DeathscytheX

This was a pretty good series. The finale was great. It takes about 3 eps to pick up but its worth watching. Gillen and Malarkey have great chemistry as Hynek and Quinn and it was interesting how their personalities developed as they got use to each other throughout the season. I'm not sure how good a second season can be once they run out of actual cases they'll have to start making stuff up. The last scene was a bit wacky so it has me a little nervous they could just go off the rails eventually.

CAUTION: Jim Sterling is approaching.
 

You know you want some live action SHINING FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cant wait until the Gundams are too toxically masculine looking in the live action adaptation Sunrise and Legendary Pictures ARE doing.

Motorball takes place in the entirety of volume 3 of the manga (the old release, new release is 5 volumes so I'm not sure which volume its in) and her Berserker body (I don't know if they call it that in the movie, not even close to the power of her current body) is in the manga as well (first volume). From what I've heard it's a pretty accurate adaptation of the OVA which was a haphazard adaptation of the first volume of the manga (still good, I enjoyed it for what it was) with elements of the manga thrown in (badly by what I hear, sounds like the skip all of the motorball stuff after the tryouts which is a bummer since that's by far one of the high points of the manga for me).
Not entirely sure what they said her age was (221 in the manga currently) or what her background is as it's never really covered until toward the end of the manga and the Last Order continuation (to sum it up a Martian terrorist and Panzer Kunst specialist (cyborg martial arts) who was stranded on Earth during the Terraforming Wars on a botched up mission) but I'll have to wait and see as I won't see it in theaters (I'll wait until it hits home video). As much love as I hear for this adaptation I'm skeptical it's any good (I'm a purist who loves this manga and we all remember how much I tore down the GitS movie) but I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Sigh, they just want to adapt everything now don't they. Didn't they learn their mistake with G-Saviour. Gundam isn't meant to be adapted into live-action >.<

I watched Battle Angel Alita today. It was the most true anime to live action movie I've ever seen. I never read the manga so I can only assume the motorball stuff and her new ultra powerful body was part of the manga. Aside from that every scene that happened in the anime movie happened in this movie almost exactly. It's a shame it was PG13 but that's alright. It still had all the brutal deaths but the kill shots that were gruesome generally took place right off camera which was only a few times. Other times it was mostly a lack of blood to get around an R rating. Like slicing a guy into 5 parts is ok for pg13 when there's no blood flying everywhere. Overall I'm very pleased with how the movie played out and it was setup for a sequel. The movie does explain alot more about Alita than the anime does, like what she is, how old she is, etc.
And the giant eyes that freaked everyone out before is nothing. I got used to it within the first couple minutes. The realy unique thing about this movie are all the cyborgs. There's no two cyborgs that are even remotely similar except for in 2 flash back scenes. Other than that a girl with giant eyes is nothing compared to a 10 foot tall guy with a shoulder width bigger than a semi truck or some guy that's larger than a SUV with multiple appendages with circular saws.
Also I didn't see any sex appeal at all. Lmao. they made her look physically fit like she was in the anime. And she kicked ass. This was a great movie and I highly recommend it.

I never had any trouble running TERA on my laptop back when I played it. In fact it was probably one of the best running F2P MMO's I've ever played. Then again this was 4-5 years ago so things may have changed for the worst since then. Honestly when I played BDO I never paid attention to that shit. The grind does kinda suck once you get higher in level but the cash shop never once bothered me. In fact I should log in again and play it because the combat system is probably one of the best out there outside of TERA's.
I actually miss CoH/CoV. It was one of the first MMO's to drag me away from WoW for an extended period of time. True it wasn't one of the best MMO's out there but it was fun while it lasted (I still have my physical copy of CoV somewhere in my closet).
I'll agree though it's difficult to find anything worth while in the MMO genre (especially since everything is pretty much a copy of the successful MMO's). Everything plays the same, nothing is really changed outside of a few mechanics, etc. As much as I love FFXIV I am burned out and only log in for weekly housekeeping duties atm (currency grind and capping, gearing my Samurai, and a few other things) but I still love the game after 2800+ hours and can't imagine no playing it. Luckily we have a patch in about a month or so (after Tokyo fanfest) so I'll finally have things to keep me interested again.

The loot table being the same for all difficult content is going to make people cry, but if they all have the same difficultly adjustment its ok to me. Hopefully they make auras or something for people that raid.

