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video game reviews

Game Review: Tower of Fantasy

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The new Gotcha MMO Tower of Fantasy has just been released and if you are thinking of trying it out, now is a good time because of how many rewards they are throwing at their players.

For those not familiar, this is a Genshin Impact clone that is trying to make its place in the genre. For the most part, I think it’s succeeding. Full disclosure, I am not an expert on the game and will be speaking about this game from a casual perspective. If you are someone looking for the best strategies to optimize your gaming experience, there are tons of YouTube channels dedicated to the subject.

Tower of Fantasy is playable on Android, IOS and PC. It is cross-platform, and I was able to play it on both PC and mobile. As far as the art goes, it is fine. It isn’t too busy, but I do prefer the dreamlike art style of Genshin Impact slightly better. There is character creation to this, but I can’t speak on how detailed it can get. I tend to randomize my appearance, but I liked my character. Not that character creation matters because you can roll for playable characters later on through the game’s Gotcha mechanic.

As far as Gotcha games go, Tower of Fantasy doesn’t feel very predatory. I got a healthy amount of in-game currency and was able to pull a couple of the chased characters. Most importantly, I found a character I love playing without spending any money on the game.

The game has a story, but it isn’t very good. You go from town to town completing chores and learning about the world’s lore. There is voice acting in this game, but it is very inconsistent. Some voice actors are great, but there are some bad recordings. I guess we can be grateful that there is voice acting, but some of the cut scenes are a chore to get through. The NPCs aren’t very memorable unless you want to play as them. I didn’t care enough about the story to care about many of the characters.

The gameplay is like any open-world MMO. There is a map you are encouraged to explore, tons of enemies to fight, and real people you can play with. Exploration is fun. You get a mount early on and other movement abilities that make traveling across the map interesting. Sometimes the movement abilities feel clunky and don’t work as intended, but the game just came so I can forgive it for now. The game encourages exploration by hiding treasures and secrets across the map that offer in-game currencies or items. 

Combat is my favorite part of this game. You carry three weapons that you must switch between to maximize your damage. You work towards combos and ultimate attacks by fighting, switching weapons, and dodging properly. I never felt like the combat got stale because there is always a different combo to pull off. You have to level up your gear to keep up with the mob levels by feeding your equipment materials you find in the world. I got a steady amount of supplies to keep up with the content by only playing casually.

I’ve played this game on PC, iPhone, and the iPad. While I much prefer the PC experience because it runs smoother and my big fingers don’t get in the way, it runs fine enough on mobile. I will say that it felt especially clunky, and I encountered the most crashes on my iPad 8.

Tower of Fate has had a solid launch. I’ve encountered a few bugs and crashes, but nothing that would ruin the experience. It honestly comes down to taste. If you like the art style, go for it. If you are on the fence, try it out, it’s free. This is a very casual friendly game, especially if you only have an hour a day to play your games.

You can find out more information on the game’s official website.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Men (2022)

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I enjoyed Men, but I find it difficult to recommend because of its pacing. While the movie is beautiful, it is a slow burn that won’t be for everyone.

Harper is dealing with the recent suicide of her husband. 

In an effort to get over this trauma, she decides to spend some time in the beautiful English countryside. She slowly begins to find peace in her isolation, but strange things begin to unfold. Something is up with the men around her, but will she find out what before it is too late?

Mechanically, this movie is great. The acting is fantastic, the score is phenomenal, the imagery is beautiful, and the horror is well done. This is a unique horror movie in that it doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares. The horror comes from the uncomfortable and confusing situations it creates. The isolations, the aggressive men, and the weirdness that carries through the movie all come together to create a very ominous tone. The problem is that sometimes it takes too long for anything to happen.

If you have seen Hereditary or Midsommar you are familiar with the slow-moving imagery that is woven throughout the film. It is often cryptic and adds meaning to the narrative. In this movie, for example, there is a slow-moving closeup of a statue whose visage acts as foreshadowing for events that will occur later in the film. It’s an interesting form of storytelling that I appreciate, but its effectiveness has worn off. This movie didn’t need this much imagery. It almost feels like filler because of how often it would happen. I am sure that if you weave these scenes together and take the time to study them, they create a more meaningful narrative, but as a filthy casual, I don’t have time for that. I just want to sit back and enjoy a good horror movie. 

