Lootcrate Feb 2015 "Play!"

Hey guys, it's Lootcrate time again!

This months theme was 'Play' and it was a pretty good haul;

So i really quite liked this one, partly because I'm a nerd and can pretend that I like playign with people, partly because it announced to me that theres a Firefly Online game coming, but mostly because Ready Player One has been on my amazon 'buy this book and read it' list for about a year. Now it can just jump straight into the queue of books I have and want to read, right behind Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online book 2 (which is behind my current read, Michael Crichton's Lost world) and just in front of George Orwell's 1984.

In general though, its a pretty fun box, I especially like the card game, Superfight, which seems to be the latest in a line of Cards Against Humanity style games where the players have fun with their words and imaginations rather than working from a very specific rule sheet.

Also in this box, you may have noticed I got my Lootcrate members card and I had no idea what it is, but having searched the googles a bunch it seems that it's a card that looters get on their 3rd-5th loot crate. You take this card to conventions and stuff and they will give you free things. I don't really know what, but one person mentioned Pop Bobble heads, other people talked about plushies. It all sounds like a cool group to be in, not I just have to find out about hteir conventions!
Looking forward to next months crate, the theme seems to be spies.

YIAY-Tube
- James

Apologies

A lot has been happenning to me in the past few weeks since I got back from America, and I don't know what to say. I don't know how to apologise for not being here. I know, I know, we've been here before. I've said sorry I've made promises, and theres no reason this time will be different.
Hell I don't even know.
But I want to get back to it. I want to carry on. I have 2 podcasts ready to be edited so I will get around to that soon. I want to record a few more before we start posting again, so until then I suppose you only have me to talk to.

Since I returned I've had a ton of stuff to deal with, including going back to work, tryign to convince myself to start working out again, a couple of new games (Destiny, Sims 4 adn recently Disney Infinity 2.0) and my work contract has been changed so that half of my time will be devoted to Design, not solely Quality assurance. Which is huge for me.
It means I get to start working on new projects, start designing how games will be, not jsut making sure that they are how other people expect them to be.
I went to University to design games for a living and for 5 years all I've been able to do is help other people to do that.
Of course this may not work out exactly how I hope it will. My style may not fit with the company, My company may not need another designer by the end of my 3 month trial period or I may just not be very good at it. But it's closer than I've ever been before, and while it's exciting - terribly, terribly exciting - It's also terrifying. 5 years and my chance finally comes up, what if I screw it up?
But regardless, I'm going to do my best.

In hope to make sure I post in the future here's what I'm going to do in the next few posts:
Review of Destiny.
Review of Sims 4
Review of Disney Infinity 2.0

Along with anything that comes up I feel is worth talking about.

Your-Grammar-Tubes
- James

That was Brave

So about a month ago I watched Brave.
It... wasn't what I was expecting. It was good, but not at all what I thought it would be. I thought it'd be a more actiony thing, where the princess is constantly told to be more like a girl and then something happens and she's the only one who can save the day, and by not acting like a girl, but... it wasn't like that... at all.
At... All...

Brave is the Freaky Friday/17 again of the Pixar world. Set in the old Scottish highlands, Brave is about princess Merida, first born of the King, who spends 90% of her time training under her mother to be a 'proper princess', preparing to marry one of the sons of the kings three allies, though she doesn't know it at the beginning.
Merida, however, is not a proper princess. She likes archery, riding her big Scottish stallion Angus, climbing mountains, acting un-princess like and not getting married.
The story is a mother and daughter at conflict story. The mother wants the daughter to be something she isn't and the daughter wants the mother to stop wanting her to be something she isn't.
The first twenty minutes of the film shows the pair at odds until the emotions culminate in an explosion that causes Merida to run away after her mother throws her most treasured possession (her bow) into a fire. As soon as Merida's gone her mother realises what she's done of course, but it's too late.
Merida runs away and meets a witch. The witch gives her a spell to change her destiny, but instead it changes her mother into a bear (by the way, everyone in the kingdom hates bears) and they only have 2 days to resolve their differences or else she stays that way.

You can probably guess the rest of the film, but in case you can't I won’t reveal it. Suffice to say it's the same ending as Freaky Friday.

Ok, yeah, I just ruined it.

I enjoyed Brave, I really did, but... it... It just wasn't Toy story. It wasn't bugs life, it wasn't Monsters inc, Wall-e, The Incredibles or Finding Nemo. Pixar became famous because of great original ideas. Because of amazing writing and gorgeous animation and graphics.
Yes ok; the animation, the scenery and the graphics were amazing, but the story was unoriginal, the dialogue didn't leave me quoting it like other good Pixar movies - "I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food." - and... I dunno, I just feel that it could have been better.

It was good, I enjoyed it, it just wasn't Pixar good. Though I have been listening to one of the main songs from the sound track in all my playlists. That's something, right?

Vidi-Oh...
- James