[EXPRESSO] World Flipper iOS | Pinball Isekai RPG Action

“Flipper” it’s a short-term for pinball outside of America, FIY.

And i’m fairly sure we didn’t have a pinball RPG gacha game before, i remember there was a spin-off of FF XV of sorts for smart devices, but whatever, it’s a far more alluring proposition in a overly satured market of idle games, mild rpgs, and everything in the middle.

The plot it’s basically an isekai tropes salad, but the faux 8 bit graphics are nice enough, presentation is decent, and doesn’t bombard you with too much plot or terminology right away.

Gameplay is a bit different than expected, as it’s not set up as a traditional pinball affair, with the heroes acting as single “ball” but also able to dash while launched to attack the nearest enemy, and launch skills with a pretty typical but pretty good control scheme for touch devices.

There is a bit of depth, with enemies exposing weak points at certain times, the more combos you get in a row powering up your shot to make the team spring a stronger attack, there’s Fever Mode, and overall there’s quite enough to keep it easy to play in short bursts but not mindless.

Of course, this comes with the inevitable free-to-play trappings, events, upgrade trees/maps, but the less annoying ones, just energy consumption and gacha for characters using the main premium crystals/gems, one with gacha advantages for using gems obtained by poning up cash.

But still, it’s not that bad, and honestly it’s good, good fun, way more captivating than expected, even disregarding the obvious methods to try hook you in, World Flipper it’s one of those free-to-play games that you end up back into because you actually wanna play it.

A rare sight, even aside it delivering to the underserved niche of pinball games.

[EXPRESSO] Prey (2021) | Die Freischutz, Die

Let’s go Netflix diving once again, with this german horror-thriller.

First, really, you couldn’t find another title for your movie?

Then again, i don’t expect people to confuse this with the 2007 killer lion movie, or the other killer lion movie from 2016, also called just “Prey”.

Premise it’s as stock as it gets for horror, as it’s about five friends escaping from someone hunting them down with a rifle in the woods, where they came just to make an excursion and relax.

A cabin of sorts gets involved somewhere down the line, sure, but don’t expect any subversion or satire of genre diktats, and while it’s not technically a “slasher” since the murdered uses a hunting rifle, it’s just that, a technicality, and expect some answers in the end, but not a twist.

The execution it’s not totally stock since it relies on atmosphere and tension, the mystery of why they are being hunted, and while on paper i do like the concept of not relying on obvious answers and trying to make the raw execution of a simple idea work without trick or convenient cliches… the execution here gives way to mostly boredom and not much to go on or look forward, with some substories and some drama just there to add something to the movie.

While there are some moments of decent tension, the acting is decent and it’s not completely boring or worthless (it’s not), it feels way longer than it is for a movie barely under 90 minutes, and it’s definitely not the kind of movie you wanna fire up if you’re already feeling sleepy or doozy, this isn’t made to “wake you up” to begin with, but it being fairly dull doesn’t help.

Mediocre and forgettable, you decide if it’s worth watching even once.

Syndicate PS3 [REVIEW] | Cyberbooting EA Nonsense

While CD Projeckt Red (look out to not be sued by Robert Fripp) it’s still trying to patch up the comatose corpse release of Cyberpunk 2077, let’s go back in time when cyberpunk was…. actually not that far since i actually played this last year while quarantined and cleanin some of my backlog, and the game actually came out in 2012, almost ten years ago.

It just feels odd to discuss a game like this now, with the scenario of a society that basically taps directly into the “Wired” (not actually called that, but you get it), so you can connect to the internets with a chip installed in your brain, with more than half of the world populace having it, and using it to – among other things like downloading porn and Doom 2 WADS, i guess – align with one of the megacorporations that have become more important than nations themselves. The megacorps of course compete for dominance by also upping their terror and spy tactics by using prized killers, like the protagonist, Kilo (yes, with a “i”), as corporate espionage is basically a full on war.

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[EXPRESSO] Dune (2021) | Utonium Based

So, quick disclaimer: i haven’t seen the older David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, nor read the book by Frank Herbert.

But yes, Villeneuve directing it already “sealed the deal” for me, and it has been a while since they tried to launch a saga like this… and having to deliver on the first movie of what Warner Bros it’s eyeing to be a long franchise (as the Dune cycle is made of 6 books, and this movie just adapts the first half of the first book), so they can’t just do random shit with no plans. No names needed.

And it’s also quite reasonable to expect a lot from director and writer Denis Villeneuve, but let’s discuss the main gist of the story presented here.

Dune is a tale of political intrigue set in a very distant future, and taking place on the planet Anakis, a desert wasteland that is rich in “melange” or “spice”, a resource that acts as a portentous supernatural drug but it’s fought and sought after as it also essential for long distance space travel.

