The World of Lucky

Youtube LP Playlist: Assassin's Creed Unity
Systems: PS4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Assassin's Creed Unity is the 2014 release of Assassin's Creed.

The game starts with you playing a nameless "initiate who is a player of "Helix" a gaming device produced by Abstergo that allows access to many different genetic memories.

You begin play by watching some backstory with the Templar de Molay and then forward to 1776 as Arno Dorian, a nobleman's son (and Assassin). Your father is killed and you are adopted in by a Templar Grand Master and his daughter Elise. The story skips ahead and you are seeking revenge for the death of your adoptive father and you are estranged from Elise. The story is about your seeking out who killed your adoptive father and seek revenge while you join the Brotherhood.

The story itself is nothing to write home about. I don't want to go into details and spoil any possible surprises (not that I found most of them actual surprises). The missions themselves based on the story were lacking in any real depth and were fairly repetitive. I know I shouldn't compare it to ACIV Black Flag (my favorite in the series) but it isn't even close.

The story about you "the player" when you surface out of Arno's memories is even more blasé, no meat, no outside interactions, just additional "in machine" machines with those in the brotherhood talking to you via audio. Definitely not a lot of story.

The controls themselves were just as horrible as they ever were. The fighting is unwieldy, but they did make the free-running a bit easier so that is something.

For character building they broke your abilities up into some weird leveling system even more in depth then Black Flag.It became a frustrating exercise to try and raise up yourself to do things you could do out of the gate in the prior games. The worst part is Ubisoft went even more overboard with the collectables. It was bad enough that I quit collecting less than halfway through. It just is a cheap way to say your game takes longer than it really does.

Oh, and they push the multiplayer even more. However, it was so bad I didn't even really touch it so I can't say anything more than I hated it.

Pros: The free-running is a bit better (I did get hung up on things more), and it is what you expect, more Creed.
Cons: The leveling system and flag/item collection has to stop. It is just getting worse.

We went down to Phoenix Arizona in March 2017 for Wolsey's surgical consultation. If you want to read the brief post about the trip go here, if you want to read about the doctor's appointment/transition surgery go here.

Link to Gallery: https://luckyslife.com/2017/05/07/phoenix-arizona-march-2017/

It has been awhile since Jello and I have gone out other than maybe to a movie, so we decided to see the live tour of Welcome to Night Vale.

We started by going to Panera first and splitting an Asiago Steak Sandwich (Jello loves Panera), we then drove to the Neptune and waited in line for about an hour and a half. Finally we got to sit and watch “Murder Mystery Theater” episode (pretty sure that is the episode name) from Welcome to Night Vale.

It was a LOT of fun, the show was great, but let’s be honest I would be happy if Jello and I just sat in the car and spent time together.

Link to Gallery: luckyslife.com/2017/05/07/night-vale-april-25-2015/

Just letting you know that new galleries go up on my main website regularly (three went up today). Unfortunately there is no html for the galleries that I use on Wordpress. So I won't be able to post them here. Sorry about that. I will post a link however when they come up.

Who would have thought I would have watched a series about the North American fur trade. No I didn't say it was good, I didn't say it was bad, somewhere in the bland not much taste fast food of tv.

As a partnership between Canada Discovery Channel and Netflix resulted in what I thought was a decent show based in the 1700s. Unlike Taboo, this show occurs before the American revolution (and in fact doesn't really address much about the colonists). I suspect this is because it is produced by the Canadian Discovery Channel.

Declan Harp (Jason Momoa) has declared war on Lord Benton and the North American fur trade is at stake. The story behind Declan is standard fare (family destroyed, hunted, etc) that I won't go into detail here. He comes across an Irish criminal who was taken in by Lord Benton to take down Declan. They bond and then it comes down to a fight between Declan Harp, his ragtag group of traders and the British military.

Most of the show is entertaining enough. Not as good as Taboo (not even close) but it is not a bad thing to watch. It felt like it could have been told a lot better in a 2 hour movie format then in six episodes.

Pros: Jason Momoa is the reason to watch the show. He doesn't have a huge set of dialogue, but he is pretty, and I just find him personable.

 Cons: The story is a sluggish beast that you have to endure.

I will probably watch the second season.

 

It deserved more than two seasons.

The series can't be anything but good when it stars Ron Perlman and Garret Dillahunt (and others). Perlman is Judge Pernell Harris, the corrupt judge has a breakdown after the suicide attempt of his son.

This breakdown results in him falling in with a con-artist preacher and his girlfriend, and gaining a loyal follower in Garret Dillahunt. The voices point to who is responsible for the attempted suicide and a whole host of intrigue begins from there.

Originally I was going to do reviews on the season level, but sadly Amazon notified the public that there was only two seasons, so I felt I could do it in one go.

