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Flipflop Solitaire

Games

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From the creator of Sage Solitaire, comes a new Solitaire variant that breaks all the rules! Like...

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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Irrational Man (2015) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020

Murderous Woody Allen >> Romantic Woody Allen. Not quite sure why this monstrously clever rush is relegated as slight while just cute fluff like 𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴 gets BP noms but hey, more for me. I was initially turned off by this movie's writerly cynicism but soon realized that it was necessary to play into the whole, and reflexively appreciated it more immediately upon realization. Found this to get more and more lusciously beguiling as it went along, pretty much everything you'd want from a story about a philosophy professor who gets embroiled in a crime plot - complete with all of the knowingly self-satisfied dialogue and exploratory (but ultimately [intentionally] bullshit) ethical/moral dilemmas one could hope for. Phoenix and Stone are next level and this is rich with atmosphere without ever being even the slightest bit gaudy. Mainly just an incredibly good idea with a proper execution to back it up, I'm sure I'm alone in this one but this pretty much had my heart pounding more and more with anxiety as it went along - including multiple prolonged sequences where it wanted to burst right out of my chest the whole time - allowing me only to breath a sigh of safe relief upon the first sting of the end credits. Adored it, no doubt one of Allen's best.

Kudos

Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated the Xbox One version of Maid of Sker in Video Games

Nov 7, 2020

Maid of Sker

2019 | Horror

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Video Game Rating

Hold Your Breath

Maid of Sker- is a excellent first person horror game.

The game takes place in 1898 in the Sker Hotel, located on an imaginary island called Sker Island, where the protagonist, Thomas Evans, is invited by his lover, Elisabeth Williams, to uncover the mysteries of the hotel after she notices her family's strange behavior. While exploring the hotel, Thomas learns the place is controlled by cult followers called "The Quiet Ones". The history of Elisabeth's family is revealed when Thomas finds notes and gramophone records scattered around the hotel.

The story is inspired by multiple Welsh and British folklore tales, specifically the idea of the hotel is influenced by the Sker House, a real life historic place situated just outside the town of Porthcawl, near Bridgend, Wales, which is made famous by the three-volume novel written by R. D. Blackmore, The Maid of Sker. The game has drawn influences from this novel as well as the folklore story under the same name (called Y Ferch o’r Sger in Welsh). The game has been compared to Outlast, The Evil Within 2, Silent Hill, and its saving system was also compared to those of Resident Evil, with the typewriter switched to a gramophone in the saving rooms.

In the original folk story, Elisabeth Willaims, a woman of the higher class, falls in love with Thomas Evans, a poor harpist. Elisabeth's father, Isaac, disapproves of the relationship, and, in one of the variations of the tale, her father locks her in a room to prevent her from running away until she starves; other variations include Elisabeth dying from a broken heart or being forced to marry a richer man who she does not love until she passes away from illness. According to the tale, her ghost, alongside the ghost of a sailor, haunt the Sker House.

The game is using the first-person perspective and features blind enemies that can find the player by noise, they are introduced as "The Quiet Ones." As Thomas cannot fight back (except for when a temporary weapon is introduced mid-game), the player is forced to be stealthy when exploring the hotel grounds, or making sounds to distract The Quiet Ones so Thomas passes them safely. The only way to search through the hotel grounds successfully is by avoiding The Quiet Ones by not making noise and holding your breath when a Quiet One is close or not bumping into objects. If the player holds their breath for too long, Thomas gasps for air which alerts the enemies. In certain environments, such as when the protagonist is in a dusty location or close to a fireplace, he coughs, and the player has to stop him by holding his breath as this alerts The Quiet Ones.

It consists of a device which sends shock waves and temporarily damages the hearing of The Silent Ones, stunning them for a short duration; this allows the player to run away from the location. While the player gets this weapon, ammunition is scarce and the player has to use it carefully.

