Some blogs never die

Alright, my dear non-existent readers, it's been a while. You see, on the one hand, I've been busy, and on the other hand, I just didn't want to say a thing. Well, today I decided that there are certain words I should wright on subjects that've been taking my attention for the last months. Maybe, I will find time to make a full entries on some of them, however, now I will just quickly throw at you some headlines and give some thoughts.

First of all, Avengers came out in April, and I must confess, but I just couldn't get nor first, neither second film. Somehow, movies so big couldn't present something very memorable, or give the atmosphere. Just a bunch of guys kicking asses of bunch of aliens/robots/insert correct answer. Yet I don't give my hopes on Ant-man (In ghettos it will be released as "Ain't-man"), as more stand-alone Marvel products such as Guardians of the Galaxy or Daredevil tend to be artistic success.

As we are on the subject of Netflix's Marvel's Stan Lee's own Daredevil™ all rights reserved (more jokes here), maybe it is not the best thing you've ever seen, but it really shows progress in terms of portraying Russians (now half of them speaks fluent Russian!) and messing up love lines. However, the thing is very decent. I enjoyed watching it, but the pacing seems uneven as it is suddenly rockets in the last episode, which makes all trials and tribulations of the titular hero look somehow empty and meaningless. And the way villains were going down reminds me of a Guy Ritchie movie.

I regularly watch a number of TV shows, and I don't want or have nothing to say about most of them, except that Game of Thrones is spoiling them. Well, not directly, of course, but certain manner of (more or less) sudden death of leading characters is making it's way into more and more series. As for the Game of Thrones itself, I surprisingly find it very faded and boring in comparison to it's first two seasons. The episode eight was an example of what we (I, at least) do want to see, but the rest of the season can be described as "meh". However, it seems like the next one will shake things up a little, so not all hope is lost.

If you want an example of a good series or miniseries to pleasantly waste your precious time, never look further BBC's Original Drama section, as you might find the finest arguments proving that TV series are, in fact, a form of art. Second season of Broadchurch is good example of well done character- and story-driven narrative. Other aspects are highlighting the overall show's superiority, but that's not really the most outstanding thing I've encountered for the past months and, possibly, my most favorite experience for the whole year in terms of television. That is "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel", a miniseries adaptation of Susanna Clark's book of the same name. To describe my satisfaction I just say that the only it's flaw is it's shortness, as I can't stop craving for more.

"What, you don't do anything but sit on your ass and watch some series and movies?", you might ask. Well, of course not. I also sit on my ass and play videogames on my PC! The news from this sphere are not so exciting, but some things have to be said. For example, me and my friend almost finished playing Divinity: Original Sin. We started about half a year ago, but we played 70 hours or so, and we didn't touch it for a couple of months, but, you know, it's good to be playing TBS RPG in COOP.

Payday 2 is releasing a heist every two months, and they don't seem to be stopping or releasing Payday 3 anytime soon. So now I sometimes stream some ridiculous attempts to do stealth with randoms on my twitch channel. Why I'm mentioning this? Well, not because I'm promoting myself (duh). GTA V was released on PC! You've waited for so long, and it was nice to play campaign again, but if you want to play online, you've got to wait some more. Much more. And heists... Let's say, "Payday" made heists look better and more interesting. Well, not Golden Grin Casino, but others.

At first, I was really cautious about Witcher 3. Now, in short, I have more than 55 hours played and I'm waiting for DLCs to play again with attention to every sidequest, not the main story solely.

Batman: Arkham Knight also was released. On my low-end PC it ran pretty fine, so I could enjoy playing it. I threw in jail everyone, except damn Riddler, but then they broke broken PC version even further and I started experiencing crash after crash. Yet, I really got much to say about it and I don't want to spoil my own pleasure.

Finally, music. I guess I never talked much about music in this blog. But what is there really to say? Well, Muse issued new album, very fine one, reminds me much about Black Holes and Revelations. They came in Russia during tour to present it on the Park Live festival. Glorious concert it was, but I was really surprised by another band called Triggerfinger. Go listen their tracks now, they are very good.

Game view - Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - 10 hours of Ultra-Violence

In the world where the word "Cinematic" has become a defining quality of games, it always good to see games with accent on gameplay, atmosphere and certain style. That's why I so fond of small game studios and publisher - unlike the big names, they're providing products made with love and without crap like "Next-gen visual OMFG look at those graphics so realistic we are just dropping every other aspect altogether". It is especially pleasing to find something with old school values - so was the first Hotline Miami with pixel visuals, quick reaction tempo and perfect soundtrack to get into the killing mood. Despite lacking the plot as it is, with pieces of story here and there, the gory game is totally worth playing and even replaying, as the way to pass the level varies in dependence of the mask you are choosing. Long story short, 10/10, oh my.

But what about the second one? Actually, changes are huge, so let's get into it step by step.

