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God awful, makes you want to gouge your eyeballs out with a spork, and either head-butt the TV or try to hit the cinema screen with projectile vomit.
2. ‘Awful’
Still awful, but has at least one thing that is done well.
3. ‘Bad’
Bad, but you agree that watching this film was an OK pastime on a lazy weekend evening because there was nothing else on TV and you were too lazy to dig up anything better.
4. ‘Nice Try, But No Cigar’
Still bad, but is ‘almost there’.
5. ‘Meh’
The threshold for ‘OK’.
6. ‘Not Bad’
It has some aspects that lift it above mediocrity and make it quite enjoyable to watch, but it either never becomes really good, or if it does, it still has some bad parts that drag it down.
7. ‘Good’
This movie is really worth watching and you would watch it again spontaneously, but not too often.
8. ‘Very good’
This is the kind of movie that you could watch again several times, even though it is clearly not perfect.
9. ‘Excellent’
It is almost perfect. You could watch this movie again almost an unlimited number of times.
10. ‘Perfect’
You could watch this movie until eternity without ever getting bored by it.
Ratings from 12 March 2018 onwards.
Ratings
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Reviews
The Callisto Protocol (2022)
If you wanted a reimagining of Dead Space, this is not it.
If you wanted a reimagining of Dead Space, this is not it. This a thinly veiled action game with poor mechanics that games ten years ago had resolved.
What really upset me is this was advertised to me as a survival horror and it's not. Within hours, you're taking down hordes of enemies with a generic attack dance; dodge, attack, dodge, attack fight sequence and it just repeats every room. If there are multiple enemies, they wait for you to finish each individual fight because they are polite monsters. You are also made to finish these fights, you can't retreat and gather your thoughts and re-engage. You are locked into a fight once it starts regardless of enemy numbers.
The death animations, which the game advertised so much, are fun the first few times. Then you start to notice how much they are repeated and don't make sense. Multiple enemy types can give you the same death animation. That big boy stomped your head? Makes sense. That little one can too? The same way? Oh. You got hit in the shoulder by a monsters arm, but your head got sliced clean in two? Ok.. Your jaw is getting ripped off, but for some reason you are now clean shaven, your beard disappears. Youtube that one, it's funny. But I guess we don't have to worry, they have announced they are releasing more death animations, you just have to buy it in the form of DLC in the future.
Don't forget that when you do get a weapon upgrade area and you spend time to upgrade your gear and then die before reaching the next checkpoint, you don't retain your upgrades. You need to do that again. Every time.
The story just seems to be a bunch of plot points from other games/movies smashed into one big mess. You have literal Kimiko from The Boyz, you have fungi zombies from The Last of Us and then you have discount Mr X from Resident Evil 2.
The jump scares are very predictable. Put an item in front of a foggy glass window you need to pickup and as expected, there's an enemy. You can make a game out of it. That is at least a little fun.
I really wanted to like this game. Survival horror is my bag. But this game just made me want to play Dead Space 1. I hope the remaster coming out in 2023 is good.
The Quarry (2022)
Haven't you people ever heard of closing the damn door?
I purchased this and played it on release. No patch on release day. The game is not finished in this state on PS5. A lot of graphical issues, the water being reflective like a mirror, characters hair when in front of sunrays are really off, items when held by characters aren't there, just an empty hand. I wanted to play online co-op like every other Supermassive game only to find out this isn't available yet but will be patched in. Lovely.
So I played couch co-op. This was fine, but it had game breaking bugs. We got through every QTE and made correct choices, only for the story to tell us later we were bitten by a creature. The game gives the choice to 'hide bite' - But when were we bitten? This happened with two different characters. The couch co-op broke the story.
Until Dawn was great. The Quarry's story tries hard to pull you in and be immersed, but too many times my couch partner and I looked each other and just said "What?" and it just pulled us out of the story. This really ruined it for us. Yes, the game is about the supernatural, but the world around it has to be somewhat realistic.
Some of those moments I can recall quickly. Spoilers ahead.
Jacob doesn't know anything about cars. But he can remove the 'rotor cap' without tools. Back in the day with my old 1991 Ford Escort/Laser you would at the very least a screwdriver to remove the distributor cap and the rotor inside the cap. Even if the cap could be pulled off by hand, how did he know what it looked like ie he had to ask Kaitlyn?
Kaitlyn is a crack shot with that shotgun. Tells everyone about gun safety, but has terrible trigger discipline.
Jacob gets tangled in razor wire, tugs at it, isn't cut. Also finds the sinking rotor cap, in a lake, in the dark.
Grandma is how old and could pull Emma through the trap door. How much did Laura weigh? 50kg/120lbs? Strong grandma.
The scrapyard magnet would need to run off the crane battery, or a seperate power generator. There was no generator running that we heard and the crane was turned off, that magnet would drain the battery in 15 minutes, how long was that car hanging there before we got there?
Also Dylan has never operated this crane before. How did he know what button stopped the magnet working, to drop the car? Also aren't 'big red buttons' usually an emergency stop, rather than a horn? Can't be sure for that one I guess.
