Unsolicited Opinions

Favorite Movies

My genre tends to be psychological thriller.

Top Three (ranked)

1. Inception - A 10/10 movie in every way: Phenomenal concept, writing, storyline, MUSIC, visuals, acting.
2. Predestination - One of the best mind-bending reveals of any film. And I kind of have a man-crush on Ethan Hawke...
3. ?Still thinking.

Other Favorites (No particular order)

• Looper - Another time travel movie with a gritty plot and some good questions. OLD JOE - "I don't want to talk about time travel shit, because we'll start talking about it and then we'll be here all day making diagrams with straws. It doesn't matter."
• The Bourne Legacy - I know it doesn't really have too much substance, but it tickles my "awesome action movie" receptors. And most of the stunts are believable and realistic.
• Premium RushSame as Bourne, it's just a fun action movie with fun stunts (And bikes!!!)
• The Lives of Others - A more serious movie, with amazing plot and character development. This is a GREAT movie. A secret police spy has second thoughts after getting to know his subjects.
• ?Still thinking.

Favorite Games

Top Five (ranked)

1. Factorio - My personal favorite game, by a long shot. Ridiculously fun, and gameplay basically never gets old. There's always more to automate, more to upgrade. And a thousand high-quality mods that extend replayability from thousands to millions of hours. The devs set an extremely high standard in their behavior (and have an excellent technical blog).
2. Half-Life 2 - My favorite "for everyone" game. Excellent level design, unique combat situations and good AI, runs on any hardware, fast and flowy gameplay, I could go on... Still tons of fun even though I have all the levels memorized.
3. Red Dead Redemption 2 - Amazingly realistic and my favorite story in any video game. Voice acting and writing is phenomenal. Plus you get to be a rootin' tootin' cowboy!!!
4. Portal 2 - Puzzle game with great writing and story
5. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Very approachable and surprisingly easy to spend a few hours on.

Other Favorites (No particular order)

• Control - Top notch visuals and decent everything else. Despite its flaws, it's a game I think everyone should play. Set pieces and environment inspire me every time.
• Just Cause 3 - By far the best of the JC series, the wingsuit/grapple combo is unmatched. Crazy fun vehicles, weapons, combat, and just flying around.
• The Last Of Us - One of my favorite movies. But you get to play it and live it. Yes, it's zombies but this game is great despite the over-used trope, not because of it.
• The Last Of Us Part II - The most challenging and satisfying melee and ranged combat of any game I've played. Gorgeous visuals and heart-pounding encounters, despite the unrelatable characters and story. This game is way more fun when you play aggressively. Rather than cower and cheese every encounter, be bold and lower the difficulty if necessary your first playthrough.

On Grand Theft Auto

GTA is an interesting franchise. Overall, there is lots of fun to be had in all the games, but for most specific things, there are much better options out there. GTA has a little of everything and does OK to mediocre at all of them: Story, driving mechanics, shooting mechanics, exploration, etc.

Before playing any of them, you should know that parody of the real world is a major part of all of them. You'll see a lot of innuendo in the fictional company titles, the radio station hosts have a lot of tongue-in-cheek lines, and the story lines tend to criticize the real world's trends and mentalities.

The "trilogy" of PS2-era games (San Andreas, III, Vice City) was re-released for modern consoles. I see this as basically a cash grab as the remaster was half-assed. Sounds like they've fixed up some of the more glaring bugs, though.

Just don't expect an amazing story from any of the games, and you can have lots of fun just messing around in the world.

Well, what then?

If you like ___ then these are better options.

• Exploration - Red Dead Redemption 2, Minecraft, Fallout, Subnautica, BotW, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Skyrim, Witcher 3
• Realistic driving - Forza, Gran Turismo
• Unrealistic driving - Need for Speed
• Action, explosions, Rule of Cool - Just Cause 3
• Shooting - any of 39573927349 different options
• Story line - The Last Of Us, BioShock, Shadow of the Colossus, Life is Strange
• Dialog - Portal 2