Batwoman and DC's Legends of Tomorrow

Two more Arrowverse shows have come to an end.

Batwoman

This heavily LGBTQ+ three season show features the titular Batwoman as the ladies that take the mantle try to juggle fighting randomly assorted villains while maintaining a drama filled personal life filled with occasionally stupid friends and acquaintances who combined have around two inches worth of depth. The villain Alice (Rachel Skarsten) is the stand out, but that is no where near close enough to gain a recommendation from me. It's ridiculous how so many shows keep tip toeing around Batman too. If you want a Batman inspired show, just make a Batman series?

Both are silly but only one is good.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

After a floundering first season of finding their feet, the remaining six seasons really hit the right note for me with absurd humor and a pretty regular rotating door of characters, aboard a time ship of all things, mainly led by the wonderful Sara Lance (Caity Loitz) and contains surprisingly great fight choreography and occasional moments of heavy feels. Obviously the humor will be the main hit or miss factor for each viewer, and while this had become my favorite Arrowverse show others might find it totally stupid as it is the least serious of the Arrowverse catalogue. Test out the waters if you like, all I know is I'll definitely miss this one.

Arrow

"I'm the original vigilante!" -Oliver Queen

After being presumed dead for five years, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) returns to Star City with new skills, a bow and arrow, and a secret mission to become someone else. Something else.

DC really hit the bullseye with this TV Series with good physical action pieces, nice world building and decent story lines especially early in the show when it's focused mainly on him. Over the course of 8 seasons Oliver's team expands a bit which does end up diluting the quality as more time is given to other characters and the flashbacks get more ridiculous.

I'm guessing it also made the salmon ladder more popular.

On the flip side, it also allowed for spin-offs such as the Flash and Legends of Tomorrow - later coupled with annual crossover events to include Supergirl, Batwoman and others and now proudly fly the "Arrowverse" flag. Definitely a series I recommend, though after season 2 your mileage may vary.

Vixen (Animated)

A quest to find her birth parents leads Mari McCabe (voiced by Megalyn Echikunwoke) to finding her purpose in life, that of a totem powered vigilante called "Vixen".

While the art and animation is ok but obviously lower quality than the regular DC animated movies, the best part about it is how it integrates into the Arrowverse with characters from the live action Arrow and Flash shows doing the voices for their respective characters and subsequently characters from this cartoon appearing in Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow.

Well, isn't she quite perky?

There are some strange inconsistencies though, like Oliver and Mari being able to keep up with Barry "the fastest man alive" - but for the most part it's a decent but short watch (as each episode is just around 5 minutes).

Unfortunately I can only recommend this to Arrowverse or DC fans as it is very light on content. On the up side, its easy to try watch since it's super short.  Definitely not worth a second watch though. It gets 1.5 tarantulas out of 5 from me.

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

Somehow, less Batman is more awesome? What!?

A major improvement from the last game, this one sees you control the entire Justice League as they do their hero thing. It also fixes the problems of having the Batman theme on loop (he's not around as much) and being able to carry only one suit at a time. In this game, if you have a suit unlocked it and its abilities are always available to you.

This does make the game slightly harder as you have more options for puzzle solving which don't always make sense: such as Batman's ice gun being able to put out fires EXCEPT these fires which look exactly the same which can only be crossed by someone holding a shield. Uh, sure.

Suicide Squad go!

The game also comes with nice extra levels (the Arrow one is great, thanks Stephen Amell!) and the side missions are more enticing to participate in. Definitely a step up from the last outing, I give it 3 shrunken cities out of 5.

Insight: Not sure where to go? Follow the trail of ghost lego!

Old TV Reviews: Constantine's Redemption

A continuation of my old TV show reviews.

The Blacklist: Redemption (Cancelled)

I quite like the Blacklist, even more so these days since a particular character is less irksome than previously. Unfortunately this spin off stuck too close to the original formula to be engaging which is a shame. Especially since what makes the original formula work is James Spader. Not much of a loss for me, and not one I'd recommend unless you are a completionist. Watch the original Blacklist though (which is still going), that one is good fun.

Doesn't match up to the original.

Constantine (Cancelled)

Matt Ryan makes a fantastic Constantine (no offense to Keanu's movie version) and is very watchable in his 13 episode series which follows a monster of the week format. Just as the main threat begins to appear the series got cancelled, possibly due to lack of marketing. Luckily the character and the actor have since been imported to Arrow for one episode and now has a recurring role in Legends of Tomorrow.

Resurrected from development hell!

Skyrim: Battle of Experimentation

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Our return to civilization was short lived as another dragon sighting led us to the Southern mountains this time, where we faced a reverend dragon (easy normal type) and Auszeimrahgol, the f-ing cheating dragon of bastardly-ness. Much like Ziisizaan, he had an invulnerability shield too - only his was on 100% of the time. What the what? Also his melee and breath attacks were tremendously strong. I couldn't blame Zuna for running to a corner and wetting herself from fear.

Oh and exploding arrows did NOTHING.

It became a battle of experimentation. Arrows (exploding and not) didn't do damage. Magic didn't do damage. Swords were dangerous. How the heck do I hurt this thing? But something in my attacks did hurt it as his health bar was down a tiny sliver. But how? Can you guess what it was? If you said "a weak spot" then good work! You are a true dragon hunter!

He's vulnerable now! Sort of... :P

Where is this weakspot you ask? In his fricking mouth. Yep. Not the jaw, or the nose, or the chin, or the teeth. INSIDE. So to hurt it I needed to shoot into its open maw, which is only open when it is dealing insane damage to something. Right. Tried that for a bit but it didn't take, so instead I had to shout it down (because it prefers being airborne and constantly moving) and ... face tanked it.

