Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition

Believe it or not, I had another article lined up for today, but as I count myself lucky enough to have arrived at a Target this morning (at 5:15 AM, later than some, but people were arriving as late as 6:58 AM) that had more Super Nintendo Classics than people in line (about 70+ people and the word was that there were 140 units in stock), I cannot really do anything else than gush about this tiny little box.

But you know what, there have been dozens of reviews of the system that include written articles and review videos so I do not see the need to jump into that ever deepening pool.  Since I arrived back home at about 7:20 AM, I have tooled around a bit with system and overall I am just as excited as I was when the system was announced.

I might be in the minority in saying that I actually prefer the North American SNES over the PAL Super Famicom version, mainly because this was the version of the console that I grew up with.  And isn't one of the main points of the SNES Classic is to feed that nostalgia bug?  I know some people find the shape of the original SNES to be rather ugly and not as aesthetically pleasing as the Super Famicom.  Grey and purple, how is that attractive?  I personally think it looks just fine and was super giddy when I found out that the power and reset slider switches had the same function as the original SNES.  A little sad that the eject button didn't depress at all, but that does not really bother me.

As far as the software goes, I love that you have the option for display styles, being an old CRT filter that brings back the visual aesthetic of the 1990's.  I do kind of wish that there was a way to switch the filters between the CRT, 4:3 ratio, or the pixel perfect filter on a whim (use for the eject button!).  I also found out that in order to play Star Fox 2, you have to play and beat the first stage in Star Fox.  Finding this out almost made me want the system to have games locked behind being able to complete something else, similar to how games were unlocked in Ultimate NES Remix, but I fully understand the reason why this decision was not made.

Looking over the 21 titles that are included, I have played 13 and owned eight.  Out of all of the games, the only genre that I would have liked to have seen was a puzzler such as Tetris Attack, or Tetris & Dr. Mario.  Had either of those games been included I most definitely would have found a way to buy two units and given one to my Mom who can school most people at either of the two aforementioned games.  But Panel de Pon, the original game that acquired a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's World skin and Tetris name was included in the PAL edition.  The only other game in the PAL version that I would have wished had been included in the NA edition is Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem.  And I know that a lot of people have lamented the exclusion of Chrono Trigger, which I can understand and I would have preferred that to Kirby's Dream Course.  But all-in-all, I am still very happy with the selection of games (although I do agree with 80% of Polygon's article for games they wished had been included).

The only other aspect of this little plastic gem I feel compelled to write about is the controller, which I was a little concerned about.  From what I can tell, the controller is just about the same size and feel of the original SNES controller.  The buttons are responsive, the directional button is not clicky.  The only thing that does not seem 100% right, is the texture of the plastic used, but if that is my only critique then I do not really see a problem.

All in all, and so far, I have no regrets about having spent the MSRP for this unit.  Now Conklederp and I have to wait until 2018 when the NES Classic goes back into production.

But in the meantime, I am going to go enjoy some Final Fantasy III, because Odin knows I haven't beaten that game enough already.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Now the Victory is Sweet


P.S.  And yes, I will still hold reset while I turn the power off.

MIDI Week Singles: "Spark Mandrill Stage" - Mega Max X (SNES)

"Spark Mandrill Stage" from  Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1993)

Composer: Setsuo Yamamoto

Album: Mega Man X Official Soundtrack; 20th Anniversary Rock Man X Sound Box

Label: Sony Music Distribution

Developer: Capcom

With the upcoming release of the Super NES Classic (as in two days from today), I thought pulling a song from one of the 21 featured games would go over well.  This song in particular also mentally popped up when someone over on teh reddits mentioned the music from Mega Man X and the music from Spark Mandrill's stage was the first song that popped into my head.  Admittedly though, it is not as ingrained as most of the music from Mega Man 2, but that music is just hard to beat.

To me, next to "Opening Stage" which plays during the prologue, "Spark Mandrill Stage" sounds not only like a quintessential melody from a Mega Man game, but music that was created on Nintendo's new 8 channel ADPCM audio chip.  To me it just sounds like what a Super Nintendo should sound like just by looking at the console and game box.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Cook


P.S.  That drum break though.

MIDI Week Singles: "End of the Night" - Darkwood (PC)

"End of the Night" from  Darkwood on the PC (2017)

Composer: Artur Kordas

Album: Darkwood

Label: Self Released through Indiegogo

Developer: Acid Wizard Studio

I fully recognize that this is not so much a song as it is a chord that is held out for nearly a minute, but in Darkwood, I am able to breath a massive sigh of relief whenever this contextual track comes up.

