#doa story mode

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Fighting Games is a genre that I have always loved because they allow for unique player expression like no other genre. You get a wide selection of characters to choose from hailing from various different countries and practicing different styles of martial arts or even wielding melee weapons.

We've been lucky to have gotten tons of different games to choose from, and I have personally singled out the nine most vital franchises to the genre; the pillars of the fighting game community, if you will. Unfortunately, I only get ten options per poll, so games like Killer Instinct, Marvel vs. Capcom or Injustice have been left out. But that's why the tenth option has been left free of choice, as I'm sure that some of you will have the most obscure niche options in mind and will immediately comment "why is X not here" so there.

I'm also not deliberately ignoring Super Smash Bros., I just have traditional fighting games in mind and it's kinda not. But it's very much still a fighting game.

I'm also specifically talking about series of games and not one offs so that's why no Skullgirls and so on.

Anyway, at the end of the day vote for whatever you like, just don't bust my balls about "excluding" your fave 🤣

Really wish I could add:

A. More options

and

B. Images to the options to make them look prettier.

But overall I think polls have been a great addition. Good job @staff 👍😁👏

Here's a few general thoughts

I have a weird relationship with Mortal Kombat. My earliest memory of it must be some older kids next to my grandma's house playing MK4 and letting me watch them play for a while. Then I definitely remember the PS2 era games' covers and the video store, the dragon logo is so cool, but I never actually bothered to pick any of them. Until I got the 2011 game when I had a PS3. I liked it a lot, I kinda liked the story but I never understood the normies obsession with it? And here's a hot take; NRS stories are not that good, certainly not any better than any other fighting game like Tekken or SoulCalibur. The only key difference is that they have relatively good writing, while the rest of the major game, which are mostly Japanese, have cringey anime dialogue that absolutely does not fit the dramatic NRS storytelling everyone has been trying to copy post 2011. I wish they would straight up drop it and go back to having a decent, eight-level minimum arcade mode with character endings and stop trying to do what NRS does, because it's not that great to begin with. Anyway, I have since developed a love-hate relationship with it. I got both X and 11, and while both are objectively good games, with 11 FINALLY even making the characters look not ugly for the first time ever, but I think I've kind of moved on from MK. I don't have any attachment to the overall plot, I only mostly care about Mileena, Kitana and co., I mostly prefer 3D fighting games in general and I'm not that good at it so... Yeah. Still a fan series though, both the Reboot Trilogy as well as the, mostly underappreciated, PS2 trilogy.

I was born in 1997 and arcades weren't really a thing in Greece? I remember only having seen a Tekken 5 cabinet at a bowling alley in my entire life, so I never got to experience the "birth" of fighting games with Street Fighter, and Street Fighter itself was almost completely absent from the PS2, save for a few Alpha and SFII rereleases I think. So I finally got to play Street Fighter during the later years of it's fourth iteration when I got Ultra Street Fighter IV for the PS3. I was VERY frustrated at the beginning like, I was used to Tekken, DOA and SoulCalibur style gameplay, all of which are 3D but also combo-heavy games. Street Fighter was not that at all and I thought this made it a bad game. But I decided to give it a second chance with Street Fighter V. SFV is, perhaps notoriously, more simplified in both it's inputs as well as it's overall difficulty, so it helped me appreciate the series a lot more. Most of the characters no longer look ugly too (heavy emphasis on MOST) so that helped too. What's more, I can now actually play IV a lot better, and I even had money to spare to get Super Turbo II HD and Third Strike for the PS3, though I do struggle a bit with those too still, Third Strike in particular. Street Fighter X Tekken is also my guilty pleasure, don't @me. My only real issue is that I seem to be mostly interested in the "less regular" characters in the series like Elena or Poison or Laura which means that I have to find a new main in every single game and... I really don't care for most of the cast, especially the ones who seem to be featured on most of the games and never skip an entry.

I've been playing Tekken since I was 8 or 9 years old and got Tekken 5, the first fighting game I ever owned and I've been obsessed ever since. I love the gameplay because I feel like the four-limb system feels so natural, you know? If you press the X button you get a left kick, if you press the Δ button you get a right punch. It's so simple. Nina Williams is probably my favourite video game character ever, after Lara Croft, and I just really the series as a whole. It's also the only game I feel confident enough to play online atm.

For some reason I was always vaguely aware of The King of Fighters existence since around 2010-2011 but I never felt the desire to play it? Mai was added in Dead or Alive 5 however and I absolutely loved her. I played so much as her. But as far as picking up her own games... Well... KOFXIV looked like shit and I'd heard that XIII, and KOF in general, was very difficult so that was a bit off-putting. After falling out of love with MK however, I had to feel the gap. And along came KOFXV! I was still not completely sold, but I had money to spare and I got the game and I now love the series so much? Definitely my favourite 2D fighting game series. I wasted so many years gatekeeping myself out of playing the games but, honestly, while I sometimes buy things on impulse, the money I can spend on games is a very specific and limited amount so I always try to actually buy things that I will actually play and enjoy. XV is fun, but it turns out the "ugly" KOFXIV and the difficult XIII are even more fun! Shout-out to KOF for having an amazing cast of characters too. Even with Tekken which has been with me since childhood there are TONS of characters I straight up hate or just don't care about. KOF has over 90 characters and the ones I actually hate are probably fewer than Tekken's. This is certainly not a quantity over quality case (the yearly release for the first decade of the series was insane though, I don't know why they thought that was a good idea)

SoulCalibur is another series I loved since childhood but this one I didn't personally own until my late teens. A friend's uncle had a Dreamcast however, and when he would visit him in the summer he would bring it over and we would play SoulCalibur a lot! I have several reservations about Namco basing the series entire marketing on "who's the guest this time?" and later on the character creation. The sole focus should be on the characters themselves, because SoulCalibur has the most detailed and complex backstories in fighting games. Period. But because SoulCalibur has devolved into an overglorified character creator and the guests get the only media focus the game is gonna get during its promotional period, I feel like the brand itself has lost its mainstream appeal. SoulCalibur I is one of the best fighting games, and it has zero guests and no customization, other than being able to choose different weapons for each character. Have your guests by all means, I personally had tons of fun with Ezio and 2B, and Haohmaru even peaked my curiosity for Samurai Shodown, and customization can be fun too, but don't make it your main selling point. It has evidently not been working as well as Namco wants it to. Tekken and Mortal Kombat have guests and customization too, but they're not the games main selling point, they only help bring in additional fans.

Dead or Alive is the booby pervy game, sure, but it's also a great fighting game? The fast-paced gameplay is extremely fun and satisfying, most of the cast is actually pretty interesting, despite the sexy outfits and bikinis and beach volleyball, and whenever there's a new DOA in the market it it will always be the best-looking fighting game available at the time. There's no contest. I had tons of fun playing DOA2 as a kid and I had tons of fun playing DOA5 as an adult, because since DOA became Xbox-exclusive for a while, I never actually owned DOA3 or DOA4. I wish I could have had more fun with DOA6 too but the game is just... Soulless, and that's a shame. The fact that both DOA and SoulCalibur are unlikely to get sequels any time soon is also very heartbreaking.

I was way past my anime phase when I became aware of Guilty Gear's existence, so I was at first hesitant of checking it out. However, a chain of events led me to eventually get Rev 2. See, Haohmaru was a guest on SoulCalibur VI, and Baiken was a guest in Samurai Shodown and I guess you see where I'm going with is. This is why guests should absolutely not go away, but it is much better they remain actual (fighting) video game characters first and foremost and not stupid horror movie characters that haven't been relevant for decades (fuck every single MK12 guest, but especially RoboCop) Rev 2 is so much fun. It's still hard however, so I'm not yet ready to fully embrace Guilty Gear, but Strive looks more and more appealing each day is all I'm saying. Jack' O and I-No may have helped.

Virtua Fighter forever revolutionized the genre by moving things for the first time in the third dimension. I only had a VF4 demo as a kid and I was creeped out by having to fight Shun Di, a drunken old creepy guy, in a dark cave on a raft as Sarah so I never touched the series again until 5. The game is really fun and I will forever be grateful for it because it eventually lead to Tekken and DOA's creation, but while MK having a "good" story mode does not automatically make it a good game, Virtua Fighter having NO story mode, not even arcade endings, doesn't help it's case all that much either.

I've been contemplating trying out BlazBlue lately, Rachel, Taokaka and especially miss Litchi look really promising, but I'm trying to let the thought mature in my mind first rather than making an impulse purchase. I haven't played enough of any of its installments to have an opinion on it, but I know tons of people love it so it must have a few things going on for it, right?

Shout-out again to Samurai Shodown, I love the "fencing" aspect of its gameplay, but I'm just not as invested to it's cast as I am in KOF's yet. I've also always wanted to try out Darkstalkers but Capcom seems to be hellbent on wanting to make this franchise DIE. I don't understand why they don't at least start adding it's cast in Street Fighter as "permanent guests", in the same spirit as Final Fight characters keep on coming back. Morrigan is too good a character to be left to rot. I'd also love to try Killer Instinct, but it's another Xbox exclusive so RIP. Finally, I do own the first Injustice, but American comic book super heroes have always been morbidly boring to me (except Spiderman and Batman & co.) so, consequently, both Injustice and Marvel vs. Capcom are of no interest to me at all.

#Mortal Kombat #Street Fighter #Tekken #The King of Fighters #SoulCalibur #Dead or Alive #Guilty Gear #Virtua Fighter #Video Games #Gaming #Fighting Games

[rachelfoleyisntdead]

Okay, so does the new Mortal Kombat game have a story? Or it it just skits in between fights? Because people seem pretty into the characters and their relationships for it to just be a fighting game. (Though idk, I shipped Marth and Zelda pretty hard as a kid playing smash) No spoilers please, just trying to understand how the game is laid out to see if I’m interested :)

Yes, it has a story mode with cutscenes that has a cohesive single story, not just "pick this fighter, fight this path, your chosen fighter wins, here's their ending" (though MK1 does have that as well), as well as intro lines, and Johnny Cage provides special flavor commentary on the character intro screen. It is basically just a fighting game but MK has been really into its story the past few games (unlike Street Fighter, KOF, DOA, etc) MK actually has the most extensive universe of any fighting game, given that it expands several realms and one of the biggest casts of any fighting game. Tbh, the game has already dropped (early access for premium preorders) so you can find full gameplay on YT or Twitch.

MK has always lowkey invited shipping by having long running relationships between characters including confirmed, canon romances (Liu Kang/Kitana, Johnny/Sonya, Mileena/Baraka, Mileena/Tonya, Jade/Kotal, Sindel/Shao Khan, etc) as well as platonic friendships and familial relationships, and constant callbacks to previous games/timelines (Bi Han and Sareena kinda notorious for this and their history hits a LOT of romantic tropes).

