No Man's Diary #1

Day One

I wake up on a hot, windy planet, and the first thing that happens, after a slow scan of the horizon and my smoking, damaged ship, is a warning from my suit that the temperature is hazardous. According to my HUD, it's less than 40 degrees Celsius, but I take the suit's word for it that the depleting heat bar is a bad thing, and move off in search of shelter and the materials I need to repair my ship and multitool.

Ninchilla Prime (my new homeworld) is a planet of rolling hills and towering plant life, scattered with timid herbivores; in the whole time I spend there, I don't see a single hostile or carnivorous animal (though there is a particularly aggressive plant species I call Mr. Whippy).


There's an almost overwhelming amount of stuff here, most of which I leave with their auto-generated names, although I later regret not renaming the system to something more memorable in case I ever want to come back.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition)

When Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (I'm not going to bother typing the full title again) was released to a critical savaging, my interest level in it leapt dramatically upwards. I wasn't a huge fan of Man of Steel, and I don't know that I've seen a Zack Snyder film that I thought was particularly good (though Watchmen probably comes closest), but there's something much more compelling to me about a grand, glorious catastrophe.

But as the venom for Dawn of Justice faded, so, too, did my urge to see it, and I ultimately never got around to watching the thing theatrically. But now the alleged Ultimate Edition is out, and the talk online was that it actually wasn't bad - so, I figured, why not.

Now, I've still not seen the theatrical cut, so comparisons aren't possible - but I figured that it'd be interesting going into the "director's cut" without any baggage (well, aside from the trailers, and the aforementioned critical mauling)... but I can easily see how a hacked-down version of this could have been terrible.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition... is.

Warcraft: The Beginning

There are probably two major barriers to entry on Warcraft, and characters with names like Gul'dan, Khadgar, and Medivh only represent one of them; the other one, and perhaps the bigger of the two hurdles, is that there's just too much here to fit into a two-hour movie.

The opening is breakneck, throwing characters, locations, and names around with enthusiastic abandon, but without really introducing any of them. It's a shame, because there are some valiant attempts at character work scattered throughout, but a huge amount of development feels missing - it often feels like they've left fast-forward on for long sections, as we whizz through (or, more often, past) the "craft" part for the sake of getting to the "war".

Full disclosure: I was a big WoW player for about seven or eight years, from just after launch in 2007 to about midway through Cataclysm. In that time, I was something of a lore fiend, and went so far as to read several of the tie-in novels. The point being, I already had some idea of what the plot of Warcraft was going to be before I even got close to booking a ticket.

I have no idea how confusing this film must be for someone without that reference point.

Hitman: Marrakesh

Another month, another exotic, sun-drenched location to explore; IO Interactive only just managed to get this one out in May, but they are just about managing to keep to their one-a-month “schedule”, and Marrakesh is yet another change of pace from what’s gone before. Where Paris was contained clockwork, and Sapienza was sleepy and flexible, Marrakesh is tense and claustrophobic.

The targets this time around are a banker, currently holed up in the Swedish embassy, and an army general looking to use public unrest surrounding the banker’s paramilitary-assisted avoidance of prosecution to build up support for a military coup.

With violence brewing, 47’s sent in to prevent the fall of a government… or, more specifically, the building contracts that said government has awarded to the ICA’s construction-company client.

The Jungle Book

Lots of people have a nostalgic attachment to Disney’s first take on The Jungle Book, but I'm not one of them; there are a couple of catchy songs in there, but there’s not a whole lot in the way of story, or even characters. So I thought it was an odd choice for a live-action remake, but the fact that there’s so much space to fill in means that on reflection, it probably makes more sense than Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid.