If you have the patience for the pacing and enjoy these odd horror movies with their even stranger twists, Man is a solid choice. If you just want some mindless horror to enjoy on a Friday night, this isn’t for you.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Honor Society (2022)

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Honor Society was a delightful surprise hidden away in the otherwise baron catalog or Paramount plus. It isn’t perfect, it plays out a bit like a fairy tale, but it is an entertaining two hours of your life.

Honor Society is about Honor’s last year in high school. She has great ambitions and plans to achieve every one of them. To do so, she surrounds herself with reliable people, gets good grades, starts clubs, does volunteer work, and sucks up to the school’s guidance counselor. She wants to go to Harvard, and the only thing standing in her way is a letter of recommendation from the counselor. The problem is that three other students are competing for this recommendation. Honor hatches a plan to make sure she is the only candidate left by the end of the year, but her plotting isn’t as nefarious as intended.

This movie is a very high-energy and fun movie structured almost like a heist movie. Honor will constantly break the fourth wall to lay out her plans and reasonings, the camera will pan to the person or people involved, and you get to watch as she manipulates her way toward Harvard. It is really fun to see. 

This style is unique and very effective for telling Honor’s story. The movie jumps from plot to plot seamlessly at Honor’s request without ever being confusing or disorienting. Honor is a fantastic protagonist with the charisma to make this movie work. The rest of the cast is equally fantastic and the performances come together as a fun teen movie about surviving high school. 

My biggest complaint about this movie is how easily and quickly everything falls into place. People will do what she asks without question. The movie does a decent job at setting up Honor as the popular girl everyone likes, but the narrative still fits together like a fairy tale. One could argue that she isn’t being manipulative, but rather encouraging people into doing something they have always wanted to do. You can also argue that she is an unreliable narrator. You are being told a story from her perspective where she is cool and smart enough to get what she wants. Whatever the reason, this is a fun movie and you should check it out. Find it on Paramount+.

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Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Secret Headquarters (2022)

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I was pleasantly surprised by Secret Headquarters. I was expecting a completely generic superhero kids action movie, but I got a decent action comedy. It may not be perfect, but it has an undeniable charm to it. It is a solid kids’ movie, but one that you should only watch with your kids. It isn’t good enough to recommend to anyone outside of the target demographic. 

The movie focuses on Charlie and his friend’s attempt to survive a villain’s assault on the world’s only superhero. Charlie is a normal kid trying to survive middle school while dealing with his parent’s separation and his absent father. Charlie’s life changes when he and his friends discover that his dad is the superhero The Guardian. Unfortunately, this discovery throws the kids into an ongoing conflict between The Guardian and an organization that is after The Guardian’s power. With the help of his friends and the Guardian, Charlie must now stop the villains from taking over the world.

This movie is okay. It isn’t going to win awards or redefine the genre or the medium, but it isn’t the worst way to spend two hours. The plot is simple, the humor is easy, but the special effects are pretty good. You will lose interest because the pacing is a little slow. A lot of the humor in this movie is designed for kids. Not all of the jokes land, but there are some solid references and double entendres that will offer you a good chuckle. The best part of the movie is its editing. The editing is hilarious. I love how it would cut away perfectly to sensor the cuss words. Your kids (if applicable) will have more fun with this movie than you will. 

What helps make this movie palatable is the acting. The kids are fun and share some great chemistry, and Owen Wilson and Micheal Pena are a delight. The characters are given enough development to be distinguishable but don’t expect anything complex. Most characters fill an archetype; but they do well enough within those restrictions. The villains in this movie are exactly what you can expect from a kids’ movie. They are dumbed down and generic; Micheal Pena does his best.

This movie isn’t perfect. If you don’t have kids, I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek it out. If you have kids, it is a decent action comedy. Check it out on Paramount+.

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video game reviews

Game Preview: Sovereign Syndicate (Review Code)

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All pictures are screenshots from the game

I got the Sovereign Syndicate demo as a review code. While I am very grateful, I will not let this sway my opinion. These will be my honest thoughts and opinions about the demo.

This demo is too short for me to form a meaningful opinion about the game, but it is long enough to at least get a taste of the gameplay. Sovereign Syndicate is a top-down cRRP that takes place in a steampunk fantasy version of London. The full game gives you the choice of three characters, but the demo had me playing as the minotaur Atticus Daley. At the start of the game, you are given the option of four classes that provide boosts to certain attributes. I played as each one, but I never felt like the choice made much of a difference gameplay-wise. 