Darkwood kinda plays like a stereotypical horror movie, think Evil Dead, in that during daylight, you are protected from being attacked by anything besides potentially broken people and coyotes (at least those are the options for me where I am currently at in the game).  The house I call home is safe when the sun is up.  When the sun goes down, I have witnessed doors opening on their own, people appearing on the bed and weeping about their losses, deranged humanoids climbing through windows to attack after lighting flares outside the window, and even non-corporeal apparitions flying through boarded up windows.  As the night ends, the first sign of dawn is not the red light of the sun, but the rising tones of "End of the Night," and it is at this point that I am able to finally relax.  At least for a few seconds before I have to go back out into the woods to explore, and wait for it to happen all over again when the sun begins to set.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Walls Of My Room Are Closing In 

Game EXP: Chicken Wiggle (3DS)

Disclosure:  I reached out to Jools Watsham at Atooi on Monday September 11th, 2017 when he offered free download codes for his recent Nintendo 3DS game, Chicken Wiggle, to reviewers on non-specific gaming sites.  That same morning, I received a download code, free of charge with no caveats about how the game would be reviewed, nor was a positive review of Chicken Wiggle promised or inferred in exchange for the provided code.  After receiving the code, I did write that I would post an article reviewing Chicken Wiggle in a given time frame, but that was of my own volition.

I also wanted to add that all of the screen shots I used in today's article were taken from the "Chicken Wiggle: Stage 1-6" and the "Chicken Wiggle: Play Create Share" videos up on Jools Watsham's YouTube channel because I wanted to use pictures that were not taken with the crappy camera on my phone.

On with the show!

Chicken Wiggle, the most recent game from Jools Watsham over at Atooi, a 16 bit styled puzzle platformer from the same mind that created Mutand Mudds, (and Mutant Mudds Super Challenge), Bomb Monkey, Xeodrifter, Totes the Goat, and the soon to be released Treasurenauts.  If you have played any of these games on any one of the platforms they have been released on, you will immediately recognize the visual aesthetic.  If you are unfamiliar with Jools Watsham, Atooi, or any of the aforementioned games, I suggest checking out one of the trailers on YouTube.

All of that being said, I have currently made my way through the first three worlds (called Towers as there is a fair amount of vertical climbing), have tooled around with the Mario Maker styled level designer, have shared two levels online, and have played/downloaded a couple of custom levels.  There is a lot to do here!

First off though, one of the things that I love about this game, is that there is no emphasis on high score, or fastest time.  There is no timer that ticks down, or additional points for killing more enemies.  All of the stages I have played have consisted of getting to the end to free one of your captured friends, and you are welcome to take as long as you want.  There are diamonds to collect that are scattered throughout the stage although they are typically arranged to function like a path to follow.  There are also the letters F, U, and N that are usually hidden to some degree, often with very little if any clue as to where there is an invisible wall ahead, which I do appreciate.  And the reward for finding all 100 diamonds and spelling FUN?  You get a star, and extra gold shine on the stage button after you finish.  The completionist in me is having a blast, and somewhat thankful that I do not have to do it all within a certain time or with enough points to earn those often coveted three stars; looking at you Angry Birds!

The meat of Chicken Wiggle, and where I have spent most of my time has been playing through the pre-created stages.  What I have loved so far, is how tight and precise the game-play and controls are, similar to Super Meat Boy, but without the aggravating precision that is often required.  In Chicken Wiggle, you have two forms of attacking, the first using your worm friend (Wiggle?) as a whip which can stun enemies and stretches up to four "squares" across the screen, and the second being your (Chicken?) peck attack, which reaches only 2-3 pixels beyond your chicken sprite's little beak.  And in classic Mega Man fashion, a lot of the stages are filled with spikes.  Spikes that will kill you without a second glance if just one of your fluffy yellow pixels comes in contact with their spikiness.

I could probably use the rest of the article to talk about various aspects of the stages that have been a lot of fun.  Everything from the challenge of the stages, to the enemies and their locked-in patterns, and the bonus outfits that you equip which give you different skills for that one stage.  But since there is more to Chicken Wiggle than just the story mode experience, moving on is a necessity.