Tbh, MK isn't the only fighting game I have ships for, I've been shipping fighting game characters for decades, MK content just started popping up bc of MK1.

#mk1

[morievna]

For real i am fed up with how usually marvel shows most villains as traumatized victims of current power system, who want some revolution and retribution - then make them do some random bad things to show THEY ARE BADDIES - and in the end they are defeated by hero who uphold existing status-quo *SIGH*

I hope bsd will not go this way because of:

Story mostly revolves around characters making active choices to be better and trying to make up for their wrongdoings. Characters are complex and they don’t need to be 100% pure goodness to be on good side

Reasons I fear it can go this way:

ADA is pretty much in survival mode and they don’t really think much aside of that. Like you know they just want to get page to make them innocent and stop DoA and that’s all xD they even didn’t consider in their current plan (to kill Bram) how it could possibly affect PM (their main ally, aside Ango) at this point xD but they plan to kill him not knowing how Bram is just used by Fukuchi or how exactly vampirism works

Also how Atsushi didn’t even spare thought about Fukuchi’s monologue about government’s corruption

Fukuzawa is such himbo xD

The fact how Azure Messenger arc was cautionary tale for Kunikida :/ with simply ending with message: extremism bad, points about how in some cases system is invalid don’t matter *sigh*

Well, we will see~~

#bsd #bsd fukuchi #bsd manga #bsd ada #btw it is not like Fukuchi is my fave #he is just good character imo #and i don't want story to go in boring direction

[indiejones]

2010s BOLLYWOOD ! -- TOP 236 FILMS OF 2010s BOLLYWOOD !

INDIES TOP 236 FILMS OF 2010s BOLLYWOOD !

 With westernized Bollywood on the throes of its mini-liberation from old school film-making, the 2010s gushed in bringing an unsettling western-modelled ‘dark art’ culture along, dominated by mission ideas of dechauvinizing art societies, that laced with a new generally hyper-aggressive female liberalization pitch, & a more deeply politicized grain of art that Indian mainstream culture had surely never seen before. If to offer an interesting analogy, the 80s Bollywood revisited, but with female action heroes in lead, fighting the feminine way forward, & with 80s alternate cinema mode of art, breaking in to acquire & establish itself as the new mainstream Bollywood core.

That said, a decade that saw, the by now totally & utterly multi-nationally corporatized Bollywood, via fiscal networking, bring an amazing to the point of mysterious, further average 5 times growth in box office collection figures, over the previous decade no less. If to offer an imaginary comparative analysis, films that wouldn’t stand 2 days in cinemas in old Bollywood systems, now raking in cool 50-60 crs + worth of net biz!  

If the 2000s ushered in “New Bollywood”, the 2010s transformed it beyond recognition.

Hold Indies hand, through the decade’s best most presentable art from “Genetically modified Bollywood”. A collection that can well be described as the best of “Intelligent Bollywood”, with John Abraham & his array of patriotic spy thrillers infused with praiseworthy integrity ruling the roost at Indies, followed by the talented Arshad Warsi & his modern classic courtroom drama exposing the deep root in the nation’s police & legal systems, a classic investigation drama on the corrupt bio-chemical industry, as also a slew of modern classic to highly entertaining comedies, following closely next. Also noteworthy being the super-legendary late Farooq Shaikh (in Indies All-Time Top 20 Actors!) registering no lesser than 6 films in the last 3 yrs of his marvellous career!

Till we meet again.

  INDIES TOP 236 FILMS OF 2010s BOLLYWOOD ! (1/2)

 1.       .Laila Majnu

 2.       .Parched

  3.       .Shehjar

 4.       .Buddha In A Traffic Jam

  5.       .Court

 6.       .Udaan

7.       .Rangrasiya

 8.       .Margarita With A Straw

  9.       .Kahaani

 10.   .Baar Baar Dekho

  11.   .The Answer

 12.   .Rahasya

  13.   .Ekk Deewana Tha

 14.   .Love & Shukla

  15.   .Chittagong

 16.   .Knock Out

  17.   .Vara: A Blessing

 18.   .Shaadi Mein Zaroor Ana

  19.   .Surkhaab

 20.   .Mukti Bhawan

  21.   .Jolly LLB

  22.   .You Are My Sunday

 23.   .Dilliwali Zaalim Girlfriend

  24.   .Parmanu : The Story of Pokhran

 25.   .Gali Guleiyan

26.   .Talvar

 27.   .The Ghazi Attack

  28.   .Aisa Yeh Jahaan

 29.   .Queen

  30.   .Panipat

 31.   .Romeo Akbar Walter

  32.   .Dum Maaro Dum

 33.   .Mohalla Assi

  34.   .Phobia

  35.   .Trapped

   36.   .Samraat & Co

 37.   .Super Nani

  38.   .Tezz

 39.   .Zed Plus

  40.   .Mere Pyare Prime Minister

 41.   .Jo dooba so paar: It’s love in Bihar!

  42.   .Antardwand

 43.   .Lamhaa: The Untold Story of Kashmir

  44.   .Madras Café

 45.   .Megalopolis

  46.   .Tanu Weds Manu

 47.   .Bajrangi Bhaijaan

  48.   .Amavas

 49.   .Chitrangada

  50.   .Fever

 51.   .Ghayal Once Again

  52.   .Section 375

 53.   .Jhalki

  54.   .Citylights

 55.   .Malaal

  56.   .Aiyyaa

 57.   .Dark Chocolate

  58.   .Pusher

 59.   .Watch Indian Circus

  60.   .Satyagraha

 61.   .Delhi in a day

  62.   .My Name Is Khan

 63.   .Welcome 2 Karachi

  64.   .Aligarh

 65.   .Mirch

  66.   .Chakravyuh

 67.   .Soch Lo

  68.   .The Writer

 69.   .Neerja

  70.   .Mard ko Dard Nahi Hota

 71.   .Shorgul

  72.   .Shootout At Wadala

 73.   .Iraada

  74.   .Under Construction

 75.   .Helicopter Eela

  76.   .Will You Marry me

 77.   .Toonpur ka Superrhero

  78.   .Union Leader

 79.   .Kaanchi

  80.   .Prague

 81.   .Double Dhamaal

  82.   .7 Khoon maaf

 83.   .Fired

  84.   .Hichki

 85.   .Tell Me O Kkhuda

  86.   .Mohenjo daro

 87.   .3 Bachelors

  88.   .Filmistaan

 89.   .The Goa Run

  90.   .Happi

 91.   .DOA: Death of Amar

  92.   .Thinking of him

 93.   .A Death in the Gunj

  94.   .Bollywood Diaries

 95.   .Mary Kom

  96.   .Hate Story 3

 97.   .Shanghai

  98.   .3 Dev

 99.   .The Least of these: The Graham Staines Story

  100.                      .1920 London

 101.                      .Noukadubi

  102.                      .John Day

 103.                      .Peepli Live

  104.                      .Kashi In Search of Ganga

 105.                      .Paathshala

  106.                      .Nautanki Saala

 107.                      .3 Storeys

  108.                      .PK

 109.                      .Robot

  110.                      .Ishk Actually

 111.                      .Gang of Ghosts

  112.                      .Pranaam

 113.                      .2006 Varanasi: The Untold

  114.                      .Fuddu

 115.                      .Children of War

  116.                      .Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain

 117.                      .Bheja Fry 2

  118.                      .Dev Bhoomi: Land of the Gods

 119.                      .Youngistaan

  120.                      .Bheja Fry 3

 121.                      .Ek Tha Tiger

  122.                      .Haider

 123.                      .Maazii

  124.                      .Club 60

 125.                      .Holiday: A Soldier is never off duty

  126.                      .Meridian Lines

 127.                      .Cocktail

  128.                      .Do Dooni Chaar

 129.                      .Rudhramadevi

  130.                      .Table No. 21

 131.                      .Shaitan

  132.                      .Total Dhamaal

 133.                      .I M 24

  134.                      .Aashiqui.in

 135.                      .Rajneeti

  136.                      .Dabangg

 137.                      .Salt Bridge

  138.                      .Sunglass

 139.                      .Wajah tum ho

  140.                      .Lingaa

 141.                      .Vishwaroopam 2

  142.                      .Vodka Diaries

 143.                      .Listen… Amaya

  144.                      .De De Pyaar De

 145.                      .War Chhod Na Yaar

  146.                      .Sir

 147.                      .Vishwaroopam

  148.                      .Me and my girlfriends

 149.                      .Chennai Express

  150.                      .Nude

 151.                      .I Am

  152.                      .Stanley Ka Dabba

  153.                      .Dhobighaat

 154.                      .The Japanese Wife

  155.                      .Gulaab Gang

 156.                      .Soundtrack

  157.                      .Kick

 158.                      .Hawaa Hawaai

  159.                      .Memories in March

 160.                      .The Hungry

  161.                      .Kuldip Patwal: I Didn’t Do It

 162.                      .Dabangg 2

  163.                      .Mickey Virus

 164.                      .Right Yaaa Wrong

  165.                      .Chargesheet

 166.                      .Baaghi

  167.                      .Life of Pi

 168.                      .Shahid

  169.                      .Tere Bin Laden

 170.                      .Sanam Teri Kasam

  171.                      .Sultan

 172.                      .B.A.Pass

  173.                      .The Lunchbox

 174.                      .Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

  175.                      .Paltan

 176.                      .Rebellious Flower

  177.                      .Talaash

 178.                      .Happy Bhaag Jayegi

  179.                      .Love Games

 180.                      .Mausam

  181.                      .Dangal

 182.                      .Paan Singh Tomar

  183.                      .Newton

 184.                      .Raman Raghav 2.0

  185.                      .Delhi Belly

 186.                      .Noblemen

  187.                      .Upstarts

 188.                      .I Am Kalam

  189.                      .Ada.. A Way Of Life

 190.                      .Accident on Hill Road

  191.                      .Yeh Dooriyan

 192.                      .Once Upon A Time In Mumbai

  193.                      .Karthik Calling Karthik

 194.                      .Game

  195.                      .Ready

 196.                      .Bodyguard

  197.                      .Chalo Dilli

 198.                      .Khap

  199.                      .Players

 200.                      .Yeh Faasley

  201.                      .Veer

 202.                      .Satellite Shankar

     203.                      .Lahore

 204.                      .English Vinglish

  205.                      .Kaagaz ke Fools

 206.                      .I, Me Aur Main

  207.                      .Lessons in Forgetting

 208.                      .Murder 3

  209.                      .Jab Tak Hai Jaan

 210.                      .D-Day

  211.                      .Hisss

 212.                      .Saaho

  213.                      .Jazbaa

 214.                      .Nanak Shah Fakir

  215.                      .The Last Poem

 216.                      .Dhoom 3

  217.                      .Rajneeti

 218.                      .Samar

  219.                      .Bhosle

 220.                      .The Xpose

  221.                      .Qarib Qarib Single

 222.                      .The Tashkent Files

  223.                      .Baahubali: The Beginning

224.                      .Akash Vani

225.                      .The Spectacular Jihad of Taz Rahim

226.                      .The Waiting Room

 227.                      .Baahubali 2 : The Conclusion

 228.                      .Dabangg 3

  229.                      .Poorna

 230.                      .Piku

  231.                      .Secret Superstar

232.                      .Batla House

233.                      .Lootera

 234.                      .Once Upon a Time In Mumbai Dobaara

235.                      .Special 26

236.                      .Tigers

[rarolli]