And it really works - the script fleshes out the world and the characters, and builds a more robust plot with actual stakes. The credits describe it as "based on the books by Rudyard Kipling", so perhaps the changes come from this being a more accurate adaptation, but either way, it's a much better story than the 1967 version.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

The cliff-notes version is this: the writing is as good as it's ever been, and Naughty Dog have squeezed near-unbelievable performance out of the PS4. The gameplay is... well, it's Uncharted: slightly floaty (but mostly forgiving) puzzle/platforming interspersed with fairly loose gunplay, but both are spiced up by the introduction of a grappling hook, which opens up possibilities for both traversal and Tarzan-swinging aerial takedowns that simply never get old.

Narrative-driven games are always more difficult to talk about. Potential spoilers abound, even when discussing the opening stages.

So I'll try and avoid spoilers, as always, but... Pyrates - ye be warned.

X-MEN: Apocalypse

For the most part, movie versions of comic book properties have largely avoided the convoluted continuity that’s always been (for me) the biggest barrier to reading comic books. With the ongoing success of the MCU, however - and to a lesser extent, Deadpool and Batman v Superman - we’re starting to see more and more characters forming larger and larger teams.

The X-MEN franchise's ownership by Fox means that (for now) Avengers crossovers are off the table - but there have been a LOT of X-Men over the years, and X-MEN: Apocalypse wants to play with them all.

To that end, it brings back most of the First Class/Days of Future Past roster (Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, Beast, Havok, Quicksilver), along with the titular Apocalypse; joining them are new versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Angel, plus cinematic newcomers Psylocke, Jubilee, and Caliban.

Most of these characters have very little to do; aside from Magento, Apocalypse's horsemen serve the same basic function as set decoration.

Jubilee's entire contribution is taking Nightcrawler to the mall.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yeah.... I’m a little bit late. The Force Awakens released on Blu-Ray in April, but I hadn’t seen it since it opened theatrically in December, and yesterday seemed as good a time as any to revisit.

The reason I put off rewatching it for so long was….

Okay, so a little bit of personal history: the high bar for Star Wars, walking into The Force Awakens, was The Empire Strikes Back, which is probably my favourite movie. When The Phantom Menace was still in production, I avoided pretty much everything about it (only to be spoiled by the soundtrack listing - thanks a lot, Qui-Gon’s Noble End), only to be horribly disappointed.

Two days before Attack of the Clones was released, I read the screenplay, which is the clearest demonstration I can come up with for how much The Phantom Menace had damaged my affection for the franchise.

The Force Awakens was going to be different, though - the first new “main series” Star Wars in a decade, with not just a new director, but one who was a self-professed fan. Even watching Abrams’ Star Trek, he seemed like he’d be a better fit for a galaxy far, far away….

Captain America: Civil War

It's good.

Really, really good.

...I guess I need more than that?  Okay, then...

Captain America: Civil War isn't just a sequel to Age of Ultron, although it is that as well; it's also a sequel to The Winter Soldier and The Avengers - even Ant-Man, to an extent. It's the first Marvel movie that seems to really reward - if not outright rely on - knowing who all these guys are, and if you've skipped any of the four movies mentioned above, you might find yourself a little confused.

Especially by Vision.

Having said that, it does a pretty good job of re-establishing who people are and how they relate, without getting bogged down in retreading stuff you already know if you rewatched the lead-up recently.

I'm going to try and avoid spoiling anything, but be warned - if you want to go in blind, all you need to know is this:

It's good.

Really, really good.

Hitman: Sapienza

Six and a half weeks after it launched, I've still not done everything there is to do in Hitman's excellent inaugural mission, Paris; so of course, here comes episode two, set in the sunnyAmalfi coast town of Sapienza.

If I didn't manage to rinse Paris yet, I don't think I'll ever see everything there is to see here - Sapienza is colossal. Aside from the villa that acts as a sort of focus for the new Story mission - which itself feels almost a third the size of the Palais de Walewska in Paris - there are winding streets, apartments, offices, a beach, boat docks, sewers, and more to explore.

And of course, there are loads of NPCs to choke unconscious before stealing their clothes.