The game features a manual save style and there is no autosave. To save the game, the player has to find "safe rooms", the rooms have green-tainted patterned doors, and inside the rooms are gramophones which the player has to play to save the game. Before the game saves, the gramophones play records of Elisabeth and her experiences with her family which adds to the background of the story. After the records end or when the player stops them manually, the game starts saving. If the player dies or restores a save, they lose all the progress made after the last save, additionally, enemies always change routes and cannot always be found lurking in the same places. This saving system is compared to the one which appeared in the Resident Evil games.

While the game is praised for its great sound design, Thomas never speaks in the game. Aside from grunting noises, he is completely mute throughout the game and his lines are displayed as text instead; however, this is not the case for Elisabeth and she has her voice actor. This has received some negative feedback alongside the sensitivity of the movement on consoles. The game has been compared to Outlast when it comes to the gameplay style, and The Evil Within 2 and Silent Hill when it comes to the game's atmosphere.

I love the concept, the atomsphere, the horror, the strategy, it does remind of "The Evil Within", "Resident Evil", "Silent Hill" and "Outlast". All excellent horror games and same with this one.

Kudos (2)

Daniel Tiger's Grr-ific Feelings

Education and Games

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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**2015 Parents' Choice - Gold Award** **Common Sense Media - 50 Apps All Kids Should Play at Least...

Sawyer (231 KP) rated Pokemon Colosseum in Video Games

Jun 1, 2019

Pokemon Colosseum

2003 | Action/Adventure

7.9

(13 Ratings)

Video Game Rating

A lot of uniqueness and style not not seen elsewhere in the franchise (0 more)

Tedious grinding gameplay slow animations makes fights even longer (0 more)

A wild offbeat detour in the Pokemon world

Pokemon Colosseum is one of those rare occasions where a establish franchise decides to really experiment and the end result well not quite Frankenstein it's definitely not the Mona Lisa either

The game centers around West a strong silent rebellious youth it was formerly a member of the games antagonist organization which is a big departure from the main characters you usually play in the Pokemon games

The first missed opportunity is that this never speaks which makes it really hard to connect with the character

One of the key features of the game is the ability to steal certain Pokemon from trainers this is a unique way to acquire Pokemon also very against the usual moral compass of the characters you play in the Pokemon series the game

doesn't have wild encounters which means you only have certain Pokemon you can get and that's it I believe there's like 40 something all together which is a insanely low amount when considering how many Pokemon the franchise had at this point

The game also was mostly comprised of 2 on 2 Pokemon battles something you really never see have such a focus it is a fresh idea and it does make for some interesting enemy encounters the animations are quite slow also the fact that you want to fight are inherently slower than normal it's quite easy to fall asleep at the controller

Don't get me wrong though I do really enjoy this game such a breath of fresh air for this franchise

So many interesting ideas I even loved the world I know it's part of the same world as the rest of the games but this region just feels so vastly different it has a very barren wasteland mad Max type of style to it

If you are a big Pokemon fan you should try this game for sure

Kudos (5)

Rodney Barnes (472 KP) rated Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 in Video Games

Jan 10, 2020

Story (0 more)

No Campaign (0 more)

Contains spoilers, click to show

My review for the giveaway.
I will begin by saying that I am not much on PvP. I like story driven games. Now this game does have a story and it's very good. There is no campaign for the progression of the story though. It's tailored more towards the PvP players. The neat thing is that the name Mason is still there. It is in the form of the daughters. Jessica and Savannah. Jessica is on an ops mission with two others, Ruin and Battery, and presumably killed. Savannah wants revenge, so she had a virtual combat system to train Specialists. That is the "campaign" disappointingly. The story is still good though. You find out Jessica is alive and it was Savannah her own sister that tried to kill her. Savannah was using a project called Blackout to try and reanimate the dead. It worked for four people, including Alex Mason. Then there is the Zombie mode. People are turned into zombies at a party and you shoot them. I am kind of burnt out on zombies so it's a mode I didn't play a lot. My take...If you eat, breath and live COD. You will like the game. Its not the game for me. BO 2 is still the best one to me. I think they missed a great chance at an awesome campaign in this one