This time, we have quite a number of protagonists. And, yes, now there's a plot! A lot of dialogues! Though we're lucking masks this time, now variety is provided by individual perks of each character. There's even one who allows you NOT to kill enemies to pass the level, although you're still have to knock them out. On the other hand, it really narrows a list of strategies to use. And though plot is seemingly moves in some direction, it doesn't lead to any certain ending. Some storylines are cut in the middle, some look very unnecessary. The plot is mostly the set of stories, and we almost never see them cross or merge with each other. Game feels short and unfinished

Soundtrack, very important part of the first game, now became much bigger (49 tracks!). The music is faster, the melodies have progressions, so these a not just 2-3 parts cycling during 3 min. However, they don't give the mood now, and they're not so memorable. I can't remember a single tune already, however it's been only a few hours since I finished playing, meanwhile the tracks from the first game are in my memory for good.

I should mention level design as well. There are a lot of open spaces now, and I mean A LOT. With little places to hide. Though it increases difficulty, I consider this move cheap and don't like it, as it really leads to exploiting covers and AI.

However, all the main things are still there: hundreds of corpses, blood all over the place, quick and reflexive gameplay. Increased number of weapon (including machinegun, sniper rifle and flamethrower), unique perks like shooting from two hands or even playing as two character at once provide a rare opportunity to unleash an inner animal and get drown into pure digital violence. 8/10, go play it.

All the fallen TV series

What a cruel world we are living in. Everyone is so desperate to get on top, many of others are falling down into the oblivion. It is Darwinism, as you can call it, but how does the brightest and best are appearing between unsuccessful ones? Why so many awesome TV shows are getting canceled, while some truly despicable are still running?

Oh, Firefly! I guess only the laziest haven't praised your episodes and mourned your short life, so I better move on, cause I don't really have much to add.

Oh, The Cape! In dark times before superheroes were mainstream you gave us what Arrow and Flash are giving us now - entertainment! Original, fresh and underestimated, the world wasn't ready for your spectacular story and great cast, and the voices of geeks was not loud enough to keep your on the air. Rest in peace, you magnificent TV comic book we didn't deserve.

Oh, Flashforward! You've been called overcomplicated and silly and not intresting, but you are none of it. All the intersected plot lines and the general Sci-Fi component was promising. You were the son of Lost, but bigger and more philosophical with the promise of the adequate finale at one point in the future. Such a shame it was to see your fall from the cliff you were hanging from, taking all the answers along with you. May you rest in peace.

Oh, Almost Human! So young and so promising, you were another sci-fi show, this time shining on us with an Asimov light. Laying ground for a very huge story, introducing such a marvelous ideas, you yet couldn't convince the world and the producers to keep you running. Such a sad, sad story of another geek joy descend. I will miss your body-cop-robot jokes and futuristic atmosphere with a hint of reflecting of modern moral and problems. Rest in peace.

Movie view - "Gone girl": be gone and stay gone!

Best movie of the year, they said. You will like it, they said. It's a mind FCK, they said, but eventually you'll understand how it is great, they said.

Well, no. Bullshit. "Gone girl" is not a good movie, it's not better than "Interstellar" and it's way worse than "Guardians of the Galaxy".

Maybe, the main problem is wrong format - it appears, that creators (and Fincher himself) wanted it to be a TV mini serial, but none of the cable networks bought it. Well, it's their loss, they should've, it would be a great one. Instead we got pretty boring film with speed up here and their, and it feels raw and unfinished.

Maybe, it's shallowness of some characters. The detective lady is interesting, but is underdeveloped and not presented much. She expresses certain doubt about events, but her mood swing in the middle can be explained only by her periods. All this could be solved by making a mini serial, as I said. Ben Affleck's wife, although is presented as cold hearted bitch and ingenious criminal mastermind, makes the stupidest choices and mistakes (it's about time to be emotional while playing golf after escaping from abusive husband and being unemotional through the movie!)

The plot itself if not very satisfying and looks strange at places, despite general quality of main idea. For example, the damn lawyer came and said: "We go to the police and telling them about barn and your mistress (stupid word for lover in affair)",  and a couple days later BAM! it hits them in their own backs and the lawyer looks surprised. Well why is that, you dumb fuck? You didn't expect this? Well, you predicted it earlier, didn't you? This crap is not why you are being payed $100k! Shit, this movie enrages me!

And you know, the worst point of all this madness is the ending. Yes, we all know that the bitch is crazy and you should keep as far from her as possible and her place is in jail, but no. She won, outsmarted everyone. You can cry about it under the table and deal with it. So much bullshit, I can't even express this.

Haven't been so outraged about good idea performed bad since I watched "In time", but at least nobody praises the latter.

Well, I can't deny brilliant soundtrack and good visuals. Main idea is also magnificent. Too bad it so poorly performed.

At least I know why Affleck looks so miserable on this picture from "Batman vs Superman". I hope it won't suck that much!