XBOX

Yeah I want to talk a bit about the XBOX. Not the Xbox 360, not the Xbox One , but the original XBOX. I recently got mine out of the basement crawlspace and set it up on my old 55 inch projection screen to see if it worked and to try out some old games.

I started it up and it came to life as if it were the first day I got it. I have the original Duke controllers as well and while lots of people preferred the re-designed S controllers , I loved the giant Duke controllers. The first time I felt it rumble I was amazed.

Anyway, the system started up perfectly and it read every game with no trouble at all. I was in heaving playing some of my old favourites like Gunvalkyrie and BloodWake. I even played Outlaw Tennis and some Halo 2 for good measure.  It was glorious. There are some great games from previous generations.

I only had to buy one XBOX. I never had to send it in for fixing and I never had any weird rings of death. The system worked and that was that. My Xbox 360 on the other hand had to be returned 3 times until I got one that "worked" My first one got the red rings of death, my second one was scratching all my games , my third one had a dvd tray that refused to open and my 4rth finally worked.

It still works today , except that in order for it to read games, it needs to be lying flat. It wont read games if standing up but it will still read dvd movies. I also had the HD DVD drive and my first one died on me. I replaced it and that one still works fortunately as I still have some good movies on HD DVD.

I remember the day I got the system. I don't remember details like the exact date and time, but I remember a friend of mine said she would buy me a ps2. I had no idea why but she said she would. Her brother had one and all our other friends had a Ps2. I couldn't refuse that so we went off to a mall and into an EB games store. They were all out of PS2 systems so she bought an XBOX and I was like "What is an Xbox?" But I took it home and hooked it up. It was awesome. To this day I'm glad that the store was out of PS2 systems.

 Lady Ballers (Daily Wire +)

I havent done a review on here in a couple years, but I decided to start up again as I'm making a new website and want to do reviews of movies and games and maybe other things, so I will start up again.

Lady Ballers is a comedy by the people at Daily Wire + and if this movie came out in the mid 90s or even the early to mid 2000s , there wouldnt be much "controversy" over this movie at all. I think we see a headline saying something along the lines of "controversial new film... " or "...faces online backlash.." and we think its a widespread issue, when really its not. The backlash might come from a tiny amount of people on twitter who are mad at the premise of something , or it might be called controversial because of the same reason, a small handful of people were upset while the vast majority of people either dont care, or like the product. 

Lady Ballers does what comedy used to do. Hold up a mirror to current society and make fun of the more ridiculous parts of our lives. This movie doesnt have Hollywood actors in it. All actors would no doubt stay away from this because they arent allowed to take part in a movie with this subject matter. Which is supposed to be praised and never criticized in Hollywood. So , the actors are all comedians who most have never heard of before. Some might point at this as a downside to this film, but I dont see it that way.

I cant stand seeing the same "It" actors in the same movies over and over again. And actress gets popular and all of a sudden shes in EVERY movie. This happened with Anna Taylor Joy, who I really like, but I dont want her in every movie. I have always wanted certain movies to use unknown actors in roles so that we dont see the actor but we just see the character. For example, I love Tom Cruise, but in every movie, hes tom Cruise, In Mission Impossible hes Tom, in Maverick , hes Tom. I'd like to see a movie where I dont know the actors well and I can see them as the character they are trying to play.

That said, Jeremy Boreing did a great job as the coach. He was fun to watch and delivered some great lines and moments. The rest of the team all had their own personalities and quirks and were all fun to watch on screen. Jeremy's on screen daughter was very good, and even the ex wife was a good character even in her small role. One who stole all the scenes she was in was Billie Rae Brant who played the Journalist trying to use the Lady Ballers for a story. She was great and I loved how she and Jeremy played off each other. 

After seeing the hilarious trailer, I was worried that all the funny bits were shown in the trailer. Luckily I was wrong and the movie was funny all the way through and  was paced well and I never felt bored. Some jokes didnt land , but other throwaway lines were very funny. There was a reference to space lasers i found very funny. 

The movie is about men who peaked in high school discovering that they could regain their glory days and be winners again if they pretend that they are women and compete against women in sports because if they compete with men they would be going up against younger and much more athletic men and wouldnt stand a chance, but against women, they would win it all. 

So they sign up and get the old team together. I think its great that it showed people giving them dirty looks at first, but then quickly accepting these men are "real women" and cheering them on while they absolutely massacre the women they go against . 

Some of the characters see how they are affecting the women they are beating and feel bad about it and start to question the morals of pretending to be women to win. There are some good messages in the film and when the end was approaching I was wondering how they would end the movie in a satisfying way. Well the ending caught me by surprise and was absolutely perfect. They nailed the ending, something many movies fail to do. Like Old Dads which started of good, but ended on a pathetic whimper.

