#it’s like if Star Trek met World War Z

[from-mars-to-venus]

telling my literary agent my project is like “Studio Ghibli meets the Legend of Zelda” before they open their mouth and a torrent of a million tiny knives shoot out at me, perforating my body endlessly and turning me into oozing Swiss cheese

[nerdgatehobbit]

Here are the recent highlights of my Pokémon Masters pulls. Thankfully I have limited interest in any of the upcoming January pairs, as it taking multiple pulls to get Ingo & Diantha means I’m running a bit low on my free gem stash. Full disclosure: I got the other three pairs from the Poké War Games storyline before Diantha, but she was the one I was aiming for.

At this point, I doubt there’ll be a Warden Ingo sync pair in February. However, that month will bring a new Pokémon Presents which will hopefully bring Pokémon Legends Z-A news.

12/23/24

Back in November, I did rewatch The Court Jester because it’s a fun film. With a sibling, I watched A Biltmore Christmas which was frothy fun as long as I didn’t think too hard about the time travel situation. To be fair, the ending had Jack coming to the future rather than the stereotypical Hallmark ending of the woman staying where she met the man. It just didn’t really clarify what would happen next besides a ‘yay they’re together’ ending.

At the start of the month I did watch & enjoy Hallmark’s Sense & Sensibility, which probably was unneeded to say given the several screencap posts I made about it but that’s the point of these update posts. It’s a toss-up which movie I will watch next- Chess in Concert, the 25th POTO special, The Slipper and the Rose, or Excalibur. I’m leaning towards The Slipper and the Rose, honestly.

On its second anniversary, I rewatched BATB 2022 because I adore it. On a similar note, I did watch the new Josh Groban holiday special, which was a little saccharine but I went in expecting that. Via the library, I saw the 80th Rodgers & Hammerstein special, which was nice. I recently finished the two seasons of Star Trek Prodigy, which was all right.

Three episodes into Static Shock’s 2nd season, it’s been fun watching so far. I’d be more dismayed by the lack of fanfic crossovers of Static Shock & Batman, but there are 3 reasons I’m not. One, it’s entirely possible I’m looking into the wrong spots, especially given how Y2K Static Shock is. Two, I somewhat suspect the ‘Black meta powered teen’ slot is generally filled by Duke Thomas to the point it wouldn’t surprise me if Virgil was an influence on Duke’s creation. Three, Robert Hawkins likely would be written badly or out to get Virgil to Gotham, which I wouldn’t want to read in the first place.

I’m still greatly enjoying Leverage and I’m getting closer to the end of The Librarians. Neither show is perfect, but generally good enough I can cut some slack. I’ve touched on this before, but the issue of the Librarians being ethically murky about the secrecy is something more inherent to the genre than an issue with the team specifically. With Leverage, there is the occasional issue in the sorts of visual shorthand they use (Hardison’s ‘wild’ hair as a conspiracy theorist or Sophie posing as another ethnicity) but on a Watsonian level it can viewed as the team reinforcing the mark’s worldview to make them not question things. Also, the copious amounts of mind games probably would be a bigger problem in the real world.

On a Doylist level, I can acknowledge things were different even a decade and a half ago, and that in some respects things haven’t gotten better. Even I, a total scaredy cat, heard about Nicole Beharie’s mistreatment on Sleepy Hollow’s set. I’ve heard about Candice Patton taking years to have even one episode with naturally curly hair on The Flash, as I dropped the show partway through season 3. Not to mention how infamously the Star Wars sequels ended up centered on Adam Driver’s character over Daisy Ridley’s & John Boyega’s, when the latter 2 were initially the co-protagonists. And I know that’s just a small fraction of issues- I’ve gathered that Richie gained a larger role in later seasons of Static Shock in part to keep the show airing.