Dead or alive 6 pc

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC HOW TO#

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC PC#

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC FREE#

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC MAC#

Like Tekken 7, Dead or Alive 6 lets you knock an opponent through a breakable stage barrier and into an additional play area, and the stage transition is awesome. For example, if you knock an opponent into the crowd in the New York City back-alley stage, the rowdy onlookers push the foe back toward you in a wobbly state that's just asking for a big combo. In addition, a handful of stages feature background characters on the perimeter of the playfield who push a fighter back into the main combat area after the combatant is pushed into them. These interactive stages possess traits that you typically don't find in fighting games, such as explosive floors or canisters. The movie-like presentation extends to DOA's Danger Zones. Think of these as DOA 6's version of Tekken 7's Rage Arts and Power Crush mechanics highly damaging moves that the camera loves to zoom in on when executed. With Break Gauge, you can unleash the offensive-orientated Break Blow (a highly damaging super move) or the defensive-orientated Break Hold (a move that lets you counter attacks coming in at any angle). This mechanic, new to Dead or Alive 6, is represented by a blue meter that fills as you take and dish out damage. The camera is nowhere near as bad as the chopped-up action seen in, say, the Taken flicks, but it highlights reversals, throws, and the moves made possible by the new Break Gauge. Taking a cue from action movies, Dead or Alive 6's camera is in constant motion. If even that is too challenging for beginning players, Team Ninja includes a Fatal Rush auto combo that lets you deliver a predetermined, impressive-looking attack string.ĭeveloper Team Ninja understands what makes fighting look cool. For example, one fighter's strike button may be a front kick, but if you press up while simultaneously tapping that same button, it may turn into a launcher that sets up an air throw. In fact, all you need to do is press a button and direction to unleash a move variation. There's a lot of strategy at play, but Dead or Alive 6 may be easier for casuals to play than King of Fighters XIV, Mortal Kombat XL, or Street Fighter V, as you don't need to learn overly complex controller inputs to bust out effective moves. Guessing correctly lets you execute a successful counter. In addition, you must be mindful of whether attacks are coming from a high, medium, or low angle. On the other hand, you may misread an opponent's attack string and prepare a hold, only to be countered into a throw instead. Stunning and controlling your opponent is essential to winning Dead or Alive 6 fights, and the Triangle System compliments this extremely well.įor example, you may go for a Critical Stun right away, but if your opponent reads you well, he or she can reverse your attempt with a hold. Fighters have special attacks or combos that put their opponents in a Critical Stun state, leaving the foes open to further beatdowns. Likewise, DOA 6 focuses heavily on stunning opponents and executing attack juggles. Not unlike Tekken 7 ($39.99 at Humble Bundle) (Opens in a new window), Dead or Alive 6 has 3D-based gameplay, so side steps and wall splats are essential tools in your arsenal. The Story Mode boasts multiple, branching paths that let you take control of the various fighters, so it's a good way to test run multiple characters before deciding on a favorite. That may sound relatively tame when compared to other fighting games that feature Hadoukens and Sonic Booms, but the Dead or Alive series, despite some silliness, has strived to represent real-world martial arts, such as karate, jeet kune do, and MMA. A Tough Taleĭead or Alive 6 picks up after the events of Dead or Alive 5 and focuses on a young fighter who has mysterious powers and the ability to mimic any fighting move.

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC PC#

Just know that Dead or Alive 6 has a handful of issues-some minor, some major-that keep it from entering the upper echelon of PC fighting games. Yet, Dead or Alive 6 is an entertaining and surprisingly strategic PC game that offers enough freshness to warrant playing. After all, DOA 6 isn't the best fighter, doesn't offer the deepest character customization, and doesn't quite reach the Tekken series' level of story insanity. Individually, each of the game's widely differing elements might not stand up to scrutiny.

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC HOW TO#

How to Set Up Two-Factor Authenticationĭead or Alive 6, much like its immediate predecessor, is one part fighting game, one part fashion show, and one part schlocky action movie.

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC MAC#

How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac.How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files.How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill.

#DEAD OR ALIVE 6 PC FREE#

How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad.

How to Block Robotexts and Spam Messages.

#Dead or alive 6 pc

[greyslasvegas]

Dead or alive 6 pc

Dead or alive 6 pc skin#

Dead or alive 6 pc full#

Dead or alive 6 pc pro#

Dead or alive 6 pc full#

Some of the stages could use a bump visually, as they occasionally have some drab or ugly textures Lost Paradise and Road Rage are the two biggest culprits here.ĭOA 6 has a full story mode, using in-game assets and voice acting to relate the shenanigans behind this version of the DOA Tournament. There feels like there are fewer transitions overall than previous games, but the ones that are around lean on the more unique stages, like taking a pterodactyl ride or being thrown by a monstrous sea creature. Stage transitions, where you hit an opponent so hard that you move to a different arena, return here. It's still doing a lot though, with vast stages full of electric fences, firecrackers, and onlookers who will literally push you back into the fight.

Dead or alive 6 pc pro#

Team Ninja is usually about wringing the most out of high-spec platform, but Dead or Alive 6 on PlayStation 4 Pro has aliasing, frame rate drops, and a whole bunch of ghosting. Honestly, it's hard to tell between the two at times. It has two visual modes, prioritizing either graphics or frame rate the former isn't entirely pristine, but the latter doesn't have a locked 60 fps. Graphically, Dead or Alive 6 is still mostly smooth, but the image quality isn't as good as its predecessors. The ultimate result is that Dead or Alive 6 feels more accessible, but veteran players with an understanding of timing and counters will still prevail. Other 3D fighters like Tekken have had side-steps for some time, but they add a new way to counter here. Team Ninja also beefed up DOA 6 with a new side-step move, allowing players to evade attacks for those who are just button mashing. The Break Blow not only looks cool, but in the hands of an expert, it can be used to extend combos. Damage from Break Blows is another new system for Dead or Alive 6. Finally, there's the Fatal Rush, which is a four-hit combo using the Special button the first hit stuns, and if your gauge is full, the last hit is a Break Blow. This burns a section of your meter, whether you properly counter or not, os it's a toss-up between using it for a Hold or saving it. Push away from your opponent and the Special button does the Break Hold, which does an over-the-top counter move. Like Mortal Kombat's X-Ray moves, these hits push in with a cinematic camera so you can see the hit land on an opponent's face or gut. New to the Dead or Alive franchise is the Break system-a whole new Special button backed by the Break Gauge. Fighting games are really about the footsies, and Dead or Alive understands that, meaning the barrier to entry is much lower than some other command move fighters. Punch, Kick, Throw, and Hold are all available on your face buttons for easy access, with most moves being done by a button and a direction. It seems Koei Tecmo has learned that you don't have to lay all your cards on the table at the very beginning.ĭead or Alive 6 retains the simplicity of the previous games it's not about the difficulty of executing the movesets, it's about knowing when to use which attack. Yes, there are more risque outfits available, but Dead or Alive 6 isn't starting there, making its overall presentation a little better.

Dead or alive 6 pc skin#

Most of the default costumes for the cast are more reserved, showing a bit less skin unless it fit with the character, like Helena and Nyotengu. Yes, jiggle physics are still around, but I didn't notice them most of the time, outside of the. | Mike Williams/USG, Koei Tecmoĭead or Alive 6 is categorized by some restraint. Dead or Alive 6 pulls back on the series' nature. Dead or Alive 5: Last Round wasn't the kind of game you'd play around family. The publisher and developer Team Ninja wanted fans to know that the game was all about dressing up the fighters in "sexy" costumes. Koei Tecmo was actually pushing the 400 available costumes, because that's where the money was. The review's first line-"My first fight in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round was against a female character wearing a bikini and high-heels."-summed up the game completely. In the early days of USG, I reviewed Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, which was a solid fighting game surrounded by a deluge of downloadable content, mostly cute or revealing costumes. It was an addition aimed at making the Virtua Fighter clone stand out in a crowded market. The first game introduced jiggle physics, where the female characters breasts would shake around in unrealistic fashion. There's more to the franchise than that, as Dead or Alive has relied on a fast and fluid combat system for every entry, but that's what comes to mind for most people when you say "Dead or Alive". More than any other major fighter, Dead or Alive has always been known for its reliance on sexualized characters.

#Dead or alive 6 pc

[taro-miilk]

i nicknamed her nico nico nii ( *ˊᵕˋ)

#dead or alive #dead or alive 6 #nico #doa story mode #doa #doa6 #non sims

[heycolorwind]

Arcade Contender is finally checking out the ladies of Dead or Alive 3, starting with Hitomi!

https://youtu.be/JZ9RmDedRqI

#Dead or Alive 3 #Xbox #original Xbox #DOA 3 #let's play #lets play #gameplay #playthrough #arcade #arcade mode #story mode #story #arcade run #arcade playthrough #Hitomi #video games #Arcade Contender

[officially-hitomi]

//Ayane’s latest mission is to gossip about Kasumi (and maybe Honoka, too)

#DOA #Dead or Alive #DOA5 #Dead or Alive 5 #DOA6 #Dead or Alive 6 #story mode #fighting games #video games #random #lol #gif #Ayane #Kasumi #Honoka

[confessions-doa]

Confession #76: I sometimes wish Koei would just drop all pretenses and show actual nudity in DOA. Not in gameplay or something explicit, but like bare breasts for short moment in a Story Mode cutscene or something like that.

#DOA series #story mode #cutscene #confession

[cryptideye]

the ceaseless watcher’s special  👏 little  👏 boy  👏 !!!

(more anthro tma stuff under the cut!)

ok a lot of these are taken directly from my instagram story so the cropping is Bad. sorry

heres jon first ! i based him off of this specific image of an oriental longhair cat bc YEAH. this is exactly how i imagined him. i debating making jon some sort of corvid while martin would be a scottish fold cat but i decided on cat for jon and dog for martin.

martin next!!!!! i based him off of some cocker spaniel / golden retriever mixes i found on google. but hes mostly spaniel.

