going, though. Even the littlest ones. I’ll seriously never forget when I completed 5 reviews and hit #59! It felt like the greatest accomplishment ever. And so on and so forth...

For years, I felt like I was some weird, lone fan of this show. I thought that maybe 5, 10 people tops, would care enough to read this blog. I am shocked at the decent following Even Stevens Ranked has garnered over the last two years across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and right here on Tumblr. My strange urge to rank and review every episode of this fantastic show has somehow turned into a ~community~ that is 1k+ strong if you combine all four social accounts. That is staggering. Meeting other fans of the show through this blog has been so, so awesome and I plan on keeping Even Stevens Ranked alive because of that. I can’t just leave it behind. I have some cool ideas moving forward, including a pending podcast. :D

I can’t thank you enough if you’ve actually bothered to read even just one of my reviews and found it the least bit interesting. We went on this weird little journey together. So thank you! Truly.

I’ve completed what I initially set out to do, but you can definitely expect a bonus video review for a change of The Even Stevens Movie sometime in the near future. I mean, how could I do a project like this and NOT discuss the big finale film?! 

Just a reminder that there’s a Twitty-Stevens Connection design up on Redbubble! Available in black text and white text. 

Thank you sooo much for reading. You know the drill! Please, journey into the Disqus comment section below if you’re so inclined. I’d love to hear any of YOUR thoughts now that this crazy project is complete. Ahh.

- Brittany

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WordStream Employee Spotlight: Taylor Chan

WordStream has some impressive employees in its ranks: from industry influencers to marathon runners, from analysts to authors. The Employee Spotlight series aims to highlight the talented individuals who work here. Each month, we’ll be featuring an interview here on the blog and on our social accounts.

For this month’s Employee Spotlight, we spoke with Taylor Chan. As a product manager here at WordStream, Taylor works closely with our engineering and design teams to design and build new product features.  Specifically, she oversees basic connections between our flagship software, WordStream Advisor, and ad platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads. She also works on the 20-Minute Work Week (helping you make all your weekly optimizations in 20 minutes!) and a new, exciting feature called Strategies, which we’ll dive into imminently.

Originally from the Philadelphia area, Taylor graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Biological Engineering. She joined WordStream about a year ago, bringing with her no shortage of product development expertise, a passion for shrimp-filled spheres, and an irrefutable mastery of board games.

How long have you worked at WordStream?

I’ve worked here for just over a year— I started December 2017. I came from a company  that was much bigger, and everyone was super specialized in their roles. There were four or five flavors of product managers and you had to pick just one. I was really looking to join a smaller team—something that would help me learn a wider range of skills and continue to become more well-rounded. It’s been really great. I’m a lot closer to the strategy aspect of the business than I was previously, which is huge.  

How did you hear about WordStream? Why did you want to work here?

I worked in consulting for a little bit—manufacturing consulting. I have done a lot of strange things actually! At that time I was working in a water bottle factory and an almond factory on the ground floor trying to make their lines more efficient. I can’t say I joined WordStream for the marketing aspect, per se, but it’s been very cool learning it. I really didn’t know anything about it beforehand; it’s been crazy to learn what an integral part of our lives it is. But as far as what attracted me to the company, it was more about the people I’d get to work with and the size.

I found WordStream via a random job posting, but once I came in I really gelled with the people on the product team that I interviewed with. They seemed really thoughtful about their choices and what they were doing, which was something I wanted. The conversations felt natural with them.

Can you talk specifics about what your role involves?

I was originally hired specifically for the 20-Minute Work Week. The whole idea of that instantly appealed to me. I’m a person who loves to-do lists, and I’m huge on optimization and efficiency. So the job is really about bringing all those things to our customers at scale. It was really exciting for me. The 20-Minute Work Week is essentially where our customers want to go for quick hits; quick optimizations they can execute on in just a couple of minutes. And then you have the strategy piece where you’re looking for that next big, meaty thing to take your advertising to the next level. That’s the new project I’m spearheading.

