Wanted to send everyone a special Holiday greeting and hope that today is a fun and restful day. As we open our IRL loot boxes please drop what you got from the Holiday Loot Elf in the comments to share!
Pictures get you a bonus accolade!
Pictures get you a bonus accolade!
I got some really cool stuff starting with a Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 bundle. Couple Switch games, Annihilation on Blu-ray a coffee grinder, Mario Land on 3DS, Mario Checkers and a Velvet Revover CD(remember those).
http://i.imgur.com/4G8gzKS.jpg
I think they're excited.
Velvet Revolver, damn, that's a name I'd forgotten long ago.
I got some sweet Vault-Tec socks, a Vault-Tec shirt, and a TLJ Poe Dameron jacket (which is both near-screen accurate, and comfy/functional) from my wife, the full Mission: Impossible movie series on Blu-Ray from a friend, a pretty awesome seat cushion, some albums on vinyl (including a first-run pressing of The White Album) and other odds and ends from family, Tabletop Simulator from Tim, and a mystery game (I think on Switch?) from Jon when it gets here later in the week!
I got some clothes and a $20 Gamestop Gift card, which means I'm going to turn that into $20 Steam wallet money probably. I have bought myself a few games w/ the Steam sale including Atlas (I'll have to write about that one), Wolfenstein 2, and Command & Conquer 3 & 4 including C&C3 DLC that I did not have.
@Jon I'm jealous, although not the Switch bundle I would choose (I want the Smash Bros. one). It's funny, I thought if I'd save some $ I'd get one, but now that I've saved some I don't know if I want one. LOL BTW Could you please tell me if it uses discs or cartridges? I'm curious to know what physical format Nintendo chose for the Switch. (I've also been having dreams where there's a Nintendo or someone stole mine lol.)
Greg, it's a tiny cartridge.
The horsepower it has (though nowhere near the other current gen outings) combined with a disc to spin up would make the battery life abysmal, which is already something I wish was a bit better on the Switch.
Awesome, good to know. That means the media can't really be scratched or badly dirtied and thus unreadable. However, a tiny cartridge means it could be lost easily. And that is what I'm thinking about when thinking about buying a Switch (that and which game(s) to get first).
Here's a good look at the size: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zYQvTSD6HCCw7suXf4ZtkFZMeRY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8023253/20170221_162415.jpg
Actually here, this article has a number of comparison shots and, while the one I added above was probably more than enough to let you know how big it is, some of the comparison photo captions are pretty funny
https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/21/14691596/nintendo-switch-cartridge-size-comparison
The Switch game carts are really tiny. I’d say the size of a quarter.
Travis, glad to hear you got the Mission Impossible series. It’s univerally great(except 2 but even 2 is fine I’d you like bad movies).
I also got two Steam gifts in Darkest Dungeon and The Duck Talea remake.
I thought MI:2 was better than 1, but then 1 was also better than 2.
1 was just ... unsure of what it wanted to be. Campy while trying to be serious, or serious while trying to be campy. And it felt like a lot of important stuff was cut, the plot worked but felt unearned in a way. It just didn't really hold my interest much aside from the campy parts, when they really doubled down on the spy feel.
2 knew what it was all about but at the same time what it was all about wasn't great. It was a consistent tone but a messy plot (and some real misogyny that hasn't aged well). Apparently John Woo's original cut of that movie (as in, the cut that he took to the studio and said "I'm done, here you go") was 3 and a half hours.
So I think I prefer 1 overall, but 2 didn't have the lulls where I kinda checked out like 1 did.
3 was great though. JJ is a natural for that kind of plot. So natural, in fact, that he did the show Alias which is basically Mission Impossible without the masks. I kinda wonder if the studio saw Alias and said, yep, this is what we want for MI:3!
I don't think I can look at Mission Impossible 1 objectively. I saw it in the theaters in the 90's, my friends and I were nuts for it and watched it on VHS a lot. We quoted it, not quite as much as other films, but it was a favorite. So I love MI:1. That said, Brian De Palma made a great film but you are right it's a couple styles. I think he wanted to make a dark noir spy movie but by the end it's more actiony and by the time John Wu makes MI:2 it's all 90's crazy motocycle gun fights with Limp Bizkit in the soundtrack. JJ grounds the franchise as a solid action series and I think from there it really picks up a lot. MI:3 is a pretty simple movie compared to the first two, which I think the series needed. Plus it features Philip Seymour Hoffman as the bad guy and I think, to date, he's the best villain in the series.
If you watch the MI:3 special features JJ gave Tom Cruise Alias on DVD and he watched them all then asked him to do MI:3 which was, I think JJ's first film as a director.
OK that makes a ton of sense. Awesome bit of trivia!
Thanks for the pics, Travis! That is small! I thought they'd be bigger, but you know how technology is.