Category: Uncategorized

(Originally Posted Aug 2018)

One thing I try to go out of my way to mention often in my Triple Threat Review series is the game’s soundtrack, this is because while it might not be central to how the game plays, it’s certainly important when it comes to enhancing the experience of a game. It’s like butter in a sandwich, you never really notice it, but if it’s not there, you realise something is very wrong with your sandwich.

Lunch analogies aside, sometimes there are certain tracks in games that standout above everything else. Maybe a piece of music that pulled some raw emotion out of you, or turned a regular boss fight into an epic encounter for the ages, I want to talk today about some of the tracks in games that really resonated with me.

I’m setting out a couple of rules for this list though. First off, only one track per franchise, otherwise this list would be very samey for the most part; and secondly, the track has to be from the OST, not the score, since I want to focus on the original work of the game’s composers, not the bands they paid to use their music. So, with those rules in place, I hope you enjoy!

Flying Battery Zone – Sonic & Knuckles/Mania

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Kicking this list off with a track to get you amped up for what’s ahead, Flying Battery Zone doesn’t let off the gas at any point.

I had a tough time picking the track to use for the Sonic franchise (Chemical Plant & Ice Cap Zones were the other close contenders), but in the end I had to go with the track from my favourite stage. The best music for Sonic games are always the ones full of energy and life, you need the type of music that can keep up with the speed you’ll be moving in the game, and more importantly, makes you want to go fast in the first place.

Not only is this track full of life, but it fits the theme of the level it’s in. All throughout the track the baseline is there to emulate the sound of the whirring of the machines in the background, While everything else in the track aims to help the player with the feeling that they’re on a giant mechanical battery soaring through the sky.

This is a great track that gets you amped up and gives you a sense of the stakes as you speed through the stage.

Space Cruise – FTL

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This is the track that plays on the main menu of FTL, which makes it seem like a weird choice, since usually main menu themes are usually just pretty unnoteworthy pieces of music that are only meant to be heard for a few seconds before you start the game; but FTL doesn’t follow your silly rules.

I chose this track because it feels like it best encapsulates what FTL feels like and the universe it’s created. It starts off fairly empty, with just a few notes, making you feel exactly how you will upon first starting the game, just you and a ship in the middle of space and nothing around you. The track doesn’t stay empty for long though, because as you begin to explore the universe and make your way from system to system, you’ll realise just how full of life everything around you is.

In the space of about thirty seconds, this simple track is able to go from making you feel intimidated about what’s to come to getting you excited for the adventure you’re going to go on, and that’s why I think this track is beautiful.

Venice Rooftops – Assassin’s Creed 2

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While I do enjoy the Assassin’s Creed series, there’s never really been a whole lot of it that’s stood out to me as being excellent, especially when it comes to the music. This track however, is an exception.

This is another track that starts out slow before kicking into gear, and once it does it’s fantastic listening for running across the rooftops of renaissance Italy. It mixes the kind of music you’d expect to hear at that time with modern techniques and instruments to create a great parallel to the franchise as a whole.

The whole track has such a great flow to it, that in some ways it actually helps you with some of the races and time trials in the world, you’re able to get into the same flow as the music and you begin to perform much better as you sprint across the city.

Battle! Team Galactic Boss – Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum

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Never have I ever heard a piece of music that better embodies a character from a video game.

Cyrus is a man with no emotions, he believes the human spirit is a weakness that should be destroyed, and you hear it in this theme. The whole way through the track that baseline is there, staying unchanged and unmoved the whole time, it’s intimidating, it’s imposing, and it’s completely unemotional.

Then there’s the main melody of the track that plays over that baseline, which is the emotion of a Pokemon battle, the bond that exists between a trainer and their Pokemon, as Cyrus battles you he feels it coming through, and at certain points you can even sense this struggle between the baseline and the main melody, as if Cyrus is trying to ward off these emotions he’s beginning to feel.

At that point the main melody disappears, the drums begin to build up before a moment of silence…before everything comes back in a higher gear. You’ve made Cyrus mad, and he’s going to punish you for making him feel again.

Dialga’s Fight to the Finish – Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky

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Ok, so I’m cheating a bit here, but Mystery Dungeon is technically a separate franchise so it’s allowed.

Normally in games you expect the music for the final boss fight to be totally epic scale, a full orchestra going mental or about seventy electric guitars all performing their own solos at once. Dialga’s Fight to the Finish isn’t anything like that though, because in this boss fight you’re not fighting something that’s out to destroy the world, or take it over. You’re fighting a creature who is dying and losing it’s mind, Primal Dialga is in such immense pain that it doesn’t even know what it’s doing anymore, and you have to stop it to save the world.

This track is able to carry that emotion to make the battle feel epic in it’s own unqiue way. The drums in the background are chaotic, fast and all over the place, so you can hear Dialga’s mind as it breaks, while you’re there as the flute over the top of it all trying to fight past it, trying to bring order to a world that’s been plunged into darkness.

The Mystery Dungeon games are well-known for their highly emotional storytelling and that shines through better than ever in this piece of music.

(Also it has one of the best metal covers I’ve ever heard, so it’s got that going for it too.)

Focus – Super Hexagon

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This one is a bit of a weird one, because it is pretty much the complete antithesis of the kind of music I like, however there’s a good reason for it being on this list.