Can you talk a little more about that Strategies feature?

Sure. When we say “Strategies” we’re talking about some of the more advanced things our customers can do—things that our customer success team consults them on now. They tend to be pretty complex, and often need to be done over the course of many different sittings. These are things like getting remarketing fired up or creating competitor campaigns or optimizing for mobile. At the moment, these kinds of strategies aren’t really accessible to people who aren’t super familiar with the native platforms. So what we’re trying to do is bring the things our customer success reps are preaching into the software. 

That’s really cool. What kind of work goes into that? Is there a timeline for completion?

So it’s not out yet. But the way it works is we have a huge amount of data about all of our different customers, and we’re going to use all that data to identify the top strategies that are right for each customer. So we might find that a particular strategy like RLSAs works well for SaaS (Software as a Service) customers. The software would then automatically recommend that strategy for the customer and prompt them through a nice multi-step flow, a flow that would be both understandable and also faster than manual implementation.

As far as a timeline goes, we’re hoping to come out with the first iteration of the feature in February 2019. There’s a lot of basic work that needs to be done to get the first strategy out the door, but then they should come more rapidly. Ultimately, we’re hoping to have 10+ strategies that span Google, Facebook, and Bing.  It’s incredibly challenging, because it involves taking the art that’s in our reps’ heads and getting it down on paper. For instance, how do you actually correctly set up a competitor campaign? And how can we bring that into the software? There are a lot of people here that are bigger marketing experts than I am, so it’s going to require a complete cross-functional effort to actually hash the whole thing out.

Has any other project here been particularly challenging?

Last year, I was working on improving the Add Negatives algorithm. That’s the most used 20-Minute Work Week alert. We are always trying to improve our algorithms so that the suggestions customers get are as relevant as possible. This one was really challenging for a few reasons. First, it’s extremely difficult to nail down a one-size-fits-all algorithm. For example, locations might be really good negatives for one customer, but they might not be great for another. And because a lot of our customers are small business owners, there’s not always an abundance of data to go off of.

So that project was very difficult. Right now, our engineering team is working on totally redoing the UI of that alert so that it uses the new algorithm, then also incorporates knowledge that only the customer knows.  We’ll walk them through a process that helps them decide: do we really want a negative, or do we actually want a new keyword? Or do we actually want a new ad group? Whereas before you could only accept or reject what was suggested, now you can really analyze your search queries to select the best option—even if it’s not what our algorithm came up with.

Very cool. Switching gears a bit—has any one thing you’ve learned here particularly stuck with you?

I think I’ve learned to have more empathy for other departments here. For example, I learned Python here when one of the engineers taught a class about it.  So, now I can read some of the code the engineers write, and I see just how much effort goes into my “easy” feature idea. I also have gotten the opportunity to shadow a bunch of Sales and Customer Success consulting calls, which helped me build empathy for all the work they do.

What’s your workspace aesthetic like? Minimalist? Homey? Neat?

It’s very neat. Like usually if the cleaning people move something just a little bit I can tell. Especially if they have the monitors out of the line…Everything has a place [laughs]! But yeah, I like to have some plants or some homey touches. I had this little eco ball, like a water sphere that had little shrimp in it. I killed them, though, so I don’t have anything right now. But in the future I hope to get them again.

You killed them accidentally or on purpose??

Accidentally! They were in the wrong sunshine when they died. It’s called an ecosphere, and it’s this entirely closed system that has like plants and shrimp. You can’t open it so it’s supposed to be self-sustaining…but obviously it was not.

You need to put your head down and get some work done asap. Do you have a go-to song?

 When I’m at work and I want to focus, I like quieter acoustic music. But it has to have words; I can’t do classical music that would make me even more tired. I listen to this one playlist on Spotify over and over. It’s called “Calm Down.” I don’t even know what you would call the genre, but it definitely helps me decompress.

If WordStream announced a last-minute day off for tomorrow, what would you do with your suddenly free day?

