PixlBit

I'm going to review Arkham Knight spoiler-free tomorrow for Plus10Damage if no one called dibs. Expect some gushing. Damn game is huge and gorgeous. I am going to mention some of the iffy launch problems and DLC surrounding the game, as well as some game-related flaws/shortcomings, but mostly I'm gonna gush about it. 

Playing: Obviously, Arkham Knight. Quite a bit too much in fact. I need to get back at the job search I basically gave up on to enjoy a summer after grad school, but the longer I wait the less employable I probably look. My addiction to this game isn't helping.

The only thing widely wrong with the PS4 version I read any stories about is the Leaderboards not working. I definitely don't think that's the end of the world like the PC issues, but it is nice to see where you stand. I'm certainly not aiming for #1 (not like the people that got there are usually doing so fairly anyway), but it's cool to see that I'm 350 something out of tens of thousands in Tennis to the Face or that I got a silver or gold cup in a Rayman Legends challenge. If I'm going to waste time, I'm going to do so in high esteem, dammit! 

I also tried this month's free non-Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes games for PS4 PS+ members.

Futuridium has cool electronic music and I like the polygonal aesthetic, but it's not a ryhtm-action game. The preview for it made it sound like one, but it's really just a stripped down shooter. You can ignore the music as far as gameplay is concerned. Not that it's a bad thing, I just expected a different experience and was a bit let down.

Super Exploding Zoo seems fun. It's a lot less complicated than I was for some reason expecting. Basically you just collect penguins like Lemmings and have them explode into aliens. I'm guessing there's more strategy involved past the two or three little screens I've played though.

Finally, Skulls of the Shogun was probably the game I was least looking forward to this month, because I'm like the anti-leeradical42 in that I don't like strategy/tower defense games. But the game is more of a turn-based RPG where placement strategy is the name of the game, with a great art style, soundtrack, and dialogue. While I'm also not a big turn-based RPG guy, I like the feeling of moving characters into position where they can hide or attack or ... eat skulls of defeated enemies to earn extra turns.

I was initially going to skip over downloading these games because only MGSV:GZ and Skulls of the Shogun were on the main PS+ user menu and because I wasn't that interested in Skulls of the Shogun or Super Exploding Zoo. But quite frankly, it'd be dumb to not download these "free" games when I pay $50/year for the privilege, so I'm glad I got over it and let them download. Speaking of which, is there a way to tell PS4 I want to retry automatically if a download gets interrupted? Too much time is wasted because of that nonsense in my case.

Watching: Pretty much the odd game show on network TV. I keep meaning to watch Daredevil on Netflix, but Arkham Knight keeps getting in the way. I have yet to see any of my must-see summer movies, including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Jurassic World. I also want to see Minions, but unless the family goes, I can wait for it to come to home theaters. We did see Spy for Father's Day. I haven't seen Paul Fieg's other films Bridesmaids and The Heat, and to be honest this didn't look like my kind of movie. But it definitely was. So funny. The presence of British comedian Miranda Hart and the quick dialogue made it feel more like a British comedy than the American slapstick fest I was expecting. It was much more fun and a lot less stupid than I was expecting. The insults Melissa McCarthy's character hurls at a Swedish guy had me rolling.

Reading: I read the first chapter of Crime and Punishment a while ago, but started reading dotComplicated by Mark Zuckerberg's older sister and former employee Randi Zuckerberg instead. It was given to the class I went with in L.A. by some Warner Bros. execs we met, so I feel obligated to finish it. So far it's a light read about social media, which I'm kind of tired of hearing about as if it's still a brand new thing, but it's cool to get some insider perspective. Apparently, dotcomplicated is also a website and joint venture between Randi and ABC News. 

Listening: I really need to get back to playing guitar. Or at least listen to music again. If it's not from a video game or television show on in the background, I haven't heard it recently. 

Other than that, I'm just slowly trying to transition back into go-getter mode. If that's even a real mode in my case. Might see what edutainment stuff like duolingo is online. What are you up to?