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Anna Marie Green (7 KP) rated the Xbox One version of Monster Hunter World in Video Games

Jul 3, 2018 (Updated Jul 3, 2018)  
Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter World
2018 | Action/Adventure
Fantastic Gameplay Possibilities (4 more)
Intelligent Monster AI
Climbing Difficulty
Good Community Management
It's Damn Good Fun (If you have $30, buy it.)
Feels Incomplete (2 more)
Experienced Players Lack Challenge
Mediocre Story
Monster Hunter, One Year Later
Monster Hunter: World was Capcom's fiest big success in the Western market. After years of cult status on the DS, they finally broke through to the world of consoles and had so much success that they dubbed MH:W their benchmark for future games.

But should they?

MH:W is, at its core, is a dungeon crawler designed to feel open-world within its own constraints. With beautiful environments such as the Coral Highlands and the toxic areas festering beneath the Rotten Vale, MHW looks and feels much more massive than the trodden paths you follow. Your first hunts feel thrilling as you take different paths to chase your limping prey, and a cycle of different weather, monsters, and endemic life keep you invested in immersion.

But after hunting a tempered Nergigante for the 20th time, things do begin to fall out of place. You experience the malaise of a Saitama-like hero. Have you become too strong?

Challenging fights become the norm. The occasional arch-tempered monster appears, but scaled damage isn't always the same thing as new difficulty.

In the handheld games, there were dozens of monsters with distinct abilities and variations. MH: Generations had 73 large monsters to hunt. You could even play as a palico.

But that variety just isn't in MH:W.

Granted, the game is an experiment and has provided some good content for no extra cost to the players, which is a feat of its own in comparison to all the other big game developers (EA, Microsoft, Square Enix, Bethesda). They also do an excellent job managing weekly challenges and encouraging community between players. Kulve Taroth hunts were a blast and the free meal in the Hub was an excellent bribe.

MH:W still needs more monsters and at least one new environment. Since its release in January 2018, only three monsters have been added to the game: Deviljho, Kulve Taroth, and Lunastra. Behemoth from Final Fantasy is also making an appearance this July. That's a monster every two months. Don't get me wrong here— that's a fair schedule for content release. Overwatch clocks in at about three months for every hero, so two months is a respectable jog for the quality of the quality of the game. Still, even Overwatch -with it's full player-controlled roster- can become a bit of a slog without those regular updates.

The easiest fix? Capcom needs to finally add in G-Ranks with weapon rarities 9 and 10, and the terrifying monsters to match. The other MH games have generally had these ranks, and the MH:W G updates have been teasing us in rumors since the release, yet we haven't seen any evidence of their existence. A massive content update containing new unique weapons trees, rarity 8 varieties of dead-end trees, armor transmogs, new endemic life and monsters, better armor designs, and more material choices... Capcom has incredible potential on their table that could rekindle gamers' interest in helping the Fifth solve the new mysteries of the New World.

Or, god forbid, suffer the gamers by making them by Monster Hunter: World 2 just to feel like they actually completed the first game.
  
CO
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Sabotage
Shooter
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has released their first of four planned DLC Packs; Sabotage for the Xbox One and PC systems after being previously released for the PS4 platform.

Like previous DLC packs in the series; the set contains four new maps and a new Zombie/Alien gameplay mode.

The first map is Noir: which is a futuristic Brooklyn setting teaming with open streets and an open courtyard which makes for some really close quarters combat. The map is great for those who like a run and gun approach but there are plenty of windows and areas for snipers and surprise attacks.

 

The next map is Renaissance which is a beautiful recreation of a pastoral Venetian setting. Players will battle in courtyards, a church, and along canals which create many choke points for enemy forces to mount attacks.

The third map is Neon which is a Tron like map set in a computer simulation. Players and vehicles as well as parts of the map de-rez when destroyed. The map has long lines and balconies which make for great points for snipers and those looking to mount and ambush, but I really liked mounting counter attacks in the night club which allows players a way to cover large parts of the map without having to travel the dangerous streets.

The final map is Dominion which is a futuristic remake of the classic Modern Warfare 2 map Afghan. Players will battle in a map with a downed vehicle at the center. The map has plenty of ridges, observation areas, and halls to allow players to battle one another in multiple game styles.