OK—so I play Pokemon Go. You remember that? From like 2017? Well, I still play it. I have played it every day since it came out. I’m really into that. My husband plays it, too. It’s a game that involves a lot of walking around to different places so if I had the whole day off, it would be great to just walk around and do that.

What are the best spots to catch Pokemon around the city?

Probably the best spot is Castle Island, but Castle Island and Boston Common are both really great. The first week the game came out there were just like hundreds of people at Castle Island, and there was a Blastoise. I took a video on my phone—I was running in a crowd of a thousand people trying to get this thing.

If you didn’t work in marketing, what would you do?

I’m very into board games so I think I would do that. Maybe I could be like a board game designer or a board game tester. Or I have this idea where I would open a board game café. I also have this idea where I could go into schools and teach board games. Because it really develops a lot of different skills—problem solving, cooperation, etc. Two of my favorite games are Eldritch Horror and 7 Wonders. I’ve joined various meetup groups over the years. I also play board games with a group of WordStream people that meets every other week.

Anything else you do in your spare time?  

I play volleyball, pretty poorly, in the Social Boston Sports leagues.

I also volunteer for the Crisis Text Line, which is basically a suicide crisis line but over text. I used to do it over the phone when I was in college, but I like it over text better. A lot of people in that kind of crisis feel more comfortable over text. It’s a lot of younger teenagers who don’t really know what other resources they have available.

How long have you been doing that?

For two years. It can be pretty intense. Sometimes I’ll take a break for a month or so. Especially over text, it can sometimes feel like you’re talking to the same person over and over again and they’re not getting better. But it definitely feels good when you can help someone. Like sometimes the texter will tell me it’s the first time they’ve told anyone about this. It’s rewarding to know you are helping in that way.

Read more: wordstream.com

[brewyork]

Upstate breweries come downstate, KCBC’s new cans, and more NYC beer news

Common Roots is one of two Upstate breweries to pour in the five boroughs this winter (Photo via Common Roots Brewing on Facebook)

Upstate Comes Downstate

You might be noticing a couple unfamiliar breweries on tap and in cans around the city, but they don’t come from very far away. Common Roots Brewing out of South Glen Falls (about 50 miles north of Albany, for those who think even Westchester might as well be Canada) started dropping cans and kegs of their beer at shops and bars around the five boroughs late last month -- their first foray into NYC since opening in 2014. Their Ultra Modern American Pale Ale and Last Light IPA both score exceptionally high marks on beer rating sites and are available at select venues in the city.

Meanwhile, award-winning Prison City Brewing out of Auburn (that’s just outside of Syracuse) will hold its first-ever tap takeover in the city during NYC Beer Week at Tørst on Tuesday, February 28th starting at noon. Out of the gate, Prison City made a mark on the state’s beer scene by winning a Great American Beer Festival medal for their Bleek Worden Belgian Pale Ale in 2015, just months after opening. They continue to churn out new, interesting beers that woo crowds to their brewpub.

The Times Discovers Crowlers

Could it be? Our city’s paper of record actually acknowledged craft beer in the city for the second time in a week. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a blurb in the Food section about Crowlers, the 32-ounce cans that have been used at some venues in the city for well over a year now, featuring the machine at Top Hops on the Lower East Side. Last week, we mentioned Josh Bernstein’s article on long lines for canned beer, which prominently featured Brooklyn’s Other Half. Is the Times finally waking up to the city’s craft beer scene, about five years late? Perhaps.

Sweden Comes to Brooklyn

The folks at Brooklyn Brewery are putting together a neat series of events for NYC Beer Week featuring their sister brewery in Stockholm, Sweden, Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (or New Carnegie Brewery), which opened back in 2014. Friday, the 24th, they’ll host "Swedes Singing for Beer,” a roving singalong of drinking songs with the staff from both breweries. Sunday, the 26th, they host a brunch at The Williamsburg Hotel featuring beers from both breweries paired with takes on smorgas (open-faced sandwiches) from both sides of the pond. And on Tuesday, the 28th, Brooklyn Brewery will play host to a Nya Carnegiebryggeriet Tap Invasion, with tappings of some rare offerings from the Stockholm brewery. Skål!