For one, it’s made entirely using sounds from the original GameBoy, which I generally think is impressive, but also it’s perfect for the final level of Super Hexagon, and what that whole game is, total and utter chaos.

You’re having to think of about twenty things at once and you have to deal with things at a million miles an hour that you don’t have even a hundredth of a second to take a break, and that’s exactly what this music is, it’s full speed from the word go and it doesn’t let up for a moment. You also have to consider the fact that, in a game like Super Hexagon where you’ll be restarting quite literally every 10-20 seconds, it could be very easy for the music to get really annoying after a while, but it really doesn’t.

The music almost feels like it’s putting that pressure on you and giving you the drive to keep going, to keep starting again and slowly but surely getting better and better at the game. I adore Super Hexagon, but I genuinely don’t think it’s be anywhere close to the adrenaline fueled experience it is without that amazing soundtrack, and this track in particular.

Revived Power – Shadow of the Colossus

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Throughout this list, I’ve talked a lot about how these tracks can make you feel emotional, energetic or intimidated, but this is a track that is full to the brim with triumph.

One of the best feelings I’ve ever felt in a game was while playing Shadow of the Colossus, after struggling to work out what I was supposed to do for a little bit, finally working it out and climbing up onto this massive beast, as I was holding on for dear life as this incredible creature tried to shake me off and this music began to play. The sense of pure joy I got as this music made me feel like I was conquering this beast, and the fact I’d even climbed up onto it was a huge victory, even though the thing still had full health.

Shadow of the Colossus is a game with a very consistently dark tone, so having this moment of joy and triumph as you’re fighting this creature is so integral to stopping things feeling bogged down, it makes you feel like a fairytale hero such as Robin Hood…you know if Robin Hood fought 50 foot tall monsters.

This juxtaposition to the tone of the rest of the game, creates an interesting sensation, especially in later battles and during second playthroughs, because the game tries to make it seem like you’re being a horrible bastard by killing all these beautiful creatures, and yet this music makes you feel so joyous that you can’t help but take glee in slaying them; which makes that come down of darkness after the battle all the more effective. I think that illustrates better than anything else I can say just how important music can be to creating a meaningful experience in a game.

The Light in Us All – Planet Coaster

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Throughout this article, I’ve avoided listing the tracks as if I’m ranking them 1 to 8, because realistically that ranking could change from day-to-day depending what mood I’m in; but with that said, I think this track is absolutely my favourite.

I talked about Revived Power having the sense of joy and triumph, well The Light in Us All is a track that I feel has been able to capture the pure essence of happiness and distilled it into music; I just can’t stop myself from smiling while I listen to this track.

Not only that but it also perfectly captures the feeling of going to a theme park as a kid. It starts out slow and quiet as you wake up and get in the car to travel there, slowly getting more and more excited, before the trumpets and kick in as you arrive and then a whole day of fun begins, rushing through all of the rides and attractions, having fun the whole day; and then finally the day comes to and end, as things slow down as you get tired and finally go home.

There are very few tracks I find that are able to bring that kind of emotion out of me, to properly capture that sense of nostalgia and happiness that comes with theme parks, and it really is a truly great piece of music.

So there you have it, those are my favourite tracks from video games. Of course, music is arguably one of the most subjective types of media there is, so I’d love to hear some of the tracks that you love, either in the comment or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and come back later this week for The Strong Style Podcast!

 

(Originally Posted Aug 2018)

Alright guys, it’s time to get hype. The match we’ve all been waiting for, 3 years in the making is on the horizon. That’s right, Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar part 6 is coming our way at Summerslam 2018.

Ok, I can’t keep that sarcasm up this whole time, I don’t have any real optimism about this match. It’s a match we’ve seen 3 times one on one, and 5 times if you include multi-man matches; on the bright side, Lesnar will hopefully be finally losing the Universal Championship…hopefully.

Still, before August 19th, I decided I’d like to take a look at “the story so far” if you will. So I went back and rewatched all the matches (not including Royal Rumbles) in which Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar were fighting against each other, and see how they all hold up against each other.

Wrestlemania 31 – 2015

I included this match in my article where I talked about some of Brock Lesnar’s best matches post 2012, however for that list I was going by memory, so did it still hold up when I rewatched it?

Yes, yes it did. While Seth Rollins cashing in at the end did very much up the opinion of the match, the one on one contest that preceded it was also a very entertaining watch. It started out pretty slow, but eventually you really began to feel like Lesnar was getting into the fight, with some very vicious strikes and suplexes. While having Reigns laugh a lot of it off may have not been the best idea, it did help to tell the story of Reigns not staying down no matter what.

Then as we enter the later stages of the match, a collision with the ring post on the outside caused the beast to bleed and the match was a fever pitch from that moment on. Lesnar fighting like a wounded animal really did work with Reigns’ comeback as he tried to keep Lesnar under control to get the win. Then of course Rollins’ music hit and the rest is history, but I found myself very much pumped up by what I’d been watching up until that point.

Fastlane 2016

So Fastlane seems to be the red-headed stepchild of WWE Pay-Per-Views. Being the last major show before Wrestlemania means it’s generally a lot of wheel spinning before we get to the grandest stage of them all the next month.

Perhaps no show encapsulates that better than the 2016 edition of Fastlane, with a card featuring such titanic matchups such as Curtis Axel vs R-Truth and Big Show, Kane & Ryback vs The Wyatt Family. The top off the night we had a match where anyone who had even heard of wrestling knew who was going to win from the get go. Still, that doesn’t mean the match was bad does it? Well…not exactly.

