Touch Type Tale and Super Space Club

Games that combine strange things.

Touch Type Tale

Playing as a boy who happens to find a wizard's magical typewriter this game is a blend of both a typing game and a fantasy RTS like the original Warcraft games, but instead of having a mouse to select anything - you have to use the randomly generated word provided! This is for EVERYTHING: selecting the mine, harvesting from the mine, select the town hall, hire peasants to collect mined stuff, build new structure, farm fields, train units, move units across the map, split units, cast spells etc. 

There's a LOT of typing, but that's not even the hard part. Most of the difficulty comes from the RTS side in getting units out fast enough to defend! Definitely a challenging game and a strange combo one at that. As such its audience might be a pretty small set of people.

Super Space Club

This is simply "Asteroids" set to some rap music tracks and waves of endless enemies. Sure you can grind points to unlock new weapons and other pilots (rather, their special abilities) but that doesn't really do it for me - especially as the music isn't really my cup of tea. That said maybe the newer generation haven't ever played asteroids and enjoy rap? For everyone else, not recommended. 

Happy Game and Botanicula

Point and click adventures of the WTF variety.

Happy Game

I laughed at the warning disclaimer that "Happy Game is not a Happy Game" and yes, in it you guide a child through a bloody and terrifying nightmare via point and clicking through worse and worse "puzzles" but given the nature of the setting you need a lot of trial and error to work things out. For instance you'll only learn by doing when you crank the hand of a giant bloody teady bear to slowly tear its head off and crank the other hand to make the cyclops skull creature inside come out to pull out its own eye. Blood aplenty ahoy! But boy does it make you work for it...

Botanicula

If the previous game was too dark for you, rejoice for this one is much lighter but still in the super strange variety where a bunch of happy tree friends are trying to take a seed and plant it in the floor below without getting caught by the black stick figure spider creature(s). Easier said than done as incredibly obtuse puzzles are both funny and difficult to work out with a fair bit of "find the pixel to click on" in play. I did enjoy the random creatures you keep running into but not enough to recommend this game. 

Sky Racket and Backpack Hero

Games that embrace the retro pixel art style.

Sky Racket

After randomly getting jet packs and the titular "sky rackets" a pair of kids take flight to fight the WTF enemies which include cat sandwiches and giant bananas in what feels very much like Breakout albeit with horizontal layout instead of vertical. The idea is that you can whack enemy fire (and a few other things) with your sky racket to destroy the blocks and enemies that get in your way. The problem is that after getting used to being able to whack back enemy bullets, you're introduced to enemy bullets that can't be whacked back and soon after get to your first bullet hell type boss, where only 1 out of every 10 of his shots are "returnable". Not recommended.

Backpack Hero

In this game you play as a pack rat going on adventures with a magic backpack that starts out in a 3x3 configuration and gains space as you level up fighting and looting your way through each map. Deciding what to bring with the limited space is only half the battle, as packing things properly gives lots of bonuses. Put this thing beside a weapon makes the weapon more do damage. This thing diagonally beside armor gives more armor. This other thing you want to keep away from weapons but on the top row of the pack for "reasons". Enemies can also "give" you things like goo or fire which will eat up space or disable your gear. 

Cool concept, but two things turned me off it: firstly there are many occasions where there's lots of loot and you have loads of space but you can ONLY pick up 2 things!? And secondly the pack and its contents return to level 1 on your next dungeon run which absolutely sucks. Not recommended.

Deadtime Defenders and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Games with clichéd humor.

Deadtime Defenders

A crazy doctor has opened portals to hostile realms and its up to you to shoot your way through them in this 2D looter shooter to kill em all with your ever improving arsenal of weapons. The art style is very cartoony and they lean into the silly monsters a fair bit, especially since you can technically only shoot left and right making enemies "up and down" from your position safe from your attacks - but they're not super smart and won't exploit that fact. It's addictive enough to go through the very short story but has no real staying power there-after.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 

In this Diablo-esque action RPG you play a descendant of the famous hunter and you have a bound spirit to assist you in everything from telling jokes, carrying stuff, and eliminating the many baddies on the many maps. As the camera is fixed it is easier for range focused characters to start at the bottom of each map and make your way "upwards" as you can see more which is a bit annoying, but the rest of the game is quite solid with a big variety of foes to deal with and a surprise tower defense section in the middle which keeps it interesting. I did enjoy the humor in this one, especially on the various bulletin boards but the final bad guy is a bit over the top. 

Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter

Movies where death unlocks super powers?

Madame Web

When paramedic Cassandra Webb (played by Dakota Johnson) starts getting glimpses of the future (thanks to a bite from a magical spider), she ends up trying to save some future female spider women from an evil spider man. This is definitely a strange one with "girl power" motif plot holes, passing the stupid ball around aplenty while having decent action segments and showing that before Peter Parker was spider man, everyone else was spider man!

The amount of time it takes for our heroine to work out her own powers is hilarious which subsequently heads into the WTF territory when she becomes OP (girl power yo) and the bad guy becomes comic relief due to the amount of times he fails. I still found it entertaining, but maybe that's because I had set my expectations bar really low. :P  

Kraven the Hunter

This movie focuses on the bane of poachers and bad guys in general - Kraven the Hunter (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who is gifted (thanks to a bite from a magical lion) with super strength, super speed and super luck that all the gun toting enemies are terrible shots. 

As it is an origin story one fourth of the movie is spent in a flash back while the rest is so oddly paced and has scenes that have no purpose other than extending the run time. At least the action bits are pretty nice and the CGI animals are ok (but clearly a step down from the SFX of other Marvel movies) but some of the acting is... not great.  

Ultimately I think I enjoyed Madame Web more, which is not a good sign for this flick. 

The Faces of Harley Quinn

From the recent DC games I was playing.

She's got a lot of screentime. :)

How to Train your Dragon (2025)

Just like the original, but in live action.

The viking village of Berk suffers from constant attacks from dragons, and the chief's un-viking-like teenage son Hiccup (played by Mason Thames) in trying to please his dad ends up changing the relationship between two races. Right off the bat yes, this story is almost exactly the same as the original animated version: a well written heart warming fantasy adventure with good action sequences mixed in with funny segments. The awesome soundtrack makes a return here as well!

While some of the human cast doesn't quite match their animated counterparts in looks, they certainly do fit their roles nicely. Highly recommended if you haven't seen the original. And even if you have you'll still probably enjoy this like we did, which is great because if they want to continue the live action route there's certainly a lot of material already out there they can revisit. :) 

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Where bullets solve everything!

In this game you play as one of the criminals recruited into the expendable Task Force X to retake Metropolis from Braniac's invasion - and he just so happens to be controlling the Justice League! While Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark have slightly varying modes of speedy and vertical transportation all of them heavily employ firearms to deal most of their damage: especially in boss fights where you don't want to or simply can't be next to your target.

The game play is quite fun and the animations are fantastic, but they really shot themselves in the foot by making the "after the main game chapters" which continues the story (albeit lacking cut scenes now - replaced instead with comic strips), adds new squad members, and pretty much makes you fight the same bosses with slight twists but in exchange for a huge amount of grinding. I only did the easier / faster half of those chapters before calling it quits. While I did enjoy this, I can't really recommend it because of that. 

Stranger Things experience at Luna Park

I was fortunate enough for my wife to take me to this live action experience in the Stranger Things world which is both hilarious and very well done, mainly involving us guests as people signing up for a "sleep study" at Hawkins Lab (where of course, things go wrong). 

Excellent live actors do the heavy lifting to get us into each scene and special effects and set crafting make for a fun experience throughout. Of course your mileage may vary on how much you like Stranger Things in general (yes the heroes of the show make appearances), and how into it you can get. Audience participation helps get other audience members into it! Definitely recommended. And the pizza (not free) we got at the end of it was pretty good too! :)

While this attraction is closing soon, it definitely encourages us to check out more of these sorts of things. I believe their next thing is Squid Game?

28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later

Movies about those infected... with rage!

28 Days Later 

Due to the actions of some eco-terrorists a lab grown and highly infectious "rage" virus is set loose. By the time comatose protagonist Jim (played by Cillian Murphy who also doubles as the eye candy for female viewers) wakes he finds a very different London waiting for him: one now home to zombies infected. It's funny that the start is very similar to The Walking Dead series but as the "monsters" here aren't undead the story can go in a different tangent. While this 2002 horror flick is showing its age, its still a decent watch that tells a complete story.