Yep. I walked into its deadly fire, drank around 50 full health potions and hacked the inside of his face (while it was still breathing at me, so no time for screenies again sorry) until he died. Zuna couldn't believe it. Neither could I, but it was dead and we weren't. I call that a win.

Today I Smiled: Font of Knowledge

Been ages since I've put up a Today I Smiled post, and today's one is to share all the strange and wacky stuff I've been learning about over the past few months, like the Babylonian's used a base 60 numeral system, or that there's an island that uses giant stones as currency, or that it takes the whole year's crop from one tree to make 450gms of chocolate. Yes, you can (mostly) blame Reddit! :P

Interested in conflict? Well here are two that might be of interest: The Syrian Civil War and the animated, lazery Norse Attack Map. Just be sure not to ridicule a person who refuses to duel in Mississippi. That's a misdemeanor!

In the event you do get into a fight, in might be better to lick your wounds than to get put into St. Luke's hospital, where they potentially can keep you (or your corpse) hostage indefinitely.

Also don't mess with the Russians, they have a knack for fixing mundane problems with nukes! That might lead to having cities with a population of zero. Or worse, with hoverboard zombies...

Only made worse with XCOM odds to hit! :P

But who needs zombies when there are giant centipedes and spiders that go fishing? I'm guessing the two women who jumped into the river to see which one their man would save (spoiler: he chose Rong) didn't know about those critters!

I've also come across nice art ... made with Microsoft Excel of all things as well as a bunch of doodles that summarize all of this season of the Walking Dead. There's also a hilarious synopsis maker who does the more recent episodes for Arrow, Flash, Vixen and Legends of Tomorrow! Might be worth taking a look if you want to catch up on the shows without actually watching them. :P

Speaking of art, I would be remiss if I didn't share with you at least one song - this one for all the Metal and Vanilla Ice fans, with Metal Ice Ice Baby (wut?). If you are more the type to appreciate the written word see here the Chinese story of Stone Lions composed entirely with the word "Shi" 101 times.

Lastly here's a clip called Ultimate Skyrim, which show cases what happens when one uses too many mods in the game. Have a great weekend everyone!

Today I Smiled: Live Action!

Been awhile since my last "Today I Smiled" entry and there sure are a lot of things for me to smile about. My Neverwinter Online: Vigilance Guide got featured as a "Bag of Tricks" entry on NWO-uncensored. I also quite like that the Wizards of the Coast release content on all mediums simultaneously which means that Elemental Evil is also hitting DDO and the table top game, meaning there are write ups for each of the evil cults.

The Newbie Blogger Initiative is also going full swing and this year I'm in charge of the Poetry Slam - looking forward to more entries coming in before the end of the month. Also happy to report I'm now up to 100 links from 59 when the event began. As a fan of the TV series Arrow and the Flash I'm also looking forward to Legends of Tomorrow, and am hoping the live action version of Shingeki no Kyoujin (Attack on Titan) does well. Kinda surprised to see a live action Parasyte there too!

If none of those interest you then perhaps this clip of Guildwars 2 killing, deleting and then banning a cheater will be enough to brighten your day, or if you want a more hands-on experience, try out the first two browser bragging games for this years NBI: the PvP blob consuming game called Agar and the colorful pixel gore of Critical Annihilation. :)

Training to face Oblivion

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

With Dwark looking into further leads to chase down the "mysterious four", we received a quest from the elf priestess Caladre to recover a soul gem from a nearby underground shrine called "the Temple of Oblivion". The crumbling, claustrophobic tunnels are littered with traps and are home to powerful spirits, zombies, demonic imps and conjurers who are (despite our newly upgraded gear) too dangerous to deal with. Even more annoying is that like the Golden Dragon Ruins, this place has barriers blocked by riddles that can only be solved by exploring each passage for historic slates.

Despite that I managed to get Caanon and Quark past the first barrier and they made it all the way to the second floor by luring each guardian spirit (in each barrier) one by one. The zombies are comparatively the safest to deal with as thier slow gait still makes them easy spear fodder and the majority of the paths are linear.

Still, they've come across a chamber with "light spirits" which are too strong to push past so they returned to town to train up a bit first. Fortunately Caladre isn't in a hurry for that gem, so Quark and Caanon have been hunting the cursed coins back at Aria, as well as more Bullspawn (with the porkul thief Arsenic and elf mage Helga) to gain the strength needed to face the horrors still awaiting them in the temple. Selenka has also finished helping Mighty Dog at Deltis Keep and is now assisting the remainder of the cavalry unit at the Aria entryway, while I've continued culling the numbers of Zule back at the Golden Dragon Ruins. It is worth noting that our masked "friend" Arahawi was also in the Temple sometime before us as he took the soul lantern of a spirit there. Tried questioning him on the matter but he seems content on just giving out free tarot card readings in town while avoiding questions.

If only we could train like Stephen Amell!

-Thanam

As an OOC note: The multiclassing system sounds really interesting here. Quark switched from priest to mage and back (having gained skills/levels between each switch) and it looks like you can bring a number of skills from your previous profession over to your new one. Even better you can "grandfather" skills by bringing skills further down the skill tree back to the original class saving you points from any skills you didn't use higher up but previously needed to unlock. Powerplaying sounds like a key mechanic here, the only draw back is each time you change you require 7 class stones of the relevant class which only drop from monsters in... the Temple of Oblivion. :P