The Curse of Deadpool 2

A few weeks ago, there was a small contest of sorts that allowed people to get a free digital version of Deadpool 1 and 2 on Vudu.  I didn't have an account at that time, but managed to get one of the codes.  So, I just had to wait until it was available, and then my wife and I could watch it.  Simple, right?

Of course not.  Story time!

Before it was available to stream, I looked at the listing in my Vudu movies.  It's in a format called HDX, which I had never heard of before.  According to the site, it's a very high quality, and not really meant for streaming.  That meant it was unlikely to work on my downstairs TV.  The most logical course was to download it when available, use the Chromecast I received with my phone purchase, and watch it on the upstairs TV.

Just for kicks, I tried streaming it on the smart TV.  It would play about 1/2 a second of the 20th Century Fox logo, cut to a black screen, and repeat.  After a few rounds, it politely informed me that my connection wasn't good enough.  Not quite how I thought it would play out, but somewhat entertaining.

So, on to the main event!

Early Saturday morning, I started to set everything up.  Step 1 was download the movie.  Well, first I started to stream it on my computer, to see if it was actual possible, and if the HDX description lied to me.  It ran for about 30 seconds just fine.  Even so, I didn't think it would be a good idea to stream it from the internet while streaming that to my TV, so I figured I would just download it.  I knew it wouldn't just let me download it, I also had to download the Vudu app on the computer to do so.  Fine, let's just get it over with.  I downloaded what it wanted, signed in, and hit the download button.

An error message.  "Download is incompatible with Adobe Air 30, you need Adobe Air 29 to download in the app."

The hell?  Then why not just put version 29 with the download instead of 30?  I sighed, dug through the programs to find it and uninstall it.  Then I followed the link to get version 29.  Well, eventually.  There were 3 different options, and I didn't know which to get at first.

Anyway, back to the program, which of course wanted to update to version 30...to which I said hell no.  Program up, Deadpool 2 downloading.

While that was finishing up, I hooked up the Chromecast to stream to the TV.  Plugged it into the HDMI, and...nothing.  Oh, it needs a power cord of course.  I don't remember seeing one in the box, so I check again.  Nope, not there.  I had opened it previously, but it hasn't been used.  Was the power cord ever there?  I couldn't remember.

I looked for the power cord and plug for a solid 30 minutes, and came up with nothing.  My wife was content to sit on the couch and read her phone.  Don't worry, she helped by showing me what the cord looks like.  Thanks, honey.

No cord.  It might never have been in the box.  I don't know, and it's too late to do anything about that now.  I found a similar one to try.  It powered on.  Success!  Well, for the moment.

I have to set the dang thing up now.  Go to the site it gives me and...the site tells me I need an app.  Why?  Let me just set the stupid thing up.  I search to see if I need the app, as I don't want or need more apps on my phone, and I don't want to use the phone just to set it up, which I know I don't need to.  There's supposedly a link to do in on the PC, but it doesn't show up on the site.

Guess why?  Because that link only shows up if you view it in Chrome!  F#($#ing stupid.  So, I go to the link in Chrome to finally set up this monstrosity.

Well, until it tries to connect to it.  I don't know what went wrong at that point, as it just didn't connect.  Then, it couldn't try to reconnect, even though the setup could find the Chromecast on the network.  I could have spent more time on that problem, but during this whole debacle, my TV display was showing lines.  It just started when I tried to connect the WiFi to the Chromecast the first time, and didn't want to stop.

Power cycling didn't work.  Unplugging it for a few minutes didn't work.  Slapping it a bit didn't work.  Hey, don't laugh at that, I've known several TVs that don't work right until you teach 'em who's boss.  Point is, the TV seems to finally be giving out.  Either I pay $300 to get the board repaired, or pay a similar amount and get a new TV.  Pretty easy option, but not a happy situation.  It does make sense, since the TV is over 10 years old, and had a few brief issues in the past.  Not bad for a display model!

In an effort to salvage the day, my wife drove us to Best Buy to price out some new TVs.  We started to look online, but for some reason trying to connect to the Chromecast set our region as Canada.  All sites kept sending us to the Canadian version until the PC was rebooted.  How does that even happen?  After a drive to check out the TVs, we found a pretty good contender for $500.  That's less than the previous one cost me, hopefully it lasts near as long.

Let's recap.  My free digital copy of Deadpool 2 cost me a day, a Chromecast power supply, some of my sanity, my old TV, and (probably) a few hundred dollars for a new one.

All of that, and I still don't know if the movie is any good.

