New Cosplays!

Hey everyone! I was going to do an opinion/editorial-type post about Disney live-action remakes, but then I decided I didn't want to do something possibly quite negative right before Christmas. So instead I was just going to talk about some fun new cosplays that I'm working on/planning. Also hoping to show some of these off next year somewhere, although we don't have anything planned as of yet. So here we go!


Double Freddies 

There is a mild obsession with Queen going on in our house as of late. And it's not just me, a lot of it is being driven by the kids. So, in discussing costumes I was asked by the Elder Spawn about a Freddie Mercury costume. This was his choice:

So, Live Aid. A fairly straightforward costume. As long as I can find the right shoes, the rest should be pretty easy, I hope. So this will be the outfit plus the mic with the half mic stand. And a fake mustache. Gross fun fact, you can buy actual human hair fake mustaches. I'll pass, personally.
The second Freddie is for me. It wasn't a hard choice.

I Want to Break Free! Because how much fun is this? My only concern is the makeup. That damn eyeliner and shadow is on point and I'm going to have to beef up my skills to get it right. That and finding a bullet bra (that will fit), because you've gotta go all the way with this. Then me and the Elder Spawn just have to make sure we get into character and it should be awesome!



Valkyrie Commander Frigga

So Thor and Loki fanboy pretty hard when they meet Valkyrie in Ragnarok. Thor even says he wanted to be one when he was little. So I asked myself, why would they be such fans of the Valkyries? Perhaps because they grew up hearing stories from Frigga about her own days as one? So, with that fun little headcanon as a launching-point, I devised the idea of Valkyrie Commander Frigga. I want to incorporate both the Valkyrie costume from Ragnarok with some of Frigga's own style and armor, especially from Thor: The Dark World. So, here is my crudely MS-Paint-ed mock-up of my plan so far:

It's not pretty, but it gets the point across. I want to incorporate Frigga's breastplate and bracers and pauldron with the Valkyrie armor. Probably a pretty simple hairstyle, partly pulled-back like in the first Thor movie. I have a crown/headband thing to go with this for a little extra zazz. Speaking of zazz, the cape I plan on being blue on the outside, gold or yellow on the inside, since that's a color she wears a lot. For weapons probably a short sword and a knife, maybe a magic-effect prop as well. I'm sure there'll be some tweaks as we get into things, but I think it'll be pretty cool.
So there we go! Hooray for a little positivity and creativity! These are just planning stages right now, the only thing I actually have is my crown so far.

But I will update everyone as progress is made. Have a great holiday everyone!

So Many Trailers!

Hey everyone. I guess I didn’t need to wonder what to write about this week. There were so many trailers this week that it was a no-brainer. Let’s get right to it! 

Brightburn

So it’s like Superman, if Superman didn’t quite absorb all that ‘truth, justice, and American way’ quaintness from Ma and Pa Kent. Perhaps I’m ascribing more to this movie than there actually is, but I’d love to see it delve into the idea of nature vs. nurture, especially if the reason the kid was sent to this planet in the first place isn’t a benign one. And I am totally here for a creepy, horror twist on a classic superhero origin that is so engrained into our popular culture. 

Captain Marvel Trailer #2

There’s a lot of things I love here. I love the helmet/mowhawk, I love that Nick Fury loves cats, I love more crazy outer space stuff… I just want all of it, okay? And there looks like there’s going to be some really great character stuff as well. I don’t even have anything really deep and philosophical to say, I just want it all.  

Mortal Kombat 11

(Warning- trailer full of graphic violence)

So Human Scorpion fights and loses to Dark Raiden, who gets promptly annihilated by Revenant Scorpion. Color me interested. The timeline split that happened at the beginning of Mortal Kombat (from 2011, aka MK9) is obviously coming into play again, but whether this is a ‘world’s colliding’ thing or something else is yet to be seen. And who is the glowy dude at the end? I’m racking my brain through the lore and I’m coming up empty-handed. And, as a commenter pointed out (and I didn’t notice at first) the sand in the giant hourglass he’s standing by is going up, not down. Is this what’s responsible? So many questions! 

Dragon Age 4, or whatever it will be called

Okay, so I saw #TheDreadWolfRises trending on Twitter and nearly screamed, because it could mean only one thing: more Dragon Age! This is the tiniest of teasers but so, so juicy. How does the red lyrium idol (which you find in the second game) fit into all of this? Is it part of whatever Solas/Fen’Harel (you know, the Dread Wolf, an elven god, as you find out he is after spending a whole game with him) is planning? What is he planning? Can I smack him upside the head for lying to me for the entirety of Inquisition about who he is and what he knows? Questions? Yeah, I’ve definitely got them!

