The Big Night Review

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It’s time to look at a film that I’ve had on the backburner to review for quite a long while. I saw this film probably a month or two ago at this point. Unfortunately, this isn’t a big surprise reveal that I held back because it was so awesome. It’s actually a pretty lackluster film with a really annoying main character who you can’t take seriously and the characters don’t either. Trust me when I say that this is not a good sign for him and for the film in general.

The movie starts off with Georgie being mugged by a group of teens on his way back from the barber. He manages to get home though where his father bakes him a cake for his Birthday. Georgie is pretty excited because he feels like he is now an adult but isn’t able to blow the candles out which makes him feel bad. Then some thugs led by the infamous Judge show up and beat Georgie’s dad in front of him. None of the other guys in the restaurant do anything to help so Judge just keeps whacking on him til he gets tired and leaves. Georgie decides to take revenge on Joe so he steals a gun and heads out. It’s his big night to prove he is a man by murdering someone.

Throughout the movie a constant theme is that just grabbing a gun and trying to murder someone doesn’t make you any more of a man. If anything it highlights how insecure Georgie is. Part of what makes him a pretty bad character is how overly defensive he is the whole time when people point this out. He talks a good game but when the villains actually show up he quickly shrinks in the moment. That’s not exactly what you want to see from your lead like this. He also has a pretty bizarre scene where he gets drunk and then starts to complement the singer but immediately turns it racial. I thought this was supposed to be a hero we could root for. Well, that boat definitely sailed a while back.

His “romance” with Marion is also terribly rushed and doesn’t contribute to anything. As she points out, she’s way too old for him. Georgie doesn’t seem to care but it makes you wonder why introduce the plot in the first place. They knew each other for maybe 10 minutes at best. From Marion’s point of view this is some crazy drunk with a gun that Cooper met somewhere. There’s no reason to start a romance so suddenly and with someone that you absolutely don’t know. I think the only purpose of the scene was to once again highlight the fact that Georgie was trying to act a lot older than his actual age which backfired.

There’s not much of a supporting cast here with the only reasonable character being Cooper for the most part. He’s a pretty nice guy who helps Georgie find a lot of intel out. It’s all fun and games to him at that point so he enjoys the adventures. We see that this is where the buck stops with him though as when Georgie asks for asylum later on Cooper throws him out. Cooper’s the kind of guy who will have your back when it’s nothing serious but if you have a real problem then he will make himself scarce. There are a lot of people like that and that’s why it’s important to know the difference between your buddies and your friends. Your buddies will hang out with you and you’ll all have a good time but only your true friends will stick with you when you’re in a serious jam. He still brought most of the life to the film though so I’m glad he was around.

As for Judge, he makes for a reasonable main villain. At least he had a reason for the beatdown and it all comes back to revenge of course. He decided to take justice into his own hands and when you find out the backstory for it then you see why he did this. Of course, he only knew part of the story or he knew the rest and didn’t care. He makes for a pretty solid villain although he’s lucky that Georgie isn’t very smart. This is why you don’t let the gun out of your hands so easily when confronting an opponent.

The ending has quite a lot of twists in it. The story becomes a bit of a drama with how much is going on. Everything adds up and at the end of the day Georgie acted without knowing all of the facts. It still makes sense that he wouldn’t want to take the beating lying down, but he should have stepped in sooner then. Even in the ending he cracks and starts talking way too much. Threatening a cop also starts to make things pretty crazy. Georgie is just not a character I could get behind.

Peck made for a good secondary villain. I can’t forget to mention that guy. His money scam was pretty solid and he definitely intimidated Georgie pretty easily. Although, everyone seems to manhandle him in this film. He may have went down a little too easily at the end but I guess he wasn’t expecting the hit. Now, this does bring you to the city at large though. Is this place super corrupt? I don’t get how Judge has so much influence that he can beat people up in broad daylight and get away with it. Everyone seems to know what happened including the cops so it’s all a bit on the tricky side. I guess we can just assume the guy has blackmail on everyone since he’s a news reporter so nobody wants to act but it’s still a stretch.

Overall, The Big Night ended up coming out small in the end. The character cast isn’t great, but in particular the main character is pretty terrible which holds the film back. He whines a lot and keeps proving the other characters right that he isn’t ready for a mission like this yet. The romance is pretty terribly written and the film won’t keep your attention for long. Ultimately there’s not a whole lot of the film that will be very memorable and you can find way better noir films or revenge thrillers out there. This is one film that you’ll want to skip out on.