[UPDATE 8/20/18]
We ended up buying a new TV, and even had an adventure getting it in the car.

But.
But!

We finally saw the movie, and it was really good.

[Spoilers]
Damn, I was excited to see one of my favorites, Juggernaut, made to look badass.  While I don't like the look of the character, but it made sense, they did the rest of him so well.  I'm amazed I was able to not see spoilers for the movie before I got to see it.

There were a lot of good lines and parts.  "Cleaning up the timelines" probably made me laugh the loudest.  It was so appropriate and so cathartic.  Definitely worth seeing.  I don't know if it was worth the cost of a new TV, though.

The Huntsman: Winter's Curse (PS4) Review

The Huntsman: Winter's Curse is a side story to the recent movie, using the backstory and a few characters throughout its own original tale.  The PS4 release combines all five "books" that the game was originally split into as one full game.

The game is also really cool looking.  Each book opens with a voiced cutscene setting the stage.  However, that is the only voice work in the game.  This doesn't bother me, but there is a lot of dialogue, so I could see some people being turned off by the lack of voice acting.  It reminds me of my old school RPG roots, so I give it a pass. Dialogue and combat artwork is really good, and animates even better.  It looks like a story book, which is very appropriate.  Battle animations don't actually connect with your opponents.  Again, this reminds me of old RPGs I enjoy, so I'm fine with it, but I have heard people complain about that sort of thing before.

Combat is card-based.  Each piece of equipment provides 1 or 2 "cards" that have different effects on them, like attack damage or healing.  When combat starts, you get a number of cards that equals your hand (3-5, depending on skills).  On your turn you pick a card to use, and then that action takes place.  The card shows the amount of damage or healing, plus the effect of any buffs or debuffs you may have.  Many cards have multiple effects, with both being shown on the card.  For better or worse, you will draw multiple copies of the cards in your inventory.  I do like that you will never run out of cards, but it can be annoying when you draw multiple of a card that you don't want right now.

The turn order is represented by the character portraits on the bar at the top of the screen.  The portraits move toward the end, and when they reach it, that character takes a turn.  The action pauses when it is a character's turn, so you have plenty of time to look at your hand and decide what card to use.  Turn order isn't set in stone, since some card effects can stun (sliding your turn back) or invigorate (sliding you forward).  If you have ever played the Grandia games, it is a similar idea to turn order there, but not as complicated.

During the course of the five books, you will get many pieces of equipment.  Weapons and armor are unique to each character while accessories are shared.  Characters can equip two different accessories.  Unless you are in combat, you can switch your equipment at will, even during dialogue scenes!  When a character levels up, they gain a skill point to put into the skill trees.  These too can be freely redistributed, which is really cool and useful.

While there are some side quests to complete, the game is pretty linear.  You travel to different locations, but only if there is a quest there.  There is no real moving around the map, just selecting what quest you want to do.  There is some (or a lot) of dialogue, then usually a fight, some more talking, then you get your reward, rinse and repeat.  There are several dialogue choices in the dialogue scenes.  Some allow you to avoid extra fights, but they won't really change the story direction.  Most fights aren't that hard if you have some good equipment on, but a few are pretty tough (especially the final boss).  If you lose a fight, you get the option to retry it, or abandon the quest and go back to the world map.  Side quests give extra experience and equipment, so I recommend doing them right when they become available, as every little bit helps.

As stated before, there are five books for the whole game, and each book is about an hour of content.  There isn't much replay other than re-experiencing the story, since the game is so linear.  You could mess around with the different dialogue options, but most of the differences there would be a few fights.  You also only get one save slot you can save to (there are a few auto saves, but they are no more than a minute apart, as I suspect they are backups), so if you do want to go through the game again, you would overwrite your previous file.  I should also mention there is no option to re-size the HUD, so there were edges of the game were off my screen.

Now we move to the more unfortunate part of the review: the bugs and glitches.  Sadly, this game has a few, and they can be game breaking, just not the way bugs usually are.  I'll start with my big one: I hit a point in the second book where I had a fight I could not win.  It was Elisabeth versus three spiders.  No matter what equipment I had, there was no way for me to win the fight.  Even putting it on easy didn't work, since that just barely reduces the enemy's max health.

Why was the fight unwinnable?  Because I was supposed to have a second character.  Previously in the story, the character left, but they came back.  However, the game just skipped the end of that scene, so I didn't get the message that the character rejoined my party.  So the character wasn't added to my party.

