Breaking Bad, Final Season Premiere Review...*sob*.

This is it folks, the home stretch. The end is nigh, the curtain's calling and the fat lady's singing. Breaking Bad is over now. It's all in the can and I'm sittin' here, wagging my tail patiently, for AMC to dole out the last few chapters of one my my favorite stories ever told on film.

I have a laundry list of burning questions about how this is gonna wind down. I've long since given up on predicting anything about where it's gonna go and I'd much rather be surprised than see all those questions answered in ways I'd always assumed they'd be. This is not Lost, BB has earned a difficult and ambiguous ending, but that doesn't mean they can't twist their ankle at the finish line. So these next few weeks are gonna be rough for me.

But enough about my personal feelings and tired ending metaphors, how was the premiere? For those who haven't seen it yet and you're just dipping your toe into general critical reception, it's good. Really... really good. But I'm looking to roll up my sleeves and spoil this whole thing, so catch up if you aren't and meet me back here in 45 minutes.


If not, this GIF's gonna ruin your whole day.

Not kidding around here...

 

...Wow. 6 whole years of tension, sprung in an instant. I've always loved how separate Hank's stories were from Walt's. It was never truly a "cat and mouse" thing. It would dabble in that occasionally, but for the most part they only tangentially effected each other. It was a gun that never needed to go off necessarily. Hank had done his job, he cracked the Fring case which (if it were a real case) would make him a nationally recognized hero along side Captain Sullenberger. 

In a way, a horrible way, Walt's homicidal ego gave Hank a career he could have never dreamed of. Everything would have been just fine at the end of last season (I know it's technically 5.2, but come on) but this was never gonna end happy. We don't want it to end happy. Sh*t, Mike's already dead by Walt's hand, how many more sacred cows... no, not Jessie!! Oh god, Gilligan don't do it! Unless it's brilliant. I think they can earn it, they've earned everything else.

So what was it that made Blood Money so special? I mean, besides the immediate reaction to the leaves of grass bombshell? Like most of the show, each episode is filled with competent, interesting, little scenes. And that's what most of this episode was, interesting insulation for the major bombshells. That was fine, there needed to be room to breath.

BB has always  secretly been a really funny show, and Badger's Star Trek spec script will go down as one of it's all time funniest scenes. I won't spoil it, but you've probably already seen it's animated version. Other than that, Walt's going nuts attempting to deal with the day to day of the car wash business, Hank's hunkered down in his garage building his case against Walt... and what else? Oh, in the future, the White home is condemned by the government and Walt still needs that ricin cigarette. Also a trunk full of automatic weapons.

But who cares about any of that? Hank punched out Walt in the same episode Hank makes the connection! It was genius, they could have built up to that for half the episodes left and none of us would have cared. Is the show boxing itself into a corner here? I'd like to think not, I believe they have more interesting things to deal with other than building to this episode's finale.

Personally I think they're gonna do it. They are going to stick the landing on my favorite show ever made. So fingers crossed Breaking Bad doesn't smash cut to the end credits in a Diner.

 

Guess Who's Back?

After a delightful 6 hour layover in Shannon IE and a complementary "we won't have a plane for you for twelve hours" hotel room, I'm finally back stateside. I'll start on the best performances tout suite, because I'm toally gonna finish it goddamn it, ate at me the whole time. Oh crap, Breaking Bad premiered already?! I've some catching up to do... thank you (the twelve of you) for your patience. Thanks for for giving me a break, it was a great week.

The National Crackpot's European Vacation

I've got a vacation coming up for the next week and will not be able to update. Don't have a smart phone, and even if I did, I'm sure I'd get flayed alive with roaming charges if I tried.

I really would have loved to finish my best performances list... no excuse for that, I knew this trip was coming for months. Anywho,see you in a week.

Breaking Bad Season 5 is live on Netflix.

I'm still trying to iron out my best performance list, making sure I only have one example per game, so that's making it difficult. I also want to have as little of the usual suspects as possible, so this is gonna take longer than I thought, but good news! There's something good on Netflix right now.

I've begun to like this season more in retrospect than I did a year ago, I used to have it right under season 3. Remember when the writers couldn't decide what to do with Skylar and it brought the whole show down a little? Having it there made it the De-facto "worst" season for me. But calling any season of this show "worst" only makes sense when comparing it to itself... and maybe The Wire.

The pacing was wonky to me and it felt like they were throwing out all the grand ideas they had left to burn now that the show was ending. The fumigation tent, the giant magnet, the train robbery, and that kooky German food magnate all felt like great ideas on their own, but never seemed cohesive. After watching the first episode again, I enjoyed it much more having an idea where it was going, but forgetting the finer details.

I think it might be my favorite now, next to 4:

Check it out.

