Bleak Sword

A Demon souls like game for your phone

Game no: 333
Genre: Action
Platform: iOS
Release date: 2019

What is it about?
A kingdom cursed and it’s up to the unnamed hero to break the curse

What I liked? 
The diorama art style
The simplistic controls and yet fast paced gameplay.
The storyline... they can say a lot without saying anything at all
Varieties of enemies which provides different set of challenges
Each boss battles are fun and unique
Parrying...
RPG elements like levelling up and item equipment
Each stage have different environmental hazards and elements

What I didn’t liked?
This is not a point on the game... I just didn’t like dying when I was so close in winning
Experience points disappear if you die more than twice on a stage
There is no new game plus but you can grind a lot of times

Status: Finish 90 stages with level 23

Fun Factor: One of the best mobile game I played in a long while. A good game of the year contender

Sneaky Sasquatch

An awesome game but fundamentally flawed in certain aspects

Genre: Adventure
Platform: iOS
Released Date: 2019

What is it about?
You play as a Sasquatch who tries to get food and save the park while staying away from the rangers

What I liked? 
The gameplay is fun. You can gather food, ski, race cars, canoe, dig for treasure
The sneaking mechanics is great
Using coins to get extra items to advance the story
The open world map is filled with hidden secrets

What I didn’t liked? 
The controls is a bit sensitive. Controlling the car sucks
The game stop being fun when we need to grind for cash... everything needs cash to advance and that requires a lot of grinding which kind of sucks

Status: Played 5 hours of it and gave up when I saw I need a lot of coins to grind

Fun factor: A great game if you don’t mind the grind

After Burner

I was checking this against my own database and saw I miss out a game... so here is a quick review

Genre: Action
Platform: Genesis
Released Date: 1987

What is it about? 
You play as a f18 fighter jet who needs to shoot other fighter jets

What I liked? 
Gameplay is fast and precise

What I didn’t like?
Gameplay is hard... nothing much besides getting to point A and point B

Fun factor: Not worth the trouble of playing it

tint.

A very relaxing puzzle game involving colours

Game no: 332
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: iOS
Release Date: 2019

What is it about? 
A 50 page book where you need to connect the colours from point A to point B

What I liked? 
The ambiance of the game. It’s very relaxing...
The puzzles are easy but not too easy
Each 10 chapter is a different style of animation

What I didn’t liked?
How brain farting I am when I comes to solving puzzles

Fun Factor: A great puzzle to pick up and play... Highly recommended 

Sayonara Wild Hearts

So I finally did it. I subscribed to Apple Arcade and this is a start of something beautiful

Game no: 331
Genre: Action
Platform: iOS
Release date: 2019

What is it about?
It’s a story a girl with a broken heart and how she overcome her fears

What I liked?
The art style is awesome.
The music has some rhythmic tunes and deep beats
The variety of gameplay. It’s still on rails but with a certain sense of control to avoid obstacles
The boss fights are varied and interesting
Quick time events are great
Each stage has a different element of gameplay
The ending is awesome a

What I didn’t liked?
Touch control sucks.... we need to tap lots of time to move the character to the left or right
Some stages the action is so fast that you will die multiple times again and again
The repetition is some stages. It gets tedious after a while
You need to have crazy like reflexes to get the gold rank which is hard

Fun factor: First game I tried on Apple Arcade and it’s very enjoyable from start to finish. Must download

Chernobyl

This is a great miniseries if you want to learn about the history of what actually happen



Season: None. 5 episode Miniseries

What is it about? 
It tells the actual story on what occurred during the minutes until the years of the Chernobyl disaster. These are real life events that are taken from reports.

What I liked? 
It turns out that this show was created by studying the report and eyewitness accounts on what actually happened.
All of the characters you see are actually real life people (all except one)
The harsh truth on how the Soviet Union try to cover up the incident as if nothing has happened.
The way everything is in Russian but they are talking in English

Character Development 
You try to root for the main characters but you’ll know that eventually everyone there will die (due to the exposure of radiation)

What I didn’t liked?
Well there are some characters whom I hated but that is just part of the story. They are actually doing a good job if you hate them

Verdict: This is a must watch miniseries but it’s bleak from start to finish

Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

You are never too old to enjoy a good cartoon



What is it about?
The turtles arrive in Gotham to stop the Foot from taking over the city

The good
All you favourite TMNT characters as well as Batman villans are there
The dialogue among the two opposing sides is good fun
Seeing both sides fight each others bad guy is a treat
Batman even cracks a joke

The Bad
Nothing much... it a short 90 minute cartoon... very enjoyable

The Ugly
Nothing

After Credits: No... but the credits itself are a treat to watch. They show all the classic Batman and TMNT comic covers that are modified to include each other