Avengers: Endgame 

Okay, so this was the big one that everyone was waiting for. I myself haven’t even watched it until now in preparation for this. And I think this will be the only trailer I watch for this movie. Interesting title too. Elder Spawn asked me what it meant and I replied from a gamer point of view: that it is the final part of the game where you fight the big boss. Fitting. But anyway, about the trailer itself. Hooo boy. Okay, it was properly mysterious. I was worried there’d be something that was too much. But it hit straight for the feels first thing. Ouch. At least they ended off with a little levity. And oh shit, did you see Hawkeye? That ain’t Hawkeye, that’s Ronin right there! I didn’t even need a trailer, I’m already hyped for this movie. I’m not watching anything else for it, I’m going in as blind as possible after this.   

So there you have it. Some sweet movies coming up, and the video game gods seem to think I don’t have enough to play already, so some awesome games in the works as well. This isn’t even counting the trailers for a fun, sci-fi space game from Obsidian, a new trailer for Anthem, and a whole bunch of other stuff from The Game Awards. The next little while looks like it's going to be quite awesome for content. Anyways, we’ll see you all next time!

*EDIT- I forgot the Godzilla trailers!! Okay, next post I'll have to get them. 

Fallout 76 Review!

Hey everyone, back again with a review. I know Fallout 76 has been out for a little while, and, while I did play the Beta, I wanted to spend some time with the full game first before writing a review. I thought that was only fair. So, here it goes. I won’t be getting into spoilers, either, as per usual. Oh, and all the screenshots/pictures posted are my own. 

For the record, and I don’t know if it makes a difference or not, I play this game on Xbox One. So my review and experience is based on that console and I can’t speak to or verify the experience of playing on PlayStation or PC. Thought I’d get that out of the way first thing. Also, this is my own experience playing, and just because I have or haven’t had a certain problem, or encountered something, doesn’t mean that’s across the board. I know and have heard plenty about others’ experiences, this is just mine. 

So I’ve had an odd relationship with the Fallout series. I’ve always loved the world and the story, but in the case of the first games, I hate turn-based combat. It drives me nuts. Fallout 3 was a game I could finally play, but I had a hard time getting into the story, so I never got very far into it. It was not for lack of trying, either. The only thing I’ve tried harder to like is Amon Amarth (I tried…). But, Fallout 4 was bundled with our Xbox One when we bought it, and I was in love. I’ve put hundreds of hours into that game.

Meet Hawke: nice but snarky, kleptomaniac, wants to find her son.

 So I was pretty excited when a new trailer dropped after a couple of days of mystery. Less exciting was the prospect of an online, multiplayer game. But I pre-ordered it for Beta access and ended up buying the whole deal when it came out. And here’s what I thought. 

This game has been getting a lot of hate. A lot. I haven’t been watching reviews for it, mostly because I want to get my own opinions out before checking out everyone else’s. But also, between this and the Diablo Immortal announcement (gasp! mobile! I'm not even gonna link that shit, because it's ugly), I am just way too tired of the negativity in the game franchises I enjoy to engage lately. Fandom is so negative sometimes. But, I digress. I’ve been having a lot of fun with Fallout 76. Honestly. 

Pros:

-It’s quiet. This won’t be a pro for everyone, and it is really weird to play a game like this and not have companions or any NPC’s of any kind. But it really grows on you. I logged back into 4 while waiting for 76 to update and I was instantly mobbed by NPCs and companions all talking to me at once and it was ‘aaah, I wanna go back to West Virginia where it’s quiet!’. I personally find it really atmospheric to come out of the Vault and there’s nobody around and all you find are the remnants of both the old world and people that tried to survive in the new one.  

-It’s pretty. I keep seeing complaints about the ‘outdated engine’ and I guess I don’t know much about such things because I think the game looks gorgeous. I’m not a graphics snob, either. I’m here for the story, looking pretty is just a bonus. 

#nofilter honestly, I took the screenshot just as you see it.

-The story. Not only are we in a new location (West Virginia), but we are leaving the Vault into a world only twenty-five years after the Great War that destroyed everything. This makes it the earliest-set Fallout game to date, outside of the few minutes of the Fallout 4 prologue (of which, the main game takes places 185 years after Fallout 76 and 210 years after the War). This is a world where the Great War and the world before it is something some people still remember. I’m hoping as time progresses and if additional content becomes available, we can explore that more. 