This game ran real smooth. The top-down view was interesting, and the city was nice, but there wasn’t much room for exploration. If the demo is any indication of what the game will be like, the setting is going to be dank, dark, and dirty. Most of the gameplay was in the form of dialogue. I got to speak with a couple of NPCs, each providing you with a choice of responses and the occasional skill challenge. Skill challenges are neat in that they are determined by picking from a set of tarot cards. Your skill points affect the kinds of cards you can pull, but the game was too short for choices to matter. The choices you make can provide buffs and debuffs, but mostly they affect the types of responses you get from the NPCs. 

My biggest complaint about this game is the font. Some of the dialogue is written in an italicized font which was hard on my dyslexia. The writing itself is inconsistently flowery. Some descriptions are fine, but others are long and awkwardly worded. It wasn’t so bad that I stopped playing, but it is something that gave me trouble. It is also written in an English dialect I am not familiar with, but it offers definitions for certain slang words and phrases. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough gameplay in the demo to judge this game on its character and world-building.

I am very much interested in learning more about this game and possibly getting a longer demo. I liked the text-based choose your own adventure aspect of this game. I can only hope the full game will include meaningful choices that affect the story. I also enjoyed that the skill points are personified. Wit, for example, is an old woman who will give you advice on how to respond to an NPC. Each skill point will offer its suggestion, but the choice is always in the hands of the players. This is a neat little feature for people like me who can’t make a single decision. I will certainly be keeping an eye on this game. 

The game is planned to release during the 4th quarter of 2023 for Xbox, PC, and Playstation. If you want more information, check out and wish list it on steam.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Elvis (2022)

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Elvis is an interesting biopic, but one that has a certain audience in mind. While I do appreciate the film’s unique storytelling, its novelty wears off. Not everything in this movie works. Sometimes you get some interesting narrative about Elvis, but most of the time, this film is sporadic and lacking in focus. While I didn’t outright hate this film, I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it. I definitely won’t be watching it again by choice.

Elvis is the dramatization of Elvis’s career. The movie will jump around various key moments in Elvis’ life. These jumps often happen in the same scene. I can’t speak on the film’s historical accuracy, but parts of this movie feel embellished for narrative purposes and to make Elvis a sympathetic character. I can’t overlook how one-sided this narrative seems to be. I can only wonder about the unfavorable parts of Elvis’ personality that they hide behind the flashing lights and his famous wiggle.

Elvis is fine. The acting and music are great, but the sporadic narrative style leaves a lot to be desired. The constant jumping in time, the overbearing narration, and the editing make this feel like a long trailer for the movie about his life. This whole experience feels like an Elvis Presley speedrun that skips a lot of crucial story beats about his character. When the movie decides to have a long uninterrupted scene, I loved it. I loved watching the performances, but they were often cut too short. As I have mentioned before, the concept is great, but the execution isn’t effective.

If you are an Elvis fan, you will probably have a lot more fun than I do. I loved the music in this movie, I am sure you have a deeper appreciation for it. I also can’t deny that Austin Bulter gives a great performance. That said, this is made with a specific audience in mind, and if you don’t like the style, you won’t like the movie. If you like biopics, this is an interesting one, to say the least; otherwise, I would hold off on watching this till you can find it somewhere for free.

Series Reviews

Series Review: The Sandman (2022)

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I can’t recommend The Sandman enough. This is fantasy at its finest. The story is amazing, the acting is mostly great, and it is such a beautiful show. I can’t speak on how close of an adaptation it is to the comic, but I can speak on what a good show this is.

The series deals with the gods and forces outside of the human realm that affects the human experience. Forces like death, desire, and dreams are manifested as gods, each with its own domain to rule. The natural order of things gets complicated when a series of events lead to the capture of Dream. Years go by, and Dream’s kingdom crumbles. The show focuses on a newly freed Dream as he tries to rebuild his Kingdom and his power.

I have been impatiently waiting for any new fantasy to hold me over till the next season of The Circle of Time. This definitely helped soothe my impatient heart, but now I fear I will be impatiently waiting for this next season of The Sandman as well. It is safe to say that I am obsessed with this show, and there is a good reason for that. The narrative is interesting, full of well-generated tension, interesting villains and heroes, and some pretty fantastic world-building. I love that Dream isn’t a traditional hero. Dream will often act whit his own interest in mind because he is not limited by human morals. He will slowly realize that this is not always in the universe’s best interest, and his thinking slowly changes as a result of his experience. It is very cool to see a hero who learns from his journey as he deals with his flaws and inhibitions.

