Here's a game that I made my way through just before the fall semester started! I finished this one just before the Labor Day holiday 😅.

Many TV shows I let ripen in my "to watch" queue for months (sometimes a semester, sometimes a year...).  This one I watched as soon as it was released on Netflix last month, and it didn't disappoint!

Here's a series that we finished in August 2024. This series was on Paramount+ (yeah, the streaming network that isn't huge and is currently struggling).  I wish that this series had more seasons, but I think the streaming service's financial woes made it necessary to wrap things up.

I would best describe this series as What if X-Files didn't deal with extraterrestrials (most of the tie) but with the occult and demons?  The premise of the show beings together a skeptical forensic psychologist - Dr. Kristen Bouchard, a Catholic seminarian - David Acosta, and skeptical technology contractor - Ben Shakir. They are hired by the Catholic Church to investigate purported supernatural events. As time passes, the three find their personal lives increasingly intertwined with such events – and the individuals behind some of the incidents, such as Dr. Leland Townsend, a rival forensic psychologist who seems obsessed with Kristen and her family.

There are a lot of threads that seemed dropped by this kind of series, and the final season tried to tie things together and give the characters some closure, with mixed results.  The major thread was more or less tied up, but it felt rushed.  I didn't find the finale compelling because it felt like neither a series nor a season finale.  If pressed, I'd say that it was closer to a season finale, with the "continuing adventures of David and Kristen. The little behind the scenes tribute mentions that Evil isn't something you can get rid of, so it will always exist, and they continue to fight/investigate it another day.  Fine... I guess.

Here's a fun watch from earlier this month.  It's KAOS and it's on Netflix!  What is it? KAOS answers the question of what if the Ancient Olympian Gods (you know, Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and the gang) were real and what if they were still around today?  What would their lives (and ours as mere mortals) looks like?

I finally caught up with The Acolyte, a Star Wars universe adventure. The series is a typical streamer length (8 episodes) and sadly it was cancelled shortly after it was release.  As the expression goes, the body wasn't even cold yet 🫤.

Here's a game I "finished" this month.  I was curious about this game as it was an iOS Arcade exclusive for a while and the free three month trial of Apple Arcade was like a siren call... In the end, I skipped the mobile experience and decided to buy this on sale on Steam some time over the summer (or was it in the spring?)

By "finished" I mean that I earned all Steam achievements, I finished the story mode, and I ended up collecting all of the character cards.  I suppose the game really has no end since there's PVP, Survival Modes, and you can just keep farming resources to make your characters more powerful.  I find no joy in that, so I consider this game "done" for me an uninstalled from my computer 😅.  I think this could be a fun game, with additional stories being concocted with nexus-based timey-whiney shenanigans, but I expect that like most microtransaction mobile-based games this is more about the cash grab rather than competing long term stories.

Speaking of stories, the story takes place in the Nexus on the USS Artemis.  The Artemis was sent to the Nexus to recover any other Starfleet officers or people stuck in the Nexus. Near the anomaly, the Artemis suffered an unidentified catastrophe that caused the crew to vanish. Only the commanding officer appeared to remain. Using the transporter, the captain attempted to recover their personnel, only to beam Commander Michael Burnham, science officer, USS Discovery, from 2257, aboard. Moments later, a Cardassian Galor-class vessel attacked the Artemis. After disabling the Galor, Commander Burnham beamed over and fought against the Cardassian crew. The Artemis was able to recover another Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Worf. Burnham overcame her surprise at seeing a Klingon Starfleet officer, and meeting Cardassians for the first time. Together, they disabled the warp core. 

Slowly but surely you end up building your team roster with common, uncommon, rare, and epic character cards, You equipment them with skills and gear, and you engage in turn-based RPG mechanics to progress the story.  The story was interesting (I'll give you that), but most of the RPG seems like it can be played on autopilot.  That's not how I played it (for the most part), but once I finished the main storyline and that was wrapped up, I just autopilot it so I can get the remaining achievements.

Not bad, it just doesn't have a ton of replay value. Worth a try as a game on sale.

Here's a show I finished last month (August 2024) and thought I'd write a few things about it before it completely faded from memory. This is a Tom Clancy adaptation for Amazon Prime.  The series had four seasons, and the first two were the strongest in my view.  The series stars John Krasinski (of The Office fame) as Jack Ryan, and Wendell Pierce as James Greer (Ryan's Boss).

Here's a game that took WAY too long for me to finish (considering how much I like this series). I finished June 2024 but I started October  2023.

I was reluctant to start this game. I love the setting. I love the size of the map, and I love its "simplicity" when compared to the ENORMOUS maps that came with Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed those games, but the maps sometimes felt like a drag. This map felt right-sized to tell Basim's story.  