This was solid, funny and full of heart. I really hope this is a return of comedy. The cameos in the movie were also great. Daily Wire is putting out some good content lately and I look forward to their new animated series called Mr Bircham. 

Arizona Sunshine VR (Oculus Quest 2)

                                                                     Arizona Sunshine VR

Arizona Sunshine was one of the first two games I purchased for my Oculus Quest 2 which I purchased a couple of months ago now. A co-worker was telling me about his Oculus Quest 2 and how great it was and how fun this Arizona Sunshine game was. It sounded need, but I wasn't all that convinced, plus the 400 + dollar price tag  (CAD) was a bit off putting to try out a new tech which might just be overhyped gimmick.

 I had used an Oculus Go previously, when last winter my mom brought one home and me and my wife were there for the holidays , and she said she bought it because it was on sale and looked fun. We all had a try, had some laughs and pretty much forgot about it. 

A couple of months ago after hearing my co-worker go on about his quest 2 and AZ, I booted up the Oculus Go and messed around to see if it was any good. I ended up enjoying some small games it had. The Go only has one controller with a trigger and a thumb pad. There was a beat saber like game where you have a hammer and switch colours of your hammer with the trigger to hit the appropriate colour of blocks that come your way.

The point I'm trying to get to, is that I enjoyed it enough to decide to spend the cash on the Oculus Quest 2. Since I had a nice discount coupon for an online order at Best Buy and I had just gotten my yearly bonus from my previous job. Also since it was a significant purchase I asked my wife if she would be OK with me spending $400 on a toy.... She said it was fine with her so I made the order. 

This is turning into an Oculus review, but that will be a different review, so its time to get on with the review of the game, which I finished last night.

Arizona Sunshine was my first VR game (I'm not counting the demos on the Oculus Go or Beat Saber)

I had no idea what to expect as it was loading up. (You can buy it on Steam or on the Oculus Quest itself, i bought mine on the Quest)

So when the game loads up you start in a trailer with a bunch of tapes on the table and a spot to insert them with a screen on the far wall. There is also a purple gun on the table beside the tape deck. These tapes are the different game features such as settings, campaign, horde mode , credits and even the DLC packs have their own tape. 

you can pick up a take by pointing your had at it and clicking the trigger button to grab it. Then you insert it into the tape deck by moving to the deck and clicking the trigger again. It was very neat to reach for things and pick them up with a click. 

Then with a tape inserted, the screen will show a menu and you then pick up the gun and shoot at the options you want to select. 

There is an option for having a reticle for aiming or to not have one. I opted for not having one and I loved playing without one. Nothing felt more badass than popping headshots one after another aiming down the sights or just quickly aiming and shooting and hitting your target. 

Though many times I would shoot , miss by a bit and have to re-adjust which felt very real. 
Many times I would steady my right arm with my left, and then when the magazine was empty I would just quickly swap and steady my left with the right hand to fire my second gun. When you get used to the gunplay in the game it gets very smooth. 

To reload your gun, you will press the lower button on the face of the controller which ejects the clip, then you tap your hand to your chest where all your ammo is kept. You do the same for any gun in your left hand as well. Ammo you pick up you grab and touch your chest and it will go into your ammo stash. 

Same with grenades. When you look down you will see your ammo count, your grenades and the weapons on your holsters (One on each side) You can carry 4 guns at a time. One in each hand and one on each of your hips. There is a section where you go through a mine and need a flashlight so that leaves you with 3 guns and a flashlight. 

There are about 10 guns in the game and all of them were fun to use, including the sniper rifles later in the game which you cant take with you, instead you find them in a sniper nest, you can pick them up and take out targets at a distance, then leave the gun behind and continue on.

A bit of a disappointment was the fact that there is no gun recoil when you shoot. 

As for movement through the game, there are 3 different ways, The first method which I used for most of the game was teleporting. You use your thumbstick on either hand to pick a spot to teleport to and you will go there. From whatever spot you're in you can take a few steps anywhere , you can look in any direction(depending on your play area) and crouch if you want. 

The other option is for smooth movement. Which means you move like in any other video game, using the thumbstick to move forward and back in the direction you are looking or the direction your hand is pointing (changeable in the options)

This method is what I wanted to use, but it quickly made me dizzy and sick. It also caused me to almost fall over a few  times as the sensation of shooting forward while not actually moving was destabilizing at best, and nauseating at worst. 

