The thoughts are late because I waited until last night to see it. Starz had it on all their channels at the same time, which was rather unusual, and I prefer DirecTV’s HD broadcasts to sitting in theaters.

I must say that I was taken completely by surprise. I expected the usual Abrams excessive effects and forced nostalgia. Some of that was present, but mostly the effects were in correct proportion to the drama and the nostalgia was usually subtle and appropriate. If I didn’t know better, I would say that JJ is developing a sense of taste.

The old characters were sort of shockingly old, but I did the math and realized that Episode IV was made almost forty years ago, so yes: they really are that age. Nonetheless, the movie sold the notion that even though Han Solo is a geezer, he’s still Han Solo and still doing exactly the same things he did in days of yore. Leia, on the other hand — well, I don’t think she’ll be wearing the slave bikini any time soon. I guess wookies age differently because Chewy was . . . erm, still Peter Mayhew in a costume (which did not look as convincing as muppet’s masterpiece).

I also did not expect to like the new characters as much as I did. Let me go ahead and get Kylo Ren out of the way first. Sorry, but this guy just didn’t work for me. The concept and identity weren’t presented well, and Adam Driver wasn’t able to sell Ren’s dark side or his conflict with the light. He reminded me of that neighbor kid who went off to college and became a disappointment, but the family is still working on him. The new “Luke” — Daisy Ridley as Rey — was very good. I think they made the right choice there. The big surprise was John Boyega as Finn. I did not expect to care about this character, but I did — a lot more than Poe (a.k.a. the new “Han” or really a new Han/Luke hybrid of some kind). I think Driver may be able to do better work with Ren in succeeding episodes, and let’s be fair: Oscar Isaac’s Poe was not very deep and had a lot of dumb lines — I would say that Isaac did a good job with what he had. I think Finn will be revived and we’ll get to see more excellent work from Boyega. I expect big things from Miss Daisy as the series progresses.

Obligatory notice of BB-8: aww, so cute — will sell a lot of Pez dispensers.

The writing, to me, was nicely done. The plot made sense in most places, and I don’t really care that much about Star Wars “lore,” so I wasn’t cognizant of any horrible sins in that department. The music was excellent, of course.

I think the whole thing shapes up as a successful reclamation of the Star Wars franchise, now that it’s out of the hands of the Episodes I-III quacks. Some things could have been better: (1) I wasn’t really impressed by either the First Order or the Resistance. Neither had the definitive Saturday matinee identities of the Empire and the Rebellion. (2) Too many “incidental” resuscitations were made of old Star Wars alien types and scenes. The best example is the final X-Wing assault on the improved Death Star, which was almost a remake of the original, right down to the droopy faced alien and the fat-guy-friend-of-George-Lucas. (3) The villains weren’t really too dire, and the threats weren’t very threatening, even though it was clear that The Force Awakens is an intentional homage to A New Hope (you might even say a remake, as so many scenes and events were nearly identical to those in the first movie). At least George Lucas sort of believed in his hokey Empire, whereas I never get that sense from Abrams’ First Order.

But otherwise, our young Abrams does a surprisingly good job with a massive responsibility. I was expecting to hear millions of voices suddenly cry out that they were being asploded in a Transformer movie — or worse, that they were stuck in a new Star Trek movie — but it may be that JJ has grown up and the Force is strong in this one. The new episode isn’t perfect, but I think the series is moving in the right direction. I’m anxious to see what Luke does with Rey, and speaking of Luke: that may be the best ending scene in any movie ever. Is old Luke cool or WHAT?

I bought the boxed disc copy, I think haven’t installed a game like that since Baldur’s Gate – 7 DVDs and after over an hour of installing I still can’t play the damn game, the launcher downloads some more 10 gigabytes.

why did I buy this game anyway?

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/475150/

Thanks to hurricane season, my part of the world is getting a lot of gentle, polite rain. While it’s nice to see everything greening up after a near-drought, I can’t walk outside as often as I’d like, so I have to rely on my el cheapo treadmill, which is starting to show its el cheapness. But all that is incidental, except to demonstrate how many clauses I can load into the same sentence.

