"It's A Video Game!" - Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

Well, it took over 100 hours a in span of maybe two months, (Baby Andy takes a lot) but I more or less beat the main iteration of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla… yeah, I got one last mission, but that gotta wait. Just guess what’ll go in the “CONS” section. Anyway, this should do it for me in terms of mainline AC games. AC: Liberation is still out there, and can be played on PS4 now. Still, I think I’m petered out on the world of the Assassins for now.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was released toward the end of 2020. My initial interest for Valhalla was “whelmed” mainly because it was coming out at the same time Cyberpunk 2077 was being released. Shockingly, the Ubisoft game wasn’t the one that has been lambasted for being broken. I mean, I ran into a fair share of bugs, but something tells me that Cyberpunk 2077 could’ve killed my base PS4. I ended up buying Valhalla back in April for a bit of a discount.

TV Talk - Godzilla: Singular Point

When I heard that another Godzilla anime series was coming from Netflix, I gotta say that I was a little worried. I don’t know if you’ve read my review of the first Godzilla anime trilogy from Netflix, but I and others thought that series wasn’t good. Now, I did have some good things to say about it, but overall, it just didn’t do it for me. Now, we get to this new one. Godzilla: Singular Point was released over 13 episodes between April and June of 2021. It made it over Netflix after its airing in Japan. This time, Toho teamed up with two animation studios, Bones and Orange, to put this all together. It’s a blend of 2D and 3D anime. So, how does it fare out?

The series revolves around an engineer and a young scientist trying to avert the end of the world. Yun Arikawa and Mei Kamino separately investigate a mysterious signal. They and the world then get pulled into some craziness. It turns out that the signal is linked to the sudden appearance of dangerous creatures that emit a dangerous red dust. It also turns out that their appearance could spell doom for the whole world. Insert a crapton of Toho monsters including the G-Man himself, metaphysical and technical gobbly-gook, big monster action, and Jet Jaguar.

Random Thoughts #56 - "Well, Mary Elizabeth isn't the best name for a baby boy"

I finally got around to reading this story... it was fine. I'm beginning to realize that Johns may not have been the best with his time on Superman.

So, quite a bit has changed since I've gone into one of those Random Thoughts. It's June, it's getting warm, and I've put on a little bit of weight. It could be the fact that the pandemic did a number on me since the gyms were closed. It's tough to exercise with those masks. It could also be the fact that my fiancé's baby cravings have come to me. 

Hold up, did I say that right?

5 Pros/4 Cons - Neon Genesis Evangelion

While I’m not the biggest connoisseur of anime, I watch a little here and there. Which reminds me… I gotta get that one post on Digimon Tamers finished. Before I get back to that as well as other things, I thought I would talk about something that most fans would consider to be a gem in anime. Neon Genesis Evangelion was released in 1995. It ran for 26 episodes, had two movies (technically one since the other was a glorified clip show), had an accompanying manga series, and even got revamped in the late 2000’s. Imagine someone mixes in big monster action, psychologically scarred people, and religious iconography. You’d either get this or something Zack Snyder produced… I’m joking about that last one. Even Snyder wouldn’t be this overt!

Where's Film Brain when you need him?

My first exposure to Evangelion was actually through Bennett the Sage’s thrashing of the series and its finale, End of Evangelion. That may be why I never got into it since the stuff looked bonkers at that time. It wasn’t until Netflix released all of the original show re-dubbed that I got remotely interested in it. I also ended up checking out the first manga on Comixology, and that got me even more interested. I ended up going through all 26 episodes, Death and Rebirth, and End of Evangelion over the last few weeks.

"It's a Video Game!" - Control

Imagine you’re a redhead with telekinetic abilities who has to stop an evil entity from entering our world. No, I’m not talking about Jean Grey, nor am I talking about Liz whenever “Frankie, The Annoying Dog” wants to act like a cat. I’m talking about Jesse Faden, the protagonist of Control, a 2019 game developed by Remedy. This was a game I saw some press for back in 2019 since it looked pretty unique. Of course, I end up waiting until 2021 to check it out. Thanks, Playstation Plus! I knew there was another reason to keep it around. It was also released on the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The game is about Jesse Faden, a young woman who has telekinetic abilities. In the story, Jesse heads to the Federal Bureau of Control, a government branch that deals with paranormal or supernatural incidents. When she gets to their main headquarters (The Oldest House) in New York, she finds that the building is constantly shifting and morphing. It’s revealed that it is a doorway to another dimension and that something on the other side is causing it to morph. The entity, The Hiss, is also possessing the building’s agents. Jesse gets the shock of her life as she’s made the Director of the FBC, and she’s forced to deal with the coming threat. She also has to find out what the FBC did with her brother, Dylan.