Verdict: A great cartoon to watch if you like Batman and the Turtles

Killing Eve

This is the first show where I am rooting for the bad guy



Seasons: 2
Episode Count: 16

What is about?
The show follows Eve a MI6 agent where she is obsessed in tracking the elusive and beautiful assassin Villanelle

Starring 
Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy) Eve..
Jodie Comer (she is beautiful and yet playful) Villanelle

What I liked?
The first season it was 8 episodes where Eve is trying to catch her... The best part is that she is trying to catch Eve.. so there is a reverse cat and mouse game here
Villanelle is sweet and innocent and yet deadly. You will fall in love with her character and when she kills you probably think that that person actually deserve it.

Character Development 
Since there are only this two main characters. They have time to flesh out their backstory and motivation for what they do what they do.
There is even a larger conspiracy behind all of the assassination which has yet to be revealed

What I didn't liked?
Season 2 wasn't as good as season 1 but it has a very big twist at the end. No idea how they are going to resolve it in season 3 since it is really a game changer.

Verdict: Yes this is one of the shows that you need to watch. Great writing, interesting characters and awesome storyline. I watch it for the characters anyway

Manifest S1

What happen when you come back and it was 5 years later?



Episode count: 16

What is about?
A group of passengers of flight 828 disappeared and came back 5 years later. Life has move on but they haven't. How do they cope with it

Starring
No idea... I've never seen any of this actors before. But their performance is decent enough

What I liked?
Each episode they dive into the mystery of why they survive. This show has some science fiction elements in it where they deal with some supernatural forces in it
The simple things like the family dynamics and the long lost lovers.
The conspiracy behind why these passengers are the chosen ones

Character development
Each of the main passengers and their counterparts (those people in the poster above) has their time to shine.
There will be some episodes where the side characters (There are 182 passengers on board of the plane) so there are room for more side characters to come in the show

What I didn't liked?
The doctor storyline is kind of boring and they are dragging the mystery behind the disappearance. Nothing is resolved in season 1 (thank god there is a season 2)

Verdict: Don't watch it yet... It's an okay series but it's not that good of a tv show 

Cuphead

Don't play this game if you want to have a good time

Game no: 330

Genre: Shooter

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: 2017

What is it about?

Cuphead and Mugman are brother who made a deal with the devil. The devil wants them to collect all the souls that made a deal with him.

What I liked?

- The first thing anyone would notice when playing this game is the art style. The art style mimic 30s era of animation (fun fact: that this game was actually made by hand drawn animation, each frames was hand drawn which was amazing)

- Shooting is on point and feel satisfying  

- Different types of weapon loadouts and special moves 

- There are flying sections which breaks the action and also run and gun section

What I didn't liked?

- This game is super hard. You need to have fast reaction time to avoid all of the projectiles that are coming your way. The thing is the game is not a bullet hell kind of game. But the amount of things on screen make is overwhelming 

- Constantly dying again and again and again until a point it stop being fun

- The parry system sucks. It requires precision fast timing, which something that I don't have.

Verdict: Played the game until world 1 and then just YouTube the rest. I wanted to know what is the ending and what animations are left to conquer  

Fun Factor: If you are a glutton for punishment I say play this game, if you want something easy.. Don't play this game 

Rocketman

This movie did surprise me... 

What is about?
The epic biography of one of the greatest rock legends in the world

The good 
The way they incorporate the songs between the story. It's basically all of Elton John greatest hits
His journey from a nobody to who he is now is quite an astonishing tale

The Bad 
The movie didn't show the full story. Basically in ends on a low note and then it just ends with a couple of text explaining what happens next. They should cut down some bits of the movie.
My favorite song wasn't in the movie "Candle in the Wind" or "Can you feel the love tonight". But during that time Elton was already fine so I know that there was not much  

The Ugly
The part where he become an addict actually sucks. I mean I know each artist will have his down moment. They didn't have to make it the last 30 minutes of the movie

After Credits: No

Verdict: A nice biopic to watch when you have nothing to watch

Barry

A hitman that wants to be an actor... got your attention?