The second part of the game is the aforementioned Mario Maker type creation kit that allows you to create your own stages.  When you start out, every single item and enemy in the game is available to you and I was at first a little disappointed that there was not anything to unlock, as well as a little overwhelmed by all of my options right off the bat.  When I started, I had already completed the first tower area so I recognized a number of the items, monsters and blocks, but there were still things that I was confused by, and this is where I feel that the game made a great choice.  While you are able to use any item you want, knowing how to use them well really comes with experience in the game.  I have managed to create two levels that I uploaded to the online server (see the third and final section below) titled "Follow Me!" which is a traditional yet easy Chicken Wiggle type level, and "Sort Of 1-1" where I tried to create an homage to World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros.  Something that I really like about how this creator studio works, is that in order to post your stage for others to play, you have to complete the stage.  Every diamond you put down, every F, U, and N you place, you have to pick up.  If your stage requires you to kill all the monsters, you have to do that too before your creation can be uploaded.  

The final aspect of the game is the sharing of said stages, which is directly related to the creator studio from the previous section.  My biggest fear with attempting to play creations from other players is the same as playing stages from people in Mario Maker.  There are going to be, and there are, plenty of stages that are just downright difficult, or have a great concept (the Pac-Man stage started out fun), but they lack the polish of someone who has created something to be fun.  For instance, in a lot of the main story stages, there is a checkpoint right at the point where you feel that if you died, you would be upset and annoyed if you had to start all over.  Knowing that distance between creating a fun challenge and deciding that your stage is only going to be about challenge comes with experience and, I would assume, having to deal with people who actually pay money for your product and the desire to please your customers.  

The music is something that I initially wrote off, especially during the first area Cloud Tower.  It was a little bland and uninteresting for my taste, or maybe I was expecting something as catchy as "World 1-1" from Mutant Mudds.  But by Treetop Tower, I felt like the music had hit its stride and was a better fit for the action on the screen.  Even the background music during the creation stage is entertaining and fitting for having to make minuscule yet necessary touches to fine tune your own level.  I may end up covering one of these in an upcoming MIDI Week Singles article.

At this point you might be thinking that the receiving of the game has clouded my judgement of Chicken Wiggle.  Like, "where are all the bad things about the game?"  Honestly, for what the game promises, it really delivers.  I do not feel that there is a whole lot of innovation if as you play the main game as a puzzle platformer.  As a level designer, there is not a lot here that was not already seen in some aspect in Mario Maker.  But these two combined create a great gaming experience.  After only playing for a few hours last Monday, I was questioning if my niece Flan had a 3DS so that I could buy her a copy as the difficulty level would be perfect for an 11 year old.  It may not be the easiest experience, but hey, I was beating Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2 by the time I was 9.  

Now that I think about it, I guess the one negative thing I have to say is that there is not a lot of replay value once you have completed a stage if you already have found all 100 diamonds and spelled out FUN.  But because there are official developer created stages and a mound of community created stages to sift through, as long as Atooi's online servers are active, Chicken Wiggle may never run out of content.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Playing With Our Lives


P.S.  Once again, super uber thank you to Jools Watsham and Atooi for the complimentary copy of Chicken Wiggle, which allowed me to play and review the game for our site much earlier than I would have been able to do.

P.P.S.  It should be noted that from yesterday (September 14th) through next Thursday (September 21), Chicken Wiggle is 33% off it's regular price.  I wasn't prompted to mention this because of the free game, I just really like the games that Jools / Atooi develop so why not mention it?

P.P.P.S.  In all of the interviews that I have watched/read in recent weeks, I did not come across anything that mentioned Banjo-Kazooie.  For me, this was the first thing I thought of when I saw game play videos of Chicken Wiggle.  Both games have a protagonist who carries a friend around in a backpack while on the trail of an evil witch.  To me the those similarities are very obvious, but they come across more of an homage, be it intentional or not, than an attempt to capitalize on the nostalgia of 1998.  Had Rare made a 16 bit side scrolling Banjo-Kazooie entry, it very well could have looked and felt a lot like Chicken Wiggle.

P.P.P.P.S.  In case anyone was wondering, the download size for Chicken Wiggle is 280 Blocks, which translates to 35 MB in real world memory size.

MIDI Week Singles: "Above Ground BGM" - Super Mario Bros (NES)

"Above Ground BGM" from Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985)

Composer: Koji Kondo

Album: Game Sound Museum ~Famicom Edition~ 01 Super Mario Bros.