While it was quite a fun match, it wasn’t much above the standard fare of what you expect from WWE Triple Threat matches. After an opening 5 minutes of Lesnar dominating non stop the bestest friends in the world teamed up to take Lesnar out of the equation, putting him through 2 announce tables and allowing Lesnar to take a little nap while Reigns and Ambrose fought it out.

While the match was quite fun, the finish certainly dragged it down a bit, since it felt like it really came out of nowhere, Reigns and Ambrose get lucky enough to take out a revived Lesnar only for Ambrose to run  straight into a spear for Reigns to win the match. This was a fine finish, but it felt like it came a few minutes too early, I would’ve liked to see Reigns and Ambrose go back and forth for a few minutes before Reigns won the match, but oh well, can’t have everything.

Summerslam 2017

Wow, this one really feels like it was more than a year ago…

So we get another multi-man now, this time featuring Braun Strowman and Samoa Joe. It’s a little hard to compare these two to the rest of them, because while it was very good indeed, everyone in this match really took a backseat to BRAAAAAAUUUUUUUN and his unstoppable destruction of everything in sight.

I say that like it’s a bad thing, but it’s really not. Braun had been gaining momentum all throughout the spring of 2017, but I believe this was the match where he really became the star he is currently on Raw; Brock Lesnar doesn’t get on a stretcher for just anyone after all. That really is the core factor of this match though, was the stipulation that is Brock Lesnar lost his Universal Championship he would leave WWE. Personally I expected Reigns or Strowman to win and Brock to still show up again anyway, and I feel they did a very good job of making us believe that was going to happen; when Brock was strechered out I really did think it was over.

Sadly that wasn’t to be, as in the closing stages of the match, after a lovely set of sequences from the other three participants, Lesnar ran back in out of nowhere and pinned Roman Reigns to retain his title.

I really enjoyed watching this one back, even if Lesnar and Reigns didn’t really have much to do with it, although it did sadly lead to a rather disappointing Lesnar vs Strowman match at No Mercy before Lesnar disappeared for another few months, but that doesn’t take away from this match. A very good showing.

Wrestlemania 34 -2018

So, I’ve tried to remain as positive as I can throughout this list so far, but now we reach the point where I just can’t possibly keep it up anymore, this match was crap.

After a somewhat fun, but somewhat disappointing show, I was still holding out hope that these two would be able to recapture the magic of their first encounter 3 years earlier. While Lesnar had slowly given less of a fuck with each passing year, Reigns had come on leaps and bounds as a wrestler since then, so I thought maybe we could still get something good.

However once again, I was proved just how wrong I am when it comes to WWE. While I normally hate it when fans hijack a show by chanting random crap and shitting all over something without giving it a chance, I can’t say I disagree with them in this instance. The two men would put on one of the most bog-standard matches I’ve ever seen, with the only thing of any vague interest happening in the last few minutes of this 15 minute match.

They were desperately trying to tell the story that Roman Reigns was such a resilient hero and could take this mammoth beating from Brock Lesnar, but in trying to tell that story things just got ridiculous. All year, WWE had built up the F-5 as the single most destructive move in all of pro-wrestling, with even the biggest of challenges being put down with just one. So in order to make Reigns look good everyone expected he’d kick out of one, maybe two if they were feeling cheeky, but a whopping five – one of which was through a table – seemed a bit much.

This ludicrous level of over booking meant that the image of Roman Reigns’ face covered in blood really didn’t have the effect it should’ve, because it just seemed stupid. I genuinely remember just keeling over laughing after the fifth kickout, that’s how stupid it was.

Then came the biggest surprise of the night, as Brock Lesnar actually won the damn thing, in a match that was perfectly designed to make Reigns look like the valiant face of the company and beast slayer, he lost…ok then?

So yeah, the match was awful, and to top it all off, it set up the chain of events that have led us to the sad state of affairs we’re in today, so this one gets no praise at all.

Greatest Royal Rumble 2018

Once this match was announced, it seemed to make sense of the confusing result that had happened a month before at Wrestlemania 34. It made perfect sense that if WWE were trying to make waves in Saudi Arabia, then they should have their big title change at their marque show in that region; or so we all thought.

What we got instead was a match somehow even more by the numbers than their Wresltemania 34 encounter, it was like the road agents just went to the WWE archives, pulled out a folder for “WWE Steel Cage Match Template” and just told them to do that.

In a match that went shorter than 10 minutes, pretty much all we got were these two men throwing their signature moves at each other. Superman Punches and Supelexes were the order of the day and boy there sure were loads of them.

Oh you thought that’d be the worst of it? No, no, no my friend, it gets worse.

In one of the worst finishes to a match that I’ve seen in a long time, Reigns Speared Lesnar through the cage wall, a great visual sure, but who wins? Let’s take a look at it from various perspectives. If you say that touching the broken cage wall counts as touching the floor, then Reigns’ hands hit first, as did his feet, meaning he’s the winner. However if you say the mesh doesn’t count and it has to be the floor….well Reigns rolled off first, so he’s still declared the winner.

So can someone please explain to me why Lesnar was ruled the winner and held onto the title? This was such a terrible mess that WWE themselves even struggled to write themselves out of it, with them getting the referee to send out a tweet saying he just “made a quick judgement call”, even though whenever anything like this has happened before, a couple of referees would sit around discussing it for a few minutes before deciding a winner.