While digital sales are the biggest part of this, and was the primary goal of Sony and Microsoft to put them in the grave, they certainly never helped themselves by not selling you a game 3 weeks after it came out because you didn't preorder it. 🙄 Especially since most of these are located near a Walmart are Target where you can just walk across the parking lot and buy the game. They may be around a few more years, but it looks like they're finally going to be gone. I haven't stepped foot in one since they screwed me over on my Destiny 1 special edition. They're still living in the PS2 era trying to push strategy guides and disc insurance, they've never been able to adapt to the current state of gaming.

I haven't read a news site review in years, but I heard either IGN or Kotaku docked it because it was "too hard". Seriously? While it had some frustrating moments, it was certainly not the most difficult. Like you said, go back and do the Pasternak fight, which is probably the crowning achievement of the series as far as intense dog fights. The dog fights were less intense in this one. They did require a little bit more out of your piloting skills... although I can see the canyon spotlights being easier with the novice controls... I have no idea how you'd do the final mission without the pro controls. I haven't used the beginner controls since Air Combat. I remember quite a few times previous Ace Combat games made you resort to finishing up enemies with the main guns because you just weren't going to ever get a clean lock on harder modes. This game has crazy special weapons, along with buffs to homing, lock on speed, and damage, you can pretty much always rely on them so long as you can control your aircraft and keep the enemy on your TV screen.
The only time I got my ass handed to me truly was because I was being super lazy with the A-10, and it caught up with me on the Stonehenge mission. Trying to evade Arsenal Bird's missile barrage along with the drones protecting it presented an interesting challenge when trying to take out the propellers within the time limit. Being that slow, made me regret my choice.. I had a bad habit of looking at the air and ground target breakdown pre mission and being like "A-10 time!" The mutli ground target missile special is just great, and the F-35 has an even more powerful version of it which is nuts. Like you said about the constant missile warnings, I pretty much made it a thing to take out all the SAM and XSAMs I'd find just to ease my ears of that damn alert.
That Fleet destruction mission was indeed annoying because of the time limit, I think I came up short by 2-300 points twice and started getting irritated. I eventually figured out that I needed to target the main ship, and ignore all of their SAM and guns. Even with a strafe run (WARNING PULL UP PULL UP PULL UP 🙄) and missile and bomb barrage all at once, some of those ships were damn beasts when it came to damage intake. The frigates and destroyers went down fast but the ships with the missiles, I think it was VAL or something, took 2 runs of perfect barrages... which was a little much. The Aircraft carrier, I understood since it was worth an ass load of points. But once I got that down, I could take out the first  eastern fleet with plenty of ammo to spare and about 8 minutes left.. even then I'd still go to replenish because it was the closest to the base. As long as you took out that whole fleet, it would get you a little more than half way there, after that I took out the smaller array of ships on the way to that base that looked like a massive oil rig.. I guess they both did, but the one out in the open water. That would push me over, but I still think I was down to about 2 minutes or less by the time I was done. They did a good job of tucking some ground targets in places where the standard missiles would hit the ground or wall they're in. Don't get me started on having to manual ID in that night city escort. As much as I loved that mission overall because of how it looked, damn they made some annoyingly placed targets to ID and then take out.
The aircraft tree was nice, but you're right, the aircraft unlocks should have not been apart of it. Plus half of the upgrades you didn't really need. Like the Queen's touch, or any of the performance enhancers... yeah they were good on lesser fighters, but for the better ones, you're better off going with capacity and weapon upgrades. Thats one of the reasons I didn't go the F-15 route, the ice up part i felt, and found out was completely useless. I never wished I had it at any point in the game... the only time it remotely became a thing was when you're out flying to avoid the radar zones on the way to the space elevator near the start of the game. I think I iced up one time chasing fighters into heavy clouds... the only upgrade I could have used, if it exists was a lightning strike resistance.. that was kind of annoying when it happened.

Season 2 was so much better than Season 1. The pacing was better, and the supporting cast was better even though a lot of them were the same. Curtis got a bigger role which was nice. Thankfully the only bad CGI in this season was some glass shattering scene which made no sense. They could have just broke glass and played it in slow mo. Nothing will ever top that zipline scene in S1. There was also 90% less growling during fights and shoot outs. The end was satisfying in case they cancel it like they have all the other marvel series.