:)

ummmm ok elias next! his eyes are like that because [spoilers]. debated making him a vampire bat or assassin bug but they were hard to draw so hes a fox. i feel like a fox fits his aesthetic more anyhow.

the distortion is a cuttlefish not only for their ability to mimic other animals but simply because they are neat :) i thought their colour changing fits with the distortion well also

tim next.... just a magpie. debating making him a fox but decided against it.

sasha! lyrebird for their mimickry and cuckoos for a certain behaviour they exhibit regarding their young. foreshadowing? decided on a cuckoo because theyre easier to draw.

daisy and basira! basira is a german shepherd and daisy a grey wolf. when she gives into the hunt she just goes on all fours, full wolf mode

georgie and melanie! georgie a honey badger for their fearlessness and melanie a snow leopard because of their independence. plus snow leopards are cute and fun to look up reference photos for.

annabelle is a pink toed tarantula bc obvious, oliver is a hyena. i wanted to doa  scavenger for oliver bc end avatar but hyenas are cute so thats what he is.

jude is an echidna, gertrude is a blue jay (thought i should have made her a hare!!!!!! i might redo her design). echidnas do this funny thing during wildfires that made me think of jude and blue jays are sometimes known to imitate hawks...... i wanted a “looks innocent / cute but is ruthless” vibe for gertrude but WHY i didnt make her the obvious choice of a rabbit i have no idea.

yeah.

GERRY my beloved raccoon......... mary keay is a hairless dog and eric is an axolotl.

ALSO! [redacted] is a sheep / ram :)

here is the ref i used for jon!!!!! i should have made him more menacing but im bad at art so

#UGH the colours look so different on my laptop than they did on my tablet #jon sims #jonathan sims #tma #the magnus archives #elias bouchard #jude perry #annabelle cain #oliver banks #gertrude robinson #mary keay #eric delano #yeah im tagging everyone below the cut #jurgen leitner #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #is that her last name?? i dont remember sorry #michael distortion #michael shelley #the distortion #basira hussain #daisy tonner #georgie barker #melanie king #furry #jonah magnus #no i didnt forget jons scars plus you cant prove the behldong didnt heal them when he undied #cryptid art #gerry keay

[gaymer-hag-stan]

What I'd love to see in the next Dead or Alive game, whenever it may come:

Arcade Mode

Eight stages minimum, fights tailored according to the character you pick to make it feel more customized. Character endings

Time Attack Mode, Survival Mode, Tag Mode and Team Battle Mode

Time Attack is self-explanatory, survival is a series staple and team battle should allow you to pick up to eight characters, seven is such a weird number? Tag mode is also a series staple and should be available for all of the above modes. Tag mode in particular was always interesting to me because I always waited to see who each character paired with! Like, you knew beforehand that Kasumi will be paired with Hayabusa and Leifang with Jann Lee but then there's the odd ones like Helena with Gen Fu or Hitomi with Zack.

Tutorial Mode

Dead or Alive has had some of the most detailed tutorial systems for the past few entries to get new players accustomed with its topnotch gameplay. Put the spotlight on it. When you boot up the game for the first time, ask players if they wanna go through the tutorial first. If they get accustomed to the mechanics early on they're much more likely to stick around.

Past DOA soundtracks

They did that first with DOA5 Ultimate and it was a great idea, especially since, at the time, Namco was actually charging money for their respective past Tekken and SoulCalibur OSTs to be available in-game for Tag 2 and SCV respectively. Tecmo had all that for free in DOA5U, you just had to play arcade mode to unlock them, and they even added more tracks in DOA5LR. DOA has always had great music so that was a clever move.

Costume variety

DOA is (in)famous for its costume variety. Have at least four different costumes per character, no palette swaps, that's just lazy. And don't go too ham with the schoolgirl / maid / police / fetish outfits.

A cohesive story mode

DOA doesn't have a bad story. The presentation for both DOA5 but DOA6 in particular however was terrible. If a player isn't already invested in the series they won't stick around to try and make sense of your weird messy random chapter unlocking story mode. You don't have to shove every single character in either. Like, Tina or Leifang or Jann Lee have nothing to do with the main story. That's why both an arcade mode with character-specific battles and an actual story mode work best alongside each other. That way you can showcase what each character is up to during the events of the game, without having to shoehorn them in the Mugen Tenshin and DOATEC storyline.

Beach Volleyball as a mini game

It's a series staple at this point. Bring it in the main games. Tekken has bowling so DOA can have beach volleyball. Let the guys play too. I mean imagine picking Bayman and Leon and going up against a team of Bass and Marie Rose. Hilarious! DOA can be fun and sexy without being ridiculous about it.

[coeursetcolores]

What I Would Add/Change About: Dead or Alive 6

Hello internet! As you probably know, I love video games and I would talk about my feelings for the ones I’ve played for hours. Unfortunately, I don’t pay too much attention to the various gameplay and added content mechanics, so I don’t feel as though I’m qualified to give full-on reviews; my focus is usually on the story and characters, but I am learning to keep a more open eye. So, I’ve decided to start this series! On the anniversary of a game I’ve played’s release, I will talk about what I think a game could have included to improve certain elements or what I think they should have just changed all together about something in it. I will make sure to include what I liked about it as well to keep these from getting too negative. 

This is all just my own personal opinion and if you disagree with me, that’s perfectly okay! If you’d like to talk about a point I made, please let me know, but please try to respect my opinion as I respect yours.

Fair warning, I won’t talk about online stuff. I’m not an online gamer, that’s just not me.

Well, with out further ado, let’s get started!

Today is March 1st. Two years ago in 2019, Dead or Alive 6 was released. Bet you guys didn’t know I was fan, did you?

Yes. Yes I am. And there is one thing I love more than that entire series all together.

Kasumi.

I love that woman.

I have yet to see any other woman that I would even consider loving as much as her.

Amazing main, best girl, gripping protagonist, top-tier waifu.

But back to the subject!

Almost seven years since Dead or Alive 5 was released and left it’s audience wanting more, today we ask: Did it live up to seven years of expectations?

For me...

YES! 

...Mostly.

I had a real fun time playing when I could (I didn’t have constant access to the console I played it on, don’t ask) but even with how polished the series has gotten, there were a few things that left a sour taste in my mouth. 

Let’s go over them, shall we?

SPOILERS AHEAD!

To keep a positive spin on this criticism, I’m going to talk first about all the things I absolutely LOVED about the game:

IT’S. STUNNING. The graphics look amazing, and the slow-motion and visible injuries along with DOA5′s sweat and dirt gives the fights such a weight, it’s brutally gorgeous and I love that video games have reached that level of detail. 

Voice acting is good, and I’d have to give best performance to Karen Strassman’s Helena just for her after fight in Kokoro’s story mode because. My gosh. The way she begs Kokoro not to leave her is just heartbreaking, and to do all that while doing an accent is just amazing.

Funniest part of the game was definitely when Zack told Tina she couldn’t be governor. I love how he just shot her down in a whole series of her dad failing to drag her away from her wild dreams through fighting, Zack accomplishes it just by reminding her how the law works.

Kasumi is safe! ...Apart from all the evil clones sent after her. But Ayane is finally leaving her alone!

Helena in the ending. My gosh, the way she just shuts NiCO down and calls her out on failing to move on healthily is a good message about properly dealing with grief and really shows how much she’s grown in the series from the vengeance seeker she started as.

I genuinely liked the addition of Marie Rose. She had a cool design and her character was really charming. The team could easily have made her super annoying, but she was pretty solid, and I appreciate that.

Kokoro’s dress with the beret. It’s just too cute!

I still love kicking opponents off the stage.

Still glad the series hasn’t decided to sink into hyperrealism.

COLORS! ...Those are dying in video games. :( 

The story for the most part is interesting and every character gets to shine in their own special way.

Diego was really cool, I always love the addition of an untrained street fighter keeping up with these professional martial artists, it really goes to show that in a fight anything can happen.

I really loved watching Tina and Bass become a tag team, aww! Tina does love her daddy!

The costumes, as always, are awesome.

Vibrant backgrounds, as expected.

The fact that it happened! I was worried I’d never see my sweet Kasumi again!

Alright! Now that we got all the things I unquestionably loved about the game down, here are some things I feel the game was missing.

ADD:

MORE KASUMI! If she’s your heroine, give her more screen time! (What do you mean I’m biased?!)

Have some more time with Kasumi, Ayane and Hayate, show just how conflicted they are by their tragic circumstances when they have to work together when they all know that they will never be able to go back home together. That ending scene was bittersweet, but I feel like they could have done more.

Bring Bayman into the alliance? I mean, he does want revenge on Phase 4. I get that he kinda works with them, I just think they could use him more.

Have Kasumi have a fight with the main Phase 4? I think it’d be interesting to have this clone weapon, who hates that she hurts people, face off against the original who’s now accepted the brutality of the world and will show no mercy to those who stand in her way. I feel like it’d give Kasumi some introspection and see just how much she’s changed; in a way, Phase 4 is a lot like how Kasumi started: she didn’t want to hurt anyone and make enemies, but she couldn’t do anything about it. The difference is Kasumi became the way she is because of her own choice and beliefs while Phase 4 literally can’t stop herself.

Have Lisa explain herself, geez! What is up with this woman?! What are her goals exactly?! Wait...how is she still alive?! Woman straight up had a building fall on her! Why are we just letting her walk away?! LISA!! GET BACK HERE!! WHAT’S YOUR DEAL WOMAN?!!!

So...I guess we still don’t get to beat the crap out of Donovan? Sigh...guess they’re saving that for 7. Hopefully.

And that’s all I think they could have added. And now, here’s everything I think they should have thought about twice.

CHANGE:

Really? You’re just going to bring Raidou back for the final boss? Really?  Why not use prime Phase 4, that would have been interesting, a final boss who doesn’t WANT to be the final boss? Come on DOA, you’re better than this! You had seven years to make a final boss! If you couldn’t think of one, just go DOA2 and pull something random out! There’s even another tengu you could have used! Who even remembered Raidou at that point?!

LESS. HONOKA. My gosh, she’s annoying! I’m sorry, I’m sure she has fans, but she just irritated me! Not only was she shoehorned into the plot, but she’s also a total Mary Sue! And that voice, AAAAGGGGHHHH! This is not a knock on Kira Buckland, she’s cool and great at her job, but AAAGGGHHHH! With so many three-dimensional and interesting characters, she just falls flat (metaphorically, of course).

Was Nyotengu actually necessary? I get that the tournament itself is just a distraction now, but she honestly bored me.

Why does Helena’s mother need to come back to life? Seriously, what did M.I.S.T. see in reviving one of the mistresses/mothers of their rival? Is this supposed to like torture Helena or something? This was just unnecessary, there was no reason for this. Sorry Maria.

Oh, so Rig’s mind controlled now? Would have been great if they had foreshadowed that in 5. You know, so it wouldn’t have come out of nowhere and helped explain his whole 180 when he was introduced!

Does Jann Lee really need another rival? Just focus on Lei Fang, she’s awesome!

Bit more meta, but did Rig and Christie really need new voice actors? The new ones are fine, but it just seemed unnecessary.

