12-20-2018 - Games and Movies

On 12/20/2018 at 10:09 PM by KnightDriver

i struggled to complete the second tutorial exam in Final Fantasy Explorers. Mark and I challenged each other in various Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 3 games. We watched Blade Runner 2049. We played Minecraft in co-op, survival mode for a good long time. That's it in a nutshell.

Final Fantasy Explorers: I'm stuck on the Crystal Surge Exam. I've gotten my resonance up to 130 but I keep running out of enemies. They go down with one Moonlight ability hit. I've tried to hit L+R at the moment of highest resonance but there's nothing there still. I'm not getting something, I'm sure.

Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 3: Mark and i went for various achievements. One was on Pool Shark. You have to clear the table within 25 seconds. I got down to 2 left, but Mark cleared it. It's pretty tricky. Then I played a bunch of Xari Arena. I managed to figure out how to play this more actiony Breakout style game, but I couldn't get near clearing all 32 levels. I think I got to 10. I also tried Canyon Bomber again and got a little bit closer with only 9 targets remaining. Then Mark and I played 2-player Fire Truck online. It was hard, and we couldn't get a time extension for the achievement. We kept crashing too much.

Blade Runner 2049: What's the deal with Ridley Scott these days [actually Dennis Villeneuve]. He's gotten a little too fancy for his own good. I love the world of this movie but its slow pace and confusing story tried my patience. I think I felt pretty cheated by this movie because I knew as much about these characters at the end as I did at the beginning.

Minecraft: Why? Because I was in choice paralysis over what to play, and playing with someone is better than not playing at all. Mark and I wasted a lot of time in a world with no village, searching endlessly for thousands of blocks. But the next world we started had everything and it was great. I've taken to lighting things on fire and blasting with TNT. I like to clear an area for the night time battles with mobs. Mark did his usual. He expanded the village into some kind of massive fortress.

Fun times.

Super Step Contributing Writer

12/21/2018 at 11:30 AM

Huh. I loved Blade Runner 2049. Granted, I saw it in the theater and a lot of my love had to do with the visuals. I also knew going in it would be slow, since the original was as well. I think I followed it well enough, but maybe I looked things up? I can't remember.

KnightDriver

12/21/2018 at 07:58 PM

I liked the look of it too. The slow pace wouldn't have been so bad if I could figure out what exactly was going on. I still have a ton of questions that will probably never get answered.

12/21/2018 at 10:39 PM

I think you'd have your questions answered if you looked them up. I'm sure there are a lot of conflicting fan theories about what the story "means," but I think the plot beats and characters are solid enough a decent Wikipedia article could fill in most gaps.

12/22/2018 at 08:22 PM

Well, tell me this. Who built the main character? I understand why, but how?

12/22/2018 at 08:28 PM

I kinda just assumed it was whatever corporation made all the other replicants? As far as how? However all the other replicants were made?

12/22/2018 at 09:52 PM

Yea, but he was specially implanted with the girl's memories to throw off The Wallace. Who the F is Wallace anyway? Is he a replicant? And why isn't he with the replicant revolution if he is one?

12/23/2018 at 02:00 AM

It's been a year or so, man, you're asking the wrong guy. lol I would say look up a Wikipedia article or something. You're making me want to watch it again.

12/23/2018 at 06:31 PM

I feel like I should be able to figure everything out from a film. Looking things up just makes me think the movie didn't do what it should. I want to see what Dennie Villeneuve does with Dune though.

12/23/2018 at 06:45 PM

It depends on the movie. I expect Blade Runner to be cryptic and for part of the fun of it to be figuring out what the underlying message is. I'm glad they didn't spell it out too transparently, but it's definitely not for everyone. Did you like the original?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I really enjoyed Aquaman, but some of the expository dialogue ... dear God, no human would speak by reading the plot from a script.

12/23/2018 at 07:01 PM

I loved the original. I should go watch it again and compare.

I'm waiting for DVD for Aquaman. I like what they're doing with the character but the movie seemed like it might be too predictable.

12/23/2018 at 07:25 PM

It is, but I found it visually stunning. Not everyone agrees with me, and I understand the Power Rangers comparison, but it's leagues above a lot of stuff I've seen from a purely visual standpoint. Plus, there's a kaiju in it.

12/23/2018 at 07:27 PM

It definitely looked like a feast for the eyes, which almost made me go see it. I mean, maybe I still will next weekend. I'm not sure.

Machocruz

12/22/2018 at 09:00 AM

Ridley Scott didn't direct BR2049

12/22/2018 at 08:18 PM

Hey, what do you know, it was Dennis Villeneuve. I liked his visual style for sure. I just didn't like the ambiguities in the story. I see he's slated to do the next Dune movie. Very interesting.

PixlBit