Everything about this was just terrible, and another blemish on the records of both men.

The Final Rankings

After watching all of these matches back, I’d have to rank them thusly:

1. Wrestlemania 31
2. Summerslam 2017
3. Fastlane 2016
4. Wrestlemania 34
5. Greatest Royal Rumble

While based on pure enjoyment, Summerslam 2017 would be my number one pick, the bits of the match I enjoyed had nothing to do with Reigns nor Lesnar, so it didn’t feel fair to rank that as their best match. On the bottom end of the spectrum, while based purely on the match, Wresltemania 34 should be the worst, but that finish at the Greatest Royal Rumble is just too bad for it to be anything other than last.

So of course the big question is, looking back at this, am I excited for part 6 at Summerslam this year? Well….not really. While they have had one exceptional singles encounter, it was 3 and a half years ago, and their most recent matches have been terrible, so I sadly can’t say I’m looking forward to this one, but who knows maybe they’ll prove me wrong.

And that’s it! Let me know what you think of this article and give me your rankings for their series in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo, and come back this weekend for another edition of Triple Threat Review!

 

(Originally Posted Aug 2018)

Ok, it’s been far too long since I last talked about Pokemon.

While I haven’t been playing Pokemon as much as I have over the past couple of months, the Let’s Go! games are just over the horizon and I’m still as hyped as ever to play them.

One of the reasons I’ve mentioned as to why I’m so excited is that, aside from the version of Kanto in HeartGold & SoulSilver, I’ve never played through the Kanto region, and never in the way it was originally designed. However, over the course of all the other games, I’ve played with a lot of generation 1 Pokemon and grown to love a lot of them.

So, in order to hopefully help you get in the mood for some Kanto action, I’m going to talk about my ten favourite Generation 1 Pokemon.

10 – Vulpix

This thing is just too cute for words.

While its evolution, Ninetales often gets a lot of love, I just adore the cuteness and subtle beauty that comes from Vulpix. It shares a small amount of resemblance to another small and furry Pokemon I’ll be talking about later, and I really think that if I’d had more of a chance to play through the games with one, it’d be so much higher up on this list.

While I do like its snowy Alolan form, the original is where it’s at for me, and this is a Pokemon that I will be searching for when I come to play through Kanto in November.

9 – Mewtwo

Call him overrated, call him overpowered, call him whatever you want, I still love Mewtwo.

While a lot of later legendary Pokemon would have big grand and complex designs, Mewtwo is very simple and I think that’s where it’s beauty comes from. It’s simplicity is what makes it stand out from all other legendaries. Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of it’s Mega-Evolved forms, but I don’t count that against this wonderful Pokemon.

Of course, I couldn’t possibly talk about Mewtwo without bringing up its role in the first Pokemon movie, the writing in that film did a wonderful job of getting the audience to feel Mewtwo’s inner struggle, and that really endeared many people, myself included, to Mewtwo. So I will certainly be heading off to Cerulean Cave as soon as the game lets me to battle with this Pokemon.

8 – Squirtle

Definitely my favourite base evolution of the Kanto starters, and honestly, it’s at least in my top 3 for overall starter Pokemon.

Just look at that face, how could you not love that face? Squirtle just seems like it’s always content with life, I feel like Squirtle is a Pokemon that would always be able to cheer me up when I was feeling low and generally be a joy to have around the place.

In terms of its design I think the muted colours work really well together to make a Pokemon that’s generally just quite pleasant and easy on the eyes, and while I don’t like it’s later forms as much as Squirtle, they’re certainly nothing to sniff at as this cutie turns into a powerhouse.

7 – Charizard

I touched briefly on certain Pokemon being considered “overrated” when talking about Mewtwo, and perhaps no Pokemon gets that criticism more than Charizard. I generally find overrated to be a pretty lazy criticism, because telling someone that they shouldn’t like something just because everyone else does is pretty baseless and doesn’t achieve anything other than upsetting people.

That gripe with the community aside, I still have a soft spot for Charizard, it’s not a Pokemon I’ve ever really used in battle, or on any of my adventures, but I just really love it’s design, and as you may have noticed, design is the most important thing to me when it comes to how much I like a Pokemon. Charizard feels extremely powerful, but also kinda sweet. Whenever I see it smiling in the anime I just can’t get over how cute it looks, and that’s really stuck with me.

I don’t really have a lot more to say about Charizard, really I just love it because I love it, nothing more to it.

6 – Pikachu

From one face of the franchise to the other, Pikachu is a fantastic Pokemon.

Once again, it’s the beauty in simplicity, that Generation 1 was great at, that drew me to Pikachu’s design. It was picked to be the series mascot because it best appeals to everyone, and when looking at Pikachu, I feel that most certainly rings true.

However, a lot of my love actually comes from Pikachu in the TV show. While yes, I know that he flips flops between being the weakest and the most overpowered Pokemon ever depending on the episode, I just love how much personality the little guy has, without ever having to speak a single word (the 20th anniversary movie notwithstanding). I really enjoy being able to see the character in the Pokemon I play the games with, and Pikachu has that in spades.

5 – Gengar

I slotted Gengar right in the middle of this list, because it tends to go up and down a bit in terms of how much I like it.

