Ready Player One

Wade Watts and the rest of humanity are hooked and live a second life into the virtual game world of OASIS, where everything is possible.

Ready Player One is one of the biggest movies out there when speaking of pop culture references, and it’s a sci-fi action adventure on top of that.

Battle royales show  familiar characters and objects, while the story is adapted from a book about a video game designer leaving behind a quest to becoming the new owner of OASIS amongst financial gain and such.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One is entertaining pop corn times and combined with the references worth watching, and it also reflects a bit on the message to spend more time on reality rather than on distractions.

Rating: 7.0

Metroid: Samus Returns

 Surface of SR388

Thankfully, Metroid is making a true comeback again, after the mixed Metroid: Other M and the miserable Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Samus Returns brings the bliss and glory back.

It's a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, and it's the first 2D action platformer since Zero Mission from 2004! It adds plenty of new features to the series, such as a melee counterattack, the ability to freely shoot at any angle, and the Aeion abilities, which are special powers relying on Aeion energy to use them, such as firing rapidly, scanning the area or slowing down time.

Especially scanning the area for hidden blocks and items is in my opinion an improvement for everyone playing this game, but perhaps the hardcore community would think differently about it. Several weaponry and abilities including the grapple beam, super missile and power bomb also are re-introduced here, and the map on the second screen is well used not only for navigation, but also for writing down personal notes.

Interestingly, before this was released, there was a fangame called AM2R which also wanted to celebrate the franchise, but it got taken down by Nintendo, presumably because of this official remake.

Both games are definitely worthy of traditional and true Metroid gameplay, as I managed to beat both of them. Metroid: Samus Returns excuses previous entries and it's pleasing to hear that Sakamoto isn't done with the series yet!

Rating: 8.6

Get Equipped With: Flok's 3rd Generation PC

 

After 9 years, it was finally time for a much deserved upgrade towards my personal computer.

Frankly, I might have gone a bit too far this time, as my investment into this project is bigger than anything, aside from some of my annual vacations. ;)

Every component and peripheral has been upgraded in order to satisfy me in such ways so that I will be able to work, game, study and do more on it for years to come, perhaps for another 9 years, unless something really innovating comes along the way in the mean time.

As I have always been an AMD guy, with the release of the 2nd generation of AMD's Ryzen processors, I based my custom build around that, while I purchased the sickest available consumer GPU card and brought along my first Ultra wide and curved Quad HD monitor with an overclock of up to 120hz while G-Sync is intact.

Combined with the Gigabyte Aorus Geforce GTX 1080Ti Xtreme Edition 11G and 16GB of DDR4 with 3.200Mhz, I can play pretty much any video game with Ultra settings, high frame rate and overall stability. The components nowadays have many kinds of RGB/LED colors, which is customizable and a nice touch.

Activating a second Windows 10 license, resolving a clicking sound inside a fan of the GPU, converting a drive from MBR to GPT and realizing that SATA interfaces need to connect to the power supply too were the challenges I had to face, but I overcame them all, and I managed to customize and build this beast of a PC and have it running with insane performance.

For my complete list of the objects which I have bought:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Wraith

MB: Gigabyte X470 Gaming 7 Wi-Fi

GPU: Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1080Ti Xtreme Edition

VIDEO: Acer Predator Z35P Black 

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V F4-3200C16D-16GVKB

M2: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB

SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 3TB

CASE: Corsair Crystal 570X RGB Black

PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus 650 Platinum

MOUSE: Logitech G403 Prodigy

KEYBOARD: Razer Ornata Chroma

AUDIO: Logitech Z333

I'm very happy that I spoiled myself with this juggernaut of a PC. I got my first one back in 2003, and purchased the second generation together with my brother back in 2009. Now in 2018, personal computing is even crazier, and I love it!