Tonight we are down several folks including Belghast, so as a result Tamrielo is filling in with the role of leading the festivities. There is some confusion and this show is announced as 281 only to realize after recording that it is in fact 280. Tonight the AggroChat crew talks about their feelings regarding the final movie in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga. The opinions run the gambit from enjoyed it quite a bit to absolutely hated the experience and this leads to a pretty balanced discussion about the movie that the future of Star Wars.
Like I said in yesterdays post, last night I saw the new Star Wars film and the capstone to the trilogy of trilogies… The Rise of Skywalker. I also managed to leave my credit card at dinner and am going to have to go pick that up tonight, but that is another story. Watching Rise of Skywalker in some ways reminded me of watching Return of the Jedi but for the wrong reasons. When I was a kid I was so deathly sick the weekend we were supposed to go see Return, but I refused to let my parents cancel because I was desperate to see it. Last night I was similarly fighting some sort of a crud and I think it dulled my senses, because there were so many moments that should have made me cheer or weep but all I could do was sit there glued to the screen attempting to continue breathing.
This is going to be a post about impressions and will be my attempt to do a spoiler free review. All of the imagery that you see in this post was pulled from the “Final Trailer” which wasn’t actually the Final trailer as I have seen 3 more new ones since then. I will however mention parts of Force Awakens and Last Jedi as I consider those to largely be “fair game” at this point. First off lets get my ranking of Star Wars films out of the way because in some ways that is going to tell you quickly how much of this “review” you are going to personally agree with. I posted it on twitter last night but here is my revised order of preference. I don’t hate any Star Wars films, I just have some that I like better than others. I’ve made my peace with the prequels.
The Empire Strikes Back
Rogue One
The Rise of Skywalker
The Force Awakens
A New Hope
Solo
Return of the Jedi
The Last Jedi
Revenge of the Sith
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace
The most controversial part of that list is going to be Last Jedi since it is a deeply polarizing movie. There are some of my friends that hate it with the passion of a Sith, and there are others that feel like it heralded in a brand new era of excellence for Star Wars. I’m somewhere between. There are moments in that movie that I really liked but I found it to be an overall disappointing experience. Force Awakens set up all of these mystery boxes that I desperately wanted to see opened in the follow up. Rian Johnson on the other hand seemed damned determined to toss them all over his shoulder into the ocean the way Luke tried to toss Anakin’s Lightsaber. It was a movie that purposefully tried to undo all of the knots that Force Awakens tied, and for that I will always be disappointed.
My cat loves to knock over the bathroom trash can, and get to any crinkly wrappers that might have been thrown away. I dutifully set the trash can upright and try and stuff everything back inside rather than just emptying the damned thing and moving on with my life. Rise of Skywalker is a movie that tries to set the trash can upright and get things back to a state of where the franchise was heading at the end of Force Awakens. As a result it feels like it undoes a lot of the things that are just tossed aside in Last Jedi, all the while attempting to walk the thin line between doing this and doing it in such a flagrant way as to piss off all of the Last Jedi stalwarts.
The Last Jedi was a smaller film about personal interactions and character development. Rise of Skywalker is a movie about giant epic set pieces that the story flows between with them purposefully knowing that this is the grand send off of the entire “Saga”. I like big damned action sequences and I like giant scenes that are going to be paused forever as the lore hounds mine tidbits of information from the corners of the screen. I really enjoyed the film, but it more or less follows the script that I had originally thought was going to happen after Force Awakens. None of the reveals or the way that the content flows was really a surprise to me because I had imagined things unfolding in this manner for some time.
There are also more bits of the previously expanded universe that creep into the film in ways that aren’t really addressed setting up even more mystery boxes. I have some tasty theories but I won’t dare talk about them for some time, because spoilers. If you’ve always loved Star Wars you are probably going to be happy enough with this outing. As I said before it is a grand send off of the entire Saga and it makes me super interested to see what might come along later. This movie finishes the story of the Skywalker lineage, but I am not entirely certain that the story that is expressed in this film is really over. I feel about the Star Wars universe now much like I did at the end of Return of the Jedi. The sky is the limit and there are so many more tales out there to tell.