This is mostly due to how recently I used one in a playthrough, but it’s been closer to the high-end for quite a while thanks to a great one I had during my original Pokemon Sun playthrough, and boy could it wipe the floor with most of my opponents.

Design wise, another relatively simple one, but I think that makes it all the more creepy as a ghost type, it’s basically just a big void with a creepy smile. In addition to that purple is my favourite colour, so this gets a big tick from me.

While Gengar may not be a Pokemon I’d want to have around me in real life, I certainly love it in the games.

4 – Articuno

I’m not a huge fan of the other two legendary birds, but Articuno more than makes up for the other two.

Articuno is just gorgeous, everything from its colour, to its wings and its flowing tail; this thing oozes majesty. Not to mention that it looks exactly like what I’d expect when I think of an Ice & Flying type; the colour really brings out the cold feel you’d expect and the little icicles on the top of it’s head blend the look of the two types beautifully.

Like I said, I’m not a great lover of the legendary birds as a whole, but I can certainly see myself going out of my way to try to use Articuno in some capacity during my adventure in the Let’s Go! games.

3 – Alakazam

I find it quite hard to explain just why it is that I like Alakazam, but let’s give it a go.

At first glance, Alakazam has a lot of features that, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t like. The combination of yellow & brown is quite ugly to me, the fact it’s holding two spoons should really make it way less cool, it’s mustache looks stupid and I’m not a big fan of humanoid looking Pokemon either.

But there’s just something about Alakazam that makes all of these things work together and it ends up being quite a pleasent Pokemon to look at. I think it’s typing helps a lot, it absolutely looks like a Psychic type to me so that helps tie things up, and also on the rare occasion I’ve used one, I’ve had a generally pleasant experience using it.

So I guess I just appreciate Alakazam for being able to win me over, despite there being many aspects to it I don’t like.

2 – Arcanine

I talked about Articuno having majesty, but really it could never stand up to Arcanine.

While I’ve always considered myself more of a cat person, I’ve certainly come round to appreciate dogs over the past few years, and Arcanine is perhaps the ultimate dog.

I’ve always loved Arcanine’s look, but in the past year it’s shot all the way up to be one of my favourites thanks to it becoming a main member of my team in Pokemon Ultra Sun. I absolutely fell in love with this beautiful looking beast of a Pokemon, and I shall definitely be using one as I travel through Kanto in November.

1 – Eevee

Well no points for guessing this one.

Yes, if you’ve ever looked at the header image of this site, then you knew this one was coming. I absolutely adore everything about Eevee, it’s the Pokemon that I’d most want in real life and I love using one whenever I can in the games. I assume that the Eevee you receive at the start of the           Let’s Go! games will be unable to evolve, much like Pikachu was in Yellow; but if the trade-off for that is I get to dress my Eevee up in all sorts of cute costumes, then I’ll happily make that sacrifice.

Eevee will always remain one of my most cherished Pokemon, and will stand forever as my favourite Pokemon from Generation 1.

And there you have it! If you’d like to tell me my opinions are wrong, then hit me up in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Make sure you share this around on social media and check out @emorganart on Instagram, who edited this article. Finally, come back later this week for the next Strong Style Podcast!

I’ll see you then!

 

(Originally Posted Jul 2018)

Another fortnight has passed so it’s time for another Triple Threat Review!

If you’re new, then please check out the previous article; this is a series where I pick 3 games semi-randomly from my Steam list – ones that I’ve never played before – I play them for an hour or so and then I give you my first impressions on them, scoring them on a scale of 1-3 based solely on how much I enjoyed playing them.

So let’s look at this week’s games!

Dreaming Sarah

Well, Dreaming Sarah was certainly able to capture what it felt like to be in a dream considering I didn’t have a clue where I was, what was going on, or what I was supposed to be doing at any given moment.

Dreaming Sarah is a very obtuse game, it just sticks you in a location and expects you to explore and work everything out for yourself. This isn’t an inherently bad thing, plenty of games have done it to great success, but Dreaming Sarah really missed the mark with it.

The first 10-15 minutes are pretty straight forward, you just wander about and sort of just stumble into puzzle solutions and there’s not really a whole lot of thinking to it, but things very quickly get harder from there. It wasn’t long before I found myself reaching puzzles where I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be doing. Granted a couple of times this was just due to me being inept, but often it came down to the developer essentially saying “guess what I’m thinking”, resulting in me having to look up the solution on YouTube.

While that wouldn’t be a deal breaker on its own for me, as it is only one aspect of this game, it adds a couple of mechanics that make things very frustrating; the main example of which, is the compass. The compass is an item you receive fairly early on that points to places/items of use to you, which I assumed would act like a bit of a guide, if I ever got stuck I could use the compass and it would point me in the right direction; this is not the case however. The compass isn’t context sensitive in its hints, which means instead of pointing to where you’re supposed to go next, it just points to a specified location on the map depending on where you’re standing, this means that it can often be completely useless to you, or worse lead you way off in the wrong direction, to the point where you think you’re making progress, only to realise you’ve been going the wrong way this entire time.

Despite all of this, I kept trying to push through with the game, because there is kernel of something great here. The world is pretty intriguing and there’s a lot of mystery surrounding everything you’re doing, and there was part of me that cared and wanted to find out what happened; but I kept coming across frustration after frustration. In my hour of playing I got to about the halfway point and I still wanted to push forward to get to the end, however I took a pill that teleported me, and then the game crashed so I decided I’d had enough and put it down there.