-Multiplayer is not essential and death is not the end. These things are both very good for me. I don’t want to play games to play with other people. I mean, I even played World of Warcraft mainly solo back in the day. So the fact that I don’t have to deal with other people is quite fine with me. I just do my thing and let others to theirs. I’ve only died once by the hand of another player, a wanted player who got me just after I logged in and was looking up a quest in my book. Which is fine, you don’t lose all your stuff when you die, just your junk gets put in a little paper bag for you to collect and it’s all an opponent can loot from you. All of that is great, I don’t have to worry about my equipment or loot getting stolen if I get ganked. So I mainly just do my thing and most others seem to as well, and it’s all good.     

-Survival aspects. I never played the Survivial Mode in previous titles, as it didn’t really interest me. This game has some survival aspects, and it’s been pretty interesting so far. You have to eat and drink, and maintain that, as well as you can catch diseases and mutations through the environment, enemies, or food/water. Food will also spoil if it isn’t cooked or processed in some way. It’s taken some getting used to, but it really is just another bar to keep an eye on, and not a huge deal. It does bring some realism to your playing, though.  Thankfully the one I’m bad at remembering, sleep, is not a requirement, as it is in the Survival and Hardcore modes of previous entries. 

-Building is back, and there are claimable workshops. Yay, crafting! I spend so much time crafting and building, and it’s back again! I haven’t built anything too extravagant yet, but I’m still deciding where to set up my permanent C.A.M.P. 

A quick camp just for fun.

 

I claimed one workshop already, and you hold it as long as you’re online, but lose it once you log out. It was neat having a ‘settlement’ to defend again, and useful for getting resources, but again, not necessary.   

there's a lot going on in this pic. Claimed workshop, atoms for the Atom Shop. etc. And, you show up as your gamertag, not your character name, as you can see.

-Big map. There is so much to explore! I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface and I’ve put in a lot of hours between the beta and the full game. Even though I retained my progress from said beta and was able to pick up where I left off in the full version, there is so much map left that I haven’t even touched yet.  

I think I've been in about five of these zones.

-Photomode. Basically a camera mode with poses, frames, filters, and all kinds of fun stuff? Sign me up! You can get more stuff for it, as well as clothes, and other cosmetic things in the Atom Shop, where you spend Atoms you get for completing quests and challenges (or, you know, real money). Photomode has been super fun so far, and I’ve gotten some really great pictures from it. 

Feral Ghoul yoga

 

Off to the Sabaton concert!

this is one of my absolute faves of Lyra. She always looks so unimpressed.

-The game has run fine for me so far. I know there have been a lot of bugs and glitches, some even game-breaking ones. I’ve had them before, but nothing so far in Fallout 76 (my worst ones were actually in Mass Effect 2 and Portal 2). There have been the odd glitches and bugs, like the time I clipped through a wall, or frozen, floating Super Mutants, some lag, but nothing severe. Mostly, they’ve just been amusing, especially to the Elder Spawn. Perhaps I’ve just been lucky.  

Or logging in without a body for the first little bit

 

walls cannot stop me!

Cons:

-No ‘safe zone’ adjusting for the HUD. There’s no way to adjust this, and I have the edges on things like the map cut off. It’s quite irritating, since I can only see the edge of the Menu and Social buttons, and it was only by button-mashing experiment I figured out which buttons they actually were.  

-SPECIAL/Perk card system. I’m not sure I like having my Perks coming to me randomly when I get new cards. I’m finding it frustrating as I’m not allowed to pick from the ones I want, necessarily, but from whatever cards I have or get when I level. I don’t want cards that give me bonuses when in a team, I need the ones to increase carry weight or decrease item weight, dammit! I’m ending up with a lot of useless cards. Bobble-heads and magazine bonuses are only temporary as well, and that sucks also.    

I appear to be going for a strong but smart build.

-Real-time VATS. Speaking of cards, I only just got one that lets me aim at limbs specifically in VATS. Real-time VATS is useful for finding enemies, or taking care of stupid flying things like bloodbugs that irritate me, but it’s not nearly as useful as it was in previous titles. I find I’ve switched to mainly melee weapons and mostly don’t use VATS except in the above situations.  

meet the Anti-Armor Axe. Ignores 50% of the target's armor. I love it.

-Updates. Okay, this is a big one for me. I expected patches, but these patches are huge! I’ve had I believe four, two each from beta and full game, patches of 45-50 gigs each. That includes the Day One patch that dwarfed the game install itself that came from the disc. I’ve realized that my Internet sucks and that I need a new provider, so thanks for that, but these updates are massive! This is not a ‘couple of hours’ thing for me, this is a couple of days! Ouch. If they can get that under control, I would be much happier.

So there it is, all my thoughts on Fallout 76. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I’m not getting the hate. Yeah, it’s online, but I’ve just been ignoring the other people and I’ve been doing fine. It’s not without issues, but it’s not the flaming dumpster fire I’m hearing people call it. Or maybe I’m just lucky? I don’t know, guys.