At the end of Valhalla I was also very lukewarm about Basim.  I felt like he done Leyla wrong by killing her, but I had totally forgotten that Basim is actually Loki reincarnated...so...yeah... I don't know if I should feel bad for him, feel good that he's back and can take this story in a new direction, or just feel OK with the moral grayness of it all.  The first game that kicked off the series had things portrayed in Black and White for the most part, but as the series has progressed, things have become more...ambiguous. I guess I'll hold off on getting that Assassin Brotherhood tattoo 😂

Synopsis from Wikipedia:

Following the events of Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Last Chapter, the modern-day Assassins use a blood sample provided by Basim Ibn Ishaq to relive his memories during the age of the Abbasid Caliphate.

In 861 CE, Basim is a young street thief living in Anbar with his childhood friend and companion, Nehal. For his entire life, Basim has been haunted by visions of a monstrous jinni, which Nehal had been helping him cope with. While just a simple thief, Basim has greater aspirations and attempts to join the Hidden Ones, but is flatly rejected by the senior Hidden One stationed in Anbar, Roshan bint-La'Ahad. In an effort to prove himself, Basim sneaks into the Caliph's palace to steal a chest sought by both the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients. Basim retrieves a disk-shaped artifact from the chest, which displays a holographic message, before he is confronted by the Caliph, al-Mutawakkil. Nehal kills the Caliph to save Basim and they both flee the palace.

In retaliation for the Caliph's murder, the guards begin slaughtering all thieves in Anbar, including many of Basim's friends, and he angrily blames Nehal before parting ways. Now on the run, Basim manages to escape the city with Roshan's help, and she takes him to the Hidden Ones' mountain fortress at Alamut. Over the next few years, Basim trains under Roshan and is eventually initiated into the Hidden Ones. When their Mentor, Rayhan, learns of the Order's rapidly expanding influence in Baghdad, he decides to send a contingent of Hidden Ones to the city to investigate, led by Basim and Roshan.

Upon arriving in Baghdad, Basim learns that five Order members have infiltrated the Caliphate's highest levels of power, and are exploiting it in order to excavate or rebuild ancient Isu artifacts. He proceeds to hunt down four of the Order members, assassinating them and their subordinates and foiling their respective plots.

During this time, Basim reunites with Nehal, who is distrustful of the Hidden Ones and encourages Basim to investigate the artifacts the Order is looking for, believing they are both somehow linked to them. Eventually, Basim confronts the Order's leader, Qabiha, al-Mutawakkil's former concubine, who claims that the answers he seeks lie in an Isu temple underneath Alamut. Qabiha then tries to convince Basim to accompany her to the temple, but is killed by Roshan, who warns Basim not to investigate any further.

Disobeying Roshan, Basim travels to Alamut with Nehal, only to find the fortress under siege by the Order's forces. Basim rescues many captured Hidden Ones and rallies them to fight off the attack while he heads to the temple after convincing Rayhan that the power held within could be used to defeat the Order for good. However, he is confronted by Roshan, who reveals that she is aware of Basim's true nature and attempts to stop him from entering the temple, fearing what it may awaken within Basim. Basim defeats Roshan, but spares her life and enters the temple with Nehal. Inside, he finds more disk-shaped artifacts[c] and discovers that the temple used to be a prison where the Isu Loki was held in at some point before escaping. Basim also realizes that Nehal never existed; both she and the jinni were in fact representations of his repressed memories as Loki. Deciding to embrace his nature as Loki's reincarnation, Basim "fuses" with Nehal and regains his memories.

Upon leaving the temple, Basim is welcomed back into the Hidden Ones, which causes Roshan to resign in protest. Now fully aware of his past life as Loki, Basim muses that he has been reborn in a new world, and looks forward to a "reunion" with those who were responsible for his imprisonment.

Overall this game was fun to play. I enjoyed the 'classic' locale and being able to visit locations that seemed and felt familiar.  There was no modern/current era story to be hand, which was a bit of a bummer, but I hope this gets rectified in future games.  Part of me wants this series to wrap up the Ancient Alien elements of it, or at least merge them into the present era gameplay and lore. From Watchdogs: Legion we know that the Assassin's Brotherhood is around in the near future (2030ish?), so the Assassins aren't going anywhere, but it would be nice to get some more coherent story now that we know that the ancients are still around. I would play this again on a more difficult setting. It was fun :-)

Some stats:

• Gamerscore: 530/1000
• Achievements: 27/50
• Time played: 1d 5h42m

Here's another TV show I started a while back, but I just got around to finishing.  I came across this one on Plex one afternoon while browsing the free streaming offerings a year or so ago. 

You're having a beer with your pals the other daaaaaay....