What could possibly go wrong?
Spectreman: an extraterrestrial tokusatsu hero vs. an alien gorilla and pollution.
For all your cut-rate Ultra-Man rejected concepts.
As a very dark Masks-ish setting, we’ve been finally watching “The Umbrella Academy” on Netflix. I’d not leapt on it when it first came out (they’re on Season 2 now), because I’d not been wowed by graphic novels (I appreciated them, but didn’t enjoy them). The series, on the other hand, is dark and disturbing and surreal and quite enjoyable, in a “What happens when the X-Men grow up and realize that Professor X was a manipulative psychopath who abused them, and now they are all damaged goods trying to figure out what to do with the wrecks of their lives (and, oh, btw, the apocalypse is coming in week)” kind of way.
Also, nice cinematography, great sound track, and the whole family seems to be enjoying it (a minor miracle in and of itself). So while I am sure we are the last on our block to have seen it, it has my recommendation.
A very good show. About the only negative thing I can say is that they generally only have enough plot for about half the episodes of a season, causing them to have to stretch things in places, but the character bits that they fill those with are very enjoyable.
Hell, they even do one of my least favorite tropes in episode 6 of the first season (to the point that it is referenced in that episode’s name) and it’s my favorite episode of that season.
Far from perfect, but even the ugly bits are a bit charming.
We’ve made it through episode 4, but they’ve been crammed with enough material that it’s felt a lot longer. Our only concern at this point is the extent to which they are able to move from “these are really dysfunctional people” in a way that provides some growth but doesn’t break things. I’m seeing enough signs so far to be mildly optimistic.
And just in time.
As a general thing, if anyone is into giant robot games, MASS Builder is on Steam and is basically BYOG (Build Your Own Gundam) with hack-n-slash gameplay. It’s definitely a work in progress but it runs stable for me.
Screenshots from the game’s own photo mode:
The whole unit, down to individual joints, is customizable, and you farm new parts by going on missions. The actual combat abilities of the unit is based on a separate tech tree system, so you can make the thing look however you like without changing how it performs.
Leo’s robots were powered by a device called a “casimir fractal” - a bit of superscience that converted subatomic force into electricity - and extensively used allotropes of carbon, such as graphene. So now I read this:
So I know we haven’t played Fate in a while, but I was setting up for a game and Evil Hat’s Fate character for Roll20 is absurdly and amazingly customizable. They have an article on their site about configuring it and after originally being concerned that I might have to muck about a custom sheet or something for all the dials I wanted for the game, it instead was all there for me in a couple option selections.
Unexpectedly good.
I worked with Fred on the interface for Fiasco and Don’t Rest Your Head. The evil hat crew is very very dedicated to ensuring that their roll20 interfaces are solid and a positive experience for users.
An implanted chip to scan the state of a brain? Sounds familiar
All right! All right! We’ve seen Wall-E.
Just let me say, Mette looks even better now.