Last Chance to Jam with the Cans

One final reminder: The Can Jam returns to the backyard of Threes Brewing (333 Douglass St, Gowanus) this Sunday, February 19th. The free, pay-as-you-go event features canned beer from all around the country, and it’s a literal who’s who of whalez, bro, with Other Half, The Veil, Modern Times, The Alchemist, Melvin, and more all in the lineup. The fun gets underway at noon.

This Week’s New Cans (and a Bottle)

Here’s some of the new releases at the city’s breweries this weekend:

Kings County Brewers Collective debuts three packaged beers at the brewery on Saturday: cans of Taco Wednesday ($16/4-pack), an IPL collaboration with Interboro and Yeah Buddy ($18/4-pack), a Double IPA collaboration with Finback will be for sale starting at noon, along with bottles of their Full Contact: Raspberry ($12/bottle), an amber sour with rye and oats aged in red wine barrels with raspberries. 

LIC Beer Project releases pint cans of Higher Burnin' IPA and the new Hollows Imperial IPA, brewed with Mouteka, Mosaic, and El Dorado hops, on Saturday. 4-packs are $16 and $18 respectively, and go on sale at noon at the brewery in Queens.

Does Other Half have a can release this weekend? Of course they do! Fresh four-packs of Nummy Nug Nug Imperial IPA ($18), Mylar Bags Imperial IPA ($18), and a new... (wait for it) Imperial IPA, Citra + Motueka ($18) will be for sale at 10am Saturday at the brewery.

And for those already planning ahead, Threes Brewing has 16-ounce cans of two collaborations for pre-order online for pick up next week. Neither Way is their hoppy pale lager made with Burial Brewing ($15/4-pack), and Are We There Yet? is a triple dry-hopped Triple IPA brewed in collaboration with Evil Twin Brewing ($18.50/4-pack).

The Forgotten Borough in a Can

Finally, just when you thought can madness couldn’t get any crazier here in the city, word is that Flagship Brewery on Staten Island will be the next NYC brewer to start canning, and you’ll see their cans by springtime. 

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Schuyler Hernstom, Ken Kelly, Gardner Fox, August Derleth

Review (Brain Leakage): In terms of pure entertainment, I can’t recommend Hernstrom’s story enough. And if all you’re craving is a dose of pure, adrenaline-filled awesomeness with alien ruins, axe-wielding barbarians, motorcycles, and talking monkeys, then stop reading this review NOW. Buy Hernstrom’s new collection, The Eye of Sounnu from DMR Books, which is where you can read this slice of pure heavy-metal havoc. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

Art (David J. West): I am positive that Ken Kelly has done more book covers that I own than anybody else – and that’s a lot considering I typically buy every Frazetta I can find. Kelly is such a work horse and has done so many Conan’s and other sword and sorcery related covers that it is staggering. He has done a lot of heavy metal covers too, but I don’t think I have any of those but when it comes to book covers wow -its staggering.

Interview (The Dacian): To kick off the series I asked my favorite living Sword & Sorcery writer Schuyler Hernstrom to be my first subject. Over the weekend Hernstrom took the time to chat and answer a few questions. Schuyler Hernstrom is a fantastic writer of Sword & Sorcery whose recent short story collection The Eye of Sounnu I review here, and made the subject of the first Short Story Bookclub.  You can also read his previous collection Thune’s Vison and he’s been featured numerous times in Cirsova Magazine, including the upcoming summer special.

Forthcoming (Story Hack): I recently annouced that I’ll be publishing a collection of short stories by the ever-entertaining Misha Burnett. It will release on June 15th. This collection features reprints as well as new work. And now, you can preorder the ebook version on Amazon. Paperback will also be available, but there won’t be a preorder. For those of you who do buy a paperback, I’ll make available bookplates signed by the author. Details on that to follow.

