We’re a day late, but we’ve had a nice 4 day weekend thanks to some Bank Holidays. The weather wasn’t the most pleasant so that did result in a little bit of Geeky activity over the weekend. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Fear Effect: SEDNA – Alpha Prototype
During our time at EGX Rezzed (which seems aeons ago now) I got to sit down briefly with Sushees reintroduction to the Fear Effect franchise, Fear Effect: SEDNA. I didn’t get an overly long time on it there, but the booth area were handing out steam codes for the Alpha Prototype to try at home (the same version that was running at Rezzed). As I had some time to kill over the weekend before heading out one afternoon, I installed and replayed the Alpha properly. It was very well polished to be fair. It was nice to see Hana and Rain again. The Fear Effect games back on PS1 were pretty decent games, so the return to the franchise is welcome by me. SEDNA is a change of gameplay from those games, but the visual / cel shaded / comic style remain the same, which is a huge plus. The Alpha is reasonably short, but does just enough to get you familiar with the controls and the game mechanics. I did find myself dying numerous times at one point of the game where you encounter what I assume is a boss with a sniper rifle, who can summon some evil little creatures that do pretty big health hits. It’s looking positive, and will be keeping an eye out for it, hopefully for a PS4 version (console fanboy ahoy!).
A Weekend of Movies
After a busy weekend which I spent the majority of the time out of the house, in the later afternoon and evenings when we’d be back from whatever adventure we had been on, we’d settle down to watch a film and eat junk food (it was a good weekend). We saw The Fate of the Furious on opening day. I personally adore this franchise and it sits proudly at the top of my favourite franchises. I was never really worried about enjoying F8 as far as story or entertainment goes, but my initial worry was that the series may decline now after the heights that 7 reached. It’s horrible to say but I and I assume a lot of people expected that 7’s huge box office draw came from the sad passing of Paul Walker, but it would appear that the Fast fanbase are not ready to let this series decline as F8 smashed opening box office records set by Star Wars episode 7.
Away from F8 we also watched Kong: Skull Island and Logan. I wanted to watch Skull as now it’s been confirmed that there will be a shared universe between Kong and Godzilla, I’ve been hyped to see the encounter between them in a few years. Having seen Godzilla and just how large he is, I was curious as to how they’d go about making Kong seem a legitimate threat to Gozilla. The answer is simple really, make him fucking massive. And that’s what they’ve done here. This version of Kong would tower over Peter Jackson’s Kong from a few years back.
As for Logan, I was not prepared. The R / 18 rating is perfect for this film. Seeing the type of carnage that Wolverine can get up to in full detail should have been in play from the very beginning. The whole story though is incredible and it sits firmly as my 2nd favourite X-Men / Wolverine film. A huge testament to the film. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine character is an icon and it’ll be interesting to see how X-Men franchise moves on now.
Fate of the Furious – “Pocket’s ain’t empty cuz!”
As briefly mentioned above, I had not expected this at all. The latest installment of Fast and the Furious has taken the crown for the largest opening, knocking Star Wars: The Force Awakens off the top spot.
“The Fate of the Furious” smashed global box office records, earning an estimated $532.5 million worldwide to set a new high-water mark for an opening.
The long-running series, now in its eighth installment, got a big boost from foreign crowds. The action thriller earned $432.3 million internationally after bowing in 63 foreign markets.
$532.5m Worldwide in less than a week? It is insane. The budget for this film was reported to be around $250m, so to make profit on that so soon, and no doubt go on to make even more money. There is no stopping this franchise. And to think, it all started with 2 street racers trying to stop a small time criminal “Boosting” DVD players, Now they are practically super hero’s. Oh also… go watch it, it’s fucking awesome.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
We had plenty of Star Wars hype over the weekend too. EA revealed the first trailer for Battlefront 2 and it looks unbelievable. And to follow on, we have the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, equally looking as incredible. The music in the trailer enough to bring goosebumps. Can not wait!
– Murr
EGX Rezzed VLOG
As you may know we recently attended EGX Rezzed, whilst we were there we did some vlogging which was a lot of fun!
P.A.M.E.L.A
I’ve had this game for a little while now and have kind of had nothing but issues with it which is pretty annoying. P.A.M.E.L.A is survival horror game set in a fallen Utopian city that has been ravaged by disease. It’s all very futuristic, slick and stylish. The problem is, is that it’s crashed on me so many times when I’ve been wanting to play it that I almost gave up. For the first two weeks of having it, it seemed like I couldn’t get passed the initial loading screen, so I couldn’t even see what the game was like. Then, finally I got in, but it crashed on me. Losing a bit of hope I left it for a little longer to see if some patches dropped and sorted a few of the issues. I tried again at a later date and it was working, I was actually able to play the game.
You start life waking up from some prolonged sleep and everything is FUBAR, not unlike most survival horror games. I started to explore my surroundings taking in the new sights and getting to grip with the controls etc… It wasn’t long before I found my first bad guy, well actually there were two duking it out – some kind of robot AI thing and what look like basically a zombie. I watched from afar as the zombie flailed with futile attempts to take out the robot, but nothing was happening, it looked like a gltich. As I approached the robot suddenly turned on me as did the zombie. I beat the zombie guy up and then the robot thing scanned me, or something and left me along? Maybe it was checking to see if I was infected… I wasn’t sure.
What I was sure of though was that I wasn’t enjoying the game so far. The movement controls felt very off, as if I was drunk. You know when you get drunk in video games and your character kind of bumbles around, well that’s what it felt like, but all the time. I also noticed that the inventory was pretty weird to use. It was just a bit baffling.
I’m not going to give up on it though, it’s been recieved pretty well on steam so there must be a good game once you get in to it, it’s just that the first impressions so far have left me feeling a little put off.
Day of Infamy
Day of Infamy recently came out of early access – about a month ago, so I wanted to jump back on and give it a go. The game is a classic throw back to WW2 shooters of the early 00’s and I like that! Honestly I don’t really see what’s changed though since I first played when it hit early access, that’s not a bad thing though because my initial thoughts of the game were good anyway. You get exactly what you might expect – tight maps, tough chokes (generally with a sniper watching them), intense gun fights, a shed load of WW2 weapons to play with and different classes to try out and master.
I’ve since checked out what else is new in the game, and it looks like more maps have been added, some extra PVE content has been updated and added too – I did actually try this out and it was pretty good fun, it’s kind of just capturing points as a team against bots, it was good and I could see it being pretty fun with a group of mates, but when you have a group of random people it’s a little more difficult to co-ordinate.
I liked the game before and I still like it now, it might be time to inform my mates and get back on it!
As I said, it’s out now on steam for £14.99.
-Will
