Just after watching a fun and light comedy with Sing, another channel started to show Queen of Katwe. I heard good comments when it was in theaters, so I decided to keep up the marathon.

It tells the story of Phiona Mutesi, a real life girl from the village of Katwe, in Uganda, that end up being a very good chess player. It is a very typical against-all-odds and follow-your-dream kinda story. The poor girl has to face all the prejudice for being women and poor (but not about being black, because the whole movie is basically on Uganda, which such thing is nonsense) to get a place under the sun.

Her unexpected success transformed the lives of her family and of the many people of her village. She became a celebrity at very young age, which influenced her personality. Year after year, she started to behave as a spoiled kid, believing that she was invincible. With the family support, she realizes the most valuable things in life in the end.

The acting of the protagonist, from Madina Nalwanga, is excellent. The entire media focused the attention to the beautiful Lupita Nyong’o that plays Phiona’s mother, but the real star here is Madina. Phiona is portrayed as a timid, introspective girl, but Madina played in a way that it still makes the character very, very likable. You cheer for her. Even being in a chess match!

The other kids are also surprisingly good. It is always a challenge to work with children.

My main complaint with the story is the sub-plot of her older sister. I don’t know if the book that was based on uses this character to a greater purpose, but in this motion picture this subplot, while gives hints about the whole situation of Phiona and her mother, does not go anywhere relevant.

The visuals are great. The poverty is displayed in a way that brings emotions but is not there to provoke shock. The African colors and styles gives it a very distinctive and beautiful look.

Following yet another recommendation from Rock Paper Shotgun, I decided to give this small little indie game a try.

The game address the theme of governmental surveillance. The Big Brother. It’s definitively a reference to the US’ Edward Snowden case from 2013.

But unlike what traditional dystopian stories generally do, Orwell puts you in the shoes of the oppressing regime. To be more fair, you control a simple security agent, which makes you more a pawn than a King. It’s a similar position that you take from the excellent Papers Please. Following the rules and d questionable things is part of your job. You need to put food on the table after all. After the first negative (or at least not constable) impressions, you will get used to the job, and things get easier to digest.

Your official job is to track terrorist threats, listening to phone call, see video camera feeds, and read social media from targets. But these tools are available to spy on virtually all citizens, potential criminals or ordinary folk alike.

At very beginning of the game, the country suffers a major terrorist attack and the country is in a political crisis. It’s your job to find the responsible ones. You even have a lead. He might be innocent, but your investigation opens connections. Connecting one person to another, like teacher-student, neighbors, father-son, brings you new potential suspects.

A wonderful thing that I noticed while playing is that, without direct intervention of the game, reading the news, I created some conspiracy theories. I was trying to link dots, trying to see the “big picture”, trying to make sense of the chaos of facts and information. The game throws at you several misleading information, and like real life, you will have to filter what is relevant and what is not. It fascinated me.

The mechanics of the game are quite unique. Not revolutionary, but unique. If the theme is close to Papers Please, the gameplay reminded me of Her Story. Using trial-and-error and some deduction, you try to reveal the missing gaps. If you didn’t like Her Story, don’t worry, here the story is more traditional. Everything is scripted like and adventure game. You will not make a relevant change in the course of the story during game.

As a short game, I liked very much. I heard that they are doing a sequel, which is good news. I will be glad to try it also.

PS: yes, the game Orwell is a direct reference to Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) and his book 1984.

Like Batman Arkham Knight, this game of the Assassin’s Creed franchise was launched in a very rough state. There are thousands of videos in the YouTube showing crazy situations, mostly because the AI, but also due to the poor collision detection and graphical glitches.

And as Batman, I played the game long after the launch, after the developers patch the patch of the patch of the patch of the game.

And as Batman, I played a buggy game.

At the time I played the second game in the series, Assassin’s Creed 2, I did not comment in the blog. I don’t even recall if I had a blog at the time (in fact, I did have, because I played it in 2010, and it was mentioned in the 2010 in review). Anyway, it was one of my favorite games of all time at that point. I really enjoyed every bit of it. And I appreciate it even more when I finally when to Italy and could see in real life the places that I have been before in the virtual life.

Back to Unity, it felt flat to me.

The visuals are great, I cannot deny it. Seeing the Eiffel Tower at the horizon (even for a brief moment because the main game is before its construction) was full of emotions. The crowd ragging against the monarchy is super cool (the crowd on the streets are not, because the pop and change visuals in front of you), the buildings are also very detailed. The character models are good, but the uncanny valley occurred to me: all seemed creepy.

The gameplay is the typical Assassin’s Creed fashion. The main difference here is that it does not work right. I believe that the developers wanted to put so many climbing and parkour points across your path that very often the character does something different that the player intended. It starts to climb in a weird point or get over an ordinary table. I had several moments that I died because I was not in full control of the character. The combat is ok but the armors and weapons all feel the same. There is no special strategy here.

The story is laughably bad. The MAIN character is boring. The main one. That Arno starts begin an anti-hero that is converted to a blindly good hero in a snap and is moved mostly by boring motives. I could not care less. The girl follows the same path. The secondary characters, in most part, are not good and when you think they are going to grow in the story, you have to kill them. That is, in fact, a kinda problem in the AC universe, because they are built to assassinate people, their opponents, so most story lines end on killing them before some good conflict emerges

[story plot here]

The recurring structure of the story is:

1. There is an enemy
2. You are sent to kill him,
3. By doing so, you discover that there is, in fact, a bigger boss

And the cycle repeats. It is not an accident that I cannot remember a single villain.