In summary, Dreaming Sarah is a great concept, with great art and world design, but is ultimately crippled by poor choices in core mechanics and gameplay elements, and for that reason, I sadly can’t recommend it.

1/3 – Bad

Toy Odyssey

I was quite looking forward to see what Toy Odyssey had to offer when I booted it up, a quick scan of the Steam store page made it look like it was right up my alley; a roguelike with some tower defence elements and a nice art style was just the thing I was looking for. Unfortunately, the universe isn’t always that kind and now I sit here typing this review feeling annoyed and disappointed; so let’s dig into this shall we?

The game starts off fine, with some still images telling us the story of a family who move into a new house and the kid falls in love with this toy, the music was a tad over the top, but that’s a minor nitpick. Then it feels like there’s a scene missing between the end of the cutscene and the gameplay, as the character just wakes up Toy Story style, with no explanation as to how he got there, or why he’s suddenly sentient when he wasn’t before.

Here’s when we get to my first major issue with this game. Take a look at the image above, now like me, you probably assumed that the armchair and draws are part of the background, and I could just walk in front of them, however that’s not the case. A lot of the terrain doesn’t stand out from the background in any way, which often lead to frustrations where I would either try to run along something only to find it’s a solid surface, or jump for something thinking its a surface, only to go sailing through it.

The game also hasn’t worked out the kinks in its procedural generation either. As you can see in the image above, platforms sometimes generate in such away that you can’t actually get through, the gap is too small for my character to fit through, and there’s no way around to climb up, meaning I couldn’t get certain items or progress to the objective.

Then we get to the combat, and there isn’t really much to it, it’s pretty boring and there’s no weight to any of your attacks. You have a secondary slot, but I didn’t find it very useful in many scenarios. Enemies will also sometimes blend into the background, meaning you’ll often get attacked and lose health out of nowhere. The enemies attack very fast, with no telegraphing, and the limited combat system means there’s no way to dodge an incoming attack; all of this pretty much means that if you’re fighting more than one enemy at a time, then you may as well give up.

Finally, there’s the tower defence aspect, while you’re out in the world, fighting enemies, you can also collect resources, which you can then use to build up your “base” (it’s the kid’s bedroom…who now I think about it is seemingly non-existent in this game). At nighttime things will attack your base, but you don’t get to play this section so it’s basically just a dice roll as to whether you lose everything you’ve built or not.

Overall Toy Odyssey is nothing special, the core gameplay is middle of the road at best, and just plain bad at worst. There are plenty of other games out there that do what it does better, so I’d recommend you go play one of those games instead of this one.

Score: 1/3 – Bad

Bear With Me

Bear With Me immediately caught my eye, it’s a point and click, noir game, where you play as a girl and her stuffed bear, who takes the role of a traditional, 1960’s run down drunk PI.

The first thing I noticed about the game was how it oozes charm, the art style works really well with the noir colours and the sound design compliments it greatly. The voice acting is a little over the top, but I feel like that’s the point, it all adds to the feel of the game, you click around stuff and the way the main character will reacts or makes remarks reminds me of the way characters behaved in old point and click games.

Sadly I don’t have much more positive to say about the game, because once you start to get into it, everything seems to grind to a halt; the mystery of the game is set up pretty well, and the cutscene upon first meeting the bear is great. But the one major criticism that carried through my time in the game is that there is just SO MUCH TALKING. I fully appreciate that a mystery game is going to need a large amount of dialogue to tell its story, but this was just ridiculous; There’d be a 2-3 minute long conversation, and in the whole thing only 1 or 2 lines would actually be of importance to the story.

If the meaningless chatter was funny, or telling us more about the characters then I’d be interested in it, but for the most part it’s just meaningless banter that only serves to slow the pace of the game down. If you’re going to have that much talking in your game then make the talking a major part of the game, give me branching dialogue options with choices. Expand on what LA Noire did and make every conversation a puzzle in and of itself; that was not the case however, and after a little while I found myself skipping most conversation.

When you finally get to play the game, you’re greeted with a pretty standard point and click affair, you click around the room until a character picks something up, or shows interest in something, and then you use it on something else to progress. It’s an enjoyable enough formula, but I don’t think this game did as great a job of it as it could have. Most of the puzzles were pretty obvious, and there are multiple occasions where the game basically tells you the solutions if you read between the lines in the dialogue. As such it can sometimes feel like you’re not really a part of the story, but more just there to move the story along to the next conversation.

The weird thing is though, with all of my complaints and frustrations with the game; I still want to keep playing. All that charm and great design I talked about earlier really were enough to keep me in on this one, while the waves of dialogue were annoying, I wanted to get through them because I wanted to see what came next, and while the humour isn’t the best it has its moments and I found myself giggling at the game on multiple occasions.

Overall my advice would be, if you want a point and click with good puzzles and gameplay then maybe look elsewhere, but if you just want to experience the art style and take in the game world, then I’d say you should give this one a try.

Score : 2/3 – OK

Well I eluded to it last time, but I was bound to hit a downer week eventually. As always feedback is appreciated, especially with more negative content like this, it can often be much harder to write effectively than positive stuff.

Please share this around and make sure to follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo,  a big thanks to Elly from the Strong Style Podcast for editing this one I’ll see you next time!