I played the "demo" all weekend. It was a mess in typical EA fashion. They can deny they didn't have enough servers all they want, but its been their calling card for the past decade.
When it worked, it was a blast. The flight controls are surprisingly smooth and easy to understand. There is no fall or collision damage so you can take all the risks you want. The only time you're punished is if you overheat or collide with a wall. When you crash into a wall, you fall to the ground, and you cant restart your thrusters until you land (You can normally, but not after a crash). The only agitating part about this is that there is no direct liftoff from the ground. You have to jump and hit the R3 which propels you forward. You can pull up REALLY fast, but if you are right up against a wall, say like you're in cover, you'll just hit the wall and not go anywhere rather than trying to boost over it. You're flight time is about 20-30 seconds until your overheat kicks in. The meter is done well and lets you know when you're reaching critical long with a sound que. Overheating can be circumvented by flying through a waterfall which completely resets your heat meter, or you can fly low over water which won't reset your heat, but pause it in place. Water also quickens your ability to get out of overheating.... There is a ton of water, so with some map knowledge and some learning curve, you can almost fly indefinitely.
The starting assault rifle was TRASH... awful, but once i got more weapons I fell in love with the heavy pistols and LMGs. The LMGs I had were slow firing and each shot hit like a truck. I really liked this more than the rapid fire bullet hose you traditionally get. The recoil was pretty easy to control and just the rumble of the controller of each shot felt satisfying. The heavy pistols do as much damage as scout rifles, just with less range and around 9 rounds per mag. The range penalties are real. If you shoot something far off you'll do little to no damage. Your reticle will let you know if your weapon can make the shot by turning red when aimed on a target. If it stays white, don't waste your ammo, sometimes it is precious.
Ammo was love/hate. If you go shooting up random monsters around the open world, they don't really drop ammo. So you have to be careful with your engagements. Pretty much only enemies that can shoot at you drop more ammo and health packs. These can be augmented with mods as far as ammo capacity and drop rates. You're R1 and L1 abilities recharge pretty quick, along with your super. Supers are devastating to normal mobs, but they'll only do about 4-6 mags of damage to a big boss. I think this justifies the charge rate, you can use it more freely knowing you can get it back reasonably fast. I think I would get my super back 3-4 times during the final encounter of the stronghold boss. Its more of a mob clear than a "beat the boss faster" like Destiny. Going back to health, you have a shield, and a health bar. Your shield recharges automatically, your HP does not, except the last 1/5th. Heath drops frequently, but generally in big mobs so you have to be careful about just picking them all up. I never really found this an issue personally, even if they nerf the health drop rates, you just should play more careful. The AI can aim really well, and flying your way out of something doesn't always work pending on the enemy type.
Freeplay was fun, Going around the small section of the map doing world events was interesting. They're kind of like destiny where they are limited to 4-5 types of events, but the perimeters were way more varied. While you had to pick up X and deposit it at Y, the enemies, and the situation could be several different things rather than "defeat the fallen devil walker" Some of these were pretty tough, but I was able to solo all of them. There was no timer, so you can battle it out until you get it done if you're by yourself.
Stronghold was where the demo shined. This is what I envisioned Destiny raids being. These are 30-40 minute affairs where you have to complete objectives to move on to the next section. Each section rewards a chest with a lot of loot. The difference from destiny is that there aren't any asinine puzzles, and unlike strikes, you can't just skip mobs until the final boss. You can skip some mobs, but these are generally between the end of one section and the start of another. The Stronghold that was made available was the one there are videos from after E3. You start out in a cave and you have to collect whispers or orbs of light. The first sector you have to collect 8 while fighting off elite enemies, the next section you have to fight off more along with some beastly turrets that will one shot your shield off. You collect 12, but you can only access 8 at first. The second wave comes with even stronger foes, and they grant you access to the final 4 orbs. This spawns your first chest. The next section you have to collect 8 pods and return them to the center of the area. When carrying the pods you can't fly, you can only sprint and jump. Of course you're being attacked while this is going on. Once the pods are collected, you have to stay on a platform thats being swarmed by bug creatures. You don't have to stay on it, but staying on it fills a meter similar to the VSAT or Cabal Drill public event from Destiny. This will give you your second chest. The last section is the final boss which is the huge bug thing. Overall it was a blast doing it... especially since i felt I carried a lot of people through it that didn't know what to do. As long as everyone could stay alive, I had no issue doing all the collecting... Oh yeah, it has matchmaking.
I didn't get to play the last few hours when they unlocked all the Javelins, which was stupid that they only gave us 1 unlock to begin with. The Ranger felt great. Tons of power with versatile weapon selection. Your specials were grenades and a field which. As I found gear, I had choices of a acid, fire, and sticky nade. I had a bubble shield, or a buff that granted 20% more base damage to everyone. The great part about this, was no one had to just stand in the field to get it. You just had to pass though and you'd get a cool down meter of how long the buff lasted. At the same time, you can't just stand in it and get the buff longer. This was great for when enemies charge into your bubble... you get to keep the buff regardless. The Ranger's super is the mutli lock-on missile barrage.
Naturally with my one unlock, I went with the Storm. This will probably be my main. Its always wonderful and very rare when a game allows you to do to enemies, the annoying shit they do to you. My encounters with enemy storm javelins from the outlaw faction, was they'd freeze me... and that shit lasted a good long 3-5 seconds before you could start moving again by mashing X to get out of it. Well I got the same gear drop that allowed me to freeze enemies for the same length! What a joy. I also go flame, acid, and electric ones, but I wasn't giving up that frost because its amazing CC. Of course, you can't freeze bosses, but you can freeze elites and legendary tier enemies. I used this with an Arc blast that chain lightninged mobs. I rolled with a marksman rifle and a heavy pistol along with a wind barrier that creates a giant wall shield rather than a bubble like the Ranger. There was also a quickening field I could have chosen over the barrier, but I didn't see the point in it. The super consisted of sending down three blasts of Arc, Fire, and Ice. The storm can't take a hit like the ranger, but it has a phase dodge, and can hover for longer periods. I also found it satisfying to act as the source of crowd control for my group. The colossus seemed to be the most popular choice for the demo, which is surprising since I figured the Interceptor would be seeing that is pretty much like the Hunter for Destiny.
Overall i expect the first few days to be a clusterfuck like this demo... its EA... but the game was a ton of fun, and the story mission I got to play was pretty interesting. The facial animations were 10 out of 10.

