Ouroborus King and Rogue Waters

Two different roguelikes.

Ouroborus King

The weak story about a King reclaiming his lands doesn't cover up the fact that this is simply chess with a variety of unique pieces. You start with only four, and on your journey can "recruit" more, "upgrade" the ones you have, or find relics that do some neat stuff like take back your previous move. Not recommended unless you really like chess.

Rogue Waters

This roguelike has a lot more effort put into it with the art and animation and tells the story of an undead pirate seeking revenge. Combat starts with three rounds of exchanging cannon fire where you either target enemy cannons so they don't wreck you, enemy soldiers so you don't have to fight them later, or "modules" that provide many buffs to their owners.

Afterwards it becomes tactical grid combat with a focus on pushing (and some cool abilities). While you will lose a lot at the start, especially to annoying cut scenes, it really gets addictive once you start upgrading your ship and crew. Thumbs up for this one!

Brightburn and Boy Kills World

Movies about a boy killing the world?

Brightburn

A husband and wife praying for a child have their wishes granted when one falls from the sky in an alien spacecraft. They raise the kid as best as they can but going with nature always wins over nurture, once the kid hits puberty he starts getting violent and powerful. So yeah, this horror movie basically answers "what happens if superman was bad and somewhat sadistic"? It's goes just about as you'd expect which is not great. Predictable movies are predictable.

Boy Kills World

This action comedy movie takes predictable and throws it out the window. With a mute protagonist who is always voiced over and wants to revenge on the woman who controls everything through violence, the action scenes are great but totally unbelievable given the amount of bullets that miss our hero. It's funny with some really wacky parts (drugs!) but also gory which makes it a hard one to know who their target audience is. Me? So yes, the main plot is good but getting from point A to B is very convoluted, ridiculous and sometimes hilarious while the violence, especially the martial arts violence is well done. Worth putting on while you're doing something else if only to pay attention when the fight scenes start up.

Hogwarts: Legacy and Calico

Games of Magic (and animal abduction :P)!

Hogwarts: Legacy

Set in the world of the popular Harry Potter series but taking place much earlier, you get to play as a student in the magical academy and quickly get involved in a plot that only you "the chosen one" can resolve. But also, you need to attend class, explore the (vast) lands around, while helping (or not helping) other students and residents. This also involves doing some Pokemon by capturing saving a variety of magical beasts and putting them in your own pens for your personal use. Also, expect to be beating the absolute shite out of your opponents in this one to the point of "I don't need the killing curse because its so much more satisfying to break all your bones, cut you into pieces and then explode you from inside out, MUAHAHAHAAHAH!".

So yes, while I enjoyed it there are a couple of negatives: while there is broom riding there's no Quidditch (which is fine I guess), and despite the huge map the activities are kind of repetitive. Go here and clear a cave, go there and clear a cave. Oh a puzzle. Oh its the same sort of puzzle but elsewhere. Lastly, unskippable lines in cut scenes. Sure, you can skip the entire cut scene but you can't read faster than the voice actors (who do a wonderful job btw) and press a button to go to the next sentence like in other games. Is that one a minor point? Well, there's loads of lengthy cut scenes so you tell me. Still recommended, especially if you like Harry Potter.

Calico

In this pastel color game you are in a magical land where all the animals are friendly so you can pick them up, let them sit on your head, and take them to the cat cafe you are trying to open which you can also interior decorate to your hearts content. Also, just to add to the WTF factor you can prepare food... by shrinking down to a tiny size and then running around the kitchen like an action game to grab ingredients and basketball them into the boiling cauldron? Yeah, it lost me there at that point. I guess I'm not magical enough for this game. :P

Evil Black Phone

Shows about the supernatural!

Evil (TV series)

In this four season show a psychologist, a priest in training, and a tech expert make up the Catholic Church's assessor program, which takes on cases to determine if people have demonic possession or are just crazy, because the two actually look very much alike. It is very well written and well acted (especially the little kids) and 90% of the show is just cool character growth, world building and plot advancing. The other 10% is made up of horror which shows up every now and again, and holding back on it actually makes it super effective. Big thumbs up for this one, I highly recommend it.

Black Phone (1 and 2)

When a young quiet boy is taken by a kidnapper, he ends up having to rely on voices from a disconnected black phone to help him out - voices of the kidnapper's previous victims. While yes, that's a pretty scary situation to be in, there's not so much horror to it if the ghosts are on the protagonists side. I do like that everything the kid does that seems for naught actually plays a part in the end, but its almost like the bad guy doesn't stand a chance here. 

In the second film years have passed and now it focuses on the sister of the quiet boy, a sister who gets strange visions and ropes in people to go with her to a frozen camp to follow the clues (there's still a disconnected black phone there, don't worry), only to discover its where the kidnapper from the first movie started his killing spree. Yay for there being a bad ghost this time around which makes for some scarier moments but when said bad ghost starts to ice skate... um...

It's interesting that the second film succeeds both in being scarier but also in being a less interesting movie. All up, give number one a try and if you really liked it, continue with number two. Or just watch Evil which is much better, but a bigger time investment. :P

Oddsparks Lonestar and the Stone of Madness

Three games that are just not for me.

Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure

As you explore this fantasy world you will need to create a bunch of cute helpers to help you do things, like forage, chop trees and... fight? That last one isn't so much of a problem, but the whole idea of this one revolves on automating processes using your helpers like batteries to power magical machinery and conveyor belts to make components turn into other things and so on. The grind is not hidden from the start either, with early quests requiring hundreds of processed materials to complete. I'd probably have given this one more of a chance had I not gotten sick of the whole conveyor belt processor puzzle thing from Arknights: Endfield. 

Lonestar

In this rogue like, you get to pick a pilot from a random trio of options and a ship (based on your level) to then go do some bounty hunting! Majority of this game is turn based battles which are simply about putting power components in your guns and other ship components and then blasting the enemy as it does the same to you. Whoever has the higher numbers hits the other guy, and if you have fuel you can do tiny manuevers to dodge some enemy firing lanes. Minor events in between fights let you refuel, shop, upgrade or treasure hunt, often with a cost and then its onto the next target. Again this gets super grindy very quick.

Side note: Grindy much like Green Hell's: Spirits of Amazonia expansion. OMG. We enjoyed the base game but in this one they decided that you need to do thousands of things over and over just to advance the story. No thanks!

Stone of Madness

A stealth game with awesome hand drawn animation set inside an insane asylum!? This should be right up my alley! Except, its a stealth MANAGEMENT game. You see in it, you (playing as a priest) must assemble a squad of people with special abilities - like a strong guy and a violent woman. While you can only control one person at a time, your other two squadies can either wait or follow you. Except all of you are actually crazy. The strong guy hates darkness and can't be left there. The woman hates fire and can't do anything near it. The priest hates violence so has to be away when the woman is murdering guards. Only the priest can deal with the ghosts that come up at night. What!? Ugh, so yes. As much as I wanted to like this the management part of it was too annoying for me. Recommended though if you don't mind that sort of thing!

Jack Ryan: Ghost War and Punisher: One Last Kill

When you need gun action!

Jack Ryan: Ghost War

This flick continues on from the series and finds a retired Jack Ryan (still played by John Krasinki) being roped back into what's supposed to be an easy mission "to meet a guy", but its never that simple. Chase scenes and combat sequences shortly follow but plot wise I can't help but think that Jack was only required for the second half or last third of the movie, as it looked like all the other characters had it handled - even the comedy relief guy? My overall feeling is that unfortunately, the movie is weak. :(

Punisher: One Last Kill

This episode length special continues its series, starring Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle now better known as the titular vigilante. In it, it explores what happens when Frank's killed everyone he's wanted to kill and goes too deep in his own head. But don't worry! Bad guys are stupid and by the second half he is back to ruthlessly executing the hordes of scum that decide to take him on. For its length and given it works as a standalone, it's super entertaining! Recommended! :) 

As a bonus for other gun nuts, here's a review of the Zev FDP gun... which turns out to not be so practical. 

More than Nothing: Finding Warmth

[Part of the Party Time journal]

On the other side of the forest the team makes their way up the Stone Dragon mountain where Eagley says the profitable pink salt trade has stopped for some reason. Asking at a tribal camp they learn it was due to the sudden appearance of Mikra (abominable snow men things) after an earthquake. Rather than ask any more questions they start heading up the snow covered mountain (Eagley buys them warm coats) and ignore a wind-blocking campsite (with dead bodies under the snow) to forge on into the night and howling winds - taking cold damage as they do so.

Half a dozen Mikra appear and are slain just before the PCs start dying themselves, and Jerghonson has the great idea of pulling the corpses together and sleeping inside them for warmth (like Star Wars). The next morning Bal Bahadur and four assistants find them and declares he's going to solve the Mikra issue, asking for their help, offering 1% of the future pink salt profit and shared credit for their troubles. Aah convinces him (with a good dice roll) to make that 90% of the profit but he can keep all the credit. At the summit they find a dark cave in the rock face where no doubt the Mikra are coming from and so work to collapse it - doing so before the sun sets again.

They manage to make it back to the village where Bal declares the threat ended and pays the team their earnings. They and Eagley quickly get out of there in case Bal's over confidence is unfounded. Their last stop is the town of Drystan, near a swamp. Luckily its leader, Lord Moroney - the best physician in the region (I introduced him accidentally killing someone who had a cold), is already an ally to Praetor Artorias and outfits them with better arms and armor. While waiting for the Praetor to arrive he asks they look into the "toad demon" tribe in the swamps who have recently become organized and have started kidnapping his townsfolk in raid. They also all seem to only have one hand?

The squad finds them easily enough in their swamp. Hundreds of them. Jerghonson prays to Luna for assistance and this time becomes a big wolf himself, then howls to get majority of the tribesmen chasing him (in vain, he's too fast as a wolf) while the rest circle around to an important looking ruin where they fight more tribals and hand-spiders (Mamita again leading a good spear throw), rescue the now handless victims, and slay their leader (Mamita and Ugh snipe him) - who turns out to be caravaner Jhonen!? The remaining tribesmen lose all cohesion and don't give chase.

Returning to Drystan with the captives they learn Jhonen always had it out for Moroney, as Moroney was unable to cure Jhonen's wife of a sickness (probably also a cold).