I’m thoroughly happy with this film and I am looking forward to seeing it again. I wish we lived in a world where you could watch first run films in your home, but we do not yet live in that world. So at some point during the holiday season I am going to make my wife venture forth and go see it with me. Last night I saw it with a bunch of friends, because while my wife is awesome and seems to have a begrudging respect for the original Trilogy, she is in no way near the fan that I am. Harry Potter was her universe that she fell in love with, but she was sleeping last night in a Santa Yoda shirt so at least some of me has rubbed off on her. I am satisfied with where the movies have gone, and I have a feeling that knowing what is coming in this movie will probably make my opinion of Last Jedi improve significantly.
This evening I am going to go see Star Wars Rise of Skywalker, and I am sure tomorrow I will be posting my thoughts about it. However this morning I am going to continue our journey down memory lane as I talk about the games that were important to me over the last decade. Each time I think I am walking into a slow year… I sift through the titles that released and keep finding things that were extremely important to me. Let’s get started.
Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls Online – PC
I am not sure if there are words to express how important this title is to me. I could have in theory included this game on 2013, because it also played heavily into that year for me as I began testing it in February. I’m a member of the Psijic Order, the original team of testers that stayed with the game as it progressed through various phases and I am super proud to have stomped a bunch of bugs… or at least reported them prolifically. This game mattered me to not only because it is Elder Scrolls a setting that I adore, but also that one of my good friends worked on it. While this didn’t turn out to be the “WoW Killer” like I had hoped, it is a game that I keep revisiting to spend time wandering through its amazing storyline. In fact it seems like it might be time to dust off my characters and pay another visit over the holidays.
Transistor
Transistor – PC
This game was the game that more or less inspired the AggroChat game club concept. It was a title that spontaneously we all happened to be playing at exactly the same time, and then as a result we recorded what felt like three full shows worth of discussion as we dug deep into the title and our feelings about it. We tried to make this function artificially as we constructed the concept of the Game Club, but it never felt quite as fresh or in the moment because there was always a time when more than one of us were never really that into the chosen title. Supergiant Games is a phenomenal studio and I am willing to play pretty much everything they put out. Transistor was this fluid fusion of music, story and interesting ARPG gameplay that created a total package that we all kept returning to over and over. Collectively we deemed this to be the game of 2014, and it still holds up. I would have loved to have played this on the Switch as it is now my modern platform for this type of game.
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein: The New Order – PC
I love Wolfenstein as a franchise and I have been a huge fan since I first got my hands on the original Apogee title from a shareware disk sold by the local bookstore. I obsessed with the game and editing new levels for it, and then as each new game has released I have spent time playing it. After Return to Castle Wolfenstein the quality of the games fell off significantly, so I was completely excited to see a brand new game being worked on by Machine Games a Zenimax studio. This game is both a sequel and a re-imagining of the entire experience and I loved every moment of it. The screenshot is from one of my favorite sequences where you are scaling the side of the eponymous Castle Wolfenstein, but the images never quite do it justice. There were so many really cool big set pieces in the game, and it wove with it a really interesting storyline that provided the action I craved and the character development that Kodra craved. It is a magical time when a game is planted firmly in both of our wheelhouses.
Divinity: Original Sin
Divinity: Original Sin – PC
This game is going on the list for a few reasons, but not because I necessarily played it over and over and managed to find deep revelations in it. The first reason why it is on the list is because it presents something that has never really existed in my memory before this game, a two player classic PC role-playing game experience. You can start the game as either one character with a swappable NPC, or you can have two different players controlling each character that is on screen and as a result end up having competing goals and objectives. The other reason why it deserves to be on the list is the sheer depth that this game has. You will go insane trying to track down every single thread and quite honestly this paralysis lead me to not get terribly far in the game as a whole. When I encountered the first town I effectively spent all of my time doing what seemed to be a near endless number of side quests and completely tilting my way out of the main story. I want to revisit this game but set some guidelines about what sorts of quests I am willing to partake in.
Destiny
Destiny – PS4
Destiny is the reason why I bought a Playstation 4. It was the single game that was willing to sell me on purchasing a console and I did so more or less to play in the Alpha that was exclusive to that platform. I saw in this game so much promise that I absolutely wanted to be in. However the initial game-play experience was a little lacking for me and I bounced out of it only to return when Taken King released. From that point forward however there has never been a time when I have not at least been playing Destiny a little bit, and I never quite realized just how much this franchise would come to dominate my game time. I love everything about this world and its rich lore… and the subtle mechanical differences between each weapon that make them all feel so unique to me. I view Destiny and Destiny 2 as a continuum and together they are probably my favorite game of this decade.