The third option is one I couldn't try out as it needs an extra accessory. Its called Cyber Shoes. (look it up) From what I have seen , you have something on your feet, and you sit in a chair and move your feet to make your character walk.... I don't know much else about it. 

The graphics in the game are enjoyable but slightly cartoonish (which is perfectly fine) and there is a but of fog after a certain draw distance but the views can be really nice. The zombies that come after you look fine and there is enough variety of them to not get too stale too fast. 

Some will have helmets and body armour so aiming for the head wont kill some of them. IN those cases you take out the legs and pump their bodies full of lead until they die. 

The first part of the game was very neat. There were objects to pick up and look at. Car doors to open to check the seats for ammo. Car trunks to open, buildings to go into with desk drawers to open for ammo. There is food in the fridge to eat and random cans and items to pick up and throw with no real use. 

There are masks all over the place in this game that you can pick up and put on. Some cool looking ones too and I wore the Jason looking hockey mask from when I got it to the very end of the game. These are just for co-op mode fun from what I can tell as in single player they serve no purpose. 

The gameplay has you making your way through Arizona in search of... well anyone else. You're alone the entire time following a radio broadcast in hopes of meeting up with other people. Along the way you have to find some keys, and levers and find some C4 , but for the most part you're shooting zombies . Sometimes there are a few that you dispatch quite easily out in the open and move on, other times you are in a tight spot and a horde of them are rushing towards you and you have to take them all out before you can move on. 

These are the times you need to have your reloading skills down, and know how to use your grenades. A couple times I would throw a grenade without first pulling the pin. Waiting for the boom, but it never came.

Speaking of grenades, I dont know if it was just me but I couldn't thrown them very far and sometimes they fell so close to me I had to turn and run so I wouldn't die or take damage from it.

The character you play talks to himself, and to the zombies so you get some personality to the character you play. He makes quips, shouts emphatically as he gets headshots and mows zombies down. Laments about being alone, questioning what hes doing and why hes bothering.

 Had this been another FPS for steam or consoles, it would be pretty mediocre in all honesty. What makes this game much more, is the VR aspect where you are actually inside the game. You will see a tank 10 feet away from you and its fully 3D and looks like you're sharing the space with the tank. Its not on a screen, its right in front of you. The zombies aren't flat they are your height and can swarm you from all sides and look like they have weight to them 

You can move your hands around and see all the angles and all sides of the guns or other objects you have in them at the time. You can even toss things in the air and catch them again. You can look around a wall and see whats there without moving your feet. 

You can crouch down to see under tables or to open drawers that are lower to the ground. 

The game also has 3 DLC packs which are more campaigns, though some are shorter than others and I think all are shorter than the campaign which you can probably beat in 6 hours. 

Is Arizona sunshine worth picking up if you have a VR set? Definitely. Its a great game to start with to ease you into VR. 

Is Arizona Sunshine a reason to spend 400 + on a VR headset? No, not just for one game, but there are many , many great games today for VR that make getting a set worth while. There are online multiplayer games , there are ping pong games, Myst is in VR, Half Life Alyx, Doom 3 is coming to VR very soon, Tetris in VR, The Climb, Vader immortal, Watching 3D movies  and so much more. VR is just taking off and is only going to get better. 

Unreal 2: Awakening.

I have been trying to play more older games. Some that I have beaten in the past , but mostly ones that I have had for years and never completed. The latest was Unreal 2: Awakening. I have had this game nearly since the day it came out, but for some reason I have only ever finished 2 or 3 missions and not continuing.

I'm not sure what the reasoning would be, maybe I found it boring, maybe too hard, or like some games that I gave up on, having to keep restarting because of losing save files.

Either way, I grabbed this game from my moms house to bring to my place and finally play through it. I beat the game last night. Luckily this game installed and ran on Windows 10 with no issue. The game did crash to the desktop a handful off times, but otherwise it ran perfectly fine.

When I first started the game, I was impressed by the visuals. It looked good for a game of its age, but if I was playing it back when it came out I would definitely have been impressed with the graphics.

I remembered the intro and the first section of the game from when you get your orders, to when you first see your ship and crew members. Aida being the most memorable, mainly for how she looked. Ill post a screen shot below to see for yourself.

There are two other crew members. One is a pilot who is a slow speaking, blob in a mechanical body which reminds me of a mix of two aliens from Mass Effect, A volus and some other big alien that speaks similarly to the pilot. Also there is the mechanic who also gets you new weapons and tells you how to use them between missions.

During the first actual mission something felt off. The game felt slow. Holding the shift key made me walk even slower. I had hoped it would make me speed up. I checked the control options a few times for a run button, but nope, this is as fast as it goes. Which felt like walking compared to most games.