So I just decided to go ahead and beat it tonight since it would free up some time for me to get other shit done tomorrow and allow me to start my easy play through to round out the points needed for the X-02S (and to start the path toward a few trophies) and maybe start playing through 5 again.
Overall I love this game and its nice that Bandai Namco finally decided to give Ace fans what they wanted after all these years. The story is very well written and as noted earlier in the topic takes place roughly 10 years after the events of 5 and it was nice to see all the little references and major plot points that linked back to the previous story (though I'm still pissed there was no reference to Wardog/Razgriz squadron nor do you even get to fly with/meet them in combat (though the ending redeemed that a little bit in my eyes with that transmission from Kei)). Boy did they pack in the references to the previous games, I was seriously loosing it when we fought at Stonehenge (a place I remember taking out in 4, yea all that damage you see there is caused by you in 4) and the briefing map having Megalith listed was awesome. Was nice seeing some of the squadrons I wiped off the map in 0 come back (Mage I'm looking at you) and one of those prisoners is from 0 as well. I really thought those were nice touches and really tied the story of all the games together (though I still haven't really seen a reference to 6 whose events took place only 4 years prior to this). Overall I thought the story was extremely well done though there were places I feel the writing could of used some work (like the whole throwing us in prison over something we didn't do).
The mission variety was nice but I do agree with DX on the timed missions, they are aggravating as hell when you're given only 30 seconds to destroy 7 targets before the mission fails (I'm looking at you end part of Mission 20). I also had a problem with the "score so many points to either end or progress the mission" missions. It's aggravating as hell when most of your targets are worth little to no points but you still need to score 15,000 points before you can move on (oh and waste your ammo causing you to resupply if the mission even has a resupply line). Overall though there was a nice mix of aerial combat and ground combat mixed in (though that flying through the canyon mission still pisses me off, god damn those fucking spotlights).
Combat was fun though I still feel there is some room for improvement. While a lot the aerial fights are fun I still feel 6 has far superior engagements to 7 (the Pasternak fight will always remain one of my all time favorite engagements in any Ace game). Drones were, while easy, an annoying part of a lot of missions and I can't stress enough how much that missile lock on alarm annoys the hell out of me because of these damn things. The crowning jewel of the combat comes with your engagements with Mister X. While not as fluid as the Pasternak fight they are extreme adrenaline rushes as he's one mean son of a bitch and those damn moves he can pull off are spectacular. I honestly wish he was the final fight in the game instead of those knock-off drones. I will admit though I had problems with the cloud systems they put in place as it really through me off my grove when fighting in or around them, while they're a nice touch I really would of preferred they not be there (and don't get me started on being struck by lightning, so fucking annoying).
As usual the soundtrack was stellar (though I still prefer 5 and 0's soundtracks to this) and the voice acting some of the best in the series (will have to do a play through in Japanese to see if that's just as good). It goes without saying the graphics are amazing even on the old school PS4 and is probably one of the best looking games I've played in awhile (Detroit is still much better looking but damn does it come close). My only real gripe is the Aircraft tree system as I prefer the old method of acquiring planes through beating missions. It was extremely annoying knowing that I had to spend over a million points just to get the chance to unlock the F-22 and then another 920,000 just to get it and 220,000 to unlock all sp. weapons (which took, as I mentioned before, until mission 17 to acquire said points). I do, however, like the whole parts system they put in place as it allows you to customize you're plane to your liking (because you know making you're F-22 go faster is always a good thing).
Honestly this game was a blast to play through and ranks up there as one of my favorite Ace titles taking second only to 5 (which isn't surprising as it's the parent story to what's going on specifically in this one). I write this all, however, having not played the multiplayer aspect because I honestly have no interest in playing it (I might give it a shot like I did 6's but quite frankly I never though multiplayer had a place in the Ace series outside of co-op missions (which I notice there is an extreme lack of those)). I also, obviously, don't have the ability to play the VR missions but I do here they are quite fun (I wish I could play them but I'm not dropping that much money to be able to play and handful of missions). Overall a solid entry in the franchise and I hope going forward that Bandai Namco sticks to the the Strangereal universe and doesn't give us anymore duds like Assault Horizon.

