YouTube Obsessions

I like what “Early Access” does for independent games on Steam. Fans get to pay for the opportunity to beta test games, offsetting costs and informing developers how fans play their games. It’s great!
But I’ve already put hundreds of hours into Escape from Tarkov, (a game that appears to have zero interest in ever reaching 1.0) so I have little interest in playing other games through their beta growing-pains. I’m happy to wait until day 1 release.

Xenonauts 2 is a game I cannot wait to play when it is fully release (hopefully) later this year. In the meantime I have really been enjoying Phrosphor’s playthrough of the early versions.

In case you were unaware, Xenonauts is a spiritual successor to the old XCOM games (Pre the Firaxis Enemy Unknown re-vamp). X-2 seems to have smoothed the animations and created a far more mechanically interesting game than it’s predecessor.

Also, Steam is currently selling a bundle of all the Firaxis XCOM games for a ridiculous $18. If you ever had an interest, you should pick this up now.

Watching

SPOILERS

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SPOILERS 〰️

The Iron Claw currently has a 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and having just watched the film, I have no idea how.

Claw feels like a parody of other biopics because it hits every saccharine trope in the syrupy nose. The scene of the brothers reuniting in death? Forrest Gump couldn’t have pulled off anything near as treacly.

It has another problem some dramas get caught up in: Sad does not mean profound. Is it sad this entire family was terrorized by an overpowering father? Yes. Is it sad that all the brothers died in such horrible nihilistic ways? Yes. Does any of this make the story good? No. It remains predictable from scene one. And yes, I know it’s based on a true story …. so tell it better!

While I’m watching, all I can think is: Does Zach Efron know how ironic this role is for him? Does he draw the connection of his character killing himself for a circus act while Efron himself is pumped up on so much gear and HGH that he has shortened his lifespan and made his face look like a catcher’s mitt for a movie that doesn’t have any Oscar or Golden Globe nominations? LOL LMAO.

Also, this speaks more to the singular uniqueness of Ric Flair than it does to any movie direction or actor, but the Ric Flair in The Iron Claw is terrible. The actor could not even imitate one iota of the charisma of Flair. It takes me right out of the movie. If you’re not gonna hire a good impersonator (Cody Rhodes comes to mind) just show stock footage of Flair.

Overall, it’s a bad Oscar bait movie that didn’t even fool the idiots in the academy.

Reading

It is primary election time and the hardest part about being a voter is keeping up with all the local elections and ballot measures.

Luckily, Los Angeles has a couple great resources for voters.

Knock LA has a great progressive voting guide, with qualified suggestions. I rarely trust anywhere that just has a list of picks.

LAist, also has a deep breakdown of all the local and state elections. Not a guide per-say as it is a fairly unbiased presentation of the candidates and their platforms.

Playing

Turns out I’m enjoying the Director’s Cut of Death Stranding that I’m almost done 100% completing it. So in between deliveries I’ve been reading through old gaming codices of the table top version of Warhammer 40k. 85% of table top gaming is reading so I guess I’m, in a way, playing Warhammer 40k.

Specifically, I love the 4th edition codices (For reference GamesWorkshop just released the 10th edition last year) mostly because this was the first edition I read back in 2007. It was also an era before 40k became super popular and the rules and lore leaned more toward goofy than pure grim-dark.

Just read the 4th edition Ork codex to see how fun it must have been.