After getting used to the slower pace, the missions were ok. The enemies were bullet sponges who could do lots of damage to you with just a few good shots. The Skaarj enemies were push overs, but the human enemies with weapons and some enemies later in the game were dangerous to deal with.

The levels weren't very big or very interesting. I found early on that you have to save often, first because you could get hit with a lucky shot and die and have a lot of ground to cover again, and secondly because you can randomly fall through the map at any moment. This happened at least 2 or 3 times to me.

This game, the levels, the enemies, the graphics, did not give me the same feeling of awe and wonder and immersion that the first Unreal gave me right from the start. I remember you were a prisoner on a prison ship that crashed on a planet and you escape the ship and are on your own to try to survive. That alone made you want to explore and learn about whats going on.

In Unreal 2, the story is about finding some artifacts (seven of them) that when combined can create a powerful weapon. There is some obvious double cross element that your crew tries to warn you about but you dont listen, eventually that ignorant mentality gets your whole crew killed, and leaves you the lone survivor listening to a recording they made for you before they died.... It was a push to make the story emotional , but it fell flat as you the player would not have been so blind as the character you play. Probably anyway.

Some of the levels were interesting in how you progressed. The later levels against some mechanical enemies has you knock down a bigger enemy and then you have to kill the smaller repair bots before they repair the enemy or youd have to fight it again. Killing it for good opens up the doors it was protecting.

There is also a neat boss fight at the end of this stage. The game has a few boss fights. None are very hard, but most are pretty fun.

Some stages had sections where you have to set up some barriers and turrets and protect an area while someone else gets data from a control panel …. I didnt care for these sections, they felt like filler. I think there were 3 of them in the game, maybe 4.

The weapon selection was pretty good. There is a good amount and you get more as you play through the game. Some I didnt find useful and never used, like the starting pistol, the gun that shoots spiders and the magnum. The most used were the flamethrower, which I think is the most effective and fun to use flamethrower in any game ive played, the shotgun, the assault rifle, the sniper rifle, the rocket launcher and the grenade launcher.

Overall, the game was just OK. Im glad I finally finished it , but its not a memorable game or one id want to revisit at any point. Id only recommend the game to anyone who loves older games and likes Unreal and wants to see what the sequel was about. I think there is good reason I never got far in this game when it was new. It doesnt have the appeal that the original game had.

Injustice 2

Injustice 2 came out on PC on October 25th 2017. It was really advertised and I only knew it was coming because i loaded up steam and saw that the beta was available for download . I missed out on playing it, but I did manage to preorder the game before it released the next day. 

I paid for the $120 version because it came with the extra characters along with more to come in the future such as Atom, The Enchantress, Hellboy , and the upcoming Ninja Turtles. 

I think that some games should charge more, since creating games is getting more expensive. So to pay 120 dollars for a fighting game isn't too bad in my opinion. My issue is with games like Street Fighter 5 that release for 80 dollars with barely any game modes that previous games in the series used to have like arcade modes with endings and so on. Then they release character packs for 2/3rds the price of the game (40 dollars each) and additional costumes at around 5 dollars a piece, then SF 5 should have been a free to play game.

Regardless , Injustice just released the base game plus the fighter pass. I do take issue with the way they implemented a grindy game play mechanic to get look boxes (mother boxes) and a slow grind to get crystals to unlock shaders and even alternate outfits that turn a character into a new character. Such as Superman becoming Bizarro Superman.

You get these crystals at such a slow rate that getting enough for ONE shader will take plenty of time if you refuse to spend even more money on the game. I have probably 60 hours into the game and have ALMOST enough crystals for 2 shader for ONE character. 

Its a horrible mechanic that makes the game feel like a cheap mobile game . Almost like a more technical version of the actual mobile version of injustice 2. 

With that aside, the game is actually really fun to play. The roster is pretty good and as with most fighting games, people will always wish they added their favourite character. I do miss some that were in the original , like Zod, Zatanna and Batgirl, but the inclusion of Supergirl, Robin and Red Hood make up for missing favourites. 

The fighting is just like the first game, where you have a heavy , medium and light attack as well as a power and your grab and switch stance buttons. I dont know what the point of switching stances is. Maybe there is a use for it but I havent found one. 

The game is easy enough for new people to pick up and play and get the hang of some simple combos, but you can also learn some more advanced combos that use meter burn and dashing to extend. 

Level transitions are back and personally I think they mostly just waste time as you watch a scene with a character flying backwards and smashing into things. It just breaks the flow of the combat.