Yet I’m a tad hesitant to call out seemingly obvious cases of favoritism, because I’m sure to outsiders, hearing that blondish David Yost’s Power Rangers character Billy Cranston got several one-off love interests and how he stayed until well into the 4th season would seem like it, especially adding in his central role to the 30th anniversary special and Power Rangers Cosmic Fury. However, it was revealed in the early 2010s that Yost experienced homophobic bullying from the crew during the 1990s, which puts his continued presence in the franchise in a new light of not letting the bullies win (as they didn’t think a gay person should play a superhero). It definitely makes it seem like those love interest episodes were more of the crew trying to stress heteronormativity; not that it 100% means those episode writers/directors were among the bullies, but it does now come off as one of the symptoms of the offscreen issues.

Which were far from limited to Yost- I think Amy Jo Johnson was the only one of the first 11 Rangers to manage a graceful mutually previously agreed on departure. In other words, Yost’s cast mates most likely were too busy metaphorically keeping on their own oxygen masks on to help him, especially as by all accounts Yost did get along well enough with most of them. There is an Entertainment Weekly article from this past May where Yost & Johnson reminisce at a panel about Thuy Trang & Jason David Frank. So those two at least are still on decent enough terms to share a panel over three decades after meeting. Under these specific circumstances, it's relieving to know the onscreen Billy & Kimberly friendship wasn't just onscreen.

In other words: well over a decade after Yost’s departure from the show, it was revealed that apparent favoritism was very much not.

And this isn’t even getting into ‘fair for its day’ situations regarding media in general or the other kinds of issues regarding various forms of representation (and lack thereof) that I didn't bring up in this specific post. Like, for instance, me appreciating the representation regarding The Storm Runner's protagonist having a leg length discrepancy even though the book had its issues elsewhere.

This post got more serious than I initially intended, but I do want to make it clear that I am trying to stay aware of the flaws in media I’m consuming as well as keeping in mind what was going on when media was being made and not just current-day perspectives. Basically, I know things are complicated as just slotting media as wholly good or bad is not exactly viable long term behavior but also it's important to acknowledge problems in media. As I said: it is and should be complicated.

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

90′s kids are actually 00′s kids

Let’s be honest: there are only four things I really remember about the 90′s - Princess Diana, Monica Lewinsky, Seinfeld, and Pokémon. Everything else is a random mix of personal memories, like friends I made in school and the times I got seriously injured or sick. But the outside world was still a bit of a blur, waiting to be discovered. A few years ago, my fiancée and I went to NYC Comic Con. They had these mystery boxes that you could buy. Each mystery box had a different theme, so Star Trek, Star Wars, DragonBall Z, etc. You would pay like $50 or something like that for items inside the box related to that theme. We saw a 90′s theme mystery box and bought it. 

We opened it up, expecting to be excited about reliving the 90′s.  We didn’t recognize a single fucking thing in the box. 

No idea what any of that stuff was. 

My formative years were really the early ‘00′s. That’s when I was becoming a “person” and when I developed my emotions, for better or for worse. 

For me, the real “nostalgia” is the GameCube, skinny jeans, drum and bass, Fatboy Slim, bad action movies with washed out colors trying to imitate The Matrix, Homestar Runner, Internet forums, and the final days of the true arcade. The early ‘00s were truly a weird, transitional and liminal space between two worlds. It was a world of twilight, where two ends met. It saw the decline in physical copies of movies and music and the rise of the digital age. It was the final goodbye to the analog world. It saw the rise of hacktivism, and the early days of social media was the Wild Wild West before the corporations brought the hammer down with rules and threats of copyright infringement. The new millennium was unsure of what it would become, but storm clouds loomed in the distance. The 90′s didn’t end on December 31st, 1999 at 11:59 PM; they ended on September 11th, 2001 at around 8:45 AM EST. That was when “the fun” stopped, and when we all had to rethink our lives.