Overall 3/10

Journey Review

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Sony put this game up for free recently which was pretty cool. I’m not sure if the deal is still going, but if it is you should definitely take the plunge and check it out. This game is more of an interactive movie than what you would typically expect in the format which is part of why I never bought it before. Also, it’s relatively short as you can complete it in around an hour. That being said, you can’t go wrong when it’s free right? It’s a charming enough game that is fun to play through once. I also think if they do a sequel and add in some combat gameplay this could end up being a pretty awesome title. Not saying they should do this…but they definitely should!

The plot is a bit ambiguous of course, but the goal is to get to the peak of a mountain. For some reason the lead just needs to get there. You can run and jump for most of the game and later on you can even fly as long as you have some energy left in the meter. You refill it by running into other players or coming across some pixie dust. I recommend flying whenever possible. From there it’s just a matter of running to the goal and some platforming. Admittedly it can be easy to get lost here. If not for some other players running around the game may have taken me a bit longer. In the end I followed their lead and it worked out.

While there is no big story here there are a few cutscenes that show up once in a while. A pretty fun one involves a monster that pops out at you. The environment in this world is pretty interesting and since the game doesn’t give you a story you are free to make your own. I assume that this takes place in an apocalyptic future where humanity has been wiped out by these monsters and are now struggling for survival. The few remaining ones have gained psychic powers and wear the cloak to survive in these hot climates. It makes enough sense for me to get behind that at any rate.

The graphics are pretty solid. They may not be high end PS4 level but they look nice. I think the game probably would have been able to shine a little more in this area if the levels had involved cities and forests or something like that. When you’re in an empty desert there is only so much that you can show after all. The monster designs are good though. As for the soundtrack, it’s made to be more background noise/generic tunes so you won’t really remember it much by the end. It works well enough as you go through the game.

The main drawback to the title is how short it is. The gameplay may not be too stimulating but it is fundamentally sound. If you put a good story behind it then it would work out really well. Even without a story the game could still have been interesting with more levels. Granted, this could be a mixed bag because if there is no story then the game would run the risk of being repetitive. Still, only being 1 hour in this day and age without a whole lot of replay value is pretty rough. At most you can go back and try to get the Platinum Trophy I suppose. It’s a nice enough title where I would still call it a good game but one that just won’t keep your attention for very long.

Overall, Journey does make you feel like you’re on a bit of an adventure but only to that one restaurant that isn’t too close to you. It only takes you around an hour to achieve your goal so you get the feeling that the lead wasn’t all that far away from it after all. There’s a lot of potential behind making the Journey a franchise or even a feature film about it starring The Rock and some of his sidekicks as they try to get to the mountain. You can easily construct a plot around this goal if you put your mind to it. While I wouldn’t pay for this game, you definitely shouldn’t miss out while it’s free.

Overall 6/10

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Darkness Review

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It’s time to take a look at the next installment in the Mystery Dungeon series. I haven’t played one of these in a long while, but the first game was a lot of fun. Also, I own the next two games in the series so now I can start a bit of a marathon. In general the Pokemon spinoffs have all been pretty great. Just look at Pokken and Pokemon Ranger which have been a blast. Well, Mystery Dungeon can definitely hold its own with those big shots as well. This one ups the stakes and brings a pretty cool plot. It’s definitely a great game.

The title starts off with the main character losing his memory and being transformed into a Pokemon. Fortunately Pikachu stops by the Beach and decides to be Terry’s (the main character) friend. Pikachu wants to join the Guild which is where all of the various Dungeon teams go to team up and help out the world. Pikachu isn’t very brave though so Terry decides to help him achieve these dreams. Together the two of them solve many odd jobs and fit in pretty well. Things get serious though when a mysterious Pokemon begins stealing Time Wheels from around the world. If this continues to go on then the whole world will end up being frozen as time will be stopped. Can the heroes stop such a powerful villain?

I always like time travel. It may have a tendency to introduce plot holes into a series or not be utilized well in others, but it offers up so many different possibilities that I feel like you have to at least give it a whirl. This game handles it quite well. We get a few plot twists in the story as well. It’s fair to say that you’ll probably see a lot of them coming, but it doesn’t weaken the impact of these plots. The main campaign’s around 13 hours long so you’re given a lot of time to be introduced to the characters and get attached to them. There’s also a bit of a post game here to look at as well.