28 Weeks Later

The rage virus from the previous film has mostly subsided now and a US led NATO force (Jeremy Renner portrays one of their snipers) is resettling refugees into a heavily guarded safe zone. Of course, due to the total selfishness of two brats and the initial hesitation to use lethal force everything goes to hell when the virus re-emerges (and its up to a whole new cast to get through it). All up this is a much tighter film than the previous one and it also has a bigger budget, better effects, and more action pieces while continuing the theme of good intentions executed poorly always leads to someone dying. If you liked the first one or just enjoy zombie-esque type flicks in general, you'll like this one. 

Injustice 1 & 2

Its DC fighting time!

This fighting game is like Street Fighter, except with characters from the DC roster such as Superman, who has become a ruthless dictator, and Batman who is running the insurgency against the Kryptonian. In the second game, Braniac comes along to mess with things but in both cases the stories start and end strong but have lots of "filler" in the middle, looking for any excuse to fit as many one on one fights as they can. 

Right on target!

The graphics and controls are ok (though both are improved in the second game) but some of the fighting stances are strange and the power hits make for hilarious moments where someone like Catwoman can single kick an opponent like Doomsday UP and THROUGH multiple floors of a building! Or even, Catwoman can just face tank punches from Superman. Things like that.

Outside the story the first game has an interesting STAR Labs trial mode which challenges you with various game play modes and/or outright unfair situations. The second game drops this in exchange for a leveling and loot end game system which is basically a stock standard series of fights. That's maybe the only part the first game did better for me. Anyway, if you like DC characters and want to watch them pummel each other silly then these games are right up your alley. 

Ranking of Kings

An anime with excellent characters.

This currently two season anime adventure series follows the little prince Bojji who dreams to become a great king like his heroic father, but has some huge obstacles in his way the least of which being that he is small, weak and deaf. The art style is a simple one which lends itself to the child's tale but there are a number of great action sequences and even more great emotional moments in this fantastic story which gives even the side characters little arcs and goes to great lengths to show that no one is one hundred percent bad... or good. Absolutely fantastic series and one I highly, highly recommend!

Alas the second season, titled "The Treasure Chest of Courage" is a collection of short stories that take place in between various episodes of the first season. While it is very fun to have more screen time with these characters, it's structure alone makes it difficult for it to compete with the excellence of season one. Still worth a try if you get into it. 

Gris

Unlocking the rainbow. 

In this beautiful puzzle platformer game you play a woman going through some severe sadness, and while I'm not too keen on the art for the main character herself - the rest of the game is super beautiful and gets more so as you progress through it. This is because her world starts out very empty and as you progress you unlock more and more colors to fill the palette fully. 

Awesome art.

It helps that there's some good music too and that the actual game itself isn't in the "too hard" category with simple controls and a gradual unlocking of movement abilities. It's actually easier than (non-challenge mode) Celeste especially as you can't actually die. Thumbs up!

Day of the Jackal

This currently one season series follows a professional assassin "aka the Jackal" (played by Eddie Redmayne) and the law enforcement personnel out to get him. There's a good amount of killing here and an OK story to boot. I especially enjoy the "random NPCs" (or small part characters) being so on the ball for a change, keeping the Jackal constantly off balance.

In this telling the Jackal is also not "flawless" (in this version) as he gets caught up in day dreams, worrying about his family and the like which is fine as it puts him in action sequences more frequently. I did not like the main cop pursuer though. Not sure if it was the acting or if they part should have been written better, but I was backing the Jackal the whole way. I'm looking forward to what season two has to offer!

Heads of State and The Accountant 2

A pair of action flicks!

Heads of State

When arms dealing bad guys try to attack a NATO summit its up to the new(ish) POTUS (played by John Cena) and a grizzled UK PM (played by Idris Elba) to save the day. Luckily they are also both fit dudes because this show is definitely an action comedy one with some good hits of laughs as the two leaders don't really like each other. Big props to the very succinct flash back sequences used and to Priyanka Chopra who actually carries the harder action segments in this film wonderfully. Definitely a silly movie and one you don't want to turn your brain on for. If that sounds like your cup of tea then you will certainly enjoy this!  

The Accountant 2

The autistic accountant/hitman (again played by Ben Affleck) is back and roped into a tricky missings persons case which warrants the involvement of his also hitman/but not accountant brother (played by Jon Bernthal) in a pretty humorous and violent outing with decent action scenes and character growth. While there are still some plot holes I actually prefer this one to the first as the blend between nerdity and violence is much better from the get go. Thumbs up!