Label: Scitron Discs / MegaHouse

Developer: Nintendo R&D 4

This 32 year old classic from Koji Kondo seems like a no-brainer at this point, although a little surprising that we had yet to feature.  Or maybe we had not thought of it because of how well known it is and wanted to focus on songs you may not have heard?  But that is not true either.

I decided to use "Above Ground BGM" today partly because I am playing through Chicken Wiggle, which has a Super Mario Maker type program, and I wanted to create an homage to World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros.  But since Chicken Wiggle does not operate as the same type of platformer than Super Mario Bros. is, I had to make a fair amount of changes to make it slightly more interesting.  So while I spent the better part of the morning working on my creation, I had this song bouncing along in my head, being as catchy as it ever was.

And because I am sure that there have been PhD dissertations written about this very piece of music, saying words and phrases much better than I am capable of in a single morning with only 10 oz of coffee pulsing through my system, I am just going to leave it here (and there) for all to enjoy.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Ride the Path of Mighty Thor

P.S.  I very much promise you that I did not realize until no less than 47 seconds ago that Super Mario Bros. was in fact released 32 years ago to the day, on September 13th, 1985 in Japan.  I love happenstance.

Movie Review: IT (2017)

Last Thrusday (09/07/2017) evening, Conklederp and I went to a pre-midnight (it was at 10:30 PM) showing of the recent film adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 novel IT. Before I get to the film itself, I want to mention that the audience at attendance at the Bagdad was very well behaved for a 10:30 PM showing of a movie that did not come out officially until the following day.

You know what, rather than go through the long and semi-sordid history of the production, I am going to jump to my conclusion that I really liked IT.  I developed this conclusion even after having read the book (although it has been well over 10 years), and having seen the 1990 TV adaptation quite a few times; and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't subconsciously comparing the films.  So keep that in mind while I ramble on about my opinion.

The Kid has mentioned on more than one occasion that she often does not like movies that feature a child heavy cast, especially if the movie is not intended for a younger audience, and while I agree with her on some points, I tend to feel that I am a little more forgiving.  IT heavily features child actors, and thankfully not ones that are greatly older than the characters they are portraying, with most of the kids being around 14, which I very much appreciated.  There's just something about when a studio tries to pass off an 18 year old as a 13 year old while forcing the audience that the character is as naive as the child is supposedly acting.  And kudos to Jackson Robert Scott, who at the age of eight, played an appropriately creepy  six year old Georgie Denbrough.  And sure, there were plenty of times when one of the kids would walk towards something not-quite-right that any sane adult would tell you is just stupid to approach, but a lot of 13 year old kids feel invincible.  Plus that was the way the story was written.

And how the story was written around kids is one of the strengths of Stephen King.  Some people might complain about the number of times Richie Tozier talks about his penis, or the number of times he says "fuck," and that's okay.  Like my Mom probably would not like the movie for the language alone, not even taking into account all of the child murders.  But you know, I recall being a 13 year old and frequently swearing or talking about potentially inappropriate things when my parent's weren't around.  That's what teenagers did in my experience and I think that IT does a nice job of capturing that attitude.  All the child actors really did a great job being kids who were noticing the horrors around them while the adults seemed willfully and intentionally ignorant.

Now let's briefly talk about Bill Skarsgård.  As I previously said, I felt that he did a great job as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.  Taking on this role is comparable to Heath Ledger taking on the role of The Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 The Dark Knight.  I never felt that Bill Skarsgård was doing his interpretation of what Tim Curry did as Pennywise, and he has even said as such [citation needed].  It probably also helped that the costume design for Pennywise was less of a Bozo the Clown based clown as it was styled after various eras that may not have been perfectly matched.  The voice too, which is something that has always sounded like Tim Curry since 1990, sounded perfect for this adaptation of the character and its portrayal by Bill Skarsgård.  Overall, I feel that Bill Skarsgård had a lot to live up to and that he came out well on the other side.

I feel like I really only had two major issues with the film, none of which though would make me not want to recommend it to others who already enjoy horror movies.  My first problem with the film, was that a lot of the movie seemed based around how Pennywise, who was wonderfully portrayed by Bill Skarsgård, interacted with the kids, and not enough of the kids interacted with the town around them.  There were times when it felt like the movie went from one interaction to another, with very little time for the audience to come down from the fear generated by the previous scene, but maybe that was the purpose?

