Fireworks on muh screen!

How was your 4th, folks? I got to hang out with friends and watch The Rock's San Andreas and the new Tomb Raider. The former was a neutered "action" film that unraveled the moment you thought about how callous it is to make a movie with hundreds of thousands of people dying on and off screen while following a divorced couple's rekindled relationship. Ohh, and screw you, new husband, for making this divorcee happy! Tomb Raider was kinda boring but had some cool sound effects, and properly beat the shit out of Lara Croft, per mandate of the new game series.

Hell yeah she is!

In a much more efficient use of media funding, Gravity Rush has stolen my heart. I've wanted to play this PS4 remaster since even before January 2018, my Ladies' Month, and spent 30 disorienting minutes figuring out the (thankfully) simplified controls. The game involves a spunky heroine named Kat whose cat can decide which surfaces are up and down. You do this by floating, aiming at the surface you wish to stand on, and flying into it. This is all done with one button, and the camera will help you out most of the time. I'm having a blast playing this game, and I hope the story is brisk enough that the gameplay doesn't wear out its welcome.

Update: Since starting this post a week ago, I've gotten the platinum. I probably put 16 hours into the base game and all expansions, and was excited to play the whole time. The most challenging mission in the game has a perfect run of 3min30sec and took me about 20 minutes overall to ace through research and repeated attempts.

Overwatch. I've been playing the new Symmetra and a great deal of FFA deathmatch. After 2.5 years of naively trusting strangers to group up in balanced teams, there is now a create-a-group feature where you can assign roles. While it takes an extra minute to fill up, you can finally avoid the K:D ratio bros that will fill your last team slot with Genji (instead of a needed healer or tank). The problem is that the system isn't quite intuitive, and there is no usual info box with an explanation. How...cantankerous!

More like "Turn-it-up!" Ah...that was lame.

I started Rayman Legends, which is a really huge game. This Ubisoft platformer series has a great aesthetic that reminds me of Nickelodeon cartoons and certainly doesn't take itself seriously. It's one of those games with slightly floaty controls, but the levels mercifully aren't designed for precision. Rayman was a franchise I overlooked pretty much since the first game in 1995. Legends is pretty fun and not frustratingly challenging so far. I dig it!