Men’s Adventure Magazines (Menspulps.com): Most of the magazines in the war mag subgenre were fairly short-lived (as were many other magazines in the men’s adventure genre in general). The longest-lasting was BATTLE CRY. It was published from late 1955 to mid-1971 by Stanley Publications, Inc., the flagship company of pioneering comic book and magazine publisher Stanley P. Morse. When the puritanical 1954 Comics Code essentially banned violent or sexy images in comics, Morse discontinued his BATTLE CRY comic book and created the men’s adventure magazine BATTLE CRY.

Fiction (Goodman Games): May 20th is the birthdate of Gardner F. Fox. But when people see his name on the list of Appendix N authors, there’s often no recognition of his name as a writer of fantasy. He has passed into relative obscurity for contemporary fans of the genre. It is not surprising considering that he is best known as the author of the Kothar books (discounted by many as a cheap knockoff of Conan) and the Kyric books (a likewise discounted knockoff of Elric).

Science Fiction (M Porcius): A. E. van Vogt has many detractors, and their criticisms are not all off base; you might say the Slan man, Canada’s finest export, is an acquired taste.  You don’t read A. E. van Vogt looking for conventional literary values, like beautiful sentences.  And you don’t read A. E. van Vogt looking for the comforts of standard popular fiction, like sympathetic characters you enjoy “getting to know” who share your values and regurgitate the conventional wisdom.  An A. E. van Vogt story is usually challenging on multiple levels.

Art (DMR Books): However, Angus was painting fantasy art long before he was doing work for RPG publishers. During the 1960s, McBride was creating art steadily for Look and Learn magazine as well as its competitor, Finding Out. Both were aimed at a juvenile/young adult audience, but the art and writing in them were well above what one would find in similar publications today.

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Just looking over these old sessions and I have to say, it really takes my breath away: The Hole in the Sky, The Thing in the Sewer, The Big Score, The Drums of the Dog People, Altar of the Beast-women, The Pugs of Slaughter, The Overbearing of the Crystal Men, The Song of Fàgor.

    Comic Books (Messages From Crom): Ablaze Publishing THE CIMMERIAN: PEOPLE OF BLACK CIRCLE #1 Coming in August! Robert E. Howard’s Conan is brought to life UNCENSORED! Discover the true Conan, unrestrained, violent, and sexual. Read the story as he intended! In the kingdom of Vendhya, the king has just died, struck down by the spells of the black prophets of Yimsha. The king’s sister, Yasmina, decides to avenge him…and contacts Conan, then chief of the Afghuli tribe.

Science Speculation (Pulprev): In the world of Singularity Sunrise, where robotics and AI threaten to replace humans in every major field, one of the few things that cannot be quantified, mechanised and reproduced by machines is psychic powers. Don’t expect Hollywood-or anime-type powers here. In this universe, psychic powers are the outgrowth of research projects like Project Stargate, investigating the potential of the mind to gather information through extra-sensory perception.

Video Games (Kairos): The Internet Archive even has every back issue of Nintendo Power, so the re-creations of those long-lost after school decompression sessions  with a new kart slotted in my SNES, a crisp copy of NP flopped open on the couch, and a bowl of popcorn in my lap are almost perfect. Archive.org doesn’t call its old web site search feature the Wayback Machine for nil. One thing that hits you over the head when you go back and play the old 2D sprite-based games is the real craftsmanship behind the bright colors and pixels.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): Esteemed author Max Allan Collins is a heavy contributor to the gritty hard-boiled line of mystery fiction. His well-respected creations include Nate Heller, Nolan, Mallory and the subject at hand, Quarry. The Thrilling Detective blog cites Quarry as the first hired killer series, predating Loren Estleman’s Peter Macklin and Lawrence Block’s Keller. Collins released the debut, The Broker (aka Quarry), in 1976. After four more novels, and a ton of fan mail requests, the author began releasing series installments again in 2006.