I’m really mixed about how story mode is laid out in modern DOA. On the one hand, putting everyone’s stories in one playthrough really makes it hard to really get attached to one, which I think is a very important aspect of fighting games. On the other, doing it in this style really helps keep the general plot coherent and easier to follow. I think a good way to handle this would be to make different story modes; a campaign to follow the whole vs. Donovan storyline and a different one that has each character’s individual story outside of the main plot.

Alternatively, divide the story between the tournament and the fight against Donovan; ‘cause I don’t think the Mugen Tenshin clan and their allies are going to be in any tournaments anytime soon.

BRING BACK UNLOCKABLE OUTFITS! Outfits may be understandable for DLC, but it’s just so much easier to unlock them all! I’m not made of money!

Even with all these negatives, I still had a great time playing! It was great to see the cast I loved so much (with one in particular) come back and beat the crap out of each other and I can’t wait for the next one!

...In five years.

#Rambling #Dead or Alive #DOA #Dead or Alive 6 #What I Would Add/Change About... #New series #Criticism #Praise #My Silly Personal Opinion

[thanksjro]

Last Stand of the Wreckers, Issue #3: Garrus-9 is Fun for the Whole Family

Noticed a little something as I was reading- in issue #1, Roberts is credited for contributing to the story. However, in issue #2 and on, he’s credited as a writer alongside Roche.

Maybe it’s just a change in the how the credits were being labelled within IDW, because it never seems to stay consistent between series, but that’s still quite the jump. He’s accumulating power much faster than I originally thought. How delightful, and also terrifying.

Getting back to the story, we open up this issue with a flashback: two years ago, Overlord deigned it necessary to reunite Shockwave’s head with his body. Now, this was still nearly a year after he’d first taken over Garrus-9, and Shockwave can’t help but question the wait.

Back when Megatron still had Overlord under him, he had Shockwave slap something called an “Achilles virus” into the guy. This virus made it impossible for Overlord to comprehend any weaknesses Megatron might have- something positively devastating to a tactician as ruthless as Overlord. He, of course, wants the thing removed. Shockwave agrees.

With how many of the IDW universe’s problems this chunky purple fuck is responsible for, I’d honestly be more surprised if helping Overlord DIDN’T help him further his own agenda in some way.

Once Shockwave frees up Overlord’s processors, he’ll be free to go and cause more mayhem, while Overlord keeps doing his thing on Garrus-9. Shockwave, because he’s a smarty-pants, knows what he’s up to- he’s trying to goad Megatron into coming to see him, by way of ultraviolence.

When I was a little kid- we’re talking no more than five- if I wanted my parents to come see me after I’d woken up in the morning, I’d do this god-awful thing where I’d shriek at the top of my lungs repeatedly and then hide under my blankets acting as if I’d been sleeping like a perfect little angel the whole time. This feels a lot like that, except Overlord’s been screaming for three years.

Back in the present, we get a taste of some dramatic irony, by way of Fisitron’s fanboy datalogs.

You’re never going to guess what’s happened.

Since the ping-pong ball Verity was riding in smashed right into where Overlord likes to hang out, it’s looking somewhat grim for them. Not that things are looking any better over here.

Guzzle isn’t much of a team player, it would seem.

Springer’s worried that the others were DOA, but Twin Twist seems to think things are alright.

And he would know, I suppose.

Over in the Pit, Overlord’s greeting his new guests. Rotorstorm tries to break the tension  with a joke. It actually goes over pretty well with Overlord.

Still, it’s a tough crowd.

Back over with Wrecker team A, the boys have just blown up a hallway to buy themselves a little time. Well, Guzzle blew up the hallway, since he’s a tank, but the others were there for moral support.

Things have really hit the fan, and Springer makes the call to split up and look for clues get help. Guzzle and Kup pair up and run for it, which seems appropriately themed, while Twin Twist decides it’s time to break out the alt-mode and dig through the floor so they can get to the Autobot prisoners. Springer’s not too sure about that, seeing as Twin Twist’s hurt, but he says they can take it. Yes, they.

After that painful scene transition, Overlord implores the Wreckers before him to surrender. Perceptor, having a case of terminal bad-ass disease, orders Pyro to keep Verity safe- which he does by stuffing her into his chest?- while he and the others attempt to bare-knuckle box Overlord into submission.

I’m not kidding, he’s just shoving her in there.

While Perceptor and the gang commit suicide, Twin Twist’s just finished drilling, and it’s looking like it’s a bit more of a drop than he was expecting. Luckily, Springer swoops in and catches him before he can take any fall damage.

Both they and Impactor land safely on the floor of an energy reactor, and it looks like they’ve got company.

The company is Kick-Off’s corpse. Guess Overlord kinda sucks at rewarding people.

As Impactor and Springer discuss Kick-Off’s very brief stint as a prison gladiator, Twin Twist makes the horrific discovery that they’ve set off a defense mechanism, and if they don’t get out of there pronto, they’re gonna be robo-toast.

Overlord gets word of these guys running around in the energy reactor as, he kicks Percy and pals’ ass. Repeatedly. Delighted that there are more toys to play with, he makes a prison-wide announcement: anyone who brings him the head of a Wrecker can leave Garrus-9.

I don’t think Percy likes that idea too much.

Without any further ado, Overlord sicks the entire prison populace on the Wreckers. Perceptor, ever the brainiac, buys them a little time by blowing up a fuel tank that managed to survive the ping-pong ball crashing. The Wreckers book it out of the Pit, ready to head for Aequitas. Only one problem- Ironfist is having a breakdown. Perceptor is surprisingly considerate about the whole thing.

Like, this is about as much as anyone could ask for in such a dangerous situation. Of course, Ironfist is a bit too hung up on the complete annihilation of a skull he just witnessed to appreciate Percy’s kindness.

Here’s the thing about fanboys; they have a bit of a habit of putting their heroes on pedestals.

No, the adventuring doesn’t happen until 2012, Ironfist, and you aren’t going to be there for all that.

Seems like Overlord’s presence on Garrus-9 has sort of smashed Ironfist’s dreams of grandeur. Though given the constantly-changing roster, and the fact that Ironfist probably knows more about the Wreckers’ escapades than most, one would think he’d at least be prepared for something this wild to be a possibility.

This whole spouting off attracts Topspin, who berates Ironfist for being a baby. He doesn’t even know why the guy got brought along on this mission, seeing as none of the established Wreckers voted him on. Ironfist is just sort of here. Before we can get into all that though, Perceptor breaks their little squabble up, because we just don’t have time for that right now.

Over with Guzzle and Kup, we’re descending a ladder and reveling in implications, as Guzzle notes how he had a bunch of friends die in a rescue attempt similar to this one. Kup mentions that he hopes the guy being rescued was worth it. Guzzle says that it depends on who you ask.

So we’ve got an angry little tank dude and the old man who’s responsible for several of his friends’ demises, working together, without any other supervision, in an insanely dangerous place filled with murderous Decepticons and high places that don’t follow OSHA regulations. What could possibly go wrong?

Back with Percy and the boys, we finally get the down-low on what Topspin and Twin Twist’s whole deal is. Turns out they’ve got a rare and potentially exploitable manufacturing error- they’ve got branched sparks, which means that their nervous systems overlap to a point where they can feel each other’s pain. This seems like it ought to discourage one from joining the Wreckers, but since when have the Transformers ever been about self-preservation?

Look at that face. It’s like he knows what the narrative’s gearing up towards.

Perceptor’s found a funny part of the wall, which gives him a pretty good feeling that Aequitas is right behind it. It’s at this point that the others start asking just who the hell Aequitas is, and then Pyro remembers he’s still got Verity trapped inside his chest cavity.

Verity is released from the torso jail, a little banged up and a lot pissed off about being forgotten. She starts saying some rather uncalled-for things about the dead before she catches herself, and we get a bit of an insight into Wrecker ideology.

Perceptor has busted through the wall while Topspin’s explaining the group philosophy, and we finally find what Fortress Maximus’ has been up to while all this has been going down.

The Decepticons have been using ol’ Max here as a lock pick, seeing as he wouldn’t just GIVE Overlord the code to the chamber. Perceptor starts cutting the poor guy out of all the cabling he’s hooked up to, and everyone once again questions just what’s up with Aequitas that the Decepticons want to get to him so badly.

Speaking of Decepticons, they’re collecting in droves in the hallway, just itching to rip off some Wrecker heads for a free ticket out of Garrus-9. Perceptor unhooks Fort Max, passes his limbless, eyeless body off to be carried by the two largest friends at his disposal, and the chamber opens up.

This is about the time that the story catches up with the other team of Wreckers, the guys who were trapped in the energy reactor. Yeah, that branched spark plot point is about to get very relevant.

Dentists are the worst, even in space.

And that’s the end of issue #3.

#transformers #jro #last stand of the wreckers #issue 3 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #story plotting #comic script writing #wreckers trilogy

[hippychick006]

15.11: The Gamblers - Episode Review/Recap

This ep follows directly on from last week.   The episode was very mixed, there were 2 distinct storylines that merged at the end.  I had a few issues with the Castiel/Jack side of the story, which I’ll cover later, but the Sam and Dean scenes, for the most part, I was able to enjoy.  I even caught myself smiling… fucking smiling at several moments, because this?  This was a glimpse of what my show once was.  This also explains to the “Just stop watching” brigade why I’m still watching.  The brother scenes were a nugget of gold amongst the dross and worth watching for.

Thank you, Davey Perez, Meredith Glynn and Director Charles Beeson for reminding me, albeit briefly, why I fell in love with this show, and at the same time, why I dislike much of Dabb’s run, which in my humble opinion hasn’t just veered the ship slightly off course; it crashed into an iceberg in 11.21 and has been slowly sinking since then.  I think last week’s episode brought us to the point where half the ship is now vertical, ready to plunge into the depths of the icy ocean...  

...Anyway, enough about sinking ships, the key thing I struggled with going into this episode is the obvious fuck up from the previous week; the entire premise of the Winchester’s losing their “luck” and being reduced to “normal” people, and I want to talk rant about that for a few more minutes before we get onto this episode.  If you want to skip that, I’ll put start and end of rant, so you can skip forward.

Start of rant

In order to enjoy this episode, you pretty much have to ignore much of the previous episode and… that doesn’t sit well with me.  Last week wasn’t just a single scene you can forget ever existed (e.g. the trench-coat scene or Dean’s apology to Cass).  What Dabb did fucked with the entire concept of the show; that the Winchesters are ordinary people who do extraordinary things.  So, it’s really difficult to shake that epic fuck up off and just move on.

I just can’t ever buy in to the concept that the Winchesters were “favoured” or have more luck than “normal” people.   I mean look at Sam’s life for starters; he didn’t know his mom, he was fed demon blood as a baby, was dragged up in a life he hated, constantly moving, being brought up in crappy motels and forced to train to become a hunter.  The love of his life is murdered, and he becomes an orphan at 22.  He died at 23 (for the first time) and then he loses the last remaining member of his family at 24.  The Winchesters are far from “lucky” and if I could be bothered, I’d go looking for mentions of “with the Winchester luck” that have been peppered throughout the series.  Chuck has not “favoured” the Winchesters at all and they haven’t had Charmed lives because of Chuck’s interference.