 

(Originally Posted Jun 2018)

Well, getting 3 PPVs in a month certainly made the 6 week wait for this one feel longer. I can’t say that the build’s been great, especially on the Raw side, but hopefully we should get some entertaining ladder matches out of it. Before we get there though, let’s go through the tradition of predicting the winners for every match.

Daniel Bryan vs Big Cass

It really feels like both of these guys should’ve been in the ladder match, but instead they’ve been put in a throwaway rematch that probably won’t deliver. Their match at Backlash was perfectly fine, but it was nothing special, and I don’t expect any more out of them this time, especially considering it’s arguably the least notable match of the card; which is quite the travesty when you consider that one of the participants is Daniel Bryan.

As for a winner this pretty much just feels like a way for Big Cass to get his win back, which is fine. Daniel Bryan seems like he’s beyond being “damaged” by constant losses at this point, although we’ve been wrong before…

Seth Rollins(c) vs Elias
(Intercontinental Championship)

I genuinely can’t believe that this is Elias’ first championship match sicne coming up to the main roster, he’s been here forever, you’d think he’d have at least gotten some meaningless title shot at some point down the line. I seem to be finding it harder to call this one than I should, logically I think it’s got to be Seth Rollins, but there’s just seems to be so much more to it than that. There were rumours that he might be facing Brock at Summerslam, but those rumours were quickly debunked and there’s also the fact that management seem to have taken a liking to Elias this year and given him some pretty high-profile spots; Also I just really like Elias.

I think I’m going to go with my heart over my head here and say Elias picks up the title from Rollins here, and maybe the two of them will hot potato the belt for a little while.

Bobby Lashley vs Sami Zayn

Honestly, I can’t even pretend to care about this match. The build has been terrible and pointless, they brought Bobby in as a big powerhouse that could match strength with the likes of Braun Strowman. Then they decided to have him talk about his family for 10 minutes and then sit idly by for weeks barely reacting while Sami made jokes about it. Then Sami brought out men in drags pretending to be his sisters in a segment reminiscent of “Bayley: This is your life” and “The Old Day”, and any remaining interest I had in this feud vanished.

Since this just seems like a feud designed to kill time until either man has something meaningful to do, I’ll pick Bobby Lashley and hope that this ends soon.

The Bludgeon Brothers(c) vs The Club
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

While I’m all for The Club getting a push, this feels like a really weird direction for them to in with the Smackdown Tag belts. I get that The Bludgeon Brothers have done all they can with The Usos but surely you’d have them move on to someone they were more directly involved with like The New Day, or hell even The Bar. Instead, they plucked The Club up from almost fading into obscurity and stuck them in this feud where everyone knows they don’t really stand a chance.

Pretty straightforward here, The Bludgeon Brothers keep the belts and move on to the next team to squash.

Roman Reigns vs Jinder Mahal

Wow, this show really is just “Throwaway Feuds: The Musical” huh? So this all started when Jinder cost Roman his Money in the Bank qualifying match for…..some reason, and Roman responded by trying to kill him and then constantly complaining about management keeping him down despite no actual evidence to support that claim. Roman is just going to carry on with feuds like this until Summerslam when I pray we can finally just get this over with, and as such, I’d be quite surprised if Reigns took any kind of major loss between now and Summerslam.

Once again, there’s no doubt in my mind that Roman Reigns walks out of this one the victor.

Carmella(c) vs Asuka
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

I don’t really have a whole lot say about this feud really, mostly because this feels like the start of a long road. So far there’s just been a few petty insults thrown back and forth, and we’re yet to get into the meat of this. You’ve got to think they can’t hold Asuka down forever right? Regardless of what you think of Charlotte ending her streak at Mania, you can’t deny it’s made this match a lot harder to predict; Asuka isn’t untouchable or immune to any WWE brand bullshit anymore.

As a result, I think Carmella is going to heel her way to win here, and this feud will likely carry on till Summerslam.

Nia Jax(c) vs Ronda Rousey
(Raw Women’s Championship)

I’m pretty excited for this one if I’m honest; Ronda’s debut match at Wrestlemania was arguably the best on the show and I’m really looking forward to seeing how she will do in a one on one match, and I think Nia could be a really good person for her to work it against. Much like Carmella vs Asuka, this feels like the start of a multi-month feud, although in this case, Ronda might not actually wrestle again until Summerslam; this sure has been a funny kind of “full-time” contract she was apparently signed to.

As for the result, this one is really quite hard to predict for me and I’ve flip-flopped on it a lot this past week. On the one hand it feels a bit too early to put the title on Ronda, but on the other, WWE want nothing more than to do just that right now. I feel like there’s more to it though, on Raw the past few weeks it’s become clear that Natalya is going to play some sort of crucial role in this, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say Natalya will cost Ronda this match.

Still not very confident in my pick, but I’ll say Nia Jax retains her title thanks to Natalya.

Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Well at least there’s very little chance of a man winning it this year.

This match needs to make up for last year, the match was very underwhelming and it was won by a man. So there’s a lot riding on it and looking at the participants, I’ve got pretty high hopes. As for predictions, I’m going to talk about what kind of chance I think each woman has.

Lana – Zero.

Natalya – It could be kind of interesting to have Ronda win the title and then Natalya win the briefcase, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. She’s going to be very intertwined with the Nia vs Ronda story going forwards, and it’d be best if the Money in the Bank briefcase wasn’t tied up in all of it.