Reloading didn't work, since the game had saved after that.  You only really have the one save file, so I couldn't even go back to a previous save.  It looked like I would have to start the whole game over.  Yes, that would only mean losing 2 hours of play time, but I still shouldn't have to do it.  Thankfully, the new save file had not yet been uploaded to the cloud, so I could retrieve an earlier one, only losing about an hour of playtime.

There is no way to actually skip cutscenes, so I'm not sure why the game does that sometimes.  It can happen at any story scene.  Just in the middle of dialogue, it just skips past the end and brings you to the world map.  Trouble is, 1) you miss story or even dialogue choices, and 2) you won't get any rewards that you were supposed to get, including experience, items and party members.  That's really, really, really bad.

I did find a bit of a workaround if you encounter this.  If the game skips the story and kicks you back to the world map, quit to the main menu.  Then, close the application on the home screen (you could reload from the menu, but it won't actually do it, just load and show the main menu screen without any options, which is another bug).  Boot up the game again and select 'continue'.  This will put you around where the game skipped from, and you can view the rest of the scene and get your rewards.

The Huntsman: Winter's Curse is a pretty fun game.  The story is decent, the artwork is great, and combat is pretty fun.  While it's not a very long game, it's the bugs that ruin the experience.  It would be worth playing for old school RPG fans if those ever get fixed.


The Good:
The artwork in the game is great.

The Bad:
The bugs that can completely destroy your ability to progress.

The SaHD:
Why are there three party member slots when you only ever get two at a time?!

(Review code for The Huntsman: Winter's Curse was provided by the publisher)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Movie Review

Captain America: Spring Sensation or Winter Waste?
By: Aly Hand

Okay, so let me start off by saying I don’t normally review movies.  Opinions are a dime a dozen, and everyone has one.  That being said, I feel this one is actually worth talking about.  My husband and I have had a long-standing discussion over whether or not it’s worth having individual Marvel hero movies after the introduction of The Avengers.  Both of us believe it doesn't exactly make sense to have a movie like Iron Man 3, where there’s a big bad guy and lots of action, yet no one other than Tony Stark is ever involved.  You’d think a terrorist like The Mandarin would show up on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar, but apparently Nick Fury was too busy that day to bother sending Cap out to help.

Captain America: the Winter Soldier is definitely a movie worth seeing in theaters.  Even without any of the other Avengers (with the exception of Black Widow), this movie manages to stand solidly on its own.  The story is engaging, the plot progresses smoothly, and there’s plenty of action to feed the drooling masses.  I was a little nervous going in, because whenever I see a run time of more than two hours, I wonder just how much of the movie will be filler.  Sweeping landscape shots are very pretty and all, but I don’t need to stare at New Zealand for ten minutes (looking at you, Hobbit.)  The movie starts out with a simple character interaction, something that shows off how much more advanced Cap is, yet still paints him as a human being with a desire to be a part of society, to connect, to make friends and right wrongs.

It progresses fairly quickly into the action, without a lot of “woe is me; I’m so lonely” hand-wringing, which was a relief.  The banter between characters is real and honest, and while it was relatively easy to pinpoint who the “bad guy” was, it took much longer to learn why.  The story never dragged, and while the film could have been tightened up here and there it never seemed like scenes were uncomfortably long.  Action scenes were well-done, with the fighting looking natural and realistic rather than staged.  I will say there’s a scene towards the beginning that seemed as though it was at risk of falling into the “you’re beating me but I’m going to pull a victory out of thin air because I’m the title character” trope, but it felt as though the director, producer, and actors all realized it quickly enough to put a conclusive end to the fight before it got there.  There were times, however, when the natural action progressed too quickly and too abruptly, and I was left wondering what had happened.  While this is very realistic, it isn't necessarily the best choice for a movie, simply because my expectations for a knock-down, dragged-out fight weren't met.  There was too much going on and it was over too quickly for me to get my brain wrapped around what was happening until it was over.

For all its positives, though, there were some negatives as well.  For one,  and without spoiling anything, when I started thinking about it there were facets of the plot that just didn't make sense.  They relied on Nick Fury missing some key intel, and I have a hard time believing it with how they've portrayed the character.  Also, what happens in the movie is significant for the entire Marvel-verse, which makes me wonder how it will affect other movies and the oft-maligned Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series.  In an effort to maintain a spoiler-free review, I’m not going to say much more about this, but for those who believe the movies should follow one of the already-established comic series cannons the events of Winter Soldier will prove to be both nerd-gasmic and disappointing.