Poul Anderson (Mystery File): POUL ANDERSON “The Martian Crown Jewels.” Short story. Freehatched Syaloch #1. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1958. One reason for the story’s popularity, I think, is that there really aren’t many examples of combining traditional detective stories with hardcore SF, and this is a good one. The detective on the case is Martian private detective Freehatched Syaloch, but this seems to have been his only appearance in print. Missing are the Martian crown jewels, which have been on display on Earth, but on their state secret return to Mars, via Phobos, one of the planet’s moons, they have completely disappeared.

Horror (Grady Hendrix): Wilson’s The Keep  deals with Judaism more obliquely and in the guise of the big, fat,  international thrillers authors like Robert Ludlum were popularizing in the early Eighties. A swaggering, World War II adventure story full of  warring immortals, sneering Gestapo officers, magic swords, and Weighty  Questions about Faith, The Keep  arrived as the smaller novels of the Seventies started giving way to the massive blockbusters of the Eighties. Painted in broad strokes on a big canvas, The Keep fits comfortably into a decade that would make literary rock stars out of authors like Anne Rice and Stephen King.

Weird Tales (Dark Worlds Quarterly): August Derleth takes a lotta crap. Some of it is deserved but some of it isn’t. Like when people say Derleth wouldn’t have been in Weird Tales without Lovecraft. That is simply not true. August’s first Weird Tales appearance was “Bat’s Belfry” (Weird Tales, May 1926), eleven years before Lovecraft’s death. His first Mythos tale was “The Lair of the Star-Spawn” (Weird Tales, August 1932) with Marc R. Schorer. This story appeared during HPL’s lifetime. Derleth had written forty stories previously to Star-Spawn. He wouldn’t write a posthumous Mythos tale until his seventy-second, “The Return of Hastur” (Weird Tales, March 1939), the year Arkham House began publishing. Of Derleth 132 appearances in WT, only 15 were Cthulhu Mythos (with one other appearing at Strange Tales). That means Derleth appeared in 40% of all issues.

D&D (Goblin Punch): The most interesting part for most of you will probably be the Advice for DMs section, but I’m posting the whole thing here since it’s a good explanation of (a) old-school dungeoncrawls, as I see them, and (b) the style of gameplay that I’m shooting for in the Lair of the Lamb.

Writing (Amatopia): A corollary to my recent post about villains who may have had a point after all: I am not advocating for the “sympathetic villain” trope. In fact, I generally dislike that trope. But I have a theory that a lot of new and new-ish writers can’t help but write villains like this because they forgot how to make heroes actually heroic. This is not because our traditional culture is bad and out if step with the times. It’s because a cadre of nihilistic relativists hijacked the culture with the intent of changing it to suit their own spiritual and psychological hangups. It’s a tale as old as time.

Cinema (Giant Freakin Robot): Starship Troopers should have been a gargantuan hit. With a $100m+ budget and the director behind sci-fi triumphs like RoboCop and Total Recall, the adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel was poised to be a smash hit both financially and critically. That’s not what went down in 1997. We have to understand that the movie-going public was very different in 1997. Films were sold on their stars more than their premises. If you look at the biggest earners of the year, you’ll see movies whose marketing campaigns were structured around their lead actors: Men in Black, Liar Liar, Air Force One, My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Sensor Sweep: Schuyler Hernstom, Ken Kelly, Gardner Fox, August Derleth published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[eddiejpoplar]

2019 BMW M850i xDrive Review – True M Performance

It’s hard to put in words just how important a few models are for true BMW enthusiasts. On the shortest list of models that truly made an impact you’ll find the BMW M1, 3.0 CSL, M3 and, arguably, the first generation 8 Series. The latter was actually gone from the BMW line-up for about 20 years before the management in Munich decided to give the people what they had been asking for since the original was retired: a worthy successor.

The original BMW 8 Series was a trendsetter from the moment it was launched. Looking at its design today, you probably could be fooled to think that it was created in recent years, and not actually penned at the end of the 1980s.