Shadowrun Returns, Review: Short, Sweet, and Full of Possibilities

Not every game has to be 20 hours long to prove it's point and Shadowrun Returns will not take any where near that length of time to finish. It's short, there's no way around that, it took me barely 7 hours. But I'm not docking it any points. Why? Because it ended when it had to. I had fleshed out my character as far as I wanted to, the story had reached it's logical end, and as much as I love turn based combat, I was ready to put it down when I finally dealt with Sam's killer.

Shadowrun puts you into a cyber punk fantasy world filled with trolls, elves, dwarves, guns, drugs, corporate conspiracies, and nerps. I don't know what the hell nerps are, but the omnipresent billboards about them made me chuckle. Nerps! I'm an easy laugh.

The main campaign is a story called "Dead Man's Switch" in which a old shadowrunner buddy of yours is murdered after he set up an automatic video message through his lawyer, should his death be ruled unnatural. He's apparently stashed a humongous payday since you saw him last, and becuase he couldn't take it with him, he'll give it all to you if you can find out whodunnit. The murder-mystery noire angle is more than refreshing to see in a fantasy setting. A set up like this is more inclined to introduce and develop characters, rather that spend half it's time shoving it's made up dragon language in your face.That may sound like I have a chip on my shoulder about fantasy stories in games, but that's only half true. I've got a chip on my shoulder about what fantasy games get away with.

But I'm not getting into that now, SR is a great change of pace from the RPG crowd, and it's strictly linear (dun dun dun) structure actually serves to keep the game from watering itself down. Would I have loved some side quests to flesh out the world and help me grind for that last pistol skill? Of course. But thinking about it now, it wouldn't have changed my opinion on it much at all. Unless it told a better story than the campaign, but that's just silly. I also have a few problems with the way the Native American and Haitian characters are depicted but... you what? never mind.



Actually no, It's not ok. The Haitian is literally Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die, it's gross.

Moving on.

The way it plays is just as fun and breezy as the story it tells. You play as any of the typical fantasy roles, but then choose from the less typical fantasy classes like "hacker" or "street samurai." There was no way in hell I wasn't going to try the street samurai. Even though you hand pick your squads for the major missions, your choice of class has a huge bearing on how battles play out. This is no place for a jack of all trades, pick something you want to be good at and throw yourself at it. My 5 points in hacking meant f**k all compared to my pistol and rifle skill. You need to be the strongest version of what class you play, because your back up is only going to be half as powerful.

My samurai's assault rifle automatic attack was, hands down, the most effective skill I had. But the fact only I could learn it and that it could only take on one enemy at a time, and even then only once per turn, meant I couldn't possibly carry my team alone. SR's combat is a bloody ballet of teamwork and skill balance. There are many ways to build a bad squad of shadowrunners and I became intimate with them all. You do not need two hackers. Not ever. But this genius got halfway through the longest mission with two lousy gun hands that couldn't help each other out in cyber space at the same time. Disaster. (Pro tip: Deathsigh the troll and his shotgun is never a slot wasted...oh and don't try melee your first time, this is a gun fight.)

So while some folks may justifiably believe that Kickstarter is a dead end boondoggle, this is proof it can work efficiently and effectively. The game out of the box is worth $20 bucks on the nose, not much more bang for your buck, but you will at least play it twice with a different character on a harder difficulty. The game this will become a year from now is an entirely different story. The tools and assets for everything are included and I'm assured by my more tech savvy buds that it's very easy to use. New crowd sourced content is already rolling in and I say it's only a short matter of time before we start panning some real gold.

But know that Shadowrun Returns is already a gem.

This is seriously a thing that happens in some dude's penthouse.

Bioshock Infinite DLC Reveal

ANYONE WHO HASN'T PLAYED INFINITE PLEASE STOP READING NOW.

Everyone else cool?

M'kay.

The two episode DLC is set in Rapture, a re-imagining of the story from the main game... yeah I was pretty underwhelmed too. We've already had two games explore Rapture, I honestly wanted more of Columbia and am now pretty glad I skipped out on the season pass. This looks like it could go either way at face value.

But far be it from me to judge a game by it's pitch, how does the trailer shape up?

Oh... oh god damn. Ladies and Gentlemen, never bet against Ken Levine. That looks friggn' incredible.

Artemis Fowl is now a Disney Property.

StickyLeaf!

The only surprising thing about this is that it's only just become a project. I remember way back in my middle school days how controversial it was. There was a line drawn. One sided with Art, the other with Harry and never the twain would meet. I was on the Harry side and never really gave Art a chance, but apparently its pretty good and will hopefully be a pretty good movie.

Fantasy, thief caper, spy thriller? It would be hard not to have a good time at that movie... unless it gets Percy Jacksoned.