Alexa Bliss – I really doubt Alexa’s going to win this, she’s only just left the title scene after being in it for about a year and its way too soon to insert her back into it, especially while Nia is still champion.

Charlotte – Similar story to Alexa really, I’d argue Charlotte has much better odds than Alexa but I still don’t think she’s going to go straight back into the Smackdown Women’s title scene.

Ember Moon – One of the more likely candidates in my eyes, the only thing that causes doubt for me is how new she is, I’m not sure WWE would be ready to give her that push just yet, they probably want to take some time to build her up a bit more before giving her something like this.

Becky Lynch – It’s really hard to tell with Becky, they tend to leave her in the dust for ages, not really doing a whole lot with her, but it also feels like she could be pushed back up into the title picture at any moment, as such, I’m going to tentatively say that she’s my pick to walk out with the briefcase.

Naomi – Naomi is a weird one, because I can’t really think of a reason why she will win, but I also can’t think of a reason why she won’t. You’d think winning the Wresltmania Battle Royal would make her a prime candidate, but the men’s Battle Royal has shown us that it’s entirely meaningless. So I wouldn’t really be surprised if she won, but I’m not expecting her to.

Sasha Banks – Originally – at the start of the month – Sasha was my prediction to win, but now I’m not so sure, all year it’s seemed like this Bayley/Sasha thing has been leading somewhere, but it’s been stagnant for months now, and really feels like the kind of thing they’ll eventually just drop entirely. I’d say she’s still a prime candidate, but not as likely as Becky in my eyes.

Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Wow, seeing them all in a row like that really makes me realise how similar some of their faces are…

Weird observations aside, I think we’re really in for a treat with this one. I’ve found it quite difficult to call and I’m not very confident in my pick, so we could end up with a nice surprise; either way I think we’ll end up with a great match, so let’s look at the participants.

Samoa Joe – I don’t really feel like the Money in the Bank briefcase fits Samoa Joe; it’s not really his style. In addition to this, he actually climbed the ladder and unhooked the briefcase on an episode of Smackdown recently, which is basically WWE’s way of saying “This guy’s not going to win on the PPV”, so I don’t really like Joe’s chances in this one.

Kevin Owens – Owens is another one of those guys who could easily be shot up into the main event at any moment, and this could be one of those times. I’ve always thought Owens would be perfectly for the briefcase, but unfortunately, I just think there are people in the match this year who could do better with it.

Bobby Roode – Roode however, is not one of those guys. The only way I could see him winning this match is if a heel turn was coming VERY soon, happy smiley Bobby Roode is a bore to watch, and apparently Vince is starting to sour on him as a result. Which means sadly, I don’t think he’s winning here.

Braun Strowman – One of the things I’ve always wanted, is for an absolute monster like Strowman to win Money in the Bank. The briefcase is normally used opportunistically, to strike when the champion is down and out, but Strowman could easily destroy anyone while they’re at 100% and it would be awesome to see a champion absolutely shit their pants when Strowman’s music hits. I believe Strowman is one of the most likely to win this, even though with Brock or Roman as champion my scenario won’t happen, but it would be a great way to eventually reignite his feud with Reigns, this time over the title.

The Miz – Hands down, my pick to win this one. The Miz absolutely deserves another chance at a run with the World title after his pretty crap run in 2011, and now is the perfect time. Ever since the brand split a couple of years back, WWE have been slowly building to Daniel Bryan vs The Miz, and what better way to do it than over the title? Obviously it won’t be for a good 6 months at least, but it would be absolutely awesome and I hope it happens.

Rusev – Sadly, much like his wife, also Zero. Rusev is so over with the fans, and Rusev Day is a great gimmick, but WWE management just refuse to get behind it, they’re still trying to make him a heel and he’s not won a major match in ages, and that trend is going to continue on Sunday I’m afraid.

Finn Balor – This could be a good chance to get justice for Finn, he was the first Universal Champion for quite literally a day, and since coming back, WWE just don’t want to get behind him like they did originally. I feel like he’s going to get back to the top one day, but I still feel like there’s a way to go on that road just yet. Also, much like Joe, he climbed the ladder and grabbed the briefcase on Raw, which pretty much bottoms out his chances.

A Member of the New Day – It’ll probably be Kofi, Battle Royals and Ladder Matches are what originally made his name; and while it would be cool to see the New Day Freebird rule the briefcase, and eventually the title, it doesn’t really feel like it would work with a world title, a middcard title sure, but not a world one.

AJ Styles(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
(WWE Championship, Last Man Standing)

I don’t understand this stipulation at all, their last match ended in a draw because neither man could answer a 10 count, so now they’re doing a match which could very well end in a draw when neither man answers the 10 count? I’m pretty fed up of waiting for these guys to have a 5 star match, so I think it’s time to go big or go home with this one; the magic is gone. But, this could quite easily keep going till Summerslam, so I honestly have no idea.

I’m going to do my best to be optimistic here and say Shinsuke Nakamura finally picks up the title and we can all move on, hopefully to a feud with Daniel Bryan. But if this match ends in a draw, I called it.

Well there you have it! I’m feeling optimistic about this show, and I’m looking forward to what we get after it moving toward Summerslam; but until then, please share this around and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo, and follow @lauren_cmonster aswell who makes these articles read in actual English, as opposed to the crap I come out with.

Make sure to come back next week for my review of the show and I’ll see you soon!