I remember Craig Ferguson (my favorite late night host), and a bunch of underrated celebrities who we used to make fun of (or loathed) who have now been vindicated. Keanu Reeves. Britney Spears. Guy Fieri. Robert Downey Jr. Cara Cunningham. Everyone you loved back then turned out to be a monster, but everyone you took for granted was really a good person all along. I remember being mad at seeing open fields being taken over by cheaply-made, mass produced McMansions near my house. I vandalized one of the construction sites. When I confided in someone about it, they called my cause petty and stupid. Two years later, the Great Recession started because of the housing bubble. I tried, in a brief violent moment, to fight back something I didn’t understand. It was inevitable.   I saw the world transition and the storm clouds roll in. I felt the paradigm shift. I saw the party end as millions of people looked up and said, “I have a bad feeling about this.” I overheard thousands of conversations from the stairwell late at night as my parents talked worriedly with their friends about the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. I remember the start of the Bourne movies. In a way, they were a response to the Bond movies. James Bond was the 20th Century hero, the upholder of “Western civilization” and the status quo. Jason Bourne was the first of the 21st Century heroes - the hero who regretted and fought to change the status quo. I remember movies trying to make bold, serious takes on superheroes. Some succeeded, like Batman Begins and X-Men. Others failed, like Daredevil and Ghost Rider. Everyone wanted to be serious then. That, and so much more, is what I remember about my childhood - my real childhood. In my heart, I am a 00′s kid.

[tiggymalvern]

Another random meme

I was tagged for this by @heartturnedtoporcelain, so here goes! Name: Tiggy, or a couple of others, depending on circumstances. Gender: Female Star Sign: Taurus. Of course more than one believer has told me that the reason I think all that stuff is bollocks is because I'm a Taurus. Height: 1.84m or 6 feet and 3/4 inch. Sexuality: Bi, skewed more to the straight end of the spectrum What image do you have as your lock screen? Our two fantastic, very different sports cars side by side. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? There was a PhD student who was our supervisor for vertebrate palaeontology when I was an undergrad. Looking at him made being lectured on cladistics tolerable. He had the longest eyelashes... Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Pretty much where I am now, except probably with more arthritis. I really like my life. If you could be anywhere else right now, where? On a boat in the Caribbean sipping mojitos, why not? What was your coolest Halloween costume? I'm British, never had one. What’s your favorite 90s TV show? Ack, that's hard! I was insanely fannish about Due South (it was the series that turned me into a slasher), which probably gives it the edge over other contenders. Special mention to DS9 for breaking all the Star Trek universe rules and making it AWESOME, and of course Buffy. Last kiss? I'm married, so earlier today. Have you ever been stood up? No, but I only technically dated two people, and I married the second one. Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Three times. Twice as a work obligation, and once because my sister wanted to go so I met up with her there. Not exactly my favourite place, though some of the surrounding desert is stunning. Favorite pair of shoes: The really comfortable MBTs I wear 95% of the time. Favorite fruit: Raspberries or blackberries - pick one, I can't. Favorite book: Yeah, that's impossible. Probably the book I've recced to the widest range of people would be World War Z, because it's not just for geeks and zombie fans, it's for serious literary critics too. Stupidest thing you’ve ever done: I'm 46, the list is long. It includes a lot of alcohol and a few other drugs in my teens and twenties, and I regret absolutely none of it. Hell, I wish I'd done more while I had the chance to be that irresponsible. Sometimes stupid is well worth doing. Tagging anyone who's bored enough to participate 😊

[andrewuttaro]

2020 State of Star Wars

The State of Star Wars in 2020 is counterintuitive. After perhaps the most anticipated movie of this relatively young century in “The Force Awakens” released in 2015 the following installments in the mainline series were divisive at best and roundly reviled at worst. With that backdrop, non-traditional Star Wars content has become shockingly good comparatively. Save for a botched video game launch everything beyond the movies has met a level of quality tantamount to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in my opinion.

From comic books and visual dictionaries to TV shows and background narratives, the State of Star Wars is actually incredibly good beyond the films. The consumption of entertainment media is always a subjective art, but one doesn’t need to look to hard to see a consensus cultural opinion in the Post-Sequel trilogy Star Wars world: disappointed interest. Our world at large is polarized as ever right now so of course every declarative statement on anything is a big fight but on this 2020 Star Wars Day I thought I’d take a whack at the big picture.

