Star Trek: Picard

 

Captain Jean-Luc Picard(Patrick Stewart) comes out of retirement in order to investigate the murder of a young girl with a connection towards one of his dear friends, and while assembling a new crew and ship, a new threat emerges.

Star Trek: Picard is the return of the beloved commander that once shined so brightly alongside his old crew during Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think it's great that Patrick still wanted to act as this person in his old age.

However, the execution, plot and characters all fall apart quickly, and are average at best. It's a linear story about one dimensional characters, unnecessary swearing, ret-conning the lore in a bad way, and using too much nostalgia events to keep things spicy.

It's not as annoying as Star Trek Discovery, which I won't bother to properly review, as while that looks pretty, it's full of diversity and political correctness, with Saru being the only exception of an interesting character.

I am not a hardcore fan or Trekkie, but I could tell the difference of quality easily. It's still nice to see Picard returning anno 2020 with a second season confirmed, I do hope that they will able to improve upon it and perhaps re-imagine some of that magic of the best episodes of TnG.

Rating: 6.5

Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Spyro the Dragon

Another iconic PlayStation figure I did not touch until now, Spyro the Dragon is a pleasant little platformer remastered, where your task is to rescue your fellow dragons and defeat Gnasty Gnore, leader of the goons running around.

You are able to either flame or bash your enemies away, and in a similar fashion towards Crash Bandicoot, this plays out evenly. There are also eggs and keys to collect to get more out of the collectathon, and there are 6 worlds to see with mini levels scattered around, and sometimes a flight only mission.

Rating: 7.3

Spyro: Ripto’s Rage!

Ripto’s Rage sees Spyro help and rescue a different world called Avalar. Spyro learns some new skills, the levels are more colourful and memorable, and there is a small supportive cast involved. A fine sequel.

Rating: 7.4

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

It’s really about the same as the previous entry. Instead of collecting talismans, you are now collecting dragon eggs and taking on a sorceress as villain this time. Some levels were more fun than others. Minigames return such as first person shooting, racing, boxing and more.

Rating: 7.4

To sum it up, I can definitely see the appeal of Spyro, but personally I prefer Crash.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

A book recommended by a friend of mine, Superintelligence talks about machine brains that could arguably surpass human brains in general intelligence, be it by artificial, biological, virtual or other ways.

Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom goes through many hypothesizes to project and offer conjecture about upcoming technological developments that could ignite the upcoming Superintelligence faster or slower, depending on how history will shape up for the current century.

Possible predictions, including the weaponisation of nanotechnology and biotechnology, the nuclear arms race turning into nuclear warfare, particular jobs becoming obsolete and extinct and pathways towards existential catastrophe, or perhaps the replacement of the human species, all are detailed.

Existential risks are indeed a major topic written here, and if the Superintelligence will create a dawn of intelligence proportions blowing virtually all human variations away, how will the world shape up accordingly? What about morality, robotic laws and ethics, the economy and politics, for instance?

Superintelligence goes deep on the matter with a rather pessimistic look, but at the same time, virtues such as collaborations, mathematics and "fail-safe" methods are also written about, and it's an interesting look at present and future challenges to overcome, and to review the eternal questions that humanity has had.

Rating: ***

PlayStation 5 Preview

Here's your "E3" Sony thoughts, bro.

Streaming over one hour live, I watched the PlayStation 5 show last night with a good buddy of mine. With only a few speeches given, most of the show was all about announcing and showing new games.

From predictable sequels to new intellectual properties to indie trailers that made me yawn and instantly forget, it had it all. Design wise, the console is slick, futuristic, elegant and large as far as height goes, when compared to current and previous generations of PlayStation and Xbox.

Announcing a Digital Version means that it's a very large step towards many people who will no longer buy physical games, which means that video game shops will definitely have a huge impact by this, as if the pandemic wasn't enough.

Personally, I think that physical games will always have a presence in some form, whether new or old. Specs wise, with a SSD installed, many teraflops present and having ray traced rendering of the GPU, as well as huge amounts of RAM and bandwidth, it's your next gen beast.

The exact release date and the prize remain unsolved, but if you ask me, I am predicting that it will come out in November with a suggested retail price of 500 euro, while the Digital Version will be 400 euro.

Having said all that, let's talk about the best part of any system; the games! Or at least the ones that impressed me, hehe.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales 

From what I understood, this is a stand-alone expansion towards Spider-Man from 2018, similar in length and design like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and instead of Peter Parker you will play a different MC. Not sure what to expect, but if the gameplay and scope remain, consider me piqued.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart 

I adored the remake on the PlayStation 4. Beautifully crafted graphics and smooth, Rift Apart seems to be playing with the concepts of teleportation manipulating space. I never played any of the numerous previous other entries, but this seems like an easy buy.

Demon's Souls Remake

Heavily rumored for months, Bluepoint Games is remaking it from the ground up, promising a new Fractured Mode and two modes of graphical plays, either turn up the frame rate or the amount of pixels. I wonder if it can still be good with it's game design, as it was the first of the Souls games. I am pretty sure that this is a no-brainer buy for me.

Resident Evil: Village 

This got leaked in content back in april. It took me a while through the trailer before I released that I was looking at Resident Evil 8, and ironically, it is giving a lot of Resident Evil 4 vibes too. Promising to be biggest, scariest and darkest entry yet, I am quite excited how it was shown, but I want to see more gameplay and monsters before I am truly excited. I'm sure that Capcom knows what they are doing.

Horizon Forbidden West

Everyone knew that this was coming. With Hermen Hulst now spearheading the newly labeled PlayStation Studios, he departed Guerilla Games with handling Aloy's sequel in a new vast world showcasing a desert setting and underwater gameplay for the first time. A gorgeous reveal, this is a true next-gen looking game.

Honorable Mentions which also impressed me:

-Hitman III
-GhostWire Tokyo (Shinji Mikami)
-Kena: Bridge of Spirits

All in all, I am excited in general by the next generation coming at the end of this strange year. It remains to be seen if I will get one at launch, and what else Sony might still announce in between, and besides, there are exciting games to play through until then. With one in particular finally releasing next week!

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

 

What a joy to return towards this mesmerizing world!

Ori and the Blind Forest was a surprise hit developed with the Unity engine and made by a decentralized team around the world. This direct sequel is created in the same way, but the length has become quite a bit more.

With captivating new 3D animated graphics, it is truly a shiny example to accompany the gameplay and the story. The same can be said for the soundtrack, as it accompanies the overall design, and it has neat tunes per area to wander.

The improved combat system makes this more entertaining and fulfilling, and I almost did not notice annoying or trial and errors moments during the platforming, the double jumping, the launching, the swimming, the swifting through sand, and so on.

Storywise, it's all about healing the land and it's creatures from darkness and corruption. In order to assist Ori, there are many abilities that will let you explore further, while passive abilities can also be found and bought to improve other parts during the adventuring.

With a traditional map system that details plenty of hiding items and secrets, as you progress further, more of them will be collectable, thus making you stronger in overall. Side quests are also available, and the main story has well done chasing sequences to accompany the big, intimidating bosses.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a versatile, greater sequel that solidifies it as Metroidvania to be inspired from. Moon Studios has proven themselves even more, and I praise them for delivering this work of art.

Rating: 8.3