Also, that fall from the car to the tyres. You don't just get up from that.
How did Kaitlyn and Dylan get from the scrapyard to the lodge so fast?
When Laura kills the power, the electrified doors swing open. What was powering the doors to swing them open? Why were the red background lights still on? Battery power?
In the attic, it's bright enough to Laura to find the empty syringes, but not bright enough to see a creatures glistening body until she's 10ft away. Not to mention, the chains holding it down broke pretty easy. We're meant to believe it never attempted to break free prior to that moment?
And I guess finally "haven't these people ever heard of closing the damn door?" so many times they run away from a creature and leave the door open behind them, for it to then simply walk in.
No wait, this is the final bit. This game utilises the same trope twice of 'stay here' - The sheriff says don't go to the Hackett Quary and Chris Hackett says just stay inside. If either of these happened no one would've died.
My final thoughts; The Quarry has some aspects that lift it above mediocrity and make it quite enjoyable to play, but it either never becomes really good, or if it does, it still has some bad parts that drag it down.
Quake (1996)
Quake in 2022: 90's FPS has never looked so crisp.
"Even other monsters fear him, so expect a clobbering. He shrugs off explosions. Good luck."
ID's description of the Shambler, a little snippet from my Quake booklet, all the way back from 1996. It's been a while between frags.
I'm playing this remastered version of the game on a 75" TV on a PS5. 90's FPS has never looked so crisp in 4K and 120fps. Sound on 5.1 works well and you get a nice bassy boom to the shotgun, a trademark of an ID game. Controls just work and feel good from install, even though I did tweak it a little by turning off vibration, haptive feedback and motion controls to keep to the original, but for those that want it, it's there. I love that it's optional. Did I mention it has crossplay deathmatch and co-op story mode? It has crossplay deathmatch and co-op story mode.
If you want an original experience this is a 'remaster' done right. Of course it came from ID. Highly recommended.
Far Cry 5 (2018)
Cutscene Incompetence
Let me introduce you to the plot device cutscene incompetence.
The Protagonist is amazing. They can defeat hordes of monsters, perform feats of superhuman strength, solve complex puzzles no one else can, answer the most baffling riddles, and is always just in time for the action... that is, as long as they are being controlled by the player.
Once a cutscene starts, or the player otherwise loses even the tiniest bit of control over their character, however, things tend to go south quick.
That is Farcry 5 in a nutshell. Need to move the story on? Cue the mind control music into cutscene! Walking into a church to confront a big enemy? Cutscene and you're knocked out! Played for a few hours and enjoying yourself? Bliss cutscene!
It's bad storytelling. You don't need to be forced into capture each time you want to progress the story with the main bad guys of the game. Such a bad trope, IN MY 2018? It's happening more than you would like to admit.
Like all next-gen Farcry games, the best story ending is to stay still at the start of the game and let the credits roll.
Sonic Mania (2017)
Good for a nostalgic kick.
While this game is great for the nostalgia, the main game is over way too soon, which all the extra 'modes' just replaying the same game over again which different attributes of extra characters. I was very disappointed to not see the ability to play the original games (Sonic 1, 2, 3) or even a full iteration of the Mean Bean Machine. Being able to play through all the original games, not just this remake of a few chosen levels (No Marble Garden Zone?!?) would have added a lot of replayability and kept me playing for weeks, not for days. Great idea for a PS4 release, just not enough content.
Conquering Northern China (2017)
Movie lengthed Youtube video
If you like their Youtube channels, specifically their combined channel ADVChina then you'll enjoy this. If you don't like their Youtube videos, you won't like it. It's very much a feature lengthed version of their Youtubes. Which is not neccasarily a bad thing.
I enjoyed it the series, it's good to see them exploring the country they have chosen to live in and shows a bit more of their personality than the short Youtube videos can.
There are a lot of poor reviews here but it's quite easy to see it's due to the same reason they were denied access to several hotels - They are considered foreigners. While you see evidently the love and generosity that comes from the older generation and those that live outside the major cities, what you see from young people and those that stalk them online are bigoted hyperbole.
Frozen (2010)
Good idea ruined by unbelievability.
Believable idea of three young people getting stuck on a chair lift suspended high above the ground ruined by moments that make you go "Really?"
In weather that produces frostbite in an hour, the human hand with no glove is able to be left overnight holdig a steel support bar with no ill effects apart from the skin sticking the pole in the same way you see in Dumb and Dumber. Not only is the hand usable, it's grip strength is amazing, still pink from blood flow and that missing skin regenerates within hours.
That is just one example. We won't get into the horizontal rope climb with heavy gear and boots without using legs to stablise, even after they specify that the person had little to no muscle strength.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)
Quick review.
Taking into consideration I played this on PS4 in 2018 and this game is now 8 years old.
The deep engaging story is let down by false immersion with the old torch with limited battery life mechanic. No game should have you squinting the entire time. There are better ways to induce fear.
The endings are a huge let down, or lack of ending. Not so much as a text on screen to engage you, just credits. Very poor after going to the effort to get the 'good' ending which really makes no difference.