I’ll get my opinions out of the way right now. The “Last Jedi” (2017) was intentionally difficult. It grew on me in its own right (and got me interested in Rian Johnson’s filmography) but the impact it had on the whole continuity was damaging at best. I should have seen it coming but there was really no coming back from it for a Director like JJ Abrams. I found “Rise of Skywalker” (2019) borderline unwatchable. The first two acts were cringy fan festivals followed by a conclusion I found insulting to science fiction fans the world over to be honest with you. Repeat viewing did not help. I’m one of those nerds who salivated at the Duel of Fates synopsis. With that out of the way I want to take a stab at the 2020 State of Star Wars in a way that at least attempts to be objective.

Star Wars for All

Star Wars was always supposed to be the Superman of space operas: a story for everyone. Forgive the platitude but we live in a time of increasingly segmented media. Memes are big deal for us because they’re the rare shared piece of culture almost everyone enjoys sharing in. Star Wars had uphill battle with the mainline movies trying to be for everyone in this world today where nothing if for everyone except death and taxes. Perhaps this is one reason we were heading for sequel trilogy disappointment even if Disney had a cohesive plan for it.

“Force Awakens” accomplished close to universal appeal by redoing “A New Hope”. Box Office returns at the very least shows they did a good job. Leaving the more toxic elements of the Star Wars fanbase out of the equation the “Last Jedi” aggressively threw out the sacred elements of the universe for the sake of subversiveness that ultimately did accomplish something I applaud as the Democratization of Star Wars. That is to say the force is for everyone now. In spite of all its flaws that movie did something Star Wars has always been about at a basic level.

That said, the way that was executed fundamentally damaged the continuity going into the trilogy, and Skywalker Saga, finale. I liked the Colin Trevorrow script because it picked up on some loose ends of “Force Awakens” while also not ignoring “Last Jedi”. I realize that’s just a script though and it probably would’ve had a certain level of disappointment as well. Whoever directed the final installment was going to struggle no matter what. There is an irony here in that the finale of “Rise of Skywalker” is this giant fleet of essentially everyone coming to save the day in the ultimate Star-Wars-for-everyone moment.

Nobody is at fault for liking any Star Wars film or any piece of Star Wars content. I understand a certain segment of the fanbase was overjoyed to see Rey and Kylo have what was later called a kiss of gratitude. The film wasn’t even made well enough to fully satisfy that segment. In attempting so hard to be for everyone JJ Abrams made a Star Wars finale that was for almost nobody. The level of narrative shorthand it takes to write “All the jedi now reside in you” as a central plot conceit is unbelievable if it didn’t precede a Dragonball Z style energy fight. Star Wars isn’t dead, it’s alive and well. But I’d argue a solid 70% of people who consider themselves Star Wars fans would say that is in spite of the Sequel Trilogy and not to its credit.

As for the anthology films we might have two ends of the spectrum in “Rogue One” and “Solo”. “Rogue One” was a great movie that had an unnecessary premise while “Solo” was a mediocre movie with an interesting premise. “Solo” may have done better and been viewed differently had it not followed “Last Jedi”. The sad reality of it’s box office returns is Disney may not be interested in more movies about the Star Wars Universe’s criminal underworld. That’s a shame. “Rogue One” on the other hand should be proof positive of something most Star Wars fans have been clamoring for: more story in this universe separate from the Skywalkers. What made that movie great was compelling, efficient character development. If announced projects are any true indication it looks like we may have a good chance of getting that.

The Future of Star Wars

I follow this twitter account called “Star Wars Stuff”. I’m a visual learner so the tendency toward photos and concept art is fun for me. The account often posts screen grabs with captions like “The Best Story ever told” and “Reylo is Canon now”. I don’t think there is any inherent opinion of this poster other than… well… “Star Wars Stuff”. I think this is an interesting way to look at the future of Star Wars. If the Skywalker Saga is truly over than everything from here on out is just Stuff. As I said before that’s a good thing, but it poses some interesting questions about what we think of this fabulous fictious universe.

