Showing posts with label classic games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic games. Show all posts

Sunday, April 01, 2018

READY PLAYER ONE

ready player one steven spielberg ernest cline movie review

READY PLAYER ONE (2018)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline
Based on the novel by Ernest Cline
Starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, T.J. Miller, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki


I was going to recuse myself from writing about this one. The book it's based on was written by Ernest Cline, who I knew as BBI Rafterman years ago on the Buckaroo Banzai mailing list I maintain. Aside from having a nice Banzai site, he wrote a well-regarded fan script for the mythical BUCKAROO BANZAI: AGAINST THE WORLD CRIME LEAGUE. I think I still have some early drafts on 3.5" discs somewhere. Meanwhile, you can head to his site and read it here if you like.

But then I remembered that I'm not a pro and not getting paid to be objective and no one really cares if I might be inclined to say positive things about the movie even if it turns out I hated it just because I knew the author online years ago, so here we go...


Saturday, October 07, 2017

Movie Time!

So here's the thing; I'm still doing a lot of overtime, including weekends. So I've not had the time to watch/read much worth talking about here and even if I had...I'm tired.

But darn it! I'm going to keep trying to put something in this space every week, so if you want you can watch a movie I made while playing around with The Movies PC game several years ago....



Saturday, September 09, 2017

Various and Sundry

Another one-day weekend so something of a grab-bag tonight....

Hurricane Irma is on everyone's mind around here right now. The predictions keep pushing it westward, which is good for where I'm at but doesn't do much for those in its path. Keep your heads down, people. Especially you, Dad.

(Amusing Irma note - at work they passed around a business card with the phone number we're supposed to call to make sure they aren't closed or on a delay or whatever when there's "inclement" weather. I laughed when I got mine because in the years I've been there, thru snow and ice and what have you, I only remember the recording being changed for us twice. If the roof is on the building, they expect us there. And if it's not, they probably expect us to be there to clean up.)


Been replaying the first Mass Effect for the umpteenth time. I can't help it. I love my Shepard.

Calico Shepard
Commander Calico Shepard



I've gone thru the original Mass Effect trilogy multiple times over the years. I'm also about halfway thru my second run of Mass Effect: Andromeda.

That game got a lot of hate - enough that EA and Bioware have effectively abandoned it now (except for some multi-player stuff - big whoop). I think they gave up too easily. Between the sour feelings about the end of Mass Effect 3 and the general dismay that the new games wouldn't have Shepard, they really had to expect a ton of criticism. I'm not going to deny there were some issues on launch, but I'm not sure I've played a big game where there weren't. Even the original trilogy has issues that haven't been fixed to this day. Oh, well...I still liked it. I'll play it at least one more time after the current run. I may not love my Ryder, but she's a lot of fun and grows on me a little more every time I crank it up. In fact, now I'm wanting to get back into it when I finish this.

Pathfinder Cici Ryder
Pathfinder Cici Ryder


Book-wise, I've recently read Carrie Vaughn's BANNERLESS.

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn





I'm a big fan of Vaughn's writing in general, and enjoyed this a lot, too. On the face of it, it's a post-apocalyptic murder mystery, but it's also a small, deeply personal look into the life of the Investigator, Enid. This isn't a Mad Max sort of world, where everyone scavenges whatever they can thru any means necessary. Possibly because in this instance the Fall, as it's called, was something of a quiet apocalypse. No big war or alien invasion or super-virus. Just a society that was hit by more and larger storms and other events until it was too much. One day the power went off and just never came back on. And right now, with Irma bearing down just weeks after Harvey and Jose' waiting in the wings, with the western half of the country seemingly on fire...it doesn't sound like that far-fetched a scenario.


That should have bored anyone reading this enough for this week. If you're in the path of one of the storms or fires or plagues or whatever else is out there, watch out for yourselves and each other.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Rocket Ranger Reloaded



Work has been its usual insane self these last few weeks, which explains why I pretty much go missing this time of year, every year.



BUT...I had to poke my head out for this.



Way back in the day when I was just a baby ArcLight, I had a Commodore Amiga computer. Fantastic little machine, complete with a Buckaroo Banzai reference in the manual.



Without a doubt, the coolest games I had for it all came from Cinemaware; the World War I flight game WINGS, the 50s-movie style giant ant game IT CAME FROM THE DESERT, and the pulp serial inspired ROCKET RANGER.



Cinemaware is back. They've released Amiga-emulated versions of WINGS and ROCKET RANGER already. They have a great, updated version of WINGS out, and now they're working on supercharging ROCKET RANGER. 



That's where this post (and the above graphic) come in. The Kickstarter campaign is almost over and they still need some help. Hit the link, download the demo, and toss some spare coin their way so they can continue bringing back the old school games in new school style (and releasing emulated versions of the originals for nostalgic types like me).



I know only about four people actually read this (Hi, Mom!) but I figured I'd do what I could to help them out since I love their stuff so much.



Kickstarter link: