Lurker > Underleveled

I'd been planning on finishing up one more to close out the year but I'm struggling a bit with the final boss so I'll get on the board early for 2021 with it.

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darkx

Astro's Playroom (PS5)

As far as tech demos go, this is above-average and I could see myself going back to try and 100% it someday. A lot of cute little pieces of PlayStation history, and the music is so happily catchy.

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darkx

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

Definitely not my favorite of the 3D Mario platformers. In fact I'd put it second-to-last, only above 3D World. I thought the controls felt stiff, the camera could be inconvenient at times, and both of these made some stars needlessly frustrating to get, particularly timed ones. I've also never ever enjoyed riding Yoshi in a 3D game and this was no exception.

The graphics, music and level design were just as good as the original though. Maybe I prefer the levels in the original out of nostalgia but that's about it. Finally playing that one after months of hunting down a Wii was fantastic. This... didn't have that same joy to it.

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darkx

The Last of Us (PS3)
This would've been a nice way to close out 2020 of all years but I expect to wrap up at least one or two more that I've started before the year's up.

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darkx

Star Fox Adventures (Game Cube)

It's hard to really review this game without explaining a bit of its history. This actually started development in the mid-late 90s as an N64 game called Dinosaur Planet, an original IP that was going to be Rare's answer to Zelda and according to some their best game ever. The game suffered numerous delays and was further pushed back when half the team split off to make Jet Force Gemini, eventually looking to be the console's swan song and ultimately pushed to Game Cube. Additionally, Miyamoto noticed a striking resemblance between the male lead (I say male lead because originally Krystal was going to split lead duties with said male, although her role was greatly reduced in the finished product) and Fox McCloud, so he worked his magic to get the Star Fox IP added, which resulted in many plot changes. The game was released in September 2002 for the Game Cube, with extremely unfortunate timing - a month after Super Mario Sunshine and about six weeks before Metroid Prime. Needless to say many Big N fans glossed over this one in favor of those two heavy-hitters. Additionally, Microsoft's buyout of Rare was announced concurrently with the game's launch, so fans were pretty disappointed.

While playing this game, there were times when I tried to think of it as Dinosaur Planet instead of Star Fox Adventures, because it's nothing like any other Star Fox game. For the first Zelda-like game from a company that primarily made Mario 64-esque platformers, it was... not a bad attempt. There were some really fun areas to explore, and puzzles to solve, but also some dull areas, a ton of repetition (including a few dungeons that you had to do multiple times with very little variance between the two visits), and some puzzles/tasks that were either needlessly difficult, extremely frustrating or tedious, or what you were supposed to do was so incredibly cryptic. Combat was also very repetitive and boss battles were not fun. They did incorporate some classic Star Fox gameplay, but even that was boring and repetitive. The voice acting was bad. Fox was pretty good (in fact I really liked Fox's personality overall in this one even if it was pretty inconsistent with everything else he's ever been in), but everyone else was meh-to-bad, Tricky being particularly atrocious. The graphics were nice though. Definitely one of the best-looking Game Cube games.

Overall this had me longing for what it was originally supposed to be. I wouldn't call it a bad game and I guess overall I'm glad I finally played it and knocked it out of my gigantic collection of games I never beat, but I don't think I'd play it again. Not for many years anyway.

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darkx

Simoun posted...

Shantae: Risky's Revenge (PC)

I know most people are partial to Pirate's Curse, but RR is my favorite in the series.

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darkx

Layers of Fear (Switch)

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darkx

Splatoon 2 (Switch)

Thank you Game of the Month for making me finally do the campaign.

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darkx

The Mana Sword posted...

Chee & Hung to run the table as first team to get first every single leg of the season

I highly doubt we'll ever see this. But I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them join the 6 or 7 club, which are already pretty exclusive.

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darkx

I hope Maddison and Riley become that team that picks the wrong person for every roadblock.

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darkx

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79054904

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darkx

Mewtwo59 posted...

Leg 2 is the only leg that hasn't had a non-elimination leg, barring legs that have only had the final leg.

I was thinking this might be the case but wondered when Leg 11 had an NEL. Then I remembered the twist in 25/26.

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darkx

Overall, big improvement over last week's ho-hum premiere.

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darkx

Has there ever been an NEL in Leg 2 before? I really don't think there has been off the top of my head.

Episode 2:

1. DeAngelo & Gary
2. Michelle & Victoria
3. Riley & Maddison
4. Leo & Alana
5. Hung & Chee
6. Eswar & Aparna
7. Kaylynn & Haley
8. Kellie & Lavonne
9. Jerry & Frank
10. Will & James (mostly James, Will seems fine)

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darkx

I kinda like the blondes. But I also like the Olympians.

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darkx

Michelle and Victoria were hilarious in a pretty underwhelming episode.