Political games see the Emperor “donate” Anakis to the Atriades clan, after the Harkonnen’s lineage has held and profitted from the melange for centuries, which result in setting off a war that also involves the blue eyed natives of Anakis, called “Fremens”, and the young duke of Atriades, who starts having visions of the future and nurture other supernatural powers…

While this is clearly the beginning of – at least – a trilogy, this is a great start, with amazing visuals, memorable characters played by an all star cast, all fitting a lot in under 3 hours, while not feeling bloated at all, and most importantly, creating an interesting, epic sci-fi universe you wanna see and learn more about.

Pretty good.

Expect reviews of some recent Arrow Video releases, and more

Let’s take a break from giant mutated spiders while i get around to see the new Dune movie… and eventually Space Jam A New Legacy, i kinda “have” to see it, shall we?

So, since i have been spending not small amounts of cash in Blu-Rays put out by renowed cult distributor Arrow Video (i don’t just watch crap, you know?) and preording a lot of their releases, like the Sailor Gun And Machine Girl one, expect to see some “hands on- let’s gander at” pieces, or full out reviews out of that in October (and early January, since some will release in very late November, just before Dino Dicember comes around once again).

I would love to put out videogame reviews a lot quicker, but time is scarce as ever, so hope you enjoyed the Wario Ware Get It Together one, was a bit easier to edit than expected, gotta be honest, but there are some more coming later, check back tomorrow for a new reviewe. Maybe the new Dune, maybe Tremors.

Today is technically a “nap day”, i guess.

(and yeah, i have plans to feature the entire Daimajin trilogy)

Arachnicide (2014) [REVIEW] | Going Digital On Yo Ass

This one is a bit special to me as an italian, as it fills a niche of monster movies that basically went extinct over time: the italian b-movie made for the international market.

Yeah, as you could ascertain from the poster (and the cast list) having almost exclusively italian actors on it, this is an italian movie, and if the look of the actors didn’t give it away (i’d argue it does, at the very least it’s obvious that these are not American), the english dub ABSOLUTELY will make that clear as day, and sadly you can’t watch it in italian with english subs, not only on the UK DVD release i imported, but apparently in all english languages releases on streaming as well.

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Eight Legged Freaks AKA Arac Attack (2002) [REVIEW] | Barrel O’ Fun

While it’s one of the more famous B-movie about spiders and most of you it’s most likely quite familiar with it, i wanted to feature a good, fun one about giant spiders, and i feel it’s worth talking about it again, especially for newer generations, as this still holds up in hindsight.

The fundamental value it’s that Eight Legged Freaks it’s a homage to the 50’s monster movies made with affection, deep affection, and unlike some of the modern b-movies that are shit at the core and try to pass off their own cynical uninspired slob as “comedic”, this is an actual horror comedy that fully embraces, understands and playfully uses the many cliches of giant monster movies.

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Wario Ware: Get It Together NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Bugfixing Bonanza

Since i have been waiting a lot for Nintendo to resurrect the Wario Ware series, especially since they kinda blew it on Wii U with Game & Wario and since then we got simply a collection on 3DS (which is still better treatment other not-major Nintendo franchises got in decades), i was quite ready for a new one to come out, and then bam, Nintendo Direct, new Wario Ware. Yeah boi!

This one i preordered at a slightly lower price, because 50 bucks for a Wario Ware seemed a bit much in this day and age, but we’ll get to that later.

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Ninja Champion (1986) [REVIEW] | Grindhouse Ninjas

As we already saw with previous reviews of Godfrey Ho ninja flicks, anything goes with ninjas, he could splice them and stitch them to any kind of foreign, unfinished and often obscure asian movie he could get his hands on.

Even so, it still comes as a surprise that he would also splice his brand of multicolored, bandana wearing, self-adverting ninja in a rape revenge movie. WHY?

I love how the italian dvd release has a sword with diamons on the cover, it’s extra hilarious considering how it implies that diamonds are important to the plot…. they fuckin aren’t, the sword is way, WAY more relevant.

It’s just that the rapists happen to be diamond smugglers, it doesn’t really matter what they smuggle, AT ALL, they could sell bootleg boglins and nothing would really change, and even the movie barely remembers at the last minute that yes, this should somehow tie together the new storyline and “ninja footage” with the existing footage, this time taken from the 1985 corean rape-revenge movie known as “Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night”, directed by Kim Si-hyun.

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Ice Spiders (2007) [REVIEW] | Ski Spiders

As promised in the review of Spiders 3D, here’s the review of the spider creature feature TV movie Tibor Takacs directed before the 2013’s Nu Image/Millennium Film one that happened to pretty much be a remake of the 2000’s movie Spiders, produced by the same company.

You might argue i maybe should have done this before Spiders 3D, and you would be correct, but i didn’t even find out Ice Spiders existed before doing research for the other one, so here we are.

I should have guessed that a movie like this would exist, because i do believe this type of genre B-movies (especially if made for TV like this one) will eventually fall victim to what i call the “Pokemon Singularity”, with desperate filmakers mixing and matching animals with a random element/type, and if we can have sharks made of ice, sand (so “earth”), fire (atomic), even ghostly “dark” sharks, sure as shit we can have a movie called Ice Spiders. Possibly about literal spiders made of ice.

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