The second issue I had, as mentioned above, was that I was unintentionally comparing scenes from Andy Muschietti's 2017 IT to Tommy Lee Wallace's 1990 IT.  This I feel is only normal, especially with iconic scenes like Bill helping Georgie with his boat, Beverly's encounter with the other children in her bathroom, or the rock fight between Henry Bowers' gang and the Loser's Club.  It would be like watching a production of Much Ado About Nothing and not comparing the actor performance of Dogberry to Michael Keaton's portrayal in Kenneth Branagh's 1993 adaptation.  I believe it was during Beverly's bathroom scene that I was consciously able to separate the 1990 TV adaptation from the new theatrical release that I was watching, and after that point, I felt like I was more able to enjoy the movie.

Something that I would have liked to have seen, were more shots where the camera lingered.  The example I gave Conklederp was when the kids were exploring a house, and one character wandered off into a room where the door inexplicably closes on its own.  From what I recall, the camera then either cuts into that room, or cuts back to two other characters who do not immediately notice their missing friend.  I would have loved the camera to have held on the closed door a few seconds, then pull back down the hallway, still focused on the door for just a few more seconds.  Making the moment almost unbearably long, just to the point where it becomes uncomfortable or you just want to camera to move away from the door because you're afraid of what happens when the door opens back up.  The Exorcist did this a few times when the camera hung out in Regan's room with the shot focused down the hall, and Regan herself not even in frame.

 Okay, enough of the criticisms.  I now want to mention that the music composed for the film by Benjamin Wallfisch was very good, but "good" in the way that horror music is good.  There were not any themes that stuck out to me so much that I was humming them on our way back to the car, and they were not so dull that all I could pick out was a deep resonating drone.  Additionally, since the film is set in 1988, I liked that the soundtrack was not a mishmash of heavy synths like John Carpenter had joined Tangerine Dream for the afternoon; I love John Carpenter's scores by the way.  And there is nearly an hour and-a-half worth of music in Benjamin Wallfisch's score, which is comprised of 38 tracks.  It's pretty massive and is interesting enough to listen to on its own, complete with jump scares and singing/screaming children, if that's your jam.

Clocking in at just over two and-a-half hours, I can see how this might be a long movie for some audiences, let alone horror movie audiences who have paid money expecting to be entertained and frightened for the duration of the film.  There was only one time during the movie that I felt like it was going long, but that was replaced by the excitement at having more story to watch.  You would expect a horror movie that runs this length to lose its legs at about the 90 minute mark, for the audience to get fatigued with the jump scares (of which there are quite a few, but I never felt annoyed or overwhelmed at their frequency), or being able to maintain the tension, but Andy Muschietti does a very good job with pacing, once you realize how the movie has been shot and edited.

And speaking of long winded, I think I am going to end this review now by repeating that I really did enjoy IT (I gave it a 9/10 on IMDb) and I would very much like to see it again in theatres, especially since the independent theatre up the street is showing it now.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental


P.S.  Just because I felt it appropriate and amusing, I found out that I use "it," but not including "it's" or "its," 22 times.  24 if you also include the title and labels/search tags.

MIDI Week Singles: "Around the Fire" - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC/360/XBO/PS3/PS4)

"Around the Fire" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3, & Playstation 4 (2011)

Composer: Jeremy Soule

Album: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Original Game Soundtrack

Label: DirectSong

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

So large swaths of the Pacific Northwest are currently on fire, with the Eagle Creek Fire having merged with the Indian Creek Fire and have burned a combined 30,929 acres.  For the last day, Conklederp and I have been inside our house with fans blowing and windows closed as there is literal ash fluttering in the air.  So it might be a bit too soon to use a song with "fire" in the title while referencing the fires in our surrounding area, but considering how anxious we are, not for our personal safety but for the Gorge itself, I felt a bit of calming music would be appropriate.

While deciding on this song, Conklederp told me that she will frequently use this particular piece when working with some of her clients.  She says that it is a very adaptable song that she is able to tailor to the specific population she is working with as well as what the goals are that she is working towards for that session.  I think that's pretty awesome.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Sound, A Million Voices Screaming Out

Monthly Update: September 2017

Apologies for not putting this up on Friday as I apparently had forgotten that it was already September.  September has been known to do that in the past, so hey, consistency.  

