November Update

An ad featuring the Welch's box
shown on Batman Stuff day.

November is close to over and it was a fairly busy month, largely because of the DC Comics week which was a lot of work to put together. That was in relation to the release of the Justice League movie which I haven't seen yet. I'm not a big movie goer, though I do want to see Justice League regardless of what the reviews might say. I'll likely slow down on toy videos for a bit as I need to relax. I'll try to get some gameplay videos up though as I had planned to be doing a lot more of those than I have thus far. This time of year is also when many of the biggest games get released and I have managed to complete Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Call of Duty: WWII, and Star Wars: Battlefront II. Sequels and first-person shooters are a common theme for gaming most Octobers and Novembers.

If you're old enough to play the M-rated games then I'd definitely choose Wolfenstein II over Call of Duty, though I also suggest playing Wolfenstein: The New Order before playing the sequel. It can lean on the ridiculous side sometimes as far as the story goes but it's a good time. I was expecting Call of Duty's return to World War II to be more engaging. Unfortunately, I found myself bored throughout much of the campaign. It's possible that if you haven't playing many WWII games it will feel more interesting and certainly like something new. However, I've played the original Call of Duty a few times along with the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and other WWII games so it felt like I was just going through the motions again. Star Wars has been making news since even before it released. Most of the news has been negative due to loot crates and their impact on multiplayer. I understand why micro-transactions exist but in this instance the implementation is terrible because some items inside loot crates make characters more powerful and thus people can pay to get an advantage. That simply makes the game less fun for the majority of players.

Star Wars can be played in first-person or...

...in third-person.

As far as the Battlefront II campaign goes, I like that I got to play a Star Wars game and it looks fantastic. However, the way the game was promoted I thought I'd be experiencing the story from the Imperial side and would see a lot more of what happened between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. I'll try not to spoil anything but I have to say that you only play about a third of the game as an elite stormtrooper. The campaign is around six hours in length I believe, and it could really use a couple more hours on the Imperial side fleshing out the part of the story that goes down in about five minutes. It also doesn't exactly cover the 30 year gap between the two movies. You get to see some set up for The Force Awakens but most of the game takes place in a short span directly after Return of the Jedi. Then there is a brief epilogue that takes place just before The Force Awakens. There are implications in that epilogue that are huge if the game is implying what I think it is. I have a hard time believing such a huge part of the new Star Wars movie trilogy would be revealed in a video game though so maybe nothing will come of it (but it must mean something!). Who knows, we'll just have to wait for The Last Jedi to find out.

TIE Fighter

A bearded Han Solo.

Besides those games I have been playing Assassins' Creed: Origins as well. It seems I mostly play M-rated games, huh? I play any game if I'm interested in the story or the world some of them take place in, and would be fine if the violence was not so extreme sometimes. This Assassin's Creed probably does have more blood than any of the others but I think it would be just as fun if none of the people or animals bled during combat. In any case, this one let's players explore Ancient Egypt and it is a huge world; lots of deserts of course which don't always have much in them. I don't want to go into a full on review so I'll keep this short and just point out that it's more like a role-playing game this time as missions have level suggestions and you really need to stay near them to be able to be successful. Therefore, you have to do a lot of the side quests to level up in order to be able to advance the main story, though the side quests can be better than the story which isn't great.

It hasn't been all violence in video games this month! I've actually been playing some Wheel of Fortune too, and a little Jeopardy! Ubisoft released those games digitally for $19.99 each and at retail in a two-pack for $39.99. Neither features the television hosts and Jeopardy doesn't even have a studio set with contestants as you just stare at the category board and questions the whole game. Wheel of Fortune has a lot more to it as you can unlock customization options for your avatar (Jeopardy has no avatars), the sets, and the prizes that appear on the wheel. I'd say these are closer to $10 games than $20, and perhaps a bit less in Jeopardy's case. I do enjoy playing game show video games, something I've been doing since the Commodore 64 days, and these can be good fun but I suggest waiting for a price drop.

Today is Thanksgiving so Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate the holiday. I'm not doing much during my four days off but being a big shopping weekend I'm going to see if I can get an old retail flyer or two up (probably just one, scanning takes a while!). I'll toss one of the magazine ad scans from retailers on here, a sneak preview of something that's a long ways off as those will appear on Flickr once I finish all of the other ads.

Software Etc. - December 1992

As always, thanks for checking out Vault 1541 and reading my ramblings!

-Jonathan