Media Monday: Dragon Warrior & True Detective

- Dragon Warrior I - ★★★☆☆
This title has a fixture in my childhood. I think I mainly watched my dad play, but maybe started and restarted games of my own. We played forever. Ridmular (sic) was so far away. We did beat it though, on the original NES. This was the GBC version, played on my phone, and I beat it in approximately 48 hours. Not 48 hours of play, but from the time I started. I had all the best gear, and I paced up in down in the Dragon Lord's front hallway to boost up two levels to 21 in order to take him out. Sure, I checked a world map online, but the original game came with a printed one. And Nintendo Power was full of 'em. My first issue even had a pull-out mini-book full of Dragon Warrior stuff… I can only assume they really changed the balance around on the remake. Or maybe I've got a lot of questions for my dad…

- Remember Me - ★★☆☆☆
Good thing: This was part of my new PS+ subscription! Bad thing: The game. It was secretly(?) a God of War clone. They really sold this on the memory remixing, and there's so little of that here. Most of the playing in memories you do is in the vein of the Mario help system: watch a ghost do something, then do that thing. It got a little better after the tutorial levels, but that's about when the reusing levels starts. Even a remix part got recycled. Also, It contains the line, "you must run down riddlehead and steal the access protocols for the conception cube. He's headed for the metal security post on the 103rd floor." but that's not really a spoiler, because it doesn't mean anything.

- Dragon Warrior II - ★★★☆☆
I was listening to some of the Indoor Kids podcast while I played this, and someone talked about how sometimes you play games to beat them and other times just to see them. I was in DWI to beat it, but I think DWII just to see it all. I brazenly turned to online help with entering the final area, when I saw no villager that happened to know the answer, I used saves to win the lotto and it didn't bother me at all. I came to see, and I did. The beginning of part 3 seems an overwhelming pile of choices, so I might not come back to the series right away. 3/5

True Detective
I liked this show. I enjoyed the mythos references. I was satisfied with the conclusion and I'm excited that the next season isn't going to be a direct sequel and I liked all that investigating. I also ended up reading a lot about it online as it was happening, and mostly it made me wish the internet wasn't quite so full of public contemplation. It's not the (inconsequential) spoilers, it's that not one of those articles enhanced my enjoyment of the show, enriched my thoughts or discussions about the show, or were even simply entertaining in their own right. They don't even really help the authors, who - yes - got me to click, but also now make me want to unsubscribe from their websites so that I don't make the same mistake of wasting my time on inane commentary the next time around.

2014 Gaming: Broken Age, Threes, and more

More of a Media Monday today, let's talk about a few of the videogames I've finished so far this year.

- Broken Age (act 1) - ★★★★☆
The art and the dialogue are terrific. I had some real gripes with the puzzle-y parts early on, when I had the right idea for something on Vella's side and wasn't allowed to do it until I collected the hints first, and Shay has a super convenient object for no discernible reason, but I got on board a little more when the worlds opened up. Felt clever about having a prediction re: the act break.

- Cook Serve Delicious! - ★★★★☆
A steam sale purchase. I had a good time with this, collected platinum star rating, and most of the achievements except, like, serve 15,000 meals, since the whole story section only took about 7,500. Tips: You can serve a cooked item while preparing something else, and nobody ever complains when you give them extra ice cream.

- Sound Shapes - ★★☆☆☆
I think I grabbed this two Christmases ago, just finished it up now to make room for new downloads since I've joined PS+. It's an okay little platformer and all, but kind of a chore to play. I finished the campaign, but I don't care about trophies enough to work on the challenge levels, and the interface for the beat-maker thing looks like a terrible way to spend an evening. Replicating drum machine beats might be more fun in an iOS game.

- Threes - ★★★★☆
I didn't find this quite as addictive as the popular opinion. It's nice to sit and fold numbers while watching TV, so i'll still play from time to time, but right now I have the highest score of anyone I know, 27,783, and whenever I have the best score in one of these things, that releases the hooks. I don't have to play it again until it turns out someone has beaten me.

#1,993: All Hail the King

Movie Monday!

Kick-Ass 2 - ★☆☆☆☆
It's easy to see how the producers tried to take a look at the first one to see what people liked about it, and expand on those elements. This movie is jam-packed with terrible scenes that prove they got the what, but not the why. Unencumbered by any hint of fun or character development, all that's left is a snoozy, repetitive plot.

Her - ★★★½☆☆
The promotional stuff I'd seen for this really looked awful. So, I liked it more than I expected. My favorite things were mostly the implied future. Future technology, future elevator decorating techniques, future public transit in LA. Glad that they eventually addressed questions that the beginning prompted.

I guess the ending was inevitable, but a little unsatisfying. I'm not sure what I would have liked better though. Maybe if Theo made a choice?

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay - ★★★☆☆
What can you do? If it's a movie full of tricks and demos, then it should be a concert film. If it's a movie full of explanations of the man's past and methods, then it's like being told how the ice cube got on the table, and the answer to that is probably going to be, as Jonathan Creek says, "mind-numbingly banal."

This was interesting, but not TOO interesting...

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King - ★★★½☆
We had a little marathon of all the MCU shorts, mostly punctuated by wondering why there can't be more, and why Agents of SHIELD can't hold a candle to these.

In particular, I liked how this one both undoes a little continuity damage and maybe sets us up for future flicks.

Songs are Sad in March 2014

Every now and then, there’s an appropriate time and place for a song, like at the funeral of someone who wasn’t particularly well-liked, or during a film when you want to give the audience a clue about what they’re supposed to be feeling.

This month we look at "That Thing You Do," "My Heart Will Go On," "I Dreamed a Dream," and other Oscar® contenders for The Higgs Weldon.

Next month, we'll take on whatever songs you suggest at songsaresad@thehiggsweldon.com

#1,989: American Hustle

More Movie Monday!

Changeling - ★★★½☆
My expectations for this were based on a trailer that I was not remembering correctly at all. I thought it was going to hinge more on whether or not she was right or crazy, and maybe that she thought the boy was an impostor, but her husband didn't. Watching the trailer now, they spell the whole thing out pretty well, so I guess I'm glad I had that wrong.

I think she'd never agree to go on a date with the guy that made her work the day the son was taken.

The Pianist - ★★★★☆ (Rewatch)
I’d forgotten a lot of this since seeing it in theaters. I remembered bits of the ending quite clearly, but not the opening optimism in the face of impending doom that I can imagine feeling myself if it were to happen today. It's easy to see how you might just assume things will work out, how hard it would be to imagine needing to flee your country.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - ★★½☆☆
I was on board with the first half of this movie. Then a switch is flipped and everything went from interesting to easy. Jack is suddenly great at everything and there's no more danger.

Seems like the theme for reboots now is 'how about this character, but with no flaws?' We'll check it out again next month with the sleek new, acrobatic and google-enabled Robocop.

American Hustle - ★★★☆☆
I don't know. Everyone's acting so hard! I'm not sure what it's trying to say. It was fun, but might have been more fun to see as just a movie, without the context of all the nominations.

It's kind of like the A Knight's Tale of 70s crime movies.