There was some sort of nuclear apocalypse and the citizens of Moscow were forced to live in the city’s subway tunnels. Of course the world is now filled with irradiated monsters. Yet, the humans are still fighting wars with other humans in the tunnels because sci-fi writers can’t comprehend that people might actually co-operate in dire circumstances. For some reason you are tasked with saving your station from impending doom and thus begins you journey down the rails to find help. Your job will be difficult, not because of tough choices and insurmountable odds, rather because everything is brown and hard to see in the dark. Oh, and you need to keep changing you gas mask filters every three minutes.
Metro 2033 is very strongly mediocre as far as first-person shooters go. You are literally on rails for a good portion of the game so exploration is not really an option. There seemed to be only two or three monster types the entire game and they all seemed unaffected by your shots until they aren’t. The guns never felt like they had any power behind them. The best parts of the game are when you need to use a little stealth to get through a region but those were few and far between. I didn’t realize you could recharge your flashlight until about two-thirds the way through the game and, pro-tip: running through the dark sucks.
This is the sequel to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Like its predecessor, this is an isometric puzzle platform game combined with a twin-stick shooter. It’s fast and fun and pretty casual feeling. I don’t remember if this was a part of the first game, but they are really pushing the multi-player game-play and I have no idea how that would work. This seems perfectly fine as a single-player experience.
This wood engraving is based off of the drawing I created for the Kickstarter game Nox Archaist. It was engraved in to an old block of end-grain maple. The process started by transferring the ink drawing to the block using acetone and a LASER printout. This seemed to work remarkably well. It held up despite my ink wash on top of it and my hands rubbing against it during cutting.
This is what the block looked like when I first inked it up:
The prints never look this crisp when they get to the paper. Some day I will figure all this out.
This is the “true story” of Bruce Lee’s teacher, Ip Man. The WWII setting gives it some gravitas as characters live under the rule of the invading Japanese army. Stripped of the setting it is a standard kung-fu movie about fighters wanting to be the master. The choreography is very well done but you never feel like Ip Man is ever in any real danger.
More 80s horror catch-up for me. I wasn’t sure if this movie was so well known merely for it’s clever acronym title or if was legitimately good. I wouldn’t call it a classic but it does do several things right. First, the script does a great job in weaving together the various characters’ plot lines together. The acting is pretty good and there are many familiar faces in the cast that are mostly known for their work in supporting roles. The concept is pretty stupid and that prevents it from providing authentic scares, but the creature design is good and there is enough gore to keep horror fans satisfied. I have a feeling the dirty-faced look of the homeless people wouldn’t fly these days.
Here is some time-lapse footage of me cutting my latest wood engraving. See more exciting content like this on my Instagram account. (Music by Jimmy Riddle)
I could have sworn I had played this game before, but I wasn’t completely sure. I get this one confused with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. All I knew is that I didn’t own it and, if I had played it, it was probably on Gametap as a freebie. Well, this weekend it went on Steam sale for 97¢ so I grabbed it knowing that if I managed to have an hour of fun with it, it would have been worth the price.
Yup, I’ve played it before. I definitely remember the first level. Things get cloudy after that. These games aren’t quite known for their strong, memorable narratives. The game would seem completely new to me then I’d hit a particularly tricky level and memories would flood back. Most of the reason I write these redundant reviews is to help me remember what I’ve seen or played.
This is the first of the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games and it still holds up rather well. The only areas of the game that haven’t aged as well are the shooting mechanics, an occasional quicktime event, and the too-close camera positioning. Otherwise, the controls are fluid and the tombs offer a medium-level puzzle challenge. There’s no crafting, and object collecting is limited to a half-a-dozen or so statues per level. This is straightforward fun that doesn’t wear out it’s welcome.
A piece of 80s shlock that’s much better than it should be mostly due to the excellent cast and characters. The plot involves a small time crook, grizzly murders, ancient Aztec sacrifice and the return of Quetzalcoatl. Interspersed every ten minutes or so are hilarious scenes of random New Yorkers being attacked from the sky by a mostly unseen monster. Q emerges in her full stop-motion glory at the climax and by then you are totally cool with how corny it looks. The right elements are all here, and it is very entertaining, but a generally lack of cohesion keep the movie from being great.
This print has nothing to do with the movie of the same name. This started as a sketch of a large man with a lobster bib and it morphed into this. I wanted to try engraving in maple again after years of using resingrave. I’m hear to say end-grain maple stinks. The lines are rough and it prints very unevenly. But never mind that. Buy this print!
Part two of the Tomb Raider reboot doesn’t offer anything really new in terms of game play but that’s okay. The core of the series is 3-D platforming mechanics and it does that very well. This is especially evident in the nine or so “challenge tombs” scattered throughout the world.
The graphics are stunning and most of the environments are fun to explore. The world is zoned off into half-a-dozen regions which are fairly open-world in their layout. Much of my time was spent hunting down the inane collectibles in order to get a 100% complete. I almost got everything before the end, but there is a region in the prelude that you can’t return to until you have beaten the final boss.
The story takes place somewhere in snowy Russia where the people dress like vikings and speak English. As per usual, there isn’t much more narrative beyond a magic object and a group of mercenaries racing to find it before Lara. These games could be perfect if they could just put a little more effort into the plot and characters.
As an aside, I am really getting tired of crafting in games. It’s not too complicated here, but I’d rather not be bothered with having to grab every mushroom or twig I see.
