• 6 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 17th, 2023

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  • I view the first in a vacuum because the others actually harm it

    Lol I do the same thing! If I watch any of the sequels I view them essentially as fanfic. Your point about emotional payoff in the first is really good too. It’s easy to forget watching the sequels that the dramatic core of the first movie was John’s grief for his wife. The dramatic core of the sequels is little more, as I remember, than the convoluted bureaucracy and politics of John trying and failing to be left alone.


  • The best moment in the entire franchise is after the assassination squad is sent to his house in the first movie. I saw it in theaters and fully, unconsciously anticipated that when the police strobe lights started flashing through the windows, that we would get a tense scene of John Wick attempting to distract the cop and send him away without the bodies being discovered.

    When instead he opens the door wide, and the cop casually peers past his shoulder, and just asks, “you working again?”, it’s such a delightful, comical, surprising reveal. The concept worked best when we as the audience expected the world to function familiarly, and it could playfully subvert those expectations in small ways. They dove so deep into the capital-L lore beginning in the second movie, that we no longer expected the world to function familiarly, and thereafter stopped being surprised.

    The first flick is a bonified good movie. The rest are, varyingly, titillating scenes of artfully choreographed and executed action set pieces loosely strung together by indulgently juvenile nonsense.






  • I’ve been enjoying Pacific Drive this week. It’s a great survival crafting game in the vein of Subnautica, which is to say there is a linear progression path for upgrades and improvement, and a well-defined objective and end goal.

    I just wish it was less stressful. Even just the normal act of activating a gateway to end a run requires a race through your current zone where one misstep can cause you to get stuck long enough to fail. And sometimes conditions just really stack up against you in a way that can be unexpected and frustrating.

    Overall though it really hits the spot with its loop. I love returning to the garage and going through the ritual of healing, fueling up, recharging, transferring supplies, and checking on upgrades.

    Oh…I also finished and platinumed 13 sentinels earlier this week. I enjoyed that one a lot more than I expected. It’s as compelling as it is eye-rollingly funny how many sci-fi tropes the main story burns through, but I i was frequently and pleasantly taken by surprise. And the battle system, which through the first area I thought was so easy it was basically a formality, really did become more challenging and tactical, especially when trying to get S ranks.





  • 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I am about 25% through with both Remembrance and the battles… Destruction? I’m in awe of the narrative’s complexity. It’s also a little overwhelming, it feels impossible to get any kind of handle on things. The game adds new layers every time you think you’re getting it.

    Im really enjoying it though, the mystery is really fun to dig at.

    I also beat Malenia this week, which is pretty much the last major thing I had left in my first Elden Ring save. I got help of course (thanks superelva11), but it’s been really satisfying tying a bow on that. 140 hours, plus another 30-35 on a second save - Elden Ring is officially the most time I’ve ever spent on a single game by quite a large margin.


  • Good luck my friend. Hollow Knight is a special one, but those bosses can be punishing. A few of them took me separate sessions over a few days, which is a frustrating way to play games for me, but it’s such a rewarding experience otherwise. I recently rewatched my recording of beating one of the bosses and I was fumbling so bad, I could see my own desperation in the way I was playing.

    Apparently there’s a secret phase for the final boss that I was more than happy to experience via YouTube. I was perfectly satisfied with just rolling the credits.