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darkx

This was a pretty great downfall for Memphis. In spite of everything, this boot is gonna help him in my rankings.

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darkx

Yeah that had me laughing.

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darkx

1. Michelle & Victoria
2. Kellie & Lavonne
3. Madison & Riley
4. Hung & Chee
5. DeAngelo & Gary
6. Kaylynn & Haley
7. Nathan & Cody
8. Jerry & Frank
9. Eswar & Aparna
10. Leo & Alanna
11. Will & James

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darkx

I certainly didn't think Nathan & Cody would be the new Bopper & Mark. Gave me more Ryan & Chuck vibes and they sure went that route.

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darkx

The Mana Sword posted...

that felt a little underwhelming, but if it was only half an episode I guess I get it

I kinda got that feeling too. I feel like there were a few teams that we got next to zero screen time for (Jerry/Frank, the Backpacking Boyfriends, and the brother/sister).

But Michelle & Victoria are my early favorites. Really hope they go far.

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darkx

The Yeild rears its ugly head... gotta say I didn't see THAT coming.

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darkx

In modern seasons, they skip the detour on Leg 1 most of the time.

And that sure was an anomaly having an elimination on a no-rest leg. And it's too bad, I thought those guys were kinda sweet.

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darkx

That'd be a first

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darkx

I'm generally not a fan of Leg 1 NELs, but I'm fine with one here because I really don't dislike anyone so far and don't think anyone really NEEDS to go yet from an entertainment OR race standpoint.

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darkx

Already loving the Cajun Asians.

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darkx

I can't believe a new season of TAR is on in three minutes.

Like still expecting it to get postponed literally last second can't believe.

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darkx

BB Comics!!

David is gonna be The Rookie, right? In a baseball uniform?

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darkx

When Christmas walked into Nicole's room with the bottle in her hand it looked like she was going in to smash her over the head.

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darkx

I want to gouge my own face off whenever Christmas cries.

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darkx

Watching Monday's BB episode.

We got our first "fricker" out of Nicole of the season!

And Enzo runs a muk on big brother

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darkx

1. Meredith & Gretchen
2. Uchenna & Joyce
3. Rob & Amber
4. Brian & Greg
5. Debbie & Bianca
6. Ryan & Chuck
7. Megan & Heidi
8. Susan & Patrick
9. Lynn & Alex
10. Ron & Kelly
11. Ray & Deana

Bottom 4 are all in like my bottom 10% of all TAR teams.

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darkx

Amazing Race starts tomorrow night.

Hallelujah.

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darkx

Golden Sun (GBA)

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darkx

Inviso posted...

So when Murph passed him at the end, I cheered super hard.

Yes. I didn't love Murph, but you better believe I was cheering for him super hard when he became the last hope to save the season from its worst possible ending.

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darkx

Tough as Nails finale spoilers.

Well that was a dramatic finish, really gave me TAR2 vibes. I doubted myself just a bit going into the finale, but from the beginning I always thought Danny had that "destined for 2nd" vibe about him. I will include this cast in my ranking with S39/40, BB22, and TAR32.

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darkx

Did anybody watch Tough as Nails? I've only got the finale to go. My winner prediction from the very beginning has been Callie but now I'm starting to think it might actually be Danny.

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darkx

Haha nice.

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darkx

Tyler is definitely a better dude than I had him pegged for last time, but for TV he still ranges from painfully boring to actively awful.

I'm sure we'll see him again sometime, most likely either on Survivor or TAR with Angela instead of a third BB season.

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darkx

Go get that applause!

o wate

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darkx

No bad outcome tonight... for once.

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darkx

Does Tyler hold the record for most veto comps played in a season?

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darkx

I have two months of CBS All-Access. I have some stuff I want to watch, but just in case I get to it, what's a good pre-BB18 season to watch? If it makes a difference, I already know a lot of the winners.

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darkx

Oh how I pine for the days of "Are you bitches conspiring against me?"

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darkx

Cody has been my least-disliked member of the Committee for a while now (Tyler is a better person but worse TV), and, with Enzo's stunt at the triple eviction officially making him a strategic cocktease of Laurel Johnson proportions, my least-disliked person left in the game, so yeah I'm rooting for him. Plus it would just be perfect for a lame season to have a lame winner.

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darkx

Okay that was like the best scene of like the entire season like so far.

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darkx

Ah yes, this is the episode where everybody who had 100% control for the entire game complains that they're in the f6 with the people they chose to go to the f6 with and refused to make any moves whatsoever for the whole game.

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darkx

It's on.

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darkx

Decent one for me is 9.

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darkx

They changed it to Mondays at 8.

However, tomorrow night, CBS is showing the delayed Pats/Chiefs game, and Big Brother will air following the game instead of at its usual 8pm timeslot.

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darkx