For me the highlight of the pack is the second installment of the Zombie mode called Rave in the Redwoods. The game continues the story of the four actors pulled into horror movies to battle legions of undead. The previous map was set in an 80s theme park and this time out we get a 90s themed camping horror film as the setting. Players get to use weapons such as a golf club, a spiked baseball bat, a machete, and other melee weapons before they pick up some heavier firepower to go with their grenades. Like in previous versions, players will have to buy access to various areas, new weapons, ammunition and such. There are also puzzles to solve to unlock new and special weapons and traps as well as to make the game progress to a conclusion point. Should players not solve the needed puzzles, then they will face wave after wave of enemies. Writer/Director Kevin Smith is on hand and can be a playable character and those looking for a change of pace can bring on a neon lightshow at various points. For fun players can also battle Bigfoot, a psycho killer, and other threats but trust me, there is plenty of challenge to go around. The Afterlife arcade returns so players who die are given a chance to play various games to make their way back into the game. With four player co-op, you will want to take advantage of the Zip Lines to get around.

While the new maps are fun, they really do not offer anything radically different but do extend the life of the game. For me, the Zombie mode is what makes this a must own as it continues to be the best overall Zombie experience in any of the COD games.

http://sknr.net/2017/03/15/call-duty-infinite-warfare-sabotage-dlc/
  
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Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Doctor Sleep (2019) in Movies

Nov 11, 2019 (Updated Nov 12, 2019)  
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Doctor Sleep (2019)
2019 | Horror
39 Years Later: Redrum aka Murder
Doctor Sleep- if you dont know is the sequel to the shining. I have been waiting for this movie to come out ever since it got announced. I read the book over two years again and i loved it. I didnt even know their was a sequel to the shining until i read the book. The book is phenomenal, it is acutally my first stephen king novel that i read and finshed, so to say at less, i was hyped and very anticpated, so what did i think. I thought it was good. I liked it alot.

Ewan McGregor was a perfect cast for Danny Torrance and Rebecca Ferguson was excellent as Rose The Hat and newcomer actress Kyliegh Curran was great as Abra Stone. Mike Flanagan was amazing choice for the dirctor. I liked his other movies that he directed and also loved The Haunting of Hill House which he created and directed.

The Recreated sences from the oringal film was intresting, i liked it not to bad. The hotel looks the same, old, crooked, haunted, scary, horrorfying and terrorfying. The replacements for Dick Hallorann, young Danny, Wendy and Llyod/Jack were intresting. I really liked the actress who played Wendy. As for Dick, i liked the actor who played him. As for young Danny he was good and Llyod/Jack the actor who played him was okay/bad, he just did a impression of Jack Nichoslon and looked like a young Jack Nicolson.

This is intresting, i just found this out: Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrance in The Shining, makes a cameo appearance as Bradley Trevor's father. Lloyd had been retired from acting for roughly 38 years, and was direct-messaged on Twitter by Flanagan to appear in the film. Producer Trevor Macy said of Lloyd's involvement, "[Lloyd] was excited to do [the cameo]. He hadn't acted since [the original]. He's a schoolteacher, and a very successful one at that, [who] like[s] making the world better. He came back for a day, and we were thrilled to have him." When pressed as to why the filmmakers did not extend the same offer to Jack Nicholson, Macy responded, "With Jack, I knew that they approached him for Ready Player One, and that he seems to be very serious about being retired. I had known that he was supportive [of the sequel] but retired." Flanagan admitted, "I didn't know how that would really work. Even if he were to come back, if he were appearing as a different character, I thought that would set people's hair on fire. He was absolutely a presence on set, though, whether he knew it or not."

So thats intresting. I would of loved to see Jack Nichloson come out of retirement and play old Jack Torrance.

Doctor Sleep was a great/excellent sequel to the shining and what Mike Flanagan did was perfect he toke elements from Stanley Kubrick's film and made it his own. The cast is great, the story is great, the hotel is great.

If you havent seen the shining than watch it and read it. If you havent seen this movie, than go watch it and read it.
  