The E31 was ahead of its time for a number of reasons, design being one of them. It looked different, imposing and it had pop-up headlights, among other things. The front-end was long and sleek, while the rear end was wide and bulky, projecting an image of power, especially once the engine was turned on. That’s because under the hood of any 8 Series you’d find a special engine. Most were V12 units, but there were also two V8s offered over the years, a 4-liter and a 4.4-liter unit. No matter the configuration though, all units were atmospheric.

As BMW proved along the years, the number 8 was always used for halo cars to some extent.

Back then, the 8 Series was also a kind of technology flagship. When the car was originally launched, at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1989, it marked a couple of world premieres, the most important one to note being the fact that it was the world’s first road car to combine a V12 engine with a 6-speed manual transmission. As you can tell, despite the fact that the 8 Series was meant to be a V12 GT car, BMW still wanted to please its most passionate followers and offered a manual choice. Furthermore, the 8 Series was also one of the first cars to offer a drive-by-wire throttle as well as a multi-link rear axle, something of a novelty back then.

The 8er was considered so cool that it became a ‘poster car’, despite the fact that it wasn’t a supercar or even the fastest model in the segment. As BMW proved along the years, the number 8 was always used for halo cars to some extent. From the 328 to the 8 Series, Z8 and i8, the number 8 was always glued to the rear end of special models. Back in the 1990s, it was the design that spurred the imagination of many, a design that is still stunning to this day, the lack of a B-Pillar making it standout in the crowd. In fact, the 8er was so desirable that it used to be mentioned in songs and featured in a variety of videos back then.

So why did BMW retire it? Well, in short: bad timing. Soon after BMW took the veils off, a recession hit, right at the start of the 1990s, prompting a lot of people not only to reconsider buying one – as it was priced around $70,000 back then, the equivalent of $134,000 these days – but to hold off entirely. Furthermore, the engines used in these cars were huge V12s for the most part. With the Persian Gulf War happening, oil prices went through a veritable rollercoaster, making such a buy look like a bad deal. As a matter of fact, BMW had planned an M8 from the get go but since all these events took place at the beginning of the 1990s, the prototypes were buried, never to be seen again.

Instead of the M8 we got the 850CSi, which was basically a predecessor for the M850i xDrive we can buy today. Unlike any other 8 Series model of its time, the 850CSi was using an engine that received such extensive work from the Motorsport division that it had a special codename: S70B56. Basically, the standard 5.6-liter V12 M70 engine of the 850i was tuned to deliver 375 HP and 550 Nm (406 lb-ft) of torque. Together with a couple of changes done to the rest of the car, like stiffer springs and a new steering rack ratio, this thing was as close to an M8 as possible and a true predecessor of the M850i xDrive of today.

And that brings us to 2018, the year when we finally got to see how BMW thinks the 8 Series would have evolved over the two decades that passed since the original was retired. The first glimpse at it came in the shape of a concept, a concept that was a lot closer to production than we thought at the time. The revived 8 Series came back with a vengeance. Having such big shoes to fill, the new 8er had to be aggressive and provocative, had to make a statement from the moment you first looked at it and boy, does it deliver!

From the front you immediately notice the atypical kidney grilles which have a more angled shape and are wider at the bottom than at the top. Then you notice the headlights which BMW claims are the slimmest fitted to one of their cars today, a great tribute to the original pop-up headlights of old. That sort of technology wouldn’t have worked today but by keeping the lamps so slim, the front end is sharp and, combined with the long hood, creates a similar effect to the original 8er.

The same could be said about the rear end. It’s muscular and bold but most of all: wide. Just looking at it you can’t help but love the way the character lines flow from the front end to the back, going over the wheels and creating some of the widest wheel arches in the business today. Unlike the original though, the rear bumper and the general rear fascia is not nearly as simple and bulky. It’s complicated, has a lot of sharp lines but, somehow, it works with the 8er. They made it work and although the pictures might not do the car justice, in real life it truly is a stunner.

Hop inside and the story continues. This was designed from the get go to be a luxurious GT car with sporty abilities and it delivers, combining great materials and design with a sporty flair, and it’s all done thanks to carefully placed lines. From the design of the seats to the dash and center console, everything looks like a mix between sport and leisure, all infused with luxury. The materials used are of the best quality and the wide array of configurations you can pick from, especially through the Individual program, allows you to create your dream car.