No, what matters is that I’m incredibly busy at school because of numerous unlooked-for changes, so this means that I haven’t even been able to log onto Steam for a few days. (I tried to insert a “Lucy and Ethel at the Candy Factory” image here, but things didn’t work out.) As a result, I’ve forgotten how to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and will probably have to restart it. But that’s not all. Bethesda decided to release Nuka World right in the middle of all this, and from various reports, it seems that this DLC is much better than Far Harbor. On top of this, what does Blizzard do? If you’re guessing they’ve released their Legion expansion for WoW and that it’s getting lots of favorable impressions, you’re right.

This always happens. These idiots let the summer drag by with lackluster (or no) releases, and then when I get busier than a one-legged lone survivor soccer mom in a raider ass-kicking contest (think Lucy image), they spew all their good content simultaneously. I don’t know when I’ll be able to devote any meaningful time to games, and if I do get time, I don’t know what to pick. I should go on with Deus Ex, but I’m really curious about Nuka World and WoW: Legion. I feel rather guilty about Deus Ex because ILA was kind enough to gift it to me, along with Nosferatu. Then, of course, I still have The Witcher 3 just sitting on the hard drive untouched.

I’m a terrible person with no right to play games.

Notice I didn’t use the plural “impressions.” Also, I should add an extra “early.”

I only played for about an hour last night, so I didn’t do much more than look at the menu options and watch cut scenes. I did skydive onto the top of an unfinished luxury hotel in Dubai and start on what I assume is the tutorial mission. Very early on, I was able to get murdered by some terrorists. By the time I found them, I had forgotten who they were and why they were there — the briefing on their identity and motivations was barked out by some military guy on a transport plane, and I forgot who he was, too. Come to think of it, I forgot what military outfit he was with and why I was with them. This is not the game’s fault. I should pay closer attention, especially in a Deus Ex title, since every sentence and nuance usually turns out to be important.

So anyway, there I was on the top floor of this hotel whose construction had been interrupted by some spoiler I can’t go into. As I looked around, I noticed that practically everything could be picked up and thrown. I ignored this and marveled at the idea that I could mantle almost anywhere. Eventually, I came across said terrorists and realized that I must use my uber-pro-uncanny stealth abilities. Going through them would not be an option. Unfortunately, my uber-pro-uncanny stealth abilities were outmatched by their godlike lines of sight, resulting in my sad little death. I had a tranquilizer gun, but I think maybe I should have thrown a refrigerator at them. I can see that every encounter in this game is going to be a puzzle, which was the case in Human Revolution and which I liked very much.

So my impression thus far is that this is your usual Eidos treatment — it’s Tomb Raider with conspiracy theories gone wild, lots of talking, and lots of gnarly combat puzzles. It will probably take me a year to finish.

Oh, as for performance: I haven’t yet encountered the things that have upset the internet, but I’m sure I will eventually. So far, though, the game runs fine. It’s extremely console-ish, but that’s what you get these days and I can live with it if other things overshadow it. Everybody is throwing a fit about the preorder items not persisting beyond the first game session (or save or something), but since I don’t even know what the preorder items are or where to find them or whether they’re already equipped or whatever, I haven’t given them any thought. It’s early days, but right now I think this is a very professional “multiplatform” addition to the Deus Ex saga. Don’t be surprised, however, if I start whining.

But now I need a simulator quality flightstick and throttle to play it properly.

What have you DONE Sim??? What have you DONE??!!!!!! D: D: D:

This sums it up well:

Warning: lots of cursing. 🙂

I could not understand why people were shelling out $60 for No Man’s Sky when actually nothing happens in the game.

There are dozens of free titles similar to NMS where things actually happen, but I never knew the history of development for this title and what was actually promised.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4y1h9i/wheres_the_no_mans_sky_we_were_sold_on_a_big_list/

This game is going to own me.