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Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin
1992 | Rhythm And Blues, Techno
7.7 (7 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I remember first hearing 'Xtal' - that is the sexiest ambient electronic song for me. I remember being in my first year of university in Brighton and moving away from home and being a bit lost and lonely in some ways, in this tiny little halls of residence room. This album, Ambient Works, was just constantly on my Walkman and I'd been exploring Björk, The Black Dog, Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada, all this electronic music, this world that was opening up to me from the early to mid-nineties, which I was discovering it a bit later. I'd actually at that point bought a QY-70, which is a Yamaha sequencer - I remember reading Björk had written Debut on it and Tricky had one. Listening to Ambient Works, for the first time it seemed possible that I understood how those things were layered up - beats and beautiful little melodies and there was no singing on it, which for me at the time was great because I was very shy about singing. I remember just hearing that and then going to my QY and hearing little synth sounds that sounded similar. Although Aphex Twin's synth sounds were, in hindsight, put through loads of pedals - I can hear that he's got field recordings layered on top of stuff and probably synths he's made himself - but it made sense to me and encouraged me to go and make my own ambient songs. I remember meeting Aphex Twin around that time at a Björk Vespertine concert. I'd met him once before and I went up to him with my MiniDisc player, which I used to put things I'd produced on, and I played him a song at the bar. I kind of knew him at the time a little bit by face, I think we'd met at some nights he was doing at a warehouse in London and me and my boyfriend at the time liked dancing and going out, and I played it to him and he said: ""I think it's really good. The production's quite good for a girl"". [laughs] That's what he said to me! I didn't take it as a bad thing. I was just like, ""cool"". I mean, Aphex Twin liked my production skills, so whether I'm a girl or not, it's fine. But I just remember thinking how funny that was - but I took it like ""that's a real stamp of approval for me"". I do think he's been a really pivotal figure and an important person in my life, because he does electronic music and it's really sexy and emotional. It wasn't cold like some of the other people, like Stockhausen, but I felt like he understood the dance movement and got the loved-up aspect to ambient music. There's a darkness to it, and a light, but a real twisted, disgustingness in what he does, like 'Come To Daddy' and 'Windowlicker', this rank Englishness, [adopts croaky drawl] ""come to daddddyyyy!"", all that weird shit. He's got a sense of humour and just seems to be one of the modern day composers of our time that understood emotionalism in electronic music. Dirty, disgustingness and kind of surreal, how to fuck with your mind, and his body of work is huge. So, yeah, I think he's a dude."

Source
  
Existenz (1999)
Existenz (1999)
1999 | Action, Sci-Fi
The 1999 body horror version of Ready Player One
Famed, innovative but reclusive software developer Allegra Geller is ready to unveil her latest virtual augmented reality game, eXistenZ, and has invited her biggest fans and followers to the first best test launch party ever. The game features bio-mechanical controller ports which actually get plugged into the gamer's spine for the fully immersive experience.

Unfortunately, her party was rudely interrupted by a would-be assassin who wants to put an end to Geller before the game is released. Wounded but not executed, her fate is given to be marketing assistant who has never played a game in his life. The two escape and begin a road trip like no other trying to navigate their situation and figure out who they can trust.

The game novice, Ted Pikul, soon gets himself a "port" so he can join Gellar in the game and to also ascertain whether her main controller hub was severely damaged in the attempt on her lie. Once jacked in, he begins to slowly morph into a more submersive version of the same gradually losing control of himself an becoming his in game character.

The other "participants" they meet serve to enhance the game experience either with conflict or assistance, but it is hard to tell which side everyone plays for. The two become passionate for each other, but still are unable to comprehend whether their feelings are real or just part of the game.

They need to figure out how to finish the game so they can return back to reality.



The last of David Cronenberg's "Body Horror" films before he took his career in a different direction in the 2000s with films like "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence", eXistenZ is one truly wild and unique ride. If you have seen some of his other film in the genre like "The Fly" or "The Brood" you would be used to the over-the-top gore, brutality and strange way of storytelling he has made his career.

His characters are flawed, but motivated and that is why you are interested in their situation and go along with them. This film has some remarkable visceral, macabre elements that make it extremely unique, which is why you watch a movie like this. The internet was only a few years old in 1999 and games like World of Warcraft were still years away; however, this film underscores the dangers of becoming too close to the online world and the dangers it could cause.

At many points during the film, you wonder whether you are still within the game itself similar to watching a "Nightmare on Elm Street" film and wondering if you are still dreaming.

Jennifer Jason Leigh has never really gotten the respect she deserves. Whether in the recent "The Hateful Eight" or in films like "Dolores Claiborne" or "Single White Female" she has shown longevity and the ability to play complex, sometimes unlikable characters with the charisma and charm. I liked the fact she was a female game designer, leading in her field, in 1999 when there were probably not many like her at the time.

This film will keep you guessing all the way to the end and even leave you to interpret what you have just seen as the credits roll.

Easily recommended for gruesome horror fans.