I also can’t buy into the concept that the Winchesters are anything other than “normal” in the first place.  Sadly, they showed last weeks “fight” scenes during the recap and it did nothing, other than enrage me again.  Sam and Dean are excellent fighters and hunters because they trained from a young age to be as good as they are.  They weren’t “given” anything and certainty not a free ride and fuck Dabb once again for writing that bullshit.  It was nothing less than petty because we rejected his instant Hunter!Barbie fiasco that wasted too much of season 13.

So, how do I move forward from that and manage to enjoy this episode?  The answer in my opinion, is you can’t, because even with a few good brother moments, the entire premise of this week’s episode fails to make sense, because the previous episode fails to make sense.  I’ll cover why that is when we get to the pool game.

End Rant

The episode opens on a recap, and I ask myself why they are using all the bad bits from the previous few episodes, before I remember there weren’t many good bits to select from.  That clip of Jensen with the teeth is still funny. 😂

I love the intro again this week.  The setting was good, the guest actors, the camerawork, the music choice – North to Alaska - which complimented the scene, rather than felt like nails being dragged down a chalkboard.  All classic spn so far, so it has my attention.  

Two men (Joey and Leonard) are playing a game of pool and you can tell this is a high stakes game from the get go.  What the stakes are, we don’t yet know, but when the game ends, we see 2 coins being held in a contraption above the pool table; one glows green then dulls with the coin head disappearing, the other glows green and gets brighter with the coin head gaining in definition.  I don’t think this looks good for the loser.  He agrees and tries to attack the winner with his pool cue.  He’s stopped from doing so by a bouncer who turfs him outside.  👋 cutie tall bouncer.  There’s an absolutely great shot of the loser tossing his coin in the air and the music gets loud again (Hey, I’m here as much for the settings, lighting, music and camerawork as I’m here for the Winchesters – sue me) and then…. Splat.  He’s hit by a truck.  Poor Leonard, red shirt of the episode.  RIP my friend.

As an aside, I like how you guys announce which pocket the 8 ball is going into, we don’t do that.

This was a great into, interesting premise that immediately sucked me in, wanting to find out more.  This is my show.  Great job so far.

The next scene though shows once again how useless, at least for me, the writing is around Castiel.  They wrote an entire scene with him walking into the bunker, seeing a note that has been left, going down to read it “Cass, we’ve gone to Alaska, Sam”.  I’m not going to rant about the twats that insist on saying Sam has spelt it wrong, I’ve already done a post about the arrogance of fans trying to tell the show that created the character that they are wrong with the spelling of that character, so I’ll save you by moving on.

This entire scene, while I liked the shots of the otherwise empty bunker, was just wasting time for me.  I’ve seen people say Sam left a note because Castiel was in heaven and wouldn’t get a text message and how clever of Sam to resort to paper.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I dip in and out of WiFi zones all the time and the moment I dip back in, my phone pings with multiple notifications, so I personally thought this scene was dumb.  It would have been better to see Castiel appear back at the sandpit and get a text notification from Sam with the same message.    

Even better, you could take this scene away and it changes nothing that happens so why include it?  *Whispers* J2 wanted time off and the writers are incompetent of filling that space with something more interesting so use “filler”.  

Interestingly, my computer froze on Castiel’s face for 5 minutes so fuck you Norton or Windows 10 Update for your bad timing in running something in the “background”

BROMENT ALERT

We’re finally with what I’m watching the show for.  Dean and Sam are in baby and driving towards Alaska.  Sam’s phone is lighting up with messages and we find out through Dean that it’s Eileen. 🙄. Oh, Eileen’s being shoved into the narrative now?  Sorry Eileen, the third wheel position on the show has already been filled since Season 7. And fuck you again Dabb because I loved Eileen as a friend of Sam and it’s just yet another thing your reverse Midas fingers have screwed over this season.

Dean: Silent mode is always an option

Me: I love you, have my babies… wait, that came out wrong

Eileen thinks the plan is a little too good to be true.  Sam thinks she might be right.  He’s not convinced the place even exists or that it can fix their problem. Dean thinks it couldn’t hurt and he’s done with normal, including the constant heartburn.

Sam: You know if you changed your diet….  Dean’s frown 😂

Sam insists that no one other than Garth has heard of it and it isn’t in the lore. Dean believes it’s got to be there. He believes Chuck isn’t messing with them,

Dean: He [Chuck] wants us off our game, he wants us weak, ‘cos he’s coming for us Sammy, and when he does, and we haven’t figured this out, we’re DOA.

Mostly a great brother scene, apart from the forced insertion of Eileen – are we incapable of getting a broment in the final chuck damn season, without the completely unnecessary forced inclusion of a third party???!  The scene ends with a great shot of baby.

Back at the bunker and Castiel hears a phone ringing, and… I’m trying not to nitpick, but the way this case comes about just annoys me. There are better ways of bringing this about, than how they did it. But moving on, Castiel answers a random phone that was ringing in Sam’s room, and it’s a sheriff (Jeb Evans) looking for FBI agent, Watts. Castiel tells the sheriff that Agent Watts is working a case in Alaska, and that he is Agent… Lizzo.  I can only assume Dean gave him that alias as I don’t think Castiel would know any musicians on his own.  I like Jeb, who tells Agent Lizzo, they have a homicide and the suspect is someone Agent Watts flagged into the system… and guys… Sam is back to hacking into police systems and I just… I need a moment here as they’ve remembered Sam can hack into systems!

The agent tells Castiel that the suspect is Jack Kline.  

Ummm… Castiel, are you... okay?  Do you… do you maybe need to use the bathroom?  Oh, you’re emoting?  Okay dokay then.  I can’t with this.  I got more out of Leo in the less than 2 minutes he was on screen than I got out of Castiel since his return in season 7.  

Back with the impala, which rolls into a diner stop.  Sam is asleep, and Dean whacks him to wake him up.  Sam wonders why they’ve stopped at “Round up café”.    Dean says it’s the last stop for food for a few hundred miles.

Sam (frowns): Grab something out of the cooler

Dean: Yeah, no, I polished off the last of the sandwiches while you were out

Sam (annoyed): We’re on a budget!

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Last weeks puppy dog eyes fiasco aside, Dean’s still wrapped round Sam’s fingers, they enter the diner, slap some coins on the counter and ask what they can get for $4.60.  Apparently, it’s a slice of pie and a coffee, and I’m moving to Alaska when they secede from the US because that would barely get you just the coffee here.

Dean asks for two forks for the pie

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Long story short on this scene, they get out of the waitress there’s a local urban legend about a magic poolhall in the middle of nowhere, that if you win, you come back lucky.  She says though that no one ever comes back.  Turns out she knew Leonard from the intro, and he went up there because the bank was going to take his house and he met with an accident.

Sam says at least they know now what the downside is.  Dean doesn’t agree, he thinks it could be great, pool is the game of champions, kings, his game, our game, and they have great memories of hustling pool

Sam: yes, because we had to… to eat!

Still not seeing the “luck” Dabb wrote about.  Imagine thinking they were remotely lucky; running scams or hustling pool to put a roof over their head or food in their stomach. And this is where I disconnect with this week’s episode, because of last week’s writing. How are they going to even be good at pool, a game that takes practice and skill?  The things taken away seem to be random and plot devices; lock picking, fighting, hot metal burns, while it appears Dean can still drive okay, fix baby and I’m guessing their pool is going to be okay too, otherwise what’s the point of this episode?  There’s no believable rules to this “bad luck/normal” and I’m left completely drifting and because of it.  It's just badly thought out and executed.

Dean: if pool is the way we get our mojo back then maybe we ain’t as screwed as we thought

Waitress: Hey, you guys drive an impala?... I think you guys have a flat.

😂

Back with Cass and sheriff Jeb, Cass has managed to set up the laptop and access a video the sheriff has sent him.  The video is of Jack killing a doctor and eating his heart. 😷 Jack, no!  I’ll come back to the heart eating later.

Back with the boys, another shot of baby as they pull into “Lurlenes”.  Baby isn’t sounding too good and I think I missed that earlier, but it did somewhat register that she was sounding louder than normal. Good touch.

Dean walks over one of the coins as they head for the entrance which I guess might be Leonard’s from earlier.  I like little details like this.  Once inside, Sam points out they don’t have beer money, much less what it costs to buy into a game.  Dean says they’ll figure something out and goes to the bar and orders two waters. I’m guessing that’s going to hit Dean more than health conscious Sam.  Dean asks the bar person, Evie, how they get into a game.  She calls Pax over and it’s the tall, cutie bouncer from earlier.  Sam asks Evie if she saw Leonard and she says no, but you can tell she’s lying.

Pax takes them to his office and explains the rules of the game, that they don’t bet with money, they bet with luck.  He gets Dean to touch a coin he puts down and it turns green.  Pax looks at the coin and says “not great”

Dean: And that means?

Pax explains that everyone walks in with a certain amount of luck, that the green glow was Dean’s and it was “about average.”  Dean thinks that sounds about right.  I’m going to head-canon that Dean’s luck is about average of the people that find the pool hall, but below average in general, due to Chuck screwing around with them.

Pax says if Dean wins a game, he might see his fortunes improve.

Sam: And if he loses?

 Pax says he can keep playing, but if the coin goes blank, that means you’re out of luck, and you’ve got to leave.  He asks if they’ve got any questions.

Sam (a bit pissy): What is this place? Who owns it?

Pax says he doesn’t know, but if they don’t like it, they are free to leave.

Dean: When I win, can I split it (indicates Sam)… the luck?

Pax (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍 Oh, wait, sorry, that was me

Pax: it’s yours, you can do what you want

Sam asks for a second to talk to his husband brother.

Sam: no, no, no, no, no way (complete with shaking finger)

Dean: man, I’ve been slinging pool cues since before you were born

Snarky!Sam: when you were four, really? In between snack time and nap? 😂

Dean (internally): damn, I forgot you were my brother for a second and I can’t bullshit you

Dean tells Sam that they need to do this, and that Sam is pretty much better than him, at everything, he’s not mad about it, he’s proud… but he can wipe the floor with Sam at pool.  Dean takes Sam’s epic eyeroll as silent permission he can play.

Back with Castiel, he investigates the doctor’s office and finds a weird case which has a sword inside.  We flashback to a previous episode with Sam tied to a chair (🙄 it must have been a Thursday).  Anyway, the flashback tells us the doctor was one of the Grigori, a brotherhood of perfect beings.  I’d forgotten about them and might have to look them up before I touch the heart eating thing. Note: I did look them up and it was a Claire episode, so never mind, that’s why I forgot about them.

