Jurassic Beardie Asscannons

Man, I actually had a real weekend for once! And I used it for maximum entertainment and laziness. I REGRET NOTHING!
One of the better things to happen this weekend was Jurassic World. And I'm saying that as one of the few weirdos, who don't really care for anything Jurassic Park. Yes, I saw the original back in the day, dinosaurs are cool, yada yada yada, but I'm just not into that type of movie. I don't want to watch movies for cool effects alone - I want a good story! And to me, stuff like Jurassic Park is really just about a bunch of people running from something scary. Some stupid characters you never liked get eaten along the way, the main characters usually get away and at the end of the film you'll get one of those 'haha psych! The monster/alien/dino/killer totally survived' moments.

He's got a dino face, right?

I'm probably being unfair and oversimplifying things here, but I've been experiencing that whole "don't stop or look back or something's gonna eat/murder you" scenario in the form of nightmares since the age of 3. I don't feel like movies of that sort add anything new for me, personally. With that in mind, I actually had fun watching Jurassic World. Yeeees, it's still just a bunch of people running away from dinosaurs, of course all the characters you're supposed to care about are gonna make it out alive and a bunch of random assholes and the guy you're supposed to hate get murdered, because duh, have you never watched a movie before?

I still liked it. It was fun to watch one of the characters train (sort of) a bunch of raptors, depicting them as more than a bunch of mindless killing machines. Of course I'm biased here, because we live with what used to be a wild, untamed, big angry lizard. Who turned out to be pretty clever and playful and maaaaybe a little bit more social than some people give reptiles credit for.

Of course they're still cramming preschool levels of stupid in there. Oh hey, these dinos communicate verbally! A dino is one second away from eating a character you (are supposed to) like, so the hero distracts him with whistling and motorcycle noises. The dinosaur now lets go of his perfectly ready lunch, which absolutely cannot get away, just so he can chase after some other guy, instead. I dare you to try that with a real life predator! Do it! See how many friends you can save that way! And fan-favourite species of dinosaur teaming up against a common enemy, then walking away from each other peacefully after destroying the bad guy, simply because it's cool.

So, suspension of disbelief is strongly advised, but I still liked it. There were plenty of references to the original and the movie seemed strangely self-aware. At some point they're talking about how 20 years ago it was enough to just show off a bunch of dinosaurs to impress people and now everything has to be bigger, scarier and cooler. Sure, those were just the characters talking about how difficult it is to keep a dino park running, but it still felt pretty meta... um, am I using that word right?
Also, I'm really okay with films featuring younger folks like Chris Pratt, while aged action heroes of the 80s are farting out one pathetic sequel after another.

Game of Thrones makes you sad? Pfft, try owning a pet!

Oh well. Real dinosaurs died a long time ago and their stupid little cousins can be just as depressing. Look at these bearded dragons, for example. Don't get me wrong, I love beardies and I'd still recommend them to anyone looking to get a nice, easy starter lizard. They're incredibly easy to handle, they put up with all your stupid shit, they're friendly enough and they're not all fragile and squishy and scared of fucking everything like leopard geckos are. But they die in the most depressing, drawn-out, frustrating fashion imaginable.

Cats and dogs get old. They go a little deaf, a little blind and a little stupid, just like us. And I'm not saying they can't get cancer or some other nasty shit that forces you to part ways in some really depressing way or another. But many of them just slow down more and more and eventually they go to sleep and never wake up. Beardies, on the other hand, seem to just wither and go skeletal over months and months and months, going back between practically dead and perfectly normal several times in the process.

We're currently going through this with Earl Grey, yet another unwanted beardie we picked up from the shop, because nobody ever picked him up and he looked a little sorry for himself. We don't really know how old he is, he was always a bit skinny, but now he has reached a point where he's really just a scaly little bag of bones. He's still eating, he's active and everything, but he's losing weight ever more rapidly and nothing seems to stop it. Two of our other beardies went pretty much the same way, except we eventually had to force feed them to stop them from starving themselves to death.

So... yeah, we're done with beardies. We're still treating Earl with all the love and care he needs, but he's fading a little more each day and this is gonna drag on for several weeks or even months now, there'll be days where he eats a little more and seems a little more active and we'll be getting our hopes up and in the end I'll just be digging another hole in the yard. And then we'll be repeating the same thing with Nomnom a few years down the line. I believe she's still relatively young, so it shouldn't happen too soon, but it'll happen eventually and it'll be just as drawn-out and depressing as with all the beadies before her. We'll be tempted to pick up another tank mate for her once Earl will be gone, but at the end of the day, we end up being some kind of retirement home for ancient lizards, putting up with all their sad antics, because their original owners' love only goes so far.