I also think that like the first game Clashes are more annoying than anything as they also break up the flow of the fight. I do see the strategy in them, you can sacrifice meter to gain a percentage of health back, or to do more damage to an opponent, or you can risk none and let the other character regain health and maybe come back from a losing match, but i still think its a bad mechanic. 

Graphically the game looks good. Most of the characters look really good , and there are a lot of different pieces of armour you can equip and change how your character looks, but this was done for the sake of grinding for loot boxes. I prefer the way the first game handled things where you can select what costume you wanted, instead of having loadouts with customized versions of characters.

Online play has been good. Not much lag in my experience but as with most fighting games you will find lots of people who spam one or two moves that tend to frustrate and annoy new players who cant figure out a way around them. In the first game it was deadshot and his guns, in this game I havent seen anything that bad but I do see people trying to spam Supergirl's cross screen uppercut. (like scorpions teleport uppercut from MKX) 

I havent finished the story mode yet but what I have played is really good so far. The story of injustice 1 was also really good so Im not surprised this one is so far as well. 

With everything considered, if I were to give a numeric score to the game, I would give it a 7. It loses points for the grindy-ness, and the fact that it isnt much different than the first game. Its a good fighter, but its not anything special. 

John Wick Chapter 2

Hopefully you saw the first John Wick and were as hyped as most people when they heard a sequel was coming. The first movie had some great action , a very simple plot and Keanu Reeves. The sequel has all that as well. The simple plot , Reeves and the action. This time though the action is even more ramped up.

The first John wick was pretty small in scope. John is a retired assassin who gets back to killing when some young mob boss' son decides he wants to beat him up and take his car and kill his dog. We learn about the assassin hotel called the Continental where we see other assassins as well, but mainly its John tracking the mob.

The sequel though tries to make John's world bigger by showing how widespread this assassin business really is. Homeless people are assassins, people in the subway playing violin are assassins, they are just everywhere. I feel that this was slightly detrimental to the film because with all this it made it feel like this doesn't take place in our world, like the first one could have.

So, as for the story, why does he go back to killing? Well, apparently he owed some bad guy a debt which was kept track on with a marker. This bad dude wants John to do something for him to pay back the debt which john apparently agreed to in exchange with helping with the impossible task we heard about in the first movie.

So, john eventually accepts the task and does it. Which leads up to a few great scenes including his killing his mark which was really well done , and then in a great action scene that John Wick is known for. One thing though I did not like. Before John went on his mission he got a bunch of gear including some suits. These suits have some special assassins material woven into it that makes it bullet proof.

So scenes showing John running from baddies with guns and having bullets bounce off of him made me cringe. I didn't like it. Other than that the actual action in the scene, the way it was shot and the music were all great.

John fights Common a few times through the movie. These fights were all great and mostly all close quarters fights and very intense. Great hand to hand and close quarters gun and knife fighting between these two which were a nice change from the non stop body shot, headshot of countless mob goons.

So, John completes his task, but as predicted he gets turned on right away and an open contract is taken out on John that has lots of people out to get him. So John is out to kill the guy who put out the contract and who he once owed a debt marker to.

Let me go back a bit. The opening of the movie takes place pretty soon after the first movie, and John is looking for his car..... He finds it with the help of John Leguizamo's character making some call. The beginning of this movie is crazy amazing action showing him get his car back which in the process takes so much damage that it barely makes it back to his home and he needs to have it completely repaired . The car doesn't make another appearance in the movie, but I have a feeling it will be back for part 3. Yes , there will be a part 3.

The action picks up in the third act after a slight slowdown in act 2 where he is getting his gear and so on, but it doesn't let up again once it starts. He kills so many people trying to get to the main guy. And its not so much action that it gets boring, its all entertaining and brutal.

John though does something that breaks the rules right at the end of the movie, which sets into motion a very intense end sequence that made me want to see John Wick 3 right now. Not an action packed ending, but very intense. The movies leaves John with no friends, no home, no help and nowhere to go. Just one debt marker given to him by the head of the continental. I hope they start on John Wick 3 right away. I cant wait another 3 years.

Killer Instinct Season 2

This is just a reminder for people that Killer Instinct Season 2 will be free starting tomorrow (January 16th) For Xbox LIVE gold members.
There are 4 seasons total at this point in the game and having half of it free is great. (first season was free a while back)

The great thing is that you don't need an XBOX ONE to claim the game. You can use an xbox 360, or go the the XBOX.com site to claim the game. Then either you can use this content for the PC version (which I do) or it will be in your digital library for if you ever upgrade to the XBOX ONE system.

You MUST have XBOX LIVE GOLD to claim this.