The introduction of The Falcon was done extremely well.  At no point during the movie did I see a character and say to myself, “well that’s obviously Falcon, duh”.  He also seemed very human, understanding his limits and his capabilities without trying to promote himself as ‘better’ than anyone else.  At no point did he try and compete with Cap for the role of leader or hero, and it was a welcome thing to see.  I would even go so far as to say he was the best portrayed character of the film, because he seemed to be someone who knew his capabilities and his limits, and how to work within them, yet still come out looking like a badass.

Black Widow came out of the movie more human, more reachable, and I have yet to decide if this is a good direction for the character or not.  There are hints of a potential romance between her and Cap, as well as between her and Hawkeye, and while she has always been portrayed as brutally efficient, I could easily see her forming some kind of emotional attachment to the people she fights with.  At the same time, that kind of emotion-driven interaction is very out of character for Widow, who even in Winter Soldier is shown to be ruthless and focused on her missions first.  It’ll be interesting to see how the character evolves from here, either as a more human, more loveable Natasha or as a cold, calculating assassin in Black Widow.

Of everyone, though, the most obvious growth as a character centers entirely around Cap.  Not only do we see him trying to integrate himself into a society he doesn't understand, and try to do it without sacrificing his own values, but we also see him coping with his own personal demons and confronting both the beautiful and the ugly of his personal past.  He has to integrate the life and values of Steve Rogers with the duty and power of Captain America.  He’s forced to realize his whole life is a no-win scenario, and that there’s a knife waiting for him around every corner.  Okay, maybe not that bad.  There’s a few scenes that emphasize not everyone is out to kill Cap, and that maybe he has more friends than he thinks.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Captain America: the Winter Soldier to fans of Marvel, fans of action films, or just anyone looking for a good way to spend a couple hours.  I wouldn't recommend it for very young children, as the violence and occasional language might be too much for some parents.  Older children, like teenagers, would likely enjoy it, and adults of all ages will find something to enjoy, whether it’s the action or the story.

Prometheus Review

Another movie I recently saw with my wife was the "kind of prequel" to the Aliens movies- Prometheus.  Can it match the awesomeness of Aliens?  Of course not, but can it come close?  There will be spoilers, but I imagine most people that care about it have seen it.  If you haven't...well, read the review anyway.  You will learn why by the end.

So, where to start?  The movie seems like it is a large collection of independent scenes put together.  Or more accurately, like lots of linking scenes were cut out.  I think they had ideas of what they wanted to happen, but instead of working out which to use, they just shoved them all in there and hoped it would work.  It didn't.  A lot of the movie is just a jumbled mess of ideas that just don't fit together as well as they should.

This movie was made (beside to get large sums of money) to give backstory to the Aliens franchise and answer some questions that no one wanted answers to.  Where do the Aliens come from?  Did anyone really care?  They could have just been the natural inhabitant of some planet, but now they are some disease/biological weapon made by some people that also made humans.  Yeah, it's as dumb as it sounds.  There's tons of plot holes and it actually generates more questions than it attempted to answer.  They tried to answer just one measly question, but didn't even really do that.  They just made the backstory worse and more convoluted than not having one at all.

So an alien race made humans on Earth and visited 35,000 years ago and up to 2,000 years ago.  Both humans and the "engineers" have the exact same DNA, despite how much 2,000 years would change that.  They also left clues to where they wanted people to find them.  The clues lead them to a bioweapon facility however.  So...why lead them there, when the movie states they were going to take the stuff to Earth?  One "Engineer" as they are called, gets really made when humans show up.  No explanation for it, he just starts killing people so they can have one survivor, in true horror movie fashion.

And what about the Aliens that people wanted to see?  Well, there's this black goop, that can make...facehugger snakes.  It also makes people into zombie creatures, so...yeah.  I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.  The facehugger snake has the trademark acid blood, but doesn't actually make the aliens, so...where do they get it from?  As a bonus, here's the path that it took to get close to the xenomorphs that are commonly called "the Aliens".  The black good gets injested by one of the stupid scientists on the ship.  He then impregnates a barren woman before he starts mutating into a zombie.  She cuts the creature out of her body and tries to freeze it.  It then grows off screen into Shuma Gorath and ends up "facehugging" the engineer that inexplicably wanted to kill everybody.  Out of its (his?) chest, the xenomorph emerges.  Granted the actual Aliens life cycle is almost as complicated, but it's just silly.  It also probably started with the idiot engineer drinking the black stuff in the beginning of the movie, but they don't bother to connect that scene to the rest of them, so who knows?