The story starts off intriguing and just hits almost all the right tones. Perlman is always great, there are small hints of his character in SoA, along with other characters he has played. Garret Dillahunt is standout in this and the intensity of his character almost steals the show.

There were some less stellar parts. I found after the first six episodes I didn't like the storyline with the preacher and his girlfriend, and in the second season I disliked how Perlman's "faith" changed (I won't go into details though). However, that being said I really enjoyed the series and I am saddened that it didn't get a third season. I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed Ron Perlman especially.

Pros: With the name Perlman in the credits, it is going to be a fun watch, he doesn't disappoint and neither does his "Benaiah" played by Garret Dillahunt. The scenes with just the two of them make it worth the time.

Cons: The preacher storyline I found annoying. However, that could be because I don't have a strong attachment with that portion of religion and not the fault of the actors/actresses involved.

I am disappointed there wasn't a third season.

Hoarfrost by Jordan L. Hawk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is for the audible book version only.

The series just gets better as Ms. Hawk builds the world.

The sixth book of the series is going even better. The gang as we will call them now heads up to Alaska to help Griffon's newly reconnected brother Joe at the ruins uncovered. The book takes a new tact with writing from Griffon's perspective almost half the time. I wasn't sure at first but actually it works out pretty well. I am looking forward to Christine getting the same full treatment, which I am sure is going to happen.

The plot itself is also just gets better. Things come back to haunt Whyborne from prior books, more character development and personality is revealed and new enemies and allies are made.

The only thing that disappointed me about this book was the lack of Christine. She is in it, but unlike the previous book she has a fairly minor role. I do like Griffon's larger role, but I am not sure if I prefer him to Christine. I suspect the series will become an ensemble cast eventually. It seems like the best way to keep going with the most plots.

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Over the last couple of weeks my anxiety has been kicked up to an 11 due to Wolsey's surgery, work and just a lot of stuff in my head. Last night I took some meds to go to sleep and ended up having dreams I mostly remember.

The first dream is we were in a house, a real place (sort of in the dream) that I lived at as a child. It mostly consisted of my dad talking to us, giving us shit. We were talking about a girl named Brie Larson who my dad had a fling with in the house (the reality is there was a drunken one night thing in the place I don't think the girl was named Brie though). My dad was being huge and giving us shit about the place.

For some reason I turned around annoyed when he brought up the place and I said "Well, this is the place where you died too" and everything stopped. It wasn't of course, he died in a place 30 years later. He just looked at me and I realized he was gone in the real world. He just gave me a small smile and said he loved me.

I woke up and found it was about 1am. I didn't want to get up and I must have fallen asleep fairly soon after.

The second dream was more intense and longer, but I remember less of it as I am sitting here. I remember it was a hospital and there were many people there. My mom was in the hospital again to get surgery on her heart. In the real world I think I did this with her four times before she had the final problems she died from eventually.

We waited for her to come out and several others that went in for surgery around the same time she did had passed away. there was a lot of stress about her results. After some drama with the nurses and with my sister (which is too close to what happened in real life with my father) I was freaking out. Finally they brought her back out and she was ok. All I could focus on though was how thin her skin felt when I was hugging her. Thats when I woke up.

So there it is, the depressing dreams of the day :).

Better than expected when I don't take into account the white washing, although I was still a little disappointed. I would see the sequel because this is one of my genres.

The movie itself really isn't trend setting in this current day and age. I suspect the is a weird result of its original anime being so influential. Twenty plus years ago when it came out it was a relatively unusual, groundbreaking event, influencing such seminal works as The Matrix. The Matrix and other movies then in turn, influenced other movies making the tropes from the original GitS cliche.

The whole concept of exploring what makes you human really had nothing new  in this movie that you couldn't see in a dozen other movies that handled it a bit better.

That being said, Scarlett Johansson did a good job as the Major. I felt she did convey the spirit behind the character, but unfortunately not enough to raise the move above "just ok". I was especially pleased with Bataou and how he was portrayed, but once again they didn't give him a big enough part to do much more than give some interest. The rest of the characters were just blips in the movie.

Now we get to the white washing. This clouded my opinion of the movie the whole time. The movie could have been done with any Japanese actress and I probably would have liked the movie better. Once again not because SJ did bad, but because the knowledge of the white washing left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess as I get older, the harder it is to look past stuff like that.

The movie did try to give a partial explanation of a white actress playing a Japanese character late in the movie, but it was less of any sort of in depth story idea, and rather something pieced in to explain why the major has a white body and not a Japanese body. Basically it was a reason they could use on why they went with SJ rather than it being a real plot point.

The good: Decent sci-fi, nice choreography, and an ok story.