VIDEO GAME REVIEW: LEGEND OF ZELDA- A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS

The Legend of Zelda series have a firm place in my heart. From my childish nostalgia for A Link To The Past to the 3D wonder of Ocarina of Time (my equal 2 favourites), I have always relied on them to provide some great action games. And then along comes A Legend of Zelda- A Link Between Worlds. To me, this was the most disappointing Zelda game that I have played. It may not have been the worst, but it definitely did not live up to the high pedigree that I have come to expect from these games.

And how did it achieve this dubious honour? Because for the whole game I didn't encounter one decent new element. This whole game felt like it was ripped from A Link To The Past. The first Zelda game to be a direct sequel, I avoided most the hype for this game. But I started to get concerned when I noticed the same map from A Link To The Past. And then I noticed the same enemies. And then the same dungeon locations. Even allot of the bosses are repeated (oh, the turtle boss with the helmet, the boss thief in the dark world village, the big snake that has a tail for you to keep hitting, the final dungeon repeating the three light world bosses). Allot of the cool items are then taken out, replaced with one-use only items (oh cool sandrod that makes pillars of sand, shame there is no sand outside of the sand dungeon). Even the big new gimmick of merging into a wall painting is just like shimmying a wall in a stealth game.

I kept expecting this game to open up to something new. Maybe along the lines of extending the map world so that there are actual NEW AREAS (kind of like the old map is part of a bigger map), or the reveal of a third world. But no. A Link Between Worlds, for me, is the most disappointing Zelda game and I would prefer to play Link To The Past via emulator any day of the week (a game I have beaten 6 separate times, a game with infinitely more heart and thoughtfulness than this game).

1.5 out of 5 Linked Waffles

ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: SAHARA (2017)

Sahara is an animated movie that follows the adventures of some snakes in a desert. It constantly seems to jump back and forth, picking up and dropping plot points just to keep the story moving forward. I guess the spoiler here is that I found the movie very inconsistent. 

The story of the movie follows two snakes (a boy and girl) from opposite sides of a divide. When they each want to sneak to the other side, they meet each other. When the border patrol birds guarding the divide find them, they escape together. So it has the whole social commentary part going. 

It then promptly drops all these plot points when the girl snake is caught by a snake charmer. It isn't clear whether he can understand the animals, but his mind control dancing makes him the bad guy. I'm not 100% sure why as most the dancers seem quite happy dancing. But that sets up the climax of the movie without bothering about any of the earlier plot points.

This movies storyline is a mess. As indicated originally, it is inconsistent and constantly picks up and drops points along the way. The animation and voice acting are okay, but that isn't enough to save it when the foundations are quite poor. 

1.5 out of 5 venomous waffles.  

FINAL SPACE: ANIMATED SERIES INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

Final Space is a space-opera series that is on Netflix. It is very much in the same kind of parody and dark humor of other shows such as Disenchanted. With the setting, it does remind me most of Futurama. In the initial impressions, Gary is sent to a prison ship and is slowly going insane. His only companion is his jailer, an AI called Hue. He then stumbles into a plot that is much bigger than himself. 

The story of how he gets to the prison ship is actually pretty good. It isn't revolutionary, but it is believable and fits the shows fun sense of humor. In addition, how he arrives into the situation he is in and how he gets out of these also reinforces the shows sense of fun.

Overall, the show is quite fun. The relationships between the characters and how the mysteries and depth to them slowly unravels is well paced. It isn't a revolutionary show, and shows such as Futurama I still feel still do this future space parody better. One of these reasons is that Futurama's humor does appeal to different people, while Final Space tends to go for the most obvious jokes which tend to lack too much depth. 

However, once again, the style of humor and the pacing of the show reinforce eachother. Overall, the storyline is engaging and the show is fun. It is definitely worth checking out. 

MOVIE REVIEW: BIRDBOX (2018)

Birdbox is a psychological thriller along the same lines as movies such as Blindness. In this movie, the premise is that there is something causing everyone to go mad and commit suicide. However, you avoid this by not seeing them. 

The movie isn't set in a linear time narrative. Instead, it tends to jump back and forth between the time periods. I am not sure what they meant to achieve by this, but it clearly doesn't work. You know how things are roughly going to end up and who needs to die to achieve this, so it tends to undercut allot of the tension it attempts to build up.

It is a shame because the rest of the movie is quite good. The premise is sufficiently mysterious and terrifying, seeing people around you go insane. The force causing this is treated more like a force of nature rather than an explainable phenomenon. And the acting and character progression tends to be very good.

The overall story is definitely where this shines. There are quite a few idiotic choices by the main cast just to keep the story going, but the pace of the movie (with a couple of exceptions) tends to make these not too noticeable. It is easy to get caught up in the moment and forgive some (but not all) of the short-cuts that are taken. 

So overall the movie is okay. The premise is good but the main detraction is how they decided to direct it jumping back and forward in time. It doesn't work for what should be a slow-burn thriller.

2.5 out of 5 blind waffles. 

BOARD GAME REVIEW: SEA OF CLOUDS (2016)

Sea of Clouds is a game that takes a couple of mechanisms used in other games. It then mashes them together and makes something that is just a little bit special out of them. Regardless, it does have some flaws (like any game).
Sea of Clouds is a pirate-themed game from IeLLO. It mashes together an “I split/You Choose” mechanism from games such as piece of cake. However, the twist here is that it is done in sequence and you only see the back of the cards to start with. This then gives it a Small Worlds type mechanism where every time you pass over a card, you add another card to it. And finally, battling is done similar to 7 Wonders (fight each person besides you).

Ultimately, it all comes together really well. Seeing the back of the cards and knowing what type of cards there is gives you just enough information. It makes me wonder if Seven Wonders would benefit from something similar (knowing what types of cards are coming up means you can start building with direction).  Combat is powerful but because it only happens 4-5 times in a game keeps it from becoming too annoying. And the tough choices about skipping a pile, knowing the next card may make the stack amazing. And the artwork and components are great.

There are a couple of downsides, however. One of the main ones is that analysis paralysis is real, especially if there is pile someone doesn’t want but would be great for the next person. Be prepared for a bit of waiting or attempted negotiation in this case. The other problem is that it is entirely possible to run out of cards at 4 players, meaning you are just shuffling pirate heavy stacks back into the supply. A few extra cards would've really mitigated this allot.

However, overall, the game plays really nicely. The problems are far outweighed by the good, and it is a nice light game to start of finish off the night. It has some good meat on the bones as well to not feel like a throw-away game.

4 out of 5 heartily-enjoyable waffles.