Seasons: 2

Episodes: 16

What is it about?
Barry is a hitman by profession but wanted something more. So he decided to move to LA to be an actor. The problem is he is like the best assassin out there... cue the hilarity

Starring
Bill Hader... he is like the funniest guy out there

And the Fonz from happy days

What I liked?
The tragedy of hitman wanting to be an actor is extremely funny
The story gets way overboard in each episodes and it dies down at the end

Character Development
After two seasons the character of Barry has already blossomed to a character we are rooting for
The secondary characters also have their moment but you don’t root for them anyway

What I didn’t liked?
Nothing much. This is an almost perfect comedy
But I can say this is a thinking man comedy. It does have gags but it’s not as epic as Brooklyn 99 or How I met Your Mother

Verdict: If you like a funny comedy but it’s quite serious... this is the show for you

My wife’s uncle passed away

3 deaths in the span of 6 months. I am not sure my wife can take it anymore. I am not sure that this family can take it anymore. My wife’s uncle has been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer for around one month. But as you know if it’s stage 4 the chances of survival are slim to none. We came here yesterday due to a wedding that we need to attend to. That weeding was a blessing since we got to see  him for one last time. They pull him off any medication this morning and just waiting for him to drift away. I don’t have any fond memories of him because I find him quite unfriendly but I did manage to give him a hug last month when he was healthy. Rest in peace Pak Uda...

Events that happen in August

6 days late... We’ll is better than never. I am so way behind on my blogging that I am giving procrastination a bad name. Today I am going on a trip... (more on that later) so might as well I catch up on some blogging. Let’s go

We began every month wit the promised of food. It’s always the cheat week at the beginning of the month. That means everything that I’ve been craving for this past 25 days of clean eating. My sister in law finally graduated on her post doctorate so we had a family portrait session. Which is nice until I found out that I wasn’t thanked I her journey. Which kinda sucks. I thought I was family. 🙄 Whatever... The next day we went to her graduation (that was a pity invite due to the fact all the old folks she invited didn’t want to come and she invited another family member that is not blood rather than us... well safe to say that cost my wife to be pissed). Now I am starting to be a coach in this online program. a lot of people wanted to join in our success... but it’s a lot of work 😅... not that I don’t mind but really... it’s a lot 🤣🤣.. Wife said goodbye to her best friend who is leaving for New Zealand... that’s sad I guess. My daughter is officially 12 which means that she can have an actual Identification Card (think social security but for everything... well exactly like social security) The whole family is enjoying private swimming lessons on Monday with the coach. Which is good since the pool is relatively empty. Kids got their final exam results and my eldest got the best student of grade 6. She is over the moon but I just want her to be happy... as all dad's wants. I made a new friend called M and I think I overshared a lot of my issues which cause M to block me so that was sucky 😰(don’t worry there is more to that story later.) My weight training has gone up another level and everything always hurts AF... 😭😭... but you know what they say... no pain no gain... The car is acting up again so it turns out it needs to be in the shop for a while.

Ok this is a long story. My wife friend’s husband (who is 71) came down to Malaysia on holiday. He discovered he has a lump on his neck. Rather than wait for the NHS (National Health Service in the UK) to take it off. He decided to do it in Malaysia. (apparently medical tourism is a big thing here). So we came to visit at the most swanking hospital there is... seriously it looked like a mall. Which visiting him I notice that my wife’s break light is constantly blinking (No wonder people are honking at us 😰) So it took a while to figure out that the break stopper... (a small nub that cost $1) is broken. So since I am at the hospital. I used a lollipop as a replacement... and by darn it worked 🤣. It’s still the summer holiday and my daughter wanted to get away from her little sister (they have a love-hate relationship where they love to annoy each other and hate their company 😅) . So she asked me if she could go and stay with my mom for a week. I said why not and send her there... I even put Avatar the last Airbender in as things to watch... (she binge it in 4 days 🤦‍♀️) . Arrived at my own house is just... there nothing to say (more on that on the previous post). Went home the next day. Help my best friend board his cat due to his 82 year old mother wants to go for a wedding. That cat just wouldn’t shut up...🤣🤣🤣. During one weekend where the eldest and youngest were at their grandparents, me and the wife decided to take an impromptu vacation to the mountains... we just spend time walking and enjoying food, the scenery and each other’s company.  On 19th August my wife grandma past away (more on the previous post) to make matters worse her uncle got pancreatic cancer.

The last 20 days have been emotional for me in so many ways. (Read the past blogpost) since I don’t want to relieve that again. In the end the brain plays tricks on me... but hey I got some clarity and a best friend in the process... so I think it’s a win win. Oh remember my friend M who blocked me... M finally unblocked me and we both started talking. I need we’ve gone closer because of this... so yeah I made a friend for life. And then came my birthday (read the previous blogpost) but in a word it was super awesome and I got to spend a day with my best friend... let’s see what else... got a haircut which I think I’ll keep for another a couple of months... My kids went to the dentist... the oldest teeth have lots of issues. Pity her since she was born with it 😰. And that’s about it... August is done and dusted...