Is Star Wars truly for everyone? Yes. The toxic minority of the fanbase was turned off by the “Last Jedi” and unsuccessfully pandered to in “Rise of Skywalker”. Announcements of more diversity oriented projects like this “female-centered” series in the works signals to them that nerd culture is truly pop culture now. If you can’t handle diversity in your content then Star Wars is not for you anymore. You can’t be included in everyone if you don’t think everyone is deserving of being in Star Wars. I’ll be honest, Oscar Isaac and Daisey Ridley expressing no desire to be involved in Star Wars again gives me pause but I think the property as a whole is still intact enough to attract diverse enough talent.

What is the central organizing plot of Star Wars if the Skywalkers aren’t it anymore? I think I’ve looked at the prequel trilogy with a fresh set of eyes after these recent movies. In spite of all their camp they were compelling in the way they built up to what we knew was already coming: the Fall of Anakin Skywalker. I don’t have the answer to this question, but I think the details of the projects that have been announced offer some anecdotal thoughts: Star Wars will continue to be the socio-political opera of our modern society. Every integral piece of content in this universe, especially since the Disney purchase, has provided commentary on everything from twentieth century politics and the War on Terror to family structure and what love truly means. I believe Disney is capable of continuing to execute on this fundamental premise of Star Wars media.

What does it mean to escape to a Long Time ago in a Galaxy far, far away? When the scope and design of media from Video Games to Streaming is evermore self-aware and intentional in the worlds and narratives they create Star Wars really does offer something unique. I’m a sucker for good science fiction like James S.A. Corey’s “The Expanse” and I love to escape to that world. However very few fictional universes have roots in the 1970s. Yes, books and concepts being made into newer media forms have roots in content as old as Greek mythology. But very few science fiction properties, perhaps only Star Trek in a disjointed way, have two-three generations of cultural commentary built in. Star Wars, as long as new content comes, will be the broadest share science fiction universe out there.

Thanks for reading.

[actutrends]

The DeanBeat: My favorite games of 2019

Games grew to a $148.8 billion market in 2019, up 9.6% from 2018 and reaching over 2.5 billion people across the globe. Console games, the lion’s share of the industry a decade earlier, were smaller than mobile games in 2019, a continuation of a multi-year trend, according to research firm Newzoo.

We watched the further growth of esports and game watching expand this year, and we saw the introduction of subscription gaming for Apple Arcade, Google Play, and Google Stadia’s cloud gaming service. Hyper-casual mobile games that last 30 seconds emerged, but big mobile titles like Call of Duty: Mobile emerged to hold their own against the nanosecond attention spans.

I didn’t think we could match last year’s brilliant titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. For me, last year was the triumph of traditional narrative triple-A games that blended open worlds with deep narratives.

But the highest end of the industry didn’t rest on its laurels in 2019. As usual, I didn’t have enough time to play it all. But I enjoyed everything across the board, from Sandbox VR’s Star Trek: Discovery — Away Mission virtual reality experience to episodic games like Life is Strange 2 to mobile titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Apple Arcade’s Where Cards Fall. I re-engaged with favorite maps from years past in Call of Duty: Mobile and plunged into battle royale maps with squadmates in the multiplayer action of Apex Legends. And I was scared out of my wits playing titles like The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan.

It felt like I had less time to explore indie experiences that my peers played, so I wasn’t the first to stumble on titles like Untitled Goose Game. But I enjoyed delving into my own passions, such as the World War II real-time strategy game Steel Battalion 2 from Eugen Systems, where I could zoom in on a single tank in a battle or pan out to see an entire division marching across the Russian landscapes. Toward the end of the year, I rushed to finish titles such as Remedy’s Control and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

For the sake of comparison, here are my favorites from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011. In each story below, the links go to our full reviews or major stories about the games. And be sure to check out the GamesBeat staff’s own votes for Game of the Year and the best individual favorites of the staff soon.

Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews.

10) Sayonara Wild Hearts

Above: Sayonara Wild Hearts takes you on an impossibly fast ride.

