The Week In A Bad Education Towers #26

Big forecast for snow next week but letting the dog out this morning I can see the grass in the garden starting to grow again. Which means I'll need to wrestle the lawn mower out of the shed at some point.

Sigh.

Saw Cocaine Bear yesterday; it was good! Was it as good as it could have been? Not so sure. It feels like the film ended up falling between two stools; you have a crime caper mixed in with gonzo bear action and neither one really wins. Parts of it feel like its bordering something like Piranha 3D and some parts feel like Smokin' Aces but they end up never quite going fully in either way.

Its still good though; the bear action is good and gory, the characters are good and the soundtrack is good as well. Its good!

See how many times I used the word good?

Its hard to say what it needed to push it over the top, like how Violent Night was able to find another gear and become a true Holiday classic. Maybe a sequel will find what it needs?

My youngest was nearly bursting (bursting!) with excitement about getting Metroid Prime on the Switch. Yes I know I could have bought it digitally weeks ago but, come one, this one deserved being bought on as a physical copy.

And I found it interesting how excited he was; it was timed with him getting back into Smash Bros on the Switch where Samus is one of the main characters in the game. The trailer from the Nintendo direct got his attention and then that was it; constant questions about when the game will arrive and whats the release date and reminding me how many days it would be until it comes out. In the interim he bounced off Super Metroid and didn't want to play Metroid Dread because 'it wasn't 3D'. I mean, how typically young games player is that?

I mean, he doesn't play Call of Duty but he does play a mean Fortnite. Yes, it's not fully first person but that style of game is his main game style so on that basis it makes sense for him to connect to Prime more than anything else.

He does seem to be engaging with it, this is only a day or so in, but my concern is the exploring side of the game will cause him to lose interest a bit. It is very much an adventure game rather then a balls to the walls shooter like Doom, so when there's a bit where how to progress isn't then will he still enjoy it?

Prime is just before when Nintendo, if you listen to dafties, became all about the casual gamers where they made it easier for non gamers to play games. I mean, they didn't but we're talking about the era of Wii games where if you died too many times you'd get an item to help or a video of what to do or whatever. Prime doesn't do that, at least with the structure of the game. It does a lot to help people play an FPS game (the lock on mechanic, not overwhelming you with enemies) but it doesn't hold your hand when it comes to what door to open next. In that sense it maintains the sprit of the series back to the original Metroid on the NES.

Which, apparently, its still enough to keep an 8 year old engaged which bodes well.

Or, how I don't really do that anymore.

I saw on another newsletter a bit about music they'd been listening to and, in the spirit of band wagon jumping, thought if that was something I could do. But I don't really listen to music anymore.

At least, not properly. I used to, used to buy a lot of music but as digital and streaming took over it just kind of fell away. Obviously, when I was younger and didn't have a house and kids and that, back when there used to be 24 hours in a day, I'd listen to and buy loads of music. That was helped by my Dad who really digs his music; he was subscribed to Q magazine and basically if anything in there got a 4 star review then he'd buy it. So the house would be full of plenty of things to listen to whilst playing Shenmue or ISS Pro Evo 2 or something.

But, time marches on, and the stereo went years ago (even though it was amazing) as well as all the CDs because, well, they take up so much space and they're all on the hard drive now so whats the point of keeping them? And, being an old man, not much connects with me in the charts or on the radio and that. The last time that happened with with Yard Act (who really properly connected) but thats been about it for years.

So its familiar stuff I listen to, random bits and pieces from here and there, not really getting deep into a trend or a scene or anything. Maybe its the move away from the album structure, maybe its streaming making music more of an ethereal thing rather than something that you properly give your attention to.

Its either that, or because I listen to podcasts way more.

We did a poll last week and here's the results:

Which is lucky, as I've been working on the script for it over the last week.

Thats it for this week, stuff to work on and more games of Smash Bros to play with the youngest. Honestly, he's obsessed with that game at the moment.