Can you spot the cash shop user?

On a happier note, Gamestar liked my Warframe review, I have sent them some killer video footage and the whole thing should go live real soon. Warframe looks pretty bad on metacritic right now, because magazines and websites crapped out reviews right after the game went into an early, unfinished beta more than two years ago. It has changed a lot since then, but nobody could be fucked to update their reviews. Meanwhile, console reviews have been just as bad, because "it's only free2play" and reviews for this sort of game are being treated as such.

You see "professional" reviewers talking about how Warframe's "sound and music are as poor as you'd expect from a free2play title", saying the game isn't fun, because all the good content needs to be bought with cold, hard cash. Which is funny, seeing as all the best weapons and warframes can only be earned and crafted and they're not available in the cash shop. The game's audio is also perfectly fine, but some people have a certain negative mindset towards free2play, so they start complaining about shit they wouldn't even bring up had they been asked to pay 60 bucks for the exact same game before installing it.

Besides, the game has a 60ish PC metacritic, so you don't wanna make an idiot out of yourself by rating the game any higher on consoles, right? Even if said PC reviews are about the game in 2013 and you're reviewing the game in 2015. This shit is so incredibly half-assed and lazy, and they're doing a sloppy job, because they know they can get away with it. There's no publisher like EA, Square or Ubisoft behind this game, nobody is gonna call you out for "reviewing" something you've never even touched for more than 20 minutes, it's easy money. And it's unfair towards the game in question, its designers and the fans.

They're released a new weapon this weekend (which you can only buy with ingame currency), which might be a tiiiiiiiiiiny bit game-breaking in its current state. Have a look at the life bars of one Mr. Lephantis, also known as a what's more or less the "final boss" right now outside of the 8 player raid stuff:

I'm taking out each of his three heads using only a single magazine per head. And it happens so fast, the entire video isn't even a minute long.

Meanwhile, the stalker's life bar depletes in (literally) under two seconds, the only thing saving him from instant death being some cheap invulnerability move, delaying the inevitable by another moment or two:

I'm still having lots of fun with the new dragon warframe Chroma, pulling 40+ minutes of T4 solo survivals, though he does lack a certain amount of AoE-spamminess that would let him top the kill charts in mission types like defense, where casty warframes just sit in one spot and mash 4. Been playing with a few random strangers over the weekend who did exactly that, meaning they died well over a dozen times per wave, constantly relying on other players to revive their worthless ass, but in the end they had a couple extra kills over everyone else from putting absolutely everything into damage and nothing into surivability. "It's a cooperative game and I'm winning", or something. Nevermind the fact you wouldn't last for two minutes if you didn't have a bunch of helpful people to bringt you back to life all the fucking time.

Oh hey, speaking of people who die and shit - seen this year's final episode of Game of Thrones, yet? If not, incredibly minor spoiler warning right here. Got that? Did you see that? Turn away now if you're super upset over small, predictable spoilers. You've been warned. Somebody dies at the end. Big fucking surprise there, right? What really bothers me is people posting pictures of themselves crying over it. Literally crying. Can we please not make that a thing? It's fucking tv. You don't have to fucking cry. And if you do, don't share it with the world. It's stupid. It's particularly stupid in a fictional universe that tends to bring the occasional dead guy back. Just saying. Youknowwho may well return at some point, one way or another.

I was a bit disappointed. Oh yeah, more small spoilers ahead. One potentially cool battle more or less skipped right to the outcome, pretty much every character ended up in some kind of unresolved, confusing situation and now I'm supposed to remember all of this shit for a whole year until they show the next ten or so episodes. It's still the best damn thing on tv and everything, but it would have been nice to NOT end the whole fucking thing in half a dozen or so fucking cliffhangers. Seriously, it's not like I was gonna stop watching next year or anything, so don't torture your audience like that. Boo. Not sure what to watch next, all the interesting stuff is already done for the year. Maybe Youtube.

Whether you care for the particular subject they're covering in that episode up there or not - the whole thing is really well-made. It's a lot more entertaining and a lot less cringeworthy and stages than tons of "reality" shows nobody even fucking wants to see on tv anymore. Maybe it's time for conventional tv to fuck off and die.

-Cat