We transition from Cas to Jack and he seems to be following someone with the same case as the doctor, so another Grigori.  He follows the Grigori into an abandoned building.

Back at the pool hall and no one is biting to play with the noob.  Okay, I’m ashamed to say I laughed at this next bit, Dean deliberately breaks badly and loudly proclaims that he’s rusty at this.  Oh Dean.  No one’s going to fall for… Surprisingly he actually gets a taker and asks Dean to rack up.  Sam goes back to the bar to speak to Evie.  She asks if he plays and he says not really.  Sam asks Evie what the woman’s deal is that’s playing Dean (Moira).  Evie says she’s been here a while and her sister is in a coma.

Sam goes into awkward question mode, and I have flashbacks to the earlier seasons. He asks about rotten eggs.  Evie responds: Just Charlie…   We pan over to Charlie and he’s playing pool badly. Sam then asks if she’s seen “little bundles” laying around.  She says no, but she gets that he’s trying to figure the place out.  Sam says places like this don’t exist for no reason, she answers that most people think it’s a godsend.  She gives him information on a couple of people playing, they won at first, could have walked away winners, but kept playing until their luck ran sour. She repeats they should have walked away which is a clear warning for Sam who looks over at his brother who wins the game.

Back with Jack, he’s got an angel blade and is still after the Grigori. Unfortunately, the Grigori twigged he was being followed and now has Jack at blade point.

Back at the pool hall and Sam is trying to convince Dean they need to leave, and I’m trying not to be distracted by the picture in the scene behind them.

 Dean (brandishing his coin at Sam): Come on man, I’m on a roll

Snarky!Sam: Dean, you won one game!

Sam thinks the place sucks you in and that if Dean keeps playing, he’ll lose and end up like Leonard.  Dean convinces Sam who reluctantly allows him to have one more game.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean finds his mark, which is Joey from the intro.  We see Dean playing well and Joey asks what his name was again.

Dean: my name is Dean Winchester and I am going to kick your ass.

Sam: 😍 that’s my platonic soulmate husband brother

Joey smiles.  

They talk as Dean clears the table.  Turns out Joey used to work the bull riding circuit.  

Dean (cocky smile): tell me, how was that?… corner pocket.   He misses the shot

Joey (grinning): good times (he pots and all he can do is hide the cue ball behind another ball, giving Dean a very tricky shot on the 8 ball)… and some not so good.

Dean goes to take the shot and Joey challenges double or nothing if Dean misses. Sam doesn’t like it.  Dean asks if Joey is trying to hustle him.

Joey: I thought you were going to kick my ass

Dean smiles and agrees to the deal, does a trick shot with the cue ball jumping over the other ball and potting the 8 ball.

Joey closes his eyes.  Sam looks happy, then Joey says: a hell of a shot.  

Dean watches as the coins glow green and Joey’s coin is now dull, and this is sad because even if Sam and Dean haven’t realised the implication yet, Joey is not long for this world.  Joey leaves, and Sam and Dean follow.  Joey congratulates Dean on the game yet again and says, “I guess you can’t hustle a hustler.” Sam’s concerned when Joey starts coughing.  Turns out Joey is dying, he has cancer, he came to the pool hall to beat it, and Sam and Dean have finally caught up with me that this game sucks.  This is the first time in a long time, I’ve felt anything for a character on this show that we only meet for a limited time in a single episode, so I’m going to kudos the writing and the guest star for this one. This is what happens when you actually put some characterisation into your writing.

Sam and Dean go back inside.  Dean said the plan worked so they should hit the road.

Sam: What about everybody else?

Sam wants to stay and figure out how they can help them. Dean reminds him they are in a fight with God and they just got their mojo back.  Sam challenges whether there’s even enough luck in the coin for them. Dean says they’ll give it a try by him going for a drive and if baby’s okay, they are leaving.  End of.

Back with Castiel and he meets sheriff Jeb at the abandoned building Jack was captured in. A transient spotted Jack going into the building so called the police. Castiel asks Jeb if there are any other abandoned places around. Jeb tells him about a church.

Back with Sam and he’s talking to Charlie, who is apparently playing so his team can win the Super Bowl and part of me is 😂 and part of me is, I feel you my friend, because Canucks and the Stanley Cup, and desperate measures at this stage.  

Sam: that’s great, it is, but is it really worth your life?

Me (picturing the Stanley cup being paraded through the streets of Vancouver): …Yes?!

The puppy dog eyes fail again, Charlie says “just one more game.” And goes back to playing

Evie says at least Sam tried but no one will listen.  She says none of “us” are going anywhere.  Sam asks if they are trapped here, if Evie was trapped here.   She leaves rapidly.

Dean arrives back, baby’s dead again, he didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. Sam takes a look at the coin Dean slams down.  He believes Dean should have won more luck than he did, given how many people Joey likely beat before Dean played him and all that accumulated luck should have gone to Dean when he won, but it doesn’t seem to.  Sam thinks someone is stealing the luck, skimming off the top.  

Dean: You mean like the house?

Sam (lifts coin showing head): her… I think

Dean takes the coin and reads: Atrox Fortvnta

Sam says she’s the Roman goddess of luck.  So, Sam’s allowed to be smart as a plot contrivance this week?  *cough* hot metal burns *cough*.  

They go speak to Evie about who runs the place.  She says she can’t help them. Sam asks why she warned him in the first place.  Evie says so he would take his brother and go.    Dean asks why Evie is there, does the god have something over her. Evie says she played and lost and is only alive because she lets her stay as long as she keeps working.   Sam asks if the god is here, but Evie doesn’t know, she only talks to Pax and drops the revelation that Pax is the god’s son.

Back with Jack and the Grigori has injured him and holding him captive. He knows what Jack is and that he’s powerful.  The Grigori wants to know why Jack killed his kind.  The Grigori have their own frequency of angel radio. Me, 🙄 of course you do because easy plot device.  Before his brother died, he called to the Grigori.  He asks Jack if he did that to draw him out, to kill him too.

Back with Sam and Dean, Sam approaches Pax wanting to ask a question. While Pax is focused on Sam, Dean grabs him and holds him at knifepoint.

Sam (niceness gone): Where’s your mom?

Loved that bit

Pax doesn’t answer so Sam shouts “Fortuna.”  Dean follows with, “We have your son”

 Moira walks through the pool hall and we know she is now Fortuna.

Sam says they know she’s skimming luck and they want it back.  Dean threatens to kill Pax if she doesn’t

Fortuna: well, you probably could, his daddy was human, but no

Pax (shocked pikachu face): Mom!

Fortuna: I’m sorry baby, I can always make more sons

Sam and Dean (shocked pikachu faces).  

Uh oh, leverage gone. Dean releases Pax, but not before the blade cuts his throat a little.

Dean demands Fortuna to play him for it. She says she’s already played him and got a read on him.  He’s just a “beach read”.  Sexy, but skimmable.

Dean (how dare you face): beach read? lady, I’m Tolstoy

Fortuna laughs and says, “That’s very funny” and approaches Sam: this one here, now he could be interesting

Dean (Protective big brother mode activated): Wait, no, no, that’s…. Uh uh

Sam (I’m 36 years old Dean, not a kid anymore mode activated): Fine… Yeah, okay, but not for our luck.  I’ll play for the lives of everybody in here.

Fortuna doesn’t agree, she says the deal is only for their luck and if they lose, she wants their lives.  She wants to make an example of them.

The Grigori is torturing Jack, cutting his skin.  Jack says he can’t kill him.  There’s then expose on the Grigori feeding off souls, and this one feeds off children. I think I’m supposed to not feel sorry for the Grigori when Jack eats his heart, but I do have a few issues which I’ll come onto later.  Jack looks to the side and it’s clear he catches something.  The Grigori reaches for his sword and points it at Jack’s throat. He asks who told Jack that.  He answers Death.  

The Grigori senses someone behind him.  Now given the Grigori are supposed to be elite and much more powerful than ordinary angels, I’m embarrassed for this one and have no idea how on Earth this Grigori managed to survive to being last of his kind as even Castiel despatched him fairly easily, without too much of a fight, but “new canon” I guess. 🤷‍♀️

With no tests whatsoever, Castiel releases Jack from his bonds.  I’m presuming one of Castiel random powers of the week is being able to automatically tell it’s Jack.  We get a Cass and Jack hug and I … don’t really care to be honest.  I can’t watch Cass without viewing that awful scene in Purgatory so I’m over him.

Back at the pool hall, Sam breaks, potting 2 balls immediately.  I love, love, love this next bit: as Sam lines up his next shot, we see Dean nodding in agreement, because yep, that’s the shot he would have went for too.   Sam proceeds to knock down a couple more, Fortuna has said a couple of things, but Sam is focusing on the game.  She asks why they need the luck so bad, girlfriend problems? Liver failure? (She looks at Dean here).  Sam answers: “a curse by god” and misses the next shot.

Fortuna: Life’s a bitch and then you die

Me: Hey! That’s my philosophy!

Dean: THE god literally cursed us

Fortuna (sarcastic disbelief): You’ve met

Dean: Yeah, Little guy, squirrelly as hell

Fortuna: Yeah, that’s him… well, welcome to the club

Dean: the club?

Fortuna answers with exposition while winning the game. God created the world, but humans created the gods, kind of, which led to God creating the other gods. Dean asks why, which makes her angry and she misses the next shot.  She says they were created to take the blame for anything that went wrong.  That only worked for a while before his ego got the better of him, now he hides behind whatever religion pays the biggest syndication deals.  She keeps talking about how pissed she is and that she’s holding a grudge.  Sam meanwhile is quietly potting balls and winning the game.  She realises this and shakes off her mood, “oh well, what can you do?”

Dean: we’re going to fight him

Fortuna: are you now?  And when you lose?

Sam’s voice from off screen: we lose swinging

He then appears in shot and says “8 ball, corner pocket” and she realises the game is nearly over.

Sam lines up for the shot, looks at Dean briefly, then… he wins.  I wasn’t expecting that, and Dean is happy too.

Fortuna (to Sam):  you little minx, you got me talking!

Sam smirks

Fortuna: you’re good

Sam: I learned from my brother

Dean approaches: all right, you know the deal, even up

Fortuna offers to make it interesting, if they are going to fight God, that’s the stuff of heroes and they are going to need the luck of heroes.  Hercules, some other people, she helped them all.  Sam asks what the catch is. She says another game, double or nothing.  

Dean: Double?  That’s how the cowboy died.

Sam agrees to play, “but not for more luck,” he indicates the room, “for them.  If I win, you have to let them go.”

Fortuna: I’m not stopping them

Sam: Okay, when I win, you have to give back the luck you stole, close up shop

Fortuna: What is with you and these losers?  They’re nothing, they don’t matter

Sam: they matter to me

Dean: they matter to us

Everyone in the poolhall (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Fortuna agrees.  She breaks, and it all goes downhill from there.  Sam doesn’t even get to play a shot.  