Image Credit: Annapurna

Developer: Simogo Publisher: Annapuana Interactive, iam8bit Platforms: Apple Arcade/iOS, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, tvOS

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this dream-like game, as music games don’t usually get me dancing. But Sayonara Wild Hearts has an artsy combination of dance-fighting, pop music, and high-speed motorcycle chases that clicked for me. I played it on an iPhone with Apple Arcade‘s $5 a month subscription platform, and I used a Rotor Riot wired game controller to play it rather than brave the untrustworthy touchscreen. You can also play it on an iPad or Apple TV.

It’s a high-adrenaline game where you tap, jump, and maneuver to collect little hearts in a beautiful neon-and-black landscape. And it isn’t that long with 23 levels. The neon-on-black art is beautiful. It’s hard to believe a small game studio put it together, because the art is so well-crafted. There isn’t much of a story, but the developers tell you what you need to know.

In Sayonara Wild Hearts, you play as a young woman who suffers a heartbreak. A tarot card pops up and dubs her The Fool, transporting her into an alternate universe. She sets out to restore the harmony of the universe hidden away in the hearts of her enemies. As you take control of The Fool, you speed along on a motorcycle within a tunnel-like view of the horizon.

The fusion of music and gameplay reminds me of music games like Rez from 2001 or that wacky and artistic “Take On Me” music video by A-Ha in 1985. The gameplay in Sayonara Wild Hearts seems impossible, and it takes a lot of skill to avoid crashing. But it’s whimsical and forgiving at the same time, as you can start up right where you crashed to try again. I thought songs like Begin Again were catchy and hard to get out of my head. I’m not going to say that this was far better than many of the triple-A games that debuted this year, but this is my nod in the direction of creativity, fun, and the indie spirit on mobile devices.

9) Rage 2

Above: Rage 2 couldn’t fight the dying of the light.

Image Credit: Bethesda

Developer: Avalanche Studios and id Software Publisher: Bethesda Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows

When id Software’s Tim Willits visited Avalanche Studios in Stockholm, he told his new compadres to ignore constraints. “When I met with the team in Stockholm on the whiteboard, “More crazy than Rage” That was the first pillar of this game,��� Willits said.

And he got what he asked for. Rage 2 didn’t get the best reviews, but I thought it was underrated, as I played it through the end of the single-player campaign and played a lot of silly side missions as well. Rage 2 had a lot of environments, ranging from the Mad Max-style desert to jungles and cities. The script was a bit weak, but the enemies were tough and the weapons were glorious. The “nanotrite” capabilities that you discovered along the way are critical to defeating the biggest bosses. The art style was absolutely wild, with plenty of bright pink and yellow colors splashed across the punk habitats. And I enjoyed reuniting with my old friend, the Wingstick, which is like a boomerang that could slice an enemy’s head off.

If it had flaws, it was that it wasn’t Red Dead Redemption 2. It often littered the landscape with side missions and enemies to kill, to no purpose. You could get damaged on your way to an important mission, and then have to figure out a way to recover. It’s good if you stayed on track, built your capabilities up, and stuck to the good stuff.

The final part of the game lasted a lot longer for me because I had trouble taking down General Cross, the bad guy, and his pet monster. But to me, it was a thrill when I finally succeeded.

8) Days Gone

Above: A horde of Freakers chases Deacon St. John in Days Gone.

Image Credit: Sony

Developer: Sony Bend Studio Publisher: Sony Platforms: PlayStation 4

The amazing success of its first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) hampered this game, as did a couple of years of delays. By the time it came out, many were sick of it, and it suffered from having some of the worst bugs I’ve ever seen in a triple-A game. Others wrong wrote it off as a copycat of The Walking Dead, World War Z, and The Last of Us.

But I admired Sony’s guts in standing by Bend Studio, and I stuck by it too as my colleagues ragged on it. I played it for perhaps 50 hours over several weeks, and I was quite possibly the last critic to review the game. I rated it only as a 75, because of the bugs. But without them, it would have been more like a 90, based on the quality of its story and the thrill of fighting the hordes of zombies, or Freakers.

