Avengers: Infinity War

All of Marvel’s superheroes come together after the previous movies all contributed towards bringing this epic endgame of a movie together, where Thanos is about to threaten the whole universe with his rather complex reasoning.

Infinity War is full of exciting battles, but the quest of Thanos is equally interesting to follow, as the Infinity Stones show off their powerful abilities. The latest plot developments of the previous movies Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok are picked up further, but essentially, all of the movies are connected.

The cast is the largest seen yet, where almost every major character returns, with the exception of Hawkeye and Ant-Man. Seeming as a fourth Avengers movie is scheduled for 2019, I assume that they will return then. In the mean time, the humor is still intact, but obviously, the tone has become darker.

Key characters will die, and the fate of others will be left uncertain. As Thanos combines his personal loss with the concepts of balance and survival while interpreting this across the known universe, the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy team up to fight him and his Children.

The CGI, production values and settings are of a top caliber as you would expect, but it's really impressive how this large cast managed to carry the plot direction alongside a compelling and effective major villain. It also looked like every ability of each Infinity Stone was displayed here.

While The Avengers back in 2012 was perhaps the first great all stars superheroes movie, Infinity War steps it up further, raises the stakes and manages to entertain, engross and impress throughout, while DC's movies are generally poorly left behind.

I should had started out with comics, especially after seeing so many great superhero movies already. But at the same time, the movies do attempt to bring out the best of the comics in their own medium, so it's okay if you don't have time to read thousands of comics dedicated to each character if you ask me.

Avengers: Infinity War is perhaps the best Marvel movie yet so far, and it's naturally more exciting to see it if you saw the numerous previous movies. How spoiled we are with movies like these nowadays! Film making has gone quite far with technology, skill, direction, and so on.

Rating: 8.5

Devil May Cry

I’m playing this popular franchise for the first time via the HD Collection on the PS4! Devil May Cry is a 3D horror based hack and slash where you play as Dante, some kind of demon hunter bent on stopping evil from breeding and happening.

Loosely based on Dante’s Divine Comedy and it’s Italian mythology, Devil May Cry was a hit back in 2001, with some challenging moments, but the gun and swordplay combined with transforming into devil like super powers made it stylish and standout from the crowd.

The worse factors are the camera wrestling as there are many blind spots, but also the repetition of having to fight almost all of the bosses 3 times.

Still, it was quite standing out back in the day, and arguably, numerous games have been inspired by it.

Rating: 7.3

 

 

Honestly?

From all of the negativity I have heard over the years for this sequel, it’s all very exaggerated. The camera wrestling is still there, but the difficulty has been lowered, and there is more variety with bosses.

The mission structure is still weird and asymmetric and not balanced regarding length, and the plot is still very thin and minimum. But the gameplay is intact, and so are the action moves, the weapons and the item management.

About Dante’s change of personality, I honestly barely noticed this here either, as his “acting” is almost non existent in both games anyway. Don’t be shy to play Devil May Cry 2, or perhaps I have the advantage of immediately playing this after the original!?

Rating: 7.2

Easily the best of the trilogy, this special edition has 5 difficulty modes as I discovered this upon defeating it for the first time, wow! As a prequel, you get to see Dante and his brother Vergil duke and team it out, while devils are allowed to cry.

You can turn the camera slightly, and there are more guns, styles and weapons than before. The bosses are also of a higher caliber, and you will have to fight them again Mega Man style. The only thing that really bothers me after playing these one after another is that for the guns, there is no auto button, meaning that I got tired with my fingers.

Plus, based on the numerous games I have beaten by now, the gameplay might be repetitive at times, but then there are enough weapons, action moves and such to keep playing with entertainment. Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening is worth playing, and quite challenging!

Rating: 7.5

Gaming Achievements

Achievement Unlocked!

Recognise that? You either don't care at all, or your ego just got boosted, or perhaps you are floating somewhere inbetween like me, regarding this feature which has been present since the previous gaming generation, except that Nintendo hasn't used it generally yet.

The majority of video games nowadays have an achievement/trophy system that when you meet certain conditions during the game, you unlock these. From unlocking a secret level to beating the game, from walking a large sum of miles/kilometers in game to doing silly scenes like bugging NPC's and fooling around, to overcoming the most challenging trophies which are in Sony's case in the Platinum rank.

What I find interesting to monitor even more than seeing my personal achievements or comparing them with friends is the percentage associated with each trophy and realizing that they represent how many of the gamers who own the game in total have achieved this trophy.

For example, in the case of Bloodborne, not many owners of the game have beaten it normally. A much lesser amount have beaten the DLC bosses, and an even much lesser amount which includes me has seen all that is available in the bonus Chalice Dungeons.

My general conclusion with the games that I currently own is that the majority of modern gamers don't beat their games, and beating a game in my opinion is defeating the final boss, seeing the ending, and seeing the credits, and then you get back to the main title screen.

It really seems that only a small portion of gamers beats games, at least nowadays, regardless of many they own. For me, one of the best pleasures of playing good games is when I finally beat them and bring closure to them in my subjective view.

Being a completionist in the sense of doing all the side content, overcome all the challenges and getting all of the achievements is not in my interest. There are insane people who might do that per game, but as for me, give me a robust single player and a replayable multiplayer, and I'm all set and content.