They lost. There’s silence

Fortuna: you challenged the goddess of luck in her own joint, what did you think was going to happen?

Me: pretty much this tbh, I’m actually surprised Sam won the first game

Dean: well, we had to try

Fortuna: well, that was stupid

My poor boys.  They leave the poolhall.

Dean: I thought she was going to kill us

Sam: well she doesn’t have to, our luck will do that on its own … Dean, we can’t just…

Dean:… leave ‘em?  Yeah, I know.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean: all right, well let’s go get WiFi and see what kills Lady Luck, we’ll circle back

Sam’s agreeing when Evie comes out, followed by the other players.  They ask her what happened. She says Fortuna shut it down.  They ask why

 Evie: Because of you, she said she thought your kind had gone extinct

Sam: Our kind?

Evie: Heroes, like the old days

Fortuna also gave her a message to pass on, “Don’t play Chucks game, make him play yours.

She hands Sam a coin which he somewhat reluctantly takes.  He holds it in his closed fist as she walks away.  He opens his hand and we see the coin glow green on his skin.  Dean “grabby hands” Winchester snatches the coin, getting a glare from Sam and the coin glows green in his hand too.

They get into the car and Dean fires up the engine.  “We’re back baby!”  

Aww, Dean called Sam baby.  

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Also me: You can take your “Castiel is a lamp” sub zero text and whack yourself over the head with it.  

They drive away. And I’m left behind wondering if they’ve got their “normal” luck back or the supercharged hero luck that Sam said he didn’t want and that’s why he was reluctant to take the coin.

They arrive back at the bunker.  Dean’s scratching lottery cards and doesn’t win.  So much for the superhero luck.

Sam consoles his husband brother that they might not have won the lottery, but they have no car trouble, the credit cards work again, and Dean was able to eat back to back bacon double cheeseburgers, that didn’t kill him. So…

Dean: that was beautiful by the way… I’m just saying, would it have killed her to give us a little extra?

Sam: well, she thinks we’re really heroes, maybe they don’t get all the answers

Well hopefully that conversation answered my concern from earlier.

Cass appears, looking shifty (when doesn’t he tbh).  They know something is wrong and Sam asks him.  He steps aside and Jack appears. Jack dorky waves hello and we all melt and immediately forget he killed their mom and did some other really naughty stuff that at the very least should get him a time out.  Apparently, Dean and Sam forget too.    This scene is shot with Jack and Cass at one side of the reading room and Sam and Dean on the other.

Sam: Jack?

Castiel (to Sam): it’s really him

Sam walks over to Jack first and gets quicker as he reaches him and we get a Sam and Jack hug, and since I didn’t get one in season 14, I’ll ignore the mom killing, heart eating etc. for a few minutes and enjoy the hell out of this one. Yes, I’m fickle!  But I loved this nougat eating baby before Dabb ruined him.

Dean walks across more slowly, reaches and grasps Jack behind his neck, staring into his face as if checking it’s really him.  I think he’s struggling to see past the burnt-out eyes which was their last view of him.  He looks briefly at Cass once.  To me it’s a silent thank you (headcanon for bringing Jack back for Sam in particular), and an equally silent, you’re welcome.  Jack looks a little apprehensive as obviously the last time he was alive, Dean was going to shoot him, stopped only by Sam.

They all have a beer at the map table, Sam asks Jack about eating hearts, so it’s good that hasn’t been hidden.  Jack said he had to.

Dean (to Castiel): and you let him?

Castiel nods (likely waiting for the anger for doing the wrong thing)

Dean (shrugs): hmmm

And… that is not my Dean.  They’ve turned him into a neutered house cat and idiots are calling it “growth”.  And all I can hope is that his natural instincts fight their way through, I believe it’s wrong to trust Jack is okay eating hearts, even of ones that eat children’s souls and I hope we see that develop as we progress.

Sam: you could have called us

Jack: every day I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t

Dean: why not?

Jack: because if I don’t stay hidden, if I use my powers, my grandfather, he’ll know I’m back, and try and kill me… again… he’s afraid of me, and that’s why we had to wait.

Castiel: Billy kept him hidden in the empty, until Chuck went off world

Jack: she let me out when it was safe

Dean: safe to what? Eat a bunch of angel hearts?

Jack: safe to do what I have to.  

Turns out the hearts were just the beginning, they made Jack strong, but not strong enough.  If Jack follows her plan, he’ll get stronger and he’ll be able to kill god.

Sam and Dean (in winsync):  bitch please, this is our show!

Not really, that was just me and we end on that note.  I could wish we had ended on “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, but season 15 music budget.  Sigh.

So, I have a few other issues with this episode, particularly with the Jack side of the storyline, off the top of my head;  

1)      I’m hoping we aren’t sweeping what he did in season 14 under a rug, a la Castiel.  

2)      I’m hoping we aren’t just going to support him eating hearts (even of bad angels) without fully investigating what this supposed plan is.

3)      I’m struggling with the heart thing anyway. I don’t believe an angel has a heart to eat, only the human vessel does so I’m going to need an explanation on why eating human hearts is supposedly goring to make jack stronger, and why we don’t care about the human vessel

4)      I’m struggling with how a lesser god can give back what God took away, even if that lesser god is the goddess of luck, God still trumps her.  

Other than that, I think Death is bad now, or at least Billy’s version of death is. I think they changed course on wanting to kill the Winchesters a couple of seasons ago when they realised they could play a part in them reaping God. Possible reason, just being tired after all this time, and wanting it all to end. And it can’t end before Chuck dies. Possible power play.

I still think Chuck will die.  I still think the Winchesters will become firewalls, not sure what Jack is, other than a toddler whose power needs to be bound until he can wield it responsibly, and Castiel is going to sacrifice himself at some point. And the less we say about Eileen, the better.

Next episode is up after Hellatus the welcome break from the caricature this show has become 

#spn spoilers #15.11 #The Gamblers #episode review #episode recap #anti castiel #spn critical #anti saileen #anti eileen

[sakura-mayoi]

//This is a post that will inevitably ramble, but will provide some answers to potential questions people may have. So far I can only think of two, but I’ll make another post separate from this one if I make anything else. This is going to be put under the cut because the post again, will be long. Reading it may be a necessary thing? I’m not sure. I just wanted to clear out potential confusion.

Something I felt like I should bring up is... Well, regarding my rules. I recognize that how I word things is candid and can come off as a bit turf. I don’t ever intend to come off as tightfisted. I wrote them during an aftermath of an uncomfortable situation because at that point I felt I needed to be more straightforward with outlaying boundaries and whatnot. I’m more than willing to talk out of character and to talk about things that I’m interested in as well as hobbies. 

It just takes me some more time to open up more than that (compared to some others, that is) because of trust issues and anxiety. The extent I open up to someone varies from person to person, but I thought I’d just mention that. Asking what kind of things I like to do as a hobby for example is something I feel comfortable with sharing. I hope that people who I’ve not talked to yet has been scared away by the way my rules are worded. I’m planning to add a disclaimer ontop at some point as to avoid that potential factor because at the end of the day, I am easier to get along with than the text in the rules makes it seem.

Okay, second thing. 

As of mid April, DOA6 has received its last DLC and last update. I’m not sure if this is due to the next generation of consoles being on the horizon and Team Ninja is planning to do a Ultimate version of DOA6 at some point, if it’s due to the pandemic, or it’s due to how mixed the reception was for DOA6 in general. Whatever reason it may be, the news came out of nowhere. I will admit, I was a bit bothered because the game was starting to go in a better direction as far as decisions for DLC and such go (i.e. they fixed the issue with the hair color by having it so when you purchased a color with premium tickets, you would be purchasing that color for the hair style forever as opposed to before where you had to purchase it with the tickets everytime you wanted to use a certain color).

Was DOA6 censored and if so, was it it’s downfall?

To put it simply, no. It wasn’t. The director intended /for the 2nd time/ to make DOA into more of a serious fighter, and that resulted in toned down fanservice in terms of the costumes and other such content. It just seemed to be more buckled down in comparison to their last attempt (DOA5 was the last time they attempted this, which led to backlash that escalated to threats if I recall correctly). The fanservice wasn’t completely gone, however. The more skimpy costumes for the women tended to have to be unlocked. I don’t think Kasumi’s new default costume was born out of some sort of purist propaganda. To be frank, I think people pre-release and post-release overreacted.

I do want to point at the elephant in the room here though, and that happens to be one of Rachel’s costumes. You see, the costume was some sort of fiend type of attire and when the costume debuted as a DLC costume for a Halloween DLC themed pack in DOA5, the costume itself didn’t cover much. I didn’t care for it myself but that didn’t have anything to do with the nudity, I just didn’t like the costume as a whole. Felt a bit tacky, really. Anywho, the costume came back in DOA6 and it was covered up. 

I came to the conclusion that yes, it is sort of on the lines of censorship but I don’t think it came from the purist crowd, but moreso it has something to do with Sony’s unusually strict standards as far as content goes for the games. If something is too racy in a game, they want it either censored or taken out entirely. I reckon that Team Ninja covered up the costume to avoid that. It wouldn’t make sense to really put the blame on purist groups because of the fact that Christie’s stripper outfit from DOA4 has more skin being exposed in DOA6. 

I realize fanservice is a staple of DOA, but I think threatening the devlopers when they try to put more focus on something else in comparison is going too far. Even with this slight censorship when it comes to Rachel, I don’t think the toned down fanservice caused DOA6 to receive mixed reviews. 

Do I think DOA6 is a bad game?

No. In terms of the gameplay and unlockable content, it has some of the best content to offer (i.e. the encyclopedia mode, which provides more lore from the past and from the present). The story plot was a quite a mess, but what fighting game series has a fluid and straightforward plot? Not many do. I do think having to grind to unlock costumes was a bad decision and generally, I don’t agree with every decision the development team made. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I also think the game suffered with a low budget of some kind as well as a substantially smaller team compared to 5. Small teams aren’t bad, but this fact did concern me a little. 

To the question at hand here...

Will I still roleplay as Kasumi even if the series has stopped?

Yes. The large gap between 5 and 6 hasn’t stopped me before. Back then I wasn’t sure if 6 would happen either despite how 5 ended on a cliff hanger. I’ll still RP as Phase 4 as well. In fact, it’d be too hard for me to drop RPing as her. There are some muses that I can’t just not RP if that makes sense. I’ll make up lore of my own if I have to. I’ll go off of headcanons for the future if I have to. I hope that DOA continues, and whatnot. I hope for 6U if that’s the direction they’ll go. I hope for 7 if again, that’s the direction they’ll go. Anywho... This was a lot longer than I thought it would be and I apologize for that. I really did ramble on in this. 

#𝒪𝓊𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝐵𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓂 #//Warning. I have really rambled in this. #//This might have been my longest post on the blog... I'm sorry about that.