Now lets look at the gameplay here. It’s an overhead turn based combat system where you control the actual Pokemon. There can be up to 4 of you in a party although you only control the main character. The others are around to help out on the side. Be warned though that if Pikachu loses in combat then that will apply to you as well. There are certain ways you can at least control what your allies will do via tactics and turning off moves though. For example Pikachu learns an attack called Discharge later on which is incredibly powerful so after that I would turn off the other moves. That effectively forces him to use it until he runs out of PP. The move has 8 PP so you’ll need to switch it out again pretty quick.

The bosses could be pretty tricky here at times. If you don’t take them out fast or just some kind of technique to lower their stats you could really be in trouble here. Then there are the random monster houses that pop up which are probably even tougher than most of the bosses. If you run into one then it’s probably game over. Each dungeon ranges from 8-20 floors. So wherever you last passed a checkpoint is where you would be warped to. You also lose your money and a bunch of items so you are encouraged not to lose too often.

The dungeon system is pretty interesting because you’ve always got a pretty good sense of where you are in the game. They’re also just fun to explore in. The only mechanic I didn’t like here is when sand would randomly show up. It buffets your team members every few steps and if you have a full team of 4 that’s a lot of messages to keep clicking out of. It also seems to effect all dungeons until the effect randomly goes away. I understand that this is probably to add more drama to the dungeon since you’re constantly taking damage but since you heal more health than it can take away while walking it still feels pretty pointless in the end.

One other angle that’s not too interesting is how there are a few recycled animations every time you go to sleep and wake up again. You have to watch the heroes eat dinner every time and sometimes you are randomly chosen to watch out for foot prints which triggers a minigame and ends the whole day. I’d definitely be game with that being removed from the sequels. It’s just not needed and if anything it just wastes time. The post game hints that you won’t have to worry about these things anymore once you beat the hidden boss which hints that the game knew this would be a bit of a hassle as well.

In terms of characters, Terry’s pretty great as always. He’s very heroic and is always ready to make the hero call when necessary. He’s someone you can count on. His partner Pikachu isn’t quite as interesting. He’s a little too quick to believe whatever the villains say and has a hard time keeping up with the plot even when it’s not all that difficult. When someone tries to murder you, you should probably connect the dots that this character must be evil. The Guild is fun enough. Their leader Wigglytuff is a bit annoying at first but since he can actually fight I did gain some respect for him. At least that means he can be powerful when the need arises.

Grovile and Dusknoir are both pretty interesting characters. It makes for an interesting dynamic in the game and is also a pretty serious plot that works out well. Finally, we’ve got Dialga who is excellent in this game. We even get a cool time travel scene where Dialga and Celebi square off. Both of them are known for their mastery over time of course although I suspect everyone already knows that Dialga would have the edge in such a confrontation. You just can’t hope to beat one of those guys.

The graphics are pretty solid. There are quite a lot of Pokemon here which are nice to see and occasionally you’ll get a cutscene that is almost animated as the pictures light up and have some special effects. That always helps to add some weight to the moment. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which has some really nice themes in it. In particular one great theme is when Dusknoir grabs the heroes. That theme is always really epic and one of the best that I’ve heard in a spinoff lately. I still can’t go as far as to say that it beats the themes in the main games though because those are pretty phenomenal.

Overall, Explorers of Darkness is a great game. The RPG story can really hold its own and the ending is pretty emotional. Make sure you stick around after the credits because there is an extra scene. This is definitely one of the best stories I’ve seen in a Pokemon title. It’s going to be very difficult for the next Dungeon game to pass this one but it’s always possible since the game is on an upwards trend. The next one also makes the jump to the 3DS system so that should be pretty interesting. If you haven’t checked this game out yet then you should. It really shows you just what the Pokemon series is capable of.

Overall 8/10

Ice Climbers Review

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It’s time for the next NES installment. This one’s actually a pretty big one and I’m sure that thanks to Super Smash Bros everyone knows about the Ice Climbers. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that this game has aged nearly as well as some of the others. The gameplay isn’t very smooth. Effectively this is like a platformer where the obstacles prevent you from doing any kind of platforming. As a result the game ends up fighting itself most of the time and isn’t nearly as engaging as it could have been. It’s more difficult to play the levels than fun to experience them.