Where Bel Was Mentally in 2014
It was a really interesting year because it marked the birth of our weekly podcast AggroChat. It also marks the year that I officially transitioned into management or at least was an official supervisor. Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls also dominated my play time, but since I had already talked about it in 2012 I figured that was probably enough of that. It was a pretty good year and considering we record AggroChat 280 this weekend, we set up a firm foundation that seems to still be working.
The dawning event is live and once again we are baking cookies for the various NPCs that can be found in Destiny 2. This was a really fun event last year and was worth a mountain of experience. This time around it seems as though we can keep doing bounties indefinitely as Eva once again has the ability for us to buy more bounties. I didn’t get time to play nearly as much as I would have liked last night because we had holiday errands to run, but I did manage to knock out the first few quests and unlock both the chase weapon and the first form of the sparrow. Something of note… the game seemingly remembers all of the packaged you delivered last year and as a result I already had the “deliver packages” requirements finished.
Last year I posted a long list of all of the ingredients, and these are largely still valid. However I am going to copy and paste from that original post to keep them concise. Essentially every recipe requires three components, a green item that you get by killing specific types of mobs, a blue item that you get from specific kinds of kills, and then dawning essence which drops from pretty much everything while the event is going on. You get 5 for example from completing a Heroic Public event, a few from opening chests etc. you are going to need 15 to craft anything until you can “masterwork” the oven… which last year was unlocked by crafting one each of all of the packages if I am remembering correctly.
Green Items – Based on Mob
Cabal Oil – Kill any Cabal Enemies
Chitin Powder – Kill any Hive Enemies
Dark Ether Cane – Kill any Scorn Enemies
Ether Cane – Kill any Fallen Enemies
Taken Butter – Kill any Taken Enemies
Vex Milk – Kill any Vex Enemies
Blue Items – Based on Kill/Damage Type
Bullet Spray – Kills made with “Machine Gun” type weapons – Auto Rifle/SMG/HMG
Delicious Explosions – Explosive kills aka Class Grenades/Rocket Launcher/Grenade Launcher
Electric Flavor – Arc Damage based Kills
Flash of Inspiration – A kill that generates an Orb of Light – Supers or Masterworks
Hackberry Tart (Benedict 99-40 – Tower Annex) – Cabal Oil and Multifaceted Flavors
Hot Crossfire Buns (Ada-1 – Tower Annex) – Ether Cane and Balanced Flavors
Fried Sha-dough (Visage of Calus – Triumph Hall?) – Dark Ether Cane and Superb Flavor
Lavender Ribbon Cookies (Saint-14 – Sundail?) – Vex Milk and Personal Touch
Thousand-Layer Cookie (Riven – Dreaming City?) – Taken Butter and Delicious Explosion
Having not made all of these recipes yet, there are a few I am not quite certain about how to deliver them. Namely Visage of Calus, Saint-14 and Riven… and for those I have given my guess. But also indicated that it is a guess by slapping a ? at the end.
The chase weapon I got pretty quickly after doing an initial series of turn ins. It looks and feels like a slightly modified Antiope-D. The slightly faster rate of fire makes it feel a little more jumpy than the Antiope, but all it all it is a reasonable option for a primary slot submachinegun. More than likely I will keep using Exit Strategy in this slot when I have need for a Kinetic submac, but this is a reasonable option and is kinda cool looking if gold and blue is your thing. There is an ornament on the store that makes it look really nice, but has the standard 700 silver pricetag attached to it.
I am a much bigger fan of the vehicle this year. The sleigh was somewhat entertaining… but the sound effects associated with each time you boosted got on my nerves. I’ve not had a chance to actually use this one but it seems like it is more standard fare with each unlock just adding an additional perk as opposed to the gimmicks like glimmer explosions. It is more or less a snow mobile and I am fine with this.
My hope is tonight to spend more time working on both the Saint-14 quest and baking more cookies. I’ve already gotten 3 levels however since starting the event, so I feel like it is a good time to grind things up. What were your thoughts about dawning so far? I like that the event took the packages delivered last year into account for rewards. I am bummed that SRL the Sparrow Racing League did not make another appearance. That is the one event from Destiny 1 that I miss the most, and I am hoping that someday they bring it back as an actual game mode.