Our tester was dressed up in Barcelona Blue, a color launched along with the new 8 Series and created to highlight its curves, according to BMW peeps. As this was also the top-dog, M850i xDrive model, it came with some M Performance bits that you don’t get on the other two versions available. Just like any other M Performance car, the M850i has Cerium Grey side mirror covers, an add-on in the front air intakes done in the same color and quad tailpipes at the back, to let you know this is no ordinary 8 Series.

The engineers finally made the 4.4-liter V8 on this car sound good and that’s encouraging for the full-on M8.

Therefore, we were met with a thunderous note the moment the start button was pressed. Under the hood of the M850i xDrive hides the latest incarnation of the N63 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, this time taken to 530 HP and 750 Nm (553 lb-ft) of torque. I’m going to let those numbers sink in a bit, as they are a considerable improvement over the last iteration of this engine, which made around 450 HP, depending on the market. The torque figure is even more impressive though as it matches the one of the most powerful V8 BMW ever made, the 625 HP unit in the F90 M5 Competition. And this isn’t even a full-on M model, which shows just what kind of plans BMW has with the 8 Series.

Whereas so far, I focused more on the luxury and looks of the car, it is now time to dwell into the tech bits and how this new 8 Series drives. The spec sheet will paint a pretty picture from the get go, giving you a hint of what awaits but nothing can prepare you for how well this thing drives, considering it’s a heavy, nearly 5-meters long GT car in the first place.

You do understand that you might be in a bit over your head though from the moment you start the engine. The engineers finally made the 4.4-liter V8 on this car sound good and that’s encouraging for the full-on M8. The note of the cold engine is deep, mean and comes with a certain growl that goes up as you accelerate, especially noticeable in Sport mode, when the flaps in the rear mufflers open up. The whole experience is even more enticing when you shift gears and on overrun as the burbles coming from the rear end of the car will make the hairs on the back of your head raise. You wouldn’t feel that though because by the time that happens, your head will be quite hard pressed against the headrest from all the torque and power sent to all four corners of the car, thanks to the xDrive system.

Some have frowned when learning that the M850i will be available solely with xDrive, but after driving this beast, especially in some snow as winter creeped in, I can wholeheartedly say that this was a wise move, not just because you feel more secure and get better grip but also because the xDrive system is different than on other cars.

For the M Performance 8er, the xDrive system comes with a locking differential on the rear axle which means you get to have a lot more fun with it than before. Having snowed during my time with the car, I definitely put it to the test in a variety of situations and can attest to the fact that the rear end feels incredibly lively. But what surprised me the most was how agile this thing felt throughout the time spent behind the wheel, considering its sheer size.

It’s a rocket from standstill and it delivers such an enticing sound that you’ll have a hard time keeping things legal.

A lot of the credit must be going to the integral steering which turns the rear wheels either in the same direction as the front ones or opposite, to make sure you get the most out of your car, no matter the situation. What that means though, in real life, is that when you’re around town, you get to drive this large coupe through the narrowest spaces easily, even though visibility isn’t perfect. You get to see plenty out the front and sides, but the rear visibility is hindered by the massive hips to the sides and by the narrow gap you have to look through in the back.

I guess that’s one of the reasons why BMW decided to remove the headrests for the rear seats, to make sure you actually get to see something when using the rearview mirror. It’s not like you’ll ever use those rear seats anyway as they are small, by any definition of the word. Yes, I did manage to squeeze someone in there but I could only torture that person for a couple of miles at a time.

Speaking of practicality, the 8 Series has a generous boot, where you can fit plenty of things, but the opening is rather small so you might want to check before packing a suitcase that may turn out to be too thick to fit through it. Inside the cabin there are plenty of storage spaces, especially in the back, since you won’t be sitting anyone there for longer trips an from Performance Junk Blogger 6 http://bit.ly/2TY6e3S via IFTTT