The game seems to go on forever although the last unique level is 32. After that it loops back to the first one so you can effectively say that you made it to the end at that point. Fortunately in this version you can actually select any mountain you want. I beat the first 14 and then skipped over to 32 and conquered that one. You do get a certain sense of pride and accomplishment when beating these levels but adding some kind of reward of cutscene would have made all the difference here. Then you would really feel like you were moving up. Instead when beating the levels you’re just going through the motions.

The gameplay is like a normal platformer instead you’re heading up instead of to the fight. The goal is to jump up to the top of each floor. Each floor has 8 layers to it and every time you jump you will hit the next layer. The main obstacles are moving clouds and little bears that keep patching the holes in the ceiling that you make. By jumping you can break part of the roof and that’s how you get up so you need to go fast or the bear will plug up every hole around. If he does that then you’ve just gotta keep on making more holes. You can also whack the bear with a hammer to beat him if you’re on the same level. One thing that’s easy to forget is you don’t die by running off the screen to the right or left so you should do that if you think the other side of the stage will be easier to manage. You can’t jump very far so running off stage is often the best way to travel.

The graphics are pretty solid and definitely hold up better than lot of the NES counterparts. The character sprites and backgrounds are particularly solid here. There’s only one real theme that I can recall but it’s pretty catchy. It’s not exactly Mario or Metroid but it’ll certainly due. At least it adds a little more depth to climbing up the mountain floors over and over again. The actual gameplay isn’t bad, but it would have been a lot more fun if it was more traditional running to the right. Going up just didn’t work for me after a while and in the final levels you can barely move without falling the wrong way. You gotta go about everything super carefully.

Overall, The Ice Climbers is a reasonable game, but one where the obstacles are just too numerous and intrusive. No matter what you do there is always another cloud or enemy around the corner. What this means is that you just can’t focus on running for very long. You’ve got to stop in your tracks more often than not and that’s what really held the game back in the end. I think this game should get a modern sequel/remake as there are a lot of ways you could make this work with today’s graphics and gameplay mechanics. No reason the Climbers should have to end the franchise with just 1 game in the works. In the meanwhile I’d recommend starting your NES Online game selection with a different title. This isn’t exactly the top one in the market.

Overall 5/10

Eliminator Boat Duel Review

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It’s time to look at another classic NES game. This is another title that I was not familiar with before. I’ve never heard of any game quite like Boat Duel but the premise looked interesting. I am planning to try all of the NES games after all so it was only a matter of time before I got to this one. It’s definitely pretty reasonable although some parts of the game have aged better than others. I’ll give it props for the mini cutscenes and trash talking during the game though.

The basic plot of the game seems to be that you are an up and coming boat driver and so now you’ve decided to take down all of the previous bosses. This will be tricky since none of these guys plan to go down without a fight. That’s fine by you though. So you go through the levels and keep on beating various opponents. At least to the point I had gone up to they didn’t reuse any character models so that was pretty good. There was a reasonable amount of effort put into the game and I always applaud effort like that. The gameplay switches between 2D and 3D. I personally enjoyed the opening phase of the 3D levels more than the second.

How it works is you quickly accelerate when the judge gets you the signal. The trick is to actually start right before she tells you too, but the timing for this is very precise since if you go too soon then you’ll end up incurring a yellow flag which will cost you 1000 bucks. Once you get this head start you go to phase 1 of the gameplay. Essentially what happens here is that you have to outdrive the other boat to the goal so try not to bump into things. Then you head into phase 2 which is more of an overhead view than 3D and the same rules apply. You can boost to gain a little speed and even jump. Then there’s also the interesting mechanic where bumping into bombs and other obstacles is actually good as it speeds you up. It’ll cost a bit of damage but you can repair it later. You get to face the next opponent after you beat the current one 2-3 times.

After each race you are taken to an upgrade screen where depending on how much money you have you can upgrade various things. I recommend maxing out the damage each race since it’s super cheap to do this and then you can allow yourself to bump into everything. By the point I stopped I had nearly every upgrade maxed out so I feel like I was pretty close to winning it all. The opponent racers are incredibly fast so if you make one mistake then it could be game over. My main advice here is to use the rewind feature but otherwise I’d say just try and memorize the stage layouts. The stages actually are re-used quite early on so after a while you’ll probably start to remember where the next turns are and such.