I was drawn to the story of Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter in the Oregon woods and a broken man in a fallen world. He had a death wish and could ride a motorcycle through a horde of zombies just to get them to chase him. But Bend Studio delivered on the big scene where a few hundred zombies chased the biker through an abandoned lumber mill. It was a thrill to figure out how to beat that challenge, and I was hooked on the story of how Deacon was haunted by the memory of his lost love Sarah.

The adventure took me across the beautiful Oregon landscape into horrifying creature battles, motorcycle chases, infected crows, memorable horde battles, stealth missions tracking the secretive government agency, and just plain-old surviving in the wilderness. It was kind of an art to orchestrate your escape from several hundred Freakers. And it was good to see Deacon change and become the person that Sarah would have wanted him to be.

7) Steel Division 2

Above: Your forces appear as icons when you zoom out in Steel Division 2.

Image Credit: Eugen Systems

Developer: Eugen Systems Publisher: Eugen Systems Platforms: Windows 

There are no Metacritic reviews for Steel Battalion 2. I may have been the only one who played it. But I saw the game being played on YouTube by some dedicated influencers with tiny audiences. And I was fascinated. I’ve been playing the Total War series of real-time strategy games since they first debuted more than 15 years ago, and I played Total War: Attila for hundreds of hours in 2015.

And I was glad to pour scores of hours into it this summer into Eugen Systems’ real-time strategy World War II games, which are a niche within a niche. It dwells on a bit of war history I didn’t know much about, Operation Bagration. It was the Soviet Union’s huge summer offensive in Belarus to take back big chunks of Eastern Europe from the Nazis, as the Allied invasion of Normandy was gathering steam in 1944. It was a massive set of tank, infantry, and air battles that left the German Wehrmacht in full retreat on the Eastern Front.

It has a steep learning curve. The game has more than 600 historically accurate units, 18 divisions, and an astounding level of detail in its graphics. You can focus in on an individual scene, such as above, or zoom out to get a birds’ eye view of an entire battle with thousands of soldiers. Your job as general is to constantly feed the right kind of troops into the fray to make the enemy’s forces melt away from you. This is easier said than done, as you can dislodge well-trained enemy squads from a forest trench, even if you’ve got superior armor. The enemy AI is smart, taking out your anti-tank guns on a hill with artillery or air power.

I lost dozens of skirmish matches against the AI before I figured out how to win. On top of the tactical battles, I also got hooked on the Army General mode, where you moved around divisions like chess pieces on a map. But you can still choose to play those huge campaigns, one tactical battle at a time. That’s what is amazing about the title.

6) Gears of War 5

Above: Kait gets here close-up.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Developer: The Coalition Publisher: Microsoft Platforms: Windows, Xbox One

Coalition head Rod Fergusson humbly said that Gears 5 was the best entry yet in the Gears saga. And he wasn’t making that up. I was gratified to see the developer get the balance right when it came to creating a wild action game with an emotional story with strong characters such as the hero, Kait Diaz.

Gears 4 got pretty goofy at certain points in its narrative about the human race losing its battle for survival against the Swarm in a world gone mad. But this story balanced that goofiness that brought us chainsaw bayonets with the moments where you mourn the death of a lost friend. These are tough moments because the cast of characters has survived some very tough times, and they’re a close-knit group. When you rip a character out of that group, it leaves deep wounds.

The campaign’s longer than usual, and it features cool features such as a skiff that sails across both the desert and ice. shoot out the ice under the feet of the Scions, the heavy tank bosses that carry a heavy weapon and are often shielded from attack by flying drones. This was very different from past Gears games. I remember spending an hour battling a blind boss, slowly figuring out a kind of choreography to stay out of its way, replenish my ammo, grab new weapons, and spray it with the frosty freeze guns. The title also had some cool additions to multiplayer and co-op play.

Gears 5 delivers a sense that you’re losing a big war at the same time it delivers the blow of a personal loss. And it generates a resolve to hit back. I like how this team outgrew its urges to be goofy and shocking and instead opted for something closer to fine art.

The post The DeanBeat: My favorite games of 2019 appeared first on Actu Trends.