Heh, that mission sucked balls. Can't remember what I flew it in though, it was either the Strike Eagle or Tomcat (all I know is even with a multi-role plane it was a bitch due to the game's constant need to auto-correct you every time you pull moves it doesn't like (it took me 5 tries to finally beat it due to that)).
See I've never liked the F-35 (both in game and in real life), such a waste of the F-22's tech but since I do plan on unlocking all planes (yea I'll probably play this like 10-15 times completely through) I'll give it a shot since it's also got some of the better equipment unlocks down that tree. Sadly though that will have to wait since I just found out the X-02S unlocks after you beat the game and since it's 2 million points I'll have a lot of grinding ahead of me (the X-02 is my favorite plane in the Ace series, such a beast of a plane). I have a thing for the F-15 so that's why I went that tree (and the upgrades weren't all to bad, especially the Vulcan upgrades (that tracking assist is so nice when you have lock-on)). Kinda sucks to hear that mission 20 is lackluster, was hoping for one hell of a finale (like AC4, 5 and 0).

https://kotaku.com/bungie-splits-with-activision-1831651740
I hope Blizzard can do the same... honestly... The whole mega companies needs to stop.

Season 6 will be the final season. Which is about the sweet spot for most great series.
https://tvline.com/2019/01/04/vikings-cancelled-final-season-6-ending-history/

I'm so freaking hyped and I'm so happy that the next season starts where it starts, god it's going to be epic based on everything I've read about it (plus yay, Eri finally animated). Can it be October already?

I am almost 100% certain these changes will stay, and if I would have bought this game, this is when I would have just stopped playing and felt like I wasted $60. I can promise TTK isn't why they're seeing a decline in players. Low ammo and now it takes more of it to kill? Yeah, nah...

Now THIS is a trailer that's got me HYPED!!!

I'm hyped for the movie for sure, but there was nothing exciting in this trailer. 50% of it is Stark talking about dying. I'm already ready for the next one. Killmonger brefily showing up was probably the best part. Maybe I'm getting old and grouchy... its like the GoT trailer, everyone's excited... I am too!! But I felt nothing watching a table of statues turn frosty and burn.