The gameplay is pretty interesting but not quite as exciting as your average racing game. There’s just only so much you can do while you’re on a boat so it’s not quite as thrilling. as being in a car. The opponent car also feels a little too powerful at times even when you can see that they haven’t put any real upgrades into the speed while yours is maxed out. I suppose it’s to be expected to an extent but you’ll probably shake your head a bit at that. It just feels like you should be steam rolling the guy. As mentioned though, the trash talking between levels is pretty fun. The graphics are also pretty sound. The sprites have aged pretty well so you always know what is going on. The levels may be a bit repetitive but they are well designed.

Overall, Boat Dueling seems like it has a lot of potential. I’m sure you could make a pretty interesting remake of this at some point. While it’s a cool concept I guess the reason most probably wouldn’t make a game like this is because for that you could just make one about cars and it would probably do a lot better. You just can’t top cars after all. Still, I think you’ll have a reasonable time here and it’s worth a quick check. What’ve you got to lose other than time right?

Overall 5/10

Final Fantasy VII Remake Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 24h 5m
PS4 Trophies 30/54
Battle Intel Reports Collected 1/20
Colosseum Challenges 0/11
Combat Sims 1/14
Odd Jobs 1/26
Enemy Intel 91/114
Enemies Assessed 3/114
Weapon Abilities 4/24
Enemy Skills 0/4
Manuscripts 0/56
Music Discs 2/31
Cloud Dresses 1/3
Tifa Dresses 1/3
Aerith’s Dresses 1/3
Chapter 14 Resolutions 1/3
Chapters Cleared on Hard 0/18

Character Levels

Cloud 34
Tifa 34
Aerith 33
Barret 34

Baseball Review

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It’s time for another classic NES game. This time we’re looking into the wide world of Baseball. It’s not a sport that I’m a huge fan of both in watching the real thing or playing the video game versions. For the game adaptions, it’s because a lot of the game seems to be RNG to an extent. When you hit the ball you just never know where it’ll go as opposed to something like Football where you deliver the ball where it needs to be. To that extent, I was pretty impressed as I would say this Baseball game beats a lot of the newer ones. The simplistic controls and style actually worked out really well and made the game more enjoyable. I was getting blown out initially but by the end of the game I started getting pretty close. I narrowly lost 15-13 and one more Homer could have done the trick. I probably should have tried for it, but I don’t tend to use the rewind feature in sport titles so I just ate my loss.

The goal of the game is to hit the ball somewhere where the opponents can’t reach it and you score points once you run around the diamond and make it back home. The more points you score the better as the team with the most points at the end ends up winning the match. You throw the ball when the other team is set to hit it and then you shift sides after knocking 3 of their guys out. When hitting the ball you can hold the hit button to keep the bat out instead of swinging it. That way you lay out a bunt and then run for first base. It seems really handy for getting that opening move but after that usually there just isn’t enough time to get to further bases. It’s still a tactic I recommend though.

As for hitting the ball, well that’s where the timing will come into play. Make sure you hit the ball really carefully or you may end up hitting out of bounds or into someone’s mitt. That’s definitely the last thing you want to happen here since a single wrong hit can really make things not go very well for you. The opposing team won’t hold back with their hits after all. Careful when you’re fielding the ball though because missing it once or predicting the bounce the wrong way can end up costing you 1-3 points. Those make a huge difference when it comes to the final total. For all you know that may be the difference between victory and defeat.

There’s not a lot to say about the graphics because it’s basically the same as most of the other NES games. You’ve got some crispy sprite artwork to look at and it’s all pretty easy to see. The menus are clear which is always important. Between that and the solid gameplay you’re set up pretty well. This is the kind of game without a whole lot of extra content so you’ll probably play a game or two and then call it a day.

Overall, Baseball is definitely a fun title. It’s easy to pick up and play and just seems a lot more fun than some of the others like Tennis. As someone who usually doesn’t care for Baseball all that much I was pretty impressed. I’m nearing the end of the sport games on the NES so soon it’ll be time for more of the Arcade thrillers and games of that nature. I’m definitely expecting big things coming up. If you have the Switch Online then there is no reason not to check out this one. Whenever a game is free I feel like you’re obligated to at least give it a quick whirl even if you don’t ultimately stick around. What’s the harm in a quick check right?

Overall 6/10