X-COM 2 feels like a Masterpeice.

I can never play 2012's X-COM ever again. I'm stuffed. I've never been anything braver than a save scrubber ( I reload every time a I loose a soldier) so I've gotten all I can out that game. And what I got was a year and a half of positively sublime white-knuckled strategy.

X-COM 2 is coming down the pike in less than a month and every last bit of information about it has me giddy. First of all, there's been tons of it. Last Tuesday, it seems like every major outlet released original game play footage over 2 hours each. Most games aren't allowed in the sunlight a fraction as much before the drop date. The marketing strategy oozes so much confidence and the material looks so good... I think, that they think, they have a game of the year on their hands.

I'm inclined to agree.

One, I'm a sucker for solid animation and the solders this time around act far beyond what I would reasonably expect. Look at that screen shot up there. Look how perfectly nonchalant their faces are! That right there is hard goddamn work almost no company bothers to spend money on. I've seen footage of a berserker throwing a soldier into a truck windshield (not a cut scene but actual gameplay) and she rolls off the hood and curls up into a realistically painful-looking fetal position.

They know the greatest thing about this series is your attachment to your little tin men and women. They threw millions of dollars at them so you could relate to them even more. That alone tells me their hearts were in the right place from day one. Every time I swear I'm not going to spend 20 minutes watching a let's play I haven't seen... I break.

I submit to you, the gaming public, that at the very least this is going to be in 2016's top 3. I think this is going to be a masterpiece.

But don't just take my word for it:

Take a deep breath.

Relax. Realize tomorrow's always a second chance. Now watch some guy futz over the X-COM 2 soldier customization settings for 20 minutes.

Balance.

So I planed on writing a fallout 4 review...

I am not amused

But! I found a but so big it caused me to rethink the whole affair. Once again, a game's choice of endings is forcing me to reconsider my previous gushing enthusiasm. They're just all so reductive and terrible.

 You know how we're all sick to death (I'm actually pretty medically sick at the mo') of "go here and kill that?" Every single ending boils down to it. Find a faction you like, then kill everyone else. This... is a nightmarish interpretation of what made New Vegas great. Making the New California Republic surrender to you is ten times more satisfying than actually mowing down it's high command. But you need to do that twice to beat the game.

I honestly don't know what else to say. It'll be up this week though. And you bet your ass I just rolled another character too.

Kraken Recommends: Making a Murderer.

Nothing is spoiled past episode 2!

This is the best true crime documentary since The Thin Blue Line. That was a documentary so crazily convincing it got an innocent man out of prison. MAM is a lot like that, except the happy ending. Though redditers are desperately trying.

I'm only halfway through this legalese mouth of madness and I'm already floored. Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted of rape, which he served 18 years. Then he sued the Manitowoc Sherrif's departmen for $36 Million. Then he stayed in Manitowoc county.

The rest will fill you with a righteous fury. If that sounds like something you want to feel, binge my friends. Binge.

Happy 2016!

...that was fast.

The Hateful Eight Roadshow Review: Hang er' High.

Would you pay $15 for a taste of the soundtrack and no ads? I'd pay $30. That's heaven to me.

Before it's release Thursday, The Hateful Eight is showing at about 40 major cities in 70 mm film. One of those theaters happened to be close to me (for once) and after 3 and a half hours I walked out of the theater breathless. H8 is so many things. A gritty western, a locked room mystery, and treatise on post civil war racial politics. I had a total fu^&ing blast. It should have been a sloppy disaster. It's bloody finale should have been overwrought and embarrassing.

But just like the vast majority of Tarantino joints; the acting is so good and the dialogue so funny and meaningful, you just don't see it for it's flaws. Because this movie is built around a vast web of total coincidences that just don't add up to anything but the most dramatic situation possible. And that's fine. I could watch Samuel Jackson yell at and torture a confederate general all. Day. Long.

He's a national treasure and he knows it.

The plot starts simple. A ex union cavalry man turned bounty hunter (Jackson) happens upon a stage coach carrying another bounty hunter (Kurt Russel in a mustache to end all mustaches) chained to Daisy Domergue. A woman with a bounty of $10,000 who he means to bring in alive. In order to escape a blizzard they make their way to a road house to wait it out. Chaos, of course, eventually ensues. Unsettling, bloody, laugh till' you cry, chaos.

The plot and it's twists are essential to loving this movie so I'll keep my mouth shut. Every actor gives 100% and you won't see the end coming. Trust me on that. Though I will say the monologue leading up to the film's intermission had me cackling and the audience applauding.

You can't put a score, or a price, on a movie that gets a room full of strangers that riveted. Let me be clear, it was a damn fine film. But someone needed to tell Quinton to cut 20 minutes. There's too many loving shots of Wyoming mountains and stage coaches. Seriously, those sequences last 8 minutes each. And I'm actually a big fan of the little time waster scenes here and there. Kurt Russel making coffee or Walton Goggins staking a guide rope to the outhouse in a blizzard, drew me in more than not. Your mileage may very.

Don't expect a masterpiece. Expect something funny, thought provoking, and fiercely unique.

Shut the door!!!!!

You boy! What day is it?!

Oh... EVE. Never mind, do carry on.