I was looking at the games that I had been playing in August and ho-boy there were more than I thought.  I shouldn't say finished either because I only managed to finish one out of 12, and 8.33% is not great.  The primary ones on the 3DS were (and are still) Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, but I put that one on hold temporarily while I practiced Mario Kart 7 in preparation for the Nintendo World Championship qualifiers in Tuckwila in a week.  I am still kind of on the fence about attending as I have been unable to perform the wall jumping glitch in GBA Bowser Castle 1 which apparently everyone who was in the top 5 had been able to do and the last word I read was that the San Jose judges were aware of the exploit but were still allowing it to happen.  Maybe that's just my cue to not drive the 334 miles round trip for the chance at a Nintendo pin and to play demos of Metroid: Samus Returns, and Super Mario Odyssey.  But on the Mario front, I did start tooling around with Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS again, which has reaffirmed my annoyance at people who insist on creating the most pain in-the-ass-possible levels.

The Switch has a more limited library in that Mario Kart 8: Deluxe has seen the most game time, with the 150cc circuit (is that redundant?) giving me a lot of grief.  My facebook news feed has been subject to the occasional pictorial rant about coming in first place in three out of four races, with the fourth often landing me in 3rd place or worse.  As in every single cup this has happened, which as lead me to believe that the game doesn't want me to win, if only by extreme luck.  But this is something that I will attempt to cover in a Game EXP article later in the month.  And now that I think about it, Conklederp and I should get back into playing Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together as we have only accessed the second out of I don't know how many worlds.

On the Steam front, I did finish the main storyline in Layers of Fear (which the Humble Spooky Bundle) reminded me that it was already patiently waiting in my inventory, and I am about an hour or two into the Inheritance DLC and while I think I am nearly finished, I know that there is much more to explore as I have gotten only one of I don't know how many endings.  I may have to play something lighter between playthroughs though because holy hell that's an effectively scary game.  More to come in a Game EXP later in the month.  I also started up Apotheon so that I could play a Metroidvania style game while waiting for Metroid: Samus Returns which comes out next week (9/15).  While the art style is one of the main draws for me, I have had to stop playing on two separate occasions where I died after not having saved for about 45 minutes and did not want to go back and do the exact same thing all over again just because I was briefly unaware of how low my health was.  Speaking of quitting, I have decided that I may be done with Jack Lumber after about two hours on the PC that this game is not really optimized for keyboard/mouse and really requires a touch screen.  I may write an article about this as it was a fun game, but I had to stop after reaching a frustrating wall.

In Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, I have finally made my way to the great city of Baldur's Gate and am now poncing around trying to see how I can activate the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion without having to look it up.  Continuing with the isometric theme, but now moving directly overhead, I finally started Darkwood after playing a bit of the alpha and demo following their successful Indigogo campaign from June 2013.  What immediately makes me nervous about this game, is similar to playing Fallout 2, in that I am afraid of making a mistake that will either make the game harder or close off a storyline.  But that's video games for you.

Lastly, I found a free game on steam called SNOW that is currently in Early Access that I was hoping would scratch that itch caused by the lack of a 1080° game and the level design for Mount Wario in MK8:D.  Possibly because it is in Early Access, but SNOW feels like it could be a lot more fun actually snowboarding down a mountain with a bit more practice on my part, and if the character didn't pop out of their bindings and flop down the mountain at the first (or second) bump against a tree.  I may write more about this in the coming weeks.

TV for Conklederp and I has been limited to Game of Thrones, which wrapped Season 7 a few weeks ago, and The Leftovers, which we started watching probably about the time GoT ended and we just finished Episode 2 from Season 3.  And since Vikings doesn't start up again until November 29th, maybe it's time that we get into Westworld?

Lastly, I just wanted to say that, partly due to the summer months but also due to my own in-activeness, neither of our Dungeons & Dragons groups have gotten together in a while.  This is definitely something that I would like to fix, hopefully before the end of the month.  I take some responsibility for our Oregon group as the current quest did not play out as excitingly as I had anticipated, but that's my role as the DM to keep the PCs engaged and entertained, so I may have to diverge a little bit from the printed story.

So that was August, and we are fully lodged in September.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
All Of Our Fears Will Be Gone 'Til Tomorrow

Movie Review: The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower, was not a perfect movie, but it was a fun movie nonetheless.

There are going to be spoilers of sorts because I cannot think of any other way to talk about this movie.