The side quests and collectibles, all boring. When finding a chest containing… nothing… is fun? The only collectibles that I compelled to do is open the map climbing strategic towers and evolving my own bar to a certain level that it generates loads of money. Getting flags or chests or entering the catacombs were too dull to for me.

The present storyline, against Abstergo, was only briefly mentioned. There is none in this game that reveals anything.

The overall feeling is that I had to finish the game for the sake of my compulsive behavior. No reason to recommend to anyone, except if you are French (I suppose it would be awesome to have your own city mapped like this).

This 30 years old cartoon is still a charm.

This Japanese animation showed me the importance of being open to alternative views. The theme and pace of the movie is completely different from the western animations.

The story is about 2 girls (and their dad) moving to a new house. Nearby there are some fantastical creatures that co-exist in this world.

The pace is super slow. But not dragging-type of slow. It is contemplative kinda slow. They present the characters step by step, through small events. The two kids will slowly conquest your heart. They are so adorable. It was a great pleasure to care about someone, on the contrary of many of the western movies and games, that I could not care a thing about them. I loved  Mei and Satsuki.

The visuals are great. Like watercolor paintings and classic anime style of drawings. The Totoro character is particularly funny! The other creatures are cool, but they are not thoroughly explored, so I cannot say they are great. The music is a bit sparse, with long moments of silence.

My mainly, maybe only, complain is the abrupt ending. With many spoilers, at a certain point of the story there is a big problem that the characters try to solve. But at any point it as said it was the major final concern. I was personally expecting to, after solving it, to get to this issue. It ends in moment that I was not expecting to happen. It left the story with too many open questions, too many mysteries. When the credits started to roll I was shocked.

It is a short excellent movie. It ends suddenly, but the whole ride is an enjoyable one. Totoro (the character) is now among my favorite anime characters ever.

Totally recommend you to watch it.

[Edit: I pressed publish by accident. Some games added]

Length is an important variable for a video game. It is a bit curious, because for the similar prices, even the shortest game will be much longer than a movie. But among its peers, games do have a scale.

Many companies advertise the amount of hours to finish their games. There is even a great website called, you guessed it, GameLenghts that tracks how long users take to finish the game. There is a second site, and my favorite in the market, called How Long to Beat, that I feel more complete.

Bigger is not Better.

Most games suffer from a syndrome that most players never reaches the end of it. Sometime not even half of it. Many games do have achievements triggered when the player crosses the line. I currently have being playing some short games that I felt much more fulfilling. Some let me wanting more. But honestly I feel that wanting more is a better feeling “this game never ends!”.

I believe the story driven games should have a more concise length. It could be delivered in chunks, for those that want more. Open-world games, like GTA and Skyrim/Fallout, are understandably really long, allowing the players explore various things.

Here is a list of some games that I personally never finished.

• Divinity Original Sin: this one I will finish soon. But it entered the list because I’ve played many games in the between.
• (²)Skyrim: yes yes… I know. After not liking the previous installment, I came to this game knowing that I would struggle. After meeting The Witcher 3, it now seems likely to be played again
• Borderlands 2: I played mechanically. Despite knowing that it is a nice game, I struggle to do it so brainlessly
• (¹)Bioshock Infinite: I started, I felt a bit fake and the story never hooked me
• LA Noire: I am in a very late mission, but I think the saving I got is lost, so I might never finish it
• (¹)Dishonored: I started but soon uninstalled to open space to play The Witcher 3 expansions.
• Transistor: I installed in my Linux notebook, but I rarely used to play games
• Alan Wake: it’s a bit stressful to play. Also, I was not having time to play at night to fully appreciate it
• (¹)Half-Life 2: I always stop in a certain point than something happens that I move on
• (¹)Spec Ops: The Line: I played a bit and did not think it was amazing, but I feel it will surprise me
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent: I loved the whole concept, but by the end of a session I feel exhausted because of the level of fear and stress.
• Hitman Absolution: I stopped in a given level than I moved on.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: I liked the like story and the gameplay. But the game seems endless. I might play it more
• Alien Isolation: the same as Amnesia. I always feel that I like horror games, but I feel very stressed out after while
• Invisible Inc.: the same as Transistor.
• FEZ: I liked the puzzles, but there are several of them tooo obscure for the to find fun on solving.
• (¹)Enslaved: Odyssey to the West: I liked it, and I feel it is good. It is installed, waiting to be played.
• Psychonauts: I played a lot before Steam having a cloud save and my PC crashing
• (¹)Metro 2033: felt another FPS at the time.

And the list goes on…

In a list of more the 200 games I own and played, it is comparatively short list. Most of them are long games.

In bold, some that I try to play it again in the future, mostly because there are some that I liked so far, and I feel shame in not getting it to the final. I wanted to say that the others will be played in the future, but knowing that I will buy newer games, it is not honest with myself 😛

(¹) Edited on 2021-09-20: Finished!

(²) Edited on 2023-03-09: Finished Skyrim at last!