The narrative style for this show is unique. Each arc seems to have its own voice, keeping the series fresh and exciting. It is nice to see fantasy that doesn’t follow the usual tropes. My only complaint is with the inconsistency of the acting. Some actors give amazing performances, while others do their best but have awkward delivery. It isn’t a terrible problem, but it is noticeable. I also had an issue with the pacing. I felt it slows down towards the end, but I never felt like it was unwatchable. 

This is a great series and you can watch it on Netflix!

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Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Wedding Season (2022)

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Wedding Season is a surprising rom-com. You have seen this narrative formula before, and that’s okay. Wedding Season has been reskinned to the experience of an Indian American couple trying to live their lives under the pressures of their community. It is a solid date night movie and one that you won’t hate if you are forced to watch it.

Wedding Season is about an Indian American woman Priya who just wants to live her life her own way and build her career. Her mother takes it upon herself to find Priya a man. Priya in an effort to take some of the pressure off herself agrees to date one of her mom’s prospects. Priya and Ravi then decide to create a fake relationship so that their families, and the rest of their society, will leave them alone. Fantasy turns to reality, and both find that their feelings for each other are real.

This rom-com was very well done, the story is cute, and the actors are amazing. I loved the new perspective and twist on this story. I can’t speak on the cultural accuracy of the movie, but I do appreciate seeing brown people in roles where they aren’t offensive caricatures. There really isn’t much more to say about this movie because you have seen this movie countless times already. I didn’t mind it because they do enough to make this movie feel fresh. My only complaint is that there are parts that dragged on for me, but I think that is a personal problem. I watch too many movies.

If you are looking for a date night movie, Wedding Season is a solid choice. If you are a fan of the genre, you will have a lot of fun with this movie. Check it out on Netflix!

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Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Thirteen Lives (2022)

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I don’t watch movies that are based on real-world events. I have never been a fan. That said, I enjoyed Thirteen Lives, it is a very well-made movie. If you are on the fence and enjoy these kinds of movies, you will not regret the time you spend with this movie.

Thirteen Lives is a proper dramatization of a terrible moment in human history. The film recreates the rescue of the Thai youth soccer team and their coach as they were trapped in a flooding cave system. The movie will focus on the different groups involved in the rescue, and it does a fantastic job showing how complicated and exhausting the whole ordeal was. 

I am familiar with what happened, but I was at the edge of my seat the whole time. This is no easy feat. The acting and all the moving parts came together to create an incredibly suspenseful and claustrophobic experience. Watching the divers move through the dark flooded tunnels still gives me anxiety. Watching the other groups work tirelessly to get the boys was heartwarming. This film is a proper homage to the heroes who made the rescue happen. A homage you are sure to enjoy if you choose to watch it. 

Thirteen Lives is available for streaming on Amazon Video with a Prime membership. Check it out if you are thinking about watching it. 

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Prey (2022)

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I love Predator. It is one of my favorite movies. I will watch everything that features the Yautja, no matter how bad they are. I have known disappointment so many times that my hope for the series is fleeting. When I heard about Prey, there was the bittersweet sensation of cautious excitement because the trailer looked cool, but I wasn’t ready to be hurt again. This movie has restored my faith in the series and has become one of my favorites. If you are thinking about watching this film, watch it now!

This prequel focuses on Naru, a young female Comanche warrior who is constantly trying to prove herself to the men of the tribe. The Yautja has landed on earth, searching for worthy prey to hunt. The Yautja begins to hunt the Comanche warriors. Now Naru must protect her tribe against this strange and powerful hunter.

This movie is fantastic. The action is fun, the story is great, and the acting is fantastic. Watching the Yautja hunt is tense and exciting. The film does a great job of making the fights balanced and exciting. The only complaint I have about this movie is that some of the special effects are bad. Some deaths and fights are cartoonishly bad, but not bad enough to ruin the movie. This is one of the better stories set in the predator universe. It has well-built tension that builds to one of the most satisfying conclusions. The acting is phenomenal. It goes without saying, this movie has one of the best female leads in the genre. She is cool and smart, and I believed she was capable of hunting the Yautja. I can only hope there are more movies of this caliber for the genre and the predator universe. 

 It cannot be understated, you need to watch Prey. It is available in English and a Numunuu dubbing. I wish the whole movie was done in Numunuu, and we got an English dubbing after; but we might not be there as a society yet

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