I am about 100 pages shy of finishing the third book in the series, The Wastelands, when Conklederp and I saw The Dark Tower last week.

I can also fully understand why those who loved The Dark Tower books would not like this movie.  Like, at all.

I feel that Sony did not take the appropriate measures in advertising this movie for what it is, a sequel to the books and not an attempt at a direct adaptation of the books.

Okay, I think that is enough for disclaimer/context-required snip-its for me to actually start talking about why I enjoyed this movie as opposed to hating it with a justifiable passion.

Going into the movie I had already known ahead of time that The Dark Tower was not going to be a direct adaptation of the books, but that it contained story elements from the first and third books in the series, The Gunslinger and The Wastelands.  However, nowhere in any of the trailers from Sony did I read or hear anything about this approach.  Even on message boards (predominantly IMDb and YouTube; although there are similar sentiments on Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic) there was a lot of chatter which implied that a vast number of people did not know that the movie The Dark Tower was supposed to be a sequel to the books.  Again, not having read the series to it conclusion (yet), I was aware after reading a few articles that by the final book, The Dark Tower, it is said that Roland has reached the Dark Tower multiple times in the past, but that he keeps being sent back to the beginning of things and is forced to follow the Man in Black back across the desert.  Now I do not know how this happens, which I am sure is something that will be explained in the books, so I am not too worried about knowing this information before I read about it.  I just think that this is vital information for people who love the books, but may not have been following press releases leading up to the movie coming out.

Having this information I felt was integral to me actually enjoying the movie, especially with just about 40% of the story in my noggin.  There were a handful of scenes that I recognized as adaptations from the books, like when Jake Chambers entered the deserted house in Brooklyn.  That started out as a terrifying scene, even without how it played out in the books.  But once the house attacked, it became entertaining to watch and by the end, I was left a bit disappointed.  To me, it felt like the scene had been trimmed down to something shorter in order to get Jake to Mid-World so that he could meet up with Roland.  So if I felt like that about one scene that lasted maybe five minutes, I can only imagine how someone who has read this series multiple times must have felt, even if they knew about the sequel-ness going into the movie.  The rest of the movie, I liked the little hints to the books, the question about animals still talking that was ignored as soon as it was asked was an amusing touch.  The Man in Black's statement about Roland's last "crew" dying, and the Horn of Eld was a nice touch too even if I am only able to guess at its full meaning.  The various Easter eggs referencing other Stephen King works (The Overlook, Pennywise, Rita Hayworth, 1408, etc) was nice and non obtrusive too.  I would have liked there to have been some reference to High Speech and Low Speech, or other similarities between the two worlds, but that might have required more time that was not dedicated to Roland hunting Walter.

And still, I did enjoy the movie.  I thought Idris Elba was great as Roland.  His matter of fact, single mindedness in his goal was played in a way that did not make the character seem lifeless, careless, or uninteresting; I also have a recognized bias towards Idris Elba, so there is that too.  Matthew McConaughey did a great job portraying the powerful villain, although only really having encountered most of The Man in Black in the first book, I cannot say if his depiction of Walter was an accurate one.  I felt that he played a great counterpart to Idris Elba's Roland.

I feel like this is what it boils down to in the end:  The Dark Tower was a fun movie.  For people like my mágr Beardsnbourbon who have a fervent love for The Dark Tower books, I might be a bit more weary about recommending it.  I guess you could equate it to asking the late Christopher Lee to watching a 90 minute semi-adaptation of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (if Sauron was able to send Bilbo into a different reality to a time before he stepped out of his door after Galdalf and the Dwarves in the late morning) and tell him that it was a fun movie.  Actually, I do not think that equates well.  Okay, how about doing your second run through of Ghosts'n Goblins, but it is shortened down to a 30 minute snack with only hinting that you have already been through the first illusory part?  Actually, that one might be an improvement.  Anyway, you get the idea.  Maybe?

And then there are rumors/facts of another movie being planned which according to the director Nikolaj Arcel, will most likely include story elements from The Drawing of the Three and the lobstrosities.  And I guess Eddie and Susannah too.  And then there appears to be a TV series that uses Wizard and Glass for its source material.  This will be interesting nonetheless.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

And Everything Becomes Irrelevant

P.S.  I also wanted to add, that see it or not, just do not say that this movie existing ruins the books for you.  That attempt at an argument is full of fallacies and annoying when used to justify a dislike for nearly anything.