It's honestly just not a good movie, from either the standpoint of it being a movie or being a movie in the Aliens universe.  It doesn't flow right, it doesn't make sense but somehow has lots of predictable events.  There's a lot more I could make fun of, but it's just faster to watch the Honest Trailer for it.  It's funny and way better than the actual movie.  Prometheus is just a boring two hours that I can't get back.  I have to make fun of it with my wife to make that time worth it, and that's a really sad thing to say about a movie.

Brothers from a different mother?

Snow White and the Huntsman Review

One of the movies I recently watched with the missus was Snow White and the Huntsman.  I remember some of the previews for the movie, which probably wasn't for the best.  I remember lots of scenes of fighting the soldiers that shattered into tiny splinters when struck.  The film doesn't have as many action scenes as I thought it would.  There are a few sprinkled throughout, but only two against the shard soldiers, at the beginning and end.  So, in that respect it was disappointing.

To be fair, it was disappointing in other areas, too.  I had a bad feeling when I realized the girl playing Snow White was the girl from Twilight.  It's funny that I only know that because of the Honest Trailers for the Twilight movies, since I have no interest in seeing them, and neither does my wife (she has taste, you see).  "Twilight girl" isn't very pretty, or a good actress, so she wasn't a good choice for Snow White.  She was probably cast to try and capitalize on the popularity of those movies.  Even having Chris Helmsworth (the dude who played Thor) couldn't save it.

The story was fairly easy to follow, so no complaints there.  Not particularly great, but it wasn't too jumbled.  According to my wife, it's closer to original fable than what I remember (the Disney version), even if everything looks so dirty.  I mean everything.  Except maybe Twilight girl's face, so you can tell who it is.  Even the wicked queen, who values her beauty so much, was frequently grimy when using various magics, which seemed contradictory to my wife.  It might be setting up some pretty on the outside/ugly on the inside dichotomy, but it did seem odd when my wife pointed it out.  The enchanted forest does look really nice, though.  The computer effects were nice and fairly seamless, so I guess most of the budget went there.

All in all, it wasn't a good movie.  Not even in the "so bad it's good" category.  The dwarves were pretty cool, though.  If you really want to see a modern Snow White movie, just watch Mirror Mirror.  It's better in every way.

Movie Binge

During my time away from the kids, I watched some movies (or finished them).  I'll give a few quick impressions.

John Carter
This was actually a good movie.  I'll agree with most of what I read, that the title and ads for the game did nothing to sell it to audiences.  It's one of those "the movie is so interesting that I want to read the books now" movies.  I liked the story, the characters and the action.  It's definitely a "nerd fantasy", since the main character goes to another planet where he learns to belong, gets super powers (because of the lower gravity) and gets to bed a princess.  It was very enjoyable, but a bit longer than I thought it would be.  As mentioned before, I haven't read the books, so I don't know how faithful it is to the source material.  I recommend seeing it if you can.

Hobo with a Shotgun
The reason I wanted to see this is because someone called Megatron from Transformers: Dark of the Moon "Hobo with a Shotgun".  This movie is pretty cheesy and very bloody.  I actually kind of enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say it was good.  It's almost worth watching for the concept alone, and I really liked the look and idea of a pair of villains called "The Plague".  I couldn't remember any really good (terrible), cheesy (quotable) lines, which movies like this usually need.

Fist of the North Star
I will admit that I thought the first half was pretty decent.  It appeared to follow the source material, which surprised me.  It didn't follow it 100%, but definitely more than I thought they would.  The second half wasn't as good (around "Vader Time" haha), and was more "hollywood" to me.  In the second half, Kenshiro just did martial arts and wasn't really exploding fools or anything that would make you know it was Fist of the North Star.  It wasn't terrible, but not good either.  If you are a fan of FotNS, I would recommend seeing this, even if for the cheese factor.

Amazing Spiderman
I was very worried about this movie, since the "first" one was great.  The second was even better.  The third sucked really hard, and was pretty much an offense to humankind.  When I heard they were rebooting the series, I had lots of doubts.  Those proved to be unfounded, as The Amazing Spiderman is a really good movie.  Unlike my friend Marcus Shadow, I don't think it was better than Avengers in any way, shape or form, but it is still worth watching.  It was a very well done movie, and the acting was top notch.  It was a bit longer than I would have liked, but it pretty much filled the time with important stuff to the plot and character development.  I know I'm late to the part on this one, but I recommend seeing this movie.  I will admit that I'm not 100% sure who the shadow figure is in the stinger, though.